d an honest count. A law had
been obtained which permitted women to act as watchers at any election
on woman suffrage, which proved an important safeguard. Wherever
possible, watchers were provided for the polling places all over the
State. The result of the election was: For the suffrage amendment,
553,348; against, 748,332; adverse majority 194,984.

The disappointment was almost crushing. Although the task of
persuading the huge cosmopolitan population of New York State to grant
equality to women had been recognized as being almost superhuman, the
work done had been so colossal that it would have been impossible not
to hope for success. Mrs. Catt had planned and seen carried out a
masterly campaign never before approached anywhere in the history of
suffrage. The devotion and self-sacrifice of thousands of women were
beyond praise but there were not enough of them. If every county and
every town had raised its proportion of the funds and done its share
of the work, the amendment might have been carried, but this first
campaign laid the foundation for the victory that the next one would
bring.

This was the largest vote ever polled for suffrage at any
election--553,348 out of a vote of 1,300,880, being 42-1/2 per cent.
The vote in the State outside of New York City was 427,479 noes,
315,250 ayes, opposing majority, 112,229; in this city 320,853 noes,
238,098 ayes, opposing majority 82,755; total opposed, 194,984. The
amendment received a larger favorable vote than the Republican party
polled at the Presidential election of 1912, which was 455,428. In
1914 this party swept the State and it could have carried the suffrage
amendment in 1915.

SECOND NEW YORK CAMPAIGN.

With 42-1/2 per cent. of the vote cast in November, 1915, in favor of
the woman suffrage amendment the leaders were eager to start a new
campaign at once and take advantage of the momentum already gained.
Two nights after election the campaign was started at a mass meeting
in Cooper Union, New York City, where $100,000 were pledged amid
boundless enthusiasm. The reorganization of the State took place
immediately, at the annual convention held in this city, November
30-December 2, and all the societies that had cooperated in the Empire
State Campaign Committee became consolidated under the name of the
State Woman Suffrage Party, into which the old State association was
merged. The demand was so overwhelming that Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt,
who had led