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.