mine political crises with which the suffrage cause was
closely identified and over whose motivation suffragists
had to keep sharp watch.

Throughout the suffrage struggle, America's history, her
principles, her traditions stood forth to indicate the inevi-
tability of woman suffrage, to suggest that she would nor-
mally be the first country in the world to give the vote to
women. Yet the years went by, decade followed decade,
and twenty-six ^* other countries gave the vote to their
women while America delayed.

Why the delay?

It is a question that was the despair of two generations
of American women. It is a question that students of
history and national psychology will ponder through gen-
erations to come.

We think that we have the answer. It was, not an an-
tagonistic public sentiment, nor yet an uneducated or in-
different public sentiment--it was the control of public
sentiment, the deflecting and the thwarting of public senti-
ment, through the trading and the trickery, the buying
and the selling of American politics. We think that we
can prove it. Suffragists consider that they have a case
against certain combines of interests that systematically
fought suffrage with politics and effectively delayed suf-
frage for years. We think that we can make that case.

We find it difficult to concede to the general opinion
that, because of the tendency to overestimate the impor-
tance of events with which they are most familiar, those
who have been a part of a movement are disqualified to
write its history. We are sure that history would be
worthless if it took no account of the observations made
within a movement by those who have been a part of it.
That is why we, who have had an opportunity to become

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