Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/394

394 , March 1, 1872.

Editors Woman's Journal: I have never seen a letter in the Woman's Journal written from Augusta, the capital of Maine, and as some things have transpired lately which might interest your readers, I take the liberty of writing a few lines. The bill for woman suffrage was defeated in the House, fifty-two to forty-one. In the Senate the vote was fifteen in favor to eight against. I think the smallness of the vote was owing to the indifference of some of the members and the determination of a few to kill the bill. Some politicians are afraid of this innovation just now, lest the Republican party be more disrupted than it already is. Day after day, when the session was drawing to a close, women went to the state-house expecting to hear the question debated. Wednesday every available place was filled with educated women. The day was spent—if I should say how, my criticism might be too severe. Gentlemen from Thomaston, Biddeford, Burlington and Waldoborough had the floor most of the time during the afternoon. In the evening, while those same women and some of the members of the legislature were attending a concert, the bill was taken up and voted upon, without any discussion whatever. Now, I submit to any fair-minded person if this was right. I have listened to discussions upon that floor this winter for which I should have hung my head in shame had they been conducted by women. The whole country, from Maine to California, calls loudly for better legislation—for morality in politics.

A member of the House said to me yesterday, that he thought that some of the members from the rural districts were not sufficiently enlightened upon the question of woman suffrage, and the bill ought to have been thoroughly discussed. Yes, and perhaps treated with respect by its friends. I saw the member from Calais while a vote was being taken. Standing in his seat, with his hand stretched toward the rear of the House, where it is generally supposed that members sit who are a little slow in voting at the beck of politicians, he said: "Yes is the way to vote, gentlemen! Yes! Yes!" When women have such politicians for champions equal suffrage is secured. But do we want such men? The member from Calais voted against woman's right of suffrage. He is said to be an ambitious aspirant in the fifth congressional district. See to it, women of the fifth district, that you do not have him as an opponent of equal rights in congress. There is a throne behind a throne. Let woman be regal in the background, where she must stand for the present, in Maine.

But I am happy and proud to state that some very high-minded men, and some of the best legislators in the House, did vote for the bill, viz.: Brown of Bangor, Judge Titcomb of Augusta, General Perry of Oxford, Porter of Burlington, Labroke of Foxcroft, and many others; in the Senate, the president and fourteen others, the real bone and marrow of the Senate, voted for the bill. The signs of the times are good. The watchman of the night discerns the morning light in the broad eastern horizon. [Signed:]

The Portland Press, in a summary of progress in Maine for 1873, says: