Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/696

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HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

rary president until her death. Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby was chosen corresponding secretary in 1902 and devoted herself to the interests of the association unceasingly until her death Sept. 7, 1916. No session of Congress was allowed to pass without the presenting of a bill demanding the right of women to vote for federal officers. These bills were referred to the Committee on Election of President, Vice-President and Representatives in Congress. Usually hearings were granted and arranged for with much care by Mrs. Colby, who resided in Washington. They were very effective. Among the most important was that of 1904, which attracted so much attention that the committee appointed a second day to continue it and invited Mrs. Colby to explain more fully the demand of the association. Another important hearing was that of 1913, when the largest committee room was filled, many standing outside. It began in the morning and was continued in the evening, with the speakers nearly all members of Congress, a remarkable circumstance at that time.

At the hearings of 1914, 1915 and 1916 Representative Burton L. French of Idaho was a valuable speaker, as was Representative John E. Raker of California. Mrs. Lockwood and other women took part at different times, Mrs. Colby in all the hearings and the Rev. Mrs. Brown in most of them. Dr. Clara McNaughton, the treasurer, rendered important service in raising money and in other ways. At the great Gettysburg celebration in 1913 she and Mrs. Anna Harmon represented the association, obtaining signatures to petitions, circulating literature and finding a wide sentiment for woman suffrage among the old soldiers.

On July 11-13, 1915, the Federal Suffrage Association held a Congress at the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, over which the Rev. Olympia Brown presided. Mrs. Colby went out some time before the meeting and made the arrangements. Among the distinguished people who took part were Mrs. May Wright Sewall, founder of the International Council of Women, Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, historian of woman suffrage and biographer of Susan B. Anthony; Mrs. Adelaide Johnson, the noted sculptor; the eminent Mrs. Elizabeth Lowe Watson of California; Mrs. Emma Smith DeVoe of Tacoma, president of the National Council of Women Voters, and Mrs. Mary G. Bel-