e following is an
extract:

After consultation I believe the House would resolve itself
into committee of the whole (when senators would be likely
also to come in), and hear you on the question of woman
suffrage. Should you desire to press it to vote this
session, I should advise that course. As to the time of your
hearing, it should be in the day, and appointed soon after
the recess. We meet again on February 13. I think it could
be arranged for Friday, the 16th, if agreeable to you. With
kind regards,

JOHN A. KASSON.

Notwithstanding this kind proposal of Mr. Kasson, I did not act
upon his suggestion. But Mrs. Harbert and Mrs. Savery, feeling
that something must be done, had the courage and the conscience,
on their individual responsibility, to call a mass-meeting at the
capitol on the evening previous to the day appointed for the vote
on the amendment in the House. Mrs. Harbert presided and opened
the meeting with an earnest appeal; Mrs. Savery, Mr. C.P. Holmes,
Senator Converse, and Governor Carpenter, made eloquent speeches.
The governor, in opening his address said he voted to strike
"black" from the constitution sixteen years ago, and would then,
as now, had the opportunity been presented, have voted to strike
out "male."

On the following day when the amendment came up in the House for
the final vote, it was carried by 58 to 39. In the Senate there
was a spirited discussion, Hon. Charles Beardsley making an
earnest speech in favor of the resolution. The vote on engrossing
the bill for the third reading stood 26 ayes to 20 nays. Hope
ran high with the friends; but alas! on a final vote, taken but a
few minutes later, the bill was lost by 24 nays to 22 ayes.[409]
The general sentiment was well stated by the Iowa _State
Register_:

The Senate disposed of the woman suffrage question yesterday
by voting it down. We think it made a mistake. Certainly
there was, at the lowest count, thirty out of every hundred
voters in the State who desired to have this legislature
ratify the action of the last Assembly, and submit the
question at the polls this fall. The Republican party has
its own record to meet he