“Of the two—the President and Dr. Shaw,” said one of the spectators afterward, “Dr. Shaw spoke with greater authority, as if with the consciousness of a perfectly just cause. The President was less assured, more hesitating.”...
“As women are members of no political Party, to whom are they to look for a spokesman?” Dr. Shaw asked.
“You speak very well for yourself,” said the President, laughing.
“But not with authority,” said Dr. Shaw earnestly.
The deputation then left the President’s Office.
Editorially in the Suffragist of December 13 appears:
The rule that President Wilson has so strictly set for himself, is a rule not laid down in the Constitution nor in the practice of preceding Presidents, nor in the President’s own acts, nor in his own words.
Nevertheless, the statement of President Wilson to the President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association is of great value to the Suffrage movement. The President therein declares that he is only the spokesman of his Party and that he will initiate only legislation which has been endorsed by his Party. He puts the whole question of Federal legislation for Woman Suffrage directly up to the Democratic Party in Congress, and instructs Suffragists throughout the country to hold that Party responsible for the fate of the Constitutional Amendment enfranchising women. He has outlined for us, therefore, the policy of bringing effective pressure to bear on the national Democratic Party from all parts of the country, in an effort to make them realize soon what they must recognize finally, that it is more expedient for them as a Party to advocate Suffrage than to ignore and resist it.
Nevertheless, the President’s education had progressed another step. For the first time, he felt the necessity of explaining—and by implication—of excusing himself.
This visit to the President completed the principal work of the year 1913 on the part of the Congressional Committee and the Congressional Union.