That night at dinner, the editor of the Labor paper called. He told them that the Sheriff had suddenly put up the claim of jurisdiction over the county Court House taken from him twelve years ago, and that he would be there with a band of armed deputies. “But,” said the Labor leader, “Labor will be there with eighty armed Union men to meet them.” Of course the two Woman’s Party speakers did not know what would happen. But the only thing they did know was that they would hold the meeting as usual. So Maud Younger and Joy Young proceeded alone to the Court House. They both expected to be shot. The Sheriff with his deputies, instead of surrounding the building, went inside, holding the place against Suffrage attack. The Labor men stationed themselves in front of the door. The steps were filled with audience. Joy Young introduced the speaker. Maud Younger took up her position, and they held their meeting outside. Miss Younger always says: “The Sheriff had the Court House, but I had the audience.”
At Chattanooga, Joy Young had explained the situation; The Mayor was with them; the Bar Association, the Chief of Police, the Sheriff were against them; so the Mayor with the assistance of Labor and the newspapers took up their fight. No hall was to be had, and someone in the Bar Association instructed the Chief of Police to enter any private house and break up any meeting the Suffragists might hold; and the Sheriff to do the same in the country outside the city limits. But Labor was not to be outwitted. They were holding a scheduled meeting in their own hall that night. Labor canceled that meeting and offered Maud Younger the hall free. They said they would like to see any police break up a meeting in their hall. All day long there was a stormy session of the Commissioners as to whether or not she might speak. But in the end she did speak.
Later, when Maud Younger returned to Washington, she met Senator McKellar in the course of her lobbying activities. Of course, she was astute enough to know that orders for all this persecution had come from above. She referred quite frankly to his efforts to stop her in Tennessee. With equal frankness, Senator McKellar said: “I wasn’t going to have you talking against the President in Tennessee.”
III
MORE PRESSURE ON CONGRESS
The various activities described in the last six chapters all took place in the year 1917. But during all this year—when the picketing, the arrests, the imprisonments, were going on—work with Congress was of course proceeding parallel with it. It now becomes necessary to go back to the very beginning of the year to follow that work.
It will be remembered that early in this year there occurred in Washington an event of national political importance. The Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage and the Woman’s Party merged into one organization.
This union of the Congressional Union with the Woman’s Party occurred on March 2. On March 3—the last day of his first Administration—President Wilson despatched the following letter to the Hon. W. R. Crabtree, a member of the Tennessee Legislature.
May I not express my earnest hope that the Senate of Tennessee will reconsider the vote by which it rejected the legislation extending the Suffrage to women? Our Party is so distinctly pledged to its passage that it seems to me the moral obligation is complete.