to a vote in the Assembly February 11 and passed. A
defect was then discovered in the title and it was voted on again
February 19, receiving 46 ayes, 29 noes. In the Senate it met with
many vicissitudes which need not be recounted, as it eventually failed
to pass. This was largely because the members did not believe it would
be constitutional.

This question being settled, Senators McGowan of Eureka, and Bulla of
Los Angeles, Assemblyman Spencer of Lassen, and others championed a
resolution to amend the constitution by striking out the word "male"
from the suffrage clause. This was adopted in March, 1895, by a
two-thirds majority of both Houses, and signed by Gov. James H. Budd.
The story of the campaign which was made to secure the adoption of
this amendment is related hereafter. It was defeated by the voters.

Although the experienced national officers told the California women
that it would be many years before they would be able to secure
another bill they did not believe it, but went to the Legislature of
1897 full of hope that an amendment would be submitted again and they
could make another campaign while their organizations were intact and
public sentiment aroused. Mrs. Mary Wood Swift, Mrs. Mary S. Sperry
and Mme. A. L. Sorbier spent much of the winter in Sacramento, and
enough members were pledged to pass the bill. When it was acted upon,
however, while it received a majority in both Houses, it lacked seven
votes in the Assembly and one in the Senate of the necessary
two-thirds.[171]

In 1899 Representative W. S. Mellick of Los Angeles introduced a bill
giving women the right to vote for school trustees, and at elections
for school bonds or tax levy. It passed the Assembly with only one
dissenting vote, and the Senate by a majority of six. Gov. Henry T.
Gage refused to sign it on the old ground of unconstitutionality.

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CAMPAIGN: The action of the Legislature of
1895 in submitting an amendment to the voters, instead of conferring
the franchise by statute, was somewhat of a disappointment to the
women as it precipitated a campaign which would come at the same time
as that for President of the United States, and for which there was
not sufficient organization. They were very much at sea for a while
but in the spring of 1895 Miss Susan B. Anthony and the Rev. Anna
Howard Shaw, president and vice-president of the National Association,
came to California to the Woman's Congress, and whil