NAWSA SUBJECT FILE Shaw, Anna Howard

Sept 1892.

WOMAN'S RIGHT TO SUFFRAGE.
BY THE REV. ANNA SHAW.
DURING the past few days ceremonies and festival days
have been held and festive times have been enjoyed
in the old word, as the centennial celebration the four hundredth
celebration of the time when Christopher Columbus set
sail across the seas to discover, not a new word, but a new way
to what he thought would be the same old world. Four hundred
years have passed since that ship sailed across the sea and,
America was discovered. We have learned to love to call
America the land of freedom, the hope brave men, and if
I were a man I would add, of fair women.
The world has come to look to America as the America as the place where
human rights are to be vindicated, where the problem of 
humanity is to be solved. And if it is possible to solve this
problem doubtless it will be solved in America. And Victor
Hugo, that grand Frenchman whom we women all love to 
honor, declared that this problem had been solved and answered,
that it was the problem of the century of the past; that the 
would the problem of woman be solved. And as the answer has 
been, "A man's a man for a´ that", so will answer be that a 
"woman´s a woman for a´that." The come the next century
with this problem which shall have risen above physical
planes and physical comparisons, in which the problem to be
solved shall be that of brain; and it shall no longer be a man
and a woman but a brain and a heart and a life and a soul. The
*chautauqua Assembly Herald.

310  THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICS

problem of the coming century is the problem of souls, a higher problem than any of the past centuries have solved; and yet we are to-day, we women, at this 400th celebration time, asking if women too are not to be free. We are asking why we human beings shall be justly deprived of any right which any other human being claims as his. We are asking why distinction should always be made against the weaker in favor of the stronger. We are asking why it is after four hundred years that the question of woman's right to be, of woman's right to grow, of woman's right to become, should be a question that should puzzle any man or woman anywhere.
The question was first asked forty-five years ago in this country, and when it was first asked, men said these women were wild. Pastoral letters were written denouncing those who carried this thought to the people and it was declared that women were turning away from God's designed plan for life, and seeking to undo all that the Almighty had done for them. It was declared that women had left the sacred realm of home to enter the fields where God never meant that women should go; and women were derided, the question was scoffed at, pulpits denounced the women and denounced the subject; but the women, like the Master, when denounced by press and pulpit did as did He -- they went to the common people and the common people heard them gladly.
The question which these women asked was, why should not the right of self-government be extended to the women of this nation as well as to men. They asked the question, and there has never been from that day to this, a single reason given why this has not and ought not to be done. There have been great prejudices, there have been great arguments, there has been a great deal of scorn and a great deal of ridicule, and 
women have been held up as the laughingstock of the world for making exactly the same statements and asking exactly the same questions as did Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and George Washington. And we honor these men for the magnificent thought they gave to the race when they declared that taxation without representa-

WOMAN'S RIGHT TO SUFFRAGE.    311

tion is tyranny, when they declared that governments derive
their just powers from the consent of the governed, when they
declared that under God the people should rule, every man who
had a thought of liberty or a love of liberty in his soul cried 
amen.  But when Susan B.  Anthony  and Elizabeth Cady Stanton 
and Lucretia Mott said, if it be true that taxation without 
representation is tyranny, then to tax the unrepresented women 
of this county is tyranny, the nation laughed. Then these 
women said, if under God the people ruled, then why do we not 
ask the people what rule they would have and what rule they 
would obey? And you declared that the voice of the people is 
the voice of God; and these women asked how are you going to 
know what the voice of God is unless you hear the voice of 
God's people?  And in the voice of the people there is soprano 
as well as bass, and you will never know what the voice of 
God is until that soprano and that bass are blended together in
perfect harmony, the resultant of which is the voice of God
uttered by the people. Now, then, we women said if these 
things are true and are not glittering generalities, they are as
true of woman as they are of man; and when we have been
kindly asked to state our grievance, when we have been kindly 
given opportunity to tell why we think the right of suffrage
should be extended to the women of the United States, we say
because God created all men equal and endowed them with certain
inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. To protect these rights, life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness—and no man will deny that
they are the rights of myself as well as himself—to protect
these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving 
their just powers from the consent of the governed.  I
have no further argument to offer.  It is all there.  We are 
governed.  We ought, if the laws are just, to give our consent
to these laws.  If we must obey them, we ought to be asked our
will in regard to what they should be.  If we must pay our 
taxes, we ought to be asked how the money which we thus pay
shall be expended.  If we are to bear the burdens of government,
we ought to be asked what these burdens shall be.

312   THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICS
There are certain classes in this country, deprived of the right of self-government, and it is undoubtedly true, as I have heard gentlemen speaking on the other side of this case (and women too)—saying that the suffrage is not a right but a privilege. I am not here to argue whether it is a right or a privilege. If it is a right I want my right. If it is a privilege I want my privilege. I do not care which it is. If it is a privilege demanded for cause it is a privilege I demand for the same cause for which every man demands it. If he needs it for his protection I need it for my protection. But it will be said it is not a right, it is a privilege. If it were a right it would be the right of a baby boy as much as of a woman. I confess I heard that argument a great many times, but I never had acquired enough religion to be able to hear it without getting angry. When I hear people compare mature, intelligent women with baby boys, I think the thing has been carried a little too far, and yet that is about the distance to which it is carried. If it is a right of a woman it is the right of the baby boy. I grant that may be true, but I also grant it is the right of the baby boy. Every creature, baby boy or woman, is born with the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, and the baby as well as these men has the same inherent rights, and to protect the rights of the baby as well as men governments are instituted. Then, what is the right of a child, shall a child vote? No. Why? Simply because children are incapable of forming correct opinions; and the reason the baby boy is not permitted to use this right which was his the day he was born as much as when twenty-one years of age, is because he is incapable of exercising it for his own good or the general welfare of the people. It might be said because the baby boy could not exercise this right, which is his right, that he shall never have it because it was not his right as a baby. We might as well say also that he is not the heir of his father because he could not inherit his father's estate until twenty-one. Let the father die, and the son, is one day old, is by right and by law as much the heir of the father as the son twenty-one years old; but why does not the son one day old come into the right of using his property and expending it as he 


WOMAN'S RIGHT TO SUFFRAGE.      313
will? One day he will, why not give it to him? Because he has not wisdom enough to expend that property until he is twenty-one years of age. We protect him and his interest until he is twenty-one. But the time comes when the boy outgrows his infancy and enters into that which was his right as much when he was a baby as when he was twenty-one. 
Boys who have not come to years of accountability, and have not sufficient intelligence to cast a vote, are not allowed to do so. We never exclude them on account of a lack of intelligence. But we women are born and die and none of us are ever supposed to become wise enough to know enough to cast a vote or make a law for ourselves. Prejudice has stood in our way all down the years and opposed us. Conservatism has blocked the path of progress. Conservatism has, however, done remarkable things for us. At the beginning of our agitation, women were not fitted perfectly to exercise the right of suffrage, they were not fitted to cast ballots wisely.
But while we were waiting to enter our country we were beginning to see that there were other avenues and lines we should fill. We knocked at the doors of our colleges. The doors were beaten down: our young women went in. They said, if you come it we will have to lower the grade of scholarship to the intellectual capabilities of the woman. But they did not lower the grade. And to-day Miss Fawcett stands 600 points above the senior wrangler in mathematics in England, and Miss Brown takes the prize in classics from the foremost students of Harvard, through the Annex. It was discovered that we had brains which when cultivated would turn out as good work as the brains of men.
In regard to the opposition upon these questions, I do not care what it may be, or what the thought may be, it comes under one of these four heads: either than the enfranchisement of women is contrary to revealed religion as taught in the Holy Book, in the Scriptures given to us by and through our Lord Jesus Christ; that suffrage in the hands of women would interfere with the family and degrade the nature of woman; that suffrage in the hands of women would interfere with and overturn the institu-

314 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICS.

-tions of the home; that suffrage in the hands of women would overturn the government. Now, take the argument, of whatever kind it may be, and it will come under one of those heads.
Under the head of religion there are two schools of exegesis, in this country and in the world. There are two classes of theologians. One gives us what is termed the higher criticism, and one what is called the lower criticism of the Bible, especially of the New Testament. One assures us that the New Testament must be taken literally, and that when it makes certain statements in regard to women, those statements are to be accepted to-day exactly as they were uttered by Paul hundreds of years ago. The other set of exegetes says that these things are not to be taken literally, but that they are to be interpreted as we interpret all books published at that time, taking into account the circumstances under which they were uttered, the condition of society, and the needs of the people. These are the two schools, and when we come to woman's relation to the government and the relation of men to women, we find the same difference here. The party who declares that the Bible should be taken literally is especially emphatic that it should be taken literally when it speaks anything about the subjection of women. And there are men to-day who do not believe a single word of that bible was inspired, except that thought which is in the Bible--that Paul said--wives obey your husbands. And almost every man on earth believes that was uttered through a divine inspiration; and I presume four ministers out of five believe that this is in the Bible and do not know that it is not there. But they preach it.
Then we hear that women must keep still in the church, and we find women in the choir standing up and squealing at the top of their voices, and loud enough to raise the roof, and we call that singing. The whole thing is so utterly opposed to the gospel that is preached to us, that it is marvelous to me that it could be advocated with any kind of seriousness. I know of only one man who is thoroughly consistent in this matter. He is a clergyman in the South. He will not allow a woman to talk in the church or to teach in the Sunday school because she makes


WOMAN'S RIGHT TO SUFFRAGE 315

a loud noise. He would not even allow her to teach in the infant class if there was a male infant in the class. I have the profoundest respect for that man. He is an idiot, but consistent. 
I say there are two sides to this whole matter, and I have profound respect for the people who interpret it against women; for according to their nature they are no more responsible for that than for being born with red hair and blue eyes. It is the way their minds are bent. There are many most excellent men who believe that a woman in the pulpit is utterly foreign to the gospel and spirit of the word. Therefore I respect these men if they will be consistent enough to carry it out entirely in their church work. Shall I be blamed for standing with those who put the more liberal construction on the word, and which I believe to be in accord with the teachings of Christ, the whole of which may be covered with the Golden Rule? That is the highest law given by highest authority to human beings. The difficulty with our Christian church to-day is that it preaches Christ but it practices Moses. If we could make our preaching and practice agree and preach and practice Christ and the Golden Rule, to love each other and to love God would be the sum total for all our thought and all our living. 
We are told that the highest development of nature, as we contend, is contrary to nature; that woman would be going out of her sphere. Is it not marvelous that woman would go out of her sphere? I have been out of it for about twenty-two years, and I think have been about as comfortable as most women who have been in it. How difficult it is for man to get out of his sphere. Did you ever know of a man getting out of his sphere? I never did in all my life. I used to wonder how it was that woman could get out of her sphere so easily and it was so difficult for a man to get out of his sphere, until I discovered that man hadn't any sphere. I have noticed this, however, that if man don't get out of his sphere, he gets into ours. Our sphere has almost been taken away from us. To-day in this place I saw men who had come into woman's sphere. I saw men waiters at the tables. Men served the food, and I have no doubt that men cooked it. Three fourths of the women were created

316 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICS.

for the very purpose of cooking. Now, man has entered that sphere. When I was a girl they paid a dollar and a half a week to a girl for this work. Now, they pay from one thousand to ten thousand dollars a year a cook, and the cook is a man. When the salary is this latter large sum, then it is man's sphere; but where the low wages are paid, there it is woman's sphere. They are doing all sorts of woman's work, cooks, dish washers, dressmakers, milliners, housekeepers, etc. Immense millinery establishments are in existence where all the assistants are men; and the same with regard to ladies' dressmaking houses. In sleeping cars there are men chambermaids. We have no objection to all this, if you want to come into our sphere. We women believe so much in ourselves that we believe if you have free competition with us that you will be able to live, and we will be able to hold our own. If you only had the same belief in yourselves that we have in ourselves, a belief that you can hold your own when we preach, how much better you would be, and how much easier our time in life. And taking it altogether you can see how much more charitable and largehearted we are when we say to come into our sphere and take our washtub, cookstove, and everything that you can.
One thing is forgotten, and that is, that before woman is woman she is human. We are always talking about womanhood in women, but back of womanhood is humanhood, and whatever is good and wise and best for humanity in man is good and best and wisest for humanity in woman. Whatever develops the humanity in man develops the humanity in woman. And I believe the time is coming when women will not be forever having pressed  before them in their undertakings in life that, rather than their humanity. And we women claim that we have every right divine to the development of our humanity that men have, and that though we are women there can be nothing which shall attach to us as women that you justly interfere with our highest possible development as human. And that our human nature may develop as highly as possible we must be free to grow physically, free to become strong in our muscles. We are called the weaker sex, physically. Brethren, if we could exchange


WOMAN'S RIGHT TO SUFFRAGE. 317

clothes with you, you would see which was the weaker sex physically. You would all drop dead in less than six months; you could not endure it. We cannot grow. Think of being cramped up in all of one's physical nature, growth, and development. We are told that the young women who are in the gymnasiums of our schools to-day and have been for four years, are an inch and a half taller than are their mothers; that they are an inch and a half larger around the waist than were the young women of ten years ago. This is going on until the time shall come when every girl shall be born with the divine right to grow as large physically in all her organism as God meant that woman should be. Until that time comes we shall never know whether women are the weaker or stronger sex.
Then, I claim also that we women have a right to develop mentally. We shall never know what God meant woman's brain to do, how large and broad and lofty he intended the development of her mind to be, until she shall be free to develop the brain which has been given to her. We cannot know what woman can do until she has had a generation of growth. We cannot tell what she is capable of intellectually until she has had this generation of free growth. You will never know the sublime height to which the soul of womanhood may rise until theological dogmas and theological restrictions shall be removed from the soul of woman, and woman be free to sit before the presence of God, at the feet of Christ, and learn of Him and Him only. We cannot tell what God had in His mind when He created woman until woman has been free a few centuries to get back into the sublime height where the divine image shall be reflected in all of her nature. Then give us the daughters of such mothers, of the sons of such mothers, and we will show you what God meant woman to be. The physician tells us we are weak; that we are frivolous. We are.  They tell us we are not able to grasp and comprehend the problems of the race. We are not. Is it necessary that I should state this? We are weak, nobody denies that. We are ignorant, many of us; and are not able to grasp the great problems of state. Just see how you men have been wrestling with

318     THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICS.

the tariff question and what a tussle you are going to have for
the next four months about it, and when these four months are
past, you will be right in the midst of the same tussle you are in
now.  You cannot grasp these great questions in a day, or in a 
century.  But you are grasping them better to-day than any
nation ever did before.  Why?  Simply because the manhood
of this country has been free to grasp those questions, free to
discuss and comprehend them and decide them.  You will never
know woman's ability on these questions until she has had free
opportunity to comprehend, discuss, and decide them.  She 
can never be thus free until the restrictions of to-day are taken
from her.

It is said that it interferes with woman as a woman.  I believe
that no law which binds me and prevents me from growth
and development is in accordance with the divine will, or in
accordance with nature; and whatever makes me a dwarf in
mind, in my life, and in the development of my being, is foreign
to the will of God, foreign to my nature, and therefore, the law
which says I cannot develop myself because I am a woman, is
utterly contrary to the will of God, and contrary to the highest
interest of womanhood.

Interference with the home.  I will not admit for a moment
that any man or woman has a higher opinion of the home than
have I.  I will not for a moment admit that there is or ought to
be anywhere on earth—anywhere this side of the kingdom
of God, a holier place than a home.  To my mind, a real home 
is where love runs and rules, where a man and a woman having
found each other out of all the world, have together builded a
home, where by the fireside they may sit with their children—
the gift of God, and the divine love of man and woman.  No
one reveres the home more than I do.  Nor will I permit any 
one to say that we women who believe in the enfranchisement of
women believe in the destruction of the home, and do not 
recognize its high interests, needing wifehood and motherhood.
We believe it more than any other class of beings in the world.
We recognize its need more than any other one class.  We believe
there is nothing that ought to come between a mother and

August 24, 1917     The Public     813

Men of America on Trial for Democracy
By Anna Howard Shaw
Chairman of the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense

So many and varied are the opinions expressed
in regard to the picketing at the
gates of the White House and the unhappy 
events which have followed, that those whose
years of steady purpose, unfailing perseverance,
and tenacity have won all that has
been gained for suffrage for women, are called
upon to express their views as to the wisdom
of the semi militant tactics of the Woman's 
Party.

There is no doubt that ninety per cent. of
loyal, active suffragists deplore the picketing
as injurious to the best interests of suffrage;
and that they consider that, instead 
of hastening the passage of an amendment
to the National Constitution submitting to
the States for ratification to the enfranchisement
of women, it has been the means of
delaying its passage and has made its most
optimistic supporters despair of success during
the present session of Congress.

Yet in the face of discouragement and disappointment,
the National Woman Suffrage
Association has never for a moment lessened
its active efforts with the President, with
members of Congress, and with the public.

Unreasonable as is the action of the Woman's
Party in spending time, energy and
money in waving a few banners at the gates
 of the White House, their lack of reason
cannot compare with that of the men, either
within or without Congress, who hide behind 
the pickets and their purple banners,
and seek to make the conduct of a few
women an excuse for their own failure to 
vote for the political freedom of the millions
of loyal, patriotic and law-abiding women
of the United States.

The shallow claim that the picketing is a
prophecy of the future conduct of all women
in the face of the fact that two million members
of the National American Woman
Suffrage Association repudiate the methods 
of the Woman's Party and for more than
forty-five years have appealed to Congress,
always within the bounds of decorum and
in a constitutional manner, though their
appeal has been denied, is the sheerest unreason
and deceives no one.

If we, as a nation, are true to our ideals
of democracy; if it is true that we are fighting
to make the world a fit place for democracy,
let me stop quibbling about the 
objectionable conduct of a few women and
ask what is the vast body of American
women doing at this hour of their country's
need.

Let me, who are men, learn what the 
government is asking of women.  Let them
behold the thousands of wives who, while
clasping their babies to their aching hearts
are looking, perhaps for the last time, into
the eyes of the fathers of their children.
Let them behold the vaster number of mothers
yielding their sons without a murmur,
the sons for the hope of whose coming they 
are ready to lay down their lives.  Let them
listen to the eager demand to serve of millions
of women, and witness the splendid
spirit of self-effacement as they respond to 
the request of the Woman's Committee of
the Council of National Defense that they
unite in every State to co-ordinate their efforts 
and co-operate in helpful and efficient
service for wherever the government may require
it.

Let honest men remove the mote of the 
pickets from their eyes that they may see
clearly the vast army of patriotic women
who are already in the workshop, field and
hospital, toiling with heart and might to
aid in winning that democracy for which 
men claim we are fighting in this war, to
win which America's women, as well as her
men, have pledged their prayers, their labor, 
and their sacred honor.

If American men are worthy of such 
women, they will not wait for them to appeal 
at the polls to every native of foreign
born citizen for the political freedom which
is the birthright of all, but they will demand
the enfranchisement of women as an immediate
and far-reaching reform, as a war
measure, before they undertake the democratization 
of the world.

It is the men of America, and not her
women, who are on trial; and upon their wis-


814     The Public     Twentieth Year
dom in meeting this question will depend the
judgment of the world as to the sincerity of
the claim that political justice and democracy
are their aims in entering the war.
Men of America, the time for words is
past, the time for action is at hand.  Will 
you lead, or will you follow the new-born

nations struggling for freedom, in according
justice to women?
Is it, or is it not true that we are fighting
for the thing that is dearest to our
hearts, democracy, that whose submit to
authority shall have a voice in their own 
government?  The answer rests with you.


Federal Suffrage in a Dynamic State
By Jennie Bradley Roessing
Acting Chairman of the Congressional Committee of the National American Woman
Suffrage Association
The passage of the national woman suffrage
amendment, providing that "the right
of citizens of the United States to vote shall
not be denied or abridged by the United
States or by any state on account of
sex," is confidently expected by the National
American Woman Suffrage Association
during the present Congress.  At
the special session the agreement of party
leaders on both sides to confine legislation
to the President's war emergency program
has barred the suffrage amendment from 
consideration, but it is predicted that the
legislators will not be able to resist the demand 
of suffragists when Congress reconvenes
in December.  The National Association, 
ever since the war began, has been leveling
a steady finger at the progress of democracy
in the monarchies of Europe and in
Canada and asking whether the Mother of 
Republics will allow herself to be left behind 
in the race.  Backed by the fact that 8,000,000
women will vote for President at the 
next election, the National Association believes 
this argument is irresistible.
Meantime, the Association, under direction
of its president, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt,
is preparing for the biggest and most comprehensive 
campaign in the whole history of
the suffrage movement.  The organization
maintains a national congressional committee 
in Washington, and this committee is reinforced
by State congressional committees
in every State with sub-committees in every
congressional district, and a total enrollment 
of two million members.  The National Suffrage
Association has been called "the best
fighting organization in the country" - and
its entire strength will be turned upon Congress 
at the opening of the regular session.
The policy of the National American Woman

Suffrage Association is wholly constructive,
its methods non-partisan and non-militant.
It has built up suffrage sentiment and
suffrage laws State by State, until now has 
to its credit 19 States where women may vote
for President of the United States and in 
11 of these they have full suffrage.  Since
the leverage in the States became sufficient
to make woman suffrage a national political
issue, the National Association's State work
has taken the form of legislative campaigns
to secure presidential suffrage laws, similar
to the law of Illinois, and since the election 
of 1916, seven States have been won in this
way - namely, North Dakota, Ohio, Indiana,
Rhode Island, Michigan, Nebraska, and Arkansas,
the latter with primary suffrage.
These victories make a total of 172 members 
of the Electoral College elected by votes of 
women as well as of men.
In Congress during the special session, in
view of the agreement of the party leaders
that Congress should ass no measures not
included in the war emergency program,
the Congressional Committee's legislative
program has been to obtain every possible 
advance for the amendment up to the point
of actual consideration of the measure on
the floor of each House.
In the Senate a hearing was obtained before
the Committee on Woman Suffrage, and
a favorable, and probably unanimous, report
from that committee is assured.  In the
House, the first step was to secure a Committee
on Woman Suffrage, corresponding to 
the committee in the Senate, which would 
be able to give full, and it was hoped, more
careful consideration to the amendment than
the Judiciary Committee could give.  To this
end a hearing was obtained before the Rules 
Committee, the Speaker's endorsement was

[*A H Shaw

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60TH CONGRESS, }     SENATE.     { DOCUMENT 
1st Session.                                        No. 409.

HEARING
BEFORE THE
SELECT COMMITTEE ON WOMAN 
SUFFRAGE
OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE

ON THE
JOINT RESOLUTION (S. R. 47) PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO 
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES PROVIDING THAT 
THE RIGHT OF CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES TO VOTE 
SHALL NOT BE DENIED OR ABRIDGED BY THE UNITED 
STATES OR BY ANY STATE ON ACCOUNT OF SEX.

MARCH 27, 1908.—Ordered to be printed.

WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1908.

RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.
_____

WASHINGTON, D. C., March 3, 1908.

The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m. in the Marble Room of the
Senate.

Present: Senators Clay (chairman) and Johnston.
Representatives of the National Woman Suffrage Association
appeared.
The chairman, Senator Clay, introduced the speakers, the first of
whom was Rev. Anna Shaw, president of the National Woman Suffrage
Association, Moylan, Pa.

STATEMENT OF REV. ANNA SHAW.

Miss SHAW     Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee:  For
half a century women who believe in the practice as well as the theory
of the basic principle of a democracy, that "government inheres in
the people," have made these biennial pilgrimages to the National 
Capitol to address your committee upon the justice of the application 
of this principle to women citizens of the United States.
Since our hearing in this room two years ago rapid progress has
been made in the enfranchisement of women throughout the civilized
nations of the world.
Finland has granted universal suffrage to her people, and 19 women
are members of the Finnish parliament.  Norway, which granted
municipal suffrage in 1901, last year extended parliamentary suffrage
to women.  Natal, South Africa, has granted municipal suffrage, and
England and Iceland extended the right to vote in municipal affairs
to that of eligibility to all municipal offices to women. In Denmark
at the present time municipal suffrage is assured to women.
This so-called Republic stands almost alone among progressive
nations in continuing to withhold from women political enfranchisement.
The reason is not hard to discover, for we can not believe it is 
due either to the fact that the men of this nation are less just than
those of other countries, nor that our women are less patriotic or
less capable of exercising the suffrage than are women of other lands.
It is due rather to the more difficult method by which suffrage is
conferred.  In the nations of older civilizations where suffrage 
has been conferred upon women it is necessary to obtain a majority
vote of one parliament, which has the power within itself to grant it,
while in this nation each state has a separate legislative body, in
which not only is a majority demanded, but in some States a two-thirds
majority of one and sometimes of two consecutive legislatures,
not to great the law, but to submit an amendment to the State con-

3

4     RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.

stitution to the electors, where again a majority, and in some cases
a two-thirds majority, vote of all electors voting at the election is
required to carry it.  When we consider the character of our electorate, 
educated and ignorant, good and bad, wise and otherwise,
foreign and native born, white and black, such a task is indeed formidable.
Still, there are not all the obstacles with which we are met.
Powerful influences, with which the gentlemen of the committee are
familiar, hedged about by vast organizations, unlimited wealth, and 
political party machinery, smother the bill in the committees, prevent
the measure from being reported to the various legislatures, much
less from being submitted to the voters.  It is because of these almost
insurmountable obstacles which impede the progress of woman's
political freedom that we make our appeal to Congress, asking for
a seventeenth amendment to the National Constitution, forbidding
the disfranchisement of United States citizens on account of sex.

This would bring our case, as in Europe, before the elected and
selected bodies of assumedly intelligent legislators of the various
States in giving just and fair discussion of its merits, the ultimate
result of which we believe would make this nation, in fact as well as
in theory, a government of, by, and for the people, instead of what it
now is, a government of, by, and for the men.

That is, a male oligarchy would be evolved into a democracy.

In asking your committee to report our bill to the Senate we are
not asking you to express your opinion in its favor, not to implicate
yourself in any manner to its advocacy, but simply that you will
report it favorably or unfavorably, according to your judgment, for 
action by the Senate of the United States.

The petitioners who will present their claims have come from many 
States, authorized by their associations to plead their cause, not for 
themselves alone but for the millions of men and women who within 
the past two years have passed resolutions advocating woman's 
political enfranchisement, believing women need the ballot for their
own protection and for the welfare of their country.

STATEMENT OF MRS. BELVA A. LOCKWOOD

Mrs. LOCKWOOD.     Gentlemen, you compose a committee, the last 
of 71 on the list, appointed and selected to discuss, consider, and
report the matters referred to you, pertaining to the subject and
object of your committee, "woman suffrage," which you are supposed
by your appointment not only to favor but to thoroughly 
understand; a question that has been agitate before the country,
and before the honorable body which you have the honor to represent,
for the last half century, and a question involving, according
to the last United States Census, the welfare of something more than
one-half of the people of the United States.  I think I speak advisedly
when I call women "people," but it has been frequently asserted on 
the floor of the Senate that they are not citizens, and the minute the
are so adjudged they will be entitled to the ballot under the fourteenth 
article of the amendments to the Constitution.

It is a little anomalous that this article should have been adopted,
and the educated, cultured women of the United States left out.
The right to the ballot, the right to a voice in the matter of who shall 
rule over them, and how they shall be taxed, has ever been considered


RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.     5

as the crowning glory of men since the adoption of the Constitution.
Women have, in addition to this, an earnest desire and interest as to 
how their homes and children shall be protected and their persons 
and property preserved.

This committee, gentlemen, next to the smallest on the list in point
of numbers (the Committee on Indian Affairs has 11 Senators, the 
Committee on Indian Drepredations has 9, and the Committee on the 
Five Civilized Tribes has 5, with that renowned fighter, Benjamin R. 
Tillman, at their head; 25 in all) is the most important committee on
the list, and carried within its deliberations the most momentous 
question, involving the welfare of the United States and the perpetuity
of the Government: justice, liberty, and equal rights.

We come to you, gentlemen, as the English people appealed to
King John of England, when they wrung from him that famous Bill
of Rights, the Magna Charta, that formed not only the foundation
or bulwark of English liberty, but which the colonists of this country
insisted on embodying into our own laws and bills of rights when, 
with toil, privation, bravery, and blood, they settled this country,
by landing in inhospitable, rock-bound, New England, and undertook
to make its soil productive.

The chairman of this committee and Senator Burkett are strangers
to me, but from the position of the first and the State which the
latter represents we must consider them both favorable to the matters
before them to-day, while the eloquence, the liberality, the broadmindedness,
and the favorableness of Senator Albert J. Beveridge,
not only on this but every great question, must place him among 
the foremost statesmen of his time.  As for Senator Johnston, I met 
him on his native heath in Birmingham, Ala., in November last, when 
he addressed the League of Press Clubs, and where I saw the women
of his State - the Christian women, with their children and their pastors -
parading the streets of Birmingham with banners and bands of
music in their effort to arouse enthusiasm enough in the men of the 
city to vote (as they could not) to put down the liquor traffic.  I have
faith in the honesty and uprightness of Senator Johnston on this 
question of woman suffrage.

When we reached Atlanta and called upon Governor Hoke Smith
we found the people of Atlanta already rejoicing that they had a
State prohibition law, and that the influence of the women of the State
had helped to bring it about.  The ballot in the hands of these women
would have decided the question without this extraordinary effort.

Last week a Member from North Carolina, where the people are
trying to get a prohibition law, said to me: "I wish you suffrage
women were down in North Carolina.  We need you there to help us."

In the District of Columbia, my own home for the last forty years,
we are now trying to get a prohibition of the liquor traffic, and we
want the vote of the good women of the District on this question
as well as that of the men.  And why not?  The women of this District
own full one-half of the real estate outside of that owned by
the United States.  We are taxed without representation even by
men, one of the cardinal features of the Revolution.

I was asked to represent here to-day the women of Wisconsin, Rev. 
Olympia Brown Willis, president, who are not able to get their representatives 
here in a body.  Women as a class control but little 
money, and the railroads no longer give passes to the favored few.

6     RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.

Wisconsin allows her women to vote on the school question, and so
does Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York, and several other States.
And the new State of Oklahoma has a clause in her constitution 
allowing women to vote on the school question.  In justice to herself
and the enlightenment she has manifested on other questions
she should have given to her women the same liberty and privileges
claimed by her men.  With them she endured the hardships and privations
incident to the settlement of a new country, and equally
with the men every accredited Indian woman there of the Five Civilized 
Tribes now has her freehold of 140 acres and must in the near
future be taxed to support schoolhouses and highways and will
become as much an integral part of the body politic as the men of
the State.  They have already voted liquor out, so the women have
two points there; but why did they not make her a full-fledged
citizen?  Representative Carter, of Oklahoma, was made to say in
yesterday's Star that he was "willing that the women of Oklahoma
should vote when there was not a woman opposed to it."  That will
be when the millenium is here, and a long time after Mr. Carter will 
be out of Congress.

The question of woman suffrage has been passed beyond the realm of 
ridicule and experiment.  It has been tried in Wyoming, Utah, 
Idaho, Colorado, where full suffrage has been given; in Kansas, where
municipal suffrage has been a success; in Wisconsin and in Louisiana,
on the question of issuing bonds for the State, where her property
rights are concerned, and we now come to the highest and most
imperative right - the protection of her own homestead, her person,
and her children.

If woman is inferior to man why draw the line?  You do not draw 
it on an inferior man unless he is an idiot.  If it is because you do
not wish to multiply votes, then draw the line at the adult son who
lives at home, not at the mother and keeper of the home.  Gentlemen,
you forget that the world moves, and that the educated, cultivated
woman of to-day is not the woman of a century, or even a 
half century, ago, and that now the State university of the country
is in the daily press, from which every woman aspires to graduate.

The Senate resolution, No. 47, asks that "The right of citizens
of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the
the United States or by any State on account of sex;" and that this
question shall be submitted for ratification to the legislatures of the
several States of the Union.  The State may adopt or reject the
measure, and it resolves itself into the plain wish of the people.  It
can hardly be said to invade the right of every State to manage its
own internal affairs, when such management does not interfere with
the vested rights of the common people. It would add, if carried
by a majority of the States, one more amendment to the Constitution;
but the fifteenth amendment might be amended for the same
purpose by adding the one word "sex;" but if a woman is really a
person she is already included in the fourteenth amendment, which says
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to
the jurisdiction thereof are 'citizens' of the United States, and
of the State wherein they reside;  *  *  *  "  so that only a declaratory
law is necessary by the Congress of the United States to 
make women eligible to the ballot.


RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.     7

The ninth amendment to the Constitution reads as follows: "The
enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed
to deny or disparage others retained by the people."  Are
you, gentlemen, prepared to assert that women are neither citizens 
nor people?

STATEMENT OF MRS. FANNIE J FERNALD, PRESIDENT OF THE
WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION OF MAINE.

Mrs. FERNALD.     Mr. Chairman and members of the committee,
when that noble woman, Susan B. Anthony, stood for the last time
in this place I heard her say "Seventeen times have I come asking the
right of suffrage for women, and we shall still continue to come.  It
may be that I shall not be here but some one will."  I count it a 
high privilege to be among the least of these.

One year ago, I stood before the committee in the seventy-third
legislature of Maine and plead for the right of self-government for
women, on the ground that as a class we are intelligent, industrious,
thrifty, and frugal; that we are good mothers and wives and home 
makers; that we are contributing toward the maintenance of government, 
and they said it was too bad to lay this burden upon women;
that when a majority of women wanted the ballot they could have it.

It may be that my State, ever proud to recognize the integrity 
of its women, my State in which the laws are so much better and fairer
than in many States, hesitates to concede this right because it has
been so long and so persistently withheld by the Federal Government.

We claim that this is an unfair test.  We have been taught that
our place is within four walls and only within the last half century
have we come to see that the development of God-given qualities is
the duty of women as well as men.  It is therefore too much to ask
that a majority of women should demand this burden from which we 
have been so long exempt.

The extension of the suffrage to classes in the past has been not
from their demand but for their protection and elevation and the
vindication of the principles of our Republic.

Our country early learned the lesson that strength and greatness
lies not in the repudiation of burdens, but in willing and loyal burden
bearing.

They say that voting is a masculine prerogative, fierce and turbulent;
that influence is quiet and womanly; but we believe that the
straightforward, dignified, responsible, effective way is the way of 
the ballot box, while the way of influence is secret, intricate, seductive,
and dangerous.  To prove this we have but to compare the history
of Old World countries where women ruled their monarchs in secret
with that of countries where women stood side by side with men,
equal in responsibility and in authority.

They say that women do not know enough to vote, but we answer,
we can learn.  We are ready now to take our test of citizenship on 
the same terms as men.  There never was a time in the history of
the world when the mass of women was so intelligent and so right
living as are the women of America to-day.

The say, what would women do with the great questions before
the country?  We answer, one of the greatest economic questions of 
the hour is housing and feeding the people, the care of little children

8     RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.

and the unfortunately.  Questions with which women by nature and
training are better fitted to deal than men.

Already there comes flocking to all our factory cities the lowest elements
of foreign countries.  We must possess the genius of organization
to deal with this problem.

Give the homemakers, we pray you, the right to unite with you
in the deliberations and the decisions upon which depends the maintenance
of the American family.  For, no home, no father's and
mother's child is safe while homes of squalor and indecency are multiplying, 
or there roams the street a wayward boy or girl.

A few bright minds can formulate a plan for the control of currency
of banks and clearing houses, but to grapple this monster demands the
wisdom of many minds, the labor of many hands, and the love of many
hearts.

Long ago in a far-away land a ruler asked the people, What will you
do with Jesus which is called Christ?  All over the world to-day the
people are asking the rules, What will you do with women?

In our blest land people and rulers are uniting in the query, What
shall be the place of the mothers of the race, the educators of American
citizens?

We know the sacred place we occupy, we privileged women in the home,
in the church, in society, but we want a voice in the Government which
controls and protects every interest we hold dear.

We believe no class of people are more patriotic than women, and
certainly none are more ambitious.  We love our country and we
desire the supremacy among nations; but the nation that is to have
dominion and permanence must be founded upon a union of the 
strength of men and the strength of women.

STATEMENT OF MRS. ISABEL C. BARROWS, OF NEW YORK.

Mrs. BARROWS.     Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: I
shall speak a moment and I wish only to say in a word that I
count the committee fortunate to have southern gentlemen upon it,
as far as the point we wish to make is concerned, because we all know
the great respect that southern men have for women.  Not that our
northern men haven't it also, but my experience is that southern
men are more willing to show their feelings in that respect.  Since the
suffrage has been granted to women in Finland and the Scandinavian
countries, I have visited those countries and talked with the women
upon whom it has been conferred.  There is on point upon which
there is unanimous belief.  In fact, I heard testimony everywhere as
to the added respect in which women were held who had equal 
political rights with the men.  I remember hearing a women tell of
her little boy who asked his father concerning a certain election,
"Papa, who are you going to vote for?" and his father told him.  He
then asked the same question of his mother, and she replied, "Why, 
no; I can't cote.  I can vote on school matters, but I can't vote for
the mayor or the governor," and the little fellow burst out crying at the
injustice to his mother.  Later that boy was sent to a boys' training
school, where he has fallen right in with the other people, and the
mother who sacrificed herself is of no longer any consequence in his
mind because she doesn't know enough to vote.  In this country
one hears that the young people are growing up with less respect for


RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.     9

their mothers than they had when they were children.  Undoubtedly
this effect of exercising the ballot would be felt in the United States as
in Finland if it were granted tot he women of the land.

STATEMENT OF MISS ANNE FITZHUGH MILLER, PRESIDENT
GENEVA (ONTARIO COUNTRY, N. Y.) POLITICAL EQUALITY CLUB

Miss MILLLER.     Gentlemen and members of the committee, I ask
you attention for three minutes.  For over half a century the
women of our land have come, year after year, to remind the legislators
of their duty to help change the laws that force us to pay
taxes and forbid us to say, by vote, whom or what we want.  In
tones of appeal, in tones of warning, we repeat the grand and awful 
phrase "Taxation without representation is tyranny."  It seems
to float in the air as high above your heads as the flag on the dome
of the Capitol and to concern you much less.  I hope to bring its 
meaning home to you in three words, and I thank Governor Hughes
for teaching me these words, "something for nothing."  The governor
denounces race-track and other gambling because of this
demoralizing basis, "something for nothing."  We denounce the 
law which denies us the ballot, because it involves both you and us
in the abominable practice of "something for nothing."  Let me
explain.  You are uncrowned sovereigns, likewise our employees,
employed by the voters, but paid, in part, by women.  It seems
ungracious to mention this fact, but the situation demands plain
speech.  Do you realize that a part of every dollar you receive from
the Government and a part of every dollar you expend for the Government
is forced from citizens who are prohibited by the Government 
from giving their consent that you receive and disburse their
money?

The case in a nutshell is this: The law compels us to give and you
seem willing to take our "something for nothing."  This something
we give is what we are taxed, the nothing we get is the vote you
withhold rom us - the just equivalent for the taxes we pay.  this
equivalent you claim for yourselves, but deny to us.

When you realize your position and your responsibility, I believe
you will make haste to give us the vote, for your own sake as well as
for ours.  In the meantime, I would rather be as we are, forced to
give "something for nothing," then to be as you are, responsible for
taking "something for nothing."  It is better to suffer an injustice
than to be responsible for an injustice.  Think of this, gentlemen, 
and quickly use your ability to right yourselves and us, by granting
us the same thing you claim for yourselves for the something we all
contribute to the Government.  Are we not like yourselves, fairly
intelligent and wholly responsible citizens?  Treat us well as you
treat yourselves, gentlemen, and you, as well as we, shall be the
better for it.  All we ask is fair play, something for something!

STATEMENT OF MRS. ELLA S. STEWART, PRESIDENT OF THE
ILLINOIS WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION.

Mrs. STEWART.     Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee: I 
wish to speak of the last objection behind which masculine opposition
to the enfranchisement of women has retreated.



10     RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.

A few days ago, I had a letter from a Member of Congress who
frankly admitted that he saw no fault in the arguments for woman
suffrage.  Personally, he said, he "would be pleased to see the
women of the country share in all the political rights enjoyed by
men," but he said there was no sufficient demand for it.  He said, "I 
do not mean a passive sentiment.  It must be an active force, and it
must assert its demands."  When I reread that sentence I wondered 
of it were a challenge to American suffragists to forge ahead of our
English sisters in strenuous campaigning.  However, in the English
Parliament last week Hon. Herbert Gladstone publicly declared that
he found no fault with this just cause, but declared that the women
had not sufficiently emphasized their desire for suffrage.  This was
the objection in a country where 6,000 meetings on the subject were
held in a year, with thousands upon thousands petitioning and hundred
of women gladly going to prison to advance the cause.

We are left to wonder just what is the test, what the arbitrary
standard, the members of State legislatures or Congress have set for
us to sufficiently impress them.

This seems to me the most unfair of all the objections to the
enfranchisement of women.  It implies an admission of the justice 
and righteousness of the plea.  If it were not right in itself and did 
not harmonize with the ideals of Government, numbers should
not be an argument for it.

If the problem were once definitely stated to us, and we could know 
the numerical standard set for us, there would be great incentive 
to measure up.  As it is, how can we know when our proof is sufficient?
How can we prove the vast number of women who to-day 
most earnestly desire enfranchisement?

There is absolutely only one way to find out, and that is to take a
vote.  The ballot is the only medium provided to take authoritative
census of opinions on any subject.  Knowledge gained by this method
would be official and definite.  Without an official vote one may
guess one way and another another, but neither will be certain.  So, 
even if it were conceded that the women who wish to be enfranchised
must wait for the majority of those who do not, I claim that it 
is unfair, un-American, undemocratic, to prejudge the question; to
decide against us, as has been done in the past, without definite
knowledge and with insufficient evidence.

But now, with this orderly and official method withheld, what is 
next best way to demonstrate the number of women whose self-respect
demands promotion from the classes of citizens deemed incapable 
of self-government?  Is it by petition?  If so, our cause should
have received great consideration, for I doubt if the United States
Congress or the majority of our State legislature have received more
or greater petitions on any other subject.

Last year the women of Chicago worked to secure municipal suffrage
as a provision in the new charter which was being framed.
One hundred of the most prominent organizations in that one city
joined this movement.

One of our working committees circulated petitions, and those few
women, working a few days each, secured enough signatures to
cover solidly nearly a hundred yards of muslin.  We could have
carpeted and papered the room of the convention.  But no one
seemed greatly impressed by the significance of the mathematics of

RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.     11

that exhibit, nor computed, as they might have done, the number
of Chicago citizens who would thus have spoken if the canvass could
have been thorough.  As it was, a round of laughter filled the room
as these yards of signatures were unrolled and no member seemed
to value this demonstration of silent entreaty.

I believe you will agree with me that while the sacred right of
petition has not been repealed that it is a defunct expedient.  Without
a vote then, and with the inadequacy of the petition, how may 
women speak on this question?

I believe the best indication of the attitude of women in this matter 
is to be found in organizations of women.  There are great national
bodies of women, with hundreds of thousands of members, which
have indorsed woman suffrage.  The attitude of organized women
is fairly representative of millions of women who can not actively
belong to such organizations.  Every race, every class, speaks
through its leaders.  You do not demand that all farmers, all miners,
all shipbuilders, all negroes, nor all Indians shall ask for legislation,
but you take the attitude of the leaders as significant of general sentiment.

Without a vote on this question, without even the opportunity to
sign a petition, without the opportunity to speak through organizations
of women, there are multitudes of isolated women in our country
who desire the dignity of citizenship and the protection and power
of the ballot.  They are voiceless by necessity.  How unjust to
count them with the opposition or the indifferent and to ignore them.
Thousands are too busy doing the factory work, the farm work, the
pioneer work, to busy taking care of their families, or too poor to
make pilgrimages to legislatures to ask for the ballot.

But they want it.  I know many hundreds of farmer women, for 
instance, the very sinew of patriotic and intelligent womanhood,
who smart under the disgrace of disfranchisement.  They have no 
way to express their wishes for the ballot.  They look to their leaders
to secure it for them.  And again, in the resolutions of organized 
women, the mathematician can deduce only argument for the suffragists,
for while many national bodies of women have declared for
suffrage, not one organization of national proportions has organized
against it.

Moreover, it can not be possible that the women of Colorado, Utah,
Idaho, and Wyoming are different from the rest of American women.
They have come from every State, and while the proportion of women 
in those States who actively worked for the ballot was only about the 
same as usually ask for it, yet statistics show that as great a proportion
of women as men have exercised the privilege since it has been 
granted them, showing latent sentiment that much have previously 
existed.

Again the solicitude of the opposition for the women who do not
want the ballot seems rather superfluous when we remember that
granting the right would inflict no compulsion.  If she did not wish
to exercise the privilege, she could join the company of several millions
of men who every election fail to cast their votes.  It is not the
indifferent women who would be oppressed.  The oppression is felt
only by the women who wish to vote and can not.

Under all circumstances, a larger proportion of women have asked 
for this right than you could reasonably expect.  It must be remem-

12     RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.

bered that few people, comparatively, of either sex, have much initiative
in governmental matters.  Women are not more passive in this 
movement than the majority of men are in governmental changes.
All are apt to accept conditions as they find them, even though they
inwardly protest.  However, I suppose it is really true that our great
weakness in this struggle has resulted from what has traditionally
been counted our greatest virtue - patience.

I sometimes think that we should have the clearness of vision of the
little boy whose mother had been giving his a disquisition on the
humanities and fine conduct.  Then she began to catechise him and
said, "Now, Johnnie, if you are always kind and patient and forgiving,
what will your playmates think?" and she was surprised when her
practical young hopeful said, "Why, they'd think they could lick me
all the time."

Gentlemen, we have borne unjust burdens patiently.  The women
of this country have not fomented rebellions, trundled cannon, nor
talked of treason.  They have taken their share in the hard, serious
work of the nation, helping to build up a better civilization.  And
they have reasoned away every objection to their enfranchisement
except those grounded on obstinacy or prejudice.  They have faith
to believe that these degrading limitations shall soon be removed and
that justice once more may triumph in this nation dedicated to justice 
and equality.

STATEMENT OF MRS. IDA HUSTED HARPER.

Mrs. HARPER.     Gentlemen and members of the committee:  Since
the representative of the National Woman Suffrage Association last
appeared before this committee, two years ago, two nations of Europe 
have conferred the complete franchise on their women and one has 
practically granted municipal suffrage.  Finland in 1906 enfranchised 
all women on exactly the same terms as men and made them 
eligible to all offices including the parliamentary.  This measure
was the result of great deliberation and careful procedure, decided 
upon by a carefully selected commission, passed by all the four
chambers of the Diet with but one dissenting voice, and signed by
the Czar.  About 300,000 women were thus enfranchised.  At the
next election all parties put women on their tickets and one year ago
this month 19 were elected to Parliament and are now sitting in that
body.  At this election fully as large a proportion of women as of
men voted, and in some districts it was larger.

The women of Norway, since 1901, have possessed the complete
municipal franchise and eligibility to the city councils.  Several hundred
have been elected as aldermen, 6 in Christiana at the recent election.
A very large number use the franchise; in some places 90 per 
cent.  In 1907 the full parliamentary suffrage was conferred with a 
tax-paying qualification so small that even domestic servants can
meet it, and the wife may vote on the husband's income.  About 
350,000 women thus became electors.

At last accounts the Parliament of Denmark had given the third
reading to a bill for the municipal franchise for women, and it is
doubtless now a law.  In Sweden the movement for woman suffrage
is so far advanced as to insure its success within the next year or two.
In the Netherlands, the full franchise for women has been placed in

RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE     13

the proposed new constitution, and only the overthrow of the present
Government will prevent its adoption.  Women of Great Birtain
have had municipal suffrage for nearly forty years, and within a few
months the Parliament has made them eligible as mayors, as town
and county councilors, and as presidents of the councils.  This bill
passed the conservative House of Lords by a vote of 73 to 46, while
there were only 15 votes against it in the House of Commons.  At the
first election thereafter 7 cities elected women to their councils.  Last
Friday a bill to give women the complete parliamentary franchise
passed its second reading in the House of Commons by a vote of 271
to 92 - three in favor, one opposed, and 420 members are pledged 
to vote for some kind of suffrage bill.

These statements illustrate the actual political progress of women 
in European countries within the past two years, and may steps 
forward in others might be cited if time permitted.

During this period what have been the concrete gains for women
in the United States, the nation alleged to give them more rights than
any on the face of the earth?  The answer can be given in a very few 
words: "There has not been one."  How many political privileges
have been secured within the past ten years?  Not one.  There is the
shameful record in all its nakedness, and let those who boast of this
glorious Republic make the best of it.  While the legislative bodies of
most of the progressive nations throughout the world are moving 
forward toward the political recognition of women, those of the 
United States are standing stock-still, just where they were at the
beginning of their existence, and resisting every effort to move them
from their medieval position.

When we women go abroad to our great international meetings we 
meet there the delegates from New Zealand, who have been fully
enfranchised since 1893; from Australia, who have had the complete 
suffrage and the right to sit in Parliament for the past six years, ever
since their States were federated into a commonwealth; from Finland
and Norway, with their full political rights; from Great Britain,
with the municipal vote and rights to office; from Denmark, and 
from our neighbor, Canada, with the municipal franchise; yes, and
even the women of Russia, who tell us that representative in the
douma of every political party are in favor of giving votes to women.
What are we to answer to the amazed enquiries why we of the United
States have no voice in a Government whose greatest pride is that of
being founded on individual representation?  Shall we say it is
because our men are not as just and generous as those of other nations?
Or shall we take the other horn of the dilemma and say it is because 
our women are not so capable of being trusted with it?  No one can
truthfully say it is because our women do not want it, for they have
worked far longer and harder for it than have those of all these other
countries combined.

This year the suffragists of the United States will observe the 
sixtieth anniversary of the first woman's rights convention ever held
in all history, that one which met in Seneca Falls, N. Y., the home
of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in 1848.  First among the rights which
it demanded for women was that of suffrage.  After three-score 
years' continuous agitation, education, and organization what are
the meager results we face to-day?  In one State, Kansas, women
have a limited municipal franchise; in Iowa, Louisiana, Montana,







14     RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.

and the villages of New York a shred of taxpayers' suffrage; in
about one-half of the States a partial school vote.  Not in one have
women the same voice in school affairs that men have, and in order
to exercise what they do possess they must comply with all the 
formalities required of men to vote for every official up to President
of the United States.  In 4 out of 46 States - Wyoming, Colorado,
Idaho, and Utah - women are enfranchised on exactly the same
terms as men.  All of these 4 states took this action within six years,
from 1890 to 1896, and it looked as if the time had come when woman
suffrage would sweep the western part of the country.  No sooner
had women begun to use their new privilege, however, than the
word was passed to surrounding States not to make the fatal mistake
of putting this power into the hands of women.  Who passed this
word?  It is not necessary to speak definitely on this point to politicians.

And so, after two generations have passed, we, the descendants of
those pioneers, find ourselves also at the feet of our rulers begging
for what must be the acknowledged prerogative of citizenship in a
republic and a democracy if these are anything but empty words.
Our mothers and their mothers saw their claims ignored, while a 
million negro men, but yesterday plantation slaves, were endowed
with this sacred privilege.  We their daughters, behold our prayers
treated with contempt, while, not once but every year, a million men
from the slums of the Old World walk out of the steerage of the
ships to become enfranchised citizens and ultimately vote against
giving the suffrage to the American-born women.  And while we have
stood aside and listened to the grave discussion as to whether women
would really uplift and purify the ballot, we have seen the Government
rounding up the blanketed Indians from the reservations,
forcing their zealously guarded ballot upon them and spending thousands
of dollars teaching them how to use it.  Is it strange if sometimes
the unreasoning, illogical female mind wonders whether women
would have had to wait all these years if their ballots could have
been classed as purchasable commodities?  But even with the welcome
of the Indian into the political fold, feathers, war whoops, and
tomahawk, our humiliation was not complete, but the Government
must reach out and confer the carefully treasured franchise upon 
the Porto Rican and Filipino men, the great mass of whom had not
the slightest conception of its meaning.  And on the consecrated
floor of Congress, where no woman's foot shall treat, there sits a
Representative of Filipino men who can not speak the English language,
with the promise that a Porto Rican brother shall soon have
a place by his side.

It is not surprising that the forefathers excluded women from the
electorate, for they also excluded them from everything else, but
the reasons that obtained then no longer exist.  All the old objections
have been swept into oblivion.  Women are not now regarded 
by the law as chattels or held as minors after they are of legal age.
Once prevented by statute from holding property, they now pay
annual taxes of billions of dollars.  From being looked upon merely 
as consumers and occupied wholly in unremunerated labor, they
have become an army of producers and 5,000,000 of them are engaged
in occupations outside the home.  For many years it was argued
that women should not vote because they could not take part in war,

RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.     15

serve as police, or help put out fires.  Nowadays the taxpayers provide
a fire department, and the waiting list of men anxious to get on
the police force does not seem likely very soon to need a reenforcement
of women.  There appears to be a great sufficiency of men for
both the fire and police department, willing and glad to serve their 
country in this capacity, and their number would not be any less if
women could vote.  There must be other factors in war besides
those who stand up and shoot each other; there must be the large
corps of burses on the scene of action, and of those who stay behind
to prepare and forward the supplies; and especially a vast army who
remain at home and look after the households and the business.
Women do their full share in all these capacities, and, what is beyond
everything else, they bear, and rear the soldiers, and what kind of
war would it be if there were not any soldiers?  Besides, there is no
provision in any election law that the voter must be able to join the
army.  If there were, most of those who will not let women vote 
because they can not fight would have to enter the ranks of 
disfranchised.

There used to be a stereotyped objection that women were not mentally
competent to vote.  The logical and reasoning male mind never 
seemed to see any incongruity between this argument and the enfranchisement 
of the negroes, the immigrants, and the Indians; but let 
that pass, for it is also is now obsolete.  High schools throughout the
country are graduating nearly three times as many girls as boys.
There are at present about 40,000 women in the United States holding 
college degrees.  Fully that number are now studying in the colleges,
and they are ranking so high in scholarship and taking so many
honors that some of the institutions are "segregating" them into
classes by themselves, so that the feelings of the male students shall 
not be hurt.  Although there are nearly 2,000,000 more men than 
women in the United States, women already form considerably more
than one-third of the entire student body, and their percentage of
increase is steadily gaining over that of men.  In a few decades one-half 
of all the college graduates in the country will be women.  There
are about 3,500 women ministers, over 1,000 lawyers, nearly 7,500
physicians.

It is perhaps not necessary to go further into statistics to prove that
women have minds.  This is now very generally conceded.  In the olden
times men just as wise in their generation as the men of to-day are in
theirs gravely argued that women had no souls.  We have never been 
able to disprove that statement, but perhaps there is not a very close
connection between souls and suffrage.  The only point we wish to
make is that everything in the shape of an argument against woman
suffrage has been relegated to limbo, where it belongs, and that no
class of citizens ever was enfranchised who were so well equipped with
all the qualities desirable for an electorate as are the women of to-day.
But the opponents have now made the last stand with their backs
against the wall.  When we ask for it now they fire off a whole volley
of blank cartridges in a single sentence, "Women don't want it."
"But we do, or we wouldn't be working ourselves to death for it,"
we answer.  "We maintain a large organization and raise many thousands
of dollars every year in order to obtain it, and our leaders are
among the ablest women the age has produced."  "O, yes; that may




16     RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.

be true, but the majority of women do not want it.  Go and convert
your own sex."

Here then is an idea: It is the policy of the Government not to 
confer the franchise on any class of citizen until the majority of
them demand it.  So we study the history of the various extensions
of the suffrage; first during the colonial period; again in the early
days of the Federal Government when the workingmen were enfranchised;
after the civil war when the great mass of negro men was
brought into the electorate; down to the latest examples where the
Indians were compelled to give up their tribal relations and become
voting citizens, and the Porto Ricans and Filipinos were received
with open arms.  But in this study the undeniable fact is developed
that in not one single instance did a majority or even a considerable 
minority ask to come into the voting body.  Indeed with the exception 
of the workingmen there was no demand at all, but each class 
was enfranchised because the leaders of one party or the other saw
a political advantage to be gained by it.  Thus this last excuse 
for not enfranchising women falls to the ground as utterly discredited
as all that preceded it.

But no matter how fallacious the opposition, we have to meet it;
and so short a time ago when a commission was appointed to prepare
a new charter for Chicago, the women of that wretchedly governed
city determined to be included in the suffrage clause of the charter.
Knowing that they would have to encounter this hackneyed objection
that the women do not want it, the Suffrage Association called others
to its assistance and at the hearing granted by the charter commission
it was addressed by the official representative of a great number of
organizations comprising 86,000 women, the Federation of Clubs,
W. C. T. U, Lutheran Women's League, Catholic Women's Society,
Jewish Council of Women, mothers' clubs, women's trade unions,
Chicago University women's societies, associations for every good 
purpose, and they presented a petition 225 feet long.  The meeting
was thoroughly representative of Chicago women and of their desire
for a vote on municipal questions, and yet the commission refused 
to incorporate woman suffrage in the charter.  When this finally was
submitted, 320,000 out of 500,000 qualified voters failed to go to
the polls.  Think of it!  Nearly 100,000 of Chicago's best citizens
pleading for a vote and refused, and almost three-fourths of those
entitled to vote declining to do so.  And almost at the very moment 
when a Chicago commission perpetrates this outrage on women, the
Parliament of Great Britain, where they have exercised the municipal
suffrage for forty year, by an overwhelming majority, makes them
eligible for mayors and aldermen.

A convention is now in session in Michigan to frame a new constitution.
The women of that State have been making herculean efforts
to secure a clause for woman suffrage, and last month a hearing was
granted.  As many and as varied associations sent their representatives
as at Chicago; the organized womanhood of the State asked for
this measure.  The committee said it was the most dignified, logical,
and able hearing that had been held.  Doctor Shaw, president of the 
national association, was among the speakers.  The governor of the 
State was present and almost the entire constitutional convention, 
filling the assembly room of the legislature.  At the close of her 
address they crowded around her and said, "If the vote could be

RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.     17

taken now, the measure will be carried unanimously."  Two weeks
later it was defeated by almost a two-third majority of the convention.
Why this change of heart?  Not because the delegates had
heard from the women of Michigan that they did not want the suffrage;
but because they had heard from the men who did not want 
them to have it.

You often read in newspaper editorials of a "large and influential
association of women" to oppose the granting of suffrage.  After all 
these years this "large and influential body" is organized in just two 
States.  It has a society in Boston, one in Brooklyn, and one in Buffalo.
They have never held a convention and never a meeting that
could not be accommodated in the parlor of a member.  If the entire
list of names were presented here you would not recognize more than
two or three of them, perhaps not so many.  They are women known
only in their own social circle.  In the Woman Suffrage Association
you will find the names of all the women of the country most prominent
in education, philanthropy, civics, and the reform and progressive
movements of the day.  Of the women who have expressed themselves
at all on the subject of immense majority have declared in
favor of the suffrage.

No one has a right to interpret for those who have not spoken.
Reforms are never carried forward by the masses, but by the leaders.
This we do know that ever State and every county where the
women have the franchise they use it as large a proportion as the
men, and this is the strongest proof which can be offered that they 
do want it whether they are aware of this fact or not before they get
it.  But if men are not satisfied with this proof then what will they
have?  Do they desire that our women shall leave their homes en
masse and demonstrate their wishes after the manner that is now
being employed in Great Britain?  We are already seeing indications
of these methods in New York City.  The movement for women
suffrage will not always remain in the wise and conservative control
of those who now have it in charge.  When the fearless and aggressive
women of the present day look back over sixty years of dignified 
womanly effort and see that it has been rewarded with an almost
continuous series of failures, is it not reasonable that they should
change the tactics?  Those who oppose the English method should
come forward with some new suggestions.

Examine for a moment the present situation.  Legislatures will no
longer submit this question to the voters.  It has been nearly ten
years since the women have been able to secure from a legislature the
submission of a woman-suffrage amendment.  The reason for this
was frankly stated a short time ago when those of California appealed
to a member to know why he voted against the submission in that 
State: "Because it is easier to defeat you here than it would be at
an election!"  Here then is the status of those who are trying to 
secure the suffrage for women: The legislatures themselves can not
grant it and they will not submit the question to the electorate, the
only power that can bestow it.  Was ever a body of citizens in as
helpless a position?  It is this anomalous and outrageous situation
which brings us to you, the sole tribunal to whom we can look
for relief.  There are but two ways in which the women of the
United States can ever be enfranchised - through a majority vote of

S. Doc. 409, 60-1--2

18     RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.

the electors of each State or through an amendment to the National
Constitution.  The legislatures will not submit it to the electors.
All the talk about their being will to do so when enough women
ask for it is mere rubbish.  There will always be a sufficient influence
behind them which is already enfranchised to compel them not to
do it.

But if they should submit it, then think of the electorate we must
face.  Would you be willing to trust the question of your own political
liberty to their mercies?  You will find yourselves disfranchised
at the first election.  The whites would take away the suffrages of
the blacks if they could, and vice versa.  The rich would disfranchise
the poor and the latter would joyfully do the same for the rich.  We
have seen in France what the unbelievers would do for the church,
and doubtless there are church people and fanatics in this country
who would rejoice to take away the voting privileges of those who
disapprove their policies; while in each of the above classes there is an
element opposed to giving political rights to woman.  It is a very great
defect in our Constitution which invests one body of citizens with the 
power to hold another body in a state of perpetual disfranchisement.
There is no such provision in the constitution of any other country
in the world.  The only reparation that can be made for this mistake
is to amend our Constitution.  If Congress shall continue to refuse
to women this only just and feasible method of redress for the great
wrong which has been done them, then indeed our case is hopeless;
but that august assemblage may rest assured that the great body of
educated, tax-paying, wage-earning women now coming upon the
scene will not bear this indignity as patiently as have those of the
present and past generations.

How does Congress stand upon this question?  During the year
just past there was scarcely a parliament in Europe that did not discuss
woman suffrage in some of its phases.  It has been eighteen
years since it was discussed in the Congress of the United States,
and then it was upon the admission of Wyoming, in which politics
played so large a part that merits of the suffrage question were
greatly obscured.

Eighteen years since this matter which so vitally concerns one-half 
the people has even been considered in the national legislative body.
In Great Britain the women know precisely how every member stands
upon it.  In this country we might as well try to solve the riddle of 
the Sphinx.  There the platforms at woman-suffrage meetings are
crowded with members of Parliament.  Here we can scarcely persuade 
one solitary Member of Congress to shed the light of his 
countenance.

During these eighteen years the leaders of the movement have
addressed committees of Senate and House nine times.  It is sixteen
years since we have had a favorable report from the Senate committee.
It is twelve years since we have had one of any kind, and the last was
merely a copy of an adverse report that had first begun to do duty in
1882.  The last report from the House Judiciary Committee was 
made in 1894, and refused the petition of the women.  The last time
I myself addressed the Senate committee we had with us our dear
leader, who had been coming here to the Capitol or almost forty 
years to beg for women that citizen's right which is so freely given to
the lowest men without the asking, and one member of the com-

RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.     19

mittee said, "Miss Anthony, I promise you this, you shall have a
report."  That was four years ago, but we waited in vain for the
pleasure, or pain, of reading that report.  "What is needed more
than anything else," Miss Anthony used to say, "is a watching committee
to see that we get a report."  When the militant suffragists,
who are now on the way, take this work out of the hands of those who
have been coming here in vain for so many years, they will probably
organize a "lobby" with all that the name implies, and perhaps it will
know how to get some expression from these committees.

But before that day arrives we can not but wish that we ourselves 
were able to present this question in such a way that you would consider
it enough importance for you to make a report of some nature
upon it.  You are chosen representative of one-half of this great
nation, selected because of your wisdom, judgment, and commanding
ability.  If you can not grant our request to recommend action by
Congress, we long to have you tell us at least where we have made 
mistakes, what is the matter with us that the men of our country
will not place the confidence in us that the men of other countries
place in their women, and what we can do to make ourselves worthy
of the great gift we ask.  But if you are ready to say to the Congress
that we have provide the right of women to suffrage and their fitness
for it, and to recommend that we may carry our case to the legislatures
of the States, then indeed we shall go forth with fresh courage
and strong hope to win what we believe will help women to redeem 
the world.

STATEMENT OF MRS. ELLA HAWLEY CROSSETT, PRESIDENT OF
THE NEW YORK STATE WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION.

Mrs. CROSSETT.     Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: We
think that you have arrived at the conclusion before this, that in a
republican form of government all the people should have a voice in
the Government.  Yet legislators make as an excuse to further
extending the suffrage, that the women do not want it.

I have been an officer in the New York State Suffrage Association
for the past sixteen years, consequently ought to know something of
the progress that has been made in our organization and also in others
that were not started for the purpose of pushing the suffrage question
but are doing so now.

Sixty years ago the first meeting ever called for the purpose of advancing
the position of women was called in our State; women from
many different organizations will help us celebrate the event this year,
and, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, we think that you
should at least help us celebrate, after sixty years of peaceful agitation,
by reporting favorably to our legislatures the sixteenth amendment to 
the United States Constitution.

In the seventies a constitutional convention was held in our State.
George William Curtis gave one of the best addresses in favor of
woman suffrage that has ever been presented, yet the vote to submit
the question had very few supporters; in 1894 we carried to the constitutional 
convention petitions representing over 600,000 men and
women.  We lacked only a few votes of carrying the measure in the
convention.  When you think of putting a measure like this before
the voters of the State, you must know that it would be no small

20     RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.

undertaking.  We think that we should receive as much consideration
as other classes in the Republic that have been enfranchised and
the question be put to the legislatures to decide.

Women have had school suffrage as a general law of the State since
1882.  Woman may vote on tax questions in between eight and nine
hundred villages of the State and in 20 of the 38 third-class cities,
so we are asking no radical measure in New York State, for women
are using their powers quite generally and they have been of great
service in the communities in which they live.

At the hearing given on February 19 at Albany on the question to 
amend the State constitution by striking the word "male" from the
State constitution, we had speakers that brought resolutions in support
of the measure from the State Grange with 77,000 members; the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 26,000 members; the Self-Supporting
League of Woman Suffragists of New York City, 14,000
members, the Federation of Labor, representing 250,000 voters; New
York City Federation of Women's Clubs, 20,000.  The presidents 
from several large philanthropic organizations spoke also in favor of
the measure.  Never has there been such cooperation; the question is
being discussed in many places, and the women of this country can not
understand why Congress does not take up the measure.  We have a 
right to expect it, and we trust that you will submit the measure soon
to the legislatures.

STATEMENT OF MISS LAURA CLAY.

Miss CLAY.     Gentlemen, in speaking for our petition for a submission
mission of a sixteenth amendment what I say will be simply something
to show why we believe the people are ready for the extension 
of the franchise to women and should be given this means to imprint 
their convictions upon the Constitution.

It is report that in a recent interview with a delegation of equal 
suffragists a very distinguished statesman of New York said to
them, "The settlement of this question depends finally upon the
women."  I will remark first, therefore, upon how the women are
speaking for themselves.

More petitions have been made by women for suffrage than have
ever been made before by any class seeking to be admitted to the
electorate.  The have given every proof that if they possessed the
ballot they would use it dutifully in expressing the womanly view
on the vast and varied number of public questions which are brought
before the voters.  We have 4 States - Wyoming, Colorado, Utah,
and Idaho - where women vote; and the records prove that they vote
as generally as the men do.  There is a long list of associations,
composed of women or of women and men, outside of the suffrage
associations proper, which have endorsed the right of suffrage for
women.  The call of their names will show the widely varied interests 
of those they represent.  Among them are the National
Women's Single Tax League, National W. C. T. U., International
Women's Union Label League, National Purity Conference, National 
Free Baptist Woman's Missionary Society, United Textile Workers of 
America, Ladies of Modern Maccabees, Ladies of the Maccabees 
of the World, National Council of Women, Nurses Association of
the Pacific Coast, Native Daughters of the Golden West, Women

RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.     21

Workers of the Middle West, International Council of Women (representing
20 countries and upward of 6,000,000 of members), and
many others.  Three is but one of which I know that opposes it
the Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women.

And this association is not opposed in such a radical manner as at 
first sight appears, for the fundamental principle of the woman 
suffragists is the right of women to have an equal voice with men in
deciding the conditions and laws under which both live.  If there
should occur such a change in governmental methods as that, something
should be substituted for the ballot to express that right for
men, then the women suffragists would simultaneously change their
demand and ask for the new mode of expressing an opinion on equal
terms, without in the least affecting the essential nature of our
present demand.  Now, though the Association Opposed to the
Extension of Suffrage to Women nominally set themselves in opposition,
really in their way they also are asserting our underlying principle,
because they are organized to express their opinion on one
question of public interest, and do not disclaim a right to act in the
same way upon every other public question.  In claiming these
rights they agree with us; it is only in method they disagree.  They
prefer to form an association, collect funds, and pay salaries to secretaries
and others to distribute literature and in such ways to bring
to bear their influence; a costly method and not one with the means
of the majority of women.  The suffragists prefer to use the ballot,
which is the established method of exercising choice of opinion, is open
to the poorest and has its machinery already paid for our of the
taxes levied upon women as well as men.  Intelligent women of our
day are informed, and most often feel a personal responsibility in
some degree, on all public matters; and perhaps without calling
themselves suffragists they do maintain the fundamental principle
of suffragists, and are now, as shown by their petitions and other
public expressions of opinion, fully committed to the principle that
women share in public interests, and ought to help in deciding them.
Through all grades of legislative bodies, from city councils, where
women petition for police matrons or street-cleaning ordinances, to the
National Congress, where they petition for child-labor laws, pure-food
bills or interstate-commerce regulations, the desire of women to
be heard in public affairs is constantly brought into evidence.  The
toil, expense, and humiliation which public-spirited women thus
endure their enforced attitude of perpetual petitioners for what
they believe is for the good of the people, is converting hosts to desire
the direct, easy, and dignified means advocated by the suffragists to
attain the same ends.  The demand for the ballot is growing among
women as surely as their interest in questions affected by law is
growing.

Just as among women the Association Opposed to the Extension of
Suffrage to Women constitutes the only definite opposition to be found 
against equal suffrage, while other associations, representing hundreds
of thousands of women engaged in philanthropies and intellectual
and industrial pursuits have indorsed it, so it is among men.  In the
4 States where women have the franchise it has been given by the
votes of men; and in many other States constitutional amendments,
though defeated so far at the polls, still have received affirmative 
votes from large minorities.  Again, many associations, organized



22     RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.

for a large variety of social, industrial and reform objects, officially
indorse woman suffrage.  Just as there is only one woman's association
opposed to woman suffrage, though not very consistently, so
there is but one among men avowedly opposed to it, with the difference
that that one is thoroughly consistent.  The organized liquor
traffic is, I believe, the only association which in its newspaper organs,
its public acts, and its unvarying political attitude, really embodies
that antagonism to the fundamental principle of woman suffrage
which goes deeper than aversion to the mere method by which that 
principle shall be put into operation.  The saloons and the dens and
dives which are too often allied with them know that self-respecting 
and thoughtful womanhood is a more dangerous enemy to their
business than prohibitory laws on statutes books; and so they always
oppose the right of women to any voice in the Government under
which they live.  Their opposition has defeated equal suffrage
amendments in several States, as the suffragists know to their cost.
The liquor forces want nothing which leads women to think, and fear 
their influence of women, and desire to enlist it in their own behalf.
Educators see that suffrage for women would help the schools, temperance
men see that it is what the liquor interest most fears, labor
men admit that it is necessary to secure and maintain the best wages
for themselves as well as women; and so all these and many others
indorse suffrage for woman.

There is not much in these practical hopes of benefiting themselves
to flatter the sentimental theory that men are only waiting to find 
out that women want the ballot to give it to them; but there is much
to rejoice the philosophy which holds that the union of the interests
of men and women is so vital that it is impossible ever to separate 
them, a philosophy whose outcome is likely to speed the day when
woman suffrage will be a very live issue for party consideration.  When
extensive bodies of men possessing votes apprehend that their own 
interests demand the right of suffrage in the hands of women, it follows 
that they will quickly take measures to give it to them.  Our allies,
men whose interests are wrapped up with ours, are increasing so
greatly in numbers that already the time seems drawing near when
one or the other of the dominant parties will declare itself for its own 
benefit on the side of this last great enlargement of the electorate.
Woman suffrage is bound to come, perhaps is bound to come soon;
and the party which soonest declares itself in its favor must benefit
most from the votes of that large class of women whose political
opinions are not yet crystallized on party lines, or whose minds correspond 
to those of the independent voters among men.  Gratitude
will be a strong attractive power.  We believe the time is not far off
when our people will desire to express themselves on this question,
and the submission of such an amendment to the National Constitution
as we petition for will give their legislatures an opportunity to
do so in the manner in accordance with the national precedents.

STATEMENT OF MRS. CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT, PRESIDENT INTERNATIONAL
WOMAN SUFFRAGE ALLIANCE.

Mrs. CATT.     Gentlemen and members of the committee, I can
only repeat some of the things which have already been said.  The 
conditions under which the right of suffrage can be granted to


RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE.     23

women in the United States, are harder than in any other nation in
the world.  We are the only nation where suffrage may not be
granted by an act of Parliament, and that accounts, undoubtedly
for the great extension to suffrage that has been given to women in 
other lands.  We have but two ways in which we can secure the suffrage;
by amendment of the State constitutions, or by amendment of 
the National Constitution.  If we go to the legislatures to ask for
suffrage there, what is the result?  In my native State of Iowa, ever
since I have known anything of public affairs, women have carried
 the question of woman suffrage to every legislature.  They have 
carried petitions with them from all classes of the State, organizations
have sprung up here and there to be discouraged after years of
nonlegislative action; not because they believed in woman suffrage
less, but because they could get nothing from the legislatures, and
never has it been submitted to a vote of the State.  In my adopted
State of New York, we need not go further back than 1894 when
600,000 people sent petitions to the constitutional convention.
So numerous were those petitions that it was necessary to carry them 
down the aisle of the convention hall upon a wheelbarrow, and when
these were piled upon the desks of the secretaries, they were buried
out of sight, and yet that convention did not submit the question.
Since that time, thousands of women of New York have been going
before the legislature asking submission of the question.  We ask
only the privilege of petitioning the people, who alone have the
right to give us suffrage, and yet we are not able to get our question
before the legislature, for the committees invariable quash the
petition within the closed doors of the committee room.

This year, upwards of half a million of people were represented in
the hearing recently held in Albany, and possibly there will be the
same reply there has been before.  When now and then the question 
is submitted, what is the result?  We must go before the rank and
file of voters, and I ask you, gentlemen, what would be your feelings -
you who come from the South, who feel a repugnance to the
negro vote - how would you like your women folks to seek the suffrage 
from them?  What change do you think we shall have when
we go to the city of New York to appeal to that great body of men
who maintain the white slave traffic, bringing young and innocent 
females from all lands to replenish the houses of prostitution? What
chance have we when we go to the saloon keepers, the managers of a 
business which steals away men's reason?  What change have we
when we appeal anywhere to prejudice?  In the year 1890 I cam to 
the first Congressional hearing I had ever heard, and since that time
I have been present at every Congressional hearing but one.  Never
once in that eighteen years has there ever been a full attendance of
the woman's suffrage committee.  Never once have the 5 members
whose only duty it is to consider our hearing and act upon it
ever given our petition sufficieut respect to attend in a body and hear
what we have to say; yet this committee stands between us and
Congress to-day and we can only appeal to Congress through this
committee.  Gentlemen, I do not ask you to believe in woman suffrage,
for we know you have not authority to grant it.  We only ask 
you to be true democrats in a democratic government and give ius
the opportunity to try our cause before the only court which may
have constitutional jurisdiction over it.  We only ask you to bring










24     RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE

this question back to the Senate in order that we may thus appeal
to our members; that we may ask them in turn to report this question
to the legislatures.  The thing we ask does not in any wise compromise
you with your political party; it need not embarrass you with
your constituents.  It is only giving a cause the right of free speech
and free petition.

When we observe that the women of other civilized lands are, one
by one, intrusted with the right and privilege of suffrage for which
women in this country have so long struggled in vain, it is with the
deepest humiliation that we reflect upon the impossibility to get our
question beyond the authority of a committee.  We ask you, gentlemen,
to give to us the opportunity of trying our cause with the
legislatures upon a sixteenth amendment.  We do not know that this
legislature would grant the right we ask.  We only know that legislators 
are supposedly more intelligent and more reasonable than the 
mass of constituents behind them.  We have been coming here year
after year for many years, and you must surely recognize that we are
persons of fair intelligence, education, refinement, and self-respect.
We ask you, you who should appreciate these qualities in women, to
save us from the humiliation of being obliged to take our question
to those who possess no refinement, education, or self-respect.  Give
us at least the opportunity of appealing to those who may justly be
called our peers.  Let us have the benefit at least pf the simplest
method by which we can secure the suffrage.  Gentlemen, you may
say the method we propose is not constitutional.  It was the method 
by which the negro was enfranchised, and if that act was not constitutional 
then no election in the United States since that day has been
constitutional and no Member of this Congress holds his rank legally
and constitutionally, since negroes are numbered in every constituency.
It is constitutional.  It must be; and we only ask you to give
to us the same benefit which was given to the negro.  It is very little
we ask of you, gentlemen.  We have heard much of American chivalry
and American fairness to women, and we may surely appeal to 
these qualities and ask you to do this thing in the interest of ordinary
fair play.  We have asked you to extend to us this small favor because it is
just and right that women who have been engaged in this movement
for fifty years shall be permitted to present their petition and their 
arguments to bodies, which alone can grant or deny their request.
The right of petition is an honored and a sacred one in this country,
and yet, owing to the peculiarity of constitutional law, it is a right
which has never been possible to women suffragists; committees continually 
stand between them and the body they would petition.  We
urge that this time a report shall be returned to the Senate.

MISS SHAW.     Mr. Chairman, I had intended to make a few closing 
remarks, but they would have been in the line of those just given by
Mrs. Chapman Catt, and I join my prayer with that of the other petitioners
that your committee will present to the Senate, that our bill 
may be discussed in that body, and we further ask the courtesy of
this committee that 10,000 copies of this hearing may be printed.

Thereupon (at 11 o'clock and 55 minutes a. m.) the hearing was 
closed.

O

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

This is the publicity gotten ready 
for the launching.

Mary Anderson

Please return to
CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT
120 PAINE AVENUE
NEW ROCHELLE, N. Y. 

No. 203     GPO     16 - 18507


South Portland, Maine

August 29, 1943. - The newest Liberty cargo ship of the
U. S. Maritime Commission is to slide down the ways bears the name of
"Anna Howard Shaw", the famous suffragist.  Launched at noon today,
it is the ?th ship of this type built by the New England Shipbuilding
Corporation.

Its proud sponsor was Mary Anderson, well-known director of the 
Women's Bureau of the U. S. Department of Labor.  The maids of honor
were Mary Dreier, who during Dr. Shaw's time was chairman of the suffrage
committee in New York, and Ethel M. Smith who worked in the suffrage
headquarters in Washington, D. C. as secretary of the Congressional committee
of the national suffrage association.  Miss Dreier is vice-chairman
of the National Women's Trade Union League, and Miss Smith is on the staff
of the Social Security Board.

Anna Howard Shaw is best known to millions of American women as
one of the indefatigable workers for women suffrage in this country.  In
1885 she started her work as a lecturer in this cause, later becoming vice-president
of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and in 1904
was elected as president, remaining the directing force of the movement
down to 1915 when she resigned.  Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt preceded her 
as president, and Mrs. Maud Wood Park now a resident of Portland, was one of 
their co-workers.  Honors came to Dr. Shaw both here and abroad.  In her 
last years she saw this country enter World War I, and was appointed immediately 
as chairman of the Women's Committee of the Council of National
Defense.  She devoted herself to this work until is was disbanded in March 1919,
and in recognition of this service was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.

-2-

In remarking on her fame as a woman-suffrage leaders, and in her
earlier years as a preacher and a temperance worker, Miss Anderson recalled 
several incidents in Dr. Shaw's life that made it personally appropriate 
for a ship to be named after her, and lent unusual interest to the
christening of the ship.

Anna Howard Shaw, partly a New England product, came to this
country as the 4-year old daughter of a Scotch immigrant family of six
children, her ancestors being the "fighting Shaws" of Scotland.  She was
born almost a hundred years ago at Newcastle-on-Tyne, a shipyard town on the
border of England and Scotland.  Once the family was settled in New Bedford, 
Massachusetts, she found her first childhood friend in their nextdoor neighbor,
a shipbuilder.  He let her use her toy hatchet and saw in his shipyard,
but her petticoats were a nuisance as she energetically imitated the workers
there.  Therefore he had a little boy's suit made to fit her.  And the 
first safety uniform for women in shipyards becomes recorded in the history
of Anna Howard Shaw.  Her start as a wage earner in her family, she often 
said, dated back to these early years, for her companionship with the shipbuilder
resulted in her brothers being permitted to carry away all the wood
from the shipyard that her mother could use.

Ships do not enter her life again till she had succeeded in her
girlhood ambition to become a preacher.  In the early settlements of
Michigan, where the family moved after a few years in New England, she
got her education and first experience as a preacher.  She returned to 
Boston for her theological education, enduring great poverty, and also
discouragement from her male classmates.  On graduation, with the gift 
of a trip to Europe, she went abroad as a member of a group tour and in


-3-

the seaport town of Genoa, Italy, found herself the victim of a joke. 
When the group was asked to recommend one of its members to preach a 
sermon on the ship in the harbor, the name "Dr. Shaw" was given.  She
presented herself to the ship's pastor at the proper time, and his
consternation was so great at seeing a woman in this role he told 
her that the sailors would not listen to her, the would mob her, and
in addition, it would be blasphemous for a woman to preach.  He finally 
introduced her but with many apologies.  When she had finished, the
affair turned into a reception, and on the next day her hand was swollen 
out of shape for the sailors had gripped it as if they were hauling on a hawser.

After she got back from her trip, she preached in a church on 
Cape Cod, where the congregation was mostly sailors and sea captains.
She became the first woman to be ordained by the Methodist Protestant
Church, after being refused by the Methodist Episcopal Church, her 
chosen denomination.

Following her work as a preacher, she decided to study medicine,
and was one of few women to have a medical degree in that time.  It
was in this period that she became affiliated with the temperance movement
then gaining momentum throughout the country.

Her interest in "the woman vote" was aroused at this same time.
Widened in her sympathies by her years of work with the sick in soul
and the sick in body, she realized that the solution for women from
any social viewpoint was "the removal of the stigma of disfranchisement."
Women were already in competition with men in industrial jobs; she
noted the men's resentment over this, and, as well, the overworked,
underpaid lot that was woman's not because her work was necessarily

- 4 -
inferior but simply because she was a woman. She decided that laws must be made and enforced, and some of those laws could only be made and enforced by women.
She lived in the days of famous men and women -- Whittier, Emerson, Wendell Phillips, Stephen Foster, Louisa M. Alcott, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady  Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Frances Willard, Julia Ward Howe, Clara Barton -- all these she knew, and her own name too is found in the hall of fame whenever the story of woman suffrage is told.

--- 0 ---

COPY

NATIONAL AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION

JULY 7, 1919.

Mrs. Robert Gould Shaw,
1101 Beacon Street,
Brookline, Massachusetts.

My dear Mrs. Shaw:

I feel sure you will be glad to know something about
the last services for our dear Dr. Shaw.  You can imagine what a
great shock her death was to all the members of the Board and no
doubt to her wide circle of friends, as we knew that she was well
on the way to recovery after her collapse in the West and hoped
to have her with us permanently very soon.  I had been especially
glad because she would be back to share my office and enjoy the
plants and other things that have made it more cheerful and
attractive.  She was in the office for a day or two a month or
more ago just after having accepted President Taft's invitation to
accompany him and President Lowell on a speaking tour for the
League of Nations.  She was exceedingly cheerful and very well but
said how much she disliked going out on another speaking tour, and
how ardently she wished to get back to the National office and be
with us here in our last year of suffrage work; that we wished to
have her goes without saying, and I am so glad that I wrote her
about three weeks ago asking to know how she was getting on and when
we might expect her to come and stay with us permanently and telling
her how much we missed her, and how much we desired her presence and
needed her, and how very welcome she would be.

I am the only member of the Board who was associated
with Dr. Shaw in that capacity during her presidency, except Mrs. 
Stanley McCormick.  She and I were left over from the old Board and
have been re-elected ever since on the new one with Mrs. Catt as
President.  I grew very fond of Dr. Shaw in that first year although
she had to be out of the office a great deal on her long speaking 
tours and Mrs. McCormick was in charge much of the time.  I realized
how able and splendid she was and wished that it were possible for
her to be in two places at one time, as we needed her in the office
as badly as the field needed her for speaking tours.  When we came
over to this building three years ago, Dr. Shaw and I were assigned 
to this very pleasant office and the only reason she was not given 
a room entirely for herself was because we knew she would be away a
great deal of time and our space was limited.  I always tried
when she was here to leave the room to her as full as I could.  I
was exceedingly fond of her, and I have the great satisfaction of 
knowing that she cared a great deal for me.  She never missed an
opportunity to encourage and help me in every way.  I shall miss her
greatly in securing certain large subscriptions from people who were
devoted to her, but thank Heaven!  we are coming to the end of the
time when we must ask for large subscriptions from the good suffragists,
and I hope that the Women Voters League, into which our National 
Association is likely to evolve finally, will not need anything like
the large equipment and staff and expenditure that has been necessary
to win nation-wide suffrage.


page 2.  Mrs. Robert Gould Shaw, July 7, 1919.

The funeral, as you know, as set for Saturday at five o'clock
at Moylan, her beautiful little country home.  The weather was 
intolerably hot and I was in the country, but I made up my mind at
once that nothing should prevent me from paying the last toke of
love and respect to this great woman.  Mrs. Catt, Mrs. Shuler, Miss
Hay, Mrs. Harper and one of two others from our office came to the
funeral and I joined them at Philadelphia where we proceeded to
Moylan.  It is a real country spot - among winding roads, not
much built up, a few little attractive homes set in among the hills, 
and not too near her own charming place.  I understand that her
friends were all opposed to her buying a home at Moylan as it was
off the main road and would be very troublesome to get to after her
long speaking tours.  I think this must have been a fact, and yet
she insisted on buying it and at a time when there were practically 
no homes in the neighborhood and the tract was rather wild and hilly.
She sold off part of the land, but retained seven acres and built
there the attractive country home which you may have visited at
some time.  I was never there but was greatly impressed with the
charm and the scenery, the hills and ravines and brook and splendid
oaks by which she was surrounded.  It made me more deeply regret than
ever that she might not have lived to enjoy her home for a few years
undisturbed by the constant demand for these long speaking trips
which must have been a terrible burden to her and kept her from
really living at home much of the time.

Although the funeral was private, a rather large group of her
closest friends, neighbors, relatives and fellow suffragists were
present.  The lovely house was all thrown open and full of flowers -
the most beautiful I think I have ever seen.  Nothing funereal but
lovely roses and green boughs from her oak tress and everything
bright, light, cheerful and beautiful, as I think she would have 
wished.  The National Association and the Pennsylvania Association
and women from other nearby state associations were represented at
the services.  The government sent a representative in the person of a 
young officer who brought with him a decoration and pinned it upon
Dr. Shaw's form as it lay in the casket.  And the League to Enforce
Peace sent a very able representative in its Executive Secretary, Mr. 
Short.

The funeral services were in charge of Dr. Caroline Bartlett
Crane of Kalamazoo, Michigan, an oldtime friend, a gifted and 
attractive woman minister and one of the best known leaders in civic
and xxxx social work in Michigan.  She conducted the services in a
most beautiful and dignified way, beginning with the reciting of the 
23rd Psalm: "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want" and reading
it in a wonderful way, followed by other short appropriate readings.
She then introduced Mrs. Catt who made a strong and beautiful address
dwelling chiefly upon Dr. Shaw's wonderful gifts as a speaker and the
influence that she had exercised through this gift and dwelling upon
how many thousands had lighted their torch in this forward movement 
at the first of her inspiration.  The representative of the government 
was then called on and read the words which Secretary Baker spoke in
presenting to Dr. Shaw the Distinguished Service Medal given her some
weeks ago - and the representative for the League to Enforce Peace
made the most appropriate address, dwelling on the marvelous effect of 
Dr. Shaw's speeches for the League of Nations on the audiences where
she appeared before her collapse, and how deeply President Taft and






page 3 - Mrs. Robert Gould Shaw, July 7, 1919.

the members of the League to Enforce Peace appreciated the high
service she was so ready and willing to give at their request.

I was so fortunate as to hear her speak with Presidents Taft
and Lowell in New Haven a few weeks ago on the League of Nations
and never heard her in better form or more deeply interesting and
inspiring.  The services closed with Dr. Crane reading the two 
noble poems: "The Choir Invisible" by George Elliot and Tennyson's
"Crossing the Bar", and with a very beautiful and appropriate prayer 
by Dr. Crane.  The whole service seemed to me most fitting and
beautiful.  Miss Lucy Anthony who was her beloved friend and secretary
for thirty years and several Dr. Shaw's nieces were at the home
and in charge, meeting everyone and greeting us as I am sure Dr. Shaw
would have wished.

In Dr. Shaw's own room where we went after the tiresome and
hot trip, a most touching thing to me was a pile of suit-cases, one 
on top of the other like steps, the smallest on the top - six of
them at least, ranging from a very large suit-case down to the smallest
size.  Miss Anthony told me that Dr. Shaw enjoyed looking at these,
and it really seemed an insignia of her busy traveled life.  How
many times in this very office have I seen her open the beautiful medium
sized bag given to her by one of her dear friends - a fitted bag - and
put in or take out some article or some manuscript, and as often I
have wondered how she had the strength and the courage to travel up and 
down the country and make the wonderful speeches and meet the hosts of
people and come out apparently well and cheerful and ready for the 
next time.  She was a great woman - a remarkable orator - and has
died at the very summit of her career having accomplished what she set
out to do and leaving behind her hosts of devoted friends and thousands
of women who have been moved to finer and higher and more useful lives
by her words and her example.

We shall miss her terribly here and the world seems poorer 
without her.  How gladly would we have had her live to see the
complete winning of nation-wide suffrage and enjoy the triumph of
that work, but I doubt not she will rejoice over it in some other
and better world, for surely a soul like hers must go marching on and
give us a new sense of the necessity of Immortality.

I think you may have the satisfaction of knowing that your fine
sympathy and generous gifts have lightened her burden as well as 
that of everyother officer in our National Association, and not the
least the burdens of the treasurer.

With cordial greetings,

Very sincerely yours,

(signed) Emma Winner Rogers
(Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers)

R;S



ANNA HOWARD SHAW

1847, Feb. 14, Born, Newcastle-on-Tyne

1851 - came to America
1852 - moved to Lawrence, Mass.
1853 - went to Michigan wilderness
1862 - (at 15) taught school
1870 - preached first sermon in Ashton (at 23 yrs.)
1872 - Licensed preacher
1873 - Entered Albion College, Michigan.  First speech -
defense of Xantippe; led college revolt against
the authority of male students.  Joined women's
society, made 1st nomination for orator at
Quinquennial reunion., and was elected herself by
the boys.  Lectured on temperance, preached
during the summer.
1876 - entered Boston University Theological School;
during vacation substituted in local pulpits on
Cape Cod;
1877 - temporary pastor at Hingham Methodist Church.
1878 - graduated Theological School.
June - went to Europe; sermon in Geneva to sailors;
audience with Pope Leo XIII, special blessing.
insert * -- 1885    October - M. D. from Boston Medical School.
1880 - Refused ordination in Methodist Episcopal Church.
1882 - entered Boston Medical School
1882-1885 - lectured for Mass. Woman Suffrage Association;
*     1885 - see above - graduated from Boston Medical School.
-* [XXXX] - Resigned from ministry; lecturer for M. W. S. Assn.
1893 - Preached at Chicago's World's Fair before 5000 women at
the International Council of Women.
1895 - father died, and 2 months later her mother died.    
insert     -*     1888 - dropped Temperance work and lectured for M. W. S. Assn.
1894 - elected Vice President of National American Woman
Suffrage Association
1889 - Union of two great societies, American and National
Woman Suffrage Associations into National American
Woman Suffrage Association.
1890-92-93,     Kansa and South Dakota campaigns
1893 - Colorado Campaign
1894-5-6 - Western States, Idaho, Utah, California, Washington
campaigns.
1894 - New York Campaign.
1888-1914 - attended every National Convention
1893 - Built home in [xxxxxxxxx] Wianno on Cape Cod
1885 - resigned from Mass. Woman Suffrage Assn. as lecturer
and arranged an independent lecture tour.
[xxx]
1895 - trip to Cal. Cheyenne, Wyoming.
1896 - Pacific Coast campaign

1904 - Pres. N. A. W. Suffrage Assn.
Berlin Quinquennial, preached Council Sermon at
International Council of Women; 1st ordained woman
to preach in a church in Germany.



1908 - Built home in Moylan, Pa.
1906 - Oregon campaign
            Western campaigns
1912 - Stockholm Sweden, 1st sermon ever preached by a woman in the State Church of Sweden
1912 - Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Oregon, Arizona, Kansas campaigns.
1914 - Montana and Nevada campaigns
            Dakotas

ANNA HOWARD SHAW

Contents of folder at Radcliffe College

Woman's Rights Room

1.     Introductory Note [by Maud Wood Park] from the memorial
pamphlet.

2.     Program of 31st Annual Convention, N. Y. State Woman Suffrage
Association, November 1899.

3.     Woman's Protest Committee circular, October 22, 1904.
(Dr. Shaw a signer as Pres. National American Woman
Suffrage Assn.)

4.     Letter to Maud Wood Park, June 5, 1905.

5.     Senate Hearing on Federal Amendment, March 27, 1908
(Dr. Shaw's speech)

6.     Letter to Maud Wood Park, March 30, 1908

7.     Copy of Letter to Maud Wood Park, May 28, 1908, with Convention Call.

7a.     "     "     Anti-Suffrage "Press" 1915.

8.     Letter to Louise S. Earle of Lynn, Mass.

9.     Copy of pledge card for the Anna Howard Shaw Annuity Fund, May 1916.

9a.     Anonymous note to Dr. Shaw, April 30, 1917.

10.     Statement of Annuity Fund Committee, regarding investment of fund.

11.     Picture taken in Greensboro, North Carolina, May 20, 1919.

12.     Letter to Dr. Shaw from Caroline I. Reilly at National Assn.
headquarters in Washington, June 11, 1919.

12a.     letters from Mrs. Catt to Maud Wood Park and Lucy E. Anthony,
explaining letter in #12.

13.     Copy of editorial in Boston Herald, July 1919.

14.     Folder, Feb. 14, 1920, with picture waving palm.

15.     Pamphlet by Ida Husted Harper, "The Passing of Anna Howard Shaw".
July 1919.

16.     Appendix to "THE STORY OF A PIONEER" by Dr. Rowena Keith Keyes.

17.     Memorial Pamphlet published by National American Woman Suffrage
Association.

18.     Pamphlet "What the War Meant to Women" - Dr. Shaw's last message.

19.     Boston Post article, November 1940.  [*did I send you a copy of this?*]

20.     Press reports on launching of the Anna Howard Shaw, Aug. 31, 1943.
a.     Portland Press Herald
b.          "     Evening Express.  Aug. 30, 1943.

21.     Supplementary Notes from Maud Wood Park's REMEMBER THE LADIES.

22.     Picture taken marching in suffrage parade - with V. for W. sash

ANNA HOWARD SHAW

(Except from "Remember the Ladies " [More 'Rampant Women'] by Maud Wood Park)

The three women who were outstanding figures in the woman's 
rights campaign in the 50's helped to start the work again after the war.
They were able to direct activities until well into the 90's and then a
new group came forward to carry on the work.  Of these there were several
women of remarkable ability, who supplemented one another so admirably
that it is hard to see how the final success could have been secured
without any one of them.

Closest to the pioneers in the period of her service was Anna
Howard Shaw, the great orator of woman's cause and probably the greatest
orator of her day in any cause.  Born in England and bought as a child
to the United States, she shared with her family the hardships of life in
the unbroken forests of Michigan and then earned her way through college
and through training schools in two professions, the ministry and
medicine, each of which she followed for a time.  But her real calling was
public speech.  For that career she had a golden voice, never harsh, 
though audible in the largest halls, the gift of glowing and dramatic
phrase, wit and humor and an exaltation of appeal that swept her audience
off their feet - the power to wring hearts and sway opinions by the
spoken word.

The first time I heard her was at the public celebration of
Miss Anthony's birthday at a theatre in Washington in February 1900.  I
remember little that she said, but I have the clearest recollection that
I was profoundly stirred and that, having forgotten my handkerchief, I
was forced to dry my eyes with a pair of white gloves which I had in
reserve for a later reception and which were so wet with tears that I have
to wring them out before I could wear them.

The last time I heard her was also at at a theatre in Washington
in 1917, just after the United States had entered the World War.  The


Anna Howard Shaw - 2.

National American Woman Suffrage Association, the first organization
to offer its services to the government, held a public meeting to announce
its action.  Mrs. Catt was the presiding officer, and the chief speakers
were the Secretary of War and Dr. Shaw.  There was some noise on account
of scene shifting in the wings and I was obliged to leave the auditorium
and remain back of the stage so long that the great part of Dr. Shaw's 
speech came to me muffled by the intervening curtain.  None the less as
I listened to the rise and fall of that wonderful voice reaching our over
the vast audience as if to hold and dedicate the supreme need of the
moment every man and woman within its sound, I found myself sobbing
almost aloud, as I had sobbed the first time I heard her, and I felt as
if her words were written in fire on the face of the clouds.

Dr. Shaw's active suffrage work began in 1885, when she was a 
Methodist minister in charge of a little parish on Cape Cod.  For man
years after that she was what Miss Anthony called her "right hand man",
serving the National American Woman Suffrage Association either as vice-
president or president from 1888 to her death in 1919.

During the World War she was appointed by the President and the 
Secretary of War Chairman of the Women's Committee of the Council of
National Defence.  Her last illness began in the course of a speaking
trip which she undertook with Chief Justice Taft to urge the entry of the 
United States into a League of Nations.

Happily she lived long enough to see the Woman Suffrage Amendment
adopted by the Congress and sent to the states, though her death came
before ratification was completed.

Her autobiography, "The Story of a Pioneer", which she wrote when
she had to stay in bed several months because of a broken leg, reflects
much of the courage and vigor with which she met the ups and downs of an
arduous life, but it cannot do justice to the power which she wielded
from one end of the United States to the other by her genius for public
speech.

Appendix of Harper's Modern Classics
By
Rowen Keith Keyes, Ph. D.

Dr. Shaw's last years were as active and as useful as any
she had known.  Many friends, magazines, and publishers had asked her
to write a story of her life.  She always replied that she would "when
she had time", but with the mental reservation that the leisure time
for such an undertaking would never come.

It so happened, however, that she slipped and broke her ankle
during a visit to New York, the accident confining her to her
hotel for a number of weeks.  Miss Elizabeth Jordan, hearing of her
misfortune, immediately telephoned saying, "Now it is the time to write
the story of your life.  I'll be up tomorrow with my stenographer."

The next day marked the beginning of a collaberation between
the two women which resulted in THE STORY OF A PIONEER.  With no other
guidance than the full storehouse of her memory, Dr. Shaw related the 
events of a lifetime repleet with fascinating incident and outstanding 
achievement.

Shortly after completing the book, she resigned from the
presidency of the National Woman Suffrage Association, receiving on
that occasion an overwhelming tribute of affection, gratitude, and
appreciation.  She was not, however, to find leisure.  On April 19,
1917, the Director of the Council of National Defense wired Dr. Shaw
that the Secretary of the Interior and he would like to consult her
regarding the relation of women to the Council of National Defense.
On April 21, before she could keep the appointment, the Council voted
that a committee of women on women's defense work be appointed.

No one of the eleven women chosen knew that such a committee 
had been decided upon until she received the announcement informing 
her of her appointment.  Dr. Shaw was designated as chairman of the
committee and was asked to call a meeting in Washington at the earliest
date possible.


2.

Acceptance entailed a great sacrifice.  After a long and
active life in the service of a great cause, Dr. Shaw had been made
honorary president of the National Woman Suffrage Association because
she could no longer stand the hard work of the presidency.  Her
appointment, however, to lead the total woman power of the nation, was
a call to arms, and she cancelled her lecture dates in order to spend 
summer in Washington, organizing the Woman's Committee.  She presided
over its sessions, carried on elaborate correspondence with
women all over the country, covering every phase of woman's war work,
conferred with the women of the Council, and later spoke at meetings
in every state of the Union.

In a circular letter sent to the State Divisions of the
Women's Committee in September, 1917, Dr. Shaw wrote: "The lesson of
today is union, and in a deeper sense than we have ever before realized.
All the old catchwords and shop-worn phrases about co-operations
and combination become quick and vital; burned into our consciousness 
by the fires through which we are passing and by which we are being
tried.  At last our soldiers are united in one body and fighting under
one leader in France; our industries and our public utilities are
combine into weapons of offense not less effective than the guns 
which thunder so close to the German border; all of our available man
power is listed and pledged, and the time is overripe when the civilian
men and women of the nation should join hands in one vast reserve
to stand invincibly back of our battle lines."

On May 19, 1919 there gathered in the State, War and Navy
Building in Washington an informal group - heads of Federal Departments,
men high in the councils of the government women leaders, and
women workers.  Across the table from this group stood another, ranged
in a semicircle.  In this second group were men back from France, who
by their tireless service had stopped pestilence and conquered disease
- officiers from the American Expeditionary Forces, about to

3.

receive the Distinguished Service Medal.

But the attention of the group across the table from them
was not centered on those men with their grave faces showing the importance 
of this occasion to them.  The men and women present were
looking at the figure at the end of the line, a woman, gray and slightly
bent, in whose face was the strength of a warrior.  The Secretary
of War entered, attended by an aide.  In a few simple words he explained
what the order meant, and called the the first name on his list,
Dr. Anna Howard Shaw.

The only woman in the line stepped forward.  The citation
which prefaced the simple ceremony of pinning on her breast the insignia 
of this honor was read: "Dr. Anna Howard Shaw.  For especially
meritorious and conspicuous services as Chairman of Women's 
Committee of the Council of National Defense.  She co-ordinated the
mobilization of organization of women throughout the country in
every phase of war work, including the securing of women for some of 
the various branches of the Army."

After the war Dr. Shaw continued to give much time to public
causes.  The whole movement to bring about lasting peace throughout
the world seemed to her the most important thing in her life.  Her
last manuscript, received just before her death by the League to Enforce 
Peace, was an impassioned appeal to women to aid the cause of 
the League of Nations.  In this paper she said:

"While President Wilson said we wanted nothing out of the
war, I said in my own heart: 'It may be that we want nothing material
out of the war, but, oh, we want the biggest things out of the war
that has ever come to the world.  We want peace now and peace forever."

Shortly after the ceremony at Washington, Dr. Shaw was
taken ill at Springfield, Illinois, while on a lecture tour with
former President Taft, President Lowell of Harvard, and Rabbi Stephen


4.

Wise on behalf of the League of Nations.  Pneumonia developed.  She
returned home in June, apparently entirely recovered, but on July 1st
she suffered a relapse and she died on July 2nd.

Many were the tributes of the press throughout the country,
to her personality, her character, and her priceless services to the
cause of humanity.  From those we select a few that most adequately
sum up the nature and meaning of her life.

The Outlook, July 16, 1919:
"Dr. Shaw's speeches, her writings, and her personal influence
had much weight in this public opinion (as to suffrage).  And
ti was not only what Dr. Shaw was but what she was not, that availed.
She avoided rant and sensationalism, she thoroughly disapprove of violence 
and illegal demonstrations.  . . . . .  As a speaker she was persuasive
rather than objurgatory, with a keen but quiet humor which gained
attention and appreciation even from hostile audiences.  . . . . She
grew old graciously, with a hopeful, friendly spirit.  . . .  Her life
was spent in trying to make women finer, broader-minded and stronger
citizens and not by any means merely through suffrage alone."

The Nation, July 12, 1919:
"She freely gave everything she had without through of self
. . . .  She was the despair of the anti-suffragists, because she was so
normal and sane, so sound and effective.  . . .  With a mind that was a
match for any man's in its clearness and logic, her feminine charm
never left her."

The Sun (quoted in The Literary Digest of August 16, 1919):
"With the great gift of oratory, her absolute devotion to
'the cause', her administrative ability, her superb health, and that
genial grankness which made a party of men with whom she was once
thrown at dinner describe her as'a good mixer', Dr. Shaw was perhaps
the strongest force for the advancement of women that the age has

5.

ever known."

The New York Times, July 4, 1919:

"There passed away on Wednesday a genuine American, with all 
the qualities which in fiction collect about that name, but which are
not so often seen in real life - an American with the measureless patience,
the deep and gentle humor, the whimsical and tolerant philosophy,
and the dauntless courage, physical as well as moral, which we
find most satisfyingly displayed in Lincoln, of all our heroes.

"As the world has come to know her in the last fifteen years,
the years of her national fame, she was a statesman.  Her wise guidance
of the woman suffrage cause, a guidance which emphatically impressed
upon the public mind that neither she nor the cause was responsible
for the antics of the mad wing, the so-called militants, probably
had as much to do with its triumph as anything that contributed
to bring it about.  Her spell was not to be evaded.  Even in conversation
her voice had the indefinable quality which makes the orator; and
no one could look into those speaking eyes, or see that majestic head,
without being aware that he was in the presence of an unusual human being.
Sanity, liberality, cheerfulness, and that humorous patience
that one finds exemplified but seldom except in the case of such a man [?]
as Balfour, all went to the making of a great American.  .  .  .  Anna Howard
Shaw lives in the hearts of those who knew her and in those of 
that far wider circle that came under the magic of her personality and
character thouggh it were but for an hour."

ANNA
HOWARD
SHAW
and the
Proposed National Roll
of Honor

The National League of Women Voters
is ten years old this spring.  It proposes
to commemorate this event by establishing
in Washington a National Roll of
Honor of "those leaders whose work and
whose influence have brought to the women
of this country a new day of partnership in
public life."

Three great names have been selected to
head this National Honor Roll:
Susan B. Anthony; Anna
Howard Shaw; Carrie Chapman 
Catt.  Beneath these will
appear a roster of names of
carefully selected women from
various parts of the United
States who have devoted themselves
wisely and whole-heartedly
to advancing the political
freedom and usefulness of 
women.

In connection with this Memorial
Roll of Honor is to be
established a National Memorial
Fund for carrying forward 
the work to which these
women devoted such energy
and enthusiasm.  The National 
League of Women Voters expects 
to raise $250,000 for this
Memorial Fund.

It was in Michigan that
Anna Howard Shaw spent her youth, attended
college, and began her public career.  Most
suitably it was from Michigan that she was
nominated to this National Roll of Honor.
No name could be better deserve to be placed
there.  The world will rightly remember her
as the most eloquent of all the advocates of
Suffrage and for ten years the official head
of the Suffrage movement.  However, the
Nation owes her gratitude (and we in Michigan
can take pride in her) for much outside
of Suffrage.

She was one of those who led the way for 
woman preachers in the United States, both
in point of time and in the greatness and

Victory! for the Suffrage Amendment

transcendent eloquence of her appeal in
whatever cause she was pleading.  She began
her preaching here in Michigan.  She
supported herself as a student at Albion College
through the preaching appointment 
arranged for her by its very liberal President.

But the preaching of The Word did not seem
to her enough.  After her graduation from
the Theological Department of 
Boston University and the experience 
of her first pastorate 
in a Cape Cod fishing community,
she became convinced that 
she could do a great deal more 
for the poorer members of her 
parish if should could minister to 
their bodies as well as their 
souls.   With this purpose at 
heart she went back to Boston
University and graduated
in Medicine.  Thus she became a
real medical missionary - a
pioneer in that field - finding
her place in her own country 
instead of far overseas.

As a preacher, her experience
with the curse of intemperance
drew her into evangelical
Temperance work.  For
some years she was a close 
associate of Miss Frances E.
Willard.  But the necessity of the woman suffrage
to accomplish this or any worth-while
reform pressed ever more insistently upon
her mind.  The logical step, then, was to devote
herself to the enfranchisement of
women.

Anna Howard Shaw's transcendent service 
to the world was in the field of woman 
suffrage.  To this she devoted - one might
almost say - consecrated more than thirty
years of her life.  She served as President
of the National-American Woman Suffrage
Association for ten years.  When the Federal 
Amendment was before the people for
ratification, she campaigned, as I remember,
every one of the doubtful states.

This great cause won, she sought to take
a badly-needed rest.  But from Florida she 
was almost immediately summoned back to 
Washington by a telegram from Newton D.
Baker, Secretary of War, who asked her to
undertake another herculean task, - that of 
mobilizing and leading the patriotic forces of 
American womanhood during during the World
War.  Thus she became National Chairman
of the Woman's Committee, Council of National 
Defense.  For her splendid and unselfish
leadership she was awarded 
the Distinguished Service 
Medal at the close of the War.

But not even the, when
seventy-two years of age, could
she be spared from service.
Her death came in 1919 from
pneumonia contracted while
touring the country as chief
exponent of the League to Enforce
Peace sponsored by former
President Taft.

Now see how memorials rise
spontaneously to the memory
of this great and good woman!

In 1926 the Woman's Medical 
College of Pennsylvania,
remembering how Anna Shaw 
in the early 'eighties had studied
medicine that she might help to heal the
physical, along with the spiritual, ills of her
parish, thought that fact something worth
commemorating.  So they founded an Anna
Howard Shaw Department of Preventative 
Medicine.  Recently, at the Bellevue-Stratford
Hotel in Philadelphia, they gave a
great Commemorative Dinner at which Mrs.
Catt was the chief speaker.

And see how her work as a preacher is
being commemorated in Michigan and elsewhere.
At a point on U. S. 131, the main
highway leading to the Northern Peninsula,
is a stone marker telling passers-by that
near this spot, at Ashton, Anna Howard

ANNA HOWARD SHAW
as a student in Albion
College in the '70's

Shaw preached her first sermon in a log 
schoolhouse in 1870.

Big Rapids, in connection with its seventy-fifth
anniversary next summer, will have an
Anna Howard Shaw Day when the beautiful
new First Methodist Church will unveil a
tablet stating that on this site once stood the
old church which young Anna Howard Shaw 
attended, and where she first felt her call to
preach.

Two years ago it was my privilege to give 
the dedicatory address at the unveiling of a
beautiful stained-glass Memorial
Window in the Methodist
Protestant church at Tarrytown-on-the-Hudson,
where
Anna Howard Shaw was ordained 
in 1880.

At Albion College they are
busy collecting memorabilia of
her life as a student and a girl-preacher
- this most famous
name of all on Albion's long
student-roll of eighty-five
years which can boast many 
distinguished names.  Already
they have held an Alumni commemorative
banquet and an
Anna Howard Shaw tea for
the first students at Susanna
Wesley Hall.  Other meetings
are to be held.  Some permanent 
memorial is sure to follow.  And other
Michigan colleges, sharing the pride of Albion,
are planning to hold meetings in commemoration 
of her student years in Michigan.
Ferris Institute at Big Rapids has
already had an Anna Howard Shaw Day,
anticipating the great civic celebration of
next July.  The Michigan State Business
and Professional Women's Club have a
beautiful Anna Howard Shaw cup presented
each year to the club excelling in Civic 
Achievement.

And she is even to be commemorated as a 
dauntless Michigan Pioneer.  (Her autobiography,
"The Story of a Pioneer," de-

scribes not only her physical but also her
mental and spiritual pioneering in life.)  At
Paris, (where is now the State Fish Hatchery)
once stood the little log cabin of the 
Shaws where Anna and her mother and sisters
carried on an unbelievably difficult and 
adventurous existence while father and 
brothers were away fighting in the Civil 
War.  Here in Paris, a few miles from Big
Rapids, they have a plan: To re-erect that
same log cabin and to re-create all its surroundings
just as they were when Anna
Shaw was a young girl and lived her brave
life and dreamed her brave, impossible
dreams of world service—which all came
true!

And now this Memorial to be created in 
Washington; and this Memorial Fund to 
continue the work (her work) for the conscientious
and intelligent participation of 
women in an effort to make this a better
world.  A better world, not for women alone,
but for everybody—men and women,—and
the children of to-day who must "carry on" 
for good or ill in the years to come!

Will you, dear Reader, do your part in 
creating this Memorial by sending to our
Committee your contribution to the Anna 
Howard Shaw Memorial Fund?

Faithfully yours,
Caroline Bartlett Crane
Chairman.

1429 Hillcrest Avenue,
Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Dr. Anna Howard Shaw

LESLIE
WOMAN SUFFRAGE COMMISSION, Inc.
171 MADISON AVENUE
NEW YORK

Faithfully
Yours
Anna Howard Shaw

ARTHUR
A
DETROIT
234 WOODWARD AVE.

Rev. Anna Howard Shaw
Pres. N. A. W. S. Assn.

The Life Story of
DR. ANNA HOWARD SHAW

The Story of a Pioneer
By Dr. ANNA HOWARD SHAW
President of the National American Woman's Suffrage Association

With the Collaboration of
ELIZABETH JORDAN

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS
Established 1817
FRANKLIN SQUARE, NEW YORK

FRONTIERSWOMAN, school-teacher, preacher, lecturer, ordained minister, physician,
worker among the poor - and president of the National American Woman's Suffrage
Association - Dr. Anna Shaw has told her own life history in an astonishing human document.
For the suffragist, this book is the official record of the work of the past quarter century; and for
the general reader, the record of an unusual, brave, active, American woman whose experiences
could not be duplicated.

ANNA HOWARD SHAW, the daughter of
English parents, came to America when she
was four years old.  She recounts her vivid 
memories of the voyage and of New Bedford
and Lawrence, Mass., where they lived for a
short time before moving to Michigan in 1859.
Here, forty miles from a post office, her invalid 
mother, her sisters, young brother and herself,
had to rely upon their own right arms to make
a living.  Young Anna shaped the doors and 
windows, laid floors, fashioned rough furniture,
planted the food which must support them, and
even dug a well.  Straggling Indians terrified 
the children, but they learned bravery if they
did not learn school lessons.  At fifteen, Anna,
who taught herself from books, was made
school mistress, receiving the dog-tax money as
her salary.  Her lively ambition found its goal 
when she listened to a woman minister preach.
So she worked and saved at home and at Big
Rapids to get money for the needed education.

AT the age of twenty-three she preached her 
first sermon and became later a licensed
preacher.  Then to Albion College, Michigan,
she went, and during the course there preached
to congregations throughout that part of the
state, or lectured on temperance.  Here, as all
through the book, incidents abound, humorous,
sympathetic, and stimulating - once on her way
to keep an engagement to preach, she drove 
through the lonely woods behind a ruffian whom she 
awed with a pistol.  During her course at the
theological school in Boston she was on the
verge of starvation, but her pluck supported her.
A legacy from a friend gave her a trip to Europe,
and on her return she was for seven years pastor 
of a church on Cape Cod.  A novelist might
envy the situation fate put her in - a young
woman, who looked younger than she was, in a 
position of spiritual authority over a congregation
of disputatious seafaring folk, who first
defied and then adored "the gal."

IN addition to these duties, she worked and 
obtained her M. D. degree.  She was ordained 
a regular minister in the Methodist Protestant
Church, after much opposition.  In 1885 she
resigned her pastorate, believing a wide field of
labor lay before her.  She lectured on suffrage
and temperance until Susan B. Anthony persuaded
her to confine her efforts to the Suffrage
Cause with which she has been so intimately 
connected ever since.

THE rest of the book deals with her work for "the Cause," as vice-president and finally president of the National American Woman's Suffrage Association and her relations with her fellow-workers, Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Catt, and others too numerous to mention. The accounts of the campaigns in different states, the conventions, the growth of suffrage, the international meetings in European countries, are not dry readings of statistics but filled with incidents, and buoyant with enthusiasm.

ANNA HOWARD SHAW
171 MADISON AVE., NEW YORK

Enclosed please find $. . . . . . . for which send me . . . . . . . . . . copies of

THE STORY OF A PIONEER
By Dr. Anna Howard Shaw

Yours truly,

Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

18744-A

Dr. Anna Howard Shaw
Honorary President
National American 
Woman Suffrage Ass'n

PROPERTY OF
LESLIE WOMAN SUFFRAGE COMMISSION
171 MADISON AVE., N. Y. C.

[NATIONAL] Leslie WOMAN SUFFRAGE
PRESS BUREAU, 171 Madison Ave.
NEW YORK CITY

14037.

Dr. Anna Howard Shaw

PROPERTY OF
LESLIE WOMAN SUFFRAGE COMMISSION
171 MADISON AVE., N. Y. C.

Anna Howard Shaw

FEBRUARY FOURTEENTH
NINETEEN TWENTY

"SHE CUT A PATH THROUGH TANGLED UNDERWOOD
OF OLD TRADITIONS OUT TO BROADER WAYS.
SHE LIVED TO HEAR HER WORK CALLED BRAVE AND GOOD.
BUT OH: THE THORNS BEFORE THE CROWN OF BAYS.
THE WORLD GIVES LASHES TO ITS PIONEERS
UNTIL THE GOAL IS REACHED - THEN DEFEANING CHEERS."

DR. ANNA HOWARD SHAW

with these States.  "None of the great political parties are going 
to ignore the fact," said Dr. Shaw, "and no man will ever again
be nominated for President of the United States who does not
know where he stands on woman suffrage."

"President Wilson," she continued, "listened to me very
patiently last week.  When I told him that in his own State of
New Jersey the leaders of all the civic reform work were women
he smiled and agreed with me.  When I mentioned a few of the 
prominent women responsible for better conditions in the State of
New Jersey, he recalled two more that I had forgotten."

Dr. Shaw has been one of President Wilson's most devoted
followers (in the literal sense of the word) ever since his election.

A GAME OF HIDE AND SEEK

President Wilson, early in his administration, told Dr. Shaw 
that woman suffrage was not in his party platform - and so he
could not express himself as in favor of it.  Presidential primaries
and a few other things equally radical have come from the President
from time to time and each time Dr. Shaw has been quick 
to ask him where in the party platform he found them.  This
little game of hide and seek between President Wilson and Dr.
Shaw, around the party platform, led a New York daily to comment 
editorially: "Whenever President Wilson sees Dr. Shaw in
the distance he runs for his seat on the party platform."

One can well realize that Dr. Shaw is no mean antagonist in
any game, with her wonderful gift of English, her keen sense of
humor, her gentle but real satire and her logical brain which sleeps 
not a minute.   Her smile is at once contagious and she quite as
often uses it to draw her conclusion as she uses words to convince.
She puts the smile in the middle of her sentence sometimes like
this: "Men are so consistent - smile - in their inconsistency."

Dr. Shaw has conducted so many campaigns to get equal suffrage 
for women, has made countless speeches all over this country,
has many times addressed important committees of both Houses
of Congress.  She paid her respects to the gentlemen of Congress,
who debated the suffrage amendment last week and expressed
herself as well pleased with the vote.  "We have gone far," she
said.  "We started with nothing and to-day women vote in 
49-1/2% - 2-5 of the territory of our country.  We have presented our 
suffrage bill to Congress every year for 43 years, and for the first 
time it was debated and voted upon."  Speaking of the debate,
she said: "Why can't men do away with the sentimental mush
that we heard in Congress last week, volumes of it.  Great big 
men actually weeping at the thought of their wives, mothers, 
sisters and sweethearts being dragged in the mire of politics and
soiling their petticoats.  Why can't men forget our petticoats and



REV. ANNA H. SHAW.

PROPERTY OF
LESLIE WOMAN SUFFRAGE COMMITTEE
171 MADISON AVENUE, N. Y. C.

LADIES, GO TO FAHY'S

Before they remove, and buy Dry Goods
cheaper than you will ever see them again.
They want to dispose of their stock as much 
as possible, so as to have little to remove.
You can get your Millinery, Cloaks, Linens,
Housekeeping Goods, etc., at a great saving.
The stock is mostly new, having been 
imported and purchased for this season.
_____
PRIZED ESSAYS     Published by the American Public Health Association.

PRACTICAL SANITARY AND ECONOMIC COOKING,
Adapted to Persons of Moderate and Small Means.
By Mrs. Mary Hinman Abel

English Text, 12 mo., 182 pp., bound in cloth,     -     , 40c
English-German Text, 1. mo., 182 pp., bound in cloth, 65c

To this essay was awarded the first prize among 70
competitors, and the unanimous opinions of the able
Judges of Award and testimonials from members of the
American Public Health Association prove that it is a 
work of great practical value.  For sale a book-stores,
Essay Department,

AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION,
BOX 1931, ROCHESTER


7186-B

Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt
Dr. Anna Howard Shaw.

PROPERTY OF
LESLIE WOMAN SUFFRAGE COMMISSION
171 MADISON AVE., N. Y. C.

NEWTON CENTER
SEP 9
7-15P
1915

Mr. and Mrs W. L. Garrison
Wiawo [?]
Mass.

DR. ANNA HOWARD SHAW
President of the National Organization for Woman Suffrage, will speak at

PLAYERS' HALL, WEST NEWTON

SATURDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 18th [* 1915 *]
AT EIGHT O'CLOCK

ADMISSION, FREE

COME AND BRING THE VOTERS!

1

sentiment wd do it

gd men have stayed at home & 
that makes the trouble

man who sd they wd vote just 
like their husbands is probably 
not a married man - we let 
illiterate immigrants vote 

we've got enough of the unintelligent 
element now

why don't you get those intelligent 
men to vote? Idaho & Colo have 
given [women] liberty the blackest 
eye yet

division of labor growing 
more & more

no better schools or roads 
& liquor not driven out - 
by by mother is gone to caucus 
- women get more by petitioning

nothing more disgusting > to 
see crowd of women on street 
corner talking politics - no 
right to force it on them - 
women not men shd decide 
it -

[?] - all the forces of 
vice in the city & all the 
large corporations are 
opposed, & most of the 
Roosevelt 
saloon men only men opposing? 
396 convicts 
no better schools

churches are in favor - conditions 
probably wdn't be very different; 
question is whether they have a right

Miss Shaw closed 
S J Donaldson 
Represented Lincoln Co 
Idaho

AHS

"I believe in a woman's keeping her 
place" "Then give me that broom"

What is the particular thing that they 
have not been represented in? Wherein 
have they suffered?

grt problems confronting us, & women 
as well as men lack time to study 
them

not an inherent right - a conferred 
right - Republicans made most egregious 
blunder in giving negroes suffrage - 
ready whenever women as a 
class want it - intelligent women 
will stay at home & ignorant 
women vote - politics has been 
injurious to men - what proportion 
of women will vote

Idaho man sd they all voted - only 
1 woman in his county who didn't

average woman wd vote same as her 
husband or father - 50 ct for each 
vote cast - wd increase our taxes 
- Idaho one of worst drinking States I 
ever was in - Sam Jones

If there were no women there & no 
women voting, it wd be still worse 
- women most interesting in saving 
young men who are drifting into a 
drunkard's grave

Afraid it wdn't be possible to get 
out the best class of women

bald man sd [good] women wd pass 
laws that men wdn't enforce, but 
[?]

ANNA HOWARD SHAW MEMORIAL
OF THE 
NATIONAL AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION
_____
HEADQUARTERS
1606 FINANCE BUILDING, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

ADVISORY COMMITTEE

MISS JANE ADDAMS
HON. HENRY T. ALLEN
MISS LUCY E. ANTHONY
DR. S. JOSEPHINE BAKER
MRS. JOSEPH T. BOWEN
MRS. MARY C. C. BRADFORD
MRS. FRANCES E. BURNS
MRS. CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT
DR. KATHARINE BEMENT DAVIS
MRS. GEORGE A. DUNNING
MRS. JOSEPH FRAUENTHAL
MISS ANNA. A. GORDON
BISHOP JOHN W. HAMILTON
DR. GRACE RAYMOND HEBARD
DR. MARY B. JEWETT
MRS. W. A. JOHNSTON
HON. FRANKLIN K. LANE
MISS JULIA LATHROP
MRS. CHARLES M. LEA
MRS. HENRY P. LINCOLN
HON. FRANK O. LOWDEN
MRS. FREDERICK J. MANNING
MRS. J. WILLIS MARTIN
MRS. MEDILL MCCORMICK
MRS. W. MCNAB MILLER
MISS ETHEL MOORE
MRS. PHILIP NORTH MOORE
MRS. BEVERLY MUMFORD
MRS. MAUD WOOD PARK
MRS. GEORGE A. PIERSOL
MRS. GIFFORD PINCHOT
HON. THEODORE ROOSEVELT, JR.
HON WILLIAM C. SPROUL
DEAN LUCY WARD STEBBINS
HON. WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT
MISS M. CAREY THOMAS
MRS. CHARLES L. TIFFANY
DR. MARTHA TRACY
MRS. BARCLAY H. WARBURTON
DR. EMMELINE B. WELLS
MISS MAUDE WETMORE


EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

MRS. JOHN O. MILLER, CHAIRMAN
MRS. J. CLAUDE BEDFORD
DR. ELLEN C. POTTER
MRS. JAMES STARR, JR.
MRS. F. LOUIS SLADE
PROF. SUSAN M. KINGSBURY
MRS. HENRY WADE ROGERS


Greenwich, Conn.,
10 December 1921

My dear Miss Danielson,

I am requesting a report from 
Mrs. W. W. Norton of Lakeville, the State Treasurer,
for the current year on the Connecticut funds;
and if you have been able, or can in the next few 
days scratch together any sums, please send them
in to her, so that we can make as creditable a
showing as possible for January 1st.

I expect to sail for Europe in
January for a few months, and during my absence
the Vice-Chairman of Connecticut, Mrs. A. E. Scranton
Taylor of Norfolk, will be in charge.

Hoping that you wkll not grow feeble
on the oars, but keep the collecting of money for
this fund in mind for the sake of the wonderful
woman we are expecting to honor, and thanking you
for your efforts in the past,

Fraternally yours,
Grace Thompson Seton
Chairwoman for Comm.

PS.  I simply haven't been able to get anyone
else for Chairman of your county, so I am sending
you the letter that I am sending to all the
Chairman.

G. G. S.

TO ALL WOMEN WHO VOTE TODAY

And to all men who are glad to see them vote

Anna Howard Shaw fought fifty years to win the vote for women.
Almost on the eve of its accomplishment she died.
Because she lived and worked and died, you women are casting your first ballot today.
You owe her something.
You cannot pay her, for she has gone to a higher reward.
But you can help the Anna Howard Shaw Memorial.
You can contribute to the $500,000 fund that is being raised to establish a Foundation in Politics at Bryn Mawr and a Foundation in Preventive Medicine at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, as memorials to Dr. Shaw.

Let us try to show some small measure of gratitude to the memory of the woman who did more than any individual to gain for us the high privilege we are exercising for the first time today.

THE ANNA HOWARD SHAW MEMORIAL COMMITTEE

"Like most men, my dear father should never have married." -
Anna Howard Shaw.  Charter II. - Story of a Pioneer. (Queer
doctrine for a Methodist Preacher.)
_____
Dr. Anna Howard Shaw and Frederick Douglass

[Picture]

The Story of a Pioneer, By Anna Howard Shaw,
page 309:

"From the Atlanta Convention, we (Susan B.
Anthony and Anna Shaw) went directly to Washington
to attend the Convention of the National
Council of Women, and on the first day of this
council Frederick Douglass came to the meeting.
Mr. Douglass had a special place in the hearts of
suffragists, for the reason that at the first convention
ever held for woman suffrage in the 
United States (at Seneca Falls, New York) he
was the only person present who stood by Elizabeth
Cady Stanton when she presented her resolution
in favor of votes for women.  Frederick
Douglass took the floor in defense of Mrs. Stanton's
motion, a service we suffragists never forgot.
Therefore when the presiding officer of the
council, Mrs. Mary Wright Sewall, saw Mr. 
Douglass enter the convention hall in Washington
on this particular meeting, she appointed Susan
B. Anthony and me to a committee to ESCORT HIM
TO A SEAT on the platform, which WE GLADLY 
DID."


WHO FREDERICK DOUGLASS WAS.
(James Callaway.)
FRED DOUGLASS AND HELEN PITTS.

Everyone knows about Fred Douglass and his
white wife.  It created much national gossip at
the time of the marriage.  She was Helen Pitts, 
and her father was Gideon Pitts, of Honeoye, Ontario
county, New York, a man who owned large
farms, and his family the top of Ontario aristocracy.
The Pittses were the blue bloods of Honeoye.

Gideon Pitts and his people were quite cultivated,
and were extreme abolitionists of pronounced
type before the war of the sixties.  They were the
disciples of Henry Ward Beecher and Cady Stanton
and Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe.  After the
war they were bitter against the South and were
in line with the Thad Stevens' Reconstruction.

Pitts was a Republican and a politician and a
member of Congress, and there he met Douglass.
He grew attached to him and the negro cause, and
had Douglass to visit him at his home in Honeoye.

Pitt's son-in-law, Mr. Short, deemed it a great
and unusual honor to go nine miles to the depot 
station, Livonia, to meet the honorable Douglass
on his visits and take him to the home of his 
father-in-law.  Short enjoyed his political talks
en route on the wrongs of the negro race, and declared
for "uplift" and equality and justice.  He
always lingered to take tea with Douglass at the 
Pitts residence.

The table talk was on the wrongs of the negro.
Douglass was an educated negro and the conversation
made a deep impress on Miss Helen Pitts,
enlisting her sympathies for the negro race, and
creating a desire within her for "negro uplift."  So
Douglass became a frequent visitor.

But when he asked for the hand of Miss Helen,
old man Pitts grew furious; said it was an outrage
on his hospitality.

To this, Douglass replied that he was always an
invited guest, that he was received as an equal,
recognized as such, and as such had won the affections
of Miss Pitts.  Miss Helen was a woman thirty-five
years of age, and asserted her rights
and married Douglass, under a half religio-political
sense of "uplift" duty.

Pitts never became reconciled.  Nor did son-in-law
Short, who though it such an honor to go to
the station and escort Douglas to the home of 
Pitts.  Indeed, the whole family, this aristocracy
of the town and of Ontario country, cut the acquainance 
of Helen and her mulatto husband.
Pitts disinherited her, and left to Mrs. Pitts the 
portion intended for Helen.  But the mother later
gave it to her daughter.

After the death of Gideon Pitts, who was survived
by Douglass, Mrs. Pitts went to Washington
and lived with her daughter and died there.
When her body was brought home, accompanied 
by the daughter, Helen, Short, the son-inlaw, was
still unreconciled and refused to make peace.  He
had preached equality, but refused to practice 
what he preached.

Helen Pitts was the second wife of Fred Douglass.
His first wife was a negro woman, genuine
African blood, and was buried in Rochester, N. Y.,
and when Douglass died, his wife Helen and the
sons of the negro wife accompanied the remained
from Washington to Rochester, where Douglass 
was buried by the side of his first wife, the negro sons, 
who were dark, and Helen riding to the cemetery
in the same carriage.

Rochester erected in honor of Douglass a monument,
which stands in the little park near the
railroad station, but Son-in-law Short and none of 
the aristocratic Pittses would subscribe to the
fund.  Douglass and Helen had no children.  Helen
became the sacrifice for her father's teachings,
but when she put into practice his equality theories
he rebelled and never forgave her.

So with Stoneman, the Thad Stevens of the
"Birth of a Nation."  He taught social equality,
expressed his anguish on his deathbed that his
clause for miscegenation was stricken by Congress
from his reconstruction measure.  But when
Lynch, the negro Lieutenant-Governor of South
Carolina, demanded his daughter in marriage, he
rose up in violent anger, just as did Pitts.  Still
"Stoneman" was in South Carolina attempting by
force to put his theories of social equality and 
miscegenation into practice.  But when it came to 
his own door, and Lynch demanded the daughter,
old Stoneman rebelled, showing anger.

Pitts was to blame.  He failed to realize the
negro is a race, not a class.  He extended all the 
freedom of his home to Douglass as his guest.  He
accepted him socially as his equal.  Douglass was
the pet of the Northern Anti-Slavery Society and
was employed by it to stir up the North against
the South, and as a lecturer for that society was
paid social honors and good salaries.

The Beechers and Cady Stantons and Susan B. 
Anthonys made a great ado over him.  He was
appointed marshal for the District of COlumbia in
1877, and was Commissioner for Deeds for that
District.  He was sought by the Republican politicians
because of his influence with his race.  He
also became a prominent suffragist and aided
Anna Dickinson, Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony
in getting the fifteenth amendment passed.

He regarded Anna Dickinson as giving him
more influential aid than the others, and on this 
point, in a letter to Cady Stanton, says:

"WASHINGTON, D. C., Jan 31, 1882. - Dear
Mrs. Stanton: Mrs. Gage's version of the origin
of the fifteenth amendment is in substance true.
To dear Anna Dickinson and brave Theodore Tilton
belong the credit of forcing the amendment
upon the attention of the nation at the right moment
and in the right way to make it successful.
I have given Miss Dickson the credit you award 
her in my 'Life and Times.'  I have made myself
one of your earliest converts in the same volume.

Very truly,
"FREDERICK DOUGLASS."
_____

Dr Dana gives suffrage leaders under a scientific 
expert test, the mentality of an eleven year
old child, and when one informed on things political
reads Anna Shaw's description of her visit to
New Orleans, see page 311 of her autobiography,
evidently Miss Shaw trusts to the ignorance of
the average audience, and her own reputation for
brilliancy to get by with her remarkable statements,
but to put them in print, things so utterly 
untrue and foolishly absurd, to be refuted at
sight, by any intelligent and informed person,
brings one to the conclusion that she must be the
head of the eleven year old class, to which Dr. 
Dana alludes.  "This woman with the man's 
brain" must be carrying the misfit now confined 
in a Northern insane asylum, who is suffering 
tortures because he things he's "afflicted with a
woman's brain!"

Page 311 - 

At New Orleans.  Under Miss Gordon's wing.

"We were all conscious of the dangers attending
a discussion of the negro question (no wonder,
with such records for social equality) and it was
understood among the Northern women that we
must take every precaution to avoid being led into
such a discussion.  It had not been easy to persuade
Miss Anthony of the wisdom of this course; her
way was to face issues squarely, and out in the 
open.  But she agreed that we must respect the
convictions of the Southern men and women who
were entertaining us so hospitably" possibly 
ignorant of the history of their guests).

SUFFRAGE CONVENTION - NEW ORLEANS.

"On the opening night, as I took my place to answer 
questions, almost the first slip passed up and 
bore these words:

'What is your purpose in bringing your convention
to the South?  Is it the desire of suffragists
to force upon us the social equality of black and
white women?  Political equality lays the foundation
for social equality.  If you give the ballot to
women, won't you make the black and white
woman equal politically and therefore lay the
foundation for a future claim of social equality?'

"I laid the paper on one side, and did not answer 
the question."

Very wise of Anna.  The questioner was reading
her past, present and future.

She continues: "The second night it came to
me again, put in the same words and again I ignored 
it.  The third night it came with this addition:

'Evidently you do not dare to answer this question.
Therefore our conclusion is that this is your 
purpose.'

"When I had read this, I went to the front of 
the platform.  "Here, I said is a question which
has been asked me on three successive nights.  I
have not answered it, because we Northern
women (Miss Shaw is foreign born) had decided
not to enter into a discussion of the race question.
But now I am told by the writer of this note that
we dare not answer it.  I wish to say that we dare 
to answer, if you dare to have it answered, and I
leave it to you to decide whether I shall answer it
or not."

[*Is this so?*]
[*E. A. B.*]

I read the question aloud.  Then the audience
called for the answer, and I gave it in these words
- quoted as accurately as I can remember them:

"If political equality is the basis of social equality,
and if by granting political equality you can lay
the foundation for a claim of social equality, I can
only answer that you have already laid that claim.
You did not wait for woman suffrage, but disfranchised
both your black and white women, thus
making the politically equal.  But you have done
more than that - you have put the ballot into the
hands of your black men, thus making them the
political superiors of your white women.  (Here
she forgets herself and lapses into the truth.)
Never before in the history of the world have men
made former slave the political masters of their
former mistresses!"

Shades of Jefferson Davis!  Anna Shaw tells
Southern men they made former slaves political
masters of their women and says "the truth of
the statement struck them, and they began to applaud."

What a queer audience she must have had in 
New Orleans!  She, Anna Shaw, member of the
old Abolition party, beloved friend and associate
of old Frederick Douglass, Thad Stevens and other
South haters, tells Southern men, "YOU gave the
negro man the ballot."  Can one imagine anything
more pathetically ignorant of facts of willful
misrepresentation!  At the point of Yankee bayonets,
crushed and ruined, the Southern white man had
to accept his fate for a time, of former slaves 
voting, under the heel of Reconstruction, but
the white man of the South rose in his might,
and came again into his own.  Taking from the 
negro the ballot given by Anna Shaw' crowd, not
conferring it.  The mentality of a child of eleven!
This must be true for she proudly publishes this 
occurrence, and has been known to stand before
other Southern audiences, composed of uninformed
suffragettes and been applauded for this absurdity.  
Blind Tom, the negro pianist, who was
admittedly weakminded, always applauded himself.
He too must have been of the 11 year old variety.

Southern men and women can only follow such
leaders from sheer ignorance.  The official History
of Suffrage, Susan B. Anthony's Biography,
and Anna Shaw's Autobiography would give them
a rude awakening.

"Oh that mine adversary had written a book."

Not to Southern white men, but "to Dear Anna
Dickinson and brave Theodore Tilton, is due the
15th amendment," and the fact that "negro slaves
were made political masters of their former mistresses!"





Read carefully –

[*These women are spending millions to unhorse the white
manhood of the south.  Will you help them?  God forbid!*]

Suffrage Democracy Knows no Bias of Race, Color, Creed or Sex." - Carrie Chapman Catt
_____

Look not to Greece or Rome for heroes, nor to Jerusalem or
Mecca for saints, but for all the higher virtues of heroism, let
us WORSHIP the black man at our feet."  - Susan B. Anthony's
Official History of Suffrage.
_____

"Let us kill the Solid South; break it up and destroy it altogether." - Mrs. Howard Gould, N. Y.  Sun, Feb. 27th
_____

"AMEN"
Says Rev. Anna Howard Shaw. - (Voices from the Tomb:)  Frederick Douglas, Thad Stevens
Susan B. Anthony, John Brown and others.
_____
LETTERS: Carrie Chapman Catt and Anna Shaw announce votes for Negro Women. - The
Crisis, Nov. issue, 1917.  Official Negro Suffrage Magazine, Jane Addams, Director, Oswald
Villard, of New York Evening Post, Director and Secretary and Treasurer.
_____

MRS. GOULD SPEAKS TO 
NEGRO VOTERS
_____

DOMINATES BIG AUDIENCE OF MEN AND WOMEN
AT RANSOM MEETING.
_____
(New York Sun, Feb. 27th.)

Mrs. Howard Gould made her New York debut
as a political speaker last night before an audience
of negroes that tested the capacity of the Mother
Zion Church in 136th street near Seventh Avenue.


VOTES FOR ALL.

"Responding to your request for a brief message
with regard to the Colored American and 
Suffrage, I wish to repeat a statement which I
have made so many times that I believe the whole
world is familiar with it, and that is that I hope
the time will come when there will be no such 
thing as a Colored-American any more than a
German-American or an Irish-American or any 
other kind of American, except a plain American
citizen.  What I say in regard to the vote of the
American citizen I should say in regard to the 
vote of any citizen who is an American - that I
trust we are approaching the time when every
loyal-law-abiding citizen of the country shall have
an equal right with every other law-abiding citizen
of the United States to express through the


the white men around him, he could not and
would not recognize that women were present, and
that women, as well as men, must have a voice in
their own government.  Like the white man, he
wanted democracy applied for himself, but not
for women.  That is the crucial error of all men,
white or black, in their efforts to apply democracy.
It seems to be wholly a matter of sex, not 
at all of race or color.  White man, black man, 
Mongol, Malay, and Redskin are wonderfully 
alike when it comes to counting women out in any
scheme for the political salvation of the world.

But however men have seen it, and may continue
for a time to see it, women do count.  Everybody
counts in applying democracy.  And there
will never be a true democracy until every respon-

Says Rev. Anna Howard Shaw. - (Voices from the Tomb:)  Frederick Douglas, Thad Stevens
Susan B. Anthony, John Brown and others.
_____
LETTERS: Carrie Chapman Catt and Anna Shaw announce votes for Negro Women. - The
Crisis, Nov. issue, 1917.  Official Negro Suffrage Magazine, Jane Addams, Director, Oswald
Villard, of New York Evening Post, Director and Secretary and Treasurer.
_____

MRS. GOULD SPEAKS TO 
NEGRO VOTERS
_____

DOMINATES BIG AUDIENCE OF MEN AND WOMEN
AT RANSOM MEETING.
_____
(New York Sun, Feb. 27th.)

Mrs. Howard Gould made her New York debut
as a political speaker last night before an audience
of negroes that tested the capacity of the Mother
Zion Church in 136th street near Seventh Avenue.
The church held 2,000 men and women at a meeting
called to advance the candidacy of the Rev.
Beverly C. Ransom, negro candidate for Congress,
who is backed by the United Civic League,
an independent organization that was formed
when the Republicans in the Twenty-first Congressional
district refused to accept Rev. Ransom 
as their nominee.

Mrs. Gould, who as Katherine Clemmons, the
actress, had much experience with large audiences,
showed no lack of self-possession.  She
said she was the kind of a suffragist who did not
limit her interest to white women.  She vigorously
denounced white politicians who would attempt
to lure the negro voter from the Ransom
standard at the special election on March 5;
praised President Wilson; denounced "Tammaniacs"
and put Col. Roosevelt right on his misinterpretation
of a sentence credited to Baron
Ishii when the Japanese diplomat was last in this 
country.

According to Mrs. Gould, Col. Roosevelt misunderstood
Baron Ishii because he lacks and Orientalized
point of view.  When the Baron said
"Look for the enemy within your gates" the Colonel
began to look for Germans, Mrs. Gould said,
whereas, the Baron's advice was purely figurative
and meant simply that people should look within
their own hearts and tear out the evil that is in
them.

Never in her career as an actress did Mrs.
Gould win more complete success with an audience.
Applause punctuated her speech throughout
when she said, "Let us kill the solid South;
break it up and destroy it altogether," the outburst
of cheers and cries had something of the
intensity of the answer to an emotional religious
appeal at a camp meeting.

At the end Mrs. Gould appeared to be running
the meeting.  She called for a collection "to keep
the polls straight," and saw to it that the plate
bearers missed nobody.  She put a check for $100
on the plate herself.

Mrs. Gould said after the meeting that she
became a suffragist as a protest against the treatment
to which the White House pickets were subjected.
Her interest in Ramsom's candidacy, she
said, was purely that of a worker for democracy.
She has joined the National party, which will 
organize in Chicago March 6, and will be active at
its meeting.


VOTES FOR ALL.

"Responding to your request for a brief message
with regard to the Colored American and 
Suffrage, I wish to repeat a statement which I
have made so many times that I believe the whole
world is familiar with it, and that is that I hope
the time will come when there will be no such 
thing as a Colored-American any more than a
German-American or an Irish-American or any 
other kind of American, except a plain American
citizen.  What I say in regard to the vote of the
American citizen I should say in regard to the 
vote of any citizen who is an American - that I
trust we are approaching the time when every
loyal-law-abiding citizen of the country shall have
an equal right with every other law-abiding citizen
of the United States to express through the
ballot box, the will of the citizen, regardless of 
sex or color, in connection with those problems of
the Government which affect the lives of 
American citizens.

I have never been able, and doubtless never
shall be able to understand why one citizen who
contributes to the support of the Government 
and who is submissive to its authority should
have any more right than any other citizen, under
like conditions, to free access to the ballot box.

I believe in democracy, and there is no such
thing as a democracy under conditions which deny
to any citizen who obeys the law and contributes
to the support of the Government the right to a
voice in making the law.

ANNA HOWARD SHOW,
Honorary President, National American Woman
Suffrage Association; Chairman, Woman's
Committee, Council of National Defense.
_____

What is it all about?

What is the idea underneath the horror and
the heartache?

What is it for?

"For democracy, - for the right of those who
submit to authority to have a voice in their own
government."

In those nobly simple words of the President 
of the United States is set forth the whole story,
the great ideal, the democratic faith this is sustaining
alike the men of the Allied Armies on
the battlefield of Europe, the women of the world
waging their own double struggle to meet the 
new economic demands upon them while trying to
secure a voice in their own government, and the
Negro facing the self-same problem and often refusing 
to see that through the Negro women his
race is as vitally involved in the woman suffrage
question as race can be.

For just as the world war is no white man's 
war, but every man's war, so is the struggle for
woman suffrage no white woman's struggle but
every woman's struggle.  Once long ago, the Negro
man made the white man's mistake of deciding 
that the suffrage was the prerogative of men
only.  That was just after the Civil War.  He had
his chance then to stand by the woman's rights
cause that stood by him.  He did not do it.  Like
the white men around him, he could not and
would not recognize that women were present, and
that women, as well as men, must have a voice in
their own government.  Like the white man, he
wanted democracy applied for himself, but not
for women.  That is the crucial error of all men,
white or black, in their efforts to apply democracy.
It seems to be wholly a matter of sex, not 
at all of race or color.  White man, black man, 
Mongol, Malay, and Redskin are wonderfully 
alike when it comes to counting women out in any
scheme for the political salvation of the world.

But however men have seen it, and may continue
for a time to see it, women do count.  Everybody
counts in applying democracy.  And there
will never be a true democracy until every responsible 
and law-abiding adult in it, without regard
to race, sex, color or creed has his or her own 
inalienable and unpurchasable voice in the government.
That is the democratic goal toward 
which the world is striving today.

In our own country woman suffrage is but one
if acute, phase of the problem.  The Negro question 
is but another.  The disenfranchisement of the 
foreign-born peoples who sweep into this country
and forget to leave the hyphen at home is yet
another.

All along the line we fail of the right answer
and the whole answer.  Capital clashes with labor, 
class clashes with class, man-made laws are 
imposed on woman who are denied all voice in
the law-making, the individual sells his vote and
pockets his dollar, race is arrayed against race,
even to the perpetration of some such awful crime
against common humanity as that against black
people in the East St. Louis horror, and in woman's
own struggle for democracy we hear some
such retrograde outburst as emanated from the 
picket prisoners at being housed with Negro prisoners
- not because they were prisoners, because
they were black - a strangely and cruelly undemocratic
protest!

With all its failures, its delays, its harsh injustices,
we will stick to democracy.  We will 
not give up.  We women, at least, will not even falter.
We will press straight-forward, knowing that the
cure for ills of democracy is more democracy.

As suffragists we have a profound belief that
with the enfranchisement of ALL women will
come improvement in our body politic.

As suffragists women stand on but one plank 
today and that the plan of equal rights, for women 
as for men, without delay and without conditions.  
Standing on that plank alone they bespeak
for and from America that broad application of
democracy that knows no bias on the ground of
race, color, creed, or sex.  To the end that Americans
may stand united, not as Irish-Americans,
German-Americans, Negro-Americans.  Slav-Americans
and "the women," but one and all as 
Americans for America.

CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT,
President National American Woman Suffrage 
Association.

"Lest Ye Forget" - Only 14 States for Suffrage, and 34 Against.  No need for Undue Haste of Excitement.

Copy

(Telegram from Mrs. Medill McCormick, National Congressional 
Chairman,)

January 14, 1915.

Mr. Julian Mason
c/o Chicago Evening Post,
Chicago, Ill.

The following statement after the word quote was given out
to the Associated Press today.  Please be good enough to call
the morning papers attention.  President seems in excellent
physical condition.  Quote.  Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, president
of the national american woman suffrage association and
chairman of the national campaign committee, Mrs. Medill
McCormick, chairman of the congressional committee, and Mrs.
Winston Churchill, a member of the National Council, were 
received by President Wilson this morning.  After the interview
Dr. Shaw made the following statement: Our representatives
from the national american woman suffrage association were most
graciously and cordially received by President Wilson this
morning.  A year ago, when members of the national association
called upon the President to enlist his support for our national
amendment, he very frankly stated that the question of woman
suffrage was in his judgment a matter for the states, and he has
consistently maintained and reiterated this attitude of mind
on many subsequent interviews.  We did not speak with the
president at all this morning upon his attitude toward suffrage
as a national issue, but only in relation to the state of New 
Jersey, where the democratic party as well as all the other parties
have endorsed the submission of the woman suffrage amendment,
which is now before the legislature, and if passed will be
submitted to the voters for a vote on the 12th of next September.
The President was greatly interested in our statement of the
situation in New Jersey, as he confessed that he had been so
taken up with national affairs that he had not kept in touch with 
the status of the suffrage movement in his home state, and agreed
that the advance of suffrage was so rapid that it was difficult
to keep pace with it.  We have come away from our interview with
the distinct impression that very shortly the President will
come out with a statement favorable to suffrage in the state of
New Jersey.

(signed) Mrs. Medill McCormick

(Day Letter
Charge Nat. Cong. Com.)

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