or
it, went through the entire campaign without so much as a mention, in
order to secure Democratic support. When Thomas B. Reed came into the
State, at the very end of the campaign, the women felt sure of an ally,
as he had long been a pronounced advocate, but he did not so much as
refer to the question in his tour of the State, although they bombarded
him with letters which would have impressed a heart of stone. At the
last grand rally in Oakland, the day before election, with Miss Anthony
on one side of him and Miss Shaw on the other, he did say that he "knew
of no more reason why a woman should not vote than why a man should
not"--but the battle then was already lost.

Up to within a few weeks of election, in spite of all the drawbacks, it
looked as if the amendment would win. The general sentiment throughout
the State seemed to be in favor. The mere mention of the subject at any
meeting was received with the greatest enthusiasm. Almost every delegate
body which assembled in convention during that summer adopted a
resolution of endorsement; this was true of most of the church
conferences, the teachers' institutes, the State Grange and farmers'
institutes, the Chautauqua assemblies and countless others. And still
the women watched and waited! There was one element more powerful than
all these combined, which had not yet shown its hand. It never had
failed in any State to fight woman suffrage to the death, and there was
no reason to believe it would not kill it in California.

Ten days before election the fatal blow came. The representatives of the
Liquor Dealers' League met in San Francisco and resolved "to take such
steps as were necessary to protect their interests." The political
leaders, the candidates, the rank and file of the voters recognized the
handwriting on the wall. From that moment the fate of the amendment was
sealed. The women had determined, from the beginning of the campaign,
that they would give the liquor business no excuse to say its interests
were threatened, and therefore the temperance question had been kept out
of the discussion as had the religious, the tariff and the financial
questions. They took the sensible view that it had no more place than
these in the demand for women's right to vote as they pleased on all
subjects. Therefore the action of the liquor dealers had no
justification in anything which the women had said or done. It simply
showed that they considered woman suffrage a dange