Volume V Part 10 (1/2)
The speeches largely followed the lines of those given before the convention. Mrs. Katherine Cook showed the relation between the women's vote and the home and family welfare. Mrs. Ellis Meredith, introduced as on the editorial staff of the _Rocky Mountain News_ of Denver, gave a summary of the excellent legislation that had been effected since women began voting in 1894 and said: ”I have read a compilation of the laws in regard to the protection of children in every State and I know that in no other have they such ample protection and in no other are the laws so well enforced. This is partly due to the fact that our Humane Society is a State inst.i.tution and has the free voluntary services of six hundred men and women acting as agents over this big State of 104,000 square miles.”
Answering questions she said: ”In my district, one of the best, 571 women registered and 570 voted. There are as many men as women in the district but only 235 voted. Men form 55 per cent. of our population and women 45. Women cast over 43 per cent. of the total vote.”
Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford, president of the State Federation of Women's Clubs, extended the account of the remarkable work it had accomplished as described to the convention, a success, she said, due to the fact that it represented a large body of well-informed voters. She ridiculed the danger at the polling places. ”Who are the evil creatures we are supposed to meet there on election day? We vote in the precinct in which we live and we meet our husbands, our brothers, our sons.... In Colorado the environment in which the supreme right of citizens.h.i.+p is performed has been improved to harmonize with the improved character of the const.i.tuency.”
Mrs. Helen Loring Grenfell was introduced by Mrs. Catt as ”the State Superintendent of Public Instruction now serving her third term, the only successful candidate on her ticket at the last election.” She began by saying: ”Gentlemen, this is a very peculiar position for a Colorado woman. It seems just as strange to me as it would be to my husband to be coming here before a body of women and saying: 'We men ask from you equal rights under the Const.i.tution of the United States.'” After showing the interest felt in elections by women she said: ”I have been an office-holder, which has involved running for office, and I think it is right for me to tell you a little of my experiences. My campaigns have taken me through almost every county in Colorado, the farming counties, the roughest mining communities, and let me say to you that if there could be any more chivalry in the States where you think it would be unchivalrous to let your women vote, I would like to see it. I have met with the greatest courtesy from men all over the State. I have been treated just as kindly, just as politely by the men when I appeared as a political candidate as by the men with whom I am a.s.sociated in my school work, in my home and society life. We have come to the time when we must feel that the word chivalry belongs to the past. It is connected with a period when woman's position before the law and in her home was far from a desirable one; and so I believe you will not misunderstand me when I say that if you will give us justice we feel that it will mean a great deal more than chivalry ever did.”
There had just been an exposition of fraud at the recent Congressional election where Representative John F. Shafroth had been re-elected and he at once resigned the office in order to disclaim all connection with it. Nearly every speaker was interrogated about it by members of the committee. Mrs. Grenfell answered, as did all of them: ”The frauds upon which this election was decided were committed in the city of Denver alone and in the worst precincts in the city. We will admit that they were committed. Is that a reason for considering that woman suffrage is a mistake? I have heard reports from the cities of Philadelphia and New York by which, if I should judge male suffrage, I should say it was an utter failure in the States of Pennsylvania and New York. We have tens of thousands of women voters in Colorado. We have indictments out against many dishonest voters and with the utmost searching they have found one woman who is charged with 'repeating' in the election. Our State penitentiary has five women prisoners today and 600 men. That surely cannot be used as an argument for woman suffrage having injured the women, whatever it may have done to the men.”[34]
The committee were particularly interested in the speech of former Governor Alva Adams, which gave much information on the voting of women and called out many questions from the committee. Representative Littlefield of Maine inquired: ”What do you say, Governor, about Miss McCracken's article in the _Outlook_?” and he answered: ”I call it infamous, to use the proper term. It was an absolute falsehood. It was based upon no facts, because no decent women in Colorado would make the statements that she quotes. She may have found one woman who would say that they were using philanthropy and charity for political purposes but to admit that the women of the State would do a thing of that kind--would so debase themselves--would be an impeachment of the decency and honesty of womankind everywhere. I am not prepared to make that admission and the citizens of Colorado cannot make it. There are 100,000 honest women in the State who are voters and there are not 100 who will subscribe to the sentiments she gave voice to.”[35]
Mrs. Catt closed the hearing with an earnest appeal for action, saying in part:
When the const.i.tution of Colorado was first made in 1876 a provision was placed in it that at any time the Legislature might enfranchise the women by a referendum of a law to the voters.
That was done in 1893 and it was pa.s.sed by 6,000 majority. Last year an amendment to the const.i.tution was submitted to the electors, now both men and women, concerning the qualifications for the vote and in it there was included, of course, the recognition of the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women quite as much as that of men, so that it was virtually a woman suffrage amendment. It received a majority of 35,000, showing certainly that after ten years of experience the people were willing to put woman suffrage in the const.i.tution, where it became an integral part of it and permanent.
When the American const.i.tution was formulated it was the first of its kind and this was the first republic of its kind. Man suffrage was an experiment and it was considered universally a very doubtful one. We find overwhelming evidence that the thinkers of the world feared that if this republic should fail to live it would come to its end through the instability of the minds of men and that revolutionary thought would arise to overturn the Government. We find it in George Was.h.i.+ngton and Benjamin Franklin and all of our statesmen as well as those who were watching the experiment here so anxiously from across the sea. What was the result? The result was they made a const.i.tution just as ironclad as they could, so as to prevent its amendment.
They made it as difficult for the fundamental law of the nation to be changed as they knew how to do.... Those of us who wish to enter the political life, who believe that we have quite as good a right to express ourselves there as any man--what is our position? Within the last century there has been extension after extension of the suffrage, and every one has put suffrage for women further off....
Do you not see that while in this country there are millions of people who believe in the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women, while there is more sentiment for it than in any other, yet we are restricted by this stone wall of const.i.tutional limitations which was set at a time when a republican form of government was totally untried?
Because of this we find ourselves distanced by monarchies and the women enfranchised in other lands are coming to us to express their pity and sympathy.... So I ask that you will this time make a report to the House of Representatives and if you do not believe that we are right, for Heaven's sake make an adverse report. Anything will be more satisfactory than the indifference with which we have been treated for many years. Do at least recognize that we have a cause, that there are women here whose hearts are aching because they see great movements to which they desire to give their help and yet they are chained down to work for the power that is not yet within their hands.... If you, Mr.
Chairman, feel that you can not offer a favorable report because the majority of the committee is not favorable, then I beg of you, in behalf of the women of the United States, to show where you stand and to give an adverse report.
The Senate Committee presented the National a.s.sociation with 10,000 and the House Committee with 15,000 copies of these hearings, which they could use as a part of their propaganda literature. There was not, however, enough political influence back of the appeals for the submission of the Federal Amendment for woman suffrage to compel the committees to make reports which would bring the subject before Congress.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] Part of Call: In our own country the advocates of our cause know no discouragement or disappointment. The seed planted by the pioneers of the woman's rights movement is continuously bearing fruit in the educational, industrial and social opportunities for the women of today; these in turn presage the full harvest--political enfranchis.e.m.e.nt. Under the stimulus of an educated intelligence and awakened self-respect women daily grow more unwilling that their opinions in government, the fundamental source of civilization, should continue to be uncounted with those of the defective and criminal cla.s.ses of men.
In the industrial world organized labor is recognizing in the underpaid services of women an enemy to economic prosperity and is making common cause with woman's demand for the ballot with which to protect her right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, avowed to be inalienably hers by the Declaration of Independence. Time, agitation, education and organization cannot fail to ripen these many influences into a general belief in true democratic government of the people, without distinctions in regard to s.e.x.
SUSAN B. ANTHONY, Honorary President.
CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT, President.
ANNA HOWARD SHAW, Vice-President.
KATE M. GORDON, Corresponding Secretary.
ALICE STONE BLACKWELL, Recording Secretary.
HARRIET TAYLOR UPTON, Treasurer.
LAURA CLAY, } Auditors.
MARY J. COGGESHALL,}
[30] A ticket was sent with the invitation which took her carriage to the private entrance and enabled her to avoid the crowd. She was constantly surrounded by distinguished people and Miss Alice Roosevelt left a party of friends, saying, ”I must speak to Miss Anthony, she is my father's special guest.” The next day she told the convention in her inimitable way that when she was presented to Mr. Roosevelt she said: ”Now, Mr. President, we don't intend to trouble you during the campaign but after you are elected, then look out for us!”
[31] Clergymen who opened the various meetings with prayer were Dr.
Edward Everett Hale, chaplain of the U. S. Senate; the Rev. J. L.
Coudon, chaplain of the House of Representatives; the Reverends A. D.
Mayo, D.D.; S. M. Newman, D.D., of the First Congregational Church; U.