Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/785



In 1914 the Congressional Committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, of which Mrs. Medill McCormick was chairman and Mrs. Antoinette Funk vice-chairman, caused to be introduced in Congress, with the sanction of the National Board, a Federal Amendment for woman suffrage radically different from the one for which the association had been working since 1869. It was named for its introducers in Senate and House. The merits of the proposed amendment, as stated by: Mrs. Funk, which are given in condensed form in Chapter XIV, will be found in full in the published Handbook or Minutes of the national suffrage convention of this year. Specimens of the objections made as published in the Woman's Journal are given herewith:

Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch (Ills.), a lawyer: Senator Shafroth's new suffrage amendment may do good by keeping law-makers discussing woman suffrage but as a practical method of securing it has serious defects. It is open to all the States' rights objections raised against our Susan B. Anthony amendment, for it goes further and proposes a universal method of amending 48 State constitutions. State law-makers and Judges and even State voters from the North as well as the South will resent such dictation as an unwarrantable interference. The Initiative and Referendum scheme will have its own enemies, who will fear that this way may be an entering wedge for more Initiative and Referendum amendments to be pushed into State constitutions.

The amendment is, however, too indefinitely framed to be workable. No officer is named to whom the petitions should go; no officer is obligated to submit the question; no method of authenticating the petitions is prescribed and no time for voting is fixed. The United States has no facilities of its own for conducting any such elections or punishing State or county officers who may not volunteer to do the work. The Congressional Committee would better keep this amendment in committee rather than let the country know the great objection there is to it on the part of our constituency

Mrs. M. Tascan Bennett (Conn.): The three principal objections to the new amendment appear to be as follows: It divides suffragists all over the country. The Anthony Amendment has had the support since 1869 of the annual conventions, where the members of the National Association have their one opportunity to direct its work. The Shafroth Amendment furnishes an excellent excuse to Congress for taking no action on the Anthony Amendment. It might well appear as a happy way to dispose of the whole question of woman suffrage by foisting responsibility for it back on the States where it already isIt defeats what I consider to be the unanswerable advantage of the Anthony Amendment, whose ratification by the required three-fourths of the States will force the remaining one-fourth into line. The southern States, for whose special benefit the Shafroth Amendment appears to have been conceived, will undoubtedly be many years in accepting woman suffrage. With this new amendment ratified, they can still hold it back within their borders as long as they cling to their prejudices.

George H. Wright, M.D. (Conn.): The greatest objection is that, if passed, this amendment would throw the whole suffrage campaign into chaos. At