History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 5/Chapter 23
CHAPTER XXIII.
WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN NATIONAL PRESIDENTIAL CONVENTIONS.[1]
The courage and patience of the woman suffrage leaders in their long struggle for the ballot is nowhere more strongly evidenced than in their continued appeals to the national political conventions to recognize in their platforms woman's right to the franchise. These distinguished women were received with an indifference that was insulting until far into the 20th century. To two parties, the Prohibition and the Socialist, it was never necessary to appeal. The Prohibition party was organized in 1872 and from that time always advocated woman suffrage in its national platform except in 1896, when it had only a single plank, but this was supplemented by resolutions favoring equal suffrage. The Socialist party, which came into existence in 1901, declared for woman suffrage at the start and thereafter made it a part of its active propaganda. All the minor parties as a rule put planks for woman suffrage in their platforms.[2]
Before the conventions in 1904 the board of the National American Woman Suffrage Association secured full lists of delegates and alternates of the two dominant parties — 667 Republicans and 723 Democratic delegates; 495 Republican alternates and 384 Democratic, a total of 2,269. To each a letter was sent directing his attention to a memorial enclosed, signed by the officers of the association, an urgent request for the insertion in the platform of the following resolution: "Resolved, That we favor the submission by Congress to the various State Legislatures of an amendment to the Federal Con itution forbidding the disf inchisement of United States citizens on account of sex.”
The Republican convention met in Chicago June 21-23. The committee appointed by the National Association consisted of Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton and Miss Elizabeth J. Hauser of Ohio, its treasurer and headquarters secretary, and Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch of Chicago, a former officer, who arranged the hearing. The beautiful rooms of the Chicago Woman's Club were placed at their disposal, where they kept open house, assisted by Mrs. Gertrude Blackwelder, president of the Chicago Political League, Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin and other prominent club women. Mrs. McCulloch went to the Auditorium Annex to ask the Committee on Resolutions for a hearing. Senator Hopkins of Illinois presented her to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, the chairman, and the choice was given her of having it immediately or the next morning. She chose the nearest hour and a little later returned with her committee. Mrs. McCulloch introduced the speakers and made the closing argument. Mrs. Upton, the Rev. Celia Parker Woolley and the Rev. Olympia Brown addressed the committee. They were generously applauded, the suffrage plank was referred to a sub-committee and buried.
The Democratic convention was held in St. Louis July 6-9 and Mrs. Priscilla D. Hackstaff, an officer of the New York Suffrage Association, secured a hearing before the Resolutions Committee. Mrs. Louise L. Werth of St. Louis and Miss Kate M. Gordon of Louisiana joined her on the opening day of the convention and at 8 o'clock the evening of the 7th they appeared before the committee. Mrs. Hackstaff argued on the ground of abstract justice and Miss Gordon from the standpoint of expediency. The committee listened attentively and were liberal with applause but the resolution never was heard from.
Undaunted by a failure which began in 1868 and had continued ever since, the suffragists made their plans for 1908. The Republican convention was again held in Chicago, June 16-20, and a committee of eminent women presented the suffrage resolution— Miss Jane Addams, Mrs. Henrotin, the Rev. Caroline Bartlett Crane, Miss Harriet Grim, Mrs. Blackwelder and Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch. They were heard politely but not the slightest attention was paid to their request. Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, tried to secure the adoption of a plank pledging the Republican party to support a Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment but also was ignored.
When the Democratic party met in national convention in Denver July 7-11, all the delegates and alternates received an appeal which read: "You are respectfully requested by the National American Woman Suffrage Association to place the following plank in your platform: 'Resolved, That we favor the extension of the elective franchise to the women of the United States by the States upon the same qualifications as it is accorded to men'. We ask this in order that our Government may live up to the principles upon which it was founded and in order that the women in the homes and the industries may have equal power with men to influence conditions affecting these respective spheres of action. In making this demand for justice our association calls your attention to the fact that more than 5,000,000 women who are occupied in the industries of the United States are helpless to legislate upon the hours, conditions and remuneration for their labor. We call your attention to the fact that through the commercialized trend of legislation the children of our nation are being sacrificed to a veritable Juggernaut cheap labor while this same trend is wasting our mineral land and water resources, imperiling thereby the inheritance of future generations. We call your attention to the moral conditions menacing the youth of our country. Justice and expediency demand that women be granted equal power with men to mould the conditions directly affecting the industries, the resources and the homes of the nation. We therefore appeal to the Democratic convention assembled to name national standard bearers and to determine national policies, to adopt in its platform a declaration favoring the extension of the franchise to the women of the United States." This appeal was signed by Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, president, Kate M. Gordon, Rachel Foster Avery, Alice Stone Blackwell, Harriet Taylor Upton, Laura Clay and Mary S. Sperry, national officers. It received no consideration whatever, but, although the suffragists did not know it, this was the last year when the two powerful political parties of the country could stand with a united front hostile to all progressive movements. There was shortly to be brought to the assistance of such movements strong forces which could not be resisted. Early in 1912 President William Howard Taft and U. S. Senator Robert M. La Follette announced their intention of trying to secure the Republican nomination for the presidency and the press of the country took up the burning question, "Will Roosevelt be a candidate for a third term?" On February 25 he announced his candidacy and from then until the date of the Republican national convention the public interest was intense. The convention met in Chicago, June 16-20. Miss Jane Addams, vice-president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, had arranged with a number of women to appear at a few hours' notice before the Resolutions Committee but she could not give even that, as she learned at 8:30 p.m. on the 19th that the committee would meet at 9:30 in the Congress Hotel and she must appear at that time. There was hastily mustered into service a small but distinguished group of suffragists consisting of Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen and Miss Mary Bartelme of Chicago; Professor Sophonisba Breckinridge of Kentucky; Mrs. B. B. Mumford of Richmond, Va.; Miss Lillian BD. Wald and Mrs. Simkovitch of New York City; Miss Helen Todd of California; Professor Freund of the Chicago University Law Faculty and a few others. At ten o'clock the suffragists were admitted to the committee room and greeted cordially by Governor Hadley of Missouri and courteously by the chairman, Charles W. Fairbanks. Miss Addams was told that she might have five minutes (later extended to seven) and present one speaker. She introduced Mrs. Bowen, president of the Juvenile Protective Association, who spoke earnestly four minutes, leaving Miss Addams three to make the final plea. There were confusion and noise in the room and the attention of the committee was distracted. The platform contained no reference to woman suffrage. Senator LaFollette presented his own platform to the convention in which was a plank favoring the extension of suffrage to women but it went down to defeat. Two days later the convention amid great excitement nominated President Taft by a vote of 561 while Colonel Roosevelt's vote was only 107. Directly after the convention adjourned the delegates who favored Roosevelt assembled at Orchestra Hall and nominated him in the name of the new Progressive party, Miss Addams seconding the nomination.
Soon after Colonel Roosevelt announced his candidacy he was visited by Judge "Ben" Lindsey of Denver, a representative of the progressive element in politics, who pointed out to him the great assistance it would be to his campaign for him to come out for woman suffrage. Roosevelt, who was an astute politician, saw the advantage of enlisting the help of women, who through their large organizations had become a strong factor in public life. Judge Lindsay therefore was authorized to announce that he would favor a woman suffrage plank in the Progressive platform and Roosevelt confirmed it. This caused wide excitement and the suffragists throughout the country began to rally under the Roosevelt banner. He had always been theoretically in favor but with many reservations and during his two terms as President he had refused all appeals to endorse it in any way. When he went to Chicago to the first convention of the Progressive party August 5 he carried with him the draft of the platform and in it was a plank favoring woman suffrage but calling for a nationwide referendum of the question to women themselves!
When this plank was submitted to the Resolutions Committee, on which were such suffragists as Miss Addams, Judge Lindsay and U. S. Senator Albert J. Beveridge, they vetoed it at once. It had already been issued to the press in printed form and telegrams recalling it had to be sent far and wide. The plank presented by the Resolutions Committee and unanimously adopted by the convention read as follows: "The Progressive party, believing that no people can justly claim to be a true democracy which denies political rights on account of sex, pledges itself to the task of securing equal suffrage to men and women alike."
Many States sent women delegates and they were cordially welcomed. The convention was marked by a deep, almost religious zeal, the delegates breaking frequently into the singing of hymns of which Onward Christian Soldiers was a favorite. Women took a prominent part in the proceedings and woman suffrage was made one of the leading features. Senator Beveridge referred to it at length in his speech, saying: "Because women as much as men are a part of our economic and social life, women as much as men should have the voting power to solve all economic and social problems. Votes are theirs as a matter of natural right alone; votes should be theirs as a matter of political wisdom also."
Later in a glowing tribute Mr. Roosevelt said: "It is idle to argue whether women can play their part in politics because in this convention we have seen the accomplished fact, and, moreover, the women who have actively participated in this work of launching the new party represent all that we are most proud to associate with American womanhood. My earnest hope is to see the Progressive party in all its State and local divisions recognize this fact precisely as it has been recognized at the national convention.... Workingwomen have the same need to combine for protection that workingmen have; the ballot is as necessary for one class as for the other; we do not believe that with the two sexes there is identity of function but we do believe that there should be equality of right and therefore we favor woman suffrage." The Progressive party in State after State followed the lead of the convention and women were welcomed into its deliberations. From this time woman suffrage was one of the dominant political issues throughout the country.
The Democratic National Convention met in Baltimore June 25-July 3. The Baltimore suffragists applied on Thursday for a hearing before the Resolutions Committee for Dr. Anna Howard Shaw and were informed that the hearings had ended on Wednesday. Urged by the women the chairman, John W. Kern of Indiana, finally consented to give a hearing that day, although he said he had turned away hundreds of men who wanted hearings, and he allotted five minutes to it. Mrs. W. J. Brown of Baltimore, Mrs. Lawrence Lewis of Philadelphia and several others went with Dr. Shaw but after a long wait only Mrs. Lewis and she were admitted. With a strong, logical speech Dr. Shaw presented the following resolution and asked that it be made a plank in the platform:
The convention nominated Woodrow Wilson, who had answered a question from a chairman of the New York Woman Suffrage Party the preceding winter, while Governor of New Jersey: "I can only say that my mind is in the midst of the debate which it involves. I do not feel that I am ready to utter my confident judgment as yet about it. I am honestly trying to work my way toward a just conclusion." President Taft had written in answer to a letter of inquiry from the secretary of the Men's Suffrage League of New York: "I am willing to wait until there shall be a substantial, not unanimous, but a substantial call from that sex before the suffrage is extended." As the result of the year's political work a summing up in December, 1912, showed a woman suffrage plank in the national platforms of the Progressive, Socialist and Prohibition parties; a plank in the platform of every party in New York State and in that of one or more parties in many States. The Progressive party with woman suffrage as one of its cardinal principles had polled 4,119,507 votes. Kansas, Oregon and Arizona by popular vote had been added to the number of the equal suffrage States. In 1914 these were increased by Montana and Nevada, making eleven where women voted on the same terms as men. In 1913 Illinois granted a large amount of suffrage including a vote for Presidential electors. In 1915 President Wilson and all his Cabinet, except Secretary Lansing; Speaker Champ Clark and Mr. Bryan publicly endorsed suffrage for women. Constitutional amendments were defeated in four eastern States but they polled 1,234,470 favorable votes. By 1916, the year of the Presidential nominating conventions, there had been so vast an advance of public sentiment that the official board of the National American Woman Suffrage Association was encouraged to believe that its effort of nearly fifty years to obtain woman suffrage planks in the national platforms of the Republican and Democratic parties would be successful. Its president, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, in the letters sent to the delegates, who were circularized three times, called attention to the great gains and the existing status of the movement, adapting the appeal to each party. Under her direction, as a preliminary to the conventions, favorable opinions were obtained from many leading men who were to attend them, similar to the following: Representative John M. Nelson of the House Judiciary Committee said: "The endorsement of equal suffrage by either of the two great parties would do more at this time to simplify the question than any other one thing. It seems to me that in directing their efforts toward securing this endorsement its advocates have exhibited sound practical judgment and admirable political acumen." "I am in favor of an endorsement in the Republican platform of the principle of equal suffrage," said Senator Borah, a Republican delegate. "I have no doubt there will be a plank offered to that effect and it will receive my active support." U. S. Senator Owen on the floor of the Senate declared: "This demand ought to be made by men as well as by thinking, progressive women. I hope that all parties will in the national conventions give their approval to this larger measure of liberty to the better half of the human race." The suffragists began preparations for two striking demonstrations during the conventions.
The Republican convention took place in Chicago June 7-10. On the 6th a mass meeting was held under the auspices of the association at the Princess Theater. Speeches by Mrs. Catt and others roused the audience to great enthusiasm and the following resolution was adopted: 'We, women from every State, gathered in national assembly, come to you in the name of justice, liberty and equality to ask you to incorporate in your platform a declaration favoring the extension of suffrage to the only remaining class of unenfranchised citizens, the women of our nation, and to urge you to give its protecting power and prestige to the final struggle of women for political liberty. We are not asking your endorsement of an untried theory but your recognition of a fact. The men of eleven States and Alaska have already fully enfranchised their women and Illinois has granted a large degree of suffrage, including the Presidential vote. The women of five States have gained the vote since 1912, your last convention, and have party affiliations yet to make."
A parade of 25,000 women had been planned to show the strength of the movement. A cold, heavy rain upset these plans but on June 7, 5,500 women (the others believing the demonstration would not be given) braved the storm, gathered in Grant Park and marched to the Coliseum, where the Republican Resolutions Committee was meeting. The Chicago Herald in describing that march said: "Over their heads surged a vast sea of umbrellas extending two miles down the street; under their feet swirled rivulets of water. Wind tore at their clothes and rain drenched their faces but unhesitatingly they marched in unbroken formation. Never before in the history of this city, probably of the world, has there been so impressive a demonstration of consecration to a cause." The first division reached the convention hall before five o'clock. The committee had given a hearing to the suffragists and was listening to the "antis." Just as Mrs. A. J. George of Brookline, Mass., was asserting, "there is no widespread demand for woman suffrage" hundreds of drenched and dripping women began to pour into the hall, each woman's condition bearing silent witness to the strength of her wish for the vote. Thousands of converts were made among those who witnessed the courage and devotion of the women in facing this storm.
The hearing took place before a sub-committee of the Resolutions Committee and instead of seven minutes being allotted to it, as in 1912, representatives of the National American Woman Suffrage Association had half an hour, the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage the next half hour and the Congressional Union a final half hour. Mrs. Catt, Mrs. Abbie A. Krebs of California, Mrs. Ellis Meredith of Colorado, Mrs. Grace Wilbur Trout of Illinois and Mrs. Frank M. Roessing of Pennsylvania spoke for the National Suffrage Association. They asked for the following resolution: "The Republican party reaffirming its faith in government of the people, by the people and for the people, as a measure of justice to one-half the adult people of this country, favors the extension of the suffrage to women." The speakers for the Congressional Union were Miss Anne Martin, Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch and Mrs. Sara Bard Field and they asked for an endorsement of the Federal Suffrage Amendment. The "antis" were represented by their national president, Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge, and national secretary, Miss Minnie Bronson; Miss Alice Hill Chittenden, New York State president, and Mrs. George. They asked that there should be no mention of woman suffrage.
The sub-committee reported against the adoption of a suffrage plank, the vote standing five to four—Senators Lodge, Wadsworth, Oliver, and Charles Hopkins Clark, editor of the Hartford (Conn.) Courant, and former Representative Howland of Ohio opposed; Senators Borah, Sutherland and Fall and Representative Madden of Illinois in favor.
The question was then taken up in the full Committee on Resolutions. Senators Borah and Smoot led a vigorous fight for a plank; Senator Marion Butler of North Carolina headed the opposition. The strongest possible influence was brought to bear against it by the party leaders, Senators W. Murray Crane and Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts; Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania and James W. Wadsworth, Jr., of New York and Speaker Cannon of Illinois. Nevertheless it was carried by 26 to 21. Within a half hour defeat was again threatened when seven absent members of the committee came and asked for a reconsideration. After repeated parleys it was reconsidered and emerged as the last plank in the platform. The final vote was 35 to 11 but it was the result of a compromise, for it read: "The Republican party, reaffirming its faith in government of the people, by the people and for the people, as a measure of justice to one-half the adult people of this country, favors the extension of the suffrage to women but recognizes the right of each State to settle this question for itself"!
For the first time this party declared for the doctrine of State's rights, which was the chief obstacle in the way of the Federal Amendment, the goal of the National Association for nearly fifty years. Mrs. Catt knew that it would be utterly useless to ask for a plank favoring this amendment and so she asked simply for a clear-cut endorsement of the principle of woman suffrage. This was secured, after women had been appealing to national Republican conventions since 1868, and although it was weakened by the qualifying declaration, she realized that an immense gain had been made. By the press throughout the country the adoption of the plank was hailed as "a victory of supreme importance," and as guaranteeing a suffrage plank in the Democratic national platform, which could not have been obtained without it. It was adopted by the convention without opposition and with great enthusiasm.
The Democratic convention met in St. Louis June 14-16. The first day the suffragists staged their "walkless parade," which the press poetically called "the golden lane," as the 6,000 white-robed women who formed a continuous lane from the convention headquarters in the Jefferson Hotel to the Coliseum where the convention was held carried yellow parasols and wore yellow satin sashes. They gave resplendent color to the aisle through which hundreds of delegates walked to their political councils. On the steps of the Art Museum the suffragists presented a striking tableau showing Liberty, a symbolic figure effectively garbed, surrounded by three groups of women, those in black typifying the non-suffrage States; those in gray representing the partial suffrage States; those in red, white and blue the States where political equality prevailed. The suffragists had now no difficulty in obtaining a hearing and plenty of time. Representatives of the National American Association, the National Woman's Party, the Southern States Woman Suffrage Conference and the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage appeared before the sub-committee of the Resolutions Committee.
The entire Resolutions Committee met in the evening of the 15th to make the final draft of the platform. Although it was a foregone conclusion that it would have to contain a woman suffrage plank the enemies did not intend to concede it willingly. It was not reached until 3 o'clock in the morning, when platform building was suspended while a contest raged. The sleepy committeemen became wide awake and their voices rose till they could be heard in the corridors and out into the street. The unqualified endorsement of woman suffrage asked for by the National Association was defeated by a vote of 24 to 20. The approval of the Federal Amendment asked for by the National Woman's Party was rejected by a vote of 40 to 4. The plea of the "antis" not to mention the subject was defeated by 26 to 17. Finally the committee fell back on what was said to have been President Wilson's suggestion for a plank, which was adopted by 25 ayes, 20 noes. A minority report was immediately prepared by James Nugent of New Jersey, Senator Smith of South Carolina, former Representative Bartlett of Georgia, Stephen B. Fleming of Indiana, Governor Ferguson of Texas and Governor Stanley of Kentucky, in opposition.
The Resolutions Committee adjourned at 7:15 a.m. and the convention opened at 11. Senator William J. Stone of Missouri, chairman of the Resolutions Committee, brought forward the platform but confessed that he was too tired to read it, so Senators Hollis and Walsh took turns at it and when the suffrage plank was reached it was greeted with applause and cheers. Senator Stone moved the adoption of the platform and Governor Ferguson was given thirty minutes to present the minority report, which finally was signed by himself, Nugent, Bartlett and Fleming. The resolution was supported by the chairman. The young Nevada Senator, Key Pittman, handled the signers of the minority report without gloves, showed up their unsavory records and stirred the convention to a frenzy. Yells and catcalls on the floor were met with the cheers of the women who filled the gallery and waved their banners and yellow parasols. Again and again he was forced to stop until Senator John Sharp Williams took the gavel and restored a semblance of order. Senator Walsh of Montana made a powerful speech from the standpoint of political expediency and pointed out that the minority report was signed by only four of the fifty members of the Resolutions Committee. Attempts were made to howl him down and in the midst of the turmoil a terrific storm broke and flashes of lightning and roars of thunder added to the excitement. At last the vote was taken on the minority report and stood 888 noes, 181 ayes. That ended the opposition.
Senator Stone had said to the delegates: 'I may say that President Wilson knows of this plank and deems it imperative to his success in November that it be inserted in the platform." The plank, which was adopted by a viva voce vote read as follows: "We favor the extension of the franchise to the women of this country, State by State, on the same terms as to the men." It transpired afterwards that President Wilson had written it.
As soon as the convention adjourned Mrs. Catt, president of the National Suffrage Association, who with the board of officers was present, sent the following telegram to President Wilson: "Inasmuch as Governor Ferguson of Texas and Senator Walsh of Montana made diametrically opposite statements in the Democratic convention today with regard to your attitude toward the suffrage plank adopted, we apply to you directly to state your position on the plank and give your precise interpretation of its meaning." To this message the President replied on June 22: "I am very glad to make my position about the suffrage plank clear to you, though I had not thought that it was necessary to state— again a position that I have repeatedly stated with entire frankness. The plank received my entire approval before its adoption and I shall support its principle with sincere pleasure. I wish to join with my fellow Democrats in recommending to the several States that they extend the suffrage to women upon the same terms as to men." Later the President made it plain that the Demo-— cratic plank was to be considered a distinct approval of the suffrage movement and that it did not necessarily disapprove of a Federal Amendment.
The general sentiment of the press was to the effect that as a result of the endorsement of the national conventions woman suffrage went before the country with its prestige immeasurably strengthened and recognized as a great force to be reckoned with. The suffragists ended their political convention campaign with planks in the platforms of all the five parties, Republican, Democratic, Progressive, Prohibitionist and Socialist. The Progressive party made its declaration stronger than at its national convention in 1912, its plank reading: "We believe that the women of the country, who share with the men the burden of government in times of peace and make equal sacrifice in times of war, should be given the full political right of suffrage both by State and Federal action." It was adopted unanimously and with great applause at the party's national convention in Chicago June 7-10. The planks were taken by the suffragists as pledges that the parties would help in a practical way to assist the movement in the various States and nationally and this view was made plain to the leaders and to the rank and file of the voters.
Results were soon apparent and between 1916 and 1920 the cause of woman suffrage took immense strides forward. In 1917 New York State gave the complete suffrage to women. In 1918 Michigan, South Dakota and Oklahoma fully enfranchised them, increasing the number of equal suffrage States to fifteen. In thirteen other States women obtained the Presidential franchise and in two the vote in Primary elections. The resolution for a Federal Amendment passed both Houses of Congress in May and June, 1919, and was submitted to the State Legislatures for ratification. By March 22, 1920, it had been ratified by 35, lacking only one of the three-fourths required to make it a part of the National Constitution. The women, therefore, approached the political parties this year in quite a different frame of mind from that of the past, feeling the strength of their position and realizing that where they had formerly pleaded they could now demand. The burning question of the hour was whether the 36th State would ratify in time to enable the millions of women to vote in the Presidential elections in November. The National Committees of the two dominant parties had become ardently in favor of it. Through the influence of Republican women suffragists, the committee of that party sent on June I to the Republican Governors and legislators of Delaware, Connecticut and Vermont the following appeal to ratify the Federal Amendment so that the Republican party might have the credit of assisting women to win their final battle and thus gain their gratitude and allegiance:
Conceding to the committee's action its full and friendly significance, this association further asks permission to re-emphasize before this convention the fact that on the very eve of complete victory a deadlock supervenes in the ratification of this amendment and for that deadlock the Republican party must carry its full share of responsibility, since three States with Republican Legislatures remain on the unratified list. Republican leaders frequently point out that their party has insured a far larger proportion of ratifications than has the Democratic, and apparently count on this situation to accrue to its advantage. This position would be logical if the relative proportion between Republicans and Democrats were the essential thing but it is by no means the essential thing. The 36th State is the essential thing.
Women who are waiting on that State for their right to vote in the Presidential elections of 1920 cannot rest satisfied with the assurance or the evidence that Republican leaders are doing all in their power to bring about ratification. Women who are going to vote the Republican ticket anyhow may be satisfied but they are not the women whose vote is important to the party. The important vote is the vote of the undecided woman who would just as soon be a Republican as a Democrat. That woman has not been convinced by the final Republican showing on ratification and she will not be convinced until the 36th State has ratified. This ratification is the only solution of the situation that can make actual what is so far a merely potential claim of the Republican party on the woman voter.
The National American Woman Suffrage Association urges upon this convention the necessity for such action as will make inevitable and immediate the ratification of the Federal Suffrage Amendment by the 36th State.This was signed by Mary Garrett Hay, acting president, in the absence of Mrs. Catt in Europe; Gertrude Foster Brown, vice-president; Nettie Rogers Shuler, corresponding secretary; Emma Winner Rogers, treasurer; Esther G. Ogden, director, and Rose Young, press chairman.
Miss Hay called a conference of the suffragists attending the convention in Chicago and a plank was drawn up. Miss Hay, Mrs. Richard Edwards, Mrs. Maud Wood Park, Mrs. George Gellhorn, Miss Ada Bush and Mrs. Pattie Ruffner Jacobs constituted a committee to present this plank to the Resolutions Committee of which Senator James E. Watson (Ind.) was chairman. Miss Hay made the principal speech and Mrs. Gellborn and Miss Bush spoke briefly. A sub-committee of the Resolutions Committee accepted the plank which was given out to the press on June 10. It read:
We welcome women into full participation in the affairs of government and the activities of the Republican party. We urge Republican Governors whose States have not yet acted upon the suffrage amendment to call immediately special sessions of their Legislatures for the purpose of ratifying said amendment, to the end that all the women of the nation of voting age may participate in the coming election, so important to the welfare of our country.
As soon as this appeared in the Chicago papers, members of the Connecticut delegation rushed to leaders of the Platform Committee and protested that it was a gross insult to their Governor, Marcus H. Holcomb, and they wanted the wording changed. Accordingly the offending sentence was revised and in the plank adopted by the convention read: "We earnestly hope that Republican Legislatures in States which have not yet acted upon the suffrage amendment will ratify it, to the end that all the women of the nation of voting age may participate in the election of 1920 so important to the welfare of our country."
Republican women in attendance at the convention united in a demand for a fifty-fifty recognition inside of the party. They asked for a woman vice-chairman of the National Republican Committee and for men and women to be represented on it in equal numbers. The Committee on Rules, responding to this demand, changed the rules for representation and provided that seven members be added to the National Executive Committee, all to be women. With this concession the women had to be content.
The Democratic National Convention met in San Francisco June 28-July 5. Prior to the convention the National Committee had yielded to the pressure from the suffrage leaders and Democratic women and on May 30 sent out the following Call: "This committee calls upon the Legislatures of the various States for special sessions, if necessary, to ratify woman suffrage when the Constitutional Amendment is passed by Congress, in order to enable women to vote at the Presidential election in 1920." On June 26, after the amendment had been submitted by Congress, the committee again gave its aid by sending the following message to Governor Roberts of Tennessee:
The National American Woman Suffrage Association appointed Mrs. Guilford Dudley, one of its vice-presidents, who was a delegate-at-large from Tennessee to the convention and a member of the Credentials Committee, to present the following plank to the Resolutions Committee: "The Federal Suffrage Amendment, whose passage in Congress was greatly furthered by the efforts of a Democratic President, is one State short of the number required to make its ratification effective. In two Republican States, Vermont and Connecticut, where ratification could be at once achieved, Republican Governors are refusing to call special sessions. In simple justice to women, we, Democrats in national convention assembled, urge the cooperation of Democratic Governors and legislators in North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida and other Democratic States that have not ratified, in a united effort to complete ratification by the addition of the 36th State in time for the women of America to participate in the approaching elections."
The National Woman's Party through Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, its publicity chairman, presented a plank through U. S. Senator Carter Glass of the Resolutions Committee, which read: "The Democratic Party endorses the proposed amendment to the U. S. Constitution enfranchising women and calls upon all Democratic Governors of States which have not yet ratified the amendment immediately to convene their Legislatures so that they may act upon it and urges all Democratic members of such Legislatures immediately to vote for the amendment...."
The plank finally adopted by the convention read: "We endorse the proposed 19th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States granting equal suffrage to women. We congratulate the Legislatures of 35 States which have already ratified said amendment and we urge the Democratic Governors and Legislatures of Tennessee, North Carolina and Florida and such States as have not yet ratified it to unite in an effort to complete the process of ratification and secure the 36th State in time for all the women of the United States to participate in the fall election. We commend the effective advocacy of the measure by President Wilson."
The Democratic women achieved a victory also in the important decision which was reached in regard to the representation of women in future national conventions, this convention deciding that full sex equality should be observed in its delegations and that the National Committee hereafter should include one man and one woman from each State.
Thus the struggle begun in 1868 for the approval of woman suffrage by the National Presidential Conventions of the political parties ended with its complete endorsement by all of them in 1920.
- ↑ The History is indebted for this chapter to Miss Mary Garrett Hay, second vice-president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
- ↑ For a full account of the effort to obtain planks in the national platforms from 1868 to 1900, inclusive, see Chapter XXIII, Volume IV, History of Woman Suffrage.
- ↑ One evening during the convention the Maryland suffragists, reinforced by others from surrounding cities, had a long and handsomely equipped parade.