Dr. Henry Dickson Bruns, a member of the Suffrage Committee, bent

every effort to secure Full Suffrage for women as the only means to

effect the reform in political conditions so much desired. The

majority report of the committee, however, contained only this clause:

"All taxpaying women shall have the right to vote in person or by

proxy on all questions of taxation."

While the women were greatly disappointed, this was really a signal

victory in so conservative a State.

Those who supposed that women would make practically no use of this

scrap of suffrage were soon to be undeceived. New Orleans was at this

time a city of 300,000 with absolutely no sewerage system; an

inadequate water supply, and what there was of this in the hands of a

monopoly; an excellent drainage system plodding along for the want of

means at a rate which would have required twenty years to complete it.

The return of yellow fever, the city's arch-enemy, after a lapse of

eighteen years, created consternation. Senseless quarantines prevailed

on all sides; business was paralyzed; property values had fallen;

commercial rivals to the right and left were pressing. A crisis was at

hand, and all depended on the hygienic regeneration of the city.

The lawful limit of taxation had been reached. One of two ways alone

remained--either to grant franchises to private corporations, or for

the taxpayers to vote to tax themselves for the necessary

improvements. Finally a plan was evolved, where, by a combination with

the drainage funds, the great public necessities--water, sewerage and

drainage--could be secured to the city by a tax of two mills on the

dollar, covering a period of forty-two years. A similar proposition

had been voted down two years before, and little hope was entertained

that it would carry this time. Here was the women's opportunity. They

found that one-third of the taxpayers must sign a petition calling the

election to establish its legality. This meant that from 9,000 to

10,000 signatures must be secured. They learned also that to carry the

measure there must be a majority of numbers as well as of property

values.

Realizing that a campaign of education was on their hands, the Era

Club called a mass meeting of women, at which prominent speakers

presented the necessities of the situation. At its close a resolution

was adopted to form a Woman's League for Sewerage and Drainage, of

which Miss Gordon was made president. The papers, which a short time

before had been most vehement in their denunciation of suffrage for

taxpaying women, were now unanimous in commending their public spirit

and predicting ultimate victory through the women.

The first work of the league was to secure a correct list of women

taxpayers, the number of whom had been variously estimated from 1,500

to 7,000. Actual count proved that the names of more than 15,000 women

appeared on the roll, about one-half the taxpayers of the entire city.

Leaving a large margin for possible duplicates, foreign residents and

changes by death, a conservative estimate gave at least 10,000 women

eligible to vote. Few can realize the magnitude of this undertaking,

for the names were without addresses but simply given as owners of

such and such pieces of property in such and such boundaries.

The work of location was at last accomplished, and then came the task

of securing the names of these women to the petitions. The lists were

divided according to wards, with a chairman for each, who appointed

lieutenants in the various precincts. Parlor meetings to interest

women were held everywhere, in the homes of the rich, the poor and the

middle classes. Volunteer canvassers were secured and suffrage

sentiment awakened. Occasionally mass meetings of men and women

together were called, and good speakers obtained to arouse the people

to the necessity of voting for the tax. It was the number of women's

signatures which enabled the mayor to order the election.

The law carried with it the privilege of voting by proxy, and the

women who were active in this movement had the great task of gathering

up the proxies of all those who had not the courage to go to the

polls. These had to be made out in legal form and signed by two

witnesses, and they then learned that no woman in Louisiana can

legally witness a document, so in all these thousands of cases it was

necessary to secure two men as witnesses. It made no difference

whether they could read or write, whether they owned property or not,

if males it was sufficient.[293]

The election was held June 6, 1899. The _Picayune_, which, with the

other papers, had opposed the extension of even this bit of suffrage

to women, came out the next morning with a three-quarter-page picture

of a beautiful woman, labeled New Orleans, on a prancing steed named

Progress, dashing over a chasm entitled Sanitary Neglect and

Commercial Stagnation, to a bluff called A Greater City, while in one

corner was a female angel with wings outspread, designated as Victory.

The two-page account began as follows:

The great election for Sewerage and Drainage has come and gone,

and with it a notable chapter in the history of woman's work in

New Orleans in behalf of municipal improvement. It is unanimously

conceded, as incontestably proven by facts, that but for the

number of signatures of women sent to the mayor the election

never would have been called. It was also conceded late yesterday

afternoon that the noble work of the women had won the day in

behalf of these much-needed improvements for our beloved city....

The politician has been crushed, and let the credit go where it

belongs. The women of New Orleans did it, under the leadership of

those two active, energetic and self-sacrificing young women, the

Misses Kate M. and Jean Gordon, and all the glory is theirs.

Woman plays a most important part in the politics and affairs of

this city. Whenever a crisis approaches, the men on the right

side appeal to her and the appeal is never in vain. She jumps

into the breach, and invariably victory perches upon her banner.

All honor to the fair sex! The women, or rather the few women who

were in the Sewerage and Drainage League, probably did as much

work for the special tax as all the men in this city put

together, and they did it quietly and thoroughly....

It was the first time in the history of New Orleans that women

were allowed the proud privilege of the suffrage, and it was a

novel sight to see them at the polls, producing their

certificates of assessment and then retiring to the booths,

fixing their ballots and depositing them in the boxes.... Enough

of them showed their independence of the sterner sex to prove to

the community that they are a deal more competent to wield the

ballot than a vast majority of the male suffragans. From what

some of the commissioners of election say, the women demonstrated

that they had observed the instructions as to voting with a great

deal more punctiliousness than the men. They had no difficulty in

arranging their ballots, and knew the routine better than many

men who had been in the habit of voting, not only early but

often.

This paper contained also an interview with Mrs. Merrick, of which the

following is a portion:

"Women are saying everywhere, Mrs. Merrick, that much of the

glory of this day is due to you, for you were the first woman in

the State to pin your faith to the suffrage cause."

"Without boasting," she said modestly, "the women of Louisiana, I

think, do owe a little to me. For years I stood alone for their

enfranchisement, especially where questions of property and

taxation were concerned.... I may say I have fought, labored and

almost died for suffrage. I do hope to see the women of New

Orleans with the School and Municipal Suffrage before I die. I am

getting old now," she added sweetly; "I am threescore and ten; I

cast my first vote to-day. It was only for sewerage and drainage;

but then it was for the protection of the home from the invasion

of disease, the better health of our city, the greater prosperity

of our commonwealth, and I am satisfied; for it will be

discovered that women hold the balance of power in all things

good and true, and our votes will soon be wanted in other

praiseworthy reforms."

The duties of the women did not end when they had voted for the tax.

It was necessary to have a Sewerage and Water Board of seven

commissioners, and the voters were to decide whether these should be

elected by the people or appointed by the mayor with the ratification

of the City Council. The politicians were determined on the former

method, while the business interests of the city demanded the latter.

The women almost to a unit voted for appointment, and the majority of

1,000 by which it was carried can be placed practically to the credit

of the Woman's League for Sewerage and Drainage.[294] It was conceded

that of the 6,000 votes cast at this election, at least one-half were

those of women.

The tax was immediately levied, the necessary legislative and

constitutional authority was obtained, the bonds were all sold and the

work is now under way for a complete system of drainage, sewerage and

water supply.

LEGISLATIVE ACTION AND LAWS: In 1894 a law was passed permitting women

to receive degrees from Law and Medical Schools; also one allowing a

married woman to "subscribe for, withdraw or transfer stock of

building, homestead or loan associations, and to deposit funds and

withdraw the same without the assistance and intervention of her

husband." This law was secured by these associations to protect their

own interests.

In 1896 the same privilege was extended in regard to depositing money

in savings banks and withdrawing it, which a married woman could not

do up to this time.

The laws of Louisiana for the most part are a survival of the

Napoleonic Code:

Art. 25. Men are capable of all kinds of engagements and

functions, unless disqualified by reasons and causes applying to

particular individuals. Women can not be appointed to any public

office, nor perform any civil functions, except those which the

law specially declares them capable of exercising. Widows and

unmarried women of age may bind themselves as sureties or

indorsers for other persons, in the same manner and with the same

validity as men who are of full age.

Art. 81. If a father has disappeared, leaving minor children born

during his marriage, the mother shall take care of them, and

shall exercise all the rights of her husband with respect to

their education and the administration of their estate.

Art. 82. If the mother contracts a second marriage, she can not

preserve her superintendence of her children, except with the

consent of a family meeting composed of the relations or friends

of the father. [Failing to call this family meeting, she forfeits

also her right to appoint a guardian at her death.]

Art. 121. The wife can not appear in court without the authority

of her husband, although she may be a public merchant,[295] or

possess her property separate from her husband.

Art. 122. The wife, even when she is separate in estate from the

husband, can not alienate, grant, mortgage, acquire, either by

gratuitous or encumbered title, unless her husband concurs in the

act, or yields his consent in writing.

Art. 126. A married woman over the age of twenty-one years, may,

by and with the authorization of her husband, and with the

sanction of the Judge, borrow money or contract debts for her

separate benefit and advantage, and to secure the same, grant

mortgages or other securities affecting her separate estate,

paraphernal or dotal.

Art. 135. The wife may make her last will without the authority

of her husband.

Art. 302. The following persons can not be tutors [_i. e._,

guardians]: 1. Minors, except the father and mother. 2. Women,

except the mother or grandmother. 3. Idiots and lunatics. 4.

Those whose infirmities prevent them from managing their own

affairs. 5. Those whom the penal law declares incapable of

holding a public office, etc.

Art. 1316. Married women, even if separated in property, can not

institute a suit for partition without the authorization of their

husbands or of the Judge.

Art. 1480. A married woman can not make a donation _inter vivos_

[between living persons] without the concurrence or special

consent of her husband, or unless she be authorized by the Judge.

But she needs neither the consent of her husband nor any judicial

authorization to dispose by donation _mortis causa_ [in prospect

of death].

Art. 1591. The following persons are absolutely incapable of

being witnesses to testaments: 1. Women of what age soever. 2.

Male children who have not attained the age of sixteen years

complete. 3. Persons who are insane, deaf, dumb or blind. 4.

Persons whom the criminal laws declare incapable of exercising

civil functions.

Art. 1664. A married woman can not accept a testamentary

executorship without the consent of her husband. If there is

between them a separation of property, she may accept it with the

consent of her husband, or, on his refusal, she may be authorized

by the courts.

Art. 1782. All persons have the capacity to contract, except

those whose incapacity is specially declared by law--these are

married women, those of insane mind, those who are interdicted,

and minors.

Art. 2335. The separate property of the wife is divided into

dotal and extradotal. Dotal property is that which the wife

brings to the husband to assist him in bearing the expenses of

the marriage establishment. Extradotal property, otherwise called

paraphernal property, is that which forms no part of the dowry.

Art. 2338. Whatever in the marriage contract is declared to

belong to the wife, or to be given to her on account of the

marriage by other persons than the husband, is part of the dowry,

unless there be a stipulation to the contrary.

Art. 2347. The dowry is given to the husband, for him to enjoy

the same as long as the marriage shall last.

Art. 2349. The income or proceeds of the dowry belong to the

husband, and are intended to help him support the charges of the

marriage, such as the maintenance of the husband and wife, that

of their children, and other expenses which he may deem proper.

Art. 2350. The husband alone has the administration of the dowry,

and his wife can not deprive him of it; he may act alone in a

court of justice for the preservation or recovery of the dowry,

against such as either owe or detain the same, but this does not

prevent the wife from remaining the owner of the effects which

she brought as her dowry.

Art. 2358. The wife may, with the authorization of her husband,

or, on his refusal, with the authorization of the Judge, give her

dotal effects for the establishment of the children she may have

had by a former marriage.

All accumulations after marriage, except by inheritance, here as in

all States, are the property of the husband. Any wages the wife may

earn, the very clothes she wears, belong entirely to him.

The laws of inheritance of separate property are practically the same

for widow and widower.

The father is the legal guardian of the persons and property of minor

children. Until 1888 the custody of children while a divorce suit was

pending was given to the father, but now this is granted to the

mother. The final guardianship is awarded by the Judge to the one who

succeeds in obtaining the divorce.

Before 1896 no "age of protection" for girls was named in the

statutes, but the penalty for rape was death. In this year, the Arena

Club of New Orleans, a socio-economic society of women, secured a law

fixing the age at 16 years. The penalty was changed to imprisonment,

with or without labor, for a period not exceeding five years, with no

minimum penalty named.

SUFFRAGE: Since 1898 taxpaying women have the right to vote in person

or by proxy on all questions of taxation.

OFFICE HOLDING: The clause in the constitution of 1879 that made women

eligible to school offices was inoperative on account of some

technicality, which in 1894 Mrs. Helen Behrens, a member of the Portia

Club, succeeded in having removed. In 1896 Mrs. Evelyn W. Ordway, as

chairman of a committee from the Era Club, presented a petition to the

City Council signed by all of the editors and many other

representative men of New Orleans, asking for the appointment of a

woman to an existing vacancy on the school board, but this was

refused. No women ever were appointed to such positions except in a

few country districts.

The office of State librarian had been held by a number of women

previous to 1898. The Constitutional Convention of that year,

however, which gave the taxpayer's suffrage to women, swept away every

vestige of their right to hold any office by adopting a clause

declaring that only qualified voters should be eligible to office.

Under this ruling women can not serve as notaries public.

There are no women on the boards of any public institutions in the

State and none has a woman physician.

Four police matrons are employed by New Orleans, one for the parish

prison, one for the police jail and two for station houses.

OCCUPATIONS: No profession or occupation is legally forbidden to

women.

EDUCATION: The State University at Baton Rouge is one of three in the

United States which do not admit women to any department. Tulane, in

New Orleans, the largest university in Louisiana, admits women to

post-graduate work and to the Departments of Law and Pharmacy, but the

Medical Department is still closed to them. The H. Sophie Newcomb

Memorial College for Girls is a part of Tulane University. It was

endowed by Mrs. Josephine Louise Newcomb with $2,500,000 in memory of

her daughter. At her death she left to it the remainder of her estate,

valued at $1,500,000.

New Orleans University (white) and Leland University (colored) are

co-educational. Most of the other colleges in the State are open to

women.

In the public schools there are 1,991 men and 2,166 women teachers.

The average monthly salary of the men is $37; of the women, $29.70.

FOOTNOTES:

[290] The History is indebted for the material for this chapter to

Miss Kate M. Gordon, president of the Era Club, Mrs. Evelyn W. Ordway

and Mrs. Martha Gould, all of New Orleans.

[291] Other presidents: Mrs. Elizabeth Lyle Saxon, Mrs. Evelyn W.

Ordway, Miss Florence Huberwald, Mrs. Helen Behrens.

[292] The clever reader between the lines will see that E. R.

A.--Equal Rights Association--is concealed in this innocent appearing

word.

[293] Miss Kate M. Gordon herself obtained and voted 300 proxies.

After the election the Business Men's Association of New Orleans

presented her with a gold medal. [Eds.

[294] So determined were the politicians to have this board elected,

instead of appointed, in order that they might get control of the

$42,000,000 fund, that a bill for this purpose was passed by the

Legislature of 1902 and signed by Gov. William W. Heard. The matter

will be carried to the Supreme Court.

[295] Certain legal processes are necessary before a woman can engage

in business on her own account.

CHAPTER XLIII.

MAINE.[296]

The Maine Woman Suffrage Association entered upon its career in 1873,

flourished until 1876 and then ceased active work, which was not

resumed until 1885. In September of that year, a convention was called

in co-operation with the New England W. S. A., which resulted in the

reorganization of the society. The Rev. Henry Blanchard, D. D., pastor

of the First Universalist Church at Portland, was elected president,

continuing in that capacity until 1891. During these six years of

unremitting service, twelve public meetings (with occasional executive

sessions) are recorded, all of which were held in Portland and

addressed by the best speakers on suffrage, including Mrs. Lucy Stone,

Henry B. Blackwell, the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe

and Mrs. Mary A. Livermore.

In 1891 Dr. Blanchard resigned and Mrs. Hannah J. Bailey was elected

president, as she said, "because it was thought best to have a woman

at the head of the organization in order to confute the argument, then

often advanced by the legislators, that women do not want the ballot."

Mrs. Bailey's term of office expired in 1897, by her own request. In

the six years of her leadership, six public conventions took place,

all in Portland. The business of the association having been

systematically arranged, a large amount of work was done in the

executive meetings which occurred frequently.

In 1892 a local club was organized in Portland, and this, as a live

and aggressive force, has been of incalculable benefit to the cause.

Other clubs were formed in this administration at Saco, Waterville and

Hampden. The last owes its existence to the efforts of Mrs. Jane H.

Spofford, formerly of Washington, D. C., and for many years treasurer

of the National Association.

In 1897 the present incumbent, Mrs. Lucy Hobart Day, was chosen State

president. During the past three years there have been three annual

conventions held respectively at Hampden, Waterville and Portland,

with one semi-annual conference at Saco. Miss Susan B. Anthony,

president of the National Association, was present at the first of

these and afterwards addressed a public meeting in Portland.

In addition to these conventions, in May, 1900, a series of public

meetings in the interest of further organization was held at Old

Orchard, Saco, Waterville, Hampden, Winthrop, Monmouth, Cornish and

Portland, arranged by the president and addressed by Miss Diana

Hirschler, a practicing lawyer of Boston.

The second week of August, 1900, was celebrated in Maine as "Old Home

Week," and from the 7th to the 11th the State association kept "open

house" in Portland to old and new friends alike. The register shows a

record of 232 names, with fourteen States represented, from California

to Maine.

On August 24, the association again made a new departure by holding a

Suffrage Day at Ocean Park, Old Orchard, this being the first time

Maine suffragists had appeared on the regular platform of any summer

assembly in the State. The national president, Mrs. Carrie Chapman

Catt, was in attendance and the day was a memorable one.

Since 1898 the press department has taken on new life under the

management of Mrs. Sarah G. Crosby, and has grown from a circulation

of six to eighty newspapers containing suffrage matter.

New clubs have been formed at Old Orchard and Skowhegan. A regular

system of bi-monthly meetings of the executive committee has been

instituted, the business there transacted being reported to the

various clubs, thus keeping the mother in touch with her

children.[297]

LEGISLATIVE ACTION AND LAWS: There have been several hearings before

legislative committees in the interest of a reformatory prison for

women, together with repeated petitions for a matron of the State

prison, so far with negative results.

In all changes of laws in favor of women much work has been done by

themselves. They have been instrumental also in securing the passage

of laws against obscene literature, cigarettes and immoral kinetoscope

exhibitions. They have opposed and prevented the appointment of a

conspicuously immoral man as Judge; have prevented the pardon of

notoriously vile women in some marked cases, and have secured police

matrons in several of the large cities, also matrons of almshouses.

In 1887 a petition was presented to the Legislature asking for a

constitutional amendment in favor of woman suffrage. "The significant

vote" was upon the third reading of the bill, when it was ordered to

be engrossed by 15 yeas, 13 nays in the Senate, and 67 yeas, 47 nays

in the House; but as a two-thirds vote was necessary it failed to

pass.

In 1889 the vote on a bill granting Municipal Suffrage to women stood

42 yeas, 91 nays in the House; 18 yeas, 8 nays in the Senate.

In 1891 the Judiciary Committee reported "ought not to pass" on the

bill to confer Municipal Suffrage on women, to which the House voted

to adhere, the Senate concurring.

In 1893 it was moved in the House to substitute the favorable minority

report for the majority report on the Municipal Suffrage Bill. This

motion was lost by 54 yeas, 63 nays. The Senate non-concurred with the

House and accepted the minority report by 16 yeas, 13 nays.

In the campaign of 1895 an exceedingly active canvass for Municipal

Suffrage was made by the use of petitions. These were circulated by

the State Association and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, over

9,000 names being sent to the Legislature. At the hearing before the

Judiciary Committee every county in the State was represented, and the

hall was crowded to its utmost capacity. The committee reported in

favor, and their report was accepted in the House by 79 yeas, 54

nays. The Senate refused to concur in the action of the House by 11

yeas, 15 nays.

In 1897 the petitions for Municipal Suffrage were placed on file, the

House and Senate concurring in this action.

In 1899 a bill was presented asking "exemption from taxation for the

taxpaying women of Maine," on the ground that "taxation without

representation is tyranny." The Committee on Taxation granted a

hearing and reported "leave to withdraw," which report was accepted in

the House, the Senate concurring.

Dower and curtesy were abolished in 1895. If there is no will the

interest of the husband or wife in the real estate of the other is the

same; if there is issue of the marriage living, one-third absolutely;

if no such issue, then one-half; if there is neither issue nor

kindred, then the whole of it. The same provisions of law hold

regarding the personal estate of each. Both a wife and a husband have

the right to claim their statutory share in the estate of the other in

preference to any provision that may have been made by a will,

provided that such an election is made within a period of six months.

The widow is entitled to occupy the home for ninety days after the

husband's death, and to have support for that length of time. He is

accorded the same privileges and the presence of a will does not

change the case. A more liberal allowance than formerly is granted to

the family from an insolvent estate.

In the presence of two witnesses, before marriage, the man and the

woman may determine what rights each shall have in the other's estate

during marriage and after its dissolution by death, and may bar each

other of all rights in their respective estates not then secured to

them.

A married woman may acquire and hold real and personal property in her

own right, and convey the same without joinder of her husband. He has

the same legal privilege. The wife may control her own earnings, and

carry on business, and the profits are her sole and separate property.

She can prosecute and defend suits in her own name both in contract

and in tort, and the wages of the wife and minor children are exempt

from attachment in suits against the husband.

Dower, alimony and other provisions for the wife are made in case of

divorce for the husband's fault, and a law of 1895 compels the husband

to support his family or contribute thereto (provided the separation

was not the fault of the wife) and the Supreme Judicial Court may

enforce obedience.

Maine is one of the few States in the Union where fathers and mothers

have equal guardianship of their children. (1895.)

In 1887 the "age of protection" for girls was raised from 10 to 13

years. In 1889 it was advanced to 14 years, providing unqualified

protection, with penalty of imprisonment for life or for a term of

years. In 1897 an act was passed providing a "qualified" protection

for girls between 14 and 16--that is, protection from men over

twenty-one years of age.

Some of the above laws have originated with the legislators

themselves. Others have been asked for by the women of the State,

through the medium of the W. S. A., the W. C. T. U. and the Woman's

Council; but in the various organizations it has been those who are

suffragists that have carried these measures to a successful

issue.[298]

SUFFRAGE: Women have no form of suffrage.

OFFICE HOLDING: At the present time women are filling offices,

elective and appointive, as follows: School superintendents, 69;

school supervisor, one; school committee, 112; public librarians, 40;

trustee of State insane asylum, one; physician on board of same, one;

matron of same, one; supervisor female wards of same, one; police

matrons, 2; visiting committee of State Reform School, one; trustees

of Westbrook Seminary, 3; Stenographic commissioners, 4; trustees of

Girls' State Industrial School, 2; principal of same, one; matrons of

same, 3.

There are fifteen women justices of the peace, with authority to

administer oaths and solemnize marriages.

Women are eligible also as deputy town clerk and register of probate.

They can not serve as notaries public.

OCCUPATIONS: As early as 1884 Maine had women lawyers, ministers,

physicians, authors and farmers. No occupation is forbidden them by

law, and they are found in all departments of work. Since 1887 the

working day for women and children is limited to ten hours.

EDUCATION: The educational advantages accorded to women are equal to

those of men. Bates College, Colby College and the State University,

including the Agricultural Department, were opened to them before

1884. Bowdoin College alone does not admit women.

There are in the public schools 1,020 men and 5,427 women teachers.

The average monthly salary of the men is $35; of the women, $27.20.

* * * * *

During the past ten years the literary club movement has done an

immense amount of educational work, and Maine was the first State to

federate. In 1899 the federation instituted a system of traveling

libraries, which has become a great power for good in the rural

districts, and several clubs circulate libraries of their own. It also

has secured minor bills on educational matters.

In 1893 two important institutions were established--the Home for

Friendless Girls, in Belfast, and the Home for Friendless Boys, in

Portland. There are also other homes for children.

In 1894 the Invalids' Home (now the Mary Brown Home, in honor of its

founder) was incorporated. Any woman in Portland of good character may

be admitted to it for $3 a week.

All of the above were organized by women, and are managed by them.

This in brief is the history of woman's progress in the Pine Tree

State since 1884.

FOOTNOTES:

[296] The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Lucy Hobart Day

of Portland, president of the State Suffrage Association, whose work

is done under the motto, "In order to establish justice."

[297] State officers for 1900: President, Mrs. Lucy Hobart Day;

vice-president-at-large, Mrs. S. J. L. O'Brion; vice-president, Mrs.

Sarah Fairfield Hamilton; corresponding secretary, Miss Anne Burgess;

recording secretary, Miss Lillia Floyd Donnell; treasurer, Dr. Emily

N. Titus; auditor, Miss Eliza C. Tappan; superintendent press work,

Miss Vetta Merrill.

Among others who have served are Mesdames Lillian M. N. Stevens, Etta

Haley Osgood, Winnifred Fuller Nelson and Helen Coffin Beedy; Miss

Louise Titcomb and Dr. Jane Lord Hersom.

[298] Among those who have been instrumental in securing better

legislation for the women of the State may be mentioned the Hon.

Thomas Brackett Reed, Judge Joseph W. Symonds, Franklin Payson;

ex-Governors Joseph Bodwell, Frederick Robie, Henry B. Cleaves and

Llewellyn Powers; Mesdames Augusta Merrill Hunt, Margaret T. W.

Merrill and Ann Frances Greeley; Dr. Abby Mary Fulton and the Misses

Cornelia M. Dow, Charlotte Thomas and Elizabeth Upham Yates.

CHAPTER XLIV.

MARYLAND.[299]

If but one State in the Union allowed woman to represent herself it

should be Maryland, which was named for a woman, whose capital was

named for a woman, and where in 1647 Mistress Margaret Brent, the

first woman suffragist in America, demanded "place and voyce" in the

Assembly as the executor and representative of her kinsman, Lord

Baltimore. Her petition was denied but she must have had some gallant

supporters, as the archives record that the question of her admission

was hotly debated for hours. After the signal defeat of Mistress

Brent, there seems to have been no demand for the ballot on the part

of Maryland women for about 225 years.[300]

In 1870 and '71 Miss Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Lucy Stone and Mrs. Julia

Ward Howe lectured in Baltimore and there was some slight agitation of

the subject.

Immediately following the national suffrage convention of 1883, in

Washington, Miss Phoebe W. Couzins of Missouri addressed a large and

enthusiastic audience at Sandy Spring. Soon afterwards Madame Clara

Neymann of New York spoke in the same place and was cordially

received. She and Mrs. Caroline Hallowell Miller were invited about

this time to make addresses at Rockville. Mrs. Miller also spoke on

the rights and wrongs of women at the Sandy Spring Lyceum.

In 1889 Mrs. Miller invited some of her acquaintances to meet at her

home in Sandy Spring to form a suffrage association. Thirteen men and

women became members, all but one of whom belonged to the Society of

Friends.[301] This year Maryland was represented for the first time at

the national suffrage convention by a delegate, Mrs. Sarah T. Miller.

She is now superintendent of franchise in the State Woman's Christian

Temperance Union, this department having been adopted in 1893.

Annual State conventions have been held since 1889 and about 300

different members have been enrolled. The membership includes many

men; one public meeting was addressed by a father and daughter, and a

mother and son. The officers for 1900 are: President, Mary Bentley

Thomas; vice-president, Pauline W. Holme; corresponding secretary,

Annie R. Lamb; recording secretary, Margaret Smythe Clarke; treasurer,

Mary E. Moore; member national executive committee, Emma J. M. Funck.

The first to organize a suffrage club in Baltimore was Mrs. Sarah H.

Tudor. It has now a flourishing society and many open meetings have

been held with large and interested audiences.

In 1896 six members of the W. C. T. U. of Baltimore went before the

registrars and demanded that their names should be placed on the

polling books. Mrs. Thomas J. Boram, whose husband was one of the

registrars, was spokeswoman and claimed their right to vote under the

Constitution of the United States. She made a strong argument in the

name of taxpaying women and of mothers but was told that the State

constitution limited the suffrage to males. The other ladies were Dr.

Emily G. Peterson, Miss Annie M. V. Davenport, Mrs. Jane H. Rupp, Mrs.

C. Rupp and Mrs. Amanda Peterman.

Among the outside speakers who have come into the State at different

times are the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, vice-president-at-large of the

National Association, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, chairman of the

national organization committee, Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford of Colorado,

Miss Elizabeth Upham Yates of Maine, the Rev. Henrietta G. Moore of

Ohio, Mrs. Annie L. Diggs and Miss Laura A. Gregg of Kansas, Miss

Helen Morris Lewis of North Carolina, Mrs. Ruth B. Havens of

Washington, D. C., and Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch of Chicago.

One of the first and most efficient of the workers is Mrs. Caroline

Hallowell Miller, who has represented her State for many years at the

national conventions and pleased the audiences with her humorous but

strong addresses. Her husband, Francis Miller, a prominent lawyer, was

one of the very few men in the State who advocated suffrage for women

as early as 1874, when he made an appeal for the enfranchisement of

the women of the District of Columbia before the House Judiciary

Committee.

LEGISLATIVE ACTION AND LAWS: The constitution of Maryland opens as

follows:

The right of the people to participate in the Legislature is the

best security of liberty and the foundation of all free

government; for this purpose, elections ought to be free and

frequent; and every male (!) citizen having the qualifications

prescribed by the constitution ought to have the right of

suffrage.

The Legislature has been petitioned to grant full suffrage to women;

to raise the "age of protection" for girls, and to refrain from giving

State aid to institutions of learning which do not admit women

students on equal terms with men.

The Legislature of 1900 took a remarkably progressive step. An act

authorizing the city of Annapolis to submit to the voters the question

of issuing bonds to the amount of $121,000, to pay off the floating

indebtedness and provide a fund for permanent improvements, contained

a paragraph entitling women to vote.

This bill was introduced in the Senate January 25, by Elijah Williams

and was referred to the Committee on Finance. On January 31, Austin L.

Crothers reported it favorably. On February 1, at the motion of

Senator Williams, the bill was recommitted and on the 15th Senator

Crothers again reported it favorably. On the 19th it was passed by the

Senate unanimously.

The Senate Bill was presented to the House of Delegates February 20,

and referred to the Committee on Ways and Means. On the 28th,

Ferdinand C. Latrobe (who had been mayor of Baltimore four or five

times) reported the bill favorably. On March 23 it was passed by the

House, 69 yeas, one nay, the negative vote being cast by Patrick E.

Finzel of Garrett County.

It is a common practice of the General Assembly to pass laws

applicable only to one county or portion of a county, or to one

municipality or to one special occasion, as in this instance.

As this law was a decided innovation in a very conservative community,

naturally the number of women availing themselves of it for the first

time was not large, and it hardly seemed worth a special Act of the

Legislature, except as a progressive step. The Baltimore _Sun_ of May

14 said:

Women voted in Annapolis to-day under the law permitting property

owners to say if $121,000 bonds shall be issued for street and

other improvements. The novelty of their presence did not disturb

the serenity of the polling-room or unnerve the ladies who were

exercising their right to vote for the first time. They were

calm, direct and as unruffled as though it were the usual order

of things. Those who voted are of the highest social standing.

They received the utmost courtesy at the polls and voted without

any embarrassment whatever.

Numerous changes in the statutes have been made during the past twelve

years, modifying the discriminations against married women under the

old Common Law.

In 1888 it was enacted that a wife might bring action for slander in

her own name and defend her own character.

The last of these improved laws went into effect in 1898, when the

inheritance of property was made the same for widow and widower.

Absolute control of her own estate was vested in the wife. Power was

given her to make contracts and bring suit, and she alone was to be

liable for her own actions.

Inequalities still exist, however, in regard to divorce and

guardianship of children. The fifth ground for absolute divorce is as

follows: "Where the woman before marriage has been guilty of illicit

carnal intercourse with another man, the same being unknown to the

husband at the time of marriage." A similar act on the part of the

husband prior to the marriage does not entitle the wife to a divorce.

The father has complete control of the minor children and may appoint

a guardian by will. If he die without doing so the mother becomes

their natural guardian, but her control over a daughter terminates at

eighteen years of age while the father's continues to twenty-one. This

power of appointing a testamentary guardian was created by an act of

Charles II, and adopted as a part of the laws of Maryland. It gives

the father power, by deed or will, to dispose of the custody and

tuition of his infant children up to the age of twenty-one, or until

the marriage of the daughters. It gives him custody of their persons

and all their real and personal estate, not only such as comes from

his family, but all they may acquire of any person soever, even from

the family of the mother. The guardian is placed _in loco parentis_

and his rights are generally regarded as paramount.

For non-support of the family the husband may be fined $100 or

imprisoned in the House of Correction not exceeding one year, or both,

at discretion of the court. (1896.)

Wife-beaters are punished by flogging or imprisonment.

In 1899 women succeeded in having the "age of protection" for girls

raised from 14 to 16 years, with penalty ranging from death to

imprisonment in the penitentiary for eighteen months.

Employers are compelled to provide seats for female employes. Children

under twelve can not work in factories. Women or girls may not be

employed as waiters in any place of amusement.

SUFFRAGE: Women have no form of suffrage.

OFFICE HOLDING: The State librarian is a woman, who has filled the

position most satisfactorily for a number of years and through her

care valuable documents relating to colonial times have been saved

from destruction and classified. A leading paper of Baltimore said

that these had been allowed to remain in the cellar of the State House

for years, and would have been ruined but for the new system of public

housekeeping inaugurated by the womanly element.

Women physicians have been placed in charge of women patients at one

State insane asylum.

Police matrons are employed at all the station houses in Baltimore.

During the past two years women have been placed on its jail boards

and on the boards of most of its charitable and reformatory

institutions. By the recommendation of two mayors they have been put

on the school board. They have applied for positions on the

street-cleaning board but without success.

Women are doing efficient work on the jail and almshouse boards of

Harford County and the school boards of Montgomery.

Women serve as notaries public.

OCCUPATIONS: In 1901 Miss Etta Maddox, a graduate of the Baltimore

College of Law, was refused admission to the bar and carried her case

to the Supreme Court. It was argued before the full bench and the

opinion rendered by Justice C. J. McSherry, November 21. Her petition

was denied on the ground that the act providing for admission to the

bar uses the masculine pronouns. In this decision the general

proposition was affirmed that "women are excluded from all occupations

which were denied them by the English common law, except when the

disability has been removed by express statutory enactment."[302] It

is believed that this opinion makes it illegal for women to serve as

notaries public, and as a number have been serving for several years,

three in Baltimore, the situation promises to be very serious, many

deeds, etc., having been acknowledged before them.

EDUCATION: Through the leadership of Miss Mary E. Garrett and Dr. M.

Carey Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College, assisted by Miss Mary

Gwinn and Miss Elizabeth King (now Mrs. William Ellicott), committees

of prominent women were organized in various States for raising a fund

to open a Medical Department in Johns Hopkins University which should

be co-educational. The trustees required an endowment of $500,000. The

committees raised $200,000 and Miss Garrett herself added the

remaining $300,000. In 1893 this Medical College, which is not

outranked in the country, was dedicated alike to men and women with

absolutely no distinction in their privileges. Women are not admitted

to any other department of Johns Hopkins.

Of the nine other colleges and universities two are open to women, and

the Woman's College of Baltimore, which receives State aid, is for

them alone. They may be graduated from the Baltimore Colleges of Law

and of Dentistry. The State Colleges of Agriculture, of Medicine and

of Law are closed to them. The State Normal Schools admit both sexes

on equal terms.

There are 1,162 men and 3,965 women teachers in the public schools. It

is impossible to obtain the average monthly salaries.

FOOTNOTES:

[299] The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Mary Bentley

Thomas of Ednor, who for the last nine years has been president of the

State Suffrage Association.

[300] Miss Mary Catherine Goddard conducted the Baltimore post-office

and also the only newspaper in the city, the _Maryland Journal and

Commercial Advertiser_, through all the trying times of the

Revolutionary War. On July 12, 1775, she published a detailed account

of the battle of Bunker Hill, which had occurred on June 17, and the

Declaration of the Continental Congress giving the causes and

necessity for taking up arms. The first official publication of the

Declaration of Independence, with the signers' names attached, was

entrusted by Congress, at that time sitting in Baltimore, to Miss

Goddard.

She remained in control of her paper for ten years. In 1779 she made

an appeal through its columns for the destitute families of the

American soldiers, and by her efforts $25,000 were raised for their

needs.

[301] The charter members were Caroline H., Margaret E., Sarah T.,

Rebecca T. and George B. Miller, Margaret B. and Mary Magruder, Ellen

and Martha T. Farquhar, James P. and Jessie B. Stablu, Hannah B.

Brooke and Mary E. Moore. At the second meeting a number of others

became members, including the writer of this chapter.

[302] State Senator Jacob M. Moses presented a bill in the Legislature

of 1902 to permit women to practice law, which passed, was signed by

the Governor and Miss Maddox was admitted to the bar.

CHAPTER XLV.

MASSACHUSETTS.[303]

The first suffrage convention ever held which assumed a national

character by inviting representatives from other States took place in

Worcester, Mass., Oct. 23, 24, 1850.[304]

The New England Woman Suffrage Association was formed at Boston in

November, 1868, with Mrs. Julia Ward Howe as president; and the

Massachusetts Association was organized in the same city Jan. 28,

1870, of which also Mrs. Howe was elected president. In 1871 Henry B.

Blackwell, editor of the _Woman's Journal_, was made corresponding

secretary of both associations and has filled the office of the latter

continuously, of the former twenty-two years.

From those years until the present each of these bodies has held an

annual meeting in Boston and they have almost invariably been

addressed by men and women of State, of national and of international

reputation. They have met in various churches and halls, but of late

years the historic old Faneuil Hall has been selected. The State

association meets in the winter and the New England association during

Anniversary Week in May, when there are business sessions with reports

from the various States, public meetings and a great festival or

banquet. The last is attended by hundreds of people, all the tickets

are frequently sold weeks in advance, and with its prominent

after-dinner speakers it has long been an attractive feature.[305]

The annual meeting of 1884 was held January 22, 23, presided over by

William I. Bowditch, who had succeeded the Rev. Dr. James Freeman

Clarke as president in 1878. A number of fine addresses were given and

the official board was unanimously re-elected.[306] Mr. Bowditch's

opening address was afterwards widely circulated as a tract, The

Forgotten Woman in Massachusetts.

It was voted that a fund should be raised to organize local suffrage

associations or leagues throughout the State, and that, as soon as

$2,500 was in hand, an agent should be put in the field. Mr. Bowditch,

Miss Louisa M. Alcott, John L. Whiting and Henry H. Faxon each

subscribed $100 on the spot; $800 was raised at the meeting and more

than $2,500 within four months.

This year, in the death of Wendell Phillips, the cause of equal rights

lost one of its earliest and noblest supporters. On February 28 an

impressive memorial service was held in Boston. Mrs. Howe presided and

the other speakers were William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore D. Weld,

Judge Thomas Russell, Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, Elizur Wright, the Rev.

Samuel May, George W. Lowther, Mrs. Lucy Stone and Mr. Blackwell. John

Boyle O'Reilly and William P. Liscomb read memorial poems.

Fifty-seven meetings were held this year in different parts of the

State, arranged by Arthur P. Ford and Miss Cora Scott Pond. The

speakers were the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, Miss Matilda Hindman, Miss

Pond and Miss Ida M. Buxton, and at some of the meetings Lucy Stone,

Mr. Blackwell and Mrs. Adelaide A. Claflin. In addition six

conventions were held and a large number of local leagues were formed.

Suffrage sociables were given monthly in Boston. Leaflets were

printed, including Wendell Phillips' great speech at the Worcester

Convention in 1850, which were sent out by tens of thousands, and

50,000 special copies of the _Woman's Journal_ were distributed

gratuitously. Mrs. H. M. Tracy Cutler was employed for a month in

Worcester to enlist interest in the churches, and Miss Pond for two

months in Boston. Letters were sent to every town, with postal cards

inclosed for reply, to find who were friends of suffrage, and to those

so found a letter was sent asking co-operation. This constitutes an

average twelve months' work for the past thirty years.

The sixteenth annual meeting of the New England Association took place

May 26, 27, Lucy Stone presiding. The Rev. Minot J. Savage and Edward

M. Winston of Harvard University were among the speakers. The two

associations united as usual in the May Festival. Letters of greeting

were read from the Hons. George F. Hoar, John D. Long and John E.

Fitzgerald, Postmaster Edward S. Tobey, Col. Albert Clarke and

Chancellor William G. Eliot, of Washington University, St. Louis. The

Rev. Robert Collyer, Mr. Garrison and the Rev. Miss Shaw made

addresses.

At the State convention, Jan. 27, 28, 1885, addresses were made by

Mrs. Margaret Moore of Ireland, A. S. Root of Boston University, and

the usual brilliant galaxy, while letters expressing sympathy with the

cause were read from John G. Whittier, the Rev. Samuel Longfellow, the

Rev. Samuel J. Barrows and many others. An appeal to the Legislature,

written by Lucy Stone, was unanimously adopted.

An Anti-Woman Suffrage Association formed in Massachusetts the

previous year, had devoted itself chiefly to securing signatures of

women to a protest against the franchise. In 1885 Mrs. Kate Gannett

Wells and her associates obtained the signatures of about 140

influential men to a remonstrance against "any further extension of

suffrage to women," and published it as an advertisement in the Boston

_Herald_ of Sunday, February 15. The list included President Eliot of

Harvard, a number of college professors, one or two literary men,

several ex-members of the Legislature, and a number of clergymen of

conservative churches; but it was made up largely of those prominent

chiefly on account of their wealth.

An average of ten suffrage meetings and conventions a month were held

in various cities throughout the year. The Rev. Miss Shaw and Miss

Pond attended nearly all, and Mrs. Stone, Mr. Blackwell, Mrs. Claflin,

Mr. Garrison, Miss Eastman and Mr. Bowditch addressed some of them,

besides local speakers. Two thousand persons gathered in Tremont

Temple on the opening night of the May anniversary, Lucy Stone

presiding. Senator Hoar, Mrs. Livermore and others made short speeches

and later responded to toasts at the Festival.

Mr. Blackwell presided over the State convention Jan. 26, 1886. At the

New England meeting this year Frederick Douglass delivered an oration

and spoke also at the Festival, over which Miss Eastman presided. The

association kept Miss Shaw in the field for six months and Miss Pond

throughout the year and held summer conventions in Cottage City and

Nantucket, besides ten county conventions in the fall. There were

123,014 pages of literature sent out and agents visited seventy-five

towns. A suffrage bazar was held in December with Mrs. Livermore as

president and Mrs. Howe as editor of the _Bazar Journal_. The list of

vice-presidents included Phillips Brooks and many other distinguished

persons. The brunt of the work, however, was borne by Miss Pond and

Miss Shaw, and the bazar cleared $6,000.

Mrs. Howe, Mrs. Stone, Mr. Garrison, Mrs. Cheney, State Senator Elijah

A. Morse and others addressed the annual convention of 1887.

Petitions were circulated for Municipal and Presidential Suffrage and

a constitutional amendment; also for police matrons, the raising of

the age of protection for girls, improvements in the property rights

of married women, a bill enabling husbands and wives to make legal

contracts with each other, and one making women eligible to all

offices from which they are not debarred by the constitution. In March

the association gave $1,000 to the constitutional amendment campaign

in Rhode Island, and a number of the officers contributed their

services.

Mrs. Howe presided at the May Festival, and among the speakers were

Mrs. Helen M. Gougar of Indiana, Mrs. J. Ellen Foster of Iowa, the

Revs. Henry Blanchard of Maine and Frederick A. Hinckley of Rhode

Island. Mr. Garrison read an original poem rejoicing over the granting

of Municipal Suffrage in Kansas. At the New England Convention which

followed, these speakers were reinforced by the Rev. Jenkyn Lloyd

Jones of Chicago. On October 19 the State Association gave a reception

to Miss Frances E. Willard, president of the National Woman's

Christian Temperance Union, at the Hotel Brunswick.

In December a great bazar was held in Boston for the joint benefit of

the American Suffrage Association and various States which took part.

The gross receipts were nearly $8,000. This year the association moved

into larger offices at No. 3 Park street; held fifty-one public

meetings and four county conventions and organized twenty-one new

leagues. The _Woman's Journal_ was sent for three months to all the

members of the Legislature; 378,000 pages of suffrage literature were

sold and many thousands more given away.

During the annual meeting in February, 1888, a reception was given to

Mrs. Rebecca Moore, of England, at which John W. Hutchinson sang and

many bright speeches were made. At the twentieth anniversary of the

New England association, in May, Lucy Stone presided. Mrs. Laura

Ormiston Chant and Mrs. Alice Scatcherd of England, and Baroness

Gripenberg and Miss Alli Trygg of Finland, were among the speakers.

Others were Miss Clara Barton, Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker of

Connecticut, the Hon. William Dudley Foulke and Mrs. Zerelda G.

Wallace of Indiana. At the Festival Music Hall was crowded to

overflowing and Miss Susan B. Anthony was one of the guests of honor.

This year great excitement was aroused among both men and women by a

controversy over the historical text-books used in the public schools

of Boston. At the request of a priest the school board removed a

history which the Catholics regarded as unfair in its statements, and

substituted one which many Protestants considered equally unfair. The

school vote of women never had risen much above 2,000, and generally

had been below that number. This year 25,279 applied to be assessed a

poll tax and registered, and 19,490 voted, in one of the worst storms

of the season. All the Catholic candidates were defeated. The suffrage

association kept out of the controversy as a body, but its members as

individuals took sides as their personal views dictated.

In 1889 Gov. Oliver Ames, for the third time, recommended women

suffrage in his inaugural, saying: "Recent political events have

confirmed the opinion I have long held, that if women have sufficient

reason to vote they will do so and become an important factor in the

settlement of great questions. If we can trust uneducated men to vote

we can with greater safety and far more propriety grant the same power

to women, who as a rule are as well educated and quite as intelligent

as men."

The convention met January 29-31. Among outside speakers were Mrs.

Ellen Battelle Dietrick of Kentucky, Prof. William H. Carruth of

Kansas, and the Hon. Hamilton Willcox of New York. Col. Thomas

Wentworth Higginson presided at the May Festival and Mrs. Howe's

seventieth birthday was celebrated. Mrs. Laura M. Johns of Kansas,

Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell of New York, Mrs. Emily P. Collins of

Connecticut, and many from other States were present.

An organizer was kept in the field eight months and a State lecturer

two months; summer meetings were held at Swampscott, Hull and

Nantasket. Two quarterly conferences took place in Boston between the

State officers and representatives from the eighty-nine local leagues.

A great Historical Pageant was given under Miss Pond's supervision in

May and October, which netted $1,582; the _Woman's Journal_ was sent

four months to all the legislators, and leaflets to all the students

of Harvard and Boston Universities; 15,000 leaflets were given to the

South Dakota campaign. The State Farmers' Institute, held at West

Brookfield, adopted a woman suffrage resolution almost unanimously.

In Boston 10,051 women voted and the Catholic candidates for the

school board were again defeated. The Independent Women Voters elected

all their nominees, and candidates who had the joint nomination of

both Republicans and Democrats were defeated.

Ex-Gov. John D. Long was one of the speakers at the convention of Jan.

28, 29, 1890; also Miss Elizabeth Upham Yates of Maine. In April an

evening with authors and composers was arranged, chiefly by Miss Lucia

T. Ames. Well-known authors read from their writings and musicians

contributed from their own compositions. In the same month a week's

fair called The Country Store was held, Miss Charlotte H. Allen

supervising the arrangements, with gross receipts, $2,346. The Rev.

Charles G. Ames presided at the May Festival and the Rev. Anna Garlin

Spencer of Rhode Island was one of the speakers.

In July a reception was given in the suffrage parlors to the ladies of

the National Editorial Association and the members of the New England

Women's Press Association. The editors of the _Woman's Journal_--Lucy

Stone, Mr. and Miss Blackwell--and the associate editor, Mrs. Florence

M. Adkinson, received the guests, assisted by the Rev. Miss Shaw and

Miss Lucy E. Anthony. During Grand Army week in August a reception was

extended to the ladies of the Woman's Relief Corps and others, the

guests received by Mrs. Livermore, Mrs. Howe, the editors of the

_Journal_ and Dr. Emily Blackwell, dean of the Women's Medical College

of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children.

In October the association exhibited at the Hollis Street Theater a

series of Art Tableaux, The History of Marriage, showing the marriage

ceremonies of different ages and countries, Mrs. Livermore acting as

historian. The receipts were $1,463. The association sent literature

to the legislators, to several thousand college students and to all

the members of the Mississippi Constitutional Convention; had a booth

for two months at the Mechanics' Fair in Boston; supplied suffrage

matter every week to 603 editors in all parts of the country and gave

133,334 pages of leaflets to the campaign in South Dakota. The

chairman of its executive committee, Mrs. Stone, also donated 95,000

copies of the _Woman's Column_ to the same campaign, and the

secretary, Mr. Blackwell, contributed five weeks' gratuitous service

in Dakota, lecturing for the amendment.

The Boston Methodist ministers, at their Monday meeting, passed

unanimously a resolution in favor of Municipal Woman Suffrage; and a

gathering of Massachusetts farmers, at the rooms of the _Ploughman_,

did the same with only one dissenting vote, after an address by Lucy

Stone, herself a farmer's daughter.[307]

The annual meeting, Jan. 27, 28, 1891, was made a celebration of the

fortieth anniversary of the First National Woman's Rights Convention,

which had been held at Worcester in October, 1850. Miss Susan B.

Anthony came on from Washington to attend. The advance of women in

different lines during the past forty years was ably reviewed

in the addresses by representative women in their respective

departments.[308] Only two of the speakers at the convention of forty

years ago were present on this occasion, Lucy Stone and the Rev.

Antoinette Brown Blackwell; and two who had signed the Call--Colonel

Higginson and Charles K. Whipple. The resolutions were reaffirmed

which had been reported by Wendell Phillips and adopted at the

convention of 1850. At this time Mrs. Howe was elected president of

the State association.

The New England meeting in May was preceded by a reception to Miss

Anthony, the Rev. Miss Shaw and Miss Florence Balgarnie of England,

all of whom made addresses at the convention and the Festival, where

ex-Governor Long presided.

The meetings this year included a number of college towns and among

the speakers were Senator Hoar, Mr. Garrison, Mr. Blackwell, Mrs.

Livermore, Mrs. Howe and Mrs. Stone, with the younger women, Mrs. Anna

Christy Fall, Mrs. Adelaide A. Claflin, Miss Elizabeth Sheldon

(Tillinghast), Miss Elizabeth Deering Hanscom. At Amherst a large

gathering of students listened to Senator Hoar. President and Mrs.

Merrill E. Gates occupied seats on the platform. At South Hadley

President Elizabeth Storrs Mead of Mt. Holyoke entertained all the

speakers at the college, and at Northampton it was estimated by the

daily papers that 500 Smith College girls came to the meeting.

On October 21 the association gave a reception to Theodore D. Weld in

honor of his eighty-eighth birthday. This date was the anniversary of

the famous mob of 1835, which attacked the meeting of the Boston

Female Anti-Slavery Society. Later a reception was tendered to Mrs.

Annie Besant of the London School Board. On November 17, during the

week when the W. C. T. U. held its national convention in Boston, a

reception was given in the suffrage parlors to all interested in the

Franchise Department. A special invitation was issued to White

Ribboners from the Southern States where none was yet adopted, and the

spacious rooms were filled to overflowing. Lucy Stone presided and

Julia Ward Howe gave the address of welcome. Many brief responses were

made by the Southern delegates and by Northern delegates and friends.

In December a suffrage fair was held under the management of Mrs.

Dietrick, now of Boston, which netted $1,800. Senator Hoar's speech at

Amherst was sent to the students of all the colleges in the State.

At the annual meeting Jan. 26, 27, 1892, the Rev. Joseph Cook gave an

address. Lucy Stone presided at the New England convention and Mrs.

Howe at the Festival. Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt was the speaker from a

distance. Letters were read from the Hon. Thomas B. Reed, Terence V.

Powderly and U. S. Senators Joseph M. Carey and Francis E. Warren of

Wyoming.

In addition to the usual work this year $200 were offered in $5 prizes

to the children of the public schools for the best essays in favor of

woman suffrage. Mrs. Dietrick was employed for six months as State

organizer. An appeal for equal suffrage signed by Mrs. Stone, Mrs.

Howe and Mrs. Livermore was sent to editors throughout the State with

the request to publish it and to indorse it editorially, which was

done by many. A letter signed by the same was sent to every minister

in Boston asking him either to present the subject to his congregation

or permit it to be presented by some one else, and a number consented.

A Woman's Day was held at the State Agricultural Fair in Worcester,

when it was estimated 70,000 people were present. Col. Daniel Needham,

president of the Fair, expressed himself as thankful for the

opportunity to welcome woman suffrage. Mrs. Rufus S. Frost, Lucy

Stone, Mrs. Livermore, Mrs. Claflin and Mr. Blackwell were the

speakers. When a vote was taken at the close, the whole audience rose

in favor of suffrage.

The Independent Women Voters of Boston again elected their entire

school ticket. Miss Frances E. Willard and Mrs. Claflin addressed the

Working Girls' Clubs of the State on suffrage at their annual reunion

in Boston. The association was represented at the great farewell

reception to Lady Henry Somerset, Lucy Stone presenting her with

twenty-three yellow roses for the States with School Suffrage and one

pure white for Wyoming.

This year at a special meeting the association amended the old

constitution under which it had been working since 1870, and

unanimously adopted a delegate basis of representation.

The annual meeting was held Dec. 6, 7, 1892, instead of January, 1893.

Mrs. Howe presided and addresses were made by Mrs. Stone, Mrs.

Livermore, the Hon. George A. O. Ernst, Mrs. Estelle M. H. Merrill,

president of the New England Women's Press Association, and others.

Lucy Stone was elected president and superintendents were instituted

for different departments of work.

At a gathering of Massachusetts farmers in Boston, Lucy Stone and Mrs.

Olive Wright of Denver, spoke for woman suffrage; the meeting declared

for it unanimously by a rising vote and every farmer present signed

the petition. The State Grange, at its annual convention, adopted a

strong suffrage resolution by 96 yeas, 27 nays. The Unitarian

Ministers' Monday Club of Boston, after an address by Mrs. Stone, did

the same, and every minister present but one signed the petition. The

Universalist Ministers' Monday meeting in Boston, at her request,

voted by a large majority to memorialize the Legislature for woman

suffrage. The Central Labor Union took similar action. The Boston

_Transcript_, _Globe_, _Advertiser_, _Traveller and Beacon_, the

Springfield _Republican_, Greenfield _Gazette and Courier_, Salem

_Observer_, Salem _Register_ and many other papers supported the

Municipal Suffrage Bill which was then pending.

At the May Festival of 1893 Senator Hoar presided and 900 persons sat

down to the banquet. Mrs. Laura Ormiston Chant of England, and Miss

Kirstine Frederiksen of Denmark, were the speakers from abroad. A

reception to these ladies preceded the annual meeting of the New

England Association. Mme. Marie Marshall of Paris, was added to the

above speakers, also Wendell Phillips Stafford of Vermont, Mrs. Ellen

M. Bolles of Rhode Island, and others. On June 5 a reception was given

to Mrs. Jane Cobden Unwin of London, Richard Cobden's daughter. On

July 19, by invitation of the Waltham Suffrage Club, the State

association and the local leagues united in a basket picnic at Forest

Grove. On this occasion Lucy Stone made her last public address.

Woman's Day at the New England Agricultural Fair in Worcester was

observed in September with addresses by Mrs. Chant, Mrs. Livermore,

Mrs. Fanny Purdy Palmer and Mr. Blackwell, representing Lucy Stone,

who was too ill to be present. There was a very large audience. Part

of a day was also secured at the Marshfield Fair with an address by

Mrs. Katherine Lente Stevenson. A convention was held at Westfield,

October 2, when the opera house was crowded to hear Mrs. Livermore.

Mr. Blackwell presented a resolution in favor of Municipal Suffrage

for women in the Resolutions Committee of the Republican State

Convention, October 6. It was warmly advocated by the Hon. John D.

Long, Samuel Walker McCall, M. C., Mayor Fairbanks of Quincy, and

others, and would possibly have been passed but for the strenuous

opposition of the chairman, ex-Gov. George D. Robinson, who said he

would decline to read the platform to the convention if the resolution

was adopted. It was finally lost by 4 yeas, 7 nays.

On Oct. 18, 1893, occurred the death of Lucy Stone at her home in

Dorchester. She said with calm contentment, "I have done what I wanted

to do; I have helped the women." Her last whispered words to her

daughter were, "Make the world better." The funeral was held in James

Freeman Clarke's old church in Boston. Hundreds of people stood

waiting silently in the street before the doors were opened. The Rev.

Charles G. Ames said afterward that, "the services were not like a

funeral but like a solemn celebration and a coronation." The speakers

were Mr. Ames, Colonel Higginson, Mrs. Livermore, Mr. Garrison, Mrs.

Cheney, the Rev. Samuel J. Barrows, Mrs. Chant, the Rev. Anna Garlin

Spencer of Providence, Mary Grew of Philadelphia, with a poem by Mrs.

Howe. A strong impetus was given to the suffrage movement by the wide

publication in the papers of the facts of Lucy Stone's simple and

noble life, and by the universal expression of affection and regret. A

life-long opponent declared that the death of no woman in America had

ever called out so general a tribute of public respect and esteem.

The State association again held its annual meeting in December. Among

the resolutions adopted was the following:

In the passing away of Lucy Stone, our president, the beloved

pioneer of woman suffrage, who has been, ever since 1847, its

mainstay and unfailing champion, the cause of equal rights in

this State and throughout the Union has suffered an irreparable

loss.

Her daughter closed the report of the year's work by saying: "Let all

those who held her dear show their regard for her memory in the way

that would have pleased and touched her most--by doing their best to

help forward the cause she loved so well."

Mrs. Mary A. Livermore was elected president.

On December 16 the association celebrated in Faneuil Hall the one

hundred and twentieth anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. One of the

last expressed wishes of Lucy Stone had been that the celebration

should take place in the Old South Church, but the use of this

historic building was refused by the trustees, much to the

mortification of the more liberal members of the General Committee of

the Old South. Colonel Higginson, who had presided at the centennial

celebration of the same event by the suffragists twenty years before,

again presided and made the opening address. Other speakers were Mrs.

Chapman Catt and Wendell Phillips Stafford. Mr. Garrison gave a poem

and Mr. Blackwell read the speech made by Lucy Stone at the

celebration in 1873. Letters were read from Senator Hoar, Frederick

Douglass and others. Governor-elect Frederick T. Greenhalge and Lieut.

Gov.-elect Roger Wolcott occupied seats on the platform.

This year the Massachusetts W. S. A. had become incorporated. It had

sent suffrage literature to all the Episcopalian, Unitarian and

Universalist clergymen in the State, to most of the Methodist

ministers, to 1,100 public school teachers and to a large number of

college students. Its president, Lucy Stone, had sent, from her death

bed, the largest contribution to the Colorado campaign given by any

individual outside of that State. Its secretary, Mr. Blackwell, had

attended the National Convention of Republican Clubs at Louisville,

Ky., and secured the adoption of the following resolution: "We

recommend to the favorable consideration of the Republican Clubs of

the United States, as a matter of education, the question of granting

to the women of the State and nation the right to vote at all

elections on the same terms and conditions as male citizens."

A thousand copies of William I. Bowditch's Taxation Without

Representation and George Pellew's Woman and the Commonwealth were

bound and presented to town and college libraries. Mayor Nathan

Matthews, Jr., of Boston appointed two women on the Board of Overseers

of the Poor, despite the strong opposition of the aldermen. He also

appointed three women members of a commission to investigate and

report to him upon the condition of public institutions. Toward the

end of the year he again appointed two women on a similar committee,

including one of those who served before. The Hon. George S. Hale

said at the annual suffrage meeting, "Both ladies are admirably

qualified, and the one who acted last year is declared by all the men

who served with her to be the most valuable member of the board."

Out of 622 students and professors at Wellesley College, who were

questioned as to their views on suffrage, 506 declared themselves in

favor, and 500 of them united in sending a telegram of congratulation

to the women of Colorado on the passage of the equal suffrage

amendment this year. (1893.)

At the May Festival 1,000 sat down to the banquet and hundreds

occupied the balconies. Ex-Governor Long presided. One of the speakers

was Robert S. Gray, chairman of the Committee on Woman Suffrage in the

Legislature. In honor of Mrs. Howe's seventy-fifth birthday Mrs. Alice

J. Harris sang The Battle Hymn of the Republic, the audience joining

in the chorus.

On June 18 delegates from many labor organizations met in Boston, in

response to a call from the Boston Workingmen's Political League, and

decided to act together at the ballot box. Their platform demanded

universal suffrage irrespective of sex.

Lucy Stone mite-boxes were circulated by the association for funds to

aid the amendment campaign in Kansas. Mr. Blackwell attended the

National Convention of Republican Clubs held in Denver. On June 27 it

reiterated the woman suffrage resolution it had passed the year before

in Louisville.

On July 24 Woman's Day was celebrated at the Massachusetts Chautauqua

in South Framingham, with many able speakers. On September 4 Woman's

Day was observed at the New England Agricultural Fair in Worcester.

Colonel Needham, its president, made an earnest woman suffrage address

and was followed by Mrs. Howe, Miss Yates, Mrs. Mary Sargent Hopkins

and Mr. Blackwell. In December a suffrage fair was held under the

management of Mrs. Abby M. Davis which cleared about $1,800. On the

opening night Mrs. Cheney presided and there were addresses by Lady

Henry Somerset and Miss Frances E. Willard.

This year the association kept the papers supplied with suffrage

articles more thoroughly than ever before; had speakers present the

subject to thirty-one women's clubs; furnished literature to the

legislators, to 5,000 public school teachers, to all the

Congregational ministers in the State and to many of other

denominations; and sent 3,782 leaflets to college students and

graduates.

Governor Greenhalge in his inaugural in 1895, said, "I hold to the

views expressed in the message of last year as to the extension of

Municipal Suffrage to women." He also referred to it favorably in an

address before the New England Women's Press Association, and at the

Parliament of Man held in Boston.

Mrs. Livermore presided at the annual meeting, January 8, 9. Mrs.

Helen H. Gardiner and Representative Alfred S. Roe were among the

speakers. From this time date the Fortnightly Meetings at the suffrage

headquarters, and these have been held ever since except during the

summer vacations. They are usually well attended and seldom fail to

have some speaker of note.

On May 4 Mr. Blackwell's seventieth birthday was celebrated by a

reception and dinner at Copley Square Hotel, Boston, ex-Governor Long

presiding. A newspaper said, "The guests on this occasion represented

the conscience and culture of New England." Addresses were made by

many of his co-workers,[309] and among those who sent letters were the

Rev. Samuel May, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ainsworth R. Spofford,

of the Library of Congress, Ex-Governor Claflin, Mrs. J. Ellen Foster,

the Hon. James L. Hughes, president of the Equal Rights Association of

Toronto, Professor and Mrs. Carruth of Kansas University, and others.

On May 14 the golden wedding of the Rev. D. P. and Mrs. Livermore was

celebrated by a reception in the suffrage parlors. Their daughters,

son-in-law and grandchildren received with them. In accordance with

Mrs. Livermore's wish there was no speaking but a great throng of

distinguished guests, including both suffragists and "antis," were

present.

At the May Anniversary a reception was given to Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi

of New York, and Miss Elizabeth Burrill Curtis, daughter of the

staunch advocate of suffrage, George William Curtis. Mr. Blackwell

presided at the Festival in Music Hall and 700 sat down to the

banquet.

Woman suffrage was indorsed by the Garment Makers' Union of Boston,

with its 400 members. This year a long list of prominent persons

signed a published statement declaring themselves in favor, all the

names being collected within about a week. This remarkable list

included several hundred names, about one-third of men. So far as

personal achievement goes they were among the most prominent in the

State and included several presidents of colleges, a large number of

noted university men, public officials, lawyers, editors, etc. Among

the women were the president, dean and twenty professors of Wellesley

College; the director of the Observatory and six instructors of Smith

College, physicians, lawyers, authors, large taxpayers, and many noted

for philanthropy.[310]

The association secured a Woman's Day at the New England Chautauqua

Assembly; brought the question before hundreds at parlor meetings and

public debates, outside of the many arranged by the Referendum

Committee; published six leaflets and a volume, The Legal Status of

Women in Massachusetts, by Mr. Ernst, and distributed an immense

amount of literature.

Up to this time the anti-suffrage associations organized in

Massachusetts always had gone to pieces within a short period after

they were formed. But in May, 1895, the present Association Opposed to

the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women was organized, with Mrs.

James M. Codman at its head and Mrs. Charles E. Guild as secretary.

This was a society composed of women alone. Col. Higginson said in

_Harper's Bazar_:

All the ladies move in a limited though most unimpeachable

circle. All may be presumed to interchange visiting cards and

meet at the same afternoon teas. There is not even a hint that

there is any other class to be consulted. Where are the literary

women, the artists, the teachers, the business women, the

temperance women, the labor reform advocates, the members of the

farmers' grange, the clergymen's wives? Compared with this

inadequate body how comfortably varied looks the list of the

committee in behalf of woman suffrage. [Distinguished names

given.] It includes also women who are wholesomely unknown to the

world at large but well known in the granges and among the

Christian Endeavorers. Can any one doubt which list represents

the spirit of the future?

The more cultivated social class--the "Four Hundred," as the

saying is--have an immense value in certain directions. They

stand for the social amenities and in many ways for the worthy

charities. Generous and noble traditions attach to their names

and nowhere more than in Boston. But one thing has in all ages

and places been denied to this class--that of leadership in bold

reforms.

On November 5 the mock referendum, which had been opposed by many of

the leading suffragists, was voted on and received a large negative

majority. (See Legislative Action.)

The State association held its annual convention, Jan. 14, 15, 1896,

with large audiences. It opened with a Young People's Meeting, Miss

Blackwell presiding.[311] The Rev. Father Scully and Mrs. Fanny B.

Ames, State Factory Inspector, were among the many who gave addresses.

At the business meeting the following resolution on the mock

referendum was adopted:

WHEREAS, The returns show that we only need to convert twenty per

cent. of the male voters in order to have a majority; and

WHEREAS, Public sentiment is growing rapidly and grows faster the

more the subject is discussed; therefore,

_Resolved_, That we petition the Legislature to give us a real

instead of a sham referendum, by submitting to the voters a

constitutional amendment enfranchising women.

The president, Mrs. Livermore, was made a Doctor of Laws by Tufts

College and was given a great birthday reception by her

fellow-townsmen, with addresses by Mrs. Susan S. Fessenden and Mr.

Blackwell and a poem by Hezekiah Butterworth.

The May Festival also opened with a Young People's Meeting, Mrs. Howe

as "grandmother" introducing the speakers.[312] Mr. Garrison presided

at the Festival and the speakers included Alfred Webb, M. P., of

Dublin, the Rev. Dean Hodges, of the Episcopal Theological School,

Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Stetson and Prof. Ellen Hayes of Wellesley.

A series of meetings was held this year in Berkshire County. Mrs. Mary

Clarke Smith was kept in the field as State organizer for seven

months. A speaker was sent free of charge to every woman's club or

other society willing to hear the suffrage question presented; 13,000

pages of literature were distributed. On October 27 the State Baptist

Young People's Union at its anniversary indorsed woman suffrage. In

December a rousing meeting was held in Canton, Congressman Elijah

Morse presiding, with Mrs. Livermore and Miss Yates as speakers.

Among the deaths of the year was that of Frederick T. Greenhalge--the

latest of a long line of Massachusetts governors who have advocated

woman suffrage since 1870--Governors Claflin, Washburn, Talbot,

Brackett, Long, Butler and Ames.

At the annual meeting, in 1897, the speakers included the Rev. George

L. Perin and Augusta Chapin, D. D. As the laws were about to be

revised and codified it was decided to ask for an equalization of

those bearing on domestic relations. The _Women's Journal_ noted that

never before had so many petitions for suffrage been sent in within so

short a time. On February 16 the association gave a large and

brilliant reception at the Vendome to Miss Jane Addams of Chicago.

Col. Higginson presided, and Miss Addams, Mrs. Howe and Mrs. Livermore

spoke. On April 17 a reception was given in the suffrage parlors to

Mrs. Harriet Tubman, the colored woman so noted in anti-slavery days

for her assistance to fugitive slaves, Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney assisting.

Mr. Blackwell presided at the Festival, May 27, and eloquent addresses

were made by the Rev. Dr. George C. Lorimer, Lieutenant-Governor John

L. Bates, Mrs. Florence Howe Hall and many others, while letters of

greeting were read from Lady Henry Somerset and Mrs. Millicent Garrett

Fawcett of England. It was Mrs. Howe's seventy-eighth birthday and she

was received with cheers and presented with flowers.

On July 29 the annual meeting of the Berkshire Historical and

Scientific Society, held at Adams, was "a woman suffrage convention

from end to end," with Miss Susan B. Anthony as the guest of honor in

her native town. Her friends and relatives from all parts of the

country were present and addresses were made by the vice-president of

the society, the Rev. A. B. Whipple, by Miss Shaw, Mrs. Chapman Catt,

Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton and Miss

Blackwell, officers of the National Suffrage Association, and by Mrs.

May Wright Sewall, vice-president of the International Council of

Women, Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby, editor of the _Woman's Tribune_ and

Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, Miss Anthony's biographer.

The Prohibition State Convention in September resolved that

"educational qualifications and not sex should be the test of the

elective franchise." The next year it adopted a woman suffrage plank.

In December the association held a bazar under the management of Miss

Harriet E. Turner which cleared $3,200. During the year the usual

large amount of educational work was done, which included 1,024

suffrage articles furnished to 230 newspapers, and the holding of 176

public meetings. The New England Historical and Genealogical Society

voted unanimously to admit women to membership. Strong efforts were

made to have the Boston school board elect several eminently qualified

women as submasters, but sex prejudice defeated them.

The Anti-Suffrage Association published an anonymous pamphlet entitled

Tested by its Fruits. The Massachusetts W. S. A. published a

counter-pamphlet by Chief-Justice Groesbeck of Wyoming, who testified

that some of the laws which it represented as then in force had been

repealed many years before, and that upon some "an absurd

construction" had been placed.

The convention of Jan. 26, 1898, was addressed by J. M. Robertson of

England. At the May Festival in Hotel Brunswick, the Hon. Hugh H. Lusk

of New Zealand gave an address, and the occasion was made noteworthy

by bright speeches from young women--Mrs. Helen Adelaide Shaw, Miss

Maud Wood (Park) of Radcliffe and Miss Hanscom of Boston University

and Smith College. Several members of the Legislature spoke and

reports were received from all the New England States.

Woman's Day was celebrated at the Mechanics' Fair in Boston. This year

the association began to issue a monthly letter to the local leagues.

As an addition to the literature, Secretary-of-the-Navy John D. Long's

suffrage address with his portrait was issued as a handsome pamphlet.

In response to an appeal from the president, Mrs. Livermore (so well

known through the Sanitary Commission during the Civil War), $500 and

many boxes of supplies were sent to the soldiers in the

Spanish-American War, and the secretary of the State association,

Mrs. Ellie A. Hilt, literally worked herself to death in this service.

The usual meetings were held in 1899 and 1900 and the same great

amount of work was done. To increase the school vote of women in 1899

thirty-eight public meetings were held by the association, with the

result that in Boston 3,000 new names were added to the registration

list. In 1900 the association contributed liberally to the suffrage

campaign in Oregon. A large and brilliant reception was given at the

Hotel Vendome in honor of Mrs. Livermore's 80th birthday.

Presidents of the State association since 1883 have been the Hon.

William I. Bowditch (1878) to 1891; Mrs. Julia Ward Howe to 1893; Mrs.

Lucy Stone elected that year but died in October; Mrs. Mary A.

Livermore, 1893 and still in office. Henry B. Blackwell has been

corresponding secretary over thirty years.[313]

The first president of the New England association was Mrs. Howe. In

1877 Mrs. Lucy Stone was elected, and at her death in 1893 Mrs. Howe

was again chosen and is still serving.[314]

LEGISLATIVE ACTION:[315] The first petition for the rights of women

was presented to the Legislature by William Lloyd Garrison in 1849. In

1853 Lucy Stone, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips and Thomas

Wentworth Higginson went before the constitutional convention held in

the State House, with a petition signed by 2,000 names, and pleaded

for an amendment conferring suffrage on women.

The first appearance of a woman in this State before a legislative

committee was made in 1857, when Lucy Stone, with the Rev. James

Freeman Clarke and Mr. Phillips, addressed the House Judiciary asking

suffrage for women and equal property rights for wives. The next year

Samuel E. Sewall and Dr. Harriot K. Hunt were granted a similar

hearing. In 1869, through the efforts of the New England Suffrage

Association, two hearings were secured to present the claims of 8,000

women who had petitioned for the franchise on the same terms as men.

This was the beginning of annual hearings on this question, which have

been continued without intermission for over thirty years. Henry B.

Blackwell has spoken at every hearing and Lucy Stone at every one

until her death.

_1884_--Petitions were presented for Municipal Suffrage, for the

appointment of police matrons; also for laws permitting husbands and

wives to contract with each other and make gifts directly to each

other; allowing a woman to hold any office to which she might be

elected or appointed; and requiring that a certain number of women

should be appointed on Boards of Overseers of the Poor, on State

Boards of Charities and as physicians in the women's wards of insane

asylums. Hearings were given on most of these petitions. At that of

January 25 for Municipal Suffrage the speakers were William I.

Bowditch, Mrs. Stone, Mr. Blackwell, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Mrs. Ednah

D. Cheney, the Rev. J. W. and Mrs. Jennie F. Bashford, Mary F.

Eastman, Mrs. H. H. Robinson, Mrs. Harriette Robinson Shattuck and

Miss Nancy Covell.

On January 29 a hearing was given to the remonstrants conducted by

Thornton K. Lothrop. The speakers were Francis Parkman (whose paper

was read for him by Mr. Lothrop) Louis B. Brandeis, Mrs. Kate Gannett

Wells, William H. Sayward, Mrs. Lydia Warner and George C. Crocker. A

letter was read from Mrs. Clara T. Leonard. Mr. Parkman asserted that

the suffragists "have thrown to the wind every political, not to say

every moral principle;" that "three-fourths of the agitators are in

mutiny against Providence because it made them women;" and that "if

the ballot were granted to women it would be a burden so crushing that

life would be a misery."

This year 315 petitions for suffrage with 21,608 signatures were

presented. The remonstrants who set out with the avowed intention of

getting more secured about 3,000. A number of persons who signed the

anti-suffrage petition in Boston published letters afterwards over

their own names and addresses saying that they had signed without

reading, upon the assurance of the canvasser employed by the

remonstrants that it was a petition to permit women to vote on the

question of liquor license.

In the House Municipal Suffrage was discussed March 12, 13, and

finally was defeated by 61 yeas, 155 nays. A bill to let women vote on

the license question, which had not been asked for by the suffrage

association, was voted down without a count.

A law was enacted requiring two women trustees on the board of every

State lunatic hospital, and one woman physician in each. Samuel E.

Sewall, Frank B. Sanborn, Mr. Blackwell and Miss Mary A. Brigham had

been the speakers at the hearing in behalf of this measure. All the

other petitions were refused.

_1885_--On Municipal Suffrage and the submission of a constitutional

amendment a hearing was given February 17. As usual the Green Room was

crowded. There were before the committee petitions for suffrage with

16,113 signatures, and petitions against it with 285. The speakers in

favor were the Rev. James Freeman Clarke, Mrs. Cheney, Lucy Stone, Mr.

Blackwell, Mr. Bowditch, William Lloyd Garrison, Jr., Miss Eastman,

Mrs. Adelaide A. Claflin, Mrs. Abby M. Gannett and Miss Lelia J.

Robinson. The opposition was conducted by Mr. Brandeis and the

speakers were Judge Francis C. Lowell, Mrs. Gannett Wells, Thomas

Weston, Jr., Henry Parkman and the Rev. Brooke Hereford, lately from

England, with letters from President L. Clark Seelye of Smith College,

Miss Mary E. Dewey and Mr. Sayward. The committee reported in favor of

Municipal Suffrage with only one dissenting. The House on May 4

rejected the bill by 61 yeas, 131 nays.

While the women sat in the gallery waiting for the measure to be

discussed, the bill proposing to limit the working day for women and

children to ten hours was "guyed, laughed at and voted down amid

ridicule and uproar." This Legislature also refused the petition of

Mr. Sewall and others for one or more women on every Board of

Overseers of the Poor; for the better protection of wives; for the

submission of a constitutional amendment granting women full suffrage;

and for the amendment of the school suffrage law to make it as easy

for women as for men to register. (See Suffrage.)

_1886_--At the hearing, January 28, a letter was read from the Hon.

Josiah G. Abbott, and addresses were made by Mr. Garrison, Lucy Stone,

Mr. Blackwell, Mrs. Cheney, Mrs. Eliza Trask Hill, the Rev. Ada C.

Bowles, Mrs. Shattuck, Mrs. Robinson, Miss Eastman and Mrs. Claflin.

The remonstrants' hearing had been appointed for January 29. Their

attorney, E. N. Hill, tried at the last moment to get a postponement

but failed. The leaders of the "antis" declined to speak but several

of the rank and file appeared and made the usual objections. The

committee reported in favor of Municipal Suffrage. It was discussed in

the House April 14, about the same number speaking on each side, and

defeated by 77 yeas, 132 nays, the most favorable vote since 1879.

On May 20, before the Senate Judiciary Committee, representatives of

the suffrage association and other societies had a hearing in behalf

of bills to raise the "age of protection" and to provide adequate

penalties for seduction, but no action was taken.

_1887_--On January 6 Governor Oliver Ames, in his inaugural address to

the Legislature, said, "I earnestly recommend, as a measure of simple

justice, the enactment of a law securing Municipal Suffrage to women."

The suffrage petitions this year had 5,741 signatures, the remonstrant

petitions 81. On February 2 it was ordered in the House, on motion of

Josiah Quincy, that the Committee on Woman Suffrage consider the

expediency of submitting the question of Municipal Suffrage to the

women of the different cities and towns, the right to be given to them

in any city or town where the majority of those who voted on the

question should vote in favor; or where a number of women should

petition for it equal to a majority of the number of men who voted at

the last annual municipal or town election; or where a majority vote

of the men should be given for it at the annual election.

On motion of Mr. Quincy an order for legislation to equalize the

interest of husbands and wives in each other's property had been

previously introduced but was lost.

On February 9 a hearing was given to the petitioners. The speakers

were the same as the previous year with the addition of Col. T. W.

Higginson. Mr. Blackwell presented two letters in favor of the bill,

one addressed to Republicans, one to Democrats.[316] Clement K. Fay

spoke for the remonstrants.

The committee reported in favor of Municipal Suffrage, two dissenting.

It was discussed in the House March 3 and 10. Mr. Bailey of Everett

offered an amendment that the provisions of the bill be tried for ten

years, but it was not put to a vote. The bill was lost by 86 yeas, 122

nays, including pairs.

A bill to let women vote on the license question passed the House by

116 yeas to 88 nays, including pairs, but was defeated in the Senate,

24 yeas, 13 nays.

The bill was passed providing for police matrons in all cities of

30,000 or more inhabitants.

_1888_--The Legislature was asked for Municipal and Presidential

Suffrage and for the submission of a constitutional amendment; also

for various improvements in the laws relating to women. The Woman's

Christian Temperance Union petitioned for License Suffrage. Several

thousand women signed the petition and one hundred the remonstrance.

On January 25 a hearing was given on the petitions for Municipal and

License Suffrage. Mr. Bowditch, Lucy Stone, Mr. Blackwell, Mrs. Howe

and Mrs. Cheney spoke for Municipal Suffrage and Miss Elizabeth S.

Tobey for License Suffrage. Mr. Brandeis made an argument as attorney

for the remonstrants. Charles Carleton Coffin, A. A. Miner, D. D.,

Mrs. Claflin, the Rev. Ada C. Bowles and Miss Cora Scott Pond replied

for the petitioners.

On February 20 and 25 hearings were given on the petitions for six

bills drawn by Mr. Sewall: 1. To give mothers the equal care, custody

and education of their minor children. 2. To give married women a

right to appoint guardians for their minor children by will. 3. To

repeal the act of 1887 limiting the inheritance of personal property.

4. To regulate and equalize the descent of personal property between

husband and wife. 5. To equalize curtesy and dower and the descent of

real estate between husband and wife. 6. To enable husbands and wives

to make gifts, contracts and conveyances directly with one another,

and to authorize suits between them.

Addresses in support of the petitions were made by Mr. Sewall, Mrs.

Howe, Mrs. Stone, Mr. Blackwell, the Hon. George A. O. Ernst, Miss

Robinson, George H. Fall and others. All these measures were refused.

Several new statutes for the better protection of women were passed

this year, however, at the instance of Mr. Sewall, among them one

providing severe penalties for any person who should aid in sending a

woman as inmate or servant to a house of ill fame; one prohibiting

railroads from requiring women or children to ride in smoking cars;

one providing that women arrested should be placed in charge of police

matrons.

On April 23 Municipal Suffrage was defeated in the House, 50 yeas, 121

nays. License Suffrage, after a prolonged contest, passed by 118 yeas,

110 nays, and was defeated in the Senate, 20 yeas, 19 nays.

_1889_--At the hearing of January 31 the attendance was larger than

ever before. Prof. W. H. Carruth, Franklyn Howland and the Rev. J. W.

Hamilton (afterwards Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church) were

added to the usual list of speakers.

On February 4 a hearing was granted to the W. C. T. U. for Municipal

Suffrage, and on February 8 one was given to the remonstrants. The

Hon. John M. Ropes, the Rev. Charles B. Rice, the Rev. Dr. Dexter of

the _Congregationalist_ and Arthur Lord spoke in the negative. They

said they were employed as counsel by the remonstrants, whose names

and numbers they declined to give. As Mr. Lord was unable to complete

his argument in the allotted time, at his request a further hearing

was granted on February 11. Extracts were read from letters by Mrs.

Clara T. Leonard and Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney.[317] Mrs. Howe, Lucy

Stone, Mr. Blackwell, Col. L. Edwin Dudley and Miss Tobey replied.

Chester W. Kingsley, chairman of the legislative committee, said that

as no petitions against suffrage had been sent in he would ask all the

remonstrants present to rise. Not a person rose, but the men standing

in the aisles tried to sit down. Mr. Lord suggested that the

remonstrants were averse to notoriety, whereupon Senator Kingsley

asked all in favor to rise, and the great audience rose in a body.

Among the petitions sent in this year for Municipal Suffrage was one

signed by President Helen A. Shafer of Wellesley College, a number of

the professors and about seventy students who were over twenty-one.

The committee reported in favor of both Municipal and License

Suffrage. The former was discussed March 12 and lost by a vote,

including pairs, of 90 yeas, 139 nays. The _Woman's Journal_ said:

"Although not a majority, the weight of character, talent and

experience was overwhelmingly in favor of the bill, as is shown by the

fact that _the chairmen of thirty of the House Committees_, out of a

total of forty-one, were recorded in its favor."

License Suffrage passed the Senate, 15 yeas, 12 nays, after a long

fight, and was defeated in the House, 101 yeas, 42 nays.

_1890_--Suffrage petitions were presented and also petitions asking

that fathers and mothers be made equal guardians of their children;

that contracts between husbands and wives be legally valid; and that a

widow be allowed to stay more than forty days in the house of her

deceased husband without paying rent. All these were refused.

On March 12 a hearing was given to the petitioners for suffrage. Mrs.

Stone, Mr. Blackwell, the Rev. J. W. Hamilton, Mrs. Ellen B. Dietrick,

the Rev. Frederick A. Hinckley, Mr. Crane of Woburn and Miss Alice

Stone Blackwell spoke in behalf of the W. S. A., and Mrs. Susan S.

Fessenden, Mrs. Amelia C. Thorpe and Miss Tobey in behalf of the W. C.

T. U. Mr. Ropes, Dr. A. P. Peabody and J. B. Wiggin spoke against

woman suffrage. Mr. Lord asked that the hearing be extended for

another day, as he wished to speak in behalf of the remonstrants,

although no petitions had been sent in. Mr. Blackwell requested the

chairman of the committee to ask Mr. Lord to state definitely whom he

represented. The chairman answered that if he did not choose to tell

he could not compel him. On March 19 a hearing was given to Mr. Lord,

who spoke for more than an hour. The usual distinguished suffrage

advocates spoke in answer.

On April 8 seventy-nine Republican Representatives met at the Parker

House, Boston, in response to an invitation from the Republican

members of the House Committee on Woman Suffrage. Ex-Gov. John D. Long

presided. Addresses were made by Mr. Long, U. S. Collector Beard,

Mayor Thomas N. Hart of Boston, the Hon. Albert E. Pillsbury,

ex-president of the Senate, ex-Governor Claflin and State Treasurer

George E. Marden. Letters were read from the Hon. W. W. Crapo and

ex-Governor Ames. The following was unanimously adopted:

_Resolved_, That it is the duty of the Republican party of

Massachusetts forthwith to extend Municipal Suffrage to the women

of the commonwealth.

On April 17, after extended discussion in the House, the bill was

lost, including pairs, by 73 yeas, 141 nays. The same Legislature

defeated a proposal to disfranchise for a term of three years men

convicted of infamous crimes, and it voted to admit to suffrage men

who did not pay their poll-tax.

_1891_--On February 4 a hearing was granted to the petitioners for

Municipal Suffrage, conducted by Mr. Blackwell for the association, by

Mrs. Fessenden for the W. C. T. U. To the usual speakers for the

former were added Mrs. Helen Campbell, the Rev. Charles G. Ames, and

also the Rev. Daniel Whitney, who had advocated woman suffrage in the

Massachusetts constitutional convention of 1853 and now celebrated his

eighty-first birthday by supporting it again. The speakers for the W.

C. T. U. were the Rev. Joseph Cook, Mrs. Thorpe, President Elmer

Hewitt Capen of Tufts College, Mrs. Katherine Lente Stevenson and

others. Mrs. Martha Moore Avery spoke for the labor reformers. No

remonstrants appeared.

In the Senate, March 31, Senators Gilman, Nutter and Breed spoke for

Municipal Suffrage, and no one in the negative. The bill was lost by a

vote, including pairs, of 12 yeas, 25 nays.

This year a bill was passed requiring the appointment of women as

factory inspectors, and two were appointed.

_1892_--The suffrage association petitioned for Municipal and Full

Suffrage, also for equal property rights for women. The W. C. T. U.

for Municipal and License Suffrage, and both societies for legislation

granting women equal facilities with men in registering to vote for

school committee. On March 2 a hearing was given by the Committee on

Election Laws on an order introduced by Senator Gorham D. Gilman to

remove the poll-tax prerequisite for women's school vote, as it had

been removed from men. Bills to secure for them a more just and

liberal method of registration, drafted by ex-Governor Long and Mr.

Blackwell, were submitted. Addresses were made by these two, Senator

Gilman, Mrs. Cheney, Dr. Salome Merritt, Mrs. Brockway and others.

On February 19 a hearing was given on the suffrage petitions which

were advocated by Senator Gilman, Colonel Dudley, Mrs. Howe, Lucy

Stone, Mr. Blackwell, the Hon. George S. Hale, Mrs. Trask Hill and

others. No remonstrants appeared. On March 14 the hearing for the W.

C. T. U. was held with many prominent advocates.

License Suffrage was discussed in the House April 27, and on a _viva

voce_ vote was declared carried, but on a roll call was defeated, 93

yeas, 96 nays. A reconsideration was moved next day and the advocates

of the bill secured twenty-three additional votes, but the opponents

also increased their vote and the motion was refused. Out of the 240

members 117 recorded themselves in favor of the bill. Municipal

Suffrage was voted down in the Senate May 2, without debate, by 10

yeas, 22 nays.

The poll-tax was abolished as a prerequisite for voting in the case of

women. This had been done in the case of men in 1890. A bill to permit

a wife to bring an action against her husband, at law or in equity,

for any matter relating to her separate property or estate passed the

House but was defeated in the Senate. The Senate Judiciary Committee

reported against legislation to enable a woman to be appointed a

justice of the peace.

_1893_--This year for the first time the State W. S. A., the National

W. S. A. of Massachusetts, the W. C. T. U., the Independent Women

Voters and the Loyal Women of American Liberty all united in

petitioning for a single measure, Municipal Suffrage. The hearing at

the State House on February 1 was conducted by Mr. Blackwell.

Addresses were made by Lucy Stone,[318] Mrs. Howe, Mrs. Mary A.

Livermore, Mrs. Stevenson, the Rev. Louis A. Banks, Mayor Elihu B.

Hayes of Lynn, Mrs. A. J. Gordon, Mrs. Trask Hill, Mrs. A. P.

Dickerman, Mrs. Fiske of St. Johns, N. B., Amos Beckford, George E.

Lothrop, Mrs. M. E. S. Cheney and Miss Blackwell. Mrs. M. E. Tucker

Faunce was the sole remonstrant.

The committee reported in favor of the petitioners, 7 yeas, 4 nays.

The question was debated in the Legislature February 21. Every inch of

space was crowded, the first three rows of the men's gallery were

allowed on this occasion to be occupied by women and even then many

stood. On motion of Representative White of Brookline an amendment was

adopted by 110 yeas, 90 nays, providing that Municipal Suffrage should

be granted conditionally; the question be submitted to a vote of the

men and women of the State, and the measure to go into effect only in

case the majority of those voting on it voted in favor. The bill as

amended was then defeated by 111 yeas, 101 nays, almost every opponent

of suffrage voting against it. They thus virtually declared that they

were not willing women should have Municipal Suffrage even if the

majority of both men and women could be shown to favor it. The adverse

majority this year was ten votes; the smallest in any previous year

had been 49.

_1894_--Gov. Frederick T. Greenhalge, in his inaugural message to the

Legislature, strongly urged that it should consider the extension of

Municipal Suffrage to women.

On January 18 a hearing was given by the Joint Special Committee. No

remonstrant petitions had been sent in. The chairman invited alternate

speeches from suffragists and opponents, but only one of the latter

presented himself, J. Otis Wardwell of Haverhill, who said:

I appear here this morning for a lady who, I understand, has

occupied a position as chairman or secretary of an organization

that has for some time been an active opponent of woman suffrage.

_Mr. Blackwell_--May I inquire what the organization is that the

gentleman refers to? We have never been able to find out much

about this organization against woman suffrage. We hear that

there is one, but if so it is a secret society. What is the name

of it?

MR. WARDWELL--I do not know the name of it, sir. [Laughter.]

When pressed for the name of the lady at whose request he appeared he

finally acknowledged that it was Mrs. C. D. Homans of Boston. It was

afterwards reported that she was extremely indignant with him for

having disclosed her name.

Addresses in favor of suffrage were made by Mrs. Howe, Mrs. Livermore,

Mr. Ernst, Mr. Garrison, Mr. and Miss Blackwell, for the State W. S.

A.; by Mrs. Cheney, president, for the State School Suffrage

Association; by Dr. Salome Merritt and Miss Charlotte Lobdell for the

National W. S. A. of Massachusetts; by Willard Howland, Mrs. Gleason

and others for the W. C. T. U.; by Mrs. Trask Hill for the Independent

Women Voters; and by Mrs. Avery for the labor element; also by Miss

Catherine Spence of Australia, Mrs. Emily A. Fifield of the Boston

school board, and others. Henry H. Faxon added a few words.

A second hearing was given January 19, at which Mrs. Fessenden and

twelve other speakers represented the W. C. T. U. No remonstrants

appeared. At the request of a member of the Joint Special Committee a

third hearing was given on January 29. The Rev. Dr. Hamilton, Mrs. L.

A. Morrison, Mrs. Trask Hill and others spoke in favor of suffrage,

and Jeremiah J. Donovan against it. The committee made a majority

report against Municipal Suffrage and a minority report in favor.

On January 31 Arthur S. Kneil offered an amendment providing that the

question should be submitted to the men and women of the State, and

that the act should take effect only if a majority of the votes cast

on the proposition were in favor. Wm. H. Burges wanted it submitted to

the men only. A second amendment proposed to lay the whole matter on

the table till the opinion of the Supreme Court could be taken on the

constitutionality of Mr. Kneil's amendment. On February 1 there was a

spirited discussion but finally both amendments were defeated, and

the minority report in favor of the bill was substituted for the

adverse majority report by a vote of 104 yeas, 90 nays.

On February 2 Senator Arthur H. Wellman urged the adoption of his

order that the Justices of the Supreme Court should be required to

give their opinion to the House on three questions:

1. Is it constitutional, in an act granting to women the right to

vote in town and city elections, to provide that such act shall

take effect throughout the commonwealth upon its acceptance by a

majority of the voters of the commonwealth?

2. Is it constitutional to provide in such an act that it shall

take effect in a city or town upon its acceptance by a majority

of the voters of such city or town?

3. Is it constitutional to provide that such an act shall take

effect throughout the commonwealth upon its acceptance by a

majority of the voters of the commonwealth, including women

specially authorized to register and vote upon this question?

Alfred S. Roe and the other leading advocates of Municipal Suffrage

withdrew their opposition to the order, saying that they preferred the

bill as it stood, but that if amendments were to be added to it at any

subsequent stage it would be well to know whether they were

constitutional. The order was adopted.

On March 3 four Justices of the Supreme Court--Field, Allen, Morton

and Lathrop--answered "No" to all three questions. Justices Holmes and

Barker answered "Yes" to all three; and Justice Knowlton answered "No"

to the first and third and "Yes" to the second. These opinions were

published in full in the _Woman's Journal_ of March 10, 1894.

On March 14 Municipal Suffrage was discussed in open session. An

amendment was offered to limit the right to taxpaying women and a

substitute bill to allow women to vote at one election only. The

latter was offered by Richard J. Hayes of Boston, who said, "You would

see the lowest women literally driven to the polls by thousands by

mercenary politicians. The object lesson would settle the question

forever." The amendment and the substitute were lost and the bill was

passed to its third reading by a vote, including pairs, of 122 yeas,

106 nays.

On March 29 the galleries were crowded with women. Richard Sullivan of

Boston offered an additional section that the question be submitted to

the men at the November election for an expression of opinion. This

was adopted by 109 yeas, 93 nays. The bill to grant women Municipal

Suffrage at once, irrespective of what the expression of opinion in

November might be, was then passed to be engrossed, by a vote,

including pairs, of 118 yeas, 107 nays. A motion to reconsider was

voted down.

On April 5 the bill came up in the Senate. Floor and galleries were

crowded and hundreds were turned away. Senator William B. Lawrence of

Medford, a distiller, offered as a substitute for the bill a proposal

to submit the question to the men at the November election for an

expression of opinion as a guide to action by the next Legislature. He

said it was absurd to grant women the suffrage first and call for an

expression of opinion by the men afterward. The vote on the substitute

was a tie, 19 yeas, 19 nays. To relieve the president of the Senate

from the necessity of voting Senator John F. Fitzgerald changed his

vote, but Senator Butler declined to be so relieved and gave his

casting vote against the substitute. The bill for Municipal Suffrage

was then defeated by 14 yeas, 24 nays.

The Boston _Herald_, of April 9, had an editorial entitled Liquor and

Woman Suffrage, expressing satisfaction in the defeat of the bill but

emphatic disapproval of the corrupt methods used against it in the

Senate. A majority of the Senators had promised to vote for it but the

Liquor Dealer's Association raised a large sum of money to accomplish

its defeat, a persistent lobby worked against it and several Senators

changed front. The _Herald_ plainly intimated that the result was due

to bribery.

The credit of the unusually good vote in the House in 1893 and '94 was

largely due to Representative Alfred S. Roe of Worcester, an able

member, highly esteemed and very popular, who worked for the bill with

the utmost zeal and perseverance.

There were petitions this year from many different organizations

representing a vast aggregate membership. On June 9 a bill to allow

women to be notaries public was defeated in the Senate by 10 yeas, 12

nays.

_1895._--On January 30 a great hearing was held in old

Representatives' Hall at the State House, with floor, aisles and

galleries crowded to the utmost capacity. Senator Alpheus M. Eldridge

presided and Mrs. Livermore, as president of the State Association,

conducted the hearing for the five organizations that appeared as

petitioners. Addresses were made by Lady Henry Somerset, Mrs. Howe,

Mr. Blackwell, Profs. Hayes and Webster of Wellesley College, Mrs.

Fessenden, Mrs. Trask Hill, Mrs. Emily McLaughlin, Mrs. Boland, John

Dean, F. C. Nash, Frank H. Foster, chairman of the legislative

committee of the American Federation of Labor for Massachusetts, James

F. Norton, the representative of 10,000 Good Templars.

No opposing petitions had been sent in but Thomas Russell appeared as

attorney for the remonstrants and said: "Believing as they do that the

proper place for women is not in public urging or remonstrating

against legislation before public gatherings, but rather in the home,

the hospital, the school, the public institution where sin and

suffering are to be found and to be alleviated, they have not

themselves appeared before you"--but had sent him.[319] Representative

Roe said that the lawyer who had spoken for the remonstrants at the

hearing of 1894 had received $500 for his services, and asked Mr.

Russell if he appeared in the same capacity. He answered that no

compensation had been promised him, and that he did not mean to accept

any. He added: "I represent no organization, anything more than an

informal gathering of ladies, and as for the numbers I can not state.

But I do not come here basing my claim to be heard on the numbers of

those who have asked me to appear. It is the justice of the cause

which I speak upon that entitles me to a hearing, as it would if there

were no one but myself."

Later twelve remonstrances were sent in, signed by 748 women. For

suffrage there were 210 petitions from 186 towns and cities

representing 133,111 individuals, men and women.

The opposition, alarmed by the large affirmative vote of 1894, this

year put forth unprecedented efforts. Daily papers were paid for

publishing voluminous letters against suffrage--sometimes of four

columns--and an active and unscrupulous lobby worked against the bill.

For the first time in history an anti-suffrage association was formed

within the Legislature itself. Representatives Dallinger, Humphrey,

Bancroft of Clinton, Eddy of New Bedford, and others, organized

themselves into a society, elected a chairman and secretary and

worked strenuously and systematically, making a thorough canvass of

the House and pledging as many members as possible to vote "No."

The suffragists made the mistake of devoting their attention mainly to

the Senate, where it was expected that the bill would come up first,

and where it was believed that the main difficulty would be, but on

March 5 the Municipal Suffrage Bill was brought up in the House. Every

inch of space was crowded with spectators. After much discussion the

bill was defeated by 137 yeas, 97 nays.

On March 13 a bill to raise the "age of protection" for girls from 16

to 18 years was defeated by 108 yeas, 55 nays.

On May 17 Senator Wellman's bill for a "mock referendum" was adopted

by the Legislature. It proposed to take a vote of the men and women of

the State on the question "Is it expedient that Municipal Suffrage

should be extended to women?"

THE MOCK REFERENDUM: This is called by the advocates of equal rights a

"mock referendum" because it was to have no legal validity and was to

give the women nothing even if it should be carried in their favor.

The _Woman's Journal_ said:

Two years ago an amendment was added to the Municipal Suffrage

Bill providing that it should become law when ratified by a vote

of the majority of the men and women of the State. Nearly every

opponent in the House voted against the bill after that amendment

had been incorporated, showing clearly that they were not willing

to let women have suffrage even if a majority of the men and

women of the State should vote for it. It was then believed that

such action would be constitutional. The Supreme Court afterwards

gave its opinion that Municipal Suffrage could not be extended by

a popular vote of either the men or the women, or both, but must

be extended, if at all, by the Legislature. Following that

decision, the opponents have become clamorous for a popular vote.

The suffragists, who, beginning in 1869, had petitioned year after

year for the submission to the voters of a legal and straightforward

constitutional amendment, which would give women the ballot if the

majority voted for it, were disgusted with this sham substitution.

Mrs. Livermore, the State president, declared that she would neither

take part in the mock vote herself nor advise others to do so. This

feeling was so general that at the last meeting of the executive

committee of the W. S. A. for the season, in June, it was found

impossible even to pass a resolution recommending those men and women

who favored equal suffrage to go to the polls and say so.

A number of individual suffragists, however, believed that advantage

should be taken of the chance to make an educational campaign and, as

the _Woman's Journal_ of June 8 said, "to use the opportunity for what

it is worth as a means of agitation." Therefore a Suffrage Referendum

State Committee was formed of more than fifty prominent men and women,

including U. S. Senator Hoar, ex-Governor Long, the Hon. J. Q. A.

Brackett, Mrs. Howe, Mrs. Livermore, Mrs. Fannie B. Ames, Mrs.

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, the editors of the _Woman's Journal_ and

others. Mrs. Mary Clarke Smith was employed as organizer, beginning

July 10, and as good a campaign was made as the circumstances

permitted. By the time the executive committee reassembled in October,

every one had become convinced of the wisdom of this course, and the

State Suffrage Association and the Referendum Committee worked hand in

hand during the last few weeks before election. It was a disadvantage

that the bill for the "mock referendum" was passed just before people

went away for the summer, and that the vote was to be taken soon after

they came back in the fall; nevertheless, a spirited campaign was

made, a large number of meetings and rallies were held and a great

quantity of literature was distributed.

About six weeks before election a Man Suffrage Association was formed

with Francis C. Lowell as chairman, Thomas Russell as treasurer and

Charles R. Saunders as salaried secretary.[320] This society was

composed wholly of men. It sent out an enormous number of circulars

and other documents, spent money like water, enlisted active political

workers, utilized to a considerable extent the party "machines," and

as far as possible secured a committee of men to work at each polling

place on election day and roll up a large negative vote of men. It

contained a number of influential politicians who displayed much skill

in their tactics. They published a manifesto against equal rights

signed by one hundred prominent men. The _Woman's Journal_, which

printed this document on October 19, said:

In the main the protest represents merely money and social

position. There are half-a-dozen names on it which it is a pity

and a shame to see there. All the rest were to be expected. They

are men whose opinion would be of weight on questions of stocks

and bonds, but whose opinion on questions of moral reform has

only a minus value.... Its signers have pilloried themselves for

posterity. It is regarded as discourteous to-day to remind

President Eliot of Harvard that his father was the only member of

Congress from Massachusetts who voted for the Fugitive Slave Law.

Forty years hence it will be regarded as cruel to remind the

children of these gentlemen [among whom was President Eliot] that

their fathers put their names to a protest against equal rights

for women.

At first the two anti-suffrage associations, the men's and the

women's, co-operated with the suffragists in getting up debates; but

no man ever consented to take part in one against suffrage a second

time, and toward the end of the campaign it became almost impossible

to secure speakers in the negative. Both sides published appeals and

counter-appeals and the question was discussed in the press, at public

meetings and in social circles to an extent unprecedented in the

history of the State. Even the advertisements in the street cars began

with the query in large letters, Should Women Vote? in order to

attract attention to a particular brand of soap, etc.

During the early part of the canvass the opponents of suffrage

circulated pledges for signature by women promising to vote "No" in

November,[321] but they soon became convinced that in trying to get

out a large vote of women against suffrage they had undertaken more

than they could accomplish. The Massachusetts Association Opposed to

the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women supplied in plate form to a

large number of State papers a series of articles one of which urged

women to express themselves against suffrage, warned them that

"_silence will be cited as consent_," and said: "It is our duty in any

clear and forcible way that presents itself, to say 'I am not sure

that our country should run this enormous new risk.'"

The "antis" have since asserted that in saying "in any clear and

forcible way that presents itself," they did not mean to include the

most obvious way, _i. e._, by voting "No" when given an opportunity by

the Legislature to do so. Later in the campaign they issued a

manifesto declaring that they did not urge women to register or vote,

and that _silence was not to be interpreted as consent_. And finally,

just before registration closed in Boston and the other cities, when

it was clear that the majority of women were not going to register to

vote either way, they issued another manifesto urging women _not_ to

vote against suffrage!

This was a transparent device to conceal the fewness of their numbers,

and they thus stultified all their previous professions, as they had

asserted for years that whenever women were given the right to vote on

an important question it would be their duty to do so, irrespective of

their personal inclinations, and it was in order to save women from

this burden that their enfranchisement was opposed. If they could have

brought out an overwhelming vote of women against equal suffrage, of

course they would have done so. Since they could not, it was their

policy to advise women not to express themselves and thus let the few

who were strongly opposed be confounded with the mass of those who

were indifferent. The Man Suffrage Association, which professed to be

working in full harmony with the women's organization, declared in

small and inconspicuous type that it did not urge women to take the

trouble to register, merely for the sake of expressing themselves on

the referendum, but that it did urge those who voted at all to vote

"No." It published a circular giving reasons "why women and the

friends of women should vote no," and it covered walls and fences from

one end of the State to the other with huge placards bearing in

enormous letters the words, "Men and Women, Vote No!"

The main object of this association, however, was not to get an

expression of opinion from the women (which would weigh little either

way) but to influence the Legislature through a large negative vote

from the men. Mr. Saunders was reported in an interview in the Boston

_Herald_ as saying that the women who took the trouble to vote at all

would probably vote in favor ten to one (it proved to be twenty-five

to one), but that if the _men_ would give a good majority against it

the Legislature could be relied upon to defeat a genuine amendment for

years.

The suffragists spent only $1,300 during the entire canvass. The Man

Suffrage Association never made the sworn report of its receipts and

expenditures which the law requires of every campaign committee,

although even the papers opposed to suffrage exhorted it to do so and

warned it that it was placing itself in a false position by refusing,

but the treasurer published an unsworn statement, not of his receipts

but of his general expenditures, by which it appeared that the

association, during the six weeks of its existence, spent $3,576. In

addition large sums were expended by the women's anti-suffrage

association, which, not being a campaign committee but a permanent

society, was under no legal obligation to file a statement.

The "mock referendum" was voted on at the State election, Nov. 5,

1895, receiving 108,974 yeas, 187,837 nays. Men cast 86,970 yeas,

186,115 nays; women cast 22,204 yeas, 861 nays. Forty-eight towns gave

a majority for equal suffrage, two were a tie, and in several the

adverse majority was only one or two votes, and yet in most of these

towns no suffrage league existed, and in some of them no suffrage

meeting ever had been held.