So Miss Paul wired Alice Henkle that night: “Redouble efforts. They are having good effect.” Four weeks later, three Senators told me that Senator King had said in the cloak room, “I’m as much opposed to Federal Suffrage as ever, but I think I’ll vote for it. My constituents want me to.”
“That leaves six to get,” said Miss Paul, “counting Senator Culberson too.” For while we had been busy in Washington, Doris Stevens and Clara Wolfe had been busy in Texas on the trail of Senator Culberson.
The national committees of both political parties had taken a stand for Federal Suffrage in February. Also, Colonel Roosevelt and other Republican leaders were writing to Senators whose names we furnished, urging their support.
“Now,” said Senator Curtis, smiling, “I think we’ll get Harding and Sutherland. They both want to vote for it, but their States are against it. I’ll go see them again. Keep the backfires burning in their States.”
Senator Curtis has the dark hair and skin of Indian ancestry, and perhaps his Indian blood has given him his quick sense of a situation and his knowledge of men. Without quite knowing how it happened—it may have been his interest in listening or his wisdom in advising—he had become the guiding friend, the storm-center of our work on the Republican side of the Senate.
“Colonel Roosevelt has written to Senator Sutherland too,” I thought hopefully, while I sat waiting for him in the marble room. He came out, and said almost at once, “I’ve just had a letter from Colonel Roosevelt asking me to vote for your Amendment!”
“Have you?” said I.
“Yes. But I wish he had told me how I can do it, when the overwhelming sentiment of my State is against it.” I spoke of something else, but that night I reported this remark to Doris Stevens and Abby Scott Baker. Both of them immediately wrote to Colonel Roosevelt. Later, I again saw Senator Sutherland. He had evidently forgotten our former conversation.
“I’ve had a letter from Colonel Roosevelt about your Amendment,” he said. “It’s the second time he has written to me about it. He wants me to come to Oyster Bay so he can give me reasons for voting for it.”
“I should think it would be awfully interesting to go,” I encouraged gently. And soon we checked off Senator Sutherland’s name on our lists, and said, “Five more to get.”