"We are a race of dreamers in the South by choice and because of climatic conditions," said Mrs. Guilford Dudley in an eloquent address. After a keenly sarcastic comparison between southern chivalry and the unjust laws for women, and the observation that "the only business a southern girl is taught is the business of hearts," she said:
As long as it was a question of woman"s rights; as long as the fight had any appearance of being against man; as long as there seemed to be a vestige of s.e.x antagonism, the southern woman stood with her back turned squarely toward the cause. She wouldn"t even turn around to look at it, she would have none of it, but when she awoke slowly to a social consciousness, when eyes and brain were at last free, after a terrible reconstruction period, to look out upon the world as a whole; when she found particularly among the more fortunate cla.s.ses that her leisure had come to mean laziness; when she realized that through the changed conditions of modern life so much of her work had been taken out of the home, leaving her to choose between following it into the world or remaining idle; when with a clearer vision she saw that her help in governmental affairs, especially where they touched her own interests, was much needed--right about face she turned and said to the southern man: "I don"t wish to usurp your place in government but it is time I had my own. I don"t complain of the way you have conducted your part of the business but my part has been either badly managed or not managed at all. In the past you have not shown yourself averse to accepting my help in very serious matters; my courage and fort.i.tude and wisdom you have continually praised. Now that there is a closer connection between the government and the home than ever before in the history of the world, I ask that you will let me help you."
Mrs. Dudley described the effect of the demand for woman suffrage on the politicians, on the men who feared they would be "reformed," on the sentimentalists, and then she paid tribute to the broad-minded, justice-loving men who encouraged the women in their new aspirations and concluded: "So you see not only the southern woman but the southern man is now awake and present conditions strongly indicate that before another year has pa.s.sed we will have some form of suffrage for the woman of Tennessee.... We have had a vision--a vision of a time when a woman"s home will be the whole wide world, her children all those whose feet are bare and her sisters all who need a helping hand; a vision of a new knighthood, a new chivalry, when men will not only fight for women but for the rights of women."
The plea of Mrs. Valentine for a higher womanhood should be given in full but an idea at least can be gained by a quotation:
If I were asked to give one reason above all others for advocating the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women I should unhesitatingly reply, "The necessity for the complete development of woman as a prerequisite for the highest development of the race." Just so long as woman remains under guardianship, as if she were a minor or an incompetent--just so long as she pa.s.sively accepts at the hands of men conditions, usages, laws, as if they were decrees of Providence--just so long as she is deprived of the educative responsibilities of self-government--by just so much does she fall short of complete development as a human being and r.e.t.a.r.d the progress of the race. We are the children of our mothers as well as of our fathers and we inherit the defects as well as the perfections of both. Many a man goes down in his business--is a "failure in life," as the phrase goes--because he is the son of an undeveloped mother and, like her, is lacking in independence, in initiative, in ability to seize upon golden opportunities. Yet she was trained to pa.s.sivity, to submission, to the obliteration of whatever personality she may have possessed. What more could we expect of her son? Imagine for a moment the effect upon men had they from infancy been subjected to the narrowing, ossifying processes applied to women for centuries!
Happily for the race, however, the great majority of women are waking from the sleep of centuries, are eagerly stretching out their hands for the key that is to open wide the door of larger opportunity. Happily, too, the forward-looking men of today are seeing the vision of womanhood released from the old-world thraldom. In rapidly increasing numbers they are welcoming the new woman, in whom they find not only the wife and mother more fully equipped for her task but a comrade of congenial tastes, keenly interested in the outside world and capable of taking her place beside the husband, whether in peace or war, wherever her country calls.... The suffrage movement is a world-wide protest against the mental subjection of woman. Therein lies its vital importance. It strikes deep into the core of life. It is a basic, fundamental reform, for it is releasing for the service of the State the unused natural resources dormant in womanhood; it is transforming the dependent woman into woman enfranchised that she may the more perfectly fulfill her destiny as the mother of the race.
The morning and afternoon sessions were crowded with reports, conferences and business of various kinds in which the delegates were keenly interested. Mrs. Grace Thompson Seton, chairman of the Art Publicity Committee, gave an interesting account of its work, told of the prizes that had been offered for posters and slogans and the cooperation of men and women prominent in the literary, artistic and social world; of the "teas" given at the national headquarters, bringing many who had never visited them before: of the beautiful banners and costumes designed for the suffrage parades and other features of this somewhat neglected side of the work for woman suffrage. The chairman of the Literature Committee, Mrs. Arthur L.
Livermore, submitted a comprehensive report of the systematizing of that department, the cla.s.sifying and cataloguing and the endeavor to ascertain and meet the varied demands. A Suffrage Study Outline, a Blue Book Suffrage School and Mrs. Annie G. Porritt"s Laws Relating to Women and Children had been published; literature for the rural districts, for the home, for campaigns, placards, fliers and an endless number of novelties.
It would be impossible to give in a few paragraphs even an idea of the carefully prepared report of Mrs. Mary Sumner Boyd, the skilled head of the Data Department, which filled eight printed pages. It told of the progress that had been made in organizing the department, the wide scope of the collections and the increasing demand for information from many sources. It would be equally difficult to do justice to the sixteen printed pages of the report of Charles T. Heaslip, national publicity director. He had organized a publicity council, which thus far had members in twenty-six States. His full knowledge of the large syndicates had enabled him to keep the subject before the public throughout the country; he had made wide use of photographs, cartoons, posters and moving pictures. Hundreds of papers on the route of the "golden flier" had been supplied with pictures and stories. He had gone to Iowa to a.s.sist in the campaign there and he described also the large amount of publicity work done at the time the suffragists were making their national demonstrations during the presidential conventions in Chicago and St. Louis. He showed how victory could be hastened by thorough publicity work in every State from Maine to California. Later the Chair announced the receipt of a letter from the press, signed by representatives of nineteen newspapers at the convention, expressing their thanks to Mr. Heaslip and their hearty appreciation of his services, without which they could not have handled its press work in a satisfactory manner.
Under the topic How and Where to Drive the Entering Wedge, Miss Florence Allen of Ohio told of the openings offered by amending city charters for woman suffrage and Mrs. Roger G. Perkins described the successful campaign in East Cleveland for this purpose. The recent campaigns in West Virginia and South Dakota were discussed by the State presidents, Mrs. Ellis A. Yost and Mrs. John L. Pyle; that of Iowa by Mrs. Geyer, publicity director, and the work in Tennessee for a const.i.tutional convention by Mrs. James M. McCormack, State president. The chairman of the Presidential Suffrage Committee, Mrs.
Robert S. Huse (N. J.), reported that bills had been introduced in the Legislatures of New York, New Jersey, Kentucky and Rhode Island, public hearings being granted by the first three, but no vote was taken.
Is Limited Suffrage Worth While? was answered by Mrs. George Ba.s.s (Ills.) who declared it to be "a positive influence for good"; it was called by Mrs. Grace Wilbur Trout (Ills.) "a step toward full suffrage"; by Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton (Ohio) "a help to other States." Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch described "the chances opened by the Illinois law." It was the consensus of opinion that partial suffrage was quite worth striving for. This was directly opposed to that heretofore held by the a.s.sociation but in the past only a Munic.i.p.al vote had been asked for and Kansas alone had granted it.
Miss Laura Clay (Ky.) made a strong presentation of the Elections Bill, which would permit women to vote for members of Congress. What Kansas Thinks about Woman Suffrage was graphically told by Mrs. W. Y.
Morgan, president of the State a.s.sociation. Help from the West was promised by Mrs. Emma Smith DeVoe (Wash.), president of the National Council of Women Voters.
The climax of the convention came on the evening of September 8 with the address of Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States. Only once before had a President appeared before a national suffrage convention--when William Howard Taft made a ten-minute speech of welcome to Washington in 1910 but without committing himself to the movement. When the present convention was called, after the endors.e.m.e.nt of woman suffrage by the national conventions of all parties, the two leading candidates for President were invited to address it. Judge Hughes, who had declared in favor of the Federal Suffrage Amendment, answered that he would be too far away on a speaking tour to reach Atlantic City. President Wilson wrote that he would endeavor to arrange his itinerary so as to be present. Later he announced that he would come and would remain throughout the evening.
Undoubtedly he never before faced such an audience. The greatest care had been taken to exclude all but delegates and invited guests and from the stage of the theater to the back stretched tier after tier of white-robed women, while the boxes were filled with prominent people, mostly women. As he came from the street to the stage with Mrs. Wilson, also gowned in white, he pa.s.sed through a lane of suffragists, one from each State, designated by banners, with broad sashes of blue and gold across their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He was accompanied by Private Secretary Tumulty and several distinguished men and the entire stage behind the decorations of palms and other plants was surrounded by a cordon of the secret service. Forty-three large newspapers throughout the country were represented at the reporters" table.
The President had asked to speak last and he listened with much interest to a program of noted public workers as follows: Why Women Need the Vote. The Call of the Working Woman for the Protection of the Woman"s Vote--Mrs. Raymond Robins, president of National Women"s Trades Union League. Mothers in Politics--Miss Julia Lathrop, chief of National Children"s Bureau. A Necessary Safeguard to Public Morals--Dr. Katharine Bement Davis, Chief of Parole Commission, New York City. Working Children--Dr. Owen R. Lovejoy, general secretary of National Child Labor Committee. Each speaker emphasized the necessity for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women as a means for the nation"s highest welfare. Mrs. Catt was in the chair and introduced the President, who said with much earnestness and sincerity:
Madam President, Ladies of the a.s.sociation: I have found it a real privilege to be here tonight and to listen to the addresses which you have heard. Though you may not all of you believe it, I would a great deal rather hear somebody else speak than speak myself, but I would feel that I was omitting a duty if I did not address you tonight and say some of the things that have been in my thoughts as I realized the approach of this evening and the duty that would fall upon me.
The astonishing thing about the movement which you represent is not that it has grown so slowly but that it has grown so rapidly.
No doubt for those who have been a long time in the struggle, like your honored president, it seems a long and arduous path that has been trodden, but when you think of the c.u.mulating force of the movement in recent decades you must agree with me that it is one of the most astonishing tides in modern history. Two generations ago--no doubt Madam President will agree with me in saying this--it was a handful of women who were fighting for this cause; now it is a great mult.i.tude of women who are fighting for it. There are some interesting historical connections which I should like to attempt to point out to you.
One of the most striking facts about the history of the United States is that at the outset it was a lawyers" history. Almost all of the questions to which America addressed itself, say a hundred years ago, were legal questions; were questions of methods, not questions of what you were going to do with your government but questions of how you were going to const.i.tute your government; how you were going to balance the powers of the State and the Federal government; how you were going to balance the claims of property against the processes of liberty; how you were going to make up your government so as to balance the parts against each other, so that the Legislature would check the Executive and the Executive the Legislature. The idea of government when the United States became a nation was a mechanical conception and the mechanical conception which underlay it was the Newtonian theory of the universe. If you take up the Federalist you see that some parts of it read like a treatise on government. They speak of the centrifugal and centripetal forces and locate the President somewhere in a rotating system. The whole thing is a calculation of power and adjustment of parts. There was a time when n.o.body but a lawyer could know enough to run the government of the United States....
And then something happened. A great question arose in this country which, though complicated with legal elements, was at bottom a human question and nothing but a question of humanity.
That was the slavery question, and is it not significant that it was then, and then for the first time, that women became prominent in politics in America? Not many women--those prominent in that day are so few that you can almost name them over in a brief catalogue--but, nevertheless, they then began to play a part not only in writing but in public speech, which was a very novel part for women to play in America; and after the Civil War had settled some of what seemed to be the most difficult legal questions of our system the life of the nation began not only to unfold but to acc.u.mulate.
Life in the United States was a comparatively simple matter at the time of the Civil War. There was none of that underground struggle which is now so manifest to those who look only a little way beneath the surface. Stories such as Dr. Davis has told tonight were uncommon in those simpler days. The pressure of low wages, the agony of obscure and unremunerated toil did not exist in America in anything like the same proportions as they exist now. And as our life has unfolded and acc.u.mulated, as the contacts of it have become hot, as the populations have a.s.sembled in the cities and the cool s.p.a.ces of the country have been supplemented by feverish urban areas, the whole nature of our political questions has been altered. They have ceased to be legal questions. They have more and more become social questions, questions with regard to the relations of human beings to one another, not merely their legal relations but their moral and spiritual relations to one another.
This has been most characteristic of American life in the last few decades, and as these questions have a.s.sumed greater and greater prominence the movement which this a.s.sociation represents has gathered c.u.mulative force, so that when anybody asks himself, What does this gathering force mean? if he knows anything about the history of the country he knows that it means something _which has not only come to stay but has come with conquering power_.
I get a little impatient sometimes about the discussion of the channels and methods by which it is to prevail. _It is going to prevail_ and that is a very superficial and ignorant view of it which attributes it to mere social unrest. It is not merely because women are discontented, it is because they have seen visions of duty, and that is something that we not only can not resist but if we be true Americans we do not wish to resist.
Because America took its origin in visions of the human spirit, in aspirations for the deepest sort of liberty of the mind and heart, and, as visions of that sort come to the sight of those who are spiritually minded America comes more and more into its birthright and into the perfection of its development; so that what we have to realize is that in dealing with forces of this sort we are dealing with the substance of life itself.
I have felt as I sat here tonight the wholesome contagion of the occasion. Almost every other time that I ever visited Atlantic City I came to fight somebody. I hardly know how to conduct myself when _I have not come to fight anybody but with somebody_.
I have come to suggest among other things that when the forces of nature are working steadily and the tide is rising to meet the moon, you need not be afraid that it will not come to its flood.
We feel the tide; we rejoice in the strength of it, and _we shall not quarrel in the long run as to the method of it_, because, when you are working with ma.s.ses of men and organized bodies of opinion, you have got to carry the organized body along. The whole art and practice of government consist not in moving individuals but in moving ma.s.ses. It is all very well to run ahead and beckon, but, after all, you have got to wait for them to follow. I have not come to ask you to be patient, because you have been, but I have come to congratulate you that there has been a force behind you that will beyond any peradventure be triumphant and for which you can afford a little while to wait.
When President Wilson had finished amid enthusiastic applause Mrs.
Catt asked Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, honorary president, to respond. She was much moved by the occasion and taking the last sentence of the address for a text she eloquently told how women had already worked and waited for more than three score years. "We have waited long enough for the vote, we want it now," she exclaimed, and then turning to the President with her irresistible smile she finished, "and we want it to come in your administration!" He smiled and bowed and the whole audience rose in a sea of waving handkerchiefs as he took his departure. The President of the United States had said: "Your cause is going to prevail; I have come to fight with you; we shall not quarrel as to the method!"
The other speeches of the evening were all of a high order. Mrs.
Robins, as always, made an unanswerable argument for giving women wage earners the protection of the ballot. "In the Children"s Bureau," Miss Lathrop said, "we have come to see the close connection between the welfare of mother and child. Because we are so concerned for the children we asked a physician to take those vast, mysterious volumes of the census and look up the facts about the mortality of mothers.
Last year in the United States more than 15,000 women lost their lives carrying on the life of the race. The death rate from other things, such as typhoid and diphtheria, has been cut in half but between 1900 and 1913 maternal mortality was not lessened but seemingly increased; yet this waste of life is just as preventable as those diseases, for medical science has shown that with proper care the dangers of childbirth can be made very small. Just as fast as women are allowed a voice in public affairs it is their duty to see that no mother and child shall perish for lack of care. Every country should have a mother and child welfare center. When a memorial was lately proposed for a woman who had died in the war, a well-known man said: "We can enfranchise her s.e.x in tribute to the valor which she proved that it possessed." It is not too much to give suffrage to women in tribute to the 15,000 who are dying every year in this great duty and service; yet we do not ask the ballot for women as a reward but because, as a duty and a service, we ought to ask for it...."
"Woman suffrage is needed in the interest of good morals," was the keynote of Dr. Davis"s address, who said:
You cannot legislate righteousness into the human heart but you can reduce to a minimum the temptations that are offered to youth. To a large extent you can stop commercialized vice and the manufacture of criminals. I am not one of those who think that the millenium will come soon after women get the vote, but I believe that women will take an unusual interest in the effort to clean up vicious conditions, because all down the ages women have paid the price of vice and crime.
I do not believe that at heart a man is any worse than a woman, but all through the centuries he has been taught that he may do some things which a woman may not. It is only of late that we have begun to fight these things in the open and you cannot successfully fight any evil in the dark. For sixteen years my work has brought me in contact with this peculiar phase of public morals and I know whereof I speak. Public morals are corrupted because woman"s point of view has no representation. We have laws to regulate these things but they are man-made and the public sentiment behind them which should govern their enforcement has grown up through the ages and it is the sentiment of men only.
The laws are not equal nor equally enforced. If you doubt it you have only to go into the night court and you will see woman after woman convicted on the word of a policeman only, while in order to convict a man you have to pile evidence on evidence. I think this inequality of treatment will not cease till women get a vote.
In a very convincing address Dr. Lovejoy said:
The past month has been memorable in the history of child labor reform in America. A three-years" campaign culminated last Friday in the signing of a bill by President Wilson which excludes from the facilities of interstate commerce the exploiters of child labor. It has been estimated that 150,000 children who now bow under the yoke of excessive toil will be able to straighten up and look heaven in the face when this law begins to operate on the first of next September. In signing the bill the President said: "I want to say that with real emotion I sign this bill, because I know how long the struggle has been to secure legislation of this sort and what it is going to mean to the health and vigor of this country and also to the happiness of those whom it affects. It is with genuine pride that I play my part in completing legislation."
I am convinced that we need the voice of the church, the school, the home, in making and enforcing laws to protect working children, and, since half the adult population of our American homes are women, since approximately 75 per cent. of the church members are women, since 90 per cent. of the school teachers are women and since every moral and educational enterprise in the country is represented in about the same proportion, cold logic forces us to the conclusion that we need women in politics. Of 10,000 members of the National Child Labor Committee, 6,400 are women. Some of the experiences we have had with men in Legislatures in response to the appeal of mothers for the protection of working children have forced me to the conclusion that in this protection the partic.i.p.ation of women in the law-making of the State is vital.
The primary nominations and elections were held with voting machines and when the result was announced it was found that all the old board was nominated with the exception of Mrs. Roessing, Miss Patterson and Mrs. Morrisson, who declined to stand for re-election. Their places were filled with Mrs. Frank J. Shuler (N. Y.), corresponding secretary; Mrs. Thomas Jefferson Smith (Ky.), recording secretary and Miss Heloise Meyer (Ma.s.s.), first auditor. As there were no other candidates the secretary was unanimously requested by the convention to cast its vote. This was a remarkable record for 543 delegates. A national suffrage flag was adopted, the gift of Pennsylvania--a yellow field with fringed edges, in the center a circle of eleven blue stars representing the equal suffrage States enclosing an eagle on the wing holding the globe in its talons. Mrs. J. O. Miller in behalf of the president made an eloquent presentation.
Miss Clay moved a resolution on her Elections Bill that the convention endeavor to protect women citizens in their right to vote for U. S.
Senators and Representatives and with this object in view endorse this bill introduced by Senator Robert L. Owen (Okla.). This motion was carried. Mrs. Catt stated that the resolution of Mrs. Sallie Clay Bennett (Ky.) was similar and this also was pa.s.sed. A large number of letters and telegrams were read from eminent men and women and from societies of many kinds. Mrs. Catt stated that in not one had it been suggested that the a.s.sociation lessen its activities for the Federal Amendment. The convention then adopted a resolution instructing the Congressional Committee "to concentrate all its resources on a determined effort to carry this amendment through the next session of Congress."
Invitations for the next convention were received from nine States.
Greetings were sent to three of the original surviving pioneers, the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell of New Jersey; Mrs. Judith W. Smith of Ma.s.sachusetts and Miss Emily Howland of New York. The delegates were introduced who brought greetings from the National Equal Franchise Union of Canada, and Mrs. Campbell McIvor responded. A special vote of thanks was given to Miss Mary Garrett Hay and Miss Lulu H. Marvel, chairman of the General Committee of Arrangements, for their perfect management of President Wilson"s visit to the convention. Among those submitted by the Committee on Resolutions, Mrs. Alice Duer Miller (N.
Y.), chairman, and adopted were the following:
Whereas, all political parties in their national platforms have endorsed the principle of woman suffrage, be it
Resolved, That the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation in convention a.s.sembled calls upon Congress to submit to the States the Const.i.tutional Amendment providing nation-wide suffrage for women.
Whereas, the Democratic and Republican parties in endorsing the principle of woman suffrage have specially recognized the right of the States to settle the question for themselves, we call upon these parties in the States where amendment campaigns are in progress to take immediate action to obtain the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women, and in other States to take such action as the suffrage organizations deem expedient.
Whereas, honest elections are vital to good government in this country and to the decisions in the campaigns for woman suffrage; and
Whereas, public records of all funds used in political campaigns will benefit our movement in that they will bring to light its real opponents, therefore
Resolved, That this convention urges the pa.s.sage by Congress and the States of a thorough and comprehensive Corrupt Practices Act providing effectual punishment for offenders.
That in recognition of Miss Clara Barton"s lifelong support of woman suffrage, as well as her service to the country in founding the American Red Cross and standing at its head for more than a quarter of a century, this a.s.sociation endorses the bill recently introduced in Congress providing for an appropriation of $1,000 to place a suitable memorial to Miss Barton in the Red Cross Building now being constructed in the city of Washington.
That we express our profound sympathy with the women in the countries now at war and our sense of the advance that has been made in the cause of all women by the devotion, ability and courage with which those women have risen to the new demands on them.
That we express our deep appreciation of the great honor the President of the United States has done the women of the country by coming to Atlantic City especially to address this convention.
Rejoicing was expressed over the many victories during the year, the endors.e.m.e.nt by large organizations--the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Anti-Saloon League, the Women"s Relief Corps and others; a plank for woman suffrage in all national party platforms; a favorable declaration by all presidential candidates and for the first time the sanction of the President of the United States.