t 1,675 were supplied with
speakers. Big meetings were addressed in Boston and other large cities
by U. S. Senator William E. Borah and Dr. Anna Howard Shaw. An
elaborate luncheon was given by the Men's League and the State
association at the Hotel Bellevue to the Governors' conference held in
Boston. Valuable help at this time was rendered by Governor Walsh and
the favorable opinions of the Governors of equal suffrage States were
published at length in the Boston papers by the Men's League. At the
last moment mass meetings were held in Boston at Symphony Hall and in
the largest halls of many other cities. A symbolical and picturesque
flag-raising took place on Boston Common. A last-minute circular was
sent to each of the State's 600,000 registered voters. The day before
the vote the railroad stations in Boston were visited morning and
evening and thousands of pieces of literature were given to the
commuters.

On election day, Nov. 2, 1915, practically all the polling places in
the State were covered by 8,000 women, who stood for hours holding
aloft placards reading, "Show your Faith in the Women of
Massachusetts; vote 'Yes' on Woman Suffrage." And yet after all this
strenuous effort and self-sacrificing devotion the amendment was
defeated by a vote of 295,489 to 163,406, a majority of 132,000. The
vote in Boston was: Noes, 53,654; ayes, 31,428; opposing majority,
22,226.

Louis D. Brandeis said in an address on Columbus Day: "I doubt if
there has been carried on ever in Massachusetts--certainly not in my
lifetime--a campaign which for intelligence, devotion and intensity
surpassed the campaign of the women for suffrage. It should silence
any doubt as to their fitness for enfranchisement." The suffragists,
however, had to contend with serious and insuperable difficulties. The
population of the State had changed radically since the early days
when Massachusetts had been the starting point of liberal movements.
For more than half a century its most progressive citizens had been
going west and their places had been filled by wave after wave of
immigration from Europe, largely ignorant and imbued with the Old
World ideas as to the subjection of women. The religious question also
entered in, and, while the Catholic Church took no stand as to woman
suffrage, many Catholics believed that it would be a step toward
Socialism, against which the church was making a vigorous contest. On
the other hand, many Protestants believed