# Memorial from Alice Wadsworth of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage

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National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage
Vice Presidents
Mrs. LOUIS A. FROTHINGHAM.
    Boston, Mass.
Mrs. JOHN B. HERON,
    Pittsburgh, Pa.
Miss ANNE MacILVAINE,
    Trenton, N. J.
Mrs. HENRY B. THOMPSON,
    Greenville, Del.
Mrs. N. C. YOUNG,
    Fargo, N. Dak.
Mrs. EDWARD PORTER PECK,
    Omaha, Neb.
Mrs. JOHN F. A. MERRILL,
    Portland, Me.
Board of Directors
Mrs. JOHN BALCH,
    Boston, Mass.
Mrs. HORACE BROCK,
    Philadelphia, Pa.
Miss ALICE HILL CHITTENDEN
    New York.
Mrs. ALBERTAS T. DUDLEY,
    Exeter, N. H.
Mrs. C. H. DAVIS,
    Washington, D. C.
Mrs. OSCAR LESER,
    Baltimore, Md.
Mrs. J. B. GILFILLAN,
    Minneapolis, Minn.
Mrs. ROWLAND G. HAZARD,
    Peacedale, R. I.
Mrs. E. YARDE BREESE,
    Trenton, N. J.
Mrs. H. F. LYSTER,
    Detroit, Mich.
Mrs. DANIEL A. MARKHAM,
    Hartford, Conn.
Mrs. DAVID CONANT,
    Bradford, Vt.
Miss CAROLINE PATTERSON,
    Macon, Ga.
Mrs. FRANCIS D. WILLIAMS,
    Richmond, Va.
Mrs. H. E. TALBOTT,
    Dayton, Ohio.
Miss N. W. BAKER,
    Selma, Ala.
Mrs. F. A. MILLARD,
    Burlington, Iowa.
Mrs. ERNEST JACKSON,
    Dallas, S. Dak.
Mrs. JAMES B. WELLS,
    Brownsville, Texas.
Mrs. D. C. GALLAHER,
    Charleston, W. Va.
Mrs. C. E. ESTABROOK,
    Milwaukee, Wis.
| TELEPHONE MAIN 9854 | 1621 K STREET, WASHINGTON, D. C. |
MISS MINNIE BRONSON, General Secretary.
December 11, 1917.
Hon. Chas. E. Fuller, M.C.,
Washington, D. C.
Dear Sir:
Your attention is invited to the following facts:
1. The proposed Federal suffrage amendment positively destroys the right of the people to vote on the question of woman suffrage, as provided for in their State Constitutions, and allows woman suffrage to be forced on unwilling States by the Legislatures of other States.
2. This proposal is a violation of the present Constitution of the United States, which provides that
3. The people, through their State Constitutions, ratified by popular vote, have reserved the right to adopt or withhold woman suffrage by popular vote.
4. This proposal asks you to rob the people of this right; to repudiate your party platform which recognizes the right of each State to settle this question for itself by popular vote.
​Moreover, this amendment, in time of war, would immediately open up a new nation wide suffrage campaign in forty-eight States to secure its ratification.
It would give suffragists and socialists the opportunity to annoy and pester every Legislator in the United States until a majority of the men in thirty-six Legislatures surrendered their judgment and principles to political threats and cajolery.
It would mean that no Legislature in the United States could meet without being surrounded by suffrage pickets.
It would be an official endorsement of nagging as a national policy.
It would give every radical woman the right to believe that she could get any law she wanted by "pestering" her City Council, her Legislature, her Congressman or her President - no matter how the people voted, nor what national crisis existed. And if feminism can be put through by pestering, regardless of the will of the people, so can pacifism, socialism and other isms.
Woman suffrage has been voted upon nineteen times in the last five years. Sixteen times it was defeated by popular vote.
Three times, (in Montana, Nevada and New York) it carried as the direct result of the increased socialist vote. This fact has been demonstrated mathematically.
Will you not defend the Constitution, your party platform and the rights of the people, rather than surrender to the futile threats and impotent dictation of the Woman Suffrage Machine and the Socialists, who are seeking this amendment precisely because they are not strong enough to carry woman suffrage in the majority of the States by popular vote?
Respectfully yours,
President.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
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