bject of the Woman Suffrage Party is organization for political
work. Last winter the party made the first aggressive move towards
forcing the Judiciary Committee of the Assembly to report on the bill to
give women votes by constitutional amendment. They succeeded in getting
a motion made for the discharge of the committee, sixteen legislators
voting for the women.

New York is the present center of the progressive suffrage movement,
with Chicago not very far behind.

In rather amazing fashion are women in many American communities
beginning to realize that politics are as much their business as men's.
In Salt Lake City when a city council undertakes to give away a valuable
water franchise, or extend gamblers' privileges, or otherwise follow the
example of many another city council in bending before the god of greed,
the women of Salt Lake send the word around. When the council meets the
women are in the room. They don't say anything. They don't have to say
anything. They can vote, these women. More than once the deep-laid plans
of the most powerful politicians in Salt Lake City have been completely
frustrated by a silent warning from the women. The city council has not
dared to pass grafting measures with a roomful of women looking on.

[Illustration: HELEN HOY GREELEY]

Even the non-voting woman has discovered the power which attaches to her
presence, in certain circumstances. In San Francisco during the second
Ruef trial, when the decent element of the city was fighting to down one
of the worst bosses that ever cursed a community, the women, under the
leadership of Mrs. Elizabeth Gerberding, performed this new kind of
picket duty. The courtroom where the trial was held was, by order of the
boss's attorney, packed with hired toughs whose duty it was to make a
mockery of the prosecution. Every point against the Ruef side was
received by these toughs with jeers and hootings. The district attorney
was insulted, badgered, and openly threatened with violence.

Mrs. Gerberding, whose husband is editor of a newspaper opposed to boss
rule, attended several sessions, and induced a large number of women of
social importance to attend with her. These women went daily to the
courtroom, occupying seats to the exclusion of many of the tough
characters, and by their presence doing much to preserve order and to
assist the efforts of the district attorney. When the assassin's bullet
was fired at the district attorney a number of t