which is supposed to satisfy every craving of the female heart. Our club will be twenty-one years old in November, and--we want to vote!
We will make you most heartily welcome and most of us will also welcome the principles for which you stand."
Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch (Ills.), first vice-president of the National a.s.sociation, in responding said: "Now we know definitely that all the things we have heard about Kentucky are true; we have met her brave women and handsome colonels. While we remember all the tradition of the past we live in the present. Kentucky is proud of what her men named Clay have done in the past but it is a pleasure to us to know that today when Kentucky wants anything done she appeals to a woman who is either Clay by name or Clay by blood." Another chivalry is coming into the world besides that felt by a strong man for a beautiful woman. It is that felt by strong women for their weaker and less fortunate sisters. It is the chivalry foreshadowed by Spenser in The Faerie Queene, in Britomart, the n.o.ble knight, herself a woman, who rescued Amoretta and devoted herself to the help of all weak and helpless women."
a.s.sistant District Attorney Omar E. Garwood of Denver, a founder and the secretary of the Men"s Defense League, to refute the misrepresentations of the practical working of woman suffrage in Colorado, was introduced and outlined its work. Mrs. Alexander Pope Humphrey was presented and gave a cordial invitation to a reception for the convention at her home, Truecastle, at the close of the afternoon session, which was as cordially accepted. Mrs. Ben Hardin Helm, a sister of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, was greeted and expressed her sympathy with the work of the a.s.sociation.
After these pleasant ceremonies at the morning session the convention immediately proceeded to business and listened to the reports from the various committees. That of the new corresponding secretary, Mrs. Mary Ware Dennett, gave a graphic ill.u.s.tration of the rapid increase in the size and scope of the work in her department. After describing the demands from almost every State and saying that the correspondence had doubled during the past year while the output of literature had tripled, she continued:
The correspondence with Canada has been very interesting and has steadily increased and we have sent a good deal of literature to British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia. Literature and letters have gone to Switzerland, Finland and even j.a.pan, in answer to requests, the j.a.panese correspondent being in the midst of writing a book on the rights of women, because, as he quaintly put it, he believed there was "undoubtedly a truth in it." We have a steadily increasing stream of requests for suitable programs for study clubs, also a sudden spurt of requests for suffrage speakers from the Federation of Women"s Clubs. The example of the last Biennial, when woman suffrage appeared for the first time on the official program of the Federation, has precipitated almost an epidemic of suffrage meetings in the State federations and local clubs.
The Official Board of the a.s.sociation has made a serious recommendation to the State officers to push the plan of political district organization as the best and most systematic and reliable way of preparing for the submission of a suffrage amendment. A leaflet giving the details of the plan has been published and widely distributed and it has been accepted as scheduled or in modified form in ten States, in most of which the name Woman Suffrage Party has been adopted, following the example of New York City, which was the first to adapt the enrollment work long ago established by the National a.s.sociation to the needs of modern political action.... The National office prepared reports of the work of the a.s.sociation for the meeting of the U.
S. National Council of Women and for the congress of the International Suffrage Alliance in Stockholm. We have established an exchange of propaganda with the International Shop in London.
At the suggestion of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt we have cooperated with the Women"s Enfranchis.e.m.e.nt League of Cape Colony, South Africa, by asking a large number of American women writers to send copies of their books to an exhibition and sale there of women"s work.
Since our last convention there have been two annual meetings of the House of Governors, the first in Kentucky, at which Miss Laura Clay obtained a hearing and presented our cause in a most admirable address; the second in New Jersey, at which a hearing was obtained for Dr. Shaw, who was accorded every courtesy and received with heartiest enthusiasm by the Governors and afterwards by their wives. In Kentucky Governor Wilson was largely instrumental in securing the hearing; in New Jersey, although the governor is also a Wilson, he is unfortunately an "anti," but by the efforts of Governor Shafroth of Colorado, a place on the program was made for Dr. Shaw.
Two valuable compilations have been made, one showing how many times and when and what sort of suffrage bills have been introduced into Legislatures in the last ten years, and the other showing the exact procedure necessary for amending the const.i.tutions of the various States. Under the direction of Mrs.
Catharine Waugh McCulloch, our legal adviser, a series of questions on the legal status of women has been printed and sent with letters to the various States. The returns will be published in pamphlet form. At the suggestion of Miss Clay, letters were sent to all members of Congress urging their effort to include women as electors in the bill providing for the direct election of U. S. Senators. Copies of _Hampton"s Magazine_ for April were sent to special lists of people in Wisconsin, Kansas and California, which contained Mrs. Rheta Childe Dorr"s article on Colorado Women Voters.
We have published 30,000 copies of the "What to Do" leaflet, which have been sent out gratis, some States applying for 3,000 at once; California sent for 10,000 and evidently learned "What to Do" effectively. We issued 45,000 of the little convention seals and the supply has hardly held out. The drawing for the seal was the contribution of Miss Charlotte Shetter of New Jersey. Through the equally generous cooperation of Mrs. Helen Hoy Greeley of New York we have been able to give free of charge for use on letters 13,000 "suffrage stamps." Another bit of cooperation in both labor and money was that between headquarters and Mrs. Raymond Brown, president of the Woman Suffrage Study Club, who with members of her a.s.sociation addressed and sent to about a thousand presidents of suffrage clubs all over the country two copies of Miss Blackwell"s striking editorial in answer to Richard Barry"s slanderous statements about Colorado, together with a note asking each president to send one copy to the editor of the _Ladies" Home Journal_, in which Barry"s article had appeared, with her own personal protest, and the other to the editor of some paper in her vicinity. The result was a perfect avalanche of protests to the editor of the unfortunate magazine.
The treasurer"s report was divided between Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, who had resigned the office, and Miss Jessie Ashley, her successor, and it showed the receipts from all sources, January, 1910, to January, 1911, to have been $43,844; the disburs.e.m.e.nts, $34,838.
Pledges were made at this convention to the amount of $12,251, including $1,000 from Mrs. George Howard Lewis of Buffalo; $1,000 from Mrs. Donald Hooker of Baltimore, and $3,000 by Dr. Shaw from a contributor not named.
Miss Agnes E. Ryan, business manager of the _Woman"s Journal_, reported the many changes made in the paper during the year since it became the official organ of the a.s.sociation and the removal of its offices from Beacon Street to 585 Bolyston Street in the building with the Ma.s.sachusetts and Boston woman suffrage a.s.sociations and the New England Woman"s Club. The advertising had increased from $256 a year to $852 and the circulation from 4,000 to nearly 15,000. The methods by which the increase had been obtained were described. The contract with the a.s.sociation was renewed.
Miss Caroline I. Reilly gave her first report as chairman of the Press Committee in the course of which she said:
The annual reports of the National Press Bureau formerly made by Miss Elizabeth J. Hauser, who so long and ably conducted this department, had reached so high a standard and the foundation laid by her was so substantial and solid that it was possible for us to meet the new conditions and increased volume of work with systematic and business-like methods. Then came Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, with her literary ability and historical knowledge, to open a new field for suffrage propaganda through the magazines, the great syndicates and Sunday papers in the large cities. Thus you will see that when the present chairman took charge of the bureau it had been so splendidly developed by her predecessors that she found only hard work and plenty of it.
During the eighteen months since the last convention the records show that we have written 5,584 letters. We are in constant receipt of letters from all over the world written in various languages, the majority containing inquiries regarding suffrage methods in this country and what has been accomplished by our enfranchised women.... We have furnished material for one hundred magazine articles, which have appeared in various periodicals....
Our list of newspaper syndicates has increased to nine, some of which are international, and since the last convention we have furnished them 1,314 articles, many by special request. Every one of these syndicates asked for detailed accounts of this convention, together with personal sketches of the officers and speakers. The a.s.sociated Press has sent out suffrage news as occasion warranted and has solicited our cooperation.... Last December we resumed the weekly press bulletin and since then we have mailed 31,200. These weekly items are regularly mailed to press chairmen and newspapers in forty-one States, also to Canada, Alaska and Cuba, and every day brings requests for more.
A number of monthly pamphlets issued by women"s clubs use them.
Papers devoted to the labor movement publish them regularly and very often give helpful suggestions. The bureau is impressed with the fact that in future the farm papers should receive serious consideration.... One of these, with a circulation of nearly 400,000 has offered us s.p.a.ce for suffrage articles to be supplied regularly and this work should be carefully looked after, especially in agricultural States like Kansas and Wisconsin, where campaigns are now in progress.
We have responded to fifty requests from schools and colleges for information to be utilized in debates, lectures and school magazines.... The records show that we have replied to 1,214 adverse editorials and letters in papers from Maine to California and secured s.p.a.ce in New York City papers for 2,163 notices and articles without any charge to us. We have received and read 62,519 clippings gathered for us by the press clipping bureau, 9,163 of them cut from New York papers alone. Representatives of newspapers and magazines from the following countries have come to us for material: Australia, Finland, Alaska, France, Germany, England, Sweden, Norway, j.a.pan, Wales, Denmark, Russia, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Holland, Hawaii, South America and Canada, as well as from nearly every State in the Union. A number of Sunday papers in the large cities are devoting weekly s.p.a.ce to suffrage departments, beginning by publishing the press items and gradually expanding.... Some of the more serious magazines have recently solicited our cooperation, notably the _Literary Digest_ and the _American Review of Reviews_, whose political editor called personally a few days ago and requested that we send him regularly such suffrage news as we may have at hand, that the items may be embodied in reports of the world"s political news.
Another important feature of the work of the bureau consists in furnishing material to press chairmen and others to be used in answering attacks on suffrage in their local papers.
Miss Reilly complimented the work of the press chairmen in the States, speaking especially of Mrs. D. D. Terry of Little Rock, who furnished material to seventy-five papers in Arkansas and to a syndicate reaching the weekly papers of the southwest.
A conference was held in the afternoon on the Proper Function of the National a.s.sociation, led by Dr. M. Carey Thomas of Bryn Mawr and Dr.
Anna E. Blount of Chicago. The first evening of the convention was designated as Jubilee Night and Dr. Shaw said in beginning her president"s address: "The eighteen months which have elapsed since our last convention have been permeated with suffrage activity. Never in an equal length of time has there been such rapid progress in the enlistment of recruits and the development of active service. By an aggressive out-of-door campaign the message has been carried to a not unwilling people. Never was there a more signal example of manly loyalty to womanhood than in the three-to-one vote for woman suffrage in Washington in 1910. Following close upon it comes the signal victory of California, where as never before were the friends and foes of woman"s freedom so equally lined up. Wherever vice, corruption and cupidity held sway, there the vote for woman suffrage was weak.
Wherever refinement, education, industry and self-respecting manhood and womanhood dwelt, there the vote in favor of women was strong.
These are the battles in this war for justice which have been victorious. Others have been and are being fought at the present time with equal courage."
Graphic accounts were given of the successful campaign in Washington, where the amendment was carried in every county, by Mrs. Caroline M.
Smith of Seattle, Mrs. E. A. Sh.o.r.es of Tacoma and Mrs. May Arkwright Hutton of Spokane; and of the one in California by Mrs. Elizabeth Lowe Watson, president of the State Suffrage a.s.sociation, and J. H. Braly, president of the Political Equality League. Later Miss Frances Wills of Los Angeles; Miss Florence Dwight of Pasadena; Mrs. Mary E.
Ringrose, Mrs. Mary S. Sperry of San Francisco, former State president, and Mrs. Rose French were introduced. Mrs. Watson in an eloquent address showed how their success was the culmination of the campaign of 1896 and the result of the years of hard and constant work between that time and the present.
When Mr. Braly began speaking he presented, the a.s.sociation with the State flag of California, saying: "The grizzly bear is the king of all American beasts. On the flag, you see, he has a beautiful golden star above his head--the star of hope that brought our Pilgrim fathers across the sea finally coming to rest over the Golden State. There that star of hope and progress and freedom hung for more than sixty years, until Oct. 10, 1911, when it flamed forth with a wondrous brilliancy and started all the bells of heaven ringing." He predicted that Oregon, Arizona and Nevada would soon follow the example of California and said: "Then the star will cross the Rocky Mountains and in will come the States of the Middle West!" Continuing the story the speaker said:
In January, 1910, the last meeting of the last suffrage society in Southern California was held in the parlor of the Angeles Hotel in the city of Los Angeles. The women were discouraged and dispirited. I rode home alone in my car, my heart weeping and praying a prayer ten miles long, that being the distance to my home in Pasadena. That night I had a vision. I saw in panorama a future glory of my beloved State. I saw well-kept cities and churches filled with devout worshippers; I saw thousands of bright-faced, happy children going to clean schoolhouses and romping and laughing in their playgrounds. I saw, oh, so many sweet and happy homes! I saw no saloons, no drunken men, no places of vice. I saw men and women, husbands and wives, going up to the ballot booths, laughing and chatting as they went and placing their ballots in the boxes. Everything seemed beautiful.
The vision pa.s.sed and I said to myself, "There it is--the women of California will have the ballot and the blessings and glory will follow."
Now we come to the beginning of the movement that has had much to do in the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the women of California. I trust you will entirely lose sight of the speaker and see only the great cause away out in the West. A man sat in his room one night with pencil and paper before him. He began to write names of big men who ought to take an interest in the pending suffrage campaign.
He wrote down about one hundred names and the next day started out alone to see them. Then followed two months of patient, personal work and about seventy good men and true had signed the league membership form, which read as follows: "The undersigned hereby a.s.sociate themselves together under the name and style of the Political Equality League of California for the purpose of securing political equality and suffrage without distinction on account of s.e.x." On April 5, 1910, they met around a banquet table and organized the league. Then followed earnest, enthusiastic, impromptu speaking by many of the members....
Mr. Braly told of going to Washington to the national convention, visiting suffrage headquarters in New York and returning home in June, when "immediately the league"s Board of Governors, consisting of nine men, met and proceeded to add to it nine splendid women. Headquarters were fitted up and business began." He described the vigorous work of their Legislative Committee with the result that every member from the nine southern counties went to the Legislature pledged to vote for submitting a suffrage amendment.
Sat.u.r.day morning was partly occupied by a conference on How to Reach the Uninterested, in which fifteen members from as many States took an animated part; and by one on Propaganda, led by Mrs. Grace Gallatin Seton (Conn.) and Miss Mary Winsor (Penn.). Throughout all the daytime sessions valuable and interesting reports on the work in the different States were read. The proposed new const.i.tution was vigorously discussed whenever the time permitted. The delegation from Illinois came with a request that the national headquarters be removed to Chicago but the convention decided to have them remain in New York.
The College Equal Suffrage League held a business meeting in the Seelbach Hotel at ten o"clock followed by a luncheon for college and professional women. The president of the League, Dr. M. Carey Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College, was toast mistress and Dr. Shaw and Miss Jane Addams were guests of honor. One especially enjoyable feature was Miss Anita C. Whitney"s account of the excellent work done by the College League of California in the recent campaign. [For all the above California reports see chapter for that State in Volume VI.]
The report of the National Congressional Committee by its chairman, Miss Emma M. Gillett, a lawyer of Washington, D. C., showed a decided advance in political work over all preceding years. She had placed on her committee Mrs. Upton, Mrs. Elizabeth King Ellicott (Md.), Miss Mary Gray Peck (N. Y.), Mrs. Katharine Reed Balentine (Me. and Cal.) and Miss Belle Kearney (Miss.). State presidents were invited to cooperate and lists of the nominees for Congress in their States were sent to them. The Democratic National Committee furnished the names of its nominees; the Republican National Committee practically refused to do so. Letters asking their opinion on woman suffrage were sent to 378 Democratic and 293 Republican candidates; 135 of the former and 88 of the latter answered; 93 Democrats and 65 Republicans were in favor of full or partial suffrage for women; 13 of the former and one of the latter were opposed; 29 and 23 non-committal. The letters received were almost without exception of a pleasant nature. The District Suffrage a.s.sociation paid a stenographer and rent of headquarters for the work of sixteen months. Contributions of only $214 were received for it, $100 from U. S. Senator Isaac Stevenson of Wisconsin.
The report on official endors.e.m.e.nts of conventions showed the usual large number, political, religious, agricultural, labor, etc. Mrs.
Dennett estimated that such endors.e.m.e.nts had now been given by organizations representing 26,000,000 members.
Mrs. Pauline Steinem, chairman of the Committee on Education, reported sub-committees in sixteen States working for suitable text books, encouraging the placing of women on school boards, organizing mothers"
and parents" clubs, offering prizes for essays on woman suffrage, encouraging methods of self-government in schools, etc. The chairman for New Jersey announced that Governor Woodrow Wilson approved of School suffrage and that State Senator Joseph S. Frelinghuysen, president of the State Board of Education, recommended it in his last report.
College Women"s Evening, as always, attracted one of the largest audiences of the week. In the course of an address on What Women Might Accomplish with the Franchise, Miss Jane Addams said:
Sydney Webb points out that while the wages of British working men have increased from 50 to 100 per cent. during the past sixty years the wages of working women have remained stationary. The exclusion from all political rights of five million working women in England is not only a source of industrial weakness and poverty to themselves but a danger to English industry. Working women can not hope to hold their own in industrial matters where their interests may clash with those of their enfranchised fellow workers or employers. They must force an entrance into the ranks of responsible citizens, in whose hands lies the solution to the problems which are at present convulsing the industrial world.
Much of the new demand for political enfranchis.e.m.e.nt arises from a pa.s.sionate desire to reform the unsatisfactory and degrading social conditions which are responsible for so much wrong doing.
The fate of all the unfortunate, the suffering, the criminal, is daily forced upon woman"s attention in painful and intimate ways.
It is inevitable that humanitarian women should wish to vote concerning all the regulations of public charities which have to do with the care of dependent children and the Juvenile Courts, pensions to mothers in distress, care of the aged poor, care of the homeless, conditions of jails and penitentiaries, gradual elimination of the social evil, extended care of young girls, suppression of gambling, regulation of billboard advertising and other things.
Perhaps the woman who leads the domestic life is more in need of the franchise than any other. One could easily name the regulations of the State that define her status in the community.
Among them are laws regulating marriage and divorce, defining the legitimacy of children, defining married women"s property rights, exemption and homestead laws which protect her when her husband is bankrupt. Then there are the laws regulating her functions as mother to her children.
Dr. Thomas, who presided, spoke on What Woman Suffrage Means to College Women. Only fragmentary newspaper reports are available but she said in beginning: "We are entering an age of social reconstruction and general betterment and no cla.s.s today are spending more of their strength and energy to eradicate the wrongs which have resulted from a defective system that denies woman her rights, than the cla.s.s of women who have received a college education. These efforts, however, amount to little as long as the franchise is denied compared to what is in the reach of possibility. Our efforts have been rewarded to a great extent but until woman has come into her own and is recognized and treated as a citizen of the State on an equal footing with man, our work will continue to be a mere scratching on the surface. Between 30 and 40 per cent. of the college women today are supporting themselves. It is the educated woman who is making the fight for equality and our hope lies in education, the education of both men and women."
Dr. Shaw presided over the Sunday afternoon meeting at which four notable addresses were made. Miss Mary Johnston"s subject was Wanted, an Architect, and in eloquent words she showed how woman might be developed physically, mentally and spiritually, with the conclusion: "She can do what she wills and now the thing above all others to be desired is that she wills to act. The time has pa.s.sed when indifference on her part will be tolerated. Women must rouse themselves to action, the crying needs of the hour demand it. With the ballot in our hands and with the will to produce better conditions our achievements will be unsurpa.s.sed." Professor Sophonisba Breckinridge, dean of the Junior College of Women in Chicago University, considered with keen a.n.a.lysis woman suffrage in its relation to the interests of the wage-earning woman. The Rev. Caroline Bartlett Crane (Mich.) presented A New Phase of Home Rule for Cities, saying in conclusion: "Politics at its best is a n.o.ble profession in which we earnestly desire to engage. Woman"s age-long experience in home-making and mothering of children has fitted her for politics just as well as have man"s activities in trade fitted him."
Dr. Shaw introduced Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, Chief of the Government Bureau of Chemistry, as "the man who is trying to get us women a fair chance to live," and he jokingly answered that in view of the swift advance of the woman suffrage movement it was a question whether men would continue to have a chance to live. His topic was Woman"s Influence in Public Affairs, "which," he said, "are the summing up of private affairs." In his address he said:
I am not a newcomer myself. My first suffrage address was made in 1877. I believe it is almost useless to work on us old folks. The reforms in our politics and ethics must begin with the children.
Educate them to the right and justice of woman suffrage even before they are born. Instill the idea in them at school; see that they get the proper kind of an education. Women have done wonders in securing our splendid system of public schools....
Women have intellect enough and some to spare. What we want is more ethics. A sense of justice and right is just as important to this country as intellectual strength. Women have the instinct of right. I have never known an organized body of women to be on the wrong side of a public question, although as individuals women sometimes get the wrong point of view, just as men are p.r.o.ne to do. I want equal suffrage because it is right. I want it also because it would have a great effect on woman"s influence in public affairs and would help powerfully to get the right thing done. The very fact that woman had the vote would be a restraining and elevating influence. The women have been a tower of strength to every official in this country who has tried to do his duty. Take the question of pure food: I could tell you by the hour of the support that I have had from women and women"s organizations. I should despair if I thought that the women did not stand for pure food.
We have in this country problems which I almost fear to face.
Among them is the great problem of the relation between the wage-earner and the capitalist; that of the distribution of the necessities of life; that of the congestion in the cities and depopulation of the country districts. These and many others will take all the wisdom and sympathetic insight of men and women together to solve them. I am glad that men are to have the help of women. They are just entering on their career of greater usefulness in public affairs. With the ballot in their hands they will be endowed with a power much stronger than they have ever had before and they will wield it, I am sure, on the side of right and justice.
Sunday evening the officers of the a.s.sociation were "at home" to delegates, speakers and friends in the parlors of the Hotel Seelbach.
Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, who, to the great happiness of suffragists on several continents, had entirely recovered her health, was now making a trip around the world in the interest of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, of which she was president. At one session a letter from her was read, dated at Kimberly, South Africa, which was enthusiastically received. It said in part: