Chapter 16

The Administration Yields

Immediately after Mr. Malone’s sensational resignation the Administration sought another way to remove the persistent pickets without passing the amendment. It yielded on a point of machinery. It gave us a report in the Senate and a committee in the House and expected us to be grateful.

The press had turned again to more sympathetic accounts of our campaign and exposed the prison regime we were undergoing. We were now for a moment the object of sympathy; the Administration was the butt of considerable hostility. Sensing their predicament and fearing any loss of prestige, they risked a slight advance.

Senator Jones, Chairman of the Suffrage Committee, made a visit to the workhouse. Scarcely had the women recovered from the surprise of his visit when the Senator, on the following day, September 15th, filed the favorable report which had been lying with his Committee since May 15th, exactly six months.

The Report, which he had so long delayed because he wanted [he said] to make it a particularly brilliant and elaborate one, read:

“The Committee on Woman Suffrage, to which was referred the joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, conferring upon women the right of suffrage, having the same under consideration, beg leave to report it back to the Senate with the recommendation that the joint resolution do pass.”

This report to the Senate was immediately followed by a vote of 181 to 107 in the House of Representatives in favor of creating a Committee on Woman Suffrage in the House. This vote was indicative of the strength of the amendment in the House. The resolution was sponsored by Representative Pou, Chairman of the Rules Committee and Administration leader, himself an anti- suffragist.

It is an interesting study in psychology to consider some of the statements made in the peculiarly heated debate the day this vote was taken.

Scores of Congressmen, anxious to refute the idea that the indomitable picket had had anything to do with their action, revealed naively how surely it had.

Of the 291 men present, not one man stood squarely up for the right of the hundreds of women who petitioned for justice. Some indirectly and many, inadvertently, however, paid eloquent tribute to the suffrage picket.

From the moment Representative Pou in opening the debate spoke of the nation-wide request for the committee, and the President’s sanction of the committee, the accusations and counter- accusations concerning the wisdom of appointing it in the face of the pickets were many and animated.

Mr. Meeker of Missouri, Democrat, protested against Congress “yielding to the nagging of a certain group.”

Mr. Cantrill of Kentucky, Democrat, believed that “millions of Christian women in the nation should not be denied the right of having a Committee in the House to study the problem of suffrage because of the mistakes of some few of their sisters.”

“One had as well say,” he went on, “that there should be no police in Washington because the police force of this city permitted daily thousands of people to obstruct the streets and impede traffic and permitted almost the mobbing of the women without arresting the offenders. There was a lawful and peaceful way in which the police of this city could have taken charge of the banners of the pickets without permitting the women carrying them to be the objects of mob violence. To see women roughly handled by rough men on the streets of the capital of the nation is not a pleasing sight to Kentuckians and to red-blooded Americans, and let us hope the like will never again be seen here.”

Mr. Walsh, an anti-suffrage Democrat from Massachusetts, deplored taking any action which would seem to yield to the demand of the pickets who carried banners which “if used by a poor workingman in an attempt to get his rights would speedily have put him behind the bars for treason or sedition, and these poor, bewildered, deluded creatures, after their disgusting exhibition can thank their stars that because they wear skirts they are now incarcerated for misdemeanors of a minor character . . . . To supinely yield to a certain class of women picketing the gates of the official residence,—yes, even posing with their short skirts and their short hair within the view of this ‘very capitol and our office buildings,’ with banners which would seek to lead the people to believe that because we did not take action during this war session upon suffrage, if you please, and grant them the right of the ballot that we were traitors to the American Republic, would be monstrous.”

The subject of the creation of a committee on suffrage was almost entirely forgotten. The Congressmen were utterly unable to shake off the ghosts of the pickets. The pickets had not influenced their actions! The very idea was appalling to Representative Stafford of Wisconsin, anti-suffrage Republican, who joined in the Democratic protests. He said:

“If a Suffrage Committee is created the militant class will exclaim, ‘Ah, see how we have driven the great House of Representatives to recognize our rights. If we keep up this sort of practices, we will compel the House, when they come to vote on the constitutional amendment, to surrender obediently likewise’.”

He spoke the truth, and finished dramatically with:

“Gentlemen, there is only one question before the House today and that is, if you look at it from a political aspect, whether you wish to approve of the practices of these women who have been disgracing their cause here in Washington for the past several months.”

Representative Volstead, of Minnesota, Republican, came the closest of all to real courage in his protest:—

“In this discussion some very unfair comments have been made upon the women who picketed the White House. While I do not approve of picketing, I disapprove more strongly of the hoodlum methods pursued in suppressing the practice. I gather from the press that this is what took place. Some women did in a peaceable, and perfectly lawful manner, display suffrage banners on the public street near the White House. To stop this the police allowed the women to be mobbed, and then because the mob obstructed the street, the women were arrested and fined, while the mob went scot-free . . . .”

The Suffrage Committee in the House was appointed. The creation of this committee, which had been pending since 1913, was now finally granted in September, 1917. To be sure this was accomplished only after an inordinate amount of time, money and effort had been spent on a sustained and relentless campaign of pressure. But the Administration had yielded.

As a means to remove the pickets, however, this yielding had failed. “We ask no more machinery; we demand the passage of the amendment,” said the pickets as they lengthened their line.