416
HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
before this committee for over forty years, and, as many of its members have served several terms, they are as familiar as we are with the suffrage arguments. We, therefore, decided to be perfectly frank with the committee and draw to their attention the fact that they possessed the power, if they wished to exercise it, to suggest to Congress some other form of legislation than had been presented to them. Mrs. Funk made this statement to them and said that in interviewing the members of the Judiciary Committee individually we found that they were convinced that woman suffrage was a question which was growing so rapidly throughout the country that it would only be a short time before the women would succeed in gaining their political freedom, but that as a committee, and because there was a majority of Democrats on it, they did not feel that they were able to report the Mondell amendment in any form.
Mrs. McCormick then called on Mrs. Funk to present the Shafroth-Palmer Amendment, which had been introduced in the House by A. Mitchell Palmer (Penn.), and the argument for it. The amendment read as follows:
Whenever any number of legal voters of any State to a number exceeding 8 per cent. of the number of legal voters at the last preceding general election held in such State, shall petition for the submission to the legal voters of said State of the question whether women shall have equal rights with men in respect to voting at all elections to be held in such State, such question shall be so submitted, and if a majority of the legal voters of the State voting on the question shall vote in favor of granting to women such equal rights, the same shall thereupon be deemed established, anything in the constitution or laws of such State to the contrary notwithstanding.
In beginning her carefully prepared "brief" Mrs. Funk said:
This amendment to the U. S. Constitution must pass both branches of the national Congress by a two-thirds vote and be ratified by a majority vote of three-fourths of the State Legislatures before it becomes a law. So far it is identical with the Bristow-Mondell amendment. The difference between the two is that after the latter amendment has passed three-fourths of the State Legislatures it completely enfranchises the women. The Shafroth-Palmer amendment, after it has passed three-fourths of the State Legislatures, enables 8 per cent. of the voters of a State to bring the suffrage question up for the consideration of the voters at the next general election. Such a petition may be filed at any time, not only once but indefinitely, until suffrage is won, and a majority of those voting
