The first great demonstration of the Congressional Committee—the procession of March 3—had been designed to attract the eye of the country to the Suffragists. It succeeded beyond their wildest hopes. Thereafter it became a part of the policy of the Congressional Committee—later, the Congressional union, and later still, the National Woman’s Party—to keep the people watching the Suffragists. The main work of the Congressional Committee, however, focussed directly on Congress, as of course Congress alone could pass a Constitutional Amendment. They appealed to Congress constantly, by different methods, and through different avenues. They appealed to Congress through the President of the United States, through political leaders, through constituents. It is one way of describing their system to say that they worked on Congress by a series of electric shocks delivered to it downwards from the President, and by a constant succession of waves delivered upwards through the people. This pressure never ceased for a moment. It accumulated in power as the six years of this work went on.
When President Wilson arrived in Washington for his inauguration, the first thing brought to his notice was Suffrage agitation. The Congressional Committee thereafter kept Suffrage constantly before him. If not actually opposed to Suffrage in 1913, Woodrow Wilson had every appearance of opposition; certainly he was utterly indifferent to it. But Alice Paul believed that he was amenable to education on the subject, and she proceeded to educate him. Her theory proved to be true, but the process took 32longer than she had anticipated. Her methods of course aroused storms of criticism; but in the end they triumphed. The President’s action during the six years’ siege was the attitude of all politicians. That is to say, for a long time he made general statements of a vaguely encouraging nature to the Suffragists, but for a long time he actually did nothing. Every accepted method of convincing him of the justice of the cause was tried. Deputation after deputation waited on him and stated their case. Then he began to move. He came out for Woman Suffrage as a principle; he voted for it in New Jersey but he still believed that the enfranchisement of woman must come by States. In 1917, his position, except for these minor admissions, was exactly that of 1913. As far as the Suffrage Amendment was concerned, he had not budged an inch. The Woman’s Party then tried desperate remedies and afterward more and more desperate remedies. These always produced results—towards the end, immediate results. But at the beginning of this period, the Suffragists found that the instant they relaxed, the President relaxed; his attention departed from Suffrage. This always happened. Then the Congressional Committee began to exert a little more pressure, and the President’s attention came back to Suffrage. In the long attacking process to which Alice Paul subjected him, she put him in untenable position after untenable position. He moved from each one of them by some new concession. In the end, he himself procured the last vote necessary to pass the Amendment in the Senate.
Alice Paul admires Woodrow Wilson profoundly. She admires his powers of leadership; his ideals; his persistence; his steadfastness; his resolution. “He is a man,” she says, “who considers one thing at a time. Suffrage was not in his thought at all until we, ourselves, injected it there. And it was not in the center of his thought until the picketing was well along.” She believed always that, when the President was made to think that he must act in regard to Suffrage, he would put it through.
33Immediately after his inauguration, President Wilson announced that a special session of Congress would be called on April 7. At once the Congressional Committee decided to bring to his attention the fact that there was no subject which more urgently demanded treatment in this session than Woman Suffrage. Three deputations were therefore organized to ask him to recommend the Federal Amendment in the message by which he should convene this special session. These deputations—and all subsequent ones—were organized by Alice Paul.
The first deputation waited on President Wilson on March 17. This deputation consisting of four women was led by Alice Paul herself. Although individual Suffragists had interviewed previous presidents, this was the first deputation which had ever appeared with a request for action before a President of the United States. President Wilson’s reply to their remarks was that the subject would receive his most careful attention.
The episode was one of the most amusing of the early history of the Congressional Committee. The President received the deputation in the White House offices. When they entered, they found four chairs arranged in a row with one in front of them, like a class about to be addressed by a teacher. The atmosphere was so tense that all the women felt it and were frightened. Alice Paul spoke first and said that women wanted Suffrage considered by Congress at once, as the most important issue before the country. All spoke in turn. One woman was so terrified that she petrified when her turn came. “Don’t be nervous,” the President reassured her and she finally proceeded. To this first group the President made the statement that so astounded Suffragists all over the country—that Suffrage had never been brought to his attention, that the matter was entirely new. He added that he did not know his position and would like all information possible on the subject.
The Congressional Committee gave him time to give the subject this careful attention, and then a second deputation 34waited on the President on March 28 to furnish him with the information he lacked. This deputation was led by Elsie Hill, and it represented the College Equal Suffrage League. The President replied to their remarks that this session of Congress would be so occupied with the tariff and the currency that the Suffrage measure could not be considered.
A third deputation waited on the President on March 31. It was led by Dr. Cora Smith King, and it was composed of influential members of the National Council of Women Voters. This delegation told the President that the women voters, who numbered approximately two million, were much interested in the proposed Suffrage Amendment. They also asked him to recommend it in his message. His reply to them was the same as to the college women: that this special session would be so occupied with the tariff and currency that the Suffrage measure could not be considered.
In the meantime, the Congressional Committee had notified Suffragists all over the United States that a Suffrage Amendment would be introduced in this special session of Congress; asking them to urge the President to indorse Suffrage in his forthcoming message; and to request their Representative in Congress to support Suffrage when it was introduced. Letters poured into Washington from the remotest corners of the country.
This was the beginning of that intimacy which the Congressional Committee—afterwards the Congressional union, afterwards the National Woman’s Party—established with its sympathizers and members all over the country. In the nature of things—the political situation being changeable, and demanding always subtle, delicate, and often swift and decisive handling—the actual work at Washington had to be planned and executed by a limited number. But those few must be able, forceful, and swiftly executive spirits. Their adherents all over the country were however kept as closely and constantly as possible in touch with that changing situation.
35In addition, the Congressional Committee did all possible preliminary work with the incoming members of this Congress. The result on the Progressive members was encouraging. Although there was a Woman Suffrage Committee in the Senate, there was none in the House. Thitherto, the Suffrage question had been sent to the Judiciary Committee, the graveyard of the House. As a result of the work of the Congressional Committee, the Progressive Caucus, which met before the new Congress assembled, gave its unqualified indorsement to the proposal to create a Woman Suffrage Committee in the House. The Congressional Committee canvassed the Democratic members of the House and urged them to take similar action. The Democratic Caucus, however, entirely ignored the question.
Having brought Suffrage to the attention of the new President by the monster procession of March 3, the Congressional Committee proceeded to bring it to the attention of the new Congress by a second great demonstration. This was in support of the Federal Amendment, and it took place on the opening day of the special session of the Sixty-third Congress, April 7, 1913. Delegates from each of the 435 Congressional districts in the United States assembled at Washington, bringing petitions from the men and women of their districts, asking for the passing of the Amendment. After the mass-meeting, the delegates marched, each behind her State banner, to the doors of Congress. The procession was greeted at the steps of the Capitol by a group of Congressmen. One of them welcomed the petitioners in a speech pledging his support to their cause. They then led the delegation into the Rotunda, where a long receiving line of members of Congress repeated his welcome. The Suffragists took places which had been set aside for them in the galleries of the Senate and the House and watched the presentation of the petitions.
Immediately after the petitions were presented, Representative Mondell (Republican) of Wyoming, and Senator Chamberlain (Democrat) of Oregon introduced the Suffrage 36Amendment. In the Senate this resolution was referred to the Woman’s Suffrage Committee, and in the House to the Judiciary Committee. Named, as is customary, after those who introduced it, the measure was known first as the Chamberlain-Mondell Amendment, and later as the Bristow-Mondell Amendment. It was in reality the famous Susan B. Anthony Amendment—first introduced into Congress in 1878 by Senator Sargent of California—exactly as she drew it up. The Anthony Amendment runs as follows:
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by any State on account of sex.
Section 2. Congress shall have power by appropriate legislation to enforce the provisions of this article.
On that same day—April 7, 1913—resolutions were introduced in the House to create a Woman Suffrage Committee similar to that in the Senate. This was only a tiny gain; for that Committee was not actually created until September, 1917. But a little later occurred what was a decided gain—the Senate created a Majority Committee on Woman Suffrage. The Woman Suffrage Committee in the Senate had been a Minority Committee thitherto. That meant that, as its Chairman belonged to the Minority Party, its existence was purely nominal.
All these four months, the five women who constituted the Congressional Committee had been working at a tremendous speed. They had been made into a Committee on the understanding that the Committee would itself raise the money necessary for its work. Four months’ experience had convinced them that the work of securing a Federal Amendment required a much greater effort than five women, working alone, could possibly give to it. The various State associations composing the National American Woman Suffrage Association were engrossed in their State campaigns. Little could be expected from them in the way 37of personal service or financial aid. When the Congressional Committee appealed to individuals, they found that these individuals were giving their time and service to the particular State in which they lived. The Congressional Committee realized that they must have an organization back of them to assist with work and money, whose sole object was national work. The Congressional union for Woman Suffrage was therefore formed by the Congressional Committee, with the approval of the President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
The Congressional union described itself as “a group of women in all parts of the country who have joined together in the effort to secure the passage of an Amendment to the United States Constitution enfranchising women.” It offered its members the privilege of making the offices at Washington their headquarters while in the city. It adopted colors—at the happy suggestion of Mrs. John Jay White—of purple, white, and gold. The union grew rapidly, and was later admitted as an auxiliary to the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The Congressional Committee acted as the Executive Committee of this Congressional union. Throughout the year the union was of great assistance to the Committee. It reinforced its work in every possible way.
The Suffrage resolution was now before the Committees in both Houses. The Congressional union concentrated on securing a hearing before the Senate Committee. Every effort was made to focus the attention of Suffragists and of the country at large on the situation. A hearing was arranged before the Committee, at which Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, presided. In addition to this public hearing, the members of the Senate Committee were interviewed. And pursuing its course of keeping Suffragists in touch with what was happening at Washington, the Congressional Committee circularized Suffragists all over the country with 38letters which informed them that the resolution was before the Senate Committee, and asked them to write to this Committee urging a favorable report.
After six months of work occurred the first political triumph of the Congressional union. On May 13, the Senate Committee voted to make a favorable report upon the Suffrage resolution. There, however, matters rested—with a favorable vote, but still in the Committee. The Suffragists, however, besieged the Committee with requests to make the report and finally, on June 13, the report was made to the Senate—the first favorable one in twenty-one years. This put the measure on the Senate Calendar.
Immediately the Congressional union turned its attention to proving to the Senate how widespread was the support of this measure in the United States.
A petition was circulated in every State in the union. It asked for the passage of the Amendment, and was addressed to the Senate. Thousands of signatures were obtained. During June and July, these petitions were collected and brought to Washington. Their arrival at the Capitol on July 31 was the occasion of the third great demonstration. The petitioners came from every State, and they came in every possible way. They came by train, by motor, by caravan. They held meetings and collected signatures to the great petition in the districts through which they passed. All the delegations converged in the little town of Hyattsville, outside Washington. There—at the village grandstand, they were met by members of the Congressional union and of the Woman Suffrage Committee of the Senate. The reading clerk of the House of Representatives announced the members of the delegations as they arrived in their several motors. Members of the Senate Committee addressed them on behalf of the Congressional Committee of the Congressional union. The Mayor of Hyattsville delivered to them the key of the town. Mary Ware Dennett replied for the delegates, and accepted the key of the town from the Mayor. The automobiles then formed into a procession, 39of which the first motor carried the members of the Senate Committee. The long line of cars, fluttering flags, and pennants, and each bearing the banner of its State delegation, proceeded from Hyattsville along the old Bunker Hill Road to the Capitol. There, the petitions were handed to the various Senators. Three Senators spoke against Suffrage, but twenty-two in presenting the petitions spoke in favor of it.
This was the second triumph of the Congressional union. Suffrage was debated in Congress—the first time since 1887.
The Congressional Committee now turned its attention to the work of convincing Congress of the interest in the Amendment of the women voters of the West. A Convention of the National Council of Women Voters was held in Washington on August 13, 14, and 15. Emma Smith Devoe, National President of the Council, and Jane Addams, National Vice-President, presided. Upon a motion by Jane Addams, the Council passed the following Resolution, strongly indorsing the Amendment:
Whereas at the present time one-fifth of the Senate, one-seventh of the House, and one-sixth of the electoral vote comes from equal Suffrage States; and
Whereas, as a result of this political strength in Congress, due to the fact that four million women of the United States are now enfranchised, there is great hope of the passage in the near future of the Federal Suffrage Amendment; therefore be it
Resolved, That the National Council of Women Voters concentrate its efforts upon the support of this Federal Amendment.
The Rules Committee of the House of Representatives on August 14 then gave the Council a hearing on the question of creating a Suffrage Committee in the House.
The Convention ended in a mass-meeting at the Belasco Theatre, which, in spite of the midsummer heat of Washington, was crowded to the doors. The platform was filled with Congressmen from Suffrage States. The women speakers iterated and reiterated the demand of the women 40voters of the West for immediate action by Congress, and the Congressmen supported them.
In addition to these—processions, pilgrimages, petitions, deputations, and hearings, hundreds of public meetings organized by the Washington Headquarters—were held everywhere. A constant series of deputations from their own constituencies besieged the members of the Senate. All this was making its inevitable impression on Congress. Those days of the Sixty-third Congressional Session were crowded ones. The President had told the Suffragists that so much time must be given to the tariff and the currency that there would be none left for Women Suffrage. Yet more time was devoted to the Woman Suffrage question than ever before. On September 18, Senator Wesley L. Jones of Washington delivered a speech in the Senate, in which he urged that the Suffrage Resolution should be passed. In the House, a number of Representatives formerly opposed to the resolution now declared that they would support it when it came before them.
In the meantime, the tariff and currency had finally been disposed of. A new Congress was to convene on December 1. Ever since his inauguration, Suffrage agitation of a strong, dignified, and convincing character had been brought to the President’s attention. Suffragists hoped, therefore, that the President would feel that he could recommend the Suffrage Amendment to this new Congress. They decided, however, to present the matter to him in a forcible way. A fourth deputation of seventy-three women from his own State of New Jersey came to Washington in the middle of November.
This delegation arrived on Saturday afternoon, November 15. Until Monday morning, they tried in every possible way to arrange for an appointment with the President at the White House. Representative McCoy of New Jersey endeavored to assist them in this matter. Their efforts and his efforts were fruitless.
Monday morning, at 10 o’clock, Alice Paul telephoned 41the Executive Office that, as it was impossible to find out what hour would suit the convenience of the President, the delegation was on its way to the White House. She explained that they would wait there until the President was ready to receive them, or would definitely refuse to do so. The clerk at the Executive Office declared over the telephone that it would be impossible to see the President without an appointment. He assured Alice Paul that such a thing had never been done. Representative McCoy called up Headquarters, and reported his failure to secure an appointment. On being told that the delegation was going to call on the President anyway, he protested vehemently against its proceeding to the White House without the usual official preliminaries. Alice Paul’s answer was a single statement,—“The delegation has already started.”
In double file the seventy-three New Jersey women marched through Fifteenth Street, through Pennsylvania Avenue, past the Treasury Department, and up to the White House grounds. And, lo, as though their coming spread paralyzing magic, everything gave way before them. Two guards in uniform stood at the gate. They saluted and moved aside. The seventy-three women marched unchallenged through the grounds to the door of the Executive Office. An attendant there requested them courteously to wait until after their two leaders should be presented to the President by his Secretary.
The request that these seventy-three New Jersey women made to President Wilson was that he should support the Constitutional Amendment enfranchising women. President Wilson replied: “I am pleased, indeed, to greet you and your adherents here, and I will say to you that I was talking only yesterday with several Members of Congress in regard to the Suffrage Committee in the House. The subject is one in which I am deeply interested, and you may rest assured that I will give it my earnest attention.”
It is to be seen that the President’s education had progressed—a little. To previous delegations, he had stated 42merely that the tariff and currency would take so much of the attention of Congress that there would be no time for the Suffrage question. In advocating a Suffrage Committee in the House, he had made an advance—tiny, to be sure, but an advance.
In the last month of 1913 occurred in Washington the Forty-fifth Annual Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The Convention opened with a mass-meeting at the Columbia Theatre. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw presided. Jane Addams and Senator Helen Ring Robinson were the principal speakers. At the opening meeting of the Convention, Lucy Burns repeated the warning of the Congressional union to the Democratic Party:
The National American Women Suffrage Association is assembled in Washington to ask the Democratic Party to enfranchise the women of America.
Rarely in the history of the country has a party been more powerful than the Democratic Party is today. It controls the Executive Office, the Senate, and more than two-thirds of the members of the House of Representatives. It is in a position to give us effective and immediate help.
We ask the Democrats to take action now. Those who hold power are responsible to the country for the use of it. They are responsible, not only for what they do, but for what they do not do. Inaction establishes just as clear a record as does a policy of open hostility.
We have in our hands today not only the weapon of a just case; we have the support of ten enfranchised States—States comprising one-fifth of the United States, one-seventh of the House of Representatives and one-sixth of the electoral vote. More than three million, six hundred thousand women have a vote in Presidential elections. It is unthinkable that a national government which represents women, and which appeals periodically to the Suffrages of women, should ignore the issue of their right to political freedom.
We cannot wait until after the passage of the scheduled administration reforms. These reforms, which affect women, should not be enacted without the consent of women. Congress is free to take action on our question in the present Session. We ask 43the administration to support the Woman Suffrage Amendment in Congress with its full strength.
On December 4, a second meeting was held before the Rules Committee of the House on the creation of a Woman Suffrage Committee in the House of Representatives. Ida Husted Harper reminded the Rules Committee at this hearing that nine States and one Territory had enfranchised their women, and that nearly four million women could vote at a Presidential election. Mary Beard showed by an analysis of the vote which sent President Wilson to the White House that the Democratic strength was already threatened, and how it could strengthen itself by espousing the Suffrage Cause.
Notwithstanding the appeal of the seventy-three New Jersey women, the President’s message to Congress on December 2 failed to make any mention whatever of the Suffrage Amendment.
In consequence, a Committee representing each State in the union was appointed by the Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association to wait upon the President and protest. President Wilson was prevented by illness from seeing any visitors during the week the Convention met. The Convention, therefore, authorized the appointment of a Committee of fifty-five delegates, who should remain in Washington until the President was able to see them. The interview took place the following Monday at 12:30. This was the fifth deputation to President Wilson. The President said, according to the Washington Post of December 9:
I want you ladies, if possible—if I can make it clear to you—to realize just what my present position is. Whenever I walk abroad, I realize that I am not a free man; I am under arrest. I am so carefully and admirably guarded that I have not even the privilege of walking the street. That is, as it were, typical of my present transference from being an individual with his mind on any and every subject, to being an official of a great Government and, incidentally, or so it falls out under our system 44of Government, the spokesman of a Party. I set myself this strict rule when I was Governor of New Jersey and have followed it as President, and shall follow it as President, that I am not at liberty to urge upon Congress policies which have not had the organic consideration of those for whom I am spokesman.
In other words, I have not yet presented to any legislature my private views on any subject, and I never shall; because I conceive that to be a part of the whole process of government, that I shall be spokesman for somebody, not for myself.
When I speak for myself, I am an individual; when I speak for an organic body, I am a representative. For that reason you see, I am by my own principles shut out, in the language of the street, from starting anything. I have to confine myself to those things which have been embodied as promises to the people at an election. That is the strict rule I set for myself.
I want to say that with regard to all other matters I am not only glad to be consulted by my colleagues in the two Houses, but I hope that they will often pay me the compliment of consulting me when they want to know my opinions on any subject. One member of the Rules Committee did come to ask me what I thought about this suggestion of yours of appointing a special committee for consideration of the question of Woman Suffrage, and I told him that I thought it was a proper thing to do. So that as far as my personal advice has been asked by a single member of the Committee, it has been given to that effect. I wanted to tell you that to show you that I am strictly living up to my principles. When my private opinion is asked by those who are co-operating with me, I am most glad to give it; but I am not at liberty until I speak for somebody besides myself to urge legislation upon the Congress.
Dr. Shaw stepped forward to address the President within the circle of deeply attentive hearers, spoke very quietly and firmly in her clear and beautiful voice.
“Of the two—the President and Dr. Shaw,” said one of the spectators afterward, “Dr. Shaw spoke with greater authority, as if with the consciousness of a perfectly just cause. The President was less assured, more hesitating.”...
“As women are members of no political Party, to whom are they to look for a spokesman?” Dr. Shaw asked.
45“You speak very well for yourself,” said the President, laughing.
“But not with authority,” said Dr. Shaw earnestly.
The deputation then left the President’s Office.
Editorially in the Suffragist of December 13 appears:
The rule that President Wilson has so strictly set for himself, is a rule not laid down in the Constitution nor in the practice of preceding Presidents, nor in the President’s own acts, nor in his own words.
Nevertheless, the statement of President Wilson to the President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association is of great value to the Suffrage movement. The President therein declares that he is only the spokesman of his Party and that he will initiate only legislation which has been endorsed by his Party. He puts the whole question of Federal legislation for Woman Suffrage directly up to the Democratic Party in Congress, and instructs Suffragists throughout the country to hold that Party responsible for the fate of the Constitutional Amendment enfranchising women. He has outlined for us, therefore, the policy of bringing effective pressure to bear on the national Democratic Party from all parts of the country, in an effort to make them realize soon what they must recognize finally, that it is more expedient for them as a Party to advocate Suffrage than to ignore and resist it.
Nevertheless, the President’s education had progressed another step. For the first time, he felt the necessity of explaining—and by implication—of excusing himself.
This visit to the President completed the principal work of the year 1913 on the part of the Congressional Committee and the Congressional union.
Many things had been done in this year, in addition to what has already been indicated. A district of Columbia Branch of the Men’s League for Woman Suffrage was organized; this was composed largely of Congressmen. Lectures, receptions, tableaux, benefits, teas had been given, and a Suffrage School opened in Washington. Seven large mass-meetings, exclusive of Convention meetings, were held at Washington. An uninterrupted series of indoor and 46outdoor meetings, numbering frequently from five to ten a day, constantly reminded Congress of the Suffrage question. A summer campaign, carried on by Mabel Vernon and Edith Marsden, covered the resort regions of New Jersey, Long Island, and Rhode Island, and extended into the South.
Twenty-seven thousand dollars had been raised at the Washington Headquarters, and spent. And there were results. The chief one was that it focussed the attention—not only of Suffragists themselves—but of politicians and the country at large on the Federal Amendment.
June, 1913, brought Presidential Suffrage to the women of Illinois. Only Presidential Suffrage; but that was very important. Astute women everywhere were watching the situation; drawing their own and independent conclusions.
Toward the end of the year, the Congressional union established an official weekly organ, the Suffragist, edited by the well-known publicist, Rheta Childe Dorr. The first issue appeared on November 15, and it has been published ever since.
Lucy Burns, whose editorials were marvels of ironic logic, of forceful condensed expression, succeeded Mrs. Dorr. Then came Vivian Pierce, a trained newspaper woman; Sue White, well-known to Suffragists for her splendid work in Tennessee; Florence Boeckel, able, efficient, untiring. Pauline Clarke, Clara Wold, Elizabeth Kalb contributed supplementing editorial work.
The Suffragist has reported the activities first of the Congressional union, and next of the Woman’s Party. It is an extremely entertaining periodical, always interesting, often brilliant, essentially readable. It contains editorials, reports, sketches, verse, cartoons. Many famous people have contributed articles. The reports of the workers in the Woman’s Party make much the most interesting reading however. Many famous artists have given it drawings. The most pertinent, though, are those contributed by a member of the Congressional union—Nina Allender.
47Mrs. Allender’s fertile and original pencil has traced during the entire eight years of its history a running commentary on the progress of the Woman’s Party. She has a keen political sense. She has translated this aspect of the feminist movement in terms that women alone can best appreciate. Her work is full of the intimate everyday details of the woman’s life from her little girlhood to her old age. And she translates that existence with a woman’s vivacity and a woman’s sense of humor; a humor which plays keenly and gracefully about masculine insensibility; a humor as realistic, but as archly un-bitter as that of Jane Austen. It would be impossible for any man to have done Mrs. Allender’s work. A woman speaking to women, about women, in the language of women.
There is no better place than here to emphasize the work of the Press Department. It will be apparent to the reader, as the story of the Woman’s Party unrolls itself, that the work of this department was very difficult and very delicate. The problem was twofold—to keep the action of the party always in the public eye and to bring out the underlying policy. This was not easy when the demonstrations of the Woman’s Party were of the kind whose initial effect was to antagonize. Nevertheless, the Press Department minimized that antagonism and minimized by a propaganda which was as restrained in expression as it was vivid in description. Newspaper men generally felt that they could depend on the Woman’s Party for news. Florence Brewer Boeckel, who has been press chairman since 1915, is responsible for this magnificent press campaign. But she has not lacked help. Eleanor Taylor Marsh, Alice Gram, Beulah Amidon, and Margaret Grahan Jones, have given her steady assistance.
Early in the year 1914, the Congressional union resigned from the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The constitution of the National Association permitted a Suffrage body to join it in one of two ways. By one, a 48new clause imposed a five per cent tax in dues upon its budget. By another, it paid annually one hundred dollars dues. The Congressional union felt that a five per cent tax upon its budget would seriously cripple its work. The union offered to become an associated body. The National Association refused this offer, and the Congressional union, therefore, became an independent organization.