Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/473

430 an incorrect statement that only the rich women could vote; that the children's mothers could not unless they held real estate. The story was also set afloat that the attorney-general had indorsed this statement; which that gentleman [sic]promply repudiated. All this we corrected as fast and as far as we could; but it unavoidably did much harm.

Wholesale hindrance and terrorism too, were used. A few samples are these: In Albany, many women were threatened by their own husbands with expulsion from house and home, imprisonment, bodily violence or death if they dared vote; while many others were deterred by insults and threats of social persecution. Many persons ridiculed and abused those who sought to vote. In some districts the inspectors refused to register qualified women, while in others votes were refused. Statements were widely published that the law did not apply to Albany. In Knowersville, the village teacher went to every house, and threatened the women with state-prison if they dared to vote. In Mount Morris, the president of the Board of Education denounced the ladies who induced others to vote. In Fayetteville, Saratoga and elsewhere, the ladies' request for some share in making the tickets was scornfully ignored. In Port Jervis, the Board of Education declined a hall that was offered, and had the election in a low, dirty little room. Smoke was puffed in the ladies' faces, challenges were frequent, and all sorts of impudent questions were asked of the voters. In Long Island City many ladies were challenged, and stones were thrown in the street at Mrs. Emma Gates Conkling, the lady who was most active in bringing out the new voters. In New Brighton, the village paper threatened the women with jail if they voted; and when a motion was made in one district that the ladies be invited to attend, a large negative vote was given, One man shouting, "We have enough of women at home; we don't want 'em here!" At West New Brighton it was openly announced that the meeting should be too turbulent for ladies, insomuch that many who intended to go staid away, and the few who went were obliged to wait till all the men had voted. In Newham a gang of low fellows took possession of the polling place early, filled it with smoke of the worst tobacco, and covered the floor with tobacco juice; and through all this the few ladies who ventured to vote had to pass. In New York a man who claims to be a gentleman said: "If my wife undertook to vote I would trample her under my feet." In New Rochelle the school trustee told the women they were not entitled to vote, and tried to prevent a meeting being held to inform them. Clergymen from the pulpit urged women not to vote, and a mob gathered at the polls and blocked the way. These are but samples of the difficulties under which the new law went into operation; and it is the truth that there was as much bulldozing of voters in New York as ever in the South, though sometimes by other means.

In 1880 Mrs. Blake was sent by the New York society to the Republican and Democratic presidential conventions at Chicago and Cincinnati, and on her return a meeting was called in Republican Hall, July 9, to hear her report as to the comparative treat-