Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/482

 amendments enfranchising women have been obtained after repeated campaigns of inestimable cost and exhaustive effort, while 29, nearly a third of the whole, were secured simply by an act of the Illinois Legislature in giving the electoral vote to women. Is it not good political tactics to proceed along the lines of least resistance and bring our energies to bear upon Legislatures for the measure most potent and at the same time most easily procured?"

Mrs. Mary E. Craigie, who, as chairman of the Church Work Committee, had given such valuable service for years, told of the excellent work of her State branches, especially that of New Jersey during the recent campaign, whose chairman, Mrs. Mabel Farraday, had sent out hundreds of letters with literature to the clergymen and reached thousands of. people at Ocean Grove and Asbury Park. She told of the encouragement she had received in her month of preparatory work for the approaching West Virginia campaign; the Ministerial Association of Wheeling had invited her to address them and expressed a desire to help it; several pastors turned over their regular meetings to her; the largest Methodist church in the State, at Moundsville, holding a week of big meetings, invited her to fill one entire evening with an address on the Federal Suffrage Amendment. "More and more I am led to believe," she said in closing, "that the most important work before the suffragists today is church work, especially the organizing of the Catholic women, that they will make their demands so emphatic the church will see the wisdom of supporting the movement. The church work is non-sectarian but it should also be omni-sectarian and our efforts should be extended to include all churches and religious sects."

The Congressional Committee had placed two departments of its work in charge of Miss Ethel M. Smith, whose comprehensive report showed beyond question their great value:

When the Congressional Committee was reorganized after the Nashville convention two departments were given into my charge, the congressional district organization work and the office catalogue of information concerning members of Congress. The Congressional plan, which had been launched but a year before, had been adopted in many of the States but not in all. My first step, therefore, was to urge by correspondence with the presidents that this machinery be established or completed in every State. On Decem-