that appeared as petitioners. Addresses were made by Lady Henry Somerset, Mrs. Howe, Mr. Blackwell, Profs. Hayes and Webster of Wellesley College, Mrs. Fessenden, Mrs. Trask Hill, Mrs. Emily McLaughlin, Mrs. Boland, John Dean, F. C. Nash, Frank H. Foster, chairman of the legislative committee of the American Federation of Labor for Massachusetts, James F. Norton, the representative of 10,000 Good Templars.
No opposing petitions had been sent in but Thomas Russell appeared as attorney for the remonstrants and said: "Believing as they do that the proper place for women is not in public urging or remonstrating against legislation before public gatherings, but rather in the home, the hospital, the school, the public institution where sin and suffering are to be found and to be alleviated, they have not themselves appeared before you" — but had sent him.[1] Representative Roe said that the lawyer who had spoken for the remonstrants at the hearing of 1894 had received $500 for his services, and asked Mr. Russell if he appeared in the same capacity. He answered that no compensation had been promised him, and that he did not mean to accept any. He added: "I represent no organization, anything more than an informal gathering of ladies, and as for the numbers I can not state. But I do not come here basing my claim to be heard on the numbers of those who have asked me to appear. It is the justice of the cause which I speak upon that entitles me to a hearing, as it would if there were no one but myself."
Later twelve remonstrances were sent in, signed by 748 women. For suffrage there were 210 petitions from 186 towns and cities representing 133,111 individuals, men and women.
The opposition, alarmed by the large affirmative vote of 1894, this year put forth unprecedented efforts. Daily papers were paid for publishing voluminous letters against suffrage — sometimes of four columns — and an active and unscrupulous lobby worked against the bill. For the first time in history an anti-suffrage association was formed within the Legislature itself. Representatives Dallinger, Humphrey, Bancroft of Clinton, Eddy of New Bedford, and others, organized themselves into
- ↑ The remonstrants in past years had gone repeatedly before legislative committees, and since 1897 they have appeared and spoken every year in opposition to any form of suffrage for women.
