rd class cities granted School suffrage to women and
some of them included the right to vote on special appropriations for
those who paid taxes. This was the situation at the beginning of the
century.[127]

1901. When Theodore Roosevelt was Governor he advised the suffragists
to drop the effort for a constitutional amendment awhile and work for
something the Legislature could grant without a referendum to the
voters. For five years, therefore, they tried to get some form of
partial suffrage that could be obtained without amending the
constitution. The total result was a law in 1901 giving to taxpaying
women in the towns and villages a vote on propositions to raise money
by special tax assessment, which was signed by Governor Benjamin F.
Odell. Miss Susan B. Anthony considered this of little value but it
covered about 1,800 places and when she saw the interest aroused in
the women by even this small concession she came to think that it was
worth while. In 1910 a legislative enactment increased this privilege
to a vote on the issuing of bonds.

During the legislative sessions of 1902-3-4-5 the effort was
concentrated on a bill to give a vote on special taxation to taxpaying
women in all third class cities--those having less than 50,000
inhabitants. Mrs. Mary H. Loines of Brooklyn was chairman of the
committee, as she had been since 1898. The special champions of the
bill were Senators Leslie B. Humphrey, H. S. Ambler, John Raines;
Representatives Otto Kelsey, George H. Smith, Louis C. Bedell, E. W.
Ham. Among the strongest opponents were Senators Edgar Truman
Brackett, George A. Davis, Thomas F. Grady and Nevada M. Stranahan.
Governors Odell and Frank M. Higgins recommended it and Speaker
Frederick S. Nixon urged it. Committee hearings were granted at every
session and among its advocates were Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt,
national president, Mrs. Crossett and Miss Harriet May Mills, State
president and vice-president; Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch, Mrs.
Margaret Chanler Aldrich, Mrs. Mary E. Craigie and Miss Anne Fitzhugh
Miller. Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge, president of the Anti-Suffrage
Association, and Mrs. George Phillips, secretary, spoke in opposition.
During these four years neither House voted on the bill and it was
seldom reported by the committees.

In 1906 after consulting with Miss Anthony, the State leaders decided
to return to the original effort for the submission to the voters of
an amendment to the State constitu