HOME AND EDUCATION
Follette, Belle Case La
HOME AND EDUCATION BY BELLE CASE LA FOLLETTE WOMEN VOTERS AND THE PACKERS POLITICIANS are puzzling and newspaper correspondents are speculating as to the practical effect of women's vote when...
...namely, the principles and purposes of legislation were being endorsed rather than different bills as they went through the changeable course of legislation...
...He was L. D. H. Weld, of the commercial research department of Swift & Co., who presented the packers' side of the case.* * * 'I think you ladies are not prepared to pass upon this complicated legislation,' he said...
...Think of being obliged to search through columns of insignificant news to discover that Oklahoma and West Virginia have called extra sessions for the purpose of...
...This committee was instructed to get in touch with the various state chairmen, to give them all available information on the question and to urge them to send delegates to the Chicago Convention in February, 1920, prepared to take definite action on this question of remedial legislation...
...Imagine the clumsy fingers of the government being intruded into our delicate mechanism,' he said...
...It is true that the Illinois state legislature took action on the amendment about half an hour earlier than the Wisconsin legislature...
...Since writing the suffrage article for our February issue, the states of Maryland and Virginia have rejected the constitutional amendment...
...So Mrs...
...West Virginia broke away from the solid south to the extent of calling an extra session for the purpose of considering the amendment...
...Catt rapped for order...
...The first result of votes for women is not altogether a mystery...
...Hill and pointedly referred to the great advertising campaign to which the readers of the metropolitan press had been treated for the past year...
...By direction of the Acting Secretary of State I hereby acknowledge the receipt of a certified copy of the joint Resolution of the Legislature of the State of Wisconsin, ratifying the proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States extending the right of suffrage to women, which was delivered by Special Messenger, D. Q. James, on June 13th, 1919, and is tha first ratification of the Amendment which has been received...
...Washington makes thirty-four states certain to ratify...
...A ripple of laughter started through the convention and seemed about to culminate in a roar of "boos" and hisses, when Mrs...
...Catt instead of the usual "smile and look pleasant," directed the delegates to face the camera and hold the thought that beefsteak was only ten cents a pound...
...Rose Young, editor of the Woman Citizen, didn't see why any women needed to hear the other side if they had been reading the Woman Citizen as they should...
...L. D. H. Weld, head of the Commercial Research Department of Swift & Co...
...acting on the amendment when only four more states are needed to enfranchise the women of the United States, guarantee them political equality forever, and make this great step toward a truer democracy, an accomplished fact...
...Then the Consumer's League, which has been interested for twenty years in bringing about better conditions for wage earning women and children, took a hand...
...Alice Paul, Chairman of the National Woman's Party, is quoted as saying, "With only two more states to be won, women are on the...
...Likewise, as I foretold, the good-natured Governor of Oklahoma yielded to the vigorous campaign and appeals of the women voters, and called an extra session of the legislature which ratified the amendment and placed that state on the white list...
...A report of these hearings was made to the Jubilee Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in St...
...education in tho methods and benefits of legitimate Co-operative Associations...
...James: Bureau of Rolls and Library...
...Maude Wood Park, former legislative representative for the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and at present chairman of the League of Woman Voters, stated that she had a draft of the proposed Kenyon bill as it was being considered by the Senate Committee on Agriculture, and said she could not understand why any packer should fear its passage, provided he were willing to conform to correct principles of trade...
...were all strongly urged and made the subject of separate resolutions...
...Kelley explained that no one wanted to destroy the packing industry...
...So too, the Governor of the State of Washington, the only suffrage state that has not already ratified, has been persuaded to call an extra session which convenes on March 22, when the legislature will probably take less than half an hour to ratify...
...Some letters have been received as to the relative claims of Wisconsin and Illinois for the honor and credit of being first to ratify...
...The states not fully enfranchised which have adopted the presidential primary are Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio and Wisconsin...
...Vermont, Delaware and Connecticut as favorable to ratification, but thus far the governors of these states have persisted in refusing to call extra sessions...
...It happens that the states of Delaware, Connecticut, and Vermont are republican states, so quite logically the militant suffragists are training their guns on the republican leaders here in Washington and elsewhere in the Nation...
...At first it seemed to be more a livestock man's fight than that of the consuming public...
...A year ago extended hearings were taking place before committees of Congress on the report of the Federal Trade Commission dealing with the meat packing industry...
...Signed) J. A. TONNEK Chief of Bureau...
...Just as forty million women are about to exercise the right of suffrage, the-question of the high cost of living will be recognized as the issue of greatest universal interest,—the big burning question for the masses of folks who earn their bread...
...Well you see what has happened to the railroads,' shouted the speaker above the commotion...
...It rather amused me that the first straw in this direction should blow in from a fashion service company—not that I am unappreciative of the usefulness of paper patterns...
...Weld regarding the pending Kenyon-Kendrick bill, Miss Jessie Haver, legislative agent of the National Consumers League explained that the same course had been followed in this matter as in the past...
...The gist of their appeal was that the time had come when women must learn to look beyond their home grocer and local meat market for the cause of the high cost of living...
...It was a tense and dramatic moment—floors and galleries filled with visitors — when the question came up whether the representatives of the packers should have a hearing before the entire convention...
...The National Woman's Party has for year3 worked on the theory of party responsibility...
...was present insisting that he be given opportunity to present the packers' side of the case...
...consideration by State Leagues of Women Voters of the advisability of establishing public markets, abattoirs, milk depots and other terminal facilities...
...Women vote in the presidential primary of all these states, except in Indiana and Wisconsin...
...These stubborn and reluctant governors may yield to the persuasion of the party whip, though deaf to the prayers of their unenfranchised constituents...
...The experienced workers of this efficient organization realize that unless something is done to keep down prices, the most effective wage laws will fail to keep pace with the mounting cost of living...
...She emphasized the economic fact that the food industry is now one of the largest industries of the country and that the time has come when that industry must be regulated as the national banks and the railroads have been regulated...
...A national committee on Food Supply and Demand was created at that convention and Mrs...
...When, last November, Mrs...
...alert to see that there is no such delay as occurred in winning the last two votes in Congress...
...committees of Congress had listened to packers for two years and she thought their case had been amply presented both to Congress and to the readers of the newspapers...
...With such intense rivalry between the two parties to secure the allegiance of women voters in the next election these tactics are opportune and likely to be effective...
...Hill, the wife of a North Dakota farmer, rose and emphatically insisted that she didn't see why the convention should have to listen to a "packer...
...We fully understand," he wrote, "that La Follette's Magazine has in the past appealed most strongly to men, but the granting of suffrage to women, and the general interest in all political questions of the day, have very greatly increased their interest in your publication, and it is unquestionably now read by the man and the wife as well as perhaps other members of the family...
...It does demonstrate that these states on the average, are more responsive to the enactment of laws for social, civic and economic betterment, as, for example, child labor, juvenile courts, pure food, minimum wage, conservation and kindred legislation...
...Mrs...
...In reply to a point raised by Mr...
...Weld's remark...
...The Food Supply and Demand Committee was authorized to co-operate with the National Consumers' League, the American Live Stock Association, the Farmers' National Council, and other organizations of like policy, in an effort to promote legislation embodying such principles and purposes...
...If, however, the necessary 36 states should ratify before the holding of any presidential primary, it would, I should think, include the privilege of women voting in the primaries, as well as in the election...
...New Jersey also ratified and verified my guess...
...they are not even sick, she said in reply to Mr...
...She said that for twenty-seven years she had lived among tho poor people of New York and Chicago, Her eloquent appeal for the underfed children of the nation met with a profound response from every woman in the convention...
...In Wisconsin the Attorney General has ruled that under the constitution, the presidential primary law does not apply to women...
...If West Virginia ratifies there is only one more state to'get...
...Suffrage leaders rely on the legislatures of...
...In previous informal talks with our readers on this subject, I have called attention to the fact that a study of suffrage states does not disclose that women's votes have overturned political organizations or upset party machinery...
...With this thought in mind, the story of the resolutions offered by the national committee on Food Supply and Demand at the recent convention of the National American Suffrage association—which before adjournment resolved itself into the National League of Women Voters—is most interesting and significant...
...Florence Kelley, national secretary of the Consumer's League, appeared before the committees of Congress and took up the fight in behalf of the wage earners...
...Edward Costigan of Washington, D. C, was made chairman...
...At the close of the discussion, the resolutions offered by the food committee were adopted with a great demonstration of enthusiasm, with only a few feeble dissenting votes...
...And because of the zeal and promptitude of Hon...
...Perhaps when the man world wakes up to the fact that the women world is enfranchised, the newspapers will have higher regard for the news interests of women...
...The rival political parties will vie with each other in the adoption of platform planks that will appeal to the humanitarian ideals of women...
...A word as to presidential primaries, concerning which much interest is expressed: Of the full suffrage states California, Michigan, Montana, Oregon, South Dakota have adopted the presidential primary plan of selecting delegates to the national convention...
...Keeping Up With Suffrage IF the metropolitan newspapers knew the response that has come to me from the February article on the suffrage amendment, they would cease to put news of ratification in obscure places on inside pages...
...It was finally agreed that Mr...
...that we wanted them flanked about with municipal markets, warehouses, and co-operative associations so that producers and consumers may come into closer co-operation...
...Catt took a western tour, beginning with Minneapolis and went through the northwest and southwest, representatives of the Food Committee accompanied her and addressed the audiences on the food situation...
...There is something romantic and fine—a real human interest story, it seems to me, that should be remembered and given a place in suffrage history, in the way this civil war veteran—now 76 years young—seized the certified copy of the act of ratification and without thought of his grip or any personal preparation whatever, rushed to the depot, caught the first train out of Madison and made the speediest journey possible to Washington in order to place the precious document on record at the State Department and thus complete the act of ratification...
...D. Q. James, the father of Wisconsin's beloved suffrage leader, Ada James— her father and mother both pioneer suffragists —the Wisconsin certificate of ratification was the first to be recorded...
...Weld a hearing without giving a hearing to all other large interests in the country,—obviously impossible and furthermore, that the packers had been given ample hearing already before committees of Congress...
...They would play it up on the front page, perhaps blazon it across the top as they do the news of the latest scandal or the last prize fight...
...DEPARTMENT OF STATE Washington June 13th, 1919...
...Such will be the first notable effect of the national enfranchisement of women...
...If West Virginia does not ratify, there are two more states to get...
...At this point a photographer appeared to take a flashlight of the entire convention and the tension was greatly relieved when Mrs...
...when they should study the whole question of production and distribution of food in its largest aspect if they hoped to aid in any adequate, fundamental way, the solution of the question of the high cost of living...
...This was the signal for another outburst of ironic laughter...
...The discussion was closed by Mrs...
...As a result of this western trip and the accompanying publicity campaign carried on in other sections of tho country, the chairmen of the Food Committees came to the Chicago Convention in February to confer with their National chairman and to prepare a definite legislative program to be presented to the entire convention for its adoption...
...Florence Kelley...
...Weld should be given ten minutes in which to present the packer's case...
...at this writing the West Virginia Senate is a tie, voting 14 for and 14 against...
...In Indiana, the question of whether women may vote in the primary is undecided, pending an opinion from the state courts on the constitutionality of the presidential suffrage law, recently enacted...
...Therefore the principles and purpose of the Kenyon-Kendrick-Anderson Bills pending in Congress for the regulation of the meat packing industry were endorsed for prompt enactment into law and the leading political parties were urged at their national conventions to adopt unqualified platform pledges for the enactment of such laws...
...The railroads are not dead or dying...
...that if our civilization is to fulfill its promise, it is vital that nourishing food should be within the reach of every home, and especially of all the growing children of the nation...
...HOME AND EDUCATION BY BELLE CASE LA FOLLETTE WOMEN VOTERS AND THE PACKERS POLITICIANS are puzzling and newspaper correspondents are speculating as to the practical effect of women's vote when they get it...
...The following is a copy of the official acknowledgement given Mr...
...Suffragists are still hoping that a motion to reconsider may disclose a majority for ratification...
...In these states women vote in the primary as in the election...
...She told of her early experience with the packing industry when she acted as Chief Labor Inspector for the State of Illinois...
...There was however a technical error in the form of the amendment as adopted by the Illinois legislature...
...The Chicago Tribune of February 17th, reporting this phase of the convention proceeding under the headlines "Women Voters Jeer Defense of High Costs," "Packers' View Gets Cold Welcome," says: "Mere man—just one—was granted the convention floor for ten minutes and came to grief...
...Alice Stone Blackwell, veteran suffrage leader, endorsed the sentiments of Mrs...
...Louis last March and a resolution was passed supporting the Federal Trade Commission in its efforts to secure remedial legislation for the regulation of the meat packing industry...
...The chairman of the committee took the position that she could not accord Mr...
...The states of Nevada, Idaho, Arizona and New Mexico ratified promptly on the convening of their legislatures as I predicted they would do...
...Early enactment of improved state and fed-eral laws to prevent profiteering, waste and improper hoarding...
...Summarized, for the sake of brevity, these resolutions said: that the high cost of living in the United States is increased and the production of the necessary food supplies diminished by unduly restrictive private control of the channels of commerce by large food combinations...
...During the entire day of this most important committee conference, Mr...
...the point that pleased me was, that the representative based his proposal of this special feature for our magazine, on the ground that women were to have the vote...
...Grace Abbott then rose and asked if there wasn't some woman present who could speak for the packers...
Vol. 12 • March 1920 • No. 3
