would deliver her address to Congress from that platform to that audience and leave it to the printed page to carry the message on into the sacred halls themselves.
Then, with Senate and House visualized by the directness of her appeal to them and by the sharp limning of her argument, she pleaded for democracy, arraigned the obstructionists of the Federal Suffrage Amendment, showed up the harsh inconsistencies, the waste of time and energy and money asked of women in State referenda, clarified the reasons for establishing suffrage by the Federal route and brought the whole case into high relief by resting the responsibility where it belongs—on the Congress of the United States.
The speaker, never ornate in rhetoric or delivery, seemed to withdraw her personality utterly, so that there was left only the mental and spiritual content of her message. To hear her was like listening to abstract thought, warmed by the fire of abstract conviction. To see her was like looking at sheer marble, flame-lit. Many an orator sways an audience's mind by emotional appeal. Hers was the crowning achievement to sway an audience to emotion by the symmetry and force of her appeal to its mind. Again and again salvos of applause stopped her for a moment but again and again the steady rhythm of her strong voice regained control. At the end her grip on attention was so acute that a little hush followed the last word.The address consumed an hour and a half in delivery and made a pamphlet of twenty-two pages when published. Up to the time the Federal Amendment was ratified it was a part of the standard literature of the National Association and thousands of copies were circulated.[1] Among the subheads were these: The History of our Country and the Theory of our Government; the Leadership of the United States in World Democracy compels the Enfranchisement of its Own Women; Three Reasons for the Federal Method; Three Objections Answered. It was an absolutely conclusive argument and closed with a ringing appeal for "the submission and ratification of the Federal Suffrage Amendment in order that this nation may at the earliest possible moment show to all the nations of the earth that its action is consistent with its principles." Dr. Shaw, who never could forego a little joke, had said in introducing Mrs. Catt: "I had long thought I should be willing to die as soon as suffrage was won in New York; that I never should be interested in politics or the making of tickets,
- ↑ This Address to Congress in handsome pamphlet form was presented to every member in person by the various women of the association's Congressional Committee. After the Federal Amendment was submitted by Congress it was revised, printed under the title An Address to Legislatures, and through the mail or by the State suffrage workers was put into the hands of every one of the 6,000 members of the forty-eight State Legislatures.
