Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/303

 societies were organized later. All through the summer and fall of 1915 the women's and the men's organizations and various groups and combinations of men, who for one reason or another did not want equal suffrage, worked publicly and privately in every conceivable way against the amendment. They held meetings, mostly indoor, sent out speakers, advertised in street cars, prepared and mailed to every voter at great expense an elaborate pamphlet, The Case Against Woman Suffrage, full of misrepresentations, and did all an active opposition could do, and they had an efficient and highly paid Publicity Committee. The liquor interests fought the amendment from start to finish. Pink slips were passed out in saloons on election day, saying, "Good for two drinks if woman suffrage is defeated."

The vote was curiously uniform. Every part of the State gave an adverse majority; so did every city and town except Tewksbury and Carver; and generally in about the same proportion— places with strong suffrage organizations and places with none; whether the work done in them had been much or little; even towns where a majority of the voters had signed pledge cards promising to vote for the amendment voted adversely and in about the same ratio. The vote was the largest ever cast on any amendment in the State. By appealing adroitly to all kinds of prejudices, as on the religious question, the opposition got out an enormous number of men who generally did not vote at all.

Both sides were required by law to file at the State House a record of their campaign expenses. An analysis of the lists showed that the bulk of the anti-suffrage campaign fund was made up of personal contributions, four-fifths of them from men, and more than three-fifths of the total from 135 men, whose average donation was $235. The slogan of their campaign had been that women did not want to vote. The official figures showed that those who claimed to speak for "80 per cent. of the women" received 8o per cent. of their contributions from men, and not from the rank and file of men but chiefly from bankers, brokers and powerful directors of the monied section of Boston. The bulk of the suffrage campaign fund came from fairs, sales and entertainments and of the personal contributions more than four-fifths were from women, their average donation being $17.