It was now necessary for us to make a complete canvass of both Houses of Congress, to tabulate the records of the men, in so far as we were able to secure the information, and to determine at the earliest possible moment whether or not it was advisable to bring the Bristow amendment to a vote in the Senate.... My first call was on Senator Borah of Idaho, who is a personal friend, a suffragist, and has the advantage of being a progressive Republican from an equal suffrage State. "I cannot vote for this amendment," he said, "and want you to understand my reasons for taking such a stand. I do not believe the suffragists realize what they are doing to the women of the South if they force upon them universal suffrage before they are ready for it. The race question is one of the most serious before the country today and the women must help solve it before they can take on greater responsibilities. I am also a strong conservationist and entertain a State's rights attitude of mind on both these questions."
Mrs. McCormick then called on Senator Burton of Ohio, whom she described as "a reactionary Republican"; Senator Johnson of Maine and Senator Saulsbury of Delaware, "strong States' rights Democrats," and she gathered the impression that the new amendment which her Congressional Committee had in mind would have a better chance than the original, to which the Congressional Union had given the name Susan B. Anthony Amendment. The following men agreed to serve on the Advisory Committee in the Senate: Borah of Idaho; Bristow of Kansas; Shafroth and Thomas of Colorado; Owen of Oklahoma; Clapp of Minnesota; Smoot of Utah; Kern of Indiana; Lea of Tennessee and Ashurst of Arizona. "They unanimously agreed with us," she said, "that it would be of great educational value to have the question brought up before the Senate during the present session, as there had never been a debate on the question of woman suffrage in Congress."[86]
Mrs. McCormick told how the amendment had been put on the calendar as unfinished business and discussed daily at 2 o'clock for ten days until the vote was taken March 19, 1914, when it received 35 ayes, 34 noes, a majority but not the necessary two-thirds. A change of 11 votes would have carried it and more than half of the absentees were known to be in favor but these facts did not give her any faith in the amendment. "During the canvassing of the Senate," she said, "we were more and more impressed with the necessity of meeting the State's rights argument and felt more and more keenly the barrier of the State constitutions in advancing our cause. An analysis of these constitutions proved most illuminating and in arguing with the Senators upon this point they constantly reiterated the general idea of submitting this question, as well as other big national questions, to the decision of the people. We also discovered at this time that there were seven or eight different amendments before Congress on the woman suffrage question. For example, there is a bill giving us the right to vote for Presidential electors. There is another bill giving us the right to vote for Senators and Congressmen, etc....[87] A general canvass of the Lower House and also the action of the Democratic caucus convinced us in an even more pronounced way that we are blocked by the State's rights doctrine." The report continued:
It was at this time that Mrs. Funk, Mrs. Booth and myself interpreted our duty as a committee to mean that we were appointed not only for the purpose of national propaganda and for the promotion of the Bristow amendment but that our duty was a more extensive one and required us to meet whatever political emergency might arise during our term of office. We, therefore, set about to originate a new form of amendment to the U. S. Constitution which would meet the State's rights argument, if such a thing were possible. As Mrs. Funk is a lawyer, Mrs. Booth and I agreed that it was most important for her to draw up such an amendment. This was done; it was submitted to several lawyers, to our Advisory Committees of Senate and House; to an able constitutional lawyer in Washington, to Judge William J. Calhoun, of Chicago, a lawyer of international reputation, and to Judge Hiram Gilbert, one of the best constitutional lawyers in Illinois. We accepted Judge Gilbert's rewording and then sent it on to the Progressive party's legislative bureau in New York, where it was endorsed by their corps of lawyers, who draft all their bills.
The amendment was at this time discussed with our Advisory Committee in the Senate and met not only with their approval as an amendment but they considered it a very shrewd political move on the part of our organization. At the next meeting of the National Suffrage Board I presented the amendment, and, after nearly two months' consideration and discussion with some of the leading suffragists of the country, they voted unanimously endorsing it and instructing us to have it introduced whenever we thought it advisable. This action was taken by the National Board about two weeks before the vote came up in the Senate. Not wishing in any way to interfere with the Bristow amendment, we did not discuss even the idea of this one with any other member of Congress excepting of course our Advisory Committees.[88]
Senator John F. Shafroth of Colorado, at the request of Mrs. McCormick's committee, introduced the new measure, which took his name, and it was favorably reported to the Senate by Senator Owen of Oklahoma in May. At this Nashville convention it was for the first time brought before the association. In her report Mrs. McCormick thus described the hearing which had been held before the House Judiciary Committee March 3:
The hearing was just at the time of the big blizzard and our speakers were stormbound, so that when we appeared before the committee there were only Mrs. Funk, Mrs. Booth and myself to represent the National Association, and, as Mrs. Booth was not prepared to speak and I was chairman for the time given our committee, it left Mrs. Funk as our only speaker. We had discussed the night before the hearing the possible phases of the suffrage question Mrs. Funk could use in her speech that would be new to the Judiciary Committee. As an organization we have been conducting hearings before this committee for over forty years, and, as many of its members have served several terms, they are as familiar as we are with the suffrage arguments. We, therefore, decided to be perfectly frank with the committee and draw to their attention the fact that they possessed the power, if they wished to exercise it, to suggest to Congress some other form of legislation than had been presented to them. Mrs. Funk made this statement to them and said that in interviewing the members of the Judiciary Committee individually we found that they were convinced that woman suffrage was a question which was growing so rapidly throughout the country that it would only be a short time before the women would succeed in gaining their political freedom, but that as a committee, and because there was a majority of Democrats on it, they did not feel that they were able to report the Mondell amendment in any form.[89]
Mrs. McCormick then called on Mrs. Funk to present the Shafroth-Palmer Amendment, which had been introduced in the House by A. Mitchell Palmer (Penn.), and the argument for it. The amendment read as follows:
Whenever any number of legal voters of any State to a number exceeding 8 per cent. of the number of legal voters at the last preceding general election held in such State, shall petition for the submission to the legal voters of said State of the question whether women shall have equal rights with men in respect to voting at all elections to be held in such State, such question shall be so submitted, and if a majority of the legal voters of the State voting on the question shall vote in favor of granting to women such equal rights, the same shall thereupon be deemed established, anything in the constitution or laws of such State to the contrary notwithstanding.
In beginning her carefully prepared "brief" Mrs. Funk said: