Colonel House was importuned to use his influence to win additional Democratic votes in the Senate, or better still to urge the President to win them. Colonel House is an interesting but not unfamiliar type in politics. Extremely courteous, mild mannered, able, quickly sympathetic, he listens with undistracted attention to your request. His round bright eyes snap as he comes at you with a counter-proposal. It seems so reasonable. And while you know he is putting back upon you the very task you are trying to persuade him to undertake, he does it so graciously that you can scarcely resist liking it. He has the manner of having done what you ask without actually doing more than to make you feel warm at having met him. It is a kind of elegant statecraft which has its point of grace, but which is exasperating when effectiveness is needed. Not that Colonel House was not a supporter of the federal amendment. He was. But his gentle, soft and traditional kind of diplomacy would not employ high-powered pressure. “I shall be going to Washington soon on other matters, and I shall doubtless see the President. Perhaps he may bring up the subject in conversation, and if he does, and the opportunity offers itself, I may be able to do something.” Some such gentle threat would come from the Colonel. He was not quite so tender, however, in dealing with Democratic senators, after the President declared for the amendment. He did try to win them.
Ex-President Taft, then joint Chairman of the National War Labor Board, was interviewed at his desk just after rendering an important democratic labor award.
“No, indeed! I’ll do nothing for a proposition which adds more voters to our electorate. I thought my position on this question was well known,” said Mr. Taft.
“But we thought you doubtless had changed your mind since the beginning of our war for democracy——” I started to answer.
“This is not a war for democracy,” he said emphatically, looking quizzically at me for my assertion; “if it were, I wouldn’t be doing anything for it …. The trouble in this country is we’ve got too many mm voting as it is. Why, I’d take the vote away from most of the men,” he added. I wanted to ask him what men he would leave voting. I wanted also to tell him they were taking the vote away from one class of men in Russia at that moment.
Instead, I said, “Well, I’m not quite sure whom we could trust to sit in judgment”—while he looked smiling and serene, as much as to say, “Oh, that would be a simple matter.”
“However,” I said, “we have no quarrel with you. You are an avowed aristocrat, and we respect your candor. Our quarrel is with democrats who will not trust their own doctrines.” Again he smiled with as much sophistication as such a placid face could achieve, and that was all. I believe Mr. Taft has lately modified his attitude toward women voting. I do not know how he squares that with his distaste of democracy.
There was Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, high in Administration confidence. It was a long wait before Abby Scott Baker and I were allowed into his sanctum.
“Well, ladies, what can I do for you?” was the opening question, and we’ thought happily here is a man who will not bore us with his life record on behalf of women. He comes to the point with direction.
“Will you speak to the President on behalf of your organization, which has repeatedly endorsed national suffrage, to induce him to put more pressure behind the Senate which is delaying suffrage?” we asked with equal direction. We concealed a heavy sigh as a reminiscent look came into his shrewd, wan eyes, and he began: