any one to demand a count." Afterwards the Illinois members recommended Mrs. Trout as an honorary member of the General Federation and she was unanimously elected.
By an interesting coincidence the day the suffrage resolution was passed by the Biennial the State Supreme Court pronounced the Suffrage Law constitutional. A banquet had already been planned by the State association for that evening to be held in the Gold Room of the Congress Hotel in honor of the General Federation, and it proved to be a memorable occasion. Over a thousand women were present and nearly as many more could not find room. Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, Miss Mary Garrett Hay and other well known suffragists, as well as the officers of the Federation, made speeches.
All these events changed public sentiment in regard to the woman suffrage question. As Congress was in session this summer its members were unable to fill their Chautauqua lecture dates, and Mrs. Trout was asked to make suffrage speeches at fifty Chautauquas in nine States, filling dates for a Democrat, the Hon. Champ Clark, and for a Republican, United States Senator Robert LaFollette, and for William Jennings Bryan.
The State convention was held in Chicago in 1914 and Mrs. Trout was again re-elected president. During this year the Chicago Equal Suffrage Association did excellent educational work by establishing classes in citizenship in the Woman's City Club and by publishing catechisms for women voters in seven different languages.
At the annual convention held in Peoria in 1915 Mrs. Trout positively refused to stand again for president and Mrs. Adella Maxwell Brown of Peoria was elected. Four State conferences were held during the year and Mrs. Brown represented the association at the National Suffrage Association at Washington in December; the Mississippi Valley Conference at Minneapolis the next May; the National Council of Women Voters at Cheyenne in July and the National Suffrage Association at Atlantic City in September} In June, 1916, the State association, assisted by those of Chicago, took charge of what became known as the "famous rainy day suffrage parade," held in that city while the National Republican convention was in session. Mrs. Brown
