ndment. I prefer that
the question of woman suffrage rest directly upon its own merits and
be not involved with the initiative and referendum."

[89] This amendment had been reported by the Judiciary Committee on
the 9th of May preceding this report "without recommendation" and a
strong effort was being made by its supporters to bring it before the
House for debate. The Rules Committee sent it to the House on December
12, 1914.

[90] The proposed State amendment failed in New York in 1915, was
submitted again by the Legislatures of 1916 and 1917, voted on in
November, 1917, and adopted by an immense majority.

[91] The first week in the preceding April the Mississippi Valley
Conference, composed of the Middle and some of the Western and
Southern States, met in Des Moines and thirty-five prominent delegates
signed a telegram to the Official Board of the National American
Association, asking it "to instruct its Congressional Committee not to
push the Shafroth Amendment nor ask for its report from the Senate
Committee"; also "to ask the Senate Committee not to report this
amendment until so requested by the national suffrage convention."
This was not official action but they signed as individuals, among
them the presidents of the Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois,
Indiana, Ohio and Louisiana State associations and officers from other
States.

[92] Some of the arguments may be found in the Appendix. An
examination of the file of the _Journal_ will show that ninety-nine
per cent. of the writers were opposed to the amendment.

[93] The old amendment had been voted on in the Senate March 19 and
obtained a majority but not the required two-thirds. It had been
reported without recommendation by the House Judiciary, which had not
acted on the new one. The latter had been introduced in the Senate and
the former re-introduced.

[94] The original measure had always been called the Sixteenth
Amendment until the adoption of the Income Tax and Direct Election of
Senators Amendments in 1913. The Congressional Union, organized that
year, gave it the name Susan B. Anthony Amendment and for awhile it
was thus referred to by some members of the National American
Association. The relatives and friends of Mrs. Stanton rightly
objected to this name, as she had been equally associated with it from
the beginning, and all the pioneer workers had been its staunch
supporters. The old association soon adopted the title, Federal
Suffrage