Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/832

Rh professions took an active part in the deliberations. But of the multitude who met in that first woman suffrage convention on the Pacific coast but few were prominent in after years.

The newly organized society immediately arranged to send a delegation to Sacramento, to present to the legislature then in session a petition for woman suffrage. The delegation consisted of Laura DeForce Gordon, Caroline H. Spear and Laura Cuppy Smith, who were accorded a hearing before a special committee of the Senate, of which the venerable Judge Tweed, an able advocate of woman suffrage, was chairman. The proceeding was without a parallel in the history of the State. The novelty of women addressing the legislature attracted universal attention, and the newspapers were filled with reports of that important meeting.

During the year 1870 a general agitation was kept up. A number of speakers held meetings in various parts of the State. The newspapers were constrained to notice this all-absorbing topic, though most of them were opposed to the innovation, and maintained a bitter war against its advocates. Prominent among them was the sensational San Francisco Chronicle followed by the Bulletin, the Call, and in its usual negative style, the Alta, while the Examiner mildly ridiculed the subject, and a score of lesser journalistic lights throughout the State exhibited open hostility to woman suffrage, or simply mentioned the fact of its agitation as a matter of news. But the brave pioneers in this unpopular movement received kindly sympathy and encouragement from some journals of influence, first among which was the San Francisco Post, then under the management of that popular journalist, Harry George, afterwards distinguished as the author of "Progress and Poverty." The San José Mercury was our friend from the first, and its fearless and able editor, J. J. Owen, accepted the office of president of the State woman suffrage society to which he was elected in 1878. The Sacramento Bee also did valiant service in defending and advocating woman's political equality, its veteran editor, James McClatchy, being a man of liberal views and great breadth of thought, whose powerful pen was wielded in advocacy of justice to all until his death, which occurred in October, 1883. There were several county journals that spoke kind words in our behalf, and occasionally one under the editorial management of a woman would fearlessly advocate political equality.

During the year of 1870, Mrs. Gordon traveled extensively over the State, delivering more than one hundred lectures, beside making an extended tour, in company with Mrs. Pitts Stevens, through Nevada, where on the Fourth of July, at a convention held at Battle Mountain, the first suffrage organization for that State was effected. In February, 1871, Mrs. Gordon again lectured in Nevada, remaining several weeks in Carson while the legislature was in session. She was invited by that body to address them upon the proposed amendment to the State constitution to allow women to vote, which amendment was lost by a majority of only