In his message to the two Houses in joint session the Governor said: "Woman suffrage has been a subject of public discussion for over half a century. It is not an agitation of the moment, it is a world wide question of right and wrong. Your supreme duty is to think and act for the good of your State and nation." Separate resolutions were introduced in Senate and House, the former by a Republican, John M. Walker of Hockessin, the latter by Walter E. Hart, Democrat, of Townsend, the only one of eleven Democrats in the House who favored it. On March 25 there was a hearing before the General Assembly. The opponents had rushed into town every farmer and small politician they could secure and the women "antis" pinned a red rose in his buttonhole. The suffragists had given a yellow jonquil to every friend. Behind the Speaker's desk hung a huge yellow banner inscribed "Votes for Women," and so crowded was the room with determined men and eager women that the sergeant-at-arms had to clear a space for the Senate. The suffragists had two hours in the morning and the "antis" the same amount of time in the afternoon, with thirty minutes each for rebuttal. Mrs. Catt, at the earnest request of the State association, spoke at this hearing, and its president, Mrs. Ridgely; also Mrs. Florence Bayard Hilles, president of the Delaware branch of the National Woman's Party (Congressional Union), United States Senators McKellar of Tennessee and Stirling of South Dakota came from Washington to urge ratification. People crowded into Dover from over the State and hot arguments took place in hotel lobbies and on the streets. The State anti-suffrage association was represented by Miss Charlotte Rowe of Yonkers, N. Y., employed by their national organization. Mrs. Catt closed the argument and her speech was considered by the hundreds who heard it, according to the staff correspondent of the Wilmington _Evening Journal_, "one of the clearest, strongest and most reasonable arguments for votes for women ever heard in Delaware."