The History of Woman Suffrage Volume V Part 64

It is impossible in this brief s.p.a.ce to set forth the achievements of the Woman's Committee, Council of National Defense, whose chairman, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, was honorary president of the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation and had been for eleven years its president; two of whose members, Mrs. Catt and Mrs. McCormick, were now its president and vice-president, while five of the remaining eight were prominent suffragists. Its accomplishments were on so large a scale and embodied so much important detail that only a full review could do them justice. The facts attested to the work of an organization which built up branches in forty-eight States comprising 18,000 component units and capable in at least one instance of reaching as many as 82,000 women in a single State. The reader is referred to the excellent account by Mrs. Emily Newell Blair--The Woman's Committee, United States Council of National Defense, an interpretative report. (Government Printing Office.)

From the time Dr. Shaw called the first meeting, May 2, 1917, to the middle of March, 1919, the committee labored unceasingly to perform its great task. On New Year's Day, 1918, a telegram to Dr. Shaw from Queen Mary expressed the "thanks of the women of the British Empire for the inspiring words of encouragement and a.s.surance from the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense of America."

On Nov. 11, 1918, the Armistice was signed and on the 18th representatives of New York organizations of women met in the ball-room of the Hotel McAlpin at the call of Mrs. Catt. The second vice-president, Miss Mary Garrett Hay, presided and Mrs. Catt offered the following resolution:

"Whereas, the great war just ended has been a partnership of all the people of all belligerent countries composing two vast armies, one of soldiers in the trenches and one of civilians who formed a second line of defense to supply the needs of the fighters, thus making it possible to fight; and whereas, the war could not have been carried to a victorious conclusion without the aid of women in civilian activities, as is shown by the testimony of men in high authority in every belligerent land; and whereas, all truly civilized, intelligent people now wish to make a final end of war and to organize the forces of civilization so as to make future war impossible; and whereas, women compose half of society with very special and peculiar interests to be conserved and protected--all too frequently overlooked by men--therefore

Resolved, that we urge the President of the United States to give women adequate representation on the United States delegation to the Peace Conference to meet in Paris. We urge him to select women whose broad experience and sympathies render them competent to support and defend every point which bears upon the establishment of liberty for all the peoples of the world and especially upon the proper protection of women and children in peace and war. We urge him to select women who may be relied upon to uphold free representative inst.i.tutions, based upon the will of the people in every land in which independence is established, in order that democratic inst.i.tutions may make an end of war."

No attention was paid to this resolution by the President or the Government and no women were appointed on the Peace delegation as a recognition of their work and sacrifice.

The Woman's Committee gradually closed up its affairs and at a meeting on Feb. 12, 1919, Dr. Shaw was instructed to write to the Secretary of War that it believed its work to be at an end and tendered its resignation to take effect when, in the judgment of his Council, its services should no longer be required. This resignation was accepted by President Wilson on February 27 with a splendid tribute to the work of the committee. The announcement was formally made on March 15, and the committee pa.s.sed out of existence.[151] Two of its members, the chairman and the resident director, Miss Hannah J.

Patterson, received from the Government in May the distinguished service medal.

Secretary of War Newton D. Baker in a Foreword to Mrs. Blair's report said: "The chairman of the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense from the beginning was Dr. Anna Howard Shaw--ripened by a long life devoted intensely to the advocacy of great causes; cheered and heartened by recent victories for the greatest cause for which she had fought in her long and unusual life; loved and honored by her s.e.x as their leader and by men as a citizen combining in a rare degree high qualities of intellect, force of character and persuasive eloquence in speech. She and her committee wrought a work the like of which had never been seen before, and her reward was to see its success and then to be caught up as she was engaged in another high and fierce conflict into which she threw herself when hostilities ceased in order that this great work might be but a helpful part of a greater thing in the hope and history of mankind.... The Woman's Committee was the leader of the women of America. It informed and broadened the minds of women everywhere, and with no thought of propaganda it made an argument by producing results. The Council of National Defense fades out of this work and the Woman's Committee looms large--and yet larger still is the American woman...."

It was the earnest desire of Dr. Shaw and the suffragists that she might now give her important services to the Federal Suffrage Amendment, which was at a critical stage, but this hope could not be realized. Former President Taft and President Lowell of Harvard University, both of whom had done valuable work for the Peace Treaty and the League of Nations, were starting in May, 1919, on a speaking tour to advocate the League in fifteen States and they urged Dr. Shaw to cancel all other engagements and join them on this tour. For two years she had been giving her time and labor without price and now she had commenced again to fill her own lecture dates. She was going later to Spain as the guest of Dr. M. Carey Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College, for a well-earned and much-needed rest, but at this call everything was given up willingly and cheerfully to continue her service to her country. As the tour was arranged, every night was to be spent on a sleeping car and Dr. Shaw was to speak only once in twenty-four hours. She could not, however, resist the pleading of people in different cities and at Indianapolis she filled eight engagements of various kinds in one day. The following day at Springfield, Ills., she succ.u.mbed to her old foe, pneumonia. She received every possible care in the hospital and after two weeks recovered sufficiently to make the journey to her home at Moylan, Pennsylvania. She had, however, put too great a strain on her vital forces and died July 2, at the age of seventy-two.

Whatever may have been the unthinking verdict pa.s.sed upon suffragists and their activities prior to the World War, it was thereafter widely acknowledged that in the national crisis they played a leading role in the support and defense of the nation. While it is a matter for regret that their war record cannot be chronicled as fully and definitely as can their work for suffrage, nevertheless, even a casual examination will show that it was a heroic one and none the less so because it was frequently merged, through far-sighted efficiency, in the war-service of all American women, of which it formed a distinguished part.

FOOTNOTES:

[150] The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick, first vice-president of the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation and general chairman of its War Service Department.

[151] It was a question long and seriously discussed whether this vast organization should be wholly dissolved or whether it should be continued in the various States for civic and humanitarian purposes.

Dr. Shaw was strongly in favor of preserving it and her earnest appeal will be found in Mrs. Blair's Report, page 137.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III.

THE DEATH OF MRS. STANTON.

From the address of an old and valued friend, the Rev. Moncure D.

Conway of Virginia, who was many years at the head of the Ethical Culture Society of London, at the funeral of Elizabeth Cady Stanton in her home in New York City, Oct. 28, 1902.

A lighthouse on the human coast is fallen. To vast mult.i.tudes the name Elizabeth Cady Stanton does not mean so much a person as a standard inscribed with great principles. Roses will grow out of her ashes; individual characters will give a resurrection to her soul and genius, but the immortality she has achieved is that of her long and magnificent services to every cause of justice and reason. Beginning her career amid ridicule and obloquy, all the worth she put into her life has not only been returned to her personally in the love and friendship which have surrounded her and made life happy even to her last day, but has been returned to her tenfold in the successes of her cause.

Could I utter to her my farewell I would say: Revered and beloved friend, you pa.s.s to your rest after a brave and beautiful life; you have journeyed by a path of unsullied light. If ever there shall be established in America a republic--a Const.i.tution and Government free from all caste and privilege, whether of color, creed or s.e.x--its founders will be discovered not in those who purchased by their valor and blood mere independence of territory in which a government allied with slavery was founded, but among those who, while faithful to heart and home, toiled unweariedly for an ideal civilization.

A few touching words were spoken by the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, a contemporary in the early days of the movement for woman suffrage. At Woodlawn Cemetery the committal to earth was p.r.o.nounced by the Rev. Phoebe A. Hanaford, another companion in the long contest.

MISS ANTHONY'S LAST BIRTHDAY LETTER TO MRS. STANTON, WRITTEN A FEW DAYS BEFORE HER SUDDEN DEATH.

My Dear Mrs. Stanton:--

I shall indeed be happy to spend with you November 12, the day on which you round out your four-score and seven, over four years ahead of me, but in age as in all else I follow you closely. It is fifty-one years since first we met and we have been busy through every one of them, stirring up the world to recognize the rights of women. The older we grow the more keenly we feel the humiliation of disfranchis.e.m.e.nt and the more vividly we realize its disadvantages in every department of life and most of all in the labor market.

We little dreamed when we began this contest, optimistic with the hope and buoyancy of youth, that half a century later we would be compelled to leave the finish of the battle to another generation of women. But our hearts are filled with joy to know that they enter upon this task equipped with a college education, with business experience, with the fully admitted right to speak in public--all of which were denied to women fifty years ago. They have practically but one point to gain--the suffrage; we had all.

These strong, courageous, capable young women will take our place and complete our work. There is an army of them where we were but a handful. Ancient prejudice has become so softened, public sentiment so liberalized and women have so thoroughly demonstrated their ability as to leave not a shadow of doubt that they will carry our cause to victory.

And we, dear, old friend, shall move on to the next sphere of existence--higher and larger, we cannot fail to believe, and one where women will not be placed in an inferior position but will be welcomed on a plane of perfect intellectual and spiritual equality.

Ever lovingly yours, Susan B. Anthony.

Practically every magazine in the United States contained an article about Mrs. Stanton and her great work and there was scarcely a newspaper that did not have an editorial. An extended account, with tributes from Miss Anthony, will be found in her Life and Work, Chapter LXI.

In the _Review of Reviews_ for December, 1902, appeared an appreciation from the writer of these volumes.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV.

DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES.

The following Declaration of Principles, prepared by Mrs. Catt, Dr.

Shaw, Miss Blackwell and Mrs. Harper, was adopted by the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation in 1904.

When our forefathers gained the victory in a seven years' war to establish the principle that representation should go hand in hand with taxation, they marked a new epoch in the history of man; but though our foremothers bore an equal part in that long conflict its triumph brought to them no added rights and through all the following century and a quarter, taxation without representation has been continuously imposed on women by as great tyranny as King George exercised over the American colonists.

So long as no married woman was permitted to own property and all women were barred from the money-making occupations this discrimination did not seem so invidious; but to-day the situation is without a parallel. The women of the United States now pay taxes on real and personal estate valued at billions of dollars. In a number of individual States their holdings amount to many millions. Everywhere they are acc.u.mulating property. In hundreds of places they form one-third of the taxpayers, with the number constantly increasing, and yet they are absolutely without representation in the affairs of the nation, of the State, even of the community in which they live and pay taxes. We enter our protest against this injustice and we demand that the immortal principles established by the War of the Revolution shall be applied equally to women and men citizens.

As our new republic pa.s.sed into a higher stage of development the gross inequality became apparent of giving representation to capital and denying it to labor; therefore the right of suffrage was extended to the workingman. Now we demand for the 4,000,000 wage-earning women of our country the same protection of the ballot as is possessed by the wage-earning men.

The founders took an even broader view of human rights when they declared that government could justly derive its powers only from the consent of the governed, and for 125 years this grand a.s.sertion was regarded as a corner-stone of the republic, with scarcely a recognition of the fact that one-half of the citizens were as completely governed without their consent as were the people of any absolute monarchy in existence. It was only when our government was extended over alien races in foreign countries that our people awoke to the meaning of the principles of the Declaration of Independence. In response to its provisions, the Congress of the United States hastened to invest with the power of consent the men of this new territory, but committed the flagrant injustice of withholding it from the women. We demand that the ballot shall be extended to the women of our foreign possessions on the same terms as to the men. Furthermore, we demand that the women of the United States shall no longer suffer the degradation of being held not so competent to exercise the suffrage as a Filipino, a Hawaiian or a Porto Rican man.

The remaining Territories within the United States are insisting upon admission into the Union on the ground that their citizens desire "the right to select their own governing officials, choose their own judges, name those who are to make their laws and levy, collect, and disburse their taxes." These are just and commendable desires but we demand that their women shall have full recognition as citizens when these Territories are admitted and that their const.i.tutions shall secure to women precisely the same rights as to men.

When our government was founded the rudiments of education were thought sufficient for women, since their entire time was absorbed in the mult.i.tude of household duties. Now the number of girls graduated by the high schools greatly exceeds the number of boys in every State and the percentage of women students in the colleges is vastly larger than that of men. Meantime most of the domestic industries have been taken from the home to the factory and hundreds of thousands of women have followed them there, while the more highly trained have entered the professions and other avenues of skilled labor. We demand that under this new regime, and in view of these changed conditions in which she is so important a factor woman shall have a voice and a vote in the solution of their innumerable problems.

The laws of practically every State provide that the husband shall select the place of residence for the family, and if the wife refuse to abide by his choice she forfeits her right to support and her refusal shall be regarded as desertion. We protest against the recent decision of the courts which has added to this injustice by requiring the wife also to accept for herself the citizenship preferred by her husband, thus compelling a woman born in the United States to lose her nationality if her husband choose to declare his allegiance to a foreign country.

As women form two-thirds of the church membership of the entire nation; as they const.i.tute but one-eleventh of the convicted criminals; as they are rapidly becoming the educated cla.s.s and as the salvation of our government depends upon a moral, law-abiding, educated electorate, we demand for the sake of its integrity and permanence that women be made a part of its voting body.

In brief, we demand that all const.i.tutional and legal barriers shall be removed which deny to women any individual right or personal freedom which is granted to man. This we ask in the name of a democratic and a republican government, which, its const.i.tution declares, was formed "to establish justice and secure the blessings of liberty."

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VII.

THE ANTHONY MEMORIAL BUILDING IN ROCHESTER, N.Y.

Shortly after the death of Susan B. Anthony a group of her co-workers and other friends in Rochester set out to raise a fund for the purpose of erecting, as a memorial to her, a building for the use of women students at the University of Rochester. This seemed to them especially fitting, as Miss Anthony had been intensely interested and very active in the raising of the Co-education Fund which admitted women students to the University in 1900.[152] Endors.e.m.e.nt of this plan and the use of their names were given by her sister, Mary S.

Anthony, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw and many well known women throughout this country and several from over-seas.

A Memorial a.s.sociation was formed with an executive committee of Rochester women[153] but very little organized committee work was done. Suffragists were by this time too busy with the growing intensity of their own campaigns and said, truly enough, that Miss Anthony would much rather they would spend their time and money for the cause. However, an appeal was issued, coupon books were scattered among many women's organizations and individuals and the chairman of the committee addressed her personal appeal to every club and conference that would give her a hearing.