etter was read
from Hon. Abram S. Hewitt, objecting to the amendment because the
majority of women do not care to vote.

These insults to their sex seemed very acceptable to the fashionably
dressed "Antis" who occupied the front rows of seats. How far their
influence affected the adverse vote of the convention it is of course
impossible to determine. While the liquor dealers were sending to
wavering members their kegs of beer and jugs of whiskey, the "Antis"
supplemented their efforts with champagne suppers, flowers, music and
low-necked dresses. And the suffrage advocates hoped to offset these
political methods by trudging through mud and snow with their petitions
and using their scanty funds to send out literature! A mistaken policy,
perhaps, but the only one possible to the class of women who are asking
for enfranchisement.

The committee, as had been foreordained, brought in an adverse report.
The evenings of August 8, 9, 14 and 15, were devoted to a discussion of
this report. The Assembly chamber was crowded at each session. The women
had known for weeks that they were defeated but had not abated their
efforts in the slightest degree. Their work was now finished and they
assembled in large numbers to hear the final debate. The amendment had,
from first to last, an able and earnest champion in Edward Lauterbach,
of New York, who opened the discussion in a speech of an hour and a
quarter, said to have been the ablest made in the convention. Nineteen
members spoke in favor and fourteen in opposition. The debate throughout
was serious and respectful and as dignified as was possible with the
frivolous objections made by the opponents. The delegates showed an
evident appreciation of the importance of the question at issue, which
was about to be sacrificed as usual to political exigency.

The opponents were led by Elihu Root, of New York, who begged
pathetically that "we be not robbed of the women of our homes;" and
declared that "he would hesitate to put into the hands of women the
right to defend his wife and the women he loved and respected." William
P. Goodelle, of Syracuse, chairman of the committee, closed the
discussion with a long speech in which he asserted that "the question
was not whether large numbers of male and female citizens asked for
woman suffrage, or protested against it, or are taxed or not, but was it
for the benefit of the State?" This being the case, why did Mr. Goodelle
not favor its being subm