NAWSA Subject File Congressional committees write directly to you for if there is any doubt of Miss Paul's reappointment I want to hear a little testimony before the decision is made. I am an old Washingtonian and know this city well I must tell you that Miss Paul has done a wonderful work. She has interested all classes, a thing very difficult to do for there is not the cohesion 1816 I Street My dear Miss Shaw: Yesterday I was told that a new chairman would probably be appointed for the Congressional Committee. As I have been a prisoner from sickness for many months and cannot therefore get about to make inquiries I am going to venture to in Washington which is found in other cities owing to in large population which has at least half its interest in another home. Suffrage has become a burning topic in all circles. I have lived here long enough to realize the change. Then Miss Paul has roused deep personal loyalty in many hearts and has been an inspiration to devotion to the cause. It has been very wonderful to me to hear so many women say so. It would seem a calamity if she can not come back. But her health poor girl is so wretched now! It is distressing to see her condition. But if she is well enough to lead us again I hope she will be reappointed. Dear Miss Shaw, if you lived here you would realize the wonderful, wonderful work she has done among us. I can not hope that you will remember me but I shall always remember her with great pleasure Your lunching with me after the hearing at the Capitol last spring. Alice Paul & Miss Burns lunched with us. I was in charge of the foreign delegations in our March parade. I only tell you this that I may have some form and substance in your mind - not seem a voice issuing from the void. With Cordial Regards Very sincerely Abby Scott Baker Sunday December fourteenth (see reply in Shaw folder) Subscrition Order The Suffaragist 1420 F Street Washington, D. C. Weekly Bulletin of the Congressional Union of Woman Suffrage Editor, Rheta Childe Dorr SUBSCRIPTION Domestic 1 Year . . . . . . $ .50 Single Copy . . .01 Foreigh 1 Year . . . . . . $1.00 Date.......... Enclosed please find $............... for ................ subscription for ................. year beginning with the issue of......................... Name.................................................................... Address................................................................... In order to assist in the campaign for the constitutional amendment, an official weekly paper called "The Suffragist" is to be published here, beginning in the Fall. Plans for this paper have been under way for some time, but definite announcement that it is to be published was just given out today. Mrs. Rheta Childe Dorr, formerly of the New York Evening Post and Hampton's Magazine, and author of "What Eight Million Women Want", and co-author of "Woman's Invasion", is to be editor of the magazine. This will be the first Suffrage paper published in Washington. ............0000................ We are endeavoring to secure 10,000 subscribers before August. This can easily be accomplished if each person to whom we write will send us ten subscriptions. May we count upon ten from you? Very sincerely yours, (Mrs.) MINNIE E. BROOKE, Circulation Manager. [*1913*] National American Woman Suffrage Association President, REV, ANNA HOWARD SHAW, Pa. 1st Vice President, MISS JANE ADDAMS, Chicago 2nd Vice President, MISS C. ANITA WHITNEY, Cal. Corresponding Secretary, MRS. MARY WARE DENNETT, N.Y. Recording Secretary, MRS. SUSAN WALKER FITZGERALD, Boston. Treasurer, MRS. KATHERINE DEXTER, McCORMICK, Boston. 1st Auditor, MRS. HARRIET BURTON LAIDLAW, N.Y. 2nd Auditor, MRS. J.T. BOWEN, Chicago Congressional Committee MISS ALICE PAUL, N.J. Chairman. MRS. CRYSTAL EASTMAN BENEDICT, Wis. MISS LUCY BURNS, N.Y. MRS. LAWRENCE LEWIS, JR., Pa. MRS. MARY BEARD, N.Y. HEADQUARTERS CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE 1420 F STREET N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. July 3rd, 1913. Dear, Suffragist:- Beginning in the near future, we will publish a weekly bulletin giving the news concerning the suffrage amendment to the United States constitution, and telling what action is needed that particular week from suffragists throughout the country, to aid in securing its passage. This weekly bulletin will take the place of the thousands of circular letters which heretofore we have been sending out at each new stage in the course of the amendment through Congress. The purpose of the bulletin is to supply suffragists with up to date, first hand information concerning the amendment, and all the activities which are being carried on its support. This bulletin will, therefore, occupy a field which is not at present covered. It will be edited by Mrs. Rheta Childe Dorr, who was for four years, one of the editors of the New York Evening Post, and later, on the staff of Hampton's Magazine. She is the author of "What Eight Million Women Want", and the joint author of "The Woman's Invasion". We are endeavoring to secure 10,000 subscribers before August. This can easily be accomplished if each person to whom we write will send us ten subscriptions. May we count upon ten from you? Very sincerely yours, (Mrs.) MINNIE E. BROOKE, Circulation Manager. Dear Mrs. Dennett, The enclosed resignation is wordy but I do not want to seem unappreciative of the invitation to continue asa member of the Congressional Committee. I must say to you that I am terribly sorry that I can't agree with you in your ideas about the congressional work entirely. In some respects I do, of course; but it seems to me that there will, in all probability, be an e[*x*]cess of red tape which will hamper the results. However I think much of the difficulty or misunderstanding has been due to the personality of the chairman so that she has not been judged by results as another might be. I know definitely also some other sources of misjudgments. It is just wiser for me to give way to another who will see things in complete accord with the Board. I have to practice non-resistance this winter and you will not be the loser by the necessity which forces this attitude upon me. My personal affection is not diminished by the fact that we do not see this thing eye to eye. You can just regard me as a mental defective and let your liking be stimulated by pity. Cordially, Mary Beard. Answered DEC 27 1913 Supplies [*Beard refusing to serve on committee*] [*Cong Com*] 400 West 118th St., New York City. [*-0-1*] December 26th., 1913. Dear Mrs. Dennett, Many hours have been given to thought over the Congressional situation and the future work and I have tried to the best of my ability to see things in an unbiassed way. My deliberate judgment finally is that I do not want to accept a re-appointment on the Congressional Committee. My chief reasons are these: 1. I think the chairman should be a permanent resident of Washington. This should be true of as many members of the Committee as possible. 2. The Chairman of the committee should be given control of the work. There is to my mind no practical value in submitting every scheme and step in the work to the National Board. This wastes time and hurts efficiency. The work of the committee should be judged by results and if those are not forthcoming, the chairman is obviously incompetent and should be supplanted by another. 3. The thing that will make for success is to have a committee whom the Board thoroughly trust and a committee who completely trust the judgment of the Board. 4. Some one else can fill these requirements better than I and furthermore I have neither leisure nor money to render proper service in the national work. In withdrawing I do not feel that I leave the National Board in the slightest dilemma as there are so many women available for work for the Amendment. I am however flattered by the Board's valuation of what I have tried to do. Sincerely yours, Mary Beard. Answered Dec 27 1913 Supplies [*I think also that the Chairman should sit in the office at the Washington headquarters day in and day out to direct the work, just as Miss Paul has done.*] January 9th. 1914. Mrs. Helen H. Gardener, 1838 Lamont Street, Washington, D.C. My dear Mrs. Gardener:- This is to say that the National Board of Directors has appointed you a member of the Congressional Committee for the ensuing year, and hopes you will accept the appointment, not only because of the general helpfulness and advice which you can give to the chairman, Mrs. Medill McCormick, but because of the special service you are equipped to render in regard to the distribution of government documents. We should be most grateful for as early an acceptance of this appointment as you can give us. Sincerely yours, Mary Ware Dennett Corresponding Secretary. January 9th. 1914. Mrs. Helen H. Gardener, 1838 Lamont Street, Washington, D.C. My dear Mrs. Gardener:- I am going to give you a quite frank explanation of recent events, to accompany the enclosed official letter of appointment on the Congressional Committee. I don't wonder you have been puzzled by the announcement in the "Woman's Journal", and possibly elsewhere, but these are the main facts in several weeks of struggle over the Congressional situation. As you know, the National Board and Mrs. Medill McCormick, after she accepted the chairmanship of the Committee, made a tremendously long drawn out effort to get the members of last year's Congressional Committee, who had been asked to serve again, into line for a good year's work. A part of this effort you will understand by reading the enclosed letter, which is a copy of one which is now being sent out to the State Presidents and the National Executive Council members. In that letter you will see the terms of an agreement, which was almost put through by Mrs. McCormick two or three days after we saw you in Washington. Meanwhile, you had been nominated as a member of the Congressional Committee, but before all the members of the Board had had time to send back their votes on your nomination, we prepared, and sent out to all the important suffrage papers in the country, a statement in regard to the new year's plans for the Congressional Committee. We were very eager to get this statement published -1- -2- Mrs. Gardener, in order to forestall erroneous, misleading statements which might appear in the daily press. Therefore, knowing that no member of the Official Board would do anything but voye "Yes" on your nomination, your name was included i the list of members of the newly appointed Congressional Committee. But, in every instance, there was a marginal note put on the copy beside your name "Hold until later information arrives. This is a nomination and not yet an appointment". Of course these various suffrage publications go to the press at different times, some of them are weekly, some monthly, andit was intended that all of those which went to press immediately should print the Congressional Committee without your name and that these which did not go to press immediately would receive the later information that you were a member of the committee and, therefore, your name would be included. For some reason the Woman's Journal paid no attention to the marginal note and printed the copy as it stood. I was, of course, exceedingly vexed, in view of later events. What happened was this. After endless discussion, Mrs. McCormick had gotten the members of the Executive Committee of the Congressional Union to promise to sign the agreement, which is enclosed, when, to her amazement, the next morning when she went down to the Congressional Union office with the typed agreement in her hand to get the signatures, Miss Paul, who was there alone, announced that the Congressional Union would make no agreement whatever with the National Association. Mrs. McCormick asked what had happened over night and discovered that the only thing which had occurred was that Miss Paul had just received the copy of our press story, sent to all the suffrage papers and, therefore, sent to "The Suffragist", and had decided, even without consulting the other members of the committee, to throw over the whole proposition if you were appointed a member of the Congressional Committee. Mrs. McCormick insisted that Miss Paul had no right to make decisions for her association alone, that her decision must be at least backed by a majority of the members of her committee. Presently a majority of her committee appeared and, after a lot more discussion. Mrs. McCormick, feeling the wisdom of keeping them in line, if possible, telephoned us here at headquarters and laid the situation before us. We all agreed that we would make one last attempt to hold the Congressional Union to a responsible, orderly plan of work by re-considering your nomination, knowing that you could easily be appointed the chairman of a sub-committee for the Congressional Committee, to have charge of the government document work. We found, however, that a re-consideration of the vote was not necessary, since the original vote had not yet reached all members of our Board, and the nomination was withdrawn. That fact was telegraphed to Mrs. McCormick the same day. Meanwhile, however, the Congressional Union had frankly abandoned the flimsy excuse of not being willing to work with the -3- Mrs. Gardener, National Association if you were on the committee and finally declared that they would not work with the National Association on any terms whatever. So you can see that all that pow-wow about your name was of no significance and now we have re-submitted your name to the vote of the Board and have already heard from a majority and, therefore, you are appointed and the "Woman's Journal" story is the truth, after all. I know it is quite unnecessary to ask you to consider this frank explanation of what happened as quite confidential. Miss Shaw asked me to write to you fully about it, feeling that we wished to tell you ourselves what happened rather than to have later the garbled version reach you. On the whole, in spite of the exceedingly trying experience which the whole thing has been, and it has been trying in far more ways than I have told you, we all feel that the outlook is exceedingly hopeful. Mrs. Annette Yunk is keeping castle for Mrs McCormick temporarily until she gets back to Washington, which will be in about three weeks. In the interim she is going to start Congressional District organizing work all over the country. This work she plans to do from her Chicago office and is contributing the services of her very admirable secretary. I want to say finally that I am glad you are on the committee and I hope that the most troublesome of all our difficulties are now past and that we can proceed to get a fine year's work done. Among other things I hope that the Advisory Council, of which you spoke, will become a reality very soon. It will be valuable in ever so many ways. I am to-day writing Mrs. McCormick about it. I cannot take the time to write more just now. Faithfully yours, MWD/JC. Corresponding Secretary. [*Authority Amendment? I shall be much interested to receive the other letters of which you speak. Sincerely yours Blanche Ames*] TEL. STOUGHTON 74-2 BORDERLAND NORTH EASTON MASSACHUSETTS My dear Mrs [Frank?]: I wish to thank you for the statements you sent me morning upon the Shafroth Amendment, which I have read with interest. I feel some doubts as to the advisability of the Shafroth Amendment fearing that it involves us in a compromise with the States Rights advocates. Mrs. McCormick says "The amendment goes further and asks that suffrage shall be put to the people only when the people of each state want it put to them. If we ask that..How can we turn about and pass the Mrs. Medill McCormick Chairman Members MRS. ANTOINETTE FUNK CHICAGO, ILL MRS. HELEN GARDENER WASHINGTON , D.C. MRS MARY C. BRADFORD DENVER, COLO. MRS. SHERMAN M. BOOTH GLENCOE, ILL. MRS. DESHA BRECKINRIDGE LEXINGTON, KY. MRS. JOHN TUCKER SAN FRANCISCO, K.Y. MRS. EDWARD DRIER BROOKLYN, N.Y. [????????]28 [*copy of letter sent out*] [*of? State Presidents*] OFFICE National Congressional Committee OF THE National American Woman Suffrage Association MUNSEY BUILDING WASHINGTON, D. C. WHITE STATES . . FULL SUFFRAGE SHADED '' . . PARTIAL '' DARK " . NO " Telephone main 3597 Officers National Association DR. ANNA HOWARD SHAW PRESIDENT MISS JANE ADDAMS FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT MRS. DESHA BRECKINRIDGE SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT MRS. CAROLINE RUUTZ-REES THIRD VICE-PRESIDENT MRS. SUSAN W. FITZGERALD RECORDING SECRETARY MRS. MARY WARE DENNETT CORRESPONDING SECRETARY MRS. STANLEY McCORMICK TREASURER MRS. JAMES LEES LAIDLAW FIRST AUDITOR MRS. JOSEPH TITLTON BOWEN SECOND AUDITOR March 24, 1914.1. Dear President: My weekly report has been delayed because of the rush of legislative work within the past ten days, but I am most anxious to keep you closely in touch with the happenings here, our plans for future work and the present outlook, and to acquaint you with the proposed work upon the resolution recently introduced in the Senate. Our first work as a committee was to make a close and careful survey of the Senate. By a survey we mean a long enough interview with each individual member to enable us to determine not only whether he is a suffragist, but if an anti we feel it important to understand his reasons and to discuss the suffrage question separating it from Joint Resolution No. 1. When that was accomplished we knew to a vote what our strength was in that body upon Joint Resolution No. 1, and we learned that the strength of the opposition was based upon the doctrine of states rights, and that our pending amendment was impossible of passage for ten or fifteen years at least. The doctrine of states rights does not alone stand against suffrage; back of that is the race question. We felt that before we could take a step in advance we must get these men out from behind that shelter; we must find out in truth whether they opposed a federal amendment because it was repugnant to the states rights doctrine, or whether they were hiding behind that doctrine because of prejudice against the cause. After the conclusion of this most careful survey, after the senators had been interviewed in some instances by every member of our committee, we knew to a vote what we might expect by way of results. For example, the very day before the vote was taken Senator Luke Lea, one of the three southern senators who was favorable to our amendment, asked one of our committee to tell him exactly the strength of the vote, and this member responded that if all the senators were present we would get something -2- thing better than 40 votes - something between 40 and 45, probably 44. When the vote was counted and those who were paired in favor of the vote were taken into account, we had exactly 44 adherents in the Senate. We knew for a certainty the strength in the Senate for Join Resolution No. 1, but we are equally certain- and this certainty is not founded upon guesswork, but upon accurate information - that there are at least ten more senators who are in favor of advancing the cause in the states themselves at this time. For this reason, all possibilities being exhausted of Joint Resolution No. 1 being passed in the Senate, or even getting on to the floor or the House (for reasons which I will make the subject of a later letter), we concluded we would promote other national legislation, knowing that everything that will advance and aid the work in the several states will be so much added strength in the national Congress at a later session. It is certain that when there are from ten to fifteen more states in the suffrage column a constitutional amendment will become possible and not till then, and we feel equally certain that the necessary ten or fifteen states cannot be brought in for a good many years unless they get relief from the irksome legislative barriers built up by a large percent of the state constitutions, as for instance, the state of Illinois. The constitution of that state, written fifty years ago, has not been amended in twenty-two years. It is exceedingly restrictive in its provision; only one section may be amended at one session. Since the constitution was written the state has grown into an enormous commonwealth; it has entirely outgrown the constitution of half a century ago, but it is a practical impossibility to get legislative action to enlarge it. Six years ago, by a vote of over 200,000 the electorate of the state directed the legislature to amend the constitution by writing into it the initiative and referendum. The legislature refused to do this. Four years ago by a majority vote of over 350,00 the people made the same demand, and again the legislature refused. Two years ago the people by an enormous majority directed the legislature to amend the constitution with relation to revenues, the taxing laws being in a bad way. This direction on the part of the people is not a mandate under Illinois law, but an expression of the will of the people, and the legislature again disregarded the people's expressed will. For twenty-two years the women of Illinois have been asking for a constitutional amendment submitting the question of suffrage to the voters of the state. There has never been a chance of that question being submitted: something else has always been pressing and in the way, and unless Illinois can get a constitutional convention, which seems far off even now, the legislature stands as a barrier between the people and this vote. If a vote could be taken today upon state-wide suffrage in Illinois it would carry, and bad as the situation of Illinois is, many other states are worse. Many states, for instance New York, must get legislative consent by a two-thirds majority at two successive legislatures -3- before the question can be submitted, and so in our earnest seeking after some means whereby the cause can be advanced we have decided upon and have had introduced the enclosed resolution. Work on this resolution will unquestionably bring the necessary two-thirds vote. There are a number of constitutional amendments for suffrage now before Congress, also one or more bills, as contra-distinguished from resolutions, which if passed would have a more or less far-reaching effect upon the movement, but we felt that we could not concentrate upon any one of them with the certainty that it could be carried to success in Congress and in the states, or that it would be so effective for good as the Shafroth Joint Resolution No. 130. Let me point out that if this measure becomes law and the electorate, when they vote, defeat suffrage in any particular state, there will be nothing to prevent the re-submission of the question at the next general election and thus the state would become a campaign state all the time. New York illustrates our point. Under their law, as I have stated, the resolution to amend their state constitution must pass two successive legislatures by a two-thirds vote and then it goes to the voters (male). Such a resolution has passed one legislature and is likely to go through the second, then if the people turn it down the heart-breaking and uncertain work of winning two more legislatures much be gone through again before the campaign with the people direct can begin. The work in a suffrage campaign in the several states under the new resolution will be cut in two. We will be most grateful to you for an expression of opinion upon the same. I am more anxious than I can possibly tell you to feel that we are cooperating with every state in the Union, not in theory but in fact. I will deem it a great favor if I may hear from you upon this question at an early date, and shall be delighted to answer any questions that may occur to you. A little later I will have sent to you from this office a complete analysis of the proposed new amendment, together with a resume' of the law in various states and its probable effect in those states. Sincerely yours, R[???] McCormick Chairman RM-LA Miss Medill Enclosure National American Woman Suffrage Association Congressional Committee Rush February 3, 1913 Miss Agnes E. Ryan, Business Mgr. Woman's Journal, 585 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. My dear Miss Ryan: In answer to your letter of January 29th will say that we shall need a great deal of literature for Inaugural week and would like to have you submit your proposition which you referred to in your letter of this date. Kindly let me hear from you at once fully in regard to the matter, Yours sincerely, (Mrs.) Lulu W Hemingway Chairman Committee on Literature. National American Woman Suffrage Association Congressional Committee May 24th, 1913. Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, 585--Boylston St., Boston, Mass. Dear Miss Blackwell: The plain sheet of paper, which accompanied our news bulletin of May 20th, was placed in the envelope in order to keep the press copy from blotting, as the copy was still wet when mailed. Very sincerely yours, Alice Paul Chairman Congressional Committee. National American Woman Suffrage Association Congressional Committee July 12, 1913. Miss Agnes E. Ryan, 585 Boylston St., Boston, Mass. Dear Miss Ryan: I notice in today's Journal that you state the demonstration in Washington will occur on July 30. Owing to a change i the plans of the Club where we have arranged to have a banquet on the evening of the presentation of the petitions, the date has been changed to July 31. We have arranged for the delegates from all parts of the country to meet at Hyattsville, (a small town outside of Washington) and proceed from there, by automobile procession, to Washington and up to Congress where the petitions will be presented. The Mayor of Hyattsville and a committee of local citizens have arranged the ceremonies of welcome at Hyattsville. The Mayor will present us with the key of the city and make an address of welcome. I wish it were possible that you could come for the occasion. Very sincerely yours, Alice Paul Chairman, Congressional Committee. AP/MEA [Paid} Pay Willard R. Ross 39 Que St N. Wash DC $1.00 See letter Aug 6. National American Woman Suffrage Association Congressional Committee August 3rd 1913 Ed. The Woman's Journal: - I am sending you a picture of the Florida automobile as it looked on July 31st the day we invaded the Capitol with our petitions to congress to grant a constitutional amendment giving us political freedom. The Wash. Times spoke of it as being the most beautiful one in the parade, which was saying a good deal for they were all so beautiful. I sincerely hope you can give space in your paper for this picture and there by help to dispel a prevalent belief that there is no interest in suffrage in southern states. Every single southern state was represented in this parade by cars filled with prominent southern women. Very sincerely yours Mrs. W.M. Stoner 1527 Rhode Island Ave N.B. Mrs W.M. Stoner (WE) is the lady at the wheel in the picture - The others are Miss Florence Coumbe, Mrs. A.T. Coumbe Mrs Ross Perry and Miss Jeanette Rankin who rode out to Hyattsville in our car and there joined her party. She belongs a little bit to Florida now-a-days - Mrs. Stoner National American Woman Suffrage Association President, REV. ANNA HOWARD SHAW, Pa. 1st Vice President, MISS JANE ADDAMS, Chicago 2nd Vice President, MISS C. ANITA WHITNEY, Cal. Corresponding Secretary, MRS. MARY WARE DENNET, N. Y. Recording Secretary, MRS. SUSAN WALKER FITZGERALD, Boston. Treasurer, MRS. KATHERINE DEXTER McCORMICK, Boston. 1st Auditor, MRS. HARRIET BURTON LAIDLAW, N. Y. 2nd Auditor, MRS. J. T. BOWEN, Chicago [*ANSWERED, *AUG 8 1913*] Congressional Committee MISS ALICE PAUL, N. J. Chairman. MRS. CRYSTAL EASTMAN BENEDICT, Wis. MISS LUCY BURNS, N. Y. MRS. LAWRENCE LEWIS, JR., Pa. MRS. MARY BEARD, N. Y. HEADQUARTERS CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE 1420 F STREET N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. August 4, 1913. Miss Agnes E. Ryan, 585 Boylston Street, Boston, Mass. Dear Miss Ryan: Will you not tell me of anyone whom you know whom you think would be good as a business manager for our bulletin, "The Suffragist?" We are expecting to begin it about the first of October. We would like, of course, to have a woman take charge of the business end of it. We will be grateful if you would tell us how to proceed. Should we get someone to take both the business and the advertising end, or is it sufficient merely to get an advertising manager? Should we ask the person to do it on a salary or on a commission basis? We will be most grateful if you will give us your advice upon these points. It is a field about which I know nothing whatever. Thanking you for the splendid help which the Journal has always given to the work in Washington, I am Very sincerely yours, Alice Paul Chairman Congressional Committee. AP/SM Dec. 12, 1913. Mrs. Mary Beard, 501 West 121st St., New York City/ My dear Mrs. Beard:- The Board of the Association has re-appointed you a member of the Congressional Committee. There is a great deal to be said on the whole subject of Congressional work. the Board has been many long hours discussing it and outlining a specific plan of work, which on the whole is hopeful. I think I would very much prefer not to write it all to you, but to see you instead, so won't you please telephone me when you can come down to the office. I hope it will be quite soon. Very sincerely yours, (Mary Ware Dennett) Cor. Sec. { reply in Board folder} MRS MEDILL McCORMICK CHAIRMAN Members MRS. ANTOINETTE FUNK CHICAGO, ILL MRS. HELEN GARDNER WASHINGTON, D. C. MRS. MARY C. BRADFORD DENVER, COLO. MRS. SHERMAN M. BOOTH GLENCOE, ILL. MRS. DESHA BRECKINRIDGE LEXINGTON, KY. MRS. JOHN TUCKER SAN FRANCISCO. CAL MRS. EDWARD DRIER BROOKLYN N. Y. OFFICE National Congressional Committee OF THE National American Woman Suffrage Association 1505 City Hall Square Building CHICAGO, ILL. TELEPHONE RANDOLPH 5748 Officers National Association DR. ANNA HOWARD SHAW PRESIDENT MISS JANE ADDAMS FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT MRS. DESHA BRECKINRIDGE SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT MRS. CAROLINE RUUTZ-REES THIRD VICE-PRESIDENT MRS. SUSAN W. FITZGERALD RECORDING SECRETARY MRS. MARY WARE DENNETT CORRESPONDING SECRETARY MRS. STANLEY McCORMICK TREASURER MRS. JAMES LEES LAIDLAW FIRST AUDITOR MRS. JOSEPH TILTON BOWEN SECOND AUDITOR 1913 Alaska WHITE STATES . . FULL SUFFRAGE SHADED " . . PARTIAL " DARK " . . NO " October 29, 1914. My Dear Madam:- The national contract for the moving picture play entitled "Your Girl and Mine," has been signed with the World Film Corporation, one of the biggest film distributing concerns in the country. The contract provides that we receiver 50% of the gross earnings of the picture, which is as good a moving picture contract as can be obtained under the circumstances. Mr. Selznick, vice-president and business manager of this corporation, sees the publicity value of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and being a suffragist, is really interested in promoting our cause. Of course, it is to his business interest to promote it, and the energy with which he has taken hold during the last twenty-four hours convinces me that we have placed it to our best financial interest. Mr. Selznick has worked out a very clever additional way for us to make money. The World Film Corporation will issue a Coupon Book. Each coupon will contain two 5-cent tickets and four 10-cent tickets, and will be honored in any theatre throughout the United States where "Your Girl and Mine" is playing. The reason for the different priced tickets on this one coupon, is that the price of admission in the different moving picture theatres varies from 5¢ to 50¢. You can sell a coupon for 50¢, and the purchaser of this coupon can take as many people on the one coupon as the price of admission will admit. These Coupon Books are to be distributed from my office in Chicago, the World Film Corporation maintaining the salary of a woman who will have charge of it here in Chicago, and stationery and stamps for the distribution of these Coupon Books to the State Associations, and local organizations if the State so desire. -2- The theatres will allow the suffragists 25% of the sale of the coupons. I am writing by this mail to the National Board members asking them what percentage of this 25% can be retained by the State Associations. In my judgment they ought to receive 20%, giving 5% to the National for incidental expenses attached to publicity and extra postage on advising the suffragists of the country of the route of the picture, et cetera. You can aid the promotion of "Your Girl and Mine" in any one or in all of the following ways: 1. By appointing a special woman is your state to look after this detail during the coming winter, and calling her State Chairman of the Moving Picture Committee. It would be her duty to receive all the Coupon Books, the routes of the pictures from time to time, and to receive and answer all mail from the state pertaining to this performance; also to handle the money collected on the sale of Coupon Books, et cetera. 2. By writing a letter to an active woman in each one of your cities, asking them to call upon the City Editors of the newspapers in order to solicit a feature story, or advertising in any other way the coming of "Your Girl and Mine", upon notification of its performance. 3. This same individual, or if you prefer the appointment of still another woman in the various cities, to call upon the moving picture houses and inquire from them when they are going to show the suffrage drama; if they have not heard of it before, to tell them about it and give them the information that the World Film Corporation is handling the film, and to request their writing for it. 4. If you think a dodger would be of any use in circularizing the women of your state, I shall be glad to have printed and sent to you, free, as many as you can use. It might be advisable to have a quantity of these dodgers in your state headquarters to stick in every letter you write to the city organizations. This will not cost you any money, and would inform every suffragist on the subject. 5. On the opening night of "Your Girl and Mine" in your city, have some sort of an entertainment and make it a point of calling up by telephone the prominent people and urging them to go on that night. The newspaper reporters will be very willing to publish in the news columns the fact that society was represented at the opening night, et cetera. With active co-operation on the part of the State Associations we ought to be able to make thousands of dollars. The proceeds from "Your Girl and Mine" received by the National is to run the National Congressional Committee next year, but all money -3- received over and above these expenses will be utilized in the State Campaigns. You will not only receive 20% of all tickets you can sell locally, but if the total sum is large enough you will benefit from the National fund also. As it is necessary for the success of the play to start it with a Bang!. I hope you will take time at your earliest convenience to consider the different points, and give it as much local publicity as you possibly can at once, and do write me any suggestions that may come to your mind so that I may benefit by them within the next two weeks. If the World Film Corporation, represented by Mr. Selznick, writes you or asks any favors of you during the next few weeks, I hope you will grant them as far as possible, realizing that the success of the film also depends upon co-operation with them. Cordially yours, Ruth McCormick Chairman. The Empire State Campaign Committee "Votes for Women" Headquarters 1 EAST 41st STREET New York City January 25, 1914 Mrs. Medill McCormick. Munsey Building. Washington, D.C. My dear Mrs. McCormick:- I made a motion at the Washington convention which I understand is being quoted as evidence of unfair treatment of the Congressional Committee of last year. My motion was to continue the Committee. When a committee has reported and its report has not been entirely accepted, it is customary to move its continuance, as the committee is not yet discharged. In this case however, my motion was really out of order because the Congressional Committee is a standing committee provided for by the constitution. I really had in mind the continuance of the members of the Committee who had served last year: but this motion was likewise out of order, inasmuch as the Constitution provides that such appointments shall be made by the Board of Officers. In either case the motion seems to have been out of order, and the Board certainly acted entirely within its constitutional rights when it appointed and entirely new membership to the Committee. Cordially yours, Carrie Chapman Catt[?] {Statements} Important This is the original release sent to the Washington Post by the National Woman's Party, and is referred to in Mrs. Park's FRONT DOOR LOBBY. Mrs. Park heard of the plan to burn the President in Effigy and went to a dinner where the head of the Wash. police was to speak. He left the meeting and the police were able to thwart the plan of the Party, but the Washington papershad received the release and some of them did publish the item in the Sunday papers. Editor NATIONAL WOMAN'S PARTY FEB 8 RELEASE SUNDAY AM PAPERS Ed. note: This release from the Natl. Woman's Party given to Mrs. Maud Wood Park by Washington Post rep, [*Edna L. Stantial Ed*] President Wilson will be burned in effigy in front of the executive mansion on the eve of the suffrage vote in the Senate. Members of the National Woman's Party at four o'clock Sunday afternoon will light their watchfires, but this time they intend to burn not the words alone, but the image of President Wilson. The image will be dropped into the flames by Miss Sue White, state chairman of the National Woman's Party for Tennessee. "We demand that President Wilson save the suffrage situation:" Alice Paul, chairman of the National Woman's Party, stated in announcing this demonstration today, "that he use his power as the leader of this country and of the party in control of legislation to secure the one vote which stands between American women and political freedom. "There is one half day left for the passage of the suffrage amendment. There is grave danger that the revenue bill will displace the suffrage, easure on Monday afternoon and occupy the entire time of the Senate during the fifteen legislative days remaining. "In the face of this fact President Wilson is busily cabling the Senate on every subject except freedom for women. He has deliberately risked the failure of the amendment by permitting its delay and obstruction until this final moment. We hold him responsible for our threatened defeat and we burn his effigy in token of our conviction that he has betrayed American women." The line of women holding banners on either side of the watchfire Sunday afternoon is expected to reach the full length of the White House grounds. Several of the state chairmen of the National Woman's Party are coming to take part in the demonstration. Many women who have not previously identified themselves with the demonstrations of the Woman's Party, recognizing the perilous situation of the amendment will join in the demand Sunday that President Wilson act immediately to save the amendment. The banners to be carried on Sunday read: "Only 15 legislative days are left for this Congress. "For more than a year the President's party has blocked suffrage in the Senate. It is blocking it today. "The President is responsible for the betrayal of American women." "Why does not the President insure the passage of suffrage in the Senate tomorrow? Why does he not win from his party the one vote needed? Has he agreed to permit suffrage to again be pushed aside? "President Wilson is deceiving the world. He preaches democracy abroad and thwarts democracy here." THE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION. TO FRIENDS IN THE CONGRESS The "Feddy A" Is on its way To States that ratify. Our hearts are gay, Therefore we play Before we say good-bye. The House has twice The Senate Thrice A suffrage vote recorded. We will not say On this glad day Which we've the more applauded; But thank our friends Whose kindness sends Us forth with task completed And saves the men, In Hall and den, From pleadings oft repeated. We hope you'll miss A little this Non-militant appealing: But if you don't, We swear we won't Misunderstand your feeling; For, though your glee The last to see Of us may be distressing, It's only fair To say we share The wish that you're confessing. So we break ranks With warmest thanks To friends in every party Who brought the end And helped "amend" By efforts wise and hearty. Maud Wood Park, June 1919. Note: Written for the "thank you and good-bye" meeting at Suffrage House, to which our most helpful friends in the Congress were invited. M.W.P. Law Offices of Samuel W. McCall Stanley R. Miller 85 Devonshire Street BOSTON, Apr. 30, 1914. Mrs. Maud Wood Park, Sec., 585 Boylston Street, Boston. My dear Mrs. Park:- I have your two letters with the enclosed tickets. I thank you very much for them. As to myself I will find my way to the platform by seven o'clock Saturday evening and will make a five minute speech as you request. Sincerely yours, SW McCall 1814 N Street N.W. COUNCIL OF NATIONAL DEFENSE WASHINGTON WOMAN'S COMMITTEE June 28/1918 Mrs. Maud Wood Park 1626 Rhode Island Avenue Washington D.C. My dear Mrs. Park:- As I may not have an opportunity to speak with you at noon to-day, the time of your return from the Capitol being uncertain and I am living the city at three o'clock, I want to say a few words in writing. I know how times of despair and discouragement overtake us after we have labored hard for a certain purpose and our hopes have risen, then suddenly to ourselves again at the very bottom round of the ladder with every hope deserting us. I have had such experiences too many times in suffrage work not to know how to sympathize with anyone suffering a like sense of disappointment. While I was sorry yesterday for all the women of this country, I frankly confess that I was most desirous of expressing to you my sincere sympathy and earnest appreciation for your splendid and devoted service to the Federal Amendment. No doubt there will be much criticism--there always is-- especially from those who have done nothing, who have offered no helpful advice, nor made a single useful suggestion, but who, when everything is over, know just exactly what ought and ought not to be done. Personally, I feel that everything has been done that, so far as was humanly possible, could be done to secure the passage of the amendment, and that neither you nor any other member of the Congressional Committee who has labored for it has anything to blame yourself or herself for or to regret. You have done the best you could. If any woman thinks she could have done better, the time for her to speak was before it was too late, not after. if while the struggle was going on she furnished no helpful advice it was for one of two reasons: she either had none to give, or if she had she was disloyal to the suffrage cause in withholding it. So don't let anything worry you. I am sending you this letter because I have suffered so much myself and have longed for sympathy so many times, that I am anxious to extend it to you now and to tell you that I personally am deeply grateful to you for your splendid service and loyal devotion to our cause. With sincere regards, believe me, Faithfully Anna H Shaw CONGRESSIONAL WORK FOR NINETEENTH AMENDMENT. Supplementary Notes. What I learned in Washington about the overwhelming importance of party politics and the large part played by petty personal considerations accounts for many of the seemingly trivial details in FRONT DOOR LOBBY and in this record. I came to understand that trifles cannot be ignored in reckoning the factors that lead to a given result. A badly digested luncheon in the stomach of a senator or representative, an ancient prejudice or animosity lurking in his sub-consciousness, a small stupidity on the part of advocates or opponents of a measure may change the course of history, at least temporarily. In regard to the activities of the Woman's Party I have tried to be fair, though I daresay the frequent trouble they caused us is uppermost in my mind. As I have said to Inez Irwin and many others, if we had been engaged in a long-run campaign I might have agreed with their dictum that any publicity is better than none. But in our short-run political efforts the newspaper accounts of picketing by Woman's Party members, law-breaking that led to imprisonment, brought about at the moment many unfavorable reactions in the Congress. In particular their frustrated attempt to burn President Wilson in effigy while he was in France at the Peace Conference led many Democrats to believe that the Woman's Party did not want the Amendment to pass in a Congress which had a Democratic majority. I've always been glad that I had a small share in stopping the attempt to burn the effigy, even though the advance press release did appear on the morning of February 10th and may have cost us the one more vote needed for victory. It happened in this way. On Saturday morning February 8th, a woman who had been a member, years before, of the College Equal Suffrage League Congressional Work - Supplementary Notes - 2. telephoned me to ask for an appointment. I told her to come at once because I had to be at the Capitol by noon. When she appeared she explained that she was then a member of the Woman's Party and had been asked to head one of the professional groups at the demonstration to be held Sunday afternoon, but that before she did so she wanted me to tell her why I was opposed to Woman's Party methods. I replied that I believed them to do much more harm than good in the Congress, yet as Miss Paul would probably make an opposite claim, perhaps my questioner would better not rely on the opinion of either of us. "Suppose you go with me to the Capitol", I said, "and I'll take you to the offices of any four or five senators you want to choose. Then you can ask them, knowing that I will have had no chance to prepare them in advance." She thought the plan a good one, so we hurried off to the Senate Office Building. Senator Smoot, her first choice because he was a leading Republican and therefore supposed to be friendly to the Woman's Party, assured her that the picketing was harmful. "What do they think United States Senators are like", he exclaimed, "when they expect to change opinions by having banners held up around here by girls too young to know anything about public questions or by old ladies who ought to be home enjoying their grandchildren?" Senator Fernald, whom we saw next, was the most condemnatory, insisting that the Woman's Party leaders deliberately employed tactics that were bound to bring defeat because they would lose their jobs if the Amendment went through. Strangely enough Democratic Senator Sheppard was the least antagonistic of the men whom we saw, for he assured us he had no doubt the Woman's Party members thought they were helping the cause even though some of the things they did were unwise. After our talk with him my friend said she had heard enough and left me to go on with my work. About six that evening she telephoned again to explain that she had been struggling with her Congressional Work - Supplementary Notes - 3. conscience all the afternoon and had decided that because of what she had heard at the Capitol she ought to let me know about the plan for the burning of an effigy at the demonstration the next afternoon. After she rang off, I called up Commissioner Brownlow's house, only to find that he was at a dinner party; but I succeeded in getting him to leave the dinner table and then told him what was likely to happen. He said he could never be grateful enough for being informed in time to prevent such a public disgrace. He did so by stationing a large corps of police officers in the square in which the meeting was to take place. They kept the effigy from getting into the fire, but the story of what had been planned appeared in the [Monday] morning papers and may have caused the loss of the one additional vote needed for victory. One of the most entertaining episodes in our work I didn't venture to include in FRONT DOOR LOBBY. It had to do with the Congressional delegation which went to Kentucky for the funeral of Senator Ollie James. After he had been in hospital for some time, Senator Ransdell, seeing me in the Senate waiting room one day, sat down beside me and began to talk with a markedly apologetic air. "I'm going to suggest something that may shock you," he said, "but we have to face facts and we all know Senator James cannot live much longer. It has therefore occurred to me that we ought to think of some way to persuade Governor Stanley, who will appoint a temporary successor, to choose a man who will vote for the Amendment. So if we can arrange to have the funeral delegation made up of senators and representatives who are in favor they could talk with the Governor about the President's wish to have the Amendment passed right away. Of course the Governor has always been opposed, but I understand he wants to come to the Senate himself in [after] the regular election and he'll realize that the President's support would be a great help." I didn't need to be told that Governor Stanley was opposed, for I remembered that he and Ollie James and Campbell Cantrill were said to be Congressional Work - Supplementary Notes - 4. the three men who had been responsible for the defeat in the Kentucky Legislature of the resolution for a State woman suffrage amendment; also that when Mr. Cantrill was converted and voted in Washington for the Federal Amendment, Ollie James was reported as remarking, "Jesus Christ himself must have appeared to Campbell Cantrill to make him come out for woman suffrage". Since one of the trio had changed to our side I thought it not impossible to get a second. So Senator Ransdell and I made out a list of desirable members for the delegation and then did our best to get them to request an appointment when the time came. Thanks to Senator Ramsdell's tactful efficiency, the plan was carried out. Before the delegates started I asked several of our friends to telegraph me the result of their talks with the Governor; but the telegrams all reported non-committal replies. I was therefore greatly disappointed until Mr. Cantrill, who had not telegraphed returned and telephoned a request for me to go to his office immediately. Then he explained, "I didn't try to talk with the Governor at Frankfort but I rode back to Louisville with him and we cussed each other out all the way. So if you don't get a vote from the interim Senator it won't be for lack of cuss words. But I think you will." And we did: for the appointee, a young man named Martin, voted for the Amendment during his term and Stanley himself supported us after his election to the Senate. Once when I was in Kentucky years later he made a speech at a dinner given for me, a speech filled with glowing words about the success of woman suffrage and virtually implying that he had always been a friend of the cause. My own Congressional work I summarized in my letter to Inez, March 1933, as follows: "In general my work was to keep our friends in the Congress active Congressional Work - Supplementary Notes - 5. for the Amendment, to direct pressure of every sort upon doubtful or opposed men, to make an accurate poll ( Curtis once paid me the compliment of asking me to come in every morning to go over the poll on a League of Women Voters' measure which he was pushing because, as he said, he had learned in the suffrage struggle that my information could be depended on) to study the floor situation and to be ready to take advantage of favorable opportunities and to avert threatening action, to keep in touch with friendly politicians in all parts of the country a nd with leaders of the political parties in Washington, to bring in delegations of our women from states from which we needed help, to stimulate the sending of letters and telegrams at the right moment and to hold them back when they might seem too concerted or be likely to do harm in other ways". I failed to add, though I should have done so, that Helen Gardener's help was my greatest asset. Maud Wood Park February 1943. NAWSA 1917 COPY (Letter to Mrs. Maud Wood Park, Congressional Chairman of the N.A.W.S.A. from Carrie Chapman Catt. Original in Catt box in Woman's Rights Room at Radcliffe College.) NATIONAL AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION National Headquarters 171 Madison Avenue, New York April 13, 1917. Mrs. Maud Wood Park, 1626 Rhode Island Avenue, Washington, D.C. My dear Mrs. Park:- Yesterday was the day when I was to preside over a meeting at which Vance McCormick was to speak. Therefore, as soon as the Board adjourned I flew home to change my dress. I sent the long distance telephone message to you from the house. Shortly after, Mrs. Shuler called me up to say that she had had a message from you asking for particulars and she wrote you. Mrs. McCormick reports that the question of the future congressional work did not come up in the committee meetingin Washington. Apparently the only discussion affected the extra session which is now reported to be short. The Board agreed to accept the recommendation of the Congressional Committee that the drive which had been planned should be postponed. Of course that appealed to everybody's common sense. The Board agreed to go ahead with a hearing set for the Senate, as Mrs. Shuler wrote you. We will give up the thought of the Teachers' hearing at present and I have notified Miss Blake to this effect. I am writing to the Presidents and will send you a copy of the letter of course. Now the main question concerning the future work. The time to plan is now. I imagine that most of your committee may still be in Washington and if they are I wish you would call them together and consider plans for the future congressional work. If the Congressional Committee is to make plans, it must be at it; if not the Board must make the plans and the Congressional Committee will have to abide by the results. I make this proposition: That some person representing the National Association shall visit every state in the Union and that the object shall be to meet with the Board of Officers of the state visited. The plans for the fall drive should be thoroughly well worked out, so that each one of these visiting emissaries will have a program to be adopted by the Board. It will be her duty then to assist in the ways and means of carrying out the plan; that will beat the scheme of writing letters. I propose the following arrangement: Mrs. Park shall visit the five New England states, excluding Maine until the end of their campaign at which time you would visit that state; also Delaware, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland; total eleven states. Page 2. Copy of letter of C.C.Catt to Maud Wood Park, April 13, 1917. I will ask the Ohio Board to meet during the Mississippi Valley Conference and I will have the meeting with them upon that occasion. Elizabeth Hauser says she wishes you to come to that conference very much and if you go, we will both be there. Later, I would like to visit North Carolina, South Carolina,Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota, total twenty-two states. We will exclude Kansas because it is all right and we will put in New York after its campaign. I suggest that Miss Smith visit the remaining thirteen states, viz: West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota and Arkansas. A rearrangement of these states might have to be made when we go over the arrangement of railroad connections and I am not at all sure that I could manage as many states as I have given to myself. I would like to know what you think of it personally and what the committee thinks of it, if it is at call. I would also like to have the committee make any proposal it may have in mind as to the best way to make a successful attempt to get the Federal Amendment through early in the next session. Mrs. McCormick thinks it is our duty to stop suffrage work until the end of the war. I do not agree with that at all. Of course no living mortal can predict what will happen in the next few months. It would seem however, that with the exception of loaning money to the Allies and of sending food across the sea, if we are able to do so, will be the total extend to which we engage in war business other than preparation between now and December. Of course if the conscription bill goes through as it probably will, there will be a mobilization of men and consequent problems which may engage our attention. I believe, however, that our real war movemts will not take place for many months. We are not going to be ready and the real problems of war are not going to be upon us for some time to come. When and if we are really caught in the throes of a real war, we shall probably be forced to drop suffrage activities. For that reason I think we should make a good ready and do whatever we can in the beginning of Congress. The hearing is on the 20th. I believe it will take place in the morning. Of course Iwill come down on Wednesday and if you think best, I will come on Tuesday. Let me know your judgment on this score. I am going to have a paper prepared for my own address before the Senate Committee, for the purpose of printing and I am going to write that on Sunday. Most cordial ly yours, (signed) CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT CCC-BMS President [*Cong Com*] THE SIXTY-THIRD CONGRESS ON WOMAN SUFFRAGE, PROHIBITION AND CHILD LABOR. Report by the National Congressional Committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association for the session of 1914-1915, Sixty-third Congress. TO MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION: Three measures of particular interest to women were acted upon in the House during the last session of Congress. First, of course, is the Bristow-Mondell amendment, providing for the national enfranchisement of women. Besides this there were the Hobson amendment, providing for national prohibition of the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors, and the Palmer-Owen child labor bill, prohibiting inter-State traffic in the products of child labor. Believing that suffragists throughout the country will be interested in the outcome and interpretation of these votes, and also in the attitude of their respective Representatives on these questions, the Congressional Committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association makes this special report. The vote of the Senate on the woman suffrage amendment, which occurred during the previous session (March 19, 1914), will also be recapitulated here for convenience and completeness. Significant Comparisons. As the States Rights argument was used by the opposition to all three of the measures referred to above, we call your attention to the following facts as revealed by analysis of the roll-calls: 1. Of the members who voted for the prohibition amendment, notwithstanding the States Rights issue involved, 72 voted against the woman suffrage amendment, and their spokesmen opposed the latter on States Rights grounds. 2. Most of the opposition to the prohibition amendment came from Northern States, and it was their Representatives who on this occasion advanced the States Rights argument. The Southern members for the most part voted for the prohibition amendment, their spokesmen arguing the States Rights doctrine practically out of existence. 3. On the other hand, most of the opposition to the woman suffrage amendment came from Southern members who now used the States Rights argument while Northern members for the most part disregarded it. 4. All but one of the members who voted against the child labor bill had voted against the woman suffrage amendment, the States Rights argument being used both times. 5. Not one of the members who voted against the child labor bill had voted against a bill passed some months earlier to regulate inter-State traffic in the products of convict labor. If your Congressman is one of these, we urge you to protest to him and to his constituents in every possible way, against his application of the States Rights doctrine to the detriment of the human rights of women and children. That Congress may pass a constitutionala mendment prohibiting the liquor traffic, but may not pass a constitutional amendment giving to one-half the citizens of the United States the first right of citizenship, is utterly inconsistent. That Congress may legislate against inter-State commerce in the products of convict labor but not against inter-State commerce in the products of child labor will strike women as the reductio ad absurdum of the whole States Rights argument. The fact is, and the Congressmen themselves so state in many instances, that they vote on these questions according to the demands or protests of their constituents. The lesson is clear: Suffragists, to obtain legislation in which they are interested, must exert strong organized pressure from every congressional district, showing that it is expedient as well as just to heed the demands of women. Demand that your Representative in Congress represent you as well as the men of his District. I. ANALYSIS OF VOTE ON BRISTOW-MONDELL RESOLUTION. (Susan B. Anthony Amendment.) This resolution proposes an amendment to the United States Constitution providing for the enfranchisement of women on the same terms as men. It requires for passage the vote of two-thirds of the members of the Senate and House. It was voted upon in the Senate March 19, 1914, and received 35 votes to 34 against it, with 26 Senators not voting. The vote in the Senate was as follows: Aye No Not voting Democrats..........................14 22 14 Republicans........................20 12 12 Progressive............................1 0 0 _____ ____ _____ 35 34 26 Of the 35 favorable votes, the equal suffrage States (9 in number at the time), gave 16, the non-suffrage States giving 19. five Senators from equal suffrage States were not voting, and one voted against the amendment on States Rights grounds. Among those absent or not voting, 9 Senators were either paired for the amendment or have otherwise indicated their support. House Action. In spite of all possible pressure from suffragists, the Rules Committee in the House held back this resolution until after the November elections to avoid its probable effect upon the political future of the candidates for Congress. Early in December the Committee reported a rule to bring it before the House for consideration, thus giving the fullest possible time for any reaction to expend itself before another election. The House voted upon it January 12, 1915. VOTE IN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, BY STATES, ON WOMAN SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT, PROHIBITION AMENDMENT, AND CHILD LABOR BILL. Note:-- At the time these questions were voted upon there were vacancies in Congress as follows: Illinois, 1; Massachusetts, 2; New York, 2; Ohio, 1. Between the time the prohibition amendment was voted upon (December 22, 1914) and the vote on the suffrage amendment (January 12, 1915), there were 4 resignations. This created a new vacancy in Minnesota, 1 in New York, and 2 in Ohio, and explains the fact that the prohibition, suffrage, and child labor columns for these States do not have the same total number of representatives. State Suffrage Amendment Prohibition Amendment Child Labor Bill Aye No Not Voting Aye No Not Voting Aye No Not Voting Alabama 1 9 ........ 4 5 1 5 3 2 Arizona 1 ...... ........ 1 ...... ........ 1 ...... ........ Arkansas ...... 7 ........ 7 ...... ........ 7 ...... ........ California 11 ...... ........ 3 7 1 7 ...... 4 Colorado 3 1 ........ 4 ...... ........ 2 ...... 2 Connecticut 1 4 ........ ..... 5 ........ 4 ...... 1 Delaware ...... 1 ........ ..... 1 ........ ...... 1 ........ Florida ...... 2 2 2 ...... 2 ...... 1 3 Georgia ...... 11 1 8 3 1 1 9 2 Idaho 2 ...... ........ 2 ...... ........ 2 ...... ........ Illinois 22 2 2 11 13 2 18 1 7 Indiana 5 8 ........ ..... 13 ......... 11 ...... 2 Iowa 7 2 2 8 2 1 6 ...... 5 Kansas 8 ...... ........ 6 ...... 2 5 ...... 3 Kentucky 1 8 2 7 4 ........ 7 1 3 Louisiana ..... 7 1 1 6 1 5 ...... 3 Maine 1 2 1 2 1 1 3 ...... 3 Maryland 1 5 ........ 2 4 ........ 5 ...... 1 Massachusetts 8 6 ........ 1 13 ........ 7 ...... 7 Michigan 9 2 2 11 2 ........ 9 ...... 4 Minnesota 5 3 1 4 6 ........ 5 ...... 4 Mississippi ...... 8 ........ 7 1 ........ 2 6 ...... Missouri 11 3 1 11 4 ........ 12 ...... 3 Montana 2 ...... ........ 2 ...... ........ 2 ...... ...... Nebraska 1 4 1 3 3 ........ 5 ...... 1 Nevada ...... ...... 1 ...... 1 ........ ...... ...... 1 New Hampshire 1 1 ........ ...... 2 ........ 1 ...... 1 New Jersey 7 4 1 1 10 1 5 1 5* New Mexico 1 ...... ........ 1 ...... ........ 1 ...... ...... New York 9 20 11 3 31 7 12 ...... 28 North Carolina ...... 9 1 6 1 2+ 1 7 2 North Dakota 3 ...... ........ 3 ...... ........ 3 ...... ...... Ohio 5 12 2 6 11 4 14 ...... 5 Oklahoma 5 3 ........ 6 ...... 2 5 1 2 Oregom 3 ...... ........ 3 ...... ........ 2 ...... 1 Pennsylvania 20 9 7 19 11 6 15 ...... 21 Rhode Island 1 1 1 ...... 3 ........ ...... ...... 3 South Carolina ...... 7 ........ 7 ...... ........ ...... 4 2+ South Dakota 2 1 ........ 2 ...... 1 3 ...... ...... Tennessee 4 5 1 9 ...... 1 8 ...... 2 Texas ...... 18 ........ 4 12 2 11 6 1 Utah 1 ...... 1 ...... 2 ........ ...... ...... 2 Vermont ...... 2 ........ 1 1 ........ 1 ...... 1 Virginia 1 7 2 8 2 ........ 6 2 1+ Washington 4 ...... 1 5 ...... ........ 3 ...... 2 West Virginia 4 1 1 4 ...... 2 1 ...... 5 Wisconsin 2 9 ........ 1 9 1 9 ...... 2 Wyoming 1 ...... ........ 1 ...... ........ 1 ...... ...... 174 204 46 197 189 41 233 43 145 *One member not recorded. +Besides these, one member voting "present." The vote stood 174 in favor of the resolution, and 204 against, with 46 members not voting. By parties the vote was as follows: Aye No Not voting Democrats...... 86 170 26 Republicans.... 76 34 16 Progressives.... 11 0 4 Independents... 1 0 0 174 204 46 Of those not voting 12 were paired in favor of the amendment. Vote from Non-Suffrage States. It is important to note that of the 174 favorable votes, 116, or 66 per cent, came from non-suffrage States. The equal suffrage States (11 in number by this time) have 40 Representatives in Congress, and Illinois, with presidential and municipal suffrage, has 27 Representatives. Of this possible 67 votes, 3 were adverse, 5 were paired, and there was one vacancy, leaving 58 votes actually cast from equal suffrage States and 116 from non- suffrage States. Southern Vote. Of the total number of favorable votes, 23 came from Southern States, as follows: Alabama 1, Virginia 1, Maryland 1, West Virginia 4, Tennessee 4, Kentucky 1, Missouri 11. Ten States voted solidly (not counting absentees) against the amendment. These were Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Caroline, South Carolina, Texas and Vermont --all Southern States but two. Democratic Vote. The large Democratic vote is notable in view of the fact that the Democratic caucus had declared against federal action on woman suffrage, and the majority leader, Mr. Underwood, of Alabama, made a speech during the debate preceding the vote in the House, calling upon the Democratic members to stand by their caucus action. Notwithstanding these two efforts to hold the party as a party in line against federal action, 86 Democrats voted for the woman suffrage amendment, thereby demonstrating their independence of caucus action. Fifty-five of these Democrats were from States where women do not vote. To this number 15 States contributed: Alabama 1, Connecticut 1, Iowa 1, Maryland 1, Massachusetts 5, Missouri 11, New Hampshire 1, New Jersey 6, New York, 7, Ohio 4, Oklahoma 3, Pennsylvania 5, Rhode Island 1, Tennessee 2, West Virginia 1. II. HOBSON PROHIBITION RESOLUTION. An amendment to the United States Constitution prohibiting the sale, manufacture for sale, transportation for sale, or importation for sale of intoxicating liquors within the boundaries of the United States or its territories was proposed by this resolution. It was voted upon in the House of Representatives December 22, 1914, and defeated by a vote of 197 in favor to 189 against, with 41 not voting and 1 voting "present," thus receiving a majority but not two-thirds of all votes cast, as required for passage. The vote by parties was as follows: Aye No Democrats......114 140 Republicans...... 67 47 Progressives..... 12 1 Independents.... 4 1 197 189 Fifteen States voted solidly for prohibition. They were: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Caroline, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington, and Wyoming. Seven States voted solidly against prohibition. They were: Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Utah. To suffragists this vote was of interest not only because of the question of national prohibition itself, but because of its political relations to the suffrage amendment. With the latter, the prohibition measure was held back in the Rules Committee until after the November elections, and then the two were reported at the same time, to be voted upon within less than a month of each other. Those members who feared to meet the respective issues played these two resolutions against each other as far as possible to the disadvantage of each. A still further significance from the suffrage viewpoint attaches to the vote on the prohibition resolution because both proposed an amendment to the federal constitution and both were opposed on the ground that they interfered with the rights of the States. The members who used this argument, however, were for the most part not the same on the two occasions. The opposition to prohibition came chiefly from the Northern States, whose spokesmen advanced the States Rights argument, while Southern Congressmen, especially Representative Saunders of Virginia, Stephens and Quin of Mississippi, Howard and Tribble of Georgia, Johnson of Kentucky, made speeches for the prohibition amendment in which they argued that for Congress to submit this question to the States was but to give the States their rights under the constitution. Exactly the same argument applies to the suffrage amendment; yet when the prohibition vote is compared with the suffrage vote, it appears that 72 members who voted for the prohibition amendment voted against the suffrage amendment, 63 of them being Democrats, and 58 of those being Southern Democrats. That is to say, on the 22nd of December, 58 States-rights Democrats in Congress voted to refuse to Congress and the Legislatures of the several States to decide for all the States whether the liquor traffic should be prohibited. On the 12th of the following month, these same States-rights Democrats in Congress voted to refuse to Congress and the Legislatures of the several States the right to decide for all the States whether the women citizens of the United States should have the fundamental right which belongs to all the citizens of a democracy. Following is a list, by States and parties, of the 72 members who voted for the prohibition amendment but against the woman suffrage amendment: CONGRESSMEN WHO VOTED FOR THE NATIONAL PROHIBITION AMENDMENT BUT AGAINST THE WOMAN SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT. ALABAMA:—Abercrombie, Burnett, Taylor (all Dem.) ARKANSAS:—Caraway, Floyd, Goodwin, Jacoway, Oldfield, Taylor, Wingo (all Dem.) COLORADO:—Kindel. FLORIDA:—Clark, Sparkman (both Dem.) GEORGIA:—Adamson, Crisp, Howard, Hughes, Park, Tribble, Walker (all Dem.) KENTUCKY:—Barkley, Fields, Helm, Johnson, Thomas (all Dem.) LOUISIANA:—Watkins (Dem.) MAINE:—Hinds (Rep.) MARYLAND:—Lewis (Dem.) MISSISSIPPI:—Candler, Collier, Harrison, Humphreys, Quin, Sisson, Stephens (all Dem.) NEBRASKA:—Sloan (Rep.) NEW YORK:—Hamilton, Wallin (both Rep.) NORTH CAROLINA:—Gudger, Kitchin, Page, Stedman, Webb (all Dem.) OHIO:—Post (Dem.), Switzer (Rep.), White (Dem.) OKLAHOMA:—Carter, Murray, Weaver (all Dem.) PENNSYLVANIA:—Difenderfer (Dem.), Langham (Rep.) SOUTH CAROLINA:—Aiken, Byrnes, Finley, Johnson, Lever, Ragsdale, Whaley (all Dem.) SOUTH DAKOTA:—Burke (Rep.) TENNESSE:—Byrns, Houston, Hull (all Dem.) TEXAS:—Garrett, Smith, Stephens, Young (all Dem.) VERMONT:—Plumley (Rep.) VIRGINIA:—Flood, Glass, Hay, Holland, Watson (all Dem.) III. PALMER-OWEN CHILD LABOR BILL. This bill, prohibiting inter-State traffic in the products of mines and factories employing children respectively under 16 and 14 years of age, passed the House February 15, 1915, by the overwhelming majority of 233 to 43, with 145 members not voting, and 2 voting "present." It was prevented from passing the Senate by Senator Overman of North Carolina, an anti-suffragist, who, by reason of the crowded condition of the Senate calendar during the closing days of the session, was able to enforce his objection to the bill. The vote is interesting to suffragists because all but one of the members who voted against it voted against the woman suffrage resolution. The votes against the bill in the House were as follows: CONGRESSMEN WHO VOTED AGAINST PALMER-OWEN CHILD LABOR BILL. ALABAMA:—Blackmon, Dent, Mulkey (all Dem.) DELAWARE:—Brockson (Dem.) FLORIDA:—Clark (Dem.) GEORGIA:—Adamson, Bartlett, Bell, Crisp, Hughes, Lee, Park, Tribble, Vinson (all Dem.) ILLINOIS:—O'Hair (Pro.) KENTUCKY:—Helm (Dem.) MISSISSIPPI:—Candler, Harrison, Humphreys, Sisson, Stephens, Witherspoon (all Dem.) NORTH CAROLINA:—Doughton, Kitchin, Page, Pou, Small, Stedman, Webb (all Dem.) NEW JERSEY:—Parker (Rep.) OKLAHOMA:—Weaver (Dem.) SOUTH CAROLINA:—Aiken, Finley, Lever, Ragsdale (all Dem.) TEXAS:—Beall, Calloway, Dies, Hardy, Rayburn, Slayden (all Dem.) VIRGINIA:—Holland, Watson, (both Dem.) Chief in the opposition to this bill were Representatives Byrnes and Ragsdale of South Carolina, who led a filibuster against it, contending that the United States government could not protect little children against their exploiters without violating the rights of the States. Some months earlier the House had passed a bill prohibiting inter-State traffic in the products of convict labor, this measure having for its purpose protection of free labor against prison labor, and involving the same principle of State and federal power that was involved in the child labor bill. But neither Mr. Byrnes nor Mr. Ragsdale nor any of their followers who voted against the child labor bill had voted against the convict labor bill. The convict labor bill was backed by the labor organizations of the country, and organized labor has votes. The child labor bill would have affected chiefly those States were child labor abuses are greatest and where mill owners' property interests are powerful—and where the Congressmen almost unanimously object to women's voice in the government. If you are not already informed as to the vote of each Congressman from your State on any of these questions, we will be glad to send you the records. Very truly, RUTH MCCORMICK, Chairman ANTOINETTE FUNK, Executive Vice-Chairman ELIZABETH K. BOOTH HELEN H. GARDENER ETHEL M. SMITH GLENNA SMITH TINNIN LAURA PUFFER MORGAN JEANETTE RANKIN National Congressional Committee. Suffrage Day falls this year on May First. The celebrations throughout the country will be of many kinds, and parades, out-of-door and indoor meetings, are now being planned. Pennsylvania is planning a mammoth parade in Philadelphia which Dr. Shaw has promised to lead. Each campaign State will hold an official dedication of the meeting pot on that day and will urge their friends to contribute any gold and silver for their use during the coming year. — : o : — What the effect of Dr. Shaw's trip through the South has been can best be gathered from the newspaper reports which come into National Headquarters. Southern suffragists themselves have written enthusiastic letters concerning the work which the National President has been doing in their States, but to realize the full importance of what this visit from Dr. Shaw means to the suffrage situation in the South one must note the extraordinary news and editorial publicity which she is getting in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas and Alabama. Dr. Shaw herself says of her Southern trip: "I have never seen so much enthusiasm for suffrage in the South. I believe we may put great faith in the awakening. The Southern women who are leaders in the movement deserve our heartiest admiration." Miss Shaw hopes to write fully about her Southern trip for the next News Letter. Hasty Summary of Congressional Work in reply to Inez Haynes Irwin's inquiries [*[? ?]*] In my judgment there were four factors responsible for our success at the time it came: 1st and foremost: Mrs. Catt's plan for a nationwide campaign announced in a closed conference, every person present being required to give a pledge of absolute secrecy, at the Atlantic City Convention in September 1916, (the convention at which President Wilson gave the first tacit pledge agreement to support the federal amendment). 2nd, The victory in New York State, for which Mary Garrett Hay deserves much of the credit on account of her organization of the Woman Suffrage Party in the city and her clever tactics with Tammany, with the incredible result that the majority in the city was large enough to offset the deficit upstate. 3rd, The extraordinary ability of Helen Gardener, who was vice-chairman of the N. A. W. S. A's Congressional Committee[,] during the time that I was Chairman. Whatever I was able to do that was of service I owe primarily to her advice and help. She had the most uncanny understanding of the motives, the weaknesses and foibles of the [*Mitnt Lofler thought that [she was the] But expounding in her understanding and [? ?], [?] [*hadn't have [?[ sent the [?] [?] our honor you know [and where] why [?] in [?] kind with confident [?] that is why the [?]*] men with whom we were working, combined with great tact and the power to make friends in high places for the cause. We used to call her "the diplomatic corps" of our committee. She was our constant messenger to the White House, for both the President and Tumulty as [and] had great liking and admiration for her, as had Champ Clark, Secretary Daniels, Senator John Sharp Williams, who was a family friend, and many, many others. I'll send you a few incidents about her work when I send the memorandum about Mrs. Catt's plan. [*Summary of Causes of Success & of my own work (Front Door Lobby) [Supplementary notes] Interesting Notes*] Summary of Cong. Work - 2 4th: The supposedly impossible defeat of Senator Weeks in Mass. It isn't strange that you never knew I had charge of the work in Washington for the N.A.W.S.A., for I believed and still believe that a legislative worker who permits publicity about what she is doing destroys her usefulness. In the nature of the case she has to win the confidence of the men with whom she deals and if they see her name in the papers often they are bound to be afraid that she is friendly with reporters and may sometime let slip information that ought not to be made public. For that reason I was anathema to the Washington press, with the possible exception of David Lawrence, whom Mrs. Gardener made a friend of. Of course if I had had any publicity sense I might have been able to dress up unimportant news sufficiently to make it seem important, but I never knew how to do that and so I always shut up like a clam when press people were about and they, the women in particular, insisted that I was no good. In general my work was to keep the friends in the Congress at work for us, to direct pressure of every sort upon the doubtful and opposed men, to keep an accurate poll; (Curtis once paid me the compliment of asking me to come in every morning to go over the poll on a League of Women Voters' measure which he was pushing because, as he said, he had learned in the suffrage struggle that my information was always dependable.) to [go] study the floor situation and be ready to take advantage of favorable opportunities and avert threatening action, to keep in touch with friendly politicians and leaders in the political parties in all parts of the country, to bring in delegations of our women from states from which we needed help, to stimulate the sending of letters and telegrams at the right moment and to hold them back when they might seem too concerted or be likely to do harm in other ways, to cultivate Congressional wi[f]ves, etc. etc. Mrs. Catt's Plan (written to Inez Haynes Irwin, March 27, 1933) Mrs. Catt called an "Emergency Convention" of the N.A.W.S.A. in September 1916, six months in advance of the regular date, because she had been convinced by her experience at the national party conventions the previous June that we couldn't win in the Congress until we had more states with some form of woman suffrage. She had observed that delegates from suffrage states fought gallantly for our plank in the party platforms, but that they were too few to be effective. Therefore she made a nationwide plan for action in the state legislatures, most of which were to be in session in the winter of 1916-1917. She realized that this plan could not be successful if its scope leaked out. For that reason she did not bring it before the open sessions of the Atlantic City Convention, but called a post convention meeting of state presidents and a few others in whom she had confidence. And she demanded from them a really impressive promise that they would disclose no details except such as were necessary to carry out the part assigned to their own states. In other words, there was to be no knowledge outside that group that a legislative campaign which included all the states was under way. Going over the country state by state, she outlined the part which each state was to play. Most of the states fell into one of four groups: A - those in which women had full suffrage were to secure from their legislatures resolutions calling upon the Congress to submit the Amendment. B - States like New York in which there was a chance of carrying a state constitutional amendment were to work for that. C - Some of the southern states, in which primary suffrage is equivalent to an election, were to work for primary suffrage for women, which could be granted by the state legislature. D - Other states were to try for presidential suffrage, because that also could be given by the legislature. (Irwin)Summary of Congressional Work - 3 Obviously the greater part of what I did cannot go into print while the persons concerned are living, or their immediate families are. For example, Helen Gardener and I did secure indirectly the support of the Louisville Courier Journal, which under Marse Henry Watterson had been a persistent opponent. It happened in this way, - a Kentucky politician named Haley whom I had met somewhere came to see me one day with inside information that Judge Bingham was negotiating for the paper. Haley suggested that I would better try to get the President to invite Bingham, who was then golfing in Carolina to come to Washington and when he was there talk to him about woman suffrage, not as if anything were known about his buying the paper, but as if his personal support was considered valuable. Haley thought Bingham would succumb to the flattery of the President's interest in him. As usual I consulted Mrs. Gardener and she volunteered to go and ask Daniels what could be done. Daniels said at once what we didn't know before, that Bingham was "kin" to Mrs. Daniels, and promised to make arrangements with the President and to send the invitation. The result was that Bingham came, talked with the President, and shortly after the paper was taken over came out with a first-rate editorial announcing a change in the paper's policy about woman suffrage, - and its support of the federal amendment. Bingham was on the ship on which I sailed when I went to the Rome Congress in 1923 and during the voyage he told me about being taken by Daniels to see the President and how that conversation at that time led him to take that public stand for suffrage. Naturally he didn't know and I didn't tell him that I knew more about the reason than he did. Now that I've started on Kentucky I'll add one more example of the under cover work because the incident was so absurd. Perhaps you will remember that Senator Ollie James of that state was months dying at Johns Hopkins. He had been a consistent opponent but Tumulty Summary of Congressional work - 4 believed that the President could persuade him to pair in favor. When that attempt had failed (because James had pledged himself to the Ky. whiskey manufacturers, I think, though I can't prove it), gentle old Senator Ransdell said tome one day that though he feared I might think it shocking to make plans in anticipation of a man's death, he believed we ought to be giving some thought to the choice of the delegation that would be appointed to go down to the funeral when the time came; for, as he reminded me, Governor Stanley, who would appoint the interim senator, was himself a strong anti and must be made to see that it would be to his advantage to appoint a man pledged to support the amendment. Ransdell thought that, inasmuch as Stanley wanted to be elected to the Senate for the regular ?/[*term*]and would like presidential support to that end, it might be possible to put the matter before him in a way that would give us a senatorial vote when the new man came in. Well, with the help of our friends on the Democratic side of the Senate, a delegation with several strong suffragists in it was in readiness when the funeral came. Several of them telegraphed me that they had talked with the Governor but that he had not committed himself. Then Campbell Cantrill of the House sent for me as soon as he was back. He had always been a personal friend of Stanley and he made his report in about these words, "I rode back from the funeral with the Governor and we cussed each other out all the way. And I assure you, Mrs. Park, if you don't get a suffrage vote from Kentucky, it won't be for lack of necessary profanity". I seem to be running on with a lot of stuff that cannot be useful except possibly as background, so I'll try to summarize the steps I took in Washington. I went there at Mrs. Catt's request in November 1916, to be a member of the Congressional Committee. Mrs. Miller of Missouri, who was then chairman, resigned in March 1917 and I was appointed to succeed her. Summary of Congressional Work - 5. When war was declared at the extraordinary session that spring, both parties in the Congress entered into a gentleman's agreement not to take up any regular legislation while war measures were pending. That meant that we were blocked in direct work for the amendment for the time being and I therefore recommended to Mrs. Catt and our National Board that we try to secure the "erection" of a suffrage committee in the House, where the amendment had been held up by the Judiciary Committee, of which Webb, one of our bitterest opponents, was chairman. I had discovered that inasmuch as the creation of a committee was considered a matter of House organization and not of regular business, it would be possible to get action on the committee during that special session. Mrs. Gardener enlisted the support of the Speaker and of Pou, Chairman of the Rules Committee, who intended to vote against the amendment on state rights grounds, but thought that we were entitled to an opportunity to have the subject brought out of committee. After some of the funniest adventures I ever had in legislative halls, the committee was erected and Baker of California was appointed chairman. Edward Keating of Colorado, who, curiously was a great friend of the reactionary Claude Kitchin, Democratic Floor Leader, took to him to ask for a date for our vote which we did not want until after the prohibition amendment was out of the way. After a good deal of joking, Kitchin gave us a memorandum, which he called "a private gentlemen's agreement", to the effect that we should be permitted to have a vote after the prohibition proposal had been voted on. Later he tried to go back on his word but that memorandum, which Keating took to him, saved our lives. Next, we organized a steering committee in the House, made up of our friends of both parties and all parts of the country with Hayden of Arizona as chairman. That committee divided up the possible votes and undertook to get our friends on the floor when the vote came and CONGRESSIONAL WORK FOR NINETEENTH AMENDMENT Supplementary Notes. What I learned in Washington about the overwhelming importance of party politics and the large part played by petty personal considerations accounts for many of the seemingly trivial details in FRONT DOOR LOBBY and in this record. I came to understand that trifles cannot be ignored in reckoning the factors that lead to a given result. A badly digested luncheon in the stomach of a senator or representative, an ancient prejudice or animosity lurking in his sub-consciousness, a small stupidity on the part of advocates or opponents of a measure may change the course of history, at least temporarily. In regard to the activities of the Woman's Party I have tried to be fair, though I daresay the frequent trouble they caused us is uppermost in my mind. As I have said to Inez Irwin and many others, if we had been engaged in a long-run campaign I might have agreed with their dictum that any publicity is better than none. But in our short-run political efforts the newspaper accounts of picketing by Woman's Party members, law-breaking that led to imprisonment, brought about at the moment many unfavorable reactions in the Congress. In particular their frustrated attempt to burn President Wilson in effigy while he was in France at the Peace Conference led many Democrats to believe that the woman's Party did not want the Amendment to pass in a Congress which had a Democratic majority. I've always been glad that I had a small share in stopping the attempt to burn the effigy, even though the advance press release did appear on the morning of February 10th and may have cost us the one more vote needed for victory. 2 It happened in this way. On Saturday morning, February 8th, a woman who had been a member, years before, of the College Equal Suffrage League telephoned me to ask for an appointment. I told her to come at once because I had to be at the Capitol by noon. When she appeared she explained that she was then a member of the Woman's Party and had been asked to head one of the professional groups at the demonstration to be held Sunday afternoon, but that before she did so she wanted me to tell her why I was so opposed to Woman's Party methods. I replied that I believed them to do much more harm than good in the Congress, yet as Miss Paul would probably make an opposite claim, perhaps my questioner would better not rely on the opinion of either of us. "Suppose you go with me to the Capitol", I said, "and I'll take you to the offices of any four or five senators you want to choose. Then you can ask them, knowing that I will have had no chance to prepare them in advance." She thought the plan a good one, so we hurried off to the Senate Office Building. Senator Smoot, her first choice because he was a leading Republican and therefore supposed to be friendly to the Woman's Party, assured her that the picketing was harmful. "What do they think United States Senators are like," he exclaimed, "when they expect to change opinions by having banners held up around here by girls too young to know anything about public questions or by old ladies who ought to be home enjoying their grandchildren?" Senator Fernald, whom we saw next, was the most condemnatory, insisting that the Woman's Party leaders deliberately employed tactics that were bound to bring defeat because they would lose their jobs if the Amendment went through. Strangely enough Democratic Senator Sheppard was the least antagonistic of the men whom we saw, for he assured us he had no doubt the Woman's Party 3 members thought they were helping the cause even though some of the things they did were unwise. After our talk with him my friend said she had heard enough and left me to go on with my work. About six that evening she telephoned again to explain that she had been struggling with her conscience all the afternoon and had decided that because of what she had heard at the Capitol she ought to let me know about the plan for the burning of an effigy at the demonstration the next afternoon. After she rang off, I called up Commissioner Brownlow's house, only to find that he was at a dinner party; but I succeeded in getting him to leave the dinner table and then told him what was likely to happen. He said he could never be grateful enough for being informed in time to prevent such a public disgrace. He did so by stationing a large corps of police officers in the square in which the meeting was to take place. They kept the effigy from getting into the fire, but the story of what had been planned appeared in the morning papers and may have caused the loss of the one additional vote needed for victory. One of the most entertaining episodes in our work I didn't venture to include in FRONT DOOR LOBBY. It had to do with the Congressional delegation which went to Kentucky for the funeral of Senator Ollie James. After he had been in hospital for some time, Senator Ransdell, seeing me in the Senate waiting room one day, sat down beside me and began to talk with a markedly apologetic air. "I'm going to suggest something that may shock you," he said, "but we have to face facts and we all know Senator James cannot live much longer. It has therefore occurred to me that we ought to think of some way to persuade Governor Stanley, who will appoint a temporary successor, to choose a man who will vote for the Amendment. So if we can arrange to have the funeral delegation 4 made up of senators and representatives who are in favor they could talk with the Governor about the President's wish to have the Amendment passed right away. Of course the Governor has always been opposed to woman suffrage, but I understand he wants to come to the Senate himself in the regular election and he'll realize that the President's support would be a great help." I didn't need to be told that Governor Stanley was opposed, for I remembered that he and Ollie James and Campbell Cantrill were said to be the three men who had been responsible for the defeat in the Kentucky Legislature of the resolution for a State woman suffrage amendment; also that when Mr. Cantrill was converted and voted in Washington for the Federal Amendment, Ollie James was reported as remarking, "Jesus Christ himself must have appeared to Campbell Cantrill to make him come out for woman suffrage." Since one of the trio had changed to our side I thought it not impossible to get a second. So Senator Ransdell and I made out a list of desirable members for the delegation and then did our best to get them to request an appointment when the time came. Thanks to Senator Ransdell's tactful efficiency, the plan was carried out. Before the delegates started I asked several of our friends to telegraph me the result of their talks with the Governor; but the telegrams all reported non-committal replies. I was therefore greatly disappointed until Mr. Cantrill, who had not telegraphed, returned and telephoned a request for me to go to his office immediately. Then he explained, "I didn't try to talk with the Governor at Frankfort but I rode back to Louisville with him and we cussed each other out all the way. So if you don't get a vote from the interim Senator it won't be for lack of cuss words. But 5 I think you will." And we did: for the appointee, a young man named Martin, voted for the Amendment during his term and Stanley himself supported us after his election to the Senate. Once when I was in Kentucky years later he made a speech at a dinner given for me, a speech filled with glowing words about the success of woman suffrage and virtually implying that he had always been a friend of the cause. My own Congressional work I summarized in my letter to Inez Irwin, March 1933, as follows: "In general my work was to keep our friends in the Congress active for the Amendment, to direct pressure of every sort upon doubtful or opposed men, to make an accurate poll (Curtis once paid me the compliment of asking me to come in every morning to go over the poll on a League of Women Voters' measure which he was pushing because, as he said, he had learned in the suffrage struggle that my information could be depended on), to study the floor situation and to be ready to take advantage of favorable opportunities and to avert threatening action, to keep in touch with friendly politicians in all parts of the country and with leaders of the political parties in Washington, to bring in delegations of our women from states from which we needed help, to stimulate the sending of letters and telegrams at the right moment and to hold them back when they might seem too concerted or be likely to do harm in other ways." I failed to add, thought I should have done so, that Helen Gardener's help was my greatest asset. Maud Wood Park February 1943. Additional to Congressional Summary - April 28, 1933 (written to Inez Haynes Irwin) Another detail that I'm in doubt about is whether I finished the Kentucky funeral story by telling you that we did get the vote of the interim senator, Martin, and also later, the vote of Stanley himself, in spite of his previous opposition. I'm sorry I didn't send you the list of "don'ts" that I drew up for our lobby. And I believe I'll add them now for my own satisfaction. Don't nag. Don't boast. Don't threaten. Don't stay too long. Don't lose your temper. Don't talk about your work in corridors, elevators or street cars. Don't tell everything you know. Don't tell anything you don't know. (i.e., don't repeat rumors) Don't do anything to close the door to the next advocate of suffrage Now for an illustration of the kind of thing that Helen Gardener did for us - I'll go back to our efforts to get the woman suffrage committee in the House during the session when war was declared. As I wrote yesterday, we did succeed in getting the committee erected in that session and the promise of a vote on the amendment during the next session. Then there was a recess and I came north for a brief rest. When I went back to Washington I found that Webb had been telling everybody that our woman suffrage committee couldn't handle the amendment because constitutional amendments had always come to the floor from the Judiciary Committee. Mrs. Gardener and I went at once to see the Speaker. To our consternation he told us that what Webb said was true and that our committee would not be permitted to report out the amendment. I was so indignant that I burst out with the question, "But Mr. Speaker, why didn't you tell us this before?" "You didn't ask me" was his reply. I promised that you should Additional Congressional Summary - 2 have the committee and you've got it, but I never said that it could take charge of the amendment." I started to say "But what sense was there in giving us the committee if it can't do the very thing we wanted it for?" But Mrs. Gardener pinched my arm and managed to get me away before I had made any specially insulting remarks. Once outside I broke into denunciations of the Speaker's treachery. Mrs. Gardener didn't agree with my charges. "I don't believe he meant to trick us", she said. "I think he didn't know anything about this objection until Webb dug it out during the recess. That old man is so conceited that he would rather have us think he double crossed us than admit that he didn't know an important fact about the procedure of the House. During a wakeful hour that night it occurred to me to check up on Webb's statement. The next morning I went through Hinds Precedents for procedure on all previous amendments and I found that two had started in committees other than the Judiciary and that one of them had been handled all the way through by another committee. Then I called Mrs. Gardener and urged that we take this information to the Speaker at once. But again she was too wise to follow my suggestion. "We'll need his help a great many times before we're through", she said, "and we'll never be able to get it if he thinks we think that we know more than he does." Then she suggested that we ask his secretary, whom she had previously made a devoted friend, what we ought to do. So we called on the secretary, - after we had peeked into the House to make sure the Speaker was in his place there. The secretary promised to attend to the matter for us. Afterwards he reported that he had put a copy of Hinds, open at the right page and marked, on the Speaker's desk and that when the Speaker inquired later how it came to be there, he replied, "I heard you talking with those ladies the other day and when I came across that reference I thought you might be interested Additional Congressional Summary - 3. to see it." After that the woman suffrage committee had no trouble in establishing its right to report out the amendment. And the Speaker continued to be friendly. Hasty Summary of Congressional Work in reply to Inez Haynes Irwin's inquiries In my judgment there were four factors responsible for our success at the time it came: 1st and foremost: Mrs. Catt's plan for a nationwide campaign announced in a closed conference, every person present being required to give a pledge of absolute secrecy, at the Atlantic City Convention in September 1916, (the convention at which President Wilson gave the first tacit pledge to support the federal amendment). 2nd, The victory in New York State, for which Mary Garrett Hay deserves much of the credit on account of her organization of the Woman Suffrage Party in the city and her clever tactics with Tammany, with the incredible result that the majority in the city was large enough to offset the deficit upstate. 3rd, The extraordinary ability of Helen Gardener, who was vice-chairman of the N. A. W. S. A's Congressional Committee, during the time that I was Chairman. Whatever I was able to do that was of service I owe primarily to her advice and help. She had the most uncanny understanding of the motives, the weaknesses and foibles of the men with whom [*we*] were working, combined with great tact and the power to make friends in high places for the cause. We used to call her "the diplomatic corps" of our committee. She was our constant messenger to the White House, for both the President and Tumulty [*ss*] [xxx] had great liking and admiration for her, as had Champ Clark, Secretary Daniels, [Senat or John Sharp Williams, who was a family friend,] and many, many others. [I'll send you a few incidents about her work when I send the memorandum about Mrs. Catt's plan. (Irwin) Summary of Congressional Work - 2 4th: The supposedly impossible defeat of Senator Weeks in Mass. It isn't strange that you never knew I had charge of the work in Washington for the N.A.W.S.A., for I believed and still believe that a legislative worker who permits publicity about what she is doing destroys her usefulness. In the nature of the case she has to win the confidence of the men with whom she deals and if they see her name in the papers often they are bound to be afraid that she is friendly with reporters and may sometimes let slip information that ought not to be made public. For that reason I was anathema to the Washington press, with the possible exception of David Lawrence, whom Mrs. Gardener made a friend of. Of course if I had had any publicity sense I might have been able to dress up unimportant news sufficiently to make it seem important, but I never knew how to do that and so I always shut up like a clam when press people were about and they, the women in particular, insisted that I was no good. In general my work was to keep the friends in the Congress at work for us, to direct pressure of every sort upon the doubtful and opposed men, to keep an accurate poll; (Curtis once paid me the compliment of asking me to come in every morning to go over the poll on a League of Women Voters measure which he was pushing because, as he said, he had learned in the suffrage struggle that my information was always dependable.) to [go] study the floor situation and be ready to take advantage of favorable opportunities and avert threatening action, to keep in touch with friendly politicians and leaders in the political parties in all parts of the country, to bring in delegations of our women from states from which we needed help, to stimulate the sending of letters and telegrams at the right moment and to hold them back when they might seem too concerted or be likely to do harm in other ways, to cultivate Congressional wives, etc. etc. (Irwin) Summary of Congressional Work - 3 Obviously the greater part of what I did cannot go into print while the persons concerned are living, or their immediate families are. For example, Helen Gardener and I did secure indirectly the support of the Louisville Courier Journal, which under Marse Henry Watterson had been a persistent opponent. It happened in this way, - a Kentucky politician named Haley whom I had met somewhere came to see me one day with inside information that Judge Bingham was negotiating for the paper. Haley suggested that I would better try to get the President to invite Bingham, who was then golfing in Carolina, to come to Washington and when he was there talk to him about woman suffrage, not as if anything were known about his buying the paper, but as if his personal support was considered valuable. Haley thought Bingham would succumb to the flattery of the President's interest in him. As usual I consulted Mrs. Gardener and she volunteered to go and ask Daniels what could be done. Daniels said at once whatwe didn't know before, that Bingham was "kin" to Mrs. Daniels, and promised to make arrangements with the President and to send the invitation. The result was that Bingham came, talked with the President, and shortly after the paper was taken over came out with a first-rate editorial announcing a change in the paper's policy [on] about woman suffrage, - and its support of the federal amendment. Bingham was on the ship on which I sailed when I went to the Rome Congress in 1923 and during the voyage he told me about being taken by Daniels to see the President and how that conversation at that time led him to take that public stand for suffrage. Naturally he didn't know and I didn't tell him that I knew more about the reason than he did. Now that I've started on Kentucky I'll add one more example of the under cover work because the incident was so absurd. Perhaps you will remember that Senator Ollie James of that state was months dying at Johns Hopkins. He had been a consistent opponent but Tumulty Summary of Congressional work - 4 believed that the President could persuade him to pair in favor. When that attempt had failed (because James had pledged himself to the Ky. whiskey manufacturers, I think, though I can't prove it), gentle old Senator Hansdell said tome one day that though he feared I might think it shocking to make plans in anticipation of a man's death, he believed we ought to be giving some thought to the choice of the delegation that would be appointed to go down to the funeral when the time came; for, as he reminded me, Governor Stanley, who would appoint the interim senator, was himself a strong anti and must be made to see that it would be to his advantage to appoint a man pledged to support the amendment. Hansdell thought that, inasmuch as Stanley wanted to be elected to the Senate for the regular/and would like presidential support to that and, it might be possible to put the matter before him in a way that would give us a senatorial vote when the new man came in. Well, with the help of our friends on the Democratic side of the Senate, a delegation with several strong suffragists in it was in readiness when the funeral came. Several of them telegraphed me that they had talked with the Governor but that he had not committed himself. Then Campbell Cantrill of the House sent for me as soon as he was back. He had always been a personal friend of Stanley and he made his report in about these words, "I rode back from the funeral with the Governor and we cussed each other out all the way. And I assure you, Mrs. Park, if you don't get a suffrage vote from Kentucky, it won't be for lack of necessary profanity". I seem to be running on with a lot of stuff that cannot be useful except possibly as background, so I'll try to summarize the steps I took in Washington. I went there at Mrs. Catt's request in November 1916, to be a member of the Congressional Committee. Mrs. Miller of Missouri, who was then chairman, resigned in March 1917 and I was appointed to succeed her. Summary of Congressional Work - 5. When war was declared at the extraordinary session that spring, both parties in the Congress entered into a gentleman's agreement not to take up any regular legislation while war measures were pending. That meant that we were blocked in direct work for the amendment for the time being and I therefore recommended to Mrs. Catt and our National Board that we try to secure the "erection" of a suffrage committ committee in the House, where the amendment had been held up by the Judiciary Committee, of which Webb, one of our bitterest opponents, was chairman. I had discovered that inasmuch as the creation of a committee was considered a matter of House organization and not of regular business, it would be possible to get action on the committee during that special session. Mrs. Gardener enlisted the support of the Speaker and of Pou, Chairman of the Rules Committee, who intended to vote against the amendment on state rights grounds, but thought that we were entitled to an opportunity to have the subject brought out of committee. After some of the funniest adventures I ever had in legislative halls, the committee was erected and Baker of California was appointed chairman. Edward Keating of Colorado, who, curiously was a great friend of the reactionary Claude Kitchin, Democratic Floor Leader, took to him to ask for a date for our vote which we did not want until after the prohibition amendment was out of the way. After a good deal of joking, Kitchin gave us a memorandum, which he called "a private gentlemen's agreement", to the effect that we should be permitted to have a vote after the prohibition proposal had been voted on. Later he tried to go back on his word but that memorandum, which Keating took to him, saved our lives. Next, we organized a steering committee in the House, made up of our friends of both parties and all parts of the country with Hayden of Arizona as chairman. That committee divided up the possible votes and undertook to get our friends on the floor when the vote came and Summary of Congressional Work - 6 also to work with the doubtfuls. It was that committee which fought off the proposed compromise limiting the time for ratification to seven years. That taking of that vote in January, '18, was the most thrilling experience of my life, for I had an exact poll and I knew that we could not get through unless every one of our promised supporters was present or paired. And every one was, though one man had to be brought in on a stretcher and another, from New York state, left the death bed of his wife, a strong suffragist, to get there and went back as soon as he had voted, to make the funeral arrangements. (Some day remind me to tell you a few of the humorous reasons for which men voted for us that day. There is one lovely story about Gallivan of Massachusetts, which concerns the Blackwells, too.) Then began the long struggle in the Senate, where we were defeated by two votes in October 1918 and by one vote in February, 1919; and then won by two votes the following June, after the House by an overwhelming majority had given a second favorable vote. The Chairman of the House Committee on Woman Suffrage at that time was James R. Mann, who was persuaded to take the chairmanship by Wason of New Hampshire, and oldtime politician of storybook type, whom I had met years before in the state campaign in New Hampshire and who gave me lots of help at that time and later in the work of the League of Women Voters, of which we heartily disapproved. We were held up so long in the Senate and so much pressure, some of it unwise, was brought upon our friends that one of my chief tasks there was to soothe their injured feelings. I remember in particular the two senators from Minnesota, old Senator Nelson, a longtime friend who was very testy because people wrote to him as if they didn't know that he had been supporting us for years, and Senator Kellogg, who was then new and had refused to make any public statement about his Summary of Congressional Work - 7 stand, though we had private assurance that if we didn't pester him he would vote for us. Just before one of the votes was to be taken I had word that Nelson was threatening to vote no, as he did threaten from time to time and that Kellogg had been rubbed the wrong way by a woman who tried to get his promise and was also shaky. It occurred to me to go to each of them, not to request his own vote, but to ask help in holding his colleague in line, as if I regarded the particular man I was talking to as beyond the shadow of a doubt friendly. Each of them promised to look after the other and though I don't think either of them would have voted in any case, my own anxiety was set at rest. Before the last vote was taken in the Senate the defeat of Weeks in Massachusetts had sunk into general realization of the handwriting on the wall. And I do want to claim a little credit for that defeat. When the campaign was being planned, three of the Mass. women came down to consult me. They were relying chiefly on the work which Margaret Foley was to carry on against him in the industrial centres and on the distribution of that remarkable (flier giving his record) which Teresa Crowley prepared and which many politicians later told me was the best campaign document they had ever seen. But I said that the industrial campaign was not enough but it would reach chiefly Democratic votes which would be against Weeks anyway and that what we must manage to do was to draw off normally Republican votes. And casting about in my mind for a way to do this I remembered that Weeks had been a vicious opponent of the confirmation of Brandeis to the Supreme Court. I therefore suggested getting after the Zionist organizations in Massachusetts, of which Brandeis had been president and which we very large and powerful in the state at that time. The Massachusetts Jews were normally Republicans and would constitute an appreciable loss if we could draw them away from Weeks. I know the man who had been Brandeis' secretary and knew that he had a lot of political sense Summary of Congressional Work - 8 so he was enlisted in the work, which Mrs. Lewis Johnson induced Mrs. Joseph Fels to finance. Every Zionist organization in the state was visited by their Jewish speakers and a landslide of Jewish votes was secretly organized. Weeks himself always said that it was the Jews who had defeated him but he also knew that the women had had something to do with it. I am sure of this because later, when his appointment to the Cabinet was in the offing, he sent his campaign manager, Thurston, to me to ask whether the women would continue to oppose him if he ever decided to go into politics again. I was taken by surprise at the question but happily my mind was working at the moment and I told him that we were willing to let bygones be bygones provided the Massachusetts Legislature ratified the amendment, but that we should know if it were defeated that he had not held the men with whom he had influence to our support, and we should fight him whenever there was opportunity. I'm afraid that must sound to you like self praise. I am enclosing three letters which I kept after the amendment went through. The first is from Mrs. Catt, written in advance of one of the Senate votes to assure me him of her complete confidence even if we were defeated. That was such a kind thing to do and the letter is so characteristic of her that I want you to read it. The second is from Senator Hollis, who was in Europe when our last vote was taken. It is far too flattering, but it does throw a little light on my part of the work. The telegram from McAdoo was, of course, a politician's gesture, but as he was the Cabinet member with whom I was most closely in touch, for he was the one man with whom Mrs. Gardener didn't get on well, - the fact that he thought it worth while to make the gesture in my case has some significance. Congressional Work: On the House side the particular piece of work that we were undertaking was an attempt to get the Amendment reported out, even if the report were adverse, by the Judiciary Committee of the House, whose chairman, Webb of North Carolina, a bitter and most unfair opponent, refused to let the question be brought up. After the meeting, as I stood waiting for a street car, I was joined by a little woman with gray hair who had sat throughout the evening without question or remark. She told me that her name was Helen Gardener and that she remembered me from one of the national conventions. At the moment I confused her with Helen Campbell and my vain attempt to identify her with Mrs. Campbell's visit to Boston is the only memory that I have of my first talk with a woman of genius, who was to prove one of my most steadfast and most helpful friends in Washington. With the other members of the Committee I find it impossible to separate the impressions received that evening from what I came to know about them later on. The second factor necessary in our success was the Speaker, Champ Clark, a magnificent old autocrat, whose help Helen Gardener secured and kept. Somehow she had come to know him and his wife, both of whom had real regard for her. In his gray broadcloth of winter or white broadcloth which he donned in summer he was one of the most dignified and imposin g figures I have ever seen, well over six feet in height, with broad shoulders and no more fat than was needed to fill out his huge frame. He had droll Southern turns of phraseology, considerable ironic humor and a great fund of anecdote. He was still bitter over his defeat by Wilson in the Democratic National Convention of 1918, he was riddled with anxiety over the likelihood that his only son would go overseas if war were declared, he was beginning to feel his age; but he was still dominating and wonderfully picturesque. He had come to the conclusion that woman suffrage was inevitable and therefore that it was good politics to support it. Congressional Work - 2. Nevertheless there were a good many times when we were not quite sure that about him for his reputation for trickiness and his personal animosities made us suspicious on the occasions when we found him lukewarm. For me Champ Clark never had much use. My Boston accent was hard for him to understand for he was somewhat deaf, a fact that he did not like to admit or be reminded of. If it had not been that Mrs. Gardener, with all her quick wit never quite grasped the technicalities of parliamentary procedure I should have urged her to go to the Speaker without me, but she preferred to have me with her. I remember one occasion when we were seated on a sofa in the spacious and beautiful old room whichis reserved for the Speaker that she asked me to explain to him some difficulty that had overtaken us. He himself was at his desk under the great crystal chandelier, at some little distance from us and looking straight ahead as I talked. Suddenly he turned toward Mrs. Gardener and without a word of apology interrupted my sentence with the amazing question, "Where do you get your milk?" Naturally I was flabbergasted but Mrs. Gardener took in the situation instantly and gave him the name of her milkman. It happened that the day before he had moved from the hotel opposite the house office building, Congress Hall, into the house next hers because hisdaughter and her baby were coming from New Orleans to spend the summer with her parents and he wanted them to have the comparative coolness of the streets near the Park. Mrs. Gardener understood at once that his mind had drifted off while I was talking to the things that needed to be done before Genevieve arrived. Having him as next door neighbor was an opportunity that Mrs. Gardener never overlooked. She used to have her cook make Southern delicacies that could be handed to his cook over the fence that separated the two houses. Once he remarked on this in my presence, "Haven't had anything over the fence since I came to Washington", he said, "Seems like we got neighbors again." Ruth White told me that when the daughter, that very Genevieve of whom he was thinking in connection with milk, was married he sent out through the Congressional work - 3. newspapers an invitation to everybody inMissouri to attend the wedding festivities on his lawn in Bowling Green. When Mrs. Gardener wanted to get a bit of information from him or to convey some without the formality of a call at his office, she used to wait with her coat and hat on in her own little parlor of a morning until she heard the door of the next house slam after him. Then she would appear onher steps as if by accident and during the moment of friendly chat that was sure to follow she would adroitly drop in the question or the information that she wanted to convey, And she was far too wise to do that often. No lesson that I learned in Washington stood me in as good stead as my growing realization of the value of Helen Gardener's help. At first I had failed to appreciate her extraordinary gifts, but by the time that I became chairman of the Committee my eyes had begun to be opened. Indeed at that time I urged Mrs. Catt to make Mrs. Gardener chairman and to let me be vice-chairman, an order that was reversed by Mrs. Catt and the Board. I have never known exactly why that was. Mrs. Gardener herself always said that she did not want the chairmanship, for her husband, a retired colonel, was then living and not very well. That consideration may have influenced Mrs. Catt and I suspect that Mrs. Roessing's dislike of Mrs. Gardener may also have had some weight. What I came to know about Mrs. Gardener's past life - and there were part s of it particularly during the period of her first marriage about which she never spoke - I learned gradually (insert here account frommemorial pamphlet and my article in Citizen) ? (Edna: I am not sure just what you refer to. Is it the material in Mne Rampant Women, page 12, beginning 2nd paragraph? And will you give me the pages and paragraphs of the memorial pamphlet?) Even before the hearing we knew that we had a majority of one on the Rules Committee, for Pou enlisted a number of Democratic members and there were a few Republicans who supported us. Nevertheless week after anxious week went by without the favorable report which we expected. I Congressional work - 5 It was the first of many times that I was to sit in the gallery checking up on our poll as the votes came in and I had the satisfaction of seeing that our listed friends all stuck and that several doubtful voted with us. After the vote was announced Helen Gardener and I went down to meet our chief friends as they came out of the House and to thank them for their help. The day before Mrs. Gardener took me to see Champ Clark and we asked him whether there was anything more that we could do to ensure a favorable report. "Sit tight and trust in the Lord", was his reply which we rightly interpreted to mean that we were to keep hands off. When we saw [the Speaker] Champ Clark Mrs. Gardener said gaily, "Well, Mr. Speaker, we trusted in the Lord and He stood by us". "Hmph", grunted the Speaker, "he didn't have a thing to do with it. Tended to it myself." Naturally Mrs. Gardener explained that she was only quoting his advice and he ceased to be surly. I was very happy over that first victory for I realized that in addition to giving a friendly approach to the House for the Amendment it had created a "feel" of victory for the cause as a whole. Besides that it had given me much needed experience and some confidence in my ownlegislative judgement. I used to say that I had learned the House in preparing for that vote. And the House was by no means as easy or as interesting to follow as the Senate. The mere size of it, 435 members, in contrast to 96 in the Senate, [complicated] multiplied the difficulty and made difficulty in following procedure both from the technical parliamentary point of view and also fromthe angle of hearing and seeing what was going on. As the members of the House have no regular seats, as [in] Senators have, it was often hard to tell who was speaking so I used to try to hold significant sentences and some general impression of the speaker inmind until I had a chance to read the Congressional Record the next day in order to fix names to the men whom I had been hearing. Even then I found myself often mistaken when I tried to recall them later on, particularly those who sat on the Republican side of the aisle, which was Congressional work - [*6*] 7 considerably farther from our favorite gallery than were the Democratic seats. Little by little I came to know that many members had a tendency to gravitate to about the same place[*x*]s day after day, even though they had no fixed seats. And little by little, too, I came to understand House procedure, which is so complicated of itself and made so confusing by the noise and moving about that go on through most of the sessions that casual listeners in the gallery usually comment on ? The insertion of that extra final sentence was one of Mrs. Gardener's miracles. The experienced assistant secretary in the White House Executive Offices, Rudolph Forster, told her that so far as he knew she was the only person who ever persuaded President Wilson to make any change in a document after he had written it. When Mrs. Catt saw the first draft of the statement and was so bitterly disappointed by the omission, Mrs. Gardener said, "Write it exactly the way you would like tohave it and I will see if I can't get the President to alter his text." Ruth White, it was who prepared the additional sentence. Then Mrs. Gardener with a typed copy of the words which Mrs. Catt wanted, together with a typed memorandum of the reasons for including them, sallied forth, saw the President and conquered. The next day she and I went in, as we occasionally did, to see George Creel, then in charge of administration publicity and one of the men closest to the President. We had told him previously of our dissatisfaction with the statement [*so*] when he saw us he said airily, "Well, you see I succeeded in getting the President to change that statement you didn't like." Mrs. Gardener gulped and then replied, "Yes, we like it much better now." If the words usedhad not been exactly Ruth White's and if the President had not assured Mrs. Gardener tht they should be added we might have thought Creel was justified in claiming some credit. As it was we laughed in our sleeves. Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.