January 15, 1915 —  Rotary Club luncheon, St. Anthony Hotel, San Antonio TX

You already know the justice side of a suffrage speech — that women have as much right to a voice in the Government of the people by the people and for the people as the men, because whatever one may say, women are people.
 
When it comes to simple justice, that is my suffrage speech, and I am through, but I bring a message from a great free State — no State is free in which women do not vote — and can tell why we got the vote in California.
 
[“She said that the negro and Indian had been given the right of franchise, but not women, and in California the Chinaman was allowed to vote, and the Southern Pacific Railroad allowed a small minority to cast ballots each election. Finally the people tired of it, elected their choice for Governor and suffrage scored a great victory.”]
 
California women have been criticised because they did not vote the State dry. We did not do so because California is a grape growing State and prohibition would have ruined the hundreds of farmers who have come to the State to grow grapes. We decided we would be human first and reformers afterward, and so did not vote the State dry. Every State has that problem to settle for itself.

Source: Austin American, January 15, 1915, p. 3.