Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/473

CHAPTER XV.

NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1915.

The Forty-seventh annual convention of the association was held Dec. 14-19, 1915, in Washington, the scene of many which had preceded it, with 546 accredited delegates, the largest number on record. The one of the preceding year had left many of the members in a pessimistic frame of mind but this had entirely disappeared and never were there so much hope and optimism. ^[1] The Federal Amendment had for the first time been debated and voted on in the House of Representatives, receiving 204 noes, 174 ayes, a satisfactory result for the first trial. Although in November, 1915, four of the most populous States — Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania — had defeated suffrage amendments yet a million-and-a-quarter of men had voted in favor. These were all Republican States and yet had given a larger vote for woman suffrage than for the

1. Call: In the long years of work for equal suffrage none has been so crowded with self-sacrificing labor for the cause as this one and no year so significant of its early ultimate triumph. As we issue this Call four great campaigns for equal suffrage are in progress in four eastern States. Thousands of women are working with voice and pen and tens of thousands are contributing in time and money to win political freedom for women in these States. Other States are rapidly preparing for active campaigns in 1916. At the same time the National Association is putting forth the strongest efforts to win nation-wide suffrage through the passage of its historic Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. We shall come together at this, our forty-seventh annual convention, larger in numbers, more united in spirit and effort, more assured of early success than ever before. . . . and, with renewed zeal and inspiration, rejoicing that the long struggle for the new freedom for women is nearing an end. Public opinion for equal suffrage has increased a hundred fold in this fateful year. It seems borne in upon the most conservative that it is only a matter of time when nation-wide political freedom will be granted to women as an inevitable outcome of our democracy and the last step in the great experiment of self-government. . . .
    

   	Anna Howard Shaw,	President.
   	Katharine Dexter McCormick,	First Vice-President.
   	Nellie Nugect Somerville,	Second Vice-President.
   	Katharine Bement Davies,	Third Vice-President.
   	Nellie Sawyer Clark,	Corresponding Secretary.
   	Susan Walker Fitzgerald,	Recording Secretary.
   	Emma Winner Rogers,	Treasurer.
   	Helen Guthrie Miller,	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$ Auditors.
   	Ruth Hanna McCormick,

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