draw up such
an amendment. This was done; it was submitted to several lawyers,
to our Advisory Committees of Senate and House; to an able
constitutional lawyer in Washington, to Judge William J. Calhoun,
of Chicago, a lawyer of international reputation, and to Judge
Hiram Gilbert, one of the best constitutional lawyers in
Illinois. We accepted Judge Gilbert's rewording and then sent it
on to the Progressive party's legislative bureau in New York,
where it was endorsed by their corps of lawyers, who draft all
their bills.

The amendment was at this time discussed with our Advisory
Committee in the Senate and met not only with their approval as
an amendment but they considered it a very shrewd political move
on the part of our organization. At the next meeting of the
National Suffrage Board I presented the amendment, and, after
nearly two months' consideration and discussion with some of the
leading suffragists of the country, they voted _unanimously_
endorsing it and instructing us to have it introduced whenever we
thought it advisable. This action was taken by the National Board
about two weeks before the vote came up in the Senate. Not
wishing in any way to interfere with the Bristow amendment, we
did not discuss even the idea of this one with any other member
of Congress excepting of course our Advisory Committees.[88]

Senator John F. Shafroth of Colorado, at the request of Mrs.
McCormick's committee, introduced the new measure, which took his
name, and it was favorably reported to the Senate by Senator Owen of
Oklahoma in May. At this Nashville convention it was for the first
time brought before the association. In her report Mrs. McCormick thus
described the hearing which had been held before the House Judiciary
Committee March 3:

The hearing was just at the time of the big blizzard and our
speakers were stormbound, so that when we appeared before the
committee there were only Mrs. Funk, Mrs. Booth and myself to
represent the National Association, and, as Mrs. Booth was not
prepared to speak and I was chairman for the time given our
committee, it left Mrs. Funk as our only speaker. We had
discussed the night before the hearing the possible phases of the
suffrage question Mrs. Funk could use in her speech that would be
new to the Judiciary Committee. As an or