Volume V Part 27 (1/2)
At the very moment that you will be planning the work for the sixty-third year of the American suffrage campaign, the suffragists of this new-east of all nations will be sitting in their first national convention at Durban, the metropolis of Natal. The movement here is young but is wholly unlike the beginnings of the campaigns in England and America, for our revered pioneers fought their battle against the prejudice and intolerance of their time for the women of the whole world. These women are beginning at the very point where we of the older movements find ourselves today. The old-time arguments are not heard and here, as everywhere, expediency and political advantage are the causes of opposition.
No two cities could be more unlike than Louisville and Durban.
The latter lies in a tropical country with its buildings buried in ma.s.ses of luxuriant and brilliant flora, all unfamiliar to American eyes. The delegates will look out upon the placid waters of the Indian Ocean and will ride to and fro from their meetings in rickshas drawn by Zulus in the most fantastic dress imaginable, the chief feature being long horns bound upon the head. In Louisville it will be autumn, in Natal it will be spring. Yet, dissimilar as are the scenes of these two conventions, the women composing them will be actuated by the same motives, inspired by the same hopes and working to the same end. The rebellion fomented in that little Seneca Falls convention has overspread the wide earth and from the frigid lands above the North Polar Circle to the most southerly point of the Southern Temperate Zone, the mothers of our race are listening to the new call to duty which these new times are uttering. It is glorious to be a suffragist today, with all the hard times behind us and certain victory before.
May wisdom guide us to do the right thing; may love unite us; may charity temper our differences and may we never forget the obligations we owe the blessed pathfinders of our movement who made the present position of our cause possible!
The election resulted in several changes in the board of officers. Dr.
Shaw was re-elected. Mrs. McCulloch declined to stand for re-election as first vice-president and Miss Gordon as second and Miss Addams and Professor Breckinridge were chosen. For corresponding secretary Mrs.
Dennett was re-elected. Mrs. Stewart withdrew as recording secretary and Mrs. Susan W. Fitzgerald (Ma.s.s.) was elected. Miss Ashley was re-elected treasurer. Mrs. Robert M. LaFollette was elected first auditor and Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw (N. Y.) second. Later Mrs.
LaFollette declined to serve and Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick was appointed by the board.
In all preceding conventions there had been such unanimity in the choice of officers that the secretary had been able to cast the informal ballot for the election. This new division of sentiment was frequently ill.u.s.trated during the meetings and indicated that an element had come into the movement, which, as usual with newcomers, wanted a change to accord with its ideas. This was particularly noticeable in the discussion of the proposed new const.i.tution but the differences of opinion were peaceably adjusted by compromise.
After the election Mrs. McCormick, who had recently come into close touch with the National a.s.sociation, spoke on the Effect of Suffrage Work on Women Themselves, saying in part: ”So much attention has been given to the growth and development of the movement for woman suffrage that the effect on the women themselves has been lost sight of or has been little considered but today it is becoming clear that the cause of suffrage is more valuable to the individual woman than she is to the cause. The reason is that this movement has the great though silent force of evolution behind it, impelling it slowly forward; whereas the individual is largely dependent for her development on her own powers and especially on those expressions of life with which she brings herself into contact. The woman suffrage movement offers the broadest field for contact with life. It offers cooperation of the most effective kind with others; it offers responsibility in the life of the community and the nation; it offers opportunity for the most varied and far-reaching service. To come into contact with this movement means to some individuals to enter a larger world of thought than they had known before; to others it means approaching the same world in a more real and effective way. To all it gives a wider horizon in the recognition of one fact--that the broadest human aims and the highest human ideals are an integral part of the lives of women.”
The report of the Committee on Church Work by its chairman, Mrs. Mary E. Craigie, (N. Y.) began: ”It is estimated that there is in the United States a total church members.h.i.+p of 34,517,317 persons. It would mean a great deal to the woman suffrage cause if this great organized force, representing the most thoughtful and influential men and women of every community, could be brought to endorse it and work for it. The experiences of this committee seem to prove that in the transition taking place in the world of religious thought this is the most propitious time to obtain such support.” She gave a resume of the splendid work that had been done by the branch committees in the various States, the religious gatherings that had been addressed, often resulting in the adoption of a resolution for woman suffrage, and the hundreds of letters sent to ministers asking for sermons favorable to the cause, which were many times complied with. She closed by saying: ”It needs neither figures nor argument to establish the fact that church attendance and church wors.h.i.+p are in a condition of decline. It is a critical period in the history of the church, which is changing from the exercise of power to the employment of influence, and the appeals that are coming to the churches are for service from the men and women who are their real strength. The church is not appreciating the resources that are lying dormant, when two-thirds of its members.h.i.+p--the women--are left powerless to carry on the moral and social reform work, because, as a disfranchised cla.s.s having no political status, they are not counted as a potential force.”
Miss Elizabeth Upham Yates (R. I.), chairman, made the report on Presidential suffrage. The report of the Committee on Peace and Arbitration, Mrs. Lucia Ames Mead (Ma.s.s.), chairman, spoke of the Ginn Endowment of a million dollars for the World's Peace Foundation and of Mr. Carnegie's great gift of ten million dollars, creating a fund to secure the peace of the world. It told of the vast work that was being done for peace by the women in the various States and said: ”The world for the first time has seen the head of a great government declare that all questions between nations can be peacefully settled.
President Taft's n.o.ble effort to secure treaties with other nations, to ensure arbitration between them of every justiciable question, should command the grat.i.tude of every patriotic woman. I had hoped to felicitate you on the ratification of these treaties by the necessary two-thirds of the Senate, but in chagrin and disappointment I must instead appeal to you to endeavor instantly to create such public sentiment as shall result in December in the acceptance of the treaties without amendment. If they are thus ratified they will be secured not only with Great Britain and France but certainly Germany, and I have no doubt j.a.pan and most other nations will agree to identical treaties.”
Miss Florence H. Lus...o...b..(Ma.s.s.) gave an interesting report of the Sixth Congress of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance held in Stockholm in June, 1911. [See chapter on the Alliance.] Mrs. Agnes M.
Jenks, proxy for the president of the New Hamps.h.i.+re a.s.sociation, asked a.s.sistance in getting a clause for woman suffrage in the new const.i.tution to be made for that State. Conferences were held throughout the week on legislative work, district organization, publicity, raising money and other branches of the vast activities of the a.s.sociation. The convention Monday afternoon adjourned early in order that the members might enjoy the hospitality of the Woman's Club of Louisville at a ”tea” in their attractive rooms, and at another time take the beautiful Riverside Drive. One evening was devoted to light entertainment with two suffrage monologues by Miss Marjorie Benton Cooke; a suffrage slide talk by Mrs. Fitzgerald; a clever speech portraying the results if women voted, by Miss Inez Milholland (N. Y.) and the sparkling play, How the Vote Was Won, read by Miss Fola La Folette. A striking address was given one afternoon by Mrs. T.
P. O'Connor, an American woman but long a resident of England and Ireland, who took for her subject, Let Our Watchword be Unity.
One of the most valuable contributions to the convention was Mrs.
McCulloch's report as Legal Adviser. This was the result of a list of forty-four questions sent to presidents of State suffrage a.s.sociations, Woman's Christian Temperance Unions, Federations of Clubs and leading lawyers, followed up by many letters. One of these questions related to the guardians.h.i.+p of children, of which she said:
The subject of the guardians.h.i.+p of children could have been treated a century ago in a few words. The father of the legitimate child was his sole guardian and the mother had no authority or right concerning their child except such as the husband gratuitously allowed her. She had, however, all the duties which the husband might put upon her. This meant that the husband decided about the children's food, clothing, medicine, school, church, home, a.s.sociates, punishments, pleasures and tasks and that he alone could apprentice a child, could give him for adoption and control his wages. Many mothers were kept in happy ignorance of such unjust laws because their husbands voluntarily yielded to them much of the authority over the children but this was not so in all families and many mothers took cases to Supreme Courts, protesting against the absolute paternal power. When mothers learned what this sole guardians.h.i.+p meant they urged legal changes. Our present guardians.h.i.+p laws, very few alike, show how women, each group alone in their own States, have struggled to mitigate the severest evils of sole fatherly guardians.h.i.+p, especially of the child's person. This to mothers was more important than the guardians.h.i.+p of the child's property.
Perhaps the greatest suffering came from the father's power to deed or to bequeath the guardians.h.i.+p to a stranger and away from the mother. Most of the States now allow a surviving mother the sole guardians.h.i.+p of the child's person with certain conditions.
Six States have not yet thus limited the father's power and in those where the guardians.h.i.+p is not specifically granted to the surviving mother, the father's sole power of guardians.h.i.+p covers his child even if yet unborn.
The report gave a thorough digest of these guardians.h.i.+p laws filling eight printed pages and this and Mrs. McCulloch's digest of other laws were printed in the _Woman's Journal_ and the Handbook of the convention.
Miss Alice Henry presented greetings from the National Womens' Trade Union League; Miss Caroline Lowe from the Women's National Committee of the Socialist Party; Mrs. A. M. Harrison from the State Federation of Woman's Clubs; Mrs. Charles Campbell of Toronto from the Canadian Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation; Mrs. W. S. Stubbs, wife of the Governor, and Mrs. William A. Johnston, wife of the Chief Justice and president of the State Suffrage a.s.sociation, from Kansas. A letter of love and good wishes with regrets for her absence was ordered sent to Mrs. Catt and one of affectionate sympathy to Mrs. Susan Look Avery (Ky.) for the death of her son, which prevented her attendance. During the convention Mrs. Lida Calvert Obenchain, author of Aunt Jane of Kentucky, and Miss Eleanor Breckenridge, president of the Texas Suffrage a.s.sociation, were introduced and said a few words. A telegram of greeting was read from Mrs. Caroline Meriwether Goodlett, a founder of the Daughters of the Confederacy.
The resolutions were presented by the chairman, Miss Bertha Coover, corresponding secretary of the Ohio Suffrage a.s.sociation, the committee as usual consisting of one member from each State delegation. They urged the ratification of the Arbitration Treaties in the form desired by President Taft; expressed sympathy with Finland in its struggle for liberty; endorsed the proposed Federal Amendment for the election of U. S. Senators by popular vote and demanded that women should have part in this vote; endorsed the campaign for pure food and drugs; called for the same moral standard for men and women and the same legal penalties for those who transgress the moral law; asked the Government to erect a colossal statue of Peace at the entrance to the Panama Ca.n.a.l, and there were others on minor points. Greetings and appreciation were sent to ”the justice-loving men of Was.h.i.+ngton and California, whose example will be an inspiration to the men of other States.” Memorial resolutions were adopted for prominent suffragists who had died during the year, among them Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Dr. Emily Blackwell, Ellen C. Sargent, William A. Keith, the artist; Samuel Walter Foss, the poet; Lillian M. Hollister, Elizabeth Smith Miller, Eliza Wright Osborne and Dr. Annice Jeffreys Myers.
There was a long resolution of thanks for the courtesy and hospitality received in Louisville, which included the clergymen who opened the sessions with prayer, the musicians, who gave their services, the press committees, the hostesses and others.[71]
On the last evening with a large audience present Mrs. Desha Breckinridge spoke on The Prospect for Woman Suffrage in the South.
”Although Kentuckians are wont to boast that within these borders is the purest Anglo-Saxon blood now existing, the spirit of their ancestors has departed,” she said, and continued:
Since 1838 Kentucky has retrograded. An effort to obtain School suffrage for a larger cla.s.s of women has brought about a reactionary measure. Kentucky women at present have no greater political rights than the women of Turkey--for we have none at all--but the action of certain male politicians in defeating the School suffrage measure in the last two Legislatures has really been of advantage to the movement. It has put not only women but the progressive men of the State into fighting trim.... The opposition of the non-progressive element has made of this ”sc.r.a.p of suffrage” a live, political issue. It is likely to be carried in the next Legislature by the determination of the better men of the State even more than of the women, and the fight made against it has gone far to convince both that the full franchise should be granted to women. The action of the Democratic party, when leaders.h.i.+p in it is resumed by the best element, shows a realization that the wishes of the women of the State are to be reckoned with and that the friends.h.i.+p of the women, which may be gained by so simple an act of justice in their favor, is a political a.s.set of no small importance. It is quite possible that the party in Kentucky and throughout the South may eventually realize that by advocating and securing suffrage for women it may bind to itself for many years to come, through a sense of grat.i.tude and loyalty, a large number of women voters, just as the Republican party since the emanc.i.p.ation of the negro has had without effort the unquestioning loyalty of thousands of negro voters; although the women would never vote so solidly as do the negroes, because they would represent a much more thoughtful and independent body....
After showing what had been the results in the South from admitting a great body of illiterate voters she said:
A conference of southern women suffragists at Memphis a few years ago, in asking for woman suffrage with an educational qualification, pointed out that there were over 600,000 more white women in the southern States than there were negroes, men and women combined. If the literate women of the South were enfranchised it would insure an immense preponderance of the Anglo-Saxon over the African, of the literate over the illiterate, and would make legitimate limitation of the male suffrage to the literate easily possible....