Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/1031

Rh United States senators, a direct primary amendment and a prospective flat salary law.

A soulful confession will not be amiss here. The editor of the East Ore- gonian was a boy of 20, the youngest delegate in attendance at that Oregon City Populist convention of 1892, at which Uiiiatilla county had the largest delega- tion outside of Portland, and headed by that pioneer warhorse, Nathan Pierce.

J. Gaston was at that convention talking direct primaries, initiative and referendum, equal suft'rage and popular election of United States senators.

That was the beginning. There were no newly blacked shoes in that con- vention. Not a solitary man in that gathering parted his hair in the middle. There was but one Prince Albert coat, three striped neckties, and "nary" silk hat among the 100 delegates, but it started a movement for reform in Oregon which the 8,000 to 20,000 republican majority has complimented and indorsed year by year by ingrafting them into the organic law of the state.

When equal suffrage is adopted next year the old Populist program will have been completed in Oregon.

During the period above considered there has been a precarious organization of the anti-liquor men under the name of the Prohibition party, which has for twenty years kept up an agitation of the temperance question, with regular state tickets in the field, and county tickets in many counties. The promoters of this reform have attested their devotion to their principles by large sacrifices of time and money for the good of society and the state; and have in many places succeeded in closing the liquor saloons and making orderly quiet and decent many town and counties that had been cursed with the saloon nuisance. The Socialists have also increased in numbers sufficient to have a state organi- zation ; but have not yet exercised any noticeable influence in state politics. The question of equal rights to women in the exercise of the right of suffrage has been twice submitted to the electors of the state, and failed to receive votes sufficient to incorporate the proposition in the state constitution. It is now again to he voted upon at the ensuing election, the result of which will not be known in time to be included in this History. The great leader of the move- ment in Oregon, whose likeness appears on another page, a leader with a national reputation, and a record of fifty years of unfaltering and courageous advocacy of equal rights to all persons — Abigail Scott Duniway — is at this time unfortu- nately confined to her home from the infirmities of age. But with an intellect that leads that battle of justice, and a dauntless spirit that halts not at opposi- tion or defeat, from her home in the city of Portland still goes out to every hiinilct in the state the ins])iring command — "Oh watch and fight and pray The battle ne'er give o'er Renew it boldly every day And help divine implore."