On June 12, 1916, Sara Bard Field sent a telegram to President Wilson. Mrs. Field was a Democrat, but she was, first of all, a Suffragist. In that telegram, she urged the President to support the Suffrage Amendment. She promised, if the Democratic Party would do this, that she herself would gladly campaign for him in the Western States without remuneration. She promised him also the services of at least five other influential Democratic women. The President answered:

Dear Mrs. Field:

Your frank and kindly telegram of June 12 sent from St. Louis was warmly appreciated. I have been in frequent conference with my Party associates about a platform declaration with regard to Woman Suffrage and sincerely hope the outcome has been acceptable to you.

In haste, with sincerest appreciation,

Cordially yours,

Woodrow Wilson.

On June 21, President Wilson received Mrs. D. E. Hooker of Richmond, who came to him as a delegate from the Virginia Federation of Labor. Mrs. Hooker placed in the President’s hands resolutions passed by the Federation, demanding favorable action on the Federal Amendment this session.

“This is very strong,” said President Wilson.

The Suffragist of July 1 says:

Mrs. Hooker then urged upon the President, very movingly, the humiliation, from the standpoint of a Southerner and a woman, of going before the entire population of men now enfranchised, and begging them each personally to approve of 165woman’s right to full citizenship. Tears came into her eyes as she spoke, and the President seemed rather touched. He said consolingly that she must not mind the criticism she encountered in a good work. “Every one in the public eye,” the President said, “is deluged with criticism. You simply must do what you believe to be right.”

Mrs. Hooker went on to explain the political difficulties of the State by State road to National Woman Suffrage.

President Wilson seemed very little impressed by these facts. “Every good thing,” he said, “takes a great deal of hard work.”

Mrs. Hooker made a very strong point of the indefensible behavior of the House Judiciary Committee in blocking the Suffrage Amendment and refusing to allow the representatives of the people an opportunity to vote upon it. “Whatever one may think of Woman Suffrage,” she said, “tying the Amendment up this way before an election is wrong; and the blame will fall squarely on the Democratic Party.”

“You must see the members of the Judiciary Committee about that,” said the President, with a considerable tactical skill. “I do not think I should interfere with the action of a Committee of Congress.”

“Have you never done it before, Mr. President?” asked Mrs. Hooker. The President explained that he had done it only under pressure of a national emergency.

The interview lasted about half an hour. The President’s manner was kindly and friendly, but he made it very plain that he interpreted the Democratic platform plank to mean the limitation of the Suffrage movement to State activities, and that he was still opposed to the Federal Suffrage Amendment.

Later, Mrs. Field replied to the President’s letter:

I am sorry to have to tell you that not only is the platform declaration not acceptable to me, and to hundreds of thousands of voting women of the West, but that we also greatly deprecate the interpretation which you gave of this plank to Mrs. D. E. Hooker of Richmond.

It is my sincere hope as a Democratic woman that you will not allow any menace to the Democratic Party in the fall election through your unwillingness to face the desire of the West for speedy action upon the Susan B. Anthony Amendment.

On July 3, a delegation representing the Woman’s National Democratic League, composed, according to the 166Washington Times, of some of the most distinguished ladies of the Congressional and official sets, went to inform the President that the League had raised a thousand dollars as a contribution towards his re-election. Afterwards, Mrs. F. B. Moran, a grand-niece of Martha Washington, and it may be almost unnecessary to state, a member of the Congressional union, requested a five minute interview with the President.

Mrs. Moran said:

I am really afraid for my Party. The women in the West are far superior to us. They have power, and they know how to use it. There are four million of them, and they are heartily in favor of the Federal Suffrage Amendment because they do not wish to be disfranchised when they pass beyond the limits of their own State. It is not a question of their threatening us. It is a question of our realizing what they are going to do. You can get the Suffrage Amendment through Congress, and, if you do not do it, these women will regard you as responsible.

President Wilson said, in answer, that he could not interfere with the action of Congress. He believed that Suffrage should be established on the secure foundation of separate State action. “You should work from the bottom up, not from the top down,” the President said. “Women should be patient, and continue to work in the admirable way they have worked in the past.”

On July 4, President Wilson reviewed a Labor parade in connection with the laying of the corner-stone of the Labor Temple of the American Federation of Labor in Washington, D. C., and at its close he addressed the marchers. He had just declared that he stood for the interests of all classes, when Mabel Vernon, who sat on the platform a few feet away, called in a voice which has a notably clear, ringing quality, “Mr. President, if you sincerely desire to forward the interests of all the people, why do you oppose the national enfranchisement of women?”

167The President answered, “That is one of the things which we will have to take counsel over later.”

When the President was closing his speech, Mabel Vernon called again; “Answer, Mr. President, why do you oppose the national enfranchisement of women?”

The President did not answer.

The Secret Service men with almost an exquisite courtesy gently hurried Miss Vernon away.

On July 24, another deputation of prominent Democratic women called on the President. The deputation included Mrs. George W. Lamont, Harriot Stanton Blatch, Mina Van Winkle, Helen Todd. I quote the Suffragist:

Mrs. Lamont, who introduced the group to President Wilson, said: “I have come to you, Mr. President, as a Democratic woman. I used to be first a Democrat and then a Suffragist; now I am a Suffragist first.” She asked the President if he realized how painful a position he created for Democratic women when he opposed the enfranchisement of their sex and forced them to choose between their Party allegiance and their loyalty to women throughout the nation.

Mrs. Blatch told President Wilson of the strength of the sentiment for Woman Suffrage she had found in the West on her recent trip in the Suffrage Special through the equal Suffrage States and of the extraordinary difficulties she had experienced in her own life trying to win Suffrage by amending the constitution of her State.

“I am sixty years old, Mr. President,” said Mrs. Blatch, “I have worked all my life for Suffrage; and I am determined that I will never again stand up on the street corners of a great city appealing to every Tom, Dick, and Harry for the right of self-government. When we work for a Federal Amendment, we are dealing at last with men who understand what we are talking about and can speak to us in our tongue. We are not asking for an easy way to win the vote. It is not easy to amend the United States Constitution. We are asking for a dignified way; and we ought to be able to rely on the chivalry of our representatives, particularly of the southern representatives, to accord to women a self-respecting method of working out their enfranchisement.”

168Miss Helen Todd told the President of her experience in a State campaign in Texas, when Democratic members of the Legislature refused to submit the question to the voters, saying bluntly that they controlled eleven votes in the upper house and that those eleven could keep the Suffrage Amendment “tied up” indefinitely. “Women go to Democrats in Congress and are told they must appea............