school boards in those cities, about forty-six in all, where the office is appointive.
2: To amend the village law, making it obligatory that in all charters where a special vote of tax-payers is required on municipal improvements or the raising or distribution of taxes, women properly qualified shall vote on the same basis as men.A great many letters had been sent to Gov. Theodore Roosevelt, then newly elected, asking him to recognize the rights of women in his inaugural address, which he did by calling the attention of the Legislature to "the desirability of gradually extending the sphere in which the suffrage can be exercised by women." These two bills, therefore, were sent to him for approval and he appointed an interview at Albany with a committee from the State association. Mrs. Loines, Mrs. Blake, Miss Mills, Miss Mary Lyman Storrs and Mrs. Nellie F. Matheson went with the State president to this interview, and the Governor cordially indorsed the bills.
Letters were sent to the legislators and also to the presidents of the county suffrage societies, asking them to influence their representatives. The bill for the Taxpayers' Suffrage was introduced into the Assembly by Mr. Kelsey. That good work was done was evident by the vote — 98 ayes, 9 noes.
But the battle was with the Senate, where the bill was introduced by W. W. Armstrong. On February 22 a hearing was given in the Senate Chamber before the Judiciary Committee. Suffragists and opponents were there in force. The latter were represented by Mesdames Arthur M. Dodge, W. Winslow Crannell and Rossiter Johnson. The State president introduced the suffrage speakers, Miss Chanler, Mrs. Blake and Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch, the last being qualified from residence to testify to the good effect of this kind of suffrage in England. Mrs. Elizabeth Smith Miller, Miss Anne Fitzhugh Miller and others were present. Owing largely to the influence of Elon R. Brown the committee brought in an adverse report.[1] Senator Armstrong moved to disagree and the vote, thus called for, in the Senate stood 21 ayes, 24 noes — a vote on the report, not on the bill, but it put the Senate on record.
- ↑ In Senator Brown's own city of Watertown, over 50 per cent. of the women had just voted to bond the city for a new High School, the press giving them full credit for it, but he persistently opposed this bill.
