Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/734

 718 HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE ested, welcomed this new force to assist in pushing the bill, which had simply been neglected. On May 21, 1917, he presented still another resolution from the Territorial Legislature asking for it and on June I Senator Shafroth introduced the following bill: Be it enacted. . . that the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii be, and it is hereby, vested with the power to provide that in all elections. . . female citizens possessing the same qualifications as male citizens shall be entitled to vote. SEC. 2. That the said Legislature is further hereby vested with the power to have submitted to the voters of the Territory the ques- tion of whether or not the female citizens shall be empowered to vote. . . . The bill was reported favorably by the committee and passed by the Senate without objection or even discussion on September 15. In the House it was referred to the Committee on Woman Suffrage, which set April 29, 1918, for a hearing. Delegate Kalanianaole had been called back to Honolulu by business but was represented by his secretary and there were present Mrs. Park, who presided, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, honorary pres- ident of the National Suffrage Association, and Mrs. Pitman, the principal speaker. Judge John E. Raker was chairman of the committee, which did not need any argument but was interested in asking many questions of Mrs. Pitman. At the close of the hearing the committee voted unanimously to make a favorable report. The bill was passed June 3 without a roll call. It was signed by President Wilson on the I3th. The matter was now in the control of the Hawaiian Legislature, which received petitions from a number of organizations of women to exercise its power to confer the suffrage without a referendum to the voters. This was recommended by Governor C. J. McCarthy and early in the session of 1919 the Senate took this action and sent the bill to the House. This body under out- side influence refused to endorse it but substituted a bill to send the question to the voters. The Senate would not accept it and both bills were deadlocked. The women were then spurred to action; old suffrage clubs were revived; one was formed in Honolulu of the native high class women and what is known as the "missionary set," a very brilliant group. Mrs. Dorsett made a tour of all the Islands to