able public
opinion. These are the national suffrage convention in 1903; the
inauguration of charity campaigns on the lines of political
organization and the forming of the Southern States Woman Suffrage
Conference, the object of which was to place the Democratic party on
record for woman suffrage in this Democratic stronghold of the "solid
South."

In public opinion woman suffrage was largely associated with the
Abolition movement. In 1900 Miss Gordon had accepted an invitation to
address the convention of the National Association in Washington on
the famous Sewerage and Drainage Campaign of women in New Orleans.
Then and there she decided that the most important work before
Louisiana suffragists was to bring this conservative State under the
influence of a national convention. In 1901 she attended another
convention and was elected corresponding secretary of the National
Association. In 1903 she brought its convention to New Orleans and it
proved to be one of the most remarkable in the history of the
association.[59] So impressed was Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, vice-president
at large, with the possibilities in the South that she volunteered a
month's series of lectures in the next autumn and many places in
Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas came under the spell of her
eloquence.

The influence of this convention was immediately seen in the
increasing membership of the Era Club. Its leaders recognized that the
best policy to rouse both men and women to the value of suffrage to
the individual and the community was by applied politics in social
service. It had already secured a partial franchise for taxpaying
women and its achievements in the following years made it an
acknowledged power.[60] In 1910 a great charity and educational
benefit was launched for the Anti-Tuberculosis League and the Woman's
Dispensary. A complete plan of organizing with Era Club members as
ward and precinct leaders taught them political organization.

By 1913 the movement for a Federal Suffrage Amendment was growing so
insistent that southern women who were opposed to this method felt the
necessity of organizing to combat it and to uphold the State's rights
principle of the Democratic party. Through the initiative of Miss
Gordon a Call for a conference was sent in August to leading women in
every southern State and signed by twenty-two from almost as many
States asking the Governors to meet in New Orleans for a conference.
It said:

We are