The meeting then adjourned.
Before going on with the work for 1916, it is perhaps expedient to mention here one of two interesting events. The New York Tribune announced on November 5 that, “accepting the advice of Mrs. Medill McCormick of Chicago, the National American Woman Suffrage Association announced yesterday that it had instructed the Congressional Committee not to introduce the Shafroth-Palmer Resolution in the Sixty-fourth Congress.” This meant, of course, that there would in the future be no division of the energies of the Suffrage forces of the country; that all would work for the Susan B. Anthony Amendment.
II
THE NEW HEADQUARTERS AND THE MIDDLE YEARS
The second event of 1915 of less importance nationally, but of great practical importance to the Congressional Union, was the removal of Headquarters from the dark, congested rooms in F Street to Cameron House, sometimes known as the Little White House. Cameron House has held, ever since its construction, a vivid place in Washington history. It has been occupied by Senator Donald Cameron; Vice-President Garret A. Hobart; Senator Mark Hanna. The famous breakfasts given by Senator Hanna, to which President McKinley often came, occurred here. Presidents, such as John Quincy Adams, Harrison, Taylor, and Fillmore; statesmen, such as Webster, Clay, Cass, and Calhoun; historians, such as Prescott, Bancroft, and Washington Irving, have frequented it. The Little White House is situated at 21 Madison Place, just across Lafayette Square from the big White House. From the windows of the big White House could be seen great banners of purple, white, and gold, waving at the windows of the Little White House.
Cameron House was charming inside and out. Outside, a great wistaria vine made in the spring a marvel of its façade, and inside a combination of fine proportions and a charming architectural arrangement of the rooms gave it that gemütlich atmosphere necessary to a rallying spot. When you entered, you came into a great hall, from which a noble staircase made an effective exit, and in which a huge fireplace formed a focussing center. All winter long, a fire was going in that fireplace; there were easy chairs in front of it, and straying off from it. The Little White House became a place where people dropped in easily. This big reception hall always held a gay, interesting, and interested group, composed of Party members resident there; sympathizers and workers who lived in Washington; people from all over the United States who had come to Washington on a holiday. The organizers were always returning from the four corners of the country with a harvest of news and ideas and plans before starting off for new fields.
Perhaps there is no better place than here to speak of the work of those remarkable young women—the organizers. It will be remembered that from the time of the formation of the Congressional Committee to the time when the Senate passed the Anthony Amendment was about six years and a half. Yet in 1919, Maud Younger said to me, “There have been three generations of organizers in this movement.” That was true. Not that they served their average of two years and left. Most of them who came to work for the Party stayed with it. It was only that, as the work grew, developed, expanded, more organizers and even more became necessary. And perhaps it is one of the chief glories of the Woman’s Party that these organizers came to them younger and younger, until at the end they were fresh, beautiful girls in their teens and early twenties.
The first group consisted of:
Mabel Vernon; Elsie Hill; Margaret Whittemore; Doris Stevens; Mrs. Sinclair Thompson; Virginia Arnold.
The second group consisted of: