Alice Hill
Chittenden, New York State president, and Mrs. George. They asked that
there should be no mention of woman suffrage.

The sub-committee reported against the adoption of a suffrage plank,
the vote standing five to four--Senators Lodge, Wadsworth, Oliver, and
Charles Hopkins Clark, editor of the Hartford (Conn.) _Courant_, and
former Representative Howland of Ohio opposed; Senators Borah,
Sutherland and Fall and Representative Madden of Illinois in favor.

The question was then taken up in the full Committee on Resolutions.
Senators Borah and Smoot led a vigorous fight for a plank; Senator
Marion Butler of North Carolina headed the opposition. The strongest
possible influence was brought to bear against it by the party
leaders, Senators W. Murray Crane and Henry Cabot Lodge of
Massachusetts; Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania and James W. Wadsworth,
Jr., of New York and Speaker Cannon of Illinois. Nevertheless it was
carried by 26 to 21. Within a half hour defeat was again threatened
when seven absent members of the committee came and asked for a
reconsideration. After repeated parleys it was reconsidered and
emerged as the last plank in the platform. The final vote was 35 to 11
but it was the result of a compromise, for it read: "The Republican
party, reaffirming its faith in government of the people, by the
people and for the people, as a measure of justice to one-half the
adult people of this country, favors the extension of the suffrage to
women but recognizes the right of each State to settle this question
for itself"!

For the first time this party declared for the doctrine of State's
rights, which was the chief obstacle in the way of the Federal
Amendment, the goal of the National Association for nearly fifty
years. Mrs. Catt knew that it would be utterly useless to ask for a
plank favoring this amendment and so she asked simply for a clear-cut
endorsement of the principle of woman suffrage. This was secured,
after women had been appealing to national Republican conventions
since 1868, and although it was weakened by the qualifying
declaration, she realized that an immense gain had been made. By the
press throughout the country the adoption of the plank was hailed as
"a victory of supreme importance," and as guaranteeing a suffrage
plank in the Democratic national platform, which could not have been
obtained without it. It was adopted by the convention without
opposition and with great enthusiasm.

The