nd
thereby put in jeopardy my good name and reputation. These assertions
are made by you either with wilful intent to injure my name and
standing in the community or without having made an effort to
establish their proof. I hereby set forth the facts which have been
distorted by you into untruths, either by contrary statements or by
implications." It ended: "In the name of our common womanhood, I ask
you to meet the suffrage issue fairly and squarely, and I warn you
that for personal attacks tending to injure my name or those of my
fellow-workers, you will be held responsible."

Another letter dated Nov. 1, 1917, addressed by Mrs. Catt to Mrs.
James W. Wadsworth, Jr., president of the Anti-Suffrage Association;
Mrs. Robinson and Miss Alice Hill Chittenden, president of the New
York State Anti-Suffrage Association, took up and refuted the charges
saying: "To every single and collective insinuation, implication or
direct charge, published or spoken in any place at any time by
professional anti-suffrage campaigners, which has conveyed the
impression that I or any other officially responsible leader of the
National Suffrage Association has by word or deed been disloyal to our
country, I make complete and absolute denial here and now." It said in
closing: "In this connection I wish to call your attention to the fact
that the late John Hay, the father of the president of the National
Association of Anti-suffragists, had his own experiences with people
who challenged his loyalty and 'cursed me,' he says, 'for being the
tool of England.' In May, 1898, when our country was at war with
Spain, John Hay actually had the temerity to draft a peace project,
although he knew, so he said, that he 'would be lucky if he escaped
lynching for it.' Are you willing to apply to Mrs. Wadsworth's father
the chain of alleged reasoning that you apply to me, and, because of
his great faith in and hope for peace, call him a traitor to his
country?"

These letters had no effect on the abuse and misrepresentation of the
suffragists but the charges were continued by the leaders of the
"antis" until after the close of the war. There can be no doubt that
the splendid war work of the suffragists was a principal factor in the
submission and ratification of the Federal Amendment. Their instant
and universal response in New York to the call of the Government, and
later the actual conscription of all women over sixteen years of age
by the Governor, proved