into the war." She took up the questions of tariff and of prohibition, asked if women should not have a vote on these and the other great national issues before the country and concluded: "I only wish that the woman whose name is so closely associated with this amendment—Susan B. Anthony—might have lived to see this committee as it exists today instead of having passed away before it was composed of members of the character of those before whom we now come to present our cause."
At the hearing of the Congressional Union the following day, Senator Thomas, chairman of the committee, was present but refused to preside, as the leaders of the Union had gone to Colorado during the recent campaign and spoken and worked, though unsuccessfully, against his re-election. Senator Sutherland took the chair. It was conducted by the vice-president of the Union, Miss Anne Martin. "One of our chief purposes in asking this hearing," she said, "is to bring before you not only the ethical importance but the political urgency of settling this question of national suffrage for women. At present the thought and strength of large numbers of them throughout the country are absorbed by this campaign to secure fundamental justice, which prevents their giving assistance in matters vitally affecting the interests of the men, women and children of the nation." There would be five-minute speeches, she said, until the last half hour, which would be divided between the envoys of the women voters' convention in San Francisco during the past summer.[1]
Most of the speeches were crisp and clever and well fortified with facts and figures to prove the advantage of a Federal Amendment over State amendments in securing universal woman: suffrage. The two "envoys" were Miss Frances Jolliffe and Mrs. Sara Bard Field of California, who started in an automobile from the grounds of the Exposition in San Francisco to motor
- ↑ The speakers were Mrs. William Spencer Murray, secretary of the Women's Political Union of Connecticut; Mrs. Annie G. Porritt, press chairman of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association; Mrs. Dana Durand of Minnesota; Miss Julia Hurlburt, vice-chairman of the Women's Political Union of New Jersey; Mrs. Agnes Jenks, president of the Rhode Island W. S. A.; Mrs. Alden H. Potter, chairman of the Congressional Union in Minnesota; Mrs. Glendower Evans, member of the Minimum Wage Commission of Massachusetts; Mrs. R. H. Ashbaugh, president of the Michigan Federation of Women's Clubs; Mrs. James Rector, vice-chairman of the C. U. of Ohio; Mrs, Cyrus Mead of the Ohio C. U.
