On this occasion, the women were treated outrageously. The police, two to a picket, pounced upon them as they approached the Capitol. One was heard to call, “Help! Help! They’re coming!” Clara Wold was knocked down twice on the Senate steps; was shaken like a rat. They dragged and pushed Alice Paul about as though personally enraged with her. When they were taken into the basement room of the Capitol a crowd of indignant men and women followed. Policeman No. 21 threatened to arrest a man in the crowd because he said: “Sure! I believe in Woman Suffrage.”
IX
THE THIRD APPEAL TO THE WOMEN VOTERS
All during this period, the National Woman’s Party was, of course, taking its part in the autumn campaign—the campaign of 1918. It was in the Senatorial elections only that the Woman’s Party was interested. The expedient quality of Alice Paul’s policy manifested itself notably here. It has been shown again and again how swift she was to adapt the tactics of the Woman’s Party to the needs of the moment. The Woman’s Party, it must always be remembered, was organized for but one object—to enfranchise the women of the United States by federal amendment. Other Suffrage organizations could and did divide their interests; could and did deflect their forces for those interests. On this point, Alice Paul never swerved. But as has been again and again demonstrated, she was as fluid as water, as swift as light, to adapt that single adamantine policy to the situation of the moment. At this juncture she extended her policy.
The circumstances were these:
In the Senate, Suffrage needed two more votes.
In the West, as usual, the Woman’s Party asked the women voters to defeat the Democrats as the Party in power and therefore the Party responsible. In two States in the East—New Jersey and New Hampshire—where the Republican candidates were anti-Suffragists and the Democratic candidates were Suffragists, the Woman’s Party supported the Democratic candidates.
That campaign, short as it was, was intensive. In the West Elsie Hill took care of Nevada; Catherine Flanagan of Montana; Anita Pollitzer of Wyoming; Clara Wold of Oregon; Louise Garnett of Kansas; Iris Calderhead of Colorado. In the East, Doris Stevens, Betty Gram, Bertha Arnold, Ruth Small, Rebecca Hourwich, Vivian Pierce, Bertha Moller, Lucy Branham, Caroline Katzenstein, Florence Bayard Hilles, Agnes Morey, Gladys Greiner, Maud Younger, Mary Beard, Abby Scott Baker, Mary Dubrow, Grace Needham, Lucy Burns, Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Katherine Morey took care of New Jersey and New Hampshire.
The two vacancies in the Senate from New Jersey and New Hampshire had been caused by death. The Senators who would take those seats in November would fill out the remainder of the Congress then in Session. In New Jersey the Republican candidate—Senator Baird—had voted against the Suffrage Amendment in the Senate on October 1. The Democratic candidate—Charles O’Connor Hennessy—had fought all his public life in New Jersey for National Woman Suffrage.
In New Hampshire the Republican candidate—George H. Moses—was an anti-Suffragist. The Democratic candidate—John B. Jameson—was for the Federal Amendment.