That day, a newly elected Congressman drove about Washington, showing the city to his wife. He had always been a Suffragist. She had always been an anti-Suffragist. The sudden sight of the thousand women marching in the rain not only converted her, but it produced such an effect on her she burst into tears.
Later, President Wilson sent a letter to the National Woman’s Party, acknowledging the resolutions presented to him by the deputations of March 4, and concluded: “May I not once more express my sincere interest in the cause of Woman Suffrage?”
Congress adjourned on March 3, 1917. The pickets adjourned with it. On April 2, a Special War Session of Congress convened. The Suffragist gives an interesting description of that interesting day.
Just half an hour before Congress formally opened, the Suffrage sentinels at the Capitol took their places.... There was tensity in the atmosphere. The Capitol grounds were overrun with pacifists from many cities wearing white-lettered badges; and with war advocates, as plainly labeled, with partisan demands. They swarmed over the Capitol grounds unmolested, though extra precautions were taken throughout the day and in the evening when troops of cavalry were called out. The silent sentinels stood unmoved the while for democracy while peace and war agitation eddied around them.
The pickets convened with Congress. They continued to stand at the gates of the White House, but they extended their line to the Capitol. Three pickets, led by Elsie Hill, took up their station by the House entrance and three by the Senate entrance. At night—this evoked from the newspapers sly allusions to the Trojan horse—they used to store their banners in the House Office Building.
On April 7, the United States declared itself to be at war with Germany.
After war was declared, the Woman’s Party continued—and continued with an increasing force and eloquence—to demand the enfranchisement of the women of the United States by Constitutional Amendment. This brought down upon their heads a storm of criticism; antagonism; hostility. But Alice Paul was not deflected by it from her purpose. She recalled that, at the outbreak of the Civil War, Suffragists of that day, were entreated to relinquish their Suffrage work in favor of war work. They were promised that, at the end of the war, they would be enfranchised. Susan B. Anthony complied with great reluctance, carried on, against her will, by the majority of those who surrounded her.