The Suffragist, vol. 5, no. 55, January 17, 1917, p. 4

Boxes

Memorial Resolutions Presented to President

WILSON was brought face to face last week with the protest of women over the waste of physical and spiritual energy that the suffrage battle means to women. Memorial resolutions from widely separated parts of the country in commemoration and protest over the death of Inez Milholland Boissevain, were presented to him at the White House on Tuesday, January 9, by a deputation of suffragists who made these resolutions the basis for their plea to the President to give his support to the federal suffrage amendment.

Mrs. Sara Bard Field, the speaker at the San Francisco Milholland memorial, carried across the continent to the President the resolutions of the women of California. Before she left San Francisco she had received hundreds of messages, from every part of the state to transmit to the President, all expressing the growing bitterness of women over the prolongation of the struggle for political freedom which brought such loss as that of Inez Milholland.

Mrs. John Winters Brannan and Mrs. Clarence Smith, of New York, brought the resolutions passed at the New Year memorial held by the Congressional Union in that city. Miss Maud Younger, of California, speaker at the great national memorial held within the Capitol, presented the national resolution passed by more than a thousand women on Christmas day.

Until the day before the deputation was arranged the President had consented to see only the committee of four women appointed to present the resolutions. Three hundred cards were at this late date sent from the White House for other members and friends of the Union. Wires and telephone calls brought these hundreds of women on this brief notice from many states, including Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York and Illinois. It was an impressive gathering. The solemnity of the occasion created an atmosphere not felt at any previous deputation to the President. There was deep hope that the President was at last to catch the spirit animating the women of the nation and lend his support to their fight for political liberty.

HE great body of women that assembled at the Gongressional Union Headquarters across the square from the White House. marched in a solid rank to the east gate.

Many distinguished women from distant cities were among the deputation, including Miss Marie Ernst Kennedy, chairman of the Pennsylvania branch of the Congressional Union, Mrs. Townsend Scott, chairman of the Maryland branch of the Union, Mrs. Sophie G. Meredith, chairman of the Virginia branch, Dr. Cora Smith King, of Washington State, chairman of the Congressional Committee of the National Council of Women Voters, Mrs. Charles Boughton Wood, of Connecticut, and

Mrs. W. T. Burch, chairman of the District of Columbia branch of the Union. President Wilson received the bearers of the petitions and the accompanying body of members of the Congressional Union in the East Room.

I1SS MAUD YOUNGER in presenting M the national resolutions and introducing those who followed her said:

“Mr. President, the past four years have seen the rise of the new and active movement for national woman suffrage, and its rapid and increasingly intensified development, until today it is recognized as inevitable within a very few years at most.

Miss Maud Younger and Mrs. Sara Bard Field, who presented to the President the resolutions from the Capitol and the San Francisco Memorial Meetings

“In the century-long struggle of the peeple for self-government a few years may count for little, but to the women engaged in that struggle today a few years are a matter of life and death. “The recent loss of Inez Milholland Boissevain has focussed attention upon the whole daily sacrifice, the pouring out of health and strength and vitality upon the part of hundreds, of thousands, of women. That is the toll of the prolonged struggle for woman's freedom. “Mr. President, yours is the power to end this struggle now, before this Congress shall

expire. Yours is the opportunity to save these years to the womanhood of this nation. “With the very earnest hope that you may so do, with a strong faith, shared by thousands, that you will so use your great office, I submit the resolutions passed on Christmas day in the Capitol, and present Mrs. John Winters Brannan, of New York, and Sara Bard Field, of California, who will follow her."

RS. BRANNAN made no comment and M no plea to the President, merely presenting the memorial resolutions of the suffragists of New York, reading as follows “This gathering of men and women, assembled on New Year's Day in New York, to hold a Memorial Service in honor of Inez

Milholland Boissevain, appeals to you—the President of the United States—to end the out-pouring of life and effort that has been made for the enfranchisement of women, for more than seventy years in this country. The death of this lovely and prave woman, symbolizes the whole daily sacrifice that vast numbers of women have made, and are making, for the sake of political freedom. It has made vivid the constant unnoticed tragedy of this prolonged effort for a freedom that is acknowledged just, but still denied.

“It is not given to all to be put to the supreme test and to accept that test with such gallant gladness as she did. The struggle, however, has reached the point where it requires such intensity of effort,—relentless and sustained— over the whole vast country, that the health of thousands of noble women is being insidiously undermined. If this continues,—and it will continue until victory is won —we know only too surely, that many women, whom the nation can ill spare, will follow in the footsteps of Inez Milholland.

“We desire to make known to you, Mr. President, our deep sense of the wrong being inflicted upon women in making them spend their health and strength, and forcing them to abandon other work that means fuller self-expression, in order to win freedom under a government that professes to believe in democracy.

“There is only one cause for which it is right to risk health and life. No price is too high to pay for liberty. So long as the lives of women ars required, these lives will be given.

“But we beg of you, Mr. President, so to act, that this ghastly price will not have to be paid. Certainly, it is a grim irony that a republic should exact it. Upon you, at this moment, rests a solemn responsibility; for, with you it rests to decide whether the life of this brilliant dearly loved woman, whose glorious death we commemorate today, shall be the last sacrifice of life demanded of American women, in their struggle for self-government. “We ask you, with all the fervor and earnestness of our souls, to exert your power over Congress in behalf of the national enfran-