Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/445

 Mrs. Dodge, in her speech, begged the committee not to allow the "purely sentimental reasons of the petitioners" to have any weight, and said: "The mere fact that this amendment is asked as a compliment to the leading advocate of woman suffrage on the attainment of her eightieth birthday, is evidence of the emotional frame of mind which influences the advocates of the measure, and which is scarcely favorable to the calm consideration that should be given to fundamental political principles." Miss Anthony's birthday had not been mentioned by any speaker before either committee, and the suffragists under her leadership had been making their pleas and arguments for a Sixteenth Amendment for over thirty years.

As the suffrage, speakers were not permitted to answer the misstatements and prevarications of the "remonstrants" at the time of the hearings and these were widely circulated through the press, the convention passed the following resolutions on motion of Miss Alice Stone Blackwell:

, At this morning's Congressional hearing letters were read by the anti-suffragists from two men and one woman in Colorado, asserting equal suffrage in that State to be a failure; therefore,

Resolved, That we call attention to a published statement declaring that the results are wholesome and that none of the predicted evils have followed. This statement is signed by the Governor and three ex-Governors of Colorado, the Chief Justice, all the Judges of the State Supreme Court, the Denver District Court and the Court of Appeals; all the Colorado Senators and Representatives in Congress; President Slocum of Colorado College, the president of the State University, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Attorney-General, the mayor of Denver, prominent clergymen of different denominations, and the presidents of thirteen of the principal women's associations of Denver. The social science department of the Denver Woman's Club has just voted unanimously to the same effect, and the Colorado Legislature lately passed a similar resolution by a vote of 45 to 3 in the House and 30 to I in the Senate. On the other hand, during the six years that equal suffrage has prevailed in Colorado the opponents have not yet found six respectable men who assert over their own names and addresses that it has had any bad results.

, At the Congressional hearing it was asserted that equal suffrage had led to no improvements in the laws of Colorado; therefore,

Resolved, That we call attention to the fact that Colorado owes to equal suffrage the laws raising the age of protection for girls to eighteen years; establishing a State Home for Dependent Children