No active work in suffrage was done in Southern California for some years after the defeat of 1896. In November, 1900, the State president, Mrs. Mary Wood Swift, went to Los Angeles, a parlor meeting was held and later a public address was given by her at the Woman's Club House. Here it was determined to revive the Woman Suffrage League and an executive committee was appointed, Mrs. Sarah Burger Stearns, a veteran suffragist, formerly of Minnesota, chairman. On December 1 a meeting was called by this committee and the league was re-organized; President, Mrs. Caroline M. Severance; vice-president, Mrs. Shelley Tolhurst; secretary, Mrs. Lenore C. Schultz. Monthly meetings were held for several years at the Woman's Club House, the money for the rent being given by Mr. Wilde, whose sympathy was strong for suffrage. The years from 1900 to 1910-11 were just years of "carrying on" and well the pioneers did their work.[14] They kept the fires burning and gradually all kinds of organizations of women became permeated with a belief in suffrage for women and were ready for the final campaign.
The work of John Hyde Braly in Southern California deserves a place by itself. A prosperous business man and public-spirited citizen, when the call came to assist the movement to enfranchise the women of the State he saw the necessity of interesting men of prominence. From early in January, 1910, he worked to secure the enrollment of one hundred names of the leading citizens of Los Angeles and Pasadena. Finally he arranged a mid-day banquet on the fifth of April and about fifty responded. Organization was perfected with a charter membership of one hundred influential men under the name of the Political Equality League of California and the following compact was signed: "We hereby associate ourselves together for the purpose of securing political equality and suffrage without distinction on account of sex." The officers elected were: J. H. Braly, president; Judge Waldo M. Yorke, first vice-president; Hulett Merritt, second; J. D. Bradford, secretary and treasurer. Enthusiastic speeches were made and Mr. Braly said that they were initiating this movement at the psychological time, for the progressive fever was in the California blood. It was a man's job to take a hand in the enfranchisement of women, since it was the men who must decide it by their votes. The league was pledged to work to induce the legislators to submit the amendment to the voters. Nine men were organized in a Board of Governors and it was decided to have women become associate members of the organization, they to select nine women to be governors with the men. The movement was thus popularized and desirable men and women of all classes rapidly joined it.
Headquarters were established in the Story Building and systematic work begun. Judge Yorke was chairman of the legislative and political department. The 850 delegates and the audience at the Los Angeles County Republican convention in Simpson Auditorium in August were enthusiastically for woman suffrage. Eighty-three delegates went from that convention to the State Republican convention of 430 delegates in San Francisco. Mr. Braly was not only one of these delegates but also a member of the platform committee. The suffrage plank went into the platform and was received with the same enthusiasm apparently as in Los Angeles. After a progressive Legislature was elected in the fall of 1910 the Political Equality League gave a banquet at the Alexandria Hotel in honor of the southern legislators, the State officers-elect and their wives, with nearly 600 present. Mr. Braly said of this occasion: "We all felt that we were making history and casting bread upon the waters that would surely return to us in a day of need, which, thank God, it did, for without it I think the suffrage bill would not have been passed."
The organization's express purpose was to use all legitimate means to influence the Legislature to submit the amendment and every legislator of the nine southern counties went to Sacramento pledged to vote for it. After the Legislature had submitted the amendment the Political Equality League held its annual election. It was felt that it would be unjust to ask Mr. Braly to have charge of the details of the strenuous campaign and with expressions of the highest appreciation he was made president emeritus and Mrs. Seward A. Simons, president. Mr. Braly arranged to have Mrs. McCulloch of Chicago make a speaking tour of Southern California in company with a party consisting of himself and wife, Judge Neely, Judge W. S. Harbert and Senator Lee C. Gates, at his own expense, as was all of his work. Mrs. Edson wrote to him after the campaign: "Without the platform pledges of the Republican county and State conventions we could never have held the legislators and to you the women of California are indebted for making this possible."
Mrs. Simons in her comprehensive report said in part:
In the southern part of the State the work from the beginning was undertaken with the understanding that everything possible should be done to counteract the effect of the probable San Francisco vote and the California Political Equality League concentrated its attention on Los Angeles and the country districts throughout the State. The Executive Board, composed of the following members, Mrs. Simons, president; Mrs. Tolhurst, chairman of the Speakers' Committee; Mrs. Berthold Baruch, of the Meetings Committee; Miss Louise Carr, Literature; Mrs. Edson, Organization; Mrs. Martha Nelson McCan, Press; Mrs. John R. Haynes, Finance; Miss Annie Bock, secretary, concerned itself with effective publicity work—public meetings, the distribution of literature and the press....
Leaflets and pamphlets that appealed to every type of mind were printed to the amount of over a million.... Votes-for-Women buttons to the number of 93,000 and 13,000 pennants and banners added their quota to the publicity work.... One of the most effective means of publicity was that of letters of a personal nature addressed to members of the various professions and vocations. A letter was sent to 2,000 ministers asking their cooperation; 60,000 letters were sent through the country districts. Leaflets in Italian, German and French were given out at the street meetings in the congested districts of Los Angeles. A circular letter was sent in September to every club and organization asking that they give an evening before the election to a suffrage speaker to be supplied by the league. Suffrage was presented to every class from the men's clubs in the churches to the unions' meetings in the Labor Temple.
The importance of getting the endorsement of large bodies of women was recognized. A few of these endorsing were the Woman's Parliament of 2,000 members; State Federation of Women's Clubs, 35,000; Federated College Clubs, 5,000; State Nurses' Association, 800; State W. C. T. U., 6,000; Woman's Organized Labor, 36,000, and the Los Angeles Teachers' Club, 800. All of these endorsements were secured at conventions held in Southern California and the Northern women pursued the same policy. These do not include those made by organizations of men, or of men and women or of clubs for suffrage alone and these in the South exceeded fifty. In a large measure success was due to the inestimable assistance given by the eminent speakers, among them supreme court judges, prominent lawyers, physicians, ministers, noted educators and philanthropists and by men and women from all callings and occupations....
During the last two months meetings were arranged in all the towns of the southern counties where it was possible. When a hall could not be had they were held in the open air. The last month from fifty to sixty meetings a week were planned from the league headquarters, speakers supplied and literature sent. These did not include those arranged by local organizations in smaller towns nor the many street meetings which were held by every one who could command an automobile. The climax was in the largest theater in Los Angeles on the evening of September 30 when over 4,000 people listened to the best speakers of the campaign. In addition another thousand gathered in Choral Hall for an overflow meeting, while many hundreds were turned from the doors. It was the largest political demonstration in the history of Southern California.
The most important phase of the publicity work was that of the Press Committee, formed of active newspaper women. Miss Bess Munn was made secretary and her time was devoted exclusively to supplying material to the local press and the country newspapers. Double postals asking individuals their opinion of the suffrage movement were sent to the members of the Legislature; to city, county and State officials from San Diego to Siskiyou; to judges, lawyers, merchants, bankers, physicians and all prominent visitors within the gates of the city. Their answers were from time to time printed in the form of interviews. Letters went to club women in every town asking for cooperation in securing space for suffrage material in the local press. Personal letters were sent to all the editors informing them that a weekly suffrage letter would be sent to them from the headquarters of the league. This contained nothing but the shortest, pithiest items of suffrage activities and enclosed were the leaflets which were often printed in full. At the close of the campaign more than half of the papers of the State regularly used the letter either as news or as a basis for editorial comment. In Los Angeles alone more than 10,000 columns were printed on suffrage. In monetary value this amount of space would have cost $100,000. The last week before election a cut of the ballot showing the position of the suffrage amendment was sent to 150 newspapers of the South with a letter offering the editor $5 for its publication but many printed it without compensation....
The majorities from the country districts won the victory by counteracting the immense majority rolled up against the amendment in San Francisco and thus proved that the country residents are most satisfactorily reached by the country press.
The anti-suffragists made a more open fight in California than ever before. A month preceding election a Committee of Fifty was organized in Los Angeles composed of the reactionary elements, men representing "big business," corporation lawyers, a number connected with the Southern Pacific R.R., some socially prominent. The only one known nationally was former U. S. Senator Frank P. Flint. The president was a Southerner, George S. Patten, who wrote long articles using the arguments and objections employed in the very earliest days of the suffrage movement sixty years ago. They claimed to have thousands of members but never held a meeting and depended on intimidation by their rather formidable list of names of local influence.
The Women's Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage was more active. It was formed in Los Angeles, with Mrs. George A. Caswell, head of a fashionable school for girls, as its president. It organized also in Northern California with Mrs. C. L. Goddard president and Mrs. Benjamin Ide Wheeler heading the list of honorary presidents. Both branches had a long list of officers, some with social prestige, and maintained headquarters. They also claimed to have a large membership but held only parlor and club meetings. The National Anti-Suffrage Association sent its secretary, Miss Minnie Bronson, to speak, write, organize and have charge of headquarters. Mrs. William Force Scott came as a speaker from New York. The association was not an important factor in the campaign.
Theodore Roosevelt lectured in California in the spring of 1911. He had been in the State twice in preceding years and each time had referred disparagingly to woman suffrage. During the present visit he spoke in the Greek Theater at the State University in Berkeley to an audience of 10,000 on March 25 and the San Francisco Examiner of the next morning said in its report: