Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/550

516 HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE so delightful a feature of these annual meetings were omitted. Before the convention opened Mrs. Gifford Pinchot, whose home was directly across from "suffrage house," the national headquar- ters, entertained the officers at luncheon. The hearings before the committees of Congress which gen- erally took place during the convention, had been held in the spring at an extra session and therefore Mrs. Catt had planned an effective ceremony for this occasion at the Senate office build- ing, the senior Senator from each State where women were with- out a vote being requested to invite to his office the congressional delegation from the State to receive its women who were in attendance at the convention. There were thirty of these gather- ings and in many instances all the delegation were present. Sena- tors Penrose and Knox refused to call the Pennsylvania mem- bers together. It is impossible to go into details but most of the interviews were satisfactory, the women asking solely for vote,s in favor of the Federal Suffrage Amendment, and it was said that thirty-five were won for it. From fifty to one hundred women were in many of the groups. To the Missouri delegation, headed by Mrs. Walter McNab Miller, vice-president of the Na- tional Association, Speaker of the House Champ Clark said : "If my vote is necessary to pass the amendment I will cast it in favor," and the delegation was solid for it except Representative Jacob E. Meeker. Senator Warren G. Harding received the Ohio women, led by Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, State president, and Mrs. Baker, wife of the Secretary of War, and later, he voted for the amendment. A hundred women called on the Virginia members and fifty on those of Alabama, without effect, but many of the large groups of southern women did receive much encouragement from the members from their States. President Wilson himself gave an audience to the Arkansas women, whose Legislature had recently granted full Primary suffrage and whose entire congressional delegation would vote for the Federal Amendment. This was found to be the case in nearly all of the northern and western States. Forty-four States had sent delegates to the convention and from the equal suffrage States of Montana and Wyoming came Mrs. Margaret Hathaway and Mrs. Mary G. Bellamy, members