IV THE PRESIDENT CAPITULATES AND THE HOUSE SURRENDERS

It will be remembered that after the eight months in which the Woman’s Party picketed the President, the House of Representatives created a Suffrage Committee in September, 1917. It will also be remembered that during the discussion on the floor, in regard to that Committee, Mr. Pou, Chairman, made the statement that there was no intention of passing the Amendment before the Sixty-sixth Congress. That Congress adjourned on October 6, 1917. Also, it will be remembered that that day, Alice Paul marched over to the White House gates carrying a banner inscribed with the words of the President:
THE TIME HAS COME WHEN WE MUST CONQUER OR SUBMIT.
FOR US THERE CAN BE BUT ONE CHOICE. WE HAVE MADE IT.

It will be remembered too that Alice Paul was arrested and sentenced to seven months in jail.

Following the publicity which came from the Woman’s Party speakers all over the country and from the newspapers, protests of all descriptions began to pour into the White House and to the Democratic leaders: letters, resolutions, petitions.

Again it will be remembered that a week before Congress reconvened on December 3, 1917, all the imprisoned women were suddenly released.

In the new Session—a direct reversal of Mr. Pou’s announcement of two months earlier that the House would not pass the Amendment before 1920—a day was set for the vote 337on the Suffrage Amendment, a week after Congress assembled.

Again, it should be pointed out that all these things happened after those eight months of picketing.

That important day which the House set was January 10, 1918. In September, the Suffragists lacked seventy-three votes of the passage of the Amendment. Naturally all December was spent in working up that vote. The National Woman’s Party secured statements from Republican leaders like Mondell and Kahn, stating the strong Republican support of the measure and blaming the Democrats if it were defeated. The National Woman’s Party worked up the Republican majority from three-quarters of the House to five-sixths. The Democrats began to be frightened at the press statements of the Republicans. They began to work to increase their showing, as they feared the country would blame them if the Amendment were defeated.

But more important than any of these things was the capitulation of the President which won, as the Woman’s Party contended it would, the necessary votes in the house. On January 9, 1919, one year from the day the Inez Milholland Memorial Deputation visited him, President Wilson made his declaration for the Federal Amendment, and on January 10, the Amendment was passed in the House by a vote of two hundred and seventy-four to one hundred and thirty-six.

This important epoch in the history of the Suffrage Movement, Maud Younger describes in her Revelations of a Woman Lobbyist.

The atmosphere had changed when I returned to Washington. Republican Congressmen had suddenly realized what an asset to the Republican Party would be their support of Suffrage. Democrats, seeing the blame that would attach to them for its defeat, were becoming alarmed.

“The country is fixing to blame the Democrats,” said Mr. Hull, of Tennessee, very thoughtfully, but not quite thoughtfully enough. As a member of the National Executive Committee 338of the Democratic Party he was thoughtful. As a Congressman with a vote in the House he was not quite thoughtful enough.

We lacked sixty votes in the House, and had only three weeks to get them. We worked day and night. Our friends in Congress, brightly hopeful, told us we had votes to spare, but we knew the truth. We lacked forty votes, then twenty, then ten, but we kept this to ourselves. Unless something happened we could not win.

Then, on January 9, the day before the vote, it happened. Late on that afternoon the President invited a deputation of Democratic Congressmen to wait on him. Knowing of the appointment, we went through the halls of Congress, on wings, all day. When the Congressmen went into the White House, a small group stood outside in the snow waiting for the first word of that interview. After what seemed an interminable time, the doors opened. Out came cheery Mr. Raker with the news: “The President has declared for the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, and will stay home from his game of golf tomorrow morning to see any Congressman who wishes to consult him about it.” Thus, just a year from the day he had told us we must concert public opinion, President Wilson declared for Suffrage.

There was a feeling of victory in the air as we went through the corridors that night. Yet our secret poll showed that we still lacked votes. We could do nothing more. We could only wait and see how much force the President would put behind his declaration.

Scrub women were still at work with brushes and buckets of soapsuds when I reached the Capitol that fateful morning. From the front row of the gallery we looked down on the floor of the House, with its seven rows of empty seats rising in semi-circular rows like an amphitheatre. A few people scurried here and there, the galleries were rapidly filling. We watched the Congressmen come in, sit down, walk about, or stand in groups talking and looking up at the galleries.

At the stroke of eleven all eyes turned toward the door of the Speaker’s lobby. Chattering ceased. The door opened, and a Roman mace appeared and advanced, supported by the Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms, who held it in his two hands before him. Very solemn, very mindful of his step, he ascended the three steps to the Speaker’s stand, followed by the Speaker, Champ Clark, dignified and magnificent in a tan frock coat, with a white flower in the buttonhole. Having ascended, the Sergeant-at-Arms laid the mace against the wall where all the Congressmen 339could look at it, and came down again with a little skip on the last step, while the Speaker impressively faced the House.

Prayer and routine business finished, the speeches began. Most of them were prosy and dull, delivered not for those who heard them, but for constituents hundreds of miles away. In the galleries we listened wearily. We had brought luncheon with us, which we ate as unobtrusively as possible. We would lose our seats if we left them, for through the ground-glass doors we dimly saw waiting multitudes trying to come in. All day the largest crowds the doorkeepers had ever known pressed against the doors. Inside the speeches droned on.

“What a dull ending for such a dramatic struggle,” said a newspaper man, leaning over from the press gallery. I could have wished it had been duller, for we never for an instant forgot we still lacked votes. We did not know how far the President’s message had carried since our last possible poll.

Suddenly a wave of applause and cheers swept over the floor. Every head turned toward the Speaker’s door, and there, on the threshold, we saw Mr. Mann, pale and trembling. For six months he had lain in a hospital—his only visitors his wife and secretary. It had been said that he would never come back to the House. Yet he had come to vote for our Amendment.

Now, through the skylight, we could see that the afternoon had gone, and evening had come. At last the time for speech-making ended and the vote was taken. Forty years to a day from the first introduction of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment in Congress, one year exactly from the time the first picket line went to stand before the White House, the Federal Suffrage Amendment passed the House of Representatives. It passed with just one vote to spare. Six votes came to us through the President. He had saved the day!

Outside the doors of the gallery a woman began to sing, Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Others took it up, more and more voices joined, and through the halls of the Capitol there swelled our song of gratitude. Louder and louder it rose and soared to the high arches, and was carried out into the night to die away at last in the far distances. And still in our hearts we sang, Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

But our minds were not at rest, nor our thoughts quiet. Our victory was worth nothing unless we could consolidate it quickly. To do this we had to win the Senate. And the Senate is farther from the people than the House, and much, much harder to move.