Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/666

 New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania for suffrage amendments to their State constitutions attracted the attention of the whole country. All failed of success at the November election but the effects were not wholly disastrous. The announcement by President Wilson and the majority of his Cabinet that they were in favor of woman suffrage brought many doubters into the fold. The two-thirds vote of Massachusetts in opposition set that State aside as one in which women could only hope to gain the suffrage through a Federal Amendment. In New Jersey in one county alone thousands of votes were afterwards found to have been cast illegally and there was colossal fraud throughout the State, yet the law did not permit the question to be submitted again for five years. In Pennsylvania the amendment polled over 46 per cent of the whole vote cast on it and was defeated by the notoriously dishonest election practices of Philadelphia, but by the law of that State it could not be submitted again for four years. The facts thus disclosed converted many people to a belief in the necessity for an amendment to the National Constitution.

In New York the measure had received 42% per cent. of the vote cast on it; in New Jersey 42 per cent. (by the returns), and the total vote in the four States of a million and a quarter for the amendments was indisputable evidence of the large sentiment for woman suffrage. The immense cost of these campaigns in time, labor and money made it seem more than ever necessary to bring about the short cut to the universal enfranchisement of women through a Federal Amendment. The Congressional Committee was strengthened and as Mrs. McCormick could no longer act as chairman it was headed by Mrs. Frank M. Roessing, the efficient president of the State association in the recent Pennsylvania campaign. Resolutions for the amendment were presented to the Senate on December 7 by Senators Thomas, Sutherland and Thompson (Kans.). On Jan. 8, 1916, the favorable report was made by Senator Thomas, a valuable document, widely circulated by the National Association. This was the year of the Presidential campaign and there was no time when the prospect for a majority vote seemed good enough to take the risk. It was carefully considered after Judge Charles E. Hughes, the Republican candidate for President, made his declaration for the Federal