had
adopted the strongest possible plank in favor of woman suffrage and, as
the legislature the next year was Republican by a considerable majority,
Clara Foltz and Laura de Force Gordon, attorneys, and Nellie Holbrook
Blinn, at that time State president, Mrs. Peet, Madame Sorbier, Mrs.
Bidwell, Mrs. Spencer, of Lassen county, and others made a determined
effort to secure a bill enfranchising women. That failing, the
legislature consented to submit an amendment to the constitution to be
voted on in 1896. This bill was signed by Governor James H. Budd and the
women then prepared to canvass the State to secure a favorable majority.

Out of the officers of the State suffrage association and the amendment
committee, a joint campaign committee was formed and, in addition to
this, a State central committee.[118] These two constituted the working
force at State headquarters. There were also speakers and organizers,
and a regularly officered society in each county, co-operating with the
officials at headquarters.

At the request of the State committee Miss Anthony's niece, Lucy E., for
seven years Miss Shaw's secretary and thoroughly experienced in planning
and arranging meetings, went out early in February to assist Dr.
Elizabeth Sargent in the preparations for the first series of
conventions. She carried with her a complete list, made by Miss Anthony
herself with great labor and care, of every town of over two hundred
inhabitants in every county in the State, with instructions to plan for
a meeting there during the campaign. One scarcely can describe the
perplexing work of these young women in arranging this great sweep of
conventions, two days in every county seat, each convention overlapping
the next, getting the speakers from one to the other on time, finding
women in each town or city who would take charge of local arrangements,
and rounding up the whole series in season for the Woman's Congress in
May. In March the campaign committee invited Mary G. Hay, who had had
twelve years' experience in organization work, and Harriet May Mills,
the State organizer of New York, to manage the conventions; and Rev.
Anna Shaw and Miss Elizabeth Upham Yates as speakers. It is impossible
to follow these meetings in detail further than to say that, with but
few exceptions, they were very successful, the audiences were large and
cordial, clubs were formed, much suffrage sentiment was created, and the
conventions considerably more than pa