“Novel League Forms Part 1,”Oregonian, October 23, 1912, 20.
-Transcription
NOVEL LEAGUE FORMS
EVERYBODY’S ORGANIZATION IS POPULAR IN OREGON
Although It Has Been in Existence Less Than Three Weeks Membership Now is 530
Free from all cliques and class distinctions and open to all within less than three weeks, the Everybody’s Equal Suffrage League has grown in membership until now there are more than 530 members, with new ones coming in at the rate of 25 to 50 a day. Such was the report of the three organizers of the league who met in company with other vice-presidents yesterday in the Rothchild building.
The popularity this league seems to be showing by some of the answers that keep coming in to the president and actual originator of the idea, Dr. Esther Pohl Lovejoy.
Dr. Lovejoy in the course of her work for suffrage had found many persons who she felt sure wished to join some league or other, but were frightened from doing so by the thought that it cost a large amount of money, comparatively speaking, to subscribe to this league or that.
“Not that such is the case at all,” she said, “because none of the suffrage societies are endowed or have any large subscriptions, but still there are working women to whom a dime is as much as they can afford. There are girls who wanted to join some organization, but a girl, as one of them said, ‘can’t be expected to give a subscription of so many dollars a month.’”
And so Dr. Lovejoy “got busy,” and when Dr. Anna Shaw was here, she sprang the league upon the public at a luncheon and afterward at a public meeting, with the object of getting it known.
From that day it has been entirely self supporting, it has paid the cost of sending an organizer to Salem and to Beaverton, it has sent persons out in the city, and for everything it has bought, cash has been paid. That is what the organizers are so proud of, with the little at their disposal.
The organizers are Dr. Lovejoy, Mrs. Chapin and Miss Helen Gillespie.
The league’s members scorn any rules and regulations. There is no precedent to follow as this league is the first of its kind in the United States, they aver, and no one has been found to contradict this statement. Wherever any vice-presidents meet, they hold a meeting. They even met the other day in a wine shop. No one takes the chair, no one stops anyone else from speaking and no one is anxious to have all the say in the matter. Their one aim is to work to obtain the passage of the suffrage amendment.
One of the first things done was to obtain all the coin cards in Portland, and to send them broadcast over the state. Having exhausted the local supply they were obliged to go to Seattle where they obtained every coin card in the city that could be bought. With these Portland was still further enlightened as to the league, with the result that within almost two weeks of the time from which they started sending out the coins more than 500 members have been obtained.
Two resolutions were passed at the league’s meeting yesterday, one to the effect that if suffrage carried the league would change to an Everybody’s Civic League with the object of studying politics and civil government, so as to make its members efficient and able to vote intelligently. The other resolution provides for the case of defeat. Then the league will be organized permanently and will continue until the fight is won, after which it will then be formed into the civic league.
The idea of sending slides on suffrage to theatres and picture shows originated with this league, whose members got the slides and [sic] alreay have made arrangements whereby some theaters will show their films.