facilitate their efforts. The liberality of the press, too, aided
vastly in moulding public sentiment in favor of the cause. About
the earliest work done in that city was in June, 1870, when
Hannah Tracy Cutler and Amelia Bloomer (immediately on returning
from the formation of the State Society at Mt. Pleasant) held two
meetings there--one in the open air on the grounds where the new
capitol now stands, on the question of temperance, Sunday
afternoon, presided over by Governor Merrill; the other in the
Baptist Church, on woman suffrage, the following evening, Mrs.
Annie C. Savery presiding.

The Polk County Woman Suffrage Society was formed October 25, and
has never failed to hold its meetings regularly each month since
that time. Every congress and every legislature have been
appealed to by petitions signed by thousands of the best
citizens, and it is on record that the senators and
representatives of Polk county, with one exception,[397] have
always voted in favor of submitting the question of woman's
enfranchisement to the electors of the State. When men are talked
of for legislative honors they are interviewed by a committee
from the society, and pledges secured that they will vote "aye"
on any woman suffrage bill that may come before them.

This society has from time to time engaged the services of
prominent lecturers,[398] and nearly all of the ministers and
lawyers of the city have given addresses in favor of the cause.
Only one minister has openly and bitterly opposed the measure,
and his sermon on the "Subordination of Woman," published in the
_Register_, called out spirited replies from Mrs. Savery and Mrs.
Bloomer in the same journal, which completely demolished the
flimsy fancies of the gentleman.

About 1874 Mrs. Maria Orwig edited a column in the _Record_, and
Mary A. Work a column in the _Republican_. Since 1880, Mesdames
Hunter, Orwig, Woods and Work have filled two columns in _The
Prohibitionist_, of which Laura A. Berry is one of the editors.
Mrs. M. J. Coggeshall has for several years served the society as
reporter for the _Register_, proving herself a very ready and
interesting writer. All of these ladies are efficient and
untiring in whatever pertains to woman's interest.[399] The
_Register_ says:

Th