FOOTNOTES:

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 womanis 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 theRecorda 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, presidentof 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 NationalWoman'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 thewar 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: "Doyou 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 leadingcities 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 consideredunnecessary 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, amongthem 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 sustainthem 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.

FOOTNOTES:[114]Although there was no national convention in 1918 Mrs. Catt called a conference of the Executive Council, consisting of the national officers, chairmen of standing and special committees and State presidents, at Indianapolis, April 18th and 19th. It was in effect a convention except for the presence of elected delegates and forty-five States were represented, including many of the South. They were entertained by the Indiana Women's Franchise League, welcomed by Governor Goodrich and Mayor Jewett and were guests at many brilliant social functions. A full program of daytime plans for work and committee reports and of evening addresses was carried out. The visitors were able to attend meetings of the Indiana State Suffrage Convention and the League of Women Voters.[115]Call: The National American Woman Suffrage Association calls its State auxiliaries, through their elected delegates, to meet in annual convention at St. Louis, Statler Hotel, March 24 to March 29, 1919, inclusive.In 1869, Wyoming led the world by the grant of full suffrage to its women. The convention will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of this event. In 1869, the National and the American Woman Suffrage Associations were organized—to be combined twenty years later into the National American. The convention will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the organization which without a pause has carried forward the effort to secure the enfranchisement of women. As a fitting memorial to a half-century of progress the association invites the women voters of the fifteen full suffrage States to attend this anniversary and there to join their forces in a League of Women Voters, one of whose objects shall be to speed the suffrage campaign in our own and other countries.The convention will express its pleasure with suitable ceremonials that since last we met the women of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, Canada and Germany have received the vote, but it will make searching inquiry into the mysterious causes which deny patriotic, qualified women of our Republic a voice in their own government while those of monarchies and erstwhile monarchies are honored with political equality. Suffrage delegates, women voters, there is need of more serious counsel than in any preceding year. It is not you but the nation that has been dishonored by the failure of the 65th Congress to pass the Federal Suffrage Amendment. Let us inquire together; let us act together.Carrie Chapman Catt, President.Anna Howard Shaw, Honorary President.Katharine Dexter McCormick, First Vice-President.Mary Garrett Hay, Second Vice-President.Anne Dallas Dudley, Third Vice-President.Gertrude Foster Brown, Fourth Vice-President.Helen H. Gardener, Fifth Vice-President.Nettie Rogers Shuler, Corresponding Secretary.Justina Leavitt Wilson, Recording Secretary.Emma Winner Rogers, Treasurer.[116]Ministers who opened the different sessions with prayer were Mary J. Safford, of Iowa; Dr. Ivan Lee Holt, Rabbi Samuel Thurman, Dr. G. Nussman and the Rev. Father Russell J. Wilbur; at the meetings in the Odeon, Dr. J. W. Mclvor and Dean Carrol Davis, all of St. Louis.[117]From the address of President Wilson:And what shall we say of the women?... Their contribution to the great result is beyond appraisal. They have added a new luster to the annals of American womanhood. The least tribute we can pay them is to make them the equals of men in political rights as they have proved themselves their equals in every field of practical work they have entered, whether for themselves or for their country. These great days of completed achievements would be sadly marred were we to omit that act of justice.[118]For action of this committee seeAppendix for Chapter XIX.[119]Names of Committee: John E. Raker, California, chairman; Edward W. Saunders, Virginia; Frank Clark, Florida; Benjamin C. Hilliard, Colorado; James H. Mays, Utah; Christopher D. Sullivan, New York; Thomas L. Blanton, Texas; Jeannette Rankin, Montana; Frank W. Mondell, Wyoming; William H. Carter, Massachusetts; Edward C. Little, Kansas; Richard N. Elliott, Indiana; Jacob E. Meeker, Missouri.[120]In the summer of 1920, Mr. Bailey, who had been living in New York City ever since he resigned from the Senate, returned to Texas and made the race for Governor to "rescue" the State from woman suffrage, prohibition and other progressive measures which had made great headway since he left it. He was badly defeated for the nomination, with women voting.

[114]Although there was no national convention in 1918 Mrs. Catt called a conference of the Executive Council, consisting of the national officers, chairmen of standing and special committees and State presidents, at Indianapolis, April 18th and 19th. It was in effect a convention except for the presence of elected delegates and forty-five States were represented, including many of the South. They were entertained by the Indiana Women's Franchise League, welcomed by Governor Goodrich and Mayor Jewett and were guests at many brilliant social functions. A full program of daytime plans for work and committee reports and of evening addresses was carried out. The visitors were able to attend meetings of the Indiana State Suffrage Convention and the League of Women Voters.

[115]Call: The National American Woman Suffrage Association calls its State auxiliaries, through their elected delegates, to meet in annual convention at St. Louis, Statler Hotel, March 24 to March 29, 1919, inclusive.In 1869, Wyoming led the world by the grant of full suffrage to its women. The convention will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of this event. In 1869, the National and the American Woman Suffrage Associations were organized—to be combined twenty years later into the National American. The convention will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the organization which without a pause has carried forward the effort to secure the enfranchisement of women. As a fitting memorial to a half-century of progress the association invites the women voters of the fifteen full suffrage States to attend this anniversary and there to join their forces in a League of Women Voters, one of whose objects shall be to speed the suffrage campaign in our own and other countries.The convention will express its pleasure with suitable ceremonials that since last we met the women of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, Canada and Germany have received the vote, but it will make searching inquiry into the mysterious causes which deny patriotic, qualified women of our Republic a voice in their own government while those of monarchies and erstwhile monarchies are honored with political equality. Suffrage delegates, women voters, there is need of more serious counsel than in any preceding year. It is not you but the nation that has been dishonored by the failure of the 65th Congress to pass the Federal Suffrage Amendment. Let us inquire together; let us act together.Carrie Chapman Catt, President.Anna Howard Shaw, Honorary President.Katharine Dexter McCormick, First Vice-President.Mary Garrett Hay, Second Vice-President.Anne Dallas Dudley, Third Vice-President.Gertrude Foster Brown, Fourth Vice-President.Helen H. Gardener, Fifth Vice-President.Nettie Rogers Shuler, Corresponding Secretary.Justina Leavitt Wilson, Recording Secretary.Emma Winner Rogers, Treasurer.

In 1869, Wyoming led the world by the grant of full suffrage to its women. The convention will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of this event. In 1869, the National and the American Woman Suffrage Associations were organized—to be combined twenty years later into the National American. The convention will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the organization which without a pause has carried forward the effort to secure the enfranchisement of women. As a fitting memorial to a half-century of progress the association invites the women voters of the fifteen full suffrage States to attend this anniversary and there to join their forces in a League of Women Voters, one of whose objects shall be to speed the suffrage campaign in our own and other countries.

The convention will express its pleasure with suitable ceremonials that since last we met the women of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, Canada and Germany have received the vote, but it will make searching inquiry into the mysterious causes which deny patriotic, qualified women of our Republic a voice in their own government while those of monarchies and erstwhile monarchies are honored with political equality. Suffrage delegates, women voters, there is need of more serious counsel than in any preceding year. It is not you but the nation that has been dishonored by the failure of the 65th Congress to pass the Federal Suffrage Amendment. Let us inquire together; let us act together.

Carrie Chapman Catt, President.Anna Howard Shaw, Honorary President.Katharine Dexter McCormick, First Vice-President.Mary Garrett Hay, Second Vice-President.Anne Dallas Dudley, Third Vice-President.Gertrude Foster Brown, Fourth Vice-President.Helen H. Gardener, Fifth Vice-President.Nettie Rogers Shuler, Corresponding Secretary.Justina Leavitt Wilson, Recording Secretary.Emma Winner Rogers, Treasurer.

[116]Ministers who opened the different sessions with prayer were Mary J. Safford, of Iowa; Dr. Ivan Lee Holt, Rabbi Samuel Thurman, Dr. G. Nussman and the Rev. Father Russell J. Wilbur; at the meetings in the Odeon, Dr. J. W. Mclvor and Dean Carrol Davis, all of St. Louis.

[117]From the address of President Wilson:And what shall we say of the women?... Their contribution to the great result is beyond appraisal. They have added a new luster to the annals of American womanhood. The least tribute we can pay them is to make them the equals of men in political rights as they have proved themselves their equals in every field of practical work they have entered, whether for themselves or for their country. These great days of completed achievements would be sadly marred were we to omit that act of justice.

[117]From the address of President Wilson:

And what shall we say of the women?... Their contribution to the great result is beyond appraisal. They have added a new luster to the annals of American womanhood. The least tribute we can pay them is to make them the equals of men in political rights as they have proved themselves their equals in every field of practical work they have entered, whether for themselves or for their country. These great days of completed achievements would be sadly marred were we to omit that act of justice.

[118]For action of this committee seeAppendix for Chapter XIX.

[119]Names of Committee: John E. Raker, California, chairman; Edward W. Saunders, Virginia; Frank Clark, Florida; Benjamin C. Hilliard, Colorado; James H. Mays, Utah; Christopher D. Sullivan, New York; Thomas L. Blanton, Texas; Jeannette Rankin, Montana; Frank W. Mondell, Wyoming; William H. Carter, Massachusetts; Edward C. Little, Kansas; Richard N. Elliott, Indiana; Jacob E. Meeker, Missouri.

[120]In the summer of 1920, Mr. Bailey, who had been living in New York City ever since he resigned from the Senate, returned to Texas and made the race for Governor to "rescue" the State from woman suffrage, prohibition and other progressive measures which had made great headway since he left it. He was badly defeated for the nomination, with women voting.

The official report of the Fifty-first convention, in 1920, was entitled Victory Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and First Congress of the League of Women Voters and the Call was as follows:

"Suffragists, hear this last call to a suffrage convention!

"The officers of the National American Woman Suffrage Association hereby call the State auxiliaries, through their elected delegates, to meet in annual convention at Chicago, Congress Hotel, February 12th to 18th, inclusive. In other days our members and friends have been summoned to annual conventions to disseminate the propaganda for their common cause, to cheer and encourage each other, to strengthen their organized influence, to counsel as to ways and means of insuring further progress. At this time they are called to rejoice that the struggle is over, the aim achieved and the women of the nation about to enter into the enjoyment of their hard-earned political liberty. Of all the conventions held within the past fifty-one years, this will prove the most momentous. Few people live to see the actual and final realization of hopes to which they have devoted their lives. That privilege is ours.

"Turning to the past let us review the incidents of our long struggle together before they are laid away with other buried memories. Let us honor our pioneers. Let us tell the world of the ever-buoyant hope, born of the assurance of the justice and inevitability of our cause, which has given our army of workers the unswerving courage and determination that at last have overcome every obstacle and attained their aim. Come and let us together express the joy which only those can feel who have suffered for a cause.

"Turning to the future, let us inquire together how best we can now serve our beloved nation. Let us ask what political partieswant of us and we of them. Come one and all and unitedly make this last suffrage convention a glad memory to you, a heritage for your children and your children's children and a benefaction to our nation.[121]"

The seven days of the convention were divided between the National Association and the League of Women Voters, the latter having the lion's share as a new organization requiring much time and attention. All of February 12 was given to the meetings of its committees, with dinners for all delegates and a program of speakers at the Auditorium, Morrison and La Salle Hotels in the evening. All matters relating to the league are considered in the chapter on the League of Women Voters by Mrs. Nettie Rogers Shuler, corresponding secretary. The addresses at the convention, with the exception of those on Miss Anthony's one hundredth birthday and the memorial meeting for Dr. Shaw, were given under the auspices of the league and the Resolutions were prepared by its committee.

The convention of the National Association began February 13 but the two preceding days had been occupied by almost continuous business sessions of the officers and board of directors. Mrs. Grace Wilbur Trout, State president, was chairman of the local committee of arrangements of nearly forty women of Chicago, Evanston and suburban towns for this largest national suffrage convention ever held and the arrangements had never been surpassed. Nothing was forgotten which could contribute to the success or pleasure of the convention. A hostess was appointed for each State to make its delegates acquainted and contribute to their comfort. There were present 546 delegates, a large numberof alternates and thousands of visitors, while for the audiences at the public meetings there was not even standing room.[122]

At the morning session on the 13th, with Mrs. Catt presiding, the following program was presented by the Executive Council for the consideration of the delegates and was discussed at this and other business sessions:

1. Shall the National American Woman Suffrage Association dissolve when the last task concerning the extension of suffrage to women is completed?

2. Shall it recommend its members to join the League of Women Voters?

3. Shall this be the last suffrage convention held under its auspices? If not, when shall the next be called?

4. If this is to be the last convention, shall a Board of Officers be elected at this convention to serve until all tasks are completed? If this is done, to whom shall such a board render its final report and by whom shall it be officially discharged?

5. If dissolution is determined upon, what disposition shall be made of (a) the files of data; (b) the property; (c) the funds, if any remain?

6. In the event that the association shall be dissolved what agency shall become the auxiliary of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance?

7. What plan for the intensive education of new women voters is possible and shall it be recommended that the League of Women Voters take up this work or shall it be conducted under the National American Woman Suffrage Association?

At the beginning of the afternoon session Mrs. Catt said that for twenty-eight years the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw had opened the national conventions with prayer and she asked that in memory of her the delegates rise and join in silent prayer. They didso and many were in tears. The Rev. Herbert L. Willet then offered the invocation. Mrs. Trout, president of the Illinois Suffrage Association, cordially welcomed the delegates to Chicago. The greeting from the Canadian Woman Suffrage Association was brought by its president, Dr. Margaret Gordon. Mrs. Catt made a gracious response and resigning the chair to the first vice-president, Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick, gave a brief address, reserving a longer one for the League of Women Voters. She said in part:

When we met at St. Louis a year ago in the 50th annual convention of our association, we knew that the end of our long struggle was near. We comprehended in a new sense the truth of Victor Hugo's sage epigram: "There is one thing more powerful than Kings and Armies—the idea whose time has come to move." We knew that the time for our idea was here, and as State after State has joined the list of the ratified we have seen our idea, our cause, move forward dramatically, majestically into its appropriate place as part of the constitution of our nation. We have not yet the official proclamation announcing that our amendment has been ratified by the necessary thirty-six States, but thirty-one have done so and another will ratify before we adjourn; three Governors have promised special sessions very soon and two more Legislatures will ratify when called together. There is no power on this earth that can do more than delay by a trifle the final enfranchisement of women.The enemies of progress and liberty never surrender and never die. Ever since the days of cave-men they have stood ready with their sledge hammers to strike any liberal idea on the head whenever it appeared. They are still active, hysterically active, over our amendment; still imagining, as their progenitors for thousands of years have done, that a fly sitting on a wheel may command it to revolve no more and it will obey. They are running about from State to State, a few women and a few paid men. They dash to Washington to hold hurried consultations with senatorial friends and away to carry out instructions.... It does not matter. Suffragists were never dismayed when they were a tiny group and all the world was against them. What care they now when all the world is with them? March on, suffragists, the victory is yours! The trail has been long and winding; the struggle has been tedious and wearying; you have made sacrifices and received many hard knocks; be joyful to-day. Our final victory is due, is inevitable, is almost here. Let us celebrate to-day, and when the proclamation comes I beg you to celebrate the occasion with some form of joyous demonstration in your own home State. Two armistice days made a joyous ending of the war. Let two ratification days, one a National and one a State day, make a happy ending of the denial of political freedom to women!Our amendment was submitted June 4, 1919, and to-day, eight months and eight days later, it has been ratified by thirty-one States. No other amendment made such a record but the time is not the significant part of the story. Of the thirty-one ratifications twenty-four have taken place inspecial sessions. These mean extra cost to the State, opportunity for other legislation and the chance of political intrigue for or against the Governor who calls them. These obstacles have been difficult to overcome, far more difficult than most of you will ever know, and in a few instances well-nigh insurmountable, but the point to emphasize to-day is that theywereovercome. As a whole the ratifications have moved forward in splendid triumphal procession. There have been many inspiring incidents of daring and clever moves on the part of suffragists to speed the campaign and there have been many incidents of courage, nobility of purpose and proud scorn of the pettiness of political enemies on the part of Governors, legislators and men friends. On the other hand there have been tricks, chicanery and misrepresentation, but let us forget them all. Victors can afford to be generous.

The enemies of progress and liberty never surrender and never die. Ever since the days of cave-men they have stood ready with their sledge hammers to strike any liberal idea on the head whenever it appeared. They are still active, hysterically active, over our amendment; still imagining, as their progenitors for thousands of years have done, that a fly sitting on a wheel may command it to revolve no more and it will obey. They are running about from State to State, a few women and a few paid men. They dash to Washington to hold hurried consultations with senatorial friends and away to carry out instructions.... It does not matter. Suffragists were never dismayed when they were a tiny group and all the world was against them. What care they now when all the world is with them? March on, suffragists, the victory is yours! The trail has been long and winding; the struggle has been tedious and wearying; you have made sacrifices and received many hard knocks; be joyful to-day. Our final victory is due, is inevitable, is almost here. Let us celebrate to-day, and when the proclamation comes I beg you to celebrate the occasion with some form of joyous demonstration in your own home State. Two armistice days made a joyous ending of the war. Let two ratification days, one a National and one a State day, make a happy ending of the denial of political freedom to women!

Our amendment was submitted June 4, 1919, and to-day, eight months and eight days later, it has been ratified by thirty-one States. No other amendment made such a record but the time is not the significant part of the story. Of the thirty-one ratifications twenty-four have taken place inspecial sessions. These mean extra cost to the State, opportunity for other legislation and the chance of political intrigue for or against the Governor who calls them. These obstacles have been difficult to overcome, far more difficult than most of you will ever know, and in a few instances well-nigh insurmountable, but the point to emphasize to-day is that theywereovercome. As a whole the ratifications have moved forward in splendid triumphal procession. There have been many inspiring incidents of daring and clever moves on the part of suffragists to speed the campaign and there have been many incidents of courage, nobility of purpose and proud scorn of the pettiness of political enemies on the part of Governors, legislators and men friends. On the other hand there have been tricks, chicanery and misrepresentation, but let us forget them all. Victors can afford to be generous.

Referring to the cost of special sessions, Mrs. Catt said:

If the Governor is a Republican tell him that had it not been that two Republican Senators, Borah of Idaho and Wadsworth of New York, refused to represent their States as indicated by votes at the polls, resolutions by their Legislatures and planks in their party platforms, the suffrage amendment would have passed the 65th Congress. It then would have come into the regular sessions of forty-two Legislatures with more than thirty-six pledged to ratify and without a cent of extra cost to any State! When a Republican Governor calls an extra session in order to ratify he merely atones for the conduct of two members of his own party. They, not he, are to blame that it became necessary. If the Governor is Democratic say that had it not been for two northern Democratic Senators, Pomerene of Ohio and Hitchcock of Nebraska, who refused to represent their States on the question as indicated by their Legislatures and platforms, Congress would have sent the amendment to the 1919 Legislatures and it would have cost the States nothing. The Democratic Governor who calls a special session only makes honorable amends for the misrepresentation of members of his own party....We should be more than glad and grateful to-day, we should be proud—proud that our fifty-one years of organized endeavor have been clean, constructive, conscientious. Our association never resorted to lies, innuendoes, misrepresentation. It never accused its opponents of being free lovers, pro-Germans and Bolsheviki. It marched forward even when its forces were most disorganized by disaster. It always met argument with argument, honest objection with proof of error. In fifty years it never failed to send its representatives to plead our cause before every national political convention, although they went knowing that the prejudice they wouldmeet was impregnable and the response would be ridicule and condemnation. It went to the rescue of every State campaign for half a century with such forces as it could command, even when realizing that there was no hope. In every corner it sowed the seeds of justice and trusted to time to bring the harvest. It has aided boys in high school with debates and later heard their votes of "yes" in Legislatures. Reporters assigned to our Washington conventions long, long ago, took their places at the press table on the first day with contempt and ridicule in their hearts but went out the last day won to our cause and later became editors of newspapers and spoke to thousands in our behalf. Girls came to our meetings, listened and accepted, and later as mature women became intrepid leaders.In all the years this association has never paid a national lobbyist, and, so far as I know, no State has paid a legislative lobbyist. During the fifty years it has rarely had a salaried officer and even if so she has been paid less than her earning capacity elsewhere. It has been an army of volunteers who have estimated no sacrifice too great, no service too difficult.

We should be more than glad and grateful to-day, we should be proud—proud that our fifty-one years of organized endeavor have been clean, constructive, conscientious. Our association never resorted to lies, innuendoes, misrepresentation. It never accused its opponents of being free lovers, pro-Germans and Bolsheviki. It marched forward even when its forces were most disorganized by disaster. It always met argument with argument, honest objection with proof of error. In fifty years it never failed to send its representatives to plead our cause before every national political convention, although they went knowing that the prejudice they wouldmeet was impregnable and the response would be ridicule and condemnation. It went to the rescue of every State campaign for half a century with such forces as it could command, even when realizing that there was no hope. In every corner it sowed the seeds of justice and trusted to time to bring the harvest. It has aided boys in high school with debates and later heard their votes of "yes" in Legislatures. Reporters assigned to our Washington conventions long, long ago, took their places at the press table on the first day with contempt and ridicule in their hearts but went out the last day won to our cause and later became editors of newspapers and spoke to thousands in our behalf. Girls came to our meetings, listened and accepted, and later as mature women became intrepid leaders.

In all the years this association has never paid a national lobbyist, and, so far as I know, no State has paid a legislative lobbyist. During the fifty years it has rarely had a salaried officer and even if so she has been paid less than her earning capacity elsewhere. It has been an army of volunteers who have estimated no sacrifice too great, no service too difficult.

Mrs. Catt enumerated some of the immortal pioneer suffragists and said: "How small seems the service of the rest of us by comparison, yet how glad and proud we have been to give it. Ours has been a cause to live for, a cause to die for if need be. It has been a movement with a soul, a dauntless, unconquerable soul ever leading onward. Women came, served and passed on but others took their places.... How I pity the women who have had no share in the exaltation and the discipline of our army of workers! How I pity those who have not felt the grip of the oneness of women struggling, serving, suffering, sacrificing for the righteousness of woman's emancipation! Oh, women, be glad today and let your voices ring out the gladness in your hearts! There will never come another day like this. Let joy be unconfined and let it speak so clearly that its echo will be heard around the world and find its way into the soul of every woman of every race who is yearning for opportunity and liberty still denied...."

After this inspiring address the convention was turned into a jollification meeting for a considerable time until the delegates were tired out by their enthusiasm and composed themselves to receive a telegram of greeting from President Woodrow Wilson addressed to Mrs. Catt: "Permit me to congratulate your association upon the fact that its great work is so near its triumphantend and that you can now merge it into a League of Women Voters to carry on the development of good citizenship and real democracy; and to wish for the new organization the same wise leadership and success." On motion of Mrs. McCormick it was voted that "the gratitude of the convention be expressed to the President for his constant cooperation and help, with deep regret for his illness." On motion of Miss Mary Garrett Hay, second vice-president, the convention authorized a letter of appreciation to be sent to the Governors of States that had ratified the Federal Amendment and telegrams to those who had not called special sessions strongly urging them to do so.[123]This was made especially emphatic to Governor Louis F. Hart of Washington, the only equal suffrage State which had not ratified. [The session was called and the Legislature ratified unanimously March 22, leaving but one more to be gained.]

At the evening session the Recommendations were considered as presented by the Executive Council, which consisted of the president of the association, officers, board of directors, chairmen of standing and special committees, presidents of affiliated organizations and one representative of each society which paid dues on 1,500 or more members. After discussion and some amendment they were adopted as follows:

Back to Index Next