In the new Session—a direct reversal of Mr. Pou’s announcement of two months earlier that the House would not pass the Amendment before 1920—a day was set for the vote on the Suffrage Amendment, a week after Congress assembled.
Again, it should be pointed out that all these things happened after those eight months of picketing.
That important day which the House set was January 10, 1918. In September, the Suffragists lacked seventy-three votes of the passage of the Amendment. Naturally all December was spent in working up that vote. The National Woman’s Party secured statements from Republican leaders like Mondell and Kahn, stating the strong Republican support of the measure and blaming the Democrats if it were defeated. The National Woman’s Party worked up the Republican majority from three-quarters of the House to five-sixths. The Democrats began to be frightened at the press statements of the Republicans. They began to work to increase their showing, as they feared the country would blame them if the Amendment were defeated.
But more important than any of these things was the capitulation of the President which won, as the Woman’s Party contended it would, the necessary votes in the house. On January 9, 1919, one year from the day the Inez Milholland Memorial Deputation visited him, President Wilson made his declaration for the Federal Amendment, and on January 10, the Amendment was passed in the House by a vote of two hundred and seventy-four to one hundred and thirty-six.
This important epoch in the history of the Suffrage Movement, Maud Younger describes in her Revelations of a Woman Lobbyist.
The atmosphere had changed when I returned to Washington. Republican Congressmen had suddenly realized what an asset to the Republican Party would be their support of Suffrage. Democrats, seeing the blame that would attach to them for its defeat, were becoming alarmed.
“The country is fixing to blame the Democrats,” said Mr. Hull, of Tennessee, very thoughtfully, but not quite thoughtfully enough. As a member of the National Executive Committee of the Democratic Party he was thoughtful. As a Congressman with a vote in the House he was not quite thoughtful enough.
We lacked sixty votes in the House, and had only three weeks to get them. We worked day and night. Our friends in Congress, brightly hopeful, told us we had votes to spare, but we knew the truth. We lacked forty votes, then twenty, then ten, but we kept this to ourselves. Unless something happened we could not win.
Then, on January 9, the day before the vote, it happened. Late on that afternoon the President invited a deputation of Democratic Congressmen to wait on him. Knowing of the appointment, we went through the halls of Congress, on wings, all day. When the Congressmen went into the White House, a small group stood outside in the snow waiting for the first word of that interview. After what seemed an interminable time, the doors opened. Out came cheery Mr. Raker with the news: “The President has declared for the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, and will stay home from his game of golf tomorrow morning to see any Congressman who wishes to consult him about it.” Thus, just a year from the day he had told us we must concert public opinion, President Wilson declared for Suffrage.
There was a feeling of victory in the air as we went through the corridors that night. Yet our secret poll showed that we still lacked votes. We could do nothing more. We could only wait and see how much force the President would put behind his declaration.