arles Warren Lippitt
and Mrs. Edward Johnson protested against women's being allowed to
vote for President and Rowland Hazard supported them. The bill was
defeated, though not by them but by political opposition.

In 1909 Mr. Blackwell appeared for the last time as the advocate of
the measure. Like a seer he pleaded for it, the significance and
potency of which he grasped far in advance of his contemporaries. Miss
Yates was appointed his successor as the National Association's
chairman of Presidential suffrage, which position he had filled for
many years.

In 1911 the Presidential suffrage bill was introduced in the Senate
and referred to the Committee on Special Legislation, that limbo of
lost causes. The suffragists rallied for a hearing and succeeded in
getting it reported without recommendation. When taken from the
calendar the Senators seemed to realize for the first time that they
were dealing with a live issue. One of them demanded to know why that
bill was permitted to waste their valuable time and threw it on the
floor and stamped on it, saying: "I will kill woman suffrage." It was
then buried by a vote of 29 noes and 3 ayes. The suffragists passed
out from the obsequies with full faith in the resurrection.

In 1913 a commission was appointed to revise the State constitution
and an appeal to it was made for a woman suffrage clause. A hearing
was given; influential men supported the association; the women
"antis" made a touching plea to be spared from the burden of the
ballot, but the constitution was not revised. This year the
Legislature of Illinois passed a bill for Presidential suffrage, which
attracted wide attention. The Rhode Island association continued to
present one every year. Sometimes zealous friends would introduce a
resolution for a constitutional amendment but it was not endorsed by
the State association as it would require a three-fifths majority of
the voters.

In 1915 Governor R. Livingston Beeckman recommended Presidential
suffrage for women in his message and the use of the hall of the House
of Representatives in the new State House was for the first time
granted for a hearing. Mrs. Agnes M. Jenks, State president, secured
Senator John D. Works of California and Representative Frank W.
Mondell of Wyoming to speak on the practical effects of woman suffrage
in their States. Mrs. A. J. George came from Brookline, Mass., to
voice the fears of the "antis." Notwithstanding the hearing surpass