[96] Mrs. McCormick spent a large amount of time and money on this play, hoping it would yield a good revenue to the association, but the arrangement with the Film Corporation proved impossible and it finally had to be abandoned.
[97] The most persistent efforts of the suffragists never succeeded in locating this league.
[98] At the request of the committee the exact figures were furnished later and showed a membership of 105,000, of whom 85,600 lived in the five non-suffrage States of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Of the remaining 19,400 the non-suffrage States of New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Ohio had 11,500; Virginia, 2,100, and 6,500 were divided among other non-suffrage States and the District of Columbia. Not one member was reported from States where the franchise had been given to women, although it was a stock argument of the "antis" that it had been forced on them and they would gladly get rid of it.
CHAPTER XV.
NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1915.
The Forty-seventh annual convention of the association was held Dec. 14-19, 1915, in Washington, the scene of many which had preceded it, with 546 accredited delegates, the largest number on record. The one of the preceding year had left many of the members in a pessimistic frame of mind but this had entirely disappeared and never were there so much hope and optimism.[99] The Federal Amendment had for the first time been debated and voted on in the House of Representatives, receiving 204 noes, 174 ayes, a satisfactory result for the first trial. Although in November, 1915, four of the most populous States—Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania—had defeated suffrage amendments yet a million-and-a-quarter of men had voted in favor. These were all Republican States and yet had given a larger vote for woman suffrage than for the Republican presidential candidate the preceding year. Over 42 per cent. of the votes in New York and over 46 per cent. in Pennsylvania were affirmative and the press of the country, instead of sounding the "death knell" as usual after defeats, predicted victory at the next trial. In October the cause had received its most important accession when President Wilson and seven of the ten members of his Cabinet declared in favor of woman suffrage; and in November the President had gone to his home in Princeton, N. J., on election day to cast his vote for the pending State amendment.
An honorary committee of arrangements for the convention had been formed in Washington which included many of the most prominent women officially and socially, headed by Miss Margaret Wilson, the President's eldest daughter. Republican and Democratic National Committees had cordially received suffrage speakers. The first measure to be introduced in both Houses of the new Congress was the resolution for the Federal Suffrage Amendment, with Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, president of the National American Suffrage Association, sitting on the Speaker's bench by invitation of Speaker and Mrs. Champ Clark. The convention opened Tuesday morning and at five o'clock in the afternoon the delegates were received by President Wilson in the White House. They walked the few short blocks from the convention headquarters in the New Willard Hotel to the White House and the line reached from the street through the corridors to the East Room. After each had had a hearty handshake Dr. Shaw expressed the gratitude of all suffragists, not for his vote, which was a duty, but for his reasons, to which the widest publicity had been given. She said the women felt encouraged to ask for two things: first, his influence in obtaining the submission of the Federal Amendment by Congress at the present session; second, if that failed, his influence in securing a plank for woman suffrage in his party's national platform. The latter he answered to their great joy by saying that he had it under consideration. He looked at his hand a little ruefully and said: "You ladies have a strong grip." "Yes," she responded, "we hold on."
The most striking contrast between this and other conventions was seen in the program. For more than two-score years the evening sessions and often those of the afternoon had been given up to addresses by prominent men and women and attended by large general audiences. In this way the seed was sowed and public sentiment created and people in the cities which invited the convention looked forward to an intellectual feast. This year it was felt that the general public needed no further education on this subject; the association had become a business organization and the woman suffrage question one of practical politics. Therefore but one mass meeting was held, that of Sunday afternoon, and the entire week was devoted to State reports, conferences, committee meetings, plans of work, campaigns and discussion of details. These were extremely interesting and valuable for the delegates but not for the newspapers or the public.