The Story of the Woman's Party

by Inez Haynes Gillmore

The men in the West feel the same way. When I was waiting for a freight train about five o’clock in the morning, a man came up and said, “My wife was at your meeting yesterday afternoon, and I thought I would tell you that I have voted the Democratic ticket for forty years, but I have voted it the last time.” That is the spirit of the men. Because they respect their women out there, they do not like to feel that the men in the East and the Democratic Party do not consider the woman movement. People would come in and say, “Well, you are on the right track now,” and that seems to be the spirit everywhere in Kansas.

Miss Pincus said:

I am sorry I cannot come to you with the air of a conquering hero, but I am sure that any person who understands the situation in Arizona will acknowledge that the purpose of our campaign was accomplished. Despite the fact that the Democrats were in control—had all the money in the State and owned nearly all the newspapers—a Democratic leader came to my office one day and told me that the Democrats were absolutely sure that the women of Arizona would defeat Smith. He said the Democratic Party was scared to death. It was most amusing. Every candidate who was running, even for State and County offices, felt it necessary to declare that he had always believed in Woman Suffrage, that his mother had believed in Woman Suffrage and that his grandmother believed in it. I suppose you know what action our friends Senator Smith and Congressman Hayden took. Both of them telegraphed from Washington to the Democratic State Convention in session at Phœnix and pledged themselves absolutely to support national Woman Suffrage. Mr. Hayden stood up on the floor of the House and filled three pages of the Congressional Record on his attitude on Woman Suffrage and Arizona was simply flooded with this copy.

The women, we found, were very open to reason, and one thing I had not expected to find was how chivalrous all the men were. I have never been so overwhelmed with courtesy and chivalry as I was out in Arizona. Every candidate from every county came into our Headquarters to shake hands and say what a nice day it was and how he had always been in favor of Woman Suffrage. Each political Party in Arizona claims absolute credit for Woman Suffrage out there. To me, coming from a plain campaign State, New York, it was most encouraging to find all the men such good Suffragists, and I would like to turn all anti-Suffragists into a Suffrage State to let them see how women are treated at election time.

Mrs. Helena Hill Weed said:

I am very glad to be able to report that no Democrat will come to the United States Senate or House of Representatives from Idaho—and the Congressional Union had a hand in it.

We do not claim entire responsibility for the large Republican victory, but we do claim the credit for turning many hundreds of votes from the Democratic Party. When I reached Idaho I found the question simmered down to the Senatorial race. The two candidates were Senator Brady, Republican, and ex-Governor Hawley, who was running on the Democratic ticket.

I began by sending out copies of all of our literature and the current number of the Suffragist to every editor, club woman, minister, or other person of influence. I began with a meeting which was organized by the working women in the hotel where I was stopping. I told them of our work and what it meant. Many of the women had worked in the East and they knew what conditions were among the laboring women there, and they said they never before realized that they could do anything to help the women in the East. About three days after the meeting a woman came into my office and said, “I want to tell you, Mrs. Weed, that that meeting is going to bring out at least two hundred Republican votes in my ward which are never cast, and is going to turn many more.” I positively could not fill the requests that were made to speak and explain the Congressional Union policy. Men and women of the labor unions were much enthused over our work and we won hundreds and hundreds of votes simply because our policy was non-partisan.

We put it straight up to Mr. Hawley that an indorsement of President Wilson’s administration meant the indorsement of the administration’s refusal to allow a discussion and a vote on Suffrage. We put it up to him that it made no difference how good a Suffragist he personally might be, if he ran on a platform which contained, as did his, a blanket indorsement of all of President Wilson’s policies, including his refusal to allow a discussion and a vote on Suffrage. We pointed out to him that his personal belief in Suffrage was of little avail to us if he could not or would not bring the Party which he was supporting to cease its hostility to our Amendment. We reminded him of the Democratic Congressmen from Suffrage States who had sat in the Sixty-third Congress and who had professed a deep interest in Suffrage but who had accomplished nothing as far as actually bringing Suffrage to pass was concerned, because of the continued hostility of the Democratic Party which was in control of all branches of the Government. We told him that we felt duty bound to make known to the women voters the hostile record of his national Party on Woman Suffrage, and to ask them to refuse their support to that Party until it ceased blocking our Amendment.

They understood the point very quickly and saw that as far as the individual was concerned there was nothing to choose from between Mr. Hawley and Senator Brady—both were equally good Suffragists, as far as their personal stand was concerned. It was only when it came to considering their Party affiliations that one could discriminate between them. We always emphasized the fact that we were not indorsing the Republican, the Progressive, the Socialist, or the Prohibition Party, but were merely asking the women to refuse support to the Party which had the power to give Suffrage and which up to the present had used its power only to block that measure. We explained that we would have opposed any of the other Parties, had they possessed the power which the Democratic Party possessed, and had they used that power in the same obstructive way.