FOOTNOTES:
[114] Although there was no national convention in 1918 Mrs. Catt called a conference of the Executive Council, consisting of the national officers, chairmen of standing and special committees and State presidents, at Indianapolis, April 18th and 19th. It was in effect a convention except for the presence of elected delegates and forty-five States were represented, including many of the South. They were entertained by the Indiana Women's Franchise League, welcomed by Governor Goodrich and Mayor Jewett and were guests at many brilliant social functions. A full program of daytime plans for work and committee reports and of evening addresses was carried out. The visitors were able to attend meetings of the Indiana State Suffrage Convention and the League of Women Voters.
[115] Call: The National American Woman Suffrage Association calls its State auxiliaries, through their elected delegates, to meet in annual convention at St. Louis, Statler Hotel, March 24 to March 29, 1919, inclusive.
In 1869, Wyoming led the world by the grant of full suffrage to its women. The convention will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of this event. In 1869, the National and the American Woman Suffrage Associations were organized—to be combined twenty years later into the National American. The convention will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the organization which without a pause has carried forward the effort to secure the enfranchisement of women. As a fitting memorial to a half-century of progress the association invites the women voters of the fifteen full suffrage States to attend this anniversary and there to join their forces in a League of Women Voters, one of whose objects shall be to speed the suffrage campaign in our own and other countries.
The convention will express its pleasure with suitable ceremonials that since last we met the women of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, Canada and Germany have received the vote, but it will make searching inquiry into the mysterious causes which deny patriotic, qualified women of our Republic a voice in their own government while those of monarchies and erstwhile monarchies are honored with political equality. Suffrage delegates, women voters, there is need of more serious counsel than in any preceding year. It is not you but the nation that has been dishonored by the failure of the 65th Congress to pass the Federal Suffrage Amendment. Let us inquire together; let us act together.
[116] Ministers who opened the different sessions with prayer were Mary J. Safford, of Iowa; Dr. Ivan Lee Holt, Rabbi Samuel Thurman, Dr. G. Nussman and the Rev. Father Russell J. Wilbur; at the meetings in the Odeon, Dr. J. W. Mclvor and Dean Carrol Davis, all of St. Louis.
[117] From the address of President Wilson:
And what shall we say of the women?... Their contribution to the great result is beyond appraisal. They have added a new luster to the annals of American womanhood. The least tribute we can pay them is to make them the equals of men in political rights as they have proved themselves their equals in every field of practical work they have entered, whether for themselves or for their country. These great days of completed achievements would be sadly marred were we to omit that act of justice.
[118] For action of this committee see [Appendix for Chapter XIX].
[119] Names of Committee: John E. Raker, California, chairman; Edward W. Saunders, Virginia; Frank Clark, Florida; Benjamin C. Hilliard, Colorado; James H. Mays, Utah; Christopher D. Sullivan, New York; Thomas L. Blanton, Texas; Jeannette Rankin, Montana; Frank W. Mondell, Wyoming; William H. Carter, Massachusetts; Edward C. Little, Kansas; Richard N. Elliott, Indiana; Jacob E. Meeker, Missouri.
[120] In the summer of 1920, Mr. Bailey, who had been living in New York City ever since he resigned from the Senate, returned to Texas and made the race for Governor to "rescue" the State from woman suffrage, prohibition and other progressive measures which had made great headway since he left it. He was badly defeated for the nomination, with women voting.