Mrs. Kelley gave some tragic instances of occurrences during her eight years in Hull House with Miss Jane Addams, where the working of women overtime caused death and permanent invalidism, and continued:

During the fifteen years since that Illinois court so decided, the miners who work underground in sixteen States, from Missouri to Nevada and from Montana to Texas and Arizona, have been able to change the constitutions of their States so that they work but eight hours a day. They are voters, they have power, they have intelligence and organization; they obtained from the Supreme Court of the United States the famous decision of Holden vs. Hardy, in which it held that it is not only the right but the duty of the State to restrict the hours of those who work underground. In Illinois the women must have unlimited hours because they are not voting citizens....

For twelve years a body of influential women of New York City appeared before the board of estimate and apportionment to ask for the pitiable sum of $18,000 to be appropriated to pay the salaries of eighteen inspectors to look after the welfare of 60,000 women and girls in retail stores but we never got it. One candid friend, Mayor Van Wyck, in listening to our plea, told us the whole trouble. Said he: "Ladies, why do you waste your time year after year in coming before us and asking for this appropriation? You have not a voter in your constituency and you know it and we know it and you know we know it," and they never did give it to us....

A spirited discussion ensued here between Representative Robert L. Henry (Tex.) and Mrs. Kelley as to whether Congress has the power to coerce a State through a Federal Amendment into giving women the right to vote. Representative Edwin Y. Webb (N. C.) asked if the majority of women wanted to vote and she answered that there was not the slightest doubt of it, that as reasoning beings women could not help desiring a full share in the Government under which they live. Representative Goebel (O.) said that at any time man might be called on to uphold the laws and the Constitution and asked: "Do you think that woman is physically and temperamentally fitted to give any return to the Government for any privilege she might have in the exercise of her right as a citizen?" Mrs. Kelley answered: "Yes, I think we have always done it. We pay taxes, we teach the children to obey the laws, we fill their hearts with patriotism, but the principal thing is that we furnish the army at the risk of our own lives. Every time an army has been called for in the United States it has been the sons of American women on the whole who have carried the weapons and every son has been born at the risk of his mother's life. Her service is a very much greater contribution than the two or three years of the son's carrying a gun or perhaps dying of typhoid fever while in the service."

Miss Clay could not keep silent but asked if they realized how much the order of society depended on the teaching and the restraining influence of women, on their power to maintain decency of life, not alone by their presence but also by their high ideals of law and society. "When they are recognized as voting citizens," she said, "their idea of civic duty will reach a still higher point and they will have power to see that it is enforced." Members of the committee began to bring forward the stock misrepresentations about the voting of women in Colorado, which called Mr. Rucker to his feet with statistics to show that women voted in quite as large a proportion as men; that, instead of men's controlling the women's votes, women often controlled the men's; that in the hundreds of cases of election frauds only one or two women had been implicated; that less than 15 per cent. of the so-called "ostracized" women go to the polls.

In closing Chairman Parker said: "I wish to render the thanks of the committee for this large and representative audience, which is almost an American Congress. I am all the more pleased and interested to find such strong presentations by those whom I might call, possibly without offense, 'Daughters of the American Congress,' two of whom claim an acquaintance with this committee that goes back at least as far as any of us. I wish to offer all of you our thanks for the earnest consideration that you seem to have given to the great problems, industrial and social, as well as those of the family, which confront us all, and in comparison with which the political powers and actions of this country are but as nothing. Those who think and work for the good of the family, the home, the workshop, the farm and the school are those to whom the American Congress always owes its thanks."

* * * * *

Although the speakers who addressed these committees represented the very highest of American womanhood; although it was conceded that their arguments had never been exceeded in logic, directness and force; although there was no doubt that they represented a large proportion of the women of the country in the homes, colleges, professions and trades, yet this committee, like that of the Senate, ignored the petitions and the hearing completely and made no report whatever, either favorable or unfavorable.

FOOTNOTES:

[65] Part of Call: During the past year women have voted for the first time in Norway at a Parliamentary election, for the first time in Denmark at the Municipal elections, for the first time in Victoria at an election for the State Parliament. This year a woman has been nominated as a member of the Municipal Council in Paris, a woman is filling the office of Mayor in one English city and a number are serving as aldermen in others. In our own country women are voting for the first time in Michigan on questions of local taxation, while in Washington, Oregon, South Dakota and Oklahoma, suffrage amendments to the State constitutions are pending. From Chicago, radiating north, east, south and west, there is going out an influence which is making the social settlements centers of political influence. In Spokane, New York and Baltimore, political settlements are under way. From one of the great press centers of the world, New York City, suffrage propaganda is travelling through all civilized countries, and in its New York headquarters the National American Woman Suffrage Association is receiving news of an unprecedented rising suffrage sentiment from men and women belonging to all the great nations of the earth.

Our cause is universal, its majesty is intrinsic, its logic is unanswerable, its success is sure. Let the women of America come together in this year 1910 consecrated anew to the superb hope for humanity which lies in a full democracy.

ANNA HOWARD SHAW, President. RACHEL FOSTER AVERY, First Vice-President. FLORENCE KELLEY, Second Vice-President. FRANCES SQUIRE POTTER, Corresponding Secretary. ELLA S. STEWART, Recording Secretary. HARRIET TAYLOR UPTON, Treasurer. LAURA CLAY, } ALICE STONE BLACKWELL, } Auditors.

[66] Mrs. Catt's original plan required each State to tabulate the signers according to their lines of work but this was not fully carried out. Miss Minnie J. Reynolds, in charge of the Writer's Section, published a long and interesting report in the Woman's Journal. Simply the names of distinguished writers, men and women, who had signed, filled a solid column and yet she said: "The work on this section was absurdly fragmentary. In the city of Washington Miss Nettie Lovisa White had obtained the names of sixty, including the most prominent newspaper correspondents."

[67] See History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II, page 91.

[68] Washington ministers who opened various sessions with prayer were the Reverends U. G. B. Pierce, Samuel H. Woodrow, John Van Schaick and William I. McKenney.

[69] Names of committee: Present—Representatives Sterling, Moon, Diekema, Goebel, Denby, Howland, Nye, Clayton, Henry, Brantley, Webb and Carlin; absent—Terrell, Reid, Malby, Higgins.



CHAPTER XI.

NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1911.

The national convention which met in Louisville, Ky., Oct. 19-25, 1911, might well be called a "jubilee" meeting, for it celebrated two of the most important victories yet won for woman suffrage in the United States—the adoption of State amendments by a majority of the voters in Washington in November, 1910, and in California in October, 1911, giving the same franchise rights to women as possessed by men.[70] The sessions were held in the large De Molay Commandery Hall but it was far too small for the evening audiences. This was a new experience for Louisville but it rose finely to the occasion. A message to the Woman's Journal said: "Enthusiasm for equal suffrage runs high in Louisville this week as women from all parts of the country throng its spacious streets morning, afternoon and evening for the annual convention.... Altogether it is a most inspiring and encouraging convention and we are daily excited with news of the good prospects of more campaign States and more victories in the very near future.... We all have votes-for-women tags on our baggage, yellow badges and pins, California poppies and six-star buttons on our dresses and coats and dainty votes for women butterflies on our shoulders, and as we go about in dozens or scores or hundreds the onlookers receive the fitting psychological impression and we find them thinking of us as victors and conquerors."

The opening of this convention, with Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, the national president, in the chair, was a proud moment for Miss Laura Clay, who was one of the organizers of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association in 1888 and had been continually its president. In her address of greeting she said:

We welcome you with hearts tender with the remembrance of the past, when two of the great historic figures which have made this convention possible gave their labors to Kentucky. In the early fifties, Lucy Stone, in the vigor and freshness of her lovely youth and enthusiasm for high ideals, spoke in the cities and towns on both sides of the Ohio River; and in 1881 she held in Louisville a convention of the American Woman Suffrage Association. She established the Woman's Journal, which is now edited, with all the noble moral principles and polished literary ability which have characterized it throughout, by her daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell, who is with us today. In 1879 that other heroic woman, Susan B. Anthony, made a tour through central Kentucky and left an enduring monument of her visit in the Equal Rights Association of Richmond, Madison County, which has had the longest continuous existence of any woman suffrage society in the State....

We welcome you with hearts strong with hope for the future. The glorious victories that we have had inspire us and in all the harbingers of hope we see none greater than the Men's Leagues for Woman Suffrage. These prove to us that the men of our country are preparing to extend equal political rights to women, who, since the time when this vast continent was a wilderness, have stood side by side with them in the heroic labors which have made it blossom like the rose with the fairest civilization the world has ever known. In the great International Alliance Congress at Stockholm men of many nations formed themselves into a Suffrage League, and the Men's League of California did grand service in the glorious victory in their State. This noble land extends from California across the continent to Virginia where the latest league of men has just been formed. We see in this generous cooperation of the men of our nation a better exposition of the legend on Kentucky's shield, "United we stand, divided we fall," when man and woman shall clasp hands and become a truer realization of the vision of the poet and the patriot.

Mrs. Patty Blackburn Semple, president of the Louisville Woman's Club, in offering its welcome, said: "When the Woman's Club was organized three subjects were tabooed—religion, politics and woman suffrage. We kept to the resolution for awhile but gradually we found that our efforts in behalf of civic improvements and the correcting of outrageous abuses were handicapped at every turn by politics. Last year an appeal came to the Woman's Club—to the women of Louisville—to take our schools out of politics. It was a gigantic fight but we won. As the climax of our struggle we spent the greater part of election day at the polls and I think at the close of that day every one of us had exhausted all the joys of 'indirect influence,' which is supposed to satisfy every craving of the female heart. Our club will be twenty-one years old in November, and—we want to vote! We will make you most heartily welcome and most of us will also welcome the principles for which you stand."

Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch (Ills.), first vice-president of the National Association, in responding said: "Now we know definitely that all the things we have heard about Kentucky are true; we have met her brave women and handsome colonels. While we remember all the tradition of the past we live in the present. Kentucky is proud of what her men named Clay have done in the past but it is a pleasure to us to know that today when Kentucky wants anything done she appeals to a woman who is either Clay by name or Clay by blood." Another chivalry is coming into the world besides that felt by a strong man for a beautiful woman. It is that felt by strong women for their weaker and less fortunate sisters. It is the chivalry foreshadowed by Spenser in The Faerie Queene, in Britomart, the noble knight, herself a woman, who rescued Amoretta and devoted herself to the help of all weak and helpless women."

Assistant District Attorney Omar E. Garwood of Denver, a founder and the secretary of the Men's Defense League, to refute the misrepresentations of the practical working of woman suffrage in Colorado, was introduced and outlined its work. Mrs. Alexander Pope Humphrey was presented and gave a cordial invitation to a reception for the convention at her home, Truecastle, at the close of the afternoon session, which was as cordially accepted. Mrs. Ben Hardin Helm, a sister of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, was greeted and expressed her sympathy with the work of the association.

After these pleasant ceremonies at the morning session the convention immediately proceeded to business and listened to the reports from the various committees. That of the new corresponding secretary, Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett, gave a graphic illustration of the rapid increase in the size and scope of the work in her department. After describing the demands from almost every State and saying that the correspondence had doubled during the past year while the output of literature had tripled, she continued:

The correspondence with Canada has been very interesting and has steadily increased and we have sent a good deal of literature to British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia. Literature and letters have gone to Switzerland, Finland and even Japan, in answer to requests, the Japanese correspondent being in the midst of writing a book on the rights of women, because, as he quaintly put it, he believed there was "undoubtedly a truth in it." We have a steadily increasing stream of requests for suitable programs for study clubs, also a sudden spurt of requests for suffrage speakers from the Federation of Women's Clubs. The example of the last Biennial, when woman suffrage appeared for the first time on the official program of the Federation, has precipitated almost an epidemic of suffrage meetings in the State federations and local clubs.

The Official Board of the association has made a serious recommendation to the State officers to push the plan of political district organization as the best and most systematic and reliable way of preparing for the submission of a suffrage amendment. A leaflet giving the details of the plan has been published and widely distributed and it has been accepted as scheduled or in modified form in ten States, in most of which the name Woman Suffrage Party has been adopted, following the example of New York City, which was the first to adapt the enrollment work long ago established by the National Association to the needs of modern political action.... The National office prepared reports of the work of the association for the meeting of the U. S. National Council of Women and for the congress of the International Suffrage Alliance in Stockholm. We have established an exchange of propaganda with the International Shop in London. At the suggestion of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt we have cooperated with the Women's Enfranchisement League of Cape Colony, South Africa, by asking a large number of American women writers to send copies of their books to an exhibition and sale there of women's work.

Since our last convention there have been two annual meetings of the House of Governors, the first in Kentucky, at which Miss Laura Clay obtained a hearing and presented our cause in a most admirable address; the second in New Jersey, at which a hearing was obtained for Dr. Shaw, who was accorded every courtesy and received with heartiest enthusiasm by the Governors and afterwards by their wives. In Kentucky Governor Wilson was largely instrumental in securing the hearing; in New Jersey, although the governor is also a Wilson, he is unfortunately an "anti," but by the efforts of Governor Shafroth of Colorado, a place on the program was made for Dr. Shaw.

Two valuable compilations have been made, one showing how many times and when and what sort of suffrage bills have been introduced into Legislatures in the last ten years, and the other showing the exact procedure necessary for amending the constitutions of the various States. Under the direction of Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch, our legal adviser, a series of questions on the legal status of women has been printed and sent with letters to the various States. The returns will be published in pamphlet form. At the suggestion of Miss Clay, letters were sent to all members of Congress urging their effort to include women as electors in the bill providing for the direct election of U. S. Senators. Copies of Hampton's Magazine for April were sent to special lists of people in Wisconsin, Kansas and California, which contained Mrs. Rheta Childe Dorr's article on Colorado Women Voters.

We have published 30,000 copies of the "What to Do" leaflet, which have been sent out gratis, some States applying for 3,000 at once; California sent for 10,000 and evidently learned "What to Do" effectively. We issued 45,000 of the little convention seals and the supply has hardly held out. The drawing for the seal was the contribution of Miss Charlotte Shetter of New Jersey. Through the equally generous cooperation of Mrs. Helen Hoy Greeley of New York we have been able to give free of charge for use on letters 13,000 "suffrage stamps." Another bit of cooperation in both labor and money was that between headquarters and Mrs. Raymond Brown, president of the Woman Suffrage Study Club, who with members of her association addressed and sent to about a thousand presidents of suffrage clubs all over the country two copies of Miss Blackwell's striking editorial in answer to Richard Barry's slanderous statements about Colorado, together with a note asking each president to send one copy to the editor of the Ladies' Home Journal, in which Barry's article had appeared, with her own personal protest, and the other to the editor of some paper in her vicinity. The result was a perfect avalanche of protests to the editor of the unfortunate magazine.

The treasurer's report was divided between Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, who had resigned the office, and Miss Jessie Ashley, her successor, and it showed the receipts from all sources, January, 1910, to January, 1911, to have been $43,844; the disbursements, $34,838. Pledges were made at this convention to the amount of $12,251, including $1,000 from Mrs. George Howard Lewis of Buffalo; $1,000 from Mrs. Donald Hooker of Baltimore, and $3,000 by Dr. Shaw from a contributor not named.

Miss Agnes E. Ryan, business manager of the Woman's Journal, reported the many changes made in the paper during the year since it became the official organ of the association and the removal of its offices from Beacon Street to 585 Bolyston Street in the building with the Massachusetts and Boston woman suffrage associations and the New England Woman's Club. The advertising had increased from $256 a year to $852 and the circulation from 4,000 to nearly 15,000. The methods by which the increase had been obtained were described. The contract with the association was renewed.

Miss Caroline I. Reilly gave her first report as chairman of the Press Committee in the course of which she said:

The annual reports of the National Press Bureau formerly made by Miss Elizabeth J. Hauser, who so long and ably conducted this department, had reached so high a standard and the foundation laid by her was so substantial and solid that it was possible for us to meet the new conditions and increased volume of work with systematic and business-like methods. Then came Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, with her literary ability and historical knowledge, to open a new field for suffrage propaganda through the magazines, the great syndicates and Sunday papers in the large cities. Thus you will see that when the present chairman took charge of the bureau it had been so splendidly developed by her predecessors that she found only hard work and plenty of it.

During the eighteen months since the last convention the records show that we have written 5,584 letters. We are in constant receipt of letters from all over the world written in various languages, the majority containing inquiries regarding suffrage methods in this country and what has been accomplished by our enfranchised women.... We have furnished material for one hundred magazine articles, which have appeared in various periodicals.... Our list of newspaper syndicates has increased to nine, some of which are international, and since the last convention we have furnished them 1,314 articles, many by special request. Every one of these syndicates asked for detailed accounts of this convention, together with personal sketches of the officers and speakers. The Associated Press has sent out suffrage news as occasion warranted and has solicited our cooperation.... Last December we resumed the weekly press bulletin and since then we have mailed 31,200. These weekly items are regularly mailed to press chairmen and newspapers in forty-one States, also to Canada, Alaska and Cuba, and every day brings requests for more. A number of monthly pamphlets issued by women's clubs use them. Papers devoted to the labor movement publish them regularly and very often give helpful suggestions. The bureau is impressed with the fact that in future the farm papers should receive serious consideration.... One of these, with a circulation of nearly 400,000 has offered us space for suffrage articles to be supplied regularly and this work should be carefully looked after, especially in agricultural States like Kansas and Wisconsin, where campaigns are now in progress.

We have responded to fifty requests from schools and colleges for information to be utilized in debates, lectures and school magazines.... The records show that we have replied to 1,214 adverse editorials and letters in papers from Maine to California and secured space in New York City papers for 2,163 notices and articles without any charge to us. We have received and read 62,519 clippings gathered for us by the press clipping bureau, 9,163 of them cut from New York papers alone. Representatives of newspapers and magazines from the following countries have come to us for material: Australia, Finland, Alaska, France, Germany, England, Sweden, Norway, Japan, Wales, Denmark, Russia, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Holland, Hawaii, South America and Canada, as well as from nearly every State in the Union. A number of Sunday papers in the large cities are devoting weekly space to suffrage departments, beginning by publishing the press items and gradually expanding.... Some of the more serious magazines have recently solicited our cooperation, notably the Literary Digest and the American Review of Reviews, whose political editor called personally a few days ago and requested that we send him regularly such suffrage news as we may have at hand, that the items may be embodied in reports of the world's political news. Another important feature of the work of the bureau consists in furnishing material to press chairmen and others to be used in answering attacks on suffrage in their local papers.

Miss Reilly complimented the work of the press chairmen in the States, speaking especially of Mrs. D. D. Terry of Little Rock, who furnished material to seventy-five papers in Arkansas and to a syndicate reaching the weekly papers of the southwest.

A conference was held in the afternoon on the Proper Function of the National Association, led by Dr. M. Carey Thomas of Bryn Mawr and Dr. Anna E. Blount of Chicago. The first evening of the convention was designated as Jubilee Night and Dr. Shaw said in beginning her president's address: "The eighteen months which have elapsed since our last convention have been permeated with suffrage activity. Never in an equal length of time has there been such rapid progress in the enlistment of recruits and the development of active service. By an aggressive out-of-door campaign the message has been carried to a not unwilling people. Never was there a more signal example of manly loyalty to womanhood than in the three-to-one vote for woman suffrage in Washington in 1910. Following close upon it comes the signal victory of California, where as never before were the friends and foes of woman's freedom so equally lined up. Wherever vice, corruption and cupidity held sway, there the vote for woman suffrage was weak. Wherever refinement, education, industry and self-respecting manhood and womanhood dwelt, there the vote in favor of women was strong. These are the battles in this war for justice which have been victorious. Others have been and are being fought at the present time with equal courage."

Graphic accounts were given of the successful campaign in Washington, where the amendment was carried in every county, by Mrs. Caroline M. Smith of Seattle, Mrs. E. A. Shores of Tacoma and Mrs. May Arkwright Hutton of Spokane; and of the one in California by Mrs. Elizabeth Lowe Watson, president of the State Suffrage Association, and J. H. Braly, president of the Political Equality League. Later Miss Frances Wills of Los Angeles; Miss Florence Dwight of Pasadena; Mrs. Mary E. Ringrose, Mrs. Mary S. Sperry of San Francisco, former State president, and Mrs. Rose French were introduced. Mrs. Watson in an eloquent address showed how their success was the culmination of the campaign of 1896 and the result of the years of hard and constant work between that time and the present.

When Mr. Braly began speaking he presented, the association with the State flag of California, saying: "The grizzly bear is the king of all American beasts. On the flag, you see, he has a beautiful golden star above his head—the star of hope that brought our Pilgrim fathers across the sea finally coming to rest over the Golden State. There that star of hope and progress and freedom hung for more than sixty years, until Oct. 10, 1911, when it flamed forth with a wondrous brilliancy and started all the bells of heaven ringing." He predicted that Oregon, Arizona and Nevada would soon follow the example of California and said: "Then the star will cross the Rocky Mountains and in will come the States of the Middle West!" Continuing the story the speaker said:

In January, 1910, the last meeting of the last suffrage society in Southern California was held in the parlor of the Angeles Hotel in the city of Los Angeles. The women were discouraged and dispirited. I rode home alone in my car, my heart weeping and praying a prayer ten miles long, that being the distance to my home in Pasadena. That night I had a vision. I saw in panorama a future glory of my beloved State. I saw well-kept cities and churches filled with devout worshippers; I saw thousands of bright-faced, happy children going to clean schoolhouses and romping and laughing in their playgrounds. I saw, oh, so many sweet and happy homes! I saw no saloons, no drunken men, no places of vice. I saw men and women, husbands and wives, going up to the ballot booths, laughing and chatting as they went and placing their ballots in the boxes. Everything seemed beautiful. The vision passed and I said to myself, "There it is—the women of California will have the ballot and the blessings and glory will follow."

Now we come to the beginning of the movement that has had much to do in the enfranchisement of the women of California. I trust you will entirely lose sight of the speaker and see only the great cause away out in the West. A man sat in his room one night with pencil and paper before him. He began to write names of big men who ought to take an interest in the pending suffrage campaign. He wrote down about one hundred names and the next day started out alone to see them. Then followed two months of patient, personal work and about seventy good men and true had signed the league membership form, which read as follows: "The undersigned hereby associate themselves together under the name and style of the Political Equality League of California for the purpose of securing political equality and suffrage without distinction on account of sex." On April 5, 1910, they met around a banquet table and organized the league. Then followed earnest, enthusiastic, impromptu speaking by many of the members....

Mr. Braly told of going to Washington to the national convention, visiting suffrage headquarters in New York and returning home in June, when "immediately the league's Board of Governors, consisting of nine men, met and proceeded to add to it nine splendid women. Headquarters were fitted up and business began." He described the vigorous work of their Legislative Committee with the result that every member from the nine southern counties went to the Legislature pledged to vote for submitting a suffrage amendment.

Saturday morning was partly occupied by a conference on How to Reach the Uninterested, in which fifteen members from as many States took an animated part; and by one on Propaganda, led by Mrs. Grace Gallatin Seton (Conn.) and Miss Mary Winsor (Penn.). Throughout all the daytime sessions valuable and interesting reports on the work in the different States were read. The proposed new constitution was vigorously discussed whenever the time permitted. The delegation from Illinois came with a request that the national headquarters be removed to Chicago but the convention decided to have them remain in New York.

The College Equal Suffrage League held a business meeting in the Seelbach Hotel at ten o'clock followed by a luncheon for college and professional women. The president of the League, Dr. M. Carey Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College, was toast mistress and Dr. Shaw and Miss Jane Addams were guests of honor. One especially enjoyable feature was Miss Anita C. Whitney's account of the excellent work done by the College League of California in the recent campaign. [For all the above California reports see chapter for that State in Volume VI.]

The report of the National Congressional Committee by its chairman, Miss Emma M. Gillett, a lawyer of Washington, D. C., showed a decided advance in political work over all preceding years. She had placed on her committee Mrs. Upton, Mrs. Elizabeth King Ellicott (Md.), Miss Mary Gray Peck (N. Y.), Mrs. Katharine Reed Balentine (Me. and Cal.) and Miss Belle Kearney (Miss.). State presidents were invited to cooperate and lists of the nominees for Congress in their States were sent to them. The Democratic National Committee furnished the names of its nominees; the Republican National Committee practically refused to do so. Letters asking their opinion on woman suffrage were sent to 378 Democratic and 293 Republican candidates; 135 of the former and 88 of the latter answered; 93 Democrats and 65 Republicans were in favor of full or partial suffrage for women; 13 of the former and one of the latter were opposed; 29 and 23 non-committal. The letters received were almost without exception of a pleasant nature. The District Suffrage Association paid a stenographer and rent of headquarters for the work of sixteen months. Contributions of only $214 were received for it, $100 from U. S. Senator Isaac Stevenson of Wisconsin.

The report on official endorsements of conventions showed the usual large number, political, religious, agricultural, labor, etc. Mrs. Dennett estimated that such endorsements had now been given by organizations representing 26,000,000 members.

Mrs. Pauline Steinem, chairman of the Committee on Education, reported sub-committees in sixteen States working for suitable text books, encouraging the placing of women on school boards, organizing mothers' and parents' clubs, offering prizes for essays on woman suffrage, encouraging methods of self-government in schools, etc. The chairman for New Jersey announced that Governor Woodrow Wilson approved of School suffrage and that State Senator Joseph S. Frelinghuysen, president of the State Board of Education, recommended it in his last report.

College Women's Evening, as always, attracted one of the largest audiences of the week. In the course of an address on What Women Might Accomplish with the Franchise, Miss Jane Addams said:

Sydney Webb points out that while the wages of British working men have increased from 50 to 100 per cent. during the past sixty years the wages of working women have remained stationary. The exclusion from all political rights of five million working women in England is not only a source of industrial weakness and poverty to themselves but a danger to English industry. Working women can not hope to hold their own in industrial matters where their interests may clash with those of their enfranchised fellow workers or employers. They must force an entrance into the ranks of responsible citizens, in whose hands lies the solution to the problems which are at present convulsing the industrial world.

Much of the new demand for political enfranchisement arises from a passionate desire to reform the unsatisfactory and degrading social conditions which are responsible for so much wrong doing. The fate of all the unfortunate, the suffering, the criminal, is daily forced upon woman's attention in painful and intimate ways. It is inevitable that humanitarian women should wish to vote concerning all the regulations of public charities which have to do with the care of dependent children and the Juvenile Courts, pensions to mothers in distress, care of the aged poor, care of the homeless, conditions of jails and penitentiaries, gradual elimination of the social evil, extended care of young girls, suppression of gambling, regulation of billboard advertising and other things.

Perhaps the woman who leads the domestic life is more in need of the franchise than any other. One could easily name the regulations of the State that define her status in the community. Among them are laws regulating marriage and divorce, defining the legitimacy of children, defining married women's property rights, exemption and homestead laws which protect her when her husband is bankrupt. Then there are the laws regulating her functions as mother to her children.

Dr. Thomas, who presided, spoke on What Woman Suffrage Means to College Women. Only fragmentary newspaper reports are available but she said in beginning: "We are entering an age of social reconstruction and general betterment and no class today are spending more of their strength and energy to eradicate the wrongs which have resulted from a defective system that denies woman her rights, than the class of women who have received a college education. These efforts, however, amount to little as long as the franchise is denied compared to what is in the reach of possibility. Our efforts have been rewarded to a great extent but until woman has come into her own and is recognized and treated as a citizen of the State on an equal footing with man, our work will continue to be a mere scratching on the surface. Between 30 and 40 per cent. of the college women today are supporting themselves. It is the educated woman who is making the fight for equality and our hope lies in education, the education of both men and women."

Dr. Shaw presided over the Sunday afternoon meeting at which four notable addresses were made. Miss Mary Johnston's subject was Wanted, an Architect, and in eloquent words she showed how woman might be developed physically, mentally and spiritually, with the conclusion: "She can do what she wills and now the thing above all others to be desired is that she wills to act. The time has passed when indifference on her part will be tolerated. Women must rouse themselves to action, the crying needs of the hour demand it. With the ballot in our hands and with the will to produce better conditions our achievements will be unsurpassed." Professor Sophonisba Breckinridge, dean of the Junior College of Women in Chicago University, considered with keen analysis woman suffrage in its relation to the interests of the wage-earning woman. The Rev. Caroline Bartlett Crane (Mich.) presented A New Phase of Home Rule for Cities, saying in conclusion: "Politics at its best is a noble profession in which we earnestly desire to engage. Woman's age-long experience in home-making and mothering of children has fitted her for politics just as well as have man's activities in trade fitted him."

Dr. Shaw introduced Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, Chief of the Government Bureau of Chemistry, as "the man who is trying to get us women a fair chance to live," and he jokingly answered that in view of the swift advance of the woman suffrage movement it was a question whether men would continue to have a chance to live. His topic was Woman's Influence in Public Affairs, "which," he said, "are the summing up of private affairs." In his address he said:

I am not a newcomer myself. My first suffrage address was made in 1877. I believe it is almost useless to work on us old folks. The reforms in our politics and ethics must begin with the children. Educate them to the right and justice of woman suffrage even before they are born. Instill the idea in them at school; see that they get the proper kind of an education. Women have done wonders in securing our splendid system of public schools.... Women have intellect enough and some to spare. What we want is more ethics. A sense of justice and right is just as important to this country as intellectual strength. Women have the instinct of right. I have never known an organized body of women to be on the wrong side of a public question, although as individuals women sometimes get the wrong point of view, just as men are prone to do. I want equal suffrage because it is right. I want it also because it would have a great effect on woman's influence in public affairs and would help powerfully to get the right thing done. The very fact that woman had the vote would be a restraining and elevating influence. The women have been a tower of strength to every official in this country who has tried to do his duty. Take the question of pure food: I could tell you by the hour of the support that I have had from women and women's organizations. I should despair if I thought that the women did not stand for pure food.

We have in this country problems which I almost fear to face. Among them is the great problem of the relation between the wage-earner and the capitalist; that of the distribution of the necessities of life; that of the congestion in the cities and depopulation of the country districts. These and many others will take all the wisdom and sympathetic insight of men and women together to solve them. I am glad that men are to have the help of women. They are just entering on their career of greater usefulness in public affairs. With the ballot in their hands they will be endowed with a power much stronger than they have ever had before and they will wield it, I am sure, on the side of right and justice.

Sunday evening the officers of the association were "at home" to delegates, speakers and friends in the parlors of the Hotel Seelbach.

Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, who, to the great happiness of suffragists on several continents, had entirely recovered her health, was now making a trip around the world in the interest of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, of which she was president. At one session a letter from her was read, dated at Kimberly, South Africa, which was enthusiastically received. It said in part:

At the very moment that you will be planning the work for the sixty-third year of the American suffrage campaign, the suffragists of this new-east of all nations will be sitting in their first national convention at Durban, the metropolis of Natal. The movement here is young but is wholly unlike the beginnings of the campaigns in England and America, for our revered pioneers fought their battle against the prejudice and intolerance of their time for the women of the whole world. These women are beginning at the very point where we of the older movements find ourselves today. The old-time arguments are not heard and here, as everywhere, expediency and political advantage are the causes of opposition.

No two cities could be more unlike than Louisville and Durban. The latter lies in a tropical country with its buildings buried in masses of luxuriant and brilliant flora, all unfamiliar to American eyes. The delegates will look out upon the placid waters of the Indian Ocean and will ride to and fro from their meetings in rickshas drawn by Zulus in the most fantastic dress imaginable, the chief feature being long horns bound upon the head. In Louisville it will be autumn, in Natal it will be spring. Yet, dissimilar as are the scenes of these two conventions, the women composing them will be actuated by the same motives, inspired by the same hopes and working to the same end. The rebellion fomented in that little Seneca Falls convention has overspread the wide earth and from the frigid lands above the North Polar Circle to the most southerly point of the Southern Temperate Zone, the mothers of our race are listening to the new call to duty which these new times are uttering. It is glorious to be a suffragist today, with all the hard times behind us and certain victory before.

May wisdom guide us to do the right thing; may love unite us; may charity temper our differences and may we never forget the obligations we owe the blessed pathfinders of our movement who made the present position of our cause possible!

The election resulted in several changes in the board of officers. Dr. Shaw was re-elected. Mrs. McCulloch declined to stand for re-election as first vice-president and Miss Gordon as second and Miss Addams and Professor Breckinridge were chosen. For corresponding secretary Mrs. Dennett was re-elected. Mrs. Stewart withdrew as recording secretary and Mrs. Susan W. Fitzgerald (Mass.) was elected. Miss Ashley was re-elected treasurer. Mrs. Robert M. LaFollette was elected first auditor and Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw (N. Y.) second. Later Mrs. LaFollette declined to serve and Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick was appointed by the board.

In all preceding conventions there had been such unanimity in the choice of officers that the secretary had been able to cast the informal ballot for the election. This new division of sentiment was frequently illustrated during the meetings and indicated that an element had come into the movement, which, as usual with newcomers, wanted a change to accord with its ideas. This was particularly noticeable in the discussion of the proposed new constitution but the differences of opinion were peaceably adjusted by compromise.

After the election Mrs. McCormick, who had recently come into close touch with the National Association, spoke on the Effect of Suffrage Work on Women Themselves, saying in part: "So much attention has been given to the growth and development of the movement for woman suffrage that the effect on the women themselves has been lost sight of or has been little considered but today it is becoming clear that the cause of suffrage is more valuable to the individual woman than she is to the cause. The reason is that this movement has the great though silent force of evolution behind it, impelling it slowly forward; whereas the individual is largely dependent for her development on her own powers and especially on those expressions of life with which she brings herself into contact. The woman suffrage movement offers the broadest field for contact with life. It offers cooperation of the most effective kind with others; it offers responsibility in the life of the community and the nation; it offers opportunity for the most varied and far-reaching service. To come into contact with this movement means to some individuals to enter a larger world of thought than they had known before; to others it means approaching the same world in a more real and effective way. To all it gives a wider horizon in the recognition of one fact—that the broadest human aims and the highest human ideals are an integral part of the lives of women."

The report of the Committee on Church Work by its chairman, Mrs. Mary E. Craigie, (N. Y.) began: "It is estimated that there is in the United States a total church membership of 34,517,317 persons. It would mean a great deal to the woman suffrage cause if this great organized force, representing the most thoughtful and influential men and women of every community, could be brought to endorse it and work for it. The experiences of this committee seem to prove that in the transition taking place in the world of religious thought this is the most propitious time to obtain such support." She gave a resume of the splendid work that had been done by the branch committees in the various States, the religious gatherings that had been addressed, often resulting in the adoption of a resolution for woman suffrage, and the hundreds of letters sent to ministers asking for sermons favorable to the cause, which were many times complied with. She closed by saying: "It needs neither figures nor argument to establish the fact that church attendance and church worship are in a condition of decline. It is a critical period in the history of the church, which is changing from the exercise of power to the employment of influence, and the appeals that are coming to the churches are for service from the men and women who are their real strength. The church is not appreciating the resources that are lying dormant, when two-thirds of its membership—the women—are left powerless to carry on the moral and social reform work, because, as a disfranchised class having no political status, they are not counted as a potential force."

Miss Elizabeth Upham Yates (R. I.), chairman, made the report on Presidential suffrage. The report of the Committee on Peace and Arbitration, Mrs. Lucia Ames Mead (Mass.), chairman, spoke of the Ginn Endowment of a million dollars for the World's Peace Foundation and of Mr. Carnegie's great gift of ten million dollars, creating a fund to secure the peace of the world. It told of the vast work that was being done for peace by the women in the various States and said: "The world for the first time has seen the head of a great government declare that all questions between nations can be peacefully settled. President Taft's noble effort to secure treaties with other nations, to ensure arbitration between them of every justiciable question, should command the gratitude of every patriotic woman. I had hoped to felicitate you on the ratification of these treaties by the necessary two-thirds of the Senate, but in chagrin and disappointment I must instead appeal to you to endeavor instantly to create such public sentiment as shall result in December in the acceptance of the treaties without amendment. If they are thus ratified they will be secured not only with Great Britain and France but certainly Germany, and I have no doubt Japan and most other nations will agree to identical treaties."

Miss Florence H. Luscomb (Mass.) gave an interesting report of the Sixth Congress of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance held in Stockholm in June, 1911. [See chapter on the Alliance.] Mrs. Agnes M. Jenks, proxy for the president of the New Hampshire association, asked assistance in getting a clause for woman suffrage in the new constitution to be made for that State. Conferences were held throughout the week on legislative work, district organization, publicity, raising money and other branches of the vast activities of the association. The convention Monday afternoon adjourned early in order that the members might enjoy the hospitality of the Woman's Club of Louisville at a "tea" in their attractive rooms, and at another time take the beautiful Riverside Drive. One evening was devoted to light entertainment with two suffrage monologues by Miss Marjorie Benton Cooke; a suffrage slide talk by Mrs. Fitzgerald; a clever speech portraying the results if women voted, by Miss Inez Milholland (N. Y.) and the sparkling play, How the Vote Was Won, read by Miss Fola La Folette. A striking address was given one afternoon by Mrs. T. P. O'Connor, an American woman but long a resident of England and Ireland, who took for her subject, Let Our Watchword be Unity.

One of the most valuable contributions to the convention was Mrs. McCulloch's report as Legal Adviser. This was the result of a list of forty-four questions sent to presidents of State suffrage associations, Woman's Christian Temperance Unions, Federations of Clubs and leading lawyers, followed up by many letters. One of these questions related to the guardianship of children, of which she said:

The subject of the guardianship of children could have been treated a century ago in a few words. The father of the legitimate child was his sole guardian and the mother had no authority or right concerning their child except such as the husband gratuitously allowed her. She had, however, all the duties which the husband might put upon her. This meant that the husband decided about the children's food, clothing, medicine, school, church, home, associates, punishments, pleasures and tasks and that he alone could apprentice a child, could give him for adoption and control his wages. Many mothers were kept in happy ignorance of such unjust laws because their husbands voluntarily yielded to them much of the authority over the children but this was not so in all families and many mothers took cases to Supreme Courts, protesting against the absolute paternal power. When mothers learned what this sole guardianship meant they urged legal changes. Our present guardianship laws, very few alike, show how women, each group alone in their own States, have struggled to mitigate the severest evils of sole fatherly guardianship, especially of the child's person. This to mothers was more important than the guardianship of the child's property.

Perhaps the greatest suffering came from the father's power to deed or to bequeath the guardianship to a stranger and away from the mother. Most of the States now allow a surviving mother the sole guardianship of the child's person with certain conditions. Six States have not yet thus limited the father's power and in those where the guardianship is not specifically granted to the surviving mother, the father's sole power of guardianship covers his child even if yet unborn.

The report gave a thorough digest of these guardianship laws filling eight printed pages and this and Mrs. McCulloch's digest of other laws were printed in the Woman's Journal and the Handbook of the convention.

Miss Alice Henry presented greetings from the National Womens' Trade Union League; Miss Caroline Lowe from the Women's National Committee of the Socialist Party; Mrs. A. M. Harrison from the State Federation of Woman's Clubs; Mrs. Charles Campbell of Toronto from the Canadian Woman Suffrage Association; Mrs. W. S. Stubbs, wife of the Governor, and Mrs. William A. Johnston, wife of the Chief Justice and president of the State Suffrage Association, from Kansas. A letter of love and good wishes with regrets for her absence was ordered sent to Mrs. Catt and one of affectionate sympathy to Mrs. Susan Look Avery (Ky.) for the death of her son, which prevented her attendance. During the convention Mrs. Lida Calvert Obenchain, author of Aunt Jane of Kentucky, and Miss Eleanor Breckenridge, president of the Texas Suffrage Association, were introduced and said a few words. A telegram of greeting was read from Mrs. Caroline Meriwether Goodlett, a founder of the Daughters of the Confederacy.

The resolutions were presented by the chairman, Miss Bertha Coover, corresponding secretary of the Ohio Suffrage Association, the committee as usual consisting of one member from each State delegation. They urged the ratification of the Arbitration Treaties in the form desired by President Taft; expressed sympathy with Finland in its struggle for liberty; endorsed the proposed Federal Amendment for the election of U. S. Senators by popular vote and demanded that women should have part in this vote; endorsed the campaign for pure food and drugs; called for the same moral standard for men and women and the same legal penalties for those who transgress the moral law; asked the Government to erect a colossal statue of Peace at the entrance to the Panama Canal, and there were others on minor points. Greetings and appreciation were sent to "the justice-loving men of Washington and California, whose example will be an inspiration to the men of other States." Memorial resolutions were adopted for prominent suffragists who had died during the year, among them Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Dr. Emily Blackwell, Ellen C. Sargent, William A. Keith, the artist; Samuel Walter Foss, the poet; Lillian M. Hollister, Elizabeth Smith Miller, Eliza Wright Osborne and Dr. Annice Jeffreys Myers.

There was a long resolution of thanks for the courtesy and hospitality received in Louisville, which included the clergymen who opened the sessions with prayer, the musicians, who gave their services, the press committees, the hostesses and others.[71]

On the last evening with a large audience present Mrs. Desha Breckinridge spoke on The Prospect for Woman Suffrage in the South. "Although Kentuckians are wont to boast that within these borders is the purest Anglo-Saxon blood now existing, the spirit of their ancestors has departed," she said, and continued:

Since 1838 Kentucky has retrograded. An effort to obtain School suffrage for a larger class of women has brought about a reactionary measure. Kentucky women at present have no greater political rights than the women of Turkey—for we have none at all—but the action of certain male politicians in defeating the School suffrage measure in the last two Legislatures has really been of advantage to the movement. It has put not only women but the progressive men of the State into fighting trim.... The opposition of the non-progressive element has made of this "scrap of suffrage" a live, political issue. It is likely to be carried in the next Legislature by the determination of the better men of the State even more than of the women, and the fight made against it has gone far to convince both that the full franchise should be granted to women. The action of the Democratic party, when leadership in it is resumed by the best element, shows a realization that the wishes of the women of the State are to be reckoned with and that the friendship of the women, which may be gained by so simple an act of justice in their favor, is a political asset of no small importance. It is quite possible that the party in Kentucky and throughout the South may eventually realize that by advocating and securing suffrage for women it may bind to itself for many years to come, through a sense of gratitude and loyalty, a large number of women voters, just as the Republican party since the emancipation of the negro has had without effort the unquestioning loyalty of thousands of negro voters; although the women would never vote so solidly as do the negroes, because they would represent a much more thoughtful and independent body....

After showing what had been the results in the South from admitting a great body of illiterate voters she said:

A conference of southern women suffragists at Memphis a few years ago, in asking for woman suffrage with an educational qualification, pointed out that there were over 600,000 more white women in the southern States than there were negroes, men and women combined. If the literate women of the South were enfranchised it would insure an immense preponderance of the Anglo-Saxon over the African, of the literate over the illiterate, and would make legitimate limitation of the male suffrage to the literate easily possible....

Conditions of life in the South have made and kept Southerners individualists. The southern man believes that he should personally protect his women folk and he does it. He is only now slowly realizing that, with the coming of the cotton mills and other manufactories and with the growth of the cities, there has developed a great body of women, young girls and children who either have no men folk to protect them or whose men folk, because of ignorance and economic weakness, are not able to protect them against the greed and rapacity of employers or of vicious men. It is a shock to the pride of southern chivalry to find that women are less protected by the laws in their most sacred possessions in the southern States than in any other section of the Union; that the States which protect their women most effectively are those in which women have been longest a part of the electorate....

In the community business of caring for the sick, the incurable, the aged, the orphaned, the deficient and the helpless, women of the South bear already so important a part that to withdraw them from public affairs would mean sudden and widespread calamity. Women in the South are in politics, in the higher conception of the word. "Politics," says Bernard Shaw, "is not something apart from the home and the babies—it is home and the babies." Women have long since gotten into politics in the South in the sense that they have labored for the passage and enforcement of legislation in the interest of public health, the betterment of schools and the protection of womanhood and childhood—for the preservation, in short, "of home and the babies."

Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst of England, received an ovation when she rose to speak and soon disarmed prejudice by her dignified and womanly manner. She began by pointing out the fallacy that the women of the United States had so many rights and privileges that they did not need the suffrage and in proof she quoted existing laws and conditions that called loudly for a change. She then took up the situation in Great Britain and explained how many years the women had tried to get the franchise by constitutional methods only to be deceived and spurned by the Government. She told how at last a small handful of them started a revolution; how they had grown into an army; how they had suffered imprisonment and brutality; how the suffrage bill had again and again passed the second reading by immense majorities and the Government had refused to let it come to a final vote. "We asked Prime Minister Asquith to give us a time for this," she said. "For eight long hours in a heavy frost some of the finest women in England stood at the entrance to the House of Commons and waited humbly with petitions in their hands for their rulers and masters to condescend to receive them but the House adjourned while they stood there. The next day, while they waited again, there was an assault by the police, acting under instructions, that I do not like to dwell upon outside of my own country."

Dr. Shaw made the closing address, eloquent with hope and courage for the future and, as always, the final blessing at the convention as the benediction is at church.

In summing up the week the Woman's Journal said: "Only those who attended our national convention at Louisville can understand how really wonderful it was. For hospitality, for good management, for beautiful cooperation and self-effacement, the Kentucky women set a standard that will long be remembered and will be very hard to equal in the future. It made hard work easy and all work a joy. The gratitude of the National Association is theirs forever. They gave much to us, did we give anything to them? Here we can only say we trust that we did and accept with confidence what one of the State's great women said many times: 'This convention has done wonders for Kentucky; it has surpassed my hopes.'"

FOOTNOTES:

[70] Part of Call: Within the year the State of Washington has completed its work of fully enfranchising its adult citizens. Before the convention assembles, California will no doubt have accepted the idea of true democracy. We also rejoice because the Legislatures of Kansas, Wisconsin, Oregon and Nevada have voted to submit the question to their electors. Many States, however, still refuse to allow the voters to pass upon the question of giving political independence to women. Since the purpose of the National American Woman Suffrage Association is "to secure the right to vote to women citizens of the United States," we have called this national convention of suffragists. From every State will come delegates, who will bring with them the growing spirit of rebellion against injustice....

We call upon every public-spirited woman to come and help devise methods of carrying on the fight, to strengthen the fire of revolt, to show by overwhelming numbers and determined earnestness that women will no longer be satisfied to be treated with political contempt by the legislators who are supposed to represent them.... Do your part to inspire our workers with courage, determination, fervor and consecration; to arouse them to put forth their full strength, even to the utmost sacrifice, to obtain universal recognition of the truth that every adult citizen should have a voice in the government of a free country.

ANNA HOWARD SHAW, President. CATHARINE WAUGH MCCULLOCH, First Vice-President. KATE M. GORDON, Second Vice-President. MARY WARE DENNETT, Corresponding Secretary. ELLA S. STEWART, Recording Secretary. JESSIE ASHLEY, Treasurer. LAURA CLAY, } ALICE STONE BLACKWELL, }Auditors.

[71] Of the press the Woman's Journal said: "The Louisville papers gave the convention full and fair reports and the Herald and Times had editorials declaring woman suffrage to be inevitable. Colonel Henry Watterson in the Courier-Journal struggled between a sincere desire to be courteous and hospitable to a convention of distinguished women meeting in his city and an equally sincere belief that woman suffrage would be a bad thing. A rousing editorial in favor of it appeared in Desha Breckinridge's paper, the Lexington Leader.



CHAPTER XII.

NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1912.

The Forty-fourth annual convention, which met in Witherspoon Building, Philadelphia, Nov. 21-26, 1912, celebrated three important victories. At the general election in the early part of the month, Oregon, Arizona and Kansas had amended their constitutions and conferred equal suffrage on women by large majority votes and the result in Michigan was still in doubt. It was the sentiment of the country that the eastward sweep of the movement was now fully under way. There was a new and vibrant tone in the Call and in the speeches and proceedings.[72] The Woman's Journal said in its account: "Another new feature was the enormous crowds that turned out at the convention. Evening after evening, in conservative Philadelphia, ten or a dozen overflow meetings had to be held for the benefit of the people who could not possibly get into the hall. At the Thanksgiving service on Sunday afternoon, not only was the great Metropolitan Opera House filled to its capacity but for blocks the street outside was jammed with a seething crowd, eager to hear the illustrious speakers. It looked more like an inauguration than like an old-fashioned suffrage meeting."

There was a great out-door rally in Independence Square at the beginning, such as had been witnessed many times on this historic spot conducted by men but never before in the hands of women. Miss Elizabeth Freeman was manager of this meeting, assisted by Miss Jane Campbell, the Rev. Caroline Bartlett Crane, Mrs. Camilla von Klenze, Mrs. Teresa Crowley and Miss Florence Allen. From five platforms over forty well-known speakers demanded that the principles of the Declaration of Independence signed in the ancient hall close by should be applied to women and that the old bell should ring out liberty for all and not for half the people. Mrs. Otis Skinner read the Women's Declaration of Rights, which had been written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage in 1876 and presented at the great centennial celebration in that very square,[73] and a little ceremony was held in honor of Mrs. Charlotte Pierce of Philadelphia, the only one then living who had signed it, with a remembrance presented by Mrs. Anna Anthony Bacon.

The convention was noteworthy for the large number of distinguished speakers on its program. On the opening afternoon, after a moment of silent prayer in memory of Lucretia Mott, the welcome of the city was extended by the widely-known "reform" Mayor Rudolph Blankenburg, who pointed out the vast field of municipal work for women and expressed his firm conviction of their need for the suffrage. He was followed with a greeting by Mrs. Blankenburg, a former president of the State Suffrage Association. Its formal welcome to the delegates was given by the president, Mrs. Ellen H. Price, who said in part: "We hope that you will feel at home in Pennsylvania, for the idea that has called this organization into being—that divine passion for human rights—actuated the great founder of our Commonwealth in setting up his 'holy experiment in government.'" After regretting that a State founded on so broad a conception had not applied it to women Mrs. Price said:

We welcome you in the name of William Penn, who, antedating the Declaration of Independence by nearly a century, enunciated in his Frame of Government the truth that the States of today are coming very rapidly to acknowledge: "Any Government is free to the people under it when the laws rule and the people are a party to those laws; anything more than this (and anything less) is oligarchy and confusion." We welcome you in the name of our only woman Governor, Hannah Penn, who, as we are told, for six years managed the affairs of the infant colony wisely and well.

We welcome you in the name of the patriots who placed on our Liberty Bell the injunction, "Proclaim Liberty throughout the Land to all the Inhabitants Thereof"; in the name of those ancestors of ours (yours and mine) who here gave up their lives in that struggle to establish the principle that "taxation without representation is tyranny" for a nation; in the name of those uncompromising agitators who delivered their message of liberty even at the risk of life itself, till the shackles fell from a race enslaved; in the name of Lucretia Mott, that gentle, that queenly champion of the downtrodden and oppressed, that inspired preacher whose motto, "Truth for Authority, not Authority for Truth," should be the watchword of every soul that seeks for freedom.

We welcome you in the name of the pioneers in the education of women, of those who gave us the first Medical College for Women, Ann Preston, Emily Cleveland, Hannah Longshore, whose daughter is here today—our honorary president, Lucretia L. Blankenburg, wife of the chief executive of this city, to whose eloquent words of welcome you have just listened; in the name of the first president of our State association, of whom the poet Whittier wrote: "The way to make the world anew is just to grow as Mary Grew." We welcome you in the name of our national president, the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, who, although a citizen of the world, comes back to her Pennsylvania home to get fresh strength and courage.

Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw, a national officer, made a graceful response for the association. Fraternal greetings were given by Mrs. Barsels, from the Pennsylvania Woman's Christian Temperance Union; by Mrs. Branstetter of Oklahoma from the National Socialist Party; by Mrs. Campbell McIvor of Toronto from the Canadian Woman Suffrage Association and later by Miss Leonora O'Reilly from the New York Women's Trade Union League.

Miss Laura Clay, chairman of the Membership Committee, announced the admission of nine new societies to the National Association. There were 308 delegates in attendance. Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett, corresponding secretary and chairman of the Literature Committee, said in the course of her report:

We are often asked at headquarters and by mail what the national headquarters is for and what it does. The briefest answer that can be given is that we furnish ammunition for the suffrage fight. The ammunition is of many sorts, from money, leaflets and buttons to historical data, slide lectures and advice on organization.... One decided advantage in making headquarters more useful to visitors has been the enlargement of the main office. A partition was removed which gave us a large, light room where all our publications are accessible for consultation or purchase, all the chief suffrage periodicals of the world are on file, the gallery of eminent suffragists is on exhibition and all the various kinds of supplies, like buttons, pennants, posters, etc., are shown. It serves as reference library as well, for beside the History of Woman Suffrage, the Life of Susan B. Anthony and the bound volumes of the Woman's Journal, there is a collection of books on interests allied to suffrage, which have been selected and approved by the board. These are also on sale.... During the summer of 1912 a questionnaire was sent to the States and the answers tabulated and printed in a folder showing conclusively the status of each regarding headquarters, press, membership, finance, political district, legislative and Congressional work. There is an increasing demand for suffrage facts rather than for suffrage argument. It was in response to this demand that it became necessary to appoint an editor for the literature department. Fully half of the publications needed revising and bringing up to date and new compilations of data were urgently needed. Mrs. Frances Maule Bjorkman, a trained newspaper and magazine writer, was chosen and has filled the position admirably.

Mrs. Dennett gave a detailed account of the pamphlets, speeches, leaflets, plays, magazine articles, etc., published by the association—250 kinds of printed matter—and said:

We have published over 3,000,000 pieces of literature in this year and our total receipts from literature and supplies have been $13,000, or $746 over the cost of the printing and purchase. Our record month was September, when our receipts were more than the entire receipts for the whole year of 1909. If we count our unsold stock and our uncollected bills as assets, we have a net gain for the year of $3,578. About $700 worth of literature has been sold in the office, the remainder having been ordered by mail.

Through the courtesy of the Illinois association and the generosity of Miss Addams and Miss Breckinridge, who paid for the rent and service, a sub-station for the supply of literature was established at the Chicago headquarters in April. The sales at this western branch have been $1,924. It would seem well worth while to continue this service for western customers. Also for their benefit Mrs. McCormick made a gift of a sample copy of every one of our new publications to the presidents of State associations in eighteen of the western States, as a means of bringing them in closer touch with the national office.... Aside from our own literature we have been grateful for a very serviceable congressional document, thousands of which have been distributed in the last few months, the speech of Congressman Edward T. Taylor of Colorado. It proved a successful and timely campaign document and we are indebted not only to Mr. Taylor but to a most efficient volunteer worker in Washington—Mrs. Helen H. Gardener—who gave unstinted personal service in seeing that the documents were obtained and franked when needed....



The convention accepted the recommendation of the board that it should issue a monthly bulletin of facts and figures to be sent to every paying member, thus establishing a real bond between the association and its thousands of members. The report of the Press Bureau by its chairman, Miss Caroline I. Reilly, showed remarkable progress in public sentiment as expressed by the newspapers. It said in part:

The winning of California last year wrought so complete a change in the work of the national press bureau that it was like taking up an entirely new branch. Before that victory our time was employed in furnishing suffrage arguments, replying to adverse editorials and letters published in the newspapers and writing syndicate articles. Now this department has resolved itself into a bureau of information, news being the one thing required. Each week we send to our mailing list 2,000 copies of the press bulletin, giving brief items relative to suffrage activities the world over. These go into every non-suffrage State in the Union, to Canada, Cuba and England, and the demand for them increases daily. Almost every mail brings letters from newspapers asking to be placed on the regular mailing list.... Since the winning of the four States on November 5, newspapers and press associations from all over the United States have written us asking for help to establish woman suffrage departments. The time has come when our question is a paying one from a publicity point of view, ...

We now have twenty syndicates on our list and are no longer obliged to write the articles ourselves but simply furnish the information which their own writers work up. These syndicates are both national and international and cover all of this country as well as some foreign countries. An interesting thing happened last week, when the representative of a European press syndicate came and said that he had been sent to America for the sole purpose of reporting the woman movement in the United States, the subject being regarded a vital one by the press of Europe. Special suffrage editions seem to be more popular than almost anything else and appeals come to us from all over the Union to help on them.... During the past year we have received and answered over 3,000 communications. The Italian papers have been on our mailing list for some time, also many French and Hebrew papers.... The editors and associate editors of twelve Italian newspapers in New York are enrolled in the city suffrage organization.

Miss Alice Stone Blackwell made an extended report of the Woman's Journal since it became the official organ of the National American Association in June, 1910, and had been published under its auspices. The expenses had increased and funds had not been supplied to meet them. Committees of conference were appointed and eventually the deficit was paid and the paper was returned to Miss Blackwell, who offered the free use of its columns to the association. The report of the treasurer, Miss Jessie Ashley, was not encouraging. Under the old regime the year always closed with a balance in the treasury but this indebtedness to the Woman's Journal left the association $5,000 in debt.[74] As its work broadened the expense became heavier and the income although far larger than ever before was not sufficient. During the past year it had contributed $18,144 to campaigns in eight States. A very large part of this amount was paid by Dr. Shaw from a fund given to her personally for the purpose by Mrs. Quincy A. Shaw of Boston. At this time and later she gave to Dr. Shaw to be used for campaigns according to her judgment $30,000 and the name of the donor was not revealed until after her death in 1917.

The first evening of the convention was devoted to the president's address and the stories of the successful campaigns for suffrage amendments at the November elections, related by Mrs. William A. Johnston and Miss Helen N. Eaker for Kansas and Mrs. M. L. T. Hidden for Oregon. No one being present from Arizona Dr. Shaw told of the victory there. Mrs. Clara B. Arthur and Mrs. Huntley Russell described the situation in Michigan, where the indications were that the amendment would be lost by fraudulent returns. Dr. Shaw's speech, as usual, was neither written nor stenographically reported but this floating paragraph was found in a newspaper:

In all times men have entertained loftier theories of living than they have been able to formulate into practical experience. We Americans call our government a republic but it is not a republic and never has been one. A republic is not a government in which one-half of the people make the laws for all of the people. At first the government was a hierarchy in which only male church members could vote. In the process of evolution the qualification of church membership was removed and the word "taxpayer" substituted. Later that word was stricken out and all white men could vote. Then followed the erasure of the word "white" and now all male citizens have the ballot. The next measure is obvious and it is not a revolutionary one but the logical step in the evolution of our government. I believe thoroughly in democracy, the extension of the franchise to all men, for all have a right to a voice in the making of the laws that govern them, and no nation has a right to place before any of its people an insuperable barrier to self-government. We would make no outcry against an educational standard, the necessary age limit, a certain term of residence in any place—in fact there is no regulation women would object to that applied to all citizens equally. I make no criticism of the policy of the country in giving all men the ballot. The men are all right so far as they go—- but they go only half way. The United States has subjected its women to the greatest political humiliation ever imposed upon the women of any nation. German women are governed by German men; French women by French men, etc., but American women are ruled by the men of every country and race in the world.... I do not belong to any political party and I have too much self-respect to ally myself with any party until my opinion is of enough importance to be counted at the polls.

The delegates heard reports from the chairmen of various committees—Ways and Means, Dr. M. Carey Thomas; Enrollment, Mrs. Jean Nelson Penfield; Presidential Suffrage, Miss Elizabeth Upham Yates; Laws for Women, Miss Mary Rutter Towle (D. C.). Mrs. Lucia Ames Mead made her usual comprehensive report as chairman of the Peace and Arbitration Committee. Mrs. Mary E. Craigie in her report of seven printed pages on the extensive and successful efforts of her Committee on Church Work told of a circular letter that had been sent to thousands of clergymen throughout the country asking for a special sermon in support of woman suffrage on Mothers' Day. It pointed out that in the vast moral and social reform work of the churches their women members are denied the weapon of Christian welfare, the ballot, while the forces of evil are fully enfranchised and the influence of the churches is thus essentially weakened.

Mrs. William Kent, in her report as chairman of the Congressional Committee, said that it had not been necessary to request members to introduce a resolution for a Federal Suffrage Amendment as six were offered by as many Representatives of their own volition. Senator Works of her own State of California had been glad to present it. She told of the "hearings" before the committees of the two Houses on March 13, when the National Association sent representatives to Washington. The preceding day a reception for the speakers was given in her home and many of the guests became interested who had been indifferent. In May the Congressional Committee sent out cards for a "suffrage tea" in her house to the wives of Senators and Representatives; many were present and interesting addresses were made.

Among the resolutions submitted by the chairman of the committee, Mrs. Raymond Brown, and adopted were the following:

We reaffirm that our one object and purpose is the enfranchisement of the women of our country.

We call upon all our members to rejoice at the winning of the School vote by the women of Kentucky and at the full enfranchisement of four more States, Kansas, Oregon, Arizona and Michigan[75]; and in the fact that at the last election the electoral vote of women fully enfranchised was nearly doubled, and to rejoice that all the political parties are now obliged to reckon with the growing power of the woman vote; and be it resolved

That this association believes in the settlement of all disputes and difficulties, national and international, by arbitration and judicial methods and not by war.

That we commend the action of those State Federations of Women's Clubs which have founded departments for the study of political economy and we congratulate those clubs which have endorsed our movement to gain the ballot for all women.

That we deeply deplore the exploiting of the children of this country in our labor markets to the detriment and danger of coming generations; that we commend the action of Congress in the creation of a National Children's Bureau and President Taft's appointment of a woman, Miss Julia Lathrop, as head of the bureau.

That we commend the efforts of our National Government to end the white slave traffic; that we urge the passage in our States of more stringent laws for the protection of women; that we demand the same standard of morals for men and women and the same penalties for transgressors; that we call upon women everywhere to awake to the dangers of the social evil and to hasten the day when women shall vote and when commercialized vice shall be exterminated.

A unique feature of the convention was Men's Night, with James Lees Laidlaw of New York, president of the National Men's League for Woman Suffrage of 20,000 members, in the chair and all the speeches made by men. Miss Blackwell said editorially in the Woman's Journal: "From the very beginning of the equal rights movement courageous and justice-loving men have stood by the women and have been invaluable allies in the long fight that is now nearing its triumph but never before have been actually organized to work for the cause. Men old and young, men of the most diverse professions, parties and creeds, spoke with equal earnestness in behalf of equal rights for women." The speakers were the Hon. Frederick C. Howe, Judge Dimner Beeber, president of the Pennsylvania League; A. S. G. Taylor of the Connecticut League; Joseph Fels, the Single Tax leader; Julian Kennedy of Pittsburgh; George Foster Peabody of New York; the Rev. Wm. R. Lord of Massachusetts; Jesse Lynch Williams, J. H. Braly of California and Reginald Wright Kauffman. The last named, whose recently published book, The House of Bondage, had aroused the country on the "white slave traffic," discussed this question as perhaps it never before had been presented in public and he found a sympathetic audience.

The Rev. James Grattan Mythen, of the Prince of Peace Church, Walbrook, Md., made a strong demand for the influence of women in the electorate, in which he said: "Whatever wrongs the law allows must not be laid entirely at the door of paid public servants whom by the franchise we employ to do our public will. Where there are criminals in public office they represent criminals. They represent the active criminals whose debased ballots put them in office, and they represent the passive criminals whose ballot was not cast to keep them out! 'That ye did it not' merits as great a condemnation as 'That ye did it.' What is needed in politics is the reassertion of the moral ideal, and as men we know that this moral ideal has been, is now and always will be the possession of womankind. For this reason men ought to demand that women come into the body politic and bring with them the same moral standard that they hold for themselves in the home, in the Church, in the hospitals, in the great reform movements which are voiced by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and all other endeavors for righteousness that are always championed by women."

This was not the time and place arranged for taking a collection but the enthusiasm was so great that Mr. Fels started the ball rolling and $2,000 were quickly subscribed. Later at the regular collection the amount was increased to $6,908. Among the largest pledges were those of Miss Kate Gleason of Rochester, N.Y., for $1,200; Mrs. Oliver H.P. Belmont, $1,000; Mrs. Bowen of Chicago, $600; New York State Association, $600; Pennsylvania State Association, $500; Miss Emily Howland, $300. The treasurer, Miss Ashley, stated that the receipts from April 1 to November 1 had been $55,197.

Dr. Shaw had telegraphed the congratulations of the association to the Governors of the four victorious States and telegrams of greetings to the convention were read from Governors Oswald West of Oregon; George P. Hunt of Arizona; W.R. Stubbs of Kansas; and Chase S. Osborn of Michigan. Greetings were received from Miss Martina G. Kramers of Holland, editor of the international suffrage paper; the U.S. National Council of Women, and from Mrs. Champ Clark and her sister, Mrs. Annie Pitzer of Colorado, sent through Miss Nettie Lovisa White of Washington. Telegrams of congratulation were sent to the State presidents, Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway of Oregon and Mrs. Frances W. Munds of Arizona, and of sympathy to the Rev. Olympia Brown and Miss Ada L. James for the defeat in Wisconsin.

It was voted to continue the national headquarters in New York. There was a flurry of discussion over a proposed amendment to the constitution changing the present method of voting, which allowed the delegates present to cast the entire number of votes to which the State was entitled by its paid membership. The convention finally adopted the amendment that hereafter the delegates present should cast only their individual votes. The election resulted in a change of but two officers. Professor Breckinridge and Miss Ashley did not stand for re-election and Miss Anita Whitney of California was chosen for second vice-president and Mrs. Louise De Koven Bowen of Chicago for second auditor.

A serious controversy arose during the convention in regard to the deviation of some of the national officers from the time-honored custom of non-partisanship. It had always been the unwritten but carefully observed law of the association that no member of the board should advocate or work for any political party. Mrs. George Howard Lewis, a veteran suffragist of Buffalo, N.Y., sent a resolution to the convention declaring that officers of the association must remain non-partisan and Mrs. Ida Husted Harper presented it and led the contest for it. Dr. Shaw announced before it was discussed that the board recommended that it should not pass.

Women had taken a larger part in the political campaign which had just ended than ever before and one of the officers and many of the delegates present had spoken and worked for the Progressive party because of the suffrage plank in its platform. Other members had done the same for the Socialist and Prohibition parties for a like reason. As a result, while the resolution had some warm support it was defeated by a vote of ten to one, although it applied only to the officers and left individual members free. The consequences of this vote soon began to be realized by the board and the delegates and in the official resolutions was one which said: "The National American Suffrage Association reaffirms the position for which it always has stood, of being an absolutely non-partisan, non-sectarian body." When asked for an interpretation the officers answered that "the association must not declare officially for any political party."[76]

One of the most enjoyable evenings of the convention was the one in charge of the National College Equal Suffrage League, the program consisting of a debate between groups of clever speakers, each with one or more university degrees, half of them posing as anti-suffragists, with Dr. Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College and of the league, in the chair. A suffrage meeting which touched high water mark was that of Sunday afternoon, when the immense opera house was filled to overflowing and literally thousands stood on the outside in the intense cold and listened to speakers who were hastily sent out to address them. Dr. Shaw presided. The meeting was opened with prayer by the Rt. Rev. Philip Mercer Rhinelander and the music was rendered by the choir, under its director, Samuel J. Riegel, with the audience joining. An eloquent address was given, the Democracy of Sex and Color, by Dr. W.E. Burghardt Du Bois, and one by Miss Addams on the Communion of the Ballot, the necessity for cooperative work by men and women, in which she said: "Take a still graver subject. Everywhere vice regulation is coming up for government action. The white slave traffic is international and it goes on from city to city. I ask you, in the name of common sense, is it safe or wise or sane to entrust to men alone the dealing with this age-long evil? Our laws are superior to those of most European countries. In England, because women have been obliged to appeal to the pity of men against these evils, (for the appeal to chivalry seems to have fallen), there is a disposition to divide into two camps, men in one and women in the other. Any sex antagonism thus engendered arises because these grave moral questions have not been taken up by men and women together. By debarring women from suffrage, we are failing to bring to bear on these questions that vast moral energy which dwells in women.... Whenever there is a great moral awakening it is followed by an extension of the movement for women's rights. The first wave came with the anti-slavery agitation; the second with the prohibition movement and Frances Willard, and now there is coming all over the world this irresistible movement of government to take up great social and industrial questions."

The very fine address of Miss Julia Lathrop, Chief of the National Children's Bureau, on Woman Suffrage and Child Welfare filled over five columns of the Woman's Journal and contained a sufficient argument for the enfranchisement of women if no other ever had been or should be made. "My purpose," she began, "is to show that woman suffrage is a natural and inevitable step in the march of society forward; that instead of being incompatible with child welfare it leads toward it and is indeed the next great service to be rendered for the welfare and ennoblement of the home. A little more than one-third of all the people in this country, something over 29,500,000 in actual numbers, are children under the age of fifteen—that is, still in a state of tutelage; and it is of unbounded importance that nothing be done by the rest of us which will injure this budding growth. So it is right to judge in large measure any proposed change in our social fabric by its probable effect on that dependent third of the race to whom we are pledged, for whose succession it is the work of this generation to prepare. What we propose is to give universal suffrage to women."

Answering the question, "Do we propose a mad revolution?" she traced the development in the position of woman, every step of which was condemned at the time as a dangerous innovation. "It was a revolution when women were given equal property rights over their goods and equal rights over their children," she said. "We must blush that there are States in this country where that revolution is still to be accomplished. I have heard an old Illinois lawyer describe the early efforts to secure equal property rights for women in that State and the constant objection that such laws would destroy the family, that there could be no harmony unless the ownership were all in one person and that person the man. It was feared then, as now, that women would become tyrannical and unbearable if they were allowed too much independence. Do children suffer because their mothers own property?" She pointed out the necessity for woman's political influence on humanitarian movements and said: "Suffrage for women is not the final word in human freedom but it is the next step in the onward march, because it is the next step in equalizing the rights and balancing the duties of the two types of individuals who make up the human race."