V

FIGHTING FOR VOTES IN THE SENATE

THE House of Representatives passed the Susan B. Anthony Amendment on

January 10, 1918, by a vote of two hundred and seventy-four to one

hundred and thirty-six. The work of the Woman’s Party was now

concentrated on the Senate. They needed only eleven votes there, and

many Suffragists were optimistic—they thought victory a matter of but a

few weeks. The Woman’s Party knew better. However, in the siege of the

Senate, they continued their policy—to work downwards through the

President, and upward through constituents and political leaders from

the people.

In summing up the situation in the Senate, Alice Paul said:

If the Republicans had the vision to see that it was a wise Party

policy to secure the credit for the passage of the Amendment in the

House, and the Democrats believed it an unwise Party policy to be

responsible for its defeat—the same argument must hold for the vote

in the Senate, for while more than two-thirds of the Republicans had

already promised their votes, only half the Democrats are at present

pledged in the Senate.

The effect of the passing of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment in the House

was, however, not only profound, but immediate. In February, the

Republican National Committee met in St. Louis for the selection of a

Chairman. Abby Scott Baker appeared before the committee, urging a

favorable stand on the Susan B. Anthony amendment. Two women

representing the anti-Suffragists were also to speak. However, when the

anti-Suffragist speakers presented themselves before the Committee, they

found that it had already voted a resolution commending the stand of the

Republican members of the House of Representatives in favor of the

Suffrage Amendment. This was the first favorable expression of the

National Republican Party on the question of Federal Suffrage.

Minnie Bronson said of the anti-Suffragist members:

I looked round for the thirty members who last night were opposed to

Suffrage. I wonder what changed them over night.

Lucy Price, also an anti-Suffragist, asserted:

Your action without even hearing us was worse than a betrayal of us

who are opposed to Suffrage. It was an admission that Party pledges

are meant to be broken.

The Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee, which met

that same day in Washington, held a telegraphic referendum of their

entire national committee on the question of the Amendment. It is

interesting to note that this was done at the insistence of the

Democratic woman who had charge of the Democratic campaign among women

in 1916, when the Woman’s Party made Suffrage the great issue. This

telegraphic referendum showed more than a two to one desire for the

national committee to take action that would put it on record as “urging

the support” of the Amendment. The Executive Committee, therefore,

adopted the resolution, endorsing the Federal Suffrage measure, and by a

vote of five to two, calling upon the Senate to act at once favorably

upon it.

For months thereafter, the Woman’s Party concentrated on obtaining the

necessary eleven votes in the Senate. It was a period of comparative

calm. There was no militant action of any kind. The pickets had all been

released in December, and, although the appeal cases were coming up in

the courts at intervals, picketing seemed an abandoned weapon.

In her _Revelations of a Woman Lobbyist_, Maud Younger describes very

delightfully how the first nine votes were obtained:

“We should get Senator Phelan now,” said Miss Paul. “He opposed

Federal Suffrage because the President did. Now that the President

has come out for it, Senator Phelan should do so. Send for him.”

I sent in my card and he came at once, very neat in a cut-away coat,

his eyes smiling above his trimmed sandy beard. “Of course I’ll vote

for the Amendment,” he said, as though he had never thought of

anything else. He was plainly glad to have an excuse for changing

his position.

“That leaves ten to get,” said Miss Paul. “Let’s go and see Senator

McCumber.” The Senator from North Dakota is sandy and Scotch and

cautious, and, like many other Senators, thinks it would be weak and

vacillating to change his opinion.

“I voted against it in 1914. I cannot vote for it in 1918,” he said.

“I cannot change my principles.”

“But you can change your mind?”

“No, I could not do that.”

“Then you might change your vote,” said I, urging progress. He, too,

saw progress, but was wary of it. Looking cautiously around the room

and back of us, he said slowly, “If the legislature of my State

should ask me to vote for it, I would feel obliged to do so.”

That same night Beulah Amidon telegraphed to North Dakota,—her own

State—to the Chairman of the Republican Party and the Non-Partisan

League that controls the Legislature; to her father, Judge Amidon,

and to others. The Legislature immediately passed a resolution

calling on Senator McCumber to vote for our Amendment. Miss Amidon

went to see him at once, with the news.

“But I haven’t seen how the resolution is worded yet,” said Senator

McCumber cannily.

When the resolution arrived some one else went to see him.

“I want to look it over carefully,” he said. When he had looked it

over carefully, he admitted, “I will vote for the Amendment. But to

show loyalty both to constituents and principle,” he added hastily,

“I will speak against it, and vote for it.”

“That leaves nine to get,” said Miss Paul, counting Senator McCumber

off on her little finger and turning to a list of other legislatures

in session. The difficulty was that the legislatures in session did

not fit the Senators whose votes we must get. Mildred Glines, our

Rhode Island chairman, was at our Headquarters, and Senator Gerry of

Rhode Island was at the Capitol, and not for our Amendment. So

Mildred Glines set out at once for Rhode Island, where she had a

resolution presented and passed, and returned with it to Senator

Gerry.

Then I went to see his colleague, Senator Colt. A scholarly-looking

man, he sat at his desk deep in some volume of ancient lore. Arguing

with himself while I sat listening, he stated the case for Suffrage

and Senator Gerry. “But on the other hand,” he said—and then stated

the other side.

“Yes,” he concluded deliberately, but with a twinkle in his eye,

“Peter will vote for it.”

“That leaves eight to get,” said Miss Paul, very thoughtfully. “Have

you seen Senator King lately?”

Though Senator King is not unpleasant to talk with, if one does not

broach subjects controversial, persons who appealed to his reason

had succeeded only in ruffling his manners. He smiled blandly and,

leaning back in his chair, began what he believed to be a perfect

case. “I’ve always been opposed to national Suffrage. I said so in

my campaign, and the people elected me.”

We must appeal to his constituents. But how? His Legislature was not

in session. Alice Henkle went post-haste to Utah, and at once

newspapers began to publish editorials; all sorts of organizations,

civic, patriotic, religious, educational, social, began to pass

resolutions. Letters poured in upon Senator King. But always Miss

Henkle wrote us, “They tell me everywhere that it’s no use; that

Senator King is so ‘hard-shelled’ that I might as well stop.”

“Go to the Capitol and see,” said Miss Alice Paul.

I had just entered the revolving door when Senator Sheppard,

hurrying past, stopped to say, “Do you know King is coming around! I

think we may get his vote.”

So Miss Paul wired Alice Henkle that night: “Redouble efforts. They

are having good effect.” Four weeks later, three Senators told me

that Senator King had said in the cloak room, “I’m as much opposed

to Federal Suffrage as ever, but I think I’ll vote for it. My

constituents want me to.”

“That leaves six to get,” said Miss Paul, “counting Senator

Culberson too.” For while we had been busy in Washington, Doris

Stevens and Clara Wolfe had been busy in Texas on the trail of

Senator Culberson.

The national committees of both political parties had taken a stand

for Federal Suffrage in February. Also, Colonel Roosevelt and other

Republican leaders were writing to Senators whose names we

furnished, urging their support.

“Now,” said Senator Curtis, smiling, “I think we’ll get Harding and

Sutherland. They both want to vote for it, but their States are

against it. I’ll go see them again. Keep the backfires burning in

their States.”

Senator Curtis has the dark hair and skin of Indian ancestry, and

perhaps his Indian blood has given him his quick sense of a

situation and his knowledge of men. Without quite knowing how it

happened—it may have been his interest in listening or his wisdom in

advising—he had become the guiding friend, the storm-center of our

work on the Republican side of the Senate.

“Colonel Roosevelt has written to Senator Sutherland too,” I thought

hopefully, while I sat waiting for him in the marble room. He came

out, and said almost at once, “I’ve just had a letter from Colonel

Roosevelt asking me to vote for your Amendment!”

“Have you?” said I.

“Yes. But I wish he had told me how I can do it, when the

overwhelming sentiment of my State is against it.” I spoke of

something else, but that night I reported this remark to Doris

Stevens and Abby Scott Baker. Both of them immediately wrote to

Colonel Roosevelt. Later, I again saw Senator Sutherland. He had

evidently forgotten our former conversation.

“I’ve had a letter from Colonel Roosevelt about your Amendment,” he

said. “It’s the second time he has written to me about it. He wants

me to come to Oyster Bay so he can give me reasons for voting for

it.”

“I should think it would be awfully interesting to go,” I encouraged

gently. And soon we checked off Senator Sutherland’s name on our

lists, and said, “Five more to get.”

“Do you think we can get Borah?” I asked Senator Curtis. “He’s one

of the fathers of the Amendment. He introduced it in 1910.”

“He says he did that by request.”

“It doesn’t say so in the Record. Doesn’t a man always say so when

it is so?”

“That is usual,” said Senator Curtis, stroking his mustache and not

meeting my eyes, and I knew he said only half of what he thought.

“I think I’ll go and see him at once.”

Senator Borah is a most approachable person, but when you have

approached, you cannot be sure you have reached. You see him sitting

at his desk, a large unferocious, bulldog type of man, simple in

manner. You talk with him, and you think he is with you through and

through.... But you never quite know.... Sometimes you wonder if

_he_ knows.

In April, Senator Gallinger told Miss Paul that the Republicans

counted four more votes for Suffrage—Kellogg, Harding, Page, and

Borah. “We understand Borah will vote for the Amendment if it will

not pass otherwise. But he will not vote for it if it will pass

without him. But if his vote will carry it, he will vote for it.”

Thus far we had come on our journey toward the eleven, when Senator

Andreus Aristides Jones of New Mexico, Chairman of the Woman

Suffrage Committee, rose in the Senate and announced that on May 10

he would move to take up the Suffrage resolution. There was great

rejoicing. We thought that now the Administration would get the

needed votes.

Indeed, with only two votes more to get, everything looked promising.

* * * * *

In May, members of the Woman’s Committee of the Council of National

Defense were received by the President and Mrs. Wilson.

Florence Bayard Hilles, State Chairman in Delaware for the National

Woman’s Party, who had campaigned for the Liberty Loan throughout her

State, and was then working in the Bethlehem Steel Plant, as a munition

maker, said to the President:

Mr. President, it would be a great inspiration to all of us in our

war work if you would help towards our immediate enfranchisement.

Behind Mrs. Hilles came Mrs. Arthur Kellam, who is Chairman of the

Woman’s Party in New Mexico, who said:

Mr. President, we, women of the West, are growing very restless

indeed waiting for the long-delayed passage of the Federal Suffrage

Amendment. Won’t you help to secure this recognition of citizens?

The women of New Mexico and many other States have no redress save

through the Federal Amendment. They are eagerly waiting for action

on this measure in the Senate. Will you help us?

The President, with marked cordiality, answered:

“I will. I will do all I can.”

In the meantime, the President was receiving picturesque groups of many

descriptions: Pershing’s Veterans went to the White House; the Blue

Devils of France. Finally a group of women munition workers from the

Bethlehem Plant, led by Florence Bayard Hilles, came to Washington to

see the President in regard to Suffrage. They were: Catherine Boyle; Ada

Walling; Mary Gonzon; Lula Patterson; Marie McKenzie; Isabel C. Aniba;

Lilian Jerrold; Mary Campbell; Mildred Peck; Ida Lennox. The experience

of the war workers was amusing. They wrote at once asking for an

interview with the President. Mr. Tumulty responded saying that the

President bade him to tell them that “nothing you or your associates

could say could possibly increase his very deep interest in this

matter.”

Mrs. Aniba despatched an answer, again asking for an interview. She said

among other things:

The work I do is making detonators, handling TNT, the highest of all

explosives. We want to be recognized by our country as much her

citizens as soldiers are.

Every day this little group went to the White House and sat, waiting.

They made a picturesque detail in the exceedingly picturesque war flood

surging through the White House, wearing bands printed with the words,

_munition workers_ on their arm and their identification badges. They

knitted all the time. At first, one of the secretaries explained to

them, “You are very foolish. You may have to wait for weeks. Even Lord

Reading had to come back four times before he saw the President!”

Later, an under-secretary said: “You are becoming a nuisance. Other

people have more consideration than to keep coming back; but you persist

and persist.”

“Even Lord Reading had to come back four times before he saw the

President,” quoted one of the munition girls.

They waited two weeks, but in the end they had to go back to work. They

wrote a letter to the Senate, however, which was read there.

May 10 approached. I resume Miss Younger’s narrative:

When the proper time arrived next day, Senator Andreus Aristides

Jones arose in his place. The galleries were packed. Our forces were

all present except the three missing votes. There was Senator Smith

of Michigan, who had come from California; Senator Smith of Arizona,

who had left a sick relative to be present for the vote; and there

were others who had come from far and wide. Senator Jones in the

hush of a great moment, rose and announced that he would not call up

the Amendment that day.

Our opponents looked at him and, grinning, taunted: “Haven’t you got

the votes?” “We want to vote today.” “We’re ready now.”

Finally the women filed out of the galleries and went home, and the

Senate resumed its usual business.

Later, however, Senator Jones announced that on June 27 he would take up

the Suffrage Resolution.

Miss Younger says:

Senator Jones does not act on mad impulse. No one could imagine that

placid, unhurried man buckling on his armor and brandishing his

sword to lead his forces a second time up a blind alley only to lead

them back again. Senator Jones was a strong Administration man and

would not act without approval.

Moreover, he was a sincere Suffragist. In fact, he was a Father of

the Amendment. So we kept at work, aiding and abetting all its

Fathers. For the disabilities of fathers are manifest when you

compare them with mothers. A father is so casual, especially when

his child is an Amendment to the Constitution.

“Nagging!” said Senator Lenroot viciously, when I asked him to speak

to Senator Borah. “If you women would only stop nagging!” And making

a savage face at me, he hurried down the hall.

I stood still. It was but the second time we had spoken to him since

he had come to the Senate. I wondered if he thought we liked

“nagging”; if we liked going to the Capitol day after day, tramping

on marble floors, waiting in ante-rooms—sometimes rebuffed,

sometimes snarled at. I wondered if he thought we could do it for

anything but a great cause—for the thousands of women toiling in the

factories, for the thousands struggling under burdens at home. And

then I bit my lips to keep back the tears, and putting aside such

uncomfortable things as feelings, and putting forward such solacing

things as a lace jabot and a smile, I sent for another Senator.

Senator Martin, of silvery white hair and determined manner would

not sit down and talk Suffrage, nor would he stand up and talk

Suffrage. The only way to discuss Suffrage with Senator Martin was

to run beside him down the hall.

“The good women of Virginia do not want Suffrage,” he said, breaking

almost into a trot, with eyes on his goal, which was an elevator.

“But if you were convinced that the good women of Virginia do want

it?” you replied, breaking almost into a run, with your eyes on him.

“It’s only the professional agitators I hear from,” he answered.

It is interesting to talk Suffrage with Senator Martin, and very

good exercise. But it was still more interesting to watch a

deputation of good Virginia women talking to him.

“Every one knows where I stand, and yet the ladies waylay me all

about the halls,” he complained. Yet when we had spoken before the

Platform Committee of the Democratic Convention in St. Louis, he

told me: “I said to those men, ‘There isn’t an equal number of you

that could make as good speeches as those women made.’” So he was

not to be considered as hopeless, though the path to his salvation

was a strenuous one.

In June, Carrie Chapman Catt, President of the International Woman

Suffrage Alliance, transmitted to the President a memorial from the

French Union for Woman Suffrage asking him in one of his messages to

proclaim the principle of Woman Suffrage to be one of the fundamental

rights of the future.

The President replied in the following letter:

I have read your message with the deepest interest, and I welcome

the opportunity to say that I agree, without reservation, that the

full and sincere democratic reconstruction of the world, for which

we are striving, and which we are determined to bring about at any

cost, will not have been completely or adequately attained until

women are admitted to the Suffrage. And that only by this action can

the nations of the world realize for the benefit of future

generations the full ideal force of opinion, or the full humane

forces of action.

The services of women during this supreme crisis of the world’s

history have been of the most signal usefulness and distinction. The

war could not have been fought without them or its sacrifices

endured. It is high time that some part of our debt of gratitude to

them should be acknowledged and paid, and the only acknowledgment

they ask is their admission to the Suffrage. Can we justly refuse

it?

As for America, it is my earnest hope that the Senate of the United

States will give unmistakable answer to this question by passing the

Suffrage Amendment to our Federal Constitution before the end of

this session.

Cordially and sincerely yours,

WOODROW WILSON.

Miss Younger says:

The twenty-seventh of June approached. Again we were in the marble

room talking with Senators. Absentees were on trains hurrying to

Washington. The antis were in the reception room knitting votes into

their wool. The Capitol thrilled with excitement. Even the Senators

seemed to feel it. This time Sutherland would vote “yea,” and

several opponents were absent. If none of them paired with a

Suffrage Senator we could just manage the necessary majority. And

the White House was taking a hand. Senator James of Kentucky, in a

Baltimore hospital, had promised Mr. Tumulty that he would not

pair—that is, that he would not ask a Suffrage Senator to refrain

from voting to counterbalance his own enforced absence. Victory

seemed in our hands.

The day arrived. The galleries were filled. The Senators came in all

dressed up for the occasion—here a gay waistcoat or a bright tie,

there a flower in a buttonhole, yonder an elegant frock coat over

gray trousers.

Senator Jones arose to take up the Amendment. At once opposition

developed. Our opponents were willing to have a vote, provided all

absentees could be paired. Now, if all absentees were counted, we

would not have enough votes. Senator James’ promise not to vote had

given us our majority. But, stunned, we heard Senator Underwood read

a telegram from Senator James pleading that some Suffragist pair

with him. Senator Underwood said he had just confirmed the telegram.

It was not until too late that we learned the truth. The telegram

had been sent six weeks earlier for another occasion.

And now Senator Reed had the floor. “Oh, who will pair with Ollie

James?” he cried. “That n-o-oble Ollie James! You all know that

great, fine, noble specimen of manhood, Ollie James! A pair! A

pair!” he cried with tears in his voice and arms outstretched. He

went on and on.

We leaned over the balcony and watched Senator Curtis pleading with

Borah, urging him to vote for us and save our Amendment. We watched

breathlessly. We saw Borah listen, smile, and then, without a word,

rise and walk slowly out of the room. We flew down to Senator

Curtis.

“No, Borah won’t do it. They say King is going to. Reed won’t give

up the floor unless we withdraw or furnish a pair. He and his

friends will hold the floor for weeks, if necessary. And the

military bill must pass before July first. The army needs money. You

can see for yourself what’s happening. It’s a filibuster.”

Reed was still talking. They say he knows about a great many

subjects, and I think he talked about all he knew that day. But

nobody will ever know what they were, for no one listened; and he

never allowed the speech to be printed in the Record.

Finally Senator Jones arose and withdrew the motion to take up

Suffrage. Senator Reed, satisfied, sat down. His filibuster had

succeeded. He had threatened to hold up the military bill to defeat

us, so we had withdrawn. The Senate took up the military bill, and

we went home.

“Suffrage is dead for this session,” said Senator McKellar. “The

Senators don’t like being nagged any more. They are all very tired

of it.”

But the Woman’s Party did not think it was dead. They worked at their

usual strenuous pace all summer long. They did feel, however, that if

the President had exerted himself, he could have obtained the two

necessary votes for the Amendment to pass. They were, moreover, highly

indignant over the filibuster of a Democratic Senator—Reed. Their

patience was beginning to wear thin.

* * * * *

In the meantime, the primary Senatorial elections were coming up, and

the President was taking an active part in them. He was working against

Senator Vardaman of Mississippi and Senator Hardwick of Georgia, both

Democrats of course and Vardaman a Suffragist. In other States, he

helped to elect anti-Suffragists in the places of Suffragists. It is

true that the President threw a sop to the Suffragists in that he asked

Senator Shields of Tennessee to come out for Suffrage. The Shields

incident is interesting.

Senator Shields was making it his sole issue in the primary campaign

that he would carry out all the President’s war policies. Opposing

Senator Shields was Governor Rye, a Democrat of course, and a

Suffragist.

Maud Younger called at the White House on Secretary Tumulty one day to

ask him if the President could not do something further for Suffrage.

Mr. Tumulty’s answer was to read a letter from President Wilson to

Senator Shields, asking him to vote for the Suffrage Amendment. Maud

Younger, with characteristic political astuteness, saw at once the

possibilities in the publication of that letter. She asked Mr. Tumulty

for a copy and Mr. Tumulty, with a sudden sense of indiscretion,

refused. However, Miss Younger went back instantly with the story to

Headquarters, and presently Sue White and Lucy Branham became very

busy—oh, very busy indeed—in the Tennessee campaign.

On July 26, Senator Shields notified the Suffragists in Tennessee that

he would see them at three that afternoon. He told the fifty women who

gathered to meet him that “he would hold the matter in consideration.”

The same day a Columbia paper carried the story that President Wilson

had requested Senator Shields by letter to vote for Suffrage. This

brought the whole month-old correspondence before the public.

The letters ran as follows:

THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON.

June 20, 1918.

MY DEAR SENATOR:

I feel so deeply the possibilities latent in the vote which is

presently to be taken by the Senate on the Suffrage Amendment that I

am going to take a liberty which in ordinary circumstances I should

not feel justified in taking, and ask you very frankly if it will

not be possible for you to vote for the Amendment. I feel that much

of the morale of this country and of the world will repose in our

sincere adherence to democratic principles, will depend upon the

action which the Senate takes in this now critically important

matter. If it were merely a domestic question, or if the times were

normal, I would not feel that I could make a direct request of this

sort, but the times are so far from normal, the fortunes of nations

are so linked together, the reactions upon the thought of the world

are so sharp and involve such momentous issues that I know that you

will indulge my unusual course of action and permit me to beg very

earnestly that you will lend your aid in clearing away the

difficulties which will undoubtedly beset us if the Amendment is not

adopted. With much respect,

Sincerely yours,

WOODROW WILSON.

UNITED STATES SENATE, WASHINGTON, D. C.

June 25, 1918.

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

Your valued letter concerning the joint resolution proposing an

Amendment on the Federal Constitution favoring Equal Suffrage, now

pending in the United States Senate, has challenged my most

thoughtful consideration, as do all your views upon public matters.

The resolution involves fundamental questions affecting the

sovereignty and powers of the Federal and State governments, most

important and vital to the people of the State which I have the

honor in part to represent in the United States Senate, and those of

States with which they are closely allied in all social, economical,

and governmental interests, upon which I have most profound

convictions, unfavorable to it, known, and I believe approved, by

the great majority of the people of Tennessee—arrived at after full

consideration of conditions existing when I voted against a similar

one some years ago and those now confronting our country. The

reasons for my conclusions are those controlling the majority of my

colleagues from the Southern States, well known to you and which

would not be interesting to here re-state.

If I could bring myself to believe that the adoption of the

Resolution would contribute to the successful prosecution of the war

we are waging with Germany, I would unhesitatingly vote for it,

because my whole heart and soul is involved in bringing it to a

victorious issue and I am willing to sacrifice everything save the

honor and freedom of our country in aiding you to accomplish that

end. But I have been unable to do so. We cannot reasonably expect

the proposed Amendment to be ratified within less than two years and

the discussion of it would, unquestionably, divert the minds and

energies of the people from the one great absorbing subject before

us—the winning of the war—by involving those of many States in a

most bitter controversy contrary to our earnest desire for that

unity of thought and action of the American people now so

imperatively required.

These are my sincere convictions, but, out of my very high respect

for your views, I will continue to give your suggestion my most

thoughtful and earnest consideration.

With the highest respect, I am,

Sincerely yours,

JOHN K. SHIELDS.

WASHINGTON, D. C.

June 26, 1918.

Thank you very sincerely for your frank letter of yesterday about

the Suffrage Amendment. I realize the weight of argument that has

controlled your attitude in the matter, and I would not have written

as I did if I had not thought that the passage of the Amendment at

this time was an essential psychological element in the conduct of

the war for democracy. I am led by a single sentence in your letter,

therefore, to write to say that I do earnestly believe that our

acting upon this Amendment will have an important and immediate

influence upon the whole atmosphere and morale of the nations

engaged in the war, and every day I am coming to see how supremely

important that side of the whole thing is. We can win if we have the

will to win.

Cordially and sincerely yours,

WOODROW WILSON.

Many believe that had President Wilson—in regard to Suffrage—gone over

Shields’ head to his constituents as—in regard to other war policies—he

had gone over the heads of Vardaman and Hardwick to their constituents,

Senator Shields would have declared in favor of Suffrage.

On August 2, a letter written by the President to Senator Baird of New

Jersey was made public:

The President writes:

The whole subject of Woman Suffrage has been very much in my mind of

late and has come to seem to be a part of the international

situation, as well as of capital importance to the United States. I

believe our present position as champions of democracy throughout

the world would be greatly strengthened if the Senate would follow

the example of the House of Representatives in passing the pending

Amendment. I, therefore, take the liberty of writing to call the

matter to your serious attention in this light and to express the

hope that you will deem it wise to throw your influence on the side

of this great and now critical reform.

(Signed) WOODROW WILSON.

In spite of these letters, which of course were mere requests, Alice

Paul well knew, as did the Senators themselves, that President Wilson

was doing a little for Suffrage, but not all he could. He was not of

course doing for the Suffrage Amendment a tithe of what he did for other

measures in whose success he was interested. Nothing continued to happen

with monotonous, unfailing regularity.

The Woman’s Party could wait no longer.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

VI

BURNING THE PRESIDENT’S WORDS

AT half-past four on Tuesday afternoon, August 6, a line of nearly one

hundred women emerged from Headquarters, crossed the other side of the

street to the Park; turned into Pennsylvania Avenue. At the head of the

long line floated the red, white, and blue of the American flag carried

by Hazel Hunkins. Behind it came, banner after banner and banner after

banner, the purple, white, and gold of the National Woman’s Party

tri-color. The line proceeded along Pennsylvania Avenue until it came to

the statue of Lafayette just opposite the east gate of the White House.

All along the way, the crowds cheered and applauded the women; soldiers

and sailors saluted the red, white, and blue as it passed.

At the Lafayette monument, two banner bearers emerged from the group;

and stationed themselves on the platform at the base of the statue.

One of them, Mary Gertrude Fendall, bore Inez Milholland’s banner,

inscribed with her memorable last words:

HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY?

The other, borne by Clara Wold and Blanche McPherson, carried what was

really the message of the meeting:

WE PROTEST AGAINST THE CONTINUED DISFRANCHISEMENT

OF AMERICAN WOMEN, FOR WHICH THE PRESIDENT OF THE

UNITED STATES IS RESPONSIBLE.

WE CONDEMN THE PRESIDENT AND HIS PARTY FOR ALLOWING

THE OBSTRUCTION OF SUFFRAGE IN THE SENATE.

WE DEPLORE THE WEAKNESS OF PRESIDENT WILSON IN PERMITTING THE SENATE TO

LINE ITSELF WITH THE PRUSSIAN REICHSTAG BY DENYING DEMOCRACY TO THE

PEOPLE WE DEMAND THAT THE PRESIDENT AND HIS PARTY SECURE THE PASSAGE OF

THE SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT THROUGH THE SENATE IN THE PRESENT SESSION. The

other banner bearers marched to both sides of the statue where they made

solid banks of vivid color. Mrs. Lawrence Lewis stepped forward. “We are

here,” she said, “because when our country is at war for liberty and

democracy....”

At the word “democracy,” the police, who had been drawing nearer and

nearer, placed her under arrest. Other women standing about her were

arrested, although they had not even spoken.

For a moment there was a complete silence.

Then Hazel Hunkins, who had led the line carrying the American flag,

leaped upon the base of the statue and said:

Here, at the statue of Lafayette, who fought for the liberty of this

country, and under the American flag, I am asking for the

enfranchisement of American women.

She was immediately arrested. Another woman took her place, and she was

arrested; another; and another; and on and on, until forty-seven women

had been taken into custody.

Alice Paul, who had not participated in the parade, was standing in the

middle of the street, watching and listening. She had no banner. She had

not spoken. She had not moved. But a policeman, pointing at her, said:

“That is the leader; get her!” And she was arrested.

[Illustration: BURNING THE PRESIDENT’S WORDS AT THE LAFAYETTE MONUMENT,

WASHINGTON.]

[Illustration: A SUMMER PICKET LINE.]

Many women asked on what charge they were arrested. “Do not answer them!

Do not tell them anything!” said a policeman. Others answered with very

labored charges, which were not substantiated later by Police

Headquarters. Patrol wagon after patrol wagon appeared, was filled with

women, and dashed off, followed by the purple, white, and gold flutter

of the banners.

When Hazel Hunkins was arrested, she forbade the policemen to take the

American flag which she carried from her. At the Municipal Building, she

refused to relinquish it. After the preliminaries of their arrest were

over and the women released on bail, they marched back in an unbroken

line behind Hazel’s flag.

The arrested women were the following:

Hazel Adams, Eva E. Sturtevant, Pauline Clarke, Blanche A.

McPherson, Katherine R. Fisher, Rose Lieberson, Alice Kimball,

Matilda Terrace, Lucy Burns, Edith Ainge, May Sullivan, Mary

Gertrude Fendall, Julia Emory, Anna Kuhn, Gladys Greiner, Martha W.

Moore, Cora Crawford, Dr. Sarah Hunt Lockrey, Mrs. Lawrence Lewis,

Ellen Winsor, Mary Winsor, Mrs. Edmund C. Evans, Christine M. Doyle,

Kate Cleaver Heffelfinger, Lavinia Dock, Harriet Keehn, Alice Paul,

Mary E. Dubrow, Lillian M. Ascough, Edna M. Purtelle, Ruby E.

Koeing, Elsie Hill, Helena Hill Weed, Eleanor Hill Weed, Mrs. Gilson

Gardner, Sophie G. Meredith, Louise M. Black, Agnes Chase, Kate J.

Boeckh, Hazel Hunkins, Cora Wold, Clara P. Wold, Margaret Oakes,

Mollie Marie Green, Gertrude Lynde Crocker, Effie Boutwell Main,

Annie Arniel, Emily Burke Main.

The forty-seven were ordered to appear in court the next morning at

half-past nine. The United States attorney told them, when he arrived at

10:30, that the case was postponed for a week. The police clerk told

Clara Wold that she was arrested “for climbing the statue.”

Clara Wold describes her subsequent experiences when, dismissed by the

court, she walked to Headquarters past the Lafayette monument, “there

sat a colored man on the very same ledge—basket, bundles, and papers

strewn about him as he comfortably devoured a sandwich.”

Lafayette Park was not under the District of Columbia, but directly

under the President’s military aide—Colonel Ridley, who was also

Superintendent of Public Buildings and grounds in Washington.

On August 13, the women appeared in the Federal Police Court, as

ordered, for trial. The charge had been decided on; “For holding a

meeting in public grounds.” But again the Court announced postponement

until August 15.

After vigorous protests by the Suffragists against further delay, the

cases of the eighteen, who were charged in addition with “climbing a

statue,” were tried separately.

The women had no lawyers. Each spoke on her own behalf. They defended

themselves on the ground of the constitutional right of free assemblage

and appeal to the Government for the redress of grievances. They all

pleaded, Not Guilty. Many of them added that they did not recognize the

jurisdiction of the Court. Hazel Hunkins explained: “Women cannot be

law-breakers until they are law-makers.”

One of the witnesses was the Chief Clerk of Public Grounds, an elderly

man. Elsie Hill suddenly asked him when he had taken office. He replied,

“In 1878.” “Do you realize,” Miss Hill said, “that in that year a

Federal Suffrage Amendment was introduced, and that since then women

have been helping to pay your salary and that of other government

officials under protest?” The Chief Clerk was so astounded that he

merely shook his head.

The trial of the remainder of the women on the charge of “holding a

meeting on public grounds” took place on August 15.

At the very beginning of proceedings Alice Paul said:

As a disfranchised class we feel that we are not subject to the

jurisdiction of this court and therefore refuse to take any part in

its proceedings. We also feel that we have done nothing to justify

our being brought before it.

They then sat down and refused to answer any question put to them.

The judge was utterly nonplussed by this situation. He said that he

would call a recess of fifteen minutes to consider the question of

contempt. Among the spectators who packed the room was a lawyer—a

visitor in Washington. He extracted a great deal of enjoyment out of

this occasion, because, he said, “if the women are not afraid of jail,

there is nothing the judge can do.” He awaited the judge’s decision with

an entertained anticipation. Apparently the judge came to the same

decision, for at the end of fifteen minutes, the Court reconvened and

the trial went on as though nothing had happened.

The women refused to rise when charged. They refused to plead Guilty or

Not Guilty. They sat and read, or knitted, or, as the proceedings bored

them, fell asleep. The Park Police were, of course, the only witnesses.

At last all the women whom they could identify were found Guilty. They

were sentenced to pay fines of five or ten dollars or to serve in prison

ten or fifteen days. They all refused to pay the fine. Mary Winsor said:

“It is quite enough to pay taxes when you are not represented, let alone

pay a fine if you object to this arrangement.” The prisoners were then

bundled in the Black Maria and taken off to prison.

Before the pickets were released from prison at the end of the previous

year, Superintendent Zinkham said to them:

Now don’t come back, for, if you do, I will have a far worse place

than the jail fixed up for you. I will have the old workhouse fixed

up for you, and you will have cells without sunlight, with windows

high up from the ground. You won’t be as comfortable as you are

here.

Everything happened as Superintendent Zinkham prophesied, and a great

deal more that was worse. The old workhouse which he had promised them

had been condemned in Roosevelt’s Administration, and had not been used

for years. The lower tier of cells was below the level of the ground.

The doors of the cells were partly of solid steel and only partly of

grating, so that little light penetrated. The wash basin was small and

inadequate. The toilet was open, the cots were of iron and without

springs, and with a thin straw mattress on them. Outside, they left

behind a day so hot as to be almost insupportable, but in the Workhouse,

it was so cold that their teeth chattered. It was damp all the time.

When the present writer visited this old Workhouse in October, 1919,

beads of water hung on everything. The walls were like the outside of an

ice water pitcher in summer. Several of the pickets developed

rheumatism. But the unendurable thing about it was the stench which came

in great gusts; component of all that its past history had left behind

and of the closeness of the unaired atmosphere. Apparently something was

wrong with the water, or perhaps it was that the pipes had not been used

for years. Most of the women believe they suffered with lead poisoning.

They ached all over; endured a violent nausea; chills.

However, all the twenty-six, with the exception of two elderly women,

went on hunger-strikes. Lucy Burns presented a demand on behalf of the

entire company to Superintendent Zinkham. She said: “We must have

twenty-three more blankets and twenty-three hot-water bottles. This

place is cold and unfit for human habitation.”

“I know it is cold and damp,” he replied, “but you can all get out of

here by paying your fines.”

* * * * *

The Woman’s Party showed their usual ingenuity in bringing these

conditions before the public. As fast as women were arrested, their

State Senators and Representatives were besieged by letters and

telegrams from home urging them to go to see these imprisoned

constituents. The Press of their district made editorial question or

comment. As long as this imprisoning of the pickets continued, there was

a file of Representatives and Senators visiting the victims. Senator

Jones of Washington was the first outside visitor to see them.

* * * * *

In the meantime, another meeting of protest, held at the Lafayette

Monument on August 12, with the same speakers and many of the same

banner bearers, was broken up by the police.

A curious feature of this case was that at Police Headquarters the

police decided to confiscate, along with the banners, the Suffragist

regalia—a sash of purple, white, and gold without any lettering

whatever. The women refused to relinquish these sashes, and there was in

every case a struggle, in which wrists were twisted, fingers sprained;

bruises and cuts of all kinds administered. All the thirty-eight women

were, however, released unconditionally.

* * * * *

On August 14, the women held two meetings of protest at the Lafayette

Monument—one at half-past four in the afternoon, and one at eight

o’clock in the evening.

This double protest came about in this way.

At the afternoon demonstration, the women were immediately arrested.

They were held at Police Headquarters for two hours. The authorities

feeling then that the hour was too late for further demonstrations,

released them. They did not require bail, or a promise to appear in

Court.

The women went at once to Headquarters, snatched a hasty dinner; slipped

quietly out of the building, and marched to the Lafayette Monument.

Everybody agrees that this evening demonstration was very beautiful. It

was held in the soft dusk of the Washington August. The crescent moon,

which seemed tangled in the trees of the park, gave enough light to

bring out the Suffrage tri-color and the Stars and Stripes. As the women

gathered closer and closer around the statue, the effect was of color,

smudged with shadow; of shadow illuminated with color.

Elsie Hill, carrying the American flag in one hand, and the purple,

white, and gold banner in the other spoke first; spoke wonderfully—as

Elsie Hill always spoke. She said in part:

We know that our protest is in harmony with the belief of President

Wilson, for he has stood before the world for the right of the

governed to a voice in their own government. We resent the fact that

the soldiers of our country, the men drafted to fight Prussia

abroad, are used instead to help still the demand of American women

for political freedom. We resent the suppression of our demands but

our voices will carry across the country and down through time. The

world will know that the women of America demand the passage of the

Federal Suffrage Amendment and that the President insists that the

Senate act.

There were only two policemen on duty. For two policemen to try to

arrest nine lively and athletic pickets was a little like a scene in

_Alice in Wonderland_. They would pull one woman down from the statue,

start to get another, whereupon the first would be back again with her

flying banner.

Finally, the police reserves arrived, but every woman had managed to

make a speech.

* * * * *

While the Suffragists were still in the old Workhouse, Alice Paul,

following her usual system of complete publicity, had announced another

protest meeting at the Lafayette Monument.

Later Alice Paul received a letter from Colonel Ridley:

I have been advised that you desire to hold a demonstration in

Lafayette Square on Thursday, August 22. By direction of the Chief

of Engineers, U. S. Army, you are hereby granted permission to hold

this demonstration. You are advised good order must prevail.

Miss Paul replied:

We received yesterday your permit for a Suffrage demonstration in

Lafayette Park this afternoon, and are very glad that our meetings

are no longer to be interfered with. Because of the illness of so

many of our members, due to their treatment in prison this last

week, and with the necessity of caring for them at Headquarters, we

are planning to hold our next meeting a little later. We have not

determined on the exact date but we will inform you of the time as

soon as it is decided upon.

As a result of the first series of protest meetings, the Administration

had yielded to the point of no longer interfering with the meetings at

the Lafayette Monument. But as time went by and neither the Senate nor

the President did anything about Suffrage, the National Woman’s Party

announced that a protest meeting would be held at the Lafayette Monument

on September 16 at four o’clock. Immediately the President announced

that he would receive a delegation of Southern and Western Democratic

women that day at two.

The same day, September 16, as Maud Younger was coming back from the

Capitol to Headquarters, Senator Overman of the Rules Committee came and

sat by her in the car. In the course of his conversation, he remarked

casually: “I don’t think your bill is coming up this session.”

That afternoon, Abby Scott Baker went to see Senator Jones of New

Mexico, Chairman of the Suffrage Committee, to ask him to call a meeting

of the Committee to bring Suffrage to the vote. Senator Jones refused.

He said he would not bring up the Suffrage Amendment at this session in

Congress.

When—still later—that delegation of Southern and Western Democratic

women called on the President, he said to them:

I am, as I think you know, heartily in sympathy with you. I have

endeavored to assist you in every way in my power, and I shall

continue to do so. I shall do all that I can to assist the passage

of the Amendment by an early vote.

This was the final touch.

The National Woman’s Party hastily changed the type of its

demonstration. Instead of holding a mere meeting of protest, they

decided to burn the words which the President had said that very

afternoon to the Southern and Western Democratic women. At four o’clock

instead of two, forty women marched from Headquarters to the Lafayette

Monument. They carried the famous banners: HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR

LIBERTY? MR. PRESIDENT, WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE? At the

Lafayette statue, Bertha Arnold delivered an appeal to Lafayette,

written by Mrs. Richard Wainwright and beginning with the famous words

of Pershing in France:

Lafayette, we are here!

We, the women of the United States, denied the liberty which you

helped to gain, and for which we have asked in vain for sixty years,

turn to you to plead for us.

Speak, Lafayette! Dead these hundred years but still living in the

hearts of the American people. Speak again to plead for us,

condemned like the bronze woman at your feet, to a silent appeal.

She offers you a sword. Will you not use the sword of the spirit,

mightier far than the sword she holds out to you?

Will you not ask the great leader of our democracy to look upon the

failure of our beloved country to be in truth the place where every

one is free and equal and entitled to a share in the government? Let

that outstretched hand of yours pointing to the White House recall

to him his words and promises, his trumpet call for all of us to see

that the world is made safe for democracy.

As our army now in France spoke to you there, saying, “Here we are

to help your country fight for liberty,” will you not speak here and

now for us, a little band with no army, no power but justice and

right, no strength but in our Constitution and the Declaration of

Independence, and win a great victory again in this country by

giving us the opportunity we ask to be heard through the Susan B.

Anthony Amendment?

Lafayette, we are here!

The police, having no orders to arrest the women, smiled and nodded. And

while the crowd that had very quickly gathered applauded, Lucy Branham

stepped forward. Beside her was Julia Emory, holding a flaming torch.

“We want action,” Miss Branham stated simply, “not words.” She took the

torch from Julia Emory, held the words of the President’s message of

that afternoon in the flames. As it burned, she said:

The torch which I hold symbolizes the burning indignation of women

who for a hundred years have been given words without action. In the

spring our hopes were raised by words much like these from President

Wilson, yet they were permitted to be followed by a filibuster

against our Amendment on the part of the Democratic Senate leaders.

President Wilson still refuses any real support to the movement for

the political freedom of women....

We, therefore, take these empty words, spoken by President Wilson

this afternoon, and consign them to the flames.

[Illustration: LUCY BRANHAM BURNING THE PRESIDENT’S WORDS AT THE

LAFAYETTE MONUMENT.

Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.]

[Illustration: THE RUSSIAN ENVOY BANNER, AUGUST, 1917.

Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.]

This is a symbol of the indignation of American women at the

treatment given by the President to their plea for democracy.

We have protested to this Administration by banners; we have

protested by speeches; we now protest by this symbolic act.

As in the ancient fights for liberty the crusaders for freedom

symbolized their protest against those responsible for injustice by

consigning their hollow phrases to the flames, so we, on behalf of

thousands of Suffragists, in this same way today, protest against

the action of the President and his Party in delaying the liberation

of American women.

For five years, women have appealed to this President and his Party

for political freedom. The President has given words, and words, and

words. Today, women receive more words. We announce to the President

and the whole world today, by this act of ours, our determination

that words shall no longer be the only reply given to American

women—our determination that this same democracy, for whose

establishment abroad we are making the utmost sacrifice, shall also

prevail at home.

Applause greeted these spirited words. As Jessie Hardy Mackaye started

to speak, a man in the crowd handed her a twenty-dollar bill for the

Woman’s Party. Others began passing money to her. The Suffragists were

busy running through the crowd collecting it. The crowd continued to

applaud and cheer.

Mrs. Mackaye said:

Against the twofold attitude on the part of the Senate toward

democracy, I protest with all the power of my being. The same

Congress and the same Administration that are appropriating billions

of dollars and enlisting the services of millions of men to

establish democracy in Europe, is at the same time refusing to do so

common a piece of justice as to vote to submit the Woman Suffrage

Amendment to the States.

This was the first time the President’s words were burned.

The President’s car drove up to the door during the progress of this

demonstration, and President Wilson stepped in. But instead of going out

at the usual gate, the driver turned the car about, so that he could

make his exit elsewhere.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

VII

THE PRESIDENT APPEALS TO THE SENATE TO PASS THE SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT

THE very next day occurred a remarkable example of direct action: that

direct action coming within twenty-four hours. Senator Jones, who the

day before had refused to bring up Suffrage in this session, arose in

the Senate and announced that on September 26, he would move to take up

the Suffrage Amendment, and keep it before the Senate until a vote was

reached.

With this promise of definite action, the Woman’s Party immediately

ceased their demonstrations.

On September 26, Senator Jones brought the Amendment up. Maud Younger

says, in her _Revelations of a Woman Lobbyist_:

Discussion began. Discussion went on. For five whole days it lasted,

with waves of hope and waves of dismay, and always an undercurrent

of uncertainty. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, the speeches went on. On

Monday word went forth that the President would address the Senate

on behalf of our Amendment.

I hurried to Senator Curtis, who was in his office signing letters.

He said: “The other side claim that they have their men pledged:

that the President comes too late. What do you expect?”

“I don’t know what I should expect. I hope.”

I went over to the Senate. There was very great excitement; a sense

of something wonderful impending. On the floor there was the

ceremonious atmosphere that attends the President’s coming.

“Look,” said a newspaper man in the gallery beside me, “he’s brought

all his heavy artillery with him.” There on the floor of the Senate

were the members of the Cabinet. Lesser dignitaries were scattered

about the room. Congressmen stood, two-deep, lining the walls. The

Sergeant-at-Arms announced in clear tones: “The President of the

United States.”

The President came in, shook hands with the presiding officer,

turned and read his speech. There is always an evenness about his

public utterances, in manner, in voice, in reading; yet I thought he

read this message with more feeling than his War message, or his

Fourteen Points.

The President said:

Gentlemen of the Senate: The unusual circumstances of a world war in

which we stand and are judged in the view not only of our own people

and our own consciences but also in the view of all nations and

peoples will, I hope, justify in your thought, as it does in mine,

the message I have come to bring you.

I regard the concurrence of the Senate in the constitutional

Amendment proposing the extension of the Suffrage to women as

vitally essential to the successful prosecution of the great war of

humanity in which we are engaged. I have come to urge upon you the

considerations which have led me to that conclusion. It is not only

my privilege, it is also my duty to apprise you of every

circumstance and element involved in this momentous struggle which

seems to me to affect its very processes and its outcome. It is my

duty to win the war and to ask you to remove every obstacle that

stands in the way of winning it.

I had assumed that the Senate would concur in the Amendment because

no disputable principle is involved but only a question of the

method by which the Suffrage is to be extended to women. There is

and can be no Party issue involved in it. Both of our great national

Parties are pledged, explicitly pledged, to equality of Suffrage for

the women of the country.

Neither Party, therefore, it seems to me, can justify hesitation as

to the method of obtaining it, can rightfully hesitate to substitute

Federal initiative for State initiative, if the early adoption of

this measure is necessary to the successful prosecution of the war

and if the method of State action proposed in Party platforms of

1916 is impracticable within any reasonable length of time, if

practicable at all.

And its adoption is, in my judgment, clearly necessary to the

successful prosecution of the war and the successful realization of

the object for which the war is being fought.

That judgment I take the liberty of urging upon you with solemn

earnestness for reasons which I shall state very frankly and which I

shall hope will seem as conclusive to you as they seem to me.

This is a peoples’ war and the peoples’ thinking constitutes its

atmosphere and morale, not the predilections of the drawing-room or

the political considerations of the caucus.

If we be indeed Democrats and wish to lead the world to democracy,

we can ask other peoples to accept in proof of our sincerity and our

ability to lead them whither they wish to be led nothing less

persuasive and convincing than our actions. Our professions will not

suffice. Verification must be forthcoming when verification is asked

for. And in this case verification is asked for—asked for in this

particular matter. You ask by whom?

Not through diplomatic channels; not by foreign ministers. Not by

the intimations of parliaments. It is asked for by the anxious,

expectant, suffering peoples with whom we are dealing and who are

willing to put their destinies in some measure in our hands, if they

are sure that we wish the same things they do.

I do not speak by conjecture. It is not alone the voices of

statesmen and of newspapers that reach me, and the voices of foolish

and intemperate agitators do not reach me at all. Through many, many

channels I have been made aware what the plain, struggling, workaday

folk are thinking upon whom the chief terror and suffering of this

tragic war falls.

They are looking to the great, powerful, famous Democracy of the

West to lead them to the new day for which they have so long waited;

and they think in their logical simplicity, that democracy means

that women shall play their part in affairs alongside men and upon

an equal footing with them. If we reject measures like this, in

ignorance or defiance of what a new age has brought forth, of what

they have seen but we have not, they will cease to believe in us;

they will cease to follow or to trust us.

They have seen their own governments accept this interpretation of

democracy—seen old governments accept this interpretation of

democracy—seen old governments like that of Great Britain, which did

not profess to be democratic, promise readily and as of course this

justice to women, though they had before refused it, the strange

revelations of this war having made many things new and plain, to

governments as well as to people.

Are we alone to refuse to learn the lesson? Are we alone to ask and

take the utmost that our women can give—service and sacrifice of

every kind—and still say we do not see what title that gives them to

stand by our sides in the guidance of the affairs of their nation

and ours?

We have made partners of the women in this war; shall we admit them

only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not a

partnership of privilege and right? This war could not have been

fought either by the other nations engaged or by America, if it had

not been for the services of the women—services rendered in every

sphere—not merely in the fields of effort in which we have been

accustomed to see them work, but wherever men have worked, and upon

the very skirts and edges of the battle itself.

We shall not only be distrusted but shall deserve to be distrusted

if we do not enfranchise them with the fullest possible

enfranchisement, as it is now certain that the other great free

nations will enfranchise them.

We cannot isolate our thought and action in such a matter from the

thought of the rest of the world. We must either conform or

deliberately reject what they propose and resign the leadership of

liberal minds to others.

The women of America are too noble and too intelligent and too

devoted to be slackers whether you give or withhold this thing that

is mere justice; but I know the magic it will work in their thoughts

and spirits if you give it to them.

I propose it as I would propose to admit soldiers to the Suffrage,

the men fighting in the field for our liberties and the liberties of

the world, were they excluded. The task of the woman lies at the

very heart of the war, and I know how much stronger that heart will

beat if you do this just thing and show our women that you trust

them as much as you in fact and of necessity depend upon them.

Have I said that the passage of this Amendment is a vitally

necessary war measure, and do you need further proof? Do you stand

in need of the trust of other peoples and of the trust of our own

women? Is that trust an asset or is it not?

I tell you plainly, as the commander-in-chief of our armies and of

the gallant men in our fleets, as the present spokesman of this

people in our dealings with the men and women throughout the world

who are now our partners, as the responsible head of a great

government which stands and is questioned day by day as to its

purposes, its principles, its hopes, whether they be serviceable to

men everywhere or only to itself, and who must himself answer these

questions or be shamed, as the guide and director of forces caught

in the grip of war and by the same token in need of every material

and spiritual resource this great nation possesses—I tell you

plainly that this measure which I urge upon you is vital to the

winning of the war and to the energies alike of preparation and of

battle.

And not to the winning of the war only. It is vital to the right

solution of the great problems which we must settle, and settle

immediately, when the war is over. We shall need then in our vision

of affairs, as we have never needed them before, the sympathy and

insight and clear moral instinct of the women of the world. The

problems of that time will strike to the roots of many things that

we have not hitherto questioned, and I for one believe that our

safety in those questioning days, as well as our comprehension of

matters that touch society to the quick, will depend upon the direct

and authoritative participation of women in our counsels. We shall

need their moral sense to preserve what is right and fine and worthy

in our system of life as well as to discover just what it is that

ought to be purified and re-formed. Without their counselings we

shall only be half wise.

That is my case. That is my appeal. Many may deny its validity, if

they choose, but no one can brush aside or answer the arguments upon

which it is based. The executive tasks of this war rest upon me. I

ask that you lighten them and place in my hands instruments,

spiritual instruments, which I do not now possess, which I sorely

need, and which I have daily to apologize for not being able to

employ.

In this speech, the President had said: “The voices of foolish and

intemperate agitators do not reach me at all.”

It was generally felt that the President, there, indicated the Woman’s

Party. Commenting on that phrase the next day, the Republican Senators

remarked, “Why it was that which brought him there!”

During the course of the debate between Poindexter and Pitman,

Poindexter asked, “Wasn’t it the pickets that got the President?”

The next afternoon when the vote was called for, and the last Senator

had answered to his name, the presiding officer announced the result:

“The joint resolution does not pass.”

The Suffrage Amendment still lacked two votes.

Miss Younger says in her _Revelations of a Lobbyist_:

Stunned, as though unable to grasp it, hundreds of women sat there.

Then slowly the defeat reached their consciousness, and they began

slowly to put on their hats, to gather up their wraps, and to file

out of the galleries, some with a dull sense of injustice, some with

burning resentment. In the corridors they began to form in groups.

Every one wanted to discuss it. But Alice Paul took my arm.

“Come,” she said, “we must find out about the short-term candidates

and go into the election campaign at once.”

Immediately after the vote was taken and defeated, Senator Jones of New

Mexico changed his vote and moved that the measure be reconsidered;

thereby placing it again on the Senate Calendar, ready to be called up

any time and voted on.

By going to the Senate in this manner, the President had made his own

record clean to the country at large. But he had not made it clean to

the National Woman’s Party, because, although he had done something, he

had not done enough. He appeared to be doing more than he was, but there

was a great deal more that he could have done. He did not, for instance,

start his appeal to the Senate early enough. That appeal came only a

fortnight before the vote was taken. Possibly he had underestimated the

opposition; probably he had overestimated the strength of his own

influence. But the country at large of course did not understand that.

For the time being, therefore, the Woman’s Party concentrated their

drive on another point in the enemy line.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

VIII

PICKETING THE SENATE

AS the Senate was still sitting and could at any time reverse its action

in regard to the Suffrage Amendment, the Woman’s Party decided to

protest against its defeat of the Amendment and to demand a reversal.

They began to picket the Senate and in especial the thirty-four Senators

whose adverse vote had again delayed the passage of the Amendment.

On the morning of October 7, four banner bearers ascended the steps of

the Capitol. They were: Elizabeth Kalb; Vivian Pierce; Bertha Moller;

Mrs. Horton Pope. The lettered banner, flanked as usual with the

Suffrage tri-color, read:

WE DEMAND AN AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED CONSTITUTION

ENFRANCHISING WOMEN.

They had hardly mounted the steps when the Capitol police placed them

under arrest. They took the prisoners to the guard room in the Capitol,

kept them there for fifteen minutes, and then released them. It was, of

course, not exactly an arrest; and no one seemed exactly responsible for

the order. The banners were, however, confiscated.

That afternoon, the same women, except that Bertha Arnold was

substituted for Mrs. Pope, mounted the steps bearing a large banner

which read:

WE PROTEST AGAINST THE 34 WILFUL SENATORS WHO HAVE

DELAYED THE POLITICAL FREEDOM OF AMERICAN WOMEN.

THEY HAVE OBSTRUCTED THE WAR PROGRAM OF THE PRESIDENT.

THEY HAVE LINED UP THE SENATE WITH PRUSSIA BY

DENYING SELF-GOVERNMENT TO THE PEOPLE.

All the afternoon, the banner bearers were detained in the courtroom at

intervals. When they were released, they went back to the Capitol; were

arrested; detained in the courtroom again; released again.

On the morning of October 10, four more pickets, Edith Ainge, Bertha

Moller, Maud Jamison, Clara Wold, started for the Capitol. Crowds of men

and women gathered in the park to see what was going to happen, and rows

of police stood on the Capitol steps awaiting the pickets. As soon as

the big protest banner was unfurled, the police seized it. Maud Jamison

and Clara Wold tried to mount the steps with the tri-color, but several

policemen rushed upon them, and conducted them up the steps and into the

Capitol building. As the police said over and over again that there were

no arrests, the women insisted on carrying their banners.

Protesting against the curious and inconsistent action on the part of

the police, the women were conducted into the presence of the captain.

He iterated and reiterated that this action was all in accordance with

the rules of Colonel Higgins, the Democratic Sergeant-at-Arms who is

under the Rules Committee which carries out the Democratic program. The

Suffragists demanded by what authority they were held and the captain

informed them that it did not make any difference about the law, that

Colonel Higgins had taken the law into his own hands. The four

Suffragists waited for a few minutes. Their purple, white, and gold

banners had been confiscated, but the protest banner was still there.

Suddenly, without any interference from anybody, they took up their

protest banner, walked out of the guard room, went over to the Senate

Office Building and stood with it, at the top of the steps, the rest of

the day. Later Vivian Pierce, Mrs. Stewart Polk, Mary Gertrude Fendall

and Gladys Greiner joined this group of pickets.

In the meantime, other Suffragists were trying vainly to take the

Suffrage colors to the Capitol steps. They walked from the Office

Building on to the Plaza by twos. The instant they appeared, policemen,

rushing down the steps, rushing from the curb, rushing from the crowd

which had gathered, seized them. They tried to wrench the banners away;

and this was, of course, an unequal contest, in which sometimes the

women were pulled completely off the ground and always their wrists

painfully twisted. But the women clung to the banners, walked as calmly

as the situation permitted into the Capitol, and down to the guard room.

Here the banners were always confiscated, but they, themselves, were

released. If anybody in the crowd showed any disposition to resent the

attitude of the police, he was placed under arrest too; but he also was

released.

On October 11 the Suffragists picketed only the Senate Office Building,

as Congress was not in session. At the beginning of the day, Mrs. George

Atwater and Betty Cram held the banners. Mrs. Atwater’s two little

girls, Edith and Barbara, assisted their mother by holding the

tri-colors.

Others who picketed that day were: Grace Needham, Mrs. George Odell,

Elizabeth Kalb, Virginia Arnold, Mary Gertrude Fendall, Gladys Greiner,

Maud Jamison, Vivian Pierce, Bertha Moller, Clara Wold.

* * * * *

On October 13, plans for another demonstration were announced in the

Washington papers. _Edith Ainge, bearing the American flag, was to lead

a procession of Suffragists on to the Senate floor._ There the words of

the anti-Suffrage Senators in praise of democracy were to be burned. For

an hour before the line formed, the Capitol police were lined up, ready

for the pickets. Above, Senators hung over the balcony where they could

witness the demonstration. Below, motor after motor drove up to the curb

and stopped, waiting to see what was going to happen. At length, the

Suffragists arrived. They formed in line outside the Senate Office

Building, and started towards the Capitol. They were beset by a

battalion of police, and taken to the guard room. Women standing in the

crowd, who were not in the procession, but who wore the Suffrage colors

were taken along also. Alice Paul, who wore no regalia of any kind, was

caught in the net.

These women were: Alice Paul; Vivian Pierce; Bertha Moller; Bertha

Arnold; Elizabeth McShane; Edith Ainge; Edith Hilles; Julia Emory; Clara

Wold; Elizabeth Kalb; Virginia Arnold; Grace Frost; Matilda Young; Mrs.

K. G. Winston.

* * * * *

The Woman’s Party now decided to open a “banner” campaign on each of the

Senators who had helped to defeat the Suffrage Amendment. They began

with Senator Wadsworth. They unrolled on the steps of the Senate Office

Building a banner which 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.

Later appeared another banner, proclaiming the case of Senator Shields:

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 OR SENATOR SHIELDS?

These banners were taken up by the newspapers of the Senators’ States

and focussed unfavorable attention upon them.

By this time, the Capitol police had found that their system of

arresting and detaining what threatened to prove an inexhaustible army

of Suffragists was futile. So now they reverted to their policy of 1917.

They stood aside and let the crowd worry the Suffragists. Mainly,

however, these were small boys, who seized the banners and dragged them

through the streets.

On October 23 appeared:

GERMANY HAS ESTABLISHED “EQUAL, UNIVERSAL, SECRET,

DIRECT FRANCHISE.” THE SENATE HAS DENIED EQUAL UNIVERSAL

SUFFRAGE TO AMERICA. WHICH IS MORE OF A DEMOCRACY,

GERMANY OR AMERICA?

The small boys, generally office boys, were allowed to tear up this

banner too.

* * * * *

On October 24, Julia Emory and Virginia Arnold succeeded in getting to

the top of the Capitol steps, unseen by the police who were grouped on

the sidewalk. Their banner said:

WE CONDEMN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. THE DEMOCRATIC

PARTY DEFEATED SUFFRAGE. THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY HAS

PLACED AMERICA BEHIND GERMANY AS A DEMOCRACY, IF

GERMANY HAS, AS SHE SAYS, ESTABLISHED EQUAL, UNIVERSAL,

SECRET, DIRECT FRANCHISE.

The instant they caught sight of this banner, the policemen took the two

girls to the guard room, where they held them, until half-past seven

that evening.

On October 25, as the Senate was not in session, the pickets returned to

the Office Building, where hitherto they had been unmolested. There were

four of them, and they carried the Great Demand banner. They were

arrested, and held until six o’clock. They went back to the Capitol at

eight in the evening, and were again arrested, and held until eleven

o’clock. Friends or newspaper men, calling at the Capitol, could get no

information about them. On various pretexts, the telephone answered

nothing. These women were Matilda Young; Elizabeth Kalb; Julia Emory;

Virginia Arnold.

On October 26, eight pickets bore the Wadsworth and Shields banners with

the tri-color. As usual, the poles of their banners were broken; their

banners themselves snatched from them; they were seized and held.

That afternoon, there was an aeroplane demonstration in Washington.

Seven pickets went out with banners: Julia Emory, Maud Jamison, Bertha

Arnold, Katherine Fisher, Minna Lederman, Elizabeth Kalb, Mrs. Frances

Davies. They were handled with great roughness. Maud Jamison was knocked

senseless by a policeman. Several men in uniform protested to the

police.

On October 28, twenty-one women, each bearing the purple, white, and

gold banners, started for the Capitol. They marched a banner’s length

apart across the Capitol grounds.

They had gone halfway up the steps, when policemen in plain clothes

appeared from all sides and grappled with them. Many women were injured.

Annie Arniel was thrown to the ground so violently that she fainted. An

ambulance was summoned to take her to the hospital. The other women were

locked in a basement room until six o’clock, when they were released.

They were escorted through the Capitol grounds by a member of the

vigilant force of guards. He bore the American flag which had been

carried at the head of their line. As they reached the limit of the

Capitol grounds, he returned that to them, but all the lettered banners

and tri-colors were retained.

The twenty-one women were: Edith Ainge; Harriet U. Andrews; Bertha

Arnold; Virginia Arnold; Annie Arniel; Olive Beale; Lucy Burns; Eleanor

Calnan; L. G. C. Daniels; Frances Davis; Julia Emory; Mary Gertrude

Fendall; Mrs. Gilson Gardner; Sara Grogan; Maud Jamison; Elizabeth Kalb;

Augusta M. Kelley; Lola Maverick Lloyd; Matilda Young; H. R. Walmsley;

Alice Paul.

On October 29, two pickets went to the Capitol with a banner inscribed:

RESISTANCE TO TYRANNY IS OBEDIENCE TO GOD.

They were seized and held until the afternoon.

By some divagation in the police policy, they were seized, while they

were walking to the car after their release, and held for another hour.

On October 30, five pickets, carrying the Senator Baird banner and three

tri-colors, picketed the north front of the Capitol for an hour. Then

they marched to the south front, determined to take up their stand on

the Senate steps. Halfway in their progress, they were seized, locked

up, and held until six o’clock.

* * * * *

Indignant at these arrests without charge, the National Woman’s Party

decided to protest the next day—Thursday.

On October 31, therefore, after the usual morning arrest, their lawyer

applied to Judge Siddons of the District Supreme Court for a writ of

habeas corpus. The Judge declared that the sergeant-at-arms had no right

to hold any one without a charge, that he must either make a charge, or

release the Suffragists. The sergeant-at-arms released them at once.

Nevertheless, when the pickets returned in the afternoon, they were

seized in the usual violent fashion and conducted to the guard room.

However, although their banners were not returned to them, they were

detained but a few minutes. On Friday, they were released as soon as

their banners were seized. Fresh banners appeared from time to time all

day long. Again consulted, Judge Siddons said that the police had no

right to keep the banners. On Saturday, however, the police did not have

to seize the banners; there appeared a variation in the picket line. A

group of women walked up and down in front of the Senate Office

Building. They bore no lettered banners; they bore no tri-colors; but

they wore on their arms black mourning bands—in commemoration of the

death of justice in the United States Senate.

* * * * *

On November 21, the Senate declared a recess without considering the

Federal Suffrage Amendment. That day, twelve pickets protested against

the recess, marching from the Senate Office Building to the Capitol.

They were: Alice Paul, Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Elizabeth Kalb, Clara Wold,

Bertha Arnold, Sara Grogan, Julia Emory, Anita Pollitzer, Matilda Young,

Mrs. Nicholas Kelly, Olive Beale, Maud Jamison.

They carried a banner which read:

AMERICAN WOMEN PROTEST AGAINST THE SENATE’S RECESSING

WITHOUT PASSING THE SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT.

AMERICA ENTERS THE PEACE CONFERENCE WITH UNCLEAN

HANDS FOR DEMOCRACY IS DENIED TO HER PEOPLE.

THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD CANNOT TRUST HER MEDIATION

IF SHE PREACHES DEMOCRACY FOR ALL EUROPE WHILE

AMERICANS ARE ARRESTED FOR ASKING FOR IT AT THE CAPITOL.

On this occasion, the women were treated outrageously. The police, two

to a picket, pounced upon them as they approached the Capitol. One was

heard to call, “Help! Help! They’re coming!” Clara Wold was knocked down

twice on the Senate steps; was shaken like a rat. They dragged and

pushed Alice Paul about as though personally enraged with her. When they

were taken into the basement room of the Capitol a crowd of indignant

men and women followed. Policeman No. 21 threatened to arrest a man in

the crowd because he said: “Sure! I believe in Woman Suffrage.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

IX

THE THIRD APPEAL TO THE WOMEN VOTERS

ALL during this period, the National Woman’s Party was, of course,

taking its part in the autumn campaign—the campaign of 1918. It was in

the Senatorial elections only that the Woman’s Party was interested. The

expedient quality of Alice Paul’s policy manifested itself notably here.

It has been shown again and again how swift she was to adapt the tactics

of the Woman’s Party to the needs of the moment. The Woman’s Party, it

must always be remembered, was organized for but one object—to

enfranchise the women of the United States by federal amendment. Other

Suffrage organizations could and did divide their interests; could and

did deflect their forces for those interests. On this point, Alice Paul

never swerved. But as has been again and again demonstrated, she was as

fluid as water, as swift as light, to adapt that single adamantine

policy to the situation of the moment. At this juncture she extended her

policy.

The circumstances were these:

In the Senate, Suffrage needed two more votes.

In the West, as usual, the Woman’s Party asked the women voters to

defeat the Democrats as the Party in power and therefore the Party

responsible. In two States in the East—New Jersey and New

Hampshire—where the Republican candidates were anti-Suffragists and the

Democratic candidates were Suffragists, the Woman’s Party supported the

Democratic candidates.

That campaign, short as it was, was intensive. In the West Elsie Hill

took care of Nevada; Catherine Flanagan of Montana; Anita Pollitzer of

Wyoming; Clara Wold of Oregon; Louise Garnett of Kansas; Iris Calderhead

of Colorado. In the East, Doris Stevens, Betty Gram, Bertha Arnold, Ruth

Small, Rebecca Hourwich, Vivian Pierce, Bertha Moller, Lucy Branham,

Caroline Katzenstein, Florence Bayard Hilles, Agnes Morey, Gladys

Greiner, Maud Younger, Mary Beard, Abby Scott Baker, Mary Dubrow, Grace

Needham, Lucy Burns, Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Katherine Morey took care of

New Jersey and New Hampshire.

The two vacancies in the Senate from New Jersey and New Hampshire had

been caused by death. The Senators who would take those seats in

November would fill out the remainder of the Congress then in Session.

In New Jersey the Republican candidate—Senator Baird—had voted against

the Suffrage Amendment in the Senate on October 1. The Democratic

candidate—Charles O’Connor Hennessy—had fought all his public life in

New Jersey for National Woman Suffrage.

In New Hampshire the Republican candidate—George H. Moses—was an

anti-Suffragist. The Democratic candidate—John B. Jameson—was for the

Federal Amendment.

The National Woman’s Party thought of course the President would assist

them in their campaign for Hennessy and Jameson, as they were both

Democrats as well as Suffragists and, in particular, because he had just

told the Senate that the passing of the Federal Amendment was necessary

to the successful prosecution of the war. But he gave them no help until

the Woman’s Party forced him to do so, and then it was too late. But

when the news came back from the Suffrage States of the West that the

Woman’s Party speakers were telling of his inaction, he sent—in the last

week in October—the following letter to Hennessy of New Jersey:

May I not say how deeply interested I am in the contest you are

conducting? I cannot but feel that in ignoring my earnest appeal

with regard to the Suffrage Amendment, made in public interest, and

because of my intimate knowledge of the issues involved both on the

other side of the water and here, Senator Baird has certainly not

represented the true feeling and spirit of the people of New Jersey.

I am sure that they must have felt that such an appeal could not and

should not be ignored. It would be a very great make-weight, thrown

into the international scale, if his course of action while in the

Senate could be reversed by the people of our great State.

Also, before the end of the campaign, the President came out in a

statement endorsing Jameson. But he did not work so hard to elect these

two Democrats, who were also Suffragists, as he did to defeat Vardaman

and Hardwick, both of whom were Democrats and one a Suffragist. Hennessy

and Jameson were both defeated. In the West, the election resulted in

the defeat of Senator Shafroth of Colorado, thereby handing the Senate

over to the Republicans. The defeat of Shafroth is universally ascribed

to the Woman’s Party. The Woman’s Party believed that this election had

brought them one vote, Pollock of South Carolina.

The Borah incident of the campaign of 1918 is a black page in the record

of any gentleman who has Presidential aspirations. Catherine Flanagan

and Margaret Whittemore were campaigning in western Idaho, asking the

Idaho people to bring pressure on Borah to vote for Suffrage.

Shortly after casting his vote against the Federal Amendment, Borah came

to Headquarters to see Alice Paul. He said that that vote represented

his personal belief, but that in the future he would have to be bound by

the Idaho Party (Republican) platform which had endorsed the Amendment.

He said he would not give a public statement as that would look like

trying to get votes, but he wrote out a statement that the Woman’s Party

could understand as indicating his position. That statement is as

follows:

We have talked over the Suffrage situation with Senator Borah and

our understanding from the interview is that he will carry out his

platform and vote for the Suffrage Amendment if re-elected.

The Woman’s Party telegraphed this statement to Idaho and asked his

constituents to get him to confirm it. He was very evasive in replying

to their questions and Alice Paul finally sent him the following letter:

October 29, 1918. SENATOR WM. E. BORAH,

Senate Office Building,

Washington, D. C.

DEAR SENATOR BORAH:

In view of the statement that you have just telegraphed to one of

our members, Mrs. Marcella Pride, in Boise, and in view of the

statements which you have made to various newspaper correspondents

in Washington since Mrs. Baker’s and my interview with you, giving

them the impression that there was no basis for our understanding

that you would vote for the Suffrage Amendment after November 5th,

we feel that we have no course left but to throw all the strength

which we possess in Idaho against you. I have, therefore,

telegraphed to this effect today to Miss Whittemore, who is in

charge of our Idaho work.

I am sure I need not tell you how much we regret that you have not

felt able to say frankly what you would do after election, and that

you are not willing to stand by the statement which you authorized

us to give out as expressing the understanding to be derived by us

from our interview with you.

Sincerely yours,

ALICE PAUL, National Chairman.

Thereupon the Woman’s Party campaigned against him until election. Borah

was re-elected. Here—anticipating by three months—it must be mentioned

that when on February 10, the Amendment came to a vote, Borah voted,

“No.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

X

THE PRESIDENT INCLUDES SUFFRAGE IN HIS CAMPAIGN FOR CONGRESS

FOR the third time the Woman’s Party had waged in the West one of its

marvelous campaigns against the Democratic Party. The repercussion of

that campaign had reached the President. When Congress convened in

December, he included the Federal Amendment in his message of December 2

to Congress as a part of the Administration program. He said:

And what shall we say of the women—of their instant intelligence,

quickening every task that they touched; their capacity for

organization and co-operation, 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 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 by 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 that 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.

This was the first time that any President ever mentioned Suffrage as a

part of his administrative program. It was a step forward. The women

waited ten days to see whether he would follow this message with action.

The President sailed for France.

When the Woman’s Party discovered from the Administration leaders that

he had left no orders to have Suffrage carried out, they decided to hold

another protest meeting.

“In carrying on a campaign for Democracy abroad and utterly ignoring it

at home,” Alice Paul said, “he has exposed his whole broadside to our

attack.”

As always, whenever possible, the Woman’s Party announced their protest

meeting through the newspapers. Lucy Branham went to Police

Headquarters. She explained her errand, asking for a permit.

“Here’s your permit!” Colonel Ridley said.

Lucy Branham made further explanation, “We are going to burn the

President’s words,” she warned him.

“Here’s your permit!” Colonel Ridley said.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

XI

BURNING THE PRESIDENT’S WORDS AGAIN

ON December 16, a woman carrying an American flag, emerged from

Headquarters. Behind her came a long line of women bearing purple,

white, and gold banners. Behind them came fifty women bearing lighted

torches. Behind them came women—more women and more women and more

women. Always a banner’s length apart they marched and on they came ...

and on ... and on ... and on.... People who saw the demonstrations say

that it seemed as though the colorful, slow-moving line would never come

to an end. Witnesses say also that it was the most beautiful of all the

Woman’s Party demonstrations. They marched to the Lafayette Monument.

Their leader, Mrs. Harvey Wiley, stopped in front of a burning cauldron

which had been placed at the foot of the pedestal. The torch bearers

formed a semi-circle about that cauldron. The women with the purple,

white, and gold banners—who were the speakers—grouped themselves around

the torch bearers.

Among these women were the State Chairman or a Woman’s Party

representative from almost all the forty-eight States; some of whom had

come great distances to be present on this occasion. There were three

hundred in all.

In the meantime, a huge crowd, which augmented steadily in numbers and

in excitement as the long line of Suffragists came on and on and on,

formed a great, black, attentive mass, which hedged in the banner

bearers, as the banner bearers hedged in the torch bearers. In that

crowd were the National Democratic Chairman and many prominent

Democratic politicians.

Dusk changed into darkness, and the flames from cauldron and torches

mounted higher and higher.

After the Suffragists had assembled, there came a moment of quiet. Then

Vida Milholland stepped forward and without accompaniment of any kind,

sang with her characteristic spirit the _Woman’s Marseillaise_.

Immediately afterwards, Mrs. John Rogers opened the meeting, and

introduced, one after another, nineteen speakers, each of whom, first

reading them, dropped some words of President Wilson’s on democracy into

the flaming cauldron.

Mrs. John Rogers declared:

We hold this meeting to protest against the denial of liberty to

American women. All over the world today we see surging and sweeping

irresistibly on, the great tide of democracy, and women would be

derelict to their duty if they did not see to it that it brings

freedom to the women of this land.

England has enfranchised her women, Canada has enfranchised her

women, Russia has enfranchised her women, the liberated nations of

Central Europe are enfranchising their women. America must live up

to her pretensions of democracy!

Our ceremony today is planned to call attention to the fact that the

President has gone abroad to establish democracy in foreign lands

when he has failed to establish democracy at home. We burn his words

on liberty today, not in malice or anger, but in a spirit of

reverence for truth.

This meeting is a message to President Wilson. We expect an answer.

If it is more words, we will burn them again. The only answer the

National Woman’s Party will accept is the instant passage of the

Amendment in the Senate.

Mrs. M. Toscan Bennett was the first speaker. She said:

It is because we are moved by a passion for democracy that we are

here to protest against the President’s forsaking the cause of

freedom in America and appearing as a champion of freedom in the old

world. We burn with shame and indignation that President Wilson

should appear before the representatives of nations who have

enfranchised their women, as chief spokesman for the right of

self-government while American women are denied that right. We are

held up to ridicule to the whole world.

We consign to the flames the words of the President which have

inspired women of other nations to strive for their freedom while

their author refuses to do what lies in his power to do to liberate

the women of his own country. Meekly to submit to this dishonor to

the nation would be treason to mankind.

Mr. President, the paper currency of liberty which you hand to women

is worthless fuel until it is backed by the gold of action.

The Reverend Olympia Brown of Wisconsin, eighty-four years old, burned

the latest words of President Wilson, his two speeches made on the first

day of his visit to France. She said:

America has fought for France and the common cause of liberty. I

have fought for liberty for seventy years and I protest against the

President leaving our country with this old fight here unwon.

Mrs. John Winters Brannan burned the address made by President Wilson at

the Metropolitan Opera House in opening the Fourth Liberty Loan

Campaign, in which he justified women’s protest when he said:

We have been told it is unpatriotic to criticise public action. If

it is, there is a deep disgrace resting upon the origin of this

nation. We have forgotten the history of our country if we have

forgotten how to object, how to resist, how to agitate when it is

necessary to readjust matters.

Mary Ingham burned President Wilson’s speech of the Fourth of July,

1914, in which he said:

There is nothing in liberty unless it is translated into definite

action in our own lives today.

Miss Ingham said:

In the name of the women of Pennsylvania who are demanding action of

the President, I consign these words to the flames.

Agnes Morey burned President Wilson’s book, _The New Freedom_. She said:

On today, the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, in the name of

the liberty-loving women of Massachusetts, I consign these words to

the flames in protest against the exclusion of women from the

Democratic program of this Administration.

Henrietta Briggs Wall burned President Wilson’s address given at

Independence Hall, July 4, 1919, when he said:

Liberty does not consist in mere general declarations of the rights

of man. It consists in the translation of these declarations into

action.

Susan Frost, of South Carolina, burned President Wilson’s last message

to Congress in which he again spoke words without results.

Mrs. Townsend Scott burned his message to the Socialists in France which

declared:

The enemies of liberty from this time forth must be shut out.

Mrs. Eugene Shippen burned this message to Congress:

This is a war for self-government among all the peoples of the world

as against the arbitrary choices of self-constituted masters.

Sara Grogan burned another message to Congress dealing with liberty for

other nations.

Clara Wold burned the message to Congress demanding self-government for

Filipinos.

Jessie Adler burned the speech to the Chamber of Commerce of Columbus:

I believe that democracy is the only thing that vitalizes the whole

people.

Mrs. Percy Reed burned this message to Congress:

Liberty is a fierce and intractable thing to which no bounds can be

set and no bounds ought to be set.

Sue White burned the President’s reply to President Poincaré of France.

Mary Sutherland burned the words:

I believe the might of America is the sincere love of its people for

the freedom of mankind.

Edith Phelps burned the Flag Day address.

Doris Stevens burned a statement to Democratic women before election:

I have done everything I could do and shall continue to do

everything in my power for the Federal Suffrage Amendment.

Dr. Caroline Spencer burned the words which President Wilson said when

he laid a wreath on the tomb of Lafayette, “in memory of the great

Lafayette—from a fellow servant of liberty.”

Margaret Oakes burned the Suffrage message to the Senate:

We shall deserve to be distrusted if we do not enfranchise our

women.

Florence Bayard Hilles ended the meeting with a declaration that women

would continue their struggle for freedom, and would burn the words of

President Wilson even as he spoke them until he and his Party made these

words good by granting political freedom to the women of America.

After the meeting was over, the long line marched back to Headquarters.

A big, applauding crowd walked along with them.

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XII

THE WATCHFIRES OF FREEDOM

ALICE PAUL spent all day Christmas of 1918 in bed resting. At least, she

was resting physically. Mentally....

On that day she evolved a new plan of bringing the attention of the

President, the attention of the country, the attention of the world, to

the fact that the Susan B. Anthony Amendment must be passed. It was

impossible—because of the action of the police in putting out the fires

and arresting those who tended them—to carry out, in all its detail, her

original plan which was extraordinarily striking and picturesque.

Perhaps at no time in the history of the world has there ever been

projected a demonstration so full of a beautiful symbolism.

The original plan was to keep a fire burning on the pavement in front of

the White House till the Susan B. Anthony Amendment was passed. Wood for

this bonfire was to be sent from all the States. Whenever the President

made a speech in Europe for democracy, that speech was to be burned in

the watchfire. While this was going on a bell, which was set above the

door of Headquarters, would toll.

On the afternoon of New Year’s Day, 1919, therefore, a wagon drove up to

the White House pavement and deposited an urn filled with firewood—on a

spot in line with the White House door. Presently the bell at

Headquarters began to toll, and a group of women marched from

Headquarters to the urn. Edith Ainge lighted the fire, and Mrs. Lawrence

Lewis dropped into the flames the most recent words, in regard to

democracy, that President Wilson had addressed to the people of Europe.

The first was from the Manchester speech:

We will enter into no combinations of power which are not

combinations of all of us.

The second was from his toast in Buckingham Palace:

We have used great words, all of us. We have used the words “right”

and “justice,” and now we are to prove whether or not we understand

these words.

The third was from his speech at Brest:

Public opinion strongly sustains all proposals for co-operation of

self-governing peoples.

The fourth was from the speech to the English wounded:

I want to tell you how much I honor you men who have been wounded

fighting for freedom.

As Mrs. Lewis burned these “scraps of paper,” Mary Dubrow and Annie

Arniel, standing behind the urn, unfurled a lettered banner:

PRESIDENT WILSON IS DECEIVING THE WORLD WHEN HE

APPEARS AS THE PROPHET OF DEMOCRACY.

PRESIDENT WILSON HAS OPPOSED THOSE WHO DEMAND

DEMOCRACY FOR THIS COUNTRY.

HE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DISFRANCHISEMENT OF

MILLIONS OF AMERICANS.

WE IN AMERICA KNOW THIS.

THE WORLD WILL FIND HIM OUT.

This was the first of the many Watchfires of Freedom kindled by the

Woman’s Party.

After these words were burned, Mrs. Lewis addressed the crowd that had

gathered. When Helena Hill Weed, who had followed her, was speaking, a

group of soldiers and sailors rushed forward, overturned the urn, and

began to stamp out the blazing pieces of wood. There were two sentinels

on each side of the urn, Gertrude Crocker, Harriet U. Andrews, Mrs. A.

P. Winston, Julia Emory. They bore the tri-color, but they also bore

torches. They quickly lighted the torches from the embers, and held them

aloft. The rioting continued, but Mrs. Weed went calmly on with her

speech.

Suddenly there was an exclamation from the crowd. Everybody turned.

Flames were issuing from the huge, bronze urn in Lafayette Square

directly opposite the bonfire.

Hazel Hunkins—clinging to the high-pedestaled urn—was holding aloft the

Suffrage tri-color. The flames played over the slender Tanagra-like

figure of the girl and glowed through the purple, white, and gold.

People said it was—that instant’s picture—like a glimpse from the

_Götterdämmerung_. Policemen immediately rushed over there, followed by

a large crowd. They arrested Alice Paul, Julia Emory, Hazel Hunkins,

Edith Ainge.

In the meantime, the fire in front of the White House had been rebuilt

and rekindled. It burned all night long and all the next day. Alice

Paul, who had been released with her three companions after being

detained at the police station for a while, remained on guard until

morning. Annie Arniel and Julia Emory stayed with her. It rained all

night. But until late, crowds gathered, quiet and very interested, to

listen to the speeches. This was Wednesday. All day Thursday succeeding

groups of women took up their watch on the fire.

Friday afternoon, the same banner was carried out. As soon as it was

unfurled, a crowd of soldiers, sailors, and small boys, a chief petty

officer in the navy being most violent, attacked the Suffragists, Mary

Dubrow and Matilda Young. They tore the banner, broke the urn and

attacked the purple, white, and gold flags. The fires, were, however, at

once rekindled. It was still raining, and the rain was mixed with snow,

which became a steady sleet. But the fires continued. Finally a force of

policemen put them out with chemicals. That night they were relighted.

Mary Logue and Miss Ross guarded it until two in the morning; Mrs.

Lawrence Lewis and Julia Emory from two until seven.

Saturday afternoon, the bell at Headquarters tolled again. Immediately

the flames leaped up on the White House pavement. Alice Paul, Mrs.

Lawrence Lewis, and Phœbe Munnecke burned the first speech on Liberty

made by President Wilson on reaching Italy. They were arrested, and the

police put out the watchfire with chemicals. Instantly the fire started

in the urn. Mary Dubrow and Julia Emory were arrested. All five women

were released on bail.

On Sunday, January 5, Julia Emory, Mary Dubrow, Annie Arniel, and Phœbe

Munnecke started a fire in front of the White House. They burned the

second speech on Liberty made by the President in Italy. All the time

the bell pealed its solemn tocsin. The four sentinels were arrested.

This time they refused to give bail and were sent to the house of

detention. The fire had now burned all day and all night on Wednesday,

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

All these sentinels were charged, when they were arrested, with breaking

a Federal Park regulation. But when they came to court, they were

charged with building a bonfire on a public highway between sunset and

sunrise. Three of them went to prison for five days, and three for ten

days. They all went on hunger-strike.

January 7, evidently the official mind changed. The fire which consumed

the President’s speech on democracy delivered in Turin was allowed to

burn for three hours. Nevertheless the crowd kept kicking it about, so

that there was a line of flames across the pavement and trailing into

the gutter. By hook or by crook—three of the Suffragists—Harriet

Andrews, Mrs. A. P. Winston, Mrs. Edmund C. Evans—managed to keep it

going.

At the end of three hours, new orders seemed to materialize out of the

air; for then the police took a hand and put the fire out. With the

extinction of the last ember, however, a second fire burst into flames

at the base of the Lafayette Monument across the street. The police

rushed to it, and put it out. Immediately another fire started at the

opposite corner of the Park. And then fires became general ... here ...

there ... everywhere....

The police arrested the three women who had kept the fire going. On the

following day they were sentenced to five days in jail.

On the afternoon of that day, Mrs. M. Toscan Bennett and Matilda Young

burned the speech that the President had just made at the statue of

Columbus in Genoa. They were arrested at once, and they too were given

five days in jail.

By this time, there were eleven women in jail, all on a hunger-strike.

* * * * *

On the afternoon of January 13, just as the thousands of government

clerks began to pour down Pennsylvania Avenue past the White House,

twenty-five Suffragists, each one bearing a banner of purple, white, and

gold, came round the corner of Lafayette Square. They proceeded to the

White House pavement, where they built a watchfire. The crowds, of

course, stopped to watch the proceedings. Policemen finally broke

through them and arrested three of the women. The other twenty-two

closed in their line a little, and went on with their fire-building. The

police returned, but they did not arrest the others. But they tried to

break up the fire with huge shovels and a fire extinguisher. They tried

to trample it out. But it was useless. Wherever a bit of the watchfire

fell, it broke into flames. Finally, they arrested seventeen more women.

Four remained, holding the purple, white, and gold banners.

Suddenly a great tongue of flame leaped upwards from the urn in

Lafayette Square. The crowd rushed towards it. Then for a moment it

seemed to go mad. A group of young men rushed over to the Headquarters;

climbed up the pillars; tore down the flag, the uprights, and the pole.

The bell ultimately crashed to the ground.

The police arrested the remaining four sentinels. By eight o’clock that

afternoon, released on bail, all the women were back in Headquarters.

Half an hour later, they went out with their banners again. The streets

seemed deserted even by policemen. But, as they crossed the street, the

park police began to materialize from the shrubs and trees of the

square. However, they built their watchfire on the White House pavement,

and stood there on guard for an hour and a half. Crowds gathered, of

course. Occasionally, a man would rush over to one of the girls, and

tear her banner from her. The girl would hold it as long as it was a

physical possibility, the crowd meanwhile calling remonstrance or

encouragement according to their sympathies. By ten o’clock the women

were all arrested again. They spent the night in the house of detention.

They were: Dr. Caroline Spencer; Adelina Piunti; Helen Chisaski; Mrs. C.

Weaver; Eva Weaver; Ruth Scott; Elsie Ver Vane; Julia Emory; Lucia

Calmes; Mrs. Alexander Shields; Elizabeth Kalb; Mildred Morris; Lucy

Burns; Edith Ainge; Mrs. Gilson Gardner; Gertrude Crocker; Ellen Winsor;

Kate Heffelfinger; Katherine Boyle; Naomi Barrett; Palys L. Chevrier;

Maud Jamison; Elizabeth Huff.

* * * * *