the Legislature itself
could grant without submitting the question to the voters. The
following bills were authorized:

1: To make it obligatory to appoint at least one woman on school
boards in those cities, about forty-six in all, where the office
is appointive.

2: To amend the village law, making it obligatory that in all
charters where a special vote of tax-payers is required on
municipal improvements or the raising or distribution of taxes,
women properly qualified shall vote on the same basis as men.

A great many letters had been sent to Gov. Theodore Roosevelt, then
newly elected, asking him to recognize the rights of women in his
inaugural address, which he did by calling the attention of the
Legislature to "the desirability of gradually extending the sphere in
which the suffrage can be exercised by women." These two bills,
therefore, were sent to him for approval and he appointed an interview
at Albany with a committee from the State association. Mrs. Loines,
Mrs. Blake, Miss Mills, Miss Mary Lyman Storrs and Mrs. Nellie F.
Matheson went with the State president to this interview, and the
Governor cordially indorsed the bills.

Letters were sent to the legislators and also to the presidents of the
county suffrage societies, asking them to influence their
representatives. The bill for the Taxpayers' Suffrage was introduced
into the Assembly by Mr. Kelsey. That good work was done was evident
by the vote--98 ayes, 9 noes.

But the battle was with the Senate, where the bill was introduced by
W. W. Armstrong. On February 22 a hearing was given in the Senate
Chamber before the Judiciary Committee. Suffragists and opponents were
there in force. The latter were represented by Mesdames Arthur M.
Dodge, W. Winslow Crannell and Rossiter Johnson. The State president
introduced the suffrage speakers, Miss Chanler, Mrs. Blake and Mrs.
Harriot Stanton Blatch, the last being qualified from residence to
testify to the good effect of this kind of suffrage in England. Mrs.
Elizabeth Smith Miller, Miss Anne Fitzhugh Miller and others were
present. Owing largely to the influence of Elon R. Brown the committee
brought in an adverse report.[392] Senator Armstrong moved to disagree
and the vote, thus called for, in the Senate stood 21 ayes, 24 noes--a
vote on the report, not on the bill, but it put the Senate on record.

The Bill for Women on Appointed Boards of Education, which had been
ch