Amendment.

[95] At the first board meeting after the convention Mrs. McCormick
was re-appointed chairman of the Congressional Committee with power to
select its other members and Mrs. Funk was re-appointed vice-chairman.

[96] Mrs. McCormick spent a large amount of time and money on this
play, hoping it would yield a good revenue to the association, but the
arrangement with the Film Corporation proved impossible and it finally
had to be abandoned.

[97] The most persistent efforts of the suffragists never succeeded in
locating this league.

[98] At the request of the committee the exact figures were furnished
later and showed a membership of 105,000, of whom 85,600 lived in the
five non-suffrage States of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New
Jersey and Pennsylvania. Of the remaining 19,400 the non-suffrage
States of New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Ohio had 11,500; Virginia,
2,100, and 6,500 were divided among other non-suffrage States and the
District of Columbia. Not one member was reported from States where
the franchise had been given to women, although it was a stock
argument of the "antis" that it had been forced on them and they would
gladly get rid of it.

CHAPTER XV.

NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1915.

The Forty-seventh annual convention of the association was held Dec.
14-19, 1915, in Washington, the scene of many which had preceded it,
with 546 accredited delegates, the largest number on record. The one
of the preceding year had left many of the members in a pessimistic
frame of mind but this had entirely disappeared and never were there
so much hope and optimism.[99] The Federal Amendment had for the first
time been debated and voted on in the House of Representatives,
receiving 204 noes, 174 ayes, a satisfactory result for the first
trial. Although in November, 1915, four of the most populous
States--Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania--had
defeated suffrage amendments yet a million-and-a-quarter of men had
voted in favor. These were all Republican States and yet had given a
larger vote for woman suffrage than for the Republican presidential
candidate the preceding year. Over 42 per cent. of the votes in New
York and over 46 per cent. in Pennsylvania were affirmative and the
press of the country, instead of sounding the "death knell" as usual
after defeats, predicted victory at the next trial. In October the
cause had received its most important accession when Pres