Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/935

 Speaker Nixon, in his opening address, referred to the bill as a measure of justice which he hoped would be introduced every year until it became a law. Mr. Kelsey for the third time constituted himself its champion, and worked earnestly for its success. Letters poured in from all parts of the State, the W. C. T. U. co-operated cordially, and hearings were granted by House and Senate committees. The bill passed the Assembly February 26 by 83 ayes, 29 noes. Of the latter 18 were from New York City. Of the 38 absent or not voting 22 were from that city.

In the Senate the bill was referred to the Judiciary Committee as usual. On March 20 a hearing before this committee was arranged for those in favor and opposed. It was conducted by Mrs. Loines for the suffragists, who were represented by Mrs. Chapman, Miss Chanler, a large taxpayer in Dutchess County, and Miss Alice Stone Blackwell of Boston, but a taxpayer in New York. Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge was at the head of the eighteen women who came from the anti-suffrage society to protest against taxpaying women being granted a representation on questions of taxation. The other speakers were Mrs. Rossiter Johnson of New York City, Mrs. Crannell of Albany, and Mrs. William Putnam of Groton who read a paper written by Mrs. Charles Wetmore. The first took the ground that the bill was unconstitutional. The second protested against the attempt "to force widows, spinsters and married women to vote against their will." The third begged the members of the Senate Committee "not to be hoodwinked into believing this was not a suffrage measure," and assured them that "many of the members had pledged themselves to vote for it without recognizing that it was a suffrage bill." She also said: "For the last fifty years, while the suffragists have been wasting their strength in the effort to get the ballot, we, and women like us, have been quietly going ahead and gaining for women the rights they now enjoy in regard to education, property and the professions. The suffragists had nothing to do with it."

The friends of the bill in the Senate tried in vain to obtain a report from the Judiciary Committee, the chairman, Edgar Truman Brackett, being opposed to the bill. Finally, on April 11, Senator Humphrey moved "to discharge the committee from