An Administration Protest—Dudley Field Malone Resigns
Dudley Field Malone was known to the country as sharing the intimate
confidence and friendship of President Wilson. He had known and
supported the President from the beginning of the President’s political
career. He had campaigned twice through New Jersey with Mr. Wilson as
Governor; he had managed Mr. Wilson’s campaigns in many states for the
nomination before the Baltimore Convention; he had toured the country
with Mr. Wilson in 1912 ; and it was he who led to victory President
Wilson’s fight for California in 1916.
So when Mr. Malone went to the White House in July, 1917, to protest
against the Administration’s handling of the suffrage question, he went
not only as a confirmed suffragist, but also a5 a confirmed supporter
and member of the Wilson Administration—the one who had been chosen to
go to the West in 1916 to win women voters to the Democratic Party.
Mr. Malone has consented to tell for the first time, in this record of
the militant campaign, what happened at his memorable interview with
President Wilson in July, 1917, an interview which he followed up two
months later with his resignation as Collector of the Port of New York.
I quote the story in his own words:
Frank P. Walsh, Amos Pinchot, Frederic C. Howe, J. A. H. Hopkins, Allen
McCurdy and I were present throughout the trial of the sixteen women in
July. Immediately after the police court judge had pronounced his
sentence of sixty days in the Occoquan workhouse upon these “first
offenders,” on the alleged charge of a traffic violation, I went over
to Anne Martin, one of the women’s counsel, and offered to act as
attorney on the appeal of the case. I then went to the court clerk’s
office and telephoned to President Wilson at the Whit House, asking him
to see me at once. It was three o’clock. I called a taxicab, drove
direct to the executive offices and met him.
I began by reminding the President that in the seven years and a half
of our personal and political association we had never had a serious
difference. He was good enough to say that my loyalty to him bad been
one of the happiest circumstances of his public career. But I told him
I had come to place my resignation in his hands as I could not remain a
member of any administration which dared to send American women to
prison for demanding national suffrage. I also informed him that I had
offered to act as counsel for the suffragists on the appeal of their
case. He asked me for full details of my complaint and attitude. I told
Mr. Wilson everything I had witnessed from the time we saw the
suffragists arrested in front of the White House to their sentence in
the police court. I observed that although we might not agree with the
“manners” of picketing, citizens had a right to petition the President
or any other official of the government for a redress of grievances. He
seemed to acquiesce in this view, and reminded me that the women had
been unmolested at the White House gates for over five months, adding
that he had even ordered the head usher to invite the women on cold
days to come into the White House and warm themselves and have coffee.
“If the situation is as you describe it, it is shocking,” said the
President’. “The manhandling of the women by the police was outrageous
and the entire trial (before a judge of your own appointment) was a
perversion of justice,” I said. This seemed to annoy the President and
he replied with asperity, “Why do you come to me in this indignant
fashion for things which have been done by the police officials of the
city of Washington?”
“Mr. President,” I said, “the treatment of these women is the result of
carefully laid plans made by the District Commissioners of the city of
Washington, who were appointed to office by you. Newspaper men of
unquestioned information and integrity have told me that the District
Commissioners have been in consultation with your private secretary,
Mr. Tumulty, and that the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. McAdoo, sat in
at a conference when the policy of these arrests was being determined.”
The President asserted his ignorance of all this.
“Do you mean to tell me,” he said, “that you intend to resign, to
repudiate me and my Administration and sacrifice me for your views on
this suffrage question?”
His attitude then angered me and I said, “Mr. President, if there is
any sacrifice in this unhappy circumstance, it is I who am making the
sacrifice. I was sent twice as your spokesman in the last campaign to
the Woman Suffrage States of the West. You have since been good enough
to say publicly and privately that I did as much as any man to carry
California for you. After my first tour I had a long conference with
you here at the White House on the political situation in those states.
I told you that I found your strength with women voters lay in the fact
that you had with great patience and statesmanship kept this country
out of the European war. But that your great weakness with women voters
was that you had not taken any step throughout your entire
Administration to urge the passage of the Federal Suffrage Amendment,
which Mr. Hughes was advocating and which alone can enfranchise all the
women of the nation. You asked me then how I met this situation, and I
told you that I promised the women voters of the West that if they
showed the political sagacity to choose you as against Mr. Hughes, I
would do everything in my power to get your Administration to take up
and pass the suffrage amendment. You were pleased and approved of what
I had done. I returned to California and repeated this promise, and so
far as I am concerned, I must keep my part of that obligation.”
I reiterated to the President my earlier appeal that he assist suffrage
as an urgent war measure and a necessary part of America’s program for
world democracy, to which the President replied: “The enfranchisement
of women is not at all necessary to a program of democracy and I see
nothing in the argument that it is a war measure unless you mean that
American women will not loyally support the war unless they are given
the vote.” I firmly denied this conclusion of the President and told
him that while American women with or without the vote would support
the United States Government against German militarism, yet it seemed
to me a great opportunity of his leadership to remove this grievance
which women generally felt against him and his administration. “Mr.
President,” I urged, “if you, as the leader, will persuade the
administration to pass the Federal Amendment you will release from the
suffrage fight the energies of thousands of women which will be given
with redoubled zeal to the support of your program for international
justice.” But the President absolutely refused to admit the validity of
my appeal, though it was as a “war measure” that the President some
months later demanded that the Senate pass the suffrage amendment.
The President was visibly moved as I added, “You are the President now,
reelected to office. You ask if I am going to sacrifice you. You
sacrifice nothing by my resignation. But I lose much. I quit a
political career. I give up a powerful office in my own state. I, who
have no money, sacrifice a lucrative salary, and go back to revive my
law practice. But most of all I sever a personal association with you
of the deepest affection which you know has meant much to me these past
seven years. But I cannot and will not remain in office and see women
thrown into jail because they demand their political freedom.”
The President earnestly urged me not to resign, saying, “What will the
people of the country think when they hear that the Collector of the
Port of New York has resigned because of an injustice done to a group
of suffragists by the police officials of the city of Washington?”
My reply to this was, “With all respect for you, Mr. President, my
explanation to the public will not be as difficult as yours, if I am
compelled to remind the public that you have appointed to office and
can remove all the important officials of the city of Washington.”
The President ignored this and insisted that I should not resign,
saying, “I do not question your intense conviction about this matter as
I know you have always been an ardent suffragist; and since you feel as
you do I see no reason why you should not become their counsel and take
this case up on appeal without resigning from the Administration.”
“But,” I said, “Mr. President, that arrangement would be impossible for
two reasons; first, these women would not want me as their counsel if I
were a member of your Administration, for it would appear to the public
then as if your Administration was not responsible for the indignities
to which they have been subjected, and your Administration is
responsible; and, secondly, I cannot accept your suggestion because it
may be necessary in the course of the appeal vigorously to criticize
and condemn members of your cabinet and others close to you, and I
could not adopt this policy while remaining in office under you.” The
President seemed greatly upset and finally urged me as a personal
service to him to go at once and perfect the case on appeal for the
suffragists, but not to resign until I had thought it over for a day,
and until he had had an opportunity to investigate the facts I had
presented to him. I agreed to this, and we closed the interview with
the President saying, “If you consider my personal request and do not
resign, please do not leave Washington without coming to see me.” I
left the executive offices and never saw him again.
There was just a day and a half left to perfect the exceptions for the
appeal under the rules of procedure. No stenographic record of the
trial had been taken, which put me under the greatest legal
difficulties. I was in the midst of these preparations for appeal the
next day when I learned to my surprise that the President had pardoned
the women. He had not even consulted me as their attorney. Moreover, I
was amazed that since the President had said he considered the
treatment of the women “shocking,” he had pardoned them without stating
that he did so to correct a grave injustice. I felt certain that the
high-spirited women in the workhouse would refuse to accept the pardon
as a mere “benevolent” act on the part of the President.
I at once went down to the workhouse in Virginia. My opinion was
confirmed. The group refused to accept the President’s pardon. I
advised them that as a matter of law no one could compel them to accept
the pardon, but that as a matter of fact they would have to accept it,
for the Attorney General would have them all put out of the institution
bag and baggage. So as a solution of the difficulty and in view of the
fact that the President had said to me that their treatment was
“shocking” I made public the following statement:
“The President’s pardon is an acknowledgment by him of the grave
injustice that has been done:” This he never denied.
Under this published interpretation of his pardon the women at Occoquan
accepted the pardon and returned to Washington. The incident was
closed. I returned to New York. During the next two months I carefully
watched the situation. Six or eight more groups of women in that time
were arrested on the same false charges, tried and imprisoned in the
same illegal way. Finally a group of women was arrested in September
under the identical circumstances as those in July, was tried in the
same lawless fashion and given the same sentence of “sixty days in the
workhouse.” The President may have been innocent of responsibility for
the first arrests, but he was personally and politically responsible
for all the arrests that occurred after his pardon of the first, group.
Under this development it seemed to me that self-respect demanded
action, so I sent my resignation to the President, publicly stated my
attitude and regretfully left his Administration.”
Mr. Malone’s resignation in September, 1917, came with a sudden shock,
because the entire country and surely the Administration thought him
quieted and subdued by the President’s personal appeal to him in July.
Mr. Malone was shocked that the policy of arrests should be continued.
Mr. Wilson and his Administration were shocked that any one should care
enough about the liberty of women to resign a lucrative post in the
Government. The nation was shocked into the realization that this was
not a street brawl between women and policemen, but a controversy
between suffragists and a powerful Administration. We had said so but
it would have taken months to convince the public that the President
was in any way responsible. Mr. Malone did what we could only have done
with the greatest difficulty and after more prolonged sacrifices. He
laid the responsibility squarely and dramatically where it belonged. It
is impossible to overemphasize what a tremendous acceleration Mr.
Malone’s fine, solitary and generous act gave to the speedy break-down
of the Administration’s resistance. His sacrifice lightened ours.
Women ought to be willing to make sacrifices for their own liberation,
but for a man to have the courage and imagination to make such a
sacrifice for the liberation of women is unparalleled. Mr. Malone
called to the attention of the nation the true cause of the obstruction
and suppression. He reproached the President and his colleagues after
mature consideration, in the most honorable and vital way,—by refusing
longer to associate himself with an Administration which backed such
policies.
And Mr. Malone’s resignation was not only welcomed by the militant
group. The conservative suffrage leaders, although they heartily
disapproved of , picketing, were as outspoken in their gratitude.
Alice Stone Blackwell, the daughter of Lucy Stone, herself a pioneer
suffrage leader and editor, wrote to Mr. Malone:
“May I express my appreciation and gratitude for the excellent and
manly letter that you have written to President Wilson on woman
suffrage? I am sure that I am only one of many women who feel thankful
to you for it.
“The picketing seems to me a very silly business, and I am sure it is
doing the cause harm instead of good; but the picketers are being
shamefully and illegally treated, and it is a thousand pities, for
President Wilson’s own sake, that he ever allowed the Washington
authorities to enter on this course of persecution. It was high time
for some one to make a protest, and you have made one that has been
heard far and wide . . . .”
Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, the President of the National American Woman
Suffrage Association, wrote:
“I was in Maine when your wonderful letter announcing your resignation
came out. It was the noblest act that any man ever did on behalf of our
cause. The letter itself was a high minded appeal . . . . “
Mrs. Norman de R. Whitehouse, the President of the New York State Woman
Suffrage Party, with which Mr. Malone had worked for years, wired:
“Although we disagree with you on the question of picketing every
suffragist must be grateful to you for the gallant support you are
giving our cause and the great sacrifice you are making.”
Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw, Vice Chairman of the New York Suffrage Party,
said:
“No words of mine can tell you how our hearts have been lifted and our
purposes strengthened in this tremendous struggle in New York State by
the reading of your powerful and noble utterances in your letter to
President Wilson. There flashed through my mind all the memories of
Knights of chivalry and of romance that I have ever read, and they all
paled before your championship, and the sacrifice and the high-spirited
leadership that it signifies. Where you lead, I believe, thousands of
other men will follow, even though at a distance, and most inadequately
. . . .”
And from the women voters of California with whom Mr. Malone had kept
faith came the message:
“The liberty-loving women of California greet you as one of the few men
in history who have been willing to sacrifice material interests for
the liberty of a class to which they themselves do not belong. We are
thrilled by your inspiring words. We appreciate your sympathetic
understanding of the viewpoint of disfranchised women. We are deeply
grateful for the incalculable benefit of your active assistance in the
struggle of American women for political liberty and for a real
Democracy.”
I reprint Mr. Malone’s letter of resignation which sets forth in detail
his position.
September 7, 1917.
The President,
The White House,
Washington, D. C.
Dear Mr. President:
Last autumn, as the representative of your Administration, I went into
the woman suffrage states to urge your reelection. The most difficult
argument to meet among the seven million voters was the failure of the
Democratic party, throughout four years of power, to pass the federal
suffrage amendment looking toward the enfranchisement of all the women
of the country. Throughout those states, and particularly in
California, which ultimately decided the election by the votes of
women, the women voters were urged to support you, even though Judge
Hughes had already declared for the federal suffrage amendment, because
you and your party, through liberal leadership, were more likely
nationally to enfranchise the rest of the women of the country than
were your opponents.
And if the women of the West voted to reelect you, I promised them that
I would spend all my energy, at any sacrifice to myself, to get the
present Democratic Administration to pass the federal suffrage
amendment.
But the present policy of the Administration, in permitting splendid
American women to be sent to jail in Washington, not for carrying
offensive banners, not for picketing, but on the technical charge of
obstructing traffic, is a denial even of their constitutional right to
petition for, and demand the passage of, the federal suffrage
amendment. It, therefore, now becomes my profound obligation actively
to keep my promise to the women of the West.
In more than twenty states it is a practical impossibility to amend the
state constitutions; so the women of those States can only be
enfranchised by the passage of the federal suffrage amendment. Since
England and Russia, in the midst of the great war, have assured the
national enfranchisement of their women, should we not be jealous to
maintain our democratic leadership in the world by the speedy national
enfranchisement of American women?
To me, Mr. President, as I urged upon you in Washington two months ago,
this is not only a measure of justice and democracy, it is also an
urgent war measure. The women of the nation are, and always will be,
loyal to the country, and the passage of the suffrage amendment is only
the first step toward their national emancipation. But unless the
government takes at least this first step toward their enfranchisement,
how can the government ask millions of American women, educated in our
schools and colleges, and millions of American women, in our homes, or
toiling for economic independence in every line of industry, to give up
by conscription their men and happiness to a war for democracy in
Europe, while these women citizens are denied the right to vote on the
policies of the Government which demands of them such sacrifice?
For this reason many of your most ardent friends and supporters feel
that the passage of the federal suffrage amendment is a war measure
which could appropriately be urged by you at this session of Congress.
It is true that this amendment would have to come from Congress, but
the present Congress shows no earnest desire to enact this legislation
for the simple reason that you, as the leader of the party in power,
have not yet suggested it.
For the whole country gladly acknowledges, Mr. President, that no vital
piece of legislation has come through Congress these five years except
by your extraordinary and brilliant leadership. And what millions of
men and women to-day hope is that you will give the federal suffrage
amendment to the women of the country by the valor of your leadership
now. It will hearten the mothers of the nation, eliminate a just
grievance, and turn the devoted energies of brilliant women to a more
hearty support of the Government in this crisis.
As you well know, in dozens of speeches in many states I have advocated
your policies and the war. I was the first man of your Administration,
nearly five years ago, to publicly advocate preparedness, and helped to
found the first Plattsburg training camp. And if, with our troops
mobilizing in France, you will give American women this measure for
their political freedom, they will support with greater enthusiasm your
hope and the hope of America for world freedom.
I have not approved all the methods recently adopted by women in
pursuit of their political liberty; yet, Mr. President, the Committee
on Suffrage of the United States Senate was formed in 1883, when I was
one year old; this same federal suffrage amendment was first introduced
in Congress in 1878, brave women like Susan B. Anthony were petitioning
Congress for the suffrage before the Civil War, and at the time of the
Civil War men like William Lloyd Garrison, Horace Greeley, and Wendell
Phillips assured the suffrage leaders that if they abandoned their
fight for suffrage, when the war was ended the men of the nation “out
of gratitude” would enfranchise the women of the- country.
And if the men of this country had been peacefully demanding for over
half a century the political right or privilege to vote, and had been
continuously ignored or met with evasion by successive Congresses, as
have the women, you, Mr. President, as a lover of liberty, would be the
first to comprehend and forgive their inevitable impatience and
righteous indignation. Will not this Administration, reelected to power
by the hope and faith of the women of the West, handsomely reward that
faith by taking action now for the passage of the federal suffrage
amendment?
In the Port of New York, during the last four years, billions of
dollars in the export and import trade of the country have been handled
by the men of the customs service; their treatment of the traveling
public has radically changed, their vigilance supplied the evidence of
the Lusitania note; the neutrality was rigidly maintained; the great
German fleet guarded, captured, and repaired—substantial economies and
reforms have been concluded and my ardent industry has been given to
this great office of your appointment.
But now I wish to leave these finished tasks, to return to my
profession of the law, and to give all my leisure time to fight as hard
for the political freedom of women as I have always fought for your
liberal leadership.
It seems a long seven years, Mr. President, since I first campaigned
with you when you were running for Governor of New Jersey. In every
circumstance throughout those years I have served you with the most
respectful affection and unshadowed devotion. It is no small sacrifice
now for me, as a member of your Administration, to sever our political
relationship. But I think it is high time that men in this generation,
at some cost to themselves, stood up to battle for the national
enfranchisement of American women. So in order effectively to keep my
promise made in the West and more freely to go into this larger field
of democratic effort, I hereby resign my office as Collector of the
Port of New York, to take effect at once, or at your earliest
convenience.
Yours respectfully,
(Signed) DUDLEY FIELD MALONE.
The President’s answer has never before been published:
U. S. S. MAYFLOWER, 12 September, 1917.
THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON
My dear Mr. Collector:
Your letter of September 7th reached me just before I left home and I
have, I am sorry to say, been unable to reply to it sooner.
I must frankly say that I cannot regard your reasons for resigning your
position as Collector of Customs as convincing, but it is so evidently
your wish to be relieved from the duties of the office that I do not
feel at liberty to withhold my acceptance of your resignation. Indeed,
I judge from your letter that any discussion of the reasons would not
be acceptable to you and that it is your desire to be free of the
restraints of public office. I, therefore, accept your resignation, to
take effect as you have wished.
I need not say that our long association in public affairs makes me
regret the action you have taken most sincerely.
Very truly yours,
(Signed) WOODROW WILSON.
Hon. Dudley Field Malone,
Collector of Customs,
New York City.
To this Mr. Malone replied:
New York, N.Y.,
September 15th, 1917.
The President,
The White House,
Washington, D. C.
Dear Mr. President:
Thank you sincerely for your courtesy, for I knew you were on a
well-earned holiday and I did not expect an earlier reply to my letter
of September 7th, 1917.
After a most careful re-reading of my letter, I am unable to understand
how you could judge that any discussion by you of my reasons for
resigning would not be acceptable to me since my letter was an appeal
to you on specific grounds for action now by the Administration on the
Federal Suffrage amendment.
However, I am profoundly grateful to you for your prompt acceptance of
my resignation.
Yours respectfully,
(Signed) DUDLEY FIELD MALONE.
It may have been accidental but it is interesting to note that the
first public statement of Mr. Byron Newton, appointed by the
Administration to succeed Mr. Malone as Collector of the Port of New
York, was a bitter denunciation of all woman suffrage whether by state
or national action.