Both associations employed field organizers, arranged meetings, provided speakers, distributed literature and made active effort to interest as far as possible organizations and individuals in the cause. The State association had headquarters in the Majestic Building and later in the Goldsmith Building in Milwaukee. The League had offices first in the Wells Building and later in the Colby-Abbott Building in that city. A bulletin of suffrage news was sent each week to the 600 newspapers in the State by Mrs. Youmans, who was press manager.
The campaign opened with a big rally in Racine June 1, 1912. The Rev. Olympia Brown, State president, continued her speaking tours without cessation and was assisted by prominent outside speakers, including Mrs. May Wright Sewall, Mrs. Colby, Dr. and Mrs. William Funck of Baltimore, Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery and Mrs. Clara V. Laddey, who addressed the Germans. Miss Willis arranged a course of lectures in Milwaukee for Miss Jane Addams, Louis F. Post, Dr. Sophonisba Breckinridge of Chicago University, and Mrs. Catherine Waugh McCulloch.[209]
The Political Equality League believed enthusiastically in street meetings and arranged many of them in Milwaukee and other cities. Under the same auspices several automobile tours swept the State, one of them having an itinerary through the southwestern counties, Miss James, Mrs. B. C. Gudden, Miss Grim and Miss Mabel Judd the speakers. The noted air pilot, Beachy, scattered suffrage fliers from the airship which he took up into the clouds at the State Fair in Milwaukee. The State association had a large tent on the grounds, in front of which there were a platform for speakers, where addresses were made every day, and a counter covered with literature and books. The two societies conducted Votes for Women tours up the Wolf and Fox Rivers, which were important features of the campaign. They traveled in a little steamer, stopping at landings and speaking and giving out literature. The association also held outdoor meetings at lunchtime before the factories and wherever it seemed best. The league formed two allied societies, the Men's League for Woman Suffrage, of which the late H. A. J. Upham was president, and a league for colored people, Miss Carrie Horton, president.
An extended series of mass meetings was held in many cities addressed by prominent speakers, who came from outside the State to assist, among whom were Mrs. Elizabeth Lowe Watson, Miss Addams, Mrs. Beatrice Forbes Robertson, Mrs. Emily Montague Bishop, Professor Charles Zueblin, Max Eastman, Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery; the Countess of Warwick and Miss Sylvia Pankhurst of England; Miss Inez Milholland, Mrs. Maud C. Nathan, Mrs. Glendower Evans, Baroness von Suttner (Austria), Mrs. Alice Duer Miller, Mrs. Florence Kelley, Rabbi Emil Hirschberg, Mrs. Grace Wilbur Trout, Mrs. Henrietta C. Lyman, Mrs. Ella S. Stewart, Dr. Anna E. Blount, the Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer, Mrs. Clara Neymann, who addressed the Germans, and Dr. Shaw.
There is no adequate record of that campaign in existence. Mrs. Luther was State historian and in the habit of keeping carefully all programs, calls for meetings, reports and other material necessary for history, which were preserved at the Capitol and were destroyed when it was burned. The Political Equality League raised and expended $10,000 and the State association $5,000, as reported to the Secretary of State. Nearly as much more was expended by individual members and by other organizations. Dr. Shaw and Mrs. Benedict arranged a mass meeting in New York which netted $2,700.
The determined hostility of the liquor interests to woman suffrage was unmistakably shown during the campaign by the official organ of the State Retail Liquor Dealers' Protective Association, called "Progress." For months preceding the election it was filled with objections, innuendo and abuse in prose, verse and pictures, all designed to impress the reader with the absurdity and danger of giving the vote to women. It appealed to the farmers and to every class of people connected in any way with the manufacture and sale of beer, saying in headlines: "Give the Ballot to Woman and Industry goes to Smash." "It means the Loss of Vast Sums to Manufacturer, Dealer and Workingmen," and this was kept up to the end.
An unprecedented vote was cast on the woman suffrage proposition at the election November 4, 1912: for, 135,736; against, 227,054; lost by 91,318. Each of the three constitutional amendments voted on at the time received barely a fifth of the vote cast on this measure. Of the 71 counties but 14 were carried for suffrage, Douglas county in the extreme northwest on Lake Superior had the best record, a majority of 1,000. Milwaukee county, including the city, gave 20,445 votes for and 40,029 votes against. The referendum was placed on a pink ballot, used only for this purpose, which unquestionably increased the majority against it, as even the most illiterate could stamp it with a "no." The defeat was conceded to have been due to an insufficiency of general education on woman suffrage and of organization, the large foreign population and the widespread belief that it would help largely to bring prohibition.
Three days after the election officers of the Political Equality League sent to officers of the State association a letter proposing a union of the two under a new name and on condition that the president of neither should be made president of the new one. The latter was in favor of the union but insisted that the old historic name, Wisconsin Suffrage Association, should be retained, which was done. Miss Lutie E. Stearns was chosen its president at its annual convention to serve until the union was effected. There were ultimatums and counter-ultimatums and finally a call for a joint convention to be held in Madison Feb. 4, 5, 1913, was issued by Miss Zona Gale, vice-president of the association, and Miss James, president of the League. Here the union was duly effected; the Rev. Olympia Brown was elected honorary president, Mrs. Henry M. Youmans president and the other officers were divided between the two societies.
The suffrage work henceforth was conducted under the same president and the same policy. The first year of the new régime, the organization had no headquarters and paid no salaries, the officers doing their correspondence with their own hands. The next year an office was opened in Madison and Miss Alice Curtis was installed as executive secretary. It was difficult to do effective work so far away from the president and the office was removed to Waukesha, her residence, with Miss Curtis and later Mrs. Helen Haight in charge. In October, 1916, it was removed to Milwaukee, and, with the county association, headquarters were opened at 428 Jefferson Street, where they remained, with Mrs. Ruth Hamilton as office secretary.[210]
The great increase of sentiment favorable to woman suffrage throughout the country was plainly seen in Wisconsin and it was evident that a wide campaign of education must be undertaken. A "suffrage school" held in Madison in June, 1914, was very successful. Sixty-six women enrolled for the full course and hundreds of men and women attended the special lectures. The "faculty" of the school included the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, members of the faculty of the State University and other well known men and women. Social Forces, a topical outline with bibliography, published this year by the Education Committee, Mrs. A. S. Quackenbush, chairman, was especially designed for the instruction of women, first, in existing conditions, and second, in the various movements made to improve them. Copies were purchased by universities, organizations and individuals all over the United States. Wisconsin Legislators and the Home was a valuable pamphlet compiled by Miss James following the legislative session of 1913, giving the records of all members on the bills of especial interest to women which came up that year. Wisconsin Legislation, Topics for Discussion, was prepared in 1915 by Mrs. J. W. McMullein Turner for the use of the legislative and educational committees.