[142] The following were the officers of the National College Equal Suffrage League at the time it disbanded: President, M. Carey Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College; First vice-president, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, honorary president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association; vice-presidents: Mary E. Woolley, president of Mount Holyoke College; Ellen F. Pendleton, president of Wellesley College; Lucy M. Salmon, professor of history in Vassar College; Lillian Welch, professor of physiology and hygiene in Goucher College (Baltimore); Virginia C. Gildersleeve, dean of Barnard College (Columbia University); Lois K. Mathews, dean of women in the University of Wisconsin; Eva Johnston, dean of women in the University of Missouri; Florence M. Fitch, dean of college women and professor of Biblical literature, Oberlin College; Maud Wood Park, Boston; executive secretary, Mrs. Ethel Puffer Howes, New York City; treasurer, Mrs. Raymond B. Morgan, president Washington, D. C., Collegiate Alumnæ.
Ethel Puffer Howes, M. Carey Thomas,
Executive Secretary. President.
[143] The History is indebted for this sketch to Anne Webb (Mrs. O. Edward) Janney, president of the Friends' Equal Rights Association and superintendent of the department of equal rights of the Committee of Philanthropic Labor of the Friends' General Conference.
[144] Detailed accounts of these conferences may be found in the Woman's Journal (Boston) of the dates following those on which they were held.
[145] As this volume goes to press the U. S. Supreme Court on Feb. 27, 1922, rendered a unanimous adverse decision in both cases and declared that the Federal Amendment had been legally ratified.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE LEAGUE OF WOMAN VOTERS.[146]
The League of Women Voters was first mentioned at the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Washington, D. C., Dec. 12-15, 1917, when its president, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, outlined a plan to unite the women of the equal suffrage States. She suggested organization committees of five women in each, these committees to be united in a central body known as the National League of Women Voters. Upon the enfranchisement of its women each State would automatically join the organization, which would provide a way to retain suffrage associations for work on the Federal Amendment and various reforms. It was voted that a committee be appointed to undertake such a plan of organization. [Handbook of convention, page 48.]
The League of Women Voters was organized at the national convention in St. Louis March 24-29, 1919, in commemoration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the first grant of suffrage on equal terms with men in the world (in Wyoming) and the Fiftieth Anniversary of the organization of the first National Woman Suffrage Association. Women were eligible at this time to vote for President in twenty-eight States. The submission of the Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment was promised by the Sixty-sixth Congress and early ratification was assured, so that the object for which the association had labored through half a century of arduous sacrifice and toil was nearly attained. The natural question, therefore, was, Should the association make plans to dissolve immediately upon ratification or was there reason for continuance?