Before closing, I want to express my deep appreciation of the generosity of Mrs. Oliver H. P. Belmont, through which the press bureau has this splendid opportunity for work. Every comfort and facility have been provided and every request cheerfully granted.
Mrs. Belmont never attempts, because of her financial a.s.sistance, to exercise any supervision over the bureau. It is now well established; it enjoys the confidence of the press and the public and the opportunities that lie before it cannot be measured in extent and importance.
During the convention many prominent visitors were introduced to the audiences, among them Miss Mary Johnston, who had taken a leading part in organizing the State Suffrage a.s.sociation of Virginia, and its president, Mrs. Lila Meade Valentine; Mrs. Elizabeth Upham Yates, the new president of Rhode Island; J. H. Braly, president of the Men"s League of California; J. Luther Langston, secretary and treasurer of the Oklahoma Federation of Labor, and Daniel R. Anthony, M. C., of Kansas. Many greetings were received including one from the Finnish Temperance organizations through Miss Maggie Walz of Michigan and others from Mrs. Caroline M. Severance and Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, pioneer suffragists now living in California. Greetings were sent to Miss Clara Barton of Washington, D. C.; Mrs. Julia Ward Howe of Boston; Miss Blackwell; the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell of Elizabeth, N. J.; Mrs. George Howard Lewis of Buffalo; Mrs. Eliza Wright Osborne of Auburn, N. Y.; Mrs. Elizabeth Smith Miller of Geneva, N. Y., all pioneers in suffrage work, and to Mrs. Belmont in New York. A vote of thanks was extended to Miss Belle Bennett (Ky.), president of the Southern Home Mission, for her strong efforts to secure the admission of women to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.
Through the effort of the District Equal Suffrage a.s.sociation the s.p.a.cious Belasco Theater had been secured for the Sunday afternoon meeting. Dr. Shaw presided and Rabbi Abram Simon offered prayer.[68] A large audience listened to forceful addresses by Miss Beatrice Forbes Robertson, Miss Laura Clay, Miss Harriet May Mills, Mrs. Ella S.
Stewart and Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In the evening the officers of the a.s.sociation received the delegates, speakers and members of the convention in the parlors of the Arlington.
One of the most valuable reports given at the convention was that of Mrs. Lucia Ames Mead, chairman of the Standing Committee on Peace and Arbitration. The events of a few years later caused the delegates to remember with renewed interest the extended work and fervent appeals of Mrs. Mead and her a.s.sociates for settling the world"s disputes by peaceful methods. On this occasion she made a special plea to those who were working for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women.
Professor Potter, Mr. Blackwell"s successor as chairman of the committee, presented a set of strong resolutions, international as well as national in character, which were adopted without discussion.
A subject which received much attention was the offer of Miss Blackwell to make the _Woman"s Journal_ the official organ of the a.s.sociation. It needed the help of the paper and since the death of her father she needed some one to share the responsibility of its publication. Miss Clay, Mrs. McCulloch, Mrs. Dennett and Miss Mary Garrett of Baltimore were appointed to plan the business details. An agreement was made for one year, Miss Blackwell to continue as editor without salary but the a.s.sociation to employ a business manager and such other help as she required.
A noteworthy program marked the last evening of the convention, which opened with a powerful address by Raymond Robins on The Worker, the Law and the Courts. It was to be followed by a consideration of Scientific Propaganda in Practical Politics, with the Literature discussed by Mrs. Hartshorne but she was ill and Professor Potter took her place. Plans for activity in behalf of changes of law and its administration that will benefit women and children in particular and society in general were presented by Miss Grace Strachan, president of the New York Federation of Teachers. Special plans in behalf of woman suffrage were submitted by Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw (N. Y.). Dr. Shaw, who presided, called attention to the hearings before the committees of Senate and House the next morning and closed the convention with one of her characteristic speeches which sent the audience home happy and ready for the battle.
The dominant note of the convention was the intention henceforth to enter the field of politics. The New York _Evening Post_ said in its account: "The audiences at all the meetings were too large for the capacity of the room and at the Sunday night public gathering hundreds had to be turned away. Without exception State delegations reported that the work of the next year would consist of active effort along political lines, the organization of woman suffrage "parties" with membership comprising men and women. Delegations would interview candidates and voters in regard to their suffrage opinions; conduct open-air meetings throughout the summer and be on duty at the polls during elections."
The _Woman"s Journal_ said in its summing up: "The personnel of the delegates and speakers was such as to inspire the most hostile, the most conservative and the most despondent student of human nature.
When an observer reflected that these delegates represented thousands of women in each State who believe in equal suffrage, and that the speakers and leaders of the convention voiced the thoughts, hopes and aspirations of suffragists the world over, he could not help being stirred profoundly with the conviction not only that equal rights are inevitable in the near future but also with the compelling faith that the world is truly marching on in the very best sense and that it can never again be quite as dark a place to live in as it has been. A notable feature was the absolute conviction with which these representatives of the people speak and the unmistakable determination to win a speedy victory."
The "hearings" before committees of Senate and House took place on the historic date, April 19, when in 1776 "the shot was fired which was heard around the world" proclaiming the birth of a republic founded on the right of every individual to represent himself by his ballot!
Heretofore they had been held in the Marble Room of the Senate Building and the room of the House Judiciary Committee, which could accommodate only a very limited number of the delegates and none of the public. The splendid new office buildings of the two Houses of Congress were now finished and in the s.p.a.cious rooms a.s.signed for the hearings all of the delegates found seats and many others, although a long line of the disappointed extended down the corridor.
The members of the Senate Committee were Alexander S. Clay (Ga.), chairman; Senators Joseph F. Johnston (Ala.), Elmer J. Burkett (Neb.), George Peabody Wetmore (R. I.), Albert J. Beveridge (Ind.). All were present except Senator Beveridge. Dr. Shaw presided and before introducing the speakers gave a resume of the pet.i.tions which had just been presented to the Congress, called attention to the names of many eminent men and women who had signed them and said: "Believing that the first republic in the world, founded upon the principle of self-government with "equal rights for all and special privileges for none," should be among the leaders and not the laggards in this great world movement, your pet.i.tioners pray this honorable body to submit to the Legislatures of the several States for ratification an amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution which will enable American women to vote."
She continued:
It is not revolutionary on our part to ask a share in our Government. We are demanding it because it is in accord with American ideals and absolutely essential to the establishment of true democracy. A democratic form of government is right or it is not right--it is either right that the people should be self-governed or that they should not. If it is not right, then we ought to know it; the whole people ought to know it. If it is right, then the whole people ought to have equal opportunities in self-government. It is not that we women wish to dictate in regard to men or that we a.s.sume any superior ability for government, any superior wisdom, but it is that we do a.s.sume that whether we are wise or not, whether we have a grasp of all the affairs of state or not, whether we are earning and producing equally with men or not, we are human beings and as a part of the Government we should have at least a chance to exercise whatever powers we possess equally with all other citizens. It is because we believe that this Government should be true to its fundamental principles that we make these demands.
Some one asked Wendell Phillips if Christianity were not a failure and he replied, "It has not yet been tried." So we can say in regard to democracy. We hear the cry everywhere that democracy is a failure. A speaker in New York said that our democracy was the laughing stock of all the civilized nations of the world. It is the laughing stock because of the failure of this democracy to dare to be democratic. We have never tried universal suffrage but if that which we have is a failure the cure for it is not to restrict it but to extend it, because no cla.s.s of men is able to represent another cla.s.s and it is much truer that no cla.s.s nor all cla.s.ses of men are capable of representing any cla.s.s or all cla.s.ses of women. Believing this, we have come as citizens of the United States to this Mecca of all the people for more than forty years and we are ready to come for as many years more as may be necessary until our plea is granted.
Dr. Shaw then said: "I desire to introduce speakers from the professions and lines of work represented in our pet.i.tions: Mrs.
Catharine Waugh McCulloch of Chicago, who has been a practicing lawyer for twenty-four years and was recently re-elected to the office of justice of the peace."
Mrs. McCulloch. There may be a woman school-teacher somewhere who does not want to vote that may be satisfied to receive only 75 per cent. as much as men teachers and to have no chance at highly paid superintendencies. There may be a mother who does not want equality at the ballot box nor in the guardianship of her children. There may be some factory girl who so earnestly believes it right to receive less wages than men do that she never wants the ballot to help her get equal pay for equal work.
It may be that there is some woman paying heavy taxes--heavier than the equally wealthy man next door--who is happy to be taxed without being represented. It may be that some woman civil-service employee at Washington or in the State has for a long time been at the top of the list of those who are eligible for promotion and has seen men below her on the list requisitioned for places with large salaries and approves of this and enjoys being discriminated against because she is not a voter. There may be some woman physician who does not want to vote and who observes uncomplainingly that all remunerative political offices to which physicians are eligible on city or State boards of health or in public hospitals are filled by men.
There may be a nurse so busy saving life that she has not realized the foolishness of her disfranchis.e.m.e.nt on the ground that she was never a soldier to destroy life. There may be some young woman in railroad office, stenographer, bookkeeper or clerk, who meekly approves an order for the discharge of all women employees for the ostensible reason that they marry too soon but for the real reason that they do not vote.
There may be a woman in any of these varied employments who is so convinced of her own inferiority that she does not want the ballot but to the credit of the women lawyers it may be said that almost every one does want to vote and can tell several reasons why. A woman may in this century go through a law college the only woman in her cla.s.s without discomfort. She opens those sacred law books as easily and learns as readily as do the men and pa.s.ses as good an examination. She sees her young men cla.s.smates rise to great distinction in the service of the State.
She may count among them, as I can, city attorneys, State attorneys, civil-service commissioners, Judges of high degree, Senators and Governors. It will be impossible to prove to her that she, who in law school fed on the same mental diet as did these now renowned political leaders, is too ignorant to vote for them or against them or that the quality of her brain forbids her understanding of the great problems her law cla.s.smates are now solving....
Dr. Shaw: The next speaker will be Miss Eveline Gano, a teacher of history in one of the high schools of New York City, who will speak on behalf of the teachers of the country.
Miss Gano. If the woman teacher"s need of the ballot is a debatable question then another very natural question arises: Do men teachers need the ballot?... I am asked to speak particularly of women who have made teaching a profession. In 1870, 41 per cent. of the teachers in the United States were men; 21 per cent.
to-day are men. In large cities the number of women teachers is still greater in proportion. In New York only 12-1/2 per cent. of the 17,000 teachers are men. According to the last census there are 17,000,000 children in the United States who should be in elementary schools. Approximately 90 per cent. are taught almost entirely by women. In New York City only seven per cent. of the 600,000 children in the public schools ever enter grades higher than the elementary; in western cities a few more. Practically all of the schooling that 90 citizens out of 100 ever get they receive from the hands and hearts and minds of women. Whatever this great number of future citizens knows of citizenship and correct standards of morals and industry they have learned from the mothers and the women teachers. The very foundations of law and equity and justice are in the hands of women who are in the eyes of the law but wards and dependents. If these women teachers and mothers had a keener sense of their responsibilities by actual partic.i.p.ation in civic life, what might be the results in even one decade? Who is to blame if they do not have the keener sense?
One of the greatest problems facing this republic has been turned over to women teachers--that of coping with the foreign born and their children. Who can estimate the value of this great constructive work, the creation of American citizens out of the varied materials that are landed on our sh.o.r.es? And who can estimate the quickening force and the gain in appreciation and respect for law and order, if the mothers and the teachers of these children were considered worthy of the principles which they are asked to inculcate? Thousands of these women teachers are college graduates with fine training and all are women of more than average intelligence. They are not only bread winners but very often they are the heads of families which they have inherited. They are caring for and educating younger brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, and providing for aged fathers and mothers. It has been said that the men of each cla.s.s will protect the women of each cla.s.s. Witness the men teachers of New York City, who in 1900 secured a State law that gave to themselves salaries from 30 per cent. to 100 per cent. higher than to women doing the same grade of work. A woman teacher in the elementary schools must work nine years in order to receive the salary that the man teacher begins with. She may and often does supervise men, because of having pa.s.sed a difficult examination, and receive $800 a year less than the men whom she supervises. A woman princ.i.p.al receives $1,000 less than a man princ.i.p.al in the same grade of work, having the very same qualifications. Governor Hughes has characterized these discriminations against women as "glaring and gross inequalities," but in spite of the efforts of 15,000 women teachers for the last four years the inequalities still continue. It is rather easy to see the value of the ballot to the men teachers of the city of New York....
As citizens under the 14th Amendment of the Const.i.tution of the United States, we claim the honored and inherited right to pet.i.tion our Government or either branch thereof for a redress of grievances that very plainly exist because of the present legal status of women in 41 States of the Union. We ask that our pet.i.tion, which is signed by hundreds of thousands of law-abiding citizens, shall receive serious and courteous attention. We well know that when a pet.i.tion of such great consequence to millions of citizens is not so considered the foundation of republican government is attacked and weakened where it should be supported and strengthened.
Dr. Shaw: I present now Dr. Anna E. Blount, a physician from Chicago, who will speak in behalf of the medical pract.i.tioners.
Dr. Blount. In my city there are 500 women doctors; in my State there are 750; in the United States in 1900 there were 7,399.
These women doctors know the womanhood of the country perhaps more intimately than any other cla.s.s of women know it. I have talked with many of them and I have yet to find one who does not believe in woman suffrage. The Woman"s Medical Club in Chicago has joined the suffrage a.s.sociation. Why do we want the ballot?
Partly our reasons are personal to our own profession and partly they are the same that move the whole ma.s.s of mankind to ask for suffrage today. Some of our personal reasons are these: As women we are excluded from most of the well-paid positions for physicians. We know that the dependent womanhood of the country needs our care; from time to time we hear grewsome tales from the insane asylums and the pauper inst.i.tutions of wrongs done the women because there is no woman doctor there to protect them.
Little children in my own State have gone through a life of degradation owing to the fact that there was no woman doctor in charge of them in the public inst.i.tutions. The best paid positions are political jobs and no woman can get one. Another reason why, as physicians, we want the ballot is that at present we need police protection. We need a city that is well lighted and safe for women, as we are obliged to go out at all hours of the night. A few years ago the hunters of women became unusually active and several respectable women were in the early hours of the evening hunted to their death and murdered. We were told at that time by the commissioner of police that it would be well for all the respectable women of the city to remain indoors after 8 o"clock in the evening unless they were escorted by a gentleman!
Imagine when the telephone rings for a woman doctor to attend some critical case that she shall be required either to get a male escort or remain at home! This is also true of nurses and many others....
I do not think that men can grow to be the best men when they are in constant a.s.sociation with a subject cla.s.s. I ask you gentlemen of the United States Senate, for the sake of womanhood, but most of all for the sake of manhood, to report this resolution out of the committee, and to ask the Senate of the United States to give the women of this country, so far as in its power, the right of suffrage.
Dr. Shaw: "I present a lawyer, Mrs. Ellen Spencer Mussey, but she will speak in the capacity of a college woman." After giving her experience in trying to secure better laws for women in the District of Columbia, Mrs. Mussey told of her visits to Norway and Sweden, where as attorney for a legation she had every opportunity to attend the Parliaments, meet the statesmen and leading women and hear their universal testimony in favor of the experiment in woman suffrage. In closing she stated that as chairman of the legislative committee of the General Federation of Women"s Clubs she had received reports from hundreds of them regretting their lack of power to obtain legislation and their need of representation on boards of education and of public inst.i.tutions. Dr. Shaw then introduced Miss Minnie J. Reynolds of New Jersey, formerly of Colorado, who had supervised the pet.i.tion of the writers.
Miss Reynolds. This attempt to canva.s.s the writers of the United States is absurdly inadequate and fragmentary. It was the unpaid work of women, each of whom had her own occupation in life, in such spare time as they could get during the year. These writers represent only twenty-one States. Others, including such great States as New York, Michigan and Wisconsin, sent in huge rolls of names without a cla.s.sification. I am speaking for 1,870 writers.
The first name is that of William Dean Howells, the "dean of American letters," perhaps more truly representative of American literature than any other living person. The second name is that of John Bigelow, ex-amba.s.sador to France, ex-secretary-of-state of New York, and author of some twenty scholarly books. On this list are the names of men and women known to every reader of American literature and to every reader of the periodical press.
The pet.i.tion blanks were sent to them by mail and if they did not wish to sign they had only to drop them in the waste-basket. A number of publicists have signed, among them Melville E. Stone, head of the a.s.sociated Press, and six of his editors; S. S. and T. C. McClure, publishers of the McClure"s Magazine; the editors of Everybody"s, the Independent, the Public, Philistine, Delineator, Designer, New Idea, Harper"s Bazar, La Follette"s Magazine, the Springfield Republican: editors of Current Literature, Philadelphia Record, Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, New York Herald, New York Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Baltimore American, Minneapolis News, Cincinnati Post and numerous other newspapers over the country. These publications reach millions of readers.
There are on this list the names of many persons who, although authors or magazine writers, are still more distinguished in other lines of work, as William James and George Herbert Palmer of Harvard; Graham Taylor and Shailer Matthews of the University of Chicago; Simon N. Patten of the University of Pennsylvania; and other professors from the universities of Harvard, Chicago, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Cornell and Columbia, and from Oberlin, Va.s.sar and Wellesley. The great families of Hawthorne, Chanler and Beecher are represented by living descendants who are carrying on the literary traditions which must ever be a.s.sociated with those names. The late Richard Watson Gilder, editor of the Century, published a tribute to Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi after her death. In this he said in substance that the American women who had most conspicuously united rare intelligence with rare goodness were Josephine Shaw Lowell, founder of the New York Charity Organization; Alice Freeman Palmer, president of Wellesley College, and Dr. Jacobi. Mr. Gilder was an anti-suffragist. The three women whom he thus placed at the pinnacle of American womanhood were all strong suffragists.
The women whose names are on this list represent brains and character; they represent that element of American womanhood which is winning its own way successfully in the great world of compet.i.tion and strenuous endeavor; influencing the minds and molding the public opinion of the country through their books and through the press. There may be those among you, gentlemen, who are opposed to suffrage, but I am sure there is not one who would not be glad to know that his daughter was a woman of this type if it so happened that he was obliged to leave her unprovided for.
There is one girl, Jean Webster, who made $4,000 on one book the year she left college. There is one woman, Mary Johnston, who was paid $20,000 in advance royalties on one book before a word of it was printed. A number of distinguished writers had signed the general pet.i.tion before the writers" blank had reached them, among them Mark Twain, Booth Tarkington, Ernest Thompson Seton, Julia Ward Howe, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Mary Wilkins Freeman and Ellen Glasgow.
Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, former corresponding secretary of the National Suffrage a.s.sociation, in speaking of the pet.i.tion told of one containing 10,000 names which had been gathered in Indiana years ago and presented to the Legislature by Mrs. Zerelda G. Wallace, often referred to as the mother pictured in "Ben Hur." It was treated with the utmost contempt, one member saying, "These 10,000 women have about as much influence as that many mice." This experience sent that eloquent woman to the suffrage platform for the rest of her life. Mrs.
Avery urged the committee to give a favorable report on this great pet.i.tion as the first step toward making the influence of the thousands of women who had signed it of more value than that of so many mice. [For the address of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, see Appendix for this chapter.]
U. S. Senator John F. Shafroth of Colorado, a consistent supporter of woman suffrage from the very beginning of the movement for it in his State twenty years before, made an address to the committee which was printed in a pamphlet of seven pages and made a part of the propaganda of the National a.s.sociation. Limited s.p.a.ce permits only brief extracts, which give little idea of its compelling arguments.
An eminent writer has said that all powers of government are either delegated or a.s.sumed; that all not delegated are a.s.sumed and all a.s.sumed powers are usurpations. The powers of government by men over women are not delegated, because the women never delegated such powers to men. They are a.s.sumed then and, as all a.s.sumed powers are usurpations, the exercise of the powers of government by men over women is usurpation. How can those who refuse to give women the right to vote reconcile their opinion with the form of government in which they believe? What right have I to make all the laws which shall govern not only myself but also my wife, sister and mother, without giving to them any voice in determining the justice or wisdom of those laws? It can only be on the a.s.sertion of an a.s.sumed or usurped right--that which we have condemned as not the source of rightful power. We all remember Lincoln"s declaration that "when the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is despotism." The exercise of any power of government not emanating from the consent of the governed, therefore, is despotism. After men by an a.s.sumption of power have attached the elective franchise to themselves, is it a just answer to the demand of women to say that men have concluded that "suffrage is a privilege which attaches neither to man nor to woman by nature?" Have we forgotten the cry of our forefathers which stirred the blood of every patriotic American, that "taxation without representation is tyranny?" Why is it tyranny to men but not to women? Is it sufficient to say that "they are not the only persons taxed as property holders from whom the ballot is withheld," when the only other persons from whom it is permanently withheld are lunatics, idiots and criminals? How would men like such reasoning applied to themselves?...
Deprive any cla.s.s or nationality of men of the elective franchise and the detrimental effect would be felt immediately. Their pet.i.tions for legislation would no longer receive prompt and careful consideration and if the proposed legislation conflicted with conditions favorable to a cla.s.s of voters it would be almost impossible to get a legislator or Congressman even to introduce such a measure. The equal suffrage advocates have appeared before a committee of the House of Representatives at Washington every session for a great many years, begging for a favorable report.
If persons representing one-tenth as many voters had made an appeal for some important legislation affecting their rights, don"t we know that those same Congressmen would almost have fought with each other for the privilege of writing a favorable report?
Governor Shafroth quoted election statistics which showed conclusively that women in Colorado voted in about the same proportion as men and he gave a long list of progressive laws which had been enacted through the support of women. He declared that in no respect had the ideals of womanhood been lowered and closed by saying: "The highest considerations of justice and good government demand equal suffrage for all women."
Dr. Shaw in closing the hearing said in part:
I have in my hand a doc.u.ment which was today sent, I believe, to every Senator and Representative, signed by the ladies representing societies opposed to the further extension of the suffrage to women. Of those which purport to be State societies, three at least are merely local clubs in cities. These ladies have pet.i.tioned this honorable body and the House of Representatives not to grant the appeal of the women who have come here with this very large pet.i.tion on the ground that it would be an interference on your part with the rights which the States have reserved to themselves, if you were to submit an amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution giving full suffrage to women.... I see by this doc.u.ment that the great danger with which you are threatened if you do this unjust thing is that you admit into the body politic a vast non-fighting horde of people, a most dangerous cla.s.s. Man suffrage is a method adopted, it says, for the peaceful attainment of the will of the majority, to which the minority must submit.
If there is anything which must appeal to every sense of justice, it is the struggle of the industrial world to get out from under the domineering, military power. The age in which we live is no longer a militant age. Today it is not so much the question of which nation can produce the greatest number of soldiers as of which can produce the greatest number of things the world needs to buy. It is a problem of industry and into this problem women, either by force or by desire, have come.... In olden times women could control the hours of their labor and the conditions affecting their health and the health of their families; they could regulate the price of the product which they themselves produced in the home but since men have taken from it the industries, the necessity for women to protect themselves in the workshop, in the sweatshop, in the factory has come about.
Wherever man has taken woman"s work the woman must follow it and she must have the same method of protecting herself which man must have and there is no other means save through the ballot....
We have been over forty years, a longer period than the children of Israel wandered through the wilderness, coming to this Capitol pleading for this recognition of the principle that the Government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. Mr. Chairman, we ask that you report our resolution favorably if you can but unfavorably if you must; that you report one way or the other, so that the Senate may have the chance to consider it.
The Chairman: "In behalf of the committee I desire to thank the ladies for the splendid arguments they have made and to say that we appreciate them most heartily. It is my intention to call the committee together at a very early date and we will give a careful and intelligent consideration to this measure, and, I hope, make a report on it."
Notwithstanding this promise no further attention was paid to these logical and eloquent appeals or to the immense pet.i.tion, and no report whatever was made by the committee.
All but four of the members of the House Judiciary Committee were present, including the chairman, Richard Wayne Parker (N. J.), a remarkable attendance, and they showed much interest.[69] Mrs.
Florence Kelley, second vice-president of the National Suffrage a.s.sociation, was in charge of the speakers and the hearing was opened by Representative A. W. Rucker (Col.), who had introduced the resolution for the Federal Amendment, as also had Representative F. W.