The committee reported favorably, but on February 18 the bill was defeated by 74 yeas, 107 nays.
On February 24 the Committee on Election Laws heard arguments for Municipal and Presidential Suffrage, and also on the petition of the W. C. T. U. for License Suffrage. The committee had before it 144 largely signed petitions for suffrage and none against it. Mrs. Howe and Mr. Blackwell spoke in behalf of the measures asked for by the suffrage association, and a large number of prominent women for the W. C. T. U. Mr. Russell, Mrs. J. Elliott Cabot, Frank Foxcroft, Miss Dewey, Dr. Walter Channing, Mrs. A. J. George, A. Lawrence Lowell and Miss Mary A. J. McIntyre spoke against all three bills. Miss Blackwell, at the close, replied in behalf of both associations. Members of the committee asked the president of the anti-suffrage association, Mrs. Cabot, and almost all the women who spoke on that side whether they would vote for or against license if they had the ballot. Everyone answered that she would vote for license. Mr. Russell had declared that if women were allowed to vote, "no license would be carried in every town and city of the commonwealth, contrary to the will of the people." The committee gave a majority report against all the bills.
On March 10 the question of accepting the adverse report on License Suffrage came up in the Legislature. The vote stood, 100 yeas, 100 nays, and Speaker John L. Bates gave his casting vote in favor of substituting the bill for the adverse report. On March 18 the question was debated and the vote resulted in 108 yeas, 125 nays. There was much public interest and a lively discussion in the papers. Municipal and Presidential Suffrage were lost without a roll-call. A bill to make the Boston School Board appointive instead of elective, which would have deprived women of their School Suffrage, was defeated.
1898 — The hearing on February 2 was conducted by Mr. Blackwell for the petitioners; Mr. Russell for the remonstrants. A letter from ex-Gov. William Claflin in favor of suffrage was read. Mrs. Anna Christy Fall, Mr. Garrison, ex-U. S. Attorney Frank B. Allen, Mrs. Helen Adelaide Shaw, Dr. A. E. Winship, editor of the Journal of Education, and others spoke for suffrage; Mrs. Arthur D. Gilman, Mrs. Egbert C. Smythe, Mrs. Rothery
