obey them equally whether we like them or not. We are taxed under them; we travel according to rules laid down by the Interstate Commerce Commission under the Interstate Commerce law; the remaining national resources are to be conserved by Congress; whether we have peace or war depends upon Congress. Is it of no concern who compose Congress, who vote for members of Congress and for the President?"
It was shown by Mrs. Beard how closely national and State policies were interwoven; that the submission of this amendment would take it to the State Legislatures for a final decision; how with woman suffrage in nine States there was a much greater demand for it than there was for the one changing the method of electing U. S. Senators; how the plank in the national platform adopted in Baltimore exempting American ships in coastwise trade from Panama canal tolls was now before the Democrats in Congress for repudiation; how another plank demanded State action on presidential primaries and President Wilson called for a national law. Now a Democratic Congress refused to submit a national suffrage amendment because the platform did not ask for it! She concluded: "No, gentlemen, you can not answer us by shaking in our faces that tatterdemalion of a State's rights scarecrow.... It is a travesty upon our reasoning faculties to suppose that we can not put two and two together. It is underestimating our strength and our financial resources to suppose that we can not place these plain facts in the hands of 15,000,000 voters, including over 3,000,000 women. To take away from the States the right to determine how Presidential electors shall be chosen is upholding the Constitution and the previous rights of the States; but to submit to the States an amendment permitting them to decide for themselves whether they want woman suffrage for the nation is a violent usurpation of State's rights! We can not follow your logic."
Dr. Cora Smith King of Seattle, who had so large a part in obtaining equal suffrage in Washington, said:
