Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/381

344 for the year, the governor earnestly urged these women to permit him to appoint them, voluntarily pledging himself to recommend at the opening of the next session of the legislature, that a bill should be passed providing for the appointment of women on the boards of management of all these prisons and reformatories, with the same power and authority with which the men are invested, who now alone decide all questions concerning them. On this condition these women consented to serve on the advisory board a few months longer, with the understanding that, if the legislature fails to make this important provision, their advice will be withdrawn, and the men will be left to take care of thieves, criminals and paupers until they are ready to ask for our help on terms of equality and justice.

In the Providence Journal appeared the following:

Mrs. Doyle seems to have learned by experience that the board, as now constituted under the law, can have no real efficiency. The ladies are responsible for the management of no part of any of the institutions which they are permitted officially to visit. Their reports are not made to the boards which are charged with the responsibility of managing these institutions, and, in the case of the reform school, are not made to the body which elects and controls the board of management. The State ought not to place ladies in such an anomalous position. The women's board should have positive duties and direct responsibilities in its appropriate sphere, or it should be abolished. The following is Mrs. Doyle's letter of resignation:

To His Excellency Henry Lippitt, Governor of the State: 2em Providence, R. I.
 * Please accept my resignation as member of the Board of Lady Visitors to the Penal and Correctional Institutions of the State. The recent action of a part of the board, in regard to the annual report made to the General Assembly, makes it impossible for me to continue longer as a member. Before the report was submitted, it was carefully examined by the members signing it, and was acquiesced in by them, as their signatures testify. Still further, I am confirmed in the opinion that so important a trust as this should be coupled with some power for action; without this we are necessarily confined to suggestions only to the male boards, which suggestions receive only the attention they may consider proper. Believing that this board, as now empowered, can have no efficiency except where its suggestions or criticisms meet the entire approval of the male boards, and failing to see any good which can result from our inspections under such conditions, or any honor to the board thus examining, I respectfully tender my resignation.

Three more ladies of the Women's Board of Visitors to the Penal and Correctional Institutions of the State attest the correctness of the repeated suggestions that the board, as organized under the existing laws, must be comparatively powerless for good. The question now comes, will the Rhode Island General Assembly enact a law which shall give to women certain definite duties and responsibilities in connection with the care and correction of female offenders? We propose to refer to this matter further. We are requested to publish the following communications to his excellency, the governor: