At Seattle, the station was decorated with Congressional Union banners; the national colors; hanging baskets of flowers. A bugler called together the big crowd—including the Acting Mayor—which had gathered to welcome the envoys.
“Ladies,” Mrs. Blatch ended her speech, “we are here after your votes.” A man’s voice in the audience cried: “You’ll get them,” and when Mrs. Blatch said, “Men, we need yours too,” the whole crowd burst into applause.
Immediately after the address, the envoys were taken on a tour of the city in a procession of a hundred and fifty automobiles, all, of course, flying the purple, white, and gold. They attended court, where Seattle’s only woman judge, a member of the Congressional Union, presided—Reah Whitehead.
It was in Washington State that the doctrine of Suffrage first reached what the Suffragist described as “the height of its career.” Lucy Burns, as the guest of Flight Lieutenant Maroney of the Naval Militia at Washington, flew to a height of fourteen hundred feet over Seattle, scattering leaflets as she went. When she started, Miss Burns carried a Congressional Union banner, but the eighty-mile-an-hour gale soon tore it from her hand. When last seen, it reposed gracefully on the roof of a large Seattle mill. At Bellingham occurred one of the biggest out-of-door meetings the envoys had had. For a solid block, the street was packed with people from one side to the other.
At Spokane, they participated in an interesting and rather poignant event, the planting of a tree in memory of May Arkwright Hutton, pioneer Suffragist of Washington.
At Helena, Montana, a huge mass-meeting was held in the Auditorium. A sand storm, which had greeted their arrival, grew worse towards night, the wind howling louder and louder. In the midst of Mrs. Rogers’s speech the lights suddenly went out. She did not even hesitate, and in the absolute darkness continued to urge women to stand by women. There was not a sound from the audience; they listened in perfect quiet till the end.
In one State, the Governor declared the coming of the Suffrage Special a legal holiday. Everything on wheels turned out to meet the envoys at the train, including the fire engine.
A Convention at Salt Lake City on May 11 closed the swing of the Suffrage Special round the circle of the twelve free States, and brought the Western tour to its highest stage of success. The envoys passed from the station under a great purple, white, and gold flag, through a lane of women, their arms full of spring blossoms, to a long line of waiting automobiles flying banners of purple, white, and gold.
The Convention passed resolutions demanding from Congress favorable action on the Suffrage Amendment in the present session and elected three women voters to carry these resolutions to Congress.
These women accompanied the envoys to Washington. There they were welcomed by a luncheon in the Union Station. Then, in automobiles, brilliantly decorated, they drove through streets lined with huge posters which said COME TO THE CAPITOL. As they approached the Capitol, two buglers, from the broad platforms at the top of the high, wide stairway, alternately sounded a note of triumphant welcome. A huge chorus of women in white sang America. Through the aisle formed on the Capitol steps by ribbons held in the hands of other women in white, the envoys passed up the steps into the Rotunda. In the Rotunda, they grouped themselves into a semi-circle facing another semi-circle—nearly a hundred Senators and Representatives. The Senate had taken a recess especially to meet these women.