Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/505

 Mrs. Catt insisting that he should stand by the broad principle of justice and Mr. Chandler equally insistent that he must represent his constituents. As. Dr. Shaw rose to return to the convention Mr. Carlin of Virginia said: "Dr. Shaw, would you mind explaining to this committee the essential difference between this organization known as the National Woman Suffrage Association and the Congressional Union? There is a great deal of confusion among the members of the committee as to just what is the difference between them," and she answered:

It is, perhaps, like two different political parties, which believe in different procedure. The National Woman Suffrage Association has two fundamental ideas—to secure the suffrage through State and national constitutions—and we appeal both to Congress and to the States. The Congressional Union, as I understand it, appeals only to the Congress. Another essential difference is that the policy of the Union is to hold the party in power responsible for the acts of Congress, whether they are acts of that party by itself or of the whole Congress. They follow a partisan method of attacking the political party in power, whether the members of it are friendly to the woman-suffrage movement or not. For instance, Senator Thomas of Colorado, Senator Chamberlain of Oregon and other Senators and Representatives who have always been favorable to our movement and have aided us all the way along, have been attacked by this Union not because of their personal attitude toward our question but because of the attitude of their party. The National Suffrage Association pursues a non-partisan method, attacking no political party. If we could defeat a member of any political party who persistently opposed our measure we would do it, whether in the Republican or the Democratic or any other, but would never hold any party responsible for the acts of its individual members.

Many other questions were asked, the committee seeming incredulous that suffragists would fight the re-election of their friends. The next speaker was Miss Alice Stone Blackwell whose address consisted in a solid array of facts and figures that were absolutely unanswerable. As the daughter of Lucy Stone and editor of the Woman's Journal from girlhood she was fortified beyond all others with information as to the progress of woman suffrage; the connection of the liquor interests with its many defeats; the statistics of the votes that had been taken and all phases of the subject. Mrs. Harriet Stokes Thompson, an educator and social worker of Chicago, said in part:

I wish to make my appeal this morning to both your intellect