Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/560

This page needs to be proofread.
HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

526 HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE and the Department of Publicity have been in the hands of the execu- tive secretary, Miss Ethel M. Smith. Social activities through the spring and early summer were in charge of Miss Heloise Meyer, assisted by Mrs. J. Borden Harri- man. Miss Mabel Caldwell Willard has represented the committee in undertakings involving the house as a center for local work. These have included getting hostesses to receive visitors at headquar- ters, supplying speakers for local meetings, providing cooperation with the suffrage federation of the District of Columbia for the daily afternoon teas, and looking after hospitality for delegates to conventions meeting in Washington. Among the organizations for which receptions have been arranged are Daughters of the American Revolution, Association of Collegiate Alumnce, Confederate Vet- erans. Sons of Veterans, Daughters of the Confederacy, Congress of Mothers, Parent-Teacher Associations and Farm and Garden As- sociations. Ten of the fourteen members of the committee, in ad- dition to the executive secretary, have given highly valued service in Washington during the last nine months. Other suffragists not members have kindly devoted days or weeks to our work and the local suffrage associations have been most cordial in their response to our requests. Any attempt to state our obligations to our national president would be futile. Our high hope for the adoption of the Federal AmendmcMit by the 65th Congress is linked inseparably with our faith in her leadership. The report of Mrs. Walter McNab Miller (Mo.) first vice- president, described a year of continuous work, almost from ocean to ocean, speaking to State suffrage conventions, federations of women's clubs, federations of labor, trade unions, universities, normal schools, churches, meetings of all kinds and without number. In the two Dakotas she spoke twenty-nine times. She referred to her visit to Jefferson City, Mo., her luncheon with the wife of Governor Frederick D. Gardner, the suffrage meeting "which put the State capital in a ferment and caused the politicians to sit up and take notice" and the Governor's declaration for woman suffrage. Mrs. Miller said of the work during the five months when she was chairman of the Congressional Committee : After mature consideration the board decided that, for various rea- sons, it was not wise to move the headquarters from New York to Washington but that more spacious quarters should be found than the office here where the efficient lobby work that had already been done could be followed up and supplemented by a social atmosphere. Finally we found our present home, a large private mansion at 1626 Rhode Island Avenue, just off of Scott Circle. It was taken for a