le should have no
committee to which they could address their appeals.

Women consider they have the same political rights as men. I
might read from such distinguished authority as Miss Susan B.
Anthony, whose name has been jeered in her native State, and who
has been prosecuted there for voting, but who stands before the
American people to-day the peer of any woman in the nation, and
the superior of half the men occupying a representative capacity.
It does seem to me hard that when a woman like this comes to
Congress, instructed by thousands and tens of thousands of her
sex, in order to be heard she should be compelled to hang around
the doors of the Judiciary Committee, or of some other committee,
pre-eminently occupied with other matters. But we are told there
is no room. Yet we have a room where lobbyists of every sort are
provided for. And are we to be told that no room in this wing of
the Capitol can be had where respectable women of the nation can
present arguments for the calm consideration of their friends in
this body? I ask simply for the opportunity to be afforded the
representatives of the political rights of women to be heard in
making respectful argument to the law-making power of the nation.

Byron M. Cutcheon (Mich.) also spoke in favor of the committee,
saying:

Ever since the organization of this House I have received
petitions from my constituents in regard to this matter of the
political rights of women, but there seems to be no committee to
which they could properly be referred. A few years since, when
this question of woman suffrage was submitted to the people in my
State, more than 40,000 electors were in favor of it. It seems to
me, without committing ourselves on the question of the political
rights of women, it is but respectful to a very large number of
people in all our States that there should be a committee to
receive and consider and report upon these petitions which come
to us from time to time.

The House refused to allow a vote.

The Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage granted a hearing March 7,
1884, at 10:30 a. m., in the Senate reception room, to the speakers
and delegates in attendance at the convention, the entire committee
being present.[22] In introducing the speakers Miss Anthony said:
"This is the sixteenth year that we have