BOTHERATION

(“Why do you come here and bother us?”—Chairman Webb, at the Suffrage hearing in Washington.)
Girls, girls, the worst has happened;
Our cause is at its ebb.
How could you go and do it!
You’ve bothered Mr. Webb!
You came and asked for freedom,
(As law does not forbid)
Not thinking it might bother him,
And yet, it seems, it did.
Oh, can it be, my sisters,
My sisters can it be,
You did not think of Mr. Webb
When asking to be free?
You did not put his comfort
Before your cause? How strange!
But now you know the way he feels
I hope we’ll have a change.
Send word to far Australia
And let New Zealand know,
And Oregon and Sweden,
Finland and Idaho;
Make all the nations grasp it,
From Sitka to El Teb,
We never mention Suffrage now;
It bothers Mr. Webb!
Alice Duer Miller.
131OUR IDEA OF NOTHING AT ALL

(“I am opposed to Woman Suffrage, but I am not opposed to woman.”—Anti-Suffrage speech of Mr. Webb of North Carolina.)
Oh, women, have you heard the news
Of charity and grace?
Look, look, how joy and gratitude
Are beaming in my face!
For Mr. Webb is not opposed
To woman in her place!
Oh, Mr. Webb, how kind you are
To let us live at all,
To let us light the kitchen range
And tidy up the hall;
To tolerate the female sex
In spite of Adam’s fall.
Oh, girls, suppose that Mr. Webb
Should alter his decree!
Suppose he were opposed to us—
Opposed to you and me.
What would be left for us to do—
Except to cease to be?
Alice Duer Miller.

During 1916, the central department of the Congressional union—the legislative—was in the hands of Anne Martin who after her notable success in making Nevada a free State and with the added advantage of being a voter herself, was particularly fitted for this work. Anne Martin showed extraordinary ability in building back-fires in Congressional Districts, in keeping State and district chairmen informed of the actions of the representatives, in getting pressure from home upon them and in organizing the lobbying. Maud Younger, as chairman of the Lobby Committee, composed of women voters, assisted her. Lucy Burns edited the Suffragist.

The friends of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment were 132surprised—and of course delighted—when through the tireless efforts of Anne Martin—the Suffrage Bill came out of committee and onto the calendar of the Senate on January 8. In the House at first, the situation seemed equally encouraging. But unexpected obstacles manifested themselves; continued to multiply and grow. Presently there developed between the Judiciary Committee and the Suffragists a contest similar to that of 1914 between the Rules Committee and the Suffragists, but more intense.

The Judiciary Committee as usual referred the Amendment to a sub-committee. Anne Martin lobbied the members of the sub-committee and in consequence of this pressure, the sub-committee on February 9, voted the report out—although without recommendation, to the full committee which would meet on February 15.

At this meeting, by a vote of nine to seven, the Judiciary Committee referred the Suffrage Resolution back to the sub-committee with instructions to hold it until December 14—nearly a year off. This was an unusual thing to do. After a sub-committee has reported a measure to the committee, it is customary to allow at least a week to elapse before it is acted upon, so that the members who are absent may be present when the committee, as a whole, votes upon it. There is a gentleman’s agreement to this effect.

In her Revelations of a Woman Lobbyist, in McCall’s Magazine, Maud Younger thus describes the meeting of February 15:

The day ended as discouragingly as it had begun and I reported the situation to Mr. John Nelson, of Wisconsin, the only man on the committee who showed genuine enthusiasm.

“Your Amendment can’t come up tomorrow,” he assured me. “There’s a gentleman’s agreement that no action shall be taken on a bill for a week after the sub-committee reports it out. The matter lies over so that the members may be notified to be present. Your Amendment will come up next week.”

Relying on this reprieve, I felt no apprehension when Anne and I went to the Capitol next morning. Standing in the anteroom of the Judiciary Committee’s chamber, we watched the 133members passing through. The committee went into executive session and the door closed.

“There’s the gentleman’s agreement,” I said to Anne. “Nothing can happen.”

“No,” she answered meditatively.

We waited. An hour passed and Mr. Carlin came out. He walked close to Anne and said with a laugh as he passed her, “Well, we’ve killed Cock Robin.”

“Cock Robin?” said Anne, puzzled, looking after him.

Mr. Nelson came out, much perturbed, and explained. Upon motion of Mr. Carlin the Judiciary Committee had voted to send the Amendment back to the sub-committee to remain until the following December.

This was in direct violation of the gentleman’s agreement but our opponents had the votes, nine to seven, and they used them. Our Amendment was killed. Every one on the committee said so. Every one in Congress with whom we talked said so. The newspaper men said so. Soon every one believed it but Alice Paul, and she never believed it at all.

“That’s absurd!” she said impatiently. “We have only to make them reconsider.”

At once she went over the list of our opponents to decide who should make the move. “Why, William Elza Williams, of Illinois, of course. He will do it.” She sent me to see him.

Mr. Williams was necessary not only for purposes of reconsideration, but because, when he had changed his vote, we would have a majority in committee. But he did not see the matter at all in the same light in which Miss Paul saw it. He had not the least intention of changing his vote. I pointed out that the women of Illinois, being half voters, had some claims to representation, but he remained obdurate.

When this was reported to Miss Paul she merely said, “Mr. Williams will have to change his vote. Elsie Hill can attend to it.”

So Elsie, buoyant with good spirits, good health, and tireless enthusiasm, pinned her smart hat on her reddish-brown hair and set out through Illinois for Mr. Williams’s vote.

Presently the ripples of Elsie’s passing across the Illinois prairies began to break upon the peaceful desk of Mr. Williams in Washington. I found him running a worried hand through his hair, gazing at newspaper clippings about Mr. Williams and his vote on the Judiciary Committee. Resolutions arrived from Labor unions asking him to reconsider; letters from constituents, telegrams, reports of meetings, editorials.

134On March 8, a deputation of twenty members of the Congressional union, led by Maud Younger, called on Representative Williams. I quote the Suffragist:

Mr. Williams received the women with cordiality and Miss Younger at once laid before him the object of the visit.

“On the fifteenth of February,” said Miss Younger, “the sub-committee reported out the Suffrage Amendment. We are told that there is a gentleman’s agreement to the effect that when a sub-committee reports, no action shall be taken that day but the matter shall lie over for a week. Four of our supporters were absent on the day of the report and the opposition sent the Amendment back to sub-committee. There were nine votes cast in favor of sending it back, and seven against. We feel that it was you who cast the deciding vote, for if you had voted with supporters of Suffrage, the vote would have been a tie, and the Amendment would not now be in sub-committee.

“You told me that you were in favor of having this matter remain in committee until December, because you felt it would be embarrassing to some men who would run for office next fall. As a trades-unionist, as well as a woman voter, I feel that the eight million working women of this country are entitled to as much consideration as are a few politicians.”

Miss Younger then introduced Mrs. Lowell Mellett, of Seattle, Washington; Mrs. William Kent, of California; Mrs. Gilson Gardner, Mrs. Charles Edward Russell, of Illinois; Anne Martin, of Nevada; each of whom made an appeal to Mr. Williams to give his support to a report from the Judiciary Committee during the present session.

Miss Martin said:

You are in what seems to us a very undesirable position. You are a Representative from a Suffrage State, from a State where women have the right to vote for President. You are a professed Suffragist, yet you are the only member of that committee who is a Suffragist and who is in the position of having voted with the professed anti-Suffragists against a hearing.... We urge you to do everything in your power to reconsider the smothering of this resolution, and bring up the question in committee again as soon as possible, to report it to the House and then to leave to the Rules Committee the question of what time it shall have for discussion in this session. We urge this most earnestly.

135Mr. Williams replied:

I am pleased to hear from you ladies and to know fully your side of this case.

If I remember correctly the conversation you refer to in which I spoke of some embarrassment—not to myself, but to some of my colleagues—I think I stated the condition of the calendar and the business of this session. I have not double-crossed anybody. I have not taken any sudden change of front. I have told every representative of the Suffrage organization who has visited me that I do not favor a report at this first session of the Sixty-fourth Congress. I gave, as my primary reason, the crowded condition of the business of this Congress. I incidentally—sometimes in a good-natured way, as I remember—stated that it did not embarrass me to vote on the question because I was already on record, but it might embarrass some of my colleagues. My real views have been that Congress has duties in this, a campaign year, when all members hope to leave at a reasonable time within which to make their campaign; that this session is not a good time to take upon ourselves the consideration of any unimportant question that can be disposed of just as well at the next session.

With a campaign approaching and two national conventions in June, I do not believe it wise for your cause to crowd this matter on now. I do not believe that it would get that consideration that you will get after the election and after these necessary matters—matters of importance and urgent necessity—are disposed of.

I am opposed to smothering anything in committee. I do not propose to smother this in committee. I intend, when I think it is the proper time, to vote the Susan B. Anthony Amendment out and vote for it in the House. Now that is my intention. I have not said that I would not do so at this session. I think the strongest that I have put it is that I would not do so unless the work of the session is cleared away so that we can get to it.

Now I have said more than that. At any time that you get a full attendance of the committee, or those absent represented by pairs so that both sides are represented, and no advantage can be taken and no criticism made of what takes place, whenever there is what is equivalent to a full committee present, I am willing that the committee shall again vote on the question and determine whether they want it out now.

Miss Younger: Before the conventions will meet in June, Congress will have been in session six months, and we ask you for only one day out of the six months. Some of those other questions, 136such as preparedness, are not ready to come before Congress.

Mr. Williams: You would not be satisfied with one day.

Miss Martin: That is all we had last time and we were satisfied.

Mrs. Russell: Whatever action Congress takes or does not take on preparedness, we women will have to stand for it. Any program that Congress puts through we shall be involved in. Isn’t that just one more reason why we ought to have a vote promptly?

Mr. Williams: Yes, but you cannot get it in time for the emergency that is now before us. I believe this: If women had full political rights everywhere there would not be any war. But that cannot be brought about in time for this emergency.

“We cannot conceive,” said one member of the delegation at this juncture, “of any situation which will not permit of three-quarters of an hour being taken on the floor of the House for a vote.”

Mr. Williams: We have no right to refuse to submit it. I would not smother it in committee at all, but I believe the committee has a right to exercise their discretion as to when it shall be submitted.... How do you take my suggestion? I am willing that a vote may be had at any time if there is the equivalent of a full attendance of the committee. Can that be secured?

Miss Martin: I have been working with this committee for nearly three months, and I do not know of any session at which they have all been present. You impose upon us now a condition that you did not exact when this Amendment was smothered.

I think that we must regard a motion to postpone until after election as an action unfriendly to Suffrage.

Mr. Williams: It may be. I do not see how it can be.

“Last year,” a member of the delegation then reminded Mr. Williams, “the Amendment was postponed and voted on immediately after the elections were safely over. The plan now is to postpone it until after the elections to the Sixty-fifth Congress are over and no one’s election will be jeopardized. We do not like to have the vote taken in each Congress immediately after election.”

Miss Martin: We are not saying anything with reference to a vote on the floor of the House at this time. We are simply asking that the Judiciary Committee perform its function and judge the bill on its merits and make its report to the House. Does not that appeal to you?

137Mr. Williams: Yes, it does. I am told I am the only member of the committee who voted to postpone the Amendment, who is a Representative from a Suffrage State. Somehow or other you have put the burden on me.

Miss Martin: You are. The burden is on you.

Miss Younger: If we could prove to you that with your vote we would have a majority of the committee, would you be willing to vote to report it out to the House?

Mr. Williams: There would be ten besides myself favorable to reporting it out? Yes, if you have the ten.

Miss Martin: I have them right here. You are the eleventh. We have those ten votes.

Mr. Williams: Well, I hope you have. May I ask you just to read............