The President said:
I need not tell you that a group of women like this appeals to me very deeply indeed. I do not have to tell you what my feelings are, but I have already explained—because I feel obliged to explain—the limitations that are laid upon me as the leader of a Party. Until the Party, as such, has considered the matter of this very supreme importance and taken its position, I am not at liberty to speak of it; and yet, I am not at liberty to speak as an individual, for I am not an individual. As you see, I either speak to it in a message, as you suggest, or I do not speak at all. That is the limitation I am under, and all I can say to you ladies, is that the strength of your agitation in this matter undoubtedly will make a profound impression.
In view of later opinions of the President in regard to his leadership—and in view of the fact that later even Democratic Congressmen referred to his “dictatorship”—his attitude to the women this day was most interesting.
Mrs. Glendower Evans, who was in charge of the deputation, said:
We understand your position and its difficulties quite well, Mr. President, but nevertheless we ask, where can we look for political action? We recognize that the verdict must come not from you alone, but from the whole Party. I do not ask you to break with your Party. What I ask is, will you use your influence within your Party? I do not ask the impossible, though I might from you, for you have done the impossible.
It is apparent that the President’s education was progressing. He was beginning to be struck with the strength of the Woman Suffrage agitation; although he still believed himself powerless to help in the work with Congress.
Early in June, 1914, the National Federation of Women’s Clubs meeting in Chicago, had given its indorsement, as an organization, to Woman Suffrage. Following this action by the Federation, another delegation—the seventh—of five hundred club women under the leadership of Mrs. Harvey W. Wiley, waited upon the President on June 30. I quote from the Suffragist:
The deputation had assembled for a preliminary mass-meeting at the Public Library.... Leaving the Library, the deputation, which extended over several blocks, marched in single files to the White House.... It passed through the Arcade and into the East Room.... Women were massed about the State Apartment, filling it from end to end, and leaving a hollow square in which Mrs. Ellis Logan and Mrs. Wiley and Rheta Childe Dorr awaited the President’s arrival. Preceded by his aide, the President entered....
“Mr. President,” said Mrs. Dorr, “we are well aware that you are the busiest of men. I shall therefore go directly to the point and tell you that our reason for calling on you today is to ask you if you will not use your powerful influence with Congress to have the Bristow-Mondell Amendment passed in this session.”
The President replied: