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.

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.

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.