Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/712

 1920, the International Men's League was represented by a fraternal delegate, Colonel William Mansfeldt, president of the National League of The Netherlands.

The New York Men's League soon received requests for information from far and wide and it was evident that such a league was needed in every State. Correspondence followed and in 1911 Omar E. Garwood, Assistant District Attorney of Colorado, came to New York. An association of influential men had been formed in that State two years before to refute the misrepresentations of the effects of woman suffrage and he was interested in the New York Men's League. While here he assisted in organizing a National League and consented to act as secretary. James Lees Laidlaw, a banker and public-spirited man of New York City, who was at the head of the State Men's League, was the unanimous choice for president and continued in this office until the Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment was ratified in 1920. In a comparatively short time Men's Leagues were formed in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

As the years went by leagues were formed in other States and were more or less active in furthering the cause of woman suffrage according to their leaders. Their officers assisted the campaigns in various States, spoke at hearings by committees of Congress and sent delegations to the conventions of the National American Suffrage Association. Here an evening was always set apart for their meetings, at which Mr. Laidlaw presided, and addresses were made by men well known nationally and locally. A delegation from the National League marched in the big suffrage parade in Washington March 3, 1913. In every State the members were of so much prominence as to give much prestige to the movement. For instance in Pennsylvania Judge Dimner Beeber was president and the Right Reverend James H. Darlington a leading member. In Massachusetts Edwin D. Mead was president; former Secretary of the Navy John D. Long vice-president; John Graham Brooks treasurer; Francis H. Garrison