Steele of Pennsylvania asked her how she accounted for the large defeat the second time the suffrage amendment was submitted in Michigan and she answered: "I account for it partly by the fact that this was the only State having a campaign that year and the whole opposition was centered there. The liquor interests themselves admitted that they spent a million dollars to defeat it."
The address of Mrs. Hilles also brought out a flood of questions, which, with the answers made by Miss Paul, filled four printed pages of the official report. They began with requests for information about the difficulties of amending State constitutions but soon centered on the campaign of the Union against the Democrats in 1914 and this line was followed throughout the rest of the hearing, the Federal Amendment being largely lost sight of. The members showed deep personal resentment. For example:
Miss Paul. We went out into the suffrage States and told the women voters what was done to the suffrage amendment by the last Congress.
Mr. Taggart. We have before us a joint suffrage resolution by Mr. Taylor of Colorado. You tried to defeat him, did you not?
Miss Paul. The suffrage amendment was not brought to a vote in the House until after we went to the West.
Mr. Taggart. You tried to defeat the man in the House who presented this resolution which you are having hearings for, did you not?
Miss Paul. What we did was to go to the Rules Committee, a Democratic committee, to ask that this measure be reported out and brought to a vote; when the committee had refused to do this we went out into the suffrage States of the West and told the women voters how the bill was being blocked at Washington. As soon as we did that they stopped blocking and the bill was brought up before the House for the first time in history.
Mr. Taggart. That was after the election?
Miss Paul. Yes.
Mr. Taggart. You are aware that more Democrats voted for it than men of any other party?
Miss Paul. We are aware that the Democrats met in caucus and decided that woman suffrage should not be brought up in the House and after we went out into the West they brought it up. We went
