l have to be both
father and mother to fatherless children, and these mothers and
their children will have no representatives in this Government
unless it is through the mothers who have given everything that
it might be saved and democracy might be secured.... No men
better than those of the South know what it owes to southern
women and shall those men stand in the way of freedom for the
women who gave everything to retain for our country the very best
of southern traditions--shall they plead in vain for the freedom
of their daughters? What is true of the women of the South is
true of the women of the North.... We are today a united people
with one flag and one country because the women are worthy of
their men, and we plead because we are a part of the people, a
part of the Government which claims to be a democracy, and in
order that this country may stand clean-handed before the nations
of the world.

The speech of Mrs. Whitney, analyzing the vote on the suffrage
amendment which was carried in New York State the preceding November
was a complete statistical refutation of the charge made by the
anti-suffragists that the favorable vote was due to Socialists and
pro-Germans. A letter was read from Secretary of War Newton D. Baker,
saying that speaking personally and not officially he favored the
submission of the amendment. Telegrams urging it were received from
well-known women in the southern States and Mrs. Catt read editorials
strongly favoring it from a number of southern newspapers. Mrs. George
Bass, head of the Democratic Women's National Committee, protested
against the circulation in the Capitol which was being made by the
"antis" of President Wilson's declaration made in 1914, "I believe
this is a matter to be fought out in the individual States," because
in 1916 he addressed the National Suffrage Convention in Atlantic
City, saying: "I have come to fight with you ... and in the end we
shall not differ as to methods."

Mrs. Dudley represented the women of the South, saying in the course
of her address:

What has happened to the State's rights doctrine? Recently the
Federal Constitution has been twice amended and that under a
Democratic administration. While the child labor bill and
eight-hour bill are not amendments, they are really open to the
same objections because they impose upon a State laws to which it