Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/696

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HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

680 HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE leader were that she laid personal responsibility on each friend and worker ; from the first assumed success as certain and avoided arousing hostility by mixing suffrage with politics or with other reforms. She asked the voters everywhere merely for fair play for women and made no predictions as to what the women would do with the vote when obtained. It was her far-sighted general- ship and prodigious personal work that made success possible. The Equal Franchise Society of Seattle planned to carry suf- frage into organizations already existing. It gave a series of luncheons at the New Washington Hotel and made converts among many who could not be met in any other way and was especially helpful in reaching society and professional people. Its workers spoke before improvement clubs, women's clubs, churches, labor unions, etc. A man was employed to travel and engage men in conversation on woman suffrage on trains, boats and in hotel lobbies and lumber camps. A good politician looked after the water front. The Political Equality League of Spokane worked in the eastern counties and placed in the field the effective worker, Mrs. Minnie J. Reynolds of Colorado. The Franchise Department of the W. C. T. U. had done educational work for years under the leadership of Mrs. Mar- garet B. Platt, State president, and Mrs. Margaret ( . Mtinns, State secretary, affectionately referred to as "the Margan Its speakers always made convincing pleas for suffrage and Mrs. Munns's drills in parliamentary usage were valuable in training the women for the campaign of 1910. Tribute must be paid to the fine, self-sacrificing work of this organization. In a pri- vate conference called by Mrs. DeVoe early in the campaign, the W. C. T. U. represented by these two, an agreement was reached that, in order not to antagonize the "whisky" vote, the temperance women would submerge their hard-earned honors and let the work of their unions go unheralded. They kept the faith. A suffrage play, A Mock Legislative Session, written by Mrs. S. L. W. Clark of Seattle, was given in the State House and repeated in other cities. Several hundred dollars' worth of suf- frage literature was furnished to local unions. They placarded the bill boards throughout the State, cooperating with Dr. Fannie Leake Cummings, who managed this enterprise, assisted by the