The House of Representatives passed the Susan B. Anthony Amendment on January 10, 1918, by a vote of two hundred and seventy-four to one hundred and thirty-six. The work of the Woman’s Party was now concentrated on the Senate. They needed only eleven votes there, and many Suffragists were optimistic—they thought victory a matter of but a few weeks. The Woman’s Party knew better. However, in the siege of the Senate, they continued their policy—to work downwards through the President, and upward through constituents and political leaders from the people.
In summing up the situation in the Senate, Alice Paul said:
If the Republicans had the vision to see that it was a wise Party policy to secure the credit for the passage of the Amendment in the House, and the Democrats believed it an unwise Party policy to be responsible for its defeat—the same argument must hold for the vote in the Senate, for while more than two-thirds of the Republicans had already promised their votes, only half the Democrats are at present pledged in the Senate.
The effect of the passing of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment in the House was, however, not only profound, but immediate. In February, the Republican National Committee met in St. Louis for the selection of a Chairman. Abby Scott Baker appeared before the committee, urging a favorable stand on the Susan B. Anthony amendment. Two women representing the anti-Suffragists were also to speak. However, when the anti-Suffragist speakers presented themselves before the Committee, they found that it had already voted a resolution commending the stand of the Republican members of the House of Representatives in favor of the Suffrage Amendment. This was the first favorable expression of the National Republican Party on the question of Federal Suffrage.
Minnie Bronson said of the anti-Suffragist members:
I looked round for the thirty members who last night were opposed to Suffrage. I wonder what changed them over night.
Lucy Price, also an anti-Suffragist, asserted:
Your action without even hearing us was worse than a betrayal of us who are opposed to Suffrage. It was an admission that Party pledges are meant to be broken.
The Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee, which met that same day in Washington, held a telegraphic referendum of their entire national committee on the question of the Amendment. It is interesting to note that this was done at the insistence of the Democratic woman who had charge of the Democratic campaign among women in 1916, when the Woman’s Party made Suffrage the great issue. This telegraphic referendum showed more than a two to one desire for the national committee to take action that would put it on record as “urging the support” of the Amendment. The Executive Committee, therefore, adopted the resolution, endorsing the Federal Suffrage measure, and by a vote of five to two, calling upon the Senate to act at once favorably upon it.
For months thereafter, the Woman’s Party concentrated on obtaining the necessary eleven votes in the Senate. It was a period of comparative calm. There was no militant action of any kind. The pickets had all been released in December, and, although the appeal cases were coming up in the courts at intervals, picketing seemed an abandoned weapon.