The national convention was withdrawn entirely from California, and the W. C. T. U. women, in most places, worked under the one banner of the suffrage amendment during the campaign. In proof that there was no feeling on the part of the leaders against Miss Anthony, it may be stated that she received official invitations to be present at the birthday celebration of Mrs. Peet, in April; to address the State W. C. T. U. Convention at Petaluma, in October; to attend the National Convention at St. Louis in November; and to join in the farewell reception to Miss Willard in New York on the eve of her departure for Europe.
The managers of the woman's campaign supposed of course that the endorsement by the Populist and Republican State Conventions meant not only that the speakers of those parties would advocate the suffrage plank just as they did the others in their respective platforms, but that they also would permit the women themselves to speak for it in their political meetings. When they applied to Mr. Wardall and the other members of the Populist Central Committee, the schedule was promptly furnished and they were assured that their speakers would be welcomed. When they applied to the Republican Central Committee, to their amazement, they were put off with an evasive answer. Meanwhile they had Miss Anthony, Miss Shaw, Mrs. Catt and other speakers waiting for engagements and did not dare make dates ahead lest it might interfere with the big Republican rallies which they wished them to address. Again and again they went to the Republican Central Committee and asked for the schedule of their meetings and the privilege of sending their speakers to them. Finally, after weeks of anxious waiting, the chairman, Major Frank McLaughlin, sent a letter to the suffrage headquarters saying in effect: "The committee had decided not to grant this privilege; in the language used at one time by Miss Anthony, it meant 'too many bonnets at their meetings,' and they wished to reach the voters."
He added that they were at liberty to make any arrangements they chose with the county chairmen. This meant, of course, that they must ascertain the name and address of every county chairman in the State, watch the papers for the announcements of meetings, hold their speakers in reserve, and beg the privilege of having them heard. All this, when the endorsement of the suffrage amendment was the first plank in the Republican platform unanimously adopted by the State convention! There was nothing, however, except to make the best of it; but when they attempted to arrange with the county chairmen, they found Major McLaughlin had written them not to allow the women speakers on their platforms! While many of them refused to obey his orders, he had practically destroyed the best opportunity for reaching the people.
The Republican State Convention had enthusiastically adopted a resolution declaring for "the free coinage of silver at a ratio of 16 to 1." When the National Convention met in St. Louis soon afterwards it adopted a gold standard plank, and there they were! The Populists and Democrats who agreed on a financial plank saw here an opportunity and, in many counties, effected a fusion and held their meetings together. This, of course, nullified the permission given the women to put speakers on the Populist platform, since the Democrats, as a party, were opposed to woman suffrage, and there they were! If they attempted to hold simply suffrage meetings, they could get only audiences of women, because all the men were in attendance at the political rallies. So the only thing left was for the women in every city and town in the State, whenever a political mass meeting was advertised, to go to the managers and humbly beg to have one of their speakers on the platform.
This was not often refused, and it was just as easy to get this permission from Democrats as from Republicans. The former felt that if the amendment should carry they would not object to a little of the credit, and they soon found also that the women were a drawing card. Whenever there was a purely Populist meeting, a conspicuous place and all the time desired were given to the women, but at Republican, Democratic or Fusion meetings, they always were placed at the end of the program and allowed only five or, at most, ten minutes. In order simply to get this little word, the women speakers would make long journeys and sit on the platform until every long-winded male orator had finished his speech, and until they were ready to drop from their chairs. But the audience waited for them, no matter how late, and never failed to receive them with the wildest enthusiasm. Many times when the managers would have been willing to sandwich them between other speakers, the latter would object, saying the people would go home as soon as the women had finished!
As the campaign wore on it became a fight for life with the political parties. The Call, which had come out so valiantly for woman suffrage, had been struck in a vital part, i.e., in the counting-room, by the opponents of this measure, who withdrew valuable advertising and in every possible way sought to injure the paper. Its support was used by the other wing of the Republican party to create a prejudice against the candidates it advocated; the principal stockholders were not friendly to the amendment; as the organ of the Central Committee it was deprived of independent action. So it was not surprising that, long before the close of the campaign, the great fight which the Call agreed to make had dwindled to an occasional skirmish when the pleading of the women grew too strong to be resisted.
Almost without exception the Republican orators were silent on the question of woman suffrage, even those who personally favored it. The women wrote them, interviewed them and begged them to advocate the first plank in their platform as they did all the rest, and occasionally when they would go in a body and sit on the front seats to watch the speaker, he would say a few mild words in favor of the amendment, but there were several of the Democrats who did as much. Some of the Populists advocated it, but the most prominent, who always before had spoken for it, went through the entire campaign without so much as a mention, in order to secure Democratic support. When Thomas B. Reed came into the State, at the very end of the campaign, the women felt sure of an ally, as he had long been a pronounced advocate, but he did not so much as refer to the question in his tour of the State, although they bombarded him with letters which would have impressed a heart of stone. At the last grand rally in Oakland, the day before election, with Miss Anthony on one side of him and Miss Shaw on the other, he did say that he "knew of no more reason why a woman should not vote than why a man should not"—but the battle then was already lost.
Up to within a few weeks of election, in spite of all the drawbacks, it looked as if the amendment would win. The general sentiment throughout the State seemed to be in favor. The mere mention of the subject at any meeting was received with the greatest enthusiasm. Almost every delegate body which assembled in convention during that summer adopted a resolution of endorsement; this was true of most of the church conferences, the teachers' institutes, the State Grange and farmers' institutes, the Chautauqua assemblies and countless others. And still the women watched and waited! There was one element more powerful than all these combined, which had not yet shown its hand. It never had failed in any State to fight woman suffrage to the death, and there was no reason to believe it would not kill it in California.
Ten days before election the fatal blow came. The representatives of the Liquor Dealers' League met in San Francisco and resolved "to take such steps as were necessary to protect their interests." The political leaders, the candidates, the rank and file of the voters recognized the handwriting on the wall. From that moment the fate of the amendment was sealed. The women had determined, from the beginning of the campaign, that they would give the liquor business no excuse to say its interests were threatened, and therefore the temperance question had been kept out of the discussion as had the religious, the tariff and the financial questions. They took the sensible view that it had no more place than these in the demand for women's right to vote as they pleased on all subjects. Therefore the action of the liquor dealers had no justification in anything which the women had said or done. It simply showed that they considered woman suffrage a dangerous foe. The following letter, signed by the wholesale liquor firms of San Francisco, was sent to the saloon-keepers, hotel proprietors, druggists and grocers throughout the State:
At the election to be held on November 3, Constitutional Amendment No. Six, which gives the right to vote to women, will be voted on.
It is to your interest and ours to vote against this amendment. We request and urge you to vote and work against it and do all you can to defeat it.
See your neighbor in the same line of business as yourself, and have him be with you in this matter.