Then followed under the head of different years, beginning with 1893,

that in which women were enfranchised, a roster of Colorado's

unequalled laws. These were followed by a complete analysis of the

practical working of woman suffrage during the past eighteen years,

with comprehensive answers to all the stereotyped questions and

objections.

Several who had addressed the Senate Committee came over to the House

office building and spoke to the Judiciary Committee. Mrs. William

Kent, wife of a Representative from California, was introduced by Miss

Addams as one who was not a member of the House but was eligible. In

the course of a winning speech she said: "The United States is

committed to a democratic form of government, a government by the

people. Those who do not believe in the ideals of democracy are the

only ones who can consistently oppose woman suffrage. The hope of

democracy is in education. There is food for thought in the fact that

the early education of all the citizens is now administered by a class

who have no vote.... Our recent California Legislature when it

submitted the amendments which were to be referred to the voters on

October 10 did a very sensible and intelligent thing. Speeches for and

against each one of these amendments were published in a little

pamphlet which was sent to every voter. One man--and he was a good

man, too--who argued against woman suffrage said that women should not

descend into the dirty mire of politics, that the vote would be of no

value to them. In the same speech he said that the women should teach

their sons the sacred duties of citizens and to hold the ballot as the

most precious inheritance of every American boy. Can we really bring

up our sons with a clear sense of the civic responsibility which we

ourselves have not? We believe that our children need what we shall

learn in becoming voters and that the State needs what we have learned

in being mothers and home makers."

"May I present next," said Miss Addams, "Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, of

New York? She has been before other Congressional committees with Miss

Susan B. Anthony, who for so many years came here to present this

cause. Mrs. Harper has written a history of the equal suffrage

movement and a very fine biography of Miss Anthony and it is with

special pleasure that I present her. She will make the constitutional

argument."

Mrs. Harper said in beginning: "This argument shall be based entirely

on the Federal Constitution and the only authorities cited will be the

utterances of two Presidents of the United States within the past

month." She then quoted from speeches of President Taft and former

President Roosevelt extolling the Constitution as guaranteeing

self-government to all the people with the right to change it when

this seems necessary, and she showed the utter fallacy of this

statement when applied to women. In closing she said: "Forty-three

years in asking Congress for this amendment of the Federal

Constitution to enfranchise women they have followed an entirely legal

and constitutional method of procedure, which has been so absolutely

barren of results that in the past nineteen years the committees have

made no report whatever, either favorable or unfavorable. How much

longer do you expect women to treat with respect National and State

constitutions and legislative bodies that stand thus an impenetrable

barrier between them and their rights as citizens of the United

States?" A long colloquy followed which began:

The Chairman: The committee will be very glad to have you extend

your remarks to answer a question propounded by Mr. Littleton

awhile ago. I wish to say that this committee, during my service

on it, has always been met with this proposition when this

amendment was proposed, that the States already have the

authority to confer suffrage upon women, and, therefore, why is

it necessary for women to wait for an amendment to the Federal

Constitution when they can now go to the States and obtain this

right to vote, just as the women of California did last year?

Mrs. Harper: Mr. Chairman, the women are not waiting; they are

keeping right on with their efforts to get the suffrage from the

States. They began in 1867 with their State campaigns and have

continued them ever since, but in sending the women to the States

you require them to make forty-eight campaigns and to go to the

individual electors to get permission to vote. After the Civil

War the Republican party with all its power and with only the

northern States voting, was never able to get the suffrage for

the negroes. The leaders went to State after State, even to

Kansas, with its record for freeing the negroes, and every State

turned down the proposition to give them suffrage. I doubt if the

individual voters of many States would give the suffrage to any

new class, even of men. The capitalists would not let the working

people vote if they could help it, and the working people would

not let the capitalists vote; Catholics would not enfranchise the

Protestants and the Protestants would not give the vote to

Catholics. You impose upon us an intolerable condition when you

send us to the individual voters. What man on this committee

would like to submit his electoral rights to the voters of New

York City, for instance, representing as they do every

nationality in the world? If we could secure this amendment to

the Federal Constitution, then we could deal with the

Legislatures, with the selected men in each State, instead of the

great conglomerate of voters that we have in this country, such

as does not exist in any other.

The Chairman: But if one of these suffrage resolutions should be

favorably reported and both Houses of Congress should pass it of

course it would be referred to the States and then before it

became a law it would have to have their approval.

Mrs. Harper: Only of the Legislatures, not the individual voters.

The Chairman: You use an expression which a member of the

committee has asked me to have you explain--"conglomerate of

voters," which you said does not exist elsewhere. The desire is

to know to whom you refer.

Mrs. Harper: I mean no disrespect to the great body of electors

in the United States but in every other country the voters are

the people of its own nationality. In no other would the question

have to go to the nationalities of the whole world as it would in

our country. For instance, we have to submit our question to the

negro and to the Indian men, when we go to the individual voters,

and to the native-born Chinese and to all those men from southern

Europe who are trained in the idea of woman's inferiority. You

put upon us conditions which are not put upon women anywhere in

the world outside the United States.

Mr. Littleton (N. Y.): You would have to convince every

legislator of the fact that this amendment to the National

Constitution ought to be adopted. If you could convince the

Legislatures of three-fourths of the States you could get

three-fourths of them to grant the suffrage itself.

Mrs. Harper: They could only grant it to the extent of sending us

to the individual voters, while if this amendment were submitted

by Congress and the Legislatures endorsed it we would never have

to deal with the individual voters. We would not have to convince

every legislator but only a majority.

Mr. Higgins (Conn.): In other words, as I understand you, you

have more confidence in the Legislatures than in the composite

citizenship.

Mrs. Harper: The composite male citizenship, you mean. We

suppose, of course, that the Legislatures represent the picked

men of the community, its intelligence, its judgment, the best

that the country has. That is the supposition.

The Chairman: That supposition applies to Congress also, does it?

Mrs. Harper: In a larger degree.

Representative Victor L. Berger of Wisconsin, who was out of the city,

sent a statement which Miss Addams requested Mrs. Elsie Cole Phillips

of Wisconsin to read to the committee. It said in part:

Woman suffrage is a necessity from both a political and an

economic standpoint. We can never have democratic rule until we

let the women vote. We can never have real freedom until the

women are free. Women are now citizens in all but the main

expression of citizenship--the exercise of the vote. They need

this power to round out and complete their citizenship.... In

political matters they have much the same interests that we men

have. In State and national issues their interests differ little,

if at all, from ours. In municipal questions they have an even

greater interest than we have. All the complex questions of

housing, schooling, policing, sanitation and kindred matters are

peculiarly the interests of women as the home makers and the

rearers of children. Women need and must have the ballot by which

to protect their interests in these political and administrative

questions.

The economic argument for woman suffrage is yet stronger.

Economics plays an increasingly important part in the lives of

us all and political power is absolutely necessary to obtain for

women the possibility of decent conditions of living. The low pay

and the hard conditions of working women are largely due to their

disenfranchisement. Skilled women who do the same work as men for

lower pay could enforce, with the ballot, an equal wage rate.

The ideal woman of the man of past generations (and especially of

the Germans) was the housewife, the woman who could wash, cook,

scrub, knit stockings, make dresses for herself and her children

and take good care of the house. That ideal has become

impossible. Those good old days, if ever they were good, are gone

forever.... Moreover, then the woman was supported by her father

first and later by her husband. The situation is entirely

different now. The woman has to go to work often when she is no

more than fourteen years old. She surely has to go to work

sometime if she belongs to the working class. She must make her

own living in the factory, the store, the office, the schoolroom.

She must work to support herself and often her family. The

economic basis of the life of woman has changed and therefore the

basis of the argument that she should not vote because she ought

to stay at home and take care of her family has been destroyed.

She cannot stay at home whether she wants to or not. She has

acquired the economic functions of the man and she ought also to

acquire the franchise.

Mr. Berger called attention to the fact that "the Socialist party ever

since its origin had been steadfastly for woman suffrage and put this

demand of prime importance in all its platforms everywhere."

Representative Littleton made a persistent effort to ally woman

suffrage with Socialism, saying that he "had noticed the identity

during the past two years" and Mrs. Harper answered: "I wish to remind

Mr. Littleton that the Socialist party is the only one which declares

for woman suffrage and thereby gives women an opportunity to come out

and stand by it. The Democratic and Republican parties do not stand

for woman suffrage and that is why there seem to be more Socialist

women than Republican or Democratic women. If the two old parties will

declare for woman suffrage, then the women in general will show their

colors."

Miss Ella C. Brehaut, member of the executive committee of the

District Anti-Suffrage Association, stated that she also represented

the National organization and when questioned by Representative

Sterling as to the size of its membership answered: "It is too new for

us to know the figures." Miss Brehaut's address filled six printed

pages of the stenographic report and was an attempt to refute all the

favorable arguments that had been made and to show that not only were

the suffrage leaders Socialists but "free lovers" as well.

"Conservative women can see nothing but danger in woman suffrage," she

concluded. Mrs. Julia T. Waterman, of the District association, sent

to be put in the report a statement which filled ten pages of fine

print, a full summary of the objections to woman suffrage as expressed

in speeches, articles and documents of various kinds, with quotations

from prominent opponents in the United States and Great Britain. It

was a very complete presentation of the question.

Miss Addams in closing urged the appointment of a commission by

Congress to make a thorough investigation in the States where woman

suffrage was established and the chairman answered that "the committee

would probably wish to take this matter under advisement in executive

session." She thanked him for their courtesy and asked if the National

Suffrage Association might have 10,000 copies of the hearing for

distribution. This request was cheerfully granted by the committee and

the chairman offered to "frank" them as a public document. [Later the

committee increased the number to 16,000.]

Apparently the matter never was considered, as no report, favorable or

unfavorable, ever was made by either committee. In so far as bringing

the Federal Amendment before Senate or House for action was concerned

the hearings might as well never have taken place, but 26,000 franked

copies of the splendid arguments before the two committees went forth

to accomplish the mission of educating public sentiment.

FOOTNOTES:

[72] Part of Call: This convention has big problems confronting it,

interesting, stimulating problems coincident with the tremendous

expansion of our government, problems worthy the indomitable mettle of

suffrage workers; but in spite of hard work, this week will be a gala

week, a compensation for all the hard, dull, gray work during the past

year and a stimulus for still harder work during the year to come....

Let us listen to our fellow workers, and, listening and sympathizing

with the unselfish labor being carried on everywhere, pledge ourselves

to a flaming loyalty to suffrage and suffragists that will burn away

all dross of dissension, all barriers to united effort. Let us come

with high resolve that we will never waver in our effort to obtain the

right to stand side by side with the men of this country in the mortal

struggle that shall bid perish from this land political corruption,

privilege, prostitution, the industrial slavery of men, women and

children and all exploitation of humanity.

Let us come together, in this autumn of 1912, this unprecedented year

of suffrage, consecrating ourselves anew on this, the greatest of all

battlegrounds for democracy, the United States of America.

ANNA HOWARD SHAW, President.

JANE ADDAMS, First Vice-President.

SOPHONISBA BRECKINRIDGE, Second Vice-President.

MARY WARE DENNETT, Corresponding Secretary.

SUSAN W. FITZGERALD, Recording Secretary.

JESSIE ASHLEY, Treasurer.

KATHARINE DEXTER MCCORMICK, }Auditors.

HARRIET BURTON LAIDLAW, }

ALICE STONE BLACKWELL,

Editor of the _Woman's Journal_.

[73] History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III, page 31.

[74] Later the total deficit of $6,000 was paid by Mrs. Katharine

Dexter McCormick of Boston, an officer of the National Association.

[75] It was supposed at this time that the suffrage amendment had been

carried in Michigan but the final returns indicated its defeat,

apparently due to fraudulent voting and counting.

[76] It is a noteworthy fact that although woman suffrage was a

leading issue in the presidential campaign of 1916 no officer of the

National American Suffrage Association took any public part in it,

although the platform of each of the parties contained a plank

endorsing woman suffrage.

[77] It was eight and a half years.

CHAPTER XIII.

NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1913.

The Forty-fifth annual convention of the National American Suffrage

Association met in Washington, November 29-December 5, 1913, in

response to the Call of the Official Board.[78] The first day and

evening were given to meetings of the board and committees, so that

the convention really opened with a mass meeting in Columbia Theater

Sunday afternoon at 3 o'clock and it was cordially welcomed by

District Commissioner Newman. Dr. Shaw presided and a large and

interested audience heard addresses by Miss Jane Addams, State Senator

Helen Ring Robinson of Colorado, Miss Margaret Hinchey, a laundry

worker, and Miss Rose Winslow, a stocking weaver of New York; Miss

Mary Anderson, member of the executive board of the National Boot and

Shoemakers' Union, and others. It was a comparatively new thing to

have women wage-earners on the woman suffrage platform and their

speeches made a deep impression, as that of Miss Hinchey, for

instance, who said in part:

When we went to Albany to ask for votes one member of the

Legislature told us that a woman's place was at home. Another

said he had too much respect and admiration for women to see them

at the polls. Another went back to Ancient Rome and told a story

about Cornelia and her jewels--her children. Yet in the laundries

women were working seventeen and eighteen hours a day, standing

over heavy machines for $3 and $3.50 a week. Six dollars a week

is the average wage of working women in the United States. How

can a woman live an honorable life on such a sum? Is it any

wonder that so many of our little sisters are in the gutter? When

we strike for more pay we are clubbed by the police and by thugs

hired by our employers, and in the courts our word is not taken

and we are sent to prison. This is the respect and admiration

shown to working girls in practice. I want to tell you about

Cornelia as we find her case today. The agent of the Child Labor

Society made an investigation in the tenements and found mothers

with their small children sitting and standing around

them--standing when they were too small to see the top of the

table otherwise. They were working by a kerosene lamp and

breathing its odor and they were all making artificial

forget-me-nots. It takes 1,620 pieces of material to make a gross

of forget-me-nots and the profit is only a few cents.

Four years ago 30,000 shirtwaist girls went on strike and when we

went to Mayor McClellan to ask permission for them to have a

parade he said: "Thirty thousand women are of no account to me."

If they had been 30,000 women with votes would he have said that?

We have in New York 14,000 women over sixty-five years old who

must work or starve. What is done with them when their bones give

out and they cannot work any more? The police gather them up and

you may then see in jail, scrubbing hard, rough concrete floors

that make their knees bleed--women who have committed no crime

but being old and poor. Don't take my word for it but send a

committee to Blackwell's Island or the Tombs and see for

yourselves. We have a few Old Ladies' Homes but with most of them

it would take a piece of red tape as long as from here to New

York to get in. Give us a square deal so that we may take care of

ourselves.

Miss Addams devoted her address to the great change that was taking

place in the conception of politics. She called attention to the

practical investigations which were being made in the education of

children, in immigration, in criminology, in industrial conditions,

and said: "This whole new social work can be translated into political

action, and, with this, politics will be transformed and women will

naturally have a share in it." She called attention to the pioneer

days in various countries where women bore a full part in their

hardships and to the revolutions in older countries where women fought

by the side of the men, "and yet," she said, "when popular governments

are established, women for considerations of expediency are left

out.... But in the final program for social problems men and women

will solve them together with ballots in the hands of both." Senator

Robinson gave a keen and comprehensive account of Women as

Legislators. The officers of the association held the usual Sunday

evening reception to delegates and friends at Hotel Bellevue.

The 456 delegates, the largest number ever present at a convention,

representing 34 States, were officially greeted Monday afternoon by

Mrs. Nina Allender, president of the District of Columbia Association,

and Miss Alice Paul, chairman of the National Congressional Committee.

Mrs. Pattie Ruffner Jacobs, president of the Alabama Suffrage

Association, responded in behalf of the national body. The excellent

arrangements for the convention had been made by the new Congressional

Committee: Miss Paul, chairman; Miss Lucy Burns, Mrs. Mary Beard, Mrs.

Lawrence Lewis and Mrs. Crystal Eastman Benedict, who raised the funds

for all its expenses, including those of the national officers, and

secured hospitality for the delegates. The report of the corresponding

secretary, Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett, described the granting of woman

suffrage by the Territorial Legislature of Alaska the preceding

January and said: "The bulk of suffrage legislation this year is quite

unprecedented. Bills were introduced in twenty-five Legislatures and

in the U. S. Congress; bills were passed by ten Legislatures and

received record-breaking votes in seven others, and for the second

time in history there has been a favorable report from the Woman

Suffrage Committee of the U. S. Senate. It continued:

There are three suffrage decisions on record for the year just

passed--victory in Alaska and Illinois by act of the Legislature

and temporary defeat in Michigan by vote of the electorate. There

are four actual campaign States where the amendment will be

submitted to the voters next autumn, Nevada (where the bill has

passed two Legislatures), Montana, North and South Dakota; and

there are three other States where initiative petitions are now

in circulation and if the requisite number of signers is secured

the amendment will be submitted next autumn, Ohio, Nebraska and

Missouri. Then there are three half-way campaign States where the

amendment has passed one Legislature and must pass again, in

which case the decision will be made by the voters in 1915--New

York, Pennsylvania and Iowa, in the first two of which the

amendment has the very promising advantage of having been

endorsed by all parties.

The full number of twelve delegates and twelve alternates went

from the National Association to the Congress of the

International Alliance in Budapest last June, and there were many

more applicants.... During the year the national president, Dr.

Shaw, has spoken at many large meetings in New Hampshire,

Nebraska, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, Missouri,

Kansas, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut and

Michigan. She also spoke in England, Holland, Germany, Austria

and Hungary.

A mass meeting was held under the auspices of the association in

Carnegie Hall, New York, where the international president, Mrs.

Catt, and all but one of the national officers made addresses.

Every ticket was sold and a good sum of money was raised. The

headquarters cooperated with the New York local societies in the

big suffrage benefit at the Metropolitan Opera House the night

before the May parade, where a beautiful pageant was given and

Theodore Roosevelt spoke. There was a capacity audience and many

people were turned away. The headquarters have taken part so far

as possible in all the suffrage parades; that of March 3, in

Washington; those of May and November in New York and Brooklyn;

that of October in Newark, New Jersey. The association was

represented at the annual meeting of the House of Governors in

Richmond, Va., last December by Mrs. Lila Mead Valentine, the

State president, and Miss Mary Johnston, whose admirable speech

was published in pamphlet form by our literature department.

The association has cooperated as fully as was possible with the

Congressional Committee in all its most creditable year's work.

This committee is unique in that its original members volunteered

to give their services and to raise all the funds for the work

themselves. Their singlemindedness and devotion have been

remarkable and the whole movement in the country has been

wonderfully furthered by the series of important events which

have taken place in Washington, beginning with the great parade

the day before the inauguration of the President. Several of the

national officers have made special trips to Washington to assist

at these various events--the March parade, the Senate hearing,

the April 7th deputation to Congress, the July 31st Senate

demonstration and the Conference of Women Voters in August. An

automobile trip was made from headquarters the last week in July,

with outdoor meetings held all the way to Washington, to join the

other "pilgrims" who came from all over the country. Mrs. Rheta

Childe Dorr, Miss Helen Todd, Mrs. Frances Maule Bjorkman and the

corresponding secretary were the speakers for the trip.

Petitions to Congress were circulated, special letters on behalf

of the association were sent to the members of the Senate

Committee before the report was made, and to the Rules Committee

urging the appointment of a Woman Suffrage Committee for the

House. Miss Elinor Byrns, assisted by another lawyer, Miss Helen

Ranlett, has made a chart of the legislation in the suffrage

States since the women have been enfranchised. A collection of

all the State constitutions has been made with the sections

bearing on amendments and the qualifications for voting marked

and indexed.

The following telegram was sent by the National Board April 4 to

Premier Asquith: "We urge that the British Government frankly

acknowledge its responsibility for the present intolerable

situation and remove it by introducing immediately an emergency

franchise measure."

The report of Miss Byrns, chairman of the Press Committee, which

filled eight printed pages, showed the usual vast amount of press

work, as described in other chapters. "There now exists," she said, "a

most remarkable and unprecedented demand for information about

suffragists and suffrage events. We are 'news' as we have never been

before. Moreover, we are not only amusing and sometimes picturesque

but we are of real intellectual and political interest." Mrs.

Bjorkman, editor and secretary of the Literature Committee, devoted a

full report of ten pages to the recent and widely varied publications

of the association, to the vastly increasing demands for these, which

could not be entirely met, and to the pressing need for a properly

equipped research bureau. The report of Miss Jeannette Rankin (Mont.),

field secretary, told of a year of unremitting work under four heads:

legislative, visiting of States, work with the Congressional Committee

and special work in campaign States. Delaware, Florida, Tennessee,

Alabama, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota were visited. She

travelled by automobile from Montana to Washington City with petitions

for the Federal Amendment, stopping at thirty-three places for

meetings, and two weeks were given to interviewing Senators. Among the

campaign States three weeks were spent in Saginaw, Michigan;

organizing the city into wards and precincts; five in North Dakota and

the rest of the time in Montana, organizing, arranging work at State

and county fairs, visiting State Central Committees and State

Federations of Women's Clubs.

Among the recommendations presented from the board and adopted were

two of prime importance: 1. That in order that the convention may give

its support to the Federal Amendment before Congress, it shall

instruct the affiliated organizations to carry on as active a campaign

as possible in their respective States and to see that all candidates

for Congress be pledged to woman suffrage before the next election. 2.

That the convention endorse the Suffrage School as a method of work

and the National Association offer to organize and send out a

traveling school when requested by six or more States, provided they

agree to share the expense. To the Official Board was referred the

question of appointing a committee to devise and put into operation a

scheme for establishing more definite connection between the

enfranchised women of the States and the National Association.

After all the years of patient effort to persuade Legislatures to

grant Presidential suffrage to women under the inspiration of Henry B.

Blackwell, chairman of the committee, his successor, Miss Elizabeth

Upham Yates, could announce the first success and she emphasized the

important bearing which this and others would have on securing a

Federal Amendment. Her report said:

The extraordinary victory in Illinois has emphasized the fact,

not duly apprehended hitherto, that State Legislatures have power

to grant Presidential suffrage to women. No man derives his right

to vote for presidential electors from the constitution of his

State but the U. S. Constitution delegates the power and duty to

qualify citizens to vote for them to the Legislatures, in the

first section of Article II, in these words: "Each State shall

appoint in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct a

number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and

Representatives to which the State may be entitled in Congress."

Probably U.S. Senator George F. Hoar was the first to discover

that this power given to Legislatures involved the possibility of

the enfranchisement of women for presidential electors.

The conspicuous position that women suddenly attained in American

politics in 1912 was due to the fact that in six States women

were able to determine the choice of thirty-seven presidential

electors. The large interests involved in a presidential

administration, among which are 300,000 offices of honor and

emolument, cause keen political concern from the fact that women

voters may hold the balance of power in a close election. The

whole number of electoral votes in the nine States where women

now have full suffrage is fifty-four. These were attained by

campaigns for constitutional amendments that involved vast outlay

of time and treasure. Simply by act of Legislature, Illinois has

added twenty-nine to the list, an increase of over thirty-three

per cent., thus bringing an incalculable influence and power into

the arena of national politics....

Mrs. Mary E. Craigie made her usual report of the excellent work done

by her Church Committee. She gave a list of the Catholic clergy who

had declared in favor of woman suffrage and told of the cordial assent

by those of other denominations to include it in their sermons on

Mother's Day. She named some of the many questions of social reform to

which pulpits were freely opened--temperance, child labor, pure food,

the white slave traffic and others--and asked: "Why does not woman

suffrage, the reform that would bring two-thirds more power to all

such movements, receive the same cooperation and support from the

churches? The answer plainly is: Because of the apathy of women in

demanding it."

The changing character of the national suffrage conventions is

illustrated by the reports in the _Woman's Journal_, whose editors had

for a generation collected and preserved in its pages the unsurpassed

addresses which had delighted audiences and inspired workers. As the

practical work of the association increased and spread throughout the

different States, more and more of the time of the conventions had to

be given to reports and details of business and the number of speeches

constantly lessened. The first evening of the convention was devoted

to the victory in Illinois, with delightful addresses by Mrs.

Catharine Waugh McCulloch, long the State president, who twenty years

before had discovered the loophole in the Illinois constitution by

which the Legislature itself could grant a large measure of suffrage

to women and had tried to obtain the law that had just been gained; by

Mrs. Ella S. Stewart, another president, who had carried on this work;

and by Mesdames Ruth Hanna McCormick, Grace Wilbur Trout, Antoinette

Funk and Elizabeth K. Booth, the famous quartette of younger workers,

who had finally succeeded with a progressive Legislature. As there was

no representative from far-off Alaska, Dr. Shaw told how its

Legislature had given full suffrage to women. [See Illinois and Alaska

chapters.] Miss Lucy Burns gave a clear analysis of the situation in

regard to the Federal Suffrage Amendment and the evening closed with

one of Dr. Shaw's piquant addresses, which began: "I know the

objections to woman suffrage but I have never met any one who

pretended to know any reasons against it," and she closed with a flash

of the humor for which she was noted:

By some objectors women are supposed to be unfit to vote because

they are hysterical and emotional and of course men would not

like to have emotion enter into a political campaign. They want

to cut out all emotion and so they would like to cut us out. I

had heard so much about our emotionalism that I went to the last

Democratic national convention, held at Baltimore, to observe the

calm repose of the male politicians. I saw some men take a

picture of one gentleman whom they wanted elected and it was so

big they had to walk sidewise as they carried it forward; they

were followed by hundreds of other men screaming and yelling,

shouting and singing the "Houn' Dawg"; then, when there was a

lull, another set of men would start forward under another man's

picture, not to be outdone by the "Houn' Dawg" melody, whooping

and howling still louder. I saw men jump up on the seats and

throw their hats in the air and shout: "What's the matter with

Champ Clark?" Then, when those hats came down, other men would

kick them back into the air, shouting at the top of their voices:

"He's all right!!" Then I heard others howling for "Underwood,

Underwood, first, last and all the time!!" No hysteria about

it--just patriotic loyalty, splendid manly devotion to principle.

And so they went on and on until 5 o'clock in the morning--the

whole night long. I saw men jump up on their seats and jump down

again and run around in a ring. I saw two men run towards another

man to hug him both at once and they split his coat up the middle

of his back and sent him spinning around like a wheel. All this

with the perfect poise of the legal male mind in politics!

I have been to many women's conventions in my day but I never saw

a woman leap up on a chair and take off her bonnet and toss it up

in the air and shout: "What's the matter with" somebody. I never

saw a woman knock another woman's bonnet off her head as she

screamed: "She's all right!" I never heard a body of women

whooping and yelling for five minutes when somebody's name was

mentioned in the convention. But we are willing to admit that we

are emotional. I have actually seen women stand up and wave their

handkerchiefs. I have even seen them take hold of hands and sing,

"Blest be the tie that binds." Nobody denies that women are

excitable. Still, when I hear how emotional and how excitable we

are, I cannot help seeing in my mind's eye the fine repose and

dignity of this Baltimore and other political conventions I have

attended!

One evening session was devoted to Women and Children and the Courts.

Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen of Chicago presided and made a stirring plea for

better conditions in the courts of the large cities. She told of the

outrageous treatment of women and urged the need of women police,

women judges and women jurors. "From the time of the arrest of a woman

to the final disposition of her case," Mrs. Bowen said, "she is

handicapped by being in charge of and surrounded by men, who cannot be

expected to be as understanding and considerate as those of her own

sex. The police stations in most of our cities are not fit for human

beings." Judge of the Juvenile Court Julian Mack of Chicago described

its methods and their results; and Justice Harry Olsen of the Court of

Domestic Relations and the Court of Morals, gave an illuminating

address on its functions and their results; Miss Maude Miner of New

York spoke from experience of the Women's Night Court and the Work of

a Probation Officer. The delegates were deeply moved and determined to

investigate and improve the conditions in their own localities.

There had for some time been need of revising the constitution to meet

new requirements and a revision committee had been appointed the

preceding year with Mrs. Catt chairman, but as she had been in Europe

her place had been taken by Miss Caroline Ruutz-Rees (Conn.), who was

assisted by attorneys Helen Hoy Greeley and Jessie Ashley. The

discussion was as long and earnest as if the fate of nations were

involved but the principal changes adopted concerned representation,

dues, assessments, methods of election and similar details. The report

of Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick, treasurer, showed the total

receipts of the year to be $42,723; disbursements, $42,542; balance on

hand from preceding year, $2,874. A carefully prepared "budget" of

$42,000 was presented to the convention and quickly oversubscribed.

The legal adviser, Miss Mary Rutter Towle (D. C.), reported two

lawsuits in progress to secure legacies that had been left the

association, the usual fate that attended similar bequests. The

literature had become so large a feature that it was decided to form a

company to publish it. Mrs. Raymond Brown, president of the New York

State Suffrage Association, proposed a corporation with a capital

stock of $50,000, of which $26,000 should be held by the National

American Association, the rest sold at $10 a share. The first $10,000

were at once subscribed and later the Woman Suffrage Publishing

Company was organized with Mrs. Cyrus W. Field president.

The election took place under the new primary system and required two

days for completion. The only change was the electing of Mrs. Desha

Breckinridge second and Miss Ruutz-Rees third vice-presidents. The

majorities for most of the officers were very large. The report of the

delegates to the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in Budapest was

made by Mrs. Anna O. Weeks (N. Y.). The demand for congressional

documents, hearings, speeches, etc., had become so extensive that Mrs.

Helen H. Gardener (D. C.) had been appointed to report in regard to it

and she shed a good deal of light on the subject. She showed that some

documents are free for distribution and some have to be paid for.

Hearings are usually limited to a small number but the committee

strains a point for those on woman suffrage and prints about 10,000,

which may be had without charge. If a member is kind enough to "frank"

them nothing else must be put in the envelope under penalty of a $300

fine. If more are wanted they must be ordered in 5,000 lots and a

member can get a reduced rate, but, while he is always willing to pay

the Government for printing his speech, those who want it for their

own purposes should send the money for it. The speech of

Representative Edward T. Taylor of Colorado in 1912 was cited as an

example, of which the suffragists circulated 300,000 copies.

The resolutions presented by Mrs. Helen Brewster Owens (N. Y.),

chairman, were brief and to the point. They called on the Senate to

pass immediately the joint resolution proposing an amendment to the

National Constitution, which had been favorably reported; they urged

President Wilson to adopt the submission of this amendment as an

administration measure and to recommend it in his Message; they urged

the Rules Committee of the House of Representatives to report

favorably the proposition to create a Committee on Woman Suffrage; and

they demanded legislation by Congress to protect the nationality of

American women who married aliens.

Strong pressure had been made on the President to mention woman

suffrage in his Message, his first to a regular session of Congress,

but it was delivered on Tuesday, December 2, with no reference

whatever to the subject. At the meeting of the convention that evening

Dr. Shaw said with the manifest approval of the audience: "President

Wilson had the opportunity of speaking a word which might ultimately

lead to the enfranchisement of a large part of the citizens of the

United States. Even Lincoln, who by a word freed a race, had not such

an opportunity to release from bonds one-half of the human family. I

feel that I must make this statement as broad as it is for the reason

that we at Budapest this year realized as never before that womankind

throughout the world looked to this country to blaze the way for the

extension of universal suffrage in every quarter of the globe.

President Wilson has missed the one thing that might have made it

possible for him never to be forgotten. I am saying this on behalf of

myself and my fellow officers."

The next morning Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick, a clever politician like

her father, Mark Hanna, offered the following motion: "Since President

Wilson omitted all mention of woman suffrage in his Message yesterday,

and since he has announced that he will send several other messages to

Congress outlining the measures which the administration will support,

I move that this convention wait upon the President in order to lay

before him the importance of the woman suffrage question and urge him

to make it an administration measure and to send immediately to

Congress the recommendation that it proceed with this measure before

any other. I also move that a committee of two be appointed to make

the arrangements with the President." The motion was unanimously

carried and the Chair appointed Mrs. McCormick (Ills.) and Mrs.

Breckinridge (Ky.) to arrange for the interview and for a committee of

fifty-five, representing all the associations auxiliary to the

National, to wait upon the President at his pleasure. To finish the

story here--he expressed entire willingness to receive them but was

not well enough to do so during the convention. Nearly a hundred of

the delegates waited until the next Monday, December 8, when they met

in the rooms of their Congressional Committee, a few blocks from the

White House and marched two by two to the executive offices,

attracting much attention, as this was the first time a President had

ever received a woman suffrage delegation officially.[79] He met them

cordially and gave them as much time as they desired. Dr. Shaw spoke

as follows:

As president of the National Suffrage Association I have come

with this delegation, authorized by the association, to present

to you the object for which we are organized--to secure equal

suffrage for the women citizens of the United States. We have

made these pilgrimages to Washington for many, many years and

committees have received us with graciousness and have listened

to our arguments, but the difficulty is that they have not

permitted our claims to come before Congress, so that body itself

might act upon them. Our wish is that we may have a national

constitutional amendment, enfranchising the women citizens and

preventing the States from depriving them of representation in

the Government. Since the Judiciary Committee has not reported

our measure for many years and has not given the House an

opportunity to discuss it we have asked that a special committee

shall be appointed to consider it. The Senate some years ago did

appoint a special committee and our question has been referred to

it. We have appeared before it this year and it has again

reported favorably. We hope that the administration of which you

are the head may use its influence to bring the matter before the

Senate and House.

We ask your assistance in one of two ways or in any other way

which may appeal to your judgment: First of all that you shall

send a special message to Congress to submit to the Legislatures

of the States an amendment to the National Constitution

enfranchising women citizens of the United States; if, however,

this does not appeal to you, we ask that you will use the

administration's influence on the Rules Committee to recommend

the appointment in the Lower House of a committee corresponding

with the Suffrage Committee in the Upper House, one which will

have leisure to consider our subject and report on it.

We appeal to you in behalf of the women citizens of the country.

Many of them have cast their ballots for the President already

and have an influence in the Government; many are very eager to

take an equal part and they appreciate the just manner in which

since your administration began you have weighed public

questions. Recognizing your splendid stand on the liberties and

rights of the people, we appeal to you because we believe you

will bring to ours that same spirit of justice which you have

manifested toward other great issues.

The President gave close attention and in his answer seemed to weigh

every word carefully:

I want you ladies, if I can make it clear to you, to realize just

what my present situation is. Whenever I walk abroad I realize

that I am not a free man; I am under arrest. I am so carefully

and admirably guarded that I have not even the privilege of

walking the streets alone. That is, as it were, typical of my

present transference--from being an individual, free to express

his mind on any and every subject, to being an official of a

great government and incidentally, or so it falls out under the

system of government, the spokesman of a party. I set myself this

very strict rule when I was Governor of New Jersey and have

followed and shall follow it as President--that I am not at

liberty to urge upon Congress in messages policies which have not

had the organic consideration of those for whom I am spokesman.

In other words I have not yet presented to any Legislature my

private views on any subject and I never shall, because I

conceive it to be part of the whole process of government that I

shall be spokesman for somebody, not for myself. To speak for

myself would be an impertinence. When I speak for myself I am an

individual; when I am spokesman of an organic body, I am a

representative. For that reason, you see, I am by my own

principles shut out, in the language of the street, from

"starting anything." I have to confine myself to those things

which have been embodied as promises to the people at an

election. That is the strict rule I set for myself.

I want to say that with regard to all other matters I am not only

glad to be consulted by my colleagues in the two Houses but I

hope they will often pay me the compliment of consulting me when

they want to know my opinion on any subject. One member of the

Rules Committee did come to me and ask me what I thought about

this suggestion of yours of appointing a Special Committee for

the consideration of woman suffrage and I told him that I thought

it was a proper thing to do. So that, so far as my personal

advice has been asked by a single member of the committee it has

been given to that effect. I wanted to tell you this to show that

I am strictly living up to my principles. When my private opinion

is asked by those who are cooperating with me, I am most glad to

give it, but I am not at liberty until I speak for somebody

besides myself to urge legislation upon the Congress.

The following conversation then took place: "May I ask you a

question?" said Dr. Shaw. "Since we are not members of any political

party, who is going to speak for us--there is no one to speak for

us----" "I realize that," interjected the President, "----unless we

speak for ourselves?" "And you do that very admirably," rejoined Mr.

Wilson. A general laugh broke up the somewhat solemn occasion and as

the delegates went away Dr. Shaw said exultingly: "He is in favor of a

House Woman Suffrage Committee and that was our chief object in coming

to see him."

An interesting evening's program had been prepared under the auspices

of the National Men's League for Woman Suffrage with addresses by

seven or eight Senators and Representatives, all staunch supporters of

the "cause," but all were prevented from coming by one reason or

another except Representatives J. W. Bryan of Washington and Victor

Murdock of Kansas. They made up for all failures, however, by their

strong arguments. James Lees Laidlaw of New York, president of the

league, gave a dignified, earnest address and the Hon. Gifford Pinchot

made a logical and unanswerable demand for the enfranchisement of

women because of the nation's great need for their votes.

An excellent report was presented at this time by Miss Alice Paul,

chairman of the Congressional Committee. From the founding of the

National Association in 1869 prominent representatives had appeared

before committees of every Congress and during many winters Miss Susan

B. Anthony had remained in Washington until she obtained a report from

these committees, but after she ceased to do this, although the

hearings were still granted, nobody made it an especial business to

see that the committees made reports and so none was made and action

by Congress seemed very remote. In 1910, when the movement entered a

new era, the association appointed a special Congressional Committee

to look after this matter. By the time of the convention of 1911 the

two great victories in Washington and California had been gained and

the prospect of a Federal Amendment began to grow brighter. A large

committee was appointed consisting chiefly of the wives of Senators

and Representatives with Mrs. William Kent (Calif.) chairman. No

busier women could have been selected and beyond making excellent

arrangements for the hearings, the committee was not active. In 1912,

when Kansas, Oregon and Arizona enfranchised women, the whole country

awoke to the fact that the turning point had been reached and

universal woman suffrage through an amendment to the Federal

Constitution was inevitable.

At this time Miss Paul and Miss Burns returned from England, where

they had been studying and doing social welfare work and had been

caught in the maelstrom of the "militant" suffrage movement, then at

its height. Both had taken part in demonstrations before the House of

Commons and been sent to prison and they came back to the United

States filled with zeal to inaugurate a campaign of "militancy" here.

The idea was coldly received by the suffrage leaders and they modified

it to the extent of asking the National Association to cooperate in

organizing a great suffrage parade to take place in Washington the day

before the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson. Dr. Shaw had seen and taken

part in such parades in London and was favorably inclined to the

project. She put Miss Paul at the head of the Congressional Committee

with power to choose the other members to organize the parade, with

the proviso that they must themselves raise all the money for it but

they could have the authority of the National Association letterheads.

Headquarters were opened in a basement on F Street near the New

Willard Hotel in Washington. They displayed astonishing executive

ability, gathered about them a small army of women and during the next

twelve months raised $27,378, the larger part of it in Washington and

most of the remainder in Philadelphia. The parade was long, beautiful

and impressive, women from many States participating. The report of

the Congressional Committee presented to the convention by Miss Paul

slightly condensed, read as follows:

Work for Federal Amendment:

Headquarters were opened in Washington, Jan. 2, 1913.

Hearings were arranged before the Woman Suffrage Committee of the

Senate; before the Rules Committee of the House, when members of

the National Council of Women Voters were the speakers; before

the Rules Committee during the present convention.

Processions: March 3, when from 8,000 to 10,000 women

participated; April 7, when women from congressional districts

went to Congress with petitions and resolutions; July 31, when an

automobile procession met the "pilgrims" at the end of their

"hike" and escorted them through the streets of Washington to the

Senate. This procession was headed by an automobile in which rode

several of the Suffrage Committee of the Senate.

Pilgrimages coming from all parts of the country and extending

over the month of July were organized, about twelve. These all

ended in Washington on July 31, when approximately 200,000

signatures to petitions were presented to the Senate.

Deputations: Three deputations to the President were organized

immediately preceding the calling of the special session of

Congress in order to ask him to give the administration support

to the suffrage amendment during the special session. One of

these was from the National Association, one from the College

Suffrage League and one from the National Council of Women

Voters. On November 17 a fourth deputation, composed of

seventy-three women from New Jersey, was sent to the President to

urge him to take up the amendment during the regular session of

Congress.

Local arrangements were made for the conventions of the National

Council of Women Voters and the convention of the National

American Woman Suffrage Association.

A campaign under a salaried organizer was conducted through the

resort regions of New Jersey, Long Island and Rhode Island during

July, August and September; and one through New Jersey, Delaware

and Maryland during July. A month's campaign was carried on in

North Carolina. On September 1 permanent headquarters were opened

in Wilmington in charge of a salaried organizer and since that

time a vigorous campaign has been carried on in Delaware in the

attempt to influence the attitude of the Senators and

Representatives from that State.

A salaried press chairman has been employed throughout the year,

who has furnished daily press copy to the local papers, to the

Washington correspondents of the various papers throughout the

country and to all of the telegraphic bureaus in Washington.

Approximately 120,000 pieces of literature have been printed and

distributed. A weekly paper under the editorship of Mrs. Rheta

Childe Dorr was established on November 15. This now has a paid

circulation of about 1,200 and is self-supporting from its

advertisements.

A Men's League was organized, General Anson Mills, U. S. A.,

being the temporary and Dr. Harvey W. Wiley the permanent

chairman. A large number of Congressmen are members.

Eight theater meetings, exclusive of those during this

convention, have been held in Washington. Smaller meetings both

indoor and out have been held almost daily and frequently as many

as five or ten a day. A tableau was presented on the Treasury

steps at the time of the suffrage procession of March 3 under the

direction of Miss Hazel Mackaye. A suffrage play was given, also

two banquets, a reception and a luncheon, and a benefit and a

luncheon were given for the purpose of raising funds.

A delegation in two special cars went to New York for the

procession of May 3. An even larger delegation went to Baltimore

for the procession of May 31. The play given in Washington was

reproduced in Baltimore for the benefit of one of the suffrage

societies there. A week's campaign was conducted in the four

southern counties of Maryland prior to the primary election, at

the request of one of the State's societies.

The Congressional Union was formed during the latter part of

April and now numbers over a thousand members.

Congressional Work.

Senate and House Joint Resolution Number One for Federal

Amendment introduced in Congress April 7, 1913.

Woman Suffrage Committee of Senate voted on May 14 to report the

resolution favorably and did so unanimously, one not voting. On

July 31 twenty-two Senators spoke in favor of the resolution and

three against it. On September 18 Senator Andrieus Jones (N. M.)

spoke in favor and asked for immediate action. On the same day

Senator Henry F. Ashurst (Ariz.) announced on the floor of the

Senate that he would press the measure to a vote at the earliest

possible moment.

Three resolutions were introduced in the House for the creation

of a Woman Suffrage Committee and referred to the Rules Committee

and are still before it.

The amendment resolution is awaiting third reading in the Senate

and is before the Judiciary Committee of the House.

The action of the Senate was due to the fact that under the new

administration a committee had been appointed which was favorable to

woman suffrage instead of one opposed as heretofore, with a chairman,

Senator Charles S. Thomas of Colorado, who had helped the women of his

own State to secure the suffrage twenty years before. The resolutions

in the Lower House were introduced by old and tried friends and the

association's new Congressional Committee had arranged hearings,

brought pressure to bear on members and not permitted them to forget

or ignore the question. Miss Agnes E. Ryan, business manager of the

_Woman's Journal_, said in her account: "The convention received the

report with enthusiastic applause, giving three cheers and rising to

its feet to show its appreciation."

This report was signed by Miss Paul as "chairman of the Congressional

Committee and president of the Congressional Union" and she said at

the beginning that it was impossible to separate the work of the two.

At its conclusion Mrs. Catt moved that the part of the report as from

the Congressional Committee be accepted, which was done by the

convention. She then asked what was the relation between the two and

why, if this was a regular committee of the National American

Association, no appropriation had been made for its work during the

coming year and why there was no statement in the treasurer's report

of its expenditures during the past year. It developed that the

committee had raised and expended its own funds, which had not passed

through the national treasury, and that the Congressional Union was a

society formed the preceding April to assist the work of the

committee. It was moved by Mrs. Catt and carried that the convention

request the Official Board to continue the Congressional Committee and

to cooperate with it in such a way as to remove further causes of

embarrassment to the association. The motion was amended that the

board should appropriate what money could be spared for the work of

this committee.[80]

The movement for woman suffrage was now so plainly centering in

Congress, which had been the goal for over forty years, that there was

a widespread feeling that the national headquarters should be

established in Washington. Mrs. Oliver H. P. Belmont, a delegate from

New York, through whose generosity it had been possible to take them

to that city in 1909, offered a motion that they now be removed to

Washington. She had given notice of this action the preceding day and

the opponents were prepared. A motion to lay it on the table was

quickly made and all discussion cut off. The opposition of the

national officers was so apparent that many delegates hesitated to

express their convictions for the affirmative but nevertheless the

vote stood 134 ayes, and 169 noes.

The National Association had now so many auxiliaries and so much work

was being done in all the States that the day sessions were largely

consumed in hearing reports from them and the usual conferences and

symposiums were almost crowded off the program. For the first time

Hawaii took her place among the auxiliaries, a suffrage society having

been formed there during the year. At one of the morning sessions U.

S. Senator Moses E. Clapp of Minnesota was presented to the convention

and extended a pressing invitation to hold its next meeting in St.

Paul. Later this invitation was repeated in a cordial invitation from

Governor Adolph O. Eberhard. At another morning session Representative

Kenneth McKellar of Tennessee addressed the convention and invited it

to meet in Chattanooga the next year. The last evening there was not

standing room in the large theater. Miss Harriet May Mills, president

of the New York State Suffrage Association, took for her subject A

Prophecy Fulfilled and gave convincing reasons for believing that the

successful end of the long contest was near. Mrs. Katharine Houghton

Hepburn made a strong arraignment of Commercialized Vice, using her

own city of Hartford, Conn., for an example. Mrs. Catt gave the last

address, a comprehensive review of the advanced position that had been

attained by women and the great responsibilities it had brought. Dr.

Shaw, who presided, spoke the final inspiring words.

A delightful ending of the week was the reception the last afternoon

in the hospitable home of Senator and Mrs. Robert M. LaFollette. Three

members of the Cabinet were among the guests, Secretaries Lane,

Houston and Daniels. Those in the receiving line were: Senator and

Mrs. LaFollette, Dr. Shaw and Mrs. Catt; also Mrs. Franklin K. Lane,

Mrs. Josephus Daniels, Mrs. Albert Sidney Burleson, Mrs. David

Franklin Houston, Mrs. Miles Poindexter, Mrs. Reed Smoot, Mrs. Victor

Murdock, Mrs. Wm. L. LaFollette, Mrs. J. W. Bryan, Mrs. John E. Raker,

Mrs. James A. Frear, Mrs. Henry T. Rainey, Mrs. Albert B. Cummins,

Mrs. John D. Works and Mrs. William Kent, all members of the Cabinet

and Congressional circles, and the husbands of most of them were

present. To the older members of the association it recalled the

conventions of olden times when even the wives of members of Congress,

with a few rare exceptions, feared to attend the social functions lest

it might injure the political status of their husbands.

* * * * *

The Senate committee of the Sixty-third Congress had already granted

three hearings on woman suffrage during its extra session: on April

10, 1913, to representatives of the Anti-Suffrage Association; on

April 21 to those of the Federal Women's Equality Association and on

April 26 to those of the National American Suffrage Association. This

new committee, which the advocates of the Federal Suffrage Amendment

will always remember with deep appreciation for its firm and favorable

action, consisted of the following Senators: Charles S. Thomas

(Colo.), chairman; Robert L. Owen (Okla.); Henry F. Ashurst (Ariz.);

Joseph E. Ransdell (La.); Henry P. Hollis (N. H.); George Sutherland

(Utah); Wesley L. Jones (Wash.); Moses E. Clapp (Minn.); Thomas B.

Catron (N. M.). The last named was an opponent of woman suffrage by

any method and was the only member who did not sign the favorable

report. Senator Ransdell at first said that he had an open mind but he

soon placed himself on the suffrage side, signed the report and later

voted several times in favor of the amendment.

The immediate object of the National American Association at the

present moment was to secure a Committee on Woman Suffrage in the

Lower House such as had long existed in the Senate. A resolution to

create such a committee had been introduced April 7 by Edward T.

Taylor (Colo.) and referred to the Committee on Rules. The hearing at

the regular session during this convention, therefore, was before this

committee, which would have to recommend the Woman Suffrage Committee

to the House, and it was set for 10:30 A.M., December 3. As soon as

the application was made the National Anti-Suffrage Association also

asked to be heard, and Chairman Henry, who was opposed to the proposed

new committee and to woman suffrage, announced that he proposed to

allow both sides all the time they wanted. The leaders of the National

Suffrage Association stated that they would ask for only the usual two

hours and would not discuss the general question of woman suffrage but

only the need of a special committee. Their arguments were concluded

at the morning session. The "antis" began after luncheon with massed

forces and talked the entire afternoon and all of the next day and

part of the third, covering the whole subject of woman suffrage, with

the appointment of the committee only one feature of it. Several of

their men speakers consumed nearly an hour each and were repeatedly

requested by the chairman to face the committee instead of the

audience, which filled the largest room in the House office building.

The first morning all of the committee were present but they gradually

dwindled until during the latter part of the "antis'" arguments only

two or three were in their seats, not including the chairman[81]. Only

limited extracts of the speeches are possible. Dr. Shaw presided and

said:

Our purpose in coming before you this morning is not to make any

attempt whatever to convert the members of the Rules Committee,

if they should need converting, to the democratic principle of

the right of the people to have a voice in their own government.

It is to ask you to appoint a committee in the House on woman

suffrage, which corresponds with the one in the Senate, in order

that we may have hearings before a committee which is not so

burdened with other business as is the Committee on the

Judiciary.... It seems to the women of the United States that a

question of so much importance that the parliaments of Europe

feel under obligations to discuss and act upon it, is at least of

sufficient importance in this great republic of ours for the

committee which has it under consideration to take time for a

report. Year after year we have asked the Judiciary Committee not

that they should believe in woman suffrage or express any opinion

on it but only to report the measure either favorably or

unfavorably so as to bring it before the House, in order that the

representatives of the men of this country might be able to

consider it, but thus far it has been impossible to secure any

sort of a report....

Mrs. Helen H. Gardener (D. C.), after showing that woman suffrage was

a mere side issue with the Judiciary Committee and that it would be

busier than ever the coming session, said: "Those of us who live here

and have known Congress from our childhood know that an outside matter

has less chance to get any real consideration by such a committee

under such conditions than the proverbial rich man has of entering the

kingdom of heaven." She pointed out that over one-fifth of the Senate

and one-seventh of the House were elected by the votes of women and

continued:

You will remember that there is a committee on Indian Affairs.

Are the Indians more important than the women of America? They

did not always have a special committee, they used to be a mere

incident, as we now are. They used to be under the War

Department and so long as this was the case nobody ever doubted

for an instant that the "only good Indian was a dead

Indian"--just as under the incidental administration of the

Judiciary Committee it is not doubted by some that the only good

woman is a voteless woman. When the Indians secured a committee

of their own they began to get schools, lands in severalty and

the general status of human beings.... It became the duty of that

committee to investigate the real conditions, the needs, the

grievances and the best methods of promoting the interests of the

Indians. That was the beginning of the end of Indian wars; the

first hope of a possibility--previously sneered at--of making

real and useful citizens of this race of men who now have

Representatives in Congress. It was precisely the same with our

island possessions, only in this case we had profited by our

experience with Indian and labor problems, and it did not take so

long to realize that a committee whose duty it should be to

utilize, develop and conserve the best interests of these new

charges of our Government and to develop them toward citizenship

as rapidly as possible was the safe and sane method of

procedure....

We want such a committee on woman suffrage in the House. We do

not ask you to appoint a partisan committee but only one

open-minded and honest, which will really investigate and

understand the question, its workings where it is in effect--a

committee which will not accept wild statements as facts, which

will hear and weigh that which comes from the side of progress

and change as well as that which is static or reactionary.... The

recommendation that we have such a committee does not in any way

commit you to the adoption of a belief in the principle of

self-government for women. This is not much to ask and it is not

much to give, nor will it be needed for very many more years.

Mrs. Ida Husted Harper was introduced as one of the authors of the

four-volume History of Woman Suffrage and the biographer of Susan B.

Anthony and began: "This is not the time or place to enter into an

argument on the merits or demerits of woman suffrage and we shall use

the valuable hours you have so graciously accorded us simply to ask

that you will give us a committee of our very own, before which we may

feel that we have a right to discuss this question. In making this

request we ask you to decide, first, whether the issue of woman

suffrage is sufficiently national in its character to justify a

special committee for its consideration; second, whether it has been

so fairly treated by the committee which has had it in charge for

forty-four years that another is not necessary; and, third, whether

justice requires that it should come under the jurisdiction of

Congress."

The national status of the woman suffrage movement was sketched and

then the question asked: "Has the treatment of this subject by the

committee to which it has always been referred been such as to warrant

a continuance of this custom?" which she answered by saying:

The National Woman Suffrage Association was formed in 1869 for

the express purpose of obtaining an amendment to the Federal

Constitution. Its representatives went before the congressional

committees that year and have continued to do so at each new

Congress since that time, never having been refused a hearing. At

the beginning of 1882 both Senate and House created special Woman

Suffrage Committees. The Senate has continuously maintained this

committee, but in 1884 the House declined to renew it by a vote

of 124 nays, 85 yeas; 112 not voting. The debate was long and

heated and almost wholly on the question of woman suffrage

itself. Thenceforth the women appeared before the House Judiciary

Committee, which, although busy and overworked, had always a good

representation present and was respectful and often cordial.

The ablest women this country has produced have appeared before

this committee.... Repeatedly the eminent members of this

Judiciary Committee have said that no hearings before them were

conducted with such dignity and ability as those of the advocates

of woman suffrage. And what is the result? Six reports in

forty-four years and five of these unfavorable! Does the record

end here? No; for there has been no report of any kind since

1894. For the last twenty years the women of this nation have

made an annual pilgrimage to Washington to plead their cause

before a committee which has forgotten their existence as soon as

they were out of sight.... Gentlemen of the Committee on Rules,

will you not give to women a committee of their own that will not

ignore them for half a century?...

The entire status of woman has changed since the Federal

Constitution was framed, and ethical and social questions have

entered into politics which could not have been foreseen. It is

inevitable that this Constitution must occasionally be amended to

meet new conditions, while leaving its fundamental and vital

provisions undisturbed. The advocates of woman suffrage believe

that it should now be changed so as to give a voice in

governmental affairs to a half of the people which has become an

important factor in the public life of the nation. By the only

means now available the half which possesses the ballot has the

absolute authority over its further extension and no ruling class

likes to divide its power. State rights are desirable to a very

large extent when all the people of the State have a voice, but

it is not in harmony with the spirit of our republic that one

half of the citizens of a State should have complete power over

the political liberty of the other half.

Instance after instance was given from different States showing how

this power had been abused after the women had struggled long and

heroically for even a partial franchise and the speaker concluded:

"Women have been defeated over twenty times in the strongest campaigns

they were able to make for full-suffrage amendments to State

constitutions. From 1896 to 1910 they were not once successful.

Sometimes they were sold out by the party 'machines' at the last

moment; sometimes they were counted out after they had really secured

a majority; but, whatever the reason, they lost. The victories of the

last three years may be cited as evidence that henceforth they will

succeed. Those victories were largely due to political conditions

which do not exist in many other States and against them must be set

the crushing defeats these same years in Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan,

where the woman suffrage amendment was fought by every vicious

interest which menaces the body politic...."

Miss Jane Addams was presented by Dr. Shaw as one who did not need to

be introduced to any civilized being, "not because of any political

agitation by her but for the service she has rendered humanity, one

which is distinctly woman's service, and she long ago came to realize

that it was impossible to do this work as it should be done unless she

and the women associated with her had the ballot." Miss Addams

referred to a committee hearing once before when she was able to give

but one precedent for the jurisdiction of Congress over the

franchise--the 15th Amendment--but now, she said, she could give nine

more. She cited the case of the Indians, the Confederate soldiers,

foreigners who fought in the Civil War, naturalized foreigners,

Federal prisoners, American women marrying aliens, election of U. S.

Senators, etc. Each point brought questions or objections from the

committee and the discussion was very interesting.

Members of the committee asked Dr. Shaw if the association would be

willing to have the matter of a Federal Suffrage Amendment referred to

the Committee on Election of President, Vice-President and

Representatives in Congress but after consultation with members of her

board it was decided to stand for a special committee. Mrs. Desha

Breckinridge was introduced as the great granddaughter of Henry Clay

and in the course of a speech worthy of her ancestry she recalled the

early history of Kentucky, the part of her grandfather in preserving

the Union, the fact that the State had not maintained its prestige

and that if this was to be regained the women must be permitted to

help and said:

I do not feel that I am doing any injustice to the men of my

State in asking this Federal Amendment, in asking the help of the

Congress of the United States. Some years ago, after we had

worked for our School-suffrage law at three sessions of the

Legislature and had at last gotten it past the House and up to

the Senate, only three days before adjournment a letter was sent

to the members by the German-American Alliance, calling upon the

men of Kentucky to protect the homes and womanhood of the State

by defeating it and saying that the Alliance believed the home

was the sphere for women. When we investigated we found that the

German-American Alliance was the brewers' alliance, with

headquarters at Louisville.... I would suggest to the men of this

committee, who I understand are mostly southern, that if they

object to having the suffrage for women forced upon them by the

U. S. Government, there is still time in which they may go home

and get it for their women in the States.

Representative John E. Raker (Calif.), speaking with a full knowledge

of the inner machinery of Congress, brushed aside all objections,

showed that it was the custom to appoint special committees for

special subjects, stood up against the heckling of the Rules Committee

and put the necessity for this desired committee beyond argument. Dr.

Shaw joined him in refuting the reiterated charge that the suffragists

would insist on having it composed entirely of their supporters. Mrs.

Mary Beard (N. Y.) addressed the committee as Democrats and from the

standpoint of party expediency with such a knowledge of politics as

they never had met in a woman. She said in a scathing arraignment:

This committee is composed of thirteen men and seven constitute

the deciding vote on our appeal for the Woman Suffrage Committee.

These seven belong to the majority, the Democratic party. One of

them comes from a partial suffrage State, Illinois, and another

from a campaign State, New York, where the Legislature has

declared in favor of submitting this question to the voters. I

shall, therefore, limit my examination to the remaining five

gentlemen whose point of view will in all probability decide the

women's destiny in the House of Representatives at least for the

moment. These five all represent one section of the country and

my analysis of them is made in the hope that they will take a

national point of view and help us obliterate sectional feeling.

Who are you that hesitate to promote, if you do not actually

obstruct this Federal Amendment? In looking over various public

records I find that the honored chairman of this committee holds

his strategic position as a result of the will expressed at the

polls of 7,623 men. Opposite his name should be written: "No

opposition." Another of the five comes here through the vote of

13,906 men. Another is sent by the very small group of 6,474 men,

and the remaining two represent respectively 18,000 and 16,000

men. The total vote behind all five of these gentlemen is 63,570.

These 63,570 voters, therefore, have the decision of this

momentous question....

You know the fight that you Democratic men put up against the

combination by the Committee on Rules under the leadership of

Speaker Cannon and you led that fight against the domination of

the committee over the House. You are today in this same position

of political power. Can you consistently oppose now the things

for which you fought so bitterly a short time ago? We know how

rapidly you have appointed committees when changed economic

conditions demanded it. I have here the report of the Committee

on the Judiciary for the special session, showing what work it

did, how many sittings it held, which proves conclusively that it

has not time for the consideration of our question....

This part of the hearing closed with the address of Mrs. Carrie

Chapman Catt, who was introduced as president of the International

Woman Suffrage Alliance, representing the organized womanhood of

twenty-six nations. She said in the course of her address:

A few weeks ago a dispatch was sent out from Washington, saying

that the Judiciary Committee for the next year was going to be

more overworked than ever before. It was accompanied by a letter

from the President to Mr. Clayton, begging him to continue as

chairman of that committee and to withdraw from his candidacy for

the Senate from Alabama because this committee was going to do

more work than it had ever been required to do before. He called

attention to the fact that the Ways and Means Committee had been

obliged to work day and night, sometimes spending the whole night

on their particular business, and he warned Mr. Clayton that this

might be the expectation of the Judiciary Committee in this

coming Congress. When this committee has only worked during the

day, we suffragists have not been able to get the attention which

we think our cause demands and with this additional work it is

quite impossible to expect more attention than we have had in the

past. Since the suggestion was offered that possibly our business

might go before the Elections Committee, the information has come

that the President's plan for presidential primary legislation

will make this committee also a very busy one this coming

session.... We pride ourselves on our democracy, but while the

Judiciary Committee has been refusing to report our measure and

bring it before the House for discussion the question of woman

suffrage has been considered by the Imperial Parliaments of

twelve European countries. This has been done in fact within the

past two years.

Mrs. Catt gave particulars from each and said the only ones where it

had not been discussed were those of Germany, Austria, Turkey and the

United States. This assertion stung the committee and Representative

Hardwick (Ga.) asked if there was not the wide difference that in this

country State laws reached the suffrage while in others the Parliament

regulated the vote, and she answered: "Of course there is that

difference but I wish to add my opinion to that of Miss Addams, that

while the States have the right to extend the vote it is the most

outrageously unfair process through which any class of unenfranchised

citizens of any land have ever been called upon to obtain their

enfranchisement and that is the reason why we come to Congress. The

overwhelming majority of the men of this country have not secured

their suffrage by any vote at the polls in the States. The only class

that I have ever been able to find in our history so enfranchised are

the working men in the original thirteen colonies, and they got the

vote by the process long ago when the population was exceedingly

small. There are more men today voting on the basis of their

citizenship under naturalization than for any other reason and yet our

State constitutions compel us to go to these men and ask our vote at

their hands. They say whether the women who have been born and bred

here and educated in our schools shall have the vote. We believe we

have the right to have our question considered by Congress and that is

why we ask for a special committee."

A spirited discussion followed in which the 15th Amendment played a

part and Mr. Hardwick said all the women had to do in order to vote

was to add the word "sex" to it and Dr. Shaw answered: "This would

require a constitutional amendment and what we are asking is such an

amendment to our National Constitution, which shall forbid the States

to deprive women citizens of the right which it grants to every man

born in the United States and to every man imported from any country

under the light of the sun. No nation has subjected its women to the

humiliating position occupied by those of this nation today. There is

no race which is not represented in the citizenship of this country

and these citizens are made the governing power which determines the

destinies of our women. While women are disfranchised in Germany, yet

German women are governed by German men; French women are governed by

Frenchmen; in all the nations of Europe where women are disfranchised

it is by the men of their own nation but in the United States men of

every race may go to the polls and vote that American-born women may

not have a voice in their own government. Therefore we claim that it

is the business of the Government to protect women citizens in this

right of suffrage as it protects men citizens, and we ask for this

committee because we believe that if our question can be brought

before Congress and discussed freely, it will be submitted to the

Legislatures and decided favorably."

Two anti-suffrage associations were represented, the National, headed

by its president, Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge of New York, and the Guidon

Club, headed by its president, Mrs. William Force Scott of New York.

Mrs. Dodge presented as speakers Miss Alice Hill Chittenden and Miss

Minnie Bronson (N. Y.), Mrs. Robert Garrett (Md.), Miss Emily P.

Bissell (Del.), Mrs. A. J. George (Mass.), Miss Annie Bock (Calif.),

Mrs. O. D. Oliphant (N. J.), Miss Ella Dorsey (D. C.), Mrs. R. C.

Talbot and Miss Lucy Price (O.), Miss Eliza Armstrong, Miss Emmeline

Pitt and Miss Julia Harding (Penn.), Miss Alice Edith Abell, president

"Wage-earners' Anti-Suffrage League" (N. Y.); Everett P. Wheeler and

Charles L. Underhill, representing the Men's Anti-Suffrage Leagues of

New York and of Massachusetts. Letters were read from Miss Elizabeth

McCracken (Mass.) and Arthur Pyle (Minn.). Mrs. Scott introduced as

speakers Dr. and Mrs. Rossiter Johnson and John C. Ten Eyck of New

York. Representative J. Thomas Heflin (Ala.) spoke over an hour on his

own initiative.

As the anti-suffragists had entirely disregarded the agreement to

confine the hearing to the purpose of obtaining a special committee

and had covered the whole field of woman suffrage itself, the

Committee on Rules willingly granted time for a rebuttal. Miss Alice

Stone Blackwell (Mass.), editor of the _Woman's Journal_, was selected

as the principal speaker because of her extensive knowledge of the

subject and another large audience assembled for the fifth time, both

suffragists and opponents. Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch (Ills.)

presided and Miss Blackwell said in beginning:

Gentlemen of the committee, it is difficult in a short time to

review the arguments that have been made during nine or ten

hours, therefore I shall take up only the most important points.

The argument has been made over and over that you ought not

appoint this committee because there is not a sufficient public

demand and because the number of women who oppose suffrage is

greater than the number who favor it. It is an actual fact that

we represent a very much larger number. The opponents say that

only 8 per cent. of the women of this country favor suffrage.

They have no authority for this, nobody knows how many there are,

but it is a fact that less than one per cent. of the women of the

United States have expressed any objection to equal suffrage. The

anti-suffragists claim to be organized in seventeen States. The

suffragists are organized in forty-seven; the only State without

an organization is New Mexico. The anti-suffrage movement

maintains only three periodicals--two monthlies and one

quarterly. The suffrage movement maintains seven weekly papers,

one fortnightly and four or five monthlies.

In every State where petitions for suffrage and remonstrances

against it have been sent to the Legislature, the petitioners

have always outnumbered the remonstrants and generally by 50 or

100 to one. At the time of the last New York constitutional

convention as far back as 1894 the suffragists obtained more than

300,000 individual signatures to their petitions. Suppose only

one-half of those were women, that would make 150,000. At the

same time the anti-suffragists obtained only 15,000, men and

women. In Chicago, a few years ago, 104 organizations, with an

aggregate membership of more than 100,000 women, petitioned for a

municipal woman-suffrage clause in the new city charter, while

only one small organization of women petitioned against it ...

One of the opposing speakers claimed that the majority of the

grangers were opposed to suffrage. The National Grange passes a

strong resolution in favor of woman suffrage every year and a

long list of State granges have done the same. Individual working

women have appeared before this committee and have said that they

believed that the majority of working women were opposed to

suffrage, but all the great organizations of working men and

working women have repeatedly passed strong resolutions in favor

of it.

We have been told that all kinds of terrible things will happen

if suffrage is granted. With the exception of Illinois, every

State that has adopted it borders directly upon some State which

has it. If, as has been claimed here, homes were broken up and

made desolate, if husbands found that their wives were neglecting

their home duties and their children, it is not likely that

suffrage would spread from the State which first adopted it to

one adjoining State after another. You have had one California

woman here who claimed that woman suffrage there does not work

well. California adopted the initiative and referendum at the

same time with woman suffrage. The "antis" immediately started an

initiative petition for the repeal of woman suffrage. They said

that 80 per cent. of the women of California were opposed to it

and that they would repeal it. Both men and women were eligible

to sign the repeal petitions; but out of the 1,591,783 men and

women they failed to get the 32,000 signatures necessary. It has

been asserted that the women in all the equal suffrage States

would like to repeal it. In any one of these States they could

repeal it if they wished to. A great effort was made by the

editor of the _Ladies' Home Journal_ to find Colorado women who

would express themselves against it and the fact that he wanted

adverse opinions was widely announced in the papers. Out of the

more than 200,000 women he succeeded in finding only nineteen who

said they did not think much of woman suffrage and of these three

said it had not done any harm.

A few years ago Mrs. Julia Ward Howe took a census of all the

ministers of four leading denominations in the four oldest

suffrage States--Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho--and of all

the editors, asking them whether the results of woman suffrage

were good or bad. She received 624 answers, of which 62 were

unfavorable, 46 undecided and 516 in favor. The answers from the

editors were favorable more than 8 to 1: those from the Episcopal

clergymen more than 2 to 1; from the Baptist, 7 to 1; from the

Congregationalists about 8 to 1; from the Methodists more than 10

to 1; and from the Presbyterians more than 11 to 1.

Miss Blackwell disproved thoroughly the charges made by the opposition

disparaging to the laws for working women in the equal suffrage States

and many other charges, giving full proof of the accuracy of her

statements. The committee asked her many questions and gave her leave

to print as much of her argument as she wished. Her carefully prepared

data filled thirty-five pages of fine print in the published hearing.

James Lees Laidlaw (N. Y.), president of the National Men's League for

Woman Suffrage, showed that the attitude of the opponents expressed a

distrust of democracy. He refuted many of their assertions, among them

the one that U. S. Senator John D. Works (Calif.) had declared woman

suffrage a failure in that State. He read a letter received from the

Senator the preceding day as follows: "I did not make any statement

anywhere that woman suffrage in California has proved a failure. Such

a news item was sent out over the country but it was entirely without

foundation and was based on a false headline in a newspaper not borne

out by the quotation from my speech even in that paper. You may say

for me that the statement is wholly without foundation and that woman

suffrage has not proved to be a failure in my State."

Mrs. McCulloch referred to the "poor, misguided working girl" among

the "antis" who said wage-earning women didn't want the vote and asked

Miss Rose Winslow, a prominent working woman, to read the resolution

demanding the suffrage which was passed by the National Women's Trade

Union League. She did so and in a few sentences scored one of the

flowery anti-suffrage speakers, saying: "I have not had any choice as

to whether I should walk on the Bowery or on Fifth Avenue, because I

walk nowhere in the sunshine. I am one of the millions of women who

work in the shadow of these women of whom men speak as though they are

the only ones in the country, in order that they may parade the avenue

in all the beauty and glory of everything brought from all over the

world for their decoration, but I do not come with merely my personal

opinion and experience. I have the opinion of the organized working

women of America in convention assembled. These women represent all

the trades that women work at in the United States and they have

passed this resolution demanding the ballot without a dissenting

vote."

Mrs. Emma S. South, wife of former Representative Oliver South of

Illinois, said the opponents had given alleged facts that would

require weeks of investigation to prove or disprove. She answered

their favorite assertion that women had more influence without the

vote by convincing illustrations of what the women of Chicago had been

able to accomplish with even their partial suffrage, retaining Mrs.

Ella Flagg Young as superintendent of schools, for instance. She

showed how in the appointment of the new school board the fact that

their power had been doubled and trebled by the recently granted

Municipal vote was manifest. Mrs. William Kent, after showing why the

women of California had asked for the ballot, gave her time to Miss

Helen Todd, who said in the course of an impassioned speech: "My

conversion to suffrage came through six years of work as factory

inspector in Illinois. I have always thought that the reason there

could be such a thing as women 'antis' was simply that the screen of

ignorance and the comfort and protection of home were so thrown

around them that they never had to face the realities.... No one can

go, as I have gone, through the factories of a great State and see the

suffering just of the children and not want the women who create human

life to have the power to protect that life."

Mrs. Ella S. Stewart (Ills.), Mrs. John Rogers, Jr. (N. Y.), Mrs.

Katharine Houghton Hepburn (Conn.), Mrs. Ida Porter Boyer (Penn.) and

Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton (O.) spoke briefly but strongly and an

effective letter was read from Miss Constance Leupp (D. C.). The women

present from the South were deeply incensed at the long, opposing

speech of Representative Heflin, who claimed to represent the women of

that section, and he was severely answered by Mrs. Pattie Ruffner

Jacobs, Mrs. Oscar Hundley and Mrs. Felix Baldwin of his own State;

Mrs. S. D. Meehan of Louisiana; Mrs. L. Crozier French and Miss

Catharine J. Wester of Tennessee and Mrs. Lulu Loveland Shepherd of

Utah, formerly of Tennessee. Mrs. Harper cited the three classes

enfranchised since the founding of the Government, the working men,

the negroes and the Indians, and said: "There was never any question

as to whether they would improve things or hurt things; now, in the

President's Message, he asks you to bring in the Porto Rican men. Are

you going to do this because you think they are needed in the

electorate and because they will make conditions better? We women are

the only class who have ever asked for suffrage in this country to

whom all these objections have been made and in regard to whom all

these fears have been expressed. There is not a class of voters in the

United States today which has lifted one finger to get the ballot, yet

the women of this country have been struggling sixty-five years for

the right to a voice in the Government. You must admit that they are

the best-equipped class that have ever asked this privilege and yet

you have kept them out. All we ask of you is to make it a little less

hard than it has been by giving us a committee from whom we can get

some consideration."

Mrs. Frank W. Mondell, wife of the Representative from Wyoming, said

in the course of a very comprehensive address: "We do not desire to

base our request for the appointment of a Committee on Woman Suffrage

solely on the proposition that the subject is one of greater

importance than those included within the jurisdiction of many

committees of the House but rather on the ground that it has never, so

far as my recollection and information go, failed to provide by

general or special committee for the study and consideration of any

vitally important question that has arisen in the growth and

development of the nation." A review of the different committees was

made and she concluded: "We do not ask or expect a committee

constituted to represent our views but we ask for one whose special

duty it shall be to consider the question. We feel that we are only

asking the House of Representatives to follow its usual rule and

procedure."

Mr. Mondell closed the hearing with a sarcastic review of the

objections made by the opponents during which he said: "I had the

privilege and pleasure of listening to the exceedingly strong and

forceful argument in favor of woman suffrage made this morning by the

gentleman from Alabama, or was it intended for an argument against it?

I think, taking it as a whole, that it was the most conclusive

argument I have ever heard in favor of it.... We have a committee

whose business it is to inquire how much further we should extend the

franchise to the little brown brother over in the Philippines, some

six or seven millions of him, and the President considers that a

sufficiently important matter to refer to it in his Message. I hope it

was through forgetfulness and not deliberate intent that he seemed to

fail to realize that it is of vastly less importance than the question

of granting the franchise to the mothers, wives and sisters among the

95,000,000 of the folks here in the United States." Mr. Mondell

ridiculed the sentimental effusion of Mr. Heflin and his solicitude

lest the harmony of family life might be disturbed and said: "If the

testimony of one who speaks from experience is worth while I can say

with full realization that it is a sweeping statement: In twenty-seven

years' wide knowledge of a people where woman suffrage prevails I have

never known a solitary case where a difference of political opinion

resulted in family quarrels or misunderstanding, not a single one....

Are we to understand that men elsewhere--in Alabama, for instance--are

less considerate than with us and that they would make trouble if

their women folks did not vote as they wanted them to?... The exercise

of the franchise is a privilege and a right but above and beyond the

question of right or privilege stands the fact that as time goes on

and we are attempting to meet wisely the multitude of questions that

arise in government, many of them social and economic, we need the

assistance of the best half of mankind."

* * * * *

The Rules Committee met January 24, 1914, with eight of the fourteen

members present and Mr. Lenroot moved to report favorably the

resolution for a Woman Suffrage Committee. Representatives Foster

(Ills.), Campbell (Kans.) and Kelly (Penn.) joined him;

Representatives Hardwick (Ga.), Pou (N. C.), Cantrill (Ky.) and

Garrett (Tenn.) opposed. Mr. Lenroot then moved to report it without

recommendation and there was a tie vote. Enough signatures were

secured for the calling of a Democratic caucus on February 3 but just

before it convened a meeting of Democrats was held in the office of

Representative Oscar J. Underwood (Ala.) and it was decided by a vote

of 123 to 55 that suffrage was a State and not a Federal question and

no further action on a special committee was taken.

FOOTNOTES:

[78] Call: For the forty-fifth time in its history the National

American Woman Suffrage Association summons its members together in

council. By thus assembling, one more united step toward the final

emancipation of the women of this country is made practicable.... To

the wise and courageous, to those not fearful of the changes demanded

by the vital needs of growing humanity, this Call will have two

meanings: first, it will speak of loyalty to work and to comrade

workers; of large undertakings worthily begun and to be worthily

finished; of the stimulus of difficulty; of joy in the exercise of

talents and strength; of the self-control and ability required for

cooperation.

Second, it will express--like other summons of women to women

throughout the ages--the need not alone for counsel and comfort but

also for the preservation of all they hold most high--for that to

which they gladly give their lives. It will speak of the struggle for

development which individual women have made; of the opportunities

they have won for each other; of the unequivocal demand for the best,

to which the few have led the many....

To you who grasp the underlying meaning of this struggle; to you who

know yourselves akin to those who have preceded and to those who will

follow; to you who are daily making this ideal a reality, this Call is

sent.

ANNA HOWARD SHAW, President.

JANE ADDAMS, Vice-President.

CHARLOTTE ANITA WHITNEY, Second Vice-President.

MARY WARE DENNETT, Executive Secretary.

SUSAN WALKER FITZGERALD, Recording Secretary.

KATHARINE DEXTER MCCORMICK, Treasurer.

HARRIET BURTON LAIDLAW,}

LOUISE DEKOVEN BOWEN, } Auditors

[79] The first delegation received by President Wilson after his

inauguration was a group of eight or ten suffragists. It was arranged

by Miss Alice Paul, chairman of the Congressional Committee of the

National Suffrage Association. They stated their case in a few words

and quoted freely from his book, The New Freedom. The President was

very courteous but his attitude was one of amused curiosity.

[80] When the board met after the convention it was disclosed that the

Congressional Union, instead of being merely a local society to assist

the committee in its efforts with Congress, as Miss Paul had said, was

a national organization to work for the Federal Amendment. That is, it

was to duplicate the work which the National Association had been

formed to do in 1869 and had brought to its present advanced stage.

The association's letterheads had been used for this purpose and

persons from all parts of the country had sent their names and money,

many supposing they were assisting the National Association. Miss Paul

had been obtaining names for membership in the Union during all the

sessions of the convention. The board decided that there must be

complete separation of the work of the committee and the Union; that

the same person could not be at the head of both and that the plans of

the Union must be regularly submitted to the Board. Miss Paul refused

to accept these conditions and she was at once relieved from the

chairmanship of the Congressional Committee and the other members

resigned. The Union was continued as a separate organization. Another

committee was appointed by the National American Association

consisting of Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick, chairman; Mrs. Antoinette

Funk, Mrs. Sherman Booth, all of Illinois, Mrs. Desha Breckinridge

(Ky.), Mrs. Helen H. Gardener (D. C.), Mrs. H. Edward Dreier (N. Y.),

Mrs. James Tucker (Calif.). Headquarters were opened in the Munsey

Building, Washington, with the Illinois women in charge.

[81] Hubert L. Henry (Tex.), Chairman; Edward W. Pou (N. C.); Thomas

W. Hardwick (Ga.); Finis J. Garrett (Tenn.); Martin D. Foster (Ills.);

James C. Cantrill (Ky.); Henry W. Goldfogle (N. Y.); Philip P.

Campbell (Kans.); Irvine L. Lenroot (Wis.); Edwin A. Merritt, Jr. (N.

Y.); M. Clyde Kelly (Penn.).

CHAPTER XIV.

NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1914.

The Forty-sixth annual convention of the National American Woman

Suffrage Association had the honor and privilege of holding its

sessions in Representatives' Hall at the State Capitol in Nashville,

Tenn., Nov. 12-17, 1914.[82] Dr. Anna Howard Shaw was in the chair and

it was officially and cordially welcomed in the name of the city by

Mayor Hilary Howse; of the State Suffrage Association by its

president, Mrs. L. Crozier-French, and of the Nashville Equal Suffrage

League by the president, Mrs. Guilford Dudley. As Dr. Shaw rose to

respond she was presented by Miss Louise Lindsey, vice-regent of the

Ladies' Hermitage Association, with a gavel made from the wood of a

hickory tree planted by General Jackson at the Hermitage, his home.

She spoke of memories which made Nashville dear to the whole country;

referred to the merry barbecue which had been held for their

entertainment the preceding day "at the old mansion of that great

Democrat, Andrew Jackson," and continued:

When his Honor the Mayor spoke of the hope that if women entered

into the political life of our country conditions would be made

better, I forgot the North and turned back in memory to the great

South, where no stronger argument in favor of our cause can be

found than the women themselves. It is not the men who have made

this nation what it is, it is the men and the women, and in no

part of it have women contributed more than in the South. When we

look back over its past history; when we see the land barren, the

desolation everywhere; when we see the homes left destitute and

the women prostrate by the graves of their dead; when we realize

that the men were nearly all swept away--we know that the power

which kept the South steadfast, which held the homes together,

which cherished the traditions, which made the South what it is

today was the loyalty, the patriotism, the unconquerable courage

and the devotion of Southern women in that hour of darkness and

despair. Had it not been for the new spirit of action born of the

necessity of the times in the character of Southern women to

inspire Southern men with hope and courage, desolation would

still be over the South. They evolved from within themselves a

power which no one knows that women possess until some hour of

extreme trial calls it forth. Never has there been a test of

human endurance and wisdom to which women have not responded and

become the inspiration and the strength of manhood. If any women

of this nation have ever bought their freedom and paid a dear

price for it, it is the women of the Southland.

I cannot see how any man who calls himself a Democrat can fail to

recognize that the fundamental principle of democracy is the

right of the citizen to a voice in the government under which

that citizen lives; much less can I understand how any southern

man can look unmoved into the face of southern women knowing that

they are branded as no other body of intelligent people in this

country are--by disfranchisement--that they are deprived of that

one symbol of power which elevates the citizens of a democracy

out of the class of the defective and unfit. The only way men can

redeem themselves, the only way they can be honest American

citizens and Democrats is to stand by the fundamental principle

of democracy--that "Governments derive their just powers from the

consent of the governed"--"governed" women as well as "governed"

men. When Nashville and Tennessee and the South and the North and

the East and the West shall stand on this basic principle of just

government, then we shall have a republic, a government of the

people, by the people and for the people.

At the close of the address this resolution was enthusiastically

adopted: "The National American Woman Suffrage Association in

convention assembled hereby expresses its heartfelt thanks and deep

appreciation to our national president, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, for her

devoted and unremitting work for woman suffrage and for this

association during the past year; for her splendid services in the

campaigns which did so much to lead to victory two States; for her

willingness to stand for re-election in order that she may lead us to

new victories in the coming year."

Greetings were brought from the recently formed National Suffrage

Association of Canada by Miss Ida E. Campbell, who said that although

it was only eight months old it represented many affiliated societies

in all the Provinces. She spoke of the splendid war work that was

being done by women and said: "Our national president, Mrs. L. A.

Hamilton of Toronto, is at the head of the relief work in that city

and the feeling is general that the patriotic activities of the

suffragists are doing much to enhance the cause of woman suffrage in

the eyes of the Canadian public.[83] May we now express the hope that

when the war is over we may welcome many of our American sisters to

what we have been looking forward to--our first Canadian National

Suffrage Convention. Canada salutes you." Greetings were read from the

Colorado State Federation of Women's Clubs and were presented from the

Southern States Woman Suffrage Conference by its president, Miss Kate

M. Gordon (La.).

The large hall was crowded at the first evening meeting and the

convention was formally welcomed by Governor B. W. Hooper, who said in

the course of his address:

It is highly appropriate that your progressive movement should

unfurl its banners in this, the most progressive State in the

South. Our people are not swift in their pursuit of strange

doctrines, but they are as a rule open to conviction and tolerant

of differences of opinion. Whatever may be our views of the

necessity and efficacy of woman suffrage most of us have sense

enough to know that it is surely coming in every State in the

republic.... When it comes to Tennessee I trust that there will

be no faltering compromise, giving only the limited right to vote

in the election of certain classes of officials. The suffrage, if

granted at all, should not be grudgingly given but should be the

complete and comprehensive right to participate in all elections.

When suffrage comes to the women of Tennessee I shall derive one

substantial pleasure from it if I am still living, the joy and

exultation of my little daughter, who has been a pronounced and

persistent suffragist since she was nine years old. She has taken

a keen and intelligent interest in all of my struggles, has

rejoiced in the hour of my victory and wept in the hour of my

defeat. She is the connecting link between me and the woman

suffrage cause.

In behalf of all the good people of Tennessee, I extend greetings

to your great association and express the hope that your sojourn

in the historic Volunteer State may be filled with pleasure and

profit to each and every member of your convention.

The Governor's daughter was introduced to the convention and it

settled itself in anticipation of the stories of the campaigns for

woman suffrage amendments which had ended with the general election

the preceding week, in some of them with victory, in others with

defeat. Miss Anne Martin, president of the Nevada Suffrage

Association, was heartily applauded as she told of the triumph in her

State, saying:

The suffrage victory in Nevada means not only a solid equal

suffrage West and another step toward equal suffrage for the

United States but a triumph for better government in Nevada. It

is the most "male" State in America, perhaps in the world. The

census of 1910 shows that there are two men to every woman. Law,

custom, social life are more nearly man-made than those of any

other country; consequently Nevada needs the help of her women to

modify law, custom and social life, the help of those women whose

pioneer mothers stood shoulder to shoulder with the men in

building up a great commonwealth out of a wilderness. Owing to

the transitory character of many of the industries, such as the

construction of irrigation works, railway construction and

mining, there are nearly three times as many unattached men

living outside of home influences as there are married women in

the State.

The male population is over 50 per cent. transient; the

population of women is only 20 per cent. transient, as they have

permanent occupations on the farms and in the schools. The

argument of the anti-suffragists that "the women do not want it"

was answered by a house-to-house canvass throughout the counties

of the State. In many of them at least 90 per cent. of the women

enrolled themselves in favor of equal suffrage and their

signatures are on file at the headquarters of the Nevada Equal

Franchise Society. The fact that out of a voting population of

only 20,000 a majority of 3,400 votes was cast to give women the

franchise shows not only that men all over the State were just

and fair-minded but that they must have instinctively felt the

need of women's help....

The story of victory for Montana was related by Miss Mary Stewart, as

the president, Miss Jeannette Rankin, had been detained to prevent a

tampering with the election returns, but she afterwards arrived and

was enthusiastically welcomed. Mrs. Clara Darrow, president of the

North Dakota association, gave an account of how the amendment had

been lost in that State through political tricks. Mrs. Draper Smith,

president of the Nebraska association, gave a report on the loss of

that State and paid tribute to William Jennings Bryan, who had made

sixteen strong speeches for it. Mrs. Walter McNab Miller, president of

the Missouri association, told of the effort through the hot summer to

get the necessary 38,000 signatures to an initiative petition, after

the Legislature had refused to submit the amendment, and the tactics

used to defeat it at the polls. Her mention of the name of Champ

Clark, Speaker of the National House of Representatives, who had

recently declared for woman suffrage, was applauded. As Mrs. Harriet

Taylor Upton, president of the Ohio Suffrage Association, was not at

the convention, the loss of the amendment in that State was described

by Mrs. Myron Vorce. [See State chapters.]

The evening closed with the president's address. The report said: Dr.

Shaw declared she had some sympathy for the anti-suffragists, as they

were bound to lose. "When the campaign for woman suffrage was begun,"

she said, "the 'antis' had all of the earth and the suffragists had

only hope of heaven but now many nations of the world and half of the

United States have been converted to the cause of votes for women."

She ridiculed the arguments of the anti-suffragists and said: "Until

you grant the right of a vote to all persons, you haven't a

democracy--you have an aristocracy and the worst of all--an

aristocracy of sex. Soon the divine right of sex here will be as

obsolete as the divine right of Kings in Europe." Answering the

argument that if women have the ballot they ought also to have the

musket, Dr. Shaw said in telling of the sufferings of the women during

the war: "It is said that 300,000 of the flower of Europe's manhood

have been killed in the last nine weeks of the war. I can't grasp the

thought of that many dead men but I can look into the face of one dead

soldier and know that he had a mother. If this woman had escaped death

at childbirth she had watched over him day by day until she had to

look up into the eyes of her boy. And then that boy was called by his

country and soon he was dead--he was in the happy peace of glory and

she was facing the empty years of agony. Then they ask what a woman

knows about war!... The very flower of a country perishes in a war,

leaving the maimed and diseased to father the children of future

generations. Women ought to have the ballot during war and during

peace, for we know that if they had had it in all countries this war

would not have occurred."

The report of Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett, corresponding and executive

secretary, covered much of the work of the National Association during

1914, which was more extensive probably than in any preceding year in

its history. It said in part:

This year has completely broken all records in the number of

campaign States--seven in all. In four of them--Nevada, Montana,

North and South Dakota--the amendment was submitted by

legislative act; in three--Nebraska, Missouri and Ohio--by

initiative petition. It is noteworthy that in all of the last the

suffragists consider the work of securing the requisite number of

signatures, although it was exceedingly arduous, an invaluable

asset to the campaign, each signer being practically guaranteed

to vote right on the amendment itself. In Ohio, Nevada, Montana

and South Dakota, only a simple majority vote on the amendment is

necessary to pass it, but in Nebraska 35 per cent. of all the

votes cast at the election is required and in North Dakota and

Missouri a majority of all the votes cast.

The year 1914 has been what suffragists call an "off year," since

most of the State Legislatures meet biennially in the odd years.

Nevertheless, what acts of Legislatures there have been are of

the greatest significance. Those of Massachusetts and New Jersey

submitted the suffrage amendment by overwhelming votes and in

both States the suffragists are confident of the approval of the

1915 Legislatures, which is necessary before final submission to

the voters. An amendment was introduced into the Legislatures of

eight others. The national legislative record shows that never

before has the Congressional atmosphere been so thoroughly

permeated with woman suffrage. The anxiety of some members of

Congress to show that they stood right with their constituents on

the question and the agility of others in side-stepping every

possible necessity for meeting the issue, have unerringly

indicated that they all recognize the fact that the time has come

when national politics must reckon with woman suffrage.

All through the year there has been the most hearty cooperation

between national headquarters and the Washington and Chicago

offices of our Congressional Committee.... It is impossible to

mention this committee without expressing on behalf of the

officers of the association a most thorough appreciation of the

service of its chairman, Mrs. Medill McCormick, who has not only

given money generously to the work but has added what is more

valuable still--steady, hard, personal labor, coupled with an

indefatigable good humor, frequently under most trying

circumstances....

The new State associations formed and the many suffrage organizations

applying for affiliated or auxiliary membership were named and an

account was given of the large sums of money, the vast amount of

literature and the many workers supplied to the seven State campaigns

of the year. These facts and the other activities of the association

were related in part as follows:

Miss Harriet Grim of Wisconsin was sent by request to North

Dakota to cover the series of Chautauqua meetings in June and

July. Miss Katharine Devereux Blake of New York offered her

services for only expenses for a month of campaign work in July.

Hurried arrangements were made by telegram and as the promptest,

most urgent pleas came from Montana, it won her, although later

she did some work in North Dakota also. Miss Shaw's special fund

was the backing which provided for both tours. Miss Blake made

the wonderful record of obtaining from the collections at her

meetings enough to cover all her travelling and living expenses.

Miss Shaw's fund,[84] which has often seemed like the miraculous

pitcher, also provided part of the expense of sending Mrs. Jennie

Wells Wentworth to Ohio and Mrs. Laura Gregg Cannon to Nevada.

Miss Addams has contributed several weeks of campaigning and Dr.

Shaw herself has made an itinerary, giving ten days to each of

the campaign States, starting August 27 and ending with Election

Day....

Another noteworthy feature of the year's work was the

establishment of Woman's Independence Day on the first Saturday

of May, initiated by Mrs. McCormick and phenomenally successful.

There was a wonderful response to the ringing call sent out by

the National Board to all the suffragists of the country to meet

together in every city and town at a given time and sing a

suffrage hymn, declare their faith, pass a resolution and have a

speech. A woman's version of the Declaration of Independence was

prepared for the occasion and President Wilson was asked by Dr.

Shaw to proclaim the day a legal holiday to be celebrated in

recognition of the right and necessity that the women of the

United States should become citizens in fact as well as in name.

The President did not heed Dr. Shaw's request but the women of

the country did. Not a State was silent, not even the equal

suffrage States, and many added parades and other events to the

regular program.

The story was told of the National Junior Suffrage Corps to enroll the

young people, the idea of Miss Caroline Ruutz-Rees (Conn.); of the

large amount of Congressional documents distributed, among them 1,000

copies of the speech of Senator Henry F. Ashurst (Ariz.) before the

Senate on the Federal Amendment, presented by him; the travelling

schools organized; lists prepared of many thousand active members and

an infinite variety of details. Mrs. Dennett had severed her

connection with the association the preceding September after four

years' invaluable service.

Mrs. Dennett made also the report of the Literature Committee, whose

duties had now been merged in the National Woman Suffrage Publishing

Co. The latter reported through its chairman, Mrs. Cyrus W. Field. The

greatly needed Data Department had been established under the

cooperation of Miss Elinor Byrns, chairman also of the Press

Department; Mrs. Frances Maule Bjorkman and Mrs. Dennett. The

volunteer services of Miss Helen Raulett, like Miss Byrns a lawyer,

had been obtained, and while its great need and possibilities had been

demonstrated it was evident that it must be put on a paid, business

basis to be effective. Miss Byrns gave an interesting account of the

ramifications of the Press and Publicity Department and its important

accomplishments. "In my opinion," she said, "it is almost impossible

to have suffrage news given out successfully by any one who is not an

earnest suffragist. Knowledge of publicity does not make up for the

lack of conviction and enthusiasm," and she gave this instance: "A few

months ago a writer for one of the New York newspapers--the worst

'anti' paper we have--telephoned me, saying, 'I have been told to

write an editorial on the menace of woman suffrage. Can you help me?'

I said, 'Yes, I can prove to you that the majority of the presidential

electors in 1916 may represent equal suffrage States and that in all

probability every political party will have to endorse woman suffrage

before that time. What could be worse than that?' He agreed with me

and his editorial based on the facts Dr. Shaw and I gave him has been

a most successful campaign document for us."

Among other valuable suggestions Miss Byrns said: "While there are

some editors who give us space because they have to--that is because

we are always doing something 'different' and making news which cannot

be ignored--there are perhaps even more who have a real interest in

the suffrage movement and are therefore eager to give us all the space

which the business department of their paper permits. And, by the way,

one of the most valuable kinds of press work is that which can be done

by every suffragist individually. Newspaper and magazine offices are

most sensitive to the praise and blame of readers. Suffrage

departments are sometimes stopped because no readers write their

approval. Individual newspaper policies, belittling or perverting the

suffrage issue, are sometimes persisted in because no readers write

their disapproval. It is discouraging to an editor when a reader

writes a letter complaining of one opposing news item or one cartoon

although she has ignored everything which has been printed in favor of

suffrage."

Miss Jane Thompson, field secretary, told of the 8,000 miles she had

travelled in the campaign States since early in April; of her

experiences pleasant and unpleasant; of the excellent opportunities it

had afforded of establishing thorough understanding and cordial

relations between the National Association and the States. She spoke

of the long and arduous work of the national president and presented

the following expression of loyalty and appreciation from those who

had conducted the campaigns in Ohio, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota,

Montana and Nevada:

To Dr. Anna Howard Shaw:

When service of the highest type has been faithfully and loyally

rendered it is the pleasure of those most benefited by that

service to express, though inadequately, their deep appreciation.

We, the representatives of the Campaign States, feel that to you

we owe much for the splendid way in which you and your Executive

Board stood by us in our efforts, but even more do we appreciate

your personal labor, your untiring, beautiful spirit. Always

ready to meet whatever situation arose, regardless of fatigue,

you encouraged the believers, braced up the uncertain and

converted the unbelieving. Your service, in our estimation, is

invaluable and cannot be dispensed with.

The legal adviser announced the settlement at last of the bequest of

Mrs. Sarah J. McCall of Ohio, including 100 shares of Cincinnati

Street Railway stock, worth from $5,000 to $6,000, and $705 interest;

also the receipt of a legacy of $4,750, after the inheritance tax was

paid, from former U. S. Senator Thomas W. Palmer of Michigan.

Miss Elizabeth Yates said in her report on Presidential suffrage: "The

favorable decision the past year by the Supreme Court of Illinois

leaves no room for any further contention regarding its

constitutionality. It can be granted by any Legislature by a bare

majority vote and this can be obtained by many States that could not

secure the large vote necessary to submit a constitutional amendment

for full suffrage." She strongly urged that any State contemplating a

campaign for full suffrage should first secure the Presidential

franchise. In her usual excellent report on Church Work, Mrs. Mary E.

Craigie told of her visits to the Methodist Ministerial Associations

of Atlanta, Tampa and New Orleans with most gratifying results, as a

friendly spirit towards woman suffrage was developed and the last

named recommended the General Conference to give laity rights to

women. In cooperation with Dr. Nina Wilson Dewey, her chairman for

Iowa, arrangements were made during the Mississippi Valley Conference

in Des Moines with the clergymen of eighteen Protestant churches to

have their pulpits filled at some service on Sunday by women delegates

and the combined audiences by actual count numbered 6,000. Four

thousand copies of the annual letter asking for a mention of the need

of women's influence in State affairs in their Mothers' Day sermons

were sent to as many clergymen.

One of the most valuable sessions was Voters' Evening, under the

auspices of the National Men's League, with its president, James Lees

Laidlaw (N. Y.) in the chair. The opening address was made by U. S.

Senator Luke Lea (Tenn.), who received a great ovation when he began

and the audience rose with cheers and waving handkerchiefs when he

finished. He said in the course of his speech:

I am embarrassed by not knowing how to address this distinguished

audience.... Much as I regret it I must address you as "my

disfranchised friends," who, in spite of your learning, your

cultivation and your intelligence, under our enlightened and

progressive civilization occupy the same political plane as

insane persons, idiots, infants and others laboring under

disabilities. To say I regret to be forced to address you thus is

no mere lip service, contradictory of real sentiment and

conviction, for I was one of the three Southern Senators who were

sufficiently impressed with the absolute necessity of woman

suffrage to step beyond the sacred portals of State rights and

vote for the amendment to the constitution of the United States,

removing from the electoral franchise the limitation of sex, and

I am glad to have an opportunity to express the reasons for my

faith.

These two twofold: First, the wholesome effect upon our

Government of extending the privilege of voting to women; and

second, the far-reaching results upon womanhood of granting this

right. The first reason is justified by the statement which will

be conceded by all, even the "antis," that an overwhelming

majority of women are good rather than bad and have the highest

ideals of government and politics. Therefore, to give the right

to vote to this class is to increase overwhelmingly the number of

good voters and to multiply the number of citizens with these

highest ideals.