In the Woman's Journal of January 1, 1873, we find the following call:
The people of Maine who believe in the extension of the elective franchise to women as a beneficent power for the promotion of the virtues and the correction of the evils of society, and all who believe in the principles of equal justice, equal liberty and equal opportunity, upon which republican institutions are founded, and have faith in the triumph of intelligence and reason over custom and prejudice, are invited to meet at Granite Hall, in the city of Augusta, on Wednesday, January 29, 1873, for the purpose of organizing a State Woman Suffrage Association, and inaugurating such measures for the advancement of the cause as the wisdom of the convention may suggest.[181]
The Portland Press, in a leading editorial on the "Moral Eminence of Maine," says:
Maine has been first in many things. She has taught the world how to struggle with intemperance, and pilgrims come hither from all quarters of the earth to learn the theory and practice of prohibition. She was among the first to practically abolish capital punishment and to give married women their rights in respect to property. She is, perhaps, nearer giving them political rights, also, than any of her sister commonwealths. If Maine should be first among the States to give suffrage to women, she would do more for temperance than a hundred prohibitory laws, and more for civilization and progress than Massachusetts did when she threw the tea into Boston harbor in 1773, or when she sent the first regiment to the relief of Washington in 1861.
The leaders of the temperance reform in Maine are fully alive to the necessity of woman suffrage as a means to that end. At the meeting of the State Temperance Association of Maine, in Augusta, recently, Mr. Randall said that "as the woman suffrage convention has adjourned over this afternoon in order to attend the temperance meeting, he would move that when we adjourn it be to Thursday morning, as the work at both conventions is intimately connected. If the women of Maine went to the ballot-box, we should have officers to enforce the law." Mr. Randall's motion was carried, and the temperance convention adjourned.
The Woman Suffrage Association assembled Wednesday, January 29, in Granite Hall, Augusta. There was a very large attendance, a considerable number of those present being members of the legislature. Hon. Joshua Nye presided. He made a few remarks relating to the removal of political disabilities from women, and introduced Mrs. Agnes A. Houghton of Bath, who spoke on the "Turning of the Tide," contending that woman should be elevated socially, politically and morally, enjoying the same rights as man. She was followed by Judge Benjamin Kingsbury, jr., of Portland, who declared himself unequivocally in favor of giving woman the right to vote, and who trusted that she would be accorded this right by the present legislature. More than 1,000 persons were in the audience, and great enthusiasm prevailed. The morning session was devoted to business and the election of officers.[182] In order not to conflict with a meeting of the State Temperance Association, no afternoon session was held, and, in return, the State Temperance Society gave up its evening meeting to enable its members to attend the suffrage convention.
Speeches were made by Henry B. Blackwell of Boston, Rev. Ellen Gustin of Mansfield, Mary Eastman of Lowell, and others. Resolutions were passed pledging the association not to cease its efforts until the unjust discrimination with regard to voting is swept away; that in the election of president, and of all officers where the qualifications of voters are not prescribed by the State constitution, the experiment should be tried of allowing women to vote; that in view of the large amount of money which has been expended in Maine for the exclusive benefit of the Boys' Industrial School during the past twenty years, it is the prayer of the ladies of Maine that the present legislature vote the sum asked for the establishment of an Industrial School for girls.
In 1874 we find notices of other onward steps:
Editors Journal: Woman's cause works slowly here, though in one respect we have been successful. Our county school-superintendent is a lady. She had a large majority over our other candidate, and over two gentlemen, and she is decidedly "the right person in the right place." She is a graduate from the normal school, the mother of four children, a widow for some six years past, and a lady. What more can we ask, unless, indeed, it be for a very conscientious idea of duty? That, too, she has, and also energy, with which she carries it out. The sterner sex admit that women are competent to hold office. But some say we are not intelligent enough to vote. What an appalling amount of wisdom they show in this idea! It would be "unwomanly" in us to suggest such a word as inconsistency.
M. J. M.
Fraternally,
Cairo, Me., April, 1874.
In Searsport a woman was elected one of the two school-superintendents of the town. The following advertisement appears in the local newspaper: