The envoys, elected at the Salt Lake City Convention, then presented to the assembled Congressmen the resolutions passed at that Convention and speeches followed.
While the envoys were rousing the West, the Congressional Union was sending deputations to great political leaders in the hope of getting declarations of support which would influence the coming National Political Conventions. To a deputation consisting of Mary Beard, Elizabeth Gerberding, Alice Carpenter, and Mrs. Evan Evans, Theodore Roosevelt, who had long been converted to the principle of Suffrage, announced himself in favor of the Federal Amendment and promised his active support in the campaign. This was of course an encouraging episode in the story of the National Amendment.
Three weeks later came the next important event in the history of the Congressional Union—the launching of a Woman’s Party on July 5 at the Blackstone Theatre in Chicago. At this time Chicago was the center of publicity; the strategic point as far as the press was concerned. The Woman’s Party Convention met before the Conventions of the Republicans and Democrats. The reporters, gathered there and waiting in idleness for these later occasions, looked upon the Woman’s Party Convention as a gift of the gods.
Helena Hill Weed presented a report of the Credentials Committee, of which she was Chairman. She said:
This is not a delegated body.
It is a mass convention of all members of the Congressional Union to form a Woman’s Party, made up of enfranchised women of the eleven full Suffrage States, and of Illinois, where women may vote for President of the United States.
There are two classes of delegates in this convention—members of the Union in these twelve Suffrage States, who have the right to speak and vote in the convention; and members of the Union in the thirty-six unfree States, who may speak from the floor, but may not vote.
As registration is still going on, it is impossible to give a final vote of the number of delegates attending. Over fifteen hundred delegates have already registered.
Maud Younger was temporary Chairman of the Convention and keynote speaker. She said in part: