The Woman's Committee gradually closed up its affairs and at a meeting on Feb. 12, 1919, Dr. Shaw was instructed to write to the Secretary of War that it believed its work to be at an end and tendered its resignation to take effect when, in the judgment of his Council, its services should no longer be required. This resignation was accepted by President Wilson on February 27 with a splendid tribute to the work of the committee. The announcement was formally made on March 15, and the committee passed out of existence.[151] Two of its members, the chairman and the resident director, Miss Hannah J. Patterson, received from the Government in May the distinguished service medal.
Secretary of War Newton D. Baker in a Foreword to Mrs. Blair's report said: "The chairman of the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense from the beginning was Dr. Anna Howard Shaw—ripened by a long life devoted intensely to the advocacy of great causes; cheered and heartened by recent victories for the greatest cause for which she had fought in her long and unusual life; loved and honored by her sex as their leader and by men as a citizen combining in a rare degree high qualities of intellect, force of character and persuasive eloquence in speech. She and her committee wrought a work the like of which had never been seen before, and her reward was to see its success and then to be caught up as she was engaged in another high and fierce conflict into which she threw herself when hostilities ceased in order that this great work might be but a helpful part of a greater thing in the hope and history of mankind.... The Woman's Committee was the leader of the women of America. It informed and broadened the minds of women everywhere, and with no thought of propaganda it made an argument by producing results. The Council of National Defense fades out of this work and the Woman's Committee looms large—and yet larger still is the American woman...."
It was the earnest desire of Dr. Shaw and the suffragists that she might now give her important services to the Federal Suffrage Amendment, which was at a critical stage, but this hope could not be realized. Former President Taft and President Lowell of Harvard University, both of whom had done valuable work for the Peace Treaty and the League of Nations, were starting in May, 1919, on a speaking tour to advocate the League in fifteen States and they urged Dr. Shaw to cancel all other engagements and join them on this tour. For two years she had been giving her time and labor without price and now she had commenced again to fill her own lecture dates. She was going later to Spain as the guest of Dr. M. Carey Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College, for a well-earned and much-needed rest, but at this call everything was given up willingly and cheerfully to continue her service to her country. As the tour was arranged, every night was to be spent on a sleeping car and Dr. Shaw was to speak only once in twenty-four hours. She could not, however, resist the pleading of people in different cities and at Indianapolis she filled eight engagements of various kinds in one day. The following day at Springfield, Ills., she succumbed to her old foe, pneumonia. She received every possible care in the hospital and after two weeks recovered sufficiently to make the journey to her home at Moylan, Pennsylvania. She had, however, put too great a strain on her vital forces and died July 2, at the age of seventy-two.
Whatever may have been the unthinking verdict passed upon suffragists and their activities prior to the World War, it was thereafter widely acknowledged that in the national crisis they played a leading rôle in the support and defense of the nation. While it is a matter for regret that their war record cannot be chronicled as fully and definitely as can their work for suffrage, nevertheless, even a casual examination will show that it was a heroic one and none the less so because it was frequently merged, through far-sighted efficiency, in the war-service of all American women, of which it formed a distinguished part.
FOOTNOTES:
[150] The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick, first vice-president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and general chairman of its War Service Department.
[151] It was a question long and seriously discussed whether this vast organization should be wholly dissolved or whether it should be continued in the various States for civic and humanitarian purposes. Dr. Shaw was strongly in favor of preserving it and her earnest appeal will be found in Mrs. Blair's Report, page 137.