The immediate object of the National American Association at the present moment was to secure a Committee on Woman Suffrage in the Lower House such as had long existed in the Senate. A resolution to create such a committee had been introduced April 7 by Edward T. Taylor (Colo.) and referred to the Committee on Rules. The hearing at the regular session during this convention, therefore, was before this committee, which would have to recommend the Woman Suffrage Committee to the House, and it was set for 10:30 A.M., December 3. As soon as the application was made the National Anti-Suffrage Association also asked to be heard, and Chairman Henry, who was opposed to the proposed new committee and to woman suffrage, announced that he proposed to allow both sides all the time they wanted. The leaders of the National Suffrage Association stated that they would ask for only the usual two hours and would not discuss the general question of woman suffrage but only the need of a special committee. Their arguments were concluded at the morning session. The "antis" began after luncheon with massed forces and talked the entire afternoon and all of the next day and part of the third, covering the whole subject of woman suffrage, with the appointment of the committee only one feature of it. Several of their men speakers consumed nearly an hour each and were repeatedly requested by the chairman to face the committee instead of the audience, which filled the largest room in the House office building. The first morning all of the committee were present but they gradually dwindled until during the latter part of the "antis'" arguments only two or three were in their seats, not including the chairman[81]. Only limited extracts of the speeches are possible. Dr. Shaw presided and said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Miss Jane Addams was presented by Dr. Shaw as one who did not need to be introduced to any civilized being, "not because of any political agitation by her but for the service she has rendered humanity, one which is distinctly woman's service, and she long ago came to realize that it was impossible to do this work as it should be done unless she and the women associated with her had the ballot." Miss Addams referred to a committee hearing once before when she was able to give but one precedent for the jurisdiction of Congress over the franchise—the 15th Amendment—but now, she said, she could give nine more. She cited the case of the Indians, the Confederate soldiers, foreigners who fought in the Civil War, naturalized foreigners, Federal prisoners, American women marrying aliens, election of U. S. Senators, etc. Each point brought questions or objections from the committee and the discussion was very interesting.

Members of the committee asked Dr. Shaw if the association would be willing to have the matter of a Federal Suffrage Amendment referred to the Committee on Election of President, Vice-President and Representatives in Congress but after consultation with members of her board it was decided to stand for a special committee. Mrs. Desha Breckinridge was introduced as the great granddaughter of Henry Clay and in the course of a speech worthy of her ancestry she recalled the early history of Kentucky, the part of her grandfather in preserving the Union, the fact that the State had not maintained its prestige and that if this was to be regained the women must be permitted to help and said:

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

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

This committee is composed of thirteen men and seven constitute the deciding vote on our appeal for the Woman Suffrage Committee. These seven belong to the majority, the Democratic party. One of them comes from a partial suffrage State, Illinois, and another from a campaign State, New York, where the Legislature has declared in favor of submitting this question to the voters. I shall, therefore, limit my examination to the remaining five gentlemen whose point of view will in all probability decide the women's destiny in the House of Representatives at least for the moment. These five all represent one section of the country and my analysis of them is made in the hope that they will take a national point of view and help us obliterate sectional feeling. Who are you that hesitate to promote, if you do not actually obstruct this Federal Amendment? In looking over various public records I find that the honored chairman of this committee holds his strategic position as a result of the will expressed at the polls of 7,623 men. Opposite his name should be written: "No opposition." Another of the five comes here through the vote of 13,906 men. Another is sent by the very small group of 6,474 men, and the remaining two represent respectively 18,000 and 16,000 men. The total vote behind all five of these gentlemen is 63,570. These 63,570 voters, therefore, have the decision of this momentous question....

You know the fight that you Democratic men put up against the combination by the Committee on Rules under the leadership of Speaker Cannon and you led that fight against the domination of the committee over the House. You are today in this same position of political power. Can you consistently oppose now the things for which you fought so bitterly a short time ago? We know how rapidly you have appointed committees when changed economic conditions demanded it. I have here the report of the Committee on the Judiciary for the special session, showing what work it did, how many sittings it held, which proves conclusively that it has not time for the consideration of our question....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One of the opposing speakers claimed that the majority of the grangers were opposed to suffrage. The National Grange passes a strong resolution in favor of woman suffrage every year and a long list of State granges have done the same. Individual working women have appeared before this committee and have said that they believed that the majority of working women were opposed to suffrage, but all the great organizations of working men and working women have repeatedly passed strong resolutions in favor of it.

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

A few years ago Mrs. Julia Ward Howe took a census of all the ministers of four leading denominations in the four oldest suffrage States—Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho—and of all the editors, asking them whether the results of woman suffrage were good or bad. She received 624 answers, of which 62 were unfavorable, 46 undecided and 516 in favor. The answers from the editors were favorable more than 8 to 1: those from the Episcopal clergymen more than 2 to 1; from the Baptist, 7 to 1; from the Congregationalists about 8 to 1; from the Methodists more than 10 to 1; and from the Presbyterians more than 11 to 1.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Mondell closed the hearing with a sarcastic review of the objections made by the opponents during which he said: "I had the privilege and pleasure of listening to the exceedingly strong and forceful argument in favor of woman suffrage made this morning by the gentleman from Alabama, or was it intended for an argument against it? I think, taking it as a whole, that it was the most conclusive argument I have ever heard in favor of it.... We have a committee whose business it is to inquire how much further we should extend the franchise to the little brown brother over in the Philippines, some six or seven millions of him, and the President considers that a sufficiently important matter to refer to it in his Message. I hope it was through forgetfulness and not deliberate intent that he seemed to fail to realize that it is of vastly less importance than the question of granting the franchise to the mothers, wives and sisters among the 95,000,000 of the folks here in the United States." Mr. Mondell ridiculed the sentimental effusion of Mr. Heflin and his solicitude lest the harmony of family life might be disturbed and said: "If the testimony of one who speaks from experience is worth while I can say with full realization that it is a sweeping statement: In twenty-seven years' wide knowledge of a people where woman suffrage prevails I have never known a solitary case where a difference of political opinion resulted in family quarrels or misunderstanding, not a single one.... Are we to understand that men elsewhere—in Alabama, for instance—are less considerate than with us and that they would make trouble if their women folks did not vote as they wanted them to?... The exercise of the franchise is a privilege and a right but above and beyond the question of right or privilege stands the fact that as time goes on and we are attempting to meet wisely the multitude of questions that arise in government, many of them social and economic, we need the assistance of the best half of mankind."

* * * * *

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

FOOTNOTES:

[78] Call: For the forty-fifth time in its history the National American Woman Suffrage Association summons its members together in council. By thus assembling, one more united step toward the final emancipation of the women of this country is made practicable.... To the wise and courageous, to those not fearful of the changes demanded by the vital needs of growing humanity, this Call will have two meanings: first, it will speak of loyalty to work and to comrade workers; of large undertakings worthily begun and to be worthily finished; of the stimulus of difficulty; of joy in the exercise of talents and strength; of the self-control and ability required for cooperation.

Second, it will express—like other summons of women to women throughout the ages—the need not alone for counsel and comfort but also for the preservation of all they hold most high—for that to which they gladly give their lives. It will speak of the struggle for development which individual women have made; of the opportunities they have won for each other; of the unequivocal demand for the best, to which the few have led the many....

To you who grasp the underlying meaning of this struggle; to you who know yourselves akin to those who have preceded and to those who will follow; to you who are daily making this ideal a reality, this Call is sent.

ANNA HOWARD SHAW, President. JANE ADDAMS, Vice-President. CHARLOTTE ANITA WHITNEY, Second Vice-President. MARY WARE DENNETT, Executive Secretary. SUSAN WALKER FITZGERALD, Recording Secretary. KATHARINE DEXTER MCCORMICK, Treasurer. HARRIET BURTON LAIDLAW,} LOUISE DEKOVEN BOWEN, } Auditors

[79] The first delegation received by President Wilson after his inauguration was a group of eight or ten suffragists. It was arranged by Miss Alice Paul, chairman of the Congressional Committee of the National Suffrage Association. They stated their case in a few words and quoted freely from his book, The New Freedom. The President was very courteous but his attitude was one of amused curiosity.

[80] When the board met after the convention it was disclosed that the Congressional Union, instead of being merely a local society to assist the committee in its efforts with Congress, as Miss Paul had said, was a national organization to work for the Federal Amendment. That is, it was to duplicate the work which the National Association had been formed to do in 1869 and had brought to its present advanced stage. The association's letterheads had been used for this purpose and persons from all parts of the country had sent their names and money, many supposing they were assisting the National Association. Miss Paul had been obtaining names for membership in the Union during all the sessions of the convention. The board decided that there must be complete separation of the work of the committee and the Union; that the same person could not be at the head of both and that the plans of the Union must be regularly submitted to the Board. Miss Paul refused to accept these conditions and she was at once relieved from the chairmanship of the Congressional Committee and the other members resigned. The Union was continued as a separate organization. Another committee was appointed by the National American Association consisting of Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick, chairman; Mrs. Antoinette Funk, Mrs. Sherman Booth, all of Illinois, Mrs. Desha Breckinridge (Ky.), Mrs. Helen H. Gardener (D. C.), Mrs. H. Edward Dreier (N. Y.), Mrs. James Tucker (Calif.). Headquarters were opened in the Munsey Building, Washington, with the Illinois women in charge.

[81] Hubert L. Henry (Tex.), Chairman; Edward W. Pou (N. C.); Thomas W. Hardwick (Ga.); Finis J. Garrett (Tenn.); Martin D. Foster (Ills.); James C. Cantrill (Ky.); Henry W. Goldfogle (N. Y.); Philip P. Campbell (Kans.); Irvine L. Lenroot (Wis.); Edwin A. Merritt, Jr. (N. Y.); M. Clyde Kelly (Penn.).



CHAPTER XIV.

NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1914.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Dr. Anna Howard Shaw:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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