Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/594

Rh appointed as delegates to the different political State conventions. As a Republican, Mrs. Merritt was received with great courtesy and accorded time to speak. Her address was characterized by sound logic and dignity of expression, and was reported in full with the rest of the proceedings of the Republican convention. As a prohibition amendment had also been passed by the legislature of 1881, the interests of suffrage and prohibition in the campaign of 1882 were identical. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Indiana sent Mrs. Helen M. Gougar to the Republican State convention, by which she was respectfully received and which she ably addressed.

The advocates of suffrage did not content themselves during the summer of 1882 by merely holding suffrage meetings proper, and addressing political bodies, but they sought every opportunity to reach the ears of the people for whatever purpose convened. The Equal Suffrage Society received from the managers of the Acton camp-meeting a place on their programme; accordingly Mrs. Haggart and Mrs. Gougar, as delegates, addressed immense audiences. Both of these ladies labored indefatigably, discussing the question of submission of the amendments before Sunday-school conventions, teachers' associations, agricultural fairs, picnics and assemblies of every name. Others rendered less conspicuous, but not less earnest or constant service; and when the political campaign proper opened, it was evident that every candidate would firmly and unreservedly answer the challenge: "Submission, or non-submission?" For the first time in the history of Indiana, women were employed by party managers to address political meetings and advocate the election of candidates. Mrs. Gougar addressed Republican rallies at various points; she and Mrs. Haggart together made a canvass of Tippecanoe county on behalf of the Republican candidate for representative in the General Assembly, Captain W. De Witt Wallace, who was committed not only to the submission of the amendments, but also to the advocacy of both woman suffrage and prohibition. The animosity of the liquor league was aroused, and this powerful association threw itself against submission. The result was the election of a legislature containing so large a Democratic majority that there was no ground for hoping that the amendments would be re-passed and sent to the voters of the State for final adoption or rejection.

Though the submission of the amendments was one of the chief issues in the campaign, many candidates who pledged themselves on the ground that they involved questions which it was the privilege of the voters to decide, reserved their own opinions upon their merits. There were, however, candidates who openly espoused woman suffrage per se Knowing that a majority of the members of the General Assembly were pledged to vote down the pending amendments, the friends tacitly agreed to maintain a dignified silence toward that body concerning them. The Suffrage Society at the capital, however, appointed a committee to watch the in