Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/751

of voting for the tax. It was the number of women's signatures which enabled the mayor to order the election.

The law carried with it the privilege of voting by proxy, and the women who were active in this movement had the great task of gathering up the proxies of all those who had not the courage to go to the polls. These had to be made out in legal form and signed by two witnesses, and they then learned that no woman in Louisiana can legally witness a document, so in all these thousands of cases it was necessary to secure two men as witnesses. It made no difference whether they could read or write, whether they owned property or not, if males it was sufficient.^[1]

The election was held June 6, 1899. The Picayune, which, with the other papers, had opposed the extension of even this bit of suffrage to women, came out the next morning with a three-quarter-page picture of a beautiful woman, labeled New Orleans, on a prancing steed named Progress, dashing over a chasm entitled Sanitary Neglect and Commercial Stagnation, to a bluff called A Greater City, while in one corner was a female angel with wings outspread, designated as Victory. The two-page account began as follows:

The great election for Sewerage and Drainage has come and gone, and with it a notable chapter in the history of woman's work in New Orleans in behalf of municipal improvement. It is unanimously conceded, as incontestably proven by facts, that but for the number of signatures of women sent to the mayor the election never would have been called. It was also conceded late yesterday afternoon that the noble work of the women had won the day in behalf of these much-needed improvements for our beloved city.

The politician has been crushed, and let the credit go where it belongs. The women of New Orleans did it, under the leadership of those two active, energetic and self-sacrificing young women, the Misses Kate M. and Jean Gordon, and all the glory is theirs. Woman plays a most important part in the politics and affairs of this city. Whenever a crisis approaches, the men on the right side appeal to her and the appeal is never in vain. She jumps into the breach, and invariably victory perches upon her banner. All honor to the fair sex! The women, or rather the few women who were in the Sewerage and Drainage League, probably did as much work for the special tax as all the men in this city put together, and they did it quietly and thoroughly.

It was the first time in the history of New Orleans that women

1. Miss Kate M. Gordon herself obtained and voted 300 proxies. After the election the Business Men's Association of New Orleans presented her with a gold medal. [Eds.