Riley, the local president. The Rev. Mrs. Blackwell paid a tribute to Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, who had pa.s.sed away, and after resolutions by Mrs. Colvin the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" was sung. Mrs. Decker presented a flag to the a.s.sociation in honor of Mrs. s.e.xton, the former president. Mrs. Kinsley gave a greeting from the Equal Franchise Society. How it Works in Wyoming was told by Mrs. May Preston Slosson, Ph.D., and Dr. Edwin A. Slosson. In the evening Mayor Charles J. Fisk welcomed the convention. Professor Earl Barnes, who had resided two years in England, gave an address on The Englishwoman.
Champlain Lord Riley of Plainfield announced the organization in Newark on March 23 of the Men"s League for Woman Suffrage with Dr.
William L. Saunders of Plainfield, president; Merton C. Leonard, Arlington, vice-president; Dr. Edward S. Krans, Plainfield, secretary; Edward F. Feickert, Dunellen, treasurer and 17 members.[119]
Mrs. Laddey was re-elected. Four new committees were appointed on Church Work, Mrs. Bartlett, chairman; Industrial Problems relating to Women and Children, Miss Bessie Pope; Endors.e.m.e.nt by Organizations, Mrs. Laddey; Education, Mrs. Riley. Public meetings were held in the various cities; prizes for school essays were awarded and a year book published. With the Equal Franchise Society the a.s.sociation had a hearing before the State Senate Committee on Education, Joseph S.
Frelinghuysen, chairman in behalf of a School suffrage bill. Mrs.
Laddey, Mrs. George T. Vickers, Mrs. Philip McKim Garrison, Mrs.
Frederick Merck, and Mrs. Kinsley appeared for the suffragists. The committee approved it but the Legislature rejected it.
In January, 1911, a luncheon was given by the a.s.sociation in Newark to Mrs. Minnie J. Reynolds, who had returned from work in the victorious campaign in the State of Washington. At a board meeting it was decided that some plan must be adopted for enrolling non-dues-paying members similar to that of the Woman Suffrage Party of New York. This name was taken for New Jersey and an Enrollment Committee was formed with Mrs.
Lillian F. Feickert of Dunellen chairman, to organize by political districts. Over a hundred New Jersey women marched in the second New York parade on May 4. The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony was placed in libraries. The three a.s.sociations agreed to unite in work for a suffrage measure in the Legislature and Dr. Luella Morrow, Miss Laddey, Miss Grace Selden and Mrs. Howe Hall were appointed to have charge of it. Mrs. Bartlett secured the favorable opinions of twelve New Jersey clergymen and had them printed for circulation. The Equal Justice League of young women was started in Bayonne with eighty members, Miss Dorothy Frooks, president. At this time the State a.s.sociation had fourteen branches and about 500 members.
The convention of 1911 was held in Willard Hall, Pa.s.saic, in November.
All rose to greet the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell when she entered. Mayor George N. Seger in his welcome said that all women who paid taxes should vote and with the ballot women could help many needed reforms. A hundred copies of the New York _American_ with an editorial on woman suffrage in New Jersey sent by Arthur Brisbane were distributed.
It was voted to ask Governor Woodrow Wilson, as a Presidential candidate, if he favored woman suffrage. Mrs. Rheta Childe Dorr of the editorial staff of _Hampton"s Magazine_ appealed for legislation in behalf of working girls. Miss Emma McCoy, president of the New Brunswick Teachers" a.s.sociation, made a plea for equal pay for women teachers. Addresses were given by Robert Elder, a.s.sistant district attorney of Kings county, N. Y.; Mrs. Raymond Brown of New York, Miss Melinda Scott of Newark, treasurer of the National Women"s Trade Union League, and Judge William H. Wood of New York. Dr. Hussey told of 10,000 leaflets distributed.
Mrs. Feickert described the successful house-to-house canva.s.s in Jersey City by Miss Pope and herself, by which the membership had increased to 1,400. Mrs. Decker announced the opening of the first State headquarters the next week in Newark with a volunteer committee in charge, Mrs. George G. Scott, chairman. Mrs. Vernona H. Henry of Newark was elected recording secretary and no other change was made in the board, most of whom had served over ten years. With the cooperation of all the societies the meeting at the auditorium in Newark addressed by Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst of England was a great success.
This record of details, much condensed, represents the seed-sowing in the first decade of the century in preparation for the harvest which came at the end of the second decade.
NEW JERSEY. PART II.[120]
In December, 1911, a Joint Legislative Committee, representing the four woman suffrage organizations in New Jersey was formed with Mrs.
George T. Vickers as chairman, and in January, 1912, a resolution for a submission to the voters of a woman suffrage amendment to the State const.i.tution was first introduced in the Legislature at the request of this committee.
On Oct. 25, 1912, a parade was given in Newark under the auspices of the State Suffrage a.s.sociation with all four organizations represented among the marchers, who numbered about 1,000 men and women. This was followed by a well-attended ma.s.s meeting at Proctor"s Theater, arranged by the Women"s Political Union, at which Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, president of the National Suffrage a.s.sociation, was the princ.i.p.al speaker.
The twenty-second annual convention of the a.s.sociation was held in Trenton in November, when the following officers were elected: President, Mrs. E. F. Feickert; first vice-president, Mrs. F. H.
Colvin; second, Miss Elinor Gebhardt; corresponding secretary, Mrs.
Charles P. t.i.tus; recording secretary, Mrs. Charles P. Eaton; treasurer, Mrs. Anna B. Jeffery; auditor, Miss Bessie Pope.
Twenty-five local branches were reported with a total membership of 2,200.
In December the Legislative Committee was re-organized on the basis of equal representation for each of the four organizations. Mrs. Everett Colby was elected chairman and Mrs. Minnie J. Reynolds was engaged as legislative secretary, who resigned in six months to become field organizer for the Women"s Political Union. This committee continued to function until 1917, when the Women"s Political Union, the Equal Franchise Society and the Men"s League having disbanded and their branches having joined the State a.s.sociation the political work was taken over by its Legislative Committee. In 1914 Mrs. Philip McKim Garrison succeeded Mrs. Colby and she was succeeded by Mrs. Robert S.
Huse in 1916. Among those who served actively were Miss Bessie Pope, who gave valuable and continuous service to the completion of suffrage work in 1920; Champlain Lord Riley, William L. Saunders, Everett Colby, Mrs. Mina C. Van Winkle, Mrs. Reynolds, Mrs R. T.
Newton, Miss Belle Tiffany, Mrs. Colvin, Mrs. James Billington and Mrs. Feickert.
In June, 1913, the Women"s Political Union held its first State conference, at which the following officers were elected: President, Mrs. Van Winkle; vice-presidents, Miss Julia S. Hurlbut, Mrs. E. T.
Lukens, Mrs. H. R. Reed, Mrs. W. H. Gardner, Miss Edna C. Wyckoff, Mrs. R. T. Newton, Miss Louise Antrim, Mrs. Carl Vail, Miss Louise Connolly; recording secretary, Miss Sara Crowell; executive secretary, Mrs. Reynolds; financial secretary, Mrs. Amelia Moorfield; treasurer, Mrs. Stewart Hartshorne. This was the only state-wide conference held until after the referendum election in 1915 and these officers continued to serve. The Equal Franchise Society"s president, Mrs.
Vickers, served from 1911 until it disbanded in 1915. Other active members were Mrs. H. Otto Wittpen and Mrs. Mary B. Kinsley.
On March 25, 1913, the State a.s.sociation held a jubilee ma.s.s meeting in Newark to celebrate submission of a State suffrage amendment by the Legislature. This spring it held a large and successful school for suffrage workers in Newark and the expenses of two volunteer organizers were paid for several months, Mrs. U. L. Decker and Miss Dille Hastings. In August its representatives took part in the demonstration at Washington, arranged by the National Congressional Committee, when pet.i.tions were presented to the Senate asking for the immediate submission of the Federal Amendment, Mrs. Champlain Lord Riley, Mrs. Colvin, Miss Helen Lippincott, Miss Edith Abbott and Mrs.
Feickert. The New Jersey pet.i.tions of several thousand names were unwillingly presented by Senator James E. Martine, who made a speech against woman suffrage at the same time.
At the annual convention held in Newark in November reports showed that the membership had more than doubled during the year, there being now 44 local branches with over 6,000 members. Three changes took place in the board, Miss Lippincott, elected second vice-president; Mrs. Edward Olmsted, treasurer and Mrs. Arthur Hunter, auditor. Just after this convention a delegation of 58 from the a.s.sociation and 17 from the Political Union went to Washington at the request of the National Congressional Committee to interview President Wilson in behalf of favorable action on the Federal Amendment by the House of Representatives. The committee could not arrange for a special interview but finally saw him by going to the White House at the hour set aside for the reception of the general public and made their request. The President was cordial and said that he was giving the matter careful consideration and hoped soon to take a decided stand which he thought the suffragists would find satisfactory. The speakers were its chairman, Mrs. Feickert, Mrs. Van Winkle and Miss Melinda Scott, who represented the organized working women of New Jersey.
In April, 1914, the State headquarters were transferred to Plainfield, the home of the president, who took charge of them. Board meetings were held in different sections of the State each month, followed by open conferences for suffragists from the nearby towns. Each of these was attended by from 50 to 250 and resulted in greatly increased activity in the branches. During the summer a number of county automobile tours were made, a "flying squadron" of decorated cars going from town to town, holding meetings and distributing literature.
These tours were well worked up and advertised and very successful. A great deal of the work connected with them was done by Miss Florence Halsey, a volunteer field organizer.
During July a week of suffrage meetings was held in Asbury Park, the auditorium there given free on condition that there should be debates and not merely presentations of suffrage. Over a hundred columns of publicity were secured for them in the New Jersey papers and during the week the hotels of Asbury Park and nearby resorts were canva.s.sed and thousands of leaflets and circulars given out. This year over 300,000 pieces of literature were distributed by the State a.s.sociation and the Political Union. A weekly press service was established by the a.s.sociation and news bulletins and special stories were sent regularly to over one hundred papers. The local branches of the a.s.sociation increased to 96 and of the Political Union to 15, with a membership of 22,000 and 4,000 respectively. At the annual convention of the a.s.sociation held in Camden in November the new officers elected were, second vice-president, Mrs. Robert P. Finley; corresponding secretary, Mrs. Bayard Naylor; recording secretary, Mrs. L. H. c.u.mmings. All attention and action were centered on the approaching campaign.
The resolution to submit the amendment had pa.s.sed two Legislatures and was to go to the voters at a special election Oct. 19, 1915. A Cooperative Committee was formed of three from the State a.s.sociation and the Women"s Political Union each and one each from the Equal Franchise Society and the Men"s League. A Committee of One Hundred was also organized to raise money for the campaign, Mrs. Colby chairman.
It obtained $9,000 which were used for the expenses of the Press Committee, that had its office at the National Suffrage headquarters in New York, for news bulletins every day, plate matter, interviews, stories, advertising cards and posters in the trolley cars and the stations of the Hudson Tunnels system; illuminated signs and street banners in New Jersey cities and a half-page advertis.e.m.e.nt in all the papers of the State at the end of the campaign. The executive secretary was Mrs. Flora Gapen Charters. The total amount of money raised and spent by the State and local organizations was approximately $80,000, obtained by dues and pledges, by collections at ma.s.s meetings, special luncheons and very largely by personal contributions from men and women.
The State a.s.sociation increased to 200 branches in twenty-four cities.
The Political Union maintained a large headquarters in Newark. Over 3,000,000 pieces of literature and 400,000 b.u.t.tons were distributed.
The a.s.sociation circularized all the women"s organizations of the State, the fraternal organizations, clergymen, grange officers, lawyers, office-holders and other special groups. Speakers were sent to grange picnics and county fairs. Street meetings took place regularly in all the princ.i.p.al cities and towns and automobile tours over the State. Over 4,000 outdoor and 500 indoor meetings were held.
Four paid and thirty volunteer organizers were kept in the field for eight months.
The a.s.sociation arranged a conference of the leaders of the four campaign States, New York, Pennsylvania, Ma.s.sachusetts and New Jersey, which was held in East Orange in connection with the celebration on August 13 of the birthday of its founder, Lucy Stone. There was a pilgrimage of suffragists from almost every county, and, after exercises at her old home and the unveiling by her daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell, of a tablet placed in front of the house, there was an automobile parade through the nearby towns, winding up with a ma.s.s meeting in the park in East Orange, where Dr. Shaw and ex-Governor John Franklin Fort were the princ.i.p.al speakers.
The Women"s Political Union conducted a "handing on the torch"
demonstration which was quite effective. The New York Union supplied a large torch of bronze, which Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, representing New York, took with her on a tugboat half way across the Hudson River, where she was met by a New Jersey tug bearing Mrs. Van Winkle, to whom the torch was delivered. It was sent about the State to twenty or more towns where the Union had branches and its arrival was made the occasion for an outdoor reception and ma.s.s meeting.
The Women"s Anti-Suffrage a.s.sociation was also busy. It paid the salaries and expenses of two New Jersey speakers, Mrs. O. D. Oliphant of Trenton and John A. Matthews of Newark, an ex-a.s.semblyman, and brought in a number of outside speakers. It never claimed to have more than fifteen local branches and 18,000 members. Among the more prominent were the president, Mrs. E. Yarde Breese of Plainfield; Mrs.
Thomas J. Preston, Mrs. Garrett A. Hobart, Mrs. Carroll P. Ba.s.sett, Miss Anna Dayton, Robert C. Maxwell, Miss Clara A. Vezin, Mrs.
Hamilton F. Kean, Mrs. Alexander F. Jamieson, Mrs. Charles W.
MacQuoid, Mrs. Thomas B. Adams, Miss Anne McIlvaine and Mrs. Sherman B. Joost.
James R. Nugent of Newark, prominent as the champion of the "wets" and the "antis," paid the salary of Edward J. Handley, an ex-newspaperman of Newark, and gave him a suite of offices in the Wise building with several clerks. His "publicity" kept the amendment on the front pages of the papers and the suffragists were always able to refute and disprove his statements. The intensive campaign carried on among the editors for the past two or three years bore fruit and 80 per cent. of the newspapers by actual canva.s.s favored the amendment, and frequently when the front page carried a story against suffrage it was contradicted on the editorial page. Among editors who were particularly strong friends were James Kerney and John E. Sines of the Trenton _Evening Times_; Joseph A. Dear and Julius Grunow of the Jersey City _Journal_; John L. Matthews of the Paterson _Press Guardian_; George M. Hart of the Pa.s.saic _Daily News_; the Boyds of the New Brunswick _Home News_; J. L. Clevenger of the Perth Amboy _Evening News_; William H. Fischer of the New Jersey _Courier_; George W. Swift of the Elizabeth _Daily Journal_ and E. A. Bristor of the Pa.s.saic _Herald_.
Three weeks before the election President Wilson announced himself in favor of the amendment, and he and his private secretary, Joseph P.
Tumulty, made a special trip to New Jersey to vote for it. This had a marked effect over the country.
The Legislative Committee having secured a bill allowing women to watch at the polls, watchers" schools were held in every important city under the direction of Mrs. Colvin, with the result that at the election 1,657 of the 1,891 polling places in the State were supplied with trained women watchers.
On election day Nugent and his lieutenants worked all day at the Newark polling places and the suffragists were positive that hundreds of voters were imported from New York and other places, which was possible because men could vote on the amendment without having previously registered. Nugent is reported to have said: "We knew we had the amendment beaten when the election was put on registration day." This was done against the protests of the suffragists. Men voted on it at the same time they registered and in the police canva.s.s made before the general election, the names of several thousand illegally registered were taken off the books in Ess.e.x and Hudson counties, all of whom had a chance to vote on the amendment. All day in all the cities the women watchers saw little groups of men taken into saloons opposite the polling places by persons avowedly working to defeat it, instructed how to vote on it, marshalled to the polling place and after voting taken back to the saloon to be paid.
Finding at the last moment that no provision was made by the State to pay for sending in returns from special elections, the State a.s.sociation arranged with the a.s.sociated Press to obtain its own returns and a wire was run into the suffrage headquarters in Jersey City. By midnight complete returns were in from 70 per cent. of the State, due to the splendid cooperation of the county and local suffrage chairmen, who knew only one day in advance that this work would be required of them. A manager of the a.s.sociated Press said that they had never handled an election where the returns came in faster or more accurately and few where they came in as well.
The election resulted in a vote of 317,672, a very large one considering that the Presidential vote in 1912 had been only 459,000.
The vote in favor of the suffrage amendment was 133,281, or 42 per cent. of the whole; against, 184,391, defeated by 51,110. Ocean county was the only one carried but 126 cities and towns were carried and a number of counties gave from 46 to 49 per cent. in favor.
Two weeks after their defeat several hundred New Jersey suffragists went to New York and Philadelphia to march in the suffrage parades, taking the biggest and best band in the State and carrying at the head of their division a runner twenty feet long reading: New Jersey--Delayed but not Defeated.
The State convention of 1915 was postponed until January, 1916, when it was held in Elizabeth. There were then 215 local branches with a membership of over 50,000. No discouragement was visible but a program of educational work and intensive organization was adopted, money was pledged for the salaries of three field organizers and it was decided to have a bill for Presidential suffrage introduced in the Legislature. Mrs. Ward D. Kerlin, second vice-president, was the only new officer elected. A new const.i.tution was adopted putting the a.s.sociation on a non-dues-paying basis, providing for an annual budget and re-organization of the State by congressional districts.
In June New Jersey was represented at the National Republican convention in Chicago by Mrs. Feickert, Miss Esther G. Ogden, Mrs. E.
G. Blaisdell, Miss A. E. Cameron and Mrs. Joseph Marvel. All of the New Jersey delegates were interviewed and twelve of the twenty-eight promised to support a suffrage plank in the platform.
In July the Women"s Political Union disbanded and its local branches joined the State a.s.sociation. The national suffrage convention held at Atlantic City in September gave a great impetus to the State work.
The annual convention met in Jersey City in November, where it was decided to conduct a strenuous campaign during 1917 for Presidential suffrage and for the Federal Amendment and to employ four field organizers. The new officers elected were Mrs. John J. White, Miss Lulu H. Marvel, Mrs. J. Thompson Baker, vice-presidents; Miss Anita Still, auditor. The Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell and Dr. Mary D.
Hussey were added to the list of honorary presidents.
A bill for Presidential suffrage was introduced in the Legislature in February, 1917, and everything was going finely when war was declared.
The suffrage a.s.sociation was the first women"s organization in the State to offer its services to the Governor and was publicly thanked by him for its patriotic stand. At his request it conducted a canva.s.s of women nurses, doctors and clerical workers and received letters of thanks from him and the Adjutant General for this very successful piece of work. It cooperated in the organization of a Woman"s Division of the State Council of National Defense and its president, Mrs.
Feickert, was vice-chairman of the Council. The a.s.sociation purchased and operated a Soldiers" Club House and canteen in the town of Wrightstown, near which Camp Dix was located. It was opened in November, 1917, and was kept open until June, 1919, by volunteer workers. Over $30,000 were raised for it, one-fifth of this amount being contributed by Mrs. White. More than 250,000 men were entertained there. Officers and members of the a.s.sociation responded to all demands of the war.
The annual convention was held in the Capitol at Trenton in November.