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HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

inent persons signed a published statement declaring themselves in favor, all the names being collected within about a week. This remarkable list included several hundred names, about onethird of men. So far as personal achievement goes they were among the most prominent in the State and included several presidents of colleges, a large number of noted university men, public officials, lawyers, editors, etc. Among the women were the president, dean and twenty professors of Wellesley College; the director of the Observatory and six instructors of Smith College, physicians, lawyers, authors, large taxpayers, and many noted for philanthropy.[1]

The association secured a Woman's Day at the New England Chautauqua Assembly; brought the question before hundreds at parlor meetings and public debates, outside of the many arranged by the Referendum Committee; published six leaflets and a volume, The Legal Status of Women in Massachusetts, by Mr. Ernst, and distributed an immense amount of literature.

Up to this time the anti-suffrage associations organized in Massachusetts always had gone to pieces within a short period after they were formed. But in May, 1895, the present Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women was organized, with Mrs. James M. Codman at its head and Mrs. Charles E. Guild as secretary. This was a society composed of women alone. Col. Higginson said in Harper's Bazar:

All the ladies move in a limited though most unimpeachable circle. All may be presumed to interchange visiting cards and meet at the same afternoon teas. There is not even a hint that there is any other class to be consulted. Where are the literary women, the artists, the teachers, the business women, the temperance women, the labor reform advocates, the members of the farmers' grange, the clergymen's wives? Compared with this inadequate body how comfortably varied looks the list of the committee in behalf of woman suffrage. [Distinguished names given.] It includes also women who are wholesomely unknown to the world at large but well known in the granges and among the Christian Endeavorers. Can any one doubt which list represents the spirit of the future? The more cultivated social class — the "Four Hundred," as the saying is — have an immense value in certain directions. They stand for the social amenities and in many ways for the worthy charities.
  1. The best known of these names are included in the list of eminent persons in the Appendix.