Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/531

 50 noes, fifty-five per cent, of the Democratic members voting for it and sixty-nine per cent of the Republicans. In the Senate the leader of the "wets" introduced a resolution for the submission of a full suffrage amendment in the hope of sidetracking the Reynolds bill but the latter reached the Senate February 2, before the Holden bill could be considered. The suffragists, wishing to expedite matters, did not ask for a hearing but the "antis" did and at Mr. Reynolds' request the former were present. At this hear- ing the women leaders of the "antis" and the liquor men occupied seats together on the floor of the Senate. The next morning the bill was reported favorably from the Federal Relations Committee and passed on February 14, by 19 ayes, 17 noes. Immediately the leader of the opposition changed his vote to yes in order to move a reconsideration. This he was not permitted to do because a friend of the measure forced the reconsideration the next day, and as this was lost by a vote of 24 to 10, the bill itself went on record as having received the vote of the "wet" leader and having passed by 20 to 16. Governor James M. Cox signed it Feb. 21.

Very soon the opponents opened headquarters in Columbus and circulated petitions to have the Presidential suffrage bill referred to the voters for repeal. The story of these petitions is a dis- graceful one. Four-fifths of the signatures were gathered in saloons, the petitions kept on the back and front bars. Hundreds of names were certified to by men who declared they saw them signed, an impossibility unless they stood by the bar eighteen hours each day for some weeks and watched every signature. Some petitions, according to the dates they bore, were circulated by the same men in different counties on the same day. Some of tlu-ni had whole pages of signatures written in the same hand and some had names only, no addresses. The suffragists copied some of these petitions after they were filed in Columbus and although the time was short brought suit to prove them fraudulent in six counties. In four the court ordered all but a few names thrown out. In Scioto all the names were rejected and in Cuyahoga county (Cleveland ), 7,000 names were thrown out. The petitions ranklin county (Columbus), Lucas (Toledo) and Montgom- ery (Dayton) were unquestionably fraudulent but the election boards were hostile to woman suffrage and powerful with the