Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/240

206 The pro tempore: Will the senator from Delaware yield to the senator from Massachusetts?

Mr. I will, if he thinks it necessary to interrupt me.

Mr. I desire to ask the senator, if he is willing, having been lately a member of the committee to which he refers, whether it is not the rule of that committee to allow no hearings to individual petitioners, a rule which is departed from only in very rare and peculiar cases?

Mr. I will reply to the honorable senator that the occasion which arose to my mind and caused me to remember the action of that committee was the audience given by it to a very large delegation of woman suffragists, to wit, the representatives of a convention held in this city, who to the number, I think, of twenty-five, came into the committee-room of the Committee on the Judiciary, and were heard, as I remember, for more than one day, or certainly had more than one hearing, before that committee, of which you, sir, and I were members.

Mr. If the senator will pardon me, however, he has not answered my question. I asked the senator not whether on one particular occasion they gave a hearing on this subject, but whether it is not the rule of that committee, occasioned by the necessity of its business, from which it departs only in very rare cases, not to give hearings?

Mr. I cannot answer whether a rule so defined as that suggested by the honorable senator from Massachusetts exists in that committee. It is my impression, however, that cases are frequently, by order of that committee, argued before it. We have had very elaborate and able arguments upon subjects connected with the Pacific railroads, I remember; and we have had arguments upon various subjects. It is constantly our pleasure to hear members of the Senate upon a variety of questions before that committee. It may be only a proof that women's rights are not unrecognized nor their influence unfelt when I state the fact that if there be such a rule as is suggested by the honorable senator from Massachusetts of excluding persons from the audience of that committee, on the occasion of the application of the ladies a hearing was granted, and they came in force,—not only force in numbers, but force in the character and intelligence of those who appeared before the committee. They were listened to with great respect, but their views were not concurred in by the committee as it was then composed. We were all entertained by the bright wit, the clever and, in my judgment, in many respects, the just sarcasm of our honorable friend from Missouri [Mr. Vest], but my habit is not to consider public measures in a jocular light; it is not to consider a question of this kind in a jocular light. Whatever may be the merits or demerits of this proposition, whatever may be the reasons for or against it, no man can doubt that it will strike at the very roots of the present organization of society, and that its consequences will be most profound and far-reaching should the advocates of the measure proposed prevail.

Therefore it is that I think this subject should not be considered separately; it should not have a special committee—either of advocates or opponents arranged for its consideration; but it should go where proposed amendments to the fundamental law of the land have always been sent for