Section 1. the Right of Citizens of the United States to Vote Shall

not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Section 2. Congress shall have power by appropriate legislation to enforce the provisions of this article.

The National American Woman Suffrage Association immediately rallied to the support of the Shafroth-Palmer Amendment; they continued to give to it their undivided work for two years.

But the Congressional Union—I quote the vigorous words of the Report of the Congressional Union for the year 1914:

The Congressional Union immediately announced its determination to support only the original Amendment, known popularly as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, and in Congress as the Bristow-Mondell Amendment. It maintained that to work at the same time for two Suffrage amendments to the National Constitution would enable the enemies of the bill to play one against the other. Believing that one amendment only must be supported, it felt that it was wise to support the amendment which would give Suffrage itself rather than an amendment which, after the same expenditure of effort would give only another method of obtaining Suffrage—that is, would merely establish the initiative on the Suffrage question. The Union, moreover, feeling that the bane of the Suffrage cause at present was too many and not too few referendums, held that to pass a Federal Amendment—which would inaugurate thirty-nine referendum campaigns would involve the movement in a dissipation of resources such as its enemies would most deeply desire. Finally, it held that the passage of one Suffrage amendment to the National Constitution would make it extremely difficult to pass another; so that if the Shafroth Bill became a law, it would probably indefinitely postpone the passage of the Anthony Amendment, and doom the movement to years of referendum campaigns.

Not at all daunted by the action of the Senate in defeating the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, nor by the introduction there of the Shafroth-Palmer Amendment, the Congressional Union at once secured the re-introduction in the Senate of the defeated Amendment. The measure was out of the Senate only twenty-two hours. The following day, Senator Bristow introduced a resolution identical with the one which had been lost. On April 7, it was again reported from the Woman Suffrage Committee, and took its place on the Calendar of the Senate. This was just a year from the date of its original introduction to this Senate. It was the second favorable report of the Senate Committee in one Congress.

Here we leave the work with Congress for a while, and take up the matter of the education of the President. We must go back a few months.

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VII

PRESSURE ON THE PRESIDENT

ALTHOUGH five different deputations—Congressional Union members; college women; women voters; New Jersey women; women from all the States—had called on the President, it was apparent that he had undergone no change in his attitude toward the Suffrage question. On February 2, 1914, therefore, another deputation, the sixth—and an exceedingly interesting one—marched to the White House. This deputation included women from the industrial world and they represented more than fifty trades in which women are engaged. They carried banners which bore quotations from the President’s New Freedom: “We Have Got to Humanize Industry,” and “I Absolutely Protest Against Being Put into the Hands of Trustees.”

At the mass-meeting, preliminary to waiting upon the President, Melinda Scott, an organizer of the Women’s Trade Union League, said:

No one could be serious when they maintained that the ballot will not help the working woman. It has helped the working-man to better his conditions and his wages. Men of every class regard the ballot as their greatest protection against the injustice of other men. Women even more than men need the ballot to protect their especial interests and their right to earn a living.... We want a law that will prohibit home-work.... We hear about the sacredness of the home. What sacredness is there about a home when it is turned into a factory, where we find a mother, very often with a child at her breast, running a sewing machine? Running up thirty-seven seams for a cent. Ironing and pressing shirts seventy cents a dozen, and children making artificial flowers for one cent a gross. Think of it—one hundred and forty flowers for one cent. Taking stitches out of coats, helping their mothers where they have finished them for six cents a coat. These women have had no chance to make laws that would protect themselves or their children....

The organized working woman has learnt through her trade union the power of industrial organization, and she realizes what her power would be if she had the ballot.... Men legislating as a class for women and children as a class have done exactly what every other ruling class has done since the history of the world. They discriminate against the class that has no voice. Some of the men say, “You women do not need a ballot; we will take care of you.” We have no faith in man’s protection.... Give us the ballot, and we will protect ourselves.

This army of four hundred arrived safely, with perfect police escort, at the doors of the White House. They were amazed to learn that the President would see only twenty-five of the women. He had said he would “receive the delegation.” The selected number then went in, the remaining three hundred and seventy-five waited in line outside.

Margaret Hinchey, a laundry worker of New York, said:

Mr. President: It is shaking and trembling, I, as a laundry worker, come here to speak in behalf of the working women of the United States. I have read about you, and think you are fair, square, on the level, and so much a real democrat, that I believe when it is made clear to you how much we working women, who organize in the factories, the mills, the laundries, and the stores, can help every true democrat, you will use your power to wipe out this great injustice to women by giving us a vote.

Rose Winslow said:

Mr. President: I am one of the thousands of women who work in the sweated trades, and have been since a child, who give their lives to build up these tremendous industries in this country, and at the end of the years of work, our reward is the tuberculosis sanatorium or the street. I do not think to plead with you, Mr. President, nor make a regular speech. I do not speak to Presidents every day; it hasn’t been my job, so I don’t do it very gracefully.

Here the President interrupted Miss Winslow by stating that he did not see why she should be so nervous, as Presidents are perfectly human. Miss Winslow then continued:

Yes, I know, and that is why I can speak to you, because you are human and have a heart and mind and can realize our great need. I do not need to remind you how we women need the ballot, etc.

The President said:

I need not tell you that a group of women like this appeals to me very deeply indeed. I do not have to tell you what my feelings are, but I have already explained—because I feel obliged to explain—the limitations that are laid upon me as the leader of a Party. Until the Party, as such, has considered the matter of this very supreme importance and taken its position, I am not at liberty to speak of it; and yet, I am not at liberty to speak as an individual, for I am not an individual. As you see, I either speak to it in a message, as you suggest, or I do not speak at all. That is the limitation I am under, and all I can say to you ladies, is that the strength of your agitation in this matter undoubtedly will make a profound impression.

In view of later opinions of the President in regard to his leadership—and in view of the fact that later even Democratic Congressmen referred to his “dictatorship”—his attitude to the women this day was most interesting.

Mrs. Glendower Evans, who was in charge of the deputation, said:

We understand your position and its difficulties quite well, Mr. President, but nevertheless we ask, where can we look for political action? We recognize that the verdict must come not from you alone, but from the whole Party. I do not ask you to break with your Party. What I ask is, will you use your influence within your Party? I do not ask the impossible, though I might from you, for you have done the impossible.

It is apparent that the President’s education was progressing. He was beginning to be struck with the strength of the Woman Suffrage agitation; although he still believed himself powerless to help in the work with Congress.

Early in June, 1914, the National Federation of Women’s Clubs meeting in Chicago, had given its indorsement, as an organization, to Woman Suffrage. Following this action by the Federation, another delegation—the seventh—of five hundred club women under the leadership of Mrs. Harvey W. Wiley, waited upon the President on June 30. I quote from the Suffragist:

The deputation had assembled for a preliminary mass-meeting at the Public Library.... Leaving the Library, the deputation, which extended over several blocks, marched in single files to the White House.... It passed through the Arcade and into the East Room.... Women were massed about the State Apartment, filling it from end to end, and leaving a hollow square in which Mrs. Ellis Logan and Mrs. Wiley and Rheta Childe Dorr awaited the President’s arrival. Preceded by his aide, the President entered....

“Mr. President,” said Mrs. Dorr, “we are well aware that you are the busiest of men. I shall therefore go directly to the point and tell you that our reason for calling on you today is to ask you if you will not use your powerful influence with Congress to have the Bristow-Mondell Amendment passed in this session.”

The President replied:

Mrs. Wiley and Ladies: No one can fail to be impressed by this great company of useful women, and I want to assure you that it is to me most impressive. I have stated once before the position which, as leader of a Party, I feel obliged to take, and I am sure you will not wish me to state it again. Perhaps it would be more serviceable if I ventured upon the confident conjecture that the Baltimore Convention did not embody this very important question in the platform which it adopted because of its conviction that the principles of the Constitution which allotted these questions to the State were well-considered principles from which they did not wish to depart.

You have asked me to state my personal position in regard to the pending measure. It is my conviction that this is a matter for settlement by the States, and not by the Federal Government, and, therefore, that being my personal conviction, and it being obvious that there is no ground on your part for discouragement in the progress you are making, and my passion being local self-government and the determination by the great communities into which this nation is organized of their own policy and life, I can only say that since you turned away from me as a leader of a Party and asked me my position as a man, I am obliged to state it very frankly, and I believe that in stating it I am probably in agreement with those who framed the platform to which allusion has been made.

I think that very few persons, perhaps, realize the difficulty and the dual duty that must be exercised, whether he will or not, by a President of the United States. He is President of the United States as an executive charged with the administration of the law, but he is the choice of a Party as a leader in policy. The policy is determined by the Party, or else upon unusual and new circumstances by the determination of those who lead the Party. This is my situation as an individual. I have told you that I believed that the best way of settling this thing and the best considered principles of the Constitution with regard to it, is that it should be settled by the States. I am very much obliged to you.

The President paused. He looked relieved. There was a moment’s silence, and then Mrs. Dorr said:

“May I ask you this question? Is it not a fact that we have very good precedents existing for altering the electorate by Constitutional Amendment?”

The President’s face changed. “I do not think,” he said, “that that has anything to do with my conviction as to the best way that it could be done.”

“It has not,” agreed Mrs. Dorr, “but it leaves room for the women of the country to say what they want through the Constitution of the United States.”

“Certainly it does,” the President said hastily, “there is good room. But I have stated my conviction. I have no right to criticize the opinions of those who have different convictions and I certainly would not wish to do so.”

Mrs. Wiley stepped forward. “Granted that it is a State matter,” she said, “would it not give this great movement an impetus if the Resolution now pending before Congress were passed?”

“But the Resolution is for an Amendment to the Constitution,” the President objected.

“The States would have to pass upon it before it became an Amendment,” said Mrs. Wiley. “Would it not be a State matter then?”

“Yes,” the President interrupted, “but by a very different process, for by that process it would be forced upon the minority; they would have to accept it.”

“They could reject it if they wished to,” said Mrs. Dorr. “Three-fourths of the States would have to pass it.”

“Yes,” the President said, with distinct annoyance, “but the other fourth could not reject it.”

“Mr. President,” said Mrs. Dorr, “don’t you think that when the Constitution was framed it was agreed that when three-fourths of the States wanted a reform, the other fourth should accept it also?”

The President was plainly disconcerted. He stepped back.

“I cannot say,” he replied frigidly, “what was agreed upon. I can only say that I have tried to answer your question, and I do not think it is quite proper that I submit myself to cross-examination.”

“Very well,” Mrs. Dorr said quietly. “We will not cross-examine you further.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” said Mrs. Wiley, “for your courtesy in receiving us.”

The President bowed. “I am very much obliged to you,” he said. “It has been a very pleasant occasion.”

In the Suffragist Lucy Burns said editorially:

The President has told a deputation of club women that they must win political freedom from State Legislatures; but not from him, not from Congress.

This position is obvious pretense. The national government has the power, granted it by the constitution, to enfranchise women. It has, therefore, the duty of doing so, if women’s claim to enfranchisement is just.

The President knows as well as we do the enormous difficulty of winning the vote by amending the Constitution of thirty-nine different States. It is amazing that a man can be found who will calmly direct women to take up this great burden when men are responsible for their need. Men alone, in all but ten States, have the power to change our laws. The good or evil of these laws is their praise or blame. It is a public injustice today that men deny to women in the ballot a means of self-protection which they are glad to possess themselves. Men are ethically on the defensive—particularly the men, or group of men, who from time to time monopolize political power. For the President of the United States, who incorporates in himself the power of the whole nation, and who is, therefore, more responsible than any other person today for the subjugation of women, to declare that he washes his hands of their whole case, is to presume upon greater ignorance among women than he will find they possess.

Nevertheless, we are specifically informed by the President that it is “not proper” for us to “cross-examine” him on the grounds of his refusal to help us.

Only fitfully do women realize the astounding arrogance of their rulers.

And later:

Some few curious commentaries cropped up editorially. Under the caption, “Heckling the President,” the New York Times says: “It certainly was not proper. The President of the United States is not to be heckled or hectored or made a defendant.... To catechise him when he had finished his speech to them is a thing never done by similar delegations of men.”

The Times has not grasped the fact that no similar delegation of men is possible. Men approach their own representative. If he disagrees with them, they have a legitimate remedy in their own hands, and can choose another representative at a duly appointed time. Women approach the President as members of a disfranchised class. The President does not represent them. He bears no constitutional relation to them whatever. If the President rejects their appeal, they have no legal means of redress. If they may not question the President on the justice of his refusal to help them, cannot question him gently and reasonably as they did—their position is indeed a subservient one.

And who told the Times that men never question the President “after he had finished his speech to them?” While the Tariff Bill was before Congress, representatives of men’s interests argued with him for hours. But they were men, and voters.

On January 6, 1915, another deputation—the eighth—of one hundred and fifty Democratic women appeared before the President. Mrs. George A. Armes, President of the Association of the National Democratic Women of America, introduced the speakers, Alberta Hill and Dr. Frances G. Van Gasken. He greeted Miss Hill with marked cordiality and listened attentively as she briefly and with great earnestness pointed out that, while the Federal Government protected men in the exercise of citizenship throughout the United States, a woman lost her right to vote when she crossed the line from a Suffrage to a non-Suffrage State. Miss Hill read the following extracts from the speech delivered by Mr. Wilson on the occasion of the formation of the Wilson and Marshall League at Spring Lake, New Jersey, two months after his nomination.

When the last word is said about politics, it is merely the life of all of us from the point of view of what can be accomplished by legislation and the administration of public offices. I think it is artificial to divide life up into sections: it is all of one piece though you can’t attend to all pieces of it at once.

And so when the women, who are in so many respects at the heart of life, begin to take an interest in politics, then you know that all the lines of sympathy and intelligence and comprehension are going to be interlaced in a way which they have never been interlaced before; so that our politics will be of the same pattern with our life. This, it seems to me, is devoutly to be wished.

And so when the women come into politics, they come in to show us all those little contacts between life and politics, on account of which I, for myself, rejoice that they have come to our assistance; they will be as indispensable as they are delightful.

The President listened with close attention, a smile quivering at the corners of his mouth. As she concluded, a ripple of amusement ran around the circle of auditors, and the President laughed outright.

“I cannot argue as well as you can,” he told Miss Hill with evident enjoyment. He said further:

I am most unaffectedly complimented by this visit that you have paid me. I have been called on several times to say what my position is in the very important matter that you are so deeply interested in. I want to say that nobody can look on the fight you are making without great admiration, and I certainly am one of those who admire the tenacity and the skill and the address with which you try to promote the matter that you are interested in.

But I, ladies, am tied to a conviction which I have had all my life that changes of this sort ought to be brought about State by State. If it were not a matter of female Suffrage, if it were a matter of any other thing connected with Suffrage, I would hold the same opinion. It is a long standing and deeply matured conviction on my part and therefore I would be without excuse to my own constitutional principles if I lend my support to this very important movement for an amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Frankly I do not think that this is the wise or the permanent way to build. I know that perhaps you unanimously disagree with me but you will not think the less of me for being perfectly frank in the avowal of my own convictions on that subject; and certainly that avowal writes no attitude of antagonism, but merely an attitude of principle.

I want to say again how much complimented I am by your call and also by the confidence that you have so generously expressed in me, Mrs. Armes. I hope that in some respect I may live to justify that confidence.

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VIII

THE STRUGGLE WITH THE RULES COMMITTEE

WE now return to the work in Congress. Again it is necessary to go back into history a few months.

All these months, the work of organizing the nation-wide demonstration of May 2—which had been decided upon at the opening meeting of the Congressional Union for 1914—had been going on.

The Congressional Union sent organizers into all the States of the Union to make plans for the demonstration. Minnie E. Brooke went through every State in the South. Mabel Vernon, one of the organizers for the Congressional Union, traveled through the southwestern part of the country and up through California, ending her trip in Nevada. Crystal Eastman of the Executive Committee took care of the Northwestern States, Emma Smith DeVoe covered the Far Western States; Jessie Hardy Stubbs, the Middle Western States; Mrs. Lawrence Lewis and Alice Paul, assisted by Olive Hasbrouck, New England and the Middle Atlantic States.

On February 12, the National American Woman Suffrage Association promised its co-operation also, and from that date aided in making the demonstration a success.

The demonstration—taking the form of parades in most cases, meetings in a few—occurred in at least one great city in every State. The following resolution was adopted at the various gatherings.

Resolved, that this meeting calls upon Congress to take immediate and favorable action upon the Bristow-Mondell Resolution enfranchising women.

The culminating demonstration occurred May 9 in Washington. There was a mass-meeting at the Belasco Theatre, and following this a procession starting promptly at three o’clock, marched to the Capitol. At the foot of the Capitol steps, the enormous gathering sang the Woman’s March. Then five hundred and thirty-one delegates representing every Congressional and Senatorial district in the country, bearing resolutions passed at the country-wide demonstrations, marched up the long steps into the great Rotunda of the Capitol. A Committee of Senators and Representatives awaited the delegates, received the resolutions and introduced them on the floor of each House of Congress.

Here, as always, Alice Paul visualized her work in pageantry. On this occasion, that pageantry was particularly beautiful. Zona Gale writes in the Suffragist:

“I shall watch it, but it will not mean anything to me,” said a visitor to me on Saturday, but that night she said: “I leaned out of my window, and held my screen up with one hand, and let the sun beat in my face for the forty minutes that you were passing, and I wept. To think of your being part of it—and caring like that—and the men there on the sidewalk holding back, by what right, what you ask!”

The effect of this lengthened—and therefore accumulative—nation-wide demonstration was immediately felt at the national Capitol. Between the dates of the demonstration throughout the States May 2, and the demonstration in Washington, May 9, the Judiciary Committee reported the Mondell Resolution without recommendation, but with an overwhelming vote, to the House. This marked an epoch in the Suffrage work in the United States; for Suffrage had never been debated on the floor of the House, and not since 1890 had it progressed beyond the Committee stage in the House. The Resolution rested on May 5 at the foot of the highly congested House calendar. On May 13, Representative Mondell introduced a Resolution asking time for an early consideration of the Suffrage Amendment. The adoption of this Resolution meant that the Amendment would be taken up, debated, and voted on.

The Rules Committee, to which the Resolution was referred, failed to act upon it. Suffragists began to besiege the Rules Committee. The Rules Committee, however, proved unamenable to argument, discussion, or entreaty.

Later in the year, in a speech at the Newport Conference, Lucy Burns said of the Rules Committee that it “adopted devious means for avoiding action on the Suffrage Resolution. It was difficult for them to vote against it, and it seemed difficult for them to vote for it. They apparently decided that the best policy for them to pursue was to take no action at all, so they hit upon the happy expedient of holding no meetings whatever.”

A detailed account of the action of the Rules Committee proves the adamancy of Party control. It gives some idea of the obstacles which ingenious politicians can put in the way of citizens, even though those citizens are making a perfectly legitimate request.

Mr. Henry, the Chairman of the Rules Committee, had declared in the spring that he thought it was out of the power of his Committee to take action (i.e. on the matter of the Suffrage Resolution which was only to allot time in the House for the discussion of the Suffrage Amendment) since the Suffrage Amendment had not been favorably acted upon at the last Democratic Caucus: “You may tell this to the Press. You may tell it to the newspapers,” Mr. Henry said; “my hands are tied.”

However, early in June, the Suffragist says, “Mr. Henry’s view of his political helplessness weakened slightly.” He promised to report out the Suffrage Resolution. But he could not be prevailed upon to state when he would do so. The Congressional Union, therefore, organized a series of deputations which visited the Rules Committee during all the long, hot summer and the long, hot fall. Deputations from nearly every State in the Union and from nearly every occupation and profession of women waited upon the members of the Rules Committee. The reader must remember always that they were asking—not that the Amendment be passed—only that a few hours be set aside for the discussion of the Suffrage question in the House of Representatives. Repeated deputations called upon individual members of the Committee. On June 10, the Committee met, but decided to postpone action on the Suffrage question till July 1. Mr. Henry left immediately for Texas. A large deputation came to Washington to be present at the July 1 meeting. Many of the most prominent members of the Club women’s Deputation of five hundred, who had called the afternoon of June 30 on the President, remained in Washington overnight, so that they might be present at the meeting.

When, however, they arrived at the Committee room, they were told that the Committee would not meet, although no notice had been given of any change of date of the meeting. Mr. Henry had not returned to Washington. There was a quorum of the Committee in town; but the Democratic members said that they were bound by a “gentlemen’s agreement” among themselves not to meet. August 1 was set for the next meeting.

On July 13, a deputation of more than a hundred members of the Congressional Union, led by Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and Mrs. Gilson Gardner, called upon the individual members of the Rules Committee. They asked each member to sign a petition requesting the Acting Chairman, Mr. Pou, to call the Committee together for the purpose of reporting out the Resolution on the Suffrage Amendment. This petition was signed by the two Republican members of the Committee in Washington, and the one Progressive member. The two Democratic members then in Washington refused to sign. The petition was presented to Mr. Pou in his office by Representative Mondell.

Mr. Pou rose from his chair, viewing with amazement the numbers of the deputation as they filed into the room till all available space was occupied, leaving the majority of their number in the corridor. Mr. Pou definitely declined to call the meeting, although a quorum of the Committee was in the city, and although all of the Republican members on the Committee and the Progressive member had requested a meeting. Mr. Pou stated that he was bound by a “gentleman’s agreement” entered into by the Democratic members to hold no meetings of the Committee before August 1. He said, “The Democratic members agreed not to hold any meetings until August 1. In view of that understanding, I would not feel at liberty to call the Committee together.... When the Republicans were in charge, they decided what they were going to do; now that we are in charge, we decide what we are going to do.”

On August 1, a deputation consisting of Lucy Burns and Mrs. Gilson Gardner from the Congressional Union accompanied by Maude F. Clark, called upon Mr. Pou. The forthright Lucy Burns began. “Mr. Pou, today is the first day of August. You told us when a Committee of our Organization called upon you in July that the Democratic members of the Committee had a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ not to hold a meeting until August 1. Now that the day has come we should be glad to know when a meeting of your Committee will be held to consider House Resolution 514, allotting time for the consideration of the Suffrage Amendment in the House.”

Mr. Pou informed the delegation that Mr. Henry, Chairman of the Rules Committee, would return to Washington on Monday, August 3, and that a meeting of the Committee would be called for that day. Among other things, Mr. Pou made the significant statement, “The Rules Committee has in its keeping the policy of the Democratic Party in Congress.”

On August 3, a second delegation from the Congressional Union, consisting of Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, Mrs. Gilson Gardner, Dr. Clara E. Ludlow, went to attend the promised meeting at the office of the Chairman, Mr. Henry. The elusive Mr. Henry was at last visible in the flesh. He informed these women that no meeting of the Committee had been called for that day. He did not know when it would be called, nor what measures it would consider. He suggested that they call again in a few days.

On August 28, the Rules Committee finally met. A deputation from the Congressional Union presented themselves at the door. The deputation consisted of Mrs. Gilson Gardner, Minnie E. Brooke, Mrs. S. B. McDuffie, Virginia Arnold.

At the door of the Committee room, Mr. Henry’s secretary declared that it would be impossible for him to take a message or a card to Mr. Henry.

“I should be glad, then,” said the gently diplomatic Mrs. Gardner, “to send a card to other members of the Committee.”

“The Chairman has given orders,” said the secretary, “that no messages may be sent in to the Committee room.”

“I quite understand,” said Mrs. Gardner, “that Mr. Henry can speak for the majority members of the Committee, but surely not for the Republican and Progressive members, and I should like your permission to send word in to one of them.”

The secretary maintained that this was against Mr. Henry’s specific orders.

Mrs. Gardner then went on very gently: “It is not the desire of the deputation to disturb the Committee; but, on the other hand, it is the sense of the deputation that it is necessary to send the Committee a message. What would you suggest that we do?”

The secretary considered and decreed, “A message might be sent in by telephone.” Mrs. Gardner accepted the use of Mr. Henry’s desk telephone, called up Representative Kelly who was attending the meeting in the adjoining Committee room, and asked if he would bring the Suffrage Resolution to the attention of the Committee. Mr. Kelly promptly promised to call up the Suffrage Resolution if it were possible to do so. This colloquy effectively brought the matter before the Committee.

The Suffrage Resolution was brought up, but a substitute motion that the Committee adjourn was immediately made and carried. It was a tie vote, but Mr. Henry, as chairman, cast the deciding vote. The Committee accordingly adjourned without having taken action on the Suffrage Resolution.

The Congressional Union, undaunted, maintained its siege of the Rules Committee until Congress adjourned in October. Throughout the remaining months of that Congressional Session, however, the Rules Committee continued its policy of evasion. No action was taken before adjournment.

Of course, all this blocking of their efforts on the part of the Democrats made inevitable the election policy which the Congressional Union was about to adopt—that of holding them “responsible.”

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THE FIRST APPEAL TO THE WOMEN VOTERS

IN the meantime, the Congressional Union had been forming an Advisory Council which continued to Support the Congressional Union—and later the Woman’s Party—with advice and work during the rest of its history. The personnel of the Advisory Council has changed from time to time; but always it has been a large body and an able one.

The list of membership has included many famous names; women political leaders; women trades-unionists; women of wealth and position; women active in their communities. It included professional women of every sort; doctors, lawyers, clergymen. It included artists of every description; actors, singers, painters, sculptors. It included publicists of every kind; fictionists, poets, dramatists, essayists. It included social workers of every class. And these women have represented all parts of the Union.

On August 29 and 30, this newly-formed Advisory Council met at Newport. Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont did everything to make the occasion a success. She threw open Marble House which, hung with the great purple, white, and gold banners of the Congressional Union and flooded with golden light, made an extraordinary background for the deliberations of the Conference. In every way possible for her she used the beauty and social prestige of Newport to give the occasion dignity, prominence, and publicity. Her daughter, the Duchess of Marlborough, had joined the Congressional Union just previous to this Conference. Little she thought and little the Congressional Union thought that as an English woman, she would be a voter, would be elected to the London City Council before her mother, an American woman, was enfranchised.

Here, for the first time, the plan of holding the Democratic Party—the Party in power—responsible for the slowness with which the Suffrage work was progressing, and, in consequence, of working against it, was adopted as a program actually to be carried out.

Lucy Burns made a magnificent speech on that occasion. She pointed out that the Democratic Party was in complete possession of the National Government, controlling the Presidential chair, the Senate, possessing an overwhelming majority in the House. She analyzed the working of Congress: she showed that our government is a government by Party: that no measures of importance had passed through the Sixty-third Congress without the backing of the Party in power: and that no measure could pass that Congress if opposed by that Party.

She amplified this thesis. She showed that the President, the leader of the Party, had seven times refused his powerful aid to the movement. She showed that in the Senate the Democratic leaders blocked the Suffrage measure by bringing it to a vote at a time when they acknowledged it would be defeated. She showed that in the House, the Rules Committee had consistently blocked the Amendment, both by preventing the creation of a Suffrage Committee and by preventing consideration of the Amendment in the House. And she proved by the words of the acting chairman of the Rules Committee that that Committee had in its keeping “the policy of the Democratic Party.” She showed that the Democratic Caucus had taken definite action against the Suffrage Amendment. It had declared that Suffrage was not a question for national consideration and so it had refused to sanction the creation of a Suffrage Committee.

Alice Paul, first asking the press to withdraw, outlined the proposed election program. She asked the members of the Conference not to reveal it until the middle of September when the Congressional Union would be ready to put it into practical operation. This is her speech on that occasion:

From the very beginning of our work in Washington, we have followed one consistent policy from which we have not departed a single moment. We began our work with the coming in of the present Congress and immediately went to the Party which was in control of the situation and asked it to act. We determined to get the Amendment through the Sixty-third Congress, or to make it very clear who had kept it from going through. Now, as has been shown, the Democrats have been in control of all branches of the Government and they are therefore responsible for the non-passage of our measure.

The point is first, who is our enemy and then, how shall that enemy be attacked?

We are all, I think, agreed that it is the Democratic Party which is responsible for the blocking of the Suffrage Amendment. Again and again that Party has gone on record through the action of its leaders, its caucus, and its committees so that an impregnable case has been built up against it. We now lay before you a plan to meet the present situation.

We propose going into the nine Suffrage States and appealing to the women to use their votes to secure the franchise for the women of the rest of the country. All of these years we have worked primarily in the States. Now the time has come, we believe, when we can really go into national politics and use the nearly four million votes that we have to win the vote for the rest of us. Now that we have four million voters, we need no longer continue to make our appeal simply to the men. The struggle in England has gotten down to a physical fight. Here our fight is simply a political one. The question is whether we are good enough politicians to take four million votes and organize them and use them so as to win the vote for the women who are still disfranchised.

We want to attempt to organize the women’s vote. Our plan is to go out to these nine States and there appeal to all the women voters to withdraw their support from the Democrats nationally until the Democratic Party nationally ceases to block Suffrage. We would issue an appeal signed by influential women of the East addressed to the women voters as a whole asking them to use their vote this one time in the national election against the Democratic Party throughout the whole nine States. Every one of these States, with one exception, is a doubtful State. Going back over a period of fourteen years, each State, except Utah, has supported first one Party and then another. Here are nine States which politicians are thinking about and in these nine States we have this great power. If we ask those women in the nine Suffrage States as a group to withhold their support from this Party as a group which is opposing us, it will mean that votes will be turned. Suppose the Party saw votes falling away all over the country because of their action on the Trust question—they would change their attitude on Trust legislation. If they see them falling away because of their attitude on Suffrage they will change their attitude on Suffrage. When we have once affected the result in a national election, no Party will trifle with Suffrage any longer.

We, of course, are a little body to undertake this—but we have to begin. We have not very much money; there are not many of us to go out against the great Democratic Party. Perhaps this time we won’t be able to do so very much, though I know we can do a great deal, but if the Party leaders see that some votes have been turned they will know that we have at least realized this power that we possess and they will know that by 1916 we will have it organized. The mere announcement of the fact that Suffragists of the East have gone out to the West with this appeal will be enough to make every man in Congress sit up and take notice.

This last week one Congressman from a Suffrage State came to us and asked us if we would write just one letter to say what he had done in Congress to help us. He said that one letter might determine the election in his district. This week the man who is running for the Senatorial election in another Suffrage State came to us and asked us to go out and help him in his State—asked us simply to announce that he had been our friend. Now if our help is valued to this extent, our opposition will be feared in like degree.

Our plan is this: To send at least two women to each of those nine States. We would put one woman at the center who would attend to the organizing, the publicity and the distribution of literature. We would have literature printed showing what the Democratic Party has done with regard to Suffrage in the Sixty-third Congress. We would have leaflets printed from the Eastern women appealing to the Western women for help, and we would have leaflets issued showing how much the enfranchised woman herself needs the Federal Amendment because most important matters are becoming national in their organization and can only be dealt with by national legislation. We could reach every home in every one of those nine States with our literature, without very great expense. One good woman at the center could make this message, this appeal from Eastern women, known to the whole State. The other worker would attend to the speaking and in six weeks could easily cover all the large towns of the State.

This is the plan that we are considering, and that we are hoping to put through. We would be very much interested to hear what you think about it and want, of course, to have your co-operation in carrying it through.

* * * * *

The Conference voted to unite behind the Bristow-Mondell Amendment in Congress and to support an active election campaign against candidates of the Democratic Party. It raised over seven thousand dollars to meet the expense of this campaign.

* * * * *

The details of the election campaign project were immediately worked out; organizers were selected and after a farewell garden party on September 14, they started for the nine enfranchised States. Headquarters were opened in San Francisco under Lucy Burns and Rose Winslow; in Denver, Colorado, under Doris Stevens and Ruth Noyes; in Phœnix, Arizona, under Jane Pincus and Josephine Casey; in Kansas City, Kansas, under Lola C. Trax and Edna S. Latimer; at Portland, Oregon, under Jessie Hardy Stubbs and Virginia Arnold; in Seattle, Washington, under Margaret Whittemore and Anne McCue; at Cheyenne, Wyoming, under Gertrude Hunter; at Salt Lake City, Utah, under Elsie Lancaster; at Boise City, Idaho, under Helena Hill Weed.

In these centers, open-air, drawing-room, and theatre meetings followed each other in rapid succession. In many districts, the campaigners canvassed from door to door. Window-cards, handbills, cartoons, moving-picture films, and voiceless speeches, calling upon the women voters to refuse their support to the Party which had blocked the National Suffrage Amendment, appeared everywhere from Seattle to Phœnix. A pithily worded Appeal to the Women Voters was placed in the hands of the women voters. Press bulletins describing the campaign against the Democratic candidates for Congress and reiterating the record made by the Democratic Party on the Suffrage question, were issued daily. Literature dealing with the record of the Democratic Party and with the value to the woman voter of a national Suffrage Amendment, were sent to innumerable homes in every Suffrage State.

The Suffragist, which teemed with reports of what these vigorous campaigners were doing, presents pictures which could have occurred nowhere in the world but the United States, and nowhere in the United States but the West. The speakers were interesting, amusing, full of information and enthusiasm. With a sympathy and understanding typically western, men and women responded immediately, responded equally to this original campaign.

All the time, of course, these speakers were educating the people of the United States in regard to the work of Congress. This was a new note in Suffrage campaigns; but it was the policy of the Congressional Union at all times whether campaigns were being waged or not.

From the Suffragist of September 19, I quote from a report of the enterprising Jessie Hardy Stubbs, who actually began her work on board the North Coast, Limited:

Here we are—all bound for the field of battle. Miss McCue, Miss Whittemore and I are together. Miss Whittemore joined us at Chicago full of earnestness and zeal. We have put up signs in each car that there will be a meeting tonight in the observation car, and that we will speak on the record of the Democratic Party in Congress and Women Suffrage. There is much interest. We have sold ten Suffragists today on board the train, secured new subscribers to the Suffragist, and contributions for the campaign.

Doris Stevens writes in the Suffragist of October 3:

Friday afternoon, Mrs. Lucius M. Cuthbert, a daughter of ex-Senator Hill, gave us a drawing-room meeting in her beautiful Denver home. She invited representative women from all Parties to come and hear of the work of the Union, to which invitation about one hundred women responded. One Democratic lady came up to me after the meeting and said, “I had no idea you women had been so rebuffed by my Party. I am convinced that my duty is to the women first, and my Party second.” Another: “You have almost convinced me that we women must stand together on this national issue.” And so it went. And, as our charming hostess pointed out, the applause was often led by a prominent Democratic woman. Offers of help, loans of furniture, and general expressions of eagerness to aid were made on every side. The meeting was a splendid success, judging from the large number of women who joined the Union and the generous collection which was given.

In the Suffragist of October 10, Lola Trax writes:

The meeting at Lebanon was especially well advertised. The moving picture shows had run an advertising slide; the Wednesday prayer meeting had announced my coming, and the Public Schools had also made announcements to their pupils. The Ladies’ Aid Society invited me to speak in the afternoon, while they were quilting; and thus another anti-Suffrage argument was shattered; for quilting and politics went hand in hand.

At Phillipsburg the meeting was on the Court House green. It is fifty-seven miles from Phillipsburg to Osborne and the trip has to be made by freight. I was on the road from six-thirty o’clock in the morning until three P.M. About a dozen passengers were in the caboose on the freight, and we held a meeting and discussion which lasted about forty-five minutes. Upon reaching Osborne at three o’clock I found about one hundred people assembled for an auction sale in the middle of the street. Cots, tables, and chairs were to be offered at sacrifice prices. The temptation to hold a meeting overcame fatigue. I jumped into an automobile nearby and had a most interested crowd until the auctioneer came. I had been unable to secure the Town Hall because a troupe of players were making a one night stand in the town. The meeting at night was also in the open air.

In the Suffragist of October 10, Jessie Hardy Stubbs continues:

On Tuesday evening, September 28, I spoke in the Public Library, explaining our mission in Oregon. Mr. Arthur L. Moulton, Progressive Candidate for Congress from the Third District presided, and made a very clever introductory speech. Many questions were asked by Democratic women which brought out a spirited defense on the part of several of those present. One Democratic woman maintained that it would be a most ungrateful position on the part of the Oregon women to vote against Chamberlain, who had always been a friend of Suffrage, whereupon a distinguished-looking woman arose and said: “Oh, no. It would merely be a case of not loving Chamberlain less, but of loving Suffrage more.”

I spoke before the Sheet Metal Workers’ Union last night, and expect to address every union before the campaign is over. There are only two women’s unions here; the garment workers and the waitresses. We intend to make a canvass of the stores and meet the clerks personally and to get into all the factories, as far as possible, where women are employed, and urge these western women voters to stand by the working women of the East. Tonight we have our first open-air meeting.

In the Suffragist of October 31, Gertrude Hunter writes of the campaign in Wyoming:

The meeting last Saturday night was most encouraging. It was a stormy night, and we went in an auto twenty miles from here, through snow banks, and every other difficulty to a rally at a branch home. This was at Grand Canon, and a strongly Democratic precinct. Every one was wildly enthusiastic over the meeting, even the Democratic women telling me how much they appreciated our position. We had a dance immediately after, and I danced with the voters (male) until one-thirty in the morning, when we were all taken to the railroad station in a lumber wagon and four-horse team, a distance of a mile and a half, and came in on a train at two-thirty A.M. I sold twenty Suffragists and could have disposed of more if I had had them with me.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights we have big meetings scheduled.

We are now at Egbert on our regular schedule, and in such a snowstorm as I never saw before. However, we have had a good morning in spite of it.

This town is like the others, consisting of a station, a store, and post-office. Not a residence in the place. The people all drove from miles around in a high wind and most unfavorable weather to attend the meeting.

We had the thirty-five mile drive to make to a neighboring town for another meeting and we did it every mile through a high wind and torrents of rain, that flooded the trail with water, as we went over prairie and plowed fields. We did it, however, with only one blow-out, and two very narrow escapes from being completely turned over, getting in at two this morning.

Tomorrow night I shall go to Campstool, where there is a big supper and dance.

I had another very interesting meeting this week at a town fifty miles from here. The “town” consists of a station, the post-office, general store, and a little restaurant; no houses, and only one or two families living there. The meeting was in the schoolhouse and the voters came from miles and miles to attend, at least one hundred and fifty of them, on horseback, in wagons, buggies, and autos. Every one was much interested. The minister, at whose house I was entertained for the afternoon, lived two and one-half miles out in the country, said afterward that the meeting was a thrill to most of them, who had never heard a Suffrage speech in their lives.

These are the solid voters of the community. Many are from the eastern States who are homesteading here. I distributed the literature to every one.

I will probably reach the same number of voters every day this week, or perhaps a few more, as the next town we are going into, Burns, is a trifle larger than Hillsdale.

Miss Brandeis is going from house to house in Cheyenne, distributing our literature and soliciting memberships.

* * * * *

The campaign over, four of these victorious campaigners were welcomed home on the afternoon of November 15, by an enormous audience at the Columbia Theatre in Washington:

Mrs. Latimer said:

The very first thing they said to us in Kansas was, “Well, you are a long way from home!” and we thought so too.

Kansas, as you know, is a very large State and is an agricultural State, and the consequence was that we had to get in touch with all the farmers and so it was necessary for us to do a great deal of traveling.

After we had established our Headquarters we interviewed the Kansas City Star, one of the largest papers in the State. After we had talked with the associate editor and told him what our plan was, that we intended to send a daily bulletin to the eight hundred and eight papers in the State of Kansas, that we were going to every one of the large towns in the State of Kansas, and have just as many meetings as possible, and that we would distribute fifty thousand pieces of literature, he looked at us and said, “Do you realize that this will take eight men and eighteen stenographers?” I said, “Possibly, but two women are going to do it.” And two women did do it. The result of that interview was a two and a half column editorial on the editorial page of the Star. It was the first time that an interview with a woman had ever appeared on the editorial page, and they told us that even Mr. Bryan had not received two and a half columns on that page. All of our bulletins were very well published after the Kansas City Star had taken up our cause. The women of Kansas co-operated with us, and the Progressives and Republicans invited us to speak at their big rallies. Strange as it may seem no one seemed to think we were on the wrong track but the Democrats.

After we had been there for a while we found that the main contest was the Senatorial fight, and so we figured out just how we could keep Mr. Neely out of the Senate. Every one said that as Mr. Murdock was running as a Progressive, and Mr. Curtis as a Republican, it would divide the vote and give the victory to the Democratic Party. We knew that Mr. Neely had received a very large vote from his own district when he ran for Congress—over four thousand majority. So we made up our minds that the thing to do was to reduce the vote in his own district. We thought that this would help to defeat Mr. Neely, and it did. He received from his own district a majority of only eight hundred; that is, the Democratic majority went down to eight hundred from four thousand. In many of the other districts, his majority was still lower. Mr. Taggart, who had a three thousand majority two years ago, went down to three hundred, and Miss Trax was largely responsible for that. We have letters from many of the leading politicians of Kansas saying that our work has been most effective. We have felt all through Kansas that our work was very encouraging.

We had many interesting things happen. The second day we were in the Seventh District we held seven meetings. Six meetings had been planned, but after we reached Dodge City we found there was a political meeting in progress out on the prairie and they telephoned in and asked one of us to come out there and speak to them. If any of you have ever been to Kansas, you know they have schools everywhere, though for miles and miles you never see a house and you wonder where the children come from to go to the schools. At eleven o’clock at night we arrived at the schoolhouse where the meeting was held, and found three hundred people waiting to hear a Suffrage speech. After the meeting the women came up and said, “That is just what we need. We are glad to help the Eastern women, but we do not know anything about it. We are so glad you have come to tell us these things because we did not know them.”

The men in the West feel the same way. When I was waiting for a freight train about five o’clock in the morning, a man came up and said, “My wife was at your meeting yesterday afternoon, and I thought I would tell you that I have voted the Democratic ticket for forty years, but I have voted it the last time.” That is the spirit of the men. Because they respect their women out there, they do not like to feel that the men in the East and the Democratic Party do not consider the woman movement. People would come in and say, “Well, you are on the right track now,” and that seems to be the spirit everywhere in Kansas.

Miss Pincus said:

I am sorry I cannot come to you with the air of a conquering hero, but I am sure that any person who understands the situation in Arizona will acknowledge that the purpose of our campaign was accomplished. Despite the fact that the Democrats were in control—had all the money in the State and owned nearly all the newspapers—a Democratic leader came to my office one day and told me that the Democrats were absolutely sure that the women of Arizona would defeat Smith. He said the Democratic Party was scared to death. It was most amusing. Every candidate who was running, even for State and County offices, felt it necessary to declare that he had always believed in Woman Suffrage, that his mother had believed in Woman Suffrage and that his grandmother believed in it. I suppose you know what action our friends Senator Smith and Congressman Hayden took. Both of them telegraphed from Washington to the Democratic State Convention in session at Phœnix and pledged themselves absolutely to support national Woman Suffrage. Mr. Hayden stood up on the floor of the House and filled three pages of the Congressional Record on his attitude on Woman Suffrage and Arizona was simply flooded with this copy.

The women, we found, were very open to reason, and one thing I had not expected to find was how chivalrous all the men were. I have never been so overwhelmed with courtesy and chivalry as I was out in Arizona. Every candidate from every county came into our Headquarters to shake hands and say what a nice day it was and how he had always been in favor of Woman Suffrage. Each political Party in Arizona claims absolute credit for Woman Suffrage out there. To me, coming from a plain campaign State, New York, it was most encouraging to find all the men such good Suffragists, and I would like to turn all anti-Suffragists into a Suffrage State to let them see how women are treated at election time.

Mrs. Helena Hill Weed said:

I am very glad to be able to report that no Democrat will come to the United States Senate or House of Representatives from Idaho—and the Congressional Union had a hand in it.

We do not claim entire responsibility for the large Republican victory, but we do claim the credit for turning many hundreds of votes from the Democratic Party. When I reached Idaho I found the question simmered down to the Senatorial race. The two candidates were Senator Brady, Republican, and ex-Governor Hawley, who was running on the Democratic ticket.

I began by sending out copies of all of our literature and the current number of the Suffragist to every editor, club woman, minister, or other person of influence. I began with a meeting which was organized by the working women in the hotel where I was stopping. I told them of our work and what it meant. Many of the women had worked in the East and they knew what conditions were among the laboring women there, and they said they never before realized that they could do anything to help the women in the East. About three days after the meeting a woman came into my office and said, “I want to tell you, Mrs. Weed, that that meeting is going to bring out at least two hundred Republican votes in my ward which are never cast, and is going to turn many more.” I positively could not fill the requests that were made to speak and explain the Congressional Union policy. Men and women of the labor unions were much enthused over our work and we won hundreds and hundreds of votes simply because our policy was non-partisan.

We put it straight up to Mr. Hawley that an indorsement of President Wilson’s administration meant the indorsement of the administration’s refusal to allow a discussion and a vote on Suffrage. We put it up to him that it made no difference how good a Suffragist he personally might be, if he ran on a platform which contained, as did his, a blanket indorsement of all of President Wilson’s policies, including his refusal to allow a discussion and a vote on Suffrage. We pointed out to him that his personal belief in Suffrage was of little avail to us if he could not or would not bring the Party which he was supporting to cease its hostility to our Amendment. We reminded him of the Democratic Congressmen from Suffrage States who had sat in the Sixty-third Congress and who had professed a deep interest in Suffrage but who had accomplished nothing as far as actually bringing Suffrage to pass was concerned, because of the continued hostility of the Democratic Party which was in control of all branches of the Government. We told him that we felt duty bound to make known to the women voters the hostile record of his national Party on Woman Suffrage, and to ask them to refuse their support to that Party until it ceased blocking our Amendment.

They understood the point very quickly and saw that as far as the individual was concerned there was nothing to choose from between Mr. Hawley and Senator Brady—both were equally good Suffragists, as far as their personal stand was concerned. It was only when it came to considering their Party affiliations that one could discriminate between them. We always emphasized the fact that we were not indorsing the Republican, the Progressive, the Socialist, or the Prohibition Party, but were merely asking the women to refuse support to the Party which had the power to give Suffrage and which up to the present had used its power only to block that measure. We explained that we would have opposed any of the other Parties, had they possessed the power which the Democratic Party possessed, and had they used that power in the same obstructive way.

I am absolutely sure that the Congressional Union has the right policy for us to follow and that through this policy we are going to win the passage of the Federal Amendment.

Incidentally the referendum in 1914 in Nevada and Montana gave Suffrage to women.

Although the Congressional Union never deviated from its policy of devoting itself to the Federal Amendment, yet it was deeply interested in the success of these referendum campaigns and gave aid when it seemed needed. The Congressional Union sent Mabel Vernon, a national organizer, to help in the Nevada campaign. At the close of the campaign an enthusiastic audience welcomed Mabel Vernon home.

Miss Vernon said:

In the West they do not have the feeling that Suffrage is an old, old story. They were very willing to go to a Suffrage meeting, particularly in the mining camps, where to advertise that a woman is going to speak is almost enough to cause them to close down the mines in order that they might hear her. This summer Miss Martin, the State president, and I went all over the State in a motor, traveling about three thousand miles. We would travel sometimes one hundred and twenty miles in order to reach a little settlement of about one hundred people, sixty voters perhaps. We had the conviction that if Suffrage was going to win in Nevada, it was going to win through the votes of those people who lived in the remote places. We knew Reno. We knew it well. We knew it was not to be counted upon as giving any majority in favor of Suffrage. That was the object of the motor trip this summer.

We traveled for miles and miles without seeing one sign of life. There was only the sand, the sage-bush, and the sky. Even though we did not arrive until ten o’clock at night at the place where we were to speak, we always found our crowd waiting for us. There was one mining camp, one of the richest camps there now, where the men said, “We will give you ninety per cent, ladies, there is not a bit of doubt about it.” When the returns came in from that camp, there were eleven votes against it and one hundred and one for it. The politicians laughed at us because we were so confident. “Don’t you appreciate that many men who promised to vote for you just want to make you feel good and haven’t any intention of doing it?” they would say. When the returns came in I took a great deal of satisfaction in showing them that the men had kept their promises.

The position that Nevada has geographically had a great deal to do with it: We made a house-to-house canvass to find out if the majority were in favor of Suffrage and we found that women out there would say, “Of course I believe in Suffrage; I used to vote myself in Idaho.” One woman told me, “I feel very much out of place here in Nevada because I haven’t the right to vote. I voted for years in Colorado.” It would have been an easy thing to prove that at least seventy-five per cent of the women in Nevada were in favor of Woman Suffrage. When the men said, “We are willing that Nevada women shall have the vote when the majority of them want it,” we could say that the majority of the women in the State of Nevada do want it.

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CONGRESS TAKES UP THE SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT

THE effect of this campaign—the first of the kind in the history of the United States—was as though acid had been poured into the milk of the Democratic calm and security. Within a few days of the appearance of the Congressional Union speakers, the Democratic papers were full of attacks on the Congressional Union. The following from the Wyoming Leader of October 6 is typical of the way the Democratic papers handled the Congressional Union workers:

Monday afternoon, they desecrated a charitable gathering of the Ladies’ Hospital Aid.... If it was nothing more than the harmless effort of a couple of women to earn some Congressional coin, it might be overlooked, and these two women with fatherly tenderness, told to go back home. But it involves an insult to the intelligent citizenship of this State. It attempts to compromise and bring into disrepute the practical workings of Woman Suffrage in this, the original Suffrage State. It proposes to prostitute religion, charity, fraternity, and society itself, to the ambition of a place-and-plunder-hunting politician. These women go into gatherings to insult and outrage harmony and good-will among women who themselves avoid politics in their meetings.

They could not have selected a meeting at which it was so plainly out of place as a meeting of hospital workers. These women had gathered together to promote the good work of mercy and charity in our community. They were Republicans, Progressives, and Democrats in their preferences....

The editor of the Leader has met and talked with these two women and believes they do not realize the insult they are offering to the women of Wyoming.

The Republican papers of course instantly came to the rescue of the Congressional Union organizers. The Cheyenne Tribune said editorially on October 16:

Democratic newspapers like the Wyoming Leader are finding fault with the Woman Suffrage Congressional Union for sending representatives into this State to work against the Democratic candidate for Congress.

This is a free country, and Wyoming a Woman Suffrage State, and if worthy, respectable women come into Wyoming, the first State to grant the franchise to women, and conduct a decent campaign for the principles of Woman Suffrage, they should be treated courteously and given a respectful hearing.

They rightly hold the Democratic Party responsible for its self-evident opposition to the cause of Woman Suffrage, and rightly are seeking to defeat Democratic candidates for Congress by endeavoring to get woman voters to vote against them.

As to the actual effects, I quote from the report of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage for the year 1914:

One of the strongest proofs of the results accomplished in Washington was given when Judge W. W. Black, Democratic candidate for the United States Senate, called at the headquarters of the Congressional Union in Seattle, and urged the organizers in charge, in the words of the Seattle Sunday Times, “to go home and wage a campaign for female Suffrage, and let the Democratic Congressional candidates in this State alone. Judge Black disclaimed personal interest,” continued the Seattle Times, “and insisted that his is merely a fatherly concern for the two young Suffrage leaders. To demonstrate that he was not concerned personally, Judge Black told the two workers that he was going to be elected, anyway.”

Shortly before election day, Democratic leaders in Colorado formed a Democratic woman’s organization for the purpose of actively combating the Congressional Union’s work among the women voters.

Further striking evidence of the importance which the Democratic leaders of Colorado attached to the Union’s activities was furnished by a leaflet sent far and wide through the State, issued from the Colorado Democratic State Headquarters, under the names of Wellington H. Gates, Leo U. Guggenheim, and John T. Barnett, National Democratic Committeemen. The leaflet began: “Permit us to call your attention to the apparent aims and purposes of the organization calling itself The Congressional Union.”

It then devoted four pages to letters and statements opposing the policy of the Union, and ended with an appeal to the women voters to elect the Democratic candidates for Congress “with larger majorities than ever before, to show the world that the Democratic women of Colorado are not only loyal, but consistent, voters.”

This was the last leaflet sent to the voters by the State Democratic Committee. From the first word to the last, it dealt only with the Congressional Union. Could better evidence be desired of the important part which the Democrats themselves felt that Suffrage was playing in the election?

Nowhere did the Congressional Union election work arouse greater opposition than in Utah. “Intimidation, coercion, and what were equivalent to threats of political banishment from the State of Utah,” said the Republican Herald of Salt Lake City (October 15), “were exercised toward Miss Elsie Agnes Lancaster, the New York Suffragist, by W. R. Wallace, the Democratic generalissimo, and his gang of political mannikins.”

“They invited Miss Lancaster,” the Herald continued, “to come to Democratic State Headquarters, and there kept her on the grill for two and a half hours. This term of cross-examination, during which she was under fire of cross-questioning and denunciation from practically all of the Democratic politicians present, was a vain endeavor to have her bring to an immediate close her campaign against the Democratic nominees for the United States Senate and Congress. For two hours and a half, the hundred pounds of femininity withstood the concentrated cross-fire of the ton of beef and brawn represented by the dozen or more distinguished Democrats who acted as attorney, judge, and jury all in one. After they had finished, she went her way, telling Mr. Wallace that neither he nor his hirelings could swerve her from her duty in Utah as a representative of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage.

“The greatest outburst of Generalissimo Wallace,” concludes the Herald, “was when, in a moment of rage, he brought his fist down on the table and threatened to advertise Miss Lancaster the country over by means of the Associated Press as being in league with ‘sinister influences’ in Utah.”

One of the candidates for Congress from Kansas (Representative Doolittle) called at the Washington Headquarters of the Union shortly after the inauguration of work in Kansas, and urged the Union to withdraw its campaigners from his district, at least, if not over all the Western States. Finding the Union determined to continue its opposition through the women voters, as long as his Party continued its opposition to the National Amendment, Mr. Doolittle delivered a speech in the House of Representatives (occupying more than a page of the Congressional Record), denouncing the Union, and assuring the members of Congress that its appeal to the women voters was not authorized by the Suffragists of the country.

Representative Hayden of Arizona also endeavored, in a speech in the House, to answer the appeal of the Congressional Union to the Western women to cast their votes against him, together with the other national Democratic candidates. Nearly three pages of the Record was consumed by Mr. Hayden’s speech, which he reprinted, and sent far and wide through the State of Arizona in an attempt to counteract the havoc which it was apparently believed was being wrought by the Congressional Union workers.

A prominent Democratic candidate for the Arizona Legislature testified to the fear which the Union campaign had aroused among the Democratic element in that State by an appeal to Dr. Cora Smith King, a member of the Advisory Council of the Congressional Union, urgently imploring her to use her influence with the Union to terminate its election activities in Arizona. Dr. King replied: “The more the local Democrats complain, the more they advertise the slogan of the Congressional Union, that the Democrats put Suffrage second to Party. Do, for Heaven’s sake, raise the Democratic roof in Washington for involving you in this dilemma.”

Among the concrete results showing the effectiveness of the Congressional Union election activities was the inclusion of a Federal Suffrage Amendment plank in the platforms of each of the State parties in Colorado, the first time that this occurred in that State, and the inclusion of a similar plank in the Arizona Democratic platform.

Another result was the conversion of Senator Smith of Arizona to a belief in the Federal Amendment. On September 28, Senator Smith and Representative Hayden, the two Democratic candidates who were running for Congress from Arizona, sent the following telegram to Mrs. Frances Munds, candidate for State Senatorship on the Democratic ticket: “Our record in Congress shows that we are for National Woman Suffrage. If you think best, offer as plank in State platform the following: ‘We pledge our candidates for United States Senator and Representative in Congress to vote at all times for National Women Suffrage.’”

The Democratic Committee adopted and strengthened this platform.

All candidates, indeed, seemed to develop a marked increase in the fervor of their allegiance to the Suffrage Amendment. Senator Chamberlain of Oregon, in his last edition of street-car cards before election day, headed his poster with a declaration of his support of National Woman Suffrage as the leading argument for his re-election.

Not only the Congressional candidates, but minor Democratic workers, suddenly developed unsuspected interest in the cause of Woman Suffrage. Said the Examiner of Yuma, Arizona (October 24, 1914), in commenting on the situation: “We view with amazement the efforts of the Democratic bosses to be in favor of Equal Suffrage.”

And so in each of the States.

No more conclusive proof of the support given by the women voters to the Union’s campaign could be afforded than the readiness with which they became members and active workers.

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In undertaking the election campaign, the Union had expected that in the beginning only the humble members of the rank and file would respond to its appeal. It had fully realized that the rank and file are more easily reached by new work than are the leaders. It was with amazement, therefore, as well as gratification that it greeted the co-operation of the leading women voters of the West. Their willingness to subordinate Party interest to the National Suffrage cause furnished the strongest assurance of the speedy organization of the women’s vote to such a power as to make it a determining factor in the outcome of things at Washington.

The rank and file, however, equalled the leaders in the enthusiasm with which they supported the campaign. Women who had never before been active in Suffrage work were aroused to an effective support of the Congressional Union’s policy. Said the Tribune of Pendleton, Oregon (October 16), for instance, in commenting on this situation:

“Large numbers of women who had not even registered until the campaign of the Congressional Union began, have made it their duty to do so in order that they may cast their ballot on this one issue alone. They had not been especially interested in the general political campaign, but seeing the opportunity to assist in the enfranchisement of other women, they have come bravely to the front with offers of assistance.”

One of the illuminating features of the campaign was the aid given to the Union in its election work by prominent Democratic women. This support came from the Democratic women of the East as well as of the West. For example, Mrs. George A. Armes, President of the District of Columbia Branch of the National Wilson and Marshall League, wrote to the Chairman of the Union during the election days: “I have come to the conclusion that the greatest service I can render to the National Democratic Party is to help to bring it to realize that true democracy involves Suffrage for women as well as for men. I know that it will come to a realization of the truth if it sees that it can no longer count upon the women’s vote in the West if it opposes the Suffrage Amendment. I am, therefore, heartily with the election campaign of the Congressional Union in its appeal to the women voters to cast their votes against all Democratic candidates for Congress.”

Women voted in the election for forty-five members of Congress. The Democratic Party ran candidates for forty-three members in these States. The Congressional Union opposed all these candidates. Out of the forty-three Democratic candidates, only twenty were elected. In some of these districts undoubtedly the women affected these results.

I quote the same report:

Basing our estimate on the charges made by friends of the candidates whom we were forced, by reason of the action of their Party, to oppose, the Congressional Union campaign defeated Representative Neely of Kansas, Mr. Flegel of Oregon, and Representative Seldomridge of Colorado; and contributed in large measure to the defeat of Mr. Hawley of Idaho, Mr. James H. Moyle of Utah, and Mr. Roscoe Drumheller of Washington, and greatly lessened the majorities of Senator Smith of Arizona, Senator Thomas, and Mr. Keating of Colorado.

The campaign of the Congressional Union accomplished exactly what its members hoped and expected that it would accomplish. If their purpose had been merely to unseat Democrats, they would, of course, have taken the districts in the United States where the Democrats had won by very slight majorities. When they went into such strongly Democratic States as Arizona and Colorado, they did not expect to unseat any of the Democratic candidates in those States. Their purpose was to make Woman Suffrage an ever-present political issue in the States where women have political power until all the women of the United States shall be enfranchised, and to lay in those States the foundations for permanent and constantly-growing support of the franchise work at Washington. They succeeded in making the record of the Democratic Party on Woman Suffrage (an issue which would not otherwise have been heard of) widely known and hotly discussed in the Suffrage States.

In the meantime, Suffrage had come up again and again in Congress. On October 10, 1914, during discussion of the Philippine Bill, conferring a greater measure of self-government on Filipino men, Representative Mann of Illinois proposed on that date that the franchise measure in the Bill be so amended as to give the vote to women on the Islands. This Amendment was lost by a vote of fifty-eight to eighty-four. On October 12, Representative J. W. Bryan of Washington, Progressive, proposed three other Amendments: One, making women eligible to vote in school elections, which was lost by a vote of eleven to twenty-seven; one giving the vote to women property-owners, which was lost by a vote of nine to twenty-seven, and one giving the Philippine legislature power to extend the right of Suffrage to women at any future time, which was lost by a vote of eleven to twenty-seven. The Amendments were defeated by strictly Party votes, the Democrats voting almost solidly against them, while the Progressives and Republicans supported them.

This Session of Congress adjourned on October 4, 1914. At its close, the Suffrage Amendment was upon the calendar of the Senate and the House, ready for a vote. In the House, however, the Rules Committee must apportion time for the vote. Mr. Mondell’s Resolution providing for this—and for which successive deputations had besieged the Rules Committee—was still before the Rules Committee.

The short Session—the last Session of the Sixty-third Congress—opened on December 7. President Wilson’s message, read to Congress on December 8, made no mention of the Woman Suffrage question, though it expressly recommended the Bill granting further independence to the men of the Philippines.

In December, therefore, Anne Martin, who had brought to brilliant victory the campaign in Nevada, came to the Congressional Union’s Headquarters in Washington. She called on the President to ask his assistance in furthering the passage of the Bristow-Mondell Amendment.

In referring to the victory in Nevada, the President said: “That is the way I believe it should come, by States.”

Miss Martin then pointed out to the President the immense difficulties involved in State campaigns. She said: “The referendum campaigns are killing work, and the women of America are working for the passage of this Federal Amendment in order to end the long struggle.”

Miss Martin referred to the President’s attitude toward the Filipinos. She said she had read with interest that part of his message to Congress in which he advocated a larger measure of self-government for them. She pointed out that Suffragists were asking for an extension of the same right to American women, and urged him to give equal support to the Amendment enfranchising his country-women.

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The Congressional Union began to send deputations to the refractory Rules Committee, immediately upon the return of the Committee members to Washington. On December 9, Mrs. William Kent and Mrs. Gardner called upon Chairman Henry as soon as he reached the city. To their great astonishment, they were promptly assured by Mr. Henry that the Rules Committee would report favorably House Resolution No. 514—providing time for the consideration of the Suffrage Amendment in the House—which had been before it since May 13.

“Mr. Henry said,” says the Suffragist of December 12, “that he had always desired to make a favorable report of the Suffrage rule; certain ‘sinister influences,’ however, working upon some of the members of this Committee had made it impossible for the Committee to take action upon it during the last Session. Mr. Henry did not state what the ‘sinister influences’ were, nor why they had been removed immediately after the election.”

He also assured representatives of the Union that the Rules Committee would shortly bring the Amendment to a vote in the House.

“There is every reason to believe,” said Mrs. Gilson Gardner commenting on Mr. Henry’s glib change of front, “that the Party leaders have met and studied the Democratic returns from the campaign States.”

On January 12, the Resolution on the Susan B. Anthony Amendment was debated for over six hours in the House and voted upon the same day. One hundred and seventy-four votes were cast for the Amendment, two hundred and four against it. Forty-six members were recorded as not voting. Of the forty-six, twelve were paired in favor, and six paired against it. The Amendment thus failed by seventy-eight votes of the necessary two-thirds.

It is a favorite trick with politicians to bring up the Amendment in the short session of a dying Congress. They can vote no and still have a chance, in the new Congress, to redeem themselves before election.

The Suffragist of January 23 quotes some of the reasons for opposing the Amendment:

That Woman Suffrage cannot be supported because of a man’s respect, admiration, and reverence for womanhood.

That five little colored girls marched in a Suffrage parade in Columbus, Ohio.

That women must be protected against themselves. They think they want to vote. As a matter of fact, they do not want to vote, and man, being aware of this fact, is obliged to prevent them from getting the ballot that they do not want.

That the ballot would degrade women.

That no man would care to marry a Suffragist.

That women do not read newspapers on street cars.

That women do not buy newspapers of Ikey Oppenstein, who keeps the stand on the corner.

That no man would care to marry a female butcher.

That no man would care to marry a female policeman.

That Woman Suffrage is a matter for the States to determine.

That Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch once marched in a procession in which she carried a banner inscribed, “One million Socialists vote and work for Suffrage.”

That Inez Milholland married a Belgian and once referred to a cabinet-officer as a joke.

That women fail to take part in the “duty of organized murder” and might therefore vote against war.

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