One of the largest evening meetings was that devoted to American Women"s War Service, with Mrs. Catt presiding. The first speaker was Secretary of War Newton G. Baker and a few detached paragraphs can give little idea of his eloquent address:
I sometimes ask myself what does this war mean to women? War always means to women sorrow and sacrifice and a mission of mercy but one of the large, redeeming hopes of this particular struggle is that it will bring a broadening of liberty to women.
This war is waged for democracy. Democracy is never an accomplished thing, it is always a process of growth, an endless series of advances. President Wilson has called it a rule of action. It is a rule that adapts conduct to environment. What was called a democracy in Greece was a small privileged cla.s.s ruling over slaves. The members of the ruling cla.s.s had certain democratic relations with one another. There was no more of real democracy in Rome. The first const.i.tutional convention of the French Revolution had a very restricted electoral system with a property qualification. It was so with our own government in 1776 and 1789. It was a rule of conduct adapted to the environment of that time....
The whole environment has changed. In 1789 we might quite possibly have defined ourselves as a democracy, although women did not vote, but not now. We speak of this as a war for democracy. Women are making sacrifices just like men. The activities of women in aid of the war are a necessary part of it.
If all the women were to stop their work tonight we should have to withdraw from the war, at least temporarily, until we could entirely readjust ourselves. One of the things this war is bringing home to us is that men and women are essentially partners in an industrial civilization, and by the end of the war the women will be recognized as partners.
When the Secretary finished Dr. Shaw said: "May we not send a message to President Wilson and say: "Mr. President, as you came to our convention a year ago to fight with us, so we come now to fight with you. As you have kept your pledge of loyalty to us, so we shall keep our pledge to you. We are with you in this world struggle."" The convention enthusiastically endorsed the message. Other speakers were Mrs. McAdoo and Mrs. Ba.s.s--Financing the War; Miss Martha Van Rensselaer, department of Home Economics, Cornell University--Food and the War; Miss Jane Delano--The Red Cross and the War; Mrs. Laidlaw, Mrs. Louis F. Slade--Women"s War Service in New York; Dr. Shaw, chairman Woman"s Committee of the National Council of Defense. Mrs.
McAdoo, daughter of President Wilson and wife of the Secretary of the Treasury, said that she was a resident of New York State and a voter and that women were making a great fight for democracy but the thought which should now be first in the minds of all of them was how to win the war. She described briefly her work as chairman of the Women"s Committee of the Liberty Loan and told of its wonderful success in raising millions of dollars. Mrs. Ba.s.s, the only woman member of the War Savings Committee, added an earnest appeal to women to help finance the war, and the other speakers on their several topics raised the meeting to a high level of patriotic enthusiasm. In a stirring address Dr. Shaw showed what the country expected of women at this critical time, saying:
We talk of the army in the field as one and the army at home as another. We are not two armies; we are one--absolutely one army--and we must work together. Unless the army at home does its duty faithfully, the army in the field will be unable to carry to a victorious end this war which you and I believe is the great war that shall bring to the world the thing that is nearest our hearts--democracy, that "those who submit to authority shall have a voice in the government" and that when they have that voice peace shall reign among the nations of men.
The United States Government, learning from the weaknesses and the mistakes of the governments across the sea, immediately after declaring war on Germany knew that it was wise to mobilize not only the man power of the nation but the woman power. It took Great Britain a long time to learn that--more than a year--and it was not until 50,000 women paraded the streets of London with banners saying, "Put us to work," that it dawned upon the British government that women could be mobilized and made serviceable in the war. And what is the result? It has been discovered that men and women alike have within them great reserve power, great forces which are called out by emergencies and the demands of a time like this.
Dr. Shaw described the forming of the Woman"s Committee of the Council of National Defense by the Government and her selection as its chairman. She said she had no idea what the committee was expected to do, so she went to the Secretary of the Navy to find out, and continued: "I learned that the Woman"s Committee was to be the channel through which the orders of the various departments of the Government concerning women"s war work were to reach the womanhood of the country; that it was to conserve and coordinate all the women"s societies in the United States which were doing war work in order to prevent duplication and useless effort. This was very necessary, not because our women are not patriotic but because they are so patriotic that every blessed woman in the country was writing Washington, or her organization was writing for her, asking the Government what she could do for the war and of course the Government did not know; it has not yet the least idea of what women can do."
An amusing picture was given of men supervising a department of the Red Cross where women were knitting, making comfort bags, etc. She showed how for the past forty years women in their clubs and societies had been going through the necessary evolution, "until today," she said, "they are a mobilized army ready to serve the country in whatever capacity they are needed. So when the Council of National Defense laid upon the Woman"s Committee the responsibility of calling them together to mobilize women"s war work, we knew exactly how to do it.... It is not a question of whether we will act or not, the Government has said we _must_ act; it is an order as much as it is an order that men shall go and fight in the trenches. It is an order of the Government that the women"s war work of the country shall be coordinated, that women shall keep their organizations intact, that they shall get together under directed heads. I said to the gentlemen here in Washington, when at first they feared our women might not be willing to cooperate: "If you put before them an incentive big enough, if you appeal to them as a part of the Government"s life, not as a by-product of creation or a kindergarten but as a great human, living energy, ready to serve the country, they will respond as readily as the men.""
We must remember that more and more sacrifices are going to be demanded but I want to say to you women, do not meekly sit down and make all the sacrifices and demand nothing in return. It is not that you want pay but we all want an equally balanced sacrifice. The Government is asking us to conserve food while it is allowing carload after carload to rot on the side tracks of railroad stations and great elevators of grain to be consumed by fire for lack of proper protection. If we must eat Indian meal in order to save wheat, then the men must protect the grain elevators and see that the wheat is saved. We must demand that there shall be conservation all along the line. I had a letter the other day giving me a fearful scorching because of a speech I made in which I said that we women have Mr. Hoover looking into our refrigerators, examining our bread to see what kind of materials we are using, telling us what extravagant creatures we are, that we waste millions of money every year, waste food and all that sort of thing, and yet while we are asked to have meatless days and wheatless days, I have never yet seen a demand for a smokeless day! They are asking through the newspapers that we women shall dance, play bridge, have charades, sing and do everything under the sun to raise money to buy tobacco for the men in the trenches, while the men who want us to do this have a cigar in their mouth at the time they are asking it! I said that if men want the soldiers to have tobacco, let them have smokeless days and furnish it! If they would conserve one single cigar a day and send it to the men in the trenches the soldiers would have all they would need and the men at home would be a great deal better off. If we have to eat rye flour to send wheat across the sea they must stop smoking to send smokes across the sea.
There is no end to the things that women are asked to do. I know this is true because I have read the newspapers for the last six months to get my duty before me. The first thing we are asked to do is to provide the enthusiasm, inspiration and patriotism to make men want to fight, and we are to send them away with a smile! That is not much to ask of a mother! We are to maintain a perfect calm after we have furnished all this inspiration and enthusiasm, "keep the home fires burning," keep the home sweet and peaceful and happy, keep society on a level, look after business, buy enough but not too much and wear some of our old clothes but not all of them or what would happen to the merchants?... We are going to rise as women always have risen to the supreme height of patriotic service....
The Woman"s Committee of the Council of National Defense now asks for your cooperation, that we may be what the Government would have us be, soldiers at home, defending the interests of the home, while the men are fighting with the gallant Allies who are laying down their lives that this world may be a safe place and that men and women may know the meaning of democracy, which is that we are one great family of G.o.d. That, and that only, is the ideal of democracy for which our flag stands.
The National Anti-Suffrage a.s.sociation took this time to hold its one day"s annual convention in a Washington hotel and re-elect for president Mrs. James W. Wadsworth, Jr., wife of the New York Senator, and elect as secretary Mrs. Robert Lansing, wife of the Secretary of State. Mrs. Wadsworth at this time sent to the members of Congress and circulated widely a pamphlet ent.i.tled Consider the Facts, in which she charged the suffragists with being pacifists and Socialists and a.s.serted that the recent New York victory was due to the Socialist vote. Miss Mary Garrett Hay, who was chairman of the campaign committee in New York City, where the victory was won, expressed her opinion from the platform in this fashion:
Senator Wadsworth and his wife announced that they weren"t going to give any entertainments till the war was over, nevertheless they are dining tonight the Senators and Representatives who are opposed to the Federal Amendment. So I thought I would signalize the occasion by answering the circular Mrs. Wadsworth has sent broadcast asking people to "consider a few facts about the woman suffrage victory in New York." Here are some other facts to consider:
There were only three a.s.sembly districts in Manhattan where the suffrage amendment did not poll over a thousand more votes than the Socialists polled. Even in these three suffrage got an average of 600 more votes than the Socialist candidate got. In the 4th district suffrage had the advantage of the Socialists by 551 votes; in the 6th it got 600 more votes than Socialism got; in the 8th it got 656 more. In the 12th, a typical district, where the Socialists got only 1,822 votes, suffrage got 5,480. In my own district, the 9th, suffrage and Fusion ran almost neck and neck, suffrage polling 5,911, Fusion, 5,578; the Socialists polled only 977. In Brooklyn the 14th, 19th and 23rd a.s.sembly districts are accounted the Socialists" strongholds. In all three suffrage ran ahead of Socialism. In the 14th suffrage polled a "yes" vote of 4,052, the Socialists 3,142; in the 19th suffrage polled 3,608, the Socialists 3,037; in the 23rd suffrage polled 5,060, the Socialists 3,992.
Considering the suffrage vote in Greater New York in comparison with the vote for Mayor, suffrage polled a "yes" vote of 335,959, the Socialist candidate only 142,178. The Fusion candidate polled 149,307; the Republican, 53,678; the Democratic, the successful one, 207,282. Suffrage, therefore, polled 38,677 more affirmative votes than did the successful candidate. No candidate for Mayor was in the cla.s.s with the amendment, though all were for suffrage.
Others prominent in the suffrage movement, both men and women, made indignant protest against Mrs. Wadsworth"s accusation and pointed to the splendid organized work of the National Suffrage a.s.sociation in cooperation with the Government from the very beginning of the war.
During this week of the convention the Federal Prohibition Amendment made its triumphant pa.s.sage through the House, having already pa.s.sed the Senate, and the suffragists saw the bitterest opponents of their amendment on the ground of State"s rights throw this doctrine to the winds in their determination to put through the one for prohibition.
They felt that the adoption of that amendment opened wide the way for the pa.s.sing of the one for suffrage in the near future and this was the view generally taken by the public. Another event in this remarkable week was the creation and appointment of a Woman Suffrage Committee in the House of Representatives, for which the a.s.sociation had been so long and earnestly striving. This was done against the vigorous opposition of the Judiciary Committee, which for the past forty years had prevented the question of woman suffrage from coming before the House for a vote. At this time it reported the Federal Amendment "without recommendation" and tried to prevent its being referred to the new committee.
The report of the corresponding secretary, Mrs. Nettie R. Shuler, for 1917, continued the story of the immense amount of work that had been done at and through the national headquarters, beginning immediately after the great impetus of the Atlantic City convention. A nation-wide campaign was inst.i.tuted under the three heads set forth by Susan B.
Anthony at the beginning of the movement--Agitate, Educate, Organize.
It was decided to center the effort even more than ever before on the Federal Amendment and a wide call was sent out for universal demonstrations in its favor, where a resolution for it would be adopted. Twenty-six States responded, New York leading with 101 such meetings. These were followed by visits to State political conventions to secure endors.e.m.e.nts, which met with considerable success, and candidates for Congress were interviewed in most of the States. There was advertising in the street cars of Washington during the sessions of Congress. Carefully selected literature was distributed by the hundreds of thousands of copies to the clergy, the politicians, the business men, the rural population; no cla.s.s was overlooked.
Questionnaires were sent to the equal suffrage States for information which was compiled in pamphlets. The first experiment in "suffrage schools," which proved so successful that they were made a permanent feature of the work, was thus described:
It was the general of our suffrage army, Mrs. Catt, "the country"s greatest expert in efficient suffrage methods," who first saw the need of suffrage schools and put them into effect in New York State. She knew the value of systematic training and realized that our failure many times had not alone been due to the fact that numbers of women would not work but that those who were willing were untrained and inefficient. It was at first proposed to charge for instruction in the schools but this plan had to be abandoned and the National a.s.sociation a.s.sumed most of the financial obligation.
Our first school was held in Baltimore in December, 1916. The manager was Mrs. Livermore, the instructors herself, Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Geyer. The second was in Portland, Me., January 8-20, 1917. The nineteen schools were all under the direction of the organization department. They began with Maryland and extended through fourteen of the southern and middle-west States, closing March 30 in Detroit, Mich. Three instructors, Mrs. Halsey Wilson, Mrs. Cotnam and Miss Doughty, taught Suffrage History and Argument, Organization, Publicity and Press, Money Raising, Parliamentary Law. The chairman of organization, Mrs. Shuler, taught Organization, Parliamentary Law and Money Raising in the Portland school and in the last five schools of the series.
Mrs. Shuler referred to the war work of the a.s.sociation, which is described elsewhere, and told of the wide field that had been covered by organizers, who had reached the number of 225 during the year, many of them employed by the States. The organization work was cla.s.sified and standardized. A conference of organizers met in New York where they were instructed by Mrs. Catt, and a pamphlet, the A. B. C. of Organization, was prepared by Mrs. Shuler. As an example of the work done, nine organizers reported 385 meetings in eleven weeks in 25 States and organization effected in 178 towns. The report told of the work done from the headquarters for the Presidential suffrage that had been obtained in various States and in campaigns.
The report of the Committee on Presidential Suffrage was of especial interest, as for the first time in all the years, with one exception, there were victories to record. This report had been made annually by Henry B. Blackwell, editor of _The Woman"s Journal_ until his death in 1910, but although he had implicit faith in the possibility of this partial franchise he did not live to see its first success in Illinois in 1913. Miss Elizabeth Upham Yates (R. I.) followed him in the chairmanship but met with an accident which caused her to relinquish it to Mrs. Robert S. Huse. She believed the granting of this form of the franchise helped the cause of full suffrage and through a questionnaire to the different States she had collected much information as to the best method of handling such bills. All wrote that the anti-suffragists were supported in their opposition to them by the liquor interests.
During a discussion of the war work of women Mrs. F. Louis Slade of New York moved (adopted) that as so large a share of the work of the Red Cross is done by women, the a.s.sociation request that women be given adequate representation on the War Council of the American Red Cross. Miss Yates suggested that Clara Barton"s name be introduced into Mrs. Slade"s resolution. Dr. Shaw spoke of the far-reaching importance of the work Clara Barton had accomplished and of the unworthy manner in which it had been treated. Mrs. L. H. Engle (Md.) suggested that the Red Cross be reminded that the plan of having women nurses in army hospitals had originated with a woman and that the first military hospital in the world had been established by a woman.
Mrs. Medill McCormick moved that the Chair appoint a committee of three to confer with the Executive Committee of the American Red Cross. The Chair appointed Mrs. McCormick as chairman, Mrs. Slade and Dr. M. Carey Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College.
Mrs. Catt read telegrams from Governor W. P. Hobby of Texas, the Houston _Chronicle_, the Chamber of Commerce and the Mayor inviting the a.s.sociation to hold the next convention in that city; also "a telegram from the Mayor of Dallas, Texas, inviting it to meet there.
Fraternal delegates cordially received by the convention were Mrs.
Flora MacDonald Denison, honorary president of the Canadian Suffrage a.s.sociation, and Mrs. Philip Moore, president of the National Council of Women. Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery was presented by Dr. Shaw as having been corresponding secretary of the a.s.sociation for twenty-one years and was warmly greeted. Mrs. Frances C. Axtel was introduced as a former member of the Legislature in Washington, now chairman of the U.
S. Employees" Compensation Commission. Mrs. Margaret Hathaway, a member of the Montana Legislature, addressed the convention. The Rev.
Olympia Brown told of the memorial of Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby, which she had prepared, and asked the delegates to see that copies were placed in libraries. Mrs. Catt paid high tribute to Mrs. Brown"s many years of work for woman suffrage. The Rev. James Shera Montgomery, of the Fourth M. E. Church, and the Rev. Henry N. Couden, Chaplain of the House of Representatives, p.r.o.nounced the invocation at the opening of two sessions.
The elections of the a.s.sociation were models of fairness with no unnecessary waste of time. Mrs. Catt received all the votes cast for president but three. All of the other officers but one had only from 10 to 27 opposing votes. Five members of the old board retired at their own wish, one of them, Miss Meyer, being in the war service in France. Mrs. McCormick, Mrs. Rogers and Mrs. Shuler were re-elected.
The new members were Miss Mary Garrett Hay (N. Y.), second vice-president; Mrs. Guilford Dudley (Tenn.) third; Mrs. Raymond Brown (N. Y.) fourth and Mrs. Helen H. Gardener (D. C.) fifth; Mrs. Halsey Wilson (N. Y.) recording secretary. The convention had voted to drop the two auditors from the list of officers and subst.i.tute two vice-presidents. A board of directors was elected for the first time, in the order of the votes received as follows: Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw (N. Y.); Miss Esther G. Ogden (N. Y.); Mrs. Nonie Mahoney (Tex.); Mrs.
Horace C. Stilwell (Ind.); Dr. Mary A. Safford (Fla.); Mrs. T. T.
Cotnam (Ark.); Mrs. Charles H. Brooks (Kans.); Mrs. Arthur L.
Livermore (N. Y.).
In place of a flowery speech of acceptance Mrs. Catt laid out more and still more work and outlined a plan of organization for uniting the women of the enfranchised States in an a.s.sociation which should be auxiliary to the National American. Each State a.s.sociation would upon enfranchis.e.m.e.nt automatically become a member of this organization with an elected working committee of five persons, these State committees to be finally united in a central body to be known as the National League of Women Voters. [Handbook of convention, page 48.]
Besides the obvious advantages, she suggested that such an organization would provide a way for recently enfranchised States to maintain intact their suffrage a.s.sociations for the benefit of work on the Federal Amendment.[113]
One of the most vital reports was that of the treasurer, Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers. It was a remarkable story especially to those who remembered the time when the receipts of the a.s.sociation for the whole year did not exceed $2,000, laboriously collected by Miss Anthony, with possibly a little a.s.sistance, in subscriptions of from $5 to $10 with one of $50 regarded as high water mark. The report began: "Our fiscal year closed October 31 with a balance of $11,985 in the treasury and in addition to this our books showed investments of $19,061, the interest of which we have received during the year." The feeling of many suffragists that they wished to use all their money for war work r.e.t.a.r.ded contributions but the example of the National a.s.sociation was pointed out, which undertook a widespread war service, as the treasury had proved, but did not leave its legitimate suffrage work undone. Mrs. Rogers, whose gratuitous services as treasurer had proved of the highest value to the a.s.sociation, told of the help of her committee of forty-two members in the various States and presented her report carefully audited by expert accountants. It showed expenditures for the year of $803,729. This covered the expenses of the two headquarters, congressional work, State campaigns, publicity and organization throughout the United States. Mrs. Catt"s plan to raise a million dollar fund for 1917 had met a generous response and had not lacked a great deal of fulfilment. Pledges to the amount of $120,000 were made for the coming year, the Leslie Commission leading with $15,000, Mrs. William Thaw, Jr., of Pittsburgh subscribed $12,000; Mrs. Robert Gould Shaw of Boston, $5,000; Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick, $2,000; Mrs. Catt, Mrs. Joseph Fels, Mrs. V. Everit Macy of New York; Mrs. Wirt Dexter of Boston; Mrs. Arthur Ryerson, Mrs. Cyrus H. McCormick of Chicago, $1,000 each.
The plan of work for the coming year provided for concentration on securing the submission of the Federal Amendment and the following was adopted: "If the Sixty-fifth Congress fails to submit the Federal Amendment before the next congressional election this a.s.sociation shall select and enter into such a number of senatorial and congressional campaigns as will effect a change in both Houses of Congress sufficient to insure its pa.s.sage. The selection of candidates to be opposed is to be left to the Executive Board and to the boards of the States in question. Our opposition to individual candidates shall not be based on party considerations, and loyalty to the Federal Amendment shall not take precedence over loyalty to the country."
It was resolved that a compact of State a.s.sociations willing and ready to conduct such campaigns should be formed. It was directed that the six departments of war work should be continued and that each State a.s.sociation should be asked to establish a War Service Committee composed of a chairman and the chairmen of these departments, with an additional one for Liberty Loans, and that this committee cooperate with the State divisions of the Woman"s Committee of National Defense.
In addition to the resolution of loyalty to the Government at the beginning of the convention the following, submitted by the committee, Miss Blackwell chairman, were among those adopted:
Whereas, the war is demanding from women unprecedented labor and sacrifices and women by millions are responding with utmost loyalty and devotion; and
Whereas, Abraham Lincoln, writing of woman suffrage, declared that all should share the privileges of the government who a.s.sist in bearing its burdens; and
Whereas, it is important to a country in war even more than in peace that all its loyal citizens should be equipped with the most up-to-date tools; therefore be it
Resolved, that we urge Congress, as a war measure, to submit to the States an amendment to the United States Const.i.tution providing for the nation-wide enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women.
That we rejoice this year in the most important victories yet won in the history of the cause. Since January 1, 1917, women have received full suffrage in New York, practically full suffrage in Arkansas, Presidential suffrage in Rhode Island, Michigan and Indiana, Presidential and Munic.i.p.al suffrage in Nebraska and North Dakota, statewide Munic.i.p.al suffrage in Vermont, local Munic.i.p.al suffrage in seven cities of Ohio, Florida and Tennessee and nation-wide suffrage in Canada and Russia; while the British House of Commons has gone on record in favor of full suffrage for women by a vote of seven to one.
That we pledge our unswerving loyalty to our country and the continuance of our aid in patriotic service to help make the world safe for democracy both at home and abroad.
That we pledge our unqualified support to the campaign for the sale of the War Savings Certificates and Thrift Stamps and urge our members to aid it in every way....
That we urge the establishment of the economic principle of equal pay for equal work as vital to the welfare of the nation....
That an American-born woman should not lose her nationality by marrying a foreigner and we urge a change of the law in this respect.
A resolution of grat.i.tude to the memory of the many earnest workers for woman suffrage who had pa.s.sed away during the year was adopted and letters of greeting were sent to the pioneers still living. A message of love and admiration was sent to Mrs. Catherine Breshkovsky, "the grandmother of the Russian Revolution." "Cordial and grateful appreciation for the inestimable service of the press," was voted.
The program for the last evening was devoted to Women"s War Service Abroad. Miss Helen Fraser, representing Great Britain, was here on a special mission from its Government to tell what its women were doing.
The audience was deeply moved by her simple but thrilling recital of the unparalleled sacrifices of the women of Great Britain and its colonies. Madame Simon pictured in eloquent language how the war had strengthened the devotion of France to America, not only through the unequalled a.s.sistance of this Government in money and soldiers but also through the sympathy and help of the American women. Miss C. M.