Volume V Part 43 (1/2)
The report of Mrs. Frank M. Roessing, chairman of the National Congressional Committee, gave so complete an account of the situation at the time the great ”drive” for the Federal Amendment was begun that it is largely reproduced.
At the opening of the 64th Congress in December, 1915, several political leaders interested in the progress of social and economic legislation stated that 1916 would be a lean year in Congress for such movements. It was pointed out that particularly in the Senate some of the most reactionary men had been returned at the preceding election. It is also a presidential election year and neither of the great parties is willing to take one unnecessary step which in its judgment may tend to add to the number of its adversaries or to its vulnerable points in some particular section of the country. All of the 435 members of the House and one-third of the Senators come up for re-election in November of this year--they, too, are shy and sensitive. Some legislation, notably child labor after it had been endorsed by the National Democratic platform, successfully ran the gauntlet but not so our Federal Suffrage Amendment. It is with keen regret your committee reports that it has not had action in either the Senate or House of Representatives.
In the Senate the resolution was introduced Dec. 7, 1915, by Senators Sutherland, Thomas and Thompson of Kansas and referred to the Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage. This committee reported favorably resolution No. 1, introduced by Senator Sutherland. The written report made from the committee by Senator Thomas is one of the best pieces of literature on the subject and copies were mailed to every State president and State chairman of congressional work. Since that early date our measure has been on the calendar. It has come to the top a number of times but at the request of suffrage Senators has been held until a more auspicious hour.
As the National a.s.sociation was desirous of having a vote on the measure at this session, your committee began to work to that end immediately after receiving specific instructions from the Board June 17, 1916. The meaning of the suffrage planks in the Republican and Democratic platforms was disputed by some men in both parties. The leaders stated that the planks were silent as to the Federal Amendment and thus left men free to vote on the amendment as each decided. In order to ascertain the interpretation which would be given by members of Congress it was determined to push for a vote in the Senate. On June 27 Mrs.
Catt, Miss Hannah J. Patterson, corresponding secretary of the National Suffrage a.s.sociation, Mrs. Antoinette Funk, vice-chairman of the committee, Miss Hay and the chairman held an informal conference with the Senators of the enfranchised States in the office of Senator Shafroth to secure their a.s.sistance. As unanimous consent is required for the consideration of such a measure, the Senators agreed that if we would have the vote taken without debate it would probably be possible, since this would not consume the time of the Senate. We believed that this was best in order to make sure of the vote. On July 22 Senator Thomas wrote to every Senator asking whether he would consent to a vote being taken without debate. He informed us that on both the Republican and Democratic sides there were men who would not give such consent, some stating that they had been asked by certain suffragists of the other organization not to consent. After the endors.e.m.e.nt of the Federal Amendment by Judge Hughes, the candidate for President, frequent remarks were made in the Senate on it by members of both parties. Senator Clark (Republican) of Wyoming and Senator Pittman (Democrat) of Nevada were among those who urged action at this session but finally in August Senator Thomas gave up the effort.
The unfair treatment of the amendment resolution in the House Judiciary Committee and its final suppression by Chairman Edwin Y.
Webb (N. C.) were described in full and the unsuccessful efforts, led by Mrs. Catt, to obtain action on it. [See Chapter on Federal Amendment.] The report continued:
Federal Elections Bill: On December 6 Representative Raker introduced at the request of the Federal Suffrage a.s.sociation a bill to protect the rights of women citizens of the United States to register and vote for Senators and members of the House. The bill was referred to the Committee on the Election of the President, Vice-President and Representatives in Congress and has not yet been reported out. On December 10 this same bill was introduced by Senator Lane of Oregon, referred to the Committee on Woman Suffrage and is still there.
United States Elections Bill: The United States Elections Bill, introduced by Senator Owen at the request of Miss Laura Clay on February 3, aims also to secure to women the right to vote for Senators and Representatives in Congress. Miss Clay says it is simply a declaratory act; that it does not permit Congress to specify qualifications of voters and therefore does not involve the issue of State's rights. This bill was referred to the Committee on Privileges and Elections, where it remains. Your committee a.s.sisted the suffragists in the District of Columbia in the effort for a bill enabling it to elect a delegate to the Lower House....
Planks:[105] For some time prior to June your committee used every opportunity with Senators and Representatives to further the work of securing suffrage planks in the Republican and Democratic national platforms. Its chairman was put in charge of drafting for submission to Mrs. Catt the planks which were to be offered to the two conventions on behalf of the National a.s.sociation. Its members who went to Chicago and St. Louis concentrated their efforts on the planks. The two demonstrations of women planned and supervised by the National Board were the culmination of the campaign on behalf of these planks. In cooperation with your Congressional Committee, many State delegations of women who came for the demonstrations did special eleventh-hour work with the delegates to the conventions.
Your committee regrets that the planks in the two dominant national party platforms, since they mention method at all, do not specifically endorse Federal action, but they will be of great value in the States and progress there will help the Federal work. Every man in Congress is keenly alive to the strength of our movement in his district and State. For that reason we urged the women of each State to secure planks in the State platforms endorsing the principle of woman suffrage. As a last resort, if they could not secure a separate plank in their State platforms, we asked them to make sure that each State convention endorsed its party's national platform, that the plank might in this way have the equivalent of a State endors.e.m.e.nt.
With the final yielding of the two dominant parties to the justice of woman suffrage all are now on record in favor of the principle; all except the Republican and Democratic endorse the Federal Amendment. Republicans have been strengthened in their advocacy of Federal action by Judge Hughes' personal endors.e.m.e.nt of the amendment. Your committee must sound a note of warning here against over-confidence. Some too zealous suffragists, including one suffrage organ, state quite seriously, notwithstanding the fact that their attention has been called to their error, that ”the Republican party has specifically declared for the Federal Suffrage Amendment.” Alas! it has done no such thing. It has not done one bit more than the Democratic party.
The personal endors.e.m.e.nt of the Republican candidate for President can not properly be construed as party endors.e.m.e.nt.
Those of us who have had some years of experience have witnessed the worming and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g, fallacy and treachery exhibited by members of a party after their leading candidate has endorsed a particular measure. We know that we can not hold the party responsible for one man's utterances made after the platform had been adopted by the party convention and accepted by the party candidate.
Committee: Mrs. Medill McCormick was unable to continue as chairman of the Congressional Committee and the present chairman was appointed by the National Board in January, 1916, immediately went to Was.h.i.+ngton and lived there eight months, until the opening of this convention. During the entire term of this session of Congress this committee has had some representatives on duty at the Was.h.i.+ngton headquarters every moment. The service of each member has not been continuous but has varied from a week to three months in length. In addition to the chairman, the committee consisted of Mrs. Funk of Illinois; Miss Hay of New York; Mrs. Jacobs of Alabama; Mrs. Cotnam of Arkansas; Mrs. C. S.
McClure of Michigan; Mrs. Valentine of Virginia; Miss Martha Norris of Ohio; Mrs. Elizabeth Higgins Sullivan of Nebraska and Miss Ruth White of Missouri.
Mrs. Funk resigned March 14 to take up other work and in July Miss White was appointed secretary and has done much special work. Because of the amount of travel involved only two meetings of the full committee have been held, on March 2 and September 4.
Every plan for congressional work has been submitted to the National Board or to the national president for approval.
Revision of Work: At the beginning of the present year the work of the National a.s.sociation was revised and departmentalized, the organization branch was separated from the congressional work, made a distinct department, placed under another head and operated from the New York office. This division was advisable, since each task is big enough by itself. The only disadvantage resulted from the distance between the bases of operation of the two departments--one of the paramount reasons for the removal of all the headquarters to Was.h.i.+ngton.... The work of the committee in 1916 consisted of the supervision and direction of all activity connected with the Federal Amendment, including lobby work at the Capitol; the stimulating of congressional activity in the States; the cataloguing of information concerning Senators and Representatives; the a.s.sembling and filing of all information specifically relating to the Federal Amendment in Congress and in the States; the issuing of newspaper articles; the handling of the large correspondence.
Headquarters: The chairman had been on duty only a short time when the necessity for removing national headquarters to Was.h.i.+ngton was deeply impressed upon her--so deeply that she made a special trip to New York to labor with the national officers there to this end but was unsuccessful. The headquarters of the Congressional Committee at the opening of this session consisted of two rooms in the Munsey Building at Was.h.i.+ngton too diminutive to hold even our furniture, to say nothing of our workers. On February 19 it moved to two larger rooms in the same building.
A summary of the correspondence, etc., was given and the report said of the lobby work:
All the direct work with Senators and Congressmen is a time as well as brain consuming process. Usually it means tramping up and down the long stone corridors, hour after hour, in order to find one man in his office. Then he may be having a committee meeting or a previous engagement or emergency business and you are invited to come some other day. Perhaps you have waited an hour before you are sure that he can not see you. It is not uncommon for the members of our lobby to state that they have made as many as six, eight or ten calls before they succeeded in reaching a man. Speaking from my own knowledge, I have wasted hours at the Capitol trying to see men who would not make appointments. I have called eighteen times to see one man and have not seen him yet!
He is the Representative from my own district. We carried the district for suffrage in Pennsylvania last year but I am told that he does not want to vote for the Federal Amendment. It is, of course, possible to interview members by calling them out of the session but this method is uncertain and not very successful, since they feel hurried and interviews in a public reception room are seldom satisfactory.
The latest piece of work done by the committee is the interviewing by letter of all congressional candidates who will stand for election in November. This has been done in cooperation with the State a.s.sociations which have been urged to inst.i.tute vigorous interviewing in the congressional districts.
Presidential Interviewing: The presidential candidates of the two parties whose platforms do not endorse the Federal Amendment have been interviewed in person. On July 17 Mrs. Catt, Dr. Shaw and Mrs. Norman deR. Whitehouse, president of the New York suffrage a.s.sociation, called on Judge Hughes in New York and had a long and satisfactory conversation. He told them that in his speech of acceptance he could not endorse the Federal Amendment because this was the accepting of the party's nomination and of its platform, which had not mentioned it. He said, however, that he believed in it and that soon after his speech of acceptance he would announce his personal advocacy of the amendment. He asked them to hold this information in confidence, which of course they did. His public statement of August 1 was therefore no surprise to them but was nevertheless most gratifying.
On August 1 Mrs. Catt and your chairman called on President Wilson in Was.h.i.+ngton. He reiterated his belief that woman suffrage should come by State action. We presented the arguments in behalf of the Federal Amendment but he remained unconvinced.
He is a fair and openminded man and your representatives have by no means given up hope of proving to him the justice and advisability of the amendment.
Conferences: At the last national convention a special committee recommended that the Board of Officers should consider the suggestion of conferences between the Congressional Committee of the National a.s.sociation and the Legislative Committee of the Congressional Union, with a view to securing more united action in the lobby work in Was.h.i.+ngton. Nine such conferences were held--one in January, three in February, three in March, one in June, one in July. Your chairman was present at each and Miss Anne Martin, representing the Union, was present at each. At some of them each organization had additional representatives. Mrs.
Catt attended two and our corresponding secretary, Miss Patterson, attended one. The subject was the time at which action on the Federal Amendment should be secured in both branches of Congress. When on July 20 it was found that the National Committee wished to obtain a vote in the Senate before adjournment and the Congressional Union wished to postpone it the conferences came to an end. It is the unanimous judgment of your committee that they were of no value to the work on the amendment.
General: The congressional work done in Was.h.i.+ngton this year by the National a.s.sociation has not been spectacular. Your committee had not been on duty long before they realized that many members had been irritated by the too-frequent calls of suffragists and by the inconsiderate demands on their time. As our last national convention was held at the opening session of this Congress, delegations of suffragists used the opportunity to call on their Senators and Representatives. Considering the strain of work of Congress during the past months and the fact that the men had already been interviewed by State delegations or representatives, we did not encourage further visits to the Capitol. In Was.h.i.+ngton such visits, like pageants and other spectacular forms of activity, have been overdone. There was nothing to be gained and probably something to be lost by them.