The History of Woman Suffrage Volume V Part 41

EMMA WINNER ROGERS, Treasurer.

HELEN GUTHRIE MILLER,} Auditors.

RUTH HANNA MCCORMICK,}

[100] Although Dr. Shaw was but sixty-eight years old and in perfect health she afterwards asked the custodians of this fund--George Foster Peabody, James Lees Laidlaw and Norman de R. Whitehouse, New York bankers--to hold it in trust, paying her only the annuity each year and giving her the right to dispose of it at her death in some way to advance the cause of woman suffrage, which was done.

[101] The speakers were Mrs. William Spencer Murray, secretary of the Women's Political Union of Connecticut; Mrs. Annie G. Porritt, press chairman of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation; Mrs. Dana Durand of Minnesota; Miss Julia Hurlburt, vice-chairman of the Women's Political Union of New Jersey; Mrs. Agnes Jenks, president of the Rhode Island W. S. A.; Mrs. Alden H. Potter, chairman of the Congressional Union in Minnesota; Mrs. Glendower Evans, member of the Minimum Wage Commission of Ma.s.sachusetts; Mrs. R. H. Ashbaugh, president of the Michigan Federation of Women's Clubs; Mrs. James Rector, vice-chairman of the C. U. of Ohio; Mrs. Cyrus Mead of the Ohio C. U.

[102] The automobile started from the Exposition and there were possibly more than that many people on the grounds. As its departure had been widely advertised and was made a spectacular event a large crowd was at the gate.

[103] For the last twenty years the members of the Anti-Suffrage a.s.sociation had appeared regularly before committees of Legislatures in various States to oppose the submission of the question to the voters, picturing the injury it would be to the community and to the women. They had never in any State made the slightest effort to have it submitted to women themselves. The School suffrage was granted in most of the States before they had any organization but they went before a committee in the New York Legislature to oppose women on school boards.

CHAPTER XVI.

NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1916.

The year 1916 marked a turning point in the sixty-year-old struggle for woman suffrage. Large delegations of women had attended the Republican and Democratic National Conventions during the summer and for the first time each of them had put into its platform an unequivocal declaration in favor of suffrage for women; the Progressive, Socialist and Prohibition platforms contained similar planks, the last three declaring for a Federal Amendment. It had become one of the leading political issues of the day and a subject of nation-wide interest. The president of the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, quickly recognized the situation and saw that its official action must not be deferred until the usual time for its annual convention which would be after the presidential elections, therefore the Board of Officers issued a call for an Emergency Convention to meet in Atlantic City, N. J., Sept.

4-10, 1916.[104] The members throughout the country were much surprised but welcomed the opportunity to visit this beautiful ocean resort. The headquarters were in the famous Hotel Marlborough-Blenheim and after the first day the sessions were held in the large New Nixon Theater on the Board Walk.

After two days of executive meetings the Forty-eighth annual convention opened the morning of September 6 in the handsome St.

Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church, granted by the trustees and pastor, with an invocation by the latter, the Rev. A. H. Lucas. Mayor Harry Backarach gave a cordial address of welcome, ending by presenting to Mrs. Catt, who was in the chair, a huge "key to the city and to our hearts" tied with ribbons of blue and gold, the colors of the a.s.sociation. Members of the Board made their official reports at this and other meetings and all were valuable and interesting but s.p.a.ce permits only a brief mention of most of them. Miss Hannah J. Patterson (Penn.), corresponding secretary and chairman of organization, told of the division of the national work into six departments with a national officer at the head of each and of moving the national headquarters from 505 Fifth Avenue, corner of 42nd Street, New York, where they had been since 1909, into much larger offices at 171 Madison Avenue, corner of 33rd Street. An entire floor was rented with 3,800 square feet of s.p.a.ce, nearly 1,000 more than in the old location. The Publis.h.i.+ng Company took part of this, the a.s.sociation retaining ten rooms. Miss Patterson told of the thorough organization work being done under fourteen organizers, who had covered twelve States. She spoke of the need of training schools for organizers and told of the value of combining all departments, data, literature, publis.h.i.+ng, organizing, etc., under headquarters management.

Miss Esther G. Ogden (N. J.), third vice-president and head of the Publis.h.i.+ng Company, told of doing field work in Colorado and California to interest their women in the demonstrations which were being planned for the political conventions. She spoke of the large correspondence in connection with the trip of the little "golden flier," saying:

This tour was undertaken by Miss Alice Burke and Miss Nell Richardson, who left New York April 6 to make a circuit of the United States in the interest of the National a.s.sociation and the cause of suffrage. The Saxon Motor Company donated the car, while the a.s.sociation arranged for entertainment for Miss Burke and Miss Richardson along the route and for expenses over and above the collections taken at their meetings, of which they have held one a day in the closely settled States. They reached San Francisco early in June and are now on their way east. From each State through which they have pa.s.sed we have had appreciative letters of their endurance and courage as automobilists and of their worth as public speakers. They have suffered actual privations crossing the desert and more recently in the Bad Lands of the northwest. They were on the Mexican border during the raids and their car had to be pulled out of rivers during the floods; their courage has never faltered and they have given another proof of the well-known fact that you can't discourage a suffragist. They set out to make a circuit of the United States with the same determination that we all have set out to win our enfranchis.e.m.e.nt and they will not give up until the circuit is made. So far nineteen States have been included in the itinerary and it is planned to cover six more. The newspaper publicity has been nation-wide....

Later Miss Ogden made her report for the National Woman Suffrage Publis.h.i.+ng Company. "We exist," she said, "for two purposes--to serve the suffrage cause throughout the country and to prove that we can serve that cause and also develop a successful business." She spoke of the devoted office staff, under the business manager, Miss Anna De Baun, who had made personal sacrifices again and again when necessary.

The report of the recording secretary, Mrs. Mary Foulke Morrisson (Ills.), to whom had been entrusted the organization of the great parade of suffragists during the National Republican Convention in Chicago and especially its financing, stated that $6,699 had been raised by the State and Chicago Equal Suffrage a.s.sociations; $200 by the Chicago Political Equality League and some hundreds of dollars by local leagues and individuals. She paid high tribute to the unwearying work of Mrs. Medill McCormick, who, speaking and organizing in the city and outlying towns "won the support of whole sections of the community that had hitherto been utterly indifferent." Mrs. Morrisson herself had spoken fifty times in the interest of the parade in Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Iowa and the Mississippi Valley Conference.

The report of the national treasurer, Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers, was received with much appreciation of her money-getting ability and satisfactory accounting. The total receipts for the year were $81,863 and the close of the fiscal year found a balance on hand of $8,869.

The largest contributions had been $500 each from the State a.s.sociations of Illinois, Ma.s.sachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The National College Equal Suffrage League gave $450.

The expenditures in round numbers were: Headquarters, including salaries, expenses of conventions, etc., $16,531; publicity, $9,096; National Congressional Committee, $4,676; publis.h.i.+ng _News Letter_, $982; contributions to campaigns, $21,131; demonstrations, organization, etc., $20,000.

In commenting Mrs. Rogers said: "Nothing to my mind indicates so vividly the progress of equal suffrage as the comparative ease with which the largest budget in the history of the National a.s.sociation was pledged and most of it paid by August 25, and the fact that an excess of that budget amounting to many thousands of dollars has been raised three months before the usual convention date. 'Money talks'

and it is saying this year: 'No cause in which I could be used appeals to me as does this fundamental one of enfranchising women, of opening the door to let them enter and help to make a more Christian civilization.' Literally we have had only to ask and it has been given unto us. Scores and hundreds of women in sending their generous gifts have said: 'Would that my check were ten times as large!' The wonderful spirit of kindliness and ardent desire to cooperate have touched the treasurer's heart deeply and made the work of the pa.s.sing year a real joy. I am confident that all necessary funds for suffrage expenditures--national, State and local--can be raised, even to a million dollars, if more systematic work is done on the financial side in the States...." Mrs. Rogers outlined the business methods that should be used and expressed her obligations to her committee of fifty on finance for their helpful support.

Mrs. Walter McNab Miller (Mo.), first auditor, in the report of her field work told of days, weeks and months spent in visiting cities from New York to St. Louis, holding conferences and meetings and writing hundreds of letters to raise money and arrange for the demonstration to be held in St. Louis during the Democratic National Convention--the "walkless parade," to which the Missouri Suffrage a.s.sociation contributed nearly $2,000. She attended State suffrage and political conventions and the biennial of the General Federation of Women's Clubs in New York. "And then came Chicago," the report said, "with its exciting surge, its march in the rain and its near-victory plank, followed by St. Louis with its 'golden lane' of suffragists and a plank a little less pleasing; another trip to Indianapolis with our Chief--and the most momentous June in suffrage history was over." The report told of the journey to Cheyenne to attend the Council of Women Voters; the addresses of the present Democratic Governor Kendrick and the former Republican Governor and U. S. Senator Carey; the two days at the State University in Laramie, "the guest of one of the best-known suffragists in the State, Professor Grace Raymond Hebard"; the visit in Denver, "asking questions and being interviewed." "All of this," she said, "sent me back firmly convinced that the western women want to help us in our battle and only wait for a definite program of work."

The second auditor, Mrs. Pattie Ruffner Jacobs (Ala.), in the report of her field work showed an equally full schedule. She had been present at every board meeting but one, of which she was notified too late; as a member of the Congressional Committee had a.s.sisted with the lobby work in Was.h.i.+ngton; had attended a three-days' State conference in Nashville and spoken three times; the Mississippi State convention and spoken twice; spoken in Savannah and Asheville and at the May-day celebration of the Nashville League; attended the Chicago and St.

Louis demonstrations and spent the intervening times in raising the money to meet her pledge of $2,000 for her State to the National a.s.sociation.

Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick, chairman of the Press Department, stated that this was largely a nominal position, as the practical work was done by professionals and would be related in the report from the Publicity department. The reports of the national officers were concluded by that of Mrs. Catt, chairman of the Campaign and Survey Committee, a new feature of the a.s.sociation. It began: "For the purpose of making a survey of suffrage conditions throughout the nation, either an officer of the National Board or some person or persons representing the Board have visited nearly every State in the Union. I have myself visited twenty-three States; Miss Hauser and Miss Walker visited nine enfranchised States; Mrs. Miller, Mrs. Jacobs, Mrs. Morrisson and Mrs. Rogers have each visited several; Mrs.

Roessing and Miss Patterson have made a number of trips to West Virginia. Our chief motive was to learn conditions. To corroborate our impressions questionnaires were sent to all the State a.s.sociations in January and again in July. As a result of the information obtained the National Board is convinced that our movement has reached a crisis which if recognized will open the way to a speedy and final victory."

Mrs. Catt expressed the belief that in the future a better understanding between national and State boards would be possible and spoke of the visits of herself and other national officers to West Virginia and South Dakota, where woman suffrage amendments would be voted on in November. She then took up the case of Iowa, where one had been defeated the past June, and made an a.n.a.lysis of a situation which had existed here and in nearly all States where defeats had taken place as follows:

When the present Board came into office, Iowa was in campaign and but a few months remained for work. In January I met with the State Board and we counselled together concerning the needs of the campaign; later I met with it on three different occasions and gave one month to speaking in the State. The National Board contributed $5,000 to the campaign from the legacy of Mary J.

Coggeshall of Iowa and gave one organizer from January 1 until the vote was taken. It also sent speakers and workers toward the end of the campaign. The various States contributed generously through the national treasury.

The campaign came up splendidly at the last. Men, I believe, supported it more earnestly than they have done in other States.

One of the best press bureaus any State has had, under the direction of Mrs. Rose Lawless Geyer, was at work for some months. The able president, Miss Flora Dunlap, gave all her time and ability. There were many brilliant forays which were truly effective, but nothing could overcome a weakness which has appeared in every campaign and that is the inability of newly-formed, untrained committees to put speakers and workers to the best use. It will be the case in every campaign that, near the end, weak spots must be reinforced by outside experienced workers. Another difficulty was that money-raising was left to the close of the campaign when all the efforts of workers were demanded by other duties. This has been the trouble in most States. The lesson we must learn is that at the beginning a money-raising plan must be formed and carried out and pledges must be made to cover the major portion of the cost before the real campaign is begun. Toward the close there are many things which ought to be done but are left undone for want of money.

State committees grow timid because they do not see the money in sight and naturally trim their budgets to the point which renders defeat inevitable.

Iowa, like every other State, showed opposition from the "wets,"

tricks of politicians and the rounding up of every drunkard and outcast to vote against the amendment. The unprecedented result was that 35,000 more votes were cast on the suffrage proposition than on the Governor. This could only have been brought about by inducements of some sort which were made to the lowest elements of the population. This story differs in coloring and detail with each campaign but varies little as to general fact. It must be borne in mind and our campaigns must be so good that these purchasable and controllable elements will be outvoted.

A number of men worked against the amendment in Iowa and men are working at this time in South Dakota and West Virginia. Who employs or pays these men we have never been able to discover.

Their ordinary method is to secure strictly private meetings of men only, where they spread the basest of untruths. All past campaigns point to the necessity of waging those of the future with a distinct understanding that the worst elements of the population will be lined up by this unscrupulous, well-supported, combined opposition of men and of women. The women appeal to the respectable elements of the community; the men make little pretense in this direction. There is a sure alliance between the two.

The first public session was held Thursday afternoon and the delegates looked forward with keen enjoyment to the "three-cornered debate" on what had become a paramount question. Mrs. Catt was in the chair. Each leader was to have ten minutes and her second five minutes to speak in the affirmative only; when the six had presented their arguments there was to be free discussion from the floor, and, after all who had wished had spoken, each leader would have ten minutes to answer the opposition to her point of view. The program was as follows:

Shall the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation drop work on the Federal Amendment and confine its activities to State legislation?

Leader, Miss Laura Clay, Kentucky; second, Miss Kate Gordon, Louisiana.

Shall the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation drop work for State Referenda and concentrate on the Federal Amendment? Leader, Mrs.

Ida Husted Harper, New York; second, Mrs. Glendower Evans, Ma.s.sachusetts.

Shall the present policy of the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation to work for woman suffrage "by appropriate National and State legislation" be continued? Leader, Mrs. Raymond Brown, New York; second, Miss Florence Allen, Ohio.

The alternative amendments to the const.i.tution will then be put: I. To strike out the words "National and." II. To strike out the words "and State." If both are lost, the const.i.tution will remain as it is and the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation will stand pledged to both Federal and State campaigns.

The speakers presented their arguments with great earnestness; the discussion was vigorously carried on and the reb.u.t.tals were made with much spirit. By request the honorary president, Dr. Shaw, who was sitting on the platform, closed the debate and she strongly urged that there should be no change in the policy of the a.s.sociation. The convention voted overwhelmingly in favor of continuing to work for both National and State const.i.tutional amendments, nearly all of the southern delegates joining in this vote. Mrs. Harper then rose to a question of personal privilege and said that she should consider it a great calamity for the a.s.sociation to discontinue its work for State amendments and that she only took the opposite side at the urgent request of Mrs. Catt, with the promise that she should be permitted to make this explanation. Mrs. Evans made a similar statement and the audience, which had been mystified by their position, had a hearty laugh. This debate and the vote of the convention restored the a.s.sociation to its position of standing for the original Federal Suffrage Amendment and working for amendments of State const.i.tutions as a means to this end.

In the evening a brilliant reception for the officers and delegates was given in the large drawing-room of the Marlborough-Blenheim by the Atlantic City Woman Suffrage Club and the New Jersey State a.s.sociation.

The convention was opened in the New Nixon Theater Thursday morning with prayer by the Rev. Thomas J. Cross, pastor of the Chelsea Baptist Church, and much routine business was disposed of. The const.i.tution was changed so as to exclude from members.h.i.+p all organizations not in harmony with the policy of the a.s.sociation and the term of the officers was extended from one to two years. A unique program was carried out in the afternoon under the direction of the second vice-president, Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick--The Handicapped States, a Concrete Lesson in Const.i.tutions. The States whose const.i.tutions practically could not be amended were grouped under these heads: The Impossibles; The Insuperables; The Inexecutables; The Improbables; The Indubitables; The Inexcusables; The Irreproachables.

Each group was represented by one or more women who quoted from the const.i.tutions. It was intended as an object lesson to show the necessity for a Federal Amendment.

At 3:30 Mrs. Catt began her president's address before an audience that filled the large theater and listened with intense interest until the last word was spoken at five o'clock. It was a masterly review of the movement for woman suffrage and a program for the work now necessary to bring it to a successful end. The opening sentences were as follows:

I have taken for my subject, "The Crisis," because I believe that a crisis has come in our movement which, if recognized and the opportunity seized with vigor, enthusiasm and will, means the final victory of our great cause in the very near future. I am aware that some suffragists do not share in this belief; they see no signs nor symptoms today which were not present yesterday; no manifestations in the year 1916 which differ significantly from those in the year 1910. To them, the movement has been a steady, normal growth from the beginning and must so continue until the end. I can only defend my claim with the plea that it is better to imagine a crisis where none exists than to fail to recognize one when it comes, for a crisis is a culmination of events which calls for new considerations and new decisions. A failure to answer the call may mean an opportunity lost, a possible victory postponed....

This address, coming at the moment when woman suffrage was accepted as inevitable by the President of the United States and all the political parties, was regarded as the key-note of the beginning of a campaign which would end in victory. In pamphlet form it was used as a highly valued campaign doc.u.ment.

Mrs. Catt showed the impossibility of securing suffrage for all the women of the country by the State method and pointed out that the Federal Amendment was the one and only way. "Our cause has been caught in a snarl of const.i.tutional obstructions and inadequate election laws," she said, after drawing upon her own experience to show the hazards of State referenda, and we have a right to appeal to our Congress to extricate it from this tangle. If there is any chivalry left this is the time for it to come forward and do an act of simple justice. In my judgment the women of this land not only have the right to sit on the steps of Congress until it acts but it is their self-respecting duty to insist upon their enfranchis.e.m.e.nt by that route.... Were there never another convert made there are suffragists enough in this country, if combined, to make so irresistible a driving force that victory might be seized at once. How can it be done? By a simple change of mental att.i.tude. If you are to seize the victory, that change must take place in this hall, here and now. The crisis is here, but if the call goes unheeded, if our women think it means the vote without a struggle, if they think other women can and will pay the price of their emanc.i.p.ation, the hour may pa.s.s and our political liberty may not be won.... The character of a man is measured by his will. The same is true of a movement. Then _will_ to be free." The address made a deep impression and was accepted as a call to arms.

Throughout the convention open-air meetings were held on the Boardwalk addressed by popular suffrage speakers and thousands in the great crowds that throng this noted thoroughfare were interested listeners.

The Friday morning session was enlivened by a resolution offered by Mrs. Raymond Robins, which said that this Emergency Convention had been called to plan for the final steps which would lead to nation-wide enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women; that the method of amending State const.i.tutions meant long delay; that many national candidates in all parties had declared in favor of a Federal Amendment, and therefore the delegates in this convention urged that in the present campaign suffragists should support for national office only those candidates who pledged their support to this amendment. The delegates quickly recognized that this meant to endorse Judge Charles Evans Hughes for president, although President Wilson was to address the convention that evening. Party feeling ran high but still stronger was the determination of the convention that the a.s.sociation should not depart from its policy of absolute non-partisans.h.i.+p. Motions were made and amendments offered and the discussion raged for two hours.

Dr. Shaw spoke strongly against the resolution and finally it was defeated by a large majority. Later Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch of Chicago offered a resolution which after several amendments read: "We re-affirm our non-partisan att.i.tude concerning national political parties but this policy does not preclude the right of any member to work against any candidate who opposes woman suffrage, nor shall it refer to the personal att.i.tude of enfranchised women." This was carried enthusiastically. A resolution by Mrs. J. Claude Bedford (Penn.) for a vigorous publicity campaign to make clear the a.s.sociation's non-partisan policy was pa.s.sed.

There had been such marked increase of public opinion in favor of woman suffrage in the southern States and so many of their able women had come into the a.s.sociation that a "Dixie evening" had been arranged. Mrs. Catt presided and the following program was presented: Master Words--Mrs. Minnie Fisher Cunningham, president Texas Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation; Kentucky and Her Const.i.tution--Mrs. Thomas Jefferson Smith, president Kentucky Equal Rights a.s.sociation; The Evolution of Woman--Mrs. Eugene Reilley, vice-president General Federation of Women's Clubs and vice-president North Carolina Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation; Progress of Today and Traditions of Yesterday--Mrs. Edward McGehee, president Mississippi Federation of Women's Clubs; For Woman Herself--Mrs. Lila Mead Valentine, president Virginia Equal Suffrage League; The Southern Temperament as Related to Woman Suffrage--Mrs. Guilford Dudley, president Tennessee Equal Suffrage a.s.sociation, Inc.; Real Americanism--Mrs. T. T. Cotnam, vice-president Arkansas Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation. Southern women have a natural gift of oratory and the audience was delightfully entertained. But three of these addresses were published and s.p.a.ce can be given only to brief extracts.

"There is in America today," Mrs. Cotnam said, "a large cla.s.s of people who are restless and dissatisfied and are smarting under the injustice of being governed without their consent. This is a cla.s.s with the blood of the Pilgrim mothers in their veins--of those who cheerfully endured untold hards.h.i.+ps as the price of liberty; a cla.s.s with the blood of the Revolutionary fathers in their veins--of those who gave their lives that their children might be free; a cla.s.s who are the rightful joint heirs with all the people of the United States of the heritage of freedom but whose inheritance after 140 years is still kept 'in trust.'" She referred to the anxiety of Congress "to make the Filipinos a self-governing people after only a few years of American tutelage while 140 years have not been enough to equip American women for self-government," and said: "Political leaders say America is 'the waymark of all people seeking liberty' and yet one-half of the American people have never known liberty. They promise justice to the oppressed of every land who are seeking refuge and practice injustice against one-half of those whose homes have always been here. Every citizen of the United States is jealous of her standing among the nations and just now each political party is claiming to be the only worthy custodian of national honor. It is with amazement we read the arraignment of one party by another and note that in no instance have they taken each other to task for injustice to American women which violates the fundamental principle of democracy, 'Equal rights for all, special privileges to none.' ...

Americanism--it stands for the recognition of the equality of men and women before the law of man as they are equal before the law of G.o.d.

Americanism--it stands for truth triumphant. Americanism--it will find its full realization when men and women meet upon a plane of equal rights with a united desire to maintain peace, to guard the nation's honor, to advance prosperity and to secure the happiness of the people."