The vote was curiously uniform. Every part of the State gave an adverse majority; so did every city and town except Tewksbury and Carver; and generally in about the same proportion—places with strong suffrage organizations and places with none; whether the work done in them had been much or little; even towns where a majority of the voters had signed pledge cards promising to vote for the amendment voted adversely and in about the same ratio. The vote was the largest ever cast on any amendment in the State. By appealing adroitly to all kinds of prejudices, as on the religious question, the opposition got out an enormous number of men who generally did not vote at all.
Both sides were required by law to file at the State House a record of their campaign expenses. An analysis of the lists showed that the bulk of the anti-suffrage campaign fund was made up of personal contributions, four-fifths of them from men, and more than three-fifths of the total from 135 men, whose average donation was $235. The slogan of their campaign had been that women did not want to vote. The official figures showed that those who claimed to speak for "80 per cent. of the women" received 80 per cent. of their contributions from men, and not from the rank and file of men but chiefly from bankers, brokers and powerful directors of the monied section of Boston. The bulk of the suffrage campaign fund came from fairs, sales and entertainments and of the personal contributions more than four-fifths were from women, their average donation being $17.
After the election in 1915 there was started a State branch of the Congressional Union, later called the National Woman's Party, formed some years before to push the Federal Amendment. It was under the leadership of Mrs. Morey, chairman, and other women most of whom had been active with the State association during the campaign. The defeat of the State amendment caused the work of all organizations to be directed toward the submission of the Federal Amendment.
At the annual meeting of the State association in May, 1916, a budget of $30,000 was adopted and $20,000 toward it was pledged on the spot. Through the preceding winter the association had five paid organizers, two of them working in Boston, and a large number of volunteer field workers, at least 230 in Boston alone. Besides the chairmen for the sixteen congressional districts, each of the forty senatorial districts had its chairman, all working under the State Chairman of Organization, Mrs. Sara S. Gilson. She was followed by Mrs. Mary P. Sleeper and by Mrs. Elizabeth Tilton, who formed an Advisory Council of 100 influential men in preparation for the campaign to ratify the Federal Amendment.
After the United States entered the World War in 1917 the suffrage organizations, State and local, devoted their efforts largely to various forms of war work, called for by the Government. They served on all committees, took part in all "drives," sold Liberty Bonds and continued their service till the last demand had been met.
Legislative Action. The Massachusetts Legislature began in 1869 to grant hearings to women asking for the franchise and it continued to do so every year thereafter. These hearings usually crowded the largest committee room at the State House, the throng often extending far out into the hall. Able arguments were presented by eminent men and women but it was impossible to obtain favorable action. There was at least one hearing every year and often several on different measures. In later years they were generally conducted by Mrs. Maud Wood Park, Miss Amy F. Acton, a young woman lawyer, or Miss Alice Stone Blackwell for the petitioners; and by Thomas Russell, Aaron H. Latham, Charles R. Saunders or Robert Luce, as attorney for the Anti-Suffrage Association. Miss Blackwell usually replied for the petitioners. In recent years the suffragists had influential politicians of both parties to speak at the hearings, thus making woman suffrage a political question.
1901. The State association asked for the Municipal and Presidential franchise and for the submission to the voters of a constitutional amendment giving full suffrage. At the hearing on the latter, held February 18, the crowd broke all records and members of the committee who came late had to reach their seats by walking on top of the long table. Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt was among the speakers.[84] The measure was defeated March 11 by a vote, including pairs, of 156 to 53. Individuals petitioned for Municipal suffrage for women taxpayers, which was referred to the next Legislature without a roll call.
1902. The association's petition for a constitutional amendment was debated in the House on March 5 and defeated by a vote (including pairs) of 153 to 61. Petitions from individuals for Municipal suffrage for taxpaying women and that women qualified to vote for school committee might vote in the primaries on the nominations for it and a petition of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union that women might vote on licenses, were all rejected, after lively hearings. The Anti-Suffrage Association opposed all of them.
The great legislative triumph of 1902 was the passage of the Equal Guardianship bill. Ever since Lucy Stone in 1847 began to urge the amendment of the old law, which gave the father absolute control, the suffragists had endeavored to have it changed. Bill after bill, drawn by Samuel E. Sewall and others, had been introduced and rejected and it required a tragedy to obtain a new law. Mrs. Naramore of Coldbrook, Mass., went insane and killed her six young children when she learned that their father intended to give them away and could legally do so. This deeply stirred the Rev. Charles H. Talmage, who had conducted the funeral service, with the six little coffins ranged before the pulpit. He made a careful inquiry into all the circumstances and gave a full account of them in the Boston Herald of April 15, 1901 (republished in the Woman's Journal of April 27). He gave his time and the State Suffrage Association paid his expenses while he went through the State enlisting the support of different organizations of women to secure a change in the law. Mr. Blackwell also put in much time for this purpose.
When the Equal Guardianship bill was introduced by Representative George H. Fall of Malden it was backed not only by the suffrage association but by the State Federation of Women's Clubs, the State W. C. T. U., the Women's Relief Corps, the Boston Children's Friend Society and more than a hundred other organizations, aggregating 34,000 women. Among them the Anti-Suffrage Association was not included. For six years it had been circulating, under its official imprint, a leaflet against the proposal to give mothers equal custody and control of the children and in defense of the law as it stood.