lines. The question had to be presented purely as one of abstract
justice without appeal to the special interests of any party, but from
1890 to 1896 woman suffrage had been placed in the constitutions of
four States and there was hope that it was now on the way to general
success. From this time, however, such idealism in politics as may
have existed in the United States gradually disappeared. The
Republican party was in complete control of the Government at
Washington and was largely dominated by the great financial interests
of the country, and this was also practically the situation in the
majority of the States. The campaign fund controlled the elections and
the largest contributors to this fund were the corporations, which had
secured immense power, and the liquor interests, which had become a
dominant force in State and national politics, without regard to
party. Both of these supreme influences were implacably opposed to
suffrage for women; the corporations because it would vastly increase
the votes of the working classes, the liquor interests because they
were fully aware of the hostility of women to their business and
everything connected with it.

This was the situation faced by those who were striving for the
enfranchisement of women. Congress was stone deaf to their pleadings
and arguments and from 1894 to 1913 its committees utterly ignored the
question. When a Legislature was persuaded to submit an amendment to
the State constitution to the decision of the voters it met the big
campaign fund of the employers of labor and the thoroughly organized
forces of the liquor interests, which appealed not only to the many
lines of business connected with the traffic but to the people who for
personal reasons favored the saloons and their collateral branches of
gambling, wine rooms, etc. They were a valuable adjunct to both
political parties. The suffragists met these powerful opponents
without money and without votes. A reading of the State chapters will
demonstrate these facts. From 1896 for fourteen years not one State
enfranchised its women.

These were years, however, of marvelous development in the status of
women, which every year brought nearer their political recognition.
Girls outnumbered boys in the high schools; women crowded the
colleges and almost monopolized the teaching in the public schools.
Their organizations increased in size until they numbered millions and
stretched across the seas. In 1904