r
the city was before the public. Miss Gordon and the suffrage association
known as the Era Club entered enthusiastically into the fight for
good drainage. According to the law women could vote by proxy if they
preferred, instead of in person, so Miss Gordon drove to the homes of
the old conservative Creole families and other families whose women
were unwilling to vote in public, and she collected their proxies while
incidentally she showed them what position they held under the law.

With each proxy it was necessary to have the signature of a witness, but
according to the Louisiana law no woman could witness a legal document.
Miss Gordon was driven from place to place by her colored coachman, and
after she had secured the proxy of her temporary hostess it was usually
discovered that there was no man around the place to act as a witness.
This was Miss Gordon's opportunity. With a smile of great sweetness she
would say, "I will have Sam come in and help us out"; and the colored
coachman would get down from his box, and by scrawling his signature on
the proxy of the aristocratic lady he would give it the legal value it
lacked. In this way Miss Gordon secured three hundred proxies, and three
hundred very conservative women had an opportunity to compare their
legal standing with Sam's. The drainage bill was carried and interest in
woman suffrage developed steadily.

The special incident of the Buffalo convention of 1908 was the receipt
of a note which was passed up to me as I sat on the platform. When I
opened it a check dropped out--a check so large that I was sure it had
been sent by mistake. However, after asking one or two friends on the
platform if I had read it correctly, I announced to the audience that if
a certain amount were subscribed immediately I would reveal a secret--a
very interesting secret. Audiences are as curious as individuals. The
amount was at once subscribed. Then I held up a check for $10,000, given
for our campaign work by Mrs. George Howard Lewis, in memory of Susan B.
Anthony, and I read to the audience the charming letter that accompanied
it. The money was used during the campaigns of the following year--part
of it in Washington, where an amendment was already submitted.

In a previous chapter I have described the establishment of our New York
headquarters as a result of the generous offer of Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont
at the Seattle convention in 1909. During our first year in these
beautiful Fift