Equal Rights for Men and Women.
Proposing And Opposing The E.R.A.
(Catt, Carrie Chapman, contributor). Equal Rights for Men and Women. Hearings before a subcommittee of the committee on the judiciary. United States Senate, Seventy-fifth Congress, Third Session, on S.J. Res. 65. A joint resolution proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States relative to equal rights for men and women. February 7, 8, 9, and 10, 1938, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1938.
8vo.; wrappers; stapled; light wear; few dog-eared pages.
A transcript of the four-day hearing, “printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary” in considering the joint resolution proposing the Equal Rights Amendment. Prints remarks by Dorothy Straus, of the National League of Women Voters —as “generalissimo in charge of the opposition”— Catt, as president of the National Women Suffrage Association, and statements from leaders of women’s unions, societies, and organizations nationwide. Some statements are followed by questions from the committee and answers by the witnesses. In her opening address, Straus claims that “like a good many other noxious things the equal rights amendment proposal seems to have a persistent life which proves that even intelligent people can become slaves of a slogan.” The “technical and legal complications” are addressed by over fifty statements and letters from witnesses, and rebuttals from advocates of the Amendment consume the second half of the booklet. A concluding statement summarizes the opposition:
We submit that the proponents of the amendment have showed no necessity for it, have advocated repeal of industrial legislation for women by means of the amendment, have admitted that it would require specific legislation in each of the States, have admitted rather than denied that confusion would result, and have only defined its meaning by repeating its terms.
This copy clearly belonged to an active advocate of the amendment: several of the statements in favor bear vigorous emendations and marginal edits, removing portions of text from the transcripts of Dorothy Ashby Moncure, Christine Kefauver and Elizabeth Fisse, and noting the need for updated statistics.
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