The History of Woman Suffrage Volume V Part 67

It is literally true that a nation mourned the death of Anna Howard Shaw. Having lectured from ocean to ocean for several decades she was universally known and there were few newspapers which did not contain a sympathetic editorial on her public and personal life. Telegrams were received at her home from all parts of the world and the letters were almost beyond counting. Friend and foe alike yielded to the unsurpa.s.sed charm of her personality and the rare qualities of her mind and heart.

In February, 1919, the Woman's Council of National Defense, of which Dr. Shaw had been chairman since its beginning in April, 1917, dissolved with its duties ended. For the past two years she had practically given up her platform work for woman suffrage, then at its most critical stage with the Federal Amendment pending. Now she had made a large number of speaking engagements for the spring in its behalf and had accepted the invitation of Dr. M. Carey Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College, to be her guest on a trip to Spain afterwards. Everything was put aside when in May came an urgent request from former President Taft and President Lowell, of Harvard University, to join them in a speaking tour of fourteen States from New Hampshire to Kansas to arouse sentiment in favor of the League of Nations as a means of a.s.suring peace forevermore. She was to speak but once a day but she could not resist the appeals in the different cities and it became four or five times a day. At Indianapolis she made speeches, gave interviews, etc., eight times. The next day at Springfield, Ill., she was stricken with pneumonia and was in the hospital two weeks. By June 12 she was able to leave for her home in Moylan, a residence suburb of Philadelphia, with her beloved friend and companion, Lucy Anthony, who had gone to her and who wrote to anxious friends: "She made the journey without even a rise of temperature, found the house all bright with sunshine and flowers and was the happiest person in the world to be at home again." She seemed to recover entirely but on June 30 had a sudden relapse and died at 7 o'clock on the evening of July 2.

DR. SHAW'S TRIBUTE TO THE AMERICAN FLAG, GIVEN MANY TIMES.

"This is the American flag. It is a piece of bunting and why is it that, when it is surrounded by the flags of all other nations, your eyes and mine turn first toward it and there is a warmth at our hearts such as we do not feel when we gaze on any other flag?

It is not because of the beauty of its colors, for the flags of England and France which hang beside it have the same colors. It is not because of its artistic beauty, for other flags are as artistic. It is because you and I see in that piece of bunting what we see in no other. It is not visible to the human eye but it is to the human soul.

"We see in every stripe of red the blood which has been shed through the centuries by men and women who have sacrificed their lives for the idea of democracy; we see in every stripe of white the purity of the democratic ideal toward which all the world is tending, and in every star in its field of blue we see the hope of mankind that some day the democracy which that bit of bunting symbolizes shall permeate the lives of men and nations, and we love it because it enfolds our ideals of human freedom and justice."

In 1917. "It is because we love our country so much and because we are so anxious to give ourselves entirely to the great service of winning the war, that we want the freedom of American women now. We suffragists would be thrice traitors if at this time of the great struggle of the world for democracy we should fail to ask for the fundamental principles here which America is trying to help bring to other countries."

When Dr. Shaw received the Distinguished Service Medal from Secretary of War Baker she said: "I realize that in conferring upon me the Distinguished Service Medal, the President and the Secretary of War are not expressing their appreciation of what I as an individual have done but of the collective service of the women of the county. As it is impossible to decorate all women who have served equally with the Chairman of the Woman's Committee, I have been chosen, and while I appreciate the honor and am prouder to wear this decoration than to receive any other recognition save my political freedom, which is the first desire of a loyal American, I nevertheless look upon this as the beginning of the recognition by the country of the service and loyalty of women, and above all that the part women are called upon to take in times of war is recognized as equally necessary in times of peace.

This departure on the part of the national government through the President and Secretary of War gives the greater promise of the time near at hand when every citizen of the United States will be esteemed a government a.s.set because of his or her loyalty and service rather than because of s.e.x."

Dr. Shaw was a valued member of the executive committee of the League to Enforce Peace, under whose auspices she was making the tour with former President Taft and President Lowell of Harvard University, and it sent her a transcript of her speech to revise for publication. This she did on the last Sunday of her life and the committee prepared tens of thousands of copies of it for circulation. It was ent.i.tled What the War Meant to Women and mere extracts can give little idea of its strength and beauty. After speaking of the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense, the Peace Treaty and President Wilson's declaration that the United States did not want any material advantage out of the war, she ended:

While Mr. Wilson declared we want nothing out of the war, I said in my own heart: "It may be that we want nothing material out of the war, but, oh, we want the biggest thing that has ever come to the world--we want Peace now and Peace forever." If we cannot get that peace out of this war what hope is there that it will ever come to humanity? Was there ever such a chance offered to the world before? Was there ever a time when the peoples of all nations looked towards America as they are looking to-day because of our unselfishness in our dealings with them during the war? We have not always been unselfish but we have been in this war.

The war is over as far as the fighting is concerned but it is only begun as far as the life of the people is concerned. What would there be of inspiration to them to come back to their ruined homes and build up again their cities if within a few years the same thing could be repeated and homes destroyed and cities devastated, the people outraged and made slaves as they have been?

Men and women, they are looking to us as the hope of the world and whenever I gaze on our flag, whenever I look on those stars on their field of blue and those stripes of red and white, I say to myself: "I do not wonder that when that flag went over the trenches and surmounted the barriers, the people of the world took heart of hope. It was then that they began to feel they could unite with us in some sort of security for the future. And that flag means so much to me. I never look on its stars but that I see in every star the hope that must stir the peoples of the old world when they think of us and the power we have of helping to lead them up to a place where they may hope for their children and for their children's children the things that have not come to them." ...

We women, the mothers of the race, have given everything, have suffered everything, have sacrificed everything and we say to you now: "The time is come when we will no longer sit quietly by and bear and rear sons to die at the will of a few men. We will not endure it. We demand either that you shall do something to prevent war or that we shall be permitted to try to do something ourselves." Could there be any cowardice, could there be any injustice, could there be any wrong, greater than for men to refuse to hear the voice of a woman expressing the will of women at the peace table of the world and then not provide a way by which the women of the future shall not be robbed of their sons as the women of the past have been?

To you men we look for support. We look for your support back of your Senators and from this day until the day when the League of Nations is accepted and ratified by the Senate of the United States, it should be the duty of every man and every woman to see that the Senators from their State know the will of the people; know that the people will that something shall be done, even though not perfect; that there shall be a beginning from which we shall construct something more perfect by and by; that the will of the people is that this League shall be accepted and that if, in the Senate of the United States, there are men so blinded by partisan desire for present advantage, so blinded by personal pique and narrowness of vision, that they cannot see the large problems which involve the nations of the world, then the people of the States must see to it that other men sit in the seats of the highest.

In the beautiful Memorial issued by the Board of Directors of the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation were affectionate tributes from those who were officially a.s.sociated with her for many years. Among the many from eminent men and women which were reproduced in the Memorial were the following:

It was not my privilege to know Dr. Shaw until the later years of her life but I had the advantage then of seeing her in many lights. I saw her acting with such vigor and intelligence in the service of the Government, and, through the Government, of mankind, as to win my warmest admiration. I had already had occasion to see the extraordinary quality of her clear and effective mind and to know how powerful and persuasive an advocate she was. When the war came I saw her in action and she won my sincere admiration and homage.

WOODROW WILSON, President of the United States.

(President and Mrs. Wilson, who were on the way home from France, sent a wireless message of sympathy and a handsome floral tribute from the White House.)

The world is infinitely poorer by the death of so great and good a woman.

THOMAS R. MARSHALL, Vice-President of the United States.

Dr. Anna Howard Shaw was a member of the Executive Committee of the League to Enforce Peace. She was constant in her attendance, full of suggestion and earnest in support of the cause. It was my great pleasure to speak with her from many a platform in favor of the League and to enjoy the very great privilege of listening to her persuasive eloquence and her genial wit and humor, which she always used to enforce her arguments. She thought nothing of the sacrifice she had to make and was only intent upon the consummation of our purpose. She was a remarkable woman. I deeply regret her death. There were many avenues of great usefulness which a continuance of her life would have enabled her to pursue.

Her going is a great loss to the community.

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT, President of the League to Enforce Peace.

I desire officially to pay tribute to the pa.s.sing of Dr. Shaw.

Aside from her epic contribution to the cause of progressive American womanhood it is in no sense perfunctory to say that whether in war time Washington, organizing and directing the eighteen thousand units of the Woman's Committee of National Defense, or with indomitable courage and power going up and down the country pleading great public causes relating to the war, this woman of seventy years was an inspiration to all of us.

There was no one in American life who epitomized more finely Roosevelt's philosophy that in the public arena one must to the uttermost spend and be spent. It was a magnificent and enduring trail that Dr. Shaw blazed. Everywhere her endeavors had the impersonal and unselfish touch that marks the great protagonist of new ideals. She was a gallant and stirring figure in the history of this country and leaves the government of the United States distinctly in her debt.

GROSVENOR B. CLARKSON, Director United States Council National Defense.

As a member of the Council of National Defense I wish to express my very sincere appreciation of the patriotic service that Dr.

Shaw rendered during the past two years, the magnitude of which cannot be appreciated except by those intimately familiar with it. Her distinguished service medal was well earned.

FRANKLIN K. LANE, Secretary of the Interior.

I hardly know how to write you about the death of our dear Anna Howard Shaw. She has been such a tower of strength to our cause everywhere and now her place knows her no more! There is one comfort in that she lived long enough to know of the triumph of your cause in the pa.s.sage of the Federal Amendment. She will be sorely missed and deeply mourned, first and foremost in America and Great Britain, but really all over the world, in every country where woman's cause is a living issue.

MILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT, Honorary President, National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship of Great Britain.

My deepest sorrow and sympathy go out to the family of Dr. Shaw, to the National Council of Women of the United States and to the International Council and the Woman Suffrage Alliance. Her pa.s.sing is indeed a great loss to the women of the whole world.

ISHBEL ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR, President International Council of Women.

Truly all womanhood has lost a faithful friend.

ELIZABETH C. CARTER, President Northeastern Federation of Women's Clubs (colored).

Loving and appreciative tributes were sent from the officers of National and International a.s.sociations in all parts of the world.

APPENDIX FOR CHAPTER XX.

APPEAL OF PRESIDENT WILSON TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES TO SUBMIT THE FEDERAL AMENDMENT FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE DELIVERED IN PERSON SEPT. 30, 1918.

Gentlemen of the Senate: The unusual circ.u.mstances of a World War in which we stand and are judged in the view not only of our own people and our own consciences but also in the view of all nations and peoples, will, I hope, justify in your thought, as it does in mine, the message I have come to bring you.

I regard the concurrence of the Senate in the const.i.tutional amendment proposing the extension of the suffrage to women as vitally essential to the successful prosecution of the great war of humanity in which we are engaged. I have come to urge upon you the considerations which have led me to that conclusion. It is not only my privilege, it is also my duty to apprise you of every circ.u.mstance and element involved in this momentous struggle which seems to me to affect its very processes and its outcome. It is my duty to win the war and to ask you to remove every obstacle that stands in the way of winning it.

I had a.s.sumed that the Senate would concur in the amendment, because no disputable principle is involved but only a question of the method by which the suffrage is to be now extended to women. There is and can be no party issue involved in it. Both of our great national parties are pledged, explicitly pledged, to equality of suffrage for the women of the country.