property
values.

Realizing that a campaign of education was on their hands, the Era
Club called a mass meeting of women, at which prominent speakers
presented the necessities of the situation. At its close a resolution
was adopted to form a Woman's League for Sewerage and Drainage, of
which Miss Gordon was made president. The papers, which a short time
before had been most vehement in their denunciation of suffrage for
taxpaying women, were now unanimous in commending their public spirit
and predicting ultimate victory through the women.

The first work of the league was to secure a correct list of women
taxpayers, the number of whom had been variously estimated from 1,500
to 7,000. Actual count proved that the names of more than 15,000 women
appeared on the roll, about one-half the taxpayers of the entire city.
Leaving a large margin for possible duplicates, foreign residents and
changes by death, a conservative estimate gave at least 10,000 women
eligible to vote. Few can realize the magnitude of this undertaking,
for the names were without addresses but simply given as owners of
such and such pieces of property in such and such boundaries.

The work of location was at last accomplished, and then came the task
of securing the names of these women to the petitions. The lists were
divided according to wards, with a chairman for each, who appointed
lieutenants in the various precincts. Parlor meetings to interest
women were held everywhere, in the homes of the rich, the poor and the
middle classes. Volunteer canvassers were secured and suffrage
sentiment awakened. Occasionally mass meetings of men and women
together were called, and good speakers obtained to arouse the people
to the necessity of voting for the tax. It was the number of women's
signatures which enabled the mayor to order the election.

The law carried with it the privilege of voting by proxy, and the
women who were active in this movement had the great task of gathering
up the proxies of all those who had not the courage to go to the
polls. These had to be made out in legal form and signed by two
witnesses, and they then learned that no woman in Louisiana can
legally witness a document, so in all these thousands of cases it was
necessary to secure two men as witnesses. It made no difference
whether they could read or write, whether they owned property or not,
if males it was sufficient.[293]

The election was held June 6, 1899. The _Picayune_, whic