Similar circular letters were sent to each of the 75 newspapers published in the state. All women's clubs were importuned to co-operate, and also all public school officials, teachers and educators of the state. The press responded right royally with one single exception, and book lovers and educators of high and low degree lent their willing assistance. Representatives of the club again appeared before the 1900 annual state teachers' meeting, and secured an official endorsement from that body for the proposed library legislation. The state teachers' association, in addition, advocated a law requiring that three per cent. of all school moneys be set aside as a fund for school libraries, to which the club women gave their aid and which also became a law.
At the convening of the legislature in January of this year the leaven had begun to work, thus paving the way for the successful lobbying by the official representatives of the Columbian Club.
The first step was the selection of a conspicuous legislator to stand sponsor for our bills. In this we encountered an embarrassment of riches in capable legislative material, but finally selected Senator S. P. Donnelly, who cheerfully assumed the duty, and exerted the full force of his wide popularity and marked ability from the time of his introduction of the bills until the final vote upon them.
The club members held frequent conferences with the educational committee of both houses of the legislature and other legislators specially interested in educational matters, and made plain to them the inestimable benefits of the bills we championed.
And in this connection I desire to make graceful acknowledgment to the library workers of Wisconsin, as it was while a resident of this state I received from them my first library inspiration; and particularly do I desire to acknowledge our indebtedness to Mr. F. L. Hutchins, whose personal communications and generous supply of library literature enabled us to fully present our subject and to meet all objections raised by some of the legislators.
Every member of the legislature, with the exception of one in the lower house, was buttonholed, and the consequence of that oversight was manifested on the final voting day.
In the meantime the club requested the home papers of the legislators to continue to urge favorable action; and the club women from all parts of the state, by letters, personal visits and petitions to the legislators, did likewise.
The instinct of partisanship, a peculiarity of all legislative bodies, was not manifested in the least.
On the day for the final action in the Senate Committee of the Whole the Columbian Club was notified and attended in a body, the courtesy of the floor being extended to us.
Imagine our consternation, when the question was submitted to an aye and nay vote, at not a voice being raised in its favor save Senator Donnelly's. For a few moments silence so profound that it was almost palpable prevailed, when presently Senator Kinkaid, who was in the chair, without calling for the nays, solemnly announced, "The ayes have it"; and delight supplanted our agonized distress as the pleasantry at Senator Donnelly's expense and ours dawned upon us.