Jailed for Freedom Part 5

Women Voters Organize

It can't be done." "Women don't care about suffrage." I "Once they've got it, it is a dead issue." "To talk of arousing the Western women to protest against the Congressional candidates of the National Democratic Party in the suffrage states, when every one of them is a professing suffragist, is utter folly." So ran the comment of the political wise acres in the autumn of 1914.

But the women had faith in their appeal.

It is impossible to give in a few words any adequate picture of the anger of Democratic leaders at our entrance into the campaign. Six weeks before election they woke up to find the issue of national suffrage injected into a campaign which they had meant should be no more stirring than an orderly and perfunctory endors.e.m.e.nt of the President's legislative program.

The campaign became a very hot one during which most of the militancy seemed to be on the side of the political leaders.

Heavy fists came down on desks. Harsh words were spoken.

Violent threats were made. In Colorado, where I was cam- paigning, I was invited politely but firmly by the Democratic leader to leave the state the morning after I had arrived. "You can do no good here. I would advise you to leave at once.

Besides, your plan is impracticable and the women will not support it."

"Then why do you object to my being here?" I asked.

"You have no right to ask women to do this . . . ."

Some slight variation of this experience was met by every

{36}

woman who took part in this campaign. Of course, the Democratic leaders did not welcome an issue raised unexpectedly, and one which forced them to spend an endless amount of time apologizing for and explaining the Democratic Party's record. Nor did they relish spending more money publis.h.i.+ng more literature, in short, adding greatly to the burdens of their campaign. The candidates, a little more suave than the party leaders, proved most eloquently that they had been suffragists "from birth." One candidate even claimed a suffrage inheritance from his great-grandmother.

This first entry of women into a national election on the suffrage amendment was little more than a quick, brilliant dash. With all its sketchiness, however, it had immediate political results, and when the election was over, there came tardily a general public recognition that the Congressional Union had made a real contribution to these results. In the nine suffrage states women vote3 for 45 members of Congress.

For 43 of these seats the Democratic Party ran candidates.

We opposed in our campaign all of these candidates. Out of the 43 Democratic candidates running, only 9.0 were elected.

While it was not our primary aim to defeat candidates it was generally conceded that we had contributed to these defeats.

Our aim in this campaign was primarily to call to the attention of the public the bad suffrage record of the Democratic Party.

The effect of our campaign was soon evident in Congress. The most backward member realized for the first time that women had voted.

Even the President perceived that the movement had gained new strength, though he was not yet politically moved by it. He was still "tied to a conviction"[1] which he had had all his life that suffrage "ought to be brought about state by state."

Enough strength and determination among women had

[1]Statement to Deputation of Democratic women (eighth deputation) at the White House, Jan. 6, 1915.

{37}

been demonstrated to the Administration, however, to make them want to do something "just as good" as the thing we asked. The Shafroth-Palmer[1] Resolution was introduced, providing for a const.i.tutional amendment permitting a national initiative and referendum on suffrage in the states, thereby forcing upon women the very course we had sought to circ.u.mvent. This red herring drawn across the path had been accepted by the conservative suff- ragists evidently in a moment of hopelessness, and their strength put behind it, but the politicians who persuade them to back it knew that it was merely an attempt to evade the issue.

This made necessary a tremendous campaign throughout the country by the Congressional Union, with the result that the compromise measure was eventually abandoned. During its life, however, politicians were happy in the opportunity to divide their support between it and the original amendment, which was still pending.

To offset this danger and to show again in dramatic fas.h.i.+on the strength and will of the women voters to act on this issue, we made political work among the western women the princ.i.p.al effort of the year 1915, the year preceding the presidential election.

Taking advantage of the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, we opened suffrage headquarters in the Palace of Education on the exposition grounds. From there we called the first Woman Voters' Convention ever held in the world for the single purpose of attaching political strength to the movement.

Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont was chairman of the committee which signed the convention call.

Women from all the voting states a.s.sembled in a ma.s.s convention September 14, 15 and 16. There is not time to describe

[1]This resolution was introduced in the Senate by Senator Shafroth of Colorado, Democrat; in the House by Representative A.

Mitch.e.l.l Palmer of Pennsylvania, Democrat, later Attorney General in President Wilson's Cabinet. Both men, although avowed supporters of the original Susan B. Anthony amendment, backed this evil compromise.

{38}

the beauty of the pageantry which surrounded that gathering, nor of the emotional quality which was at high pitch throughout the sessions. These women from the deserts of Arizona, from the farms of Oregon, from the valleys of California, from the mountains of Nevada and Utah, were in deadly earnest. They had answered the call and they meant to stay in the fight until it was won. The convention went on record unanimously for further political action on behalf of national suffrage and for the original amendment without compromise, and pledged itself to use all power to this end without regard to the interests of any existing political party.

Two emissaries, Sara Bard Field and Frances Joliffe, both of California, were commissioned by women voters at the final session, when more than ten thousand people were present, to go to the President and Congress bearing these resolutions and hundreds of thousands of signatures upon a pet.i.tion gathered during the summer. They would speak directly to the President lest he should be inclined to take lightly the women voters'

resolutions.

The envoys, symbolic of the new strength that was to come out of the West, made their journey across continent by automobile. They created a sensation all along the way, received as they were by governors, by mayors, by officials high and low, and by the populace. Thousands more added their names to the pet.i.tion and it was rolled up to gigantic proportions until in December when unrolled it literally stretched over miles as it was borne to the Capitol with honor escorts.

The action of the convention scarcely cold, and the envoys mid- way across the continent, the President hastened to New Jersey to cast his vote for suffrage in a state referendum. He was careful to state that he did so as a private citizen, "not as the leader of my party in the nation" He repeated his position, putting the emphasis upon his opposition to national suffrage, rather than on his belief in suffrage for his state.

{39}

"I believe that it (suffrage) should be settled by the states and not by the national government, and that in no circ.u.mstances should it be made a party question; and my view has grown stronger at every turn of the agitation." He knew women were asking the powerful aid of the President of the United States, not the aid of Mr. Wilson of Princeton, New Jersey. The state amendment in New Jersey was certain to fail, as President Wilson well knew. Casting a vote for it would help his case with women voters, and still not bring suffrage in the East a step nearer.

The envoys' reception at the Capitol was indeed dramatic.

Thousands of women escorted them amid bands and banners to the halls of Congress, where they were received by senators and representatives and addressed with eloquent speeches. The envoys replied by asking that their message be carried by friends of the measure to the floor of the Senate and House, and this was done.

The envoys waited upon the President at the White House. This visit of the representatives of women with power marked rather an advance in the President's position. He listened with an eager attention to the story of the new-found power and what women meant to do with it. For the first time on record, he said he had "an open mind" on the question of national suffrage, and would confer with his party colleagues.

The Republican and Democratic National Committees heard the case of the envoys. They were given a hearing before the Senate Suffrage Committee and before the House Judiciary in one of the most lively and entertaining inquisitions in which women ever partic.i.p.ated.

No more questions on mother and home! No swan song on the pa.s.sing of charm and womanly loveliness! Only agile scrambling by each committee member to ask with eagerness and some heat, "Well, if this amendment has not pa.s.sed Congress by then, what will you do in the elections of 1916?" It

{40}

was with difficulty that the women were allowed to tell their story, so eager was the Committee to jump ahead to political consequences. "Sirs, that depends upon what you gentlemen do. We are asking a simple thing-" But they never got any further from the main base of their interest.

"If President Wilson comes out for it and his party does not" from a Republican member, "will you-"

"I object to introducing partisan discussions here," came shamelessly from a Democratic colleague. And so the hearing pa.s.sed in something of a verbal riot, but with no doubt as to the fact that Congressmen were alarmed by the prospect of women voting as a protest group.

The new year found the Senate promptly reporting the measure favorably again, but the Judiciary Committee footballed it to its sub-committee, back to the whole committee, postponed it, marked time, dodged defeated it.

The problem of neutrality toward the European war was agitating the minds of political leaders. Nothing like suffrage for women must be allowed to rock the s.h.i.+p even slightly! Oh, no, indeed; it was men's business to keep the nation out of war. Men never had shown marked skill at keeping nations out of war in the history of the world. But never mind! Logic must not be pressed too hard upon the "reasoning" s.e.x. This time, men would do it.

The exciting national election contest was approaching. Party conventions were scheduled to meet in June while the amendment languished at the Capitol. It was clear that more highly organized woman-power would have to be called into action before the national government would speed its pace. To the women voters the Eastern women went for decisive a.s.sistance. A car known as the "Suffrage Special," carrying distinguished Eastern women and gifted speakers, made an

{41}

extensive tour of the West and under the banner of the Congressional Union called again upon the women voters to come to Chicago on June 5th to form a new party,-The Woman's Party[1]-to serve as long as should be necessary as the balance of power in national contests, and thus to force action from the old parties.

The instant response which met this appeal surpa.s.sed the most optimistic hopes. Thousands of women a.s.sembled in Chicago for this convention, which became epoch-making not only in .the suffrage fight but in the whole woman movement. For the first time in history, women came together to organize their political power into a party to free their own s.e.x. For the first time in history representatives of men's political parties came to plead before these women voters for the support of their respective parties.

The Republican Party sent as its representatives John Hays Hammond and C. S. Osborn, formerly Governor of Michigan. The Democrats sent their most persuasive orator, President Wilson's friend, Dudley Field Malone, Collector of the Port of New York.

Allan Benson, candidate for the Presidency on the Socialist ticket, represented the Socialist Party. Edward Polling, Prohibition leader, spoke for the Prohibition Party, arid Victor Murdock and Gifford Pinchot for The Progressive Party.

All laid their claims for suffrage support before the women with the result that the convention resolved itself into another political party-The Woman's Party. A new party with but one plank-the immediate pa.s.sage of the federal suffrage amendment-a party determined to withhold its support from all existing parties until women were politically free, and to punish politically any party in power which did not use its