on on
the editorial staff of the _Daily Oregonian_.

In the autumn of 1876 I was absent at the Centennial Exposition,
whither I had gone in the summer in response to an invitation
from the National Woman Suffrage Association to "Come over into
Macedonia and help." The work for equal rights made favorable
headway in the legislature of Oregon that year through the
influence of a convention held at Salem under the able leadership
of Mrs. H. A. Loughary and Dr. Mary A. Thompson.

In June, 1878, a convention met in Walla Walla, Washington
territory, for the purpose of forming a constitution for the
proposed new State of Washington, and in compliance with the
invitation of many prominent women of the territory I visited the
convention and was permitted to present a memorial in person,
praying that the word "male" be omitted from the fundamental law
of the incubating State. But my plea (like that of Abigail Adams
a century before) failed of success, through a close vote
however--it stood 8 to 7--and men went on as before, saying, as
they did in the beginning: "Women do not wish to vote. If they
desire the ballot let them ask for it." In September of that year
I was again at my post in the Oregon legislature circulating the
_New Northwest_ among the law-makers, and doing what else I could
to keep the cause before them in a manner to enlist their
confidence and command their respect. An opportunity was given me
at this session to make an extended argument upon constitutional
liberty before a joint convention of the two Houses, which
occupied an hour in delivery and was accorded profound attention.
I was much opposed to the growing desire of the legislature to
shirk its responsibility upon the voters at large by submitting a
proposed constitutional amendment to them when the constitution
nowhere prohibits women from voting, and I labored to show that
all we need is a declaratory act extending to us the franchise
under the existing fundamental law. Dr. Mary A. Thompson followed
in a brief speech and was courteously received. The Married
Woman's Property bill, passed in 1874, received some necessary
amendments at this session, and an act entitling women to vote
upon school questions and making them eligible to school offices,
was passed by a triump