President Wilson Wins the 64th Vote in Paris
The “Prison Special,” which was nearing the end of its dramatic tour,
was arousing the people to call for a special session of Congress, as
the President sailed away.
Although a Republican Congress had been elected, President Wilson, as
the head of the Administration, was still responsible for initiating
and guiding legislation. We had to see to it that, with his Congress
out of ,power, he did not relax his efforts on behalf of the amendment.
There was this situation which we were able to use to our advantage.
Two new Democratic Senators, Senator Harrison of Mississippi and
Senator Harris of Georgia, had been elected to sit in the incoming
Congress through the President’s influence. He, therefore, had very
specific power over these two men, who were neither committed against
suffrage by previous votes nor were they yet won to the amendment.
We immediately set ourselves to the task of getting the President to
win one of these men. From the election of these two men in the autumn
to early spring, constant pressure was put upon the President to this
end. When we could see no activity on the part of the President to
secure the support of one of them, we again threatened publicly to
resume dramatic protests against him. We kept the idea abroad that he
was still responsible, and that we would continue to hold him so, until
the amendment was passed.
Such a situation gave friends of the Administration considerable alarm.
They realized that the slightest attack on the President at that moment
would jeopardize his many other endeavors. And so these friends of the
President undertook to acquaint him with the facts.
Senator Harris was happily in Europe at the time. A most anxious cable,
signed by politicians in his own party, was sent to the President in
Paris explaining the serious situation and urging him to do his utmost
to secure the vote of the Senator at once.
Senator Harris was in Italy when he received an unexpected telegram
asking him to come to Paris. He journeyed with all speed to the
President, perhaps even thinking that he was about to be dispatched to
some foreign post, to learn that the conference was for the purpose of
securing his vote on the national suffrage amendment.
Senator Harris there and then gave his vote, the 64th vote.
On that day the passage by Congress of the original Susan B. Anthony
amendment was assured.
Instantly a cable was received at the White House carrying news to the
suffragists of the final capture of the elusive last vote. Following
immediately on the heels of this cable came another cable calling the
new Congress into special session May 19th.
In the light of the President’s gradual yielding and final surrender to
our demand, it will not be out of place to summarize briefly just what
happened.
President Wilson began his career as President of the United States an
anti-suffragist. He was opposed to suffrage for women both by principle
and political expediency. Sometimes I think he regarded suffragists as
a kind of sect-good women, no doubt, but tiresome and troublesome.
Whether he has yet come to see the suffrage battle as part of a great
movement embracing the world is still a question. It is not an
important question, for in any case it was not inward conviction but
political necessity that made him act.
Believing then that suffragists were a sect, he said many things to
them at first with no particular care as to the bearing of these things
upon political theory or events. He offered, successively,
“consideration,” an “open mind,” a “closed mind,” and “age-long
conviction deeply matured,” party limitations, party concert of action,
and what not. He saw in suffrage the “tide rising to meet the moon,”
but waited and advised us to wait with him. But we did not want to
wait, and we proceeded to try to make it impossible for him to wait,
either. We determined to make action upon this issue politically
expedient for him.
When the President began to perceive the potential political power of
women voters, he first declared, as a “private citizen,” that suffrage
was all right for the women of his home state, New Jersey, but that it
was altogether wrong to ask him as President to assist in bringing it
about for all the women of the nation. He also interested himself in
writing the suffrage plank in the Democratic Party’s national platform,
specifically relegating action on suffrage to the states. Then he
calmly announced that he could not act nationally, “even if I wanted
to,” because the platform had spoken otherwise.
The controversy was lengthened. The President’s conspicuous ability for
sitting still and doing nothing on a controversial issue until both
sides have exhausted their ammunition was never better illustrated than
in this matter. He allowed the controversy to continue to the point of
intellectual sterility. He buttressed his delays with more evasions,
until finally the women intensified their demand for action. They
picketed his official gates. But the President still recoiled from
action. So mightily did he recoil from it that he was willing to
imprison women for demanding it.
It is not extraordinary to resent being called upon to act, for it is
only the exceptional person who springs to action, even when action is
admitted to be desirable and necessary. And the President is not
exceptional. He is surprisingly ordinary.
While the women languished in prison, he fell back upon words—beautiful
words, too—expressions of friendliness, good wishes, hopes, and
may-I-nots. In this, too, he was acting like an ordinary human being,
not like the statesman he was reputed to be. He had habituated himself
to a belief in the power of words, and every time he uttered them to us
he seemed to refortify himself in his belief in their power.
It was the women, not the President, who were exceptional. They refused
to accept words. They persisted in demanding acts. Step by step under
terrific gunfire the President’s resistance crumbled, and he yielded,
one by one, every minor facility to the measure, always withholding
from us, however, the main objective. Not until he had exhausted all
minor facilities, and all possible evasions, did he publicly declare
that the amendment should pass the House, and put it through. When he
had done that we rested from the attack momentarily, in order to let
him consummate with grace, and not under fire, the passage of the
amendment in the Senate. He rested altogether. We were therefore
compelled to renew the attack. He countered at first with more words.
But his reliance upon them was perceptibly shaken when we burned them
in public bonfires. He then moved feebly but with a growing concern
toward getting additional votes in the Senate. And when, as an
inevitable result of his policy—and ours—the political embarrassment
became too acute, calling into question his honor and prestige, he
covertly began to consult his colleagues. We pushed him the harder. He
moved the faster toward concrete endeavor. He actually undertook to win
the final votes in the Senate.
There he found, however, that quite an alarming situation had
developed—a situation which he Should have anticipated, but for which
he was totally unprepared. Opposition in his own party had been growing
more and more rigid and cynical. His own opposition to the amendment,
his grant of immunity to those leaders in his party who had fought the
measure, his isolating himself from those who might have helped—all
this was coming to fruition among his subordinates at a time when he
could least afford to be beaten on anything. What would have been a
fairly easy race to win, if he had begun running at the pistol shot,
had now become most difficult.
Perceiving that he had now not only to move himself, but also to
overcome the obstacle which he had allowed to develop, we increased the
energy of our attack. And finally the President made a supreme
assertion of his power, and secured the last and 64th vote in the
Senate. He did this too late to get the advantage—if any advantage is
to be gained from granting a just thing at the point of a gun—for this
last vote arrived only in time for a Republican Congress to use it.
It seems to me that Woodrow Wilson was neither devil nor God in his
manner of meeting the demand of the suffragists. There has persisted an
astounding myth that he is an extraordinary man. Our experience proved
the contrary. He behaved toward us like a very ordinary politician.
Unnecessarily cruel or weakly tolerant, according as you view the
justice of our fight, but a politician, not a statesman. He did not go
out to meet the tide which he himself perceived was “rising to meet the
moon” That would have been statesmanship. He let it all but engulf him
before he acted. And even as a politician he failed, for his tactics
resulted in the passage of the amendment by a Republican Congress.