The Administration Yields
Immediately after Mr. Malone’s sensational resignation the
Administration sought another way to remove the persistent pickets
without passing the amendment. It yielded on a point of machinery. It
gave us a report in the Senate and a committee in the House and
expected us to be grateful.
The press had turned again to more sympathetic accounts of our campaign
and exposed the prison regime we were undergoing. We were now for a
moment the object of sympathy; the Administration was the butt of
considerable hostility. Sensing their predicament and fearing any loss
of prestige, they risked a slight advance.
Senator Jones, Chairman of the Suffrage Committee, made a visit to the
workhouse. Scarcely had the women recovered from the surprise of his
visit when the Senator, on the following day, September 15th, filed the
favorable report which had been lying with his Committee since May
15th, exactly six months.
The Report, which he had so long delayed because he wanted [he said] to
make it a particularly brilliant and elaborate one, read:
“The Committee on Woman Suffrage, to which was referred the joint
resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United
States, conferring upon women the right of suffrage, having the same
under consideration, beg leave to report it back to the Senate with the
recommendation that the joint resolution do pass.”
This report to the Senate was immediately followed by a vote of 181 to
107 in the House of Representatives in favor of creating a Committee on
Woman Suffrage in the House. This vote was indicative of the strength
of the amendment in the House. The resolution was sponsored by
Representative Pou, Chairman of the Rules Committee and Administration
leader, himself an anti- suffragist.
It is an interesting study in psychology to consider some of the
statements made in the peculiarly heated debate the day this vote was
taken.
Scores of Congressmen, anxious to refute the idea that the indomitable
picket had had anything to do with their action, revealed naively how
surely it had.
Of the 291 men present, not one man stood squarely up for the right of
the hundreds of women who petitioned for justice. Some indirectly and
many, inadvertently, however, paid eloquent tribute to the suffrage
picket.
From the moment Representative Pou in opening the debate spoke of the
nation-wide request for the committee, and the President’s sanction of
the committee, the accusations and counter- accusations concerning the
wisdom of appointing it in the face of the pickets were many and
animated.
Mr. Meeker of Missouri, Democrat, protested against Congress “yielding
to the nagging of a certain group.”
Mr. Cantrill of Kentucky, Democrat, believed that “millions of
Christian women in the nation should not be denied the right of having
a Committee in the House to study the problem of suffrage because of
the mistakes of some few of their sisters.”
“One had as well say,” he went on, “that there should be no police in
Washington because the police force of this city permitted daily
thousands of people to obstruct the streets and impede traffic and
permitted almost the mobbing of the women without arresting the
offenders. There was a lawful and peaceful way in which the police of
this city could have taken charge of the banners of the pickets without
permitting the women carrying them to be the objects of mob violence.
To see women roughly handled by rough men on the streets of the capital
of the nation is not a pleasing sight to Kentuckians and to red-blooded
Americans, and let us hope the like will never again be seen here.”
Mr. Walsh, an anti-suffrage Democrat from Massachusetts, deplored
taking any action which would seem to yield to the demand of the
pickets who carried banners which “if used by a poor workingman in an
attempt to get his rights would speedily have put him behind the bars
for treason or sedition, and these poor, bewildered, deluded creatures,
after their disgusting exhibition can thank their stars that because
they wear skirts they are now incarcerated for misdemeanors of a minor
character . . . . To supinely yield to a certain class of women
picketing the gates of the official residence,—yes, even posing with
their short skirts and their short hair within the view of this ‘very
capitol and our office buildings,’ with banners which would seek to
lead the people to believe that because we did not take action during
this war session upon suffrage, if you please, and grant them the right
of the ballot that we were traitors to the American Republic, would be
monstrous.”
The subject of the creation of a committee on suffrage was almost
entirely forgotten. The Congressmen were utterly unable to shake off
the ghosts of the pickets. The pickets had not influenced their
actions! The very idea was appalling to Representative Stafford of
Wisconsin, anti-suffrage Republican, who joined in the Democratic
protests. He said:
“If a Suffrage Committee is created the militant class will exclaim,
‘Ah, see how we have driven the great House of Representatives to
recognize our rights. If we keep up this sort of practices, we will
compel the House, when they come to vote on the constitutional
amendment, to surrender obediently likewise’.”
He spoke the truth, and finished dramatically with:
“Gentlemen, there is only one question before the House today and that
is, if you look at it from a political aspect, whether you wish to
approve of the practices of these women who have been disgracing their
cause here in Washington for the past several months.”
Representative Volstead, of Minnesota, Republican, came the closest of
all to real courage in his protest:—
“In this discussion some very unfair comments have been made upon the
women who picketed the White House. While I do not approve of
picketing, I disapprove more strongly of the hoodlum methods pursued in
suppressing the practice. I gather from the press that this is what
took place. Some women did in a peaceable, and perfectly lawful manner,
display suffrage banners on the public street near the White House. To
stop this the police allowed the women to be mobbed, and then because
the mob obstructed the street, the women were arrested and fined, while
the mob went scot-free . . . .”
The Suffrage Committee in the House was appointed. The creation of this
committee, which had been pending since 1913, was now finally granted
in September, 1917. To be sure this was accomplished only after an
inordinate amount of time, money and effort had been spent on a
sustained and relentless campaign of pressure. But the Administration
had yielded.
As a means to remove the pickets, however, this yielding had failed.
“We ask no more machinery; we demand the passage of the amendment,”
said the pickets as they lengthened their line.