Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/599

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NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1918-1918
563
In Favor Opposed
Republicans 165 33
Democrats 104 102
Miscellaneous 5 1
274 136

This was a majority of less than one vote over the necessary two-thirds.

Mrs. Park gave a graphic account of the struggle to secure a favorable vote in the Senate. She described the influences brought to bear from all possible sources; the conferences with committees and individuals; the fixing and then postponing of days for a vote; the difficulty in arranging "pairs"; the "filibustering' of the opponents, the adjournments, the endless tactics for preventing a vote which for years had been employed against this amendment. She described the great five days' discussion in the Senate September 26-October 1; the appeal to President Wilson for help and his magnificent response in person on September 30 with its contemptuous treatment by the opponents; the failure of the Republican leaders to supply the thirty-three votes promised and of the Democrats to provide from their ranks the thirty-fourth, which would complete the necessary two-thirds, and she gave the summary of the result of the balloting on October 1. Analyzed by parties and including pairs the vote stood:

Yes No
Democrats 22 22
Republicans 32 12
Total 62 34

The amendment was lost by two votes. This debate, printed in full in the Congressional Record for those days, hands down to posterity the noble effort of some members of the U. S. Senate to grant to women a voice in the Government to which they were giving the most loyal and devoted service in this hour when it was joining with other nations in the greatest battle for democracy ever fought. It preserves also the determination of other U. S. Senators to deny them this citizen's right and to continue their disfranchised condition. The "Woman Citizen", official organ of the National American Woman Suffrage Associa-