VIII
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE RULES COMMITTEE
We now return to the work in Congress. Again it is necessary to go back into history a few months.
All these months, the work of organizing the nation-wide demonstration of May 2—which had been decided upon at the opening meeting of the Congressional Union for 1914—had been going on.
The Congressional Union sent organizers into all the States of the Union to make plans for the demonstration. Minnie E. Brooke went through every State in the South. Mabel Vernon, one of the organizers for the Congressional Union, traveled through the southwestern part of the country and up through California, ending her trip in Nevada. Crystal Eastman of the Executive Committee took care of the Northwestern States, Emma Smith DeVoe covered the Far Western States; Jessie Hardy Stubbs, the Middle Western States; Mrs. Lawrence Lewis and Alice Paul, assisted by Olive Hasbrouck, New England and the Middle Atlantic States.
On February 12, the National American Woman Suffrage Association promised its co-operation also, and from that date aided in making the demonstration a success.
The demonstration—taking the form of parades in most cases, meetings in a few—occurred in at least one great city in every State. The following resolution was adopted at the various gatherings.
Resolved, that this meeting calls upon Congress to take immediate and favorable action upon the Bristow-Mondell Resolution enfranchising women.
The culminating demonstration occurred May 9 in Washington. There was a mass-meeting at the Belasco Theatre, and following this a procession starting promptly at three o’clock, marched to the Capitol. At the foot of the Capitol steps, the enormous gathering sang the Woman’s March. Then five hundred and thirty-one delegates representing every Congressional and Senatorial district in the country, bearing resolutions passed at the country-wide demonstrations, marched up the long steps into the great Rotunda of the Capitol. A Committee of Senators and Representatives awaited the delegates, received the resolutions and introduced them on the floor of each House of Congress.
Here, as always, Alice Paul visualized her work in pageantry. On this occasion, that pageantry was particularly beautiful. Zona Gale writes in the Suffragist: