Miss Anthony closed by saying that she had appealed to committees of seventeen Congresses and she urged that this one would make a favorable report. Senator Mitchell of Oregon responded: "I introduced this resolution for woman suffrage. I am earnestly in favor of it—have been for many years—and if I live you will get a report. I have been more instructed and interested by the magnificent speeches I have heard today than by any in the Senate of the United States during the twenty-one years I have attended it." Others expressed themselves in the same strain. Senator Mitchell's own personal affairs, however, soon became much involved and no report was made.
Mrs. Catt conducted the hearing before the Judiciary Committee of the House. Its chairman, Representative John J. Jenkins of Wisconsin, who was presiding, made no secret of his hostility to woman suffrage but some members of the committee were favorable. Colorado had been the storm center of attack and defense for many years while Denver was the only city of considerable size where women could vote. In opening the hearing Mrs. Catt said: "Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee: Last year when we appeared before the committee to speak in behalf of the bill asking the submission of the 16th Amendment we called attention to the fact that Congress had appointed a great many commissions for investigation of the conditions, political and otherwise, of various classes of people, and inasmuch as we have come here year after year claiming that woman suffrage had wrought none of the ills which its enemies said it would and that it had brought many benefits, we asked that Congress, through a commission, should investigate it in the western States. You are aware that no such commission resulted from our petition. When Mahomet commanded the mountain to come to him and the mountain did not come he said: 'Then Mahomet will go to the mountain.' We have therefore this year brought Colorado to you and the speakers who will address you this morning are all from that State."
The speeches largely followed the lines of those given before the convention. Mrs. Katherine Cook showed the relation between the women's vote and the home and family welfare. Mrs. Ellis Meredith, introduced as on the editorial staff of the Rocky Mountain News of Denver, gave a summary of the excellent legislation that had been effected since women began voting in 1894 and said: "I have read a compilation of the laws in regard to the protection of children in every State and I know that in no other have they such ample protection and in no other are the laws so well enforced. This is partly due to the fact that our Humane Society is a State institution and has the free voluntary services of six hundred men and women acting as agents over this big State of 104,000 square miles." Answering questions she said: "In my district, one of the best, 571 women registered and 570 voted. There are as many men as women in the district but only 235 voted. Men form 55 per cent. of our population and women 45. Women cast over 43 per cent. of the total vote."
Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford, president of the State Federation of Women's Clubs, extended the account of the remarkable work it had accomplished as described to the convention, a success, she said, due to the fact that it represented a large body of well-informed voters. She ridiculed the danger at the polling places. "Who are the evil creatures we are supposed to meet there on election day? We vote in the precinct in which we live and we meet our husbands, our brothers, our sons.... In Colorado the environment in which the supreme right of citizenship is performed has been improved to harmonize with the improved character of the constituency."
Mrs. Helen Loring Grenfell was introduced by Mrs. Catt as "the State Superintendent of Public Instruction now serving her third term, the only successful candidate on her ticket at the last election." She began by saying: "Gentlemen, this is a very peculiar position for a Colorado woman. It seems just as strange to me as it would be to my husband to be coming here before a body of women and saying: 'We men ask from you equal rights under the Constitution of the United States.'" After showing the interest felt in elections by women she said: "I have been an office-holder, which has involved running for office, and I think it is right for me to tell you a little of my experiences. My campaigns have taken me through almost every county in Colorado, the farming counties, the roughest mining communities, and let me say to you that if there could be any more chivalry in the States where you think it would be unchivalrous to let your women vote, I would like to see it. I have met with the greatest courtesy from men all over the State. I have been treated just as kindly, just as politely by the men when I appeared as a political candidate as by the men with whom I am associated in my school work, in my home and society life. We have come to the time when we must feel that the word chivalry belongs to the past. It is connected with a period when woman's position before the law and in her home was far from a desirable one; and so I believe you will not misunderstand me when I say that if you will give us justice we feel that it will mean a great deal more than chivalry ever did."
There had just been an exposition of fraud at the recent Congressional election where Representative John F. Shafroth had been re-elected and he at once resigned the office in order to disclaim all connection with it. Nearly every speaker was interrogated about it by members of the committee. Mrs. Grenfell answered, as did all of them: "The frauds upon which this election was decided were committed in the city of Denver alone and in the worst precincts in the city. We will admit that they were committed. Is that a reason for considering that woman suffrage is a mistake? I have heard reports from the cities of Philadelphia and New York by which, if I should judge male suffrage, I should say it was an utter failure in the States of Pennsylvania and New York. We have tens of thousands of women voters in Colorado. We have indictments out against many dishonest voters and with the utmost searching they have found one woman who is charged with 'repeating' in the election. Our State penitentiary has five women prisoners today and 600 men. That surely cannot be used as an argument for woman suffrage having injured the women, whatever it may have done to the men."[34]
The committee were particularly interested in the speech of former Governor Alva Adams, which gave much information on the voting of women and called out many questions from the committee. Representative Littlefield of Maine inquired: "What do you say, Governor, about Miss McCracken's article in the Outlook?" and he answered: "I call it infamous, to use the proper term. It was an absolute falsehood. It was based upon no facts, because no decent women in Colorado would make the statements that she quotes. She may have found one woman who would say that they were using philanthropy and charity for political purposes but to admit that the women of the State would do a thing of that kind—would so debase themselves—would be an impeachment of the decency and honesty of womankind everywhere. I am not prepared to make that admission and the citizens of Colorado cannot make it. There are 100,000 honest women in the State who are voters and there are not 100 who will subscribe to the sentiments she gave voice to."[35]
Mrs. Catt closed the hearing with an earnest appeal for action, saying in part:
When the constitution of Colorado was first made in 1876 a provision was placed in it that at any time the Legislature might enfranchise the women by a referendum of a law to the voters. That was done in 1893 and it was passed by 6,000 majority. Last year an amendment to the constitution was submitted to the electors, now both men and women, concerning the qualifications for the vote and in it there was included, of course, the recognition of the enfranchisement of women quite as much as that of men, so that it was virtually a woman suffrage amendment. It received a majority of 35,000, showing certainly that after ten years of experience the people were willing to put woman suffrage in the constitution, where it became an integral part of it and permanent.