Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/404

 of over thirty-three per cent., thus bringing an incalculable influence and power into the arena of national politics

Mrs. Mary E. Craigie made her usual report of the excellent work done by her Church Committee. She gave a list of the Catholic clergy who had declared in favor of woman suffrage and told of the cordial assent by those of other denominations to include it in their sermons on Mother's Day. She named some of the many questions of social reform to which pulpits were freely opened temperance, child labor, pure food, the white slave traffic and others and asked: "Why does not woman suffrage, the reform that would bring two-thirds more power to all such movements, receive the same cooperation and support from the churches? The answer plainly is: Because of the apathy of women in demanding it."

The changing character of the national suffrage conventions is illustrated by the reports in the Woman's Journal, whose editors had for a generation collected and preserved in its pages the unsurpassed addresses which had delighted audiences and inspired workers. As the practical work of the association increased and spread throughout the different States, more and more of the time of the conventions had to be given to reports and details of business and the number of speeches constantly lessened. The first evening of the convention was devoted to the victory in Illinois, with delightful addresses by Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch, long the State president, who twenty years before had discovered the loophole in the Illinois constitution by which the Legislature itself could grant a large measure of suffrage to women and had tried to obtain the law that had just been gained; by Mrs. Ella S. Stewart, another president, who had carried on this-work; and by Mesdames Ruth Hanna McCormick, Grace Wilbur Trout, Antoinette Funk and Elizabeth K. Booth, the famous quartette of younger workers, who had finally succeeded with a progressive Legislature. As there was no representative from far-off Alaska, Dr. Shaw told how its Legislature had given full suffrage to women. [See Illinois and Alaska chapters.] Miss Lucy Burns gave a clear analysis of the situation in regard to the Federal Suffrage Amendment and the evening closed with one of Dr. Shaw's piquant addresses, which began: "I know the