BACKGROUND OF SPEECH

Carrie Chapman Catt was a leader in the women's suffrage movement. She worked as an organizer for the National American Women's Suffrage Association and became its national president in 1900. Carrie, a dynamic speaker, gave many lectures and published numerous writings in support of the suffrage cause."Do You Know?" was the title of a speech she gave frequently. It was later published in pamphlet form. Her efforts in the women's rights movement culminated in the successful adoption of the 19th Amendment in 1920.
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DO YOU KNOW that the question of votes for women is one which is commanding the attention of the whole civilized world; that woman suffrage organizations of representative men and women exist in twenty-seven different countries; that in this country alone there are more than 1,000 woman suffrage organizations; that there is an International and a National Men's League for Woman Suffrage and numbers of local men's leagues; that the number of women who are asking for the vote in this country is larger than the number of men who have ever asked for anything in its entire history; that more and larger petitions asking for votes for women have been sent to legislative bodies than for any other one measure; that the press of this country is giving more space to woman suffrage than to any other one public question; that the legislatures of twenty-eight states this year entertained woman suffrage measures, II of them favorably; and that a bill for a woman suffrage amendment to the United States Constitution is now before Congress?

DO YOU KNOW that the women of New Zealand and the women of Australia possess all the political rights accorded to men?

DO YOU KNOW that the women of Finland vote in all elections upon the same terms as men, and that since the enfranchisement in 1906, from sixteen to twenty-five have been elected to the different Parliaments?

Read the rest of the speech in a pamphlet published in 1918.