News Articles

MEN ALIGN FOR WOMEN

EQUAL SUFFRAGE CLUB TO BE FORMED FRIDAY

Object Is to Enlist Electors to Help Cause and Form State Body. Labor’s O.K. Sought.

An organization to be known as the Men’s Equal Suffrage Club of Multnomah County will be launched at another public meeting to be held in the interest of equal suffrage in the assembly-room at the Commercial Club Friday night. This was decided yesterday at a meeting of the committee on ways and means of organizing, selected at the public meeting last week. This committee consists of C.B. Merrick, Will H. Daly, Alex Sweek, C.W. Fulton and Dan J. Malarkey.
It was decided that the officers of the club are to consist of a president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, and three directors, all seven to compose the executive committee. No dues, assessments or membership fees are to be demanded. The club will be supported by voluntary contributions. Membership cards will be printed and an effort made to induce all men who are in sympathy with the equal suffrage movement to ally themselves with the organization.
When this club is in good running order it is proposed to have it take the initiative in calling delegates from all parts of the state to meet in Portland and perfect a state-wide organization. The plan is to have the county clubs operate as auxiliaries to the organization embracing all parts of the state.
W.M. Davis, father of the latest movement in favor of allowing women the ballot, and Mrs. Abigal Scott Duniway, the equal suffrage pioneer, have been invited to appear before the delegates attending the convention of the State Federation of Labor at The Dalles next Monday. They have arranged to go and expect to get the indorsement of organized labor for equal suffrage.

EQUAL RIGHTS INDORSED
W. C. T. U. BEHIND MOVEMENT TO GIVE WOMEN BALLOT.
Plans to Entertain Delegates to National Convention This Year Discussed at Institute.

“The hand that rocks the cradle should mark the ballot,” was the slogan at the institute held yesterday in the Woodstock Methodist Church by the County Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Addresses were delivered on the movement to give women in Oregon equal suffrage.
The speakers pointed out that men who have opposed giving women the ballot are falling in line for the movement. The franchise movement and the coming National convention for Portland this year divided the attention of the institute. It was the unanimous sentiment of the institute that no effort should be spared to make the convention the best in the history of the organization, and every union represented pledged its utmost efforts to make it so.
Mrs. Ada W. Unruh, state president, announced that the White Temple had been secured for the National convention. Mrs. Unruh told about the National convention held in Milwaukee last year, and outlined what may be expected in Portland this year. She said that the Multnomah County unions are to take care of and entertain the delegates to the convention. She made an appeal for loyal and self-sacrificing work on the part of every member in the county and state. She declared that the convention will be a revelation to the Northwest and will show what the Women’s Christian Temperance Union is doing for the Nation.
“Franchise” was the subject of an address by Mrs. Georgia Trimble. In the suffrage movement Mrs. Mary Mallet, county president, announced that she had recalled the appointment of the county suffrage committee and had placed the campaign in the hands of Mrs. Trimble, with the assistance of the suffrage committees from each union of the county. Mrs. Mallet announced that addresses will be given in the suffrage campaign and meetings held under the auspices of the County Women’s Christian Union, as it is the pioneer of the movement. Mrs. Unruh spoke on the subject and declared that the outlook for success of suffrage in Oregon had never been more promising, and pointed out that many prominent men who had heretofore opposed giving women the ballot now favor it.
“The hand that rocks the cradle should also be the hand to mark the ballot,” said Mrs. E. R. Martin, formerly superintendent of suffrage of South Dakota, in her talk on the subject. Mrs. Martin pointed out that there was work to be done among women who are opposed to the franchise movement. Several other addresses were made.
The question “Should the ballot be given the women of Oregon?” was debated and decided in the affirmative last night. Mrs. Unruh completely routed Mrs. Helen Harford and Mrs. Alice Hanson, who spoke for the negative, and they admitted at the end of the debates that they were themselves soundly converted to the affirmative.

MEN MEET TO URGE WOMAN SUFFRAGE

Campaign Inaugurated to Get Electors to Support Vote for Women.

PROMINENT MEN SPEAK

First Meeting of Kind Ever Held in United States Is Marked by Addresses by Men in Many Different Professions.

“This is the first meeting of its kind that has ever been held in this country,” said Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway at the opening of the meeting for men favoring woman suffrage at the Commercial Club convention hall last night. “We are inaugurating a movement that I hope will spread throughout the United States—the organization of men, who have a vote, for the systematic work to secure a vote for women, who do not have it.”
W.M. Davis was introduced by Mrs. Duniway as the originator of the movement, and presided over the meeting, with Eugene Brookings acting as temporary secretary. Mr. Davis outlined the purpose for which he had called the meeting, saying that he purposed to organize with the assistance of other Portland citizens who favor woman suffrage, what might become the nucleus for clubs of men throughout the state to work actively for the passage of the woman suffrage amendment at the next election.
Many Professions Represented.
Members of the bar, judges, delegates from labor organizations and from the branches of the Socialist party in Portland took part in the discussion. Mrs. Duniway and Mrs. Sarah E. Commerford, of the Washington Suffrage Association, were the only women who gave addresses, although about 75 women were present. About the same number of men attended.
So long was the list of speakers that Mr. Davis announced about the middle of the session that he would postpone the actual work of organization until next week and would devote the remainder of the evening to discussion. C.B. Merrick, however, objected to this and his motion was carried to have a committee of five immediately appointed to draw up by-laws and constitution to report at a meeting next week.
In the appointment of his committee Mr. Davis named the following: C.B. Merrick, chairman; Eugene Smith, of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; F.C. Ramp, of branch 1 of the Socialist party; Dan J. Malarkey and C.W. Fulton. Mr. Ramp and Mr. Smith declined the appointment and in their place were named William Daly, president of the State Federation of Labor, and Alex Sweek.
Those who spoke were J.C. Mullen, C.W. Fulton, Dan J. Malarkey, D. Solls Cohon, F.C. Earp, representing the Socialist party; John Morganthaler, of Seattle, representing the labor organizations of that city; Judge C.U. Gantenbeln, E.E. Smith, vice-president of the Electric Workers’ Brotherhood; Judge T.J. Cleeton, M. Murdock, Rev. Albert Ehrgott, C.B. Merrick and Julius Kniespel, organizer for the German Socialists of Portland, and E.W. Carter, of Ashland. W.S. U’Ren, F.W. Mulkey and Judge Gatena were on the programme, but were unable to attend.
Campaign to Be Made.
After the close of the meeting the following men signed the lists for membership in the new organization for a men’s campaign in support of woman suffrage: W.M. Davis, C.A. Jordan, Eugene Brookings, Alex Sweek, P.H. Sherman, P.C. Nealand, Drewey Whinton, P.A. Trullinger, R.W. Trullinger, W.G. Courter, C.B. Merrick, J.D. Stevens, W.G. MacLaren, T.K. Ruddy, J.G. Arnold, W.C. Schnitt, D.C. Callicrate, R.N. Covantry, Paul Turner, Albert Ehrgott, F.M. Dempsey, W.C. Johnson, J.S. Lauer, W.J. Smith, Julius Kniespel, N.R. Landis, N.H. Bird, A.C. Black, W.H. Graves, E.E. Smith, E.W. Carter, of Ashland, and Wilbur Henderson.
Mr. Davis was assisted in calling and conducting the meeting by W.G. Henderson and I.B. Thompson, attorneys of Portland.

April 2010 This Month in Oregon Woman Suffrage History

“Conference on Suffrage: One Hundred Women Are Expected to Attend Sessions,” Oregonian, April 3, 1906, 14.

Oregon suffragists prepared for the June 1906 election that would bring the question of votes for women to the ballot after the resounding send-off given to the campaign at the 1905 National American Woman Suffrage Association meeting at the Lewis and Clark Exposition in the summer of 1905.

On April 4, 1906, suffrage supporters from around the state gathered to network and gain momentum for the final months of the 1906 campaign and to greet national leaders, including National American Woman Suffrage Association president Anna Howard Shaw. The day-long conference, held in Portland, brought major players in Oregon woman suffrage, labor, and reform groups from a variety of professions and occupations.

The afternoon session included talks by Mary A. Thompson, M.D. on “The Qualifications of Voters,” “Woman and the Municipality,” by Grace Watt Ross, president of the Portland Woman’s Club, and “The Welfare of the Child,” by Millie Trumbull.

At the evening session Abigail Scott Duniway addressed the group on “Marching on to Victory,” and Sarah A. Evans, president of the Oregon State Federation of Women’s Clubs, spoke on the “Advantage of the Ballot to the Clubwoman,” Eva Emery Dye on “Oregon’s Debt to Women,” and Luema G. Johnson of the Union Label League and the State Federation of Labor on “The Wage-Earner.” This session also included remarks by Clara Waldo of the Oregon Grange on “The Influence of the Woman on the Farm,” and Esther Pohl, M.D. on “The Debt of the Professional Woman to the Pioneer Suffragists.”

Organizers hoped to bring together suffrage supporters from many parts of the state and representing different organizations and groups of women to enhance their appeal for votes for women that June.