By March 35 Legislatures had ratified and only a group of three or four States held out any hope of the 36th and final ratification, of which Connecticut was one. Leading Republicans in and out of Congress tried to impress upon those in Connecticut that this was no longer a State but a national issue. At their State convention in March the Resolutions Committee gave a hearing to the suffragists and reported a resolution in favor of a special session, which was passed by the convention and presented to the Governor. It then returned to power the very men who would prevent it. The Governor remained obdurate. To the first petition he had replied that the desire of a few women did not create an emergency. Then he had argued that suffrage was not an issue when the Legislature was elected and therefore the legislators were not authorized by the voters to act upon it. A little later he gave it as his opinion that persistent appeals do not constitute an emergency. Finally on April 10, in reply to a letter from Colonel Ullman, he stated that he was ready to receive proof of the existence of an emergency. The Connecticut women decided to give him the proof and the National Suffrage Association offered its cooperation by sending women from all over the country to Connecticut to join in a great protest against the blocking of woman suffrage for the whole nation. May 3-7, 1920, was declared "emergency week" and a Suffrage Emergency Corps was organized of 46 eminent women from as many States. They assembled in New York the evening of Sunday, May 2, as dinner guests of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, the national president, and received their "marching orders and field instructions" from her and Miss Ludington. The Emergency Corps arrived in Hartford Monday morning and were guests at a luncheon given in their honor at the Golf Club, whose rooms were crowded with men and women to meet these doctors, lawyers, professors, scientists, officials, business women, presidents of organizations--a remarkable gathering. There were roll call and speeches and then they separated into four groups and departed by motors for the four largest cities, where they spoke at mass meetings in the evening. A carefully planned tour was made of thirty-six towns with a total of forty-one meetings, at which they were introduced and assisted by prominent men. Mrs. Catt spoke to a large audience in Woolsey Hall, New Haven, with Mayor Fitzgerald presiding. The object of the campaign was to show the sentiment in the State for a special session of the Legislature and a resolution calling for it was enthusiastically adopted at each meeting.