mittee to which it has always been referred been such as to warrant
a continuance of this custom?" which she answered by saying:

The National Woman Suffrage Association was formed in 1869 for
the express purpose of obtaining an amendment to the Federal
Constitution. Its representatives went before the congressional
committees that year and have continued to do so at each new
Congress since that time, never having been refused a hearing. At
the beginning of 1882 both Senate and House created special Woman
Suffrage Committees. The Senate has continuously maintained this
committee, but in 1884 the House declined to renew it by a vote
of 124 nays, 85 yeas; 112 not voting. The debate was long and
heated and almost wholly on the question of woman suffrage
itself. Thenceforth the women appeared before the House Judiciary
Committee, which, although busy and overworked, had always a good
representation present and was respectful and often cordial.

The ablest women this country has produced have appeared before
this committee.... Repeatedly the eminent members of this
Judiciary Committee have said that no hearings before them were
conducted with such dignity and ability as those of the advocates
of woman suffrage. And what is the result? Six reports in
forty-four years and five of these unfavorable! Does the record
end here? No; for there has been no report of any kind since
1894. For the last twenty years the women of this nation have
made an annual pilgrimage to Washington to plead their cause
before a committee which has forgotten their existence as soon as
they were out of sight.... Gentlemen of the Committee on Rules,
will you not give to women a committee of their own that will not
ignore them for half a century?...

The entire status of woman has changed since the Federal
Constitution was framed, and ethical and social questions have
entered into politics which could not have been foreseen. It is
inevitable that this Constitution must occasionally be amended to
meet new conditions, while leaving its fundamental and vital
provisions undisturbed. The advocates of woman suffrage believe
that it should now be changed so as to give a voice in
governmental affairs to a half of the people which has become an
important factor in the public life of the nat