Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/350

 318 HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE

over the Golden State. There that star of hope and progress and freedom hung for more than sixty years, until Oct. 10, 1911, when it flamed forth with a wondrous brilliancy and started all the bells of heaven ringing." He predicted that Oregon, Arizona and Nevada would soon follow the example of California and said: "Then the star will cross the Rocky Mountains and in will come the States of the Middle West!' Continuing the story the speaker said:

In January, 1910, the last meeting of the last suffrage society in Southern California was held in the parlor of the Angeles Hotel in the city of Los Angeles. The women were discouraged and dispirited. JI rode home alone in my car, my heart weeping and praying a prayer ten miles long, that being the distance to my home in Pasadena. That night I had a vision. I saw in panorama a future glory of my beloved State. I saw well-kept cities and churches filled with devout worshippers; I saw thousands of bright-faced, happy children going to clean schoolhouses and romping and laughing in their playgrounds. I saw, oh, so many sweet and happy homes! I saw no saloons, no drunken men, no places of vice. I saw men and women, husbands and wives, going up to the ballot booths, laughing and chatting as they went and placing their ballots in the boxes. Everything seemed beautiful. The vision passed and I said to myself, "There it is—the women of California will have the ballot and the blessings and glory will follow."

Now we come to the beginning of the movement that has had much to do in the enfranchisement of the women of California. I trust you will entirely lose sight of the speaker and see only the great cause away out in the West. A man sat in his room one night with pencil and paper before him. He began to write names of big men who ought to take an interest in the pending suffrage campaign. He wrote down about one hundred names and the next day started out alone to see them. Then followed two months of patient, personal work and about seventy good men and true had signed the league membership form, which read as follows: "The undersigned hereby associate themselves together under the name and style of the Political Equality League of California for the purpose of securing political equality and suffrage without distinction on account of sex." On April 5, 1910, they met around a banquet table and organized the league. Then followed earnest, enthusiastic, impromptu speaking by many of the members

Mr. Braly told of going to Washington to the national convention, visiting suffrage headquarters in New York and returning home in June, when "immediately the league's Board of Governors, consisting of nine men, met and proceeded to add to it