i have left until now all consideration of a department which had been, almost from the very beginning, of great importance to the woman’s party; the most important department of all; the crux of its work; a department which steadily augmented in importance—the lobbying.
from the moment in 1912 that the suffragists started their work in washington, relations had to be established with the house and the senate. at first, tentative, a little wavering, irregular, the lobbying became finally astute, intensive, and constant. the lobby grew in numbers. after the congressional committee had become the congressional union, and had separated from the national american woman suffrage association, the latter body sent its own lobbyists to washington. the anti-suffragists sent lobbyists too. by 1914, the stream had grown to a flood. the halls of congress were never free from this invasion. the siege lasted without cessation as long as a congress was in session. “this place looks like a millinery establishment,” a congressman said once.
in the early days, the reception of the lobbyists at the hands of congressmen lacked by many degrees that graciousness of which, at the very end, they were almost certain. a story of this early period taken from the woman’s party card-index, is most illuminating.
two suffrage lobbyists were calling on hoke smith. “as you are suffragists,” mr. smith said, “you won’t mind standing.” he himself sat, lounging comfortably in his chair. he took out a big cigar, inserted it in his mouth, lighted it. the two women said what they had to say, standing, while mr. smith smoked contemptuously on.
318those two women were emily perry and jeannette rankin.
the lobbying for the woman’s party was directed at first by alice paul and lucy burns. mrs. gilson gardner was the pioneer lobbyist, and the first-year lobbyists were all women voters. they made reports to alice paul and lucy burns every day. first these were oral; later they were written. this was the nucleus of the woman’s party card catalogue which has since become so famous. finally, these written reports were put in tabulated form by mrs. grimes of michigan.
as the work grew, unenfranchised women lobbied as often as enfranchised. the early lobbyists were: mrs. gilson gardner, mrs. william kent, mrs. george odell, lucy burns, abby scott baker, mrs. lowell mellett. but not only the experienced lobbied. as has before been set down—following that wise instinct which impelled alice paul to give her workers glimpses of all phases of the movement—as fast as the organizers came back to washington, she sent them up to the galleries of congress to listen; she made them lobby for a while. and, as has elsewhere been stated, this was found to be a mutual benefit. organizers took the temper and atmosphere of congress back to the states, and sometimes to the very constituents of the congressmen with whom they had talked; they put congressmen in touch with what was happening at home. whenever a woman visiting washington called at headquarters, alice paul immediately sent her to the capitol to lobby the congressmen and senators of her own state.
in november, 1915, anne martin, as chairman of the legislative department, became the head of the lobbying. miss martin is a born general. she brought to this situation an instinct for the strategy and tactics of politics. she supervised the work of those who were under her, sent them up to congress with specific directions; received their reports; collated them; made suggestions for the next day’s 319work; developed a closer relation with the constituents and kept local chairmen in touch with the states of their own congressmen and senators. in 1916, anne martin ran for senator in nevada. she had of necessity to relinquish active work in washington for the woman’s party.
in the spring of 1916, therefore, maud younger who was in a position to give her whole time to it, became chairman of the lobby committee and chief lobbyist for the amendment.
at all times this work was hard, and sometimes intensely disagreeable. maud younger in her revelations of a woman lobbyist, gives some of the actual physical strain. she says:
the path of the lobbyist is a path of white marble. and white marble, though beautiful, is hard. the house office building runs around four sides of a block, so that when you have walked around one floor, you have walked four blocks on white marble. when you have walked around each of the five floors you have walked a mile on white marble. when you have gone this morning and afternoon through several sessions of congress you have walked more weary miles on white marble than a lobbyist has time to count.
but the woman’s party lobbyists were not balked by the mere matter of white marble. in a week they were threading that interminable intricate maze of congressional alleys with the light, swift step of familiarity and of determination. all day long, they drove from the visitors’ reception room to senatorial offices, and from senatorial offices back to the visitors’ reception room. they flew up and down in the elevators. they found unknown and secret stairways by which they made short cuts. they journeyed back and forth in the little underground subway which tries to mitigate these long distances. at first congressmen frankly took to hiding, and the lobbyist discovered that the capitol was a nest of abris, but in the end, even congressmen could not elude the vigilance of youth and determination. as for the mental and spiritual difficulties of the task—at first, 320senators and congressmen were frankly uninterested, or, more concretely, irritated and enraged with the suffrage lobbyists. it is not pleasant to have to talk to a man who does not want to hear you. the lobbyists had to learn to be quiet; deferential; to listen to long intervals of complaint and abuse; to seem not to notice rebuffs; to go back the next day as though the rebuff had not occurred. this is not easy to women of spirit. perhaps it could not have been borne, if it had not been a labor of love. many times these women had to bolster a smarting sense of humiliation by keeping the thought of victory in sight.
in her revelations of a woman lobbyist, maud younger tells interestingly and with a very arch touch some of these experiences:
mr. huddleston, the thin, blonde type of congressman, sat at his desk in his low-ceilinged, well-lighted office.
“what is it?” he greeted me when i entered. his manner was very brusque, but i refused to be repelled by it. i began to speak.
“there’s always some one hippodroming around here with some kind of propaganda,” he snapped, interrupting. “we’re very busy, we’ve got important things to do, we can’t be bothered with woman suffrage.” he made a jerky motion, rattling the papers on his desk, and turning his head to look through the window. i thought of several things to say to mr. huddleston, but this was obviously the time to say none of them. so i murmured, “thank you,” and withdrew....
mr. whaley’s face is red; his head is prematurely gray outside and his thoughts prematurely gray inside. “we don’t need women voting in south carolina,” he said with a large masculine manner. “we know how to take care of our women in our state. we don’t allow divorce for any reason whatever.”
he was continuing with expressed contempt for suffrage and implied contempt for suffragists, when the door opened and a negro, evidently a clergyman, entered.
“get out of here!” said mr. whaley. “you stand in the hall till you’re called.” as the negro hastily retreated, mr. whaley turned to me and said with pride, “that’s the way to treat ’em.”...
a few minutes later, i opened mr. sisson’s door and saw him, 321very large and rugged, standing with some letters in his hand and dictating to a stenographer.
“i can’t discuss that subject,” he interrupted at my first words, and then he discussed it at length. he had meant that i was not to discuss it. he spoke of women in the kitchen, in the nursery, in the parlor. he spoke of her tenderness, her charm, her need for shelter and kindness. wearily shifting from one foot to the other, i listened. at last i opened my mouth to speak, but he silenced me with a brusque gesture.
“the reason i’m so lenient with you,” he explained—for he had allowed me to stand and listen to him—“is because you’re a woman. if you were a man——” he left the end of the sentence in dark doubt. what would he have done to a man standing dumbly in my place, holding tight to a muff? i shall never know. discretion did not allow me to ask him.
mr. reed sat at his mahogany desk—a large, rather good-looking senator, with gray hair. his record in our card-index read: “he is most reactionary, not to say antediluvian.” so i was not surprised to hear him say slowly and solemnly:
“women don’t know anything about politics. did you ever hear them talking together? well, first they talk about fashions, and children, and housework; and then, perhaps about churches; and then perhaps—about theatres; and then perhaps——” at each “perhaps,” he gazed down at his finger-tips where his ideas appeared to originate, looking up at me at each new point. “and then, perhaps—about literatoor!” he ended triumphantly. “yes, and that is the way it ought to be,” he added, satisfied.
“but don’t you believe that voting might make women think?”
at this suggestion he recoiled, then recovered and grew jocose.
“do you think i want my wife working against my interests? that’s just what she’d be doing—voting against me. women can’t understand politics.”
i began to tell him about california women voters, but he interrupted. “women wouldn’t change things if they did vote. they’d all vote just like their husbands.”
sometimes they said to miss younger, “if you were a voter——”
“but i am a voter,” miss younger, who is from california, would reply.
their attitude invariably changed.
miss younger comments: “they said they respected 322femininity, but it was plain that they did respect a voter.”
it was hard, hard work.
the lobbying was immensely more detailed and complicated than an outsider would ever suspect. all the time, of course, they were working for the passing of the anthony amendment. that was their great objective, but, as in all warfare, the campaign for the great objective was divided into many tiny campaigns. at the beginning of the congressional union work in washington, for instance, they lobbied senators and representatives to march in the big parade of march 3, 1913. later they lobbied them to go to mass-meetings, to attend conventions. in 1916, when they were having such difficulty with the judiciary committee, they lobbied republicans and democratic members of that committee to get them to act. by a follow-up system, they sent other lobbyists in a few days to see if they had acted. when the suffrage envoys came back from the west, they lobbied congressmen to receive them. in the presidential election of 1916, they lobbied congress first to get suffrage planks in both party platforms and when these planks proved unsatisfactory, they lobbied the republican suffragists in congress to get hughes to come out for the federal amendment and when hughes came out for it, they lobbied the democratic congressmen to get the president to come out for it. when the special war session met, in april, 1917, fifty woman’s party lobbyists lobbied congress—covering it in a month. when the irish mission visited congress, and two hundred and fifty voted for the freedom of ireland, they lobbied these congressmen to vote for the freedom of women. when the arrests of the pickets began, they lobbied their congressmen to go to see their constituents in jail. the woman’s party kept track of how congressmen voted on different measures and wherever it was possible, they linked it up with suffrage. to the congressmen who voted against war, they sent lobbyists who could show what an influence for peace the women could be. to those who voted for war, they sent the women, 323who were war workers, to show how women could work for war.
before the six years’ campaign of the woman’s party was over, the republicans were sometimes sending congressmen of one state to convert the unconverted ones of another, and, in the end, the young democratic senators had actually appointed a committee to get suffrage votes from their older confrères. after congress passed the amendment, they lobbied the congressmen to write the governors to call special sessions of the legislature in the interests of ratification; then they lobbied them to write the legislators; then they lobbied them to write political leaders.
perhaps the hardest interval in their work was that which followed the campaign of 1916. wilson had been elected again on the slogan, “he kept us out of war.” the republicans did not want to hear anything about the women voters of the west. the woman’s party lobbyists, who were often more informed on the republican situation in parts of the west than were the republicans themselves, had to educate them. they had to show them how remiss the republicans themselves had been during that campaign, how hughes for instance came out for suffrage in the east, where women did not vote, and never mentioned it in the west, where they did. it was not easy work. sometimes congressmen would take up papers or letters and examine them, while the lobbyist was talking. nevertheless, she would continue. and then, inevitably the degree of her information, her clear and forceful exposition of the situation, would arouse interest. often in the end, the erstwhile indifferent congressman would shake hands and bow her out.
as to the mechanics of lobbying work, perhaps nothing is more interesting than the cards themselves of the famous card-index.
no. 1—contains the member’s name and his biography as contained in the congressional directory.
no. 2—a key card has these headings:
324ancestry, nativity, education, religion, offices held, general information.
no. 3—a sub-card under the foregoing, as are those yet to be given, contains these headings: birth, date, place, number of children, additional information.
nos. 4, 5, and 6—are respectively for father, mother, brothers. they have headings to elicit full information on these subjects, as nativity, education, occupation.
no. 7—education: preparatory school and college.
no. 8—religion: name of church, date of entrance, position held in church, church work.
no. 9—military service: dates, offices, battles, additional information.
no. 10—occupation: past, present.
no. 11—labor record.
nos. 12 and 13—are set aside for literary work and lecture work.
no. 14—newspapers: meaning what newspapers the member reads and those that have the most influence over him.
nos. 15 and 16—are respectively for recreation and hobbies.
nos. 17 and 18—are devoted to health and habits.
no. 19—political life prior to congress: offices held. whether supported prohibition amendment, offices run for.
no. 20—political life in congress: terms, date, party, bills introduced, bills supported, committees.
no. 21—suffrage record: outside of congress, in congress.
no. 22—votes cast in election of member.
in an interview in the new york times of march 2, 1919, miss younger describes the working of this system.
if a congressman said to a lobbyist, for instance, “i do not think my district is much interested in woman suffrage, i get very few letters in favor of it from my constituents,” then, immediately, by means of the information gained through the card-index, a flood of pro-suffrage letters would descend upon him. always, as far as possible, these letters would come from people he knew or who were influential.
if a congressman had a financial backer, they tried to get at him. if he were from a strong labor district, they appealed to labor to bring its influence to bear upon him.
when the lobbyist started for congress, she was given a lobbying slip which had a list of entries printed on it. for instance, one heading was “exact statements and remarks.” 325miss younger told me of one congressman who said to her: “put me down on the mourners’ bench. i am thinking about it.” immediately headquarters became very busy with this congressman.
another said, “women in my state do not want it.” miss younger, commenting on that, said that it was always an encouraging case. we see immediately that he gets shoals of letters and telegrams from his state. one congressman on whom such a campaign was waged said finally: “if you will only stop, i will vote for the amendment. it keeps my office force busy all day answering letters about suffrage alone.”
the hardest congressmen to deal with were those who said, “i will not vote for it if every voter in my state asks me.” to such a one, we would send a woman from his own district. in one case, the congressman was so rude to her that she came back to headquarters, subscribed a hundred dollars to our funds, departed, and became a staunch suffragist. we kept a list of men of this type and we sent to them any woman who was wavering on suffrage. it never failed to make her a strong suffragist.
any bit of information on these cards might be used. if a man played golf, that might be a happy moment for a member of the woman’s party to talk suffrage with him. if he had the kind of mother who was an influence in his life, they tried to convert the mother. if it was the wife who was the ruling influence, they tried to convert the wife. they were careful even in regard to brothers. the habits of congressmen as disclosed by this index were of great importance. some of them got to their office early, and that was often the best time to speak with them. if a congressman drank, it was necessary to note that. then when the lobbyists found him muddled and inarticulate, they knew to what to impute it.
of course information of a blackmailing order was occasionally offered from outside sources to the woman’s party, but, of course, this was always ignored.
from 1916 on, the years in which maud younger was in charge of the lobby committee, twenty-two senators changed their position in favor of suffrage.
i have said that it was difficult for a congressman to elude these swift and determined scouts of the woman’s party. but harder still was it to elude a something, an unknown quality—an x—which had come into the fourth generation 326of women to demand enfranchisement. that quality was political-mindedness. congressmen had undoubtedly before run the gamut of feminine persuasiveness; grace; charm; tact. but here was an army of young amazons who looked them straight in the eye, who were absolutely informed, who knew their rights, who were not to be frightened by bluster, put off by rudeness, or thwarted either by delay or political trickery. they never lost their tempers and they never gave up. they never took “no” for an answer. they were young and they believed they could do the impossible. and believing it, they accomplished it. before the six years and a half of campaign of the woman’s party was over, congressman after congressman, senator after senator paid tribute—often a grudged one—to the verve and élan of that campaign.
but though they talked man fashion, eye to eye, the lobbyists, when returned to headquarters, were full of excellent information and suggestions and all that mysterious by-product which comes from feminine intuition.
