“I tell you solemnly, ladies and gentlemen, we cannot any longer postpone justice in these United States”—President Wilson.
“I don’t wish to sit down and let any man take care of me without my at least having a voice in it, and if he doesn’t listen to my advice, I am going to make it as unpleasant as I can.”—President Wilson,—and other challenges were carried on banners to the picket line.
Some rumblings of political action began to be heard. The Democratic majority had appointed a Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage whose members were overwhelmingly for federal action. The chairman, Senator Andreas Jones of New Mexico, promised an early report to the Senate. There were scores of gains in Congress. Representatives and Senators were tumbling over each other to introduce similar suffrage resolutions. We actually had difficulty in choosing the man whose name should stamp our measure.
A minority party also was moved to act. Members of the Progressive Party met in convention in St. Louis on April 12, 13 and 14 and adopted a suffrage plank which demanded “the nation- wide enfranchisement of women . . . .”
In addition to this plank they adopted a resolution calling for the establishment of democracy at home “at a time when the United States is entering into an international war for democracy” and instructing the chairman of the convention “to request a committee consisting of representatives of all liberal groups to go to Washington to present to the President and the Congress of the United States a demand for immediate submission of an amendment to the United States constitution enfranchising women.”
They appointed a committee from the convention to carry these resolutions to the President. The committee included Mr. J. A. H. Hopkins of the Progressive Party, as chairman; Dr. E. A. Rumley of the Progressive-Republican Party and Vice President of the New York Evening Mail; Mr. John Spargo of the Socialist Party; Mr. Virgil Hinshaw, chairman of the Executive Committee of the Prohibition Party; and Miss Mabel Vernon, Secretary of the National Woman’s Party. It was the first suffrage conference with the President after the declaration of war, and was the last deputation on suffrage by minority party leaders. The conference was one of the utmost informality and friendliness.
The President was deeply moved, indeed, almost to the point of tears, when Miss Mabel Vernon said, “Mr. President, the feelings of many women in this country are best expressed by your own words in your war message to Congress . . . . To every woman who reads that message must come at once this question: If the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government is so sacred a cause to foreign people as to constitute the reason for our entering the international war in its defense, will you not, Mr. President, give immediate aid to the measure before Congress demanding self-government for the women of this country?”
The President admitted that suffrage was constantly pressing upon his mind for reconsideration. He added, however, that the program for the session was practically complete and intimated that it did not include the enfranchisement of women.
He informed the Committee that he had written a letter to Mr. Pou, Chairman of the Rules Committee of the House, expressing himself as favoring the creation of a Woman Suffrage Committee in that body. While we had no objection to having the House create a Suffrage Committee, we were not primarily interested in the amplification of Congressional machinery, unless this amplification was to be followed by the passage of the amendment. The President could as easily have written the Senate Committee on Suffrage or the Judiciary Committee of the House, advising an immediate report on the suffrage resolution, as have asked for the creation of another committee to report on the subject.
He made no mention of his state-by-state conviction, however, as he had in previous interviews, and the Committee of Progressives understood him to have at least tacitly accepted federal action.