vities of the two organizations
are so interwoven until 1909 that the history of the W. C. T. U. is
practically the history of woman suffrage. The suffrage association
was inactive after the last defeat in 1898 until 1901. In that year a
State Political Equality Association was organized with Mrs. Alice M.
A. Pickler of Faulkton president and Mrs. Philena Everett Johnson of
Highmore vice-president. She was the mother of Royal C. Johnson, now
in Congress.

A State amendment for full suffrage was not again submitted until 1909
and in the interim there was a lull in active work although local
clubs were formed as the nucleus of a larger organization. The
suffrage lobby, usually the same as the W. C. T. U. lobby, appeared at
each session of the Legislature. When a suffrage resolution was
introduced it either died in committee or was reported out unfavorably
and failed to pass. Always when the question was brought before either
House there was a spirited debate and the suffragists then continued
their campaign through literature and other means.

In October, 1902, Mrs. Pickler called a conference at Watertown which
decided to take advantage of the initiative and referendum, that the
State had adopted in 1897. Not realizing that it did not apply to
constitutional amendments, the suffragists in 1903 at great expense
and effort secured the signatures of the requisite number of voters to
a petition asking that a constitutional amendment be submitted to the
voters. Secretary of State O. C. Berg was criticized for refusing to
receive it for transmission to the Legislature but he could not
legally do so, as the initiative applied only to Laws. He was not
opposed to woman suffrage and in later years his wife worked for it
and his son conducted a newspaper which gave it able support.

Still under the leadership of Mrs. Pickler, the years 1904 and 1905
passed with the usual routine work and in 1906 another petition was
begun which had nothing to do with the initiative and referendum but
was merely a petition of women as citizens to the Legislature asking
that the question be submitted to a vote at the next general election.
This work was carried on all summer by a house to house canvass
throughout the State and later at the State Fair, with the result that
when it convened the women were able to stage a spectacular event by
having pages carry up the aisle of the Lower House a list of names
thirty-six yards in length. The resolution