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I heard a man, a delegate from an anti-suffrage association, solemnly warn the New York State Legislature, at a suffrage hearing, against this danger of a woman vote. "When the majority of women and the minority of men vote together," he declared, "there will be no such thing as personal liberty left in the United States." Under certain conditions a woman vote is not an unthinkable contingency.
The State Referendum Association and the Anti-Suffrage Association made an attempt to secure a petition for a referendum to the voters of the Presidential and Municipal suffrage bill, but although less than 11,000 names were required only a few thousand were filed with the Secretary of State and there was considerable difficulty in securing those.
In replying to the anti-suffrage arguments of Prof. Goldwin Smith, she says: "Do sex relations depend upon acts of Parliament or constitutional amendments? Can women marry a ballot, or embrace the franchise, otherwise than by a questionable figure of speech? Must adultery and infanticide necessarily be favored by the decisions of female jurors?
In Rochester an anti-suffrage poster was kept on display in Republican headquarters. Among prominent members of the party who used their influence in opposition were Elihu Root, Henry L. Stimson and George Wickersham. The two great figures of the suffrage movement, Mrs. Catt and Dr. Shaw, gave royally to the campaign. Even after Mrs.
A. J. George of Brookline, a speaker from the Massachusetts Anti-Suffrage Association, with a headline saying that she would be present at a luncheon of anti-suffragists on the 27th in that city and also speak elsewhere in the State. After the defeats of 1912 and 1914 the suffragists abandoned the idea of carrying an amendment.
I won't repeat his arguments, for doubtless you have read enough anti-suffrage literature. The thing I noticed was that if I was very tactful and patient, I could apparently carry him along with me; but when the matter came up again, I would discover that he was back where he had been before.
A resolution for this was introduced and after a public hearing, at which anti-suffrage women from New Jersey and New York spoke at length, the House passed it on April 22 by 128 ayes, 66 noes. In the Senate on May 26 the vote stood 41 ayes, 7 noes. Mrs. William Ward, Jr., of Chester, vice-chairman of the Legislative Committee, managed a large part of the work for it.
Albany, in spite of the fight against the amendment made by the Barnes "machine," although lost, registered a gain of nearly fifty per cent. Rochester, which was lost, was dominated by George W. Aldrich, the Republican leader, and Monroe and adjoining counties were also influenced by their newspapers, which nearly all were anti-suffrage.
Their only speaker was Miss Minnie Bronson of New York, secretary of the National Anti-Suffrage Association. As Mrs. Arthur rose to answer her hour's speech she remarked that for the first time the voice of a woman was heard in this State in protest against her own enfranchisement and she rejoiced that it was not the voice of a Michigan woman.
It specialized in ward work, besieged legislative and political leaders with telegrams and letters, visited their offices and homes, watched at the polls, worked to defeat anti-suffrage candidates; addressed shop and factory employees, spoke on street corners and at county fairs, made use of suffrage posters and unique advertisements and had parades.
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