Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/409

 tion; $500 from Mrs. Fels, $300 from Miss Eileen Canfield; also $250 from Mrs. W. O'H. Martin of Reno and many smaller sums from individuals and organizations.

With the assurance of an adequate fund, amounting to over $7,000 in all, the final "drive" for suffrage for Nevada women was begun after the State convention. Miss Vernon arrived, as promised, in April and at once made a trip around the State to strengthen the county and local organizations. At State headquarters in Reno Miss Martin kept in touch with the work in every section of the State, wrote suffrage leaflets and planned the final campaign. Its concrete object was to secure the endorsement of labor unions, women's clubs and political parties; to rouse as many women as possible to active work and to have at least one in charge of every voting precinct; to reach every voter in the State with literature and by a personal message through a house-to-house canvass, and to appeal to both men and women everywhere through press work and public meetings addressed by the best speakers in the country.

The 20,000 voters were scattered over the enormous area of 110,000 square miles. There was only one large town, Reno, with about 15,000 inhabitants, and three or four others with a population of a few thousands each; the rest of the people lived far apart in families or small groups, in mining camps on distant mountains and on remote ranches in the valleys. Nothing could prevent a heavy adverse vote in Reno and other towns where the saloons, with their annexes of gambling rooms, dance halls and "big business" generally, were powerful, so everything depended on reducing their unfavorable majority by building up the largest possible majorities in the mining camps and rural districts. "Every vote counts" was the slogan.

In July, 1914, Miss Martin and Miss Vernon started out on their final canvass of the State, "prospecting for votes" in the mines, going underground in the vast mountains by tunnel, ladder or in buckets lowered by windlass to talk to the miners who were "on shift" and could not attend the street or hall meetings. To reach less than 100 voters at Austin, the county seat of Lauder county, required a two days' journey over the desert, and many places were a several days' trip away from a rail-