Mr. Blackwell requested the
chairman of the committee to ask Mr. Lord to state definitely whom he
represented. The chairman answered that if he did not choose to tell
he could not compel him. On March 19 a hearing was given to Mr. Lord,
who spoke for more than an hour. The usual distinguished suffrage
advocates spoke in answer.

On April 8 seventy-nine Republican Representatives met at the Parker
House, Boston, in response to an invitation from the Republican
members of the House Committee on Woman Suffrage. Ex-Gov. John D. Long
presided. Addresses were made by Mr. Long, U. S. Collector Beard,
Mayor Thomas N. Hart of Boston, the Hon. Albert E. Pillsbury,
ex-president of the Senate, ex-Governor Claflin and State Treasurer
George E. Marden. Letters were read from the Hon. W. W. Crapo and
ex-Governor Ames. The following was unanimously adopted:

_Resolved_, That it is the duty of the Republican party of
Massachusetts forthwith to extend Municipal Suffrage to the women
of the commonwealth.

On April 17, after extended discussion in the House, the bill was
lost, including pairs, by 73 yeas, 141 nays. The same Legislature
defeated a proposal to disfranchise for a term of three years men
convicted of infamous crimes, and it voted to admit to suffrage men
who did not pay their poll-tax.

_1891_--On February 4 a hearing was granted to the petitioners for
Municipal Suffrage, conducted by Mr. Blackwell for the association, by
Mrs. Fessenden for the W. C. T. U. To the usual speakers for the
former were added Mrs. Helen Campbell, the Rev. Charles G. Ames, and
also the Rev. Daniel Whitney, who had advocated woman suffrage in the
Massachusetts constitutional convention of 1853 and now celebrated his
eighty-first birthday by supporting it again. The speakers for the W.
C. T. U. were the Rev. Joseph Cook, Mrs. Thorpe, President Elmer
Hewitt Capen of Tufts College, Mrs. Katherine Lente Stevenson and
others. Mrs. Martha Moore Avery spoke for the labor reformers. No
remonstrants appeared.

In the Senate, March 31, Senators Gilman, Nutter and Breed spoke for
Municipal Suffrage, and no one in the negative. The bill was lost by a
vote, including pairs, of 12 yeas, 25 nays.

This year a bill was passed requiring the appointment of women as
factory inspectors, and two were appointed.

_1892_--The suffrage association petitioned for Municipal and Full
Suffrage, also for equal property rights for women. The W. C. T. U.
fo