Volume V Part 62 (1/2)
The entire Resolutions Committee met in the evening of the 15th to make the final draft of the platform. Although it was a foregone conclusion that it would have to contain a woman suffrage plank the enemies did not intend to concede it willingly. It was not reached until 3 o'clock in the morning, when platform building was suspended while a contest raged. The sleepy committeemen became wide awake and their voices rose till they could be heard in the corridors and out into the street. The unqualified endors.e.m.e.nt of woman suffrage asked for by the National a.s.sociation was defeated by a vote of 24 to 20.
The approval of the Federal Amendment asked for by the National Woman's Party was rejected by a vote of 40 to 4. The plea of the ”antis” not to mention the subject was defeated by 26 to 17. Finally the committee fell back on what was said to have been President Wilson's suggestion for a plank, which was adopted by 25 ayes, 20 noes. A minority report was immediately prepared by James Nugent of New Jersey, Senator Smith of South Carolina, former Representative Bartlett of Georgia, Stephen B. Fleming of Indiana, Governor Ferguson of Texas and Governor Stanley of Kentucky, in opposition.
The Resolutions Committee adjourned at 7:15 a.m. and the convention opened at 11. Senator William J. Stone of Missouri, chairman of the Resolutions Committee, brought forward the platform but confessed that he was too tired to read it, so Senators Hollis and Walsh took turns at it and when the suffrage plank was reached it was greeted with applause and cheers. Senator Stone moved the adoption of the platform and Governor Ferguson was given thirty minutes to present the minority report, which finally was signed by himself, Nugent, Bartlett and Fleming. The resolution was supported by the chairman. The young Nevada Senator, Key Pittman, handled the signers of the minority report without gloves, showed up their unsavory records and stirred the convention to a frenzy. Yells and catcalls on the floor were met with the cheers of the women who filled the gallery and waved their banners and yellow parasols. Again and again he was forced to stop until Senator John Sharp Williams took the gavel and restored a semblance of order. Senator Walsh of Montana made a powerful speech from the standpoint of political expediency and pointed out that the minority report was signed by only four of the fifty members of the Resolutions Committee. Attempts were made to howl him down and in the midst of the turmoil a terrific storm broke and flashes of lightning and roars of thunder added to the excitement. At last the vote was taken on the minority report and stood 888 noes, 181 ayes. That ended the opposition.
Senator Stone had said to the delegates: ”I may say that President Wilson knows of this plank and deems it imperative to his success in November that it be inserted in the platform.” The plank, which was adopted by a viva voce vote read as follows: ”We favor the extension of the franchise to the women of this country, State by State, on the same terms as to the men.” It transpired afterwards that President Wilson had written it.
As soon as the convention adjourned Mrs. Catt, president of the National Suffrage a.s.sociation, who with the board of officers was present, sent the following telegram to President Wilson: ”Inasmuch as Governor Ferguson of Texas and Senator Walsh of Montana made diametrically opposite statements in the Democratic convention today with regard to your att.i.tude toward the suffrage plank adopted, we apply to you directly to state your position on the plank and give your precise interpretation of its meaning.” To this message the President replied on June 22: ”I am very glad to make my position about the suffrage plank clear to you, though I had not thought that it was necessary to state again a position that I have repeatedly stated with entire frankness. The plank received my entire approval before its adoption and I shall support its principle with sincere pleasure. I wish to join with my fellow Democrats in recommending to the several States that they extend the suffrage to women upon the same terms as to men.” Later the President made it plain that the Democratic plank was to be considered a distinct approval of the suffrage movement and that it did not necessarily disapprove of a Federal Amendment.
The general sentiment of the press was to the effect that as a result of the endors.e.m.e.nt of the national conventions woman suffrage went before the country with its prestige immeasurably strengthened and recognized as a great force to be reckoned with. The suffragists ended their political convention campaign with planks in the platforms of all the five parties, Republican, Democratic, Progressive, Prohibitionist and Socialist. The Progressive party made its declaration stronger than at its national convention in 1912, its plank reading: ”We believe that the women of the country, who share with the men the burden of government in times of peace and make equal sacrifice in times of war, should be given the full political right of suffrage both by State and Federal action.” It was adopted unanimously and with great applause at the party's national convention in Chicago June 7-10. The planks were taken by the suffragists as pledges that the parties would help in a practical way to a.s.sist the movement in the various States and nationally and this view was made plain to the leaders and to the rank and file of the voters.
Results were soon apparent and between 1916 and 1920 the cause of woman suffrage took immense strides forward. In 1917 New York State gave the complete suffrage to women. In 1918 Michigan, South Dakota and Oklahoma fully enfranchised them, increasing the number of equal suffrage States to fifteen. In thirteen other States women obtained the Presidential franchise and in two the vote in Primary elections.
The resolution for a Federal Amendment pa.s.sed both Houses of Congress in May and June, 1919, and was submitted to the State Legislatures for ratification. By March 22, 1920, it had been ratified by 35, lacking only one of the three-fourths required to make it a part of the National Const.i.tution. The women, therefore, approached the political parties this year in quite a different frame of mind from that of the past, feeling the strength of their position and realizing that where they had formerly pleaded they could now demand. The burning question of the hour was whether the 36th State would ratify in time to enable the millions of women to vote in the Presidential elections in November. The National Committees of the two dominant parties had become ardently in favor of it. Through the influence of Republican women suffragists, the committee of that party sent on June 1 to the Republican Governors and legislators of Delaware, Connecticut and Vermont the following appeal to ratify the Federal Amendment so that the Republican party might have the credit of a.s.sisting women to win their final battle and thus gain their grat.i.tude and allegiance:
Whereas, The Republican National Committee at its regular meetings has repeatedly endorsed woman suffrage and the 19th Amendment to the Const.i.tution of the United States, and has called upon the Congress to submit and the States to ratify such amendment; and, whereas, it still lacks ratification by a sufficient number of States to become a law, therefore be it
Resolved, by the Republican National Committee that the 19th Amendment be and the same is hereby again endorsed by this committee, and such Republican States as have not already done so are now urged to take such action by their Governors and Legislatures as will a.s.sure its ratification and establish the right of equal suffrage at the earliest possible time.
When the Republican National Convention met in Chicago June 8-12 the Resolutions Committee received the following memorial:
The National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation asks permission to place on record with the National Republican Convention its appreciation of the resolution of the National Republican Executive Committee on June 1.... It seems the spirit of fairness underlying the committee's action must commend it to every lover of liberty regardless of party and its political far-sightedness must be evident to every Republican desirous of party victory.
Conceding to the committee's action its full and friendly significance, this a.s.sociation further asks permission to re-emphasize before this convention the fact that on the very eve of complete victory a deadlock supervenes in the ratification of this amendment and for that deadlock the Republican party must carry its full share of responsibility, since three States with Republican Legislatures remain on the unratified list. Republican leaders frequently point out that their party has insured a far larger proportion of ratifications than has the Democratic, and apparently count on this situation to accrue to its advantage.
This position would be logical if the relative proportion between Republicans and Democrats were the essential thing but it is by no means the essential thing. The 36th State is the essential thing.
Women who are waiting on that State for their right to vote in the Presidential elections of 1920 cannot rest satisfied with the a.s.surance or the evidence that Republican leaders are doing all in their power to bring about ratification. Women who are going to vote the Republican ticket anyhow may be satisfied but they are not the women whose vote is important to the party. The important vote is the vote of the undecided woman who would just as soon be a Republican as a Democrat. That woman has not been convinced by the final Republican showing on ratification and she will not be convinced until the 36th State has ratified. This ratification is the only solution of the situation that can make actual what is so far a merely potential claim of the Republican party on the woman voter.
The National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation urges upon this convention the necessity for such action as will make inevitable and immediate the ratification of the Federal Suffrage Amendment by the 36th State.
This was signed by Mary Garrett Hay, acting president, in the absence of Mrs. Catt in Europe; Gertrude Foster Brown, vice-president; Nettie Rogers Shuler, corresponding secretary; Emma Winner Rogers, treasurer; Esther G. Ogden, director, and Rose Young, press chairman.
Miss Hay called a conference of the suffragists attending the convention in Chicago and a plank was drawn up. Miss Hay, Mrs. Richard Edwards, Mrs. Maud Wood Park, Mrs. George Gellhorn, Miss Ada Bush and Mrs. Pattie Ruffner Jacobs const.i.tuted a committee to present this plank to the Resolutions Committee of which Senator James E. Watson (Ind.) was chairman. Miss Hay made the princ.i.p.al speech and Mrs.
Gellhorn and Miss Bush spoke briefly. A sub-committee of the Resolutions Committee accepted the plank which was given out to the press on June 10. It read:
We welcome women into full partic.i.p.ation in the affairs of government and the activities of the Republican party. We urge Republican Governors whose States have not yet acted upon the suffrage amendment to call immediately special sessions of their Legislatures for the purpose of ratifying said amendment, to the end that all the women of the nation of voting age may partic.i.p.ate in the coming election, so important to the welfare of our country.
As soon as this appeared in the Chicago papers, members of the Connecticut delegation rushed to leaders of the Platform Committee and protested that it was a gross insult to their Governor, Marcus H.
Holcomb, and they wanted the wording changed. Accordingly the offending sentence was revised and in the plank adopted by the convention read: ”We earnestly hope that Republican Legislatures in States which have not yet acted upon the suffrage amendment will ratify it, to the end that all the women of the nation of voting age may partic.i.p.ate in the election of 1920 so important to the welfare of our country.”
Republican women in attendance at the convention united in a demand for a fifty-fifty recognition inside of the party. They asked for a woman vice-chairman of the National Republican Committee and for men and women to be represented on it in equal numbers. The Committee on Rules, responding to this demand, changed the rules for representation and provided that seven members be added to the National Executive Committee, all to be women. With this concession the women had to be content.
The Democratic National Convention met in San Francisco June 28-July 5. Prior to the convention the National Committee had yielded to the pressure from the suffrage leaders and Democratic women and on May 30 sent out the following Call: ”This committee calls upon the Legislatures of the various States for special sessions, if necessary, to ratify woman suffrage when the Const.i.tutional Amendment is pa.s.sed by Congress, in order to enable women to vote at the Presidential election in 1920.” On June 26, after the amendment had been submitted by Congress, the committee again gave its aid by sending the following message to Governor Roberts of Tennessee:
We most earnestly emphasize the extreme importance and urgency of an immediate meeting of your State Legislature for the purpose of ratifying the proposed 19th Amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution. We trust that for the present all other legislative matters may, if necessary, be held in abeyance and that you will call an extra session for such brief duration as may be required to act favorably on the amendment. Tennessee occupies a position of peculiar and pivotal importance and one that enables her to render a service of incalculable value to the women of America.
We confidently expect, therefore, that under your leaders.h.i.+p and through the action of the Legislature of your State, the women of the nation may be given the privilege of voting in the coming Presidential election.
The National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation appointed Mrs.