The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-02-25
LOOKING BACKWARD
(By MRS. GEORGE BASS.)

When many hundreds of women Journey to Chicago from all parts of the United States to celebrate the vic tory of suffrage after an unremitting battle of sixty years, they went know ing that the National American Wo- man Suffrage Association was to be merged into the National League of Women Voters. As women are usually strong partisans, membership in the League means merely Q slight delay in alliances with Democrats or Re- publicans, and brief review of his tory is therefore timely.
 Until section two of the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted the word male did not appear in the consti- tuition, and the credit of thus limiting suffrage belongs to the Republican party. When the women urged inclu sion in this amen dnlent they were told: Suffrage for black men will be all the strain that the Republican party can stand.' At the time that the Fifteenth Amendment was pend ing the suffragists again made strong appeal to the Republican party. As a result the second plank of the platform adopted by the con vention held in 1868 declared that on
 this question states rights should
 prevail, except in the case of the colored man. Four years later great hopes were awakened by a plank de- claring that the demands of women for equal rights should be treated with respectful consideration After a Republican victory, the women who went to Washington with high hopes of speedy enfranchisment learned that there was apparently to be no time limit on the respectful con- sideration.''
 Cenntennia1 year came and the Re- publican party in it's Cincinnti con- vention recognized with approval the substatial advances made toward the establishment of equal rights for women and repeated the opinion that honest demands should be treated with respectful consideration" The Susan B. Anthony Amendment, des- tined to focus the political hopes of women for more than forty years, was introduced in the Senate January 10, 1878. The committee to which it
 was referred reported on it adver-
 sely. In accordance with a reso1u- ton passed in 1879 by the National Suffrage Convention a committee of three women visited President Hayes ito remind him of the existence of | cne-half of the American people, "nOHl ne ndS 0nl1TSIy OVeTIOOheo anu 1 of whom it would be wise for hiDa to make mention in his future mes | sages," but he omitted reference to 1 suffrage in any later message.
 1 After twenty years of respectful consideration the Forty-ninth Con l gress, both branches Of which were 1 Republican, beat the Federal Amend
 1nent by a vote of 34 to 16. But 1 the world has been slowly moving. | Alth ough in 1896, when the women | of Wyoming, Colorado and Idaho had
 been enfranchised, the Republican
 platform had a plank favoring the | admission of women to 'tspheres of | wider usefulness the electoral votes
 Of the three suffrage states were cast | for the Democratic candidate for | President.
 For nearly ten years after that, l both branches of Congress were Re publican and the suffrage amendment i had scant attention. Most of the time it was apparently forgotten by the l legislators. It was not until the Sixty
 third Congress, 1913-1915, in which
 both branches were Democratic, that
 for the first time in history, on
 March 19, 1914, a favorable majority
 was given. Of the 99 votes cast ir
 the Senate 35 were for. the Amend
 ment and 34 against. Nine Senators 1 were paired in favor, but the vote
 was far short of the necessary two
 thirds.
 In the sixty-fourth Congress the 1 amendment was introduced in the
 Senate, December 6, and in tht : House, December ', 1915. No actio1 was taken in the Senate, and in the ) I$House it was indefinitely postponed L'by the Judiciary Committee In tn ? Sixty-ffth Congress, after persona f appeal had been made by Presiden Wilson, the House passed the resolu