The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V

by Unknown

In the evening a brilliant reception for the officers and delegates was given in the large drawing-room of the Marlborough-Blenheim by the Atlantic City Woman Suffrage Club and the New Jersey State Association.

The convention was opened in the New Nixon Theater Thursday morning with prayer by the Rev. Thomas J. Cross, pastor of the Chelsea Baptist Church, and much routine business was disposed of. The constitution was changed so as to exclude from membership all organizations not in harmony with the policy of the association and the term of the officers was extended from one to two years. A unique program was carried out in the afternoon under the direction of the second vice-president, Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick—The Handicapped States, a Concrete Lesson in Constitutions. The States whose constitutions practically could not be amended were grouped under these heads: The Impossibles; The Insuperables; The Inexecutables; The Improbables; The Indubitables; The Inexcusables; The Irreproachables. Each group was represented by one or more women who quoted from the constitutions. It was intended as an object lesson to show the necessity for a Federal Amendment.

At 3:30 Mrs. Catt began her president's address before an audience that filled the large theater and listened with intense interest until the last word was spoken at five o'clock. It was a masterly review of the movement for woman suffrage and a program for the work now necessary to bring it to a successful end. The opening sentences were as follows:

I have taken for my subject, "The Crisis," because I believe that a crisis has come in our movement which, if recognized and the opportunity seized with vigor, enthusiasm and will, means the final victory of our great cause in the very near future. I am aware that some suffragists do not share in this belief; they see no signs nor symptoms today which were not present yesterday; no manifestations in the year 1916 which differ significantly from those in the year 1910. To them, the movement has been a steady, normal growth from the beginning and must so continue until the end. I can only defend my claim with the plea that it is better to imagine a crisis where none exists than to fail to recognize one when it comes, for a crisis is a culmination of events which calls for new considerations and new decisions. A failure to answer the call may mean an opportunity lost, a possible victory postponed....

This address, coming at the moment when woman suffrage was accepted as inevitable by the President of the United States and all the political parties, was regarded as the key-note of the beginning of a campaign which would end in victory. In pamphlet form it was used as a highly valued campaign document.

Mrs. Catt showed the impossibility of securing suffrage for all the women of the country by the State method and pointed out that the Federal Amendment was the one and only way. "Our cause has been caught in a snarl of constitutional obstructions and inadequate election laws," she said, after drawing upon her own experience to show the hazards of State referenda, and we have a right to appeal to our Congress to extricate it from this tangle. If there is any chivalry left this is the time for it to come forward and do an act of simple justice. In my judgment the women of this land not only have the right to sit on the steps of Congress until it acts but it is their self-respecting duty to insist upon their enfranchisement by that route.... Were there never another convert made there are suffragists enough in this country, if combined, to make so irresistible a driving force that victory might be seized at once. How can it be done? By a simple change of mental attitude. If you are to seize the victory, that change must take place in this hall, here and now. The crisis is here, but if the call goes unheeded, if our women think it means the vote without a struggle, if they think other women can and will pay the price of their emancipation, the hour may pass and our political liberty may not be won.... The character of a man is measured by his will. The same is true of a movement. Then will to be free." The address made a deep impression and was accepted as a call to arms.

Throughout the convention open-air meetings were held on the Boardwalk addressed by popular suffrage speakers and thousands in the great crowds that throng this noted thoroughfare were interested listeners. The Friday morning session was enlivened by a resolution offered by Mrs. Raymond Robins, which said that this Emergency Convention had been called to plan for the final steps which would lead to nation-wide enfranchisement of women; that the method of amending State constitutions meant long delay; that many national candidates in all parties had declared in favor of a Federal Amendment, and therefore the delegates in this convention urged that in the present campaign suffragists should support for national office only those candidates who pledged their support to this amendment. The delegates quickly recognized that this meant to endorse Judge Charles Evans Hughes for president, although President Wilson was to address the convention that evening. Party feeling ran high but still stronger was the determination of the convention that the association should not depart from its policy of absolute non-partisanship. Motions were made and amendments offered and the discussion raged for two hours. Dr. Shaw spoke strongly against the resolution and finally it was defeated by a large majority. Later Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch of Chicago offered a resolution which after several amendments read: "We re-affirm our non-partisan attitude concerning national political parties but this policy does not preclude the right of any member to work against any candidate who opposes woman suffrage, nor shall it refer to the personal attitude of enfranchised women." This was carried enthusiastically. A resolution by Mrs. J. Claude Bedford (Penn.) for a vigorous publicity campaign to make clear the association's non-partisan policy was passed.

There had been such marked increase of public opinion in favor of woman suffrage in the southern States and so many of their able women had come into the association that a "Dixie evening" had been arranged. Mrs. Catt presided and the following program was presented: Master Words—Mrs. Minnie Fisher Cunningham, president Texas Woman Suffrage Association; Kentucky and Her Constitution—Mrs. Thomas Jefferson Smith, president Kentucky Equal Rights Association; The Evolution of Woman—Mrs. Eugene Reilley, vice-president General Federation of Women's Clubs and vice-president North Carolina Woman Suffrage Association; Progress of Today and Traditions of Yesterday—Mrs. Edward McGehee, president Mississippi Federation of Women's Clubs; For Woman Herself—Mrs. Lila Mead Valentine, president Virginia Equal Suffrage League; The Southern Temperament as Related to Woman Suffrage—Mrs. Guilford Dudley, president Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association, Inc.; Real Americanism—Mrs. T. T. Cotnam, vice-president Arkansas Woman Suffrage Association. Southern women have a natural gift of oratory and the audience was delightfully entertained. But three of these addresses were published and space can be given only to brief extracts.

"There is in America today," Mrs. Cotnam said, "a large class of people who are restless and dissatisfied and are smarting under the injustice of being governed without their consent. This is a class with the blood of the Pilgrim mothers in their veins—of those who cheerfully endured untold hardships as the price of liberty; a class with the blood of the Revolutionary fathers in their veins—of those who gave their lives that their children might be free; a class who are the rightful joint heirs with all the people of the United States of the heritage of freedom but whose inheritance after 140 years is still kept 'in trust.'" She referred to the anxiety of Congress "to make the Filipinos a self-governing people after only a few years of American tutelage while 140 years have not been enough to equip American women for self-government," and said: "Political leaders say America is 'the waymark of all people seeking liberty' and yet one-half of the American people have never known liberty. They promise justice to the oppressed of every land who are seeking refuge and practice injustice against one-half of those whose homes have always been here. Every citizen of the United States is jealous of her standing among the nations and just now each political party is claiming to be the only worthy custodian of national honor. It is with amazement we read the arraignment of one party by another and note that in no instance have they taken each other to task for injustice to American women which violates the fundamental principle of democracy, 'Equal rights for all, special privileges to none.' ... Americanism—it stands for the recognition of the equality of men and women before the law of man as they are equal before the law of God. Americanism—it stands for truth triumphant. Americanism—it will find its full realization when men and women meet upon a plane of equal rights with a united desire to maintain peace, to guard the nation's honor, to advance prosperity and to secure the happiness of the people."

"We are a race of dreamers in the South by choice and because of climatic conditions," said Mrs. Guilford Dudley in an eloquent address. After a keenly sarcastic comparison between southern chivalry and the unjust laws for women, and the observation that "the only business a southern girl is taught is the business of hearts," she said: