Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/503

NEW YORK 487 litical careers of some of them. Before election day the files of the Union contained signed pledges from every candidate for the Legislature in 45 of the 51 Senate districts and in 85 of the 150 Assembly districts. On Jan. 23, 1913, the Senate voted 40 to 2 for the amendment and on the 27th the Assembly concurred with but five adverse votes. On May 3, the Union organized a parade of victory in New York City. During the great campaign of 1915 the Union was constantly evolving new features to draw attention to the amendment. It closed its activities with a luncheon of a thousand covers at the Hotel Astor just before election day in honor of the looth anni- versary of the birth of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. After the defeat it amalgamated with the Congressional Union, abandoned State work and centered its efforts on an amendment to the Federal Constitution. Throughout its existence Mrs. Blatch was presi- dent, Elizabeth Ellsworth Cook, vice-president, Marcia Town- send, treasurer, Eunice Dana Brannan, chairman of finance, Nora Stanton Blatch, editor of the Women's Political World, the organ of the society; Caroline Lexow, field secretary and Alberta Hill and Florence Maule Cooley, executive secretaries. [Information furnished by Mrs. Blatch.] An important feature of the campaign in New York City and in other parts of the State was the work of the St. Catherine Welfare Association of Catholic women, organized by Miss Sara Mr Pike, executive secretary of the advertising department of a large corporation, and Miss Winifred Sullivan, a lawyer. Its object was better social and economic conditions for women and children and the extension of the suffrage to women as a means to this end. Its loaders and prominent members worked with the State and city suffrage associations also but through their own they could carry the message into the different sodalities fraternal organizations of the church and to its summer Is and conventions. Bishops and priests were interviewed and a number of the latter were persuaded to speak at the meet- lickl in twenty-six prominent parish school halls in New York City. Ten meetings were held in Brooklyn and others in surrounding towns.