d by the Boston newspapers.[127]

The nominations made at these caucuses were generally unanimous,
and it seemed at the time as if the two wings of the so-called
"Baker party" would work harmoniously together. But, with a few
honorable exceptions, the Prohibitionists, taking advantage of the
fact that the voting power of the women was over, once outside the
caucus, repudiated the nominations, or held other caucuses and shut
the doors of entrance in the faces of the women who represented
either the suffrage or the Prohibitory party. This was the case
invariably, excepting in towns where the majority of the voting
members of the Prohibitory party were also in favor of woman
suffrage. This result is what might have been expected. Of what use
was woman in the ranks of any political party, with no vote outside
the caucus?

After being thus ignored in one of their caucuses in Malden,
Middlesex county, the suffragists in that town determined to hold
another caucus. This was accordingly done, and two "straight"
candidates were nominated as town representatives to the
legislature. A "Woman Suffrage ticket"[128] was thereupon printed
to offer to the voters on election day. The next question was, who
would distribute these ballots most effectively at the polls. Some
men thought that the women themselves should go and present in
person the names of their candidates. At first the women who had
carried on the campaign shrank from this last test of their
faithfulness; but, after carefully considering the matter, they
concluded that it was the right thing to do. The repugnance felt at
that time, at the thought of "women going to the polls" can hardly
be appreciated to-day. Since they have begun to vote in
Massachusetts the terror expressed at the idea of such a proceeding
has somewhat abated; but in 1876 it was thought to be a rash act
for a woman to appear at the polls in company with men. Some
attempt was made to deter them from their purpose, and stories of
pipes and tobacco and probable insults were told; but they had no
terrors for women who knew better than to believe that their
neighbors would be turned into beasts (like the man in the fairy
tale) for this one day in the year.[129]

It was a sight to be remembered, to behold women "crowned with
honor" standing at the polls to see the freed slave go by and vote,
and the newly-naturalized fellow-citizen, and the blind, the
paralytic, the boy of twenty-one with his newly-fledg