nomic, dealing
with the suffrage question proper, the wages of women and their
occupations. There was very little empty rhetoric but a good deal
of fun. In short, there are two extra senses with which most of
the delegates seem to be provided--common sense and a sense of
humor--excellent substitutes for emotion when it comes to
practical affairs. If the association ever loses the idealism
which is still its backbone it will be a political machine of
much power; it seems likely to be for the present a decided force
in the direction of civic reform.

* * * * *

For a quarter of a century during the first session of each Congress
committees of Senate and House had given a hearing to representatives
of the National Suffrage Association to present arguments for the
submission of an amendment to the Federal Constitution which would
enfranchise women, and at an earlier date to advocate other suffrage
measures. Because of the distinguished speakers from abroad the
hearings at this time were of unusual interest. The convention
adjourned for them on the morning of February 18 and the Senate and
House Committee rooms were crowded.

All the members of the Senate Committee were present--Augustus O.
Bacon (Ga.) chairman; James H. Berry (Ark.); George P. Wetmore (R.
I.); Thomas R. Bard (Calif.); John H. Mitchell (Ore.). Miss Susan B.
Anthony, honorary president of the association, presided and said:

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, this is the
seventeenth Congress that has been addressed by the women of this
nation, which means that we have been coming to Congress
thirty-four years. Once, in 1887, the Senate brought the measure
to a discussion and vote and defeated it by 34 to 16, with 26 not
wishing to go on record. We ask for a 16th Amendment because it
is much easier to persuade the members of a Legislature to ratify
this amendment than it is to get the whole three million or six
million, as the case may be, of the rank and file of the men of
the State to vote for woman suffrage. We think we are of as much
importance as the Filipinos, Porto Ricans, Hawaiians, Cubans and
all of the different sorts of men that you are carefully
considering. The six hundred teachers sent over to the
Philippines are a thousand times better entitled to vote than are
the men who go there