History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 5/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV.
NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1914.
The Forty-sixth annual convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association had the honor and privilege of holding its sessions in Representatives' Hall at the State Capitol in Nashville, Tenn., Nov. 12-17, 1914.[1] Dr. Anna Howard Shaw was in the chair and it was officially and cordially welcomed in the name of the city by Mayor Hilary Howse; of the State Suffrage Association by its president, Mrs. L. Crozier-French, and of the Nashville Equal Suffrage League by the president, Mrs. Guilford Dudley. As Dr. Shaw rose to respond she was presented by Miss Louise Lindsey, vice-regent of the Ladies' Hermitage Association, with a gavel made from the wood of a hickory tree planted by General Jackson at the Hermitage, his home. She spoke of memories which made Nashville dear to the whole country; referred to the merry barbecue which had been held for their entertainment the preceding day "at the old mansion of that great Democrat, Andrew Jackson," and continued:
At the close of the address this resolution was enthusiastically adopted: "The National American Woman Suffrage Association in convention assembled hereby expresses its heartfelt thanks and deep appreciation to our national president, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, for her devoted and unremitting work for woman suffrage and for this association during the past year; for her splendid services in the campaigns which did so much to lead to victory two States; for her willingness to stand for re-election in order that she may lead us to new victories in the coming year."
Greetings were brought from the recently formed National Suffrage Association of Canada by Miss Ida E. Campbell, who said that although it was only eight months old it represented many affiliated societies in all the Provinces. She spoke of the splendid war work that was being done by women and said: "Our national president, Mrs. L. A. Hamilton of Toronto, is at the head of the relief work in that city and the feeling is general that the patriotic activities of the suffragists are doing much to enhance the cause of woman suffrage in the eyes of the Canadian public.[2] May we now express the hope that when the war is over we may welcome many of our American sisters to what we have been looking forward to—our first Canadian National Suffrage Convention. Canada salutes you." Greetings were read from the Colorado State Federation of Women's Clubs and were presented from the Southern States Woman Suffrage Conference by its president, Miss Kate M. Gordon (La.).
The large hall was crowded at the first evening meeting and the convention was formally welcomed by Governor B. W. Hooper, who said in the course of his address:
grudgingly given but should be the complete and comprehensive right to participate in all elections. When suffrage comes to the women of Tennessee I shall derive one substantial pleasure from it if I am still living, the joy and exultation of my little daughter, who has been a pronounced and persistent suffragist since she was nine years old. She has taken a keen and intelligent interest in all of my struggles, has rejoiced in the hour of my victory and wept in the hour of my defeat. She is the connecting link between me and the woman suffrage cause.
In behalf of all the good people of Tennessee, I extend greetings to your great association and express the hope that your sojourn in the historic Volunteer State may be filled with pleasure and profit to each and every member of your convention.The Governor's daughter was introduced to the convention and it settled itself in anticipation of the stories of the campaigns for woman suffrage amendments which had ended with the general election the preceding week, in some of them with victory, in others with defeat. Miss Anne Martin, president of the Nevada Suffrage Association, was heartily applauded as she told of the triumph in her State, saying:
The story of victory for Montana was related by Miss Mary Stewart, as the president, Miss Jeannette Rankin, had been detained to prevent a tampering with the election returns, but she afterwards arrived and was enthusiastically welcomed. Mrs. Clara Darrow, president of the North Dakota association, gave an account of how the amendment had been lost in that State through political tricks. Mrs. Draper Smith, president of the Nebraska association, gave a report on the loss of that State and paid tribute to William Jennings Bryan, who had made sixteen strong speeches for it. Mrs. Walter McNab Miller, president of the Missouri association, told of the effort through the hot summer to get the necessary 38,000 signatures to an initiative petition, after the Legislature had refused to submit the amendment, and the tactics used to defeat it at the polls. Her mention of the name of Champ Clark, Speaker of the National House of Representatives, who had recently declared for woman suffrage, was applauded. As Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, president of the Ohio Suffrage Association, was not at the convention, the loss of the amendment in that State was described by Mrs. Myron Vorce. [See State chapters.]
The evening closed with the president's address. The report said: Dr. Shaw declared she had some sympathy for the anti-suffragists, as they were bound to lose. 'When the campaign for woman suffrage was begun," she said, "the 'antis' had all of the earth and the suffragists had only hope of heaven but now many nations of the world and half of the United States have been converted to the cause of votes for women." She ridiculed the arguments of the anti-suffragists and said: "Until you grant the right of a vote to all persons, you haven't a democracy —you have an aristocracy and the worst of all—an aristocracy of sex. Soon the divine right of sex here will be as obsolete as the divine right of Kings in Europe." Answering the argument that if women have the ballot they ought also to have the musket, Dr. Shaw said in telling of the sufferings of the women during the war: "It is said that 300,000 of the flower of Europe's manhood have been killed in the last nine weeks of the war. I can't grasp the thought of that many dead men but I can look into the face of one dead soldier and know that he had a mother. If this woman had escaped death at childbirth she had watched over him day by day until she had to look up into the eyes of her boy. And then that boy was called by his country and soon he was dead—he was in the happy peace of glory and she was facing the empty years of agony. Then they ask what a woman knows about war! ... The very flower of a country perishes in a war, leaving the maimed and diseased to father the children of future generations. Women ought to have the ballot during war and during peace, for we know that if they had had it in all countries this war would not have occurred."
The report of Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett, corresponding and executive secretary, covered much of the work of the National Association during 1914, which was more extensive probably than in any preceding year in its history. It said in part:
The year 1914 has been what suffragists call an "off year," since most of the State Legislatures meet biennially in the odd years. Nevertheless, what acts of Legislatures there have been are of the greatest significance. Those of Massachusetts and New Jersey submitted the suffrage amendment by overwhelming votes and in both States the suffragists are confident of the approval of the 1915 Legislatures, which is necessary before final submission to the voters. An amendment was introduced into the Legislatures of eight others. The national legislative record shows that never before has the Congressional atmosphere been so thoroughly permeated with woman suffrage. The anxiety of some members of Congress to show that they stood right with their constituents on the question and the agility of others in side-stepping every possible necessity for meeting the issue, have unerringly indicated that they all recognize the fact that the time has come when national politics must reckon with woman suffrage.
All through the year there has been the most hearty cooperation between national headquarters and the Washington and Chicago offices of our Congressional Committee.... It is impossible to mention this committee without expressing on behalf of the officers of the association a most thorough appreciation of the service of its chairman, Mrs. Medill McCormick, who has not only given money generously to the work but has added what is more valuable still— steady, hard, personal labor, coupled with an indefatigable good humor, frequently under most trying circumstances....The new State associations formed and the many suffrage Organizations applying for affiliated or auxiliary membership were named and an account was given of the large sums of money, the vast amount of literature and the many workers supplied to the seven State campaigns of the year. These facts and the other activities of the association were related in part as follows:
The story was told of the National Junior Suffrage Corps to enroll the young people, the idea of Miss Caroline Ruutz-Rees (Conn.); of the large amount of Congressional documents distributed, among them 1,000 copies of the speech of Senator Henry I. Ashurst (Ariz.) before the Senate on the Federal Amendment, presented by him; the travelling schools organized; lists prepared of many thousand active members and an infinite variety of details. Mrs. Dennett had severed her connection with the association the preceding September after four years' invaluable service.
Mrs. Dennett made also the report of the Literature Committee, whose duties had now been merged in the National Woman Suffrage Publishing Co. The latter reported through its chairman, Mrs. Cyrus W. Field. The greatly needed Data Department had been established under the cooperation of Miss Elinor Byrns, chairman also of the Press Department; Mrs. Frances Maule Bjorkman and Mrs. Dennett. The volunteer services of Miss Helen Raulett, like Miss Byrns a lawyer, had been obtained, and while its great need and possibilities had been demonstrated it was evident that it must be put on a paid, business basis to be effective. Miss Byrns gave an interesting account of the ramifications of the Press and Publicity Department and its important accomplishments. "In my opinion," she said, "it is almost impossible to have suffrage news given out successfully by any one who is not an earnest suffragist. Knowledge of publicity does not make up for the lack of conviction and enthusiasm," and she gave this instance: "A few months ago a writer for one of the New York newspapers—the worst 'anti' paper we have—telephoned me, saying, "I have been told to write an editorial on the menace of woman suffrage. Can you help me?' I said, 'Yes, I can prove to you that the majority of the presidential electors in 1916 may represent equal suffrage States and that in all probability every political party will have to endorse woman suffrage before that time. What could be worse than that?' He agreed with me and his editorial based on the facts Dr. Shaw and I gave him has been a most successful campaign document for us."
Among other valuable suggestions Miss Byrns said: "While there are some editors who give us space because they have to— that is because we are always doing something 'different' and making news which cannot be ignored—there are perhaps even more who have a real interest in the suffrage movement and are therefore eager to give us all the space which the business department of their paper permits. And, by the way, one of the most valuable kinds of press work is that which can be done by every suffragist individually. Newspaper and magazine offices are most sensitive to the praise and blame of readers. Suffrage departments are sometimes stopped because no readers write their approval. Individual newspaper policies, belittling or perverting the suffrage issue, are sometimes persisted in because no readers write their disapproval. It is discouraging to an editor when a reader writes a letter complaining of one opposing news item or one cartoon although she has ignored everything which has been printed in favor of suffrage."
Miss Jane Thompson, field secretary, 'told of the 8,000 miles she had travelled in the campaign States since early in April; of her experiences pleasant and unpleasant; of the excellent opportunities it had afforded of establishing thorough understanding and cordial relations between the National Association and the States. She spoke of the long and arduous work of the national president and presented the following expression of loyalty and appreciation from those who had conducted the campaigns in Ohio, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Montana and Nevada:
Miss Elizabeth Yates said in her report on Presidential suffrage: "The favorable decision the past year by the Supreme Court of Illinois leaves no room for any further contention regarding its constitutionality. It can be granted by any Legislature by a bare majority vote and this can be obtained by many States that could not secure the large vote necessary to submit a constitutional amendment for full suffrage." She strongly urged that any State contemplating a campaign for full suffrage should first secure the Presidential franchise. In her usual excellent report on Church Work, Mrs. Mary E. Craigie told of her visits to the Methodist Ministerial Associations of Atlanta, Tampa and New Orleans with most gratifying results, as a friendly spirit towards woman suffrage was developed and the last named recommended the General Conference to give laity rights to women. In cooperation with Dr. Nina Wilson Dewey, her chairman for Iowa, arrangements were made during the Mississippi Valley Conference in Des Moines with the clergymen of eighteen Protestant churches to have their pulpits filled at some service on Sunday by women delegates and the combined audiences by actual count numbered 6,000. Four thousand copies of the annual letter asking for a mention of the need of women's influence in State affairs in their Mothers' Day sermons were sent to as many clergymen.
One of the most valuable sessions was Voters' Evening, under the auspices of the National Men's League, with its president, James Lees Laidlaw (N. Y.) in the chair. The opening address was made by U. S. Senator Luke Lea (Tenn.), who received a great ovation when he began and the audience rose with cheers and waving handkerchiefs when he finished. He said in the course of his speech:
These two twofold: First, the wholesome effect upon our Government of extending the privilege of voting to women; and second, the far-reaching results upon womanhood of granting this right. The first reason is justified by the statement which will be conceded by all, even the "antis," that an overwhelming majority of women are good rather than bad and have the highest ideals of government and politics. Therefore, to give the right to vote to this class is to increase overwhelmingly the number of good voters and to multiply the number of citizens with these highest ideals.
In answer to this, some "anti," who, by her opposition to woman suffrage, pleads guilty to the threadbare charge that women have not sufficient intelligence to vote, comes forward and says: "But the good women won't vote; only the bad women will exercise the privilege." This argument is answered by the contrary experience in States where women vote. If woman suffrage only increased the number of bad voters, then instead of spreading like a prairie fire from coast to coast it would be repealed in the States where it was originally tried as an experiment. The results in the States where the franchise has been granted are an absolute and irrefutable argument in favor of national woman suffrage. In these States it has removed the polling places from the dives to the churches and has opened more schools and closed more saloons than all other political movements combined. The ideals of government and the standard of right and wrong by which public officials are measured have been raised without lowering one iota the standard of motherhood, of wifehood and of womanhood, a standard of which every woman is proud and which every man reverences and worships....
Other speakers were President H. S. Barker of the University of Kentucky; R. A. McDowell (Ky.), the Hon. Leon Locke (La.), Miss S. Grace Nicholes of Chicago, and Charles T. Hallinan, vice-president of the league. A branch of the Men's National League was formed during the convention by about thirty prominent men, with John Bell Keble, dean of the Vanderbilt Law School, as temporary chairman.
Delegates to these national conventions now felt less need of oratorical eloquence and more of practical knowledge of the work which was under way that they might carry back with them to their own States. One evening was profitably spent in listening to short speeches by Miss Alice Stone Blackwell on the work of the National Association; Mrs. Antoinette Funk on that of the Congressional Committee; Mrs. Raymond Brown, president of the New York association, on the unusual and spectacular campaign now under way in that State; Miss Hannah J. Patterson on the preparatory campaign in Pennsylvania; Mrs. Maud Wood Park, secretary of the Boston Equal Suffrage Association, and Mrs. Teresa A. Crowley on the coming campaign in Massachusetts; Mrs. Lillian J. Feickert, president of the State association, on that of New Jersey. In all of these States amendments had been submitted for 1915. Miss Rankin told the welcome story of the Montana victory.
The mass meeting on Sunday afternoon was one of the largest ever assembled in Ryman Auditorium, all the standing room occupied and many turned from the doors. The audience represented every station in life and the large number of men was noticeable. Dr. Shaw presided and paid a splendid tribute to the people of Nashville. Miss Jane Addams took for a text her visit to the historic home of Andrew Jackson, which, she said, had caused her to think of the great part the men of the South had in shaping the policies of the early government of the States, and how Chief Justice John Marshall, a southern man, had welded them together into an unconquerable whole. She referred to the way in which women had borne their part and asked why the men . were so progressive in those early days and yet so reactionary now, when women asked that they should make another experiment in popular government. Miss Rose Schneiderman, president of the New York City Women's Trade Union, spoke on the Industrial Woman's Need of the Vote, telling of the 800,000 working women in New York State, the low wages of many, the unjust conditions. "Do you talk of chivalry?" she exclaimed. "We women who work will tell you that we have no chivalry shown us in industry and we will also tell you that we go home with half the wages that men get. These same men who tell us we are angels send vice commissioners to investigate why girls go wrong. I should think a glance at the pay-roll would give them the answer."
Miss Rosika Schwimmer of Budapest, who had come with a petition to President Wilson from the women of fifteen countries that were at war to use his influence to bring about peace, made an eloquent and impassioned address. A storm of applause greeted her appeal to the men of this country to avoid the catastrophe of war in the future by granting the vote to women, who would always use it for peace. Mrs. Desha Breckinridge, president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, one of the most brilliant and forceful of the suffrage speakers, took for a subject The South Needs her Women. "Do not call upon the women of the South to help you solve your cotton problems while you are using up the children of women in the cotton mills," she said. "Women must have the ballot to cope with all the hard conditions of life. When we think of war and patriotism we think of men. We forget the little army of women that always follow in the wake of the big armies and brave the bullets and the fearful conditions of warfare that they may become ministering angels on the battlefields; the Florence Nightingales who undergo the hardships to nurse the wounded. We are also likely to forget the large army that stays behind, the women on whom the hardships of war fall heavily, those who must endure the sorrow and waiting. Is it fair to say woman shall have no part in the every-day affairs of life when she must bear so much in war?"
The program closed with an address by Mrs. Kate Waller Barrett on The Attitude toward Woman Suffrage of the International Council of Women, of which she was an officer. She described its quinquennial meeting in Rome the preceding May, shortly before the breaking out of the war, and said the desire for the suffrage was the connecting link between the women of all nations. She declared that the safety of the country depended on women's having a vote in the administration of all that concerned the welfare of men as well as of women and children. In the evening the officers, delegates and visitors were entertained by Mrs. Benjamin F. Wilson at her beautiful home, Wilmor Manor. This convention of 1914 will be always noted for the long controversy over what was known as the Shafroth National Suffrage Amendment. It occupied all or a part of several sessions and the Woman's Journal said: "The greatest emphasis of the convention was laid on the work in Congress; this was true even to the extent of cutting short discussion of State methods. The story of the year's work in the different States for both full and Presidential suffrage had to be abruptly dismissed." A new Congressional Committee had been appointed on January 1, consisting of Mrs. Medill McCormick, Mrs. Antoinette Funk and Mrs. Sherman M. Booth, of Illinois, Mrs. Breckinridge (Ky.), Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford (Colo.); Mrs. John Tucker (Cal.); Mrs. Edward Dreier (N. Y.); Mrs. Helen H. Gardener (D. C.). Mrs. Dreier resigned; Mrs. Gardener was largely prevented from serving by illness and absence. Other members were too far away for active work and the headquarters in Washington were in charge of the three comparatively young, energetic women from Illinois, who had shown such remarkable political acumen in getting the Presidential suffrage bill through the Legislature of that State and were leaders in the Progressive party. The remarkable report of the committee's work presented by the chairman, Mrs. McCormick, including her report as chairman of the Campaign Committee, filled 45 pages of the printed Handbook of the convention. It contained a full account of the action on woman suffrage in both houses of the 63rd Congress, names and votes of members, committee hearings, Senate debate, record of speeches, statistics and information such as was never before presented to a suffrage convention, and showed an amount of committee work accomplished almost equal to that which had been done in all preceding sessions of Congress combined.[4] It was clear that for the first time the attempt to secure action by Congress on woman suffrage was being made in political fashion, which was the proper way, but unfortunately it showed also that the Federal Amendment, which had been the principal object of the National Association for the past forty-four years, was in danger of being replaced with one of a totally different character. Space can be given for only enough of Mrs. McCormick’s exceedingly clever presentation of this proposed amendment to make the matter fully understood.
As Congress was in session it was necessary for us to concentrate our attention on our lobby at the Capitol and to determine as quickly as possible both our policy to be adopted and the wisest method of legislative procedure. In order to facilitate this work Mrs. Booth and I joined Mrs. Funk in Washington, and, dividing our duties, we proceeded to investigate the temper of Congress. What was known in the present Congress as the Bristow-Mondell resolution had been reported out favorably by the Standing Committee on Suffrage in the Senate and, if we desired, could be placed as unfinished business on the calendar, which would result in a discussion terminating in a vote.
The situation in the House of Representatives was not so favorable. It has no suffrage committee and the Mondell amendment was in the Judiciary. As that committee was composed of men if not actually opposed at least indifferent there did not seem to be any immediate chance of action. We discovered very soon, however, that the Congressional Union was circulating a petition among the Democrats requesting them to caucus on the subject of establishing a Suffrage Standing Committee. The members of your Congressional Committee felt this to be a great mistake. It gave the Democratic party a splendid opportunity to commit themselves as opposed to woman suffrage, using their State’s rights doctrine as a reason for their action. We discussed it with the members of the Congressional Union, who were convinced they were right in putting the Democratic party on record for or against suffrage, and it developed during our discussion that their policy of holding this party responsible, as the party in power, was to be put into action at once and announced as soon as the Democrats had voted in caucus. Knowing that this policy was diametrically opposed to that of the National Association, which has always been non-partisan—to hold the individual and not the party responsible—we tried desperately hard to block the petition and avoid the Democratic caucus at that time, but as the Congressional Union had a lobby of forty women against our three, it was impossible for us to head it off. The party caucused and not only voted against a Standing Committee on Suffrage but Mr. Heflin of Alabama amended the resolution before the caucus so that the members were enabled to vote on February 3 by 123 to 55 that woman suffrage was a question to be determined by the States and not by the national government.
It was now necessary for us to make a complete canvass of both Houses of Congress, to tabulate the records of the men, in so far as we were able to secure the information, and to determine at the earliest possible moment whether or not it was advisable to bring the Bristow amendment to a vote in the Senate.... My first call was on Senator Borah of Idaho, who is a personal friend, a suffragist, and has the advantage of being a progressive Republican from an equal suffrage State. "I cannot vote for this amendment," he said, "and want you to understand my reasons for taking such a stand. I do not believe the suffragists realize what they are doing to the women of the South if they force upon them universal suffrage before they are ready for it. The race question is one of the most serious before the country today and the women must help solve it before they can take on greater responsibilities. I am also a strong conservationist and entertain a State's rights attitude of mind on both these questions."Mrs. McCormick then called on Senator Burton of Ohio, whom she described as 'fa reactionary Republican"; Senator Johnson of Maine and Senator Saulsbury of Delaware, "strong States' rights Democrats," and she gathered the impression that the new amendment which her Congressional Committee had in mind would have a better chance than the original, to which the Congressional Union had given the name Susan B. Anthony Amendment. The following men agreed to serve on the Advisory Committee in the Senate: Borah of Idaho; Bristow of Kansas; Shafroth and Thomas of Colorado; Owen of Oklahoma; Clapp of Minnesota; Smoot of Utah; Kern of Indiana; Lea of Tennessee and Ashurst of Arizona. "They unanimously agreed with us," she said, "that it would be of great educational value to have the question brought up before the Senate during the present session, as there had never been a debate on the question of woman suffrage in Congress."[5]
Mrs. McCormick told how the amendment had been put on the calendar as unfinished business and discussed daily at 2 o'clock for ten days until the vote was taken March 19, 1914, when it received 35 ayes, 34 noes, a majority but not the necessary two-thirds. A change of 11 votes would have carried it and more than half of the absentees were known to be in favor but these facts did not give her any faith in the amendment. 'During the canvassing of the Senate," she said, "we were more and more impressed with the necessity of meeting the State's rights argument and felt more and more keenly the barrier of the State constitutions in advancing our cause. An analysis of these constitutions proved most illuminating and in arguing with the Senators upon this point they constantly reiterated the general idea of submitting this question, as well as other big national questions, to the decision of the people. We also discovered at this time that there were seven or eight different amendments before Congress on the woman suffrage question. For example, there is a bill giving us the right to vote for Presidential electors. There is another bill giving us the right to vote for Senators and Congressmen, etc....[6] A general canvass of the Lower House and also the action of the Democratic caucus convinced us in an even more pronounced way that we are blocked by the State's rights doctrine." The report continued:
Senator John F. Shafroth of Colorado, at the request of Mrs. McCormick's committee, introduced the new measure, which took his name, and it was favorably reported to the Senate by Senator Owen of Oklahoma in May. At this Nashville convention it was for the first time brought before the association. In her report Mrs. McCormick thus described the hearing which had been held before the House Judiciary Committee March 3:
Mrs. McCormick then called on Mrs. Funk to present the Shafroth-Palmer Amendment, which had been introduced in the House by A. Mitchell Palmer (Penn.), and the argument for it. The amendment read as follows:
In beginning her carefully prepared "brief" Mrs. Funk said:
Now, why is the Shafroth-Palmer amendment easier to pass Congress than the Bristow-Mondell amendment? First of all it shifts the responsibility of actually enfranchising the women from the Senators and Representatives to the people of their respective States. Second, the State's rights doctrine is the one objection raised to every federal issue that comes before Congress. It is primarily the greatest obstacle to federal legislation on any subject and is recognized as a valid objection by the members of Congress and particularly those from the North, who feel that they owe to the members of the South the justice of refraining from interference in matters vital to the South....
Third, the Democratic party is committed to the initiative and referendum but not to woman suffrage.... The President has endorsed the initiative and referendum and has fully convinced himself of its merit... . We are asking the Democratic party to give us, the women of the country, the initiative and referendum on the question of whether or not we shall be allowed to vote, and no State can have this question forced upon it or even settled until a majority of the voters of the State cast their ballots in favor of it.The difficulties connected with the old amendment both in Congress and in many States were described and the case of New York was cited among others:
This ended Mrs. Funk's statement and Mrs. McCormick continued: "In dividing up the work of the lobby Mrs. Sherman undertook to card catalogue Congress by the same method which she used so successfully in the Illinois Legislature and a list of members was prepared who should be defeated on their record in Congress. Arthur Dunn, who had been a Washington newspaper correspondent for thirty years, was put at the head of the publicity bureau and proved to be of inestimable value because of his personal acquaintance with every member of Congress." Charles T. Hallinan, also an experienced newspaper man, had been made chairman of the press bureau and in his report to the convention told of the introduction of the latest methods of publicity work and the signal success they had achieved. A Chicago office had been opened for organization and a system established of thorough congressional district work, a detailed account of which filled half a dozen pages of the printed Minutes. Miss Lillie Glenn and Miss Lavinia Engle had been appointed field organizers and a number of States were canvassed, speeches made indoors and out in scores of counties, women's societies visited and many suffrage clubs formed. Every kind of transportation was used, from muleback to automobiles, and many hardships were encountered. The report closed with several pages of valuable suggestions for what would be a thorough political campaign if carried out. Mrs. McCormick also gave an interesting report of her chairmanship of another committee, saying:
Mrs. Funk's report of her campaign work was an excellent showing of the situation which the suffragists faced in State campaigns and had done from the beginning:
My trip to South Dakota was interesting in the extreme. It and North Dakota are agricultural States, the cities are small and far apart, the villages are scattered over vast areas. By far the larger percentage of population dwells in the country on farms and ranches. The two Dakotas are almost pioneer States even now, but they present the highest degree of educational advantage and of general literacy perhaps in the whole United States. Their laws are generally good and for that reason there appears to be much apathy on the part of both men and women regarding suffrage. The States are prosperous and the people have not felt to any extent the pinch of wrong political conditions. The great problem was to reach the people and make them think, as when they think at all upon the subject they are apt to think right. I am convinced that whatever the vote against the suffrage amendment may have been in North Dakota it was the result of indifference and lack of special information and not to any extent real opposition.
I believed from what I could learn in South Dakota the liquor interests were making their last fight for State control and about the time I arrived Mrs. Pyle had ascertained that a large amount of money was being used to subsidize the State press, and simultaneously the literary efforts of the anti-suffragists, which have appeared throughout the press during the last year, came out in the leading papers, and anti-suffrage ladies at $100 a week and expenses appeared on the platform of the principal towns and cities. During my campaign there I spoke wherever possible out-of-doors, even though meetings were arranged for me in halls, courthouses and churches. I found that the small audiences which would assemble
in these places were made up of women and men already interested and that the uninstructed voter would only listen when you caught him on the street. I spent the week of the State fair at Huron with Mrs. Pyle and witnessed a wonderful demonstration of activity. As high as 50,000 people a day were in attendance and the grounds were covered with our yellow banners. Every prize-winning animal, every racing sulky, automobile and motorcycle carried our pennants. Twenty thousand yellow badges were given away in one day. The squaws from the reservation did their native dances waving suffrage banners, and the snake charmer on the midway carried a Votes for Women pennant while an enormous serpent coiled around her body. I spoke during the fair four and five times a day and held street meetings downtown in the evening. When not thus engaged I assisted Mrs. Pyle and her committee in distributing thousands of pieces of literature and was amazed at the eagerness of the people to receive them. We investigated the fair grounds how much was thrown away and found almost none.
In North Dakota Mrs. Darrow had asked me to go into the untilled suffrage field. In many places they had never heard a suffrage address nor had a suffrage meeting ever been held. I zigzagged s from the southeast to the northwest corners and in Minot was arrested for making a street speech. There was no law that I could discover against my speaking in the street and I was convinced and am still that it was the result of the petty tyranny of town officials unfavorable to women. A fine of $5 imposed upon me by the justice of the peace was remitted by him. I spent twelve days in Montana, travelling about 2,000 miles, and found more general interest than in any other State. With 118,000 voters scattered over the third largest State in the Union, with many contending elements, with an acute labor situation, with the political control of the State vested very largely in one great corporation, there was plenty to occupy the attention of a suffragist worker. Miss Rankin's organization work had been carried to a high degree of efficiency by the most strenuous endeavor on her part. The Amalgamated Copper Company, striving to defeat the workmen's compensation act, had d hands with the liquor interests, working to defeat woman suffrage, and had put on the petticoat and bonnet of the organized female anti-suffragists. I spoke to thousands of people all over the and while on the surface all appeared well, there was an under of fierce opposition that could be felt but that can not be estimated until the votes are counted. [The State was carried by 3,714.]
Nevada was like a story in a book a big, little State, with 80,000 inhabitants 18,000 voters, and so thoroughly was it organized by Miss Martin that I believe she could address every voter by his first I felt like a fifth wheel. All the work appeared to be finished and hung aside to season by the time I arrived and I was in the unenviable petition of being I sandwiched between Dr. Shaw, who just preceded me and Miss Addams, who immediately followed me. I went over the desert, however, and into mines, and spoke in that wound up with a supper and a dance and came away with the certainty that Miss Martin had two or three thousand votes tucked away in her inside pocket, [The State was carried by 3,678.] On this trip I learned of hundreds of thousands of pieces of literature sent out by our entertaining friend, the Hon. Tom Heflin of Alabama. I know now why it was that all last winter he jumped up in Congress every few minutes and read into the Congressional Record something about the horror of women voting. He had a long business head and he was thriftily saving postage on anti-suffrage literature in the interest of the "society opposed," of the liquor interests, of organized crime and of all those forces that have taken arms against us.The convention was deeply appreciative of the arduous and extensive work that has been done by the Congressional Committee but there was intense dissatisfaction with the so-called Shafroth Amendment, which had been freely discussed in the Woman's Journal for the last eight or nine months.[9] The debate in the convention consumed several sessions and more bitterness was shown than ever before at one of these annual meetings. The Official Board having endorsed the amendment felt obliged to stand by it, but to most of those delegates who had been in the movement for years it meant the abandonment of the object for which the association had been formed and for which all the founders, the pioneer workers and those down to the present day, had devoted their best efforts. Dr. Shaw was the only member of the board who had been many years connected with the association, and, while her judgment was opposed to the new amendment, she yielded to the earnest pleas of her younger colleagues and the optimistic members of the Congressional Committee that it should have a fair trial. Miss Blackwell, editor of the Woman's Journal, strongly endorsed it and gave it the support of her paper in many long, earnest editorials. She also granted columns of space to vigorous arguments on both sides by suffragists throughout the country.[10] The question had been before the State associations for the last seven or eight months.
Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett, corresponding secretary of the National American Association, wrote to the State presidents the first week in May, 1914: "Strange as it may seem, we find that quite a number of the members of our association have gotten the impression that the introduction of the Shafroth amendment means the abandoning of the old amendment which has been introduced into Congress for forty years or more, and which, as you know, has now been re-introduced and at this session will be called the Bristow-Mondell amendment. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reason for the introduction of the Shafroth amendment is to hasten the day when the passage of the Bristow-Mondell amendment will become a possibility.... Both amendments are before Congress but only the new one stands any chance of being acted upon before adjournment.[11] We stand by the old one as a matter of principle; we push for the new one as a matter of immediate practical politics and to further the passage of the old one." Mrs. Dennett also vigorously advocated the new amendment in the Woman's Journal.
At the opening of the second session of the convention devoted to the subject Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch moved that the Shafroth amendment be not proceeded with in the next Congress and it was seconded. Instantly Mrs. Raymond Brown, president of the New York State Association, offered as a substitute resolution: "It is the sense of this convention that the policy of the National American Woman Suffrage Association shall be to support by every means within its power, in the future as in the past, the amendment known as the Susan B. Anthony amendment; and further that we support such other legislation as the National Board may authorize and initiate to the end that the Susan B. Anthony resolution become a law."[12] After the discussion had lasted for hours, with the administration supporting this resolution, a motion to strike out the words "and further" and all that followed was lost and it was carried by a vote of 194 to 100.[13] The next day an informal conference was held at which Miss Laura Clay and Mrs. Sallie Clay Bennett explained a bill for Federal Suffrage, which they, with others, had long advocated, to enable women to vote for U. S. Senators and Representatives. Congress had the power to enact such a law by a simple majority vote of both houses. The association for many years had had a standing committee on the subject, which was finally dropped because it was believed that the law could not possibly be obtained. It found much favor at this convention, which instructed the Congressional Committee to "investigate and promote the right of women to vote for U. S. Senators, Representatives and Presidential Electors through action of Congress." There was spirited discussion of the Congressional Committee's plan for "blacklisting" candidates for Congress whose record on woman suffrage was objectionable and it finally resulted in the passing of a resolution that this could be done only when approved by the majority of the societies in the State concerned. It was decided that the Congressional Committee should send out information and suggestions for congressional work but that the State associations should determine how this material should be used and that when the majority of them in a State could not agree upon some plan of cooperation the Congressional Committee should not work in said State. The feeling aroused by the discussion of the Shafroth amendment was manifested in the election, where 315 delegates were entitled to vote and 283 votes were cast. Dr. Shaw received 192 for president and the rest were blank, as even delegates who opposed this amendment would not vote against her. Miss Jane Addams declined to serve longer as vice-president and reluctantly consented to her election as honorary vice-president but resigned before the close of the convention, as she felt that she could not At the first board meeting after the convention Mrs. McCormick was re-appointed chairman of the Congressional Committee with power to select its other members and Mrs. Funk was re-appointed vice-chairman. be responsible for actions in which she had practically no part. Mrs. Desha Breckinridge of Kentucky was re-elected second vice-president without opposition but resigned soon afterwards, although not because of any disagreement with the policy of the board. Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick of New York received 173 votes for first vice-president and Miss Jean Gordon of New Orleans 107. Dr. Katharine Bement Davis of New York was made third vice-president without opposition, nor was there any to Mrs. Orton H. Clark of Michigan for corresponding secretary. For recording secretary Mrs. Susan W. Fitzgerald of Massachusetts received 166 votes and Miss Anne Martin of Nevada 115. Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers of New York was almost unanimously chosen for treasurer and Mrs. Walter McNab Miller of Missouri for first auditor. For second auditor Mrs. Medill McCormick of Chicago received 177 votes and Miss Zona Gale of New York 103. Later Mrs. Nellie Nugent Somerville of Mississippi was appointed in place of Mrs. Breckinridge. The new board finally included only two members of the old one besides Dr. Shaw—Mrs. McCormick and Mrs. Fitzgerald.
The present convention was declared by resolution to have been "one of the greatest and most delightful meetings in the history of the organization," and a long list of thanks was extended "to the city of Nashville for its broad and generous hospitality and for special courtesies." The Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association gave a dinner, with Mrs. L. Crozier French, its president, as toast-mistress; the Women's Press Club had a luncheon for the visiting press representatives and the College Women's League one for its delegates. It was a relief from the tension of the week to have the last evening of the convention devoted to entertainment. Miss Zona Gale read a charming unpublished story, Friendship Village; a musical program was given by the Fiske Jubilee Singers and the convention closed with a remarkable moving picture play, Your Girl and Mine, an offering to the association by Mrs. Medill McCormick.[14]
The treasurer's report showed receipts for the year of $67,312 and expenditures $59,232. In addition a special fund for the "campaign" States had been subscribed of $12,586, of which $11,020 had been spent. Mrs. Medill McCormick had made a personal contribution of $6,217 to the publicity work of the Washington and Chicago headquarters. Pledges of $7,500 were made by the convention.
The committee of which Mrs. Frances E. Burns (Mich.) was chairman reported resolutions that urged the U. S. Senate and House of Representatives to take up at once the amendments now pending in Congress for the enfranchisement of women; demanded equal pay for equal work and legislation to protect the nationality of American women who married foreigners. They re-affirmed the association's past policy of non-partisanship and declared that "the National American Woman Suffrage Association is absolutely opposed to holding any political party responsible for the opinions and acts of its individual members, or holding any individual public official or candidate responsible for the action of his party majority on the question of woman suffrage." Of the European war now in its fourth month, the resolutions said:
Resolved: That the National American Woman Suffrage Association, in convention assembled, does hereby affirm the obligation of peace and good will toward all men and further demands the inclusion of women in the government of nations of which they are a part, whose citizens they bear and rear and whose peace their political liberty would help to secure and maintain.
Resolved: That we commend the efforts of President Wilson to obtain peace. Sympathizing deeply with the plea of the women of fifteen nations, we ask the President of the United States and the representatives of all the other neutral nations to use their best endeavors to bring about a lasting peace founded upon democracy and world-wide disarmament.As the national convention for 1914 would meet in Nashville it was necessary to have a special delegation attend the "hearing" in Washington which always was held at the first session of a new Congress. The officers of the Congressional Union arranged for one before the House Judiciary Committee for March 3, and, as it was not likely that a second would be granted, Mrs. Medill McCormick, Mrs. Antoinette Funk and Mrs. Sherman Booth represented the National American Association at this one, as members of its Congressional Committee. Mrs. Funk was the speaker and the main points of her address are included in Mrs. McCormick's report in this chapter. In effect it prepared the way for the new measure afterwards called the Shafroth Amendment and she began by saying: 'Ours is the oldest national suffrage association in the United States. It has been in existence over fifty years and comprises a membership of 462,000 enrolled women in the non-suffrage States. In addition to these I speak this morning in behalf of the 4,000,000 women voters in the ten equal suffrage States." Further on she said: "Gentlemen, the dearest wish of our hearts would be fulfilled if you would enfranchise the women. I know pretty much whether you are going to or not and you know that I know." The committee asked her a number of questions and she concluded: "We feel that this question could at least safely go to the people. It might be submitted by petition of the voters. In addition let me make this point along the line of the States' rights argument: You see, a Legislature per se has no right; it is nothing; it has no privilege —the privilege is all in the people themselves, and you could not say it would be contrary to the rights of the people in the State to take down an obstacle that was built up in front of them. So, in view of the action of the Democratic caucus in the House, we think you can at least do this much for us; you can take down this obstacle—State Legislatures."
The Federal Women's Equality Association also had asked for a portion of the time and its corresponding secretary, Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby of Washington and Portland, Ore., had charge of it. Although this association was organized twelve years before for the special purpose of obtaining a bill enabling women to vote for Senators and Representatives, it sponsored in the present Congress the same measure which the old association had introduced for the past thirty-five years and on this occasion its speakers discussed only the amendment. Mrs. Colby introduced first Representative Frank W. Mondell of Wyoming, who always was ready to champion the cause of woman suffrage for every organization. He made the point among others that "as State after State grants the franchise to women the condition is reached where its denial in other States deprives American citizens of a sacred right if they have moved from one commonwealth to another." "Our Federal Union," he said, "will be more firmly cemented the nearer we come to the point where qualifications for this right of citizenship are the same in all States." In Mrs. Colby's comprehensive address she said:
Never were there such splendid women in the records of time as those who have stood for the rights of their sex and the rights of humanity.... All those women passed on without being allowed to enter the promised land and for every one of them one hundred sprang up for whom the doors of opportunity and education had been opened by the efforts of those pioneer women. Now these also are coming to gray hairs and weariness, but for every one of these hundreds there are a thousand of the 2oth century insisting that this question shall be settled now and not be passed on to the children of tomorrow to hamper and limit them, to exhaust and consume their energy and ability.
I was present at the last hearing where Mrs. Stanton spoke before a Judiciary Committee, and she said: "I have stood before this committee for thirty years, may I be allowed to sit now?".... Miss Anthony before a committee in 1884 said: "This method of settling the matter by the Legislatures is just as much in the line of State's rights as is that of the popular vote. The one question before you is: Will you insist that a majority of the individual men of every State must be converted before its women shall have the power to vote, or will you allow the matter to be settled by the representative men in the Legislatures of the several States? We are not appealing from the States to the nation. We are appealing to the States, but to the picked men of those States instead of to the masses." She used to say when John Morrissey, champion of the prize ring, was in the New York Legislature, that it was bad enough to go and ask him to give her her birthright but it was infinitely worse to go down into the slums and ask his constituents....Mrs. Colby closed with an extract from one of Mrs. Stanton's eloquent speeches before the Judiciary Committee and submitted a valuable summary of Congressional hearings and reports on woman suffrage from 1869 to 1914.
Mrs. Glendower Evans of Boston presided over the hearing for the Congressional Union and introduced as the first speaker Mrs. Crystal Eastman Benedict (N. Y.) who said in part:
That is one way of getting woman suffrage in the United States, a long, laborious and very costly way. We have now achieved it in nine States and are a political power, and the time has come for us to compel this great reform by the simple, direct, American method of amending the Federal Constitution. Our argument is not one of justice or democracy or fair play—it is one of political expediency. Our plea is simply that you look at the little suffrage map. That triumphant, threatening army of white States crowding rapidly eastward toward the center of population is the sum and substance of our argument. It represents 4,000,000 women voters. Do you want to put yourselves in the very delicate position of going to those women next fall for endorsement and re-election after having refused even to report a woman suffrage amendment out of committee for discussion on the floor of the House?
You might say, "Why do you select this Democratic administration for your demand? This is the first time in eighteen years that this party has been in control of the Government. We are doing our best to give the people what they want; we are trying to live up to our platform pledges; we think we are doing pretty well. Why persist in embarrassing us with this very troublesome question?".... I answer that if this Congress adjourns without taking action on the woman suffrage amendment it will be because the party deliberately dodged the issue. Every woman voter will know this and we have faith that the woman voter will stand by us. You will go to her and say: "We have lowered the tariff; we have made new banking laws; we have avoided war with Mexico," and she will say: "It is true you have done these things, but you have done a great injustice to my sister in this nearby State. She asked for a fundamental democratic right, a right which I possess and which you are asking me to exercise in your favor. It was in your power to extend this right to her and you refused, and after this you come to me and ask me for my vote, but I shall show you that we stand together on this question, my sister and I."Several of the committee made caustic remarks about trying to hold the Democrats responsible after the Republicans had ignored them during all the past years. Mrs. Evans then introduced Mary (Mrs. Charles R.) Beard, wife of the well-known professor in Columbia University. Her address in the stenographic report of the hearing filled seven closely printed pages, an able review of the Democratic party's record in regard to Federal legislation. It was the most complete exposé of the fallacy of the Democratic contention that this party stood for State's rights as opposed to Federal rights ever made at a hearing in behalf of woman suffrage and is most inadequately represented by quotations. In the course of it she said:
In the administration of Jefferson the Federal Government began the construction of the great national road without any express authority from the Constitution and notwithstanding the fact that the construction of highways was admittedly a State matter.... On August 24, 1912, the Congress of the United States, then controlled by the Democratic party, voted $5,000,000 for the construction of experimental and rural-delivery routes and to aid the States in highway construction. From high in the councils of that party we now have the advocacy of national ownership of railways, telegraph and telephone lines.
In the early days of the republic the Democratic party protested even in armed insurrection in Pennsylvania against the inquisitorial excise tax, which, to use the language of that day, "penetrated a sphere of taxation reserved to the State." Today this party has placed upon the statute books the most inquisitorial tax ever laid in the history of our country by the act of April 9, 1912—a tax on white phosphorus matches, not for the purpose of raising revenues, for which the taxing power is conferred, but admittedly for the purpose of destroying an industry which it could not touch otherwise. The match industry was found to be injurious to a few hundred workingmen, women and children. The Democratic party wisely and justly cast to the four winds all talk about the rights of States, made the match business a national affair and destroyed its dangerous features. Men and women all over the country rose up and pronounced it a noble achievement. Republicans joined with the Democrats in claiming the honor of that great humane service.
I have not yet finished with this tattered shibboleth. The State had the right to nullify Federal law in 1798, so Jefferson taught and Kentucky practiced. Half a century elapsed; the State of Wisconsin, rock-ribbed Republican, nullified the fugitive slave law and in its pronunciamento of nullification quoted the very words which Jefferson used in 1798. A Democratic Supreme Court at Washington, presided over by Chief Justice Taney, the arch apostle of State rights, answered Wisconsin in the very language of the Federalists of 1798, whom Jefferson despised and condemned: "The Constitution and laws of the United States are supreme, and the Supreme Court is the only and final arbiter of disputes between the State and National Governments."
A few more years elapsed. South Carolina declared the right of the State to nullify and Wisconsin answered on the field of battle: "The Constitution and laws of the National Government are supreme, so help us God!".... At the close of that ever to be regretted war the nation wrote into the Constitution the 14th and 15th Amendments, their fundamental principle that the suffrage is a national matter. Those amendments were intended to establish forever adult male suffrage....Mrs. Beard then presented for the record a thorough synopsis of the proceedings in relation to the franchise of the convention that framed the U. S. Constitution, which showed, she declared, that it would have made a national suffrage qualification if the members could have agreed on one. "In all the great federations of the world," she said, 'Germany, Canada, Australia, suffrage is regarded as a national question," and continued: "If respect for the great and wise who have viewed suffrage as a national matter did not compel us so to regard it, the plain dictates of common sense would do so. We are all ruled by the laws made by Congress, from Maine to California; we must all obey them equally whether we like them or not. We are taxed under them; we travel according to rules laid down by the Interstate Commerce Commission under the Interstate Commerce law; the remaining national resources are to be conserved by Congress; whether we have peace or war depends upon Congress. Is it of no concern who compose Congress, who vote for members of Congress and for the President?"
It was shown by Mrs. Beard how closely national and State policies were interwoven; that the submission of this amendment would take it to the State Legislatures for a final decision; how with woman suffrage in nine States there was a much greater demand for it than there was for the one changing the method of electing U. S. Senators; how the plank in the national platform adopted in Baltimore exempting American ships in coastwise trade from Panama canal tolls was now before the Democrats in Congress for repudiation; how another plank demanded State action on presidential primaries and President Wilson called for a national law. Now a Democratic Congress refused to submit a national suffrage amendment because the platform did not ask for it! She concluded: "No, gentlemen, you can not answer us by shaking in our faces that tatterdemalion of a State's rights scarecrow.... It is a travesty upon our reasoning faculties to suppose that we can not put two and two together. It is underestimating our strength and our financial resources to suppose that we can not place these plain facts in the hands of 15,000,000 voters, including over 3,000,000 women. To take away from the States the right to determine how Presidential electors shall be chosen is upholding the Constitution and the previous rights of the States; but to submit to the States an amendment permitting them to decide for themselves whether they want woman suffrage for the nation is a violent usurpation of State's rights! We can not follow your logic."
Dr. Cora Smith King of Seattle, who had so large a part in obtaining equal suffrage in Washington, said:
Mrs. William Kent, wife of Representative Kent of California, spoke briefly, telling how the suffrage societies there became civic leagues after the vote was won and stood solidly back of seventeen bills relating to the welfare of the State and the home and the influence they were able to exert because of having the franchise. She urged the committee to submit the amendment and spare women the further drudgery of State campaigns and assured them that the women would not stop until the last one was enfranchised. Representative Joseph R. Knowland of California gave earnest testimony in favor of the practical working of woman suffrage in that State saying: "For years we heard the same arguments against equal rights for women as we hear today but we have tried it and many who were most bitterly opposed are now glad that California has given the franchise to women. It has proved an unqualified success. What I desire to impress upon this committee is that even though you may oppose the amendment it is your duty to report it in order that every member of the House may have an opportunity to register his vote for or against it."
Mrs. Donald Hooker of Baltimore pointed out the injustice of permitting women to vote in California, for instance, and holding them disfranchised when they crossed the State boundary line, and asked the committee to put themselves in the place of citizens so discriminated against. Mrs. Evans closed the hearing in an interesting speech but as she could not resist eulogizing President Wilson she was assailed by a storm of questions and remarks from the Republican members of the committee as to his attitude on woman suffrage, while her support of the Democratic party brought protests from the members of the Congressional Union.
Mrs. McCormick closed for her side by saying: "Mr. Chairman, I simply want to clear up what may be a little confused in your mind in regard to the difference in the policy in the two organizations represented here today. I represent the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and, as we have stated over and over again, it has enrolled more than 462,000 women, organized in every non-suffrage State in the country. Our policy, which is adopted by our annual convention, is strictly non-partisan. We do not hold any party responsible for the passage of this amendment. We are organizing all over the country, using the congressional district as our limit, in order to educate the constituents of you gentlemen in regard to the great need to enfranchise women and we do not hold the policy which is adopted by the smaller organization, the Congressional Union."
This brought the members of the Judiciary Committee into action again and they persisted in knowing the size of the Congressional Union until Mrs. Benedict answered: "Our immediate membership is not our strong point." Mr. Webb of North Carolina repeated the question why the Republican party, which was in power sixteen years, was not held responsible for not reporting the amendment and she replied that it was not until after the elections of 1912 that the women were in a position to hold any party responsible.
Mrs. Frances Dilopoulo spoke for a moment. Miss Janet Richards (D. C.) called the attention of the committee to the etymology of the word democracy—demos, people; kratein, to rule—rule of the people—and asked: "If women must pay taxes and must abide by the law, how can the suffrage be denied to them in a true democracy?' She spoke of her personal study of the question in Finland and the Scandinavian countries where women are enfranchised. Dr. Clara W. McNaughton (D. C.), vice-president of the Federal Women's Equality Association, in closing stated that they had a tent on the field of Gettysburg during its 50th anniversary and found the old soldiers almost to a man in favor of woman suffrage. Mrs. Evans filed a carefully prepared paper, State versus Federal Action on Woman Suffrage. Mrs. Helen H. Gardener (D. C.), officially connected with the National American Association, submitted to the committees a comprehensive "brief"? on the case which said in part:
I am sure that all of us hope and want to believe that this latest pronouncement given out officially as from the leading Cabinet officer was intended to be accepted at home as well as abroad as literally and absolutely true and not a mere bit of spectacular oratory. But if it is true, then not one of you gentlemen who has it in his heart to oppose woman suffrage is a believer in our form of government; not one of you is loyal to the flag; not one of you is a true American. You do not allow us women to give our consent, yet we are governed. You are not sitting in Congress justly and Mr. Bryan and the President do not believe that you are—none of you except those who are from woman suffrage States—or else that official statement is mere oratory for foreign consumption. He says that the President discourages those who attempt to overthrow or even to "ignore" this principle of popular government. We are more than glad to believe that Mr. Bryan is correct in this plain statement, for then we will know that a number of you will receive a good deal of "discouragement" at the hands of the President, and that those of you who stand with us and vote for us will receive your sure reward from him, in that "every legitimate encouragement" will be yours, and also, incidentally, ours. We need it, we think it is overdue. Up to the present time we have not felt that either the President or the Secretary of State quite fully realized that there is a good deal of belated encouragement due us and quite a limitless supply of discouragement due those who try "to overthrow or ignore" all semblance of a belief in the right of women to give their consent to their own government. I am glad to have so high an authority that the good time is not only coming but that it has at last arrived—and through the Democratic party!
Again, in this simple, plain, seemingly frank statement of the Secretary of State, he says:.... "Nothing will be encouraged away from home that is forbidden here." Yet, away from home, he says, the fixed foreign policy is that "the people shall have such officers as they desire," and that these officers must have "the consent of the governed." That is precisely what we women demand. Are the Mexican peons more to our Government than are the women of America? If the Mexican officials must be disciplined, unless they are ready to admit that "the consent of the governed must be obtained" before there can be a legitimate government which we can recognize, how it is possible for you and for the President and for the State Department absolutely to ignore or refuse the same ethical and political principle here at home for one-half of all the people, who form what you call and hold up to the world as a republic?
No one who lives, who ever lived, who ever will live understands or really accepts and believes in a republic which denies to women the right of consent by their ballots to that government. Such a position is unthinkable and the time has come when an aristocracy of sex must give place to a real republic or the absurdity of the position, as it exists, will make us the laughing stock of the world. Let us either stop our pretence before the nations of the earth of being a republic and having "equality before the law" or else let us become the republic that we pretend to be.This concluded the hearing for the suffrage associations and as the "antis" also had asked for one they occupied the afternoon. Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge, the president of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, said in opening the discussion: "We begin to hear from all over the country a very decided demand for help. The women are beginning to be frightened. They are frightened at exactly the same sort of thing by which the suffragists try to frighten you men— noise—so that in many States women are beginning to organize for the first time against suffrage. We are here today rather against our wishes. We did not want to bother you men again because the matter has been pretty well settled for this session of Congress at least. But the suffragists had demanded a hearing of you gentlemen, and so we asked you to hear us, and you have very courteously extended to us that privilege. We are here to represent the majority of women still quiet but not going to be quiet very much longer.... " Mrs. Dodge made an analysis of the number of enfranchised women to show that the parties had nothing to fear and said in closing: "I wish to say that the suffragists who make these threats are not representing the women of the country. It is the women of the country whom we try to represent and we have tried for several years against the noisy, insistent and persistent demands of a group."
The other women speakers were Mrs. Henry White, member of the executive committee of the Massachusetts Association; Miss Alice Hill Chittenden, president of the New York Association; Miss Marjorie Dorman, secretary of the Women Wage-earners' Anti-Suffrage League of New York City[15]; Mrs. O. D. Oliphant of New Jersey, who was not able to reach Washington but whose paper on Feminism was put into the report; Miss Minnie Bronson, secretary of the National Association. Miss Bronson's address, which was largely statistical, called out many questions from the suffrage members of the committee. She said the association had approximately 100,000 members.[16]
The first of the men speakers against the amendment was J. N. Matthews (N. J.) who began by saying it would be difficult for him to put aside his Democratic partisanship even for a moment. He was soon involved in a wrangle with the committee which occupied over half of the space filled by his speech in the report. This was true also of the speech of Representative Thomas J. Heflin (Ala.), which ended with a long poem entitled The Only Regeneration, beginning: "There's no earthly use in prating of eugenics' saving grace." Mrs. Dodge had scored the suffragists for having more than one association but delegates from three of the "antis" were present at this hearing, the Guidon Society of New York City, represented by a New York lawyer, John R. Don Passos, who stated that he represented also the Man Suffrage Association. He filed a "brief" of its president, Everett P. Wheeler, a Democratic New York lawyer, entitled Home Rule. As was the case with the other men speakers most of his time was taken up by the "heckling" of the committee and his answers. In the latter he said that woman suffrage sooner or later would have a tendency to destroy the home, hurt the social and moral standard of women and "convert them into beasts."
Dr. Mary Walker spoke ten minutes at her own request, scoring the suffragists and saying that women already had the right to vote under the National Constitution. Mrs. Evans closed the hearing.
- ↑ Part of Call: Our task will be to formulate judgment on those great issues of the day which nearly concern women; to choose the leaders who during the coming year are to guide the fortunes of our cause; and finally, to deliberate how the whole national body may on the one hand best give aid and succor to the States working for their own enfranchisement and on the other press for federal action in behalf of the women of the nation at large. . . .
Since the last convention met all the horror of a great war has fallen upon the civilized world. The hearts of thousands of women have been torn by the death and wounds of those they bore, of those they love, yet never has their will and power to help been greater, never man's need of such help been more clearly seen. We, who are spared the anguish of war, well understand that as weight is given in the world's affairs to the voice of women, moved as men are not by all the tragic waste of battles, the chances of such slaughter must perpetually diminish. Now is the time when all things point to the violence that rules the world, now is the very time to press our claim to a share in the guidance of our country's fortunes, to urge that woman's vision must second and ratify that of man. Let us then in convention assembled kindle with the thought that, as we consider methods for the political enfranchisement of our sex, our wider purpose is to free women and to enable their conception of life in all its aspects to find expression. . . . Let us set a fresh seal upon the great new loyalty of woman to woman; let our response be felt in the deep tide of fellowship and understanding among all women which today is rising around the world.
Anna Howard Shaw, President. Jane Addams, First Vice-President. Madeline Breckenridge, Second Vice-President. Caroline Ruutz-Rees, Third Vice-President. Susan Walker Fitzgerald, Recording Secretary. Katharine Dexter McCormick, Treasurer. Harriet Burton Laidlaw, Auditors. Louise DeKoven Bowen - ↑ Complete, universal suffrage was conferred by the Parliament in 1917.
- ↑ For a number of years Mrs. Quincy A. Shaw of Boston gave Dr. Shaw a fund for campaign work.
- ↑ A portion of this report is in the chapter on the Federal Suffrage Amendment.
- ↑ The Federal Suffrage Amendment had been thoroughly debated and voted on in the Senate in 1887; the question of woman suffrage itself discussed in 1866, 1881-3-4-5-6 in the Senate; at great length in the Lower House in 1883 and 1890 and briefly in both houses at other times.
- ↑ Instead of seven or eight amendments there was only one and never had been but one—the old, original amendment introduced by Senator A. A. Sargent (Calif.) in 1878. There was and long had been one "Dill" advocated, the one to give women so-called "federal" suffrage, the right to vote for Senators and Representatives, but it had never been reported out of committee. There was no bill before Congress to give women the right to vote for Presidential electors and there was no other bill proposed. It was of course the "State's rights argument" that had been the continuous barrier to the Federal Suffrage Amendment ever since it was first introduced but the favorable attitude of a majority of the Senators showed how much progress had been made in meeting that argument.
- ↑ On the contrary at a public hearing before the Judiciary Committee of the Lower House on March 3; Mrs. Funk referred several times to such an amendment and stated that she represented an association of 462,000 women. She intimated that she knew the old amendment could not pass and that another might be introduced, which, it was hoped, would be more acceptable. The vote was not taken in the Senate till March 19. Meanwhile the newspapers gave to the suffragists of the country their first knowledge of the new amendment and vigorous protests soon followed, especially from the older leaders of the movement. The Woman's Journal of March 28 said editorially: "It is felt by many that before the Congressional Committee introduced a wholly new measure, which had never been sanctioned or even considered by the National Association, it ought to have been submitted to the National Executive Council."
As soon as the Senate had voted on the original amendment, Senator Bristow, at the request of the Congressional Union, re-introduced it, and it was reported favorably April 7, Senator Thomas B. Catron of New Mexico alone dissenting. Senator Bristow in re-introducing it said of the Shafroth measure: "It is more of a national initiative and referendum amendment than a woman suffrage amendment. I prefer that the question of woman suffrage rest directly upon its own merits and be not involved with the initiative and referendum."
- ↑ The proposed State amendment failed in New York in 1915, was submitted again by the Legislatures of 1916 and 1917, voted on in November, 1917, and adopted by an immense majority.
- ↑ The first week in the preceding April the Mississippi Valley Conference, composed of the Middle and some of the Western and Southern States. met in Des Moines and thirty-five prominent delegates signed a telegram to the Official Board of the National American Association, asking it "to instruct its Congressional Committee not to push the Shafroth Amendment nor ask for its report from the Senate Committee"; also "to ask the Senate Committee not to report this amendment until so requested by the national suffrage convention." This was not official action but they signed as individuals, among them the presidents of the Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Louisiana State associations and officers from other States.
- ↑ Some of the arguments may be found in the Appendix. An examination of the file of the Journal will show that ninety-nine per cent. of the writers were opposed to the amendment.
- ↑ The old amendment had been voted on in the Senate March 19 and obtained a majority but not the required two-thirds. It had been reported without recommendation by the House Judiciary, which had not acted on the new one. The latter had been introduced in the Senate and the former re-introduced.
- ↑ The original measure had always been called the Sixteenth Amendment until the adoption of the Income Tax and Direct Election of Senators Amendments in 1913. The Congressional Union, organized that year, gave it the name Susan B. Anthony Amendment and for awhile it was thus referred to by some members of the National American Association. The relatives and friends of Mrs. Stanton rightly objected to this name, as she had been equally associated with it from the beginning, and all the pioneer workers had been its staunch supporters. The old association soon adopted the title, Federal Suffrage Amendment,
- ↑ At the first board meeting after the convention Mrs. McCormick was re-appointed chairman of the Congressional Committee with power to select its other members and Mrs. Funk was re-appointed vice-chairman.
- ↑ Mrs. McCormick spent a large amount of time and money on this play, hoping it would yield a good revenue to the association, but the arrangement with the Film Corporation proved impossible and it finally had to be abandoned.
- ↑ The most persistent efforts of the suffragists never succeeded in locating this league.
- ↑ At the request of the committee the exact figures were furnished later and showed a membership of 105,000, of whom 85,600 lived in the five non-suffrage States of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Of the remaining 19,400 the non-suffrage States of New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Ohio had 11,500; Virginia, 2.100, and 6,500 were divided among other non-suffrage States and the District of Columbia. Not one member was reported from States where the franchise had been given to women, although it was a stock argument of the "antis" that it had been forced on them and they would gladly get rid of it.
