erned, and whereas, this
right can be secured only by the exercise of the suffrage,
therefore,

Resolved, That the ballot in the hand of every qualified citizen
constitutes the true political status of the people and to
deprive one-half of the people of the use of the ballot is to
deny the first principle of a democratic government.

The committee was courteous and listened with marked attention,
William Jennings Bryan among them, but took no action on the
resolution.[149]

The convention nominated Woodrow Wilson, who had answered a question
from a chairman of the New York Woman Suffrage Party the preceding
winter, while Governor of New Jersey: "I can only say that my mind is
in the midst of the debate which it involves. I do not feel that I am
ready to utter my confident judgment as yet about it. I am honestly
trying to work my way toward a just conclusion." President Taft had
written in answer to a letter of inquiry from the secretary of the
Men's Suffrage League of New York: "I am willing to wait until there
shall be a substantial, not unanimous, but a substantial call from
that sex before the suffrage is extended."

As the result of the year's political work a summing up in December,
1912, showed a woman suffrage plank in the national platforms of the
Progressive, Socialist and Prohibition parties; a plank in the
platform of every party in New York State and in that of one or more
parties in many States. The Progressive party with woman suffrage as
one of its cardinal principles had polled 4,119,507 votes. Kansas,
Oregon and Arizona by popular vote had been added to the number of the
equal suffrage States. In 1914 these were increased by Montana and
Nevada, making eleven where women voted on the same terms as men. In
1913 Illinois granted a large amount of suffrage including a vote for
Presidential electors. In 1915 President Wilson and all his Cabinet,
except Secretary Lansing; Speaker Champ Clark and Mr. Bryan publicly
endorsed suffrage for women. Constitutional amendments were defeated
in four eastern States but they polled 1,234,470 favorable votes.

By 1916, the year of the Presidential nominating conventions, there
had been so vast an advance of public sentiment that the official
board of the National American Woman Suffrage Association was
encouraged to believe that its effort of nearly fifty years to obtain
woman suffrage planks in the national platforms of the Republican