Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/460

A memorial embodying this claim was presented to the legislature, and on, January 18, the committee went to Albany and were heard by the Judiciary Committee of the Assembly, to whom their paper had been referred. Hon. Robert H. Strahan of New York presided. On February 8, the memorialists^[1] had another meeting before the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, in the Senate chamber, Hon. Bradford L. Prince presiding. The audience was overflowing, and the corridors so crowded that the meeting adjourned to the Assembly chamber by order of the chairman. Soon after, Hon. George H. West of Saratoga presented a bill giving the women of the State the right to vote for president. It was referred to the Judiciary Committee and reported adversely, notwithstanding it was twice called up and debated by its friends, Messrs. Strahan, Husted, Ogden, Hogeboom and West. No vote was reached on the measure, but this much of consideration was a gain over previous years, when nothing had been done beyond the presentation of a bill and its reference to a committee.

In 1876 Governor Samuel J. Tilden appointed Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell as commissioner of the State Board of Charities, the first official position a woman ever held in this State.

During the winter of 1877 a memorial was sent to the legislature, asking that women be allowed to serve as school officers. The Hon. William N. Emerson, senator from Monroe, presented the following bill:

An Act to Authorize the Election of Women to School Offices.

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

Section 1. Any woman of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, and possessing the qualifications prescribed for men, shall be eligible to any office under the general or special school laws of this State, subject to the same conditions and requirements as prescribed to men.

Sec. 2. This act shall take effect immediately.

Petitions and memorials from all parts of the State were poured into the legislature, praying for the passage of the bill. Mr. Emerson made an eloquent speech in its favor, and labored earnestly for the measure. It passed the Senate by a vote of 84 to 19; the Assembly by a vote of 84 to 19. This success was hailed with great rejoicing by the women of the State who understood the progress of events. But their delight was turned into indignation and disappointment when the governor, Lucius Robinson, returned the bill to the Senate with the following veto:

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1. Helen M. Slocum, Dr. Clemence Lozier, Mrs. Devereux Blake.