Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/721

691 petitions by the hundreds and thousands, asking for woman's right to vote and hold office—her right to her person, her wages, her children, and her home. Again and again have we held Conventions at the capital, and addressed our Legislature, demanding the exercise of all our rights as citizens of the Empire State. During the past year, we have had six women lecturing in New York for several months each. Conventions have been held in forty counties, one or -more lectures delivered in one hundred and fifty towns and villages, our petitions circulated, and our tracts and documents sold and gratuitously distributed throughout the entire length and breadth of the State.

A State Convention was held at Albany early in February. Large numbers of the members of the Legislature listened respectfully and attentively to the discussions of its several sessions, and expressed themselves converts to the claims for woman. The bills for woman's right to her property, her earnings, and the guardianship of her children passed both branches of the Legislature with scarce a dissenting voice, and received the prompt signature of the Governor.

Our Legislature passed yet another bill that brings great relief to a large class of women. It was called the Boarding-House Bill. It provides that the keepers of private boarding-houses shall have the right of lien on the property of boarders, precisely the same as do hotel-keepers. We closed our work by a joint hearing before the Committees of the Judiciary at the Capitol on the 19th of March. Elizabeth Cady Stanton addressed them. The Assembly Chamber was densely packed, and she was listened to with marked attention and respect. The Judiciary Committees of neither House reported on our petition for the right of suffrage, though the Chairman, with a large minority of the House Committee and a majority of the Senate Committee, favored the claim. The Hon. A. J. Colvin, of the Senate Committee, in a letter to me, says:

"The subject was presented at so late a day as to preclude action. "While a majority of the Senate Committee I think were favorable, a majority of the House Committee, so far as I could learn, were opposed. So many progressive measures had passed both Houses that I felt apprehensive we might perhaps be running too great a risk by urging this question of justice and reform at this session. I did not therefore press It. Should I remain in the Senate, I may take occasion at an early day in the next session to bring up the subject and present my views at length. The more reflection I give, the more my mind becomes convinced that hi a Republican Government, we have no right to deny to woman the privileges she claims. Besides, the moral element which those privileges would bring into existence would, in my judgment, have ,a powerful influence in perpetuating our form of government. It maybe deemed best, at the next session, to urge an early Constitutional Convention. In case one should be called, your friends should be prepared to meet the emergency. Is the public mind sufficiently enlightened to accept a constitution recognizing the right of women to vote and hold office? You should consider this."

The entire expense of the New York State work during the past year is