Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/63

 For several hours the speakers held forth to an audience changing every half hour. Mr. Elliott presided and the speakers were F. G. Athearn of the Southern Pacific R. R.; Dr. Aked, Mr. Wilson, R. C. Van Fleet, Miss Todd and A. L. Sapiro. Then came the climax to the campaign when Mrs. Ernestine Black stepped forward and announced that Mme. Lilian Nordica would speak for woman suffrage and sing in Union Square that evening!

The great prima donna had come to San Francisco to sing at the ground-breaking for the Panama Exposition and in an ever-generous spirit agreed to give her matchless services to the cause in which she was deeply interested. The crowds were packed for blocks in every direction and suffrage speakers were addressing them from automobiles when Madame Nordica stood up in masses of flowers in Union Square opposite the St. Francis Hotel and very simply made her plea for the enfranchisement of California women. Then her glorious voice rang out to the very edges of the throng in the stirring notes of the Star Spangled Banner. The campaign was over.

The amendment went to the voters Oct. 10, 1911. It was most important to watch the vote in San Francisco and Oakland, as their expected adverse vote would have to be counteracted by the rest of the State if the suffrage amendment carried. Odakland was put in charge of Mrs. Coolidge, who had a corps of efficient helpers in the members of the Amendment League, composed of old residents of Oakland, who had been engaged for many years in church, temperance and other social work, among them Mrs. Sarah C. Borland, Mrs. Agnes Ray, Mrs. A. A. Dennison, Mrs. Emma Shirtzer, Mrs. Jean Kellogg, Mrs. F. M. Murray and Mrs. IF. Harlan. Of these league members 240 stood at the polls twelve hours, not half enough of them but they were treated with the greatest respect and undoubtedly they helped reduce the adverse majority. This work was paralleled in Berkeley, Alameda and other places around the bay.

Four weeks before election two representatives of each of the nine suffrage associations of San Francisco met and placed in the capable hands of Miss Laughlin the difficult task of looking