The assertion is frequently made that the enfranchisement of women was due to a natural evolution of public sentiment. A reading of the following chapters, which give the history of the work of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, will show how largely the creation of this sentiment was due to this organization to which all the State associations were auxiliary. It represented the organized movement during half a century to secure the vote for women—a struggle such as was never made by men for this right in any country in the world. It was the only large organization for this purpose that ever existed in the United States and its efforts never ceased in the more than fifty years. At each annual convention some advance was recorded. These chapters show that, while the principal object of the association was a Federal Amendment, it gave valuable assistance to every campaign for the amendment of State constitutions and that it was responsible for the granting of the Presidential franchise, which was so important a factor in gaining the final victory. The reports of its officers each year show the large amount of money raised and expended, the hundreds of thousands of letters written, the millions of pieces of literature circulated, the thousands of meetings held, the many workers in the field. The committee reports and the resolutions adopted show that all reforms vital to the welfare of women and children and many of a wider scope were included in the work of the association. The names of the speakers at the national conventions and at the hearings before the committees of Congress during all these years prove that this cause was championed by the leaders among the men and women of their generation. Such quotations from their speeches as space has permitted show that in eloquence, logic and strength they were unsurpassed and that their arguments were unanswerable.
If this volume contained only the first nineteen chapters the reader could not fail to be convinced that principally to the efforts of the National American Woman Suffrage Association the women of the United States owe their enfranchisement, but it shows too that in the forty-eight auxiliary States they also fought their own hard battles.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] [History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV, Chapters XX] and [XXI].
CHAPTER I.
THE NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1901.
The Thirty-third annual convention opened on the afternoon of May 30, 1901, in the First Baptist Church of Minneapolis, with the new president, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, in the chair, and continued through June 4, with 144 delegates from twenty-six States present.[4]
Miss Anthony was present at this Minneapolis convention, alert and vigorous but happy to relinquish her official duties to one in whose ability and judgment she had implicit confidence; and the rest of the official board were there ready to give the same allegiance and loyalty to the new chief which they had rendered for many years to the supreme leader. The Minneapolis Journal said: "The formal opening of the suffrage convention yesterday afternoon was an impressive affair. Among the national officers seated on the platform were women who saw the first dawn of the suffrage movement, those who came into its fold midway of its life and those whose earnest endeavors are of more recent record. Among the first was the most honored member of the body, Miss Susan B. Anthony, and among the latter is the president, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt. When the delegates rose and the Rev. Olympia Brown of Wisconsin stepped to the front of the platform and turned her face heavenward, saying, "In the name of liberty, Our Father, we thank thee," the impression even upon an unbeliever must have been that of entire consecration and one was reminded of when the early Christians met and consulted, fought and endured for the faith that was in them."