ccounts which
took thousands of dollars from the already meagre appropriations.

"I say these papers and letters are now the property of the Co-Citizens'
Foundation; and if necessary we shall use them, spend your reputations
as ruthlessly and extravagantly for our ends as you have spent the taxes
of this county for your political purposes.

"The time has passed, men, when we are to be deceived by that foolish
fallacy by which you have so long even deceived yourselves: that women
win by their gentle influence over you. They don't! If they influence
you at all it is for your good, not theirs. We are in the position to
use the same lever that you have always had--power--and we shall use it.
If you defeat us, you must destroy yourselves, your credit, and your
reputation.

"You have been boasting at the impossibility of our even getting this
issue as far as the polls. You have been challenging us to tell you how
that can be done. That's what we are here for this afternoon: to tell
you, and to leave you perfectly free to act as your judgment directs."

The audience moved, drew its breath, crossed and uncrossed its knees,
spat its tobacco quids upon the floor, and craned its neck to see her
better, to hear more distinctly what she had to say. Every man in Jordan
County had been waiting for this news for three months.

"How did you get stock low in this county fifteen years ago?" she asked,
and waited.

"Please, Marm, we voted on it!" whimpered the same waggish voice.

"But before you voted, you got up a petition signed by three fourths of
the voting register of the county, didn't you? And then you submitted
the petition to the Ordinary of the county, who by the laws of this
state advertised the election to be held not sooner than thirty days.
And you got prohibition the same way! Twenty, fifteen years ago this was
the only way to close saloons and grogshops that were open at every
crossroad and on the streets of every town and village. We have a
state-wide temperance law now as the result of local option laws that
were enforced first until public sentiment against liquor was
sufficiently strong to control state legislation."

She paused, opened one palm, and brought her other fist down upon it
with a smack that could be heard to the back of the hall, as she
exclaimed:

"That, gentlemen, is the way we shall win suffrage for women in this
state. We shall get it first by _local option_ in this county! Other
counties wi