Inauguration day came and with it the tactical error of the opposition which acted as a boomerang and assured the House majority leader his position as head of his party. It gave into our hands the strategic parliamentary advantage—which we had coveted and desired for so long. An unexpected resolution calling for a referendum on all constitutional amendments, including pending ones, wedged in among routine measures, was surreptitiously introduced on Inauguration Day by Assemblyman Coles of Camden and by a viva voce vote passed before more than fifteen members knew what had happened. Twelve Nugent men from Essex and three Baird men from Camden were responsible for the railroading through of this resolution. This act of course was a planned and deliberately malicious thrust at Suffrage.
The House adjourned and the anti-Suffragists believe they had scored a point. The reckoning came later. Editorials appeared in papers all over the State denouncing such methods. On the following Monday the House reconsidered the Coles’ resolution with a vote of forty-four to thirteen—and we proceeded with our fight. The ratification resolution was introduced immediately after and sent to the Federal Relations Committee, which was favorable to our measure—four to one. The referendum resolution had gone to the same committee.
Then the problem came of getting our resolution reported out first. We did not have a sufficient number of votes to hazard the chance of having the referendum resolution considered before ours, though some of our supporters preferred this procedure. A conference of leaders was called, to which I summoned Miss Paul, for the political leaders had had little comparative experience in handling constitutional amendments, while she had sponsored ratification in two dozen States.
A hearing before the committee was held on February 2nd. Our State Chairman, Mrs. Hopkins, and United States Senator Selden Spencer of Missouri, who came from Washington, made splendid appeals for Suffrage. That evening our resolution passed the Senate eighteen to two as a result of the Republicans having caucused in its support, after an appeal had been made to them to do so by Senator Spencer. There was no dissenting Democratic vote in the upper House. That same evening the House rejected the minority report of the Committee and accepted the favorable majority report on our measure. It was voted to a second reading and made the first order of business for Monday evening, February 9th.
That same week influenza seized various members of the Legislature and four of our most ardent supporters were ill. Their absence meant defeat. Every day we anxiously inquired after their welfare. For a time it seemed we would never have our thirty-one yeas together.
The day before the vote the National Republican Senatorial and Congressional committees sent a representative, Mr. Frank Barrow, from Washington to our aid. He worked with the doubtful Republican members.
At last the long looked-for moment arrived. At eight o’clock on Monday evening the Legislature which was either to reject or accept the ratification resolution convened.
The fight began with opposing men as aggressors and soon one resolution after another was being rushed to the speaker’s desk as a subterfuge of delay. Roll calls were asked on each and every occasion, and as we strained our ears for the yeas and nays we received each time a shock at the transference of a vote. A roll call to postpone lacked only one of the necessary thirty-one votes.
Debate lasted until one o’clock Tuesday morning—five hours of continuous fiery combat—and then a motion to move the previous question fell like a pall on the troubled assembly. With trembling, tired hands we turned to our last spotless roll call and began to mark the records of men on the sands of time. Clear and decisive came the yeas—inaudible and slow came the nays, and after them all the called, “Joint resolution number one adopted—thirty-four to twenty-four.”
Silence followed for long seconds and then the wild, almost hysteric cheers of women reverberated through the halls. Never had there been such a demonstration of joy in the New Jersey Capitol and out of the galleries poured countless smiling women—bearing banners of victory, to take their places among the liberated peoples.