Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/517

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NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1916
483

and satisfactory accounting. The total receipts for the year were $81,863 and the close of the fiscal year found a balance on hand of $8,869. The largest contributions had been $500 each from the State associations of Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The National College Equal Suffrage League gave $450. The expenditures in round numbers were: Headquarters, including salaries, expenses of conventions, etc., $16,531; publicity, $9,096; National Congressional Committee, $4,676; publishing News Letter, $982; contributions to campaigns, $21,131; demonstrations, organization, etc., $20,000.

In commenting Mrs. Rogers said: "Nothing to my mind indicates so vividly the progress of equal suffrage as the comparative ease with which the largest budget in the history of the National Association was pledged and most of it paid by August 25, and the fact that an excess of that budget amounting to many thousands of dollars has been raised three months before the usual convention date. 'Money talks' and it is saying this year: 'No cause in which I could be used appeals to me as does this fundamental one of enfranchising women, of opening the door to let them enter and help to make a more Christian civilization.' Literally we have had only to ask and it has been given unto us. Scores and hundreds of women in sending their generous gifts have said: 'Would that my check were ten times as large!' The wonderful spirit of kindliness and ardent desire to cooperate have touched the treasurer's heart deeply and made the work of the passing year a real joy. I am confident that all necessary funds for suffrage expenditures—national, State and local—can be raised, even to a million dollars, if more systematic work is done on the financial side in the States.... " Mrs. Rogers outlined the business methods that should be used and expressed her obligations to her committee of fifty on finance for their helpful support.

Mrs. Walter McNab Miller (Mo.), first auditor, in the report of her field work told of days, weeks and months spent in visiting cities from New York to St. Louis, holding conferences and meetings and writing hundreds of letters to raise money and arrange for the demonstration to be held in St. Louis during the Democratic National Convention—the "walkless parade," to