Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/566

tion organized in 1869, had been always strictly non-partisan and nonmilitant; that it represented about 98 per cent. of the enrolled suffragists of the United States; that all the suffrage which the women possessed to-day was due to its efforts and those of its State auxiliaries, and that Dr. Shaw, its honorary president, and Mrs. Catt, its president, strongly condemned the "picketing." The letter urged the newspapers in their comment on it to make a clear distinction between the two organizations. In countless instances this request was complied with but at the time of the Russian banner episode of the "pickets" before the White House another flood of more than 1,000 editorials poured into the national headquarters, many of them crediting it to the whole cause. A second letter more emphatic than the first was sent to 350 of the largest newspapers in the country, enclosing Mrs. Catt's protest against the "picketing." These had the desired effect and practically all of the papers thereafter, except those hostile to woman suffrage, exonerated the National Association from any part in it.

An argument for the Federal Suffrage Amendment and asking support for it was sent to a carefully selected list of 2,000 editors the month before the first vote was taken in Congress. Over 500 individual letters were sent, for the most part to prominent persons, called out by some expression of theirs, which almost without exception were cordially answered. A long letter to the International Suffrage News each month had been part of the work of this department.

Miss White's report on publicity should be reproduced in full, as it convincingly showed why all of a sudden the newspapers of the country were flooded with matter on woman suffrage. Not until the Leslie bequest became available had the National Association been possessed of the funds to do the publicity work necessary to the success of a great movement. She told how the very first "stories" sent out describing the granting of Presidential suffrage in the winter of 1917 brought back returns of about half-a-million words. The story of the Maine campaign returned 79 columns in 145 papers and Mrs. Catt's speeches, 50,000 words. Her protest against the "antis" charge of disloyalty against the suffragists instantly brought a return of 16 columns in 40 metropolitan papers. Feminism in Japan, a story written in the bureau around a little Japanese suffragist, was sent out by syndicate to a circulation of 10,000,000. The War Service of the National Suffrage Association was told in 15,000 words and the