Elizabeth Bass to Woodrow Wilson

Suffrage still continues to occupy the foreground, and it is taking from many of us who should be engaged in the work of getting ready to go into the Congressional campaigns with the woman voters of this country, hours of each day. Our time is taken up, not only in the endeavor to pick up the two or three necessary votes from among the group of southern senators, but also in making explanations and apologies in the way of letters and telegrams in reply to inquiries from all over the country.

I am venturing the hope that you have been able to communicate again with Senators Fletcher and Trammel, of Florida, Guyon of Louisiana, who is reported to say that if it is put to him by you as a war measure he will vote for it, and Overman of North Carolina. In regard to the last named, the Federation of Women's Clubs met last week, which is not a suffrage organization and whose opinion, therefore, has more weight with him, and they sent him a message expressing the desire of the majority of the women of North Carolina for the ballot.

If nothing has resulted from your further communications with the above Senators, I believe, Mr. President, that the time has come for you to take the final step of making a public proclamation, either using the International communication sent for your attention, or by going directly to the Senate and placing before them the necessity of making this a war measure. You, more than anyone else in the world, are the voice of the world, and I believe you can make them see that they need the women of this country, not only in the work of the war, but in the work of rebuilding civilization, and that they must equip them for this high duty, not forgetting the claim of the constantly increasing army of the women in industry. I believe the vote should be called for the middle of next week, say Wednesday, whether we have the pledges of the necessary two or three votes or not, providing of course you make your public statement, of whatever sort it may be. In the latter case we shall, of course, have to take the vote, not knowing what the effect will be, but whatever the result in the Senate, I can at least go about the business of the Congressional campaign with a clear defense of the Administration and its incomparable leader.