Senate Judiciary Committee constantly postponed action. At last 500 women came to the Capitol on March 14 to urge immediate action and the resolution was adopted in the Assembly that day by 109 ayes to 30 noes.
The Senate Committee had promised that it would report that same day, and at 2 p. m. it went into executive session and the suffrage leaders camped outside the door. That evening a suffrage ball was to take place in Madison Square Garden, New York City, which they were to open, and the last train that would reach there in time left Albany at 6 o'clock. The Committee knew this but hour after hour went by without word from it. After time for the train a friendly Senator appeared and announced that it had adjourned sometime before without taking action and had gone out the back way in order to escape from the waiting watchers! Taking the next train and arriving in New York at 10 o'clock at night the suffragists drove direct to Madison Square Garden. As they approached it they saw great throngs outside storming the doors, which had been closed by the police as it was dangerously crowded. They succeeded in getting in and were greeted by cheers as they led the grand march, which had been awaiting their arrival. At midnight Mrs. Whitehouse and Mrs. Laidlaw took the sleeper back to Albany and were on hand at the opening of the session the next morning. Such undaunted spirit caught the public imagination and the newspapers did it full justice, with big headlines and columns of copy, but still the bill did not pass.
The final pressure which put the amendment through was a clever bit of strategy due to Mrs. Whitehouse. In answer to her appeal editorials appeared in newspapers throughout the State saying that no group of men in Albany had the right to strangle the amendment or refuse the voters the privilege of passing on it. On March 22 the Senate Committee reported the resolution by 11 ayes, one no. On April 10 it passed the Senate by 33 ayes, 10 noes.
In 1917 the amendment was passed again to go to the voters at the regular election November 6. The State Woman Suffrage Party strengthened its organization with the goal of a captain for every polling precinct, each with a committee of ten women