Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/93

 the affirmative votes 72 were Republican, 13 Democratic; of the negative, 4 were Republican, 120 Democratic.

In January, 1884, after the return of the members from their holiday recess, Miss Anthony addressed letters to the 112 absentees, asking each how he would have voted had he been present. Fifty-two replies were received, 26 from Republicans, all of whom would have voted yes; 26 from Democrats, 10 of whom would have voted yes, 10, no, and 6 could not tell which way they would have voted.

In the hope that this respectable minority could be increased. to a majority, the Hon. John D. White (Ky.) made a further attempt, Feb. 7, 1884, to secure the desired committee, saying.in his speech upon this question:

It seems to me to be an anomalous state of affairs that in a great Nation like this one-half of the people should have no committee to which they could address their appeals.

Women consider they have the same political rights as men. I might read from such distinguished authority as Miss Susan B. Anthony, whose name has been jeered in her native State, and who has been prosecuted there for voting, but who stands before the American people to-day the peer of any woman in the nation, and the superior of half the men occupying a representative capacity. It does seem to me hard that when a woman like this comes to Congress, instructed by thousands and tens of thousands of her sex, in order to be heard she should be compelled to hang around the doors of the Judiciary Committee, or of some other committee, preeminently occupied with other matters. But we are told there is no room. Yet we have a room where lobbyists of every sort are provided for. And are we to be told that no room in this wing of the Capitol can be had where respectable women of the nation can present arguments for the calm consideration of their friends in this body? I ask simply for the opportunity to be afforded the representatives of the political rights of women to be heard in making respectful argument to the law-making power of the nation.

Byron M. Cutcheon (Mich.) also spoke in favor of the committee, saying:

Ever since the organization of this House I have received petitions from my constituents in regard to this matter of the political rights of women, but there seems to be no committee to which they could properly be referred. A few years since, when this question of woman suffrage was submitted to the people in my State, more than 40.000 electors were in favor of it. It seems to me, without committing ourselves on the question of the political rights of women,