Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/461

NEW YORK 445 her wonderful ability for getting money she never could secure anywhere near enough to carry out this plan in the city where everything must be done on a large scale to be successful. The longed-for oportunity did not come in her lifetime but in 1909 .Mrs. Oliver H. P. Belmont decided to take an active part in the work for woman suffrage and inquired of the leaders what was the most important thing to be done. They answered quickly: "I.stablish State headquarters in New York City and also bring the National headquarters here." With the executive ability for which she was noted Mrs. Belmont at once rented the entire floor of a big new office building at 505 Fifth Avenue, corner of 42nd Street, and invited both associations to take headquarters there for two years. They did so and the movement received a strong impulse not only in New York but in the country at large. The State association paid no rent and the national press bureau was maintained by Mrs. Belmont. While in New York City women of the highest character and ability had sponsored the suffrage work it had not attracted the women who could give it financial support. When Mrs. Mackay and Mrs. Belmont identified themselves with it, opened their homes for lectures and interested their friends public attention was aroused. The meetings given in August by Mrs. Belmont at Marble House, Newport, which never before had been opened to the public, received an immense amount of space in the New York papers and those outside. The big head- quarters soon were thronged with women ; magazines, syndicates and the daily press had articles and pictures; mass meetings and parades followed and thousands of women entered the suffrage ranks. At the end of two years the State association was suf- itly well financed to maintain its headquarters, which remained in New York until its work was finished Mrs. Belmont r lost her interest in the cause and continued to make large In a few years Mrs. Mackay turned her attention to other matter^ but her society was continued under the presi- v of Mrs. Howard Mansfield, hi KXXJ, under the direction tfl chairman, the Inter-Urban Council of twenty became the Woman Suffrage Party and organization along the lines of the political parties was begun.