The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V

by Unknown

Members of the committee asked Dr. Shaw if the association would be willing to have the matter of a Federal Suffrage Amendment referred to the Committee on Election of President, Vice-President and Representatives in Congress but after consultation with members of her board it was decided to stand for a special committee. Mrs. Desha Breckinridge was introduced as the great granddaughter of Henry Clay and in the course of a speech worthy of her ancestry she recalled the early history of Kentucky, the part of her grandfather in preserving the Union, the fact that the State had not maintained its prestige and that if this was to be regained the women must be permitted to help and said:

I do not feel that I am doing any injustice to the men of my State in asking this Federal Amendment, in asking the help of the Congress of the United States. Some years ago, after we had worked for our School-suffrage law at three sessions of the Legislature and had at last gotten it past the House and up to the Senate, only three days before adjournment a letter was sent to the members by the German-American Alliance, calling upon the men of Kentucky to protect the homes and womanhood of the State by defeating it and saying that the Alliance believed the home was the sphere for women. When we investigated we found that the German-American Alliance was the brewers' alliance, with headquarters at Louisville.... I would suggest to the men of this committee, who I understand are mostly southern, that if they object to having the suffrage for women forced upon them by the U. S. Government, there is still time in which they may go home and get it for their women in the States.

Representative John E. Raker (Calif.), speaking with a full knowledge of the inner machinery of Congress, brushed aside all objections, showed that it was the custom to appoint special committees for special subjects, stood up against the heckling of the Rules Committee and put the necessity for this desired committee beyond argument. Dr. Shaw joined him in refuting the reiterated charge that the suffragists would insist on having it composed entirely of their supporters. Mrs. Mary Beard (N. Y.) addressed the committee as Democrats and from the standpoint of party expediency with such a knowledge of politics as they never had met in a woman. She said in a scathing arraignment:

This committee is composed of thirteen men and seven constitute the deciding vote on our appeal for the Woman Suffrage Committee. These seven belong to the majority, the Democratic party. One of them comes from a partial suffrage State, Illinois, and another from a campaign State, New York, where the Legislature has declared in favor of submitting this question to the voters. I shall, therefore, limit my examination to the remaining five gentlemen whose point of view will in all probability decide the women's destiny in the House of Representatives at least for the moment. These five all represent one section of the country and my analysis of them is made in the hope that they will take a national point of view and help us obliterate sectional feeling. Who are you that hesitate to promote, if you do not actually obstruct this Federal Amendment? In looking over various public records I find that the honored chairman of this committee holds his strategic position as a result of the will expressed at the polls of 7,623 men. Opposite his name should be written: "No opposition." Another of the five comes here through the vote of 13,906 men. Another is sent by the very small group of 6,474 men, and the remaining two represent respectively 18,000 and 16,000 men. The total vote behind all five of these gentlemen is 63,570. These 63,570 voters, therefore, have the decision of this momentous question....

You know the fight that you Democratic men put up against the combination by the Committee on Rules under the leadership of Speaker Cannon and you led that fight against the domination of the committee over the House. You are today in this same position of political power. Can you consistently oppose now the things for which you fought so bitterly a short time ago? We know how rapidly you have appointed committees when changed economic conditions demanded it. I have here the report of the Committee on the Judiciary for the special session, showing what work it did, how many sittings it held, which proves conclusively that it has not time for the consideration of our question....

This part of the hearing closed with the address of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, who was introduced as president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, representing the organized womanhood of twenty-six nations. She said in the course of her address:

A few weeks ago a dispatch was sent out from Washington, saying that the Judiciary Committee for the next year was going to be more overworked than ever before. It was accompanied by a letter from the President to Mr. Clayton, begging him to continue as chairman of that committee and to withdraw from his candidacy for the Senate from Alabama because this committee was going to do more work than it had ever been required to do before. He called attention to the fact that the Ways and Means Committee had been obliged to work day and night, sometimes spending the whole night on their particular business, and he warned Mr. Clayton that this might be the expectation of the Judiciary Committee in this coming Congress. When this committee has only worked during the day, we suffragists have not been able to get the attention which we think our cause demands and with this additional work it is quite impossible to expect more attention than we have had in the past. Since the suggestion was offered that possibly our business might go before the Elections Committee, the information has come that the President's plan for presidential primary legislation will make this committee also a very busy one this coming session.... We pride ourselves on our democracy, but while the Judiciary Committee has been refusing to report our measure and bring it before the House for discussion the question of woman suffrage has been considered by the Imperial Parliaments of twelve European countries. This has been done in fact within the past two years.

Mrs. Catt gave particulars from each and said the only ones where it had not been discussed were those of Germany, Austria, Turkey and the United States. This assertion stung the committee and Representative Hardwick (Ga.) asked if there was not the wide difference that in this country State laws reached the suffrage while in others the Parliament regulated the vote, and she answered: "Of course there is that difference but I wish to add my opinion to that of Miss Addams, that while the States have the right to extend the vote it is the most outrageously unfair process through which any class of unenfranchised citizens of any land have ever been called upon to obtain their enfranchisement and that is the reason why we come to Congress. The overwhelming majority of the men of this country have not secured their suffrage by any vote at the polls in the States. The only class that I have ever been able to find in our history so enfranchised are the working men in the original thirteen colonies, and they got the vote by the process long ago when the population was exceedingly small. There are more men today voting on the basis of their citizenship under naturalization than for any other reason and yet our State constitutions compel us to go to these men and ask our vote at their hands. They say whether the women who have been born and bred here and educated in our schools shall have the vote. We believe we have the right to have our question considered by Congress and that is why we ask for a special committee."

A spirited discussion followed in which the 15th Amendment played a part and Mr. Hardwick said all the women had to do in order to vote was to add the word "sex" to it and Dr. Shaw answered: "This would require a constitutional amendment and what we are asking is such an amendment to our National Constitution, which shall forbid the States to deprive women citizens of the right which it grants to every man born in the United States and to every man imported from any country under the light of the sun. No nation has subjected its women to the humiliating position occupied by those of this nation today. There is no race which is not represented in the citizenship of this country and these citizens are made the governing power which determines the destinies of our women. While women are disfranchised in Germany, yet German women are governed by German men; French women are governed by Frenchmen; in all the nations of Europe where women are disfranchised it is by the men of their own nation but in the United States men of every race may go to the polls and vote that American-born women may not have a voice in their own government. Therefore we claim that it is the business of the Government to protect women citizens in this right of suffrage as it protects men citizens, and we ask for this committee because we believe that if our question can be brought before Congress and discussed freely, it will be submitted to the Legislatures and decided favorably."