Women want the ballot because they need it in their business—the business of being a woman—in the business that began when the first man and the first woman commenced housekeeping in a cave.
The duties of the man and the woman differentiated themselves at that time and they have been differentiated ever since. The woman as mother became the first artisan because she had to clothe the children. She became the first doctor because she had to treat the ills that came to those children of hers and to the man who lived by her side. She had to invent tools; she was the first farmer. Man and his duties and his responsibilities have been the same from that time to this. He brought in to her the slain animal which she transmuted into food and changed into clothing. He was the protector, and the first government that grew up about that first home considered only the problems of offense and defense. As the governments of the world became more stable, as they developed, they still centered about war, offense and defense.... Woman still is the mother of the race but what of the home? It has become socialized and the spinning wheel is in the attic and millions of women are standing at the great looms of this country. The women are in the shops, the factories, the offices, everywhere that modern industrialism is extending itself. The school has been socialized and the children are by the thousands in the schools.
Mrs. Bass then strikingly illustrated how the business of being a woman now took women to legislative bodies in the interest of the State's dependent children, of the women in the industries, of the so-called fallen women, and showed how fatally handicapped all were without the power of the ballot.
Mrs. Medill McCormick, chairman of the Congressional Committee of the association, sent a comprehensive report of the vast work it had done in district organization throughout the States and the evident influence this had exerted on Congress. Dr. Shaw introduced Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, who made the principal address, a searching and comprehensive review of the methods by which men had obtained the ballot compared to those which had been used by women and showed the many requirements made of the latter which were entirely omitted in the case of men. She took the four recent campaigns in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania as the basis of her masterly address, which will be found in the Appendix of this chapter. At the end of it she said: "It was twenty-two years ago that I had the privilege and pleasure of standing upon the same platform with the chairman of this committee when he made an eloquent appeal to the citizens of Colorado for the women there and many said that his speech turned the tide and gave women the vote. I hope that he and every member will not only make a favorable report but will do more—will follow that report on the floor of the Senate and work for it and immortalize themselves while freeing us from the humiliation and the burden of this struggle."
The hearing was closed by Dr. Shaw with a strong and convincing argument to show that "if nothing entered into the life of the homes of this nation except what came through State action it might be said that only the State should decide who should vote but since the women are as much affected by the acts of Congress as are the men, this becomes a national question." She drew a striking picture of conditions among the nations of Europe where the war was raging; of how "women in our own country every morning scanned the papers to see whether we were nearer with the rising sun than we were with the setting sun of the day before to connections with the Old World which will plunge us into the war." She took up the questions of tariff and of prohibition, asked if women should not have a vote on these and the other great national issues before the country and concluded: "I only wish that the woman whose name is so closely associated with this amendment—Susan B. Anthony—might have lived to see this committee as it exists today instead of having passed away before it was composed of members of the character of those before whom we now come to present our cause."
At the hearing of the Congressional Union the following day, Senator Thomas, chairman of the committee, was present but refused to preside, as the leaders of the Union had gone to Colorado during the recent campaign and spoken and worked, though unsuccessfully, against his re-election. Senator Sutherland took the chair. It was conducted by the vice-president of the Union, Miss Anne Martin. "One of our chief purposes in asking this hearing," she said, "is to bring before you not only the ethical importance but the political urgency of settling this question of national suffrage for women. At present the thought and strength of large numbers of them throughout the country are absorbed by this campaign to secure fundamental justice, which prevents their giving assistance in matters vitally affecting the interests of the men, women and children of the nation." There would be five-minute speeches, she said, until the last half hour, which would be divided between the envoys of the women voters' convention in San Francisco during the past summer.[101]
Most of the speeches were crisp and clever and well fortified with facts and figures to prove the advantage of a Federal Amendment over State amendments in securing universal woman suffrage. The two "envoys" were Miss Frances Jolliffe and Mrs. Sara Bard Field of California, who started in an automobile from the grounds of the Exposition in San Francisco to motor to Washington to present to Congress a petition which had been collected during the Fair and to do propaganda work on the way. The former made only part of the trip in the car but Mrs. Field completed the entire 3,000 miles. Both made excellent addresses.