ere of the type of the Revolutionary Fathers and
gladly gave to woman any right they claimed. He testified to the help
he had received from them "in the promotion of every piece of
progressive legislation" and said: "If for no other reason than the
forces that are fighting woman suffrage, every decent man ought to
line up in favor of it." He closed as follows: "Here and now I want to
give this Constitutional Amendment my unqualified endorsement. No
State that has adopted woman suffrage has ever even considered a plan
to get along without it. It is soon realized that the votes of women
are not for sale at any price, and, while they align themselves with
the different parties, one thing is always and preeminently true--they
never fail to put principle above partisanship and patriotism above
patronage." Senator William Howard Thompson of Kansas sketched the
steady progress of woman suffrage in his State, told of its beneficent
results and submitted a comprehensive address which he had made before
the Senate in 1914.

The committee listened with much interest to the first woman member of
Congress, Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana, who reviewed the
almost insurmountable difficulties of amending many State
constitutions for woman suffrage and made an earnest plea for the
Federal Amendment. Senator Charles S. Thomas of Colorado, who for the
past twenty-five years had been a consistent and never failing friend
of woman suffrage, said in beginning: "I learned this lesson in my
early manhood by reading the addresses of and listening to such
advocates as Susan B. Anthony," and he summed up his strong speech by
saying: "The matter is simply one of abstract and of concrete justice.
We cannot preach universal suffrage unless we practice it and we can
never practice it while fifty per cent. of our population is
disfranchised." Senator Reed Smoot of Utah, to whom the women of his
State could always look for help in this and every other good cause,
said in his brief remarks: "I have for many years watched the work and
the sacrifices by many of the best women of this country to bring this
question before the people and convince them of its justice and
righteousness and I have gloried with them in every victory they have
won. Nothing on earth will stop it. The country will not much longer
tolerate it that a woman shall have the privilege of voting in one
State and upon moving into another be disfranchised."

Mrs. Catt stated t