Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/573

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NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1917
537

they are dining tonight the Senators and Representatives who are opposed to the Federal Amendment. So I thought I would signalize the occasion by answering the circular Mrs. Wadsworth has sent broadcast asking people to "consider a few facts about the woman suffrage victory in New York." Here are some other facts to consider:

There were only three assembly districts in Manhattan where the suffrage amendment did not poll over a thousand more votes than the Socialists polled. Even in these three suffrage got an average of 600 more votes than the Socialist candidate got. In the 4th district suffrage had the advantage of the Socialists by 551 votes; in the 6th it got 600 more votes than Socialism got; in the 8th it got 656 more. In the 12th, a typical district, where the Socialists got only 1,822 votes, suffrage got 5,480. In my own district, the oth, suffrage and Fusion ran almost neck and neck, suffrage polling 5,911, Fusion, 5.578; the Socialists polled only 977. In Brooklyn the 14th, toth and 23rd assembly districts are accounted the Socialists' strongholds. In all three suffrage ran ahead of Socialism. In the 14th suffrage polled a "yes" vote of 4,052, the Socialists 3,142; in the 19th suffrage polled 3,608, the Socialists 3,037; in the 23rd suffrage polled 5,060, the Socialists 3,992.

Considering the suffrage vote in Greater New York in comparison with the vote for Mayor, suffrage polled a "yes" vote of 335,950, the Socialist candidate only 142.178. The Fusion candidate polled 149,307; the Republican, 53,678; the Democratic, the successful one, 297,282. Suffrage, therefore. polled 38,677 more affirmative votes than did the successful candidate. No candidate for Mayor was in the class with the amendment, though all were for suffrage.

Others prominent in the suffrage movement, both men and women, made indignant protest against Mrs. Wadsworth's accusation and pointed to the splendid organized work of the National Suffrage Association in cooperation with the Government from the very beginning of the war.

During this week of the convention the Federal Prohibition Amendment made its triumphant passage through the House, having already passed the Senate, and the suffragists saw the bitterest opponents of their amendment on the ground of State's rights throw this doctrine to the winds in their determination to put through the one for prohibition. They felt that the adopmn of that amendment opened wide the wav for the passing of the one for suffrage in the near future and this was the view generally taken by the public. Another event in this remarkable week was the creation and appointment of a Woman Suffrage Committee in the House of Representatives, for which the asso-