We now return to the work in Congress. Again it is necessary to go back into history a few months.

All these months, the work of organizing the nation-wide demonstration of May 2—which had been decided upon at the opening meeting of the Congressional union for 1914—had been going on.

The Congressional union sent organizers into all the States of the union to make plans for the demonstration. Minnie E. Brooke went through every State in the South. Mabel Vernon, one of the organizers for the Congressional union, traveled through the southwestern part of the country and up through California, ending her trip in Nevada. Crystal Eastman of the Executive Committee took care of the Northwestern States, Emma Smith DeVoe covered the Far Western States; Jessie Hardy Stubbs, the Middle Western States; Mrs. Lawrence Lewis and Alice Paul, assisted by Olive Hasbrouck, New England and the Middle Atlantic States.

On February 12, the National American Woman Suffrage Association promised its co-operation also, and from that date aided in making the demonstration a success.

The demonstration—taking the form of parades in most cases, meetings in a few—occurred in at least one great city in every State. The following resolution was adopted at the various gatherings.

Resolved, that this meeting calls upon Congress to take immediate and favorable action upon the Bristow-Mondell Resolution enfranchising women.

The culminating demonstration occurred May 9 in Washington. There was a mass-meeting at the Belasco Theatre, 67and following this a procession starting promptly at three o’clock, marched to the Capitol. At the foot of the Capitol steps, the enormous gathering sang the Woman’s March. Then five hundred and thirty-one delegates representing every Congressional and Senatorial district in the country, bearing resolutions passed at the country-wide demonstrations, marched up the long steps into the great Rotunda of the Capitol. A Committee of Senators and Representatives awaited the delegates, received the resolutions and introduced them on the floor of each House of Congress.

Here, as always, Alice Paul visualized her work in pageantry. On this occasion, that pageantry was particularly beautiful. Zona Gale writes in the Suffragist:

“I shall watch it, but it will not mean anything to me,” said a visitor to me on Saturday, but that night she said: “I leaned out of my window, and held my screen up with one hand, and let the sun beat in my face for the forty minutes that you were passing, and I wept. To think of your being part of it—and caring like that—and the men there on the sidewalk holding back, by what right, what you ask!”

The effect of this lengthened—and therefore accumulative—nation-wide demonstration was immediately felt at the national Capitol. Between the dates of the demonstration throughout the States May 2, and the demonstration in Washington, May 9, the Judiciary Committee reported the Mondell Resolution without recommendation, but with an overwhelming vote, to the House. This marked an epoch in the Suffrage work in the United States; for Suffrage had never been debated on the floor of the House, and not since 1890 had it progressed beyond the Committee stage in the House. The Resolution rested on May 5 at the foot of the highly congested House calendar. On May 13, Representative Mondell introduced a Resolution asking time for an early consideration of the Suffrage Amendment. The adoption of this Resolution meant that the Amendment would be taken up, debated, and voted on.

68The Rules Committee, to which the Resolution was referred, failed to act upon it. Suffragists began to besiege the Rules Committee. The Rules Committee, however, proved unamenable to argument, discussion, or entreaty.

Later in the year, in a speech at the Newport Conference, Lucy Burns said of the Rules Committee that it “adopted devious means for avoiding action on the Suffrage Resolution. It was difficult for them to vote against it, and it seemed difficult for them to vote for it. They apparently decided that the best policy for them to pursue was to take no action at all, so they hit upon the happy expedient of holding no meetings whatever.”

A detailed account of the action of the Rules Committee proves the adamancy of Party control. It gives some idea of the obstacles which ingenious politicians can put in the way of citizens, even though those citizens are making a perfectly legitimate request.

Mr. Henry, the Chairman of the Rules Committee, had declared in the spring that he thought it was out of the power of his Committee to take action (i.e. on the matter of the Suffrage Resolution which was only to allot time in the House for the discussion of the Suffrage Amendment) since the Suffrage Amendment had not been favorably acted upon at the last Democratic Caucus: “You may tell this to the Press. You may tell it to the newspapers,” Mr. Henry said; “my hands are tied.”

However, early in June, the Suffragist says, “Mr. Henry’s view of his political helplessness weakened slightly.” He promised to report out the Suffrage Resolution. But he could not be prevailed upon to state when he would do so. The Congressional union, therefore, organized a series of deputations which visited the Rules Committee during all the long, hot summer and the long, hot fall. Deputations from nearly every State in the union and from nearly every occupation and profession of women waited upon the members of the Rules Committee. The reader must remember always that they were asking—not that the Amendment 69be passed—only that a few hours be set aside for the discussion of the Suffrage question in the House of Representatives. Repeated deputations called upon individual members of the Committee. On June 10, the Committee met, but decided to postpone action on the Suffrage question till July 1. Mr. Henry left immediately for Texas. A large deputation came to Washington to be present at the July 1 meeting. Many of the most prominent members of the Club women’s Deputation of five hundred, who had called the afternoon of ............