History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 5/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1910.
As a national convention had not been held in Washington since 1904 the suffragists were pleased to return to that city with the Forty-second in the long list, which was held April 14-19, 1910.[1] Three special cars were filled by delegates from New York City alone. It had become very difficult to get a suitable place for conventions in the national capital and the experiment was made of holding this one in the large ball room of the Arlington Hotel, which proved entirely inadequate for the audiences. The convention was called to order on the first afternoon by the national president, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, and welcomed by the president of the District of Columbia suffrage association, Miss Harriette J. Hifton, and the president of the District branch of the College Equal Suffrage League, Miss Mabel Foster. The response for the National Association was made by Miss Laura Clay of Kentucky, one of its officers.
The report of the Committee on Church Work was read by its chairman, Mrs. Mary E. Craigie, who gave a record of the accomplishments of her committees in the various States and said: "The moral awakening of the churches to a need for more united efforts along lines of social and moral reform carries with it a great responsibility for women, who, representing two-thirds of the numerical power of the churches, are in their present disfranchised condition negative factors in those broader fields of activity which now constitute church work. Women are beginning to realize that they are wasting their efforts and energies in trying to effect moral and social reforms dependent upon legislative action or law enforcement and they are asking: 'Shall we go on with the farce of attacking the constantly growing evils of intemperance, immorality and crime which menace our homes, our children and society at large, knowing that our efforts are useless and futile, or shall we take a stand which will show that we are in earnest and demand the weapon of the ballot which is necessary before we can do our part as Christian citizens in advancing the kingdom of God on earth?'"
The excellent report of the new headquarters secretary, Professor Mary Gray Peck, filled ten pages of the printed Minutes and in addition to the large collection of statistics contained many useful suggestions. Like all of the reports from the headquarters it showed the great advantage of having them in a large center. Referring to the literature department she said: "Local chairmen should see that tables with suffrage literature are placed in all church and charitable bazaars as far as possible and that our papers may be subscribed for at all subscription agencies; also that our publications are on the shelves and on file in the public libraries throughout the State. One of the things Mrs. Pankhurst said when she was looking over our work-room was: 'Don't give away your publications. We found we got rid of much more when we sold and now we give away nothing.' We have always given away ours with considerable freedom and been glad to have them read at our expense but at the low figure we put on them we could draw the gratis line closer without impairing our popularity.... The average daily output of literature since the opening of headquarters in New York—and this does not include the orders which continued to be filled in Warren— has been 2,742 pieces, or a growth of more than 25 per cent. over the average of last year. Our cash sales from January 1 to April I have amounted to $938, or an average of $312 per month as against the average of $89 per month for 1908-9. That is, our cash sales for the past three months are three and a halftimes greater than they were at the same time last year."
"The propagandist part of the correspondence," said Miss Peck, "soon makes a wise woman of the headquarters secretary. The time for general argument and abstract appeal has largely gone by. The call now is for statistics, laws, definite citations, instances of industrial conditions, legal status of women and children, etc..... The State organizations could do no more valuable service in aiding our efficiency as an information agency than by each getting out a condensed and reliable bulletin of State laws relating to women and children; and also by collecting data as to the property held and taxes paid by women, with illustrative instances where disfranchisement has forced these taxpayers to submit to injustice and unfair discrimination." She told of the increasing call for woman suffrage literature from public libraries to meet the demand and urged the encouragement of debates, saying: "If the State organizations would make a persistent effort to have suffrage debated in the schools and if they advertised the national headquarters as prepared to furnish a volume of debate material for thirty cents, suffrage would receive continuous advertising at no financial expense to us, nor would the good to the movement cease with the debate. Get the young people interested and you catch the mothers. Also by keeping a card register of the young debaters, the State organization would have the names and addresses of an ever-growing list of oncoming citizens interested in the subject. Debaters are a good deal cheaper than organizers. The State University of Wisconsin is sending out through its university extension department our suffrage literature in travelling libraries to meet the demand in the public schools for debate material. I believe most State universities would be glad to do the same for us. Many universities and colleges have discussed suffrage the past winter, notably Dartmouth, Williams and Brown in their annual intercollegiate debate, Yale in the inter-class debate, the University of Texas against Tulane University of Louisiana, and Stanford will debate with Berkeley, April 16." Miss Peck made many other valuable suggestions from the trained viewpoint of a university woman.
Representative A. W. Rucker was introduced as a proxy for the Colorado association and gave its report with a warm personal endorsement of equal suffrage as it had existed in his State for seventeen years. The convention greeted with enthusiasm the mother of U. S. Senator Robert L. Owen of Oklahoma, who said she could not make a speech but would send her son to do so that evening.
Although national suffrage conventions had been held in Washington since 1869 no official recognition ever had been asked for or given by the President of the United States. The leaders thought that now the movement was of sufficient size and importance to justify them in inviting President Taft to give simply an address of welcome. The invitation was sent with the statement that its acceptance would not be regarded as committing him to an advocacy of woman suffrage and it was accepted with this understanding, although Mrs. Elihu Root presented a request from the Anti-Suffrage Association that he would not accept it. The entire country was interested and on the opening evening, when he was to speak, the auditorium was crowded and lines of people reached to the street. President Taft came in with his escort while Dr. Shaw was in the midst of her annual address but she stopped instantly and welcomed him to the platform. The audience arose and with applause and waving of handkerchiefs remained standing until he was seated. At one point in his brief address there was apparently a slight hissing in the back part of the room. The President paused; Dr. Shaw sprang to her feet exclaiming, "Oh, my children!" and the audience, which was excited and amazed, instantly became quiet and listened respectfully to the rest of his speech, but as he left the room, after shaking hands with Dr. Shaw, a few remained seated. As this incident attracted nation-wide comment and much criticism it seems advisable to publish the proceedings in full. The address was as follows:
It was at this point the supposed hissing occurred and the President continued:
Some persons thought that the hissing was done by one or more delegates from the equal suffrage States because of the aspersion cast on the class of women who were likely to vote. Others believed there was no hissing but that it was merely an exclamation of "hush" because of the noise caused by the moving of loose chairs, many in the back part of the room standing up on them to get a better view. It was, however, a matter of great concern and regret on the part of the national officers, who met early the next morning and framed the following resolution:
This was adopted at the morning’s session of the convention by a unanimous rising vote. At the opening of the afternoon session Dr. Shaw said: “I think one of the saddest hours that I have ever spent in connection with one of our national conventions I spent last night after the occurrence of an incident here for which none of the officers of this association bears the least responsibility and we trust none of the delegates needs to bear any of it, when there was a dissent made to an utterance of President Taft. It seemed to us a most unwise and ungracious act and we feel the keenest possible regret over it. Because of this the Official Board has prepared a letter to the President expressing our regret that the occurrence should have taken place, whether by a member of this body or by a visitor. It is impossible to control a great public audience individually and an organization is not responsible for everything which takes place in its public meetings. While I do not think our organization as a body is at all responsible for what took place last night I feel that, since the President was our guest, it is our duty to express our very deep regret for the incident. I ask, therefore, that, without discussion and without further speech, there shall be concurrence on the part of the convention with the Official Board in sending a letter of regret to the President.”
The convention agreed to this instantly with but one dissenting and it was ascertained that she was not only not a delegate but not a member of the association. This justified the general opinion that if there had been any hissing the night before it was done by some of the large number of outsiders in the audience. The letter signed by Professor Frances Squire Potter, as corresponding secretary, read as follows: My dear Mr. President:
The enclosed resolution, introduced by the Committee on Convention Resolutions, was passed unanimously by the National American Woman Suffrage Association today at the opening of its morning session. I am instructed by the unanimous vote of the Official Board and of the delegates now assembled to send you with the resolution this official communication.
The official board and delegates were but a small part of the very large gathering to hear your greeting last evening but as the representatives of the association these delegates feel great sorrow that any one present, either a member or an outsider, should have interrupted your address by an expression of personal feeling, and they herewith disclaim responsibility for such interruption and ask your acceptance of this expression of regret in the spirit in which it is given.
The letter was sent in the afternoon by messenger across Lafayette Square, which separated the Arlington from the White House, and the next morning the following answer was received:
Washington, April 16, 1910.
My dear Mrs. Potter:
I beg to acknowledge your favor of April 15. I unite with you in regretting the incident occurring during my address to which your letter refers. I regret it not because of any personal feeling, for I have none on the subject at all, but only because much more significance has been given to it than it deserves and because it may be used in an unfair way to embarrass the leaders of your movement.
I thank the association for the kindly and cordial tone of the resolutions transmitted and hope that the feature of Thursday night's meeting, which you describe as having given your association much sorrow, may soon be entirely forgotten.
Sincerely yours,
This closed the incident as far as it could be closed but there was a great deal of sympathy with the sentiment expressed by Miss Alice Stone Blackwell in the Woman's Journal: "It was known that while the President was not an anti-suffragist he was not a strong suffragist and might not even be wholly with us. It was, therefore, not expected that he would at the convention 'come out for suffrage.' Indeed, he was not invited to make an address but simply to extend to the convention the welcome of the national capital, not because he was a suffragist but because the convention thought that it was representative enough and of sufficient size and standing in the country to warrant asking the President to do this one thing. He could have declined the invitation and no one would have been offended. He could have said he was an anti-suffragist. He could have tactfully omitted his opinion and confined his time to greetings and welcome as Chief Executive to the convention as a large organization of the women of the nation. At the point where the supposed hissing occurred, it was as if the speaker had struck those women in the face with a whip. Even those who most resented the President's remarks regretted the expression of open disapproval in such a manner, but, to a person, the audience felt that he had been untactful, and, however unintentionally, had implied an odious comparison; that he had not sufficiently considered this great body of the picked women of the land to choose his language in addressing them."
The President's address was preceded by one given by Professor Potter on The Making of Democracy, which had seldom been equalled in its statesmanlike qualities. This was followed by a powerful argument on Why Women Should Have the Suffrage, by Senator Robert L. Owen (Okla.), one of the ablest speakers in the U. S. Senate and always an uncompromising supporter of the political rights of women.
At an afternoon session Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery (Penn.), who had succeeded Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt as chairman of the Committee on Petition to Congress, took up the report where it had ended at the last convention. She said that, in addition to the 100,000 petitions and 5,000 individual letters sent from New York under Mrs. Catt's supervision, there had gone out from the headquarters after they had been removed to Washington and placed in charge of Mrs. Rachel Brill Ezekiel, 60,000 more petitions, 11,000 more letters and 1,185 postals with appeals. 'The petition," she said, "has been a means of introducing suffrage into thousands of households and hundreds of meetings of all kinds in which the subject had not before been mentioned. Even women's clubs have had to listen to suffrage when brought to them by eager seekers after signatures. It has given to many people who have never before done anything for suffrage an opportunity. In some cases whole neighborhoods have been reached through the work of a single energetic woman willing to go from house to house circulating the petition and leaving literature with families where she found little or no sympathy for our movement. All letters sent out from petition headquarters enclosed suffrage leaflets and carried to thousands of men and women the first suffrage literature they had seen." All this vast work had cost only $4,555, of which Mrs. Catt had contributed $1,000. The most strenuous effort had not succeeded in getting the return of all the petitions in time for the convention but those at hand contained 404,825 names.[2]
The arrangements for the parade which was to carry the petitions to Congress were in the hands of Miss Mary Garrett Hay. Mrs. Helen H. Gardener obtained the use of fifty cars from interested residents of Washington and these were handsomely adorned with the flag of the United States and suffrage banners. The official report said: "The most picturesque incident of the convention was the long line of fifty decorated automobiles which bore the petitions and delegates of each State from the Hotel Arlington to the Capitol, where the petitions were personally delivered to the various Senators and Representatives who were to present them to Congress. The large piles of rolled petitions, the respect of the people who lined the streets, the courtesy of the Congressmen and the crowds which watched the presentation in Senate and House were all impressive. Senator LaFollette brought instant silence when, presenting his share of the petitions, he said, "I hope the time will come when this great body of intelligent people will not find it necessary to petition for that which ought to be accorded as a right in a country of equal opportunities."
At the afternoon session a vote of thanks was given to Senator LaFollette and all the Senators and Representatives who presented the petitions. Deep appreciation was expressed of the labor of Mrs. Catt in connection with the petitions and regret that she was not able to be present at the Capitol. This was the last of the hundreds of thousands of petitions to Congress for the submission of a National Amendment to enfranchise women which began in 1866.[3]
Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton in her treasurer's report said the past year had been an unusually hard one financially not because of adversity but because of prosperity. Formerly the States had sent their money to the national treasury to be used as the Official Board thought best, but now there were so many campaigns and new lines of work in various States that they wanted to disburse their own money. This was encouraging but hard on the national work. Few were the years between 1899 and 1908 when some legacy was not received, as Miss Anthony never missed an opportunity to urge women to make such bequests. After her death Miss Mary Anthony followed her example but since both had passed away little had been done in this direction. The total receipts for 1909 were $21,466, and the general disbursements $19,814. With the headquarters in New York more money had been received but more also had to be spent. Mrs. Oliver H. P. Belmont furnished the offices of the Press Committee, paid their rent, the salaries of three workers and all other expenses connected with it. Mrs. William M. Ivins of New York City and Mrs. Mary Ely Parsons of Rye, N. Y., furnished Dr. Shaw's office.
In closing Mrs. Upton said that the duties of the headquarters and of the treasurer's office had been so closely connected that up to this time it had been difficult to separate them. In fact from the time she was elected to date she had always done some work properly belonging to headquarters. From the first a clerk was supplied to her and she was so situated that she could do this and was more than willing to. She had edited twelve reports of annual conventions and was editor and manager of Progress for seven years. She told how letters and requests continued to come to her after the headquarters went to New York and she was obliged to employ another clerk, whose salary she herself paid. In closing she said: "Since 1893 your treasurer has received and disbursed more than $275,000 and she wishes the treasurer for the coming year could have that full amount for the next twelve months' work." The convention accepted the report with a rising vote of thanks for her many years of continuous service.
The general subscriptions at the convention, including those for the South Dakota campaign, were $4,363. Mrs. Belmont continued her pledge of $600 a month. The association had various funds to draw from, which were supplied by contributions. It was voted to appropriate $150 a month for six and a half months' work in Oklahoma if the amendment was to go to the voters in November.
Memorial services were held on the morning of April 15 for two distinguished members of the association, Henry B. Blackwell, who had died Sept. 7, 1909, and William Lloyd Garrison, five days later. On the program was an extract from a speech made by Mr. Blackwell at a national Woman's Rights Convention in Cleveland, O., in 1853: "The interests of the sexes are inseparably connected and in the elevation of the one lies the salvation of the other. Therefore, I claim a part in this last and grandest movement of the ages, for whatever concerns woman concerns the race." Affectionate and beautiful tributes to Mr. Blackwell's nearly fifty years' devotion to the cause of woman suffrage were paid by those who had known him long and intimately, which are partially quoted here.
Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch: Lives consecrated to great reforms, particularly to the advancement of a reform to emancipate women, teach us that the age of chivalry is not past. These great men whom we honor to-day were not, like the knights of old, inspired by the love of some one woman whom they desired to possess, but they strove for justice for those they loved best and for us too, who were their friends, and for millions of women they never knew. Their far-reaching chivalry was one of the most important elements in the characters of Mr. Blackwell and Mr. Garrison. Both of them were unusually fortunate in the women who were their nearest and dearest. Mr. Blackwell's sister Elizabeth was the first woman physician in the United States; his sister-in-law, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, the first ordained minister; his wife, Lucy Stone, one of the sweetest and truest of the pioneer suffrage lecturers.
Mr. Garrison was not old enough to be related to so many pioneers, except through his illustrious father, but his wife's devotion to the suffrage work, his sister's unfaltering activity and his association from boyhood with Boston's brilliant coterie of renowned women, might well have influenced him to have a higher regard and deeper respect for all their sex.... . Mr. Blackwell and Mr. Garrison, in their beautiful family lives, are particularly illustrious examples that woman suffrage will not break up the home. Many long years did these pairs of married friends work together for our cause....
To-day we sorrow for the loss of these men but not without hope, for there are other men coming forward to take up the work they have dropped. We women who are here to-day do not represent merely ourselves and the tens of thousands of other suffrage women but we are backed by the sympathy, the active encouragement and the money of our husbands, our brothers, our fathers, and many of us have chivalrous sons. More even than sympathy they now give, as some are giving themselves for service. One of Mr. Blackwell's last letters to me related to securing a large membership among men, and our Men's Suffrage Leagues, now springing up in all large cities, might well name themselves for him.... Go forward, men, with the spirit of Blackwell and Garrison!Mrs. McCulloch paid a beautiful tribute to the human side of Mr. Blackwell's character, his love of nature and his companionship with children.
At one interesting evening session Mrs. Kate Trimble Woolsey (Ky.) spoke on Republics versus Women, the title of her book; Mrs. Meta L. Stern on Woman Suffrage from a Socialist's Point of View; Miss Alice Paul on The English Situation. Mrs. Catt's subject was Caught in a Snare and the convention voted to have it printed for circulation. As Miss Alice Stone Blackwell was ill at home, missing the annual: convention for the first time, the readers of the "Woman's Journal" were deprived of her usual comprehensive reports and abstracts of the speeches where the manuscript was not available. That of Miss Paul was published in full. She had recently returned from London, where she had been a member of Mrs. Pankhurst's organization, had been sent to prison, had gone on a "hunger strike" and been forcibly fed, and she felt the situation keenly. A part of her speech was as follows:
The essence of the campaign of the suffragettes is opposition to the Government. The country seems willing that the vote be extended to women. This last Parliament showed its willingness by passing their franchise bill through its second reading by a three-to-one majority, but the Government, that little group which controls legislation, would not let it become law. It is not a war of women against men, for the men are helping loyally, but a war of men and women together against the politicians at the head, who because of their own political interests seem afraid to enfranchise women. The suffragettes have gone with petitions to the head of the Government, as our representatives will go in a few days to the authorities in Washington. Here they will be received with courtesy, but Mr. Asquith has never since he has been Prime Minister received a deputation of women on this question of their suffrage. Each time he curtly refuses to see them and orders the police to drive them away or arrest them. Thirteen times the deputations of one society alone have been arrested....
The Earl of Lytton said the other day that more violence had been done by the men during the three weeks of the recent election than by the women during their entire agitation. Such action on the part of voters is wrong for they have a constitutional way, through the ballot. of redressing their grievances, but on the part of a disfranchised class, after half a century's trial has proved all their methods to be of no avail, a protest such as these women have made seems entirely right. We are so close at hand that perhaps we hardly realize the full significance of their movement. The greatest drama that is being enacted in the world today, it seems to me, is the battle of the British women. When historians can look back from the perspective of a century or two I think they will say that this talk of dreadnaughts and budgets and House of Lords was after all of but little moment and that the great event of world significance in Great Britain early in the century was the magnificent struggle for political freedom on the part of her women.The comprehensive report of the corresponding secretary, Professor Potter, filled ten pages of the printed Minutes and was a complete summary of the year's work and that which should be done. Names were given of about forty associations which had passed resolutions for woman suffrage during the year, preceded usually by discussion. These included Federations of Labor, Granges, Temperance Societies, Federations of Women's Clubs, religious bodies and labor organizations. Among the last were the International Typographical Union, International Chair Workers, Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees, American Federation of Labor, National Women's Trade Union League and many others. She called attention to the fact that in many instances the endorsement was unanimous and that the labor resolutions were stronger than ever before, using the phrase "our intention to secure woman suffrage." The Pennsylvania Federation said: "In selecting candidates for political office we will endeavor to secure men who are committed to a belief in the right of women to vote."
Professor Potter emphasized the need of research experts to bring the statistics up to date, as it was now impossible to answer the requests for information from the best type of those asking it, university graduates working for higher degrees, men and women writing articles, books, plays, etc. She reported the beginning of a card catalogue of subjects and the progress made toward carrying out the instructions of the Seattle convention that the national headquarters undertake a handbook of Federal and State Laws for Women and a bibliography. She described the character of the thousands of letters sent out, covering work for prize essays, poster campaigns, mass meetings, "settlement" work, appointments of women, newspaper and magazine publicity and especially organization along political lines. As she had been asked to act as field lecturer as well as corresponding secretary she reported fifty-four lectures given, not only at State suffrage conventions but before men's leagues, press clubs, labor meetings, churches, universities, etc.
The convention showed by a rising vote its full appreciation of this report, which was the first and last given by Professor Potter as corresponding secretary. Differences in regard to administration had arisen which proved to be irreconcilable and she had declined to stand for re-election. The Official Board was divided in opinion and this led to several changes in its personnel. Dr. Shaw was re-elected president; Mrs. Avery, first vice-president; Mrs. Stewart, second vice-president; Mrs. Upton, treasurer; Miss Clay and Miss Blackwell, first and second auditors. Mrs. Florence Kelley declined re-nomination as second vice-president and Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch was elected. Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett (Mass.) was chosen for corresponding secretary. Later in the convention Mrs. Avery and Mrs. Upton gave in their resignations, which the delegates refused to accept and then both announced that their offices would be vacant in one month. Mrs. Upton had been treasurer of the association since 1893 and the delegates were most reluctant to let her go. By action of the Executive Committee Mrs. McCulloch was advanced to the office of first vice-president; Miss Kate M. Gordon (La.) was made second vice-president and Miss Jessie Ashley (N. Y.), treasurer.
The National College Equal Suffrage League held business sessions Saturday forenoon and afternoon with its president, Dr. M. Carey Thomas of Bryn Mawr presiding, and a luncheon was given for its delegates. Miss Caroline Lexow made the annual report. At the evening meeting of the convention Mrs. Alice Duer Miller (N. Y.), representing the Equal Franchise Society, of which Mrs. Clarence Mackay was president, spoke on The Sisterhood of Women, saying in part: '"We have plenty of work to do but it is not that, it is not the organization, the growth of membership and the spread of theories that make me confident of success. It is the extraordinary spirit that animates the women who are working for suffrage, the sense of comradeship and community among them, rich and poor, educated and illiterate, old and young, mothers and daughters. We have been taught to admire the 18th century because it did so much to dissolve class distinctions. It broke down some of the barriers, not between man and woman, but between groups of men, for within groups men have always had this spirit of comradeship, and oh, how they have valued it! They did not get it in domestic relations, however happy; or in friendships, however warm. They got it, or rather they found a field in which to exercise it, in the impersonal activities of their lives, in their crusades, guilds, colleges, labor unions and clubs. But between women the barriers have been of a more serious type. They have been segregated not only class by class but individual by individual and house by house. Now these barriers too are dissolving. Women are finding an expression for their sense of comradeship, for their impersonal loyalty to their own sex; they are waking up to the fact that a sense of equality is more thrilling to those who have the right stuff in them than any sense of superiority could ever have been."
Miss Harriet E. Grim of Wisconsin University described The Call of the New Age to College Women. Miss Juliet Stuart Poyntz, president of Barnard chapter of the College League, discussed Education and Social Progress. Mrs. Elizabeth M. Gilmer, "Dorothy Dix," in an address on The Real Reason why Women cannot Vote, gave a delightful imitation of the voice and words of a wise old negro, "Mirandy," from which the following is quoted:
Dere ain't nobody 'sputing dat we'se got to scrape up de money to pay de tax collector, even if we does have to get down into a skirt pocket for hit insted of pants' pocket, an' our belongin' to de angel sect ain't gwine to keep us out of jail if we gits in a fight wid anodder lady or we swipes a ruffled petticote off de clothesline next do'. Fudermo', when de meat trust puts up de price of po'k chops, hits de woman dat has to squeeze de eagle on de dollar ontel hit holler a little louder an' pare de potato peelin's a little thinner. An' dat makes us women jest a-achin' to have a finger in dat government pie an' see if we can't put a little mo' sweetnin' in hit, an' make hit a little lighter so dat hit won't get so heavy an' ondigestible on de stomachs of dem what ain't millionaires.
Yassir, we'se jest a-honin' for de franchise an' we might have had hit any time dese last forty years ef we'd had enough backbone to riz up an' fit one good fight for hit, but instead of dat we set around a-holdin' our hands an' all we'se done is to say in a meek voice: "Please, sir, I don't lak to trouble you but ef you'd kindly pass me de ballot hit sho'ly would be agreeable to me." An' instead of givin' hit to us, men has kinder winked one eye at de odder an' said: "Lawd, she don't want hit or else she's make a row about hit. Dat's de way we men did. We didn't go after de right to vote wid our pink tea manners on."
Yassir, dat's de true word, an' you listen to me—de day dat women spunks up an' rolls up dere sleeves an' says to dere husband dat dey ain't a-gwine to do no' mo' cookin' in his house, nor darnin' of socks, nor patchin' of britches untel dere is some female votin', why dat day de ballot will be fetched home to women on a silver platter. All dat stands between women an' suffrage is de lack of a spinal colum.An able address was given by Henry Wilbur, as representative of the Friends' Equal Rights Association. Max Eastman, assistant professor in Columbia University, representing the New York Men's League for Woman Suffrage, of which he was secretary, taking the broad subject Democracy and Women, said in the course of his speech:
The other day I had a letter from a man who said he wouldn't join my society because he feared I was "striking a blow at the family, which is the cornerstone of society." Well, I am not much of an authority on matrimony but that sort of language sounds to me like a hysterical outcry from a person whose family is already tottering. It is at least certain that a great many of these cornerstones of society are tottering, and why? Because there dwell in them triviality and vacuity, which prepare the way of the devil. Who can think that intellectual divergence, disagreement upon great public questions, would disrupt a family worth holding together? On the contrary, nothing save a community of great interests— whether in agreement or disagreement—can revive a fading romance. A high and equal comradeship is the one thing that can save those families which are the tottering cornerstones of society. A greater service of the developed woman to the State, however, will be her service in motherhood.... And yet to hear the sacredness of motherhood advanced as a reason why women should not become public-spirited and effectual, you would think this nation had no greater hope than to rear in innocence a generation of grown-up babies. Keep your mothers in a state of invalid remoteness from life and who shall arm the young with intelligent virtue? To educate a child is to lead him out into the world of experience. It is not to bring him in virgin innocence to the front door and say, "Now run on and be a good child!" A million lives wrecked at the very off-go can bear witness to the failure of this method.
Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch (N. Y.) presided at a symposium on Open 'Air Meetings, which were then being much discussed, and they were advocated by Miss Ray Costello of England; Mrs. Katherine Dexter McCormick (Mass.), Mrs. Susan W. Fitzgerald (Mass.) and Mrs. Helen LaReine Baker (Wash.). Mrs. Blatch announced a practical demonstration that afternoon at the corner of Seventh Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Mrs. Catt. presided over a conference on Political District Organization as demonstrated in New York City. An afternoon meeting was devoted to an Industrial Program arranged by Mrs. Myra Strawn Hartshorne of Chicago. Conditions affecting Women as Workers and as Wives and Mothers of Workers were graphically described by Miss Rose Schneiderman (N. Y.), president of the Cap Makers' Union. The Consequences to Motherhood and Womanhood, as demonstrated by the White Slave Traffic, were strikingly pictured by Mrs. Raymond Robins (Ills.), president of the National Women's Trade Union League. A private conference, Mrs. Mary Hutcheson Page (Mass.) presiding, discussed the necessity for defeating anti-suffrage candidates for Congress and Legislatures. Mrs. Florence Kelley, executive secretary of the National Consumers' League, brought greetings from the Southern Conference on Woman and Child Labor, which she had just attended, with a special one from Miss Jean Gordon (La.), and made a striking address. Dr. Anna Mercy, president of the first suffrage club on the East Side of New York, gave practical experiences. Miss Nettie A. Podell and Miss Bertha Ryshpan, representing the Political Equality League, of which Mrs. Belmont was president, told of its gratifying experiments with Political Settlements in New York City. The session closed with a stirring address by Charles Edward Russell on Self-Defense or the Demand for Political Action.
Mrs. Pauline Steinem (Ohio) reported the usual active and efficient work of her Committee on Education, urging among other valuable methods the organization of Mothers' and Parents' Clubs in connection with all public schools. Mrs. McCulloch gave her report as Legal Adviser, which combined sound sense with sparkling humor. She showed how much money had been lost to the association because those who intended to leave bequests to it delayed making their wills. She urged the women to study the statutes of their States relating to women and said that, while she had been glad to contribute her services as legal adviser and would not accept a salary, the association should employ a competent lawyer who could stay at the 'national headquarters and give her entire time to compiling the laws for women and giving legal information. The convention Minutes say: "A rising vote of thanks was given to Mrs. McCulloch for her magnificent work as legal adviser for many years." Miss Gordon presented the plan for raising the Susan B. Anthony Memorial Fund; Mrs. Alice C. Dewey (N. Y.), the report on Bibliography; Dr. Mary D. Hussey (N. J.), on Enrollment. Miss Elizabeth J. Hauser read the report of Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, chairman of the National Press Committee, which said in part:
During these five months there have been received from one news service bureau 10,800 clippings on woman suffrage from papers outside of New York City. Included in these are 2,311 editorials. All of these were read, sorted and filed. (See exhibit.) The number of magazine articles on woman suffrage as noted in Progress during this period has been about one hundred. It is doubtful if there was such a record in all the preceding ten years combined.
In years past there has been great rejoicing when one of the large syndicates would accept an article on woman suffrage. From the time the press bureau was established in New York, practically every one of any consequence in the United States has urgently requested articles and used all that could be furnished. From one to a dozen articles each, with a great many photographs, have been sent to the Associated Press, United Press, Laffan Bureau and National News Syndicate of New York; Western Newspaper Union, Chicago; Newspaper Enterprise Association, Cleveland; NorthAmerican Press Syndicate, Grand Rapids; over 100 short items to the American Press Association. There has been scarcely a limit to the requests for suffrage matter from influential papers in all parts of the country.... Once a month I have supplied an article on the work in the United States for Jus Suffragii, the international paper published in Rotterdam.... I have also edited Progress....
Before closing, I want to express my deep appreciation of the generosity of Mrs. Oliver H. P. Belmont, through which the press bureau has this splendid opportunity for work. Every comfort and facility have been provided and every request cheerfully granted. Mrs. Belmont never attempts, because of her financial assistance, to exercise any supervision over the bureau. It is now well established; it enjoys the confidence of the press and the public and the opportunities that lie before it cannot be measured in extent and importance.During the convention many prominent visitors were introduced to the audiences, among them Miss Mary Johnston, who had taken a leading part in organizing the State Suffrage Association of Virginia, and its president, Mrs. Lila Meade Valentine; Mrs. Elizabeth Upham Yates, the new president of Rhode Island; J. H. Braly, president of the Men's League of California; J. Luther Langston, secretary and treasurer of the Oklahoma Federation of Labor, and Daniel R. Anthony, M.C., of Kansas. Many greetings were received including one from the Finnish Temperance organizations through Miss Maggie Walz of Michigan and others from Mrs. Caroline M. Severance and Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, pioneer suffragists now living in California. Greetings were sent to Miss Clara Barton of Washington, D. C.; Mrs. Julia Ward Howe of Boston; Miss Blackwell; the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell of Elizabeth, N. J.; Mrs. George Howard Lewis of Buffalo; Mrs. Eliza Wright Osborne of Auburn, N. Y.; Mrs. Elizabeth Smith Miller of Geneva, N. Y., all pioneers in suffrage work, and to Mrs. Belmont in New York. A vote of thanks was extended to Miss Belle Bennett (Ky.), president of the Southern Home Mission, for her strong efforts to secure the admission of women to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Through the effort of the District Equal Suffrage Association the spacious Belasco Theater had been secured for the Sunday afternoon meeting. Dr. Shaw presided and Rabbi Abram Simon offered prayer.[4] A large audience listened to forceful addresses by Miss Beatrice Forbes Robertson, Miss Laura Clay, Miss Harriet May Mills, Mrs. Ella S. Stewart and Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, In the evening the officers of the association received the delegates, speakers and members of the convention in the parlors of the Arlington.
One of the most valuable reports given at the convention was that of Mrs. Lucia Ames Mead, chairman of the Standing Committee on Peace and Arbitration. The events of a few years later caused the delegates to remember with renewed interest the extended work and fervent appeals of Mrs. Mead and her associates for settling the world's disputes by peaceful methods. On this occasion she made a special plea to those who were working for the enfranchisement of women.
Professor Potter, Mr. Blackwell's successor as chairman of the committee, presented a set of strong resolutions, international as well as national in character, which were adopted without discussion.
A subject which received much attention was the offer of Miss Blackwell to make the Woman's Journal the official organ of the association. It needed the help of the paper and since the death of her father she needed some one to share the responsibility of its publication. Miss Clay, Mrs. McCulloch, Mrs. Dennett and Miss Mary Garrett of Baltimore were appointed to plan the business details. An agreement was made for one year, Miss Blackwell to continue as editor without salary but the association to employ a business manager and such other help as she required.
A noteworthy program marked the last evening of the convention, which opened with a powerful address by Raymond Robins on The Worker, the Law and the Courts. It was to be followed by a consideration of Scientific Propaganda in Practical Politics, with the Literature discussed by Mrs. Hartshorne but she was ill and Professor Potter took her place. Plans for activity in behalf of changes of law and its administration that will benefit women and children in particular and society in general were presented by Miss Grace Strachan, president of the New York Federation of Teachers. Special plans in behalf of woman suffrage were submitted by Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw (N. Y.). Dr. Shaw, who presided, called attention to the hearings before the committees of Senate and House the next morning and closed the convention with one of her characteristic speeches which sent the audience home happy and ready for the battle.
The dominant note of the convention was the intention henceforth to enter the field of politics. The New York Evening Post said in its account: "The audiences at all the meetings were too large for the capacity of the room and at the Sunday night public gathering hundreds had to be turned away. Without exception State delegations reported that the work of the next year would consist of active effort along political lines, the organization of woman suffrage 'parties' with membership comprising men and women. Delegations would interview candidates and voters in regard to their suffrage opinions; conduct open-air meetings throughout the summer and be on duty at the polls during elections."
The Woman's Journal said in its summing up: "The personnel of the delegates and speakers was such as to inspire the most hostile, the most conservative and the most despondent student of human nature. When an observer reflected that these delegates represented thousands of women in each State who believe in equal suffrage, and that the speakers and leaders of the convention voiced the thoughts, hopes and aspirations of suffragists the world over, he could not help being stirred profoundly with the conviction not only that equal rights are inevitable in the near future but also with the compelling faith that the world is truly marching on in the very best sense and that it can never again be quite as dark a place to live in as it has been. A notable feature was the absolute conviction with which these representatives of the people speak and the unmistakable determination to win a speedy victory."
The "hearings" before committees of Senate and House took place on the historic date, April 19, when in 1776 "the shot was fired which was heard around the world" proclaiming the birth of a republic founded on the right of every individual to represent himself by his ballot! Heretofore they had been held in the Marble Room of the Senate Building and the room of the House Judiciary Committee, which could accommodate only a very limited number of the delegates and none of the public. The splendid new office buildings of the two Houses of Congress were now finished and in the spacious rooms assigned for the hearings all of the delegates found seats and many others, although a long line of the disappointed extended down the corridor.
The members of the Senate Committee were Alexander S. Clay (Ga.), chairman; Senators Joseph F. Johnston (Ala.), Elmer J. Burkett (Neb.), George Peabody Wetmore (R. I.), Albert J. Beveridge (Ind.). All were present except Senator Beveridge. Dr. Shaw presided and before introducing the speakers gave a résumé of the petitions which had just been presented to the Congress, called attention to the names of many eminent men and women who had signed them and said: "Believing that the first republic in the world, founded upon the principle of self-government with 'equal rights for all and special privileges for none,' should be among the leaders and not the laggards in this great world movement, your petitioners pray this honorable body to submit to the Legislatures of the several States for ratification an amendment to the Federal Constitution which will enable American women to vote." She continued:
Dr. Shaw then said: "I desire to introduce speakers from the professions and lines of work represented in our petitions: Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch of Chicago, who has been a practicing lawyer for twenty-four years and was recently re-elected to the office of justice of the peace."
Dr. Shaw: The next speaker will be Miss Eveline Gano, a teacher of history in one of the high schools of New York City, who will speak on behalf of the teachers of the country.
One of the greatest problems facing this republic has been turned over to women teachers—that of coping with the foreign born and their children. Who can estimate the value of this great constructive work, the creation of American citizens out of the varied materials that are landed on our shores? And who can estimate the quickening force and the gain in appreciation and respect for law and order, if the mothers and the teachers of these children were considered worthy of the principles which they are asked to inculcate? Thousands of these women teachers are college graduates with fine training and all are women of more than average intelligence. They are not only bread winners but very often they are the heads of families which they have inherited. They are caring for and educating younger brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, and providing for aged fathers and mothers. It has been said that the men of each class will protect the women of each class. Witness the men teachers of New York City, who in 1900 secured a State law that gave to themselves salaries from 30 per cent. to 100 per cent. higher than to women doing the same grade of work. A woman teacher in the elementary schools must work nine years in order to receive the salary that the man teacher begins with. She may and often does supervise men, because of having passed a difficult examination, and receive $800 a year less than the men whom she supervises. A woman principal receives $1,000 less than a man principal in the same grade of work, having the very same qualifications. Governor Hughes has characterized these discriminations against women as "glaring and gross inequalities," but in spite of the efforts of 15,000 women teachers for the last four years the inequalities still continue. It is rather easy to see the value of the ballot to the men teachers of the city of New York....
As citizens under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, we claim the honored and inherited right to petition our Government or either branch thereof for a redress of grievances that very plainly exist because of the present legal status of women in 41 States of the Union. We ask that our petition, which is signed by hundreds of thousands of law-abiding citizens, shall receive serious and courteous attention. We well know that when a petition of such great consequence to millions of citizens is not so considered the foundation of republican government is attacked and weakened where it should be supported and strengthened.Dr. Shaw: I present now Dr. Anna E. Blount, a physician from Chicago, who will speak in behalf of the medical practitioners.
Dr. Shaw: "I present a lawyer, Mrs. Ellen Spencer Mussey, but she will speak in the capacity of a college woman." After giving her experience in trying to secure better laws for women in the District of Columbia, Mrs. Mussey told of her visits to Norway and Sweden, where as attorney for a legation she had every opportunity to attend the Parliaments, meet the statesmen and leading women and hear their universal testimony in favor of the experiment in woman suffrage. In closing she stated that as chairman of the legislative committee of the General Federation of Women's Clubs she had received reports from hundreds of them regretting their lack of power to obtain legislation and their need of representation on boards of education and of public institutions. Dr. Shaw then introduced Miss Minnie J. Reynolds of New Jersey, formerly of Colorado, who had supervised the petition of the writers.
There are on this list the names of many persons who, although authors or magazine writers, are still more distinguished in other lines of work, as William James and George Herbert Palmer of Harvard; Graham Taylor and Shailer Matthews of the University of Chicago; Simon N. Patten of the University of Pennsylvania; and other professors from the universities of Harvard, Chicago, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Cornell and Columbia, and from Oberlin, Vassar and Wellesley. The great families of Hawthorne, Chanler and Beecher are represented by living descendants who are carrying on the literary traditions which must ever be associated with those names. The late Richard Watson Gilder, editor of the Century, published a tribute to Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi after her death. In this he said in substance that the American women who had most conspicuously united rare intelligence with rare goodness were Josephine Shaw Lowell, founder of the New York Charity Organization; Alice Freeman Palmer, president of Wellesley College, and Dr. Jacobi. Mr. Gilder was an anti-suffragist. The three women whom he thus placed at the pinnacle of American womanhood were all strong suffragists.
The women whose names are on this list represent brains and character; they represent that element of American womanhood which is winning its own way successfully in the great world of competition and strenuous endeavor; influencing the minds and molding the public opinion of the country through their books and through the press. There may be those among you, gentlemen, who are opposed to suffrage, but I am sure there is not one who would not be glad to know that his daughter was a woman of this type if it so happened that he was obliged to leave her unprovided for. There is one girl, Jean Webster, who made $4,000 on one book the year she left college. There is one woman, Mary Johnston, who was paid $20,000 in advance royalties on one book before a word of it was printed. A number of distinguished writers had signed the general petition before the writers' blank had reached them, among them Mark Twain, Booth Tarkington, Ernest Thompson Seton, Julia Ward Howe, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Mary Wilkins Freeman and Ellen Glasgow.Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, former corresponding secretary of the National Suffrage Association, in speaking of the petition told of one containing 10,000 names which had been gathered in Indiana years ago and presented to the Legislature by Mrs. Zerelda G. Wallace, often referred to as the mother pictured in "Ben Hur." It was treated with the utmost contempt, one member saying, "These 10,000 women have about as much influence as that many mice." This experience sent that eloquent woman to the suffrage platform for the rest of her life. Mrs. Avery urged the committee to give a favorable report on this great petition as the first step toward making the influence of the thousands of women who had signed it of more value than that of so many mice. [For the address of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, see Appendix for this chapter.
U. S. Senator John F. Shafroth of Colorado, a consistent supporter of woman suffrage from the very beginning of the movement for it in his State twenty years before, made an address to the committee which was printed in a pamphlet of seven pages and made a part of the propaganda of the National Association. Limited space permits only brief extracts, which give little idea of its compelling arguments.
Governor Shafroth quoted election statistics which showed conclusively that women in Colorado voted in about the same proportion as men and he gave a long list of progressive laws which had been enacted through the support of women. He declared that in no respect had the ideals of womanhood been lowered and closed by saying: "The highest considerations of justice and good government demand equal suffrage for all women."
Dr. Shaw in closing the hearing said in part:
If there is anything which must appeal to every sense of justice, it is the struggle of the industrial world to get out from under the domineering, military power. The age in which we live is no longer a militant age. Today it is not so much the question of which nation can produce the greatest number of soldiers as of which can produce the greatest number of things the world needs to buy. It is a problem of industry and into this problem women, either by force or by desire, have come.... In olden times women could control the hours of their labor and the conditions affecting their health and the health of their families; they could regulate the price of the product which they themselves produced in the home but since men have taken from it the industries, the necessity for women to protect themselves in the workshop, in the sweatshop, in the factory has come about. Wherever man has taken woman's work the woman must follow it and she must have the same method of protecting herself which man must have and there is no other means save through the ballot....
We have been over forty years, a longer period than the children of Israel wandered through the wilderness, coming to this Capitol pleading for this recognition of the principle that the Government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. Mr. Chairman, we ask that you report our resolution favorably if you can but unfavorably if you must; that you report one way or the other, so that the Senate may have the chance to consider it.The Chairman: "In behalf of the committee I desire to thank the ladies for the splendid arguments they have made and to say that we appreciate them most heartily. It is my intention to call the committee together at a very early date and we will give a careful and intelligent consideration to this measure, and, I hope, make a report on it."
Notwithstanding this promise no further attention was paid to these logical and eloquent appeals or to the immense petition, and no report whatever was made by the committee.
All but four of the members of the House Judiciary Committee were present, including the chairman, Richard Wayne Parker (N. J.), a remarkable attendance, and they showed much interest.[5] Mrs. Florence Kelley, second vice-president of the National Suffrage Association, was in charge of the speakers and the hearing was opened by Representative A. W. Rucker (Col.), who had introduced the resolution for the Federal Amendment, as also had Representative F. W. Mondell (Wyo.). Mrs. Kelley called attention to the petition of 404,823 names, saying: "Among those who have signed the petition are sixteen Governors, a large number of Mayors and many State, county and city officials; many of the best-known instructors and writers on political economy and many presidents of colleges and universities. It includes the names of many Judges of Supreme Courts and among them the Chief Justice and Associate Justice of Hawaii. It contains a long list of the names of persons engaged in various trades and from those in the thirty-three States which are classified are 7,515 professional people, lawyers, doctors, clergymen and others; also 52,603 listed as home keepers."
Mrs. Susan W. Fitzgerald (Mass.) said in part: "I come here to speak for those 52,000 home makers who signed the petition to Congress asking for equal political rights in this democracy.... To ask woman under our modern industrial conditions to care adequately for her home and family without a right to share in the making of the laws and the electing of all those officers who are to enforce the laws is like asking people to make bricks without straw. It cannot be done. We must remember that in the early days of this country a family was practically self-supporting and independent of the rest of the community; a man and a woman working together could provide for their family all that was necessary for their sustenance; meats, vegetables, grains, milk, eggs, butter, cheese, all were home products. They provided their own lighting and controlled their own water supply. The women spun the thread, wove the cloth, dyed it and made the garments. In every way, if it was necessary, the family could maintain its existence independent of the cooperation of society except in the one matter of defense from violence. None of this is true today." Mrs. Fitzgerald took up the questions of food, drink and clothing as supplied at the present time and showed the great need that women should have a voice in the legislation that controls their production.
It had been announced that all of the arguments would be made along industrial lines. Arthur E. Holder, of the legislative committee of the American Federation of Labor, presented for the record a series of the very positive resolutions for woman suffrage which had been adopted by that body at its annual conventions beginning with 1904 and read the one passed at Toronto in 1909: "The best interests of labor require the admission of women to full citizenship as a matter of justice to them and as a necessary step toward insuring and raising the scale of wages for all." 'He closed a strong speech by saying: "We want the right of representation for all the people, women as well as men. Women have been disfranchised in our country long enough and we now ask for that measure which will constitutionally grant the right to vote to the women of our land. We believe that women ought to be free agents, free selectors, free voters. The law is no respecter of persons. Women cannot shirk their responsibility because they are women; neither should they be longer denied their normal citizenship rights and privileges because they are women."
In a most convincing address Mrs. Elizabeth Schauss, factory inspector of Ohio, said:
Mrs. Raymond Robins, thoroughly qualified to speak on this question, said in part: "I have the great honor and privilege of representing, as president of the National Women's Trade Union League, something like 75,000 organized working women, and I believe all through our country as well as through all the world there is a growing recognition of the cost of our modern industrial conditions to women. These are such that in many thousands of instances the motherhood of our girls has to be forfeited. No one knows except those who have made a very intimate and careful study of the present cost of social and industrial conditions how great that cost is. When we demanded in Illinois the limiting of the working hours for women to ten a day, many of our women physicians brought forward facts of great value showing the tremendous physical danger to girls of overwork. At present a very interesting and valuable investigation is going on, led by some of our woman physicians, showing the evil result on the second generation of these industrial conditions.... These facts are of national importance and it is because right there is the crux of the entire situation that we women are working for the ballot, for the sake of protecting the womanhood and motherhood of our 6,000,000 working women, I think half of them under 21 years of age.... "
Mrs. Robins gave a number of special instances and in answer to the question how the ballot would remedy these evils, she said: "The women, an unorganized group, get together and take collective action and they find themselves not fighting their industrial battles in the economic field but in the political field and the weapons that are constantly used against them with the greatest success are political weapons. The power of the police and of the courts is used against them in many instances and whenever they try to meet that expression of political power, they are handicapped because there is no force in their hands to help change it....
In the course of a speech punctuated with lively questions and answers Mrs. Upton said: "I represent the industry of wifehood and housekeeping. I spent many of my childhood days in the room of this committee, my father having been a member of the Judiciary Committee for thirteen years and chairman for several years. He was the only one who ever reported a bill favorably for woman suffrage.... I want to ask you to report against us if you will not report for us. Just tell the world that we must not vote because we cannot fight, because it will destroy the home, anything you please, but break your long years of silence. Is it fair for you not to tell us why you are opposed to us? Women are not fools; on the contrary, they are very intelligent people and sure to be enfranchised before long. If this committee does not help some other will; it is going to be done and it is for you to decide whether your daughters will be able to say years from now, 'My father was one of the men who helped get woman suffrage!' While men of this country have been running after dollars at a terrific rate in recent years women have been studying and preparing themselves in clubs and all sorts of organizations for this right, so that they will be the most intelligent class—if you call them a class—that was ever enfranchised in all history. Are you afraid of intelligence? All we ask is to let the mother heart, the home element, be expressed in the government. . . . I beg of you to let all the world know why the women of the United States, who by hundreds of thousands have petitioned you to submit this amendment, ought not have at least this request considered and a report on it made."
Miss Laura J. Graddick, representing a labor union in the District of Columbia, said during an able and earnest address:
In a speech of deep feeling Miss Laura Clay, president of the Kentucky Suffrage Association, said in part: "Gentlemen, when I hear our women making the pleas that they have made, brought up, as I have been, to believe that the manhood of the United States is the grandest in the world, I ask, 'Shall we not find any members of Congress except those who say, 'Can you not get some One else to protect you? Go to your States, go anywhere but do not come to us?' It has been said to me when I have spoken for childhood, 'You have no child? And I have answered: 'No, I have no child, but just as surely as men in the order of nature are the protectors of womanhood, so surely in the order of nature women are the protectors of childhood. I would dishonor my womanhood to say that I will not do what I can for a child because I have none and I hope the time will never come when women must be ashamed of men because they are not willing to sacrifice something to take this action for women.' Think of it! Must we crawl on our knees to ask you for that which we feel we have a right to demand? You should see that every protection which every lifting hand that it is possible for manhood to offer to womanhood should be extended and your position gives you a great opportunity. I urge that, as far as your official power extends, you will show that the manhood of the United States responds to the pleas of the womanhood of the United States."
The closing address of Mrs. Kelley and the many questions it called for from the committee with her answers filled nearly twelve pages of the printed report of the hearing. A small part only can find space here. Women now do not count in our communities at all in proportion to the responsibilities which they carry. One of the gentlemen has asked: "What is the relation of all this labor talk to the ballot?" I will give you some examples: I was for four years the head of the factory inspectors of Illinois. During that time we had an eight-hour law enacted for the protection of women and children employed in manufacturing industries. The Supreme Court held that it was contrary to the constitutions of the State and of the United States for women to be deprived of the right to work twenty-four hours whenever it suited the convenience of the employers. The court said —and it took 9,000 words to say it—that women could not be deprived of working unlimited hours, because they were citizens, although it said the term "citizenship" was limited; the Court said they could not be allowed to work underground in mines; they could not be allowed to work out their taxes on the roads, as farmers do; they could not be called to the militia; they could not vote except for school committees and once in four years for the trustees of the State University, but, with those minor deductions, they were citizens and could not be deprived of the freedom of contract.
The Supreme Court of the United States has proclaimed that the Judges of Illinois guessed wrong on that occasion, that it is not contrary to the Constitution of the United States to limit the working hours of women but that it is the obvious duty of every Legislature to do this in the interest of public health and morals. A year ago, largely through the efforts of Mrs. Robins, the Legislature tried it again and passed this time a ten-hour law for women. A Judge was found who held that it was a legitimate object for an injunction and he enjoined my successor, the present factory inspector, and the prosecuting attorney from enforcing this law. To-day under that injunction the women are again free to work twenty-four hours, as they do one day in the week quite regularly in the laundries in Chicago, and to work sixteen hours a day as they do in the stores during the Christmas rush, and as they do in the box factories and candy factories. Yet the women of Illinois have not had one word to say as to the personnel of these courts which decide what is a matter of life and death for every woman who is rushed into her grave by work in the laundries and other sweat shops of that State.Mrs. Kelley gave some tragic instances of occurrences during her eight years in Hull House with Miss Jane Addams, where the working of women overtime caused death and permanent invalidism, and continued:
A spirited discussion ensued here between Representative Robert L. Henry (Tex.) and Mrs. Kelley as to whether Congress has the power to coerce a State through a Federal Amendment into giving women the right to vote. Representative Edwin Y. Webb (N. C.) asked if the majority of women wanted to vote and she answered that there was not the slightest doubt of it, that as reasoning beings women could not help desiring a full share in the Government under which they live. Representative Goebel (O.) said that at any time man might be called on to uphold the laws and the Constitution and asked: "Do you think that woman is physically and temperamentally fitted to give any return to the Government for any privilege she might have in the exercise of her right as a citizen?" Mrs. Kelley answered: "Yes, I think we have always done it. We pay taxes, we teach the children to obey the laws, we fill their hearts with patriotism, but the principal thing is that we furnish the army at the risk of our own lives. Every time an army has been called for in the United States it has been the sons of American women on the whole who have carried the weapons and every son has been born at the risk of his mother's life. Her service is a very much greater contribution than the two or three years of the son's carrying a gun or perhaps dying of typhoid fever while in the service."
Miss Clay could not keep silent but asked if they realized how much the order of society depended on the teaching and the restraining influence of women, on their power to maintain decency of life, not alone by their presence but also by their high ideals of law and society. "When they are recognized as voting citizens," she said, "their idea of civic duty will reach a still higher point and they will have power to see that it is enforced." Members of the committee began to bring forward the stock misrepresentations about the voting of women in Colorado, which called Mr. Rucker to his feet with statistics to show that women voted in quite as large a proportion as men; that, instead of men's controlling the women's votes, women often controlled the men's; that in the hundreds of cases of election frauds only one or two women had been implicated; that less than 15 per cent. of the so-called "ostracized" women go to the polls.
In closing Chairman Parker said: "I wish to render the thanks of the committee for this large and representative audience, which is almost an American Congress, I am all the more pleased and interested to find such strong presentations by those whom I might call, possibly without offense, 'Daughters of the American Congress,' two of whom claim an acquaintance with this committee that goes back at least as far as any of us. I wish to offer all of you our thanks for the earnest consideration that you seem to have given to the great problems, industrial and social, as well as those of the family, which confront us all, and in comparison with which the political powers and actions of this country are but as nothing. Those who think and work for the good of the family, the home, the workshop, the farm and the school are those to whom the American Congress always owes its thanks."
Although the speakers who addressed these committees represented the very highest of American womanhood; although it was conceded that their arguments had never been exceeded in logic, directness and force; although there was no doubt that they represented a large proportion of the women of the country in the homes, colleges, professions and trades, yet this committee, like that of the Senate, ignored the petitions and the hearing completely and made no report whatever, either favorable or unfavorable.
- ↑ Part of Call: During the past year women have voted for the first time in Norway at a Parliamentary election, for the first time in Denmark at the Municipal elections, for the first time in Victoria at an election for the State Parliament. This year a woman has been nominated as a member of the Municipal Council in Paris, a woman is filling the office of Mayor in one English city and a number are serving as aldermen in others. In our own country women are voting for the first time in Michigan on questions of local taxation, while in Washington, Oregon, South Dakota and Oklahoma, suffrage amendments to the State constitutions are pending. From Chicago, radiating north, east, south and west, there is going out an influence which is making the social settlements centers of political influence. In Spokane, New York and Baltimore, political settlements are under way. From one of the great press centers of the world, New York City, suffrage propaganda is travelling through all civilized countries, and in its New York headquarters the National American Woman Suffrage Association is receiving news of an unprecedented rising suffrage sentiment from men and women belonging to all the great nations of the earth.
Our cause is universal, its majesty is intrinsic, its logic is unanswerable, its success is sure. Let the women of America come together in this year 1910 consecrated anew to the superb hope for humanity which lies in a full democracy.
Anna Howard Shaw, President. Rachel Foster Avery, First Vice-President. Florence Kelley, Second Vice-President. Frances Squire Potter, Corresponding Secretary. Ella S. Stewart, Recording Secretary. Harriet Taylor Upton, Treasurer. Laura Clay, Auditors. Alice Stone Blackwell, - ↑ Mrs. Catt's original plan required each State to tabulate the signers according to their lines of work but this was not fully carried out. Miss Minnie J. Reynolds, in charge of the Writer's Section, published a long and interesting report in the Woman's Journal. Simply the names of distinguished writers, men and women, who had signed, filled a solid column and yet she said: "The work on this section was absurdly fragmentary. In the city of Washington Miss Nettie Lovisa White had obtained the names of sixty, including the most prominent newspaper correspondents."
- ↑ See History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II, page 91.
- ↑ Washington ministers who opened various sessions with prayer were the Reverends U. G. B. Pierce, Samuel H. Woodrow, John Van Schaick and William I, McKenney.
- ↑ Names of committee: Present—Representatives Sterling, Moon, Diekema, Goebel, Denby, Howland, Nye, Clayton, Henry, Brantley, Webb and Carlin; absent—Terrell, Reid, Malby, Higgins.
