Suffragists -- United States; Women -- Suffrage -- United States
“Not at all. We can draw the support of women with greater ease from a
party which shows a weak hand on suffrage, than from one which hides
its opposition behind silence.”
She had always to combat the fear of the more timid ones who felt sure
with each new wave of disapproval that we would be submerged. “Now, I
have been a supporter of yours every step of the way,” a “fearful” one
would say, “but this is really going a little too far. I was in the
Senate gallery to-day when two suffrage. senators in speeches denounced
the pickets and their suffrage banners. They said that we were setting
suffrage back and that something ought to be done about it.”
“Exactly so,” would come the ready answer from Miss Paul. “And they
will do something about it only if we continue to make them
uncomfortable enough. Of course even suffrage senators will object to
our pickets and our banners because they do not want attention called
to their failure to compel the Administration to act. They know that as
friends of the measure their responsibility is greater.” And the
“fearful” one was usually convinced and made stronger.
I remember so well when the situation was approaching its final climax
in Washington. Men and women, both, came to Miss Paul with, “This is
terrible! Seven months’ sentence is impossible. You must stop! You
cannot keep this up!”
With an unmistakable note of triumph in her voice Miss Paul would
answer, “Yes, it is terrible for us, but not nearly so terrible as for
the government. The Administration has fired its heaviest gun. From now
on we shall win and they will lose.”
Most of the doubters had by this time banished their fears and had come
to believe with something akin to superstition that she could never be
wrong, so swiftly and surely, did they see her policies and her
predictions on every point vindicated before their eyes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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