The History of Woman Suffrage Volume V Part 17

The Chicago Woman's Club of over a thousand members, a recognized force in the great city, sent its greetings through its president, Mrs. Gertrude E. Blackwelder. Mrs. Minnie E. Watkins, as president of the State Federation of Women's Clubs, gave a welcome in the name of its members.h.i.+p of 294 clubs and told of the increasing growth of suffrage sentiment among them. "Through the work of our Industrial, Civil Service and Legislative Committees," she said, "we have learned our need of the ballot." The Rev. Charles R. Henderson, Professor of Sociology, an earnest suffragist, welcomed the convention, saying in part:

As I am to represent the University of Chicago, it will not do for me to make a speech on either side. No one person can represent the sentiments of four hundred men, who all the time are in an att.i.tude of friendly hostility to anything that comes up. I think, however, there is one point of sympathy with us who are engaged in the work of investigation, trying to get beyond the frontier of present knowledge of all the sciences. It is this: As soon as anything comes to be in the possession of the majority, it loses interest for us; as long as there is something to do, we are interested in it. When the effort for woman suffrage is a thing of the past, then the people will take care of it. Our duty is to make the public sentiment and let some one else put it into legal form....

They say that women cannot manage the great questions of government. That has yet to be submitted to the final scientific test of experiment. As a matter of fact, today the one highest, finest, n.o.blest task of society, if not of government, is the task of education and the inculcation of religion and of ideals; and in this land, which in most respects leads all lands, woman has the first word in this matter, as hers is the strongest and the wisest word, and her influence, her thought and her character lead upward and on. I need not, in this presence, argue the question.

I do not speak merely for the University of Chicago. I am proud to belong to a university of letters, a republic that has its branches in all parts of the civilized world. And I am glad that, from the time I started to learn to read, in my own education in this Middle West, from my childhood with my mother, through the church, the Sunday school, the elementary and secondary schools, the college and now the university, I have seen women side by side with men, sharing the same teaching and having the same teachers. That is what we stand for in the Middle West.... The foundation of our inst.i.tutions throughout the West is this fundamental law, not to be changed, that if there is any advantage to be had, women shall have it now and forever.

Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, national recording secretary, and Miss Jane Campbell, secretary of the Pennsylvania a.s.sociation, responded.

The Hon. Oliver W. Stewart spoke on The Logic of Popular Government.

He pointed out that there has been a steady movement of mankind toward government by the people for the people and said in part:

In our own country we can see this growth clearly. Take the election of the President. There was at first no thought that the people should elect him but do you not see how quickly they a.s.similated the machinery which was provided? We have not changed the machinery but we have changed the spirit, so that instead of the electoral college deliberating and choosing a President, it is scarcely more than a stenographer to take the dictation of the public. The people have absorbed the power themselves, and you can write it as true that they do not surrender any power which they have acquired as the result of their own struggles. If any change should come it would be to give the people a more direct voice rather than a more indirect voice. Take the change in the convention system toward direct primaries. Do you not see how, in spite of politicians, the people have been writing direct primary laws? It is a part of the general movement toward popular government....

There is a steady drift in this direction the world over and it would be an anomalous condition if that movement could exist and there could be at the same time a retrograde movement as to the rights of women.... I have grown philosophical with reference to the temporary defeats that we suffer. The thing to do is to commiserate those who bring about the defeats. I look at the black disgrace with which they will live in history who said they would die for their own rights and yet were tyrants enough to deny the rights of others.... The hour is quickly coming when the genius of our government, where it is true to itself, will have to give the ballot to womankind. May that day come speedily!

This was Dr. Shaw's 60th birthday and many pleasant references had been made to it by the delegates. She began her president's address by saying: "We have never before been more enthusiastic than today.

Victory has not come in the United States but we are not working for ourselves alone. Wherever freedom comes to any woman that is our victory and when the new const.i.tution of Finland granted absolute equality to its woman citizens, that was our victory." Munic.i.p.al suffrage had been given to the women of Natal, South Africa, she said: "and now at the foot of Mt. Ararat, where the ark rested, the Catholicos, or High Priest of that conservative people and religion, the Armenians, has issued an edict that the women of the church shall not only have a voice in the election of its officers but also shall be eligible to official position." She referred to the recent defeat of the suffrage amendment in Oregon and said: "All honor to those 37,000 men who voted for it; their descendants will not be ashamed of their fathers' act. There are today organizations of Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution and there will some day be one of 'Sons and Daughters of the Evolution of Women's Freedom,' but there will never be one of the Tories who fought against that Revolution or this Evolution," and she continued:

This year I took for my motto those splendid words: "Truth loses many battles but always wins its war." We did not win save as those who fight for the truth are always the people who win.

There never was, there never will be greater defeat in any human life than the victory which comes to the man or woman who is fighting against the truth, and there never can be a greater victory to any human soul than the fact that it is fighting for the truth, whether it wins or not.... This has been a year of victory in that more women have been enfranchised than in any preceding year. We have the largest members.h.i.+p that we have ever had. We come together in hope and in the firm determination that we will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer and all the summers of our life, and then the battle will not be finished unless the victory is absolutely won for all women.... While we have cause to rejoice we have also cause for sorrow. As an organization it has been the saddest year we have known or ever can know, for there has gone out from among us the visible presence of her who was our leader for over fifty years, and I have just come with others directly from the home in Rochester where we attended the funeral services of the dear sister Mary, who was the first of the two to enter the movement and was always the faithful co-worker and home-maker. Both have folded their hands in rest since our last convention. Each gave her whole life to the cause of woman and each in pa.s.sing away left all she had to this cause. The sorrow is ours, the peace and the triumphal reward of loving service are theirs. I hope we shall spend no time in mourning and turning to the past but with our faces toward the future, strengthened by the inspiration we have received from our great leader, go on fighting her battle and G.o.d's battle until the complete victory is won.

With two exceptions this was the only national convention during the thirty-nine years that had not been animated by the presence of Miss Anthony and the second day--February 15, her 87th birthday--was largely devoted to her.[50] There were three reports on Memorials. One was presented by Mrs. May Wright Sewall (Ind.) for the Executive Committee of the National Council of Women and contemplated a bust to be executed in marble by the sculptor, Adelaide Johnson, who had made the one in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. A second was presented by Mrs. Mary T. Lewis Gannett of Rochester, N. Y., for an Anthony Memorial Building for the women students of the university of that city, who had been admitted largely through the effort of Miss Anthony. [Life and Work, page 1221.] A third was for a $100,000 Memorial Fund for the work of the National American a.s.sociation. The report of the committee for this third fund, which was presented by Mrs. Avery, stated that the nearness of success for woman suffrage now depended on securing the money to do the necessary work of propaganda, organization, publicity, etc., and that the most fitting memorial to Miss Anthony would be a fund of not less than $100,000 to be used exclusively for "the furtherance of the woman suffrage cause in the United States in such amounts and for such purposes as the general officers of the a.s.sociation shall from time to time deem best." It also provided that the officers should be permitted to select eleven women to act as trustees of this fund, six of whom should be from the official board. This report was unanimously adopted. Mrs. Upton, the national treasurer, at once appealed for pledges and the delegates responded with about $24,000. The business committee of the a.s.sociation elected as its six members Dr. Shaw, Mrs. Avery, Mrs.

Upton, Miss Blackwell, Miss Gordon and Miss Clay. Mrs. Henry Villard of New York; Mrs. Pauline Aga.s.siz Shaw of Boston and Miss Jane Addams of Chicago were the only others selected.[51]

According to the custom for a number of years Miss Lucy E. Anthony was requested to present in the name of the a.s.sociation framed portraits of Miss Anthony to various inst.i.tutions--in this instance to Hull House and the Chicago Political Equality League. Telegrams were received from the Mayor of Des Moines, Ia.; from the Utah Council of Suffrage Women; from the Interurban Woman Suffrage Council of Greater New York, saying they had observed the day by opening headquarters, and from a number of other sources telling that the birthday was being celebrated in ways that would have been pleasing to Miss Anthony.

The evening memorial services were beautiful and impressive. Mason Slade at the organ rendered the great chorus--Guilmant; Cantilene--Wheeldon; Marche Militaire--Schubert. The Rev. Mecca Marie Varney of Chicago offered prayer. During the evening Miss Marie Ludwig gave an exquisite harp solo and Mrs. Jennie F. W. Johnson sang with deep feeling Tennyson's Crossing the Bar, a favorite poem of Miss Anthony's. A telegram of greeting from the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was sent through its president, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt. A tribute of an intimate and loving nature was paid by Miss Emily Howland of Sherwood, a friend of half a century, in which she said: "The first time I ever met Miss Anthony was at an anti-slavery meeting in my own s.h.i.+re town of Auburn, N. Y., which was broken up by a mob and we took refuge with Mrs. Martha Wright, a sister of Lucretia Mott." She spoke of Miss Anthony's "genius for friends.h.i.+p" and quoted the lines: "The bravest are the tenderest, the loving are the daring."

Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery gave a number of instances during their travel in Europe which showed Miss Anthony's strong humanitarianism.

Mrs. Fannie Barrier Williams of Chicago paid touching tribute in behalf of the colored people, in which she said: "My presence on this platform shows that the gracious spirit of Miss Anthony still survives in her followers.... When Miss Anthony took up the cause of women she did not know them by their color, nationality, creed or birth, she stood only for the emanc.i.p.ation of women from the thraldom of s.e.x. She became an invincible champion of anti-slavery. In the half century of her unremitting struggle for liberty, more liberty, and complete liberty for negro men and women in chains and for white women in their helpless subjection to man's laws, she never wavered, never doubted, never compromised. She held it to be mockery to ask man or woman to be happy or contented if not free. She saw no subst.i.tute for liberty.

When slavery was overthrown and the work of reconstruction began she was still unwearied and watchful. She had an intimate acquaintance with the leading statesmen of the times. Her judgment and advice were respected and heard in much of the legislation that gave a status of citizens.h.i.+p to the millions of slaves set free."

The princ.i.p.al address was made by the Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones of Chicago, a devoted friend, with whose courageous and independent spirit Miss Anthony had been in deep sympathy.[52] Tributes were paid to other devoted adherents to the cause who had died during the year and Henry B. Blackwell in closing his own said: "The workers pa.s.s on but the work remains." Dr. Shaw took up the words, making them the text of a beautiful memorial address, calling the long list one by one, beginning with the Anthony sisters and Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker and naming among the other veteran workers: Rosa L. Segur, Ohio; Emily B. Ketcham, Michigan; the Hon. H. S. Greenleaf, Professor Henry A. Ward, Eliza Thayer, Emogene Dewey and Mrs. James Sargent, New York; Virginia Durant Young, South Carolina; Ellen Powell Thompson, District of Columbia; Laura Moore, Vermont; Mrs. Henry W. Blair and Mrs. Oliver Branch, New Hamps.h.i.+re; Susan W. Lippincott, New Jersey, and many others.

The all-pervading spirit of the convention was that of carrying forward Miss Anthony's work. The board of officers was re-elected almost unanimously except that Dr. Jeffreys Myers, who wished to retire as second auditor, was replaced by Mrs. Mary S. Sperry of San Francisco. Mrs. Avery, for twenty-one years corresponding secretary, had returned from a long sojourn in Europe and the desire was so strong to have her on the board again that the office of second vice-president was created. At Mrs. Florence Kelley's insistence she was allowed to yield the first vice-presidency to Mrs. Avery and take the second place as having less responsibility.

The report of the headquarters secretary, Miss Elizabeth J. Hauser, told of the sending out of 19,000 letters and 182,264 pieces of literature within the year. It gave the names of many eminent men and women who were contributors to this literature, much of which first appeared in prominent magazines and newspapers, and spoke of the excellent propaganda work of _The Public_, edited by Louis F. Post. It emphasized the important accession of the _North American Review_ and the Harper publications, which had come under the management of Colonel George Harvey. The report told of the bequest of Miss Anthony to the National American a.s.sociation of all the remaining bound volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage, which had been sent to the headquarters and weighed ten tons.[53] Fifty sets had been sold during the year. Files of the Reports of the national conventions from 1900 to 1906 inclusive had been placed in one hundred of the largest libraries in the United States. The a.s.sociation arranged with Mrs.

Harper for the exclusive sale of the Life and Work of Susan B.

Anthony. The convention voted that _Progress_, edited by Mrs. Upton, should be changed to a weekly and enlarged, and every suffrage club was urged to subscribe for _Jus Suffragii_, the official paper of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. Thousands of copies of new and valuable literature had been sold. After the press work was turned over to the headquarters 1,200 copies of articles of national interest were supplied each week to the fifty-eight State chairmen of the press committee from July to January and 28,875 copies of 118 news items and 50 special articles were sent to prominent newspapers.

The important work with organizations and their conventions was not neglected and during the past year they were asked specifically for a resolution calling on Congress to submit a Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment, with the following result:

The American Federation of Labor at its annual meeting in Minneapolis covered this request in a series of carefully worded resolutions. Other important organizations which gave official endors.e.m.e.nt within the year are the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union, National Purity Conference, National Free Baptist Woman's Missionary Society, Spiritualists of the United States and Canada, Ladies of the Modern Maccabees, International Brotherhood of Bookbinders, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Patrons of Husbandry, National Grange, and the United Mine Workers of America. To these we may add the fourteen other national organizations reported in previous years which have received fraternal delegates from our a.s.sociation or given formal endors.e.m.e.nt, making a total of twenty-five large a.s.sociations which responded favorably to our "convention resolutions"

requests.

For the first time the General Federation of Women's Clubs invited our president to take part in the program at the Biennial. Resolutions have been reported to headquarters from the State W. C. T. U.'s of seven States; the Letter Carriers'

a.s.sociations of Illinois, Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania; the State Granges of thirteen States; the State Federations of Labor of fifteen States. The Prohibitionists of eight States have had woman suffrage in their party platforms; the Socialists always declare for it and in California the Democrats, the Independence League and the Union Labor parties incorporated planks in their State platforms. The State Teachers' a.s.sociations of California and Illinois, the Sons of Temperance of Connecticut and Illinois, the Good Templars of Maine, the Congress of Mothers and the Federations of Women's Clubs of Illinois and New Hamps.h.i.+re are among other organizations which have acted favorably on some phase of the woman suffrage question.[54]

Sat.u.r.day afternoon was devoted entirely to social affairs. They began with a luncheon given at Hull House by Miss Jane Addams to officers, delegates and alternates, after which the activities of this remarkable inst.i.tution were explained. Systematic sight-seeing was carried out, groups of the guests being personally conducted to the Field Columbian Museum, the Art Museum, the big department stores and other points of interest. One group went to Chicago University, where Dr. Shaw addressed the students of the Women's Union and the College Girls' Suffrage Club. Afterwards they were entertained by the Dean of Women, Miss Marian Talbot. In the evening the Chicago Woman's Club gave a large reception, its president, Mrs. Blackwelder, and the chairman of the Social Committee, Miss Clara Dixon, being a.s.sisted in receiving by the officers of the a.s.sociation. Its handsome club rooms in the Fine Arts Building were placed at the service of the delegates throughout the convention.

Ministers of Chicago who opened the sessions with prayers were Dr. J.

A. Rondthaler of the Normal Park Presbyterian Church; Dr. Austin K. de Blois of the First Baptist Church, and the Rev. Jean F. Loba of the First Congregational Church, Evanston. A number of pulpits in the city were filled by officers and delegates Sunday morning. The Studebaker Theater was taken for the regular service of the convention in the afternoon in order to accommodate the large audience. The Rev. Kate Hughes of Chicago offered prayer. Dr. Shaw presided and read a message from Miss Mary S. Anthony dictated a few days before her death, when Miss Shaw asked her what word she would like to send to the convention. It said in part:

Until we, a so-called Christian nation, put into practice those principles of justice which we claim are the foundation of our national greatness, we cannot hope to inspire confidence in the people of the world in our lofty pretensions of freedom and fair play for all. The wrong which today outranks all others is the disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the mothers of the race. So long as this injustice toward women continues, just so long will men fail to recognize justice in its application to each other. This one question puts all else into the background and until we can establish equality between men and women we shall never realize the full development of which manhood and womanhood are capable.

Because I believe this so thoroughly I have given the best of myself and the best work of my life to help obtain political freedom for women, knowing that upon this rests the hope not only of the freedom of men but of the onward civilization of the world. I therefore urge upon the delegates and members of the National a.s.sociation not to lose courage, no matter what befalls, but to work on in hope and faith, knowing well that the time of the coming of woman's political liberty depends largely upon the zeal and unwearying service of those who believe in its justice.

The Rev. Herbert S. Bigelow of Cincinnati in a strong address showed the Value of the Ballot. Miss Addams told with much feeling of the recent campaign for the Munic.i.p.al franchise, the objections they had to meet, the character of the opposition and how hard it was for women to be patient.

Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch gave an able address under the t.i.tle "Why Not?" a study in Prejudice and Superst.i.tion, reviewing the objections to woman suffrage and finding their origin in Orientalism, in the military ideal, in political expediency. He ended his refutation of all of them by saying: "All our American inst.i.tutions will be protected and benefited when we open the doors and give women, who never should have been denied it, the right to govern themselves, to govern the country in conjunction with men and to decide the issues that affect their own interests. Men have had this right for themselves alone too long. The day will come, my sisters, when the conscience of the world will be aroused to such a degree that no one will dare question the justice of your movement."

Many greetings were received through letters, telegrams and fraternal delegates. Prof. John A. Scott, representing president A. M. Harris of Northwestern University, Evanston, brought an invitation for speakers to address the students and Miss Gordon and Miss Caroline Lexow responded. In his greeting Professor Scott said: "I believe in woman suffrage because I believe in the home.... I don't care a whit for the argument that women with property should have a vote. Property will always be represented and it does not so much matter whether the property-holding women have a vote or not but it is of immense importance to those women who work for their living. That they have no representation is a great menace to those who are nominally free but who must compete with slaves. Women are economic ent.i.ties and they should be represented. Labor without representation is as wrong as taxation without representation."

E. M. Nockels, fraternal delegate from the American Federation of Labor, addressed the convention and read a letter from its president, Samuel Gompers, expressing the hope of universal suffrage for women.

Mrs. Emma S. Olds brought greetings from the Ladies of the Maccabees of the World, and Mrs. Martin Barbe, the first vice-president, from the National Council of Jewish Women. A letter from Mrs. Mary Wood Swift (Calif.), president of the National Council of Women, gave its fraternal greetings. A cordial letter was read from Mrs. Mary B. Clay of Kentucky and telegrams from Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford, Dr. Frances Woods, Mrs. Ida Porter Boyer and the Canadian Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation. Telegrams of appreciation were sent to Julia Ward Howe, Clara Barton, Caroline E. Merrick, Emily P. Collins, Col. T. W.

Higginson, Margaret W. Campbell, Judith W. Smith, Caroline M.

Severance, Emma J. Bartol, Armenia S. White, Elizabeth Smith Miller, Ellen S. Sargent, Sarah L. Willis and Charlotte L. Pierce, all old and beloved suffrage workers.

The symposium on Industrial Conditions of Women and Children, with Mrs. Henrotin presiding, occupied one afternoon. She pointed out the revolution in the work of women by its being taken from the home into the open market where they had to follow; described their handicaps, the immense importance of their labor, the business ability that many had developed, the property they had acc.u.mulated, the taxes they pay; she said if they had a voice in deciding how these taxes should be spent it would not only be a splendid thing for the city financially but morally, and urged that they should have the power of the suffrage. Graham Romeyn Taylor of Chicago paid high tribute to the work of women's organizations in all movements for civic improvement and described that of the Women's Clubs in Chicago; spoke of the Consumer's League also and declared the Women's Trade Union League most effective of all in bettering the condition of working women. He predicted close cooperation between this League and the National Suffrage a.s.sociation. Miss Alice Henry of Australia spoke very effectively from her knowledge of the conditions of labor in her own country and the investigation she was making in the United States.

Miss Casey, president of the Chicago Working Women's Suffrage a.s.sociation, gave facts from personal knowledge showing their need of the vote. James C. Kelliher, former president of the National Letter Carriers' a.s.sociation, spoke briefly and to the point. Miss Mary McDowell of Chicago made the princ.i.p.al address ent.i.tled The Working Women as a National a.s.set, in which she showed how little conception Congress and the Courts had of the legislation needed in their behalf and the sins of omission and commission that had resulted. In closing she said:

We need a body of facts so strong that the Judiciary will see the light. We need a body of facts that will teach housekeepers not to scorn these women because they can not get a cook. We need a body of facts to teach working men that this work of women is something which has come to stay. There are going to be more women earning their living in the future than in the past. These girls are pioneers in a movement that we do not yet quite understand. I do not believe that our Heavenly Father permits so large a movement as these five million women in one country earning their own living without there being in it something that is for the best.... As a means to our work we want the suffrage.

We all get very tired of the woman question. I will discuss the human question with any one but I will not discuss the woman question, because I think that is past. If women are going into industry, if they are going to have their places of responsibility, then they must more and more meet the responsibility that their brothers have with whom they work. It is not fair to the working brother to let the girls come in and cut down the wages and have no sense of responsibility, no feeling of permanency. It is a very great danger. Therefore, working women should have the ballot to make them feel that they, too, are responsible citizens....

All reverence to the work that the suffragists have done! We have always honored dear Miss Anthony and we all owe grat.i.tude to you women who have been so long in this cause making a way for the rest of us. The working women are joining your ranks because they know that they must do so.

The report of the Congressional Committee, Mrs. Catt chairman, was read by Mrs. Kelley. It said that after the excellent hearings before the committees of Congress the preceding winter had no effect it was decided to ask the cooperation of the General Federation of Women's Clubs. This was done and its Industrial Advisory Board agreed to send out a circular letter. The a.s.sociation's Congressional Committee prepared one which the federation's board sent to 4,000 individual clubs asking them to question the members of Congress from their districts as to their opinion of a Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment and the request was largely complied with. A resolution was adopted that the a.s.sociation urge concerted action among the State auxiliaries to secure the submission by Congress of a Sixteenth Amendment forbidding disfranchis.e.m.e.nt on account of s.e.x and that they be recommended to make it a feature of their work to obtain from their Legislatures a resolution in favor of such an amendment. A telegram of greeting was sent to Mrs. Catt and she was appointed fraternal delegate to the Peace Conference in New York in April.

Hard and conscientious work was shown in the reports of the chairmen of all the committees: Legislation for Civil Rights, Mrs. Lucretia L.

Blankenburg; Peace and Arbitration, Mrs. Lucia Ames Mead; Presidential Suffrage, Henry B. Blackwell; Libraries, Mrs. Ida Porter Boyer; Literature, Miss Alice Stone Blackwell; Enrollment, Mrs. Oreola Williams Haskell; Members.h.i.+p, Miss Laura Clay, and others. Miss Clay urged that the organization of the political parties be taken as a model by the suffrage societies. As usual the State reports were among the most interesting features of the convention, for they gave in detail the nation-wide work that was being done for woman suffrage. At this time that of Oklahoma, Mrs. Kate L. Biggars, president, had a prominent place, as the a.s.sociation had been helping its women during the past year in an effort to have the convention which was framing a const.i.tution for statehood put in a clause for woman suffrage. A corps of able national workers was there for months while the most strenuous work was done but the only result was the franchise on school matters.

The report on Oregon was read by the corresponding secretary, Miss Gordon. The campaign there for a woman suffrage amendment to the State const.i.tution was possibly the most strenuous that had ever been made for this purpose and the National a.s.sociation had given more a.s.sistance, financial and otherwise, than to any other, a number of its officers going there in person. Among them were Miss Clay and Miss Gordon, who made full reports.[55]

The report of Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, national treasurer, showed that the receipts of the a.s.sociation for 1906 had been $18,203 and it had expended on the Oregon campaign $18,075, a sum equal to its year's income. A portion of the money, however, was taken from the reserve fund and $8,000 had been subscribed directly for this campaign by individuals and States. The total disburs.e.m.e.nts for the year had been $25,933. The power of the a.s.sociation to rise above defeat and its courage and determination, so many times shown, were strikingly ill.u.s.trated on this occasion when the convention voted to raise a fund of $100,000 and pledged $24,000 of this amount before it adjourned.

The Resolutions presented by Mr. Blackwell, chairman of the committee, covered a wide range of subjects, among them the following:

In view of the fact that in only 14 of our States have married mothers any legal right to the custody, control and earnings of their minor children, we urge the women of the other States to work for laws giving to mothers equal rights with fathers.

The traffic in women and girls which is carried on in the United States and in other countries is a heinous blot upon civilization and we demand of Congress and our State Legislatures that every possible step be taken to suppress the infamous traffic in this country.

We urge upon Congress and State Legislatures the enactment of laws prohibiting the employment of children under 16 years of age in mines, stores or factories.

We favor the adoption of State amendments establis.h.i.+ng direct legislation by the voters through the initiative and referendum.

Inasmuch as in the second Hague Peace Conference there will be offered the greatest opportunity in human history to lessen the burden of militarism, therefore we request the President of the United States to approve the recommendations for the action of that conference which were presented by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, to-wit: (1) An advisory world congress; (2) a general arbitration treaty; (3) the limitation of armaments; (4) protection of private property at sea in time of war; (5) investigation by an impartial commission of difficulties between nations before declaration of hostilities.

The convention at one evening session listened to interesting addresses by Mrs. Mary E. Coggeshall, president of the Iowa Suffrage a.s.sociation, Then and Now; Professor Emma M. Perkins of Western Reserve University (Ohio), Educational Ideals; Louis F. Post, editor of _The Public_, The Denatured Woman. Mrs. Avery gave a much enjoyed report of the Congress of the International Suffrage Alliance in Copenhagen the preceding August. On the last evening addresses were made by John Z. White of Chicago; Mrs. Upton on What Next? Miss Lexow on The Place of Equal Suffrage in Higher Education. Dr. Shaw closed the convention with a few eloquent words of encouragement, hope and prophecy for the success of the cause to which they gladly gave to the utmost their time, their labor and the best of everything they possessed.