The women had a friend in William H. Sylvis of the Iron Molders' Union, who was the driving force behind the National Labor Congress, and he made it clear at once that he welcomed Mrs. Stanton and everyone else who believed in his cause. So strong, however, was the opposition to woman suffrage among union men that eighteen threatened to resign if Mrs. Stanton were admitted as a delegate. The debate continued, giving Susan an opportunity to explain why the ballot was important to workingwomen. "It is the power of the ballot," she declared, "that makes men successful in their strikes."[222] She recommended that both men and women be enrolled in unions, pointing out that had this been done, women typesetters would not have replaced men at lower wages in the recent strike of printers on the New York _World_. Finally a resolution was adopted, making it clear that Mrs. Stanton's acceptance in no way committed the National Labor Congress to her "peculiar ideas" or to "Female Suffrage." A committee on female labor was then appointed with Susan as one of its members. At once she tried to show the committee how the vote would help women in their struggle for higher wages. She had at hand a perfect example in the unsuccessful strike of Kate Mullaney's strong, well-organized union of 500 collar laundry workers in Troy, New York. Aware that Kate blamed their defeat on the ruthless newspaper campaign, inspired and paid for by employers, Susan asked her, "If you had been 500 carpenters or 500 masons, do you not think you would have succeeded?"[223] "Certainly," Kate Mullaney replied, adding that the striking bricklayers had won everything they demanded. Susan then reminded her that because the bricklayers were voters, newspapers respected them and would hesitate to arouse their displeasure, realizing that in the next election they would need the votes of all union men for their candidates. "If you collar women had been voters," she told them, "you too would have held the balance of political power in that little city of Troy."