NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1913
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should be written: "No opposition." Another of the five comes here through the vote of 13,906 men. Another is sent by the very small group of 6.474 men, and the remaining two represent respectively 18,000 and 16,000 men. The total vote behind all five of these gentlemen is 63,570. These 63,570 voters, therefore, have the decision of this momentous question....
You know the fight that you Democratic men put up against the combination by the Committee on Rules under the leadership of Speaker Cannon and you led that fight against the domination of the committee over the House. You are today in this same position of political power. Can you consistently oppose now the things for which you fought so bitterly a short time ago? We know how rapidly you have appointed committees when changed economic conditions demanded it. I have here the report of the Committee on the Judiciary for the special session, showing what work it did, how many sittings it held, which proves conclusively that it has not time for the consideration of our question....This part of the hearing closed with the address of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, who was introduced as president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, representing the organized womanhood of twenty-six nations. She said in the course of her address:
A few weeks ago a dispatch was sent out from Washington, saying that the Judiciary Committee for the next year was going to be more overworked than ever before. It was accompanied by a letter from the President to Mr. Clayton, begging him to continue as chairman of that committee and to withdraw from his candidacy for the Senate from Alabama because this committee was going to do more work than it had ever been required to do before. He called attention to the fact that the Ways and Means Committee had been obliged to work day and night, sometimes spending the whole night on their particular business, and he warned Mr. Clayton that this might be the expectation of the Judiciary Committee in this coming Congress. When this committee has only worked during the day, we suffragists have not been able to get the attention which we think our cause demands and with this additional work it is quite impossible to expect more attention than we have had in the past. Since the suggestion was offered that possibly our business might go before the Elections Committee, the information has come that the President's plan for presidential primary legislation will make this committee also a very busy one this coming session. .. . We pride ourselves on our democracy, but while the Judiciary Committee has been refusing to report our measure and bring it before the House for discussion the question of woman suffrage has been considered by the Imperial Parliaments of twelve European countries. This has been done in fact within the past two years.
