The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V

by Unknown

The National American Woman Suffrage Association urges upon this convention the necessity for such action as will make inevitable and immediate the ratification of the Federal Suffrage Amendment by the 36th State.

This was signed by Mary Garrett Hay, acting president, in the absence of Mrs. Catt in Europe; Gertrude Foster Brown, vice-president; Nettie Rogers Shuler, corresponding secretary; Emma Winner Rogers, treasurer; Esther G. Ogden, director, and Rose Young, press chairman.

Miss Hay called a conference of the suffragists attending the convention in Chicago and a plank was drawn up. Miss Hay, Mrs. Richard Edwards, Mrs. Maud Wood Park, Mrs. George Gellhorn, Miss Ada Bush and Mrs. Pattie Ruffner Jacobs constituted a committee to present this plank to the Resolutions Committee of which Senator James E. Watson (Ind.) was chairman. Miss Hay made the principal speech and Mrs. Gellhorn and Miss Bush spoke briefly. A sub-committee of the Resolutions Committee accepted the plank which was given out to the press on June 10. It read:

We welcome women into full participation in the affairs of government and the activities of the Republican party. We urge Republican Governors whose States have not yet acted upon the suffrage amendment to call immediately special sessions of their Legislatures for the purpose of ratifying said amendment, to the end that all the women of the nation of voting age may participate in the coming election, so important to the welfare of our country.

As soon as this appeared in the Chicago papers, members of the Connecticut delegation rushed to leaders of the Platform Committee and protested that it was a gross insult to their Governor, Marcus H. Holcomb, and they wanted the wording changed. Accordingly the offending sentence was revised and in the plank adopted by the convention read: "We earnestly hope that Republican Legislatures in States which have not yet acted upon the suffrage amendment will ratify it, to the end that all the women of the nation of voting age may participate in the election of 1920 so important to the welfare of our country."

Republican women in attendance at the convention united in a demand for a fifty-fifty recognition inside of the party. They asked for a woman vice-chairman of the National Republican Committee and for men and women to be represented on it in equal numbers. The Committee on Rules, responding to this demand, changed the rules for representation and provided that seven members be added to the National Executive Committee, all to be women. With this concession the women had to be content.

The Democratic National Convention met in San Francisco June 28-July 5. Prior to the convention the National Committee had yielded to the pressure from the suffrage leaders and Democratic women and on May 30 sent out the following Call: "This committee calls upon the Legislatures of the various States for special sessions, if necessary, to ratify woman suffrage when the Constitutional Amendment is passed by Congress, in order to enable women to vote at the Presidential election in 1920." On June 26, after the amendment had been submitted by Congress, the committee again gave its aid by sending the following message to Governor Roberts of Tennessee:

We most earnestly emphasize the extreme importance and urgency of an immediate meeting of your State Legislature for the purpose of ratifying the proposed 19th Amendment to the Federal Constitution. We trust that for the present all other legislative matters may, if necessary, be held in abeyance and that you will call an extra session for such brief duration as may be required to act favorably on the amendment. Tennessee occupies a position of peculiar and pivotal importance and one that enables her to render a service of incalculable value to the women of America. We confidently expect, therefore, that under your leadership and through the action of the Legislature of your State, the women of the nation may be given the privilege of voting in the coming Presidential election.

The National American Woman Suffrage Association appointed Mrs. Guilford Dudley, one of its vice-presidents, who was a delegate-at-large from Tennessee to the convention and a member of the Credentials Committee, to present the following plank to the Resolutions Committee: "The Federal Suffrage Amendment, whose passage in Congress was greatly furthered by the efforts of a Democratic President, is one State short of the number required to make its ratification effective. In two Republican States, Vermont and Connecticut, where ratification could be at once achieved, Republican Governors are refusing to call special sessions. In simple justice to women, we, Democrats in national convention assembled, urge the cooperation of Democratic Governors and legislators in North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida and other Democratic States that have not ratified, in a united effort to complete ratification by the addition of the 36th State in time for the women of America to participate in the approaching elections."

The National Woman's Party through Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, its publicity chairman, presented a plank through U. S. Senator Carter Glass of the Resolutions Committee, which read: "The Democratic Party endorses the proposed amendment to the U. S. Constitution enfranchising women and calls upon all Democratic Governors of States which have not yet ratified the amendment immediately to convene their Legislatures so that they may act upon it and urges all Democratic members of such Legislatures immediately to vote for the amendment...."