toric information and still others telling of gains in our own and foreign countries.
During the first year I wrote to over 2,000 editors in the United States and Canada. At the end of that time, and after the New York victory, so many were in favor of woman suffrage itself that during 1918 the work was very largely concentrated on the Federal Amendment. In the two months from November, 1917, to January, 1918, when the vote was taken in the House of Representatives, 2,600 circular letters containing an argument for this amendment went out from this department to the principal newspapers of the United States and in addition 100 special articles were sent to the largest papers. After that vote was taken this record was kept up to obtain favorable action by the Senate and a second and different circular argument was sent to 2,000 papers. A carefully selected list of several hundred southern newspapers was furnished to Senator Morris Sheppard of Texas, to which he sent franked copies of his excellent speech on this amendment.
An open letter to Senator Baird was supplied to all the principal papers of New Jersey; one to Senator Benet to those of South Carolina; one to Senator Shields to Tennessee papers. A letter showing the attitude of the National Association toward organized labor went to a considerable number of labor papers in the various States. During the week following the failure to vote on the Federal Amendment in May, 250 letters and articles in regard to it were sent out from this department. Most of them enclosed printed or typed suffrage literature, some of Mrs. Catt’s editorials and articles, and some from other sources, including my printed pamphlet on the Federal Amendment. Altogether nearly 8,000 letters and articles went out from this department.
Several pamphlets also were prepared and an article of about 2,000 words was furnished every month to the International Suffrage News in London, with many clippings for its files. A number of letters and clippings also were sent to Mrs. Fawcett, the national president of Great Britain, keeping her informed on the progress of the movement in the United States, of which she was very appreciative, and letters of information were written to other countries.
By the end of 1918 from 300 to 500 editorials on woman suffrage were received every month and it was as much a subject of comment in the newspapers as any political issue of the day. The old-time attacks were almost entirely absent; the editorials showed knowledge and discrimination; fully nine-tenths of the northern newspapers advocated not only woman suffrage but the Federal Amendment, while in every southern State some leading papers were in favor of enfranchising women and a few approved of its being done through this amendment. This editorial department of the Leslie Bureau might venture to claim some share in the evolution of editorial opinion, to which, of course, many causes contributed. While the need for its work was by no means at an end, another task vet remained for the bureau to see accomplished.