cipal counties of the State of Oregon
derives its name.

My first experience in the capitol was particularly trying. I
spent two days among my acquaintances in Salem in a vain attempt
to find a woman who was ready or willing to accompany me to the
state-house. All were anxious that I should go, but each was
afraid to offend her husband, or make herself conspicuous, by
going herself. Finally, when I had despaired of securing company,
and had nerved myself to go alone, Mary P. Sawtelle, who
afterwards became a physician, and now resides in San Francisco
where she has a lucrative practice, volunteered to stand by me,
and together we entered the dominion hitherto considered sacred
to the aristocracy of sex, and took seats in the lobby, our
hearts beating audibly. Hon. Joseph Engle, perceiving the
innovation and knowing me personally, at once arose, and, after a
complimentary speech in which he was pleased to recognize my
position as a journalist, moved that I be invited to a seat
within the bar and provided with table and stationery as were
other members of the profession. The motion carried, with only
two or three dissenting votes; and the way was open from that
time forward for women to compete with men on equal terms for all
minor positions in both branches of the legislature--a privilege
they have not been slow to avail themselves of, scores of them
thronging the capitol in these later years, and holding valuable
clerkships, many of them sneering the while at the efforts of
those who opened the way for them to be there at all.

Hon. Samuel Corwin introduced a woman suffrage bill in the House
of Representatives early in the session; and while it was
pending, I was invited to make an appeal in its behalf, of which
I remember very little, so frightened and astonished was I,
except that once I inadvertently alluded to a gentleman by his
name instead of his county, whereupon, being called to order, I
blushed and begged pardon, but put myself at ease by informing
the gentlemen that in all the bygone years while they had been
studying parliamentary rules, I had been rocking the cradle.

One member who had made a vehement speech against the bill, in
which he had declared that no respectable woman in his county
desired the elective franchise, b