But what I have most at heart today is to avail myself of this opportunity to express my admiration for the women of all the nations that have been engaged in the war. By the fortunes of this war the chief burden has fallen upon the women of France, and they have borne it with a spirit and a devotion which has commanded the admiration of the world.
I do not think that the people of France fully realize, perhaps, the intensity of the sympathy that other nations have felt for them. They think of us in America, for example, as a long way off. And we are in space but we are not in thought. You must remember that the United States is made up of the nations of Europe: that French sympathies run straight across the seas, not merely by historic association but by blood connection, and that these nerves of sympathy are quick to transmit the impulses of one nation to the other.
We have followed your sufferings with a feeling that we were witnessing one of the most heroic, and may I add, at the same time satisfactory things in the world, satisfactory because it showed the strength of the human spirit, the indomitable power of women and men alike to sustain any burden if the cause was great enough.
In an ordinary war there might have been some shrinking, some sinking of effort; but this was not an ordinary war. This was a war not only to redeem France from an enemy, but to redeem the world from an enemy. And France, therefore, and the women of France strained their hearts to sustain the world. I hope that the strain has not been in vain. I know that it has not been in vain.
This war has been popular and unlike other wars in that it seemed sometimes as if the chief strain was behind the lines and not at the lines. It took so many men to conduct the war that the older men and the women at home had to carry the nation. Not only so, but the industries of the nation were almost as much a part of the fighting as the things that took place at the fronts.
So it is for that reason that I have said to those with whom I am at present associated that this must be a people’s peace, because this was a people’s war. The people won this war, not the governments, and the people must reap the benefits of the war. At every turn we must see to it that it is not an adjustment between governments merely, but an agreement for the peace and security of men and women everywhere.
The little obscure sufferings and the daily unknown privations, the unspoken sufferings of the heart, are the tragical things of this war. They have been borne at home, and the center of the home is the woman. My heart goes out to you, therefore, ladies, in a very unusual degree, and I welcome this opportunity to bring you this message, not from myself merely, but from the great people whom I represent.
Mary Nolan—over seventy years old—immediately made Suffrage capital of this speech by the President. Mrs. Nolan’s record in the period of the Watchfires is positively heroic.
On January 19, with Bertha Arnold, Mrs. Nolan was arrested for the first time in connection with the Watchfires of Freedom demonstrations. On January 24, while under suspended sentence, the two women again fed the flames in front of the White House. They were immediately arrested; the next day, tried. Mrs. Nolan said:
I am guilty if there is any guilt in a demand for freedom. I protest against the action of the President who is depriving American women of freedom. I have been sent to represent my State Florida, and I am willing to do or suffer anything to bring victory to the long courageous struggle. I have fought this fight many years. I have seen children born to grow to womanhood to fight at my side. I have seen their children grow up to fight with us.