Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/407

 The election took place under the new primary system and required two days for completion. The only change was the electing of Mrs. Desha Breckinridge second and Miss Ruutz-Rees third vice-presidents. The majorities for most of the officers were very large. The report of the delegates to the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in Budapest was made by Mrs. Anna O. Weeks (N. Y.). The demand for congressional documents, hearings, speeches, etc., had become so extensive that Mrs. Helen H. Gardener (D. C.) had been appointed to report in regard to it and she shed a good deal of light on the subject. She showed that some documents are free for distribution and some have to be paid for. Hearings are usually limited to a small number but the committee strains a point for those on woman suffrage and prints about 10,000, which may be had without charge. If a member is kind enough to "frank" them nothing else must be put in the envelope under penalty of a $300 fine. If more are wanted they must be ordered in 5,000 lots and a member can get a reduced tate, but, while he is always willing to pay the Government for printing his speech, those who want it for their own purposes should send the money for it. The speech of Representative Edward T. Taylor of Colorado in 1912 was cited as an example, of which the suffragists circulated 300,000 copies.

The resolutions presented by Mrs. Helen Brewster Owens (N. Y.), chairman, were brief and to the point. They called on the Senate to pass immediately the joint resolution proposing an amendment to the National Constitution, which had been favorably reported; they urged President Wilson to adopt the submission of this amendment as an administration measure and to recommend it in his Message; they urged the Rules Committee of the House of Representatives to report favorably the proposition to create a Committee on Woman Suffrage; and they demanded legislation by Congress to protect the nationality of American women who married aliens.

Strong pressure had been made on the President to mention woman suffrage in his Message, his first to a regular session of Congress, but it was delivered on Tuesday, December 2, with no reference whatever to the subject. At the meeting of the convention that evening Dr. Shaw said with the manifest approval