women's clubs of the State had the suffrage matter in
their keeping. The delegates were not hard-faced women clutching
umbrellas. They were the strictly modern suffragists--radiant matrons,
fresh-complexioned girls, women who led in culture and fashion in their
respective communities.

At the previous session the Legislative Committee had asked that the
delegation of women be restricted to the usual number of persons that
appeared at legislative hearings. When a dozen came with their petitions
and arguments the Committee blandly stated that there seemed to be no
general demand in the State for woman's suffrage--witness the attendance
of women interested!

This year the women proposed to disprove that assumption. Every woman's
literary, social, art, and economic club in the State sent two
delegates. The State was raked for women, even the schools were
ransacked. At ten o'clock in the forenoon the State House was packed and
women were still crowding in. The galleries, aisles, and standing-room
of House and Senate were choked with silks, furs, and feathers which
decorated the beauty and brains of the State.

The routine was hurried through. Callous man, gasping for breath, wanted
to escape.

The few in the lobby who dared to smoke soon hid their cigars under
their coat-tails and departed to the hotels. The cuspidors were hidden.
Gay frocks swept cigar stubs out of sight.

When the members of the Judiciary Committee attempted to enter the House
chamber to conduct the hearing on suffrage, it required full ten minutes
of persuasive eloquence and courteous pushing on the part of the
messengers to break the jam of women that filled the door and packed the
lobby floor adjacent. The fair lobbyists did not want to give up even
that vantage-point in order to admit the men who were to listen. And
after the committee had managed to wriggle its way in single file to the
platform they had not the heart to expel the women who were occupying
their chairs. They gallantly stood in a row against the rear wall of the
Speaker's alcove and listened to the petitioners--each woman allowed two
minutes! Not one member of the legislature, outside the committee,
heard. It would have been an ungallant man, indeed, who did not
surrender his place in the chamber to a woman who had come to present
her cause. So the women amiably listened to themselves, and the
committee listened to them in all politeness, and both sides understood
that it was onl