Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-05-22
WOMEN VOTERS
OF REPUBLICAN
PARTY CONFER
Chairman Hays Issues State
ment; Have Full Equality
in Organization

Washington, May 22.-Women are
entitled to participate in the affairs
of the Republican party on full
equality with men. They come in
just as other voters, according to
National Chairman Will H. Hays, in
statement which he made to-day at
the opening of conference of party
workers at the Wardman Park Inn,
in this city.
The women are not to be given
secondary consideration, Mr.. Hays
said, but that full consideration due
all other individuals in the party.
They will not be distinctly organized
but amalgamated.
The conference. which will con-
tinue two days, is held under the
auspices of the Republican Women's
National Executive Committee. 1t
includes state chairmen from the
different states and representative
Republican women from each one of
the states. The conference is called
to discuss matters of party organiza-
ton, and has brought many proml-
nent political figures, men and wo-
men, together.
Mr.. Hays Statement
Mr.. Hays on announcing that the
women would be given full equallty
of consideration, said:
The Republican Women's National
Executive Committee, under whose
auspices this meeting is held, has
been appointed to act with the Re-
publican national committee in an
effort to devise ways and means to
make certain the full participation
by the Republican women in the
party's affairs.
There is but one possible rule
for a political party, and that is
that the rights of the individual
membership to participate in the
management of the party's affairs
must be and remain equally sacred
and sacredly equal. The Republican
women in this country are a part
of the party membership. In many
states this has long been SO. They
come into this party activity not as
women but as voters. entitled to par
ticipate, and participating insofar as
the present legal limitations permit,
just as other voters. Their activity
is not supplementary-or secondary
at all-they are units in the party
membership, and where the suffrage
for them is new they come in just
as men have come in when they have
reached the legal voting age. They
are not to be separated or segre-
gated at all, but assimilated and
amalgamated, with just that full
consideration due every working
member of the party in the rights
Of their full citizenship.
There is to be no separate wo-
mems organization created with the
party except and only in those cases
where such an arrangement may be
needed temporarily as an efficient
instrument in the aid of the complete
amalgamation which is our objective.
am convinced that the Republican
women will enter into the party's ac-
tivities with that sense of RESPONSE
bility and serious attention to their
party's affairs which is due the
only instrument through which all
individuals can apply their patriot
ism, all to the end that the prob
lens of government, immeasurable
in magnitude and complexity, which
now confronts this country, may be
properly solved"
Mrs. Medill Mccormick, as head
of the Republican Women's National
Executive Committee, Miss Mary G.
Hay, of New York, Mrs. Raymond
Robins, of Illinois, Mrs. Florence
Collins Porter, of California, Mrs.
Margaret Hill McCarter, of Kansas,
Miss Maude Wetmore, of Rhode
Island, were among the women
prominent in the conference.
o-night there will be q banquet
at which Senator Cummins. Speaker
Gillett and Mr.. Hays will be the
leading speaker. Mrs. Mccormick
will present Miss Mary G. Hay as
toastmistress.