Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/577

PENNSYLVANIA 561 members of the House had been made. Senator Boies Penrose was visited in Washington by Mrs. George B. Orlady and Mrs. John O. Miller, president and vice-president of the State Suffrage Association. He said he would help and authorized these officers to quote him in the public press. On October 9 the Republican State Committee meeting in Philadelphia refused a hearing to the Suffrage Board and took no action, despite the favorable assur- ances of Senator Penrose and of State Senator William E. Crow, its chairman. On December 28 Governor Martin G. Brumbaugh promised Mrs. Miller to secure the passage of the desired Enabling Act. 1917. Mrs. Miller led the work when the Legislature convened in January, 1917, and Mrs. Antoinette Funk, Mrs. Lewis L. Smith and Mrs. Harriet L. Hubbs were members of the Legislative Committee. County chairmen of the suffrage association brought continuous pressure on their legislators ; 270 powerful labor or- ganizations in the State signed petitions with their official seal and a petition with the names of 56,000 individual men and women was unrolled on the floor of the House. Every legislator received a special petition signed by 445 of the most prominent men in the State, a copy of Dr. Shaw's biography, the Story of a Pioneer, and weekly copies of the Woman's Journal. Mrs. Funk had an interview with Senator Penrose at Washington with one of the most prominent members of the Republican party present. The Enabling Act was introduced in the House early in January but at the request of Senator Penrose the vote was delayed from time to time and finally took place April 17. The preceding day 121 men were listed as favorable, 104 being the required constitutional majority. When the vote was taken only 101 answered "aye." Forty-eight hours before the vote the liquor lobby, represented by Neil Bonner, David Hardy, James P. Mulvihill and George W. Boyd, made a concentrated effort to defeat the measure. It was understood that 1 50 men were employed for this purpose and that the pressure brought upon the legislators was tremendous. Although other lobbyists had been denied the privilege of going on the floor of the House Mr. Boyd was always permitted to do so and he announced to Mrs. Funk a few minutes before the vote was taken that he had the bill defeated by six votes. Speaker