4, a meeting was called at the
residence of Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway in Portland and a committee
formed which met every week for several months thereafter. Woman's Day
was celebrated at the convention of the State Horticultural
Association, in September, by invitation of its president, William
Salloway. Addresses were made by N. W. Kinney and Mrs. Duniway, and
Governor Lord and his wife were on the platform. On October 27 a mass
meeting was held at Marquam Grand Theater, at which a State
organization was effected and a constitution adopted which had been
prepared by the committee.[409]

In January, 1895, the association secured from the Legislature a bill
for the submission of a woman suffrage amendment, which it would be
necessary for a second Legislature to pass upon. The annual meeting of
the State Association was held at Portland in November as quietly as
possible, it being the aim to avoid arousing the two extremes of
society, consisting of the slum classes on the one hand and the
ultra-conservative on the other, who instinctively pull together
against all progress. Officers were elected as usual and the work went
on in persistent quietude.

The convention of 1896 met in Portland, November 16.[410] Mrs.
Duniway, the honorary president, was made acting president, that
officer having left the State; Mrs. H. A. Laughary, honorary
president; Dr. Annice F. Jeffreys, vice-president-at-large; Ada
Cornish Hertsche, vice-president; Frances E. Gotshall, corresponding
secretary; Mary Schaffer Ward, recording secretary; Mrs. A. E.
Hackett, assistant secretary; Jennie C. Pritchard, treasurer. These
State officers were re-elected without change until November, 1898,
when Mrs. W. H. Games was chosen recording secretary and Mrs. H. W.
Coe, treasurer. In 1899, and again in 1900, Mrs. Eunice Pond Athey,
formerly of Idaho, became assistant secretary.

The year 1896 was a period of continuous effort on the part of the
State officers to disseminate suffrage sentiment in more or less
indirect ways, so that other organizations of whatever name or nature
might look upon the proposed amendment with favor. Early in this year
the executive committee decided to organize a Woman's Congress and
secure the affiliation of all branches of women's patriotic,
philanthropic and literary work, to be managed by the suffrage
association. It was resolved also to obtain if possible the attendance
of Miss Susan B. Anthony, president of the National A