The Call Advocates Women's Suffrage

Historical Essay

By Mae Silver, excerpted from The Sixth Star

Image: The Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California

John D. Spreckels, the eldest son of the famous sugar millionaire Claus Spreckels, was the editor of The Call, which not only advocated women’s suffrage, but provided a worthy historical trail of the activities of the women’s suffrage campaign of 1911. The Call distinguished itself as distinctly separate from the liquor establishment in San Francisco when it declared its aggressive support for suffrage on the front page of the Sunday edition, August 6, 1911.

When The Call could have asked its colleagues to "eat crow."

Image: The Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California

After the October 10, 1911 election, when both leading San Francisco papers, the Examiner and Chronicle, declared suffrage dead again, The Call reminded everybody that all the votes were not yet counted. Actually, The Call predicted that suffrage would win by 4,000 votes! The final margin was 3,587. In this article, The Call pointed out how the rest of the San Francisco papers were wrong and only it was right. So it was. Good reporting.

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