“Laborers Harken to Suffrage Plea,”Oregonian, August 16, 1912, 10.
-Transcription
LABORERS HARKEN TO SUFFRAGE PLEA
Foundry Workers, Lumber-Yard Men, Pile Drivers First to Hear Women Orators.
SUNDAY MEETING PLANNED
Mass Gathering for Council Crest Is Arranged at Which Miss Birdie Wise and Dr. C. H. Chapman Will Make Appeals.
Stimulated by the success of the recent mass meeting of men and women out at the Oaks amusement park, the energetic suffragists, headed by Helen La Reine Baker, have made arrangements for a meeting to be held at Council Crest Sunday, August 25, at 4 P. M. Portland people that day will have the opportunity of hearing an address by an entirely new suffrage speaker, Miss Birdie Wise, of Astoria, who recently won first prize for oration at the University of Oregon. Dr. C. H. Chapman will be the other speaker of the day.
Manager Duchamp, when interviewed by Mrs. Baker, most cordially offered to turn over the entire grounds to the suffragists any day upon which they liked to fix provided he was given reasonable notice.
He also offered to do anything in his power to lend to the success of the meeting, even to building a rostrum for them from which the speeches could be made.
Foundry Workers Addressed.
As before, all the societies working to secure for women the right to vote have been asked to participate to make the meeting a success. Suffrage literature will be distributed along with buttons, banners and tags, while the committee is working to arrange some new and attractive details in addition to a programme of music.
Prior to his speech Sunday at Council Crest Dr. Chapman will leave with Miss Emma Wold, president of the College Equal Suffrage League, on Saturday at 2 P. M., for Astoria, there to address a meeting to be held in the evening.
Yesterday at the luncheon hour the workers at Smith & Watson foundry, at the foot of Harrison street, heard an address from Miss Ethel E. Griffith. Many of them came up at the conclusion of the meeting to express their entire sympathy with the movement.
Lumber Pile in Rostrum.
If the weather is propitious today Mrs. Baker will address the men in the Portland Lumber Mill at the foot of Lincoln street. She will talk to them from the top of a pile of lumber and for that reason will postpone her visit if the day turns out wet.
“You can hardly expect me to stand out there on a slippery log, you know, because I might become so interested in my work as to forget where I was standing and come a cropper. Besides men don’t want to listen to a speech in the rain even if it is on such an entrancing subject as suffrage,” smilingly remarked the gifted novelist.
Plans to reach every spot in every county in Oregon are under way by the committee of the College Equal Suffrage League, under the chairmanship of Mrs. J. E. Gratke, who has outlined an itinerary for Mrs. Sara Ehrgott in Marion County. The latter last night spoke to the piledrivers of the Southern Pacific by whom she was well received.