Volume V Part 41 (1/2)
EMMA WINNER ROGERS, Treasurer.
HELEN GUTHRIE MILLER,} Auditors.
RUTH HANNA MCCORMICK,}
[100] Although Dr. Shaw was but sixty-eight years old and in perfect health she afterwards asked the custodians of this fund--George Foster Peabody, James Lees Laidlaw and Norman de R. Whitehouse, New York bankers--to hold it in trust, paying her only the annuity each year and giving her the right to dispose of it at her death in some way to advance the cause of woman suffrage, which was done.
[101] The speakers were Mrs. William Spencer Murray, secretary of the Women's Political Union of Connecticut; Mrs. Annie G. Porritt, press chairman of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation; Mrs. Dana Durand of Minnesota; Miss Julia Hurlburt, vice-chairman of the Women's Political Union of New Jersey; Mrs. Agnes Jenks, president of the Rhode Island W. S. A.; Mrs. Alden H. Potter, chairman of the Congressional Union in Minnesota; Mrs. Glendower Evans, member of the Minimum Wage Commission of Ma.s.sachusetts; Mrs. R. H. Ashbaugh, president of the Michigan Federation of Women's Clubs; Mrs. James Rector, vice-chairman of the C. U. of Ohio; Mrs. Cyrus Mead of the Ohio C. U.
[102] The automobile started from the Exposition and there were possibly more than that many people on the grounds. As its departure had been widely advertised and was made a spectacular event a large crowd was at the gate.
[103] For the last twenty years the members of the Anti-Suffrage a.s.sociation had appeared regularly before committees of Legislatures in various States to oppose the submission of the question to the voters, picturing the injury it would be to the community and to the women. They had never in any State made the slightest effort to have it submitted to women themselves. The School suffrage was granted in most of the States before they had any organization but they went before a committee in the New York Legislature to oppose women on school boards.
CHAPTER XVI.
NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1916.
The year 1916 marked a turning point in the sixty-year-old struggle for woman suffrage. Large delegations of women had attended the Republican and Democratic National Conventions during the summer and for the first time each of them had put into its platform an unequivocal declaration in favor of suffrage for women; the Progressive, Socialist and Prohibition platforms contained similar planks, the last three declaring for a Federal Amendment. It had become one of the leading political issues of the day and a subject of nation-wide interest. The president of the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, quickly recognized the situation and saw that its official action must not be deferred until the usual time for its annual convention which would be after the presidential elections, therefore the Board of Officers issued a call for an Emergency Convention to meet in Atlantic City, N. J., Sept.
4-10, 1916.[104] The members throughout the country were much surprised but welcomed the opportunity to visit this beautiful ocean resort. The headquarters were in the famous Hotel Marlborough-Blenheim and after the first day the sessions were held in the large New Nixon Theater on the Board Walk.
After two days of executive meetings the Forty-eighth annual convention opened the morning of September 6 in the handsome St.
Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church, granted by the trustees and pastor, with an invocation by the latter, the Rev. A. H. Lucas. Mayor Harry Backarach gave a cordial address of welcome, ending by presenting to Mrs. Catt, who was in the chair, a huge ”key to the city and to our hearts” tied with ribbons of blue and gold, the colors of the a.s.sociation. Members of the Board made their official reports at this and other meetings and all were valuable and interesting but s.p.a.ce permits only a brief mention of most of them. Miss Hannah J. Patterson (Penn.), corresponding secretary and chairman of organization, told of the division of the national work into six departments with a national officer at the head of each and of moving the national headquarters from 505 Fifth Avenue, corner of 42nd Street, New York, where they had been since 1909, into much larger offices at 171 Madison Avenue, corner of 33rd Street. An entire floor was rented with 3,800 square feet of s.p.a.ce, nearly 1,000 more than in the old location. The Publis.h.i.+ng Company took part of this, the a.s.sociation retaining ten rooms. Miss Patterson told of the thorough organization work being done under fourteen organizers, who had covered twelve States. She spoke of the need of training schools for organizers and told of the value of combining all departments, data, literature, publis.h.i.+ng, organizing, etc., under headquarters management.
Miss Esther G. Ogden (N. J.), third vice-president and head of the Publis.h.i.+ng Company, told of doing field work in Colorado and California to interest their women in the demonstrations which were being planned for the political conventions. She spoke of the large correspondence in connection with the trip of the little ”golden flier,” saying:
This tour was undertaken by Miss Alice Burke and Miss Nell Richardson, who left New York April 6 to make a circuit of the United States in the interest of the National a.s.sociation and the cause of suffrage. The Saxon Motor Company donated the car, while the a.s.sociation arranged for entertainment for Miss Burke and Miss Richardson along the route and for expenses over and above the collections taken at their meetings, of which they have held one a day in the closely settled States. They reached San Francisco early in June and are now on their way east. From each State through which they have pa.s.sed we have had appreciative letters of their endurance and courage as automobilists and of their worth as public speakers. They have suffered actual privations crossing the desert and more recently in the Bad Lands of the northwest. They were on the Mexican border during the raids and their car had to be pulled out of rivers during the floods; their courage has never faltered and they have given another proof of the well-known fact that you can't discourage a suffragist. They set out to make a circuit of the United States with the same determination that we all have set out to win our enfranchis.e.m.e.nt and they will not give up until the circuit is made. So far nineteen States have been included in the itinerary and it is planned to cover six more. The newspaper publicity has been nation-wide....
Later Miss Ogden made her report for the National Woman Suffrage Publis.h.i.+ng Company. ”We exist,” she said, ”for two purposes--to serve the suffrage cause throughout the country and to prove that we can serve that cause and also develop a successful business.” She spoke of the devoted office staff, under the business manager, Miss Anna De Baun, who had made personal sacrifices again and again when necessary.
The report of the recording secretary, Mrs. Mary Foulke Morrisson (Ills.), to whom had been entrusted the organization of the great parade of suffragists during the National Republican Convention in Chicago and especially its financing, stated that $6,699 had been raised by the State and Chicago Equal Suffrage a.s.sociations; $200 by the Chicago Political Equality League and some hundreds of dollars by local leagues and individuals. She paid high tribute to the unwearying work of Mrs. Medill McCormick, who, speaking and organizing in the city and outlying towns ”won the support of whole sections of the community that had hitherto been utterly indifferent.” Mrs. Morrisson herself had spoken fifty times in the interest of the parade in Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Iowa and the Mississippi Valley Conference.
The report of the national treasurer, Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers, was received with much appreciation of her money-getting ability and satisfactory accounting. The total receipts for the year were $81,863 and the close of the fiscal year found a balance on hand of $8,869.
The largest contributions had been $500 each from the State a.s.sociations of Illinois, Ma.s.sachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The National College Equal Suffrage League gave $450.
The expenditures in round numbers were: Headquarters, including salaries, expenses of conventions, etc., $16,531; publicity, $9,096; National Congressional Committee, $4,676; publis.h.i.+ng _News Letter_, $982; contributions to campaigns, $21,131; demonstrations, organization, etc., $20,000.
In commenting Mrs. Rogers said: ”Nothing to my mind indicates so vividly the progress of equal suffrage as the comparative ease with which the largest budget in the history of the National a.s.sociation was pledged and most of it paid by August 25, and the fact that an excess of that budget amounting to many thousands of dollars has been raised three months before the usual convention date. 'Money talks'
and it is saying this year: 'No cause in which I could be used appeals to me as does this fundamental one of enfranchising women, of opening the door to let them enter and help to make a more Christian civilization.' Literally we have had only to ask and it has been given unto us. Scores and hundreds of women in sending their generous gifts have said: 'Would that my check were ten times as large!' The wonderful spirit of kindliness and ardent desire to cooperate have touched the treasurer's heart deeply and made the work of the pa.s.sing year a real joy. I am confident that all necessary funds for suffrage expenditures--national, State and local--can be raised, even to a million dollars, if more systematic work is done on the financial side in the States....” Mrs. Rogers outlined the business methods that should be used and expressed her obligations to her committee of fifty on finance for their helpful support.
Mrs. Walter McNab Miller (Mo.), first auditor, in the report of her field work told of days, weeks and months spent in visiting cities from New York to St. Louis, holding conferences and meetings and writing hundreds of letters to raise money and arrange for the demonstration to be held in St. Louis during the Democratic National Convention--the ”walkless parade,” to which the Missouri Suffrage a.s.sociation contributed nearly $2,000. She attended State suffrage and political conventions and the biennial of the General Federation of Women's Clubs in New York. ”And then came Chicago,” the report said, ”with its exciting surge, its march in the rain and its near-victory plank, followed by St. Louis with its 'golden lane' of suffragists and a plank a little less pleasing; another trip to Indianapolis with our Chief--and the most momentous June in suffrage history was over.” The report told of the journey to Cheyenne to attend the Council of Women Voters; the addresses of the present Democratic Governor Kendrick and the former Republican Governor and U. S. Senator Carey; the two days at the State University in Laramie, ”the guest of one of the best-known suffragists in the State, Professor Grace Raymond Hebard”; the visit in Denver, ”asking questions and being interviewed.” ”All of this,” she said, ”sent me back firmly convinced that the western women want to help us in our battle and only wait for a definite program of work.”
The second auditor, Mrs. Pattie Ruffner Jacobs (Ala.), in the report of her field work showed an equally full schedule. She had been present at every board meeting but one, of which she was notified too late; as a member of the Congressional Committee had a.s.sisted with the lobby work in Was.h.i.+ngton; had attended a three-days' State conference in Nashville and spoken three times; the Mississippi State convention and spoken twice; spoken in Savannah and Asheville and at the May-day celebration of the Nashville League; attended the Chicago and St.
Louis demonstrations and spent the intervening times in raising the money to meet her pledge of $2,000 for her State to the National a.s.sociation.
Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick, chairman of the Press Department, stated that this was largely a nominal position, as the practical work was done by professionals and would be related in the report from the Publicity department. The reports of the national officers were concluded by that of Mrs. Catt, chairman of the Campaign and Survey Committee, a new feature of the a.s.sociation. It began: ”For the purpose of making a survey of suffrage conditions throughout the nation, either an officer of the National Board or some person or persons representing the Board have visited nearly every State in the Union. I have myself visited twenty-three States; Miss Hauser and Miss Walker visited nine enfranchised States; Mrs. Miller, Mrs. Jacobs, Mrs. Morrisson and Mrs. Rogers have each visited several; Mrs.
Roessing and Miss Patterson have made a number of trips to West Virginia. Our chief motive was to learn conditions. To corroborate our impressions questionnaires were sent to all the State a.s.sociations in January and again in July. As a result of the information obtained the National Board is convinced that our movement has reached a crisis which if recognized will open the way to a speedy and final victory.”
Mrs. Catt expressed the belief that in the future a better understanding between national and State boards would be possible and spoke of the visits of herself and other national officers to West Virginia and South Dakota, where woman suffrage amendments would be voted on in November. She then took up the case of Iowa, where one had been defeated the past June, and made an a.n.a.lysis of a situation which had existed here and in nearly all States where defeats had taken place as follows:
When the present Board came into office, Iowa was in campaign and but a few months remained for work. In January I met with the State Board and we counselled together concerning the needs of the campaign; later I met with it on three different occasions and gave one month to speaking in the State. The National Board contributed $5,000 to the campaign from the legacy of Mary J.
Coggeshall of Iowa and gave one organizer from January 1 until the vote was taken. It also sent speakers and workers toward the end of the campaign. The various States contributed generously through the national treasury.