XIV. NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1914…

XIV. NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1914

The Forty-sixth annual convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association had the honor and privilege of holding its sessions in Representatives' Hall at the State Capitol in Nashville, Tenn., Nov. 12-17, 1914.[82] Dr. Anna Howard Shaw was in the chair and it was officially and cordially welcomed in the name of the city by Mayor Hilary Howse; of the State Suffrage Association by its president, Mrs. L. Crozier-French, and of the Nashville Equal Suffrage League by the president, Mrs. Guilford Dudley. As Dr. Shaw rose to respond she was presented by Miss Louise Lindsey, vice-regent of the Ladies' Hermitage Association, with a gavel made from the wood of a hickory tree planted by General Jackson at the Hermitage, his home. She spoke of memories which made Nashville dear to the whole country; referred to the merry barbecue which had been held for their entertainment the preceding day "at the old mansion of that great Democrat, Andrew Jackson," and continued:

When his Honor the Mayor spoke of the hope that if women entered into the political life of our country conditions would be made better, I forgot the North and turned back in memory to the great South, where no stronger argument in favor of our cause can be found than the women themselves. It is not the men who have made this nation what it is, it is the men and the women, and in no part of it have women contributed more than in the South. When we look back over its past history; when we see the land barren, the desolation everywhere; when we see the homes left destitute and the women prostrate by the graves of their dead; when we realize that the men were nearly all swept away--we know that the power which kept the South steadfast, which held the homes together, which cherished the traditions, which made the South what it is today was the loyalty, the patriotism, the unconquerable courage and the devotion of Southern women in that hour of darkness and despair. Had it not been for the new spirit of action born of the necessity of the times in the character of Southern women to inspire Southern men with hope and courage, desolation would still be over the South. They evolved from within themselves a power which no one knows that women possess until some hour of extreme trial calls it forth. Never has there been a test of human endurance and wisdom to which women have not responded and become the inspiration and the strength of manhood. If any women of this nation have ever bought their freedom and paid a dear price for it, it is the women of the Southland.

I cannot see how any man who calls himself a Democrat can fail to recognize that the fundamental principle of democracy is the right of the citizen to a voice in the government under which that citizen lives; much less can I understand how any southern man can look unmoved into the face of southern women knowing that they are branded as no other body of intelligent people in this country are--by disfranchisement--that they are deprived of that one symbol of power which elevates the citizens of a democracy out of the class of the defective and unfit. The only way men can redeem themselves, the only way they can be honest American citizens and Democrats is to stand by the fundamental principle of democracy--that "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed"--"governed" women as well as "governed" men. When Nashville and Tennessee and the South and the North and the East and the West shall stand on this basic principle of just government, then we shall have a republic, a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

At the close of the address this resolution was enthusiastically adopted: "The National American Woman Suffrage Association in convention assembled hereby expresses its heartfelt thanks and deep appreciation to our national president, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, for her devoted and unremitting work for woman suffrage and for this association during the past year; for her splendid services in the campaigns which did so much to lead to victory two States; for her willingness to stand for re-election in order that she may lead us to new victories in the coming year."

Greetings were brought from the recently formed National Suffrage Association of Canada by Miss Ida E. Campbell, who said that although it was only eight months old it represented many affiliated societies in all the Provinces. She spoke of the splendid war work that was being done by women and said: "Our national president, Mrs. L. A. Hamilton of Toronto, is at the head of the relief work in that city and the feeling is general that the patriotic activities of the suffragists are doing much to enhance the cause of woman suffrage in the eyes of the Canadian public.[83] May we now express the hope that when the war is over we may welcome many of our American sisters to what we have been looking forward to--our first Canadian National Suffrage Convention. Canada salutes you." Greetings were read from the Colorado State Federation of Women's Clubs and were presented from the Southern States Woman Suffrage Conference by its president, Miss Kate M. Gordon (La.).

The large hall was crowded at the first evening meeting and the convention was formally welcomed by Governor B. W. Hooper, who said in the course of his address:

It is highly appropriate that your progressive movement should unfurl its banners in this, the most progressive State in the South. Our people are not swift in their pursuit of strange doctrines, but they are as a rule open to conviction and tolerant of differences of opinion. Whatever may be our views of the necessity and efficacy of woman suffrage most of us have sense enough to know that it is surely coming in every State in the republic.... When it comes to Tennessee I trust that there will be no faltering compromise, giving only the limited right to vote in the election of certain classes of officials. The suffrage, if granted at all, should not be grudgingly given but should be the complete and comprehensive right to participate in all elections. When suffrage comes to the women of Tennessee I shall derive one substantial pleasure from it if I am still living, the joy and exultation of my little daughter, who has been a pronounced and persistent suffragist since she was nine years old. She has taken a keen and intelligent interest in all of my struggles, has rejoiced in the hour of my victory and wept in the hour of my defeat. She is the connecting link between me and the woman suffrage cause.

In behalf of all the good people of Tennessee, I extend greetings to your great association and express the hope that your sojourn in the historic Volunteer State may be filled with pleasure and profit to each and every member of your convention.

The Governor's daughter was introduced to the convention and it settled itself in anticipation of the stories of the campaigns for woman suffrage amendments which had ended with the general election the preceding week, in some of them with victory, in others with defeat. Miss Anne Martin, president of the Nevada Suffrage Association, was heartily applauded as she told of the triumph in her State, saying:

The suffrage victory in Nevada means not only a solid equal suffrage West and another step toward equal suffrage for the United States but a triumph for better government in Nevada. It is the most "male" State in America, perhaps in the world. The census of 1910 shows that there are two men to every woman. Law, custom, social life are more nearly man-made than those of any other country; consequently Nevada needs the help of her women to modify law, custom and social life, the help of those women whose pioneer mothers stood shoulder to shoulder with the men in building up a great commonwealth out of a wilderness. Owing to the transitory character of many of the industries, such as the construction of irrigation works, railway construction and mining, there are nearly three times as many unattached men living outside of home influences as there are married women in the State.

The male population is over 50 per cent. transient; the population of women is only 20 per cent. transient, as they have permanent occupations on the farms and in the schools. The argument of the anti-suffragists that "the women do not want it" was answered by a house-to-house canvass throughout the counties of the State. In many of them at least 90 per cent. of the women enrolled themselves in favor of equal suffrage and their signatures are on file at the headquarters of the Nevada Equal Franchise Society. The fact that out of a voting population of only 20,000 a majority of 3,400 votes was cast to give women the franchise shows not only that men all over the State were just and fair-minded but that they must have instinctively felt the need of women's help....

The story of victory for Montana was related by Miss Mary Stewart, as the president, Miss Jeannette Rankin, had been detained to prevent a tampering with the election returns, but she afterwards arrived and was enthusiastically welcomed. Mrs. Clara Darrow, president of the North Dakota association, gave an account of how the amendment had been lost in that State through political tricks. Mrs. Draper Smith, president of the Nebraska association, gave a report on the loss of that State and paid tribute to William Jennings Bryan, who had made sixteen strong speeches for it. Mrs. Walter McNab Miller, president of the Missouri association, told of the effort through the hot summer to get the necessary 38,000 signatures to an initiative petition, after the Legislature had refused to submit the amendment, and the tactics used to defeat it at the polls. Her mention of the name of Champ Clark, Speaker of the National House of Representatives, who had recently declared for woman suffrage, was applauded. As Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, president of the Ohio Suffrage Association, was not at the convention, the loss of the amendment in that State was described by Mrs. Myron Vorce. [See State chapters.]

The evening closed with the president's address. The report said: Dr. Shaw declared she had some sympathy for the anti-suffragists, as they were bound to lose. "When the campaign for woman suffrage was begun," she said, "the 'antis' had all of the earth and the suffragists had only hope of heaven but now many nations of the world and half of the United States have been converted to the cause of votes for women." She ridiculed the arguments of the anti-suffragists and said: "Until you grant the right of a vote to all persons, you haven't a democracy--you have an aristocracy and the worst of all--an aristocracy of sex. Soon the divine right of sex here will be as obsolete as the divine right of Kings in Europe." Answering the argument that if women have the ballot they ought also to have the musket, Dr. Shaw said in telling of the sufferings of the women during the war: "It is said that 300,000 of the flower of Europe's manhood have been killed in the last nine weeks of the war. I can't grasp the thought of that many dead men but I can look into the face of one dead soldier and know that he had a mother. If this woman had escaped death at childbirth she had watched over him day by day until she had to look up into the eyes of her boy. And then that boy was called by his country and soon he was dead--he was in the happy peace of glory and she was facing the empty years of agony. Then they ask what a woman knows about war!... The very flower of a country perishes in a war, leaving the maimed and diseased to father the children of future generations. Women ought to have the ballot during war and during peace, for we know that if they had had it in all countries this war would not have occurred."

The report of Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett, corresponding and executive secretary, covered much of the work of the National Association during 1914, which was more extensive probably than in any preceding year in its history. It said in part:

This year has completely broken all records in the number of campaign States--seven in all. In four of them--Nevada, Montana, North and South Dakota--the amendment was submitted by legislative act; in three--Nebraska, Missouri and Ohio--by initiative petition. It is noteworthy that in all of the last the suffragists consider the work of securing the requisite number of signatures, although it was exceedingly arduous, an invaluable asset to the campaign, each signer being practically guaranteed to vote right on the amendment itself. In Ohio, Nevada, Montana and South Dakota, only a simple majority vote on the amendment is necessary to pass it, but in Nebraska 35 per cent. of all the votes cast at the election is required and in North Dakota and Missouri a majority of all the votes cast.

The year 1914 has been what suffragists call an "off year," since most of the State Legislatures meet biennially in the odd years. Nevertheless, what acts of Legislatures there have been are of the greatest significance. Those of Massachusetts and New Jersey submitted the suffrage amendment by overwhelming votes and in both States the suffragists are confident of the approval of the 1915 Legislatures, which is necessary before final submission to the voters. An amendment was introduced into the Legislatures of eight others. The national legislative record shows that never before has the Congressional atmosphere been so thoroughly permeated with woman suffrage. The anxiety of some members of Congress to show that they stood right with their constituents on the question and the agility of others in side-stepping every possible necessity for meeting the issue, have unerringly indicated that they all recognize the fact that the time has come when national politics must reckon with woman suffrage.

All through the year there has been the most hearty cooperation between national headquarters and the Washington and Chicago offices of our Congressional Committee.... It is impossible to mention this committee without expressing on behalf of the officers of the association a most thorough appreciation of the service of its chairman, Mrs. Medill McCormick, who has not only given money generously to the work but has added what is more valuable still--steady, hard, personal labor, coupled with an indefatigable good humor, frequently under most trying circumstances....

The new State associations formed and the many suffrage organizations applying for affiliated or auxiliary membership were named and an account was given of the large sums of money, the vast amount of literature and the many workers supplied to the seven State campaigns of the year. These facts and the other activities of the association were related in part as follows:

Miss Harriet Grim of Wisconsin was sent by request to North Dakota to cover the series of Chautauqua meetings in June and July. Miss Katharine Devereux Blake of New York offered her services for only expenses for a month of campaign work in July. Hurried arrangements were made by telegram and as the promptest, most urgent pleas came from Montana, it won her, although later she did some work in North Dakota also. Miss Shaw's special fund was the backing which provided for both tours. Miss Blake made the wonderful record of obtaining from the collections at her meetings enough to cover all her travelling and living expenses. Miss Shaw's fund,[84] which has often seemed like the miraculous pitcher, also provided part of the expense of sending Mrs. Jennie Wells Wentworth to Ohio and Mrs. Laura Gregg Cannon to Nevada. Miss Addams has contributed several weeks of campaigning and Dr. Shaw herself has made an itinerary, giving ten days to each of the campaign States, starting August 27 and ending with Election Day....

Another noteworthy feature of the year's work was the establishment of Woman's Independence Day on the first Saturday of May, initiated by Mrs. McCormick and phenomenally successful. There was a wonderful response to the ringing call sent out by the National Board to all the suffragists of the country to meet together in every city and town at a given time and sing a suffrage hymn, declare their faith, pass a resolution and have a speech. A woman's version of the Declaration of Independence was prepared for the occasion and President Wilson was asked by Dr. Shaw to proclaim the day a legal holiday to be celebrated in recognition of the right and necessity that the women of the United States should become citizens in fact as well as in name. The President did not heed Dr. Shaw's request but the women of the country did. Not a State was silent, not even the equal suffrage States, and many added parades and other events to the regular program.

The story was told of the National Junior Suffrage Corps to enroll the young people, the idea of Miss Caroline Ruutz-Rees (Conn.); of the large amount of Congressional documents distributed, among them 1,000 copies of the speech of Senator Henry F. Ashurst (Ariz.) before the Senate on the Federal Amendment, presented by him; the travelling schools organized; lists prepared of many thousand active members and an infinite variety of details. Mrs. Dennett had severed her connection with the association the preceding September after four years' invaluable service.

Mrs. Dennett made also the report of the Literature Committee, whose duties had now been merged in the National Woman Suffrage Publishing Co. The latter reported through its chairman, Mrs. Cyrus W. Field. The greatly needed Data Department had been established under the cooperation of Miss Elinor Byrns, chairman also of the Press Department; Mrs. Frances Maule Bjorkman and Mrs. Dennett. The volunteer services of Miss Helen Raulett, like Miss Byrns a lawyer, had been obtained, and while its great need and possibilities had been demonstrated it was evident that it must be put on a paid, business basis to be effective. Miss Byrns gave an interesting account of the ramifications of the Press and Publicity Department and its important accomplishments. "In my opinion," she said, "it is almost impossible to have suffrage news given out successfully by any one who is not an earnest suffragist. Knowledge of publicity does not make up for the lack of conviction and enthusiasm," and she gave this instance: "A few months ago a writer for one of the New York newspapers--the worst 'anti' paper we have--telephoned me, saying, 'I have been told to write an editorial on the menace of woman suffrage. Can you help me?' I said, 'Yes, I can prove to you that the majority of the presidential electors in 1916 may represent equal suffrage States and that in all probability every political party will have to endorse woman suffrage before that time. What could be worse than that?' He agreed with me and his editorial based on the facts Dr. Shaw and I gave him has been a most successful campaign document for us."

Among other valuable suggestions Miss Byrns said: "While there are some editors who give us space because they have to--that is because we are always doing something 'different' and making news which cannot be ignored--there are perhaps even more who have a real interest in the suffrage movement and are therefore eager to give us all the space which the business department of their paper permits. And, by the way, one of the most valuable kinds of press work is that which can be done by every suffragist individually. Newspaper and magazine offices are most sensitive to the praise and blame of readers. Suffrage departments are sometimes stopped because no readers write their approval. Individual newspaper policies, belittling or perverting the suffrage issue, are sometimes persisted in because no readers write their disapproval. It is discouraging to an editor when a reader writes a letter complaining of one opposing news item or one cartoon although she has ignored everything which has been printed in favor of suffrage."

Miss Jane Thompson, field secretary, told of the 8,000 miles she had travelled in the campaign States since early in April; of her experiences pleasant and unpleasant; of the excellent opportunities it had afforded of establishing thorough understanding and cordial relations between the National Association and the States. She spoke of the long and arduous work of the national president and presented the following expression of loyalty and appreciation from those who had conducted the campaigns in Ohio, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Montana and Nevada:

To Dr. Anna Howard Shaw:

When service of the highest type has been faithfully and loyally rendered it is the pleasure of those most benefited by that service to express, though inadequately, their deep appreciation. We, the representatives of the Campaign States, feel that to you we owe much for the splendid way in which you and your Executive Board stood by us in our efforts, but even more do we appreciate your personal labor, your untiring, beautiful spirit. Always ready to meet whatever situation arose, regardless of fatigue, you encouraged the believers, braced up the uncertain and converted the unbelieving. Your service, in our estimation, is invaluable and cannot be dispensed with.

The legal adviser announced the settlement at last of the bequest of Mrs. Sarah J. McCall of Ohio, including 100 shares of Cincinnati Street Railway stock, worth from $5,000 to $6,000, and $705 interest; also the receipt of a legacy of $4,750, after the inheritance tax was paid, from former U. S. Senator Thomas W. Palmer of Michigan.

Miss Elizabeth Yates said in her report on Presidential suffrage: "The favorable decision the past year by the Supreme Court of Illinois leaves no room for any further contention regarding its constitutionality. It can be granted by any Legislature by a bare majority vote and this can be obtained by many States that could not secure the large vote necessary to submit a constitutional amendment for full suffrage." She strongly urged that any State contemplating a campaign for full suffrage should first secure the Presidential franchise. In her usual excellent report on Church Work, Mrs. Mary E. Craigie told of her visits to the Methodist Ministerial Associations of Atlanta, Tampa and New Orleans with most gratifying results, as a friendly spirit towards woman suffrage was developed and the last named recommended the General Conference to give laity rights to women. In cooperation with Dr. Nina Wilson Dewey, her chairman for Iowa, arrangements were made during the Mississippi Valley Conference in Des Moines with the clergymen of eighteen Protestant churches to have their pulpits filled at some service on Sunday by women delegates and the combined audiences by actual count numbered 6,000. Four thousand copies of the annual letter asking for a mention of the need of women's influence in State affairs in their Mothers' Day sermons were sent to as many clergymen.

One of the most valuable sessions was Voters' Evening, under the auspices of the National Men's League, with its president, James Lees Laidlaw (N. Y.) in the chair. The opening address was made by U. S. Senator Luke Lea (Tenn.), who received a great ovation when he began and the audience rose with cheers and waving handkerchiefs when he finished. He said in the course of his speech:

I am embarrassed by not knowing how to address this distinguished audience.... Much as I regret it I must address you as "my disfranchised friends," who, in spite of your learning, your cultivation and your intelligence, under our enlightened and progressive civilization occupy the same political plane as insane persons, idiots, infants and others laboring under disabilities. To say I regret to be forced to address you thus is no mere lip service, contradictory of real sentiment and conviction, for I was one of the three Southern Senators who were sufficiently impressed with the absolute necessity of woman suffrage to step beyond the sacred portals of State rights and vote for the amendment to the constitution of the United States, removing from the electoral franchise the limitation of sex, and I am glad to have an opportunity to express the reasons for my faith.

These two twofold: First, the wholesome effect upon our Government of extending the privilege of voting to women; and second, the far-reaching results upon womanhood of granting this right. The first reason is justified by the statement which will be conceded by all, even the "antis," that an overwhelming majority of women are good rather than bad and have the highest ideals of government and politics. Therefore, to give the right to vote to this class is to increase overwhelmingly the number of good voters and to multiply the number of citizens with these highest ideals.

In answer to this, some "anti," who, by her opposition to woman suffrage, pleads guilty to the threadbare charge that women have not sufficient intelligence to vote, comes forward and says: "But the good women won't vote; only the bad women will exercise the privilege." This argument is answered by the contrary experience in States where women vote. If woman suffrage only increased the number of bad voters, then instead of spreading like a prairie fire from coast to coast it would be repealed in the States where it was originally tried as an experiment. The results in the States where the franchise has been granted are an absolute and irrefutable argument in favor of national woman suffrage. In these States it has removed the polling places from the dives to the churches and has opened more schools and closed more saloons than all other political movements combined. The ideals of government and the standard of right and wrong by which public officials are measured have been raised without lowering one iota the standard of motherhood, of wifehood and of womanhood, a standard of which every woman is proud and which every man reverences and worships....

Other speakers were President H. S. Barker of the University of Kentucky; R. A. McDowell (Ky.), the Hon. Leon Locke (La.), Miss S. Grace Nicholes of Chicago, and Charles T. Hallinan, vice-president of the league. A branch of the Men's National League was formed during the convention by about thirty prominent men, with John Bell Keble, dean of the Vanderbilt Law School, as temporary chairman.

Delegates to these national conventions now felt less need of oratorical eloquence and more of practical knowledge of the work which was under way that they might carry back with them to their own States. One evening was profitably spent in listening to short speeches by Miss Alice Stone Blackwell on the work of the National Association; Mrs. Antoinette Funk on that of the Congressional Committee; Mrs. Raymond Brown, president of the New York association, on the unusual and spectacular campaign now under way in that State; Miss Hannah J. Patterson on the preparatory campaign in Pennsylvania; Mrs. Maud Wood Park, secretary of the Boston Equal Suffrage Association, and Mrs. Teresa A. Crowley on the coming campaign in Massachusetts; Mrs. Lillian J. Feickert, president of the State association, on that of New Jersey. In all of these States amendments had been submitted for 1915. Miss Rankin told the welcome story of the Montana victory.

The mass meeting on Sunday afternoon was one of the largest ever assembled in Ryman Auditorium, all the standing room occupied and many turned from the doors. The audience represented every station in life and the large number of men was noticeable. Dr. Shaw presided and paid a splendid tribute to the people of Nashville. Miss Jane Addams took for a text her visit to the historic home of Andrew Jackson, which, she said, had caused her to think of the great part the men of the South had in shaping the policies of the early government of the States, and how Chief Justice John Marshall, a southern man, had welded them together into an unconquerable whole. She referred to the way in which women had borne their part and asked why the men were so progressive in those early days and yet so reactionary now, when women asked that they should make another experiment in popular government. Miss Rose Schneiderman, president of the New York City Women's Trade Union, spoke on the Industrial Woman's Need of the Vote, telling of the 800,000 working women in New York State, the low wages of many, the unjust conditions. "Do you talk of chivalry?" she exclaimed. "We women who work will tell you that we have no chivalry shown us in industry and we will also tell you that we go home with half the wages that men get. These same men who tell us we are angels send vice commissioners to investigate why girls go wrong. I should think a glance at the pay-roll would give them the answer."

Miss Rosika Schwimmer of Budapest, who had come with a petition to President Wilson from the women of fifteen countries that were at war to use his influence to bring about peace, made an eloquent and impassioned address. A storm of applause greeted her appeal to the men of this country to avoid the catastrophe of war in the future by granting the vote to women, who would always use it for peace. Mrs. Desha Breckinridge, president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, one of the most brilliant and forceful of the suffrage speakers, took for a subject The South Needs her Women. "Do not call upon the women of the South to help you solve your cotton problems while you are using up the children of women in the cotton mills," she said. "Women must have the ballot to cope with all the hard conditions of life. When we think of war and patriotism we think of men. We forget the little army of women that always follow in the wake of the big armies and brave the bullets and the fearful conditions of warfare that they may become ministering angels on the battlefields; the Florence Nightingales who undergo the hardships to nurse the wounded. We are also likely to forget the large army that stays behind, the women on whom the hardships of war fall heavily, those who must endure the sorrow and waiting. Is it fair to say woman shall have no part in the every-day affairs of life when she must bear so much in war?"

The program closed with an address by Mrs. Kate Waller Barrett on The Attitude toward Woman Suffrage of the International Council of Women, of which she was an officer. She described its quinquennial meeting in Rome the preceding May, shortly before the breaking out of the war, and said the desire for the suffrage was the connecting link between the women of all nations. She declared that the safety of the country depended on women's having a vote in the administration of all that concerned the welfare of men as well as of women and children. In the evening the officers, delegates and visitors were entertained by Mrs. Benjamin F. Wilson at her beautiful home, Wilmor Manor.

This convention of 1914 will be always noted for the long controversy over what was known as the Shafroth National Suffrage Amendment. It occupied all or a part of several sessions and the Woman's Journal said: "The greatest emphasis of the convention was laid on the work in Congress; this was true even to the extent of cutting short discussion of State methods. The story of the year's work in the different States for both full and Presidential suffrage had to be abruptly dismissed." A new Congressional Committee had been appointed on January 1, consisting of Mrs. Medill McCormick, Mrs. Antoinette Funk and Mrs. Sherman M. Booth, of Illinois, Mrs. Breckinridge (Ky.), Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford (Colo.); Mrs. John Tucker (Cal.); Mrs. Edward Dreier (N. Y.); Mrs. Helen H. Gardener (D. C.). Mrs. Dreier resigned; Mrs. Gardener was largely prevented from serving by illness and absence. Other members were too far away for active work and the headquarters in Washington were in charge of the three comparatively young, energetic women from Illinois, who had shown such remarkable political acumen in getting the Presidential suffrage bill through the Legislature of that State and were leaders in the Progressive party. The remarkable report of the committee's work presented by the chairman, Mrs. McCormick, including her report as chairman of the Campaign Committee, filled 45 pages of the printed Handbook of the convention. It contained a full account of the action on woman suffrage in both houses of the 63rd Congress, names and votes of members, committee hearings, Senate debate, record of speeches, statistics and information such as was never before presented to a suffrage convention, and showed an amount of committee work accomplished almost equal to that which had been done in all preceding sessions of Congress combined.[85] It was clear that for the first time the attempt to secure action by Congress on woman suffrage was being made in political fashion, which was the proper way, but unfortunately it showed also that the Federal Amendment, which had been the principal object of the National Association for the past forty-four years, was in danger of being replaced with one of a totally different character. Space can be given for only enough of Mrs. McCormick's exceedingly clever presentation of this proposed amendment to make the matter fully understood.

I assumed the responsibility as chairman early in January, 1914, and after opening our headquarters in the Munsey Building at Washington, D. C., divided the committee's work into three departments--Lobby, Publicity and Organization. The lobby and publicity were continued from the Washington office and an organization office was opened in Chicago during the latter part of January, as it was decided that Chicago was much better situated geographically to carry on the program of this department.

As Congress was in session it was necessary for us to concentrate our attention on our lobby at the Capitol and to determine as quickly as possible both our policy to be adopted and the wisest method of legislative procedure. In order to facilitate this work Mrs. Booth and I joined Mrs. Funk in Washington, and, dividing our duties, we proceeded to investigate the temper of Congress. What was known in the present Congress as the Bristow-Mondell resolution had been reported out favorably by the Standing Committee on Suffrage in the Senate and, if we desired, could be placed as unfinished business on the calendar, which would result in a discussion terminating in a vote.

The situation in the House of Representatives was not so favorable. It has no suffrage committee and the Mondell amendment was in the Judiciary. As that committee was composed of men if not actually opposed at least indifferent there did not seem to be any immediate chance of action. We discovered very soon, however, that the Congressional Union was circulating a petition among the Democrats requesting them to caucus on the subject of establishing a Suffrage Standing Committee. The members of your Congressional Committee felt this to be a great mistake. It gave the Democratic party a splendid opportunity to commit themselves as opposed to woman suffrage, using their State's rights doctrine as a reason for their action. We discussed it with the members of the Congressional Union, who were convinced they were right in putting the Democratic party on record for or against suffrage, and it developed during our discussion that their policy of holding this party responsible, as the party in power, was to be put into action at once and announced as soon as the Democrats had voted in caucus. Knowing that this policy was diametrically opposed to that of the National Association, which has always been non-partisan--to hold the individual and not the party responsible--we tried desperately hard to block the petition and avoid the Democratic caucus at that time, but as the Congressional Union had a lobby of forty women against our three, it was impossible for us to head it off. The party caucused and not only voted against a Standing Committee on Suffrage but Mr. Heflin of Alabama amended the resolution before the caucus so that the members were enabled to vote on February 3 by 123 to 55 that woman suffrage was a question to be determined by the States and not by the national government.

It was now necessary for us to make a complete canvass of both Houses of Congress, to tabulate the records of the men, in so far as we were able to secure the information, and to determine at the earliest possible moment whether or not it was advisable to bring the Bristow amendment to a vote in the Senate.... My first call was on Senator Borah of Idaho, who is a personal friend, a suffragist, and has the advantage of being a progressive Republican from an equal suffrage State. "I cannot vote for this amendment," he said, "and want you to understand my reasons for taking such a stand. I do not believe the suffragists realize what they are doing to the women of the South if they force upon them universal suffrage before they are ready for it. The race question is one of the most serious before the country today and the women must help solve it before they can take on greater responsibilities. I am also a strong conservationist and entertain a State's rights attitude of mind on both these questions."

Mrs. McCormick then called on Senator Burton of Ohio, whom she described as "a reactionary Republican"; Senator Johnson of Maine and Senator Saulsbury of Delaware, "strong States' rights Democrats," and she gathered the impression that the new amendment which her Congressional Committee had in mind would have a better chance than the original, to which the Congressional Union had given the name Susan B. Anthony Amendment. The following men agreed to serve on the Advisory Committee in the Senate: Borah of Idaho; Bristow of Kansas; Shafroth and Thomas of Colorado; Owen of Oklahoma; Clapp of Minnesota; Smoot of Utah; Kern of Indiana; Lea of Tennessee and Ashurst of Arizona. "They unanimously agreed with us," she said, "that it would be of great educational value to have the question brought up before the Senate during the present session, as there had never been a debate on the question of woman suffrage in Congress."[86]

Mrs. McCormick told how the amendment had been put on the calendar as unfinished business and discussed daily at 2 o'clock for ten days until the vote was taken March 19, 1914, when it received 35 ayes, 34 noes, a majority but not the necessary two-thirds. A change of 11 votes would have carried it and more than half of the absentees were known to be in favor but these facts did not give her any faith in the amendment. "During the canvassing of the Senate," she said, "we were more and more impressed with the necessity of meeting the State's rights argument and felt more and more keenly the barrier of the State constitutions in advancing our cause. An analysis of these constitutions proved most illuminating and in arguing with the Senators upon this point they constantly reiterated the general idea of submitting this question, as well as other big national questions, to the decision of the people. We also discovered at this time that there were seven or eight different amendments before Congress on the woman suffrage question. For example, there is a bill giving us the right to vote for Presidential electors. There is another bill giving us the right to vote for Senators and Congressmen, etc....[87] A general canvass of the Lower House and also the action of the Democratic caucus convinced us in an even more pronounced way that we are blocked by the State's rights doctrine." The report continued:

It was at this time that Mrs. Funk, Mrs. Booth and myself interpreted our duty as a committee to mean that we were appointed not only for the purpose of national propaganda and for the promotion of the Bristow amendment but that our duty was a more extensive one and required us to meet whatever political emergency might arise during our term of office. We, therefore, set about to originate a new form of amendment to the U. S. Constitution which would meet the State's rights argument, if such a thing were possible. As Mrs. Funk is a lawyer, Mrs. Booth and I agreed that it was most important for her to draw up such an amendment. This was done; it was submitted to several lawyers, to our Advisory Committees of Senate and House; to an able constitutional lawyer in Washington, to Judge William J. Calhoun, of Chicago, a lawyer of international reputation, and to Judge Hiram Gilbert, one of the best constitutional lawyers in Illinois. We accepted Judge Gilbert's rewording and then sent it on to the Progressive party's legislative bureau in New York, where it was endorsed by their corps of lawyers, who draft all their bills.

The amendment was at this time discussed with our Advisory Committee in the Senate and met not only with their approval as an amendment but they considered it a very shrewd political move on the part of our organization. At the next meeting of the National Suffrage Board I presented the amendment, and, after nearly two months' consideration and discussion with some of the leading suffragists of the country, they voted unanimously endorsing it and instructing us to have it introduced whenever we thought it advisable. This action was taken by the National Board about two weeks before the vote came up in the Senate. Not wishing in any way to interfere with the Bristow amendment, we did not discuss even the idea of this one with any other member of Congress excepting of course our Advisory Committees.[88]

Senator John F. Shafroth of Colorado, at the request of Mrs. McCormick's committee, introduced the new measure, which took his name, and it was favorably reported to the Senate by Senator Owen of Oklahoma in May. At this Nashville convention it was for the first time brought before the association. In her report Mrs. McCormick thus described the hearing which had been held before the House Judiciary Committee March 3:

The hearing was just at the time of the big blizzard and our speakers were stormbound, so that when we appeared before the committee there were only Mrs. Funk, Mrs. Booth and myself to represent the National Association, and, as Mrs. Booth was not prepared to speak and I was chairman for the time given our committee, it left Mrs. Funk as our only speaker. We had discussed the night before the hearing the possible phases of the suffrage question Mrs. Funk could use in her speech that would be new to the Judiciary Committee. As an organization we have been conducting hearings before this committee for over forty years, and, as many of its members have served several terms, they are as familiar as we are with the suffrage arguments. We, therefore, decided to be perfectly frank with the committee and draw to their attention the fact that they possessed the power, if they wished to exercise it, to suggest to Congress some other form of legislation than had been presented to them. Mrs. Funk made this statement to them and said that in interviewing the members of the Judiciary Committee individually we found that they were convinced that woman suffrage was a question which was growing so rapidly throughout the country that it would only be a short time before the women would succeed in gaining their political freedom, but that as a committee, and because there was a majority of Democrats on it, they did not feel that they were able to report the Mondell amendment in any form.[89]

Mrs. McCormick then called on Mrs. Funk to present the Shafroth-Palmer Amendment, which had been introduced in the House by A. Mitchell Palmer (Penn.), and the argument for it. The amendment read as follows:

Whenever any number of legal voters of any State to a number exceeding 8 per cent. of the number of legal voters at the last preceding general election held in such State, shall petition for the submission to the legal voters of said State of the question whether women shall have equal rights with men in respect to voting at all elections to be held in such State, such question shall be so submitted, and if a majority of the legal voters of the State voting on the question shall vote in favor of granting to women such equal rights, the same shall thereupon be deemed established, anything in the constitution or laws of such State to the contrary notwithstanding.

In beginning her carefully prepared "brief" Mrs. Funk said:

This amendment to the U. S. Constitution must pass both branches of the national Congress by a two-thirds vote and be ratified by a majority vote of three-fourths of the State Legislatures before it becomes a law. So far it is identical with the Bristow-Mondell amendment. The difference between the two is that after the latter amendment has passed three-fourths of the State Legislatures it completely enfranchises the women. The Shafroth-Palmer amendment, after it has passed three-fourths of the State Legislatures, enables 8 per cent. of the voters of a State to bring the suffrage question up for the consideration of the voters at the next general election. Such a petition may be filed at any time, not only once but indefinitely, until suffrage is won, and a majority of those voting on the question is sufficient to carry the measure. In other words, every State where the women are not at present enfranchised may be a campaign State every year. If the male voters are obliged to hear the woman suffrage question agitated and discussed at a perennial campaign, how long will it be before, in desperation and self-defense, they will vote in favor of it?

Now, why is the Shafroth-Palmer amendment easier to pass Congress than the Bristow-Mondell amendment? First of all it shifts the responsibility of actually enfranchising the women from the Senators and Representatives to the people of their respective States. Second, the State's rights doctrine is the one objection raised to every federal issue that comes before Congress. It is primarily the greatest obstacle to federal legislation on any subject and is recognized as a valid objection by the members of Congress and particularly those from the North, who feel that they owe to the members of the South the justice of refraining from interference in matters vital to the South....

Third, the Democratic party is committed to the initiative and referendum but not to woman suffrage.... The President has endorsed the initiative and referendum and has fully convinced himself of its merit.... We are asking the Democratic party to give us, the women of the country, the initiative and referendum on the question of whether or not we shall be allowed to vote, and no State can have this question forced upon it or even settled until a majority of the voters of the State cast their ballots in favor of it.

The difficulties connected with the old amendment both in Congress and in many States were described and the case of New York was cited among others:

If the matter of suffrage is submitted to the State of New York in 1915 and does not carry, under the New York constitution it cannot again be submitted for two years. Meantime all the energy that should be expended in directly educating the people must again be wasted trying to get a majority vote in two successive Legislatures. It is the opinion of one of the great suffrage leaders in New York, as expressed to me, that if the amendment does not carry in 1915 the people will not have an opportunity to vote upon it for another fifteen or twenty years.[90]

The early passage of the Shafroth-Palmer amendment would eliminate the State constitutional barrier and leave for the State organization only the work of ratification of this amendment, which only requires a majority vote in both branches of the Legislature. Again the legislator is able to shift the responsibility to the voters of his State. He is not voting directly on the question himself--only to submit the question to the people. You can readily see that here again this amendment is easier to ratify in the Legislatures than the Bristow-Mondell would be, because in the ratification of the latter the legislators are practically casting the final vote on the enfranchisement of the women all over the country.... The simultaneous consideration of suffrage in every State at the same time would give overwhelming accumulative impetus to the movement and would increase suffrage activity inestimably. The fact that the national Congress had taken any action whatsoever in regard to the suffrage question would stamp it as a national issue, and I very much doubt whether the Democratic and Republican parties would be able to decline to put a suffrage plank in their national platforms.

This ended Mrs. Funk's statement and Mrs. McCormick continued: "In dividing up the work of the lobby Mrs. Sherman undertook to card catalogue Congress by the same method which she used so successfully in the Illinois Legislature and a list of members was prepared who should be defeated on their record in Congress. Arthur Dunn, who had been a Washington newspaper correspondent for thirty years, was put at the head of the publicity bureau and proved to be of inestimable value because of his personal acquaintance with every member of Congress." Charles T. Hallinan, also an experienced newspaper man, had been made chairman of the press bureau and in his report to the convention told of the introduction of the latest methods of publicity work and the signal success they had achieved. A Chicago office had been opened for organization and a system established of thorough congressional district work, a detailed account of which filled half a dozen pages of the printed Minutes. Miss Lillie Glenn and Miss Lavinia Engle had been appointed field organizers and a number of States were canvassed, speeches made indoors and out in scores of counties, women's societies visited and many suffrage clubs formed. Every kind of transportation was used, from muleback to automobiles, and many hardships were encountered. The report closed with several pages of valuable suggestions for what would be a thorough political campaign if carried out. Mrs. McCormick also gave an interesting report of her chairmanship of another committee, saying:

Early in the summer of 1914 Mrs. Desha Breckinridge advanced the valuable idea of a special campaign committee to be appointed by the National Board for the purpose of giving aid to the campaign States by establishing a speakers' bureau for their benefit and devising means for raising necessary funds, which the National Board approved. My indorsement would have been less enthusiastic could I have foreseen that I would be selected as chairman. A special finance committee was appointed, Mrs. Stanley McCormick, chairman; Miss Addams, treasurer, and I, secretary. Miss Ethel M. Smith, of Washington, D. C., spent her vacation establishing a speakers' bureau in the Chicago headquarters and it has been conducted by Mrs. Josephine Conger-Kanecko. As many national speakers have been routed through the campaign States as our finances would permit. We were faced with the discouraging fact that to do really active campaign service we would need a fund of not less than $50,000 and we had less than $13,000. We collected and distributed in cash a less amount than would be used on the campaign of a city alderman in an off year.

The plan of self-sacrifice day had been suggested to Mrs. Breckinridge by a Wisconsin suffragist and adopted by the National Board and a general appeal went out to the women of America to sacrifice something in aid of suffrage and contribute the amount to the general fund for use in the campaign States. [$9,854 were realized.] Mrs. Funk, while walking through the Capitol one day, observed a bride with much gold jewelry in evidence and expressed the wish that a little of the gold used for personal ornament might find its way into a treasure chest to be sold for the campaign States and so the idea of the "melting pot" was suggested.... The plan was endorsed and put into operation as follows: A carefully selected list of names of women was taken from among the various suffrage organizations, colleges, churches, etc. These women received a letter asking for a contribution to the melting pot and further urging them to accept a sub-committeeship, making themselves responsible for soliciting from at least six people a contribution and keeping track of this group until their possibilities had been exhausted. The names of these persons were carefully scanned by the general committee and two or three out of each group of six were asked to go at the head of a further sub-committee and so something not unlike an endless chain was created. Although this was put into effect hastily and during the intense heat of a Washington summer, it was an enormous success and now at the close of the campaign contributions are still coming in and we consider that the top soil of melting pot possibilities has not been scratched. [$2,732 were realized.]

Mrs. Funk's report of her campaign work was an excellent showing of the situation which the suffragists faced in State campaigns and had done from the beginning:

From the time I left Washington August 25, until I returned to Chicago October 27, I covered approximately 8,000 miles. After speaking three days in Indiana, where the suffragists were straining every nerve to secure a constitutional convention, I spent two days in Chicago and then started into the western States. My first three days were spent in Omaha, and, although my original itinerary contemplated my coming to Nebraska for the last ten days of the campaign, this was afterwards changed and I went back to Montana a second time, so my observations regarding Nebraska refer to Omaha alone. Here existed an almost unbelievable condition of opposition. The brewers had come openly into the field against us and the brewing interests are connected with many of the big financial ventures in that city. Bankers, merchants, tailors and other business men whose wives were in suffrage were brazenly warned that the brewing deposits would be withdrawn from banks, that patronage would be taken away from merchants and tradespeople--even doctors were threatened with the loss of their clientele if their wives continued actively in the campaign. The result was a paralysis of action among many women who would naturally have been leaders and supporters of the work. Mrs. Draper Smith was doing all that was humanly possible under the circumstances to stem the tide of opposition, but money for publicity and organizing and many speakers seemed to be a necessity. Upon my report to Mrs. McCormick all extra aid possible was given.

My trip to South Dakota was interesting in the extreme. It and North Dakota are agricultural States, the cities are small and far apart, the villages are scattered over vast areas. By far the larger percentage of population dwells in the country on farms and ranches. The two Dakotas are almost pioneer States even now, but they present the highest degree of educational advantage and of general literacy perhaps in the whole United States. Their laws are generally good and for that reason there appears to be much apathy on the part of both men and women regarding suffrage. The States are prosperous and the people have not felt to any extent the pinch of wrong political conditions. The great problem was to reach the people and make them think, as when they think at all upon the subject they are apt to think right. I am convinced that whatever the vote against the suffrage amendment may have been in North Dakota it was the result of indifference and lack of special information and not to any extent real opposition.

I believed from what I could learn in South Dakota the liquor interests were making their last fight for State control and about the time I arrived Mrs. Pyle had ascertained that a large amount of money was being used to subsidize the State press, and simultaneously the literary efforts of the anti-suffragists, which have appeared throughout the press during the last year, came out in the leading papers, and anti-suffrage ladies at $100 a week and expenses appeared on the platform of the principal towns and cities. During my campaign there I spoke wherever possible out-of-doors, even though meetings were arranged for me in halls, courthouses and churches. I found that the small audiences which would assemble in these places were made up of women and men already interested and that the uninstructed voter would only listen when you caught him on the street. I spent the week of the State fair at Huron with Mrs. Pyle and witnessed a wonderful demonstration of activity. As high as 50,000 people a day were in attendance and the grounds were covered with our yellow banners. Every prize-winning animal, every racing sulky, automobile and motorcycle carried our pennants. Twenty thousand yellow badges were given away in one day. The squaws from the reservation did their native dances waving suffrage banners, and the snake charmer on the midway carried a Votes for Women pennant while an enormous serpent coiled around her body. I spoke during the fair four and five times a day and held street meetings downtown in the evening. When not thus engaged I assisted Mrs. Pyle and her committee in distributing thousands of pieces of literature and was amazed at the eagerness of the people to receive them. We investigated the fair grounds to see how much was thrown away and found almost none.

In North Dakota Mrs. Darrow had asked me to go into the untilled suffrage field. In many places they had never heard a suffrage address nor had a suffrage meeting ever been held. I zigzagged across from the southeast to the northwest corners and in Minot was arrested for making a street speech. There was no law that I could discover against my speaking in the street and I was convinced and am still that it was the result of the petty tyranny of town officials unfavorable to women. A fine of $5 imposed upon me by the justice of the peace was remitted by him. I spent twelve days in Montana, travelling about 2,000 miles, and found more general interest than in any other State. With 118,000 voters scattered over the third largest State in the Union, with many contending elements, with an acute labor situation, with the political control of the State vested very largely in one great corporation, there was plenty to occupy the attention of a suffragist worker. Miss Rankin's organization work had been carried to a high degree of efficiency by the most strenuous endeavor on her part. The Amalgamated Copper Company, striving to defeat the workmen's compensation act, had joined hands with the liquor interests, working to defeat woman suffrage, and had put on the petticoat and bonnet of the organized female anti-suffragists. I spoke to thousands of people all over the State, and while on the surface all appeared well, there was an undertow of fierce opposition that could be felt but that can not be estimated until the votes are counted. [The State was carried by 3,714.]

Nevada was like a story in a book--a big, little State, with 80,000 inhabitants and 18,000 voters, and so thoroughly was it organized by Miss Martin that I believe she could address every voter by his first name. I felt like a fifth wheel. All the work appeared to be finished and hung aside to season by the time I arrived and I was in the unenviable position of being sandwiched between Dr. Shaw, who had just preceded me, and Miss Addams, who immediately followed me. I went over the desert, however, and into mines, and spoke in butchers' homes and at meetings that wound up with a supper and a dance and came away with the certainty that Miss Martin had two or three thousand votes tucked away in her inside pocket. [The State was carried by 3,678.] On this trip I learned of hundreds of thousands of pieces of literature sent out by our entertaining friend, the Hon. Tom Heflin of Alabama. I know now why it was that all last winter he jumped up in Congress every few minutes and read into the Congressional Record something about the horror of women voting. He had a long business head and he was thriftily saving postage on anti-suffrage literature in the interest of the "society opposed," of the liquor interests, of organized crime and of all those forces that have taken arms against us.

The convention was deeply appreciative of the arduous and extensive work that has been done by the Congressional Committee but there was intense dissatisfaction with the so-called Shafroth Amendment, which had been freely discussed in the Woman's Journal for the last eight or nine months.[91] The debate in the convention consumed several sessions and more bitterness was shown than ever before at one of these annual meetings. The Official Board having endorsed the amendment felt obliged to stand by it, but to most of those delegates who had been in the movement for years it meant the abandonment of the object for which the association had been formed and for which all the founders, the pioneer workers and those down to the present day, had devoted their best efforts. Dr. Shaw was the only member of the board who had been many years connected with the association, and, while her judgment was opposed to the new amendment, she yielded to the earnest pleas of her younger colleagues and the optimistic members of the Congressional Committee that it should have a fair trial. Miss Blackwell, editor of the Woman's Journal, strongly endorsed it and gave it the support of her paper in many long, earnest editorials. She also granted columns of space to vigorous arguments on both sides by suffragists throughout the country.[92] The question had been before the State associations for the last seven or eight months.

Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett, corresponding secretary of the National American Association, wrote to the State presidents the first week in May, 1914: "Strange as it may seem, we find that quite a number of the members of our association have gotten the impression that the introduction of the Shafroth amendment means the abandoning of the old amendment which has been introduced into Congress for forty years or more, and which, as you know, has now been re-introduced and at this session will be called the Bristow-Mondell amendment. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reason for the introduction of the Shafroth amendment is to hasten the day when the passage of the Bristow-Mondell amendment will become a possibility.... Both amendments are before Congress but only the new one stands any chance of being acted upon before adjournment.[93] We stand by the old one as a matter of principle; we push for the new one as a matter of immediate practical politics and to further the passage of the old one." Mrs. Dennett also vigorously advocated the new amendment in the Woman's Journal.

At the opening of the second session of the convention devoted to the subject Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch moved that the Shafroth amendment be not proceeded with in the next Congress and it was seconded. Instantly Mrs. Raymond Brown, president of the New York State Association, offered as a substitute resolution: "It is the sense of this convention that the policy of the National American Woman Suffrage Association shall be to support by every means within its power, in the future as in the past, the amendment known as the Susan B. Anthony amendment; and further that we support such other legislation as the National Board may authorize and initiate to the end that the Susan B. Anthony resolution become a law."[94] After the discussion had lasted for hours, with the administration supporting this resolution, a motion to strike out the words "and further" and all that followed was lost and it was carried by a vote of 194 to 100.[95]

The next day an informal conference was held at which Miss Laura Clay and Mrs. Sallie Clay Bennett explained a bill for Federal Suffrage, which they, with others, had long advocated, to enable women to vote for U. S. Senators and Representatives. Congress had the power to enact such a law by a simple majority vote of both houses. The association for many years had had a standing committee on the subject, which was finally dropped because it was believed that the law could not possibly be obtained. It found much favor at this convention, which instructed the Congressional Committee to "investigate and promote the right of women to vote for U. S. Senators, Representatives and Presidential Electors through action of Congress."

There was spirited discussion of the Congressional Committee's plan for "blacklisting" candidates for Congress whose record on woman suffrage was objectionable and it finally resulted in the passing of a resolution that this could be done only when approved by the majority of the societies in the State concerned. It was decided that the Congressional Committee should send out information and suggestions for congressional work but that the State associations should determine how this material should be used and that when the majority of them in a State could not agree upon some plan of cooperation the Congressional Committee should not work in said State.

The feeling aroused by the discussion of the Shafroth amendment was manifested in the election, where 315 delegates were entitled to vote and 283 votes were cast. Dr. Shaw received 192 for president and the rest were blank, as even delegates who opposed this amendment would not vote against her. Miss Jane Addams declined to serve longer as vice-president and reluctantly consented to her election as honorary vice-president but resigned before the close of the convention, as she felt that she could not be responsible for actions in which she had practically no part. Mrs. Desha Breckinridge of Kentucky was re-elected second vice-president without opposition but resigned soon afterwards, although not because of any disagreement with the policy of the board. Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick of New York received 173 votes for first vice-president and Miss Jean Gordon of New Orleans 107. Dr. Katharine Bement Davis of New York was made third vice-president without opposition, nor was there any to Mrs. Orton H. Clark of Michigan for corresponding secretary. For recording secretary Mrs. Susan W. Fitzgerald of Massachusetts received 166 votes and Miss Anne Martin of Nevada 115. Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers of New York was almost unanimously chosen for treasurer and Mrs. Walter McNab Miller of Missouri for first auditor. For second auditor Mrs. Medill McCormick of Chicago received 177 votes and Miss Zona Gale of New York 103. Later Mrs. Nellie Nugent Somerville of Mississippi was appointed in place of Mrs. Breckinridge. The new board finally included only two members of the old one besides Dr. Shaw--Mrs. McCormick and Mrs. Fitzgerald.

The present convention was declared by resolution to have been "one of the greatest and most delightful meetings in the history of the organization," and a long list of thanks was extended "to the city of Nashville for its broad and generous hospitality and for special courtesies." The Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association gave a dinner, with Mrs. L. Crozier French, its president, as toast-mistress; the Women's Press Club had a luncheon for the visiting press representatives and the College Women's League one for its delegates. It was a relief from the tension of the week to have the last evening of the convention devoted to entertainment. Miss Zona Gale read a charming unpublished story, Friendship Village; a musical program was given by the Fiske Jubilee Singers and the convention closed with a remarkable moving picture play, Your Girl and Mine, an offering to the association by Mrs. Medill McCormick.[96]

The treasurer's report showed receipts for the year of $67,312 and expenditures $59,232. In addition a special fund for the "campaign" States had been subscribed of $12,586, of which $11,020 had been spent. Mrs. Medill McCormick had made a personal contribution of $6,217 to the publicity work of the Washington and Chicago headquarters. Pledges of $7,500 were made by the convention.

The committee of which Mrs. Frances E. Burns (Mich.) was chairman reported resolutions that urged the U. S. Senate and House of Representatives to take up at once the amendments now pending in Congress for the enfranchisement of women; demanded equal pay for equal work and legislation to protect the nationality of American women who married foreigners. They re-affirmed the association's past policy of non-partisanship and declared that "the National American Woman Suffrage Association is absolutely opposed to holding any political party responsible for the opinions and acts of its individual members, or holding any individual public official or candidate responsible for the action of his party majority on the question of woman suffrage." Of the European war now in its fourth month, the resolutions said:

WHEREAS: It is our conviction that had the women of the countries of Europe, with their deep instinct of motherhood and desire for the conservation of life, possessed a voice in the councils of their governments, this deplorable war would never have been allowed to occur; therefore, be it

RESOLVED: That the National American Woman Suffrage Association, in convention assembled, does hereby affirm the obligation of peace and good will toward all men and further demands the inclusion of women in the government of nations of which they are a part, whose citizens they bear and rear and whose peace their political liberty would help to secure and maintain.

RESOLVED: That we commend the efforts of President Wilson to obtain peace. Sympathizing deeply with the plea of the women of fifteen nations, we ask the President of the United States and the representatives of all the other neutral nations to use their best endeavors to bring about a lasting peace founded upon democracy and world-wide disarmament.

* * * * *

As the national convention for 1914 would meet in Nashville it was necessary to have a special delegation attend the "hearing" in Washington which always was held at the first session of a new Congress. The officers of the Congressional Union arranged for one before the House Judiciary Committee for March 3, and, as it was not likely that a second would be granted, Mrs. Medill McCormick, Mrs. Antoinette Funk and Mrs. Sherman Booth represented the National American Association at this one, as members of its Congressional Committee. Mrs. Funk was the speaker and the main points of her address are included in Mrs. McCormick's report in this chapter. In effect it prepared the way for the new measure afterwards called the Shafroth Amendment and she began by saying: "Ours is the oldest national suffrage association in the United States. It has been in existence over fifty years and comprises a membership of 462,000 enrolled women in the non-suffrage States. In addition to these I speak this morning in behalf of the 4,000,000 women voters in the ten equal suffrage States." Further on she said: "Gentlemen, the dearest wish of our hearts would be fulfilled if you would enfranchise the women. I know pretty much whether you are going to or not and you know that I know." The committee asked her a number of questions and she concluded: "We feel that this question could at least safely go to the people. It might be submitted by petition of the voters. In addition let me make this point along the line of the States' rights argument: You see, a Legislature per se has no right; it is nothing; it has no privilege--the privilege is all in the people themselves, and you could not say it would be contrary to the rights of the people in the State to take down an obstacle that was built up in front of them. So, in view of the action of the Democratic caucus in the House, we think you can at least do this much for us; you can take down this obstacle--State Legislatures."

The Federal Women's Equality Association also had asked for a portion of the time and its corresponding secretary, Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby of Washington and Portland, Ore., had charge of it. Although this association was organized twelve years before for the special purpose of obtaining a bill enabling women to vote for Senators and Representatives, it sponsored in the present Congress the same measure which the old association had introduced for the past thirty-five years and on this occasion its speakers discussed only the amendment. Mrs. Colby introduced first Representative Frank W. Mondell of Wyoming, who always was ready to champion the cause of woman suffrage for every organization. He made the point among others that "as State after State grants the franchise to women the condition is reached where its denial in other States deprives American citizens of a sacred right if they have moved from one commonwealth to another." "Our Federal Union," he said, "will be more firmly cemented the nearer we come to the point where qualifications for this right of citizenship are the same in all States." In Mrs. Colby's comprehensive address she said:

It may be news to some of you that we have had 12 reports on the woman suffrage amendment from committees of Congress. In 1869 the first hearing was given on woman suffrage and from that time to the present every Congress has had one....

Never were there such splendid women in the records of time as those who have stood for the rights of their sex and the rights of humanity.... All those women passed on without being allowed to enter the promised land and for every one of them one hundred sprang up for whom the doors of opportunity and education had been opened by the efforts of those pioneer women. Now these also are coming to gray hairs and weariness, but for every one of these hundreds there are a thousand of the 20th century insisting that this question shall be settled now and not be passed on to the children of tomorrow to hamper and limit them, to exhaust and consume their energy and ability.

I was present at the last hearing where Mrs. Stanton spoke before a Judiciary Committee, and she said: "I have stood before this committee for thirty years, may I be allowed to sit now?" ... Miss Anthony before a committee in 1884 said: "This method of settling the matter by the Legislatures is just as much in the line of State's rights as is that of the popular vote. The one question before you is: Will you insist that a majority of the individual men of every State must be converted before its women shall have the power to vote, or will you allow the matter to be settled by the representative men in the Legislatures of the several States? We are not appealing from the States to the nation. We are appealing to the States, but to the picked men of those States instead of to the masses." She used to say when John Morrissey, champion of the prize ring, was in the New York Legislature, that it was bad enough to go and ask him to give her her birthright but it was infinitely worse to go down into the slums and ask his constituents....

Mrs. Colby closed with an extract from one of Mrs. Stanton's eloquent speeches before the Judiciary Committee and submitted a valuable summary of Congressional hearings and reports on woman suffrage from 1869 to 1914.

Mrs. Glendower Evans of Boston presided over the hearing for the Congressional Union and introduced as the first speaker Mrs. Crystal Eastman Benedict (N. Y.) who said in part:

When we go to the voters of a campaign State to ask them to vote "yes" on a woman suffrage amendment, we go as petitioners with smiles and arguments and unwearied patience. We tell them over and over again the same well established truths; that it is the essence of democracy that all classes of people should have the power of protection in their own hands; that women are people and that they have special interests which need representation in politics; that where women have the right to vote they vote in the same proportion as men; that on the whole their influence in government has been decidedly good and absolutely no evils can be traced to that influence. In short, we reason and plead with them, try to touch their sense of honor, their sense of justice, their reason, whatever noble human quality they possess.

That is one way of getting woman suffrage in the United States, a long, laborious and very costly way. We have now achieved it in nine States and are a political power, and the time has come for us to compel this great reform by the simple, direct, American method of amending the Federal Constitution. Our argument is not one of justice or democracy or fair play--it is one of political expediency. Our plea is simply that you look at the little suffrage map. That triumphant, threatening army of white States crowding rapidly eastward toward the center of population is the sum and substance of our argument. It represents 4,000,000 women voters. Do you want to put yourselves in the very delicate position of going to those women next fall for endorsement and re-election after having refused even to report a woman suffrage amendment out of committee for discussion on the floor of the House?

You might say, "Why do you select this Democratic administration for your demand? This is the first time in eighteen years that this party has been in control of the Government. We are doing our best to give the people what they want; we are trying to live up to our platform pledges; we think we are doing pretty well. Why persist in embarrassing us with this very troublesome question?" ... I answer that if this Congress adjourns without taking action on the woman suffrage amendment it will be because the party deliberately dodged the issue. Every woman voter will know this and we have faith that the woman voter will stand by us. You will go to her and say: "We have lowered the tariff; we have made new banking laws; we have avoided war with Mexico," and she will say: "It is true you have done these things, but you have done a great injustice to my sister in this nearby State. She asked for a fundamental democratic right, a right which I possess and which you are asking me to exercise in your favor. It was in your power to extend this right to her and you refused, and after this you come to me and ask me for my vote, but I shall show you that we stand together on this question, my sister and I."

Several of the committee made caustic remarks about trying to hold the Democrats responsible after the Republicans had ignored them during all the past years. Mrs. Evans then introduced Mary (Mrs. Charles R.) Beard, wife of the well-known professor in Columbia University. Her address in the stenographic report of the hearing filled seven closely printed pages, an able review of the Democratic party's record in regard to Federal legislation. It was the most complete expose of the fallacy of the Democratic contention that this party stood for State's rights as opposed to Federal rights ever made at a hearing in behalf of woman suffrage and is most inadequately represented by quotations. In the course of it she said:

Did Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, founders of the Democratic party, rend the air with cries of State's rights against Federal usurpation when the Federalists chartered the first United States bank in 1791, and when the Federalist Court, under the leadership of John Marshall, rendered one ringing nationalist decision after another upholding the rights of the nation against the claims of the States? Jefferson, as President, acquired the Louisiana Territory in what he admitted was an open violation of the Federal Constitution; and the same James Madison who opposed the Federalist bank in 1790 as a violation of the Constitution and State rights, cheerfully signed the bill rechartering that bank when it became useful to the fiscal interests of the Democratic party. Jefferson was ready to nullify the alien and sedition laws and the Constitution of the United States in the Kentucky resolutions of 1798. The very Federalists who fought him in that day and denounced him as a traitor and nullifier lived to proclaim and practice doctrines of nullification in behalf of State's rights during the War of 1812.

In the administration of Jefferson the Federal Government began the construction of the great national road without any express authority from the Constitution and notwithstanding the fact that the construction of highways was admittedly a State matter.... On August 24, 1912, the Congress of the United States, then controlled by the Democratic party, voted $5,000,000 for the construction of experimental and rural-delivery routes and to aid the States in highway construction. From high in the councils of that party we now have the advocacy of national ownership of railways, telegraph and telephone lines.

In the early days of the republic the Democratic party protested even in armed insurrection in Pennsylvania against the inquisitorial excise tax, which, to use the language of that day, "penetrated a sphere of taxation reserved to the State." Today this party has placed upon the statute books the most inquisitorial tax ever laid in the history of our country by the act of April 9, 1912--a tax on white phosphorus matches, not for the purpose of raising revenues, for which the taxing power is conferred, but admittedly for the purpose of destroying an industry which it could not touch otherwise. The match industry was found to be injurious to a few hundred workingmen, women and children. The Democratic party wisely and justly cast to the four winds all talk about the rights of States, made the match business a national affair and destroyed its dangerous features. Men and women all over the country rose up and pronounced it a noble achievement. Republicans joined with the Democrats in claiming the honor of that great humane service.

I have not yet finished with this tattered shibboleth. The State had the right to nullify Federal law in 1798, so Jefferson taught and Kentucky practiced. Half a century elapsed; the State of Wisconsin, rock-ribbed Republican, nullified the fugitive slave law and in its pronunciamento of nullification quoted the very words which Jefferson used in 1798. A Democratic Supreme Court at Washington, presided over by Chief Justice Taney, the arch apostle of State rights, answered Wisconsin in the very language of the Federalists of 1798, whom Jefferson despised and condemned: "The Constitution and laws of the United States are supreme, and the Supreme Court is the only and final arbiter of disputes between the State and National Governments."

A few more years elapsed. South Carolina declared the right of the State to nullify and Wisconsin answered on the field of battle: "The Constitution and laws of the National Government are supreme, so help us God!" ... At the close of that ever to be regretted war the nation wrote into the Constitution the 14th and 15th Amendments, their fundamental principle that the suffrage is a national matter. Those amendments were intended to establish forever adult male suffrage....

Mrs. Beard then presented for the record a thorough synopsis of the proceedings in relation to the franchise of the convention that framed the U. S. Constitution, which showed, she declared, that it would have made a national suffrage qualification if the members could have agreed on one. "In all the great federations of the world," she said, "Germany, Canada, Australia, suffrage is regarded as a national question," and continued: "If respect for the great and wise who have viewed suffrage as a national matter did not compel us so to regard it, the plain dictates of common sense would do so. We are all ruled by the laws made by Congress, from Maine to California; we must all obey them equally whether we like them or not. We are taxed under them; we travel according to rules laid down by the Interstate Commerce Commission under the Interstate Commerce law; the remaining national resources are to be conserved by Congress; whether we have peace or war depends upon Congress. Is it of no concern who compose Congress, who vote for members of Congress and for the President?"

It was shown by Mrs. Beard how closely national and State policies were interwoven; that the submission of this amendment would take it to the State Legislatures for a final decision; how with woman suffrage in nine States there was a much greater demand for it than there was for the one changing the method of electing U. S. Senators; how the plank in the national platform adopted in Baltimore exempting American ships in coastwise trade from Panama canal tolls was now before the Democrats in Congress for repudiation; how another plank demanded State action on presidential primaries and President Wilson called for a national law. Now a Democratic Congress refused to submit a national suffrage amendment because the platform did not ask for it! She concluded: "No, gentlemen, you can not answer us by shaking in our faces that tatterdemalion of a State's rights scarecrow.... It is a travesty upon our reasoning faculties to suppose that we can not put two and two together. It is underestimating our strength and our financial resources to suppose that we can not place these plain facts in the hands of 15,000,000 voters, including over 3,000,000 women. To take away from the States the right to determine how Presidential electors shall be chosen is upholding the Constitution and the previous rights of the States; but to submit to the States an amendment permitting them to decide for themselves whether they want woman suffrage for the nation is a violent usurpation of State's rights! We can not follow your logic."

Dr. Cora Smith King of Seattle, who had so large a part in obtaining equal suffrage in Washington, said:

I am a voter like yourselves; I am eligible to become a member of Congress, like any one of you. However, I do not stand before you as one voter only but to remind you that there are nearly 4,000,000 women voters in the United States today. I represent an organization called the National Council of Women Voters, organized in every one of the States where women vote on equal terms with men. These States, as you know, are Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington, California, Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona. There are three objects of the Council: One is to educate ourselves in the exercise of our citizenship; the second is to aid in our own States where we vote in putting upon the statute books laws beneficial to men and women, children and the home; and our third object is the one which brings me here this morning--to aid in the further extension of suffrage to women.

The members of your committee from the latest equal suffrage States will bear me out in saying that there are thousands of women voters who have not yet made their party alignment. I desire to call attention to these many thousands who have only recently won the battle which they have fought so earnestly--as I have done from the time that I attained my majority and have not yet forgotten what it cost--and who have their ears attuned to the plea of their sisters in the other States. I remind you, gentlemen, that they may not prove unheeding when requested to vote for the men who are favorable to the further extension of suffrage. I trust that this present committee will not justify the charge of being a graveyard for many suffrage bills. I warn you that ghosts may walk.

Mrs. William Kent, wife of Representative Kent of California, spoke briefly, telling how the suffrage societies there became civic leagues after the vote was won and stood solidly back of seventeen bills relating to the welfare of the State and the home and the influence they were able to exert because of having the franchise. She urged the committee to submit the amendment and spare women the further drudgery of State campaigns and assured them that the women would not stop until the last one was enfranchised. Representative Joseph R. Knowland of California gave earnest testimony in favor of the practical working of woman suffrage in that State saying: "For years we heard the same arguments against equal rights for women as we hear today but we have tried it and many who were most bitterly opposed are now glad that California has given the franchise to women. It has proved an unqualified success. What I desire to impress upon this committee is that even though you may oppose the amendment it is your duty to report it in order that every member of the House may have an opportunity to register his vote for or against it."

Mrs. Donald Hooker of Baltimore pointed out the injustice of permitting women to vote in California, for instance, and holding them disfranchised when they crossed the State boundary line, and asked the committee to put themselves in the place of citizens so discriminated against. Mrs. Evans closed the hearing in an interesting speech but as she could not resist eulogizing President Wilson she was assailed by a storm of questions and remarks from the Republican members of the committee as to his attitude on woman suffrage, while her support of the Democratic party brought protests from the members of the Congressional Union.

Mrs. McCormick closed for her side by saying: "Mr. Chairman, I simply want to clear up what may be a little confused in your mind in regard to the difference in the policy in the two organizations represented here today. I represent the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and, as we have stated over and over again, it has enrolled more than 462,000 women, organized in every non-suffrage State in the country. Our policy, which is adopted by our annual convention, is strictly non-partisan. We do not hold any party responsible for the passage of this amendment. We are organizing all over the country, using the congressional district as our limit, in order to educate the constituents of you gentlemen in regard to the great need to enfranchise women and we do not hold the policy which is adopted by the smaller organization, the Congressional Union."

This brought the members of the Judiciary Committee into action again and they persisted in knowing the size of the Congressional Union until Mrs. Benedict answered: "Our immediate membership is not our strong point." Mr. Webb of North Carolina repeated the question why the Republican party, which was in power sixteen years, was not held responsible for not reporting the amendment and she replied that it was not until after the elections of 1912 that the women were in a position to hold any party responsible.

Mrs. Frances Dilopoulo spoke for a moment. Miss Janet Richards (D. C.) called the attention of the committee to the etymology of the word democracy--demos, people; kratein, to rule--rule of the people--and asked: "If women must pay taxes and must abide by the law, how can the suffrage be denied to them in a true democracy?" She spoke of her personal study of the question in Finland and the Scandinavian countries where women are enfranchised. Dr. Clara W. McNaughton (D. C.), vice-president of the Federal Women's Equality Association, in closing stated that they had a tent on the field of Gettysburg during its 50th anniversary and found the old soldiers almost to a man in favor of woman suffrage. Mrs. Evans filed a carefully prepared paper, State versus Federal Action on Woman Suffrage. Mrs. Helen H. Gardener (D. C.), officially connected with the National American Association, submitted to the committees a comprehensive "brief" on the case which said in part:

In a published statement yesterday the Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, used these simple, direct, easily understood words: "All believers in a republic accept the doctrine that the government must derive its just powers from the consent of the governed and the President gives every legitimate encouragement to those who represent this idea while he discourages those who attempt to overthrow or ignore the principles of popular government."

I am sure that all of us hope and want to believe that this latest pronouncement given out officially as from the leading Cabinet officer was intended to be accepted at home as well as abroad as literally and absolutely true and not a mere bit of spectacular oratory. But if it is true, then not one of you gentlemen who has it in his heart to oppose woman suffrage is a believer in our form of government; not one of you is loyal to the flag; not one of you is a true American. You do not allow us women to give our consent, yet we are governed. You are not sitting in Congress justly and Mr. Bryan and the President do not believe that you are--none of you except those who are from woman suffrage States--or else that official statement is mere oratory for foreign consumption. He says that the President discourages those who attempt to overthrow or even to "ignore" this principle of popular government. We are more than glad to believe that Mr. Bryan is correct in this plain statement, for then we will know that a number of you will receive a good deal of "discouragement" at the hands of the President, and that those of you who stand with us and vote for us will receive your sure reward from him, in that "every legitimate encouragement" will be yours, and also, incidentally, ours. We need it, we think it is overdue. Up to the present time we have not felt that either the President or the Secretary of State quite fully realized that there is a good deal of belated encouragement due us and quite a limitless supply of discouragement due those who try "to overthrow or ignore" all semblance of a belief in the right of women to give their consent to their own government. I am glad to have so high an authority that the good time is not only coming but that it has at last arrived--and through the Democratic party!

Again, in this simple, plain, seemingly frank statement of the Secretary of State, he says: ... "Nothing will be encouraged away from home that is forbidden here." Yet, away from home, he says, the fixed foreign policy is that "the people shall have such officers as they desire," and that these officers must have "the consent of the governed." That is precisely what we women demand. Are the Mexican peons more to our Government than are the women of America? If the Mexican officials must be disciplined, unless they are ready to admit that "the consent of the governed must be obtained" before there can be a legitimate government which we can recognize, how it is possible for you and for the President and for the State Department absolutely to ignore or refuse the same ethical and political principle here at home for one-half of all the people, who form what you call and hold up to the world as a republic?

No one who lives, who ever lived, who ever will live understands or really accepts and believes in a republic which denies to women the right of consent by their ballots to that government. Such a position is unthinkable and the time has come when an aristocracy of sex must give place to a real republic or the absurdity of the position, as it exists, will make us the laughing stock of the world. Let us either stop our pretence before the nations of the earth of being a republic and having "equality before the law" or else let us become the republic that we pretend to be.

This concluded the hearing for the suffrage associations and as the "antis" also had asked for one they occupied the afternoon. Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge, the president of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, said in opening the discussion: "We begin to hear from all over the country a very decided demand for help. The women are beginning to be frightened. They are frightened at exactly the same sort of thing by which the suffragists try to frighten you men--noise--so that in many States women are beginning to organize for the first time against suffrage. We are here today rather against our wishes. We did not want to bother you men again because the matter has been pretty well settled for this session of Congress at least. But the suffragists had demanded a hearing of you gentlemen, and so we asked you to hear us, and you have very courteously extended to us that privilege. We are here to represent the majority of women still quiet but not going to be quiet very much longer...." Mrs. Dodge made an analysis of the number of enfranchised women to show that the parties had nothing to fear and said in closing: "I wish to say that the suffragists who make these threats are not representing the women of the country. It is the women of the country whom we try to represent and we have tried for several years against the noisy, insistent and persistent demands of a group."

The other women speakers were Mrs. Henry White, member of the executive committee of the Massachusetts Association; Miss Alice Hill Chittenden, president of the New York Association; Miss Marjorie Dorman, secretary of the Women Wage-earners' Anti-Suffrage League of New York City[97]; Mrs. O. D. Oliphant of New Jersey, who was not able to reach Washington but whose paper on Feminism was put into the report; Miss Minnie Bronson, secretary of the National Association. Miss Bronson's address, which was largely statistical, called out many questions from the suffrage members of the committee. She said the association had approximately 100,000 members.[98]

The first of the men speakers against the amendment was J.N. Matthews (N. J.) who began by saying it would be difficult for him to put aside his Democratic partisanship even for a moment. He was soon involved in a wrangle with the committee which occupied over half of the space filled by his speech in the report. This was true also of the speech of Representative Thomas J. Heflin (Ala.), which ended with a long poem entitled The Only Regeneration, beginning: "There's no earthly use in prating of eugenics' saving grace." Mrs. Dodge had scored the suffragists for having more than one association but delegates from three of the "antis" were present at this hearing, the Guidon Society of New York City, represented by a New York lawyer, John R. Don Passos, who stated that he represented also the Man Suffrage Association. He filed a "brief" of its president, Everett P. Wheeler, a Democratic New York lawyer, entitled Home Rule. As was the case with the other men speakers most of his time was taken up by the "heckling" of the committee and his answers. In the latter he said that woman suffrage sooner or later would have a tendency to destroy the home, hurt the social and moral standard of women and "convert them into beasts."

Dr. Mary Walker spoke ten minutes at her own request, scoring the suffragists and saying that women already had the right to vote under the National Constitution. Mrs. Evans closed the hearing.

FOOTNOTES:

[82] Part of Call: Our task will be to formulate judgment on those great issues of the day which nearly concern women; to choose the leaders who during the coming year are to guide the fortunes of our cause; and finally, to deliberate how the whole national body may on the one hand best give aid and succor to the States working for their own enfranchisement and on the other press for federal action in behalf of the women of the nation at large....

Since the last convention met all the horror of a great war has fallen upon the civilized world. The hearts of thousands of women have been torn by the death and wounds of those they bore, of those they love, yet never has their will and power to help been greater, never man's need of such help been more clearly seen. We, who are spared the anguish of war, well understand that as weight is given in the world's affairs to the voice of women, moved as men are not by all the tragic waste of battles, the chances of such slaughter must perpetually diminish. Now is the time when all things point to the violence that rules the world, now is the very time to press our claim to a share in the guidance of our country's fortunes, to urge that woman's vision must second and ratify that of man. Let us then in convention assembled kindle with the thought that, as we consider methods for the political enfranchisement of our sex, our wider purpose is to free women and to enable their conception of life in all its aspects to find expression.... Let us set a fresh seal upon the great new loyalty of woman to woman; let our response be felt in the deep tide of fellowship and understanding among all women which today is rising around the world.

ANNA HOWARD SHAW, President. JANE ADDAMS, First Vice-President. MADELINE BRECKINRIDGE, Second Vice-President. CAROLINE RUUTZ-REES, Third Vice-President. SUSAN WALKER FITZGERALD, Recording Secretary. KATHARINE DEXTER MCCORMICK, Treasurer. HARRIET BURTON LAIDLAW,} LOUISE DEKOVEN BOWEN, } Auditors.

[83] Complete, universal suffrage was conferred by the Parliament in 1917.

[84] For a number of years Mrs. Quincy A. Shaw of Boston gave Dr. Shaw a fund for campaign work.

[85] A portion of this report is in the chapter on the Federal Suffrage Amendment.

[86] The Federal Suffrage Amendment had been thoroughly debated and voted on in the Senate in 1887; the question of woman suffrage itself discussed in 1866, 1881-3-4-5-6 in the Senate; at great length in the Lower House in 1883 and 1890 and briefly in both houses at other times.

[87] Instead of seven or eight amendments there was only one and never had been but one--the old, original amendment introduced by Senator A. A. Sargent (Calif.) in 1878. There was and long had been one "bill" advocated, the one to give women so-called "federal" suffrage, the right to vote for Senators and Representatives, but it had never been reported out of committee. There was no bill before Congress to give women the right to vote for Presidential electors and there was no other bill proposed. It was of course the "State's rights argument" that had been the continuous barrier to the Federal Suffrage Amendment ever since it was first introduced but the favorable attitude of a majority of the Senators showed how much progress had been made in meeting that argument.

[88] On the contrary at a public hearing before the Judiciary Committee of the Lower House on March 3, Mrs. Funk referred several times to such an amendment and stated that she represented an association of 462,000 women. She intimated that she knew the old amendment could not pass and that another might be introduced, which, it was hoped, would be more acceptable. The vote was not taken in the Senate till March 19. Meanwhile the newspapers gave to the suffragists of the country their first knowledge of the new amendment and vigorous protests soon followed, especially from the older leaders of the movement. The Woman's Journal of March 28 said editorially: "It is felt by many that before the Congressional Committee introduced a wholly new measure, which had never been sanctioned or even considered by the National Association, it ought to have been submitted to the National Executive Council."

As soon as the Senate had voted on the original amendment, Senator Bristow, at the request of the Congressional Union, re-introduced it, and it was reported favorably April 7, Senator Thomas B. Catron of New Mexico alone dissenting. Senator Bristow in re-introducing it said of the Shafroth measure: "It is more of a national initiative and referendum amendment than a woman suffrage amendment. I prefer that the question of woman suffrage rest directly upon its own merits and be not involved with the initiative and referendum."

[89] This amendment had been reported by the Judiciary Committee on the 9th of May preceding this report "without recommendation" and a strong effort was being made by its supporters to bring it before the House for debate. The Rules Committee sent it to the House on December 12, 1914.

[90] The proposed State amendment failed in New York in 1915, was submitted again by the Legislatures of 1916 and 1917, voted on in November, 1917, and adopted by an immense majority.

[91] The first week in the preceding April the Mississippi Valley Conference, composed of the Middle and some of the Western and Southern States, met in Des Moines and thirty-five prominent delegates signed a telegram to the Official Board of the National American Association, asking it "to instruct its Congressional Committee not to push the Shafroth Amendment nor ask for its report from the Senate Committee"; also "to ask the Senate Committee not to report this amendment until so requested by the national suffrage convention." This was not official action but they signed as individuals, among them the presidents of the Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Louisiana State associations and officers from other States.

[92] Some of the arguments may be found in the Appendix. An examination of the file of the Journal will show that ninety-nine per cent. of the writers were opposed to the amendment.

[93] The old amendment had been voted on in the Senate March 19 and obtained a majority but not the required two-thirds. It had been reported without recommendation by the House Judiciary, which had not acted on the new one. The latter had been introduced in the Senate and the former re-introduced.

[94] The original measure had always been called the Sixteenth Amendment until the adoption of the Income Tax and Direct Election of Senators Amendments in 1913. The Congressional Union, organized that year, gave it the name Susan B. Anthony Amendment and for awhile it was thus referred to by some members of the National American Association. The relatives and friends of Mrs. Stanton rightly objected to this name, as she had been equally associated with it from the beginning, and all the pioneer workers had been its staunch supporters. The old association soon adopted the title, Federal Suffrage Amendment.

[95] At the first board meeting after the convention Mrs. McCormick was re-appointed chairman of the Congressional Committee with power to select its other members and Mrs. Funk was re-appointed vice-chairman.

[96] Mrs. McCormick spent a large amount of time and money on this play, hoping it would yield a good revenue to the association, but the arrangement with the Film Corporation proved impossible and it finally had to be abandoned.

[97] The most persistent efforts of the suffragists never succeeded in locating this league.

[98] At the request of the committee the exact figures were furnished later and showed a membership of 105,000, of whom 85,600 lived in the five non-suffrage States of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Of the remaining 19,400 the non-suffrage States of New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Ohio had 11,500; Virginia, 2,100, and 6,500 were divided among other non-suffrage States and the District of Columbia. Not one member was reported from States where the franchise had been given to women, although it was a stock argument of the "antis" that it had been forced on them and they would gladly get rid of it.

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XV. NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1915

The Forty-seventh annual convention of the association was held Dec. 14-19, 1915, in Washington, the scene of many which had preceded it, with 546 accredited delegates, the largest number on record. The one of the preceding year had left many of the members in a pessimistic frame of mind but this had entirely disappeared and never were there so much hope and optimism.[99] The Federal Amendment had for the first time been debated and voted on in the House of Representatives, receiving 204 noes, 174 ayes, a satisfactory result for the first trial. Although in November, 1915, four of the most populous States--Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania--had defeated suffrage amendments yet a million-and-a-quarter of men had voted in favor. These were all Republican States and yet had given a larger vote for woman suffrage than for the Republican presidential candidate the preceding year. Over 42 per cent. of the votes in New York and over 46 per cent. in Pennsylvania were affirmative and the press of the country, instead of sounding the "death knell" as usual after defeats, predicted victory at the next trial. In October the cause had received its most important accession when President Wilson and seven of the ten members of his Cabinet declared in favor of woman suffrage; and in November the President had gone to his home in Princeton, N. J., on election day to cast his vote for the pending State amendment.

An honorary committee of arrangements for the convention had been formed in Washington which included many of the most prominent women officially and socially, headed by Miss Margaret Wilson, the President's eldest daughter. Republican and Democratic National Committees had cordially received suffrage speakers. The first measure to be introduced in both Houses of the new Congress was the resolution for the Federal Suffrage Amendment, with Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, president of the National American Suffrage Association, sitting on the Speaker's bench by invitation of Speaker and Mrs. Champ Clark. The convention opened Tuesday morning and at five o'clock in the afternoon the delegates were received by President Wilson in the White House. They walked the few short blocks from the convention headquarters in the New Willard Hotel to the White House and the line reached from the street through the corridors to the East Room. After each had had a hearty handshake Dr. Shaw expressed the gratitude of all suffragists, not for his vote, which was a duty, but for his reasons, to which the widest publicity had been given. She said the women felt encouraged to ask for two things: first, his influence in obtaining the submission of the Federal Amendment by Congress at the present session; second, if that failed, his influence in securing a plank for woman suffrage in his party's national platform. The latter he answered to their great joy by saying that he had it under consideration. He looked at his hand a little ruefully and said: "You ladies have a strong grip." "Yes," she responded, "we hold on."

The most striking contrast between this and other conventions was seen in the program. For more than two-score years the evening sessions and often those of the afternoon had been given up to addresses by prominent men and women and attended by large general audiences. In this way the seed was sowed and public sentiment created and people in the cities which invited the convention looked forward to an intellectual feast. This year it was felt that the general public needed no further education on this subject; the association had become a business organization and the woman suffrage question one of practical politics. Therefore but one mass meeting was held, that of Sunday afternoon, and the entire week was devoted to State reports, conferences, committee meetings, plans of work, campaigns and discussion of details. These were extremely interesting and valuable for the delegates but not for the newspapers or the public.

The entire tenth floor of the New Willard Hotel was utilized for convention purposes and the full meetings were held in the large ball room, which had been beautifully decorated under the artistic direction of Mrs. Glenna Tinnin, with flags, banners and delicate, symbolic draperies. The large number of young women was noticeable and the association seemed permeated with new life. "Old men and women for council and young ones for work," said Dr. Shaw smilingly, as she opened the convention. "The history that has been made by this organization is due to the toil and consecration of the women of the country during past years, and, while I am happy to see so many new faces, my heart warms when my eyes greet one of the veterans. So in welcoming you I say, All hail to the new and thank God for the old!"

The convention plunged at once into reports. That of Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers, the treasurer, showed receipts during the past year of $51,265 and disbursements of $42,396, among them $12,000 for State campaigns. A large and active finance committee had been formed and thousands of appeals for money distributed. At this convention $50,000 were pledged for the work of the coming year and the convention showed fullest confidence in the new treasurer, who said in presenting her report: "This has been a most interesting and beautiful year of activity for the National Association. The officers and assistants at the headquarters have worked in perfect harmony. You have all, dear presidents and members of the sixty-three affiliated associations, been most kind to your new treasurer and she has deeply appreciated your forbearance."

The report of a temporary organization, the Volunteer League, was given by its director, Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick. Its purpose was to interest suffragists who were not connected with the association and President Mary E. Woolley of Mt. Holyoke College, Mrs. Robert Gould Shaw, Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and Mrs. Winston Churchill accepted places on the board. Letters were sent out, avoiding the active workers, and over $2,000 were turned into the treasury. The legal adviser, Miss Mary Rutter Towle, reported a final accounting of the estate of Mrs. Lila Sabin Buckley of Kansas and the association received the net amount of $9,551 on a compromise. The legacy of $10,000 by Mrs. Mary J. Coggeshall of Iowa would be paid in a few months.

Charles T. Hallinan, as chairman, made a detailed report of the newly organized Publicity Department. Miss Clara Savage, of the New York Evening Post, was made chairman of the Press Bureau and Mrs. Laura Puffer Morgan of Washington, D. C., a member of the Congressional Committee, took charge of its publicity. Mrs. Ernest Thompson Seton accepted the chairmanship of a special finance committee which did heroic work. The News Letter, an enlarged bulletin of information and discussion in regard to the activities of the association, had already more than a thousand subscriptions and went to 116 weekly farm papers, 99 weekly labor papers and 120 press chairmen and suffrage editors. The report told of the successful publicity work for Dr. Shaw and other speakers, and said: "I prize especially my relationship with Dr. Shaw, whose courage, humor and zest, whose whole heroic personality, have made this a stimulating and memorable year." An amusing account was given of the effort "to accommodate the routine activities of the organization to the demand of the press for something new or sensational, which made great demands upon the originality, initiative and judgment of both the board and the publicity department," but it was managed about four times a week. The Sunday papers "drew heavily upon the ingenuity of the publicity department; special or feature stories were sent to special localities; for instance those that would appeal to the Southerners to the papers of the South, others to those of the West, and others were prepared for the syndicates and press associations." Of a new and important feature of the work Mr. Hallinan said: "The need of a competent Data Department for the National Association was early recognized but it seemed a difficult thing to manage on the budget provided by the convention. It was finally decided that owing to the pressure of the campaigns the money must be found somehow and it was. In September the department was established on a temporary basis with Mrs. Mary Sumner Boyd, formerly associate editor of The Survey, in charge. She was admirably equipped for research work and soon got into usable shape the valuable records of the national headquarters. Sometimes the pressure upon the department for facts, including 'answers to antis,' was tremendous but there were few requests for information which were not answered by mail or telegraph within 24 or 48 hours."

Mrs. Boyd's own full report of her first year's work was heard with much interest and satisfaction. In it she said:

The opponents of woman suffrage have by their criticisms made it cover the whole field of human affairs, so it is not surprising that the inquiries by correspondents of this department have ranged from the moral standard of women to a request for assistance in righting a personal wrong. Others come under main headings of the progress of woman suffrage, both partial and complete; the standing of women under the laws; the effect of voting women on the character of legislation; the part they take in political life and its reaction on their lives and characters; statistics and facts in regard to the makeup of the population of the various States; details in regard to State constitutions, election laws and methods of voting on woman suffrage in the various States.... What has become of late "stock" anti-criticisms of some effects of the ballot has been thoroughly investigated and "stock" answers prepared. Facts and figures from official sources have been gathered to disprove the claim of enforced jury duty, excessive cost of elections, lowered birth rates and increased divorce rates in suffrage States. The results of these studies have been surprisingly favorable to the suffrage position, showing that in such criticisms the "antis" have been ridiculously in the wrong. They have only been able to use this line of argument at all because the suffragists have had no one free to take the time to answer them once and for all with the facts.

At an important afternoon conference Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, who had been chairman of the New York Campaign Committee during the effort for a State amendment, made the opening address on The Revelations of Recent Campaigns which shed a great deal of light on the causes of defeat. She was followed by Mrs. Frank M. Roessing, who, as president of the Pennsylvania association, had charge of the campaign in that State, and Mrs. Gertrude Halliday Leonard, who was a leading factor in the one in Massachusetts, both presenting constructive plans for those of the future. Mrs. Raymond Brown, Mrs. Lillian Feickert, Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton and Mrs. Draper Smith, presidents of the New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Nebraska associations, described the Need and Use of Campaign Organization. Miss Mary Garrett Hay, chairman of the New York City Campaign Committee, and Miss Hannah J. Patterson, chairman of the Woman Suffrage Party of Pennsylvania, told from practical experience How to Organize for a Campaign. The conference was continued through the evening, Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, president of the Massachusetts association, speaking on the Production and Use of Campaign Literature; Mrs. John D. Davenport (Penn.) telling How to Raise Campaign Funds in the County and Mrs. Mina Van Winkle (N. J.) and Mrs. Maud Wood Park (Mass.) how to do so in the city. Mrs. Teresa A. Crowley (Mass.) discussed the Political Work of Campaigns. Another afternoon was devoted to a general conference of State presidents and delegates on the subject of Future Campaigns. It was recognized that these were henceforth to be of frequent occurrence and the association must be better prepared for their demands.

Mrs. Medill McCormick presided at the evening conference on Federal Legislation and the speeches of all the delegates clearly showed that they considered the work for the Federal Amendment paramount to all else and the States won for suffrage simply as stepping stones to this supreme achievement. Senator John F. Shafroth was on the platform and answered conclusively many of the anti-suffrage misrepresentations as to the effect of woman suffrage in Colorado. Every hour of days and evenings was given to conferences, committee meetings, reports from committees and States and the practical preparations for entering upon what all felt was the last stage of the long contest. The overshadowing event of the convention was Dr. Anna Howard Shaw's retirement from the presidency, which she had held eleven years. The delegates were not unprepared, as she had announced her intention in the following brief letter published in the Woman's Journal Nov. 27, 1915:

During the last year I have been increasingly conscious of the growing response to the spoken word on behalf of this cause of ours. Because of the unparalleled large audiences drawn to our standard everywhere, I have become convinced that my highest service to the suffrage movement can best be given if I am relieved of the exacting duties of the presidency so that I may be free to engage in campaign work, since each year brings its quota of campaign States. Therefore, after careful consideration, I have decided not to stand for re-election to the office of president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. I have deferred making this announcement until the campaigns were ended, but now that it is time to consider the work for the coming year, I feel it my duty to do so.

The president's address of Dr. Shaw had long been the leading feature of the conventions but this year it was heard with deeper interest than ever before, if this were possible. Because every word was significant she had written it and as it afterwards appeared in pamphlet form it filled fourteen closely printed pages. It was a masterly treatment of woman suffrage in its relation to many of the great problems of the day and it seems a sacrilege to attempt to convey by detached quotations an idea of its power and beauty. A large part of it will be found in the Appendix to this chapter. She set forth in the strongest possible words the necessity of a Federal Amendment but said:

There is not a single reason given upon which to base a hope for congressional action that does not rest upon the power and influence to be derived from the equal suffrage States, which power was secured by the slow but effective method of winning State by State. If all our past and present successes in Congress are due to the influence of enfranchised States, is it not safe to assume that the future power must come from the same source until it is sufficiently strong to insure a reasonable prospect of national legislation? To transform this hope into fulfillment we must follow several lines of campaign, each of which is essential to success: 1. By continuing the appeal which for thirty-seven years without cessation the National Association has made upon Congress to submit to the State Legislatures an amendment enfranchising women and by using every just means within our power to secure action upon it. 2. By Congressional District organization, such as has been set in motion by our National Congressional Committee and which has proved so successful during the past year. 3. By the organization of enfranchised women, who, through direct political activity in their own States and within their own political parties may become efficient factors in national conventions and in Congress. 4. By increasing the number of equal suffrage States through referring a State amendment to the voters.

The delegates were deeply moved by Dr. Shaw's closing words:

In laying down my responsibility as your president, there is one subject upon which I wish to speak and I ask your patient indulgence. If I were asked what has been the cause of most if not all of the difficulties which have arisen in our work, I would reply, a failure to recognize the obligations which loyalty demands of the members of an association to its officers and to its own expressed will. It is unquestionably the duty of the members of an organization, when, after in convention assembled certain measures are voted and certain duties laid upon its officers, to uphold the officers in the performance of those duties and to aid in every reasonable way to carry out the will of the association as expressed by the convention. It is the duty also of every officer or committee to carry out the will of the association unless conditions subsequently arise to make this injurious to its best interests.... Without loyalty, cooperation and friendly, helpful support in her work no officer can successfully perform her duty or worthily serve the best interests of the association. I earnestly appeal to the members of this body to give the incoming Board of Officers the loyalty and helpful support which will greatly lighten their arduous task of serving our cause and bringing it to final victory.

In saying farewell to you as your president I find it impossible to express my high appreciation and gratitude for your loyal support, your unfailing kindness, your patience with my mistakes and especially the affectionate regard you have shown me through all these years of toil and achievement together. The memory of your sacrifices for our cause, your devotion to our association and your unwearied patience in disappointment and delay will give to the remaining years of my life its crowning joy of happy memories.

The Woman's Journal said in its report: "On the table was a large bouquet of roses from Speaker and Mrs. Champ Clark. When Dr. Shaw had finished and received a great ovation, she said: 'My life has been one of the happiest a woman ever lived. From the depths of my heart I thank you. You have done more for me than I have ever done for you.' She unfastened a little pin on the front of her grey velvet gown and held it up for all to see, saying: 'This is Miss Anthony's flag, which she gave me just before she died. It was the gift of Wyoming women and had four tiny diamonds on it for the four equal suffrage States; now it has thirteen. Who says "suffrage is going and not coming"? We have as many stars now as there were original States when the government began.'" It was voted unanimously that the thanks of the convention be extended to the president for her noble address and that it be ordered printed. The tribute of the delegates came later in the week.

The report of the Committee on Literature was made by its chairman, Miss Caroline Ruutz-Rees, showing the usual careful selection of valuable matter for publication. Two important compilations she had made herself--Ten Extempore Answers to Questions by Dr. Shaw and extracts from a number of her speeches, gleaned from scattered reports; also an eloquent address made at Birmingham, Ala., the preceding April. So little from Dr. Shaw existed in printed form that these were very welcome. She urged the necessity for a library covering the field of women's affairs, well catalogued and open to the public. Miss Lavinia Engle's report as Field Secretary showed active work, speaking and organizing in Alabama, West Virginia, New Jersey and New York. Mrs. Funk's report as chairman of the Campaign and Survey Committee described a vast amount of work before the New Jersey campaign opened, including a series of twenty meetings addressed by Senators and Representatives and a number of prominent women, and others continuously through the summer with State and national speakers. Dr. Shaw spoke at thirty of these meetings.

In closing her report Miss Elizabeth Upham Yates, chairman of the Committee on Presidential Suffrage, said: "In addition to the beneficent consequences of women's vote in State and municipal affairs, the number of votes in the electoral college that may be determined by their ballots is of paramount political significance. By their votes in twelve States, which have 91 presidential electors, they might decide the presidency. Of these 91 electoral votes 62 come from the States where constitutional amendments enfranchising women have been obtained after repeated campaigns of inestimable cost and exhaustive effort, while 29, nearly a third of the whole, were secured simply by an act of the Illinois Legislature in giving the electoral vote to women. Is it not good political tactics to proceed along the lines of least resistance and bring our energies to bear upon Legislatures for the measure most potent and at the same time most easily procured?"

Mrs. Mary E. Craigie, who, as chairman of the Church Work Committee, had given such valuable service for years, told of the excellent work of her State branches, especially that of New Jersey during the recent campaign, whose chairman, Mrs. Mabel Farraday, had sent out hundreds of letters with literature to the clergymen and reached thousands of people at Ocean Grove and Asbury Park. She told of the encouragement she had received in her month of preparatory work for the approaching West Virginia campaign; the Ministerial Association of Wheeling had invited her to address them and expressed a desire to help it; several pastors turned over their regular meetings to her; the largest Methodist church in the State, at Moundsville, holding a week of big meetings, invited her to fill one entire evening with an address on the Federal Suffrage Amendment. "More and more I am led to believe," she said in closing, "that the most important work before the suffragists today is church work, especially the organizing of the Catholic women, that they will make their demands so emphatic the church will see the wisdom of supporting the movement. The church work is non-sectarian but it should also be omni-sectarian and our efforts should be extended to include all churches and religious sects."

The Congressional Committee had placed two departments of its work in charge of Miss Ethel M. Smith, whose comprehensive report showed beyond question their great value:

When the Congressional Committee was reorganized after the Nashville convention two departments were given into my charge, the congressional district organization work and the office catalogue of information concerning members of Congress. The Congressional plan, which had been launched but a year before, had been adopted in many of the States but not in all. My first step, therefore, was to urge by correspondence with the presidents that this machinery be established or completed in every State. On December 12 came the test as to how well this had been done. The Rules Committee of the House reported the Mondell amendment, which was to come to a vote January 12. I wrote or telegraphed at once to every congressional chairman or State president asking her to bring to bear all possible pressure upon the individual members of Congress from her State. Those States which had established this machinery were able at once to send the call to the respective district chairmen and so on down the line; the other States responded through their existing machinery and the result was that thousands of letters and telegrams poured into the offices of the Congressmen during the four weeks. Meantime our lobby was busy interviewing the members and the latest expressions obtained in each case were wired back to the States, whose chairmen responded again.

This interchange and cooperation were so effective that Congressmen themselves complimented our "team work." But the real proof of its value came after the vote was taken, when by checking with our office records of the individual Congressmen we found that many uncertain, noncommittal or almost unfriendly members' attitude had so changed that they voted yes on the amendment. Such a result could not fail to show, if proof had been necessary, that the greatest need as well as the greatest opportunity in national suffrage work for the future lay in furthering to the last degree of completeness and efficiency the organization of every State by congressional districts....

At a distance from Washington it is difficult to know and easy to lose sight of what a Representative does or stands for, so I prepared special reports to the State congressional chairmen whenever opportunity occurred. The first, and a most interesting one, came when the vote was taken in the House on the National Prohibition Amendment Dec. 22, 1914. This was just three weeks before the vote on our own amendment and our catalogue showed a large number of Congressmen who opposed us on the ground of State's rights. The National Prohibition Amendment is obviously as direct an assumption by the Federal Government of rights now reposing in the States as could possibly be devised. I, therefore, checked off the names of the State's rights Congressmen who voted for it but probably would not vote for national suffrage, and sent the list to our respective State chairmen, urging that they call these Representatives' attention to this inconsistency. It has been reported to me that this argument proved effective with several of them and it is a fact that after the suffrage vote was taken a number of the names on our first list had to be removed because those men had voted "aye" on suffrage. Seventy-two, however, in the final count, voted for the National Prohibition Amendment but against ours....

In June I devised a special congressional district campaign which would reach the members of Congress before they left their homes to go to Washington. This was intended to impress them with the strength of the suffrage sentiment in their districts and thus deprive them of a favorite excuse for not voting for our amendment. The plan called for congressional district meetings all over the country on or about November 16 in every district where the Representative was not already pledged to the Federal Amendment. The call was sent to every congressional district chairman and it requested that every local suffrage league send as many delegates as possible to the meeting which would be held in the city where the Senator or Representative lived. It was urged that they be invited to attend the meetings and to speak and that resolutions be adopted asking them to vote for the amendment. It was a part of the plan to send these resolutions also to the State Central Committees of the Republican and Democratic parties, asking for suffrage planks on the State and national platforms.... We received most cordial and widespread cooperation in this work. I believe we can say that practically every Senator and Representative returned to Washington this session with the knowledge that behind him at home is an organized demand for his favorable vote on the Federal Amendment.

The usual pleasant social features of these conventions had been eliminated and the only relaxation for the delegates was one large evening reception in the New Willard Hotel. The National College Equal Suffrage League held its annual luncheon on the 18th at the New Ebbitt Hotel, Dr. M. Carey Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College, presiding. The guests were 225 women graduates of various colleges and the topic of all the speeches was, "How to advance women suffrage by making friends instead of enemies." The speakers included Dr. Shaw, Mrs. Charles L. Tiffany, Mrs. Raymond Brown, Mrs. Medill McCormick, Miss Florence Stiles, Mrs. Frank M. Roessing, Miss Hannah J. Patterson, Mrs. Elizabeth Puffer Howes and Mrs. Laura Puffer Morgan.

The convention sent a telegram of sympathy in her illness to Miss Jane Addams. A special vote of thanks was tendered to Senators Charles S. Thomas and John F. Shafroth and to Representative Edward T. Taylor, all of Colorado, and to Representative Frank W. Mondell of Wyoming for the very great assistance they had given to the Congressional Committee. A cordial invitation came from the Chicago suffrage headquarters for the delegates to accept its hospitality during the National Republican Convention in June, 1916. Invitations for the next convention were received from St. Louis, Little Rock and Atlantic City.

Mrs. Medill McCormick, chairman of the Congressional Committee, introduced Mrs. Antoinette Funk, its vice chairman, who told of the strong and successful effort made to have the Committee on Rules ignore the adverse action of the Democratic caucus and send the resolution to the Lower House for action after the Judiciary Committee had reported it without recommendation. The date finally set for the debate in the House was Jan. 12, 1915. Her report was in part as follows:

From the moment the resolution was reported by the Judiciary Committee the energies of the Congressional Committee were directed toward the end of bringing out as large a favorable vote as was humanly possible and all the members of the committee then resident in Washington undertook some portion of the task. The leaders of both sides of the House, Mr. Mondell for the Republicans and Mr. Taylor for the Democrats, gave us their heartiest support. Through them and through the courtesy of the Speaker of the House, Mr. Champ Clark, we learned what members would be recognized for speeches, and each man who had asked for time or who had been asked to speak because of his locality or for other reasons was interviewed. Our cooperation in the matter of gathering up suffrage data and material was offered and freely accepted. All suffrage literature known to us was brought in large quantities into our office and assorted into sets bearing upon the situation of the different Congressmen according to their locality, political faith, etc. Every man known to be favorable to us was urged to be in his seat on January 12 and those of our friends who, we learned, would be unavoidably kept away from Washington were written and telegraphed to arrange for favorable pairs.

Some time before the vote was taken the Congressional Committee reported to the National Board that our minimum vote would be 168. In fact, 174 favorable votes were cast and 11 favorable pairs were registered. The negative votes were 204....

The favorable speeches of the Congressmen were put in form for the campaign States and over a million and a half were circulated. The report continued:

The amendment having been voted on in both Houses and direct work in its behalf being definitely closed for that session the Congressional Committee was increased by Miss Jeannette Rankin, who, together with the vice-chairman, discussed with members of the House and Senate the Shafroth amendment, then pending. No effort was made to bring this measure forward for a vote but the work of presenting the idea of a national initiative upon the proposition of suffrage for the consideration of the members of Congress was considered worth while. By many who disapproved of a National Suffrage Amendment, this was regarded as a practical method of overcoming such obstacles as the State constitutions had erected, thus making their amending easy and practicable.

The Nashville convention had endorsed the Federal Elections Bill and instructed the Board to advance it in every way possible. The bill had been introduced in Congress through the Federal Society represented by Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby and we consulted with her as to the manner in which the National might be of greatest assistance. It was extremely difficult to get favorable consideration for it by individual Congressmen but the committee recommends that it should receive the endorsement and support of the National Association, although in its judgment it is a measure that cannot be successfully concluded at an early date.

Mrs. McCormick reported in person on the use made by the committee of the record of members of Congress. It was again voted that the plans of the committee should be carried out in a State only when all its societies were agreed but when they were not the Congressional Committee should not work there. It also seemed to be the opinion of the convention that States which were considering a campaign should first consult the Survey Committee and show whether or not they were prepared for it, and if the committee advised against it and they persisted they should not expect any assistance from the National Association. Miss Laura Clay was requested to explain the Federal Elections Bill, which would enable women to vote for Senators and Representatives, and would require only a majority vote of each house for its adoption. Miss Clay was enthusiastically received and the convention again requested the Board to take up this bill and press its claims on Congress. Later the Executive Council passed a resolution to do all in its power for Presidential suffrage.

At a morning session of the convention on December 18 a motion was passed that "last year's action in regard to the Shafroth Amendment be rescinded." The following motion was then carried: "The National American Woman Suffrage Association re-endorses the Susan B. Anthony Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, for which it has been working forty-five years, and no other amendment of the U. S. Constitution dealing with National Woman Suffrage shall be introduced by it during the coming year." The Minutes of the convention (page 43) say: "Miss Shaw asked as a matter of personal privilege that she be permitted to make a statement to the association with regard to her attitude on the Shafroth Amendment to the effect that she had been opposed to its adoption and had voted against it but that when the Board by majority vote adopted it she supported the Board in its decision; that the longer she studied the question the more she approved of it but that she felt the mistake made was in trying to work for it before the women of the association had become informed as to its value and had learned to believe in it." This was the end of the so-called Shafroth Amendment, which had threatened to carry the old association on the rocks. [See Chapter XIV.]

Another problem came before this convention--the policy of the recently formed Congressional Union to adopt the method of the "militant" branch of the English suffragists and hold the party in power responsible for the failure to submit the Federal Suffrage Amendment. They had gone into the equal suffrage States during the congressional campaign of 1914 and fought the re-election of some of the staunchest friends of this amendment, Senator Thomas of Colorado, for instance, chairman of the Senate Committee which had reported it favorably and a lifelong suffragist. The press and public not knowing the difference between the two organizations were holding the National American Association responsible and protests were coming from all over the country. Some of the younger members, who did not know the history and traditions of the old association, thought that there should be cooperation between the two bodies. Both had lobbyists actively working at the Capitol, members of Congress were confused and there was a considerable feeling that some plan for united action should be found. Miss Zona Gale, the writer, offered the following motion, which was carried without objection: "Realizing that all suffragists have a common cause at heart and that difference of methods is inevitable, it is moved that an efficiency commission consisting of five members be appointed by the Chair to confer with representatives of the Congressional Union in order to bring about cooperation with the maximum of efficiency for the successful passage of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment at this session of Congress." The Handbook of the convention (page 155) has the following:

In accordance with the action of the convention, on the motion of Miss Zona Gale, the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association appointed a committee of five consisting of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt of New York; Mrs. Medill McCormick of Illinois; Mrs. Stanley McCormick of Massachusetts; Mrs. Antoinette Funk of Illinois and Miss Hannah J. Patterson of Pennsylvania, to confer with a similar committee from the Congressional Union on the question of cooperation in congressional action. These committees met at the New Willard on December 17, Miss Alice Paul, Miss Lucy Burns, Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Miss Anne Martin and Mrs. Gilson Gardner being present as representatives of the Congressional Union, all but Mrs. Lewis (Penn.) of the District of Columbia.

Its representatives made two suggestions: (1) That the Congressional Union should affiliate with the National American Woman Suffrage Association. (2) That in any event frequent meetings for consultation should be held between the legislative committees of the two in order to secure more united action.

In the discussion of these suggestions it developed that at this time the Congressional Union has no election policy and that its future policy must depend on political situations. The Union declares itself to be non-partisan according to its constitution, which pledges its members to support suffrage regardless of the interests of any national political parties. At this point the report of the joint conference ends.

The committee of five representing the National American Association recommends that no affiliation shall take place because it was made quite clear that the Congressional Union does not denounce nor pledge itself not to resume what we term its anti-party policy and what they designate as their election policy; also because it is their intention, as announced by them, to organize in all States in the Union for congressional work, thus duplicating organizations already existing. Your committee further recommends that the incoming board of officers give their serious consideration to the suggestion of conferences with a view to securing more united action in the lobby work in Washington.

At the conference Mrs. Catt explained to Miss Paul that the association could not accept as an affiliated society one which was likely to defy its policy held since its foundation in 1869, which was neither to support nor oppose any political party, nor to work for or against any candidate except as to his attitude toward woman suffrage. Miss Paul would give no guarantee that the Congressional Union would observe this policy. It was thought that some way of dividing the lobby work might be found but in a short time the Union announced its program of fighting the candidates of the Democratic party without any reference to their position on the Federal Amendment or their record on woman suffrage. They offered as a reason that as the Democratic party was in control of the Government it should have the Federal Amendment submitted. There never was a time when the Democrats had the necessary two-thirds of the members of each house of Congress, but enough of them favored it so that it could have been carried if enough of the Republicans had voted for it. It was plainly evident that it would require the support of both parties. The policy of the Congressional Union, put into action throughout the presidential campaign of 1916, made any cooperation impossible.

When in 1904 Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt had been obliged to resign the presidency on account of impaired health it was most reluctantly accepted by Dr. Shaw and only because Miss Anthony so earnestly impressed it on her as a duty. She felt that her own great mission was on the platform rather than in executive office and she preferred it; besides there was no salary attached to the office and she was dependent for her livelihood on her own efforts. Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt and others overcame all her objections and for eleven years she had made almost superhuman efforts to fulfil her executive duties and keep in the field a large part of the time, speaking from ocean to ocean, from lakes to gulf, and every few years in European countries. She was in constant demand and could hardly refuse an appeal. Only a fine constitution and supreme will power enabled her to endure the strain, and with it all her fund of humor was never exhausted and her courage never faltered. There was a feeling, however, among some members of the association that the movement had reached a stage when she was more than ever needed to address the immense audiences which everywhere now were hungry to hear the doctrines of woman suffrage; and they felt also that the situation at present demanded an executive at the head of the association who could give practically her entire time to the vast demands for administrative work.

Dr. Shaw had but one regret at laying down the heavy double burden, which was that it was placed in her hands by Miss Anthony in her last hour with the charge not to give it up until the final victory was won. She knew, however, that Miss Anthony would be satisfied if Mrs. Catt, an unsurpassed executive and organizer, would take it, and such was the sentiment of a large majority of the delegates, but this she positively refused to do. She was president of the International Suffrage Alliance, which had branches in twenty-six countries, and as most of them were in the very midst of the World War the United States had to assume the entire responsibility of maintaining the London headquarters and the official paper. New York State had decided to go immediately into another amendment campaign and she had again assumed the chairmanship and was pledged to the work. For several days she resisted all pleadings until finally the ground was completely taken out from under her feet. First, a few wealthy women guaranteed a fund of $5,000 for the year's expenses of the International Alliance to relieve her of that care. Then a number of delegates went to the New York delegation of over fifty and labored with them to release her from the chairmanship of the campaign committee, which, after an exciting caucus, they reluctantly consented to do at a great sacrifice, and finally the convention went to her in a body and laid the fruits of their efforts at her feet and she surrendered.

At the primaries 45 votes were cast for Mrs. Mina C. Van Winkle (N. J.) principally by members of the Congressional Union who were in some of the State delegations, but she withdrew her name. For other officers the opposition that had been manifesting itself for several years recorded from 41 to 77 votes out of 546, except that Mrs. Susan W. Fitzgerald (Mass.) received 118 for recording secretary and Dr. Katharine Bement Davis 141 for third vice-president but withdrew her name. Others of the present board did not stand for re-election. Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers was unanimously re-elected treasurer. The following officers were elected: Mrs. Catt unanimously; Mrs. Frank M. Roessing (Penn.), first vice-president; Mrs. Katherine Dexter McCormick (Mass.), second; Miss Esther G. Ogden (N. J.), third; Miss Hannah J. Patterson (Penn.), corresponding secretary; Mrs. James W. Morrison (Ills.), recording secretary; Mrs. Walter McNab Miller (Mo.), first auditor; Mrs. Pattie Ruffner Jacobs (Ala.), second. Dr. Shaw came in from the hearing before the Judiciary Committee as the balloting was about to begin, and as she took the chair she asked from the convention the privilege of casting the first vote for Mrs. Catt, "the woman who from the beginning has been my choice, the one who more than any other I long to see occupy the position of your president."

The afternoon session was a beautiful and memorable occasion. Delegates knew there was "something in the air" when they entered the ante-room and were asked to help themselves from the great quantities of flowers on the tables and when they saw a uniformed brass band in one end of the convention hall. Dr. Shaw was in the chair and at her right and left were Mrs. George Howard Lewis of Buffalo and Mrs. Henry Villard of New York, lovely, white-haired veterans in the cause. Gathered about her on the platform were those who had been her nearest associates during the many years of her presidency. The meeting was called to order and Mrs. Raymond Brown on behalf of the New York delegation presented a resolution of thanks to Dr. Shaw for the 204 speeches made by her during the past year in that State and asked unanimous consent of the convention for the adoption of a new by-law to the constitution making her Honorary President of the association with a seat on the Board.

As the delegates answered with a rising vote the band broke forth with patriotic airs and from a side room entered the national officers followed by the State presidents and chairmen of standing committees. Dr. Thomas, president of the National College League, bore a golden laurel wreath on a blue velvet cushion and each of the officers a large cornucopia filled with yellow blossoms. Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw carried a long garland of flowers and the presidents had huge bouquets. The procession marched entirely around the room with the band playing and the audience singing. Dr. Thomas presented the laurel wreath to Dr. Shaw "as a symbol of the triumphant work she had done for the cause which the blue and gold represent." Mrs. Laidlaw placed the garland about her neck saying, "With these flowers we bind thee to us forever." The presidents came forward and laid their bouquets at her feet until they were banked as high as the arms of her chair and then all grouped themselves around her. As she rose to speak the whole audience sprang to their feet and commenced to shower her with roses until she was almost lost to sight. Dr. Shaw was very pale and her voice faltered in spite of her effort to control it but with the old smile she said: "Men say women are too emotional to vote but when we compare our emotions here today to theirs at political conventions I prefer our kind. If this resolution means that I can still work for suffrage I accept it gratefully and thank you for the opportunity but under no consideration would I accept merely an honorary office. The flowers are beautiful and I shall remember this hour as long as I live but what will make my heart glad all my life is the love I know the members of this association have for me."

"The storm of roses ended in a rainbow with a pot of gold at its end," said the report in the New York Tribune, "for President Thomas came forward and announced that an annuity had been raised which would give Dr. Shaw an income of $3,200 as long as she lived. 'This is in order' she said, 'that you may work for suffrage every day without stopping to think of finances, and every mill in the $30,000 represents a heart you have won or a mind you have converted to woman suffrage.' To this gift Mrs. Lewis added $1,500 to pay a year's salary to a secretary." "I have always wanted to know how it feels to be a millionaire and now I know," responded Dr. Shaw. "I cannot think what to say except that I'm very happy."[100] The delegates cheered and the band played and when the tumult ceased she turned to where Mrs. Catt sat at the very back of the platform looking pale as herself and by no means so happy, and taking her hand led her forward and presented her as the new president of the association. Again there was a scene of great enthusiasm and when it ceased Mrs. Catt said: "When I came to this convention I had no more idea of accepting the presidency of this association than I had of taking a trip to Kamtchatka. I will do my best but because I am an unwilling victim and because you all know it I think I have a right to exact a pledge from you--that if you have any fault to find with my conduct or that of the Board you will bring your complaint first to us. I ask all of you to work harder the coming year than you have ever worked before. I cannot be otherwise than deeply touched by the confidence you have placed in me. I promise you to do my best not to disappoint you." The convention clearly demonstrated its joy over her election and received cordially the new officers as they were introduced.

Miss Margaret Wilson was among those who showered Dr. Shaw with flowers on Friday afternoon and she sat on the platform at the mass meeting in Poli's Theater on Sunday afternoon. Secretary of the Interior Lane, Senators Moses E. Clapp of Minnesota and Shafroth of Colorado and many other officials and prominent men and women had seats on the platform and a large audience was present. The Rev. U. G. B. Pierce, of All Souls Unitarian Church, gave the invocation. Dr. Shaw was in the chair and the speakers were Dudley Field Malone, Collector of the Port of New York; Dr. Katharine Bement Davis, Commissioner of Corrections of New York City, and Mrs. Catt. Dr. Davis spoke with marked effect on the Reasonableness of Woman Suffrage. Mr. Malone traced the extension of suffrage from the earliest to the present time and showed that in seeking the right to vote American women were asking nothing new. He spoke of "the million women in New York State who have to go into the shop, the factory and the market place each day to earn a living and support a home" and demanded the vote for these women as a matter of justice. He scorned the idea of woman's inferiority to man and said: "It is desirable to place in the electorate every mature individual of brains, character, intelligence and love of country to perpetuate American traditions and the American idea of democracy. America today, facing the world problems of infinite difficulty and variety, needs every element of moral force and influence in the electorate which she can summon to her service, for it may be that our country will be called upon before the world to redeem the pledges made in behalf of democracy itself. The right of suffrage involves the question of justice; the exercise of suffrage raises it to one of ethics. The question before the men of the country is, Should the women have the suffrage and if they get it how will they use it?"

Here Mr. Malone could not resist the temptation to predict that the vast majority would vote for military "preparedness," a burning question at this time. This roused Mrs. Catt's resentment both because it was contrary to her belief and because it was contrary to the custom of the association to discuss political subjects. She largely abandoned the rousing suffrage speech she intended to make in order that Mr. Malone's assertion might not go out over the country with the sanction of the association and said in beginning: "Behind preparedness is a bigger thing--the right to maintain peace. Unless this country carries a militant peace policy into the court of nations, nobody will, and if we do not take a firm stand we ourselves will soon be at war. It has been made clear to me in the last few months that men are too belligerent to be trusted alone with governments. The world needs woman's restraining hand. Man's instinct has been militant since primitive times when it was his job to do the hunting and fighting and woman's to do the work. Woman's instinct has been to conserve and protect life. It is much easier to fight than to make peace. We women would not allow our country to be made the door mat for other nations but we would find a way to settle disputes without killing fathers, husbands and sons."

Dr. Shaw sustained firmly the position of Mrs. Catt, obtained a big collection and sent the people home in a peaceful frame of mind by her closing speech.

Toward the close of the convention the following resolutions were presented by the committee, Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, chairman, and adopted:

WHEREAS, women already have the ballot in twelve States of the Union and one Territory and in seven foreign countries, and the trend of civilization the world over is toward enlarged rights for women; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the National American Woman Suffrage Association, in convention assembled, again calls upon Congress to submit to the States the Constitutional Amendment providing for nation-wide suffrage for women.

We rejoice in the recent granting of full suffrage to women in Denmark and Iceland; Municipal suffrage in South Africa and an enlarged local suffrage in the provinces of Canada and the States of our Union....

We express our heartfelt sympathy with the women of all countries now suffering through the war and our earnest wish for the speedy establishment of peace with justice. Since women must bear their full share of all the burdens and sufferings of war they ought in fairness to have a share in choosing those in high places who settle the question of war or peace.

The heroic work done for the sick and wounded by the women of every land shows them to be worthy of the ballot, their right to which Florence Nightingale declared to be an axiom, and their plea for which has been endorsed almost unanimously by the International Council of Nurses representing nine nations.

The association reaffirms that its policy is non-partisan and non-sectarian, opposing no political party as such and opposing no candidate because of his party affiliations but judging every candidate by his own attitude and record.

We believe the home is the foundation of the State; we believe in the sacredness of the marriage relationship, and further, we believe that the ballot in the hands of women will strengthen the power of the home and sustain the sacredness and dignity of marriage; we denounce as gross slander statements made by the enemies of woman suffrage that its advocates as a class entertain opinions to the contrary.

The thanks and appreciation of the association are tendered to its retiring president, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, for her long and arduous service to this cause, her many labors and hardships and her innumerable and powerful addresses, which have won adherents to woman suffrage not only throughout the United States but in foreign lands.

We highly appreciate President Wilson's action in declaring in favor of the principle of equal suffrage and in stating his belief in the good results to be expected from its adoption.

* * * * *

As the resolution to submit the Federal Suffrage Amendment to the State Legislatures for ratification had been lost in the Senate and House of the 63rd Congress it was necessary to begin again with the 64th. Usually the hearings before the committees of the two Houses were held at the same time and the convention adjourned so the delegates might be present but at this time the one for the National American Association before the Senate was set for the morning of December 15 and the one before the House for the following day. It adjourned for the first one but as the second promised to be long drawn out only a delegation went with Dr. Shaw and she returned to the convention after she had made the opening speech.

At the Senate hearings the chairman, Senator Charles S. Thomas (Col.), presided and members present were Senators Hollis (N. H.); Clapp (Minn.); Sutherland (Utah); Catron (N. M.); Jones (Wash.). The other members, Senators Owen (Okla.) and Johnson (S. Dak.), were suffragists and probably were out of town. Senator Catron was the only opponent. Senator Ransdell was added to the committee the second day. On the third day only Senators Hollis, Clapp, Sutherland and Jones attended. The time was divided among the representatives of the National Association, the Congressional Union and the National Anti-Suffrage Association, the first taking from 10 to 12 o'clock Wednesday; the second from 10 to 11:30 Thursday; the third from 2 to 3:15 Monday. The joint resolution for the amendment had been introduced by Senators Thomas and Sutherland.

On the first day Chairman Thomas said: "This meeting of the Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage is called at the instance of the National Association of which Dr. Anna Howard Shaw is the honored president. The hearing will be conducted under the auspices of that association and by her direction. Dr. Shaw, we will be glad to hear you now." Dr. Shaw said in part:

For thirty-seven years this amendment has been introduced and re-introduced into the Congress by members who have been favorable to our movement, or who have believed in the justice and right of citizens to petition Congress and have that petition heard. Last year we were permitted to address your body and we rejoiced in the fact that a committee, which from the time of its creation usually had been indifferent toward our subject, had now been appointed with Senator Thomas, who from the very beginning had seen the justice of the demand for woman suffrage, at the head. This committee gave us great courage and hope, which were fully justified in the fact that for the first time in twenty years our resolution was reported out of committee and acted upon in the Senate, receiving a majority vote but not the necessary two-thirds. We come again with the same measure and again we appeal to this committee, in the same terms as for all the past years, for the women citizens of the United States who at every call have responded as readily as the men in doing their duty and serving their country. More and more the demand is being made by ever-increasing groups of women that they shall directly share in the Government of which they form a part. So we come to you today with the same old measure but we come with greater hope than ever before because we realize that back of you there are now in many of the States constituencies of women.

Dr. Shaw introduced Mrs. Pattie Ruffner Jacobs of Alabama, who quoted from distinguished southern members of Congress on State's rights and asked that these sentiments be applied to the National Amendment for Woman Suffrage, saying in part:

If this amendment is adopted it in no wise regulates or interferes with any existing qualification for voting (except sex) which the various State constitutions now exact. It leaves all others to be determined by the various States through their constitutional agencies. It is a fallacy to contend that to prohibit discrimination on account of sex would involve the race problem. The actual application of the principle in the South would be to enfranchise a very large number of white women and the same sort of negro women as of negro men now permitted to exercise the privilege....

However much these chivalrous gentlemen may wish it were so, that southern women might truly be called roses and lilies which toil not, they must know that their compliments do not provide equal pay for equal service, which obtains in all the woman suffrage States and that their flowers of speech do not help us secure a co-guardianship law, which every suffrage State has and which is non-existent in all southern States. The pedestal platitude appeals less and less to the intelligence of southern women, who are learning in increasing numbers that the assertion that they are too good, too noble, too pure to vote, in reality brands them as incompetents. It cannot be sugarcoated into any other significance as long as we remain classed with idiots, criminals and some of the negro men who also are disfranchised. As things stand in the South an incentive is held out to the negro man to become educated that he may meet the tests; to practice industry and frugality and acquire property to meet the taxpaying qualification; but no such incentive is held out to the white women, who meet the insuperable barrier of sex at every turn which might lead to progress....

We women of the South today, while proud of our past do not live in it. We wish to be proud of our present that we may look forward with confidence to our future. We know that sectionalism should have no place in our hearts or lives. This demand for suffrage is not sectional, it has its adherents in every State and in almost every town in every State. There is little or no organized opposition in my part of the country but there are many thousands of fine, thoughtful, forward-looking southern women banded together seeking the removal of this last badge of incompetency. For them there is no North or South but one great nation, the interest of whose women is the same. We realize that we are not different or better, we southern women, than the women in Montana, Illinois, Maine or Massachusetts but are just human beings as they are. We are not queens but political and industrial serfs. We are not angels but our better natures, our higher selves are becoming aroused by the needs of our common humanity with a solidarity of purpose, a keenness of vision unmarred by selfish motives.

Miss Caroline Ruutz-Rees, head of the Rosemary School for Girls in Greenwich, Conn., described the work of the National Suffrage Association and its sixty-three auxiliaries in the many State campaigns and the long effort for a Federal Amendment and said in closing: "In its propaganda and campaigns the association has steadily maintained a non-partisan attitude, endeavoring so far as it had power to help the friends of suffrage and considering as antagonistic only its opponents. It does not hold its friends responsible for the failure of their party to pass its measures. It never forgets that it may have to look for help in amending the State constitutions to the adherents of a party unfriendly to a Federal Amendment. It believes in educating the public until the demand for the enfranchisement of women becomes so strong as to be irresistible. The enormous change of opinion in that public within a few years inspires the association to hope for the speedy conclusion of its labors."

Mrs. George Bass, the well-known suffrage and political worker of Chicago, said in the course of her remarks:

Women want the ballot because they need it in their business--the business of being a woman--in the business that began when the first man and the first woman commenced housekeeping in a cave.

The duties of the man and the woman differentiated themselves at that time and they have been differentiated ever since. The woman as mother became the first artisan because she had to clothe the children. She became the first doctor because she had to treat the ills that came to those children of hers and to the man who lived by her side. She had to invent tools; she was the first farmer. Man and his duties and his responsibilities have been the same from that time to this. He brought in to her the slain animal which she transmuted into food and changed into clothing. He was the protector, and the first government that grew up about that first home considered only the problems of offense and defense. As the governments of the world became more stable, as they developed, they still centered about war, offense and defense.... Woman still is the mother of the race but what of the home? It has become socialized and the spinning wheel is in the attic and millions of women are standing at the great looms of this country. The women are in the shops, the factories, the offices, everywhere that modern industrialism is extending itself. The school has been socialized and the children are by the thousands in the schools.

Mrs. Bass then strikingly illustrated how the business of being a woman now took women to legislative bodies in the interest of the State's dependent children, of the women in the industries, of the so-called fallen women, and showed how fatally handicapped all were without the power of the ballot.

Mrs. Medill McCormick, chairman of the Congressional Committee of the association, sent a comprehensive report of the vast work it had done in district organization throughout the States and the evident influence this had exerted on Congress. Dr. Shaw introduced Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, who made the principal address, a searching and comprehensive review of the methods by which men had obtained the ballot compared to those which had been used by women and showed the many requirements made of the latter which were entirely omitted in the case of men. She took the four recent campaigns in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania as the basis of her masterly address, which will be found in the Appendix of this chapter. At the end of it she said: "It was twenty-two years ago that I had the privilege and pleasure of standing upon the same platform with the chairman of this committee when he made an eloquent appeal to the citizens of Colorado for the women there and many said that his speech turned the tide and gave women the vote. I hope that he and every member will not only make a favorable report but will do more--will follow that report on the floor of the Senate and work for it and immortalize themselves while freeing us from the humiliation and the burden of this struggle."

The hearing was closed by Dr. Shaw with a strong and convincing argument to show that "if nothing entered into the life of the homes of this nation except what came through State action it might be said that only the State should decide who should vote but since the women are as much affected by the acts of Congress as are the men, this becomes a national question." She drew a striking picture of conditions among the nations of Europe where the war was raging; of how "women in our own country every morning scanned the papers to see whether we were nearer with the rising sun than we were with the setting sun of the day before to connections with the Old World which will plunge us into the war." She took up the questions of tariff and of prohibition, asked if women should not have a vote on these and the other great national issues before the country and concluded: "I only wish that the woman whose name is so closely associated with this amendment--Susan B. Anthony--might have lived to see this committee as it exists today instead of having passed away before it was composed of members of the character of those before whom we now come to present our cause."

* * * * *

At the hearing of the Congressional Union the following day, Senator Thomas, chairman of the committee, was present but refused to preside, as the leaders of the Union had gone to Colorado during the recent campaign and spoken and worked, though unsuccessfully, against his re-election. Senator Sutherland took the chair. It was conducted by the vice-president of the Union, Miss Anne Martin. "One of our chief purposes in asking this hearing," she said, "is to bring before you not only the ethical importance but the political urgency of settling this question of national suffrage for women. At present the thought and strength of large numbers of them throughout the country are absorbed by this campaign to secure fundamental justice, which prevents their giving assistance in matters vitally affecting the interests of the men, women and children of the nation." There would be five-minute speeches, she said, until the last half hour, which would be divided between the envoys of the women voters' convention in San Francisco during the past summer.[101]

Most of the speeches were crisp and clever and well fortified with facts and figures to prove the advantage of a Federal Amendment over State amendments in securing universal woman suffrage. The two "envoys" were Miss Frances Jolliffe and Mrs. Sara Bard Field of California, who started in an automobile from the grounds of the Exposition in San Francisco to motor to Washington to present to Congress a petition which had been collected during the Fair and to do propaganda work on the way. The former made only part of the trip in the car but Mrs. Field completed the entire 3,000 miles. Both made excellent addresses.

* * * * *

Senator Hollis occupied the chair at the hearing of the National Anti-Suffrage Association December 20. Its president, Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge, introduced the speakers, saying: "We appear before you to urge that you do not report this resolution to the Senate because we believe very earnestly that it is a question which should be taken to the States to be voted on by the electorates and not submitted to the Legislatures." Mrs. M. C. Talbot, secretary of the Maryland Anti-Suffrage Association, read a paper prepared by the Hon. John W. Foster, a strong argument against a Federal Amendment but without a word of opposition to the granting of woman suffrage by the States. The other speakers were Miss Florence H. Hall, publicity chairman of the Pennsylvania Association; Mrs. George P. White, a member of its executive board; Miss Lucy J. Price, secretary of the Cleveland, O., branch; Mrs. A. J. George (Mass.), executive secretary of the National Congressional Committee. They were trained speakers and their side of the question was well presented. It was heard by the Senate Committee without interruption except on one point. Miss Hall said: "On waves of Populism, Mormonism, insurgency and Socialism ten States have been added to the pioneer State of Wyoming and are recognizing the suffrage flag." When she had finished the following colloquy took place:

Senator Sutherland. I do not ordinarily like to inject anything into these hearings, but one statement has been made by the last speaker which I do not think I ought to let go without making a suggestion in regard to it. If I understood her correctly she insists that Mormonism has had something to do with the granting of woman suffrage in the ten States in which it has been granted. I want to say that in California, Oregon, Washington and Kansas, taking those four States which are the largest in which suffrage has been granted, the Mormon population and Mormon vote are practically negligible.

Miss Hall. I did not base it on that. I said Mormonism, Populism, Socialism and insurgency brought suffrage along with them.

Senator Sutherland. There is only one State in all of these, so far as I know, where Mormons are in the majority and that is in my own State of Utah. There are comparatively few in Colorado, probably not more than a thousand altogether in the entire population, and their numbers are practically negligible in the other States.

Miss Hall. How about Idaho? Forty per cent. there.

Senator Sutherland. I think perhaps there are twenty-five per cent. There are probably 400 or 500 in the State of Nevada. In Arizona I do not know just what the percentage is but there are a number of Mormon voters there.

Miss Hall. I would refer the committee to Senator Cannon's recent letter on that question, where he names eleven States----

Senator Sutherland (interposing). I know that claim has been made but I undertake to say that it is utterly without foundation. I speak in regard to this matter with just as much knowledge as Mr. Cannon or anybody else.

Senator Jones. It is without foundation, so far as the State of Washington is concerned.

Senator Sutherland. While I am not a member of the Mormon Church and never have been, I have lived in that section practically all my life and it is not correct to say that such a situation as has been described prevails in those States.

Miss Hall. I thought I had pretty good authority for making that statement and I think I could produce the evidence to show it.

Senator Sutherland. I would be surprised if you could produce any evidence whatever to substantiate that statement.

Mrs. George, who spoke last, came to the rescue of Miss Hall and this dialogue occurred:

Mrs. George. I am confident that the speaker only meant to imply that woman suffrage has always been a radical movement and that where Mormonism did exist it helped on suffrage....

Senator Sutherland. As a matter of fact, the Mormon Church and the Mormon people are not radical. They are conservative and in some instances almost ultra conservative....

Mrs. George. They may be conservative along certain lines but we do look upon the Mormon Church as advocating certain social measures which seem to us radical.

Senator Sutherland. I will grant you that in the past there have been some things that you and I would not agree with, but from a very careful observation of events I can say to you with perfect confidence in the truth of what I say, that that sort of thing has passed away.

Mrs. George. May I say un-American, if you object to the word "radical"?

Senator Sutherland. I object to the word "un-American" much more strongly because the Mormon people are not un-American. They are good citizens, among the best in this country.

Mrs. George concluded her address to the committee with these words: "These are grave times. Questions of international relationships, of preparedness, of the national defense, of finance, are vexing the wisest minds. Is it a time to further the propaganda of this new crop of hyphenated Americans--Suffrage-Americans--who place their propaganda above every need of the country?"

* * * * *

With the women of eleven States now eligible to vote for all candidates at the general election of 1916 and the large number in Illinois possessing the Presidential franchise woman suffrage had become a leading issue. Most of the House Judiciary Committee of twenty-one members, including the chairman, Edwin Y. Webb of North Carolina, an immovable opponent, were present at the hearing on December 16 and they faced sixteen speakers for the Federal Amendment and twelve opposed. Three hours were granted to the former, divided between the National American Association and the Congressional Union, and two hours to the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. Dr. Shaw opened the hearing by referring to the thirty-seven years that had seen the leaders of her association pleading with Congress for favorable action on this amendment and introduced Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, comprising twenty-six nations.

Mrs. Catt said in part:

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee, I fear that the hearings before this Judiciary Committee have become in the eyes and understanding of many of the members a rather perfunctory affair which you have to endure. May I remind you that since the last hearing something new has happened in the United States and that is that more than a million men have voted for woman suffrage in four of the most conservative States of the East? I consider that that big vote presents to this committee a mandate for action which was never presented before. There are those, doubtless, who will say that this is a question of State rights. I have been studying Congressmen for a good many years and I have discovered that when a man believes in woman suffrage it is a national question and when he does not believe in it he says it is a question for the States....

Mrs. Catt told of the prominent educator who was sent from Belgium to investigate the working of woman suffrage in the United States and after he had made a visit to the States where it existed he summed up the result by saying: "I am convinced in favor in my mind but my heart is still opposed." "There are members of this committee," she said, "who are governed by their hearts instead of their heads," and she continued:

Gentlemen, this movement has grown bigger and stronger as the years have passed by until today millions of women are asking in all the States for the vote. The president of Cornell University, Dr. Schurman, said that his reason for now aggressively advocating woman suffrage was because he had discovered in studying history that it was never good for a government to have a restless and dissatisfied class; he had made up his mind that the women of the nation did think that they had a grievance, whether they had or not, and he believed that a government was stronger and safer when grievances were relieved.

A few days before the election in order to show that the women wanted to vote there was a parade in New York City and 20,000 marched up Fifth Avenue, among them a great number of public school teachers of the city, 12,000 of whom had contributed to our campaign funds. These women deal with the most difficult problems; they are teaching all that the new-coming people know of citizenship and they were asking their own share in that citizenship. A man whose name is known to every one of you was sitting at the window of a clubhouse watching the women pass hour after hour until at last this great group of teachers, sixteen abreast, marched by with their banners. He looked out upon them and do you think he said, "I am convinced that the women of New York do want to vote and I will help them?" That is what an honorable American citizen, an open-minded man, would have said. Instead he exclaimed: "My God! I never realized what a menace the woman suffrage movement is to this country; we have got to do something next Tuesday to keep the women from getting the vote."

There is not a man on this committee or in this House who can produce a single argument against woman suffrage that will hold water, and the thing that is rousing the women of this land continually and making them realize that our Government visits upon us a daily injustice is that the doors of our ports are left wide open and the men of all the nations on earth are permitted to enter and receive the franchise. In New York City women must ask for it in twenty-four languages....

Walter M. Chandler of New York City, a member of the committee, asked Mrs. Catt if she thought a Representative should vote against the mandate of his district, which in his case had given a majority of 2,000 against a State amendment in November, although he himself had spoken and voted for it. A spirited dialogue followed which filled several pages of the printed report, Mrs. Catt insisting that he should stand by the broad principle of justice and Mr. Chandler equally insistent that he must represent his constituents. As Dr. Shaw rose to return to the convention Mr. Carlin of Virginia said: "Dr. Shaw, would you mind explaining to this committee the essential difference between this organization known as the National Woman Suffrage Association and the Congressional Union? There is a great deal of confusion among the members of the committee as to just what is the difference between them," and she answered:

It is, perhaps, like two different political parties, which believe in different procedure. The National Woman Suffrage Association has two fundamental ideas--to secure the suffrage through State and national constitutions--and we appeal both to Congress and to the States. The Congressional Union, as I understand it, appeals only to the Congress. Another essential difference is that the policy of the Union is to hold the party in power responsible for the acts of Congress, whether they are acts of that party by itself or of the whole Congress. They follow a partisan method of attacking the political party in power, whether the members of it are friendly to the woman-suffrage movement or not. For instance, Senator Thomas of Colorado, Senator Chamberlain of Oregon and other Senators and Representatives who have always been favorable to our movement and have aided us all the way along, have been attacked by this Union not because of their personal attitude toward our question but because of the attitude of their party. The National Suffrage Association pursues a non-partisan method, attacking no political party. If we could defeat a member of any political party who persistently opposed our measure we would do it, whether in the Republican or the Democratic or any other, but would never hold any party responsible for the acts of its individual members.

Many other questions were asked, the committee seeming incredulous that suffragists would fight the re-election of their friends. The next speaker was Miss Alice Stone Blackwell whose address consisted in a solid array of facts and figures that were absolutely unanswerable. As the daughter of Lucy Stone and editor of the Woman's Journal from girlhood she was fortified beyond all others with information as to the progress of woman suffrage; the connection of the liquor interests with its many defeats; the statistics of the votes that had been taken and all phases of the subject. Mrs. Harriet Stokes Thompson, an educator and social worker of Chicago, said in part:

I wish to make my appeal this morning to both your intellect and your sympathies when I speak to you in behalf of the nine million women who are out today assuming their part in the industrial world. These women who are working in the shops and factories have simply followed the evolution of industry. It is not that they have entered into man's work at all, because they are doing what they formerly did in their homes, and I am asking today that you give to them power to protect themselves. Those girls working there now are the mothers of the generation to come and that they may be well protected in their hours of labor, in the conditions under which they work, that they may become mothers of healthy children in the future, we are asking that they may speak with authority through legislative chambers.... I wish to appeal to you, too, for another large group of women, the teachers of the United States. I myself am one of those who stand before the children of this great nation day after day. The teachers should be made citizens in order that they may keep both the letter and the spirit of this democratic country in their teachings. I have lived in my own State to know the difference in the spirit with which you teach citizenship when you yourself are a citizen. A slave cannot teach freedom, cannot comprehend the spirit of freedom; neither can a woman who is not a citizen comprehend the spirit of true citizenship. The teachers of Illinois since they were enfranchised have come to their work with a new life, a new zest and a new responsibility and we expect to send the boys out with a finer appreciation of what it means to render public service to a whole community and not a fraction of it. We also recognize the fact that our men are feeling that in every good work which they undertake a great help has been given to them.

Mrs. George Bass, whose address is quoted in the report of the Senate hearing in this chapter, gave a valuable resume of the civic and legal reforms which already the women of Illinois had been able to accomplish with their votes and answered a number of questions. Miss Ruutz-Rees spoke along the lines of her speech before the Senate Committee, as did Mrs. Pattie Ruffner Jacobs, who made a strong appeal in the name of southern women for the Federal Amendment. She was subjected to a crossfire of questions from the southern members and Chairman Webb asked the question which many times afterwards came back to plague him: "Do you not think that as soon as you have a big enough majority of women in Alabama who want suffrage you will get it from the State and that you ought not come here bothering Congress about something that it should not, under our form of government, take jurisdiction of?" She answered: "I am very regretful that you have been bothered." During the questions and answers that followed Mrs. Jacobs brought forward the unjust laws of South Carolina and Alabama for working women and for all women and said: "The southern man still prefers to think of the southern women as the sheltered, protected beings he would like to have them and he does not realize that now they are the exploited class." Representatives Whaley of South Carolina and Tribble of Georgia denied her statements and afterwards put into the Record statistics attempting to disprove them.

In the paper presented by Mrs. Medill McCormick, chairman of the Congressional Committee, she showed the excellent work that had been done by its branches organized in the congressional districts; the pressure on members of Congress by their constituents; the favorable resolutions that had been passed by organizations and meetings representing hundreds of thousands and closed: "I wonder whether you gentlemen of the committee have computed the number of votes that are now behind the woman suffrage movement in this country? I do not mean the votes of women in the equal suffrage States alone, I mean the popular voting strength as shown at the polls all over the country. Nearly 1,250,000 votes were cast for woman suffrage in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Massachusetts this fall. Nearly 800,000 were cast in Ohio, Missouri, the Dakotas and Nebraska last fall, besides the popular vote of the equal suffrage States and Illinois. The total of these figures from twenty-one States is 6,400,000--that is, 191,000 more than were cast for President Wilson in forty-eight States. Would Congress fail to recognize such voting strength upon any other issue?

* * * * *

The rest of the time was given to the Congressional Union, its chairman, Miss Alice Paul, presiding. The speakers were Mrs. Andreas Ueland, president of the Minnesota Suffrage Association; Miss Mabel Vernon of Nevada; Mrs. Jennie Law Hardy, an Australian residing in Michigan; Mrs. Florence Bayard Hilles of Delaware; Miss Helen Todd, Miss Frances Jolliffe and Mrs. Sara Bard Field of California. The first two speakers proceeded without interruption but when Mrs. Hardy said that by marrying in the United States she found herself disfranchised, the committee woke up. After questioning her on this point Mr. Steele of Pennsylvania asked her how she accounted for the large defeat the second time the suffrage amendment was submitted in Michigan and she answered: "I account for it partly by the fact that this was the only State having a campaign that year and the whole opposition was centered there. The liquor interests themselves admitted that they spent a million dollars to defeat it."

The address of Mrs. Hilles also brought out a flood of questions, which, with the answers made by Miss Paul, filled four printed pages of the official report. They began with requests for information about the difficulties of amending State constitutions but soon centered on the campaign of the Union against the Democrats in 1914 and this line was followed throughout the rest of the hearing, the Federal Amendment being largely lost sight of. The members showed deep personal resentment. For example:

Mr. Taggart (Kan.). Your organization spent a lot of time and money trying to defeat men on this committee that you are now before, did it not?

Miss Paul. We went out into the suffrage States and told the women voters what was done to the suffrage amendment by the last Congress.

Mr. Taggart. We have before us a joint suffrage resolution by Mr. Taylor of Colorado. You tried to defeat him, did you not?

Miss Paul. The suffrage amendment was not brought to a vote in the House until after we went to the West.

Mr. Taggart. You tried to defeat the man in the House who presented this resolution which you are having hearings for, did you not?

Miss Paul. What we did was to go to the Rules Committee, a Democratic committee, to ask that this measure be reported out and brought to a vote; when the committee had refused to do this we went out into the suffrage States of the West and told the women voters how the bill was being blocked at Washington. As soon as we did that they stopped blocking and the bill was brought up before the House for the first time in history.

Mr. Taggart. That was after the election?

Miss Paul. Yes.

Mr. Taggart. You are aware that more Democrats voted for it than men of any other party?

Miss Paul. We are aware that the Democrats met in caucus and decided that woman suffrage should not be brought up in the House and after we went out into the West they brought it up. We went out to tell the women voters about the way some of their Representatives were treating the matter.

Mr. Taggart. And with this result--that in the suffrage State of Colorado Senator Thomas, a Democrat, was re-elected to succeed himself; in the suffrage State of Arizona, Senator Smith, a Democrat, was re-elected to succeed himself; in the suffrage State of California a Democrat was elected to succeed a Republican; in the suffrage State of Washington the House was reinforced by one Democrat, and in the suffrage State of Utah and in the suffrage State of Kansas Democrats were elected to reinforce the party. One Democrat only, Mr. Seldomridge of Colorado, was defeated, for the reason, he says, that his district has been gerrymandered; nevertheless, he came and voted for the amendment on the floor of the House. Why should you take such an interest in defeating Democratic Congressmen and Senators?

Miss Paul persisted that all the favorable action taken by Congress after the election of 1914 was because they campaigned against the Democrats, ignoring the fact that Nevada and Montana had enfranchised their women at that election and public sentiment was veering so rapidly in favor of woman suffrage as to compel both parties to regard it as a political issue. After the opening sentences of Miss Todd's speech it became a heated dialogue between her and the members of the committee.

Miss Paul said in introducing Miss Frances Jolliffe: "She is a strong Democrat who campaigned for President Wilson and Senator Phelan and is one of the envoys sent by the women's convention in San Francisco, at which there were present 10,000 people who bade her 'Godspeed' on this journey."[102] The beginning of her speech was as follows: "I am here as a messenger from the women voters of the West. Perhaps first I should offer my apologies to the minority for appearing at all; for, gentlemen, I did my level best to defeat the Republican candidate for the Senate last year and I think I did a good deal to defeat him when I went before the women and told them they could not send back----"

Mr. Volstead spoke quickly saying: "Will you pardon me an interruption? Was that the pay you gave the Republicans for giving you almost as many votes in the House as the Democrats gave you, and that despite the fact that the Democrats had a two-thirds majority in the House? That is, less than one-half of the vote in favor of your proposition came from the Democrats and more than five out of every six who voted against it were Democrats." The controversy kept up and when Mrs. Sara Bard Field, the other "envoy," commenced her speech she begged that she might finish it without interruption. Toward the close, however, the hearing became a free-for-all debating society, the discussion filling seven pages of the official report. Miss Paul's closing remarks caused the debate to be continued through another six pages. "Can you tell me what will be in the platform of the Democratic party in 1916?" she asked Chairman Webb. "I can tell you one plank that will not be in it and that is a plank in favor of woman suffrage," he answered. The retorts of the women were clever but both Republican and Democratic members of the committee were very much out of humor and not in a very good frame of mind to make a favorable report.

* * * * *

The hearing of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage followed immediately. Its president, Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge, said in opening their hearing: "We have come here today to ask you as a committee not to report this bill favorably to the House, because we consider that, in the first place, it is a question of State's rights. In the second place we consider that the women, as represented by their men--good, bad and indifferent, honest or venal--should be heard through the men who represent them at the present time and whom the majority of women are still perfectly willing to have represent them." She then showed how much larger the majorities were which had voted against woman suffrage than for it. The speakers were Miss Emily P. Bissell of Delaware; Mrs. O. D. Oliphant of the New Jersey association; Mrs. James Wells of the Texas association; Miss Lucy J. Price of the Cleveland branch; Mrs. A. J. George of the Massachusetts association. The Judiciary Committee was in an argumentative mood and began with Mrs. Dodge as follows:

Mr. Dyer (Mo.). What is the position of your organization with reference to the question of whether or not women should have the right to vote at all? Are you in favor of women voting?

Mrs. Dodge. We are in opposition to woman suffrage generally. We have never opposed women voting in school matters; we think that is a perfectly legitimate line for them to vote upon. The only trouble is they do not vote upon those questions where authorized; only two per cent. of them do so.

Mr. Dyer. That is as far as you want them to go?

Mrs. Dodge. Yes; that is a perfectly legitimate line for them, we have always taken that position from the first, but that does not mean that women are to be drawn into politics and government and we only draw the line at their taking part in politics and government.

Mr. Dyer. I understand your position is that you favor submitting this question to the States directly.

Mrs. Dodge. Yes. We have always rather inclined to the idea that it should be submitted to the women themselves.[103] ...

Mr. Taggart. Would you say that it was just to require a woman to pay the income tax demanded by the government and then deny her the right to any voice as to who should be the Representative that voted that tax on her?

Mrs. Dodge. I certainly should. I have paid taxes in five States myself. I feel that I am entirely protected--that is what the tax is for. I think that taxpaying men are just as capable of taking care of my rights as of their own and I feel that I am justified in saying that the men can quite as well look after that which ought to be and is their business as I can.

Mr. Taggart asked: "Why should the women of Kansas have the vote when it is denied to those of other States who need it as much or more?" Mrs. Dodge answered: "We think the men in Kansas did not quite know what they were doing when they gave it to women and a great many thousands of women there wish they had not done so." "You are then opposed to having a State grant suffrage to its own women?" he asked. "Not at all," she replied. "Then why do you say the men did not know what they were about?" "I do not know whether a majority or a minority of the voters desired it," she said. "Well, it was a very large majority and I have never heard a regret expressed in the State that it was done," responded Mr. Taggart.

Mrs. Oliphant was held up because after saying that the women did not want the suffrage she argued against a Federal Amendment because if the women got it it would be very difficult to repeal it. Mr. Graham (Penn.) rushed to her relief by saying: "The line of thought is that 20 States, holding a minority of the population of the United States might pass this National Amendment over the protest of the larger States with the greater population." His attention was called by one of the committee to the fact that it would require 36 States. Mrs. Wells kept reminding the committee that she was an inexperienced speaker and knew nothing about politics but said: "I am a Catholic and a Democrat. I claim no knowledge of northern women but I cannot understand how southern women--I speak for them--can so far forget the memory of Thomas Jefferson and State's rights as to insist on having a minority of men in Congress pass this constitutional amendment against our desire." She was reminded that it required two-thirds of each House. She then told of opposing a suffrage resolution in the Texas Legislature some years before but neglected to tell of opposing one for prohibition also. Asked if women did not vote at school elections in Texas she answered: "I do not know because I know nothing about politics."

Miss Price was a shrewd speaker and guarded her position but before she had finished the members of the committee themselves were making speeches for or against woman suffrage. The speech of Mrs. George of Massachusetts with its statistics filled fifteen closely printed pages of the stenographic report. It was an argument for State's rights which would have done credit to the most extreme southerner and she protected her defenses against the volley of questions that were kept up until time for the committee to adjourn.

The anti-suffragists had wisely refrained this year from bringing any of their male advocates but the latter did not intend to be left out and they obtained a hearing six weeks later on February 1. Franklin Carter, secretary of the Man Suffrage Association of New York City, told the committee he could "get through in half an hour," which was granted. He consumed over an hour, the official report showing that after the first few sentences there were not more than three or four without an interruption from the committee and the "heckling" continued through seventeen interesting printed pages. Mr. Carter, who said he received a salary of $100 a month and had expended between $6,000 and $7,000 during the recent New York amendment campaign, was at last obliged to submit what he had to say in the form of a "brief," which filled six closely printed pages. He was followed by Paul Littlefield representing the Men's Campaign Committee of the Pennsylvania Women's Anti-Suffrage Association. His experience was more disconcerting than that of Mr. Carter, who had freely stated the expenditures of his association and his own salary while Mr. Littlefield refused any information on these and other points. He brought a message from Mrs. Horace Brock, president of the association, saying: "The women of our State trust the men to legislate wisely and justly for them, and the ideas of chivalry which have existed for a thousand years are the great bulwark surrounding and protecting women, upon which, because of their lack of physical strength, they must rely for safety and happiness." His grilling filled twelve printed pages of the report. Mr. Stone asked permission to get a "brief" from the chairman of the Massachusetts Man Suffrage Association, Robert Turner, which would clear up many matters. His own recollection was that the expenditures of that association in the 1915 campaign were $54,000. Mr. Littlefield then relented and said that the Pennsylvania men's committee spent $20,000 on the campaign. Mr. Turner's "brief" of 5,000 words was afterwards submitted but did not mention expenditures.

FOOTNOTES:

[99] Call: In the long years of work for equal suffrage none has been so crowded with self-sacrificing labor for the cause as this one and no year so significant of its early ultimate triumph. As we issue this Call four great campaigns for equal suffrage are in progress in four eastern States. Thousands of women are working with voice and pen and tens of thousands are contributing in time and money to win political freedom for women in these States. Other States are rapidly preparing for active campaigns in 1916. At the same time the National Association is putting forth the strongest efforts to win nation-wide suffrage through the passage of its historic Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

We shall come together at this, our forty-seventh annual convention, larger in numbers, more united in spirit and effort, more assured of early success than ever before....and, with renewed zeal and inspiration, rejoicing that the long struggle for the new freedom for women is nearing an end. Public opinion for equal suffrage has increased a hundredfold in this fateful year. It seems borne in upon the most conservative that it is only a matter of time when nation-wide political freedom will be granted to women as an inevitable outcome of our democracy and the last step in the great experiment of self-government....

ANNA HOWARD SHAW, President. KATHARINE DEXTER MCCORMICK, First Vice-President. NELLIE NUGENT SOMERVILLE, Second Vice-President. KATHARINE BEMENT DAVIS, Third Vice-President. NELLIE SAWYER CLARK, Corresponding Secretary. SUSAN WALKER FITZGERALD, Recording Secretary. EMMA WINNER ROGERS, Treasurer. HELEN GUTHRIE MILLER,} Auditors. RUTH HANNA MCCORMICK,}

[100] Although Dr. Shaw was but sixty-eight years old and in perfect health she afterwards asked the custodians of this fund--George Foster Peabody, James Lees Laidlaw and Norman de R. Whitehouse, New York bankers--to hold it in trust, paying her only the annuity each year and giving her the right to dispose of it at her death in some way to advance the cause of woman suffrage, which was done.

[101] The speakers were Mrs. William Spencer Murray, secretary of the Women's Political Union of Connecticut; Mrs. Annie G. Porritt, press chairman of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association; Mrs. Dana Durand of Minnesota; Miss Julia Hurlburt, vice-chairman of the Women's Political Union of New Jersey; Mrs. Agnes Jenks, president of the Rhode Island W. S. A.; Mrs. Alden H. Potter, chairman of the Congressional Union in Minnesota; Mrs. Glendower Evans, member of the Minimum Wage Commission of Massachusetts; Mrs. R. H. Ashbaugh, president of the Michigan Federation of Women's Clubs; Mrs. James Rector, vice-chairman of the C. U. of Ohio; Mrs. Cyrus Mead of the Ohio C. U.

[102] The automobile started from the Exposition and there were possibly more than that many people on the grounds. As its departure had been widely advertised and was made a spectacular event a large crowd was at the gate.

[103] For the last twenty years the members of the Anti-Suffrage Association had appeared regularly before committees of Legislatures in various States to oppose the submission of the question to the voters, picturing the injury it would be to the community and to the women. They had never in any State made the slightest effort to have it submitted to women themselves. The School suffrage was granted in most of the States before they had any organization but they went before a committee in the New York Legislature to oppose women on school boards.

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