From these hideous calamities we in this favored land of ours have thus far been shielded. I shall be profoundly thankful, if, consistently with the honor and integrity of the nation, we may maintain to the end our peaceful relations with the world.
Cordially and sincerely yours,
Woodrow Wilson.
To the officers and members of the Jane Jefferson Club of Colorado.
The Woman’s Party did not care for whom the women cast their protest vote—Republicans, Socialists, Prohibitionists—they cared only that women should not vote for the Democrats. They knew if this protest vote was large enough, whoever was elected would realize that opposition to Suffrage was inexpedient.
At Colorado Springs the National Woman’s Party passed the following resolutions:
Resolved that the National Woman’s Party, so long as the opposition of the Democratic Party continues, pledges itself to use its best efforts in the twelve States where women vote for President to defeat the Democratic candidate for President; and in the eleven States where women vote for members of Congress to defeat the candidates of the Democratic Party for Congress.
Immediately the campaign began. It was the biggest campaign—the most important ever waged by the Woman’s Party. A stream of organizers started for the Western States to prepare the way for the speakers. How hard, and how long, and how intensively these girl organizers worked will never be known because, in the very nature of things, there could be no adequate record of their efforts. Then came a stream of speakers, relay after relay—convinced, informed, experienced—and inspired. Among them were Harriot Stanton Blatch, Sara Bard Field, Ida Finney Mackrille, Mrs. William Kent, Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, Helen Todd, Maud Younger, Rose Winslow, and Gail Laughlin. The brilliant, beautiful Inez Milholland Boissevain, doomed soon to die so untimely but so glorious a death, was appointed special flying envoy to make a twelve mile swing through the twelve western Equal Suffrage States; to bring to the enfranchised women of the West an appeal for help from the disfranchised women of the East.
The campaign of 1916 was characterized by the swiftness of attack and efficiency of method which characterized the campaign of 1914, but it was carried out on a much larger scale. In Washington, Headquarters boiled ... bubbled ... seethed....
From Washington there sifted into the West tons of campaign literature: miles of purple, white, and gold banners; acres of great across-the-street streamers. In the West itself, Woman’s Party speakers addressed every kind of meeting known to our civilization: indoor meetings; outdoor meetings; luncheons; banquets; labor unions; business men’s organizations; in churches, factories, theatres; at mining camps, county fairs. They took advantage of impromptu meetings in the streets; small ready-made meetings at clubs; large advertised mass-meetings. And Inez Milholland’s activities as a flying envoy—and in that, her last flight she did fly—were the climax of it all.