n three months for active work. Early in the campaign our country
entered the World War, and the whole thought and attention of the
people were given to securing support for the Liberty Bonds, Red
Cross, Navy League and other patriotic and preparedness work. This
greatly handicapped us in the raising of finances and the creating of
organization, the two foundations upon which the structure of a
successful campaign must be built, and the two things which more than
anything else the State of Maine needed, so far as the amendment was
concerned."

A campaign committee was formed from members of organizations in the
State in favor of suffrage, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union,
Federation of Women's Clubs, Men's Suffrage League, Civic League,
Referendum League, the Grange and the State Suffrage Association, and
headquarters were established in Bangor. There were only fourteen
suffrage societies in the State, not all active. Eleven of the sixteen
counties had an organizer in charge for the last six weeks and 269
local committees were formed in the different towns but many of them
were ineffectual, as they were made up of untrained women and the time
was too short to train them. The argument for suffrage, however, was
put before the voters very thoroughly. One hundred thousand were
circularized with the convincing speeches of U. S. Senator Shafroth of
Colorado and later with a leaflet Have You Heard the News? which
carried the strong appeal of the suffrage gains over the entire world.
House to house distribution of "fliers" was made in many communities.
Altogether 1,500,000 leaflets were distributed, ten to every voter in
the State. In hundreds of towns there was absolute ignorance on the
subject. The clergy were circularized three times--over a thousand of
them--the State Grange twice, committees of the political parties and
members of the Legislature twice.

As soon as a committee was organized petition blanks were sent to it
and in this short space of time the names of over 38,000 women of
voting age asking for the suffrage were obtained, nearly all by
volunteer canvassers. The names from each county were sent to the
voters from that county and 100,000 received these lists. The
petitions did a vast amount of educational work among the women and
answered the men who insisted that the women did not want to vote.

The newspapers on the whole were favorable. Especial mention should be
made of the valuable assistance con