How did they accomplish the next move?  That is one of the secrets.  Their money was gone, the silence of the press had crushed them with an overwhelming sense of helplessness, but nevertheless they turned the trick.  They reached the upper and middle class readers of the South Side District, Troy’s district, which the papers were determined to keep as much in ignorance as possible.  All one night, silent, swift-moving men whipped the paste across the billboards of that section and slapped on huge posters, so that when Papa Smith and young Mr. Jones and Banker Green came out of their comfortable houses next morning on their way to business, they neglected their papers to find out why they should “scratch E.J.  Troy.”

The day of the primaries was almost come.  Now to reach the dull fellows who hadn’t seen the cards and the huge posters, who use their eyes only to avoid obstacles.  One night, as the factory whistles blew the signal of dismissal, the men in the lines of operators who filed out of shop and mills found themselves mechanically taking and examining this ticket handed them by League girls, who had gone off their job a bit early and had their wages docked in order to work for the larger good.

The Committee of the Central Body was now openly active in their behalf.  Men as well as women were passing out the tickets.

Then came the eve of the election.  Busy pairs of girls who had already done ten hours’ work were going over E.J.  Troy’s district, with its sections of rich and poor and well-to-do.  Throbbing feet that had carried the body’s weight ten hot, fatiguing hours hurried up and down the blocks, climbed flight after flight of stairs, and stood at door after door.

“Say, kid, ain’t it the limit that a woman can’t vote on her own business?” said one girl too another after they had finished the one hundred and forty-fifth family and tried to explain their stake in the election to a bigoted “head of the house.”

On the morning of the primaries Mrs. Schurz, as she took the coffee off the stove, remonstrated with her oldest daughter, Minna.  “Vat, Minna, you ain’t goin’ to stay out of de mill today and lose your pay?

“Yes, I be, Mutter,” retorted Minna, with a tightening of the lips and a light in her eyre.  “I’m goin’ to the polls to hand out cards to the voters.  I’m goin’.  I don’t care if I lose my job even.”

“Oh, Minna, dat is bad, and me wid four kinder to eat de food.  Where is de fleisch and de brot widout your wages?” Mrs. Schurz’s heavy face wore the anxious despondence so common to the mothers of the poor.

The girl hesitated, then tightened her lips once more.  “I’ve got to take the risk, Mutter.  It’ll come out right—­it’s got to.  Do you want the rest of the children workin’ ten hours a day too?  Look at me!  I ain’t got no looks any more.  I’m too dead tired to go out of a Saturday night.  I can’t give nobody a good time any more.  I guess there won’t be no weddin’ bells for mine—­ever.  But the kids”—­pointing to the inside bedroom, where the younger girls were still asleep—­“the kids is a-goin’ to keep their looks.”