Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/57

 headquarters, speakers supplied and literature sent. These did not include those arranged by local organizations in smaller towns nor the many street meetings which were held by every one who could command an automobile. The climax was in the largest theater in Los Angeles on the evening of September 30 when over 4,000 people listened to the best speakers of the campaign. In addition another thousand gathered in Choral Hall for an overflow meeting, while many hundreds were turned from the doors. It was the largest political demonstration in the history of Southern California.

The most important phase of the publicity work was that of the Press Committee, formed of active newspaper women. Miss Bess Munn was made secretary and her time was devoted exclusively to supplying material to the local press and the country newspapers. Double postals asking individuals their opinion of the suffrage movement were sent to the members of the Legislature; to city, county and State officials from San Diego to Siskiyou; to judges, lawyers, merchants, bankers, physicians and all prominent visitors within the gates of the city. Their answers were from time to time printed in the form of interviews. Letters went to club women in every town asking for cooperation in securing space for suffrage material in the local press. Personal letters were sent to all the editors informing them that a weekly suffrage letter would be sent to them from the headquarters of the league. This contained nothing but the shortest, pithiest items of suffrage activities and enclosed were the leaflets which were often printed in full. At the close of the campaign more than half of the papers of the State regularly used the letter either as news or as a basis for editorial comment. In Los Angeles alone more than 10,000 columns were printed on suffrage. In monetary value this amount of space would have cost $100,000. The last week before election a cut of the ballot showing the position of the suffrage amendment was sent to 150 newspapers of the South with a letter offering the editor $5 for its publication but many printed it without compensation....

The majorities from the country districts won the victory by counteracting the immense majority rolled up against the amendment in San Francisco and thus proved that the country residents are most satisfactorily reached by the country press.

The anti-suffragists made a more open fight in California than ever before. A month preceding election a Committee of Fifty was organized in Los Angeles composed of the reactionary elements, men representing "big business," corporation lawyers, a number connected with the Southern Pacific R.R., some socially prominent. The only one known nationally was former U. S. Senator Frank P. Flint. The president was a Southerner, George S. Patten, who wrote long articles using the arguments and objections employed in the very earliest days of the suffrage movement