The San Francisco call., 1895-08-03
LIQUOR IN SANTA CLARA.
State Temperance Women
Watching the Sanitary Dis
triCt Act.
California w. C. T. u. to Convene
Here In October-Suffrage
Their Ambition.

The Women's Christian Temperance
Unions in this State are awaiting the re-
suit of what will be test case under the
sanitary district act passed by the last
Legislature.
In Santa Clara County these sanitary
districts have recently been defined and
the Supervisors petitioned to call an cleo
ton in each of the sections. The District
Attorney has pronounced the act constitu-
tional and an election will soon be called.
By the provisions of the act any twenty
five resident freeholder5 may define dis
trict ana present written petition to the
Supervisors requesting that the formation
of such sanitary district, together with the
election of a district assessor and board of
five directors, be submitted to the resident
voters. Within thirty days after receiving
such petition the Supervisors must pub
lish the date and place of polling, and the
date must be within sixty days of publica-
ton.
A majority of those voting may form a
district, but should the measure be de-
feated no repetition of the attempt to form
such district can be made for year.
People of the better and steadier classes
occupying much valuable farm and fruit
land in Santa Clara County are the ones
who, it is expected, will vote for the forma-
tion of the three sanitary districts, which
have been made to include their homes
particularly.
Several other counties in the State, and
among them San Joaquin, are awaiting
the favorable outcome of the attempt in
Santa Clara County, that they may imme-
diately follow the example.
During the first week in October the
State convention of the w. G. T. q. will be
held in this City, and 500 delegates are ex-
pected. Several Eastern speakers will be
present, and Miss Millard, the worlds
president of the union, may be here.
In the meantime, every union in the
State will be actively engaged in increas-
ing the general membership, which is now
about 5000, and the largest organization of
women in California.
To be given the right of suffrage is the
great am bition of the large majority of the
w. G. 7. U. of this State, and to attain this
purpose every one of the 400 or 500 unions
in the State has begun the formation in its
immediate neighborhood of districts to fa-
cilitate the soliciting and pledging Of male
voters to support woman's suffrage at the
next election.
While this work is independent of
movement for a similar purpose by the re-
Gently organized California constitutional
amendment campaign both organizations
will cooperate freely, more especially as
Mrs. Hester A. Harland, who is soon to
begin a thorough canvass of the State in
the interest of the amendment campaign,
will of necessity be listened to and sup
ported by women suffragists of the w. G.
T. U. in every town that has union.
The women of the temperance unions
have learned that in order to be measura-
bly, successful they must have the ballot.
Their efforts will be directed toward suf-
frage and if the experiment is successful
the formation of sanitary districts, where,
in addition to maintaining general hygi-
enic conditions, the liquor traffic may be
controlled, limited or prohibited at the dis
cretion of the five directors of the district.