“For five years women have appealed to this President and his party for political freedom. The President has given words, and words, and words. To-day women receive more words. We announce to the President and the whole world to-day, by this act of ours, our determination that words shall not longer be the only reply given to American women—our determination that this same democracy for whose establishment abroad we are making the utmost sacrifice, shall also prevail at home.
“We have protested to this Administration by banners; we have protested by speeches; we now protest by this symbolic act.
“As in the ancient fights for liberty, the crusaders for freedom symbolized their protest against those responsible for injustice by consigning their hollow phrases to the flames, so we, on behalf of thousands of suffragists, in this same way to-day protest against the action of the President and his party in delaying the liberation of American women.”
Mrs. Jessie Hardy Mackaye of Washington, D. C., then came forward to the end of the plinth to speak, and as she appeared, a man in the crowd handed her a twenty-dollar bill for the campaign in the Senate. This was the signal for others. Bills and coins were passed up. Instantly marshals ran hither and thither collecting the money in improvised baskets while the cheers grew louder and louder. Many of the policemen present were among the donors.
Burning President Wilson’s words had met with popular approval from a large crowd!
The procession of women was starting back to headquarters, the police were eagerly clearing the way for the line; the crowd was dispersing in order; the great golden banner, “Mr. President, what will you do for woman suffrage?” was just swinging past the White House gate, when President Wilson stepped into his car for the afternoon drive.
Chapter 18
President Wilson Appeals to the Senate Too Late
The next day the Administration completely reversed its policy. Almost the first Senate business was an announcement on the floor by Senator Jones, Chairman of the Suffrage Committee, that the suffrage amendment would be considered in the Senate September 26th. And Senator Overman, Chairman of the Rules Committee, rather shyly remarked to our legislative chairman that he had been “mistaken yesterday.” It was “now in the legislative program.” The Senate still stood 6Q votes for and 34 against the amendment—2 votes lacking. The President made an effort among individual Democrats to secure them. But it was too feeble an effort and he failed.
Chairman Jones took charge of the measure on the floor. The debate opened with a long and eloquent. speech by Senator Vardaman of Mississippi, Democrat, in support of the amendment. “My estimate of woman,” said he, in conclusion, “is well expressed in the words employed by a distinguished author who dedicated his book to a ‘Little mountain, a great meadow, and a woman,’ ‘To the mountain for the sense of time, to the meadow for the sense of space, and of everything.’”
Senator McCumber of North Dakota, Republican, followed with a curious speech. His problem was to explain why, although opposed to suffrage, he would vote for the amendment. Beginning with the overworked “cave man” and “beasts of the forests,” and down to the present day, “the male had always protected the female” He always would! Forgetting recent events in the Capital, he went so far as to say, “ . . . In our courts she ever finds in masculine nature an asylum of protection, even though she may have committed great wrong. While the mind may be convinced beyond any doubt, the masculine heart finds it almost impossible to pronounce the word ‘guilty’ against a woman.” Scarcely had the galleries ceased smiling at this idea when he treated them to a novel application of the biological theory of inheritance. “The political field,” he declared, “always has been and probably always will be an arena of more or less bitter contest. The political battles leave scars as ugly and lacerating as the physical battles, and the more sensitive the nature the deeper and more lasting the wound. And as no man can enter this contest or be a party to it and assume its responsibilities without feeling its blows and suffering its wounds, much less can woman with her more emotional and more sensitive nature.