mass suffrage meetings in theaters were held in Washington. The large corps of newspaper correspondents were constantly supplied with news. Countless suffrage meetings were held in Maryland, Virginia and all the way up to New York and the members were kept constantly informed of the activities in their owndistricts. On September 18 Senator Ashurst announced on the floor of the Senate that he would press the resolution to a vote at the earliest possible moment and Senator Andrieus A. Jones of New Mexico spoke in favor and asked for immediate action.
During the regular session in 1914 the resolution was discussed at different times and many strong speeches in favor were made. The Senate vote, which was taken on March 109, stood, ayes, 35; noes, 34; lacking eleven of a necessary two-thirds majority. Twenty Republicans, one Progressive and fourteen Democrats voted aye; twelve Republicans and twenty-two Democrats voted no; ten Republicans and sixteen Democrats were absent. For the first time southern Senators declared in favor of giving suffrage to women by amending the National Constitution—Senators Owen, Ransdell, Luke Lea of Tennessee and Morris Sheppard of Texas voting in the affirmative.
For a trial vote this was considered satisfactory. The effort in the Lower House was not so successful. Its Judiciary Committee had been continuously opposed to allowing the amendment to reach the Representatives, but two favorable majority reports having been made in the thirty-six years during which the question had been before it (1883, 1890). A larger Congressional Committee had been formed by the National Suffrage Association, of which the chairman was Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick, a daughter of former U. S. Senator Mark Hanna, who had inherited her father's genius for constructive politics. Headquarters were opened in the Munsey Building in Washington and the work was divided into three departments—Lobby, Publicity and Organization. Careful and systematic effort was made and it was followed by the Senate vote recorded above. A record was compiled of the votes of every member of Congress on prohibition, child labor and various humanitarian and welfare measures and sent to the women in his district for use in urging him to vote for the suffrage amendment. Organizers were placed where
