Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/555

OREGON 539 in using the press for getting the movement squarely before the voters in the shape of a proposed State suffrage amendment." This will answer very largely the many criticisms that came from the National Association and from equal suffrage States over the apathy of Oregon women from 1900 to 1904. What the result might have been, with the State and national growth of suffrage sentiment, had there been a strong, active organization is problematic, but Oregon might have had the proud distinction of being first instead of last of the Pacific Coast States to liberate her women politically. In 1905 the following officers were elected: Honorary president, Mrs. Duniway; president, Mrs. Coe ; vice-president, Dr. Jeffreys Myers ; secretary, Dr. Luema G. Johnson ; treasurer, Mrs. Abbie C. French ; auditors, Dr. Mary Thompson, Mrs. Martha Dalton and Mrs. Frederick Aggert. The Legislature had many times submitted the amendment but its repeated failures had discouraged the most ardent supporters in that body. The gains in the various campaigns were not sufficient, they argued, to warrant the expense of resubmission in the near future. This reason was freely and courageously given from the Chair of the Senate by one of the staunchest friends suffrage ever had in the State, the Hon. C. W. Fulton, when he voted "no" on re-submission in the Legislature of 1899, and the defeat of 1900 intensified this feeling. Hope revived when the Initiative and Referendum Act was adopted by the voters in 1902. The. District Judges decided again-i its constitutionality and an appeal was carried to the State Supreme Court by Attorney Ralph Duniway, whose able argu- ment resulted in a reversal and the establishment of the legality of the new law. This decision was rendered Dec. 22, 1903, and on Jan. J. i<K>4, a suffrage petition was issued. This required the atures of 8 per cent, of the legal voters of the State based he highest number of votes cast at the election of HMJ. in d numbers 7,200 names, and compelled the submission of the amendment. In less than three weeks 7,900 had been obtained hut as only half of them had been verified and classified befnre the limited time expired the work was of no avail. During the following two years another force had been contri-