Jailed for Freedom Part 46

"There is not a Democratic Senator present," said Mr. Hardwick, "who does not know the history that lies back of the adoption of that plank. There is not a Democratic Senator who does not know that the plank was written here in Was.h.i.+ngton and sent to the convention and represented the deliberate voice of the administration and of the party on this question, which was to remit this question to the several States for action . . . .

"The President of the United States . . . was reported to have sent this particular plank . . .from Was.h.i.+ngton, supposedly by the hands of one of his Cabinet officers." The fact that his own party and the Republican party were both advancing on suffrage irritated him into denouncing the alacrity with which "politicians and senators are trying to get on the band wagon first."

Senator McKellar of Tennessee, Democrat, reduced the male superiority argument to simple terms when he said: " . . . Taking them by and large, there are brainy men and brainy women, and that is about all there is to the proposition."

Our armies were sweeping victorious toward Germany. There was round on round of eloquence about the glories of war. Rivers of blood flowed. And always the role of woman was depicted as a contented binding of wounds. There were those who thought woman should be rewarded for such service. Others thought she ought to do it without asking anything in return. But all agreed that this was her role. There was no woman's voice in that body to protest against the perpetuity of such a role.

The remarks of Senator Reed of Missouri, anti-suffrage Democrat, typify this att.i.tude. ". . . Women in my state

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believe in the old-fas.h.i.+oned doctrine that men should fight the battles on the red line; that men should stand and bare their bosoms to the iron hail; and that back of them, if need be, there shall be women who may bind up the wounds and whose tender hands may rest upon the brow of the valiant soldier who has gone down in the fight.

"But, sir, that is woman's work, and it has been woman's work always . . . . The woman who gave her first born a final kiss and blessed him on his way to battle," had, according to the Senator from Missouri, earned a "crown of glory . . . gemmed with the love of the world."

And with Senator Walsh of Montana, Democrat, "The women of America have already written a glorious page in the history of the greatest of wars that have vexed the world. They, like Cornelia, have given, and freely given, their jewels to their country."

Some of us wondered.

Senator McLean of Connecticut, anti-suffrage Republican, flatly stated "that all questions involving declarations of war and terms of peace should be left to that s.e.x which must do the fighting and the dying on the battlefield." And he further said that until boys between 18 and 21 who had just been called to the colors should ask for the vote, "their mothers should be and remain both proud and content" without it. He concluded with an amusing account of the history of the ballot box. "This joint resolution," he said, "goes beyond the seas and above the clouds.

It attempts to tamper with the ballot box, over which mother nature always has had and always will have supreme control; and such attempts always have ended and always will end in failure and misfortune."

Senator Phelan of California, Democrat, made a straightforward, intelligent speech.

Senator Beckham of Kentucky, Democrat, deplored the idea that man was superior to woman. He pleaded "guilty to

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the charge of Romanticism." He said, "But I look upon woman as superior to man." Therefore he could not trust her with a vote.

He had the hardihood to say further, with the men of the world at each other's throats, . . . "Woman is the civilizing, refining, elevating influence that holds man from barbarism." We charged him with ignorance as well as romanticism when he said in closing, "It is the duty of man to work and labor for woman; to cut the wood, to carry the coal, to go into the fields in the necessary labor to sustain the home where the woman presides and by her superior nature elevates him to higher and better conceptions of life."

Meanwhile Senator Shafroth of Colorado, Democrat, lifelong advocate of suffrage, was painstakingly asking one senator after another, as he had been for years, "Does not the Senator believe that the just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed?" and then-"But if you have the general principle acknowledged that the just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed." . . . and so forth. But the idea of applying the Declaration of Independence to modern politics fairly put them to sleep.

These samples of senatorial profundity may divert, outrage, or bore us, but they do not represent the real battle. It is not that the men who utter these sentiments do not believe them. More is the pity, they do. But they are smoke screens-mere skirmishes of eloquence or foolishness. They do not represent the motives of their political acts.

The real excitement began when Senator Pittman of Nevada, Democrat, attempted to reveal to the senators of his party the actual seriousness of the political crisis in which the Democrats were now involved. He also attempted to s.h.i.+ft the blame for threatened defeat of the amendment to the Republican side of the chamber. There was a note of desperation in his voice, too, since he knew that President Wilson had not

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up to that moment won the two votes lacking. The gist of Senator Pittman's remarks was this: The Woman's Party has charged the Senate Woman Suffrage Committee, which is in control of the Democrats, and the President himself, with the responsibility fob obstructing a vote on the measure. "I confess," said he, that this is "having its effect as a campaign argument" in the woman suffrage states.

Senator Wolcott of Delaware, Democrat, interrupted him to ask if this was "the party that has been picketing here in Was.h.i.+ngton?"

Senator Pittman, having just paid this tribute to our campaign in the West, hastened to say that it was, but that there was another a.s.sociation, the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation, which had always conducted its campaign in a "lady-like-modest- and intelligent way" and which had "never mixed in politics."

Waving a copy of the Suffragist in the air, Senator Pittman began his attempt to s.h.i.+ft responsibility to the Republican side, for the critical condition of the amendment. He denounced the Republicans for caucusing on the amendment and deciding unanimously to press for a vote, when they the Republicans] knew there were two votes lacking. He scored us for having given so much publicity to the action of the caucus and declared with vehemence that a "trick" had been executed through Senator Smoot which he would not allow to go unrevealed. Senator Pittman charged that the Republicans had promised enough votes to pa.s.s the amendment and that upon that promise the Democrats had brought the measure on the floor; that the Republicans thereupon withdrew enough votes to cause the defeat of the amendment.

Whether or not this was true, at any rate, as Senator Smoot pointed out, the Democratic Chairman in charge of the measure could at any moment send the measure back to Committee, safe from immediate defeat. This was true, but not exactly a suggestion to be welcomed by the Democrats.

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"Yes," replied Senator Pittman, "and then if we move to refer it back to the committee, the Senator from Utah would say again, 'The Democrats are obstructing the pa.s.sage of this amendment . .

. . We told you all the time they wanted to kill it.' . . . If we refer it back to the committee, then we will be charged, as we have been all the time in the suffrage states, with trying to prevent a vote on it, and still the Woman's Party campaign will go on as it is going on now; and if we vote on it they will say: 'We told you the Democrats would kill it, because the President would not make 332 on his side vote for it'."

That was the crux of the whole situation. The Democrats had been manaeuvered into a position where they could neither afford to move to refer the amendment back to the committee, nor could they afford to press it to a losing vote. They were indeed in an exceedingly embarra.s.sing predicament.

Throughout hours of debate, Senator Pittman could not get away from the militants. Again and again, he recited our deeds of protest, our threats of reprisal, our relentless strategy of holding his party responsible for defeat or victory.

"I should like the Senator," interpolated Senator Poindexter of Was.h.i.+ngton, Republican, "so long as he is discussing the action of the pickets, to explain to the Senate whether or not it is the action of the pickets . . . the militant . . . woman's party, that caused the President to change his att.i.tude on the subject.

Was he coerced into supporting this measure -after he had for years opposed it-because he was picketed? When did the President change his att.i.tude? If it was not because he was picketed, will the Senator explain what was the cause of the change in the President's att.i.tude?"

Mr. Pittman did not reply directly to these questions.

Senator Reed of Missouri, anti-Administration Democrat, consumed hours reading into the Congressional Record various

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press reports of militant activities. He dwelt particularly upon the news headlines, such as,

"Great Was.h.i.+ngton Crowd Cheers Demonstration at White House by National Woman's Party." . . .

"Suffragists Burn Wilson 'Idle Words' . . ."

"Money Instead of Jeers Greet Marchers and Unique Protest Against Withholding Vote" . . .

"Apply Torch to President's Words . . . Promise to Urge Pa.s.sage of Amendment Not Definite Enough for Militants."

"Suff's Burn Speech . . .,Apply Torch to Wilson's Words During Demonstration-Symbol of 'Indignation'-Throngs Witnessing Doings in Lafayette Square Orderly and Contribute to Fund-President Receives Delegation of American Suffrage a.s.sociation Women."

Senator McKellar of Tennessee, Democrat, asked Mr. Reed if he did not believe that we had a right peaceably to a.s.semble under the "first amendment to our Const.i.tution which I shall read: Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people peaceably to a.s.semble, and to pet.i.tion the Government for a redress of grievances." Mr. Reed made no direct answer.

Lest the idea get abroad from the amount of time they spent in discussing the actions of the "wicked militants," that we had had something to do with the situation which had resulted in Democratic despair, Senator Thomas of Colorado, the one Democrat who had never been able to conceal his hostility to us for having reduced his majority in 1914, arose to pay a tribute to the conservative suffrage a.s.sociation of America. Their "escutcheon,"

he said, "is unstained by mob methods or appeals to violence. It has neither picketed Presidents nor populated prisons . . . . It has carried no banners flaunting insults to the Executive," while the militants on the other hand have indulged in "much tumult and vociferous braying, all for notoriety's sake." . . . The galleries smiled as he counseled

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the elder suffrage leaders "not to lose courage nor yet be: fainthearted," for this "handicap" would soon be overcome. It would have taken an abler man than Senator Thomas, in the face of the nature of this debate, to make any one believe that we had been a "handicap" in forcing them to their position. He was the only one hardy enough to try. After this debate the Senate adjourned, leaving things from the point of view of party politics, tangled in a hopeless knot. It was to untie this knot that the President returned hastily from New York in answer to urgent summons by long distance telephone, and went to the Capitol to deliver his memorable address.

Mr. Vice President and Gentlemen of the Senate: The unusual circ.u.mstances 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 view of all nations and all 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 const.i.tutional 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 appraise you of every circ.u.mstance 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 a.s.sumed that the Senate would concur in the amendment because ho 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 subst.i.tute federal initiative for state initiative, if the early adoption, of the measure is necessary to the successful prose-

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cution 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 objects 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 have seemed to me.

This is a peoples' war, and the peoples' thinking const.i.tutes 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. Ours 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 that they wish. 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 follow or to trust us. They have seen their own governments accept this inter-