Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/449

bureau in New York, where it was endorsed by their corps of lawyers, who draft all their bills.

The amendment was at this time discussed with our Advisory Committee in the Senate and met not only with their approval as an amendment but they considered it a very shrewd political move on the part of our organization. At the next meeting of the National Suffrage Board I presented the amendment, and, after nearly two months' consideration and discussion with some of the leading suffragists of the country, they voted unanimously endorsing it and instructing us to have it introduced whenever we though it advisable. This action was taken by the National Board about two weeks before the vote came up in the Senate. Not wishing in any way to interfere with the Bristow amendment, we did not discuss even the idea of this one with any other member of Congress excepting of course our Advisory Committees.^[1]

Senator John F. Shafroth of Colorado, at the request of Mrs. McCormick's committee, introduced the new measure, which took his name, and it was favorably reported to the Senate by Senator Owen of Oklahoma in May. At this Nashville convention it was for the first time brought before the association. In her report Mrs. McCormick thus described the hearing which had been held before the House Judiciary Committee March 3:

The hearing was just at the time of the big blizzard and our speakers were storm-bound, so that when we appeared before the committee there were only Mrs. Funk, Mrs. Booth and myself to represent the National Association, and, as Mrs. Booth was not prepared to speak and I was chairman for the time given our committee, it left Mrs. Funk as our only speaker. We had discussed the night before the hearing the possible phases of the suffrage question Mrs. Funk could use in her speech that would be new to the Judiciary Committee. As an organization we have been conducting hearings

1. On the contrary at a public hearing before the Judiciary Committee of the Lower House on March 3; Mrs. Funk referred several times to such an amendment and stated that she represented an association of 462,000 women. She intimated that she knew the old amendment could not pass and that another might be introduced, which, it was hoped, would be more acceptable. The vote was not taken in the Senate till March 19. Meanwhile the newspapers gave to the suffragists of the country their first knowledge of the new amendment and vigorous protests soon followed, especially from the older leaders of the movement. The Woman's Journal of March 28 said editorially: "It is felt by many that before the Congressional Committee introduced a wholly new measure, which had never been sanctioned or even considered by the National Association, it ought to have been submitted to the National Executive Council."
    

   As soon as the Senate had voted on the original amendment, Senator Bristow, at the request of the Congressional Union, re-introduced it, and it was reported favorably April 7, Senator Thomas B. Catron of New Mexico alone dissenting. Senator Bristow in re-introducing it said of the Shafroth measure: "It is more of a national initiative and referendum amendment than a woman suffrage amendment. I prefer that the question of woman suffrage rest directly upon its own merits and be not involved with the initiative and referendum."