ion one person out of five should be a woman, but it
failed to pass. The measure making fathers and mothers joint guardians
of their children, so often urged, became a law this year chiefly
through the efforts of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union of
Buffalo, which had been hampered constantly in its efforts to care for
helpless children by the interference of worthless fathers.[390]

A law also was enacted, championed by Col. George C. Webster, giving
to a married woman the right to make a valid will without her
husband's consent.

The season of 1894 was given wholly to the work of securing a woman
suffrage amendment in the revised State constitution.

In 1895 Mrs. Martha R. Almy, as chairman of the Legislative Committee,
began work in Albany early in January and was absent but one
legislative day from that time until May. She was assisted by Mrs.
Helen G. Ecob, and their effort was to secure a resolution to amend
the constitution by striking out the word "male." In order to submit
such an amendment in New York, a resolution must be passed by two
successive Legislatures.

Judge Charles Z. Lincoln, the legal adviser of Gov. Levi P. Morton,
drew up the resolution and it was introduced January 22 in the
Assembly by Fred S. Nixon, and in the Senate by Cuthbert W. Pound. It
was favorably reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee early in the
session. The chairman of the Assembly Committee, Aaron B. Gardenier,
was very hostile, and after every effort to get a report had been
exhausted, Mr. Nixon and Mrs. Almy made a personal appeal to the
committee and were successful. On March 14 six men brought in the
mammoth petition for woman suffrage which had been presented to the
Constitutional Convention the previous year. The resolution was passed
by 80 ayes, 31 noes. This was a remarkable action for the first
Legislature after the great defeat in the Constitutional Convention
only a few months before.

When the measure came to the Senate it was moved by Senator Pound to
substitute Mr. Nixon's resolution for his own, as they were identical.
But Amasa J. Parker[391] objected in order to make it run the gauntlet
of the Senate Committee again, and this gave the anti-suffragists an
opportunity to oppose it. He then asked for a hearing for Bishop
William Croswell Doane and others before the State Judiciary
Committee, of which he was a member, which Chairman Edmond O'Connor
granted. The committee met but once a week, and