The bill was then placed upon its final passage, and the senators, who hesitated in their support on the ground of economy only, announced that they would vote in favor of the bill, but desired it expressly understood that they did so because they were intimidated by the presence of the Columbian Club. The best of spirits prevailed, and our bill providing for a state library commission of five members, two at least to be women, passed the senate unanimously, the president of the state university and the superintendent of public instruction to be ex officio members and the other three members to be appointed by the governor; and the law appropriated $6000 for the purchase of travelling library books and the maintenance of the commission for two years.
The bill was sent to the lower house to take its course in that body, but we were denied the privilege of practicing intimidation there. Immediately upon its arrival in the house a member moved that it be made a special order of business and be immediately placed upon its final passage, and that a polite message be sent the president of the Columbian Club that the house would perform its solemn duties without the assistance or coercion of that club.
The bill passed the house unanimously save for the solitary negative vote of the member whom, by an inexplicable oversight, we failed to interview, and who announced he so voted for that reason.
This library commission bill was by all odds the most conspicuous matter before the legislature, and the enrolled bill submitted to the governor for signature was elaborately prepared and adorned with the club colors by the attaches of the legislature.
The commission has been in existence three months, or more properly speaking, less than two months, for the necessary preliminary work did not enable us to get before the public until May. Already we have been invited to assist and direct the formation of six libraries and to select books for the penitentiary library, have placed in circulation 10 new travelling library cases in addition to the 15 cases donated to the state by the Columbian Club, and have 20 more cases in preparation.
While the law provided for the appointment of at least two women on the commission, the governor appointed three, two of whom are members of the Columbian Club; and our superintendent of public instruction being a woman, we have four of the five members, and what is more especially to the point, they are all club women.
Woman's clubs may with propriety, I think, lay claim to some credit for library laws in Idaho, and yet it is significant that the reason for their power lies in the fact that the women of our state have in their hands the wand of progress and civilization, the most powerful and bloodless offensive and defensive weapon on earth—the ballot. In the hand of [the frailest of our sex] this powerful weapon can strike as deadly a blow at evil or as strenuous a blow for good as it can in the hands of the brawniest of fighting men; no moral wretch of whatever size and strength but what the very gentlest of our number can cancel his registered will on election day; for an aspiring public servant to dare oppose a righteous cause means sure defeat—for womanhood inevitably arrays itself against the hosts of error.
The women of our state, marshalled under the leadership of women's clubs, stood in an unwavering and united array for all our library laws and every other law that stood for good; and there were, all told, 15 bills affecting education enacted into laws at the last session.
Whatever of inspiration and encouragement the success of women's clubs in Idaho may give our sister clubs in sister states, the success of woman's suffrage there at any rate will help to silence the scoffers' sneers and help put this ballot-sword, forged in the workshop of right and justice, in the hand of every woman.