[100] Although Dr. Shaw was but sixty-eight years old and in perfect health she afterwards asked the custodians of this fund—George Foster Peabody, James Lees Laidlaw and Norman de R. Whitehouse, New York bankers—to hold it in trust, paying her only the annuity each year and giving her the right to dispose of it at her death in some way to advance the cause of woman suffrage, which was done.
[101] The speakers were Mrs. William Spencer Murray, secretary of the Women's Political Union of Connecticut; Mrs. Annie G. Porritt, press chairman of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association; Mrs. Dana Durand of Minnesota; Miss Julia Hurlburt, vice-chairman of the Women's Political Union of New Jersey; Mrs. Agnes Jenks, president of the Rhode Island W. S. A.; Mrs. Alden H. Potter, chairman of the Congressional Union in Minnesota; Mrs. Glendower Evans, member of the Minimum Wage Commission of Massachusetts; Mrs. R. H. Ashbaugh, president of the Michigan Federation of Women's Clubs; Mrs. James Rector, vice-chairman of the C. U. of Ohio; Mrs. Cyrus Mead of the Ohio C. U.
[102] The automobile started from the Exposition and there were possibly more than that many people on the grounds. As its departure had been widely advertised and was made a spectacular event a large crowd was at the gate.
[103] For the last twenty years the members of the Anti-Suffrage Association had appeared regularly before committees of Legislatures in various States to oppose the submission of the question to the voters, picturing the injury it would be to the community and to the women. They had never in any State made the slightest effort to have it submitted to women themselves. The School suffrage was granted in most of the States before they had any organization but they went before a committee in the New York Legislature to oppose women on school boards.
CHAPTER XVI.
NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1916.
The year 1916 marked a turning point in the sixty-year-old struggle for woman suffrage. Large delegations of women had attended the Republican and Democratic National Conventions during the summer and for the first time each of them had put into its platform an unequivocal declaration in favor of suffrage for women; the Progressive, Socialist and Prohibition platforms contained similar planks, the last three declaring for a Federal Amendment. It had become one of the leading political issues of the day and a subject of nation-wide interest. The president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, quickly recognized the situation and saw that its official action must not be deferred until the usual time for its annual convention which would be after the presidential elections, therefore the Board of Officers issued a call for an Emergency Convention to meet in Atlantic City, N. J., Sept. 4-10, 1916.[104] The members throughout the country were much surprised but welcomed the opportunity to visit this beautiful ocean resort. The headquarters were in the famous Hotel Marlborough-Blenheim and after the first day the sessions were held in the large New Nixon Theater on the Board Walk.
After two days of executive meetings the Forty-eighth annual convention opened the morning of September 6 in the handsome St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church, granted by the trustees and pastor, with an invocation by the latter, the Rev. A. H. Lucas. Mayor Harry Backarach gave a cordial address of welcome, ending by presenting to Mrs. Catt, who was in the chair, a huge "key to the city and to our hearts" tied with ribbons of blue and gold, the colors of the association. Members of the Board made their official reports at this and other meetings and all were valuable and interesting but space permits only a brief mention of most of them. Miss Hannah J. Patterson (Penn.), corresponding secretary and chairman of organization, told of the division of the national work into six departments with a national officer at the head of each and of moving the national headquarters from 505 Fifth Avenue, corner of 42nd Street, New York, where they had been since 1909, into much larger offices at 171 Madison Avenue, corner of 33rd Street. An entire floor was rented with 3,800 square feet of space, nearly 1,000 more than in the old location. The Publishing Company took part of this, the association retaining ten rooms. Miss Patterson told of the thorough organization work being done under fourteen organizers, who had covered twelve States. She spoke of the need of training schools for organizers and told of the value of combining all departments, data, literature, publishing, organizing, etc., under headquarters management.