NATIONAL-AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1897.
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part taken by the National Association in these two campaigns, she concluded:
In every county which was properly organized, with a committee in every precinct, who visited every voter and distributed leaflets in every family, the amendment received a majority vote. This ought to be sufficient to teach the women of all the States that what we need is house-to-house educational work throughout every voting precinct. We may possibly carry amendments with education short of this, but we are not likely to. I believe if the slums of San Francisco and: Oakland had been thus organized, even the men there could have been made to see that it was for their interest and that of their wives and daughters to vote for the amendment. But, while the suffragists had no committees whatever in those districts, the "liquor men" had an active committee in every saloon, "dive" and gambling house. I am, therefore, more and more convinced that it ts educational work which needs to be done. It is of little use for us to make our appeals to political party conventions, State Legislatures or Congress for resolutions in favor of woman's enfranchisement, while no appeal comes up to them from the rank and file of the voters.
Until we do this kind of house-to-house work we can never expect to carry any of the States in which there are large cities. If Idaho had had San Francisco, with all its liquor interests and foreigners banded together, she would probably have been defeated as was California.
So, friends, I am not in any sense disheartened, and while I rejoice exceedingly over Idaho, I also rejoice exceedingly over the grand work done in California, and over the 110,000 votes given for woman suffrage in that State. It was vastly more than was ever done in any other amendment campaign. Study then the methods of California and Idaho and improve on them as much as you possibly can.The Des Moines Leader thus finished its report:
It was not difficult for one who saw Miss Anthony for the first time to understand why she is so well beloved by her associates. Seventy-seven years old, she is the most earnest worker of them all; she is not only their leader but their counselloR and friend. While she occupied the platform the utmost solicitude was manifested for her on the part of everybody. Once a glass of water was sent for but did not come as soon as it should, and everyone on the stage was visibly concerned except Miss Anthony herself, who calmly observed, by way of apology for a trifling difficulty with her voice, that she was not accustomed to speak in public, at which a laugh went round..... Her silvery hair was parted in the middle and brushed down over her ears. Her eyes have the deep-set appearance which is characteristic of elderly people who have been
