This duty is assigned by politicians to youths, and here as elsewhere we took advantage of their experience. Election Day being a holiday, we found it difficult to procure boys. Some made promises—then failed to appear. My son Henry came to the rescue with two squads of bright, active lads, his pupils from the High School of Commerce. Armed with the lists and led by two adult women workers, the boys started off in excellent spirits. The neighborhoods visited were much impressed. Beholding the boys and the decorated automobiles, they exclaimed, “Tammany has nothing on the Woman Suffrage party.” Tammany Hall and the home of “Charlie” Murphy are both in the Twelfth Assembly District.
Our watchers stuck faithfully to their posts until the count was completed—their long day’s work having extended from six in the morning till nine, ten, and eleven o’clock at night.
As they came one after another into our temporary headquarters and announced the result, district by district, it was evident that we had lost. But the American women had been invited to enter the sacred precincts of the polling-place and given authority to watch the returns. November 6, 1915, was a historic day in the Empire State, marking the beginning of a new era.
Among the many faithful workers in the Twelfth Assembly District, one who overcame difficulties insuperable to most women deserves special mention. This was Mrs. Clara Deutsch. As the wife of a young physician beginning practice and the mother of a little girl of four she had many domestic cares. She did her own housework, helped her husband administer anesthetics, and yet found time to do excellent service in the suffrage cause.
“Yes, I can help on Thursday, since you need me badly. Mrs. ——, the wife of the Methodist minister, will take care of Mary for me. She has five children of her own and is expecting a sixth, so one more makes little difference. She is a good suffragist, too, so by keeping Mary she also will be helping the cause that day.”
If more contributions were called for than she could well afford, Mrs. Deutsch would say, cheerfully: “That is all right. We’ll go without dessert for a time.” Mrs. Deutsch had been a trained nurse and thus had learned how to do and to plan. No matter at what hour I called to see her she always appeared at the door looking as neat as a pin. She was a handsome young woman, tall and powerfully built; strong, yet tender to the sick and weak. No one was more eminently fitted than she to carry our banner in a suffrage parade.
We had college graduates and women of wealth among our members. Ours is a truly democratic cause in which riches and social position are held to be of secondary importance.
Four days after the election the youngest son who had been my housemate for five years took unto himself a bride, thus giving me a third daughter-in-law who was to become, like the others, very dear to me.
It was evidently wise to allow the young couple to start housekeeping for themselves, hence, while they were still on their honeymoon, I set out on a long-deferred trip to California. As I closed the door of our house behind me, again it seemed that a new page in life had been turned!
The visit to the Pacific coast was indeed a delightful experience. I enjoyed every moment of the journey in both directions, and of my stay under the hospitable roof of our dear cousins, Joseph and Louisa Mailliard. Time fails me in which to tell of the beauties of the International Exposition (the “P.-P. I. E.”), the marvels of the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, or the wonderful glimpse of the Pacific shore. The glory of that matchless surf, as the long line of distant waves tossed their splendid crests beneath the opaline light of an afternoon sun covered with soft gray clouds, was a thing never to be forgotten.