the people of the country who were opposed to it, and that that would be an injustice. Is that your contention?

Mr. MATTHEWS. That is my contention stated in your words. I don't think it is as forcibly expressed as I expressed it.

Mr. CHANDLER. Oh, no; I shouldn't hope to do that.

Mr. MATTHEWS. However, I accept it.

Mr. CHANDLER. Here is the idea: That is the present method of amending the Constitution, and I just wanted to understand if you contend that the present method in many cases permits an injustice.

Mr. MATTHEWS. Not necessarily, sir. I am on the side of Woodrow Wilson, though, and believe that this country will grow and develop as conditions change.

Mr. CHANDLER. Oh, we are hearing too much of Wilson and Underwood. We supported Roosevelt in my district.

Mr. MATTHEWS. I am very sorry to hear it, but I was just going to say that the form of question would lead me to suppose I was talking to a Progressive.

Mr. CHANDLER. That's all right, now; but I'm interested in this matter; I have a bill on the subject myself, and do not believe it is a matter to be considered facetiously. I am in favor of an amendment to the Constitution which will provide for an easier method of amending the Constitution, and the argument you have been offering meets my views in many respects.

Mr. MATTHEWS. I am glad if I have been able to enlighten you on that matter, but just as present I am interested in this suffrage proposition.

Now, I say here is a Government for and by and of the people; again we bring back from the hazy past memory of that great man and quote him to you here; if our Government is for and by and of the people, then my idea is in line with that principle, and you gentlemen have no right to enforce an amendment of this kind passed by Congress. The possibility is there, I say, of defeating the will of the people, a majority of the people. Now, see what it means. There are nine suffrage States, out in the distant West, where they have fully enfranchised the women. Their problems are not those of the East. Only one other State where woman has the franchise-Illinois, making 10 for a handicap, we will say, and nearly a million socialists all over the country aiding their propaganda. And with this handicap of 10 States, do you mean to tell me that the logical result won't be that a minority populated group of States will force this amendment over the objection of a majority of the population of the Nation?

Mr. NELSON. You agree with the argument made here that if all the women were true, thoroughbred American women that woman's suffrage might be all right?

Mr. MATTHEWS. I think that is hardly a fair question.

Mrs. DODGE. That is not the question we are contending for at all. Mr. MATTHEWs. That is hardly a fair way to state that, in view of what the lady said. Let me discuss that proposition a moment. Your House passed the Burnett immigration bill-I believe that is the title of the bill, providing for the literacy test. Now, I was born in this country, and my Americanism is all right, but it is of IrishEnglish parentage removed by only one generation, so I am not far away from Hibernia, though I can not be blamed with being one

of those who came over in the Mayflower; I am not of Mayflower descendancy, though I do not intend to deprecate such descendancy at all. I am afraid that if all the ancestors claimed to have come over in the Mayflower had been on board, the ship would have been so weighted down she would have sunk. But the proposition I wanted to put was this: I hold no brief at all for that literacy test, but I do want to ask what right have those people of the West to come to you and ask you to foist that amendment on New York and so double the immigration problem; that is what it is coming to, in my opinion; and now you are going to add all the women in the city of New York and other ports of entry.

Mr.NELSON. Won't you be doubling the native American vote while you are doing that?

Mr. MATTHEWS. That is not the question at all. We are not clamoring here for Americanism as such, because we believe a man can be a true American after he is naturalized, just as true in many instances as the native-born American; but we say you have no right to go to New York and double up that immigrant-population vote that vicious American vote. You know what Tammany is, and you will have a Tammany of women.

Mr. NELSON. Have you no United States vote in New York?

Mr. MATTHEWS. I won't be able to answer the gentleman unless I can hear.

Mr. NELSON. I say have you no real citizenship vote in New York that would be doubled?

Mr. MATTHEWs. Oh, yes, sir; thousands and thousands of them. Mr. NELSON. You would be doubling them, then?

Mr. MATTHEWS. Yes, sir; but that don't make it any worse.

Mr. NELSON. You would not make it very much worse by giving everybody in New York two votes, would you?

Mr. MATTHEWS. I say this: If you are not going to better the electorate why multiply it from any standpoint? Congress has been interested in national child-labor legislation and has passed the bill providing for a children's bureau; but those are questions that pertain more to the moral side of the subject; such legislation, I say, is moral and remedial and not experimental; that was a work of humanity, and that recognizes neither majority nor minority. I stand here to-day and say that it is the duty of Congress whenever humanity demands it in the United States to pass any kind of legislation. But humanity does not demand this amendment, sir; it has been demonstrated, you can be shown, that not even from that untroubled West, that West of small, social, economic, and moral problems, even there no demand has been made for this amendment, and yet you propose to come into the East (to the city of New York) and impose a problem upon them that will stifle them for years to come. You double the vote of the immgrant classes in New York, and I ask you is that expedient and is that right? That is my contention here to-day.

Mr. PETERSON. You don't double that immigrant vote until they have been here a certain length of time, do you?

Mr. MATTHEWS. After five years' residence, I think; but as soon as you enfranchise them the women will take the citizenship of their husbands, and, I am sorry to tell you, that the custom is (as I know it) for them to send for their wives as soon as they have money

enough. I have not the statistics here, but I have heard it quoted that their women come over as soon as they can send for them, and especially from the southern nations of Europe.

Mr. PETERSON. As soon as the men earn money enough then they send for their women.

Mr. MATTHEWS. Yes, sir; the men get into business and commence to earn a little money and to learn something of American institutions, and then they bring their women over to slave in the homes.

No, gentlemen, ours is not a hopeless opposition. Suffrage will not come. The tide is turning. We of the East who preached the evils of the movement, we who saw in it the disguise of the discredited European philosophy of individualism and its litter of revoluntary theories, we have torn the yellow votes for women covering from the agitators and revealed the feministic socialistic person beneath. What has been the result? To-day the suffrage movement is divided into two camps, the intellectually honest, who say that enforced economic independence and sexual independence is the goal of the suffrage movement, and the faddist surface-skimming class, of whom we must truly say, "there are none so blind as those who will not see." Of course, when you quote the suffrage views of the intellectually honest you are not with the argument that this is but the "fringe of lunacy" that is part of every movement, but let me assure you gentlemen that fringe has started to ravel, and ere long the entire fabric will be but that lunatic fringe.

But you say to me what of the political expediency of the question? Granted that all you say is true, the active propaganda of which you have spoken may menace our political lives and allow others elected by such subterfuge to supplant us. The movement seems to be coming; why sacrifice ourselves to a hopeless opposition? Fear not gentlemen. Forewarned is forearmed. The million Socialists who vote for suffrage in the United States, and whose every vote the National Suffrage Association's president says she "welcomes," will never, in whole or in unit part, be cast for or against any one of you. The constitution of the Socialist Party demands that they vote for Socialists only and alone. As to the blankcartridge opposition of masculine women and feminine men be equally fearless. When your brothers of the Congress from suffrage States regale you with this bugaboo of political expediency they are but paying the penalty of inexpendiency. If the title to continued political existence in suffrage States is the preachment of woman suffrage to the disregard of all else, if the sanction of women's votes and men's votes in woman suffrage States is political expendiency, then, gentlemen, it is time that manly moral courage assert itself. And, gentlemen, remember further that this semimilitancy of the suffrage movement must needs run foul of the law of self-defense, and upon your return to your respective constituencies you will find that for every blank cartridge fired against you there will be a ballot cast for you. In other words, we will defend you when you are attacked.

I would, gentlemen, that I had time and that it were my province to divest this suffrage agitation of its garb of misrepresentation and to present it before you in its naked inexpediency and unseemly consequences. I must confine myself, however, to urging upon you that

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it is not right, reasonable, nor expedient that the Federal Congress should by the adoption of the resolution or amendment before you aid and abet you in fact enforce the will of three-fourths minority populated States against the majority of the people of the United States. I protest as a citizen of the United States. I protest in the name of thousands upon thousands of men whose citizenship is a duty not lightly borne and who would defend their women from having the duties of citizenship thrust upon them to the detriment of the performance of the duties as women. Our women's slogan is not woman's rights but woman's duties. They seek not citizenship but to make better citizenship. They believe that the home and not the ballot is their concern. Some of them are here before your committee, gentlemen, not as agitators, but, as the late Associate Justice Brown of the United States Supreme Sourt said, in speaking of one of them, "upholding the dignity of womanhood and defending the historic position of their (her) sex in our scheme of government."

May I in conclusion take up my partisanship, laid aside for the moment, and again remind you of those able words of Hon. Oscar Underwood:

If there is one fundamental principle that my party stands for, it is local self-government. If the Democratic Party stands for one thing above all others it is that the right of franchise should be governed by the States of the Union and not by the National Government.

I am sorry, sir, that they tell me my time has expired; I would like to argue this proposition with you all afternoon. But, as man to man, despite the ebullitions of our sisters of the opposition, I must say that on all the rules of right and the rules of expediency we must proclaim against this committee recommending favorable action and of this Congress passing this amendment, which would later be ratified by three-fourths of the States which might represent a minority of the people of the United States. In all equity, I believe this is a matter for the several States to decide.

Mrs. DODGE. This has been a very interesting discussion from the standpoint of man to man, and before introducing our next speaker I want to emphasize the fact that some lose sight of the question that it is the men in Congress and the men voters of the several States who are going to put the burden of the franchise on the women of the country, the good and bad of our sex-not any one class, but all classes of our sex. I think that ought to influence every man when he approaches this question.

I have asked Mr. Heflin to come and speak this afternoon with reference to this amendment.

The CHAIRMAN. You have now occupied 1 hour and 25 minutes less than these other ladies have occupied, and you have that much time to go on.

Mrs. DODGE. I certainly don't think we will have to use that much Mr. Chairman.

STATEMENT OF HON. J. THOMAS HEFLIN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM ALABAMA.

Mr. HEFLIN. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, it was my pleasure to attend the hearings held before the Elections Committee last year and to attend the hearings before the Rules Committee in December, and I heard on those occasions women from

the various States of the Union, representing American homes, pleading against the movement to thrust women into politics. They made a profound impression upon me, Mr. Chairman, as I have seen to-day the speeches of these good women have made upon you.

In this day of so many isms, when so many cranky notions are abroad in the land, it is indeed wholesome, refreshing, and comforting to see such a splendid type of American womanhood appear here and plead for the safety and well-being of the American home. Some are so anxious now to have the ballot for women that they are willing to abandon the methods employed in the various States where the women have secured the ballot, and are demanding action by the Federal Government destroying the ancient landmarks and depriving the State of its right in the matter.

Dr. J. W. Lee in his Making of the Man says when the savage wants fruit he cuts down the tree, but when the civilized man wants it he waits for the fruit to get ripe and then shakes the tree gently. My advice to these overzealous, misguided women is to go back and proceed, if they desire, with their fight in the State, for it is purely a Sate question, and let the fruit get ripe and fall when it will. Don't cut down the tree of State rights and local self-government.

In the early days of this Republic, in the Constitutional Convention, the question arose as to the standard of citizenship, and I can understand that then our fathers might have adopted a single standard of qualifications for voters in every State in the Union; but even in that early day Benjamin Franklin contended that each State should settle that question, that the State and the State alone should have the right to say who shall or shall not have and exercise the ballot. That is the very basis of State sovereignty, and these good women-some of them are good women-are misguided and deceived. Some few of them think they are doing right. So did Peter think he was doing the right thing when he drew his sword and cut off the ear of the enemy of Christ; but when Jesus said, "Peter, put up thy sword," he realized that he was doing the wrong thing.

Now, Mr. Chairman, the fundamental principle, the one upon which this Government has flourished as no other country on the globe, is that of local self-government, of State rights, the question of who shall exercise the ballot being decided by the States and the States alone. The gentleman from Wyoming, Mr. Mondell, spoke here this morning in favor of a Federal amendment, but he has not as many people in his entire State as I have in the district that I represent. By joining this small State with other small States, as these good women have pointed out, there is a possibility of having a minority of our people, living in the smaller States, passing this amendment over the will of the majority of the American people.

This is a serious question, this question of suffrage, and these women who are so anxious to have the right to exercise the ballot had better go slow. We may put in a movement to let the States vote as to whether or not Wyoming shall have the ballot. Would you like that? As to whether Washington or California, or Illinois can have the ballot. What would you say to that? You would hold up your hands and say, "The Federal Government has no right to do that. The State gave us the ballot." That is what you would say, and I want to say to this committee; and to these women, that the South, as the able and distinguished chairman of this committee said