A number of prominent women in the District were officers of the local suffrage clubs and worked under their auspices, being connected through them with the D. C. State Association. A part of the program of the latter in 1904-5 was a study of Fisk's Civil Government of the United States, Laws affecting Women and Children, taxation and other subjects of public interest. There was also discussion of bills before Congress of special interest to women and the association supported those for the protection of neglected and delinquent children, compulsory education and restriction of child labor. A bill to raise the salaries of public school teachers was strongly pressed. Among those especially active were Mrs. Ellen Spencer Mussey, Dr. Emily Young O'Brien and Mrs. Alice Stern Gitterman. Through their efforts two truant officers were appointed, one white and one colored. During this period the work was being done which led to the establishment of a Juvenile Court with one probation officer, Mrs. Charles Darwin. In 1906 and 1907 the suffragists were active in agitating for women on the Board of Education and succeeded in having two white women and one colored woman appointed, as well as thirty women supervisors of the public playgrounds. In 1908, also as a direct result of the efforts of Mrs. Helen Rand Tindall and other members of the association, two public comfort stations were built at a cost of $35,000, with bath, rest rooms and all sanitary conveniences, the first in the city. The association and the College Equal Suffrage League sent representatives to a hearing before the Commissioners to ask that if a referendum on the excise question should be taken women should have a vote as well as men. In 1909 the association assisted in the petition work of the national organization and paid the secretary who was in charge of their headquarters in Washington for keeping them open evenings. Under the auspices of the association lectures were given by Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst and Mrs. Ethel Snowdon of England. In 1910 at a hearing granted to the National Association by the Judiciary Committee of Congress the District was represented by Miss Emma M. Gillett and Mrs. Katharine Reed Balentine, who overheard one of its members say that if the women really wanted suffrage they should do something more than come up there to make speeches so as to have them cheaply printed and mailed without postage. Miss Gillett, who soon afterwards was made chairman of the National Congressional Committee, was so stimulated by this remark that at her request the D. C. State Association raised $100 and she herself contributed $100 and used the fund to circularize every candidate for Congress in the 1910 campaign. She appealed through the _Woman's Journal_ for contributions, but only $14 were received. The circular asked seven searching questions covering all forms of woman suffrage. The answers were tabulated and sent out by the Associated Press. [See Chapter X, Volume V.]