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Title: The Story of The Woman's Party
Author: Gillmore, Inez Haynes
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Story of The Woman's Party" ***
[Illustration: ALICE PAUL. Taken the Day Before She Went to Prison.
Photo Copr. Edmonston Studio, Washington, D. C.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE STORY OF
THE WOMAN’S PARTY
BY
INEZ HAYNES IRWIN
ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
[Illustration: Publisher’s Logo]
NEW YORK
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY
1921
------------------------------------------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.
THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY
RAHWAY. N. J.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“But with such women consecrating their lives failure is impossible.”
Last words spoken in public by SUSAN B. ANTHONY—
her birthday, 1906.
“Most of those who worked with me in the early years have gone. I am
here for a little time only and my place will be filled as theirs was
filled. The fight must not cease; you must see that it does not stop.”
SUSAN B. ANTHONY.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO THE INSPIRED, DEVOTED, UNTIRING, AND SELF-
SACRIFICING MEMBERS OF THE WOMAN’S PARTY,
AND IN ESPECIAL TO THOSE WHOSE WORK CANNOT
FOR LACK OF SPACE BE MENTIONED HERE OR
WHOSE EFFORTS MAY NEVER EVEN IN THE FUTURE
BE PROPERLY APPRECIATED, THIS BOOK
IS ADMIRINGLY AND REVERENTLY DEDICATED.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
PART ONE
1913-1914
I. INTRODUCTION 3
II. ALICE PAUL 6
III. ALICE PAUL AND LUCY BURNS 14
IV. F STREET AND THE EARLY DAYS 18
V. MAKING THE FEDERAL AMENDMENT AN ISSUE 31
VI. PRESSURE ON CONGRESS 49
VII. PRESSURE ON THE PRESIDENT 57
VIII. THE STRUGGLE WITH THE RULES COMMITTEE 66
IX. THE FIRST APPEAL TO THE WOMEN VOTERS 73
X. CONGRESS TAKES UP THE SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT 87
PART TWO
1915-1916
I. THE WOMAN VOTERS APPEAL TO THE PRESIDENT 99
AND TO CONGRESS
II. THE NEW HEADQUARTERS AND THE MIDDLE 123
YEARS
III. THE CONFLICT WITH THE JUDICIARY 130
COMMITTEE
IV. MORE PRESSURE ON THE PRESIDENT 144
V. FORMING THE WOMAN’S PARTY 149
VI. STILL MORE PRESSURE ON THE PRESIDENT 164
VII. THE SECOND APPEAL TO THE WOMEN VOTERS 172
VIII. HAIL AND FAREWELL 183
PART THREE
1917
I. THE PERPETUAL DELEGATION 193
1. THE PEACEFUL PICKETING 193
2. THE PEACEFUL RECEPTION 212
3. THE WAR ON PICKETS 220
4. THE COURT AND THE PICKETS 259
5. THE STRANGE LADIES 261
II. TELLING THE COUNTRY 292
III. MORE PRESSURE ON CONGRESS 299
PART FOUR
VICTORY
I. THE NEW HEADQUARTERS AND THE LATER YEARS 311
II. LOBBYING 317
III. ORGANIZING 327
IV. THE PRESIDENT CAPITULATES AND THE HOUSE 336
SURRENDERS
V. FIGHTING FOR VOTES IN THE SENATE 340
VI. BURNING THE PRESIDENT’S WORDS 355
VII. THE PRESIDENT APPEALS TO THE SENATE TO 366
PASS THE SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT
VIII. PICKETING THE SENATE 372
IX. THE THIRD APPEAL TO THE WOMEN VOTERS 380
X. THE PRESIDENT INCLUDES SUFFRAGE IN HIS 384
CAMPAIGN FOR CONGRESS
XI. BURNING THE PRESIDENT’S WORDS AGAIN 386
XII. THE WATCH FIRES OF FREEDOM 391
XIII. THE APPEAL TO THE PRESIDENT ON HIS 408
RETURN
XIV. THE APPEAL TO THE PRESIDENT ON HIS 412
DEPARTURE
XV. THE PRESIDENT OBTAINS THE LAST VOTE AND 415
CONGRESS SURRENDERS
XVI. RATIFICATION 418
XVII. THE LAST DAYS 464
INDEX 477
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Alice Paul Frontispiece
Lucy Burns at the Head of the “Prison Specialists” 16
Why is the Girl from the West Getting all the 76
Attention? Cartoon by Nina Allender
The Suffragist’s Dream. Cartoon by Nina Allender 146
Inez Milholland in the Washington Parade, March 3, 184
1913
Joy Young at the Inez Milholland Memorial Service 188
Wage Earners Picketing the White House, February, 200
1917
The Thousand Pickets try vainly to Deliver Their 204a
Resolutions to the President, March 4, 1917
A Thousand Pickets Marching Around the White 204b
House, March 4, 1917
Obeying Orders, Washington Police Arresting White 256a
House Pickets Before the Treasury Building
The Patrol Wagon Waiting the Arrival of the 256b
Suffrage Pickets
Burning the President’s Words at the Lafayette 356a
Monument, Washington
A Summer Picket Line 356b
Lucy Branham Burning the President’s Words at the 364b
Lafayette Monument
The Russian Envoy Banner, August, 1917 364b
One of the Watchfires of Freedom 396a
A Policeman Scatters the Watchfire 396b
Suffragist Rebuilding the Fire Scattered by the 398a
Police
The Last Suffragist Arrested. The Fire Burns On 398b
The Oldest and the Youngest Pickets 448
The Flag Complete 462
Every Good Suffragist the Morning after 470
Ratification. Cartoon by Nina Allender
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PART ONE
1913 and 1914
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I
INTRODUCTION
IN 1912 the situation in the United States in regard to the
enfranchisement of women was as follows:
Agitation for an amendment to the National Constitution had virtually
ceased. Before the death of Susan B. Anthony in 1906, Suffragists had
turned their attention to the States. Suffrage agitation there was
persistent, vigorous, and untiring; in Washington, it was merely
perfunctory. The National American Woman Suffrage Association maintained
a Congressional Committee in Washington, but no Headquarters. This
Committee arranged for one formal hearing before the Senate and the
House Committee of each Congress. The speeches were used as propaganda
mailed on a Congressman’s frank. The Suffrage Amendment had never in the
history of the country been brought to a vote in the National House of
Representatives, and had only once, in 1887, been voted upon in the
Senate. It had not received a favorable report from the Committee in
either House since 1892 and had not received a report of any kind since
1896. Suffrage had not been debated on the floor of either House since
1887. In addition, the incoming President, Woodrow Wilson, if not
actually opposed to the enfranchisement of women, gave no appearance of
favoring it; the great political Parties were against it. Political
leaders generally were unwilling to be connected with it. Congress
lacked—it is scarcely exaggeration to say—several hundreds of the votes
necessary to pass the Amendment. Last of all the majority of Suffragists
did not think the Federal Amendment a practical possibility. They were
entirely engrossed in State campaigns.
On the other hand, the Suffrage movement, itself, was virile and vital.
The fourth generation of women to espouse this cause were throwing
themselves into the work with all the power and force of their able,
aroused, and emancipate generation. The franchise had been granted in
six States: Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington, California. With
the winning of Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona in 1912, the movement assumed
a new importance in the national field. These victories meant that there
were approximately two million women voters in the United States, that
one-fifth of the Senate, one-seventh of the House and one-sixth of the
electoral vote came from Suffrage States.
It was in December, 1912, as Chairman of the Congressional Committee of
the National American Woman Suffrage Association, that Alice Paul came
to Washington.
* * * * *
In the next eight years, this young woman was to bring into existence a
new political Party of fifty thousand members. She was to raise over
three-quarters of a million dollars. She was to establish a Headquarters
in Washington that became the focus of the liberal forces of the
country. She was to gather into her organization hundreds of devoted
workers; some without pay and others with less pay than they could
command at other work or with other organizations. She was to introduce
into Suffrage agitation in the United States a policy which, though not
new in the political arena, was new to Suffrage—the policy of holding
the Party in power responsible. She was to institute a Suffrage campaign
so swift, so intensive, so compelling—and at the same time so varied,
interesting, and picturesque—that again and again it pushed the war news
out of the preferred position on the front pages of the newspapers of
the United States. She was to see her Party blaze a purple, white, and
gold trail from the east to the west of the United States; and from the
north to the south. She was to see the Susan B. Anthony Amendment pass
first the House and then the Senate. She was to see thirty-seven States
ratify the Amendment in less than a year and a half thereafter. She was
to see the President of the United States move from a position of what
seemed definite opposition to the Suffrage cause to an open espousal of
it; move slowly at first but with a progress which gradually accelerated
until he, himself, obtained the last Senatorial vote necessary to pass
the Amendment.
What was the training which had developed in Alice Paul this power and
what were the qualities back of that training, which made it possible
for her to invent so masterly a plan, to pursue it so resistlessly?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
II
ALICE PAUL
I watched a river of women,
Rippling purple, white and golden,
Stream toward the National Capitol.
Along its border,
Like a purple flower floating,
Moved a young woman, worn, wraithlike,
With eyes alight, keenly observing the marchers.
Out there on the curb, she looked so little, so lonely;
Few appeared even to see her;
No one saluted her.
Yet commander was she of the column, its leader;
She was the spring whence arose that irresistible river of women
Streaming steadily towards the National Capitol.
KATHERINE ROLSTON FISHER,
_The Suffragist_, January 19, 1918.
IT is an interesting coincidence that the woman who bore the greatest
single part in the Suffrage fight at the beginning—Susan Anthony—and the
woman who bore the greatest single part at the end—Alice Paul—were both
Quakers.
* * * * *
It is very difficult to get Alice Paul to talk about herself. She is not
much interested in herself and she is interested, with every atom of
her, in the work she is doing. She will tell you, if you ask her, that
she was born in Moorestown, New Jersey, and then her interest seems to
die. She apparently does not remember herself very clearly either as a
child or a young girl. That is not strange. So intently has she worked
in the last eight years and so intensely has she lived in that work that
each year seems to have erased its predecessor. She is absolutely
concentrated on _now_. I asked Alice Paul once what converted her to
Woman Suffrage. She said that she could not remember when she did not
believe in it. She added, “You know the Quakers have always believed in
Woman Suffrage.”
Anne Herendeen, in a vivacious article on Alice Paul in _Everybody’s
Magazine_ for October, 1919, says, describing a visit to Moorestown:
“What do you think of all these goings-on?” I asked her mother. She
sighed.
“Well, Mr. Paul always used to say, when there was anything hard and
disagreeable to be done, ‘I bank on Alice.’”
The degree of education in Alice Paul’s life and the amount of social
service which she had performed are a little staggering in view of her
youth. Just the list of the degrees she achieved and the positions she
held before she started the National Woman’s Party covers a typewritten
page. They have even an unexpected international quality. One notes
first—and without undue astonishment—that she acquired a B.A. at
Swarthmore in 1905; an M.A. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1907; a
Ph.D. at the same university in 1912. This would seem enough to fill the
educational leisure of most young women, but it does not by any means
complete Alice Paul’s student career. She was a graduate of the New York
School of Philanthropy in 1906. She was a student at the Woodbrooke
Settlement for Social Work at Woodbrooke, Birmingham, and in the
University of Birmingham, England, in 1907-08; a graduate student in
sociology and economics in the School of Economics of the University of
London in 1908-09.
She was, in addition, a Resident Worker of the New York College
Settlement in 1905-06; a Visitor for the New York Charity Organization
Society in the summer of 1906; a Worker in the Summer Lane Settlement,
and a Visitor in the Charity Organization Society of Birmingham,
England, during the winter of 1907-08; Assistant-secretary to the
Dalston Branch of the Charity Organization Society in London for a half
year in 1908; a Visitor for the Peel Institute for Social Work at
Clerkenwell, London, for a half year in 1908-09; a Resident Worker for
the Christian Social Union Settlement of Hoxton, London, in the summer
of 1908. She was also in charge of the Women’s Department of the branch
of adult schools at Hoxton in the summer of 1908.
I asked Mabel Vernon, who went to Swarthmore with her, about Alice Paul.
Her impressions were a little vague—mainly of a normal, average young
girl who had not yet begun to “show.” She remembered that, although
biology was her specialty, Miss Paul was catholic in her choice of
courses; how—as though it were something she expected to need—she took a
great deal of Latin; and that—as though at the urge of the same
intuition—she devoted herself to athletics. She had apparently no
athletic gifts; yet before she left Swarthmore she was on the girls’
varsity basketball team, was on her own class hockey team, and had taken
third place in the women’s tennis tournament. She was a rosy, rounded,
vigorous-looking girl then. When Mabel Vernon saw her next, she had been
hunger-striking in England and was thin to the point of emaciation.
I asked Alice Paul herself about her work with the poor in England. She
said, looking back on it—and it is apparently always a great effort for
her to remove her mental vision from the present demand—that her main
impression was of the hopelessness of it all, that there seemed nothing
to do but sweep all that poverty away. The thing that she remembers
especially now is that they were always burying children.
The first great, outstanding fact of Alice Paul’s training is that in
the English interregnum which divided her American education, she joined
the Pankhurst forces. In the beginning all her work was of the passive
kind. She attended meetings and ushered. She was about to go home;
indeed she had bought her passage when the Pankhursts asked her to join
a deputation to Parliament. This deputation, which consisted of more
than a hundred women, and was led by Mrs. Pankhurst herself, was
arrested at the entrance to Parliament. They were detained in the
policemen’s billiard room of the Cannon Row Police Station, the only
place at that station large enough to hold so many women.
The second great outstanding fact of Alice Paul’s career in England is
that she met Lucy Burns.
Lucy Burns was born in Brooklyn. The facts of her education, although
superficially not so multitudinous as those of Alice Paul, are even more
impressive in point of international quality. She was graduated from
Packer Institute in 1899 and from Vassar College in 1902. She studied at
Yale University in 1902-03, at the University of Berlin in 1906-08, at
the University of Bonn in 1908-09. She joined the Woman’s Social and
Political Union of London in 1909 and she worked as an organizer in
Edinburgh and the east of Scotland in 1909-12.
Lucy Burns thinks she first met Alice Paul at a Suffrage demonstration.
Alice Paul thinks she first met Lucy Burns in that same policemen’s
billiard room of the Cannon Row Police Station, London. Both these young
women remember their English experiences in flashes and pictures. They
worked too hard and too militantly to keep any written record; and
successive hardships wiped away all traces of their predecessors. At any
rate, Alice Paul says that she spoke to Miss Burns because she noticed
that she wore a little American flag. Sitting on the billiard table,
they talked of home. Alice Paul also says that Lucy Burns, a student at
that time of the University of Bonn in Germany, had come to England for
a holiday. She entered the militant movement a few weeks after she
landed and this was her first demonstration.
The women were held for trial, giving bail for their appearance. Alice
Paul had engaged passage home, but she had to cancel it as the trial did
not occur until after the date of her sailing. The case was appealed in
the courts and was finally dropped by the government.
From this time on, the paths of the two girls kept crossing. Frequently,
indeed, they worked together. The next time Alice Paul was arrested,
however, Lucy Burns was not with her. This was at Norwich. Winston
Churchill, a member of the cabinet, was holding a meeting. Outside,
Alice Paul spoke at a meeting too—a protest against the government’s
stand on Woman Suffrage. On this occasion, she was released without
being tried. At the next Suffrage demonstration—at Limehouse in
London—both girls assisted. On this occasion, Lloyd George was holding a
meeting. Miss Paul and Miss Burns were arrested for trying to speak at a
protest meeting outside, and were sentenced to two weeks in Holloway
Jail. They went on a hunger-strike; but were released after five days
and a half.
After they recovered from this experience, Miss Paul and Miss Burns
motored to Scotland with Mrs. Pankhurst and other English Suffragists,
in order to assist with the Scottish campaign. At Glasgow, the party
organized a demonstration outside of a meeting held by Lord Crewe, a
member of the cabinet. Arrested, they were released without trial.
Proceeding northward, Miss Paul assisted in organizing the Suffrage
campaign in East Fife, the district of Prime Minister Herbert Asquith.
At Dundee, Miss Paul and Miss Burns took part in a demonstration outside
a meeting held by Winston Churchill. The two American girls and an
English Suffragist were sentenced to ten days in Dundee Prison. After
four days of hunger-strike, all were released. Each night during their
imprisonment, great crowds of citizens marched round the prison singing
Scotch songs as a means of showing their sympathy with the campaign.
Upon their release, the Suffragists were welcomed at a mass-meeting over
which the Lord Mayor presided. Thence they went to Edinburgh where they
assisted in organizing a procession and pageant in Princess Street—one
of the most beautiful and famous thoroughfares of the world. The pageant
of the Scotch heroines who had made sacrifices for liberty is still
remembered in Scotland for its beauty. The next job was less agreeable.
The two American girls were sent to Berwick-on-Tweed to interrupt with a
protest a meeting of Sir Edward Grey, then Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Miss Paul made the interruption, was arrested, but was released on the
following day without going to trial. Miss Burns was not arrested that
time.
Next in Bermondsey, one of the slum districts of London, they waged a
plain, old-fashioned electoral campaign to defeat a candidate. When this
was over, Miss Paul, in company with a Miss Brown, was sent to make a
Suffrage protest at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in the Guildhall. They were
arrested, of course, and were sentenced to thirty days in Holloway Jail.
They hunger struck, and were forcibly fed. This experience left its mark
on Miss Paul’s health for some time; it was several weeks after her
release before she was strong enough to travel. But in January, 1910,
she sailed for America—and arrived the pale, emaciated creature who so
shocked Mabel Vernon.
Lucy Burns tells an amusing story of Alice Paul’s experiences in
England. Lord Crewe was to speak at a meeting at Glasgow, and Alice Paul
was delegated to represent the Suffragists at that meeting and to heckle
the speaker. That meant that she must conceal herself in the building,
where the meeting was to take place, the night before. The building was
a big, high one—St. Andrew’s Hall, the girls remember the name—and it
was surrounded by a high, formidable iron fence. The night before Lucy
Burns walked with Alice Paul to the Hall and helped her to climb to the
top of this fence. Then Alice Paul jumped down into the grounds and Lucy
Burns left her there. There was some building going on at this hall and
with great difficulty Alice Paul climbed the scaffolding to the high
second story and settled herself on a roof to spend the night. It rained
all night; and of course she had no protection against the wet. And
after all this discomfort, when daylight broke, laborers coming to work
on a neighboring building observed the strange phenomenon of a woman
lying on a second-story roof. They reported her and she was ignominously
led down and out.
In the summer of 1912, Lucy Burns returned to America. Alice Paul
visited her in Long Island. For some time now, Alice Paul had been
considering the Suffrage situation of the United States in its national
aspect. Here, she broached to Lucy Burns her idea of working for a
Constitutional Amendment in Washington—her belief that with six States
enfranchised—with six States that could be used as a lever on
Congress—the time had come when further work in State campaigns was
sheer waste. More even than English conditions, American conditions
favored the policy of holding the Party in power responsible in regard
to Suffrage. In England, there was no body of women completely
enfranchised. In America there were approximately two million women
voters who, completely enfranchised, could command a hearing from the
politicians. She felt that such a campaign in America would be more
productive of result for still another reason. In pursuing that policy
in England, the Suffragists were often placed in the embarrassing
position of defeating Suffragists and putting in anti-Suffragists. But
in America, no matter what Party was in power, only Suffrage senators
and representatives could be elected from the Suffrage States. In other
words, if, in defeating the Party in power they defeated Suffragists—as
was inevitable in the Suffrage States—other Suffragists as inevitably
took their places. Moreover, there was no immediate motive urging
senators and representatives from the Suffrage States—although often
they were individually helpful—to convert senators and representatives
of their own Party from non-Suffrage States. Were their Party in
jeopardy at home, however, that motive was instantly supplied. Also,
Alice Paul thought that it was more dignified of women to ask the vote
of other women than to beg it of men.
Alice Paul was the first to apply this policy to the Suffrage situation
in the United States. As late as 1917, other Suffrage leaders, as well
as members of Congress, were reiterating that there was no such thing as
a Party in power in the United States, that that idea was brought from
England by Alice Paul and was not adapted to our American institutions.
The two girls concocted a scheme for starting federal work in
Washington. They went with it to the National American Woman Suffrage
Association, to Anna Howard Shaw, to Harriot Stanton Blatch, to Mary
Ware Dennett. Lucy Burns pictures Alice Paul at that last interview—“a
little Quakerish figure, crumpled up in her chair and for the first time
I noticed how beautiful her eyes were.” Finally Alice Paul went to the
Convention of the National American Association at Philadelphia. She
talked with Jane Addams. Alice Paul suggested that she be allowed to
come to Washington at her own expense to begin work on Congress for the
passing of a Constitutional Amendment. She agreed to raise the necessary
money. Jane Addams brought this suggestion before the Board of the
National American Woman Suffrage Association, urged its acceptance. It
was approved. The Board appointed a Committee consisting of Alice Paul,
Chairman; Lucy Burns, Vice-chairman; Crystal Eastman. Later in
Washington, Mrs. Lawrence Lewis and Mary Beard joined that Committee.
Alice Paul went first to Philadelphia and collected money for a few
days. Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, who, Miss Paul says, was one of the first to
say, “I have always believed that the way to get Suffrage is by a
federal amendment,” gave her name; gave money; collected money.
And so—all alone—Alice Paul came to Washington.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
III
ALICE PAUL AND LUCY BURNS
ALICE PAUL is a slender, frail-looking young woman, delicately colored
and delicately made. The head, the neck, the long slim arms, and the
little hands look as though they were cut out of alabaster. The dense
shadowy hair, scooping with deeper accessions of shadow into great
waves, dipping low on her forehead and massing into a great dusky bunch
in her neck, might be carved from bronze. It looks too heavy for her
head. Her face has a kind of powerful irregularity. Its prevailing
expression is of a brooding stillness; yet when she smiles, dimples
appear. Her eyes are big and quiet; dark—like moss-agates. When she is
silent they are almost opaque. When she talks they light up—rather they
glow—in a notable degree of luminosity. Her voice is low; musical; it
pulsates with a kind of interrogative plaintiveness. When you ask her a
question, there ensues, on her part, a moment of a stillness so
profound, you can almost hear it. I think I have never seen anybody who
can keep so still as Alice Paul. But when she answers you, the lucidity
of exposition, the directness of expression! Always she looks you
straight in the eye, and when she has finished speaking she holds you
with that luminous glow. Her tiny hands make gestures, almost humorous
in their gentleness and futility, compared with the force of her
remarks.
In the endless discussions at Headquarters—discussions that consider
every subject on earth and change constantly in personnel and point of
view—she is always the most silent. But when at last she speaks, often
there ensues a pause; she has summed it all up. Superficially she seems
cold, austere, a little remote. But that is only because the fire of her
spirit burns at such a heat that it is still and white. She has the
quiet of the spinning top.
As for her mentality ... her capacity for leadership ... her vision....
There is no difference of opinion in regard to Alice Paul in the Woman’s
Party. With one accord, they say, “She is the Party.” They regard her
with an admiration which verges on awe. Mentally she walks apart; not
because she has any conscious sense of superiority, but because of the
swiftness, amplitude, and completeness with which her mind marches—her
marvelous powers of concentration and her blazing devotion to the work.
I think no better description can be given of her than to quote the
exact phrases which her associates use in talking of her. Winifred
Mallon speaks of her “burning sincerity.” Helena Hill Weed imputes a
“prescience” to her. Anne Martin says, “She is the heart, brain, and
soul of the Woman’s Party,” and “Her mind moves with the precision of a
beautiful machine.” Nina Allender sums her up as “a Napoleon without
self-indulgence.” She said that when at the hearing in 1915, Congressmen
tried to tangle Alice Paul they found it an impossibility; everything in
Alice Paul’s mentality was so clear; there was nothing to tangle. She
added, “There are no two minds to Alice Paul.” “My mother describes
her,” she concluded, “as a flame undyingly burning.”
This is Maud Younger’s tribute:
She has in the first place a devotion to the cause which is
absolutely self-sacrificing. She has an indomitable will. She
recognizes no obstacles. She has a clear, penetrating, analytic mind
which cleaves straight to the heart of things. In examining a
situation, she always bares the main fact; she sees all the forces
which make for change in that situation. She is a genius for
organization, both in the mass and in detail. She understands
perfectly, in achieving the big object, the cumulative effect of
multitudes of small actions and small services. She makes use of all
material, whether human or otherwise, that comes along. Her work has
perpetual growth; it never stagnates; it is always branching out.
She is never hampered or cluttered. She is free of the past. Her
inventiveness and resourcefulness are endless. She believes
absolutely in open diplomacy. She believes that everything should be
told; our main argument with her was in regard to the necessity for
secrecy in special cases. She is almost without suspicion; and
sometimes with a too-great tendency towards kind judgment in the
case of the individual. It seems incredible that with all these
purely intellectual gifts, she should possess an acute appreciation
of beauty; a gift for pageantry; an amazing sense of humor.
Lucy Burns says:
When Alice Paul spoke to me about the federal work, I knew that she
had an extraordinary mind, extraordinary courage and remarkable
executive ability. But I felt she had two disabilities—ill-health
and a lack of knowledge of human nature. I was wrong in both. I was
staggered by her speed and industry and the way she could raise
money. Her great assets, I should say, are her power, with a single
leap of the imagination, to make plans on a national scale; and a
supplementary power to see that done down to the last postage stamp.
But because she can do all this, people let her do it—often she has
to carry her own plans out down to the very last postage stamp. She
used all kinds of people; she tested them through results. She is
exceedingly charitable in her judgments of people and patient. She
assigned one inept person to five different kinds of work before she
gave her up. Her abruptness lost some workers, but not the finer
spirits. The very absence of anything like personal appeal seemed to
help her.
[Illustration: LUCY BURNS AT THE HEAD OF THE “PRISON SPECIALISTS.” These
Women, All of Whom Served Terms in Jail, Are Wearing a Reproduction of
Their Prison Garb. Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.]
Lucy Burns is as different a type from Alice Paul as one could imagine.
She is tall—or at least she seems tall; rounded and muscular; a
splendidly vigorous physical specimen. If Alice Paul looks as though she
were a Tanagra carved from alabaster, Lucy Burns seems like a figure,
heroically sculptured, from marble. She is blue-eyed and
fresh-complexioned; dimpled; and her head is burdened, even as Alice
Paul’s, by an enormous weight of hair. Lucy Burn’s hair is a brilliant
red; and even as she flashes, it flashes. It is full of sparkle. She is
a woman of twofold ability. She speaks and writes with equal eloquence
and elegance. Her speeches before Suffrage bodies, her editorials in the
_Suffragist_ are models of clearness; conciseness; of accumulative force
of expression. Mentally and emotionally, she is quick and warm. Her
convictions are all vigorous and I do not think Lucy Burns would
hesitate for a moment to suffer torture, to die, for them. She has
intellectuality of a high order; but she overruns with a winning
Irishness which supplements that intellectuality with grace and charm; a
social mobility of extreme sensitiveness and swiftness. In those early
days in Washington, with all her uncompromising militantism, Lucy Burns
was the diplomat of the pair; the tactful, placating force.
I asked a member of the Woman’s Party who had watched the work from the
beginning what was the difference between the two women. She answered,
“They are both political-minded. They seemed in those early days to have
one spirit and one brain. Both saw the situation exactly as it was, but
they went at the problem with different methods. Alice Paul had a more
acute sense of justice, Lucy Burns, a more bitter sense of injustice.
Lucy Burns would become angry because the President or the people did
not do this or that. Alice Paul never expected anything of them.”
Both these women had the highest kind of courage. Lucy Burns—although
she admits that at Occoquan Workhouse, she suffered from nameless
terrors—has a mental poise that is almost unsusceptible to fear. Alice
Paul—although she can with perfect composure endure arrest,
imprisonment, hunger-striking—acknowledges timidities. She does not like
to listen to horrors of any description, especially ghost-stories. They
say though that, in the movies, she always particularly enjoyed pirates.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
IV
F STREET AND THE EARLY DAYS
WHEN Alice Paul arrived in Washington in December, 1912, she found a
discouraging state of things. She had been given the address of
Headquarters, but Headquarters had vanished. She had been given a list
of people to whom she could turn for help, but most of them had died or
moved away. At that time, Mrs. William Kent, who was subsequently to
become one of her constant and able assistants, was Chairman of the
Congressional Committee of the National American Woman Suffrage
Association. Two years before, when her husband was elected to Congress,
Mrs. Kent came to Washington. When she was asked to become Chairman of
this Committee she was told that it would entail no work. She must
merely see that the bill was introduced and arrange hearings before the
two committees. There was no thought of putting the Amendment through,
and no lobbying for it. The National Association allowed Mrs. Kent ten
dollars. At the end of the year she returned change. There were a few
Suffrage clubs in Washington, but their activity was merely social.
Alice Paul saw that the work had to be started from the very beginning.
First of all they had to have Headquarters. She hired a little basement
room at 1420 F Street. At a formal opening on January 2, 1913, Mrs.
William Kent, presiding, introduced Alice Paul as her successor; and a
plan for federal work was laid before the Suffragists of the District of
Columbia. Of course no one at the meeting guessed that she was present
at a historic occasion.
Alice Paul began work at once. Nina Allender says that one Sunday a
stranger called. She was wearing “a slim dress and a little purple hat
and she was no bigger,” Mrs. Allender held up her forefinger, “than
_that_.” The call was brief and it was unaccompanied by any of the small
talk or the persiflage which distinguishes most social occasions. But
when the door closed, a few moments later, mother and daughter looked at
each other in amazement. Mrs. Evans had promised to contribute to
Suffrage a sum of money monthly. Mrs. Allender had promised to
contribute to Suffrage a sum of money monthly. Mrs. Evans had agreed to
do a certain amount of work monthly. Mrs. Allender had agreed to do a
certain amount of work monthly. Their amazement arose partly from the
fact that they had not been begged, urged, or argued with—they had
simply been asked; and partly from the fact that, before the arrival of
this slim little stranger, they had no more idea of contributing so much
money or work than of flying. But they agreed to it the instant she
requested it of them.
This is a perfect example of the way Alice Paul works. There may be
times when she urges, even begs; but they appear to be rare. She often
forgets to thank you when you say yes; for she has apparently assumed
that you will say yes. She does not argue with you when you say no—but
you rarely say no. She has only to ask apparently. Perhaps it is part
the terseness with which she puts her request. Perhaps it is part her
simple acceptance of the fact that you are not going to refuse. Perhaps
it is her expectation that you will understand that she is not asking
for herself but for Suffrage. Perhaps it is the Quaker integrity which
shines through every statement. Perhaps it is the intensity of devotion
which blazes back of the gentleness of her personality and the
inflexibility of purpose which gives that gentleness power. At any rate,
it is very difficult to refuse Alice Paul.
A member of the Woman’s Party, meeting her for the first time in New
York and riding for a short distance in a taxicab with her, says that
Alice Paul turned to her as soon as they were alone:
“Will you give a thousand dollars to the Woman’s Party?”
“No, I haven’t that amount to give.”
“Will you give one hundred dollars?”
“No.”
“Will you give twenty-five dollars?”
“No.”
“Will you——”
“I’ll give five dollars.”
Mrs. Gilson Gardner says that one day, in the midst of the final
preparations for the procession of March 3, she came to Headquarters.
Alice Paul, it was apparent, was in a state of considerable
perturbation. At the sight of Mrs. Gardner she said, “There’s Mrs.
Gardner! She’ll attend to it.” She went on to explain. “The trappings
for the horses have been ruined. Will you order some more? They must be
delivered tomorrow night.” Mrs. Gardner says that she had no more idea
how to order a trapping than a suspension bridge, but—magic-ed as always
by Alice Paul’s personality—she emitted a terrified “Yes,” and started
out. She walked round and round the block a dozen times, reviewing her
problem, and casting about her looks of an appalled desperation.
Suddenly she espied a little tailor shop, and in it, at work, a little
tailor. She approached and confided her problem to him. Mrs. Gardner
kept shop while he went to Headquarters and got the measurements. He
delivered the trappings on time.
Later in the history of the Woman’s Party, Margery Ross came to
Washington to spend the winter with a cousin.
She was young and pretty. She established herself there and began to
enjoy herself. She was a Suffragist. One day, out of a clear sky, Alice
Paul said: “Miss Ross, will you go to Wyoming on Saturday, and organize
a State Convention there within three weeks?” “Why, Miss Paul,” the girl
faltered, “I _can’t_. My plans are all made for the winter. I’ve only
just got here.” Nevertheless, in a few days, Miss Ross started for
Wyoming. There were only eight members of the Congressional Union in
that State, and yet three weeks later she had achieved a State
Convention with one hundred and twenty delegates.
Perhaps, however, the story which best illustrates Miss Paul’s power to
make people work is one of Nina Allender’s. One must remember that Mrs.
Allender is an artist. One day Alice Paul telephoned her to ask her if
she would go the next day to Ohio to campaign for the Woman’s Party.
Mrs. Allender, who had no more expectation of going to Ohio than to the
moon, replied: “I’m sorry. It’s impossible. You see, we have just moved.
The place is being papered and painted, and I’ve got to select the
wallpaper.” “Oh, that’s all right,” Alice Paul suggested. “I’ll send a
girl right up there. _She’ll pick your paper for you and see that it’s
put on._” In the end, of course, Mrs. Allender chose her own paper. But
although she did not go to Ohio the next day, she went within a week.
When Alice Paul asked Maud Younger to deliver the memorial address on
Inez Milholland, Miss Younger was at first staggered by the idea. “I
can’t,” she said. “I don’t know how to do it.”
“Oh,” directed Alice Paul in a _dégagé_ way, “_just write something like
Lincoln’s Gettysburg address_.”
The first Headquarters consisted of one long basement room, partitioned
at the back into three small rooms of which two were storerooms, and one
Miss Paul’s office. This opened into a court. Later when the
_Suffragist_ was published, they had rooms upstairs; sometimes one,
sometimes more, according to their funds. By the first anniversary, they
had expanded to ten rooms. Later still, they had two whole floors.
Almost all the work was done by volunteers. All kinds of people worked
for them. Comparatively idle women of the moneyed class gave up
matinées, teas, and other social occasions; stenographers, who worked
all day long, labored until midnight. Anybody who dropped into
Headquarters for any purpose was put to work. Once a distinguished
lawyer from a western city called on business with Alice Paul.
“Would you mind addressing a few envelopes?” asked Alice Paul when the
business was concluded. The distinguished lawyer, whose own office was
of course manned by a small army of stenographers, smiled; but he took
off his coat and went to work.
Alice Paul’s swift, decisive leadership was accepted, unquestioningly.
Her word was immutable. One day an elderly woman was observed at a
typewriter, painfully picking at it with a stiff forefinger. It was
obvious that with a great expenditure of time and energy, she was
accomplishing nothing.
“Why are you doing that?” somebody asked curiously.
“Because Alice Paul told me to,” was the plaintive answer.
Most of the work was done in the big front room. The confusion of going
and coming of the volunteer workers; the noise of conflicting activity;
conversation; telephones; made concentrated thinking almost impossible.
The policeman on the beat said that a light burned in Headquarters all
night long. That was true. Alice Paul and Lucy Burns used to work far
into the morning because then, alone, were they assured of quiet. There
were times though when Alice Paul worked all day, all night and sitting
up in bed, into the next morning. She never lost time. Later when she
picketed the White House, she used to take a stenographer with her and
dictate while on picket duty.
Volunteer work is of course not always to be depended upon. It is
eccentric and follows its own laws. There would be periods when
Headquarters would be flooded with help. There came intervals when it
was almost empty. Sara Grogan, herself a devoted adherent, tells how in
this case, she used to go out on the streets and ask strangers to help.
Volunteer workers—if they were housekeepers or the mothers of
families—learned, on their busy days, to give F Street a wide berth. As
they had no time to give and as it was impossible to say no to Alice
Paul, the streets about Headquarters were as closed to them as the
streets of his creditors to Dick Swiveller. It was perhaps this
experience which taught Alice Paul what later became one of her chief
assets—her power to put to use every bit of human material that came her
way; which developed in her that charitable willingness, when this human
material failed in one direction, to try it in another; and another; and
another. Rarely did she reject any offer of help, no matter how
untrained or seemingly untrainable it was. I asked Mabel Vernon how she
got so much work—and such splendid work of all kinds—out of amateurs.
She answered, “She believed we could do it and so she made us believe
it.”
In those days, Alice Paul herself was like one driven by a fury of
speed. She was a human dynamo. She made everybody else work as hard as
possible, but she drove—although she did drive—nobody so hard as
herself. Winifred Mallon said, “I worked with Alice Paul for three
months before I saw her with her hat off. I was perfectly astonished, I
remember, at that mass of hair. I had never suspected its existence.”
For a long time, Alice Paul deliberately lived in a cold room, so that
she could not be tempted to sit up late to read. It was more than a year
before she visited the book-shop opened by a friend because, she said,
“I should be tempted to buy so many books there.” Anne Martin says that
she believes Alice Paul made a vow not to think or to read anything that
was not connected with Suffrage until the Amendment was passed. There
was certainly no evidence of her reading anything else. They make the
humorous observation at Headquarters now that the instant the Amendment
had passed both Houses, Alice Paul began to permit herself the luxury of
one mental relaxation—the reading of detective stories. But in those
early days she worked all the time and she worked at everything.
Somebody said to Lucy Burns, “She asks nothing of us that she doesn’t do
herself,” and Lucy Burns answered dryly, “Yes, she’s annoyingly
versatile.”
Not only did Alice Paul ask you to work but after you had agreed to it,
she kept after you. “She ‘nagged’ us”-they say humorously at
Headquarters. Once, just before leaving for Chicago, Alice Paul
appointed a certain young person chairman of a certain committee, with
power to select chairmen of ten other committees to arrange for a
demonstration when the Suffrage Special returned. This was four weeks
off and yet in three days from Chicago came a telegram: “Wire me
immediately the names of your chairmen!”
But just as Alice Paul never thanked herself for what she was doing, it
never occurred to her to thank anybody else. And perhaps she had an
innate conviction that it was egregious personally to thank people for
devotion to a cause. However that did not always work out in practice,
naturally.
Once a woman, a volunteer, who had worked all the morning reported to
Alice Paul at noon. She retailed what she had done. Alice Paul made no
comment whatever, but asked her immediately if she would go downtown for
her. The woman refused; went away and did not come back. Alice Paul
asked a friend for an explanation of her absence. “She is offended,” her
friend explained. “You did not thank her for what she did.” “But,”
exclaimed Alice Paul, “she did not do it for me. She did it for
Suffrage. I thought she would be delighted to do it for Suffrage.” After
that, however, Alice Paul tried very hard to remember to thank
everybody. Once a party member said to her, as she was leaving
Headquarters, “I have a taxi here, Miss Paul—can’t I take you anywhere?”
“No,” Alice Paul answered abruptly. She was halfway down the stairs when
she seemed to remember something. Instantly she turned back and said,
“Thank you!” Another time, somebody else announced that she was offended
because Alice Paul had not thanked her, and was going to leave. A friend
went to Alice Paul.
“Mrs. Blank is leaving us. I am afraid you have offended her.”
“Where is she?” Alice Paul demanded, “I will apologize at once.”
“For what?” the friend inquired.
“I don’t know,” Alice Paul answered, “_anything_!”
Like Roosevelt, Alice Paul had a remarkable news sense. She was the joy
of newspaper men. Ninety per cent of the Woman’s Party bulletins got
publicity as against about twenty per cent of others. A New Orleans
editor said they were the best publicity organization in the country.
Gilson Gardner compares her to a Belasco, staging the scene admirably
but, herself, always in the background.
Later, when the first stress was over, her companions spoke of the joy
of work with her. They marveled at that creative quality which made her
put over her demonstrations on so enormous a scale and the beauty with
which she inundated them.
Maud Younger tells of going with her one night to the Capitol steps,
when she painted imaginatively, on the scene which lay outstretched
before her, the great demonstration which she was planning: wide areas
of static color here, long lines of pulsating color there, laid on in
great splashes and welts, like a painter of the modern school. Above
all, her companions took a fearful joy in the serene way in which she
brushed aside red tape, ignored rules. She would decide on some
unexpected, daring bit of pioneer demonstration. Her companions would
report to her regarding restrictions. “What an absurd rule,” she would
remark, and then proceed calmly to ignore it. “Oh, Miss Paul, we _can’t_
do that!” was the commonest exclamation with which the fellow workers
greeted her plans. But always they did do it because she convinced them
that it could be done. After the death of Inez Milholland, Alice Paul
decided to hold a memorial service in Statuary Hall at the Capitol.
“Oh, Miss Paul, we can’t do that! Memorial services are held there only
for those whose statues are in the Hall.” But in the end she did it.
When her Committee spoke about it to the officials who have Statuary
Hall in charge they said, “One thing we cannot permit. You cannot go up
into the gallery because the doors open from that gallery into rooms
containing old and valued books and those books might be stolen.” The
police said, “No, you must not hang curtains over those openings in case
a Senator wants to pass through.” Later the police themselves were
helping Alice Paul to place the purple, white, and gold pennants about
the gallery; they themselves were piling around their standards, in
order to hold them straight, those same old and valued books; they
themselves were standing on stepladders to help her hang curtains before
those unsealable openings.
When the Suffrage Special returned, Alice Paul decided to hold a
welcoming banquet in the dining-room of the beautiful new Washington
railroad station. She sent somebody to ask this privilege of the
authorities. At first, of course, they said, no, but in the end, of
course, they said, yes. The Woman’s Party hired a band to help in the
welcome. Alice Paul observed that the man who played the horn was so
tall that he obscured an important detail in the decoration. She asked
him to stand in another part of the band group. Of course he answered
that that was impossible, that the horn always stood where he was
standing, but in the end, of course, he stood where Alice Paul told him
to stand.
Late in the history of the Woman’s Party, somebody discovered that Alice
Paul had never seen an anti-Suffragist. At a legislative hearing during
ratification they pointed out one to her—a beautiful one. “She looks
like a Botticelli,” Alice Paul said—and gazed admiringly at her for the
rest of the hearing.
Her companions marveled, I reiterate, at Alice Paul’s creative power.
That did not manifest itself in demonstrations alone. Her policy had
creative quality. It had a wide sweep. It moved on wings and with
accumulating force and speed. Her work in Washington started slowly,
though with sureness of attack, but all the time it heightened and
deepened. From 1913 to 1919 it never faltered. Sometimes changes in
outside affairs made changes in her self-evolved plan, but they never
stopped it, never even slowed it. From the beginning she saw her
objective clearly; and always she made for it. Activities that may often
have seemed to the callow-minded but the futile militancy of a group of
fanatics were part of a perfectly co-ordinated plan. Moreover, she had
always reserve ideas and always a buried ace. Sapient members of the
Party—those who were close to her—believe that she used only a part of
an enormous scheme; that she was prepared far into the future and for
any possible contingency. They wonder sometimes how far that creative
impulse reached ... what form it would later ... and later ... and later
have taken. Yet she proceeded slowly, giving every new form of agitation
its chance; prudent always of her reserves. The instant one kind of
demonstration exhausted its usefulness, she moved to the next. She
wasted no time on side issues, on petty hostilities, on rivalries with
other organizations.
But the quality that, above all, informed her other qualities, the
quality that she first of all brought to the Suffrage situation, the
quality that made her associates regard her with a kind of awe, was her
political-mindedness, and political-mindedness was not at all uncommon
in the Woman’s Party. It was, perhaps, its main asset, although
initiative and efficiency, speed, and courage of the most daring order
marked it. But Alice Paul’s political-mindedness had quality as well as
quantity. When Hughes was made the Republican nominee for the 1916
election, Alice Paul asked him to declare for National Suffrage. He was
exceedingly dubious. It is obvious that, in asking favors of a
politician, it is necessary to prove to him that action on his part will
not hurt him in the matter of votes and may help him. On this point,
Alice Paul said in effect:
“Your Party consists of two factions, the old, stand-pat Republicans and
the Progressives. Now, if you put a Suffrage plank in your platform, you
will not alienate the Progressives, because the Progressives have a
Suffrage plank, and the old stand-pat Republicans will not vote for a
Democrat no matter what you put in your platform.”
When in the same election campaign Hughes went West, and the West turned
to Wilson, it became evident, however much the Woman’s Party diminished
the prestige of Wilson, it could not defeat him. Numerous advisers
suggested to Alice Paul to withdraw her speakers from the campaign.
Alice Paul answered, “_No; if we withdraw our speakers from the
campaign, we withdraw the issue from the campaign._ The main thing is to
make the Suffrage Amendment a national issue that the Democrats will not
want to meet in another campaign.”
After the election, somebody said to her, “The people of the United
States generally think you made a great mistake in fighting Wilson. They
think your campaign a failure.” Alice Paul answered, “In this case, it
is not important what the people think _but what the Democratic leaders
know_.”
The most magical thing about Alice Paul’s political-mindedness was,
however, a quality which is almost indescribable. Perhaps it should be
symbolized by some term of the fourth dimension—although Helena Hill
Weed’s happy word “prescience” comes near to describing it. Maud Younger
gives an extraordinary example of this. She says again and again,
lobbyists would come back from the Capitol with the news of some
unexpected manœuver which perplexed or even blocked them. Congressmen,
themselves, would be puzzled over the situation. Again and again, she
has seen Alice Paul walk to the window, stand there, head bent,
thinking. Then, suddenly she would come back. She had seen behind the
veil of conflicting and seemingly untranslatable testimony. She had, in
Maud Younger’s own words, cloven “straight to the heart of things.”
Often her lobbyists had the experience of explaining to baffled members
of Committees in Congress the concealed tactics of their own Committee.
* * * * *
It was small wonder that they were so busy at Headquarters during those
first months. They were preparing for a monster demonstration in the
shape of a procession which was to occur on March 3, 1913, on the eve of
President Wilson’s first inauguration. That procession, which was really
a thing of great beauty, brought Suffrage into prominence in a way the
Suffragists had not for an instant anticipated. About eight thousand
women took part. The procession started from the Capitol, marched up
Pennsylvania Avenue past the White House and ended in a mass-meeting at
the Hall of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Although a permit
had been issued for the procession, and though this carried with it the
right to the street, the police failed to protect the marchers as had
been rumored they would. The end of the Avenue was almost impassable to
the parade. A huge crowd, drawn from all over the country, had appeared
in Washington for the Inauguration festivities. They chose to act in the
most rowdy manner possible and many of the police chose to seem
oblivious of what they were doing. Disgraceful episodes occurred.
Secretary of War Stimson had finally to send for troops from Fort Meyer.
There was an investigation of the action of the police by a Committee of
the Senate. The official report is a thick book containing testimony
that will shock any fine-minded American citizen. Ultimately, the Chief
of Police for the District of Columbia was removed.
The investigation, however, kept the Suffrage procession in the minds of
the public for many weeks. It almost over-shadowed the Inauguration
itself.
* * * * *
On this occasion, the banner—in a slightly modified form to be
afterwards always known as the Great Demand banner—was carried for the
first time. This banner marched peremptorily through the history of the
Woman’s Party until the Suffrage Amendment was passed. It said:
WE DEMAND AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE
UNITED STATES ENFRANCHISING THE WOMEN OF THE COUNTRY.
On March 3 there arrived in Washington a man who was that day a simple
citizen of the United States. The next day he was to become the
President of the United States. As Woodrow Wilson drove from the station
through the empty streets to his hotel, he asked, “Where are the
people?”
The answer was, “Over on the Avenue watching the Suffrage Parade.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
V
MAKING THE FEDERAL AMENDMENT AN ISSUE
THE first great demonstration of the Congressional Committee—the
procession of March 3—had been designed to attract the eye of the
country to the Suffragists. It succeeded beyond their wildest hopes.
Thereafter it became a part of the policy of the Congressional
Committee—later, the Congressional Union, and later still, the National
Woman’s Party—to keep the people watching the Suffragists. The main work
of the Congressional Committee, however, focussed directly on Congress,
as of course Congress alone could pass a Constitutional Amendment. They
appealed to Congress constantly, by different methods, and through
different avenues. They appealed to Congress through the President of
the United States, through political leaders, through constituents. It
is one way of describing their system to say that they worked on
Congress by a series of electric shocks delivered to it downwards from
the President, and by a constant succession of waves delivered upwards
through the people. This pressure never ceased for a moment. It
accumulated in power as the six years of this work went on.
* * * * *
When President Wilson arrived in Washington for his inauguration, the
first thing brought to his notice was Suffrage agitation. The
Congressional Committee thereafter kept Suffrage constantly before him.
If not actually opposed to Suffrage in 1913, Woodrow Wilson had every
appearance of opposition; certainly he was utterly indifferent to it.
But Alice Paul believed that he was amenable to education on the
subject, and she proceeded to educate him. Her theory proved to be true,
but the process took longer than she had anticipated. Her methods of
course aroused storms of criticism; but in the end they triumphed. The
President’s action during the six years’ siege was the attitude of all
politicians. That is to say, for a long time he made general statements
of a vaguely encouraging nature to the Suffragists, but for a long time
he actually did nothing. Every accepted method of convincing him of the
justice of the cause was tried. Deputation after deputation waited on
him and stated their case. Then he began to move. He came out for Woman
Suffrage as a principle; he voted for it in New Jersey but he still
believed that the enfranchisement of woman must come by States. In 1917,
his position, except for these minor admissions, was exactly that of
1913. As far as the Suffrage Amendment was concerned, he had not budged
an inch. The Woman’s Party then tried desperate remedies and afterward
more and more desperate remedies. These always produced results—towards
the end, _immediate_ results. But at the beginning of this period, the
Suffragists found that the instant they relaxed, the President relaxed;
his attention departed from Suffrage. This always happened. Then the
Congressional Committee began to exert a little more pressure, and the
President’s attention came back to Suffrage. In the long attacking
process to which Alice Paul subjected him, she put him in untenable
position after untenable position. He moved from each one of them by
some new concession. In the end, he himself procured the last vote
necessary to pass the Amendment in the Senate.
Alice Paul admires Woodrow Wilson profoundly. She admires his powers of
leadership; his ideals; his persistence; his steadfastness; his
resolution. “He is a man,” she says, “who considers one thing at a time.
Suffrage was not in his thought at all until we, ourselves, injected it
there. And it was not in the center of his thought until the picketing
was well along.” She believed always that, when the President was made
to think that he must act in regard to Suffrage, he would put it
through.
Immediately after his inauguration, President Wilson announced that a
special session of Congress would be called on April 7. At once the
Congressional Committee decided to bring to his attention the fact that
there was no subject which more urgently demanded treatment in this
session than Woman Suffrage. Three deputations were therefore organized
to ask him to recommend the Federal Amendment in the message by which he
should convene this special session. These deputations—and all
subsequent ones—were organized by Alice Paul.
The first deputation waited on President Wilson on March 17. This
deputation consisting of four women was led by Alice Paul herself.
Although individual Suffragists had interviewed previous presidents,
this was the first deputation which had ever appeared with a request for
action before a President of the United States. President Wilson’s reply
to their remarks was that the subject would receive his most careful
attention.
The episode was one of the most amusing of the early history of the
Congressional Committee. The President received the deputation in the
White House offices. When they entered, they found four chairs arranged
in a row with one in front of them, like a class about to be addressed
by a teacher. The atmosphere was so tense that all the women felt it and
were frightened. Alice Paul spoke first and said that women wanted
Suffrage considered by Congress at once, as the most important issue
before the country. All spoke in turn. One woman was so terrified that
she petrified when her turn came. “Don’t be nervous,” the President
reassured her and she finally proceeded. To this first group the
President made the statement that so astounded Suffragists all over the
country—that Suffrage had never been brought to his attention, that the
matter was entirely new. He added that he did not know his position and
would like all information possible on the subject.
The Congressional Committee gave him time to give the subject this
careful attention, and then a second deputation waited on the President
on March 28 to furnish him with the information he lacked. This
deputation was led by Elsie Hill, and it represented the College Equal
Suffrage League. The President replied to their remarks that this
session of Congress would be so occupied with the tariff and the
currency that the Suffrage measure could not be considered.
A third deputation waited on the President on March 31. It was led by
Dr. Cora Smith King, and it was composed of influential members of the
National Council of Women Voters. This delegation told the President
that the women voters, who numbered approximately two million, were much
interested in the proposed Suffrage Amendment. They also asked him to
recommend it in his message. His reply to them was the same as to the
college women: that this special session would be so occupied with the
tariff and currency that the Suffrage measure could not be considered.
In the meantime, the Congressional Committee had notified Suffragists
all over the United States that a Suffrage Amendment would be introduced
in this special session of Congress; asking them to urge the President
to indorse Suffrage in his forthcoming message; and to request their
Representative in Congress to support Suffrage when it was introduced.
Letters poured into Washington from the remotest corners of the country.
This was the beginning of that intimacy which the Congressional
Committee—afterwards the Congressional Union, afterwards the National
Woman’s Party—established with its sympathizers and members all over the
country. In the nature of things—the political situation being
changeable, and demanding always subtle, delicate, and often swift and
decisive handling—the actual work at Washington had to be planned and
executed by a limited number. But those few must be able, forceful, and
swiftly executive spirits. Their adherents all over the country were
however kept as closely and constantly as possible in touch with that
changing situation.
In addition, the Congressional Committee did all possible preliminary
work with the incoming members of this Congress. The result on the
Progressive members was encouraging. Although there was a Woman Suffrage
Committee in the Senate, there was none in the House. Thitherto, the
Suffrage question had been sent to the Judiciary Committee, the
graveyard of the House. As a result of the work of the Congressional
Committee, the Progressive Caucus, which met before the new Congress
assembled, gave its unqualified indorsement to the proposal to create a
Woman Suffrage Committee in the House. The Congressional Committee
canvassed the Democratic members of the House and urged them to take
similar action. The Democratic Caucus, however, entirely ignored the
question.
Having brought Suffrage to the attention of the new President by the
monster procession of March 3, the Congressional Committee proceeded to
bring it to the attention of the new Congress by a second great
demonstration. This was in support of the Federal Amendment, and it took
place on the opening day of the special session of the Sixty-third
Congress, April 7, 1913. Delegates from each of the 435 Congressional
districts in the United States assembled at Washington, bringing
petitions from the men and women of their districts, asking for the
passing of the Amendment. After the mass-meeting, the delegates marched,
each behind her State banner, to the doors of Congress. The procession
was greeted at the steps of the Capitol by a group of Congressmen. One
of them welcomed the petitioners in a speech pledging his support to
their cause. They then led the delegation into the Rotunda, where a long
receiving line of members of Congress repeated his welcome. The
Suffragists took places which had been set aside for them in the
galleries of the Senate and the House and watched the presentation of
the petitions.
Immediately after the petitions were presented, Representative Mondell
(Republican) of Wyoming, and Senator Chamberlain (Democrat) of Oregon
introduced the Suffrage Amendment. In the Senate this resolution was
referred to the Woman’s Suffrage Committee, and in the House to the
Judiciary Committee. Named, as is customary, after those who introduced
it, the measure was known first as the Chamberlain-Mondell Amendment,
and later as the Bristow-Mondell Amendment. It was in reality the famous
Susan B. Anthony Amendment—first introduced into Congress in 1878 by
Senator Sargent of California—exactly as she drew it up. The Anthony
Amendment runs as follows:
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall
not be denied or abridged by any State on account of sex.
Section 2. Congress shall have power by appropriate legislation to
enforce the provisions of this article.
On that same day—April 7, 1913—resolutions were introduced in the House
to create a Woman Suffrage Committee similar to that in the Senate. This
was only a tiny gain; for that Committee was not actually created until
September, 1917. But a little later occurred what was a decided gain—the
Senate created a Majority Committee on Woman Suffrage. The Woman
Suffrage Committee in the Senate had been a Minority Committee
thitherto. That meant that, as its Chairman belonged to the Minority
Party, its existence was purely nominal.
* * * * *
All these four months, the five women who constituted the Congressional
Committee had been working at a tremendous speed. They had been made
into a Committee on the understanding that the Committee would itself
raise the money necessary for its work. Four months’ experience had
convinced them that the work of securing a Federal Amendment required a
much greater effort than five women, working alone, could possibly give
to it. The various State associations composing the National American
Woman Suffrage Association were engrossed in their State campaigns.
Little could be expected from them in the way of personal service or
financial aid. When the Congressional Committee appealed to individuals,
they found that these individuals were giving their time and service to
the particular State in which they lived. The Congressional Committee
realized that they must have an organization back of them to assist with
work and money, whose sole object was national work. The Congressional
Union for Woman Suffrage was therefore formed by the Congressional
Committee, with the approval of the President of the National American
Woman Suffrage Association.
The Congressional Union described itself as “a group of women in all
parts of the country who have joined together in the effort to secure
the passage of an Amendment to the United States Constitution
enfranchising women.” It offered its members the privilege of making the
offices at Washington their headquarters while in the city. It adopted
colors—at the happy suggestion of Mrs. John Jay White—of purple, white,
and gold. The Union grew rapidly, and was later admitted as an auxiliary
to the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The Congressional
Committee acted as the Executive Committee of this Congressional Union.
Throughout the year the Union was of great assistance to the Committee.
It reinforced its work in every possible way.
* * * * *
The Suffrage resolution was now before the Committees in both Houses.
The Congressional Union concentrated on securing a hearing before the
Senate Committee. Every effort was made to focus the attention of
Suffragists and of the country at large on the situation. A hearing was
arranged before the Committee, at which Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, President
of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, presided. In
addition to this public hearing, the members of the Senate Committee
were interviewed. And pursuing its course of keeping Suffragists in
touch with what was happening at Washington, the Congressional Committee
circularized Suffragists all over the country with letters which
informed them that the resolution was before the Senate Committee, and
asked them to write to this Committee urging a favorable report.
After six months of work occurred the first political triumph of the
Congressional Union. On May 13, the Senate Committee voted to make a
favorable report upon the Suffrage resolution. There, however, matters
rested—with a favorable vote, but still in the Committee. The
Suffragists, however, besieged the Committee with requests to make the
report and finally, on June 13, the report was made to the Senate—the
first favorable one in twenty-one years. This put the measure on the
Senate Calendar.
Immediately the Congressional Union turned its attention to proving to
the Senate how widespread was the support of this measure in the United
States.
A petition was circulated in every State in the Union. It asked for the
passage of the Amendment, and was addressed to the Senate. Thousands of
signatures were obtained. During June and July, these petitions were
collected and brought to Washington. Their arrival at the Capitol on
July 31 was the occasion of the third great demonstration. The
petitioners came from every State, and they came in every possible way.
They came by train, by motor, by caravan. They held meetings and
collected signatures to the great petition in the districts through
which they passed. All the delegations converged in the little town of
Hyattsville, outside Washington. There—at the village grandstand, they
were met by members of the Congressional Union and of the Woman Suffrage
Committee of the Senate. The reading clerk of the House of
Representatives announced the members of the delegations as they arrived
in their several motors. Members of the Senate Committee addressed them
on behalf of the Congressional Committee of the Congressional Union. The
Mayor of Hyattsville delivered to them the key of the town. Mary Ware
Dennett replied for the delegates, and accepted the key of the town from
the Mayor. The automobiles then formed into a procession, of which the
first motor carried the members of the Senate Committee. The long line
of cars, fluttering flags, and pennants, and each bearing the banner of
its State delegation, proceeded from Hyattsville along the old Bunker
Hill Road to the Capitol. There, the petitions were handed to the
various Senators. Three Senators spoke against Suffrage, but twenty-two
in presenting the petitions spoke in favor of it.
This was the second triumph of the Congressional Union. Suffrage was
debated in Congress—the first time since 1887.
* * * * *
The Congressional Committee now turned its attention to the work of
convincing Congress of the interest in the Amendment of the women voters
of the West. A Convention of the National Council of Women Voters was
held in Washington on August 13, 14, and 15. Emma Smith Devoe, National
President of the Council, and Jane Addams, National Vice-President,
presided. Upon a motion by Jane Addams, the Council passed the following
Resolution, strongly indorsing the Amendment:
Whereas at the present time one-fifth of the Senate, one-seventh of
the House, and one-sixth of the electoral vote comes from equal
Suffrage States; and
Whereas, as a result of this political strength in Congress, due to
the fact that four million women of the United States are now
enfranchised, there is great hope of the passage in the near future
of the Federal Suffrage Amendment; therefore be it
Resolved, That the National Council of Women Voters concentrate its
efforts upon the support of this Federal Amendment.
The Rules Committee of the House of Representatives on August 14 then
gave the Council a hearing on the question of creating a Suffrage
Committee in the House.
The Convention ended in a mass-meeting at the Belasco Theatre, which, in
spite of the midsummer heat of Washington, was crowded to the doors. The
platform was filled with Congressmen from Suffrage States. The women
speakers iterated and reiterated the demand of the women voters of the
West for immediate action by Congress, and the Congressmen supported
them.
In addition to these—processions, pilgrimages, petitions, deputations,
and hearings, hundreds of public meetings organized by the Washington
Headquarters—were held everywhere. A constant series of deputations from
their own constituencies besieged the members of the Senate. All this
was making its inevitable impression on Congress. Those days of the
Sixty-third Congressional Session were crowded ones. The President had
told the Suffragists that so much time must be given to the tariff and
the currency that there would be none left for Women Suffrage. Yet more
time was devoted to the Woman Suffrage question than ever before. On
September 18, Senator Wesley L. Jones of Washington delivered a speech
in the Senate, in which he urged that the Suffrage Resolution should be
passed. In the House, a number of Representatives formerly opposed to
the resolution now declared that they would support it when it came
before them.
* * * * *
In the meantime, the tariff and currency had finally been disposed of. A
new Congress was to convene on December 1. Ever since his inauguration,
Suffrage agitation of a strong, dignified, and convincing character had
been brought to the President’s attention. Suffragists hoped, therefore,
that the President would feel that he could recommend the Suffrage
Amendment to this new Congress. They decided, however, to present the
matter to him in a forcible way. A fourth deputation of seventy-three
women from his own State of New Jersey came to Washington in the middle
of November.
This delegation arrived on Saturday afternoon, November 15. Until Monday
morning, they tried in every possible way to arrange for an appointment
with the President at the White House. Representative McCoy of New
Jersey endeavored to assist them in this matter. Their efforts and his
efforts were fruitless.
Monday morning, at 10 o’clock, Alice Paul telephoned the Executive
Office that, as it was impossible to find out what hour would suit the
convenience of the President, the delegation was on its way to the White
House. She explained that they would wait there until the President was
ready to receive them, or would definitely refuse to do so. The clerk at
the Executive Office declared over the telephone that it would be
impossible to see the President without an appointment. He assured Alice
Paul that such a thing had never been done. Representative McCoy called
up Headquarters, and reported his failure to secure an appointment. On
being told that the delegation was going to call on the President
anyway, he protested vehemently against its proceeding to the White
House without the usual official preliminaries. Alice Paul’s answer was
a single statement,—“The delegation has already started.”
In double file the seventy-three New Jersey women marched through
Fifteenth Street, through Pennsylvania Avenue, past the Treasury
Department, and up to the White House grounds. And, lo, as though their
coming spread paralyzing magic, everything gave way before them. Two
guards in uniform stood at the gate. They saluted and moved aside. The
seventy-three women marched unchallenged through the grounds to the door
of the Executive Office. An attendant there requested them courteously
to wait until after their two leaders should be presented to the
President by his Secretary.
The request that these seventy-three New Jersey women made to President
Wilson was that he should support the Constitutional Amendment
enfranchising women. President Wilson replied: “I am pleased, indeed, to
greet you and your adherents here, and I will say to you that I was
talking only yesterday with several Members of Congress in regard to the
Suffrage Committee in the House. The subject is one in which I am deeply
interested, and you may rest assured that I will give it my earnest
attention.”
It is to be seen that the President’s education had progressed—a little.
To previous delegations, he had stated merely that the tariff and
currency would take so much of the attention of Congress that there
would be no time for the Suffrage question. In advocating a Suffrage
Committee in the House, he had made an advance—tiny, to be sure, but an
advance.
* * * * *
In the last month of 1913 occurred in Washington the Forty-fifth Annual
Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The
Convention opened with a mass-meeting at the Columbia Theatre. Dr. Anna
Howard Shaw presided. Jane Addams and Senator Helen Ring Robinson were
the principal speakers. At the opening meeting of the Convention, Lucy
Burns repeated the warning of the Congressional Union to the Democratic
Party:
The National American Women Suffrage Association is assembled in
Washington to ask the Democratic Party to enfranchise the women of
America.
Rarely in the history of the country has a party been more powerful
than the Democratic Party is today. It controls the Executive
Office, the Senate, and more than two-thirds of the members of the
House of Representatives. It is in a position to give us effective
and immediate help.
We ask the Democrats to take action now. Those who hold power are
responsible to the country for the use of it. They are responsible,
not only for what they do, but for what they do not do. Inaction
establishes just as clear a record as does a policy of open
hostility.
We have in our hands today not only the weapon of a just case; we
have the support of ten enfranchised States—States comprising
one-fifth of the United States, one-seventh of the House of
Representatives and one-sixth of the electoral vote. More than three
million, six hundred thousand women have a vote in Presidential
elections. It is unthinkable that a national government which
represents women, and which appeals periodically to the Suffrages of
women, should ignore the issue of their right to political freedom.
We cannot wait until after the passage of the scheduled
administration reforms. These reforms, which affect women, should
not be enacted without the consent of women. Congress is free to
take action on our question in the present Session. We ask the
administration to support the Woman Suffrage Amendment in Congress
with its full strength.
On December 4, a second meeting was held before the Rules Committee of
the House on the creation of a Woman Suffrage Committee in the House of
Representatives. Ida Husted Harper reminded the Rules Committee at this
hearing that nine States and one Territory had enfranchised their women,
and that nearly four million women could vote at a Presidential
election. Mary Beard showed by an analysis of the vote which sent
President Wilson to the White House that the Democratic strength was
already threatened, and how it could strengthen itself by espousing the
Suffrage Cause.
Notwithstanding the appeal of the seventy-three New Jersey women, the
President’s message to Congress on December 2 failed to make any mention
whatever of the Suffrage Amendment.
In consequence, a Committee representing each State in the Union was
appointed by the Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage
Association to wait upon the President and protest. President Wilson was
prevented by illness from seeing any visitors during the week the
Convention met. The Convention, therefore, authorized the appointment of
a Committee of fifty-five delegates, who should remain in Washington
until the President was able to see them. The interview took place the
following Monday at 12:30. This was the fifth deputation to President
Wilson. The President said, according to the _Washington Post_ of
December 9:
I want you ladies, if possible—if I can make it clear to you—to
realize just what my present position is. Whenever I walk abroad, I
realize that I am not a free man; I am under arrest. I am so
carefully and admirably guarded that I have not even the privilege
of walking the street. That is, as it were, typical of my present
transference from being an individual with his mind on any and every
subject, to being an official of a great Government and,
incidentally, or so it falls out under our system of Government, the
spokesman of a Party. I set myself this strict rule when I was
Governor of New Jersey and have followed it as President, and shall
follow it as President, that I am not at liberty to urge upon
Congress policies which have not had the organic consideration of
those for whom I am spokesman.
In other words, I have not yet presented to any legislature my
private views on any subject, and I never shall; because I conceive
that to be a part of the whole process of government, that I shall
be spokesman for somebody, not for myself.
When I speak for myself, I am an individual; when I speak for an
organic body, I am a representative. For that reason you see, I am
by my own principles shut out, in the language of the street, from
starting anything. I have to confine myself to those things which
have been embodied as promises to the people at an election. That is
the strict rule I set for myself.
I want to say that with regard to all other matters I am not only
glad to be consulted by my colleagues in the two Houses, but I hope
that they will often pay me the compliment of consulting me when
they want to know my opinions on any subject. One member of the
Rules Committee did come to ask me what I thought about this
suggestion of yours of appointing a special committee for
consideration of the question of Woman Suffrage, and I told him that
I thought it was a proper thing to do. So that as far as my personal
advice has been asked by a single member of the Committee, it has
been given to that effect. I wanted to tell you that to show you
that I am strictly living up to my principles. When my private
opinion is asked by those who are co-operating with me, I am most
glad to give it; but I am not at liberty until I speak for somebody
besides myself to urge legislation upon the Congress.
Dr. Shaw stepped forward to address the President within the circle of
deeply attentive hearers, spoke very quietly and firmly in her clear and
beautiful voice.
“Of the two—the President and Dr. Shaw,” said one of the spectators
afterward, “Dr. Shaw spoke with greater authority, as if with the
consciousness of a perfectly just cause. The President was less assured,
more hesitating.”...
“As women are members of no political Party, to whom are they to look
for a spokesman?” Dr. Shaw asked.
“You speak very well for yourself,” said the President, laughing.
“But not with authority,” said Dr. Shaw earnestly.
The deputation then left the President’s Office.
Editorially in the _Suffragist_ of December 13 appears:
The rule that President Wilson has so strictly set for himself, is a
rule not laid down in the Constitution nor in the practice of
preceding Presidents, nor in the President’s own acts, nor in his
own words.
Nevertheless, the statement of President Wilson to the President of
the National American Woman Suffrage Association is of great value
to the Suffrage movement. The President therein declares that he is
only the spokesman of his Party and that he will initiate only
legislation which has been endorsed by his Party. He puts the whole
question of Federal legislation for Woman Suffrage directly up to
the Democratic Party in Congress, and instructs Suffragists
throughout the country to hold that Party responsible for the fate
of the Constitutional Amendment enfranchising women. He has outlined
for us, therefore, the policy of bringing effective pressure to bear
on the national Democratic Party from all parts of the country, in
an effort to make them realize soon what they must recognize
finally, that it is more expedient for them as a Party to advocate
Suffrage than to ignore and resist it.
Nevertheless, the President’s education had progressed another step. For
the first time, he felt the necessity of explaining—and by
implication—of excusing himself.
This visit to the President completed the principal work of the year
1913 on the part of the Congressional Committee and the Congressional
Union.
Many things had been done in this year, in addition to what has already
been indicated. A district of Columbia Branch of the Men’s League for
Woman Suffrage was organized; this was composed largely of Congressmen.
Lectures, receptions, tableaux, benefits, teas had been given, and a
Suffrage School opened in Washington. Seven large mass-meetings,
exclusive of Convention meetings, were held at Washington. An
uninterrupted series of indoor and outdoor meetings, numbering
frequently from five to ten a day, constantly reminded Congress of the
Suffrage question. A summer campaign, carried on by Mabel Vernon and
Edith Marsden, covered the resort regions of New Jersey, Long Island,
and Rhode Island, and extended into the South.
Twenty-seven thousand dollars had been raised at the Washington
Headquarters, and spent. And there were results. The chief one was that
it focussed the attention—not only of Suffragists themselves—but of
politicians and the country at large on the Federal Amendment.
June, 1913, brought Presidential Suffrage to the women of Illinois. Only
Presidential Suffrage; but that was very important. Astute women
everywhere were watching the situation; drawing their own and
independent conclusions.
Toward the end of the year, the Congressional Union established an
official weekly organ, the _Suffragist_, edited by the well-known
publicist, Rheta Childe Dorr. The first issue appeared on November 15,
and it has been published ever since.
Lucy Burns, whose editorials were marvels of ironic logic, of forceful
condensed expression, succeeded Mrs. Dorr. Then came Vivian Pierce, a
trained newspaper woman; Sue White, well-known to Suffragists for her
splendid work in Tennessee; Florence Boeckel, able, efficient, untiring.
Pauline Clarke, Clara Wold, Elizabeth Kalb contributed supplementing
editorial work.
The _Suffragist_ has reported the activities first of the Congressional
Union, and next of the Woman’s Party. It is an extremely entertaining
periodical, always interesting, often brilliant, essentially readable.
It contains editorials, reports, sketches, verse, cartoons. Many famous
people have contributed articles. The reports of the workers in the
Woman’s Party make much the most interesting reading however. Many
famous artists have given it drawings. The most pertinent, though, are
those contributed by a member of the Congressional Union—Nina Allender.
Mrs. Allender’s fertile and original pencil has traced during the entire
eight years of its history a running commentary on the progress of the
Woman’s Party. She has a keen political sense. She has translated this
aspect of the feminist movement in terms that women alone can best
appreciate. Her work is full of the intimate everyday details of the
woman’s life from her little girlhood to her old age. And she translates
that existence with a woman’s vivacity and a woman’s sense of humor; a
humor which plays keenly and gracefully about masculine insensibility; a
humor as realistic, but as archly un-bitter as that of Jane Austen. It
would be impossible for any man to have done Mrs. Allender’s work. A
woman speaking to women, about women, in the language of women.
There is no better place than here to emphasize the work of the Press
Department. It will be apparent to the reader, as the story of the
Woman’s Party unrolls itself, that the work of this department was very
difficult and very delicate. The problem was twofold—to keep the action
of the party always in the public eye and to bring out the underlying
policy. This was not easy when the demonstrations of the Woman’s Party
were of the kind whose initial effect was to antagonize. Nevertheless,
the Press Department minimized that antagonism and minimized by a
propaganda which was as restrained in expression as it was vivid in
description. Newspaper men generally felt that they could depend on the
Woman’s Party for news. Florence Brewer Boeckel, who has been press
chairman since 1915, is responsible for this magnificent press campaign.
But she has not lacked help. Eleanor Taylor Marsh, Alice Gram, Beulah
Amidon, and Margaret Grahan Jones, have given her steady assistance.
* * * * *
Early in the year 1914, the Congressional Union resigned from the
National American Woman Suffrage Association. The constitution of the
National Association permitted a Suffrage body to join it in one of two
ways. By one, a new clause imposed a five per cent tax in dues upon its
budget. By another, it paid annually one hundred dollars dues. The
Congressional Union felt that a five per cent tax upon its budget would
seriously cripple its work. The Union offered to become an associated
body. The National Association refused this offer, and the Congressional
Union, therefore, became an independent organization.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VI
PRESSURE ON CONGRESS
THE _Suffragist_ of January 24, 1914, carried the following editorial.
In it is repeated the policy which the Congressional Union had in the
beginning adopted—that of holding the party in power responsible.
The policy of the Congressional Union is to ask for a Woman Suffrage
Amendment from the Party in power in Congress, and to hold them
responsible for their answer to its request.
This policy is entirely non-partisan, in that it handles all Parties
with perfect impartiality. If the Republicans were in power, we
would regard them in their capacity as head of the Government as
responsible for the enfranchisement of women. If the Progressives or
Socialists should become the majority Party, and control the
machinery of Congress, we would claim from them the right to govern
ourselves, and would hold them responsible for a refusal of this
just demand.
Today the Democrats are in power. They control the executive office,
the Senate, and the House. They can, if they will, enfranchise women
in the present session; their refusal to do so establishes a record
which must necessarily be taken into consideration by women when the
Party seeks the re-indorsement of the people at the polls.
This policy simply recognizes the effect of our American system of
Government. Ours is a government by Parties. The majority by secret
caucus, by the control of committees, by the power of patronage, by
their appeal to Party responsibility, by the interest of Party
solidarity, control the legislation of the House. The present
government recognizes this method of administration with especial,
and indeed admirable, frankness. It owes much of its popularity
today to its willingness to assume full responsibility for all the
legislation enacted in Congress; for whatever is done, and what is
not done. The two great measures of the last session, tariff and
currency, passed rapidly and successfully through both Houses by the
frank use of Party discipline.
Let us by all means deal directly with the people who can give us
what we want. The Democrats have it in their power to enfranchise
women.... This is not only our most logical method of work, but it
is also the most economical and expeditious. Assuming that the
Democrats yield nothing in the present session, we can, when
Congress closes, concentrate our forces on those points where the
Party is weakest, and thus become a force worth bargaining with. At
the present moment, the Senate is the weakest point in the
Democratic armor. To defeat even a few Democratic Senators in
November, 1914, would make a serious breach in the Party
organization.... If, on the other hand, we set out to attack every
anti-Suffragist in Congress, we should have hundreds to defeat, and
every man would be safe in whose constituency we did not organize.
Imagine that, if at the end of arduous labor, we had contrived to
defeat a number of Democratic anti-Suffragists, and an equal number
of Republican anti-Suffragists, we should by immense sacrifice have
completely nullified our own efforts, and left the strength of the
Parties just where it was before....
What should we do in our enfranchised States, if we confined
ourselves to the plan of supporting individual Suffragists and
attacking individual anti-Suffragists, irrespective of their Party
affiliations? All the candidates for office in the enfranchised
States are Suffragists. Is it suggested that we be inactive in the
only places where we possess real political power? Our problem at
the present moment is to use the strength of women’s votes in
national elections so as to force attention to the justice of our
claim from the present administration....
But the Congressional Union cannot make it too clear that we are not
opposed to any Party today. We are asking the Democrats to help us;
we are awaiting their answer. We will frame no policy for or against
them or any other Party until this session closes, and the great
opportunity of the present Administration has come to an end. We
entertain steady and undiminished hopes that the Administration will
recognize the justice and expediency of women’s claims to
self-government. The movement is making immense strides in every
part of the country; our present voting strength is great, and will
undoubtedly be increased in the present year. It takes no great
imaginative reach for the ordinary Congressman to foresee the day
when Woman Suffrage will be an established fact throughout these
United States.
There is already a strong sentiment in the Upper House for Woman
Suffrage, and a rapidly-growing interest in it in the Lower House.
We have no reason to expect wilful obstinacy from our American
Congressmen. We Americans are adaptable and imaginative, and can
shape ourselves with peculiar ease to coming events. The Democratic
Party, if it is wise, will pass our Amendment through Congress in
the present session.
The first-year Congressional Committee, consisting of Alice Paul, Lucy
Burns, Mary Beard, Crystal Eastman, and Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, continued
their work in 1914 with the Congressional Union under the name of the
Executive Committee of the Congressional Union; but it was increased by
the addition of Mrs. William Kent, Elsie Hill, Mrs. Gilson Gardner, Mrs.
Donald R. Hooker, and Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont.
The year opened with a meeting at the home of Mrs. William Kent in
Washington. Plans for the coming year were submitted at that meeting.
Among them was one for a nation-wide demonstration on May 2, in which
resolutions supporting the Federal Amendment were to be passed. This was
to be followed by a great demonstration in Washington on May 9, at which
those resolutions should be presented to Congress. Among them also was
another plan for the appeal to the women voters of the West for
political action in support of a Federal Amendment, if that Amendment
had not been passed before the next election. Nine thousand dollars were
pledged on the spot for these undertakings. The work on the great
demonstration of May 2 began at once, and was pushed rapidly during the
opening months of the year.
In the meantime the work on Congress was continued. It will be
remembered that a proposal for the formation of a Suffrage Committee in
the House had been before the Rules Committee since April 7, 1913, that
it had been the subject of two hearings arranged by the Congressional
Union. The first action in regard to this was simple and decisive. The
Democratic Members of the Rules Committee, who constituted a Majority
Committee, met first, apart from their Republican and Progressive
colleagues, and, by a vote of four to three, decided against the
formation of a Suffrage Committee. They then went through the form of a
meeting with the Republican and Progressive Members on January 24. The
resolution, creating the Suffrage Committee, was lost by a vote of four
to four.
The Congressional Union, however, realized that the final power with
regard to Congressional action was with the Democratic Caucus. They
determined therefore—in order that the responsibility for inaction or
opposition might be placed on the Democrats as a Party—immediately to
appeal to that Caucus to overturn the decision of the Rules Committee.
The necessary signatures were secured to a petition calling for the
Democratic Caucus of the House to take up the question of the formation
of this much-desired Suffrage Committee. The Caucus met on February 3,
1914, to consider this subject. The Democratic Party had a choice of two
courses. It could order the Rules Committee, which it of course
controlled, to give a favorable report to the House on the resolution
creating a Suffrage Committee. Or it could give no order at all of this
kind; in which case it revealed itself as responsible for the adverse
action of the Rules Committee.
What it did was to adopt a substitute resolution for the resolution
providing for the creation of a Committee of Woman Suffrage.
That substitute resolution was: “Resolved, that the question of Woman
Suffrage is a State and not a Federal question.”
This was the first time in the history of the country that either of the
two great Parties had ever caucused on Woman Suffrage.
Editorially the _Suffragist_ put the situation pithily to the women of
America:
This is the definite lining up of the Democratic Party against Woman
Suffrage as a national measure.... Unless the Democratic Party
reconsiders its present position, Suffragists must necessarily
regard that Party as an obstruction in the path of their
campaign.... They (the Democratic Party) have three votes to lose in
the Senate and they lose control of this government. There are nine
States in which women vote for United States Senators. The result in
the Senatorial elections in these States will undoubtedly depend
largely upon the action on Suffrage taken by the Democratic Party.
Although the Congressional Union welcomed any simplification of the
Congressional machinery as by the creation of a Suffrage Committee, its
object was to secure action on the Suffrage Amendment. Since April 7,
1913, the Amendment had been before the Judiciary Committee in which it
had been introduced by Representative Mondell. The Congressional Union
asked for a hearing on the Amendment before this Committee. March 3,
1914, was set for that event.
Thitherto, these hearings had been dreary occasions, sparsely attended.
There was the half-circle of Committee members, a trifle perfunctory in
its attitude, the scattered, tiny audience, very little interested or
stirred; the few Suffragists pleading—eloquently, it is true—but
pleading; using the inevitable Suffrage arguments, unanswerable, but
threadbare. The hearing of March 3 was very different. The Committee was
electrically alert.... They listened intently.... For the first time at
a Congressional hearing, propagandistic argument did not appear. The
Suffragists appealed to the Committee to report the Suffrage Resolution
to the House—not as a matter of justice to women—but as _practical
politics_. They pointed out to the Committee that the women voters of
the West would hold the Democratic Party responsible for the refusal of
this Committee to make that report.
* * * * *
In the meantime, highly important things had been going on in the
Senate. It will be remembered that the Suffrage Resolution had been
placed upon the Senate Calendar in June, 1913. Ever since that date, it
had been awaiting a vote. It could be voted on any time up to the close
of the Sixty-third Congress (March 3, 1915).
At the beginning of the year 1914, more votes were pledged in its favor
than had carried the Income Tax in the Senate, and sentiment in its
favor was steadily increasing among the Senators. Moreover, the prospect
that the Referendum elections of the coming autumn would add to the
number of Suffrage States promised an increase of Suffrage strength in
the Senate. There remained—as it transpired—a whole year before that
Congress adjourned, in which the work of obtaining the vote could have
gone on. These features of the situation made the Congressional Union
most desirous that the Resolution should not be voted upon until every
possible vote was won. However, Senator Ashurst, who had reported the
Bill to the Senate, had it made “unfinished business” on March 2, 1914.
It is the spirit of “unfinished business” that it must be brought up and
voted on. In spite of the vigorous protests of the Congressional Union,
and of many Suffragists in all parts of the country, it was brought to
the vote on March 17. A two-thirds vote was necessary to carry it. It
received thirty-five; a majority, it is true, of one vote; but failing
of the necessary two-thirds majority by eleven. The Congressional Union
blamed the Democratic leaders entirely for this premature vote, as they
were fully informed that a vote at that time would mean defeat.
However, this was a memorable moment. It was the first time since 1887
that Suffrage had been voted upon in the Senate. And from the moment on
March 2 when it was made “unfinished business” until March 17, when the
vote was taken, the Senate debated it almost continuously.
* * * * *
On that same day—March 2—Senator Shafroth of Colorado introduced a
resolution providing for a new Suffrage Amendment to the Federal
Constitution. This was to become famous as the Shafroth-Palmer
Resolution. It offered a path to the enfranchisement of women incredibly
cluttered and cumbered. It reads:
Section 1. Whenever any number of legal voters of any State to a
number exceeding eight per cent of the number of legal voters voting
at the last preceding General Election held in such State shall
petition for the submission to the legal voters of said State of the
question whether women shall have equal rights with men in respect
to voting at all elections to be held in such State, such question
shall be so submitted; and if, upon such submission, a majority of
the legal voters of the State voting on the question shall vote in
favor of granting to women such equal rights, the same shall
thereupon be deemed established, anything in the constitution or
laws of such State to the contrary notwithstanding.
Compare this with the simplicity and directness of the original Susan B.
Anthony Amendment:
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall
not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on
account of sex.
Section 2. Congress shall have power by appropriate legislation to
enforce the provisions of this article.
The National American Woman Suffrage Association immediately rallied to
the support of the Shafroth-Palmer Amendment; they continued to give to
it their undivided work for two years.
But the Congressional Union—I quote the vigorous words of the Report of
the Congressional Union for the year 1914:
The Congressional Union immediately announced its determination to
support only the original Amendment, known popularly as the Susan B.
Anthony Amendment, and in Congress as the Bristow-Mondell Amendment.
It maintained that to work at the same time for two Suffrage
amendments to the National Constitution would enable the enemies of
the bill to play one against the other. Believing that one amendment
only must be supported, it felt that it was wise to support the
amendment which would give Suffrage itself rather than an amendment
which, after the same expenditure of effort would give _only another
method of obtaining Suffrage_—that is, would merely establish the
initiative on the Suffrage question. The Union, moreover, feeling
that the bane of the Suffrage cause at present was too many and not
too few referendums, held that to pass a Federal Amendment—which
would inaugurate thirty-nine referendum campaigns would involve the
movement in a dissipation of resources such as its enemies would
most deeply desire. Finally, it held that the passage of one
Suffrage amendment to the National Constitution would make it
extremely difficult to pass another; so that if the Shafroth Bill
became a law, it would probably indefinitely postpone the passage of
the Anthony Amendment, and doom the movement to years of referendum
campaigns.
Not at all daunted by the action of the Senate in defeating the Susan B.
Anthony Amendment, nor by the introduction there of the Shafroth-Palmer
Amendment, the Congressional Union at once secured the re-introduction
in the Senate of the defeated Amendment. The measure was out of the
Senate only twenty-two hours. The following day, Senator Bristow
introduced a resolution identical with the one which had been lost. On
April 7, it was again reported from the Woman Suffrage Committee, and
took its place on the Calendar of the Senate. This was just a year from
the date of its original introduction to this Senate. It was the second
favorable report of the Senate Committee in one Congress.
Here we leave the work with Congress for a while, and take up the matter
of the education of the President. We must go back a few months.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VII
PRESSURE ON THE PRESIDENT
ALTHOUGH five different deputations—Congressional Union members; college
women; women voters; New Jersey women; women from all the States—had
called on the President, it was apparent that he had undergone no change
in his attitude toward the Suffrage question. On February 2, 1914,
therefore, another deputation, the sixth—and an exceedingly interesting
one—marched to the White House. This deputation included women from the
industrial world and they represented more than fifty trades in which
women are engaged. They carried banners which bore quotations from the
President’s _New Freedom_: “We Have Got to Humanize Industry,” and “I
Absolutely Protest Against Being Put into the Hands of Trustees.”
At the mass-meeting, preliminary to waiting upon the President, Melinda
Scott, an organizer of the Women’s Trade Union League, said:
No one could be serious when they maintained that the ballot will
not help the working woman. It has helped the working-man to better
his conditions and his wages. Men of every class regard the ballot
as their greatest protection against the injustice of other men.
Women even more than men need the ballot to protect their especial
interests and their right to earn a living.... We want a law that
will prohibit home-work.... We hear about the sacredness of the
home. What sacredness is there about a home when it is turned into a
factory, where we find a mother, very often with a child at her
breast, running a sewing machine? Running up thirty-seven seams for
a cent. Ironing and pressing shirts seventy cents a dozen, and
children making artificial flowers for one cent a gross. Think of
it—one hundred and forty flowers for one cent. Taking stitches out
of coats, helping their mothers where they have finished them for
six cents a coat. These women have had no chance to make laws that
would protect themselves or their children....
The organized working woman has learnt through her trade union the
power of industrial organization, and she realizes what her power
would be if she had the ballot.... Men legislating as a class for
women and children as a class have done exactly what every other
ruling class has done since the history of the world. They
discriminate against the class that has no voice. Some of the men
say, “You women do not need a ballot; we will take care of you.” We
have no faith in man’s protection.... Give us the ballot, and we
will protect ourselves.
This army of four hundred arrived safely, with perfect police escort, at
the doors of the White House. They were amazed to learn that the
President would see only twenty-five of the women. He had said he would
“receive the delegation.” The selected number then went in, the
remaining three hundred and seventy-five waited in line outside.
Margaret Hinchey, a laundry worker of New York, said:
Mr. President: It is shaking and trembling, I, as a laundry worker,
come here to speak in behalf of the working women of the United
States. I have read about you, and think you are fair, square, on
the level, and so much a real democrat, that I believe when it is
made clear to you how much we working women, who organize in the
factories, the mills, the laundries, and the stores, can help every
true democrat, you will use your power to wipe out this great
injustice to women by giving us a vote.
Rose Winslow said:
Mr. President: I am one of the thousands of women who work in the
sweated trades, and have been since a child, who give their lives to
build up these tremendous industries in this country, and at the end
of the years of work, our reward is the tuberculosis sanatorium or
the street. I do not think to plead with you, Mr. President, nor
make a regular speech. I do not speak to Presidents every day; it
hasn’t been my job, so I don’t do it very gracefully.
Here the President interrupted Miss Winslow by stating that he did not
see why she should be so nervous, as Presidents are perfectly human.
Miss Winslow then continued:
Yes, I know, and that is why I can speak to you, because you are
human and have a heart and mind and can realize our great need. I do
not need to remind you how we women need the ballot, etc.
The President said:
I need not tell you that a group of women like this appeals to me
very deeply indeed. I do not have to tell you what my feelings are,
but I have already explained—because I feel obliged to explain—the
limitations that are laid upon me as the leader of a Party. Until
the Party, as such, has considered the matter of this very supreme
importance and taken its position, I am not at liberty to speak of
it; and yet, I am not at liberty to speak as an individual, for I am
not an individual. As you see, I either speak to it in a message, as
you suggest, or I do not speak at all. That is the limitation I am
under, and all I can say to you ladies, is that the strength of your
agitation in this matter undoubtedly will make a profound
impression.
In view of later opinions of the President in regard to his
leadership—and in view of the fact that later even Democratic
Congressmen referred to his “dictatorship”—his attitude to the women
this day was most interesting.
Mrs. Glendower Evans, who was in charge of the deputation, said:
We understand your position and its difficulties quite well, Mr.
President, but nevertheless we ask, where can we look for political
action? We recognize that the verdict must come not from you alone,
but from the whole Party. I do not ask you to break with your Party.
What I ask is, will you use your influence within your Party? I do
not ask the impossible, though I might from you, for you have done
the impossible.
It is apparent that the President’s education was progressing. He was
beginning to be struck with the strength of the Woman Suffrage
agitation; although he still believed himself powerless to help in the
work with Congress.
Early in June, 1914, the National Federation of Women’s Clubs meeting in
Chicago, had given its indorsement, as an organization, to Woman
Suffrage. Following this action by the Federation, another
delegation—the seventh—of five hundred club women under the leadership
of Mrs. Harvey W. Wiley, waited upon the President on June 30. I quote
from the _Suffragist_:
The deputation had assembled for a preliminary mass-meeting at the
Public Library.... Leaving the Library, the deputation, which
extended over several blocks, marched in single files to the White
House.... It passed through the Arcade and into the East Room....
Women were massed about the State Apartment, filling it from end to
end, and leaving a hollow square in which Mrs. Ellis Logan and Mrs.
Wiley and Rheta Childe Dorr awaited the President’s arrival.
Preceded by his aide, the President entered....
“Mr. President,” said Mrs. Dorr, “we are well aware that you are the
busiest of men. I shall therefore go directly to the point and tell
you that our reason for calling on you today is to ask you if you
will not use your powerful influence with Congress to have the
Bristow-Mondell Amendment passed in this session.”
The President replied:
Mrs. Wiley and Ladies: No one can fail to be impressed by this great
company of useful women, and I want to assure you that it is to me
most impressive. I have stated once before the position which, as
leader of a Party, I feel obliged to take, and I am sure you will
not wish me to state it again. Perhaps it would be more serviceable
if I ventured upon the confident conjecture that the Baltimore
Convention did not embody this very important question in the
platform which it adopted because of its conviction that the
principles of the Constitution which allotted these questions to the
State were well-considered principles from which they did not wish
to depart.
You have asked me to state my personal position in regard to the
pending measure. It is my conviction that this is a matter for
settlement by the States, and not by the Federal Government, and,
therefore, that being my personal conviction, and it being obvious
that there is no ground on your part for discouragement in the
progress you are making, and my passion being local self-government
and the determination by the great communities into which this
nation is organized of their own policy and life, I can only say
that since you turned away from me as a leader of a Party and asked
me my position as a man, I am obliged to state it very frankly, and
I believe that in stating it I am probably in agreement with those
who framed the platform to which allusion has been made.
I think that very few persons, perhaps, realize the difficulty and
the dual duty that must be exercised, whether he will or not, by a
President of the United States. He is President of the United States
as an executive charged with the administration of the law, but he
is the choice of a Party as a leader in policy. The policy is
determined by the Party, or else upon unusual and new circumstances
by the determination of those who lead the Party. This is my
situation as an individual. I have told you that I believed that the
best way of settling this thing and the best considered principles
of the Constitution with regard to it, is that it should be settled
by the States. I am very much obliged to you.
The President paused. He looked relieved. There was a moment’s
silence, and then Mrs. Dorr said:
“May I ask you this question? Is it not a fact that we have very
good precedents existing for altering the electorate by
Constitutional Amendment?”
The President’s face changed. “I do not think,” he said, “that that
has anything to do with my conviction as to the best way that it
could be done.”
“It has not,” agreed Mrs. Dorr, “but it leaves room for the women of
the country to say what they want through the Constitution of the
United States.”
“Certainly it does,” the President said hastily, “there is good
room. But I have stated my conviction. I have no right to criticize
the opinions of those who have different convictions and I certainly
would not wish to do so.”
Mrs. Wiley stepped forward. “Granted that it is a State matter,” she
said, “would it not give this great movement an impetus if the
Resolution now pending before Congress were passed?”
“But the Resolution is for an Amendment to the Constitution,” the
President objected.
“The States would have to pass upon it before it became an
Amendment,” said Mrs. Wiley. “Would it not be a State matter then?”
“Yes,” the President interrupted, “but by a very different process,
for by that process it would be forced upon the minority; they would
have to accept it.”
“They could reject it if they wished to,” said Mrs. Dorr.
“Three-fourths of the States would have to pass it.”
“Yes,” the President said, with distinct annoyance, “but the other
fourth could not reject it.”
“Mr. President,” said Mrs. Dorr, “don’t you think that when the
Constitution was framed it was agreed that when three-fourths of the
States wanted a reform, the other fourth should accept it also?”
The President was plainly disconcerted. He stepped back.
“I cannot say,” he replied frigidly, “what was agreed upon. I can
only say that I have tried to answer your question, and I do not
think it is quite proper that I submit myself to cross-examination.”
“Very well,” Mrs. Dorr said quietly. “We will not cross-examine you
further.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” said Mrs. Wiley, “for your courtesy in
receiving us.”
The President bowed. “I am very much obliged to you,” he said. “It
has been a very pleasant occasion.”
In the _Suffragist_ Lucy Burns said editorially:
The President has told a deputation of club women that they must win
political freedom from State Legislatures; but not from him, not
from Congress.
This position is obvious pretense. The national government has the
power, granted it by the constitution, to enfranchise women. It has,
therefore, the duty of doing so, if women’s claim to enfranchisement
is just.
The President knows as well as we do the enormous difficulty of
winning the vote by amending the Constitution of thirty-nine
different States. It is amazing that a man can be found who will
calmly direct women to take up this great burden when men are
responsible for their need. Men alone, in all but ten States, have
the power to change our laws. The good or evil of these laws is
their praise or blame. It is a public injustice today that men deny
to women in the ballot a means of self-protection which they are
glad to possess themselves. Men are ethically on the
defensive—particularly the men, or group of men, who from time to
time monopolize political power. For the President of the United
States, who incorporates in himself the power of the whole nation,
and who is, therefore, more responsible than any other person today
for the subjugation of women, to declare that he washes his hands of
their whole case, is to presume upon greater ignorance among women
than he will find they possess.
Nevertheless, we are specifically informed by the President that it
is “not proper” for us to “cross-examine” him on the grounds of his
refusal to help us.
Only fitfully do women realize the astounding arrogance of their
rulers.
And later:
Some few curious commentaries cropped up editorially. Under the
caption, “Heckling the President,” the _New York Times_ says: “It
certainly was not proper. The President of the United States is not
to be heckled or hectored or made a defendant.... To catechise him
when he had finished his speech to them is a thing never done by
similar delegations of men.”
The _Times_ has not grasped the fact that no similar delegation of
men is possible. Men approach their own representative. If he
disagrees with them, they have a legitimate remedy in their own
hands, and can choose another representative at a duly appointed
time. Women approach the President as members of a disfranchised
class. The President does not represent them. He bears no
constitutional relation to them whatever. If the President rejects
their appeal, they have no legal means of redress. If they may not
question the President on the justice of his refusal to help them,
cannot question him gently and reasonably as they did—their position
is indeed a subservient one.
And who told the _Times_ that men never question the President
“after he had finished his speech to them?” While the Tariff Bill
was before Congress, representatives of men’s interests argued with
him for hours. But they were men, and voters.
On January 6, 1915, another deputation—the eighth—of one hundred and
fifty Democratic women appeared before the President. Mrs. George A.
Armes, President of the Association of the National Democratic Women of
America, introduced the speakers, Alberta Hill and Dr. Frances G. Van
Gasken. He greeted Miss Hill with marked cordiality and listened
attentively as she briefly and with great earnestness pointed out that,
while the Federal Government protected men in the exercise of
citizenship throughout the United States, a woman lost her right to vote
when she crossed the line from a Suffrage to a non-Suffrage State. Miss
Hill read the following extracts from the speech delivered by Mr. Wilson
on the occasion of the formation of the Wilson and Marshall League at
Spring Lake, New Jersey, two months after his nomination.
When the last word is said about politics, it is merely the life of
all of us from the point of view of what can be accomplished by
legislation and the administration of public offices. I think it is
artificial to divide life up into sections: it is all of one piece
though you can’t attend to all pieces of it at once.
And so when the women, who are in so many respects at the heart of
life, begin to take an interest in politics, then you know that all
the lines of sympathy and intelligence and comprehension are going
to be interlaced in a way which they have never been interlaced
before; so that our politics will be of the same pattern with our
life. This, it seems to me, is devoutly to be wished.
And so when the women come into politics, they come in to show us
all those little contacts between life and politics, on account of
which I, for myself, rejoice that they have come to our assistance;
they will be as indispensable as they are delightful.
The President listened with close attention, a smile quivering at the
corners of his mouth. As she concluded, a ripple of amusement ran around
the circle of auditors, and the President laughed outright.
“I cannot argue as well as you can,” he told Miss Hill with evident
enjoyment. He said further:
I am most unaffectedly complimented by this visit that you have paid
me. I have been called on several times to say what my position is
in the very important matter that you are so deeply interested in. I
want to say that nobody can look on the fight you are making without
great admiration, and I certainly am one of those who admire the
tenacity and the skill and the address with which you try to promote
the matter that you are interested in.
But I, ladies, am tied to a conviction which I have had all my life
that changes of this sort ought to be brought about State by State.
If it were not a matter of female Suffrage, if it were a matter of
any other thing connected with Suffrage, I would hold the same
opinion. It is a long standing and deeply matured conviction on my
part and therefore I would be without excuse to my own
constitutional principles if I lend my support to this very
important movement for an amendment to the Constitution of the
United States.
Frankly I do not think that this is the wise or the permanent way to
build. I know that perhaps you unanimously disagree with me but you
will not think the less of me for being perfectly frank in the
avowal of my own convictions on that subject; and certainly that
avowal writes no attitude of antagonism, but merely an attitude of
principle.
I want to say again how much complimented I am by your call and also
by the confidence that you have so generously expressed in me, Mrs.
Armes. I hope that in some respect I may live to justify that
confidence.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VIII
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE RULES COMMITTEE
WE now return to the work in Congress. Again it is necessary to go back
into history a few months.
All these months, the work of organizing the nation-wide demonstration
of May 2—which had been decided upon at the opening meeting of the
Congressional Union for 1914—had been going on.
The Congressional Union sent organizers into all the States of the Union
to make plans for the demonstration. Minnie E. Brooke went through every
State in the South. Mabel Vernon, one of the organizers for the
Congressional Union, traveled through the southwestern part of the
country and up through California, ending her trip in Nevada. Crystal
Eastman of the Executive Committee took care of the Northwestern States,
Emma Smith DeVoe covered the Far Western States; Jessie Hardy Stubbs,
the Middle Western States; Mrs. Lawrence Lewis and Alice Paul, assisted
by Olive Hasbrouck, New England and the Middle Atlantic States.
On February 12, the National American Woman Suffrage Association
promised its co-operation also, and from that date aided in making the
demonstration a success.
The demonstration—taking the form of parades in most cases, meetings in
a few—occurred in at least one great city in every State. The following
resolution was adopted at the various gatherings.
Resolved, that this meeting calls upon Congress to take immediate
and favorable action upon the Bristow-Mondell Resolution
enfranchising women.
The culminating demonstration occurred May 9 in Washington. There was a
mass-meeting at the Belasco Theatre, and following this a procession
starting promptly at three o’clock, marched to the Capitol. At the foot
of the Capitol steps, the enormous gathering sang the _Woman’s March_.
Then five hundred and thirty-one delegates representing every
Congressional and Senatorial district in the country, bearing
resolutions passed at the country-wide demonstrations, marched up the
long steps into the great Rotunda of the Capitol. A Committee of
Senators and Representatives awaited the delegates, received the
resolutions and introduced them on the floor of each House of Congress.
Here, as always, Alice Paul visualized her work in pageantry. On this
occasion, that pageantry was particularly beautiful. Zona Gale writes in
the _Suffragist_:
“I shall watch it, but it will not mean anything to me,” said a
visitor to me on Saturday, but that night she said: “I leaned out of
my window, and held my screen up with one hand, and let the sun beat
in my face for the forty minutes that you were passing, and I wept.
To think of your being part of it—and caring like that—and the men
there on the sidewalk holding back, _by what right_, what you ask!”
The effect of this lengthened—and therefore accumulative—nation-wide
demonstration was immediately felt at the national Capitol. Between the
dates of the demonstration throughout the States May 2, and the
demonstration in Washington, May 9, the Judiciary Committee reported the
Mondell Resolution without recommendation, but with an overwhelming
vote, to the House. This marked an epoch in the Suffrage work in the
United States; for Suffrage had never been debated on the floor of the
House, and not since 1890 had it progressed beyond the Committee stage
in the House. The Resolution rested on May 5 at the foot of the highly
congested House calendar. On May 13, Representative Mondell introduced a
Resolution asking time for an early consideration of the Suffrage
Amendment. The adoption of this Resolution meant that the Amendment
would be taken up, debated, and voted on.
The Rules Committee, to which the Resolution was referred, failed to act
upon it. Suffragists began to besiege the Rules Committee. The Rules
Committee, however, proved unamenable to argument, discussion, or
entreaty.
Later in the year, in a speech at the Newport Conference, Lucy Burns
said of the Rules Committee that it “adopted devious means for avoiding
action on the Suffrage Resolution. It was difficult for them to vote
against it, and it seemed difficult for them to vote for it. They
apparently decided that the best policy for them to pursue was to take
no action at all, so they hit upon the happy expedient of holding no
meetings whatever.”
A detailed account of the action of the Rules Committee proves the
adamancy of Party control. It gives some idea of the obstacles which
ingenious politicians can put in the way of citizens, even though those
citizens are making a perfectly legitimate request.
Mr. Henry, the Chairman of the Rules Committee, had declared in the
spring that he thought it was out of the power of his Committee to take
action (i.e. on the matter of the Suffrage Resolution _which was only to
allot time in the House for the discussion of the Suffrage Amendment_)
since the Suffrage Amendment had not been favorably acted upon at the
last Democratic Caucus: “You may tell this to the Press. You may tell it
to the newspapers,” Mr. Henry said; “my hands are tied.”
However, early in June, the _Suffragist_ says, “Mr. Henry’s view of his
political helplessness weakened slightly.” He promised to report out the
Suffrage Resolution. But he could not be prevailed upon to state when he
would do so. The Congressional Union, therefore, organized a series of
deputations which visited the Rules Committee during all the long, hot
summer and the long, hot fall. Deputations from nearly every State in
the Union and from nearly every occupation and profession of women
waited upon the members of the Rules Committee. The reader must remember
always that they were asking—not that the Amendment be passed—only that
a few hours be set aside for the discussion of the Suffrage question in
the House of Representatives. Repeated deputations called upon
individual members of the Committee. On June 10, the Committee met, but
decided to postpone action on the Suffrage question till July 1. Mr.
Henry left immediately for Texas. A large deputation came to Washington
to be present at the July 1 meeting. Many of the most prominent members
of the Club women’s Deputation of five hundred, who had called the
afternoon of June 30 on the President, remained in Washington overnight,
so that they might be present at the meeting.
When, however, they arrived at the Committee room, they were told that
the Committee would not meet, although no notice had been given of any
change of date of the meeting. Mr. Henry had not returned to Washington.
There was a quorum of the Committee in town; but the Democratic members
said that they were bound by a “gentlemen’s agreement” among themselves
not to meet. August 1 was set for the next meeting.
On July 13, a deputation of more than a hundred members of the
Congressional Union, led by Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and Mrs. Gilson
Gardner, called upon the individual members of the Rules Committee. They
asked each member to sign a petition requesting the Acting Chairman, Mr.
Pou, to call the Committee together for the purpose of reporting out the
Resolution on the Suffrage Amendment. This petition was signed by the
two Republican members of the Committee in Washington, and the one
Progressive member. The two Democratic members then in Washington
refused to sign. The petition was presented to Mr. Pou in his office by
Representative Mondell.
Mr. Pou rose from his chair, viewing with amazement the numbers of the
deputation as they filed into the room till all available space was
occupied, leaving the majority of their number in the corridor. Mr. Pou
definitely declined to call the meeting, although a quorum of the
Committee was in the city, and although all of the Republican members on
the Committee and the Progressive member had requested a meeting. Mr.
Pou stated that he was bound by a “gentleman’s agreement” entered into
by the Democratic members to hold no meetings of the Committee before
August 1. He said, “The Democratic members agreed not to hold any
meetings until August 1. In view of that understanding, I would not feel
at liberty to call the Committee together.... When the Republicans were
in charge, they decided what they were going to do; now that we are in
charge, we decide what we are going to do.”
On August 1, a deputation consisting of Lucy Burns and Mrs. Gilson
Gardner from the Congressional Union accompanied by Maude F. Clark,
called upon Mr. Pou. The forthright Lucy Burns began. “Mr. Pou, today is
the first day of August. You told us when a Committee of our
Organization called upon you in July that the Democratic members of the
Committee had a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ not to hold a meeting until
August 1. Now that the day has come we should be glad to know when a
meeting of your Committee will be held to consider House Resolution 514,
allotting time for the consideration of the Suffrage Amendment in the
House.”
Mr. Pou informed the delegation that Mr. Henry, Chairman of the Rules
Committee, would return to Washington on Monday, August 3, and that a
meeting of the Committee would be called for that day. Among other
things, Mr. Pou made the significant statement, “The Rules Committee has
in its keeping the policy of the Democratic Party in Congress.”
On August 3, a second delegation from the Congressional Union,
consisting of Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, Mrs. Gilson Gardner, Dr. Clara E.
Ludlow, went to attend the promised meeting at the office of the
Chairman, Mr. Henry. The elusive Mr. Henry was at last visible in the
flesh. He informed these women that no meeting of the Committee had been
called for that day. He did not know when it would be called, nor what
measures it would consider. He suggested that they call again in a few
days.
On August 28, the Rules Committee finally met. A deputation from the
Congressional Union presented themselves at the door. The deputation
consisted of Mrs. Gilson Gardner, Minnie E. Brooke, Mrs. S. B. McDuffie,
Virginia Arnold.
At the door of the Committee room, Mr. Henry’s secretary declared that
it would be impossible for him to take a message or a card to Mr. Henry.
“I should be glad, then,” said the gently diplomatic Mrs. Gardner, “to
send a card to other members of the Committee.”
“The Chairman has given orders,” said the secretary, “that no messages
may be sent in to the Committee room.”
“I quite understand,” said Mrs. Gardner, “that Mr. Henry can speak for
the majority members of the Committee, but surely not for the Republican
and Progressive members, and I should like your permission to send word
in to one of them.”
The secretary maintained that this was against Mr. Henry’s specific
orders.
Mrs. Gardner then went on very gently: “It is not the desire of the
deputation to disturb the Committee; but, on the other hand, it is the
sense of the deputation that it is necessary to send the Committee a
message. What would you suggest that we do?”
The secretary considered and decreed, “A message might be sent in by
telephone.” Mrs. Gardner accepted the use of Mr. Henry’s desk telephone,
called up Representative Kelly who was attending the meeting in the
adjoining Committee room, and asked if he would bring the Suffrage
Resolution to the attention of the Committee. Mr. Kelly promptly
promised to call up the Suffrage Resolution if it were possible to do
so. This colloquy effectively brought the matter before the Committee.
The Suffrage Resolution was brought up, but a substitute motion that the
Committee adjourn was immediately made and carried. It was a tie vote,
but Mr. Henry, as chairman, cast the deciding vote. The Committee
accordingly adjourned without having taken action on the Suffrage
Resolution.
The Congressional Union, undaunted, maintained its siege of the Rules
Committee until Congress adjourned in October. Throughout the remaining
months of that Congressional Session, however, the Rules Committee
continued its policy of evasion. No action was taken before adjournment.
Of course, all this blocking of their efforts on the part of the
Democrats made inevitable the election policy which the Congressional
Union was about to adopt—that of holding them “responsible.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
IX
THE FIRST APPEAL TO THE WOMEN VOTERS
IN the meantime, the Congressional Union had been forming an Advisory
Council which continued to Support the Congressional Union—and later the
Woman’s Party—with advice and work during the rest of its history. The
personnel of the Advisory Council has changed from time to time; but
always it has been a large body and an able one.
The list of membership has included many famous names; women political
leaders; women trades-unionists; women of wealth and position; women
active in their communities. It included professional women of every
sort; doctors, lawyers, clergymen. It included artists of every
description; actors, singers, painters, sculptors. It included
publicists of every kind; fictionists, poets, dramatists, essayists. It
included social workers of every class. And these women have represented
all parts of the Union.
On August 29 and 30, this newly-formed Advisory Council met at Newport.
Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont did everything to make the occasion a success. She
threw open Marble House which, hung with the great purple, white, and
gold banners of the Congressional Union and flooded with golden light,
made an extraordinary background for the deliberations of the
Conference. In every way possible for her she used the beauty and social
prestige of Newport to give the occasion dignity, prominence, and
publicity. Her daughter, the Duchess of Marlborough, had joined the
Congressional Union just previous to this Conference. Little she thought
and little the Congressional Union thought that as an English woman, she
would be a voter, would be elected to the London City Council before her
mother, an American woman, was enfranchised.
Here, for the first time, the plan of holding the Democratic Party—the
Party in power—responsible for the slowness with which the Suffrage work
was progressing, and, in consequence, of working against it, was adopted
as a program actually to be carried out.
Lucy Burns made a magnificent speech on that occasion. She pointed out
that the Democratic Party was in complete possession of the National
Government, controlling the Presidential chair, the Senate, possessing
an overwhelming majority in the House. She analyzed the working of
Congress: she showed that our government is a government by Party: that
no measures of importance had passed through the Sixty-third Congress
without the backing of the Party in power: and that no measure could
pass that Congress if opposed by that Party.
She amplified this thesis. She showed that the President, the leader of
the Party, had seven times refused his powerful aid to the movement. She
showed that in the Senate the Democratic leaders blocked the Suffrage
measure by bringing it to a vote at a time when they acknowledged it
would be defeated. She showed that in the House, the Rules Committee had
consistently blocked the Amendment, both by preventing the creation of a
Suffrage Committee and by preventing consideration of the Amendment in
the House. And she proved by the words of the acting chairman of the
Rules Committee that that Committee had in its keeping “the policy of
the Democratic Party.” She showed that the Democratic Caucus had taken
definite action against the Suffrage Amendment. It had declared that
Suffrage was not a question for national consideration and so it had
refused to sanction the creation of a Suffrage Committee.
Alice Paul, first asking the press to withdraw, outlined the proposed
election program. She asked the members of the Conference not to reveal
it until the middle of September when the Congressional Union would be
ready to put it into practical operation. This is her speech on that
occasion:
From the very beginning of our work in Washington, we have followed
one consistent policy from which we have not departed a single
moment. We began our work with the coming in of the present Congress
and immediately went to the Party which was in control of the
situation and asked it to act. We determined to get the Amendment
through the Sixty-third Congress, or to make it very clear who had
kept it from going through. Now, as has been shown, the Democrats
have been in control of all branches of the Government and they are
therefore responsible for the non-passage of our measure.
The point is first, who is our enemy and then, how shall that enemy
be attacked?
We are all, I think, agreed that it is the Democratic Party which is
responsible for the blocking of the Suffrage Amendment. Again and
again that Party has gone on record through the action of its
leaders, its caucus, and its committees so that an impregnable case
has been built up against it. We now lay before you a plan to meet
the present situation.
We propose going into the nine Suffrage States and appealing to the
women to use their votes to secure the franchise for the women of
the rest of the country. All of these years we have worked primarily
in the States. Now the time has come, we believe, when we can really
go into national politics and use the nearly four million votes that
we have to win the vote for the rest of us. Now that we have four
million voters, we need no longer continue to make our appeal simply
to the men. The struggle in England has gotten down to a physical
fight. Here our fight is simply a political one. The question is
whether we are good enough politicians to take four million votes
and organize them and use them so as to win the vote for the women
who are still disfranchised.
We want to attempt to organize the women’s vote. Our plan is to go
out to these nine States and there appeal to all the women voters to
withdraw their support from the Democrats nationally until the
Democratic Party nationally ceases to block Suffrage. We would issue
an appeal signed by influential women of the East addressed to the
women voters as a whole asking them to use their vote this one time
in the national election against the Democratic Party throughout the
whole nine States. Every one of these States, with one exception, is
a doubtful State. Going back over a period of fourteen years, each
State, except Utah, has supported first one Party and then another.
Here are nine States which politicians are thinking about and in
these nine States we have this great power. If we ask those women in
the nine Suffrage States as a group to withhold their support from
this Party as a group which is opposing us, it will mean that votes
will be turned. Suppose the Party saw votes falling away all over
the country because of their action on the Trust question—they would
change their attitude on Trust legislation. If they see them falling
away because of their attitude on Suffrage they will change their
attitude on Suffrage. When we have once affected the result in a
national election, no Party will trifle with Suffrage any longer.
We, of course, are a little body to undertake this—but we have to
begin. We have not very much money; there are not many of us to go
out against the great Democratic Party. Perhaps this time we won’t
be able to do so very much, though I know we can do a great deal,
but if the Party leaders see that some votes have been turned they
will know that we have at least realized this power that we possess
and they will know that by 1916 we will have it organized. The mere
announcement of the fact that Suffragists of the East have gone out
to the West with this appeal will be enough to make every man in
Congress sit up and take notice.
This last week one Congressman from a Suffrage State came to us and
asked us if we would write just one letter to say what he had done
in Congress to help us. He said that one letter might determine the
election in his district. This week the man who is running for the
Senatorial election in another Suffrage State came to us and asked
us to go out and help him in his State—asked us simply to announce
that he had been our friend. Now if our help is valued to this
extent, our opposition will be feared in like degree.
Our plan is this: To send at least two women to each of those nine
States. We would put one woman at the center who would attend to the
organizing, the publicity and the distribution of literature. We
would have literature printed showing what the Democratic Party has
done with regard to Suffrage in the Sixty-third Congress. We would
have leaflets printed from the Eastern women appealing to the
Western women for help, and we would have leaflets issued showing
how much the enfranchised woman herself needs the Federal Amendment
because most important matters are becoming national in their
organization and can only be dealt with by national legislation. We
could reach every home in every one of those nine States with our
literature, without very great expense. One good woman at the center
could make this message, this appeal from Eastern women, known to
the whole State. The other worker would attend to the speaking and
in six weeks could easily cover all the large towns of the State.
[Illustration: WHY IS THE GIRL FROM THE WEST GETTING ALL THE ATTENTION?
Nina Allender in _The Suffragist_.]
This is the plan that we are considering, and that we are hoping to
put through. We would be very much interested to hear what you think
about it and want, of course, to have your co-operation in carrying
it through.
* * * * *
The Conference voted to unite behind the Bristow-Mondell Amendment in
Congress and to support an active election campaign against candidates
of the Democratic Party. It raised over seven thousand dollars to meet
the expense of this campaign.
* * * * *
The details of the election campaign project were immediately worked
out; organizers were selected and after a farewell garden party on
September 14, they started for the nine enfranchised States.
Headquarters were opened in San Francisco under Lucy Burns and Rose
Winslow; in Denver, Colorado, under Doris Stevens and Ruth Noyes; in
Phœnix, Arizona, under Jane Pincus and Josephine Casey; in Kansas City,
Kansas, under Lola C. Trax and Edna S. Latimer; at Portland, Oregon,
under Jessie Hardy Stubbs and Virginia Arnold; in Seattle, Washington,
under Margaret Whittemore and Anne McCue; at Cheyenne, Wyoming, under
Gertrude Hunter; at Salt Lake City, Utah, under Elsie Lancaster; at
Boise City, Idaho, under Helena Hill Weed.
In these centers, open-air, drawing-room, and theatre meetings followed
each other in rapid succession. In many districts, the campaigners
canvassed from door to door. Window-cards, handbills, cartoons,
moving-picture films, and voiceless speeches, calling upon the women
voters to refuse their support to the Party which had blocked the
National Suffrage Amendment, appeared everywhere from Seattle to Phœnix.
A pithily worded _Appeal to the Women Voters_ was placed in the hands of
the women voters. Press bulletins describing the campaign against the
Democratic candidates for Congress and reiterating the record made by
the Democratic Party on the Suffrage question, were issued daily.
Literature dealing with the record of the Democratic Party and with the
value to the woman voter of a national Suffrage Amendment, were sent to
innumerable homes in every Suffrage State.
The _Suffragist_, which teemed with reports of what these vigorous
campaigners were doing, presents pictures which could have occurred
nowhere in the world but the United States, and nowhere in the United
States but the West. The speakers were interesting, amusing, full of
information and enthusiasm. With a sympathy and understanding typically
western, men and women responded immediately, responded equally to this
original campaign.
All the time, of course, these speakers were educating the people of the
United States in regard to the work of Congress. This was a new note in
Suffrage campaigns; but it was the policy of the Congressional Union at
all times whether campaigns were being waged or not.
From the _Suffragist_ of September 19, I quote from a report of the
enterprising Jessie Hardy Stubbs, who actually began her work on board
the North Coast, Limited:
Here we are—all bound for the field of battle. Miss McCue, Miss
Whittemore and I are together. Miss Whittemore joined us at Chicago
full of earnestness and zeal. We have put up signs in each car that
there will be a meeting tonight in the observation car, and that we
will speak on the record of the Democratic Party in Congress and
Women Suffrage. There is much interest. We have sold ten
_Suffragists_ today on board the train, secured new subscribers to
the _Suffragist_, and contributions for the campaign.
Doris Stevens writes in the _Suffragist_ of October 3:
Friday afternoon, Mrs. Lucius M. Cuthbert, a daughter of ex-Senator
Hill, gave us a drawing-room meeting in her beautiful Denver home.
She invited representative women from all Parties to come and hear
of the work of the Union, to which invitation about one hundred
women responded. One Democratic lady came up to me after the meeting
and said, “I had no idea you women had been so rebuffed by my Party.
I am convinced that my duty is to the women first, and my Party
second.” Another: “You have almost convinced me that we women must
stand together on this national issue.” And so it went. And, as our
charming hostess pointed out, the applause was often led by a
prominent Democratic woman. Offers of help, loans of furniture, and
general expressions of eagerness to aid were made on every side. The
meeting was a splendid success, judging from the large number of
women who joined the Union and the generous collection which was
given.
In the _Suffragist_ of October 10, Lola Trax writes:
The meeting at Lebanon was especially well advertised. The moving
picture shows had run an advertising slide; the Wednesday prayer
meeting had announced my coming, and the Public Schools had also
made announcements to their pupils. The Ladies’ Aid Society invited
me to speak in the afternoon, while they were quilting; and thus
another anti-Suffrage argument was shattered; for quilting and
politics went hand in hand.
At Phillipsburg the meeting was on the Court House green. It is
fifty-seven miles from Phillipsburg to Osborne and the trip has to
be made by freight. I was on the road from six-thirty o’clock in the
morning until three P.M. About a dozen passengers were in the
caboose on the freight, and we held a meeting and discussion which
lasted about forty-five minutes. Upon reaching Osborne at three
o’clock I found about one hundred people assembled for an auction
sale in the middle of the street. Cots, tables, and chairs were to
be offered at sacrifice prices. The temptation to hold a meeting
overcame fatigue. I jumped into an automobile nearby and had a most
interested crowd until the auctioneer came. I had been unable to
secure the Town Hall because a troupe of players were making a one
night stand in the town. The meeting at night was also in the open
air.
In the _Suffragist_ of October 10, Jessie Hardy Stubbs continues:
On Tuesday evening, September 28, I spoke in the Public Library,
explaining our mission in Oregon. Mr. Arthur L. Moulton, Progressive
Candidate for Congress from the Third District presided, and made a
very clever introductory speech. Many questions were asked by
Democratic women which brought out a spirited defense on the part of
several of those present. One Democratic woman maintained that it
would be a most ungrateful position on the part of the Oregon women
to vote against Chamberlain, who had always been a friend of
Suffrage, whereupon a distinguished-looking woman arose and said:
“Oh, no. It would merely be a case of not loving Chamberlain less,
but of loving Suffrage more.”
I spoke before the Sheet Metal Workers’ Union last night, and expect
to address every union before the campaign is over. There are only
two women’s unions here; the garment workers and the waitresses. We
intend to make a canvass of the stores and meet the clerks
personally and to get into all the factories, as far as possible,
where women are employed, and urge these western women voters to
stand by the working women of the East. Tonight we have our first
open-air meeting.
In the _Suffragist_ of October 31, Gertrude Hunter writes of the
campaign in Wyoming:
The meeting last Saturday night was most encouraging. It was a
stormy night, and we went in an auto twenty miles from here, through
snow banks, and every other difficulty to a rally at a branch home.
This was at Grand Canon, and a strongly Democratic precinct. Every
one was wildly enthusiastic over the meeting, even the Democratic
women telling me how much they appreciated our position. We had a
dance immediately after, and I danced with the voters (male) until
one-thirty in the morning, when we were all taken to the railroad
station in a lumber wagon and four-horse team, a distance of a mile
and a half, and came in on a train at two-thirty A.M. I sold twenty
_Suffragists_ and could have disposed of more if I had had them with
me.
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights we have big meetings
scheduled.
We are now at Egbert on our regular schedule, and in such a
snowstorm as I never saw before. However, we have had a good morning
in spite of it.
This town is like the others, consisting of a station, a store, and
post-office. Not a residence in the place. The people all drove from
miles around in a high wind and most unfavorable weather to attend
the meeting.
We had the thirty-five mile drive to make to a neighboring town for
another meeting and we did it every mile through a high wind and
torrents of rain, that flooded the trail with water, as we went over
prairie and plowed fields. We did it, however, with only one
blow-out, and two very narrow escapes from being completely turned
over, getting in at two this morning.
Tomorrow night I shall go to Campstool, where there is a big supper
and dance.
I had another very interesting meeting this week at a town fifty
miles from here. The “town” consists of a station, the post-office,
general store, and a little restaurant; no houses, and only one or
two families living there. The meeting was in the schoolhouse and
the voters came from miles and miles to attend, at least one hundred
and fifty of them, on horseback, in wagons, buggies, and autos.
Every one was much interested. The minister, at whose house I was
entertained for the afternoon, lived two and one-half miles out in
the country, said afterward that the meeting was a thrill to most of
them, who had never heard a Suffrage speech in their lives.
These are the solid voters of the community. Many are from the
eastern States who are homesteading here. I distributed the
literature to every one.
I will probably reach the same number of voters every day this week,
or perhaps a few more, as the next town we are going into, Burns, is
a trifle larger than Hillsdale.
Miss Brandeis is going from house to house in Cheyenne, distributing
our literature and soliciting memberships.
* * * * *
The campaign over, four of these victorious campaigners were welcomed
home on the afternoon of November 15, by an enormous audience at the
Columbia Theatre in Washington:
Mrs. Latimer said:
The very first thing they said to us in Kansas was, “Well, you are a
long way from home!” and we thought so too.
Kansas, as you know, is a very large State and is an agricultural
State, and the consequence was that we had to get in touch with all
the farmers and so it was necessary for us to do a great deal of
traveling.
After we had established our Headquarters we interviewed the _Kansas
City Star_, one of the largest papers in the State. After we had
talked with the associate editor and told him what our plan was,
that we intended to send a daily bulletin to the eight hundred and
eight papers in the State of Kansas, that we were going to every one
of the large towns in the State of Kansas, and have just as many
meetings as possible, and that we would distribute fifty thousand
pieces of literature, he looked at us and said, “Do you realize that
this will take eight men and eighteen stenographers?” I said,
“Possibly, but two women are going to do it.” And two women did do
it. The result of that interview was a two and a half column
editorial on the editorial page of the _Star_. It was the first time
that an interview with a woman had ever appeared on the editorial
page, and they told us that even Mr. Bryan had not received two and
a half columns on that page. All of our bulletins were very well
published after the _Kansas City Star_ had taken up our cause. The
women of Kansas co-operated with us, and the Progressives and
Republicans invited us to speak at their big rallies. Strange as it
may seem no one seemed to think we were on the wrong track but the
Democrats.
After we had been there for a while we found that the main contest
was the Senatorial fight, and so we figured out just how we could
keep Mr. Neely out of the Senate. Every one said that as Mr. Murdock
was running as a Progressive, and Mr. Curtis as a Republican, it
would divide the vote and give the victory to the Democratic Party.
We knew that Mr. Neely had received a very large vote from his own
district when he ran for Congress—over four thousand majority. So we
made up our minds that the thing to do was to reduce the vote in his
own district. We thought that this would help to defeat Mr. Neely,
and it did. He received from his own district a majority of only
eight hundred; that is, the Democratic majority went down to eight
hundred from four thousand. In many of the other districts, his
majority was still lower. Mr. Taggart, who had a three thousand
majority two years ago, went down to three hundred, and Miss Trax
was largely responsible for that. We have letters from many of the
leading politicians of Kansas saying that our work has been most
effective. We have felt all through Kansas that our work was very
encouraging.
We had many interesting things happen. The second day we were in the
Seventh District we held seven meetings. Six meetings had been
planned, but after we reached Dodge City we found there was a
political meeting in progress out on the prairie and they telephoned
in and asked one of us to come out there and speak to them. If any
of you have ever been to Kansas, you know they have schools
everywhere, though for miles and miles you never see a house and you
wonder where the children come from to go to the schools. At eleven
o’clock at night we arrived at the schoolhouse where the meeting was
held, and found three hundred people waiting to hear a Suffrage
speech. After the meeting the women came up and said, “That is just
what we need. We are glad to help the Eastern women, but we do not
know anything about it. We are so glad you have come to tell us
these things because we did not know them.”
The men in the West feel the same way. When I was waiting for a
freight train about five o’clock in the morning, a man came up and
said, “My wife was at your meeting yesterday afternoon, and I
thought I would tell you that I have voted the Democratic ticket for
forty years, but I have voted it the last time.” That is the spirit
of the men. Because they respect their women out there, they do not
like to feel that the men in the East and the Democratic Party do
not consider the woman movement. People would come in and say,
“Well, you are on the right track now,” and that seems to be the
spirit everywhere in Kansas.
Miss Pincus said:
I am sorry I cannot come to you with the air of a conquering hero,
but I am sure that any person who understands the situation in
Arizona will acknowledge that the purpose of our campaign was
accomplished. Despite the fact that the Democrats were in
control—had all the money in the State and owned nearly all the
newspapers—a Democratic leader came to my office one day and told me
that the Democrats were absolutely sure that the women of Arizona
would defeat Smith. He said the Democratic Party was scared to
death. It was most amusing. Every candidate who was running, even
for State and County offices, felt it necessary to declare that he
had always believed in Woman Suffrage, that his mother had believed
in Woman Suffrage and that his grandmother believed in it. I suppose
you know what action our friends Senator Smith and Congressman
Hayden took. Both of them telegraphed from Washington to the
Democratic State Convention in session at Phœnix and pledged
themselves absolutely to support national Woman Suffrage. Mr. Hayden
stood up on the floor of the House and filled three pages of the
_Congressional Record_ on his attitude on Woman Suffrage and Arizona
was simply flooded with this copy.
The women, we found, were very open to reason, and one thing I had
not expected to find was how chivalrous all the men were. I have
never been so overwhelmed with courtesy and chivalry as I was out in
Arizona. Every candidate from every county came into our
Headquarters to shake hands and say what a nice day it was and how
he had always been in favor of Woman Suffrage. Each political Party
in Arizona claims absolute credit for Woman Suffrage out there. To
me, coming from a plain campaign State, New York, it was most
encouraging to find all the men such good Suffragists, and I would
like to turn all anti-Suffragists into a Suffrage State to let them
see how women are treated at election time.
Mrs. Helena Hill Weed said:
I am very glad to be able to report that no Democrat will come to
the United States Senate or House of Representatives from Idaho—and
the Congressional Union had a hand in it.
We do not claim entire responsibility for the large Republican
victory, but we do claim the credit for turning many hundreds of
votes from the Democratic Party. When I reached Idaho I found the
question simmered down to the Senatorial race. The two candidates
were Senator Brady, Republican, and ex-Governor Hawley, who was
running on the Democratic ticket.
I began by sending out copies of all of our literature and the
current number of the _Suffragist_ to every editor, club woman,
minister, or other person of influence. I began with a meeting which
was organized by the working women in the hotel where I was
stopping. I told them of our work and what it meant. Many of the
women had worked in the East and they knew what conditions were
among the laboring women there, and they said they never before
realized that they could do anything to help the women in the East.
About three days after the meeting a woman came into my office and
said, “I want to tell you, Mrs. Weed, that that meeting is going to
bring out at least two hundred Republican votes in my ward which are
never cast, and is going to turn many more.” I positively could not
fill the requests that were made to speak and explain the
Congressional Union policy. Men and women of the labor unions were
much enthused over our work and we won hundreds and hundreds of
votes simply because our policy was non-partisan.
We put it straight up to Mr. Hawley that an indorsement of President
Wilson’s administration meant the indorsement of the
administration’s refusal to allow a discussion and a vote on
Suffrage. We put it up to him that it made no difference how good a
Suffragist he personally might be, if he ran on a platform which
contained, as did his, a blanket indorsement of _all_ of President
Wilson’s policies, including his refusal to allow a discussion and a
vote on Suffrage. We pointed out to him that his personal belief in
Suffrage was of little avail to us if he could not or would not
bring the Party which he was supporting to cease its hostility to
our Amendment. We reminded him of the Democratic Congressmen from
Suffrage States who had sat in the Sixty-third Congress and who had
professed a deep interest in Suffrage but who had accomplished
nothing as far as actually bringing Suffrage to pass was concerned,
because of the continued hostility of the Democratic Party which was
in control of all branches of the Government. We told him that we
felt duty bound to make known to the women voters the hostile record
of his national Party on Woman Suffrage, and to ask them to refuse
their support to that Party until it ceased blocking our Amendment.
They understood the point very quickly and saw that as far as the
individual was concerned there was nothing to choose from between
Mr. Hawley and Senator Brady—both were equally good Suffragists, as
far as their personal stand was concerned. It was only when it came
to considering their Party affiliations that one could discriminate
between them. We always emphasized the fact that we were not
indorsing the Republican, the Progressive, the Socialist, or the
Prohibition Party, but were merely asking the women to refuse
support to the Party which had the power to give Suffrage and which
up to the present had used its power only to block that measure. We
explained that we would have opposed any of the other Parties, had
they possessed the power which the Democratic Party possessed, and
had they used that power in the same obstructive way.
I am absolutely sure that the Congressional Union has the right
policy for us to follow and that through this policy we are going to
win the passage of the Federal Amendment.
Incidentally the referendum in 1914 in Nevada and Montana gave Suffrage
to women.
Although the Congressional Union never deviated from its policy of
devoting itself to the Federal Amendment, yet it was deeply interested
in the success of these referendum campaigns and gave aid when it seemed
needed. The Congressional Union sent Mabel Vernon, a national organizer,
to help in the Nevada campaign. At the close of the campaign an
enthusiastic audience welcomed Mabel Vernon home.
Miss Vernon said:
In the West they do not have the feeling that Suffrage is an old,
old story. They were very willing to go to a Suffrage meeting,
particularly in the mining camps, where to advertise that a woman is
going to speak is almost enough to cause them to close down the
mines in order that they might hear her. This summer Miss Martin,
the State president, and I went all over the State in a motor,
traveling about three thousand miles. We would travel sometimes one
hundred and twenty miles in order to reach a little settlement of
about one hundred people, sixty voters perhaps. We had the
conviction that if Suffrage was going to win in Nevada, it was going
to win through the votes of those people who lived in the remote
places. We knew Reno. We knew it well. We knew it was not to be
counted upon as giving any majority in favor of Suffrage. That was
the object of the motor trip this summer.
We traveled for miles and miles without seeing one sign of life.
There was only the sand, the sage-bush, and the sky. Even though we
did not arrive until ten o’clock at night at the place where we were
to speak, we always found our crowd waiting for us. There was one
mining camp, one of the richest camps there now, where the men said,
“We will give you ninety per cent, ladies, there is not a bit of
doubt about it.” When the returns came in from that camp, there were
eleven votes against it and one hundred and one for it. The
politicians laughed at us because we were so confident. “Don’t you
appreciate that many men who promised to vote for you just want to
make you feel good and haven’t any intention of doing it?” they
would say. When the returns came in I took a great deal of
satisfaction in showing them that the men had kept their promises.
The position that Nevada has geographically had a great deal to do
with it: We made a house-to-house canvass to find out if the
majority were in favor of Suffrage and we found that women out there
would say, “Of course I believe in Suffrage; I used to vote myself
in Idaho.” One woman told me, “I feel very much out of place here in
Nevada because I haven’t the right to vote. I voted for years in
Colorado.” It would have been an easy thing to prove that at least
seventy-five per cent of the women in Nevada were in favor of Woman
Suffrage. When the men said, “We are willing that Nevada women shall
have the vote when the majority of them want it,” we could say that
the majority of the women in the State of Nevada do want it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
X
CONGRESS TAKES UP THE SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT
THE effect of this campaign—the first of the kind in the history of the
United States—was as though acid had been poured into the milk of the
Democratic calm and security. Within a few days of the appearance of the
Congressional Union speakers, the Democratic papers were full of attacks
on the Congressional Union. The following from the _Wyoming Leader_ of
October 6 is typical of the way the Democratic papers handled the
Congressional Union workers:
Monday afternoon, they desecrated a charitable gathering of the
Ladies’ Hospital Aid.... If it was nothing more than the harmless
effort of a couple of women to earn some Congressional coin, it
might be overlooked, and these two women with fatherly tenderness,
told to go back home. But it involves an insult to the intelligent
citizenship of this State. It attempts to compromise and bring into
disrepute the practical workings of Woman Suffrage in this, the
original Suffrage State. It proposes to prostitute religion,
charity, fraternity, and society itself, to the ambition of a
place-and-plunder-hunting politician. These women go into gatherings
to insult and outrage harmony and good-will among women who
themselves avoid politics in their meetings.
They could not have selected a meeting at which it was so plainly
out of place as a meeting of hospital workers. These women had
gathered together to promote the good work of mercy and charity in
our community. They were Republicans, Progressives, and Democrats in
their preferences....
The editor of the _Leader_ has met and talked with these two women
and believes they do not realize the insult they are offering to the
women of Wyoming.
The Republican papers of course instantly came to the rescue of the
Congressional Union organizers. The _Cheyenne Tribune_ said editorially
on October 16:
Democratic newspapers like the _Wyoming Leader_ are finding fault
with the Woman Suffrage Congressional Union for sending
representatives into this State to work against the Democratic
candidate for Congress.
This is a free country, and Wyoming a Woman Suffrage State, and if
worthy, respectable women come into Wyoming, the first State to
grant the franchise to women, and conduct a decent campaign for the
principles of Woman Suffrage, they should be treated courteously and
given a respectful hearing.
They rightly hold the Democratic Party responsible for its
self-evident opposition to the cause of Woman Suffrage, and rightly
are seeking to defeat Democratic candidates for Congress by
endeavoring to get woman voters to vote against them.
As to the actual effects, I quote from the report of the Congressional
Union for Woman Suffrage for the year 1914:
One of the strongest proofs of the results accomplished in
Washington was given when Judge W. W. Black, Democratic candidate
for the United States Senate, called at the headquarters of the
Congressional Union in Seattle, and urged the organizers in charge,
in the words of the _Seattle Sunday Times_, “to go home and wage a
campaign for female Suffrage, and let the Democratic Congressional
candidates in this State alone. Judge Black disclaimed personal
interest,” continued the _Seattle Times_, “and insisted that his is
merely a fatherly concern for the two young Suffrage leaders. To
demonstrate that he was not concerned personally, Judge Black told
the two workers that he was going to be elected, anyway.”
Shortly before election day, Democratic leaders in Colorado formed a
Democratic woman’s organization for the purpose of actively
combating the Congressional Union’s work among the women voters.
Further striking evidence of the importance which the Democratic
leaders of Colorado attached to the Union’s activities was furnished
by a leaflet sent far and wide through the State, issued from the
Colorado Democratic State Headquarters, under the names of
Wellington H. Gates, Leo U. Guggenheim, and John T. Barnett,
National Democratic Committeemen. The leaflet began: “Permit us to
call your attention to the apparent aims and purposes of the
organization calling itself _The Congressional Union_.”
It then devoted four pages to letters and statements opposing the
policy of the Union, and ended with an appeal to the women voters to
elect the Democratic candidates for Congress “with larger majorities
than ever before, to show the world that the Democratic women of
Colorado are not only loyal, but consistent, voters.”
This was the last leaflet sent to the voters by the State Democratic
Committee. From the first word to the last, it dealt only with the
Congressional Union. Could better evidence be desired of the
important part which the Democrats themselves felt that Suffrage was
playing in the election?
Nowhere did the Congressional Union election work arouse greater
opposition than in Utah. “Intimidation, coercion, and what were
equivalent to threats of political banishment from the State of
Utah,” said the _Republican Herald_ of Salt Lake City (October 15),
“were exercised toward Miss Elsie Agnes Lancaster, the New York
Suffragist, by W. R. Wallace, the Democratic generalissimo, and his
gang of political mannikins.”
“They invited Miss Lancaster,” the _Herald_ continued, “to come to
Democratic State Headquarters, and there kept her on the grill for
two and a half hours. This term of cross-examination, during which
she was under fire of cross-questioning and denunciation from
practically all of the Democratic politicians present, was a vain
endeavor to have her bring to an immediate close her campaign
against the Democratic nominees for the United States Senate and
Congress. For two hours and a half, the hundred pounds of femininity
withstood the concentrated cross-fire of the ton of beef and brawn
represented by the dozen or more distinguished Democrats who acted
as attorney, judge, and jury all in one. After they had finished,
she went her way, telling Mr. Wallace that neither he nor his
hirelings could swerve her from her duty in Utah as a representative
of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage.
“The greatest outburst of Generalissimo Wallace,” concludes the
_Herald_, “was when, in a moment of rage, he brought his fist down
on the table and threatened to advertise Miss Lancaster the country
over by means of the Associated Press as being in league with
‘sinister influences’ in Utah.”
One of the candidates for Congress from Kansas (Representative
Doolittle) called at the Washington Headquarters of the Union
shortly after the inauguration of work in Kansas, and urged the
Union to withdraw its campaigners from his district, at least, if
not over all the Western States. Finding the Union determined to
continue its opposition through the women voters, as long as his
Party continued its opposition to the National Amendment, Mr.
Doolittle delivered a speech in the House of Representatives
(occupying more than a page of the _Congressional Record_),
denouncing the Union, and assuring the members of Congress that its
appeal to the women voters was not authorized by the Suffragists of
the country.
Representative Hayden of Arizona also endeavored, in a speech in the
House, to answer the appeal of the Congressional Union to the
Western women to cast their votes against him, together with the
other national Democratic candidates. Nearly three pages of the
_Record_ was consumed by Mr. Hayden’s speech, which he reprinted,
and sent far and wide through the State of Arizona in an attempt to
counteract the havoc which it was apparently believed was being
wrought by the Congressional Union workers.
A prominent Democratic candidate for the Arizona Legislature
testified to the fear which the Union campaign had aroused among the
Democratic element in that State by an appeal to Dr. Cora Smith
King, a member of the Advisory Council of the Congressional Union,
urgently imploring her to use her influence with the Union to
terminate its election activities in Arizona. Dr. King replied: “The
more the local Democrats complain, the more they advertise the
slogan of the Congressional Union, that the Democrats put Suffrage
second to Party. Do, for Heaven’s sake, raise the Democratic roof in
Washington for involving you in this dilemma.”
Among the concrete results showing the effectiveness of the
Congressional Union election activities was the inclusion of a
Federal Suffrage Amendment plank in the platforms of each of the
State parties in Colorado, the first time that this occurred in that
State, and the inclusion of a similar plank in the Arizona
Democratic platform.
Another result was the conversion of Senator Smith of Arizona to a
belief in the Federal Amendment. On September 28, Senator Smith and
Representative Hayden, the two Democratic candidates who were
running for Congress from Arizona, sent the following telegram to
Mrs. Frances Munds, candidate for State Senatorship on the
Democratic ticket: “Our record in Congress shows that we are for
National Woman Suffrage. If you think best, offer as plank in State
platform the following: ‘We pledge our candidates for United States
Senator and Representative in Congress to vote at all times for
National Women Suffrage.’”
The Democratic Committee adopted and strengthened this platform.
All candidates, indeed, seemed to develop a marked increase in the
fervor of their allegiance to the Suffrage Amendment. Senator
Chamberlain of Oregon, in his last edition of street-car cards
before election day, headed his poster with a declaration of his
support of National Woman Suffrage as the leading argument for his
re-election.
Not only the Congressional candidates, but minor Democratic workers,
suddenly developed unsuspected interest in the cause of Woman
Suffrage. Said the _Examiner_ of Yuma, Arizona (October 24, 1914),
in commenting on the situation: “We view with amazement the efforts
of the Democratic bosses to be in favor of Equal Suffrage.”
And so in each of the States.
No more conclusive proof of the support given by the women voters to
the Union’s campaign could be afforded than the readiness with which
they became members and active workers.
* * * * *
In undertaking the election campaign, the Union had expected that in
the beginning only the humble members of the rank and file would
respond to its appeal. It had fully realized that the rank and file
are more easily reached by new work than are the leaders. It was
with amazement, therefore, as well as gratification that it greeted
the co-operation of the leading women voters of the West. Their
willingness to subordinate Party interest to the National Suffrage
cause furnished the strongest assurance of the speedy organization
of the women’s vote to such a power as to make it a determining
factor in the outcome of things at Washington.
The rank and file, however, equalled the leaders in the enthusiasm
with which they supported the campaign. Women who had never before
been active in Suffrage work were aroused to an effective support of
the Congressional Union’s policy. Said the _Tribune_ of Pendleton,
Oregon (October 16), for instance, in commenting on this situation:
“Large numbers of women who had not even registered until the
campaign of the Congressional Union began, have made it their duty
to do so in order that they may cast their ballot on this one issue
alone. They had not been especially interested in the general
political campaign, but seeing the opportunity to assist in the
enfranchisement of other women, they have come bravely to the front
with offers of assistance.”
One of the illuminating features of the campaign was the aid given
to the Union in its election work by prominent Democratic women.
This support came from the Democratic women of the East as well as
of the West. For example, Mrs. George A. Armes, President of the
District of Columbia Branch of the National Wilson and Marshall
League, wrote to the Chairman of the Union during the election days:
“I have come to the conclusion that the greatest service I can
render to the National Democratic Party is to help to bring it to
realize that true democracy involves Suffrage for women as well as
for men. I know that it will come to a realization of the truth if
it sees that it can no longer count upon the women’s vote in the
West if it opposes the Suffrage Amendment. I am, therefore, heartily
with the election campaign of the Congressional Union in its appeal
to the women voters to cast their votes against all Democratic
candidates for Congress.”
Women voted in the election for forty-five members of Congress. The
Democratic Party ran candidates for forty-three members in these States.
The Congressional Union opposed all these candidates. Out of the
forty-three Democratic candidates, only twenty were elected. In some of
these districts undoubtedly the women affected these results.
I quote the same report:
Basing our estimate on the charges made by friends of the candidates
whom we were forced, by reason of the action of their Party, to
oppose, the Congressional Union campaign defeated Representative
Neely of Kansas, Mr. Flegel of Oregon, and Representative
Seldomridge of Colorado; and contributed in large measure to the
defeat of Mr. Hawley of Idaho, Mr. James H. Moyle of Utah, and Mr.
Roscoe Drumheller of Washington, and greatly lessened the majorities
of Senator Smith of Arizona, Senator Thomas, and Mr. Keating of
Colorado.
The campaign of the Congressional Union accomplished exactly what
its members hoped and expected that it would accomplish. If their
purpose had been merely to unseat Democrats, they would, of course,
have taken the districts in the United States where the Democrats
had won by very slight majorities. When they went into such strongly
Democratic States as Arizona and Colorado, they did not expect to
unseat any of the Democratic candidates in those States. Their
purpose was to make Woman Suffrage an ever-present political issue
in the States where women have political power until all the women
of the United States shall be enfranchised, and to lay in those
States the foundations for permanent and constantly-growing support
of the franchise work at Washington. They succeeded in making the
record of the Democratic Party on Woman Suffrage (an issue which
would not otherwise have been heard of) widely known and hotly
discussed in the Suffrage States.
In the meantime, Suffrage had come up again and again in Congress. On
October 10, 1914, during discussion of the Philippine Bill, conferring a
greater measure of self-government on Filipino men, Representative Mann
of Illinois proposed on that date that the franchise measure in the Bill
be so amended as to give the vote to women on the Islands. This
Amendment was lost by a vote of fifty-eight to eighty-four. On October
12, Representative J. W. Bryan of Washington, Progressive, proposed
three other Amendments: One, making women eligible to vote in school
elections, which was lost by a vote of eleven to twenty-seven; one
giving the vote to women property-owners, which was lost by a vote of
nine to twenty-seven, and one giving the Philippine legislature power to
extend the right of Suffrage to women at any future time, which was lost
by a vote of eleven to twenty-seven. The Amendments were defeated by
strictly Party votes, the Democrats voting almost solidly against them,
while the Progressives and Republicans supported them.
This Session of Congress adjourned on October 4, 1914. At its close, the
Suffrage Amendment was upon the calendar of the Senate and the House,
ready for a vote. In the House, however, the Rules Committee must
apportion time for the vote. Mr. Mondell’s Resolution providing for
this—and for which successive deputations had besieged the Rules
Committee—was still before the Rules Committee.
The short Session—the last Session of the Sixty-third Congress—opened on
December 7. President Wilson’s message, read to Congress on December 8,
made no mention of the Woman Suffrage question, though it expressly
recommended the Bill granting further independence to the men of the
Philippines.
In December, therefore, Anne Martin, who had brought to brilliant
victory the campaign in Nevada, came to the Congressional Union’s
Headquarters in Washington. She called on the President to ask his
assistance in furthering the passage of the Bristow-Mondell Amendment.
In referring to the victory in Nevada, the President said: “That is the
way I believe it should come, by States.”
Miss Martin then pointed out to the President the immense difficulties
involved in State campaigns. She said: “The referendum campaigns are
killing work, and the women of America are working for the passage of
this Federal Amendment in order to end the long struggle.”
Miss Martin referred to the President’s attitude toward the Filipinos.
She said she had read with interest that part of his message to Congress
in which he advocated a larger measure of self-government for them. She
pointed out that Suffragists were asking for an extension of the same
right to American women, and urged him to give equal support to the
Amendment enfranchising his country-women.
* * * * *
The Congressional Union began to send deputations to the refractory
Rules Committee, immediately upon the return of the Committee members to
Washington. On December 9, Mrs. William Kent and Mrs. Gardner called
upon Chairman Henry as soon as he reached the city. To their great
astonishment, they were promptly assured by Mr. Henry that the Rules
Committee would report favorably House Resolution No. 514—providing time
for the consideration of the Suffrage Amendment in the House—which had
been before it since May 13.
“Mr. Henry said,” says the _Suffragist_ of December 12, “that he had
always desired to make a favorable report of the Suffrage rule;
certain ‘sinister influences,’ however, working upon some of the
members of this Committee had made it impossible for the Committee
to take action upon it during the last Session. Mr. Henry did not
state what the ‘sinister influences’ were, nor why they had been
removed immediately after the election.”
He also assured representatives of the Union that the Rules Committee
would shortly bring the Amendment to a vote in the House.
“There is every reason to believe,” said Mrs. Gilson Gardner commenting
on Mr. Henry’s glib change of front, “that the Party leaders have met
and studied the Democratic returns from the campaign States.”
On January 12, the Resolution on the Susan B. Anthony Amendment was
debated for over six hours in the House and voted upon the same day. One
hundred and seventy-four votes were cast for the Amendment, two hundred
and four against it. Forty-six members were recorded as not voting. Of
the forty-six, twelve were paired in favor, and six paired against it.
The Amendment thus failed by seventy-eight votes of the necessary
two-thirds.
It is a favorite trick with politicians to bring up the Amendment in the
short session of a dying Congress. They can vote no and still have a
chance, in the new Congress, to redeem themselves before election.
The _Suffragist_ of January 23 quotes some of the reasons for opposing
the Amendment:
That Woman Suffrage cannot be supported because of a man’s respect,
admiration, and reverence for womanhood.
That five little colored girls marched in a Suffrage parade in
Columbus, Ohio.
That women must be protected against themselves. They think they
want to vote. As a matter of fact, they do not want to vote, and
man, being aware of this fact, is obliged to prevent them from
getting the ballot that they do not want.
That the ballot would degrade women.
That no man would care to marry a Suffragist.
That women do not read newspapers on street cars.
That women do not buy newspapers of Ikey Oppenstein, who keeps the
stand on the corner.
That no man would care to marry a female butcher.
That no man would care to marry a female policeman.
That Woman Suffrage is a matter for the States to determine.
That Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch once marched in a procession in
which she carried a banner inscribed, “One million Socialists vote
and work for Suffrage.”
That Inez Milholland married a Belgian and once referred to a
cabinet-officer as a joke.
That women fail to take part in the “duty of organized murder” and
might therefore vote against war.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PART TWO
1915-1916
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE WOMAN VOTERS APPEAL TO THE PRESIDENT AND TO CONGRESS
THE new—the Sixty-fourth—Congress did not meet until December in 1915.
This is the first and only summer in President Wilson’s administration
in which Congress was not in session. Normally, Congress meets every
other summer, but President Wilson has called three special sessions in
the alternate years. In consequence, that year in Washington is less
full than others with work with Congress or the President. In the
meantime, however, the Congressional Union did not permit the people of
the United States to forget the Suffrage fight.
Alice Paul now felt that it was necessary to swing in the support of the
country back of the Suffrage demand for the Federal Amendment. She felt
that this could only be accomplished by a nation-wide organization
which, dissipating no energy in State work, would focus on Congress.
At a meeting of the Advisory Council in New York City on Wednesday,
March 31, she outlined plans for the coming year. She said in part:
We want to organize in every State in the Union. We will begin this
by holding in each State a Convention on the same lines as this
Conference, at which we will explain our purposes, our plans, and
our ideals. At each of these Conferences, the members will select a
State Chairman, who will appoint a Chairman of each of the
Congressional constituencies in her State. Each Convention will also
adopt a plan of State organization, suited to the needs of their
locality. Each Convention too will send Representatives to a
culminating Convention of women voters, to be held at San Francisco
during the course of the Panama-Pacific Exposition, on September
14th, 15th, and 16th. At this first Convention of women voters to be
held on their own territory in behalf of the National Suffrage
Amendment, delegates will be appointed to go to Washington, D. C.,
the week Congress opens, to lay before their Representatives and the
leaders of the majority Party in Congress, the demand of women
voters for the national enfranchisement of women. During the opening
week in Congress, too, the pageant on the life of Susan B. Anthony,
along the lines which Hazel Mackaye has just outlined to you, will
be given. We want to make Woman Suffrage the dominant political
issue from the moment Congress reconvenes. We want to have Congress
open in the midst of a veritable Suffrage cyclone.
During the Sixty-third Congress, we have been able, with very little
organized support, to force action on the Federal Suffrage
Amendment. When we have an active body of members in every State in
the Union uniting in this demand, I believe that we will be able to
get our Amendment passed.
The organization of the various State Conventions progressed rapidly
from week to week. An incredible amount of work was done—and done with
the swift, broad, slashing strokes which always characterized the
Congressional Union work. This, of course, brought the Congressional
Union into prominence everywhere; but the eye of the country was held by
a new type of demonstration which, following her genius for picturesque
publicity, Alice Paul immediately began to produce. The stage was the
entire United States of America, and the leading woman in the—one would
almost call it a pageant—was Sara Bard Field of California. The prologue
opened at the Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915.
Through Mrs. Kent an exhibit booth for the Congressional Union for Woman
Suffrage was secured in the Educational Building at the Panama-Pacific
Exposition. The Record of the Sixty-third Congress was exhibited there,
and the people in charge invited detailed inspection from visitors. All
American visitors were asked to look up the record of their Congressman,
to discover how he voted on the Suffrage Amendment: they were asked to
sign the monster petition to Congress. This booth, always decorated with
purple, white, and gold, was to become during the year the scene of
meeting after meeting; all characterized by the picturesqueness which
would inevitably emerge from a combination of the Congressional Union
with California.
Sara Bard Field, in the _Suffragist_ of September 11, thus describes it:
A world passes by. It looks reverently at the firmly-sweet face of
Susan B. Anthony, whose portrait hangs upon the wall. It scans the
record of the vote of the Sixty-third Congress.... It peers with
curious smiles at the brief array of lady dolls which mutely
proclaim the voting and non-voting States for women, and the forces
which prevent Suffrage....
The first California Conference of the Congressional Union was held in
San Francisco June 1 and 2. Every part of the State and every political
Party was represented at the gathering. Florence Kelley, National
Secretary of the Consumers’ League, appealed to the women of the West
for aid in the battle of Eastern women for Suffrage in the following
eloquent words:
I come from a State in which women have been trying to get Suffrage
for twenty-seven years. We are forced to come to you women of
California and ask you to stand behind us; and we are thankful that
California has re-enlisted for Suffrage. Women in California have
talked to me about the ease with which they won Suffrage, and praise
their men-folk. I would like to say there was nothing the matter
with my father. He was a Suffragist. There is nothing the matter
with our men in the State of New York. Our trouble is with the
steerage. They inundate our shores year after year. We slowly
assimilate and convert; but each year there is the same work to do
over—the same battle with ignorance and foreign ideas of freedom and
the “place of woman.”
Mrs. Kelley gave instance after instance of the humiliation to which
women working on the New York Suffrage petition had been put by
naturalized foreign residents. She pointed out the curious, paradoxical
inconsistency of granting foreigners the vote, and yet denying it to
American women.
She described with a real dramatic effect the incident of the
President’s trip to Philadelphia, when he welcomed a great army of
naturalized immigrants, and denied a hearing to American women.
“There are some of our men,” she commented, “the mechanics of whose
minds we do not understand. George Washington, you may remember, in
Woodrow Wilson’s _History of the United States_, had no mother.”
Mrs. Kelley told of the battle women, themselves sworn to enforce the
law, have to fight if they are without the ballot. She went into her
experiences as a voteless citizen of Illinois, when she was a factory
inspector there.
Eastern women have been degraded by sixty-eight years of beggary.
They have begged of the steerage; they have begged of politicians;
now they find it possible to come West and ask the co-operation of
their own sisters. But I come to you with a nobler argument when I
ask you to support the work of the Congressional Union for Woman
Suffrage. Do not do it for us, even though we have borne the rigor
and heat of the day in the long fight for enfranchisement. Do it for
the children of the future: let them come into a noble heritage
through us.
The climax of this Conference came the final day when, at the Inside Inn
ball-room of the Exposition, the representatives of the eleven
enfranchised States, the Territory of Alaska and in addition the
enfranchised nations, meeting on the same platform, told what freedom
for women had accomplished in their nations and States. The great
ball-room was decorated with purple, white, and gold banners of the
Union, and massed with golden acacia. Many of the women representatives
wore the costumes of their native land. Mayi Maki, a Finnish girl
typically blonde, in the striking peasant costume of Finland, spoke.
Mrs. Chem Chi, a Chinese woman, in the no less striking costume of
China, spoke. Representatives of New Zealand, the Isle of Man, Norway,
Iceland, and Denmark spoke.
The Congressional Union celebrated Bunker Hill Day, June 17, by another
charming occasion. It dedicated to the Massachusetts exhibit a miniature
reproduction of Bunker Hill monument, thrown into relief by a
black-velvet background, which bore the history of the notable women of
the State.
It was a brilliant day, sunny and clear. The Massachusetts Building, a
facsimile of the noble State House of Boston, situated between the
gorgeous bay of San Francisco and the iridescent Marin shore on the one
hand, and the long line of orientally colored Exposition Buildings on
the other, was decorated for the occasion with the red, white, and blue
of the national flag, and the white of the great State flag.
A procession of Suffragists, headed by Gail Laughlin, wearing the
purple, white, and gold regalia, and escorted by a special military
band, marched behind a large purple, white, and gold flag, and between
an avenue of purple, white, and gold flags up to the Massachusetts
Building, where they were confronted by a great banner, bearing the
words of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment.
Gail Laughlin, who was educated in Massachusetts, said in part:
There were Pilgrim mothers in those days, as well as Pilgrim
Fathers, though they were singularly absent from history. You will
find nothing of them in the schoolbooks; you have to go to the
sources from which histories are made. Then Mary Warren, advisor of
Knox and Adams and Jefferson; and Hannah Winthrop and Abigail Adams
begin to stand out beside the men who are said to have made the
history of that time. Was it not Abigail Adams who wrote to her
husband at the Continental Congress when the very document we women
are now striving to change was drawn up: “If you do not free the
women of the nation, there will be another revolution.” I consider
Abigail Adams the first member of the Congressional Union for Woman
Suffrage.
There was Julia Ward Howe, the author of _The Battle Hymn of the
Republic_, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, who so largely helped in the
freeing of the slaves; and Lucy Stone, that staunch Abolitionist and
Suffragist—all closely linked with Massachusetts’ great history. It
was Lucy Stone who, when protest was made that she injected “too
much suffrage” into her Abolitionist speeches, declared, “I was a
woman before I was an Abolitionist.”
Later, at a mass-meeting of the Congressional Union, Maud Younger, who,
in Washington, was to become so steadfast a worker for the Congressional
Union, spoke. Maud Younger is one of the most picturesque of the many
picturesque figures among the native daughters of California: a student
of economic conditions; a feminist; much traveled; an ex-president of
the Waitresses’ Union; her life is as inextricably mixed with the Labor
and Suffrage history of California as later it was bound with the
Woman’s Party. On this occasion, she said:
The burden of the women of the unenfranchised States, their
struggles, is ours more than it ever was; our freedom is not our own
while they are unenfranchised. I realized in the East that we women
can spend a lifetime for Suffrage, if we continue to work State by
State only. Do you realize that, since we won our vote in
California, Ohio has been twice defeated, and Michigan twice
defeated?... I heard Frank P. Walsh, Chairman of the Industrial
Railways Commission, say in Washington: “The ballot for women will
only come through the persistent and unremitting effort of the women
in the free States.”
Maud Younger was followed by Andrew Gallagher, equally important, and
equally as picturesque a figure among the Native Sons of California. Mr.
Gallagher is an ex-champion amateur heavyweight of the Pacific Coast; a
labor leader; a power in California politics. He said in part:
In those days when Suffrage hopes were dark in California, Labor
stood by women; as we stood for State Suffrage, so now we stand for
National Suffrage. If Labor can help to bring about the passage of
the National Woman Suffrage Amendment, then Labor will put its
shoulder to the wheel, and do all in its power to force its
adoption.
The Political Convention of Woman Voters held in San Francisco in
September at the Panama-Pacific Exposition, carried out all these
traditions of picturesqueness. Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont opened the
Convention. Mrs. Fremont Older, the novelist, spoke. Dr. Yami Kin, the
first woman physician in China—bringing to the event a picturesque touch
of internationalism by wearing a pale blue brocaded mandarin coat—spoke
in excellent English. Mme. Ali Kuli Khan, the wife of the Persian
Minister, and Mme. Maria Montessori, the famous Italian physician and
educator, also spoke.
Mrs. Belmont said:
We women of the North, of the South and of the East, branded on
account of sex, disfranchised as criminals and imbeciles, come to
the glorious West, where the broad vision of its men has seen
justice.
Mrs. Older said:
I thought that Woman Suffrage was like Utopia; when women were good
enough to vote, the men would give it to them; but I have learned
that Utopias are not given away; they must be fought for.
Dr. Yami Kin said:
All countries look to North and West for inspiration and help in
their march toward freedom.
Mme. Montessori said:
We have watched individual States in your country give justice to
women, one by one. Now we are waiting for the United States to
declare its women free.
The Convention passed Resolutions calling upon the Sixty-fourth Congress
to vote for the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. Sara Bard Field and Frances
Joliffe were selected as envoys to carry the Resolution across the
country to Congress. A plan was made for the envoys to travel slowly
eastward, holding meetings and collecting signatures to the petition;
arriving in Washington the day Congress assembled. Mabel Vernon acted as
advance guard for this expedition and was more responsible than anybody
else for its success.
The final ceremony of the Convention took place in the Court of
Abundance on the night of the day which had been designated by the
directors of the Exposition as the Congressional Union for Woman
Suffrage Day. On that evening, Mr. M. H. DeYoung, on behalf of the
directors of the Exposition, presented Mrs. Belmont for the
Congressional Union with a bronze medal in recognition of the work of
the Congressional Union. Ten thousand people gathered there to witness
it. They listened rapt to the speeches, and then—lighting their way by
thousands of golden lanterns—accompanied the envoys to the gates.
The national Suffrage Edition of the _San Francisco Bulletin_, edited by
Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont, assisted by Doris Stevens as city editor, Mrs.
John Jay White as art editor and Alice Paul as telegraph editor,
charmingly described the scene:
The great place was softly and naturally lit except for the giant
tower gate flaming aloft in the white light, which focussed on it as
on some brilliant altar. Far below, like a brilliant flower bed,
filling the terraced side from end to end, glowed the huge chorus of
women, which was one of the features of the evening. Those at the
top—hardly women—were the girls of the Oriental School, from midget
size up, in quaintly colorful native costumes. In the foreground
were the Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian girls in their peasant
costumes, and, stretching the length of the stage, like a great
living flag of the Congressional Union, were massed Union members in
surplices of the organization colors. The effect was one of exotic
brilliancy.
Back of the stage, curtaining the great arch, fluttered the red,
white, and blue emblem of the nation that women have sacrificed as
much to upbuild as the men; but significantly waving with the Stars
and Stripes hung the great Suffrage banner, that ringingly declared:
WE DEMAND AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
ENFRANCHISING WOMEN. And the great crowd in the Court joined in the
swelling song that another band of women across the sea, fighting
for liberty, had originated. Every one was catching the words:
“Shout, shout, up with your song!
Cry with the wind, for the dawn is breaking.
March, march, swing you along,
Wide blow our banners, and hope is waking.”
And then came the envoys, delegated by women voters to carry the
torch of liberty through the dark lands and keep it burning. And the
dark mass below the lighted altar-tower caught the choristers’
spirit, and burst into cheers.
The chorus also sang the _Song of the Free Women_, written by Sara
Bard Field to the music of the _Marseillaise_.
The envoys spoke. Their words were greeted with cheers. One of the
nation’s greatest actresses, Margaret Anglin, said a few fitting
farewell words to them in the name of the women of the world.
Then, all at once, the great, brightly-colored picture and its dark
background began to disintegrate and fade. The Court darkened, but
bright masses of women were forming in procession to escort the
envoys to the gates of the Exposition. Orange lanterns swayed in the
breeze; purple, white, and gold draperies fluttered, the blare of
the band burst forth, and the great surging crowd followed to the
gates.
There, Ingeborg Kindstedt and Maria Kindberg, of Providence, Rhode
Island, who had purchased the car that is to take the crusaders on
their long journey, met the procession. The Overland car was covered
with Suffrage streamers. Miss Kindberg was at the wheel. To the wild
cheering of the crowd, Miss Joliffe and Mrs. Field, the two envoys
for Washington, were seated. The crowd surged close with final
messages. Cheers burst forth as the gates opened, and the big car
swung through, ending the most dramatic and significant Suffrage
Convention that has probably ever been held in the history of the
world.
And so Alice Paul’s stupendous pageant—whose stage was the entire United
States—opened.
* * * * *
The petition which the envoys were to carry across the country to
Washington was, even when it left California, the largest ever signed in
one place. It was 18,333 feet long, and contained 500,000 names.
Very soon after the envoys started, President Wilson made his first
declaration for Suffrage. He also went to New Jersey and voted for it.
Frances Joliffe was called back to California by illness in her family
at the beginning of the journey. Sara Bard Field, therefore, continued
alone across the continent with her two Swedish convoys. It was a
remarkable trip, filled with unexpected adventure. A long procession of
Mayors and Governors welcomed Mrs. Field in her nation-wide journey.
Everywhere she advertised the Democratic record in Congress. One of the
early mishaps was to get lost in the desert of Utah. They wandered about
for a whole day, and regained the highway in time to arrive in Salt Lake
City at five o’clock in the afternoon. Later in Kansas came a more
serious mishap. But let Mrs. Field speak for herself. No better picture
can be given of her picturesque journey than her own reports, published
from time to time in the _Suffragist_.
From Fallon, Nevada, Mrs. Field wrote:
Here we are in the heart of Nevada’s desert, having traveled already
over three hundred and eighty miles of every kind of country—meadow
land, green, luxurious ranches, rolling hill country, steep mountain
grades, the grass lands of the Sierras, and now through the bare but
beautiful desert.
We reached Reno at midnight on Sunday after a vision of the sublime
chaos of the Sierras at night.
At night, from a car flying the Congressional Union colors and the
Amendment banner, Miss Martin and I spoke in the streets of Reno.
The crowd listened with close attention, and pressed closely about
the car to sign the petition.
At noon today, we left Reno for the most trying and perilous part of
our journey. We are traveling across some six hundred miles of
barren land known as the “Great American Desert.” Our next
destination is Salt Lake City.
From Salt Lake City, Mrs. Field wrote:
The State Capitol, where each meeting was held, stands on a hill.
The world is at its feet. The mountains wall the entire city....
While the earth was glowing in the light of a flaming sunset, and
the mountains about stood like everlasting witnesses, Representative
Howell of Utah pledged his full and unqualified support to the Susan
B. Anthony Amendment in the coming session of Congress.
At Colorado Springs, their reception was almost a pageant. Marching to
music, a procession of women clad in purple, white, and gold surplices
and carrying banners, accompanied the Suffrage car to the City Hall
where they sang _The March of the Women_ and _The Song of the Free
Women_. The Mayor of Colorado Springs greeted them with a welcoming
speech.
In the bogs of southern Kansas, the Suffrage car had an adventure. The
_Suffragist_ says:
Pulling into Hutchinson on Monday evening over muddy roads, the car
plunged suddenly into a deep hole filled with water. The body of the
_Flier_ was almost submerged. The petitioners, fearing to step out
of the car, sat and called “Help!” into the darkness of the night
until their voices were hoarse. No response came from the apparently
deserted country. But they knew there was a farmhouse about a mile
back. So Sara Bard Field, little but brave, slipped away from her
place on the back seat; before her companions knew it, was almost up
to her waist in slimy mud. Hardly able to pull one foot out of the
mud to plant it ahead of the other, she finally, after a two hours’
struggle, reached the ranch, where the farmer and his son were
roused from their sleep (for it was now midnight) and told of the
women’s plight. In a little while, horses were harnessed and a
rescue party was on its way; but not until three o’clock did the
women start toward Hutchinson tired and wet, and covered with mud.
In Kansas City, Missouri, the Suffragists, accompanied by a procession
of automobiles, impressively long, called first on Mayor Jost and then
on Senator Reed. The difference between Suffrage and non-Suffrage States
became immediately evident from Mayor Jost’s attitude; for, while he
bade the envoys welcome, he declined to state his own convictions on the
purposes of their journey. There was no doubt about Senator Reed’s
conviction. He had voted against the Suffrage measure in the last
Session. The women made speeches. In answer, Senator Reed spoke several
sentences in such a low and indistinct manner that no one in the crowd
that overflowed his office could understand him, and a man in the
delegation called out, “You need say only one word, Senator.” There were
more speeches from the women, and, when Senator Reed saw that something
must be said, he finally declared he “would take the matter into
consideration.”
Mrs. Field writing of Missouri, said:
“In the enemy’s country,”—that is what the newspapers said of our
arrival in Missouri, the first non-Suffrage State we reached. Such
kind, genial, hospitable “enemies.” I wish all enemies were of their
disposition. For a whole day and night, Kansas City, Missouri, was
alive with Suffrage enthusiasm; great crowds attended our advent
everywhere. We never spoke that whole day, from our noon meeting on
the City Hall steps until the last late street meeting at night, but
we had more people to talk to than our voices could reach. As our
auto procession passed down the street, crowds gathered to see it;
and the windows of every business house and office building were
lined with kindly faces. Often, there was applause and cheers; when
these were lacking, there was a peculiar sort of earnest curiosity.
And, oh the Suffragists! I wish that every western voting woman who
is making a sacrificial effort at all for National Suffrage could
have seen those grateful women. “The greatest day for Suffrage
Kansas has ever seen,” said some of the older Suffrage workers: “How
good of the western women to come to our aid!” At the City Club
meeting, which was packed, Mr. Frank P. Walsh predicted National
Suffrage in 1916. There was good fellowship over a Suffrage dinner,
and earnest street meetings afterwards; gravely interested crowds
attended, and the newspapers gave large space. The whole city talked
National Suffrage for at least two days.
At Topeka occurred another adventure. A great crowd awaited the Suffrage
automobile for two hours. But sixty miles away, afflicted with tire
trouble and engine difficulties, the car stood stationary for those two
hours. And all the time, the valiant Mabel Vernon talked, hoping against
hope that the arrival of the car would interrupt her speech. She says
that in those two hours she talked everything she ever knew, guessed,
hoped, or wished for Suffrage.
The Chicago reception was unusually picturesque. Enthusiasm was
heightened by the fact that the women voters were holding a Convention
there, and they added their welcome to that of the city.
At eleven o’clock in the morning, fifty automobiles, flying the Suffrage
colors, and filled with Suffrage workers from all organizations, met
Mrs. Field at her hotel. Then the long line of cars escorted by mounted
officers, passed through the crowded streets to the Art Museum on the
wide Michigan Boulevard. Here was a stage equal in impressiveness,
although of quite a different kind, to that of the Court of Abundance,
which saw the envoys depart down their nation-wide trail. Back of them
was the great silver-gray Lake; in front of them, the long line of
monolithic Chicago skyscrapers, grim and weather-blackened; and on both
sides the wide expanses of the Boulevard. The Suffrage women, a mass of
brilliant color, covered the steps of the Museum. At the top a chorus of
a hundred women grouped about the band. From the bronze standard in the
center of the steps hung the Amendment banner. And in their midst, like,
as somebody has said—“a brown autumn leaf blown from the West”—Sara Bard
Field in her simple traveling suit punctuated all that vividness.
Mayor Thompson said:
Speaking for the City of Chicago, which I have the honor to
represent, I can say that we wish you God-speed and much success in
your mission.
He further told Mrs. Field:
We have watched the growth of the Suffrage movement with great
interest, and as you know, we have partial Suffrage in Illinois. I
hope it will not be long before women have full Suffrage here and
throughout the nation.
Mrs. Field replied:
I like Mayor Thompson’s way of putting it. At Kansas City the other
day, the Mayor quite flustered me with his speech. He said so many
things about women—for instance, that woman was a Muse that soared;
that she was the poetry of our existence; and something about the
sun, moon, and stars. Then he added that he did not think women
should be allowed to vote. I think Mayor Thompson’s method is much
better.
“My recollections yesterday,” Mrs. Field wrote to the _Suffragist_,
“are a confused mass of impressions—music and cheers—throngs of men,
women, and children—colors flying in the sunshine, and great crowds
surging and pressing about.”
In Indianapolis, there gathered to meet the envoys the largest street
meeting ever held in Indiana in behalf of Suffrage. The _Indianapolis
News_ of November 8 says:
Mrs. Sara Bard Field, brown-eyed and slender, saw men gather at the
curbing in the shadows of the Morton Monument, on the State House
steps, shortly after noon today—watched them smile as she began her
talk for Woman Suffrage, then saw their faces grow serious as they
stepped nearer. Then she smiled herself, and her argument poured
forth while “old hands” in the State House coterie and machine
politicians stood with open mouths and drank in her pleadings.
There is only space for glimpses of this picturesque single pilgrimage
from now on to its reception at Washington. At Detroit, they were
welcomed by a glowing evening reception. A long procession of
automobiles, decorated with yellow flags, yellow pennants, yellow
balloons, and illuminated yellow lanterns, met them on the outskirts of
the city, and escorted them to the steps of the County Building. Here
four stone urns foamed with red fire. “The scene was,” one of the papers
said, “like pictures of Rome in the time of the Cæsars....” In
Cleveland, they held an open-air meeting in the public square in the
midst of a whirling snowstorm. A drum, a trombone, and a cornet escorted
them—with an effect markedly comic—through the echoing corridors of the
City Hall to the Mayor’s office; escorted them, after the official call,
onto the street again. In New York came their first real accident. On
the way to Geneva, the axle broke. The Rochester motor companies
declared it was impossible to do anything for a day at least; but Mrs.
Field telephoned to the head office at Toledo, and a new axle appeared
in Rochester at seven o’clock in the evening. However, the envoys had to
drive through cold and a light fall of snow until half-past one in the
morning, in order to make the meeting at Syracuse the next day.... In
Albany, preceded by a musical car which played _The Battle Hymn of the
Republic_, they proceeded to the enormous Capitol Building, where
Governor Whitman, surrounded by his staff, met them. The Governor was
amazed that a woman had driven the car all the way from San Francisco,
and even more amazed at the size of the envoy. “I thought you would be
six feet tall,” he said.... At Providence, after a rousing welcome in
Boston—where Governor Walsh met the envoys, and the enormous crowd which
accompanied them, in the beautiful rotunda of the State House—the little
car, which now registered nearly five thousand miles of hard travel, was
put on the boat, and its occupants brought to New York City. The
weather-beaten automobile, bearing the slogan on the front, ON TO
CONGRESS!, and on the back, the great Demand banner, WE DEMAND AN
AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES ENFRANCHISING WOMEN,
followed one hundred other cars, beautifully decorated with purple
ribbons, with gold and white chrysanthemums and with floating golden
balloons, blazed—among the jet-black motors and the glossy green busses
of Fifth Avenue—a path of purple and gold. A huge meeting was held in
the ball-room at Sherry’s at which Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont, Frances
Joliffe, and Florence Kelley spoke for the Suffragists. Sara Bard Field
closed the meeting. The _Tribune_ said: “A tired little woman in a
travel-worn brown suit, she stood in the glitter of Sherry’s ball-room,
and held out a tired little brown hand.”
“We want to help you, the voting women of the West,” she pleaded; “will
you let us?” “The audience,” the _Suffragist_ says, “was moved to tears
and action: six thousand dollars was contributed to the Congressional
Union.”
The late Mayor Mitchell telephoned to the meeting his regret that he was
unable to be present because of illness; but he received the envoys at
his home, and added his name to the petition.
At Washington, the envoys were met by an escort, planned and directed
for the Congressional Union by Mary Austin, the celebrated novelist. It
comprised a group of mounted women, representing the eleven States and
Alaska, in all of which women are enfranchised; another group,
representing the thirty-seven unenfranchised States; great numbers of
flag and banner bearers, wearing long, purple capes with deep yellow
collars and white stoles; hundreds of women carrying purple, white, and
gold pennants.
The party started at once for the Capitol to the music first of the
_Marseillaise_ and then of _Dixie_.
There were two picturesque features of the parade. The famous petition
itself, bearing five hundred thousand signatures, unrolled to the length
of one hundred feet, and carried by twenty bearers, was the focus for
all eyes. A replica of the Liberty Bell, lavishly decorated in purple,
white, and gold, and mounted on the same truck which had carried it
through the Pennsylvania State campaign, of course attracted almost an
equal degree of attention.
At the top of the high broad Capitol steps Senator Sutherland of Utah
and Representative Mondell, surrounded by a group of Senators and
Representatives, formed a reception committee. To music, Sara Bard Field
and Frances Joliffe marched up the steps followed by the petition
bearers and attendants. The envoys made speeches and Senator Sutherland
and Representative Mondell replied to them.
From the Capitol, the party proceeded to the White House.
President Wilson received the envoys in the East Room. Anne Martin
introduced Sara Bard Field and Frances Joliffe.
In closing, Miss Joliffe said: “Help us, Mr. President, to a new freedom
and a larger liberty.”
Sara Bard Field emphasized that same note:
... and, Mr. President, as I am not to have the woman’s privilege of
the last word, may I say that I know what your plan has been in the
past, that you have said it was a matter for the States. But we have
seen that, like all great men, you have changed your mind on other
questions. We have watched the change and development of your mind
on preparedness, and we honestly believe that circumstances have so
altered that you may change your mind in this regard.
Mrs. Field then requested the President to look at the petition. He
advanced, unrolled a portion of it, and examined it with interest.
The President said:
I did not come here anticipating the necessity of making an address
of any kind. As you have just heard (and here the President smiled),
I hope it is true that I am not a man set stiffly beyond the
possibility of learning. I hope that I shall continue to be a
learner as long as I live.
I can only say to you this afternoon that nothing could be more
impressive than the presentation of such a request in such numbers
and backed by such influence as undoubtedly stands behind you.
Unhappily it is too late for me to consider what is to go into my
message, because that went out to the newspapers at least a week
ago; and I have a habit—perhaps the habit of the teacher—of
confining my utterances to one subject at a time, for fear that two
subjects might compete with one another for prominence. I have felt
obliged in the present posture of affairs to devote my message to
one subject, and am, therefore, sorry to say that it is too late to
take under consideration your request that I embody this in my
message. All I can say with regard to what you are urging at present
is this: I hope I shall always have an open mind, and I shall
certainly take the greatest pleasure in conferring in the most
serious way with my colleagues at the other end of the city with
regard to what is the right thing to do at this time concerning this
great matter. I am always restrained, as some of you will remember,
by the consciousness that I must speak for others as well as for
myself as long as I occupy my present office, and, therefore, I do
not like to speak for others until I consult others and see what I
am justified in saying.
This visit of yours will remain in my mind, not only as a very
delightful compliment, but also as a very impressive thing which
undoubtedly will make it necessary for all of us to consider very
carefully what is right for us to do.
It will be noted that in this speech, the President referred to the
“influence” behind the women. He speaks of the “impressive” quality of
this demonstration.
From now on the strength of the woman voters became a dominant note in
the work with both the President and Congress.
On December 12, a great mass-meeting of welcome to the envoys was held
in the Belasco Theatre. Forty-five thousand dollars was pledged there
for the work with Congress.
* * * * *
The Sixty-fourth Congress convened December 6.
The Susan B. Anthony Amendment, at the request of the Congressional
Union, was introduced in the Senate on December 7 by Senator Sutherland
of Utah and in the House on December 6 by Representative Mondell of
Wyoming. Other members introduced the identical measure the same day. In
the Senate, it was referred to the Committee on Woman Suffrage and in
the House to the Judiciary Committee.
* * * * *
On December 16 occurred a Suffrage hearing before the Judiciary
Committee. It will be remembered that this was the first hearing since
the Congressional Union had campaigned against the Democratic Party. It
was one of the most stormy in the history of the Congressional Union.
Later a Republican Congressman referred to it, not as the “hearing,” but
as the “interruption.” The storm did not break until after two hours in
which the speakers of the other Suffrage Association had been heard, and
the following members of the Congressional Union: Mrs. Andreas Ueland,
Jennie C. Law Hardy, Florence Bayard Hilles, Mabel Vernon, all
introduced by Alice Paul.
At this point, there occurred among the Democratic members of the
Committee a sudden meeting of heads, a disturbed whispering. To informed
lookers-on, it became evident that it had just dawned on them that the
pale, delicate, slender slip of a girl in a gown of violet silk and a
long Quakerish white fichu was the power behind all this agitation, that
redoubtable Alice Paul who had waged the campaign of 1914 against them.
As Alice Paul rose to introduce one of the speakers, Mr. Taggart of
Kansas interrogated her. It will be remembered that this was the Mr.
Taggart whose majority had been diminished, by the Woman’s Party
campaign, from three thousand to three hundred.
Mr. Taggart to Miss Paul: Are you here to report progress in your
effort to defeat Democratic candidates?
Miss Paul: We are here to talk about this present Congress—this
present situation. We are here to ask the Judiciary Committee to
report this bill to the House.
Mr. Taggart: I take this occasion to say as a member of this
committee that if there was any partisan organization made up of men
who had attempted to defeat members of this committee, I do not
think we would have given them a hearing. And if they had been men,
they wouldn’t have asked it.
Miss Paul: But you hear members of the Republican Party and of the
Prohibition Party.
Mr. Webb: They aren’t partisan. (Laughter).
Mr. Taggart, coming back to the attack: You didn’t defeat a single
Democratic Member of Congress in a Suffrage State.
Miss Paul, quickly: Why, then, are you so stirred up over our
campaign? (Audible murmur from Republican left wing).
Mr. Webb: I move a recess of this committee for one hour.
After the recess Miss Paul rose to introduce Helen Todd of California.
Mr. Williams put the following question to her:
Miss Paul, would you state to me the names of the candidates for
Congress which your organization opposed in the State of Illinois?
Miss Paul: We conducted our campaign only in the nine States in
which women were able to vote for members of Congress. In no way did
we participate in the campaign in Illinois.
Miss Paul then introduced Helen Todd. After Miss Todd had spoken,
Frances Joliffe and Sara Bard Field spoke.
Later Alice Paul said:
In closing the argument before this committee, may I summarize our
position? We have come here to ask one simple thing: that the
Judiciary Committee refer this Suffrage Amendment, known as the
Susan B. Anthony Amendment, to the House of Representatives. We are
simply asking you to do what you can do—that you let the House of
Representatives decide this question. We have tried to bring people
to this hearing from all over the United States to show the desire
of women that this should be done.
I want to emphasize just one point, in addition, that we are
absolutely non-partisan. We are made up of women who are strong
Democrats, women who are strong Republicans, women who are
Socialists, Progressives—every type of women. We are all united on
this one thing—that we put Suffrage before everything else. In every
election, if we ever go into any future elections, we simply pledge
ourselves to this—that we will consider the furtherance of Suffrage
and not our party affiliations in deciding what action we shall
take.
Mr. Williams, of Illinois: Is it your policy to fight this question
out only as a national issue? Do you make any attempt to secure
relief through the States?
Miss Paul: The Congressional Union is organized to work for an
Amendment to the National Constitution. We feel that the time has
come, because of the winning of so many Suffrage States in the West,
to use the votes of women to get Suffrage nationally. In the earlier
days in this country, all the Suffrage work was done in the States,
but the winning of the Western States has given us a power which we
did not have before, so we have now turned from State work to
national work. We are concentrating on the national government.
Mr. Gard: Miss Paul, is it true that you prefer to approach this
through the State legislatures than to approach it directly through
the people?
Miss Paul: We prefer the quickest way, which we believe is by
Congressional action.
Mr. Taggart: Why did you oppose the Democrats in the last election?
Miss Paul: We came into existence when the administration of
President Wilson first came in. We appealed to all members of
Congress to have this Amendment put through at once. We did get that
measure out upon the floor of the House and Senate, but when it came
to getting a vote in the House we found we were absolutely blocked.
We went again and again, week after week, and month after month to
the Democratic members of the Rules Committee, who controlled the
apportioning of the time of the House, and asked them to give us
five or ten minutes for the discussion of Suffrage. Every time they
refused. They told us that they were powerless to act because the
Democrats had met in caucus and decided that Suffrage was a matter
to be decided in the States and should not be brought up in
Congress. (Here Miss Paul, moving the papers in front of her, deftly
extracted a letter.) I have here a letter from Mr. Henry, Chairman
of the Rules Committee, in which he says: “It would give me great
pleasure to report the Resolution to the House, except for the fact
that the Democratic caucus, by its direct action, has tied my hands
and placed me in a position where I will not be authorized to do so
unless the caucus is reconvened and changes its decision. I am sure
your good judgment will cause you to thoroughly understand my
attitude.”
(This interesting revelation was greeted by appreciative grins from
the Republican members.)
After we had been met for months with the statement that the
Democratic Party had decided in caucus not to let Suffrage come up
in Congress, we said, “We will go out to the women voters in the
West and tell them how we are blocked in Washington, and ask them if
they will use their vote for the very highest purpose for which they
can use it—to help get votes for other women.”
We campaigned against every one of the forty-three men who were
running for Congress on the Democratic ticket in any of the Suffrage
States; and only nineteen of those we campaigned against came back
to Washington. In December, at the close of the election, we went
back to the Rules Committee. They told us then that they had no
greater desire in the world than to bring the Suffrage Amendment
out. They told us that we had misunderstood them in thinking that
they were opposed to having Suffrage come up in Congress. They voted
at once to bring Suffrage upon the floor for the first time in
history. The whole opposition of the Democratic Party melted away
and the decision of the party caucus was reversed.
The part we played in the last election was simply to tell the women
voters of the West of the way the Democratic Party had blocked us at
Washington and of the way the individual members of the Party, from
the West, had supported their Party in blocking us. As soon as we
told this record they ceased blocking us and we trust they will
never block us again.
Question: But what about next time?
Miss Paul: We hope we will never have to go into another election.
We are appealing to all Parties and to all men to put this Amendment
through this Congress and send it on to the State Legislatures. What
we are doing is giving the Democrats their opportunity. We did
pursue a certain policy which we have outlined to you as you
requested. As to what we may do we cannot say. It depends upon the
future situation.
Question: But we want to know what you will do in the 1916 election?
Miss Paul: Can you possibly tell us what will be in the platform of
the Democratic Party in 1916?
Mr. Webb: I can tell one plank that will not be there, and that is a
plank in favor of Woman Suffrage.
Question: If conditions are the same, do you not propose to fight
Democrats just the same as you did a year ago?
Miss Paul: We have come to ask your help in this Congress. But in
asking it we have ventured to remind you that in the next election
one-fifth of the vote for President comes from Suffrage States. What
we shall do in that election depends upon what you do.
Mr. Webb: We would know better what to do if we knew what you were
going to do.
Mr. Gard: We should not approach this hearing in any partisan sense.
What I would like is to be informed about some facts. I asked Mrs.
Field what reason your organization had for asking Congress to
submit this question to States that have already acted upon it. Why
should there be a resubmission to the voters by national action in
States which have either voted for or against it, when the machinery
exists in these same States to vote for it again?
Miss Paul: They have never voted on the question of a National
Amendment.
Mr. Gard: The States can only ratify it. You would prefer that
course to having it taken directly to the people?
Miss Paul: Simply because we have the power of women’s votes to back
up this method.
Mr. Gard: You are using this method because you think you have power
to enforce it?
Miss Paul: Because we know we have power.
Mr. Taggart: The women who have the vote in the West are not
worrying about what women are doing in the East. You will have to
get more States before you try this nationally.
Miss Paul: We think that this repeated advice to go back to the
States proves beyond all cavil that we are on the right track.
Mr. Taggart: Suppose you get fewer votes this time? Do you think it
is fair to those members of Congress who voted for Woman Suffrage
and have stood for Woman Suffrage, to oppose them merely because a
majority of their Party were not in favor of Woman Suffrage?
Miss Paul: Every man that we opposed stood by his Party caucus in
its opposition to Suffrage.
Mr. Volstead: This inquiry is absolutely unfair and improper. It is
cheap politics, and I have gotten awfully tired listening to it.
Mr. Taggart: Have your services been bespoken by the Republican
committee of Kansas for the next campaign?
Miss Paul: We are greatly gratified by this tribute to our value.
Mr. Moss: State just whether or not it is a fact that the question
is, What is right? and not, What will be the reward or punishment of
the members of this committee? Is not that the only question that is
pending before this committee?
Miss Paul: Yes, as we have said over and over today. We have come
simply to ask that this committee report this measure to the House,
that the House may consider the question.
Mr. Moss: Can you explain to the committee what the question of what
you are going to do to a member of this committee or a Congressman
in regard to his vote has to do with the question of what we should
do as our duty?
Miss Paul: As I have said, we don’t see any reason for discussing
that.
Mr. Webb: You have no blacklist, have you, Miss Paul?
Miss Paul: No.
Mr. Taggart: You are organized, are you not, for the chastisement of
political Parties that do not do your bidding at once?
Miss Paul: We are organized to win votes for women and our method of
doing this is to organize the women who have the vote to help other
women to get it.
The meeting then adjourned.
Before going on with the work for 1916, it is perhaps expedient to
mention here one of two interesting events. The _New York Tribune_
announced on November 5 that, “accepting the advice of Mrs. Medill
McCormick of Chicago, the National American Woman Suffrage Association
announced yesterday that it had instructed the Congressional Committee
not to introduce the Shafroth-Palmer Resolution in the Sixty-fourth
Congress.” This meant, of course, that there would in the future be no
division of the energies of the Suffrage forces of the country; that all
would work for the Susan B. Anthony Amendment.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
II
THE NEW HEADQUARTERS AND THE MIDDLE YEARS
THE second event of 1915 of less importance nationally, but of great
practical importance to the Congressional Union, was the removal of
Headquarters from the dark, congested rooms in F Street to Cameron
House, sometimes known as the Little White House. Cameron House has
held, ever since its construction, a vivid place in Washington history.
It has been occupied by Senator Donald Cameron; Vice-President Garret A.
Hobart; Senator Mark Hanna. The famous breakfasts given by Senator
Hanna, to which President McKinley often came, occurred here.
Presidents, such as John Quincy Adams, Harrison, Taylor, and Fillmore;
statesmen, such as Webster, Clay, Cass, and Calhoun; historians, such as
Prescott, Bancroft, and Washington Irving, have frequented it. The
Little White House is situated at 21 Madison Place, just across
Lafayette Square from the big White House. From the windows of the big
White House could be seen great banners of purple, white, and gold,
waving at the windows of the Little White House.
Cameron House was charming inside and out. Outside, a great wistaria
vine made in the spring a marvel of its façade, and inside a combination
of fine proportions and a charming architectural arrangement of the
rooms gave it that _gemütlich_ atmosphere necessary to a rallying spot.
When you entered, you came into a great hall, from which a noble
staircase made an effective exit, and in which a huge fireplace formed a
focussing center. All winter long, a fire was going in that fireplace;
there were easy chairs in front of it, and straying off from it. The
Little White House became a place where people dropped in easily. This
big reception hall always held a gay, interesting, and interested group,
composed of Party members resident there; sympathizers and workers who
lived in Washington; people from all over the United States who had come
to Washington on a holiday. The organizers were always returning from
the four corners of the country with a harvest of news and ideas and
plans before starting off for new fields.
Perhaps there is no better place than here to speak of the work of those
remarkable young women—the organizers. It will be remembered that from
the time of the formation of the Congressional Committee to the time
when the Senate passed the Anthony Amendment was about six years and a
half. Yet in 1919, Maud Younger said to me, “There have been three
generations of organizers in this movement.” That was true. Not that
they served their average of two years and left. Most of them who came
to work for the Party stayed with it. It was only that, as the work
grew, developed, expanded, more organizers and even more became
necessary. And perhaps it is one of the chief glories of the Woman’s
Party that these organizers came to them younger and younger, until at
the end they were fresh, beautiful girls in their teens and early
twenties.
The first group consisted of:
Mabel Vernon; Elsie Hill; Margaret Whittemore; Doris Stevens; Mrs.
Sinclair Thompson; Virginia Arnold.
The second group consisted of:
Iris Calderhead; Vivian Pierce; Beulah Amidon; Lucy Branham; Hazel
Hunkins; Clara Louise Rowe; Joy Young; Margery Ross; Mary Gertrude
Fendall; Pauline Clarke; Alice Henkel; Rebecca Hourwich.
The third group consisted of:
Julia Emory; Betty Gram; Anita Pollitzer; Mary Dubrow; Catherine
Flanagan.
The difficulties which lay in the path of the organizers cannot possibly
be exaggerated: the work they accomplished cannot possibly be estimated.
Their story is one of those sealed chapters in the history of feminism,
the whole of which will never be known. With her usual astuteness Alice
Paul always chose young, fresh, convinced, inspiring, and inspired
spirits. Always she preferred enthusiasm to experience. Before an
organizer left Headquarters for parts unknown, Alice Paul talked with
her for several hours, going over her route, indicating the problems
which would arise and—in her characteristic and indescribable Alice Paul
way—suggesting how they were to be met; holding always above these
details the shining object of the journey; managing somehow to fill her
with the feeling that in spite of many obstacles, she would conquer all
these new worlds. “No matter,” she always concluded, “what other
Suffragists may say about us, pay no attention to it; go on with your
work. Our fight is not against women.”
Sometimes these girls would come into towns where there not only existed
no Suffrage organization but there had never been a Suffrage meeting.
Sometimes they would have a list of names of people to whom to go for
help; sometimes not that. At any rate they went to the best hotel and
established themselves there. Then they found Headquarters, preferably
in the hotel lobby; but if not there, in a shop window. Next they saw
the newspapers. Inevitably it seemed—Alice Paul’s sure instinct never
failed her here—they were incipient newspaper women. From the moment
they arrived, blazing their purple, white, and gold, the papers rang
with them, and that ringing continued until they left. They called on
the women whose names had been given them, asked them to serve on a
committee in order to arrange a meeting. At that meeting, to which
National Headquarters would send a well-known speaker, the work would be
explained, the aims of the Woman’s Party set forth, its history
reviewed. When the organizer left that town, she left an organization of
some sort behind her. Alice Paul always preferred, rather than a large,
inactive membership, a few active women who, when needed, could bring
pressure to bear from their State on Washington.
In the course of its history, the Woman’s Party has organized at some
time in every State of the Union.
Whenever the organizers came back to Washington, Miss Paul always sent
them to the Capitol to lobby for a while. This put them in touch with
the Congressional situation. Moreover, Congressmen were always glad to
talk with women who brought them concrete information in regard to the
country at large, and particularly in regard to the Suffrage sentiment
and the political situation in their own States, which they had often
not seen for months. On the other hand, when the organizers embarked on
their next journey, editors of small towns were always very grateful for
the chance of talking with these informed young persons, who could bring
their news straight from the national news-mint.
But one of the great secrets of Alice Paul’s success was that she
freshened her old forces all the time, by giving them new work, brought
new forces to bear all the time on the old work. If organizers showed
the first symptoms of growing stale on one beat, she transferred them to
another. Most of them performed at some time during their connection
with the Woman’s Party every phase of its work. Perpetual change ...
perpetual movement ... the onward rush of an exhilarating flood ... that
was the feeling the Woman’s Party gave the onlooker.
I reiterate that it would be impossible to do justice, short of a book
devoted entirely to their efforts, to these organizers. They turn up
everywhere. They do everything! They know not fatigue! There is no end
to their ingenuity and enthusiasm.
In spite of all this intensive thinking, and its result in action, the
Congressional Union had its lighter moments, and many of them.
On Valentine’s Day, 1916, a thousand Suffrage valentines were despatched
to Senators and Representatives by members of the Congressional Union
living in their districts; the President and Vice-President were not
forgotten. They were of all kinds and descriptions. Recalcitrant
politicians were especially favored. The Rules Committee, for instance,
were showered. One of Mr. Henry’s valentines took the form of an
acrostic:
H is for Hurry—
Which Henry should do.
E is for Every—
Which includes women too.
N is for Now—
The moment to act.
R is for Rules—
Which must bend to the fact.
Y is for You—
With statesmanlike tact.
Mr. Pou’s valentine showed an exquisitely ruffled little maiden, with
heel-less, cross-gartered slippers and a flower-trimmed hat, curtseying
to a stocked and ruffled gentleman who is presenting her with a bouquet.
Underneath it says:
The rose is red,
The violet’s blue,
But VOTES are better
Mr. Pou.
One to Representative Williams of the Judiciary Committee ran:
Oh, will you will us well, Will,
As we will will by you,
If you’ll only will to help us
Put the Amendment through!
Representative Webb’s valentine bore the words, “From a fond heart to a
Democratic (?) Congressman,” with the following verse:
Federal aid he votes for rural highways,
And Federal aid for pork each to his need;
And Federal aid for rivers, trees, and harbors,
But Federal aid for women?—No, indeed!
Representative Fitzgerald received:
Your Party’s health is very shaky,
The Western women say,
They scorn a laggard lover
And will not tell him “Yea,”
But pass the Suffrage measure,
Then watch Election Day!
Congressman Mondell’s valentine was a red heart, on which was written:
Oh, a young Lochinvar has come out of the West,
Of all the great measures his bill was the best!
So fearless in caucus, so brave on the floor
There ne’er was a leader like young Lochinvar!
On May Day, the Woman’s Party hung a May basket for the President. It
was over-brimming with purple, white, and gold flowers, and, concealed
in their midst, was a plea for the Susan B. Anthony Amendment.
Later, in May, on Representative Williams’s birthday, he was invited by
Representative Kent to go with him into the visitors’ lobby. There he
met Gertrude and Ruth Crocker of the Congressional Union, who were
carrying on a tray, made of the Congressional Union banner and the
American flag, a huge birthday cake. It was frosted and set with
fifty-nine candles, each emerging from a small, yellow rose and bore an
inscription in purple letters:
May the coming year bring you joy and the Susan B. Anthony
Amendment.
A few days later, when Representative Steele reached his office, he
found on his desk a purple basket filled with forget-me-nots. The card
bore this inscription:
“Forget me not” is the message
I bring in my gladsome blue;
Forget not the fifty-six years that have gone
And the work there is still to do;
Forget not the Suffrage Amendment
That waits in committee for you.
The first National Convention of the Congressional Union was held at
Cameron House from December 6 to December 13, 1915. The following ten
members were elected for the Executive Committee: Alice Paul; Lucy
Burns; Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont; Mrs. John Winters Brannan; Mrs. Gilson
Gardner; Mrs. William Kent; Mrs. Lawrence Lewis; Elsie Hill; Anne
Martin; Mrs. Donald R. Hooker.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
III
THE CONFLICT WITH THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
BOTHERATION
(“Why do you come here and bother us?”—Chairman Webb, at the Suffrage
hearing in Washington.)
Girls, girls, the worst has happened;
Our cause is at its ebb.
How could you go and do it!
You’ve bothered Mr. Webb!
You came and asked for freedom,
(As law does not forbid)
Not thinking it might bother him,
And yet, it seems, it did.
Oh, can it be, my sisters,
My sisters can it be,
You did not think of Mr. Webb
When asking to be free?
You did not put his comfort
Before your cause? How strange!
But now you know the way he feels
I hope we’ll have a change.
Send word to far Australia
And let New Zealand know,
And Oregon and Sweden,
Finland and Idaho;
Make all the nations grasp it,
From Sitka to El Teb,
We never mention Suffrage now;
It bothers Mr. Webb!
ALICE DUER MILLER.
OUR IDEA OF NOTHING AT ALL
(“I am opposed to Woman Suffrage, but I am not opposed to
woman.”—Anti-Suffrage speech of Mr. Webb of North Carolina.)
Oh, women, have you heard the news
Of charity and grace?
Look, look, how joy and gratitude
Are beaming in my face!
For Mr. Webb is not opposed
To woman in her place!
Oh, Mr. Webb, how kind you are
To let us live at all,
To let us light the kitchen range
And tidy up the hall;
To tolerate the female sex
In spite of Adam’s fall.
Oh, girls, suppose that Mr. Webb
Should alter his decree!
Suppose he were opposed to us—
Opposed to you and me.
What would be left for us to do—
Except to cease to be?
ALICE DUER MILLER.
DURING 1916, the central department of the Congressional Union—the
legislative—was in the hands of Anne Martin who after her notable
success in making Nevada a free State and with the added advantage of
being a voter herself, was particularly fitted for this work. Anne
Martin showed extraordinary ability in building back-fires in
Congressional Districts, in keeping State and district chairmen informed
of the actions of the representatives, in getting pressure from home
upon them and in organizing the lobbying. Maud Younger, as chairman of
the Lobby Committee, composed of women voters, assisted her. Lucy Burns
edited the _Suffragist_.
The friends of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment were surprised—and of
course delighted—when through the tireless efforts of Anne Martin—the
Suffrage Bill came out of committee and onto the calendar of the Senate
on January 8. In the House at first, the situation seemed equally
encouraging. But unexpected obstacles manifested themselves; continued
to multiply and grow. Presently there developed between the Judiciary
Committee and the Suffragists a contest similar to that of 1914 between
the Rules Committee and the Suffragists, but more intense.
The Judiciary Committee as usual referred the Amendment to a
sub-committee. Anne Martin lobbied the members of the sub-committee and
in consequence of this pressure, the sub-committee on February 9, voted
the report out—although without recommendation, to the full committee
which would meet on February 15.
At this meeting, by a vote of nine to seven, the Judiciary Committee
referred the Suffrage Resolution back to the sub-committee with
instructions to hold it until December 14—nearly a year off. This was an
unusual thing to do. After a sub-committee has reported a measure to the
committee, it is customary to allow at least a week to elapse before it
is acted upon, so that the members who are absent may be present when
the committee, as a whole, votes upon it. There is a gentleman’s
agreement to this effect.
In her _Revelations of a Woman Lobbyist_, in _McCall’s Magazine_, Maud
Younger thus describes the meeting of February 15:
The day ended as discouragingly as it had begun and I reported the
situation to Mr. John Nelson, of Wisconsin, the only man on the
committee who showed genuine enthusiasm.
“Your Amendment can’t come up tomorrow,” he assured me. “There’s a
gentleman’s agreement that no action shall be taken on a bill for a
week after the sub-committee reports it out. The matter lies over so
that the members may be notified to be present. Your Amendment will
come up next week.”
Relying on this reprieve, I felt no apprehension when Anne and I
went to the Capitol next morning. Standing in the anteroom of the
Judiciary Committee’s chamber, we watched the members passing
through. The committee went into executive session and the door
closed.
“There’s the gentleman’s agreement,” I said to Anne. “Nothing can
happen.”
“No,” she answered meditatively.
We waited. An hour passed and Mr. Carlin came out. He walked close
to Anne and said with a laugh as he passed her, “Well, we’ve killed
Cock Robin.”
“Cock Robin?” said Anne, puzzled, looking after him.
Mr. Nelson came out, much perturbed, and explained. Upon motion of
Mr. Carlin the Judiciary Committee had voted to send the Amendment
back to the sub-committee to remain until the following December.
This was in direct violation of the gentleman’s agreement but our
opponents had the votes, nine to seven, and they used them. Our
Amendment was killed. Every one on the committee said so. Every one
in Congress with whom we talked said so. The newspaper men said so.
Soon every one believed it but Alice Paul, and she never believed it
at all.
“That’s absurd!” she said impatiently. “We have only to make them
reconsider.”
At once she went over the list of our opponents to decide who should
make the move. “Why, William Elza Williams, of Illinois, of course.
He will do it.” She sent me to see him.
Mr. Williams was necessary not only for purposes of reconsideration,
but because, when he had changed his vote, we would have a majority
in committee. But he did not see the matter at all in the same light
in which Miss Paul saw it. He had not the least intention of
changing his vote. I pointed out that the women of Illinois, being
half voters, had some claims to representation, but he remained
obdurate.
When this was reported to Miss Paul she merely said, “Mr. Williams
will have to change his vote. Elsie Hill can attend to it.”
So Elsie, buoyant with good spirits, good health, and tireless
enthusiasm, pinned her smart hat on her reddish-brown hair and set
out through Illinois for Mr. Williams’s vote.
Presently the ripples of Elsie’s passing across the Illinois
prairies began to break upon the peaceful desk of Mr. Williams in
Washington. I found him running a worried hand through his hair,
gazing at newspaper clippings about Mr. Williams and his vote on the
Judiciary Committee. Resolutions arrived from Labor Unions asking
him to reconsider; letters from constituents, telegrams, reports of
meetings, editorials.
On March 8, a deputation of twenty members of the Congressional Union,
led by Maud Younger, called on Representative Williams. I quote the
_Suffragist_:
Mr. Williams received the women with cordiality and Miss Younger at
once laid before him the object of the visit.
“On the fifteenth of February,” said Miss Younger, “the
sub-committee reported out the Suffrage Amendment. We are told that
there is a gentleman’s agreement to the effect that when a
sub-committee reports, no action shall be taken that day but the
matter shall lie over for a week. Four of our supporters were absent
on the day of the report and the opposition sent the Amendment back
to sub-committee. There were nine votes cast in favor of sending it
back, and seven against. We feel that it was you who cast the
deciding vote, for if you had voted with supporters of Suffrage, the
vote would have been a tie, and the Amendment would not now be in
sub-committee.
“You told me that you were in favor of having this matter remain in
committee until December, because you felt it would be embarrassing
to some men who would run for office next fall. As a
trades-unionist, as well as a woman voter, I feel that the eight
million working women of this country are entitled to as much
consideration as are a few politicians.”
Miss Younger then introduced Mrs. Lowell Mellett, of Seattle,
Washington; Mrs. William Kent, of California; Mrs. Gilson Gardner,
Mrs. Charles Edward Russell, of Illinois; Anne Martin, of Nevada;
each of whom made an appeal to Mr. Williams to give his support to a
report from the Judiciary Committee during the present session.
Miss Martin said:
You are in what seems to us a very undesirable position. You are a
Representative from a Suffrage State, from a State where women have
the right to vote for President. You are a professed Suffragist, yet
you are the only member of that committee who is a Suffragist and
who is in the position of having voted with the professed
anti-Suffragists against a hearing.... We urge you to do everything
in your power to reconsider the smothering of this resolution, and
bring up the question in committee again as soon as possible, to
report it to the House and then to leave to the Rules Committee the
question of what time it shall have for discussion in this session.
We urge this most earnestly.
Mr. Williams replied:
I am pleased to hear from you ladies and to know fully your side of
this case.
If I remember correctly the conversation you refer to in which I
spoke of some embarrassment—not to myself, but to some of my
colleagues—I think I stated the condition of the calendar and the
business of this session. I have not double-crossed anybody. I have
not taken any sudden change of front. I have told every
representative of the Suffrage organization who has visited me that
I do not favor a report at this first session of the Sixty-fourth
Congress. I gave, as my primary reason, the crowded condition of the
business of this Congress. I incidentally—sometimes in a
good-natured way, as I remember—stated that it did not embarrass me
to vote on the question because I was already on record, but it
might embarrass some of my colleagues. My real views have been that
Congress has duties in this, a campaign year, when all members hope
to leave at a reasonable time within which to make their campaign;
that this session is not a good time to take upon ourselves the
consideration of any unimportant question that can be disposed of
just as well at the next session.
With a campaign approaching and two national conventions in June, I
do not believe it wise for your cause to crowd this matter on now. I
do not believe that it would get that consideration that you will
get after the election and after these necessary matters—matters of
importance and urgent necessity—are disposed of.
I am opposed to smothering anything in committee. I do not propose
to smother this in committee. I intend, when I think it is the
proper time, to vote the Susan B. Anthony Amendment out and vote for
it in the House. Now that is my intention. I have not said that I
would not do so at this session. I think the strongest that I have
put it is that I would not do so unless the work of the session is
cleared away so that we can get to it.
Now I have said more than that. At any time that you get a full
attendance of the committee, or those absent represented by pairs so
that both sides are represented, and no advantage can be taken and
no criticism made of what takes place, whenever there is what is
equivalent to a full committee present, I am willing that the
committee shall again vote on the question and determine whether
they want it out now.
Miss Younger: Before the conventions will meet in June, Congress
will have been in session six months, and we ask you for only one
day out of the six months. Some of those other questions, such as
preparedness, are not ready to come before Congress.
Mr. Williams: You would not be satisfied with one day.
Miss Martin: That is all we had last time and we were satisfied.
Mrs. Russell: Whatever action Congress takes or does not take on
preparedness, we women will have to stand for it. Any program that
Congress puts through we shall be involved in. Isn’t that just one
more reason why we ought to have a vote promptly?
Mr. Williams: Yes, but you cannot get it in time for the emergency
that is now before us. I believe this: If women had full political
rights everywhere there would not be any war. But that cannot be
brought about in time for this emergency.
“We cannot conceive,” said one member of the delegation at this
juncture, “of any situation which will not permit of three-quarters
of an hour being taken on the floor of the House for a vote.”
Mr. Williams: We have no right to refuse to submit it. I would not
smother it in committee at all, but I believe the committee has a
right to exercise their discretion as to when it shall be
submitted.... How do you take my suggestion? I am willing that a
vote may be had at any time if there is the equivalent of a full
attendance of the committee. Can that be secured?
Miss Martin: I have been working with this committee for nearly
three months, and I do not know of any session at which they have
all been present. You impose upon us now a condition that you did
not exact when this Amendment was smothered.
I think that we must regard a motion to postpone until after
election as an action unfriendly to Suffrage.
Mr. Williams: It may be. I do not see how it can be.
“Last year,” a member of the delegation then reminded Mr. Williams,
“the Amendment was postponed and voted on immediately after the
elections were safely over. The plan now is to postpone it until
after the elections to the Sixty-fifth Congress are over and no
one’s election will be jeopardized. We do not like to have the vote
taken in each Congress immediately after election.”
Miss Martin: We are not saying anything with reference to a vote on
the floor of the House at this time. We are simply asking that the
Judiciary Committee perform its function and judge the bill on its
merits and make its report to the House. Does not that appeal to
you?
Mr. Williams: Yes, it does. I am told I am the only member of the
committee who voted to postpone the Amendment, who is a
Representative from a Suffrage State. Somehow or other you have put
the burden on me.
Miss Martin: You are. The burden is on you.
Miss Younger: If we could prove to you that with your vote we would
have a majority of the committee, would you be willing to vote to
report it out to the House?
Mr. Williams: There would be ten besides myself favorable to
reporting it out? Yes, if you have the ten.
Miss Martin: I have them right here. You are the eleventh. We have
those ten votes.
Mr. Williams: Well, I hope you have. May I ask you just to read
them?
Miss Martin: These are the ten who are for reporting the Amendment:
Representatives Thomas, of Kentucky; Taggart, of Kansas; Dale of New
York; Neely, of West Virginia; Volstead, of Minnesota; Nelson, of
Wisconsin; Morgan, of Oklahoma; Chandler, of New York; Dyer, of
Missouri, and Moss, of West Virginia. That makes ten.
Mr. Williams: And Mr. Williams will make eleven. When will it be
possible to get them all together?
Miss Martin: We were hoping to do that by tomorrow. Mr. Dale was
here but he has been called back to New York. Mr. Moss has been
seriously ill but has promised to attend the meeting tomorrow. I
will read the names of the men who are against a report. They are
all anti-Suffragists and you are classified with them:
Representatives Webb, of North Carolina; Carlin, of Virginia;
Walker, of Georgia; Gard, of Ohio; Whaley, of South Carolina;
Caraway, of Arkansas; Igoe, of Missouri; Steele, of Pennsylvania,
and, until now, yourself.
Mr. Williams: If a majority of the committee want to reconsider it I
will vote in favor of it.
Miss Martin: What would you do if we could only get ten Suffrage
members present tomorrow and they were a majority of those present?
Mr. Williams: Let us not make any further agreement. I have agreed
to your former proposition and I will stand by my word.
Miss Martin: We are sure you will.
After the deputation had left his office Mr. Williams promised Miss
Younger and Miss Martin that, whenever the requisite number of friends
of Suffrage were present at a meeting of the Judiciary Committee, he
himself would move a reconsideration of the question.
Again I quote Miss Younger’s, _Revelations of a Woman Lobbyist_:
We now had a majority of one on the committee. We had only to get
the majority together. It seemed a simple thing to do, but it
wasn’t.
The number of things that could take a Congressman out of town on
Tuesday and Thursday mornings, the number of minor ailments that
could develop on those days was appalling. It seemed that every time
a Congressman faced something he did not want to do, he had a
headache.
Monday after Monday, Wednesday after Wednesday, we went from office
to office, inquiring solicitously about each man’s health. Was he
quite well? Did he have a headache or any symptoms of internal
disorders? Was his wife in good health? His children? Could any
business affairs arise to take him out of town next day?...
The weeks went by and we were not able to get our majority,
together.
“You think you’re going to bring that question up again,” said Mr.
Webb, the chairman. “No power on earth will do it. It’s locked up in
sub-committee till next December, and it’s going to stay there.”
This was repeated to Miss Paul. “Nonsense!” she said. “Of course it
will be brought up.”
But why should all this petty bickering, this endless struggling
with absurdities be necessary in order to get before Congress a
measure dealing with a question of public good? No man would run his
private business that way. Yet that is the way public business is
done.
Finally after weeks of working and watchful waiting I reported to
Anne on Wednesday that a majority of our members were in town and
well. We were jubilant. Early next morning we were before the doors
of the Judiciary Committee to see them file in. They arrived one by
one, solemn, nervously hurrying by, or smiling in an amused or
friendly way. Mr. Hunter Moss, our staunch friend, appeared. Mr.
Moss was dying of cancer. Though often too ill to leave his bed, he
asked his secretary to notify him whenever Suffrage was to come up
so that he might fight for it. Mr. Moss was our tenth man. We
recounted them anxiously. Ten supporters, ten opponents—where was
Mr. Dale of New York? I flew downstairs to his office—I don’t know
who went with me but I have a faint memory of red hair—and there he
was in his shirt sleeves calmly looking over his mail.
“Hurry!” we cried. “The committee is ready to meet. Every one’s
there except you!”
He reached for his coat but we exclaimed, “Put it on in the hall!”
and hurrying him out between us we raced down the corridor, helping
him with the coat as we ran, then into the elevator and up to the
third floor and to the committee room. We deposited him in one
vacant seat. Our majority was complete!
As we stood off and looked at our eleven men sitting there together,
gathered with so much effort and trial, no artist was ever prouder
of a masterpiece than we. We stood entranced surveying them until
Mr. Webb sternly announced that the committee would go into
executive session which meant that we must go.
In the anteroom other Suffragists gathered, also the newspaper men.
Every one said that in a few moments the Amendment would be reported
out. But the minutes ran into hours. Our suspense grew. Each time
those closed doors opened and a member came out we asked for news.
There was none. “Carlin’s got the floor.”
The morning dragged past. Twelve o’clock came. Twelve-thirty. One
o’clock. The doors opened. We clustered around our supporters and
eagerly asked the news.
Well, Carlin got the floor and kept it. He took up the time. It got
late and the members were hungry and wanted to go to luncheon, and
there would have been a lot of wrangling over the Amendment. So they
adopted Carlin’s motion to make Suffrage the special order of
business two weeks from today.
“It’s all right,” our friends consoled us. “Only two weeks’ delay!”
But why two weeks? And why had Mr. Carlin, our avowed and bitter
enemy, himself made the motion to reconsider, tacking to it the two
weeks’ delay, unless something disastrous was planned?
Now began a care and watchfulness over our eleven, in comparison to
which all our previous watchfulness and care was as nothing. Not
only did we know each man’s mind minutely from day to day, but we
had their constituents on guard at home.
Washington’s mail increased. One man said, “I wish you’d ask those
Pennsylvania ladies to stop writing me!” Mr. Morgan said, “My
secretary has been busy all day long answering letters from
Suffragists. Why do you do it? You know I’m for it.” Mr. Neely, at a
desk covered with mail, broke forth in wrath, eyes blazing, “Why do
you have all those letters written to me as though you doubted my
stand? I’m as unchangeable as the Medes and Persians!”
On the 27th of March, the day before the vote, telegrams poured in.
We stumbled over messenger boys at every turn in the House office
building. Late that afternoon as Anne and I went into Mr. Taggart’s
office we passed a postman with a great bundle of special-delivery
letters.
Mr. Taggart was last on the list. Every one else was pledged to be
at the meeting next day.
“Yes, I’ll be there,” said Mr. Taggart slowly and ominously. “But
I’ll be a little late.”
“Late!” We jumped from our seats. “Why, it’s the special order for
ten-thirty!”
“Well, I may not be very late. I’ve got an appointment with the
Persian Ambassador—Haroun al Raschid,” said he, and looked at each
of us defiantly.
We pleaded, but in vain. Without Mr. Taggart we had not a majority.
What could we do? We discussed it while we walked home in the crisp
afternoon air. There was no Persian ambassador in America, but a
_chargé d’affaire_, and his name was not Haroun al Raschid, but Ali
Kuli Kahn. We smiled at Mr. Taggart’s transparency, but we were
alarmed. Our Amendment hung on Mr. Taggart’s presence.
Suppose after all he did intend to consult Persia on some matter of
moment to Kansas? To leave no loop-hole unguarded, Mary Gertrude
Fendall next morning at nine o’clock took a taxi to the Persian
legation and left it on the corner. At ten o’clock she was to ring
the bell, ask for Mr. Taggart, drive him in haste to the Capitol and
deposit him in the midst of our majority. As she walked up and down,
however, the problem became acute, for how could she get him out of
the legation when he did not go in? At last, ringing the bell,
seeing one attaché and then another, she became convinced that
nothing was known of the Kansas Congressman in the Persian legation,
so she telephoned us at the Capitol.
This confirmed our fears. Every one else was present; Mr. Taggart
was not in his office; no one knew where he was. Ten-thirty came;
ten forty-five. There was nothing of the vanquished in the faces of
our opponents. Mr. Carlin grinned affably at all of us, and the grin
chilled us. We looked anxiously from one to another as the meeting
began. Ten supporters—ten opponents. Mr. Taggart, wherever he was,
had our majority. The minutes dragged. Our friends prolonged the
preliminaries. A stranger near me pulled out his watch. I leaned
over and asked the time. “Five minutes to eleven.” And just at that
moment, looking up, I saw Mr. Taggart in the doorway—Mr. Taggart,
very much of a self-satisfied, naughty little boy, smiling
triumphantly. That did not matter. Our majority was complete.
The committee went into executive session, and we moved to the
anteroom. “A few minutes and you’ll have your Amendment reported
out,” said the newspaper men. “It’s all over but the shouting.” The
situation was ours. Suffrage was the special order; nothing could be
considered before it, and we had a majority. As the moments passed
we repeated this, trying to keep up our courage. For time lengthened
out. We eyed the door anxiously, starting up when it opened. We
caught glimpses of the room. The members were not sitting at their
places, they were on their feet, shaking their fists.
“They’re like wild animals,” said one member who came out.
“But what’s happening?” There was no answer. The door closed again.
Slowly we learned the incredible fact. When the door had shut upon
us, Mr. Carlin immediately moved that _all constitutional amendments
be indefinitely postponed_.
Now there were many constitutional amendments before that committee,
covering many subjects: marriage, divorce, election of judges, a
national anthem, prohibition. Mr. Carlin, to defeat us, had thrown
them all into one heap. A man could not vote to postpone one without
voting to postpone them all. He could not vote against one without
voting against them all. Were these men actually adult human beings,
legislating for a great nation, for the welfare of a hundred million
people?
The motion threw the committee into an uproar. Our friends protested
that it could not be considered; Suffrage was the special order of
the day. Mr. Moss moved that the Suffrage Amendment be reported out.
The chairman ruled this out of order. Now there was a majority in
that committee for Suffrage and a majority for prohibition, but they
were not the same majority. One of the strongest Suffragists
represented St. Louis with its large breweries. If he voted against
postponing the Prohibition Amendment he could never again be
re-elected from St. Louis. Yet he could not vote to postpone it
without postponing Suffrage also.
Through the closed door came the sound of loud, furious voices. We
caught glimpses of wildly gesticulating arms, fists in air,
contorted faces. One o’clock approached. Mr. Moss came out and
crossed quickly to the elevator. We hurried after him.
“Indefinitely postponed,” he said indignantly, not wanting to talk
about it.
“But our majority?”
“We lost one.”
“Who?”
“I cannot tell.” He stepped into the elevator. The other men came
trooping out. Our defeat was irrevocable, they all said. Nothing
could be done until the following December.
“You see,” said Mr. Taggart, looking very jubilant for a
just-defeated Suffragist, “You women can all go home now. You
needn’t have come at all this session. But of course you women don’t
know anything about politics. We told you not to bring up Suffrage
before election. Next December, after election, we may do something
for you.”
Our opponents, secure in victory, grew more friendly; but as they
warmed, our supporters became colder. Mr. Chandler flatly refused to
stay with us.
“I’ve voted for your Amendment twice,” he said, “and I won’t vote
for it again this session. That’s final.”
I also heard rumors of Mr. Neely’s refusing to vote for it, so I
caught him in a corridor and hurried beside him, talking as I
walked.
“That true,” he said. “I won’t vote for it again this session. It’s
no use talking. I am as unchangeable as the Medes and Persians.”
“But that’s just what you said when you were receiving so many
letters that you thought we doubted you! You said nothing could——”
“I’ve got some bills of my own to get out of this committee,” said
he, waving aside the Medes and Persians. “I won’t get them out if
you keep bringing up this Suffrage. Good day.”
In commenting upon the action of the Judiciary Committee, Miss Alice
Paul said:
The action of the Democratic leaders at Washington in again blocking
the Suffrage Amendment by postponing indefinitely its consideration
in the Judiciary Committee is an additional spur to Suffragists to
press forward with their plan of going out through the Suffrage
States to tell the women voters—particularly those who are
supporting the Democratic Party—of the opposition which the Party is
giving to the Federal Amendment at Washington.
We have now labored nearly a third of a year to persuade the
Democratic leaders in Congress to allow the Amendment to be brought
before the members of the House for their consideration. The rebuff
in the committee today shows the necessity of not delaying longer in
acquainting the four million voting women with what is going on in
Congress.
Many months still remain, in all probability, before Congress
adjourns. We will do our utmost in these months to create such a
powerful party of voting women in the West as to make it impossible
for the Democratic leaders at Washington longer to continue their
course of refusing to let this measure come before the House for
even the few minutes necessary for discussion and a vote.
Miss Younger says further:
The following Tuesday found me as usual in the Judiciary Committee
room. When I appeared in the doorway there was a surprised but
smiling greeting.
“You haven’t given up yet?”
“Not until you report our Amendment.”
For the first time Mr. Webb smiled. There was surprise in his voice.
“You women are in earnest about this.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
IV
MORE PRESSURE ON THE PRESIDENT
IN the meantime the work with the President was going on. Mr. Wilson was
about to make a speaking trip which included Kansas. This would be the
first time since his inauguration that he would visit a Suffrage State.
On January 26, 1916, Mrs. William Kent and Maud Younger waited on the
President to ask him to receive a delegation of women in a forthcoming
visit to New York. In presenting this request, Mrs. Kent sounded a note
which was beginning to become the dominant strain in the Suffrage
demands of the western women.
“Women are anxious to express to you, Mr. President,” she said, “the
depth of earnestness of the demand for Woman Suffrage. We as western
women and as citizens are accustomed to having a request for political
consideration received with seriousness; and we feel keenly the
injustice of the popular rumor that such delegations are planned to
annoy a public official. We hope that you will appreciate the dignity
and propriety of such a representative appeal as the women of New York
are now making.”
President Wilson said that such an assumption was entirely absent from
his mind. He added that he had decided to make it a rule during his trip
to New York and throughout the Middle West not to receive any
delegations whatever, since he would “get in wrong,” as he said, if he
received one and not another; it was very possible, however, that he
might be approached by deputations which he would be able to receive.
As Mrs. Kent and Miss Younger came out from this call on the President,
the evening papers were on the stands. They announced that the next day
in New York the President would receive fifteen hundred ministers.
On the morning of January 27, 1916, over a hundred women, organized by
Doris Stevens and led by Mrs. E. Tiffany Dyer, assembled in the East
Room of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Fifteen minutes later they sent up a
note asking for a ten-minute audience with the President, that New York
women might lay their case for federal action upon Suffrage before him.
Secretary Tumulty sent back the following note:
For the President, I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your note
requesting a Conference with him to discuss the Suffrage Amendment.
I very much regret that the President’s engagements make it
impossible to arrange this matter as you have so generously
suggested. When a representative from your committee called at the
White House the President informed her of the crowded condition of
his calendar today.
JOSEPH TUMULTY.
As this note merely said that no time had been set aside for a
deputation of women, and did not say that it would be impossible to see
him at all, a second note was sent, asking for just five minutes and
offering to wait as long as necessary. In the meantime, an interview
between Mr. Tumulty and Mrs. Amos Pinchot took place. Mrs. Pinchot
reported to the deputation that the President and his Secretary were
“conferring.” For two hours the women waited, holding a meeting. Some of
the women thought it was undignified to wait since the President had
stated in his note that an appointment had not been secured.
“But,” said Mrs. Carol Beckwith, “why quibble about our undignified
position here in the Waldorf? Our political position is undignified, and
that is what we should remedy.”
At a quarter past eleven, the President appeared.
In answer to the speeches of Mrs. Dyer, Mrs. Henry Bruere, Mary Ritter
Beard, President Wilson said:
I ought to say, in the first place, that the apologies, I think,
ought to come from me, because I had not understood that an
appointment had been made. On the contrary, I supposed none had been
made, and, therefore, had filled my morning with work, from which it
did not seem possible to escape.
I can easily understand the embarrassment of any one of your
representatives in trying to make a speech in this situation. I feel
that embarrassment very strongly myself, and I wish very much that I
had the eloquence of some of your speakers, so that I could set my
views forth as adequately as they set forth theirs.
It may be, ladies, that my mind works slowly. I have always felt
that those things were most solidly built that were built piece by
piece, and I felt that the genius of our political development in
this country lay in the number of our States, and in the very clear
definition of the difference of sphere between the State and Federal
Government. It may be that I am a little old-fashioned in that.
When I last had the pleasure of receiving some ladies urging the
Amendment that you are urging this morning, I told them that my mind
was unchanged, but I hoped open, and that I would take pleasure in
conferring with the leaders of my Party and the leaders of Congress
with regard to this matter. I have not fulfilled that promise, and I
hope you will understand why I have not fulfilled it, because there
seemed to be questions of legislation so pressing in their necessity
that they ought to take precedence of everything else; that we could
postpone fundamental changes to immediate action along lines in the
national interest. That has been my reason, and I think it is a
sufficient reason. The business of government is a business from day
to day, ladies, and there are things that cannot wait. However great
the principle involved in this instance, action must of necessity in
great fundamental constitutional changes be deliberate, and I do not
feel that I have put the less pressing in advance of the more
pressing in the course I have taken.
I have not forgotten the promise that I made, and I certainly shall
not forget the fulfillment of it, but I want to be absolutely frank.
My own mind is still convinced that we ought to work this thing out
State by State. I did what I could to work it out in my own State in
New Jersey, and I am willing to act there whenever it comes up; but
that is so far my conviction as to the best and solidest way to
build changes of this kind, and I for my own part see no reason for
discouragement on the part of the women of the country in the
progress that this movement has been making. It may move like a
glacier, but when it does move, its effects are permanent.
[Illustration: THE SUFFRAGIST’S DREAM. PRESIDENT WILSON: My dear young
lady, you have saved my life. How can I thank you?
Nina Allender in _The Suffragist_.]
I had not expected to have this pleasure this morning, and therefore
am simply speaking offhand, and without consideration of my phrases,
but I hope in entire frankness. I thank you sincerely for this
opportunity.
Smiling the President turned to leave the room, when Mrs. Beard reminded
him that the Clayton Bill, with its far-reaching effects on the
working-man, had not been gained State by State.
“I do not care to enter into a discussion of that,” he said sharply.
In February, President Wilson visited Kansas in his “Preparedness Tour.”
As soon as it became known that he was coming to Topeka, the heads of
various Civic and Suffrage organizations in Kansas telegraphed him,
asking for an interview.
Secretary Tumulty answered by telegram that the crowded condition of the
Topeka program would not permit of this arrangement.
The Kansas women telephoned that they were sure the President could
spare them five minutes, and they would await him at the State House,
immediately after the party arranged in his honor.
When Secretary Tumulty alighted from the President’s car in Topeka, the
inspired, swift, and executive Mabel Vernon met him with a note from the
Kansas women asking the President to see them. To do this, she had had
to run the gauntlet of a large force of police, Secret Service men and
the National Guard.
Mr. Tumulty said that he could give no answer at that time, but that
later the delegation could telephone him at Governor Capper’s house,
where President and Mrs. Wilson were entertained. Governor Capper was a
strong Suffragist. The women did call later, but Secretary Tumulty
explained then that it would be impossible for the President to see
them. After much talk, an arrangement was made that the delegation
should come to the Governor’s house at twenty minutes before one. The
thermometer was at zero, and snow was falling, but the women waited
before Governor Capper’s house for an hour. Finally the President came
out. The delegation, following the purple, white, and gold, marched up
the steps in double file. Lila Day Monroe made a little speech, and
handed the President the petition. The President murmured:
“I appreciate this call very much.... I appreciate it very much....
I am much obliged, much obliged.... Pleased to meet you ...” he
repeated at intervals, but he gave no expression of opinion.
After the deputation of women had filed by, The President handed the
petition to one of the Secret Service men, who buttoned it up in his
inside pocket.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
V
FORMING THE WOMAN’S PARTY
THE Congressional Union was now to undertake another gigantic task—the
formation of a new political Party.
For this purpose, a conference of national officers, state officers,
members of the Advisory Council of the Congressional Union from the
unenfranchised States met at the Little White House April 8 and 9, 1916.
Brilliant speeches were made by Anne Martin and Lucy Burns. Alice Paul
summed the whole matter up in her usual convincingly incisive and
logical way:
This is the third time we have called together the members of our
Advisory Council and our state and national officers to lay before
them a new project. The first time was at Newport when we proposed a
campaign against all Democratic candidates for Congress in the
Suffrage States. The second time was a year ago in New York when we
proposed to convert the Congressional Union into a national
organization with branches in the different States. Today we want to
lay another plan before you for your consideration—that is the
organization of a political Party of women voters who can go into
this next election, if it is necessary to go into it, as an
independent Party.
I think we are all agreed on certain essential points. First—from
what source our opposition comes. We are agreed that it comes from
the Administration. We do not have to prove that. Second—we are
agreed as to where our power lies—that is in the Suffrage States.
Third—we are agreed as to the political situation. We know that the
two Parties are about equal, that both want to win. We know that the
Suffrage States are doubtful States and that every one of those
States is wanted by the political Parties. We know that many of the
elections will be close. The State of Nevada was won by only forty
votes in the last Senatorial election. In Utah it was a week before
the campaign was decided. In Colorado, the same. Going back over a
period of twenty years it would have been necessary to have changed
only nine per cent of the total vote cast in the presidential
elections in order to have thrown the election to the other Party.
This gives us a position of wonderful power, a position that we have
never held before and that we cannot hope to hold again for at least
four years, and which we may not hold then.
We have been working for two years to effect an organization in the
Suffrage States and have finally completed such an organization. Our
last branch was formed about ten days ago in the State of
Washington. We now have to demonstrate to the Administration, to the
majority Party in Congress, that the organization in the Suffrage
States does exist and that it is a power to be feared. There are
many months still remaining, probably, before Congress will adjourn.
If in these months we can build up so strong an organization there
that it really will be dangerous to oppose it, and if we can show
Congress that we have such an organization, then we will have the
matter in our hands.
We have sent a request to our branches in the East to select one or
more representative women who will go out to the West and make a
personal appeal to the women voters to stand by us even more loyally
than they have before—to form a stronger organization than has ever
before existed.
Today we must consider what concrete plan we shall ask these envoys
who go out to the West to propose to the voting women. I do not
think it will do very much good to go through the voting States and
simply strengthen our Suffrage organizations. That will not be
enough to terrify the men in Congress. Suffrage organizations,
unfortunately, have come to stand for feebleness of action and
supineness of spirit. What I want to propose is that when we go to
these women voters we ask them to begin to organize an independent
political Party that will be ready for the elections in November.
They may not have to go into these elections. If they prepare
diligently enough for the elections they won’t have to go into them.
The threat will be enough. We want to propose to you that we ask the
women voters to come together in Chicago at the time that the
Progressives and Republicans meet there in June, to decide how they
will use these four million votes that women have, in the next
election.
Now, if women who are Republicans simply help the Republican Party,
and if women who are Democrats help the Democratic Party, women’s
votes will not count for much. But if the political Parties see
before them a group of independent women voters who are standing
together to use their vote to promote Suffrage, it will make
Suffrage an issue—the women voters at once become a group which
counts; whose votes are wanted. The Parties will inevitably have to
go to the women voters if the latter stand aloof and do not go to
the existing political Parties. The political Parties will have to
offer them the thing which will win their votes. To count in an
election you do not have to be the biggest Party; you have to be
simply an independent Party that will stand for one object and that
cannot be diverted from that object.
Four years ago there was launched a new Party, the Progressive
Party. It really did, I suppose, decide the last Presidential
election. We can be the same determining factor in this coming
election. And if we can make Congress realize that we can be the
determining factor, we won’t have to go into the election at all.
What I would like to propose, in short, is that we go to the women
voters and ask them to hold a convention in Chicago the first week
in June, and that we spend these next two months in preparation. We
could not have a better opportunity for preparation than this trip
of the envoys through every one of the Suffrage States, calling the
women together to meet in Chicago, the place where the eyes of the
whole country will be turned in June.
We want very much to know what you think about this plan and whether
you will help us in carrying it through. It is not an easy thing to
launch a new Party and have it stand competition with the Republican
and Democratic Parties. If we undertake it, we must make it a
success. We must make it worthy to stand beside these great Parties.
That is the biggest task that we have ever dreamed of since we
started the Congressional Union.
It was unanimously decided by the Conference to send an appeal to all
members in the Suffrage States to meet in Chicago on June 5, 6, and 7,
to form a Woman’s Party. Envoys to carry this appeal to the West were
elected.
Mrs. W. D. Ascough, Harriot Stanton Blatch, Abby Scott Baker, Lucy
Burns, Agnes Campbell, Mrs. A. R. Colvin, Anna Constable, Edith Goode,
Jane Goode, Florence Bayard Hilles, Julia Hurlburt, Caroline
Katzenstein, Winifred Mallon, Mrs. Cyrus Mead, Agnes Morey, Katherine
Morey, Gertrude B. Newell, Mrs. Percy Read, Ella Riegel, Mrs. John
Rogers, Mrs. Townsend Scott, Helen Todd, Mrs. Nelson Whittemore.
All of these women were chosen by State groups of the National Woman’s
Party; they therefore went to the West as the spokesmen of the
unenfranchised women of their own States. Ahead of them went the
organizers.
This Suffrage Special must not be confused with Hughes’ “Golden
Special,” which in October—six months later—toured the West and with
which the National Woman’s Party had no connection.
Five thousand people gathered in the Union Station at Washington to see
the envoys off—what the _Washington Times_ describes as a
“banner-carrying, flag-waving, flower-laden cheering crowd.” Automobiles
flying the tri-color brought the envoys to the station. Two buglers
sounded the assembly for the farewell. The Naval Gun Factory Band
greeted them with the _Marseillaise_, and in the half-hour before the
train’s departure, it continued to play martial music. When it struck up
_Onward Christian Soldiers_ and _America_, the crowd sang with them.
The envoys made a tremendous impression in the West. Whenever their
train arrived—purple, white, and gold decorations floating from all the
windows—that arrival became an event and created excitement.
“I wish you might see some of these meetings,” Abby Baker wrote to
the _Suffragist_ of April 29, “and see the looks of amusement of the
men as our train pulls in, gay with our Congressional Union colors.
They invariably call out, ‘Here come the Suffragettes,’ but very
soon they are saying, ‘She’s all right,’ and ‘That’s straight lady,’
or some such approving phrase, and as the train pulls out of the
station, we hear, ‘Bully for you!’ ‘Good luck!’ and so forth.”
“At Williams, Arizona,” said another letter in the same number of
the _Suffragist_, “there was nothing in sight but a water tank, a
restaurant, a picture postal card shop, and yet we had a tremendous
meeting.”
At El Tova, in the same State, they carried the message of the
unenfranchised women of the East to the very rim of the canyon, a mile
below sea level!
Leaving very early in the morning, at Maricopa they found a group of
women waiting, who said plaintively, “Oh, if you could only stop longer,
so that we might drum up all the women out of the sage brush!”
It was not the people alone or the civic authorities who made this trip
of the envoys so attractive. When the Suffragists came to breakfast on
the road from Maricopa to Tucson, they found that the management of the
railway had decorated the breakfast tables in the dining car with
purple, white, and gold—sweet peas and yellow laburnums. At Tucson,
Eugene Debs came with the crowd to meet them.
At a meeting in Cheyenne, Mrs. Blatch was presented with a framed copy
of a facsimile of the Governor’s signature attached to the act
enfranchising the women of Wyoming when the State came into the Union.
In San Francisco, where there was a large meeting in the Civic
Auditorium, presided over by Gail Laughlin, Sara Bard Field spoke. At
the close of the meeting, she asked if the people present who put
Suffrage before Party affiliations would say, “I will.” The audience
arose as one man, and answered roundly, “I will.”
At Sacramento, California, where they were given a reception and
luncheon by the Chamber of Commerce, the annual fruit show was in
progress and the envoys were presented with an immense box of raisins
and two boxes of Sacramento Valley cherries.
At Seattle, the station was decorated with Congressional Union banners;
the national colors; hanging baskets of flowers. A bugler called
together the big crowd—including the Acting Mayor—which had gathered to
welcome the envoys.
“Ladies,” Mrs. Blatch ended her speech, “we are here after your votes.”
A man’s voice in the audience cried: “You’ll get them,” and when Mrs.
Blatch said, “Men, we need yours too,” the whole crowd burst into
applause.
Immediately after the address, the envoys were taken on a tour of the
city in a procession of a hundred and fifty automobiles, all, of course,
flying the purple, white, and gold. They attended court, where Seattle’s
only woman judge, a member of the Congressional Union, presided—Reah
Whitehead.
It was in Washington State that the doctrine of Suffrage first reached
what the _Suffragist_ described as “the height of its career.” Lucy
Burns, as the guest of Flight Lieutenant Maroney of the Naval Militia at
Washington, flew to a height of fourteen hundred feet over Seattle,
scattering leaflets as she went. When she started, Miss Burns carried a
Congressional Union banner, but the eighty-mile-an-hour gale soon tore
it from her hand. When last seen, it reposed gracefully on the roof of a
large Seattle mill. At Bellingham occurred one of the biggest
out-of-door meetings the envoys had had. For a solid block, the street
was packed with people from one side to the other.
At Spokane, they participated in an interesting and rather poignant
event, the planting of a tree in memory of May Arkwright Hutton, pioneer
Suffragist of Washington.
At Helena, Montana, a huge mass-meeting was held in the Auditorium. A
sand storm, which had greeted their arrival, grew worse towards night,
the wind howling louder and louder. In the midst of Mrs. Rogers’s speech
the lights suddenly went out. She did not even hesitate, and in the
absolute darkness continued to urge women to stand by women. There was
not a sound from the audience; they listened in perfect quiet till the
end.
In one State, the Governor declared the coming of the Suffrage Special a
legal holiday. Everything on wheels turned out to meet the envoys at the
train, including the fire engine.
A Convention at Salt Lake City on May 11 closed the swing of the
Suffrage Special round the circle of the twelve free States, and brought
the Western tour to its highest stage of success. The envoys passed from
the station under a great purple, white, and gold flag, through a lane
of women, their arms full of spring blossoms, to a long line of waiting
automobiles flying banners of purple, white, and gold.
The Convention passed resolutions demanding from Congress favorable
action on the Suffrage Amendment in the present session and elected
three women voters to carry these resolutions to Congress.
These women accompanied the envoys to Washington. There they were
welcomed by a luncheon in the Union Station. Then, in automobiles,
brilliantly decorated, they drove through streets lined with huge
posters which said COME TO THE CAPITOL. As they approached the Capitol,
two buglers, from the broad platforms at the top of the high, wide
stairway, alternately sounded a note of triumphant welcome. A huge
chorus of women in white sang _America_. Through the aisle formed on the
Capitol steps by ribbons held in the hands of other women in white, the
envoys passed up the steps into the Rotunda. In the Rotunda, they
grouped themselves into a semi-circle facing another semi-circle—nearly
a hundred Senators and Representatives. The Senate had taken a recess
especially to meet these women.
The envoys, elected at the Salt Lake City Convention, then presented to
the assembled Congressmen the resolutions passed at that Convention and
speeches followed.
While the envoys were rousing the West, the Congressional Union was
sending deputations to great political leaders in the hope of getting
declarations of support which would influence the coming National
Political Conventions. To a deputation consisting of Mary Beard,
Elizabeth Gerberding, Alice Carpenter, and Mrs. Evan Evans, Theodore
Roosevelt, who had long been converted to the principle of Suffrage,
announced himself in favor of the Federal Amendment and promised his
active support in the campaign. This was of course an encouraging
episode in the story of the National Amendment.
* * * * *
Three weeks later came the next important event in the history of the
Congressional Union—the launching of a Woman’s Party on July 5 at the
Blackstone Theatre in Chicago. At this time Chicago was the center of
publicity; the strategic point as far as the press was concerned. The
Woman’s Party Convention met before the Conventions of the Republicans
and Democrats. The reporters, gathered there and waiting in idleness for
these later occasions, looked upon the Woman’s Party Convention as a
gift of the gods.
Helena Hill Weed presented a report of the Credentials Committee, of
which she was Chairman. She said:
This is not a delegated body.
It is a mass convention of all members of the Congressional Union to
form a Woman’s Party, made up of enfranchised women of the eleven
full Suffrage States, and of Illinois, where women may vote for
President of the United States.
There are two classes of delegates in this convention—members of the
Union in these twelve Suffrage States, who have the right to speak
and vote in the convention; and members of the Union in the
thirty-six unfree States, who may speak from the floor, but may not
vote.
As registration is still going on, it is impossible to give a final
vote of the number of delegates attending. Over fifteen hundred
delegates have already registered.
Maud Younger was temporary Chairman of the Convention and keynote
speaker. She said in part:
A new force marches on to the political field. For the first time in
a Presidential election women are a factor to be reckoned with. Four
years ago, women voted in six States—today in twelve, including
Illinois. These States with their four million women constitute
nearly one-fourth of the electoral college and more than one-third
of the votes necessary to elect a President. With enough women
organized in each State to hold the balance of power, the women’s
votes may determine the Presidency of the United States.
The Woman’s Party has no candidates and but one plank, the
enfranchisement of the women of America through a Federal Amendment.
Anne Martin was chosen permanent Chairman of the Party; Phœbe A. Hearst,
Judge Mary A. Bartelme, Vice-Chairmen; Mabel Vernon, Secretary.
The Party platform, adopted unanimously amid cheers, reads:
The National Woman’s Party stands for the passage of the Amendment
to the United States Constitution known as the Susan B. Anthony
Amendment, proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States extending the right of Suffrage to women:
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House
concurring therein) that the following article be proposed in the
legislatures of the several States as an Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by
three-fourths of the said legislatures, shall be valid as part of
such Constitution, namely:
Article 1, Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to
vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any
State on account of sex.
Section 2. Congress shall have power, by appropriate legislation, to
enforce the provisions of this article.
The National Woman’s Party, convinced that the enfranchisement of
women is the paramount issue, pledges itself to use its united vote
to secure the passage of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment,
irrespective of the interests of any national political Party, and
pledges its unceasing opposition to all who oppose this Amendment.
Sara Bard Field closed that first meeting with an eloquent invocation to
the spirit of freedom, quoting from Alfred Wallace the words he used
just before his death:
All my long life and investigations have shown me that there is one
supreme force needed in the universe for growth, either material or
spiritual, physical or mental—and that force is freedom.
An evening session of the Woman’s Party Convention, held also at the
Blackstone Theatre, was made interesting and picturesque by the presence
of representatives of all the political Parties.
The Convention appointed women representing the Woman’s Party, to speak
at the Republican, Democratic, and Progressive Conventions.
Incidental to the Convention a big “Suffrage First” luncheon was given
in the Auditorium Hotel. So many hundreds of applicants for tickets had
to be refused that finally tickets of admission for standing room were
sold. Every inch of steps was occupied when the luncheon began.
Remarkable speeches were made by Rheta Childe Dorr, the famous
publicist, and one of the early editors of the _Suffragist_; by Crystal
Eastman, one of the founders of the Congressional Union, brilliant
speaker, writer, and editor; Inez Milholland Boissevain, who, before the
year was out, was to end, with such tragic abruptness, a vivid and
devoted life; Helen Keller, whose unexampled achievement is known to the
whole world.
The publicity which the Woman’s Party received was extraordinary. The
Convention lasted three days and the meetings were packed. Arthur
Brisbane pointed out the difference between the clock-like organization
of the women and the hap-hazard organization of the men.
Ida M. Tarbell, describing the Woman’s Party in the _New York World_ of
June 7 and 8, 1916, says:
The new Woman’s Party had permitted representation of five different
political Parties to appear before them and briefly present their
various claims to the Suffrage of women. “We do not ask you here to
tell us what we can do for your Parties, but what your Parties can
do for us,” Miss Martin told the speakers in a tone of exultant
sweetness which sent a cheer from shore to shore of the human sea
that filled the house....
“Votes don’t matter,” Benson shouted at them, “nothing but education
matters. Women, like men, don’t know how to vote. Nevertheless, if
you have nothing but ignorance you have a right to contribute that.
As for the Socialists, we shall continue to vote for Suffrage, as we
always have done, if no women vote for us.”
Much as they gasped at Benson’s defiance of their “power,” they took
it like sports, and sent him to his seat with rounds of cheers and
long waving of their lovely banners. (They have a wonderful eye for
color, these new politicians.)
But when Mr. Hammond—confident and bland—assured them the Republican
Party offered them protection from invaders, they jeered at him. He
did not understand that they are their own protectors and war scares
are not going to stampede them.
Another thing that the gentlemen must have noticed—used as they are
to the same game—and that was, that no amount of eloquence made the
faintest scratch on the rock-ribbed determination of the women. The
one and only thing they wanted to know, so the women told the men
after they had gone through their ordeals, was whether or no they
proposed to support the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. That was the
only possible interest they had in what the gentlemen could say. Was
it, yes or no?
The Republican and Progressive Conventions began in Chicago the day the
Woman’s Party Convention ended. The delegates elected by the women spoke
before the Resolution Committee of both these Conventions.
The hearing before the Republicans was held in the vast Coliseum.
Representatives of the National American Woman Suffrage Association
addressed the Committee. Anti-Suffragists followed. In closing, their
last speaker said:
“We will now leave you to the tender mercies of those who demand.”
The Woman’s Party then took the hearing in charge.
The hearing of the Woman’s Party before the Progressive Convention was
held at eight o’clock the same evening in the South Parlor of the
Auditorium Hotel.
Later, members of the Woman’s Party went to St. Louis where the
Democrats were holding their Convention. When they arrived they found
there was no room in the hotel which could be used for Headquarters.
Most of them, a little discouraged, went in to breakfast. While they sat
at the table, a newspaper man approached. “Where are your Headquarters?”
he asked. “Here,” Alice Paul answered instantly. After breakfast she
chose a table in a conspicuous part of the hotel lobby; covered it with
Woman’s Party literature, hung a purple, white, and gold banner back of
it. The hotel, seething with the activity due to the fact that
Democratic Headquarters was there, took no notice of what she was doing.
Nobody said anything to her. Gradually Alice Paul hung purple, white,
and gold banners everywhere in that corner of the lobby. Nobody
remonstrated. Perhaps by this time, the hotel authorities decided that
her color scheme was decorative. At any rate, the Woman’s Party
maintained that corner as Headquarters. It was a conspicuous spot;
everybody had to pass it to go to the elevator. They could not have
hired a place so advantageously situated.
Newspaper cartoonists began to introduce the new Party into their
pictures. Alice Paul in the figure of a little deer, big-eyed and
wistful, stood timidly among a group which included the elephant, the
donkey and the bull moose.
The Woman’s Party found every sentiment in favor of Suffrage among the
Democratic delegates until Secretary of War Baker arrived from
Washington bringing the platform drawn up by Wilson. Then the atmosphere
changed. Newspaper men, who told the Woman’s Party delegates of the
encouraging condition earlier, now said: “There is no chance of getting
what you want.”
When later the Resolutions Committee met, representatives from the
Woman’s Party waited all night outside the door in a last effort to
influence the members of the Committee going in and out of the Committee
Rooms. The entire platform was accepted, with very slight changes, as it
had been originally drafted in Washington. It contained a recommendation
that the question of Woman Suffrage be confined to the States.
The Progressives endorsed National Suffrage. This was the first time a
national political Party had ever endorsed the Federal Amendment; for
although the Progressives, the Socialists, and the Prohibitionists had
endorsed the principle of Suffrage in 1912, they had apparently never
heard of the principle of Federal Suffrage. The platforms of the other
two Parties were unsatisfactory as far as the Federal Amendment was
concerned.
The Republican Suffrage plank was:
The Republican Party, reaffirming its faith in a government of the
people, by the people, and for the people, as a measure of justice
to one-half the adult population of this country, favors the
extension of Suffrage to women, but recognizes the right of each
State to settle this question for itself.
The Democratic Suffrage plank ran:
We recommend the extension of the franchise to the women of the
country by the States upon the same terms as to men.
These two planks also marked a great advance; for it was the first time
the major political Parties had ever mentioned Suffrage.
Now every effort of the Woman’s Party was directed to getting the
Presidential candidates, Wilson and Hughes, to come out for National
Suffrage.
Alice Paul’s campaign, conducted on Hughes, was particularly vigorous.
It was nation-wide in its extent. She sent telegrams all over the
country asking people to urge this upon him. She sent numberless women
to plead with Hughes. She sent women to Roosevelt and to other prominent
Republicans and Progressives to get them to use their influence with
Hughes. Every Republican member of Congress was lobbied to write to
Hughes or to see him.
Hughes found himself bombarded. Letters inundated him from all over the
nation. Newspapers besieged him with editorials. Most important of all,
Alice Paul herself went to him. Then it was that she presented an
unanswerable argument which has already been quoted.
Your Party consists of two factions, the old stand-pat Republicans
and the Progressives. Now if you put a Suffrage plank in your
platform, you will not alienate the Progressives, because the
Progressives have a Suffrage plank and the old stand-pat Republicans
will not vote for a Democrat, no matter what you put in your
platform.
At a great mass-meeting in Carnegie Hall, Hughes accepted the
nomination. He did not, however, satisfactorily mention Woman Suffrage.
That evening an unknown man came up to the box where Alice Paul was
sitting and introducing himself as Hughes’s representative, asked her
what she thought of the program. “Utterly unsatisfactory,” said Alice
Paul; “it did not mention Federal Suffrage.” That night Alice Paul and
other Suffragists went early to the public reception given to Hughes at
the Hotel Astor. They told every Senator, Congressman, and plain
individual whom they knew there: “When you congratulate Mr. Hughes, tell
him how disappointed you were that he did not mention Federal Suffrage.”
In a telegram sent on August 1 to Senator Sutherland of Utah, Hughes
declared himself in favor of the Federal Amendment. It was the first
time any Presidential candidate of either of the two big political
Parties had publicly declared the Federal Amendment a part of his
policy.
* * * * *
On June 19, President Wilson sent to Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president
of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, the following
letter, which is a reply to a telegram from her asking what the Suffrage
plank in the Democratic platform meant:
MY DEAR MRS. CATT:
I was away from the city and did not get your telegram of June
sixteenth promptly.
I am very glad to make my position about the Suffrage plank adopted
by the convention clear to you, though I had not thought that it was
necessary to state again a position I have repeatedly stated with
entire frankness. The plank received my entire approval before its
adoption and I shall support its principle with sincere pleasure. I
wish to join my fellow-Democrats in recommending to the several
States that they extend the Suffrage to women upon the same terms as
to men.
Cordially and sincerely yours,
WOODROW WILSON.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VI
STILL MORE PRESSURE ON THE PRESIDENT
ON June 12, 1916, Sara Bard Field sent a telegram to President Wilson.
Mrs. Field was a Democrat, but she was, first of all, a Suffragist. In
that telegram, she urged the President to support the Suffrage
Amendment. She promised, if the Democratic Party would do this, that she
herself would gladly campaign for him in the Western States without
remuneration. She promised him also the services of at least five other
influential Democratic women. The President answered:
DEAR MRS. FIELD:
Your frank and kindly telegram of June 12 sent from St. Louis was
warmly appreciated. I have been in frequent conference with my Party
associates about a platform declaration with regard to Woman
Suffrage and sincerely hope the outcome has been acceptable to you.
In haste, with sincerest appreciation,
Cordially yours,
WOODROW WILSON.
On June 21, President Wilson received Mrs. D. E. Hooker of Richmond, who
came to him as a delegate from the Virginia Federation of Labor. Mrs.
Hooker placed in the President’s hands resolutions passed by the
Federation, demanding favorable action on the Federal Amendment this
session.
“This is very strong,” said President Wilson.
The _Suffragist_ of July 1 says:
Mrs. Hooker then urged upon the President, very movingly, the
humiliation, from the standpoint of a Southerner and a woman, of
going before the entire population of men now enfranchised, and
begging them each personally to approve of woman’s right to full
citizenship. Tears came into her eyes as she spoke, and the
President seemed rather touched. He said consolingly that she must
not mind the criticism she encountered in a good work. “Every one in
the public eye,” the President said, “is deluged with criticism. You
simply must do what you believe to be right.”
Mrs. Hooker went on to explain the political difficulties of the
State by State road to National Woman Suffrage.
President Wilson seemed very little impressed by these facts. “Every
good thing,” he said, “takes a great deal of hard work.”
Mrs. Hooker made a very strong point of the indefensible behavior of
the House Judiciary Committee in blocking the Suffrage Amendment and
refusing to allow the representatives of the people an opportunity
to vote upon it. “Whatever one may think of Woman Suffrage,” she
said, “tying the Amendment up this way before an election is wrong;
and the blame will fall squarely on the Democratic Party.”
“You must see the members of the Judiciary Committee about that,”
said the President, with a considerable tactical skill. “I do not
think I should interfere with the action of a Committee of
Congress.”
“Have you never done it before, Mr. President?” asked Mrs. Hooker.
The President explained that he had done it only under pressure of a
national emergency.
The interview lasted about half an hour. The President’s manner was
kindly and friendly, but he made it very plain that he interpreted
the Democratic platform plank to mean the limitation of the Suffrage
movement to State activities, and that he was still opposed to the
Federal Suffrage Amendment.
Later, Mrs. Field replied to the President’s letter:
I am sorry to have to tell you that not only is the platform
declaration not acceptable to me, and to hundreds of thousands of
voting women of the West, but that we also greatly deprecate the
interpretation which you gave of this plank to Mrs. D. E. Hooker of
Richmond.
It is my sincere hope as a Democratic woman that you will not allow
any menace to the Democratic Party in the fall election through your
unwillingness to face the desire of the West for speedy action upon
the Susan B. Anthony Amendment.
On July 3, a delegation representing the Woman’s National Democratic
League, composed, according to the _Washington Times_, of some of the
most distinguished ladies of the Congressional and official sets, went
to inform the President that the League had raised a thousand dollars as
a contribution towards his re-election. Afterwards, Mrs. F. B. Moran, a
grand-niece of Martha Washington, and it may be almost unnecessary to
state, a member of the Congressional Union, requested a five minute
interview with the President.
Mrs. Moran said:
I am really afraid for my Party. The women in the West are far
superior to us. They have power, and they know how to use it. There
are four million of them, and they are heartily in favor of the
Federal Suffrage Amendment because they do not wish to be
disfranchised when they pass beyond the limits of their own State.
It is not a question of their threatening us. It is a question of
our realizing what they are going to do. You can get the Suffrage
Amendment through Congress, and, if you do not do it, these women
will regard you as responsible.
President Wilson said, in answer, that he could not interfere with the
action of Congress. He believed that Suffrage should be established on
the secure foundation of separate State action. “You should work from
the bottom up, not from the top down,” the President said. “Women should
be patient, and continue to work in the admirable way they have worked
in the past.”
* * * * *
On July 4, President Wilson reviewed a Labor parade in connection with
the laying of the corner-stone of the Labor Temple of the American
Federation of Labor in Washington, D. C., and at its close he addressed
the marchers. He had just declared that he stood for the interests of
all classes, when Mabel Vernon, who sat on the platform a few feet away,
called in a voice which has a notably clear, ringing quality, “Mr.
President, if you sincerely desire to forward the interests of all the
people, why do you oppose the national enfranchisement of women?”
The President answered, “That is one of the things which we will have to
take counsel over later.”
When the President was closing his speech, Mabel Vernon called again;
“Answer, Mr. President, why do you oppose the national enfranchisement
of women?”
The President did not answer.
The Secret Service men with almost an exquisite courtesy gently hurried
Miss Vernon away.
* * * * *
On July 24, another deputation of prominent Democratic women called on
the President. The deputation included Mrs. George W. Lamont, Harriot
Stanton Blatch, Mina Van Winkle, Helen Todd. I quote the _Suffragist_:
Mrs. Lamont, who introduced the group to President Wilson, said: “I
have come to you, Mr. President, as a Democratic woman. I used to be
first a Democrat and then a Suffragist; now I am a Suffragist
first.” She asked the President if he realized how painful a
position he created for Democratic women when he opposed the
enfranchisement of their sex and forced them to choose between their
Party allegiance and their loyalty to women throughout the nation.
Mrs. Blatch told President Wilson of the strength of the sentiment
for Woman Suffrage she had found in the West on her recent trip in
the Suffrage Special through the equal Suffrage States and of the
extraordinary difficulties she had experienced in her own life
trying to win Suffrage by amending the constitution of her State.
“I am sixty years old, Mr. President,” said Mrs. Blatch, “I have
worked all my life for Suffrage; and I am determined that I will
never again stand up on the street corners of a great city appealing
to every Tom, Dick, and Harry for the right of self-government. When
we work for a Federal Amendment, we are dealing at last with men who
understand what we are talking about and can speak to us in our
tongue. We are not asking for an easy way to win the vote. It is not
easy to amend the United States Constitution. We are asking for a
dignified way; and we ought to be able to rely on the chivalry of
our representatives, particularly of the southern representatives,
to accord to women a self-respecting method of working out their
enfranchisement.”
Miss Helen Todd told the President of her experience in a State
campaign in Texas, when Democratic members of the Legislature
refused to submit the question to the voters, saying bluntly that
they controlled eleven votes in the upper house and that those
eleven could keep the Suffrage Amendment “tied up” indefinitely.
“Women go to Democrats in Congress and are told they must appeal to
State Legislatures. They go to Democratic State Legislatures, who
refuse to allow the electors of their own State to vote upon the
question at all. What are women to do, Mr. President?” said Miss
Todd, “when they are played with in this cat and mouse fashion?”
The interview was in many respects interesting. President Wilson did
not mention the States’ rights formula. He said he was unable to
help the Suffrage Amendment in Congress because his Party was
opposed to it. It was the President’s theory, he explained, that a
Party leader should not go so far in advance of his adherents as to
withdraw himself from them, and make united action impossible upon
the other issues before the country.
The impression was strongly conveyed, however, that this opposition
from the President’s Party was not necessarily permanent. “In four
years, or in two years,” said Mr. Wilson, impressively but vaguely,
“the situation might be different. At present many members of the
Democratic Party are opposed to Woman Suffrage on account of the
negro question.” “But,” said one of his visitors, “if women were
given the vote throughout the United States the percentage of the
white vote to the negro vote would be increased.” “You have not
explained that to the men in Congress,” President Wilson said.
In answer to the statement that the Democratic Party would lose the
support of women in the West and therefore of western electoral
votes if they persisted in opposing women’s national
enfranchisement, President Wilson said he did not believe women
would vote in a national election on the Suffrage issue. “If they
did that,” said Mr. Wilson, with superb and quite unconscious
insolence, “they would not be as intelligent as I think they are.”
The women came away from this meeting convinced that the President would
do nothing for the Federal Amendment.
On September 8, however, President Wilson spoke at Atlantic City before
a Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. It was
the first time he had ever addressed a Suffrage meeting. That was, of
course, in itself, significant. I quote the _Suffragist_:
I have found it a real privilege to be here tonight and to listen to
the address which you have heard. Though you may not all of you
believe it, I would a great deal rather hear some one else speak
than speak myself, but I should feel that I was omitting a duty if I
did not address you tonight and say some of the things that have
been in my thoughts as I realized the approach of this evening and
the duty that would fall upon me.
The astonishing thing about this movement which you represent is not
that it has grown so slowly, but that it has grown so rapidly. No
doubt for those who have been a long time in the struggle, like your
honored president, it seems a long and arduous path that has been
trodden, but when you think of the cumulating force of this movement
in recent decades, you must agree with me that it is one of the most
astonishing tides in modern history.
Two generations ago, no doubt, Madam President will agree with me in
saying it was a handful of women who were fighting this cause. Now
it is a great multitude of women who are fighting it. And there are
some interesting historical connections which I would like to
attempt to point out to you. One of the most striking facts about
the history of the United States is that at the outset it was a
lawyer’s history.
There was a time when nobody but a lawyer could know enough to run
the government of the United States, and a distinguished English
publicist once remarked, speaking of the complexity of the American
government, that it was no proof of the excellence of the American
Constitution that it had been successfully operated, because the
American could run any constitution. But there have been a great
many technical difficulties in running it.
And then something happened. A great question arose in this country
which, though complicated with legal elements, was at the bottom a
human question, and nothing but a question of humanity. That was the
slavery question, and is it not significant that it was then, and
then for the first time, that women became prominent in politics in
America? Not many women. Those prominent in that day are so few that
you can almost name them over in a brief catalogue, but
nevertheless, they then began to play a part in writing not only,
but in public speech, which was a very novel part for women to play
in America; and after the Civil War had settled some of what seemed
the most difficult legal questions of our system, the life of the
nation began not only to unfold but to accumulate.
Life in the United States was a comparatively simple matter at the
time of the Civil War. There was none of that underground struggle
which is now so manifest to those who look only a little way beneath
the surface. Stories such as Dr. Davis has told tonight were
uncommon in those simpler days.
The pressure of low wages, the agony of obscure and unremunerated
toil did not exist in America in anything the same proportions that
they exist now. And as our life has unfolded and accumulated, as the
contacts of it have become hot, as the populations have assembled in
the cities, and the cool spaces of the country have been supplanted
by the feverish urban areas, the whole nature of our political
questions has been altered. They have ceased to be legal questions.
They have more and more become social questions—questions with
regard to the relations of human beings to one another—not merely
their legal relations, but their moral and spiritual relations to
one another.
And this has been most characteristic of American life in the last
few decades, and as these questions have assumed greater and greater
prominence, the movement which this association represents has
gathered cumulative force. So that if anybody asks himself, “What
does this gathering force mean?” if he knows anything about the
history of the country, he knows that it means something that has
not only come to stay, but has come with conquering power.
I get a little impatient sometimes about the discussion of the
channels and methods by which it is to prevail. It is going to
prevail, and that is a very superficial and ignorant view of it
which attributes it to mere social unrest. It is not merely because
the women are discontented. It is because the women have seen
visions of duty, and that is something which we not only cannot
resist, but, if we be true Americans, we do not wish to resist.
So that what we have to realize in dealing with forces of this sort
is that we are dealing with the substance of life itself.
I have felt as I sat here tonight the wholesome contagion of the
occasion. Almost every other time that I ever visited Atlantic City
I came to fight somebody. I hardly know how to conduct myself when I
have not come to fight against anybody, but with somebody. I have
come to suggest, among other things, that when the forces of nature
are steadily working and the tide is rising to meet the moon, you
need not be afraid that it will not come to its flood.
We feel the tide: we rejoice in the strength of it and we shall not
quarrel in the long run as to the method of it. Because, when you
are working with masses of men and organized bodies of opinion, you
have got to carry the organized body along. The whole art and
practice of government consists, not in moving individuals, but in
moving masses. It is all very well to run ahead and beckon, but,
after all, you have got to wait for the mass to follow. I have not
come to ask you to be patient, because you have been, but I have
come to congratulate you that there was a force behind you that
will, beyond any peradventure, be triumphant and for which you can
afford a little while to wait.
This speech is, of course, often exquisitely phrased. However, it
promised nothing. The Woman’s Party was not deceived by it.
* * * * *
It is to be seen that President Wilson was moving—slowly, to be sure;
one cautious foot carefully planted before the other cautious foot
moved—in the right direction. He had progressed a measurable distance
from the man who just after his inauguration admitted he had never
considered the subject of Suffrage. However, he still held to his idea
of the “State by State” progress for the enfranchisement of women. But
he was to change even in that, as will subsequently be seen.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VII
THE SECOND APPEAL TO WOMEN VOTERS
ON August 10, 11, and 12, of 1916, the newly-formed National Woman’s
Party held a conference at the Hotel Antlers in Colorado Springs, to
formulate a policy for the coming presidential campaign.
In Washington, Senators and Representatives read avidly the newspaper
accounts of this convention.
Politically, it was a tremendously impressive gathering. Prominent women
came from all the Western States to decide how they should endeavor to
mobilize the women’s votes. Greatly alarmed at this drifting away of
members, the Democratic Party sent prominent Democratic women to plead
with them not to leave the Party and to represent to them that Peace was
more important than Suffrage. The Republicans sent important Republican
women to plead with them to give their support to Hughes since he had
come out for the Federal Suffrage Amendment.
Finally the Democratic leaders appealed to the President to counteract
the attacks being made on the Party, on the score of its Suffrage
record. The President, thereupon, despatched to the Thomas Jefferson
Club of Denver the following letter which was read at a banquet the last
day of the Conference.
THE WHITE HOUSE,
WASHINGTON, D. C., August 7, 1916.
MY DEAR FRIENDS:
I wish I could meet you face to face and tell you in person how
deeply I appreciate the work your organization has done and proposes
to do for the cause of democracy and popular government.
I am told that yours was the first woman’s Democratic voters’
organization in America, and I am sure that as such it must have
been the instrument of impressing your convictions very deeply upon
the politics of your State.
One of the strongest forces behind the Equal Suffrage sentiment of
the country is the now demonstrated fact that in the Suffrage States
women interest themselves in public questions, study them
thoroughly, form their opinions and divide as men do concerning
them. It must in frankness be admitted that there are two sides to
almost every important public question, and even the best informed
persons are bound to differ in judgment concerning it. With each
difference in judgment, it is not only natural, but right and
patriotic, that the success of opposing convictions should be sought
through political alignment and the measuring of their strength at
the polls through political agencies. Men do this naturally, and so
do women; though it has required your practical demonstration of it
to convince those who doubted this. In proportion as the political
development of women continues along this line, the cause of Equal
Suffrage will be promoted.
Those who believe in Equal Suffrage are divided into those who
believe that each State should determine for itself when and in what
direction the Suffrage should be extended, and those who believe
that it should be immediately extended by the action of the national
government, by means of an amendment to the Federal Constitution.
Both the great political Parties of the nation have in their recent
platforms favored the extension of Suffrage to women through State
action, and I do not see how their candidates can consistently
disregard these official declarations. I shall endeavor to make the
declaration of my own Party in this matter effectual by every
influence that I can properly and legitimately exercise.
Woman’s part in the progress of the race, it goes without saying, is
quite as important as man’s. The old notion, too, that Suffrage and
service go hand in hand, is a sound one, and women may well appeal
to it, though it has long been invoked against them. The war in
Europe has forever set at rest the notion that nations depend in
time of stress wholly upon their men. The women of Europe are
bearing their full share of war’s awful burden in the daily
activities of the struggle, and more than their share as sufferers.
Their fathers and husbands and sons are fighting and dying in the
trenches; but they have taken up the work on the farms, at the mill,
and in the workshop and counting houses. They bury the dead, care
for the sick and wounded, console the fatherless, and sustain the
constant shock of war’s appalling sacrifices.
From these hideous calamities we in this favored land of ours have
thus far been shielded. I shall be profoundly thankful, if,
consistently with the honor and integrity of the nation, we may
maintain to the end our peaceful relations with the world.
Cordially and sincerely yours,
WOODROW WILSON.
To the officers and members of the Jane Jefferson Club of Colorado.
The Woman’s Party did not care for whom the women cast their protest
vote—Republicans, Socialists, Prohibitionists—they cared only that women
should not vote for the Democrats. They knew if this protest vote was
large enough, whoever was elected would realize that opposition to
Suffrage was inexpedient.
At Colorado Springs the National Woman’s Party passed the following
resolutions:
Resolved that the National Woman’s Party, so long as the opposition
of the Democratic Party continues, pledges itself to use its best
efforts in the twelve States where women vote for President to
defeat the Democratic candidate for President; and in the eleven
States where women vote for members of Congress to defeat the
candidates of the Democratic Party for Congress.
Immediately the campaign began. It was the biggest campaign—the most
important ever waged by the Woman’s Party. A stream of organizers
started for the Western States to prepare the way for the speakers. How
hard, and how long, and how intensively these girl organizers worked
will never be known because, in the very nature of things, there could
be no adequate record of their efforts. Then came a stream of speakers,
relay after relay—convinced, informed, experienced—and inspired. Among
them were Harriot Stanton Blatch, Sara Bard Field, Ida Finney Mackrille,
Mrs. William Kent, Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, Helen Todd, Maud Younger, Rose
Winslow, and Gail Laughlin. The brilliant, beautiful Inez Milholland
Boissevain, doomed soon to die so untimely but so glorious a death, was
appointed special flying envoy to make a twelve mile swing through the
twelve western Equal Suffrage States; to bring to the enfranchised women
of the West an appeal for help from the disfranchised women of the East.
The campaign of 1916 was characterized by the swiftness of attack and
efficiency of method which characterized the campaign of 1914, but it
was carried out on a much larger scale. In Washington, Headquarters
boiled ... bubbled ... seethed....
From Washington there sifted into the West tons of campaign literature:
miles of purple, white, and gold banners; acres of great
across-the-street streamers. In the West itself, Woman’s Party speakers
addressed every kind of meeting known to our civilization: indoor
meetings; outdoor meetings; luncheons; banquets; labor unions; business
men’s organizations; in churches, factories, theatres; at mining camps,
county fairs. They took advantage of impromptu meetings in the streets;
small ready-made meetings at clubs; large advertised mass-meetings. And
Inez Milholland’s activities as a flying envoy—and in that, her last
flight she did fly—were the climax of it all.
The slogan of the Wilson party was, “He kept us out of war.” The slogan
of the Woman’s Party developed, “He kept us out of Suffrage.”
The Democrats, remembering the results of the campaign of 1914, were far
from indulgent of this small army, the members of which were all
generals.
In Denver, Elsie Hill the Woman’s Party organizer was arrested and
hurried to the police station in a patrol wagon. The only charge against
her was that she had distributed literature telling the Democratic
record on Suffrage.
In Colorado Springs, the Federal Amendment banner was “arrested” and
locked up for the night in jail.
In Chicago, described by the _Chicago Tribune_ as the “pivotal point of
the 1916 election,” this hostility was much more violent. The day that
Wilson spoke there a hundred women, some of them carrying inscribed
banners, stationed themselves at the entrance to the auditorium where he
was to appear. They were attacked by groups of men, who tore their
banners out of their hands, and demolished them. Several women were
thrown to the ground, and one, still clinging to the banner, was dragged
across the street.
This was followed by an attack upon Minnie E. Brooke, one of the Woman’s
Party speakers. She was alone, walking quietly down Michigan Boulevard.
She had a small purple, white, and gold flag in her hand, and was
wearing the regalia of the Woman’s Party. Suddenly two men darted up to
her, and tried to tear her colors away. In the struggle she was thrown
down and would have fallen in front of an automobile had not a hotel
employee run to her assistance.
However, in the out-of-way country places in the Western States, the
Woman’s Party speakers were received with that hearty hospitality, that
instant and instinctive chivalry, which marks the West. In this
campaign, they made a point of appearing in the State and County Fairs
which characterized the late summer and early fall months.
On Frontier Day, at the Douglas County Grange at Castle Rock, Colorado,
Elsie Hill spoke—to a grandstand crowded with people—between the end of
the relay race (in which the riders changed horses and saddles) and the
beginning of the steer-roping contest. On the stand were massed men,
women, and children. Just over the fence crowded hundreds of cowboys and
farmers.
Street processions also characterized this campaign. At night in Salt
Lake City occurred an extraordinary parade—a river of yellow. The squad
of mounted policemen who headed the procession wore the purple, white,
and gold regalia of the Woman’s Party. Marching women carried lighted
yellow Japanese lanterns. The people who filled the automobiles carried
yellow lanterns. The huge Amendment banner was yellow. Yellow banners
were strung across the streets.
Billboards and posters appeared everywhere which adjured voters not to
support Wilson or any Democratic candidates for Congress. In Tucson and
Prescott, Arizona, these great banners were surreptitiously cut down. In
California, the Democrats placed counter placards beside these
disturbing posters. In San Francisco, armed patrols guarded the two
conflicting posters in one hotel lobby.
The Woman’s Party speakers took advantage of all kinds of situations. In
one town, Maud Younger found that a circus had arrived just ahead of
her. There was no adequate hall for a meeting; and so the circus men
offered her their tent; they even megaphoned her meeting for her. In
another town, a County Fair was being held. Maud Younger appealed to the
clowns to give her a chance to speak, and they let her have their
platform and the spot-light while they were changing costumes. In San
Francisco, Hazel Hunkins scattered thousands of leaflets from an
aeroplane flying over the city. Red Lodge, Montana, sent to the train,
which brought Abby Scott Baker to them, a delegation of members of the
Grand Army of the Republic, the leader bearing a large American flag.
They conducted her in state through the town to the hall where she was
to speak.
Perhaps no campaign was more interesting than that of Rose Winslow in
Arizona. Vivian Pierce, whose experienced newspaper hand on the
_Suffragist_ helped to make that paper the success it so swiftly became,
thus describes her work:
Rose Winslow represented the workers. She spoke for the exploited
women in Eastern industry. In her own person to her audiences she
typified her story of those imprisoned in factories and slums,
unable to fight their own battles. Her words had the authenticity of
an inspired young evangelist. She herself had come up out of that
darkness; and the men of the mines and lumber camps, the women of
the remote Arizona towns, listened to her with tears pouring down
their faces. One does not see Eastern audiences so moved. At Winslow
... this girl, pleading for working women, the most exploited class
in industry, appealed to the men of the great Santa Fé railroad
shops that animate the life of that remote region on the edge of the
“Painted Desert.” Rose Winslow had been warned that if she spoke at
this town, she would be “mobbed” by the Wilson Democrats. After her
impassioned story, told one noon hour, the men of the shops crowded
around this young woman from the East, “one of our own people,” as
one man said, and asked her what they could do for the women of the
East....
In the remote copper camps around Jerome and Bisbee, the story of
the industrial workers who have merely asked for a chance to help
themselves, made a deep impression on the foreign-born voters of
this section. There were Poles, Finns, and Lithuanians in the great
audience held in that copper town that is the working-man’s annex to
Bisbee. That audience both laughed and cried with Rose Winslow, and
then crowded around to greet her in her own language.
From the vividly colored fastness of the miners’ villages in this
wild mountain region, to border towns like Nogales, though but a
short step geographically, the temper and character of the cities
change.... In places like Nogales, the soldiers who could not go
home to vote turned the Woman’s Party meetings into near-riots, so
anxious were these victims of a peace administration to hear what
the ladies had to say about Wilson. The soldiers registered their
approval by helping take up collections, though even the provost
guard could not remove them to give space to citizens able to
register their protests.
An event equally picturesque marked the closing of the campaign on the
night of Sunday, November 5, on the platform of the Blackstone Theatre,
Chicago. There, Harriot Stanton Blatch, acting as the spokesman of the
disfranchised women of the East, called up by long-distance telephone a
series of mass-meetings, one in each of the twelve Suffrage States and
repeated their message—a final appeal to the women voters of the West to
cast their ballots on the following Tuesday against President Wilson.
* * * * *
The result of the election is summed up in the _Suffragist_ of November
11:
In Illinois, the only State where the vote of women is counted
separately, over seventy thousand more women voted against Mr.
Wilson than for him....
The reports indicate that the Woman’s Party campaign was as
successful in holding the woman’s vote in line in the other eleven
States as in Illinois. While ten of these States went for Wilson,
they did not do so, as has been claimed, by the woman’s vote. Mr.
Wilson received in these States almost the solid Labor vote, the
Progressive, and the farmer’s vote. The popular majority which Mr.
Wilson received in the twelve Suffrage States amounted only to
twenty-two thousand one hundred seventy-one out of a popular vote,
according to the latest returns, of more than four million, eight
hundred and ten thousand in the same States. This does not include
the Socialist and Prohibition vote, which was very heavy in some of
the Western States....
We were not concerned with the result of the election. Ours was a
campaign in which it made no difference who was elected. We did not
endorse any candidate. We did not care who won. We were not
pro-Republican, pro-Socialist, pro-Prohibition—we were simply
pro-woman. We did not endeavor to affect the result in the
non-Suffrage States. What we did try to do was to organize a protest
vote by women against Mr. Wilson’s attitude towards Suffrage. This
we did. Every Democrat who campaigned in the West knows this. The
Democratic campaign in the West soon consisted almost entirely of an
attempt to combat the Woman’s Party attack.
Tribute to the strength of the Woman’s Party campaign is contained in
the remark of a woman who had in charge the campaign of the Democratic
women voters. Out of six leaflets which her organization got out, five
were on the subject of Suffrage. A reporter remonstrated with her in
regard to Suffrage not being an issue in the West. She agreed with him,
but, she added, “We have to combat the Woman’s Party.”
The whole Western campaign of the Republicans was conducted as if they
were assured of victory. In many cases the organizers of the Woman’s
Party told the Republicans in the East that they were going to lose in
certain districts. “Nonsense,” laughed the Republicans, “we are sure to
win there, absolutely sure.” Alice Paul in Chicago received reports from
campaigners through the West and all predicted Democratic victory. She
went to Republican Headquarters with these reports, but she could not
convince the Republicans of the truth of them.
Senator Curtis, Secretary of the Republican Senatorial Committee, said
he got more information as to the situation in the West from the Woman’s
Party than he got from any other source.
It became apparent soon that Wilson was going to win. It was then that
advisors came to Alice Paul and said, “Withdraw your speakers from the
campaign, so that you will not have the humiliation of defeat before the
country.”
And it was then that Alice Paul answered, “_No. If we withdraw our
speakers from the campaign, we withdraw the issue from the campaign. We
must make this such an important thing in national elections that the
Democrats will not want to meet it again._”
Commenting on this campaign, Alice Paul said the Democrats made a strong
appeal to the women voters but for the Republicans the women did not
exist, and in fact the chief recognition that the Republicans made of
the women in the West was to send there the Hughes so-called “Golden
Special,” which, on leaving Chicago, announced that it was _not_ a
“Suffrage Special.”
After the campaign was over, Vance McCormick, Chairman of the Democratic
Party, was talking with a member of his committee. He said, in effect:
“Before the election of 1918, we must patch up our weak places. Our
weakest spot is the Suffrage situation. We must get rid of the Suffrage
Amendment before 1918 if we want to control the next Congress.”
* * * * *
The Sixty-fourth Congress met for its second and last session on
December 4, 1916. President Wilson delivered a message which made no
reference to the subject of Woman Suffrage. The Congressional Union,
always having advance information, knew this beforehand. And so on that
occasion, by a bit of direct action, they brought Suffrage vividly to
the attention of President Wilson, Congress, and the whole country. This
was the only action of the Woman’s Party which Alice Paul did not give
out beforehand to the press.
Early that morning, before the outer doors were opened, five women of
the Congressional Union appeared before the Capitol. After a long wait
the doors were opened, and—the first of a big crowd—they placed
themselves in the front row of the gallery just to the left of the big
clock. They faced the Speaker’s desk, from which the President would
read his message. These five women were: Mrs. John Rogers, Jr.; Mrs.
Harry Lowenburg; Dr. Caroline Spencer; Florence Bayard Hilles; Mabel
Vernon. In a casual manner, other members of the Union seated themselves
behind them and on the gallery steps beside them: Lucy Burns; Elizabeth
Papandre; Mildred Gilbert; Mrs. William L. Colt; Mrs. Townsend Scott.
Mabel Vernon sat in the middle of the five women in the front row.
Pinned to her skirt, under the enveloping cape which she wore, was a big
banner of yellow sateen. After the five women had settled themselves,
Mabel Vernon unpinned the banner and dropped it, all ready for
unrolling, on the floor. At the top of the banner were five long
tapes—too long—Mabel Vernon now regretfully declares. At the
psychological moment, which had been picked beforehand, in President
Wilson’s speech—he was recommending a greater freedom for the Porto
Rican men—Mabel Vernon whispered the series of signals which had
previously been decided on. Immediately—working like a beautifully
co-ordinated machine—the five women stooped, lifted the banner, and,
holding it tightly by the tapes, dropped it over the balcony edge. It
unrolled with a smart snap and displayed these words:
MR. PRESIDENT, WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE?
Then the women sat perfectly still, in the words of the _Washington
Post_ “five demure and unruffled women ... with the cords supporting the
fluttering thing clenched in their hands.”
The effect was instantaneous. The President looked up, hesitated a
moment, then went on reading. All the Congressmen turned. The Speaker
sat motionless. A buzz ran wildly across the floor. Policemen and guards
headed upstairs to the gallery where the women were seated; but their
progress was inevitably slow as the steps were tightly packed with
members of the Congressional Union. In the meantime, one of the pages,
leaping upward, caught the banner and tore it away from the cords in the
women’s hands. “If it hadn’t been for those long tapes,” Mabel Vernon
says, “they never could have got it until the President finished his
speech.”
The episode took up less than five minutes’ time. Until the President
finished his message, it seemed to be completely forgotten. But the
instant the President with his escort disappeared through the door,
every Congressman was on his feet staring up at the gallery.
The Woman’s Party publicity accounts of this episode—multigraphed the
night before—were in the hands of the men in the Press Gallery the
instant after it happened. This is a sample of the perfect organization
and execution of the Woman’s Party plans.
Of course, this incident was a front page story in every newspaper in
the United States that night despoiling the President of his headlines.
It is now one of the legends in Washington that in the midst of the
dinner given to the President by the Gridiron Club shortly after, the
identical banner was unfurled before his eyes.
The following week, at the first meeting of the Judiciary Committee
since the Presidential Campaign, the report of the Federal Suffrage
Amendment was made without recommendation to the House of
Representatives.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VIII
HAIL AND FAREWELL
TO INEZ MILHOLLAND BOISSEVAIN
“For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime;
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.”
—MILTON.
Inez, vibrant, courageous, symbolic,
How can death claim you?
Many he leads down the long halls of silence
Burdened with years,
Those who have known sorrow
And are weary with forgetting,
The young who have tasted only gladness
And who go with wistful eyes,
Never to see the sharp breaking of illusion.
For these—
We who remain and are lonely
Find consolation, saying
“They have won the white vistas of quietness.”
But for you—
The words of my grief will not form
In a pattern of resignation.
The syllables of rebellion
Are quivering upon my lips!
You belonged to life—
To the struggling actuality of earth;
You were our Hortensia and flung
Her challenge to the world—
Our world still strangely Roman—
“Does justice scorn a woman?”
Oh! Between her words and yours the centuries seem
Like little pauses in an ancient song,
For in the hour of war’s discordant triumph
You both demanded “Peace”!
And I, remembering how the faces of many women
Turned toward you with passionate expectation,
How can I find consolation?
Inez, vibrant, courageous, symbolic,
Can death still claim you?
When in the whitening winter of our grief
Your smile with all the radiance of spring,
When from the long halls of silence
The memory of your voice comes joyously back
To the ears of our desolation—
Your voice that held a challenge and a caress.
You have gone—
Yet you are ours eternally!
Your gallant youth,
Your glorious self-sacrifice—all ours!
Inez, vibrant, courageous, symbolic,
Death cannot claim you!
RUTH FITCH.
_The Suffragist_, December 30, 1916.
THE most poignant event—and perhaps the most beautiful in all the
history of the Congressional Union—took place on Christmas Day of this
year, the memorial service in memory of Inez Milholland.
Inez Milholland was one of the human sacrifices offered on the altar of
woman’s liberty. She died that other women might be free.
In the recent campaign, she had spoken in Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon,
Washington, Montana, Utah, Nevada, and California. In her memorial
address, Maud Younger said:
The trip was fraught with hardship. Speaking day and night, she
would take a train at two in the morning, to arrive at eight; and
then a train at midnight, to arrive at five in the morning. She
would come away from audiences and droop as a flower. The hours
between were hours of exhaustion and suffering. She would ride in
the trains gazing from the windows, listless, almost lifeless, until
one spoke; then again the sweet smile, the sudden interest, the
quick sympathy. The courage of her was marvelous.
[Illustration: INEZ MILHOLLAND.
In the Washington Parade, March 3, 1913.
Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing.]
At a great mass-meeting at Los Angeles, in October, she was saying—in
answer to the President’s words, “The tide is rising to meet the moon;
you will not have long to wait,”—“How long must women wait for liberty?”
On the word _liberty_, she fell fainting to the floor. Within a month,
she was dead.
That Christmas Day, Statuary Hall in the Capitol of the United States
was transformed. The air was full of the smells of the forest. Greens
made a background—partially concealing the semi-circle of statues—at the
rear; laurel and cedar banked the dais in front; somber velvet curtains
fell about its sides. Every one of the chairs which filled the big
central space supported a flag of purple, white, and gold. Between the
pillars of the balcony hung a continuous frieze; pennants of purple,
white, and gold—the tri-color of these feminist crusaders.
The audience assembled in the solemn quiet proper to such an occasion,
noiselessly took their seats in the semi-circle below and the gallery
above. The organ played _Ave Maria_. Then again, a solemn silence fell.
Suddenly the stillness was invaded by a sound—music, very faint and
far-away. It grew louder and louder. It was the sound of singing. It
came nearer and nearer. It was the voices of boys. Presently the
beginning of a long line of boy choristers, who had wound through the
marble hallway, appeared in the doorway. They marched into the hall
chanting:
“Forward, out of error,
Leave behind the night,
Forward through the darkness,
Forward into light.”
Behind came Mary Morgan in white, carrying a golden banner with the
above words inscribed on it. This was a duplicate of the banner that
Inez Milholland bore in the first Suffrage parade in New York. Behind
the golden banner came a great procession of young women wearing
straight surplices; the first division in purple, the next in white, the
last in gold, carrying high standards which bore the tri-color. Before
each division came another young girl in white, carrying a golden
banner—lettered.
One banner said:
GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS THAT HELAY DOWN HIS LIFE FOR A FRIEND
Another banner said:
WITHOUT EXTINCTION IS LIBERTY, WITHOUT RETROGRADE IS EQUALITY
The last banner said:
AS HE DIED TO MAKE MEN HOLY LET US DIE TO MAKE MEN FREE
These white-clad girls stood in groups on both sides of the
laurel-covered dais against the shadowy background of the curtains. The
standard-bearers in the purple, the white, the gold, formed a
semi-circle of brilliant color which lined the hall and merged with the
purple, white, and gold frieze above them. They stood during the
service, their tri-colored banners at rest.
There followed music. The choristers sang: _Forward Be Our Watchword_.
The Mendelssohn Quartet sang: _Love Divine_ and _Thou Whose Almighty
Word_. Elizabeth Howry sang first _All Through the Night_ and,
immediately after, Henchel’s ringing triumphant _Morning Song_. It is an
acoustic effect of Statuary Hall that the music seems to come from
above. That effect added immeasurably to the solemnity of this occasion.
Tribute speeches followed, Anne Martin introducing the speakers. Mrs.
William Kent read two resolutions: one prepared under the direction of
Zona Gale, the other by Florence Brewer Boeckel. Maud Younger delivered
a beautiful memorial address.
“And so ever through the West, she went,” Miss Younger said in part,
“through the West that drew her, the West that loved her, until she
came to the end of the West. There where the sun goes down in glory
in the vast Pacific, her life went out in glory in the shining cause
of freedom.... They will tell of her in the West, tell of the vision
of loveliness as she flashed through her last burning mission,
flashed through to her death, a falling star in the western
heavens.... With new devotion we go forth, inspired by her sacrifice
to the end that this sacrifice be not in vain, but that dying she
shall bring to pass that which living she could not achieve, full
freedom for women, full democracy for the nation....”
At the end the quartet sang, _Before the Heavens Were Spread Abroad_.
Then the procession re-formed, and marched out again as it had come, a
slow-moving band of color which gradually disappeared; a river of music
which gradually died to a thread, to a sigh ... to nothing.... As before
the white-surpliced choristers headed the procession, chanting the
recessional, _For All the Saints_. Their banners lowered, the girl
standard-bearers—first those in floating gold, then those in drifting
white, then those in heavy purple—followed. From the far-away reaches of
the winding marble halls sounded the boyish voices. Faintly came:
O, may Thy Soldiers, faithful, true and bold, Fight as the Saints
who nobly fought of old, And win with them the victor’s crown of
gold. Alleluia!
And fainter still:
But, lo, there breaks a yet more glorious day, The Saints triumphant
rise in bright array.
The voices lost themselves in the distance, merged with silence. The
audience still sat moveless, spellbound by all this beauty and grief.
Suddenly the _Marseillaise_ burst from the organ like a call to the new
battle. Instantly, it was echoed by the strings.
On January 9, the President received a deputation of three hundred
women. This deputation brought to him the resolutions passed at
memorials held in commemoration of Inez Milholland from California to
New York.
Sara Bard Field said in part:
Since that day (a year ago) when we came to you, Mr. President, one
of our most beautiful and beloved comrades, Inez Milholland, has
paid the price of her life for a cause. The untimely death of a
young woman like this—a woman for whom the world has such bitter
need—has focussed the attention of men and women of this nation on
the fearful waste of women which this fight for the ballot is
entailing. The same maternal instinct for the preservation of
life—whether it be the physical life of a child, or the spiritual
life of a cause—is sending women into this battle for liberty with
an urge that gives them no rest night or day. Every advance of
liberty has demanded its quota of human sacrifice, and, if I had
time, I could show you that we have paid in a measure that is
running over. In the light of Inez Milholland’s death, as we look
over the long backward trail through which we have sought our
political liberty, we are asking, how long, how long, must this
struggle go on?
Mr. President, to the nation more than to women themselves is this
waste of maternal force significant. In industry, such a waste of
money and strength would not be permitted. The modern trend is all
towards efficiency. Why is such waste permitted in the making of a
nation?
Sometimes I think it must be very hard to be a President, in respect
to his contacts with people, as well as in the grave business he
must perform. The exclusiveness necessary to a great dignitary holds
him away from the democracy of communion necessary to full
understanding of what the people are really thinking and desiring. I
feel that this deputation today fails in its mission if, because of
the dignity of your office and the formality of such an occasion, we
fail to bring to you the throb of woman’s desire for freedom and her
eagerness to ally herself with all those activities to which you
yourself have dedicated your life. When once the ballot is in her
hand, those tasks which this nation has set itself to do are her
tasks as well as man’s. We women who are here today are close to
this desire of woman. We cannot believe that you are our enemy, or
are indifferent to the fundamental righteousness of our demand.
We have come here to you in your powerful office as our helper. We
have come in the name of justice, in the name of democracy, in the
name of all women who have fought and died for this cause, and in a
peculiar way, with our hearts bowed in sorrow, in the name of this
gallant girl who died with the word “Liberty” on her lips. We have
come asking you this day to speak some favorable word to us, that we
may know that you will use your good and great office to end this
wasteful struggle of women.
[Illustration: JOY YOUNG AT THE INEZ MILHOLLAND MEMORIAL SERVICE.] The
President replied:
Ladies, I had not been apprised that you were coming here to make
any representation that would issue an appeal to me. I had been told
that you were coming to present memorial resolutions with regard to
the very remarkable woman whom your cause has lost. I therefore am
not prepared to say anything further than I have said on previous
occasions of this sort.
I do not need to tell you where my own convictions and my own
personal purpose lie, and I need not tell you by what
circumscriptions I am bound as leader of a Party. As the leader of a
Party, my commands come from that Party, and not from private
personal convictions.
My personal action as a citizen, of course, comes from no source,
but my own conviction, and there my position has been so frequently
defined, and I hope so candidly defined, and it is so impossible for
me until the orders of my Party are changed, to do anything other
than I am doing as a Party leader that I think nothing more is
necessary to be said.
I do want to say this: I do not see how anybody can fail to observe
from the utterance of the last campaign that the Democratic Party is
more inclined than the opposition Party to assist in this great
cause, and it has been a matter of surprise to me, and a matter of
very great regret, that so many of those who are heart and soul for
this cause seem so greatly to misunderstand and misinterpret the
attitudes of Parties. In this country, as in every other
self-governing country, it is really through the instrumentality of
Parties that things can be accomplished. They are not accomplished
by the individual voice, but by concentrated action, and that action
must come only so fast as you can concert it. I have done my best,
and shall continue to do my best to concert it in the interest of a
cause in which I personally believe.
In Maud Younger’s delightful _Revelations of a Woman Lobbyist_, in
_McCall’s Magazine_, she thus describes that scene:
The doors opened, and, surrounded by Secret Service men, President
Wilson entered. He came quickly forward, smiling as he shook my
hand. Contrary to the general impression, President Wilson has a
very human, sympathetic personality. He is not the aloof, academic
type one expects of a man who, avoiding people, gets much of his
knowledge from books and reports. Though he appears to the general
public as in a mist on a mountain top, like the gods of old, he is
really a man of decided emotional reactions.
I answered his greeting briefly, giving him the resolutions I held,
and presented Mrs. John Winters Brannan, who handed him the New York
memorial without speaking at all. We were saving time for his
declaration. Then came Sara—small, delicate Sara Bard Field, a woman
of rare spirituality and humor—whom we had chosen to speak for us.
She began to talk very nobly and beautifully, while the President
listened cordially. But suddenly a cold wave passed over him. Sara
had quoted Mr. Hughes. At that name, the President’s manner chilled.
The look in his eyes became so cold that, as Sara says, the words
almost froze on her lips. She finished in an icy stillness, and
after a moment the President spoke.
Instead of the assurances we had expected, we heard words to the
effect that he could not dictate to his Party. We must first concert
public opinion. It was his last gleam, for, looking about him and
seeing amazement, disappointment, indignation, he grew still colder.
With a last defiant glance at us all he abruptly left the room.
Secret Service men, newspaper men, and secretaries followed him.
Where the President of the United States had been was now a closed
door.
Stunned, talking in low, indignant tones, we moved slowly out of the
East Room and returned to our Headquarters. There we discussed the
situation. We saw that the President would do nothing for some time,
perhaps not until the eve of the Presidential election in 1920. He
said we must concert public opinion. But how? For half a century
women had been walking the hard way of the lobbyist. We had had
speeches, meetings, parades, campaigns, organization. What new
method could we devise?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PART THREE
1917
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I
THE PERPETUAL DELEGATION
ON THE PICKET LINE
The avenue is misty gray,
And here beside the guarded gate
We hold our golden blowing flags
And wait.
The people pass in friendly wise;
They smile their greetings where we stand
And turn aside to recognize
The just demand.
Often the gates are swung aside:
The man whose power could free us now
Looks from his car to read our plea—
And bow.
Sometimes the little children laugh;
The careless folk toss careless words,
And scoff and turn away, and yet
The people pass the whole long day
Those golden flags against the gray
And can’t forget.
BEULAH AMIDON.
_The Suffragist_, March 3, 1917.
_1. The Peaceful Picketing_
Before we examine the consideration which actuated the National Woman’s
Party in waging the picket campaign of 1917, let us see where President
Wilson stood at the beginning of the war; let us briefly recapitulate
the steps which brought him there.
It will be remembered that, shortly after the President took his seat in
March, 1913, he told a deputation from the Congressional Committee that
Suffrage was a question to which he had given no thought and on which he
had no opinion. During the year, no longer stating that he knew nothing
about Suffrage, he gave as a reason for inaction that the Congressional
program was too crowded to consider it. By the end of the year, he had
reached the point where he stated that he could take no action on the
Suffrage Amendment until commanded by his Party.
In 1914, he continued to state that he was prohibited from acting
because of being bound by his Party until June, when he seized on the
excuse of States Rights further to explain his inaction. In the autumn
of 1915 he first came out personally for Suffrage by voting for it in
New Jersey but still refused to support it in Congress. His next step
forward came in June, 1916, when he caused the _principle_ of Suffrage
to be recognized in the Party platform, though as yet neither he nor the
Party had endorsed the Federal Amendment. In September of that same
year—after the Woman’s Party had begun its active campaign in the
Suffrage States—the President took another step and addressed a Suffrage
Convention of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association. But as
yet he was not committed to the Federal Amendment, had not begun to
exert pressure on Congress.
The situation of the President and the Woman’s Party at this juncture
may be summed up in this way. Wilson, himself, was beginning to realize
that the Suffrage Amendment must ultimately pass. But he had just been
re-elected. He was safe for four years; he could take his time about it.
The Woman’s Party on the other hand, realized that the President being
safe for four years, no political pressure could be exerted upon him.
They realized that they must devise other methods to keep Suffrage, as a
measure demanding immediate enactment, before him.
In the meantime, a feeling of acute discontent was growing in the women
of the United States. The older women—and they were the third generation
to demand the vote—were beginning to ask how long this period of
entreaty must be protracted. The younger women—the fourth generation to
demand the vote—were becoming impatient with the out-worn methods of
their predecessors. Moreover, when the disfranchised women of the East
visited the enfranchised States of the West, their eyes were opened in a
practical way to the extraordinary injustice of their own
disfranchisement. Equally, the enfranchised women of the West, moving to
Eastern States, resented their loss of this political weapon. On many
women in America the militant movement of England had produced a
profound impression.
A new note had crept into the speeches made by the members of the
Woman’s Party—the note of this impatience and resentment. It will be
remembered that Mrs. Kent told the President that the women voters of
the West were accustomed to being listened to with attention by
politicians, and that they resented the effort to make it seem that they
were merely trying to bother a very busy official. Mrs. Blatch had told
him that the time had gone by when she would stand on street corners and
ask the vote from every Tom, Dick, and Harry; that she was determined to
appeal instead to the men who spoke her own language and who had in
charge the affairs of the government.
Doris Stevens, in an interview in the _Omaha Daily News_ for June 29,
1919, voices perfectly what her generation was feeling.
A successful young Harvard engineer said to me the other day, “I
don’t believe you realize how much men objected to your picketing
the White House. Now I know what I’m talking about. I’ve talked with
men in all walks of life, and I tell you they didn’t approve of what
you women did.”
This last with warmer emphasis and a scowl of the brow. “I don’t
suppose you were in a position to know how violently men felt about
it.”
I listened patiently and courteously. Should I disillusion him? I
thought it was the honest thing to do. “Why, of course men didn’t
like it. Do you think we imagined they would? We knew they would
disapprove. When _did men ever_ applaud women fighting for their own
liberty? We are approved only when we fight for yours!”
“You don’t mean to say you planned to do something knowing men would
not approve?”
I simply had to tell him, “Why, certainly! We’re just beginning to
get confidence in ourselves. At last we’ve learned to make and stand
by our own judgments.”
“But going to jail. That was pretty shocking.”
“Yes, indeed it was. It not only shocked us that a government would
be alarmed enough to do such a thing, but what was more to the
point, it shocked the entire country into doing something quickly
about Woman Suffrage.”
* * * * *
It will be seen by the foregoing pages of this book that Suffragists had
exhausted every form of Suffrage agitation known to the United States.
In particular, they had sent to the President every kind of deputation
that could possibly move him.
They decided to send him a perpetual deputation.
* * * * *
Alice Paul, in explanation of her strategy in this matter, uses one of
the vivid figures that are so typical of her: “If a creditor stands
before a man’s house all day long, demanding payment of his bill, the
man must either remove the creditor or pay the bill.”
At first, the President tried to remove the creditor. Later he paid the
bill.
At ten o’clock on January 10, 1917, the day after the deputation to the
President, twelve women emerged from Headquarters and marched across
Lafayette Square to the White House. Four of them bore lettered banners,
and eight of them carried purple, white, and gold banners of the Woman’s
Party. They marched slowly—a banner’s length apart. Six of them took up
their stand at the East gate, and six of them at the West gate. At each
gate—standing between pairs of women holding on high purple, white, and
gold colors—two women held lettered banners. One read:
MR. PRESIDENT WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE?
The other read:
HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY?
These were the first women to picket the White House.
* * * * *
The first picket line appeared on January 10, 1917; the last, over a
year and a half later. Between those dates, except when Congress was not
in session, more than a thousand women held lettered banners,
accompanied by the purple, white, and gold tri-colors, at the White
House gates, or in front of the Capitol. They picketed every day of the
week, except Sunday; in all kinds of weather, in rain and in sleet, in
hail, and in snow. All varieties of women picketed: all races and
religions; all cliques and classes; all professions and parties.
Washington became accustomed to the dignified picture—the pickets moving
with a solemn silence, always in a line that followed a crack in the
pavement; always a banner’s length apart; taking their stand with a
precision almost military; maintaining it with a movelessness almost
statuesque. Washington became accustomed also to the rainbow splash at
the White House gates—“like trumpet calls,” somebody described the
banners. Artists often spoke of the beauty of their massed color. In the
daytime, those banners gilded by the sunlight were doubly brilliant, but
at twilight the effect was transcendent. Everywhere the big, white
lights—set in the parks on such low standards that they seemed strange,
luminous blossoms, springing from the masses of emerald green
shrubbery—filled the dusk with bluish-white splendor, and, made doubly
colorful by this light, the long purple, white, and gold ribbon stood
out against a background beautiful and appropriate; a mosaic on the gray
of the White House pavement; the pen-and-ink blackness of the White
House iron work; the bare, brown crisscross of the White House trees,
and the chaste colonial simplicity of the White House itself.
* * * * *
With her abiding instinct for pageantry and for telling picturesqueness
of demonstration, Alice Paul soon punctuated the monotony of the
picketing by special events. Various States celebrated State days on the
picket line. Maryland was the first of these, and the long line of
Maryland women bearing great banners, extended along Pennsylvania Avenue
the entire distance from the East gate to the West gate. Pennsylvania
Day, New York Day, Virginia Day, New Jersey Day, followed. The Monday of
every week was set aside finally for District of Columbia Day.
The New York delegation carried on their banners phrases from President
Wilson’s book, _The New Freedom_.
LIBERTY IS A FUNDAMENTAL DEMAND OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT.
WE ARE INTERESTED IN THE UNITED STATES, POLITICALLY
SPEAKING, IN NOTHING BUT HUMAN LIBERTY.
On College Day, thirteen colleges were represented, the biggest group
from Goucher College, Baltimore. Then came Teachers’ Day; Patriotic Day,
and Lincoln Day. On Patriotic Day, one of the banners read:
DENMARK ON THE VERGE OF WAR GAVE WOMEN THE VOTE.
WHY NOT GIVE IT TO AMERICAN WOMEN NOW?
On Lincoln Day, they said:
WHY ARE YOU BEHIND LINCOLN?
AFTER THE CIVIL WAR WOMEN ASKED FOR POLITICAL FREEDOM.
THEY WERE TOLD TO WAIT—THIS WAS THE NEGRO’S HOUR.
IN 1917, AMERICAN WOMEN STILL ASK FOR FREEDOM.
WILL YOU, MR. PRESIDENT, TELL THEM TO WAIT—THAT THIS IS THE PORTO
RICAN’S HOUR?
On Sunday, February 18, came Labor Day on the picket line. It was, of
course, impossible for wage-earning women to picket the White House on
any other day. They represented not only office workers, but factory
workers from the great industrial centers. Many of them had come from
other cities.
Susan B. Anthony’s birthday, February 15, was celebrated impressively,
although it rained and snowed heavily. Three new banners appeared that
day. The first—big enough and golden enough even to suit that big,
golden woman—bore quotations from Susan B. Anthony:
WE PRESS OUR DEMAND FOR THE BALLOT AT THIS TIME IN
NO NARROW, CAPTIOUS, OR SELF-SEEKING SPIRIT, BUT FROM
PUREST PATRIOTISM FOR THE HIGHEST GOOD OF EVERY CITIZEN,
FOR THE SAFETY OF THE REPUBLIC, AND AS A GLORIOUS
EXAMPLE TO THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH.
The second Susan B. Anthony banner said:
AT THIS TIME OUR GREATEST NEED IS NOT MEN OR MONEY,
VALIANT GENERALS OR BRILLIANT VICTORIES, BUT A CONSISTENT
NATIONAL POLICY BASED UPON THE PRINCIPLES THAT
ALL GOVERNMENTS DERIVE THEIR JUST POWERS FROM THE
CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED.
The third Susan B. Anthony banner said:
THE RIGHT OF SELF-GOVERNMENT FOR ONE-HALF OF ITS
PEOPLE IS OF FAR MORE VITAL CONSEQUENCE TO THE NATION
THAN ANY OR ALL OTHER QUESTIONS.
On March 2, 1917, the Congressional Union and its Western organization,
the Woman’s Party, met in joint convention and organized themselves into
the National Woman’s Party.
On that occasion, Alice Paul said:
We feel that by combining the Congressional Union and the Woman’s
Party we shall bring about a unity in organization which will make
impossible duplication, difference of opinion, and divergence of
method. By uniting we make, moreover, for unity of spirit in the
whole Suffrage movement, bringing the voters and non-voters together
in a movement in which they should both be integral parts.
The original purpose for which the Woman’s Party, as an organization
confined to women voters alone, was formed, has, we believe, been
served. In the first three years of our work we endeavored to call
the attention of political leaders and Congress to the fact that
women were voting and that these voting women were interested in
Suffrage. But words alone did not have much effect. We found we had
to visualize the existence of voting women out in the West and their
support of the Suffrage Amendment. The Woman’s Party was formed as
one means of doing this.
The Woman’s Party did, I believe, have an effect on the political
leaders. It was very clear, I think, at the convention in Chicago
and in St. Louis that the idea that women were voting and that those
women were interested in the Federal Amendment was at last
appreciated. This November’s election completed our work in getting
that fact into the minds of Congressmen and political leaders. There
is no longer any need to draw a line around women voters and set
them off by themselves in order to call attention to them. They now
enter into the calculations of every political observer.
If we amalgamate and make ourselves one great group of voters and
non-voters all working for the Federal Amendment, the question
arises: What name shall we be called by, the Congressional Union or
the Woman’s Party? Our Executive Committee felt that we ought to
keep the name of the Woman’s Party, because it stands for political
power.
The objections brought against this are, I think, two. First, that
non-voters should not, according to custom, be part of a political
Party; second, that if they are included, that Party will not
command as much respect as would a Party composed solely of voters.
There are non-voters in the Socialist, the Progressive, and the
Prohibition Parties; there is no reason why, if we are interested in
precedent and custom, they should not be in our Party also. As to
the second point: The Congressional Union has the reputation of
being an active, determined, and well-financed organization. When
the political world realizes that this young Woman’s Party has been
strengthened by the influx of twenty-five thousand workers of the
Congressional Union ready to give their service and money it will
consider that the Woman’s Party stands for more power than if formed
of the women of the Western States only.
[Illustration: WAGE EARNERS PICKETING THE WHITE HOUSE, FEBRUARY,
1917.
Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.]
All of us in the Congressional Union feel an affection for it. But
that is no reason for continuing the organization. The Congressional
Union has served a useful purpose, we believe. But now that we have
created the Woman’s Party we ought, it seems to me, to develop and
make that the dominant Suffrage factor in this country because that,
through its name and associations, throws the emphasis more than
does the Congressional Union on the political power of women.
The following officers were elected unanimously at the morning session:
Chairman of the National Woman’s Party, Alice Paul; Vice-Chairman, Anne
Martin; Secretary, Mabel Vernon; Treasurer, Gertrude Crocker. The
executive board elected were: Lucy Burns, Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont, Mrs. J.
W. Brannan, Mrs. Gilson Gardner, Abby Scott Baker, Mrs. William Kent,
Maud Younger, Doris Stevens, Florence Bayard Hilles, Mrs. Donald Hooker,
Mrs. J. A. H. Hopkins, and Mrs. Lawrence Lewis.
At that Convention, various resolutions were passed; the most notable in
regard to the attitude of the National Woman’s Party towards the rapidly
developing war situation. That resolution runs as follows:
Whereas the problems involved in the present international
situation, affecting the lives of millions of women in this country,
make imperative the enfranchisement of women,
Be it resolved that the National Woman’s Party, organized for the
sole purpose of securing political liberty for women, shall continue
to work for this purpose until it is accomplished, being unalterably
convinced that in so doing the organization serves the highest
interests of the country.
And be it further resolved that to this end we urge upon the
President and the Congress of the United States the immediate
passage of the National Suffrage Amendment.
It was decided to present these resolutions to the President. Shortly
after, Dudley Field Malone, Collector of the Port of New York, on behalf
of the Woman’s Party, informed the President that a deputation would
visit him for that purpose.
This demonstration was not so much a protest at the failure of the first
administration to pass the Anthony Amendment, or at the adjournment of
Congress without passing it, as a presentation of the demands of the
National Woman’s Party immediately upon the opening of President
Wilson’s second term.
During the first three days in March, Washington filled steadily with
inauguration crowds. When they got off the train, the Great Demand
banner of the National Woman’s Party confronted them, and girls handed
them slips inviting them to the demonstration of the National Woman’s
Party at the White House on Inauguration Day and to the mass-meeting of
the National Woman’s Party to be held that night. Girls also stood in
theatre lobbies, handing out more of these slips. Girls made the rounds
of the government departments, handing out still more. Everywhere great
posters said:
COME TO THE WHITE HOUSE ON MARCH 4.
COME IN THOUSANDS.
Inauguration Day dawned a day of biting wind and slashing rain.
Outside Headquarters was turmoil; inside a boiling activity. Hundreds of
women were preparing to picket the White House. To accommodate them, a
rubber company, hastily summoned, had commandeered one room and was
selling rain-coats; tarpaulin hats; rubbers.
An extraordinary, a magnificent demonstration followed. To the music of
several bands, nearly a thousand pickets circled the White House four
times—a distance of four miles. Vida Milholland, the younger sister of
Inez Milholland, marched at the head, carrying on a golden banner her
sister’s last words for Suffrage.
MR. PRESIDENT, HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY?
The Great Demand banner followed, carried by Mrs. Benton Mackaye:
WE DEMAND AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF
THE UNITED STATES ENFRANCHISING WOMEN.
Beulah Amidon carried the Suffrage banner which Inez Milholland bore in
the first Suffrage procession in New York:
“Forward, Out Of Darkness,
Leave Behind The Night.
Forward Out Of Error,
Forward Into Light.”
Behind there came hundreds of women bearing the purple, white, and gold.
They were divided according to States; and before each division marched
the State flag of the division. The drenching rain fell steadily. The
pavements turned to shallow lakes, and the banners—their brilliancy
accentuated by the wet—threw long, wavy reflections on the glassy, gray
streets. They were of course expecting this demonstration at the White
House, and, as though it were dangerous, unusual precautions had been
taken against it. Every gate was locked. The Washington force of police
officers, augmented by police from Baltimore and by squads of
plain-clothes men, guarded the grounds without and within. Gilson
Gardner said the President seemed to think the women were going to steal
his grass roots.
There was no one at the locked gates to receive the women or the
resolutions except the guards; these guards protested that they had not
been ordered to receive either. The women visited every gate, but
received the same answer. The cards of the leaders were finally handed
over to a guard to present at the White House. He tried to deliver them,
but was reprimanded for leaving his post, and sent back. Learning that
the cards would be delivered at the end of the day, as is the custom
with visiting-cards of casual visitors at the White House, the thousand
pickets took up their march again.
Gilson Gardner wrote of this demonstration:
The weather gave this affair its character. Had there been fifteen
hundred women carrying banners on a fair day, the sight would have
been a pretty one. But to see a thousand women—young women,
middle-aged and old women—and there were women in the line who had
passed their three score and ten—marching in a rain that almost
froze as it fell; to see them standing and marching and holding
their heavy banners, momentarily growing heavier—holding them
against a wind that was half gale—hour after hour, until their
gloves were wet, their clothes soaked through; to see them later
with hands sticky from the varnish from the banner poles—bare hands,
for the gloves had by this time been pulled off, and the hands were
blue with cold—to see these women keep their lines and go through
their program fully, losing only those who fainted or fell from
exhaustion, was a sight to impress even the dulled and jaded senses
of one who has seen much.
One young woman from North Dakota I saw clinging to the iron pickets
around the White House, her banner temporarily abandoned, fighting
against what was to her a new feeling, faintness resulting from the
pain in her hands. She was brought to the automobile in which I was
riding before she actually fell to the ground; but after a short
rest she was back in the line, and finished with the others.
There is no doubt that what Gilson Gardner said was true—the weather
gave this affair its character.
People passing by, thrilled by the gallantry of the marchers, joined the
procession. And as Gilson Gardner says, it was not because it was a
pretty sight, or because these women were all young. Anna Norris Kendall
of Wisconsin, seventy-two years old, and the Rev. Olympia Brown,
eighty-two years old, one of the pioneer Suffragists of the country,
both took part.
[Illustration: THE THOUSAND PICKETS TRY VAINLY TO DELIVER THEIR
RESOLUTIONS TO THE PRESIDENT, MARCH 4, 1917.]
[Illustration: A THOUSAND PICKETS MARCHING AROUND THE WHITE HOUSE, MARCH
4, 1917.]
That day, a newly elected Congressman drove about Washington, showing
the city to his wife. He had always been a Suffragist. She had always
been an anti-Suffragist. The sudden sight of the thousand women marching
in the rain not only converted her, but it produced such an effect on
her she burst into tears.
* * * * *
Later, President Wilson sent a letter to the National Woman’s Party,
acknowledging the resolutions presented to him by the deputations of
March 4, and concluded: “May I not once more express my sincere interest
in the cause of Woman Suffrage?”
* * * * *
Congress adjourned on March 3, 1917. The pickets adjourned with it. On
April 2, a Special War Session of Congress convened. The _Suffragist_
gives an interesting description of that interesting day.
Just half an hour before Congress formally opened, the Suffrage
sentinels at the Capitol took their places.... There was tensity in
the atmosphere. The Capitol grounds were overrun with pacifists from
many cities wearing white-lettered badges; and with war advocates,
as plainly labeled, with partisan demands. They swarmed over the
Capitol grounds unmolested, though extra precautions were taken
throughout the day and in the evening when troops of cavalry were
called out. The silent sentinels stood unmoved the while for
democracy while peace and war agitation eddied around them.
The pickets convened with Congress. They continued to stand at the gates
of the White House, but they extended their line to the Capitol. Three
pickets, led by Elsie Hill, took up their station by the House entrance
and three by the Senate entrance. At night—this evoked from the
newspapers sly allusions to the Trojan horse—they used to store their
banners in the House Office Building.
On April 7, the United States declared itself to be at war with Germany.
* * * * *
After war was declared, the Woman’s Party continued—and continued with
an increasing force and eloquence—to demand the enfranchisement of the
women of the United States by Constitutional Amendment. This brought
down upon their heads a storm of criticism; antagonism; hostility. But
Alice Paul was not deflected by it from her purpose. She recalled that,
at the outbreak of the Civil War, Suffragists of that day, were
entreated to relinquish their Suffrage work in favor of war work. They
were promised that, at the end of the war, they would be enfranchised.
Susan B. Anthony complied with great reluctance, carried on, against her
will, by the majority of those who surrounded her.
At the end of the war, the black man was enfranchised. The white women
had been asking for the vote ever since.
* * * * *
Every effort was made to shake this young leader in her fearless stand.
All kinds of people came to her and begged her to give up the picketing.
One strong friend, a newspaper man, said, “It’s as though you opened the
windows and said, ‘There’s a nice big cyclone coming. Come out of your
cyclone-cellars, girls, and let’s go in it!’” Denunciations, violence,
mobs, murders were predicted.
* * * * *
There was no officer of the National Woman’s Party who did not realize
what it meant to go on with such a fight at such a time.
They determined, whatever befell, not to lower their banners; to hold
them high.
* * * * *
Alice Paul announced in the editorial columns of the _Suffragist_, that
members of the Woman’s Party would, if they so desired, work for war
through various organizations, especially organized for war work, but
that the Woman’s Party itself would continue to work only for the
enfranchisement of women.
* * * * *
The eyes of the world were now turned on the White House. Distinguished
men from all over the country visited the President. Foreign missions
came one after another.
Picturesque events continued to happen on the picket line. Arthur
Balfour, the leader of the British Mission, called at the White House to
pay his respects. He was confronted with forty pickets. Their banners
were inscribed with the President’s own words:
WE SHALL FIGHT FOR THE THINGS WHICH WE HAVE ALWAYS HELD NEAREST OUR
HEARTS—FOR DEMOCRACY, FOR THE RIGHT OF THOSE WHO SUBMIT TO AUTHORITY
TO HAVE A VOICE IN THEIR OWN GOVERNMENTS.—President Wilson’s War
Message, April 2, 1917.
This quotation from the President’s words became a slogan among the
Suffragists.
The pickets recalled that when Arthur Balfour used to emerge into
Downing Street, where the English militants were producing a
demonstration, he always wore a bunch of violets in his buttonhole, to
show his sympathy with them.
* * * * *
The spring brought its usual beautiful metamorphosis to Washington. If
the pickets had seemed beautiful in the winter, they were quadruply so
when the fresh green came. Everywhere that luxuriance of foliage,
exquisitely tender and soft, which marks Washington, made an intensive
background for their great golden banners and their tri-color. The
pickets found it a delightfully humorous coincidence that, when they
came to take up their station at the White House, the White House lawns
were ablaze with their tri-color—the white of hyacinths, the purple of
azalea, and the gold of forsythia. The Little White House itself was not
exempt from this burst of bloom. The huge wistaria vine on its façade
turned to a purple cascade; and out of it spirted the purple, white, and
gold of their tri-color and the red, white, and blue of the national
banner. When the French Commission, including Joffre and Viviani, passed
all this massed color, they leaped to their feet, waving their hats and
shouting their approval.
On June 20, the Mission headed by Bakmetief, sent by the new Russian
Republic which had just enfranchised its women, was officially received
by President Wilson. When they reached the White House gates, they were
confronted by a big banner—since known as the “Russian” banner—borne by
Lucy Burns and Mrs. Lawrence Lewis.
PRESIDENT WILSON AND ENVOY ROOT ARE DECEIVING RUSSIA.
THEY SAY “WE ARE A DEMOCRACY. HELP US WIN THE
WAR SO THAT DEMOCRACIES MAY SURVIVE.”
WE WOMEN OF AMERICA TELL YOU THAT AMERICA IS NOT A
DEMOCRACY. TWENTY MILLION WOMEN ARE DENIED THE
RIGHT TO VOTE. PRESIDENT WILSON IS THE CHIEF OPPONENT
OF THEIR NATIONAL ENFRANCHISEMENT.
HELP US MAKE THIS NATION REALLY FREE. TELL OUR
GOVERNMENT THAT IT MUST LIBERATE ITS PEOPLE BEFORE
IT CAN CLAIM FREE RUSSIA AS AN ALLY.
The appearance of this banner produced strange results. A man standing
at the White House gates leaped at it—the instant the Russian Mission
had vanished—and tore the sign from its supports.
The crowd closed in around them. The two women continued to stand facing
them. Nina Allender, who saw this from across the street, said that the
surging back and forth of straw hats as the crowd closed in upon the
women gave her a sense of faintness. “One instant the banners were
there, the next there were only bare sticks.”
Later, a prominent member of the Mission said to a no less prominent
American, “You know, it was very embarrassing for us, because we were in
sympathy with those women at the gates.”
The next day, June 21, Lucy Burns and Katherine Morey carried a banner
which was the duplicate of the one borne the day before to the lower
White House gate. Before they could set it up some boys destroyed it.
The police did not interfere; they looked placidly on. Immediately other
banners were sent off from Headquarters. Hazel Hunkins carried one which
said harmlessly:
DEMOCRACY SHOULD BEGIN AT HOME.
The crowds gathered and surged up and down the street but the two
pickets stood motionless. Nothing happened for a while. Then a man, who
stopped to congratulate Miss Hunkins, was applauded by the crowd. It is
an interesting example of mob psychology that after this applause such
an incident as happened five minutes later could happen. A woman of the
War Department, who had been boasting that morning in her office that
she was going to do this, attacked Hazel Hunkins. She tore the banners
and spat on them. The avenue was crowded with government clerks and they
immediately fell on the banners and destroyed them after a struggle.
Katherine Morey, who was lunching at Headquarters, says in almost
Bunyanesque language: “And I heard a great roar.” She ran towards the
White House gates and saw that the mobs had charged the pickets, had
torn the banners into shreds. The mob then rushed to the other gate,
picketed by Catherine Lowry and Lillian Crans. After a struggle, their
banners also were destroyed. Lillian Crans ran to Headquarters for
another banner, carrying the news of what had happened.
Immediately, there emerged from the Little White House four women led by
Mabel Vernon, carrying purple, white, and gold banners. It was a moment
of tension, and the pickets were white-faced with that tension. This
silent, persistent courage had, however, its inevitable effect on the
crowd. It fell back. Before it could recover from its interval of
indecision, the police met the groups of girls, and conducted them to
their places. Police reserves ultimately appeared, and cleared the crowd
from Pennsylvania Avenue. The pickets kept guard the rest of the day in
peace. One of them even did her war-time knitting.
About this time a prominent newspaper man was sent to Alice Paul by the
powers that be, on a mission of intervention. He told her it was feared
the President might be assassinated by some one in the crowds that the
pickets collected.
“Is the Administration willing to have us make this public?” Alice Paul
asked.
“Oh, no!” was the answer.
Alice Paul replied, “The picketing will go on as usual.”
So now Major Pullman, Chief of Police for the District of Columbia,
called at Headquarters. He told Alice Paul that if the pickets went out
again they would be arrested. Alice Paul answered in effect:
“Why has picketing suddenly become illegal? Our lawyers have assured us
all along that picketing was legal. Certainly it is as legal in June as
in January.” She concluded, “The picketing will go on as usual.”
Major Pullman then told her again that the pickets would be arrested if
they went out.
Alice Paul replied, “The picketing will go on as usual.”
* * * * *
The next morning, June 22, Miss Paul telephoned Major Pullman that the
pickets were going out with the banners. Rows of policemen stood outside
Headquarters. However, that did not daunt the pickets. Suffragists began
to come out; return; emerge again. All this made so much coming and
going that, when Mabel Vernon appeared, carrying a box under her arm,
nobody paid any attention. That box, however, contained a banner. Miss
Vernon crossed to the park and sat down. Presently Lucy Burns came out
of Headquarters and walked leisurely in one direction; a little later
Katherine Morey came out, and strolled in another direction. At a given
moment these two women met at the East gate of the White House. Mabel
Vernon joined them with the banner. They set it up and stood undisturbed
in front of the White House for several minutes. Suddenly one of the
policemen caught sight of them: “The little devils!” he exclaimed: “Can
you beat that!”
The banner carried the President’s own words: “We shall fight for the
things, etc.”
The day before the police had been in a bad quandary. Now they were in a
worse one: it did not seem reasonable to arrest such a banner. One
policeman did, however, start to do so. “My God, man, you can’t arrest
that,” another policeman remonstrated. “Them’s the President’s own
words.” They did make the arrest, though—after seven minutes of
indecision. When the prisoners arrived at the police station Lucy Burns
asked what the charge was: “Charge! Charge!” the policeman said,
obviously much puzzled: “We don’t know what the charge is yet. We’ll
telephone you that later.”
These two, Lucy Burns and Katherine Morey, were the first of the long
list of women to be arrested for picketing the White House. They were,
however, never brought to trial.
_2. The Peaceful Reception_
THE YOUNG ARE AT THE GATES
If any one says to me: “Why the picketing for Suffrage?” I should
say in reply, “Why the fearless spirit of youth? Why does it exist
and make itself manifest?”
Is it not really that our whole social world would be likely to
harden and toughen into a dreary mass of conventional negations and
forbiddances—into hopeless layers of conformity and caste, did not
the irrepressible energy and animation of youth, when joined to the
clear-eyed sham-hating intelligence of the young, break up the dull
masses and set a new pace for laggards to follow?
What is the potent spirit of youth? Is it not the spirit of revolt,
of rebellion against senseless and useless and deadening things?
Most of all, against injustice, which is of all stupid things the
stupidest?
Such thoughts come to one in looking over the field of the Suffrage
campaign and watching the pickets at the White House and at the
Capitol, where sit the men who complacently enjoy the rights they
deny to the women at their gates. Surely, nothing but the creeping
paralysis of mental old age can account for the phenomenon of
American men, law-makers, officials, administrators, and guardians
of the peace, who can see nothing in the intrepid young pickets with
their banners, asking for bare justice but common obstructors of
traffic, naggers—nuisances that are to be abolished by passing
stupid laws forbidding and repressing to add to the old junk-heap of
laws which forbid and repress? Can it be possible that any brain
cells not totally crystallized could imagine that giving a stone
instead of bread would answer conclusively the demand of the women
who, because they are young, fearless, eager, and rebellious, are
fighting and winning a cause for all women—even for those who are
timid, conventional, and inert?
A fatal error—a losing fight. The old stiff minds must give way. The
old selfish minds must go. Obstructive reactionaries must move on.
The young are at the gates!
LAVINIA DOCK.
_The Suffragist_, June 30, 1917.
This hostility in June had worked up suddenly after the five quiet
months, during which the Woman’s Party had been peacefully picketing the
White House. Perhaps their immunity was at first due to the fact that
when the picketing in January began, the people in Washington did not
expect it to last. “When the rain comes, they will go,” Washingtonians
said, and then, as the line still continued to appear, “When the snow
comes, they will go.” But, instead of going with the rain, the pickets
waited for Smith, the janitor, to bring them slickers and sou’westers.
And instead of leaving with the snow, they only put on heavier coats.
The pickets became an institution.
It is true, too, that, though that picket line was a surprise to every
one (and to many a shock) to some it was a joke.
There was one Congressman, for instance, who took it humorously. He said
to Nina Allender, when the Suffragists began to picket the Special War
Session of Congress:
“The other day, a man covered the gravestones in a cemetery with
posters which read: ‘Rise up! Your country needs you!’ Now that was
poor publicity. I consider yours equally poor.”
“But,” replied Mrs. Allender, “we are not picketing a graveyard. We
are picketing Congress. We believe there are a few live ones left
there.”
The Congressman admitted that he had laid himself wide open to this.
But, from the very beginning, there were those who did not consider it a
joke. The first day the pickets appeared, a gentleman—old and
white-haired—stopped to stare at the band of floating color. He read the
words:
MR. PRESIDENT, HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY?
Then he took off his hat, and held it off, bowing his white head to each
of the six silent sentinels. Having passed them, he covered his head
again. But he repeated this reverential formality as he passed the six
women at the other gate.
One Washingtonian took his children out to see the picket line. He told
them he wanted them to witness history in the making.
That first day when the President came out for his daily afternoon
drive, he seemed utterly unaware of the pickets; but the next day he
laughed with frank good-nature as he passed, and thereafter he too bared
his head as he drove between them.
It was the intention at first for these sentinels to keep complete
silence. But, as the throngs hurrying past began to question them,
continued to question them, conversation became inevitable.
The commonest question, of course, was, “Why are you doing this?”
The pickets always answered, “The President asked us to concert public
opinion before we could expect anything of him. We are concerting it
upon him.” The second most popular question was, “Why don’t you go to
Congress?” The answer, “We have—again and again and again; and they tell
us if the President wants it, it will go through.”
That hurrying crowd was made up of many types. In the early morning and
the late afternoon, government clerks predominated. Almost as many were
the sight-seers from every part of the country. Then there were
diplomats, newspapermen, schoolboys, and schoolgirls, and the matinée
crowds. In the streets came the endless file of motor-cars, filled
mainly with women going to teas. Many people pretended not to see the
sentinels. They would walk straight ahead with an impassive expression,
casting furtive, side-long glances at the banners. Again and again, the
pickets enjoyed the wicked satisfaction of seeing them walk straight
into the wire wickets which enclosed the Pennsylvania Avenue trees. At
first, Congressmen tried not to see what was going on. After a while,
however, they too stopped to chat with the pickets. One Congressman told
Mrs. Gilson Gardner that he felt there was “something religious about
that bannered picket line; that it had already become to him a part of
the modern religion of this country.”
Another Congressman, who had been opposed at first to the picketing,
called out one day, “That’s right. Keep it up! Don’t let us forget you
for a moment!”
All kinds of pretty incidents occurred. Once, Ex-Senator Henry W. Blair
visited the picket line. He had been a friend of Susan B. Anthony, and
he made the first speech ever delivered in the Senate in favor of
Suffrage. White-haired, keen-eyed, walking with a crutch and a stick, he
came along the line of pickets, greeting each one of them in turn—ninety
years old.
“And I, too, have been a picket,” said General Sherwood to them.
“I salute you as soldiers in a great revolution,” said one chance
passer-by to the Women Workers’ Delegation on Labor Day. And—struck
apparently by the high spiritual quality in the beautiful procession—a
woman, a stranger to them, remarked to the pickets: “I wonder if you
realize what a mediæval spectacle you young women present. You have made
us realize that this cause is a crusade.”
Workmen digging trenches in the streets discussed the matter among
themselves. Picketing is an institution very dear to the heart of Labor.
These men showed their sympathy by devising and making supports for the
banners. They offered to make benches for the pickets, but agreed with
the women when they said that sentinels must stand, not sit, at their
posts.
When the Confederate Reunion occurred in Washington, many of the feeble,
white-haired men in their worn Confederate grey and their faded
Confederate badges, stopped to talk with the pickets. I quote the
_Suffragist_:
“We-all came out early to see the sights,” said one. “We went three
times around this place, and I thought the big house in the center
was the White House. But we weren’t sure—not until you girls came
out with your flags and stood here. ‘This is sure enough where the
President lives,’ I said, ‘here are the Suffrage pickets and there
are the purple and gold flags we read about down home.’ You are
brave girls.”
One old soldier, hat off, said, “I have picketed in my time. And now
it is your turn, you young folks. You have the courage. You are
going to put it through.”
That was the note many of them sounded. “Girls, you are right,” a
third encouraged them. “I have been through wars, and I know.
You-all got to have some rights.”
Even the anti-Suffragists were moved sometimes. One of them said: “I
have never been impressed by Suffragists before, but the sincerity
you express in being willing to stand here in all weathers for the
thing you believe in makes me think that there is something in the
Suffrage fight after all.”
And yet, Suffragists themselves were occasionally antagonistic. “You
have put the Suffrage cause back fifty years!” said one. She little
suspected that, within a year, the House of Representatives would have
passed the Amendment; within less than two years thereafter the Senate.
* * * * *
People went further than words. Many paused to shake hands. Many asked
to be allowed to hold the banners for a moment.
Once a bride and groom—very young—stopped. The groom talked to one
picket, the bride to another. The man said: “I think this is outrageous.
I have no sympathy with you whatever. I wouldn’t any more let my wife——”
At that moment the little bride came rushing up, radiant. “Oh, do you
mind,” she said to her husband, “if I hold one of those banners for a
while?”
“No, if you want to,” the bridegroom answered.
And she took her stand on the picket line.
Children stopped to spell out the inscriptions, and sometimes asked what
they meant.
Once, a group of boys from a Massachusetts school inquired what the
colors stood for, and asked to have the slogan translated. As by one
impulse, they lifted their hats and said, “You ought to have it now.”
Occasionally, distinguished visitors leaving the White House would smile
their appreciation and approval. On one occasion Theodore Roosevelt
beamed vividly on the pickets, waving his hat as he passed. As the
weather changed and the winter storms began, the gaiety in the attitude
of their audience deepened to a real admiration. With the rains, the
pickets appeared in slickers and rubber hats. This was not, of course,
unendurable. But, when the freezing cold came, often with snow and
swirling winds, picketing became a real hardship. There were days when
it was almost impossible to stand on the picket line for more than half
an hour at a time. At regular intervals, Smith, the janitor, assisted at
times by a little colored boy, used to appear from Headquarters,
trundling a wheelbarrow. That wheelbarrow was piled high with hot bricks
covered with gunny-sacking. He would distribute the bricks among the
pickets and they would stand on them. An observer said that, when the
relay of pickets, leaving at the end of the day, stepped down from the
bricks at the word of command, it was like a line of statues stepping
from their pedestals.
But others—and sometimes strangers—sought to mitigate for the pickets
the rigors of the freezing weather. One woman, coming regularly every
day in her car, brought thermos bottles filled with hot coffee. On one
occasion, a young girl—a passing volunteer—came on picket duty in a coat
too light and shoes too low. While she stood there, a closed limousine
drew up to the curb. A woman alighted and forced the girl to retire to
her car and put on her fur coat and her gaiters. The stranger held the
banner while the warming-up process was going on. She offered to
organize a committee, made up of older women, who would collect warm
clothing for the pickets. In point of fact, the Virginia and
Philadelphia branches of the Congressional Union presented the pickets
with thick gloves, spats, and slickers for rainy days. Thousands of men
and women from all over the country sent suggestions for their comfort.
Official kindness, even, was not lacking. One superlatively cold day, an
attaché of the President invited the whole company of pickets into the
East Room of the White House. The superintendents of the Treasury
Building and the War Department Annex extended to them similar
invitations.
The police were, at the beginning, friendly, not only in words but in
acts. An officer stopped one day, after telephoning at the near police
box, to say: “You are making friends every minute. Stick to it! Do not
give up. We are with you and admire your pluck.” The majority of them
did not like to do what afterwards they had to do.
As for the White House guards—they were the champions of the pickets. At
the outbreak of the war, the White House gates were closed for the first
time in its history. The pickets without often informed the guards
within as to the kind of vehicle that demanded entrance of them. The
guards came to treat them as comrades patrolling the same beat. Once,
when the pickets were five minutes late, one of these guards said: “We
thought you weren’t coming, and we’d have to hold down this place
alone.”
When the pickets reconvened with the Special War Session of the
Sixty-fifth Congress on April 2, the White House police were most
demonstrative in their welcome. They were glad to see them back: they
said they had missed them. And indeed they had come to look on the women
as a kind of auxiliary police force. Once, when somebody asked a
policeman, “When is the President coming out?” Mary Gertrude Fendall
said, “I guess you’d like a dollar for every time people ask you that.”
The policeman answered, “I’d rather have a dollar for every time they
ask when are the Suffragists coming out?” The country at large had
accepted the pickets. The directors of the sight-seeing busses pointed
them out as one of the city’s sights. Tourists said, oftener and
oftener, “Well, we weren’t quite sure where the White House was until we
saw you pickets.” And when these tourists used to crowd about the gates,
waiting for the President’s limousine to come out, and the signal was
flashed that the Presidential motor had started, the guards pressed the
crowds away. “Back!” they would order. “Back! Back! All back but the
pickets! No one allowed inside the line but the pickets!”
As can be imagined, Headquarters was a busy place during the picketing;
and sometimes a hectic one. Later, of course, when the arrests began,
and mobs besieged it, it seethed with excitement. It was not easy always
to find women with the leisure and the inclination to serve on the
picket line before the arrests. But, when arrests began and
imprisonments followed, naturally it became increasingly difficult.
Many members of the Woman’s Party in Washington looked on their
picketing as a part of the day’s work. Mrs. William Kent, who said that
no public service she had ever done gave her such an exalted feeling,
always excused herself early from teas on Monday. “I picket Mondays from
two to six,” she explained simply.
* * * * *
Watchers said that those high groups of purple, white, and gold banners
coming down the streets of Washington were like the sails, magically
vivid and luminous, of some strange ship. They were indeed the sails of
a ship—the mightiest that women ever launched—but only the women who
manned those sails saw that ship.
_3. The War on the Pickets_
“I have no son to give my country to fight for democracy abroad and
so I send my daughter to Washington to fight for democracy at home.”
Mrs. S. H. B. GRAY of Colorado.
It will be remembered that the arrest of Lucy Burns and Katherine
Morey—the first of a series extending over more than a year—occurred on
June 22.
On June 23, Mrs. Lawrence Lewis and Gladys Greiner were arrested in
front of the White House. On the same day, Mabel Vernon and Virginia
Arnold were arrested at the Capitol.
On June 25, twenty women bore Suffrage banners to their stations. The
slogans on these banners were:
HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY?
MR. PRESIDENT, YOU SAY “LIBERTY IS A FUNDAMENTAL
DEMAND OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT.”
WE ADDRESS OUR DEMAND FOR THE BALLOT AT THIS TIME
IN NO NARROW, CAPTIOUS, OR SELFISH SPIRIT, BUT FROM
PUREST PATRIOTISM FOR THE HIGHEST GOOD OF EVERY CITIZEN
FOR THE SAFETY OF THE REPUBLIC AND AS A GLORIOUS EXAMPLE
TO THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH.
Twelve women were arrested. They were: Mabel Vernon, Lucy Burns, Gladys
Greiner, Katherine Morey, Elizabeth Stuyvesant, Lavinia Dock, Berta
Crone, Pauline Clarke, Virginia Arnold, Maude Jamison, Annie Arniel, and
Mrs. Townsend Scott.
On Tuesday, June 26, nine women were arrested for carrying the same
banners. They included some of the women from the day before, and, in
addition, Vivian Pierce and Hazel Hunkins.
A high-handed detail of this arrest was that the women were overpowered
by the police before they had proceeded half a block.
Most of these women were released after each arrest. The last six to be
arrested were asked to return to court for trial.
On June 27, six American women were tried in the police court of the
District of Columbia.
These women were: Virginia Arnold, Lavinia Dock, Maud Jamison, Katherine
Morey, Annie Arniel, Mabel Vernon.
The women defended themselves. Mabel Vernon, who conducted the case,
demanded that the banners they had carried be exhibited in court. It
made a comic episode in the midst of the court proceedings when the
policeman, who had been sent for them, returned, bristling all over his
person with banner sticks, and trailing in every direction the purple,
white, and gold. The courtroom crowd burst out laughing when they read
the legend:
MR. PRESIDENT, YOU SAY “LIBERTY IS THE FUNDAMENTAL DESIRE OF THE
HUMAN SPIRIT.”
There was a technical discussion as to how much sidewalk space the young
women occupied, and how near the White House palings they stood. The
Suffrage group had photographs which showed the deserted pavements at
the time of the arrests.
The women cross-examined the police who testified that there was no
crowd at that time of the morning and that the women stood with their
backs to the White House fence.
The Judge said: “If you had kept on moving, you would be all right.”
“I find these defendants guilty as charged,” was his verdict, “of
obstructing the highway in violation of the police regulations and the
Act of Congress, and impose a fine of twenty-five dollars in each case,
or in default of that, three days’ imprisonment.”
The six young women refused to pay the fine. They were each sentenced to
three days in the District jail.
When the first pickets came out of jail, a hundred women, representing
many States, gave them a reception breakfast in the garden of Cameron
House.
A subsequent chapter will relate the prison experiences of these women
and of the long line of their successors.
* * * * *
The next picket line went out on Independence Day, July 4, 1917. Five
women marched from Headquarters bearing purple, white, and gold banners.
They were: Helena Hill Weed, Vida Milholland, Gladys Greiner, Margaret
Whittemore, Iris Calderhead. Helena Hill Weed carried a banner:
GOVERNMENTS DERIVE THEIR JUST POWER FROM
THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED.
Following the advice of the Judge, they kept moving. Across the street,
a crowd had gathered in expectation of arrests. Standing about were
policemen—a newspaper man said twenty-nine. The police walked along
parallel with the women, and the crowd followed them. As the banner
bearers crossed the street to the White House, the police seized them
before they could get onto the sidewalks. An augmenting crowd surged
about them. Some of the onlookers protested, but most of them took their
cue from the police, and tore the flags away from the women. Apart from
the pickets, Kitty Marion, who for some weeks had been selling the
_Suffragist_ on the streets, was attacked by a by-stander who snatched
her papers away from her, tearing one of them up. Miss Marion was
arrested. She protested at the behavior of her assailant and he was
arrested too. Hazel Hunkins, who was not a part of the procession, came
upon a man who had seized one of the banners carried by the pickets and
was bearing it away. Miss Hunkins attempted to get it from him, and she
also was arrested.
The police commandeered automobiles, and commenced bundling the women
into them.
Immediately another group of women came marching up Pennsylvania Avenue
on the opposite side of the street. This second group contained Mrs.
Frances Green, Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Lucile Shields, Joy Young, Elizabeth
Stuyvesant, Lucy Burns. Joy Young, who is a little creature, led this
group. They reached the West gate of the White House, and there the
police arrested them. A Washington paper described with great glee how,
like a tigress, little Joy Young fought to retain her banner, and how
finally three policemen managed to overpower her. The women were booked
for “unlawful assembly” all except Kitty Marion, who was charged with
“disorderly conduct.”
Helena Hill Weed and Lucy Burns cross-examined the witnesses on behalf
of the women. Mrs. Weed insisted that the torn, yellow banner should be
brought into court. Throughout the trial, it hung suspended from the
Judge’s bench—GOVERNMENTS DERIVE THEIR JUST POWERS FROM THE CONSENT OF
THE GOVERNED. Lucy Burns, examining the police officers, asked why
citizens carrying banners on June 21 were protected by the police, and
on July 4 arrested for doing the same thing. The officer replied that
they were protected on June 21 because he had no orders for that day.
The orders which came later were, he said, not to allow picketing,
though he admitted there were no directions about seizing banners. The
women brought out by skillful cross-questioning that it was the action
of the police which had collected a disorderly crowd, and not the
marching of the two groups of women; that at the former trial of a group
of Suffrage pickets, the Judge himself had declared that marching
pickets did not violate the law.
Lucy Burns summed up the case for the Suffragists as follows:
I wish to state first—she said—as the others have stated, that we
proceeded quietly down the street opposite the White House with our
banners; that we intended to keep marching; that our progress was
halted by the police, not the crowd. There was no interference on
the part of the crowd until after the police had arrested us and
turned their backs on the crowd. Our contention is as others have
stated that the presence of the crowd there was caused by the action
of the police and the previous announcement of the police that they
would arrest the pickets, and not by our action which was entirely
legal.
In the second place I wish to call your attention to the fact that
there is no law whatever against our carrying banners through the
streets of Washington, or in front of the White House. It has been
stated that we were directed by the police not to carry banners
before the White House, not to picket at the White House. That is
absolutely untrue. We have received only one instruction from the
chief of police and that was delivered by Major Pullman in person.
He said that we must not carry banners outside of Headquarters. We
have had no other communication on this subject since that time.
We, of course, realized that that was an extraordinary direction,
because I don’t think it was ever told an organization that it could
not propagate its views, and we proceeded naturally to assume that
Major Pullman would not carry out that order in action because he
would not be able to sustain it in any just court.
We have only been able since to judge instructions by the action of
the police, and the actions of the police have varied from day to
day, so that as a point of fact, we don’t know what the police have
been ordered to do—what is going to be done. On one occasion we
stepped out of Headquarters with a banner—the so-called Russian
banner—and it was torn to fragments before we had reached the gate
of our premises, although Major Pullman had given no notice to us at
that time. Another time we proceeded down Madison Place with
banners, walking in front of the Belasco Theatre, and were arrested.
Another time we were allowed to proceed down Madison Place and the
north side of the Avenue and were not molested.
Now the district attorney has stated that on account of the action
of this court a few days ago, we knew and deliberately did wrong.
But we were advised then by the Judge—and he was familiar with the
first offense—that we would have been all right if we had kept on
walking. On July 4 we kept on walking and this is the result of that
action.
I myself was informed on June 22 by various police, that if I would
keep on walking, my action would be entirely legal. We were innocent
of any desire to do anything wrong when we left our premises.
It is evident that the proceedings in this court are had for the
purpose of suppressing our appeal to the President of the United
States, and not for the purpose of accusing us of violating the
police regulations regarding traffic in the District of Columbia.
The eleven women were found “Guilty,” and sentenced to pay a fine of
twenty-five dollars or to serve three days in the District jail. They
refused to pay the fine, and were sent to jail. The case against Hazel
Hunkins was dismissed. Kitty Marion was found “Not Guilty,” of
disorderly conduct.
In the meantime, Alice Paul had been seized with what looked like a
severe illness. A physician finally warned her that she might not live
two weeks. It was decided, on July 14, to send her to a hospital in
Philadelphia for treatment. The day before she left, a meeting of the
Executive Board was held at her bedside in the Washington hospital.
Although later diagnosis proved more favorable, and Miss Paul was to be
away from Washington only a month, many of the women present at that
meeting believed that they would never see her again. That was a
poignant moment, for the devotion of her adherents to their leader can
neither be described nor measured. But they felt that there was only one
way to serve her if she left them forever and that was to carry out her
plans.... The next day they went out on the picket line.
That next day was the French national holiday—July 14. The Woman’s Party
had, as was usual with them when they planned a demonstration, announced
this through the press.
On the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, therefore, three groups
of women carrying banners, one inscribed with the French national motto:
LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY, and the Woman’s Party colors, marched one
after another from Headquarters.
In the first group were Mrs. J. A. H. Hopkins, Mrs. Paul Reyneau, Mrs.
B. R. Kincaid, Julia Hurburt, Minnie D. Abbot, Anne Martin.
In the second group were, Amelia Himes Walker, Florence Bayard Hilles,
Mrs. Gilson Gardner, Janet Fotheringham.
In the third group were Mrs. John Winters Brannan, Mrs. John Rogers,
Jr., Louise P. Mayo, Doris Stevens, Mary H. Ingham, Eleanor Calnan.
A big crowd, attracted by the expectation of excitement, had collected
outside Headquarters. The police made no effort to disperse them. When
the first group appeared, there was some applause and cheering. They
crossed the street, and took up their station at the upper gate of the
White House. As nothing happened to the first group, the second group,
led by Amelia Himes Walker, emerged from Headquarters and took up a
position at the lower gate of the White House. However, the instant the
two groups had established themselves, the policemen, who had been
making a pretense of clearing the sidewalks, immediately arrested them.
The third group of pickets, however, came forward undismayed, their
flags high. The crowd applauded them; then fell back and permitted the
pickets to take their places. The police in this third case waited for
four minutes, watches in hand. Then they arrested the women on the
charge of “violating an ordinance.”
At the station the sixteen women were booked for “unlawful assembly.” On
July 17, Judge Mullowny, sentenced the sixteen women to sixty days in
Occoquan Workhouse on the charge of “obstructing traffic.”
A detailed consideration of the treatment of the pickets in Occoquan and
the Jail is reserved for a later chapter. It will, therefore, be stated
briefly here that these sixteen women were pardoned by the President
after three days in Occoquan. However, they were submitted to
indignities there such as white prisoners were nowhere else compelled to
endure. When J. A. H. Hopkins and Gilson Gardner were permitted to visit
their wives, they did not at first recognize them in the haggard,
exhausted-looking group of creatures in prison garb, sitting in the
reception room. One of the women, however, seeing her husband, half rose
from her chair.
“You sit down!” Superintendent Whittaker yelled, pointing his finger at
her.
* * * * *
J. A. H. Hopkins, who had been a member of the Democratic National
Campaign Committee of 1916, went immediately to the President and told
him the conditions under which these women were being held. Gilson
Gardner, a well-known newspaper man who had supported Wilson throughout
the previous election campaign, wrote a long communication to the
President on the same subject. Dudley Field Malone, Collector of the
Port of New York and one of the President’s closest friends and warmest
advisors, who was later in so gallant a way to show his disapproval of
the Suffrage situation, saw the President also. President Wilson
professed himself as being “shocked” at his revelations. He said he did
not know what was going on at Occoquan.
“After this, Mr. President,” Mr. Malone replied, “you _do_ know.”
* * * * *
After her release, Mrs. J. A. H. Hopkins wanted to find out whether this
pardon also meant that the President supported their Amendment. She
therefore wrote him the following letter:
MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:
The pardon issued to me by you is accompanied by no explanation. It
can have but one of two meanings—either you have satisfied yourself,
as you personally stated to Mr. Hopkins, that I violated no law of
the country, and no ordinance of this city, in exercising my right
of peaceful petition, and therefore you, as an act of justice,
extended to me your pardon, or you pardoned me to save yourself the
embarrassment of an acute and distressing political situation.
In this case, in thus saving yourself, you have deprived me of the
right through appeal to prove by legal processes that the police
powers of Washington despotically and falsely convicted me on a
false charge, in order to save you personal or political
embarrassment.
As you have not seen fit to tell the public the true reason, I am
compelled to resume my peaceful petition for political liberty. If
the police arrest me, I shall carry the case to the Supreme Court if
necessary. If the police do not arrest me, I shall believe that you
do not believe me guilty. This is the only method by which I can
release myself from the intolerable and false position in which your
unexplained pardon has placed me.
Mr. Hopkins and I repudiate absolutely the current report that I
would accept a pardon which was the act of your good nature.
In this case, which involves my fundamental constitutional rights,
Mr. Hopkins and myself do not desire your Presidential benevolence,
but American justice.
Furthermore, we do not believe that you would insult us by extending
to us your good-nature under these circumstances.
This pardon without any explanation of your reasons for its
issuance, in no way mitigates the injustice inflicted upon me by the
violation of my constitutional civil right.
Respectfully yours,
ALISON TURNBULL HOPKINS.
After having written this letter, quite alone and at the crowded hour of
five o’clock in the afternoon, Mrs. Hopkins carried a banner to the
White House gates, and stood there for ten minutes. The banner said: WE
ASK NOT PARDON FOR OURSELVES BUT JUSTICE FOR ALL AMERICAN WOMEN. A large
and curious crowd gathered, but nobody bothered her. While she stood
there, the President passed through the gates and saluted.
* * * * *
On Monday, July 23, exactly a month from the time that the police had
first interfered with the picketing and the Suffragists, the daily
Suffrage picket was resumed. The crowds streaming home in the afternoon
from the offices, laughed when they saw the banners at the White House
gates again. Some stopped to congratulate the women.
Time went on and still the President did nothing about putting the
Amendment through. As always when it was not strikingly brought to his
attention, Suffrage seemed to pass from his mind. It became again
necessary to call his attention to the Amendment. Often it seemed as
though the President’s attention could be gained only by calling the
country’s attention to his inaction.
Within a week appeared a new banner. Elihu Root, the Special Envoy of
the United States to Russia, had just come home from a country which had
enfranchised its women. With the other members of the American Mission
to Russia, he called at the White House, and at the gates he was
confronted by these words:
TO ENVOY ROOT:
YOU SAY THAT AMERICA MUST THROW ITS MANHOOD IN THE
SUPPORT OF LIBERTY.
WHOSE LIBERTY?
THIS NATION IS NOT FREE. 20,000,000 WOMEN ARE DENIED
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES THE RIGHT TO
REPRESENTATION IN THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT.
TELL THE PRESIDENT THAT HE CANNOT FIGHT AGAINST
LIBERTY AT HOME WHILE HE TELLS US TO FIGHT FOR LIBERTY
ABROAD.
TELL HIM TO MAKE AMERICA FREE FOR DEMOCRACY BEFORE
HE ASKS THE MOTHERS OF AMERICA TO THROW THEIR SONS TO
THE SUPPORT OF DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE.
ASK HIM HOW HE COULD REFUSE LIBERTY TO AMERICAN
CITIZENS WHEN HE HAS FORCED MILLIONS OF AMERICAN BOYS
OUT OF THEIR COUNTRY TO DIE FOR LIBERTY.
For two hours, Lucy Ewing and Mary Winsor stood holding this banner. It
attracted the largest crowd that the pickets had as yet experienced. But
the police managed them perfectly—although in the courts there had been
plenty of testimony that they could not manage similar crowds—and
without a word of protest—although half a block was completely
obstructed for two hours.
The following day saw scenes the most violent in the history of the
pickets. This was August 14. Catherine Flanagan’s story of this period
of terror is one of the most thrilling in the annals of the Party:
That day a new banner was carried for the first time by Elizabeth
Stuyvesant—the “Kaiser” banner. The banner read:
KAISER WILSON, HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN YOUR SYMPATHY WITH
THE POOR GERMANS BECAUSE THEY WERE NOT SELF-GOVERNING?
TWENTY MILLION AMERICAN WOMEN ARE NOT SELF-GOVERNING.
TAKE THE BEAM OUT OF YOUR OWN EYE.
I do not remember when Elizabeth took this banner out, but I think she
was on the four o’clock shift. For a half an hour people gathered about
the banner. The crowd grew and grew. You felt there was something
brewing in them, but what, you could not guess. Suddenly it came—a man
dashed from the crowd and tore the banner down. Immediately, one after
another, the other banners were torn down. As fast as this happened, the
banner bearers went back to Headquarters; returned with tri-colors and
reinforcements; took up their stations again. Finally the whole line of
pickets, bannerless by this time, marched back to Headquarters. The
crowd, which was fast changing into a mob, followed us into Madison
Place. As the pickets emerged again, the mob jumped them at the very
doors of Cameron House, tore their banners away from them and destroyed
them. By this time the mob, which had become a solid mass of people,
choking the street and filling the park, had evolved a leader, a yeoman
in uniform, who incited everybody about him to further work of
destruction. Suddenly, as if by magic, a ladder appeared in their midst.
A yeoman placed it against Cameron House, and accompanied by a little
boy, he started up. He pulled down the tri-color of the Woman’s Party
which hung over the door. In the meantime, it was impossible for us to
take any banners out. We locked the door, but two strange women, unknown
to the Woman’s Party, came in. They opened a window on the second floor
and were about to push the ladder, on which the sailor and the little
boy still stood, back into the street when Ella Morton Dean drew them
away.
At the other side of the house and at the same moment, another member of
the crowd climbed up the balcony and pulled down the American flag which
hung beside the tri-color. Immediately Virginia Arnold and Lucy Burns
appeared on the balcony carrying, the one the Kaiser banner and the
other the tri-color. The crowd began to throw eggs, tomatoes, and apples
at them, but the two girls stood, Virginia Arnold white, Lucy Burns
flushed, but—everybody who saw them comments on this—with a look of
steady consecration, absolutely motionless, holding the tri-color which
had never before been taken from its place over the door at
Headquarters.
Suddenly a shot rang out from the crowd. A bullet went through a window
of the second story, directly over the heads of two women who stood
there—Ella Morton Dean and Georgiana Sturgess—and imbedded itself in the
ceiling of the hall. The only man seen to have a revolver was a yeoman
in uniform, who immediately ran up the street. By this time Elizabeth
Stuyvesant had joined Lucy Burns and Virginia Arnold on the balcony;
others also came. Three yeomen climbed up onto the balcony and wrested
the tri-color banners from the girls. As one of these men climbed over
the railing, he struck Georgiana Sturgess. “Why did you do that?” she
demanded, dumbfounded. The man paused a moment, apparently as amazed as
she. “I don’t know,” he answered; then he tore the banner out of her
hands and descended the ladder. Lucy Burns, whose courage is physical as
well as spiritual, held her banner until the last moment. It seemed as
though she were going to be dragged over the railing of the balcony, but
two of the yeomen managed to tear it from her hands before this
occurred. New banners were brought to replace those that had
disappeared.
While this was going on, Katherine Morey and I went out the back way of
Headquarters, made our way to the White House gates, unfurled a Kaiser
banner, and stood there for seventeen minutes unnoticed. There was a
policeman standing beside each of us, but when the yeoman who had led
the mob and who was apparently about to report for duty, tore at the
banner, they did not interfere. We were dragged along the pavements, but
the banner was finally destroyed.
By this time the crowd had thinned a little in front of Headquarters.
The front door had been unlocked when we went back. Five different
times, however, we and others, led always by Lucy Burns, made an effort
to bear our banners to the White House gates again. Always, a little
distance from Headquarters, we were beset by the mob and our banners
destroyed.
About five o’clock, the police reserves appeared and cleared the street.
Thereupon, every woman who had been on picket duty that day, bearing
aloft the beautiful tri-color, went over to the White House gates,
marched up and down the pavements three times. The police protected us
until we started home. When, however, our little procession crossed the
street to the park, the crowd leaped upon us again, and again destroyed
our banners. Madeline Watson was knocked down and kicked. Two men
carried her into Headquarters.
While the crowd was milling its thickest before Headquarters, somebody
said to a policeman standing there, “Why don’t you arrest those men?”
“Those are not our orders,” the policeman replied.
Twenty-two lettered banners and fourteen tri-color flags were destroyed
that day.
During all the early evening, men were trying to climb over the back
fence of the garden to get into Cameron House. None of us went to bed
that night. We were afraid that something—we knew not what—might happen.
The next day, August 15, was only a degree less violent. The Suffrage
pickets went on duty as usual at twelve o’clock, and picketed all that
afternoon.
All the afternoon yeomen, small boys, and hoodlums attacked the women
without hindrance. Elizabeth Stuyvesant was struck by a soldier who
destroyed her flag. Beulah Amidon was thrown down by a sailor, who stole
her flag. Alice Paul was knocked down three times. One sailor dragged
her thirty feet along the White House sidewalk in his attempts to tear
off her Suffrage sash, gashing her neck brutally. They were without
protection until five o’clock.
During this time they lost fifty tri-color banners and one Kaiser
banner.
The pickets were, of course, constantly going back to Headquarters for
new banners, and constantly returning with them.
At five o’clock, in anticipation of the President’s appearance, and
while still the turmoil was going on, five police officers quickly and
efficiently cleared a wide aisle in front of each gate, and as quickly
and as efficiently drove the mob across the street. The President,
however, left by a rear gate.
On the next day, August 16, the policy toward the pickets changed again.
Fifty policemen appeared on the scene, and instead of permitting
Suffragists to be attacked by others, they attacked them themselves.
Virginia Arnold was set upon by three police officers. Before she could
relinquish her banner to them, her arms were twisted and her hands
bruised. Elizabeth Stuyvesant, Natalie Gray, and Lucy Burns were all
severely handled by the police. Elizabeth Smith and Ruth Crocker, who
were carrying furled flags, were knocked down. When men, more
chivalrous-minded than the crowd, came to their rescue, they were
arrested.
In the late afternoon, the crowd grew denser. The police, therefore,
ceased their efforts, and waited while the crowd attacked the women and
destroyed their banners An officer threatened to arrest one young woman
who defended her banner against an assailant.
“Here, give that up!” called the second officer to a girl who was
struggling with a man for the possession of her flag.
During these days of mob attacks, the pickets had been put to it to get
outside Headquarters to some coign of vantage where they could stand for
a few seconds before the inevitable rush. For the first time in the
history of their picketing the girls could not carry their banners on
poles. Either the mobs seized them or the policemen who lined the
sidewalks outside Headquarters. The pickets carried them inside their
sweaters and hats, in sewing bags, or pinned them, folded in newspapers
or magazines, under their skirts. One picket was followed by crowds who
caught a gleam of yellow at the hem of her gown. When they got to the
White House, the pickets held the banners in their hands. Lucy Burns
kept sending out relays with new banners to take the place of those
which were torn.
Catherine Flanagan says that on August 16 when the four o’clock shift of
the picket line started out, Lucy Burns pointed to rolls of banners done
up in various receptacles and said, “Take out as many of these as you
can carry and keep them concealed until it is necessary to use them.”
The eight pickets distributed the banners in different parts of their
clothes, and approaching the White House by various routes, suddenly
lined themselves against the White House fence, each unfurling a Kaiser
banner at the word of command. They were faced by forty policemen,
policewomen, and secret service men. Instantly the police were on them.
The pickets held the banners as long as it was physically possible—it
took three policemen to remove each banner. The policemen heaved sighs
of relief, as though their work for the day was done, turned, and moved
to the edge of the pavement. Instantly, eight more banners appeared and
as instantly they fell on the pickets again. This happened seven times.
As often as the police turned with captured banners in their hands,
reinforcing pickets in the crowd handed fresh banners to the pickets at
the gates. Fifty-six Kaiser banners were captured this day. When the
Kaiser banners were exhausted, the eight pickets returned to
Headquarters and soon emerged bearing the tri-color. The tactics of the
police changed then. They did not, themselves, attack the pickets, but
they permitted the crowds to do so. In all, one hundred and forty-eight
flags were destroyed.
* * * * *
On August 17, Major Pullman, police head of Washington, called upon
Alice Paul, and warned her that young women carrying banners would be
arrested.
Alice Paul replied, “The picketing will go on as usual.”
In a letter to his friend, Major Pullman, quoted in the _Suffragist_ of
August 25, Gilson Gardner put the case concisely and decisively....
You must see, Pullman, that you cannot be right in what you have
done in this matter. You have given the pickets adequate protection;
you have arrested them and had them sent to jail and the workhouse,
you have permitted the crowds to mob them, and then you have had
your officers do much the same thing by forcibly taking their
banners from them. In some of these actions, you must have been
wrong. If it was right to give them protection and let them stand at
the White House for five months, both before and after the war, it
was not right to do what you did later.
You say it was not right and that you were “lenient,” when you gave
them protection. You cannot mean that. The rightness or wrongness
must be a matter of law, not of personal discretion, and for you to
attempt to substitute your discretion is to set up a little
autocracy in place of the settled laws of the land. That would
justify a charge of “Kaiserism” right here in our Capitol city.
The truth is, Pullman, you were right when you gave these women
protection. That is what the police are for. When there are riots
they are supposed to quell them, not by quelling the “proximate
cause,” but by quelling the rioters.
I know your police officers now quite well and I find that they are
most happy when they are permitted to do their duty. They did not
like that dirty business of permitting a lot of sailors and street
riffraff to rough the girls....
It is not my opinion alone when I say that the women were entitled
to police protection, not arrest. President Wilson has stated
repeatedly that these women were entirely within their legal and
constitutional rights, and that they should not have been molested.
Three reputable men, two of them holding office in this
Administration, have told me what the President said, and I have no
reason to doubt their word. If the President has changed his mind he
has not changed the law or the Constitution, and what he said three
weeks ago is just as true today.
In excusing what you have done, you say that the women have carried
banners with “offensive” inscriptions on them. You refer to the fact
that they have addressed the President as “Kaiser Wilson.” As a
matter of fact, not an arrest you have made—and the arrests now
number more than sixty—has been for carrying one of those
“offensive” banners. The women were carrying merely the Suffrage
colors or quotations from President Wilson’s writings.
But suppose the banners were offensive? Who made you censor of
banners? The law gives you no such power. Even when you go through
the farce of a police court trial, the charge is “obstructing
traffic,” _which shows conclusively that you are not willing to go
into court on the real issue_.
No. As chief of police you have no more right to complain of the
sentiments on a banner than you have of the sentiments in an
editorial in the _Washington Post_, and you have no more right to
arrest the banner bearers than you have to arrest the owner of the
_Washington Post_. So long as the law against obscenity and
profanity is observed, you have no business with the words on the
banners. Congress refused to pass a press censorship law. There are
certain lingering traditions to the effect that a people’s
_liberties are closely bound up with the right to talk things out
and those who are enlightened know that the only proper answer to
words is words._
During the entire afternoon of that day—August 17—the day that Major
Pullman called on Alice Paul—the sentinels stood at their posts. One of
the banners read:
ENGLAND AND RUSSIA ARE ENFRANCHISING WOMEN IN WAR TIME;
Another:
THE GOVERNMENT ORDERS OUR BANNERS DESTROYED BECAUSE THEY TELL THE TRUTH.
At intervals of fifteen minutes—for two hours—the pickets were told by a
captain of police that they would be arrested if they did not move. But
they held their station. At half-past four, the hour at which the
thousand of government clerks invade the streets, there was enough of a
crowd to give the appearance that the pickets were “blocking traffic.”
Lavinia Dock; Edna Dixon; Natalie Gray; Madeline Watson; Catherine
Flanagan; Lucy Ewing, were arrested soon after four o’clock. Their trial
lasted just forty minutes. One police officer testified that they were
obstructing traffic. They all refused to pay the ten-dollar fine, which,
though it would have released them, would also have been an admission of
guilt, and Police Magistrate Pugh sentenced them to serve thirty days in
the Government Workhouse.
* * * * *
On August 23, six women appeared at the White House, bearing banners.
They were, Pauline Adams; Gertrude Hunter; Clara Fuller; Kate Boeckh;
Margaret Fotheringham; Mrs. Henry L. Lockwood. All of their banners
quoted words from the President’s works:
I TELL YOU SOLEMNLY, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE CANNOT
POSTPONE JUSTICE ANY LONGER IN THESE UNITED
STATES, AND I DON’T WISH TO SIT DOWN AND LET ANY MAN
TAKE CARE OF ME WITHOUT MY HAVING AT LEAST A VOICE IN
IT; AND IF HE DOESN’T LISTEN TO MY ADVICE I AM GOING TO
MAKE IT AS UNPLEASANT FOR HIM AS I CAN.
In ten minutes they were all arrested. When they appeared before Police
Magistrate Pugh, Clara Kinsley Fuller said in part:
I am the editor, owner, and publisher of a daily and weekly
newspaper in Minnesota. I pay taxes to this government, yet I have
nothing to say in the making of those laws which control me, either
as an individual or as a business woman. Taxation without
representation is undemocratic. For that reason, I came to
Washington to help the Federal Amendment fight. When I learned that
President Wilson said that picketing was perfectly legal, I went on
the picket line and did my bit towards making democracy safe at
home, while our men are abroad making democracy safe for the world.
Margaret Fotheringham, a school-teacher, said:
I have fifteen British cousins who are in the fighting line abroad.
Some are back very badly wounded, and others are still in France. I
have two brothers who are to be in our fighting line. They were not
drafted; they enlisted. I am made of the same stuff that those boys
are made of; and, whether it is abroad or at home, we are fighting
for the same thing. We are fighting for the thing we hold nearest
our hearts—for democracy.
To these pleas, Judge Pugh answered that the President was “not the one
to petition for justice”; that the people of the District virtuously
refrained from picketing the White House for the vote for themselves
“for fear the military would take possession of the streets.”
I quote the _Suffragist_ of September 2.
Here is a sample of Judge Pugh’s logic:
“These ladies have been told repeatedly that this law was ample to
prevent picketing in front of the White House, or anywhere else on
the sidewalks of the District of Columbia; that it was not the
fashion to petition Congress in that way, to stand in front of the
White House, the President’s mansion, to petition somebody else, a
mile and a half away. The President does not have to be
petitioned.... You ladies observe all the laws that give you
benefits, property rights that legislatures composed of men have
passed ... and those that are aimed at preserving the peace and good
order of the community you do not propose to observe.”
And much more to the same effect, which proved that Judge Pugh knew
nothing of the long vigil of the pickets at the doors of Congress,
and apparently nothing of the President’s actual dictatorship.
Finally he admitted that he did not care to send “ladies of
standing” to jail, and would refrain if they promised to stop
picketing, although they were not charged with picketing. In the
face of the dead silence that followed, he pronounced sentence: A
fine of twenty-five dollars or thirty days at Occoquan Workhouse.
Every woman refused to pay the fine.
Attorney Matthew O’Brien represented the women in the District
Court, appealing finally from the judgment of the court.
On August 28, the same women, with Cornelia Beach, Vivian Pierce, Maud
Jamison, and Lucy Burns, were again arrested, and given the same
sentence. An appeal was granted them again, the Judge announcing that
this was the last appeal he would give in the picketing cases until a
decision had been given by the Court of Appeals.
* * * * *
On September 4, the day of the parade of the drafted men, thirteen women
were arrested. They were: Abby Scott Baker, Dorothy Bartlett, Annie
Arniel, Pauline Adams, Mrs. W. W. Chisholm, Lucy Burns, Margaret
Fotheringham, Lucy Branham, Julia Emory, Eleanor Calnan, Edith Ainge,
Maude Malone, Mary Winsor.
The banner these women bore was inscribed:
MR. PRESIDENT, HOW LONG MUST WOMEN BE DENIED A VOICE
IN THE GOVERNMENT THAT IS CONSCRIPTING THEIR SONS?
They were sent to Occoquan for sixty days.
At this vivid interval in the history of the Woman’s Party occurred a
notable incident.
Dudley Field Malone, who had long been a staunch friend of the Woman’s
Party—and one of the few men who had been willing to make a sacrifice
for Suffrage—resigned his position as Collector of the Port of New York
as a protest against the intolerable Suffrage situation. This was a
_beau geste_ on the part of Mr. Malone. There are those who believe that
that gallant deed will go rolling down the centuries gathering luster as
it rolls. It had an inevitable effect, not only on the members of the
Woman’s Party, but on the members of other Suffrage organizations as
well, and it produced a profound impression on the country at large.
His letter of resignation reads as follows:
NEW YORK, N. Y., Sept. 7, 1917.
THE PRESIDENT,
THE WHITE HOUSE,
WASHINGTON, D. C.
DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:
Last autumn, as the representative of your Administration, I went
into the Woman Suffrage States to urge your re-election. The most
difficult argument to meet among the seven million voters was the
failure of the Democratic Party, throughout four years of power, to
pass the Federal Suffrage Amendment, looking towards the
enfranchisement of all the women in the country. Throughout those
States, and particularly in California, which ultimately decided the
election by the votes of women, the women voters were urged to
support you, even though Judge Hughes had already declared for the
Federal Suffrage Amendment, because you and your Party, through
liberal leadership, were more likely nationally to enfranchise the
rest of the women of the country than were your opponents.
And if the women of the West voted to re-elect you, I promised them
I would spend all my energy, at any sacrifice to myself, to get the
present Democratic Administration to pass the Federal Suffrage
Amendment.
But the present policy of the Administration, in permitting splendid
American women to be sent to jail in Washington, not for carrying
offensive banners, nor for picketing, but on the technical charge of
obstructing traffic, is a denial even of their constitutional right
to petition for, and demand the passage of, the Federal Suffrage
Amendment. It, therefore, now becomes my profound obligation
actively to keep my promise to the women of the West.
In more than twenty States it is a practical impossibility to amend
the State constitutions; so the women of those States can only be
enfranchised by the passage of the Federal Suffrage Amendment. Since
England and Russia, in the midst of the great war, have assured the
national enfranchisement of their women, should we not be jealous to
maintain our democratic leadership in the world by the speedy
national enfranchisement of American women?
To me, Mr. President, as I urged upon you in Washington two months
ago, this is not only a measure of justice and democracy, it is also
an urgent war measure. The women of the nation are, and always will
be, loyal to the country, and the passage of the Suffrage Amendment
is only the first step toward their national emancipation. But
unless the government takes at least this first step toward their
enfranchisement, how can the government ask millions of American
women, educated in our schools and colleges, and millions of
American women in our homes, or toiling for economic independence in
every line of industry, to give up by conscription their men and
happiness to a war for democracy in Europe while these women
citizens are denied the right to vote on the policies of the
government which demands of them such sacrifice?
For this reason many of your most ardent friends and supporters feel
that the passage of the Federal Suffrage Amendment is a war measure
which could appropriately be urged by you at this session of
Congress. It is true that this Amendment would have to come from
Congress, but the present Congress shows no earnest desire to enact
this legislation for the simple reason that you, as the leader of
the Party in power, have not yet suggested it.
For the whole country gladly acknowledges, Mr. President, that no
vital piece of legislation has come through Congress these five
years except by your extraordinary and brilliant leadership. And
millions of men and women today hope that you will give the Federal
Suffrage Amendment to the women of the country by the valor of your
leadership now. It will hearten the mothers of the nation, eliminate
a just grievance, and turn the devoted energies of brilliant women
to a more hearty support of the government in this crisis.
As you well know, in dozens of speeches in many States I have
advocated your policies and the war. I was the first man of your
Administration, nearly five years ago, publicly to advocate
preparedness, and helped to found the first Plattsburg training
camp. And if, with our troops mobilizing in France, you will give
American women this measure for their political freedom, they will
support with greater enthusiasm your hope and the hope of America
for world freedom.
I have not approved all the methods recently adopted by women in the
pursuit of their political liberty; yet, Mr. President, the
Committee on Suffrage of the United States Senate was formed in
1883, when I was one year old; this same Federal Suffrage Amendment
was first introduced in Congress in 1878; brave women like Susan B.
Anthony were petitioning Congress for the Suffrage before the Civil
War, and at the time of the Civil War men like William Lloyd
Garrison, Horace Greeley, and Wendell Phillips assured the Suffrage
leaders that if they abandoned their fight for Suffrage, when the
war was ended the men of the nation, “out of gratitude,” would
enfranchise the women of the country!
And if the men of this country had been peacefully demanding for
over half a century the political right or privilege to vote, and
had been continuously ignored or met with evasion by successive
Congresses, as have the women, you, Mr. President, as a lover of
liberty, would be the first to comprehend and forgive their
inevitable impatience and righteous indignation. Will not this
Administration, re-elected to power by the hope and faith of the
women of the West, handsomely reward that faith by taking action now
for the passage of the Federal Suffrage Amendment?
In the port of New York, during the last four years, billions of
dollars in the export and import trade of the country have been
handled by the men of the customs service; their treatment of the
traveling public has radically changed, their vigilance supplied the
evidence for the Lusitania note; the neutrality was rigidly
maintained; the great German fleet guarded, captured, and repaired;
substantial economies and reforms have been concluded, and my ardent
industry has been given to this great office of your appointment.
But now I wish to leave these finished tasks, to return to my
profession of the law, and to give all my leisure time to fight as
hard for the political freedom of women as I have always fought for
your liberal leadership.
It seems a long seven years, Mr. President, since I first campaigned
with you when you were running for Governor of New Jersey. In every
circumstance throughout those years, I have served you with the most
respectful affection and unshadowed devotion. It is no small
sacrifice now for me, as a member of your Administration, to sever
our political relationship. But I think it is high time that men in
this generation, at some cost to themselves, stood up to battle for
the national enfranchisement of American women. So in order
effectively to keep my promise made in the West, and more freely to
go into this larger field of democratic effort, I hereby resign my
office as Collector of the Port of New York, to take effect at once,
or at your earliest convenience.
Yours respectfully,
DUDLEY FIELD MALONE.
On September 13, six pickets left Headquarters at half-past four in the
afternoon. They were: Katherine Fisher, Mrs. Frederick Willard Kendall,
Mrs. Mark Jackson, Ruth Crocker, Nina Samardin, Eleanor Gwinter. The two
lettered banners were borne by Miss Fisher and Mrs. Kendall:
HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY?
MR. PRESIDENT, WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE?
They marched straight to the lower gate. A crowd had already collected
there. Another crowd lined the edge of the sidewalk across the street on
Lafayette Square. There were two police officers on the White House
sidewalk, and several across the way.
The crowd made way for the group of pickets, and they took their
accustomed places at the gate. For a few minutes nothing happened.
During all these days of roughness and riot, it had been very difficult
to take pictures. It seemed as though the thing the police most feared
was the truth. They would not permit the moving-picture men to record
these vivid events. They even confiscated cameras. Photographers ran the
risk always of having their cameras destroyed. On this day, Gladys
Greiner, a Suffragist, was taking pictures of the crowd. As she leveled
her kodak at a police captain, he kicked her. She continued to take her
pictures nevertheless. A sailor and a marine, both in uniform, instead
of moving as the police had ordered, came closer and closer to the
pickets. Suddenly, the sailor snatched the banner from the pole. The two
men tore the banner into pieces; passed the scraps to their friends. The
police looked on without interference. Then they arrested the women.
They were taken to Judge Mullowny.
Judge Mullowny had been away for two months from the bench. In the
meantime, his ideas on the offense of picketing had undergone another
change. His first decision in regard to the Suffragists was that they
obstructed traffic, and, in regard to the banners, that they “had
nothing to do with the case.” Later, he decided that the banners were
“treasonable.” Now, in regard to their banner, _How Long Must Women Wait
for Liberty?_, he decided: “Since this banner is unlikely to give
offense, I will give you women a light sentence this time.”
All evidence except that of the two policemen was ruled out. In regard
to the conduct of the police captain in kicking Miss Greiner, the Judge
said: “I have nothing to do with those things; they have nothing to do
with the case.”
He asked, “Would you pay a fine instead of going to prison, if I made
the fine fifty cents?”
“Not if you made it five cents,” replied Mrs. Kendall, who spoke for the
six prisoners.
He therefore sentenced them to thirty days in the government workhouse.
On September 22, four more Suffragists were arrested. They were Peggy
Baird Johns, Margaret Wood Kessler, Ernestine Hara, Hilda Blumberg. They
carried a new banner this time, quoting words from an early work of the
President. It said:
PRESIDENT WILSON, WHAT DID YOU MEAN WHEN YOU SAID, “WE HAVE SEEN A
GOOD MANY SINGULAR THINGS HAPPEN RECENTLY. WE HAVE BEEN TOLD THAT IT
IS UNPATRIOTIC TO CRITICIZE PUBLIC ACTION. WELL, IF IT IS, THERE IS
A DEEP DISGRACE RESTING UPON THE ORIGIN OF THIS NATION. THIS NATION
ORIGINATED IN THE SHARPEST SORT OF CRITICISM OF PUBLIC POLICY. WE
ORIGINATED, TO PUT IT IN THE VERNACULAR, IN A KICK AND IF IT IS
UNPATRIOTIC TO KICK, WHY, THEN THE GROWN MAN IS UNLIKE THE CHILD. WE
HAVE FORGOTTEN THE VERY PRINCIPLE OF OUR ORIGIN IF WE HAVE FORGOTTEN
HOW TO OBJECT, HOW TO RESIST, HOW TO AGITATE, HOW TO PULL DOWN AND
BUILD UP EVEN TO THE EXTENT OF REVOLUTIONARY PRACTICES IF IT BE
NECESSARY TO READJUST MATTERS. I HAVE FORGOTTEN MY HISTORY IF THAT
BE NOT TRUE HISTORY.”
The _Suffragist_ of September 29 describes this event:
When the pickets this week took up their stations at the East gate
of the White House, and unfurled the “seditious” utterance of the
President himself, the banner was almost immediately confiscated by
the two police officers who had hurried to the spot. They seemed
anxious to keep from the little pressing crowd the fact that the
President had once been not only a Democrat, but a democrat.
The two officers then stood directly in front of the little group of
women carrying tri-colored flags, with their backs to what crowd
there was. More than half of the wide White House sidewalks were
vacant of pedestrians. The officers had evidently been ordered to
let the crowd collect for a certain number of minutes before they
arrested the women. They betrayed not the slightest interest in the
spectators, but watched their victims with bored attention as they
waited for the patrol....
The four young women were, on the following day, after the usual
court proceeding, sentenced to thirty days in the government
workhouse for “obstructing traffic.”
A brief statement was made by each of the little group. “We are not
citizens,” said these young women. “We are not represented. We were
silently, peacefully attempting to gain the freedom of twenty
million women in the United States of America. We have broken no
law. We are guilty of no crime. We have been illegally arrested. We
demand our freedom, and we shall continue to ask for it until the
government acts.”
They were given thirty days in the workhouse.
The last picketing of the Emergency War Session of the Sixty-fifth
Congress took place on October 6, the day Congress adjourned. There were
eleven women in this picket line: Dr. Caroline Spencer, Vivian Pierce,
Louise Lewis Kahle, Rose Winslow, Joy Young, Matilda Young, Minnie
Henesy, Kate Heffelfinger, Maud Jamison, Lou C. Daniels.
Alice Paul led them. Congress was adjourning. The work of the Woman’s
Party was going on smoothly. For the first time, Alice Paul felt that
she had the leisure to go to jail.
In the _Suffragist_ of October 13, Pauline Jacobson of the _San
Francisco Bulletin_ thus describes their arrest:
I had had much of the Western prejudice against the “militant
movement” that the live Suffrage battle had become in this country.
I had thought from the newspaper reports that have gone forth
concerning the action of these “militant Suffragists,” that
“picketing” was rowdy and unlovely. I found it a silent, a still
thing—a thing sublime....
The sun, which never seems bright to me under these paler Eastern
skies, slanted chill and thin through the falling golden foliage of
autumn trees lining the broad avenue on which the White House
stands. Diagonally across, flying the Suffrage colors, stands the
handsome old Cameron House, the Headquarters of the Woman’s Party.
Suddenly that chill avenue vista became vibrant with color, with
fluttering banners, wide-striped of purple, white, and gold, borne
aloft on tall, imposing, war-like spears. Down the Avenue they
fluttered slowly, as if moved by some mysterious force. Then I saw
the force that was sending those banners forward through the
careless crowds.
There were eleven women, each bearing high her colored banner. The
leader, a woman frail, and slight, and very pale, her eyes and face
really lit with exaltation of purpose, carried a white flag on which
was printed: “Mr. President, what will you do for Woman Suffrage?”
Then behind them followed the others with the vivid purple and gold
flags on the spear-headed staffs. They looked neither to the right
nor to the left. They seemed to me to walk so lightly that the great
banners carried them; and there was the glow in all of their eyes
though their faces were quite unsmiling.
The street in an instant had become alive with people who gathered
about, followed, or lined the curbs, men and women—the women for the
most part curious, the men for the most part disdainful, insolent,
or leering. It was not a Western crowd; there was no generosity in
it.
But silently, perceived by all but perceiving none, the women
marched straight ahead. As they neared the White House a sailor
sprang forward and tore the banner from one picket, threw it on the
ground, and trampled on it. The young girl who had carried it
stooped down and silently rescued her banner. I thought there was
tenderness in the way she smoothed it out and tried to fasten it
again to her tall staff. Four banners were torn and mutilated like
that. Each girl, without a word, like the first, tried to protect
her flag.
And then, like a flash, those eleven women, a few feet apart, were
flanking either side of the wide White House gates like living
statues, only their colored banners fluttering upward. They stood
facing the coming and going crowd silently. There was the pale
little leader with her staff bare; the crowd had torn away that
simple question on the white flag....
Then came shouted orders, the sudden waving of blue-coated arms, and
the elbowing to the front of blue coats with much gold braid. The
police were scattering the curious crowd. Above their orders came
the clang of the patrol. Next the eleven statues had disappeared
from the White House gates. They were being crowded to the front by
the fat officer in the uniform. They were still silent and still
proud. There was something majestic even in the way each stooped her
head to enter the small door of the patrol wagon. And the last
uniformed officer who had gathered together the brilliant flags sat
in front, where they still fluttered triumphant in the wind as the
patrol clanged off and the crowd shouted.
I followed them to the police station. It seemed to me there was
strange delay in the procedure of accepting bail for people charged
with so simple an offense—for they were charged with “obstructing
traffic.” That same day, I had seen dense crowds watching the World
Series returns, with mounted police to clear a space for the cars.
There were no arrests for blocking traffic. They were finally
released on bail for trial the following Monday.
The eleven women were tried on October 8. They refused to recognize the
Court. They would not be sworn. They would not question witnesses. They
would not speak in their own behalf.
Alice Paul said—I quote the _Suffragist_:
We do not wish to make any plea before this Court. We do not
consider ourselves subject to this Court since, as an unenfranchised
class, we have nothing to do with the making of the laws which have
put us in this position.
The Judge did not sentence the eleven women. He suspended sentence and
restored the bail furnished by the Suffragists for their appearance. For
this surprising change of front, no reason was given. Though apparently
inconsistent, it was perfectly consistent with the policy of an
Administration quite dazed and uncertain in regard to its treatment of
the picketing women.
In point of fact, the Court did not sentence the women because Congress
was adjourning. They did not dismiss the charge, however.
Regarding the freeing of the pickets Miss Paul said:
We are glad that the authorities have retreated at last from their
untenable position, and grown wary of prosecuting women for
peacefully petitioning for political liberty.
The action of the Court this morning makes more glaring than ever
the injustice of holding nineteen women on sixty and thirty day
sentences in Occoquan Workhouse for the same offense of petitioning
for liberty which we committed. We will use our unexpected freedom
to press our campaign with ever-increasing vigor.
On October 15, four pickets, under suspended sentence from their
picketing of October 6, went out again. They were Rose Winslow, Kate
Heffelfinger, Minnie Henesy, Maud Jamison. The police were taken
absolutely by surprise. It was ten minutes before the patrol wagons
appeared. In the meantime, of course, a crowd gathered to see what was
going to happen. When the patrol stopped at the curb, an officer
approached the pickets. “Move on!” he ordered, and, before the pickets
could move on, or even make a reply—“I will put you under arrest,” and
immediately, “You are under arrest.” Rose Winslow, one of the pickets,
lifted her banner high, and marched with the air of a conqueror to the
waiting patrol. The crowd burst into spontaneous applause.
In court Rose Winslow said:
We have seen officers of the law permit men to assault women, to
destroy their banners, to enter their residences. How, then, can you
ask us to have respect for the law? We thought that by dismissing
the Suffragists without sentence this Court had finally decided to
recognize our legal right to petition the government. We shall
continue to picket because it is our right. On the tenth of November
there will be a long line of Suffragists who will march to the White
House gates to ask for political liberty. You can send us to jail,
but you know that we have broken no law. You know that we have not
even committed the technical offense on which we were arrested. You
know that we are guiltless.
Judge Mullowny gave them the choice between a twenty-five dollar fine
and six months in the district workhouse. They, of course, refused to
pay the fine.
* * * * *
At half-past four on October 20, Alice Paul led a deputation of three
pickets to the West gate of the White House. The others were Dr.
Caroline Spencer, Gladys Greiner, Gertrude Crocker. Alice Paul carried a
banner with the words of President Wilson which had appeared recently on
the posters for the Second Liberty Bond Loan of 1917:
THE TIME HAS COME TO CONQUER OR SUBMIT. FOR US THERE
CAN BE BUT ONE CHOICE. WE HAVE MADE IT.
Dr. Caroline Spencer’s banner bore the watchword of ’76:
RESISTANCE TO TYRANNY IS OBEDIENCE TO GOD.
They were arrested as soon as the police had permitted what seemed a
sufficient crowd to gather, placed in the patrol wagon, and taken to the
district jail.
The officer testified as follows—the italics are my own:
I made my way through the crowd that was surrounding them, and told
the ladies _they were violating the law by standing at the gates_,
and would not they please move on.
Assistant District Attorney Hart asked: Did they move on?
Lee answered: _They did not, and they did not answer either._
Hart: What did you do then?
Lee: Placed them under arrest.
The two women who carried the banners—Alice Paul and Caroline
Spencer—were sentenced to seven months in jail; the other two pickets
were offered the choice of a five dollar fine or thirty days, and, of
course, took the thirty days.
On the same occasion, Rose Winslow and those who were arrested with her,
Maud Jamison, Kate Heffelfinger, Minnie Henesy—both on October 4 and
October 15—came up for further sentence. Rose Winslow described very
vigorously the confusion of the Suffragists who, she admitted, were not
more nonplussed than Judge Mullowny admitted the Court was. She said:
You sentence us to jail for a few days, then you sentence us to the
workhouse for thirty days, then sixty, and then you suspend
sentence. Sometimes we are accused of carrying seditious banners,
then of obstructing traffic. How do you expect us to see any
consistency in the law, or in your sentences?
The Court smiled, and pronounced an additional thirty days, saying:
“First, you will serve six months, and then you will serve one month
more.”
* * * * *
Alice Paul had been in jail ever since October 20. When the news first
got out, women came from all over the country to join the picket forces.
It was decided that on November 10, forty-one women should go out on the
picket line as a protest against her imprisonment. But on the night of
November 9, these forty-one women—accompanied by sympathizers and
friends—went down to the jail where their leader was confined.
Headquarters had heard from Alice Paul from time to time, and Alice Paul
had heard from Headquarters—by means of a cleaning-woman in the jail. In
her _Jailed for Freedom_, Doris Stevens tells how she went down to the
jail and talked to Alice Paul from the yard. Catherine Flanagan and Mrs.
Sophie Meredith had communicated with her in this same manner. And once
Vida Milholland came and sang under her window. But this was the first
time that a deputation visited their imprisoned leader.
The house in which Warden Zinkham lived was close to the wing in which
Alice Paul was imprisoned. The leader of the delegation, Katherine
Morey, accompanied by Catherine Flanagan, went to Zinkham’s door and
rang the bell; asked to see him. They were told that he was ill and
could not be seen. Immediately, the two girls gave a prearranged signal
to the silent crowd of pickets back of them. With one accord, they ran
and grouped themselves under Alice Paul’s window. Before the guards
could rush upon them and push them out of the yard, they had managed to
call up to her their names; the large sum of money which that day had
come into the Treasury; that forty-one of them would protest against her
imprisonment on the picket line the next day.
* * * * *
The next morning, the picket line of forty-one women marched from
Headquarters in five groups. The first was led by Mrs. John Winters
Brannan.
As usual, the pickets bore golden-lettered banners. As usual, they bore
purple, white, and gold flags. As usual, they walked slowly—always a
banner’s length apart. They moved over to Pennsylvania Avenue; took up
their silent statuesque position at the East and West gates of the White
House.
The thick stream of government clerks, hastening with home-going
swiftness, paused to look at them. Involuntarily they applauded the
women when they were arrested. This happened almost immediately, the
police hurrying the pickets into the line of waiting patrols. Suddenly
the crowd raised a shout:
“There come some more!”
The second picket line numbered ten women.
They also bore golden lettered banners. They also bore flags of purple,
white, and gold. They were arrested immediately.
The applause continued to grow and grow in volume.
Immediately a third group appeared, and after they had been arrested, a
fourth; and, on their arrest, a fifth. For half an hour a continuous
line of purple, white, and gold blazed its revolutionary path through
the grayness of the November afternoon.
Mary A. Nolan of Florida headed the fifth group of pickets. Little,
frail, lame, seventy years old, her gallantry elicited from the two
lines of onlookers applause, cheers, calls of encouragement.
“Keep right on!” one voice emerged from the noise. “You’ll make them
give it to you!”
The women of the first group were: Mrs. John Winters Brannan, Belle
Sheinberg, L. H. Hornesby, Paula Jakobi, Cynthia Cohen, M. Tilden
Burritt, Dorothy Day, Mrs. Henry Butterworth, Cora Weeks, Peggy Baird
Johns, Elizabeth Hamilton, Ella Guilford, Amy Juengling, Hattie Kruger.
The women of the second group were: Agnes H. Morey, Mrs. William Bergen,
Camilla Whitcomb, Ella Findeisen, Lou Daniels, Mrs. George Scott, Mrs.
Lawrence Lewis, Elizabeth McShane, Kathryn Lincoln.
The women of the third group were: Mrs. William Kent, Alice Gram, Betty
Gram, Mrs. R. B. Quay, Mrs. C. T. Robertson, Eva Decker, Genevieve
Williams.
The women of the fourth group were: Mrs. Charles W. Barnes, Kate
Stafford, Mrs. J. H. Short, Mrs. A. N. Beim, Catherine Martinette.
The women of the fifth group were: Mrs. Harvey Wiley, Alice Cosu, Mary
Bartlett Dixon, Julia Emory, Mary A. Nolan, Lucy Burns.
The forty-one women were tried on November 12. They were charged with
“obstructing traffic,” and pleaded “Not Guilty.” The police sergeants
and plain-clothes men gave their testimony which was refuted absolutely
by witnesses for the defendants—Helena Hill Weed, Olivia Dunbar
Torrence, Marie Manning Gasch, Mary Ingham.
Mrs. John Winters Brannan said:
The responsibility for an agitation like ours against injustice
rests with those who deny justice, not those who demand it. Whatever
may be the verdict of this Court, we shall continue our agitation
until the grievance of American women is redressed.
Mrs. Harvey Wiley said:
I want to state that we took this action with great consecration of
spirit. We took this action with willingness to sacrifice our
personal liberty in order to focus the attention of the nation on
the injustice of our disfranchisement, that we might thereby win
political liberty for all the women of the country. The Constitution
says that Congress shall not in any way abridge the right of
citizens peacefully to assembly and petition. That is exactly what
we did. We peacefully assembled and then proceeded with our petition
to the President for the redress of our grievance of
disfranchisement. The Constitution does not specify the form of
petition. Ours was in the form of a banner. To say that we “broke
traffic regulations” when we exercised our constitutional right of
petition is therefore unconstitutional.
Judge Mullowny admitted the embarrassment of the Administration.
“The trouble of the situation is that the Court has not been given power
to meet it,” he complained. “It is very, very puzzling.”
A little after three o’clock, he dismissed the pickets without imposing
sentence. He said he would take the case under advisement.
* * * * *
An hour later, twenty-seven of the women who had just been tried—with,
in addition, Mrs. William L. Colt, Elizabeth Smith, Matilda Young, Hilda
Blumberg—emerged from Headquarters. They walked twice up and down in
front of the White House before they took their places at the gates.
The police were dumbfounded by their unexpected onslaught. There were no
patrols waiting. But they pulled themselves together, arrested the
pickets, and commandeered cars in which to take them to the police
headquarters.
The thirty-one women were ordered to appear in court on November 14.
There, after waiting all the morning, Judge Mullowny told them to come
back Friday.
At Headquarters, it was believed that this was not only a challenge to
the quality of their spirit, but to the degree of their patience.
Many women had come from a long distance to make this protest. Not all
could spare the time, money, and vitality. Their answer to that
challenge was instant and convincing. On the afternoon of November 13,
the picket line went out again—thirty-one of them.
The pickets blazed their way through dense, black throngs. The crowd was
distinctly friendly.
Suddenly one of the banners disappeared; another and another until six
of them were destroyed; the bare poles proceeded on their way however.
The same person accomplished all this—the uniformed yeoman who dragged
Alice Paul across thirty feet of pavement on August 15. But this time,
the crowd—friendly—manifested its disapproval, and the police arrested
him. The pickets stood for a long time, their line stretching from gate
to gate, until they began to think that the Administration had changed
its tactics. Then suddenly the patrol wagon gong sounded in the
distance. Presently they were all arrested.
Many of the pickets had been tried the day before. As their bail had not
been refunded, they refused to give more. They were kept that night in
the house of detention. As this institution had but two rooms with eight
beds each, some of the women slept on the floor. They were tried and
sentenced the next day. One of them—the aged Mrs. Nolan—got six days,
three fifteen days, twenty-four thirty days, two—Mrs. Lawrence Lewis and
Mrs. John Winters Brannan—sixty days, and one—Lucy Burns—six months.
It was this group of women who went through the Night of Terror,
subsequently to be described.
* * * * *
On November 17, three more women—Mrs. Harvey Wiley, Mrs. William Kent,
and Elizabeth McShane—were sentenced to fifteen days on the November 10
charges.
All these prisoners except four were sent to the Occoquan Workhouse.
Habeas corpus proceedings became necessary—owing to conditions which
will presently be set forth—and a writ was procured; but only after
numberless obstacles were surmounted. The case came up in the United
States District Court at Alexandria, Virginia, with Judge Edmund Waddill
sitting. Judge Waddill ordered the prisoners transferred to the jail on
the ground that they should have been confined there instead of at
Occoquan Workhouse. Later the Court of Appeals reversed this decision.
In the meantime, brought to the jail, the government was faced with the
necessity of forcibly feeding the majority of these women, already
weakened from hunger-striking.
Here, perhaps, is the place to tell of a curious incident that happened
during Alice Paul’s jail term. For this to strike the reader with the
force it deserves, he must remember that Alice Paul was held almost
incommunicado, that she saw but two friends from the outside, and then
only for a few minutes, that she could not confer with her counsel,
Dudley Field Malone, who had to overcome extraordinary obstacles—had
finally to threaten habeas corpus proceedings and to see high officials
who were his personal friends—to get to her. Two newspaper men were
admitted, but they were friendly to the Administration.
One evening, at nine o’clock—an hour when all the prisoners were
supposed to be in bed—the door opened and a stranger entered her room.
He proved to be David Lawrence, a newspaper man, very well known as one
who was closely associated with the Administration. He did not say that
he had come from the Administration, but, of course, it is obvious that
if he had not been in favor with the Administration, he would not have
been admitted. He stayed two hours, and Miss Paul talked over the
situation with him.
I now quote Miss Younger, who has told this episode on many platforms:
He asked Miss Paul how long she and the other pickets would give the
Administration before they began picketing again. She said it would
depend upon the attitude the Administration and Congress seemed to
be taking toward the Federal Amendment. He said he believed the
prohibition bill would be brought up and passed, and after that was
out of the way the Suffrage bill would be taken up.
He asked if we would be content to have it go through one House this
session and wait till the next session for it to pass the other
House. Miss Paul said that if the bill did not go through both
Houses this session, the Woman’s Party would not be satisfied.
Then the man said he believed that the President would not mention
Suffrage in his message at the opening of Congress, but would make
it known to the leaders of Congress that he wanted it passed and
would see that it passed.
He said in effect: Now the great difficulty is for these
hunger-strikers to be recognized as political prisoners. Every day
you hunger-strike, you advertise the idea of political prisoners
throughout the country. It would be the easiest thing in the world
for the Administration to treat you as political prisoners; to put
you in a fine house in Washington; give you the best of food; take
the best of care of you; but if we treat you as political prisoners,
we would have to treat other groups which might arise in opposition
to the war program as political prisoners too, and that would throw
a bomb in our war program. It would never do. It would be easier to
give you the Suffrage Amendment than to treat you as political
prisoners.
On November 27 and 28, a few days after Miss Paul’s strange
experience—suddenly, quite arbitrarily, and with no reason assigned—the
government released all the Suffrage prisoners.
The speakers of the Woman’s Party began telling this story of the visit
to Alice Paul’s cell, everywhere. It finally appeared in the _Milwaukee
Leader_ and in the _San Francisco Bulletin_ in an article written by
John D. Barry. The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage
immediately questioned the truth of this episode.
Congress reconvened on December 3. The President, true to David
Lawrence’s prophecy, did not mention Suffrage in his message to
Congress. However, on January 9, 1918, on the evening of the victorious
vote in the House—as will subsequently and in more detail again be
told—the President declared for the Federal Amendment.
Minnie Bronson, the General Secretary of the National Association
Opposed to Woman Suffrage, immediately sent Alice Paul a letter of
apology for questioning the truth of her statement. In that letter, she
repeats Maud Younger’s statement in regard to this visit to Alice Paul
in prison, and says:
The inference contained in this article that the President of the
United States would under cover assist a proposition which he had
publicly and unqualifiedly repudiated, seemed to us unworthy of his
high office, and we felt justified in defending him from what seemed
an unwarranted and unbelievable accusation.
However, the President’s subsequent public support of the Federal
Suffrage Amendment, his announcement coming on the eve of the vote
in the House of Representatives, indicates the truth of your
original assertion, and we therefore deem it incumbent upon
ourselves to apologize for having questioned Miss Younger’s
statement.
We are sending a copy of this letter to the President and members of
Congress.
Very truly yours,
MINNIE BRONSON.
Perhaps a word should be said of description—and even of explanation—in
regard to the crowds who harried the Suffragists. Of course, in all
crowds there is a hoodlum element, and if that element is not held down
by the police, it rapidly becomes the controlling power; tends to become
more and more destructive. The police, as has been indicated from time
to time, adopted various policies. At first, they maintained order. Then
they began to permit the rowdy element in the crowds to do as it
pleased. Later, they even worked with these destructive forces.
Men were heard to say, one to another, “Stick around here. Something’s
going to happen this afternoon. I saw it this morning.” To them, of
course, it was merely an entertaining exhibition.
[Illustration: OBEYING ORDERS. WASHINGTON POLICE ARRESTING WHITE HOUSE
PICKETS BEFORE THE TREASURY BUILDING.
Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.]
[Illustration: THE PATROL WAGON WAITING THE ARRIVAL OF THE SUFFRAGE
PICKETS.
Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.]
An enlisting sergeant used often to make his way through the crowds
saying, “Now you have shown your spirit, boys, come and enlist!”
At all times, however, the people who annoyed, and later ill-treated the
girls, were very young men—often in uniform. After a while there
appeared men in plain clothes with groups of men in khaki, or yeomen,
who were obviously in the crowd for the purpose of making trouble for
the Suffragists. These people did not like cameras, and the moving
picture people who, appreciating the news value of the situation, tried
to get views of the crowd, did so at the risk of having their cameras
smashed. Indeed, Helena Hill Weed once dispersed a crowd by pointing a
camera at them. This was the worst element the pickets had to deal
with—unthinking young men of a semi-brutalized type. Of course, boys
took their cue from their elders, and snatched or destroyed banners
where they could. After a demonstration, you would come across groups of
them, marching with the tattered banners that they had managed to steal.
“When is the shooting going to begin?” one little boy was heard to ask
once.
In the very midst of the riots, one would come across older men cutting
up banners into small pieces which they gave away as souvenirs.
Of course, there were chivalrous spirits who protested against the
treatment of the pickets by the police—protested even after they were
threatened with arrest. Some of them were actually arrested, and one of
them fined.
Often—very often indeed—the waiting crowds broke into spontaneous
applause when group after group marched from Headquarters into the
certainty of arrest. Those who were Anglo-Saxons inevitably admired the
sporting quality of these women.
Perhaps a negro street sweeper summed it up better than anybody else. He
said: “I doan know what them women want, but I know they ain’t skeered!”
The reader is probably asking by this time what was the effect of the
picketing on the Woman’s Party itself. The first reaction was exactly
what he would guess—that members resigned in large numbers. The second,
however, was one which he might not expect—that new members joined in
large numbers. In other words, the militant action which alienated some
women brought others into the organization; women who were aroused by
the simple and immediate demands of the Woman’s Party and by the courage
and the forthrightness with which it pushed those demands; women who had
become impatient at the _impasse_ to which the older generation of
Suffrage workers had brought the Suffrage Amendment. The majority of the
people who deserted came back later.
As far as money was concerned, the effect was magical. In some months
during the picketing the receipts were double what they had been the
corresponding months of the previous year when there had been no
picketing. Once those receipts jumped as high as six times the normal
amount. This was what happened in England during the militant period.
4. _The Court and the Pickets_
“So long as you send women to prison for asking for justice, so long
will women be ready to go in such a cause.”
ANNE MARTIN to the judge before whom she was tried.
After Judge Waddill’s decision that the commitment of the pickets to
Occoquan was illegal, the pickets filed sixteen suits for damage. Eight
of these were against Whittaker, Superintendent of the Workhouse at
Occoquan, and his assistant, Captain Reams, on account of their brutal
treatment of the women while at Occoquan Workhouse. They were filed in
the United States Court for the Western District of Virginia at
Richmond. The other eight were against the Commissioners of the District
of Columbia and Superintendent Zinkham of the District Jail for the
unlawful transfer of the pickets to the institution of Whittaker at
Occoquan. These suits were filed in the Supreme Court of the District of
Columbia at Washington.
The appeals in the cases of two groups of women arrested August 23 and
28 came up in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on January 8,
1918, before Chief Justice Smyth, and Justices Robb and Van Orsdel.
Matthew O’Brien, of Washington, and Dudley Field Malone, of New York,
appeared for the Suffragists. Corporation Counsel Stevens conducted the
case for the government.
“Suppose,” suggested Justice Robb, “some upholders of Billy Sunday
should go out on the streets with banners on which were painted some
of Billy’s catch phrases, and should stand with their backs to the
fence, and a curious crowd gathered, some of whom created disorder
and threw stones at the carriers of the banners. Who should be
arrested, those who created the disorder, or the banner carriers?”
Mr. Stevens gave it as his opinion that both parties should be
arrested.
“Did I make myself clear that the banner carriers were perfectly
peaceful?” Justice Robb asked.
“When it is commonly known there is a forty-foot sidewalk there?”
Justice Van Orsdel reinforced him.
“Well, then,” observed Attorney O’Brien, when he answered Mr.
Stevens in his argument, “the honorable Justices obstruct traffic,
according to learned counsel’s definition, when court adjourns, and
they walk down the street together.”
On March 4, Judge Van Orsdel handed down the opinion, which was
concurred in by the other two judges of the court, that in the case of
those pickets who appealed, no information had been filed justifying
their arrest and sentence. Since the offense of every other picket who
was arrested was identical with that of these twelve who appealed their
case, they were all illegally arrested, illegally convicted and
illegally imprisoned. The Appellate Court thus reversed the decision of
the District Police Court. In addition, it ordered the cases dismissed.
All of the costs involved in the cases, it was decided, should be paid
by the Court of the District of Columbia, for which an appropriation
would have to be made by Congressional enactment.
Later, the case of Mrs. Harvey Wiley came up. It will be remembered that
Mrs. Wiley was one of the forty-three women who picketed the President
on November in the last picket line demonstration. She was sentenced to
serve fifteen days in the District Jail. Dr. Wiley, her husband,
appealed her case. Early in April the Court decided that there was no
information filed justifying her arrest. So that she also was illegally
arrested, illegally convicted, and illegally imprisoned.
Yet in spite of the brutalities to which the Courts sentenced the
pickets, unconsciously they furthered the Suffrage cause. The women
turned the Court sessions into Suffrage meetings. In defending their
case at one of the early trials, the pickets, each taking up the story
where the other left it, told the entire history of the Suffrage
movement. Crowds thronged the Court. People attended these trials who
had never been to a Suffrage meeting in their lives.
5. _The Strange Ladies_
THE EMPTY CUP
Evening at Occoquan. Rain pelts the workhouse roof. The prison
matrons are sewing together for the Red Cross. The women prisoners
are going to bed in two long rows. Some of the Suffrage pickets lie
reading in the dim light. Through the dark, above the rain, rings
out a cry.
We listen at the windows. (Oh, those cries from punishment cells!) A
voice calls one of us by name. “Miss Burns! Miss Burns! Will you see
that I have a drink of water?” Lucy Burns arises; slips on the
coarse blue prison gown. Over it her swinging hair, red-gold, throws
a regal mantle.
She begs the night-watch to give the girl water. One of the matrons
leaves her war-bandages; we see her hasten to the cell. The light in
it goes out. The voice despairing cries: “She has taken away the cup
and she will not bring me water.” Rain pours on the roof. The
Suffragists lie awake. The matrons work busily for the Red Cross.
KATHERINE ROLSTON FISHER, _The Suffragist_, October 17, 1917.
WOMAN’S PARTY SONG
_Composed in Prison by the Suffrage Pickets_
SHOUT THE REVOLUTION OF WOMEN
Tune (Scotch):
“Charlie Is My Darling.”
Shout the Revolution
Of Women, of Women,
Shout the Revolution
Of Liberty.
Rise, glorious women of the earth,
The voiceless and the free,
United strength assures the birth
Of True Democracy.
Invincible our army,
Forward, forward,
Strong in faith we’re marching
To Victory.
Shout the Revolution
Of Women, of Women,
Shout the Revolution
Of Liberty.
Men’s revolutions born in blood
But ours conceived in peace
We hold a banner for a sword,
’Til all oppression cease,
Prison, death defying,
Onward, onward,
Triumphant daughters marching
To Victory.
The preceding two chapters have been concerned mainly with the treatment
of the pickets at the hands of the law. We now approach a much graver
matter—their treatment at the hands of the prison authorities. This
chapter describes what is one of the most disgraceful episodes in the
history of the United States. It is futile to argue that what happened
in the District Jail and at Occoquan Workhouse, and later at the
abandoned Workhouse, was unknown to the Administration. The Suffragists,
indeed, published it to the entire country. That the treatment to which
the pickets were subjected was the result of orders from above is almost
demonstrable. It must be remembered that the officials who are
responsible for what happened to the pickets—the three Commissioners who
govern the District of Columbia, the police court judges, the Chief of
Police, the warden of the jail, the superintendent of Occoquan
Workhouse, are directly or indirectly answerable to the President.
* * * * *
When the first pickets came out of prison (arrested on June 27, 1917),
their spirit was that of women who have willingly gone to jail for a
cause—and was in consequence entirely without self-pity.
In a speech at a breakfast tendered them in the garden at Headquarters,
Mabel Vernon sounded this note:
_I_ do not want any one here to think we have been martyrs because
of this jail experience we have had. There was no great hardship
connected with it. It was a very simple thing to do—to be imprisoned
for three days, really two nights and a day. Do not think we have
gone through any great sacrifices.
But I do not feel patient about this experience. I do not want to go
back to jail, and I do not want others to go, _because it should not
be necessary_.
The jail in which the women were first imprisoned was the conventional
big white-washed octagonal building with wings at both sides. This was
as filthy then as any place could be. The bathroom, with its shower was
a damp, dank, dark place. The jail was filled with vermin and rats.
Julia Emory said that, in the night, prisoners could actually hear the
light cell chairs being moved, so big and strong were the rats. The
prisoners complained so constantly that finally the prison officials put
poison about; but this did not decrease them. Then they brought a dog,
but the dog was apparently afraid of the rats. The girls used to hear
the matrons telling visitors that they had got rid of the rats by means
of this dog. One night, Julia Emory beat three rats in succession off
her bed. Alice Paul says that among her group of jailed pickets was one
whose shrieks nightly filled the jail as the rats entered her cell.
On July 17, however, when the sixteen women charged with obstructing
traffic went to Occoquan Workhouse, things got much worse. Occoquan is
charmingly situated, and, judged superficially, seems a model
institution. It consists of a group of white buildings placed in a
picturesque combination of cultivated fields with distant hills. All
about lie the pleasant indications of rural life—crops; cows grazing;
agricultural implements; even flower gardens. The District Jail cannot
compare with it for charm of situation. It has not even a pretense of
the meretricious effect of cleanliness which Occoquan shows.
Nevertheless, no picket who went to Occoquan emerged without a sinister
sense of the horror of the place. Lucy Burns, of whom it may almost be
said that she knows no fear, confesses that at Occoquan she suffered
with nameless and inexplicable terrors. This evidence is all the more
strange because, I reiterate, Occoquan has an effect of cleanliness, of
open air, of comfort; almost of charm. One reason for this sinister
atmosphere was that no question the pickets put was ever answered
directly. If they asked to see Superintendent Whittaker, he was always
out—they could see him tomorrow. If they made a request, it would be
granted to them in two days, or next week. The women’s ward was a long,
clean, sunny, airy room with two rows of beds—like a hospital ward. Here
they put colored prisoners to sleep in the same room with the
Suffragists. Moreover, they set the Suffragists to paint the lavatories
used by the colored women. The matron who handled the bedclothes was
compelled to wear rubber gloves, but the Suffragists were permitted no
such luxury—even in painting the lavatories. Indeed, often they slept in
beds in which the blankets had not been changed or cleaned since the
last occupant. It seemed a part of their premeditated system in the
treatment of the Suffragists that they made them all undress in the same
bathroom, and, without any privacy, take shower baths one after another.
The punishment cells, of which later we shall hear in reference to the
Night of Terror, were in another building. These were tiny brick rooms
with tiny windows, very high up.
A young relative of one of the jail officials, in the uniform of an
officer of the United States Army, used to come into this building at
night, and look in through the undraped grating of these cells. Once he
unlocked the door, and came into a room where two young pickets were
sleeping. “Are you a physician?” one of them had the presence of mind to
ask.
He answered that he was not. She lay down, and covered her head with the
bedclothes. Presently he left.
There were open toilets in all these cells, and they could only be
flushed from the outside. It was necessary always to call a man guard to
do this. They came, or not, as they pleased.
In the _Suffragist_ of July 28, 1917, occurs the first account of
Occoquan, by Mrs. Gilson Gardner. Mrs. Gardner, it will be remembered,
was one of that early group of sixteen pickets whom the President
pardoned after three days.
She says:
The short journey on the train was pleasant and uneventful. From the
station at Occoquan the women sent to the Workhouse were put into
three conveyances; two were filled with white women and the third
with colored women. In the office of the Workhouse we stood in a
line and one at a time were registered and given a number. The
matron called us by number and first name to the desk. Money and
jewelry were accounted for and put in the safe. We were then sent to
the dining-room. The meal of soup, rye bread, and water was not
palatable....
From the dining-room we were taken to the dormitory. At one end of
the long room, a white woman and two colored women were waiting for
us. Before these women we were obliged, one by one, to remove all
our clothing, and after taking a shower bath, put on the Workhouse
clothes. These clothes consisted of heavy unbleached muslin chemises
and drawers, a petticoat made of ticking, and a heavy dark gray
cotton mother hubbard dress. The last touch was a full, heavy, dark
blue apron which tied around the waist. The stockings were thick and
clumsy. There were not enough stockings, and those of us who did not
have stockings during our sojourning there were probably rather
fortunate. We were told to wear our own shoes for the time being, as
they did not have enough in stock. The one small rough towel that
was given to us we were told must be folded and tucked into our
aprons. The prisoners were permitted to have only what they could
carry.
The dormitory was clean and cool and we longed to go to bed, but we
were told we must dress and go into the adjoining room where
Superintendent Whittaker would see us. Mr. Whittaker brought with
him a man whom we afterward learned was a newspaper man. The
superintendent informed us that for about an hour we could do as we
chose, and pointing to the piano said that we might play and sing.
The piano was not unlocked while we were there, but that night no
one had a desire to sing. Although Mr. Whittaker’s words were few
and not unpleasant, we realized that our presence did not cause him
either embarrassment or regret.
We were told that one dormitory was given up to colored women; in
the other one, the one in which we were to sleep, there would be
both colored and white women. We had asked to be allowed to have our
toilet things and were told we could not have them until the next
morning, that is, we would be permitted to have our combs and
toothbrushes then. But we were not permitted to have these until
Thursday. One woman told us we must not lend our comb to other
prisoners and must not mingle with the colored women....
The days were spent in the sewing-room. We were permitted to talk in
low tones, two or three being allowed to sit together. While we were
there, the sewing was very light. We turned hems on sheets and
pillow slips and sewed on the machine. There were both white and
colored women working in the sewing-room. The work was monotonous
and our clothing extremely heavy.
The great nervous strain came at meal time. All the women ate in one
big room. The white women sat at one side. The meal lasted thirty
and sometimes forty minutes. The food to us was not palatable, but
we all tried to be sensible and eat enough to keep up our strength.
The real problem, however, was not the food; it was the enforced
silence. We were not allowed to speak in the dining-room, and after
a conscientious effort to eat, the silent waiting was curiously
unpleasant....
The use of the pencil is forbidden at all times. Each inmate is
permitted to write but two letters a month, one to her family and
one business letter. All mail received and sent is opened and read
by one of the officials. Next to our longing for our own toilet
articles was our desire for a pencil and a scrap of paper. Another
rule which makes life in the Workhouse more difficult than life in
the jail is that the Workhouse prisoners are not permitted to
receive any food sent in from outside.
We found that the other prisoners were all amazed at the excessive
sentences we had received. Old offenders, they told us, received
only thirty days.
In the _Suffragist_ of August 11, Doris Stevens, who was a member of the
same group says:
No woman there will ever forget the shock and the hot resentment
that rushed over her when she was told to undress before the entire
company, including two negress attendants and a harsh-voiced
wardress, who kept telling us that it was “after hours,” and they
“had worked too long already today,” as if it were our fault that we
were there. We silenced our impulse to resist this indignity, which
grew more poignant as each woman nakedly walked across the great
vacant space to the doorless shower....
“We knew something was goin’ to happen,” said one negro girl,
“because Monday,” (we were not sentenced until Tuesday) “the clo’es
we had on were took off us and we were given these old patched ones.
We was told they wanted to take stock, but we heard they were being
washed for you-all Suffragists.”
It will be remembered that this was that early group of pickets whom the
President pardoned after the appeals of J. A. H. Hopkins, Dudley Field
Malone, and Gilson Gardner. Before leaving they were taken to
Superintendent Whittaker.
Asking for the attention of Miss Burns and the rest of them, he said:
“_Now that you are going, I have something to say to you._” And
turning to Miss Burns, he continued, “_And I want to say it to you.
The next lot of women who come here won’t be treated with the same
consideration that these women were._”
Mrs. Virginia Bovee, an officer of Occoquan Workhouse, was discharged in
September. At that time Lucy Burns filed charges with Commissioner
Brownlow of the District of Columbia concerning conditions in the
Workhouse. Evidence is submitted on Whittaker’s brutal treatment of
other prisoners, but our concern must be with his treatment of the
Suffragists.
Lucy Burns says in that complaint:
The hygienic conditions have been improved at Occoquan since a group
of Suffragists were imprisoned there. But they are still bad. The
water they drink is kept in an open pail, from which it is ladled
into a drinking cup. The prisoners frequently dip the drinking cup
directly into the pail.
The same piece of soap is used for every prisoner. As the prisoners
in Occoquan are sometimes afflicted with disease, this practice is
appallingly negligent.
Mrs. Bovee’s affidavit reads in part:
The blankets now being used in the prison have been in use since
December without being washed or cleaned. Blankets are washed once a
year. Officers are warned not to touch any of the bedding. The one
officer who has to handle it is compelled by the regulations to wear
rubber gloves while she does so. The sheets for the ordinary
prisoners are not changed completely, even when one has gone and
another takes her bed. Instead, the top sheet is put on the bottom,
and one fresh sheet given them. I was not there when these
Suffragists arrived, so I do not know how their bedding was
arranged. I doubt whether the authorities would have dared to give
them one soiled sheet.
The prisoners with diseases are not always isolated, by any means.
In the colored dormitory there are now two women in advanced stages
of consumption. Women suffering from syphilis, who have open sores,
are put in the hospital. But those whose sores are temporarily
healed are put in the same dormitory with the others. There have
been several such in my dormitory.
When the prisoners come, they must undress and take a shower bath.
For this they take a piece of soap from a bucket in the storeroom.
When they have finished, they throw the soap back in the bucket. The
Suffragists are permitted three showers a week, and have only these
pieces of soap which are common to all inmates. There is no soap at
all in the washrooms.
The beans, hominy, rice, corn meal (which is exceedingly coarse,
like chicken feed), and cereal have all had worms in them. Sometimes
the worms float on top of the soup. Often they are found in the corn
bread. The first Suffragists sent the worms to Whittaker on a spoon.
On the farm is a fine herd of Holsteins. The cream is made into
butter, and sold to the tuberculosis hospital in Washington. At the
officers’ table, we have very good milk. The prisoners do not have
any butter, or sugar, and no milk except by order of the doctor.
As time went on and great numbers of pickets were arrested, more and
more indignities were put on them. They were, in every sense, political
prisoners, and were entitled to the privileges of political prisoners.
In all countries distinction is made in the treatment of political
prisoners. Of course, the hope of the Administration was that these
degrading conditions would discourage the picketing, and, of course, the
results were—as has happened in the fight for liberty during the whole
history of mankind—that more and more women came forward and offered
themselves.
In the _Suffragist_ for October 13, 1917 (“From the Log of a Suffrage
Picket”), Katherine Rolston Fisher writes the following:
Upon entering Occoquan Workhouse, we were separated from the
preceding group of Suffragists. Efforts were made by the officers to
impress us by their good will towards us. Entirely new clothing,
comfortable rooms in the hospital, and the substitution of milk and
buttered toast for cold bread, cereal, and soup, ameliorated the
trials of the table. The head matron was chatty and confidential.
She told us of the wonderful work of the superintendent in creating
these institutions out of the wilderness and of the kindness shown
by the officers to inmates. She lamented that some of the other
Suffragists did not appreciate what was done for them....
“Why are we segregated from all the white prisoners?” I asked the
superintendent of the Workhouse. Part of the time we were not
segregated from the colored prisoners, a group of whom were moved
into the hospital and shared with us the one bathroom and toilet.
“That is for your good and for ours,” was the bland reply....
That was quite in the tone of his answer to another inquiry made
when the superintendent told me that no prisoner under
punishment—that is, in solitary confinement—was allowed to see
counsel. “Is that the law of the District of Columbia?” I inquired.
“It is the law here because it is the rule I make,” he replied.
We learned what it is to live under a one-man law. The doctor’s
orders for our milk and toast and even our medicine were
countermanded by the superintendent, so we were told. Our counsel
after one visit was forbidden, upon a pretext, to come again.
On Tuesday, September 18, we were made to exchange our new gingham
uniforms for old spotted gray gowns covered with patches upon
patches; were taken to a shed to get pails of paint and brushes, and
were set to painting the dormitory lavatories and toilets. By this
time we were all hungry and more or less weak from lack of food. A
large brush wet with white paint weighs at least two pounds. Much of
the work required our standing on a table or stepladder and reaching
above our heads. I think the wiser of us rested at every
opportunity, but we did not refuse to work.
All this time we had been without counsel for eight days....
The food, which had been a little better, about the middle of the
month reached its zenith of rancidity and putridity. We tried to
make a sport of the worm hunt, each table announcing its score of
weevils and worms. When one prisoner reached the score of fifteen
worms during one meal, it spoiled our zest for the game....
We had protested from the beginning against doing any manual labor
upon such bad and scanty food as we received....
Mrs. Kendall, who was the most emphatic in her refusal, was promptly
locked up on bread and water. The punishment makes a story to be
told by itself. It clouded our days constantly while it lasted and
while we knew not half of what she suffered....
All this time—five days—Mrs. Kendall was locked up, her pallid face
visible through the windows to those few Suffragists who had
opportunity and ventured to go to her window for a moment at the
risk of sharing her fate.
Ada Davenport Kendall’s story runs as follows:
For stating that she was too weak from lack of food to scrub a floor
and that the matron’s reply that there was no other work was
“hypocritical,” Mrs. Kendall was confined in a separate room for
four days for _profanity_. She was refused the clean clothing she
should have on the day of her confinement, and was therefore forced
to wear the same clothing for eleven days. She was refused a
nightdress, or clean linen for the bed in the room. The linen on her
bed was soiled from the last occupant and Mrs. Kendall lay on top of
it all. The only toilet accommodation consisted of an open pail.
Mrs. Kendall was allowed no water for toilet purposes during the
four days, and was given three thin slices of bread and three cups
of water a day. The water was contained in a small paper cup, and on
several occasions it seeped through.
Friends of Mrs. Kendall’s obtained permission to see her. She was then
given clean clothing, and taken from the room in which she was in
solitary confinement. When the door opened upon her visitors, she
fainted.
Aroused by an inspection of samples of food smuggled out to him by
Suffrage prisoners, Dr. Harvey Wiley, the food expert, requested the
Board of Charities to permit him to make an investigation of the food.
“A Diet of Worms won one revolution, and I expect it will win another,”
promulgated Dr. Wiley.
* * * * *
The most atrocious experience of the pickets at Occoquan was, however,
on the night known to them generally as _The Night of Terror_. This
happened to that group of Suffragists who were arrested on November 14,
sentenced to Occoquan, and who immediately went on hunger-strike as a
protest against not being treated as political prisoners and as the last
protest they could make against their imprisonment. Whittaker was away
when they arrived, and they were kept in the office which was in the
front room of one of the small cottages. Out of these groups there
always evolved a leader. If the group included the suave and determined
Lucy Burns, she inevitably took command. If it included Mrs. Lawrence
Lewis, equally velvet-voiced and immovable, she inevitably became
spokesman. This group included both. The Suffragists were then still
making their demand to be treated as political prisoners, and so, when
the woman at the desk—a Mrs. Herndon—attempted to ask the usual
questions, Mrs. Lewis, speaking for the rest, refused to answer them,
saying that she would wait and talk to Mr. Whittaker.
“You will sit here all night then,” said Mrs. Herndon.
The women waited for hours.
Mrs. Lewis always describes what follows as a sinister reversal of a
French tale of horror she read in her girlhood. In that story, people
began mysteriously to disappear from a group. One of them would be
talking one instant—the next he was gone; the space where he stood was
empty. In this case, slowly, silently, and in increasing numbers, men
began to appear from outside, three and then four.
Mrs. Herndon again tried to get the Suffragists to register, but they
made no reply.
“You had better answer up, or it will be the worse for you,” said one
man.
“I will handle you so you’ll be sorry you made me,” said another.
The Suffragists did not reply. Mrs. Nolan says that she could see that
Mrs. Herndon was afraid of what was going to happen.
Suddenly the door burst open, and Whittaker came rushing in from a
conference, it was later discovered, of the District of Columbia
Commissioners at the White House—followed by men—more and more of them.
The Suffragists had been sitting or lying on the floor. Mrs. Lewis stood
up.
“We demand to be treated as political pris——” she began. But that was as
far as she got.
“You shut up! I have men here glad to handle you!” Whittaker said.
“Seize her!”
Two men seized Mrs. Lewis, dragged her out of the sight of the remaining
Suffragists.
In the meantime, another man sprang at Mrs. Nolan, who, it will be
remembered, was over seventy years old, very frail and lame. She says:
I am used to being careful of my bad foot, and I remember saying: “I
will come with you; do not drag me. I have a lame foot.” But I was
dragged down the steps and away into the dark. I did not have my
feet on the ground. I guess that saved me.
It was black outside, and all Mrs. Nolan remembers was the approach to a
low, dark building from which, made brilliantly luminous by a window
light, flew the American flag.
As Mrs. Nolan entered the hall, a man in the Occoquan uniform,
brandishing a stick, called, “Damn you! Get in there!” Before she was
shot through this hall, two men brought in Dorothy Day,—a very slight,
delicate girl; her captors were twisting her arms above her head.
Suddenly they lifted her, brought her body down twice over the back of
an iron bench. One of the men called: “The damned Suffrager! My mother
ain’t no Suffrager! I will put you through hell!” Then Mrs. Nolan’s
captors pulled her down a corridor which opened out of this room, and
pushed her through the door.
Back of Mrs. Nolan, dragged along in the same way, came Mrs. Cosu, who,
with that extraordinary thoughtfulness and tenderness which the pickets
all developed for each other, called to Mrs. Nolan: “Be careful of your
foot!”
The bed broke Mrs. Nolan’s fall, but Mrs. Cosu hit the wall. They had
been there but a few minutes when Mrs. Lewis, all doubled over like a
sack of flour, was thrown in. Her head struck the iron bed, and she fell
to the floor senseless.
The other women thought she was dead. They wept over her.
Ultimately, they revived Mrs. Lewis, but Mrs. Cosu was desperately ill
all night, with a heart attack and vomiting. They were afraid that she
was dying, and they called at intervals for a doctor, but although there
was a woman and a man guard in the corridor, they paid no attention.
There were two mattresses and two blankets for the three, but that was
not enough, and they shivered all night long.
In the meantime, I now quote from Paula Jakobi’s account. We go back to
that moment in the detention room when they seized Mrs. Lewis.
“And seize her!” rang in my ears, and Whittaker had me by the arm.
“And her!” he said, indicating Dorothy Day. Miss Day resisted. Her
arm was through the handle of my bag. Two men pulled her in one
direction, while two men pulled me in the opposite direction. There
was a horrible mix-up. Finally, the string of the bag broke. Two men
dragged her from the room. I saw it was useless to resist. The man
at the right of me left me, and tightly grasped in the clutches of
the man at my left, I was led to a distant building.
When Julia Emory, who was rushed along just after Mrs. Jakobi, entered
the building, the two guards were smashing Dorothy Day’s back over the
back of a chair; she was crying to Paula Jakobi for help; and Mrs.
Jakobi, struggling with the other two guards, was trying to get to her.
They placed Julia Emory in a cell opposite Lucy Burns.
Of the scene in the reception room of the Workhouse, Mrs. John Winters
Brannan, who saw all this from a coign of vantage which apparently
surveyed the whole room, says:
I firmly believe that, no matter how we behaved, Whittaker had
determined to attack us as part of the government plan to suppress
picketing.... Its (the attack’s) perfectly unexpected ferocity
stunned us. I saw two men seize Mrs. Lewis, lift her from her feet,
and catapult her through the doorway. I saw three men take Miss
Burns, twisting her arms behind her, and then two other men grasp
her shoulders. There were six to ten guards in the room, and many
others collected on the porch—forty to fifty in all. These all
rushed in with Whittaker when he first entered.
Instantly the room was in havoc. The guards brought from the male
prison fell upon us. I saw Miss Lincoln, a slight young girl, thrown
to the floor. Mrs. Nolan, a delicate old lady of seventy-three, was
mastered by two men. The furniture was overturned, and the room was
a scene of havoc.
Whittaker in the center of the room directed the whole attack,
inciting the guards to every brutality.
The whole group of women were thrown, dragged, and hurled out of the
office, down the steps, and across the road and field to the
Administration Building, where another group of bullies was waiting
for us. The assistant superintendent, Captain Reams, was one of
these, armed with a stick which he flourished at us, as did another
man. The women were thrown roughly down on benches.
In the meantime, Lucy Burns, fighting desperately all the way, had been
deposited in a cell opposite.
As always, when she was arrested, she took charge of the situation. In
her clear, beautiful voice, she began calling the roll one name after
another, to see if all were there and alive. The guards called, “Shut
up!” but she paid no more attention to them than if they had not spoken.
“Where is Mrs. Lewis?” she demanded. Mrs. Cosu answered: “They have just
thrown her in here.” The guard yelled to them that if they spoke again,
he would put them in strait-jackets. Mrs. Nolan and Mrs. Cosu were so
terrified that they kept still for a while.
But Lucy Burns went right on calling the roll. When she refused—at the
guard’s orders—to stop this, they handcuffed her wrists and fastened the
handcuffs above her head to the cell door. They threatened her with a
buckle gag. Little Julia Emory could do nothing to help, of course, but
she put her hands above her head in exactly the same position and stood
before her door until they released Lucy Burns. Lucy Burns wore her
handcuffs all night.
Mrs. Henry Butterworth, for some capricious reason, was taken away from
the rest, and placed in a part of the jail where there were only men.
They told her that she was alone with the men, and that they could do
what they pleased with her. Her Night of Terror was doubly
terrifying—with this menace hanging over her.
For a description of the rest of that night, and of succeeding days, I
quote the account of Paula Jakobi:
I didn’t know at the time what happened to the other women. I only
knew that it was hell let loose with Whittaker as the instigator of
the horror. In the ante-chamber to the cells, some of the guards
were standing, swinging night sticks in a menacing manner. We were
thrust into cells; the ventilators were closed. The cells were
bitter cold. There was an open toilet in the corner of the cell,
which was flushed from the outside. We had to call a guard who had
previously attacked us to flush them. The doors were barred, there
were no windows. The doors were uncurtained, so that through the
night the guard could look into the cell. There was no light in the
room, only one in the corridor. Three of us were thrown into every
cell. There was a single bed in each room and a mattress on the
floor. The floors were filthy as were the blankets.
In the morning, we were roughly told to get up. No facilities for
washing were given us. Faint, ill, exhausted, we were ordered before
the superintendent. It was eight o’clock and we had had no food
since the preceding day at twelve. None had been offered us, nor
were any inquiries made about our physical condition. Whittaker
asked my name; then whether I would go to the Workhouse and obey
prison regulations and be under the care of the ladies. I told him I
would not. I would not wear prison clothes, and I demanded the
rights of political prisoners. He interrupted me with, “Then you’ll
go to the male hospital”—he emphasized the “male”—“and be in
solitary confinement. Do you change your mind?” I said “No!” and was
taken to the hospital by a trusty.
Then followed a series of bullying, of privileges, and of curtailing
them. The first day at three o’clock milk and bread were brought to
the room. After I refused it, it was taken away. That evening some
more milk and bread were brought. These were left in the room all
night. The second day toast and milk were brought. These were left
in the room all night. The third day the matron suggested an egg and
coffee for breakfast. I told her I did not want anything to eat.
This day at lunch time fried chicken and salad were brought in.
Later Miss Burns passed a note which read, “I think this riotous
feast which has just passed our doors is the last effort of the
institution to dislodge all of us who can be dislodged. They think
there is nothing in our souls above fried chicken.” No matter what
was offered, a glass of milk and piece of bread were left from meal
to meal, and once bouillon and bread was left.
The fast did not make me ill at this time, only weak. The second day
there was slight nausea and headache; the third day, fever and
dizziness; the fever remained, causing very dry, peeling skin and
swollen lips. By the third day, I was rather nervous—there were no
other manifestations except increasing weakness and aphasia. I could
remember no names, and it was quite impossible to read.
We were summoned so often and so suddenly from our rooms to see
Whittaker, or to have the rooms changed—we were in the same room
scarcely two consecutive nights—that one was never sure when she
would be searched and when the few remaining treasures would be
taken from us, so I hid stubs of pencils in my pillow, ripping the
ticking with a hairpin, and one pencil in the hem of the shade. The
dimes and nickels for the trusty I placed in a row over the sill of
the door, paper behind the steam radiator pipes. It was difficult to
find places to secrete anything, for the only furniture in the room
was a single iron bed and one chair. Notes to one another are passed
by tapping furtively on the steampipe running through the walls;
then, when the answer comes, passing the note along the pipe.
Everything is conducive to concealment.
The second day our writing materials were asked for (I did not give
up those I had hidden). Then we were summoned to Whittaker—each of
the hunger-strikers. (There were now seventeen of us.) He had a
stenographer with him. He asked my name; then, “Are you
comfortable?” His manner was quite changed; he was as civil as he
could be. I answered him with the little formula, “I demand the
right to be treated as a political prisoner. I am now treated as a
common criminal.”
He: If you have steak and vegetables, will you go to the Workhouse
and obey rules?
I: I will not.
He: If you will promise not to picket any more and to leave
Washington soon, I will let you go without paying any fine and I’ll
take you to Washington in my own automobile.
I: I will not promise this.
He: What is it you want?
I: The right to keep my own clothes, to have nourishing food
permanently, which will not be taken away and given back at your
will, the right to send and receive mail, and above all, the right
to see counsel and have fresh air exercise.
He: If I grant you all these things, will you go to the Workhouse
and work?
I: I will not.
He: Are the matrons and interns kind to you?
I: Yes.
He: What food is left in your room?
I: Chiefly bread and milk, once bouillon and toast.
He: Anything else?
I: No.
He: Have you any request?
I: That I receive the rights due me—those of a political prisoner.
Whittaker will use these interviews in expurgated form, I am sure.
When I said anything which did not please him, he said to the
stenographer, “You needn’t put that down.”
After the above interviews, he absolutely refused to let our counsel
who came from Washington see us.
After my visit to Whittaker this day, I was summoned to the
Workhouse. My clothes were listed—those I wore—before two matrons,
just as those of criminals are listed; then I was obliged to undress
before the two matrons and two trusties, walk to a shower, take a
bath, and dress before them in prison clothes. The clothes were
clean, but so coarse that they rubbed my skin quite raw. They have
two sizes of shoes for the prisoners—large and small.
The only message which reached me from “outside” was a telegram from
a friend asking that I allow my bail to be paid. I answered that I
would not. This day six girls in our section were taken away
“somewhere.” The sense of some unknown horror suddenly descending is
the worst of the whole situation. Whittaker’s suave manner was
interrupted for a moment this day when he came into the hospital
ward and saw Julia Emory in the corridor—she was returning from the
wash-room—and taking Julia by the neck he threw her into her cell.
“Get in there,” he snarled, or words to that effect.... I was coming
out of an adjoining wash-room at the moment, and saw this.
This night I had a most vivid dream. The interne brought in a
rabbit. He held it up and told us he would cook it for us. The
women—our women—did not wait for him to cook it, but rushed toward
him, pulled it from his hands, and tore the living animal into
pieces and ate it. I awoke, sobbing.
Next evening, there was great commotion in our corridor. The doors,
which did not lock, were held; there were rapid footsteps to and
fro. Distressed sounds came from the room adjoining mine, and soon
it was evident that Miss Burns was being forcibly fed. Half an hour
earlier, her condition was found normal by the doctor, who strolled
casually through our ward, looked in at the door, nodded, felt her
pulse, and went on. Now Miss Burns was being forcibly fed. What
could it mean? Then there were more hurried steps, and the men went
to Mrs. Lewis’s room. Fifteen minutes later, they were both hurried
into an ambulance and taken away—no one told us where. We had
visions accentuated that night, of being separated, hurried out of
sight to oblivion, somewhere away from every one we knew.
A detachment of the United States Marines guarded the place. The
prisoners were kept incommunicado. That meant, not only were they not
allowed visitors, but they were not allowed counsel—and counsel is one
of the inalienable rights of citizenship.
In the meantime at Headquarters, the Suffragists, under the leadership
of Doris Stevens, now that Alice Paul and Lucy Burns were both in
prison, could not even find out where the prisoners were. They had
received a jail sentence but were not in the District Jail. Katherine
Morey, in great anxiety in regard to her mother, who was one of the
prisoners, came from Boston to see her. She could not even locate her.
Finally, she hit on the device of meeting the morning train, on which
released prisoners always came from Occoquan, and one of them informed
her that her mother was at the Workhouse.
In the meantime, sixteen of the women had gone on a hunger-strike. They
were committed to Occoquan on Wednesday, November 14. By the following
Sunday, Superintendent Whittaker became alarmed. He declared he would
not forcibly feed any of them unless they signed a paper saying that
they themselves were responsible for any injury upon their health. Of
course, they all refused to do this, whereupon Superintendent Whittaker
said: “All right, you can starve.” However, by Sunday night, he was a
little shaken in this noble resolution. He went to Mrs. Lewis, and asked
her what could be done. Mrs. Lewis answered that all they asked was to
be treated as political offenders, which provided for exercise,
receiving of mail and visitors, buying food and reading matter. He asked
her to write this statement out in his name, as though he demanded it.
On Monday he brought the statement to the Commissioners of the District
of Columbia. Commissioner Gardner gave out a statement that such demands
would never be granted.
In the meantime too, Matthew O’Brien, the counsel for the Woman’s Party,
succeeded in getting an order from the Court which admitted him to
Occoquan. He saw Mrs. Lewis, Mrs. Brannan, and Miss Burns once; but
afterwards in spite of his Court order, they refused him admission.
It had been part of the system in attempting to lower Miss Burns’s
morale to take her clothes away from her. When Mr. O’Brien visited Miss
Burns she was lying on a cot in a dark cell, wrapped in blankets. He
came back to Headquarters filled with admiration for her extraordinary
spirit. He said that she was as much herself as if they were talking in
the drawing-room of Cameron House. Mrs. Nolan, released at the end of
her six day sentence, also brought the news of what happened back to
Headquarters. These were the things that made the Suffragists determine
on habeas corpus proceedings. Mr. O’Brien applied to the United States
District Court at Richmond for this writ. It was granted returnable on
November 27. Mr. O’Brien, however, afraid that, in combination with the
indignities to which they were being submitted, the women would collapse
from starvation, made another journey to Judge Waddill, who set the
hearing forward to the 23rd.
The next step was serving the writ on Superintendent Whittaker. This was
done by a ruse. On the night of the 21st, Mr. O’Brien called at
Superintendent Whittaker’s home. He was told that the Superintendent was
not there. Mr. O’Brien went not far away, and telephoned that he would
not return until the morning. Then he returned immediately to
Superintendent Whittaker’s home, found him there, of course, and served
the papers.
In the meantime, Superintendent Whittaker began to fear that Mrs.
Lawrence Lewis and Lucy Burns would die. Unknown to the other
prisoners—and thereby causing them the most intense anguish—he had them
taken to the hospital of the District Jail. They had been forcibly fed
at Occoquan, and the feeding was continued at the jail.
Mrs. Lewis writes:
I was seized and laid on my back, where five people held me, a young
colored woman leaping upon my knees, which seemed to break under the
weight. Dr. Gannon then forced the tube through my lips and down my
throat, I gasping and suffocating with the agony of it. I didn’t
know where to breathe from, and everything turned black when the
fluid began pouring in. I was moaning and making the most awful
sounds quite against my will, for I did not wish to disturb my
friends in the next room. Finally the tube was withdrawn. I lay
motionless. After a while I was dressed and carried in a chair to a
waiting automobile, laid on the back seat, and driven into
Washington to the jail hospital. Previous to the feeding I had been
forcibly examined by Dr. Gannon, I struggling and protesting that I
wished a woman physician.
Lucy Burns was fed through the nose. Her note, smuggled out of jail, is
as follows:
Wednesday, 12 M. Yesterday afternoon at about four or five, Mrs.
Lewis and I were asked to go to the operating room. Went there and
found our clothes. Told we were to go to Washington. No reason, as
usual. When we were dressed Dr. Gannon appeared, said he wished to
examine us. Both refused. Were dragged through halls by force, our
clothing partly removed by force, and we were examined, heart
tested, blood pressure and pulse taken. Of course such data was of
no value after such a struggle. Dr. Gannon told me that I must be
fed. Was stretched on bed, two doctors, matron, four colored
prisoners present, Whittaker in hall. I was held down by five people
at legs, arms, and head. I refused to open mouth, Gannon pushed the
tube up left nostril. I turned and twisted my head all I could, but
he managed to push it up. It hurts nose and throat very much and
makes nose bleed freely. Tube drawn out covered with blood.
Operation leaves one very sick. Food dumped directly into stomach
feels like a ball of lead. Left nostril, throat, and muscles of neck
very sore all night. After this I was brought into the hospital in
an ambulance. Mrs. Lewis and I placed in same room. Slept hardly at
all.
This morning Dr. Ladd appeared with his tube. Mrs. Lewis and I said
we would not be forcibly fed. Said he would call in men guards and
force us to submit. Went away and we not fed at all this morning. We
hear them outside now cracking eggs.
We resume Paula Jakobi’s account:
We were summoned two days later to appear at Alexandria jail next
day, Friday of that week—that would make nine days spent in the
Workhouse.
A writ of habeas corpus had been issued for our unjust imprisonment
at Occoquan when we had been sentenced to Washington jail. This day
I fainted. It was now seven and a half days since I had started
hunger-striking. Three young doctors came in to have a look at the
hunger-strikers. They did not take our pulse; they just gazed and
departed. Later in the day, I was told that I could not go to court
next day if I did not eat, as they would not take the responsibility
for my trip. They prepared to forcibly feed me. I concluded to eat
voluntarily, since I had to break my fast, so that evening I had a
baked potato and a baked apple. Next morning I ate no breakfast, but
was threatened with forcible feeding at noon if I did not eat, so I
ate again.
The next day we were taken to Alexandria Court House. There we found
out why Miss Burns and Mrs. Lewis had been taken away from Occoquan.
It was to prevent their appearance at Court, although it was shown
that Whittaker had been removed after he had received the writ of
habeas corpus. Our counsel pleaded for their appearance in Court.
The warden of the Washington jail, where they now were, was so
solicitous for their health that he feared to move them. Mr. Dudley
Field Malone asked him whether they were being forcibly fed. The
warden replied that they were. “How many men does it take to hold
Miss Burns?” Mr. Malone quietly questioned, “while she is being
forcibly fed?” Zinkham answered, “Four.” “Then, your Honor,” asked
Mr. Malone, “don’t you think that if it takes four men to hold Miss
Burns to give her forcible feeding, she is strong enough to appear
in Court?”
Next day, both Mrs. Lewis and Miss Burns were at the trial.
It was found that our detention in the Workhouse was illegal and we
were given our freedom on parole. I refused to accept it, and with
twenty-two other prisoners was taken to Washington jail to finish my
term of imprisonment.
The Suffragists were brought from Occoquan to the Court on November 23,
according to schedule. Their condition was shocking. They all showed in
their pallor and weakness the effect of the brutal régime to which they
had been subjected. The older women could hardly walk, and were
supported by their younger and stronger companions. When they reached
their chairs, they lay back in them, utterly worn out. Mrs. John Winters
Brannan collapsed, and had to be taken from the Courtroom.
As Paula Jakobi has stated, Judge Waddill decided that the thirty-one
Suffragists had been illegally committed to Occoquan Workhouse, and were
entitled to liberation on bail pending an appeal or the return to the
District Jail. Rose Winslow, it will be remembered, was tried at the
same time as Alice Paul and received a sentence of seven months. Here
are some extracts from the prison notes of Rose Winslow smuggled out to
friends:
The women are all so magnificent, so beautiful. Alice Paul is as
thin as ever, pale and large-eyed. We have been in solitary for five
weeks. There is nothing to tell but that the days go by somehow. I
have felt quite feeble the last few days—faint, so that I could
hardly get my hair combed, my arms ached so. But today I am well
again. Alice Paul and I talk back and forth though we are at
opposite ends of the building and a hall door also shuts us apart.
But occasionally—thrills—we escape from behind our iron-barred doors
and visit. Great laughter and rejoicing!...
I told about a syphilitic colored woman with one leg. The other one
was cut off, having rotted so that it was alive with maggots when
she came in. The remaining one is now getting as bad. They are so
short of nurses that a little colored girl of twelve, who is here
waiting to have her tonsils removed, waits on her. This child and
two others share a ward with a syphilitic child of three or four
years, whose mother refused to have it at home. It makes you
absolutely ill to see it. I am going to break all three windows as a
protest against their boarding Alice Paul with these!
Dr. Gannon is chief of a hospital. Yet Alice Paul and I found we had
been taking baths in one of the tubs here, in which this syphilitic
child, an incurable, who has his eyes bandaged all the time, is also
bathed. He has been here a year. Into the room where he lives came
yesterday two children to be operated on for tonsillitis. They also
bathed in the same tub. The syphilitic woman has been in that room
seven months. Cheerful mixing, isn’t it? The place is alive with
roaches, crawling all over the walls everywhere. I found one in my
bed the other day....
In regard to the forcible feeding, she said:
Yesterday was a bad day for me in feeding. I was vomiting
continually during the process. The tube has developed an irritation
somewhere that is painful....
I fainted again last night. I just fell flop over in the bathroom
where I was washing my hands, and was led to bed, when I recovered,
by a nurse. I lost consciousness just as I got there again. I felt
horribly faint until twelve o’clock, then fell asleep for awhile....
The same doctor feeds us both.... Don’t let them tell you we take
this well. Miss Paul vomits much. I do, too, except when I’m not
nervous, as I have been every time but one. The feeding always gives
me a severe headache. My throat aches afterward, and I always weep
and sob, to my great disgust, quite against my will. I try to be
less feeble-minded.
The final barbarity, however, in the treatment of the pickets came out
in the experience of Alice Paul. Of course, the Administration felt that
in jailing Alice Paul, they had the “ringleader.” That was true. What
they did not realize, however, was that they had also jailed the
inspired reformer, the martyr-type, who dies for a principle, but never
bends or breaks. Miss Paul was arrested, it will be remembered, on
October 20. The banner that she carried had, in the light of later
events, a grim significance. It bore President Wilson’s own words:
THE TIME HAS COME TO CONQUER OR SUBMIT. FOR US THERE
CAN BE BUT ONE CHOICE. WE HAVE MADE IT.
Her sentence was seven months.
“I am being imprisoned,” said Miss Paul as she was taken from the
District Police Court to the patrol wagon that carried her to jail, “not
because I obstructed traffic, but because I pointed out to President
Wilson the fact that he is obstructing the progress of justice and
democracy at home while Americans fight for it abroad.”
When Alice Paul reached the jail, she found ten other Suffragists who
had been brought there four days before from Occoquan. The air of this
jail was stifling. There were about seventy-five women prisoners locked
in three tiers of cells, and no window had been opened. The first appeal
of the Suffragists to Alice Paul was for air.
Alice Paul, not committed to her cell yet, looked about her. High up she
saw a little, round window with a rope hanging from it. She asked the
matron why they did not open the window. “If we started opening windows,
we should have to give the colored women more clothes,” the matron told
her.
With her usual promptness and decision Alice Paul crossed the corridor
and pulled the window open. There was no place to fasten the rope so she
stood there holding it. The matron called for the guards. Two of them,
unusually big and husky in comparison with Alice Paul’s ninety-five
pounds, tried to take the rope away. It broke in her hands, the window
closed, and the guards carried Miss Paul to her cell.
Alice Paul had brought, in the pocket of her coat, a volume of Browning.
Before they closed the door, she threw it with what Florence Boeckel
describes as a “desperate, sure aim,” through the window.
Miss Paul’s confrères say that it is amusingly symbolic of the
perfection of her aim in all things that she hit one of the little panes
of that far-away window. As the glass had not been repaired when the
Suffragists left jail, they had the pure air they demanded. They said
that the old-timers told them it was the first good air they had ever
smelled in jail.
Alice Paul and Rose Winslow went on hunger-strike at once. This strike
lasted three weeks and a day. The last two weeks they were forcibly fed.
Both women became so weak that they were finally moved to the hospital.
Two or three alienists with Commissioner Gardner were brought in to
examine Alice Paul. They usually referred to her in her presence as
“this case.” One of the alienists, visiting her for the first time, said
to the nurse, “Will this patient talk?” Alice Paul burst into laughter.
“Talk!” she exclaimed. “That’s our business to talk. Why shouldn’t we
talk?”
“Well, some of them don’t talk, you know,” the alienist said.
“Well, if you want me to talk——” Weak as she was, Miss Paul sat up in
bed and gave him a history of the Suffrage movement beginning just
before the period of Susan B. Anthony and coming down to that moment. It
lasted an hour. This alienist told the present writer that in his report
to the authorities he said in effect:
“There is a spirit like Joan of Arc, and it is as useless to try to
change it as to change Joan of Arc. She will die but she will never give
up.”
Alice Paul says that she realized after a while that the questions of
the alienists were directed towards establishing in her one of the
well-known insane phobias—the mania of persecution. The inquiries
converged again and again toward one point: “Did she think the President
personally responsible for what was occurring?” As it happened her
sincere conclusion in this matter helped in establishing their
conviction of her sanity. She always answered that she did not think the
President was responsible in her case—that he was perhaps uninformed as
to what was going on.
Notwithstanding the favorable report of the alienist, after a while they
removed Alice Paul from the hospital to the psychopathic ward. The
conditions under which she lived here are almost incredibly sinister. It
is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it was hoped that they would
affect Alice Paul’s reason; would certainly discredit the movement she
led by making the world believe that she was mentally unbalanced. The
room in which she was confined was big and square, pleasant enough. It
had two windows, one of which they boarded up. They took off the wooden
door and replaced it with a grated door. All day long patients—mentally
unbalanced—came to that door and peered in at her. All night long,
shrieks rang in her ears. Just before dawn would come an interval of
quiet, then invariably it was broken by the long, harrowing, ululating
cries of a single patient who kept this up for hours.
One of the alienists told the nurse to keep Miss Paul under observation.
This observation consisted of flashing a light in her face every hour
all night long. This—naturally—brought her with a start out of her
sleep. She averaged, she says, only a little sleep between flashes. Of
course one cannot but think that if she had been trembling on the verge
of insanity, this process would certainly have pushed her over the edge.
The women nurses were almost unfailingly kind and thoughtful. One
carried her kindness to the point of saying once, “You know, I don’t
think you are insane.” Alice Paul says, it was staggering to have people
express their friendliness for you by assuring you that they thought you
were in your right mind. The doctor who forcibly fed her protested
against having to do it. She was kept in the psychopathic ward a week
incommunicado. When it was discovered where she was, Dudley Field Malone
got her removed back to the hospital. Of course the forcible feeding
went on.
In the files at Headquarters, there are dozens of affidavits made by the
women who went to jail for picketing. It is a great pity that they
cannot all be brought to the attention of a newly enfranchised sex. More
burningly than anything else, these affidavits would show that sex what
work lies before them, as far as penal institutions are concerned. I
quote but one of them—that of Ada Davenport Kendall—because it sums up
so succinctly and specifically the things that the prison pickets saw.
I went into Occoquan Prison as a prisoner on September 13, 1917.
I went in with the idea of obeying the regulations and of being a
reasonable prisoner.
While there I saw such injustice, neglect, and cruelty on the part
of the officials that I was forced into rebellion.
During my thirty days’ imprisonment I saw that commissioners and
other officials made occasional visits but that the people in charge
were usually warned and used much deception on the occasion of these
visits. Specially prepared food replaced the wormy, fermenting, and
meager fare of ordinary days. Girls too frail to work were hurried
off the scrubbing and laundry gangs, and were found apparently
resting. Sick women were hidden. Girls were hurried out of
punishment cells as the visitors proceeded through the buildings,
and were hidden in linen rooms or rooms of matrons already
inspected.
While there I was treated with indignities. I was insulted by
loud-mouthed officials at every turn, was stripped before other
women, stripped of all toilet necessities, warm underwear, and
ordinary decencies, was deprived of soap, tooth-brush, writing
materials, and sufficient clothing and bed coverings. I was dressed
first in clean garments, but the officials later punished me by
putting me in unclean clothing and into a filthy bed in which a
diseased negress had slept. In the hospital I was obliged to use the
toilet which diseased negro women used, although there was a clean
unused toilet in the building.
With the four other women who were sentenced with me I was fed food
filled with worms and vile with saltpeter; food consisting of
cast-off and rotting tomatoes, rotten horse meat and insect-ridden
starches. There were no fats: no milk, butter, nor decent food of
any kind. Upon this fare I was put at hard labor from seven a.m.
until five p.m., with a short luncheon out. We were not allowed to
use the paper cups we had brought, but were forced to drink from an
open pail, from common cups.
After several days of driven labor this group was ordered to wash
the floors and clean the toilets in the dormitory for the colored
inmates. I protested for the whole group: said we would not do this
dangerous work. For this I was put in solitary confinement which
lasted for nearly seven days. Water was brought three times in the
twenty-four hours, in a small paper cup. Three thin slices of bread
were brought in twenty-four hours. Several times matrons with
attendants came in and threatened me and threw me about. They
searched me for notes or any writing, and threw me about and tore my
clothes. I was allowed no water for toilet, and the only toilet
convenience was an open bucket. No reading nor writing materials
were allowed. Mail was cut off, as it was nearly all of the time
while I was in prison. I was not allowed to see an attorney during
this period. The bed had been slept in and was filthy, and there was
no other furniture. After six days, influential friends were able to
reach my case from outside the prison, and I was taken out of
solitary confinement.
While in prison I heard men and women crying for help, and heard the
sound of brutal lashes for long periods,—usually in the evening,
after visitors were not expected.
I saw a woman have a hemorrhage from the lungs at nine in the
morning—saw her lie neglected, heard the matrons refuse to call a
doctor; and at eleven saw the woman carry a tobacco pail filled with
water to scrub a floor; saw her bleeding while she was scrubbing,
and when she cried a matron scolded her.
Saw a young dope fiend who was insane run out of a door, and heard a
matron at the telephone order men to loose the bloodhounds upon this
girl in the dark. Soon heard the dogs howling and running about.
Saw men with fetters on legs being driven to and from work.
Saw matrons choke and shake girls.
Was continually disgusted with lack of fair play in the institution.
Inmates were set to spy upon the others, and were rewarded or
punished, as they played the game of the matrons.
Saw sick girls working in laundry. Saw diseased women sleeping,
bathing, and eating with other inmates.
Saw armed men driving prisoners to work.
Saw milk and vegetables shipped to Washington, and rotting
vegetables brought up from city market.
Saw unconscious women being brought from punishment cells.
Saw sick women refused medical help, and locked in the hospital
without attendance to suffer. Saw them refused milk or proper food.
Saw them refused rest, and once I saw the only medical attendant
kick at a complaining inmate and slam the office door in her face.
Found that while the institution was supposed to build and improve
inmates, they were ordinarily not allowed any recreation nor proper
cleanliness. No classes were held, and no teaching of any sort was
attempted. They were deprived of all parcels, and mail was usually
withheld both coming and going. Visitors and attorneys were held up,
and the prisoners usually absolutely shut away from help.
Found that no rules governing the rights of the prisoners had been
codified by the Congressional Committee responsible for the
institution, and was told by the superintendent that the prisoners
had no rights and that the superintendent could treat the inmates as
he liked.
Under that management, the matrons, while apparently ordinarily
decent and often making a good first impression, were found to be
brutal and unreasonable in their care of inmates.
The inmates were driven, abused, insulted. They were not allowed to
speak in the dining-room or workrooms or dormitories. It was a place
of chicanery, sinister horror, brutality, and dread.
No one could go there for a stay who would not be permanently
injured. No one could come out without just resentment against any
government which could maintain such an institution.
As has been told before Judge Waddill decided that the pickets had been
illegally transferred from the Jail to Occoquan and they were sent back
to the Jail. But between Occoquan and Jail occurred one night, in which
the pickets were released in the custody of Dudley Field Malone, their
counsel. They went immediately to Cameron House and broke their
hunger-strike—spent the evening before the fire, talking and sipping hot
milk. The next day they were committed to jail again and immediately
started a new hunger-strike.
The government, however, undoubtedly appalled by the protests that came
from all over the country, and perhaps, in addition, staggered at the
prospect of forcibly feeding so many women, released them all three days
later.
A mass-meeting was held at the Belasco Theatre early in December to
welcome them. The auditorium was crowded and there was an overflow
meeting of four thousand outside on the sidewalk. The police reserves,
who had so often, in previous months, come out to arrest pickets, now
came out to protect them from the thousands of people who gathered in
their honor. Elsie Hill addressed this overflow meeting, which shivered
in the bitter cold for over an hour, yet stayed to hear her story.
Inside, eighty-one women in white, all of whom had served in the Jail or
the Workhouse, carrying lettered banners and purple, white, and gold
banners, marched down the two center aisles of the theatre and onto the
stage. There were speeches by Mrs. Thomas Hepburn, Dudley Field Malone,
Mrs. William Kent, Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont, and Maud Younger. Then came an
interval in which money was raised. Two touching details were sums of
fifty cents and thirty cents pledged from Occoquan “because the
Suffragettes helped us so much down there.” And Mrs. John Rogers, Jr.,
on behalf of the pickets gave “tenderest thanks for this help from our
comrades in the Workhouse.”
Eighty-six thousand, three hundred and eighty-six dollars was raised in
honor of the pickets.
On that occasion, prison pins which were tiny replicas in silver of the
cell doors, were presented to each “prisoner of freedom.”
As Alice Paul appeared to receive her pin, Dudley Field Malone called,
“Alice Paul,” and the audience leaped to its feet; the cheers and
applause lasted until she disappeared at the back of the platform.
* * * * *
It is a poignant regret to the present author that she cannot go further
into conditions at the District Jail and at Occoquan in regard to the
other prisoners there. But that is another story and must be told by
those whose work is penal investigation. The Suffragists uncovered
conditions destructive to body and soul; incredibly inhumane! One of the
heart-breaking handicaps of the swift, intensive warfare of the pickets
was that, although they did much to ameliorate conditions for their
fellow prisoners, they could not make them ideal. Piteous appeal after
piteous appeal came to them from their “comrades in the Workhouse.”
“If we go on a hunger-strike, will they make things better for us?” the
other prisoners asked again and again.
“No,” the Suffragists answered sadly. “You have no organization back of
you.”
However, in whatever ways were open to them the Suffragists offered
counsel and assistance of all kinds.
* * * * *
I asked one of the pickets once how the other prisoners regarded them.
She answered: “They called us ‘the strange ladies.’”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
II
TELLING THE COUNTRY
IN the meantime, the country had not been kept misinformed or uninformed
in regard to the treatment of the pickets. Of course, the press teemed
with descriptions of their protests and its results. Again and again
their activities pushed war news out of the preferred position on the
front page of the newspapers. Again and again they snatched the
headlines from important personages and events. But despite flaming
headlines, these newspaper accounts were inevitably brief and
incomplete; sometimes unfair. The Woman’s Party determined that the
great rank and file, who might be careless or cautious of newspaper
narration, should hear the whole extraordinary story. Picketing began in
January, 1917. By the end of September, long before Alice Paul’s arrest
and through October and November, therefore, speakers were sent all over
the United States. Alice Paul divided the States into four parts, twelve
States each: Maud Younger went to the South; Mrs. Lawrence Lewis and
Mabel Vernon to the Middle West; Anne Martin to the far West; Abby Scott
Baker and Doris Stevens to the East. Ahead of them went the swift band
of organizers who always so ably and intensively prepared the way for
Woman’s Party activity.
Public opinion became more and more intrigued, began to blaze oftener
and oftener into protest as successive parties of pickets were arrested.
The climax, of course, was the climactic Administration mistake—the
arrest of Alice Paul. And as it began to dawn on the country that she
was kept incommunicado ... that she was in the psychopathic ward ...
alienists ... hunger-striking ... forcible feeding....
The speakers had extraordinary experiences, especially those who went
into the strongholds of the Democrats in the South. Again and again when
they told about the jail conditions, and how white women were forced
into association with the colored prisoners, were even compelled to
paint the toilets used by the colored prisoners, men would rise in the
audience and say, “There are a score of men here who’ll go right up to
Washington and burn that jail down.” It has been said that Warden
Zinkham received by mail so many threats against his life that he went
armed.
From Headquarters, telegrams were sent to speakers as the situation grew
at Washington, informing them as to the arrests, the actions of the
police, sentences, et caetera. Often these telegrams would come in the
midst of a speech. The speaker always read them to the audience. Once
after Doris Stevens had read such a telegram, “Do you protest against
this?” she demanded of her audience. “We do!” they yelled, rising as one
man to their feet.
Suddenly while everything was apparently going smoothly, audiences
large, indignantly sympathetic, actively protestive, change came.
Everywhere obstacles were put in the way of the speakers. That this was
the result of concerted action on the part of the authorities was
evident from the fact that within a few days four speakers in different
parts of the country felt this blocking influence.
In Arkansas they recalled Mabel Vernon’s permit for the Court House. In
Connecticut, newspapers began to call Berta Crone pro-German, to attack
her in a scurrilous manner.
Anne Martin’s meeting throughout the West had gone on without
interruption of any kind. When, however, she arrived in Los Angeles, she
was met by a Federal officer and told that there could be no meeting in
Los Angeles. Miss Martin’s answer was to read to him a section on the
right of free speech and assemblage, to inform him that he could not
prevent the meeting, to assure him that he was welcome to attend it, and
to invite him to arrest her if she made any seditious remarks. The
attempt was then made to get her right to use the hotel ball-room, in
which she was to hold the meeting, canceled. However, when Miss Martin
told the management that she had made the same speech at the St. Francis
Hotel in San Francisco, they agreed to let her have the hall. Federal
officers sat on the platform and interrupted her speech, saying, “You’ve
said enough about the President now.” Anne Martin replied, “If I’ve said
anything seditious it’s your duty to arrest me. Otherwise I’m going on
with my speech.” The audience applauded. Within a few minutes, five
hundred dollars was collected in that audience for the struggle in the
Capitol. Later, one of the Secret Service men warned Miss Martin not to
make the same speech in San Diego. “I told him,” Miss Martin said, “to
follow me and arrest me at any time he wished to, but in the meantime to
stop speaking to me.” She had no further trouble in California.
Maud Younger’s experiences in the South and West were so incredible in
these days of free speech that it deserves a detailed narration.
She had passed through nine southern Democratic States. Every speech had
been received enthusiastically, with sympathy, and without question.
Suddenly the cry of “Treason,” “Pro-German,” was raised. She was to
speak at Dallas, Texas, on Monday, November 18. But the organizer found
she could not engage a hall nor even a room at the hotel in which Miss
Younger could speak. The Mayor would not allow her to hold a street
meeting. Miss Younger, whose speeches are always the maximum of
accuracy, informedness, feeling—coupled with a kind of diplomatic
suavity—offered to submit her speech for censorship. They refused her
even that. Finally on Monday morning a hall was found and engaged. The
people who rented it canceled that engagement on Monday afternoon. The
reporters flocked to see Miss Younger, who astutely said to them, “Of
course the President is not responsible for—etc, etc.”—ad libitum—not
responsible, in brief, for all the things she would have said in her
speech. Miss Condon, who was organizing in that vicinity, had a little
office on the top floor and decided to hold a meeting there. Miss
Younger spoke to a small audience drummed up as hastily as possible,
notifying newspaper and police when the audience was about to arrive.
There were detectives present. Miss Younger takes great joy in the fact
that in attending this meeting, these detectives, following the accepted
tactics of detectives, heavy-handedly—or heavy-footedly—got out of the
elevator on the floor below; tiptoed solemnly up to the floor of the
meeting, thus proclaiming loudly to the world that they were detectives.
In Memphis, Miss Younger had the assistance of Sue White, who, not then
a member of the Woman’s Party, became subsequently one of its most
active, able, and devoted workers. Miss White who is very well known in
her State, had just gained great public approbation by registering fifty
thousand women for war work. She fought hard and constantly to preserve
Miss Younger’s speaking schedule in the nine Tennessee towns. But it was
impossible in many cases. Everywhere they were fought by the Bar
Association and the so-called Home Defense Leagues; and often by civic
officials. The Bar Association et caetera appointed a committee to go to
all hotels, or meeting-places, to ask them not to rent rooms for Miss
Younger’s meetings, and to mayors to request them not to grant permits
for street meetings. The Mayor of Brownsville, for instance, telephoned
to the Mayor of Jackson: “I believe in one God, one Country, and one
President; for God’s sake keep those pickets from coming to
Brownsville.” Fortunately everywhere, as has almost invariably happened
in the Suffrage movement, Labor came to their rescue.
In the towns where it was impossible to get a hall, Miss Younger did not
stay to fight it out. First of all, she felt the situation had developed
into a free speech fight between the people of these towns and their
local governments. It was for them to make the fight. Moreover, she
wanted as far as possible to keep to her schedule.
Sue White went on ahead to Jackson, which was her own home town, and
appealed to the Judge for the use of the Court House. The Mayor said he
could not legally prevent the meeting. Miss White opened the Court House
and lighted it. In the meantime, the Chief of Police met Miss Younger in
the Court House before the meeting began. He told her if she said
anything against the President, he would arrest her. He came to the
meeting that night, but left as soon as he discovered how harmless it
was—harmless, that is, so far as the President was concerned. The
audience unanimously passed a resolution asking the Mayor of Nashville,
which was the next stop, to permit Miss Younger to speak.
However, when she got to Nashville, the Home Defense League had brought
pressure on the local authorities and it was impossible for her to get a
hall. The organizer had hired the ball-room of the hotel, had deposited
twenty-five dollars for it; but the manager broke his contract, refused
to allow them to use it, and refunded the money. The prosecuting
attorney, months later, boasted, “I was the one that kept Miss Younger
from speaking in Nashville.”
The next two towns were Lebanon and Gallatin. In Lebanon, although they
could get no hall, they were allowed to speak in the public square. Sue
White introduced Miss Younger. It was a bitter cold day; but the weather
was not colder than the audience at first. Gradually, however, that
audience warmed up. When Miss Younger finished, they called, “We are all
with you!” When the Suffragists reached Gallatin, they secured the
schoolhouse. There was no time for any publicity, but Rebecca Hourwich
hired a wagon and went about the town calling, “Come to the schoolhouse!
Hear the White House pickets!”
In Knoxville, they met with the same hostility from the Bar Association.
Their permit to speak in the town hall was revoked, and even the street
was denied to them. Joy Young, thereupon, went to Labor. The local Labor
leader, who was the editor of the Labor paper, saw at once that it was a
free speech fight. He said that Labor would make the fight for the
Suffragists. He also pointed out that though the Mayor was a Democrat,
the Judge was a Republican. He went to the Judge and asked for the Court
House. The Judge said that it was not within his power to grant the
Court House; that three county officials, to whom, twelve years before,
jurisdiction in this matter had been given, must decide the question.
These county officials agreed to the proposition. Again the Bar
Association interfered. All day long telephone pressure, pro and con,
was brought to bear on these county officials. In the end it was decided
to have a preliminary rehearsal of Miss Younger’s speech.
At high noon, therefore, Maud Younger went to the Court House. The
prosecuting attorney opened the proceedings by reading from a big book
an unintelligible excerpt on sedition. Miss Younger then made her
forceful, witty, and tactful speech. Of course they gave her the Court
House. The prosecuting attorney said, “For an hour I argued against you
with the Judge. Now, I don’t see how he could possibly refuse.” The
Judge said, “You women have a very real grievance.” Late as it was, Joy
Young got out dodgers, inviting the town to the meeting and scattered
them everywhere, and the afternoon papers carried the announcement.
That night at dinner, the editor of the Labor paper called. He told them
that the Sheriff had suddenly put up the claim of jurisdiction over the
county Court House taken from him twelve years ago, and that he would be
there with a band of armed deputies. “_But_,” said the Labor leader,
“_Labor will be there with eighty armed Union men to meet them_.” Of
course the two Woman’s Party speakers did not know what would happen.
But the only thing they did know was that they would hold the meeting as
usual. So Maud Younger and Joy Young proceeded alone to the Court House.
They both expected to be shot. The Sheriff with his deputies, instead of
surrounding the building, went inside, holding the place against
Suffrage attack. The Labor men stationed themselves in front of the
door. The steps were filled with audience. Joy Young introduced the
speaker. Maud Younger took up her position, and they held their meeting
outside. Miss Younger always says: “The Sheriff had the Court House, but
I had the audience.”
At Chattanooga, Joy Young had explained the situation; The Mayor was
with them; the Bar Association, the Chief of Police, the Sheriff were
against them; so the Mayor with the assistance of Labor and the
newspapers took up their fight. No hall was to be had, _and someone in
the Bar Association instructed the Chief of Police to enter any private
house and break up any meeting the Suffragists might hold; and the
Sheriff to do the same in the country outside the city limits_. But
Labor was not to be outwitted. They were holding a scheduled meeting in
their own hall that night. Labor canceled that meeting and offered Maud
Younger the hall free. They said they would like to see any police break
up a meeting in _their_ hall. All day long there was a stormy session of
the Commissioners as to whether or not she might speak. But in the end
she did speak.
* * * * *
Later, when Maud Younger returned to Washington, she met Senator
McKellar in the course of her lobbying activities. Of course, she was
astute enough to know that orders for all this persecution had come from
above. She referred quite frankly to his efforts to stop her in
Tennessee. With equal frankness, Senator McKellar said: “I wasn’t going
to have you talking against the President in Tennessee.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
III
MORE PRESSURE ON CONGRESS
THE various activities described in the last six chapters all took place
in the year 1917. But during all this year—when the picketing, the
arrests, the imprisonments, were going on—work with Congress was of
course proceeding parallel with it. It now becomes necessary to go back
to the very beginning of the year to follow that work.
It will be remembered that early in this year there occurred in
Washington an event of national political importance. The Congressional
Union for Woman Suffrage and the Woman’s Party merged into one
organization.
This union of the Congressional Union with the Woman’s Party occurred on
March 2. On March 3—the last day of his first Administration—President
Wilson despatched the following letter to the Hon. W. R. Crabtree, a
member of the Tennessee Legislature.
May I not express my earnest hope that the Senate of Tennessee will
reconsider the vote by which it rejected the legislation extending
the Suffrage to women? Our Party is so distinctly pledged to its
passage that it seems to me the moral obligation is complete.
WOODROW WILSON.
On April 26 occurred a hearing before the Senate Committee; Anne
Martin presided. The note she struck in her opening speech sounded
all through the hearing—the somber, sinister note of the Great War;
and the necessity of accepting the Suffrage Amendment as a war
measure.
“We regard it as an act of the highest loyalty and patriotism,”
she said, “to urge the passage of the Amendment at this time,
that we may, as fully-equipped, fully-enfranchised citizens, do
our part in carrying out and helping to solve the problems that
lie before the government when our country is at war.”
Madeline Doty, who had traveled in Germany and in England since the
beginning of the war, gave her testimony in regard to the degree of war
work women were contributing in those two countries. Others spoke: Mary
Beard, Ernestine Evans, Mrs. Richard Wainwright, Alice Carpenter, Hon.
Jeannette Rankin, and Dudley Field Malone, at that time still Collector
of the Port of New York.
Altogether, there was a different sound to these Suffrage arguments.
Women had discovered for the first time in the history of the world that
they were a national necessity in war, not only because they bore the
soldiers who fought, not only because they nursed the wounded, but
because their efforts in producing the very sinews of war were necessary
to its continuance.
* * * * *
On May 14, the Committee appointed by the National Party (the Party
formed by the former Progressive leaders): J. A. H. Hopkins, Dr. E. A.
Rumley, John Spargo, Virgil Hinshaw, Mabel Vernon, called on the
President for the purpose of discussing the passage of the Federal
Suffrage Amendment as part of the war program.
Mabel Vernon described the interview afterwards:
The President said frankly that the lines were well laid for the
carrying out of a program in this session of Congress in which
Suffrage, he intimated, has not been included and expressed his
belief that the introducing of the question at this time might
complicate matters. He seems to feel, however, that the coming of
war has put the enfranchisement of women on a new basis.
He showed his appreciation of the rapid gains Suffrage has made
through the country when he said, “Suffrage is no longer creeping,
but advancing by strides.”
The President told the Committee as proof of his willingness, as he
said, “to help Suffrage in every little way,” that he had written a
letter to Representative Pou, Chairman of the Rules Committee of the
House, saying he would favor the creation of a Woman Suffrage
Committee.
The next day, May 15, a hearing was held before the Judiciary Committee
of the House. The Progressive Committee, who had visited the President
the day before, spoke, and also a group of the Woman’s Party leaders:
Mrs. William H. Kent, Mrs. John Rogers, Mrs. Donald R. Hooker, Lucy
Burns, Anne Martin, Abby Scott Baker. Again the note of the Great War
sounded through all the speeches, and the impatience of women because
everything in the way of war service was demanded of them, but nothing
given in return.
Mrs. Rogers said:
You men sit here in Congress and plan to take our sons and husbands
and every cent in our pockets. Yet you say to us: “Do not be
selfish; do not ask anything of the government now, but do your
part.”
Mrs. Rogers quoted the words of Lord Northcliffe:
The old arguments against giving women Suffrage were that they were
useless in war. But we have found that we could not carry on the war
without them. They are running many of our industries, and their
services may be justly compared to those of our soldiers.
“It has taken England nineteen hundred years to find this out,” said
Mrs. Rogers.
Also, stress was laid on the fact that, since the last hearing before
the Judiciary Committee, six States had granted Presidential Suffrage to
women.
In this connection, a letter written by Chairman Webb of the Judiciary
Committee to J. A. H. Hopkins of New Jersey, is interesting.
Mr. Hopkins wrote Mr. Webb:
The suggestion in your letter, that your caucus resolution provides
that the President might from time to time suggest special war
emergency legislation, puts the responsibility for the inaction of
your Committee upon the President. As the President has already
stated that he will be glad to do everything he can to promote the
cause of Woman Suffrage, it seems to me quite evident that he has at
least given your Committee the opportunity to exercise their own
authority without even the fear that they may be infringing upon
your caucus rules.
In the answer which Chairman Webb sent to Mr. Hopkins, he put the
responsibility of the inaction in regard to the Suffrage situation
directly on the President.
He said:
The Democratic caucus passed a resolution that only war emergency
measures would be considered during this extra session, and that the
President might designate from time to time special legislation
which he regarded as war legislation, and such would be acted upon
by the House. The President not having designated Woman Suffrage and
national prohibition so far as war measures, the Judiciary Committee
up to this time has not felt warranted, under the caucus rule, in
reporting either of these measures. If the President should request
either or both of them as war measures, then I think the Committee
would attempt to take some action on them promptly. So you see after
all it is important to your cause to make the President see that
Woman Suffrage comes within the rules laid down.
In May, the Rules Committee of the House of Representatives granted a
hearing to Suffrage bodies on the question of the creation of a Suffrage
Committee in the House. It will be remembered that this is the first
time since December, 1913, that the Rules Committee had granted this
request, although women have worked for the creation of a Suffrage
Committee in the House since the days of Susan B. Anthony. Chairman Pou
presided.
A few days before, he had received a letter from President Wilson, in
favor of the creation of a Suffrage Committee. For a long time now, the
President had not been saying anything about the State by State method
of winning Suffrage, but this was the first time that he had shown a
specific interest in the Federal Suffrage Amendment.
The meeting was open to the public, and the room was crowded. The
members of the National American Woman Suffrage Association spoke; a
group of Congressmen from the Suffrage States, and the following members
of the Woman’s Party: Anne Martin, Maud Younger, Mrs. Richard
Wainwright, Mabel Vernon.
Mrs. Richard Wainwright said:
One of the members of the Commission from England said: “We came to
America that America may not make the mistakes that we have! One of
the mistakes that England is now trying to rectify is not giving
justice to her women. I should like the Congress of the United
States to remember what Wyoming said when asked to join the nation:
‘We do not come in without our women.’”
Miss Younger said in part:
We regard this, however (the formation of a Suffrage Committee in
the House), Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the Committee, as only one
step toward our goal. We will not be satisfied with this alone. It
will not in any way take the place of the passage of the Amendment.
Nor are we interested in any mere record vote which might come from
the Suffrage Committee. We are working only for the passage of the
Amendment at the earliest possible date....
We ask for this measure now in war time, because the sufferings of
war fall heavily upon women. In case of an invading army the
greatest barbarities, the greatest cruelties, fall upon the women.
In this war, as never before, the burdens are borne by women.
Secretary Redfield said yesterday that three armies are necessary to
the prosecution of this war, the army in the field, the army on the
farm, and the army in the factories. In these two armies at home the
women are taking an increasingly large part and the efficiency of
their work depends largely upon the conditions under which they do
this work. In England the output of munitions was not satisfactory.
The government appointed a commission to investigate. They found
that the trouble lay in the conditions under which the women worked,
with the overlong hours. They could not get the best results under
such conditions. In America today there is an effort to break down
the protective legislation that through the years has been built up
around women and children. And so for efficiency in the war as well
as for the protection of the women, we urge Suffrage upon you now.
We do not know when this struggle may end nor to what extent the
women here may replace men. An English shipbuilder said recently
that should the war last two years longer he would build ships
entirely with women. We know that all over Europe today they are
doing men’s work, in field, in factory, and in office. When the war
is over and the armies march home, whether in victory or defeat,
they will find the women in their places. Not without a struggle
will the women give up the work, but give it up they probably will.
And then, without the means of livelihood, many of them without
husbands, with the men of their families killed in war, without the
chance to marry, to bear children, they will turn to America. We can
then look forward to an immigration of women such as this country
has never known. Before that time comes we want the power to protect
the women who are here, and to prepare to meet the new conditions
that we may not be swamped by them.
We are asking for Suffrage in war time because other nations at war
are considering it now. Over a year ago, in the Hungarian
Parliament, a deputy asked the prime minister, “When our soldiers
return from fighting our battles, will they be given the vote?” We
find men everywhere in Europe asking for Suffrage for themselves now
in war time. In Germany today the most powerful political party is
urging the vote for women as well as for men. Russia, England, and
France are on the verge of enfranchising their women. But two days
ago in the British Parliament the Under Secretary of State for the
Colonies urged the immediate passage of the Suffrage measure that
the government might not be hampered by domestic problems when, at
the end of the war, international problems will cry for settlement
and a unified nation will be needed. In the period of reconstruction
also we feel that women have something to contribute, that we may be
of help in solving the new problems which will arise from the war
and which will tax all the resources of the people. We ask you now
to release to other service the time, the energy, the money that is
being poured into the Suffrage movement.
Lastly, we urge this now that we may prove to other nations our
sincerity in wanting to establish democracy and our unselfish
motives in going into the war.
I think of that night on the 2nd of April when, from the gallery of
the House, we heard President Wilson read his war message. We were
going to war not for any gain for ourselves but to make the world
safe for democracy. We sat there and heard him read, and, gentlemen,
you applauded, “we shall fight for those things which we have always
carried nearest our hearts, for democracy, for the right of those
who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government.”
And while you applauded, some of us there in the gallery thought of
the 20,000,000 of women in our own country who “submit to authority
without a voice in their own government,” which is the President’s
definition of democracy. We thought, too, of the women of other
nations on the verge of enfranchisement themselves, and we wondered
how they would welcome the United States at the peace council, to
establish democracy for them—the United States, which does not
recognize its own women.
And we went out into the night. The Capitol looked very beautiful
and shining white against the dark sky. It seemed a great beacon
light to the nations of the world. Suddenly a dark shadow fell
across our path—the shadow of a mounted soldier. A troop of cavalry
had encircled the Capitol holding back the people. We walked down
the marble terraces and started across the Avenue. There, again, the
troop of cavalry winding down the hill blocked our progress.
Suddenly it seemed so symbolic of what war meant, the armed force,
centralized authority, blocking progress, encroaching upon the
people. And it came to us that our greatest foe is not the enemy
without but the danger to democracy within. We realized then that
the greatest service we could render today would be to fight for
democracy in this country.
We are going into this war. We will give our service, our time, our
money. We may give our lives and what is harder still, the lives of
those dear to us. We lay them all down upon the altar for the sake
of an ideal. But in laying them down let us see that the ideal for
which we sacrifice shall not perish also. Let us fight to preserve
that ideal, to make this a real democracy. And, gentlemen, the first
step toward that end lies with you here today. We ask you to take
that step and help make this nation truly a beacon light to nations
of the earth.
Although—following the hearing before the Senate Committee, on May
15—the Chairman, Senator Jones of New Mexico, was unanimously instructed
to make a report on the Amendment, he failed to do so. When so requested
by the Woman’s Party, he refused. After three months the minority
(Republican) leaders of the Committee, led by Senator Cummins of Iowa,
and backed by Senator Jones of Washington and Senator Johnson of
California, attempted to get the Suffrage Amendment on the Senate
Calendar by discharging the Senate Suffrage Committee from its further
consideration.
In his own defense, Senator Jones of New Mexico pleaded lack of time and
desire to make a report that would be “a contribution to the cause.”
Another Democratic member, Senator Hollis of New Hampshire, brought
forward the picketing of the Suffragists as a reason for withholding the
report. He expressed the amazing reason for not acting, his fear that
this “active group of Suffragists” would focus public attention and “get
credit.” The Chairman of the Committee who had neglected week after week
to make the report which he had been authorized to make by the
Committee, was finally galvanized into action by a visit to the
imprisoned pickets at Occoquan. Immediately, September 15, he made his
report to the Senate. On September 24, the creation of the House
Suffrage Committee came up for heated debate in the House of
Representatives, though its passage was a foregone conclusion. Of
course, there was much discussion of the picketing which was still going
on. Many of the speakers harped on the note that this late action in
regard to the creation of a committee, which the Woman’s Party had been
working for ever since 1913, would be interpreted by the country as
being the result of the picketing. This was a quaint argument on their
part, because of course, it _was_ the result of the picketing. Why else
would it have come so swiftly?
During this discussion, Mr. Pou, the Chairman, made the following
statement:
I want to say in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, that this is no
proposition to pack the Committee for a particular purpose. The
friends of this resolution have distinctly stated time and again
that they do not expect action at this session of Congress (first
session of the Sixty-fifth Congress). The appointment of a Committee
only is asked; but after this Committee is appointed, in the next
Congress they expect to go before the people of America, and if the
returns justify, then in the Sixty-sixth Congress, they will ask for
Congressional action.
This boiled down meant of course there was no intention of passing the
Suffrage Amendment before the Sixty-sixth Congress. However, the
Administration was to reverse its policy on this point less than three
months later.
The House Suffrage Committee was created by a vote of one hundred and
eighty-one yeas and one hundred and seven nays.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PART FOUR
VICTORY
“The vast and beckoning future is ours.”
_The Suffragist._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I
THE NEW HEADQUARTERS AND THE LATER YEARS
AT the opening of the year 1918, the Woman’s Party made another change
in the location of its headquarters. It will be recalled that during the
first part of its history, it had premises in F Street. In the middle
years, it was located at Cameron House. It was now to go directly across
the Park to 14 Jackson Place. Like Cameron House, this new mansion had
had a vivid and picturesque history. It was built by the Hon. Levi
Woodbury while he was serving in the cabinet of President Jackson and
President Van Buren. Later, it became the home of Schuyler Colfax, when
he was Vice-President. During the Civil War, Postmaster William Denison,
a member of Lincoln’s cabinet, lived there. And perhaps it was at this
period that the house achieved the apex of its reputation for official
hospitality. Later, it was the scene of the tragic triangle of General
Sickles, his beautiful young Spanish wife and the brilliant Barton Key.
Still later it fell into the hands of Mrs. Washington McLean, and then
of her grandson’s family—the Bughers. Then it was turned into the Home
Club.
It is a charming house. The façade is a pleasing combination of
cream-colored tiling trimmed with white. Immediately, of course, the
Woman’s Party adorned that delicate, lustrous expanse with the red,
white, and blue of the big national banner, which always flies over
their Headquarters, and the purple, white, and gold of the equally big
Party tri-color. Later, in the little oval made by the porte-cochère,
they erected a bulletin board presented by Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont. By
this means the casual passer-by was kept informed, by bulletin and by
photographs, of the activities of the Woman’s Party.
Inside there are rooms and rooms, rooms big and small, rooms of all
sizes and heights. A spacious ball-room on the second floor with a
seating capacity of three hundred, was of course of great practical
advantage to the Party. The other rooms on this floor were made into
offices; the rooms on the floor above into bedrooms. Mrs. Lawrence Lewis
and Mrs. William Kent raised the money for the maintenance of this huge
establishment.
Alice Paul, always economically inclined where expenditure is not
absolutely necessary, immediately asked for contributions of
furnishings. All kinds of things were given of course, from pianos to
kitchen pans. From Mrs. Pflaster of Virginia came a load of heirlooms,
in various colonial patterns—furniture which makes the connoisseur
positively gasp. Chairs of the Hepplewhite and Sheraton periods; tables
made by Phyffe; tables in the most graceful style of Empire furniture;
mahogany cabinets, delicately inlaid—they gave the place an
extraordinary atmosphere. Huge, dim, old-gold-framed mirrors and a few
fine old paintings reinforced the effect.
Alice Paul’s office, which is on the second floor, was done in purple
and gold; the woodwork of gold, the furniture upholstered in purple
velvet.
Later, a large room, originally a stable at the rear of the first floor,
was transformed into a tea-room. Vivian Pierce had charge of the
decorations here; and she made it very attractive. The brick walls were
painted yellow, the tables and chairs black. The windows and doors were
all enclosed in flat frames of brilliant chintz, of which the background
was black, but the dominating note blue. The many hanging lights were
swathed in yellow silk. The tea-room rapidly became very popular in
Washington; and, as rapidly, became one of the most interesting places
in the city. Visitors of many distinguished kinds came there in
preference to the larger restaurants or hotels. They knew the members of
the Woman’s Party who lived in the house, and they gradually came to
know the habitués of the tea-room. At meals, separated parties were
always coalescing into one big party. People wandered from table to
table. There was an air of comradeship and sympathy. Afterwards, groups
often went up the little flight of stairs which leads to the ball-room,
and sitting before the fire in the huge fireplace, drank their
after-dinner coffee together. These talks sometimes lasted until
midnight.
As for the atmosphere of the place itself—it can be summed up by only
one word, and that word is—youth. Not that everybody who came to
Headquarters was—as years go—young. There were, for instance, Lavinia
Dock who was sixty, Mary Nolan who was seventy, and the Rev. Olympia
Brown who was an octogenarian. Of course, though, when one considers
that the Rev. Olympia Brown took part in that rain-drenched and
wind-driven picket deputation of a thousand women on March 4, and that
Mary Nolan and Lavinia Dock both served their terms in prison, one must
admit that they were as young in spirit as the youngest picket there.
But young pickets were there—I mean, young in actual years; young and
fresh and gay; able and daring. Alice Paul, herself, whimsically relates
what an obstacle their very youth seemed to them during the early part
of the movement. When first they began to wage their warfare on the
Democratic Party, old Suffragists rebuked them; and rebuked them always
on the score that they were too young to know any better. “How hard we
tried to seem old,” Alice Paul said. “On all occasions we pushed elderly
ones into the foreground and when Mrs. Lawrence Lewis became a
grandmother, how triumphant we were. Oh, we encouraged grandmotherhood
in those days.” But now—triumphantly successful—they were no longer
afraid of their own youth. They knew it was their greatest asset. They
made the place ring with its gaiety. They made it seethe with its
activity. They made it rock with its resolution. “The young are at the
gates!” said Lavinia Dock. And these were young who would not brook
denial of their demands.
As you entered Headquarters, that breath of youth struck you in the face
with its wild, fresh sweetness. It was as pungent as a wind blowing over
spring flowers. It was as vivid as the flash of spring clouds hurrying
over the new blue of the sky. In actuality, youthful activity rang from
every corner of the house. In the white entrance hall, a young girl sat
at the switchboard; and she was always a very busy person. To the left
was the Press Headquarters, full of that mad turmoil which, seemingly,
is inevitable to any Press activity. Upstairs, Alice Paul was always
interviewing or being interviewed; reading letters or answering them;
asking questions or giving information; snatching a hurried meal from a
tray; dictating all manner of business; or giving the last orders before
she darted east, west, north, or south. She was sure to be doing one of
these things, or some of them, or—this really seems not an
exaggeration—all of them.
All about and from the offices that ran beside the ball-room sounded the
click of typewriters—some one counted twenty-four typewriters in the
house once. Everywhere, you ran into busy, business-like stenographers
with papers in their hands, proceeding from one office to another. If it
were lunch time, or dinner time, pairs of young girls, with their arms
around each other’s waists, chattering busily, were making their way to
the tea-room. At night, the big ball-room was filled with groups reading
magazines at the big (and priceless) tables; or talking over the events
of the day ... Congress ... the picketing. Late at night, the
discussions still went on. Upstairs, they followed each other from
bedroom to bedroom, still arguing, still comparing notes, still making
suggestions in regard to a hundred things: organizing, lobbying,
personal appeal to political leaders, et caetera, ad infinitum. The
huge, four-poster bed—big enough for royalty—in Mrs. Lawrence Lewis’s
room was the scene—with ardent pickets sitting all over it—of many a
discussion that threatened to prolong itself until dawn.
And all day long, and all evening long—any time—organizers with their
harvests of facts and ideas were likely to appear from the remotest
parts of the country. Young, enthusiastic, unconscious of bodily
discomfort, if the beds were all full, they pulled a mattress onto the
floor and slept there or curled up on a couch—anything so long as they
could stay at the friendly, welcoming Headquarters. To middle age, it
was all a revelation of the unsounded, unplumbed depths of endurance in
convinced, emancipate, determined youth. There was no end to their
strength apparently. Apparently there was no possibility of palling
their spirit. Arriving at nine at night from Oregon, they would depart
blithely the next morning at six for Alabama. To those women who had the
privilege of taking part, either as active participants, or enthralled
lookers-on, this will always stand out as one of their most thrilling
life experiences. Katherine Rolston Fisher’s fine descriptive phrase in
regard to it all inevitably recurs: “It was,” she says, “the renaissance
of the Suffrage movement.”
Speed was their animating force: “The Suffrage Amendment passed at
once,” their eternal motto.
In the nomenclature of the Great War, the pickets were the shock troops
of the Suffrage forces. They took the first line trenches. The forces of
the organization back of them secured and maintained these positions;
held those trenches until the time came for the next advance. As for the
organizers working all over the country, they were the air force
and—still using the nomenclature of that great struggle—they were like
the little, swift, quickly-turning chase-planes which so effectually
harassed the huge enemy machines.
The Woman’s Party never grew so big nor its organization so cumbrous
that its object was defeated by numbers and weight. It was distinguished
always by quality rather than quantity, and its mechanical organization
was sensitive and light. It lay over its members as delicately as a
cobweb on the grass; and it responded as instantly as a cobweb to the
touch of changing conditions. News from Washington went to the uttermost
parts of the country as swiftly as electricity could bear it. The
results in action were equally swift. That was because youth was
everywhere, not only youth of body, but, perhaps more important, youth
of spirit. Senators and Representatives frequently marveled at the power
and strength of an organization which had come to fruition in so few
years. Had they all visited Headquarters—as some of them did—I think
that all would have understood.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
II
LOBBYING
I HAVE left until now all consideration of a department which had been,
almost from the very beginning, of great importance to the Woman’s
Party; the most important department of all; the crux of its work; a
department which steadily augmented in importance—the lobbying.
From the moment in 1912 that the Suffragists started their work in
Washington, relations had to be established with the House and the
Senate. At first, tentative, a little wavering, irregular, the lobbying
became finally astute, intensive, and constant. The lobby grew in
numbers. After the Congressional Committee had become the Congressional
Union, and had separated from the National American Woman Suffrage
Association, the latter body sent its own lobbyists to Washington. The
anti-Suffragists sent lobbyists too. By 1914, the stream had grown to a
flood. The halls of Congress were never free from this invasion. The
siege lasted without cessation as long as a Congress was in session.
“This place looks like a millinery establishment,” a Congressman said
once.
In the early days, the reception of the lobbyists at the hands of
Congressmen lacked by many degrees that graciousness of which, at the
very end, they were almost certain. A story of this early period taken
from the Woman’s Party card-index, is most illuminating.
Two Suffrage lobbyists were calling on Hoke Smith. “As you are
Suffragists,” Mr. Smith said, “you won’t mind standing.” He himself sat,
lounging comfortably in his chair. He took out a big cigar, inserted it
in his mouth, lighted it. The two women said what they had to say,
standing, while Mr. Smith smoked contemptuously on.
Those two women were Emily Perry and Jeannette Rankin.
* * * * *
The lobbying for the Woman’s Party was directed at first by Alice Paul
and Lucy Burns. Mrs. Gilson Gardner was the pioneer lobbyist, and the
first-year lobbyists were all women voters. They made reports to Alice
Paul and Lucy Burns every day. First these were oral; later they were
written. This was the nucleus of the Woman’s Party card catalogue which
has since become so famous. Finally, these written reports were put in
tabulated form by Mrs. Grimes of Michigan.
As the work grew, unenfranchised women lobbied as often as enfranchised.
The early lobbyists were: Mrs. Gilson Gardner, Mrs. William Kent, Mrs.
George Odell, Lucy Burns, Abby Scott Baker, Mrs. Lowell Mellett. But not
only the experienced lobbied. As has before been set down—following that
wise instinct which impelled Alice Paul to give her workers glimpses of
all phases of the movement—as fast as the organizers came back to
Washington, she sent them up to the galleries of Congress to listen; she
made them lobby for a while. And, as has elsewhere been stated, this was
found to be a mutual benefit. Organizers took the temper and atmosphere
of Congress back to the States, and sometimes to the very constituents
of the Congressmen with whom they had talked; they put Congressmen in
touch with what was happening at home. Whenever a woman visiting
Washington called at Headquarters, Alice Paul immediately sent her to
the Capitol to lobby the Congressmen and Senators of her own State.
In November, 1915, Anne Martin, as Chairman of the Legislative
Department, became the head of the lobbying. Miss Martin is a born
general. She brought to this situation an instinct for the strategy and
tactics of politics. She supervised the work of those who were under
her, sent them up to Congress with specific directions; received their
reports; collated them; made suggestions for the next day’s work;
developed a closer relation with the constituents and kept local
chairmen in touch with the States of their own Congressmen and Senators.
In 1916, Anne Martin ran for Senator in Nevada. She had of necessity to
relinquish active work in Washington for the Woman’s Party.
In the spring of 1916, therefore, Maud Younger who was in a position to
give her whole time to it, became Chairman of the Lobby Committee and
chief lobbyist for the Amendment.
At all times this work was hard, and sometimes intensely disagreeable.
Maud Younger in her _Revelations of a Woman Lobbyist_, gives some of the
actual physical strain. She says:
The path of the lobbyist is a path of white marble. And white
marble, though beautiful, is hard. The House office building runs
around four sides of a block, so that when you have walked around
one floor, you have walked four blocks on white marble. When you
have walked around each of the five floors you have walked a mile on
white marble. When you have gone this morning and afternoon through
several sessions of Congress you have walked more weary miles on
white marble than a lobbyist has time to count.
But the Woman’s Party lobbyists were not balked by the mere matter of
white marble. In a week they were threading that interminable intricate
maze of Congressional alleys with the light, swift step of familiarity
and of determination. All day long, they drove from the Visitors’
Reception Room to Senatorial offices, and from Senatorial offices back
to the Visitors’ Reception Room. They flew up and down in the elevators.
They found unknown and secret stairways by which they made short cuts.
They journeyed back and forth in the little underground subway which
tries to mitigate these long distances. At first Congressmen frankly
took to hiding, and the lobbyist discovered that the Capitol was a nest
of _abris_, but in the end, even Congressmen could not elude the
vigilance of youth and determination. As for the mental and spiritual
difficulties of the task—at first, Senators and Congressmen were frankly
uninterested, or, more concretely, irritated and enraged with the
Suffrage lobbyists. It is not pleasant to have to talk to a man who does
not want to hear you. The lobbyists had to learn to be quiet;
deferential; to listen to long intervals of complaint and abuse; to seem
not to notice rebuffs; to go back the next day as though the rebuff had
not occurred. This is not easy to women of spirit. Perhaps it could not
have been borne, if it had not been a labor of love. Many times these
women had to bolster a smarting sense of humiliation by keeping the
thought of victory in sight.
In her _Revelations of a Woman Lobbyist_, Maud Younger tells
interestingly and with a very arch touch some of these experiences:
Mr. Huddleston, the thin, blonde type of Congressman, sat at his
desk in his low-ceilinged, well-lighted office.
“What is it?” he greeted me when I entered. His manner was very
brusque, but I refused to be repelled by it. I began to speak.
“There’s always some one hippodroming around here with some kind of
propaganda,” he snapped, interrupting. “We’re very busy, we’ve got
important things to do, we can’t be bothered with Woman Suffrage.”
He made a jerky motion, rattling the papers on his desk, and turning
his head to look through the window. I thought of several things to
say to Mr. Huddleston, but this was obviously the time to say none
of them. So I murmured, “Thank you,” and withdrew....
Mr. Whaley’s face is red; his head is prematurely gray outside and
his thoughts prematurely gray inside. “We don’t need women voting in
South Carolina,” he said with a large masculine manner. “We know how
to take care of our women in our State. We don’t allow divorce for
any reason whatever.”
He was continuing with expressed contempt for Suffrage and implied
contempt for Suffragists, when the door opened and a negro,
evidently a clergyman, entered.
“Get out of here!” said Mr. Whaley. “You stand in the hall till
you’re called.” As the negro hastily retreated, Mr. Whaley turned to
me and said with pride, “That’s the way to treat ’em.”...
A few minutes later, I opened Mr. Sisson’s door and saw him, very
large and rugged, standing with some letters in his hand and
dictating to a stenographer.
“I can’t discuss that subject,” he interrupted at my first words,
and then he discussed it at length. He had meant that I was not to
discuss it. He spoke of women in the kitchen, in the nursery, in the
parlor. He spoke of her tenderness, her charm, her need for shelter
and kindness. Wearily shifting from one foot to the other, I
listened. At last I opened my mouth to speak, but he silenced me
with a brusque gesture.
“The reason I’m so lenient with you,” he explained—for he had
allowed me to stand and listen to him—“is because you’re a woman. If
you were a man——” He left the end of the sentence in dark doubt.
What would he have done to a man standing dumbly in my place,
holding tight to a muff? I shall never know. Discretion did not
allow me to ask him.
Mr. Reed sat at his mahogany desk—a large, rather good-looking
Senator, with gray hair. His record in our card-index read: “He is
most reactionary, not to say antediluvian.” So I was not surprised
to hear him say slowly and solemnly:
“Women don’t know anything about politics. Did you ever hear them
talking together? Well, first they talk about fashions, and
children, and housework; and then, perhaps about churches; and then
perhaps—about theatres; and then perhaps——” At each “perhaps,” he
gazed down at his finger-tips where his ideas appeared to originate,
looking up at me at each new point. “And then, perhaps—about
literatoor!” he ended triumphantly. “Yes, and that is the way it
ought to be,” he added, satisfied.
“But don’t you believe that voting might make women think?”
At this suggestion he recoiled, then recovered and grew jocose.
“Do you think I want my wife working against my interests? That’s
just what she’d be doing—voting against me. Women can’t understand
politics.”
I began to tell him about California women voters, but he
interrupted. “Women wouldn’t change things if they did vote. They’d
all vote just like their husbands.”
Sometimes they said to Miss Younger, “If you were a voter——”
“But I am a voter,” Miss Younger, who is from California, would reply.
Their attitude invariably changed.
Miss Younger comments: “They _said_ they respected femininity, but it
was plain that they _did_ respect a voter.”
It was hard, hard work.
The lobbying was immensely more detailed and complicated than an
outsider would ever suspect. All the time, of course, they were working
for the passing of the Anthony Amendment. That was their great
objective, but, as in all warfare, the campaign for the great objective
was divided into many tiny campaigns. At the beginning of the
Congressional Union work in Washington, for instance, they lobbied
Senators and Representatives to march in the big parade of March 3,
1913. Later they lobbied them to go to mass-meetings, to attend
conventions. In 1916, when they were having such difficulty with the
Judiciary Committee, they lobbied Republicans and Democratic members of
that Committee to get them to act. By a follow-up system, they sent
other lobbyists in a few days to see if they had acted. When the
Suffrage Envoys came back from the West, they lobbied Congressmen to
receive them. In the Presidential election of 1916, they lobbied
Congress first to get Suffrage planks in both Party platforms and when
these planks proved unsatisfactory, they lobbied the Republican
Suffragists in Congress to get Hughes to come out for the Federal
Amendment and when Hughes came out for it, they lobbied the Democratic
Congressmen to get the President to come out for it. When the Special
War Session met, in April, 1917, fifty Woman’s Party lobbyists lobbied
Congress—covering it in a month. When the Irish Mission visited
Congress, and two hundred and fifty voted for the freedom of Ireland,
they lobbied these Congressmen to vote for the freedom of women. When
the arrests of the pickets began, they lobbied their Congressmen to go
to see their constituents in jail. The Woman’s Party kept track of how
Congressmen voted on different measures and wherever it was possible,
they linked it up with Suffrage. To the Congressmen who voted against
war, they sent lobbyists who could show what an influence for peace the
women could be. To those who voted for war, they sent the women, who
were war workers, to show how women could work for war.
Before the six years’ campaign of the Woman’s Party was over, the
Republicans were sometimes sending Congressmen of one State to convert
the unconverted ones of another, and, in the end, the young Democratic
Senators had actually appointed a committee to get Suffrage votes from
their older confrères. After Congress passed the Amendment, they lobbied
the Congressmen to write the governors to call special sessions of the
Legislature in the interests of ratification; then they lobbied them to
write the Legislators; then they lobbied them to write political
leaders.
Perhaps the hardest interval in their work was that which followed the
campaign of 1916. Wilson had been elected again on the slogan, “He kept
us out of war.” The Republicans did not want to hear anything about the
women voters of the West. The Woman’s Party lobbyists, who were often
more informed on the Republican situation in parts of the West than were
the Republicans themselves, had to educate them. They had to show them
how remiss the Republicans themselves had been during that campaign, how
Hughes for instance came out for Suffrage in the East, where women did
not vote, and never mentioned it in the West, where they did. It was not
easy work. Sometimes Congressmen would take up papers or letters and
examine them, while the lobbyist was talking. Nevertheless, she would
continue. And then, inevitably the degree of her information, her clear
and forceful exposition of the situation, would arouse interest. Often
in the end, the erstwhile indifferent Congressman would shake hands and
bow her out.
As to the mechanics of lobbying work, perhaps nothing is more
interesting than the cards themselves of the famous card-index.
No. 1—Contains the member’s name and his biography as contained in
the Congressional Directory.
No. 2—A key card has these headings:
Ancestry, Nativity, Education, Religion, Offices Held, General
Information.
No. 3—A sub-card under the foregoing, as are those yet to be given,
contains these headings: Birth, Date, Place, Number of Children,
Additional Information.
Nos. 4, 5, and 6—Are respectively for Father, Mother, Brothers. They
have headings to elicit full information on these subjects, as
Nativity, Education, Occupation.
No. 7—Education: Preparatory School and College.
No. 8—Religion: Name of Church, Date of Entrance, Position Held in
Church, Church Work.
No. 9—Military Service: Dates, Offices, Battles, Additional
Information.
No. 10—Occupation: Past, Present.
No. 11—Labor Record.
Nos. 12 and 13—Are set aside for Literary Work and Lecture Work.
No. 14—Newspapers: Meaning what newspapers the member reads and
those that have the most influence over him.
Nos. 15 and 16—Are respectively for Recreation and Hobbies.
Nos. 17 and 18—Are devoted to Health and Habits.
No. 19—Political Life Prior to Congress: Offices Held. Whether
Supported Prohibition Amendment, Offices Run For.
No. 20—Political life in Congress: Terms, Date, Party, Bills
Introduced, Bills Supported, Committees.
No. 21—Suffrage Record: Outside of Congress, In Congress.
No. 22—Votes cast in Election of Member.
In an interview in the _New York Times_ of March 2, 1919, Miss Younger
describes the working of this system.
If a Congressman said to a lobbyist, for instance, “I do not think
my district is much interested in Woman Suffrage, I get very few
letters in favor of it from my constituents,” then, immediately, by
means of the information gained through the card-index, a flood of
pro-Suffrage letters would descend upon him. Always, as far as
possible, these letters would come from people he knew or who were
influential.
If a Congressman had a financial backer, they tried to get at him.
If he were from a strong labor district, they appealed to Labor to
bring its influence to bear upon him.
When the lobbyist started for Congress, she was given a lobbying
slip which had a list of entries printed on it. For instance, one
heading was “Exact statements and remarks.” Miss Younger told me of
one Congressman who said to her: “Put me down on the mourners’
bench. I am thinking about it.” Immediately Headquarters became very
busy with this Congressman.
Another said, “Women in my State do not want it.” Miss Younger,
commenting on that, said that it was always an encouraging case. We
see immediately that he gets shoals of letters and telegrams from
his State. One Congressman on whom such a campaign was waged said
finally: “If you will only stop, I will vote for the Amendment. It
keeps my office force busy all day answering letters about Suffrage
alone.”
The hardest Congressmen to deal with were those who said, “I will
not vote for it if every voter in my State asks me.” To such a one,
we would send a woman from his own district. In one case, the
Congressman was so rude to her that she came back to Headquarters,
subscribed a hundred dollars to our funds, departed, and became a
staunch Suffragist. We kept a list of men of this type and we sent
to them any woman who was wavering on Suffrage. It never failed to
make her a strong Suffragist.
Any bit of information on these cards might be used. If a man played
golf, that might be a happy moment for a member of the Woman’s Party
to talk Suffrage with him. If he had the kind of mother who was an
influence in his life, they tried to convert the mother. If it was
the wife who was the ruling influence, they tried to convert the
wife. They were careful even in regard to brothers. The habits of
Congressmen as disclosed by this index were of great importance.
Some of them got to their office early, and that was often the best
time to speak with them. If a Congressman drank, it was necessary to
note that. Then when the lobbyists found him muddled and
inarticulate, they knew to what to impute it.
Of course information of a blackmailing order was occasionally
offered from outside sources to the Woman’s Party, but, of course,
this was always ignored.
From 1916 on, the years in which Maud Younger was in charge of the lobby
committee, twenty-two Senators changed their position in favor of
Suffrage.
I have said that it was difficult for a Congressman to elude these swift
and determined scouts of the Woman’s Party. But harder still was it to
elude a something, an unknown quality—an x—which had come into the
fourth generation of women to demand enfranchisement. That quality was
political-mindedness. Congressmen had undoubtedly before run the gamut
of feminine persuasiveness; grace; charm; tact. But here was an army of
young Amazons who looked them straight in the eye, who were absolutely
informed, who knew their rights, who were not to be frightened by
bluster, put off by rudeness, or thwarted either by delay or political
trickery. They never lost their tempers and they never gave up. They
never took “No” for an answer. They were young and they believed they
could do the impossible. And believing it, they accomplished it. Before
the six years and a half of campaign of the Woman’s Party was over,
Congressman after Congressman, Senator after Senator paid tribute—often
a grudged one—to the verve and _élan_ of that campaign.
But though they talked man fashion, eye to eye, the lobbyists, when
returned to Headquarters, were full of excellent information and
suggestions and all that mysterious by-product which comes from feminine
intuition.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
III
ORGANIZING
ALTHOUGH it is impossible to do justice to any department of the
National Woman’s Party, it seems particularly difficult in the case of
the organizers. The reason for this is not far to seek. These young
women were turned loose, sometimes quite inexperienced; sometimes only
one to a State, with the injunction to come back with their shield or on
it. They always came back with their shield—that is to say an
organization of some sort in the State they had just left. As has been
before stated, the National Woman’s Party has organized in every State
in the Union at some time during its history—that is between the years
1912 and 1919. As has also been stated, the organizers divided into
three groups—those who worked in the first two years; those who worked
in the middle two; those who worked in the last two.
It has been shown with what careful instruction Alice Paul sent these
young adventurers into the wide wide world of unorganized States; but
perhaps justice has not been done to the trust she placed in them and
the consequent extraordinary results. She kept in close telegraphic
communication with them all the time—and yet always, she left them free
to make big decisions and sudden changes in policy. “She made us feel
that we could do it in the first place,” one of them said to me, “and
somehow we did. That sense we had of her—brooding and hovering back
there in Washington—always gave us courage; always gave us the physical
strength to do the things we did and the mental strength to make the
decisions we made.”
As one looks through the lists of these three groups of organizers, one
is astounded at the various kinds of work they did; their versatility.
Mabel Vernon for instance. Her activities form an integral part of the
Woman’s Party history. Mabel Vernon traveling ahead of Sara Bard Field
in her spectacular automobile trip across the country, was more
responsible than anybody, except Mrs. Field herself, for the success of
that trip. Mabel Vernon challenged the President in the course of his
speech at the laying of the corner-stone of the new Headquarters of the
American Federation of Labor in Washington. Mabel Vernon was one of the
women who dropped the banner in the Senate when the President came to
speak before them. Mabel Vernon picketed and went to jail. Mabel Vernon
_seems_ to have organized or spoken in every State in the Union.
Elsie Hill, Doris Stevens—you find them everywhere, luminous spirits
with a new modern adjunct of political-mindedness. Abby Scott Baker was
always on the wing.
One’s mind stops at the names of Vivian Pierce, Lucy Branham, Mary
Gertrude Fendall, Hazel Hunkins. How many and what varying and difficult
things they did! Vivian Pierce in addition to speaking and organizing
and picketing activities, edited the _Suffragist_, and designed the
charming tea-room at Headquarters. As for Lucy Branham—she must have
seemed a stormy petrel to all opposing forces—she had so much the
capacity of being everywhere at once.
When one comes to the last group, a sense—almost of awe—is leavened by a
decided sense of amusement. Julia Emory, Betty Gram, Anita Pollitzer,
Mary Dubrow, Catherine Flanagan are all _little_ girls. But in Suffrage
work, they were active, insistent, and persistent in inverse ratio to
their size. In ratification, that legislature was doomed on which any
two of them descended.
What they accomplished! Once Alice Paul turned Anita Pollitzer loose on
the entire State of Wyoming and Anita Pollitzer brought Wyoming into
camp. It is impossible to do justice to all of them, to any of them. But
as an example of how they worked, I am quoting from letters written by
Anita Pollitzer describing various experiences in her work of
organization. I use Miss Pollitzer’s letters, not because they are
exceptional but because they are typical. Space will not permit me to do
equal justice to any of the others. But perhaps some day all those
marvelous narratives will be collected. Miss Pollitzer writes me as
follows:
Wyoming
“Campaign against the party in power”—late October, 1918—snow on the
ground and no friends in the State—traveled miles to get help of most
influential woman, found her lying on the floor of a church with brass
tacks and a hammer—She said she was “chairman of the committee on laying
carpets in the church,” and that was all she could undertake.
Cheyenne wonderfully beautiful—plains—most exceptional place for
campaign purposes—forty minutes between street cars—snow miles high and
every woman demanding a separate visit. Influenza epidemic so bad that
it was considered immoral for six women to meet in a parlor—only way was
to campaign by dodgers and street signs—Got permission from owner of
building to put a forty-foot purple, white, and gold sign, suspended it
from the most prominent building—Town literally gathered in groups to
see it—I got up next morning at seven and sign was down—I had
“antagonized”—so I went to call on the Mayor and we toured the town, and
rehung the sign on an even more important street, and I had double
publicity, the Mayor taking full responsibility for the sign even
inquiring if it would “run in the rain.”
Such fearful snow, could get no billboard men to put up my big paper
signs outside of the cities, and I wanted them on cross-country roads. I
met a woman delivering newspapers, explained our campaign and my
difficulties, and she offered us her eighteen-year-old daughter and a
box of stickers, and we tramped the automobile roads and papered the
tree trunks—Posters.
This is my first National Woman’s Party trip. Wyoming a real
adventure—South where I have always lived (Charleston, South Carolina)
so utterly unlike—When I went out to mail my thousands of circular
letters each night at two A.M. funny Filipino bell boys and other kinds
would escort me and carry the thousands of circular letters to mail box.
Local post-office _really_ asked me to be “more considerate.”
South Carolina
Getting Senator Pollock’s vote seemed largely a question of getting the
farmers of South Carolina. If Pollock (the Progressive) was to beat
Senator Smith (the Reactionary) he must please the farm element.
So I journeyed out to Mayesville—arrived on hog-killing day—at the house
of Dabs—impressive person, leading farmer of South Carolina. We ate all
day, and sat around a glorious fire, and in the afternoon Mr. Dabs wrote
a letter that he gave me to take to town to mail that helped more than
we’ll ever know. In the letter Dabs spoke for the farmers, urged Pollock
to declare for the Suffrage Amendment, and ended, “We farmers are doing
little talking but a lot of thinking.”
I always believed if Pollock voted, he would vote “Yes.” But Mrs.
William P. Vaughan of Greenville, our State Chairman, and I tramped the
State up and down, saying, “There’ll be no vote—unless Pollock
declares.”
Finally one night Senator Pollock’s secretary appeared at my hotel in
Columbia, and he said, “Don’t say again that Pollock is defeating
Suffrage by delay.” I said, “Well, then, get him to declare.” He said,
“I’m going to Washington, going tomorrow. Good night. We will have a
surprise for you within a week—within three days.” And at once, after
weeks and weeks of campaigning, Senator Pollock of South Carolina broke
the Conservative record of his State, declared “Yes,” and voted “Yes,”
on the freedom of American women.
When it was all over—his vote and our campaign to get him to declare—I
came back to Washington, had lunch with him at the Capitol, and sat,
while he told me of the numerous people in South Carolina who had asked
him to vote “Yes!” “You’ll never know the sentiment that exists in South
Carolina,” was all he said. But I felt we knew.
Florida
Getting the South Florida Press Association at its annual meeting to
endorse the Federal Suffrage Amendment was marvelous fun—I learned that
Senator Trammell had gotten solid support from two counties, and owed
this support to a man named Goolsby—editor. So I hired a car and made
for Goolsby. He is a very powerful newspaper man. We sat around a log
fire, with the wife, a parrot, and a cat, and finally he said he was
going in two days to a meeting of the South Florida Press Association,
and that he was President. I said, “I’m going too.” He said, “Well,
there’s hope while there’s life—they’re against you, but you can try.” I
felt that we could do it, talked it all over with him, and said that I
would be down to put the resolution in regardless of the results—but
that I knew it could pass.
Two days seemed like years. At daybreak—five—I climbed in a Ford and
arrived at the Press Conference at ten. Goolsby was the only one I knew.
He introduced me to the Resolutions Committee. I sat through speeches
and speeches. At noon came a luncheon. The Chairman of the Resolutions
Committee took me to that. Then an auto ride all through the orange
groves—we got out and picked them, talking Suffrage all the while. Only
the Resolutions Committee and I were in the car. The Chairman of the
Committee finally said out of a clear sky to the elderly gentleman at my
left—a strong anti—“I believe we ought to pass a resolution or
something, don’t you, thanking Miss Pollitzer for coming?”—all in joke.
I said: “No, but you ought to pass a resolution urging your own Florida
Senators to stand behind President Wilson. They’re not.” He said, “They
should.” I said, “Well, let’s pass it.” So in the car, speeding along,
thanks to the marvelously smooth roads and my luncheon friend—we wrote
the resolution. The old editor said, “What? Suffrage!” My young one
said, “Yes; Suffrage; standing back of President Wilson.” When we got
back, my old editor said: “Say, let’s make that strong—we’ve got to go
on record unmistakably for Wilson.” He worked—Goolsby worked—of course
the young one worked. I sat and ate oranges. It was all done—in less
than fifteen minutes. The Resolutions Committee reported out a glorious
resolution, calling on Senators Trammell and Fletcher to support the
Susan B. Anthony Amendment, and it passed unanimously. The Resolution
read: “Be it resolved that we stand with President Wilson in his
advocacy of Woman Suffrage, and we urge our Representatives in Congress
to vote for the enfranchisement of women!!!”
The most exciting adventure of my life was “holding up the Florida
legislature” till midnight so Governor Catts could send a resolution in
asking Trammell and Fletcher (Senators) to vote for Suffrage. I saw
Senator Trammell in Washington, and he said he had not decided how he
would vote on the Amendment. That his vote would represent “the
people”—I asked him if in our government a State legislature didn’t
represent “the will of the people.” He said, “Yes, but I don’t intend to
instruct my legislature.” I said: “No, but maybe your legislature will
instruct you.” I came home and told Miss Paul, who said, “Will you go
down to Florida tonight?” and Bertha Arnold and I went. Helen Hunt, a
capable young Jacksonville lawyer, joined us, and the campaign began.
It was absolutely essential to get Governor Catts to send in the
Resolution, as messages from the Governor only took a majority—others a
two-third vote, but we didn’t want this too soon. When we had our votes
all there in the Senate, the leader, anti, moved that no new business
not already in by noon, could come up at all—the legislature barring
everything, to save themselves from Suffrage. This was fearful, as the
House was most difficult, and we had planned to attack the Senate first.
At four o’clock the last afternoon of the special session, called simply
to discuss prohibition, we flew to the Governor’s office. Helen Hunt, a
senator, a member of the House, and I got Governor Catts to say he’d
send a message at once. 4.30 came—5.30 came—no message. In terror, I
flew down. The Governor’s office was locked—I got one of the House to
move a night session—we lobbied for that, it carried. The Night Session
began at eight—Governor Catts still nowhere to be found. Finally, after
phoning his home every five minutes it seemed—I called at ten and they
said, “Governor Catts is in bed.”—I said we had to have him. The person
who answered the phone said nothing could be done. His secretary had the
office keys; he was ill at home; his stenographer had the desk keys; she
was at a movie. These obstacles to be overcome, and Governor Catts to be
rushed to the Capitol. I flew back to our night session at the Capitol.
I sent in a little slip-written message to Mr. Stokes, saying: “Trust
us—you said you’d help—keep this session going—filibuster—do
anything—don’t let them adjourn.” I stood in the door and saw him nod
“All right,” and flew.
Bertha Arnold in a taxi secured the outer key from the secretary—after
arousing secretary and encountering a storm.
Helen Hunt in another taxi called for Governor Catts, waited till he got
up from bed and dressed, and brought him and his daughter, Ruth, to the
Capitol. I meanwhile stopped at a Western Union Office and got a
messenger boy. He said, “What am I to take?” I said, “Me!” He knew the
way, and together we ran through the streets of Tallahassee at midnight,
covered every movie, and had the stenographer paged—brought her and her
escort to the Capitol—produced the desk keys—got the resolution. Never
was any sound more marvelous than Governor Catts’ thud when he walked up
those Capitol steps at midnight—instantly he rushed it up—the door of
the House opened—there stood my man Stokes, talking and hoarse. He had
kept them there. The secretary announced, “Message from the Governor,”
and our resolution was read!
The vote was closer than close—didn’t pass, but they had to stay till
the next day at two—we stayed too, and in the morning—of the last day—we
got a majority petition from the Florida legislature which showed
Trammell and Fletcher that Florida wanted their Suffrage votes.
When I heard that Senator Trammell was arriving in Lakeland, I wired
Miss Paul I would stay—Such a hectic and great day. I saw him with four
antis in the hotel lobby. He looked dumbfounded, shook hands, discussed
the climate, and acted as though I were touristing because Florida was
beautiful—but he knew.
Then I went out of his life—but sent others in—all day I got out little
delegations to him—the State Senator from that district—his
minister—president of the Bank—leading Labor man—his editor. Mr.
Trammell’s one day in Lakeland was a Woman’s Party event. I asked Mr.
Smailes—a strong Labor man—boyhood friend of Trammell’s, to see him.
That night they all came to me at the hotel and each reported his
achievement with Park Trammell.
Smailes said: “I looked at him and said, ‘Park—it’s funny you can’t see
it and those you were brought up with all can,’ and Park looked at me,
and he said, ‘Well, there’s one thing worrying me a little. I don’t want
women to get more than their share of electors.’ I just looked at him,
and I said: ‘Park, you know Mrs. Smailes don’t want more than her share,
but she ain’t got her share yet; that’s what she’s asking for.’”
I said, “Mr. Smailes, what do you think that Senator Trammell will do?”
He said, “I don’t know. I’ve known him since we were babies, but he’s a
Senator now.”
Helen Hunt met Trammell in Jacksonville when he arrived—on his “one day”
to Lakeland. He said, “Where is _she_?” (meaning me). “Is she still in
the State?” (Miss Younger thinks this funny because it shows how scared
they are of the Woman’s Party—even one of us.)
Virginia
I think our hotel experiences are so funny.
We had a terrible time getting any one to consider taking action on
Suffrage ratification at the Special Session. Virginia legislature
called just for good roads—I went to Roanoke to see floor-leader Willis
(strongest Suffragist in the House) and he announced he was scheduled
himself to introduce a bill saying that nothing but good roads would
come up. After a morning’s work with Willis, he decided he would bring
up Suffrage provided Senator Trinkle agreed. He promised to see Trinkle
the next morning, so I decided I’d better see Trinkle that night.
Fortunately a train was leaving in ten minutes. I arrived at Wytheville
at nine p.m. It was black. Senator Trinkle was on the platform. I picked
him out because he was the biggest man obviously and I asked where
Senator Trinkle lived and he said, “I am Senator Trinkle.” When my
interview was at an end and it was fixed, he said that the last train
out had left, and that I should go to the hotel, and say to the owner
that he said to give me the best room. To my great consternation, the
hotel proprietor escorted me into a room the size of a young stable,
which contained six beds, explaining, “This is our best room. I’ll call
it a single room for tonight.” Never can I describe the creaks of the
empty five beds all night long. It doesn’t sound funny, but it was—I and
six beds, some of them double, and a box of Uneeda crackers and
Hershey’s milk chocolate.
The way we got the University of Virginia mass-meeting was amusing. I
taught art at the University of Virginia Summer School. We had just
staged a big pageant at the University. Director Maphis was grateful and
said he’d do anything I wanted. That afternoon, Senator Martin arrived
in Charlottesville, his home, and so I went to see Mr. Maphis to tell
him I wanted Cabell Hall, the real University of Virginia Hall, and he
said, “Yes.” I phoned Miss Paul and she sent Lucy Branham—we advertised
with huge sheets on the front of each of the eight street cars, in
Charlottesville and hand-made slides at movies and posters that my Art
classes all were given to do as a “problem.”
The Hall was full and the wonderful old Jeffersonian University held its
first Federal Suffrage Mass Meeting and passed resolutions urging
Senator Martin to vote for the Amendment. Lucy Branham and I drove to
his home the next morning, presented him with the resolutions, and
described the meeting of his own constituents to him.
Here perhaps is the place to describe the work of the Political
Department, of which Abby Scott Baker was Chairman. The Political
Department supplemented the work of the Legislative and Organization
Departments. Whenever the work of the National Woman’s Party demanded
instant pressure on Congress and on State Legislatures, Alice Paul
despatched Mrs. Baker at once to the power who could exert that
pressure. She was a kind of perpetual flying envoy for the Woman’s
Party.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
IV
THE PRESIDENT CAPITULATES AND THE HOUSE SURRENDERS
IT will be remembered that after the eight months in which the Woman’s
Party picketed the President, the House of Representatives created a
Suffrage Committee in September, 1917. It will also be remembered that
during the discussion on the floor, in regard to that Committee, Mr.
Pou, Chairman, made the statement that there was no intention of passing
the Amendment before the Sixty-sixth Congress. That Congress adjourned
on October 6, 1917. Also, it will be remembered that that day, Alice
Paul marched over to the White House gates carrying a banner inscribed
with the words of the President:
THE TIME HAS COME WHEN WE MUST CONQUER OR SUBMIT.
FOR US THERE CAN BE BUT ONE CHOICE. WE HAVE MADE IT.
It will be remembered too that Alice Paul was arrested and sentenced to
seven months in jail.
Following the publicity which came from the Woman’s Party speakers all
over the country and from the newspapers, protests of all descriptions
began to pour into the White House and to the Democratic leaders:
letters, resolutions, petitions.
Again it will be remembered that a week before Congress reconvened on
December 3, 1917, all the imprisoned women were suddenly released.
In the new Session—a direct reversal of Mr. Pou’s announcement of two
months earlier that the House would not pass the Amendment before 1920—a
day was set for the vote on the Suffrage Amendment, a week after
Congress assembled.
Again, it should be pointed out that all these things happened after
those eight months of picketing.
That important day which the House set was January 10, 1918. In
September, the Suffragists lacked seventy-three votes of the passage of
the Amendment. Naturally all December was spent in working up that vote.
The National Woman’s Party secured statements from Republican leaders
like Mondell and Kahn, stating the strong Republican support of the
measure and blaming the Democrats if it were defeated. The National
Woman’s Party worked up the Republican majority from three-quarters of
the House to five-sixths. The Democrats began to be frightened at the
press statements of the Republicans. They began to work to increase
their showing, as they feared the country would blame them if the
Amendment were defeated.
But more important than any of these things was the capitulation of the
President which won, as the Woman’s Party contended it would, the
necessary votes in the house. On January 9, 1919, one year from the day
the Inez Milholland Memorial Deputation visited him, President Wilson
made his declaration for the Federal Amendment, and on January 10, the
Amendment was passed in the House by a vote of two hundred and
seventy-four to one hundred and thirty-six.
This important epoch in the history of the Suffrage Movement, Maud
Younger describes in her _Revelations of a Woman Lobbyist_.
The atmosphere had changed when I returned to Washington. Republican
Congressmen had suddenly realized what an asset to the Republican
Party would be their support of Suffrage. Democrats, seeing the
blame that would attach to them for its defeat, were becoming
alarmed.
“The country is fixing to blame the Democrats,” said Mr. Hull, of
Tennessee, very thoughtfully, but not quite thoughtfully enough. As
a member of the National Executive Committee of the Democratic Party
he was thoughtful. As a Congressman with a vote in the House he was
not quite thoughtful enough.
We lacked sixty votes in the House, and had only three weeks to get
them. We worked day and night. Our friends in Congress, brightly
hopeful, told us we had votes to spare, but we knew the truth. We
lacked forty votes, then twenty, then ten, but we kept this to
ourselves. Unless something happened we could not win.
Then, on January 9, the day before the vote, it happened. Late on
that afternoon the President invited a deputation of Democratic
Congressmen to wait on him. Knowing of the appointment, we went
through the halls of Congress, on wings, all day. When the
Congressmen went into the White House, a small group stood outside
in the snow waiting for the first word of that interview. After what
seemed an interminable time, the doors opened. Out came cheery Mr.
Raker with the news: “The President has declared for the Susan B.
Anthony Amendment, and will stay home from his game of golf tomorrow
morning to see any Congressman who wishes to consult him about it.”
Thus, just a year from the day he had told us we must concert public
opinion, President Wilson declared for Suffrage.
There was a feeling of victory in the air as we went through the
corridors that night. Yet our secret poll showed that we still
lacked votes. We could do nothing more. We could only wait and see
how much force the President would put behind his declaration.
Scrub women were still at work with brushes and buckets of soapsuds
when I reached the Capitol that fateful morning. From the front row
of the gallery we looked down on the floor of the House, with its
seven rows of empty seats rising in semi-circular rows like an
amphitheatre. A few people scurried here and there, the galleries
were rapidly filling. We watched the Congressmen come in, sit down,
walk about, or stand in groups talking and looking up at the
galleries.
At the stroke of eleven all eyes turned toward the door of the
Speaker’s lobby. Chattering ceased. The door opened, and a Roman
mace appeared and advanced, supported by the Deputy
Sergeant-at-Arms, who held it in his two hands before him. Very
solemn, very mindful of his step, he ascended the three steps to the
Speaker’s stand, followed by the Speaker, Champ Clark, dignified and
magnificent in a tan frock coat, with a white flower in the
buttonhole. Having ascended, the Sergeant-at-Arms laid the mace
against the wall where all the Congressmen could look at it, and
came down again with a little skip on the last step, while the
Speaker impressively faced the House.
Prayer and routine business finished, the speeches began. Most of
them were prosy and dull, delivered not for those who heard them,
but for constituents hundreds of miles away. In the galleries we
listened wearily. We had brought luncheon with us, which we ate as
unobtrusively as possible. We would lose our seats if we left them,
for through the ground-glass doors we dimly saw waiting multitudes
trying to come in. All day the largest crowds the doorkeepers had
ever known pressed against the doors. Inside the speeches droned on.
“What a dull ending for such a dramatic struggle,” said a newspaper
man, leaning over from the press gallery. I could have wished it had
been duller, for we never for an instant forgot we still lacked
votes. We did not know how far the President’s message had carried
since our last possible poll.
Suddenly a wave of applause and cheers swept over the floor. Every
head turned toward the Speaker’s door, and there, on the threshold,
we saw Mr. Mann, pale and trembling. For six months he had lain in a
hospital—his only visitors his wife and secretary. It had been said
that he would never come back to the House. Yet he had come to vote
for our Amendment.
Now, through the skylight, we could see that the afternoon had gone,
and evening had come. At last the time for speech-making ended and
the vote was taken. Forty years to a day from the first introduction
of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment in Congress, one year exactly from
the time the first picket line went to stand before the White House,
the Federal Suffrage Amendment passed the House of Representatives.
It passed with just one vote to spare. Six votes came to us through
the President. He had saved the day!
Outside the doors of the gallery a woman began to sing, _Praise God
from whom all blessings flow_. Others took it up, more and more
voices joined, and through the halls of the Capitol there swelled
our song of gratitude. Louder and louder it rose and soared to the
high arches, and was carried out into the night to die away at last
in the far distances. And still in our hearts we sang, _Praise God
from whom all blessings flow_.
But our minds were not at rest, nor our thoughts quiet. Our victory
was worth nothing unless we could consolidate it quickly. To do this
we had to win the Senate. And the Senate is farther from the people
than the House, and much, much harder to move.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
V
FIGHTING FOR VOTES IN THE SENATE
THE House of Representatives passed the Susan B. Anthony Amendment on
January 10, 1918, by a vote of two hundred and seventy-four to one
hundred and thirty-six. The work of the Woman’s Party was now
concentrated on the Senate. They needed only eleven votes there, and
many Suffragists were optimistic—they thought victory a matter of but a
few weeks. The Woman’s Party knew better. However, in the siege of the
Senate, they continued their policy—to work downwards through the
President, and upward through constituents and political leaders from
the people.
In summing up the situation in the Senate, Alice Paul said:
If the Republicans had the vision to see that it was a wise Party
policy to secure the credit for the passage of the Amendment in the
House, and the Democrats believed it an unwise Party policy to be
responsible for its defeat—the same argument must hold for the vote
in the Senate, for while more than two-thirds of the Republicans had
already promised their votes, only half the Democrats are at present
pledged in the Senate.
The effect of the passing of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment in the House
was, however, not only profound, but immediate. In February, the
Republican National Committee met in St. Louis for the selection of a
Chairman. Abby Scott Baker appeared before the committee, urging a
favorable stand on the Susan B. Anthony amendment. Two women
representing the anti-Suffragists were also to speak. However, when the
anti-Suffragist speakers presented themselves before the Committee, they
found that it had already voted a resolution commending the stand of the
Republican members of the House of Representatives in favor of the
Suffrage Amendment. This was the first favorable expression of the
National Republican Party on the question of Federal Suffrage.
Minnie Bronson said of the anti-Suffragist members:
I looked round for the thirty members who last night were opposed to
Suffrage. I wonder what changed them over night.
Lucy Price, also an anti-Suffragist, asserted:
Your action without even hearing us was worse than a betrayal of us
who are opposed to Suffrage. It was an admission that Party pledges
are meant to be broken.
The Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee, which met
that same day in Washington, held a telegraphic referendum of their
entire national committee on the question of the Amendment. It is
interesting to note that this was done at the insistence of the
Democratic woman who had charge of the Democratic campaign among women
in 1916, when the Woman’s Party made Suffrage the great issue. This
telegraphic referendum showed more than a two to one desire for the
national committee to take action that would put it on record as “urging
the support” of the Amendment. The Executive Committee, therefore,
adopted the resolution, endorsing the Federal Suffrage measure, and by a
vote of five to two, calling upon the Senate to act at once favorably
upon it.
For months thereafter, the Woman’s Party concentrated on obtaining the
necessary eleven votes in the Senate. It was a period of comparative
calm. There was no militant action of any kind. The pickets had all been
released in December, and, although the appeal cases were coming up in
the courts at intervals, picketing seemed an abandoned weapon.
In her _Revelations of a Woman Lobbyist_, Maud Younger describes very
delightfully how the first nine votes were obtained:
“We should get Senator Phelan now,” said Miss Paul. “He opposed
Federal Suffrage because the President did. Now that the President
has come out for it, Senator Phelan should do so. Send for him.”
I sent in my card and he came at once, very neat in a cut-away coat,
his eyes smiling above his trimmed sandy beard. “Of course I’ll vote
for the Amendment,” he said, as though he had never thought of
anything else. He was plainly glad to have an excuse for changing
his position.
“That leaves ten to get,” said Miss Paul. “Let’s go and see Senator
McCumber.” The Senator from North Dakota is sandy and Scotch and
cautious, and, like many other Senators, thinks it would be weak and
vacillating to change his opinion.
“I voted against it in 1914. I cannot vote for it in 1918,” he said.
“I cannot change my principles.”
“But you can change your mind?”
“No, I could not do that.”
“Then you might change your vote,” said I, urging progress. He, too,
saw progress, but was wary of it. Looking cautiously around the room
and back of us, he said slowly, “If the legislature of my State
should ask me to vote for it, I would feel obliged to do so.”
That same night Beulah Amidon telegraphed to North Dakota,—her own
State—to the Chairman of the Republican Party and the Non-Partisan
League that controls the Legislature; to her father, Judge Amidon,
and to others. The Legislature immediately passed a resolution
calling on Senator McCumber to vote for our Amendment. Miss Amidon
went to see him at once, with the news.
“But I haven’t seen how the resolution is worded yet,” said Senator
McCumber cannily.
When the resolution arrived some one else went to see him.
“I want to look it over carefully,” he said. When he had looked it
over carefully, he admitted, “I will vote for the Amendment. But to
show loyalty both to constituents and principle,” he added hastily,
“I will speak against it, and vote for it.”
“That leaves nine to get,” said Miss Paul, counting Senator McCumber
off on her little finger and turning to a list of other legislatures
in session. The difficulty was that the legislatures in session did
not fit the Senators whose votes we must get. Mildred Glines, our
Rhode Island chairman, was at our Headquarters, and Senator Gerry of
Rhode Island was at the Capitol, and not for our Amendment. So
Mildred Glines set out at once for Rhode Island, where she had a
resolution presented and passed, and returned with it to Senator
Gerry.
Then I went to see his colleague, Senator Colt. A scholarly-looking
man, he sat at his desk deep in some volume of ancient lore. Arguing
with himself while I sat listening, he stated the case for Suffrage
and Senator Gerry. “But on the other hand,” he said—and then stated
the other side.
“Yes,” he concluded deliberately, but with a twinkle in his eye,
“Peter will vote for it.”
“That leaves eight to get,” said Miss Paul, very thoughtfully. “Have
you seen Senator King lately?”
Though Senator King is not unpleasant to talk with, if one does not
broach subjects controversial, persons who appealed to his reason
had succeeded only in ruffling his manners. He smiled blandly and,
leaning back in his chair, began what he believed to be a perfect
case. “I’ve always been opposed to national Suffrage. I said so in
my campaign, and the people elected me.”
We must appeal to his constituents. But how? His Legislature was not
in session. Alice Henkle went post-haste to Utah, and at once
newspapers began to publish editorials; all sorts of organizations,
civic, patriotic, religious, educational, social, began to pass
resolutions. Letters poured in upon Senator King. But always Miss
Henkle wrote us, “They tell me everywhere that it’s no use; that
Senator King is so ‘hard-shelled’ that I might as well stop.”
“Go to the Capitol and see,” said Miss Alice Paul.
I had just entered the revolving door when Senator Sheppard,
hurrying past, stopped to say, “Do you know King is coming around! I
think we may get his vote.”
So Miss Paul wired Alice Henkle that night: “Redouble efforts. They
are having good effect.” Four weeks later, three Senators told me
that Senator King had said in the cloak room, “I’m as much opposed
to Federal Suffrage as ever, but I think I’ll vote for it. My
constituents want me to.”
“That leaves six to get,” said Miss Paul, “counting Senator
Culberson too.” For while we had been busy in Washington, Doris
Stevens and Clara Wolfe had been busy in Texas on the trail of
Senator Culberson.
The national committees of both political parties had taken a stand
for Federal Suffrage in February. Also, Colonel Roosevelt and other
Republican leaders were writing to Senators whose names we
furnished, urging their support.
“Now,” said Senator Curtis, smiling, “I think we’ll get Harding and
Sutherland. They both want to vote for it, but their States are
against it. I’ll go see them again. Keep the backfires burning in
their States.”
Senator Curtis has the dark hair and skin of Indian ancestry, and
perhaps his Indian blood has given him his quick sense of a
situation and his knowledge of men. Without quite knowing how it
happened—it may have been his interest in listening or his wisdom in
advising—he had become the guiding friend, the storm-center of our
work on the Republican side of the Senate.
“Colonel Roosevelt has written to Senator Sutherland too,” I thought
hopefully, while I sat waiting for him in the marble room. He came
out, and said almost at once, “I’ve just had a letter from Colonel
Roosevelt asking me to vote for your Amendment!”
“Have you?” said I.
“Yes. But I wish he had told me how I can do it, when the
overwhelming sentiment of my State is against it.” I spoke of
something else, but that night I reported this remark to Doris
Stevens and Abby Scott Baker. Both of them immediately wrote to
Colonel Roosevelt. Later, I again saw Senator Sutherland. He had
evidently forgotten our former conversation.
“I’ve had a letter from Colonel Roosevelt about your Amendment,” he
said. “It’s the second time he has written to me about it. He wants
me to come to Oyster Bay so he can give me reasons for voting for
it.”
“I should think it would be awfully interesting to go,” I encouraged
gently. And soon we checked off Senator Sutherland’s name on our
lists, and said, “Five more to get.”
“Do you think we can get Borah?” I asked Senator Curtis. “He’s one
of the fathers of the Amendment. He introduced it in 1910.”
“He says he did that by request.”
“It doesn’t say so in the Record. Doesn’t a man always say so when
it is so?”
“That is usual,” said Senator Curtis, stroking his mustache and not
meeting my eyes, and I knew he said only half of what he thought.
“I think I’ll go and see him at once.”
Senator Borah is a most approachable person, but when you have
approached, you cannot be sure you have reached. You see him sitting
at his desk, a large unferocious, bulldog type of man, simple in
manner. You talk with him, and you think he is with you through and
through.... But you never quite know.... Sometimes you wonder if
_he_ knows.
In April, Senator Gallinger told Miss Paul that the Republicans
counted four more votes for Suffrage—Kellogg, Harding, Page, and
Borah. “We understand Borah will vote for the Amendment if it will
not pass otherwise. But he will not vote for it if it will pass
without him. But if his vote will carry it, he will vote for it.”
Thus far we had come on our journey toward the eleven, when Senator
Andreus Aristides Jones of New Mexico, Chairman of the Woman
Suffrage Committee, rose in the Senate and announced that on May 10
he would move to take up the Suffrage resolution. There was great
rejoicing. We thought that now the Administration would get the
needed votes.
Indeed, with only two votes more to get, everything looked promising.
* * * * *
In May, members of the Woman’s Committee of the Council of National
Defense were received by the President and Mrs. Wilson.
Florence Bayard Hilles, State Chairman in Delaware for the National
Woman’s Party, who had campaigned for the Liberty Loan throughout her
State, and was then working in the Bethlehem Steel Plant, as a munition
maker, said to the President:
Mr. President, it would be a great inspiration to all of us in our
war work if you would help towards our immediate enfranchisement.
Behind Mrs. Hilles came Mrs. Arthur Kellam, who is Chairman of the
Woman’s Party in New Mexico, who said:
Mr. President, we, women of the West, are growing very restless
indeed waiting for the long-delayed passage of the Federal Suffrage
Amendment. Won’t you help to secure this recognition of citizens?
The women of New Mexico and many other States have no redress save
through the Federal Amendment. They are eagerly waiting for action
on this measure in the Senate. Will you help us?
The President, with marked cordiality, answered:
“I will. I will do all I can.”
In the meantime, the President was receiving picturesque groups of many
descriptions: Pershing’s Veterans went to the White House; the Blue
Devils of France. Finally a group of women munition workers from the
Bethlehem Plant, led by Florence Bayard Hilles, came to Washington to
see the President in regard to Suffrage. They were: Catherine Boyle; Ada
Walling; Mary Gonzon; Lula Patterson; Marie McKenzie; Isabel C. Aniba;
Lilian Jerrold; Mary Campbell; Mildred Peck; Ida Lennox. The experience
of the war workers was amusing. They wrote at once asking for an
interview with the President. Mr. Tumulty responded saying that the
President bade him to tell them that “nothing you or your associates
could say could possibly increase his very deep interest in this
matter.”
Mrs. Aniba despatched an answer, again asking for an interview. She said
among other things:
The work I do is making detonators, handling TNT, the highest of all
explosives. We want to be recognized by our country as much her
citizens as soldiers are.
Every day this little group went to the White House and sat, waiting.
They made a picturesque detail in the exceedingly picturesque war flood
surging through the White House, wearing bands printed with the words,
_munition workers_ on their arm and their identification badges. They
knitted all the time. At first, one of the secretaries explained to
them, “You are very foolish. You may have to wait for weeks. Even Lord
Reading had to come back four times before he saw the President!”
Later, an under-secretary said: “You are becoming a nuisance. Other
people have more consideration than to keep coming back; but you persist
and persist.”
“Even Lord Reading had to come back four times before he saw the
President,” quoted one of the munition girls.
They waited two weeks, but in the end they had to go back to work. They
wrote a letter to the Senate, however, which was read there.
May 10 approached. I resume Miss Younger’s narrative:
When the proper time arrived next day, Senator Andreus Aristides
Jones arose in his place. The galleries were packed. Our forces were
all present except the three missing votes. There was Senator Smith
of Michigan, who had come from California; Senator Smith of Arizona,
who had left a sick relative to be present for the vote; and there
were others who had come from far and wide. Senator Jones in the
hush of a great moment, rose and announced that he would not call up
the Amendment that day.
Our opponents looked at him and, grinning, taunted: “Haven’t you got
the votes?” “We want to vote today.” “We’re ready now.”
Finally the women filed out of the galleries and went home, and the
Senate resumed its usual business.
Later, however, Senator Jones announced that on June 27 he would take up
the Suffrage Resolution.
Miss Younger says:
Senator Jones does not act on mad impulse. No one could imagine that
placid, unhurried man buckling on his armor and brandishing his
sword to lead his forces a second time up a blind alley only to lead
them back again. Senator Jones was a strong Administration man and
would not act without approval.
Moreover, he was a sincere Suffragist. In fact, he was a Father of
the Amendment. So we kept at work, aiding and abetting all its
Fathers. For the disabilities of fathers are manifest when you
compare them with mothers. A father is so casual, especially when
his child is an Amendment to the Constitution.
“Nagging!” said Senator Lenroot viciously, when I asked him to speak
to Senator Borah. “If you women would only stop nagging!” And making
a savage face at me, he hurried down the hall.
I stood still. It was but the second time we had spoken to him since
he had come to the Senate. I wondered if he thought we liked
“nagging”; if we liked going to the Capitol day after day, tramping
on marble floors, waiting in ante-rooms—sometimes rebuffed,
sometimes snarled at. I wondered if he thought we could do it for
anything but a great cause—for the thousands of women toiling in the
factories, for the thousands struggling under burdens at home. And
then I bit my lips to keep back the tears, and putting aside such
uncomfortable things as feelings, and putting forward such solacing
things as a lace jabot and a smile, I sent for another Senator.
Senator Martin, of silvery white hair and determined manner would
not sit down and talk Suffrage, nor would he stand up and talk
Suffrage. The only way to discuss Suffrage with Senator Martin was
to run beside him down the hall.
“The good women of Virginia do not want Suffrage,” he said, breaking
almost into a trot, with eyes on his goal, which was an elevator.
“But if you were convinced that the good women of Virginia do want
it?” you replied, breaking almost into a run, with your eyes on him.
“It’s only the professional agitators I hear from,” he answered.
It is interesting to talk Suffrage with Senator Martin, and very
good exercise. But it was still more interesting to watch a
deputation of good Virginia women talking to him.
“Every one knows where I stand, and yet the ladies waylay me all
about the halls,” he complained. Yet when we had spoken before the
Platform Committee of the Democratic Convention in St. Louis, he
told me: “I said to those men, ‘There isn’t an equal number of you
that could make as good speeches as those women made.’” So he was
not to be considered as hopeless, though the path to his salvation
was a strenuous one.
In June, Carrie Chapman Catt, President of the International Woman
Suffrage Alliance, transmitted to the President a memorial from the
French Union for Woman Suffrage asking him in one of his messages to
proclaim the principle of Woman Suffrage to be one of the fundamental
rights of the future.
The President replied in the following letter:
I have read your message with the deepest interest, and I welcome
the opportunity to say that I agree, without reservation, that the
full and sincere democratic reconstruction of the world, for which
we are striving, and which we are determined to bring about at any
cost, will not have been completely or adequately attained until
women are admitted to the Suffrage. And that only by this action can
the nations of the world realize for the benefit of future
generations the full ideal force of opinion, or the full humane
forces of action.
The services of women during this supreme crisis of the world’s
history have been of the most signal usefulness and distinction. The
war could not have been fought without them or its sacrifices
endured. It is high time that some part of our debt of gratitude to
them should be acknowledged and paid, and the only acknowledgment
they ask is their admission to the Suffrage. Can we justly refuse
it?
As for America, it is my earnest hope that the Senate of the United
States will give unmistakable answer to this question by passing the
Suffrage Amendment to our Federal Constitution before the end of
this session.
Cordially and sincerely yours,
WOODROW WILSON.
Miss Younger says:
The twenty-seventh of June approached. Again we were in the marble
room talking with Senators. Absentees were on trains hurrying to
Washington. The antis were in the reception room knitting votes into
their wool. The Capitol thrilled with excitement. Even the Senators
seemed to feel it. This time Sutherland would vote “yea,” and
several opponents were absent. If none of them paired with a
Suffrage Senator we could just manage the necessary majority. And
the White House was taking a hand. Senator James of Kentucky, in a
Baltimore hospital, had promised Mr. Tumulty that he would not
pair—that is, that he would not ask a Suffrage Senator to refrain
from voting to counterbalance his own enforced absence. Victory
seemed in our hands.
The day arrived. The galleries were filled. The Senators came in all
dressed up for the occasion—here a gay waistcoat or a bright tie,
there a flower in a buttonhole, yonder an elegant frock coat over
gray trousers.
Senator Jones arose to take up the Amendment. At once opposition
developed. Our opponents were willing to have a vote, provided all
absentees could be paired. Now, if all absentees were counted, we
would not have enough votes. Senator James’ promise not to vote had
given us our majority. But, stunned, we heard Senator Underwood read
a telegram from Senator James pleading that some Suffragist pair
with him. Senator Underwood said he had just confirmed the telegram.
It was not until too late that we learned the truth. The telegram
had been sent six weeks earlier for another occasion.
And now Senator Reed had the floor. “Oh, who will pair with Ollie
James?” he cried. “That n-o-oble Ollie James! You all know that
great, fine, noble specimen of manhood, Ollie James! A pair! A
pair!” he cried with tears in his voice and arms outstretched. He
went on and on.
We leaned over the balcony and watched Senator Curtis pleading with
Borah, urging him to vote for us and save our Amendment. We watched
breathlessly. We saw Borah listen, smile, and then, without a word,
rise and walk slowly out of the room. We flew down to Senator
Curtis.
“No, Borah won’t do it. They say King is going to. Reed won’t give
up the floor unless we withdraw or furnish a pair. He and his
friends will hold the floor for weeks, if necessary. And the
military bill must pass before July first. The army needs money. You
can see for yourself what’s happening. It’s a filibuster.”
Reed was still talking. They say he knows about a great many
subjects, and I think he talked about all he knew that day. But
nobody will ever know what they were, for no one listened; and he
never allowed the speech to be printed in the Record.
Finally Senator Jones arose and withdrew the motion to take up
Suffrage. Senator Reed, satisfied, sat down. His filibuster had
succeeded. He had threatened to hold up the military bill to defeat
us, so we had withdrawn. The Senate took up the military bill, and
we went home.
“Suffrage is dead for this session,” said Senator McKellar. “The
Senators don’t like being nagged any more. They are all very tired
of it.”
But the Woman’s Party did not think it was dead. They worked at their
usual strenuous pace all summer long. They did feel, however, that if
the President had exerted himself, he could have obtained the two
necessary votes for the Amendment to pass. They were, moreover, highly
indignant over the filibuster of a Democratic Senator—Reed. Their
patience was beginning to wear thin.
* * * * *
In the meantime, the primary Senatorial elections were coming up, and
the President was taking an active part in them. He was working against
Senator Vardaman of Mississippi and Senator Hardwick of Georgia, both
Democrats of course and Vardaman a Suffragist. In other States, he
helped to elect anti-Suffragists in the places of Suffragists. It is
true that the President threw a sop to the Suffragists in that he asked
Senator Shields of Tennessee to come out for Suffrage. The Shields
incident is interesting.
Senator Shields was making it his sole issue in the primary campaign
that he would carry out all the President’s war policies. Opposing
Senator Shields was Governor Rye, a Democrat of course, and a
Suffragist.
Maud Younger called at the White House on Secretary Tumulty one day to
ask him if the President could not do something further for Suffrage.
Mr. Tumulty’s answer was to read a letter from President Wilson to
Senator Shields, asking him to vote for the Suffrage Amendment. Maud
Younger, with characteristic political astuteness, saw at once the
possibilities in the publication of that letter. She asked Mr. Tumulty
for a copy and Mr. Tumulty, with a sudden sense of indiscretion,
refused. However, Miss Younger went back instantly with the story to
Headquarters, and presently Sue White and Lucy Branham became very
busy—oh, very busy indeed—in the Tennessee campaign.
On July 26, Senator Shields notified the Suffragists in Tennessee that
he would see them at three that afternoon. He told the fifty women who
gathered to meet him that “he would hold the matter in consideration.”
The same day a Columbia paper carried the story that President Wilson
had requested Senator Shields by letter to vote for Suffrage. This
brought the whole month-old correspondence before the public.
The letters ran as follows:
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON.
June 20, 1918.
MY DEAR SENATOR:
I feel so deeply the possibilities latent in the vote which is
presently to be taken by the Senate on the Suffrage Amendment that I
am going to take a liberty which in ordinary circumstances I should
not feel justified in taking, and ask you very frankly if it will
not be possible for you to vote for the Amendment. I feel that much
of the morale of this country and of the world will repose in our
sincere adherence to democratic principles, will depend upon the
action which the Senate takes in this now critically important
matter. If it were merely a domestic question, or if the times were
normal, I would not feel that I could make a direct request of this
sort, but the times are so far from normal, the fortunes of nations
are so linked together, the reactions upon the thought of the world
are so sharp and involve such momentous issues that I know that you
will indulge my unusual course of action and permit me to beg very
earnestly that you will lend your aid in clearing away the
difficulties which will undoubtedly beset us if the Amendment is not
adopted. With much respect,
Sincerely yours,
WOODROW WILSON.
UNITED STATES SENATE, WASHINGTON, D. C.
June 25, 1918.
MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:
Your valued letter concerning the joint resolution proposing an
Amendment on the Federal Constitution favoring Equal Suffrage, now
pending in the United States Senate, has challenged my most
thoughtful consideration, as do all your views upon public matters.
The resolution involves fundamental questions affecting the
sovereignty and powers of the Federal and State governments, most
important and vital to the people of the State which I have the
honor in part to represent in the United States Senate, and those of
States with which they are closely allied in all social, economical,
and governmental interests, upon which I have most profound
convictions, unfavorable to it, known, and I believe approved, by
the great majority of the people of Tennessee—arrived at after full
consideration of conditions existing when I voted against a similar
one some years ago and those now confronting our country. The
reasons for my conclusions are those controlling the majority of my
colleagues from the Southern States, well known to you and which
would not be interesting to here re-state.
If I could bring myself to believe that the adoption of the
Resolution would contribute to the successful prosecution of the war
we are waging with Germany, I would unhesitatingly vote for it,
because my whole heart and soul is involved in bringing it to a
victorious issue and I am willing to sacrifice everything save the
honor and freedom of our country in aiding you to accomplish that
end. But I have been unable to do so. We cannot reasonably expect
the proposed Amendment to be ratified within less than two years and
the discussion of it would, unquestionably, divert the minds and
energies of the people from the one great absorbing subject before
us—the winning of the war—by involving those of many States in a
most bitter controversy contrary to our earnest desire for that
unity of thought and action of the American people now so
imperatively required.
These are my sincere convictions, but, out of my very high respect
for your views, I will continue to give your suggestion my most
thoughtful and earnest consideration.
With the highest respect, I am,
Sincerely yours,
JOHN K. SHIELDS.
WASHINGTON, D. C.
June 26, 1918.
Thank you very sincerely for your frank letter of yesterday about
the Suffrage Amendment. I realize the weight of argument that has
controlled your attitude in the matter, and I would not have written
as I did if I had not thought that the passage of the Amendment at
this time was an essential psychological element in the conduct of
the war for democracy. I am led by a single sentence in your letter,
therefore, to write to say that I do earnestly believe that our
acting upon this Amendment will have an important and immediate
influence upon the whole atmosphere and morale of the nations
engaged in the war, and every day I am coming to see how supremely
important that side of the whole thing is. We can win if we have the
will to win.
Cordially and sincerely yours,
WOODROW WILSON.
Many believe that had President Wilson—in regard to Suffrage—gone over
Shields’ head to his constituents as—in regard to other war policies—he
had gone over the heads of Vardaman and Hardwick to their constituents,
Senator Shields would have declared in favor of Suffrage.
On August 2, a letter written by the President to Senator Baird of New
Jersey was made public:
The President writes:
The whole subject of Woman Suffrage has been very much in my mind of
late and has come to seem to be a part of the international
situation, as well as of capital importance to the United States. I
believe our present position as champions of democracy throughout
the world would be greatly strengthened if the Senate would follow
the example of the House of Representatives in passing the pending
Amendment. I, therefore, take the liberty of writing to call the
matter to your serious attention in this light and to express the
hope that you will deem it wise to throw your influence on the side
of this great and now critical reform.
(Signed) WOODROW WILSON.
In spite of these letters, which of course were mere requests, Alice
Paul well knew, as did the Senators themselves, that President Wilson
was doing a little for Suffrage, but not all he could. He was not of
course doing for the Suffrage Amendment a tithe of what he did for other
measures in whose success he was interested. Nothing continued to happen
with monotonous, unfailing regularity.
The Woman’s Party could wait no longer.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VI
BURNING THE PRESIDENT’S WORDS
AT half-past four on Tuesday afternoon, August 6, a line of nearly one
hundred women emerged from Headquarters, crossed the other side of the
street to the Park; turned into Pennsylvania Avenue. At the head of the
long line floated the red, white, and blue of the American flag carried
by Hazel Hunkins. Behind it came, banner after banner and banner after
banner, the purple, white, and gold of the National Woman’s Party
tri-color. The line proceeded along Pennsylvania Avenue until it came to
the statue of Lafayette just opposite the east gate of the White House.
All along the way, the crowds cheered and applauded the women; soldiers
and sailors saluted the red, white, and blue as it passed.
At the Lafayette monument, two banner bearers emerged from the group;
and stationed themselves on the platform at the base of the statue.
One of them, Mary Gertrude Fendall, bore Inez Milholland’s banner,
inscribed with her memorable last words:
HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY?
The other, borne by Clara Wold and Blanche McPherson, carried what was
really the message of the meeting:
WE PROTEST AGAINST THE CONTINUED DISFRANCHISEMENT
OF AMERICAN WOMEN, FOR WHICH THE PRESIDENT OF THE
UNITED STATES IS RESPONSIBLE.
WE CONDEMN THE PRESIDENT AND HIS PARTY FOR ALLOWING
THE OBSTRUCTION OF SUFFRAGE IN THE SENATE.
WE DEPLORE THE WEAKNESS OF PRESIDENT WILSON IN PERMITTING THE SENATE TO
LINE ITSELF WITH THE PRUSSIAN REICHSTAG BY DENYING DEMOCRACY TO THE
PEOPLE WE DEMAND THAT THE PRESIDENT AND HIS PARTY SECURE THE PASSAGE OF
THE SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT THROUGH THE SENATE IN THE PRESENT SESSION. The
other banner bearers marched to both sides of the statue where they made
solid banks of vivid color. Mrs. Lawrence Lewis stepped forward. “We are
here,” she said, “because when our country is at war for liberty and
democracy....”
At the word “democracy,” the police, who had been drawing nearer and
nearer, placed her under arrest. Other women standing about her were
arrested, although they had not even spoken.
For a moment there was a complete silence.
Then Hazel Hunkins, who had led the line carrying the American flag,
leaped upon the base of the statue and said:
Here, at the statue of Lafayette, who fought for the liberty of this
country, and under the American flag, I am asking for the
enfranchisement of American women.
She was immediately arrested. Another woman took her place, and she was
arrested; another; and another; and on and on, until forty-seven women
had been taken into custody.
Alice Paul, who had not participated in the parade, was standing in the
middle of the street, watching and listening. She had no banner. She had
not spoken. She had not moved. But a policeman, pointing at her, said:
“That is the leader; get her!” And she was arrested.
[Illustration: BURNING THE PRESIDENT’S WORDS AT THE LAFAYETTE MONUMENT,
WASHINGTON.]
[Illustration: A SUMMER PICKET LINE.]
Many women asked on what charge they were arrested. “Do not answer them!
Do not tell them anything!” said a policeman. Others answered with very
labored charges, which were not substantiated later by Police
Headquarters. Patrol wagon after patrol wagon appeared, was filled with
women, and dashed off, followed by the purple, white, and gold flutter
of the banners.
When Hazel Hunkins was arrested, she forbade the policemen to take the
American flag which she carried from her. At the Municipal Building, she
refused to relinquish it. After the preliminaries of their arrest were
over and the women released on bail, they marched back in an unbroken
line behind Hazel’s flag.
The arrested women were the following:
Hazel Adams, Eva E. Sturtevant, Pauline Clarke, Blanche A.
McPherson, Katherine R. Fisher, Rose Lieberson, Alice Kimball,
Matilda Terrace, Lucy Burns, Edith Ainge, May Sullivan, Mary
Gertrude Fendall, Julia Emory, Anna Kuhn, Gladys Greiner, Martha W.
Moore, Cora Crawford, Dr. Sarah Hunt Lockrey, Mrs. Lawrence Lewis,
Ellen Winsor, Mary Winsor, Mrs. Edmund C. Evans, Christine M. Doyle,
Kate Cleaver Heffelfinger, Lavinia Dock, Harriet Keehn, Alice Paul,
Mary E. Dubrow, Lillian M. Ascough, Edna M. Purtelle, Ruby E.
Koeing, Elsie Hill, Helena Hill Weed, Eleanor Hill Weed, Mrs. Gilson
Gardner, Sophie G. Meredith, Louise M. Black, Agnes Chase, Kate J.
Boeckh, Hazel Hunkins, Cora Wold, Clara P. Wold, Margaret Oakes,
Mollie Marie Green, Gertrude Lynde Crocker, Effie Boutwell Main,
Annie Arniel, Emily Burke Main.
The forty-seven were ordered to appear in court the next morning at
half-past nine. The United States attorney told them, when he arrived at
10:30, that the case was postponed for a week. The police clerk told
Clara Wold that she was arrested “for climbing the statue.”
Clara Wold describes her subsequent experiences when, dismissed by the
court, she walked to Headquarters past the Lafayette monument, “there
sat a colored man on the very same ledge—basket, bundles, and papers
strewn about him as he comfortably devoured a sandwich.”
Lafayette Park was not under the District of Columbia, but directly
under the President’s military aide—Colonel Ridley, who was also
Superintendent of Public Buildings and grounds in Washington.
On August 13, the women appeared in the Federal Police Court, as
ordered, for trial. The charge had been decided on; “For holding a
meeting in public grounds.” But again the Court announced postponement
until August 15.
After vigorous protests by the Suffragists against further delay, the
cases of the eighteen, who were charged in addition with “climbing a
statue,” were tried separately.
The women had no lawyers. Each spoke on her own behalf. They defended
themselves on the ground of the constitutional right of free assemblage
and appeal to the Government for the redress of grievances. They all
pleaded, Not Guilty. Many of them added that they did not recognize the
jurisdiction of the Court. Hazel Hunkins explained: “Women cannot be
law-breakers until they are law-makers.”
One of the witnesses was the Chief Clerk of Public Grounds, an elderly
man. Elsie Hill suddenly asked him when he had taken office. He replied,
“In 1878.” “Do you realize,” Miss Hill said, “that in that year a
Federal Suffrage Amendment was introduced, and that since then women
have been helping to pay your salary and that of other government
officials under protest?” The Chief Clerk was so astounded that he
merely shook his head.
The trial of the remainder of the women on the charge of “holding a
meeting on public grounds” took place on August 15.
At the very beginning of proceedings Alice Paul said:
As a disfranchised class we feel that we are not subject to the
jurisdiction of this court and therefore refuse to take any part in
its proceedings. We also feel that we have done nothing to justify
our being brought before it.
They then sat down and refused to answer any question put to them.
The judge was utterly nonplussed by this situation. He said that he
would call a recess of fifteen minutes to consider the question of
contempt. Among the spectators who packed the room was a lawyer—a
visitor in Washington. He extracted a great deal of enjoyment out of
this occasion, because, he said, “if the women are not afraid of jail,
there is nothing the judge can do.” He awaited the judge’s decision with
an entertained anticipation. Apparently the judge came to the same
decision, for at the end of fifteen minutes, the Court reconvened and
the trial went on as though nothing had happened.
The women refused to rise when charged. They refused to plead Guilty or
Not Guilty. They sat and read, or knitted, or, as the proceedings bored
them, fell asleep. The Park Police were, of course, the only witnesses.
At last all the women whom they could identify were found Guilty. They
were sentenced to pay fines of five or ten dollars or to serve in prison
ten or fifteen days. They all refused to pay the fine. Mary Winsor said:
“It is quite enough to pay taxes when you are not represented, let alone
pay a fine if you object to this arrangement.” The prisoners were then
bundled in the Black Maria and taken off to prison.
Before the pickets were released from prison at the end of the previous
year, Superintendent Zinkham said to them:
Now don’t come back, for, if you do, I will have a far worse place
than the jail fixed up for you. I will have the old workhouse fixed
up for you, and you will have cells without sunlight, with windows
high up from the ground. You won’t be as comfortable as you are
here.
Everything happened as Superintendent Zinkham prophesied, and a great
deal more that was worse. The old workhouse which he had promised them
had been condemned in Roosevelt’s Administration, and had not been used
for years. The lower tier of cells was below the level of the ground.
The doors of the cells were partly of solid steel and only partly of
grating, so that little light penetrated. The wash basin was small and
inadequate. The toilet was open, the cots were of iron and without
springs, and with a thin straw mattress on them. Outside, they left
behind a day so hot as to be almost insupportable, but in the Workhouse,
it was so cold that their teeth chattered. It was damp all the time.
When the present writer visited this old Workhouse in October, 1919,
beads of water hung on everything. The walls were like the outside of an
ice water pitcher in summer. Several of the pickets developed
rheumatism. But the unendurable thing about it was the stench which came
in great gusts; component of all that its past history had left behind
and of the closeness of the unaired atmosphere. Apparently something was
wrong with the water, or perhaps it was that the pipes had not been used
for years. Most of the women believe they suffered with lead poisoning.
They ached all over; endured a violent nausea; chills.
However, all the twenty-six, with the exception of two elderly women,
went on hunger-strikes. Lucy Burns presented a demand on behalf of the
entire company to Superintendent Zinkham. She said: “We must have
twenty-three more blankets and twenty-three hot-water bottles. This
place is cold and unfit for human habitation.”
“I know it is cold and damp,” he replied, “but you can all get out of
here by paying your fines.”
* * * * *
The Woman’s Party showed their usual ingenuity in bringing these
conditions before the public. As fast as women were arrested, their
State Senators and Representatives were besieged by letters and
telegrams from home urging them to go to see these imprisoned
constituents. The Press of their district made editorial question or
comment. As long as this imprisoning of the pickets continued, there was
a file of Representatives and Senators visiting the victims. Senator
Jones of Washington was the first outside visitor to see them.
* * * * *
In the meantime, another meeting of protest, held at the Lafayette
Monument on August 12, with the same speakers and many of the same
banner bearers, was broken up by the police.
A curious feature of this case was that at Police Headquarters the
police decided to confiscate, along with the banners, the Suffragist
regalia—a sash of purple, white, and gold without any lettering
whatever. The women refused to relinquish these sashes, and there was in
every case a struggle, in which wrists were twisted, fingers sprained;
bruises and cuts of all kinds administered. All the thirty-eight women
were, however, released unconditionally.
* * * * *
On August 14, the women held two meetings of protest at the Lafayette
Monument—one at half-past four in the afternoon, and one at eight
o’clock in the evening.
This double protest came about in this way.
At the afternoon demonstration, the women were immediately arrested.
They were held at Police Headquarters for two hours. The authorities
feeling then that the hour was too late for further demonstrations,
released them. They did not require bail, or a promise to appear in
Court.
The women went at once to Headquarters, snatched a hasty dinner; slipped
quietly out of the building, and marched to the Lafayette Monument.
Everybody agrees that this evening demonstration was very beautiful. It
was held in the soft dusk of the Washington August. The crescent moon,
which seemed tangled in the trees of the park, gave enough light to
bring out the Suffrage tri-color and the Stars and Stripes. As the women
gathered closer and closer around the statue, the effect was of color,
smudged with shadow; of shadow illuminated with color.
Elsie Hill, carrying the American flag in one hand, and the purple,
white, and gold banner in the other spoke first; spoke wonderfully—as
Elsie Hill always spoke. She said in part:
We know that our protest is in harmony with the belief of President
Wilson, for he has stood before the world for the right of the
governed to a voice in their own government. We resent the fact that
the soldiers of our country, the men drafted to fight Prussia
abroad, are used instead to help still the demand of American women
for political freedom. We resent the suppression of our demands but
our voices will carry across the country and down through time. The
world will know that the women of America demand the passage of the
Federal Suffrage Amendment and that the President insists that the
Senate act.
There were only two policemen on duty. For two policemen to try to
arrest nine lively and athletic pickets was a little like a scene in
_Alice in Wonderland_. They would pull one woman down from the statue,
start to get another, whereupon the first would be back again with her
flying banner.
Finally, the police reserves arrived, but every woman had managed to
make a speech.
* * * * *
While the Suffragists were still in the old Workhouse, Alice Paul,
following her usual system of complete publicity, had announced another
protest meeting at the Lafayette Monument.
Later Alice Paul received a letter from Colonel Ridley:
I have been advised that you desire to hold a demonstration in
Lafayette Square on Thursday, August 22. By direction of the Chief
of Engineers, U. S. Army, you are hereby granted permission to hold
this demonstration. You are advised good order must prevail.
Miss Paul replied:
We received yesterday your permit for a Suffrage demonstration in
Lafayette Park this afternoon, and are very glad that our meetings
are no longer to be interfered with. Because of the illness of so
many of our members, due to their treatment in prison this last
week, and with the necessity of caring for them at Headquarters, we
are planning to hold our next meeting a little later. We have not
determined on the exact date but we will inform you of the time as
soon as it is decided upon.
As a result of the first series of protest meetings, the Administration
had yielded to the point of no longer interfering with the meetings at
the Lafayette Monument. But as time went by and neither the Senate nor
the President did anything about Suffrage, the National Woman’s Party
announced that a protest meeting would be held at the Lafayette Monument
on September 16 at four o’clock. Immediately the President announced
that he would receive a delegation of Southern and Western Democratic
women that day at two.
The same day, September 16, as Maud Younger was coming back from the
Capitol to Headquarters, Senator Overman of the Rules Committee came and
sat by her in the car. In the course of his conversation, he remarked
casually: “I don’t think your bill is coming up this session.”
That afternoon, Abby Scott Baker went to see Senator Jones of New
Mexico, Chairman of the Suffrage Committee, to ask him to call a meeting
of the Committee to bring Suffrage to the vote. Senator Jones refused.
He said he would not bring up the Suffrage Amendment at this session in
Congress.
When—still later—that delegation of Southern and Western Democratic
women called on the President, he said to them:
I am, as I think you know, heartily in sympathy with you. I have
endeavored to assist you in every way in my power, and I shall
continue to do so. I shall do all that I can to assist the passage
of the Amendment by an early vote.
This was the final touch.
The National Woman’s Party hastily changed the type of its
demonstration. Instead of holding a mere meeting of protest, they
decided to burn the words which the President had said that very
afternoon to the Southern and Western Democratic women. At four o’clock
instead of two, forty women marched from Headquarters to the Lafayette
Monument. They carried the famous banners: HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR
LIBERTY? MR. PRESIDENT, WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE? At the
Lafayette statue, Bertha Arnold delivered an appeal to Lafayette,
written by Mrs. Richard Wainwright and beginning with the famous words
of Pershing in France:
Lafayette, we are here!
We, the women of the United States, denied the liberty which you
helped to gain, and for which we have asked in vain for sixty years,
turn to you to plead for us.
Speak, Lafayette! Dead these hundred years but still living in the
hearts of the American people. Speak again to plead for us,
condemned like the bronze woman at your feet, to a silent appeal.
She offers you a sword. Will you not use the sword of the spirit,
mightier far than the sword she holds out to you?
Will you not ask the great leader of our democracy to look upon the
failure of our beloved country to be in truth the place where every
one is free and equal and entitled to a share in the government? Let
that outstretched hand of yours pointing to the White House recall
to him his words and promises, his trumpet call for all of us to see
that the world is made safe for democracy.
As our army now in France spoke to you there, saying, “Here we are
to help your country fight for liberty,” will you not speak here and
now for us, a little band with no army, no power but justice and
right, no strength but in our Constitution and the Declaration of
Independence, and win a great victory again in this country by
giving us the opportunity we ask to be heard through the Susan B.
Anthony Amendment?
Lafayette, we are here!
The police, having no orders to arrest the women, smiled and nodded. And
while the crowd that had very quickly gathered applauded, Lucy Branham
stepped forward. Beside her was Julia Emory, holding a flaming torch.
“We want action,” Miss Branham stated simply, “not words.” She took the
torch from Julia Emory, held the words of the President’s message of
that afternoon in the flames. As it burned, she said:
The torch which I hold symbolizes the burning indignation of women
who for a hundred years have been given words without action. In the
spring our hopes were raised by words much like these from President
Wilson, yet they were permitted to be followed by a filibuster
against our Amendment on the part of the Democratic Senate leaders.
President Wilson still refuses any real support to the movement for
the political freedom of women....
We, therefore, take these empty words, spoken by President Wilson
this afternoon, and consign them to the flames.
[Illustration: LUCY BRANHAM BURNING THE PRESIDENT’S WORDS AT THE
LAFAYETTE MONUMENT.
Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.]
[Illustration: THE RUSSIAN ENVOY BANNER, AUGUST, 1917.
Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.]
This is a symbol of the indignation of American women at the
treatment given by the President to their plea for democracy.
We have protested to this Administration by banners; we have
protested by speeches; we now protest by this symbolic act.
As in the ancient fights for liberty the crusaders for freedom
symbolized their protest against those responsible for injustice by
consigning their hollow phrases to the flames, so we, on behalf of
thousands of Suffragists, in this same way today, protest against
the action of the President and his Party in delaying the liberation
of American women.
For five years, women have appealed to this President and his Party
for political freedom. The President has given words, and words, and
words. Today, women receive more words. We announce to the President
and the whole world today, by this act of ours, our determination
that words shall no longer be the only reply given to American
women—our determination that this same democracy, for whose
establishment abroad we are making the utmost sacrifice, shall also
prevail at home.
Applause greeted these spirited words. As Jessie Hardy Mackaye started
to speak, a man in the crowd handed her a twenty-dollar bill for the
Woman’s Party. Others began passing money to her. The Suffragists were
busy running through the crowd collecting it. The crowd continued to
applaud and cheer.
Mrs. Mackaye said:
Against the twofold attitude on the part of the Senate toward
democracy, I protest with all the power of my being. The same
Congress and the same Administration that are appropriating billions
of dollars and enlisting the services of millions of men to
establish democracy in Europe, is at the same time refusing to do so
common a piece of justice as to vote to submit the Woman Suffrage
Amendment to the States.
This was the first time the President’s words were burned.
The President’s car drove up to the door during the progress of this
demonstration, and President Wilson stepped in. But instead of going out
at the usual gate, the driver turned the car about, so that he could
make his exit elsewhere.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VII
THE PRESIDENT APPEALS TO THE SENATE TO PASS THE SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT
THE very next day occurred a remarkable example of direct action: that
direct action coming within twenty-four hours. Senator Jones, who the
day before had refused to bring up Suffrage in this session, arose in
the Senate and announced that on September 26, he would move to take up
the Suffrage Amendment, and keep it before the Senate until a vote was
reached.
With this promise of definite action, the Woman’s Party immediately
ceased their demonstrations.
On September 26, Senator Jones brought the Amendment up. Maud Younger
says, in her _Revelations of a Woman Lobbyist_:
Discussion began. Discussion went on. For five whole days it lasted,
with waves of hope and waves of dismay, and always an undercurrent
of uncertainty. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, the speeches went on. On
Monday word went forth that the President would address the Senate
on behalf of our Amendment.
I hurried to Senator Curtis, who was in his office signing letters.
He said: “The other side claim that they have their men pledged:
that the President comes too late. What do you expect?”
“I don’t know what I should expect. I hope.”
I went over to the Senate. There was very great excitement; a sense
of something wonderful impending. On the floor there was the
ceremonious atmosphere that attends the President’s coming.
“Look,” said a newspaper man in the gallery beside me, “he’s brought
all his heavy artillery with him.” There on the floor of the Senate
were the members of the Cabinet. Lesser dignitaries were scattered
about the room. Congressmen stood, two-deep, lining the walls. The
Sergeant-at-Arms announced in clear tones: “The President of the
United States.”
The President came in, shook hands with the presiding officer,
turned and read his speech. There is always an evenness about his
public utterances, in manner, in voice, in reading; yet I thought he
read this message with more feeling than his War message, or his
Fourteen Points.
The President said:
Gentlemen of the Senate: The unusual circumstances of a world war in
which we stand and are judged in the view not only of our own people
and our own consciences but also in the view of all nations and
peoples will, I hope, justify in your thought, as it does in mine,
the message I have come to bring you.
I regard the concurrence of the Senate in the constitutional
Amendment proposing the extension of the Suffrage to women as
vitally essential to the successful prosecution of the great war of
humanity in which we are engaged. I have come to urge upon you the
considerations which have led me to that conclusion. It is not only
my privilege, it is also my duty to apprise you of every
circumstance and element involved in this momentous struggle which
seems to me to affect its very processes and its outcome. It is my
duty to win the war and to ask you to remove every obstacle that
stands in the way of winning it.
I had assumed that the Senate would concur in the Amendment because
no disputable principle is involved but only a question of the
method by which the Suffrage is to be extended to women. There is
and can be no Party issue involved in it. Both of our great national
Parties are pledged, explicitly pledged, to equality of Suffrage for
the women of the country.
Neither Party, therefore, it seems to me, can justify hesitation as
to the method of obtaining it, can rightfully hesitate to substitute
Federal initiative for State initiative, if the early adoption of
this measure is necessary to the successful prosecution of the war
and if the method of State action proposed in Party platforms of
1916 is impracticable within any reasonable length of time, if
practicable at all.
And its adoption is, in my judgment, clearly necessary to the
successful prosecution of the war and the successful realization of
the object for which the war is being fought.
That judgment I take the liberty of urging upon you with solemn
earnestness for reasons which I shall state very frankly and which I
shall hope will seem as conclusive to you as they seem to me.
This is a peoples’ war and the peoples’ thinking constitutes its
atmosphere and morale, not the predilections of the drawing-room or
the political considerations of the caucus.
If we be indeed Democrats and wish to lead the world to democracy,
we can ask other peoples to accept in proof of our sincerity and our
ability to lead them whither they wish to be led nothing less
persuasive and convincing than our actions. Our professions will not
suffice. Verification must be forthcoming when verification is asked
for. And in this case verification is asked for—asked for in this
particular matter. You ask by whom?
Not through diplomatic channels; not by foreign ministers. Not by
the intimations of parliaments. It is asked for by the anxious,
expectant, suffering peoples with whom we are dealing and who are
willing to put their destinies in some measure in our hands, if they
are sure that we wish the same things they do.
I do not speak by conjecture. It is not alone the voices of
statesmen and of newspapers that reach me, and the voices of foolish
and intemperate agitators do not reach me at all. Through many, many
channels I have been made aware what the plain, struggling, workaday
folk are thinking upon whom the chief terror and suffering of this
tragic war falls.
They are looking to the great, powerful, famous Democracy of the
West to lead them to the new day for which they have so long waited;
and they think in their logical simplicity, that democracy means
that women shall play their part in affairs alongside men and upon
an equal footing with them. If we reject measures like this, in
ignorance or defiance of what a new age has brought forth, of what
they have seen but we have not, they will cease to believe in us;
they will cease to follow or to trust us.
They have seen their own governments accept this interpretation of
democracy—seen old governments accept this interpretation of
democracy—seen old governments like that of Great Britain, which did
not profess to be democratic, promise readily and as of course this
justice to women, though they had before refused it, the strange
revelations of this war having made many things new and plain, to
governments as well as to people.
Are we alone to refuse to learn the lesson? Are we alone to ask and
take the utmost that our women can give—service and sacrifice of
every kind—and still say we do not see what title that gives them to
stand by our sides in the guidance of the affairs of their nation
and ours?
We have made partners of the women in this war; shall we admit them
only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not a
partnership of privilege and right? This war could not have been
fought either by the other nations engaged or by America, if it had
not been for the services of the women—services rendered in every
sphere—not merely in the fields of effort in which we have been
accustomed to see them work, but wherever men have worked, and upon
the very skirts and edges of the battle itself.
We shall not only be distrusted but shall deserve to be distrusted
if we do not enfranchise them with the fullest possible
enfranchisement, as it is now certain that the other great free
nations will enfranchise them.
We cannot isolate our thought and action in such a matter from the
thought of the rest of the world. We must either conform or
deliberately reject what they propose and resign the leadership of
liberal minds to others.
The women of America are too noble and too intelligent and too
devoted to be slackers whether you give or withhold this thing that
is mere justice; but I know the magic it will work in their thoughts
and spirits if you give it to them.
I propose it as I would propose to admit soldiers to the Suffrage,
the men fighting in the field for our liberties and the liberties of
the world, were they excluded. The task of the woman lies at the
very heart of the war, and I know how much stronger that heart will
beat if you do this just thing and show our women that you trust
them as much as you in fact and of necessity depend upon them.
Have I said that the passage of this Amendment is a vitally
necessary war measure, and do you need further proof? Do you stand
in need of the trust of other peoples and of the trust of our own
women? Is that trust an asset or is it not?
I tell you plainly, as the commander-in-chief of our armies and of
the gallant men in our fleets, as the present spokesman of this
people in our dealings with the men and women throughout the world
who are now our partners, as the responsible head of a great
government which stands and is questioned day by day as to its
purposes, its principles, its hopes, whether they be serviceable to
men everywhere or only to itself, and who must himself answer these
questions or be shamed, as the guide and director of forces caught
in the grip of war and by the same token in need of every material
and spiritual resource this great nation possesses—I tell you
plainly that this measure which I urge upon you is vital to the
winning of the war and to the energies alike of preparation and of
battle.
And not to the winning of the war only. It is vital to the right
solution of the great problems which we must settle, and settle
immediately, when the war is over. We shall need then in our vision
of affairs, as we have never needed them before, the sympathy and
insight and clear moral instinct of the women of the world. The
problems of that time will strike to the roots of many things that
we have not hitherto questioned, and I for one believe that our
safety in those questioning days, as well as our comprehension of
matters that touch society to the quick, will depend upon the direct
and authoritative participation of women in our counsels. We shall
need their moral sense to preserve what is right and fine and worthy
in our system of life as well as to discover just what it is that
ought to be purified and re-formed. Without their counselings we
shall only be half wise.
That is my case. That is my appeal. Many may deny its validity, if
they choose, but no one can brush aside or answer the arguments upon
which it is based. The executive tasks of this war rest upon me. I
ask that you lighten them and place in my hands instruments,
spiritual instruments, which I do not now possess, which I sorely
need, and which I have daily to apologize for not being able to
employ.
In this speech, the President had said: “The voices of foolish and
intemperate agitators do not reach me at all.”
It was generally felt that the President, there, indicated the Woman’s
Party. Commenting on that phrase the next day, the Republican Senators
remarked, “Why it was that which brought him there!”
During the course of the debate between Poindexter and Pitman,
Poindexter asked, “Wasn’t it the pickets that got the President?”
The next afternoon when the vote was called for, and the last Senator
had answered to his name, the presiding officer announced the result:
“The joint resolution does not pass.”
The Suffrage Amendment still lacked two votes.
Miss Younger says in her _Revelations of a Lobbyist_:
Stunned, as though unable to grasp it, hundreds of women sat there.
Then slowly the defeat reached their consciousness, and they began
slowly to put on their hats, to gather up their wraps, and to file
out of the galleries, some with a dull sense of injustice, some with
burning resentment. In the corridors they began to form in groups.
Every one wanted to discuss it. But Alice Paul took my arm.
“Come,” she said, “we must find out about the short-term candidates
and go into the election campaign at once.”
Immediately after the vote was taken and defeated, Senator Jones of New
Mexico changed his vote and moved that the measure be reconsidered;
thereby placing it again on the Senate Calendar, ready to be called up
any time and voted on.
By going to the Senate in this manner, the President had made his own
record clean to the country at large. But he had not made it clean to
the National Woman’s Party, because, although he had done something, he
had not done enough. He appeared to be doing more than he was, but there
was a great deal more that he could have done. He did not, for instance,
start his appeal to the Senate early enough. That appeal came only a
fortnight before the vote was taken. Possibly he had underestimated the
opposition; probably he had overestimated the strength of his own
influence. But the country at large of course did not understand that.
For the time being, therefore, the Woman’s Party concentrated their
drive on another point in the enemy line.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VIII
PICKETING THE SENATE
AS the Senate was still sitting and could at any time reverse its action
in regard to the Suffrage Amendment, the Woman’s Party decided to
protest against its defeat of the Amendment and to demand a reversal.
They began to picket the Senate and in especial the thirty-four Senators
whose adverse vote had again delayed the passage of the Amendment.
On the morning of October 7, four banner bearers ascended the steps of
the Capitol. They were: Elizabeth Kalb; Vivian Pierce; Bertha Moller;
Mrs. Horton Pope. The lettered banner, flanked as usual with the
Suffrage tri-color, read:
WE DEMAND AN AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED CONSTITUTION
ENFRANCHISING WOMEN.
They had hardly mounted the steps when the Capitol police placed them
under arrest. They took the prisoners to the guard room in the Capitol,
kept them there for fifteen minutes, and then released them. It was, of
course, not exactly an arrest; and no one seemed exactly responsible for
the order. The banners were, however, confiscated.
That afternoon, the same women, except that Bertha Arnold was
substituted for Mrs. Pope, mounted the steps bearing a large banner
which read:
WE PROTEST AGAINST THE 34 WILFUL SENATORS WHO HAVE
DELAYED THE POLITICAL FREEDOM OF AMERICAN WOMEN.
THEY HAVE OBSTRUCTED THE WAR PROGRAM OF THE PRESIDENT.
THEY HAVE LINED UP THE SENATE WITH PRUSSIA BY
DENYING SELF-GOVERNMENT TO THE PEOPLE.
All the afternoon, the banner bearers were detained in the courtroom at
intervals. When they were released, they went back to the Capitol; were
arrested; detained in the courtroom again; released again.
On the morning of October 10, four more pickets, Edith Ainge, Bertha
Moller, Maud Jamison, Clara Wold, started for the Capitol. Crowds of men
and women gathered in the park to see what was going to happen, and rows
of police stood on the Capitol steps awaiting the pickets. As soon as
the big protest banner was unfurled, the police seized it. Maud Jamison
and Clara Wold tried to mount the steps with the tri-color, but several
policemen rushed upon them, and conducted them up the steps and into the
Capitol building. As the police said over and over again that there were
no arrests, the women insisted on carrying their banners.
Protesting against the curious and inconsistent action on the part of
the police, the women were conducted into the presence of the captain.
He iterated and reiterated that this action was all in accordance with
the rules of Colonel Higgins, the Democratic Sergeant-at-Arms who is
under the Rules Committee which carries out the Democratic program. The
Suffragists demanded by what authority they were held and the captain
informed them that it did not make any difference about the law, that
Colonel Higgins had taken the law into his own hands. The four
Suffragists waited for a few minutes. Their purple, white, and gold
banners had been confiscated, but the protest banner was still there.
Suddenly, without any interference from anybody, they took up their
protest banner, walked out of the guard room, went over to the Senate
Office Building and stood with it, at the top of the steps, the rest of
the day. Later Vivian Pierce, Mrs. Stewart Polk, Mary Gertrude Fendall
and Gladys Greiner joined this group of pickets.
In the meantime, other Suffragists were trying vainly to take the
Suffrage colors to the Capitol steps. They walked from the Office
Building on to the Plaza by twos. The instant they appeared, policemen,
rushing down the steps, rushing from the curb, rushing from the crowd
which had gathered, seized them. They tried to wrench the banners away;
and this was, of course, an unequal contest, in which sometimes the
women were pulled completely off the ground and always their wrists
painfully twisted. But the women clung to the banners, walked as calmly
as the situation permitted into the Capitol, and down to the guard room.
Here the banners were always confiscated, but they, themselves, were
released. If anybody in the crowd showed any disposition to resent the
attitude of the police, he was placed under arrest too; but he also was
released.
On October 11 the Suffragists picketed only the Senate Office Building,
as Congress was not in session. At the beginning of the day, Mrs. George
Atwater and Betty Cram held the banners. Mrs. Atwater’s two little
girls, Edith and Barbara, assisted their mother by holding the
tri-colors.
Others who picketed that day were: Grace Needham, Mrs. George Odell,
Elizabeth Kalb, Virginia Arnold, Mary Gertrude Fendall, Gladys Greiner,
Maud Jamison, Vivian Pierce, Bertha Moller, Clara Wold.
* * * * *
On October 13, plans for another demonstration were announced in the
Washington papers. _Edith Ainge, bearing the American flag, was to lead
a procession of Suffragists on to the Senate floor._ There the words of
the anti-Suffrage Senators in praise of democracy were to be burned. For
an hour before the line formed, the Capitol police were lined up, ready
for the pickets. Above, Senators hung over the balcony where they could
witness the demonstration. Below, motor after motor drove up to the curb
and stopped, waiting to see what was going to happen. At length, the
Suffragists arrived. They formed in line outside the Senate Office
Building, and started towards the Capitol. They were beset by a
battalion of police, and taken to the guard room. Women standing in the
crowd, who were not in the procession, but who wore the Suffrage colors
were taken along also. Alice Paul, who wore no regalia of any kind, was
caught in the net.
These women were: Alice Paul; Vivian Pierce; Bertha Moller; Bertha
Arnold; Elizabeth McShane; Edith Ainge; Edith Hilles; Julia Emory; Clara
Wold; Elizabeth Kalb; Virginia Arnold; Grace Frost; Matilda Young; Mrs.
K. G. Winston.
* * * * *
The Woman’s Party now decided to open a “banner” campaign on each of the
Senators who had helped to defeat the Suffrage Amendment. They began
with Senator Wadsworth. They unrolled on the steps of the Senate Office
Building a banner which read:
SENATOR WADSWORTH’S REGIMENT IS FIGHTING FOR
DEMOCRACY ABROAD.
SENATOR WADSWORTH LEFT HIS REGIMENT AND IS FIGHTING
AGAINST DEMOCRACY IN THE SENATE.
SENATOR WADSWORTH COULD SERVE HIS COUNTRY BETTER BY
FIGHTING WITH HIS REGIMENT ABROAD THAN BY
FIGHTING WOMEN.
Later appeared another banner, proclaiming the case of Senator Shields:
SENATOR SHIELDS TOLD THE PEOPLE OF TENNESSEE HE
WOULD SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT’S POLICIES. THE ONLY TIME
THE PRESIDENT WENT TO THE SENATE TO ASK ITS SUPPORT,
SENATOR SHIELDS VOTED AGAINST HIM. DOES TENNESSEE BACK
THE PRESIDENT’S WAR PROGRAM OR SENATOR SHIELDS?
These banners were taken up by the newspapers of the Senators’ States
and focussed unfavorable attention upon them.
By this time, the Capitol police had found that their system of
arresting and detaining what threatened to prove an inexhaustible army
of Suffragists was futile. So now they reverted to their policy of 1917.
They stood aside and let the crowd worry the Suffragists. Mainly,
however, these were small boys, who seized the banners and dragged them
through the streets.
On October 23 appeared:
GERMANY HAS ESTABLISHED “EQUAL, UNIVERSAL, SECRET,
DIRECT FRANCHISE.” THE SENATE HAS DENIED EQUAL UNIVERSAL
SUFFRAGE TO AMERICA. WHICH IS MORE OF A DEMOCRACY,
GERMANY OR AMERICA?
The small boys, generally office boys, were allowed to tear up this
banner too.
* * * * *
On October 24, Julia Emory and Virginia Arnold succeeded in getting to
the top of the Capitol steps, unseen by the police who were grouped on
the sidewalk. Their banner said:
WE CONDEMN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. THE DEMOCRATIC
PARTY DEFEATED SUFFRAGE. THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY HAS
PLACED AMERICA BEHIND GERMANY AS A DEMOCRACY, IF
GERMANY HAS, AS SHE SAYS, ESTABLISHED EQUAL, UNIVERSAL,
SECRET, DIRECT FRANCHISE.
The instant they caught sight of this banner, the policemen took the two
girls to the guard room, where they held them, until half-past seven
that evening.
On October 25, as the Senate was not in session, the pickets returned to
the Office Building, where hitherto they had been unmolested. There were
four of them, and they carried the Great Demand banner. They were
arrested, and held until six o’clock. They went back to the Capitol at
eight in the evening, and were again arrested, and held until eleven
o’clock. Friends or newspaper men, calling at the Capitol, could get no
information about them. On various pretexts, the telephone answered
nothing. These women were Matilda Young; Elizabeth Kalb; Julia Emory;
Virginia Arnold.
On October 26, eight pickets bore the Wadsworth and Shields banners with
the tri-color. As usual, the poles of their banners were broken; their
banners themselves snatched from them; they were seized and held.
That afternoon, there was an aeroplane demonstration in Washington.
Seven pickets went out with banners: Julia Emory, Maud Jamison, Bertha
Arnold, Katherine Fisher, Minna Lederman, Elizabeth Kalb, Mrs. Frances
Davies. They were handled with great roughness. Maud Jamison was knocked
senseless by a policeman. Several men in uniform protested to the
police.
On October 28, twenty-one women, each bearing the purple, white, and
gold banners, started for the Capitol. They marched a banner’s length
apart across the Capitol grounds.
They had gone halfway up the steps, when policemen in plain clothes
appeared from all sides and grappled with them. Many women were injured.
Annie Arniel was thrown to the ground so violently that she fainted. An
ambulance was summoned to take her to the hospital. The other women were
locked in a basement room until six o’clock, when they were released.
They were escorted through the Capitol grounds by a member of the
vigilant force of guards. He bore the American flag which had been
carried at the head of their line. As they reached the limit of the
Capitol grounds, he returned that to them, but all the lettered banners
and tri-colors were retained.
The twenty-one women were: Edith Ainge; Harriet U. Andrews; Bertha
Arnold; Virginia Arnold; Annie Arniel; Olive Beale; Lucy Burns; Eleanor
Calnan; L. G. C. Daniels; Frances Davis; Julia Emory; Mary Gertrude
Fendall; Mrs. Gilson Gardner; Sara Grogan; Maud Jamison; Elizabeth Kalb;
Augusta M. Kelley; Lola Maverick Lloyd; Matilda Young; H. R. Walmsley;
Alice Paul.
On October 29, two pickets went to the Capitol with a banner inscribed:
RESISTANCE TO TYRANNY IS OBEDIENCE TO GOD.
They were seized and held until the afternoon.
By some divagation in the police policy, they were seized, while they
were walking to the car after their release, and held for another hour.
On October 30, five pickets, carrying the Senator Baird banner and three
tri-colors, picketed the north front of the Capitol for an hour. Then
they marched to the south front, determined to take up their stand on
the Senate steps. Halfway in their progress, they were seized, locked
up, and held until six o’clock.
* * * * *
Indignant at these arrests without charge, the National Woman’s Party
decided to protest the next day—Thursday.
On October 31, therefore, after the usual morning arrest, their lawyer
applied to Judge Siddons of the District Supreme Court for a writ of
habeas corpus. The Judge declared that the sergeant-at-arms had no right
to hold any one without a charge, that he must either make a charge, or
release the Suffragists. The sergeant-at-arms released them at once.
Nevertheless, when the pickets returned in the afternoon, they were
seized in the usual violent fashion and conducted to the guard room.
However, although their banners were not returned to them, they were
detained but a few minutes. On Friday, they were released as soon as
their banners were seized. Fresh banners appeared from time to time all
day long. Again consulted, Judge Siddons said that the police had no
right to keep the banners. On Saturday, however, the police did not have
to seize the banners; there appeared a variation in the picket line. A
group of women walked up and down in front of the Senate Office
Building. They bore no lettered banners; they bore no tri-colors; but
they wore on their arms black mourning bands—in commemoration of the
death of justice in the United States Senate.
* * * * *
On November 21, the Senate declared a recess without considering the
Federal Suffrage Amendment. That day, twelve pickets protested against
the recess, marching from the Senate Office Building to the Capitol.
They were: Alice Paul, Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Elizabeth Kalb, Clara Wold,
Bertha Arnold, Sara Grogan, Julia Emory, Anita Pollitzer, Matilda Young,
Mrs. Nicholas Kelly, Olive Beale, Maud Jamison.
They carried a banner which read:
AMERICAN WOMEN PROTEST AGAINST THE SENATE’S RECESSING
WITHOUT PASSING THE SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT.
AMERICA ENTERS THE PEACE CONFERENCE WITH UNCLEAN
HANDS FOR DEMOCRACY IS DENIED TO HER PEOPLE.
THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD CANNOT TRUST HER MEDIATION
IF SHE PREACHES DEMOCRACY FOR ALL EUROPE WHILE
AMERICANS ARE ARRESTED FOR ASKING FOR IT AT THE CAPITOL.
On this occasion, the women were treated outrageously. The police, two
to a picket, pounced upon them as they approached the Capitol. One was
heard to call, “Help! Help! They’re coming!” Clara Wold was knocked down
twice on the Senate steps; was shaken like a rat. They dragged and
pushed Alice Paul about as though personally enraged with her. When they
were taken into the basement room of the Capitol a crowd of indignant
men and women followed. Policeman No. 21 threatened to arrest a man in
the crowd because he said: “Sure! I believe in Woman Suffrage.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
IX
THE THIRD APPEAL TO THE WOMEN VOTERS
ALL during this period, the National Woman’s Party was, of course,
taking its part in the autumn campaign—the campaign of 1918. It was in
the Senatorial elections only that the Woman’s Party was interested. The
expedient quality of Alice Paul’s policy manifested itself notably here.
It has been shown again and again how swift she was to adapt the tactics
of the Woman’s Party to the needs of the moment. The Woman’s Party, it
must always be remembered, was organized for but one object—to
enfranchise the women of the United States by federal amendment. Other
Suffrage organizations could and did divide their interests; could and
did deflect their forces for those interests. On this point, Alice Paul
never swerved. But as has been again and again demonstrated, she was as
fluid as water, as swift as light, to adapt that single adamantine
policy to the situation of the moment. At this juncture she extended her
policy.
The circumstances were these:
In the Senate, Suffrage needed two more votes.
In the West, as usual, the Woman’s Party asked the women voters to
defeat the Democrats as the Party in power and therefore the Party
responsible. In two States in the East—New Jersey and New
Hampshire—where the Republican candidates were anti-Suffragists and the
Democratic candidates were Suffragists, the Woman’s Party supported the
Democratic candidates.
That campaign, short as it was, was intensive. In the West Elsie Hill
took care of Nevada; Catherine Flanagan of Montana; Anita Pollitzer of
Wyoming; Clara Wold of Oregon; Louise Garnett of Kansas; Iris Calderhead
of Colorado. In the East, Doris Stevens, Betty Gram, Bertha Arnold, Ruth
Small, Rebecca Hourwich, Vivian Pierce, Bertha Moller, Lucy Branham,
Caroline Katzenstein, Florence Bayard Hilles, Agnes Morey, Gladys
Greiner, Maud Younger, Mary Beard, Abby Scott Baker, Mary Dubrow, Grace
Needham, Lucy Burns, Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Katherine Morey took care of
New Jersey and New Hampshire.
The two vacancies in the Senate from New Jersey and New Hampshire had
been caused by death. The Senators who would take those seats in
November would fill out the remainder of the Congress then in Session.
In New Jersey the Republican candidate—Senator Baird—had voted against
the Suffrage Amendment in the Senate on October 1. The Democratic
candidate—Charles O’Connor Hennessy—had fought all his public life in
New Jersey for National Woman Suffrage.
In New Hampshire the Republican candidate—George H. Moses—was an
anti-Suffragist. The Democratic candidate—John B. Jameson—was for the
Federal Amendment.
The National Woman’s Party thought of course the President would assist
them in their campaign for Hennessy and Jameson, as they were both
Democrats as well as Suffragists and, in particular, because he had just
told the Senate that the passing of the Federal Amendment was necessary
to the successful prosecution of the war. But he gave them no help until
the Woman’s Party forced him to do so, and then it was too late. But
when the news came back from the Suffrage States of the West that the
Woman’s Party speakers were telling of his inaction, he sent—in the last
week in October—the following letter to Hennessy of New Jersey:
May I not say how deeply interested I am in the contest you are
conducting? I cannot but feel that in ignoring my earnest appeal
with regard to the Suffrage Amendment, made in public interest, and
because of my intimate knowledge of the issues involved both on the
other side of the water and here, Senator Baird has certainly not
represented the true feeling and spirit of the people of New Jersey.
I am sure that they must have felt that such an appeal could not and
should not be ignored. It would be a very great make-weight, thrown
into the international scale, if his course of action while in the
Senate could be reversed by the people of our great State.
Also, before the end of the campaign, the President came out in a
statement endorsing Jameson. But he did not work so hard to elect these
two Democrats, who were also Suffragists, as he did to defeat Vardaman
and Hardwick, both of whom were Democrats and one a Suffragist. Hennessy
and Jameson were both defeated. In the West, the election resulted in
the defeat of Senator Shafroth of Colorado, thereby handing the Senate
over to the Republicans. The defeat of Shafroth is universally ascribed
to the Woman’s Party. The Woman’s Party believed that this election had
brought them one vote, Pollock of South Carolina.
The Borah incident of the campaign of 1918 is a black page in the record
of any gentleman who has Presidential aspirations. Catherine Flanagan
and Margaret Whittemore were campaigning in western Idaho, asking the
Idaho people to bring pressure on Borah to vote for Suffrage.
Shortly after casting his vote against the Federal Amendment, Borah came
to Headquarters to see Alice Paul. He said that that vote represented
his personal belief, but that in the future he would have to be bound by
the Idaho Party (Republican) platform which had endorsed the Amendment.
He said he would not give a public statement as that would look like
trying to get votes, but he wrote out a statement that the Woman’s Party
could understand as indicating his position. That statement is as
follows:
We have talked over the Suffrage situation with Senator Borah and
our understanding from the interview is that he will carry out his
platform and vote for the Suffrage Amendment if re-elected.
The Woman’s Party telegraphed this statement to Idaho and asked his
constituents to get him to confirm it. He was very evasive in replying
to their questions and Alice Paul finally sent him the following letter:
October 29, 1918. SENATOR WM. E. BORAH,
Senate Office Building,
Washington, D. C.
DEAR SENATOR BORAH:
In view of the statement that you have just telegraphed to one of
our members, Mrs. Marcella Pride, in Boise, and in view of the
statements which you have made to various newspaper correspondents
in Washington since Mrs. Baker’s and my interview with you, giving
them the impression that there was no basis for our understanding
that you would vote for the Suffrage Amendment after November 5th,
we feel that we have no course left but to throw all the strength
which we possess in Idaho against you. I have, therefore,
telegraphed to this effect today to Miss Whittemore, who is in
charge of our Idaho work.
I am sure I need not tell you how much we regret that you have not
felt able to say frankly what you would do after election, and that
you are not willing to stand by the statement which you authorized
us to give out as expressing the understanding to be derived by us
from our interview with you.
Sincerely yours,
ALICE PAUL, National Chairman.
Thereupon the Woman’s Party campaigned against him until election. Borah
was re-elected. Here—anticipating by three months—it must be mentioned
that when on February 10, the Amendment came to a vote, Borah voted,
“No.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
X
THE PRESIDENT INCLUDES SUFFRAGE IN HIS CAMPAIGN FOR CONGRESS
FOR the third time the Woman’s Party had waged in the West one of its
marvelous campaigns against the Democratic Party. The repercussion of
that campaign had reached the President. When Congress convened in
December, he included the Federal Amendment in his message of December 2
to Congress as a part of the Administration program. He said:
And what shall we say of the women—of their instant intelligence,
quickening every task that they touched; their capacity for
organization and co-operation, which gave their action discipline
and enhanced the effectiveness of everything they attempted; their
aptitude at tasks to which they had never before set their hands;
their utter self-sacrifice alike in what they did and what they
gave? Their contribution to the great result is beyond appraisal.
They have added a new luster to the annals of American womanhood.
The least tribute we can pay them is to make them the equals of men
in political rights as they have proved themselves their equals in
every field of practical work they have entered, whether for
themselves or for their country. These great days of completed
achievement would be sadly marred were we to omit that act of
justice. Besides the immense practical services they have rendered,
the women of the country have been the moving spirits in the
systematic economies by which our people have voluntarily assisted
to supply the suffering peoples of the world and the armies upon
every front with food and everything else that we had that might
serve the common cause. The details of such a story can never be
fully written, but we carry them at our hearts and thank God that we
can say that we are the kinsmen of such.
This was the first time that any President ever mentioned Suffrage as a
part of his administrative program. It was a step forward. The women
waited ten days to see whether he would follow this message with action.
The President sailed for France.
When the Woman’s Party discovered from the Administration leaders that
he had left no orders to have Suffrage carried out, they decided to hold
another protest meeting.
“In carrying on a campaign for Democracy abroad and utterly ignoring it
at home,” Alice Paul said, “he has exposed his whole broadside to our
attack.”
As always, whenever possible, the Woman’s Party announced their protest
meeting through the newspapers. Lucy Branham went to Police
Headquarters. She explained her errand, asking for a permit.
“Here’s your permit!” Colonel Ridley said.
Lucy Branham made further explanation, “We are going to burn the
President’s words,” she warned him.
“Here’s your permit!” Colonel Ridley said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XI
BURNING THE PRESIDENT’S WORDS AGAIN
ON December 16, a woman carrying an American flag, emerged from
Headquarters. Behind her came a long line of women bearing purple,
white, and gold banners. Behind them came fifty women bearing lighted
torches. Behind them came women—more women and more women and more
women. Always a banner’s length apart they marched and on they came ...
and on ... and on ... and on.... People who saw the demonstrations say
that it seemed as though the colorful, slow-moving line would never come
to an end. Witnesses say also that it was the most beautiful of all the
Woman’s Party demonstrations. They marched to the Lafayette Monument.
Their leader, Mrs. Harvey Wiley, stopped in front of a burning cauldron
which had been placed at the foot of the pedestal. The torch bearers
formed a semi-circle about that cauldron. The women with the purple,
white, and gold banners—who were the speakers—grouped themselves around
the torch bearers.
Among these women were the State Chairman or a Woman’s Party
representative from almost all the forty-eight States; some of whom had
come great distances to be present on this occasion. There were three
hundred in all.
In the meantime, a huge crowd, which augmented steadily in numbers and
in excitement as the long line of Suffragists came on and on and on,
formed a great, black, attentive mass, which hedged in the banner
bearers, as the banner bearers hedged in the torch bearers. In that
crowd were the National Democratic Chairman and many prominent
Democratic politicians.
Dusk changed into darkness, and the flames from cauldron and torches
mounted higher and higher.
After the Suffragists had assembled, there came a moment of quiet. Then
Vida Milholland stepped forward and without accompaniment of any kind,
sang with her characteristic spirit the _Woman’s Marseillaise_.
Immediately afterwards, Mrs. John Rogers opened the meeting, and
introduced, one after another, nineteen speakers, each of whom, first
reading them, dropped some words of President Wilson’s on democracy into
the flaming cauldron.
Mrs. John Rogers declared:
We hold this meeting to protest against the denial of liberty to
American women. All over the world today we see surging and sweeping
irresistibly on, the great tide of democracy, and women would be
derelict to their duty if they did not see to it that it brings
freedom to the women of this land.
England has enfranchised her women, Canada has enfranchised her
women, Russia has enfranchised her women, the liberated nations of
Central Europe are enfranchising their women. America must live up
to her pretensions of democracy!
Our ceremony today is planned to call attention to the fact that the
President has gone abroad to establish democracy in foreign lands
when he has failed to establish democracy at home. We burn his words
on liberty today, not in malice or anger, but in a spirit of
reverence for truth.
This meeting is a message to President Wilson. We expect an answer.
If it is more words, we will burn them again. The only answer the
National Woman’s Party will accept is the instant passage of the
Amendment in the Senate.
Mrs. M. Toscan Bennett was the first speaker. She said:
It is because we are moved by a passion for democracy that we are
here to protest against the President’s forsaking the cause of
freedom in America and appearing as a champion of freedom in the old
world. We burn with shame and indignation that President Wilson
should appear before the representatives of nations who have
enfranchised their women, as chief spokesman for the right of
self-government while American women are denied that right. We are
held up to ridicule to the whole world.
We consign to the flames the words of the President which have
inspired women of other nations to strive for their freedom while
their author refuses to do what lies in his power to do to liberate
the women of his own country. Meekly to submit to this dishonor to
the nation would be treason to mankind.
Mr. President, the paper currency of liberty which you hand to women
is worthless fuel until it is backed by the gold of action.
The Reverend Olympia Brown of Wisconsin, eighty-four years old, burned
the latest words of President Wilson, his two speeches made on the first
day of his visit to France. She said:
America has fought for France and the common cause of liberty. I
have fought for liberty for seventy years and I protest against the
President leaving our country with this old fight here unwon.
Mrs. John Winters Brannan burned the address made by President Wilson at
the Metropolitan Opera House in opening the Fourth Liberty Loan
Campaign, in which he justified women’s protest when he said:
We have been told it is unpatriotic to criticise public action. If
it is, there is a deep disgrace resting upon the origin of this
nation. We have forgotten the history of our country if we have
forgotten how to object, how to resist, how to agitate when it is
necessary to readjust matters.
Mary Ingham burned President Wilson’s speech of the Fourth of July,
1914, in which he said:
There is nothing in liberty unless it is translated into definite
action in our own lives today.
Miss Ingham said:
In the name of the women of Pennsylvania who are demanding action of
the President, I consign these words to the flames.
Agnes Morey burned President Wilson’s book, _The New Freedom_. She said:
On today, the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, in the name of
the liberty-loving women of Massachusetts, I consign these words to
the flames in protest against the exclusion of women from the
Democratic program of this Administration.
Henrietta Briggs Wall burned President Wilson’s address given at
Independence Hall, July 4, 1919, when he said:
Liberty does not consist in mere general declarations of the rights
of man. It consists in the translation of these declarations into
action.
Susan Frost, of South Carolina, burned President Wilson’s last message
to Congress in which he again spoke words without results.
Mrs. Townsend Scott burned his message to the Socialists in France which
declared:
The enemies of liberty from this time forth must be shut out.
Mrs. Eugene Shippen burned this message to Congress:
This is a war for self-government among all the peoples of the world
as against the arbitrary choices of self-constituted masters.
Sara Grogan burned another message to Congress dealing with liberty for
other nations.
Clara Wold burned the message to Congress demanding self-government for
Filipinos.
Jessie Adler burned the speech to the Chamber of Commerce of Columbus:
I believe that democracy is the only thing that vitalizes the whole
people.
Mrs. Percy Reed burned this message to Congress:
Liberty is a fierce and intractable thing to which no bounds can be
set and no bounds ought to be set.
Sue White burned the President’s reply to President Poincaré of France.
Mary Sutherland burned the words:
I believe the might of America is the sincere love of its people for
the freedom of mankind.
Edith Phelps burned the Flag Day address.
Doris Stevens burned a statement to Democratic women before election:
I have done everything I could do and shall continue to do
everything in my power for the Federal Suffrage Amendment.
Dr. Caroline Spencer burned the words which President Wilson said when
he laid a wreath on the tomb of Lafayette, “in memory of the great
Lafayette—from a fellow servant of liberty.”
Margaret Oakes burned the Suffrage message to the Senate:
We shall deserve to be distrusted if we do not enfranchise our
women.
Florence Bayard Hilles ended the meeting with a declaration that women
would continue their struggle for freedom, and would burn the words of
President Wilson even as he spoke them until he and his Party made these
words good by granting political freedom to the women of America.
After the meeting was over, the long line marched back to Headquarters.
A big, applauding crowd walked along with them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XII
THE WATCHFIRES OF FREEDOM
ALICE PAUL spent all day Christmas of 1918 in bed resting. At least, she
was resting physically. Mentally....
On that day she evolved a new plan of bringing the attention of the
President, the attention of the country, the attention of the world, to
the fact that the Susan B. Anthony Amendment must be passed. It was
impossible—because of the action of the police in putting out the fires
and arresting those who tended them—to carry out, in all its detail, her
original plan which was extraordinarily striking and picturesque.
Perhaps at no time in the history of the world has there ever been
projected a demonstration so full of a beautiful symbolism.
The original plan was to keep a fire burning on the pavement in front of
the White House till the Susan B. Anthony Amendment was passed. Wood for
this bonfire was to be sent from all the States. Whenever the President
made a speech in Europe for democracy, that speech was to be burned in
the watchfire. While this was going on a bell, which was set above the
door of Headquarters, would toll.
On the afternoon of New Year’s Day, 1919, therefore, a wagon drove up to
the White House pavement and deposited an urn filled with firewood—on a
spot in line with the White House door. Presently the bell at
Headquarters began to toll, and a group of women marched from
Headquarters to the urn. Edith Ainge lighted the fire, and Mrs. Lawrence
Lewis dropped into the flames the most recent words, in regard to
democracy, that President Wilson had addressed to the people of Europe.
The first was from the Manchester speech:
We will enter into no combinations of power which are not
combinations of all of us.
The second was from his toast in Buckingham Palace:
We have used great words, all of us. We have used the words “right”
and “justice,” and now we are to prove whether or not we understand
these words.
The third was from his speech at Brest:
Public opinion strongly sustains all proposals for co-operation of
self-governing peoples.
The fourth was from the speech to the English wounded:
I want to tell you how much I honor you men who have been wounded
fighting for freedom.
As Mrs. Lewis burned these “scraps of paper,” Mary Dubrow and Annie
Arniel, standing behind the urn, unfurled a lettered banner:
PRESIDENT WILSON IS DECEIVING THE WORLD WHEN HE
APPEARS AS THE PROPHET OF DEMOCRACY.
PRESIDENT WILSON HAS OPPOSED THOSE WHO DEMAND
DEMOCRACY FOR THIS COUNTRY.
HE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DISFRANCHISEMENT OF
MILLIONS OF AMERICANS.
WE IN AMERICA KNOW THIS.
THE WORLD WILL FIND HIM OUT.
This was the first of the many Watchfires of Freedom kindled by the
Woman’s Party.
After these words were burned, Mrs. Lewis addressed the crowd that had
gathered. When Helena Hill Weed, who had followed her, was speaking, a
group of soldiers and sailors rushed forward, overturned the urn, and
began to stamp out the blazing pieces of wood. There were two sentinels
on each side of the urn, Gertrude Crocker, Harriet U. Andrews, Mrs. A.
P. Winston, Julia Emory. They bore the tri-color, but they also bore
torches. They quickly lighted the torches from the embers, and held them
aloft. The rioting continued, but Mrs. Weed went calmly on with her
speech.
Suddenly there was an exclamation from the crowd. Everybody turned.
Flames were issuing from the huge, bronze urn in Lafayette Square
directly opposite the bonfire.
Hazel Hunkins—clinging to the high-pedestaled urn—was holding aloft the
Suffrage tri-color. The flames played over the slender Tanagra-like
figure of the girl and glowed through the purple, white, and gold.
People said it was—that instant’s picture—like a glimpse from the
_Götterdämmerung_. Policemen immediately rushed over there, followed by
a large crowd. They arrested Alice Paul, Julia Emory, Hazel Hunkins,
Edith Ainge.
In the meantime, the fire in front of the White House had been rebuilt
and rekindled. It burned all night long and all the next day. Alice
Paul, who had been released with her three companions after being
detained at the police station for a while, remained on guard until
morning. Annie Arniel and Julia Emory stayed with her. It rained all
night. But until late, crowds gathered, quiet and very interested, to
listen to the speeches. This was Wednesday. All day Thursday succeeding
groups of women took up their watch on the fire.
Friday afternoon, the same banner was carried out. As soon as it was
unfurled, a crowd of soldiers, sailors, and small boys, a chief petty
officer in the navy being most violent, attacked the Suffragists, Mary
Dubrow and Matilda Young. They tore the banner, broke the urn and
attacked the purple, white, and gold flags. The fires, were, however, at
once rekindled. It was still raining, and the rain was mixed with snow,
which became a steady sleet. But the fires continued. Finally a force of
policemen put them out with chemicals. That night they were relighted.
Mary Logue and Miss Ross guarded it until two in the morning; Mrs.
Lawrence Lewis and Julia Emory from two until seven.
Saturday afternoon, the bell at Headquarters tolled again. Immediately
the flames leaped up on the White House pavement. Alice Paul, Mrs.
Lawrence Lewis, and Phœbe Munnecke burned the first speech on Liberty
made by President Wilson on reaching Italy. They were arrested, and the
police put out the watchfire with chemicals. Instantly the fire started
in the urn. Mary Dubrow and Julia Emory were arrested. All five women
were released on bail.
On Sunday, January 5, Julia Emory, Mary Dubrow, Annie Arniel, and Phœbe
Munnecke started a fire in front of the White House. They burned the
second speech on Liberty made by the President in Italy. All the time
the bell pealed its solemn tocsin. The four sentinels were arrested.
This time they refused to give bail and were sent to the house of
detention. The fire had now burned all day and all night on Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
All these sentinels were charged, when they were arrested, with breaking
a Federal Park regulation. But when they came to court, they were
charged with building a bonfire on a public highway between sunset and
sunrise. Three of them went to prison for five days, and three for ten
days. They all went on hunger-strike.
January 7, evidently the official mind changed. The fire which consumed
the President’s speech on democracy delivered in Turin was allowed to
burn for three hours. Nevertheless the crowd kept kicking it about, so
that there was a line of flames across the pavement and trailing into
the gutter. By hook or by crook—three of the Suffragists—Harriet
Andrews, Mrs. A. P. Winston, Mrs. Edmund C. Evans—managed to keep it
going.
At the end of three hours, new orders seemed to materialize out of the
air; for then the police took a hand and put the fire out. With the
extinction of the last ember, however, a second fire burst into flames
at the base of the Lafayette Monument across the street. The police
rushed to it, and put it out. Immediately another fire started at the
opposite corner of the Park. And then fires became general ... here ...
there ... everywhere....
The police arrested the three women who had kept the fire going. On the
following day they were sentenced to five days in jail.
On the afternoon of that day, Mrs. M. Toscan Bennett and Matilda Young
burned the speech that the President had just made at the statue of
Columbus in Genoa. They were arrested at once, and they too were given
five days in jail.
By this time, there were eleven women in jail, all on a hunger-strike.
* * * * *
On the afternoon of January 13, just as the thousands of government
clerks began to pour down Pennsylvania Avenue past the White House,
twenty-five Suffragists, each one bearing a banner of purple, white, and
gold, came round the corner of Lafayette Square. They proceeded to the
White House pavement, where they built a watchfire. The crowds, of
course, stopped to watch the proceedings. Policemen finally broke
through them and arrested three of the women. The other twenty-two
closed in their line a little, and went on with their fire-building. The
police returned, but they did not arrest the others. But they tried to
break up the fire with huge shovels and a fire extinguisher. They tried
to trample it out. But it was useless. Wherever a bit of the watchfire
fell, it broke into flames. Finally, they arrested seventeen more women.
Four remained, holding the purple, white, and gold banners.
Suddenly a great tongue of flame leaped upwards from the urn in
Lafayette Square. The crowd rushed towards it. Then for a moment it
seemed to go mad. A group of young men rushed over to the Headquarters;
climbed up the pillars; tore down the flag, the uprights, and the pole.
The bell ultimately crashed to the ground.
The police arrested the remaining four sentinels. By eight o’clock that
afternoon, released on bail, all the women were back in Headquarters.
Half an hour later, they went out with their banners again. The streets
seemed deserted even by policemen. But, as they crossed the street, the
park police began to materialize from the shrubs and trees of the
square. However, they built their watchfire on the White House pavement,
and stood there on guard for an hour and a half. Crowds gathered, of
course. Occasionally, a man would rush over to one of the girls, and
tear her banner from her. The girl would hold it as long as it was a
physical possibility, the crowd meanwhile calling remonstrance or
encouragement according to their sympathies. By ten o’clock the women
were all arrested again. They spent the night in the house of detention.
They were: Dr. Caroline Spencer; Adelina Piunti; Helen Chisaski; Mrs. C.
Weaver; Eva Weaver; Ruth Scott; Elsie Ver Vane; Julia Emory; Lucia
Calmes; Mrs. Alexander Shields; Elizabeth Kalb; Mildred Morris; Lucy
Burns; Edith Ainge; Mrs. Gilson Gardner; Gertrude Crocker; Ellen Winsor;
Kate Heffelfinger; Katherine Boyle; Naomi Barrett; Palys L. Chevrier;
Maud Jamison; Elizabeth Huff.
* * * * *
Suffragists filled the court when these women came up for trial. Four of
them were tried at once. They were sentenced to a ten-dollar fine or
five days’ imprisonment. Their entrance into court had been greeted with
applause from the audience. When the next four women appeared, they too
were applauded. The Judge said, “The bailiffs will escort the prisoners
out and bring them in again, and if there is any applause this time....”
[Illustration: ONE OF THE WATCHFIRES OF FREEDOM. Taken Just Before the
Arrest of the Picket Line.
Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.]
[Illustration: A POLICEMAN SCATTERS THE WATCHFIRE.
Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.]
The prisoners returned, and the applause was a roar. Three women among
those who applauded were taken out of the mass. “The police will escort
the women out of the courtroom,” said the Court. When they reached the
door, “And see that they do not return,” added the Court. As the door
closed, “And lock the doors,” shouted the Court. Thereafter, the
prisoners were brought in one at a time, and were sent to jail
immediately. Twenty-two women were thus sentenced. There remained one
for whom there was no prosecuting witness—Naomi Barrett.
The next day, Naomi Barrett was tried alone. As she came forward,
applause greeted her—applause long and continued. The Judge ordered
silence. The applause continued. He ordered the applauders to be brought
forward. One, Mrs. Pflaster, sank to the floor in a faint. She was
picked up and put on a chair, but as she fell from the chair, the Judge
ordered her removed at once. A physician was sent for. Her fellow
Suffragists demanded that they be permitted to see her. Finally one of
them was allowed to go to her. The Court had scarcely reached the next
case when word came that Mrs. Pflaster was in a serious condition. The
Suffragists came rushing in and demanded that the Judge come off the
Bench and see what had happened; the Court obeyed. In due time the
doctor arrived, a stretcher came, and the patient was taken to the
Emergency Hospital.
The Judge resumed his seat, and sentenced Bertha Moller, Gertrude
Murphy, Rhoda Kellogg, and Margaret Whittemore—the applauders—to
twenty-four hours in jail for contempt of court. Mrs. Barrett was
sentenced to five days in jail. They joined the twenty-two women who
were already there and hunger-striking.
On January 27, six women kindled a Watchfire on the White House
pavement. They were arrested on the charge of starting a fire after
sundown. They were as usual, tried the next day; sentenced to five days
in jail. They went on a hunger-strike of course. They were: Bertha
Moller; Gertrude Murphy; Rhoda Kellogg; Mary Carol Dowell; Martha Moore;
Katherine Magee.
In the meantime an interesting event took place in France. President
Wilson received a delegation representing the working women of France,
Saturday, January 25, at the Murat Mansion in Paris. The delegation
urged upon the President that the Peace Conference include Woman
Suffrage among the points to be settled by the Conference. President
Wilson replied as follows:
Mlle. Thomson and ladies: You have not only done me a great honor,
but you have touched me very much by this unexpected tribute; and
may I add that you have frightened me, because realizing the great
confidence you place in me, I am led to the question of my own
ability to justify that confidence?
You have not placed your confidence wrongly in my hopes and
purposes, but perhaps not all of those hopes and purposes can be
realized in the great matter that you have so much at heart—the
right of women to take their full share in the political life of the
nations to which they belong. That is necessarily a domestic
question for the several nations. A conference of peace settling the
relations of nations with each other would be regarded as going very
much outside its province if it undertook to dictate to the several
states what their internal policy should be.
At the same time these considerations apply also to the conditions
of labor; and it does not seem to be unlikely that the conference
will take some action by way of expressing its sentiments, at any
rate, with regard to the international aspects at least of labor,
and I should hope that some occasion might be offered for the case
not only of the women of France, but of their sisters all over the
world, to be presented to the consideration of the conference.
The conference is turning out to be a rather unwieldy body, a very
large body representing a great many nations, large and small, old
and new; and the method of organizing its work successfully, I am
afraid will have to be worked out stage by stage. Therefore I have
no confident prediction to make as to the way in which it can take
up the question of this sort.
[Illustration: SUFFRAGIST REBUILDING THE FIRE SCATTERED BY THE POLICE.
Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.]
[Illustration: THE LAST SUFFRAGIST ARRESTED—THE FIRE BURNS ON.
Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.]
But what I have most at heart today is to avail myself of this
opportunity to express my admiration for the women of all the
nations that have been engaged in the war. By the fortunes of this
war the chief burden has fallen upon the women of France, and they
have borne it with a spirit and a devotion which has commanded the
admiration of the world.
I do not think that the people of France fully realize, perhaps, the
intensity of the sympathy that other nations have felt for them.
They think of us in America, for example, as a long way off. And we
are in space but we are not in thought. You must remember that the
United States is made up of the nations of Europe: that French
sympathies run straight across the seas, not merely by historic
association but by blood connection, and that these nerves of
sympathy are quick to transmit the impulses of one nation to the
other.
We have followed your sufferings with a feeling that we were
witnessing one of the most heroic, and may I add, at the same time
satisfactory things in the world, satisfactory because it showed the
strength of the human spirit, the indomitable power of women and men
alike to sustain any burden if the cause was great enough.
In an ordinary war there might have been some shrinking, some
sinking of effort; but this was not an ordinary war. This was a war
not only to redeem France from an enemy, but to redeem the world
from an enemy. And France, therefore, and the women of France
strained their hearts to sustain the world. I hope that the strain
has not been in vain. I know that it has not been in vain.
This war has been popular and unlike other wars in that it seemed
sometimes as if the chief strain was behind the lines and not at the
lines. It took so many men to conduct the war that the older men and
the women at home had to carry the nation. Not only so, but the
industries of the nation were almost as much a part of the fighting
as the things that took place at the fronts.
So it is for that reason that I have said to those with whom I am at
present associated that this must be a people’s peace, because this
was a people’s war. The people won this war, not the governments,
and the people must reap the benefits of the war. At every turn we
must see to it that it is not an adjustment between governments
merely, but an agreement for the peace and security of men and women
everywhere.
The little obscure sufferings and the daily unknown privations, the
unspoken sufferings of the heart, are the tragical things of this
war. They have been borne at home, and the center of the home is the
woman. My heart goes out to you, therefore, ladies, in a very
unusual degree, and I welcome this opportunity to bring you this
message, not from myself merely, but from the great people whom I
represent.
Mary Nolan—over seventy years old—immediately made Suffrage capital of
this speech by the President. Mrs. Nolan’s record in the period of the
Watchfires is positively heroic.
On January 19, with Bertha Arnold, Mrs. Nolan was arrested for the first
time in connection with the Watchfires of Freedom demonstrations. On
January 24, while under suspended sentence, the two women again fed the
flames in front of the White House. They were immediately arrested; the
next day, tried. Mrs. Nolan said:
I am guilty if there is any guilt in a demand for freedom. I protest
against the action of the President who is depriving American women
of freedom. I have been sent to represent my State Florida, and I am
willing to do or suffer anything to bring victory to the long
courageous struggle. I have fought this fight many years. I have
seen children born to grow to womanhood to fight at my side. I have
seen their children grow up to fight with us.
So great a storm of applause greeted these remarks that the Judge had
thirteen of the applauders brought immediately to the dock and tried for
contempt of Court. Thirteen women were sentenced to forty-eight hours in
jail with no alternative of fines. These thirteen women were: Lucy
Burns; Edith Ainge; Mary Gertrude Fendall; Phœbe Munnecke; Lucy Branham;
Annie Arniel; Matilda Young; Ruth Crocker; Elsie Unterman; Kate Boeckh;
Emily Huff; Lucile Shields; Elizabeth Walmsley.
Bertha Arnold received a sentence of five days, but Mrs. Nolan was
released.
On Monday, January 27, Mrs. Nolan went out on the picket line again,
this time with Sarah Colvin. As she burned in the Watchfire the text of
the President’s words to the French workingwomen, she said:
President Wilson told the women of France that they had not placed
their confidences wrongly in his hopes and purposes. I tell the
women of France that the women of America have placed their
confidence in President Wilson’s hopes and purposes for six years,
and the Party of which he is a leader has continually, and is even
now obstructing their enfranchisement.
President Wilson has the power to do for the women of this nation
what he asserts he would like to do for the women of other nations.
There are thirty-one days left for the passage of the Suffrage
Amendment in this Congress, of which his Party is in control. Let
him return to this country and act to secure democracy for his own
people. Then the words that he spoke for the women of Europe will
have weight and will bear fruit. Sooner or later the women of the
world will know what we know—that confidence cannot be placed in
President Wilson’s hopes and purposes for the freedom of women.
The police seemed loath to arrest Mrs. Nolan, but they finally did so.
The Court as reluctantly sentenced her to twenty-four hours in jail.
Mrs. Colvin received the customary five days. Three more applauding
Suffragists were committed at this last trial, for forty-eight hours:
Cora Crawford, Margaret Rossett, Elsie Unterman.
* * * * *
On January 31, Mrs. Nolan was again arrested at a Watchfire
demonstration with Mary Ingham and Annie Arniel. She was discharged by
the Court. Mary Ingham and Annie Arniel, it may be mentioned, were held
in jail for two days before they were brought to trial. There were no
witnesses against them, and so they were freed.
* * * * *
On February 4, Mrs. Nolan was arrested again with Elsie T. Russian and
Bertha Wallerstein for burning the President’s speech to French
Deputies. There was the usual applause when the three women appeared in
Court, and, as usual, the Judge ordered silence; as usual, the applause
continued. Three applauders were thrown out.
Mrs. Russian made the following statement to the Court:
By burning the hypocritical words of President Wilson, we have
expressed the unmistakable impatience of American women. In place of
words, these women demand action. I am glad to have taken part in
the expression of that demand.
The watchfires had been going since New Year’s Day, growing in numbers
until they culminated in the biggest demonstration of all, two days
before the day set for the vote.
On February 9, they burned the President in effigy.
At half-past four that Sunday, the bell at Headquarters began to toll. A
procession of a hundred women, headed by Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer bearing
the American flag, marched to the White House pavement. Behind Mrs.
Havemeyer came Ella Riegel, bearing the purple, white, and gold banner.
Behind the color bearers came Mrs. John Rogers and Mary Ingham, carrying
a lettered banner which said:
ONLY FIFTEEN LEGISLATIVE DAYS ARE LEFT FOR
THIS CONGRESS.
FOR MORE THAN A YEAR THE PRESIDENT’S PARTY HAS
BLOCKED SUFFRAGE IN THE SENATE.
IT IS BLOCKING IT TODAY.
THE PRESIDENT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BETRAYAL
OF AMERICAN WOMANHOOD.
Behind this came Sarah T. Colvin and Mrs. Walter Adams, carrying a
second lettered banner:
WHY DOES NOT THE PRESIDENT ENSURE THE PASSAGE OF
SUFFRAGE IN THE SENATE TOMORROW?
WHY DOES HE NOT WIN FROM HIS PARTY THE ONE
VOTE NEEDED?
HAS HE AGREED TO PERMIT SUFFRAGE AGAIN TO BE
PUSHED ASIDE?
PRESIDENT WILSON IS DECEIVING THE WORLD. HE PREACHES
DEMOCRACY ABROAD AND THWARTS DEMOCRACY HERE.
Behind these banners came Nell Mercer and Elizabeth McShane bearing an
earthen urn filled with fire. Behind them came Sue White and Gabrielle
Harris, who were to perform the leading act of the demonstration.
After these came twenty-six wood bearers, and long eddying waves of the
purple, white, and gold. The urn bearers deposited the urn in its place
on the pavement opposite the White House door. The wood bearers and the
banner bearers formed a guard about it. Sue White then advanced and
dropped into the flames a paper figure—a cartoon—of the President. Mrs.
Havemeyer then attempted to make a speech. Before she was arrested, she
managed to say the following three sentences:
Every Anglo-Saxon government in the world has enfranchised its
women. In Russia, in Hungary, in Austria, in Germany itself, the
women are completely enfranchised, and thirty-four are now sitting
in the new Reichstag. We women of America are assembled here today
to voice our deep indignation that while such efforts are being made
to establish democracy for Europe, American women are still deprived
of a voice in their government here at home.
Speaker after speaker attempted to follow her, but they were all
arrested. The police patrols were soon filled up, and nearby cars were
commandeered. There was an enormous crowd present. The police—nearly a
hundred of them—tried to force them back, and succeeded in getting them
part way across Pennsylvania Avenue. When they turned back, more wood
had been brought from Headquarters, and another fire started. Other
women who came from Headquarters with further reinforcements of wood
were stopped and arrested. The police then declared the open space
between the encircling crowd and the banner-bearing women a military
zone. No person was allowed to enter it. For an hour, therefore, the
women stood there. For the most part, they were motionless, but at
intervals they marched slowly round their small segment of sidewalk. The
crowd stayed until the banner bearers started homeward. They followed
them to the very entrance of Suffrage Headquarters.
All this time the bell was tolling.
Those arrested were: Mrs. T. W. Forbes, Mary Nolan, Sue White, Mrs. L.
V. G. Gwynne Branham, Lillian Ascough, Jennie Bronenberg, Rose
Fishstein, Nell Mercer, Amy Juengling, Reba Comborrov, Mildred Morris,
Clara Wold, Louise Bryant, Bertha Wallerstein, Martha Shoemaker, Rebecca
Garrison, Pauline Adams, Marie Ernst Kennedy, Willie Grace Johnson,
Phœbe Munnecke, Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, Edith Ainge, Lucy Daniels, Mary
Ingham, Elizabeth McShane, Sarah T. Colvin, Ella Riegel, Mrs. William
Upton Watson, Anne Herkner, Palys Chevrier, Anna Ginsberg, Estella
Eylward, Annie Arniel, Cora Weeks, Lucy Burns, Helena Hill Weed, Mrs.
John Rogers, Gladys Greiner, Rose G. Fishstein.
On February 10, the Anthony Amendment came up once more for the vote in
the Senate of the United States. Perhaps at this juncture recapitulation
in regard to the Senate situation will be illuminating.
It will be remembered that when the Amendment passed the House on
January 10, 1918, the Suffragists were eleven votes short in the Senate,
and how—Maud Younger told the story most vivaciously—nine of these votes
were obtained. For a long time, the Suffragists continued to lack the
remaining two votes. The first thing that promised to ameliorate this
deadlock was the nomination in the South Carolina primaries of Pollock
for the short term of the Sixty-fifth Congress, convening December 2,
1918. Senator Pollock confused the situation extraordinarily for the
Suffragists. The South Carolina branch of the Woman’s Party interviewed
him immediately after his election and it was their understanding that
he told them that he would vote “yes” on the Amendment. When he came to
Washington, however, he refused to state how he would vote. The
Suffragists were in a difficult situation. Many of them believed that he
intended to vote for the Amendment but he would not say that he did.
They believed they had one of the two necessary votes but they could
never be sure of it. All the time, therefore, they were trying to get
the votes of Moses of New Hampshire, Gay of Louisiana, Hale of Maine,
Trammell of Florida, and Borah of Idaho, as they seemed the most likely
of the opposed or non-committal men.
Indeed, two kinds of campaigns were going on—one in the States among the
constituents of these possible men and the campaign of the Watchfires in
Washington. As soon as the Watchfires began, the President again began
to work. He called various Senators asking them to support the
Amendment. The Democratic leaders became alarmed at the effect on the
country of this constant turmoil in front of the White House. In fact
they did the thing they had always steadfastly refused to do—called a
caucus to mobilize the Democrats back of the Suffrage Amendment. At this
caucus, various Administration leaders appealed to the Party members in
the Senate to give their support to the measure. Pollock then made his
first public declaration that he would vote for the Suffrage Amendment.
The Amendment now needed but one vote.
The chairman of the Suffrage Committee then announced that another
effort would be made to pass the measure and it would be brought up for
a vote on February 10, although until the Watchfires started, they had
repeatedly declared that it would be impossible to bring it up twice in
the same session.
As Congress was coming to an end, it was decided to take the vote
anyway, although, as things stood, even with Pollock, the Suffragists
lacked one vote. Pollock did vote for Suffrage but the other vote was
not forthcoming. The Amendment was therefore defeated on February 10.
From February 10 to June 4, the Woman’s Party was working to get that
one vote.
* * * * *
While the Senate was debating Suffrage, thirty-nine of the women who had
burned the President in effigy the day before were being tried.
Twenty-five sentences of five days and one of two days were pronounced.
Then the Judge demanded, “How many more women are there out there?” When
he found that several were still waiting, he dismissed them without
trial.
They were not charged with burning the effigy of the President, but with
unlawfully setting fire to certain combustibles in that part of the
District of Columbia known as the White House grounds.
* * * * *
The prison conditions which these Suffragists endured were as unpleasant
as before. At first they went to the District of Columbia jail. Since
previous incarcerations and the resulting complaints and investigations,
soap and water had been used to some extent in this jail. So much,
indeed, had soap and water been used that the prisoners could now
clearly distinguish the vermin of more than one species creeping up and
down the walls. The rats ran about in hordes. While conditions were
somewhat improved, they were still bad.
Harriet Andrews, writing of her impressions of the jail in the
_Suffragist_ of January 25, says:
The jail was real. And it was not funny. I had a book of poetry to
read, but I was sorry I hadn’t taken a volume from the works of the
late Henri Fabre. It would have been interesting to study the habits
of cockroaches. I lay on my straw pallet and watched them clustered
in the upper right hand corner of my cell waiting for my light to be
put out before they began their nightly invasion. And when my light
went out, the bulb that still burned in the corridor enabled me to
watch them crawling down in a long, uninterrupted line.... There
were also other things that crawled.
The last group were sent to the old Workhouse in which Suffragists had
been imprisoned the August before.
Of that Helena Hill Weed says in the _Suffragist_ of February 22:
No fire had been built in the old Workhouse this winter until a few
hours before we were imprisoned there. The dampness and cold of the
first floor was quite unbearable. They permitted the women to sleep
in the upper tier of cells, where the ventilation is better than on
the ground floor where we were forced to sleep last summer. But
these cells are too dark to stay in during the day, and the only
other place is the cold, damp stone floor on the ground. The only
fresh air in the prison enters the building through windows fifteen
feet above the level of the floor where the women have to spend
their waking hours. The warm air from the furnaces, which enters the
building on the first floor immediately rises to the roof. The damp,
icy winter air and all the noxious gases and foul odors sink to the
floor, where the women have to sit. They are serving their
imprisonment under practically cellar conditions. The authorities
are not forcing us to drink the water in the pipes of the Workhouse
this time, but are supplying fresh water.
Harriet Andrews said that in coming out, “the sense of air and light and
space burst upon me like a shout.”
* * * * *
In the meantime, the Woman’s Party, carrying out its extraordinary
thorough and forthright policy of publicity, had not failed to tell the
country at large about all this. They sent throughout the United States
a carfull of speakers; all women who had served sentences in prison.
They were: Abby Scott Baker, Lucy Burns, Bertha Arnold, Mary Ingham,
Mabel Vernon, Mrs. Robert Walker, Gladys Greiner, Mrs. A. R. Colvin,
Ella Riegel, Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, Mrs. W. D. Ascough, Mary Winsor,
Elizabeth McShane, Vida Milholland, Sue White, Lucy Ewing, Lucy Branham,
Edith Ainge, Pauline Adams, Mrs. John Rogers, Cora Week, and Mary Nolan.
This car was called the _Prison Special_ and the newspapers soon called
the women the _Prison Specialists_. On the platform the speakers all
wore duplicates of their prison costumes. Perhaps in all its history,
the Woman’s Party has never gathered—not a more brilliant company of
speakers—but speakers with so marvelous a story to tell. They spoke to
packed houses. At their very first meeting in Charleston, South
Carolina, traffic was actually stopped by the overflow meeting.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XIII
THE APPEAL TO THE PRESIDENT ON HIS RETURN
THE President of the United States returned to America from Europe on
February 24, 1919, landing in Boston. Boston arranged an enormous
welcome-home demonstration. The Woman’s Party determined to take part in
that welcome to remind him of the Suffrage work to be done, and they
announced this to the world at large. Alice Paul went to Boston to
arrange this demonstration. The Boston police announced in their turn
that they would establish a dead line in front of the reviewing stand
beyond which the Suffragists would not be allowed to penetrate. However,
the Suffragists, following the Red Cross women, marched through the line
of Marines who held the crowd back, and took up their position before
the reviewing stand where the President was to appear. At the head of
the line in the place of honor, waving the American flag, was Katherine
Morey. On one side of the Stars and Stripes was the historic banner:
MR. PRESIDENT, HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY?
On the other side of the Stars and Stripes was a second historic banner:
MR. PRESIDENT, WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE?
The special lettered banner for the occasion read:
MR. PRESIDENT, YOU SAID IN THE SENATE ON SEPTEMBER 30,
“WE SHALL NOT ONLY BE DISTRUSTED BUT WE SHALL DESERVE
TO BE DISTRUSTED IF WE DO NOT ENFRANCHISE WOMEN.”
YOU ALONE CAN REMOVE THIS DISTRUST NOW BY SECURING
THE ONE VOTE NEEDED TO PASS THE SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT
BEFORE MARCH 4.
This banner was carried by Lois Shaw and Ruth Small.
The police politely requested the pickets to depart and the pickets
politely refused to go; whereupon the police politely arrested them. The
arrested women were: Jessica Henderson, Ruth Small, Lou Daniels, Mrs.
Frank Page, Josephine Collins, Berry Pottier, Wilma Henderson, Mrs.
Irving Gross, Mrs. George Roewer, Francis Fowler, Camilla Whitcomb, Mrs.
H. L. Turner, Eleanor Calnan, Betty Connelly, Betty Gram, Lois Warren
Shaw, Rose Lewis, Mrs. E. T. Russian.
They were charged with “loitering more than seven minutes.”
In the afternoon while the President was making a speech in Mechanics
Hall, a Watchfire demonstration occurred on Boston Common. A vast crowd
gathered about it. From three o’clock in the afternoon until six, the
women made speeches.
The speakers were: Louise Sykes, Mrs. C. C. Jack, Mrs. Mortimer Warren,
Mrs. Robert Trent Whitehouse, Agnes H. Morey, Elsie Hill.
Louise Sykes burned the President’s words—and they were the words that
he was speaking that very afternoon. Mrs. Mortimer Warren and Mrs. C. C.
Jack were arrested at six o’clock and released immediately. Elsie Hill
was detained on the charge of speaking without a permit.
* * * * *
That day the President’s carriage drove by the Boston Headquarters. When
Wilson saw the purple, white, and gold colors, his expression changed.
Quickly he looked the other way. It was observed that he held across his
knees a newspaper whose flaring headlines announced that day’s
picketing.
The Suffragists were tried on February 25, by what was very like a Star
Chamber proceeding, in the Judge’s lobby on the second floor of the
court house. The Press was not excluded from the hearing, but the public
was. As usual, the Suffragists did not assist the Court by giving names
or answering questions. As a result, in the words of the _Suffragist_,
“There is quite a family of Jane Does in Boston.” Sixteen of
them—everybody, except Wilma Henderson, who was discovered to be a
minor, and several others who could not be identified—were sentenced to
eight days in jail.
Some person—I quote from the _Suffragist_—entirely unknown and
untraceable and unidentified, whom the policemen gave the name “E. H.
Howe” paid the fines of these women. Katherine Morey, Ruth Small, and
Betty Connelly were released on February 26; Josephine Collins on
February 27; the others came out two at a time.
As usual, the complaints of the Suffragists called the attention of the
people of the community to the filthy condition of their jail, which
these experts pronounced one of the worst in the country. It was
characterized by the “bucket system.” In each cell stood two buckets for
toilet purposes. One contained the water in which they bathed. The other
was emptied once a day or once in two days, according to the frequency
with which the prisoner was permitted to go into the jail-yard for the
purpose.
* * * * *
The Boston papers gave this demonstration enormous publicity. Boston
institutions received in the press a muckraking which they had not
experienced in years.
* * * * *
When President Wilson arrived in the Capitol at Washington—after this
welcome in Boston—one of the first pieces of legislation which he took
up was the Federal Suffrage Amendment. He went to the Capitol and
conferred with Senator Jones of New Mexico (Democrat) Chairman of the
Woman’s Suffrage Committee, about the Suffrage Resolution. After the
vote of February 10, Senator Jones of New Mexico refused to introduce
the Suffrage Resolution again, but Senator Jones of Washington, the
ranking Republican, introduced the identical bill. The President
expressed his regret over the failure of the measure on February 10, but
he did not exert his influence towards getting it passed.
The Sixty-fifth Congress was about to adjourn in a few days. On February
28, in order to overcome the Parliamentary difficulty of the
reconsideration of a measure which had been once reconsidered, Senator
Jones of New Mexico introduced a Suffrage Amendment which was a
variation of the Anthony Amendment and so of course to Suffragists not
so satisfactory. It was referred to the Woman Suffrage Committee. Soon
after this, Senator Gay of Louisiana, who had voted against the
Amendment on February 10, announced that he would now vote for it. The
President had obtained this vote, but like all his action on Suffrage,
it came too late. There were only three days left and Senator Jones of
New Mexico made several attempts to obtain the necessary unanimous
consent for the consideration of his Resolution, but he was
unsuccessful. On Saturday, March 1, Senator Wadsworth (Republican)
objected. On Monday, March 3, Senator Weeks (Republican) objected. On
Tuesday, March 4, Senator Sherman (Republican) objected. The session
came to an end in the Senate without action on the Suffrage Amendment.
The Republicans did not want the Democrats to get the credit of passing
it, and so prevented it from coming to a vote.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XIV
THE APPEAL TO THE PRESIDENT ON HIS DEPARTURE
WHEN Congress adjourned at noon March 3, President Wilson left
immediately for Europe, stopping in New York to speak at the
Metropolitan Opera House. Alice Paul arranged at once a demonstration in
New York as a protest against the President leaving the Suffrage
question still unsettled. Her plan was to have every word on democracy,
uttered by the President inside the Opera House, immediately burned
outside the Opera House.
On the evening of March 4 a long line of Suffragists started from the
New York Headquarters at 13 East Forty-first Street. Margaretta Schuyler
carried the American flag. Lucy Maverick followed her carrying the
purple, white, and gold tri-color. Florence De Shan carried:
MR. PRESIDENT, HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY?
Beatrice Castleton bore:
MR. PRESIDENT, HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY?
The lettered banner for the occasion said:
MR. PRESIDENT, AMERICAN WOMEN PROTEST AGAINST THE
DEFEAT OF SUFFRAGE FOR WHICH YOU AND YOUR PARTY ARE
RESPONSIBLE. WE DEMAND THAT YOU CALL AN EXTRA SESSION
OF CONGRESS IMMEDIATELY TO PASS THE SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT.
AN AUTOCRAT AT HOME IS A POOR CHAMPION FOR
DEMOCRACY ABROAD.
At the corner of Fortieth Street and Broadway, this line met a barrier
of more than a hundred policemen. As the Suffragists tried to pass
through them, the police—assisted by soldiers and sailors from the
crowd—rushed upon them; tore down the banners; broke them.
In her book, _Jailed for Freedom_, Doris Stevens tells how in perfect
silence, but in the most business-like way, the New York police clubbed
the pickets. They arrested six of the women; Alice Paul, Elsie Hill,
Doris Stevens, Beatrice Castleton, Lucy Maverick, Marie Bodenheim. These
were taken to the police station charged with disorderly conduct. After
half an hour, they were suddenly released.
They went back to Headquarters, re-formed into a second line and started
for the Opera House. At Fortieth Street, the police again rushed them,
tearing and breaking their flags. The women were knocked down. Some were
trampled underfoot, and picked up later, limp and bleeding from scrapes
and bruises. Elsie Hill succeeded in retaining her torch. She began her
meeting of protest. A messenger emerged from the Opera House with some
of the words which the President had just uttered, and she burned them.
The police rushed upon her, but they were too late. In the meantime,
Alice Paul had succeeded in bringing the line of Suffragists up to the
wall of police. There the crowds dashed on them again.
With the wonderful spirit which always characterized her, Elsie Hill
called out to one of the soldiers: Did you fellows turn back when you
saw the Germans come? What would you have thought of any one who did? Do
you expect us to turn back now? We never turn back either—and we won’t
until democracy is won!
Finally the police pushed the crowds back so far that there was no
audience. The pickets returned to Headquarters. There they found that
all the evening long, lawless citizens had been breaking in, carrying
out great bundles of banners and burning them in the street.
Doris Stevens tells in _Jailed for Freedom_ how, when she attempted to
enter Headquarters, she was knocked down by a hoodlum armed with one of
their banner poles.
* * * * *
That night and the following day, sailors, privates and
officers—military and naval—called at Suffrage Headquarters to apologize
for the conduct of other men in uniform. They begged the women to
believe that their action was not representative of the attitude of
service men in general.
The Sixty-sixth Congress convened in special session on May 19, 1919,
with the Republicans in control.
The Suffragists knew before this Congress convened, that it would pass
the Anthony Amendment.
This was how it happened.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XV
THE PRESIDENT OBTAINS THE LAST VOTE AND CONGRESS SURRENDERS
THE Suffrage situation was a little confused. Senator Baird, opposed to
Suffrage, of the old Congress, was succeeded by Edge, favorable to it.
Pollock, favorable, was succeeded by Dial, opposed. Vardaman of
Mississippi, favorable, was succeeded by Harrison. Drew of New
Hampshire, opposed, was succeeded by Keyes. Hardwick of Georgia,
opposed, was succeeded by Harris. These three last new Senators—Harrison
(Democrat), Harris (Democrat), and Keyes (Republican)—maintained a
steady silence as to how they would vote. It was necessary to get one of
them.
Senator Harris was a close supporter of President Wilson. Alice Paul
knew that Matthew Hale, former Chairman of the Progressive National
Committee, a Suffragist but not a Democrat, was influential with the
Administration. She therefore suggested to Anita Pollitzer that she see
Mr. Hale at once and lay the situation before him. This was early in May
and Congress was convening May 19. Mr. Hale was enthusiastic in his
desire to help. The situation was complicated by the fact that the
President was in Europe. Mr. Hale and Miss Pollitzer went over the
Senate poll and from among the most favorable non-committal senators
chose Harris of Georgia. He too was in Europe. Suddenly the field of the
campaign crossed three thousand miles of Atlantic Ocean to France. The
Woman’s Party concentrated their forces on getting President Wilson to
influence Harris into declaring for Suffrage. Mr. Hale worked steadily
with a group of people close to the President who rapidly increased in
numbers. Ultimately this pressure bore fruit in a conference between
Robert Woolley, Democratic Publicity Manager in the 1916 campaign, Homer
S. Cummings, Chairman of the National Democratic Committee, William J.
Cochran, Director of Publicity of the Democratic Committee, Joseph
Tumulty, the President’s Secretary, Senator Walsh. The result of this
conference was that Tumulty sent a cable to the President, suggesting
that he confer with Senator Harris. Senator Harris was in Italy, but at
the President’s request he went to France. Immediately came the news on
the cable that Senator Harris would support the Suffrage Amendment.
Having secured Harris’ vote, President Wilson cabled a message to the
new Congress on the night of May 20 which contained the following
reference to the Susan B. Anthony Amendment:
Will you permit me, turning from these matters, to speak once more
and very earnestly of the proposed Amendment to the Constitution
which would extend the Suffrage to women and which passed the House
of Representatives at the last session of the Congress? It seems to
me that every consideration of justice and of public advantage calls
for the immediate adoption of that Amendment and its submission
forthwith to the legislatures of the several States.
Throughout all the world this long-delayed extension of the Suffrage
is looked for; in the United States, longer, I believe, than
anywhere else, the necessity for it, and the immense advantages of
it to the national life, has been urged and debated by women and men
who saw the need for it and urged the policy of it when it required
steadfast courage to be so much beforehand with the common
conviction; and I, for one, covet for our country the distinction of
being among the first to act in a great reform.
As soon as Suffrage was assured by this sixty-fourth vote, Senator Keyes
and Senator Hale in a convulsive effort to leap on the fast disappearing
band-wagon announced that they would vote for the Amendment, thus giving
the Suffragists two extra votes.
As this was a new Congress it was necessary for the House to pass the
Suffrage Amendment again. On May 21, 1919, therefore, the new House
passed it by three hundred and four votes to eighty-nine—forty-two more
than the required two-thirds. It will be remembered that, when the
previous House passed it on January 10, 1918, the vote was two hundred
and seventy-four to one hundred and thirty-six—only one vote more than
the required two-thirds.
The Amendment then went to the Senate.
In her _Revelations of a Woman Lobbyist_, Maud Younger says:
Four months later, on June fourth, for the fifth time in a little more
than a year, we sat in the Senate gallery to hear a vote on the Suffrage
Amendment. The new Congress, coming in on March fourth, had brought us
two more votes—we now had our eleven. There was no excitement. The
coming of the women, the waiting of the women, the expectancy of the
women, was an old story. A whole year had passed in the winning of two
votes. Every one knew what the end would be now. It was all very dull.
We walked slowly homeward, talking a little, silent a great deal. This
was the day toward which women had been struggling for more than half a
century! We were in the dawn of woman’s political power in America.
Several days before the Senate passed the Amendment, Alice Paul left
Washington to arrange for an immediate ratification by the legislatures
in session.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XVI
RATIFICATION
“WOMEN ARE FREE AT LAST IN ALL THE LAND”
_Chant Royal_
Waken, O Woman, to the trumpet sound
Greeting our day of long sought liberty;
Gone are the ages that have held us bound
Beneath a master, now we stand as he,
Free for world-service unto all mankind,
Free of the dragging chains that used to bind,
The sordid labor, the unnoticed woe,
The helpless shame, the unresisted blow,
Submission to our owner’s least command—
No longer pets or slaves are we, for lo!
Women are free at last in all the land.
Long was the stony road our feet have found
From that dark past to the new world we see,
Each step with heavy hindrance hemmed around,
Each door to freedom closed with bolt and key;
Our feet with old tradition all entwined,
Untrained, uneducated, uncombined,
We had to fight old faiths of long ago,
And in our households find our dearest foe,
Against the world’s whole weight we had to stand
Till came the day it could no more say no—
Women are free at last in all the land.
Around us prejudice, emotion-drowned,
Rose like a flood and would not let us free;
Women themselves, soft-bred and silken gowned,
Historic shame have won by their mad plea
To keep their own subjection; with them lined
All evil forces of the world we find,
No crime so brazen and no vice so low
But fought us, with inertia blind and slow,
And ignorance beneath its darkling brand,
these we strove and still must strive, although
Women are free at last in all the land.
The serving squaw, the peasant, toil-embrowned,
The household drudge, no honor and no fee—
For these we now see women world-renowned,
In art and science, work of all degree.
She whom world progress had left far behind
Now has the secret of full life divined,—
Her largest service gladly to bestow;
Great is the gain since ages far below,
In honored labor, of head and hand;
Now may her power and genius clearly show
Women are free at last in all the land.
Long years of effort to her praise redound,
To such high courage all may bend the knee,
Beside her brother, with full freedom crowned,
Mother and wife and citizen is she,
Queen of her soul and body, heart and mind,
Strong for the noble service God designed;
See now the marching millions, row on row,
With steady eyes and faces all aglow,
They come! they come! a glad triumphant band,—
Roses and laurels in their pathway strow—
Women are free at last in all the land!
ENVOI
Sisters! we now must change the world we know
To one great garden where the child may grow.
New freedom means new duty, broad and grand.
To make a better world and hold it so
Women are free at last in all the land.
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN,
_The Suffragist_, September, 1920.
THE Suffrage Amendment had now passed both the House of Representatives
and the Senate. One step was necessary before it became a part of the
Constitution of the United States—ratification by the legislatures of
three-quarters of the States in the Union—by thirty-six States out of
forty-eight. No time limit was set by Congress on ratification, but
naturally Suffragists wanted it to come as soon as possible. Some people
believed it would take twenty years. They did not reckon with Alice Paul
however.
As soon as Congress passed the Suffrage Amendment, the whole
situation—as far as Suffrage was concerned—changed. Now the President,
the leaders in the Administration, the leaders in the great political
Parties became potential allies.
In four States—Wisconsin, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts—the
Legislatures were in regular session. In three States—Texas, Ohio,
Michigan—called on matters not pertaining to Suffrage, the Legislatures
were in special session. The first undertaking of the Woman’s Party was
to get the convening Legislatures to ratify and the remaining States to
call special sessions.
A race as to who should be the first to ratify, set in between
Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois. All three ratified on June 10. But
Illinois had to re-ratify later on June 17 because of an error in
printing the Amendment on its first ratification on June 10. As between
the other two, Wisconsin won.
The story of Wisconsin’s part in the race is interesting and humorous.
D. G. James, the father of Ada James, former Chairman of the Wisconsin
Branch of the Woman’s Party, was spending the day in Madison when the
Legislature ratified. His daughter was, of course, exceedingly desirous
that Wisconsin should achieve the honor of the first ratification, and
he was equally desirous of aiding her. He assisted her in every way to
avoid official delays and in getting the action of the Legislature
properly certified. He commandeered his daughter’s traveling bag, made a
few swift purchases of the necessities of traveling, and caught the
first train to Washington. He procured a signed statement that
Wisconsin’s ratification was the first to be received from the
Department of State, on June 13. He brought his trophy in triumph to
Headquarters and told his story to the newspaper men while the statement
was being photographed.
That statement runs as follows:
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
WASHINGTON.
June 13, 1919.
By direction of the Acting Secretary of State, I hereby acknowledge
the receipt of a certified copy of the Joint Resolution of the
Legislature of the State of Wisconsin, ratifying the proposed
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States extending the
right of Suffrage to women, which was delivered by Special
Messenger, D. G. James, on June 13, 1919, and is the first
ratification of the Amendment which has been received.
J. A. TOWNER,
Chief of Bureau.
Michigan, almost neck and neck in the race with Wisconsin, ratified on
June 10. Kansas, Ohio, and New York ratified on June 16. Kansas was the
first State to call its Legislature in special session to ratify the
Suffrage Amendment, the first also in which the legislators paid their
own expenses to attend the special session. Illinois, held up by that
mistake in printing, ratified on June 17.
Pennsylvania, the first non-Suffrage State, ratified on June 24, but not
without a struggle. The session of the Legislature was drawing to a
close and it was difficult to get the measure introduced. The National
Woman’s Party made a strenuous campaign. Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Chairman
of the Pennsylvania Ratification Committee, enlisted the aid of Governor
Sproul and in a conference with Senator Penrose, who had been one of the
strongest opponents to the Suffrage Amendment in the United States
Senate, persuaded him to give his support to ratification. Mary Ingham,
the State Chairman, brought all the Woman’s Party forces in the State to
bear upon the situation. The scene in the Senate when the vote was taken
was highly colorful. The floor was a waving mass of purple, white, and
gold. The tri-color badges of the National Woman’s Party appeared
everywhere on the floor and among the audience. There was such demand
for the Woman’s Party colors that at the last moment the stock had to be
replenished. After the final victory in the House, a parade of purple,
white, and gold blazed its way through Harrisburg.
Massachusetts followed close on Pennsylvania, ratifying on June 25.
Agnes Morey, the State Chairman of the National Woman’s Party, assisted
by members of the State branch, and by Betty Gram, national organizer,
made the intensive drive on the Legislature, which resulted in their
bringing the Bay State into camp. Here, Senator Lodge, another hitherto
unchangeable opponent to the Suffrage Amendment in the United States
Senate, did not oppose the measure when it came up before the
Massachusetts Legislature, although he did not give the support which
Penrose of Pennsylvania gave.
Texas, the first Democratic “one-party” State to do so, ratified by
special session on June 28. Iowa, after an appeal for a special session
from Senator Cummins to Governor Harding—this was done at the instance
of the Woman’s Party—ratified on July 2; Missouri ratified by special
session on July 3.
In the meantime the Legislature of Alabama, which only convenes once in
four years, met and although Suffragists had not wanted this session and
had very little hope of success, they conducted a campaign for
ratification. As it was the first Democratic State in which there was
difficulty, an appeal was made to the President. He despatched the
following telegrams:
WHITE HOUSE,
July 12, 1919.
Hon. Thomas E. Kilby, Governor,
Montgomery, Alabama.
I hope you will pardon me if I express my very earnest hope that the
Suffrage Amendment to the Constitution of the United States may be
ratified by the great State of Alabama.
It would constitute a very happy augury for the future and add
greatly to the strength of the movement which, in my judgment, is
based upon the highest considerations, both of justice and
experience.
WOODROW WILSON.
WHITE HOUSE
July 14, 1919.
Hon. H. P. Merritt,
Speaker of House of Representatives,
Montgomery, Alabama.
I hope that you will not think that I am taking an unwarranted
liberty in saying that I earnestly hope, as do all friends of the
great liberal movement which it represents, that the legislature of
Alabama will ratify the Suffrage Amendment to the Constitution of
the United States. It would give added hope and courage to the
friends of justice and enlightened policy everywhere and would
constitute the best possible augury for future liberal policy of
every sort.
WOODROW WILSON.
Alabama was the first State in which ratification was defeated.
By this time, the Legislature in Georgia was convening. Suffragists had
no more hope of ratification here than in Alabama. Nevertheless the
campaign was made. They appealed to the national Democratic leaders for
help and the President despatched the following telegram:
WHITE HOUSE,
July 14, 1919.
Governor Hugh M. Dorsey,
State Capitol,
Atlanta, Georgia.
I am profoundly interested in the passage of the Suffrage Amendment
to the Constitution, and will very much value your advice as to the
present status of the matter in the Georgia legislature. I would
like very much to be of help, for I believe it to be absolutely
essential to the political future of the country that the Amendment
be passed. It is absolutely essential to the future of the
Democratic Party that it take a leading part in this great reform.
WOODROW WILSON.
Georgia defeated ratification July 24, although the national Democratic
leaders had aided in the entire campaign.
Arkansas ratified on July 20; Montana, July 20; Nebraska on August 2,
all by special session.
Then came a lull in the ratification race. By August, only two States
west of the Mississippi, had ratified and to the great surprise—and the
intense disappointment—of Suffragists, the West continued to maintain
this lethargy.
In the meantime, there came a special session for good roads in
Virginia, another Democratic State. Since the session was meeting, the
Suffragists had no alternative but to make the fight. In Virginia, they
relied again on the Democratic national leaders to overcome the
opposition of the local Democratic leaders. As in the case of Alabama
and Georgia, although the national leaders did much, they did not do
enough. The President, however, despatched the following letter:
August 22, 1919.
President of the Senate,
Richmond, Virginia.
May I not take the liberty of expressing my profound interest in the
action which the Legislature of my native State is to take in the
matter of the Suffrage Amendment to the United States Constitution.
It seems to me of profound importance to our country that this
Amendment should be adopted and I venture to urge the adoption on
the Legislature. With utmost respect and with the greatest
earnestness,
WOODROW WILSON.
Virginia did not ratify.
During all this period campaigns for special sessions continued. Typical
of these is the following account by Julia Emory, national organizer, in
the July _Suffragist_:
“Good-by, good luck, and don’t come back until Maryland ratifies!”
This from the group of National Headquarters when I waved farewell
and started over the hills and far away toward a special session in
Maryland. Over the hills to Baltimore, and then early the next
morning, very, very early, the big bay boat splashed down the
Chesapeake to Cambridge where Governor Harrington was spending the
week-end.
“It’s good of you to come,” the Governor greeted me. “Not good of
me, but necessary, Governor, to let you know how much women need a
special session in Maryland, now. Not just the 15,000 Maryland women
of our organization who have asked me to come to you, but all the
women in the United States.” “Ah!” said he. “You ladies are too
impatient. We will have a regular session in January, why can’t you
wait till then?” “Because,” I answered, “there is no need of
prolonging the struggle. We have the necessary thirty-six States in
view. We want the special session so that we can vote for the next
Governor of Maryland at the election this November, and for members
of our legislature at the same election.” “But the question of
expense,” he suggested. “That is easily eliminated,” I said. “Take
Kansas, for example, where the legislators waived all pay and
mileage in order to push forward ratification. Surely our Maryland
men will do the same. And, anyhow, two days at the outside would see
the thing through. Think of the taxes women have paid for so many
years. Think of the war for Democracy, think of the part women gave
in human sacrifice, service and money, and then tell me if anybody
would say that a special session called for the purpose of giving
them a voice in their government would take too much out of the
State treasury.” “That’s true,” said the Governor, “but special
sessions are unpopular, and suppose the resolution should fail——”
“Oh!” I said with a beaming smile of relief, “if what you want is a
convincing poll, I’ll give you that,” thinking of the poll which,
though still not yet completed, already showed a majority pledged in
both Houses. “Next Tuesday,” said he. “Now,” said I. It was then
Friday. But the Governor said Tuesday, and told me that in the
meantime he was going to “feel around” for sentiment. And so did I.
First I went to a State Senator. “Why the special session?” he
wanted to know. And when he found the thirty-six States were in
view, he sat up. “The thing is upon us,” he said. We went over the
situation from the political point of view from beginning to end. He
was a Democrat. “And,” said he in a low voice, “if I had to bet on
the fall elections, I’d—well, all I have to say is, if the Democrats
want to get any credit, it’ll have to be by special session.”
“Will you say that to the Governor?” I asked.
“I will, tonight,” he said, “and as for the question of expense, I
for one, will waive my pay.” Just then the train whistled. “You
can’t make it,” said the Senator. “We are some distance from the
station.” “I must,” I said. “I have to see another man.”
The Senator laughed and called to a man in an automobile and away I
whisked and the conductor helped me to hop on the train as it moved
off.
The man at the other end was in Chicago. And the next train was due
in six hours. Then on to a little town where I sat on a pile of
baggage and waited until the Republican delegate arrived. “I hope,”
he said, “that the Republicans will take the initiative and ask for
a special session. Yes, you bet, I’ll waive my pay.”
Then a Democrat, who said he would fight a special session to a
finish. “Knowing what it will mean to your Party if you do?” I
asked. We went into it from the political viewpoint. Then he saw the
end in sight. We carefully went over the thirty-six States. He
rubbed his head and looked at the opposite wall (or it may have been
the State of Maryland he was gazing at so intently). “You know,” he
said finally, “I am an anti-Suffragist at heart, but at the same
time I am no fool. The thing is here, and the point is, what is the
best thing to do about it. I will not urge a special session, but I
will not fight it.”
Then on Tuesday, Mrs. Donald Hooker, our Maryland Chairman, went
over the poll with the Governor. Man by man, they considered the
delegates and senators. Yes, this one was sure, that one was
practically sure but wasn’t pledged and so we wouldn’t count him
yet, another was hopeful, another was hopeless, and the then
uncompleted poll stood fifty-nine to thirty-eight in the House and
thirteen to eleven in the Senate. We looked expectantly at the
Governor. “I need more time to consider,” was what he said.
“In the meantime,” said Mrs. Hooker to me as we went out, “we will
complete the poll as fast as possible. A big majority will surely
convince him that it must go through.”
So off to Southern Maryland and the counties around Washington. One
legislator I found in Washington in a big, cool office, dressed in a
Palm Beach suit and on the point of departing for a vacation. I
looked at him and thought of canoes and bathing suits which had been
shoved aside for me till after the special session. “I hope you will
have a good time,” I told him. “Mine will come after you have voted
‘yes.’” He smiled happily and his reply made me smile happily too.
One man was in his wheat field. ‘Way into the country we went by
automobile where no trains ran and no electric cars penetrated. We
reached the town and inquired at the hardware store for our
legislator: “Mr. F——? Oh, he don’t live here, he just has his mail
sent here, he lives ’bout fo’teen mile round yonder.” “Fo’teen mile
round yonder,” we finally found his home. “Well, you see it’s this
way,” explained his wife. “He might’ve been home, but Mr. So-and-So
is thrashing wheat and my husband went over to help him get it in
before the storm.” We noticed clouds in the sky. We went on to the
So-and-Sos’ farm. At the farmhouse, we all alighted. My companions
immediately made for the chicken yard where they made friends with
Mrs. So-and-So and helped her to feed the chickens. Afterward, they
told us of the strong Suffrage speech the farmer’s wife had made to
them, who being the mother of eight children—six girls and two
boys—had come to the conclusion that nobody needed Suffrage more
than the farmer’s wife. Two of the little girls took me out to the
field, up a dusty white road we walked, climbed rail fences and—oh!
how good! picked a few blackberries—and came at last to the
thrashing field. “No,” said my man, “I can’t see that Suffrage is
right, and I can’t therefore vote for it.” “Did you think the war
was right?” I asked. “Oh! of course.” “And why did we go to war?” I
asked. “To get democracy,” he answered. “Exactly,” I said. “And
President Wilson said that democracy was ‘the right of all those who
submit to authority to have a voice in their own government.’” “Now
look here, Missie,” said my friend, “I believe women are superior
beings to men, and if they were to vote, they’d have to be equals.
Now look at this hay stack. You could no more pitch hay than——”
“Will you lend me your fork?” I asked. I stuck in the form, gave it
the peculiar little twist, then the little flop, squared my shoulder
and up it went on the wagon. Three times. “Well, I’ll be jiggered,”
laughed the legislator, “labor is scarce and now I’ll know where to
look for help when I need it!” “Yes,” said I. “And we have come to
you for help. We need your vote.”
On to the next, we climbed into the machine and sped away.
And so it runs. Sometimes, we strike an obstinate anti who will not
even listen to what we have to say, even though I have traveled
weary miles in trains and on foot to find him. Sometimes we have to
put up at a funny little village hotel because an inconsiderate
legislator has gone out of town for a day. Sometimes they are
cordial, and offer all sorts of help. Sometimes the road lies
through beautiful country, occasionally in hot, stuffy little towns.
At fastest, it is slow work. Why do legislators live so far apart
and in such inaccessible places? And generally so very far from
anything to eat! Some evenings as it begins to grow dark, I am
keenly aware that I have had nothing to eat since breakfast. But
that is part of the game, and after all what does it matter when I
can write to Headquarters before I fall into bed, “We can add the
following names of legislators to the list of pledged, and all of
them have offered to waive their pay.” So far only one has refused
to waive pay.
So, with a big majority in both houses pledged to vote for the
measure, there remains nothing but the calling of the special
session. This, it is up to Governor Harrington to do at once.
And this, according to the following answer to Attorney General
Palmer’s letter, he still refuses to do. Yet the Governor must
surely yet see the light, as he knows that there IS no question of
defeat if a special session is called to ratify.
The poll which has been so carefully and accurately drawn up
demonstrates that fact most convincingly, and we are going to keep
right on working until Governor Harrington sees it that way!
Maryland defeated ratification later.
Owing to the fact that most of the governors who must call special
sessions were Republicans, the National Woman’s Party made a drive on
the national Republican leaders to get them to act upon these governors.
On August 14, Abby Scott Baker went to the Governors’ Conference at Salt
Lake City where, assisted by Louise Garnett, State Chairman of the
Woman’s Party in Utah, she succeeded in getting governors whose
Legislatures had already ratified to organize an informal committee to
work upon those whose Legislatures had not ratified. Some of these
governors of these backward States—or rather some of the backward
governors of these States—made tentative promises in regard to special
sessions, but these promises were so vague that Mrs. Baker started, at
the close of the Governors’ Conference, to California. We shall hear
about her work there later.
Minnesota ratified on September 8; New Hampshire on September 10, both
in special session. Utah—but there is a story about Utah.
Utah was backward. Alice Paul interested Isaac Russell, a newspaper man,
and a native of Utah, in the situation. He prevailed upon Senator Smoot,
Republican, to write a letter to Alice Paul saying that he was
disappointed that Governor Bamberger, Democrat, was not calling a
special session. Alice Paul gave this letter to the Press, and of
course, the Republican papers of Utah carried it. Alice Paul waited a
while and then she sent Anita Pollitzer to see the Democratic
Congressmen from Utah, and to put it clearly to them that the
responsibility for the delay was on their Party. As a result of Miss
Pollitzer’s representations, Congressman Welling, a Democrat and a
friend of Governor Bamberger, wrote a strong telegram to him in which he
urged him to set the date of a special session at once. Early the next
morning, Congressman Welling telephoned Headquarters that the telegram
had brought results and read a message from Governor Bamberger
announcing the date on which he would call that special session. Utah
ratified on September 30.
In the meantime, we must go back to Abby Scott Baker, whom we left on
her way to California. She found that an enormous amount of work had
been done by Genevieve Allen, the State Chairman for California, and by
the members of her organization, assisted by Vivian Pierce, a national
organizer. Governor Stevens, however, seemed immovable on the subject of
a special session. But with additional assistance from Mrs. William
Kent, one of its national officers, the Woman’s Party inaugurated a
vigorous newspaper campaign. Governor Stevens found himself inundated by
an avalanche of telegrams, letters, petitions, resolutions; and finally
of entreaties of the men who surrounded him. Governor Stevens is a
Republican, and the Democratic women began to organize for ratification.
Senator Phelan, Democrat, gave them his assistance. National leaders of
both Parties brought pressure to bear. It was impossible to resist this
current. Governor Stevens issued a call for a special session for
November 1, and on that date California ratified.
The Woman’s Party refers to Maine as the first close call. This story is
very interesting. Maine called a special session, but Maine was, so to
speak, on the fence in regard to Suffrage, as, when the National Woman’s
Party approached the State on the subject of ratification, a referendum
on Presidential Suffrage was pending. So important was the situation
there that Alice Paul joined Mrs. Lawrence Lewis and Mrs. Robert Treat
Whitehouse, the State Chairman, who were working hard. In Maine, too,
the antis were troublesome. They managed to introduce a resolution in
the Legislature proposing postponement on the subject of ratification
until after the referendum. The President and Secretary of the State
Federation of Labor sent an official appeal to the Legislature to vote
for this resolution. Immediately the Woman’s Party in Washington
obtained a letter from Secretary Morrison of the American Federation of
Labor to the Maine Federation, stating that the A. F. of L. stood
strongly for ratification. Mrs. Whitehouse gave this letter to the
newspapers; gave copies to every member of the Legislature. She
conferred with the President of the State Federation, persuaded him to
repudiate his former letter and to issue an appeal for the support of
ratification. National leaders of both the Democratic and Republican
Parties sent telegrams to legislators. Maine ratified on November 5—by a
narrow margin of four votes.
After a long siege by the Woman’s Party on the Governor, North Dakota
ratified in special session on December 1.
In the case of South Dakota, Governor Norbeck agreed to call a special
session of the Legislature if the majority of the members would serve
without mileage. Late in November, Alice Paul received a telegram from
Governor Norbeck saying that the session would not be called as he was
sixteen answers short of a majority who were willing to serve without
expense to the State. Alice Paul immediately sent Anita Pollitzer to the
Capitol to see Senator Sterling of South Dakota. Miss Pollitzer showed
him Governor Norbeck’s telegram to Miss Paul and told him that the
Suffragists would be greatly disappointed if the Republican Legislature
of South Dakota refused to meet, and a Republican Governor refuse to
call a special session. He agreed that was a political mistake and in
Miss Pollitzer’s presence, sent telegrams to his law partner, the chief
politician of the State, telling him to do everything possible to have a
special session called; to the Chairman of the Republican State
Committee, asking him to telegraph each member of the Legislature,
urging him to answer the Governor’s appeal and to agree to come to the
special session as the Governor had stipulated, at his own expense.
Examining this situation superficially—or even closely—one would think
that Miss Pollitzer had done everything that was possible. But there is
no reckoning with Alice Paul. When Miss Pollitzer returned to
Headquarters, Miss Paul said simply, “We can do more.”
That afternoon Miss Pollitzer visited Mr. McCarl, the Secretary of the
Republican Congressional Committee in Washington, who sent telegrams to
all the Republican leaders in the State, urging that they make clear to
the Republican Governor and to the members of the Legislature the
importance to the Republican Party of a good record on ratification.
Three days later, a telegram came to Washington announcing that a
majority, willing to serve at their own expense, had been secured. South
Dakota ratified on December 4.
Colorado, the last State to ratify in 1919, did so on December 12—but
only after a long campaign, the result of local conditions.
January of 1920, in which five States came into the fold, was a highly
successful month for the ratification record. Rhode Island and Kentucky
ratified in regular session on January 6. Oregon, whose Governor broke
his promises many times, finally ratified in regular session on January
12. The State Chairman, Mrs. W. J. Hawkins, campaigned vigorously here,
assisted by her State organization and Vivian Pierce, national
organizer. Much equally vigorous work in Washington supplemented her.
Indiana ratified January 16 in special session.
Wyoming was the last of the five January States. For months, Governor
Carey had refused to call a special session. He had been peculiarly
obstinate at the Governors’ Conference at Salt Lake City on August 14,
where he had stated that he would not call a special session even if it
were needed as the very last State. Wyoming, it should be remembered,
was the pioneer Suffrage State. Representatives of the Woman’s Party
went at once to Wyoming. Mrs. Richard Wainwright, who was staying in the
West, made it her special work to bring pressure on the Governor. Alice
Paul sent Anita Pollitzer to the Capitol to talk with the Congressman
and Senators from Wyoming. They said that circumstances had arisen which
made it impossible for them to try to force the Governor. On the trolley
car Miss Pollitzer met Frank Barrow, Secretary to Congressman Mondell,
and asked him for help. He agreed to give it. Mr. Barrow had edited the
_Cheyenne Tribune_, the leading Republican paper of the State, when
Anita Pollitzer campaigned in Wyoming the year before. He began urging
that a special session be called and charged the Governor with hurting
the Republican record on Suffrage. Immediately a statement appeared in
the Press from the Governor, saying that he would call a special
session, but not at the expense of the State; that the men must come
without pay or mileage. Wyoming is a huge State, and this was in
January, a month of terrific snow storms. Unless extra political
pressure was applied, the legislators might not come from far-away
ranches at their own expense. In the meantime, whenever politicians from
Wyoming arrived in Washington, members of the Woman’s Party saw them at
once. Party members learned that a close political advisor of Governor
Carey was going to spend one night in Washington. They called on him at
his hotel and told him that the responsibility of all this delay lay
squarely on the Republicans and on Governor Carey. He was highly
indignant at the attitude of the Woman’s Party and their Press campaign.
Nevertheless, he said that the Governor was going to call a special
session at once.
It was necessary to bring extra political pressure to bear, so long as
Governor Carey’s request for a special session put it up to the members
of the Legislature, themselves, whether they would attend that session.
Anita Pollitzer went to the Capitol and got the political line-up from
the political leaders. They divided the State into districts for her and
told her who were the political bellwethers of each district. With this
information, Miss Pollitzer went to Dr. Simeon Fess, Chairman of the
National Republican Congressional Committee. Dr. Fess sent strong
telegrams to every one of the Republican State leaders asking them to
round up the legislators of their district, to see that they agreed to
go to the special session at their own expense; asked them for a reply;
told them he would wire again if a reply was not received.
On January 27, both Houses of the Wyoming Legislature ratified
unanimously.
The Governor of Nevada, a Democrat, had refused to call a special
session for many months because he was afraid that other measures
besides Suffrage would be brought up; but after a long pressure brought
upon him by the national Democratic leaders, he was induced to call the
session. Nevada ratified February 7.
The next State in the ratification line was New Jersey, and New Jersey
gave the Woman’s Party a terrific fight. Mrs. J. A. H. Hopkins, State
Chairman, realized that with both the Republican and Democratic bosses
opposed to Suffrage, New Jersey would never ratify unless the Woman’s
Party made it a matter of the greatest political importance to the
majority Party—the Republican Party. She engineered the fight, assisted
by Betty Gram and Catherine Flanagan.
In Washington, Alice Paul sent Anita Pollitzer to Frank Barrow,
Secretary to Congressman Mondell, who had assisted the Woman’s Party so
signally in the Wyoming campaign, and asked him to go to New Jersey.
“But I could speak with no authority,” he said, “and Mr. Mondell will
need me here.” Anita Pollitzer told him that the Woman’s Party would
attend to all those matters. She then went again to Dr. Fess, Chairman
of the National Republican Congressional Committee, and told him that
they were likely to lose New Jersey unless somebody was immediately sent
from the Congressional Committee to assist. At once, Dr. Fess wrote a
letter to Mr. Barrow authorizing him to go to New Jersey in behalf of
the National Republican Congressional Committee. Miss Pollitzer next
went to Senator Poindexter, Chairman of the National Republican
Senatorial Committee, and told him that the Woman’s Party wanted Mr.
Barrow to go to New Jersey; that Dr. Fess had asked him to urge
ratification on behalf of the Republican Congressional Committee and
that the Woman’s Party wished him in addition to urge on behalf of the
Republican Senatorial Committee. Senator Poindexter, thereupon, wrote a
letter to Mr. Barrow authorizing him to go to New Jersey in behalf of
the ratification of the Suffrage Amendment.
Last of all, Miss Pollitzer went to Congressman Mondell and broke the
news to him that the Woman’s Party would like to commandeer his
Secretary to go to New Jersey for as long a time as necessary, to work
among Republicans for the ratification of Suffrage. Following an
entirely natural impulse, Mr. Mondell said, “I am vitally interested in
Suffrage, but I must say I need my own secretary in Washington!” Miss
Pollitzer of course represented to him how much it meant to the National
Woman’s Party to have Mr. Barrow go—that it would take at the most only
a week out of his work; and that it might mean several years out of the
lives of the women, if the Republicans allowed New Jersey to fail in
ratification. She added that the responsibility was on him and got up to
leave. Mr. Mondell said, “Tell Mr. Barrow to be in his office in ten
minutes, as I shall want to see him there.” Fifteen minutes later, Miss
Pollitzer called on Mr. Barrow, who told her that Mr. Mondell had asked
him to go to New Jersey. In a letter to Miss Paul, Mr. Barrow listed the
obstacles which he found in the way in the big New Jersey battle:
1. The last Republican State platform on which members of the
legislature were elected, declared for a referendum.
2. The Republican State Chairman was an open and avowed
anti-Suffragist.
3. The biggest Republican boss in N. J. was actively hostile to the
Suffrage movement.
4. The biggest Democratic boss of N. J. was actively hostile to the
Suffrage movement.
5. The tremendous political influence exerted through the liquor
interests was actively and openly working against them.
New Jersey ratified on February 10.
In regard to the New Jersey campaign, Betty Gram has a vivacious article
in the _Suffragist_ on March, 1920.
She says:
Miracles happen sometimes—but the ratification of the Suffrage
Amendment on February 10th by the New Jersey Legislature was not the
result of a miracle.
Every organizer of the Woman’s Party who had worked in the State
whispered in my ear, “Don’t try New Jersey—it will never ratify.” It
was therefore with reluctance that at the bidding of Miss Paul and
Mrs. J. A. H. Hopkins, New Jersey State Chairman, I invaded the
territory of the enemy and went to Trenton, where on September 30th
both the Republican and Democratic State platform committees were
sitting.
Despite all our efforts the Republicans that day in open convention
under the leadership of Republican State Chairman Edward Caspar
Stokes, declared in favor of a referendum, though each individual
who had given a pledge to his constituents to support the Suffrage
Amendment was left free to do so.
In significant contrast to this, the Democrats, holding convention
just across the street, declared for immediate ratification. This
was done upon the persistent demand of the Democratic candidate for
governor, Edward I. Edwards, at the probable cost of the support of
the most influential Democratic boss in the State, James R. Nugent,
who in open convention fought the issue bitterly and pledged his
twelve Essex County Assembly candidates against immediate
ratification. They ran on that issue.
We watched the election returns on November 4th with acute anxiety.
It was a critical point, for we had much to gain and everything to
lose. The decision brought joy in one respect. Edwards, a Suffrage
governor, was victorious, but alas! the result showed that the
Republicans, who had adopted the referendum plank in their platform,
had carried the Legislature. They had a majority in the Senate of
fifteen to six and in the Assembly of thirty-three to
twenty-seven—and among the twenty-seven Democratic members were the
twelve Nugent men from Essex.
We had only a fighting chance at best—but we set about the task
resolutely. As usual, the first duty was to obtain an authentic
report of the position of each newly elected man. We had secured
pre-primary pledges from the fifteen Edwards Democrats, as well as a
few from some staunch Suffragists on the Republican side, but only a
very few, for not only was their State Chairman opposed, but the
Republican boss of South Jersey—former Senator Davis Baird, whom we
knew would fight us to the end—through his tremendous influence.
In a few days our poll was completed. The Senate showed a bare but
safe majority of one, for there we needed eleven votes. In the House
our poll was much less encouraging. We needed thirty-one votes out
of sixty—and we could count only twenty-five positive yeas. Where
and how to get the six more supporters out of a Republican
opposition was the bewildering—almost stupefying question. Political
pressure—both national and local—was the one way out. The time had
passed for meetings at which to arouse sentiment of
constituents—only pressure of the most intimate nature would move a
vote to our side.
We first set about to choose our leaders in the respective houses.
We wanted wide-awake, active militants—parliamentarians who would
not demand the assurance of the usual excess number of votes before
moving; men who would take up the fight eagerly, revel in the chance
of victory, and with odds against them enter enthusiastically into a
neck to neck race.
At a dinner given by the National Woman’s Party at Newark on
December 10th we accomplished our purpose—Senator Wm. B. MacKay,
Republican, made an impassioned speech, publicly accepting the
responsibility of leading our forces in the upper House. At this
same dinner the newly chosen speaker-elect of the Assembly, W.
Irving Glover, Republican, pledged his unequivocal support and
straightforwardly stated that he would do all in his power to bring
New Jersey into the line of ratified States. The happiest moment of
the evening arrived when Republican majority leader of the House,
Harry Hershfield, made known his position on the Suffrage issue and
expressed his desire that New Jersey ratify. Great applause greeted
his words that the backbone of opposition had been broken and that
he anticipated victory and would exert every influence to that end.
The day after the dinner, Mr. Hershfield permitted to be given out
from our Headquarters a statement declaring that he would lead the
fight in the House.
The next day I went to Washington. The interest of the two United
States Senators from New Jersey as well as the Congressmen had to be
recruited. Soon letters and telegrams were pouring into the State
from Washington. The resolution passed unanimously by the Republican
National Committee in Washington on December 10th did much to
strengthen our position and before long the importance of the issue
from a national standpoint began to dawn on the vision of some New
Jersey Republicans.
The situation took on a more hopeful aspect—a few finishing touches
only were needed—but just whose magic touch to summon was the
problem.
We were at a standstill. Two votes were still needed to reach the
required thirty-one. Then something happened.
Inauguration day came and with it the tactical error of the
opposition which acted as a boomerang and assured the House majority
leader his position as head of his party. It gave into our hands the
strategic parliamentary advantage—which we had coveted and desired
for so long. An unexpected resolution calling for a referendum on
all constitutional amendments, including pending ones, wedged in
among routine measures, was surreptitiously introduced on
Inauguration Day by Assemblyman Coles of Camden and by a viva voce
vote passed before more than fifteen members knew what had happened.
Twelve Nugent men from Essex and three Baird men from Camden were
responsible for the railroading through of this resolution. This act
of course was a planned and deliberately malicious thrust at
Suffrage.
The House adjourned and the anti-Suffragists believe they had scored
a point. The reckoning came later. Editorials appeared in papers all
over the State denouncing such methods. On the following Monday the
House reconsidered the Coles’ resolution with a vote of forty-four
to thirteen—and we proceeded with our fight. The ratification
resolution was introduced immediately after and sent to the Federal
Relations Committee, which was favorable to our measure—four to one.
The referendum resolution had gone to the same committee.
Then the problem came of getting our resolution reported out first.
We did not have a sufficient number of votes to hazard the chance of
having the referendum resolution considered before ours, though some
of our supporters preferred this procedure. A conference of leaders
was called, to which I summoned Miss Paul, for the political leaders
had had little comparative experience in handling constitutional
amendments, while she had sponsored ratification in two dozen
States.
A hearing before the committee was held on February 2nd. Our State
Chairman, Mrs. Hopkins, and United States Senator Selden Spencer of
Missouri, who came from Washington, made splendid appeals for
Suffrage. That evening our resolution passed the Senate eighteen to
two as a result of the Republicans having caucused in its support,
after an appeal had been made to them to do so by Senator Spencer.
There was no dissenting Democratic vote in the upper House. That
same evening the House rejected the minority report of the Committee
and accepted the favorable majority report on our measure. It was
voted to a second reading and made the first order of business for
Monday evening, February 9th.
That same week influenza seized various members of the Legislature
and four of our most ardent supporters were ill. Their absence meant
defeat. Every day we anxiously inquired after their welfare. For a
time it seemed we would never have our thirty-one yeas together.
The day before the vote the National Republican Senatorial and
Congressional committees sent a representative, Mr. Frank Barrow,
from Washington to our aid. He worked with the doubtful Republican
members.
At last the long looked-for moment arrived. At eight o’clock on
Monday evening the Legislature which was either to reject or accept
the ratification resolution convened.
The fight began with opposing men as aggressors and soon one
resolution after another was being rushed to the speaker’s desk as a
subterfuge of delay. Roll calls were asked on each and every
occasion, and as we strained our ears for the yeas and nays we
received each time a shock at the transference of a vote. A roll
call to postpone lacked only one of the necessary thirty-one votes.
Debate lasted until one o’clock Tuesday morning—five hours of
continuous fiery combat—and then a motion to move the previous
question fell like a pall on the troubled assembly. With trembling,
tired hands we turned to our last spotless roll call and began to
mark the records of men on the sands of time. Clear and decisive
came the yeas—inaudible and slow came the nays, and after them all
the called, “Joint resolution number one adopted—thirty-four to
twenty-four.”
Silence followed for long seconds and then the wild, almost hysteric
cheers of women reverberated through the halls. Never had there been
such a demonstration of joy in the New Jersey Capitol and out of the
galleries poured countless smiling women—bearing banners of victory,
to take their places among the liberated peoples.
Idaho, which ratified on February 11; Arizona on February 12; New Mexico
on February 19; Oklahoma on February 27 did so only after a struggle,
but their cases were special only in detail.
In the meantime, there had been two January defeats, Mississippi and
South Carolina; two February defeats, Virginia for the second time, and
Maryland.
West Virginia, which came into the fold on March 10, presents to
ratification another dramatic story. I quote an article by Mary Dubrow,
in the April _Suffragist_.
They are all true—the old adages about pride and falls, boasters who
forget to rap on wood, chickens and hatchings—West Virginia proved
it.
Last August the card catalogue files carefully compiled by Maud
Younger, Legislative Chairman of the Woman’s Party, showed an
overwhelming majority for ratification in the West Virginia
legislature. To check up on this poll, a member of the Legislature
took another and discovered the same overwhelming majority. Our
National Headquarters kept in touch with the situation until the
special session was called.
The West Virginia delegation in Congress, the Democratic governor of
the State, and the Republican National Committee-man, all alike
expressed certainty of ratification.
As I left for West Virginia I confided to every one I met how happy
I was to go to a State which would probably ratify unanimously, and
every leading citizen I interviewed for the first four days
confirmed my expectation.
Then the legislators began to assemble at the Kanawha Hotel, the
political center of Charleston. I had their written pledges and I
approached them more to exchange pleasant anticipations of victory
than for any other purpose, and my fall began—a gradual inch-by-inch
fall. The first man I met said: “Well, I haven’t been here very long
and I don’t know just how I will vote. You see our great State voted
Suffrage down by a majority of——” And the second man said the same
thing, and the third repeated the remark.
Then the splendid men who were leading our fight and who were
standing staunch came to me with appalling reports of the wavering
of this one and that one. It was an opposition stampede—nothing
less.
I hurriedly told the Washington Headquarters the situation and the
National Republican Senatorial Committee was prevailed upon to send
a representative, Mr. Frank Barrow, to West Virginia to urge the
Republicans in the Legislature to remember their Party and vote for
ratification.
Our chairman in West Virginia, Mrs. William Gay Brown, a staunch
Democrat, conferred with the Democrats and made them appreciate
their responsibility. Miss Anita Pollitzer, legislative secretary of
the Woman’s Party working in Washington, convinced Senator
Sutherland that his State could not afford to defeat the Amendment.
We re-polled the House of Delegates and one hour before the vote was
taken in that body on March 4 we knew we had forty votes and the
opposition had forty-one, and that there were six members who would
tell neither friend, enemy, nor Party leader how they stood—the
silent six they were called.
In the Senate we were certain of fourteen both ways. But the
Republican leaders were sure they could get one more. Some of them
were even sure they could get three! Senator Harmer, who led the
fight in the Senate and who is one of the best parliamentarians in
the State, nevertheless was not for allowing ratification to come to
a vote.
The vote was taken—and the clerk announced it—“fourteen to
fourteen.” Senator Harmer saved the situation by changing his vote
and making reconsideration possible. The Senate adjourned. It was
the turn of the House. When the debate began speeches were tossed
from man to man like balls in a game, and never for four hours was
there a moment of silence in the House. At six o’clock the vote was
taken. Forty-six men, in the face of the action of the Senate, stood
sound—not as Republicans, not as Democrats, but as Suffragists,
every one of the silent six voting for us.
With the announcement of the tie in the Senate, national leaders who
had paid no attention to our repeated warnings of peril sprang into
action. Representative Fess, Chairman of the Republican
Congressional Committee, immediately wired the following telegram to
Republicans:
“Can not overestimate importance from Party standpoint of Republican
legislature West Virginia ratification and desire to maintain this
position. Any attempt substitute referendum would be grave mistake.
Can we count on your active and immediate aid?”
Senator Poindexter, Chairman of the Republican Senatorial Committee,
told of the situation by leaders in Washington, sent the following
message:
“Republican Senatorial Committee is deeply concerned over result of
Suffrage vote in your Senate. We count on West Virginia’s
ratification. Republican Party has pioneered every fight for
Suffrage and every State where Republicans had control of the
Legislature has ratified. Party will be greatly embarrassed if West
Virginia breaks that most gratifying record through failure to
co-operate with us in this critical time.”
Senator Capper and Senator Kendrick likewise sent messages urging
the Republicans to reconsider this fatal step.
Senator Owen, Senator Walsh, and Attorney General Palmer, Secretary
Daniels and Secretary Baker all used every effort to make it a
Democratic victory.
As a climax to all this, the President himself, realizing that one
Democratic vote could save the situation, sent every opposed
Democratic member of the Senate a telegram urging him to cast the
deciding vote. If we could not obtain one vote from this pressure,
there was only one chance left to us.
Senator Bloch, who was wintering in California, had asked to be
paired for Suffrage. The opposition refused to consider his request
and no pressure could obtain from the opposed Senators this ordinary
Senatorial courtesy. A long-distance call was put in for Senator
Bloch in San Francisco. That night he started east.
Now came the test of all our resources and of the loyalty of our
friends, and I do not believe that any stauncher loyalty has been
displayed by any group of men in the whole ratification campaign
than by the fourteen Suffrage senators of the West Virginia
Legislature.
For five days these fourteen men had to wait in Charleston while the
fifteenth vote crossed the continent. Every day they held
conferences and buoyed one another up, while Betty Gram, who had
been sent from Washington to help in the campaign, and I hovered
round about trying, with radiant cheerfulness, to instill into every
one the feeling: “Senator Block is on his way and all is well with
the world.” Telegraphic despatches constantly arrived saying Senator
Block was in New Mexico or Omaha or some other remote place that
gradually grew nearer.
Our enemies once more began their attack in the House. The
opposition tried to reconsider and were beaten; tried a referendum
and were beaten; tried to prevent consideration from being tabled
and were beaten. Nevertheless, all of the delegates of the lower
House had to be held in Charleston as well as the Senators. One man
got as far as his comfortable seat in the train, but we heard that
he had bought a ticket. I took a taxicab, Miss Gram and Mrs.
Puffenbarger, Chairman of the Woman’s Committee of West Virginia,
took another. We arrived simultaneously and that bewildered delegate
was rushed off the train and back to his less comfortable seat in
the Capitol.
At one time it looked as if we could not get enough votes to recess
from day to day until Senator Bloch arrived, and our friends
prepared for continuous session. They carried pillows in their hands
and playing-cards in their pockets, and we on the outside had our
arrangements made for relaying them sandwiches and coffee. It was
the opposition that weakened in the face of this ordeal.
Then came Monday, the day set for Mr. Bloch’s arrival and suddenly a
senator disappeared. We thought that he had been abducted. His
thirteen Suffrage colleagues rushed about searching for him. Miss
Gram and I walked the streets, even daring to peer into barber-shop
windows.
At last the mystery was solved. He had gone home and was delayed by
a blizzard.
The Senate did not convene until he reappeared at 2:50 and saved the
situation.
And then Senator Bloch arrived—one man alone in two coaches bouncing
behind an engine that broke the world record for speed. He had
chosen the special train rather than the airplane that was put at
his disposal by the Republicans, but, as he said himself, he was
traveling in the air most of the way to Charleston. As he got off
the train, pale but smiling, he was grasping his golf sticks
desperately in one hand and a thermos bottle of coffee in the other.
And at 2:40 A.M., when his private train pulled in, the town was out
to meet him.
While the senator tried to catch his breath, he gave this statement
to the press:
“The fourteen men who have so splendidly held together until my
arrival deserve all the credit for the victory which we hope to gain
tomorrow.”
Even then our victory was won as by a miracle, for while we brought
our vote from California, the anti-Suffragists were also bringing a
senator more quietly from Peoria, Ill. Senator Montgomery, who had
moved out of the State and resigned from the Senate, was persuaded
to come back and attempt to regain his seat. But one of the
opposition whom it had happened by chance Senator Montgomery had
told personally of his resignation, refused to dishonor himself by
voting to reseat even a member of his own Party under these
conditions, and the day was saved again for the women of America.
The last Western State—Washington—ratified on March 22.
Thirty-five States had now accepted the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. One
more and it would become part of the Constitution. However, that last
State, every one knew, would be hard to get. The chances looked
brightest in Delaware and the Woman’s Party concentrated all its
energies there.
Ratification was brought up twice in Delaware, the first time on April 1
and the second time on May 5. The fight was an intensive one, but it
failed. This campaign had a quality of picturesqueness given to it by
its _mise en scene_—the open square where the State House stands. Dover
Green is surrounded by charming colonial houses with a beautiful
colonial Capitol dominating them. Here, when the news came from
Philadelphia of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a crowd
burned the picture of King George—“Compelled by strong necessity, thus
we destroy even the shadow of that King who refused to reign over a free
people.” The ancient whipping-post still stands in a yard adjoining the
State House. A log cabin, which was put up fifty years ago, is still
used as a lawyer’s office. The _Suffragist_ noted the fact that a yoke
of oxen, drawing a plow in the ancient way, had been seen near Dover
when the ratification campaign was going on. This accumulation of
historic atmosphere added its subtle weight to the regret of the
Suffragists when Delaware failed them.
Against highly organized opposition, the Suffragists began work in
Delaware. Florence Bayard Hilles, State Chairman, conducted this
important fight. She had the assistance of six national organizers: Mary
Dubrow, Anita Pollitzer, Catherine Flanagan, Betty Gram, Vivian Pierce,
Elsie Hill; of Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, National Ratification Chairman; of
Mabel Vernon, National Secretary of the Woman’s Party. Ultimately Alice
Paul joined them. This able group produced a triumph of Suffrage
ratification in the Senate on May 5. The vote was eleven to six. In the
usual course of events, the ratification measure would have gone, after
the Senate passed it, to the House. The votes necessary to pass it in
the House were not forthcoming. The Legislature adjourned.
The Woman’s Party used the interval until May 17 when the Legislature
reconvened to wage a campaign against their opponents, by means of
petitions, mass-meetings, and appeals to State leaders. President de
Valera, Frank Walsh, and other champions of Irish freedom used their
influence with the four Irish members of the Lower House. The American
Federation of Labor also helped in this campaign. On June 2, when it
became evident that the Republicans in this strongly Republican
Legislature, would not ratify, President Wilson asked the Democrats to
give their aid. The President’s telegram ran:
May I not as a Democrat express my deep interest in the Suffrage
Amendment, and my judgment that it will be of the greatest service
to the Party if every Democrat in the Delaware Legislature should
vote for it.
Delaware had been the first to ratify the Constitution of the United
States but it failed to ratify this second great instrument of freedom.
* * * * *
For two months the Delaware members of the Republican Party had delayed
the ratification of the Amendment. In spite of repeated appeals to them,
the Republican national leaders refused to give the necessary support to
assure victory in that State.
On May 18, Will H. Hays, Chairman of the Republican Party, spoke at the
Hotel Willard, Washington, to women especially selected because of their
wealth—in the hope that they would answer an appeal for funds for the
support of the Republican Party. As each member of the audience took her
seat, she found on her chair a slip which read in effect, “For the use
of the Republican National Committee, I herewith enclose a check for
$1,000.”
When Mr. Hays arose from his seat, Elsie Hill, well known as a national
organizer of the Woman’s Party, arose from hers. As he started to speak,
she said, “Before you ask us to support the Republican Party, Mr. Hays,
won’t you tell us what the Republican Party is going to do about
ratification in Delaware?”
The Chairman immediately intervened. “I am sure Mr. Hays, if he has time
in the course of his remarks, will answer that.” Instantly Sue White,
one of the State chairmen, arose and demanded that the question be
answered at once. Mr. Hays apparently did not hear. He moved to the
front of the platform, opened his lips to speak. Immediately Benigna
Green Kalb, a well-known member of the Woman’s Party, arose and said,
“Mr. Hays, women will not give money for the next elections until they
know whether or not they are going to vote in them. In Delaware,
Connecticut, and Vermont the Republican Party can answer that question.”
Mr. Hays said, “I suppose I may as well take this matter up at once. My
dear ladies, if any one of you know anything whatever about practical
politics, you would know that we do not carry Legislatures around in our
pockets. Why don’t you go to Delaware and work for Suffrage?”
Instantly Anita Pollitzer was on her feet. “I have been working in
Delaware, Mr. Hays, for six months. The legislators of Delaware seem to
think that the Republican Party can do something about Suffrage in that
State. Some of the leading Republicans of the Lower House telephoned to
me last night and asked, ‘What are the national Republican leaders going
to do about this deadlock here?’”
Mr. Hays attempted explanation; apology; prophecy. “Every Republican
hopes that Delaware will ratify. Some one of the remaining States will
be intelligent enough to act between now and election time. I feel sure
women will vote in the next elections.”
Abby Scott Baker interposed, “Mr. Hays, why are you sure women will vote
in the next elections? If the Republican Party cannot persuade the
Republican Legislature of Delaware to ratify, can it persuade the
Republican governors of Connecticut and Vermont to call special
sessions, or are you depending upon the Democratic States to enfranchise
the women to whom your Party is now appealing for funds?”
Woman after woman arose and brought up the matter of Delaware. Mr. Hays’
speech was rapidly disappearing before the onslaught. He had spoken on
nothing but Suffrage. Many of the audience liked the interruptions no
better than Mr. Hays. They groaned and hissed. But the Suffragists kept
on. Edith Ainge spoke. Elsie Hill arose for a second time and a third.
Finally, definitely enraged, Mr. Hays accused her of being a Democratic
woman who had come to interrupt his meeting. Miss Hill replied, “My
father was for twenty years Republican Congressman from Connecticut and
for several years ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee.”
Mr. Hays talked for nearly five minutes after this last interruption. He
slid off the subject of Delaware. He progressed as far away as Abraham
Lincoln. Lucy Branham arose to bring his mind back to Delaware. Mr. Hays
was saying, “The great Republican leaders of the past——” and his hands
were uplifted to emphasize his statement. Glancing down between them,
his gaze was attracted by Miss Branham’s movement. “Not now, young lady,
not now,” he commanded, or suggested, or perhaps begged. Miss Branham
bore up the aisle. Neither Mr. Hays’ gesture nor sentence completed
itself. “In conclusion,” he said, “I desire to state that the few women
who are about to be enfranchised could do no better——” Mr. Hays’
conclusion merged with air.
* * * * *
In the meantime, the anti-Suffragists in Ohio had brought a suit
attacking the validity of the Ohio ratification on the ground that the
State of Ohio had the initiative and referendum on all acts by the State
Legislature and therefore must have it on ratification, if it were
demanded by petition. They therefore demanded a referendum on the
ratification of Suffrage. The Woman’s Party contested this suit,
engaging the following counsel: Shippen Lewis, George Wharton Pepper,
and William Draper Lewis. It went through the Courts of Ohio to the
Supreme Court of the United States, which sustained the validity of the
Ohio ratification.
The Republican Convention began on June 8 in Chicago. Delaware—whose
Legislature and Governor were Republican—had just-defeated ratification.
There were only two other States from which it seemed possible at this
time to obtain final ratification—Vermont and Connecticut. There were,
to be sure, two other States which had not acted on the
Amendment—Florida and Tennessee. But there were clauses in their
constitutions which provided that an election must occur between the
submission of an Amendment and its ratification. The fact that both
Vermont and Connecticut were Republican put the responsibility of
finishing up ratification on the Republicans. As repeated appeals to the
National Republican leaders had failed to induce them to bring
sufficient pressure on the Republican governors of Vermont and
Connecticut, the Suffragists felt that it was necessary to make a
stronger protest than hitherto they had exerted against this Republican
inaction. They therefore decided to picket the Republican National
Convention. The first day of the Convention, Mabel Vernon led a long
white-clad line of women, carrying lettered banners and the purple,
white, and gold tri-color, from the Woman’s Party Headquarters to the
Coliseum, directly opposite, where the Convention was held. They marched
across the street and took up their brilliant tri-color stand at
intervals against its dull walls.
Mary Ingham bore a banner which said:
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY HAS THE POWER TO ENFRANCHISE
WOMEN. WHEN WILL IT DO SO?
Doris Stevens’ banner read:
WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH RESOLUTIONS.
GIVE US THE 36TH STATE.
Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer’s banner said:
THEODORE ROOSEVELT ADVOCATED WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
HAS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY FORGOTTEN THE
PRINCIPLES OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT?
Mrs. M. Toscan Bennett’s banner said:
WE PROTEST AGAINST THE CONTINUED DISFRANCHISEMENT
OF WOMEN FOR WHICH THE REPUBLICAN
PARTY IS NOW RESPONSIBLE.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY DEFEATED RATIFICATION OF
SUFFRAGE IN DELAWARE.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS BLOCKING SUFFRAGE IN
VERMONT.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS BLOCKING SUFFRAGE IN
CONNECTICUT.
WHEN WILL THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STOP BLOCKING
SUFFRAGE?
This banner was also carried by Catherine Flanagan and Lou Daniels.
These banners were held during the first two days of the Convention. On
the third day, each of thirty women carried a new banner:
VOTE AGAINST THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AS LONG
AS IT BLOCKS SUFFRAGE.
This quotation from Susan B. Anthony also appeared on the picket line:
NO SELF-RESPECTING WOMAN SHOULD WISH OR WORK FOR THE
SUCCESS OF A PARTY THAT IGNORES HER SEX.
—Susan B. Anthony in 1872 and 1894.
[Illustration: THE OLDEST AND THE YOUNGEST PICKETS. Rev. Olympia Brown
and Miss Rowena Green at the Republican Convention, Chicago, 1920.
Photo Copr. Underwood and Underwood.]
A favorite banner was:
REPUBLICANS WE ARE HERE.
WHERE IS THE 36TH STATE?
These banners were typical; many others appeared.
During the course of the Convention the Republicans inserted the
following plank in their platform:
We welcome women into full participation in the affairs of
government and the activities of the Republican Party. We earnestly
hope that Republican legislatures in States which have not yet acted
upon the Suffrage Amendment will ratify the Amendment to the end
that all of the women of the nation of voting age may participate in
the election of 1920, which is so important to the welfare of our
country.
On the last day, therefore, a group of pickets hung, from the balcony in
the Convention hall, facing the speakers platform, a banner which was
the answer to this ratification plank. It read:
WHY DOES THE REPUBLICAN PARTY BLOCK SUFFRAGE?
WE DO NOT WANT PLANKS.
WE DEMAND THE 36TH STATE.
The effect of all this was that instant and urgent pressure to call
special sessions was brought on the Republican governors of Vermont and
Connecticut by Republican leaders.
In contrast to the treatment which the police of Washington, Boston, and
New York had accorded the pickets, the police of Chicago were friendly
and accommodating. Sometimes they even held the banners for them.
Immediately following the nomination of Senator Harding, members of the
Woman’s Party met him in Washington in an interview arranged by
Genevieve Allen. Miss Paul introduced Mrs. Albion Lang, Helena Hill
Weed, and Florence Bayard Hilles, each representing one of the three
Republican States which had not acted favorably on ratification; Mrs.
John Carey, Helen Hoy Greeley, Emma Wold and Genevieve Allen,
representing women who could vote, and Sue White, Mary Ingham, Mrs. John
Gordon Battelle, Mrs. Donald R. Hooker, representing women who could not
vote. The interview was utterly unsatisfactory—Senator Harding listened
and evaded.
On June 15, Louisiana, which met in regular session, defeated
ratification. Here, anticipating a little, it may be stated that on
August 19, North Carolina defeated ratification, also in regular
session.
In the meantime, the Woman’s Party turned its attention to Tennessee. Up
to this time, it had been considered impossible to ratify there, as
there is a clause in the Tennessee State Constitution which says that
the Tennessee Legislature cannot act on any Amendment to the Federal
Constitution unless a new Legislature is elected between the time when
the Federal Amendment shall have passed Congress and its ratification by
Tennessee. The decision in the Ohio case which was handed down at this
moment and which indicated that both Tennessee and Florida could ratify
legally, changed the whole complexion of the Suffrage fight. The Ohio
decision, it will be remembered, was that ratification was an act of a
Legislature which was not subject to a referendum to the people. The
Woman’s Party pointed out—and they had consulted many eminent lawyers on
this subject—that the clause in the Tennessee Constitution was equal to
requiring a referendum before submitting a constitutional amendment to
the Legislature. Since by the Ohio decision a referendum on such a
matter was illegal, that clause in the Tennessee constitution could not
stand in the way of ratification by the existing Legislature. Sue White,
Tennessee State Chairman, instituted an immediate campaign on Governor
Roberts, pointing this out to him and asking him to call a special
session. The Woman’s Party concentrated on getting the National
Democratic leaders to bring pressure on Governor Roberts.
In the meantime, leading Democrats had gathered in San Francisco,
preparing for their National Convention. Abby Scott Baker took charge of
the campaign to get the Democratic leaders to bring pressure on the
Governor of Tennessee. The Democratic National Committee passed a
resolution calling on the Governor to convene his session. Homer S.
Cummings, Chairman of the National Democratic Committee, called him on
long-distance telephone and asked this of him. Many others appealed to
him. On June 23, President Wilson telegraphed Governor Roberts as
follows:
It would be a real service to the Party and to the Nation if it is
possible for you to, under the peculiar provisions of your State
Constitution, having in mind the recent decision of the Supreme
Court in the Ohio case, to call a special session of the Legislature
of Tennessee to consider the Suffrage Amendment. Allow me to urge
this very earnestly.
The President also sent a letter to acting United States Attorney
General William L. Frierson, asking his opinion on the constitutionality
of ratification by a special session of the Tennessee Legislature.
Mr. Frierson’s reply closed with this sentence:
I am therefore confident that if the Tennessee Legislature is called
in session, it will have the clear power to ratify the Amendment
notwithstanding any provision of the Tennessee Constitution.
The Democratic National Convention met in San Francisco on June 28. On
the opening day of the Convention, Governor Roberts announced that he
would call the session on August 9. Among the women who represented the
Woman’s Party at the Convention were Abby Scott Baker, Betty Gram, Mrs.
Lawrence Lewis, Mrs. William Kent, Sara Bard Field, Ida Finney
Mackrille, Izetta Jewel Brown. The Democratic Party inserted a plank in
their platform endorsing the Federal Amendment and calling for
ratification.
Tennessee then became the center of the Woman’s Party campaign—a storm
center. It was a foregone conclusion that a tremendous anti-Suffrage
pressure would be brought on Tennessee, the last State necessary to
ratification, as it had been brought on Delaware when Delaware seemed
likely to be the last State. Alice Paul realized that great national
political pressure must be brought upon the Tennessee legislators.
Governor Cox, the Democratic nominee, was, of course, a focus for most
of this political pressure. The Woman’s Party determined to make him
realize, if possible, that Tennessee, as a Democratic State, was his
responsibility. A huge deputation of Woman’s Party leaders from all over
the country called upon Governor Cox in his office in Columbus on July
16. Governor Cox said that he would co-operate with the Woman’s Party in
this matter and he asked to have a committee appointed to confer with
him in regard to Tennessee. The Democratic National Committee met on
July 20. The Woman’s Party lobbied this Committee and got a resolution
through urging immediate ratification by Tennessee. On July 23, Governor
Cox conferred with the Committee—consisting of Sue White, Anita
Pollitzer, and Mrs. James Rector—which he had asked Miss Paul to
appoint.
The Republican National Committee met on July 21. Anita Pollitzer, Mrs.
H. O. Havemeyer, Mrs. James Rector, and others saw the members of this
Committee and secured from them a resolution urging that the Republicans
do all they could to obtain the last State.
On July 22, the date of Harding’s notification that he was nominated for
the Presidency, two hundred members of the Woman’s Party, coming from
all over the United States, dressed in white and carrying purple, white
and gold banners, marched through Marion to Senator Harding’s lawn. The
lettered banners, borne by two pioneer Suffragists, Mrs. L. Crozier
French and Mrs. E. C. Green, read:
THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM ENDORSES RATIFICATION OF SUFFRAGE.
THE FIRST TEST OF THE PLATFORM WILL COME WHEN THE
TENNESSEE LEGISLATURE MEETS IN AUGUST.
WILL THE REPUBLICANS CARRY OUT THEIR PLATFORM BY GIVING
A UNANIMOUS REPUBLICAN VOTE IN TENNESSEE FOR SUFFRAGE?
Mrs. John Gordon Battelle, Sue White, Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, addressed
Senator Harding and told him that he, as the Republican leader, had the
power to line up the Republican members of the Tennessee Legislature and
would be held responsible for them.
All this time the campaign in Tennessee had been going on.
That campaign, which was to become fiercer and more intensive until it
moved like a whirlwind, was conducted in three ways.
First, Sue White, the State Chairman and other members of the State
organization, assisted by Betty Gram, Catherine Flanagan and Anita
Pollitzer, national organizers, conducted the campaign. After the
Legislature convened Mrs. Florence Bayard Hilles, Delaware State
Chairman, and Mary Winsor, of the Advisory Council, assisted in
Nashville. Mabel Reber and Edith Davis carried on an extensive and
intensive work of publicity.
Second, in Ohio, Abby Scott Baker, co-operating with Mrs. James Rector,
kept in close touch with Cox and Harding, in order to get them to act
upon the specific requests of the Woman’s Party which began to come from
Tennessee.
Third, Alice Paul remaining in Washington, planned every move, and kept
in close communication with the political leaders who could influence
Cox and Harding.
Sue White, immediately on her arrival at Nashville, opened Woman’s Party
Headquarters and took charge of the campaign on the legislators.
Anita Pollitzer went to the eastern part of the State and concentrated
on the Republican leaders.
Betty Gram went to the western part of the State and worked in the
Speaker’s district.
Catherine Flanagan went into the districts of men soon to be elected,
and secured pledges from some of the nominees that they would support
ratification. In one case, Miss Flanagan secured the pledge of a
Republican candidate whose Democratic opponent was a strong
anti-Suffragist. A prominent Democrat in the district came out in
support of the Republican nominee because he was for ratification.
If the three organizers had not made this intensive survey of these
sections, they would not have realized that ratification votes were
rapidly dropping away. Legislators gave the excuse that although they
voted for Presidential Suffrage in a previous session, they would not
vote for ratification in this session because they considered it
unconstitutional. Alarmed at this defection, which was particularly
noticeable among the Republican legislators, Anita Pollitzer secured
opinions favorable to the constitutionality of ratification by Tennessee
at this special session from the most eminent legal minds in the State,
and sent them to each member of the Legislature.
Anita Pollitzer also sent a telegram to Abby Scott Baker, who, it will
be remembered, was standing guard over the two Presidential candidates
in Ohio, stating that the situation demanded Harding’s immediate active
support. Mrs. Baker telegraphed Alice Paul that she had seen Harding in
regard to this matter and that he had telegraphed two Republican
Congressmen to give their support to ratification, and his friend,
ex-Governor Ben Hooper of Tennessee, to send him a poll of the
Republicans. Immediately on receipt of a telegram from Alice Paul giving
this information, Anita Pollitzer hurried to the “hill-billy” region of
the State, where ex-Governor Hooper lived. Miss Pollitzer went over the
entire situation with him in detail, giving him the only first-hand
information that he had received. The result was that he spent the whole
day telephoning the doubtful Republican legislators. He also telegraphed
Harding that the situation was critical and urged him to give all
possible aid to the Tennessee situation.
Miss Pollitzer then told ex-Governor Hooper that it was absolutely
necessary to have a Republican caucus. Candler, the Chairman of the
Joint Caucus Committee, was an anti-Suffragist. Congressman J. Will
Taylor had, however, a strong influence with him. Miss Pollitzer started
late that afternoon for Knoxville, where Congressman Taylor lived, and
arriving early in the evening put her case to him. He said that he had
voted for Suffrage in Congress and would do all he could to help. The
next afternoon Miss Pollitzer saw Congressman Taylor to see what had
been accomplished. He said that he had been unable to get Candler all
day, was leaving the city in an hour. Miss Pollitzer called up the
operator in Athens. She said, “This is a matter of life and death.
Congressman Taylor must speak with Senator Candler. I have been in
Athens myself and I know it is such a tiny place that you have only to
look out of the door to know where Senator Candler is. You must find him
for me.” In a few minutes Senator Candler came to the telephone.
Congressman Taylor asked him if he would call a caucus of the
Republicans, and he agreed to do it. That night Miss Pollitzer took
notices of this to all the papers. A telegram was sent to every
Republican member urging him to come to the Legislature in time to
attend this caucus. It was a necessary step to call this caucus, but it
was equally necessary that all the important Republican leaders of the
State be there. Catherine Flanagan and Anita Pollitzer brought so much
pressure to bear on these leaders—and this included getting their
reservations and actually seeing them on the train—that they were all
there. The Republican leaders said in effect to the Republican members
of the Legislature who were present, “We want the Republican members of
the Legislature to give a majority of votes to ratification for the sake
of their Party.”
Before the Legislature convened, Betty Gram saw the Speaker of the
House, Seth Walker, a very influential person and to the Suffragists,
because of his position, probably the most important member of the
Legislature. He told Miss Gram that he was looking into the question of
the constitutionality of ratification at this session, and if he became
convinced of its constitutionality, he might even lead the fight for
ratification. A few days later, just before the Legislature convened, he
told Miss White and Miss Gram that he had decided that it was
constitutional for Tennessee to ratify and that they might count on his
support. On the opening day of the Legislature, Betty Gram asked Speaker
Walker to go over the poll with her. To her intense astonishment, he
told her that he had changed his mind and could not vote for
ratification in this session.
When the Woman’s Party forces joined Miss White in Nashville at the
convening of the Legislature, the town had filled with strangers. The
anti-Suffrage forces had poured into the Capital. Lobbyists for
railroads, manufacturing interests, and corporations of various kinds,
came too.
One curious member of this army used to interrogate legislators as to
their views. He said he was a reporter for a syndicate. Nobody had ever
heard of the syndicate he represented. When Parley Christensen,
candidate for President on the Farmer Labor ticket, came to Nashville to
help with ratification among the labor members of the Legislature, he
investigated the record of this gentleman, accused him, through the
Press, of sinister purposes in lobbying. When this accusation appeared,
the man hastily left town.
To off-set all this, the Suffragists of the State, as was usual in the
State campaigns, poured into the Capital.
The atmosphere of Nashville grew rapidly more active ... tense ...
hectic.
The Tennessee legislature convened on the ninth of August. It ratified
on the eighteenth of August. The nine days between were characterized by
work more intensive than ratification had yet known.
The Tennessee campaign was a miniature reproduction of the big national
campaign which the Woman’s Party had been waging ever since 1912. Here
the Woman’s Party was confronted with a double responsibility. It had to
prove to the Democratic governor, Roberts—and it never relaxed for an
instant in bringing it home to him—that he, as leader of the dominant
Party in this Democratic Legislature, was responsible for ratification
and could bring it about. In addition and at the same time, the Woman’s
Party had to make the Republican minority realize that they were
responsible for votes favorable to ratification from their men.
In all this work in Tennessee, the Woman’s Party was enormously assisted
by the political sagacity of their chairman, Sue White, and the fact
that all the politicians recognized that political sagacity. The
experienced politicians said that they had never seen a more bitter
fight in Tennessee. When the Legislature met, the Suffragists had a
majority on paper. But they knew from previous experience they could not
trust this paper majority to remain stable.
The ratification resolution was introduced in the House and the Senate
on the same day, August 10. It was referred to a committee in both
Houses and these committees held a joint hearing on August 11. This
hearing, a notable and picturesque occasion, took place in the great
Assembly Hall of the Capitol. Both floor and gallery were dotted with
the colors of the opposing forces. The most famous State authorities on
constitutional law appeared in behalf of the Suffragists.
The Woman’s Party had, of course, immediately ascertained who were the
members of both Houses who always supported Governor Roberts’ measures.
They found that many of these were not supporting ratification. They
went with a list of these men to Governor Roberts, called his attention
to this significant state of things. They also sent the news to Abby
Scott Baker, who approached Cox daily on the subject. Cox responded by
urging Governor Roberts to do all in his power to put ratification
through.
Sue White gave out daily statements that were models of succinctness and
comprehensiveness, which warned Governor Roberts that he would be held
responsible and warned the Democratic Party that it would be held
responsible, if ratification did not go through.
Realizing that they were strongest in the Senate, the Woman’s Party
wanted first to bring the matter to a vote there. They accomplished that
on August 13, when ratification passed by twenty-five to four. Until
this vote was cast, the Suffragists themselves did not realize what a
degree of interest—due to their pressure on and from political
leaders—they had developed in Tennessee. The vote proved a great
stimulus to the men of the Lower House, who, up to this point, had been
much more wavering in their attitude towards ratification.
The Capitol in these last few days presented a scene of activity on the
part of the Woman’s Party members such as no ratification campaign had
ever known. They were at the House morning, noon, and night. They had to
be there all the time because the fact that a member was numbered among
their forces in the morning did not at all mean that he would be among
them at night. The enemies of ratification made every possible attempt
to steal Suffrage adherents. Realizing at last that they could not
deflect men who were immovable on the ratification side, they began to
introduce measures the passage of which would have been tantamount to
defeat. For instance, a resolution was suddenly brought up one morning
providing that the question of ratification should be referred to
mass-meetings of the people to be held in every district on August 21.
This would have meant a fatal postponement of ratification. Many of the
legislators would have liked to hide behind a measure of this sort, but
realizing this, the Woman’s Party members told them that they would
consider such a vote hostile to Suffrage and would hold them
responsible. The Suffragists obtained sufficient support against the
measure to get it tabled.
When it came to the last few days, the Woman’s Party members seemed to
work twenty-four hours out of the twenty-four, and some think they
worked twenty-five. The situation was complicated, as always at the last
hour, by rumors. Reports started and gained force every day that men
were being bribed; so that legislators, about to declare for Suffrage,
were often held up by the feeling that that act might lay them open to
suspicion. This brought about a condition of such uncertainty that
neither side, Suffragist nor anti-Suffragist, could prophesy the
outcome. The instant a man wavered, the Woman’s Party members, who,
before the Legislature convened, had been working in the legislative
districts, immediately got in touch with the political leaders who
controlled the situation in those districts. Notwithstanding that
nothing seemed stable at this period, the Woman’s Party members met
every few hours and compared polls. These polls served a second purpose.
They gave political leaders definite data as to the position of every
man in the Legislature. In all this confusion, the Woman’s Party always
knew where it stood.
On the morning of the vote the Suffrage workers rounded up all their
legislative forces and saw that they arrived safely at the Capitol. More
rumors were afloat that legislators would change their vote at the last
moment. In every case, the Woman’s Party saw these men again and made
them realize that they were committed, not only to them, but to their
political leaders.
Just before the vote was taken, Seth Walker ruled all the women off the
floor of the House.
Two dramatic incidents marked the close of the campaign. The hero of one
of these episodes was Banks Turner, of the other Harry Burn. To the very
end the Woman’s Party was uncertain of both their votes.
Banks Turner was one of Governor Roberts’ closest friends. In
considering the case of Banks Turner, it must always be held in mind
that the Woman’s Party steadfastly kept the Democrats to their pledges
through Cox’s constant pressure on Governor Roberts. It had at last
penetrated Roberts’ psychology that if he permitted ratification to fail
in Tennessee, the Democrats would be held responsible by the women in
the coming elections. The Woman’s Party saw Governor Roberts before the
vote and reminded him of this. The Woman’s Party also saw Cox before the
vote and reminded him of this; also reminded him to remind Roberts. When
the vote was actually imminent, the Roberts forces began to get alarmed;
for they realized they had played with the issue too long. As has been
said Banks Turner was one of the Governor’s closest friends. Banks
Turner had never actually said he was against ratification, but he had
never said he was for it. No Suffragist counted on him.
As for Harry Burn——
When Anita Pollitzer had been working among Republican leaders, she had
gone to Harry Burn’s Republican county chairman to ask him if they could
count on Harry Burn’s support for ratification. In her presence, he
telephoned to Harry Burn and assured Miss Pollitzer that the Suffragists
could depend on him. When Mr. Burn appeared in the Legislature, he was
approached by Suffragists and anti-Suffragists in close and quick
succession. After a while, he announced that he was uncertain. The fact
that he was the youngest member of the Legislature—scarcely more than a
lad indeed—and that he was immensely popular and beloved—seemed to add
an especial acuteness to the situation. To Suffragists who approached
him a few days before the vote, he said, “I cannot pledge myself, but I
will do nothing to hurt you.”
Of course that could be translated that he would not vote yes, but would
not vote no—not vote at all in short.
With the poll virtually a tie, the Suffragists could take no chances.
Miss Pollitzer telephoned at once to the county chairman who had assured
her of Harry Burn’s vote and told him the situation. The next day Betty
Gram saw a letter, written to Harry Burn by one of the foremost
political leaders of the State, which practically urged him—for his own
political good—to vote no. Members of the Woman’s Party saw Harry Burn
and told him that they knew pressure was being brought upon him from
State leaders against ratification. He would make no statement of
support but he urged them to trust him and begged the Suffragists not to
tell the political leaders of the State that they knew these political
leaders had broken faith and were persuading him not to vote for
ratification. He was obviously much wrought up over the situation.
The date of the vote came and on the Suffrage poll, Harry Burn was still
marked doubtful. When he appeared in the corridors of the House,
however, he wore the red rose of the anti-Suffragists. One of the
Woman’s Party organizers said to him just before the vote was taken, “We
really trusted you, Mr. Burn, when you said that you would never hurt
us.” He said, “I mean that—my vote _will_ never hurt you.”
Still he continued to wear the red rose of the anti-Suffragists....
It was known to many that Harry Burn had recently received a letter from
his mother asking him to support ratification. It was known only to the
Woman’s Party how much political pressure to support it had been brought
upon him.
* * * * *
The supreme moment arrived. Ninety-six members were present out of a
total membership of ninety-nine. The first test of strength came in a
motion to table the Resolution. Harry Burn’s name was called early in
the roll. True to the promise of that red rose, he voted yes. The roll
call went on, the members answering exactly according to expectation.
What would Banks Turner do? If he voted with the Suffragists, the result
would be a tie, forty-eight to forty-eight; the motion would not be
tabled. His name was called; he did not answer. The vote was now
inevitably forty-eight to forty-seven for the motion to table. All
seemed lost. But before the final announcement of the vote, Turner arose
and after a moment’s hesitation said:
“I wish to be recorded as against the motion to table.”
The Resolution was still before the House, but this test vote showed a
tie—one short of a majority.
Then came the final vote.
Now the stillness was like death. Unless Turner stayed with the
Suffragists and, in addition, another vote was gained, the Amendment was
lost. When Harry Burn’s name was called, he answered in a clear, loud
voice, “Yes.” The death-like stillness settled again over the audience
in the galleries as the roll call approached the name of Banks Turner.
He had voted against tabling; that did not make it certain that he would
vote for the Resolution.
“Banks Turner!” called the clerk.
“Yes,” he answered in a solemn, low voice.
The Resolution had carried—forty-nine to forty-seven.
Instantly Speaker Walker, white-faced, was on his feet. “I change my
vote from ‘No’ to ‘Yes’” he said. Of course he made this lightning
change in order that he might move to reconsider the Resolution. But he
missed one point. The vote now stood fifty to forty-six. His vote had
given the Resolution a _constitutional majority_, that is a majority,
not only of the membership present of the Lower House but of the entire
Lower House. Unwittingly, Speaker Walker killed one legal attack already
prepared by the anti-Suffragists in case the measure should pass.
An uproar of enthusiasm greeted the vote. State leaders who had assisted
the Suffrage campaign, yelled, clapped, stamped. Women alternately
laughed and wept; cheered and applauded. One legislator producing a bell
from somewhere, rang it steadily. As for the Suffragists themselves,
naturally they went wild with joy; particularly the Tennessee women, who
were triumphant that their State had proved to be the needed
thirty-sixth to give the franchise to women.
Of course, the anti-Suffragist red roses were in great evidence all
during the voting. But after the vote was taken, they seemed to fade
into the background. The yellow jonquils of the Suffragists, the great
purple, white, and gold banners of the Woman’s Party made tiny flares
and big slashes of light and color everywhere.
* * * * *
The bizarre and sensational moves of the opposition—the withdrawal of
the anti-Suffragist members of the Tennessee Assembly to Alabama until
the Suffrage members got tired and went home, the return of the
anti-Suffragist members, their assembly in a Rump Legislature, their
“reconsidered” vote against the Amendment—all that seemed important at
the time. Now it has faded to insignificance. The anti-Suffragists, on
this and other grounds, instituted a suit against the validity of the
Tennessee ratification. That suit and six attacks, also directed against
the validity of ratification, are still pending.
[Illustration: THE FLAG COMPLETE. Alice Paul Unfurls the Ratification
Banner with 36 Stars.
National Photo Co., Washington, D. C.]
In the meantime, however, Connecticut has ratified.
In brief, the facts in regard to Connecticut are these: Governor Marcus
Holcomb, one of the foremost anti-Suffragists in the country, called a
session of the Connecticut legislature to provide the legal machinery to
enable the women of Connecticut to vote in the coming elections. The
call was issued for September 14. The Suffragists instantly took
advantage of this special session to institute a campaign for
ratification.
In addressing the legislators, Governor Holcomb said in effect: “Do not
ratify this session. It will be illegal, as ratification was not
mentioned in my call. I will call you again for that purpose a week from
today.”
Nevertheless Connecticut ratified on September 14.
Catherine Flanagan of the Woman’s Party personally brought the
ratification from the Secretary of State of Connecticut to the State
Department in Washington.
A week later, to avoid any question as to the legality of the first
ratification, which had been attacked on the ground that the subject was
not included in the governor’s message, Connecticut ratified again.
* * * * *
The women of the United States voted in the Presidential election of
1920.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XVII
THE LAST DAYS
TO A COMRADE
Oh, you of the unquenchable spirit—
How I adore you!
I could light forever the waning fires of my courage
At the incessant, upleaping flame of your being!
You,—creature of light and color and vivid emotions—
Of radiant action,—who ever could dream of you passive,
Submissive, your small self stilled into lazy contentment?
You, fired with the beauty of ardor,
Lovely with love for all that is clean and earnest and forceful,
Yourself daring anything
So long as it be for Womanhood, and the cause of justice and progress—
Daring to lead and daring to follow—
Giving us each of your unfailing inspiration.
You, over whom the jeers and the mockings and the ugly thoughts
of those who understand not
Pass lightly, like a spent breath of foul air in a still cavern,
Unflicking the steadfast torch of you—
I could re-light forever the waning fires of my courage
At the incessant, upleaping flame of your being!
ELIZABETH KALB,
_The Suffragist_, January 25, 1919.
IN 1917 occurred the great leap forward in the activity of the Woman’s
Party; in swift succession came the picketing; the burning of the
President’s words; the Watchfires of Freedom. And Headquarters from 1917
on—as can be easily imagined—was a feverishly busy place. From the
instant the picketing started, it grew electric with action. As for the
work involved in making up the constant succession of picket lines——
It was not easy at an instant’s notice to find women who had the time to
picket. But always there were some women willing to picket _part_ of the
time and some willing to picket _all_ of the time. Mary Gertrude Fendall
was in charge of this work. That her office was no sinecure is evident
from the fact that on one occasion alone—that memorable demonstration of
March 4, 1917—she provided a line of nearly a thousand. Of course, too,
as fast as the women went to jail, other women had to be found to fill
their places. In those days Miss Fendall lived at the telephone and
between telephone calls, she wrote letters which invited sympathizers to
come from distant States to join the banner-bearing forces. Those women
who could always be depended on for picketing were, in the main, Party
sympathizers living in Washington; Party workers permanently established
at Headquarters; organizers come back suddenly from their regular work.
But volunteers came too—volunteers from the District of Columbia and
from all parts of the United States. In the winter, as has been before
stated, picketing was a cold business. The women found that they had to
wear a surprising amount of clothes—sweaters and coats, great-coats,
mufflers, arctics and big woolly gloves. Many of the pickets left these
extra things at Headquarters and the scramble to disengage rights and
lefts of the gloves and arctics was one of the amusing details of the
operation of the picket line. Banners took up space too; but they added
their cheering color to the picture.
When the arrests began, the atmosphere grew more tense and even more
busy. But just as—when trouble came—a golden flood poured into the
Woman’s Party treasury, so volunteer pickets came in a steadily
lengthening line. Anne Martin had said to the Judge who sentenced her:
“So long as you send women to jail for asking for freedom, just so long
will there be women willing to go to jail for such a cause.” This proved
to be true. Volunteers for this gruelling experience continued to appear
from all over the country. Mrs. Grey of Colorado, sending her twenty-two
year old daughter, Nathalie, into the battle, said:
I have no son to fight for democracy abroad, and so I send my
daughter to fight for democracy at home.
It interested many of the Woman’s Party members to study the first
reactions of the police to the strange situation the picketing brought
about. Most of the policemen did not enjoy maltreating the girls. Some
of them were stupid and a few of them were brutal, but many of them were
kind. They always deferred to Lucy Burns with an air of profound
respect—Miss Lucy, they called her. But a curious social element entered
into the situation. Large numbers of the women were well-known
Washingtonians. The police were accustomed to seeing them going about
the city in the full aura of respected citizenship. It was very
difficult often, to know—in arresting them—what social tone to adopt.
Mrs. Gilson Gardner tells an amusing story of her first arrest. In the
midst of her picketing, an officer suddenly stepped up to her. He said
politely: “It is a very beautiful day.” She concurred. They chatted. He
was in the meantime looking this way and that up the Avenue. Suddenly,
still very politely, he said: “I think the patrol will be along
presently.” Not until then did it dawn on Mrs. Gardner that she was
arrested.
Later, when the Watchfires were going, Mrs. Gardner was again arrested
while she was putting wood on the flames. There was a log in her arms:
“Just a minute, officer,” she said, in her gentle, compelling voice, and
the officer actually waited while she crossed the pavement and put the
remaining log on the fire. Later, when Mrs. Gardner’s name was called in
the court, she decided that she preferred to stand, rather than sit in
the chair designated for the accused. The policeman started to force her
down. Again she said, in the gentle, compelling tone: “Please do not
touch me, officer!” and he kept his hands off her from that time forth.
Of course, the unthinking made the usual accusation that these women
were doing all this for notoriety. That was a ridiculous statement,
whose disproof was easy. The character and quality of the women
themselves were its best denial. The women who composed the Woman’s
Party were of all kinds and descriptions; they emerged from all ranks
and classes; they came from all over the United States. The Party did
not belong exclusively to women of great wealth and social position,
although there were many such in its list of membership; and some of
these belonged to families whose fortunes were internationally famous.
It did not belong exclusively to working women, although there were
thousands of them in its ranks; and these represented almost every
wage-earning task at which women toil. It did not belong exclusively to
women of the arts or the professions; although scores of women, many
nationally famous and some internationally famous, lent their gifts to
the furtherance of the work. It did not belong exclusively to the women
of the home, although scores of wives left homes, filled with the beauty
which many generations of cultivation had accumulated—left these homes
and left children; and although equal numbers left homes of a
contrasting simplicity and humbleness—left these homes and left children
to go to jail in the interests of the movement. It may be said, perhaps,
that the rank and file were characterized by an influential solidity,
that they were women, universally respected in their communities,
necessary to it. It was an all-woman movement. Indeed, often women who
on every other possible opinion were as far apart as the two poles,
worked together for the furtherance of the Federal Amendment. On one
occasion, for instance, on the picket line, two women who could not
possibly have found a single intellectual congeniality except the
enfranchisement of women stood side by side. One was nationally and
internationally famous as a conservative of great fortune. The other was
nationally and internationally famous as a radical. In other words, one
stood at the extreme right of conservatism and the other at the extreme
left of radicalism. It was as though, among an archipelago of differing
intellectual interests and social convictions, the Party members had
found one little island on which they could stand in an absolute
unanimity; stand ready to fight—to the death, if it were necessary—for
that conviction.
Some of the stories which they tell at Headquarters to illustrate the
Pan-woman quality of the Party are touchingly beautiful. There is the
case, for instance, of a woman government clerk, self-supporting, a
widow, and the mother of a little girl. Every day for weeks, she had
passed that line of pickets standing silently at the White House gates.
She heard the insults that were tossed to the women. She saw the
brutalities which were inflicted on them. She witnessed arrests.
Something rose within fluttered ... tore at her.... One day when Alice
Paul was picketing, this young woman, suit-case in hand, appeared before
her. She said “I am all ready to picket if you need me. I have made all
the necessary arrangements in case I am arrested. Where shall I go to
join your forces so that I may picket today?” She was arrested that
afternoon and sent to prison.
Two other government clerks, who appeared on the picket line, were
arrested and jailed. They appealed to the government authorities for a
month’s leave of absence on the score of their imprisonment. All these
three women, of course, ran the risk of losing their positions. But in
their case the instinct to serve their generation was stronger than the
instinct to conserve any material safety. It is pleasant to record that
they were not compelled to make this sacrifice. Others, however,
suffered. A school teacher in the Woman’s Party, for instance, lost her
position because of her picketing.
If the foregoing is not denial enough of the charge, common when the
picketing began, that these women were notoriety-seeking fanatics,
perhaps nothing will bring conviction. It scarcely seems however that
the most obstinate antagonist of the Woman’s Party would like to believe
that delicately reared women could enjoy, even for the sake of
notoriety—aside from the psychological effect of spiders and cockroaches
everywhere, worms in their food, vermin in their beds, rats in their
cells—the brutalities to which they were submitted. Yet many women who
had endured this once, came back to endure it again and again.
One of the strong points of the Woman’s Party was its fairness. In
reference to the President, for instance, Maud Younger used to say that
the attitude of the Woman’s Party to him was like that of a girl who
wants a college education. She teases her father for it without
cessation, but she goes on loving him just the same. Another strong
point of the Woman’s Party was its sense of humor on itself. They tell
with great delight the amusing events of this period—of the grinning
street gamin who stood and read aloud one of the banners, _How long must
women wait for liberty?_ and then yelled: “T’ree months yous’ll be
waitin’—in Occoquan.”—of a reporter who, coming into Headquarters in
search of an interview, found a child sliding down the bannisters.
Before he could speak, the child announced in a tone of proud triumph:
“My mother’s going to prison.”
A story they particularly like is of that young couple who, having had
no bridal trip at the time of their marriage, came to Washington for a
belated honeymoon. They visited Headquarters together. The bride became
so interested in the picketing that she went out with one of the picket
lines and was arrested. She spent her belated honeymoon in jail, and the
groom spent his belated honeymoon indignantly lobbying the Congressmen
of his own district.
Later, when they were lighting the Watchfires of Freedom on the White
House pavement, the activity at Headquarters was increased one
hundred-fold.
The pickets themselves refer to that period as the most “messy and
mussy” in their history. Everything and everybody smelled of kerosene.
All the time, there was one room in which logs were kept soaking in this
pervasive fluid. When they first started the Watchfires they carried the
urn and the oil-soaked logs openly, to the appointed spot on the
pavement in front of the White House. Later, when the arrests began and
the fires had to be built so swiftly that they had to abandon the urn,
they carried these logs under coats or capes. The White House pavement
was always littered with charred wood even when the Watchfires were not
going. Once the fires were started it was almost impossible to put them
out. Kerosene-soaked wood is a very obstinate substance. Water had no
effect on it. Chemicals alone extinguished it. Amazed crowds used to
stand watching these magic flames. Often when the policemen tried to
stamp the fires out, they succeeded only in scattering them.
It was an extraordinary effect, too, when the policemen were busy
putting out one fire, to see others start up, in _this_ corner of the
Park, in _that_ corner, in the great bronze urn, near the center.
Building a fire in that bronze urn was as difficult a matter as it
seems. A Woman’s Party member, glancing out from a stairway window at
the top of the house at Headquarters, had noted how boldly the urn stood
out from the rest of the Park decoration....
[Illustration: EVERY GOOD SUFFRAGIST THE MORNING AFTER RATIFICATION.
Nina Allender in _The Suffragist_.]
At three o’clock one morning, Julia Emory and Hazel Hunkins, two of the
youngest and tiniest pickets, bore over to the Park from Headquarters
several baskets of wood which they concealed in the shadows under the
trees. The next problem was to get a ladder there without being seen.
They accomplished this in some way, dragging it over the ground, slow
foot after slow foot, and placed it against the urn. At intervals the
policeman on the beat, who was making the entire round—or square—of the
Park, passed. While one girl mounted the rudder and filled the urn with
oil-soaked paper, oil-soaked wood, and liberal libations of oil, the
other remained on guard. When the guard gave the word that the policeman
was near, the two girls threw themselves face downward on the frozen
grass. It is a very large urn and by this stealthy process it took hours
to fill it. It was two days before they started the fire. Anybody might
have seen the logs protruding from the top of the urn during those two
days, but nobody did.
The day on which the urn projected itself into the history of the
Woman’s Party, the Watchfires were burning for the first time on the
White House pavements. The street and the Park were filled with people.
A member of the Woman’s Party, passing the urn, furtively threw into it
a lighted asbestos coil. The urn instantly belched flames which
threatened to lick the sky. The police arrested every Woman’s Party
member in sight. All the way down the street as the patrol carried them
away, Hazel Hutchins and Julia Emory saw the flames flaring higher and
higher.
“How did they do that?” one man was heard to say. “I’ve been here the
whole afternoon and I didn’t see them light it.”
Twice afterwards fires were started in the urn. For that matter, fires
were started there after the police had set a watch on it.
Hazel Hunkins, young, small, slender, took the urn under her special
patronage. One of the pictures the Woman’s Party likes to draw is the
time Hazel was arrested there. She had climbed up onto the pedestal and
was throwing logs into the pool of oil when two huge policemen descended
upon her. The first seized one foot and the second seized the other; and
they both pulled hard. Of course in these circumstances, it was
impossible for her to move. But she is an athlete and she clung tight to
the urn edge. Still the policemen pulled. Finally she said gently, “If
you will let go of my feet, I will come down myself.”
Later asbestos coils were introduced into the campaign. This—from the
police point of view—was more annoying than the kerosene-soaked logs;
for they were compact to carry, easy to handle, difficult to put out,
and they lasted a long, long time.
Another picture the Woman’s Party likes to draw is of Mildred Morris
starting asbestos coils. With her nimbus of flaming hair, Miss Morris
seemed a flame herself. She was here, there, everywhere. The police
could no more catch up with her than they could with a squirrel. One
night, with the assistance of two others, she—unbelievably—fastened some
asbestos coils among the White House trees; but to her everlasting
regret the guards found them before the illumination could begin.
The stories they tell about arrests at this time are endless. Little
Julia Emory, who was arrested thirty-four times, is a repository of lore
on this subject.
They were a great trial to the police—the arrests of these later months.
While under detention, the pickets used to organize impromptu
entertainments. This was during the period, when at their trials, the
Suffragists would answer no questions and the court authorities were put
to it to establish their identities. They related with great glee how in
his efforts to prove Annie Arniel’s identity, a policeman described one
of their concerts in court.
And then, your Honor, that one there said, “We’ll now have a comb
solo from a distinguished combist, who has played before all the
crowned heads of Europe, Annie Arniel,” and then, your Honor, the
defendant got up and played a tune on a comb.
When, for instance, Suffragists refused bail, the police did not like to
hold them overnight because it was such an expense to the District of
Columbia to feed them. Julia Emory describes one evening when a roomful
of them, arrested, and having refused to put up bail, were waiting the
will of the powers. During this wait, which lasted several hours, they
entertained themselves by singing.
Once a policeman came in:
“Will you pay your bail if we put it at twenty-five dollars?”
“No,” answered the pickets promptly.
He went out, but later he returned.
“Will you pay your bail if we put it at five dollars?”
“No.”
“Then march out.”
But those light moments were only foam thrown up from serious and
sometimes desperate times. When a crowd of ex-pickets gather together
and indulge in reminiscences, extraordinary revelations occur. Looking
at their faces and estimating their youth, one wonders at a world which
permitted one per cent of these things to happen.
And as for their experiences with the mobs.... Not the least of the
psychological factors in the situation was the slow growth of the
crowds; the circle of little boys who gathered about them first,
spitting at them, calling them names, making personal comments; then the
gathering gangs of young hoodlums who encouraged the boys to further
insults; then more and more crowds; more and more insults; the final
struggle.
Often of course the pickets stood against the White House fence, an
enormous mob packed in front of them, with the knowledge that police
protection—according to the orders of the day—might be given them or
might not.... Sometimes that crowd would edge nearer and nearer until
there was but a foot of smothering, terror-fraught space between them
and the pickets. Literally those women felt they had their backs to the
wall. Occasionally they had to mount the stone coping! Always too they
feared that any sudden movement within the packed, slowly approaching
hostile crowd might foam into violence. Occasionally, when the police
followed orders to protect the pickets, violent things happened to
people in the crowd. Catherine Flanagan saw a plain-clothes man hit six
sailors over the head in succession with a billy. They went down like
nine pins. Yet when after hours of a seemingly impressive waiting the
actual struggle came—something—some spiritual courage bigger than
themselves—impelled them to hold on to their banner poles to the last
gasp. They were big in circumference—those banner poles—but the girls
clutched them so tightly that often it took three policemen to wrench
them away. Catherine Flanagan had deep gashes on the inside of her palms
where her own nails had penetrated her flesh and great wounds on the
outside of her hands where the policemen had dug their nails into them.
Virginia Arnold’s hands and arms were torn as though in a struggle with
some wild beast.
Yet, I repeat, Headquarters saw its lighter moments even in those most
troubled times. And during those most troubled times, that gay spirit of
youth managed to maintain itself. The onlookers marveled at it. But it
was only because it was a spiritual quality—youth of the soul, in
addition to youth of the body—that it could endure. During the course of
the eight years of its history, the members of the Woman’s Party had
been subjected to disillusion after disillusion. The older ones among
them bore this succession of shocks with that philosophy which a long
experience in public affairs engenders. But the younger ones—believing
at first, as youth always believes, in the eternal verities, and in
their eternal prevalence—witnessed faith-shaking sights and underwent
even more faith-shaking experiences.
In their contact with public men, they saw such a man as Borah for
instance—perhaps the chief of the Knights of the Double Cross—give the
Woman’s Party what virtually amounted to his pledged word to support the
Amendment and then coolly repudiate it. They saw Moses of New Hampshire
play a quibbling trick on them which involved them in weeks of the
hardest kind of work only calmly to ignore his own pledge at the end.
They contended with such differing personalities as the cold, cultured
mind, immutably set in the conventions of a past generation, of Henry
Cabot Lodge; the unfairness, or fatuity, or brutality of such men as
Penrose of Pennsylvania, Thomas of Colorado, Wadsworth of New York, Reed
of Missouri, Brandegee of Connecticut, Hoke Smith of Georgia.
When the picketing began, they saw outside forces get their Headquarters
from them; saw them influence scores of property owners sometimes after
an advance rent had been paid, not to let houses to them; saw them try
to influence the people who gave money, to withhold such financial
support; saw them try to influence the newspapers to be less impartial
in their descriptions of Woman’s Party activities. As the picketing went
on and the burning of the President’s words and the Watchfires succeeded
it—while they were exercising their inalienable right of peaceful
protest—they knew the experience of being harried by mobs at the very
door of the President of the United States; harried while the President
passed in his carriage through their midst; later to be harried in
collaboration by both mobs and police. Under arrest and in prison, they
underwent experiences which no one of them would have believed possible
of the greatest republic in the world. They were held incommunicado;
they could see neither counsel nor Party members. They were offered food
filled with worms. They were submitted to incredible brutalities.
And yet, I have said that spirit of youth prevailed. It prevailed
because they were speaking for their generation. They developed a sense
of devotion to their ideal of freedom which would have stopped short of
no personal sacrifice, not death itself. They developed a sense of
comradeship for each other which was half love, half admiration and all
reverence. In summing up a fellow worker, they speak first of her
“spirit,” and her “spirit” is always _beautiful_, or _noble_, or
_glorious_, or some such youth-loved word.
Once, when one party of pickets, about to leave Occoquan, was in the
dining-room, a fresh group, just sentenced, were brought into luncheon
and placed at another table. Conversation was not permitted. Not a word
was spoken, but with one accord the released pickets raised their
water-glasses high, then lowered them and drank to their comrades.
Yes, that was their strength—spirit of youth. Lavinia Dock said, “The
young are at the gates.” The young stormed those gates and finally
forced them open. They entered. And leaving behind all sinister
remembrance of the battle, they turned their faces towards the morning.
THE END
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INDEX
Abbot, Minnie D., 225
Adams, Abigail, 103
Adams, Hazel, 357
Adams, Pauline, 236, 238, 404, 407
Adams, Mrs. Walter, 402
Addams, Jane, 13, 39, 42
Adler, Jessie, 389
Ainge, Edith, 238, 357, 373, 374, 375, 377, 392, 393, 396, 400, 404,
407, 446
Allen, Genevieve, 429, 449
Allender, Nina, 15, 18, 19, 46, 208
American Federation of Labor, 166
Amidon, Beulah, 47, 124, 193, 203, 232, 342
Andrews, Harriet U., 377, 393, 394, quoted 406
Anglin, Margaret, 107
Aniba, Isabel C., quoted 346
Arizona ratifies, 423
Arkansas ratifies, 439
Armes, Mrs. George A., 63, quoted 92
Arniel, Annie, 220, 221, 238, 357, 377, 392, 393, 394, 400, 401, 404,
472
Arnold, Bertha, 332, 363, 372, 375, 377, 379, 381, 400, 407
Arnold, Virginia, 71, 77, 124, 220, 221, 230, 233, 374, 375, 376, 377,
474
Ascough, Lillian M., 357, 404
Ascough, Mrs. W. D., 151, 407
Ashurst, Senator, 54
Asquith, Herbert, 10
Atwater, Mrs. George, 374
Austin, Mary, 114
Baird, Senator Davis, 381, 415, 436
Baker, Abby Scott, quoted 152; 177, 201, 238, 291, 301, 318, 328, 334,
340, 344, 381, 407, 428, 429, 446, 450, 451, 453, 454, 457
Baker, Secretary of War, 160, 441
Bamberger, Governor, 428
Bar Association, 295, 297
Barnes, Mrs. Charles W., 251
Barnett, John T., 89
Barrett, Naomi, 396, 397
Barrow, Frank, 432, 438, 440
Barry, John D., 255
Bartelme, Judge Mary A., 157
Bartlett, Dorothy, 238
Battelle, Mrs. John Gordon, 450, 453
Beach, Cornelia, 238
Beale, Olive, 377, 379
Beard, Mary, 13, 43, 51, 145, 155, 300, 381
Beckwith, Mrs. Carol, 145
Beim, Mrs. A. N., 251
Belmont, Mrs. O. H. P., 51, 73, quoted 105; 106, 113, 129, 201, 290,
311
Bennett, Mrs. M. Toscan, quoted 387; 395, 448
Bergen, Mrs. William, 251
Black, Judge W. W., 88
Black, Louise M., 357
Blair, Henry W., 215
Blatch, Harriot Stanton, 13, 96, 151, 153, 167, 174, 195
Bloch, Senator, 441, 442
Blumberg, Hilda, 243, 252
Bodenheim, Marie, 413
Boeckel, Florence Brewer, 46, 47, 186
Boeckh, Kate J., 236, 357, 400
Boissevain, Inez Milholland, 21, 25, 96, 158, 174,
memorial service, 185-7
Borah, Senator, 344, 350, 382
Bovee, Mrs. Virginia, 267, quoted 268
Boyle, Catherine, 346, 396
Brady, Senator, 84
Brandeis, Miss, 81
Branham, Lucy, 124, 238, 328, 334, 351, quoted 364; 381, 385, 400, 407,
446
Branham, Mrs. L. V. G. Gwynne, 404
Brannan, Mrs. John Winters, 129, 190, 201, 226, 250, 251, quoted 252;
274, 279, 282, 388
Brisbane, Arthur, 158
Bristow, Senator, 56
Bristow-Mondell Amendment, 36, 77
British Mission, 207
Bronenberg, Jennie, 404
Bronson, Minnie, quoted 256, 341
Brooke, Minnie E., 66, 176
Brown, Izetta Jewel, 451
Brown, Miss, 11
Brown, Mrs. William Gay, 440
Brown, Rev. Olympia, 204, 313, quoted 388
Brownlow, Commissioner, 267
Bruere, Mrs. Henry, 145
Bryan, J. W., 93
Bryant, Louise, 404
Burn, Harry, 459, 460, 461
Burns, Lucy, 9, 13, 16-7, 42, 46, 51, quoted 62, 68; 69-70, 74, 77,
129, 148, 151, 181, 201, 208, 210, 220, quoted 223, 230, 233, 238,
251, 264, quoted 267-8; 274, 279, quoted 281; 301, 318, 357, 360,
377, 381, 396, 400, 404, 407, 466
Burritt, M. Tilden, 251
Butterworth, Mrs. Henry, 251, 275
Calderhead, Iris, 124, 222, 380
California ratifies, 429
Calmes, Lucia, 396
Calnan, Eleanor, 238, 377, 409
Campbell, Agnes, 151
Campbell, Mary, 346
Candler, Senator, 454
Capper, Governor, 147, 441
Caraway, Representative, 137
Carey, Governor, 431, 432
Carey, Mrs. John, 449
Carlin, Representative, 133, 137
Carpenter, Alice, 155, 300
Casey, Josephine, 77
Castleton, Beatrice, 412, 413
Catt, Mrs. Carrie Chapman, 162, 348
Catts, Governor, 331-2
Chamberlain-Mondell Amendment, 36
Chamberlain, Senator, 35
Chandler, Representative, 137
Chase, Agnes, 357
Chevrier, Palys L., 396, 404
_Cheyenne Tribune_, quoted 88
Chi, Mrs. Chem., 101
Chicago Republican Convention, 447-9
Chisaski, Helen, 396
Chisholm, Mrs. W. W., 238
Christensen, Parley, 456
Churchill, Winston, 10
Clark, Champ, 338
Clark, Maude F., 70
Clarke, Pauline, 46, 124, 220, 357
Club Women’s Deputation, 60
Cochran, William J., 416
Cohen, Cynthia, 251
Coles, Assemblyman, 437
College Equal Suffrage League, 34
Collins, Josephine, 409, 410
Colorado ratifies, 431
Colt, Mrs. William L., 181, 252
Colt, Senator, 343
Colvin, Sarah T. (Mrs. A. R.), 151, 400, 402, 404, 407
Comborrov, Reba, 404
Condon, Miss, 295
Congressional Committee, 3, 31-2, 33, 35, 39, 45-6
Congressional Union, 37, 47-8, 49, 55, quoted 88-93, 101-7, 123, 129,
131-2, 156, 157
Connecticut ratifies, 463
Connelly, Betty, 409, 410
Constable, Anna, 151
Cosu, Alice, 251, 273
Cox, Governor, 452, 457
Crabtree, Hon. W. R., 299
Crans, Lillian, 209
Crawford, Cora, 357, 401
Crewe, Lord, 10, 11
Crocker, Gertrude Lynde, 128, 201, 248, 357, 393, 396
Crocker, Ruth, 128, 233, 242, 400
Crone, Berta, 220, 293
Culberson, Senator, 343
Cummings, Homer S., 416, 451
Cummins, Senator, 305, 422
Curtis, Senator, 82, 179, 343, 350, 366
Cuthbert, Mrs. Lucius M., 78
Dabs, Mr., 330
Dale, Representative, 137
Daniels, L. G. C., 377
Daniels, Lou C., 245, 251, 409, 448
Daniels, Lucy, 404
Daniels, Secretary, 441
Davis, Edith, 453
Davis, Mrs. Frances, 377
Day, Dorothy, 251, 272
Dean, Ella Morton, 230, 231
Debs, Eugene, 153
Decker, Eva, 251
Democratic Women’s Deputation, 63
Dennett, Mary Ware, 13, 38
De Shan, Florence, 412
De Valera, President, 444
Devoe, Emma Smith, 39, 66
De Young, M. H., 106
Dial, Senator, 415
Dixon, Edna, 236
Dixon, Mary Bartlett, 251
Dock, Lavinia, quoted 212; 220, 221, 236, 313, 357
Doolittle, Representative, 89
Dorr, Rheta Childe, 46, 60, 158
Dorsey, Hugh M., 423
Doty, Madeline, 300
Dowell, Mary Carol, 397
Doyle, Christine M., 357
Drew, Senator, 415
Drumheller, Roscoe, 92
Dubrow, Mary E., 124, 328, 357, 381, 392, 393, 394, quoted 439-43
Dyer, Mrs. E. Tiffany, 145
Dyer, Representative, 137
Eastman, Crystal, 13, 51, 66, 158
Edge, Senator, 415
Edwards, Edward I., 435
“E. H. Howe,” 410
Emory, Julia, 124, 238, 251, 263, 273, 275, 328, 357, 364, 375, 376,
377, 379, 393; 394, 396, quoted 424-8; 470, 472, 473
Evans, Mrs., 19
Evans, Mrs. Edmund C., 357, 394
Evans, Ernestine, 300
Evans, Mrs. Evan, 155
Evans, Mrs. Glendower, quoted 59
Ewing, Lucy, 229, 236, 407
Eylward, Estella, 404
Fendall, Mary Gertrude, 124, 140, 218, 328, 355, 357, 373, 374, 377,
400, 465
Fess, Simeon, 433, quoted 440
Field, Sara Bard, quoted 101; 105, 107-8, quoted 108-14; 114, 115, 118,
153, 157, 164, 165, 174, quoted 188; 190, 328, 451
Findeisen, Ella, 251
Fisher, Katherine Rolston, 242, quoted 261; 269, 315, 357, 377
Fishstein, Rose, 404
Fishstein, Rose G., 404
Fitch, Ruth, quoted 183-4
Fitzgerald, Representative, 128
Flanagan, Catherine, 124, quoted 230-2; 233, 236, 249, 250, 328, 380,
382, 433, 443, 448, 453,
455, 463, 474
Flegel, Mr., 92
Forbes, T. W., 404
Fotheringham, Janet, 225
Fotheringham, Margaret, 236; quoted 237; 238
Fowler, Frances, 409
French Commission, 207
French, Mrs. L. Crozier, 452
Frierson, William L., quoted 451
Frost, Grace, 375
Frost, Susan, 389
Fuller, Clara Kinsley, 236, quoted 237
Gale, Zona, quoted 67; 186
Gallagher, Andrew, quoted 104
Gallinger, Senator, 345
Gannon, Dr., 280
Gard, Representative, 118, 137
Gardner, Commissioner, 279
Gardner, Gilson, 25, 203, quoted 204; 226, 227, quoted 234; 235, 267
Gardner, Mrs. Gilson, 20, 51, 69, 70, 94, quoted 95; 129, 134, 201,
225, quoted 265; 266, 318, 357, 377, 396, 466
Garnett, Louise, 380, 428
Garrison, Rebecca, 404
Gasch, Marie Manning, 251
Gates, Wellington H., 88
Gay, Senator, 411
Gerberding, Elizabeth, 155
Germany, war declared, 205
Gerry, Senator, 342
Gilbert, Mildred, 181
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, quoted 418-9
Ginsberg, Anna, 404
Glines, Mildred, 342
Glover, W. Irving, 436
Goode, Edith, 151
Goode, Jane, 151
Gonzon, Mary, 346
Goolsby, Mr., 330
Gram, Alice, 47, 251
Gram, Betty, 124, 251, 328, 374, 380, 409, 422, 433, quoted 435-9; 441,
442, 443, 451, 453, 455, 460
Gray, Natalie, 233, 236, 466
Gray, Mrs. S. H. B., 220, 466
Greeley, Helen Hoy, 449
Green, Mrs. E. C., 452
Green, Mrs. Frances, 223
Green, Mollie Marie, 357
Greiner, Gladys, 220, 222, 242, 248, 357, 373, 374, 381, 404, 407
Grey, Sir Edward, 11
Grimes, Mrs., 318
Grogan, Sara, 22, 377, 379, 389
Gross, Mrs. Irving, 409
Guggenheim, Leo U., 88
Guilford, Ella, 251
Gwinter, Eleanor, 242
Hale, Matthew, 415
Hamilton, Elizabeth, 251
Hara, Ernestine, 243
Harding, Warren G., 345, 422, 449, 454
Hardwick, Senator, 350, 415
Hardy, Jennie C. Law, 117
Harmer, Senator, 440
Harper, Ida Husted, 43
Harrington, Governor, 424
Harris, Gabrielle, 403
Harris, Senator, 415
Harrison, Senator, 415
Hasbrouck, Olive, 66
Havemeyer, Mrs. H. O., 174, 402, quoted 403; 404, 407, 448, 452, 453
Hawkins, Mrs. W. J., 431
Hawley, ex-Governor, 84
Hawley, Senator, 92
Hayden, Congressman, 83, 90
Hays, Will H., 444, quoted 445
Hearst, Phoebe A., 157
Heffelfinger, Kate Cleaver, 245, 247, 249, 357, 396
Henderson, Jessica, 409
Henderson, Wilma, 409-10
Henesy, Minnie, 245, 247, 249
Henkel, Alice, 124, 343
Hennessy, Charles O’Connor, 381-2
Henry, Mr., quoted 68; 69, quoted 94-5; 127
Hepburn, Mrs. Thomas, 290
Herendeen, Anne, quoted 7
Herkner, Anne, 404
Herndon, Mrs., 271
Hershfield, Harry, 436
Higgins, Colonel, 373
Hill, Alberta, 63
Hill, Elsie, 34, 51, 124, 129, 133, 175, 176, 205, 290, 328, 357, 358,
quoted 361, 380, 409, 413, 443, 445, 446
Hilles, Florence Bayard, 117, 151, 181, 201, 225, quoted 345; 346, 381,
390, 443, 449, 453
Hinchey, Margaret, quoted 58
Hinshaw, Virgil, 300
Holcomb, Governor Marcus, 463
Hollis, Senator, 306
Hooker, Mrs. Donald R., 51, 129, 201, 301, 426, 450
Hooper, ex-Governor, 454
Hopkins, J. A. H., 226, 227, 267, 300, quoted 301
Hopkins, Mrs. J. A. H., 201, 225, 227, 433, 435, 438
Hornesby, L. H., 251
Hourwich, Rebecca, 124, 296, 381
House Suffrage Committee, 302, 306, 307
Howe, Julia Ward, 103
Howell, Representative, 109
Howry, Elizabeth, 186
Huddleston, Mr., 320
Huff, Elizabeth, 396
Huff, Emily, 400
Hughes, Charles Evans, 27, 28, 161, 162
Hull, Mr., 337
Hunkins, Hazel, 124, 177, 209, 220, 222, 225, 328, 355, 356, 357, 358,
470
Hunt, Helen, 332
Hunter, Gertrude, 77, quoted 80; 236
Hurlburt, Julia, 151, 225
Hutton, May Arkwright, 154
Hyattsville, Mayor of, 38
Idaho ratifies, 439
Igoe, Representative, 137
Illinois ratifies, 420
Indiana ratifies, 431
_Indianapolis News_, quoted 112
Industrial Workers deputation, 57
Ingham, Mary H., quoted 388, 401, 402, 404, 407, 421, 447, 450
Iowa ratifies, 422
Jack, Mrs. C. C., 409
Jackson, Mrs. Mark, 242
Jacobson, Pauline, quoted 245
Jakobi, Paula, 251, 273, 275, quoted 278, 281
James, Ada, 420
James, D. G., 420
James, Senator, 349
Jameson, John B., 381-2
Jamison, Maud, 220-1, 238, 245, 247, 249, 373, 374, 377, 379, 396
Jerrold, Lilian, 346
Johns, Peggy Baird, 243, 251
Johnson, Senator, 305, 306
Johnson, Willie Grace, 404
Joliffe, Frances, 105, 107-8, 113, 114, 115, 118
Jones, Margaret Graham, 47
Jones, Senator Andreus Aristides, 305, 345, 347, 349, 366, 411
Jones, Senator Wesley L., 40, 305, 360, 411
Jost, Mayor, 109
Judiciary Committee, 35
Juengling, Amy, 251, 404
Kahle, Louise Lewis, 245
Kalb, Benigna Green, 445
Kalb, Elizabeth, 46, 372, 374, 375, 377, 379, 396, quoted 464
Kansas ratifies, 421
Katzenstein, Caroline, 151, 381
Keating, Senator, 92
Keehn, Harriet, 357
Kellam, Mrs. Arthur, quoted 345
Keller, Helen, 158
Kelley, Augusta M., 377
Kelley, Florence, quoted 101-2, 113
Kellogg, Rhoda, 397
Kellogg, Senator, 345
Kelly, Mrs. Nicholas, 379
Kelly, Representative, 71
Kendall, Ada Davenport, 270, 287-9
Kendall, Anna Norris, 204
Kendall, Mrs. Frederick Willard, 242
Kendrick, Senator, 441
Kennedy, Marie Ernst, 404
Kent, Representative, 128
Kent, Mrs. William, 18, 51, 94, 100, 129, 134, quoted 144, 174, 186,
195, 201, 219, 251, 253, 290, 301, 312, 318, 429, 451
Kentucky ratifies, 431
Kessler, Margaret Wood, 243
Keyes, Senator, 415
Kilby, Thomas E., 422
Kimball, Alice, 357
Kin, Dr. Yami, quoted 105
Kincaid, Mrs. B. R., 225
Kindberg, Maria, 107
Kindstedt, Ingeborg, 107
King, Dr. Cora Smith, 34, 90
King, Senator, 343
Koeing, Ruby E., 357
Kruger, Hattie, 251
Kuhn, Anna, 357
Kuli Khan, Mme. Ali, 105
Ladd, Dr., 281
Lamont, Mrs. George W., 167
Lancaster, Elsie, 77, 89
Lang, Mrs. Albion, 449
Latimer, Edna S., 77
Latimer, Mrs., quoted 81-2
Laughlin, Gail, quoted 103; 153, 174
Lawrence, David, 254
Lederman, Minna, 377
Lennox, Ida, 346
Lenroot, Senator, 347
Lewis, Mrs. Lawrence, 13, 51, 66, 129, 201, 220, 223, 251, 279, quoted
280; 292, 312, 313, 356, 357, 379, 381, 391, 394, 421, 430, 443, 451
Lewis, Rose, 409
Lewis, Shippen, 447
Lewis, William Draper, 447
Lieberson, Rose, 357
Lincoln, Kathryn, 251
Lloyd, Lola Maverick, 377
Lockrey, Dr. Sarah Hunt, 357
Lockwood, Mrs. Henry L., 236
Lodge, Senator, 422
Logan, Mrs. Ellis, 60
Logue, Mary, 394
Lloyd George, 10
Lowenburg, Mrs. Harry, 181
Lowry, Catherine, 209
Ludlow, Dr. Clara E., 70
McCarl, Mr., 431
McCormick, Mrs. Medill, 122
McCormick, Vance, quoted 180
McCoy, Representative, 40, 41
McCue, Anne, 77
McCumber, Senator, 342
McDuffie, Mrs. S. B., 71
McKellar, Senator, 350
McKenzie, Marie, 346
McPherson, Blanche A., 355, 357
McShane, Elizabeth, 251, 253, 375, 402, 404, 407
Mackay, Senator, 436
Mackaye, Mrs. Benton, 203
Mackaye, Jessie Hardy, quoted 365
Mackrille, Ida Finney, 174, 451
Magee, Katherine, 397
Main, Effie Boutwell, 357
Main, Emily Burke, 357
Maine ratifies, 430
Maki, Mayi, 102
Mallon, Winifred, 15, 23, 151
Malone, Dudley Field, 201, 239-42, 254, 259, 267, 282, 287, 290, 300
Malone, Maude, 238
Mann, Representative, 93, 339
Maphis, Director, 334
Marion, Kitty, 222, 223, 225
Marlborough, Duchess of, 73
Maroney, Lieut., 154
Marsden, Edith, 46
Marsh, Eleanor Taylor, 47
Martin, Anne, 15, 23, 94, 108, 115, 129, 131, quoted 134-6; 149, 157,
186, 201, 225, quoted 259; 292, 293, 299, 301, 303, 318, 319, 465
Martin, Senator, 334, 348
Martinette, Catherine, 251
Massachusetts ratifies, 422
Maverick, Lucy, 412, 413
Mead, Mrs. Cyrus, 151
Mellett, Mrs. Lowell, 134
Men’s League for Woman Suffrage, 45
Mercer, Nell, 402, 404
Meredith, Mrs. Sophie, 249, 357
Merritt, H. P., 423
Michigan ratifies, 420
Milholland, Inez, _see Boissevain_
Milholland, Vida, 202, 222, 249, 387, 407
Miller, Alice Duer, 130, 131
Mellett, Mrs. Lowell, 318
Minnesota ratifies, 428
Missouri ratifies, 422
Mitchell, Mayor, 114
Moller, Bertha, 372, 373, 374, 375, 381, 397
Mondell, Representative, 35, 67, 69, 114, 116, 128, 432, 433
Monroe, Lila Day, 148
Montana ratifies, 423
Montessori, Mme. Marie, quoted 105
Montgomery, Senator, 442
Moore, Martha W., 357, 397
Moran, Mrs. F. B., quoted 166
Morey, Agnes H., 151, 251, 381, quoted 388-9, 409, 422, 152, 208, 209,
210, 220-1, 231, 250, 278, 381, 408, 410
Morgan, Mary, 185
Morgan, Representative, 137
Morris, Mildred, 396, 404, 472
Morrison, Secretary, 430
Moses, George H., 381
Moss, Mr. Hunter, 121, 137, 138
Moulton, Arthur L., 79
Moyle, James H., 92
Mullowny, Judge, 226, 243, 248, 249, 252
Munds, Mrs. Frances, 90
Munnecke, Phoebe, 394, 400, 404
Murdock, Senator, 82
Murphy, Gertrude, 397
National American Woman Suffrage Association, 3, 13, 42, 43, 66, 168
National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, 255-6
National Council of Women Voters, 34, 39
National Federation of Women’s Clubs, 59
Nebraska ratifies, 423
Needham, Grace, 374, 381
Neely, Representative, Kansas, 82, 92
Neely, Representative, W. Va., 137
Nelson, Representative, 132, 133, 137
Newell, Gertrude B., 152
_New Freedom_, quoted 198
New Hampshire ratifies, 428, 435
New Jersey Women’s Deputation, 40-1
New Mexico ratifies, 439
New York ratifies, 421
_New York Tribune_, quoted 114, 122
Nevada ratifies, 433
Nolan, Mrs. Mary A., 251, 313, 272, quoted 400; 404, 407
Northcliffe, Lord, quoted 301
North Dakota ratifies, 430
Noyes, Ruth, 77
Nugent, James R., 435
Oakes, Margaret, 357, 390
O’Brien, Matthew, 238, 259, quoted 260; 279, 378
Occoquan Workhouse, 263-78
Odell, Mrs. George, 318, 374
Ohio ratifies, 421
Oklahoma ratifies, 439
Older, Mrs. Fremont, quoted 105
Oregon ratifies, 431
Overman, Senator, 363
Owen, Senator, 441
Page, Mrs. Frank, 409
Page, Senator, 345
Palmer, Attorney General, 441
Pankhurst, Mrs. 9
Panama-Pacific Exposition, 100
Papandre, Elizabeth, 181
Patterson, Lulu, 346
Paul, Alice, résumé of achievements, 4-5;
youth and training, 7-8;
work in England, 8-9;
meeting with Lucy Burns, 9;
Scottish campaign, 10-11;
experiences in Glasgow, 11;
starts work for Constitutional Amendment in Washington, 12-13;
Convention of National American Association in Philadelphia, 13;
Chairman Special Committee of National American Woman Suffrage
Association, 13;
description and tributes, 14-16;
starts work in Washington, Dec., 1912, 18;
methods of working, 19-28;
and President Wilson, 32;
leads Congressional Committee Deputation, 33;
deputation of New Jersey women, 41;
plans for 1914, 51;
preparations for demonstration May 2, 1914, 66;
Congressional Union deputation, 69;
quoted, 74-77;
outline for 1915, 99;
Telegraph Editor of _San Francisco Bulletin_, 106;
and Judiciary Committee, Dec., 1915, 116-22;
Congressional Union National Convention, 128;
and William Elza Williams, 133;
quoted 142;
formation of Woman’s Party, 149-51;
Hughes campaign, 161-2;
White House picketing, 196;
National Woman’s Party organized, 199;
declaration of war with Germany, 206;
assaulted while picketing, 232;
arrested, 245;
quoted 246-7;
in prison, 249;
interviewed in prison, 254;
in psychopathic ward, 268;
in Occoquan, 284;
hunger-striking, 285;
lobbying, 318;
Susan B. Anthony Amendment passes House of Representatives, 340;
quoted 358;
Lafayette Monument meetings, 360-3;
arrested, 377, 379;
and Senator Borah, 382-3;
watchfires, 393;
President Wilson’s homecoming demonstration, 408;
Metropolitan Opera House demonstration, 412-3;
Utah ratification, 428;
Maine ratification, 430;
Delaware ratification, and Senator Harding, 449;
Cox and Harding campaign, 453
Peck, Mildred, 346
_Pendleton Tribune_, quoted 91
Pennsylvania ratifies, 421
Penrose, Senator, 421
Pepper, George Wharton, 447
Perry, Emily, 318
Pflaster, Mrs., 312, 397
Phelan, Senator, 342, 429
Phelps, Edith, 390
Philippine Bill, 93
Picketing, details, 464-8
Pierce, Vivian, 46, 124; quoted 177; 220, 238, 244, 312, 328, 372, 373,
374-7, 375, 381, 429, 431, 443
Pinchot, Mrs. Amos, 145
Pincus, Jane, 77, quoted 83
Piunti, Adelina, 396
Poindexter, Senator, 434, quoted 441
Polk, Mrs. Stewart, 373
Pollitzer, Anita, 124, 328, quoted 329-34; 379, 380, 415, 429, 430,
431, 432, 433, 434, 440, 443, 445, 452, 453, 454, 455, 460
Pollock, Senator, 330, 382, 404, 415
Pope, Mrs. Horton, 372
Pottier, Berry, 409
Pou, Mr., 69, 127, quoted 306
Price, Lucy, 341
Pride, Mrs. Marcella, 383
“Prison Special,” 407
Puffenbarger, Mrs., 442
Pugh, Judge, 236, 237
Pullman, Major, 210, 234
Purtelle, Edna M., 357
Quay, Mrs. R. B., 251
Raker, Mr., 338
Rankin, Hon. Jeannette, 300, 318
Read, Mrs. Percy, 152
Reading, Lord, 346
Reams, Captain, 259
Reber, Mabel, 453
Rector, Mrs. James, 452, 453
Reed, Mrs. Percy, 389
Reed, Senator, 109, 321, 349
Reyneau, Mrs. Paul, 225
Rhode Island ratifies, 431
Ridley, Colonel, 357, 362, 385
Riegel, Ella, 152, 402, 404, 407
Robb, Justice, quoted 259
Roberts, Governor, 450, 456, 457
Robertson, Mrs. C. T., 251
Robinson, Senator Helen Ring, 42
Roewer, Mrs. George, 409
Rogers, Mrs. John, Jr., 152, 154, 181, 226, 290, quoted 301, 387; 402,
404, 407
Roosevelt, Theodore, 25, 155, 161, 216, 343
Root, Elihu, 229
Ross, Margery, 20, 124, 394
Rossett, Margaret, 401
Rowe, Clara Louise, 124
Rumley, Dr. E. A., 300
Russell, Isaac, 428
Russell, Mrs. Charles Edward, 134, quoted 136
Russian Commission, 208
Russian, E. T., 401
Russian, Mrs. H. D., quoted 401, 409
Rye, Governor, 351
_Salt Lake City Republican Herald_, quoted 89
Samardin, Nina, 242
_San Francisco Bulletin_, quoted 106
Sargent, Senator, 36
Schuyler, Margaretta, 412
Scott, Melinda, quoted 57
Scott, Mrs. George, 251
Scott, Mrs. Townsend, 152, 181, 220, 389
Scott, Ruth, 396
_Seattle Times_, quoted 88
Seldomridge, Representative, 92
Shafroth-Palmer Resolution, 54-6
Shafroth, Senator, 54, 382
Shaw, Anna Howard, 13, 37, 42, 44
Shaw, Lois Warren, 409
Sheinberg, Belle, 251
Sheppard, Senator, 343
Sherman, Senator, 411
Sherwood, General, 215
Shields, Lucile, 223, 400
Shields, Mrs. Alex, 396
Shields, Senator, 351,
letters quoted 352-3; 375
Shippen, Mrs. Eugene, 389
Shoemaker, Martha, 404
Short, Mrs. J. H., 251
Siddons, Judge, 378
Sisson, Mr., 320
Smailes, Mr., 333
Small, Ruth, 381, 409, 410
Smith, Elizabeth, 233, 252
Smith, Hoke, 317
Smith, Senator Ellison D., 330
Smith, Senator John M. C., 347
Smith, Senator Marcus A., 83, 90, 92, 347
Smoot, Senator, 428
Smyth, Chief Justice, 259
South Dakota ratifies, 431
Spargo, John, 300
Spencer, Dr. Caroline, 181, 244, 248, 390, 396
Spencer, Senator Selden, 438
Sproul, Governor, 421
Stafford, Kate, 251
Steele, Representative, 128, 137
Sterling, Senator, 430
Stevens, Counsel, quoted 259
Stevens, Doris, 77, 78, 106, 124, 145, 195-6, 201, 249, quoted 267,
278, 292, 293, 328, 343, 344, 380, 390, 413, 414, 448
Stevens, Governor, 429
Stimson, Secretary of War, 29
Stokes, Edward Caspar, 435
Stone, Lucy, 103
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 103
Stubbs, Jessie Hardy, 66, 77, quoted 78; 79
Sturgess, Georgiana, 231
Sturtevant, Eva E., 357
Stuyvesant, Elizabeth, 220, 223, 230, 231, 232, 233
Suffrage Amendment, 3, 34-6, 43, 161, 404-5, 417, 421
“Suffrage Special” Western tour, 152
_Suffragist_, established, 46; quoted 45, 49, 52, 60, 68, 94-5, 114,
134, 164-5, 167, 169, 178, 215, 237, 244
Sullivan, May, 357
Sutherland, Mary, 390
Sutherland, Senator, 114, 116, 162, 344, 440
Sykes, Louise, 409
Taggart, Representative, 117, 119, 137
Tarbell, Ida M., quoted 158
Taylor, J. Will, 454
Tennessee ratifies, 456;
Anti-Suffrage suit, 463
Terrace, Matilda, 357
Texas ratifies, 422
Thomas, Representative R. Y., 137
Thomas, Senator Charles S., 92
Thompson, Mayor, quoted 111
Thompson, Mrs. Sinclair, 124
Todd, Helen, 117, 152, 167, 174
Torrence, Olivia Dunbar, 251
Trammell, Senator, 330
Trax, Lola C., 77, quoted 79
Trinkle, Senator, 334
Tumulty, Joseph, 145, 147, 346, 351, 416
Turner, Banks, 459-60
Turner, Mrs. H. L., 409
Ueland, Mrs. Andreas, 117
Underwood, Senator, 349
Unterman, Elsie, 400, 401
Utah ratifies, 429
Van Gasken, Dr. Frances G., 63
Van Orsdel, Justice, 259-60
Van Winkle, Mina, 167
Vardaman, Senator, 350, 415
Vaughan, Mrs. William P., 330
Vernon, Mabel, 8, 46, 66, quoted 85; 106, 111, 117, 124, 147, 157, 166,
181, 201, 210, 220-1, quoted 263; 292, 293, quoted 300; 303, 328,
407, 443, 447
Ver Vane, Elsie, 396
Volstead, Representative, 121, 137
Waddill, Judge Edmund, 254, 280, 282, 290
Wadsworth, Senator, 375, 411
Wainwright, Mrs. Richard, 300, quoted 303; 363, 432
Walker, Amelia Himes, 225
Walker, Mrs. R., 407
Walker, Representative, 137
Walker, Seth, 455, 456, 459, 462
Wall, Henrietta Briggs, 389
Wallace, Alfred, quoted 157
Wallace, W. R., 89
Wallerstein, Bertha, 401, 404
Walling, Ada, 346
Walmsley, Elizabeth, 400
Walmsley, H. R., 377
Walsh, Frank P., quoted 104, 110, 444
Walsh, Senator, 113, 416, 441
Warren, Mary, 103
Warren, Mrs. Mortimer, 409
_Washington Post_, quoted 43, 181
Washington ratifies, 443
Watson, Madeline, 232, 236
Watson, Mrs. William Upton, 404
Weaver, Eva, 396
Weaver, Mrs. C., 396
Webb, Representative, 117-8, 127, 130, 137, 301, quoted 302
Weed, Eleanor Hill, 357
Weed, Helena Hill, 15, 77, quoted 84-5, 156; 222, 223, 251, 357, 392,
404, quoted 406-7; 449
Weeks, Cora, 251, 404, 407
Weeks, Senator, 411
Welling, Congressman, 429
West Virginia ratifies, 439
Whaley, Representative, 137, 320
Whitcomb, Camilla, 251, 409
White, Mrs. John Jay, 37, 106
White, Sue, 46, 295, 296, 351, 389, 403, 404, 407, 445, 450, 452, 453,
456, 457
Whitehouse, Mrs. Robert Trent, 409, 430
Whitman, Governor, 113
Whittaker, Superintendent of Occoquan, 227, 259, 264, 280
Whittemore, Margaret, 77, 78, 124, 222, 382, 397
Whittemore, Mrs. Nelson, 152
Wiley, Dr. Harvey, 271
Wiley, Mrs. Harvey, 60, 251, quoted 252; 253, 260, 386
Williams, Genevieve, 251
Williams, Senator, 118, 127, 128
Williams, William Ezra, 133-4, quoted 135-7
Willis, Senator, 334
Wilson, Woodrow, 3;
election campaign, 28;
inauguration, 29;
attitude toward Woman Suffrage, 31-2;
reply to New Jersey deputation, 41;
reply to Industrial Women’s deputation, 58-9;
reply to Club Women’s deputation, 60-2;
reply to Democratic Women’s deputation, 64-5;
and the Filipinos, 94;
votes for Woman Suffrage, 108;
receives San Francisco petition, 115-6;
delegation of New York women, 144-7;
visits Kansas, 147-8;
letters, 162-3;
addresses National American Woman Suffrage Association, 169-71;
letter to National Woman’s Party Conference, 172-4;
receives resolutions passed at Inez Milholland Memorial, 188-9;
acknowledges resolutions of National Woman’s Party, 205;
declares for Federal Amendment, 256;
becomes actively interested in Woman Suffrage, 302;
receives Woman’s Committee of the Council of National Defense, 345;
reply to French Union for Woman Suffrage, 348;
correspondence with Senators re Suffrage Amendment, 351-4;
delegation of Southern and Western Democratic Women, 363;
address to Senate re Woman Suffrage, 367-70;
letter to Senator Hennessy, 381-2;
message to Congress Dec. 2, 1918, 384;
sails for France, 385;
reply to delegation of French Working Women, 398-9;
burned in effigy, 403;
returns from Europe, 408;
Boston demonstration, 408-10;
leaves for Europe, 412;
cabled message to Congress quoted, 416;
ratification in Alabama and Georgia, 422-4;
requests Delaware ratification, 444;
requests Tennessee ratification, 451
Wilson and Marshall League, 64
Winslow, Rose, quoted 58; 77, 174, 177, 245, quoted 247-9, 283
Winsor, Ellen, 357, 396
Winsor, Mary, 229, 238, 357, quoted 359, 407, 453
Winston, Mrs. A. P., 393, 394
Winston, Mrs. K. G., 375
Winthrop, Hannah, 103
Wisconsin ratifies, 420
Wold, Clara P., 46, 355, 357, 373, 374, 375, 379, 380, 389, 404, 449
Wold, Cora, 357
Wolfe, Clara, 343
Woman’s Committee of the Council of National Defense, 345
Woman’s National Democratic League, 165
Woman’s Party, 15, 28, 29, 172-4, 158-9, 199, 259, 311, 275, 380, 428,
452, 457-9, 467, 469
Woman Suffrage Committee, 35, 36, 43
Women’s Trade Union League, 57
Woolley, Robert, 415
_Wyoming Leader_, quoted 87
Wyoming ratifies, 433
Wyoming State convention, 20-1
Young, Joy, 124, 223, 245, 297, 298
Young, Matilda, 245, 252, 375, 377, 379, 393, 395
Younger, Maud, 15, 21, 25, 28, quoted 104; 124, 131, 144, quoted 156;
174, 177, 184, 201, quoted 255; 290, 292, 294-6, 298, quoted 303-5;
quoted 324; 351, 363, 381, 400, 469; _Revelations of a Woman
Lobbyist_ quoted, 132, 138-42, 189-90, 319-24, 337-9, 341-5, 347-50,
366-71, 417
_Yuma Examiner_ quoted, 91
Zinkham, Warden at Washington Jail, 250, 258, 359
------------------------------------------------------------------------
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text in italics is enclosed by underscores like this _italics_).
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