templated my coming to Nebraska for the last ten days of the campaign, this was afterwards changed and I went back to Montana a second time, so my observations regarding Nebraska refer to Omaha alone. Here existed an almost unbelievable condition of opposition. The brewers had come openly into the field against us and the brewing interests are connected with many of the big financial ventures in that city. Bankers, merchants, tailors and other business men whose wives were in suffrage were brazenly warned that-the brewing deposits would be withdrawn from banks, that patronage would be taken away from merchants and tradespeople—even doctors were threatened with the loss of their clientele if their wives continued actively in the campaign. The result was a paralysis of action among many women who would naturally have been leaders and supporters of the work. Mrs. Draper Smith was doing all that was humanly possible under the circumstances to stem the tide of opposition, but money for publicity and organizing and many speakers seemed to be a necessity. Upon my report to Mrs. McCormick all extra aid possible was given.
My trip to South Dakota was interesting in the extreme. It and North Dakota are agricultural States, the cities are small and far apart, the villages are scattered over vast areas. By far the larger percentage of population dwells in the country on farms and ranches. The two Dakotas are almost pioneer States even now, but they present the highest degree of educational advantage and of general literacy perhaps in the whole United States. Their laws are generally good and for that reason there appears to be much apathy on the part of both men and women regarding suffrage. The States are prosperous and the people have not felt to any extent the pinch of wrong political conditions. The great problem was to reach the people and make them think, as when they think at all upon the subject they are apt to think right. I am convinced that whatever the vote against the suffrage amendment may have been in North Dakota it was the result of indifference and lack of special information and not to any extent real opposition.
I believed from what I could learn in South Dakota the liquor interests were making their last fight for State control and about the time I arrived Mrs. Pyle had ascertained that a large amount of money was being used to subsidize the State press, and simultaneously the literary efforts of the anti-suffragists, which have appeared throughout the press during the last year, came out in the leading papers, and anti-suffrage ladies at $100 a week and expenses appeared on the platform of the principal towns and cities. During my campaign there I spoke wherever possible out-of-doors, even though meetings were arranged for me in halls, courthouses and churches. I found that the small audiences which would assemble
in these places were made up of women and men already interested and that the uninstructed voter would only listen when you caught him on the street. I spent the week of the State fair at Huron with Mrs. Pyle and witnessed a wonderful demonstration of activity. As