g for legislative or civic ends, and the rebuffs of
the measures urged by them finally resulted in the endorsement of
woman suffrage by the State Federation of Women's Clubs with 8,000
members, at Battle Creek in October, 1908.

In 1906 speakers were sent over the State for lectures and debates.
Prizes for suffrage essays were offered in high schools with material
supplied. At county and State fairs, church bazars, picnics and
meetings of various societies, literature was freely distributed. The
_Woman's Journal_ was placed in all public libraries and small
suffrage tracts kept in interurban waiting rooms and in rest rooms of
churches, societies and dry-goods stores. Birthdays of pioneer
suffragists were celebrated by special meetings, local clubs always
responding to a call with so concrete an object. A committee of
members in all parts of the State attended constantly to press work,
sending in items of interest concerning the progress of women,
educationally and politically, and answering attacks on woman
suffrage.

This year the Supreme Court decided that Mrs. Merrie Hoover Abbott,
who had been elected prosecuting attorney of Ogemaw county, could not
serve because no woman was entitled to hold office. The association
used this decision as a practical lesson on the position of women
under the present constitution. Finally the Legislature of 1907
arranged for a constitutional convention. The annual convention of the
association promptly met the situation by appointing a Constitutional
Revision Committee headed by Mrs. May Stocking Knaggs of Bay City, a
former president, and each auxiliary was invited to appoint one woman
to serve on an advisory committee. The purpose of this committee was
to urge upon the convention the omission of the word "male" from the
suffrage clause as a qualification for voting.

The Committee on Elective Franchise of the constitutional convention
reported unanimously in favor and on Jan 8. 1908, granted the
suffragists a hearing in Representatives Hall. Ten societies
cooperating with the State suffrage association were represented--the
Grange, two organizations of the Maccabees, Woman's Christian
Temperance Union, State Federation of Labor, Detroit Garment Workers,
State Woman's Press Association and several women's and farmers'
clubs. A petition representing 225,000 names, 175,000 of individual
women of voting age, was presented. The State president, Mrs. Clara B.
Arthur, introduced the sp