atements of fact,
and to hear the _Woman's Journal_ audaciously cited as authority
for them, without a chance to reply.

The time for these hearings belonged exclusively to the suffrage
delegates, the chairmen of the two congressional committees stating
that they would appoint some other day for the "remonstrants." The
delegates, however, declaring that they had no objections, the "antis"
were permitted to read their papers at the close of the suffrage
hearing, thus having the benefit of the large audiences, but
furnishing a vast amount of amusement to the suffragists.[130]

The _Woman's Journal_ said in its perfectly fair description:

The chairman of the House Committee asked Mrs. A. J. George of
Massachusetts, who conducted the hearing for the "antis," a
number of questions that she could not answer, and Thomas Russell
of that State had to prompt her repeatedly. The chairman would
ask a question; Mrs. George would look nonplussed; Mr. Russell
would lean over and whisper, "Say yes," and she would answer
aloud "Yes." The chairman would ask another question; Mr. Russell
would whisper, "Say no," and Mrs. George would answer "No." This
happened so often that both the audience and the committee were
visibly amused, and several persons said it was Mr. Russell who
was really conducting the hearing. He is a Boston lawyer who has
conducted the legislative hearings for the "antis" in
Massachusetts for some years.

Mrs. Dodge, in her speech, begged the committee not to allow the
"purely sentimental reasons of the petitioners" to have any weight,
and said: "The mere fact that this amendment is asked as a compliment
to the leading advocate of woman suffrage on the attainment of her
eightieth birthday, is evidence of the emotional frame of mind which
influences the advocates of the measure, and which is scarcely
favorable to the calm consideration that should be given to
fundamental political principles." Miss Anthony's birthday had not
been mentioned by any speaker before either committee, and the
suffragists under her leadership had been making their pleas and
arguments for a Sixteenth Amendment for over thirty years.

As the suffrage speakers were not permitted to answer the
misstatements and prevarications of the "remonstrants" at the time of
the hearings and these were widely circulated through the press, the
convention passed the following resolu