Under the pen name of Lucas Malet, Mrs. Mary St. Leger Harrison, a daughter of Charles Kingsley who was a strong believer in woman suffrage, had published an article in the London Fortnightly Review attacking it and quoting President Roosevelt as an opponent. A long resolution giving his favorable record for the past twenty-five years on questions relating to women was presented and adopted, against the judgment of many delegates. A committee was appointed to ask him for a more definite expression on woman suffrage.[1]
Telegrams of greeting were sent to veterans in the cause— Mrs. Laura de Force Gordon, Mrs. Caroline M. Severance, Mrs. Ellen Clark Sargent of California; Mrs. Caroline E. Merrick of Louisiana; Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Col. T. W. Higginson, Mrs. Judith W. Smith of Massachusetts; Mrs. Armenia S. White of New Hampshire; Miss Laura Moore of Vermont; Mrs. Margaret W. Campbell of Iowa.
The Committee on Legislation for Civil Rights, Mrs. Blankenburg, chairman, reported that among measures the suffragists had worked for, the child labor laws had been strengthened in New York, Pennsylvania and California; the "age of consent" had been raised in Illinois and Oregon; laws had been passed in several States requiring that women should be appointed to public boards and women physicians to public institutions, Cali-
- ↑ Miss Anthony and Mrs. Upton went to Washington in November, where Mrs. Harper joined them, and on the 15th President Roosevelt received them cordially and granted them a long interview. Miss Anthony was the principal spokesman and made these requests: 1. To mention woman suffrage in his speeches when practicable. 2. To put experienced women on boards and commissions relating to such matters as they would be competent to pass upon. 3. To recommend to Congress a special committee to investigate the practical working of woman suffrage where it exists. 4. To see that Congress should not discriminate against the women of the Philippines as it had done against those of Hawaii. 5. To say something that would help the approaching suffrage campaign in Oregon. 6. To speak to the national suffrage convention in Baltimore in February, as he did to the Mothers' Congress. 7. To recommend to Congress a Federal Suffrage Amendment before he left the presidency.
These requests were given to him in typewritten form but President Roosevelt did not comply with one of them and did not communicate further with the committee who called upon him. For full account of this occurrence see Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, page 1375.
in Oregon and Arizona and defeated in Nebraska and Missouri. Still later by this method the ratification of the Federal Suffrage Amendment in Ohio by the Legislature was sent to the voters after they had defeated the ratification of the Prohibition Amendment. This was attempted in several other States and both prohibitionists and suffragists were in great distress, which was relieved by a decision of the U. S. Supreme Court that this action was unconstitutional. They learned, however, that the Initiative and Referendum has its harmful as well as its beneficial side.
