The History of Woman Suffrage Volume V Part 47

Bouimistrow, a member of the Russian Relief Council, spoke of the warm feeling of that country for the United States and the bond between them created by the war in which they had a common enemy. Mrs. Nellie McClung, a leader of the Canadian suffragists, described what the war had meant to the women of the Dominion, and, as the _Woman Citizen_ said in its account, "kept her hearers wavering between laughter and tears as she hid her own emotion behind a veil of stoicism and humor."

The convention ended with a ma.s.s meeting at the theater on Sunday afternoon at three o'clock with a notable audience such as can a.s.semble only in Was.h.i.+ngton. Mrs. Catt presided. Mrs. McClung told enthusiastically the story of How Suffrage Came to the Women of Canada in 1916 and 1917, and Miss Fraser related how the work of women during the war had made it impossible for the British Government longer to deny them the franchise, that now only awaited the a.s.sent of the House of Lords, which was near at hand. It was always left to Dr. Shaw to finish the program. One who had attended many suffrage conventions said of her at this time: "As ever, Dr. Shaw's oratory was a marked feature of the week's proceedings. Sometimes she was the able advocate of loyalty to the country; sometimes she rose to heights of supplication for an applied democracy which shall include women; sometimes the mischief that is in her bubbled and sparkled to the surface."

Mrs. Catt closed the meeting with ringing words of inspiration, with a call for more and better work than had ever been done before and with a prophecy that the long-awaited victory was almost won. This convention, which had been held under such unfavorable auspices, proved to have been one of the best in way of accomplishment, and, although the papers were overflowing with news of the war, they came to the national suffrage press bureau from 44 States with excellent accounts of the convention; there were over 300 ill.u.s.trated "stories"

and it was estimated that it had received half a million words of "publicity."

It had been customary to have a hearing on the Federal Suffrage Amendment before the committees of every new Congress and this year an extra session had been called in the spring. As the question of a special Committee on Woman Suffrage in the Lower House was under consideration no hearing before its Judiciary Committee was asked for but a hearing took place before the Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage April 20. This was largely a matter of routine as the entire committee was ready to report favorably the resolution for the amendment.

Chairman Jones announced that the entire forenoon had been set apart for the hearing, which would be in charge of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation. Mrs.

Catt said: "The Senate Committee of Woman Suffrage was established in 1883. Thirty-four years have pa.s.sed since then and seventeen Congresses. We confidently believe that we are appearing before the last of these committees and that it will be your immortal fame, Mr.

Chairman, to present the last report for woman suffrage to the United States Senate." With words of highest praise she introduced Senator John F. Shafroth of Colorado, "who has been our staunch and unfailing friend through trial and adversity."

Senator Shafroth answered conclusively from the twenty-four years'

experience of his State the stock objections to woman suffrage, which he declared to be "simply another step in the evolution of government which has been going on since the dawn of civilization." He asked to have printed as part of his speech two chapters of Mrs. Catt's new book Woman Suffrage by Const.i.tutional Amendment, which was so ordered.

Senator Kendrick of Wyoming, former Governor, gave his experience of woman suffrage in that State for thirty-eight years. He declared that the early settlers were of the type of the Revolutionary Fathers and gladly gave to woman any right they claimed. He testified to the help he had received from them "in the promotion of every piece of progressive legislation" and said: "If for no other reason than the forces that are fighting woman suffrage, every decent man ought to line up in favor of it." He closed as follows: "Here and now I want to give this Const.i.tutional Amendment my unqualified endors.e.m.e.nt. No State that has adopted woman suffrage has ever even considered a plan to get along without it. It is soon realized that the votes of women are not for sale at any price, and, while they align themselves with the different parties, one thing is always and preeminently true--they never fail to put principle above partisans.h.i.+p and patriotism above patronage." Senator William Howard Thompson of Kansas sketched the steady progress of woman suffrage in his State, told of its beneficent results and submitted a comprehensive address which he had made before the Senate in 1914.

The committee listened with much interest to the first woman member of Congress, Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana, who reviewed the almost insurmountable difficulties of amending many State const.i.tutions for woman suffrage and made an earnest plea for the Federal Amendment. Senator Charles S. Thomas of Colorado, who for the past twenty-five years had been a consistent and never failing friend of woman suffrage, said in beginning: "I learned this lesson in my early manhood by reading the addresses of and listening to such advocates as Susan B. Anthony," and he summed up his strong speech by saying: "The matter is simply one of abstract and of concrete justice.

We cannot preach universal suffrage unless we practice it and we can never practice it while fifty per cent. of our population is disfranchised." Senator Reed Smoot of Utah, to whom the women of his State could always look for help in this and every other good cause, said in his brief remarks: "I have for many years watched the work and the sacrifices by many of the best women of this country to bring this question before the people and convince them of its justice and righteousness and I have gloried with them in every victory they have won. Nothing on earth will stop it. The country will not much longer tolerate it that a woman shall have the privilege of voting in one State and upon moving into another be disfranchised."

Mrs. Catt stated that Senators Chamberlain of Oregon and Johnson of California, were not able to be present and asked that the favorable speeches they would have made be put in the Congressional Record, which was granted. Senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana made a thorough a.n.a.lysis of the att.i.tude of the Federal Const.i.tution toward suffrage and its gradual extension and declared that it was now "the duty of the government to see that every one of its citizens was a.s.sured of this fundamental right." The hearing was closed by Mrs. Catt with a comprehensive review of the status of woman suffrage throughout the world and the naming of the many countries where it prevailed. She pointed out that Great Britain and her colonies had recognized the political rights of women as the United States had never done, and, now that they were to be called on for the supreme sacrifices of the war, the British Government was granting them the franchise, which our own Government was still withholding. "This fact," she said, "has saddened the lives of women, it has dimmed their vision of American ideals and lowered their respect for our Government. The tremendous capacity of women for constructive work, for upbuilding the best in civilization and for enthusiastic patriotism has been crushed. In consequence this greatest force for good has been minimized and the entire nation is the loser." Senator Walsh's and Mrs. Catt's speeches were printed in a separate pamphlet and circulated by the thousands.

On April 26 the Senate Committee granted a hearing to that branch of the suffrage movement called the National Woman's Party. Miss Anne Martin, its vice-chairman, presided and able speeches were made by Mrs. Mary Ritter Beard and Mrs. Rheta Childe Dorr of New York; Mrs.

Richard F. Wainwright of the District; Miss Madeline Z. Doty and Miss Ernestine Evans, war correspondents; Miss Alice Carpenter, chairman of the New York Women's Navy League; Miss Rankin and Dudley Field Malone, collector of the port of New York. On May 3 the National Anti-Suffrage a.s.sociation claimed a hearing. Its president, Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge, introduced the president of the New York branch, the wife of U. S.

Senator James W. Wadsworth, Jr., who presided. The speakers were Miss Minnie Bronson, national secretary; Miss Lucy Price of Ohio; Judge Oscar Leser of Maryland and Mrs. A. J. George of Ma.s.sachusetts. Their speeches, which fill twenty pages of the printed report, comprise a full resume of the arguments against the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women and will be read with curiosity by future students of this question. On May 15, at the request of the National Woman's Party, the committee granted a supplementary hearing at which the speakers were J. A. H.

Hopkins of New Jersey, representing the new Progressive party being organized; John Spargo of Vermont, representing the Socialist Party; Virgil Henshaw, national chairman of the Prohibition party and Miss Mabel Vernon. They gave to the committee copies of a "memorial" which they had presented to President Wilson urging immediate action by Congress. It was signed also by former Governor David I. Walsh of Ma.s.sachusetts for the Progressive Democrats and Edward A. Rumely for the Progressive Republicans. The pamphlet of these four hearings, of which the Senate Committee furnished 10,000 copies, was widely used for propaganda.

A hearing was held on May 18 before the Committee on Rules of the Lower House, with the entire members.h.i.+p present: Representatives Edward W. Pou, N. C.; chairman; James C. Cantrill, Ky.; Martin D.

Foster, Ills.; Finis J. Garrett, Tenn.; "Pat" Harrison, Miss.; M.

Clyde Kelly, Penn.; Irvine L. Lenroot, Wis.; Daniel J. Riordan, N. Y.; Thomas D. Schall, Minn.; Bertrand H. Snell, N. Y.; William R. Wood, Ind. Its purpose was to urge favorable report for a Committee on Woman Suffrage. The speakers for the National American Suffrage a.s.sociation were Judge Raker, Representatives Jeannette Rankin of Montana; Edward T. Taylor of Colorado; Frank W. Mondell of Wyoming and Edward Keating of Colorado; Mrs. Maud Wood Park, chairman, and Mrs. Helen H.

Gardener, member of the a.s.sociation's Congressional Committee. The speakers for the National Woman's Party were Miss Martin, Miss Maud Younger, Mrs. Wainwright, Miss Vernon, Representatives George F.

O'Shaughnessy of Rhode Island; C. N. McArthur of Oregon; Carl Hayden of Arizona. On December 13 a Committee on Woman Suffrage was appointed.

FOOTNOTES:

[107] Signed: Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, honorary president; Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president; Mrs. Walter McNab Miller, Mrs. Stanley McCormick and Miss Esther G. Ogden, vice-presidents; Mrs. Frank J.

Shuler, corresponding secretary; Mrs. Thomas Jefferson Smith, recording secretary; Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers, treasurer; Mrs. Pattie Ruffner Jacobs, auditor; Mrs. Maud Wood Park, chairman Congressional Committee; Miss Rose Young, chairman of Press; Mrs. Arthur L.

Livermore, chairman of Literature.

[108] On the list were: All the members of the Cabinet except Secretary of State Lansing; nineteen U.S. Senators and fourteen prominent Representatives; Speaker Champ Clark; U.S. Commissioner of Education Philander P. Claxton; a.s.sistant Secretary of Agriculture Carl Vrooman; Justices of the Supreme Court of the District Wendell P.

Stafford and Frederick L. Siddons; Secretary to the President Joseph P. Tumulty; Commissioners of the District Louis Brownlow and W. Gwynn Gardiner; former Commissioners Henry F. MacFarland and Simon Wolf; Major Raymond S. Pullman, Chief of Police; Resident Commissioner and Mme. Jaime De Veyra (Philippine Islands); Resident Commissioner Felix C. Davila (Porto Rico); John Barrett, director of the Pan-American Union; Major-General W. C. Gorgas; the Reverends U. G. B. Pierce, Henry N. Couden, chaplain of the House of Representatives; James Shera Montgomery, Rabbi Abram Simon, John Van Schaick, president of the School Board; Theodore Noyes, editor of the _Evening Star_; Arthur Brisbane, the _Times_; C. T. Brainerd, the Was.h.i.+ngton _Herald_; W. P.

Spurgeon, the Was.h.i.+ngton _Post_; Gilbert Grosvenor, editor of the _National Geographic Magazine_; J. Leftwich Sinclair, president, and Thomas Grant, secretary of the Was.h.i.+ngton Chamber of Commerce; Dr.

Harry A. Garfield, president Williams College and director Fuel Administration for the United States; Edward P. Costigan, U. S. Tariff Commission; Frank A. Vanderlip, V. Everit Macy, on War Boards; Samuel Gompers, president American Federation of Labor; Alexander Graham Bell; Gifford Pinchot; Dr. Ryan Devereux; General Julian S. Carr, commander-in-chief United Confederate Veterans.

Miss Julia Lathrop, chief of the Children's Bureau; Mrs. Mary C. C.

Bradford, president, and Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, secretary National Education a.s.sociation; Mrs. George Thacher Guernsey, president-general Daughters of the American Revolution; Mrs. Cordelia R. P. Odenheimer, president-general Daughters of the Confederacy; Miss Janet Richards; Mrs. Charles Boughton Wood; Mrs. Blaine Beale; Mrs. Ellis Meredith; Mrs. Christian Hemmick; Mrs. Herbert C. Hoover; Mrs. A. Garrison McClintock.

[109] The names of the thirteen were given as follows: Miss Heloise Meyer of Ma.s.sachusetts, first auditor of the a.s.sociation, scheduled for canteen work in France. Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, member of the Congressional Committee of the a.s.sociation, now on governmental a.s.signment in Europe. Miss Irene C. Boyd, of the New York Suffrage Party, serving in a United States base hospital with the American Expeditionary Forces in France. Dr. Esther Pohl-Lovejoy of Portland, Ore., serving with the party sent by the "Fund for French Wounded."

Miss Mary W. Dewson, chairman of legislative committee of the Ma.s.sachusetts Suffrage a.s.sociation, social worker in France at the call of Major Grayson M. P. Murphy. Miss Lodovine LeMoyne, publicity chairman of the Fall River Equal Suffrage League, serving in a United States base hospital with the American Expeditionary Forces in France.

Miss Elizabeth G. Bissell, corresponding secretary of the Iowa Equal Suffrage a.s.sociation in the French Red Cross canteen. Miss Susan P.

Ryerson, former corresponding secretary Chicago Equal Suffrage a.s.sociation, now bacteriological expert attached to base hospital in France. Miss Lucile Atcherson, of the Ohio a.s.sociation, serving as secretary to Miss Anne Morgan in her relief work in France. To these nine will be added the names of the four doctors leading the New York Infirmary Hospital Unit, which is now seeking the support and authorization of the National Suffrage a.s.sociation--Caroline Finley, Mary Lee Edwards, Anna Von Sholly and Alice Gregory.

[110] See Mrs. McCormick's complete account in the last chapter on The War Work of Organized Suffragists prepared for this volume.

[111] This Address to Congress in handsome pamphlet form was presented to every member in person by the various women of the a.s.sociation's Congressional Committee. After the Federal Amendment was submitted by Congress it was revised, printed under the t.i.tle An Address to Legislatures, and through the mail or by the State suffrage workers was put into the hands of every one of the 6,000 members of the forty-eight State Legislatures.

[112] For information regarding the bequest of Mrs. Frank Leslie see Appendix.

[113] This organization, originated by Mrs. Catt even to the name, was effected at the national convention in St. Louis, March, 1919.

CHAPTER XVIII.

NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1918-1919.

For the first time since it was founded in 1869 the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation in 1918 omitted its annual convention.

Suffragists were accustomed to strenuous effort but this year strained to the last ounce the strength of all engaged in national work. The Congressional Committee could not secure the respite of a single day and were summoning women from all parts of the country for service in Was.h.i.+ngton and demanding extra work from them at home, telegrams, letters, influence from the const.i.tuencies, etc. There was a vote Jan.

10, 1918, in the Lower House and a continual pressure from that moment to get a vote in the Senate, which did not come till October and was adverse. Then the committee pushed on without stopping. Mrs. Shuler, the corresponding secretary, had been in the Michigan, South Dakota and Oklahoma campaigns all summer and was exhausted. The three States were carried for suffrage and when the election was over all the forces were used to obtain Presidential suffrage in the big legislative year beginning January, 1919. It was a question of pressing forward to victory or stopping to prepare for and hold a convention and lose the opportunities for gains in Congress.

During the first ten months of 1918 the vast conflict in Europe had gone steadily on; the United States had sent over millions of soldiers and other millions were in training camps on this side of the ocean; transportation was blocked; the advanced cost of living had brought distress to many households; thousands of families were in mourning, and everywhere suffragists were devoting time and strength to those heavy burdens of war which always fall on women. By November 1, when it would have been necessary to issue the call for a convention, there was no prospect of a change in these hard conditions, and when on November 11 the Armistice was suddenly declared no one was interested in anything but the end of the war and its world-wide aftermath.[114]

During the dark days of 1918, however, there had come a tremendous advance in the status of woman suffrage. The magnificent way in which women had met the demands of war, their patriotic service, their loyalty to the Government, had swept away the old-time objections to their enfranchis.e.m.e.nt and fully established their right to full equality in all the privileges of citizens.h.i.+p. Early in the winter the Lower House of Congress by a two-thirds vote declared in favor of submitting to the Legislatures an amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution, the object for which the National Suffrage a.s.sociation had been formed, and the Parliament of Great Britain had fully enfranchised the majority of its women. In the spring the Canadian Parliament conferred full Dominion suffrage on women. Before and after the Armistice the nations of Europe that had overthrown their Emperors and Kings gave women equal voting rights with men. In November at their State elections, Michigan, South Dakota and Oklahoma gave complete suffrage to women. The U. S. Senate was still holding out by a majority of two against submitting the Federal Amendment but it was almost universally recognized that the seventy years' struggle for woman suffrage in this country was nearing the end.

With the opening of the year 1919 the progress was evident by the addition of seven more States to those whose Legislatures had granted the Presidential franchise to women; that of Tennessee included Munic.i.p.al suffrage and that of Texas had given Primary suffrage the preceding year. The situation now seemed to require an early convention of the National a.s.sociation and the time was especially opportune, as this year marked the 50th anniversary of its founding. A Call was issued, therefore, for a Jubilee Convention to be held in March, fifteen months after the one of 1917. As it was the intention to launch the organization of Women Voters it was decided to meet in the central part of the country and the invitation of St. Louis was accepted.[115]

The Report of the annual convention of 1901, with which this volume begins, filled 130 printed pages; the Report of 1919 filled 322, which makes a complete account of its proceedings impracticable. Their character had been changing from year to year and at this convention it was almost transformed. At the public evening meetings there were no longer eloquent pleas and arguments for the ballot and the daytime sessions were not devoted to discussions of the many phases of the work. Now there was business and political consideration of the best and quickest methods of bringing the movement to an end and the most effective use that could be made of the suffrage already so largely won. It was a little difficult for some of the older workers to accustom themselves to the change, which deprived the convention of its old-time crusading, consecrated spirit, but the younger ones were full of ardor and enthusiasm over the limitless opportunities that were nearly within their grasp.

On Sunday evening the national officers and directors held an informal reception in the Hotel Statler for the delegates and all the sessions were held in this hotel, with the two evening ma.s.s meetings in the Odeon Theater. The convention opened Monday evening, March 24, with the president, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, in the chair. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, who was an ordained Methodist minister, p.r.o.nounced the invocation and the community singing at this and all sessions was led by Mrs. W.D. Steele of St. Louis.[116] The Mayor, Henry W. Kiel, extended a cordial welcome to the city and pledged his earnest support of woman suffrage. Mrs. Walter McNab Miller, president of the Missouri suffrage a.s.sociation, gave the welcome from the State. Mrs. B.

Morrison Fuller, president of the Daughters of Pioneers, brought their greeting and referred to a convention held in St. Louis in 1872, introducing three ladies who were present at that time.

Dr. Shaw, honorary president, took the chair and presented Mrs. Catt.

Her address, The Nation Calls, was a strong appeal for an organization of Women Voters to be formed in the States where they were enfranchised. The plan was outlined and she asked: "Shall the women voters go forward doing their work as free women in the great world while the non-free women are left to struggle on alone toward liberty unattained?" She showed how powerful an influence such a coordinated body could wield and among its primary objects she pointed out the Federal Suffrage Amendment, corrections in the present laws and true democracy for the world. She named nine vital needs of the Government at the present time, to which the proposed organization could contribute--compulsory education, English the national language, education of adults, higher qualifications for citizens.h.i.+p, direct citizens.h.i.+p for women and not through marriage, compulsory lessons in citizens.h.i.+p through foreign language papers, oath of allegiance as qualification for citizens.h.i.+p, schools of citizens.h.i.+p in every city ward and rural district and an educational requirement for voting.

This comprehensive and convincing address is given in part in the chapter on The League of Women Voters, by Mrs. Nettie Rogers Shuler, corresponding secretary. It showed beyond question the great work that awaited the action of women endowed with political power and it swept away all doubts of the necessity for this new organization to which Mrs. Catt and her committee had given so much time and thought.

Throughout the convention the League was the dominating feature, meetings being held daily to discuss its organization, const.i.tution, objects, methods, officers, etc.

At the close of Mrs. Catt's address Mrs. Guilford Dudley of Tennessee, with a group of sixteen women from as many southern States came to the platform and with eloquent words presented her and Dr. Shaw with large framed parchments on which President Wilson's appeal to the Senate for the submission of the Federal Suffrage Amendment Sept. 30, 1918, was beautifully wrought in illuminated letters by the artist Scapecchi. At Mrs. Catt's request Dr. Shaw made the response for both of them.

Tuesday morning the convention was cordially welcomed to the city by Mrs. George Gellhorn, president of the St. Louis Equal Suffrage League and chairman of local arrangements. There were present 329 delegates, seventeen officers and three chairmen of standing committees. The chair announced that because of the crowded program the separate reports of officers and committee chairmen, which always had been read to the conventions, would be replaced with a general report of the year's work by Mrs. Shuler, chairman of Campaigns and Surveys. This report was a remarkably comprehensive survey of the varied work of the a.s.sociation. After recounting the gains in the States she said:

Our question is now political. The past year has seen suffrage by Federal Amendment endorsed by twenty-one Democratic and twenty Republican State conventions; by all those of the minor parties and by many State Central Committees, while many others have approved the principle of equal suffrage by a large vote. In July, 1918, our second vice-president, Miss Mary Garrett Hay, was made chairman of the platform committee at the State Republican conference in Saratoga, N. Y., a distinct suffrage victory, inasmuch as the men realized that in thus signally honoring her they were honoring the woman, who, by her work in winning the suffrage campaign in New York City, had made possible the victory in the State. Miss Hay has since been made a member of the Republican State Executive Committee and chairman of the Executive Committee Woman's Division of the Republican National Committee.

The work of the last fifteen months has been accomplished under most trying and difficult conditions. Many women under the allurement of war work dropped suffrage work altogether, and could not be persuaded that it was necessary at this time; others were unable to endure the criticism that they would be "slackers"

if they did anything besides war work; still others thought if they did this well that men, "seeing their good works" would "reward them openly" with the ballot.