Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/323

Rh was formed, and since that time there have been one or more annual hearings on the question. To what extent legislative sentiment has been created will be shown later in the improvement of many laws with regard to the legal status of woman.

William Claflin was the first governor of Massachusetts to present officially to the voters of the commonwealth the subject of woman's rights as a citizen. In his address to the legislature of 1871, he strongly recommended a change in the laws regarding suffrage and the property rights of woman. His attitude toward this reform made an era in the history of the executive department of the State. Since that time nearly every governor of the State has, in his annual message, recommended the subject to respectful consideration. In 1879 Governor Thomas Talbot proposed a constitutional amendment which should secure the ballot to women on the same terms as to men. In response to this portion of the governor's message, and to the ninety-eight petitions presented on the subject, a general suffrage bill passed the Senate by a two-thirds majority, and an act to "give women the right to vote for members of school committees," passed both branches of the legislature and became a law of the State. Governor John D. Long, in his inaugural address before the legislature of 1880, expressed his opinion in favor of woman suffrage perhaps more decidedly than any who had preceded him in that high official position. He said:

I repeat my conviction of the right of woman suffrage. If the commonwealth is not ready to give it in full by a constitutional amendment, I approve of testing it in municipal elections.

The law allowing women to vote for school committees is one of the last results of the legislative agitations, though it is true that the petition, the answer to which was the passage of this act, did not emanate from any suffrage association. It was the outcome of a conference on the subject, held in the parlors of the New England Women's Club. But the petitions of the suffragists had always been for general and unrestricted suffrage, and they opposed any scheme for securing the ballot on a class or a restricted basis, holding that the true ground of principle is equality of rights with man. The