In June, Carrie Chapman Catt, President of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, transmitted to the President a memorial from the French Union for Woman Suffrage asking him in one of his messages to proclaim the principle of Woman Suffrage to be one of the fundamental rights of the future.
The President replied in the following letter:
I have read your message with the deepest interest, and I welcome the opportunity to say that I agree, without reservation, that the full and sincere democratic reconstruction of the world, for which we are striving, and which we are determined to bring about at any cost, will not have been completely or adequately attained until women are admitted to the Suffrage. And that only by this action can the nations of the world realize for the benefit of future generations the full ideal force of opinion, or the full humane forces of action.
The services of women during this supreme crisis of the world’s history have been of the most signal usefulness and distinction. The war could not have been fought without them or its sacrifices endured. It is high time that some part of our debt of gratitude to them should be acknowledged and paid, and the only acknowledgment they ask is their admission to the Suffrage. Can we justly refuse it?
As for America, it is my earnest hope that the Senate of the United States will give unmistakable answer to this question by passing the Suffrage Amendment to our Federal Constitution before the end of this session.
Cordially and sincerely yours,
Woodrow Wilson.
Miss Younger says:
The twenty-seventh of June approached. Again we were in the marble room talking with Senators. Absentees were on trains hurrying to Washington. The antis were in the reception room knitting votes into their wool. The Capitol thrilled with excitement. Even the Senators seemed to feel it. This time Sutherland would vote “yea,” and several opponents were absent. If none of them paired with a Suffrage Senator we could just manage the necessary majority. And the White House was taking a hand. Senator James of Kentucky, in a Baltimore hospital, had promised Mr. Tumulty that he would not pair—that is, that he would not ask a Suffrage Senator to refrain from voting to counterbalance his own enforced absence. Victory seemed in our hands.
The day arrived. The galleries were filled. The Senators came in all dressed up for the occasion—here a gay waistcoat or a bright tie, there a flower in a buttonhole, yonder an elegant frock coat over gray trousers.