New Britain herald., 1919-03-01
$4,000 new NAMES
ON SUFFRAGE BOOK
Headquarters in Hartford Has
Proof Of Interest in Campaign

Ninety three thousand SIGNATURES of
Connecticut women are on exhibition
DIT 'he headquarters of the Connect
cut Woman Suffrage association in
Hartford These signatures are all
! Ihe names, of women who. having
read the sentence at the head of the
petluon sheets, I'VE, the UNDERSIGNED.
bcIleVe in equal suffrage for men and
women (not having signed a similar
book), have enrolled themselves as
believers IL the cause of woman suf-
frage
The first public inspection of tho
signatures was held at suffrage head~
quarters, Thursday afternoon, when
newspaper representatives from all
over the state were invited to inspect
the signatures which the suffrap is+s
claim to be genuine and honestly OH
tanned, To insure such a result the
su1rraglsts have insisted that the sig
natures sheets should all be signed by
the women who obtained them
thousands of these sheets, neatly
numbered and arranged on huge
paSteboard placards according to the
senatorial district to which they be-
long lined the room, which was de-
voted to the inspection. The walls were
literally plastered with the white
cards which proclaimed that thous-
ands OF Connecticut women are ask
ing for political freedom.
Cards which the newspaper men
received when they came to look over
tne signatures gave the exact number
Of women enrolled in each of the
eight counties of the state and called
attention 10 the fact that
in many of them the num-
Der of sig1ers exceeded a. ma
Jorlty of the number of men voting in
the 1916 gubernatorial election, which
was considered a normal voting wear. r.
NO comparison is made with 1918 for
1t Is pointed out that the number of
men voting was noticeably lessened
because of the war
The statement also declared strict
instructions had been given that the
slgners must all be women of voting
age and possible citizens. AS a. testi-
mony to the kind of women who
nave been securing the signatures. q p
letter from an editor who had sent
his regrets at being unable to be pres
ent, was quoted which said. II am
confident that as far as my town is
concerned the signatures are genuine.
for the integrity OF the women ap-
pointed to secure them, is above re-
proach."
Miss Mary Elizabeth HUT. executive
secretary of the Connecticut Woman
Suffrage association, who has had
charge of the campaign since Deem
Der, told many interesting Incidents
concerning the work.
OFTEN" she said, 'T have been
called to the long distance telephone
to hear some woman anxiously say
that she had just signed the pa
per and had been thinking it over and
wondered II she hadn't signed twice.
not at all seeming to realize that it
would mean going through thousands
of names to discover if she had made
that mistake. I presume a few of
them having signed twice, but we in
tend to take care Of that by having a
few hundred extra which we do not
count at the final counting in order
to prevent giving credit to dupIi-
Gates. Sometimes sheets come in with
an asterisk before the name. A note
at the foot Of the page explains that
these two names are in tho same
hand-w writing because the daughter
signed for her mother before I re-
allied what she was DOING"
When asked as to the ultimate pur
pose of the signature, Miss HUT said,
Our primary purpose is to silence
the age-old argument women doar
want it. Of course you realize that
this ts not the end Of the canvass. We
intend to go on until we have a large
majority Of the number of votes cast
for governor in 1916. Already Wind
ham, Holland and Ldtchf1eld have such
a, majority, Windham having major
ity of over a thousand. We expect to
take the $4,000 signatures to the 4
hearing on the presidential suffrage
bill which comes up on Tuesday.
March 4, at 2 p. m. We want the
of their communities stand on the
legislature to know how the women
suffrage question"