XVI. NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1916
The year 1916 marked a turning point in the sixty-year-old struggle for woman suffrage. Large delegations of women had attended the Republican and Democratic National Conventions during the summer and for the first time each of them had put into its platform an unequivocal declaration in favor of suffrage for women; the Progressive, Socialist and Prohibition platforms contained similar planks, the last three declaring for a Federal Amendment. It had become one of the leading political issues of the day and a subject of nation-wide interest. The president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, quickly recognized the situation and saw that its official action must not be deferred until the usual time for its annual convention which would be after the presidential elections, therefore the Board of Officers issued a call for an Emergency Convention to meet in Atlantic City, N. J., Sept. 4-10, 1916.[104] The members throughout the country were much surprised but welcomed the opportunity to visit this beautiful ocean resort. The headquarters were in the famous Hotel Marlborough-Blenheim and after the first day the sessions were held in the large New Nixon Theater on the Board Walk.
After two days of executive meetings the Forty-eighth annual convention opened the morning of September 6 in the handsome St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church, granted by the trustees and pastor, with an invocation by the latter, the Rev. A. H. Lucas. Mayor Harry Backarach gave a cordial address of welcome, ending by presenting to Mrs. Catt, who was in the chair, a huge "key to the city and to our hearts" tied with ribbons of blue and gold, the colors of the association. Members of the Board made their official reports at this and other meetings and all were valuable and interesting but space permits only a brief mention of most of them. Miss Hannah J. Patterson (Penn.), corresponding secretary and chairman of organization, told of the division of the national work into six departments with a national officer at the head of each and of moving the national headquarters from 505 Fifth Avenue, corner of 42nd Street, New York, where they had been since 1909, into much larger offices at 171 Madison Avenue, corner of 33rd Street. An entire floor was rented with 3,800 square feet of space, nearly 1,000 more than in the old location. The Publishing Company took part of this, the association retaining ten rooms. Miss Patterson told of the thorough organization work being done under fourteen organizers, who had covered twelve States. She spoke of the need of training schools for organizers and told of the value of combining all departments, data, literature, publishing, organizing, etc., under headquarters management.
Miss Esther G. Ogden (N. J.), third vice-president and head of the Publishing Company, told of doing field work in Colorado and California to interest their women in the demonstrations which were being planned for the political conventions. She spoke of the large correspondence in connection with the trip of the little "golden flier," saying:
This tour was undertaken by Miss Alice Burke and Miss Nell Richardson, who left New York April 6 to make a circuit of the United States in the interest of the National Association and the cause of suffrage. The Saxon Motor Company donated the car, while the association arranged for entertainment for Miss Burke and Miss Richardson along the route and for expenses over and above the collections taken at their meetings, of which they have held one a day in the closely settled States. They reached San Francisco early in June and are now on their way east. From each State through which they have passed we have had appreciative letters of their endurance and courage as automobilists and of their worth as public speakers. They have suffered actual privations crossing the desert and more recently in the Bad Lands of the northwest. They were on the Mexican border during the raids and their car had to be pulled out of rivers during the floods; their courage has never faltered and they have given another proof of the well-known fact that you can't discourage a suffragist. They set out to make a circuit of the United States with the same determination that we all have set out to win our enfranchisement and they will not give up until the circuit is made. So far nineteen States have been included in the itinerary and it is planned to cover six more. The newspaper publicity has been nation-wide....
Later Miss Ogden made her report for the National Woman Suffrage Publishing Company. "We exist," she said, "for two purposes--to serve the suffrage cause throughout the country and to prove that we can serve that cause and also develop a successful business." She spoke of the devoted office staff, under the business manager, Miss Anna De Baun, who had made personal sacrifices again and again when necessary.
The report of the recording secretary, Mrs. Mary Foulke Morrisson (Ills.), to whom had been entrusted the organization of the great parade of suffragists during the National Republican Convention in Chicago and especially its financing, stated that $6,699 had been raised by the State and Chicago Equal Suffrage Associations; $200 by the Chicago Political Equality League and some hundreds of dollars by local leagues and individuals. She paid high tribute to the unwearying work of Mrs. Medill McCormick, who, speaking and organizing in the city and outlying towns "won the support of whole sections of the community that had hitherto been utterly indifferent." Mrs. Morrisson herself had spoken fifty times in the interest of the parade in Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Iowa and the Mississippi Valley Conference.
The report of the national treasurer, Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers, was received with much appreciation of her money-getting ability and satisfactory accounting. The total receipts for the year were $81,863 and the close of the fiscal year found a balance on hand of $8,869. The largest contributions had been $500 each from the State associations of Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The National College Equal Suffrage League gave $450. The expenditures in round numbers were: Headquarters, including salaries, expenses of conventions, etc., $16,531; publicity, $9,096; National Congressional Committee, $4,676; publishing News Letter, $982; contributions to campaigns, $21,131; demonstrations, organization, etc., $20,000.
In commenting Mrs. Rogers said: "Nothing to my mind indicates so vividly the progress of equal suffrage as the comparative ease with which the largest budget in the history of the National Association was pledged and most of it paid by August 25, and the fact that an excess of that budget amounting to many thousands of dollars has been raised three months before the usual convention date. 'Money talks' and it is saying this year: 'No cause in which I could be used appeals to me as does this fundamental one of enfranchising women, of opening the door to let them enter and help to make a more Christian civilization.' Literally we have had only to ask and it has been given unto us. Scores and hundreds of women in sending their generous gifts have said: 'Would that my check were ten times as large!' The wonderful spirit of kindliness and ardent desire to cooperate have touched the treasurer's heart deeply and made the work of the passing year a real joy. I am confident that all necessary funds for suffrage expenditures--national, State and local--can be raised, even to a million dollars, if more systematic work is done on the financial side in the States...." Mrs. Rogers outlined the business methods that should be used and expressed her obligations to her committee of fifty on finance for their helpful support.
Mrs. Walter McNab Miller (Mo.), first auditor, in the report of her field work told of days, weeks and months spent in visiting cities from New York to St. Louis, holding conferences and meetings and writing hundreds of letters to raise money and arrange for the demonstration to be held in St. Louis during the Democratic National Convention--the "walkless parade," to which the Missouri Suffrage Association contributed nearly $2,000. She attended State suffrage and political conventions and the biennial of the General Federation of Women's Clubs in New York. "And then came Chicago," the report said, "with its exciting surge, its march in the rain and its near-victory plank, followed by St. Louis with its 'golden lane' of suffragists and a plank a little less pleasing; another trip to Indianapolis with our Chief--and the most momentous June in suffrage history was over." The report told of the journey to Cheyenne to attend the Council of Women Voters; the addresses of the present Democratic Governor Kendrick and the former Republican Governor and U. S. Senator Carey; the two days at the State University in Laramie, "the guest of one of the best-known suffragists in the State, Professor Grace Raymond Hebard"; the visit in Denver, "asking questions and being interviewed." "All of this," she said, "sent me back firmly convinced that the western women want to help us in our battle and only wait for a definite program of work."
The second auditor, Mrs. Pattie Ruffner Jacobs (Ala.), in the report of her field work showed an equally full schedule. She had been present at every board meeting but one, of which she was notified too late; as a member of the Congressional Committee had assisted with the lobby work in Washington; had attended a three-days' State conference in Nashville and spoken three times; the Mississippi State convention and spoken twice; spoken in Savannah and Asheville and at the May-day celebration of the Nashville League; attended the Chicago and St. Louis demonstrations and spent the intervening times in raising the money to meet her pledge of $2,000 for her State to the National Association.
Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick, chairman of the Press Department, stated that this was largely a nominal position, as the practical work was done by professionals and would be related in the report from the Publicity department. The reports of the national officers were concluded by that of Mrs. Catt, chairman of the Campaign and Survey Committee, a new feature of the association. It began: "For the purpose of making a survey of suffrage conditions throughout the nation, either an officer of the National Board or some person or persons representing the Board have visited nearly every State in the Union. I have myself visited twenty-three States; Miss Hauser and Miss Walker visited nine enfranchised States; Mrs. Miller, Mrs. Jacobs, Mrs. Morrisson and Mrs. Rogers have each visited several; Mrs. Roessing and Miss Patterson have made a number of trips to West Virginia. Our chief motive was to learn conditions. To corroborate our impressions questionnaires were sent to all the State associations in January and again in July. As a result of the information obtained the National Board is convinced that our movement has reached a crisis which if recognized will open the way to a speedy and final victory."
Mrs. Catt expressed the belief that in the future a better understanding between national and State boards would be possible and spoke of the visits of herself and other national officers to West Virginia and South Dakota, where woman suffrage amendments would be voted on in November. She then took up the case of Iowa, where one had been defeated the past June, and made an analysis of a situation which had existed here and in nearly all States where defeats had taken place as follows:
When the present Board came into office, Iowa was in campaign and but a few months remained for work. In January I met with the State Board and we counselled together concerning the needs of the campaign; later I met with it on three different occasions and gave one month to speaking in the State. The National Board contributed $5,000 to the campaign from the legacy of Mary J. Coggeshall of Iowa and gave one organizer from January 1 until the vote was taken. It also sent speakers and workers toward the end of the campaign. The various States contributed generously through the national treasury.
The campaign came up splendidly at the last. Men, I believe, supported it more earnestly than they have done in other States. One of the best press bureaus any State has had, under the direction of Mrs. Rose Lawless Geyer, was at work for some months. The able president, Miss Flora Dunlap, gave all her time and ability. There were many brilliant forays which were truly effective, but nothing could overcome a weakness which has appeared in every campaign and that is the inability of newly-formed, untrained committees to put speakers and workers to the best use. It will be the case in every campaign that, near the end, weak spots must be reinforced by outside experienced workers. Another difficulty was that money-raising was left to the close of the campaign when all the efforts of workers were demanded by other duties. This has been the trouble in most States. The lesson we must learn is that at the beginning a money-raising plan must be formed and carried out and pledges must be made to cover the major portion of the cost before the real campaign is begun. Toward the close there are many things which ought to be done but are left undone for want of money. State committees grow timid because they do not see the money in sight and naturally trim their budgets to the point which renders defeat inevitable.
Iowa, like every other State, showed opposition from the "wets," tricks of politicians and the rounding up of every drunkard and outcast to vote against the amendment. The unprecedented result was that 35,000 more votes were cast on the suffrage proposition than on the Governor. This could only have been brought about by inducements of some sort which were made to the lowest elements of the population. This story differs in coloring and detail with each campaign but varies little as to general fact. It must be borne in mind and our campaigns must be so good that these purchasable and controllable elements will be outvoted.
A number of men worked against the amendment in Iowa and men are working at this time in South Dakota and West Virginia. Who employs or pays these men we have never been able to discover. Their ordinary method is to secure strictly private meetings of men only, where they spread the basest of untruths. All past campaigns point to the necessity of waging those of the future with a distinct understanding that the worst elements of the population will be lined up by this unscrupulous, well-supported, combined opposition of men and of women. The women appeal to the respectable elements of the community; the men make little pretense in this direction. There is a sure alliance between the two.
The first public session was held Thursday afternoon and the delegates looked forward with keen enjoyment to the "three-cornered debate" on what had become a paramount question. Mrs. Catt was in the chair. Each leader was to have ten minutes and her second five minutes to speak in the affirmative only; when the six had presented their arguments there was to be free discussion from the floor, and, after all who had wished had spoken, each leader would have ten minutes to answer the opposition to her point of view. The program was as follows:
Shall the National American Woman Suffrage Association drop work on the Federal Amendment and confine its activities to State legislation? Leader, Miss Laura Clay, Kentucky; second, Miss Kate Gordon, Louisiana.
Shall the National American Woman Suffrage Association drop work for State Referenda and concentrate on the Federal Amendment? Leader, Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, New York; second, Mrs. Glendower Evans, Massachusetts.
Shall the present policy of the National American Woman Suffrage Association to work for woman suffrage "by appropriate National and State legislation" be continued? Leader, Mrs. Raymond Brown, New York; second, Miss Florence Allen, Ohio.
The alternative amendments to the constitution will then be put: I. To strike out the words "National and." II. To strike out the words "and State." If both are lost, the constitution will remain as it is and the National American Woman Suffrage Association will stand pledged to both Federal and State campaigns.
The speakers presented their arguments with great earnestness; the discussion was vigorously carried on and the rebuttals were made with much spirit. By request the honorary president, Dr. Shaw, who was sitting on the platform, closed the debate and she strongly urged that there should be no change in the policy of the association. The convention voted overwhelmingly in favor of continuing to work for both National and State constitutional amendments, nearly all of the southern delegates joining in this vote. Mrs. Harper then rose to a question of personal privilege and said that she should consider it a great calamity for the association to discontinue its work for State amendments and that she only took the opposite side at the urgent request of Mrs. Catt, with the promise that she should be permitted to make this explanation. Mrs. Evans made a similar statement and the audience, which had been mystified by their position, had a hearty laugh. This debate and the vote of the convention restored the association to its position of standing for the original Federal Suffrage Amendment and working for amendments of State constitutions as a means to this end.
In the evening a brilliant reception for the officers and delegates was given in the large drawing-room of the Marlborough-Blenheim by the Atlantic City Woman Suffrage Club and the New Jersey State Association.
The convention was opened in the New Nixon Theater Thursday morning with prayer by the Rev. Thomas J. Cross, pastor of the Chelsea Baptist Church, and much routine business was disposed of. The constitution was changed so as to exclude from membership all organizations not in harmony with the policy of the association and the term of the officers was extended from one to two years. A unique program was carried out in the afternoon under the direction of the second vice-president, Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick--The Handicapped States, a Concrete Lesson in Constitutions. The States whose constitutions practically could not be amended were grouped under these heads: The Impossibles; The Insuperables; The Inexecutables; The Improbables; The Indubitables; The Inexcusables; The Irreproachables. Each group was represented by one or more women who quoted from the constitutions. It was intended as an object lesson to show the necessity for a Federal Amendment.
At 3:30 Mrs. Catt began her president's address before an audience that filled the large theater and listened with intense interest until the last word was spoken at five o'clock. It was a masterly review of the movement for woman suffrage and a program for the work now necessary to bring it to a successful end. The opening sentences were as follows:
I have taken for my subject, "The Crisis," because I believe that a crisis has come in our movement which, if recognized and the opportunity seized with vigor, enthusiasm and will, means the final victory of our great cause in the very near future. I am aware that some suffragists do not share in this belief; they see no signs nor symptoms today which were not present yesterday; no manifestations in the year 1916 which differ significantly from those in the year 1910. To them, the movement has been a steady, normal growth from the beginning and must so continue until the end. I can only defend my claim with the plea that it is better to imagine a crisis where none exists than to fail to recognize one when it comes, for a crisis is a culmination of events which calls for new considerations and new decisions. A failure to answer the call may mean an opportunity lost, a possible victory postponed....
This address, coming at the moment when woman suffrage was accepted as inevitable by the President of the United States and all the political parties, was regarded as the key-note of the beginning of a campaign which would end in victory. In pamphlet form it was used as a highly valued campaign document.
Mrs. Catt showed the impossibility of securing suffrage for all the women of the country by the State method and pointed out that the Federal Amendment was the one and only way. "Our cause has been caught in a snarl of constitutional obstructions and inadequate election laws," she said, after drawing upon her own experience to show the hazards of State referenda, and we have a right to appeal to our Congress to extricate it from this tangle. If there is any chivalry left this is the time for it to come forward and do an act of simple justice. In my judgment the women of this land not only have the right to sit on the steps of Congress until it acts but it is their self-respecting duty to insist upon their enfranchisement by that route.... Were there never another convert made there are suffragists enough in this country, if combined, to make so irresistible a driving force that victory might be seized at once. How can it be done? By a simple change of mental attitude. If you are to seize the victory, that change must take place in this hall, here and now. The crisis is here, but if the call goes unheeded, if our women think it means the vote without a struggle, if they think other women can and will pay the price of their emancipation, the hour may pass and our political liberty may not be won.... The character of a man is measured by his will. The same is true of a movement. Then will to be free." The address made a deep impression and was accepted as a call to arms.
Throughout the convention open-air meetings were held on the Boardwalk addressed by popular suffrage speakers and thousands in the great crowds that throng this noted thoroughfare were interested listeners. The Friday morning session was enlivened by a resolution offered by Mrs. Raymond Robins, which said that this Emergency Convention had been called to plan for the final steps which would lead to nation-wide enfranchisement of women; that the method of amending State constitutions meant long delay; that many national candidates in all parties had declared in favor of a Federal Amendment, and therefore the delegates in this convention urged that in the present campaign suffragists should support for national office only those candidates who pledged their support to this amendment. The delegates quickly recognized that this meant to endorse Judge Charles Evans Hughes for president, although President Wilson was to address the convention that evening. Party feeling ran high but still stronger was the determination of the convention that the association should not depart from its policy of absolute non-partisanship. Motions were made and amendments offered and the discussion raged for two hours. Dr. Shaw spoke strongly against the resolution and finally it was defeated by a large majority. Later Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch of Chicago offered a resolution which after several amendments read: "We re-affirm our non-partisan attitude concerning national political parties but this policy does not preclude the right of any member to work against any candidate who opposes woman suffrage, nor shall it refer to the personal attitude of enfranchised women." This was carried enthusiastically. A resolution by Mrs. J. Claude Bedford (Penn.) for a vigorous publicity campaign to make clear the association's non-partisan policy was passed.
There had been such marked increase of public opinion in favor of woman suffrage in the southern States and so many of their able women had come into the association that a "Dixie evening" had been arranged. Mrs. Catt presided and the following program was presented: Master Words--Mrs. Minnie Fisher Cunningham, president Texas Woman Suffrage Association; Kentucky and Her Constitution--Mrs. Thomas Jefferson Smith, president Kentucky Equal Rights Association; The Evolution of Woman--Mrs. Eugene Reilley, vice-president General Federation of Women's Clubs and vice-president North Carolina Woman Suffrage Association; Progress of Today and Traditions of Yesterday--Mrs. Edward McGehee, president Mississippi Federation of Women's Clubs; For Woman Herself--Mrs. Lila Mead Valentine, president Virginia Equal Suffrage League; The Southern Temperament as Related to Woman Suffrage--Mrs. Guilford Dudley, president Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association, Inc.; Real Americanism--Mrs. T. T. Cotnam, vice-president Arkansas Woman Suffrage Association. Southern women have a natural gift of oratory and the audience was delightfully entertained. But three of these addresses were published and space can be given only to brief extracts.
"There is in America today," Mrs. Cotnam said, "a large class of people who are restless and dissatisfied and are smarting under the injustice of being governed without their consent. This is a class with the blood of the Pilgrim mothers in their veins--of those who cheerfully endured untold hardships as the price of liberty; a class with the blood of the Revolutionary fathers in their veins--of those who gave their lives that their children might be free; a class who are the rightful joint heirs with all the people of the United States of the heritage of freedom but whose inheritance after 140 years is still kept 'in trust.'" She referred to the anxiety of Congress "to make the Filipinos a self-governing people after only a few years of American tutelage while 140 years have not been enough to equip American women for self-government," and said: "Political leaders say America is 'the waymark of all people seeking liberty' and yet one-half of the American people have never known liberty. They promise justice to the oppressed of every land who are seeking refuge and practice injustice against one-half of those whose homes have always been here. Every citizen of the United States is jealous of her standing among the nations and just now each political party is claiming to be the only worthy custodian of national honor. It is with amazement we read the arraignment of one party by another and note that in no instance have they taken each other to task for injustice to American women which violates the fundamental principle of democracy, 'Equal rights for all, special privileges to none.' ... Americanism--it stands for the recognition of the equality of men and women before the law of man as they are equal before the law of God. Americanism--it stands for truth triumphant. Americanism--it will find its full realization when men and women meet upon a plane of equal rights with a united desire to maintain peace, to guard the nation's honor, to advance prosperity and to secure the happiness of the people."
"We are a race of dreamers in the South by choice and because of climatic conditions," said Mrs. Guilford Dudley in an eloquent address. After a keenly sarcastic comparison between southern chivalry and the unjust laws for women, and the observation that "the only business a southern girl is taught is the business of hearts," she said:
As long as it was a question of woman's rights; as long as the fight had any appearance of being against man; as long as there seemed to be a vestige of sex antagonism, the southern woman stood with her back turned squarely toward the cause. She wouldn't even turn around to look at it, she would have none of it, but when she awoke slowly to a social consciousness, when eyes and brain were at last free, after a terrible reconstruction period, to look out upon the world as a whole; when she found particularly among the more fortunate classes that her leisure had come to mean laziness; when she realized that through the changed conditions of modern life so much of her work had been taken out of the home, leaving her to choose between following it into the world or remaining idle; when with a clearer vision she saw that her help in governmental affairs, especially where they touched her own interests, was much needed--right about face she turned and said to the southern man: "I don't wish to usurp your place in government but it is time I had my own. I don't complain of the way you have conducted your part of the business but my part has been either badly managed or not managed at all. In the past you have not shown yourself averse to accepting my help in very serious matters; my courage and fortitude and wisdom you have continually praised. Now that there is a closer connection between the government and the home than ever before in the history of the world, I ask that you will let me help you."
Mrs. Dudley described the effect of the demand for woman suffrage on the politicians, on the men who feared they would be "reformed," on the sentimentalists, and then she paid tribute to the broad-minded, justice-loving men who encouraged the women in their new aspirations and concluded: "So you see not only the southern woman but the southern man is now awake and present conditions strongly indicate that before another year has passed we will have some form of suffrage for the woman of Tennessee.... We have had a vision--a vision of a time when a woman's home will be the whole wide world, her children all those whose feet are bare and her sisters all who need a helping hand; a vision of a new knighthood, a new chivalry, when men will not only fight for women but for the rights of women."
The plea of Mrs. Valentine for a higher womanhood should be given in full but an idea at least can be gained by a quotation:
If I were asked to give one reason above all others for advocating the enfranchisement of women I should unhesitatingly reply, "The necessity for the complete development of woman as a prerequisite for the highest development of the race." Just so long as woman remains under guardianship, as if she were a minor or an incompetent--just so long as she passively accepts at the hands of men conditions, usages, laws, as if they were decrees of Providence--just so long as she is deprived of the educative responsibilities of self-government--by just so much does she fall short of complete development as a human being and retard the progress of the race. We are the children of our mothers as well as of our fathers and we inherit the defects as well as the perfections of both. Many a man goes down in his business--is a "failure in life," as the phrase goes--because he is the son of an undeveloped mother and, like her, is lacking in independence, in initiative, in ability to seize upon golden opportunities. Yet she was trained to passivity, to submission, to the obliteration of whatever personality she may have possessed. What more could we expect of her son? Imagine for a moment the effect upon men had they from infancy been subjected to the narrowing, ossifying processes applied to women for centuries!
Happily for the race, however, the great majority of women are waking from the sleep of centuries, are eagerly stretching out their hands for the key that is to open wide the door of larger opportunity. Happily, too, the forward-looking men of today are seeing the vision of womanhood released from the old-world thraldom. In rapidly increasing numbers they are welcoming the new woman, in whom they find not only the wife and mother more fully equipped for her task but a comrade of congenial tastes, keenly interested in the outside world and capable of taking her place beside the husband, whether in peace or war, wherever her country calls.... The suffrage movement is a world-wide protest against the mental subjection of woman. Therein lies its vital importance. It strikes deep into the core of life. It is a basic, fundamental reform, for it is releasing for the service of the State the unused natural resources dormant in womanhood; it is transforming the dependent woman into woman enfranchised that she may the more perfectly fulfill her destiny as the mother of the race.
The morning and afternoon sessions were crowded with reports, conferences and business of various kinds in which the delegates were keenly interested. Mrs. Grace Thompson Seton, chairman of the Art Publicity Committee, gave an interesting account of its work, told of the prizes that had been offered for posters and slogans and the cooperation of men and women prominent in the literary, artistic and social world; of the "teas" given at the national headquarters, bringing many who had never visited them before: of the beautiful banners and costumes designed for the suffrage parades and other features of this somewhat neglected side of the work for woman suffrage. The chairman of the Literature Committee, Mrs. Arthur L. Livermore, submitted a comprehensive report of the systematizing of that department, the classifying and cataloguing and the endeavor to ascertain and meet the varied demands. A Suffrage Study Outline, a Blue Book Suffrage School and Mrs. Annie G. Porritt's Laws Relating to Women and Children had been published; literature for the rural districts, for the home, for campaigns, placards, fliers and an endless number of novelties.
It would be impossible to give in a few paragraphs even an idea of the carefully prepared report of Mrs. Mary Sumner Boyd, the skilled head of the Data Department, which filled eight printed pages. It told of the progress that had been made in organizing the department, the wide scope of the collections and the increasing demand for information from many sources. It would be equally difficult to do justice to the sixteen printed pages of the report of Charles T. Heaslip, national publicity director. He had organized a publicity council, which thus far had members in twenty-six States. His full knowledge of the large syndicates had enabled him to keep the subject before the public throughout the country; he had made wide use of photographs, cartoons, posters and moving pictures. Hundreds of papers on the route of the "golden flier" had been supplied with pictures and stories. He had gone to Iowa to assist in the campaign there and he described also the large amount of publicity work done at the time the suffragists were making their national demonstrations during the presidential conventions in Chicago and St. Louis. He showed how victory could be hastened by thorough publicity work in every State from Maine to California. Later the Chair announced the receipt of a letter from the press, signed by representatives of nineteen newspapers at the convention, expressing their thanks to Mr. Heaslip and their hearty appreciation of his services, without which they could not have handled its press work in a satisfactory manner.
Under the topic How and Where to Drive the Entering Wedge, Miss Florence Allen of Ohio told of the openings offered by amending city charters for woman suffrage and Mrs. Roger G. Perkins described the successful campaign in East Cleveland for this purpose. The recent campaigns in West Virginia and South Dakota were discussed by the State presidents, Mrs. Ellis A. Yost and Mrs. John L. Pyle; that of Iowa by Mrs. Geyer, publicity director, and the work in Tennessee for a constitutional convention by Mrs. James M. McCormack, State president. The chairman of the Presidential Suffrage Committee, Mrs. Robert S. Huse (N. J.), reported that bills had been introduced in the Legislatures of New York, New Jersey, Kentucky and Rhode Island, public hearings being granted by the first three, but no vote was taken.
Is Limited Suffrage Worth While? was answered by Mrs. George Bass (Ills.) who declared it to be "a positive influence for good"; it was called by Mrs. Grace Wilbur Trout (Ills.) "a step toward full suffrage"; by Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton (Ohio) "a help to other States." Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch described "the chances opened by the Illinois law." It was the consensus of opinion that partial suffrage was quite worth striving for. This was directly opposed to that heretofore held by the association but in the past only a Municipal vote had been asked for and Kansas alone had granted it. Miss Laura Clay (Ky.) made a strong presentation of the Elections Bill, which would permit women to vote for members of Congress. What Kansas Thinks about Woman Suffrage was graphically told by Mrs. W. Y. Morgan, president of the State association. Help from the West was promised by Mrs. Emma Smith DeVoe (Wash.), president of the National Council of Women Voters.
The climax of the convention came on the evening of September 8 with the address of Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States. Only once before had a President appeared before a national suffrage convention--when William Howard Taft made a ten-minute speech of welcome to Washington in 1910 but without committing himself to the movement. When the present convention was called, after the endorsement of woman suffrage by the national conventions of all parties, the two leading candidates for President were invited to address it. Judge Hughes, who had declared in favor of the Federal Suffrage Amendment, answered that he would be too far away on a speaking tour to reach Atlantic City. President Wilson wrote that he would endeavor to arrange his itinerary so as to be present. Later he announced that he would come and would remain throughout the evening. Undoubtedly he never before faced such an audience. The greatest care had been taken to exclude all but delegates and invited guests and from the stage of the theater to the back stretched tier after tier of white-robed women, while the boxes were filled with prominent people, mostly women. As he came from the street to the stage with Mrs. Wilson, also gowned in white, he passed through a lane of suffragists, one from each State, designated by banners, with broad sashes of blue and gold across their breasts. He was accompanied by Private Secretary Tumulty and several distinguished men and the entire stage behind the decorations of palms and other plants was surrounded by a cordon of the secret service. Forty-three large newspapers throughout the country were represented at the reporters' table.
The President had asked to speak last and he listened with much interest to a program of noted public workers as follows: Why Women Need the Vote. The Call of the Working Woman for the Protection of the Woman's Vote--Mrs. Raymond Robins, president of National Women's Trades Union League. Mothers in Politics--Miss Julia Lathrop, chief of National Children's Bureau. A Necessary Safeguard to Public Morals--Dr. Katharine Bement Davis, Chief of Parole Commission, New York City. Working Children--Dr. Owen R. Lovejoy, general secretary of National Child Labor Committee. Each speaker emphasized the necessity for the enfranchisement of women as a means for the nation's highest welfare. Mrs. Catt was in the chair and introduced the President, who said with much earnestness and sincerity:
Madam President, Ladies of the Association: I have found it a real privilege to be here tonight and to listen to the addresses which you have heard. Though you may not all of you believe it, I would a great deal rather hear somebody else speak than speak myself, but I would feel that I was omitting a duty if I did not address you tonight and say some of the things that have been in my thoughts as I realized the approach of this evening and the duty that would fall upon me.
The astonishing thing about the movement which you represent is not that it has grown so slowly but that it has grown so rapidly. No doubt for those who have been a long time in the struggle, like your honored president, it seems a long and arduous path that has been trodden, but when you think of the cumulating force of the movement in recent decades you must agree with me that it is one of the most astonishing tides in modern history. Two generations ago--no doubt Madam President will agree with me in saying this--it was a handful of women who were fighting for this cause; now it is a great multitude of women who are fighting for it. There are some interesting historical connections which I should like to attempt to point out to you.
One of the most striking facts about the history of the United States is that at the outset it was a lawyers' history. Almost all of the questions to which America addressed itself, say a hundred years ago, were legal questions; were questions of methods, not questions of what you were going to do with your government but questions of how you were going to constitute your government; how you were going to balance the powers of the State and the Federal government; how you were going to balance the claims of property against the processes of liberty; how you were going to make up your government so as to balance the parts against each other, so that the Legislature would check the Executive and the Executive the Legislature. The idea of government when the United States became a nation was a mechanical conception and the mechanical conception which underlay it was the Newtonian theory of the universe. If you take up the Federalist you see that some parts of it read like a treatise on government. They speak of the centrifugal and centripetal forces and locate the President somewhere in a rotating system. The whole thing is a calculation of power and adjustment of parts. There was a time when nobody but a lawyer could know enough to run the government of the United States....
And then something happened. A great question arose in this country which, though complicated with legal elements, was at bottom a human question and nothing but a question of humanity. That was the slavery question, and is it not significant that it was then, and then for the first time, that women became prominent in politics in America? Not many women--those prominent in that day are so few that you can almost name them over in a brief catalogue--but, nevertheless, they then began to play a part not only in writing but in public speech, which was a very novel part for women to play in America; and after the Civil War had settled some of what seemed to be the most difficult legal questions of our system the life of the nation began not only to unfold but to accumulate.
Life in the United States was a comparatively simple matter at the time of the Civil War. There was none of that underground struggle which is now so manifest to those who look only a little way beneath the surface. Stories such as Dr. Davis has told tonight were uncommon in those simpler days. The pressure of low wages, the agony of obscure and unremunerated toil did not exist in America in anything like the same proportions as they exist now. And as our life has unfolded and accumulated, as the contacts of it have become hot, as the populations have assembled in the cities and the cool spaces of the country have been supplemented by feverish urban areas, the whole nature of our political questions has been altered. They have ceased to be legal questions. They have more and more become social questions, questions with regard to the relations of human beings to one another, not merely their legal relations but their moral and spiritual relations to one another.
This has been most characteristic of American life in the last few decades, and as these questions have assumed greater and greater prominence the movement which this association represents has gathered cumulative force, so that when anybody asks himself, What does this gathering force mean? if he knows anything about the history of the country he knows that it means something which has not only come to stay but has come with conquering power.
I get a little impatient sometimes about the discussion of the channels and methods by which it is to prevail. It is going to prevail and that is a very superficial and ignorant view of it which attributes it to mere social unrest. It is not merely because women are discontented, it is because they have seen visions of duty, and that is something that we not only can not resist but if we be true Americans we do not wish to resist. Because America took its origin in visions of the human spirit, in aspirations for the deepest sort of liberty of the mind and heart, and, as visions of that sort come to the sight of those who are spiritually minded America comes more and more into its birthright and into the perfection of its development; so that what we have to realize is that in dealing with forces of this sort we are dealing with the substance of life itself.
I have felt as I sat here tonight the wholesome contagion of the occasion. Almost every other time that I ever visited Atlantic City I came to fight somebody. I hardly know how to conduct myself when I have not come to fight anybody but with somebody.
I have come to suggest among other things that when the forces of nature are working steadily and the tide is rising to meet the moon, you need not be afraid that it will not come to its flood. We feel the tide; we rejoice in the strength of it, and we shall not quarrel in the long run as to the method of it, because, when you are working with masses of men and organized bodies of opinion, you have got to carry the organized body along. The whole art and practice of government consist not in moving individuals but in moving masses. It is all very well to run ahead and beckon, but, after all, you have got to wait for them to follow. I have not come to ask you to be patient, because you have been, but I have come to congratulate you that there has been a force behind you that will beyond any peradventure be triumphant and for which you can afford a little while to wait.
When President Wilson had finished amid enthusiastic applause Mrs. Catt asked Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, honorary president, to respond. She was much moved by the occasion and taking the last sentence of the address for a text she eloquently told how women had already worked and waited for more than three score years. "We have waited long enough for the vote, we want it now," she exclaimed, and then turning to the President with her irresistible smile she finished, "and we want it to come in your administration!" He smiled and bowed and the whole audience rose in a sea of waving handkerchiefs as he took his departure. The President of the United States had said: "Your cause is going to prevail; I have come to fight with you; we shall not quarrel as to the method!"
The other speeches of the evening were all of a high order. Mrs. Robins, as always, made an unanswerable argument for giving women wage earners the protection of the ballot. "In the Children's Bureau," Miss Lathrop said, "we have come to see the close connection between the welfare of mother and child. Because we are so concerned for the children we asked a physician to take those vast, mysterious volumes of the census and look up the facts about the mortality of mothers. Last year in the United States more than 15,000 women lost their lives carrying on the life of the race. The death rate from other things, such as typhoid and diphtheria, has been cut in half but between 1900 and 1913 maternal mortality was not lessened but seemingly increased; yet this waste of life is just as preventable as those diseases, for medical science has shown that with proper care the dangers of childbirth can be made very small. Just as fast as women are allowed a voice in public affairs it is their duty to see that no mother and child shall perish for lack of care. Every country should have a mother and child welfare center. When a memorial was lately proposed for a woman who had died in the war, a well-known man said: 'We can enfranchise her sex in tribute to the valor which she proved that it possessed.' It is not too much to give suffrage to women in tribute to the 15,000 who are dying every year in this great duty and service; yet we do not ask the ballot for women as a reward but because, as a duty and a service, we ought to ask for it...."
"Woman suffrage is needed in the interest of good morals," was the keynote of Dr. Davis's address, who said:
You cannot legislate righteousness into the human heart but you can reduce to a minimum the temptations that are offered to youth. To a large extent you can stop commercialized vice and the manufacture of criminals. I am not one of those who think that the millenium will come soon after women get the vote, but I believe that women will take an unusual interest in the effort to clean up vicious conditions, because all down the ages women have paid the price of vice and crime.
I do not believe that at heart a man is any worse than a woman, but all through the centuries he has been taught that he may do some things which a woman may not. It is only of late that we have begun to fight these things in the open and you cannot successfully fight any evil in the dark. For sixteen years my work has brought me in contact with this peculiar phase of public morals and I know whereof I speak. Public morals are corrupted because woman's point of view has no representation. We have laws to regulate these things but they are man-made and the public sentiment behind them which should govern their enforcement has grown up through the ages and it is the sentiment of men only. The laws are not equal nor equally enforced. If you doubt it you have only to go into the night court and you will see woman after woman convicted on the word of a policeman only, while in order to convict a man you have to pile evidence on evidence. I think this inequality of treatment will not cease till women get a vote.
In a very convincing address Dr. Lovejoy said:
The past month has been memorable in the history of child labor reform in America. A three-years' campaign culminated last Friday in the signing of a bill by President Wilson which excludes from the facilities of interstate commerce the exploiters of child labor. It has been estimated that 150,000 children who now bow under the yoke of excessive toil will be able to straighten up and look heaven in the face when this law begins to operate on the first of next September. In signing the bill the President said: "I want to say that with real emotion I sign this bill, because I know how long the struggle has been to secure legislation of this sort and what it is going to mean to the health and vigor of this country and also to the happiness of those whom it affects. It is with genuine pride that I play my part in completing legislation."
I am convinced that we need the voice of the church, the school, the home, in making and enforcing laws to protect working children, and, since half the adult population of our American homes are women, since approximately 75 per cent. of the church members are women, since 90 per cent. of the school teachers are women and since every moral and educational enterprise in the country is represented in about the same proportion, cold logic forces us to the conclusion that we need women in politics. Of 10,000 members of the National Child Labor Committee, 6,400 are women. Some of the experiences we have had with men in Legislatures in response to the appeal of mothers for the protection of working children have forced me to the conclusion that in this protection the participation of women in the law-making of the State is vital.
The primary nominations and elections were held with voting machines and when the result was announced it was found that all the old board was nominated with the exception of Mrs. Roessing, Miss Patterson and Mrs. Morrisson, who declined to stand for re-election. Their places were filled with Mrs. Frank J. Shuler (N. Y.), corresponding secretary; Mrs. Thomas Jefferson Smith (Ky.), recording secretary and Miss Heloise Meyer (Mass.), first auditor. As there were no other candidates the secretary was unanimously requested by the convention to cast its vote. This was a remarkable record for 543 delegates. A national suffrage flag was adopted, the gift of Pennsylvania--a yellow field with fringed edges, in the center a circle of eleven blue stars representing the equal suffrage States enclosing an eagle on the wing holding the globe in its talons. Mrs. J. O. Miller in behalf of the president made an eloquent presentation.
Miss Clay moved a resolution on her Elections Bill that the convention endeavor to protect women citizens in their right to vote for U. S. Senators and Representatives and with this object in view endorse this bill introduced by Senator Robert L. Owen (Okla.). This motion was carried. Mrs. Catt stated that the resolution of Mrs. Sallie Clay Bennett (Ky.) was similar and this also was passed. A large number of letters and telegrams were read from eminent men and women and from societies of many kinds. Mrs. Catt stated that in not one had it been suggested that the association lessen its activities for the Federal Amendment. The convention then adopted a resolution instructing the Congressional Committee "to concentrate all its resources on a determined effort to carry this amendment through the next session of Congress."
Invitations for the next convention were received from nine States. Greetings were sent to three of the original surviving pioneers, the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell of New Jersey; Mrs. Judith W. Smith of Massachusetts and Miss Emily Howland of New York. The delegates were introduced who brought greetings from the National Equal Franchise Union of Canada, and Mrs. Campbell McIvor responded. A special vote of thanks was given to Miss Mary Garrett Hay and Miss Lulu H. Marvel, chairman of the General Committee of Arrangements, for their perfect management of President Wilson's visit to the convention. Among those submitted by the Committee on Resolutions, Mrs. Alice Duer Miller (N. Y.), chairman, and adopted were the following:
Whereas, all political parties in their national platforms have endorsed the principle of woman suffrage, be it
Resolved, That the National American Woman Suffrage Association in convention assembled calls upon Congress to submit to the States the Constitutional Amendment providing nation-wide suffrage for women.
Whereas, the Democratic and Republican parties in endorsing the principle of woman suffrage have specially recognized the right of the States to settle the question for themselves, we call upon these parties in the States where amendment campaigns are in progress to take immediate action to obtain the enfranchisement of women, and in other States to take such action as the suffrage organizations deem expedient.
Whereas, honest elections are vital to good government in this country and to the decisions in the campaigns for woman suffrage; and
Whereas, public records of all funds used in political campaigns will benefit our movement in that they will bring to light its real opponents, therefore
Resolved, That this convention urges the passage by Congress and the States of a thorough and comprehensive Corrupt Practices Act providing effectual punishment for offenders.
That in recognition of Miss Clara Barton's lifelong support of woman suffrage, as well as her service to the country in founding the American Red Cross and standing at its head for more than a quarter of a century, this association endorses the bill recently introduced in Congress providing for an appropriation of $1,000 to place a suitable memorial to Miss Barton in the Red Cross Building now being constructed in the city of Washington.
That we express our profound sympathy with the women in the countries now at war and our sense of the advance that has been made in the cause of all women by the devotion, ability and courage with which those women have risen to the new demands on them.
That we express our deep appreciation of the great honor the President of the United States has done the women of the country by coming to Atlantic City especially to address this convention.
Rejoicing was expressed over the many victories during the year, the endorsement by large organizations--the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Anti-Saloon League, the Women's Relief Corps and others; a plank for woman suffrage in all national party platforms; a favorable declaration by all presidential candidates and for the first time the sanction of the President of the United States. The report of Mrs. Frank M. Roessing, chairman of the National Congressional Committee, gave so complete an account of the situation at the time the great "drive" for the Federal Amendment was begun that it is largely reproduced.
At the opening of the 64th Congress in December, 1915, several political leaders interested in the progress of social and economic legislation stated that 1916 would be a lean year in Congress for such movements. It was pointed out that particularly in the Senate some of the most reactionary men had been returned at the preceding election. It is also a presidential election year and neither of the great parties is willing to take one unnecessary step which in its judgment may tend to add to the number of its adversaries or to its vulnerable points in some particular section of the country. All of the 435 members of the House and one-third of the Senators come up for re-election in November of this year--they, too, are shy and sensitive. Some legislation, notably child labor after it had been endorsed by the National Democratic platform, successfully ran the gauntlet but not so our Federal Suffrage Amendment. It is with keen regret your committee reports that it has not had action in either the Senate or House of Representatives.
In the Senate the resolution was introduced Dec. 7, 1915, by Senators Sutherland, Thomas and Thompson of Kansas and referred to the Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage. This committee reported favorably resolution No. 1, introduced by Senator Sutherland. The written report made from the committee by Senator Thomas is one of the best pieces of literature on the subject and copies were mailed to every State president and State chairman of congressional work. Since that early date our measure has been on the calendar. It has come to the top a number of times but at the request of suffrage Senators has been held until a more auspicious hour.
As the National Association was desirous of having a vote on the measure at this session, your committee began to work to that end immediately after receiving specific instructions from the Board June 17, 1916. The meaning of the suffrage planks in the Republican and Democratic platforms was disputed by some men in both parties. The leaders stated that the planks were silent as to the Federal Amendment and thus left men free to vote on the amendment as each decided. In order to ascertain the interpretation which would be given by members of Congress it was determined to push for a vote in the Senate. On June 27 Mrs. Catt, Miss Hannah J. Patterson, corresponding secretary of the National Suffrage Association, Mrs. Antoinette Funk, vice-chairman of the committee, Miss Hay and the chairman held an informal conference with the Senators of the enfranchised States in the office of Senator Shafroth to secure their assistance. As unanimous consent is required for the consideration of such a measure, the Senators agreed that if we would have the vote taken without debate it would probably be possible, since this would not consume the time of the Senate. We believed that this was best in order to make sure of the vote. On July 22 Senator Thomas wrote to every Senator asking whether he would consent to a vote being taken without debate. He informed us that on both the Republican and Democratic sides there were men who would not give such consent, some stating that they had been asked by certain suffragists of the other organization not to consent. After the endorsement of the Federal Amendment by Judge Hughes, the candidate for President, frequent remarks were made in the Senate on it by members of both parties. Senator Clark (Republican) of Wyoming and Senator Pittman (Democrat) of Nevada were among those who urged action at this session but finally in August Senator Thomas gave up the effort.
The unfair treatment of the amendment resolution in the House Judiciary Committee and its final suppression by Chairman Edwin Y. Webb (N. C.) were described in full and the unsuccessful efforts, led by Mrs. Catt, to obtain action on it. [See Chapter on Federal Amendment.] The report continued:
Federal Elections Bill: On December 6 Representative Raker introduced at the request of the Federal Suffrage Association a bill to protect the rights of women citizens of the United States to register and vote for Senators and members of the House. The bill was referred to the Committee on the Election of the President, Vice-President and Representatives in Congress and has not yet been reported out. On December 10 this same bill was introduced by Senator Lane of Oregon, referred to the Committee on Woman Suffrage and is still there.
United States Elections Bill: The United States Elections Bill, introduced by Senator Owen at the request of Miss Laura Clay on February 3, aims also to secure to women the right to vote for Senators and Representatives in Congress. Miss Clay says it is simply a declaratory act; that it does not permit Congress to specify qualifications of voters and therefore does not involve the issue of State's rights. This bill was referred to the Committee on Privileges and Elections, where it remains. Your committee assisted the suffragists in the District of Columbia in the effort for a bill enabling it to elect a delegate to the Lower House....
* * * * *
Planks:[105] For some time prior to June your committee used every opportunity with Senators and Representatives to further the work of securing suffrage planks in the Republican and Democratic national platforms. Its chairman was put in charge of drafting for submission to Mrs. Catt the planks which were to be offered to the two conventions on behalf of the National Association. Its members who went to Chicago and St. Louis concentrated their efforts on the planks. The two demonstrations of women planned and supervised by the National Board were the culmination of the campaign on behalf of these planks. In cooperation with your Congressional Committee, many State delegations of women who came for the demonstrations did special eleventh-hour work with the delegates to the conventions.
Your committee regrets that the planks in the two dominant national party platforms, since they mention method at all, do not specifically endorse Federal action, but they will be of great value in the States and progress there will help the Federal work. Every man in Congress is keenly alive to the strength of our movement in his district and State. For that reason we urged the women of each State to secure planks in the State platforms endorsing the principle of woman suffrage. As a last resort, if they could not secure a separate plank in their State platforms, we asked them to make sure that each State convention endorsed its party's national platform, that the plank might in this way have the equivalent of a State endorsement.
With the final yielding of the two dominant parties to the justice of woman suffrage all are now on record in favor of the principle; all except the Republican and Democratic endorse the Federal Amendment. Republicans have been strengthened in their advocacy of Federal action by Judge Hughes' personal endorsement of the amendment. Your committee must sound a note of warning here against over-confidence. Some too zealous suffragists, including one suffrage organ, state quite seriously, notwithstanding the fact that their attention has been called to their error, that "the Republican party has specifically declared for the Federal Suffrage Amendment." Alas! it has done no such thing. It has not done one bit more than the Democratic party. The personal endorsement of the Republican candidate for President can not properly be construed as party endorsement. Those of us who have had some years of experience have witnessed the worming and screwing, fallacy and treachery exhibited by members of a party after their leading candidate has endorsed a particular measure. We know that we can not hold the party responsible for one man's utterances made after the platform had been adopted by the party convention and accepted by the party candidate.
Committee: Mrs. Medill McCormick was unable to continue as chairman of the Congressional Committee and the present chairman was appointed by the National Board in January, 1916, immediately went to Washington and lived there eight months, until the opening of this convention. During the entire term of this session of Congress this committee has had some representatives on duty at the Washington headquarters every moment. The service of each member has not been continuous but has varied from a week to three months in length. In addition to the chairman, the committee consisted of Mrs. Funk of Illinois; Miss Hay of New York; Mrs. Jacobs of Alabama; Mrs. Cotnam of Arkansas; Mrs. C. S. McClure of Michigan; Mrs. Valentine of Virginia; Miss Martha Norris of Ohio; Mrs. Elizabeth Higgins Sullivan of Nebraska and Miss Ruth White of Missouri.
Mrs. Funk resigned March 14 to take up other work and in July Miss White was appointed secretary and has done much special work. Because of the amount of travel involved only two meetings of the full committee have been held, on March 2 and September 4. Every plan for congressional work has been submitted to the National Board or to the national president for approval.
Revision of Work: At the beginning of the present year the work of the National Association was revised and departmentalized, the organization branch was separated from the congressional work, made a distinct department, placed under another head and operated from the New York office. This division was advisable, since each task is big enough by itself. The only disadvantage resulted from the distance between the bases of operation of the two departments--one of the paramount reasons for the removal of all the headquarters to Washington.... The work of the committee in 1916 consisted of the supervision and direction of all activity connected with the Federal Amendment, including lobby work at the Capitol; the stimulating of congressional activity in the States; the cataloguing of information concerning Senators and Representatives; the assembling and filing of all information specifically relating to the Federal Amendment in Congress and in the States; the issuing of newspaper articles; the handling of the large correspondence.
Headquarters: The chairman had been on duty only a short time when the necessity for removing national headquarters to Washington was deeply impressed upon her--so deeply that she made a special trip to New York to labor with the national officers there to this end but was unsuccessful. The headquarters of the Congressional Committee at the opening of this session consisted of two rooms in the Munsey Building at Washington too diminutive to hold even our furniture, to say nothing of our workers. On February 19 it moved to two larger rooms in the same building.
A summary of the correspondence, etc., was given and the report said of the lobby work:
All the direct work with Senators and Congressmen is a time as well as brain consuming process. Usually it means tramping up and down the long stone corridors, hour after hour, in order to find one man in his office. Then he may be having a committee meeting or a previous engagement or emergency business and you are invited to come some other day. Perhaps you have waited an hour before you are sure that he can not see you. It is not uncommon for the members of our lobby to state that they have made as many as six, eight or ten calls before they succeeded in reaching a man. Speaking from my own knowledge, I have wasted hours at the Capitol trying to see men who would not make appointments. I have called eighteen times to see one man and have not seen him yet! He is the Representative from my own district. We carried the district for suffrage in Pennsylvania last year but I am told that he does not want to vote for the Federal Amendment. It is, of course, possible to interview members by calling them out of the session but this method is uncertain and not very successful, since they feel hurried and interviews in a public reception room are seldom satisfactory.
The latest piece of work done by the committee is the interviewing by letter of all congressional candidates who will stand for election in November. This has been done in cooperation with the State associations which have been urged to institute vigorous interviewing in the congressional districts.
Presidential Interviewing: The presidential candidates of the two parties whose platforms do not endorse the Federal Amendment have been interviewed in person. On July 17 Mrs. Catt, Dr. Shaw and Mrs. Norman deR. Whitehouse, president of the New York suffrage association, called on Judge Hughes in New York and had a long and satisfactory conversation. He told them that in his speech of acceptance he could not endorse the Federal Amendment because this was the accepting of the party's nomination and of its platform, which had not mentioned it. He said, however, that he believed in it and that soon after his speech of acceptance he would announce his personal advocacy of the amendment. He asked them to hold this information in confidence, which of course they did. His public statement of August 1 was therefore no surprise to them but was nevertheless most gratifying.
On August 1 Mrs. Catt and your chairman called on President Wilson in Washington. He reiterated his belief that woman suffrage should come by State action. We presented the arguments in behalf of the Federal Amendment but he remained unconvinced. He is a fair and openminded man and your representatives have by no means given up hope of proving to him the justice and advisability of the amendment.
Conferences: At the last national convention a special committee recommended that the Board of Officers should consider the suggestion of conferences between the Congressional Committee of the National Association and the Legislative Committee of the Congressional Union, with a view to securing more united action in the lobby work in Washington. Nine such conferences were held--one in January, three in February, three in March, one in June, one in July. Your chairman was present at each and Miss Anne Martin, representing the Union, was present at each. At some of them each organization had additional representatives. Mrs. Catt attended two and our corresponding secretary, Miss Patterson, attended one. The subject was the time at which action on the Federal Amendment should be secured in both branches of Congress. When on July 20 it was found that the National Committee wished to obtain a vote in the Senate before adjournment and the Congressional Union wished to postpone it the conferences came to an end. It is the unanimous judgment of your committee that they were of no value to the work on the amendment.
General: The congressional work done in Washington this year by the National Association has not been spectacular. Your committee had not been on duty long before they realized that many members had been irritated by the too-frequent calls of suffragists and by the inconsiderate demands on their time. As our last national convention was held at the opening session of this Congress, delegations of suffragists used the opportunity to call on their Senators and Representatives. Considering the strain of work of Congress during the past months and the fact that the men had already been interviewed by State delegations or representatives, we did not encourage further visits to the Capitol. In Washington such visits, like pageants and other spectacular forms of activity, have been overdone. There was nothing to be gained and probably something to be lost by them.
Your committee wishes to express its appreciation of the cooperation of many Senators and members of the House. Our friends have often gone out of their way to assist us and not once has any one refused a request for help. They have made speeches on the floor at our suggestion, taken polls for us, held conferences, arranged interviews, provided us with documents and extended all the official courtesies within their power. While we have not secured action we are not discouraged in the least. Even the most radical opponents acknowledge that our movement has grown tremendously this year. We have achieved recognition of the justice of our principle by the political parties and we have with us in our Federal fight the great majority of the leaders of thought and action who believe in suffrage at all. By a continuation of sane methods, sound tactics, coordination and concentration we shall soon accomplish the submission of the Federal Amendment.
Your chairman becomes more convinced each day that one of the next steps necessary to nationalize our work and to secure Federal action is the removal of the national headquarters to Washington. She feels it to be her clear duty frankly to state to the convention her conviction on this point. It is her judgment, based upon her own observation this year and a study of the past work on the Federal Amendment, that it will not pass until the national headquarters are in Washington and the National Board as well as the Congressional Committee is in a position to gives its direct attention to the work on this amendment.
A lobby in Washington for special educational purposes may be a good thing but you will have to do special educational and political work in the States if your committee is to achieve political action to the point of a two-thirds vote on the amendment. We appreciate that support has been given to it by many suffragists and a number of State chairmen and presidents but there has not been the intensive, persistent, determined congressional activity in the States which there must be before the amendment can be passed and ratified. Your committee has done its utmost, I believe, but it can no more put the Federal Amendment through Congress without your activity in the States than a State committee can achieve success without activity in the counties. Activity on the part of a small number of local Washington suffragists is not a sufficient backing for the work of the Congressional Committee. If you propose to secure the Federal Amendment you must work just as hard in the States as you expect it to work in Washington. Without a doubt we can secure the Federal Amendment if the women of this country enthusiastically want their enfranchisement that way....
The friendliness of members of Congress toward the National Association and their continued respect for the suffrage movement in this country have been maintained by the dignity, poise and ability of the national lobby. In the many years of my connection with various kinds of organizations I have never served any in which there was more frankness, unity and good fellowship than in the National Board and the National Congressional Committee. That such harmony exists is due to our great president, to whom each is more indebted than all of us together can express. Her visits to Washington did for us what nothing and no one else could do. It was my duty and pleasure always to accompany her to the Capitol, and the unfailing impression of nobility, directness and power which she left upon the men was a joy to witness.
I can not close this report without acknowledging my personal debt to that co-officer who is not on our committee, Miss Hannah J. Patterson. It is but fair to say that had we not had her assistance at hazardous moments the suffrage planks would not be in the two national platforms today. Food, sleep, rest, pleasure, all were day after day given up by this most self-sacrificing officer. She it was who kept with one other [Mrs. Roessing] the lonely vigil the night of June 6 at the door of the Republican Resolutions Committee while it debated for hours its sub-committee's adverse report on the suffrage plank. The crisis in our work for both the planks came in this sub-committee of seven, for we knew that if we lost in Chicago there would be no hope in St. Louis. At midnight that all-powerful sub-committee by a vote of 5 to 4 turned down our plank and refused to permit suffrage to be mentioned in the platform in any way. That committee has seldom been reversed in all the history of the party. When later Senator Borah, also sleepless and hungry, came to us in one of those agonizing moments when decision must be made at once, when we could not reach our president or our board, it was Miss Patterson who made the decision that won the plank.[106]
A comprehensive plan of work was adopted with the following principal features:
Federal Work: The National Board shall continue a lobby in Washington until the Federal Amendment shall be submitted; the matter of removing headquarters to Washington shall be left to the judgment of the Board; it shall conduct a nation-wide campaign of agitation, education, organization and publicity in support of the amendment, which shall include the following: a million-dollar fund for the campaign from Oct. 1, 1916, to Oct. 1, 1917; a monthly propaganda demonstration simultaneously conducted throughout the nation; at least four campaign directors and 200 organizers in the field and a vigorous, thorough organization in every State; a nationalized scheme for education through literature; national suffrage schools; a speakers' bureau; innumerable activities for agitation and publicity; a national press bureau and a national publicity council with departments in each State; a national committee to extend suffrage propaganda among non-English-speaking races.
State Work: A Council of the representatives of States shall meet in executive session in connection with each annual national convention to hear reports as to the status of each campaign State and to fix upon States which shall be recommended to go forward with campaigns.
No State association shall ask the Legislature for the submission of a State constitutional amendment or for the submission of the question by initiative or by a referred law until such Council or the National Board has had the opportunity to investigate conditions and to give consent.
Any State which proceeds to a referendum campaign without securing this consent shall be prepared to finance its own campaign without help from the National Board.
Any State which has secured the consent of the National Board to proceed with a campaign shall have its cooperation to the fullest extent of its powers.
As soon as possible experienced campaign managers shall be trained for the work and shall be supplied to a campaign State to work under the direction of the National Board in cooperation with the State board.
States willing to contribute to campaigns in other States should do so by the advice of the National Board, who should be informed as to conditions, and the money so contributed should be passed through the national treasury.
The rule that the National Board shall do nothing in States without the consent of the State shall be repealed.
The organization, press work, literature distributed and general activity of the States shall be standardized and regular reports on all of these departments shall be made to the National Board in order that advice and help may be rendered when most needed.
This Board shall have the authority to nationalize the suffrage movement by unifying the work as far as is possible.
Any States not desiring to work for the Federal Amendment may remain members of the National Association provided they do not work actively against it.
Dr. Shaw presided over the last evening session of the convention and three of the strongest speeches during the convention were made by the Hon. Herbert Parsons, New York member of the Republican National Committee; Mrs. Deborah Knox Livingston (Me.), Superintendent of Franchise of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and Raymond Robins, a national leader of progressive thought. The convention ended with a mass meeting Sunday afternoon in the New Nixon Theater with Mrs. Catt presiding. Rabbi Henry M. Fisher of Atlantic City gave the invocation and inspiring addresses were made by Mrs. David F. Simpson (Minn.) and the Rev. Effie McCollum Jones (Ia.). Dr. Shaw closed her address with a beautiful delineation of Americanism, saying at its close:
What is Americanism? Every one has a different answer. Some people say it is never to submit to the dictation of a King. Others say Americanism is the pride of liberty and the defence of an insult to the flag with their gore. When some half-developed person tramples on that flag, we should be ready to pour out the blood of the nation, they say. But do we not sit in silence when that flag waves over living conditions which should be an insult to all patriotism? Why do we care more about our flag than any other flag? Why, when we have been travelling and seeing others, does the sight of the American flag bring tears to our eyes and warmth to our hearts? Is it not because it is a symbol of the hopes and aspirations of the men and women of the whole world? They say Americanism is the love of liberty, but men died for that and women gave their lives for it thousands of years before America was known. Others say it is the love of justice but the whole world is filled with that, no one country loves it more than another. Human love, sacrifice and sympathy have been manifested in the history of the world since the beginning of time. The American sees in Americanism just what he wants to see. He looks over the world and finds every good thing and calls it his own--justice, liberty, humanity, patriotism. It is not Americanism but humanism. There is only one thing we can claim in higher degree than the other nations--opportunity is the word which means true Americanism.
The anti-suffragists have said that when women have the vote they will have less time for charity and philanthropy. They are right--when we have the vote there will be less need for charity and philanthropy. The highest ideal of a republic is not a long bread line nor a soup kitchen but such opportunity that the people can buy their own bread and make their own soup. Opportunity must be for all, men and women alike, and the peoples of every nationality. Americanism does not mean militarism. The greatest need of Americans is not military preparedness nor changed economic conditions but a baptism of the spirit, higher religious ideals, deeper tolerance and sympathy. The human heart must be in accord with the Divine heart if America is to mean more than other countries, and, if we are to be what our mothers and fathers aspired to be, we must all be a part of the Government.
At 5 o'clock Mrs. Catt spoke the closing words and declared the convention adjourned.
FOOTNOTES:
[104] Call: Our cause has been endorsed in the platforms of every political party. In order to determine how most expeditiously to press these newly won advantages to final victory this convention is called. Women workers in every rank of life and in every branch of service in increasing numbers are appealing for relief from the political handicap of disfranchisement.... Unmistakably the crisis of our movement has been reached. A significant and startling fact is urging American women to increased activity in their campaign for the vote. Across our borders three large Canadian provinces have granted universal suffrage to their women within the year. In every thinking American woman's mind the question is revolving: Had our forefathers tolerated the oppressions of autocratic George the Third and remained under the British flag would the women of the United States today, like their Canadian sisters, have found their political emancipation under the more democratic George the Fifth? American men are neither lacking in national pride nor approval of democracy and must in support of their convictions hasten the enfranchisement of women. To plan for the final steps which will lead to the inevitable establishment of nation-wide suffrage for the women of our land is the specific purpose of the Atlantic City Convention.
ANNA HOWARD SHAW, Honorary President. CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT, President. JENNIE BRADLEY ROESSING, First Vice-President. KATHARINE DEXTER MCCORMICK, Second Vice-President. ESTHER G. OGDEN, Third Vice-President. HANNAH J. PATTERSON, Corresponding Secretary. MARY FOULKE MORRISON, Recording Secretary. EMMA WINNER ROGERS, Treasurer. HELEN GUTHRIE MILLER, } PATTIE RUFFNER JACOBS, } Auditors.
[105] On June 1, a short time before the meeting of Republican and Democratic National Conventions, twenty-nine members of the Lower House of Congress from States where women vote, who wished the conventions to put woman suffrage in their platforms, had a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee. The Representatives, both Democratic and Republican, who made brief arguments for the Federal Amendment were: Ariz., Carl Hayden; Cal., Denver S. Church, Charles H. Randall, William Kettner, John E. Raker; Colo., Benjamin C. Hilliard, Edward Keating, Edward T. Taylor; Ills., James T. McDermott, Adolph J. Sabath, James McAndrews, Frank H. Buchanan, Thomas Gallagher, Clyde H. Tavenner, Claudius U. Stone, Henry T. Rainey, Martin D. Foster, William Elza Williams (a member of the Judiciary Committee); Kans., Joseph Taggart (also a member), Dudley Doolittle, Guy T. Helvering, John R. Connelly, Jouett Shouse, William A. Ayres; Mont., John M. Evans, Tom Stout; Utah, James H. Mays; Wash., C. C. Dill.
Judge Raker acted as chairman and the remarkably strong presentation called out many questions from the anti-suffrage members of the Judiciary Committee.
[106] Senator Borah told them that the plank the National Suffrage Board had submitted, endorsing a Federal Amendment, was absolutely impossible but one could be obtained declaring for woman suffrage by State action. They accepted it, which was a wise thing to do, as had the Republican platform not favored woman suffrage per se the Democratic platform, adopted the following week, would not have done so.
XVII. NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1917
The Forty-ninth National Suffrage Convention, which met in Poli's Theater at Washington Dec. 12-15, 1917, was held under the most difficult conditions that ever had been faced in the long history of these annual gatherings. Always heretofore they had been comfortable, happy times, when the delegates came from far and wide to exchange greetings, report progress and plan the future work for a cause to which many of them were giving their entire time and effort. Now great changes had taken place, as the Call for the convention indicated.
Since last we met the all-engulfing World War has drawn our own country into its maelstrom and ominous clouds rest over the earth, obscuring the vision and oppressing the souls of mankind, yet out of the confusion and chaos of strife there has developed a stronger promise of the triumph of democracy than the world has ever known. Every allied nation has announced that it is fighting for this and our own President has declared that "we are fighting for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government." New Russia has answered the call; Great Britain has pledged full suffrage for women and the measure has already passed the House of Commons by the enormous majority of seven to one. Canada, too, has responded with five newly enfranchised provinces; France is waiting only to drive the foe from her soil to give her women political liberty.
Such an array of victories gives us faith to believe that our own Government will soon follow the example of other allied nations and will also pledge votes to its women citizens as an earnest of its sincerity that in truth we do fight for democracy. This is our first national convention since our country entered the war. We are faced with new problems and new issues and the nation is realizing its dependence upon women as never before. It must be made to realize also that, willingly as women are now serving, they can serve still more efficiently when they shall have received the full measure of citizenship. These facts must be urged upon Congress and our Government must be convinced that the time has come for the enfranchisement of women by means of an amendment to the Federal Constitution.
Men and women who believe that the great question of world democracy includes government of the people, by the people and for the people in our country, are invited to attend our convention and counsel with us on ways and means to attain this object at the earliest possible moment.[107]
On account of the large rush of soldiers to the eastern coast and the many other problems of transportation travelling had become very hard and expensive but so greatly had the interest in suffrage increased among women that nearly 600 delegates were present, the highest number that had ever attended one of the conventions. They came through weather below zero, snowstorms and washouts; trains from the far West were thirty-six hours late; delegates from the South were in two railroad wrecks. It was one of the coldest Decembers ever known and the eastern part of the country had never before faced such a coal famine, from various reasons. Washington was inundated with people, the vast number who had suddenly been called into the service of the Government, the soldiers and the members of their families who had come to be with them to the last, and this city of only a few hundred thousand inhabitants had neither sleeping nor eating accommodations for all of them. The suffrage convention had been called before these conditions were fully known and because of the necessity of bringing pressure at once on Congress. The national suffrage headquarters were now occupying a large private house and the officers were cared for there but the delegates were obliged to scatter over the city wherever they could find shelter, were always cold and some of the time not far from hungry and prices were double what was expected. Notwithstanding all these drawbacks the convention program was carried out and a large amount of valuable work accomplished, tried and loyal suffragists being accustomed to hardships and self-sacrifice.
The victory in New York State the preceding month had marked the beginning of the end and the universal enfranchisement of women seemed almost in sight. Even the intense excitement of the war had not entirely overshadowed what had now became a national issue. Under the auspices of Mrs. Helen H. Gardener, resident in Washington, an Advisory Council was formed to act in an honorary capacity and extend official recognition to the convention, Senators, Representatives, Cabinet officers, Judges, clergymen and others prominent in the life of the capital, with their wives and other women of their family, cheerfully giving their names for this purpose.[108]
The evening before the convention opened a reception by invitation was given in the ball room of the New Willard Hotel to Dr. Shaw, Mrs. Catt and the other officers and the delegates, the following acting as hostesses: Mrs. William Gibbs McAdoo, Mrs. Newton D. Baker, Mrs. Thomas W. Gregory, Mrs. Albert Sidney Burleson, Mrs. Josephus Daniels, Mrs. Franklin K. Lane, Mrs. David F. Houston, Miss Agnes Hart Wilson, Mrs. James R. Mann, Mrs. Philip Pitt Campbell. The first seven were the wives and the eighth the daughter of the members of President Wilson's Cabinet, only Mrs. Robert Lansing being absent, who, like her husband, was an anti-suffragist. The last two were the wives of prominent Representatives from Illinois and Kansas. Because of the war the other social festivities that were usually so delightful a feature of these annual meetings were omitted. Before the convention opened Mrs. Gifford Pinchot, whose home was directly across from "suffrage house," the national headquarters, entertained the officers at luncheon.
The hearings before the committees of Congress which generally took place during the convention, had been held in the spring at an extra session and therefore Mrs. Catt had planned an effective ceremony for this occasion at the Senate office building, the senior Senator from each State where women were without a vote being requested to invite to his office the congressional delegation from the State to receive its women who were in attendance at the convention. There were thirty of these gatherings and in many instances all the delegation were present. Senators Penrose and Knox refused to call the Pennsylvania members together. It is impossible to go into details but most of the interviews were satisfactory, the women asking solely for votes in favor of the Federal Suffrage Amendment, and it was said that thirty-five were won for it. From fifty to one hundred women were in many of the groups. To the Missouri delegation, headed by Mrs. Walter McNab Miller, vice-president of the National Association, Speaker of the House Champ Clark said: "If my vote is necessary to pass the amendment I will cast it in favor," and the delegation was solid for it except Representative Jacob E. Meeker. Senator Warren G. Harding received the Ohio women, led by Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, State president, and Mrs. Baker, wife of the Secretary of War, and later, he voted for the amendment. A hundred women called on the Virginia members and fifty on those of Alabama, without effect, but many of the large groups of southern women did receive much encouragement from the members from their States. President Wilson himself gave an audience to the Arkansas women, whose Legislature had recently granted full Primary suffrage and whose entire congressional delegation would vote for the Federal Amendment. This was found to be the case in nearly all of the northern and western States.
Forty-four States had sent delegates to the convention and from the equal suffrage States of Montana and Wyoming came Mrs. Margaret Hathaway and Mrs. Mary G. Bellamy, members of the Legislature; from Colorado, Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford, State Superintendent of Public Instruction; from New Mexico, Mrs. W. E. Lindsay, wife of the Governor, and from Kansas, Mrs. W. Y. Morgan, wife of the Lieutenant Governor. Fraternal delegates were present from four countries. The convention was opened Wednesday afternoon, December 12, with an invocation by the honorary president of the association, the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw. In her brief words of greeting Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, the president, who was in the chair, declared her firm conviction that the American Congress would not allow this country to be outstripped in the race toward the enfranchisement of women while the countries of Europe were hastening to give woman suffrage as a part of that right to self-government for which the world is fighting today, and said: "For fifty years we have been allaying fears, meeting objections, arguing, educating, until today there remain no fears, no objections in connection with the question of woman suffrage that have not been met and answered. The New York campaign may be said to have closed the case. It carried the question forever out of the stage of argument and into the stage of final surrender. As the women of the country foregather for this convention nothing stands out more emphatically than the new stress that has been laid on suffrage as a political issue in the minds of women as in the minds of men. As such the Federal Amendment must now be dealt with by Congress."
Mrs. Catt emphasized the necessity for active war work and introduced Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw, vice-president of the New York Suffrage Association, who presented the "service flag" and said: "The National American Suffrage Association's service flag, here unfurled--a field of white with golden stars surrounded by a deep blue border--shows thirteen stars for its first thirteen women serving at the front. These stars represent women who have been connected with the association or one of its State affiliations in official or representative capacity. The total of suffragists in foreign service numbers thousands."[109] The president accepted the flag on behalf of the convention. Miss Hannah J. Patterson, an officer of the Pennsylvania Association, presented the following resolution:
Whereas, The Executive Council of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, assembled in executive session last February, pledged the loyalty of the organization to the country in event of war and forthwith placed a plan of intensive service at the Government's command in view of the impending peril, and
Whereas, America since then has entered into the dread actuality of war and is in greater need of woman's loyal service than our readiest anticipation could visualize last February, and
Whereas, The suffragists of this organization are already in compact formation as a second line of defense for husbands, sons, fathers and brothers "somewhere in France," therefore, be it
Resolved, That we, delegates to the Forty-ninth annual convention of the association, representing a membership of over 2,000,000 women, reaffirm this organization's unswerving loyalty to the Government in this crisis, and, while struggling to secure the right of self-government to the women of America, pledge anew our intention gladly and zealously to continue those services of which the Government has so freely availed itself in its war to secure the right of self-government to the people of the world.
On request of Dr. Shaw a rising vote was taken and the resolution was adopted with no dissenting vote.
The first evening meeting was devoted to the great victory in New York, where an amendment to the State constitution giving full suffrage to women had been carried at the November election by a majority of 102,353. The following program was given in the presence of a large and very enthusiastic audience, Mrs. Catt presiding:
Addresses: Mrs. Ella Crossett, former president New York State Woman Suffrage Association, 1902-1910. Miss Harriet May Mills, former president, 1910-1913.
Organization in New York State--Mrs. Raymond Brown, chairman. Campaign district chairman, Mrs. F. J. Tone. Rural assembly district leader, Mrs. Willis G. Mitchell. Election district captain, Mrs. Frederick Edey.
From the Organization to the Voter--Mrs. Laidlaw.
Organization and Campaign Work in New York City--Miss Mary Garrett Hay, chairman. Assembly district leader, Mrs. Charles L. Tiffany. Election district captain, Mrs. Seymour Barrett.
State Departmental Work: Teachers--Miss Katharine D. Blake, chairman. Industrial: Miss Rose Schneiderman, proxy for chairman.
Speakers in War Time--Mrs. Victor Morawetz, chairman of speakers' bureau.
Financing a State Campaign--Mrs. Ogden Mills Reid, treasurer.
Winning New York--Mrs. Norman deR. Whitehouse, State president.
The many phases of this remarkable campaign, which won the State of largest population and opened the way to certain victory in Congress, were presented in a most interesting manner. In speaking of the big city where the fight was actually won, Miss Hay, chairman of the committee, said: "We won, first, because of a continuous campaign in New York City begun eight years ago. On election day in 1915, about midnight, when we knew the amendment had not carried, we decided to have another campaign and began it the next day. Second, we won because of organization along district political lines. No State should ever go into a campaign unless the women are willing to organize in this way and stick to it. It was not the five borough leaders but the 2,080 precinct captains who carried the city. The campaign represented an immense amount of work in many fields. There were 11,085 meetings reported to the State officers and many that were never reported. Women of all classes labored together. 'If you want to reach the working men,' said Rose Schneiderman, 'remember that it is the working women who can reach them.' The campaign cost $682,500. This sum, which lasted for two years and covered the whole State, was less than half the amount spent in three months in New York City that year to elect a Mayor. The largest individual gift to the New York City campaign was $10,000 from Mrs. Dorothy Whitney Straight. Most of the money was given in small sums and represented innumerable sacrifices."
The story of the campaign in Maine the preceding September was told by the chairman of the campaign committee, Mrs. Deborah Knox Livingston, the next afternoon, and the reasons given for its almost inevitable failure. [See Maine chapter.] A lively discussion took place on the advisability of campaigns for Presidential suffrage and Mrs. Catt gave the opinion that its legality when granted by a Legislature was unquestioned but if by a referendum to the voters it would be doubtful. The war work undertaken by the association was thoroughly considered, with a general review of Women's War Service by Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick, second vice-president. She sketched briefly the appointment of a woman's branch of the Council of National Defense and pointed out how the choice of Dr. Shaw for chairman had brought the suffragists into even closer cooperation with the Government if possible than would have resulted from their intense patriotism.[110] Reports were made by the chairmen of the association's four committees, as follows: Food Production--Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers; Thrift--Mrs. Walter McNab Miller; Americanization--Mrs. Frederick P. Bagley; Industrial Protection of Women--Miss Ethel M. Smith. A Child Welfare Committee was added to the list.
Dr. Shaw presided at the evening session of the second day of the convention and to this and other programs Mrs. Newton D. Baker contributed her beautiful voice, with Mrs. Morgan Lewis Brett at the piano. Mrs. Charles W. Fairfax and Paul Bleyden also sang most acceptably and there was music by the Meyer-Davis orchestra. This evening the speakers were the Hon. Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior; the Hon. Jeannette Rankin, first woman member of the National House of Representatives, and Mrs. Catt, who gave her president's address. The presence of Secretary Lane added much prestige as well as political significance to the program, for it was interpreted as an indication that President Wilson had advanced from a belief in woman suffrage itself to an advocacy of the Federal Amendment, which was the keynote of the convention. "I come to you tonight," the Secretary said, "to bring a word of congratulation and good will from the first man in the nation. Dr. Shaw spoke of always being proud when she had some man back of her who could give respectability to the cause. What greater honor can there be, what greater pride can you feel, than in having behind you the man who is not alone the President of the United States but also the foremost leader of liberal thought throughout the world? It is to have with you the conscience, the mind and the spirit of today and tomorrow." He spoke of his own strong belief in the enfranchisement of women and the necessity of establishing for every one an individuality entirely her own, socially and politically. Only scattered newspaper references to this strong speech are available.
Especial interest was felt in the address of the young member of Congress, Miss Jeannette Rankin. In speaking of the bill which she had recently introduced to enable women to retain their nationality after marriage she said: "We, who stand tonight so near victory after a majestic struggle of seventy long years, must not forget that there are other steps besides suffrage necessary to complete the political enfranchisement of American women. We must not forget that the self-respect of the American woman will not be redeemed until she is regarded as a distinct and social entity, unhampered by the political status of her husband or her father but with a status peculiarly her own and accruing to her as an American citizen. She must be bound to American obligations not through her husband's citizenship but directly through her own."
Mrs. Catt's address had been announced as a Message to Congress and was eagerly anticipated. Miss Rose Young, the enthusiastic editor of The Woman Citizen, gave this vivid pen picture of the occasion:
When Mrs. Catt rose, the house rose with her. It was a crowded house and everybody was aware that the message in Mrs. Catt's hand was the vital message of the convention. Everybody wondered what would be its main focus. Nobody quite understood why an address to Congress should be delivered at a mass meeting. The latter point the speaker quickly cleared up. Once before in suffrage history, she said, there had been an address to Congress. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton had made it. At this moment she was but doing over what they had done a half-century ago. She would deliver her address to Congress from that platform to that audience and leave it to the printed page to carry the message on into the sacred halls themselves.
Then, with Senate and House visualized by the directness of her appeal to them and by the sharp limning of her argument, she pleaded for democracy, arraigned the obstructionists of the Federal Suffrage Amendment, showed up the harsh inconsistencies, the waste of time and energy and money asked of women in State referenda, clarified the reasons for establishing suffrage by the Federal route and brought the whole case into high relief by resting the responsibility where it belongs--on the Congress of the United States.
The speaker, never ornate in rhetoric or delivery, seemed to withdraw her personality utterly, so that there was left only the mental and spiritual content of her message. To hear her was like listening to abstract thought, warmed by the fire of abstract conviction. To see her was like looking at sheer marble, flame-lit. Many an orator sways an audience's mind by emotional appeal. Hers was the crowning achievement to sway an audience to emotion by the symmetry and force of her appeal to its mind. Again and again salvos of applause stopped her for a moment but again and again the steady rhythm of her strong voice regained control. At the end her grip on attention was so acute that a little hush followed the last word.
The address consumed an hour and a half in delivery and made a pamphlet of twenty-two pages when published. Up to the time the Federal Amendment was ratified it was a part of the standard literature of the National Association and thousands of copies were circulated.[111] Among the subheads were these: The History of our Country and the Theory of our Government; the Leadership of the United States in World Democracy compels the Enfranchisement of its Own Women; Three Reasons for the Federal Method; Three Objections Answered. It was an absolutely conclusive argument and closed with a ringing appeal for "the submission and ratification of the Federal Suffrage Amendment in order that this nation may at the earliest possible moment show to all the nations of the earth that its action is consistent with its principles." Dr. Shaw, who never could forego a little joke, had said in introducing Mrs. Catt: "I had long thought I should be willing to die as soon as suffrage was won in New York; that I never should be interested in politics or the making of tickets, but five minutes after the midnight of November 6 I had picked my ticket and now I don't want to die until it is elected." Here she stopped and presented the speaker. After Mrs. Catt had finished Dr. Shaw rose and looking at her with twinkling eyes said to the delighted audience: "The head of my ticket!"
The mornings of the convention were devoted to routine business and to the reports of the presidents of the States, most of whom were present, and almost without exception they told of active work and a great advance in public sentiment. It was such a time of rejoicing and hopefulness as suffragists had never known. The chief and universal interest, however, was centered in the action of Congress, as this had always been the goal and it now seemed near at hand. Therefore the report of the Congressional Committee, made through its chairman, Mrs. Maud Wood Park, was heard with close attention. The outline presented was as follows:
The duties of the present chairman began March 17, 1917, four days before President Wilson called an extra session of Congress to meet on April 2, a significant step toward the entrance of the United States into the World War. Thus our work started at a time of supreme importance in the history of our country and under conditions full of new possibilities for the cause of woman suffrage.
Mrs. Catt, keenly alive to the crisis in our national affairs, foresaw that our people, with their idealism fired by thought of increased freedom for the oppressed subjects of autocratic governments, might be aroused to new consciousness of the flaw in our own democracy. With this thought in mind, on the eve of the opening of the extraordinary session, she sent out a summons to the suffragists of the whole country to unite in a stupendous appeal to Congress for the immediate submission of the Federal Amendment.
The opening of the Sixty-fifth Congress was marked by another circumstance of unusual interest, the seating of the first woman member, the Hon. Jeannette Rankin of Montana, who made a speech from the balcony of our headquarters on the morning of April 2 and was then escorted to the Capitol by Mrs. Catt and other members of our association in a cavalcade of decorated motor cars. The day which opened so happily for suffragists ended with the President's message to Congress asking for the Declaration of War.
In the Senate the resolution for our amendment was introduced in behalf of our association by Senator Andrieus A. Jones of New Mexico, the new chairman of the Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage, the other members of which were Senators Owen of Oklahoma; Ransdell of Louisiana; Hollis of New Hampshire; Johnson of South Dakota; Jones of Washington; Nelson of Minnesota; Cummins of Iowa and Johnson of California. Chairman Jones, at our request, had secured the privilege of having his resolution made number one on the calendar, but when it was decided that the war resolution should be introduced immediately, he tactfully yielded his place. Similar suffrage resolutions were introduced by Senators Shafroth, Owen, Poindexter and Thompson.
In the House our resolution was introduced by Representative Raker, on the Democratic side, and by Representative Rankin, on the Republican side. Similar ones were introduced by Representatives Mondell, Keating, Hayden and Taylor.
The War Resolution was adopted by the Senate April 4 and by the House April 5. A few days later the Finance Committee of the Senate informally recommended and leaders of both parties agreed that only legislation included in the war program should be considered during the extra session. The Democratic caucus of the House passed a similar recommendation, which was acquiesced in by the Republicans. It soon became clear to your committee that the suffrage resolution would not be admitted under this rule, and a total revision of plans had to be made. Three meetings were held and it was the opinion of all that the aim should be to establish and maintain friendly relations with both parties rather than to arouse the antagonism of leaders whose support we must have if our measure is to succeed, so it was recommended and the National Board voted that our "drive" should be postponed until there was a possibility of securing a vote on the Federal Amendment. Happily, however, there were forms of work not prohibited by the legislative program.
The Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage gave a hearing to our association April 20 ... and on September 15, Chairman Jones made a favorable report. The measure is now on the calendar of the Senate. In the House, resolutions calling for the creation of a Committee on Woman Suffrage had been introduced at the beginning of the session by Representatives Raker, Keating and Hayden and referred to the Committee on Rules.
Our first step was to get the approval of Speaker Clark, who gave us cordial support. Later, to offset the fear on the part of certain members of conflicting with President Wilson's legislative program, a letter was sent, at Mrs. Helen H. Gardener's request, to Chairman Edward Pou (N. C.), of the Rules Committee, by the President himself, who stated that he thought the creation of the committee "would be a very wise act of public policy and also an act of fairness to the best women who are engaged in the cause of woman suffrage." Then, through the efforts of a working committee made up of the six members who had introduced suffrage resolutions, a petition asking for the creation of a Committee on Woman Suffrage, as called for in the Raker resolution, was signed by all members from equal suffrage States and by many of those from Presidential suffrage States and from Primary suffrage Arkansas. This petition was presented to the Rules Committee, which on May 18 granted a hearing on the subject. On June 6, by a vote of 6 to 5, on motion of Mr. Cantrill of Kentucky, a resolution calling for the creation of a Committee on Woman Suffrage to consist of thirteen members, to which all proposed action touching the subject should be referred, was adopted, with an amendment, made by Mr. Lenroot of Wisconsin, to the effect that the resolution should not be reported to the House until the pending war legislation was out of the way.
The report of the Rules Committee, therefore, was not brought into the House until September 24, when the extremely active opposition of Chairman Edwin Y. Webb (N. C.) and most of the other members of the Judiciary Committee made a hard fight inevitable. Thanks to the hearty support of Speaker Clark, the good management of Chairman Pou and the help of loyal friends of both parties in the House, as well as to the admirable work done by our own State congressional chairmen, the report was adopted by a vote of 180 yeas to 107 noes, with 3 answering present and 142 not voting. Of the favorable votes, 82 were from Democrats and 96 from Republicans. Of the unfavorable votes, 74 were from Democrats and 32 from Republicans. Of those not voting, 59 were Democrats and 81 were Republicans. These facts show that the measure was regarded, as we had hoped it would be, as strictly non-partisan. The victory came so late in the session that the appointment of the new committee was postponed until the present session.
Referring to the housing of the Congressional Committee in the new headquarters of the National Association in Washington Mrs. Park said:
To the preceding chairman, Mrs. Miller, fell the hard work of finding new headquarters, moving the office and establishing the house routine which has been continued under the efficient care of our house manager, Mrs. Elizabeth W. Walker. The secretary of the committee, Miss Ruth White, who has worked indefatigably in the office since June, 1916, has had charge of the records of members of Congress and of correspondence with our State chairmen, besides lightening in numberless other ways the burdens of your chairman. To a member of the committee, who is a long-time resident of Washington, Mrs. Gardener, the association is profoundly indebted for constant advice and help, as well as for the most skillful handling of delicate and difficult situations. She has been called the "Diplomatic Corps" of the committee and the name in every good sense has been well won by the important services which she has rendered. Another member of the committee, a former chairman, Mrs. Frank M. Roessing, after helping to start the legislative work last December, generously came to our aid at busy seasons and took active charge of the work from July 10 to September 12, during the absence of the chairman. The management of the office and the Department of Publicity have been in the hands of the executive secretary, Miss Ethel M. Smith.
Social activities through the spring and early summer were in charge of Miss Heloise Meyer, assisted by Mrs. J. Borden Harriman. Miss Mabel Caldwell Willard has represented the committee in undertakings involving the house as a center for local work. These have included getting hostesses to receive visitors at headquarters, supplying speakers for local meetings, providing cooperation with the suffrage federation of the District of Columbia for the daily afternoon teas, and looking after hospitality for delegates to conventions meeting in Washington. Among the organizations for which receptions have been arranged are Daughters of the American Revolution, Association of Collegiate Alumnae, Confederate Veterans, Sons of Veterans, Daughters of the Confederacy, Congress of Mothers, Parent-Teacher Associations and Farm and Garden Associations. Ten of the fourteen members of the committee, in addition to the executive secretary, have given highly valued service in Washington during the last nine months. Other suffragists not members have kindly devoted days or weeks to our work and the local suffrage associations have been most cordial in their response to our requests.
Any attempt to state our obligations to our national president would be futile. Our high hope for the adoption of the Federal Amendment by the 65th Congress is linked inseparably with our faith in her leadership.
The report of Mrs. Walter McNab Miller (Mo.) first vice-president, described a year of continuous work, almost from ocean to ocean, speaking to State suffrage conventions, federations of women's clubs, federations of labor, trade unions, universities, normal schools, churches, meetings of all kinds and without number. In the two Dakotas she spoke twenty-nine times. She referred to her visit to Jefferson City, Mo., her luncheon with the wife of Governor Frederick D. Gardner, the suffrage meeting "which put the State capital in a ferment and caused the politicians to sit up and take notice" and the Governor's declaration for woman suffrage. Mrs. Miller said of the work during the five months when she was chairman of the Congressional Committee:
After mature consideration the board decided that, for various reasons, it was not wise to move the headquarters from New York to Washington but that more spacious quarters should be found than the office here where the efficient lobby work that had already been done could be followed up and supplemented by a social atmosphere. Finally we found our present home, a large private mansion at 1626 Rhode Island Avenue, just off of Scott Circle. It was taken for a term of eight months, the offices moved at once and cards sent out to 2,000 people for a housewarming before we had been there a week.
During five months Miss Meyer and I made 300 calls, organized a Junior Suffrage League, planned for publicity "stunts," such as the dedication of the Susan B. Anthony room, the presentation of a flag by Pennsylvania, a poster exhibit, celebration of the North Dakota victory and the mid-lenten bazaar. Much of the work was of the sort that would be impossible to tabulate, but the effect of the whole in making the National Association well known in Washington and able to work effectively from there has proved the wisdom of the expenditure for the headquarters.
The latter part of February the so-called War Council was called, a meeting of the association's Executive Committee of One Hundred, and planning for that and the mass meeting on Sunday kept us all busy for several weeks. This Council decided that the suffragists should undertake certain definite forms of war work and the chairmanship of the division of the Elimination of Waste was given to me.... Summing up the year I have attended six State meetings, spoken 200 times in 15 States, written 3,000 letters and travelled 13,000 miles.
All of Friday was given to symposiums on different phases of this movement, grouped as follows: What my State will do for the Federal Amendment. Should We Work for Woman Suffrage in War Time? What Good Will Woman Suffrage Do Our Country? What is the Best Thing it Has Done for my State? What Can the Enfranchised Women Do to Secure Suffrage for the Women of the Entire Nation? Twenty-five women, most of them State presidents, took part in these valuable discussions.
Mrs. McCormick related how her work as chairman of the national Press Committee had been taken over by the press department of the Leslie Bureau of Education when it was organized the preceding March and a merger committee appointed consisting of Miss Rose Young and Mrs. Ida Husted Harper of the Leslie Commission, and Mrs. Shuler and herself of the association.[112] The report of the Leslie Bureau filled over thirty pages of fine print as submitted by Miss Young, director, who said in beginning:
By January of 1917 it had become apparent that the National Association had an increasingly direct and comprehensive part to play in State and Federal campaigns through its Press department as one of its various points of contact with the suffrage field. To inaugurate news and feature propaganda and information services that would be live wires of connection between 171 Madison Avenue and the State affiliations all over the country and the Capitol at Washington and the public press was the immediate prospect of the then Press department.... Its accumulated task included not only the conduct of its federal political campaign at Washington, not only its definite program of State propaganda and organization for constitutional amendment campaigns, it had on its hands as well the great "drive" for Presidential suffrage that had been initiated.
By spring Mrs. Catt's custodianship of the Leslie funds had been determined by court decision and plans that she had been mothering since 1915 could be put into execution. Those plans had for their central detail the founding of a bureau for the promotion of the woman suffrage cause through the education of the public to the point of seeing it as essential to democracy, and in March the Leslie Bureau of Suffrage Education was organized for that purpose. From the beginning the outstanding feature of the work was its size, and the outstanding need was to get it housed and departmentalized, with department heads and an adequate clerical staff. This done, the bureau, with a staff of twenty-four, swarmed out over the whole 15th floor, besides two small rooms on the 14th floor. It now includes six departments, counting the Magazine Department, which is an everlasting story by itself.
Miss Young told of merging the Woman's Journal, the Woman Voter and the National Suffrage News in the Woman Citizen, for which 2,000 subscriptions were taken at this convention. The report included those of Mrs. Harper, chairman of editorial correspondence; Mrs. Mary Sumner Boyd, of the research bureau; Miss Mary Ogden White, feature and general news department; Mrs. Rose Lawless Geyer, field press work. There was also a report of the Washington press bureau after the headquarters there were opened, at first in charge of Mrs. Gertrude C. Mosshart, afterwards of Miss Ethel M. Smith. The latter told of the unexcelled opportunities in that city for the distribution of news through the more than 200 special correspondents of the large newspapers and the bureaus of all the great press associations and syndicates. News had to be fresh and well written and 450 copies of each of her "stories" distributed. About half of them were sent to State press chairmen, presidents and others.
Mrs. Harper's work was almost wholly with editors, watching the editorials, which now came in literally by hundreds every day. Her report of three closely printed pages said in part:
When an editorial was friendly a letter of thanks has been sent expressing the hope that the paper would contain many such editorials. When one made a strong appeal for woman suffrage the editor has had a letter expressing the deep appreciation of all at headquarters and saying that it would unquestionably affect public sentiment in his city and State. In many instances, even in the largest papers, there have been mistakes in facts and figures, as the question has not been a national issue long enough for editors to become thoroughly informed, and these have been corrected as tactfully as possible. Often carefully selected literature, suited to the editor's point of view, has been enclosed--to Western editors arguments in favor of a Federal Amendment; to Southern editors statements on the good effects of woman suffrage in the Western States; to Eastern editors a good deal of both. Where an editorial has been directly hostile an argument has been taken up with the editor, supported by unimpeachable testimony. When the editor has been implacable I have frequently written to suffragists in his city to learn what were the influences behind the paper, and usually have found they were such as gave the editor no chance to express his own opinions, but even those papers have almost invariably published my letters.
During the year letters were written to over 2,000 editors in the United States and several in Canada and the returns through the clipping bureaus indicated that a large majority were published. The report said: "I wish there were space to give concrete instances of the results of this year's experiment. Editors have written that, while for years their paper had supported woman suffrage, this was the first time they ever had come in touch with the national organization or known that their work was being recognized outside of their own locality. Many who were wavering have been persuaded to come out definitely in favor; this has been especially noticeable in the South. In a number of cases papers which condemned a Federal Amendment have been helped to see its necessity, and this in the South as well as the North...." As an example of the many special articles it continued:
When the "picketing" began in Washington last January, almost every newspaper in the United States held the entire suffrage movement responsible for it. At once 250 letters were sent in answer to editorials of this nature, stating that the National American Association organized in 1869, had been always strictly non-partisan and non-militant; that it represented about 98 per cent. of the enrolled suffragists of the United States; that all the suffrage which the women possessed to-day was due to its efforts and those of its State auxiliaries, and that Dr. Shaw, its honorary president, and Mrs. Catt, its president, strongly condemned the "picketing." The letter urged the newspapers in their comment on it to make a clear distinction between the two organizations. In countless instances this request was complied with but at the time of the Russian banner episode of the "pickets" before the White House another flood of more than 1,000 editorials poured into the national headquarters, many of them crediting it to the whole cause. A second letter more emphatic than the first was sent to 350 of the largest newspapers in the country, enclosing Mrs. Catt's protest against the "picketing." These had the desired effect and practically all of the papers thereafter, except those hostile to woman suffrage, exonerated the National Association from any part in it.
An argument for the Federal Suffrage Amendment and asking support for it was sent to a carefully selected list of 2,000 editors the month before the first vote was taken in Congress. Over 500 individual letters were sent, for the most part to prominent persons, called out by some expression of theirs, which almost without exception were cordially answered. A long letter to the International Suffrage News each month had been part of the work of this department.
Miss White's report on publicity should be reproduced in full, as it convincingly showed why all of a sudden the newspapers of the country were flooded with matter on woman suffrage. Not until the Leslie bequest became available had the National Association been possessed of the funds to do the publicity work necessary to the success of a great movement. She told how the very first "stories" sent out describing the granting of Presidential suffrage in the winter of 1917 brought back returns of about half-a-million words. The story of the Maine campaign returned 79 columns in 145 papers and Mrs. Catt's speeches, 50,000 words. Her protest against the "antis" charge of disloyalty against the suffragists instantly brought a return of 16 columns in 40 metropolitan papers. Feminism in Japan, a story written in the bureau around a little Japanese suffragist, was sent out by syndicate to a circulation of 10,000,000. The War Service of the National Suffrage Association was told in 15,000 words and the first instalment came back in over 500 newspapers and 400,000 words. The papers gave 680,000 words to the story of the Woman's Committee of National Defense. These figures might be continued indefinitely. Plate matter was furnished to 500 papers in sixteen States in May, and the bulletins of facts, statistics and propaganda issued during the nine months would make a book of 25,000 words.
The report of Mrs. Geyer, a trained journalist, was equally valuable. A part of her work had been to organize a press committee in every State, arrange for the collection of news and put it in proper form for the bulletins, the plate service, the Woman Citizen or wherever it was needed and make a roster of the principal newspapers and their position on woman suffrage. She had managed in person the press work for the Maine campaign, the Mississippi Valley Conference in Columbus, O., and the present national convention.
Mrs. Boyd's painstaking, scholarly and efficient report on the service rendered by the Data department showed the vast amount of time and labor necessary to collect accurate data and how unreliable is much that exists. This was especially the case in regard to woman suffrage, which, when compiled from current sources and returned to the various States for verification, always required much correction. The report told of 350 letters sent to county clerks in the equal suffrage States for trustworthy information as to the proportion of women who voted, with most gratifying response. Many such investigations were made of women in office, laws relating to women, suffrage and labor legislation, women's war record, an infinite variety of subjects. Thousands of newspaper clippings were tabulated and a roomful of carefully labelled files testified to the unremitting work of the bureau. Twenty State libraries and some others were supplied during the year with the books issued by the National Suffrage Publishing Company and its pamphlets were widely distributed.
Miss Esther G. Ogden, president of the National Woman Suffrage Publishing Company, made an interesting report and showed how suffrage victories, the thing the company was working for, meant its financial loss, for as soon as a State had won the vote it ceased to order literature. The tremendous demands of the campaigns of 1915 and 1916 had enabled the company to pay a three per cent. dividend but the entrance of the United States into the war, causing a general lessening of suffrage work, would create a deficit for the present year. For the New York campaign of 1917 the company furnished 10,081,267 pieces of literature, all promptly paid for. Miss Ogden gave an amusing account of how the company was "bankrupted" trying to supply "suffrage maps" up to date, for as soon as a lot was published another State would give Presidential or Municipal suffrage and then the demand would come for maps with the new State "white," and thousands of the others would have to be "scrapped."
The chairman of the Literature Committee, Mrs. Arthur L. Livermore, said that for the first time finances had been available for publishing a well-indexed catalogue with the publications grouped under more than twenty headings. These included efficiency booklets, suffrage arguments, answers to opponents, Federal Amendment literature, State reports, etc. Some of these publications were in book form, including Mrs. Catt's volume on the Federal Amendment, Mrs. Annie G. Porritt's Laws Affecting Women and Children and Miss Martha Stapler's Woman Suffrage Year Book. A number of pamphlets were printed in lots of 100,000, and 700,000 copies of the amendment speech of Senator John F. Shafroth of Colorado before the Senate.
The report of the Art Publicity Committee was made by its chairman, Mrs. Ernest Thompson Seton, and related principally to the poster competition, which closed with the exhibition at the national suffrage headquarters in January. About 100 posters were submitted and $500 in prizes awarded. Afterwards the prize winners and a selection from the others, about thirty in all, were sent to the Washington suffrage headquarters for display and then around to various cities which had asked for them.
One of the largest evening meetings was that devoted to American Women's War Service, with Mrs. Catt presiding. The first speaker was Secretary of War Newton G. Baker and a few detached paragraphs can give little idea of his eloquent address:
I sometimes ask myself what does this war mean to women? War always means to women sorrow and sacrifice and a mission of mercy but one of the large, redeeming hopes of this particular struggle is that it will bring a broadening of liberty to women. This war is waged for democracy. Democracy is never an accomplished thing, it is always a process of growth, an endless series of advances. President Wilson has called it a rule of action. It is a rule that adapts conduct to environment. What was called a democracy in Greece was a small privileged class ruling over slaves. The members of the ruling class had certain democratic relations with one another. There was no more of real democracy in Rome. The first constitutional convention of the French Revolution had a very restricted electoral system with a property qualification. It was so with our own government in 1776 and 1789. It was a rule of conduct adapted to the environment of that time....
The whole environment has changed. In 1789 we might quite possibly have defined ourselves as a democracy, although women did not vote, but not now. We speak of this as a war for democracy. Women are making sacrifices just like men. The activities of women in aid of the war are a necessary part of it. If all the women were to stop their work tonight we should have to withdraw from the war, at least temporarily, until we could entirely readjust ourselves. One of the things this war is bringing home to us is that men and women are essentially partners in an industrial civilization, and by the end of the war the women will be recognized as partners.
When the Secretary finished Dr. Shaw said: "May we not send a message to President Wilson and say: 'Mr. President, as you came to our convention a year ago to fight with us, so we come now to fight with you. As you have kept your pledge of loyalty to us, so we shall keep our pledge to you. We are with you in this world struggle.'" The convention enthusiastically endorsed the message. Other speakers were Mrs. McAdoo and Mrs. Bass--Financing the War; Miss Martha Van Rensselaer, department of Home Economics, Cornell University--Food and the War; Miss Jane Delano--The Red Cross and the War; Mrs. Laidlaw, Mrs. Louis F. Slade--Women's War Service in New York; Dr. Shaw, chairman Woman's Committee of the National Council of Defense. Mrs. McAdoo, daughter of President Wilson and wife of the Secretary of the Treasury, said that she was a resident of New York State and a voter and that women were making a great fight for democracy but the thought which should now be first in the minds of all of them was how to win the war. She described briefly her work as chairman of the Women's Committee of the Liberty Loan and told of its wonderful success in raising millions of dollars. Mrs. Bass, the only woman member of the War Savings Committee, added an earnest appeal to women to help finance the war, and the other speakers on their several topics raised the meeting to a high level of patriotic enthusiasm. In a stirring address Dr. Shaw showed what the country expected of women at this critical time, saying:
We talk of the army in the field as one and the army at home as another. We are not two armies; we are one--absolutely one army--and we must work together. Unless the army at home does its duty faithfully, the army in the field will be unable to carry to a victorious end this war which you and I believe is the great war that shall bring to the world the thing that is nearest our hearts--democracy, that "those who submit to authority shall have a voice in the government" and that when they have that voice peace shall reign among the nations of men.
The United States Government, learning from the weaknesses and the mistakes of the governments across the sea, immediately after declaring war on Germany knew that it was wise to mobilize not only the man power of the nation but the woman power. It took Great Britain a long time to learn that--more than a year--and it was not until 50,000 women paraded the streets of London with banners saying, "Put us to work," that it dawned upon the British government that women could be mobilized and made serviceable in the war. And what is the result? It has been discovered that men and women alike have within them great reserve power, great forces which are called out by emergencies and the demands of a time like this.
Dr. Shaw described the forming of the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense by the Government and her selection as its chairman. She said she had no idea what the committee was expected to do, so she went to the Secretary of the Navy to find out, and continued: "I learned that the Woman's Committee was to be the channel through which the orders of the various departments of the Government concerning women's war work were to reach the womanhood of the country; that it was to conserve and coordinate all the women's societies in the United States which were doing war work in order to prevent duplication and useless effort. This was very necessary, not because our women are not patriotic but because they are so patriotic that every blessed woman in the country was writing Washington, or her organization was writing for her, asking the Government what she could do for the war and of course the Government did not know; it has not yet the least idea of what women can do."
An amusing picture was given of men supervising a department of the Red Cross where women were knitting, making comfort bags, etc. She showed how for the past forty years women in their clubs and societies had been going through the necessary evolution, "until today," she said, "they are a mobilized army ready to serve the country in whatever capacity they are needed. So when the Council of National Defense laid upon the Woman's Committee the responsibility of calling them together to mobilize women's war work, we knew exactly how to do it.... It is not a question of whether we will act or not, the Government has said we must act; it is an order as much as it is an order that men shall go and fight in the trenches. It is an order of the Government that the women's war work of the country shall be coordinated, that women shall keep their organizations intact, that they shall get together under directed heads. I said to the gentlemen here in Washington, when at first they feared our women might not be willing to cooperate: 'If you put before them an incentive big enough, if you appeal to them as a part of the Government's life, not as a by-product of creation or a kindergarten but as a great human, living energy, ready to serve the country, they will respond as readily as the men.'"
We must remember that more and more sacrifices are going to be demanded but I want to say to you women, do not meekly sit down and make all the sacrifices and demand nothing in return. It is not that you want pay but we all want an equally balanced sacrifice. The Government is asking us to conserve food while it is allowing carload after carload to rot on the side tracks of railroad stations and great elevators of grain to be consumed by fire for lack of proper protection. If we must eat Indian meal in order to save wheat, then the men must protect the grain elevators and see that the wheat is saved. We must demand that there shall be conservation all along the line. I had a letter the other day giving me a fearful scorching because of a speech I made in which I said that we women have Mr. Hoover looking into our refrigerators, examining our bread to see what kind of materials we are using, telling us what extravagant creatures we are, that we waste millions of money every year, waste food and all that sort of thing, and yet while we are asked to have meatless days and wheatless days, I have never yet seen a demand for a smokeless day! They are asking through the newspapers that we women shall dance, play bridge, have charades, sing and do everything under the sun to raise money to buy tobacco for the men in the trenches, while the men who want us to do this have a cigar in their mouth at the time they are asking it! I said that if men want the soldiers to have tobacco, let them have smokeless days and furnish it! If they would conserve one single cigar a day and send it to the men in the trenches the soldiers would have all they would need and the men at home would be a great deal better off. If we have to eat rye flour to send wheat across the sea they must stop smoking to send smokes across the sea.
There is no end to the things that women are asked to do. I know this is true because I have read the newspapers for the last six months to get my duty before me. The first thing we are asked to do is to provide the enthusiasm, inspiration and patriotism to make men want to fight, and we are to send them away with a smile! That is not much to ask of a mother! We are to maintain a perfect calm after we have furnished all this inspiration and enthusiasm, "keep the home fires burning," keep the home sweet and peaceful and happy, keep society on a level, look after business, buy enough but not too much and wear some of our old clothes but not all of them or what would happen to the merchants?... We are going to rise as women always have risen to the supreme height of patriotic service....
The Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense now asks for your cooperation, that we may be what the Government would have us be, soldiers at home, defending the interests of the home, while the men are fighting with the gallant Allies who are laying down their lives that this world may be a safe place and that men and women may know the meaning of democracy, which is that we are one great family of God. That, and that only, is the ideal of democracy for which our flag stands.
The National Anti-Suffrage Association took this time to hold its one day's annual convention in a Washington hotel and re-elect for president Mrs. James W. Wadsworth, Jr., wife of the New York Senator, and elect as secretary Mrs. Robert Lansing, wife of the Secretary of State. Mrs. Wadsworth at this time sent to the members of Congress and circulated widely a pamphlet entitled Consider the Facts, in which she charged the suffragists with being pacifists and Socialists and asserted that the recent New York victory was due to the Socialist vote. Miss Mary Garrett Hay, who was chairman of the campaign committee in New York City, where the victory was won, expressed her opinion from the platform in this fashion:
Senator Wadsworth and his wife announced that they weren't going to give any entertainments till the war was over, nevertheless they are dining tonight the Senators and Representatives who are opposed to the Federal Amendment. So I thought I would signalize the occasion by answering the circular Mrs. Wadsworth has sent broadcast asking people to "consider a few facts about the woman suffrage victory in New York." Here are some other facts to consider:
There were only three assembly districts in Manhattan where the suffrage amendment did not poll over a thousand more votes than the Socialists polled. Even in these three suffrage got an average of 600 more votes than the Socialist candidate got. In the 4th district suffrage had the advantage of the Socialists by 551 votes; in the 6th it got 600 more votes than Socialism got; in the 8th it got 656 more. In the 12th, a typical district, where the Socialists got only 1,822 votes, suffrage got 5,480. In my own district, the 9th, suffrage and Fusion ran almost neck and neck, suffrage polling 5,911, Fusion, 5,578; the Socialists polled only 977. In Brooklyn the 14th, 19th and 23rd assembly districts are accounted the Socialists' strongholds. In all three suffrage ran ahead of Socialism. In the 14th suffrage polled a "yes" vote of 4,052, the Socialists 3,142; in the 19th suffrage polled 3,608, the Socialists 3,037; in the 23rd suffrage polled 5,060, the Socialists 3,992.
Considering the suffrage vote in Greater New York in comparison with the vote for Mayor, suffrage polled a "yes" vote of 335,959, the Socialist candidate only 142,178. The Fusion candidate polled 149,307; the Republican, 53,678; the Democratic, the successful one, 207,282. Suffrage, therefore, polled 38,677 more affirmative votes than did the successful candidate. No candidate for Mayor was in the class with the amendment, though all were for suffrage.
Others prominent in the suffrage movement, both men and women, made indignant protest against Mrs. Wadsworth's accusation and pointed to the splendid organized work of the National Suffrage Association in cooperation with the Government from the very beginning of the war.
During this week of the convention the Federal Prohibition Amendment made its triumphant passage through the House, having already passed the Senate, and the suffragists saw the bitterest opponents of their amendment on the ground of State's rights throw this doctrine to the winds in their determination to put through the one for prohibition. They felt that the adoption of that amendment opened wide the way for the passing of the one for suffrage in the near future and this was the view generally taken by the public. Another event in this remarkable week was the creation and appointment of a Woman Suffrage Committee in the House of Representatives, for which the association had been so long and earnestly striving. This was done against the vigorous opposition of the Judiciary Committee, which for the past forty years had prevented the question of woman suffrage from coming before the House for a vote. At this time it reported the Federal Amendment "without recommendation" and tried to prevent its being referred to the new committee.
The report of the corresponding secretary, Mrs. Nettie R. Shuler, for 1917, continued the story of the immense amount of work that had been done at and through the national headquarters, beginning immediately after the great impetus of the Atlantic City convention. A nation-wide campaign was instituted under the three heads set forth by Susan B. Anthony at the beginning of the movement--Agitate, Educate, Organize. It was decided to center the effort even more than ever before on the Federal Amendment and a wide call was sent out for universal demonstrations in its favor, where a resolution for it would be adopted. Twenty-six States responded, New York leading with 101 such meetings. These were followed by visits to State political conventions to secure endorsements, which met with considerable success, and candidates for Congress were interviewed in most of the States. There was advertising in the street cars of Washington during the sessions of Congress. Carefully selected literature was distributed by the hundreds of thousands of copies to the clergy, the politicians, the business men, the rural population; no class was overlooked. Questionnaires were sent to the equal suffrage States for information which was compiled in pamphlets. The first experiment in "suffrage schools," which proved so successful that they were made a permanent feature of the work, was thus described:
It was the general of our suffrage army, Mrs. Catt, "the country's greatest expert in efficient suffrage methods," who first saw the need of suffrage schools and put them into effect in New York State. She knew the value of systematic training and realized that our failure many times had not alone been due to the fact that numbers of women would not work but that those who were willing were untrained and inefficient. It was at first proposed to charge for instruction in the schools but this plan had to be abandoned and the National Association assumed most of the financial obligation.
Our first school was held in Baltimore in December, 1916. The manager was Mrs. Livermore, the instructors herself, Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Geyer. The second was in Portland, Me., January 8-20, 1917. The nineteen schools were all under the direction of the organization department. They began with Maryland and extended through fourteen of the southern and middle-west States, closing March 30 in Detroit, Mich. Three instructors, Mrs. Halsey Wilson, Mrs. Cotnam and Miss Doughty, taught Suffrage History and Argument, Organization, Publicity and Press, Money Raising, Parliamentary Law. The chairman of organization, Mrs. Shuler, taught Organization, Parliamentary Law and Money Raising in the Portland school and in the last five schools of the series.
Mrs. Shuler referred to the war work of the association, which is described elsewhere, and told of the wide field that had been covered by organizers, who had reached the number of 225 during the year, many of them employed by the States. The organization work was classified and standardized. A conference of organizers met in New York where they were instructed by Mrs. Catt, and a pamphlet, the A. B. C. of Organization, was prepared by Mrs. Shuler. As an example of the work done, nine organizers reported 385 meetings in eleven weeks in 25 States and organization effected in 178 towns. The report told of the work done from the headquarters for the Presidential suffrage that had been obtained in various States and in campaigns.
The report of the Committee on Presidential Suffrage was of especial interest, as for the first time in all the years, with one exception, there were victories to record. This report had been made annually by Henry B. Blackwell, editor of The Woman's Journal until his death in 1910, but although he had implicit faith in the possibility of this partial franchise he did not live to see its first success in Illinois in 1913. Miss Elizabeth Upham Yates (R. I.) followed him in the chairmanship but met with an accident which caused her to relinquish it to Mrs. Robert S. Huse. She believed the granting of this form of the franchise helped the cause of full suffrage and through a questionnaire to the different States she had collected much information as to the best method of handling such bills. All wrote that the anti-suffragists were supported in their opposition to them by the liquor interests.
During a discussion of the war work of women Mrs. F. Louis Slade of New York moved (adopted) that as so large a share of the work of the Red Cross is done by women, the association request that women be given adequate representation on the War Council of the American Red Cross. Miss Yates suggested that Clara Barton's name be introduced into Mrs. Slade's resolution. Dr. Shaw spoke of the far-reaching importance of the work Clara Barton had accomplished and of the unworthy manner in which it had been treated. Mrs. L. H. Engle (Md.) suggested that the Red Cross be reminded that the plan of having women nurses in army hospitals had originated with a woman and that the first military hospital in the world had been established by a woman. Mrs. Medill McCormick moved that the Chair appoint a committee of three to confer with the Executive Committee of the American Red Cross. The Chair appointed Mrs. McCormick as chairman, Mrs. Slade and Dr. M. Carey Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College.
Mrs. Catt read telegrams from Governor W. P. Hobby of Texas, the Houston Chronicle, the Chamber of Commerce and the Mayor inviting the association to hold the next convention in that city; also "a telegram from the Mayor of Dallas, Texas, inviting it to meet there. Fraternal delegates cordially received by the convention were Mrs. Flora MacDonald Denison, honorary president of the Canadian Suffrage Association, and Mrs. Philip Moore, president of the National Council of Women. Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery was presented by Dr. Shaw as having been corresponding secretary of the association for twenty-one years and was warmly greeted. Mrs. Frances C. Axtel was introduced as a former member of the Legislature in Washington, now chairman of the U. S. Employees' Compensation Commission. Mrs. Margaret Hathaway, a member of the Montana Legislature, addressed the convention. The Rev. Olympia Brown told of the memorial of Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby, which she had prepared, and asked the delegates to see that copies were placed in libraries. Mrs. Catt paid high tribute to Mrs. Brown's many years of work for woman suffrage. The Rev. James Shera Montgomery, of the Fourth M. E. Church, and the Rev. Henry N. Couden, Chaplain of the House of Representatives, pronounced the invocation at the opening of two sessions.
The elections of the association were models of fairness with no unnecessary waste of time. Mrs. Catt received all the votes cast for president but three. All of the other officers but one had only from 10 to 27 opposing votes. Five members of the old board retired at their own wish, one of them, Miss Meyer, being in the war service in France. Mrs. McCormick, Mrs. Rogers and Mrs. Shuler were re-elected. The new members were Miss Mary Garrett Hay (N. Y.), second vice-president; Mrs. Guilford Dudley (Tenn.) third; Mrs. Raymond Brown (N. Y.) fourth and Mrs. Helen H. Gardener (D. C.) fifth; Mrs. Halsey Wilson (N. Y.) recording secretary. The convention had voted to drop the two auditors from the list of officers and substitute two vice-presidents. A board of directors was elected for the first time, in the order of the votes received as follows: Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw (N. Y.); Miss Esther G. Ogden (N. Y.); Mrs. Nonie Mahoney (Tex.); Mrs. Horace C. Stilwell (Ind.); Dr. Mary A. Safford (Fla.); Mrs. T. T. Cotnam (Ark.); Mrs. Charles H. Brooks (Kans.); Mrs. Arthur L. Livermore (N. Y.).
In place of a flowery speech of acceptance Mrs. Catt laid out more and still more work and outlined a plan of organization for uniting the women of the enfranchised States in an association which should be auxiliary to the National American. Each State association would upon enfranchisement automatically become a member of this organization with an elected working committee of five persons, these State committees to be finally united in a central body to be known as the National League of Women Voters. [Handbook of convention, page 48.] Besides the obvious advantages, she suggested that such an organization would provide a way for recently enfranchised States to maintain intact their suffrage associations for the benefit of work on the Federal Amendment.[113]
One of the most vital reports was that of the treasurer, Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers. It was a remarkable story especially to those who remembered the time when the receipts of the association for the whole year did not exceed $2,000, laboriously collected by Miss Anthony, with possibly a little assistance, in subscriptions of from $5 to $10 with one of $50 regarded as high water mark. The report began: "Our fiscal year closed October 31 with a balance of $11,985 in the treasury and in addition to this our books showed investments of $19,061, the interest of which we have received during the year." The feeling of many suffragists that they wished to use all their money for war work retarded contributions but the example of the National Association was pointed out, which undertook a widespread war service, as the treasury had proved, but did not leave its legitimate suffrage work undone. Mrs. Rogers, whose gratuitous services as treasurer had proved of the highest value to the association, told of the help of her committee of forty-two members in the various States and presented her report carefully audited by expert accountants. It showed expenditures for the year of $803,729. This covered the expenses of the two headquarters, congressional work, State campaigns, publicity and organization throughout the United States. Mrs. Catt's plan to raise a million dollar fund for 1917 had met a generous response and had not lacked a great deal of fulfilment. Pledges to the amount of $120,000 were made for the coming year, the Leslie Commission leading with $15,000, Mrs. William Thaw, Jr., of Pittsburgh subscribed $12,000; Mrs. Robert Gould Shaw of Boston, $5,000; Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick, $2,000; Mrs. Catt, Mrs. Joseph Fels, Mrs. V. Everit Macy of New York; Mrs. Wirt Dexter of Boston; Mrs. Arthur Ryerson, Mrs. Cyrus H. McCormick of Chicago, $1,000 each.
The plan of work for the coming year provided for concentration on securing the submission of the Federal Amendment and the following was adopted: "If the Sixty-fifth Congress fails to submit the Federal Amendment before the next congressional election this association shall select and enter into such a number of senatorial and congressional campaigns as will effect a change in both Houses of Congress sufficient to insure its passage. The selection of candidates to be opposed is to be left to the Executive Board and to the boards of the States in question. Our opposition to individual candidates shall not be based on party considerations, and loyalty to the Federal Amendment shall not take precedence over loyalty to the country."
It was resolved that a compact of State associations willing and ready to conduct such campaigns should be formed. It was directed that the six departments of war work should be continued and that each State association should be asked to establish a War Service Committee composed of a chairman and the chairmen of these departments, with an additional one for Liberty Loans, and that this committee cooperate with the State divisions of the Woman's Committee of National Defense.
In addition to the resolution of loyalty to the Government at the beginning of the convention the following, submitted by the committee, Miss Blackwell chairman, were among those adopted:
Whereas, the war is demanding from women unprecedented labor and sacrifices and women by millions are responding with utmost loyalty and devotion; and
Whereas, Abraham Lincoln, writing of woman suffrage, declared that all should share the privileges of the government who assist in bearing its burdens; and
Whereas, it is important to a country in war even more than in peace that all its loyal citizens should be equipped with the most up-to-date tools; therefore be it
Resolved, that we urge Congress, as a war measure, to submit to the States an amendment to the United States Constitution providing for the nation-wide enfranchisement of women.
That we rejoice this year in the most important victories yet won in the history of the cause. Since January 1, 1917, women have received full suffrage in New York, practically full suffrage in Arkansas, Presidential suffrage in Rhode Island, Michigan and Indiana, Presidential and Municipal suffrage in Nebraska and North Dakota, statewide Municipal suffrage in Vermont, local Municipal suffrage in seven cities of Ohio, Florida and Tennessee and nation-wide suffrage in Canada and Russia; while the British House of Commons has gone on record in favor of full suffrage for women by a vote of seven to one.
That we pledge our unswerving loyalty to our country and the continuance of our aid in patriotic service to help make the world safe for democracy both at home and abroad.
That we pledge our unqualified support to the campaign for the sale of the War Savings Certificates and Thrift Stamps and urge our members to aid it in every way....
That we urge the establishment of the economic principle of equal pay for equal work as vital to the welfare of the nation....
That an American-born woman should not lose her nationality by marrying a foreigner and we urge a change of the law in this respect.
A resolution of gratitude to the memory of the many earnest workers for woman suffrage who had passed away during the year was adopted and letters of greeting were sent to the pioneers still living. A message of love and admiration was sent to Mrs. Catherine Breshkovsky, "the grandmother of the Russian Revolution." "Cordial and grateful appreciation for the inestimable service of the press," was voted.
The program for the last evening was devoted to Women's War Service Abroad. Miss Helen Fraser, representing Great Britain, was here on a special mission from its Government to tell what its women were doing. The audience was deeply moved by her simple but thrilling recital of the unparalleled sacrifices of the women of Great Britain and its colonies. Madame Simon pictured in eloquent language how the war had strengthened the devotion of France to America, not only through the unequalled assistance of this Government in money and soldiers but also through the sympathy and help of the American women. Miss C. M. Bouimistrow, a member of the Russian Relief Council, spoke of the warm feeling of that country for the United States and the bond between them created by the war in which they had a common enemy. Mrs. Nellie McClung, a leader of the Canadian suffragists, described what the war had meant to the women of the Dominion, and, as the Woman Citizen said in its account, "kept her hearers wavering between laughter and tears as she hid her own emotion behind a veil of stoicism and humor."
The convention ended with a mass meeting at the theater on Sunday afternoon at three o'clock with a notable audience such as can assemble only in Washington. Mrs. Catt presided. Mrs. McClung told enthusiastically the story of How Suffrage Came to the Women of Canada in 1916 and 1917, and Miss Fraser related how the work of women during the war had made it impossible for the British Government longer to deny them the franchise, that now only awaited the assent of the House of Lords, which was near at hand. It was always left to Dr. Shaw to finish the program. One who had attended many suffrage conventions said of her at this time: "As ever, Dr. Shaw's oratory was a marked feature of the week's proceedings. Sometimes she was the able advocate of loyalty to the country; sometimes she rose to heights of supplication for an applied democracy which shall include women; sometimes the mischief that is in her bubbled and sparkled to the surface."
Mrs. Catt closed the meeting with ringing words of inspiration, with a call for more and better work than had ever been done before and with a prophecy that the long-awaited victory was almost won. This convention, which had been held under such unfavorable auspices, proved to have been one of the best in way of accomplishment, and, although the papers were overflowing with news of the war, they came to the national suffrage press bureau from 44 States with excellent accounts of the convention; there were over 300 illustrated "stories" and it was estimated that it had received half a million words of "publicity."
* * * * *
It had been customary to have a hearing on the Federal Suffrage Amendment before the committees of every new Congress and this year an extra session had been called in the spring. As the question of a special Committee on Woman Suffrage in the Lower House was under consideration no hearing before its Judiciary Committee was asked for but a hearing took place before the Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage April 20. This was largely a matter of routine as the entire committee was ready to report favorably the resolution for the amendment. Chairman Jones announced that the entire forenoon had been set apart for the hearing, which would be in charge of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Mrs. Catt said: "The Senate Committee of Woman Suffrage was established in 1883. Thirty-four years have passed since then and seventeen Congresses. We confidently believe that we are appearing before the last of these committees and that it will be your immortal fame, Mr. Chairman, to present the last report for woman suffrage to the United States Senate." With words of highest praise she introduced Senator John F. Shafroth of Colorado, "who has been our staunch and unfailing friend through trial and adversity."
Senator Shafroth answered conclusively from the twenty-four years' experience of his State the stock objections to woman suffrage, which he declared to be "simply another step in the evolution of government which has been going on since the dawn of civilization." He asked to have printed as part of his speech two chapters of Mrs. Catt's new book Woman Suffrage by Constitutional Amendment, which was so ordered. Senator Kendrick of Wyoming, former Governor, gave his experience of woman suffrage in that State for thirty-eight years. He declared that the early settlers were of the type of the Revolutionary Fathers and gladly gave to woman any right they claimed. He testified to the help he had received from them "in the promotion of every piece of progressive legislation" and said: "If for no other reason than the forces that are fighting woman suffrage, every decent man ought to line up in favor of it." He closed as follows: "Here and now I want to give this Constitutional Amendment my unqualified endorsement. No State that has adopted woman suffrage has ever even considered a plan to get along without it. It is soon realized that the votes of women are not for sale at any price, and, while they align themselves with the different parties, one thing is always and preeminently true--they never fail to put principle above partisanship and patriotism above patronage." Senator William Howard Thompson of Kansas sketched the steady progress of woman suffrage in his State, told of its beneficent results and submitted a comprehensive address which he had made before the Senate in 1914.
The committee listened with much interest to the first woman member of Congress, Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana, who reviewed the almost insurmountable difficulties of amending many State constitutions for woman suffrage and made an earnest plea for the Federal Amendment. Senator Charles S. Thomas of Colorado, who for the past twenty-five years had been a consistent and never failing friend of woman suffrage, said in beginning: "I learned this lesson in my early manhood by reading the addresses of and listening to such advocates as Susan B. Anthony," and he summed up his strong speech by saying: "The matter is simply one of abstract and of concrete justice. We cannot preach universal suffrage unless we practice it and we can never practice it while fifty per cent. of our population is disfranchised." Senator Reed Smoot of Utah, to whom the women of his State could always look for help in this and every other good cause, said in his brief remarks: "I have for many years watched the work and the sacrifices by many of the best women of this country to bring this question before the people and convince them of its justice and righteousness and I have gloried with them in every victory they have won. Nothing on earth will stop it. The country will not much longer tolerate it that a woman shall have the privilege of voting in one State and upon moving into another be disfranchised."
Mrs. Catt stated that Senators Chamberlain of Oregon and Johnson of California, were not able to be present and asked that the favorable speeches they would have made be put in the Congressional Record, which was granted. Senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana made a thorough analysis of the attitude of the Federal Constitution toward suffrage and its gradual extension and declared that it was now "the duty of the government to see that every one of its citizens was assured of this fundamental right." The hearing was closed by Mrs. Catt with a comprehensive review of the status of woman suffrage throughout the world and the naming of the many countries where it prevailed. She pointed out that Great Britain and her colonies had recognized the political rights of women as the United States had never done, and, now that they were to be called on for the supreme sacrifices of the war, the British Government was granting them the franchise, which our own Government was still withholding. "This fact," she said, "has saddened the lives of women, it has dimmed their vision of American ideals and lowered their respect for our Government. The tremendous capacity of women for constructive work, for upbuilding the best in civilization and for enthusiastic patriotism has been crushed. In consequence this greatest force for good has been minimized and the entire nation is the loser." Senator Walsh's and Mrs. Catt's speeches were printed in a separate pamphlet and circulated by the thousands.
On April 26 the Senate Committee granted a hearing to that branch of the suffrage movement called the National Woman's Party. Miss Anne Martin, its vice-chairman, presided and able speeches were made by Mrs. Mary Ritter Beard and Mrs. Rheta Childe Dorr of New York; Mrs. Richard F. Wainwright of the District; Miss Madeline Z. Doty and Miss Ernestine Evans, war correspondents; Miss Alice Carpenter, chairman of the New York Women's Navy League; Miss Rankin and Dudley Field Malone, collector of the port of New York. On May 3 the National Anti-Suffrage Association claimed a hearing. Its president, Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge, introduced the president of the New York branch, the wife of U. S. Senator James W. Wadsworth, Jr., who presided. The speakers were Miss Minnie Bronson, national secretary; Miss Lucy Price of Ohio; Judge Oscar Leser of Maryland and Mrs. A. J. George of Massachusetts. Their speeches, which fill twenty pages of the printed report, comprise a full resume of the arguments against the enfranchisement of women and will be read with curiosity by future students of this question. On May 15, at the request of the National Woman's Party, the committee granted a supplementary hearing at which the speakers were J. A. H. Hopkins of New Jersey, representing the new Progressive party being organized; John Spargo of Vermont, representing the Socialist Party; Virgil Henshaw, national chairman of the Prohibition party and Miss Mabel Vernon. They gave to the committee copies of a "memorial" which they had presented to President Wilson urging immediate action by Congress. It was signed also by former Governor David I. Walsh of Massachusetts for the Progressive Democrats and Edward A. Rumely for the Progressive Republicans. The pamphlet of these four hearings, of which the Senate Committee furnished 10,000 copies, was widely used for propaganda.
A hearing was held on May 18 before the Committee on Rules of the Lower House, with the entire membership present: Representatives Edward W. Pou, N. C.; chairman; James C. Cantrill, Ky.; Martin D. Foster, Ills.; Finis J. Garrett, Tenn.; "Pat" Harrison, Miss.; M. Clyde Kelly, Penn.; Irvine L. Lenroot, Wis.; Daniel J. Riordan, N. Y.; Thomas D. Schall, Minn.; Bertrand H. Snell, N. Y.; William R. Wood, Ind. Its purpose was to urge favorable report for a Committee on Woman Suffrage. The speakers for the National American Suffrage Association were Judge Raker, Representatives Jeannette Rankin of Montana; Edward T. Taylor of Colorado; Frank W. Mondell of Wyoming and Edward Keating of Colorado; Mrs. Maud Wood Park, chairman, and Mrs. Helen H. Gardener, member of the association's Congressional Committee. The speakers for the National Woman's Party were Miss Martin, Miss Maud Younger, Mrs. Wainwright, Miss Vernon, Representatives George F. O'Shaughnessy of Rhode Island; C. N. McArthur of Oregon; Carl Hayden of Arizona. On December 13 a Committee on Woman Suffrage was appointed.
FOOTNOTES:
[107] Signed: Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, honorary president; Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president; Mrs. Walter McNab Miller, Mrs. Stanley McCormick and Miss Esther G. Ogden, vice-presidents; Mrs. Frank J. Shuler, corresponding secretary; Mrs. Thomas Jefferson Smith, recording secretary; Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers, treasurer; Mrs. Pattie Ruffner Jacobs, auditor; Mrs. Maud Wood Park, chairman Congressional Committee; Miss Rose Young, chairman of Press; Mrs. Arthur L. Livermore, chairman of Literature.
[108] On the list were: All the members of the Cabinet except Secretary of State Lansing; nineteen U.S. Senators and fourteen prominent Representatives; Speaker Champ Clark; U.S. Commissioner of Education Philander P. Claxton; Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Carl Vrooman; Justices of the Supreme Court of the District Wendell P. Stafford and Frederick L. Siddons; Secretary to the President Joseph P. Tumulty; Commissioners of the District Louis Brownlow and W. Gwynn Gardiner; former Commissioners Henry F. MacFarland and Simon Wolf; Major Raymond S. Pullman, Chief of Police; Resident Commissioner and Mme. Jaime De Veyra (Philippine Islands); Resident Commissioner Felix C. Davila (Porto Rico); John Barrett, director of the Pan-American Union; Major-General W. C. Gorgas; the Reverends U. G. B. Pierce, Henry N. Couden, chaplain of the House of Representatives; James Shera Montgomery, Rabbi Abram Simon, John Van Schaick, president of the School Board; Theodore Noyes, editor of the Evening Star; Arthur Brisbane, the Times; C. T. Brainerd, the Washington Herald; W. P. Spurgeon, the Washington Post; Gilbert Grosvenor, editor of the National Geographic Magazine; J. Leftwich Sinclair, president, and Thomas Grant, secretary of the Washington Chamber of Commerce; Dr. Harry A. Garfield, president Williams College and director Fuel Administration for the United States; Edward P. Costigan, U. S. Tariff Commission; Frank A. Vanderlip, V. Everit Macy, on War Boards; Samuel Gompers, president American Federation of Labor; Alexander Graham Bell; Gifford Pinchot; Dr. Ryan Devereux; General Julian S. Carr, commander-in-chief United Confederate Veterans.
Miss Julia Lathrop, chief of the Children's Bureau; Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford, president, and Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, secretary National Education Association; Mrs. George Thacher Guernsey, president-general Daughters of the American Revolution; Mrs. Cordelia R. P. Odenheimer, president-general Daughters of the Confederacy; Miss Janet Richards; Mrs. Charles Boughton Wood; Mrs. Blaine Beale; Mrs. Ellis Meredith; Mrs. Christian Hemmick; Mrs. Herbert C. Hoover; Mrs. A. Garrison McClintock.
[109] The names of the thirteen were given as follows: Miss Heloise Meyer of Massachusetts, first auditor of the association, scheduled for canteen work in France. Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, member of the Congressional Committee of the association, now on governmental assignment in Europe. Miss Irene C. Boyd, of the New York Suffrage Party, serving in a United States base hospital with the American Expeditionary Forces in France. Dr. Esther Pohl-Lovejoy of Portland, Ore., serving with the party sent by the "Fund for French Wounded." Miss Mary W. Dewson, chairman of legislative committee of the Massachusetts Suffrage Association, social worker in France at the call of Major Grayson M. P. Murphy. Miss Lodovine LeMoyne, publicity chairman of the Fall River Equal Suffrage League, serving in a United States base hospital with the American Expeditionary Forces in France. Miss Elizabeth G. Bissell, corresponding secretary of the Iowa Equal Suffrage Association in the French Red Cross canteen. Miss Susan P. Ryerson, former corresponding secretary Chicago Equal Suffrage Association, now bacteriological expert attached to base hospital in France. Miss Lucile Atcherson, of the Ohio association, serving as secretary to Miss Anne Morgan in her relief work in France. To these nine will be added the names of the four doctors leading the New York Infirmary Hospital Unit, which is now seeking the support and authorization of the National Suffrage Association--Caroline Finley, Mary Lee Edwards, Anna Von Sholly and Alice Gregory.
[110] See Mrs. McCormick's complete account in the last chapter on The War Work of Organized Suffragists prepared for this volume.
[111] This Address to Congress in handsome pamphlet form was presented to every member in person by the various women of the association's Congressional Committee. After the Federal Amendment was submitted by Congress it was revised, printed under the title An Address to Legislatures, and through the mail or by the State suffrage workers was put into the hands of every one of the 6,000 members of the forty-eight State Legislatures.
[112] For information regarding the bequest of Mrs. Frank Leslie see Appendix.
[113] This organization, originated by Mrs. Catt even to the name, was effected at the national convention in St. Louis, March, 1919.