enforce the provisions of this article.
On that same day—April 7, 1913—resolutions were introduced in the House
to create a Woman Suffrage Committee similar to that in the Senate. This
was only a tiny gain; for that Committee was not actually created until
September, 1917. But a little later occurred what was a decided gain—the
Senate created a Majority Committee on Woman Suffrage. The Woman
Suffrage Committee in the Senate had been a Minority Committee
thitherto. That meant that, as its Chairman belonged to the Minority
Party, its existence was purely nominal.
* * * * *
All these four months, the five women who constituted the Congressional
Committee had been working at a tremendous speed. They had been made
into a Committee on the understanding that the Committee would itself
raise the money necessary for its work. Four months’ experience had
convinced them that the work of securing a Federal Amendment required a
much greater effort than five women, working alone, could possibly give
to it. The various State associations composing the National American
Woman Suffrage Association were engrossed in their State campaigns.
Little could be expected from them in the way of personal service or
financial aid. When the Congressional Committee appealed to individuals,
they found that these individuals were giving their time and service to
the particular State in which they lived. The Congressional Committee
realized that they must have an organization back of them to assist with
work and money, whose sole object was national work. The Congressional
Union for Woman Suffrage was therefore formed by the Congressional
Committee, with the approval of the President of the National American
Woman Suffrage Association.
The Congressional Union described itself as “a group of women in all
parts of the country who have joined together in the effort to secure
the passage of an Amendment to the United States Constitution
enfranchising women.” It offered its members the privilege of making the
offices at Washington their headquarters while in the city. It adopted
colors—at the happy suggestion of Mrs. John Jay White—of purple, white,
and gold. The Union grew rapidly, and was later admitted as an auxiliary
to the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The Congressional
Committee acted as the Executive Committee of this Congressional Union.
Throughout the year the Union was of great assistance to the Committee.
It reinforced its work in every possible way.
* * * * *
The Suffrage resolution was now before the Committees in both Houses.
The Congressional Union concentrated on securing a hearing before the
Senate Committee. Every effort was made to focus the attention of
Suffragists and of the country at large on the situation. A hearing was
arranged before the Committee, at which Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, President
of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, presided. In
addition to this public hearing, the members of the Senate Committee
were interviewed. And pursuing its course of keeping Suffragists in
touch with what was happening at Washington, the Congressional Committee
circularized Suffragists all over the country with letters which
informed them that the resolution was before the Senate Committee, and
asked them to write to this Committee urging a favorable report.
After six months of work occurred the first political triumph of the
Congressional Union. On May 13, the Senate Committee voted to make a
favorable report upon the Suffrage resolution. There, however, matters
rested—with a favorable vote, but still in the Committee. The
Suffragists, however, besieged the Committee with requests to make the
report and finally, on June 13, the report was made to the Senate—the
first favorable one in twenty-one years. This put the measure on the
Senate Calendar.
Immediately the Congressional Union turned its attention to proving to
the Senate how widespread was the support of this measure in the United
States.
A petition was circulated in every State in the Union. It asked for the
passage of the Amendment, and was addressed to the Senate. Thousands of
signatures were obtained. During June and July, these petitions were
collected and brought to Washington. Their arrival at the Capitol on
July 31 was the occasion of the third great demonstration. The
petitioners came from every State, and they came in every possible way.
They came by train, by motor, by caravan. They held meetings and
collected signatures to the great petition in the districts through
which they passed. All the delegations converged in the little town of
Hyattsville, outside Washington. There—at the village grandstand, they
were met by members of the Congressional Union and of the Woman Suffrage
Committee of the Senate. The reading clerk of the House of
Representatives announced the members of the delegations as they arrived
in their several motors. Members of the Senate Committee addressed them
on behalf of the Congressional Committee of the Congressional Union. The
Mayor of Hyattsville delivered to them the key of the town. Mary Ware
Dennett replied for the delegates, and accepted the key of the town from
the Mayor. The automobiles then formed into a procession, of which the
first motor carried the members of the Senate Committee. The long line
of cars, fluttering flags, and pennants, and each bearing the banner of
its State delegation, proceeded from Hyattsville along the old Bunker
Hill Road to the Capitol. There, the petitions were handed to the
various Senators. Three Senators spoke against Suffrage, but twenty-two
in presenting the petitions spoke in favor of it.
This was the second triumph of the Congressional Union. Suffrage was
debated in Congress—the first time since 1887.
* * * * *
The Congressional Committee now turned its attention to the work of
convincing Congress of the interest in the Amendment of the women voters
of the West. A Convention of the National Council of Women Voters was
held in Washington on August 13, 14, and 15. Emma Smith Devoe, National
President of the Council, and Jane Addams, National Vice-President,
presided. Upon a motion by Jane Addams, the Council passed the following
Resolution, strongly indorsing the Amendment:
Whereas at the present time one-fifth of the Senate, one-seventh of
the House, and one-sixth of the electoral vote comes from equal
Suffrage States; and
Whereas, as a result of this political strength in Congress, due to
the fact that four million women of the United States are now
enfranchised, there is great hope of the passage in the near future
of the Federal Suffrage Amendment; therefore be it
Resolved, That the National Council of Women Voters concentrate its
efforts upon the support of this Federal Amendment.
The Rules Committee of the House of Representatives on August 14 then
gave the Council a hearing on the question of creating a Suffrage
Committee in the House.
The Convention ended in a mass-meeting at the Belasco Theatre, which, in
spite of the midsummer heat of Washington, was crowded to the doors. The
platform was filled with Congressmen from Suffrage States. The women
speakers iterated and reiterated the demand of the women voters of the
West for immediate action by Congress, and the Congressmen supported
them.
In addition to these—processions, pilgrimages, petitions, deputations,
and hearings, hundreds of public meetings organized by the Washington
Headquarters—were held everywhere. A constant series of deputations from
their own constituencies besieged the members of the Senate. All this
was making its inevitable impression on Congress. Those days of the
Sixty-third Congressional Session were crowded ones. The President had
told the Suffragists that so much time must be given to the tariff and
the currency that there would be none left for Women Suffrage. Yet more
time was devoted to the Woman Suffrage question than ever before. On
September 18, Senator Wesley L. Jones of Washington delivered a speech
in the Senate, in which he urged that the Suffrage Resolution should be
passed. In the House, a number of Representatives formerly opposed to
the resolution now declared that they would support it when it came
before them.
* * * * *
In the meantime, the tariff and currency had finally been disposed of. A
new Congress was to convene on December 1. Ever since his inauguration,
Suffrage agitation of a strong, dignified, and convincing character had
been brought to the President’s attention. Suffragists hoped, therefore,
that the President would feel that he could recommend the Suffrage
Amendment to this new Congress. They decided, however, to present the
matter to him in a forcible way. A fourth deputation of seventy-three
women from his own State of New Jersey came to Washington in the middle
of November.
This delegation arrived on Saturday afternoon, November 15. Until Monday
morning, they tried in every possible way to arrange for an appointment
with the President at the White House. Representative McCoy of New
Jersey endeavored to assist them in this matter. Their efforts and his
efforts were fruitless.
Monday morning, at 10 o’clock, Alice Paul telephoned the Executive
Office that, as it was impossible to find out what hour would suit the
convenience of the President, the delegation was on its way to the White
House. She explained that they would wait there until the President was
ready to receive them, or would definitely refuse to do so. The clerk at
the Executive Office declared over the telephone that it would be
impossible to see the President without an appointment. He assured Alice
Paul that such a thing had never been done. Representative McCoy called
up Headquarters, and reported his failure to secure an appointment. On
being told that the delegation was going to call on the President
anyway, he protested vehemently against its proceeding to the White
House without the usual official preliminaries. Alice Paul’s answer was
a single statement,—“The delegation has already started.”
In double file the seventy-three New Jersey women marched through
Fifteenth Street, through Pennsylvania Avenue, past the Treasury
Department, and up to the White House grounds. And, lo, as though their
coming spread paralyzing magic, everything gave way before them. Two
guards in uniform stood at the gate. They saluted and moved aside. The
seventy-three women marched unchallenged through the grounds to the door
of the Executive Office. An attendant there requested them courteously
to wait until after their two leaders should be presented to the
President by his Secretary.
The request that these seventy-three New Jersey women made to President
Wilson was that he should support the Constitutional Amendment
enfranchising women. President Wilson replied: “I am pleased, indeed, to
greet you and your adherents here, and I will say to you that I was
talking only yesterday with several Members of Congress in regard to the
Suffrage Committee in the House. The subject is one in which I am deeply
interested, and you may rest assured that I will give it my earnest
attention.”
It is to be seen that the President’s education had progressed—a little.
To previous delegations, he had stated merely that the tariff and
currency would take so much of the attention of Congress that there
would be no time for the Suffrage question. In advocating a Suffrage
Committee in the House, he had made an advance—tiny, to be sure, but an
advance.
* * * * *
In the last month of 1913 occurred in Washington the Forty-fifth Annual
Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The
Convention opened with a mass-meeting at the Columbia Theatre. Dr. Anna
Howard Shaw presided. Jane Addams and Senator Helen Ring Robinson were
the principal speakers. At the opening meeting of the Convention, Lucy
Burns repeated the warning of the Congressional Union to the Democratic
Party:
The National American Women Suffrage Association is assembled in
Washington to ask the Democratic Party to enfranchise the women of
America.
Rarely in the history of the country has a party been more powerful
than the Democratic Party is today. It controls the Executive
Office, the Senate, and more than two-thirds of the members of the
House of Representatives. It is in a position to give us effective
and immediate help.
We ask the Democrats to take action now. Those who hold power are
responsible to the country for the use of it. They are responsible,
not only for what they do, but for what they do not do. Inaction
establishes just as clear a record as does a policy of open
hostility.
We have in our hands today not only the weapon of a just case; we
have the support of ten enfranchised States—States comprising
one-fifth of the United States, one-seventh of the House of
Representatives and one-sixth of the electoral vote. More than three
million, six hundred thousand women have a vote in Presidential
elections. It is unthinkable that a national government which
represents women, and which appeals periodically to the Suffrages of
women, should ignore the issue of their right to political freedom.
We cannot wait until after the passage of the scheduled
administration reforms. These reforms, which affect women, should
not be enacted without the consent of women. Congress is free to
take action on our question in the present Session. We ask the
administration to support the Woman Suffrage Amendment in Congress
with its full strength.
On December 4, a second meeting was held before the Rules Committee of
the House on the creation of a Woman Suffrage Committee in the House of
Representatives. Ida Husted Harper reminded the Rules Committee at this
hearing that nine States and one Territory had enfranchised their women,
and that nearly four million women could vote at a Presidential
election. Mary Beard showed by an analysis of the vote which sent
President Wilson to the White House that the Democratic strength was
already threatened, and how it could strengthen itself by espousing the
Suffrage Cause.
Notwithstanding the appeal of the seventy-three New Jersey women, the
President’s message to Congress on December 2 failed to make any mention
whatever of the Suffrage Amendment.
In consequence, a Committee representing each State in the Union was
appointed by the Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage
Association to wait upon the President and protest. President Wilson was
prevented by illness from seeing any visitors during the week the
Convention met. The Convention, therefore, authorized the appointment of
a Committee of fifty-five delegates, who should remain in Washington
until the President was able to see them. The interview took place the
following Monday at 12:30. This was the fifth deputation to President
Wilson. The President said, according to the _Washington Post_ of
December 9:
I want you ladies, if possible—if I can make it clear to you—to
realize just what my present position is. Whenever I walk abroad, I
realize that I am not a free man; I am under arrest. I am so
carefully and admirably guarded that I have not even the privilege
of walking the street. That is, as it were, typical of my present
transference from being an individual with his mind on any and every
subject, to being an official of a great Government and,
incidentally, or so it falls out under our system of Government, the
spokesman of a Party. I set myself this strict rule when I was
Governor of New Jersey and have followed it as President, and shall
follow it as President, that I am not at liberty to urge upon
Congress policies which have not had the organic consideration of
those for whom I am spokesman.
In other words, I have not yet presented to any legislature my
private views on any subject, and I never shall; because I conceive
that to be a part of the whole process of government, that I shall
be spokesman for somebody, not for myself.
When I speak for myself, I am an individual; when I speak for an
organic body, I am a representative. For that reason you see, I am
by my own principles shut out, in the language of the street, from
starting anything. I have to confine myself to those things which
have been embodied as promises to the people at an election. That is
the strict rule I set for myself.
I want to say that with regard to all other matters I am not only
glad to be consulted by my colleagues in the two Houses, but I hope
that they will often pay me the compliment of consulting me when
they want to know my opinions on any subject. One member of the
Rules Committee did come to ask me what I thought about this
suggestion of yours of appointing a special committee for
consideration of the question of Woman Suffrage, and I told him that
I thought it was a proper thing to do. So that as far as my personal
advice has been asked by a single member of the Committee, it has
been given to that effect. I wanted to tell you that to show you
that I am strictly living up to my principles. When my private
opinion is asked by those who are co-operating with me, I am most
glad to give it; but I am not at liberty until I speak for somebody
besides myself to urge legislation upon the Congress.
Dr. Shaw stepped forward to address the President within the circle of
deeply attentive hearers, spoke very quietly and firmly in her clear and
beautiful voice.
“Of the two—the President and Dr. Shaw,” said one of the spectators
afterward, “Dr. Shaw spoke with greater authority, as if with the
consciousness of a perfectly just cause. The President was less assured,
more hesitating.”...
“As women are members of no political Party, to whom are they to look
for a spokesman?” Dr. Shaw asked.
“You speak very well for yourself,” said the President, laughing.
“But not with authority,” said Dr. Shaw earnestly.
The deputation then left the President’s Office.
Editorially in the _Suffragist_ of December 13 appears:
The rule that President Wilson has so strictly set for himself, is a
rule not laid down in the Constitution nor in the practice of
preceding Presidents, nor in the President’s own acts, nor in his
own words.
Nevertheless, the statement of President Wilson to the President of
the National American Woman Suffrage Association is of great value
to the Suffrage movement. The President therein declares that he is
only the spokesman of his Party and that he will initiate only
legislation which has been endorsed by his Party. He puts the whole
question of Federal legislation for Woman Suffrage directly up to
the Democratic Party in Congress, and instructs Suffragists
throughout the country to hold that Party responsible for the fate
of the Constitutional Amendment enfranchising women. He has outlined
for us, therefore, the policy of bringing effective pressure to bear
on the national Democratic Party from all parts of the country, in
an effort to make them realize soon what they must recognize
finally, that it is more expedient for them as a Party to advocate
Suffrage than to ignore and resist it.
Nevertheless, the President’s education had progressed another step. For
the first time, he felt the necessity of explaining—and by
implication—of excusing himself.
This visit to the President completed the principal work of the year
1913 on the part of the Congressional Committee and the Congressional
Union.
Many things had been done in this year, in addition to what has already
been indicated. A district of Columbia Branch of the Men’s League for
Woman Suffrage was organized; this was composed largely of Congressmen.
Lectures, receptions, tableaux, benefits, teas had been given, and a
Suffrage School opened in Washington. Seven large mass-meetings,
exclusive of Convention meetings, were held at Washington. An
uninterrupted series of indoor and outdoor meetings, numbering
frequently from five to ten a day, constantly reminded Congress of the
Suffrage question. A summer campaign, carried on by Mabel Vernon and
Edith Marsden, covered the resort regions of New Jersey, Long Island,
and Rhode Island, and extended into the South.
Twenty-seven thousand dollars had been raised at the Washington
Headquarters, and spent. And there were results. The chief one was that
it focussed the attention—not only of Suffragists themselves—but of
politicians and the country at large on the Federal Amendment.
June, 1913, brought Presidential Suffrage to the women of Illinois. Only
Presidential Suffrage; but that was very important. Astute women
everywhere were watching the situation; drawing their own and
independent conclusions.
Toward the end of the year, the Congressional Union established an
official weekly organ, the _Suffragist_, edited by the well-known
publicist, Rheta Childe Dorr. The first issue appeared on November 15,
and it has been published ever since.
Lucy Burns, whose editorials were marvels of ironic logic, of forceful
condensed expression, succeeded Mrs. Dorr. Then came Vivian Pierce, a
trained newspaper woman; Sue White, well-known to Suffragists for her
splendid work in Tennessee; Florence Boeckel, able, efficient, untiring.
Pauline Clarke, Clara Wold, Elizabeth Kalb contributed supplementing
editorial work.
The _Suffragist_ has reported the activities first of the Congressional
Union, and next of the Woman’s Party. It is an extremely entertaining
periodical, always interesting, often brilliant, essentially readable.
It contains editorials, reports, sketches, verse, cartoons. Many famous
people have contributed articles. The reports of the workers in the
Woman’s Party make much the most interesting reading however. Many
famous artists have given it drawings. The most pertinent, though, are
those contributed by a member of the Congressional Union—Nina Allender.
Mrs. Allender’s fertile and original pencil has traced during the entire
eight years of its history a running commentary on the progress of the
Woman’s Party. She has a keen political sense. She has translated this
aspect of the feminist movement in terms that women alone can best
appreciate. Her work is full of the intimate everyday details of the
woman’s life from her little girlhood to her old age. And she translates
that existence with a woman’s vivacity and a woman’s sense of humor; a
humor which plays keenly and gracefully about masculine insensibility; a
humor as realistic, but as archly un-bitter as that of Jane Austen. It
would be impossible for any man to have done Mrs. Allender’s work. A
woman speaking to women, about women, in the language of women.
There is no better place than here to emphasize the work of the Press
Department. It will be apparent to the reader, as the story of the
Woman’s Party unrolls itself, that the work of this department was very
difficult and very delicate. The problem was twofold—to keep the action
of the party always in the public eye and to bring out the underlying
policy. This was not easy when the demonstrations of the Woman’s Party
were of the kind whose initial effect was to antagonize. Nevertheless,
the Press Department minimized that antagonism and minimized by a
propaganda which was as restrained in expression as it was vivid in
description. Newspaper men generally felt that they could depend on the
Woman’s Party for news. Florence Brewer Boeckel, who has been press
chairman since 1915, is responsible for this magnificent press campaign.
But she has not lacked help. Eleanor Taylor Marsh, Alice Gram, Beulah
Amidon, and Margaret Grahan Jones, have given her steady assistance.
* * * * *
Early in the year 1914, the Congressional Union resigned from the
National American Woman Suffrage Association. The constitution of the
National Association permitted a Suffrage body to join it in one of two
ways. By one, a new clause imposed a five per cent tax in dues upon its
budget. By another, it paid annually one hundred dollars dues. The
Congressional Union felt that a five per cent tax upon its budget would
seriously cripple its work. The Union offered to become an associated
body. The National Association refused this offer, and the Congressional
Union, therefore, became an independent organization.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VI
PRESSURE ON CONGRESS
THE _Suffragist_ of January 24, 1914, carried the following editorial.
In it is repeated the policy which the Congressional Union had in the
beginning adopted—that of holding the party in power responsible.
The policy of the Congressional Union is to ask for a Woman Suffrage
Amendment from the Party in power in Congress, and to hold them
responsible for their answer to its request.
This policy is entirely non-partisan, in that it handles all Parties
with perfect impartiality. If the Republicans were in power, we
would regard them in their capacity as head of the Government as
responsible for the enfranchisement of women. If the Progressives or
Socialists should become the majority Party, and control the
machinery of Congress, we would claim from them the right to govern
ourselves, and would hold them responsible for a refusal of this
just demand.
Today the Democrats are in power. They control the executive office,
the Senate, and the House. They can, if they will, enfranchise women
in the present session; their refusal to do so establishes a record
which must necessarily be taken into consideration by women when the
Party seeks the re-indorsement of the people at the polls.
This policy simply recognizes the effect of our American system of
Government. Ours is a government by Parties. The majority by secret
caucus, by the control of committees, by the power of patronage, by
their appeal to Party responsibility, by the interest of Party
solidarity, control the legislation of the House. The present
government recognizes this method of administration with especial,
and indeed admirable, frankness. It owes much of its popularity
today to its willingness to assume full responsibility for all the
legislation enacted in Congress; for whatever is done, and what is
not done. The two great measures of the last session, tariff and
currency, passed rapidly and successfully through both Houses by the
frank use of Party discipline.
Let us by all means deal directly with the people who can give us
what we want. The Democrats have it in their power to enfranchise
women.... This is not only our most logical method of work, but it
is also the most economical and expeditious. Assuming that the
Democrats yield nothing in the present session, we can, when
Congress closes, concentrate our forces on those points where the
Party is weakest, and thus become a force worth bargaining with. At
the present moment, the Senate is the weakest point in the
Democratic armor. To defeat even a few Democratic Senators in
November, 1914, would make a serious breach in the Party
organization.... If, on the other hand, we set out to attack every
anti-Suffragist in Congress, we should have hundreds to defeat, and
every man would be safe in whose constituency we did not organize.
Imagine that, if at the end of arduous labor, we had contrived to
defeat a number of Democratic anti-Suffragists, and an equal number
of Republican anti-Suffragists, we should by immense sacrifice have
completely nullified our own efforts, and left the strength of the
Parties just where it was before....
What should we do in our enfranchised States, if we confined
ourselves to the plan of supporting individual Suffragists and
attacking individual anti-Suffragists, irrespective of their Party
affiliations? All the candidates for office in the enfranchised
States are Suffragists. Is it suggested that we be inactive in the
only places where we possess real political power? Our problem at
the present moment is to use the strength of women’s votes in
national elections so as to force attention to the justice of our
claim from the present administration....
But the Congressional Union cannot make it too clear that we are not
opposed to any Party today. We are asking the Democrats to help us;
we are awaiting their answer. We will frame no policy for or against
them or any other Party until this session closes, and the great
opportunity of the present Administration has come to an end. We
entertain steady and undiminished hopes that the Administration will
recognize the justice and expediency of women’s claims to
self-government. The movement is making immense strides in every
part of the country; our present voting strength is great, and will
undoubtedly be increased in the present year. It takes no great
imaginative reach for the ordinary Congressman to foresee the day
when Woman Suffrage will be an established fact throughout these
United States.
There is already a strong sentiment in the Upper House for Woman
Suffrage, and a rapidly-growing interest in it in the Lower House.
We have no reason to expect wilful obstinacy from our American
Congressmen. We Americans are adaptable and imaginative, and can
shape ourselves with peculiar ease to coming events. The Democratic
Party, if it is wise, will pass our Amendment through Congress in
the present session.
The first-year Congressional Committee, consisting of Alice Paul, Lucy
Burns, Mary Beard, Crystal Eastman, and Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, continued
their work in 1914 with the Congressional Union under the name of the
Executive Committee of the Congressional Union; but it was increased by
the addition of Mrs. William Kent, Elsie Hill, Mrs. Gilson Gardner, Mrs.
Donald R. Hooker, and Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont.
The year opened with a meeting at the home of Mrs. William Kent in
Washington. Plans for the coming year were submitted at that meeting.
Among them was one for a nation-wide demonstration on May 2, in which
resolutions supporting the Federal Amendment were to be passed. This was
to be followed by a great demonstration in Washington on May 9, at which
those resolutions should be presented to Congress. Among them also was
another plan for the appeal to the women voters of the West for
political action in support of a Federal Amendment, if that Amendment
had not been passed before the next election. Nine thousand dollars were
pledged on the spot for these undertakings. The work on the great
demonstration of May 2 began at once, and was pushed rapidly during the
opening months of the year.
In the meantime the work on Congress was continued. It will be
remembered that a proposal for the formation of a Suffrage Committee in
the House had been before the Rules Committee since April 7, 1913, that
it had been the subject of two hearings arranged by the Congressional
Union. The first action in regard to this was simple and decisive. The
Democratic Members of the Rules Committee, who constituted a Majority
Committee, met first, apart from their Republican and Progressive
colleagues, and, by a vote of four to three, decided against the
formation of a Suffrage Committee. They then went through the form of a
meeting with the Republican and Progressive Members on January 24. The
resolution, creating the Suffrage Committee, was lost by a vote of four
to four.
The Congressional Union, however, realized that the final power with
regard to Congressional action was with the Democratic Caucus. They
determined therefore—in order that the responsibility for inaction or
opposition might be placed on the Democrats as a Party—immediately to
appeal to that Caucus to overturn the decision of the Rules Committee.
The necessary signatures were secured to a petition calling for the
Democratic Caucus of the House to take up the question of the formation
of this much-desired Suffrage Committee. The Caucus met on February 3,
1914, to consider this subject. The Democratic Party had a choice of two
courses. It could order the Rules Committee, which it of course
controlled, to give a favorable report to the House on the resolution
creating a Suffrage Committee. Or it could give no order at all of this
kind; in which case it revealed itself as responsible for the adverse
action of the Rules Committee.
What it did was to adopt a substitute resolution for the resolution
providing for the creation of a Committee of Woman Suffrage.
That substitute resolution was: “Resolved, that the question of Woman
Suffrage is a State and not a Federal question.”
This was the first time in the history of the country that either of the
two great Parties had ever caucused on Woman Suffrage.
Editorially the _Suffragist_ put the situation pithily to the women of
America:
This is the definite lining up of the Democratic Party against Woman
Suffrage as a national measure.... Unless the Democratic Party
reconsiders its present position, Suffragists must necessarily
regard that Party as an obstruction in the path of their
campaign.... They (the Democratic Party) have three votes to lose in
the Senate and they lose control of this government. There are nine
States in which women vote for United States Senators. The result in
the Senatorial elections in these States will undoubtedly depend
largely upon the action on Suffrage taken by the Democratic Party.
Although the Congressional Union welcomed any simplification of the
Congressional machinery as by the creation of a Suffrage Committee, its
object was to secure action on the Suffrage Amendment. Since April 7,
1913, the Amendment had been before the Judiciary Committee in which it
had been introduced by Representative Mondell. The Congressional Union
asked for a hearing on the Amendment before this Committee. March 3,
1914, was set for that event.
Thitherto, these hearings had been dreary occasions, sparsely attended.
There was the half-circle of Committee members, a trifle perfunctory in
its attitude, the scattered, tiny audience, very little interested or
stirred; the few Suffragists pleading—eloquently, it is true—but
pleading; using the inevitable Suffrage arguments, unanswerable, but
threadbare. The hearing of March 3 was very different. The Committee was
electrically alert.... They listened intently.... For the first time at
a Congressional hearing, propagandistic argument did not appear. The
Suffragists appealed to the Committee to report the Suffrage Resolution
to the House—not as a matter of justice to women—but as _practical
politics_. They pointed out to the Committee that the women voters of
the West would hold the Democratic Party responsible for the refusal of
this Committee to make that report.
* * * * *
In the meantime, highly important things had been going on in the
Senate. It will be remembered that the Suffrage Resolution had been
placed upon the Senate Calendar in June, 1913. Ever since that date, it
had been awaiting a vote. It could be voted on any time up to the close
of the Sixty-third Congress (March 3, 1915).
At the beginning of the year 1914, more votes were pledged in its favor
than had carried the Income Tax in the Senate, and sentiment in its
favor was steadily increasing among the Senators. Moreover, the prospect
that the Referendum elections of the coming autumn would add to the
number of Suffrage States promised an increase of Suffrage strength in
the Senate. There remained—as it transpired—a whole year before that
Congress adjourned, in which the work of obtaining the vote could have
gone on. These features of the situation made the Congressional Union
most desirous that the Resolution should not be voted upon until every
possible vote was won. However, Senator Ashurst, who had reported the
Bill to the Senate, had it made “unfinished business” on March 2, 1914.
It is the spirit of “unfinished business” that it must be brought up and
voted on. In spite of the vigorous protests of the Congressional Union,
and of many Suffragists in all parts of the country, it was brought to
the vote on March 17. A two-thirds vote was necessary to carry it. It
received thirty-five; a majority, it is true, of one vote; but failing
of the necessary two-thirds majority by eleven. The Congressional Union
blamed the Democratic leaders entirely for this premature vote, as they
were fully informed that a vote at that time would mean defeat.
However, this was a memorable moment. It was the first time since 1887
that Suffrage had been voted upon in the Senate. And from the moment on
March 2 when it was made “unfinished business” until March 17, when the
vote was taken, the Senate debated it almost continuously.
* * * * *
On that same day—March 2—Senator Shafroth of Colorado introduced a
resolution providing for a new Suffrage Amendment to the Federal
Constitution. This was to become famous as the Shafroth-Palmer
Resolution. It offered a path to the enfranchisement of women incredibly
cluttered and cumbered. It reads: