第72章 XII(4)

Mrs. Jenkins, who was president of the Suffrage Association of the state, presided and introduced us to the assemblage. Then she added: ``I have intro- d uced you ladies to your audience. Now I would like to introduce your audience to you.'' She be- g an with the two Senators and the member of Con- g ress, then introduced the Governor, the Lieutenant-Governor, the state Superintendent of Education, and numerous city and state officials. As she went on Miss Anthony grew more and more excited, and when the introductions were over, she said: ``This is the first time I have ever seen an audience assembled for woman suffrage made up of the public officials of a state. No one can ever persuade me now that men respect women without political power as much as they respect women who have it; for certainly in no other state in the Union would it be possible to gather so many public officials under one roof to listen to the addresses of women.''

The following spring we again went West, with Mrs. Catt, Lucy Anthony, Miss Hay and Miss Sweet, her secretary, to carry on the Pacific coast campaign of '96, arranged by Mrs. Cooper and her daughter Harriet, of Oakland--both women of re- m arkable executive ability. Headquarters were se- c ured in San Francisco, and Miss Hay was put in charge, associated with a large group of California women. It was the second time in the history of campaigns--the first being in New York--that all the money to carry on the work was raised by the people of the state.

The last days of the campaign were extremely interesting, and one of their important events was that the Hon. Thomas Reed, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, for the first time came out publicly for suffrage. Mr. Reed had often ex- p ressed himself privately as in favor of the Cause-- b ut he had never made a public statement for us.

At Oakland, one day, the indefatigable and irresisti- b le ``Aunt Susan'' caught him off his guard by per- s uading his daughter, Kitty Reed, who was his idol, to ask him to say just one word in favor of our amendment. When he arose we did not know whether he had promised what she asked, and as his speech progressed our hearts sank lower and lower, for all he said was remote from our Cause.

But he ended with these words:

``There is an amendment of the constitution pending, granting suffrage to women. The women of California ought to have suffrage. The men of California ought to give it to them--and the next speaker, Dr. Shaw, will tell you why.''

The word was spoken. And though it was not a very strong word, it came from a strong man, and therefore helped us.

Election day, as usual, brought its surprises and revelations. Mrs. Cooper asked her Chinese cook how the Chinese were voting--i. e., the native-born Chinamen who were entitled to vote--and he re- p lied, blithely, ``All Chinamen vote for Billy McKee and `NO' to women!'' It is an interesting fact that every Chinese vote was cast against us.

All day we went from one to another of the polling- p laces, and I shall always remember the picture of Miss Anthony and the wife of Senator Sargent wan- d ering around the polls arm in arm at eleven o'clock at night, their tired faces taking on lines of deeper depression with every minute; for the count was against us. However, we made a fairly good show- i ng. When the final counts came in we found that we had won the state from the north down to Oak- l and, and from the south up to San Francisco; but there was not a sufficient majority to overcome the adverse votes of San Francisco and Oakland. With more than 230,000 votes cast, we were defeated by only 10,000 majority. In San Francisco the saloon element and the most aristocratic section of the city made an equal showing against us, while the section occupied by the middle working-class was largely in favor of our amendment. I dwell es- p ecially on this campaign, partly because such splen- d id work was done by the women of California, and also because, during the same election, Utah and Idaho granted full suffrage to women. This gave us four suffrage states--Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho--and we prepared for future struggles with very hopeful hearts.

It was during this California campaign, by the way, that I unwittingly caused much embarrass- m ent to a worthy young man. At a mass-meeting held in San Francisco, Rabbi Vorsanger, who was not in favor of suffrage for women, advanced the heart- e ning theory that in a thousand years more they might possibly be ready for it. After a thousand years of education for women, of physically de- v eloped women, of uncorseted women, he said, we might have the ideal woman, and could then begin to talk about freedom for her.

When the rabbi sat down there was a shout from the audience for me to answer him, but all I said was that the ideal woman would be rather lonely, as it would certainly take another thousand years to develop an ideal man capable of being a mate for her. On the following night Prof. Howard Griggs, of Stanford University, made a speech on the modern woman--a speech so admirably thought out and delivered that we were all delighted with it. When he had finished the audience again called on me, and I rose and proceeded to make what my friends frank- l y called ``the worst break'' of my experience.

Rabbi Vorsanger's ideal woman was still in my mind, and I had been rather hard on the men in my reply to the rabbi the night before; so now I h astened to give this clever young man his full due.

I said that though the rabbi thought it would take a thousand years to make an ideal woman, I believed that, after all, it might not take as long to make the ideal man. We had something very near it in a speaker who could reveal such ability, such chivalry, and such breadth of view as Professor Griggs had just shown that he possessed.