Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/591

RHODE ISLAND 575 that limbo of lost causes. The suffragists rallied for a hearing and succeeded in getting it reported without recommendation. When taken from the calendar the Senators seemed to realize for the first time that they were dealing with a live issue. One of them demanded to know why that bill was permitted to waste their valuable time and threw it on the floor and stamped on it, saying: "I will kill woman suffrage/' It was then buried by a vote of 29 noes and 3 ayes. The suffragists passed out from the obsequies with full faith in the resurrection. In 1913 a commission was appointed to revise the State constitution and an appeal to it was made for a woman suffrage clause. A hearing was given; influential men supported the association ; the women "antis" made a touching plea to be spared from the burden of the ballot, but the constitution was not revised. This year the Legislature of Illinois passed a bill for Presidential suffrage, which attracted wide attention. The Rhode Island association continued to present one every year. Sometimes zealous friends would introduce a resolution for a constitutional amendment but it was not endorsed by the State association as it would require a three-fifths majority of the voters. In 1915 Governor R. Livingston Beeckman recommended Presidential suffrage for women in his message and the use of the hall of the House of Representatives in the new State House was for the first time granted for a hearing. Mrs. Agnes M. Jenks, State president, secured Senator John D. Works of California and Representative Frank W. Mondell of Wyoming to speak on the practical effects of woman suffrage in their States. Mrs. A. J. George came from Brooklinc, Mass., to voice the fears of the "antis." Notwithstanding the hearing surpassed in attend- ance and interest any that session the bill was indefinitely post- poned by a House vote of 61 ayes and 31 noes. An active lobby was maintained and every available influence brought to bear to get the bill on the Senate calendar but it was killed in committee. Between the close of this Legislature and the opening of the one of 1917 unforeseen events caused a marked change in the attitude of Rhode Island politicians. Its delegates to the Democratic and Republican national conventions in 1916 had recognized the party expediency which compelled a plank in the national plat-