he House voted against the bill after that amendment
had been incorporated, showing clearly that they were not willing
to let women have suffrage even if a majority of the men and
women of the State should vote for it. It was then believed that
such action would be constitutional. The Supreme Court afterwards
gave its opinion that Municipal Suffrage could not be extended by
a popular vote of either the men or the women, or both, but must
be extended, if at all, by the Legislature. Following that
decision, the opponents have become clamorous for a popular vote.

The suffragists, who, beginning in 1869, had petitioned year after
year for the submission to the voters of a legal and straightforward
constitutional amendment, which would give women the ballot if the
majority voted for it, were disgusted with this sham substitution.
Mrs. Livermore, the State president, declared that she would neither
take part in the mock vote herself nor advise others to do so. This
feeling was so general that at the last meeting of the executive
committee of the W. S. A. for the season, in June, it was found
impossible even to pass a resolution recommending those men and women
who favored equal suffrage to go to the polls and say so.

A number of individual suffragists, however, believed that advantage
should be taken of the chance to make an educational campaign and, as
the _Woman's Journal_ of June 8 said, "to use the opportunity for what
it is worth as a means of agitation." Therefore a Suffrage Referendum
State Committee was formed of more than fifty prominent men and women,
including U. S. Senator Hoar, ex-Governor Long, the Hon. J. Q. A.
Brackett, Mrs. Howe, Mrs. Livermore, Mrs. Fannie B. Ames, Mrs.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, the editors of the _Woman's Journal_ and
others. Mrs. Mary Clarke Smith was employed as organizer, beginning
July 10, and as good a campaign was made as the circumstances
permitted. By the time the executive committee reassembled in October,
every one had become convinced of the wisdom of this course, and the
State Suffrage Association and the Referendum Committee worked hand in
hand during the last few weeks before election. It was a disadvantage
that the bill for the "mock referendum" was passed just before people
went away for the summer, and that the vote was to be taken soon after
they came back in the fall; nevertheless, a spirited campaign was
made, a large number