CHAPTER XXIII.
WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN NATIONAL PRESIDENTIAL CONVENTIONS.[1]
The courage and patience of the woman suffrage leaders in their long struggle for the ballot is nowhere more strongly evidenced than in their continued appeals to the national political conventions to recognize in their platforms woman's right to the franchise. These distinguished women were received with an indifference that was insulting until far into the 20th century. To two parties, the Prohibition and the Socialist, it was never necessary to appeal. The Prohibition party was organized in 1872 and from that time always advocated woman suffrage in its national platform except in 1896, when it had only a single plank, but this was supplemented by resolutions favoring equal suffrage. The Socialist party, which came into existence in 1901, declared for woman suffrage at the start and thereafter made it a part of its active propaganda. All the minor parties as a rule put planks for woman suffrage in their platforms.[2]
Before the conventions in 1904 the board of the National American Woman Suffrage Association secured full lists of delegates and alternates of the two dominant parties — 667 Republicans and 723 Democratic delegates; 495 Republican alternates and 384 Democratic, a total of 2,269. To each a letter was sent directing his attention to a memorial enclosed, signed by the officers of the association, an urgent request for the insertion in the platform of the following resolution: "Resolved, That we favor the submission by Congress to the various State Legislatures of an amendment to the Federal Con itution forbidding the disf inchisement of United States citizens on account of sex.”
The Republican convention met in Chicago June 21-23. The committee appointed by the National Association consisted of
- ↑ The History is indebted for this chapter to Miss Mary Garrett Hay, second vice-president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
- ↑ For a full account of the effort to obtain planks in the national platforms from 1868 to 1900, inclusive, see Chapter XXIII, Volume IV, History of Woman Suffrage.
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