of the audience: "President Wilson had the opportunity of speaking a word which might ultimately lead to the enfranchisement of a large part of the citizens of the United States. Even Lincoln, who by a word freed a race, had not such an opportunity to release from bonds one-half of the human family. I feel that I must make this statement as broad as it is for the reason that we at Budapest this year realized as never before that womankind throughout the world looked to this country to blaze the way for the extension of universal suffrage in every quarter of the globe. President Wilson has missed the one thing that might have made it possible for him never to be forgotten. I am saying this on behalf of myself and my fellow officers."
The next morning Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick, a clever politician like her father, Mark Hanna, offered the following motion: "Since President Wilson omitted all mention of woman suffrage in his Message yesterday, and since he has announced that he will send several other messages to Congress outlining the measures which the administration will support, I move that this convention wait upon the President in order to lay before him the importance of the woman suffrage question and urge him to make it an administration measure and to send immediately to Congress the recommendation that it proceed with this measure before any other. I also move that a committee of two be appointed to make the arrangements with the President." The motion was unanimously carried and the Chair appointed Mrs. McCormick (Ills.) and Mrs. Breckinridge (Ky.) to arrange for the interview and for a committee of fifty-five, representing all the associations auxiliary to the National, to wait upon the President at his pleasure. To finish the story here—he expressed entire willingness to receive them but was not well enough to do so during the convention. Nearly a hundred of the delegates waited until the next Monday, December 8, when they met in the rooms of their Congressional Committee, a few blocks from the White House and marched two by two to the executive offices, attracting much attention, as this was the first time a President had ever received a woman suffrage delegation officially.[1] He
- ↑ The first delegation received by President Wilson after his inauguration was a group of eight or ten suffragists. It was arranged by Miss Alice Paul, chairman of the Congressional Committee of the National Suffrage Association. They stated their case in a
