more persistent lobbying, all these things continued during the
following year under Miss Paul's leadership with the result that
a vote in the Senate was taken, though at ran inopportune
moment,-the first vote in the Senate since 188'7. The vote stood
86 to '84-thereby failing by 11 votes of the necessary two-thirds
majority. This vote, nevertheless, indicated that a new strength
in the suffrage battle had forced Congress to take some action.

In the House, the Rules Committee on a vote of 4 to 4

{29}

refused to create a suffrage committee. We appealed to the
Democratic caucus to see if tie party sustained this action. We
wished to establish their party responsibility, one way or
another, and by securing the necessary signatures to a petition,
we compelled the caucus to meet. By a vote of 128 to 57 the
caucus declared " . . . that the question of woman suffrage is a
state and not a federal question," as a substitute for the milder
resolution offered, providing for the creation of a committee on
woman suffrage. If this had left any doubt as to how the
Democratic Party, as a party, stood, this doubt was conveniently
removed by Representative Underwood, the Majority Leader of the
House, when he said on the floor of the House the following day:
"The Democratic Party last night took the distinctive position
that it was not in favor of this legislation because it was in
favor of the states controlling the question of suffrage . . . .
I not only said I was opposed to it, but I said the Party on this
side of the Chamber was opposed to it, and the Party that has
control of the legislation in Congress certainly has the right to