Congress the District was represented by Miss
Emma M. Gillett and Mrs. Katharine Reed Balentine, who overheard one
of its members say that if the women really wanted suffrage they
should do something more than come up there to make speeches so as to
have them cheaply printed and mailed without postage. Miss Gillett,
who soon afterwards was made chairman of the National Congressional
Committee, was so stimulated by this remark that at her request the D.
C. State Association raised $100 and she herself contributed $100 and
used the fund to circularize every candidate for Congress in the 1910
campaign. She appealed through the _Woman's Journal_ for
contributions, but only $14 were received. The circular asked seven
searching questions covering all forms of woman suffrage. The answers
were tabulated and sent out by the Associated Press. [See Chapter X,
Volume V.]

President Seth Low, of the National Civic Federation, called a
conference in Washington Jan. 17-19, 1910, of delegates to be
appointed by the Governors of States and "presidents of commercial,
agricultural, manufacturing, labor, financial, professional and other
bodies national in extent." The program was to include discussions of
"public health, pure food regulations, uniform divorce law and
discrimination against married women as to the control of their
children and property." The suffragists asked the Commissioners to
appoint women among the twelve delegates to represent the District,
but this was not done. Mr. Low in answering Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt's
criticism that women delegates had not been invited, said it had not
occurred to him that women would be interested but that he would
place the name of the National Suffrage Association on the list for
future calls of a like character.

This year the clergymen of Washington were circularized to ascertain
their position on woman suffrage and the great field of usefulness it
would offer for women in moral and social reforms was pointed out.
Miss Hifton and Miss Anna C. Kelton (afterwards Mrs. Harvey W. Wiley)
took charge of this work and the 129 letters they sent received only
eight answers, five in favor, two non-committal, one opposed. For the
first time permission was obtained from the school board to post
notices of the national suffrage convention in the school buildings,
Miss Anna MacLaren arranging for it.

In 1911 representatives of the association addressed many conventions
in Washington and asked th