ntry have not secured
their suffrage by any vote at the polls in the States. The only class
that I have ever been able to find in our history so enfranchised are
the working men in the original thirteen colonies, and they got the
vote by the process long ago when the population was exceedingly
small. There are more men today voting on the basis of their
citizenship under naturalization than for any other reason and yet our
State constitutions compel us to go to these men and ask our vote at
their hands. They say whether the women who have been born and bred
here and educated in our schools shall have the vote. We believe we
have the right to have our question considered by Congress and that is
why we ask for a special committee."

A spirited discussion followed in which the 15th Amendment played a
part and Mr. Hardwick said all the women had to do in order to vote
was to add the word "sex" to it and Dr. Shaw answered: "This would
require a constitutional amendment and what we are asking is such an
amendment to our National Constitution, which shall forbid the States
to deprive women citizens of the right which it grants to every man
born in the United States and to every man imported from any country
under the light of the sun. No nation has subjected its women to the
humiliating position occupied by those of this nation today. There is
no race which is not represented in the citizenship of this country
and these citizens are made the governing power which determines the
destinies of our women. While women are disfranchised in Germany, yet
German women are governed by German men; French women are governed by
Frenchmen; in all the nations of Europe where women are disfranchised
it is by the men of their own nation but in the United States men of
every race may go to the polls and vote that American-born women may
not have a voice in their own government. Therefore we claim that it
is the business of the Government to protect women citizens in this
right of suffrage as it protects men citizens, and we ask for this
committee because we believe that if our question can be brought
before Congress and discussed freely, it will be submitted to the
Legislatures and decided favorably."

Two anti-suffrage associations were represented, the National, headed
by its president, Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge of New York, and the Guidon
Club, headed by its president, Mrs. William Force Scott of New York.
Mrs. Dodge presented as speakers Miss