Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/254

 and May, on account of the almost impossible condition of the roads, and June with its heavy rains, there was left but little more than three months for active work. Early in the campaign our country entered the World War, and the whole thought and attention of the people were given to securing support for the Liberty Bonds, Red Cross, Navy League and other patriotic and preparedness work. This greatly handicapped us in the raising of finances and the creating of organization, the two foundations upon which the structure of a successful campaign must be built, and the two things which more than anything else the State of Maine needed, so far as the amendment was concerned."

A campaign committee was formed from members of organizations in the State in favor of suffrage, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Federation of Women's Clubs, Men's Suffrage League, Civic League, Referendum League, the Grange and the State Suffrage Association, and headquarters were established in Bangor. There were only fourteen suffrage societies in the State, not all active. Eleven of the sixteen counties had an organizer in charge for the last six weeks and 269 local committees were formed in the different towns but many of them were ineffectual, as they were made up of untrained women and the time was too short to train them. The argument for suffrage, however, was put before the voters very thoroughly. One hundred thousand were circularized with the convincing speeches of U. S. Senator Shafroth of Colorado and later with a leaflet Have You Heard the News? which carried the strong appeal of the suffrage gains over the entire world. House to house distribution of 'fliers' was made in many communities. Altogether 1,500,000 leaflets were distributed, ten to every voter in the State. In hundreds of towns there was absolute ignorance on the subject. The clergy were circularized three times—over a thousand of them—the State Grange twice, committees of the political parties and members of the Legislature twice.

As soon as a committee was organized petition blanks were sent to it and in this short space of time the names of over 38,000 women of voting age asking for the suffrage were obtained, nearly all by volunteer canvassers. The names from each county were sent to the voters from that county and 100,000