Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/420

sketched and then the question asked: "Has the treatment of this subject by the committee to which it has always been referred been such as to warrant a continuance of this custom?" which she answered by saying:

The National Woman Suffrage Association was formed in 1869 for the express purpose of obtaining an amendment to the Federal Constitution. Its representatives went before the congressional committees that year and have continued to do so at each new Congress since that time, never having been refused a hearing. At the beginning of 1882 both Senate and House created special Woman Suffrage Committees. The Senate has continuously maintained this committee, but in 1884 the House declined to renew it by a vote of 124 nays, 85 yeas; 112 not voting. The debate was long and heated and almost wholly on the question of woman suffrage itself. Thenceforth the women appeared before the House Judiciary Committee, which, although busy and overworked, had always a good representation present and was respectful and often cordial.

The ablest women this country has produced have appeared before this committee.... Repeatedly the eminent members of this Judiciary Committee have said that no hearings before them were conducted with such dignity and ability as those of the advocates of woman suffrage. And what is the result? Six reports in forty-four years and five of these unfavorable! Does the record end here? No; for there has been no report of any kind since 1894. For the last twenty years the women of this nation have made an annual pilgrimage to Washington to plead their cause before a committee which has forgotten their existence as soon as they were out of sight.... Gentlemen of the Committee on Rules, will you not give to women a committee of their own that will not ignore them for half a century?....

The entire status of woman has changed since the Federal Constitution was framed, and ethical and social questions have entered into politics which could not have been foreseen. It is inevitable that this

Constitution must occasionally be amended to meet new conditions, while leaving its fundamental and vital provisions undisturbed. The advocates of woman suffrage believe that it should now be changed so as to give a voice in governmental affairs to a half of the people which has become an important factor in the public life of the nation. By the only means now available the half which possesses the ballot has the absolute authority over its further extension and no ruling class likes to divide its power. State rights are desirable to a very large extent when all the people of the State have a voice, but it is not in harmony with the spirit of our republic that one half of the citizens of a State should have complete power over the political liberty of the other half.

Instance after instance was given from different States showing how this power had been abused after the women had strug-