More Pressure
Our immediate task was to compel the President to secure a reversal of
two votes in the Senate. It became necessary to enter again the
Congressional elections which were a month away.
By a stroke of good luck there were two senatorial contests—in New
Jersey and New Hampshire—for vacancies in the short term. That is, we
had an opportunity to elect two friends who would take their seats in
time to vote on the amendment before the end of this session. It so
happened that the Democratic candidates were pledged to vote for the
amendment if elected, and that the Republican candidates were opposed
to the amendment. We launched our campaign in this instance for the
election of the Democratic candidates. We went immediately to the
President to ask his assistance in our endeavor. We urged him
personally to appeal to the voters of New Jersey and New Hampshire on
behalf of his two candidates. As Party leader he was at the moment
paying no attention whatever to the success of these two suffragists.
Both of the Democratic candidates themselves appealed to President
Wilson for help in their contests, on the basis of their suffrage
advocacy. His speech to the Senate scarcely cold, the President refused
to lend any assistance in these contests, which with sufficient effort
might have produced the last two votes.
At the end of two weeks of such pressure upon the President we were
unable to interest him in this practical endeavor. It was clear that he
would move again only under attack. We went again, therefore, to the
women voters of the west and asked them to withhold their support from
the Democratic Senatorial candidates in the suffrage states in order to
compel the President to assist in the two Eastern contests. This
campaign made it clear to the President that we were still holding him
and his party to their responsibility.
And as has been pointed out, our policy was to oppose the Democratic
candidates at elections so long as their party was responsible for the
passage of the amendment and did not pass it. Since there is no
question between individuals in suffrage states—they are all
suffragists—this could not increase our numerical strength. It could,
however, and did demonstrate the growing and comprehensive power of the
women voters.
Shortly before election, when our campaign was in full swing in the
West, the President sent a letter appealing to the voters of New Jersey
to support Mr. Hennessey, the Democratic candidate for the Senate. He
subsequently appealed to the voters of New Hampshire to elect Mr.
Jameson, candidate for Democratic Senator in New Hampshire.
We continued our campaign in the West as a safeguard against relaxation
by the President after his appeal. There were seven senatorial contests
in the western suffrage states. In all but two of these
contests—Montana and Nevada—the Democratic Senatorial candidates were
defeated. In these two states the Democratic majority was greatly
reduced.
Republicans won in New Jersey and New Hampshire and a Republican
Congress was elected to power throughout the country.
The election campaign had had a wholesome effect, however, on both
parties and was undoubtedly one of the factors in persuading the
President to again appeal to the Senate.
Immediately after the defeat in the Senate, and throughout the election
campaign, we attempted to hold banners at the Capitol to assist our
campaign and in order to weaken the resistance of the senators of the
opposition. The mottoes on the banners attacked with impartial
mercilessness both Democrats and Republicans. One read:
SENATOR WADSWORTH’s REGIMENT IS FIGHTING FOR DEMOCRACY ABROAD.
SENATOR WADSWORTH LEFT HIS REGIMENT AND IS FIGHTING AGAINST DEMOCRACY
IN THE SENATE.
SENATOR WADSWORTH COULD SERVE HIS COUNTRY BETTER BY FIGHTING WITH HIS
REGIMENT ABROAD THAN BY FIGHTING WOMEN AT HOME.
Another read:
SENATOR SHIELDS TOLD THE PEOPLE OF TENNESSEE HE WOULD SUPPORT THE
PRESIDENT’S POLICIES.
THE ONLY TIME THE PRESIDENT WENT TO THE SENATE TO ASK ITS SUPPORT
SENATOR SHIELDS VOTED AGAINST HIM.
DOES TENNESSEE BACK THE PRESIDENT’S WAR PROGRAM OE SENATOR SHIELDS?
And still a third:
GERMANY HAS ESTABLISHED “EQUAL, UNIVERSAL, SECRET, DIRECT FRANCHISE.”
THE SENATE HAS DENIED EQUAL, UNIVERSAL, SECRET SUFFRAGE TO AMERICA.
WHICH IS MORE OF A DEMOCRACY, GERMANY OR AMERICA?
As the women approached the Senate, Colonel Higgins, the Sergeant at
Arms of the Senate, ordered a squad of Capitol policemen to rush upon
them. They wrenched their banners from them, twisting their wrists and
manhandling them as they took them up the steps, through the door, and
down into the guardroom,—their banners confiscated and they themselves
detained for varying periods of time. When the women insisted on
knowing upon what charges they were held, they were merely told that
“peace and order must be maintained on the Capitol grounds,” and
further, “It don’t make no difference about the law, Colonel Higgins is
boss here, and he has taken the law in his own hands.”
Day after day this performance went on. Small detachments of women
attempted to hold banners outside the United States Senate, as the
women of Holland had done outside the Parliament in the Hague. It was
difficult to believe that American politicians could be so devoid of
humor as they showed themselves. The panic that overwhelms our official
mind in the face of the slightest irregularity is appalling! Instead of
maintaining peace and order, the squads of police managed to keep the
Capitol grounds in a state of confusion. They were assisted from time
to time by Senate pages, small errand boys who would run out and attack
mature women with impunity. The women would be held under the most
rigid detention each day until the Senate had safely adjourned. Then on
the morrow the whole spectacle would be repeated.
While the United States Senate was standing still under our protest
world events rushed on. German autocracy had collapsed. The Allies had
won a military victory. The Kaiser had that very week fled for his life
because of the uprising of his people.
“We are all free voters of a free republic now,” was the message sent
by the women of Germany to the women of the United States through Miss
Jane Addams. We were at that moment heartily ashamed of our government.
German women voting! American women going to jail and spending long
hours in the Senate guardhouse without arrests or, charges. The war
came to an end. Congress adjourned November 21st.
When the 65th Congress reconvened for its short and final session,
December 2nd, 1918 [less than a month after our election campaign],
President Wilson, for the first time, included suffrage in his regular
message to Congress, the thing that we had asked of him at the opening
of every session of Congress since March, 1918.
There were now fewer than a hundred days in which to get action from
the Senate and so avoid losing the benefit of our victory in the House.
In his opening address to Congress, the President again appealed to the
Senate in these words:
“And what shall we say of the women—of their instant intelligence,
quickening every task that they touched; their capacity for
organization and coöperation, which gave their action discipline and
enhanced the effectiveness of everything they attempted; their aptitude
at tasks to which they had never before set their hands; their utter
self-sacrifice alike in what they did and in what they gave? Their
contribution to the great result is beyond appraisal. They have added a
new luster to the annals of American womanhood.
“The least tribute we can pay them is to make them the equals of men in
political rights, as they have proved themselves their equals in every
field of practical work they have entered, whether for themselves or
for their country. These great days of completed achievement would be
sadly marred were we to omit that act of justice. Besides the immense
practical services they have rendered, the women of the country have
been the moving spirits in the systematic economies in which our people
have voluntarily assisted to supply the suffering peoples of the world
and the armies upon every front with food and everything else we had,
that might serve the common cause. The details of such a story can
never be fully written but we carry them at our hearts and thank God
that we can say that we are the kinsmen of such.”
Again we looked for action to follow this appeal. Again we found that
the President had uttered these words but had made no plan to translate
them into action.
And so his second appeal to the Senate failed, coming as it did after
the hostility of his party to the idea of conferring freedom on women
nationally, had been approved and fostered by President Wilson for five
solid years. He could not overcome with additional eloquence the
opposition which he himself had so long formulated, defended,
encouraged and solidified, especially when that eloquence was followed
by either no action or only half- hearted efforts.
It would now require a determined assertion of his political power as
the leader of his party. We made a final appeal to him as leader of his
party and while still at the height of his world power, to make such an
assertion and to demand the necessary two votes.