the session was drawing to a close with
nothing done when the Gordon sisters cast precedent and propriety to
the winds, telegraphed to the Senator from their district for an
audience, boarded a morning train for Baton Rouge and descended upon
the Capitol. Article 210 of the State constitution adopted in 1898
made women ineligible to serve in any official capacity. One of the
first acts of the Era Club had been to try to have it amended so as to
allow the appointment of a woman to fill a vacancy on the School
Board. The surprised Senator met them on their arrival, learned the
object of their visit and they will never know whether sympathy,
amusement or curiosity actuated the Committee on Judiciary to whom he
appealed for a hearing, but a few minutes after their arrival they
were pleading their cause before its members. They then called on
Governor Newton Blanchard, who offered to have Article 210 amended to
enable the appointment of a factory inspector, but in their zeal for
the larger object they declined.

1906. Wiser by two years' experience, the Legislative Committee was
glad to accept Lieutenant Governor Jared Y. Sanders's offer of an
amendment for the above purpose, and Miss Jean Gordon was appointed
factory inspector for the city of New Orleans. It was not long before
she realized that the Child Labor law, under which she must operate,
was not worth the paper on which it was written. She then studied the
child labor laws of every State and selected what was best suited to
southern conditions, and put it into form for submission.

1908. The legislative program was limited to the attempt to amend
Article 210, pass a School suffrage bill and the Child Labor bill. The
School suffrage bill, under the skillful management of Senator R. E.
Gueydan, assisted by Senators Albert Estinopal and James Brady and
Lieutenant Governor Thos. C. Barrett, passed the Senate but failed in
the House. The Child Labor bill passed the House but not the Senate.

1910. Senator Gueydan introduced the amendment of Article 210.
Representative S. O. Shattuck introduced the first resolution to
strike out the word "male" from the State constitution, with
instructions from the women to substitute a School or Municipal
suffrage bill if a favorable report was more likely to result. By this
time the women had sufficiently progressed to address a joint suffrage
committee hearing in the House in the presence of an immense audience,
Miss Belle Van Horn