Mrs. McCormick then called on Mrs. Funk to present the Shafroth-Palmer Amendment, which had been introduced in the House by A. Mitchell Palmer (Penn.), and the argument for it. The amendment read as follows:

Whenever any number of legal voters of any State to a number exceeding 8 per cent. of the number of legal voters at the last preceding general election held in such State, shall petition for the submission to the legal voters of said State of the question whether women shall have equal rights with men in respect to voting at all elections to be held in such State, such question shall be so submitted, and if a majority of the legal voters of the State voting on the question shall vote in favor of granting to women such equal rights, the same shall thereupon be deemed established, anything in the constitution or laws of such State to the contrary notwithstanding.

In beginning her carefully prepared "brief" Mrs. Funk said:

This amendment to the U. S. Constitution must pass both branches of the national Congress by a two-thirds vote and be ratified by a majority vote of three-fourths of the State Legislatures before it becomes a law. So far it is identical with the Bristow-Mondell amendment. The difference between the two is that after the latter amendment has passed three-fourths of the State Legislatures it completely enfranchises the women. The Shafroth-Palmer amendment, after it has passed three-fourths of the State Legislatures, enables 8 per cent. of the voters of a State to bring the suffrage question up for the consideration of the voters at the next general election. Such a petition may be filed at any time, not only once but indefinitely, until suffrage is won, and a majority of those voting on the question is sufficient to carry the measure. In other words, every State where the women are not at present enfranchised may be a campaign State every year. If the male voters are obliged to hear the woman suffrage question agitated and discussed at a perennial campaign, how long will it be before, in desperation and self-defense, they will vote in favor of it?

Now, why is the Shafroth-Palmer amendment easier to pass Congress than the Bristow-Mondell amendment? First of all it shifts the responsibility of actually enfranchising the women from the Senators and Representatives to the people of their respective States. Second, the State's rights doctrine is the one objection raised to every federal issue that comes before Congress. It is primarily the greatest obstacle to federal legislation on any subject and is recognized as a valid objection by the members of Congress and particularly those from the North, who feel that they owe to the members of the South the justice of refraining from interference in matters vital to the South....

Third, the Democratic party is committed to the initiative and referendum but not to woman suffrage.... The President has endorsed the initiative and referendum and has fully convinced himself of its merit.... We are asking the Democratic party to give us, the women of the country, the initiative and referendum on the question of whether or not we shall be allowed to vote, and no State can have this question forced upon it or even settled until a majority of the voters of the State cast their ballots in favor of it.

The difficulties connected with the old amendment both in Congress and in many States were described and the case of New York was cited among others:

If the matter of suffrage is submitted to the State of New York in 1915 and does not carry, under the New York constitution it cannot again be submitted for two years. Meantime all the energy that should be expended in directly educating the people must again be wasted trying to get a majority vote in two successive Legislatures. It is the opinion of one of the great suffrage leaders in New York, as expressed to me, that if the amendment does not carry in 1915 the people will not have an opportunity to vote upon it for another fifteen or twenty years.[90]

The early passage of the Shafroth-Palmer amendment would eliminate the State constitutional barrier and leave for the State organization only the work of ratification of this amendment, which only requires a majority vote in both branches of the Legislature. Again the legislator is able to shift the responsibility to the voters of his State. He is not voting directly on the question himself—only to submit the question to the people. You can readily see that here again this amendment is easier to ratify in the Legislatures than the Bristow-Mondell would be, because in the ratification of the latter the legislators are practically casting the final vote on the enfranchisement of the women all over the country.... The simultaneous consideration of suffrage in every State at the same time would give overwhelming accumulative impetus to the movement and would increase suffrage activity inestimably. The fact that the national Congress had taken any action whatsoever in regard to the suffrage question would stamp it as a national issue, and I very much doubt whether the Democratic and Republican parties would be able to decline to put a suffrage plank in their national platforms.

This ended Mrs. Funk's statement and Mrs. McCormick continued: "In dividing up the work of the lobby Mrs. Sherman undertook to card catalogue Congress by the same method which she used so successfully in the Illinois Legislature and a list of members was prepared who should be defeated on their record in Congress. Arthur Dunn, who had been a Washington newspaper correspondent for thirty years, was put at the head of the publicity bureau and proved to be of inestimable value because of his personal acquaintance with every member of Congress." Charles T. Hallinan, also an experienced newspaper man, had been made chairman of the press bureau and in his report to the convention told of the introduction of the latest methods of publicity work and the signal success they had achieved. A Chicago office had been opened for organization and a system established of thorough congressional district work, a detailed account of which filled half a dozen pages of the printed Minutes. Miss Lillie Glenn and Miss Lavinia Engle had been appointed field organizers and a number of States were canvassed, speeches made indoors and out in scores of counties, women's societies visited and many suffrage clubs formed. Every kind of transportation was used, from muleback to automobiles, and many hardships were encountered. The report closed with several pages of valuable suggestions for what would be a thorough political campaign if carried out. Mrs. McCormick also gave an interesting report of her chairmanship of another committee, saying:

Early in the summer of 1914 Mrs. Desha Breckinridge advanced the valuable idea of a special campaign committee to be appointed by the National Board for the purpose of giving aid to the campaign States by establishing a speakers' bureau for their benefit and devising means for raising necessary funds, which the National Board approved. My indorsement would have been less enthusiastic could I have foreseen that I would be selected as chairman. A special finance committee was appointed, Mrs. Stanley McCormick, chairman; Miss Addams, treasurer, and I, secretary. Miss Ethel M. Smith, of Washington, D. C., spent her vacation establishing a speakers' bureau in the Chicago headquarters and it has been conducted by Mrs. Josephine Conger-Kanecko. As many national speakers have been routed through the campaign States as our finances would permit. We were faced with the discouraging fact that to do really active campaign service we would need a fund of not less than $50,000 and we had less than $13,000. We collected and distributed in cash a less amount than would be used on the campaign of a city alderman in an off year.

The plan of self-sacrifice day had been suggested to Mrs. Breckinridge by a Wisconsin suffragist and adopted by the National Board and a general appeal went out to the women of America to sacrifice something in aid of suffrage and contribute the amount to the general fund for use in the campaign States. [$9,854 were realized.] Mrs. Funk, while walking through the Capitol one day, observed a bride with much gold jewelry in evidence and expressed the wish that a little of the gold used for personal ornament might find its way into a treasure chest to be sold for the campaign States and so the idea of the "melting pot" was suggested.... The plan was endorsed and put into operation as follows: A carefully selected list of names of women was taken from among the various suffrage organizations, colleges, churches, etc. These women received a letter asking for a contribution to the melting pot and further urging them to accept a sub-committeeship, making themselves responsible for soliciting from at least six people a contribution and keeping track of this group until their possibilities had been exhausted. The names of these persons were carefully scanned by the general committee and two or three out of each group of six were asked to go at the head of a further sub-committee and so something not unlike an endless chain was created. Although this was put into effect hastily and during the intense heat of a Washington summer, it was an enormous success and now at the close of the campaign contributions are still coming in and we consider that the top soil of melting pot possibilities has not been scratched. [$2,732 were realized.]

Mrs. Funk's report of her campaign work was an excellent showing of the situation which the suffragists faced in State campaigns and had done from the beginning:

From the time I left Washington August 25, until I returned to Chicago October 27, I covered approximately 8,000 miles. After speaking three days in Indiana, where the suffragists were straining every nerve to secure a constitutional convention, I spent two days in Chicago and then started into the western States. My first three days were spent in Omaha, and, although my original itinerary contemplated my coming to Nebraska for the last ten days of the campaign, this was afterwards changed and I went back to Montana a second time, so my observations regarding Nebraska refer to Omaha alone. Here existed an almost unbelievable condition of opposition. The brewers had come openly into the field against us and the brewing interests are connected with many of the big financial ventures in that city. Bankers, merchants, tailors and other business men whose wives were in suffrage were brazenly warned that the brewing deposits would be withdrawn from banks, that patronage would be taken away from merchants and tradespeople—even doctors were threatened with the loss of their clientele if their wives continued actively in the campaign. The result was a paralysis of action among many women who would naturally have been leaders and supporters of the work. Mrs. Draper Smith was doing all that was humanly possible under the circumstances to stem the tide of opposition, but money for publicity and organizing and many speakers seemed to be a necessity. Upon my report to Mrs. McCormick all extra aid possible was given.

My trip to South Dakota was interesting in the extreme. It and North Dakota are agricultural States, the cities are small and far apart, the villages are scattered over vast areas. By far the larger percentage of population dwells in the country on farms and ranches. The two Dakotas are almost pioneer States even now, but they present the highest degree of educational advantage and of general literacy perhaps in the whole United States. Their laws are generally good and for that reason there appears to be much apathy on the part of both men and women regarding suffrage. The States are prosperous and the people have not felt to any extent the pinch of wrong political conditions. The great problem was to reach the people and make them think, as when they think at all upon the subject they are apt to think right. I am convinced that whatever the vote against the suffrage amendment may have been in North Dakota it was the result of indifference and lack of special information and not to any extent real opposition.

I believed from what I could learn in South Dakota the liquor interests were making their last fight for State control and about the time I arrived Mrs. Pyle had ascertained that a large amount of money was being used to subsidize the State press, and simultaneously the literary efforts of the anti-suffragists, which have appeared throughout the press during the last year, came out in the leading papers, and anti-suffrage ladies at $100 a week and expenses appeared on the platform of the principal towns and cities. During my campaign there I spoke wherever possible out-of-doors, even though meetings were arranged for me in halls, courthouses and churches. I found that the small audiences which would assemble in these places were made up of women and men already interested and that the uninstructed voter would only listen when you caught him on the street. I spent the week of the State fair at Huron with Mrs. Pyle and witnessed a wonderful demonstration of activity. As high as 50,000 people a day were in attendance and the grounds were covered with our yellow banners. Every prize-winning animal, every racing sulky, automobile and motorcycle carried our pennants. Twenty thousand yellow badges were given away in one day. The squaws from the reservation did their native dances waving suffrage banners, and the snake charmer on the midway carried a Votes for Women pennant while an enormous serpent coiled around her body. I spoke during the fair four and five times a day and held street meetings downtown in the evening. When not thus engaged I assisted Mrs. Pyle and her committee in distributing thousands of pieces of literature and was amazed at the eagerness of the people to receive them. We investigated the fair grounds to see how much was thrown away and found almost none.

In North Dakota Mrs. Darrow had asked me to go into the untilled suffrage field. In many places they had never heard a suffrage address nor had a suffrage meeting ever been held. I zigzagged across from the southeast to the northwest corners and in Minot was arrested for making a street speech. There was no law that I could discover against my speaking in the street and I was convinced and am still that it was the result of the petty tyranny of town officials unfavorable to women. A fine of $5 imposed upon me by the justice of the peace was remitted by him. I spent twelve days in Montana, travelling about 2,000 miles, and found more general interest than in any other State. With 118,000 voters scattered over the third largest State in the Union, with many contending elements, with an acute labor situation, with the political control of the State vested very largely in one great corporation, there was plenty to occupy the attention of a suffragist worker. Miss Rankin's organization work had been carried to a high degree of efficiency by the most strenuous endeavor on her part. The Amalgamated Copper Company, striving to defeat the workmen's compensation act, had joined hands with the liquor interests, working to defeat woman suffrage, and had put on the petticoat and bonnet of the organized female anti-suffragists. I spoke to thousands of people all over the State, and while on the surface all appeared well, there was an undertow of fierce opposition that could be felt but that can not be estimated until the votes are counted. [The State was carried by 3,714.]

Nevada was like a story in a book—a big, little State, with 80,000 inhabitants and 18,000 voters, and so thoroughly was it organized by Miss Martin that I believe she could address every voter by his first name. I felt like a fifth wheel. All the work appeared to be finished and hung aside to season by the time I arrived and I was in the unenviable position of being sandwiched between Dr. Shaw, who had just preceded me, and Miss Addams, who immediately followed me. I went over the desert, however, and into mines, and spoke in butchers' homes and at meetings that wound up with a supper and a dance and came away with the certainty that Miss Martin had two or three thousand votes tucked away in her inside pocket. [The State was carried by 3,678.] On this trip I learned of hundreds of thousands of pieces of literature sent out by our entertaining friend, the Hon. Tom Heflin of Alabama. I know now why it was that all last winter he jumped up in Congress every few minutes and read into the Congressional Record something about the horror of women voting. He had a long business head and he was thriftily saving postage on anti-suffrage literature in the interest of the "society opposed," of the liquor interests, of organized crime and of all those forces that have taken arms against us.

The convention was deeply appreciative of the arduous and extensive work that has been done by the Congressional Committee but there was intense dissatisfaction with the so-called Shafroth Amendment, which had been freely discussed in the Woman's Journal for the last eight or nine months.[91] The debate in the convention consumed several sessions and more bitterness was shown than ever before at one of these annual meetings. The Official Board having endorsed the amendment felt obliged to stand by it, but to most of those delegates who had been in the movement for years it meant the abandonment of the object for which the association had been formed and for which all the founders, the pioneer workers and those down to the present day, had devoted their best efforts. Dr. Shaw was the only member of the board who had been many years connected with the association, and, while her judgment was opposed to the new amendment, she yielded to the earnest pleas of her younger colleagues and the optimistic members of the Congressional Committee that it should have a fair trial. Miss Blackwell, editor of the Woman's Journal, strongly endorsed it and gave it the support of her paper in many long, earnest editorials. She also granted columns of space to vigorous arguments on both sides by suffragists throughout the country.[92] The question had been before the State associations for the last seven or eight months.

Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett, corresponding secretary of the National American Association, wrote to the State presidents the first week in May, 1914: "Strange as it may seem, we find that quite a number of the members of our association have gotten the impression that the introduction of the Shafroth amendment means the abandoning of the old amendment which has been introduced into Congress for forty years or more, and which, as you know, has now been re-introduced and at this session will be called the Bristow-Mondell amendment. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reason for the introduction of the Shafroth amendment is to hasten the day when the passage of the Bristow-Mondell amendment will become a possibility.... Both amendments are before Congress but only the new one stands any chance of being acted upon before adjournment.[93] We stand by the old one as a matter of principle; we push for the new one as a matter of immediate practical politics and to further the passage of the old one." Mrs. Dennett also vigorously advocated the new amendment in the Woman's Journal.

At the opening of the second session of the convention devoted to the subject Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch moved that the Shafroth amendment be not proceeded with in the next Congress and it was seconded. Instantly Mrs. Raymond Brown, president of the New York State Association, offered as a substitute resolution: "It is the sense of this convention that the policy of the National American Woman Suffrage Association shall be to support by every means within its power, in the future as in the past, the amendment known as the Susan B. Anthony amendment; and further that we support such other legislation as the National Board may authorize and initiate to the end that the Susan B. Anthony resolution become a law."[94] After the discussion had lasted for hours, with the administration supporting this resolution, a motion to strike out the words "and further" and all that followed was lost and it was carried by a vote of 194 to 100.[95]

The next day an informal conference was held at which Miss Laura Clay and Mrs. Sallie Clay Bennett explained a bill for Federal Suffrage, which they, with others, had long advocated, to enable women to vote for U. S. Senators and Representatives. Congress had the power to enact such a law by a simple majority vote of both houses. The association for many years had had a standing committee on the subject, which was finally dropped because it was believed that the law could not possibly be obtained. It found much favor at this convention, which instructed the Congressional Committee to "investigate and promote the right of women to vote for U. S. Senators, Representatives and Presidential Electors through action of Congress."

There was spirited discussion of the Congressional Committee's plan for "blacklisting" candidates for Congress whose record on woman suffrage was objectionable and it finally resulted in the passing of a resolution that this could be done only when approved by the majority of the societies in the State concerned. It was decided that the Congressional Committee should send out information and suggestions for congressional work but that the State associations should determine how this material should be used and that when the majority of them in a State could not agree upon some plan of cooperation the Congressional Committee should not work in said State.

The feeling aroused by the discussion of the Shafroth amendment was manifested in the election, where 315 delegates were entitled to vote and 283 votes were cast. Dr. Shaw received 192 for president and the rest were blank, as even delegates who opposed this amendment would not vote against her. Miss Jane Addams declined to serve longer as vice-president and reluctantly consented to her election as honorary vice-president but resigned before the close of the convention, as she felt that she could not be responsible for actions in which she had practically no part. Mrs. Desha Breckinridge of Kentucky was re-elected second vice-president without opposition but resigned soon afterwards, although not because of any disagreement with the policy of the board. Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick of New York received 173 votes for first vice-president and Miss Jean Gordon of New Orleans 107. Dr. Katharine Bement Davis of New York was made third vice-president without opposition, nor was there any to Mrs. Orton H. Clark of Michigan for corresponding secretary. For recording secretary Mrs. Susan W. Fitzgerald of Massachusetts received 166 votes and Miss Anne Martin of Nevada 115. Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers of New York was almost unanimously chosen for treasurer and Mrs. Walter McNab Miller of Missouri for first auditor. For second auditor Mrs. Medill McCormick of Chicago received 177 votes and Miss Zona Gale of New York 103. Later Mrs. Nellie Nugent Somerville of Mississippi was appointed in place of Mrs. Breckinridge. The new board finally included only two members of the old one besides Dr. Shaw—Mrs. McCormick and Mrs. Fitzgerald.

The present convention was declared by resolution to have been "one of the greatest and most delightful meetings in the history of the organization," and a long list of thanks was extended "to the city of Nashville for its broad and generous hospitality and for special courtesies." The Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association gave a dinner, with Mrs. L. Crozier French, its president, as toast-mistress; the Women's Press Club had a luncheon for the visiting press representatives and the College Women's League one for its delegates. It was a relief from the tension of the week to have the last evening of the convention devoted to entertainment. Miss Zona Gale read a charming unpublished story, Friendship Village; a musical program was given by the Fiske Jubilee Singers and the convention closed with a remarkable moving picture play, Your Girl and Mine, an offering to the association by Mrs. Medill McCormick.[96]

The treasurer's report showed receipts for the year of $67,312 and expenditures $59,232. In addition a special fund for the "campaign" States had been subscribed of $12,586, of which $11,020 had been spent. Mrs. Medill McCormick had made a personal contribution of $6,217 to the publicity work of the Washington and Chicago headquarters. Pledges of $7,500 were made by the convention.

The committee of which Mrs. Frances E. Burns (Mich.) was chairman reported resolutions that urged the U. S. Senate and House of Representatives to take up at once the amendments now pending in Congress for the enfranchisement of women; demanded equal pay for equal work and legislation to protect the nationality of American women who married foreigners. They re-affirmed the association's past policy of non-partisanship and declared that "the National American Woman Suffrage Association is absolutely opposed to holding any political party responsible for the opinions and acts of its individual members, or holding any individual public official or candidate responsible for the action of his party majority on the question of woman suffrage." Of the European war now in its fourth month, the resolutions said:

WHEREAS: It is our conviction that had the women of the countries of Europe, with their deep instinct of motherhood and desire for the conservation of life, possessed a voice in the councils of their governments, this deplorable war would never have been allowed to occur; therefore, be it

RESOLVED: That the National American Woman Suffrage Association, in convention assembled, does hereby affirm the obligation of peace and good will toward all men and further demands the inclusion of women in the government of nations of which they are a part, whose citizens they bear and rear and whose peace their political liberty would help to secure and maintain.

RESOLVED: That we commend the efforts of President Wilson to obtain peace. Sympathizing deeply with the plea of the women of fifteen nations, we ask the President of the United States and the representatives of all the other neutral nations to use their best endeavors to bring about a lasting peace founded upon democracy and world-wide disarmament.

* * * * *

As the national convention for 1914 would meet in Nashville it was necessary to have a special delegation attend the "hearing" in Washington which always was held at the first session of a new Congress. The officers of the Congressional Union arranged for one before the House Judiciary Committee for March 3, and, as it was not likely that a second would be granted, Mrs. Medill McCormick, Mrs. Antoinette Funk and Mrs. Sherman Booth represented the National American Association at this one, as members of its Congressional Committee. Mrs. Funk was the speaker and the main points of her address are included in Mrs. McCormick's report in this chapter. In effect it prepared the way for the new measure afterwards called the Shafroth Amendment and she began by saying: "Ours is the oldest national suffrage association in the United States. It has been in existence over fifty years and comprises a membership of 462,000 enrolled women in the non-suffrage States. In addition to these I speak this morning in behalf of the 4,000,000 women voters in the ten equal suffrage States." Further on she said: "Gentlemen, the dearest wish of our hearts would be fulfilled if you would enfranchise the women. I know pretty much whether you are going to or not and you know that I know." The committee asked her a number of questions and she concluded: "We feel that this question could at least safely go to the people. It might be submitted by petition of the voters. In addition let me make this point along the line of the States' rights argument: You see, a Legislature per se has no right; it is nothing; it has no privilege—the privilege is all in the people themselves, and you could not say it would be contrary to the rights of the people in the State to take down an obstacle that was built up in front of them. So, in view of the action of the Democratic caucus in the House, we think you can at least do this much for us; you can take down this obstacle—State Legislatures."

The Federal Women's Equality Association also had asked for a portion of the time and its corresponding secretary, Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby of Washington and Portland, Ore., had charge of it. Although this association was organized twelve years before for the special purpose of obtaining a bill enabling women to vote for Senators and Representatives, it sponsored in the present Congress the same measure which the old association had introduced for the past thirty-five years and on this occasion its speakers discussed only the amendment. Mrs. Colby introduced first Representative Frank W. Mondell of Wyoming, who always was ready to champion the cause of woman suffrage for every organization. He made the point among others that "as State after State grants the franchise to women the condition is reached where its denial in other States deprives American citizens of a sacred right if they have moved from one commonwealth to another." "Our Federal Union," he said, "will be more firmly cemented the nearer we come to the point where qualifications for this right of citizenship are the same in all States." In Mrs. Colby's comprehensive address she said:

It may be news to some of you that we have had 12 reports on the woman suffrage amendment from committees of Congress. In 1869 the first hearing was given on woman suffrage and from that time to the present every Congress has had one....

Never were there such splendid women in the records of time as those who have stood for the rights of their sex and the rights of humanity.... All those women passed on without being allowed to enter the promised land and for every one of them one hundred sprang up for whom the doors of opportunity and education had been opened by the efforts of those pioneer women. Now these also are coming to gray hairs and weariness, but for every one of these hundreds there are a thousand of the 20th century insisting that this question shall be settled now and not be passed on to the children of tomorrow to hamper and limit them, to exhaust and consume their energy and ability.

I was present at the last hearing where Mrs. Stanton spoke before a Judiciary Committee, and she said: "I have stood before this committee for thirty years, may I be allowed to sit now?" ... Miss Anthony before a committee in 1884 said: "This method of settling the matter by the Legislatures is just as much in the line of State's rights as is that of the popular vote. The one question before you is: Will you insist that a majority of the individual men of every State must be converted before its women shall have the power to vote, or will you allow the matter to be settled by the representative men in the Legislatures of the several States? We are not appealing from the States to the nation. We are appealing to the States, but to the picked men of those States instead of to the masses." She used to say when John Morrissey, champion of the prize ring, was in the New York Legislature, that it was bad enough to go and ask him to give her her birthright but it was infinitely worse to go down into the slums and ask his constituents....

Mrs. Colby closed with an extract from one of Mrs. Stanton's eloquent speeches before the Judiciary Committee and submitted a valuable summary of Congressional hearings and reports on woman suffrage from 1869 to 1914.

Mrs. Glendower Evans of Boston presided over the hearing for the Congressional Union and introduced as the first speaker Mrs. Crystal Eastman Benedict (N. Y.) who said in part:

When we go to the voters of a campaign State to ask them to vote "yes" on a woman suffrage amendment, we go as petitioners with smiles and arguments and unwearied patience. We tell them over and over again the same well established truths; that it is the essence of democracy that all classes of people should have the power of protection in their own hands; that women are people and that they have special interests which need representation in politics; that where women have the right to vote they vote in the same proportion as men; that on the whole their influence in government has been decidedly good and absolutely no evils can be traced to that influence. In short, we reason and plead with them, try to touch their sense of honor, their sense of justice, their reason, whatever noble human quality they possess.

That is one way of getting woman suffrage in the United States, a long, laborious and very costly way. We have now achieved it in nine States and are a political power, and the time has come for us to compel this great reform by the simple, direct, American method of amending the Federal Constitution. Our argument is not one of justice or democracy or fair play—it is one of political expediency. Our plea is simply that you look at the little suffrage map. That triumphant, threatening army of white States crowding rapidly eastward toward the center of population is the sum and substance of our argument. It represents 4,000,000 women voters. Do you want to put yourselves in the very delicate position of going to those women next fall for endorsement and re-election after having refused even to report a woman suffrage amendment out of committee for discussion on the floor of the House?

You might say, "Why do you select this Democratic administration for your demand? This is the first time in eighteen years that this party has been in control of the Government. We are doing our best to give the people what they want; we are trying to live up to our platform pledges; we think we are doing pretty well. Why persist in embarrassing us with this very troublesome question?" ... I answer that if this Congress adjourns without taking action on the woman suffrage amendment it will be because the party deliberately dodged the issue. Every woman voter will know this and we have faith that the woman voter will stand by us. You will go to her and say: "We have lowered the tariff; we have made new banking laws; we have avoided war with Mexico," and she will say: "It is true you have done these things, but you have done a great injustice to my sister in this nearby State. She asked for a fundamental democratic right, a right which I possess and which you are asking me to exercise in your favor. It was in your power to extend this right to her and you refused, and after this you come to me and ask me for my vote, but I shall show you that we stand together on this question, my sister and I."

Several of the committee made caustic remarks about trying to hold the Democrats responsible after the Republicans had ignored them during all the past years. Mrs. Evans then introduced Mary (Mrs. Charles R.) Beard, wife of the well-known professor in Columbia University. Her address in the stenographic report of the hearing filled seven closely printed pages, an able review of the Democratic party's record in regard to Federal legislation. It was the most complete expose of the fallacy of the Democratic contention that this party stood for State's rights as opposed to Federal rights ever made at a hearing in behalf of woman suffrage and is most inadequately represented by quotations. In the course of it she said:

Did Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, founders of the Democratic party, rend the air with cries of State's rights against Federal usurpation when the Federalists chartered the first United States bank in 1791, and when the Federalist Court, under the leadership of John Marshall, rendered one ringing nationalist decision after another upholding the rights of the nation against the claims of the States? Jefferson, as President, acquired the Louisiana Territory in what he admitted was an open violation of the Federal Constitution; and the same James Madison who opposed the Federalist bank in 1790 as a violation of the Constitution and State rights, cheerfully signed the bill rechartering that bank when it became useful to the fiscal interests of the Democratic party. Jefferson was ready to nullify the alien and sedition laws and the Constitution of the United States in the Kentucky resolutions of 1798. The very Federalists who fought him in that day and denounced him as a traitor and nullifier lived to proclaim and practice doctrines of nullification in behalf of State's rights during the War of 1812.

In the administration of Jefferson the Federal Government began the construction of the great national road without any express authority from the Constitution and notwithstanding the fact that the construction of highways was admittedly a State matter.... On August 24, 1912, the Congress of the United States, then controlled by the Democratic party, voted $5,000,000 for the construction of experimental and rural-delivery routes and to aid the States in highway construction. From high in the councils of that party we now have the advocacy of national ownership of railways, telegraph and telephone lines.

In the early days of the republic the Democratic party protested even in armed insurrection in Pennsylvania against the inquisitorial excise tax, which, to use the language of that day, "penetrated a sphere of taxation reserved to the State." Today this party has placed upon the statute books the most inquisitorial tax ever laid in the history of our country by the act of April 9, 1912—a tax on white phosphorus matches, not for the purpose of raising revenues, for which the taxing power is conferred, but admittedly for the purpose of destroying an industry which it could not touch otherwise. The match industry was found to be injurious to a few hundred workingmen, women and children. The Democratic party wisely and justly cast to the four winds all talk about the rights of States, made the match business a national affair and destroyed its dangerous features. Men and women all over the country rose up and pronounced it a noble achievement. Republicans joined with the Democrats in claiming the honor of that great humane service.

I have not yet finished with this tattered shibboleth. The State had the right to nullify Federal law in 1798, so Jefferson taught and Kentucky practiced. Half a century elapsed; the State of Wisconsin, rock-ribbed Republican, nullified the fugitive slave law and in its pronunciamento of nullification quoted the very words which Jefferson used in 1798. A Democratic Supreme Court at Washington, presided over by Chief Justice Taney, the arch apostle of State rights, answered Wisconsin in the very language of the Federalists of 1798, whom Jefferson despised and condemned: "The Constitution and laws of the United States are supreme, and the Supreme Court is the only and final arbiter of disputes between the State and National Governments."

A few more years elapsed. South Carolina declared the right of the State to nullify and Wisconsin answered on the field of battle: "The Constitution and laws of the National Government are supreme, so help us God!" ... At the close of that ever to be regretted war the nation wrote into the Constitution the 14th and 15th Amendments, their fundamental principle that the suffrage is a national matter. Those amendments were intended to establish forever adult male suffrage....

Mrs. Beard then presented for the record a thorough synopsis of the proceedings in relation to the franchise of the convention that framed the U. S. Constitution, which showed, she declared, that it would have made a national suffrage qualification if the members could have agreed on one. "In all the great federations of the world," she said, "Germany, Canada, Australia, suffrage is regarded as a national question," and continued: "If respect for the great and wise who have viewed suffrage as a national matter did not compel us so to regard it, the plain dictates of common sense would do so. We are all ruled by the laws made by Congress, from Maine to California; we must all obey them equally whether we like them or not. We are taxed under them; we travel according to rules laid down by the Interstate Commerce Commission under the Interstate Commerce law; the remaining national resources are to be conserved by Congress; whether we have peace or war depends upon Congress. Is it of no concern who compose Congress, who vote for members of Congress and for the President?"

It was shown by Mrs. Beard how closely national and State policies were interwoven; that the submission of this amendment would take it to the State Legislatures for a final decision; how with woman suffrage in nine States there was a much greater demand for it than there was for the one changing the method of electing U. S. Senators; how the plank in the national platform adopted in Baltimore exempting American ships in coastwise trade from Panama canal tolls was now before the Democrats in Congress for repudiation; how another plank demanded State action on presidential primaries and President Wilson called for a national law. Now a Democratic Congress refused to submit a national suffrage amendment because the platform did not ask for it! She concluded: "No, gentlemen, you can not answer us by shaking in our faces that tatterdemalion of a State's rights scarecrow.... It is a travesty upon our reasoning faculties to suppose that we can not put two and two together. It is underestimating our strength and our financial resources to suppose that we can not place these plain facts in the hands of 15,000,000 voters, including over 3,000,000 women. To take away from the States the right to determine how Presidential electors shall be chosen is upholding the Constitution and the previous rights of the States; but to submit to the States an amendment permitting them to decide for themselves whether they want woman suffrage for the nation is a violent usurpation of State's rights! We can not follow your logic."

Dr. Cora Smith King of Seattle, who had so large a part in obtaining equal suffrage in Washington, said:

I am a voter like yourselves; I am eligible to become a member of Congress, like any one of you. However, I do not stand before you as one voter only but to remind you that there are nearly 4,000,000 women voters in the United States today. I represent an organization called the National Council of Women Voters, organized in every one of the States where women vote on equal terms with men. These States, as you know, are Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington, California, Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona. There are three objects of the Council: One is to educate ourselves in the exercise of our citizenship; the second is to aid in our own States where we vote in putting upon the statute books laws beneficial to men and women, children and the home; and our third object is the one which brings me here this morning—to aid in the further extension of suffrage to women.

The members of your committee from the latest equal suffrage States will bear me out in saying that there are thousands of women voters who have not yet made their party alignment. I desire to call attention to these many thousands who have only recently won the battle which they have fought so earnestly—as I have done from the time that I attained my majority and have not yet forgotten what it cost—and who have their ears attuned to the plea of their sisters in the other States. I remind you, gentlemen, that they may not prove unheeding when requested to vote for the men who are favorable to the further extension of suffrage. I trust that this present committee will not justify the charge of being a graveyard for many suffrage bills. I warn you that ghosts may walk.

Mrs. William Kent, wife of Representative Kent of California, spoke briefly, telling how the suffrage societies there became civic leagues after the vote was won and stood solidly back of seventeen bills relating to the welfare of the State and the home and the influence they were able to exert because of having the franchise. She urged the committee to submit the amendment and spare women the further drudgery of State campaigns and assured them that the women would not stop until the last one was enfranchised. Representative Joseph R. Knowland of California gave earnest testimony in favor of the practical working of woman suffrage in that State saying: "For years we heard the same arguments against equal rights for women as we hear today but we have tried it and many who were most bitterly opposed are now glad that California has given the franchise to women. It has proved an unqualified success. What I desire to impress upon this committee is that even though you may oppose the amendment it is your duty to report it in order that every member of the House may have an opportunity to register his vote for or against it."

Mrs. Donald Hooker of Baltimore pointed out the injustice of permitting women to vote in California, for instance, and holding them disfranchised when they crossed the State boundary line, and asked the committee to put themselves in the place of citizens so discriminated against. Mrs. Evans closed the hearing in an interesting speech but as she could not resist eulogizing President Wilson she was assailed by a storm of questions and remarks from the Republican members of the committee as to his attitude on woman suffrage, while her support of the Democratic party brought protests from the members of the Congressional Union.

Mrs. McCormick closed for her side by saying: "Mr. Chairman, I simply want to clear up what may be a little confused in your mind in regard to the difference in the policy in the two organizations represented here today. I represent the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and, as we have stated over and over again, it has enrolled more than 462,000 women, organized in every non-suffrage State in the country. Our policy, which is adopted by our annual convention, is strictly non-partisan. We do not hold any party responsible for the passage of this amendment. We are organizing all over the country, using the congressional district as our limit, in order to educate the constituents of you gentlemen in regard to the great need to enfranchise women and we do not hold the policy which is adopted by the smaller organization, the Congressional Union."

This brought the members of the Judiciary Committee into action again and they persisted in knowing the size of the Congressional Union until Mrs. Benedict answered: "Our immediate membership is not our strong point." Mr. Webb of North Carolina repeated the question why the Republican party, which was in power sixteen years, was not held responsible for not reporting the amendment and she replied that it was not until after the elections of 1912 that the women were in a position to hold any party responsible.

Mrs. Frances Dilopoulo spoke for a moment. Miss Janet Richards (D. C.) called the attention of the committee to the etymology of the word democracy—demos, people; kratein, to rule—rule of the people—and asked: "If women must pay taxes and must abide by the law, how can the suffrage be denied to them in a true democracy?" She spoke of her personal study of the question in Finland and the Scandinavian countries where women are enfranchised. Dr. Clara W. McNaughton (D. C.), vice-president of the Federal Women's Equality Association, in closing stated that they had a tent on the field of Gettysburg during its 50th anniversary and found the old soldiers almost to a man in favor of woman suffrage. Mrs. Evans filed a carefully prepared paper, State versus Federal Action on Woman Suffrage. Mrs. Helen H. Gardener (D. C.), officially connected with the National American Association, submitted to the committees a comprehensive "brief" on the case which said in part:

In a published statement yesterday the Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, used these simple, direct, easily understood words: "All believers in a republic accept the doctrine that the government must derive its just powers from the consent of the governed and the President gives every legitimate encouragement to those who represent this idea while he discourages those who attempt to overthrow or ignore the principles of popular government."

I am sure that all of us hope and want to believe that this latest pronouncement given out officially as from the leading Cabinet officer was intended to be accepted at home as well as abroad as literally and absolutely true and not a mere bit of spectacular oratory. But if it is true, then not one of you gentlemen who has it in his heart to oppose woman suffrage is a believer in our form of government; not one of you is loyal to the flag; not one of you is a true American. You do not allow us women to give our consent, yet we are governed. You are not sitting in Congress justly and Mr. Bryan and the President do not believe that you are—none of you except those who are from woman suffrage States—or else that official statement is mere oratory for foreign consumption. He says that the President discourages those who attempt to overthrow or even to "ignore" this principle of popular government. We are more than glad to believe that Mr. Bryan is correct in this plain statement, for then we will know that a number of you will receive a good deal of "discouragement" at the hands of the President, and that those of you who stand with us and vote for us will receive your sure reward from him, in that "every legitimate encouragement" will be yours, and also, incidentally, ours. We need it, we think it is overdue. Up to the present time we have not felt that either the President or the Secretary of State quite fully realized that there is a good deal of belated encouragement due us and quite a limitless supply of discouragement due those who try "to overthrow or ignore" all semblance of a belief in the right of women to give their consent to their own government. I am glad to have so high an authority that the good time is not only coming but that it has at last arrived—and through the Democratic party!

Again, in this simple, plain, seemingly frank statement of the Secretary of State, he says: ... "Nothing will be encouraged away from home that is forbidden here." Yet, away from home, he says, the fixed foreign policy is that "the people shall have such officers as they desire," and that these officers must have "the consent of the governed." That is precisely what we women demand. Are the Mexican peons more to our Government than are the women of America? If the Mexican officials must be disciplined, unless they are ready to admit that "the consent of the governed must be obtained" before there can be a legitimate government which we can recognize, how it is possible for you and for the President and for the State Department absolutely to ignore or refuse the same ethical and political principle here at home for one-half of all the people, who form what you call and hold up to the world as a republic?

No one who lives, who ever lived, who ever will live understands or really accepts and believes in a republic which denies to women the right of consent by their ballots to that government. Such a position is unthinkable and the time has come when an aristocracy of sex must give place to a real republic or the absurdity of the position, as it exists, will make us the laughing stock of the world. Let us either stop our pretence before the nations of the earth of being a republic and having "equality before the law" or else let us become the republic that we pretend to be.

This concluded the hearing for the suffrage associations and as the "antis" also had asked for one they occupied the afternoon. Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge, the president of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, said in opening the discussion: "We begin to hear from all over the country a very decided demand for help. The women are beginning to be frightened. They are frightened at exactly the same sort of thing by which the suffragists try to frighten you men—noise—so that in many States women are beginning to organize for the first time against suffrage. We are here today rather against our wishes. We did not want to bother you men again because the matter has been pretty well settled for this session of Congress at least. But the suffragists had demanded a hearing of you gentlemen, and so we asked you to hear us, and you have very courteously extended to us that privilege. We are here to represent the majority of women still quiet but not going to be quiet very much longer...." Mrs. Dodge made an analysis of the number of enfranchised women to show that the parties had nothing to fear and said in closing: "I wish to say that the suffragists who make these threats are not representing the women of the country. It is the women of the country whom we try to represent and we have tried for several years against the noisy, insistent and persistent demands of a group."

The other women speakers were Mrs. Henry White, member of the executive committee of the Massachusetts Association; Miss Alice Hill Chittenden, president of the New York Association; Miss Marjorie Dorman, secretary of the Women Wage-earners' Anti-Suffrage League of New York City[97]; Mrs. O. D. Oliphant of New Jersey, who was not able to reach Washington but whose paper on Feminism was put into the report; Miss Minnie Bronson, secretary of the National Association. Miss Bronson's address, which was largely statistical, called out many questions from the suffrage members of the committee. She said the association had approximately 100,000 members.[98]

The first of the men speakers against the amendment was J.N. Matthews (N. J.) who began by saying it would be difficult for him to put aside his Democratic partisanship even for a moment. He was soon involved in a wrangle with the committee which occupied over half of the space filled by his speech in the report. This was true also of the speech of Representative Thomas J. Heflin (Ala.), which ended with a long poem entitled The Only Regeneration, beginning: "There's no earthly use in prating of eugenics' saving grace." Mrs. Dodge had scored the suffragists for having more than one association but delegates from three of the "antis" were present at this hearing, the Guidon Society of New York City, represented by a New York lawyer, John R. Don Passos, who stated that he represented also the Man Suffrage Association. He filed a "brief" of its president, Everett P. Wheeler, a Democratic New York lawyer, entitled Home Rule. As was the case with the other men speakers most of his time was taken up by the "heckling" of the committee and his answers. In the latter he said that woman suffrage sooner or later would have a tendency to destroy the home, hurt the social and moral standard of women and "convert them into beasts."

Dr. Mary Walker spoke ten minutes at her own request, scoring the suffragists and saying that women already had the right to vote under the National Constitution. Mrs. Evans closed the hearing.

FOOTNOTES:

[82] Part of Call: Our task will be to formulate judgment on those great issues of the day which nearly concern women; to choose the leaders who during the coming year are to guide the fortunes of our cause; and finally, to deliberate how the whole national body may on the one hand best give aid and succor to the States working for their own enfranchisement and on the other press for federal action in behalf of the women of the nation at large....

Since the last convention met all the horror of a great war has fallen upon the civilized world. The hearts of thousands of women have been torn by the death and wounds of those they bore, of those they love, yet never has their will and power to help been greater, never man's need of such help been more clearly seen. We, who are spared the anguish of war, well understand that as weight is given in the world's affairs to the voice of women, moved as men are not by all the tragic waste of battles, the chances of such slaughter must perpetually diminish. Now is the time when all things point to the violence that rules the world, now is the very time to press our claim to a share in the guidance of our country's fortunes, to urge that woman's vision must second and ratify that of man. Let us then in convention assembled kindle with the thought that, as we consider methods for the political enfranchisement of our sex, our wider purpose is to free women and to enable their conception of life in all its aspects to find expression.... Let us set a fresh seal upon the great new loyalty of woman to woman; let our response be felt in the deep tide of fellowship and understanding among all women which today is rising around the world.

ANNA HOWARD SHAW, President. JANE ADDAMS, First Vice-President. MADELINE BRECKINRIDGE, Second Vice-President. CAROLINE RUUTZ-REES, Third Vice-President. SUSAN WALKER FITZGERALD, Recording Secretary. KATHARINE DEXTER MCCORMICK, Treasurer. HARRIET BURTON LAIDLAW,} LOUISE DEKOVEN BOWEN, } Auditors.

[83] Complete, universal suffrage was conferred by the Parliament in 1917.

[84] For a number of years Mrs. Quincy A. Shaw of Boston gave Dr. Shaw a fund for campaign work.

[85] A portion of this report is in the chapter on the Federal Suffrage Amendment.

[86] The Federal Suffrage Amendment had been thoroughly debated and voted on in the Senate in 1887; the question of woman suffrage itself discussed in 1866, 1881-3-4-5-6 in the Senate; at great length in the Lower House in 1883 and 1890 and briefly in both houses at other times.

[87] Instead of seven or eight amendments there was only one and never had been but one—the old, original amendment introduced by Senator A. A. Sargent (Calif.) in 1878. There was and long had been one "bill" advocated, the one to give women so-called "federal" suffrage, the right to vote for Senators and Representatives, but it had never been reported out of committee. There was no bill before Congress to give women the right to vote for Presidential electors and there was no other bill proposed. It was of course the "State's rights argument" that had been the continuous barrier to the Federal Suffrage Amendment ever since it was first introduced but the favorable attitude of a majority of the Senators showed how much progress had been made in meeting that argument.

[88] On the contrary at a public hearing before the Judiciary Committee of the Lower House on March 3, Mrs. Funk referred several times to such an amendment and stated that she represented an association of 462,000 women. She intimated that she knew the old amendment could not pass and that another might be introduced, which, it was hoped, would be more acceptable. The vote was not taken in the Senate till March 19. Meanwhile the newspapers gave to the suffragists of the country their first knowledge of the new amendment and vigorous protests soon followed, especially from the older leaders of the movement. The Woman's Journal of March 28 said editorially: "It is felt by many that before the Congressional Committee introduced a wholly new measure, which had never been sanctioned or even considered by the National Association, it ought to have been submitted to the National Executive Council."

As soon as the Senate had voted on the original amendment, Senator Bristow, at the request of the Congressional Union, re-introduced it, and it was reported favorably April 7, Senator Thomas B. Catron of New Mexico alone dissenting. Senator Bristow in re-introducing it said of the Shafroth measure: "It is more of a national initiative and referendum amendment than a woman suffrage amendment. I prefer that the question of woman suffrage rest directly upon its own merits and be not involved with the initiative and referendum."

[89] This amendment had been reported by the Judiciary Committee on the 9th of May preceding this report "without recommendation" and a strong effort was being made by its supporters to bring it before the House for debate. The Rules Committee sent it to the House on December 12, 1914.

[90] The proposed State amendment failed in New York in 1915, was submitted again by the Legislatures of 1916 and 1917, voted on in November, 1917, and adopted by an immense majority.

[91] The first week in the preceding April the Mississippi Valley Conference, composed of the Middle and some of the Western and Southern States, met in Des Moines and thirty-five prominent delegates signed a telegram to the Official Board of the National American Association, asking it "to instruct its Congressional Committee not to push the Shafroth Amendment nor ask for its report from the Senate Committee"; also "to ask the Senate Committee not to report this amendment until so requested by the national suffrage convention." This was not official action but they signed as individuals, among them the presidents of the Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Louisiana State associations and officers from other States.

[92] Some of the arguments may be found in the Appendix. An examination of the file of the Journal will show that ninety-nine per cent. of the writers were opposed to the amendment.

[93] The old amendment had been voted on in the Senate March 19 and obtained a majority but not the required two-thirds. It had been reported without recommendation by the House Judiciary, which had not acted on the new one. The latter had been introduced in the Senate and the former re-introduced.

[94] The original measure had always been called the Sixteenth Amendment until the adoption of the Income Tax and Direct Election of Senators Amendments in 1913. The Congressional Union, organized that year, gave it the name Susan B. Anthony Amendment and for awhile it was thus referred to by some members of the National American Association. The relatives and friends of Mrs. Stanton rightly objected to this name, as she had been equally associated with it from the beginning, and all the pioneer workers had been its staunch supporters. The old association soon adopted the title, Federal Suffrage Amendment.

[95] At the first board meeting after the convention Mrs. McCormick was re-appointed chairman of the Congressional Committee with power to select its other members and Mrs. Funk was re-appointed vice-chairman.

[96] Mrs. McCormick spent a large amount of time and money on this play, hoping it would yield a good revenue to the association, but the arrangement with the Film Corporation proved impossible and it finally had to be abandoned.

[97] The most persistent efforts of the suffragists never succeeded in locating this league.

[98] At the request of the committee the exact figures were furnished later and showed a membership of 105,000, of whom 85,600 lived in the five non-suffrage States of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Of the remaining 19,400 the non-suffrage States of New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Ohio had 11,500; Virginia, 2,100, and 6,500 were divided among other non-suffrage States and the District of Columbia. Not one member was reported from States where the franchise had been given to women, although it was a stock argument of the "antis" that it had been forced on them and they would gladly get rid of it.



CHAPTER XV.

NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1915.

The Forty-seventh annual convention of the association was held Dec. 14-19, 1915, in Washington, the scene of many which had preceded it, with 546 accredited delegates, the largest number on record. The one of the preceding year had left many of the members in a pessimistic frame of mind but this had entirely disappeared and never were there so much hope and optimism.[99] The Federal Amendment had for the first time been debated and voted on in the House of Representatives, receiving 204 noes, 174 ayes, a satisfactory result for the first trial. Although in November, 1915, four of the most populous States—Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania—had defeated suffrage amendments yet a million-and-a-quarter of men had voted in favor. These were all Republican States and yet had given a larger vote for woman suffrage than for the Republican presidential candidate the preceding year. Over 42 per cent. of the votes in New York and over 46 per cent. in Pennsylvania were affirmative and the press of the country, instead of sounding the "death knell" as usual after defeats, predicted victory at the next trial. In October the cause had received its most important accession when President Wilson and seven of the ten members of his Cabinet declared in favor of woman suffrage; and in November the President had gone to his home in Princeton, N. J., on election day to cast his vote for the pending State amendment.

An honorary committee of arrangements for the convention had been formed in Washington which included many of the most prominent women officially and socially, headed by Miss Margaret Wilson, the President's eldest daughter. Republican and Democratic National Committees had cordially received suffrage speakers. The first measure to be introduced in both Houses of the new Congress was the resolution for the Federal Suffrage Amendment, with Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, president of the National American Suffrage Association, sitting on the Speaker's bench by invitation of Speaker and Mrs. Champ Clark. The convention opened Tuesday morning and at five o'clock in the afternoon the delegates were received by President Wilson in the White House. They walked the few short blocks from the convention headquarters in the New Willard Hotel to the White House and the line reached from the street through the corridors to the East Room. After each had had a hearty handshake Dr. Shaw expressed the gratitude of all suffragists, not for his vote, which was a duty, but for his reasons, to which the widest publicity had been given. She said the women felt encouraged to ask for two things: first, his influence in obtaining the submission of the Federal Amendment by Congress at the present session; second, if that failed, his influence in securing a plank for woman suffrage in his party's national platform. The latter he answered to their great joy by saying that he had it under consideration. He looked at his hand a little ruefully and said: "You ladies have a strong grip." "Yes," she responded, "we hold on."

The most striking contrast between this and other conventions was seen in the program. For more than two-score years the evening sessions and often those of the afternoon had been given up to addresses by prominent men and women and attended by large general audiences. In this way the seed was sowed and public sentiment created and people in the cities which invited the convention looked forward to an intellectual feast. This year it was felt that the general public needed no further education on this subject; the association had become a business organization and the woman suffrage question one of practical politics. Therefore but one mass meeting was held, that of Sunday afternoon, and the entire week was devoted to State reports, conferences, committee meetings, plans of work, campaigns and discussion of details. These were extremely interesting and valuable for the delegates but not for the newspapers or the public.

The entire tenth floor of the New Willard Hotel was utilized for convention purposes and the full meetings were held in the large ball room, which had been beautifully decorated under the artistic direction of Mrs. Glenna Tinnin, with flags, banners and delicate, symbolic draperies. The large number of young women was noticeable and the association seemed permeated with new life. "Old men and women for council and young ones for work," said Dr. Shaw smilingly, as she opened the convention. "The history that has been made by this organization is due to the toil and consecration of the women of the country during past years, and, while I am happy to see so many new faces, my heart warms when my eyes greet one of the veterans. So in welcoming you I say, All hail to the new and thank God for the old!"

The convention plunged at once into reports. That of Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers, the treasurer, showed receipts during the past year of $51,265 and disbursements of $42,396, among them $12,000 for State campaigns. A large and active finance committee had been formed and thousands of appeals for money distributed. At this convention $50,000 were pledged for the work of the coming year and the convention showed fullest confidence in the new treasurer, who said in presenting her report: "This has been a most interesting and beautiful year of activity for the National Association. The officers and assistants at the headquarters have worked in perfect harmony. You have all, dear presidents and members of the sixty-three affiliated associations, been most kind to your new treasurer and she has deeply appreciated your forbearance."

The report of a temporary organization, the Volunteer League, was given by its director, Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick. Its purpose was to interest suffragists who were not connected with the association and President Mary E. Woolley of Mt. Holyoke College, Mrs. Robert Gould Shaw, Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and Mrs. Winston Churchill accepted places on the board. Letters were sent out, avoiding the active workers, and over $2,000 were turned into the treasury. The legal adviser, Miss Mary Rutter Towle, reported a final accounting of the estate of Mrs. Lila Sabin Buckley of Kansas and the association received the net amount of $9,551 on a compromise. The legacy of $10,000 by Mrs. Mary J. Coggeshall of Iowa would be paid in a few months.

Charles T. Hallinan, as chairman, made a detailed report of the newly organized Publicity Department. Miss Clara Savage, of the New York Evening Post, was made chairman of the Press Bureau and Mrs. Laura Puffer Morgan of Washington, D. C., a member of the Congressional Committee, took charge of its publicity. Mrs. Ernest Thompson Seton accepted the chairmanship of a special finance committee which did heroic work. The News Letter, an enlarged bulletin of information and discussion in regard to the activities of the association, had already more than a thousand subscriptions and went to 116 weekly farm papers, 99 weekly labor papers and 120 press chairmen and suffrage editors. The report told of the successful publicity work for Dr. Shaw and other speakers, and said: "I prize especially my relationship with Dr. Shaw, whose courage, humor and zest, whose whole heroic personality, have made this a stimulating and memorable year." An amusing account was given of the effort "to accommodate the routine activities of the organization to the demand of the press for something new or sensational, which made great demands upon the originality, initiative and judgment of both the board and the publicity department," but it was managed about four times a week. The Sunday papers "drew heavily upon the ingenuity of the publicity department; special or feature stories were sent to special localities; for instance those that would appeal to the Southerners to the papers of the South, others to those of the West, and others were prepared for the syndicates and press associations." Of a new and important feature of the work Mr. Hallinan said: "The need of a competent Data Department for the National Association was early recognized but it seemed a difficult thing to manage on the budget provided by the convention. It was finally decided that owing to the pressure of the campaigns the money must be found somehow and it was. In September the department was established on a temporary basis with Mrs. Mary Sumner Boyd, formerly associate editor of The Survey, in charge. She was admirably equipped for research work and soon got into usable shape the valuable records of the national headquarters. Sometimes the pressure upon the department for facts, including 'answers to antis,' was tremendous but there were few requests for information which were not answered by mail or telegraph within 24 or 48 hours."

Mrs. Boyd's own full report of her first year's work was heard with much interest and satisfaction. In it she said:

The opponents of woman suffrage have by their criticisms made it cover the whole field of human affairs, so it is not surprising that the inquiries by correspondents of this department have ranged from the moral standard of women to a request for assistance in righting a personal wrong. Others come under main headings of the progress of woman suffrage, both partial and complete; the standing of women under the laws; the effect of voting women on the character of legislation; the part they take in political life and its reaction on their lives and characters; statistics and facts in regard to the makeup of the population of the various States; details in regard to State constitutions, election laws and methods of voting on woman suffrage in the various States.... What has become of late "stock" anti-criticisms of some effects of the ballot has been thoroughly investigated and "stock" answers prepared. Facts and figures from official sources have been gathered to disprove the claim of enforced jury duty, excessive cost of elections, lowered birth rates and increased divorce rates in suffrage States. The results of these studies have been surprisingly favorable to the suffrage position, showing that in such criticisms the "antis" have been ridiculously in the wrong. They have only been able to use this line of argument at all because the suffragists have had no one free to take the time to answer them once and for all with the facts.

At an important afternoon conference Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, who had been chairman of the New York Campaign Committee during the effort for a State amendment, made the opening address on The Revelations of Recent Campaigns which shed a great deal of light on the causes of defeat. She was followed by Mrs. Frank M. Roessing, who, as president of the Pennsylvania association, had charge of the campaign in that State, and Mrs. Gertrude Halliday Leonard, who was a leading factor in the one in Massachusetts, both presenting constructive plans for those of the future. Mrs. Raymond Brown, Mrs. Lillian Feickert, Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton and Mrs. Draper Smith, presidents of the New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Nebraska associations, described the Need and Use of Campaign Organization. Miss Mary Garrett Hay, chairman of the New York City Campaign Committee, and Miss Hannah J. Patterson, chairman of the Woman Suffrage Party of Pennsylvania, told from practical experience How to Organize for a Campaign. The conference was continued through the evening, Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, president of the Massachusetts association, speaking on the Production and Use of Campaign Literature; Mrs. John D. Davenport (Penn.) telling How to Raise Campaign Funds in the County and Mrs. Mina Van Winkle (N. J.) and Mrs. Maud Wood Park (Mass.) how to do so in the city. Mrs. Teresa A. Crowley (Mass.) discussed the Political Work of Campaigns. Another afternoon was devoted to a general conference of State presidents and delegates on the subject of Future Campaigns. It was recognized that these were henceforth to be of frequent occurrence and the association must be better prepared for their demands.

Mrs. Medill McCormick presided at the evening conference on Federal Legislation and the speeches of all the delegates clearly showed that they considered the work for the Federal Amendment paramount to all else and the States won for suffrage simply as stepping stones to this supreme achievement. Senator John F. Shafroth was on the platform and answered conclusively many of the anti-suffrage misrepresentations as to the effect of woman suffrage in Colorado. Every hour of days and evenings was given to conferences, committee meetings, reports from committees and States and the practical preparations for entering upon what all felt was the last stage of the long contest. The overshadowing event of the convention was Dr. Anna Howard Shaw's retirement from the presidency, which she had held eleven years. The delegates were not unprepared, as she had announced her intention in the following brief letter published in the Woman's Journal Nov. 27, 1915:

During the last year I have been increasingly conscious of the growing response to the spoken word on behalf of this cause of ours. Because of the unparalleled large audiences drawn to our standard everywhere, I have become convinced that my highest service to the suffrage movement can best be given if I am relieved of the exacting duties of the presidency so that I may be free to engage in campaign work, since each year brings its quota of campaign States. Therefore, after careful consideration, I have decided not to stand for re-election to the office of president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. I have deferred making this announcement until the campaigns were ended, but now that it is time to consider the work for the coming year, I feel it my duty to do so.

The president's address of Dr. Shaw had long been the leading feature of the conventions but this year it was heard with deeper interest than ever before, if this were possible. Because every word was significant she had written it and as it afterwards appeared in pamphlet form it filled fourteen closely printed pages. It was a masterly treatment of woman suffrage in its relation to many of the great problems of the day and it seems a sacrilege to attempt to convey by detached quotations an idea of its power and beauty. A large part of it will be found in the Appendix to this chapter. She set forth in the strongest possible words the necessity of a Federal Amendment but said:

There is not a single reason given upon which to base a hope for congressional action that does not rest upon the power and influence to be derived from the equal suffrage States, which power was secured by the slow but effective method of winning State by State. If all our past and present successes in Congress are due to the influence of enfranchised States, is it not safe to assume that the future power must come from the same source until it is sufficiently strong to insure a reasonable prospect of national legislation? To transform this hope into fulfillment we must follow several lines of campaign, each of which is essential to success: 1. By continuing the appeal which for thirty-seven years without cessation the National Association has made upon Congress to submit to the State Legislatures an amendment enfranchising women and by using every just means within our power to secure action upon it. 2. By Congressional District organization, such as has been set in motion by our National Congressional Committee and which has proved so successful during the past year. 3. By the organization of enfranchised women, who, through direct political activity in their own States and within their own political parties may become efficient factors in national conventions and in Congress. 4. By increasing the number of equal suffrage States through referring a State amendment to the voters.

The delegates were deeply moved by Dr. Shaw's closing words:

In laying down my responsibility as your president, there is one subject upon which I wish to speak and I ask your patient indulgence. If I were asked what has been the cause of most if not all of the difficulties which have arisen in our work, I would reply, a failure to recognize the obligations which loyalty demands of the members of an association to its officers and to its own expressed will. It is unquestionably the duty of the members of an organization, when, after in convention assembled certain measures are voted and certain duties laid upon its officers, to uphold the officers in the performance of those duties and to aid in every reasonable way to carry out the will of the association as expressed by the convention. It is the duty also of every officer or committee to carry out the will of the association unless conditions subsequently arise to make this injurious to its best interests.... Without loyalty, cooperation and friendly, helpful support in her work no officer can successfully perform her duty or worthily serve the best interests of the association. I earnestly appeal to the members of this body to give the incoming Board of Officers the loyalty and helpful support which will greatly lighten their arduous task of serving our cause and bringing it to final victory.

In saying farewell to you as your president I find it impossible to express my high appreciation and gratitude for your loyal support, your unfailing kindness, your patience with my mistakes and especially the affectionate regard you have shown me through all these years of toil and achievement together. The memory of your sacrifices for our cause, your devotion to our association and your unwearied patience in disappointment and delay will give to the remaining years of my life its crowning joy of happy memories.

The Woman's Journal said in its report: "On the table was a large bouquet of roses from Speaker and Mrs. Champ Clark. When Dr. Shaw had finished and received a great ovation, she said: 'My life has been one of the happiest a woman ever lived. From the depths of my heart I thank you. You have done more for me than I have ever done for you.' She unfastened a little pin on the front of her grey velvet gown and held it up for all to see, saying: 'This is Miss Anthony's flag, which she gave me just before she died. It was the gift of Wyoming women and had four tiny diamonds on it for the four equal suffrage States; now it has thirteen. Who says "suffrage is going and not coming"? We have as many stars now as there were original States when the government began.'" It was voted unanimously that the thanks of the convention be extended to the president for her noble address and that it be ordered printed. The tribute of the delegates came later in the week.

The report of the Committee on Literature was made by its chairman, Miss Caroline Ruutz-Rees, showing the usual careful selection of valuable matter for publication. Two important compilations she had made herself—Ten Extempore Answers to Questions by Dr. Shaw and extracts from a number of her speeches, gleaned from scattered reports; also an eloquent address made at Birmingham, Ala., the preceding April. So little from Dr. Shaw existed in printed form that these were very welcome. She urged the necessity for a library covering the field of women's affairs, well catalogued and open to the public. Miss Lavinia Engle's report as Field Secretary showed active work, speaking and organizing in Alabama, West Virginia, New Jersey and New York. Mrs. Funk's report as chairman of the Campaign and Survey Committee described a vast amount of work before the New Jersey campaign opened, including a series of twenty meetings addressed by Senators and Representatives and a number of prominent women, and others continuously through the summer with State and national speakers. Dr. Shaw spoke at thirty of these meetings.

In closing her report Miss Elizabeth Upham Yates, chairman of the Committee on Presidential Suffrage, said: "In addition to the beneficent consequences of women's vote in State and municipal affairs, the number of votes in the electoral college that may be determined by their ballots is of paramount political significance. By their votes in twelve States, which have 91 presidential electors, they might decide the presidency. Of these 91 electoral votes 62 come from the States where constitutional amendments enfranchising women have been obtained after repeated campaigns of inestimable cost and exhaustive effort, while 29, nearly a third of the whole, were secured simply by an act of the Illinois Legislature in giving the electoral vote to women. Is it not good political tactics to proceed along the lines of least resistance and bring our energies to bear upon Legislatures for the measure most potent and at the same time most easily procured?"

Mrs. Mary E. Craigie, who, as chairman of the Church Work Committee, had given such valuable service for years, told of the excellent work of her State branches, especially that of New Jersey during the recent campaign, whose chairman, Mrs. Mabel Farraday, had sent out hundreds of letters with literature to the clergymen and reached thousands of people at Ocean Grove and Asbury Park. She told of the encouragement she had received in her month of preparatory work for the approaching West Virginia campaign; the Ministerial Association of Wheeling had invited her to address them and expressed a desire to help it; several pastors turned over their regular meetings to her; the largest Methodist church in the State, at Moundsville, holding a week of big meetings, invited her to fill one entire evening with an address on the Federal Suffrage Amendment. "More and more I am led to believe," she said in closing, "that the most important work before the suffragists today is church work, especially the organizing of the Catholic women, that they will make their demands so emphatic the church will see the wisdom of supporting the movement. The church work is non-sectarian but it should also be omni-sectarian and our efforts should be extended to include all churches and religious sects."

The Congressional Committee had placed two departments of its work in charge of Miss Ethel M. Smith, whose comprehensive report showed beyond question their great value:

When the Congressional Committee was reorganized after the Nashville convention two departments were given into my charge, the congressional district organization work and the office catalogue of information concerning members of Congress. The Congressional plan, which had been launched but a year before, had been adopted in many of the States but not in all. My first step, therefore, was to urge by correspondence with the presidents that this machinery be established or completed in every State. On December 12 came the test as to how well this had been done. The Rules Committee of the House reported the Mondell amendment, which was to come to a vote January 12. I wrote or telegraphed at once to every congressional chairman or State president asking her to bring to bear all possible pressure upon the individual members of Congress from her State. Those States which had established this machinery were able at once to send the call to the respective district chairmen and so on down the line; the other States responded through their existing machinery and the result was that thousands of letters and telegrams poured into the offices of the Congressmen during the four weeks. Meantime our lobby was busy interviewing the members and the latest expressions obtained in each case were wired back to the States, whose chairmen responded again.