Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/687

 cal freedom at this time is due to the tremendous sentiment and pressure produced by their own unceasing activities over a period of three generations. Had either party lived up to the high ideals of our nation and courageously taken the stand for right and justice as against time-serving, vote-winning policies of delay, women would have been enfranchised long agoIf, however, neither of the dominant parties has made as clean and progressive a record as its admirers could have wished, there is no question but that individual men of both parties have given heroic service to the cause of woman suffrage and this has been true in every State, those which ratified and those which rejected. Women should not forget these men who have stepped in advance of the more slow moving of their own constituents to help this great cause of political freedom."

Before this Federal Amendment could become effective it had to be ratified by the Legislatures of thirty-six States, three-fourths of the whole number. The plan by which Mrs. Catt, president of the National American Suffrage Association, had expected ratification to follow the submission immediately was that all of the western equal suffrage States would ratify at once. To. make certain that this would be done a representative of the association was sent on a circuit of these States while the amendment was still pending. She called on the Governors and instructed the women as to the procedure when it was submitted. If there had been the expected early vote this plan would have succeeded but it was thwarted by the late submission. Had the vote taken place even as late as February, 1919, the Legislatures could have considered it, which was the principal reason why the opponents prevented it. By June 4 most of them had adjourned not to meet again for two years. A few, however, were still in session and of these Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan ratified it within six days of its submission and Pennsylvania and Massachusetts a little later. That of Ohio had taken a recess until June 16 and ratified it on this date.

To obtain enough extra sessions, with all the expense, time and trouble entailed, seemed a hopeless undertaking. Nevertheless,