Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage

“ Our policy, which is adopted by our annual convention, is strictly non-partisan. We do not hold any party responsible for the passage of this amendment. We are organizing all over the country, using the congressional district as our limit, in order to educate the constituents of you gentlemen in regard to the great need to enfranchise women and we do not hold the policy which is adopted by the smaller organization, the Congressional Union. ”

“ If it decides anything it is that the right to vote for Congressional Representatives is a Federal right, vested in all the people by the National Constitution, and one which it is beyond the power of the States to regulate. Therefore, no State has the power to deprive women of the right to vote for Representatives in Congress.
Those who hold that women are already entitled to Federal Suffrage under the National Constitution, further support their claim by a series of decisions as to the citizenship of women and the inherent rights which it carries. ”

“ The first time was at Newport when we proposed a campaign against all Democratic candidates for Congress in the Suffrage States. The second time was a year ago in New York when we proposed to convert the Congressional Union into a national organization with branches in the different States. Today we want to lay another plan before you for your consideration—that is the organization of a political Party of women voters who can go into this next election, if it is necessary to go into it, as an independent Party. ”

“ It will be the aim of the Union to put Women's Suffrage in this position, so that no Government, of whatever party, shall be able to touch questions relating to representation without at the same time removing the electoral disabilities of women. The closer coalition that Autumn of all the Societies which make Women's Suffrage their sole object into a National Union was in itself a symptom of that new phase, and the combined SubCommittee was now further modified into the Executive Committee of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. ”

“ President, the movement for woman suffrage has passed the stage of ridicule. The pending joint resolution may not pass during this Congress, but the time is not far distant when in every State of the Union and in every Territory women will be admitted to an equal voice in the government, and that will be done whether the Federal Constitution is amended or not....
No measure involving such radical changes in our institutions and fraught with so great consequences to this country and to humanity has made such progress as the movement for woman suffrage. ”

“ Had it been either custom or statutory law which forbade women to vote, the suffrage would have been won by the same processes which have gained every other privilege. A few women would have voted, a few men and women would have upheld them, and, little by little, year after year, the number of women electors would have increased until it became as general for women to vote as it is for men. Had this been possible the women would be voting to-day in every State in the Union ”

“ Any Legislature at any session by a majority vote of both Houses, either separately or in joint session, without any change of State constitution, can empower women to help select the presidential electors on the same terms as male citizens. The power is absolute and unqualified. Let women in every State petition their Legislature to enable women to take part in this most important form of suffrage known to the American people. It is objected to our demand for woman suffrage that women do not want it and will not exercise it if granted. ”

“ If women could be enfranchised simply by an Act of Congress they would have an opportunity to vote for their benefactors at the same time as the enemies would vote against them, and thus the former would not, as at present, run the risk of personal defeat and the overthrow of their party by espousing the cause of woman suffrage. ”

“ If the association ever loses the idealism which is still its backbone it will be a political machine of much power; it seems likely to be for the present a decided force in the direction of civic reform.
For a quarter of a century during the first session of each Congress committees of Senate and House had given a hearing to representatives of the National Suffrage Association to present arguments for the submission of an amendment to the Federal Constitution which would enfranchise women, and at an earlier date to advocate other suffrage measures. ”

“ In fact, they will be obliged to yield, so long as the present state of opinion exists among women in general, for legislators will naturally consult the wishes of the women of their own families and neighborhood, and be governed by them. There can be no doubt that in this State, where women are highly respected and have great influence, the ballot would be readily granted to them by men, if they desired it, or generally approved of woman suffrage. Women are taxed, it is true ”

“ We favor the admission of women to wider spheres of usefulness, and welcome their co-operation in rescuing the country from Democratic mismanagement and Populist misrule.
A whole plank to exploit Republicanism and a small splinter to cajole the women, who had not asked for the suffrage to "rescue" or to defeat any political party!
No Democratic national platform ever has recognized so much as the existence of women, in all its grandiloquent declarations of the "rights of the masses," the "equality of the people," the "sovereignty of the individual" and the "powers inherent in a democracy." ”

“ From the time the National Woman Suffrage Association was organized to secure the enfranchisement of women by amending the Federal Constitution there were among its members those who did not favor this method because it was contrary to the doctrine of State’s rights. They did, however, want Congress to provide that woman should vote for its own Representatives, which could be done simply by a Law requiring only a majority vote of each House. ”

“ All we ask is to let the mother heart, the home element, be expressed in the government. . . . I beg of you to let all the world know why the women of the United States, who by hundreds of thousands have petitioned you to submit this amendment, ought not have at least this request considered and a report on it made."
Miss Laura J. Graddick, representing a labor union in the District of Columbia, said during an able and earnest address:
They say that politics is too corrupt for woman to enter the field as a voter but does she not live under a Government dominated by politics? ”

“ The aim of the association was "to increase general interest in the opposition to universal woman suffrage and to educate the public in the belief that women can be more useful to the community without the ballot than if affiliated with and influenced by party politics." It held mass meetings during campaigns; sent delegates to hearings given by committees of Congress on a Federal Suffrage Amendment and other matters connected with national woman suffrage ”

“ In every instance she has taken a vote of those vast audiences as to whether they were in favor of woman suffrage or against it, and in no single instance has there been a solitary vote against the extension of the right, but affirmative and universal action of those great assemblies demanding that it be extended to women. ”

“ Workingwomen have the same need to combine for protection that workingmen have; the ballot is as necessary for one class as for the other; we do not believe that with the two sexes there is identity of function but we do believe that there should be equality of right and therefore we favor woman suffrage." The Progressive party in State after State followed the lead of the convention and women were welcomed into its deliberations. From this time woman suffrage was one of the dominant political issues throughout the country. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Yes, and as there wouldn’t be any human beings of the future if it were not for women it almost seems as if they were of enough importance to have a vote.
Why should the advocates of woman suffrage be criticised for trying to defeat members of Congress who are opposed to it when all of the parties do their best to prevent the election of their opponents? If the suffragists did not try to keep their enemies out of Congress they wouldn’t have political sense enough to vote. ”

“ To secure the adoption of such an amendment in a state legislature is no easy task. In the first place the presentation of a woman’s suffrage bill is not received favorably; the Republicans and Democrats struggle for control of the legislature, the majority one way or the other never being large. Therefore the party leaders usually consider woman’s suffrage not on the basis of party politics. Matters are decided on the basis of opportuneness. ”

“ It is all very well to say "convert the women." While we most heartily wish they could all feel as we do, yet when it comes to the decision of this great question they are mere ciphers, for if this question is settled by the States it will be left to the voters, not to the women to decide. Or if suffrage comes to women through a sixteenth amendment of the national Constitution, it will be decided by Legislatures elected by men. In neither case will women have an opportunity of passing ”

“ Therefore the association campaigned in the States for amendments to their constitutions. The Union did no work of this kind but when it was organized nine States had granted full suffrage to women, the time was ripe for a big "drive" for a Federal Amendment and it could utilize this tremendous backing. Within the next five years six more States were added to the list, including the powerful one of New York. In addition the National Association, cooperating with the women in the States, had secured in fourteen others the right for their women to vote for Presidential electors. ”

“ And it is noticeable that the arguments of the opponents are coming more and more to be based on expediency, and hardly attempt to answer the claim that as American citizens women are entitled to the right. If the whole body of American women desired the practical exercise of this right, it is hard to see what valid opposition to their claims could be made. All this however does not amend the constitution. Woman suffrage must become a matter of policy for a political party before it can be realized. Congress does not pass revolutionary measures on abstract considerations of right. ”

“ The Cabinet in 1919 proposed a bill which would give a vote to all women over 23 years old and it was placed on the program of the Republican party. There are eight or ten suffrage societies in different cities united in a Supreme Feminist Council, which holds congresses and has presented to the Parliament petitions signed by thousands of women asking for complete political and legal equality. ”

“ Catt. Her address, The Nation Calls, was a strong appeal for an organization of Women Voters to be formed in the States where they were enfranchised. The plan was outlined and she asked: "Shall the women voters go forward doing their work as free women in the great world while the non-free women are left to struggle on alone toward liberty unattained?" She showed how powerful an influence such a coordinated body could wield and among its primary objects she pointed out the Federal Suffrage Amendment, corrections in the present laws and true democracy for the world. ”

“ The course for the State Suffrage Association is clear. We must play our part in this sector of the national suffrage struggle and we must let our opponents see that they can not keep American citizens out of their fundamental rights with impunity.
A committee of Republican women circulated a pledge to give no money or work for the Republican party as long as women had no votes. ”

“ You see my faith in Democrats is based on sound philosophy. In the next Congress, the Democratic party will gain thirty-four new members, hence the Republicans have had their last chance to do justice to woman. It will be no enviable record for the Fortieth Congress that in the darkest days of the republic it placed our free institutions in the care and keeping of every type of manhood, ignoring womanhood, all the elevating and purifying influences of the most virtuous and humane half of the American people.... ”

“ I make no claim that woman is fit to be a member of Congress or President; all I ask for her is what I ask for the negro, a fair field. All will admit that woman has a right to herself, to her own powers of locomotion, to her own earnings, but how few are prepared to admit her right to the ballot. But all rights are held by a precarious tenure, if this one be denied. When women are the constituents of men who make and administer the laws, they will pay due consideration to their interests and not before. The right of suffrage is the great right that guarantees all others. ”