FOOTNOTES:
[82] Part of Call: Our task will be to formulate judgment on those great issues of the day which nearly concern women; to choose the leaders who during the coming year are to guide the fortunes of our cause; and finally, to deliberate how the whole national body may on the one hand best give aid and succor to the States working for their own enfranchisement and on the other press for federal action in behalf of the women of the nation at large....
Since the last convention met all the horror of a great war has fallen upon the civilized world. The hearts of thousands of women have been torn by the death and wounds of those they bore, of those they love, yet never has their will and power to help been greater, never man's need of such help been more clearly seen. We, who are spared the anguish of war, well understand that as weight is given in the world's affairs to the voice of women, moved as men are not by all the tragic waste of battles, the chances of such slaughter must perpetually diminish. Now is the time when all things point to the violence that rules the world, now is the very time to press our claim to a share in the guidance of our country's fortunes, to urge that woman's vision must second and ratify that of man. Let us then in convention assembled kindle with the thought that, as we consider methods for the political enfranchisement of our sex, our wider purpose is to free women and to enable their conception of life in all its aspects to find expression.... Let us set a fresh seal upon the great new loyalty of woman to woman; let our response be felt in the deep tide of fellowship and understanding among all women which today is rising around the world.
| Anna Howard Shaw, President. | ||
| Jane Addams, First Vice-President. | ||
| Madeline Breckinridge, Second Vice-President. | ||
| Caroline Ruutz-Rees, Third Vice-President. | ||
| Susan Walker Fitzgerald, Recording Secretary. | ||
| Katharine Dexter McCormick, Treasurer. | ||
| Harriet Burton Laidlaw, | } | Auditors. |
| Louise DeKoven Bowen, | ||
[83] Complete, universal suffrage was conferred by the Parliament in 1917.
[84] For a number of years Mrs. Quincy A. Shaw of Boston gave Dr. Shaw a fund for campaign work.
[85] A portion of this report is in the chapter on the Federal Suffrage Amendment.
[86] The Federal Suffrage Amendment had been thoroughly debated and voted on in the Senate in 1887; the question of woman suffrage itself discussed in 1866, 1881-3-4-5-6 in the Senate; at great length in the Lower House in 1883 and 1890 and briefly in both houses at other times.
[87] Instead of seven or eight amendments there was only one and never had been but one—the old, original amendment introduced by Senator A. A. Sargent (Calif.) in 1878. There was and long had been one "bill" advocated, the one to give women so-called "federal" suffrage, the right to vote for Senators and Representatives, but it had never been reported out of committee. There was no bill before Congress to give women the right to vote for Presidential electors and there was no other bill proposed. It was of course the "State's rights argument" that had been the continuous barrier to the Federal Suffrage Amendment ever since it was first introduced but the favorable attitude of a majority of the Senators showed how much progress had been made in meeting that argument.
[88] On the contrary at a public hearing before the Judiciary Committee of the Lower House on March 3, Mrs. Funk referred several times to such an amendment and stated that she represented an association of 462,000 women. She intimated that she knew the old amendment could not pass and that another might be introduced, which, it was hoped, would be more acceptable. The vote was not taken in the Senate till March 19. Meanwhile the newspapers gave to the suffragists of the country their first knowledge of the new amendment and vigorous protests soon followed, especially from the older leaders of the movement. The Woman's Journal of March 28 said editorially: "It is felt by many that before the Congressional Committee introduced a wholly new measure, which had never been sanctioned or even considered by the National Association, it ought to have been submitted to the National Executive Council."
As soon as the Senate had voted on the original amendment, Senator Bristow, at the request of the Congressional Union, re-introduced it, and it was reported favorably April 7, Senator Thomas B. Catron of New Mexico alone dissenting. Senator Bristow in re-introducing it said of the Shafroth measure: "It is more of a national initiative and referendum amendment than a woman suffrage amendment. I prefer that the question of woman suffrage rest directly upon its own merits and be not involved with the initiative and referendum."
[89] This amendment had been reported by the Judiciary Committee on the 9th of May preceding this report "without recommendation" and a strong effort was being made by its supporters to bring it before the House for debate. The Rules Committee sent it to the House on December 12, 1914.
[90] The proposed State amendment failed in New York in 1915, was submitted again by the Legislatures of 1916 and 1917, voted on in November, 1917, and adopted by an immense majority.
[91] The first week in the preceding April the Mississippi Valley Conference, composed of the Middle and some of the Western and Southern States, met in Des Moines and thirty-five prominent delegates signed a telegram to the Official Board of the National American Association, asking it "to instruct its Congressional Committee not to push the Shafroth Amendment nor ask for its report from the Senate Committee"; also "to ask the Senate Committee not to report this amendment until so requested by the national suffrage convention." This was not official action but they signed as individuals, among them the presidents of the Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Louisiana State associations and officers from other States.
[92] Some of the arguments may be found in the Appendix. An examination of the file of the Journal will show that ninety-nine per cent. of the writers were opposed to the amendment.
[93] The old amendment had been voted on in the Senate March 19 and obtained a majority but not the required two-thirds. It had been reported without recommendation by the House Judiciary, which had not acted on the new one. The latter had been introduced in the Senate and the former re-introduced.
[94] The original measure had always been called the Sixteenth Amendment until the adoption of the Income Tax and Direct Election of Senators Amendments in 1913. The Congressional Union, organized that year, gave it the name Susan B. Anthony Amendment and for awhile it was thus referred to by some members of the National American Association. The relatives and friends of Mrs. Stanton rightly objected to this name, as she had been equally associated with it from the beginning, and all the pioneer workers had been its staunch supporters. The old association soon adopted the title, Federal Suffrage Amendment.
[95] At the first board meeting after the convention Mrs. McCormick was re-appointed chairman of the Congressional Committee with power to select its other members and Mrs. Funk was re-appointed vice-chairman.
[96] Mrs. McCormick spent a large amount of time and money on this play, hoping it would yield a good revenue to the association, but the arrangement with the Film Corporation proved impossible and it finally had to be abandoned.
[97] The most persistent efforts of the suffragists never succeeded in locating this league.
[98] At the request of the committee the exact figures were furnished later and showed a membership of 105,000, of whom 85,600 lived in the five non-suffrage States of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Of the remaining 19,400 the non-suffrage States of New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Ohio had 11,500; Virginia, 2,100, and 6,500 were divided among other non-suffrage States and the District of Columbia. Not one member was reported from States where the franchise had been given to women, although it was a stock argument of the "antis" that it had been forced on them and they would gladly get rid of it.