For the first time since it was founded in 1869 the National American
Woman Suffrage Association in 1918 omitted its annual convention.
Suffragists were accustomed to strenuous effort but this year strained
to the last ounce the strength of all engaged in national work. The
Congressional Committee could not secure the respite of a single day
and were summoning women from all parts of the country for service in
Washington and demanding extra work from them at home, telegrams,
letters, influence from the constituencies, etc. There was a vote Jan.
10, 1918, in the Lower House and a continual pressure from that moment
to get a vote in the Senate, which did not come till October and was
adverse. Then the committee pushed on without stopping. Mrs. Shuler,
the corresponding secretary, had been in the Michigan, South Dakota
and Oklahoma campaigns all summer and was exhausted. The three States
were carried for suffrage and when the election was over all the
forces were used to obtain Presidential suffrage in the big
legislative year beginning January, 1919. It was a question of
pressing forward to victory or stopping to prepare for and hold a
convention and lose the opportunities for gains in Congress.
During the first ten months of 1918 the vast conflict in Europe had
gone steadily on; the United States had sent over millions of soldiers
and other millions were in training camps on this side of the ocean;
transportation was blocked; the advanced cost of living had brought
distress to many households; thousands of families were in mourning,
and everywhere suffragists were devoting time and strength to those
heavy burdens of war which always fall on women. By November 1, when
it would have been necessary to issue the call for a convention, there
was no prospect of a change in these hard conditions, and when on
November 11 the Armistice was suddenly declared no one was interested
in anything but the end of the war and its world-wide aftermath.[114]
During the dark days of 1918, however, there had come a tremendous
advance in the status of woman suffrage. The magnificent way in which
women had met the demands of war, their patriotic service, their
loyalty to the Government, had swept away the old-time objections to
their enfranchisement and fully established their right to full
equality in all the privileges of citizenship. Early in the winter the
Lower House of Congress by a two-thirds vote declared in favor of
submitting to the Legislatures an amendment to the Federal
Constitution, the object for which the National Suffrage Association
had been formed, and the Parliament of Great Britain had fully
enfranchised the majority of its women. In the spring the Canadian
Parliament conferred full Dominion suffrage on women. Before and after
the Armistice the nations of Europe that had overthrown their Emperors
and Kings gave women equal voting rights with men. In November at
their State elections, Michigan, South Dakota and Oklahoma gave
complete suffrage to women. The U. S. Senate was still holding out by
a majority of two against submitting the Federal Amendment but it was
almost universally recognized that the seventy years' struggle for
woman suffrage in this country was nearing the end.
With the opening of the year 1919 the progress was evident by the
addition of seven more States to those whose Legislatures had granted
the Presidential franchise to women; that of Tennessee included
Municipal suffrage and that of Texas had given Primary suffrage the
preceding year. The situation now seemed to require an early
convention of the National Association and the time was especially
opportune, as this year marked the 50th anniversary of its founding. A
Call was issued, therefore, for a Jubilee Convention to be held in
March, fifteen months after the one of 1917. As it was the intention
to launch the organization of Women Voters it was decided to meet in
the central part of the country and the invitation of St. Louis was
accepted.[115]
The Report of the annual convention of 1901, with which this volume
begins, filled 130 printed pages; the Report of 1919 filled 322, which
makes a complete account of its proceedings impracticable. Their
character had been changing from year to year and at this convention
it was almost transformed. At the public evening meetings there were
no longer eloquent pleas and arguments for the ballot and the daytime
sessions were not devoted to discussions of the many phases of the
work. Now there was business and political consideration of the best
and quickest methods of bringing the movement to an end and the most
effective use that could be made of the suffrage already so largely
won. It was a little difficult for some of the older workers to
accustom themselves to the change, which deprived the convention of
its old-time crusading, consecrated spirit, but the younger ones were
full of ardor and enthusiasm over the limitless opportunities that
were nearly within their grasp.
On Sunday evening the national officers and directors held an informal
reception in the Hotel Statler for the delegates and all the sessions
were held in this hotel, with the two evening mass meetings in the
Odeon Theater. The convention opened Monday evening, March 24, with
the president, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, in the chair. Dr. Anna Howard
Shaw, who was an ordained Methodist minister, pronounced the
invocation and the community singing at this and all sessions was led
by Mrs. W.D. Steele of St. Louis.[116] The Mayor, Henry W. Kiel,
extended a cordial welcome to the city and pledged his earnest support
of woman suffrage. Mrs. Walter McNab Miller, president of the Missouri
suffrage association, gave the welcome from the State. Mrs. B.
Morrison Fuller, president of the Daughters of Pioneers, brought their
greeting and referred to a convention held in St. Louis in 1872,
introducing three ladies who were present at that time.
Dr. Shaw, honorary president, took the chair and presented Mrs. Catt.
Her address, The Nation Calls, was a strong appeal for an organization
of Women Voters to be formed in the States where they were
enfranchised. The plan was outlined and she asked: "Shall the women
voters go forward doing their work as free women in the great world
while the non-free women are left to struggle on alone toward liberty
unattained?" She showed how powerful an influence such a coordinated
body could wield and among its primary objects she pointed out the
Federal Suffrage Amendment, corrections in the present laws and true
democracy for the world. She named nine vital needs of the Government
at the present time, to which the proposed organization could
contribute—compulsory education, English the national language,
education of adults, higher qualifications for citizenship, direct
citizenship for women and not through marriage, compulsory lessons in
citizenship through foreign language papers, oath of allegiance as
qualification for citizenship, schools of citizenship in every city
ward and rural district and an educational requirement for voting.
This comprehensive and convincing address is given in part in the
chapter on The League of Women Voters, by Mrs. Nettie Rogers Shuler,
corresponding secretary. It showed beyond question the great work that
awaited the action of women endowed with political power and it swept
away all doubts of the necessity for this new organization to which
Mrs. Catt and her committee had given so much time and thought.
Throughout the convention the League was the dominating feature,
meetings being held daily to discuss its organization, constitution,
objects, methods, officers, etc.
At the close of Mrs. Catt's address Mrs. Guilford Dudley of Tennessee,
with a group of sixteen women from as many southern States came to the
platform and with eloquent words presented her and Dr. Shaw with large
framed parchments on which President Wilson's appeal to the Senate for
the submission of the Federal Suffrage Amendment Sept. 30, 1918, was
beautifully wrought in illuminated letters by the artist Scapecchi. At
Mrs. Catt's request Dr. Shaw made the response for both of them.
Tuesday morning the convention was cordially welcomed to the city by
Mrs. George Gellhorn, president of the St. Louis Equal Suffrage League
and chairman of local arrangements. There were present 329 delegates,
seventeen officers and three chairmen of standing committees. The
chair announced that because of the crowded program the separate
reports of officers and committee chairmen, which always had been read
to the conventions, would be replaced with a general report of the
year's work by Mrs. Shuler, chairman of Campaigns and Surveys. This
report was a remarkably comprehensive survey of the varied work of the
association. After recounting the gains in the States she said:
Our question is now political. The past year has seen suffrage by
Federal Amendment endorsed by twenty-one Democratic and twenty
Republican State conventions; by all those of the minor parties
and by many State Central Committees, while many others have
approved the principle of equal suffrage by a large vote. In
July, 1918, our second vice-president, Miss Mary Garrett Hay,
was made chairman of the platform committee at the State
Republican conference in Saratoga, N. Y., a distinct suffrage
victory, inasmuch as the men realized that in thus signally
honoring her they were honoring the woman, who, by her work in
winning the suffrage campaign in New York City, had made possible
the victory in the State. Miss Hay has since been made a member
of the Republican State Executive Committee and chairman of the
Executive Committee Woman's Division of the Republican National
Committee.
The work of the last fifteen months has been accomplished under
most trying and difficult conditions. Many women under the
allurement of war work dropped suffrage work altogether, and
could not be persuaded that it was necessary at this time; others
were unable to endure the criticism that they would be "slackers"
if they did anything besides war work; still others thought if
they did this well that men, "seeing their good works" would
"reward them openly" with the ballot.
Mobilization: The mobilization of our suffrage army came April
18, 1918, with the call for the Executive Council meeting at
Indianapolis. At that time Mrs. Catt, our chief, plainly stated
that there could be no "go it alone" campaigns but that
provincial shackles must be dropped, nation-wide plans adopted
and constructive cooperation from all branches assured. Her plans
were accepted unanimously. On May 14 a bulletin was issued asking
for a nation-wide protest campaign against further delay in
passing the Federal Amendment. Resolutions were to be passed by
State bodies and points given to be stressed at mass meetings and
in publicity. Resolutions of protest were sent from the women of
the Allied countries of Europe to the President of the United
States; from National Republican and Democratic Committees;
General Federation of Women's Clubs; National Women's Trade Union
League; American Collegiate Alumnæ; American Nurses' Association;
National Education Association; National Convention of Business
Women; Woman's Christian Temperance Union; American Federation of
Labor. Many States responded with resolutions from State
political parties, press associations, churches, granges, labor
and business organizations, political leaders and large numbers
of citizens.
Our Fighting Units: From honorary president to the last director,
every member of the board of the National Association had some
part in war work. Our service flag representing suffrage
officials of our branches carried twenty-five stars. Dr. Shaw,
Mrs. Catt and Mrs. McCormick were conscripted for the Woman's
Committee of the National Council of Defense; Mrs. Catt for the
Liberty Loan's National List; Miss Hay, Mrs. Gardener and Mrs.
Dudley for Congressional and Mrs. Brown for Oversea Hospitals
work. Other members of the board were sent from time to time to
various States on special missions.
Congressional Work: Mrs. Rogers went to New Jersey; Mrs. Wilson
and Mrs. Stilwell to Delaware and Mrs. Livermore to New Hampshire
for work connected with the Federal Amendment. Mrs. Wilson
attended the State suffrage conventions in Maine, Rhode Island,
New Hampshire and made a longer stay in Florida and Vermont. Mrs.
Shuler went to the three campaign States twice, spending five
weeks in South Dakota, holding a suffrage school there; five
weeks in Michigan and nearly five months in Oklahoma, later going
to West Virginia. Others who were sent by the National
Association on special missions were Miss Louise Hall, Mrs.
Fitzgerald, Mrs. Anna C. Tillinghast and Miss Eva Potter to New
Hampshire; Miss Mabel Willard to Delaware; Mrs. Cunningham, Miss
Marjorie Shuler and Mrs. Mary Grey Brewer to Florida, while Mrs.
Brewer made a trip as special envoy to five of the western
States. Our nineteen national organizers have been in twenty
States. In eighteen part or all of the expenses have been borne
by the National Association. At present we have ten organizers in
the field.
To the one who has made our victories possible, our national and
international president, Mrs. Catt, women owe a debt of gratitude
that can never be paid. Her strength and sagacity, her unerring
judgment and masterful leadership have acted as a stimulus and
inspiration, not only to those of us who have been privileged to
work at close range but also to the women of the entire world.
Our national suffrage headquarters have been a place of peace and
happiness because of her patience, good-nature and sympathy. Her
battle for the past fifteen months has been with adverse
conditions and reactionary forces, which are always the hardest
to combat, but not once has her courage faltered or her strength
of purpose failed.
Our Ammunition: At national headquarters in New York City our
work is departmentalized and functions through the Leslie Bureau
of Suffrage Education under three department heads: The Woman
Citizen, Press Bureau and Research. These cooperate with a
fourth department, the National Publishing Company, and all are
so closely co-ordinated that they work as one.
The Woman Citizen—Our National Organ. (See special report.) As
you will remember, the Leslie Commission took over the Press
Bureau March, 1917, and since then has paid all of its expenses.
In order to keep our official machinery moving, there are about
fifty people on the two floors at 171 Madison Avenue, New York.
Circularization: The Woman Citizen has been sent each week to
members of Congress and on thirty different occasions they
received literature prepared in the most tempting fashion for
their instruction and edification. Mrs. Catt put into operation
the plan for resolutions from the Legislatures calling upon the
Senate to pass the Federal Suffrage Amendment. These from
twenty-four States were read into the Congressional Record, and
while they did not put the Federal Amendment through they were
effective as showing the nation-wide urge for favorable action.
The Legislatures themselves were circularized with excellent
literature.
In February, 1918, a bulletin was sent to State presidents
offering one or more traveling libraries of sixty-two volumes,
the Leslie Commission to pay expenses to the State and its
association to pay them within the State. A library could be held
one year. Quantities of literature have been sent to the States
for distribution while requests for special literature have
received prompt attention.
The activity regarding the appointment of a woman or women on the
Peace Commission originated in the national office and stirred
the people of the entire country. On Dec. 8, 1918, the
association held a meeting of war workers in the National Theatre
in Washington, D. C., to protest against further delay in the
Senate on the Federal Amendment. Twenty-seven delegates
representing the association attended the eight congresses held
throughout the United States in the interest of the League of
Nations.
Field Work. The resolution committing the National Association to
an aggressive policy was passed at its convention of 1917. It
read: "If the 65th Congress fails to submit the Federal Amendment
before the next Congressional election the association shall
select and enter into such a number of campaigns as will effect a
change in both houses of Congress sufficient to insure its
passage."
October came; the November elections were approaching; the 65th
Congress had failed to pass the amendment. Probabilities had to
be weighed which would produce the necessary two votes if
possible and it was decided to enter the campaigns in New
Hampshire, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Delaware. The first two
were at no time specially hopeful, as they were likely to poll
Republican majorities and the Republican Senatorial candidates of
both were against woman suffrage. However, as a result of the
work done in New Jersey, Senator Baird fell much behind his
ticket, while in New Hampshire the women and the advertising made
so strong a case for the pro-suffrage candidate that for a day or
two the result was in doubt, but it was finally declared that
Moses had won by 1,200 votes.... The two most important and
successful contests were in Massachusetts against the Republican
Senator Weeks; in Delaware against the Democratic Senator
Saulsbury....
Under the sub-title "In the trenches" Mrs. Shuler told of the three
great State campaigns of the year in Michigan, South Dakota and
Oklahoma (described in the chapters for those States) and said:
The National Association gave to these States eighteen
organizers, all of whom rendered valuable service. It gave plate
matter at a cost of $4,600; 100,000 posters, 1,528,000 pieces of
literature, eighteen street banners and 50,000 buttons. It gave
to South Dakota a "suffrage school," June 3-20, sessions in the
daytime in seven cities and street meetings in ten of the nearby
towns in the evenings. The sending of Miss Marjorie Shuler as
press chairman to Oklahoma enabled it to issue 126,000 copies of
a suffrage supplement and supply 300 papers with weekly
bulletins, information service and two half-pages of plate. These
three campaigns cost the association $30,720. This was the
financial cost, but the immense output of time and energy by the
women cannot be computed. It is safe to say that all of them as
they emerged from this trench warfare again questioned the
advisability of trying to secure suffrage by the State route.
Mrs. Shuler's fine report closed with an optimistic peroration on
Seeing it Through. [See Handbook of convention.]
The carefully audited report of the treasurer, Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers,
showed almost incredible collections during a period when the war was
making its endless calls for money. In part it was as follows: "The
year 1918 has been a very remarkable one for the national suffrage
treasury. The large demands of the war on every individual, both for
money and work, seemed to forebode financial difficulties for us
before the close of our fiscal year. Instead, the response to the
needs of our treasury was never more fully met, both in the payment of
pledges made at the last convention and in securing new pledges and
donations. Early in the year the treasurer was asked to assume also
the duties of treasurer of the association's Women's Oversea Hospitals
Committee and this fund has passed regularly through the treasury,
amounting in all to $133,339. The very generous and hearty response of
the State suffrage associations to the demands of our Oversea
Hospitals' war work has been most gratifying and its financing has not
diminished the regular income of the association.... About one-third
of the association's income has been received from the State
auxiliaries and two-thirds from individual donations. The receipts for
suffrage work were $107,736; balance on hand $11,874." [The Leslie
Commission contributed $20,000.]
A message to the convention from President Wilson was received
conveying his greetings and best wishes for the success of the Federal
Amendment. On motion of Dr. Shaw the convention sent to the President
an expression of its appreciation of his support. Mrs. Philip North
Moore, president of the National Council of Women, brought its
fraternal greetings. Others were received from far and wide.... On
motion of Mrs. Shuler a telegram of appreciation was sent to Mrs.
Helen H. Gardener of Washington, and on motion of Dr. Shaw one to Mrs.
Ida Husted Harper of New York. A message of sympathy in the loss of
her husband was sent to the veteran suffragist, Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton
Harbert of Pasadena, formerly of Chicago. It was voted that letters
from the convention should be sent to the pioneers, Dr. Antoinette
Brown Blackwell, Miss Rhoda Palmer, Mrs. Charlotte Pierce, Miss Emily
Howland and Mrs. C. D. B. Mills.
During the convention the Legislature of Missouri passed the bill
giving Presidential suffrage to women by 21 to 12 in the Senate and
118 to 2 in the House. The convention sent a message of enthusiastic
appreciation. [For full account see Missouri chapter.] Miss Anna B.
Lawther, president of the Iowa Suffrage Association, requested the
National Association and the League of Women Voters to appeal to the
Legislature of that State to pass a similar bill. Mrs. Dudley of
Tennessee and Miss Mary Bulkley of Connecticut made the same request
for these States and it was granted for all three. Mrs. Frederick
Nathan (N. Y.) urged the suffragists to contribute to the Women's
Roosevelt Memorial Association. Mrs. Gellhorn's young daughter was
introduced as having recently organized a Junior Suffrage League in
St. Louis of thirty-two members. Mrs. Katharine Philips Edson (Cal.)
announced that though it had no regular suffrage organization,
Northern and Southern California each had telegraphed a contribution
of $500 to the work of the National Association.
The present policies of the association were endorsed. The reason
given for wishing the officers to hold over until the next annual
convention in 1920 was that the complete ratification of the Federal
Amendment by that time was considered certain and these officers would
be best fitted to close up the affairs of the association, which would
then be merged into the League of Woman Voters. From the list of
candidates the following eight directors were elected: Mrs. George
Gellhorn (Mo.); Mrs. Richard E. Edwards (Ind.); Mrs. C. H. Brooks
(Kans.); Mrs. Ben Hooper (Wis.); Mrs. Arthur L. Livermore (N. Y.);
Mrs. J. C. Cantrill (Ky.); Miss Esther G. Ogden (N. Y.); Mrs. George
A. Piersol (Penn.). Mrs. Brooks, Mrs. Livermore and Miss Ogden were
re-elected.
The afternoon session of Tuesday was devoted to suffrage war work,
with Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick, chairman of the War Service
Department, presiding. At the meeting of the Executive Council of the
National Association in Washington, in February, 1917, just before the
United States entered the war, it formed a number of committees in
order that the suffragists throughout the country might do their
especial work for it under the same generalship as they were
accustomed to, and later chairmen of these committees were appointed
to organize and superintend State branches. At the present session of
the national convention these chairmen reported as follows: General
Survey of War Program, Mrs. McCormick (N. Y.); Food Production, Miss
Hilda Loines (N. Y.); Americanization, Mrs. Frederick P. Bagley
(Mass.); Child Welfare, Mrs. Percy Pennybacker (Tex.); Industrial
Protection of Women, Mrs. Gifford Pinchot (D. C.); Food Conservation,
Mrs. Walter McNab Miller (Mo.); Oversea Hospitals Service, Mrs.
Charles L. Tiffany (N. Y.), chairman, and Mrs. Raymond Brown (N. Y.)
director general in France.
These reports are considered at length in Mrs. McCormick's chapter on
War Work of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and they
conclusively refuted the charge publicly made again and again by the
National Anti-Suffrage Association through its official organ and on
the platform that the suffragists were "slackers," unpatriotic,
pro-German and concerned only in getting the franchise for themselves.
This charge was frequently made by the editor of the paper and
president of the association, Mrs. James W. Wadsworth, Jr., wife of
the Republican U. S. Senator from New York, also a strong opponent of
woman suffrage.
At the close of this very interesting session the convention enjoyed
an automobile ride to see the beautiful city and its environs,
tendered by the St. Louis Equal Suffrage League and under the auspices
of Mrs. Philip B. Fouke. The "inquiry dinner" in the banquet room of
the hotel in the evening, with Mrs. Catt presiding, carried out the
clever idea of trying to ascertain why American women could not obtain
their enfranchisement. The program was as follows: What is the matter
with the United States? Women want it! Mrs. Grace Wilbur Trout
(Ills.); Men want it! the Rev. W. C. Bitting (Mo.); Political Parties
want it! Mrs. Emma Smith De Voe (Wash.); The Press wants it! Miss Rose
Young (N. Y.); The Old South wants it! Mrs. Pattie Ruffner Jacobs
(Ala.); Congress wants it! Mrs. Maud Wood Park (Mass.); The
Legislatures want it! Mrs. T. T. Cotnam (Ark.); All other Countries
have it! Mrs. Guilford Dudley (Tenn.); Who doesn't want it! Mrs.
Harriet Taylor Upton (Ohio); Well then what is the matter? Mrs. Arthur
L. Livermore (N. Y.); Making it right next time! U. S. Senator Selden
P. Spencer (Mo.).
At one business session Miss Laura Clay (Ky.) argued that the time had
come to change the form of the Federal Suffrage Amendment to meet the
objections of the southern members of Congress. Discussion showed a
preponderance of sentiment in favor of the old amendment and the
convention so voted, but at the suggestion of Mrs. Park it empowered
the Congressional Committee to make any minor changes which might seem
advisable. At another session there was considerable talk of merging
the National American Association into the new organization of voters
and dropping its name at this convention, but Miss Hay carried the
delegates with her in urging that they retain the old name until they
celebrated Miss Anthony's one-hundredth birthday and were safely
through the ratification of the Federal Amendment. This decision was
especially pleasing to the older members for whom the name had many
endearing memories. Mrs. Catt announced that suffrage societies had
been formed in Cuba, Porto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines and it was
voted to extend an official invitation to them to join the National
Association without payment of dues. Mrs. Catt called attention to the
increased educational value of the convention through the many
opportunities extended to the delegates for addressing bodies of
various kinds in the city. These included the churches, synagogues,
Ethical Society, public schools, Chamber of Commerce, Junior Chamber
of Commerce, City Club, Rotary Club, Town Club, Wednesday Club,
Women's Trade Union League and other organizations.
One of the leading features of the convention was the report of Mrs.
Maud Wood Park, chairman of the Congressional Committee, which gave a
complete summary of the status of the Federal Suffrage Amendment in
Congress from the time of the last convention to the present. This and
Mrs. Shuler's secretary's report offer so comprehensive a survey of
the important work of the National Association that a considerable
amount of space is devoted to them. The report of Mrs. Park filled
over thirty pages of the Handbook of the convention and was an
interesting account of the struggle of the past year and a half to
secure from Congress the submission of the Federal Suffrage Amendment.
A large part of it will be found in the chapter devoted to that
amendment. It showed the work done at the national headquarters in New
York City and Washington and also in the States and gave an idea of
the tremendous effort which was necessary before the measure was sent
to the Legislatures for ratification. It told of the House Judiciary
Committee reporting the resolution on Dec. 11, 1917, "without
recommendation," after amending it so as to limit the time for
ratification to seven years, and of the determination of the opponents
to force a vote on it before the appointment of a Woman Suffrage
Committee for which the friends were striving. This committee was
announced, however, on December 13, 1917.
All the members but three of the committee were in favor of the
amendment. Chairman Raker introduced a new resolution omitting the
seven-year clause and the committee gave a five-days' hearing to the
National American Association, the National Woman's Party and the
Anti-Suffrage Association, January 3-7 inclusive. The committee made a
favorable report to the House on January 8. On the 9th twelve
Democratic members called by appointment on President Wilson, who
advised the submission of the amendment. Speaker Clark gave valuable
assistance, as did many prominent Democrats and Republicans both in
and out of Congress. A five-hours' debate took place in the House on
the afternoon of Jan. 10, 1918, and the vote resulted as follows:
| | In Favor | Opposed |
| Republicans | 165 | 33 |
| Democrats | 104 | 102 |
| Miscellaneous | 5 | 1 |
| | 274 | 136 |
This was a majority of less than one vote over the necessary
two-thirds.
Mrs. Park gave a graphic account of the struggle to secure a favorable
vote in the Senate. She described the influences brought to bear from
all possible sources; the conferences with committees and individuals;
the fixing and then postponing of days for a vote; the difficulty in
arranging "pairs"; the "filibustering" of the opponents, the
adjournments, the endless tactics for preventing a vote which for
years had been employed against this amendment. She described the
great five days' discussion in the Senate September 26-October 1; the
appeal to President Wilson for help and his magnificent response in
person on September 30 with its contemptuous treatment by the
opponents; the failure of the Republican leaders to supply the
thirty-three votes promised and of the Democrats to provide from their
ranks the thirty-fourth, which would complete the necessary
two-thirds, and she gave the summary of the result of the balloting on
October 1. Analyzed by parties and including pairs the vote stood:
| | Yes | No |
| Democrats | 30 | 22 |
| Republicans | 32 | 12 |
| Total | 62 | 34 |
The amendment was lost by two votes. This debate, printed in full in
the Congressional Record for those days, hands down to posterity the
noble effort of some members of the U. S. Senate to grant to women a
voice in the Government to which they were giving the most loyal and
devoted service in this hour when it was joining with other nations in
the greatest battle for democracy ever fought. It preserves also the
determination of other U. S. Senators to deny them this citizen's
right and to continue their disfranchised condition. The Woman
Citizen, official organ of the National American Woman Suffrage
Association, in its issue of Oct. 5, 1918, gave a spirited account of
the proceedings of those momentous five days.
Mrs. Park took up the story after the defeat in the Senate and said in
part: "The election returns on Nov. 6, 1918, indicated that the
necessary two-thirds majority in the 66th Congress had been secured.
This belief was shared by prominent Democrats, who from that time on
spared no effort to make unfriendly Democratic Senators realize the
folly of their position in leaving the victory for a Republican
Congress. Only the stupidity of extreme conservatism or a thoroughly
provincial point of view can account for their failure to yield,
unless we are to suppose that more sinister forces were at work.... On
the eve of his sailing for Europe December 2 President Wilson included
in his address to a joint session of Congress another eloquent appeal
for the submission of the Federal Suffrage Amendment."[117] She
described the mass meeting of the suffrage war workers on December 8
at the National Theater in Washington arranged by Miss Mabel Willard
with the following program: Mrs. Catt, the national president, in the
chair; Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, chairman Woman's Committee of National
Council of Defense; Mrs. William Gibbs McAdoo, chairman National
Woman's Liberty Loan Committee; Mrs. Josephus Daniels, member National
War Work Council, Y. W. C. A.; Miss Jane Delano, director Department
of Nursing, American Red Cross; Mrs. Charles L. Tiffany, representing
Community War Work and Women's Oversea Hospitals; Mrs. F. Louis Slade,
of Young Women's Department, Y. M. C. A.; Mrs. Raymond Robins,
president National Women's Trade Union League; Miss Hannah Black,
Munitions Worker. An overflow meeting was held and strong resolutions
for the amendment were adopted at both and sent to each Senator.
Resolutions calling on every Senator to vote for submission of the
amendment were adopted by twenty-five State Legislatures during
January and February, 1919, and the gaining of Presidential suffrage
in Vermont, Indiana and Wisconsin that winter increased hope. The
suffrage Democrats were desirous of taking one more vote before going
out of power. Mrs. Park's report said: "On petition of twenty-two
Senators, a Democratic caucus on suffrage was held on February 5, the
first since the United States entered the war. On a motion to adjourn,
the suffragists without proxies defeated the "antis," who voted
proxies, by 22 to 16. On a resolution recommending that the Democratic
Senators support the Federal Amendment, twenty-two voted in the
affirmative and when ten had voted in the negative, those ten were
allowed by Senator Thomas S. Martin (Va.), Democratic floor leader, to
withdraw their votes in order that he might declare that, as the vote
stood 22 to 0, a quorum had not voted and the resolution was lost!
This decision was, of course, most irregular and unfair but it
afforded a good illustration of the kind of tactics used by the
opponents.
"After the close of the morning business February 10, Senator Jones
moved to take up the amendment. An extremely strong speech in its
favor was made by the new Senator, William P. Pollock of South
Carolina. The only other speeches were by Senator Frelinghuysen (N.
J.), on the question of individual naturalization of women and by
Senator Gay (La.) in opposition to the amendment. The vote taken early
in the afternoon showed 55 in favor and 29 opposed. As on October 1,
all the members who were not present to vote were accounted for by
pairs, so that it stood practically 63 in favor to 33 opposed. In
other words the amendment was lost in the 65th Congress by one vote.
The responsibility for the defeat lies at the door of every man who
voted against it. Analyzed by parties and including pairs, the vote on
February 10, was:
| | Yes | No |
| Democrats | 30 | 21 |
| Republicans | 33 | 12 |
| Total | 63 | 33 |
"Thus the Democrats lost their last opportunity and on March 1 the
resolution for the amendment was again favorably reported by the Woman
Suffrage Committee of the Lower House to be acted upon by a
Republican Congress." In commenting on this result Mrs. Park said:
"While we are condemning the un-American stand of our opponents, we
should never lose sight of the hard work done by many of the Senators
who were our friends. There is not space here for the record of all
who helped us but special mention should be made of one, the Hon. John
F. Shafroth, who will not be present to vote when victory comes in the
next Congress. When our cause had only a handful of supporters in
public life, he, then a member of the House, helped Miss Anthony bring
the amendment forward, and from that time to the present his loyal and
devoted service never flagged. Chairman Jones, Senators Ransdell,
Hollis, Wesley Jones, Cummins and the other members of the Woman
Suffrage Committee worked in constant cooperation with your committee.
Among the others who were most frequently called on for help were
Senators Curtis, Smoot, Walsh, Pittman, Lenroot, McNary, Hollis and
Sheppard."
Mrs. Park spoke briefly of the hearing before the House Committee on
Woman Suffrage April 29 on the bill granting to the Legislature of
Hawaii the power to enfranchise its women. (See the chapter on
Territories.) This bill had passed the Senate in September, 1918. On
Jan. 3, it passed the House without a roll call.
Tribute to the association's Congressional Committee and other workers
in Washington was paid by Mrs. Park, who said:
During the past fifteen months there have been several changes in
the personnel of the committee, chief among them the resignation
in September, 1918, of Miss Ruth White, whose gratuitous service
as secretary had extended more than three years. She was
succeeded by Mrs. Minnie Fisher Cunningham, but just as her
marked gift for political work was making itself felt in
Washington, the submission of a constitutional amendment in Texas
made it necessary for her to return home in January, 1919. In
August, 1918, the National Board appointed as a special
congressional steering committee two women of widely known
political acumen and experience, Miss Mary Garrett Hay of New
York and Mrs. Guilford Dudley of Nashville, with Mrs. Catt and
Mrs. Park ex officio. In October Mrs. Frank Roessing, who had
been residing in Washington since the preceding April and thus
had been able to give help from time to time, sent in her
resignation. In November Miss Marjorie Shuler was added to the
committee as secretary in charge of publicity, a designation that
by no means expresses the varied duties which have fallen to her
lot or the extent to which she has proved of service. To Mrs.
Helen H. Gardener a new title, that of vice-chairman of the
Congressional Committee, has been recently given by the National
Board.... Her work can rarely be reported because of its
confidential nature, but this may truly be said, that whenever a
miracle has appeared to happen in our behalf, if the facts could
be told they would nearly always prove that Mrs. Gardener was the
worker of wonders....
Other members of the Congressional Committee who have been in
Washington for the whole or a part of the period covered by this
report are, in addition to its chairman, Miss Mabel Caldwell
Willard, chairman of the social activities; Mrs. George Bass and
Mrs. Medill McCormick, representing respectively the
organizations of Democratic and Republican women affiliated with
the national party committees; Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, Mrs. C.
W. McClure and Mrs. William L. McPherson. No report of the
Washington headquarters would be complete without mention of the
help given in innumerable ways by our house manager, Mrs.
Elizabeth W. Walker, whose patience, tact and good judgment have
made comfortable living possible under the most trying
circumstances.
Members of the National Board who have been called on to assist
are first and foremost our honorary president, Dr. Shaw; Mrs.
Katharine Dexter McCormick and Mrs. Horace C. Stilwell of
Indiana. Upon Mrs. Catt, the national president, your committee
has constantly depended for advice and direction. Our misfortune
has been that we could not have her continually in Washington.
To these a list of names was added of those who assisted during long
or short periods. There was an account of the social uses of the
Washington headquarters. In January, February and March of 1918 Miss
Willard, with the help of Mrs. Louis Brownlow, arranged a series of
weekly teas on Wednesday afternoons. Among the hostesses, the guests
of honor and those serving at the table were some of the most
prominent women in Washington—wives of the members of the Cabinet,
Senators and Representatives. Social affairs were finally given up as
war relief work absorbed other interests. Under the direction of Mrs.
Brownlow, daughter of Representative Sims (Tenn.) and wife of the
Chief Commissioner for the District of Columbia, the Washington Equal
Franchise League established a Red Cross Branch at headquarters, where
valuable work was done by suffragists. Several entertainments for the
benefit of the Oversea Hospitals were given at the house and over
$1,000 raised.
At the close of this report the convention gave a rising vote of
thanks to Mrs. Park and a number of delegates paid special tribute to
the excellent work of the chairman and the committee. A discussion
which followed by Miss Katharine Ludington (Conn.); Mrs. Andreas
Ueland (Minn.); Miss Anna B. Lawther (Iowa); Mrs. Lila Mead Valentine
(Va.) and Mrs. Leslie Warner (Tenn.), under the head "And Now—What?"
was devoted to ways and means for carrying the Federal Amendment. A
number of conferences were held to consider various phases of the work
of the association which had become all-embracing. The one on How to
do Political Work for Suffrage was led by a past-master in it, Miss
Hay. One on How to use our Organization to Win was under the direction
of Mrs. Shuler. The conference of press workers was in charge of Miss
Young. Why We Did Not Win was told by Mrs. Lydia Wickliffe Holmes,
president of the Woman Suffrage Party of Louisiana, referring to the
defeat of the State suffrage amendment; Why We Did Win, by Mrs. Ben
Hooper, president of the Wisconsin association, describing the gaining
of the Presidential franchise. There were reports by the State
presidents of the work that had been done by women during the year
throughout the country for the war, for suffrage, for civic
improvement.
A report that was heard with the deepest interest was that of the
Oversea Hospitals in France, by Mrs. Raymond Brown, general director,
and Mrs. Charles L. Tiffany, chairman of the committee. This had been
a very important part during the past two years of the work of the
association, which had raised $133,000 for its maintenance. [See the
chapter on War Work.]
When it had been arranged to hold the convention the last week in
March, 1919, it was supposed that the Federal Suffrage Amendment would
have been submitted by Congress by that time, as it had passed the
Lower House early in January. It seemed especially appropriate that
this jubilee convention could celebrate this event on the Fiftieth
Anniversary of the founding of the National Association for the sole
purpose of obtaining this amendment but to the keen disappointment of
its leaders and members two obdurate Senators had spoiled this
beautiful plan. Its success, however, was so universally conceded that
it was decided to hold the semi-centennial celebration and the
afternoon of March 26 was dedicated to this purpose and to the
honoring of the early leaders. Fifty Years of Ever Widening Empire was
the motto at the head of the program. The tribute to the Pioneers of
the National Association was paid by Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, for
twenty-one years from 1881 the corresponding secretary of the
association and closely associated with Lucretia Mott, Mrs. Stanton,
Miss Anthony and the other pioneers almost from her girlhood. To Miss
Anthony she was like a daughter and she gave a touching account of her
personal relations with these noble leaders. Miss Alice Stone
Blackwell drew from her stores of memory a wealth of incidents of the
lives of her parents and the eminent men and women who were associated
with them in founding the American Woman Suffrage Association, also
begun in 1869. A resolution offered by Mrs. Desha Breckinridge was
enthusiastically adopted—that "we owe an undying and inextinguishable
debt to Henry B. and Lucy Stone Blackwell for their great service in
behalf of suffrage for women but believe their greatest gift was their
daughter, who has kept us true to the trust which they committed to
the care of their followers."
Mrs. Catt, who always had an eye to the practical and who was on the
program to urge the members of the united associations to Finish the
Fight, soon yielded her time to Miss Hay, the noted money-raiser,
whose subject was, Make the Map White. In a very short time the
delegates had shown their appreciation of the pioneers by subscribing
$120,000, the whole amount of the "budget" for the work of the coming
year. Dr. Shaw then closed the afternoon's services with reminiscences
of her forty years' companionship with the workers in both
associations. "The suffragist who has not been mobbed," she said, "has
nothing really interesting to look back upon." She spoke of the last
national convention which Miss Anthony ever attended, in 1906 at
Baltimore, and how she had set her heart on a grand triumph for the
cause in that old, conservative city, describing how her hopes had
been realized in the most successful one from every point of view that
ever had been held. And then she told with exquisite pathos how one
month later Miss Anthony passed into eternal rest. Little did the
listeners think that the next annual convention would hold memorial
services for Dr. Shaw herself and for Mrs. Avery!
Throughout the week the meetings of the National Association
alternated with the conferences for organizing the enfranchised women
and the name officially decided on was League of Women Voters. A
constitution for it was adopted and Mrs. Charles H. Brooks of Kansas
was elected chairman. Mrs. Catt presented its first aims as outlined
in her annual address and with some additions they were adopted. The
addresses made by the chairmen of the war committees evinced
statesmanship of a high order. The entire proceedings of the
convention connected with this new organization are fully described in
Mrs. Shuler's chapter on the League of Women Voters. There could be no
greater contrast than between the firmness and authority of the
speakers on this program and the pleading and argument of just as able
women in earlier years for the opportunity and power to help in the
solution of great national problems.
The large Odeon Theater was crowded on the evening of March 27 by an
audience that heard with much interest the story of the recent
campaigns for full and Presidential suffrage as told in the following
program: The Indiana Irritation, Mrs. Richard E. Edwards; The Vermont
Vortex, Mrs. Halsey W. Wilson; The Nebraska Nightmare, Mrs. W. E.
Barkley; The South Dakota Sore Disasters, Mrs. John L. Pyle; The
Michigan Mystery, Mrs. Myron B. Vorce; The Oklahoma Ordeal, Mrs.
Nettie R. Shuler; The Texas Turmoil, Mrs. Minnie Fisher Cunningham;
The Duty of Citizenship, Mrs. Raymond Robins; All Roads Lead to Rome,
Dr. Shaw.
The report of the Leslie Bureau of Suffrage Education, made by its
director, Miss Rose Young, filled eighteen pages of the printed
Handbook and covered a vast field of activity which included service
to 25,000 publications—2,500 dailies, 16,000 weeklies, 3,233
monthlies, a number issued fortnightly, quarterly, etc., and the large
syndicates and press associations. In addition were the mimeographed
news bulletins and the editorial service. An idea was given of the
varied character of the material sent out and the immense amount
furnished during the campaigns. A compliment was paid to the press
work of Mrs. Rose Geyer, "whose task it is to collect the news, State
by State, and distribute the parts of nation-wide interest through
weekly bulletins, and who has by direct personal correspondence of an
intimate and tactful kind trained State organization women to send in
reports of conventions, political and legislative situations,
candidates, etc." Many incidents were cited of important publicity,
special editions of papers and display advertising. Six pages were
devoted to the mission of the weekly official magazine, the Woman
Citizen, and the way it had been fulfilled. A tribute was paid to its
very able associate editor, Miss Mary Ogden White. The invaluable
service of the Research Bureau, under the expert direction of Mrs.
Mary Sumner Boyd, assisted by Miss Eleanor Garrison, was strongly set
forth.
Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, who conducted the editorial correspondence,
referred in her report to her full accounts in preceding years of the
wide correspondence with editors. "The scope of the department was
gradually enlarged," she said, "and many letters were sent to
prominent people in reference to their speeches, interviews in
newspapers and other public expressions. For instance, in the debates
on the Federal Amendment in the Senate, whenever a speaker showed lack
of correct information, a letter giving it was sent to him. Other
letters also were sent to Senators and usually received courteous
answers from themselves, not their secretaries." The report continued:
Several letters were written to Colonel Theodore Roosevelt urging
him to use his influence with the Republican leaders and always
were fully answered. A letter dictated and signed by him on
January 3, 1919, enclosed one he had just sent to Senator Moses
of New Hampshire, strongly urging him to cast his vote for the
Federal Suffrage Amendment on the 10th. I received it on January
4 and he died the night of the 5th.
Letters were sent to Chairman Hays and members of the National
Republican Committee and to different State chairmen on various
points connected with the suffrage amendment. The pamphlet on the
Difficulty of Amending State Constitutions, which was prepared
and sent to every Senator, was put into the Congressional Record
by Senator Shafroth, and a circular letter on the founding and
record of the National Woman's Party by Senator Thomas. Scores of
letters were sent out showing up the fallacies of the
Anti-suffragists during the year; others exposing the connection
of the German-American Alliance with the Antis; others giving
historic information and still others telling of gains in our
own and foreign countries.
During the first year I wrote to over 2,000 editors in the United
States and Canada. At the end of that time, and after the New
York victory, so many were in favor of woman suffrage itself that
during 1918 the work was very largely concentrated on the Federal
Amendment. In the two months from November, 1917, to January,
1918, when the vote was taken in the House of Representatives,
2,600 circular letters containing an argument for this amendment
went out from this department to the principal newspapers of the
United States and in addition 100 special articles were sent to
the largest papers. After that vote was taken this record was
kept up to obtain favorable action by the Senate and a second and
different circular argument was sent to 2,000 papers. A carefully
selected list of several hundred southern newspapers was
furnished to Senator Morris Sheppard of Texas, to which he sent
franked copies of his excellent speech on this amendment.
An open letter to Senator Baird was supplied to all the principal
papers of New Jersey; one to Senator Benet to those of South
Carolina; one to Senator Shields to Tennessee papers. A letter
showing the attitude of the National Association toward organized
labor went to a considerable number of labor papers in the
various States. During the week following the failure to vote on
the Federal Amendment in May, 250 letters and articles in regard
to it were sent out from this department. Most of them enclosed
printed or typed suffrage literature, some of Mrs. Catt's
editorials and articles, and some from other sources, including
my printed pamphlet on the Federal Amendment. Altogether nearly
8,000 letters and articles went out from this department.
Several pamphlets also were prepared and an article of about
2,000 words was furnished every month to the International
Suffrage News in London, with many clippings for its files. A
number of letters and clippings also were sent to Mrs. Fawcett,
the national president of Great Britain, keeping her informed on
the progress of the movement in the United States, of which she
was very appreciative, and letters of information were written to
other countries.
By the end of 1918 from 300 to 500 editorials on woman suffrage
were received every month and it was as much a subject of comment
in the newspapers as any political issue of the day. The old-time
attacks were almost entirely absent; the editorials showed
knowledge and discrimination; fully nine-tenths of the northern
newspapers advocated not only woman suffrage but the Federal
Amendment, while in every southern State some leading papers were
in favor of enfranchising women and a few approved of its being
done through this amendment. This editorial department of the
Leslie Bureau might venture to claim some share in the evolution
of editorial opinion, to which, of course, many causes
contributed. While the need for its work was by no means at an
end, another task yet remained for the bureau to see
accomplished.
Mrs. Harper then stated that it was the wish of both the Leslie
Commission and the Board of the National Association that the final
volume of the History of Woman Suffrage should be written while the
excellent facilities of the headquarters were available. Because of
her experience in writing Volume IV this work was entrusted to her and
the editorial department, therefore, was discontinued and the History
begun in January, 1919.
The report of the Washington Press Bureau was made by its secretary,
Miss Marjorie Shuler, dating from the preceding November and it stated
that weekly press articles had been furnished to the big news
services, the 200 newspaper correspondents in Washington, the papers
of that city and many outside; State presidents, Congressional and
press chairmen, in addition to a certain daily service; feature
articles and Washington letters to the Woman Citizen. Material for
favorable editorials was sent out through the Washington
correspondents and 244 friendly to the policy of the National
Association were received with only 12 opposed. The social activities
at the Washington headquarters furnished good local publicity.
In the report of Miss Esther G. Ogden, president of the National Woman
Suffrage Publishing Co., she called attention to the almost
insuperable difficulties of the publishing business during the past
eighteen months through the high cost of production, deterioration of
materials and uncertainties of transportation. With all these
handicaps the company had printed 5,000,000 pieces of literature for
the association and 1,000,000 for its own stock. It had filled orders
from Great Britain, Canada, South America, Mexico, Porto Rico and the
Philippines. She told of prominent visitors from foreign countries who
expressed much surprise at the variety and extent of the literature
and took samples home with them for translation. Mrs. Arthur L.
Livermore, chairman of the Literature Committee, gave a list of the
new publications which filled two printed pages and told of a notable
group of booklets dealing with patriotic subjects; a large amount of
special literature to facilitate the passage of the Federal Amendment;
maps, folders, booklets and posters.
The following recommendations were made by the Executive Council and
adopted by the convention:
1. That the N. A. W. S. A. continue to support and endorse the
Federal Amendment which has been before Congress for the past
forty years. 2. That the next convention be in the nature of a
centennial celebration of the birthday of Susan B. Anthony and be
held in February, 1920. 3. That the Board of Officers be asked to
serve until that date, thus confining the election of officers at
this convention to Directors only. 4. That the budget for 1919 be
adopted as presented by Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers, the
treasurer—$120,000 if the Voters' League is formed and $100,000
if it is not formed. 5. That the six War Service Committees
appointed at the last convention be discontinued with the
exception of the Oversea Hospitals Committee, which shall be
discontinued at the conclusion of its work, and those on
Americanization and Industrial Protection of Women, which shall
be continued. 6. That the post-convention board be requested to
reappoint Mrs. Maud Wood Park as chairman of the Congressional
Committee and extend to her a vote of appreciation of her
services. 7. That the Board of Directors shall have authority to
enter any State to carry on work without the authority of that
State, if necessary. 8. That the policy of the association in
regard to referendum campaigns be affirmed. 9. That an
organization of women voters be formed. 10. That the constitution
when amended and made satisfactory to the needs of the
association be substituted for the present constitution; that,
with this end in view, the Chair be instructed to appoint a
committee of five women from enfranchised States and five from
the Executive Council to whom the constitution shall be
referred.[118]
It was recommended that the following resolution be adopted "in view
of the fact that a request had been made for a new definition of
'non-partisan' in relation to the National Association as at present
constituted or as it may be constituted": "Resolved, That the N. A. W.
S. A. shall not affiliate with any political party or endorse the
platform of any party or support or oppose any political candidates
unless such action shall be recommended by the Board of Directors in
order to achieve the ends and purposes of this organization as set
forth in its constitution. Nothing in this resolution shall be
construed to limit the liberty of action of any member or officer of
this association to join or serve the party of her choice in any
capacity whatsoever as an individual."
Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, chairman of the committee, offered
fourteen resolutions, the last which were acted upon by
representatives of the National American Suffrage Association, the
first having been presented in 1869. They illustrate the wide scope
of women's interests considered by that body. After full discussion
the following, which are somewhat condensed, were among those adopted:
Whereas, women may now vote for President in twenty-six States of
the Union, and for all elective officers in England, Scotland,
Ireland, Canada and throughout the largest part of Europe; our
eastern and southern States are now the only communities in the
English-speaking world in which women are still debarred from
self-government; our nation has just emerged from a war waged in
the name of making the world safe for democracy and ought in
consistency to establish real democracy at home; and every
political party in the United States has endorsed woman suffrage
in its national platform; therefore be it
Resolved, that we call upon the 66th Congress to submit the
Constitutional Amendment for nation-wide woman suffrage to the
States at the earliest possible moment.
Whereas, one-fourth of the men examined for the army were unable
to read English or to write letters home to their families, be it
Resolved, that we urge the establishment at Washington of a
national department of education with a Secretary of Education in
the Cabinet.
Resolved, that this association earnestly favors a League of
Nations to secure world-wide peace based upon the immutable
principles of justice.
Resolved, that we protest against the unfair treatment of
professional women by the United States authorities in declining
the services of women physicians, surgeons and dentists in the
recent war, thus compelling loyal, patriotic women to serve under
the flag of a foreign government. We recommend that in future our
Government recognize the fitness of accepting the services of
professional women for work for which their training and
experience have qualified them.
Resolved, That we urge our Government to bring about the prompt
redress of all legitimate grievances, as the removal of the sense
of injustice is the surest safeguard against revolution by
violence.
Whereas, the Woman in Industry Service of the U. S. Department of
Labor was established as a result of the war emergency,
Resolved, that we call upon Congress to establish this service as
a permanent Women's Bureau in the U. S. Department of Labor with
adequate funds for the continuance and extension of its work.
Resolved, that we ask the U. S. Government in its next census to
classify definitely the unpaid women housekeepers as homemakers,
thus recognizing their important service to the nation.
Resolved, that we call upon Congress to give military rank to
army nurses.
Resolved, that we tender to our national president, Mrs. Carrie
Chapman Catt, our deep appreciation of her sagacity, good
judgment, fairness and indefatigable devotion to the cause of
equal rights, and we pledge our best efforts to carry out her
wise and far-reaching plans for ultimate victory.
The last evening of the convention was given to a second mass meeting
at the Odeon Theater with Dr. Shaw presiding and a notable program.
The first speaker was Miss Helen Fraser of Great Britain, who had been
making a tour of the United States in the interest of the women's war
hospital work of that country. She was announced on the program as
"Great Britain's foremost speaker," and she eloquently pictured Women
and the Future. The Hon. Henry J. Allen, Governor of Kansas, stirred
the audience to enthusiasm with an address on Woman's Place in War and
Peace. Mrs. Catt's splendid closing speech on Looking Forward ended a
convention whose keynote throughout had been "progress"; a farewell to
the past years of toil and disappointment, a preparation for the
future work of women under better conditions than had ever before
existed. A spirit of hope, courage and unlimited expectation pervaded
the army of younger women, who were soon to take up the great work
committed to their care.
On Saturday three important meetings took place. In the morning was
the formal organization of the League of Women Voters, election of
officers, appointment of committees and adoption of a program; also
the final business session of the convention to harmonize the work of
the National Association and that of the league. In the afternoon the
two bodies met in joint session to discuss the question of how voting
and non-voting women might best cooperate and the three following
objects were agreed upon: (1) To secure the vote for all the women of
the nation in the shortest possible time; (2) to obtain the vote for
women in all civilized countries; (3) to carry out the legislative
program of the new organization.
Thus ended the perfectly managed Jubilee Convention, probably the most
important and far-reaching in the long history of the National
Association.
HEARING ON THE FEDERAL SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT BEFORE THE
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON WOMAN SUFFRAGE OF THE 65TH
CONGRESS, JAN. 3-7, 1918.
There was no longer any necessity for a hearing before the Senate
Committee on Woman Suffrage, as it had unanimously reported in favor
of the Federal Amendment. The suffrage leaders were profoundly
thankful that they would never again have to address a hostile
Judiciary Committee of the Lower House, which not in all the years had
permitted the amendment to come before the Representatives for
discussion, and which had now under pressure reported it out but
"without recommendation." A new era had dawned and a Committee on
Woman Suffrage had been formed, whose chairman, Judge John E. Raker of
California, by advice of Speaker Clark, had introduced another
resolution for the submission of the amendment which was sent to this
committee and it desired to have a hearing.[119] This began Jan. 3,
1918, and in opening it the chairman said: "We have determined to hear
first the National American Suffrage Association and then the Woman's
Party. There seem to be a few opponents—a few men—and they will be
given an opportunity to be heard, as well as Mrs. Wadsworth and her
organization." This hearing extended through four days and the
stenographic report filled 330 closely printed pages. It was the last
of the committee hearings on a Federal Suffrage Amendment which began
in 1878 and had been held during every Congress since that date. If an
investigator of this subject has time to read only one document it
should be the report of this hearing.
The committee was composed of seven Democrats and six Republicans and
it was well known that all but three—Saunders, Clark and
Meeker—would report in favor of submitting the amendment. The
National Suffrage Association was represented the first day by its
honorary president, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw; its president, Mrs. Carrie
Chapman Catt; the chairman of its Congressional Committee, Mrs. Maud
Wood Park; Mrs. Rosalie Loew Whitney, an able lawyer of New York;
Mrs. Guilford Dudley of Tennessee, a vice-president of the
association; Mrs. Henry Ware Allen, a prominent suffragist and war
worker of Kansas. Their speeches were among the strongest ever made at
a hearing. Those of the opponents show the character of their
objections up to the very end of the long contest. Dr. Shaw's address
was especially notable for two reasons: it was devoted largely to the
work of women in the war, which was now at its height, and it was the
last one before a congressional committee by this eloquent woman, who
had been coming to the Capitol for almost thirty years in behalf of
the amendment, as she died the following year. She was introduced as
having been appointed by the Secretary of War chairman of the Woman's
Committee of National Defense and as such the head of the war work of
women throughout the country. Dr. Shaw began by referring to the new
line of attack which was now being made on suffragists as pro-Germans
and pacifists but scattered quotations can give small idea of the
strength and beauty of her answers to these charges. Regarding the one
of pacifism she said:
We grant that we are in favor of peace; we grant that we have a
large sympathy for the sufferings of humanity, but we also claim
to be possessed of intelligence and knowledge and these have
convinced us that there could be nothing more disastrous to the
human race than a peace at this time, which would lead to greater
suffering than a continuation of the war. Therefore, because we
love peace and because we have large sympathy for human
sufferings, we are opposed to anything that will bring a peace
which does not forever and forever make it impossible that such
sufferings shall again be inflicted on the world, and the women
of all countries take that stand with us. We have only to face
the present situation to know that any charges that women as a
whole are not courageous, are not patriotic, are not devoted to
the highest interests of their country are wholly false.... Even
before war was declared the National American Woman Suffrage
Association met in convention in this city and was the first
organized body of women to formulate a definite line of action
and present to the President and the Government a plan which
would be followed by its more than 2,000,000 members, provided
hostilities went so far that war should be declared. The
President accepted our services, and not only did he accept them
but the devotion of the suffragists to the welfare of the country
was so uniformly recognized that when the Government decided upon
war and upon the necessity for organizing the woman-power of the
nation, it called upon the leaders of this association and
appointed them on a committee for co-ordinating the war work of
women throughout the United States. Can it for a moment be
supposed that the men in whose charge the great interests of our
nation rested would have called upon women whom they did not know
to be thoroughly endowed with patriotic devotion and loyalty to
their country for such a service at such a time?
Dr. Shaw told of the loyalty of women in other countries and quoted
from the tributes of their distinguished men, such men as Mr. Asquith,
Lloyd George, Lord Derby and General Joffre to the services of these
women and in our own country of General Pershing and scores of others.
She told of how the Canadian Government gave the suffrage to women and
how they voted for conscription; of the splendid courage of the men of
Australia and New Zealand, born of enfranchised mothers. She said that
in ten of the eleven western States which filled their quota of
volunteers before any eastern State had done so, there was equal
suffrage. She referred to the eminent supporters of the Federal
Suffrage Amendment, beginning with President Wilson and his Cabinet
and Theodore Roosevelt; asked if these men were pro-Germans and
pacifists and matched them with equally loyal women. In conclusion she
said:
To fail to ask for the suffrage amendment at this time would be
treason to the fundamental cause for which we, as a nation, have
entered the war. President Wilson has declared that "we are at
war because of that which is dearest to our hearts—democracy;
that those who submit to authority shall have a voice in the
Government." If this is the basic reason for entering the war,
then for those of us who have striven for this amendment and for
our freedom and for democracy to yield today, to withdraw from
the battle, would be to desert the men in the trenches and leave
them to fight alone across the sea not only for democracy for the
world but also for our own country.... The time of reconstruction
will come and when it comes many women will have to be both
father and mother to fatherless children, and these mothers and
their children will have no representatives in this Government
unless it is through the mothers who have given everything that
it might be saved and democracy might be secured.... No men
better than those of the South know what it owes to southern
women and shall those men stand in the way of freedom for the
women who gave everything to retain for our country the very best
of southern traditions—shall they plead in vain for the freedom
of their daughters? What is true of the women of the South is
true of the women of the North.... We are today a united people
with one flag and one country because the women are worthy of
their men, and we plead because we are a part of the people, a
part of the Government which claims to be a democracy, and in
order that this country may stand clean-handed before the nations
of the world.
The speech of Mrs. Whitney, analyzing the vote on the suffrage
amendment which was carried in New York State the preceding November
was a complete statistical refutation of the charge made by the
anti-suffragists that the favorable vote was due to Socialists and
pro-Germans. A letter was read from Secretary of War Newton D. Baker,
saying that speaking personally and not officially he favored the
submission of the amendment. Telegrams urging it were received from
well-known women in the southern States and Mrs. Catt read editorials
strongly favoring it from a number of southern newspapers. Mrs. George
Bass, head of the Democratic Women's National Committee, protested
against the circulation in the Capitol which was being made by the
"antis" of President Wilson's declaration made in 1914, "I believe
this is a matter to be fought out in the individual States," because
in 1916 he addressed the National Suffrage Convention in Atlantic
City, saying: "I have come to fight with you ... and in the end we
shall not differ as to methods."
Mrs. Dudley represented the women of the South, saying in the course
of her address:
What has happened to the State's rights doctrine? Recently the
Federal Constitution has been twice amended and that under a
Democratic administration. While the child labor bill and
eight-hour bill are not amendments, they are really open to the
same objections because they impose upon a State laws to which it
has not given consent. These bills were proposed in one House or
both by southern Democrats; Federal prohibition was proposed in
both Houses by southern Democrats and passed by the votes of
others. So it appears that the theory of State's rights is only
invoked when women plead at the bar of justice for that voice in
their Government to which all those who submit to authority are
entitled. Now, as to the negro problem. We southern women feel
that the time has come to lay once and for all this old, old
ghost that stalks through the halls of Congress. It is a phantom
as applied to woman suffrage. In fifteen States south of the
Mason and Dixon line there are over a million more white women
than negro men and women combined. There are only two States in
which the negro race predominates, South Carolina and
Mississippi. In the former the percentage is 55.2, but there a
voter must read and write and own and pay taxes on $300 worth of
property. In Mississippi the percentage is 56.2 but there also
they impose an educational qualification. In the eight years
since these figures were estimated by the Government this
percentage has greatly decreased, so that South Carolina claims
that there is now no preponderance of negroes. In the other four
States also in the so-called "black belt" an educational test is
imposed upon the voters. In addition to all this we must consider
that during the last decade the negro population has increased 11
per cent and the white population 22 per cent. Furthermore, in
the past year alone 75,000 negroes have gone from one southern
State to the north, and 73,000 have gone from three other
southern States to one northern State alone. So it appears that
we must transfer part of our rather hysterical anxieties with
regard to the southern negro vote to some other States.
Mrs. Allen spoke from the standpoint of one who had lived many years
in a State where women voted and asked the question: "Can you
gentlemen not think what it means to women to know that their men are
so chivalrous and have such a belief in their integrity and their
intelligence that they are willing to make them their equal partners
politically? Can you not see that under such conditions men and women
are firmer friends; that husbands and wives are closer together and
that all of the family relations are better because the adults of all
the families are equally interested in city, State and national
affairs?" She told how on the battlefield and in the hospitals in
France could be heard in all languages the one cry, "mother," and she
ended with the plea: "Our world is weary and wounded and sick and if
you will listen in the silence of the night you will hear the same
cry; the world is calling for the mother voice in its councils and in
its activities."
The afternoon was devoted to the address of Mrs. Catt, which, with the
questions of the committee and her answers, filled twenty-five pages
of the printed report. For four decades the distinguished presidents
of the National Suffrage Association had made their arguments and
pleadings before committees of Congress—Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Miss Susan B. Anthony, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, and then Mrs. Catt for
eight years. This was the last time it would ever be necessary and the
first time before a House committee which intended to report in favor.
The changed character of her speaking was shown in her opening
sentence: "The time of argument on woman suffrage has gone by. The
controversy has been waged over a greater part of the civilized world
for the last fifty years, with the result that many nations have
capitulated and woman suffrage is now established under many flags.
That it is still pending in the Congress of the United States is a
disgrace to our country and a reflection on the intelligence and
progress of our people." She illustrated how the doctrine of State's
rights had been ignored by the southern members in their fight for
prohibition, led by Mr. Webb of North Carolina, who as chairman of the
House Judiciary Committee had also led the opposition to woman
suffrage on this same ground. She proved by editorial quotations from
southern papers the changing attitude on this point.
The vast number of American men who would be in the army in France at
the time of the next election was pointed out and the question was
asked: "When the election comes who will do the voting? Every
'slacker' has a vote; every newly-made citizen; every pro-German who
cannot be trusted with any kind of war service; every
peace-at-any-price man; every conscientious objector and even the
alien enemy. It is a risk, a danger, to a nation like ours to send
millions of loyal men out of the country and not replace their votes
by those of the loyal women left at home." In referring to the "negro
problem" in the South Mrs. Catt said:
In talking with some of the members of Congress we have learned
that an idea prevails throughout the South that the colored women
are more intelligent, ambitious and energetic than the men, and
that while it is easy enough to keep the men from exercising too
much ambition in the matter of politics, it will not be easy to
control the women. When talking with these same men about the
white women of the South, I have never known an exception to the
rule that they have finally rested their case upon the statement
that the women of the South do not want the vote anyway and if
they did they would only vote as their husbands do. To say that
means what? That the women of the South in the estimate of those
men are too weak-minded to have an opinion of their own; it means
that they have no independence of character; it means that they
have been reduced so far to nonentity that they will only echo
their husbands' opinions. Is living in the homes of the white men
of the South so degrading to the character of the white women
that they really cannot be trusted to have an honest conviction
of their own, but that living in the South outside of those homes
renders women more ambitious and more intelligent than the men?
Do these men realize that they are saying almost in the same
breath that the colored woman is superior to the colored man but
that the white woman is the inferior of the white man? Or is it
possible that the climate of the South produces a stronger
"female of the species" than male, and that the men of the South
are afraid of both the white and the black women?
Detached quotations give a most inadequate idea of this masterly
address which embodied the complete case for the advocates of the
Federal Amendment. Toward its close Mrs. Catt, in speaking of the
assertion of the "antis" that President Wilson was opposed to the
Federal Suffrage Amendment, made this significant answer: "I request
you, Mr. Chairman, to ask Mr. Wilson for a conference and go to it
taking Democrats and Republicans and say: 'Mr. President, are you or
are you not for this Federal Amendment?' Then you will know. I trust
that you will do this and that, if then it is possible to make a
public statement, you will do so." Afterwards it was apparent that she
knew of Mr. Wilson's complete change of opinion and his intention to
support the amendment. On January 9 Mr. Raker and eleven other members
of the Lower House held a conference with the President and he urged
the submission of the amendment.
At the continuation of the hearing on January 4 the American
Constitutional League, formed after the suffrage amendment was adopted
in New York out of the Men's Anti-Suffrage Association, was
represented by the chairman of its executive committee, Everett P.
Wheeler, a lawyer of New York City, and by one of its members
introduced as "Dr. Lucian Howe of Buffalo, a very eminent surgeon, a
Fellow of the Royal Academy of Medicine and the Royal Academy of
Surgeons." The two men occupied the entire day, Mr. Wheeler about
two-thirds of it, but the committee consumed a good deal of this time
by a running fire of questions not far from "heckling." Mr. Wheeler
offered for insertion in the Record a page and a half of finely
printed statistics compiled by the Men's Anti-Suffrage Association to
prove that the laws for women and children were not so good in equal
suffrage States as in those where women could not vote.
The session of January 5 began with the reading of another sheaf of
urgent telegrams from women of the southern States and petitions for
the amendment signed by a long list of southern women. The first
speaker was Mrs. L. A. Hamilton, president of the National Equal
Franchise Association of Canada and president also of the Women's
Union Government League of Toronto, who was thoroughly informed on the
granting of Provincial and Dominion suffrage and able to answer
convincingly all the questions of the committee. The hearing was then
turned over to the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage,
with its president, Mrs. James W. Wadsworth, Jr., in charge. I am much
pleased by the personnel of this committee," she said, "because both
the Republican Speaker, Mr. Gillett, and the Democratic floor leader,
Mr. Kitchin, promised us that, unlike the suffrage committee in the
Senate, this one would have a fair representation of 'antis.' I find
we have been given two out of thirteen. Of course we think that a
perfectly fair ratio, as we have always felt that one 'anti' was worth
about five suffragists, but we did not suppose you would admit it."
"That is about the ratio that exists in the House," observed Mr.
Blanton, of the committee. "We will know more about that when we vote
in the House," answered Mr. Clark, member from Florida. "I am going to
give you the privilege this morning of hearing from my general staff,"
said Mrs. Wadsworth, "and I will have some of my officers of the line
here Monday. I want to introduce Miss Minnie Bronson, our general
secretary." The second speaker was Mr. Eichelberger, who presented
elaborate charts and figures to show that woman suffrage was carried
in New York by the Socialists. To the question of Chairman Raker,
"This is nothing more or less than a compilation of figures as an idea
of your own, to show what certain votes could do or certain figures
would do, isn't it?" he answered: "Yes, absolutely, that is the idea."
At one point Miss Jeannette Rankin of the committee asked: "Are you
the gentleman who compiled some figures on the Democratic and
Republican women's vote in Montana last year?" "I think so," was the
answer. "Where did you get your figures?" "From the official election
report." "How could you tell a Democratic woman's vote from a
Republican woman's vote?" "Well, that part of it was estimation!" The
statements of Mr. Eichelberger and the questions of the committee
filled twenty-four pages of the stenographic report and with Miss
Bronson's address consumed one session.
The hearing in the afternoon was given to the National Woman's Party,
in charge of its vice-chairman, Miss Anne Martin of Nevada. Mrs.
William Kent of California introduced the speakers—Mrs. Richard
Wainwright, Mrs. Townsend Scott, Miss Ernestine Evans, Mrs. Francis J.
Heney, Miss Elizabeth Gram, Miss Maud Younger, Mrs. Adeline Atwater,
Mrs. Ellis Meredith.
Monday morning the hearing of the Anti-Suffrage Association was
resumed, Mrs. Wadsworth presiding and speaking at length, saying: "We
never have and never will ask a man to vote with us against his
conscience but the men we do blame are those spineless opportunists
who for political expediency or because they are too lazy to fight are
preparing to surrender their principles for the sake of a dishonorable
and, we believe, a temporary peace." Mrs. Edwin Ford followed and then
Miss Lucy Price. Her remarks and the committee's questions filled
fourteen pages of the report. About fifty telegrams opposing the
amendment were received, nearly half of them from men and all from
Massachusetts. One purported to represent 250 women of Wellesley and
another 1,000 of New Bedford. Henry A. Wise Wood was introduced as
president of the Aero Club of America. During his speech he declared
that "this was no time to unman the Government by this foolhardy
jeopardizing of the rights of both sexes"; that "one wonders at the
spectacle of strong, masculine personalities urging at such an hour
the demasculinization of Government—the dilution with the qualities
of the cow, of the qualities of the bull upon which all the herd
safety must depend"; that "this from now on is a man's job—the job of
the fighting, the dominating, not the denatured, the womanlike man."
Referring to Miss Rankin's vote against war he said: "I do not think
she cried; I was speaking of the real woman, the woman that men love."
He also said that during his campaign for "preparedness" he discovered
that "the woman suffrage movement was hopelessly given over to
pacifism in its extreme socialistic form." In closing he said that
"for any sentimental or political reason it is a damnable thing that
we should weaken ourselves by bringing into the war the woman, who has
never been permitted in the war tents of any strong, virile dominating
nation." This speech was made Jan. 7, 1918, after nearly a year's
experience in the United States of the war work done by women.
At this hearing the opponents made their supreme effort, knowing that
it was their last chance, and they brought to Washington one of the
South's most noted orators, former U. S. Senator Joseph W. Bailey, of
Texas. He began by saying: "I shall confine my speech entirely to the
political aspect of the question, leaving these very intelligent women
to explain the effect of suffrage on their sex and on our homes," but
he got to the latter phase of it long before he had finished. He
believed that under the Federal Constitution the right to control the
suffrage belonged absolutely to the States but he said: "I am opposed
to women voting anywhere except in their own societies; I would let
them vote there but nowhere else in this country.... No free
government should deny suffrage to any class entitled to it and no
free government should extend suffrage to any class not entitled to
it, for the ultimate success or failure of every free government will
depend upon the average intelligence and patriotism of the electorate.
I hope to show that as a matter of political justice and political
safety women should not be allowed to vote...."
Giving other reasons why women should not be allowed to vote, he said:
"The two most important personal duties of citizenship are military
service and sheriff's service, neither of which is a woman capable of
performing." Reminded by the chairman that there were many places
where women then were performing the duty of sheriff, constable,
marshal and police, he answered: "They may be playing at them but they
are not really performing them. If an outlaw is to be arrested are you
going to order a woman to get a gun and come with you? If you did she
would sit down and cry, and she ought to keep on crying until her
husband hunts you up and makes you apologize for insulting his
wife.... A woman who is able to perform a sheriff's duty is not fit to
be a mother because no woman who bears arms ought to bear children....
We agree, I think, that the women of this country will never go into
our armies as soldiers or be required to serve on the sheriff's posse
comitatus. That being true I hardly think they have the right to make
the laws under which you and I must perform those services." The
chairman asked: "When the men go to front with the cartridges and guns
the women assisted in making are the latter not participating in the
war the same as men?" He answered: "They are doing their part and it
may be just as essential as the man's, for if there is not somebody
here to provide the ammunition the guns would be useless, but it is
not military service."
The war had been in progress three and a half years when these
assertions were made and the whole world knew the part that women had
taken in it.
"The third personal duty of citizenship is jury service," Mr. Bailey
said, "and while women are physically capable of performing that
service there are reasons, natural, moral and domestic, which render
them wholly unfit for it.... We go to the court house for stern,
unyielding justice. Will women help our courts to better administer
justice? They will not. Nobody is qualified to decide any case until
they have heard all the testimony on both sides but the average woman
would make up her mind before the plaintiff had concluded his
testimony." The awful consequences of "sending women with strange men
into the jury room to discuss testimony which a sensible mother would
not talk over with her grown daughter" were declared to be that
"modesty for which we reverence women would disappear from among
them." "Who will care for the children during the mother's absence?...
They tell me they will require the unmarried women to act as jurors.
There will be enough of them, for marrying will become a lost habit in
our country if we apply ourselves much longer to this business of
making women like men." Mr. Bailey appeared not to know that women had
been serving on juries for from twenty to forty years in the western
States where they were enfranchised.
"Will women vote intelligently? Can they do it? What time will a woman
have to prepare herself for these new duties of citizenship? Will she
take it from her home and husband or from her church and children or
from her charities and social pleasures? She must take it from one or
all of them and will she make herself or the world better by doing
so?" Mr. Bailey asked. He said he wished that "every woman in the land
was fortunate enough to have servants to do their work"; deplored "the
unfortunate situation of eighty per cent. of the good women whose hard
lot it is to toil from sunup to sundown" and inquired: "Do you think
when they have done all this they will have time and strength to learn
something about their duties as a citizen?" Asked if he did not think
a woman ought to have something to say about the laws that concern the
education and disposition of her children, he answered: "If she cannot
trust that to the father of her children I pity her." "How about the
women who have lost their husbands?" asked a member of the committee.
"If they have neither father nor son nor brother to provide for them
the public will do so," Mr. Bailey replied. In pointing out how
favorable "man-made laws" are to women he said: "In my State, where
women have never voted and where I sincerely trust they never will,
the law gives to the wife as her separate property everything she owns
at the time of her marriage and everything she may afterwards acquire
by gift, devise or descent," but he omitted to say that all of it
passes under the absolute control of the husband and that the wages
she earns belong to him.
Further on he said: "We must have two sexes and if the women insist on
becoming men I suppose the men must refine themselves into women.... I
dread the effect of this woman's movement upon civilization because I
know what happened to the Roman republic when women attained their
full rights. They married without going to church and were divorced
without going to court." After having discussed widows' pensions, the
double standard of morals, divorce, alimony and various other matters
in carrying out his promise at the beginning to confine his remarks
"entirely to the political aspect of the question" he reached the
subject of women's smoking. He summed up his opinion of this by
saying: "If it were a question between their smoking and their voting
and they would promise to stay at home and smoke I would say let them
smoke." In this connection he said: "A single standard of conduct for
men and women is an iridescent dream. We cannot pay women a higher
tribute than to insist that their behavior shall be more circumspect
than ours."
Finally Mr. Blanton of Texas, a member of the committee, having
obtained Mr. Bailey's assent that the right of petition is the most
sacred right of the people and that legislators should give it careful
consideration, said: "I have here a very extensive petition from your
State signed by prominent citizens of the leading cities urging
Congress to submit the Federal Suffrage Amendment and I notice from
Houston, your city, the following: He then read a long list of bank
presidents, judges, editors, college professors, the Mayor and other
city officials, officers of labor unions, and, in addition, the Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court, Attorney General, District Attorney and
other State officials, and pressed Mr. Bailey to admit their high
character and standing. He did so but said: "I would not vote for this
amendment if a majority of my constituents asked me to do so."
An undue amount of space is given to the address of Mr. Bailey because
he had been selected by the anti-suffragists as the strongest speaker
for their side in the entire country and it embodied their views as
these had been presented ever since the suffrage movement began. He
was thoroughly representative of the opposition, and the officers and
members of the women's Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage who were
present applauded his remarks from beginning to end. He made this
speech Jan. 7, 1918, and the following March the Texas Legislature by
a large majority gave Primary suffrage to women for all officers from
President of the United States down the list and the bill was
immediately signed by the Governor. The primaries decide the election
in that State.[120]
The committee received petitions asking their favorable action on the
amendment from the Texas State Federation of Women's Clubs and those
of Houston and other cities; from women's clubs of many kinds in Waco
representing 2,000 members; from women's organizations all over the
State and from individuals, the number reaching thousands. There was
the same outpouring from the other southern States, although it was
the principal argument of the opposition that the vote was being
forced on southern women. There was also a remarkable expression from
southern men. Seventy-five pages of these petitions were printed in
the official report of this hearing. As the sentiment in the northern
States was now so largely in favor it was considered unnecessary for
them to send petitions, although many did so. There were presented to
the committee a message from the Governor of every equal suffrage
State urging the immediate submission of the amendment and strong
letters to this effect from Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels and
Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo, Southerners and
Democrats. None of this pressure was necessary to influence it but the
leaders of the National Suffrage Association arranged this
demonstration in order to show that favorable action by the committee
would be fully sustained by the sentiment of the country, and as an
answer to the charge that "a small, insistent lobby was forcing the
amendment through Congress." The anti-suffragists did not present one
communication of any kind from any State except Massachusetts.
The valuable space in this volume could not be better used perhaps
than for the closing speeches of Mrs. Park, chairman of the
association's Congressional Committee, and Mrs. Catt, its president. A
greater contrast can scarcely be imagined than that between their
statesmanlike quality and the rambling, inconsequential, prejudiced
character of Mr. Bailey's. "After the eloquent address of the last
speaker," began Mrs. Park with delicious satire, "I sympathize with
the committee and the audience who will have to return to the plain
subject of the Federal Amendment for Woman Suffrage.... I think those
who have been listening to all of these hearings will agree that the
opponents have made many interesting statements but have given
comparatively few facts." Saying that Mrs. Catt would reply to Mr.
Bailey's speech she answered the points in the others with a keenness
and clearness that no lawyer could have exceeded and met with dignity
and acumen the questions of the opponents on the committee. She was
not once disconcerted or unable to reply convincingly and always with
a disarming courtesy but she did not deviate from her subject or allow
the questioners to do so.
Mrs. Catt's answer to Mr. Bailey's speech, which filled twenty-five
pages of the stenographic report, occupied seven pages and there was
not a superfluous word. She began by calling attention to the
petitions as a whole from the southern States, printed copies of which
were furnished to each member of the committee. They included the
names of over a thousand prominent men, among them two and a half
pages of Mayors; the Governors of Arkansas, Tennessee and Florida and
many other State officials. She said that as she listened to Mr.
Bailey's speech she was reminded of the declaration of a president of
Harvard College, who asserted that without question there were witches
and it was the duty of all good people to hunt them out, but
twenty-five years later every intelligent man knew there had never
been such a thing as a witch. A man once wrote a book to prove that a
steamship could never cross the ocean and the book was brought to
America by the first one that crossed. Daniel Webster made a speech
against admitting as a State one of the western Territories because
its members of Congress after their election would not be able to
reach Washington until the session was over. "These men lacked
vision," she said, "and so does the last speaker. He does not know
what has been happening in the world." She referred to the vast
changes in the industrial life of women since the days of the mother
of Washington and the wife of Jefferson, whom he had used as models
for those of the present day, and said: "It is my pleasure to inform
him that I myself am that which he regrets—a voter—and I would
rather have my vote as a protector than the reverence even of the
gentleman from Texas."
Mrs. Catt continued: "The speech to which we have listened has been
interesting because it has seemed to be a chapter from a book that was
written long ago. The week before the war began it was my privilege,
sitting in the balcony of the House of Commons, to look down upon the
bald head of Mr. Asquith while he made a speech against woman
suffrage. 'I am unalterably opposed to woman suffrage because Great
Britain is a mighty empire and it will always be necessary to defend
it by military power and what do women know about war?' he asked.
Three years later he humbly confessed before the world that when a
nation like Great Britain goes to war, and such a war as this one,
which calls for every ounce of power the nation can offer in its
defense, men and women make equal sacrifices and therefore it is not a
man's job but it is a man's and a woman's job and they are doing it
together. So the Premier demanded woman suffrage and voted for it in
the House of Commons. Remembering Mr. Asquith, I think there is hope
for Mr. Bailey."
Mrs. Catt pictured eloquently the marvelous work being done by women
in Great Britain in the munitions factories, the railway service, the
dockyards, and also in our own and all countries; she described the
heroic sacrifices of the nurses; she told how the women of Canada and
New Zealand had voted for conscription and how in all countries the
women were backing their men in the war. "It is declared that American
women cannot carry a gun," she said. "Why that is the kind of talk we
heard forty years ago and Mr. Bailey's speech is just that much behind
the times.... I am sorry for any man who has stood still while the
world has moved on."
Only the merest outline of this convincing address is given but before
its conclusion Mr. Bailey had deliberately insulted Mrs. Catt by
leaving the room. Mrs. Wadsworth, when asked if she wished her side to
be heard in rebuttal, introduced Miss Charlotte E. Rowe of Yonkers, N.
Y., who made a vigorous plea for saving the home, children and
womanhood and declared woman suffrage would lead to Socialism. During
the course of her speech she said, according to the official
stenographic report: "If working girls and women in colleges will
study cooking and sewing and domestic science and hygiene, or simple
rules of health and how to care for the sick and the fine and
beautiful art of home making, it will be much better for them and
better for the country than if they spend their time parading up the
avenue of a crowded city and praying that they may some day, somehow,
become policemen or boiler-makers side by side with men.... I say to
you that it has remained for this self-sufficient 20th century to have
produced a womanhood which would stand—even a small proportion of
it—in legislative halls and say that they are doing more in this
great and terrible war than the men are doing.... Gentlemen, if I were
a married woman and my husband was a feminist and on the first Tuesday
after the first Monday in November he said to me, 'Come, walk by me so
as to strengthen and sustain me as I go to the polls,' I would say to
him, 'Look here, Mabel, here is the key of the flat; I am going home
to father.' I would advise men and women suffragists—and especially
those suffragist men who need their wives to strengthen and sustain
them on election day—I would advise them to go to the cellar and
check over the laundry."
This last hearing on the Federal Suffrage Amendment closed on January
7 and the following day the committee made a favorable report to the
House of Representatives. By consent of the Committee on Rules the
10th was set for the debate and vote and on that day the House by a
two-thirds majority voted to submit the amendment to the State
Legislatures.