included at least twelve bills which they proposed to have enacted into law in one session.[1] Without any friends at court it was with considerable relief that they followed advice to put them all in the hands of an influential lobbyist. Reform bills were not in his line and the session was drawing to a close with nothing done when the Gordon sisters cast precedent and propriety to the winds, telegraphed to the Senator from their district for an audience, boarded a morning train for Baton Rouge and descended upon the Capitol. Article 210 of the State constitution adopted in 1898 made women ineligible to serve in any official capacity., One of the first acts of the Era Club had been to try to have it amended so as to allow the appointment of a woman to fill a vacancy on the School Board. The surprised Senator met them on their arrival, learned the object of their visit and they will never know whether sympathy, amusement or curiosity actuated the Committee on Judiciary to whom he appealed for a hearing, but a few minutes after their arrival they were pleading their cause before its members. They then called on Governor Newton Blanchard, who offered to have Article 210 amended to enable the appointment of a factory inspector, but in their zeal for the larger object they declined.
1906. Wiser by two years' experience, the Legislative Committee was glad to accept Lieutenant Governor Jared Y. Sanders's offer of an amendment for the above purpose, and Miss Jean Gordon was appointed factory inspector for the city of New Orleans. It was not long before she realized that the Child Labor law, under which she must operate, was not worth the paper on which it was written. She then studied the child labor laws of every State and selected what was best suited to southern conditions, and put it into form for submission.
1908. The legislative program was limited to the attempt to amend Article 210, pass a School suffrage bill and the Child Labor bill. The School suffrage bill, under the skillful management of Senator R. E. Gueydan, assisted by Senators Albert Estinopal and James Brady and Lieutenant Governor Thos. C.
- ↑ Among those specially identified with legislative work were Mrs. Celeste Claiborne Carruth, Mrs. McBride, Mrs. Hackenjos, Mrs, Fred W. Price, Mrs. Wooten, Mrs. Wallace Sylvester, Mrs. George Wesley Smith, Mrs. Lawless.
