t for the suffrage and relieving the financial
stringency which had constantly limited the activities of the
organized work. The opening of large national headquarters in New
York, the great news center of the country, in 1909, marked a distinct
advance in the movement which was immediately apparent throughout the
country. The friendly attitude of the metropolitan papers extended to
the press at large. Following the example of England, parades and
processions and various picturesque features were introduced in New
York and other large cities which gave the syndicates and motion
pictures material and interested the public. Woman suffrage became a
topic of general discussion and women flocked into the suffrage
organizations.

Politicians took notice but they remained cold. This political
question had not yet entered politics. The leaders of the National
Suffrage Association strengthened its lines and established its
outposts in every State, but they still made their appeals to
unyielding committees of Congress. The Republican "machine" was in
absolute control and woman suffrage had long been under its wheels
with other reform measures. Then came in 1909-10 the "insurgency" in
its own ranks led by members from the western States, and in those
States the voters repudiated the railroad and lumber and other
corporate interests and instituted a new regime. One of its first acts
was the submission of a woman suffrage amendment in the State of
Washington and with a free election and a fair count it was carried in
every county and received a majority of more than two to one. The
revolt extended to California, whose Legislature sent an amendment to
the voters in 1911 after having persistently refused to do so for the
past 15 years, and here again there was victory at the polls. With the
gaining of this old and influential State the extension of the
movement to the Mississippi was assured.

The insurgency in the Republican party resulted in a division at the
national convention in 1912 and the forming of the Progressive party
headed by Theodore Roosevelt. The Resolutions Committee of the regular
party gave the suffragists seven minutes to present their claims and
ignored them. The new party needed a fresh, live issue and found it in
woman suffrage, which was made a plank in its platform. The leaders of
the National Suffrage Association were required by its constitution to
remain non-partisan and with one exception did so, but tho