you, Mr. Chairman, the report from the city by assembly districts of Votes for mayor and for and against suffrage-Continued. Mrs. CATT. You will have, I believe, a hearing before this committee by the women who are opposed to woman suffrage some time before the week closes, and when that hearing is held I am very sure that the statement will be made that the influences which brought about the result in New York were those which are not considered by all as representing the more desirable elements. In anticipation of that charge I should like to make this very distinct statement. If any one of you desires to have it backed up with evidence, I have that evidence in my possession. In the State of New York, outside of the city, a large part of the State was carried for woman suffrage. We have in the State of New York several varieties of Democrats and several varieties of Republicans. We have what are called Progressive Republicans, those who went off with the Progressive vote and returned and those who never did go off. Those are the two classes. Then, we have a class of old-fashioned machine Republicans who believe in the autocratic control of things, and the man who has been the head of that machine is familiarly known all over the world and you all know him. His name is Barnes. He lives in the city of Albany. In Rochester there is a man named George Aldrich, who is the Republican boss there. Then, there is a man named Brown in one large county, with two assembly districts; near by is the district presided over by Senator Wadsworth. All of these represent the old-fashioned Republican machine. This machine did its utmost to defeat the suffrage amendment, and wherever that machine, outside of New York, had control, the suffrage amendment was lost. I never met Mrs. Wadsworth, but having seen some of the output from that office, I should say that it would be Wadsworthian for her to make the statement that the best elements in the State were opposed to woman suffrage. Being the daughter of an old-line Republican and the wife of another she doubtless may believe that the Republican Party, the wing of it with which she is connected, is the most intelligent, virtuous, and high-standing group there is in the State of New York. Consequently, because she knows that it did its utmost to defeat the amendment, it would be logical from that point of view for her to say that there were low-down Democrats, Socialists, and Progressive Republicans who voted for it. You will hear that on Saturday. This is the interpretation of the other side. After election, before the New York County Republican committee, Frederick Tanner, who has been the State chairman of the Republican State committee, said: No one should go away from this meeting with the idea that the vote in favor of woman suffrage was a pro-German or socialistic vote. No living man will question that the soldier vote-the vote of the men at the front, who are either in France to fight for our country, or are on their way to the front-is a patriotic vote. These men from the city of New York have voted in favor of equal suffrage at a ratio of almost two to one. Their total vote in the city of New York in favor of suffrage is 17,139. The total vote of these same men from New York City in favor of Mr. Hillquit was 3,717. The Hillquit vote fell off among our soldiers from the general average cast in the city. The woman suffrage vote among the soldiers made a distinct gain over the general vote cast in the city. As to the charge that women suffrage represents a vote which can not be trusted in time of war, I want to call your attention to certain facts in connection with our country. We have or had in 1910 2,000,000 more men in the country than we had women. We have had in this country a great increase in naturalization since the war began. There were a great many foreigners who were afraid that they would be conscripted by their home government who made haste to take out their citizenship papers. They are not patriotic. They are not loyal to this country. They are seeking protection for themselves. When an election is to be held, as it will be ere long, it must be remembered that we are taking a step which our allies have not taken. England has had no election, except what they call byelections, when somebody dies or resigns, when they have an election in one district. The House of Commons has voted several times to postpone the election for another six months. They have not had any election. In a democratic country like ours we can hardly avoid it. The election will come. The State of New York had 130,000 men in camps either in this country or in France. The State of New York took every precaution possible to give those men an opportunity to vote. They sent delegates to England and to France to secure the votes, but you can not get the vote of men who are off on various kinds of pilgrimages or who are making tours through the air. The full vote can not be taken. Out of the 130,000, twenty-six thousand and odd actually voted; that is, one-fifth of the total number. Probably that would be as good as the whole country could do in securing the soldier vote. We have not been told how many men we have in France, but ve have been told that within a few months it is expected and hopped and believed that we shall have at least a million men over on the other side. When the election comes, who is going to do the voting? Every slacker has a vote. Every newly-made citizen will have vote. Every pro-German who can not be trusted with any kind of military or war service will have a vote. Every peace-at-any-price man, every conscientious objector, and even the alien enemy will have a vote. You will not secure anything more than a majority at best of the soldiers in Europe. It is a test, a risk, which no other country has been asked to take. The women here who belong to the families of the men on the other side can not be called disloyal. There actually is at least one and probably more than one woman in a family of every man who goes on the other side who is going to use her vote to back every preparation of the war, every condition which is going to make it easier and safer for him, and every condition which is going to bring the war to a successful end, if she has the opportunity to cast a loyal vote. It is a risk, a danger to a country like ours to send 1,000,000 men out of the country who are loyal and not to replace those men by the loyal votes of the women they have left at home. [Applause.] There are still, I think, eight of the thirteen original States where foreigners may secure the vote on their first papers. It would bo possible even to colonize in such States and to carry an clection if it was necessary, because it only means a brief residence. Some of them can get that on a six months' residence. Some of those aro in the pivotal States. For example, in the State of South Dakota there is a group of counties wherein there are the kind of people who were originally Germans and who went to Russia to live 200 years ago. They left Germany because of conscription, and they left Russia because of conscription, and they came to America bocause there was not any conscription. They went to South Dakota and Nebraska, and North Dakota to live. Those counties cast an overwhelming vote against woman suffrage. In South Dakota they do not have to be citizens. They can voto on their first papers. Those counties defeated the suffrage amendment. Now in those counties there has been a larger number, in proportion to the population, of slackers, I believe, than in any other county in the country, and yet in those counties all of that population will have the vote when the next election takes place. It may be said that if the women vote the wives of such men will be dangerous. Yes, that is true; but there are two million more men than women, and it is the foreign men who have made the excess in our population. It is said that before this war is over, if it should continue long, an effort will be made, and successfully, to submit the question of conscription to a popular vote, and there are those who say they can not trust women with conscription. The only advantage of conscription is that it catches every class and kind, and that it prevents the higher classes with a truer sense of their patriotic duty from bearing all the burdens. You may be assured that the women whose sons and husbands are in the war are not going to vote against conscription when conscription is in the interest of their husbands and their sons. [Applause.] It seems to me the most curious thing in the world how men lose their faith and their confidence in their women whenever there is a test. Women are human beings with the same intelligence, the samo comprehension of honor, the same understanding of this war, and the need there is to win it that the men havo. They can be trusted as |