The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V

by Unknown

Representative A. W. Rucker was introduced as a proxy for the Colorado association and gave its report with a warm personal endorsement of equal suffrage as it had existed in his State for seventeen years. The convention greeted with enthusiasm the mother of U. S. Senator Robert L. Owen of Oklahoma, who said she could not make a speech but would send her son to do so that evening.

Although national suffrage conventions had been held in Washington since 1869 no official recognition ever had been asked for or given by the President of the United States. The leaders thought that now the movement was of sufficient size and importance to justify them in inviting President Taft to give simply an address of welcome. The invitation was sent with the statement that its acceptance would not be regarded as committing him to an advocacy of woman suffrage and it was accepted with this understanding, although Mrs. Elihu Root presented a request from the Anti-Suffrage Association that he would not accept it. The entire country was interested and on the opening evening, when he was to speak, the auditorium was crowded and lines of people reached to the street. President Taft came in with his escort while Dr. Shaw was in the midst of her annual address but she stopped instantly and welcomed him to the platform. The audience arose and with applause and waving of handkerchiefs remained standing until he was seated. At one point in his brief address there was apparently a slight hissing in the back part of the room. The President paused; Dr. Shaw sprang to her feet exclaiming, "Oh, my children!" and the audience, which was excited and amazed, instantly became quiet and listened respectfully to the rest of his speech, but as he left the room, after shaking hands with Dr. Shaw, a few remained seated. As this incident attracted nation-wide comment and much criticism it seems advisable to publish the proceedings in full. The address was as follows:

I am not entirely certain that I ought to have come tonight, but your committee who invited me assured me that I should be welcome even if I did not support all the views which were here advanced. I considered that this movement represented a sufficient part of the intelligence of the community to justify my coming here and welcoming you to Washington. The difficulty I expect to encounter is this—at least it is a difficulty that occurs to me as I judge my own feelings in causes in which I have an intense interest—to wit: that I am always a good deal more impatient with those who only go half-way with me than with those who actually oppose me. Now when I was sixteen years old and was graduated from the Woodward High School in Cincinnati, I took for my subject "Woman Suffrage" and I was as strong an advocate of it as any member of this convention. I had read Mills's "Subjection of Women"; my father was a woman suffragist and so at that time I was orthodox but in the actual political experience which I have had I have modified my views somewhat.

In the first place popular representative government we approve and support because on the whole every class, that is, every set of individuals who are similarly situated in the community, who are intelligent enough to know what their own interests are, are better qualified to determine how those interests shall be cared for and preserved than any other class, however altruistic that class may be; but I call your attention to two qualifications in that statement. One is that the class should be intelligent enough to know its own interests. The theory that Hottentots or any other uneducated, altogether unintelligent class is fitted for self-government at once or to take part in government is a theory that I wholly dissent from—but this qualification is not applicable here. The other qualification to which I call your attention is that the class should as a whole care enough to look after its interests, to take part as a whole in the exercise of political power if it is conferred. Now if it does not care enough for this, then it seems to me that the danger is, if the power is conferred, that it may be exercised by that part of the class least desirable as political constituents and be neglected by many of those who are intelligent and patriotic and would be most desirable as members of the electorate.

It was at this point the supposed hissing occurred and the President continued:

Now, my dear ladies, you must show yourselves equal to self-government by exercising, in listening to opposing arguments, that degree of restraint without which self-government is impossible. If I could be sure that women as a class in the community, including all the intelligent women most desirable as political constituents, would exercise the franchise, I should be in favor of it. At present there is considerable doubt upon that point. In certain of the States which have tried it woman suffrage has not been a failure. It has not made, I think, any substantial difference in politics. I think it is perhaps possible to say that its adoption has shown an improvement in the body politic, but it has been tested only in those States where population is sparse and where the problem of entrusting such power to women in the concentrated population of large cities is not presented. For this reason, if you will permit me to say so, my impression is that the task before you in securing what you think ought to be granted in respect to the political rights of women is not in convincing men but it is in convincing the majority of your own class of the wisdom of extending the suffrage to them and of their duty to exercise it.

Now that is my confession of faith. I am glad to welcome you here. I am glad to welcome an intelligent body of women, earnest in the discussion of politics, earnest in the question of good government and earnest and high-minded in the cause they are pursuing, even if I disagree with them, not in principle but in the application of it to the present situation. More than this I ought not to say and I hope you will not deem me ungracious in saying as much as I have said, but I came here at the invitation of your committee with the understanding as to what I might say and that I should not subscribe to all the principles that you are here to advocate. I congratulate you on coming to Washington, this most beautiful of cities, to hold your convention. I trust that it may result in everything that you hope for and I am sure that the coming together of honest, intelligent and earnest women like these cannot but be productive of good.

Some persons thought that the hissing was done by one or more delegates from the equal suffrage States because of the aspersion cast on the class of women who were likely to vote. Others believed there was no hissing but that it was merely an exclamation of "hush" because of the noise caused by the moving of loose chairs, many in the back part of the room standing up on them to get a better view. It was, however, a matter of great concern and regret on the part of the national officers, who met early the next morning and framed the following resolution:

Whereas the President of the United States in welcoming the Forty-second Annual Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association has taken the historic position of being the first incumbent of his office to recognize officially our determination to secure a complete democracy, thereby testifying his conviction as to its power and growth, and Whereas his seriousness, honesty and friendliness converted what might have been an empty form into an official courtesy, historic alike for him and for us,

Therefore be it resolved that we convey to President William H. Taft the thanks and appreciation of this convention for his welcome, assuring him at the same time that the patriotism and public spirit of the women of America intend to make themselves directly felt in the government of which he is the honored head and that at no distant date.