The Story of the Woman's Party

by Inez Haynes Gillmore

There is already a strong sentiment in the Upper House for Woman Suffrage, and a rapidly-growing interest in it in the Lower House. We have no reason to expect wilful obstinacy from our American Congressmen. We Americans are adaptable and imaginative, and can shape ourselves with peculiar ease to coming events. The Democratic Party, if it is wise, will pass our Amendment through Congress in the present session.

The first-year Congressional Committee, consisting of Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, Mary Beard, Crystal Eastman, and Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, continued their work in 1914 with the Congressional Union under the name of the Executive Committee of the Congressional Union; but it was increased by the addition of Mrs. William Kent, Elsie Hill, Mrs. Gilson Gardner, Mrs. Donald R. Hooker, and Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont.

The year opened with a meeting at the home of Mrs. William Kent in Washington. Plans for the coming year were submitted at that meeting. Among them was one for a nation-wide demonstration on May 2, in which resolutions supporting the Federal Amendment were to be passed. This was to be followed by a great demonstration in Washington on May 9, at which those resolutions should be presented to Congress. Among them also was another plan for the appeal to the women voters of the West for political action in support of a Federal Amendment, if that Amendment had not been passed before the next election. Nine thousand dollars were pledged on the spot for these undertakings. The work on the great demonstration of May 2 began at once, and was pushed rapidly during the opening months of the year.

In the meantime the work on Congress was continued. It will be remembered that a proposal for the formation of a Suffrage Committee in the House had been before the Rules Committee since April 7, 1913, that it had been the subject of two hearings arranged by the Congressional Union. The first action in regard to this was simple and decisive. The Democratic Members of the Rules Committee, who constituted a Majority Committee, met first, apart from their Republican and Progressive colleagues, and, by a vote of four to three, decided against the formation of a Suffrage Committee. They then went through the form of a meeting with the Republican and Progressive Members on January 24. The resolution, creating the Suffrage Committee, was lost by a vote of four to four.

The Congressional Union, however, realized that the final power with regard to Congressional action was with the Democratic Caucus. They determined therefore—in order that the responsibility for inaction or opposition might be placed on the Democrats as a Party—immediately to appeal to that Caucus to overturn the decision of the Rules Committee. The necessary signatures were secured to a petition calling for the Democratic Caucus of the House to take up the question of the formation of this much-desired Suffrage Committee. The Caucus met on February 3, 1914, to consider this subject. The Democratic Party had a choice of two courses. It could order the Rules Committee, which it of course controlled, to give a favorable report to the House on the resolution creating a Suffrage Committee. Or it could give no order at all of this kind; in which case it revealed itself as responsible for the adverse action of the Rules Committee.

What it did was to adopt a substitute resolution for the resolution providing for the creation of a Committee of Woman Suffrage.

That substitute resolution was: “Resolved, that the question of Woman Suffrage is a State and not a Federal question.”

This was the first time in the history of the country that either of the two great Parties had ever caucused on Woman Suffrage.

Editorially the Suffragist put the situation pithily to the women of America:

This is the definite lining up of the Democratic Party against Woman Suffrage as a national measure.... Unless the Democratic Party reconsiders its present position, Suffragists must necessarily regard that Party as an obstruction in the path of their campaign.... They (the Democratic Party) have three votes to lose in the Senate and they lose control of this government. There are nine States in which women vote for United States Senators. The result in the Senatorial elections in these States will undoubtedly depend largely upon the action on Suffrage taken by the Democratic Party.