Rocky Ford enterprise., 1916-02-25
EQUAL SUFFRAGE CHAMPIONS
WORKING HARD FOR FED
ERAL LAW TO AID CAUSE.
SENTIMENT is FAVORABLE
congressman in Both Houses Needing
Pleas and Threats From Skirted
Leaders In Washington and in the
Home Districts All Over Nation.
BY GEORGE CLINTON.

the question of woman suffrage, no
matter what their opinions may be as
to the wisdom of granting the vote to
the women of the land. So it is that
woman suffrage is still a prime mat.
ter of interest and perhaps concern
in the congress of the United States.
There are many woman suffrage
champions In this city today. For
some reason or other they have
strengthened their hopes recently
until they have taken on the SEM
blance of actual confidence. that in
each of the three national conven-
tions next June there will be a resolu-
tion indorsing the movement for
which many of the women have been
fighting for SO many years.
The women with the suffrage cause
at heart have been working in Wash
fngton for the last three years harder
than perhaps anybody supposed it was
in women to work. There have been
rows in the suffrage camp. as witness
the trouble between the National Suf-
frage association and the Congress
sional Union. but the end sought has
been the same in all factions. and the
driving has been along the same road.
Women to Win Finally.
Congress will vote again this year
on the proposition to submit a suf-
frage amendment to the states. There
is little chance that 1t will carry by
a majority necessary to put the reso-
luton into effect, but II the happen
ings of last year can be taken as
symptom it is probable that the vote
will be heavy enough to supply a rea-
son to the women for thinking that
finally their cause in a national sense
is on a stable basis.
What makes the women so certain
today that Democrats and Republic
ans. and. of course. Progressives. will
sanction their cause by inserting suf-
frage planks in their platforms? One
by one many of the leaders in con-
gress have been announcing fealty to
votes for women. Most of the Demo-
Gratis from the Southern states have
declined to sanction suffrage. but the
president pronounced in favor of It
sometime ago. although he said that it
ually to settle.
Public pronouncement OF some of
the leaders, the women say, are not
the only things upon which they are
building faith in their ability to get
what they want from the national
conventions. These women have been
working away on the sympathies and
perhaps the fears of senators and rep
resentatives in congress. but they also
have been working away back in the
home districts where the women lead
ers now in Washington have lieuten-
ants zealously preaching and trying
to induce the converts to let their rep
rssentatives in Washington know of
their conversion.
The women in Washington seem 20
be cure that as a result of all this
the delegates to the national conven-
tions will feel the impulse of the
movement and of the alleged change
in the thoughts of members of con-
gress and will be ready to urge or. at
any rate. to agree. that suffrage
planks shall be put into the platforms.
1t must be understood that this is only
setting forth of the views of the
women, who. it must be admitted. are
extremely optimistic. The fact re-
mains. however. that the change in
the sentiment in congress toward the
question of suffrage is marked.
congressman Are Listening.
1t may be tina. great many of the
members of congress of all parties are
no more favorable to suffrage than
they were some years ago. but there
are several states now in which the
women can vote. and as their field of
operations increases in size the in
fluence of the movement is felt more
broadly. and so some of the congress
men who are good politicians perhaps
think that 1t is wise to give the move
ment more careful consideration to.
day than they gave it in the past.
Once on a time it was quite the
thing in congress to send suffrage
resolutions of all kinds to the com.
mittees on judiciary. who promptly
shelved them and would have been
willing to forget all about them were
1t not for the fact that the suffragists
kept asking for action. Action. how
ever. was never Forthcoming. The
judiciary committee of the house n
year ago finally got tired of bearing
the blame for smothering suffrage
resolutions.
The suffrage resolution will be al
lowed to go before the house again
this year and rule for its consid-
GRAFTON will be supplied by the house
committee on rules, which has a ma
iority in it that do not believe in the
suffrage cause. The change of the
attitude toward suffrage is shown by
this forthcoming action of the rules
committee. In the years past when