[Prepared by the Rev. Olympia Brown.]
UNITED STATES ELECTIONS BILL.
From the time the National Woman Suffrage Association was organized to secure the enfranchisement of women by amending the Federal Constitution there were among its members those who did not favor this method because it was contrary to the doctrine of State's rights. They did, however, want Congress to provide that woman should vote for its own Representatives, which could be done simply by a Law requiring only a majority vote of each House. From the early 80's this group was led by Miss Laura Clay and Mrs. Sarah Clay Bennett of Kentucky. There was no doubt that Congress had authority over the election of its Representatives, as was clearly shown in Article I, Section 2, which prescribes the manner of their election and the qualifications of the electors in the different States. Later it fixed a time for these elections. This authority was conferred when, after the amendment was adopted for the election of U. S. Senators by the voters, Congress enacted that all who were qualified to vote for Representatives should be eligible to vote for Senators. The leaders of the National American Suffrage Association recognized the constitutionality of the bill and for many years kept a standing committee on it but they did not believe Congress ever would accept it. Its advocates claimed that if members of Congress had women for their constituents they would soon see that the States enfranchised them. The national leaders held that if women could elect members of Congress it would not take them long to compel the submission of a Federal Amendment and that the members would not put this power into their hands. They held also that it would be just as much a violation of the State's right to determine its own voters as would the Federal Amendment itself. The Southern Woman Suffrage Conference, or Association, however, had a committee to further this U. S. Elections Bill.
At the annual convention of the National American Association in 1914 its Congressional Committee was instructed to include this bill in the measures which it promoted. It was re-endorsed at the conventions of 1915 and 1916. Miss Clay went to Washington and lobbied for it with all the prestige of her family back of her and with all her commanding ability, supporting it by unanswerable argument. Members often presented it in both Houses but it never was reported by a committee.
NATIONAL COLLEGE EQUAL SUFFRAGE LEAGUE.
While Miss Maud Wood of Boston was a senior in Radcliffe College her attention was directed to woman suffrage by the efforts of its women opponents in Cambridge to enlist the college girls on their side. Later, hearing a speech in favor of it by Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, she associated herself with the Massachusetts Suffrage Association, spoke at its next annual convention and was drawn into its work. After hearing and meeting Miss Susan B. Anthony she felt a deeper obligation of service to the cause for which Miss Anthony and her associates had sacrificed so much and she thought that college women especially should pay their debt to those who had made their education possible by helping them fight the battle for woman suffrage. In 1900, with the help of Mrs. Inez Haynes Gillmore, also a Radcliffe student, Miss Wood, now Mrs. Park, founded the Massachusetts College Equal Suffrage League and steps were at once taken to form leagues in other States. In 1906 the National American Woman Suffrage Association held its annual convention in Baltimore and under the auspices of Dr. M. Carey Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr, there occurred that remarkable "college women's evening," when before an audience that filled the theater women professors from the largest Colleges for Women in the United States paid their tributes to Miss Anthony and announced their allegiance to her cause.
It was decided at this meeting that there ought to be a national association of college women, the first steps toward it were taken, and Mrs. Park was appointed to organize leagues in the States. In 1908 a Call was sent out signed by Dr. Thomas, President Mary E. Woolley of Mt. Holyoke College: Miss Mary E. Garrett, a founder of the Johns Hopkins Medical School; Mrs. Elsie Clews Parsons, Ph.D. of Barnard College; Miss Caroline E. Lexow (Barnard), president of the New York College Equal Suffrage League, and Miss Florence Garvin of the Rhode Island League, to meet for organization. The time and place selected were during the annual convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Buffalo, N. Y., October 15-21. By this time College Leagues had been formed in fifteen States extending across the country to California. On October 17, in the beautiful club house of the Woman's Twentieth Century Club, with delegates present from most of these States, the National College League was organized with the following officers: President, Dr. Thomas; Professor Sophonisba Breckinridge of Chicago University at the head of a list of five vice-presidents; secretary, Miss Lexow; treasurer, Dr. Margaret Long (Smith) of Denver; Mrs. Park was made chairman of the organization committee. The purpose of the league was announced to be "to promote equal suffrage sentiment among college women and men both before and after graduation." It became auxiliary to the National Association and its annual conventions were to be held at the same time and place as those of the association. In its early existence office space was given in the national suffrage headquarters in New York City.
For the next nine years this National College League was a vital force in the movement for woman suffrage. It soon had the largest voting delegation at the national suffrage conventions except that of New York. Dr. Thomas remained its president and Dr. Anna Howard Shaw its honorary vice-president. Miss Martha Gruening and Miss Florence Allen (now Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Cleveland, O.), were secretaries, and from 1914 Mrs. Ethel Puffer Howes (Smith) of New York City. Organizers were sent throughout the States to form new leagues and lecturers of note were engaged to address league meetings. Among the latter were Professor Frances Squire Potter of the University of Minnesota; Dr. B. O. Aylesworth and Mrs. Helen Loring Grenfell, State Superintendent of Public Instruction of Colorado; Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman of New York and Mrs. Philip Snowden of England. Dr. Shaw spoke a number of times. In 1915 a lecture tour among the colleges was arranged for Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst. Literature and letters were sent to colleges and to graduates. In 1914, for instance, twenty colleges in New York State were supplied and letters were sent to a thousand graduates in New Jersey, campaigns being in progress in those States. During the Iowa campaign in 1916 the colleges of that State received 12,000 leaflets. Travelling libraries of twenty-five volumes relating to suffrage were circulated among the colleges. The most important achievement of an individual league was that in California in 1911. Under the presidency of Miss Charlotte Anita Whitney the work of the league of over a thousand members was a large factor in the success of the campaign for a woman suffrage amendment. In 1917, during the second New York campaign, Miss M. Louise Grant (Columbia), under the auspices of the National and State leagues, made forty-five speeches to arouse the college women, which contributed to the victory for the suffrage amendment in November.
The gaining of the franchise in this influential State made a Federal Amendment a certainty of the not distant future and in December the following official notice was sent to the branches of the National League:
At the meeting of the annual council of the National College Equal Suffrage League, held at the New Ebbitt Hotel in Washington, D. C., on Dec. 15, 1917, it was unanimously voted on recommendation of the president and executive secretary to close its work and go out of existence. The delegates present, the officers, and many other suffragists who had been consulted were of the opinion that the objects for which the league was originally organized had been fully attained and that there was no reason for it to continue its work as a separate suffrage organization....