on june 12, 1916, sara bard field sent a telegram to president wilson. mrs. field was a democrat, but she was, first of all, a suffragist. in that telegram, she urged the president to support the suffrage amendment. she promised, if the democratic party would do this, that she herself would gladly campaign for him in the western states without remuneration. she promised him also the services of at least five other influential democratic women. the president answered:
dear mrs. field:
your frank and kindly telegram of june 12 sent from st. louis was warmly appreciated. i have been in frequent conference with my party associates about a platform declaration with regard to woman suffrage and sincerely hope the outcome has been acceptable to you.
in haste, with sincerest appreciation,
cordially yours,
woodrow wilson.
on june 21, president wilson received mrs. d. e. hooker of richmond, who came to him as a delegate from the virginia federation of labor. mrs. hooker placed in the president’s hands resolutions passed by the federation, demanding favorable action on the federal amendment this session.
“this is very strong,” said president wilson.
the suffragist of july 1 says:
mrs. hooker then urged upon the president, very movingly, the humiliation, from the standpoint of a southerner and a woman, of going before the entire population of men now enfranchised, and begging them each personally to approve of 165woman’s right to full citizenship. tears came into her eyes as she spoke, and the president seemed rather touched. he said consolingly that she must not mind the criticism she encountered in a good work. “every one in the public eye,” the president said, “is deluged with criticism. you simply must do what you believe to be right.”
mrs. hooker went on to explain the political difficulties of the state by state road to national woman suffrage.
president wilson seemed very little impressed by these facts. “every good thing,” he said, “takes a great deal of hard work.”
mrs. hooker made a very strong point of the indefensible behavior of the house judiciary committee in blocking the suffrage amendment and refusing to allow the representatives of the people an opportunity to vote upon it. “whatever one may think of woman suffrage,” she said, “tying the amendment up this way before an election is wrong; and the blame will fall squarely on the democratic party.”
“you must see the members of the judiciary committee about that,” said the president, with a considerable tactical skill. “i do not think i should interfere with the action of a committee of congress.”
“have you never done it before, mr. president?” asked mrs. hooker. the president explained that he had done it only under pressure of a national emergency.
the interview lasted about half an hour. the president’s manner was kindly and friendly, but he made it very plain that he interpreted the democratic platform plank to mean the limitation of the suffrage movement to state activities, and that he was still opposed to the federal suffrage amendment.
later, mrs. field replied to the president’s letter:
i am sorry to have to tell you that not only is the platform declaration not acceptable to me, and to hundreds of thousands of voting women of the west, but that we also greatly deprecate the interpretation which you gave of this plank to mrs. d. e. hooker of richmond.
it is my sincere hope as a democratic woman that you will not allow any menace to the democratic party in the fall election through your unwillingness to face the desire of the west for speedy action upon the susan b. anthony amendment.
on july 3, a delegation representing the woman’s national democratic league, composed, according to the 166washington times, of some of the most distinguished ladies of the congressional and official sets, went to inform the president that the league had raised a thousand dollars as a contribution towards his re-election. afterwards, mrs. f. b. moran, a grand-niece of martha washington, and it may be almost unnecessary to state, a member of the congressional union, requested a five minute interview with the president.
mrs. moran said:
i am really afraid for my party. the women in the west are far superior to us. they have power, and they know how to use it. there are four million of them, and they are heartily in favor of the federal suffrage amendment because they do not wish to be disfranchised when they pass beyond the limits of their own state. it is not a question of their threatening us. it is a question of our realizing what they are going to do. you can get the suffrage amendment through congress, and, if you do not do it, these women will regard you as responsible.
president wilson said, in answer, that he could not interfere with the action of congress. he believed that suffrage should be established on the secure foundation of separate state action. “you should work from the bottom up, not from the top down,” the president said. “women should be patient, and continue to work in the admirable way they have worked in the past.”
on july 4, president wilson reviewed a labor parade in connection with the laying of the corner-stone of the labor temple of the american federation of labor in washington, d. c., and at its close he addressed the marchers. he had just declared that he stood for the interests of all classes, when mabel vernon, who sat on the platform a few feet away, called in a voice which has a notably clear, ringing quality, “mr. president, if you sincerely desire to forward the interests of all the people, why do you oppose the national enfranchisement of women?”
167the president answered, “that is one of the things which we will have to take counsel over later.”
when the president was closing his speech, mabel vernon called again; “answer, mr. president, why do you oppose the national enfranchisement of women?”
the president did not answer.
the secret service men with almost an exquisite courtesy gently hurried miss vernon away.
on july 24, another deputation of prominent democratic women called on the president. the deputation included mrs. george w. lamont, harriot stanton blatch, mina van winkle, helen todd. i quote the suffragist:
mrs. lamont, who introduced the group to president wilson, said: “i have come to you, mr. president, as a democratic woman. i used to be first a democrat and then a suffragist; now i am a suffragist first.” she asked the president if he realized how painful a position he created for democratic women when he opposed the enfranchisement of their sex and forced them to choose between their party allegiance and their loyalty to women throughout the nation.
mrs. blatch told president wilson of the strength of the sentiment for woman suffrage she had found in the west on her recent trip in the suffrage special through the equal suffrage states and of the extraordinary difficulties she had experienced in her own life trying to win suffrage by amending the constitution of her state.
“i am sixty years old, mr. president,” said mrs. blatch, “i have worked all my life for suffrage; and i am determined that i will never again stand up on the street corners of a great city appealing to every tom, dick, and harry for the right of self-government. when we work for a federal amendment, we are dealing at last with men who understand what we are talking about and can speak to us in our tongue. we are not asking for an easy way to win the vote. it is not easy to amend the united states constitution. we are asking for a dignified way; and we ought to be able to rely on the chivalry of our representatives, particularly of the southern representatives, to accord to women a self-respecting method of working out their enfranchisement.”
168miss helen todd told the president of her experience in a state campaign in texas, when democratic members of the legislature refused to submit the question to the voters, saying bluntly that they controlled eleven votes in the upper house and that those eleven could keep the suffrage amendment “tied up” indefinitely. “women go to democrats in congress and are told they must appeal to state legislatures. they go to democratic state legislatures, who refuse to allow the electors of their own state to vote upon the question at all. what are women to do, mr. president?” said miss todd, “when they are played with in this cat and mouse fashion?”
the interview was in many respects interesting. president wilson did not mention the states’ rights formula. he said he was unable to help the suffrage amendment in congress because his party was opposed to it. it was the president’s theory, he explained, that a party leader should not go so far in advance of his adherents as to withdraw himself from them, and make united action impossible upon the other issues before the country.
the impression was strongly conveyed, however, that this opposition from the president’s party was not necessarily permanent. “in four years, or in two years,” said mr. wilson, impressively but vaguely, “the situation might be different. at present many members of the democratic party are opposed to woman suffrage on account of the negro question.” “but,” said one of his visitors, “if women were given the vote throughout the united states the percentage of the white vote to the negro vote would be increased.” “you have not explained that to the men in congress,” president wilson said.
in answer to the statement that the democratic party would lose the support of women in the west and therefore of western electoral votes if they persisted in opposing women’s national enfranchisement, president wilson said he did not believe women would vote in a national election on the suffrage issue. “if they did that,” said mr. wilson, with superb and quite unconscious insolence, “they would not be as intelligent as i think they are.”
the women came away from this meeting convinced that the president would do nothing for the federal amendment.
on september 8, however, president wilson spoke at atlantic city before a convention of the national american woman suffrage association. it was the first time he had ever addressed a suffrage meeting. that was, of course, in itself, significant. i quote the suffragist:
169i have found it a real privilege to be here tonight and to listen to the address which you have heard. though you may not all of you believe it, i would a great deal rather hear some one else speak than speak myself, but i should feel that i was omitting a duty if i did not address you tonight and say some of the things that have been in my thoughts as i realized the approach of this evening and the duty that would fall upon me.
the astonishing thing about this movement which you represent is not that it has grown so slowly, but that it has grown so rapidly. no doubt for those who have been a long time in the struggle, like your honored president, it seems a long and arduous path that has been trodden, but when you think of the cumulating force of this movement in recent decades, you must agree with me that it is one of the most astonishing tides in modern history.
two generations ago, no doubt, madam president will agree with me in saying it was a handful of women who were fighting this cause. now it is a great multitude of women who are fighting it. and there are some interesting historical connections which i would like to attempt to point out to you. one of the most striking facts about the history of the united states is that at the outset it was a lawyer’s history.
there was a time when nobody but a lawyer could know enough to run the government of the united states, and a distinguished english publicist once remarked, speaking of the complexity of the american government, that it was no proof of the excellence of the american constitution that it had been successfully operated, because the american could run any constitution. but there have been a great many technical difficulties in running it.
and then something happened. a great question arose in this country which, though complicated with legal elements, was at the bottom a human question, and nothing but a question of humanity. that was the slavery question, and is it not significant that it was then, and then for the first time, that women became prominent in politics in america? not many women. those prominent in that day are so few that you can almost name them over in a brief catalogue, but nevertheless, they then began to play a part in writing not only, but in public speech, which was a very novel part for women to play in america; and after the civil war had settled some of what seemed the most difficult legal questions of our system, the life of the nation began not only to unfold but to accumulate.
life in the united states was a comparatively simple matter at the time of the civil war. there was none of that underground 170struggle which is now so manifest to those who look only a little way beneath the surface. stories such as dr. davis has told tonight were uncommon in those simpler days.
the pressure of low wages, the agony of obscure and unremunerated toil did not exist in america in anything the same proportions that they exist now. and as our life has unfolded and accumulated, as the contacts of it have become hot, as the populations have assembled in the cities, and the cool spaces of the country have been supplanted by the feverish urban areas, the whole nature of our political questions has been altered. they have ceased to be legal questions. they have more and more become social questions—questions with regard to the relations of human beings to one another—not merely their legal relations, but their moral and spiritual relations to one another.
and this has been most characteristic of american life in the last few decades, and as these questions have assumed greater and greater prominence, the movement which this association represents has gathered cumulative force. so that if anybody asks himself, “what does this gathering force mean?” if he knows anything about the history of the country, he knows that it means something that has not only come to stay, but has come with conquering power.
i get a little impatient sometimes about the discussion of the channels and methods by which it is to prevail. it is going to prevail, and that is a very superficial and ignorant view of it which attributes it to mere social unrest. it is not merely because the women are discontented. it is because the women have seen visions of duty, and that is something which we not only cannot resist, but, if we be true americans, we do not wish to resist.
so that what we have to realize in dealing with forces of this sort is that we are dealing with the substance of life itself.
i have felt as i sat here tonight the wholesome contagion of the occasion. almost every other time that i ever visited atlantic city i came to fight somebody. i hardly know how to conduct myself when i have not come to fight against anybody, but with somebody. i have come to suggest, among other things, that when the forces of nature are steadily working and the tide is rising to meet the moon, you need not be afraid that it will not come to its flood.
we feel the tide: we rejoice in the strength of it and we shall not quarrel in the long run as to the method of it. because, when you are working with masses of men and organized bodies of opinion, you have got to carry the organized body along. 171the whole art and practice of government consists, not in moving individuals, but in moving masses. it is all very well to run ahead and beckon, but, after all, you have got to wait for the mass to follow. i have not come to ask you to be patient, because you have been, but i have come to congratulate you that there was a force behind you that will, beyond any peradventure, be triumphant and for which you can afford a little while to wait.
this speech is, of course, often exquisitely phrased. however, it promised nothing. the woman’s party was not deceived by it.
it is to be seen that president wilson was moving—slowly, to be sure; one cautious foot carefully planted before the other cautious foot moved—in the right direction. he had progressed a measurable distance from the man who just after his inauguration admitted he had never considered the subject of suffrage. however, he still held to his idea of the “state by state” progress for the enfranchisement of women. but he was to change even in that, as will subsequently be seen.
