Here is what Colonel Roosevelt said on the burning question of woman suffrage:
"A short time ago I was handed a letter from the president of an Equal Suffrage Association asking me to speak in behalf of it. I have always told my friends that it seemed to me that no man was worth his salt who didn't think deeply of woman's rights and no woman was worth her salt who didn't think more of her duties than of her rights. Personally I am tepidly in favor of woman suffrage. I have studied the condition of women in those States where that right is exercised but I have never been able to take a great interest in it because it always seemed to me so much less important than so many other questions affecting women. I don't think the harm will come of it that its opponents expect, and I don't think that one-half of one per cent. of the good will come from it that its friends expect. It is not a millionth part as important as keeping and reviving the realization that the great work of women must be done in the home. The ideal woman of the future as of the past is the good wife and mother, able to train numbers of healthy children."
There were flourishing suffrage societies in all parts of the State. An Equal Suffrage League had been formed in San Francisco from a consolidation of suffrage clubs, with a large membership of men and women, Mrs. Mary T. Gamage, president. With its various committees it was an active force throughout the campaign. Great assistance was rendered by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, as had been the case in 1896. During the fifteen years' interval it had been carrying on a steady work of education through its local unions and their members were among the most active in the suffrage clubs also. So complete was the cooperation that they took off their white ribbon badges toward the end of the campaign to disarm prejudice. Mrs. Keith, president of the Berkeley Club, hired a house in the central part of town for eight months as headquarters and Mrs. Hester Harland was installed as manager. An advisory committee was formed of Mrs. George W. Haight, Mrs. John Snook, Mrs. Fred G. Athearn, Mrs. Irving M. Scott, Jr., Dr. Helen Waterman, Mrs. Samuel C. Haight, Mrs. Aaron Schloss, Mrs. T. B. Sears, Mrs. C. C. Hall, Mrs. Frank F. Bunker, assisted by many others toward the close of the campaign. Mrs. J. B. Hume and Miss Blanche Morse toured the State as speakers and organizers. Mrs. Keith herself spoke on a number of special occasions. Mrs. Watson spoke night and day for three weeks in Sacramento Valley; at Chico to an audience of 3,000.[15]
The Central Campaign Committee was created in July, three months before election, consisting of one member from each of the five principal campaign organizations in San Francisco doing State work. Mrs. Watson Taylor, daughter of the president, represented the State Equal Suffrage Association; Mrs. Aylett Cotton, the Clubwoman's Franchise League; Mrs. Robert A. Dean, the Woman Suffrage Party; Miss Maud Younger, the Wage Earners' League and Mrs. Deering the College League. This committee was formed at the suggestion of Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw of New York, who visited San Francisco with her husband in January, for the purpose of having all the organizations share in the money and workers sent by the New York Woman Suffrage Party. Over $1,000 were received from it, of which $500 came from General Horace Carpentier, a former Californian and ex-mayor of Oakland, sent through Mr. Laidlaw. The Men's New York League sent $200; the Rochester Political Equality Club, $280; Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt $300. New York suffragists also paid the railroad expenses of the three organizers and speakers whom they sent and Chicago suffragists paid the travelling expenses of Mrs. McCulloch, who contributed her services.
From outside States came Miss Helen Todd, former factory inspector of Illinois; Miss Margaret Haley of Chicago; Miss Jeannette Rankin of Montana; Mrs. Helen Hoy Greeley, Mrs. A. C. Fisk and Mrs. John Rogers of New York; Mrs. Mary Stanislawsky of Nevada; Mrs. Alma Lafferty, member of the Colorado Legislature. These speakers were sent throughout Northern California.
The chairman of the Press Committee, Mrs. Deering, had been carrying on the press work steadily for the past five years and hundreds of papers were ready to support the amendment. Before the end of the brief campaign, under her efficient management, almost every paper of prominence either endorsed it or remained silent. The Los Angeles Express, Sacramento Bee, Star and Union, the San Jose Mercury, the Oakland Enquirer, the San Francisco Bulletin and the Daily News were especially helpful. James H. Barry, editor of the Star, was an unfailing advocate. The Call made a sustained fight for it and the Examiner and Post advised a vote in favor. The German papers were outspokenly opposed. The Chronicle in San Francisco, owned by M. H. De Young, and the Times, in Los Angeles, by Harrison Grey Otis, were relentless opponents. Much assistance was rendered in the Legislature and the campaign by E. A. Dickson, a prominent journalist of Los Angeles. The women connected with the press were sympathetic and helpful.
A most important feature of this remarkable campaign was the work of the College Equal Suffrage League of Northern California, which had been organized in 1909 for educational work among college women. When the suffrage amendment was submitted in February, 1911, the league decided to go actively into the campaign. The officers elected in May were as follows: Miss Charlotte Anita Whitney (Wellesley), president; Dr. Adelaide Brown (Smith), first vice-president; Miss Caroline Cook Jackson (Cornell), second; Miss Lillien J. Martin (Vassar), third; Miss Belle Judith Miller (California), recording secretary; Miss Genevieve Cook (California Woman's Hospital), corresponding secretary; Mrs. Genevieve Allen (Stanford), executive secretary; Dr. Anna Rude (Cooper Medical College), treasurer; Dr. Rachel L. Ash (California), delegate to Council. Directors: Miss Ethel Moore (Vassar); Mrs. Mabel Craft Deering (California); Miss Kate Ames (Stanford); Mrs. Carlotta Case Hall (Elmira); Miss Frances W. McLean (California); Mrs. Thomas Haven (California); Dr. Kate Brousseau (University of Paris); Mrs. C. H. Howard (California).[16]
Altogether $2,075 were sent to the league from the East. Its total receipts were $11,030 in fixed sums and the personal donations of its working members in telegrams, postage, car fare, expressage, use of automobiles, etc., amounted to thousands. At a meeting held in Oakland Miss Sylvia Pankhurst spoke to more than a thousand persons who had paid for their seats.
Every legitimate method of campaigning was used, beginning with the printing of 900,000 leaflets. There were posters and all kinds of designs; city circularizing of the most thorough kind in many languages; pageants, plays, concerts and public social functions; the placarding of city bill boards over miles of country; advertising of every possible kind; huge electric and other signs; long weeks of automobile campaigning in the country and the villages; special speakers for all sorts of organizations; a handsome float in the labor day parade; speaking at vaudeville shows—there was no cessation of these eight months' strenuous work. The campaigning in Sacramento was in charge of Mrs. Mary Roberts Coolidge, assisted by Mrs. E. V. Spencer, against great odds, but the city gave a small favorable majority, due chiefly to the union labor vote.
During the last six months the College League held more than fifty public meetings in halls in San Francisco, the audiences at the larger ones varying from 1,300 to 10,000 with hundreds turned away. The Rev. Charles F. Aked, the brilliant English orator, had just come from New York and he made his first appearance outside of his pulpit at a suffrage mass meeting in Savoy Theater, donated by the John Cort management, and afterwards he could not refuse to speak at other meetings. His debate with Colonel John P. Irish in the Valencia Theater just before election was one of the great features of the campaign. One of the most important meetings, with 1,500 present, was addressed by the eloquent young priest, the Rev. Joseph M. Gleason, with the boxes reserved for prominent Catholics. Rabbi Martin H. Meyer was one of the strong speakers. At the meeting in the beautiful new auditorium of Scottish Rite Hall Mrs. Alexander Morrison, president of the National Collegiate Alumnae, was in the chair and among the speakers were Dr. Aked, William C. Ralston, U. S. Sub-Treasurer; Mrs. W. W. Douglas and Albert H. Elliott. In the Italian theater was held the largest meeting of a political nature known to that quarter, addressed by Emilio Lastredo, a prominent banking attorney; Ettore Patrizi, editor of the daily L'Italia; Mr. Elliott, Miss Margaret Haley and Mayor J. Stitt Wilson of Berkeley. A second great suffrage meeting assembled there again, at which Mme. Adelina Dosenna of La Scala, Milan, sang. The culmination was the mass meeting in Dreamland Rink, the largest auditorium in the city. Mrs. Lowe Watson, president of the State association, introduced by George A. Knight, was in the chair. There were 6,000 in the audience and 4,000 on the outside, whom Mrs. Greeley and other speakers kept in a good humor. These were Mrs. McCulloch, Dr. Aked, John I. Nolan, union labor leader; Mr. Wilson, Miss Todd, Miss Laughlin and Rabbi Meyer.