The suggestion in your letter, that your caucus resolution provides that the President might from time to time suggest special war emergency legislation, puts the responsibility for the inaction of your Committee upon the President. As the President has already stated that he will be glad to do everything he can to promote the cause of Woman Suffrage, it seems to me quite evident that he has at least given your Committee the opportunity to exercise their own authority without even the fear that they may be infringing upon your caucus rules.
In the answer which Chairman Webb sent to Mr. Hopkins, he put the responsibility of the inaction in regard to the Suffrage situation directly on the President.
He said:
The Democratic caucus passed a resolution that only war emergency measures would be considered during this extra session, and that the President might designate from time to time special legislation which he regarded as war legislation, and such would be acted upon by the House. The President not having designated Woman Suffrage and national prohibition so far as war measures, the Judiciary Committee up to this time has not felt warranted, under the caucus rule, in reporting either of these measures. If the President should request either or both of them as war measures, then I think the Committee would attempt to take some action on them promptly. So you see after all it is important to your cause to make the President see that Woman Suffrage comes within the rules laid down.
In May, the Rules Committee of the House of Representatives granted a hearing to Suffrage bodies on the question of the creation of a Suffrage Committee in the House. It will be remembered that this is the first time since December, 1913, that the Rules Committee had granted this request, although women have worked for the creation of a Suffrage Committee in the House since the days of Susan B. Anthony. Chairman Pou presided.
A few days before, he had received a letter from President Wilson, in favor of the creation of a Suffrage Committee. For a long time now, the President had not been saying anything about the State by State method of winning Suffrage, but this was the first time that he had shown a specific interest in the Federal Suffrage Amendment.
The meeting was open to the public, and the room was crowded. The members of the National American Woman Suffrage Association spoke; a group of Congressmen from the Suffrage States, and the following members of the Woman’s Party: Anne Martin, Maud Younger, Mrs. Richard Wainwright, Mabel Vernon.
Mrs. Richard Wainwright said:
One of the members of the Commission from England said: “We came to America that America may not make the mistakes that we have! One of the mistakes that England is now trying to rectify is not giving justice to her women. I should like the Congress of the United States to remember what Wyoming said when asked to join the nation: ‘We do not come in without our women.’”
Miss Younger said in part: