In May, members of the Woman’s Committee of the Council of National Defense were received by the President and Mrs. Wilson.
Florence Bayard Hilles, State Chairman in Delaware for the National Woman’s Party, who had campaigned for the Liberty Loan throughout her State, and was then working in the Bethlehem Steel Plant, as a munition maker, said to the President:
Mr. President, it would be a great inspiration to all of us in our war work if you would help towards our immediate enfranchisement.
Behind Mrs. Hilles came Mrs. Arthur Kellam, who is Chairman of the Woman’s Party in New Mexico, who said:
Mr. President, we, women of the West, are growing very restless indeed waiting for the long-delayed passage of the Federal Suffrage Amendment. Won’t you help to secure this recognition of citizens? The women of New Mexico and many other States have no redress save through the Federal Amendment. They are eagerly waiting for action on this measure in the Senate. Will you help us?
The President, with marked cordiality, answered:
“I will. I will do all I can.”
In the meantime, the President was receiving picturesque groups of many descriptions: Pershing’s Veterans went to the White House; the Blue Devils of France. Finally a group of women munition workers from the Bethlehem Plant, led by Florence Bayard Hilles, came to Washington to see the President in regard to Suffrage. They were: Catherine Boyle; Ada Walling; Mary Gonzon; Lula Patterson; Marie McKenzie; Isabel C. Aniba; Lilian Jerrold; Mary Campbell; Mildred Peck; Ida Lennox. The experience of the war workers was amusing. They wrote at once asking for an interview with the President. Mr. Tumulty responded saying that the President bade him to tell them that “nothing you or your associates could say could possibly increase his very deep interest in this matter.”
Mrs. Aniba despatched an answer, again asking for an interview. She said among other things:
The work I do is making detonators, handling TNT, the highest of all explosives. We want to be recognized by our country as much her citizens as soldiers are.