Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/964

 Duniway, the honorary president, was made acting president, that officer having left the State; Mrs. H. A. Laughary, honorary president; Dr. Annice F. Jeffreys, vice-president-at-large; Ada Cornish Hertsche, vice-president; Frances E. Gotshall, corresponding secretary; Mary Schaffer Ward, recording secretary; Mrs. A. E. Hackett, assistant secretary; Jennie C. Pritchard, treasurer. These State officers were re-elected without change until November, 1898, when Mrs. W. H. Games was chosen recording secretary and Mrs. H. W. Coe, treasurer. In 1899, and again in 1900, Mrs. Eunice Pond Athey, formerly of Idaho, became assistant secretary.

The year 1896 was a period of continuous effort on the part of the State officers to disseminate suffrage sentiment in more or less indirect ways, so that other organizations of whatever name or nature might look upon the proposed amendment with favor. Early in this year the executive committee decided to organize a Woman's Congress and secure the affiliation of all branches of women's patriotic, philanthropic and literary work, to be managed by the suffrage association. It was resolved also t obtain if possible the attendance of Miss Susan B. Anthony, president of the National Association, who was at that time in the midst of the amendment campaign in California.

Never has there been a more successful public function in Oregon than this Congress of Women, which was held the first week in June, 1896, with Miss Anthony as its bright particular star. The love of the people for the great leader was universally expressed, socially as well as publicly. The speakers represented all lines of woman's work—education, art, science, medicine, sanitation, literature, the duties of motherhood, philanthropy, reform—but sectarian and political questions were excluded. It was most interesting to note the clever manner in which almost all the speakers sandwiched their speeches and papers with suffrage sentiments, and also the hearty applause which followed every allusion to the proposed amendment from the audiences that packed the spacious Taylor Street Church to overflowing."