The courage and patience of the woman suffrage leaders in their long struggle for the ballot is nowhere more strongly evidenced than in their continued appeals to the national political conventions to recognize in their platforms woman's right to the franchise. These distinguished women were received with an indifference that was insulting until far into the 20th century. To two parties, the Prohibition and the Socialist, it was never necessary to appeal. The Prohibition party was organized in 1872 and from that time always advocated woman suffrage in its national platform except in 1896, when it had only a single plank, but this was supplemented by resolutions favoring equal suffrage. The Socialist party, which came into existence in 1901, declared for woman suffrage at the start and thereafter made it a part of its active propaganda. All the minor parties as a rule put planks for woman suffrage in their platforms.[148]
Before the conventions in 1904 the board of the National American Woman Suffrage Association secured full lists of delegates and alternates of the two dominant parties—667 Republicans and 723 Democratic delegates; 495 Republican alternates and 384 Democratic, a total of 2,269. To each a letter was sent directing his attention to a memorial enclosed, signed by the officers of the association, an urgent request for the insertion in the platform of the following resolution: "Resolved, That we favor the submission by Congress to the various State Legislatures of an amendment to the Federal Constitution forbidding the disfranchisement of United States citizens on account of sex."
The Republican convention met in Chicago June 21-23. The committee appointed by the National Association consisted of Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton and Miss Elizabeth J. Hauser of Ohio, its treasurer and headquarters secretary, and Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch of Chicago, a former officer, who arranged the hearing. The beautiful rooms of the Chicago Woman's Club were placed at their disposal, where they kept open house, assisted by Mrs. Gertrude Blackwelder, president of the Chicago Political League, Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin and other prominent club women. Mrs. McCulloch went to the Auditorium Annex to ask the Committee on Resolutions for a hearing. Senator Hopkins of Illinois presented her to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, the chairman, and the choice was given her of having it immediately or the next morning. She chose the nearest hour and a little later returned with her committee. Mrs. McCulloch introduced the speakers and made the closing argument. Mrs. Upton, the Rev. Celia Parker Woolley and the Rev. Olympia Brown addressed the committee. They were generously applauded, the suffrage plank was referred to a sub-committee and buried.
The Democratic convention was held in St. Louis July 6-9 and Mrs. Priscilla D. Hackstaff, an officer of the New York Suffrage Association, secured a hearing before the Resolutions Committee. Mrs. Louise L. Werth of St. Louis and Miss Kate M. Gordon of Louisiana joined her on the opening day of the convention and at 8 o'clock the evening of the 7th they appeared before the committee. Mrs. Hackstaff argued on the ground of abstract justice and Miss Gordon from the standpoint of expediency. The committee listened attentively and were liberal with applause but the resolution never was heard from.
Undaunted by a failure which began in 1868 and had continued ever since, the suffragists made their plans for 1908. The Republican convention was again held in Chicago, June 16-20, and a committee of eminent women presented the suffrage resolution—Miss Jane Addams, Mrs. Henrotin, the Rev. Caroline Bartlett Crane, Miss Harriet Grim, Mrs. Blackwelder and Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch. They were heard politely but not the slightest attention was paid to their request. Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, tried to secure the adoption of a plank pledging the Republican party to support a Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment but also was ignored.
When the Democratic party met in national convention in Denver July 7-11, all the delegates and alternates received an appeal which read: "You are respectfully requested by the National American Woman Suffrage Association to place the following plank in your platform: 'Resolved, That we favor the extension of the elective franchise to the women of the United States by the States upon the same qualifications as it is accorded to men.' We ask this in order that our Government may live up to the principles upon which it was founded and in order that the women in the homes and the industries may have equal power with men to influence conditions affecting these respective spheres of action. In making this demand for justice our association calls your attention to the fact that more than 5,000,000 women who are occupied in the industries of the United States are helpless to legislate upon the hours, conditions and remuneration for their labor. We call your attention to the fact that through the commercialized trend of legislation the children of our nation are being sacrificed to a veritable Juggernaut—cheap labor—while this same trend is wasting our mineral land and water resources, imperiling thereby the inheritance of future generations. We call your attention to the moral conditions menacing the youth of our country. Justice and expediency demand that women be granted equal power with men to mould the conditions directly affecting the industries, the resources and the homes of the nation. We therefore appeal to the Democratic convention assembled to name national standard bearers and to determine national policies, to adopt in its platform a declaration favoring the extension of the franchise to the women of the United States."
This appeal was signed by Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, president, Kate M. Gordon, Rachel Foster Avery, Alice Stone Blackwell, Harriet Taylor Upton, Laura Clay and Mary S. Sperry, national officers. It received no consideration whatever, but, although the suffragists did not know it, this was the last year when the two powerful political parties of the country could stand with a united front hostile to all progressive movements. There was shortly to be brought to the assistance of such movements strong forces which could not be resisted.
Early in 1912 President William Howard Taft and U. S. Senator Robert M. La Follette announced their intention of trying to secure the Republican nomination for the presidency and the press of the country took up the burning question, "Will Roosevelt be a candidate for a third term?" On February 25 he announced his candidacy and from then until the date of the Republican national convention the public interest was intense. The convention met in Chicago, June 16-20. Miss Jane Addams, vice-president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, had arranged with a number of women to appear at a few hours' notice before the Resolutions Committee but she could not give even that, as she learned at 8:30 p.m. on the 19th that the committee would meet at 9:30 in the Congress Hotel and she must appear at that time. There was hastily mustered into service a small but distinguished group of suffragists consisting of Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen and Miss Mary Bartelme of Chicago; Professor Sophonisba Breckinridge of Kentucky; Mrs. B. B. Mumford of Richmond, Va.; Miss Lillian D. Wald and Mrs. Simkovitch of New York City; Miss Helen Todd of California; Professor Freund of the Chicago University Law Faculty and a few others. At ten o'clock the suffragists were admitted to the committee room and greeted cordially by Governor Hadley of Missouri and courteously by the chairman, Charles W. Fairbanks. Miss Addams was told that she might have five minutes (later extended to seven) and present one speaker. She introduced Mrs. Bowen, president of the Juvenile Protective Association, who spoke earnestly four minutes, leaving Miss Addams three to make the final plea. There were confusion and noise in the room and the attention of the committee was distracted. The platform contained no reference to woman suffrage. Senator LaFollette presented his own platform to the convention in which was a plank favoring the extension of suffrage to women but it went down to defeat. Two days later the convention amid great excitement nominated President Taft by a vote of 561 while Colonel Roosevelt's vote was only 107. Directly after the convention adjourned the delegates who favored Roosevelt assembled at Orchestra Hall and nominated him in the name of the new Progressive party, Miss Addams seconding the nomination.
Soon after Colonel Roosevelt announced his candidacy he was visited by Judge "Ben" Lindsey of Denver, a representative of the progressive element in politics, who pointed out to him the great assistance it would be to his campaign for him to come out for woman suffrage. Roosevelt, who was an astute politician, saw the advantage of enlisting the help of women, who through their large organizations had become a strong factor in public life. Judge Lindsay therefore was authorized to announce that he would favor a woman suffrage plank in the Progressive platform and Roosevelt confirmed it. This caused wide excitement and the suffragists throughout the country began to rally under the Roosevelt banner. He had always been theoretically in favor but with many reservations and during his two terms as President he had refused all appeals to endorse it in any way. When he went to Chicago to the first convention of the Progressive party August 5 he carried with him the draft of the platform and in it was a plank favoring woman suffrage but calling for a nation-wide referendum of the question to women themselves!
When this plank was submitted to the Resolutions Committee, on which were such suffragists as Miss Addams, Judge Lindsay and U. S. Senator Albert J. Beveridge, they vetoed it at once. It had already been issued to the press in printed form and telegrams recalling it had to be sent far and wide. The plank presented by the Resolutions Committee and unanimously adopted by the convention read as follows: "The Progressive party, believing that no people can justly claim to be a true democracy which denies political rights on account of sex, pledges itself to the task of securing equal suffrage to men and women alike."