Our ceremony today is planned to call attention to the fact that the President has gone abroad to establish democracy in foreign lands when he has failed to establish democracy at home. We burn his words on liberty today, not in malice or anger, but in a spirit of reverence for truth.
This meeting is a message to President Wilson. We expect an answer. If it is more words, we will burn them again. The only answer the National Woman’s Party will accept is the instant passage of the Amendment in the Senate.
Mrs. M. Toscan Bennett was the first speaker. She said:
It is because we are moved by a passion for democracy that we are here to protest against the President’s forsaking the cause of freedom in America and appearing as a champion of freedom in the old world. We burn with shame and indignation that President Wilson should appear before the representatives of nations who have enfranchised their women, as chief spokesman for the right of self-government while American women are denied that right. We are held up to ridicule to the whole world.
We consign to the flames the words of the President which have inspired women of other nations to strive for their freedom while their author refuses to do what lies in his power to do to liberate the women of his own country. Meekly to submit to this dishonor to the nation would be treason to mankind.
Mr. President, the paper currency of liberty which you hand to women is worthless fuel until it is backed by the gold of action.
The Reverend Olympia Brown of Wisconsin, eighty-four years old, burned the latest words of President Wilson, his two speeches made on the first day of his visit to France. She said:
America has fought for France and the common cause of liberty. I have fought for liberty for seventy years and I protest against the President leaving our country with this old fight here unwon.
Mrs. John Winters Brannan burned the address made by President Wilson at the Metropolitan Opera House in opening the Fourth Liberty Loan Campaign, in which he justified women’s protest when he said:
We have been told it is unpatriotic to criticise public action. If it is, there is a deep disgrace resting upon the origin of this nation. We have forgotten the history of our country if we have forgotten how to object, how to resist, how to agitate when it is necessary to readjust matters.