The amendment resolution is awaiting third reading in the Senate and is before the Judiciary Committee of the House.
The action of the Senate was due to the fact that under the new administration a committee had been appointed which was favorable to woman suffrage instead of one opposed as heretofore, with a chairman, Senator Charles S. Thomas of Colorado, who had helped the women of his own State to secure the suffrage twenty years before. The resolutions in the Lower House were introduced by old and tried friends and the association's new Congressional Committee had arranged hearings, brought pressure to bear on members and not permitted them to forget or ignore the question. Miss Agnes E. Ryan, business manager of the Woman's Journal, said in her account: "The convention received the report with enthusiastic applause, giving three cheers and rising to its feet to show its appreciation."
This report was signed by Miss Paul as "chairman of the Congressional Committee and president of the Congressional Union" and she said at the beginning that it was impossible to separate the work of the two. At its conclusion Mrs. Catt moved that the part of the report as from the Congressional Committee be accepted, which was done by the convention. She then asked what was the relation between the two and why, if this was a regular committee of the National American Association, no appropriation had been made for its work during the coming year and why there was no statement in the treasurer's report of its expenditures during the past year. It developed that the committee had raised and expended its own funds, which had not passed through the national treasury, and that the Congressional Union was a society formed the preceding April to assist the work of the committee. It was moved by Mrs. Catt and carried that the convention request the Official Board to continue the Congressional Committee and to cooperate with it in such a way as to remove further causes of embarrassment to the association. The motion was amended that the board should appropriate what money could be spared for the work of this committee.[80]
The movement for woman suffrage was now so plainly centering in Congress, which had been the goal for over forty years, that there was a widespread feeling that the national headquarters should be established in Washington. Mrs. Oliver H. P. Belmont, a delegate from New York, through whose generosity it had been possible to take them to that city in 1909, offered a motion that they now be removed to Washington. She had given notice of this action the preceding day and the opponents were prepared. A motion to lay it on the table was quickly made and all discussion cut off. The opposition of the national officers was so apparent that many delegates hesitated to express their convictions for the affirmative but nevertheless the vote stood 134 ayes, and 169 noes.
The National Association had now so many auxiliaries and so much work was being done in all the States that the day sessions were largely consumed in hearing reports from them and the usual conferences and symposiums were almost crowded off the program. For the first time Hawaii took her place among the auxiliaries, a suffrage society having been formed there during the year. At one of the morning sessions U. S. Senator Moses E. Clapp of Minnesota was presented to the convention and extended a pressing invitation to hold its next meeting in St. Paul. Later this invitation was repeated in a cordial invitation from Governor Adolph O. Eberhard. At another morning session Representative Kenneth McKellar of Tennessee addressed the convention and invited it to meet in Chattanooga the next year. The last evening there was not standing room in the large theater. Miss Harriet May Mills, president of the New York State Suffrage Association, took for her subject A Prophecy Fulfilled and gave convincing reasons for believing that the successful end of the long contest was near. Mrs. Katharine Houghton Hepburn made a strong arraignment of Commercialized Vice, using her own city of Hartford, Conn., for an example. Mrs. Catt gave the last address, a comprehensive review of the advanced position that had been attained by women and the great responsibilities it had brought. Dr. Shaw, who presided, spoke the final inspiring words.
A delightful ending of the week was the reception the last afternoon in the hospitable home of Senator and Mrs. Robert M. LaFollette. Three members of the Cabinet were among the guests, Secretaries Lane, Houston and Daniels. Those in the receiving line were: Senator and Mrs. LaFollette, Dr. Shaw and Mrs. Catt; also Mrs. Franklin K. Lane, Mrs. Josephus Daniels, Mrs. Albert Sidney Burleson, Mrs. David Franklin Houston, Mrs. Miles Poindexter, Mrs. Reed Smoot, Mrs. Victor Murdock, Mrs. Wm. L. LaFollette, Mrs. J. W. Bryan, Mrs. John E. Raker, Mrs. James A. Frear, Mrs. Henry T. Rainey, Mrs. Albert B. Cummins, Mrs. John D. Works and Mrs. William Kent, all members of the Cabinet and Congressional circles, and the husbands of most of them were present. To the older members of the association it recalled the conventions of olden times when even the wives of members of Congress, with a few rare exceptions, feared to attend the social functions lest it might injure the political status of their husbands.
The Senate committee of the Sixty-third Congress had already granted three hearings on woman suffrage during its extra session: on April 10, 1913, to representatives of the Anti-Suffrage Association; on April 21 to those of the Federal Women's Equality Association and on April 26 to those of the National American Suffrage Association. This new committee, which the advocates of the Federal Suffrage Amendment will always remember with deep appreciation for its firm and favorable action, consisted of the following Senators: Charles S. Thomas (Colo.), chairman; Robert L. Owen (Okla.); Henry F. Ashurst (Ariz.); Joseph E. Ransdell (La.); Henry P. Hollis (N. H.); George Sutherland (Utah); Wesley L. Jones (Wash.); Moses E. Clapp (Minn.); Thomas B. Catron (N. M.). The last named was an opponent of woman suffrage by any method and was the only member who did not sign the favorable report. Senator Ransdell at first said that he had an open mind but he soon placed himself on the suffrage side, signed the report and later voted several times in favor of the amendment.
The immediate object of the National American Association at the present moment was to secure a Committee on Woman Suffrage in the Lower House such as had long existed in the Senate. A resolution to create such a committee had been introduced April 7 by Edward T. Taylor (Colo.) and referred to the Committee on Rules. The hearing at the regular session during this convention, therefore, was before this committee, which would have to recommend the Woman Suffrage Committee to the House, and it was set for 10:30 a.m., December 3. As soon as the application was made the National Anti-Suffrage Association also asked to be heard, and Chairman Henry, who was opposed to the proposed new committee and to woman suffrage, announced that he proposed to allow both sides all the time they wanted. The leaders of the National Suffrage Association stated that they would ask for only the usual two hours and would not discuss the general question of woman suffrage but only the need of a special committee. Their arguments were concluded at the morning session. The "antis" began after luncheon with massed forces and talked the entire afternoon and all of the next day and part of the third, covering the whole subject of woman suffrage, with the appointment of the committee only one feature of it. Several of their men speakers consumed nearly an hour each and were repeatedly requested by the chairman to face the committee instead of the audience, which filled the largest room in the House office building. The first morning all of the committee were present but they gradually dwindled until during the latter part of the "antis'" arguments only two or three were in their seats, not including the chairman[81]. Only limited extracts of the speeches are possible. Dr. Shaw presided and said:
Our purpose in coming before you this morning is not to make any attempt whatever to convert the members of the Rules Committee, if they should need converting, to the democratic principle of the right of the people to have a voice in their own government. It is to ask you to appoint a committee in the House on woman suffrage, which corresponds with the one in the Senate, in order that we may have hearings before a committee which is not so burdened with other business as is the Committee on the Judiciary.... It seems to the women of the United States that a question of so much importance that the parliaments of Europe feel under obligations to discuss and act upon it, is at least of sufficient importance in this great republic of ours for the committee which has it under consideration to take time for a report. Year after year we have asked the Judiciary Committee not that they should believe in woman suffrage or express any opinion on it but only to report the measure either favorably or unfavorably so as to bring it before the House, in order that the representatives of the men of this country might be able to consider it, but thus far it has been impossible to secure any sort of a report....