The History of Woman Suffrage Volume V Part 63

"III. The Red Cross.--As the Red Cross, in which many of our members are zealous workers, is already equipped to render hospital, medical and general supply service, we offer our organized service in other fields and we promise continued cooperation with the Red Cross as needed.

"IV. Americanization.--A problem unknown to other lands will become accentuated in the event of war. Within our borders are eight millions of aliens, who by birth, tradition and training will find it difficult, if not impossible, to understand the causes which have led to this war. War invariably breeds intolerance and hatred and will tend to arouse antagonisms inimical to the best interests of the nation. With the desire to minimize this danger, our a.s.sociation, extending as it does into every precinct of our great cities and into the various counties of the States, offers to conduct cla.s.ses in school centers wherein national allegiance shall be taught, emphasizing tolerance, to the end that the Stars and Stripes shall wave over a loyal and undivided people.

"V. Conference Committee.--In order to carry out our expressed desire and purpose, a committee of three is hereby ordered appointed to confer with the proper authorities of the Government. If need arises, this committee shall be the intermediary between the Government and our a.s.sociation."

Signed, Executive Council, National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation.

by Anna Howard Shaw, honorary president; Carrie Chapman Catt, president; Helen Guthrie Miller, first vice-president; Katharine Dexter McCormick, second vice-president; Esther G. Ogden, third vice-president; Emma Winner Rogers, treasurer; Mrs. Thomas Jefferson Smith, recording secretary; Nettie Rogers Shuler, corresponding secretary; Pattie Ruffner Jacobs, first auditor; Heloise Meyer, second auditor.

The conference ended on Sat.u.r.day and on Sunday afternoon a public ma.s.s meeting was held. Poli's Theater was filled by a representative audience and on the platform were four members of the Cabinet: Secretaries Baker, McAdoo, Daniels and Houston, with their wives; also United States Senators, Representatives and many other prominent people, including Miss Margaret Wilson, the daughter of the President.

The meeting was opened with an address by Mrs. Catt on The Impending Crisis, expressing the hope that after the war there would arise a truer democracy than ever known before and that the world would never see another war. The Note to President Wilson was read by Mrs. Ida Husted Harper and handed to Secretary of War Baker. In accepting it he paid a tribute to the aspirations of women and expressed the belief that at the close of the war the United States would take its place in a concert of neutral nations and having practiced justice at home it would have earned the right to help establish international justice.

Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton delighted the rather tense audience with her inimitable humor and Dr. Shaw closed the meeting with one of her strongest speeches. The addresses of Mrs. Catt and Dr. Shaw emphasized not only the desire of women to do effective patriotic service in time of stress but also their wish that a more civilized way than by the waste and destructiveness of war might be found to settle international disputes.

President Wilson immediately answered as follows:

"The Secretary of War has transmitted to me the Resolutions presented to him at the meeting held on Sunday afternoon, February 25, under the auspices of the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation. I want to express my great and sincere admiration of the action taken.

Cordially and sincerely yours, Woodrow Wilson."

On April 6, 1917, the United States declared that a state of war with Germany existed. News of the severance of diplomatic relations elicited a deep and reverberating response from the millions of suffragists over the country. At the New York and Was.h.i.+ngton headquarters of the National a.s.sociation telephone calls and telegrams were received all day, as State by State the suffrage organizations proffered concerted action with the national on any program of constructive service which it might decide to offer to the Government.

The National Suffrage a.s.sociation at once commenced its war work on the lines adopted at the Was.h.i.+ngton conference. This comprised departments under four sections: Thrift; Food Production; Industrial Protection of Women and Americanization. Branches of these four sections had already been formed by all its State auxiliaries and Mrs. McCormick, its second vice-president, had been appointed general chairman of the War Service Department. In many States the president of the suffrage a.s.sociation became chairman of the War Service Committee. Thus the suffragists of the United States started their war activities with as much vigor as they had been accustomed to put into efforts for their own cause.

There had been created in August, 1916, by an Act of Congress, the Council of National Defense, composed of the Secretaries of War, Navy, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce and Labor. This council was formed in order that an emergency might not find the country without a central agency to direct the mobilization of troops back of the regular army.

It was not an executive body; its function was to consider and advise.

By a wise provision of the Congressional Act the formation of subordinate agencies was authorized and upon the declaration of war advantage of this was quickly taken. Large fields of action were mapped out and a.s.signed to committees on which were appointed the foremost men and women of the country. It was at once evident that the women of the United States had a definite and powerful role to play in the great war and the council decided that "for the purpose of coordinating the women's preparedness movement a central body of woman should be formed under the Council of National Defense." On April 19, 1917, the director, Secretary of War Baker, telegraphed to Dr. Anna Howard Shaw that Secretary of the Interior Lane and he would like to consult her in regard to important matters concerning the relations of women to the council. She was on a lecture tour in the South but arranged to meet with them in Was.h.i.+ngton on April 27. On April 21, before the time for this meeting, the Council of National Defense voted that a Woman's Committee be formed with the following personnel: Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick, Mrs. Josiah Evans Cowles, Mrs. Philip North Moore, Mrs.

Antoinette Funk, Miss Ida Tarbell, Miss Maude Wetmore, Mrs. Joseph R.

Lamar. Later Miss Agnes Nestor and Miss Hannah J. Patterson were added. Of the eleven members of the committee all were prominent suffragists except Miss Tarbell, Mrs. Lamar and Miss Wetmore, who were well-known "antis." It was learned that the names had been carefully considered by the council. Dr. Shaw was designated as chairman of the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense and asked to hold a meeting in Was.h.i.+ngton at the earliest possible date. Its headquarters were opened in this city and the members accepted their appointments as a call by the Government to the service of the country.

In December, 1917, the 49th annual convention of the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation was held at Was.h.i.+ngton. The chairman of its War Service Department, Mrs. McCormick, described the combination of efforts desirable between its branches and those of the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense, saying that such a combination was essential to efficient war-service by the women of the country. Comprehensive reports were made of the activities of the four sections by their chairmen which may be read in full in the Handbook of the a.s.sociation for 1917 and s.p.a.ce can be used here only for the briefest summaries.

(1) Thrift and Elimination of Waste. The chairman, Mrs. Walter McNab Miller, first vice-president of the a.s.sociation, said in part: "After consultation with a.s.sistant Secretary of Agriculture Vrooman and the heads of Economics and Extension Departments and the Children's Bureau, a letter was sent to each State suffrage president outlining the plan of work and asking that a chairman be appointed to inaugurate and carry out the Thrift program. Food conservation was the subject stressed, for the experience of the European countries made it of prime importance. It is a matter of interest that the original food outline sent out in April contained all the suggestions afterwards insisted upon by Mr. Hoover, and the outline on Clothing contained the same advice as was later given out by the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense. The response from the southern States was especially gratifying. I have spoken 100 times for Thrift, travelled 6,000 miles, sent out 144 form letters and written 100 individual letters. Reports from States where Thrift Committees have been at work show constantly increasing interest and the gradual adoption of a definite line of effort."

(2) Food Production. The chairman, Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers, treasurer of the a.s.sociation, after speaking of the cooperation received from the Department of Agriculture, said in part: "We appealed to all State suffrage presidents to appoint chairmen and encourage their local leagues to cooperate in every way possible in increasing the food supply and a splendid response came. We urged the importance of enlisting women to undertake practical gardening or farming and to provide training for women to this end. We urged the opening in every State of two or three Farm Employment Bureaus for women through which graduates of Agricultural Colleges and others with less training could be placed on farms, and farmers who were progressive enough to want women's help could be reasonably sure of securing it. We arranged with the largest overalls company in the United States to design and put out a suitable farm uniform for women, which was extensively sold and used.... The reports at the end of the season testified to the millions of gardens worked by suffragists, to the thousands who helped on farms or went to farm training schools, to canning kitchens and home canning on a scale hitherto unthought-of."

(3) Industrial Protection of Women. The chairman, Miss Ethel M. Smith, said in part:

"This committee was created by the National Suffrage Board to secure women workers to fill the places of men called for military service and it promised to 'protect the work of such women.' A letter was sent to five hundred Chambers of Commerce over Mrs. Catt's signature, asking for their cooperation in behalf of women workers against the danger of excessive overtime and underpay. The slogan of 'Equal Pay for Equal Work' was utilized and vigilance committees were planned for each State to note the conditions in industrial localities and report back to Was.h.i.+ngton. The questions of equal pay for equal work and equal opportunity for women were then taken up with the Government departments, which have been quite as unfair to women employees as have private firms. The scale of pay is notoriously less than for men, and women have been excluded from the civil service examinations for many positions which they are well equipped to fill. We therefore sent a letter to the Departments of War, Navy, State and Commerce where the discrimination had been proved, asking whether they would not modify their regulations to give women equal chances with men, and, now that men were needed for the army, give women the clerical positions in preference to men. We published these letters and received favorable replies from all but the State Department." Miss Smith told of the discovery that women in the Bureau of Engraving, under the Treasury Department, were working twelve hours a day seven days in the week; of the protest of her committee sent through Mrs.

Catt to Secretary McAdoo and of his order restoring the eight-hour day and removing all cause of complaint."

(4) Americanization. The chairman, Mrs. Frederick P. Bagley, said that her first act was to secure three wise and experienced suffragists to form with her a central committee, Mrs. Shuler, corresponding secretary of the National Suffrage a.s.sociation; Mrs. Robert S. Huse of New Jersey, and Mrs. Winona Osborn Pinkham, executive secretary of the Boston Equal Suffrage a.s.sociation. A plan for Americanization work was printed in the _Woman Citizen_, June 30, 1917, and was sent to each State president with a letter asking for the appointment of a State chairman. Mrs. Bagley's thorough resume of the work of her committee filled eleven pages of the printed convention report and among the various branches described were recruiting in the foreign tenement quarters for attendance at the public schools; securing cooperation with foreign leaders and with existing agencies for Americanization work; enlisting the cooperation of employers in providing school facilities for employees; teaching English in the homes where the women had not been able to attend school and aiding in the carrying on of the day school for immigrant women now established in the North End of Boston. She told of two new departments, Americanization for rural districts and citizens.h.i.+p cla.s.ses for women voters. She urged, not only the necessity of schools for adult foreigners but the desirability of good ones that would hold their attention and she made a special plea for the immigrant women. She also called attention to the imperative need for teaching patriotism.

The plan of work recommended by the Executive Council and adopted by this convention provided that the a.s.sociation during 1918 should continue the four departments and add the Woman's Hospital Unit in France and Child Welfare; that these six departments be placed under the direction of a committee, the chairman of which should be a member of the national suffrage board; that each State suffrage auxiliary be asked to establish a War Service Committee, composed of chairmen of the above sections, with an additional one on Liberty Bonds. This Committee of Eight was to direct the war work for each State in cooperation with the State division of the Woman's Committee, Council of National Defense. The Land Army Section was added in the spring of 1918 and took the place of the Food Production section. The name of the Thrift section was changed to that of Food Conservation; Miss Hilda Loines became its chairman and its work was combined as closely as possible with the similar section in the Woman's National Defense Committee directed by Mrs. McCormick.

The National Suffrage a.s.sociation held no convention in 1918 but it met in March, 1919, at St. Louis for its 50th Anniversary. The Armistice had been declared and the final reports of the a.s.sociation's war activities were rendered. In that of the War Service Department the chairman, Mrs. McCormick, stated that the reason the reports did not cover all six of its sections but only Land Army, Americanization and Oversea Hospitals was that the other sections, after the convention of 1917, were merged with the similar sections of the Woman's Committee, Council of National Defense. Detailed statements regarding Food Conservation and Industrial Protection for women in which the suffrage committees took so large a part, may be found in the reports of the Government Agriculture and Labor Departments. The Child Welfare Department was combined with that of the Woman's National Defense Committee and both were put under the guidance of Miss Julia Lathrop, chief of the Children's Bureau of the United States Department of Labor. Miss Lathrop made an address to the convention in St. Louis on this subject which was published in full in its Handbook for 1919.

In the section Industrial Protection of Women Mrs. Gifford Pinchot had followed Miss Ethel M. Smith as chairman and in a brief report told how nominal the function of her committee had recently become, owing to the fact that all agencies working in this field had been consolidated under the direction of the U. S. Department of Labor.

Before this amalgamation three interesting lines of effort had been carried forward by this committee: An attempt was made to secure a representation of women on the War Labor Board, which did not succeed; action was taken against the decision of this board in dismissing women street car conductors in Cleveland, O., and the committee's position was upheld; an unsuccessful effort was made through Mr.

Gompers to have women appointed on the committee of labor delegates who went abroad to confer with the labor representatives of other countries during the Peace Conference.

Land Army. Miss Hilda Loines, chairman, said in part:

"The training of women for agricultural work as a war necessity was early foreseen by the National Suffrage a.s.sociation and was made a part of its program of war service. Early in the spring of 1917 a number of organizations undertook to register and place women who could and would do agricultural labor. Bureaus were opened for their registry and field workers were sent out to secure promises of employment from the farmers. This was difficult at first but as the season wore on and there were no men to cultivate the crops and pick the fruit the farmers in desperation turned to the women. During the spring and summer of 1918 the Woman's Land Army was organized in thirty States, and about 15,000 women were placed on the land, 10,000 in units and 5,000 in emergency groups. The majority of these women had had no previous experience and most of them could receive little training but they did practically every kind of farm labor, ploughing, planting, cultivating and harvesting. They cut, stacked and loaded hay, corn and rye and filled the silos; worked on big western farms and orchards, dairy farms, truck farms, private estates and home gardens; did poultry work, beekeeping and teaming; learned to handle tractors, harvesters and other farm machinery. Their efficiency is best proved by the change of att.i.tude from skepticism to enthusiastic appreciation on the part of the farmers for whom they worked."

Americanization. The chairman, Mrs. Bagley, continued her report of the preceding year of the work in connection with the Councils of Defense of the several States "by means of the local machinery of the various suffrage organizations." She urged the teaching of English to aliens as the first step in Americanization, with emphasis on the point that the immigrant women must not be left out. "This Americanization is a function peculiarly appropriate to suffragists,"

she said, "as a woman married to an alien must herself forever remain an alien unless her husband becomes a citizen, and as the States enfranchise women hundreds of thousands will still be left without the vote. Every married alien whom suffragists help to take out naturalization papers means not only a vote for him but also for his wife.

During the convention in December, 1917, the plan for Oversea Hospitals was presented to the delegates by Mrs. Charles L. Tiffany of New York, at the request of Mrs. Catt, the national president, to whom the matter had been suggested by the action of the Scottish Suffrage Societies in sending to France in 1914 the Scottish Women's Hospitals, units managed and staffed entirely by women, and was accepted. Mrs.

Tiffany was made chairman of the Hospital Committee and Mrs. Raymond Brown director of the work in France. At the convention of March, 1919, in St. Louis, Mrs. Brown made a full report, from which the following is an extract.

"At its convention in 1917 the National Suffrage a.s.sociation, as part of its war work, agreed to support a hospital unit in France and undertook to raise $125,000 for its maintenance for a year.

This unit was already in process of organization by a group of women physicians of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children and was to be composed entirely of women. Since the U. S.

Government does not accept women in its Medical Reserve Corps, and at that time neither it nor the Red Cross was sending women surgeons for service abroad, the unit was offered to the French Government, which accepted it by cable. The first group of the unit sailed on Feb. 17, 1918, and expected to establish a hospital for refugees in the devastated area. Before they could be installed the villages to which they had been a.s.signed were taken in a new drive by the Germans and about half the group, headed by Dr. Caroline Finley, was suddenly called upon for hospital service within the war zone. The hospital to which they were a.s.signed was evacuated before they could reach it and they were finally placed in Chateau Ognon, a few miles north of Senlis on the road to Compiegne.

"Soon after the first group was sent into the war zone, the French Government asked the remainder of the unit to go to the Department of Landes in the south of France in order to establish there a hospital for refugees. The Germans were still advancing and as the refugees poured into the south the government was trying to build villages of barracks for them. When Dr. Alice Gregory with a group of fifteen women, including a carpenter, plumber, chemist and chauffeur, reached Labouheyre, early in April, a site had still to be found for the hospital and the buildings were still to be built, furnished and equipped. The barracks were erected in due time by the government; the equipment was the gift of the American Red Cross; the planning, directing purchasing and installing were done by our women. Dr.

Marie Formad was finally put in charge. Later, at the request of the French Service de Sante, a 300-bed hospital unit for gas cases was organized by the Women's Oversea Hospitals and was started on its way from America to France. This was the first hospital unit exclusively for gas cases and had a personnel solely of women. Its princ.i.p.al group in Lorraine cared for 19,307 cases in three months."

The Oversea Hospitals service was divided and sent from point to point to answer the many demands of war, having charge of hospitals and treating tens of thousands of cases. "With the signing of the Armistice," Mrs. Brown's report said, "the great problem in France became the care of refugees and repatriates, who were returning at the rate of thousands a day, most of them utterly dest.i.tute and in need of medical care, to homes in many cases completely destroyed." The hospital and dispensary service was therefore continued. Dr. Finley and her group were sent to Germany and here met the returned prisoners of war, who were in desperate condition.

"The work of the Oversea Hospitals has been handled with great economy," the report said, "and has cost less than was antic.i.p.ated, both because of the large amount of volunteer work and because the units in French military hospitals received French rations. The State suffrage organizations have contributed most generously." A list was furnished of the trucks and ambulances given by the women's organizations in the United States. "The total number of women sent to France with the hospitals was seventy-four, who came from all parts of the United States. Several of the doctors received the French equivalent of a commission; three obtained the Croix de Guerre and two were decorated with the Medaille d'Honneur."

The report of Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers, treasurer of the National a.s.sociation, given at the convention, stated that funds for the hospitals service to the amount of $133,340 had pa.s.sed through her hands. Their disburs.e.m.e.nt, carefully audited, is published in the Handbook of the a.s.sociation for 1918, page 111.

At the annual convention of the National Suffrage a.s.sociation held in Chicago, in February, 1920, the report of Mrs. Rogers stated that Oversea Hospitals funds to the amount of $178,000 had pa.s.sed through the treasury and a balance of $35,000 remained. (See Handbook, page 116.) The question of the disposition of this balance was put to the convention, which voted that it be divided equally between the work in France of the Women's Oversea Hospitals and the American Hospital for French Wounded in Rheims. Mrs. Tiffany, chairman of the committee, and Mrs. Brown, director in France, made a final report to the convention, stating that the work in France was continued until September 1, 1919, in order to care for the French disabled soldiers, and to maintain hospitals, dental clinics, dispensaries, ambulances, motor cars, etc.

Such work proceeded in connection with the American Fund for French Wounded. The princ.i.p.al group was transferred from Lorraine to Rheims in April, with Dr. Marie Lefort still in charge. On September 1, with its mission finished, the hospital and all its equipment were presented to the American Fund for French Wounded. The Mayor sent a letter to Dr. Lefort which said in part: "The Munic.i.p.ality of Rheims would like to express to you and the Women's Oversea Hospitals its profound grat.i.tude for the splendid a.s.sistance you have given our population. France and the city of Rheims are deeply moved." The full equipment of the smaller hospital groups was given to the French government for its own hospital service. Dr. Caroline Finley returned to the U. S. in August, still a Lieutenant in the French Army. The Prince of Wales, who was in New York, invited her on board H. M. S.

_Renown_, where he conferred on her the Order of the British Empire in recognition of her work at Metz, where British prisoners stricken with influenza were cared for as they arrived from German prison-camps.

This ends the story of the Women's Oversea Hospitals, for which the National Suffrage a.s.sociation willingly raised nearly $200,000 at the crisis in its own fifty-year movement. Desks for suffrage work were vacant over all the country while their occupants were cheerfully giving their best service to the demands of the war. For the vast majority this took the forms indicated by the above committee reports.

In addition there were the activities of money-raising; caring for children and other dependents; safeguarding public health; the usual tasks of nursing and other Red Cross work; the distribution of food administration pledge cards, the organizing of food committees in all towns.h.i.+ps under the direction of district captains, with "clean-up"

days and "elimination of waste" days in counties; canning demonstrations throughout communities; alloting and directing garden plots; holding normal training schools to teach gardening; making collections for the Red Cross and other war funds, with countless other activities. Liberty Bonds in the second, third and fourth campaigns to the amount of one-fourth of the total sales were disposed of through the National Suffrage a.s.sociation, its State branches and women throughout the country.

While the suffragists were devoting themselves to war-service they did not lay down arms for their own cause, which had reached a stage where further delay was impossible. There was a general tacit understanding that, while the war needs of their country were and should be uppermost, their hands must never relinquish the suffrage throttle, and the double tasks of war work and suffrage work were undertaken in a fine spirit of devotion to both. Nevertheless, the anti-suffrage women seized upon the occasion to accuse them of disloyalty, pacifism, pro-Germanism and of placing the interests of woman suffrage above those of the nation! These attacks were repeatedly made in the press and on the platform, Mrs. Catt, the president of the National a.s.sociation, being especially the victim. At times they grew so virulent that it became necessary to answer them through the newspapers.

Her letters were published with headlines and widely quoted. One of these letters, under date of Oct. 2, 1917, addressed to Mrs. Margaret C. Robinson of Cambridge, Ma.s.s., chairman of the press committee of the National Anti-Suffrage a.s.sociation, began: "My attention has been called to the fact that you are circulating by public letter and bulletin various statements that impugn my loyalty as an American and thereby put in jeopardy my good name and reputation. These a.s.sertions are made by you either with wilful intent to injure my name and standing in the community or without having made an effort to establish their proof. I hereby set forth the facts which have been distorted by you into untruths, either by contrary statements or by implications." It ended: "In the name of our common womanhood, I ask you to meet the suffrage issue fairly and squarely, and I warn you that for personal attacks tending to injure my name or those of my fellow-workers, you will be held responsible."

Another letter dated Nov. 1, 1917, addressed by Mrs. Catt to Mrs.

James W. Wadsworth, Jr., president of the Anti-Suffrage a.s.sociation; Mrs. Robinson and Miss Alice Hill Chittenden, president of the New York State Anti-Suffrage a.s.sociation, took up and refuted the charges saying: "To every single and collective insinuation, implication or direct charge, published or spoken in any place at any time by professional anti-suffrage campaigners, which has conveyed the impression that I or any other officially responsible leader of the National Suffrage a.s.sociation has by word or deed been disloyal to our country, I make complete and absolute denial here and now." It said in closing: "In this connection I wish to call your attention to the fact that the late John Hay, the father of the president of the National a.s.sociation of Anti-suffragists, had his own experiences with people who challenged his loyalty and 'cursed me,' he says, 'for being the tool of England.' In May, 1898, when our country was at war with Spain, John Hay actually had the temerity to draft a peace project, although he knew, so he said, that he 'would be lucky if he escaped lynching for it.' Are you willing to apply to Mrs. Wadsworth's father the chain of alleged reasoning that you apply to me, and, because of his great faith in and hope for peace, call him a traitor to his country?"

These letters had no effect on the abuse and misrepresentation of the suffragists but the charges were continued by the leaders of the "antis" until after the close of the war. There can be no doubt that the splendid war work of the suffragists was a princ.i.p.al factor in the submission and ratification of the Federal Amendment. Their instant and universal response in New York to the call of the Government, and later the actual conscription of all women over sixteen years of age by the Governor, proved that not only were women capable of war service but actually liable for it. These facts were largely responsible for the big majority vote cast by the men for woman suffrage in November, 1917, and the action of this great State paved the way for the success of the Federal Amendment in Congress.