Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/692

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HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

676 HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE Club, Mrs. Harvey L. Glenn, president, with which it cooperated. Headquarters were opened in Seattle July 5, with Mrs. Homer M. Hill, president, in charge and the organization was active during the last four months of the campaign. 1 The Political Equality League of Spokane, Mrs. May Arkwright Hutton, presi- dent, worked separately for fourteen months prior to the election, having been organized in July, 1909. The college women under the name of the College Suffrage League, with Miss Parker as president, cooperated with the regular State association. Following the act of the Legislature twenty months were left to carry on the campaign destined to enfranchise the 175,000 women of the State. It was a favorable year for submission, as no other important political issue was before them and there was a reaction against the dominance of the political "machines." The campaign was unique in its methods and was won through the tireless energy of nearly a hundred active, capable women who threw themselves into the work. The outstanding feature of the plan adopted by the State Equal Suffrage Association under the leadership of Mrs. DeVoe, was the absence of all spectacular methods and the emphasis placed upon personal in- tensive work on the part of the wives, mothers and sisters of the men who were to decide the issue at the polls. Big demon- strations, parades and large meetings of all kinds were avoided. Only repeated informal conferences of workers were held in different sections of the State on the call of the president. The result was that the real strength was never revealed to the enemy. The opposition was not antagonized and did not awake until election day, when it was too late. Although the women held few suffrage meetings of their own, their speakers and organizers constantly obtained the platform at those of granges, farmers' unions, labor unions, churches and other organizations. Each county was canvassed as seemed most expedient by in- 1 Other officers of the Franchise Society were: Assistants, Mrs. Edward P. Pick and Mrs. D. L. Carmichael; corresponding secretary. Mrs. F. S. Bash; recording secre- tary, Mrs. W. T. Perkins; treasurer, Mrs. E. M. Rininger; financial secretary, Mrs. Phebe A. Ryan. Others who worked without pay were: Miss Martha Gruening of New York and Miss Jeannette Rankin of Montana. Mrs. George A. Smith, president of the Alki Point Suffrage Club of Seattle, worked independently but cooperated with the society in many ways. The society employed Mrs. Rose Aschermann, Mrs. Ethel Stalford, Charles E. Cline, Vaughn Ellis and John Gray of Washington.