Putnam patriot., 1911-04-21
Woman's Suffrage Hearing at Hartford.
To tEe Editor of the Patriot;-

Womans Suffrage Hearing at Hartford. To tEe Editor of the Patriot:-
 The hearing on the woman suffrage amendment held in the Capitol last week was interesting and spirited. The announcement of the Hartford daiies, in large head lines Totes for
 H'omen-followed by a list of able and disting guished speakers who were to plead for the amendment drew together a large and enthusiastic crowd it was a decidedly feminine crowd, too, that filled the Hall of Representatives for our legi ,lators had courteously surren. desed their seats and found standing room for themselves in the rear of the hall or thronged every available space about the doors. Many women and more men were unable to get even standing room on the floor or any de sirable place in the gallery and were 1 obliged to be content with what the papers reported.
 Mrs. Thomas N. Hepburn, President of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association before introducing the several speakers said that women ask for suffrage because they believe it to be right. Those who are opposed to it have thought very little about it, but those who have always come out and talk for 1t.
 ha fNr ch ,as, fn;, will increase the educated not the igno. rant vote.
 Mrs. NJ. J. Reynolds of Colorado coming from & state where women were enfranchised said in part that woman suffrage in Colorado has meant the extension of the mother in- stinct into public life, for the women have learned to express it by the bal. lot. It has also improved the protec. tive laws for girls and women, so that experts now consider them the best laws of their kind in the United States
 Another speaker was Mrs. Ernest Thompson Seton, wife of the well known author. This brilliant writer and attractive woman emphasized the equality existing between man and woman and the fact that what upliGls man upiifts woman and what de. grades him degrades her. She believes that the polling box is the visible sign guaranteeing this equality.
 Miss Emily PierSon, State Organizer for the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association, was perhaps the youngest of the speakers as she was also the most impassioned, both in her speech on Wednesday and in the final words of the rebuttal on Thursday. Miss Pierson has made study of the social and economic conditions under which girls and women are working in shops and factories and finds them much worse than the conditions for men in similar employment. She stoutly maintained that the ballot in the hands of women would correct the evils and the injustice which they sui fer, for women know better than men what women need and want.
 Alter several others had spoken, among the number, Mrs. Willard Bow en, Mrs. Nj. T. Bennett, and Robert H. Elder, ex.district- attorney of New York, Rev. Anna Shaw, President of the National Woman Suffrage Asso- citation, closed the hearing for Wednes- l day lasting two hours and half. | Those who have heard Dr. Shaw | know that she Is clear, forceful 1 speaker and her strong voice pleaded | in no uncertain terms for the enfran- chisement of woman. In her address, the longest by far of the afternoon, Mrs. Shaw dwelt upon the injustice of withholding the ballot from women for shey are included in the argument