The History of Woman Suffrage Volume V Part 1

The History of Woman Suffrage.

Volume V.

Edited by Ida Husted Harper.

PREFACE

The History of Woman Suffrage is comprised in six volumes averaging about one thousand pages each, of which the two just finished are the last. While it is primarily a history of this great movement in the United States it covers to some degree that of the whole world. The chapter on Great Britain was prepared for Volume VI by Mrs. Millicent Garrett Fawcett, leader of the movement there for half a century. The accounts of the gaining of woman suffrage in other countries come from the highest authorities. Their contest was short compared to that in the two oldest countries on the globe with a const.i.tutional form of government--the United States and Great Britain--and in the former it began nearly twenty years earlier than in the latter. The effort of women in the "greatest republic on earth" to obtain a voice in its government began in 1848 and ended in complete victory in 1920. In Great Britain it is not yet entirely accomplished, although in all her colonies except South Africa women vote on the same terms as men.

Doubtless other histories of this world wide movement will be written but at present the student will find himself largely confined to these six volumes. This is especially true of the United States and many of the doc.u.ments of the earliest period would have been lost for all time if they had not been preserved in the first three volumes. These also contain much information which does not exist elsewhere regarding the struggle of women for other rights besides that of the franchise. That the materials were collected and cared for until they could be utilized was due to Miss Susan B. Anthony's appreciation of their value. The story of the trials and tribulations of preparing those volumes during ten years is told in Volume II, page 612, and in the Preface of Volume IV. They were written and edited princ.i.p.ally by Miss Anthony and Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and covered the history from the beginning of the century to 1884. The writers expected when they began in 1877 to bring out one small volume, perhaps only a large pamphlet. When these three huge volumes were finished they still had enough material for a fourth, which never was used.

Miss Anthony continued her habit of preserving the records and in 1900, when at the age of 80 she resigned the presidency of the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation, she immediately commenced preparations for another volume of the History. She called to her a.s.sistance Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, who had recently finished her Biography, and in her home in Rochester, N. Y., they spent the next two years on the book, Mrs. Stanton, who was 85 years old, taking the keenest interest in the work.[1] When the ma.n.u.script was completed hundreds of pages had to be eliminated in order to bring it within the compa.s.s of one volume of 1,144 pages.

Miss Anthony then said: "Twenty years from now another volume will be written and it will record universal suffrage for women by a Federal Amendment." Her prophecy was fulfilled to the letter. She put upon younger women the duty of collecting and preserving the records and this was done in some degree by officers of the a.s.sociation. In 1917, after the legacy of Mrs. Frank Leslie had been received by Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the a.s.sociation, she formed the Leslie Suffrage Commission and established a Bureau of Suffrage Education, one feature of which was a research department. Here under the direction of an expert an immense amount of material was collected from many sources and arranged for use. After the strenuous work for a Federal Suffrage Amendment had brought it very near, Mrs. Catt turned her attention to the publis.h.i.+ng of the last volume of the History of Woman Suffrage while the resources of the large national headquarters in New York and the archives of the research bureau were available, and she requested Mrs. Harper to prepare it. The work was begun Jan 2, 1919, and it was to be entirely completed in eighteen months. No account had been taken of the enormous growth of the suffrage movement. It had entered every State in the Union and it extended around the world. It was occupying the attention of Parliaments and Legislatures. In the United States conventions had multiplied and campaigns had increased in number; it had become a national issue with a center in every State and defeats and victories were of constant record.

To select from the ma.s.s of material, to preserve the most important, to condense, to verify, was an almost impossible task. A comparison will ill.u.s.trate the difference between the work required on Volume IV and that on the present volumes. The Minutes of the national convention in 1901 filled 130 pages of large type; those of the convention of 1919 filled 320 pages, many of small type; reports of congressional hearings increased in proportion. Of the State chapters, describing all the work that had been done before 1901, 29 contained less than 8 pages, 18 of these less than 5 and 7 less than 3; only 6 had over 14 pages. For Volume VI not more than half a dozen State writers sent ma.n.u.script for less than 14 and the rest ranged from 20 to 95 pages. The report on Canada in Volume IV occupied 3-1/2 pages; in this volume it fills 18. The chapter on Woman Suffrage in Europe outside of Great Britain found plenty of room in 4 pages; in this one it requires 32.

The very full reports of the national suffrage conventions, the congressional doc.u.ments, the files of the _Woman's Journal_ and the _Woman Citizen_ and the newspapers furnished a wealth of material on the general status of the question in the United States. It was, however, the evolution of the movement in the States that gave it national strength and compelled the action by Congress which always was the ultimate goal. The attempt to give the story of every State, in many of which no records had been kept or those which had were lost or destroyed; the difficulty in getting correct dates and proper names upset all calculations on the amount of material and length of time.

As a result the time lengthened to three and a half years and the one volume expanded into two, with enough excellent matter eliminated to have made a third. In each of these chapters will be found a complete history of the effort to secure the franchise by means of the State const.i.tution, also the part taken to obtain the Federal Amendment and the action of the Legislature in ratifying this amendment.

The accounts of the annual conventions of the National American Suffrage a.s.sociation demonstrate as nothing else could do the commanding force of that organization, for fifty years the foundation and bulwark of the movement. The hearings before committees of every Congress indicate the never ceasing effort to obtain an amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution and the extracts from the speeches show the logic, the justice and the patriotism of the arguments made in its behalf. The delay of that body in responding will be something for future generations to marvel at. In Chapter XX will be found the full history of this amendment by which all women were enfranchised.

In one chapter is a graphic account of the effort for half a century to get a woman suffrage "plank" into the national platforms of the political parties and its success in 1916, with one for the Federal Amendment in 1920. A chapter is devoted to the forming of the National League of Woman Voters after the women of the United States had become a part of the electorate. All questions as to the part taken in the war of 1914-1918 by the women who were working for their enfranchis.e.m.e.nt are conclusively answered in the chapter on War Service of Organized Suffragists. In one chapter will be found an account of other organizations besides the National American a.s.sociation that worked to obtain the vote for women and of those that worked against it. A full description is given of the organizing of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance and its congresses in the various cities of Europe.

Volumes V and VI take up the history of the contest in the United States from the beginning of the present century to Aug. 26, 1920, when Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby proclaimed that the 19th Amendment, submitted by Congress on June 4, 1919, had been ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the States and was now a part of the National Const.i.tution. This ended a movement for political liberty which had continued without cessation for over seventy years. The story closes with uncounted millions of women in all parts of the world possessing the same voice as men in their government and enjoying the same rights as citizens.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, pages 1210, 1256, 1269.

Placing in libraries, 1279 to 1282. Bequeathed to National Suffrage a.s.sociation, History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V, page 205.

INTRODUCTION

A voice in the Government under which one lives is absolutely necessary to personal liberty and the right of a whole people to a voice in their Government is the first requisite for a free country.

There must be government by a const.i.tution made with the consent and help of the people which guarantees this right. It is only within the last century and a half that a const.i.tutional form of government has been secured by any countries and in the most of those where it now exists, not excepting the United States, it was won through war and bloodshed. Largely for this reason its princ.i.p.al advantage was monopolized by men, who made and carried on war, and who held that such government must be maintained by physical force and only those should have a voice in it who could fight for it if necessary. There were many other reasons why those who had thus secured their right to a vote should use their new power to withhold it from women, which was done in every country. Women then had to begin their own contest for what by the law of justice was theirs as much as men's when government by const.i.tution was established.

Their struggle lasted for nearly three-quarters of a century in the United States and half a century in Great Britain, the two largest const.i.tutional governments, and a shorter time in other countries, but it was a peaceful revolution. Not a drop of blood was spilled and toward the end of it, when in Great Britain the only "militancy"

occurred, its leaders gave the strictest orders that human life must be held sacred. Although at the last the women of Central Europe were enfranchised as the result of war it was not of their making and their part in it was not on the battlefield. This was the most unequal contest that ever was waged, for one side had to fight without weapons. It was held against women that they were not educated, but the doors of all inst.i.tutions of learning were closed against them; that they were not taxpayers, although money-earning occupations were barred to them and if married they were not allowed to own property.

They were kept in subjection by authority of the Scriptures and were not permitted to expound them from the woman's point of view, and they were prevented from pleading their cause on the public platform. When they had largely overcome these handicaps they found themselves facing a political fight without political power.

The long story of the early period of this contest will be found in the preceding volumes of this History and it is one without parallel.

No cla.s.s of men ever strove seventy or even fifty years for the suffrage. In every other reform which had to be won through legislative bodies those who were working for it had the power of the vote over these bodies. In the Introduction to Volume IV is an extended review of the helpless position of woman when in 1848 the first demand for equality of rights was made and her gradual emergence from its bondage. No sudden revolution could have gained it but only the slow processes of evolution. The founding of the public school system with its high schools, from which girls could not be excluded, solved the question of their education and inevitably led to the opening of the colleges. In the causes of temperance and anti-slavery women made their way to the platform and remained to speak for their own. During the Civil War they entered by thousands the places vacated by men and retained them partly from necessity and partly from choice.

One step led to another; business opportunities increased; women acc.u.mulated property; Legislatures were compelled to revise the laws and the church was obliged to liberalize its interpretation of the Scriptures. Women began to organize; their missionary and charity societies prepared the way to clubs for self-improvement; these in turn broadened into civic organizations whose public work carried them to city councils and State Legislatures, where they found themselves in the midst of politics and wholly without influence. Thus they were led into the movement for the suffrage. It was only a few of the clear thinkers, the far seeing, who realized at the beginning that the princ.i.p.al cause of women's inferior position and helplessness lay in their disfranchis.e.m.e.nt and until they could be made to see it they were a dead weight on the movement. Men fully understood the power that the vote would place in the hands of women, with a lessening of their own, and in the ma.s.s they did not intend to concede it.

The pioneers in the movement for the rights of women, of which the suffrage was only one, contested every inch of ground and little by little the old prejudice weakened, public sentiment was educated, barriers were broken down and women pressed forward. At the opening of the present century, while they had not obtained entire equality of rights, their status had been completely transformed in most respects and they were prepared to get what was lacking. None of these gains, however, had required the permission of the ma.s.ses of men but only of selected groups, boards of trustees, committees, legislators. It was when women found that with all their rights they were at tremendous disadvantage without political influence and asked for the suffrage that they learned the difficulty of changing const.i.tutions. They found that either National or State const.i.tutions had to be amended and in the latter case the consent of a majority of all men was necessary. In Volume VI the attempt to obtain the vote through State action is described in 48 chapters and their reading is recommended to those who insisted that this was the way women should be enfranchised. Fifty-six strenuous campaigns were conducted, with their heavy demands on time, strength and money, and as a result 13 States gave suffrage to women!

Wyoming and Utah entered the Union with it in their const.i.tutions.

Compare this result with the proclamation of the adoption of a Federal Amendment, which in a moment and a sentence conferred the complete franchise on the women of all the other States.

The leaders recognized this advantage and the National Suffrage a.s.sociation was formed for the express purpose of securing a Federal Amendment in 1869, as soon as it was learned through the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of negro men that this method was possible. A short experience with Congress convinced them that there would have to be some demonstration of woman suffrage in the States before they could hope for Federal action and therefore they carried on the work along both lines. The question had to be presented purely as one of abstract justice without appeal to the special interests of any party, but from 1890 to 1896 woman suffrage had been placed in the const.i.tutions of four States and there was hope that it was now on the way to general success. From this time, however, such idealism in politics as may have existed in the United States gradually disappeared. The Republican party was in complete control of the Government at Was.h.i.+ngton and was largely dominated by the great financial interests of the country, and this was also practically the situation in the majority of the States. The campaign fund controlled the elections and the largest contributors to this fund were the corporations, which had secured immense power, and the liquor interests, which had become a dominant force in State and national politics, without regard to party. Both of these supreme influences were implacably opposed to suffrage for women; the corporations because it would vastly increase the votes of the working cla.s.ses, the liquor interests because they were fully aware of the hostility of women to their business and everything connected with it.

This was the situation faced by those who were striving for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women. Congress was stone deaf to their pleadings and arguments and from 1894 to 1913 its committees utterly ignored the question. When a Legislature was persuaded to submit an amendment to the State const.i.tution to the decision of the voters it met the big campaign fund of the employers of labor and the thoroughly organized forces of the liquor interests, which appealed not only to the many lines of business connected with the traffic but to the people who for personal reasons favored the saloons and their collateral branches of gambling, wine rooms, etc. They were a valuable adjunct to both political parties. The suffragists met these powerful opponents without money and without votes. A reading of the State chapters will demonstrate these facts. From 1896 for fourteen years not one State enfranchised its women.

These were years, however, of marvelous development in the status of women, which every year brought nearer their political recognition.

Girls outnumbered boys in the high schools; women crowded the colleges and almost monopolized the teaching in the public schools.

Their organizations increased in size until they numbered millions and stretched across the seas. In 1904 the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was formed which soon encircled the globe. This year the International Council of Women, the largest organized body of women in existence, formed a standing committee on woman suffrage with branches in every country. In 1914 the General Federation of Women's Clubs, the largest organization in the United States, declared for woman suffrage and this was preceded or followed by a similar declaration by every State Federation. National a.s.sociations of women for whatever purpose, with almost no exceptions, demanded the franchise as an aid to their objects, until the stock objection that women do not want to vote was silenced. Women who opposed the movement became alarmed and undertook to organize in opposition, thereby exposing their weakness. Their organization was largely confined to a small group of eastern States and developed no strength west of the Allegheny mountains. Its leaders were for the most part connected with corporate interests and did not believe in universal suffrage for men. There was no evidence that they exercised any considerable influence in Congress or in any State where a vote was taken on granting the franchise to women.

An outstanding feature of the present century has been the entrance of women into the industrial field, following the work which under modern conditions was taken from the homes to the factories. Thus without their volition they became the compet.i.tors of men in practically every field of labor. Unorganized and without the protection of a vote they were underpaid and a menace to working men. In self-defense, therefore, the labor unions were compelled to demand the ballot for women. They were followed by other organizations of men until hundreds were on record as favoring woman suffrage. Men trying to bring about civic or political reforms in the old parties or through new ones and feeling their weakness turned to women with their great organizations but soon realized their inefficiency without political power. The old objections were losing their force. The lessening size of families and the removal of the old time household tasks from the home left women with a great deal of leisure which they were utilizing in countless ways that took them out into the world, so that there was no longer any weight in the charge that the suffrage would cause women to forsake their domestic duties for public life. Women of means began coming into the movement for the suffrage and relieving the financial stringency which had constantly limited the activities of the organized work. The opening of large national headquarters in New York, the great news center of the country, in 1909, marked a distinct advance in the movement which was immediately apparent throughout the country. The friendly att.i.tude of the metropolitan papers extended to the press at large. Following the example of England, parades and processions and various picturesque features were introduced in New York and other large cities which gave the syndicates and motion pictures material and interested the public. Woman suffrage became a topic of general discussion and women flocked into the suffrage organizations.

Politicians took notice but they remained cold. This political question had not yet entered politics. The leaders of the National Suffrage a.s.sociation strengthened its lines and established its outposts in every State, but they still made their appeals to unyielding committees of Congress. The Republican "machine" was in absolute control and woman suffrage had long been under its wheels with other reform measures. Then came in 1909-10 the "insurgency" in its own ranks led by members from the western States, and in those States the voters repudiated the railroad and lumber and other corporate interests and inst.i.tuted a new regime. One of its first acts was the submission of a woman suffrage amendment in the State of Was.h.i.+ngton and with a free election and a fair count it was carried in every county and received a majority of more than two to one. The revolt extended to California, whose Legislature sent an amendment to the voters in 1911 after having persistently refused to do so for the past 15 years, and here again there was victory at the polls. With the gaining of this old and influential State the extension of the movement to the Mississippi was a.s.sured.

The insurgency in the Republican party resulted in a division at the national convention in 1912 and the forming of the Progressive party headed by Theodore Roosevelt. The Resolutions Committee of the regular party gave the suffragists seven minutes to present their claims and ignored them. The new party needed a fresh, live issue and found it in woman suffrage, which was made a plank in its platform. The leaders of the National Suffrage a.s.sociation were required by its const.i.tution to remain non-partisan and with one exception did so, but thousands of women rallied to the standard of the new party. As most of them were disfranchised they brought little voting strength but the other parties were forced to admit them and for the first time they gained a foothold in politics. The division in Republican ranks resulted in putting into power the Democratic party, with an unfavorable record on woman suffrage and a President who was opposed to it, but "votes for women" was now a national political issue.

When the suffrage leaders went to the new Congress for a Federal Amendment they met a Senate Committee every member but one of which was in favor of it. The vote in the Senate on March 14, 1914, resulted in a majority but not the required two-thirds, and it was a majority of Republicans. The history of the struggle for this amendment for the next six years, through Democratic and Republican administrations, will be found in Chapter XX. Speaker Champ Clark was a steadfast friend. In 1914 William Jennings Bryan declared for it and thenceforth spoke for it many times. In 1915 President Woodrow Wilson announced his conversion to woman suffrage and in 1918 to the Federal Amendment and never wavered in his loyalty, rendering every a.s.sistance in his power. His record will be found in these volumes. In 1916, after Justice Charles Evans Hughes was nominated by the Republicans for the presidency, he announced his adherence to the Federal Amendment, being in advance of his party. This year the Republican and Democratic national platforms for the first time contained a plank in favor of woman suffrage but by State and not Federal action. A remarkable feature of the progress of this amendment in Congress was the increase of its advocates among members from the South, who for the most part believed it to be an interference with the State's rights. In 1887, when the first vote was taken in the Senate not one southern member voted for it. On the second occasion in 1914 Senators Lea of Tennessee, Ransdell of Louisiana, Sheppard of Texas, Ashurst of Arizona and Owen of Oklahoma voted in favor. In 1919 on the final vote, if Arizona, New Mexico and Delaware are included, 17 Senators from southern States cast their ballots for the Federal Amendment, and four from northern States who did so were born in the South. It received the votes of 75 Representatives from southern States. The women of every southern State suffrage a.s.sociation worked for this amendment, believing that it was hopeless to expect their enfranchis.e.m.e.nt from State action, and the above members took the same view. It received a large Republican majority in Senate and House.

While this contest was in progress many events were taking place which had an influence on it. The movement for woman suffrage was progressing in Europe but when the war broke out in 1914, involving all countries, it was thought that all advance was lost. On the contrary the splendid service of the women obtained the franchise for them in Great Britain, The Netherlands and other countries, and at the close of the war the revolution in the Central countries resulted in the suffrage for men and women alike. The war work of Canadian women brought full enfranchis.e.m.e.nt to them. When the United States entered the war the patriotic response of the women to every demand of the Government and the magnificent service they rendered swept away forever the objection to their voting because they could not do military duty.

Stimulated by the action of Was.h.i.+ngton and California other western States gave suffrage to their women and its practical working effectually disproved every charge that had been made against it. At the close of 1915 Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt became president of the National a.s.sociation and bringing to bear her great executive and organizing ability she re-formed it along the lines followed by the political parties, created a large, active working force and prepared for intensive State and national campaigns. Soon afterwards she received a legacy of almost a million dollars from Mrs. Frank Leslie to be used for promoting the cause of woman suffrage and thus she was equipped for carrying the movement to certain victory.

In 1917 the voters of New York State by an immense majority gave the full suffrage to women, guaranteeing probably 45 votes in Congress for the Federal Amendment. In 1917 and 1918 the great "drive" was made on the Legislatures to give women the right to vote for Presidential electors and this was done in 14 States, granting this important privilege to millions of women. In several States the Legislature added the franchise for munic.i.p.al and county officers. In 1917 the Legislature of Arkansas gave them the right to vote at all Primary elections and in 1918 that of Texas conferred the same, which is equivalent to the full suffrage, as the primaries decide the elections. By 1918 in 15 States women had equal suffrage with men through amendment of their const.i.tutions.[2]

In January, 1918, the Federal Prohibition Amendment went into effect, putting an end to the powerful opposition of the liquor interests to woman suffrage. All political parties were committed to the Federal Amendment. In January, 1918, it pa.s.sed the Lower House of Congress but the opposition of two Senators and finally of one prevented its submission. Meanwhile the Democratic administration of eight years had been succeeded by a Republican. This party during 44 years in power had refused to enfranchise women but now it atoned for the wrong and with the help of Democratic members the Amendment was submitted to the Legislatures on June 4, 1919. Nearly all had adjourned for two years and if women were to vote at the next presidential election special sessions would be necessary. One of the most noteworthy political feats on record was that of the president of the National Suffrage a.s.sociation, with the a.s.sistance of others, in managing to have the Governors of the various States call these sessions. It is told in the State chapters with the dramatic ending in Tennessee.

The certificate was delivered to Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby at 4 o'clock in the morning on August 26, 1920, and at 9 he issued the official proclamation that the 19th Amendment having been duly ratified by 36 State Legislatures "has become valid to all intents and purposes as a part of the Const.i.tution of the United States." It reads as follows:

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of s.e.x.

"Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Signature (Eda Husted Harper.)]

FOOTNOTES:

[2] It is worthy of note that these fifteen States offer the only instance in the world where the voters themselves granted the complete suffrage to women. Those of British Columbia, Can., gave the Provincial franchise but had not the power to give it for Dominion elections. In all countries both the State and National suffrage was conferred by a simple majority vote of their Parliaments. The U. S.

Congress had not this authority but a two-thirds majority of each House was necessary to send it to the 48 Legislatures for final decision. The Federal Suffrage Amendment had to be pa.s.sed upon by about 6,000 legislators.

THE NATIONAL AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE a.s.sOCIATION

FOREWORD