NAWSA GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE Crowley, Teresa A. (MRS.) TERESA A. CROWLEY ATTORNEY AT LAW 415 PEMBERTON BUILDING PEMBERTON SQUARE BOSTON, MASS. TEL. HAYMARKET 174 Oct. 29, 1918 Dear Maud, Your letter of the 28th just received. The Jewish campaign in which you are so much interested is going on, and apparently going on well. Mrs. Fels and Mrs. De Maas were here, saw many leaders andleft a Mrs. Silverman, who has become a member ofour committee, to follow their work up. It is too late now to get out a Jewish flyer, but I feel quite sure that Mr. Walsh has done that and mailedit to the Jewish voters. I know that he has a number of effective posters on this issue, and I believe I am right in saying that he also got out a flyer. Mrs. De Maas struck me as being an extremely efficient person and a good politician. I believe she could do the rounding up of the Jewish vote as wellas any one person, and she wascertainly bent on it when I saw her. I sent you copies of the flyer and letter with enclosure of Mrs. Ames' indignation articles, by special delivery Sunday night. I will speak to Mrs. Ames about the copies of the President's address to the Senate. The prohibition candidate is not running, as it was too late except to run on stickers, and he felt that no effective campaign could be made that way. An industrial section of our committee is running three auto tours, one in the eastern end of the state, one in the middle and one in the western. Each auto is in charge of a well known labor man and has labor women as speakers. They are circulating our flyer andone of their own a copy of which I enclosed, clipped from the Boston American. They are apparently having big and res onsive meetings in labor districts and at mill gates and labor unions, according to reports furnished us. We did think of asking them to circulate also the President's appeal to return a Democratic Congress, but considerable criticism has been heard here ofit as a partisan appeal. This of course came mostly from Republicans who sought to raise as much adverse comment as possible in spite of the fact that they themselves did the very same thing at the time of theSpanish Was in connection with the re-election of McKinley. I personally wasinclined to think that the President's statement was fair and strong enough to outweight this criticism, but others doubted. The question of circulating this with the industrial flyer was to be decided at today's meeting of the committee which I could not attend. I have not heard what they decided, but I rather think they will decide not to do it. The material is all getting out on schedule and we have raisd enought money to cover our expenses -- about $7200. The only question now remaining is that of advertising space on the last day in the newspapers in case Weeks comes out with an attack on our circular; this would cost money however, and we haven't got it and could not get enough. [If the need seemed desperate at the last minute, do you suppose fairly substantial contribution could be forthcoming from any sources at your command? I suppose this will not occur, but it might be almost necessary to take some space for an answer anddefence of our circular.] Hastily Teresa A.C. Wed. A.M. I have crossedout these words because I do hope and believe the emergency will not arise, so why worry you? United States Rubber Company Rockefeller Center 1230 SIXTH AVENUE - NEW YORK 20, N.Y [*file original or fix up & return to Mrs Tiffany*] October 19, 1943 Mrs. I.W. Stantial 21 Ashmont Street Melrose, Mass. My dear Mrs. Stantial: Mrs. Tiffany, to whom you wrote in June, regarding Mrs. Crowley and her connection with the Suffrage Movement in Massachusetts, has asked me to forward to you the enclosed biographical sketch of her mother. She was away for most of the summer and so was unable to prepare the material that you had requested, although she did send you sometime back a photograph for which you asked. We trust that this material doesn't arrive too late to be of service. On the original manuscript here we have entered certain minor corrections and we trust that you and Mrs. Park will feel at liberty to make such others as you may deem advisable. The story is, in the main, accurate as to Mrs. Crowley's activities and character, but there are one or two points of fact concerning which Mrs. Tiffany was not sure. On of these is the first name of Mr. Greenwood, former president of the Massachusetts Senate, whom we mention in this story, and another is whether Mrs. Crowley was actually president of the Massachusetts Women's Bar Association. That was always the understanding of her children. We will be glad to receive any comment that you care to make on this manuscript and will do whatever further you feel should be done with it to prepare it more perfectly for such use as you have in mind for it. Sincerely yours, H. C. Tiffany era enc Mrs. Crowley Teresa O'Leary Crowley typified the character of modern American womanhood that contributed substance and inspired respect for the Suffrage Cause. She was born in Wakefield, Mass. 1874. Her father was a successful business man who died shortly after her birth. The mother, a very energetic lady, from an old family of Calais, Maine, brought up four children and three step-children to be bright and enterprising adults--the girls as well as the boys. The family had marked histrionic ability--one sister, Miriam O'Leary played leading roles with Booth and Barrett and was the star of the Boston Museum--the leading actress of [Massachusetts in her time] New England for a number of years. Another sister, Agnes, also attained prominence at the Boston Museum and later, as Mrs. Jenks, was a moving factor in Suffrage work in New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Teresa herself appeared upon the Boston stage from time to time with great success as an amateur, but she was of a more studious nature, and after graduating from school, took a secretarial position with a prominent firm of attorneys in Boston, where she availed herself of the opportunity to read law. Thus she met John E. Crowley whom she married and who became a prominent criminal lawyer of Massachusetts. Mrs. Crowley retired to private life in Brookline and became the mother of three children, two daughters and a son, who thereafter were always the first interest of her life and to whom she devoted most of her time, entering as one of them into their activities and encouraging them in modern pursuits. But her mental and physical capacities and her spirit of personal independence were not fully satisfied with domestic routine. With her husband's encouragement she resumed her law studies (more) - 2- and was the only woman among more than 150 in her group to take bar examinations, which she passed among the first 10. She opened her own office and was successful from the start. She tried cases in court and her briefs and their presentations were considered exceptional, but since women lawyers were such a novelty at the time and attracted unwelcome attention, she felt that she could serve clients better in other phases of legal work, and so specialized in real estate and kindred fields. Thus she and her husband served their clients reciprocally according to their needs. She also administered her office so that her spare time coincided with that of her children and so ordered domestic routine, vacations and educational and cultural expeditions for them that they always felt they had more intimacy, and companionship with their mother than any of their schoolmates seemed to enjoy. Mrs. Crowley, believing in the importance and justice of the Suffrage cause, was induced to work for it actively by Mrs. Mary Hutchinson Page. She started modestly working around the office and passing out literature at meetings. It chanced at one outdoor meeting that the main speaker's voice gave out and Mrs. Crowley was called upon to fill in. With her knees shaking in fright, she took hold of her courage and surprised herself and others by being an orator. She became an important outdoor speaker because of an unusually strong voice and clear diction. Later, because of her legal training, no doubt, she became one of the leading, if not the leading debater on the Suffrage cause in Massachusetts. Like everything else with which she was concerned, she gave herself to it whole-heartedly and, like everything else in the Crowley (more) -3- family, it was a family affair. There was no division over politics here, no sacrifice of family to a career. "Momma" was for Suffrage so all the family was too, and with gusto. Into the circle was brought all the experiences, all the humor, all the doubts, anxieties and triumphs of the campaigns. All the arguments pro and con were thrashed out here. There were two great parades, in Boston and in New York. The kids took part in both. The jibes and jeers of schoolmates meant nothing to them--brought no reaction save their scorn, for where Momma marched they marched also. And, incidentally, those parades were the greatest ever seen up to their time, except military affairs. Thousands of women of all degrees took part. Prominent men took part--Mr. Crowley among them. They marched with dignity and precision. They started on time, contingents came in like clockwork. Their organization was impressive. Those who came to jeer remained to cheer. Her most important contribution to the cause was political. As chairman of the Legislative Committee of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, it was her job to work up real voting interest, in the [Mass.] state Legislature, and in Congress too. The women after some hesitation decided really to impress the legislators where they lived in the getting and retaining of their government positions and power. With considerable temerity they decided to take actual political action, and show the reactionaries and the fence-sitters that they had a new and compelling force with which to deal--not with noise, nor picketing, nor hunger-strikes as the women of England were forced to do--but with effective telling action right in the field of politics. One of the first objectives was to remove Levi[?] Greenwood, (more) -4- reactionary president of the Massachusetts State Senate. He was a powerful industrialist of the old school, a fine citizen by current standards, a benign bo[o]ss who bestowed the advantages of his industry according to his own ideas--among his employees and townsmen. Compared to others of his day they thought he was a great man. Right into his bailiwick Mrs. Crowley and her workers moved. They published his voting record--book and page. They made speeches, in factories--some of his factories, incidentally--as many [as 10] per day. They held rallies and campaigned from one end of his district to the other. Upon one occasion, Mrs. Crowley [She] was heckled by his cohorts, among whom was an employee whose eyes, afflicted in a Greenwood factory, had been cared for by Greenwood. He said, "How can I vote against a boss like that?" Mrs. Crowley replied, "It all depends on whether you want charity or justice." That was pretty hot stuff in industrial, not to say feudal. New England, at the time. Mrs. Crowley, as chairman of the Legislative Committee of the Suffrage Association [party], introduced further innovations that rather opened the eyes of political campaigners of all parties. She went through the voting records of her party's opponents with a fine-tooth comb. She published digests of these records, particularly in the case of Greenwood, with sarcastic and revealing comments, to prove to constituents that the actual performance of their representatives was far from conform[ance]ing with their campaign pledges. Party leaders who had tolerated women's activity heretofore with courteous indifference, began to wake up to the fact here was a new formidable and highly intelligent element that had to be recognized. (more) -5- By such campaigning Greenwood was defeated, to be succeeded by Calvin Coolidge as president of the Massachusetts Senate, whose political career was thereby launched. Consequently Mrs. Crowley was later introduced at a public dinner as a maker of presidents. Mrs. Crowley always gave a great deal of credit to the support of her husband in her campaign work. Without that and [the] the exuberant enthusiasm of her children, she probably would not have carried on. But he would say to her, "You show 'em Teresa" and beyond that he would compl[i]ement her [his] brilliant legal counsel with his [hers] on the fine points of her many debates, and after her appearances at rallies and experiences in lobbies, her children were so eager for all the details and avid for successes, that she felt she was enriching their lives with current history. She was naive too, and it was part of her charm. On one occasion she addressed a great meeting in South Boston on St. Patrick's day. No Bostonian need be reminded of the Irish aspect of the affair. She chose, with her mind only on the fundamentals of her subject, a fine new evening gown. It was a brilliant orange! She was surprised by the gasp with which he audience greeted her, but only when she was passed an urgent note from her husband, who had come late from his office, did she realize the enormity of her faux pas and was able to laugh it off with charming candor. The crowning accomplishment of Mrs. Crowley's suffrage work was her contribution to the defeat of Senator Weeks of Massachusetts which such national leaders as Mrs. Maud Wood Park and Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt always felt was probably the important factor in the passage of the Women's Suffrage amendment through the Congress. The vote in the United States Senate was going to be close (more) - 6 - and Suffrage party leaders in a number of states were notified that their local contests were likely to be deciding factors. Massachusetts was not expected to return a favorable vote, for Weeks was a crony of his colleague, the reactionary Henry Cabot Lodge. David I. Walsh, Democratic candidate, was for the ladies but Massachusetts had not elected a Democratic Senator for more than a century. The suffragists used tactics similar to their defeat of the state Senate president. Mrs. Crowley went to Washington and came back with a detailed record of Senator Weeks's performance in Congress that lent itself to presentation as considerably at variance with the public's understanding of his position there. For instance, she reported that he had voted against the direct election of United States Senators! Massachusetts women made excellent use of this and other material. Walsh was elected. While other states failed in the support they were expected to give to the suffrage cause, the psychological effect of the precedent shattering success of women in the staid old Commonwealth of Massachusetts was felt throughout the land and duly and favorably influenced enough Senators in the next Congress, well used to analyzing straws in the wind, to assure passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. An interesting commentary on this campaign came when a prominent politician of Boston inquired of Mrs. Crowley as to its cost. He was amazed to learn that the women had accomplished their objective for only a fraction of the expense he would have thought reasonable. Mrs. Crowley was encouraged to continue in politics. She was offered a substantial fee to manage the campaigns of a mid-western senator who later became one of the most prominent men in his party and in Congress. But she was primarily a mother who found in the controlled exercise of her legal profession all the excess self-expression she desired and no public cause aroused in her the feeling of importance (more) - 7 - and the deep significance of getting the franchise for women. Indeed she often said that she felt about Suffrage the way Washington's soldiers at Valley Forge must have felt for their cause. Suffrage to her was a do or die cause, a fight for fundamental liberty. Except for her service as president of the Massachusetts Women's Bar Association, she retired from public life and, despite numerous urgings to other activity, devoted herself to her family and her private affairs until her death in 1930. - 30 - (MRS.) TERESA A. CROWLEY ATTORNEY AT LAW 415 PEMBERTON BUILDING PEMBERTON SQUARE BOSTON, MASS TEL. HAYMARKET 174 Nov. 11, 1918 Dear Maud, I received your special delivery letter last night, and am telephoning this morning to Mrs. Pinkham who had many copies of our material to send them to you. Might I suggest that in "Spreading the news" it would be advisable for you yourself to adopt and impersonal, almost regretful tone--that you personally were sorry that the circumstances were such as to make the Mass. suffragists feel obliged to do this thing, many of the suffragists being excellent Republicans and somewhat regretful themselves. It seems to me for the same reasons that the letter to members which uses Mrs. Catt's name should be used more sparingly that the other. All this I suggest because it is very necessary that you personally should keep on friendly terms with Republicans as well as Democrats. Therefore I should not speak boastfully but regretfully and as if it were done without motion on your part. I know that inour campaigns at the State House our whole committee looked innocent when Greenwood or any of the others were mentioned and I never allowed my personal name to be associated publicly with any of the campaigns. Of course we could do this easier than you can because we did not have to "spread the news". It was known. I hope you will not mind these suggestions which are probably all unnecessary but I was afraid my formed letter might have given a different impression. The more I reflect the more I believe that we were the c deciding factor. Lawson's issue was "the Murder of McCall"--that is his treatment by Weeks. Anybody who responded to this issue sufficiently to vote for Lawson would not in any case have voted for Weeks, but if Lawson had not been in the field would have thro wn his vote to Walsh or refrained from voting. Last night's Record has a long column in regard to the "hidden influence in Weeks' election" apparently feeling as I did that there must have been some influence outside the Walsh campaign. The Record intimated that that influence was McCall perhaps not being familiar with our activities, but McCall has not the organization and as I believe did not make the effort to be that hidden influence. The article said that changes were going on within the Rep. party as a result of the Weeks affair. I hope it will make them understand that there is a limit to stand patism beyond which the Rep. voters will not support any man. For after all it was Weeks' record that defeated him. The voters ---all of them--would never have know it though but for us. Do send me the verses. It is absolutely the first time that anybody --anybody at all--has been moved to poetry about me. Yours ever Teresa A. C. Dear Edna: At last, after telephoning I don't know how many women lawyers and following down the various "leads" they gave me, I find that Mrs. Crowley's other daughter, Joan is now Mrs. Viggo B. Erickson, Jeffrey N. H. The probate records gave the children as J. Edward Crowley Jr. (whom I understand has since committed suicide) Theresa M. Tiffany, home you spoke of, and MASSACHUSETTS WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION 585 BOYLSTON STREET, BOSTON PRESIDENT MISS ALICE STONE BLACKWELL VICE-PRESIDENT MRS. ELLEN F. ADAMS TREASURER MRS. OAKES AMES CHAIRMAN EXECUTIVE BOARD MRS. GERTRUDE HALLADAY LEONARD CHAIRMAN WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE MRS. BENJAMIN F. PITMAN CHAIRMAN LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE MRS. TERESA A. CROWLEY CHAIRMAN ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE MRS. WENONA O. PINKHAM SECRETARY AND OFFICE MANAGER MRS. EVELYN PEVERLEY COE November 10, 1914. [*see attached letter of Nov 23*] Mrs. Wm. Lloyd Garrison, 199 Temple St., West Newton, Mass. My dear Mrs. Garrison: James A. Waters, Democrat and J. Weston Allen, Republican, candidates recently elected to the house from your district, have not yet indicated to us their position on Equal Suffrage although we have written them twice. It very often occurs, however, and very naturally, I think, that these men do not feel bound to reply to our inquiries, when they will answer a constituent. It would help our work very much if you would make a personal call upon him, and in a friendly talk try: -- (1) To get him to sign the enclosed card (Failing this (2) A verbal promise to support the bill, or in any case (3) Find out where he stands on the question if possible. It would be well to quote the tremendous vote in the last Legislature in favor of our bill (34-2 in the Senate and 168-39 in the House), and point out particularly that a vote for this bill does not commit him to the principle of Equal Suffrage, but simply to the principle that he is willing to let the voters decide the question in the form of a regular constitutional amendment. (We do not want any straw votes on the question. That question was fought out in the Legislature the year before last, and even last year an attempt was made to put it through, but it did not even command a roll call.) It is well to indicate in a tactful way that you represent a number of organized women in his district (if this is true) all of whom join in this request through you. MASSACHUSETTS WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION 585 BOYLSTON STREET, BOSTON PRESIDENT MISS ALICE STONE BLACKWELL VICE-PRESIDENT MRS. ELLEN F. ADAMS TREASURER MRS. OAKES AMES CHAIRMAN EXECUTIVE BOARD MRS. GERTRUDE HALLADAY LEONARD CHAIRMAN WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE MRS. BENJAMIN F. PITMAN CHAIRMAN LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE MRS. TERESA A. CROWLEY CHAIRMAN ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE MRS. WENONA O. PINKHAM SECRETARY AND OFFICE MANAGER MRS. EVELYN PEVERLEY COE Mrs. Wm. Lloyd Garrison-2 If Allen says there was no plank in the Republican platform, tell him that there was none last year, and yet three-fourths of the Republican Legislators voted for the bill. If he speaks of the fact that the suffragists black listed Senator Lodge, tell him that this was done by the National Suffrage organization without the co-operation or even the knowledge of the Mass. Woman Suffrage Association. You can, of course, appeal to Waters strongly on the strength of the plank in his platform, which is unequivocally in favor of submitting this question to the voters. All but seven Democrats voted in favor last year. You will, of course, use every argument that you can to induce him to vote for us, but make him feel that you are friendly and reasonable. Kindly do this fairly soon and send a full report to me. Cordially yours, Dict. TAC/MEM Teresa A. Crowley moc Chairman Legislative Com. *Mrs. Crowley* MASSACHUSETTS WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT MISS ALICE STONE BLACKWELL VICE-PRESIDENT MRS. ELLEN F. ADAMS TREASURER MRS. OAKES AMES ---------------------- CHAIRMAN EXECUTIVE BOARD MRS. GERTRUDE HALLADAY LEONARD CHAIRMAN WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE MRS. BENJAMIN F. PITMAN CHAIRMAN LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE MRS. WINONA P. PINKHAM ------------------------- SECRETARY AND OFFICE MANAGER MRS. EVELYN PEVERLY COE Nov. 23 1914 My dear Mrs. Garrison Sending you Waters' name was a mistake. I would not bother Mr. Weston any more just now, but do keep him in mind and see him again later, and in any case, just before the vote. Mr. Allen I will see myself at his Boston office. Bothfeld is hopeless of course. Yours sincerely Teresa A. Crowley [*file originals*] For Mrs. Guy W. Stantial From Mrs. Agnes Jenks Mrs. Crowley's daughter's address is: Mrs. Schuyler Tiffany 342 Richmond Road Douglaston, Long Island, N.Y. I have ( ) I have not (x ) a picture of Teresa A. Crowley, which I will send you to have copied. I will I cannot X write a biographical sketch of Teresa for the Radcliffe collection before August 1st. Am sorry that I cannot undertake to write a sketch of the life of Mrs. Crowley as I am not well and overwhelmed with work. She was born in Wakefield, Mass. in a lovely Colonial house in the year 1973, Father's name William C. O'Leary, born in London a designer of textiles, a gentleman and a scholar who had much to do with the building of the Museum of fine arts in conjunction with his close friend Martin Brimmer. He had a flair for research work of various kinds and Teresa seemed to inherit that inclination. From her earliest years, she made a habit of research together with our our brother who was in the Harvard Medical. They studied Latin together. Teresa read law for some four months at the Boston Public Library, took the bar examinations with a Mr. Innis for some years back and he advised her to go up for her Suffolk Bar examinations which she did. It is not the custom, or was not, at the time for students to be ranked, but it happened that one of the examining judges told a friend that her papers would rank at least among the first seven. She successfully tried one case, with the permission of the presiding judge, before actually being admitted to the bar. She was a proficient in the Italian language and had many clients in that group. She also had studied German and could use it, especially in writing, and reading. Our mother was of old Colonial stock and came from the [Bacallors?] of Maine but during the revolution the ancestors were among the pilgrims who made the famous trek of the St. John river. They were all in sympathy with the English side of the controversy. Teresa did not practice until after her marriage and the births of her children. She had successfully built perhaps eight houses including her own in Brookline, some years before she practiced law. I think that Mrs. Tiffany has removed from Douglaston several years and is living in the Northern lart of New York but cannot be sure. There is in existense a fine photograph of Mrs. Crowley but while I had it at one time, I do not find is among my collection and imagine I gave it to Mrs. Tiffany. If I come across it I will send it to you. Sincerely, Agnes M. Jenks Mrs. Crowley had also written several short plays & poems which were acted & published under pseudonym which has escaped my memory. [*file original*] May 30, 43 Dear Mrs. Stantial, Your letter of May 19 would have been answered sooner had I been well and not so desperately occupied getting my summer house settled. I trust that when you come to Chilmark you will come to call if you ever get to Edgartown. It is well to telephone first as I am alone and liable to be out. My sister, as you know was a very successful lawyer, her practice mostly concerned with work having to do with real estate and title searching, also she did some successful corporation work. She set a precedent in the Land Court of Boston, in the matter of searching titles by clearing up a case that had called for settlement for many years. She completed it in three weeks and was asked by the Court to illustrate for them her method. She appeared before the Court and drew out the plan on a blackboard and it was made the order by which all titles had to be searched from that time on. By the way we were both born in Wakefield, Mass. I think that the idea of having a record of the suffrage campaign from its inception, on file, is quite thrilling. I had intended writing a book myself on the beginning and developement of the work. My best informant was Mrs. Armenia White of Concord New Hampshire who was an old time abolitionist and kept a house in which I afterwards lived, which had been a haven for escaped slaves. She worked with Mr. Wm Lloyd Garrison, who was her contemporary. She has told me many things, about both the National and American Suffrage organizations long before they became one. She was intimate with Susan B. Anthony and naturally knew Lucy Stone. Her one desire was to live to be a hundred, when she expected to celebrate with a party for practically the entire State, and above all that to live to cast her first vote. She has not been much heard of but was a most important figure in the earliest suffrage work and, being very wealthy a great contributor to the work. As to the incident of the defeat of Senator Weeks --- My sister had a habit of consulting me about many of her affairs both in business and in suffrage work. When she told me of the decision to work for his defeat, I was tremendously pleased at the news of what the Mass. Organization was planning to do. She came to consult me. As I was going to Washington anyway, I said I would take it up with the Late Senator Gallinger who was for many years the ranking republican Senator. His daughter was my intimate friend and was his hostess in Washington and I always stopped with them. I talked the matter of defeating Senator Weeks with Sen. Gallinger who was greatly interested and amused as he, himself had been as strong a suffragist as his friend Armenia White. The result was that we did what we had done before on many occasions. He sent for Senator Weeks, and [we] told him plainly what was planning in Mass. and gave to him a small pledge to sign that he would vote in favor. Senator Weeks talked it over at length but decided that he could not sign nor vote for suffrage, that if he signed such a pledge, he would not get the nomination. Senator Gallinger replied "Well! Senator I would take 2 [would take] a chance if I were you and sign, for those women will surely defeat you for re election." Sen, Gallinger turned to me and asked, "are you sure they will beat our good friend?" Naturally I replied, "Very sure." Our talk was quite impersonal and not unpleasant at all. We parted amiably. All republicans had to come to the office of Senator Gallinger when he sent for them unless they were speaking on the floor of the Senate. His own conversion to suffrage for women went back to his boyhood when he won the question in a debate and he was a consistent worker for the cause. It was funny but he got a notion into his head that Mrs. Catt thought he was an anti, I never felt that I had dissuaded him from that peculiar idea. Will tell you more of this sometime. I saw my sister in New York and we consulted and I told her that I had had more success in defeating men for re-election if if [you] could do it on their own record and that in my experience no man who had served in any legislature for three or more years did not have some sort of phobia that ran into mistakes and that she should go to Washington at once and investigate the record of Senator Weeks [at once] from the time he appeared in politics. She'd find some one thing on which he was always wrong. She telephoned me from Washington, just the words. "It's Jews". I was then in Boston. I told her to stop off in New York and get the National Jewish Asso. or organization, to get busy. They did. In Boston proper, they took over the City under direction of Mrs. Crowley. She then decided to take my advice and to go very quietly to work, not to say or do one thing before election time arrived but to be ready. She printed his record on fliers. The plan was [for] to [then] have every railroad station in the State outside Boston covered with women who would agree to work quietly and do no talking, [but] the day befor the votes were to be cast, to hand out fliers to anyone who was interested to take one [the fliers] at the incoming & out-going trains. [They were] It was well done, but I cannot say how far she followed through exactly with my advice as I, myself was too busy with matters in Rhode Island. I cannot take the time to go into more details, at this time, but so far as I know, she used the plan I suggested. As to my own work and that done in New Hampshire and Rhode Island, --- in Rhode Island we won the vote for Presidential suffrage a year before any Eastern State and there was only one recorded vote against, [recorded] which was in the Senate of R.I. Nothing like it was ever heard of in that State. [We, a]All the women wprked hard and were a wonderful group. We held a board meeting every Tuesday at ten A.M. and finally, those meeting were so amusing that I [finally] realized we had a genius for our recording secretary and that her records were gems of well written English so we decided to hold open meetings every Thursday afternoon at which the Tuesday records were read. We sent to the State House the records where I suppose they are still in the State library. I do mean to write up our Rhode Island story for we all felt that if we won there, it would have a tendency to break down the New England prejudice. That is all for now. Do remember me to Mrs. Parks. Very sincerely, Hastily Agnes M. Jenks Sorry this little news had to be so much of a letter. A.M.J. You see, Senator Weeks really defeated himself and every member of the U.S. Senate knew it and many took the lesson to heart Sorry my letter is so slipshod but I am very pressed by ither duties. [Mass?] THERESA A. CROWLEY Theresa O'Leary Crowley typified the character of modern American womanhood that contributed substance and inspired respect for the Suffrage Cause. She was born in Wakefield, Mass., 1874. Her father was a successful business man who died shortly after her birth. The mother, a very energetic lady, from an old family of Calais, Maine, brought up four children and three step-children to be bright and enterprising adults-- the girls as well as the boys. The family had marked histrionic ability-- one sister, Miriam O'Leary played leading roles with Booth and Barrett and was the star of the Boston Museum - the leading actress of New England for a number of years. Another sister, Agnes, also attained prominence at the Boston Museum and later, as Mrs. Jenks, was a moving factor in suffrage work in New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Teresa herself appeared upon the Boston stage from time to time with great success as an amateur, but she was of a more studious nature, and after graduating from school, took a secretarial position with a prominent firm of attorneys in Boston, where she availed herself of the opportunity to read law. Thus she met John E. Crowley whom she married and who became a prominent criminal lawyer of Massachusetts. Mrs. Crowley retired to private life in Brookline and became the mother of three children, two daughters and a son, who thereafter were always the first interest of her life and to whom she devoted most of her time, entering as one of them into their activities and encouraging them in modern pursuits. But -2- her mental and physical capacities and her spirit of personal independence were not fully satisfied with domestic routine. With her husband's encouragement she resumed her law studies and was the only woman among more than 150 in her group to take bar examinations, which she passed among the first 10. She opened her own office and was successful from the start. She tried cases in court and her briefs and their presentations were considered exceptional, but since women lawyers were such a novelty at the time and attracted unwelcome attention, she felt that she could serve clients better in other phases of legal work, and so specialized in real estate and kindred fields. Thus she and her husband served their clients reciprocally according to their needs. She also administered her office so that her spare time coincided with that of her children and so ordered domestic routine, vacations and educational and cultural expeditions for them that they always felt they had more intimacy and companionship with their mother than any of their schoolmates seemed to enjoy. Mrs. Crowley, believing in the importance and justice of the suffrage cause, was induced to work for it actively by Mrs. Mary Hutcheson Page. She started modestly working around the office and passing out literature at meetings. It chanced at one outdoor meeting that the main speaker's voice gave out and Mrs. Crowley was called upon to fill in. With her knees shaking in fright, she took hold of her courage and surprised herself and others by being an orator. She became an important outdoor speaker because of an unusually strong voice and clear dictation. Later, because of her legal training, no doubt, she became one of the leading, if not the leading debater on the suffrage cause in Massachusetts. -3- Like everything else with which she was concerned, she gave herself to it whole-heartedly and, like everything else in the Crowley family, it was a family affair. There was no division over politics here, no sacrifices of family to a career. "Momma" was for suffrage so all the family was too, and with gusto. Into the circle was brought all the experiences, all the humor, all the doubts, anxieties and triumphs of the campaigns. All the arguments pro and con were thrashed out here. There were two great parades, in Boston and in New York. The kids took part in both. The jibes and jeers of schoolmates meant nothing to them - brought no reaction save their scorn, for where Momma marched they marched also. And, incidentally, those parades were the greatest ever seen up to their time, except military affairs. Thousands of women of all degrees took part. Prominent men tood part - Mr. Crowley among them. They marched with dignity and precision. They started on time, contingents came in like clockwork. Their organization was impressive. Those who came to jeer remained to cheer. Her most important contribution to the cause was political As chairman of the Legislative Committee of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, it was her job to work up real voting interest, in the State Legislature, and in Congress too. The women after some hesitation decided really to impress the legislators where they lived in the getting and retaining of their government positions and power. With considerable temerity they decided to take actual political action, and show the reactionaries and the fence-sitters that they had a new and compelling force with which to deal - not with noise, nor picketing, nor hunger-strikes as the women of England were forced to do - but with -4- effective telling action right in the field of politics. One of the first objectives was to remove Levi Greenwood, reactionary president of the Massachusetts State Senate. He was a powerful industrialist of the old school, a fine citizen by current standards, a benign boss who bestowed the advantages of his industry according to his own ideas - among his employees and townsmen. Compared to others of his day they thought he was a great man. Right into his bailiwick Mrs. Crowley and her workers moved. They published his voting record - book and page. They made speeches, in factories - some of his factories, incidentally - many each day. They held rallies and campaigned from one end of his district to the other. Upon one occasion Mrs. Crowley was heckled by his cohorts, among whom was an employee whose eyes, afflicted in a Greenwood factory, had been cared for by Greenwood. He said, How can I vote against a boss like that?" Mrs. Crowley replied, "It all depends on whether you want charity or justice." That was pretty hot stuff in industrial, not to say feudal, New England, at that time. Mrs. Crowley, as chairman of the Legislative Committee of the suffrage association, introduced further innovations that rate opened the eyes of political campaigners of all parties. She went through the voting records of her party's opponents with a fine-tooth comb. She published digests of these records, particularly in the case of Greenwood, with sarcastic and revealing comments, to prove to constituents that the actual performance of their representatives was far from conforming with their campaign pledges. Party leaders who had tolerated women's activity heretofore with courteous indifference, began -5- to wake up to the fact here was a new formidable and highly intelligent element that had to be recognized. By such campaigning Greenwood was defeated, to be succeeded by Calvin Coolidge as president of the Massachusetts Senate, whose political career was thereby launched. Consequently Mrs. Crowley was later introduced at a public dinner as a maker of presidents. Mrs. Crowley always gave a great deal of credit to the support of her husband in her campaign work. Without that and the exuberant enthusiasm of her children, she probably would not have carried on. But he would say to her, "You show'em, Teresa," and beyond that he would complement her brilliant legal counsel with his on the fine points of her many debates, and after her appearances at rallies and experiences in lobbies, her children were so eager for all the details and avid for successes, that she felt she was enriching their lives with current history. She was naive too, and it was part of her charm. On one occasion she addressed a great meeting in South Boston on St. Patrick's day. No Bostonian need be reminded of the Irish aspect of the affair. She chose, with her mind only on the fundamentals of her subject, a fine new evening gown. It was a brilliant orange! She was surprised by the gasp with which her audience greeted her, but only when she was passed an urgent note from her husband, who had come late from his office, did she realize the enormity of her faux pas and was able to laugh it off with charming candor. The crowning accomplishment of Mrs. Crowley's suffrage work was her contribution to the defeat of Senator Weeks of - 6 - Massachusetts which such national leaders as Mrs. Maud Wood Park and Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt always felt was probably the important factor in the passage of the Woman Suffrage Amendment through the Congress. The vote in the United States Senate was going to be close and suffrage party leaders in a number of states were notified that their local contests were likely to be deciding factors. Massachusetts was not expected to return a favorable vote, for Weeks was a crony of his colleague, the reactionary Henry Cabot Lodge. David I. Walsh, Democratic candidate, was for the ladies but Massachusetts had not elected a Democratic Senator for more than a century. The suffragists used tactics similar to their defeat of the State Senate president. Mrs. Crowley went to Washington and came back with a detailed record of Senator Weeks's performance in Congress that lent itself to presentation as considerably at variance with the public's understanding of his position there. For instance, she reported that he had voted against the direct election of United States Senators! Massachusetts women made excellent use of this and other material. Walsh was elected. While other States failed in the support they were expected to give to the suffrage cause, the psychological effect of the precedent shattering success of women in the staid old Commonwealth of Massachusetts was felt throughout the land and duly and favorably influenced enough Senators in the next Congress, well used to analyzing straws in the wind, to assure passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. An interesting commentary on this campaign when a prominent politician of Boston inquired of Mrs. Crowley as to - 7 - its cost. He was amazed to learn that the women had accomplished their objective for only a fraction of the expense he would have thought reasonable. Mrs. Crowley was encouraged to continue in politics. She was offered a substantial fee to manage the campaigns of a mid- western senator who later became one of the most prominent men in his party and in Congress. But she was primarily a mother who found in the controlled exercise of her legal profession all the excess self-expression she desired and no public cause aroused in her the feeling of importance and the deep significance of getting the franchise for women. Indeed she often said that she felt about suffrage the way Washington's soldiers at Valley Forge must have felt for their cause. Suffrage to her was a do or die cause, a fight for fundamental liberty. Except for her service as president of the Massachusetts Women's Bar Association, she retired from public life and, despite numerous urgings to other activity, devoted herself to her family and to her private affairs until her death in 1930. Curran Crowley Tiffany October 1943. TERESA A. CROWLEY (Excerpts from letters from Mrs. Barton Jenks, sister of Teresa Crowley, - June 1943.) Teresa was born in Wakefield, Massachusetts, in a lovely Colonial house in the year 1873. Father's name was William C. O'Leary; born in London, a designer of textiles, a gentleman and a scholar who had much to do with the building of the Museum of Fine Arts in conjunction with his close friend Martin Brimmer. He had a flair for research work of various kinds and Teresa seemed to inherit that inclination. From her earliest years she made a habit of research together with our brother who was in the Harvard Medical School. They studied Latin together. Teresa read law for some four months at the Boston Public Library, took the bar examinations with a Mr. Innis for some years and he advised her to go up for her Suffolk Bar examination, which she did. It is not the custom, or was not at the time, for students to be ranked, but it happened that one of the examining judges told a friend that her papers would rank at least among the first seven. She successfully tried one case, with the permission of the presiding judge, before actually being admitted to the bar. She was proficient in the Italian language and had many clients in that group. Sh also had studied German and could use it, especially in writing and reading. Our mother was of old colonial stock and came from the Bachellors of Maine, but during the Revolution the ancestors were among the pilgrims who made the famous trek of the St. John River. They were all in sympathy with the English side of the controversy. - 2 - Teresa did not practise until after her marriage and the births of her children. She had successfully built perhaps eight houses, including her own in Brookline, before she started to practise law. Mrs. Crowley wrote several short plays and poems which were acted and published under a pseudonym which has escaped my memory. Agnes M. Jenks, June 1943. Mrs. Crowley died July 5. 1916. It was a very sudden weather. She was alone at her home at the time. She was buried in Fairview Cemetery. Chicopee Falls, Mass. beside her husband [Envelope dated Boston, Mass Back Bay Stat. Sep 1, 1926 Mrs. Edward Crowley [?]17 Broadway Chicopee Falls Mass. This notice was brought to me yesterday afternoon Mrs. Heath [*Was drawn up by Mrs. Crowley and distributed on desks of Legislators on St. Patrick's day, making a great hit.*] COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS THE GENERAL COURT SUFFOLK SS. OF MASSACHUSETTS. NO. 380. In Re PETITION OF JULIA WARD HOWE ET ALI. BRIEF FOR PETITIONERS. STATEMENT OF CASE. The petitioners are, and have been for many years, citizens of this Commonwealth; they have interest and are involved in the common welfare; they are subject to the laws enacted by this Honorable Court and to the ordinances of the various towns and cities; women are the housekeepers and home makers, the mothers and largely the teachers of the youth of this Commonwealth; they are the direct purchasers; 393,691 of them were Wage Earners in this Commonwealth; in 1905; large numbers are tax payers, owners and proprietors of business enterprises, engaged in various professions, and all are constantly and intimately in contact with the laws concerning real and personal property, taxation, probate, insurance, landlord and tenant, bankruptcy and other branches of the law, and the unfortunate few with the divorce and criminal law. The petitioners are twenty-one years of age and upwards, are not paupers or under guardianship, and they and all the women of like condition in this Commonwealth suffer an injustice in that they have not the right to assent to said laws by taking part by ballot in the election of those who make them, and petition that they be allowed such right. A negligible number of women remonstrate against the granting of the petition alleging that they do not wish to exercise the right petitioned for and that it would not work to the benefit of the state or of women. 1 Mass. Woman Suffrage Ass'n. 585 Boylston St., Room 13, Boston POINTS AND AUTHORITIES. FIRST. The exercise of the right petitioned for is not compulsory. "Every male citizen of twenty-one years of age and upwards, except paupers or persons under guardianship - shall have a right to vote in such elections-." Art III, Articles of Amendment, Const. Com. Mass. SECOND. Women, as an integral part of the people governed should, under our national and state forms of government, have the right of suffrage. "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." Declaration of Independence. "The foundation of all free government is a right in the people to participate in their legislative councils." Resolve 4, Dec. of Rights; Congress of 1774. "All powers residing originally in the people and being derived from them, the several magistrates and officers of the government vested in authority - are their substitutes and agents." Const. Com. of Mass. part I, sec. 5. "If the right of suffrage inheres in men simply and solely because they are part of the people, the same right also inheres in women simply and solely because they are part of the people." William Bowditch. THIRD. "Taxation without representation is tyranny." Declaration of Independence. "Only legal voters being represented in the legislature, women have no representation there who can consent to their taxation, and yet every year we tax them millions of dollars. Upon what pretext do we justify this act of spoliation." William Bowditch. FOURTH. Women are not now adequately represented. "There shall be in the legislature of this Commonwealth a representation of the people, annually elected and founded upon the principal of equality." Const. Com. of Mass. chap. I, sec. 3 Art I. "Under a representative form of government, the interests of any particular set of people are more likely to advance when represented by one of themselves than by one of another class, no matter how altruistic." President Taft. "Men and women are alike or else they are unlike. If they are alike, rights cannot be granted to one and denied the other; if they are unlike, one cannot represent the other." Wendell Phillips. FIFTH. The right of suffrage under our laws does not rest on physical force. Prerequisites for fully qualified electors required of male adults in this Commonwealth, have been chiefly, - a. Membership in "The Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England." Charter from Chas. I. Records of Mass. Vol. I, p. 10. b. Church membership. Rec. of Mass. vol. I, p. 87. c. A freehold estate within the Commonwealth of the annual income of three pounds, or any estate to the value of sixty pounds. Const. Com. of Mass. chap. 1, sec. 3, art. 4. d. Payment of county and state taxes assessed within two years next preceding election. Art. III, Articles of Amendment, Const. of Com. of Mass. (Abolished 1891, Art. XXXII.) e. Ability to read the constitution in the English language and write name. Art. XX. Articles of Amendment, Const. Com. of Mass. Ability to perform military service is not and never has been a prerequisite for voting. SIXTH. Women would use the suffrage if it were granted to them. Of the population of Denver in 1900 the percentage of women was 50.2 Of the registration in Denver in 1906 """" 44. ""votes cast """""" 42.6 Of these wards 9, 10, and 13, (being the better districts) showed the highest percentage of women registered and voting and wards 1 and 3 (Being slum and largely the red light district) showed the lowest. Registration Books, Denver, 1906. "Eighty per cent of all the women entitled to vote in Colorado cast their votes at the last election, and of the 30,000 who cast their ballots in Denver last fall, not more than 400 were women of the underworld." Statement recently issued by Gov. Shafroth, Chief Justice Steele of the Supreme Court, Editor Stevens of the Pueblo Chieftain, and ex- U. S. Sen. T. M. Petterson, all of Colorado. "In the last Federal election in Australia 628,235 men voted and 431,033 women." "Progress" for December, 1907. Estimated number of women in New Zealand in 1893 when equal suffrage was granted 139,915 Number of women who registered to vote that year 109,461 Number of women who voted in 1905 175,046 (figures taken from "Woman Suffrage in New Zealand" by K. A. Sheppard.) SEVENTH. A. The right to exercise the suffrage is not affected by the numbers who wish to exercise it. "The objection that women are averse to the suffrage is partly false and wholly irrelevant." Wendell Phillips. "Our institutions are not based on the idea of one class receiving protection from another, but upon the well recognized rule that each class or sex is entitled to such civil rights as will enable it to protect itself." Theodore Parker. "The right of a woman to vote is just as clear as that of a man and rests on the same ground, and the assumption that she is not fit to vote is no better reason for denying her that right than was the similar assumption which has been urged against every extension of the franchise to men." Henry George. "So long as there is one woman who insists upon this simple right, the justice of man cannot afford to deny it." Hon. Wm. Dudley Foulke. B. All progressive changes meet with the indifference of the many and opposition of the few; the movements for American independence and abolition of slavery were largely the work of small minorities. "The American Revolution was the work of an energetic minority." "The historians of this period fail to recognize how large a proportion of the best men had no sympathy with the movement." Lecky's American Revolution. "The (Continental) Army might have been well fed, clothed and paid throughout the struggle--- the people were not poor but able to maintain those who served in the field." "The public mind was fickle in the Revolution as at present." Sabine's Loyalists of the American Revolution. "Scarce any state in the Union–has an eighth part of its quota in service." George Washington in letter quoted in Sabine's Loyalists of the American Revolution, p. 145. 4 "When Emerson spoke on the fugitive slave law at the Cambridge city hall in 1851, he was hissed and hooted by law students." "No great daily took up the cause of abolition previous to 1861 but the New York Tribune." A. B. Hart's American Nation, vol. 16. In the early days of the abolition movement its leaders were mobbed in Boston and other cities. Wilson's History of Slavery. "To have led all these to share his labors and the common odium of a most unpopular cause (abolition) is in itself a monument to his worth." Life of William Lloyd Garrison by his sons. EIGHTH. Small school vote does not justify disfranchisement. Number of men who voted in last city election (Boston) but failed to mark ballot for school committee 4,684 Men's vote in last city election (Boston) 95,895 Men's vote in next preceding city election, when there was no mayoralty contest 70,716 Report of Election Com. (Boston). How many men would have voted for school committee alone? "Wherever school officers are chosen at separate elections, the men's vote is small and fluctuating, like that of the women." State Com. of Education, Skinner (New York). "Although the women of Colorado have been entitled to vote at school elections since 1879 little interest seems to have been manifested until after their full enfranchisement." Equal Suffrage, by Helen Sumner, Ph. D., p. 143. NINTH. Equal suffrage does not tend to make inharmonious homes. From 1870 to 1890 the divorce rate in six states bordering on Wyoming (then the only equal suffrage states) increased 72.4% During the same period the rate in Wyoming decreased 13.1% From 1890 to 1900 the divorce rate in the ten states surrounding the four equal suffrage states, increased 43.6% Decrease in four suffrage states during same period 7.05% Increase in United States at large during same period 37.8% Figures calculated from Special Report. U.S. Census, Marriage & Divorce, 1909, p. 72. 5 TENTH. The rights petitioned for, if granted would work to the benefit of the state. "Woman suffrage has been most successful as a practical expedient in Utah." Gov. Brooks of Utah. "I consider women suffrage of great benefit to any Commonwealth." Gov. Brooks of Wyoming. "Woman suffrage has been an unqualified success, not only in Idaho, but in all Western states adopting the principle." Gov. Brady of Idaho. "Woman's influence has always been for good, and in no sphere has this been better demonstrated than in politics." Gov. Shafroth of Colorado. "Woman suffrage has resulted in nothing that is objectionable and much that is advantageous." U.S. Sen. Teller (Col.) "We have in Colorado the most advanced laws of any state in the union for the care of the home and children, the very foundation of the Republic. We owe this more to women suffrage than to any other one cause." Judge Linsey of Denver Juvenile Court. "The vote of the women has increased at each election, and is a factor in securing purer and better municipal government." Ex-Gov. Humphrey of Kansas. "The women of New Zealand secured the franchise by a majority of only two votes. Now it is doubtful if in the whole House there would be two members to oppose it." Sir Joseph Ward, Premier of New Zealand. Resolution embodying a recommendation of the enfranchisement of women passed by the Colorado House of Representatives (45 to 3), the Senate concurring (30 to 1) in Jan. 1899. House Joint Resolution No. 10. Resolution strongly favoring woman suffrage by both Houses of the Commonwealth Parliament (Australia.) Session 1909-10 "Jus Suffragii" Jan. 15, 1910. p. 34. Testimony to the value of equal suffrage signed in 1898 by the Governor, three ex-governors, both senators, both national representatives, ex-senators, the chief justice and two associate justices of the Supreme Courts, and many other responsible men and women of Colorado. Hist. of Woman Suffrage. pp. 1085-1086. ELEVENTH. The right petitioned for, of granted, would work to the benefit of the women of this Commonwealth. 6 "Over the majority of women indeed it is already evident that equal suffrage has exercised a good influence, and one which inevitably reacts to a certain extent upon political life.' Equal Suffrage by Helen Sumeurf Ph. D. p. 258. "The value of the suffrage to any class is largely symbolic, like the granting of independence to a county." The Independent. "It's effects have been, (a) To gradually educate women to a sense of their responsibility in public affairs." Paragraph 2, Revolution by Commonwealth Parliament (Australia.) Ses. 1909-10. "The lack of direct political influence constitutes a powerful reason why women's wages have been kept at a minimum." Ex-U.S. Com. of Labor, Carroll D. Wright. "Females employed as teachers in the public schools of this state shall in all cases receive the same compensation as is allowed to male teachers for like services when holding the same grade certificates." Compiled Laws of Utah, sec. 1853. Sec. 614, Rev. St. of Wyoming. Providing that men and women teachers shall receive equal pay when equally qualified. Chap, 175, Laws 1903 (Col.). Requiring joint signature of husband and wife to every chattel mortgage or bill of sale of household goods used by the family. "There is no difference made in teachers salaries on account of sex." Helen L. Grenfell, Former State Sup. of Pub. Instruction for Colorado. THERESA A. CROWLEY, For the Petitioners 7 No. 380 In Re PETITION OF JULIA WARD HOWE ET ALI. BRIEF OF PETITIONERS. 95 Photos: Miss Alice Paul Miss Inez Mulholland [*Teresa Crowley*] Mrs. Rheta C. Dorr Miss Jane Campbell, President of the Philadelphia County Society - 2 - Teresa did not practise until after her marriage and the births of her children. She had successfully built perhaps eight houses, including her own in Brookline, before she started to practise law. Mrs. Crowley wrote several short plays and poems which were acted and published under a pseudonym which has escaped my memory. Agnes M. Jenks, June 1943. Christian Science Monitor, Boston, Mass. Opposition A Justice for Woman Proof of Her Equal Factor with Man Woman’s equality is admitted today alike by suffragists and anti-suffragists. Her inherent right, more her duty, to aid in affairs of state, is the real basis even of anti-suffrage arguments. These latter derive their only force from the plea that woman as non-partizan holds the balance of power in the state. But that woman is an equal factor with man in the human round, political, social and economic, is what emerges clear from all the argument pro and con from the hearing at the State House yesterday morning and evening. When Mrs. Crowley unfurled her big banner, the map of the United States with the suffrage states colored red, the whole audience gladly or not must have assented to her cry, “Suffrage has already come.” The keynote of both morning and evening hearings was the jubilant assurance. Nothing can stay justice to women; it is already here. Massachusetts has only to decide whether she will take her place in the procession of the states a little later or a little sooner. Eventually every inch of that far flung tapestry—not named U.S. for nothing, say the suffragists—must bear the victorious crimson. With the great group of suffrage states in the West and with the states that are bound to adopt suffrage this year a mighty fact stands before the legislators of Massachusetts. Women largely control the election of the President of the United States and of congressmen. Those who argue that laws are only crystallized public sentiment, and that women may influence public sentiment as well without as with the vote, may well consider the public sentiment registered in this big banner of the Union. Votes for women has become a political expedient. The parties must stand for political equality or go down into oblivion. Evidence of Progress Here is indeed concrete evidence of the progress of suffrage since the days when men and boys broke up suffrage meetings with catcalls and smashing window panes. There is a well-known judge, an advocate of woman suffrage, who tells with a shame that points the moral that he was one of a group of young men who 40 years ago broke up a meeting of women. At the State House yesterday the crowded ranks of women had a most respectful hearing by their legislators. Some of the best known men in the state spoke for them or sent written assurances both of their desire for equal suffrage and of their confidence that it was already here. To be sure one former Governor thinks the people should not go quite so fast toward the consummation of justice to women. Yet even he argued strongly in his letter for submitting the question of suffrage to popular vote—not to the voters of the state, but to all the citizens. He said that the women should be given the opportunity to express themselves on a question that concerned them as closely as it did the men. It was flagrant tyranny to assume that men should decide this question for the women. This former Governor, however, missed the point he made here for the suffrage cause. It is exactly because all questions of the government concern women as much as men that the women are asking for the vote. Arguments Are Known The actual gains for suffrage in Massachusetts were seen, too, in the assumption on the part of every speaker that all the arguments for suffrage were well known to the legislators and must absolutely have been accepted by them as unanswerable. Nothing but hesitation as to expediency remains. Mrs. Crowley said that women no longer were asking men to take a leap in the dark by giving the vote to women. Suffrage is an established fact in too many progressive communities to leave reasonable doubt about it. It really works. Long ago men stood aghast at the thought of giving the vote to “irresponsible women.” It was said that women would plunge the state into anarchy —total dissolution. But equal suffrage has been tried. It has succeeded. If it had not succeeded it could have been reversed in many a community. But once admitted it has never been again shut out. An attempt to overthrow equal suffrage was made in California. A paper was sent out asking for money to support a campaign to reverse the victory of the women. It said that most of the men and women of the state were really against suffrage, and that it would be [easy?] to withdraw from a step taken has been made toward enfranchisement of women. One no longer hears that women are too foolish to handle so masculine a weapon as the ballot. The fears of the opposition seem to center in the possibility that she will handle it either too well, or too much as the men do. Here is progress indeed. For at bottom the cry for suffrage is merely the demand for an honest equality. What is really wanted is the removal of the last barrier that separates woman as if she were a piece of pretty frailty. Women have proved at last that they can be trusted with a latch key. One argument on the side of the opposition at the evening hearing was listened to with patience by the suffragists, for it was made by a woman member of the Massachusetts bar. She felt that to give women the vote would merely duplicate the present political condition. The better women would be as indifferent as the better class of men, and the worse women would side with the worse men. But in her own clear and forceful statement of her position she was the best possible argument for what the women seek fully to establish: that woman is the equal of man. “Women Are Folks” Anti-suffrage, then, seems driven to a last stand on the argument that women will vote very much as the men vote. Time was when the cry was that hysterical, irresponsible, limited of mentality, acting only on emotion or the impulse of the moment, woman would plunge the state into ruin. The only argument left against woman suffrage is that she will do no better than men have done! On the other hand are the arrayed reasons why the implied disrespect of the political ban should be lifted from women. On this last argument alone the case might rest. Whether women can or cannot do more for the good of all than men have been able to do, is aside from the real issue; which at last stands clear and plain, as the clean-cut plea of Joseph Walker at the morning session showed: Women are folks, as much as men are; and they have the same right to say how they will be governed, whether well or ill. In a democratic state men must show cause if any man is to be denied his right of self-government. Sufficient cause. Women are denied this fundamental human right and with no logical reason, save that they will exercise it very much as men do. Views of the Unions In the summing up argument pro and con, however, some of the women who think they are opposed to the full freedom of women say that while politics is a mere diversion for men, the very fact that women take it so hard is a reason why they should not go into it! Here again it seems as if opposition itself cries aloud for this great reform. If woman suffrage means that the welfare and happiness of a nation is no longer to be jousted over in the mood of sport or for mere personal advantage, is there any valid argument left against suffrage. It was frankly admitted last night that labor unions demanding an eight- hour day for men voted for a 54-hour week for women. The speaker for united labor said, however, that if women had the vote they would have more influence in labor unions. This plain fact alone is enough to establish woman’s right to what is a weapon of self-defense to men. The advance made by suffrage in the present hour, then, no longer sees the opposers of suffrage claiming masculine chivalry as the surest protection of women. Woman is awake now to know that outside her own home she can count very little on mere chivalry or male impulse. In the business world woman stands without a personal defender. She needs there even more than man—if he is stronger than she —the protection of the ballot. Co-worker With Men One of the gains for suffrage shown in this hearing then is that woman is taken for granted as everywhere a co-worker with man. If woman is working side by side with men in all the businesses of every day, there is every reason why she should stand beside him in the affairs of government. The economic change has come about neither by deliberate choice of men or women. The logic of events and human progress have established this new relation. New occasions mean new duties. Even the woman who opposes suffrage argues for woman as a coworker with men for the public good. They hold, however, that she can do more for the public good Evidence of Progress Here is indeed concrete evidence of the progress of suffrage since the days when men and boys broke up suffrage meetings with catcalls and smashing window panes. There is a well-known judge, an advocate of woman suffrage, who tells with a shame that points the moral that he was one of a group of young men who 40 years ago broke up a meeting of women. At the State House yesterday the crowded ranks of women had a most respectful hearing by their legislators. Some of the best known men in the state spoke for them or sent written assurances both of their desire for equal suffrage and of their confidence that it was already here. To be sure one former Governor thinks the people should not go quite so fast toward the consummation of justice to women. Yet even he argued strongly in his letter for submitting the question of suffrage to popular vote—not to the voters of the state, but to all the citizens. He said that the women should be given the opportunity to express themselves on a question that concerned them as closely as it did the men. It was flagrant tyranny to assume that men should decide this question for the women. This former Governor, however, missed the point he made here for the suffrage cause. It is exactly because all questions of the government concern women as much as men that the women are asking for the vote. Arguments Are Known The actual gains for suffrage in Massachusetts were seen, too, in the assumption on the part of every speaker that all the arguments for suffrage were well known to the legislators and must absolutely have been accepted by them as unanswerable. Nothing but hesitation as to expediency remains. Mrs. Crowley said that women no longer were asking men to take a leap in the dark by giving the vote to women. Suffrage is an established fact in too many progressive communities to leave reasonable doubt about it. It really works. Long ago men stood aghast at the thought of giving the vote to “irresponsible women.” It was said that women would plunge the state into anarchy —total dissolution. But equal suffrage has been tried. It has succeeded. If it had not succeeded it could have been reversed in many a community. But once admitted it has never been again shut out. An attempt to overthrow equal suffrage was made in California. A paper was sent out asking for money to support a campaign to reverse the victory of the women. It said that most of the men and women of the state were really against suffrage, and that it would be easy to withdraw from a step taken without due consideration. But nothing came of that definite attempt to reverse equal suffrage in California. If it had been possible to succeed this attempt would have succeeded. But it was not possible. Efforts Are United One by one the various organizations that support the good of the people in one form or another put themselves on record as desiring woman suffrage. This was a quiet but imposing part of the proceedings. The united forces of labor, of temperance, of progressive politics, of socialism and the mothers who demand for their sons and daughters purity and safety in the republic as in the home, all these efforts for human betterment are united in demanding votes for women as a sure means to forward their good works. The very anti-suffragists were themselves testimony of the progress that for the good of all than men have been able to do, is aside from the real issue; which at last stands clear and plain, as the clean-cut plea of Joseph Walker at the morning session showed: Women are folks, as much as men are; and they have the same right to say how they will be governed, whether well or ill. In a democratic state men must show cause if any man is to be denied his right of self-government. Sufficient cause. Women are denied this fundamental human right and with no logical reason, save that they will exercise it very much as men do. Views of the Unions In the summing up argument pro and con, however, some of the women who think they are opposed to the full freedom of women say that while politics is a mere diversion for men, the very fact that women take it so hard is a reason why they should not go into it! Here again it seems as if opposition itself cries aloud for this great reform. If woman suffrage means that the welfare and happiness of a nation is no longer to be jousted over in the mood of sport or for mere personal advantage, is there any valid argument left against suffrage. It was frankly admitted last night that labor unions demanding an eight- hour day for men voted for a 54-hour week for women. The speaker for united labor said, however, that if women had the vote they would have more influence in labor unions. This plain fact alone is enough to establish woman’s right to what is a weapon of self-defense to men. The advance made by suffrage in the present hour, then, no longer sees the opposers of suffrage claiming masculine chivalry as the surest protection of women. Woman is awake now to know that outside her own home she can count very little on mere chivalry or male impulse. In the business world woman stands without a personal defender. She needs there even more than man—if he is stronger than she —the protection of the ballot. Co-worker With Men One of the gains for suffrage shown in this hearing then is that woman is taken for granted as everywhere a co-worker with man. If woman is working side by side with men in all the businesses of every day, there is every reason why she should stand beside him in the affairs of government. The economic change has come about neither by deliberate choice of men or women. The logic of events and human progress have established this new relation. New occasions mean new duties. Even the woman who opposes suffrage argues for woman as a coworker with men for the public good. They hold, however, that she can do more for the public good without the vote than with it. Yet that she is an equal worker with man, and that she must assume these larger duties, that she has proved herself capable of these larger duties: all these plain facts are admitted even by anti-suffragists. The recent feeble attempt to set woman aside as a mental inferior because of differences of physique have made no impression at all on the whole volume of argument pro and con. This old-time argument has plainly gone by the board. Woman’s equality is admitted. Mentally and morally she is seen to be the equal of her brother man. As a co-worker with men in business and in efforts for the common good she is admitted as valuable a factor in the state as in the home. These facts are today granted alike by suffragists and anti-suffragists. It would seem then that nothing further remains to be done but to invest woman with the outward sign of this inward equality, and give her the vote. Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.