Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/795

 another day, as he wished to speak in behalf of the remonstrants, although no petitions had been sent in. Mr. Blackwell requested the chairman of the committee to ask Mr. Lord to state definitely whom he represented. The chairman answered that if he did not choose to tell he could not compel him. On March 19 a hearing was given to Mr. Lord, who spoke for more than an hour. The usual distinguished suffrage advocates spoke in answer.

On April 8 seventy-nine Republican Representatives met at the Parker House, Boston, in response to an invitation from the Republican members of the House Committee on Woman Suffrage. Ex-Gov. John D. Long presided. Addresses were made by Mr. Long, U. S. Collector Beard, Mayor Thomas N. Hart of Boston, the Hon. Albert E. Pillsbury, ex-president of the Senate, ex-Governor Claflin and State Treasurer George E. Marden. Letters were read from the Hon. W. W. Crapo and ex-Governor Ames. The following was unanimously adopted:

On April 17, after extended discussion in the House, the bill was lost, including pairs, by 73 yeas, 141 nays. The same Legislature defeated a proposal to disfranchise for a term of three years men convicted of infamous crimes, and it voted to admit to suffrage men who did not pay their poll-tax.

1891 — On February 4 a hearing was granted to the petitioners for Municipal Suffrage, conducted by Mr. Blackwell for the association, by Mrs. Fessenden for the W. C. T. U. To the usual speakers for the former were added Mrs. Helen Campbell, the Rev. Charles G. Ames, and also the Rev. Daniel Whitney, who had advocated woman suffrage in the Massachusetts constitutional convention of 1853 and now celebrated his eighty-first birthday by supporting it again. The speakers for the W. C. T. U. were the Rev. Joseph Cook, Mrs. Thorpe, President Elmer Hewitt Capen of Tufts College, Mrs. Katherine Lente Stevenson and others. Mrs. Martha Moore Avery spoke for the labor reformers. No remonstrants appeared.

In the Senate, March 31, Senators Gilman, Nutter and Breed