The committee listened with much interest to the first woman member of Congress, Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana, who reviewed the almost insurmountable difficulties of amending many State constitutions for woman suffrage and made an earnest plea for the Federal Amendment. Senator Charles S. Thomas of Colorado, who for the past twenty-five years had been a consistent and never failing friend of woman suffrage, said in beginning: "I learned this lesson in my early manhood by reading the addresses of and listening to such advocates as Susan B. Anthony," and he summed up his strong speech by saying: "The matter is simply one of abstract and of concrete justice. We cannot preach universal suffrage unless we practice it and we can never practice it while fifty per cent. of our population is disfranchised." Senator Reed Smoot of Utah, to whom the women of his State could always look for help in this and every other good cause, said in his brief remarks: "I have for many years watched the work and the sacrifices by many of the best women of this country to bring this question before the people and convince them of its justice and righteousness and I have gloried with them in every victory they have won. Nothing on earth will stop it. The country will not much longer tolerate it that a woman shall have the privilege of voting in one State and upon moving into another be disfranchised."
Mrs. Catt stated that Senators Chamberlain of Oregon and Johnson of California, were not able to be present and asked that the favorable speeches they would have made be put in the Congressional Record, which was granted. Senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana made a thorough analysis of the attitude of the Federal Constitution toward suffrage and its gradual extension and declared that it was now "the duty of the government to see that every one of its citizens was assured of this fundamental right." The hearing was closed by Mrs. Catt with a comprehensive review of the status of woman suffrage throughout the world and the naming of the many countries where it prevailed. She pointed out that Great Britain and her colonies had recognized the political rights of women as the United States had never done, and, now that they were to be called on for the supreme sacrifices of the war, the British Government was granting them the franchise, which our own Government was still withholding. "This fact," she said, "has saddened the lives of women, it has dimmed their vision of American ideals and lowered their respect for our Government. The tremendous capacity of women for constructive work, for upbuilding the best in civilization and for enthusiastic patriotism has been crushed. In consequence this greatest force for good has been minimized and the entire nation is the loser." Senator Walsh's and Mrs. Catt's speeches were printed in a separate pamphlet and circulated by the thousands.
On April 26 the Senate Committee granted a hearing to that branch of the suffrage movement called the National Woman's Party. Miss Anne Martin, its vice-chairman, presided and able speeches were made by Mrs. Mary Ritter Beard and Mrs. Rheta Childe Dorr of New York; Mrs. Richard F. Wainwright of the District; Miss Madeline Z. Doty and Miss Ernestine Evans, war correspondents; Miss Alice Carpenter, chairman of the New York Women's Navy League; Miss Rankin and Dudley Field Malone, collector of the port of New York. On May 3 the National Anti-Suffrage Association claimed a hearing. Its president, Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge, introduced the president of the New York branch, the wife of U. S. Senator James W. Wadsworth, Jr., who presided. The speakers were Miss Minnie Bronson, national secretary; Miss Lucy Price of Ohio; Judge Oscar Leser of Maryland and Mrs. A. J. George of Massachusetts. Their speeches, which fill twenty pages of the printed report, comprise a full résumé of the arguments against the enfranchisement of women and will be read with curiosity by future students of this question. On May 15, at the request of the National Woman's Party, the committee granted a supplementary hearing at which the speakers were J. A. H. Hopkins of New Jersey, representing the new Progressive party being organized; John Spargo of Vermont, representing the Socialist Party; Virgil Henshaw, national chairman of the Prohibition party and Miss Mabel Vernon. They gave to the committee copies of a "memorial" which they had presented to President Wilson urging immediate action by Congress. It was signed also by former Governor David I. Walsh of Massachusetts for the Progressive Democrats and Edward A. Rumely for the Progressive Republicans. The pamphlet of these four hearings, of which the Senate Committee furnished 10,000 copies, was widely used for propaganda.
A hearing was held on May 18 before the Committee on Rules of the Lower House, with the entire membership present: Representatives Edward W. Pou, N. C.; chairman; James C. Cantrill, Ky.; Martin D. Foster, Ills.; Finis J. Garrett, Tenn.; "Pat" Harrison, Miss.; M. Clyde Kelly, Penn.; Irvine L. Lenroot, Wis.; Daniel J. Riordan, N. Y.; Thomas D. Schall, Minn.; Bertrand H. Snell, N. Y.; William R. Wood, Ind. Its purpose was to urge favorable report for a Committee on Woman Suffrage. The speakers for the National American Suffrage Association were Judge Raker, Representatives Jeannette Rankin of Montana; Edward T. Taylor of Colorado; Frank W. Mondell of Wyoming and Edward Keating of Colorado; Mrs. Maud Wood Park, chairman, and Mrs. Helen H. Gardener, member of the association's Congressional Committee. The speakers for the National Woman's Party were Miss Martin, Miss Maud Younger, Mrs. Wainwright, Miss Vernon, Representatives George F. O'Shaughnessy of Rhode Island; C. N. McArthur of Oregon; Carl Hayden of Arizona. On December 13 a Committee on Woman Suffrage was appointed.
FOOTNOTES:
[107] Signed: Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, honorary president; Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president; Mrs. Walter McNab Miller, Mrs. Stanley McCormick and Miss Esther G. Ogden, vice-presidents; Mrs. Frank J. Shuler, corresponding secretary; Mrs. Thomas Jefferson Smith, recording secretary; Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers, treasurer; Mrs. Pattie Ruffner Jacobs, auditor; Mrs. Maud Wood Park, chairman Congressional Committee; Miss Rose Young, chairman of Press; Mrs. Arthur L. Livermore, chairman of Literature.
[108] On the list were: All the members of the Cabinet except Secretary of State Lansing; nineteen U.S. Senators and fourteen prominent Representatives; Speaker Champ Clark; U.S. Commissioner of Education Philander P. Claxton; Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Carl Vrooman; Justices of the Supreme Court of the District Wendell P. Stafford and Frederick L. Siddons; Secretary to the President Joseph P. Tumulty; Commissioners of the District Louis Brownlow and W. Gwynn Gardiner; former Commissioners Henry F. MacFarland and Simon Wolf; Major Raymond S. Pullman, Chief of Police; Resident Commissioner and Mme. Jaime De Veyra (Philippine Islands); Resident Commissioner Felix C. Davila (Porto Rico); John Barrett, director of the Pan-American Union; Major-General W. C. Gorgas; the Reverends U. G. B. Pierce, Henry N. Couden, chaplain of the House of Representatives; James Shera Montgomery, Rabbi Abram Simon, John Van Schaick, president of the School Board; Theodore Noyes, editor of the Evening Star; Arthur Brisbane, the Times; C. T. Brainerd, the Washington Herald; W. P. Spurgeon, the Washington Post; Gilbert Grosvenor, editor of the National Geographic Magazine; J. Leftwich Sinclair, president, and Thomas Grant, secretary of the Washington Chamber of Commerce; Dr. Harry A. Garfield, president Williams College and director Fuel Administration for the United States; Edward P. Costigan, U. S. Tariff Commission; Frank A. Vanderlip, V. Everit Macy, on War Boards; Samuel Gompers, president American Federation of Labor; Alexander Graham Bell; Gifford Pinchot; Dr. Ryan Devereux; General Julian S. Carr, commander-in-chief United Confederate Veterans.
Miss Julia Lathrop, chief of the Children's Bureau; Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford, president, and Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, secretary National Education Association; Mrs. George Thacher Guernsey, president-general Daughters of the American Revolution; Mrs. Cordelia R. P. Odenheimer, president-general Daughters of the Confederacy; Miss Janet Richards; Mrs. Charles Boughton Wood; Mrs. Blaine Beale; Mrs. Ellis Meredith; Mrs. Christian Hemmick; Mrs. Herbert C. Hoover; Mrs. A. Garrison McClintock.
[109] The names of the thirteen were given as follows: Miss Heloise Meyer of Massachusetts, first auditor of the association, scheduled for canteen work in France. Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, member of the Congressional Committee of the association, now on governmental assignment in Europe. Miss Irene C. Boyd, of the New York Suffrage Party, serving in a United States base hospital with the American Expeditionary Forces in France. Dr. Esther Pohl-Lovejoy of Portland, Ore., serving with the party sent by the "Fund for French Wounded." Miss Mary W. Dewson, chairman of legislative committee of the Massachusetts Suffrage Association, social worker in France at the call of Major Grayson M. P. Murphy. Miss Lodovine LeMoyne, publicity chairman of the Fall River Equal Suffrage League, serving in a United States base hospital with the American Expeditionary Forces in France. Miss Elizabeth G. Bissell, corresponding secretary of the Iowa Equal Suffrage Association in the French Red Cross canteen. Miss Susan P. Ryerson, former corresponding secretary Chicago Equal Suffrage Association, now bacteriological expert attached to base hospital in France. Miss Lucile Atcherson, of the Ohio association, serving as secretary to Miss Anne Morgan in her relief work in France. To these nine will be added the names of the four doctors leading the New York Infirmary Hospital Unit, which is now seeking the support and authorization of the National Suffrage Association—Caroline Finley, Mary Lee Edwards, Anna Von Sholly and Alice Gregory.
[110] See Mrs. McCormick's complete account in the last chapter on [The War Work of Organized Suffragists] prepared for this volume.