Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/193

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NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1906
163

cock, made her last report, as the press work was henceforth to be done at the national headquarters with its excellent staff and facilities. For twelve years Mrs. Babcock had carried on this work, which in her capable hands had reached an immense volume and become a leading feature of the National Association. She reported that over 5,000 papers were now using the material sent out from the press bureau and that it was very difficult to respond to all the calls for it. In answer to the second broadside of former President Cleveland in the Ladies' Home Journal, which refused to publish anything from anybody on the other side, 2,000 copies of articles by different persons and 1,000 of the excellent refutation by Representative John F. Shafroth of Colorado had been distributed. The report stated that Mrs. Ida Porter Boyer, the efficient chairman of Pennsylvania, had been sent by the National Association to supervise the press work of the Oregon campaign. It urged that grateful recognition should be shown to papers that favor woman suffrage saying: "Editors are called upon for help and are not thanked for the kindness and good they do nearly as much as they should be." The convention gave Mrs. Babcock a rising vote of thanks for her long and faithful work.

The Executive Committee recommended in its Plan of Work that the States work for a uniform resolution in favor of a Sixteenth Amendment; that they endeavor to secure Initiative and Referendum laws; that in each Legislature measures be introduced for full suffrage or for some form of suffrage; that efforts be continued to obtain equalization of property and intestate laws, also co-guardianship of children; that the working forces of the association be concentrated where there are State campaigns for suffrage; that each club organize one new one and each individual member secure one more; that all present lines of work be continued and extended; that there be a more systematic and liberal distribution of literature; that hearings be obtained before all kinds of organizations. It was voted that "the Board of Officers consider the propriety of recommending all the States to make a concerted effort to secure Presidential suffrage for women in the election of 1908." But one work conference was held, that on Press, Miss Hauser presiding. One of the most important conferences of the week was that of State presidents, at which