Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/281

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1909
249

sent out and an average of nearly 1,000 pieces of literature a day, as many in the first half of the present year as in all of 1908. The Book Department, in charge of Miss Caroline I. Reilly, reported that the sales of the Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony had amounted to $800: 200 sets of the History of Woman Suffrage had been placed in the libraries of the leading colleges and universities: 100 copies of the Reports of the last two national conventions had been put into the libraries which keep the file.

The delegates to the presidential nominating conventions had been appealed to by letter for a suffrage plank in the platform but without result. The Independence Party convention in Chicago voted it down. The usual work had been done in international and national conventions and many had adopted favorable resolutions, among them those of the International Bricklayers' and Stone Masons' Union meeting in Detroit: the International Cotton Spinners' Union in Boston and the Woman's National Trade Union League in that city: the National Council of Women and the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association. The United Mine Workers of America, meeting at Indianapolis, passed the woman suffrage resolution by unanimous vote and sent to the headquarters 500 copies of it, which were promptly mailed to members of Congress. The American Federation of Labor, representing 2,000,000 members, at its convention in Denver, followed its long established custom of passing this resolution. Dr. Shaw attended the National Conference of Charities and Corrections: Mrs. Julia Ward Howe was received as a fraternal delegate from the National American Suffrage Association by the General Federation of Women's Clubs at its biennial in Boston: Mrs. Stockwell by the convention of the American Library Association: Mrs. Sperry and Mrs. Alice L. Park of California, by the Nurses Associated Alumnæ of the United States; Mrs. Coryell by the American Baptist Home Missionary Society, and the association had representatives at many other conventions. "To summarize, 29 national associations have endorsed woman suffrage: 14 others have taken action on some phase of the question; 20 State Federations of Labor, 16 State Granges and seven State Letter Carriers' Associations have endorsed it. Some of the States have carried on a very