I am, as I think you know, heartily in sympathy with you. I have endeavored to assist you in every way in my power, and I shall continue to do so. I shall do all that I can to assist the passage of the Amendment by an early vote.
This was the final touch.
The National Woman’s Party hastily changed the type of its demonstration. Instead of holding a mere meeting of protest, they decided to burn the words which the President had said that very afternoon to the Southern and Western Democratic women. At four o’clock instead of two, forty women marched from Headquarters to the Lafayette Monument. They carried the famous banners: HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY? MR. PRESIDENT, WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE? At the Lafayette statue, Bertha Arnold delivered an appeal to Lafayette, written by Mrs. Richard Wainwright and beginning with the famous words of Pershing in France:
Lafayette, we are here!
We, the women of the United States, denied the liberty which you helped to gain, and for which we have asked in vain for sixty years, turn to you to plead for us.
Speak, Lafayette! Dead these hundred years but still living in the hearts of the American people. Speak again to plead for us, condemned like the bronze woman at your feet, to a silent appeal. She offers you a sword. Will you not use the sword of the spirit, mightier far than the sword she holds out to you?
Will you not ask the great leader of our democracy to look upon the failure of our beloved country to be in truth the place where every one is free and equal and entitled to a share in the government? Let that outstretched hand of yours pointing to the White House recall to him his words and promises, his trumpet call for all of us to see that the world is made safe for democracy.
As our army now in France spoke to you there, saying, “Here we are to help your country fight for liberty,” will you not speak here and now for us, a little band with no army, no power but justice and right, no strength but in our Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and win a great victory again in this country by giving us the opportunity we ask to be heard through the Susan B. Anthony Amendment?
Lafayette, we are here!
The police, having no orders to arrest the women, smiled and nodded. And while the crowd that had very quickly gathered applauded, Lucy Branham stepped forward. Beside her was Julia Emory, holding a flaming torch.