Another new committee was created to handle Woman’s Suffrage legislation, and the liberal attitude of the new senate leaders toward the woman’s movement was shown in the appointment of Senator Thomas, an ardent advocate of suffrage to the chairmanship, and the friendly attitude of the majority of the senators composing it. This within itself indicated a radical change in the spirit of the senate, which had always before been prone to make short shift of bills and resolutions dealing with the suffrage question. The election of Senator Kern as caucus chairman was the first sign that a new senate had been created; the announcement of the committee assignments was second, and this attracted wide attention and much discussion in the press. _The Literary Digest_ found that “the reorganization of the senate has been accomplished in a way paralleling the overturn of Cannonism in the house by the practical abolition of the seniority rule in making up committees.” _The Brooklyn Eagle_, _The Washington Times_ and _The Washington Herald_ made the point that the senate had really become the more radical of the two branches of the congress. _The Springfield Republican_ and _The Providence Journal_ commended “the throwing off of the customary control of a perpetual succession based on seniority of service.” And Senator Kern in giving to the press his own interpretation of the action of the steering committee said it was the intention to make the senate “Democratic not only in name but in practical results.” That, however, did not conclude the Democratization of the senate, for new rules were adopted which deprived chairmen of the arbitrary control over legislation which had been their portion during the long period of Aldrich-Hale rule. These rules provided that a majority of the committee might call the committee together at any time for the consideration of any pending bill; that a majority of the majority members might name sub-committees to consider pending measures and report to the full committee; and that a majority of the majority members might name members to confer with the house conferees on any bill on which the two houses might disagree. Strangely enough the adoption of these significant new rules which struck at the root of the evils of the old system failed to make much of an impression upon the press, which for the most part, passed them by without comment. _The Review of Reviews_, however, caught the significance and said that “even more significant than the personal changes which bring a new set of men into control of a body so recently managed by the extreme conservatives of both parties are the changes in the rules.” The system thus displaced had long been recognized among progressives familiar with its mode of operation as sinister in the extreme. The chairman of a committee could indefinitely postpone action on any bill which did not appeal to him by refusing to call the committee together for its consideration.