CHAPTER IV.
CALIFORNIA.[1]
The first ten years of the new century — Woman's Century — were years of laborious effort in California to educate the public mind and familiarize it with the idea of "votes for women." At the beginning of the second decade the State had given them the complete suffrage and at its close the women of the entire nation were enfranchised by an amendment to the Federal Constitution.
A resubmission of the question in California could not be expected for several years after the defeat of a constitutional amendment in 1896, although no subsequent Legislature met without discussing the subject and voting on some phase of it. The liquor interests continued a persistent opposition but the suffrage association had a powerful ally in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, with its franchise department and its well organized army of workers, and, although somewhat discouraged for a few years, held its annual convention and reorganization was gradually effected. The State convention of 1900 met December 14, 15, in Golden Gate Hall, San Francisco, with the president, Mrs. Mary Wood Swift, in the chair. A resolution was adopted commending the former State president, Ellen Clark (Mrs. Aaron A.) Sargent, for instituting suit against the tax collector for the return of her taxes paid in San Francisco under written protest. [See Volume IV, page 504.] The members were urged to file a protest when paying taxes because they had no representation. It was declared that the time was opportune for organized effort to have the Legislature again submit an amendment to the voters. A vote of thanks was given
- ↑ For the "assembling" of the different parts of this chapter and much of the work on it the History is indebted to Mary McHenry (Mrs. William) Keith, president of the State Equal Suffrage Association; for Legislative Action to Mrs. Lillian Harris Coffin, chairman of the State Legislative Committee; for matter on Southern California to Miss M. Frances Wills and Mrs. Adelia D. Wade.
27
