On January 31 Arthur S. Kneil offered an amendment providing that the question should be submitted to the men and women of the State, and that the act should take effect only if a majority of the votes cast on the proposition were in favor. Wm. H. Burges wanted it submitted to the men only. A second amendment proposed to lay the whole matter on the table till the opinion of the Supreme Court could be taken on the constitutionality of Mr. Kneil's amendment. On February 1 there was a spirited discussion but finally both amendments were defeated, and the minority report in favor of the bill was substituted for the adverse majority report by a vote of 104 yeas, 90 nays.
On February 2 Senator Arthur H. Wellman urged the adoption of his order that the Justices of the Supreme Court should be required to give their opinion to the House on three questions:
1. Is it constitutional, in an act granting to women the right to vote in town and city elections, to provide that such act shall take effect throughout the commonwealth upon its acceptance by a majority of the voters of the commonwealth?
2. Is it constitutional to provide in such an act that it shall take effect in a city or town upon its acceptance by a majority of the voters of such city or town?
3. Is it constitutional to provide that such an act shall take effect throughout the commonwealth upon its acceptance by a majority of the voters of the commonwealth, including women specially authorized to register and vote upon this question?
Alfred S. Roe and the other leading advocates of Municipal Suffrage withdrew their opposition to the order, saying that they preferred the bill as it stood, but that if amendments were to be added to it at any subsequent stage it would be well to know whether they were constitutional. The order was adopted.
On March 3 four Justices of the Supreme Court—Field, Allen, Morton and Lathrop—answered "No" to all three questions. Justices Holmes and Barker answered "Yes" to all three; and Justice Knowlton answered "No" to the first and third and "Yes" to the second. These opinions were published in full in the Woman's Journal of March 10, 1894.
On March 14 Municipal Suffrage was discussed in open session. An amendment was offered to limit the right to taxpaying women and a substitute bill to allow women to vote at one election only. The latter was offered by Richard J. Hayes of Boston, who said, "You would see the lowest women literally driven to the polls by thousands by mercenary politicians. The object lesson would settle the question forever." The amendment and the substitute were lost and the bill was passed to its third reading by a vote, including pairs, of 122 yeas, 106 nays.
On March 29 the galleries were crowded with women. Richard Sullivan of Boston offered an additional section that the question be submitted to the men at the November election for an expression of opinion. This was adopted by 109 yeas, 93 nays. The bill to grant women Municipal Suffrage at once, irrespective of what the expression of opinion in November might be, was then passed to be engrossed, by a vote, including pairs, of 118 yeas, 107 nays. A motion to reconsider was voted down.
On April 5 the bill came up in the Senate. Floor and galleries were crowded and hundreds were turned away. Senator William B. Lawrence of Medford, a distiller, offered as a substitute for the bill a proposal to submit the question to the men at the November election for an expression of opinion as a guide to action by the next Legislature. He said it was absurd to grant women the suffrage first and call for an expression of opinion by the men afterward. The vote on the substitute was a tie, 19 yeas, 19 nays. To relieve the president of the Senate from the necessity of voting Senator John F. Fitzgerald changed his vote, but Senator Butler declined to be so relieved and gave his casting vote against the substitute. The bill for Municipal Suffrage was then defeated by 14 yeas, 24 nays.
The Boston Herald, of April 9, had an editorial entitled Liquor and Woman Suffrage, expressing satisfaction in the defeat of the bill but emphatic disapproval of the corrupt methods used against it in the Senate. A majority of the Senators had promised to vote for it but the Liquor Dealer's Association raised a large sum of money to accomplish its defeat, a persistent lobby worked against it and several Senators changed front. The Herald plainly intimated that the result was due to bribery.
The credit of the unusually good vote in the House in 1893 and '94 was largely due to Representative Alfred S. Roe of Worcester, an able member, highly esteemed and very popular, who worked for the bill with the utmost zeal and perseverance.