Social activities through the spring and early summer were in charge of Miss Heloise Meyer, assisted by Mrs. J. Borden Harriman. Miss Mabel Caldwell Willard has represented the committee in undertakings involving the house as a center for local work. These have included getting hostesses to receive visitors at headquarters, supplying speakers for local meetings, providing cooperation with the suffrage federation of the District of Columbia for the daily afternoon teas, and looking after hospitality for delegates to conventions meeting in Washington. Among the organizations for which receptions have been arranged are Daughters of the American Revolution, Association of Collegiate Alumnæ, Confederate Veterans, Sons of Veterans, Daughters of the Confederacy, Congress of Mothers, Parent-Teacher Associations and Farm and Garden Associations. Ten of the fourteen members of the committee, in addition to the executive secretary, have given highly valued service in Washington during the last nine months. Other suffragists not members have kindly devoted days or weeks to our work and the local suffrage associations have been most cordial in their response to our requests.
Any attempt to state our obligations to our national president would be futile. Our high hope for the adoption of the Federal Amendment by the 65th Congress is linked inseparably with our faith in her leadership.
A LECTURE IN THE BANQUET HALL OF THE WASHINGTON SUFFRAGE HEADQUARTERS.
Formerly occupied by the French Embassy.
The report of Mrs. Walter McNab Miller (Mo.) first vice-president, described a year of continuous work, almost from ocean to ocean, speaking to State suffrage conventions, federations of women's clubs, federations of labor, trade unions, universities, normal schools, churches, meetings of all kinds and without number. In the two Dakotas she spoke twenty-nine times. She referred to her visit to Jefferson City, Mo., her luncheon with the wife of Governor Frederick D. Gardner, the suffrage meeting "which put the State capital in a ferment and caused the politicians to sit up and take notice" and the Governor's declaration for woman suffrage. Mrs. Miller said of the work during the five months when she was chairman of the Congressional Committee:
After mature consideration the board decided that, for various reasons, it was not wise to move the headquarters from New York to Washington but that more spacious quarters should be found than the office here where the efficient lobby work that had already been done could be followed up and supplemented by a social atmosphere. Finally we found our present home, a large private mansion at 1626 Rhode Island Avenue, just off of Scott Circle. It was taken for a term of eight months, the offices moved at once and cards sent out to 2,000 people for a housewarming before we had been there a week.
During five months Miss Meyer and I made 300 calls, organized a Junior Suffrage League, planned for publicity "stunts," such as the dedication of the Susan B. Anthony room, the presentation of a flag by Pennsylvania, a poster exhibit, celebration of the North Dakota victory and the mid-lenten bazaar. Much of the work was of the sort that would be impossible to tabulate, but the effect of the whole in making the National Association well known in Washington and able to work effectively from there has proved the wisdom of the expenditure for the headquarters.
The latter part of February the so-called War Council was called, a meeting of the association's Executive Committee of One Hundred, and planning for that and the mass meeting on Sunday kept us all busy for several weeks. This Council decided that the suffragists should undertake certain definite forms of war work and the chairmanship of the division of the Elimination of Waste was given to me.... Summing up the year I have attended six State meetings, spoken 200 times in 15 States, written 3,000 letters and travelled 13,000 miles.
All of Friday was given to symposiums on different phases of this movement, grouped as follows: What my State will do for the Federal Amendment. Should We Work for Woman Suffrage in War Time? What Good Will Woman Suffrage Do Our Country? What is the Best Thing it Has Done for my State? What Can the Enfranchised Women Do to Secure Suffrage for the Women of the Entire Nation? Twenty-five women, most of them State presidents, took part in these valuable discussions.
Mrs. McCormick related how her work as chairman of the national Press Committee had been taken over by the press department of the Leslie Bureau of Education when it was organized the preceding March and a merger committee appointed consisting of Miss Rose Young and Mrs. Ida Husted Harper of the Leslie Commission, and Mrs. Shuler and herself of the association.[112] The report of the Leslie Bureau filled over thirty pages of fine print as submitted by Miss Young, director, who said in beginning: