I thank the association for the kindly and cordial tone of the resolutions transmitted and hope that the feature of Thursday night's meeting, which you describe as having given your association much sorrow, may soon be entirely forgotten.
Sincerely yours,
William H. Taft.
This closed the incident as far as it could be closed but there was a great deal of sympathy with the sentiment expressed by Miss Alice Stone Blackwell in the Woman's Journal: "It was known that while the President was not an anti-suffragist he was not a strong suffragist and might not even be wholly with us. It was, therefore, not expected that he would at the convention 'come out for suffrage.' Indeed, he was not invited to make an address but simply to extend to the convention the welcome of the national capital, not because he was a suffragist but because the convention thought that it was representative enough and of sufficient size and standing in the country to warrant asking the President to do this one thing. He could have declined the invitation and no one would have been offended. He could have said he was an anti-suffragist. He could have tactfully omitted his opinion and confined his time to greetings and welcome as Chief Executive to the convention as a large organization of the women of the nation. At the point where the supposed hissing occurred, it was as if the speaker had struck those women in the face with a whip. Even those who most resented the President's remarks regretted the expression of open disapproval in such a manner, but, to a person, the audience felt that he had been untactful, and, however unintentionally, had implied an odious comparison; that he had not sufficiently considered this great body of the picked women of the land to choose his language in addressing them."
The President's address was preceded by one given by Professor Potter on The Making of Democracy, which had seldom been equalled in its statesmanlike qualities. This was followed by a powerful argument on Why Women Should Have the Suffrage, by Senator Robert L. Owen (Okla.), one of the ablest speakers in the U. S. Senate and always an uncompromising supporter of the political rights of women.
At an afternoon session Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery (Penn.), who had succeeded Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt as chairman of the Committee on Petition to Congress, took up the report where it had ended at the last convention. She said that, in addition to the 100,000 petitions and 5,000 individual letters sent from New York under Mrs. Catt's supervision, there had gone out from the headquarters after they had been removed to Washington and placed in charge of Mrs. Rachel Brill Ezekiel, 60,000 more petitions, 11,000 more letters and 1,185 postals with appeals. "The petition," she said, "has been a means of introducing suffrage into thousands of households and hundreds of meetings of all kinds in which the subject had not before been mentioned. Even women's clubs have had to listen to suffrage when brought to them by eager seekers after signatures. It has given to many people who have never before done anything for suffrage an opportunity. In some cases whole neighborhoods have been reached through the work of a single energetic woman willing to go from house to house circulating the petition and leaving literature with families where she found little or no sympathy for our movement. All letters sent out from petition headquarters enclosed suffrage leaflets and carried to thousands of men and women the first suffrage literature they had seen." All this vast work had cost only $4,555, of which Mrs. Catt had contributed $1,000. The most strenuous effort had not succeeded in getting the return of all the petitions in time for the convention but those at hand contained 404,825 names.[66]
The arrangements for the parade which was to carry the petitions to Congress were in the hands of Miss Mary Garrett Hay. Mrs. Helen H. Gardener obtained the use of fifty cars from interested residents of Washington and these were handsomely adorned with the flag of the United States and suffrage banners. The official report said: "The most picturesque incident of the convention was the long line of fifty decorated automobiles which bore the petitions and delegates of each State from the Hotel Arlington to the Capitol, where the petitions were personally delivered to the various Senators and Representatives who were to present them to Congress. The large piles of rolled petitions, the respect of the people who lined the streets, the courtesy of the Congressmen and the crowds which watched the presentation in Senate and House were all impressive. Senator LaFollette brought instant silence when, presenting his share of the petitions, he said, "I hope the time will come when this great body of intelligent people will not find it necessary to petition for that which ought to be accorded as a right in a country of equal opportunities."
At the afternoon session a vote of thanks was given to Senator LaFollette and all the Senators and Representatives who presented the petitions. Deep appreciation was expressed of the labor of Mrs. Catt in connection with the petitions and regret that she was not able to be present at the Capitol. This was the last of the hundreds of thousands of petitions to Congress for the submission of a National Amendment to enfranchise women which began in 1866.[67]
Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton in her treasurer's report said the past year had been an unusually hard one financially not because of adversity but because of prosperity. Formerly the States had sent their money to the national treasury to be used as the Official Board thought best, but now there were so many campaigns and new lines of work in various States that they wanted to disburse their own money. This was encouraging but hard on the national work. Few were the years between 1899 and 1908 when some legacy was not received, as Miss Anthony never missed an opportunity to urge women to make such bequests. After her death Miss Mary Anthony followed her example but since both had passed away little had been done in this direction. The total receipts for 1909 were $21,466, and the general disbursements $19,814. With the headquarters in New York more money had been received but more also had to be spent. Mrs. Oliver H. P. Belmont furnished the offices of the Press Committee, paid their rent, the salaries of three workers and all other expenses connected with it. Mrs. William M. Ivins of New York City and Mrs. Mary Ely Parsons of Rye, N. Y., furnished Dr. Shaw's office.
In closing Mrs. Upton said that the duties of the headquarters and of the treasurer's office had been so closely connected that up to this time it had been difficult to separate them. In fact from the time she was elected to date she had always done some work properly belonging to headquarters. From the first a clerk was supplied to her and she was so situated that she could do this and was more than willing to. She had edited twelve reports of annual conventions and was editor and manager of Progress for seven years. She told how letters and requests continued to come to her after the headquarters went to New York and she was obliged to employ another clerk, whose salary she herself paid. In closing she said: "Since 1893 your treasurer has received and disbursed more than $275,000 and she wishes the treasurer for the coming year could have that full amount for the next twelve months' work." The convention accepted the report with a rising vote of thanks for her many years of continuous service.