# History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 5/Chapter 4

Contents
CHAPTER IV.
THE NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1904.
The Thirty-sixth annual convention opened the afternoon of Feb. 11 1904, in National Rifles' Armory Hall, Washington, D. C., and closed the evening of the 17th. There was a good attendance of delegates from thirty States and the audiences were large and appreciative. Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, the president, was in the chair at the opening session. The delegates were welcomed by Mrs. Carrie E. Kent in behalf of the District Equal Suffrage Association and the response was made by Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, vice-president-at-large, who began by saying: "If the women here welcome us after we have been coming for thirty years it must be because we deserve it; the men welcome us because in the District they are in the same disfranchised condition as we are." A cordial letter of greeting was read from Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, whose headquarters were in Washington.
Greetings were received from Mrs. Florence Fenwick Miller ​of London, whose letter commenced: "Beloved Friends: As president of the British National Committee of the International Woman Suffrage Committee, I write to send you greetings from English, Scotch, Irish and Welsh fellow-workers in the woman's cause. It seems but a short time since the convention of 1902, which I attended as the delegate appointed by the British United Women's Suffrage Societies and also of the Scottish National Society. The admiration and affection that the ability, the earnestness and sincerity, the sisterliness and the sweetness of temper and manners of the American suffragists then aroused in me, are unabated at this moment." She told of the progress that had been made by the various societies toward uniting in an International Woman Suffrage Alliance, gave a glowing forecast of the ultimate triumph of their common cause and ended: "With admiring and abiding love for America's grand women, the suffrage leaders." The convention sent an official answer. Mrs. Mary Bentley Thomas (Md.) read an interesting paper, Our Four Friends, compiled from the answers by the Governors of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho to a letter from Miss Anthony asking for a summary of the results of woman suffrage after a trial of from eight to thirty-five years. A Declaration of Principles, which had been prepared by Mrs. Catt, Dr. Shaw, Miss Alice Stone Blackwell and Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, was read by Mrs. Harper and adopted by the convention as expressing the sentiment of the association. [See Appendix, chapter IV.] Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery (Penn.) and Dr. Shaw were appointed delegates to the International Suffrage Conference at Berlin in June in addition to the International Suffrage Committee from the United States, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt, Mrs. Lucretia L. Blankenburg (Penn.), with three others yet to be selected.
In her report as corresponding secretary Miss Kate M. Gordon (La.) told of the interest which the convention of the preceding year in New Orleans had awakened in the South and of the generous donation of a month of Dr. Shaw's valuable time which she had given to a Southern tour. This included the State Agricultural, State Normal and State Industrial Colleges of Louisiana and various places in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. "While it might be said of her addresses, 'She came, ​she spoke, she conquered,' "declared Miss Gordon, "it was clearly shown that the South was not ready for organization." Miss Gordon said of attending the National Conference of Charities and Corrections as a State delegate appointed by the Governor of Louisiana: "I found that resolutions of endorsement were contrary to the policy of the conference, yet, except in our own organization, I have never met such a unanimity of opinion upon the justice of woman suffrage as well as upon the expediency of the woman's vote to secure intelligent and preventive legislation as a remedy for the many evils they were seeking to combat."
The program for the first evening included short addresses by the general officers and in opening the meeting Mrs. Catt said: "You will all be disappointed not to have the promised addresses from Miss Anthony and Mrs. Upton. It has been suggested that I might say that Miss Anthony has been unavoidably detained but I can't see why I should not tell the truth. Miss Anthony is out in society tonight. She was invited by President and Mrs. Roosevelt to the Army and Navy reception at the White House and Mrs. Upton is with her. Our vice-president-at-large will speak to you on What Cheer?"
Dr. Shaw said that once when she was travelling about the prairies of Iowa she met a woman who was always referring to her home town "What Cheer," and when she was asked to give a title to her address she could think of nothing better. She continued: "There are no problems so difficult to understand as those of our own time, because of the lack of perspective. The arrogant and insistent and noisy things press to the front and the silent and eternal fall into the rear. But as time passes it is as when we climb a mountain—we gradually rise to where we can see over the foothills and everything appears in its proper place and proportion. Out of the present, its arrogant militarism, its sordid commercialism and worship of gold, is there anything to give us cheer and hope for tomorrow? There never was greater ​reason for hope for humanity. Underlying all the tumult and disorder of our time is one grand, golden thought, that of the human brotherhood of the world. There never was a democracy comparable to ours, faulty as it is and hopeless as it appears to some. Though the ideal does not seem to impress itself upon the world, yet in the silence it is there. .... Today is the best this world has ever seen. Tomorrow will be still better."
Miss Gordon spoke on A Sustaining Faith, showing that from labor, from all forms of social service and from countless sources was converging the demand for the reform which the suffrage association was seeking. Miss Blackwell (Mass.) talked briefly as always but clearly and convincingly on The New Woman. Miss Laura Clay (Ky.) began her address on Dimes: "As an auditor I have been going over our treasurer's books. Usually such books are mere debits and credits but in ours those stiff rows of figures tell many beautiful things—the sacrifices of the poor and the generosity of the rich—but best of all are the 'dimes' because they are the dues paid to the association. They bear the figure of Liberty and they stand for it. .... These dimes are inspiring, for they represent our membership when we gather here from the four corners of the nation. Therefore I rejoice over these thousands and thousands, each with a human heart behind it."
"No woman has a record of greater faithfulness in this cause," Mrs. Catt said in introducing Mrs. Mary J. Coggeshall, who began her remarks on Precedents by saying: "I come from Iowa where things are very different from those in this beautiful capital. We do not see Senators and Representatives on every hand but we have lent to Washington, Secretary of Agriculture Wilson, Secretary of the Treasury Shaw, Speaker of the House Henderson and also Mrs. Catt to lead the suffrage clans."
The evening closed with Mrs. Catt's presidential address, the full report of which filled eleven columns of the Woman's Journal. The subject was the vital necessity of an educational qualification for the use of the ballot in a country which opens its gates to immigration from the whole world. Little idea of its logic and virility can be conveyed by detached quotations. Referring to the necessity for enfranchising women she said: "Despite the ​fact that education even yet is not so generally advocated for girls as for boys among our foreign and ignorant classes of society, the census of 1900 reveals that between the ages of ten and twenty-one, representing school years, there are 117,362 more illiterate males than females. If men and women had been entitled to the franchise upon equal terms in 1900, the political parties, which always make their appeals to the young man just turned twenty-one to cast his first vote for 'the party of right and progress,' would of necessity have made the same appeal to young women, but they would have appealed to 20,000 fewer illiterates among the women than the men of from twenty-one to twenty-four. If the same conditions continue for the next twenty years—that is, if there is no restriction in the suffrage for men and women still remain disfranchised, and if the proportionate increase of women over men in the output of our public schools continues, we shall witness the curious spectacle of the illiterate sex governing the literate sex."
Mrs. Catt did not, however, attribute all the evils of universal suffrage to the ignorant vote but said: "It may be that an investigation would reveal the fact that a very important source of difficulty is to be found in the failure of intelligent men to exercise their citizenship. If this proves true it may be found necessary to turn a leaf backward in our history and adopt the plan in vogue in some of the New England colonies which made voting compulsory, and it may be found feasible to demand of every voter who absents himself on election day an excuse for his absence, and when he has absented himself without good excuse for a definite number of elections, he may be made to suffer the punishment of disfranchisement. .... " She called attention to the record that at the last presidential election more than 7,000,000 men over twenty-one years of age did not vote and asked: "What is to be done about it? Are qualified women citizens to wait in patience until influences now unseen shall sweep away the difficulties and restore the lost enthusiasm for democracy? Or shall they attempt to determine causes, apply remedies and clear the way for their own enfranchisement? That is our problem. For myself, I will say I prefer not to wait. I prefer to do my part, small as it must be, in the great task of the removal of the ​obstructions which clog the wheels of the onward movement of popular government."
The convention was especially fortunate in having among its speakers a charming and gifted young woman, Mrs. A. Watson Lister of Melbourne, Australia, a country whose first national Parliament had two years before conferred on women full suffrage and eligibility to all offices. She showed a remarkable knowledge of laws and conditions affecting women and was thoroughly informed on every phase of the suffrage movement. The second evening she spoke on Woman's Vote in Australia to an audience that was not willing to have her stop, saying in part:
Australia is as large as the United States and women have national and municipal suffrage and in four of our six States they have State suffrage—South and West Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania. In Victoria and Queensland they do not yet possess it. When the six States became federated it was provided that federal suffrage throughout Australia should be on the same basis as State suffrage where it was the most liberal. South and West Australia had it in full, so the women obtained it throughout Australia in national elections. There was so little opposition or discussion, it was regarded so completely as an accepted fact and foregone conclusion, that most women did not even know the measure had passed. It was not an experiment, as our men had seen its working in South and West Australia for years and also in New Zealand, which is the most democratic and best governed country in the world.
In Australia women are eligible to all offices, even that of Prime Minister. At the last elections five stood for Parliament. Miss Vida Goldstein was a candidate in Victoria. Although both our large newspapers ignored her meetings she got 51,000 votes, while the man highest got about 100,000. Not one of the five women came out at the bottom of the poll. ....
A good deal of light was shed on the inside history of the organized anti-suffrage movement, which if turned on in other countries would disclose a similar situation. 'Our Anti-Suffrage Association," she said, "died three months after it was born. It was formed by two of our leading manufacturers, who hid behind their daughters. They had plenty of money, took a large office on a main street, employed several paid secretaries and spent more in three months than we had done in all our years of work. They paid little boys and girls to circulate their petition and got many signatures under false pretences. .... Much was made of their petition though it was not half as large as ours. The daughters of these manufacturers drove up in their carriages to their fathers' factories at the lunch hour and made the working girls sign their petition."
A scholarly review of Morley's Life of Gladstone was given by Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch (Eng.). Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman turned A New Light on the Woman Question, saying:
The usual Work Conferences were held and the Executive Committee presented the Plan of Work which was adopted. In addition to the usual recommendations it urged that a Memorial Organization Fund be established to perpetuate the memory of pioneers and that a legal adviser for the association be appointed from its women lawyer members. The morning meetings as always were given up to business and reports of officers, chairmen of committees and field workers and the afternoons to State reports. The latter, made for the most part by the presidents, showed faithful work going on in every State and progress in many. Miss Helen Kimber reported that the Legislature of Kansas had added to the School franchise, which the women had possessed ever since the State came into the Union, the right to vote on all public expenditure of money for issuing of bonds, waterworks, sewerage, libraries, etc. Miss Elizabeth J. Hauser, office secretary, told of the removal of the national headquarters from New York, where they had first been established, to Warren, O., where they occupied two large rooms on the lower floor of an old vine-covered family residence in the heart of town. From here 35,000 pieces of literature had been sent out and here had been printed 2,000 each of Lucy Stone and Mrs. Stanton birthday souvenirs, a booklet to be used on Miss Anthony's birthday; 10,000 suffrage stamps, Christmas blotters, etc., and 10,000 letters written. The subscription list of Progress had been increased from 950 to 4,000 and a weekly headquarters' ​letter had been sent: to the "Woman's Journal." Resolutions for woman suffrage had been obtained in international, national and a large number of State conventions.
Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, the treasurer, reported the receipts, $21,117, the largest in the history of the association. It contributed $3,255 to the New Hampshire campaign. Neither Mrs. Upton nor any of the national officers received a salary (except the secretary, who had a nominal one), and in referring to the immense amount of unpaid work done by them and by women in the different States, she said: "People outside of the association often ask why it is that women can be found who are willing to give their time to a work without recompense. We can not answer such inquiries and yet we ourselves know that, through this devotion to a just and holy cause, we rise to a higher plane, we see with larger eyes, we feel the presence of the real self of our fellow-worker. We can no more explain why this is so than we can analyze 'mother love,' or the love of a daughter for a father but we know it. It is for this reason your treasurer rejoices over the day she was so placed, either by design or chance, and so blessed with perfect health that she was able to serve in the cause of woman's political freedom." Mrs. Upton referred to Mrs. Cornelia C. Hussey's bequest of $10,000 and that of Mrs. Henrietta M. Banker, from which the association realized $3,000.
Detailed and valuable reports were made by the chairman of committees on Presidential Suffrage, Federal Suffrage, Congressional Work, Civil Rights, Church Work, Enrollment and others. Mrs. Catt reported for the Committee on Literature. Mrs. Catt with Mrs, Blankenburg (Penn.), Mrs. Lucy Hobart Day (Me.) and Mrs. Minola Graham Sexton (N. J.), presidents of their State associations, presided over Work Conferences. Mrs. Ida Porter Boyer, in her report on Libraries and Bibliography, brought to light the lax manner in which many State libraries are conducted. In that of New Jersey no catalogue had been printed for fifty years. In Montana the collection of books was thirty-five years old and had never been catalogued or classified. Various librarians reported no works on woman suffrage and women from those States rose in the audience and said that they had themselves presented the History of Woman Suffrage—​four large volumes. Mrs. Elnora M. Babcock (N. Y.), chairman of the Press Committee, reported 93,600 general articles sent out; 3,665 special articles, much plate matter, many personal sketches, photographs, etc., and a number of new papers added to her list.
Mrs. Maud Nathan read the report of Mrs. Florence Kelley, chairman of the Committee on Industrial Problems Affecting Women and Children. As executive secretary of the National Consumers' League Mrs. Kelley was well qualified to speak and she gave an account of the labor laws in the southern States affecting girls between 16 and 21, who are neither children nor women, which was heartbreaking. Pennsylvania was equally guilty but most of the northern States had improved their laws, Illinois leading; in none, however, were they wholly adequate. She urged the appointment of more women factory inspectors, who were now employed in only eight States, and scored "the default of the prosperous women of the country," saying: "It may be said that women are not morally responsible for this unfortunate state of affairs, since they do not make the laws, but the facts do not altogether justify this excuse. The child-labor legislation which has been achieved through the efforts of women during the past ten years shows that women can do very much even without the ballot in the way of securing legislation on behalf of women and children, and it remains true that women buy the product of the work of women and children far more than do men. .... It is my hope that this great and influential national suffrage organization may so influence public opinion that a series of beneficent results will soon become visible."
An Evening with the Philanthropists was one of the most enjoyable during the week. The Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer, of whom Felix Adler, head of the Ethical Culture Society of New York, was quoted as saying: "She is the only woman with whom I would share my platform," was the first speaker. In considering New Professions in Philanthropic Work for Women, she said: "Charity is old but social science is new and it is the uniting of the two that makes modern philanthropy and that is what opens these new professions. Charity is supposed to come by nature but the knowledge of how to deal with its problems does not. ​Society is divided into three groups. First, the reformers—a group never too large, often seemingly too small—who make the way for those that come after. They are often like the artist whose daughter, being asked if her father had been successful, answered that he was 'successful after he was dead.' Then comes the great group, the 'middle-of-the-road' people, who walk along, slowly developing, supporting the churches and schools, holding today's standards and ideals—the people who live in today and who make up the fabric of the world. They are sometimes irritating but they hold what has been gained and they gradually grow. Then there is a group behind, what the French call the 'unfinished' infants—the defectives, the moral and physical imbeciles, the backward and incompetent. We must study how to reduce this social burden in an intelligent way. This has started a new class of vocations as sacred as the ministry was of old."
A very convincing address was given by Dr. Samuel J. Barrows (Mass.), secretary of the National Prison Reform Association, on Women and Prison Reform. In referring to the progress of prison reform he said: "In this array of apostles and prophets and expositors of the new penology we find men and women standing side by side." He described the work in this reform by eminent women in Europe and the United States and concluded: "In the field of penology woman needs the ballot as she needs it in other fields, not as an end but as a means, as an instrument through which she can express her conviction, her conscience, intelligence, sympathy and love. Questions in philanthropy are more and more forcing themselves to the front in legislation. Women are obliged to journey to the Legislature at every session to instruct members and committees at legislative hearings. Some of these days the public will think it absurd that women who are capable of instructing men how to vote should not be allowed to vote themselves. If police and prison records mean anything they mean that, considered as law-abiding citizens, women are ten times as good as men. Why debar the better and enfranchise the worse? In the field of commercial and political competition, woman may demand the ballot as a right but in the field of philanthropy and reform she needs it for the fulfillment of her duties."
Mrs. Nathan, president of the New York Consumers' League, ​considered the Wage Earner and the Ballot, her handsome presence, fine humor and long experience rendering her an unusually attractive speaker. "The opponents of our cause," she said, "whether they be of the fair sex or the unfair sex, seem to think that we regard the extension of the suffrage to women as a panacea for all evils in this world and the next. No honest suffragist has ever taken that ground. I can not endorse any such general or sweeping statement but I feel that my experience in investigating the condition of women wage-earners warrants the assertion that some of the evils from which they suffer would not exist if the women had the right to place their votes in the ballot-box." She compared the industrial and educational situation where women voted with that of States where they did not and showed how women were excluded from official positions because disfranchised, giving conclusive instances of the discrimination in her own State. "I feel that not only on account of the women wage-earners should women be accorded the ballot," she said, "but also because they are very largely the spenders of all family incomes and as such they have the right to the assurance that what they buy is free from adulteration and has been produced under clean, wholesome and humane conditions. For this right the Consumers' League persistently contends but it can be only partially successful, in my opinion, so long as it depends entirely upon moral suasion, while manufacturers and merchants have the voting power to hold in terror over its administration."
Mrs. Lucia Ames Mead, president of the Massachusetts State Suffrage Association and a leader in the movement for peace and arbitration, was on the program to talk of Woman's Work for Peace. "J am not going to speak of any philanthropy," she began, "but of something much more far-reaching and radical, which will make three-fourths of our philanthropy needless." She then made an impassioned plea for a world organization of the forces that would conduce to peace. Representative government was the first step, she said, and the establishment of a World Court was the next. The achievement of an International Advisory Congress might be the third. "A simultaneous effort must be made," she declared, "to arrange arbitration treaties with every nation on earth, referring all questions that cannot be settled by diplo​macy to the Hague Court. Questions of 'honor' must not be excluded. Carnegie well said in his plea for this plan, 'No word has been so dishonored as the word honor.' Such treaties and the use of the economic boycott upon European enemies would be vastly more efficient than battleships to keep the peace. .... We need to convert the church. There are many of our Christian ministers who believe they are living under the dispensation of Joshua and not of Jesus."
At the conclusion of Mrs. Mead's address Mrs. Catt said: "Sometimes the cause of peace and arbitration seems to me the greatest of all. To help working women was the motive that determined me to devote my life to obtaining woman suffrage. How hard it is that women must spend so many years just to get the means with which to effect reforms! But we who believe that behind them all is the ballot are chained to the work for that until it is gained."
Religious services were conducted Sunday afternoon by the Rev. Mary A. Safford of Des Moines, assisted by Dr. Shaw and the Rev. Marie Jenney Howe. The subject of the sermon was The Goal of Life and the text: "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and, if children, than heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ." "In the preaching of the Gospel of all nations," she said, "it has been recognized that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile; while in breaking the fetters of millions of slaves it also has been recognized that in Him there is neither bond nor free. The world still awaits the time when it will be proclaimed that in Him there is neither male nor female."
Monday, February 15, was this Anthony's 84th birthday and it was a coincidence that on the morning of that day the convention should be opened with prayer by the Rev. Edward Everett ​Hale, chaplain of the Senate, a life-long opponent of woman suffrage. When he was invited to come he asked definite assurance that it would not be interpreted that he had changed his opinion. The air of the hall was fragrant with the flowers that had been sent in honor of the birthday, and, as the usual tribute of the convention, it made its pledges of money for the expenses of the coming year. Mrs. Upton asked for $4,000 and nearly $5,000 were quickly subscribed.
The preceding day Mrs. John B. Henderson had given a 12 o'clock birthday breakfast for Miss Anthony at her handsome home, Boundary Castle, attended by the national officers and a number of invited guests. In the evening a social reunion for the officers, delegates and speakers was held in the banquet room of the Shoreham Hotel, which was the convention headquarters. On the afternoon of the birthday President and Mrs. Roosevelt received the members of the convention with much cordiality. From the White House they went to a reception given by Miss Clara Barton in her interesting home at Glen Echo, near Washington. The nearly five hundred visitors received a warm welcome and enjoyed wandering through the unique house built of lumber left after the Johnstown flood, unplastered and the walls draped with the flags of many nations that had been presented to her by their rulers. At urgent request Miss Barton brought forth the laces, jewels, medals and decorations given to her by the dignitaries and crowned heads of Europe for her distinguished serv​ices in behalf of the Red Cross, such a collection, it was said, as no other woman possessed.;
The convention was largely in the nature of a Colorado jubilee, as its women ten years before had cast their first vote, having been enfranchised in the autumn of 1893. The program for two evenings was given up to men and women from that State under the heading, Colorado Speaks for Itself, and it was most appropriate that Miss Anthony should preside. In presenting her Mrs. Catt said: "This is Miss Anthony's 84th birthday. We might have had a program filled with tributes to her and no doubt you would all have enjoyed them but instead we have what she will like better, a program to show, not that woman suffrage would be a good thing but that it has been a good thing. When Miss Anthony was born no woman in America could vote; no woman in modern times had been a lawyer. Tonight our ushers are seven women graduates of the Washington Law School, in the cap and gown which used to be forbidden to women. But there is something else going on tonight that is a more noteworthy celebration of her birthday. A measure to grant suffrage to women is pending in Denmark with the backing of the government and the women of that country have arranged a great demonstration in favor of the bill and have fixed the date for today because it is the birthday of Susan B. Anthony. Opponents of woman suffrage pay almost their whole attention to Colorado, so we have asked Colorado to come and talk for itself and it has responded magnificently. All the speakers pay their own expenses and have come this long way for the pleasure of saying a word for woman suffrage."
The Washington "Post" commented, "Miss Anthony received an ovation and it was delightful to see the pride with which she introduced the speakers—a former Governor, a woman State Superintendent of Public Instruction, chairmen of women's political committees and clubs, a woman county superintendent." Mrs. Katharine Cook, president of the Jane Jefferson Club, a Democratic organization of over a thousand women, spoke on The Ideals We Cherish and strongly emphasized that politics did not impair true womanliness or lower high ideals. "A nation can be no more free or pure or beautiful than the homes of which it is composed," she said. "Our country is but a greater home and no ​mother whose love for her fireside is more than an instinct or a sentiment can fail to see that the welfare of her home and family is vitally connected with an unstained ballot and an honest government. We women who believe in the right of suffrage and exercise it with the utmost wisdom with which we are gifted, use it for the preservation and defense and love of our homes ... and it is this spirit which is needed at the polls."
An entirely different but equally effective note was struck by Mrs. Ellis Meredith, a prominent journalist of Denver, who said during her address on Colorado Women and Legislation:
Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford of Denver, president of the State Federation of Women's Clubs and county superintendent of ​schools, began her address, A Message to Garcia, by referring to the noted pamphlet of that title by Elbert Hubbard, "which," she said, "was translated into fourteen languages and called out a response from the hearts of the civilized world, because it set forth the duty and necessity of doing a thing yourself if you want it well done," and she made the application: "The women of Colorado have learned by experience the advantage of a direct vote over direct influence." She then told in a graphic manner the vast amount of good work the Federation of Clubs had been able to do through the power of the ballot and said: "During the last Legislature a department of the federation had to sit one day each week to confer with the many members who wanted its endorsement for their bills. Clubwomen in non-suffrage States do not have this experience. It is because we can carry the message to Garcia ourselves." "Mrs, Catt helped to win our mountain republic for suffrage," Mrs. Bradford said in conclusion, "and we women of Colorado pledge ourselves to Susan B. Anthony to work until death to help get it in other States."
Mrs. Isabella Churchill of Greeley spoke from the standpoint of the women outside the cities. "To the women in the small towns and country districts," she said, "it is a privilege and a pleasure to go to the polls on election day with the men of their family and vote for the candidates and measures they have had time to consider with care. In such places the question next day is not, 'Did the election go Democratic or Republican?' but 'Was it license or no license?' or else concerning some candidate or issue that they believe of importance to their community." Mrs. Helen Belford, chairman of the Women's State Democratic Committee, devoted her address largely to the development of the young women through the use of the ballot and the study of political questions. Mrs. Ina Thompson, chairman of the Republican Women's State Committee, gave a very interesting account of the way campaigns are conducted by women.
Mrs. Helen Loring Grenfell, as State Superintendent of Education, spoke with high authority and by her dignified and beautiful presence no less than by her ability made a deep impression on all who heard her. She pointed out that Colorado came into the Union in 1876 with School suffrage for women and through ​this they had always been able to keep the schools on a nonpartisan basis. She showed that it paid more per capita for public schools than any other State, leaving even New York and Massachusetts behind; described its advanced position from kindergartens to training schools and colleges, with especial care in guarding the welfare of children, and continued:
The Hon. Isaac N. Stevens, a pronounced suffragist, who had the topic After Ten Years, was detained elsewhere. The Hon. Alva Adams, who had twice been Governor of the State, in his strong and comprehensive speeches before the convention and the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, answered for all time the misrepresentations in regard to woman suffrage in Colorado which for years had been persistently made by the anti-suffragists, and he also answered conclusively the many ob​jections that had been conjured up. In the convention he discussed it From the Colorado Point of View, beginning as follows:
In answer to the continued charges that the people of the State would like to repeal the law he said: "I have too high a regard, too sincere a faith in Colorado manhood to believe that any of the men who voluntarily conferred the ballot upon their wives, sisters and mothers would now repeal that just act. Common sense refutes the statement regarding women themselves. Not 75 per cent., not 10 per cent., not 1 percent. would today vote to relinquish that which belongs to them. It is not an American ​trait to give up rights..... I challenge any one to find 100 intelligent women in Colorado who will voluntarily request that the word 'male' be restored in the constitution and statutes of the State. Many women may not go to the polls but the man who would try to take away their right to do so would need a bombproof conning tower. There will be no repeal, it stands for all time. There never will be less than four woman suffrage States— there should be forty-five..... Since 1876 school affairs have practically been in the hands of women. They have voted at school elections, held the office of superintendent in a majority of the counties and taught most of the schools. In these twenty-eight years neither politics nor scandals have impaired our public school system and in efficiency we challenge comparison with any State in the Union. What the women have done for our schools they can do for our civic government. They have introduced conscience into educational affairs and they will do the same in city and State. That is the fear of those who make politics a profession..... "
Henry B. Blackwell was introduced and spoke briefly of having gone to Colorado in 1876 to assist in getting full suffrage for women into the constitution for statehood, but it was left for the voters to decide. Mrs. Catt closed the meeting with references to the successful campaign of 1893, seventeen years later.
A resolution presented by Mrs. Mead was adopted urging Congress to take the initial steps toward inviting the governments of the world to establish an International Advisory Congress, and impressing upon equal suffragists that they should create local public sentiment in favor of arbitration treaties between the United States and all countries with which it has diplomatic relations. On motion of Mrs. Grenfell the convention endorsed the bill before Congress for a national board of child and animal protection. It rejoiced in the voting of 850,000 women in Australia and in the fact that woman suffrage existed throughout 300,000 square miles of United States territory and eight Senators and nine Representatives were sent to Congress by votes of both men and women. Mrs. Mary Church Terrell (D. C.), a highly educated woman, showing little trace of negro blood, said: "A resolution asks you to stand up for children and animals; I ​want you to stand up not only for children and animals but also for negroes. You will never get suffrage until the sense of justice has been so developed in men that they will give fair play to the colored race. Much has been said about the purchasability of the negro vote. They never sold their votes till they found that it made no difference how they cast them. Then, being poor and ignorant and human, they began to sell them, but soon after the Civil War I knew many efforts to tempt them to do so which were not successful. My sisters of the dominant race, stand up not only for the oppressed sex but also for the oppressed race!"
Resolutions of regret were adopted for the death of many pioneer suffragists during the year, among them Sarah Knox Goodrich of California; Sarah Burger Stearns of Minnesota; Judge J. W. Kingman of Iowa; Ellen Sully Fray of Ohio; Eliza Sproat Turner and Samuel Pennock of Pennsylvania; Henrietta L. T. Wolcott, Lavina A. Hatch, Alice Gordon Gulick, Richard P. Hallowell and the Hon. Henry S. Washburn of Massachusetts. Telegrams of remembrance were sent to the veteran workers, Mrs. Martha S. Root of Michigan and Mrs. Caroline FE. Merrick of Louisiana, and a letter to Mrs. Ellen Powell Thompson of the District. Mrs. Kate Trimble Woolsey of Kentucky, author of Republics vs. Women, was introduced to the convention and showed how republics disfranchised half of their citizens.
The Declaration of Principles, prepared by Mrs. Catt, Dr. Shaw, Miss Blackwell and Mrs. Harper remained a permanent platform of the association.
Dr. Shaw made the delegates smile at one morning session after they had sung "America" by moving that hereafter the line, "Our Father's God to Thee," should be printed on their program, "Our Father, God, to Thee." She said the preachers and poets had a habit of talking so exclusively about "the God of our fathers" that there was danger of forgetting that our mothers had any God! Mrs. Mary Wood Swift (Calif.), its president, brought the greetings of the National Council of Women. The report from the Friends Equal Rights Association, an affiliated society, was made by Mrs. Anne W. Janney (Md). Fraternal greetings were given by Mrs, Olive Pond Amies for the Pennsylvania ​W. C. T. U.; by Mrs. Arabella Carter (Penn.) for the Universal Peace Union, and by Mrs. Emma S. Olds (O.) for the Ladies of the Maccabees of the World. Mrs. Catt warmly complimented this last organization for its fine business principles and the high character of its leaders. The association appointed as its legal adviser Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch, a prominent lawyer of Chicago, for years the superintendent of legislative work for the Illinois Suffrage Association and part of the time its president. It is needless to say that it was not a salaried position. One morning Mrs. Catt called the "pioneers" to the platform and presented them to the convention, among them Miss Mary S. Anthony, who had attended the first Woman's Rights Convention in 1848, of whom her sister always said: "She has looked after the home and made it possible for me to do my work."
Miss Emily Howland of Sherwood, N. Y., one of the early Abolitionists, said in her few words of reminiscence: "I remember Lucy Stone holding a series of meetings through New York State in my youth. My uncle came home and reported that a young woman was lecturing and putting up her own posters; that she was very bright and he was not sure but that she was right and what she advocated would have to come. As I think of those three great leaders, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, I know what heroism is.... We women did not fully realize at first that militarism was our greatest foe. We are always told that women must not vote because they can not fight. I believe they could—I see many women who have more fight in them than many men.... Our cause came straight from the anti-slavery cause. All its early advocates were also advocates of freeing the despised race in bondage. Let us not forget them now. Neither a nation nor an individual can be really free till all are free."
It had been known for some months that Mrs. Catt would not accept a re-election to the presidency. For the past nine years she had given her entire time to work for woman suffrage, speaking in many States, attending conventions, serving as chairman of the Committee on Organization for five years and as president for four years. During this time she had had charge of the national headquarters and under the combined strain found her ​health breaking. The first measure of relief was the removal of the national headquarters to Warren, Ohio, in May, 1904, where Mrs. Upton took it in charge, but this was not sufficient and she announced her determination to retire from the presidency, much to the regret of the association. The delegates naturally turned to Dr. Shaw and urged the presidency upon her but she was most reluctant to accept. It was an unsalaried position; she was entirely dependent on her lectures and she felt that in the field she could best serve the cause but she finally yielded to Miss Anthony's earnest entreaties. She was almost unanimously elected and Mrs. Catt consented to remain in official position as vice-president-at-large. The convention adopted the following resolution: "We tender to our retiring president our hearty thanks for her years of faithful and efficient labor in behalf of our cause and for her self-sacrificing devotion to its interests. We congratulate ourselves that we shall continue to have her wise counsel and cooperation and we express our earnest hope for her health and prosperity." No other change was made except that Mrs. Coggeshall retired as second auditor and Dr. Cora Smith Eaton again became a member of the board.
The Evening Star had this description: "As the afternoon session was about closing Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, retiring national president, who has endeared herself to all by her gracious courtesy, her firm yet gentle sway, presented to the convention its choice for her successor. Miss Shaw was not as clear-eyed as usual when she faced the cheering audience and her voice trembled and choked a little as she declared she had accepted the office only to give Mrs. Catt a rest. As the convention continued to applaud she said, trying to smile: 'Don't do that or I shall surely cry!' The Rey. Anna Howard Shaw is probably the first woman distinguished by having taken both theological and medical degrees. She won her way into and through college by teaching and paid for her theological training by preaching on Sundays.... After filling one parish for seven years she found her widest opportunities in the broad parish of the lecture field and is one of the ablest speakers on the public platform."
Detroit sent an invitation for the next convention and Mrs. Richard Williams of Buffalo, N. Y., presented one from that city ​with a guarantee from the State Suffrage Association of $1,000 toward the expenses. While these were appreciated the invitation from Portland, Ore., was the choice. It was presented by Dr. Annice Jeffreys for the association and by the Hon. Jefferson Myers in behalf of the Lewis and Clark Exposition to be held in 1905, which the convention gave a hearty endorsement.
The last evening found the large armory filled to the doors. Mrs. Evelyn H. Belden (Ia.) made a delightful address on The Main Line, which thoroughly disproved the assertion that women have no sense of humor, as the audience testified by frequent laughter and applause. Mrs. L. Annis Pound (Mich.) discussed the Problem of the Individual. 'A woman's value to society," she said, "will increase in direct ratio as her value as an individual increases. Woman as the potential mother of the race owes it to posterity to develop the noblest, strongest type of individualism. She must be first a human being, a personality, a member of society." Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, president of the National Women's Republican Association, who had made political speeches from ocean to ocean, told in a most entertaining manner of Campaigning in Free States and paid a glowing tribute to the beneficial effects of woman suffrage in the States where it existed.
Towards the end of the evening Mrs. Catt presented Miss Anthony and as she came forward she brought Miss Barton with her and the audience rose in heartfelt recognition of the two great leaders. "It seemed unable quite fully to express its pleasure," said the Evening Star, "and applauded again and again, as Miss Barton bowed and Miss Anthony looked smilingly and benignly out over the enthusiastic crowds." She expressed in words of affection and esteem her pleasure in appearing on that platform with one who had stood by her from the beginning of her work and Miss Barton responded in the same strain, giving then as always her adherence to Miss Anthony and the cause of woman suffrage.
A national suffrage convention never seemed to be properly ended unless Dr. Shaw made a speech at the close and for this one she chose the subject, Woman without a Country, and with her matchless eloquence described the position of women under the flag of a Government in which they had no voice. Mrs. Catt ​spoke the president's inspiring farewell words and the convention adjourned to meet next time in the far northwest.
The usual hearings were granted by the Senate and House Committees on February 16 at 10:30 a.m. Miss Anthony presided at the Senate hearing and the speakers in the Marble Room were Mrs. Watson Lister, Australia; Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch, England; Dr. Anna Howard Shaw and Mrs. Ida Porter Boyer, Pennsylvania; Miss Laura A. Gregg, Nebraska; Miss Harriet May Mills, Miss Emily Howland, Mrs. Maud Nathan, Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, New York. In introducing Mrs. Gilman Miss Anthony said quaintly: "This is one of the Beecher tribe," referring to her relationship, and she said of Dr. Shaw, the last speaker, "She will wind us up!" In telling of the first congressional hearing on woman suffrage ever granted—in 1869—she said: "Of all those who spoke here then I am the only one living today and I shall not be able to come much longer." Her words were prophetic, as this was the last hearing she ever attended.
Each speaker, considered the question from a different standpoint: Miss Mills showed that the high schools everywhere were graduating more girls than boys and women were increasing in the colleges at a higher ratio than men and said: "If only you would fix an educational qualification for the franchise we might hope to attain it." Mrs. Swift described the great campaign that had been made by California women for the suffrage in 1896 and yet they could not now even vote for school officers and she told of the unjust laws for women. Mrs. Boyer spoke for the millions of women wage-earners and declared that the present form of government was a sex-aristocracy. Mrs. Gilman said that to have intelligent men there must be educated mothers and that America could be made greater but not out of little people. Mrs. Harper reviewed the Senate hearings of the past, the favorable and unfavorable reports and the many times when no reports were made and said: "We represent no vested interests, no constituency: we cannot help or harm you politically; we can only appeal to you in the name of abstract justice." ​Mrs. Blatch, American by birth, told of the feelings of women arriving in this country by steamer and seeing the men land from the steerage who would soon have the right of suffrage which was denied to women born in the United States. Mrs. Watson Lister was introduced as representing over 800,000 women voters in Australia and said in part: "It seems very odd to me to come to America to speak on self-government. In Australia woman suffrage is not an experiment but a long experience and one effect has been to disprove all the things that were said against it." Dr. Shaw spoke of the hardships women had endured to make this country what it is and of the injustice of denying them any voice in its government.
Miss Anthony closed by saying that she had appealed to committees of seventeen Congresses and she urged that this one would make a favorable report. Senator Mitchell of Oregon responded: 'I introduced this resolution for woman suffrage. I am earnestly in favor of it—have been for many years—and if I live you will get a report. I have been more instructed and interested by the magnificent speeches I have heard today than by any in the Senate of the United States during the twenty-one years I have attended it." Others expressed themselves in the same strain. Senator Mitchell's own personal affairs, however, soon became much involved and no report was made.
Mrs. Catt conducted the hearing before the Judiciary Committee of the House. Its chairman, Representative John J. Jenkins of Wisconsin, who was presiding, made no secret of his hostility to woman suffrage but some members of the committee were favorable. Colorado had been the storm center of attack and defense for many years while Denver was the only city of considerable size where women could vote. In opening the hearing Mrs. Catt said: "Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee: Last year when we appeared before the committee to speak in behalf of the bill asking the submission of the 16th Amendment we called attention to the fact that Congress had appointed a great many commissions for investigation of the conditions, political and otherwise, of various classes of people, and ​inasmuch as we have come here year after year claiming that woman suffrage had wrought none of the ills which its enemies said it would and that it had brought many benefits, we asked that Congress, through a commission, should investigate it in the western States. You are aware that no such commission resulted from our petition. When Mahomet commanded the mountain to come to him and the mountain did not come he said: 'Then Mahomet will go to the mountain.' We have therefore this year brought Colorado to you and the speakers who will address you this morning are all from that State."
The speeches largely followed the lines of those given before the convention. Mrs. Katherine Cook showed the relation between the women's vote and the home and family welfare. Mrs. Ellis Meredith, introduced as on the editorial staff of the Rocky Mountain News of Denver, gave a summary of the excellent legislation that had been effected since women began voting in 1894 and said: "I have read a compilation of the laws in regard to the protection of children in every State and I know that in no other have they such ample protection and in no other are the laws so well enforced. This is partly due to the fact that our Humane Society is a State institution and has the free voluntary services of six hundred men and women acting as agents over this big State of 104,000 square miles." Answering questions she said: "In my district, one of the best, 571 women registered and 570 voted. There are as many men as women in the district but only 235 voted. Men form 55 per cent. of our population and women 45. Women cast over 43 per cent. of the total vote."
Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford, president of the State Federation of Women's Clubs, extended the account of the remarkable work it had accomplished as described to the convention, a success, she said, due to the fact that it represented a large body of well-informed voters. She ridiculed the danger at the polling places. "Who are the evil creatures we are supposed to meet there on election day? We vote in the precinct in which we live and we meet our husbands, our brothers, our sons.... In Colorado the environment in which the supreme right of citizenship is ​performed has been improved to harmonize with the improved character of the constituency."
Mrs. Helen Loring Grenfell was introduced by Mrs. Catt as "the State Superintendent of Public Instruction now serving her third term, the only successful candidate on her ticket at the last election." She began by saying: "Gentlemen, this is a very peculiar position for a Colorado woman. It seems just as strange to me as it would be to my husband to be coming here before a body of women and saying: 'We men ask from you equal rights under the Constitution of the United States.' "After showing the interest felt in elections by women she said: "I have been an office-holder, which has involved running for office, and I think it is right for me to tell you a little of my experiences. My campaigns have taken me through almost every county in Colorado, the farming counties, the roughest mining communities, and let me say to you that if there could be any more chivalry in the States where you think it would be unchivalrous to let your women vote, I would like to see it. I have met with the greatest courtesy from men all over the State. I have been treated just as kindly, just as politely by the men when I appeared as a political candidate as by the men with whom I am associated in my school work, in my home and society life. We have come to the time when we must feel that the word chivalry belongs to the past. It is connected with a period when woman's position before the law and in her home was far from a desirable one; and so I believe you will not misunderstand me when I say that if you will give us justice we feel that it will mean a great deal more than chivalry ever did."
There had just been an exposition of fraud at the recent Congressional election where Representative John F. Shafroth had been re-elected and he at once resigned the office in order to disclaim all connection with it. Nearly every speaker was interrogated about it by members of the committee. Mrs. Grenfell answered, as did all of them: "The frauds upon which this election was decided were committed in the city of Denver alone and in the worst precincts in the city. We will admit that they were committed. Is that a reason for considering that woman suffrage is a mistake? I have heard reports from the cities of Philadelphia ​and New York by which, if I should judge male suffrage, I should say it was an utter failure in the States of Pennsylvania and New York. We have tens of thousands of women voters in Colorado. We have indictments out against many dishonest voters and with the utmost searching they have found one woman who is charged with 'repeating' in the election. Our State penitentiary has five women prisoners today and 600 men. That surely cannot be used as an argument for woman suffrage having injured the women, whatever it may have done to the men."
The committee were particularly interested in the speech of former Governor Alva Adams, which gave much information on the voting of women and called out many questions from the committee. Representative Littlefield of Maine inquired: "What do you say, Governor, about Miss McCracken's article in the Outlook?" and he answered: "I call it infamous, to use the proper term. It was an absolute falsehood. It was based upon no facts, because no decent women in Colorado would make the statements that she quotes. She may have found one woman who would say that they were using philanthropy and charity for political purposes but to admit that the women of the State would do a thing of that kind—would so debase themselves— would be an impeachment of the decency and honesty of womankind everywhere. I am not prepared to make that admission and the citizens of Colorado cannot make it. There are 100,000 ​honest women in the State who are voters and there are not 100 who will subscribe to the sentiments she gave voice to."
Mrs. Catt closed the hearing with an earnest appeal for action, saying in part:
When the American constitution was formulated it was the first of its kind and this was the first republic of its kind. Man suffrage was an experiment and it was considered universally a very doubtful one. We find overwhelming evidence that the thinkers of the world feared that if this republic should fail to live it would come to its end through the instability of the minds of men and that revolutionary thought would arise to overturn the Government. We find it in George Washington and Benjamin Franklin and all of our statesmen as well as those who were watching the experiment here so anxiously from across the sea. What was the result? The result was they made a constitution just as ironclad as they could, so as to prevent its amendment. They made it as difficult for the fundamental law of the nation to be changed as they knew how to do.... Those of us who wish to enter the political life, who believe that we have quite as good a right to express ourselves there as any man—what is our position? Within the last century there has been extension after extension of the suffrage, and every one has put suffrage for women further off....
The Senate Committee presented the National Association with 10,000 and the House Committee with 15,000 copies of these hearings, which they could use as a part of their propaganda literature. There was not, however, enough political influence back of the appeals for the submission of the Federal Amendment for woman suffrage to compel the committees to make reports which would bring the subject before Congress.
* ↑ Part of Call: In our own country the advocates of our cause know no discouragement or disappointment. The seed planted by the pioneers of the woman's rights movement is continuously bearing fruit in the educational, industrial and social opportunities for the women of today; these in turn presage the full harvest political enfranchisement. Under the stimulus of an educated intelligence and awakened self-respect women daily grow more unwilling that their opinions in government, the fundamental source of civilization, should continue to be uncounted with those of the defective and criminal classes of men. In the industrial world organized labor is recognizing in the underpaid services of women an enemy to economic prosperity and is making common cause with woman's demand for the ballot with which to protect her right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, avowed to be inalienably hers by the Declaration of Independence. Time, agitation, education and organization cannot fail to ripen these many influences into a general belief in true democratic government of the people, without distinctions in regard to sex.   Susan B. Anthony, Honorary President. Carrie Chapman Catt, President. Anna Howard Shaw, Vice President. Kate M. Gordon, Corresponding Secretary. Alice Stone Blackwell, Recording Secretary. Harriet Taylor Upton, Treasurer, Laura Clay, $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ Auditors Mary J Coggeshall,
* ↑ A ticket was sent with the invitation which took her carriage to the private entrance and enabled her to avoid the crowd. She was constantly surrounded by distinguished people and Miss Alice Roosevelt left a party of friends, saying, "I must speak to Miss Anthony, she is my father's special guest." The next day she told the convention in her inimitable way that when she was presented to Mr. Roosevelt she said: "Now, Mr. President, we don't intend to trouble you during the campaign but after you are elected, then look out for us!"
* ↑ Clergymen who opened the various meetings with prayer were Dr. Edward Everett Hale, chaplain of the U. S. Senate; the Rev. J. L. Coudon, chaplain of the House of Representatives; the Reverends A. D. Mayo, D.D.; S. M. Newman, D.D., of the First Congregational Church; U. G. B. Pierce, All Souls Unitarian Church; John Van Schiack, Jr., Universalist Church; Alexander Kent, People's Church; the women ministers at the convention, Anna Howard Shaw, Anna Garlin Spencer, Mary A. Safford, Marie Jenney Howe, and laywomen Laura Clay, Lucy Hobart Day, Mrs. Clinton Smith, president District W. C. T. U. The congregational singing was arranged and led by Miss Etta V. Maddox of Baltimore and the evening musical programs were in charge of Herndon Morsell and his pupils.
* ↑ The Washington "Post" of that date contained an amusing little incident. Miss Anthony came into the morning session while Mrs. Upton was raising the money and the audience rose to their feet waving their handkerchiefs. She was about to sit down on the front seat when Mrs. Upton insisted she should come to the platform. "Must I do that?" she said sotto voce. "I have on my travelling dress." "How we do put on airs as we grow older," said Mrs. Upton jokingly, assisting her to the platform. The applause continuing Miss Anthony smiled, reached out her hand with a deprecating gesture and said: "There now, girls, that's enough."
* ↑ The Washington Times said: "Mrs. Upton is one of the most popular women in the suffrage movement and her energy is a matter of many years' history. If financial support is to be obtained from States, societies or individuals there is no one more capable of extracting generous subscriptions. .. ." The Stay said: "Mrs. Upton has served as treasurer many years. She is energetic, zealous, tactful, possesses a remarkable insight of human nature and is greatly admired. She is president of the Ohio Suffrage Association and member of the Warren board of education. Before she became so engrossed in suffrage she did a great deal of literary work. Her father, Ezra B. Taylor, succeeded Garfield in Congress and she was with him during his thirteen years in office. Miss Anthony always relied on him for advice and assistance."
* ↑ There was a large amount of unimpeachable testimony that the women had no part in these election frauds. Mr. Shafroth himself said: "The frauds were committed in a bad part of Denver where few women live. To represent them as characteristic of women's election methods in Colorado is an outrage." A prominent Denver lawyer, who was then in Washington, was interviewed on the subject and said: "That 'Exhibit 64' (relating to the alleged frauds by women) was not competent evidence and would have been thrown out by any court. The woman who accused herself and other women of cheating did not stay to be cross-examined; she simply made her affidavit and 'skipped out.' Everything tends to the belief that she was in the employ of the opposite party."   The president of the League for Honest Elections in Denver, when stating that about thirty arrests had been made in connection with the frauds, said: "Of those arrested and bound over, only one is a woman. We believe that she is the least guilty of all and whatever connection she had with the election in her precinct was as the passive instrument of the men in charge of the fraudulent work at that place. Of the persons for whom warrants have been issued but not yet served, only one is a woman. She was a clerk in one of the lower precincts and we understand has left the city. I may say, as a result of my own experience in connection with this League, I find that women have practically nothing to do with fraudulent work."
* ↑ A Miss Elizabeth McCracken had been sent to Colorado by the Outlook to prepare an article on woman suffrage, which it published. The statements in it were universally repudiated by the press and the people of that State. Mrs. Grenfell said of it at this convention: "It is as absurd to refute her assertions as to reply to Baron Munchausen or to insist that Alice's Adventures in Wonderland never happened. Such conditions as she describes do not exist in Colorado."