ed to register and vote upon this question?

Alfred S. Roe and the other leading advocates of Municipal Suffrage
withdrew their opposition to the order, saying that they preferred the
bill as it stood, but that if amendments were to be added to it at any
subsequent stage it would be well to know whether they were
constitutional. The order was adopted.

On March 3 four Justices of the Supreme Court--Field, Allen, Morton
and Lathrop--answered "No" to all three questions. Justices Holmes and
Barker answered "Yes" to all three; and Justice Knowlton answered "No"
to the first and third and "Yes" to the second. These opinions were
published in full in the _Woman's Journal_ of March 10, 1894.

On March 14 Municipal Suffrage was discussed in open session. An
amendment was offered to limit the right to taxpaying women and a
substitute bill to allow women to vote at one election only. The
latter was offered by Richard J. Hayes of Boston, who said, "You would
see the lowest women literally driven to the polls by thousands by
mercenary politicians. The object lesson would settle the question
forever." The amendment and the substitute were lost and the bill was
passed to its third reading by a vote, including pairs, of 122 yeas,
106 nays.

On March 29 the galleries were crowded with women. Richard Sullivan of
Boston offered an additional section that the question be submitted to
the men at the November election for an expression of opinion. This
was adopted by 109 yeas, 93 nays. The bill to grant women Municipal
Suffrage at once, irrespective of what the expression of opinion in
November might be, was then passed to be engrossed, by a vote,
including pairs, of 118 yeas, 107 nays. A motion to reconsider was
voted down.

On April 5 the bill came up in the Senate. Floor and galleries were
crowded and hundreds were turned away. Senator William B. Lawrence of
Medford, a distiller, offered as a substitute for the bill a proposal
to submit the question to the men at the November election for an
expression of opinion as a guide to action by the next Legislature. He
said it was absurd to grant women the suffrage first and call for an
expression of opinion by the men afterward. The vote on the substitute
was a tie, 19 yeas, 19 nays. To relieve the president of the Senate
from the necessity of voting Senator John F. Fitzgerald changed his
vote, but Senator Butler declined to be so relieved and gave his
casting vote against the substitute