Volume 14 , Issue 11

Officers of Congressional Union

[Those listed in the photo are: Miss Lucy Burns, Vice Chairman Congressional Union; Miss Alice Paul, Chairman of Congression Union; and Virginia Arnold, Treasurer of Congressional Union.]

According to The Washington Times, Washington, DC, page 11, dated 18 November 1918, on the Personalities and Activities of Women page, it speaks of Campaign for nation-wide suffrage opens with renewed vigor, National Amendment to enfranchise women occupies position of supreme importance in affairs of Nation, according to Miss Alice Paul. They reported as seeing victory near, with both political parties striving for favor.

Congressional Union

The nation-wide political campaign was reported as now over for another four years, but not so the campaign for nation-wide suffrage, which reopened with renewed vigor on the morning of November 8, 1916, and promised to continue with unabated zeal until the Federal amendment was won. For many years there had been a woman suffrage committee in the Senate, but until 1913 it was a minority committee, whose existence was merely nominal, and whose influence was zero. In 1913 the suffrage question had increased in importance sufficiently for the Suffrage committee in the Senate to be promoted to a majority committee. Shortly afterward the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage was organized by the Congressional committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association with the approval of the president of the association, for the purpose of supporting the Congressional committee in its work for the Federal amendment. Four months' experience had convinced the committee that the work of securing that amendment would require much greater effort than could be given it by a committee of five women working alone.

As nearly all suffrage workers were giving their time and service to the particular states in which they lived, it was believed that the passage of the amendment would be helped by the formation of a society with the national work as its sole object. The union grew rapidly and was later admitted to the national association, remaining auxiliary until the next year, when a clause in the latter's constitution levied a 5% tax in dues upon the budget of each affiliated branch. This tax would have fallen so heavily upon the Congressional Union with its large budge that its work would have been seriously crippled, and the members therefore decided to become an independent organization early in 1914.

The first important event in the history of their campaign was the refusal of the Rules Committee, after two hearings, to report the resolution creating a Suffrage Committee, but shortly afterward they were forced throughout the activity of the union to call for a Democratic caucus of the House to take up the question of the suffrage Committee, the first time in the history of the country that either of the two great political parties had ever caucused on woman suffrage. The Democratic party through its adverse decision thus stood revealed as responsible for the refusal of the rules committee.

The Congressional Union concentrated its efforts upon securing the passage of the federal amendment which had been before the Judiciary Committee since its introduction by Representative Mondell in 1913. During the first year of its existence, the work of the union had been confined almost exclusively to Washington.

Since then its scope has been broadened into a national movement. Headquarters were established at Cameron House, opposite Lafayette Park. The national executive committee of the union consists of Miss Alice Paul, chairman; Miss Lucy Burns, vice chairman; and Mrs. Gilson Gardner, Mrs. William Kent, Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont, Mrs. John Winters Brannan, Mrs. Donald R. Hooker, Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, and Miss Anne Martin; executive secretary, Miss Virginia Arnold; treasurer, Miss Joy L. Webster, and assistant treasurer, Miss Gertrude L. Crocker.

"Miss Paul declared, "Never before has the national suffrage amendment occupied a position of such prominence as today. It is one of the issues on which the election was fought in the twelve States where women vote. We were not concerned with the result of the election. Ours was a campaign in which it made no difference who was elected. We did not indorse any candidate. We did not care who won. We were not pro-Republican, pro-Socialist, nor pro Prohibition. We were simply pro-woman. We did not try to affect the result in the non-suffrage States. Both parties throughout the campaign devoted great effort to trying to prove to the woman voters their devotion to the enfranchisement of women. When the two great national parties vie with each other in proclaiming their enthusiasm for suffrage for women we feel assured that the passage of the suffrage amendment by Congress is near at hand."   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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