"I notice, also, the conversation among young people has improved greatly, being of a higher and purer kind. Now I practised the C.I. myself, and came in contact with many of both sexes. After very careful observation in Los Angeles, and other towns in Southern California, I feel I am in a position to know and I can state that I now consider the C.I. is the greatest reform movement that the world has ever seen.
"Yours truly,
"Robert Dawson."
In about a year later the four progressive States known as Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Iowa, had removed all barriers from woman's political freedom and placed her, in the eyes of the law, where California had. The C.I. having become the predominant thought, it was lived throughout these four States. The C.M. received a great impetus when they fell into line with the other advanced States.
Penloe and Stella, with Barker and Brookes and other workers, had worked for over a year in Illinois, and now they were concentrating all their forces in Chicago, the other part of the State being all right. It was in that city that a great battle for reform had to be fought. The opposition was strong. It consisted of society ladies and gentlemen, who thought woman's position was above politics; that is, to their minds it was far higher for a woman to be prettily and daintily dressed, and to be a petted slave, than to use her God-given intellect for the benefit of herself and the nation in which she lived. The other wing of the opposition consisted of those who were making money in the saloon business and running low places of amusement. They did not want woman to vote in making laws which might be detrimental to their business interests. As the opposition became strong in its concerted action to overthrow the influence of the reform forces, the two great figure-heads, the two grand leaders of the C.M. seemed to acquire increased energy and power. Listen to what Barker and Brookes said, after having attended a meeting in the great Auditorium of the Lake City, when over a thousand had to be turned away for want of room:
"Though I have been so much with Penloe and Stella like yourself, and one would naturally think that the influence of their personality had become common, yet such is not my experience," said Brookes.
Barker replied: "Is not that strange, where we see them almost every day, as we have done for about two years? Instead of their influence becoming tame and commonplace, it seems to take a renewed force and power with each day, and they appear to carry a newness and freshness with them continually. Their efforts to-night were the greatest of their lives."
Brookes said: "I saw the power of the Yogi to-night as I never had witnessed it, to such a degree, before. Did you notice, Barker, that at the close of the meeting, instead of having some prominent person speaking against the C.M., there was not one dissenting voice when opportunity was given, but the short speeches which were made by prominent members of the audience were all in favor of the movement. Just think of the number of invitations that poured in upon them to deliver the same address in other parts of the city. The battle is won, Barker, for no opposition can withstand that power which was manifested to-night."
It was as Brookes said, the opposing forces had to yield, for there was a seen and an unseen power sent out which swept and overcame all opposition, and a month later Illinois was counted in with the procession which California was leading. A year later the great States of Ohio and Pennsylvania had joined the ranks, followed by the old Bay State with its conservative element, and Boston became the scene of illumination and rejoicing. The influence of these great States was felt in many smaller ones, and they also helped to swell the wave of the C.M. by joining the ranks. Quite a large percentage of that element in the big cities, who profited by pandering and catering to the depraved tastes of human nature, had left the city in which they carried on their places of business now that the C.I. was practised, and they had gone to the City of New York, thinking the element to which they belonged was too powerful in Gotham ever to be driven out by the C.M., and it was in this city where the greatest of all battles for reform thought was fought.
When Penloe and Stella with Barker and Brookes left Chicago, they went to the City of New York, staying in Boston a week on their way. They had now been in this city for over a year and had called together picked workers from many other States who were in the procession for reform. The opposition was the same as that encountered in Chicago, only ten times as strong.