Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/795

795 against the qualifications required of them, compared with those required of men.

It is safe to say, that from the middle of January, 1877, until the following October, the most prominent theme of public discussion was this question of suffrage for women. Miners discussed it around their camp-fires, and "freighters" on their long slow journeys over the mountain trails argued pro and con, whether they should "let" women have the ballot. Women themselves argued and studied and worked earnestly. One lawyer's wife, who declared that no refined woman would contend for such a right, and that no woman with self-respect would be found electioneering, herself urged every man of her acquaintance to vote against the measure, and even triumphantly reported that she had spoken to seventy-five men who were strangers to her, and secured their promise to vote against the pending amendment. This, however, must not be mistaken for electioneering.

On Wednesday, August 15, an equal rights mass-meeting was held in Denver, for the purpose of organizing a county central committee, and for an informal discussion of plans for the campaign. Judge H. P. H. Bromwell and H. C. Dillon spoke, with earnest repetition of former pledges of devotion to the cause, and Gov. Evans said:

Equal suffrage is necessary to equal rights. It is fortunate that we have in Colorado an opportunity of bringing to bear the restraining, purifying and ennobling influence of women upon politics. It is a reform that will require all the benign influences of the country to sustain and carry out, and, as I hope for the perpetuation of our free institutions, I dare not neglect the most promising and potent means of purifying politics, and I regard the influence of women as this means.

Major Bright of Wyoming, was introduced as the man who framed and brought in the first bill for the enfranchisement of women. Judge W. B. Mills said: "It is an anomalous condition of affairs which made it necessary for a woman to ask a man whether she should vote," and referring to all the reforms and changes of the last half century, predicted that the extension of the franchise to woman would be the next in order.

The meeting was a full and fervid one, and great confidence of success was felt and expressed. A committee of seventeen was appointed and this committee did its full duty in districting the territory and sending out speakers. Mr. Henry B. Blackwell, Lucy Stone and Miss Anthony arrived almost immediately after this, and henceforth the advocates of suffrage swarmed through the rocky highways and byways of Colorado as eagerly, if not as multitudinously, as its gold seekers. Mrs. Campbell wrote to the Woman's Journal:

We have now been at work two weeks. Some of our meetings are very encouraging, some not so much so. But the meetings are only one feature of the work. We stop along the way and search out all the leading men in each voting precinct, and secure the names of those who will work on election day. We do more talking out of meeting than in. We rode thirty-five miles yesterday, and arrived here after six o'clock in