ential suffrage was introduced by Senator
Edmund B. Osborne of Essex county and Assemblyman Roy M. Robinson of
Bergen. In both Houses the presiding officers were strongly opposed to
woman suffrage and put the bill into unfavorable committees, who
refused to report it for action. A hearing was held with Mrs. Robert
S. Huse chairman and Mrs. Antoinette Funk the chief speaker. Finally
by using what is known as the "rule of fifteen," in the Assembly its
friends got the bill out of committee on March 15 but with an
unfavorable report. Majority leader Oliphant moved that the House
concur and Speaker Edward Schoen of Essex county ruled that the motion
was carried. Many members demanded a roll call but the Speaker paid no
attention to them. Pandemonium reigned, members shouting and banging
their desks until finally he declared a recess and fled to his private
room.

1918. It was hoped that the Federal Amendment would be submitted in
the spring and it was decided not to complicate ratification by
introducing a Presidential suffrage bill. In February a bill providing
that the Legislature should not act on the ratification of Federal
Amendments until after they had been referred to the voters was
introduced by Assemblyman Arthur N. Pierson of Union county. It was
designed especially to prevent action on the Prohibition Amendment but
would also apply to the one for woman suffrage. The Legislative
Committee went at once to Trenton, where the Anti-Saloon workers were
already busy. Sufficient force was brought to keep the bill in
committee for three weeks, at the end of which time 46 votes were
pledged against it and it was killed in committee at the request of
its introducer. In 1919 a similar bill was introduced by Assemblyman
David Young of Morris county but the suffragists made so strong a
demonstration against it that it was killed in committee.

FOOTNOTES:

[118] The History is indebted for this chapter to Dr. Mary D. Hussey,
a founder of the State Woman Suffrage Association in 1890 and
continuously an officer for the next twenty years.

[119] Afterwards Mr. Riley became president and Arthur B. Jones,
secretary. Among the League's prominent members were the Hon. Everett
Colby, Governor John Franklin Fort, J. A. H. Hopkins, Jesse Lynch
Williams, Charles O'Connor Hennessy, the Hon. John W. Westcott, the
Rev. Dr. Arthur E. Ballard, the Rev. Edgar S. Weirs, Colonel George
Harvey, the Hon. Edmond B. Osbourne, the Hon. Ernest R