The History of Woman Suffrage Volume V Part 30

Then followed under the head of different years, beginning with 1893, that in which women were enfranchised, a roster of Colorado's unequalled laws. These were followed by a complete a.n.a.lysis of the practical working of woman suffrage during the past eighteen years, with comprehensive answers to all the stereotyped questions and objections.

Several who had addressed the Senate Committee came over to the House office building and spoke to the Judiciary Committee. Mrs. William Kent, wife of a Representative from California, was introduced by Miss Addams as one who was not a member of the House but was eligible. In the course of a winning speech she said: "The United States is committed to a democratic form of government, a government by the people. Those who do not believe in the ideals of democracy are the only ones who can consistently oppose woman suffrage. The hope of democracy is in education. There is food for thought in the fact that the early education of all the citizens is now administered by a cla.s.s who have no vote.... Our recent California Legislature when it submitted the amendments which were to be referred to the voters on October 10 did a very sensible and intelligent thing. Speeches for and against each one of these amendments were published in a little pamphlet which was sent to every voter. One man--and he was a good man, too--who argued against woman suffrage said that women should not descend into the dirty mire of politics, that the vote would be of no value to them. In the same speech he said that the women should teach their sons the sacred duties of citizens and to hold the ballot as the most precious inheritance of every American boy. Can we really bring up our sons with a clear sense of the civic responsibility which we ourselves have not? We believe that our children need what we shall learn in becoming voters and that the State needs what we have learned in being mothers and home makers."

"May I present next," said Miss Addams, "Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, of New York? She has been before other Congressional committees with Miss Susan B. Anthony, who for so many years came here to present this cause. Mrs. Harper has written a history of the equal suffrage movement and a very fine biography of Miss Anthony and it is with special pleasure that I present her. She will make the const.i.tutional argument."

Mrs. Harper said in beginning: "This argument shall be based entirely on the Federal Const.i.tution and the only authorities cited will be the utterances of two Presidents of the United States within the past month." She then quoted from speeches of President Taft and former President Roosevelt extolling the Const.i.tution as guaranteeing self-government to all the people with the right to change it when this seems necessary, and she showed the utter fallacy of this statement when applied to women. In closing she said: "Forty-three years in asking Congress for this amendment of the Federal Const.i.tution to enfranchise women they have followed an entirely legal and const.i.tutional method of procedure, which has been so absolutely barren of results that in the past nineteen years the committees have made no report whatever, either favorable or unfavorable. How much longer do you expect women to treat with respect National and State const.i.tutions and legislative bodies that stand thus an impenetrable barrier between them and their rights as citizens of the United States?" A long colloquy followed which began:

The Chairman: The committee will be very glad to have you extend your remarks to answer a question propounded by Mr. Littleton awhile ago. I wish to say that this committee, during my service on it, has always been met with this proposition when this amendment was proposed, that the States already have the authority to confer suffrage upon women, and, therefore, why is it necessary for women to wait for an amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution when they can now go to the States and obtain this right to vote, just as the women of California did last year?

Mrs. Harper: Mr. Chairman, the women are not waiting; they are keeping right on with their efforts to get the suffrage from the States. They began in 1867 with their State campaigns and have continued them ever since, but in sending the women to the States you require them to make forty-eight campaigns and to go to the individual electors to get permission to vote. After the Civil War the Republican party with all its power and with only the northern States voting, was never able to get the suffrage for the negroes. The leaders went to State after State, even to Kansas, with its record for freeing the negroes, and every State turned down the proposition to give them suffrage. I doubt if the individual voters of many States would give the suffrage to any new cla.s.s, even of men. The capitalists would not let the working people vote if they could help it, and the working people would not let the capitalists vote; Catholics would not enfranchise the Protestants and the Protestants would not give the vote to Catholics. You impose upon us an intolerable condition when you send us to the individual voters. What man on this committee would like to submit his electoral rights to the voters of New York City, for instance, representing as they do every nationality in the world? If we could secure this amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution, then we could deal with the Legislatures, with the selected men in each State, instead of the great conglomerate of voters that we have in this country, such as does not exist in any other.

The Chairman: But if one of these suffrage resolutions should be favorably reported and both Houses of Congress should pa.s.s it of course it would be referred to the States and then before it became a law it would have to have their approval.

Mrs. Harper: Only of the Legislatures, not the individual voters.

The Chairman: You use an expression which a member of the committee has asked me to have you explain--"conglomerate of voters," which you said does not exist elsewhere. The desire is to know to whom you refer.

Mrs. Harper: I mean no disrespect to the great body of electors in the United States but in every other country the voters are the people of its own nationality. In no other would the question have to go to the nationalities of the whole world as it would in our country. For instance, we have to submit our question to the negro and to the Indian men, when we go to the individual voters, and to the native-born Chinese and to all those men from southern Europe who are trained in the idea of woman's inferiority. You put upon us conditions which are not put upon women anywhere in the world outside the United States.

Mr. Littleton (N. Y.): You would have to convince every legislator of the fact that this amendment to the National Const.i.tution ought to be adopted. If you could convince the Legislatures of three-fourths of the States you could get three-fourths of them to grant the suffrage itself.

Mrs. Harper: They could only grant it to the extent of sending us to the individual voters, while if this amendment were submitted by Congress and the Legislatures endorsed it we would never have to deal with the individual voters. We would not have to convince every legislator but only a majority.

Mr. Higgins (Conn.): In other words, as I understand you, you have more confidence in the Legislatures than in the composite citizenship.

Mrs. Harper: The composite male citizenship, you mean. We suppose, of course, that the Legislatures represent the picked men of the community, its intelligence, its judgment, the best that the country has. That is the supposition.

The Chairman: That supposition applies to Congress also, does it?

Mrs. Harper: In a larger degree.

Representative Victor L. Berger of Wisconsin, who was out of the city, sent a statement which Miss Addams requested Mrs. Elsie Cole Phillips of Wisconsin to read to the committee. It said in part:

Woman suffrage is a necessity from both a political and an economic standpoint. We can never have democratic rule until we let the women vote. We can never have real freedom until the women are free. Women are now citizens in all but the main expression of citizenship--the exercise of the vote. They need this power to round out and complete their citizenship.... In political matters they have much the same interests that we men have. In State and national issues their interests differ little, if at all, from ours. In munic.i.p.al questions they have an even greater interest than we have. All the complex questions of housing, schooling, policing, sanitation and kindred matters are peculiarly the interests of women as the home makers and the rearers of children. Women need and must have the ballot by which to protect their interests in these political and administrative questions.

The economic argument for woman suffrage is yet stronger.

Economics plays an increasingly important part in the lives of us all and political power is absolutely necessary to obtain for women the possibility of decent conditions of living. The low pay and the hard conditions of working women are largely due to their disenfranchis.e.m.e.nt. Skilled women who do the same work as men for lower pay could enforce, with the ballot, an equal wage rate.

The ideal woman of the man of past generations (and especially of the Germans) was the housewife, the woman who could wash, cook, scrub, knit stockings, make dresses for herself and her children and take good care of the house. That ideal has become impossible. Those good old days, if ever they were good, are gone forever.... Moreover, then the woman was supported by her father first and later by her husband. The situation is entirely different now. The woman has to go to work often when she is no more than fourteen years old. She surely has to go to work sometime if she belongs to the working cla.s.s. She must make her own living in the factory, the store, the office, the schoolroom.

She must work to support herself and often her family. The economic basis of the life of woman has changed and therefore the basis of the argument that she should not vote because she ought to stay at home and take care of her family has been destroyed.

She cannot stay at home whether she wants to or not. She has acquired the economic functions of the man and she ought also to acquire the franchise.

Mr. Berger called attention to the fact that "the Socialist party ever since its origin had been steadfastly for woman suffrage and put this demand of prime importance in all its platforms everywhere."

Representative Littleton made a persistent effort to ally woman suffrage with Socialism, saying that he "had noticed the ident.i.ty during the past two years" and Mrs. Harper answered: "I wish to remind Mr. Littleton that the Socialist party is the only one which declares for woman suffrage and thereby gives women an opportunity to come out and stand by it. The Democratic and Republican parties do not stand for woman suffrage and that is why there seem to be more Socialist women than Republican or Democratic women. If the two old parties will declare for woman suffrage, then the women in general will show their colors."

Miss Ella C. Brehaut, member of the executive committee of the District Anti-Suffrage a.s.sociation, stated that she also represented the National organization and when questioned by Representative Sterling as to the size of its membership answered: "It is too new for us to know the figures." Miss Brehaut's address filled six printed pages of the stenographic report and was an attempt to refute all the favorable arguments that had been made and to show that not only were the suffrage leaders Socialists but "free lovers" as well.

"Conservative women can see nothing but danger in woman suffrage," she concluded. Mrs. Julia T. Waterman, of the District a.s.sociation, sent to be put in the report a statement which filled ten pages of fine print, a full summary of the objections to woman suffrage as expressed in speeches, articles and doc.u.ments of various kinds, with quotations from prominent opponents in the United States and Great Britain. It was a very complete presentation of the question.

Miss Addams in closing urged the appointment of a commission by Congress to make a thorough investigation in the States where woman suffrage was established and the chairman answered that "the committee would probably wish to take this matter under advis.e.m.e.nt in executive session." She thanked him for their courtesy and asked if the National Suffrage a.s.sociation might have 10,000 copies of the hearing for distribution. This request was cheerfully granted by the committee and the chairman offered to "frank" them as a public doc.u.ment. [Later the committee increased the number to 16,000.]

Apparently the matter never was considered, as no report, favorable or unfavorable, ever was made by either committee. In so far as bringing the Federal Amendment before Senate or House for action was concerned the hearings might as well never have taken place, but 26,000 franked copies of the splendid arguments before the two committees went forth to accomplish the mission of educating public sentiment.

FOOTNOTES:

[72] Part of Call: This convention has big problems confronting it, interesting, stimulating problems coincident with the tremendous expansion of our government, problems worthy the indomitable mettle of suffrage workers; but in spite of hard work, this week will be a gala week, a compensation for all the hard, dull, gray work during the past year and a stimulus for still harder work during the year to come....

Let us listen to our fellow workers, and, listening and sympathizing with the unselfish labor being carried on everywhere, pledge ourselves to a flaming loyalty to suffrage and suffragists that will burn away all dross of dissension, all barriers to united effort. Let us come with high resolve that we will never waver in our effort to obtain the right to stand side by side with the men of this country in the mortal struggle that shall bid perish from this land political corruption, privilege, prost.i.tution, the industrial slavery of men, women and children and all exploitation of humanity.

Let us come together, in this autumn of 1912, this unprecedented year of suffrage, consecrating ourselves anew on this, the greatest of all battlegrounds for democracy, the United States of America.

ANNA HOWARD SHAW, President.

JANE ADDAMS, First Vice-President.

SOPHONISBA BRECKINRIDGE, Second Vice-President.

MARY WARE DENNETT, Corresponding Secretary.

SUSAN W. FITZGERALD, Recording Secretary.

JESSIE ASHLEY, Treasurer.

KATHARINE DEXTER MCCORMICK, }Auditors.

HARRIET BURTON LAIDLAW, } ALICE STONE BLACKWELL, Editor of the _Woman's Journal_.

[73] History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III, page 31.

[74] Later the total deficit of $6,000 was paid by Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick of Boston, an officer of the National a.s.sociation.

[75] It was supposed at this time that the suffrage amendment had been carried in Michigan but the final returns indicated its defeat, apparently due to fraudulent voting and counting.

[76] It is a noteworthy fact that although woman suffrage was a leading issue in the presidential campaign of 1916 no officer of the National American Suffrage a.s.sociation took any public part in it, although the platform of each of the parties contained a plank endorsing woman suffrage.

[77] It was eight and a half years.

CHAPTER XIII.

NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1913.

The Forty-fifth annual convention of the National American Suffrage a.s.sociation met in Washington, November 29-December 5, 1913, in response to the Call of the Official Board.[78] The first day and evening were given to meetings of the board and committees, so that the convention really opened with a ma.s.s meeting in Columbia Theater Sunday afternoon at 3 o'clock and it was cordially welcomed by District Commissioner Newman. Dr. Shaw presided and a large and interested audience heard addresses by Miss Jane Addams, State Senator Helen Ring Robinson of Colorado, Miss Margaret Hinchey, a laundry worker, and Miss Rose Winslow, a stocking weaver of New York; Miss Mary Anderson, member of the executive board of the National Boot and Shoemakers' Union, and others. It was a comparatively new thing to have women wage-earners on the woman suffrage platform and their speeches made a deep impression, as that of Miss Hinchey, for instance, who said in part:

When we went to Albany to ask for votes one member of the Legislature told us that a woman's place was at home. Another said he had too much respect and admiration for women to see them at the polls. Another went back to Ancient Rome and told a story about Cornelia and her jewels--her children. Yet in the laundries women were working seventeen and eighteen hours a day, standing over heavy machines for $3 and $3.50 a week. Six dollars a week is the average wage of working women in the United States. How can a woman live an honorable life on such a sum? Is it any wonder that so many of our little sisters are in the gutter? When we strike for more pay we are clubbed by the police and by thugs hired by our employers, and in the courts our word is not taken and we are sent to prison. This is the respect and admiration shown to working girls in practice. I want to tell you about Cornelia as we find her case today. The agent of the Child Labor Society made an investigation in the tenements and found mothers with their small children sitting and standing around them--standing when they were too small to see the top of the table otherwise. They were working by a kerosene lamp and breathing its odor and they were all making artificial forget-me-nots. It takes 1,620 pieces of material to make a gross of forget-me-nots and the profit is only a few cents.

Four years ago 30,000 shirtwaist girls went on strike and when we went to Mayor McClellan to ask permission for them to have a parade he said: "Thirty thousand women are of no account to me."

If they had been 30,000 women with votes would he have said that?

We have in New York 14,000 women over sixty-five years old who must work or starve. What is done with them when their bones give out and they cannot work any more? The police gather them up and you may then see in jail, scrubbing hard, rough concrete floors that make their knees bleed--women who have committed no crime but being old and poor. Don't take my word for it but send a committee to Blackwell's Island or the Tombs and see for yourselves. We have a few Old Ladies' Homes but with most of them it would take a piece of red tape as long as from here to New York to get in. Give us a square deal so that we may take care of ourselves.

Miss Addams devoted her address to the great change that was taking place in the conception of politics. She called attention to the practical investigations which were being made in the education of children, in immigration, in criminology, in industrial conditions, and said: "This whole new social work can be translated into political action, and, with this, politics will be transformed and women will naturally have a share in it." She called attention to the pioneer days in various countries where women bore a full part in their hardships and to the revolutions in older countries where women fought by the side of the men, "and yet," she said, "when popular governments are established, women for considerations of expediency are left out.... But in the final program for social problems men and women will solve them together with ballots in the hands of both." Senator Robinson gave a keen and comprehensive account of Women as Legislators. The officers of the a.s.sociation held the usual Sunday evening reception to delegates and friends at Hotel Bellevue.

The 456 delegates, the largest number ever present at a convention, representing 34 States, were officially greeted Monday afternoon by Mrs. Nina Allender, president of the District of Columbia a.s.sociation, and Miss Alice Paul, chairman of the National Congressional Committee.