History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 5/Chapter 13

 

CHAPTER XIII.

NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1913.

The Forty-fifth annual convention of the National American Suffrage Association met in Washington, November 29- December 5, 1913, in response to the Call of the Official Board.^[1] The first day and evening were given to meetings of the board and committees, so that the convention really opened with a mass meeting in Columbia Theater Sunday afternoon at 3 o'clock and it was cordially welcomed by District Commissioner Newman. Dr. Shaw presided and a large and interested audience heard addresses by Miss Jane Addams, State Senator Helen Ring Robinson of Colorado, Miss Margaret Hinchey, a laundry worker, and Miss Rose Winslow, a stocking weaver of New York; Miss Mary Anderson, member of the executive board of the National Boot and Shoemakers' Union, and others. It was a comparatively new thing to have women wage-earners on the woman suffrage platform and their speeches made a deep impression, as that of Miss Hinchey, for instance, who said in part:

When we went to Albany to ask for votes one member of the Legislature told us that a woman's place was at home. Another said he had too much respect and admiration for women to see them at the polls. Another went back to Ancient Rome and told a story about Cornelia and her jewels—her children. Yet in the laundries women were working seventeen and eighteen hours a day, standing over heavy machines for $3 and $3.50 a week. Six dollars a week is the average wage of working women in the United States. How can a woman live an honorable life on such a sum? Is it any wonder that so many of our little sisters are in the gutter? When we strike for more pay we are clubbed by the police and by thugs hired by our employers, and in the courts our word is not taken and we are sent to prison. This is the respect and admiration shown to working girls in practice. I want to tell you about Cornelia as we find her case today. The agent of the Child Labor Society made an investigation in the tenements and found mothers with their small children sitting and standing around them—standing when they were too small to see the top of the table otherwise. They were working by a kerosene lamp and breathing its odor and they were all making artificial forget-me-nots. It takes 1,620 pieces of material to make a gross of forget-me-nots and the profit is only a few cents. Four years ago 30,000 shirtwaist girls went on strike and when we went to Mayor McClellan to ask permission for them to have a parade he said: "Thirty thousand women are of no account to me." If they had been 30,000 women with votes would he have said that? We have in New York 14,000 women over sixty-five years old who must work or starve. What is done with them when their bones give out and they cannot work any more? The police gather them up and you may then see in jail, scrubbing hard, rough concrete floors that make their knees bleed—women who have committed no crime but being old and poor. Don't take my word for it but send a committee to Blackwell's Island or the Tombs and see for yourselves. We have a few Old Ladies' Homes but with most of them it would take a piece of red tape as long as from here to New York to get in. Give us a square deal so that we may take care of ourselves.

Miss Addams devoted her address to the great change that was taking place in the conception of politics. She called attention to the practical investigations which were being made in the education of children, in immigration, in criminology, in industrial conditions, and said: "This whole new social work can be translated into political action, and, with this, politics will be transformed and women will naturally have a share in it." She called attention to the pioneer days in various countries where women bore a full part in their hardships and to the revolutions in older countries where women fought by the side of the men, "and yet," she said, "when popular governments are established, women for considerations of expediency are left out.... But in the final program for social problems men and women will solve them together with ballots in the hands of both." Senator Robinson gave a keen and comprehensive account of Women as Legislators. The officers of the association held the usual Sunday evening reception to delegates and friends at Hotel Bellevue. The 456 delegates, the largest number ever present at a convention, representing 34 States, were officially greeted Monday afternoon by Mrs. Nina Allender, president of the District of Columbia Association, and Miss Alice Paul, chairman of the National Congressional Committee. Mrs. Pattie Ruffner Jacobs, president of the Alabama Suffrage Association, responded in behalf of the national body. The excellent arrangements for the convention had been made by the new Congressional Committee: Miss Paul, chairman; Miss Lucy Burns, Mrs. Mary Beard, Mrs. Lawrence Lewis and Mrs. Crystal Eastman Benedict, who raised the funds for all its expenses, including those of the national officers, and secured hospitality for the delegates. The report of the corresponding secretary, Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett, described the granting of woman suffrage by the Territorial Legislature of Alaska the preceding January and said: "The bulk of suffrage legislation this year is quite unprecedented. Bills were introduced in twenty-five Legislatures and in the U. S. Congress; bills were passed by ten Legislatures and received record-breaking votes in seven others, and for the second time in history there has been a favorable report from the Woman Suffrage Committee of the U. S. Senate. It continued:

There are three suffrage decisions on record for the year just passed—victory in Alaska and Illinois by act of the Legislature and temporary defeat in Michigan by vote of the electorate. There are four actual campaign States where the amendment will be submitted to the voters next autumn, Nevada (where the bill has passed two Legislatures), Montana, North and South Dakota; and there are three other States where initiative petitions are now in circulation and if the requisite number of signers is secured the amendment will be submitted next autumn, Ohio, Nebraska and Missouri. Then there are three half-way campaign States where the amendment has passed one Legislature and must pass again, in which case the decision will be made by the voters in 1915—New York, Pennsylvania and Iowa, in the first two of which the amendment has the very promising advantage of having been endorsed by all parties.

The full number of twelve delegates and twelve alternates went from the National Association to the Congress of the International Alliance in Budapest last June, and there were many more applicants.... During the year the national president, Dr. Shaw, has spoken at many large meetings in New Hampshire, Nebraska, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, Missouri, Kansas, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Michigan. She also spoke in England, Holland, Germany, Austria and Hungary.

A mass meeting was held under the auspices of the association in Carnegie Hall, New York, where the international president, Mrs. Catt, and all but one of the national officers made addresses. Every ticket was sold and a good sum of money was raised. The headquarters cooperated with the New York local societies in the big suffrage benefit at the Metropolitan Opera House the night before the May parade, where a beautiful pageant was given and Theodore Roosevelt spoke. There was a capacity audience and many people were turned away. The headquarters have taken part so far as possible in all the suffrage parades; that of March 3, in Washington; those of May and November in New York and Brooklyn; that of October in Newark, New Jersey. The association was represented at the annual meeting of the House of Governors in Richmond, Va., last December by Mrs. Lila Mead Valentine, the State president, and Miss Mary Johnston, whose admirable speech was published in pamphlet form by our literature department.

The association has cooperated as fully as was possible with the Congressional Committee in all its most creditable year’s work. This committee is unique in that its original members volunteered to give their services and to raise all the funds for the work themselves. Their singlemindedness and devotion have been remarkable and the whole movement in the country has been wonderfully furthered by the series of important events which have taken place in Washington, beginning with the great parade the day before the inauguration of the President. Several of the national officers have made special trips to Washington to assist at these various events—the March parade, the Senate hearing, the April 7th deputation to Congress, the July 31st Senate demonstration and the Conference of Women Voters in August. An automobile trip was made from headquarters the last week in July, with outdoor meetings held all the way to Washington, to join the other “pilgrims” who came from all over the country. Mrs. Rheta Childe Dorr, Miss Helen Todd, Mrs. Frances Maule Bjorkman and the corresponding secretary were the speakers for the trip.

Petitions to Congress were circulated, special letters on behalf of the association were sent to the members of the Senate Committee before the report was made, and to the Rules Committee urging the appointment of a Woman Suffrage Committee for the House. Miss Elinor Byrns, assisted by another lawyer, Miss Helen Ranlett, has made a chart of the legislation in the suffrage States since the women have been enfranchised. A collection of all the State constitutions has been made with the sections bearing on amendments and the qualifications for voting marked and indexed.

The following telegram was sent by the National Board April 4 to Premier Asquith: "We urge that the British Government frankly acknowledge its responsibility for the present intolerable situation and remove it by introducing immediately an emergency franchise measure."

The report of Miss Byrns, chairman of the Press Committee, which filled eight printed pages, showed the usual vast amount of press work, as described in other chapters. "There now exists," she said, "a most remarkable and unprecedented demand for information about suffragists and suffrage events. We are 'news' as we have never been before. Moreover, we are not only amusing and sometimes picturesque but we are of real intellectual and political interest." Mrs. Bjorkman, editor and secretary of the Literature Committee, devoted a full report of ten pages to the recent and widely varied publications of the association, to the vastly increasing demands for these, which could not be entirely met, and to the pressing need for a properly equipped research bureau. The report of Miss Jeannette Rankin (Mont.), field secretary, told of a year of unremitting work under four heads: legislative, visiting of States, work with the Congressional Committee and special work in campaign States. Delaware, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota were visited. She travelled by automobile from Montana to Washington City with petitions for the Federal Amendment, stopping at thirty-three places for meetings, and two weeks were given to interviewing Senators. Among the campaign States three weeks were spent in Saginaw, Michigan; organizing the city into wards and precincts; five in North Dakota and the rest of the time in Montana, organizing, arranging work at State and county fairs, visiting State Central Committees and State Federations of Women's Clubs.

Among the recommendations presented from the board and adopted were two of prime importance: 1. That in order that the convention may give its support to the Federal Amendment before Congress, it shall instruct the affiliated organizations to carry on as active a campaign as possible in their respective States and to see that all candidates for Congress be pledged to woman suffrage before the next election. 2. That the convention endorse the Suffrage School as a method of work and the National Association offer to organize and send out a traveling school when requested by six or more States, provided they agree to share the expense. To the Official Board was referred the question of appointing a committee to devise and put into operation a scheme for establishing more definite connection between the enfranchised women of the States and the National Association.

After all the years of patient effort to persuade Legislatures to grant Presidential suffrage to women under the inspiration of Henry B. Blackwell, chairman of the committee, his successor, Miss Elizabeth Upham Yates, could announce the first success and she emphasized the important bearing which this and others would have on securing a Federal Amendment. Her report said:

The extraordinary victory in Illinois has emphasized the fact, not duly apprehended hitherto, that State Legislatures have power to grant Presidential suffrage to women. No man derives his right to vote for presidential electors from the constitution of his State but the U. S. Constitution delegates the power and duty to qualify citizens to vote for them to the Legislatures, in the first section of Article II, in these words: "Each State shall appoint in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct a number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in Congress." Probably U. S. Senator George F. Hoar was the first to discover that this power given to Legislatures involved the possibility of the enfranchisement of women for presidential electors. The conspicuous position that women suddenly attained in American politics in 1912 was due to the fact that in six States women were able to determine the choice of thirty-seven presidential electors. The large interests involved in a presidential administration, among which are 300,000 offices of honor and emolument, cause keen political concern from the fact that women voters may hold the balance of power in a close election. The whole number of electoral votes in the nine States where women now have full suffrage is fifty-four. These were attained by campaigns for constitutional amendments that involved vast outlay of time and treasure. Simply by act of Legislature, Illinois has added twenty-nine to the list, an increase of over thirty-three per cent., thus bringing an incalculable influence and power into the arena of national politics....

Mrs. Mary E. Craigie made her usual report of the excellent work done by her Church Committee. She gave a list of the Catholic clergy who had declared in favor of woman suffrage and told of the cordial assent by those of other denominations to include it in their sermons on Mother's Day. She named some of the many questions of social reform to which pulpits were freely opened temperance, child labor, pure food, the white slave traffic and others and asked: "Why does not woman suffrage, the reform that would bring two-thirds more power to all such movements, receive the same cooperation and support from the churches? The answer plainly is: Because of the apathy of women in demanding it."

The changing character of the national suffrage conventions is illustrated by the reports in the Woman's Journal, whose editors had for a generation collected and preserved in its pages the unsurpassed addresses which had delighted audiences and inspired workers. As the practical work of the association increased and spread throughout the different States, more and more of the time of the conventions had to be given to reports and details of business and the number of speeches constantly lessened. The first evening of the convention was devoted to the victory in Illinois, with delightful addresses by Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch, long the State president, who twenty years before had discovered the loophole in the Illinois constitution by which the Legislature itself could grant a large measure of suffrage to women and had tried to obtain the law that had just been gained; by Mrs. Ella S. Stewart, another president, who had carried on this-work; and by Mesdames Ruth Hanna McCormick, Grace Wilbur Trout, Antoinette Funk and Elizabeth K. Booth, the famous quartette of younger workers, who had finally succeeded with a progressive Legislature. As there was no representative from far-off Alaska, Dr. Shaw told how its Legislature had given full suffrage to women. [See Illinois and Alaska chapters.] Miss Lucy Burns gave a clear analysis of the situation in regard to the Federal Suffrage Amendment and the evening closed with one of Dr. Shaw's piquant addresses, which began: "I know the objections to woman suffrage but I have never met any one who pretended to know any reasons against it," and she closed with a flash of the humor for which she was noted:

By some objectors women are supposed to be unfit to vote because they are hysterical and emotional and of course men would not like to have emotion enter into a political campaign. They want to cut out all emotion and so they would like to cut us out. I had heard so much about our emotionalism that I went to the last Democratic national convention, held at Baltimore, to observe the calm repose of the male politicians. I saw some men take a picture of one gentleman whom they wanted elected and it was so big they had to walk sidewise as they carried it forward; they were followed by hundreds of other men screaming and yelling, shouting and singing the "Houn' Dawg"; then, when there was a lull, another set of men would start forward under another man's picture, not to be outdone by the "Houn' Dawg" melody, whooping and howling still louder. I saw men jump up on the seats and throw their hats in the air and shout: "What's the matter with Champ Clark?" Then, when those hats came down, other men would kick them back into the air, shouting at the top of their voices: '"He's all right!!" Then I heard others howling for "Underwood, Underwood, first, last and all the time!!" No hysteria about it—just patriotic loyalty, splendid manly devotion to principle. And so they went on and on until 5 o'clock in the morning—the whole night long. I saw men jump up on their seats and jump down again and run around in a ring. I saw two men run towards another man to hug him both at once and they split his coat up the middle of his back and sent him spinning around like a wheel. All this with the perfect poise of the legal male mind in politics! I have been to many women's conventions in my day but I never saw a woman leap up on a chair and take off her bonnet and toss it up in the air and shout: "What's the matter with" somebody. I never saw a woman knock another woman's bonnet off her head as she screamed: "She's all right!" I never heard a body of women whooping and yelling for five minutes when somebody's name was mentioned in the convention. But we are willing to admit that we are emotional. I have actually seen women stand up and wave their handkerchiefs. I have even seen them take hold of hands and sing, "Blest be the tie that binds." Nobody denies that women are excitable. Still, when I hear how emotional and how excitable we are, I cannot help seeing in my mind's eye the fine repose and dignity of this Baltimore and other political conventions I have attended!

One evening session was devoted to Women and Children and the Courts. Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen of Chicago presided and made a stirring plea for better conditions in the courts of the large cities. She told of the outrageous treatment of women and urged the need of women police, women judges and women jurors. "From the time of the arrest of a woman to the final disposition of her case,' Mrs. Bowen said, "she is handicapped by being in charge of and surrounded by men, who cannot be expected to be as understanding and considerate as those of her own sex. The police stations in most of our cities are not fit for human beings." Judge of the Juvenile Court Julian Mack of Chicago described its methods and their results; and Justice Harry Olsen of the Court of Domestic Relations and the Court of Morals, gave an illuminating address on its functions and their results; Miss Maude Miner of New York spoke from experience of the Women's Night Court and the Work of a Probation Officer. The delegates were deeply moved and determined to investigate and improve the conditions in their own localities.

There had for some time been need of revising the constitution to meet new requirements and a revision committee had been appointed the preceding year with Mrs. Catt chairman, but as she had been in Europe her place had been taken by Miss Caroline Ruutz-Rees (Conn.), who was assisted by attorneys Helen Hoy Greeley and Jessie Ashley. The discussion was as long and earnest as if the fate of nations were involved but the principal changes adopted concerned representation, dues, assessments, methods of election and similar details. The report of Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick, treasurer, showed the total receipts of the year to be $42,723; disbursements, $42,542; balance on hand from preceding year, $2,874. A carefully prepared "budget" of $42,000 was presented to the convention and quickly oversubscribed. The legal adviser, Miss Mary Rutter Towle (D. C.), reported two lawsuits in progress to secure legacies that had been left the association, the usual fate that attended similar bequests. The literature had become so large a feature that it was decided to form a company to publish it. Mrs. Raymond Brown, president of the New York State Suffrage Association, proposed a corporation with a capital stock of $50,000, of which $26,000 should be held by the National American Association, the rest sold at $10 a share. The first $10,000 were at once subscribed and later the Woman Suffrage Publishing Company was organized with Mrs. Cyrus W. Field president.

The election took place under the new primary system and required two days for completion. The only change was the electing of Mrs. Desha Breckinridge second and Miss Ruutz-Rees third vice-presidents. The majorities for most of the officers were very large. The report of the delegates to the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in Budapest was made by Mrs. Anna O. Weeks (N. Y.). The demand for congressional documents, hearings, speeches, etc., had become so extensive that Mrs. Helen H. Gardener (D. C.) had been appointed to report in regard to it and she shed a good deal of light on the subject. She showed that some documents are free for distribution and some have to be paid for. Hearings are usually limited to a small number but the committee strains a point for those on woman suffrage and prints about 10,000, which may be had without charge. If a member is kind enough to "frank" them nothing else must be put in the envelope under penalty of a $300 fine. If more are wanted they must be ordered in 5,000 lots and a member can get a reduced tate, but, while he is always willing to pay the Government for printing his speech, those who want it for their own purposes should send the money for it. The speech of Representative Edward T. Taylor of Colorado in 1912 was cited as an example, of which the suffragists circulated 300,000 copies.

The resolutions presented by Mrs. Helen Brewster Owens (N. Y.), chairman, were brief and to the point. They called on the Senate to pass immediately the joint resolution proposing an amendment to the National Constitution, which had been favorably reported; they urged President Wilson to adopt the submission of this amendment as an administration measure and to recommend it in his Message; they urged the Rules Committee of the House of Representatives to report favorably the proposition to create a Committee on Woman Suffrage; and they demanded legislation by Congress to protect the nationality of American women who married aliens.

Strong pressure had been made on the President to mention woman suffrage in his Message, his first to a regular session of Congress, but it was delivered on Tuesday, December 2, with no reference whatever to the subject. At the meeting of the convention that evening Dr. Shaw said with the manifest approval of the audience: "President Wilson had the opportunity of speaking a word which might ultimately lead to the enfranchisement of a large part of the citizens of the United States. Even Lincoln, who by a word freed a race, had not such an opportunity to release from bonds one-half of the human family. I feel that I must make this statement as broad as it is for the reason that we at Budapest this year realized as never before that womankind throughout the world looked to this country to blaze the way for the extension of universal suffrage in every quarter of the globe. President Wilson has missed the one thing that might have made it possible for him never to be forgotten. I am saying this on behalf of myself and my fellow officers."

The next morning Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick, a clever politician like her father, Mark Hanna, offered the following motion: "Since President Wilson omitted all mention of woman suffrage in his Message yesterday, and since he has announced that he will send several other messages to Congress outlining the measures which the administration will support, I move that this convention wait upon the President in order to lay before him the importance of the woman suffrage question and urge him to make it an administration measure and to send immediately to Congress the recommendation that it proceed with this measure before any other. I also move that a committee of two be appointed to make the arrangements with the President." The motion was unanimously carried and the Chair appointed Mrs. McCormick (Ills.) and Mrs. Breckinridge (Ky.) to arrange for the interview and for a committee of fifty-five, representing all the associations auxiliary to the National, to wait upon the President at his pleasure. To finish the story here—he expressed entire willingness to receive them but was not well enough to do so during the convention. Nearly a hundred of the delegates waited until the next Monday, December 8, when they met in the rooms of their Congressional Committee, a few blocks from the White House and marched two by two to the executive offices, attracting much attention, as this was the first time a President had ever received a woman suffrage delegation officially.^[2] He met them cordially and gave them as much time as they desired. Dr. Shaw spoke as follows:

As president of the National Suffrage Association I have come with this delegation, authorized by the association, to present to you the object for which we are organized—to secure equal suffrage for the women citizens of the United States. We have made these pilgrimages to Washington for many, many years and committees have received us with graciousness and have listened to our arguments, but the difficulty is that they have not permitted our claims to come before Congress, so that body itself might act upon them. Our wish is that we may have a national constitutional amendment, enfranchising the women citizens and preventing the States from depriving them of representation in the Government. Since the Judiciary Committee has not reported our measure for many years and has not given the House an opportunity to discuss it we have asked that a special committee shall be appointed to consider it. The Senate some years ago did appoint a special committee and our question has been referred to it. We have appeared before it this year and it has again reported favorably. We hope that the administration of which you are the head may use its influence to bring the matter before the Senate and House.

We ask your assistance in one of two ways or in any other way which may appeal to your judgment: First of all that you shall send a special message to Congress to submit to the Legislatures of the States an amendment to the National Constitution enfranchising women citizens of the United States; if, however, this does not appeal to you, we ask that you will use the administration's influence on the Rules Committee to recommend the appointment in the Lower House of a committee corresponding with the Suffrage Committee in the Upper House, one which will have leisure to consider our subject and report on it.

We appeal to you in behalf of the women citizens of the country. Many of them have cast their ballots for the President already and have an influence in the Government; many are very eager to take an equal part and they appreciate the just manner in which since your administration began you have weighed public questions. Recognizing your splendid stand on the liberties and rights of the people, we appeal to you because we believe you will bring to ours that same spirit of justice which you have manifested toward other great issues.

The President gave close attention and in his answer seemed to weigh every word carefully:

I want you ladies, if I can make it clear to you, to realize just what my present situation is. Whenever I walk abroad I realize that I am not a free man; I am under arrest. I am so carefully and admirably guarded that I have not even the privilege of walking the streets alone. That is, as it were, typical of my present transference—from being an individual, free to express his mind on any and every subject, to being an official of a great government and incidentally, or so it falls out under the system of government, the spokesman of a party. I set myself this very strict rule when I was Governor of New Jersey and have followed and shall follow it as President—that I am not at liberty to urge upon Congress in messages policies which have not had the organic consideration of those for whom I am spokesman. In other words I have not yet presented to any Legislature my private views on any subject and I never shall, because I conceive it to be part of the whole process of government that I shall be spokesman for somebody, not for myself. To speak for myself would be an impertinence. When I speak for myself I am an individual; when I am spokesman of an organic body, I am a representative. For that reason, you see, I am by my own principles shut out, in the language of the street, from "starting anything." I have to confine myself to those things which have been embodied as promises to the people at an election. That is the strict rule I set for myself. I want to say that with regard to all other matters I am not only glad to be consulted by my colleagues in the two Houses but I hope they will often pay me the compliment of consulting me when they want to know my opinion on any subject. One member of the Rules Committee did come to me and ask me what I thought about this suggestion of yours of appointing a Special Committee for the consideration of woman suffrage and I told him that I thought it was a proper thing to do. So that, so far as my personal advice has been asked by a single member of the committee it has been given to that effect. I wanted to tell you this to show that I am strictly living up to my principles.) When my private opinion is asked by those who are cooperating with me, I am most glad to give it, but I am not at liberty until I speak for somebody besides myself to urge legislation upon the Congress.

The following conversation then took place: "May I ask you a question?" said Dr. Shaw. "Since we are not members of any political party, who is going to speak for us—there is no one to speak for us——" "I realize that," interjected the President, "——unless we speak for ourselves?" "And you do that very admirably," rejoined Mr. Wilson. A general laugh broke up the somewhat solemn occasion and as the delegates went away Dr. Shaw said exultingly: "He is in favor of a House Woman Suffrage Committee and that was our chief object in coming to see him." An interesting evening's program had been prepared under the auspices of the National Men's League for Woman Suffrage with addresses by seven or eight Senators and Representatives, all staunch supporters of the "cause," but all were prevented from coming by one reason or another except Representatives J. W. Bryan of Washington and Victor Murdock of Kansas. They made up for all failures, however, by their strong arguments. James Lees Laidlaw of New York, president of the league, gave a dignified, earnest address and the Hon. Gifford Pinchot made a logical and unanswerable demand for the enfranchisement of women because of the nation's great need for their votes.

An excellent report was presented at this time by Miss Alice Paul. chairman of the Congressional Committee. From the founding of the National Association in 1869 prominent representatives had appeared before committees of every Congress and during many winters Miss Susan B. Anthony had remained in Washington until she obtained a report from these committees, but after she ceased to do this, although the hearings were still granted, nobody made it an especial business to see that the committees made reports and so none was made and action by Congress seemed very remote. In 1910, when the movement entered a new era, the association appointed a special Congressional Committee to look after this matter. By the time of the convention of 1911 the two great victories in Washington and California had been gained and the prospect of a Federal Amendment began to grow brighter. A large committee was appointed consisting chiefly of the wives of Senators and Representatives with Mrs. William Kent (Calif.) chairman. No busier women could have been selected and beyond making excellent arrangements for the hearings, the committee was not active. In 1912, when Kansas, Oregon and Arizona enfranchised women, the whole country awoke to the fact that the turning point had been reached and universal woman suffrage through an amendment to the Federal Constitution was inevitable.

At this time Miss Paul and Miss Burns returned from England, where they had been studying and doing social welfare work and had been caught in the maelstrom of the "militant" suffrage movement. then at its height. Both had taken part in demonstrations before the House of Commons and been sent to prison and they came back to the United States filled with zeal to inaugurate a campaign of "militancy" here. The idea was coldly received by the suffrage leaders and they modified it to the extent of asking the National Association to cooperate in organizing a great suffrage parade to take place in Washington the day before the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson. Dr. Shaw had seen and taken part in such parades in London and was favorably inclined to the project. She put Miss Paul at the head of the Congressional Committee with power to choose the other members to organize the parade, with the proviso that they must themselves raise all the money for it but they could have the authority of the National Association letterheads. Headquarters were opened in a basement on F Street near the New Willard Hotel in Washington. They displayed astonishing executive ability, gathered about them a small army of women and during the next twelve months raised $27,378, the larger part of it in Washington and most of the remainder in Philadelphia. The parade was long, beautiful and impressive, women from many States participating. The report of the Congressional Committee presented to the convention by Miss Paul slightly condensed, read as follows:

Work for Federal Amendment:

Headquarters were opened in Washington, Jan. 2, 1913. Hearings were arranged before the Woman Suffrage Committee of the Senate; before the Rules Committee of the House, when members of the National Council of Women Voters were the speakers; before the Rules Committee during the present convention.

Processions: March 3, when from 8,000 to 10,000 women participated; April 7, when women from congressional districts went to Congress with petitions and resolutions; July 31, when an automobile procession met the "pilgrims" at the end of their "hike" and escorted them through the streets of Washington to the Senate. This procession was headed by an automobile in which rode several of the Suffrage Committee of the Senate.

Pilgrimages coming from all parts of the country and extending over the month of July were organized, about twelve. These all ended in Washington on July 31, when approximately 200,000 signatures to petitions were presented to the Senate.

Deputations: Three deputations to the President were organized immediately preceding the calling of the special session of Congress in order to ask him to give the administration support to the suffrage amendment during the special session. One of these was from the National Association, one from the College Suffrage League and one from the National Council of Women Voters. On November 17 a fourth deputation, composed of seventy-three women from New Jersey, was sent to the President to urge him to take up the amendment during the regular session of Congress.

Local arrangements were made for the conventions of the National Council of Women Voters and the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

A campaign under a salaried organizer was conducted through the resort regions of New Jersey, Long Island and Rhode Island during July, August and September; and one through New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland during July. A month's campaign was carried on in North Carolina. On September 1 permanent headquarters were opened in Wilmington in charge of a salaried organizer and since that time a vigorous campaign has been carried on in Delaware in the attempt to influence the attitude of the Senators and Representatives from that State.

A salaried press chairman has been employed throughout the year, who has furnished daily press copy to the local papers, to the Washington correspondents of the various papers throughout the country and to all of the telegraphic bureaus in Washington. Approximately 120,000 pieces of literature have been printed and distributed. A weekly paper under the editorship of Mrs. Rheta Childe Dorr was established on November 15. This now has a paid circulation of about 1,200 and is self-supporting from its advertisements.

A Men's League was organized, General Anson Mills, U. S. A., being the temporary and Dr. Harvey W. Wiley the permanent chairman. A large number of Congressmen are members.

Eight theater meetings, exclusive of those during this convention, have been held in Washington. Smaller meetings both indoor and out have been held almost daily and frequently as many as five or ten a day. A tableau was presented on the Treasury steps at the time of the suffrage procession of March 3 under the direction of Miss Hazel Mackaye. A suffrage play was given, also two banquets, a reception and a luncheon, and a benefit and a luncheon were given for the purpose of raising funds.

A delegation in two special cars went to New York for the procession of May 3. An even larger delegation went to Baltimore for the procession of May 31. The play given in Washington was reproduced in Baltimore for the benefit of one of the suffrage societies there. A week's campaign was conducted in the four southern counties of Maryland prior to the primary election, at the request of one of the State's societies.

The Congressional Union was formed during the latter part of April and now numbers over a thousand members.

Congressional Work.

Senate and House Joint Resolution Number One for Federal Amendment introduced in Congress April 7, 1913. Woman Suffrage Committee of Senate voted on May 14 to report the resolution favorably and did so unanimously, one not voting. On July 31 twenty-two Senators spoke in favor of the resolution and three against it. On September 18 Senator Andrieus Jones (N. M.) spoke in favor and asked for immediate action. On the same day Senator Henry F. Ashurst (Ariz.) announced on the floor of the Senate that he would press the measure to a vote at the earliest possible moment.

Three resolutions were introduced in the House for the creation of a Woman Suffrage Committee and referred to the Rules Committee and are still before it.

The amendment resolution is awaiting third reading in the Senate and is before the Judiciary Committee of the House.

The action of the Senate was due to the fact that under the new administration a committee had been appointed which was favorable to woman suffrage instead of one opposed as heretofore, with a chairman, Senator Charles S. Thomas of Colorado, who had helped the women of his own State to secure the suffrage twenty years before. The resolutions in the Lower House were introduced by old and tried friends and the association's new Congressional Committee had arranged hearings, brought pressure to bear on members and not permitted them to forget or ignore the question. Miss Agnes E. Ryan, business manager of the Woman's Journal, said in her account: "The convention received the report with enthusiastic applause, giving three cheers and rising to its feet to show its appreciation."

This report was signed by Miss Paul as "chairman of the Congressional Committee and president of the Congressional Union" and she said at the beginning that it was impossible to separate the work of the two. At its conclusion Mrs. Catt moved that the part of the report as from the Congressional Committee be accepted, which was done by the convention. She then asked what was the relation between the two and why, if this was a regular committee of the National American Association, no appropriation had been made for its work during the coming year and why there was no statement in the treasurer's report of its expenditures during the past year. It developed that the committee had raised and expended its own funds, which had not passed through the national treasury, and that the Congressional Union was a society formed the preceding April to assist the work of the committee. It was moved by Mrs. Catt and carried that the convention request the Official Board to continue the Congressional Committee and to cooperate with it in such a way as to remove further causes of embarrassment to the association. The motion was amended that the board should appropriate what money could be spared for the work of this committee.^[3]

The movement for woman suffrage was now so plainly centering in Congress, which had been the goal for over forty years, that there was a widespread feeling that the national headquarters should be established in Washington. Mrs. Oliver H. P. Belmont, a delegate from New York, through whose generosity it had been possible to take them to that city in 1900, offered a motion that they now be removed to Washington. She had given notice of this action the preceding day and the opponents were prepared. A motion to lay it on the table was quickly made and all discussion cut off. The opposition of the national officers Was SO apparent that many delegates hesitated to express their convictions for the affirmative but nevertheless the vote stood 134 ayes, and 169 noes.

The National Association had now so many auxiliaries and so much work was being done in all the States that the day sessions were largely consumed in hearing reports from them and the usual conferences and symposiums were almost crowded off the program. For the first time Hawaii took her place among the auxiliaries, a suffrage society having been formed there during the year. At one of the morning sessions U. S. Senator Moses E. Clapp of Minnesota was presented to the convention and extended a pressing invitation to hold its next meeting in St. Paul. Later this invitation was repeated in a cordial invitation from Governor Adolph O. Eberhard. At another morning session Representative Kenneth McKellar of Tennessee addressed the convention and invited it to meet in Chattanooga the next year. The last evening there was not standing room in the large theater. Miss Harriet May Mills, president of the New York State Suffrage Association, took for her subject A Prophecy Fulfilled and gave convincing reasons for believing that the successful end of the long contest was near. Mrs. Katharine Houghton Hepburn made a strong arraignment of Commercialized Vice, using her own city of Hartford, Conn., for an example. Mrs. Catt gave the last address, a comprehensive review of the advanced position that had been attained by women and the great responsibilities it had brought. Dr. Shaw, who presided, spoke the final inspiring words.

A delightful ending of the week was the reception the last afternoon in the hospitable home of Senator and Mrs. Robert M. LaFollette. Three members of the Cabinet were among the guests, Secretaries Lane, Houston and Daniels. Those in the receiving line were: Senator and Mrs. LaFollette, Dr. Shaw and Mrs. Catt; also Mrs. Franklin K. Lane, Mrs. Josephus Daniels, Mrs. Albert Sidney Burleson, Mrs. David Franklin Houston, Mrs. Miles Poindexter, Mrs. Reed Smoot, Mrs. Victor Murdock, Mrs. Wm. L. LaFollette, Mrs. J. W. Bryan, Mrs. John E. Raker, Mrs. James A. Frear, Mrs. Henry T. Rainey, Mrs. Albert B. Cummins, Mrs. John D. Works and Mrs. William Kent, all members of the Cabinet and Congressional circles, and the husbands of most of them were present. To the older members of the association it recalled the conventions of olden times when even the wives of members of Congress, with a few rare exceptions, feared to attend the social functions lest it might injure the political status of their husbands.

 

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The Senate committee of the Sixty-third Congress had already granted three hearings on woman suffrage during its extra session: on April 10, 1913, to representatives of the Anti-Suffrage Association; on April 21 to those of the Federal Women's Equality Association and on April 26 to those of the National American Suffrage Association. This new committee, which the advocates of the Federal Suffrage Amendment will always remember with deep appreciation for its firm and favorable action, consisted of the following Senators: Charles S. Thomas (Colo.), chairman; Robert L. Owen (Okla.); Henry F. Ashurst (Ariz.); Joseph E. Ransdell (La.); Henry P. Hollis (N. H.); George Sutherland (Utah); Wesley L. Jones (Wash.); Moses E. Clapp (Minn.); Thomas B. Catron (N. M.). The last named was an opponent of woman suffrage by any method and was the only member who did not sign the favorable report. Senator Ransdell at first said that he had an open mind but he soon placed himself on the suffrage side, signed the report and later voted several times in favor of the amendment.

The immediate object of the National American Association at the present moment was to secure a Committee on Woman Suffrage in the Lower House such as had long existed in the Senate. A resolution to create such a committee had been introduced April 7 by Edward T. Taylor (Colo.) and referred to the Committee on Rules. The hearing at the regular session during this convention, therefore, was before this committee, which would have to recommend the Woman Suffrage Committee to the House, and it was set for 10:30 a.M., December 3. As soon as the application was made the National Anti-Suffrage Association also asked to be heard, and Chairman Henry, who was opposed to the proposed new committee and to woman suffrage, announced that he proposed to allow both sides all the time they wanted, The leaders of the National Suffrage Association stated that they would ask for only the usual two hours and would not discuss the general question of woman suffrage but only the need of a special committee. Their arguments were concluded at the morning session. The "antis" began after luncheon with massed forces and talked the entire afternoon and all of the next day and part of the third, covering the whole subject of woman suffrage, with the appointment of the committee only one feature of it. Several of their men speakers consumed nearly an hour each and were repeatedly requested by the chairman to face the committee instead of the audience, which filled the largest room in the House office building. The first morning all of the committee were present but they gradually dwindled until during the latter part of the "antis'" arguments only two or three were in their seats, not including the chairman.^[4] Only limited extracts of the speeches are possible. Dr. Shaw presided and said:

Our purpose in coming before you this morning is not to make any attempt whatever to convert the members of the Rules Committee, if they should need converting, to the democratic principle of the right of the people to have a voice in their own government. It is to ask you to appoint a committee in the House on woman suffrage, which corresponds with the one in the Senate, in order that we may have hearings before a committee which is not so burdened with other business as is the Committee on the Judiciary.... It seems to the women of the United States that a question of so much importance that the parliaments of Europe feel under obligations to discuss and act upon it, is at least of sufficient importance in this great republic of ours for the committee which has it under consideration to take time for a report. Year after year we have asked the Judiciary Committee not that they should believe in woman suffrage or express any opinion on it but only to report the measure either favorably or unfavorably so as to bring it before the House, in order that the representatives of the men of this country might be able to consider it, but thus far it has been impossible to secure any sort of a report....

Mrs. Helen H. Gardener (D. C.), after showing that woman suffrage was a mere side issue with the Judiciary Committee and that it would be busier than ever the coming session, said: "Those of us who live here and have known Congress from our childhood know that an outside matter has less chance to get any real consideration by such a committee under such conditions than the proverbial rich man has of entering the kingdom of heaven." She pointed out that over one-fifth of the Senate and one-seventh of the House were elected by the votes of women and continued:

You will remember that there is a committee on Indian Affairs. Are the Indians more important than the women of America? They

did not always have a special committee, they used to be a mere incident, as we now are. They used to be under the War Department and so long as this was the case nobody ever doubted for an instant that the "only good Indian was a dead Indian"——as under the incidental administration of the Judiciary Committee it is not doubted by some that the only good woman is a voteless woman. When the Indians secured a committee of their own they began to get schools, lands in severalty and the general status of human beings.... It became the duty of that committee to investigate the real conditions, the needs, the grievances and the best methods of promoting the interests of the Indians. That was the beginning of the end of Indian wars; the first hope of a possibility—previously sneered at—of making real and useful citizens of this race of men who now have Representatives in Congress. It was precisely the same with our island possessions, only in this case we had profited by our experience with Indian and labor problems, and it did not take so long to realize that a committee whose duty it should be to utilize, develop and conserve the best interests of these new charges of our Government and to develop them toward citizenship as rapidly as possible was the safe and sane method of procedure....

We want such a committee on woman suffrage in the House. We do not ask you to appoint a partisan committee but only one open-minded and honest, which will really investigate and understand the question, its workings where it is in effect—a committee which will not accept wild statements as facts, which will hear and weigh that which comes from the side of progress and change as well as that which is static or reactionary.... The recommendation that we have such a committee does not in any way commit you to the adoption of a belief in the principle of self-government for women. This is not much to ask and it is not much to give, nor will it be needed fer very many more years.

Mrs. Ida Husted Harper was introduced as one of the authors of the four-volume History of Woman Suffrage and the biographer of Susan B. Anthony and began: "This is not the time or place to enter into an argument on the merits or demerits of woman suffrage and we shall use the valuable hours you. have so graciously accorded us simply to ask that you will give us a committee of our very own, before which we may feel that we have a right to discuss this question. In making this request we ask you to decide, first, whether the issue of woman suffrage is sufficiently national in its character to justify a special committee for its consideration; second, whether it has been so fairly treated by the committee which has had it in charge for forty-four years that another is not necessary; and, third, whether justice requires that it should come under the jurisdiction of Congress."

The national status of the woman suffrage movement was sketched and then the question asked: "Has the treatment of this subject by the committee to which it has always been referred been such as to warrant a continuance of this custom?" which she answered by saying:

The National Woman Suffrage Association was formed in 1869 for the express purpose of obtaining an amendment to the Federal Constitution. Its representatives went before the congressional committees that year and have continued to do so at each new Congress since that time, never having been refused a hearing. At the beginning of 1882 both Senate and House created special Woman Suffrage Committees. The Senate has continuously maintained this committee, but in 1884 the House declined to renew it by a vote of 124 nays, 85 yeas; 112 not voting. The debate was long and heated and almost wholly on the question of woman suffrage itself. Thenceforth the women appeared before the House Judiciary Committee, which, although busy and overworked, had always a good representation present and was respectful and often cordial.

The ablest women this country has produced have appeared before this committee.... Repeatedly the eminent members of this Judiciary Committee have said that no hearings before them were conducted with such dignity and ability as those of the advocates of woman suffrage. And what is the result? Six reports in forty-four years and five of these unfavorable! Does the record end here? No; for there has been no report of any kind since 1894. For the last twenty years the women of this nation have made an annual pilgrimage to Washington to plead their cause before a committee which has forgotten their existence as soon as they were out of sight.... Gentlemen of the Committee on Rules, will you not give to women a committee of their own that will not ignore them for half a century?....

The entire status of woman has changed since the Federal Constitution was framed, and ethical and social questions have entered into politics which could not have been foreseen. It is inevitable that this

Constitution must occasionally be amended to meet new conditions, while leaving its fundamental and vital provisions undisturbed. The advocates of woman suffrage believe that it should now be changed so as to give a voice in governmental affairs to a half of the people which has become an important factor in the public life of the nation. By the only means now available the half which possesses the ballot has the absolute authority over its further extension and no ruling class likes to divide its power. State rights are desirable to a very large extent when all the people of the State have a voice, but it is not in harmony with the spirit of our republic that one half of the citizens of a State should have complete power over the political liberty of the other half.

Instance after instance was given from different States showing how this power had been abused after the women had struggled long and heroically for even a partial franchise and the speaker concluded: "Women have been defeated over twenty times in the strongest campaigns they were able to make for full-suffrage amendments to State constitutions. From 1896 to 1910 they were not once successful. Sometimes they were sold out by the party 'machines' at the last moment; sometimes they were counted out after they had really secured a majority; but, whatever the reason, they lost. The victories of the last three years may be cited as evidence that henceforth they will succeed. Those victories were largely due to political conditions which do not exist in many other States and against them must be set the crushing defeats these same years in Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan, where the woman suffrage amendment was fought by every vicious interest which menaces the body politic...."

Miss Jane Addams was presented by Dr. Shaw as one who did not need to be introduced to any civilized being, "not because of any political agitation by her but for the service she has rendered humanity, one which is distinctly woman's service, and she long ago came to realize that it was impossible to do this work as it should be done unless she and the women associated with her had the ballot." Miss Addams referred to a committee hearing once before when she was able to give but one precedent for the jurisdiction of Congress over the franchise—the 15th Amendment—but now, she said, she could give nine more. She cited the case of the Indians, the Confederate soldiers, foreigners who fought in the Civil War, naturalized foreigners, Federal prisoners, American women marrying aliens, election of U. S. Senators, etc. Each point brought questions or objections from the committee and the discussion was very interesting. Members of the committee asked Dr. Shaw if the association would be willing to have the matter of a Federal Suffrage Amendment referred to the Committee on Election of President, Vice-President and Representatives in Congress but after consultation with members of her board it was decided to stand for a special committee. Mrs. Desha Breckinridge was introduced as the great granddaughter of Henry Clay and in the course of a speech worthy of her ancestry she recalled the early history of Kentucky, the part of her grandfather in preserving the Union, the fact that the State had not maintained its prestige and that if this was to be regained the women must be permitted to help and said:

I do not feel that I am doing any injustice to the men of my State in asking this Federal Amendment, in asking the help of the Congress of the United States. Some years ago, after we had worked for our School-suffrage law at three sessions of the Legislature and had at last gotten it past the House and up to the Senate, only three days before adjournment a letter was sent to the members by the German-American Alliance, calling upon the men of Kentucky to protect the homes and womanhood of the State by defeating it and saying that the Alliance believed the home was the sphere for women. When we investigated we found that the German-American Alliance was the brewers' alliance, with headquarters at Louisville.... I would suggest to the men of this committee, who I understand are mostly southern, that if they object to having the suffrage for women forced upon them by the U. S. Government, there is still time in which they may go home and get it for their women in the States.

Representative John E. Raker (Calif.), speaking with a full knowledge of the inner machinery of Congress, brushed aside all objections, showed that it was the custom to appoint special committees for special subjects, stood up against the heckling of the Rules Committee and put the necessity for this desired committee beyond argument. Dr. Shaw joined him in refuting the reiterated charge that the suffragists would insist on having it composed entirely of their supporters. Mrs. Mary Beard (N. Y.) addressed the committee as Democrats and from the standpoint of party expediency with such a knowledge of politics as they never had met in a woman. She said in a scathing arraignment:

This committee is composed of thirteen men and seven constitute the deciding vote on our appeal for the Woman Suffrage Committee. These seven belong to the majority, the Democratic party. One of them comes from a partial suffrage State, Illinois, and another from a campaign State, New York, where the Legislature has declared in favor of submitting this question to the voters. I shall, therefore, limit my examination to the remaining five gentlemen whose point of view will in all probability decide the women's destiny in the House of Representatives at least for the moment. These five all represent one section of the country and my analysis of them is made in the hope that they will take a national point of view and help us obliterate sectional feeling. Who are you that hesitate to promote, if you do not actually obstruct this Federal Amendment? In looking over various public records I find that the honored chairman of this committee holds his strategic position as a result of the will expressed at the polls of 7,623 men. Opposite his name should be written: "No opposition." Another of the five comes here through the vote of 13,906 men. Another is sent by the very small group of 6.474 men, and the remaining two represent respectively 18,000 and 16,000 men. The total vote behind all five of these gentlemen is 63,570. These 63,570 voters, therefore, have the decision of this momentous question.... You know the fight that you Democratic men put up against the combination by the Committee on Rules under the leadership of Speaker Cannon and you led that fight against the domination of the committee over the House. You are today in this same position of political power. Can you consistently oppose now the things for which you fought so bitterly a short time ago? We know how rapidly you have appointed committees when changed economic conditions demanded it. I have here the report of the Committee on the Judiciary for the special session, showing what work it did, how many sittings it held, which proves conclusively that it has not time for the consideration of our question....

This part of the hearing closed with the address of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, who was introduced as president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, representing the organized womanhood of twenty-six nations. She said in the course of her address:

A few weeks ago a dispatch was sent out from Washington, saying that the Judiciary Committee for the next year was going to be more overworked than ever before. It was accompanied by a letter from the President to Mr. Clayton, begging him to continue as chairman of that committee and to withdraw from his candidacy for the Senate from Alabama because this committee was going to do more work than it had ever been required to do before. He called attention to the fact that the Ways and Means Committee had been obliged to work day and night, sometimes spending the whole night on their particular business, and he warned Mr. Clayton that this might be the expectation of the Judiciary Committee in this coming Congress. When this committee has only worked during the day, we suffragists have not been able to get the attention which we think our cause demands and with this additional work it is quite impossible to expect more attention than we have had in the past. Since the suggestion was offered that possibly our business might go before the Elections Committee, the information has come that the President's plan for presidential primary legislation will make this committee also a very busy one this coming session. .. . We pride ourselves on our democracy, but while the Judiciary Committee has been refusing to report our measure and bring it before the House for discussion the question of woman suffrage has been considered by the Imperial Parliaments of twelve European countries. This has been done in fact within the past two years.

Mrs. Catt gave particulars from each and said the only ones where it had not been discussed were those of Germany, Austria, Turkey and the United States. This assertion stung the committee and Representative Hardwick (Ga.) asked if there was not the wide difference that in this country State laws reached the suffrage while in others the Parliament regulated the vote, and she answered: "Of course there is that difference but I wish to add my opinion to that of Miss Addams, that while the States have the right to extend the vote it is the most outrageously unfair process through which any class of unenfranchised citizens of any land have ever been called upon to obtain their enfranchisement and that is the reason why we come to Congress. The overwhelming majority of the men of this country have not secured their suffrage by any vote at the polls in the States. The only class that I have ever been able to find in our history so enfranchised are the working men in the original thirteen colonies, and they got the vote by the process long ago when the population was exceedingly small. There are more men today voting on the basis of their citizenship under naturalization than for any other reason and yet our State constitutions compel us to go to these men and ask our vote at their hands. They say whether the women who have been born and bred here and educated in our schools shall have the vote. We believe we have the right to have our question considered by Congress and that is why we ask for a special committee."

A spirited discussion followed in which the 15th Amendment played a part and Mr. Hardwick said all the women had to do in order to vote was to add the word "sex" to it and Dr. Shaw answered: "This would require a constitutional amendment and what we are asking is such an amendment to our National Constitution, which shall forbid the States to deprive women citizens of the right which it grants to every man born in the United States and to every man imported from any country under the light of the sun. No nation has subjected its women to the humiliating position occupied by those of this nation today. There is no race which is not represented in the citizenship of this country and these citizens are made the governing power which determines the destinies of our women. While women are disfranchised in Germany, yet German women are governed by German men; French women are governed by Frenchmen; in all the nations of Europe where women are disfranchised it is by the men of their own nation but in the United States men of every race may go to the polls and vote that American-born women may not have a voice in their own government. Therefore we claim that it is the business of the Government to protect women citizens in this right of suffrage as it protects men citizens, and we ask for this committee because we believe that if our question can be brought before Congress and discussed freely, it will be submitted to the Legislatures and decided favorably."

Two anti-suffrage associations were represented, the National, headed by its president, Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge of New York, and the Guidon Club, headed by its president, Mrs. William Force Scott of New York. Mrs. Dodge presented as speakers Miss Alice Hill Chittenden and Miss Minnie Bronson (N. Y.), Mrs. Robert Garrett (Md.), Miss Emily P. Bissell (Del.), Mrs. A. J. George (Mass.), Miss Annie Bock (Calif.), Mrs. O. D. Oliphant (N. J.), Miss Ella Dorsey (D. C.), Mrs. R. C. Talbot and Miss Lucy Price (O.), Miss Eliza Armstrong, Miss Emmeline Pitt and Miss Julia Harding (Penn.), Miss Alice Edith Abell, president "Wage-earners' Anti-Suffrage League" (N. Y.); Everett P. Wheeler and Charles L. Underhill, representing the Men's Anti-Suffrage Leagues of New York and of Massachusetts. Letters were read from Miss Elizabeth McCracken (Mass.) and Arthur Pyle (Minn.). Mrs. Scott introduced as speakers Dr. and Mrs. Rossiter Johnson and John C. Ten Eyck of New York. Representative J. Thomas Heflin (Ala.) spoke over an hour on his own initiative.

As the anti-suffragists had entirely disregarded the agreement to confine the hearing to the purpose of obtaining a special committee and had covered the whole field of woman suffrage itself, the Committee on Rules willingly granted time for a rebuttal. Miss Alice Stone Blackwell (Mass.), editor of the Woman's Journal, was selected as the principal speaker because of her extensive knowledge of the subject and another large audience assembled for the fifth time, both suffragists and opponents. Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch (Ills.) presided and Miss Blackwell said in beginning:

Gentlemen of the committee, it is difficult in a short time to review the arguments that have been made during nine or ten hours, therefore I shall take up only the most important points. The argument has been made over and over that you ought not appoint this committee because there is not a sufficient public demand and because the number of women who oppose suffrage is greater than the number who favor it. It is an actual fact that we represent a very much larger number. The opponents say that only 8 per cent, of the women of this country favor suffrage. They have no authority for this, nobody knows how many there are, but it is a fact that less than one per cent, of the women of the United States have expressed any objection to equal suffrage. The anti-suffragists claim to be organized in seventeen States. The suffragists are organized in forty-seven: the only State without an organization is New Mexico. The anti-suffrage movement maintains only three periodicals two monthlies and one quarterly. The suffrage movement maintains seven weekly papers, one fortnightly and four or five monthlies.

In every State where petitions for suffrage and remonstrances against it have been sent to the Legislature, the petitioners have always outnumbered the remonstrants and generally by 50 or TOO to one. At the time of the last New York constitutional convention as far back as 1894 the suffragists obtained more than 300,000 individual signatures to their petitions. Suppose only one-half of those were women, that would make 150,000. At the same time the anti-suffragists obtained only 15,000, men and women. In Chicago, a few years ago. 104 organizations, with an aggregate membership of more than 100,000 women, petitioned for a municipal womansuffrage clause in the new city charter, while only one small organization of women petitioned against it....

One of the opposing speakers claimed that the majority of the grangers were opposed to suffrage. The National Grange passes a strong resolution in favor of woman suffrage every year and a long list of State granges have done the same. Individual working women have appeared before this committee and have said that they believed that the majority of working women were opposed to suffrage, but all the great organizations of working men and working women have repeatedly passed strong resolutions in favor of it. We have been told that all kinds of terrible things will happen if suffrage is granted. With the exception of Illinois, every State that has adopted it borders directly upon some State which has it. If. as has been claimed here, homes were broken up and made desolate, if husbands found that their wives were neglecting their home duties and their children, it is not likely that suffrage would spread from the State which first adopted it to one adjoining State after another. You have had one California woman here who claimed that woman suffrage there does not work well. California adopted the initiative and referendum at the same time with woman suffrage. The "antis" immediately started an initiative petition for the repeal of woman suffrage. They said that 80 per cent. of the women of California were opposed to it and that they would repeal it. Both men and women were eligible to sign the repeal petitions; but out of the 1,591,783 men and women they failed to get the 32,000 signatures necessary. It has been asserted that the women in all the equal suffrage States would like to repeal it. In any one of these States they could repeal it if they wished to. A great effort was made by the editor of the Ladies' Home Journal to find Colorado women who would express themselves against it and the fact that he wanted adverse opinions was widely announced in the papers. Out of the more than 200,000 women he succeeded in finding only nineteen who said they did not think much of woman suffrage and of these three said it had not done any harm.

A few years ago Mrs. Julia Ward Howe took a census of all the ministers of four leading denominations in the four oldest suffrage States—Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho—and of all the editors, asking them whether the results of woman suffrage were good or had. She received 624 answers, of which 62 were unfavorable, 46 undecided and 516 in favor. The answers from the editors were favorable more than 8 to 1: those from the Episcopal clergymen more than 2 to 1; from the Baptist, 7 to 1; from the Congregationalists about 8 to 1; from the Methodists more than Io to 1; and from the Presbyterians more than 11 to I.

Miss Blackwell disproved thoroughly the charges made by the opposition disparaging to the laws for working women in the equal suffrage States and many other charges, giving full proof of the accuracy of her statements. The committee asked her many questions and gave her leave to print as much of her argument as she wished. Her carefully prepared data filled thirty-five pages of fine print in the published hearing.

James Lees Laidlaw (N. Y.), president of the National Men's League for Woman Suffrage, showed that the attitude of the opponents expressed a distrust of democracy. He refuted many of their assertions, among them the one that U. S. Senator John D. Works (Calif.) had declared woman suffrage a failure in that State. He read a letter received from the Senator the preceding day as follows: "I did not make any statement anywhere that woman suffrage in California has proved a failure. Such a news item was sent out over the country but it was entirely without foundation and was based on a false headline in a newspaper not borne out by the quotation from my speech even in that paper. You may say for me that the statement is wholly without foundation and that woman suffrage has not proved to be a failure in my State."

Mrs. McCulloch referred to the "poor, misguided working girl" among the "antis" who said wage-earning women didn't want the vote and asked Miss Rose Winslow, a prominent working woman, to read the resolution demanding the suffrage which was passed by the National Women's Trade Union League. She did so and in a few sentences scored one of the flowery anti-suffrage speakers, saying: "I have not had any choice as to whether I should walk on the Bowery or on Fifth Avenue, because I walk nowhere in the sunshine. I am one of the millions of women who work in the shadow of these women of whom men speak as though they are the only ones in the country, in order that they may parade the avenue in all the beauty and glory of everything brought from all over the world for their decoration, but I do not come with merely my personal opinion and experience. I have the opinion of the organized working women of America in convention assembled. These women represent all the trades that women work at in the United States and they have passed this resolution demanding the ballot without a dissenting vote."

Mrs. Emma S. South, wife of former Representative Oliver South of Illinois, said the opponents had given alleged facts that would require weeks of investigation to prove or disprove. She answered their favorite assertion that women had more influence without the vote by convincing illustrations of what the women of Chicago had been able to accomplish with even their partial suffrage, retaining Mrs. Ella Flagg Young as superintendent of schools, for instance. She showed how in the appointment of the new school board the fact that their power had been doubled and trebled by the recently granted Municipal vote was manifest. Mrs. William Kent, after showing why the women of California had asked for the ballot, gave her time to Miss Helen Todd, who said in the course of an impassioned speech: "My conversion to suffrage came through six years of work as factory inspector in Illinois. I have always thought that the reason there could be such a thing as women 'antis' was simply that the screen of ignorance and the comfort and protection of home were so thrown around them that they never had to face the realities.... No one can go, as I have gone, through the factories of a great State and see the suffering just of the children and not want the women who create human life to have the power to protect that life."

Mrs. Ella S. Stewart (Ills.), Mrs. John Rogers, Jr. (N. Y.), Mrs. Katharine Houghton Hepburn (Conn.), Mrs. Ida Porter Boyer (Penn.) and Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton (O.) spoke briefly but strongly and an effective letter was read from Miss Constance Leupp (D. C.). The women present from the South were deeply incensed at the long, opposing speech of Representative Heflin, who claimed to represent the women of that section, and he was severely answered by Mrs. Pattie Ruffner Jacobs, Mrs. Oscar Hundley and Mrs. Felix Baldwin of his own State; Mrs. S. D. Meehan of Louisiana; Mrs. L. Crozier French and Miss Catharine J. Wester of Tennessee and Mrs. Lulu Loveland Shepherd of Utah, formerly of Tennessee. Mrs. Harper cited the three classes enfranchised since the founding of the Government, the working men, the negroes and the Indians, and said: "There was never any question as to whether they would improve things or hurt things; now, in the President's Message, he asks you to bring in the Porto Rican men. Are you going to do this because you think they are needed in the electorate and because they will make conditions better? We women are the only class who have ever asked for suffrage in this country to whom all these objections have been made and in regard to whom all these fears have been expressed. There is not a class of voters in the United States today which has lifted one finger to get the ballot, yet the women of this country have been struggling sixty-five years for the right to a voice in the Government. You must admit that they are the best-equipped class that have ever asked this privilege and yet you have kept them out. All we ask of you is to make it a little less hard than it has been by giving us a committee from whom we can get some consideration."

Mrs. Frank W. Mondell, wife of the Representative from Wyoming, said in the course of a very comprehensive address: "We do not desire to base our request for the appointment of a Committee on Woman Suffrage solely on the proposition that the subject is one of greater importance than those included within the jurisdiction of many committees of the House but rather on the ground that it has never, so far as my recollection and information go, failed to provide by general or special committee for the study and consideration of any vitally important question that has arisen in the growth and development of the nation." A review of the different committees was made and she concluded: "We do not ask or expect a committee constituted to represent our views but we ask for one whose special duty it shall be to consider the question. We feel that we are only asking the House of Representatives to follow its usual rule and procedure."

Mr. Mondell closed the hearing with a sarcastic review of the objections made by the opponents during which he said: "I had the privilege and pleasure of listening to the exceedingly strong and forceful argument in favor of woman suffrage made this morning by the gentleman from Alabama, or was it intended for an argument against it? I think, taking it as a whole, that it was the most conclusive argument I have ever heard in favor of it.... "We have a committee whose business it is to inquire how much further we should extend the franchise to the little brown brother over in the Philippines, some six or seven millions of him, and the President considers that a sufficiently important matter to refer to it in his Message. I hope it was through forgetfulness and not deliberate intent that he seemed to fail to realize

that it is of vastly less importance than the question of granting the franchise to the mothers, wives and sisters among the 95,000,000 of the folks here in the United States." Mr. Mondell ridiculed the sentimental effusion of Mr. Heflin and his solicitude lest the harmony of family life might be disturbed and said: "If the testimony of one who speaks from experience is worth while I can say with full realization that it is a sweeping statement: In twenty-seven years' wide knowledge of a people where woman suffrage prevails I have never known a solitary case where a difference of political opinion resulted in family quarrels or misunderstanding, not a single one.... Are we to understand that men elsewhere—in Alabama, for instance—are less considerate than with us and that they would make trouble if their women folks did not vote as they wanted them to? ... The exercise of the franchise is a privilege and a right but above and beyond the question of right or privilege stands the fact that as time goes on and we are attempting to meet wisely the multitude of questions that arise in government, many of them social and economic, we need the assistance of the best half of mankind."

 

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The Rules Committee met January 24, 1914, with eight of the fourteen members present and Mr. Lenroot moved to report favorably the resolution for a Woman Suffrage Committee. Representatives Foster (Ills.), Campbell (Kans.) and Kelly (Penn.) joined him; Representatives Hardwick (Ga.), Pou (N. C.), Cantrill (Ky.) and Garrett (Tenn.) opposed. Mr. Lenroot then moved to report it without recommendation and there was a tie vote. Enough signatures were secured for the calling of a Democratic caucus on February 3 but just before it convened a meeting of Democrats was held in the office of Representative Oscar J. Underwood (Ala.) and it was decided by a vote of 123 to 55 that suffrage was a State and not a Federal question and no further action on a special committee was taken.

 

1. Call: For the forty-fifth time in its history the National American Woman Suffrage Association summons its members together in council. By thus assembling, one more united step toward the final emancipation of the women of this country is made practicable. . . . To the wise and courageous, to those not fearful of the changes demanded by the vital needs of growing humanity, this Call will have two meanings: first, it will speak of loyalty to work and to comrade workers; of large undertakings worthily begun and to be worthily finished; of the stimulus of difficulty; of joy in the exercise of talents and strength; of the self-control and ability required for cooperation.   Second, it will express — like other summons of women to women throughout the ages — the need not alone for counsel and comfort but also for the preservation of all they hold most high — for that to which they gladly give their lives. It will speak of the struggle for development which individual women have made; of the opportunities they have won for each other; of the unequivocal demand for the best, to which the few have led the many. . . .   To you who grasp the underlying meaning of this struggle; to you who know yourselves akin to those who have preceded and to those who will follow; to you who are daily making this ideal a reality, this Call is sent.
    

   	Anna Howard Shaw,	President.
   	Jane Addams,	First Vice-President.
   	Charlotte Anita Whitney,	Second Vice-President.
   	Mary Ware Dennett,	Executive Secretary.
   	Susan Walker Fitzgerald,	Recording Secretary.
   	Katharine Dexter McCormick,	Treasurer.
   	Harriet Burton Laidlaw,	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$ Auditors.
   	Louse DeKoven Bowen,

2. The first delegation received by President Wilson after his inauguration was a group of eight or ten suffragists. It was arranged by Miss Alice Paul, chairman of the Congressional Committee of the National Suffrage Association. They stated their case in a few words and quoted freely from his book, The New Freedom. The President was very courteous but his attitude was one of amused curiosity.
3. When the board met after the convention it was disclosed that the Congressional Union, instead of being merely a local society to assist the committee in its efforts with Congress, as Miss Paul had said, was a national organization to work for the Federal Amendment. That is, it was to duplicate the work which the National Association had been formed to do in 1869 and had brought to its present advanced stage. The association's letterheads had been used for this purpose and persons from all parts of the country had sent their names and money, many supposing they were assisting the National Association. Miss Paul had been obtaining names for membership in the Union during all the sessions of the convention. The board decided that there must be complete separation of the work of the committee and the Union; that the same person could not be at the head of both and that the plans of the Union must be regularly submitted to the Board. Miss Paul refused to accept these conditions and she was at once relieved from the chairmanship of the Congressional Committee and the other members resigned. The Union was continued as a separate organization. Another committee was appointed by the National American Association consisting of Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick, chairman; Mrs. Antoinette Funk, Mrs. Sherman Booth, all of Illinois, Mrs. Desha Breckinridge (Ky.), Mrs. Helen H. Gardener (D. C.), Mre. H. Edward Dreier (N. Y.), Mrs. James Tucker (Calif.). Headquarters were opened in the Munsecy Building, Washington, with the Illinois women in charge.
4. Robert L. Henry (Tex.), Chairman; Edward W. Pou (N. C.); Thomas W. Hardwick (Ga.); Finis J. Garrett (Tenn.); Martin D. Foster (Ills.); James C. Cantrill (Ky.); Henry W. Goldfogle (N. Y.); Philip P. Campbell (Kans.); Irvine L, Lenroot (Wis.); Edwin A. Merritt, Jr. (N. Y.); M. Clyde Kelly (Penn.).