Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/576

 512 HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE,

dictory advice on this point as to awaken much anxiety. However, they read in their meetings a copy of the statutes of Colorado, and possessing only plain common sense and not the legal ability which would have qualified them for a place in the Supreme Court, concluded that the referendum to the voters, which their bill provided for, was the proper thing to request.

The opposition came from the usual sources. After the bill was presented, the Remonstrance, the organ of the anti-suffrage society in Boston, soon appeared on the desk of every legislator. The liquor influence also was prominent in the lobby.

The bill was reported from the committee to the House on Jan. 24, 1893, with the recommendation 'that it should not pass and a minority report in favor. The former was rejected by a vote of 39 to 21. The bill was brought to a final vote on March 8. A number of the members of the suffrage club and some other women who approved their cause were present by request of the friends in the House. Some of the arguments used were peculiar. Ruth didn't vote and she married very well (at least at the second trial) nor did any of the women referred to in the Bible, so why should the women of the United States do so? One Representative said he always attended to affairs out of doors and left those within to his wife. He thought that was the right way and didn't believe his wife would vote if she could. "But she says she would," declared another, who was prompted by Mrs. Tyler, and a ripple of laughter arose at the speaker's expense.

There was the customary talk about neglected homes and implied disbelief in woman's ability to use the ballot rightly, but only one man tried the weapon of insult. Robert W. Bonynge spoke so slightingly of the character of women who upheld equal suffrage that one incensed woman, not a member of the association and presumably ignorant of parliamentary courtesy, gave a low hiss. Immediately he assumed the denunciatory and threatened immediate expulsion of all persons not members from the House. Frank Carney then arose and referred to the fact that the anti-suffrage speakers had received repeated applause from their adherents and no notice had been taken of it, although it