The second event of 1915 of less importance nationally, but of great practical importance to the Congressional union, was the removal of Headquarters from the dark, congested rooms in F Street to Cameron House, sometimes known as the Little White House. Cameron House has held, ever since its construction, a vivid place in Washington history. It has been occupied by Senator Donald Cameron; Vice-President Garret A. Hobart; Senator Mark Hanna. The famous breakfasts given by Senator Hanna, to which President McKinley often came, occurred here. Presidents, such as John Quincy Adams, Harrison, Taylor, and Fillmore; statesmen, such as Webster, Clay, Cass, and Calhoun; historians, such as Prescott, Bancroft, and Washington Irving, have frequented it. The Little White House is situated at 21 Madison Place, just across Lafayette Square from the big White House. From the windows of the big White House could be seen great banners of purple, white, and gold, waving at the windows of the Little White House.

Cameron House was charming inside and out. Outside, a great wistaria vine made in the spring a marvel of its fa?ade, and inside a combination of fine proportions and a charming architectural arrangement of the rooms gave it that gemütlich atmosphere necessary to a rallying spot. When you entered, you came into a great hall, from which a noble staircase made an effective exit, and in which a huge fireplace formed a focussing center. All winter long, a fire was going in that fireplace; there were easy chairs in front of it, and straying off from it. The Little White House 124became a place where people dropped in easily. This big reception hall always held a gay, interesting, and interested group, composed of Party members resident there; sympathizers and workers who lived in Washington; people from all over the United States who had come to Washington on a holiday. The organizers were always returning from the four corners of the country with a harvest of news and ideas and plans before starting off for new fields.

Perhaps there is no better place than here to speak of the work of those remarkable young women—the organizers. It will be remembered that from the time of the formation of the Congressional Committee to the time when the Senate passed the Anthony Amendment was about six years and a half. Yet in 1919, Maud Younger said to me, “There have been three generations of organizers in this movement.” That was true. Not that they served their average of two years and left. Most of them who came to work for the Party stayed with it. It was only that, as the work grew, developed, expanded, more organizers and even more became necessary. And perhaps it is one of the chief glories of the Woman’s Party that these organizers came to them younger and younger, until at the end they were fresh, beautiful girls in their teens and early twenties.

The first group consisted of:

Mabel Vernon; Elsie Hill; Margaret Whittemore; Doris Stevens; Mrs. Sinclair Thompson; Virginia Arnold.

The second group consisted of:

Iris Calderhead; Vivian Pierce; Beulah Amidon; Lucy Branham; Hazel Hunkins; Clara Louise Rowe; Joy Young; Margery Ross; Mary Gertrude Fendall; Pauline Clarke; Alice Henkel; Rebecca Hourwich.

The third group consisted of:

Julia Emory; Betty Gram; Anita Pollitzer; Mary Dubrow; Catherine Flanagan.

The difficulties which lay in the path of the organizers cannot possibly be exaggerated: the work they accomplished cannot possibly be estimated. Their story is one of those 125sealed chapters in the history of feminism, the whole of which will never be known. With her usual astuteness Alice Paul always chose young, fresh, convinced, inspiring, and inspired spirits. Always she preferred enthusiasm to experience. Before an organizer left Headquarters for parts unknown, Alice Paul talked with her for several hours, going over her route, indicating the problems which would arise and—in her characteristic and indescribable Alice Paul way—suggesting how they were to be met; holding always above these details the shining object of the journey; managing somehow to fill her with the feeling that in spite of many obstacles, she would conquer all these new worlds. “No matter,” she always concluded, “what other Suffragists may say about us, pay no attention to it; go on with your work. Our fight is not against women.”

Sometimes these girls would come into towns where there not only existed no Suffrage organization but there had never been a Suffrage meeting. Sometimes they would have a list of names of people to whom to go for help; sometimes not that. At any rate they went to the best hotel and established themselves there. Then they found Headquarters, preferably in the hotel lobby; but if not there, in a shop window. Next they saw the newspapers. Inevitably it seemed—Alice Paul’s sure instinct never failed her here—they were incipient newspaper women. From the moment they arrived, blazing their purple, white, and gold, the papers rang with them, and that ringing continued until they left. They called on the women whose names had been given them, asked them to serve on a committee in order to arrange a meeting. At that meeting, to which National Headquarters would send a well-known speaker, the work would be explained, the aims of the Woman’s Party set forth, its history reviewed. When the organizer left that town, she left an organization of some sort behind her. Alice Paul always preferred, rather than a large, inactive membership, a few active women who, when needed, could bring pressure to bea............