Suffragists -- United States; Women -- Suffrage -- United States
The National Executive Committee of the Democratic party, after a
referendum vote of the members of the National Committeemen, passed a
resolution calling for favorable action in the Senate. Mr. A. Mitchell
Palmer wrote to the Woman’s Party saying that this resolution must be
regarded as “an official expression of the Democratic Party through the
only organization which can speak for it between national conventions.”
The Republican National Committee meeting at the same time commended
the course taken by Republican Representatives who had voted for the
amendment in the House, and declared their position to be “a true
interpretation of the thought of the Republican Party.”
Republican and Democratic state, county and city committees followed
the lead and called for Senate action.
State legislatures in rapid succession called upon the Senate to pass
the measure, that they in turn might immediately ratify. North Dakota,
New York, Rhode Island, Arizona, Texas and other states acted in this
matter.
Intermittent attempts on the Republican side to force action, followed
by eloquent speeches from time to time, piquing their opponents, left
the Democrats bison-like across the path. The majority of them were
content to rest upon the action taken in the House.
I was at this time Chairman of the Political Department of the Woman’s
Party, and in that capacity interviewed practically every national
leader in both majority parties. I can not resist recording a few
impressions.
Colonel William Boyce Thompson of New York, now Chairman of Ways and
Means of the Republican National Committee, who with Raymond Robins had
served in Russia as member of the United States Red Cross. Mission, had
just returned. The deadlock was brought to his attention. He
immediately responded in a most effective way. In a brief but dramatic
speech at a great mass meeting of the Woman’s Party, at Palm Beach,
Florida, he said:
“The story of the brutal imprisonment in Washington of women advocating
suffrage is shocking and almost incredible. I became accustomed in
Russia to the stories of men and women who served terms of imprisonment
under the Czar, because of their love of liberty, but did not know that
women in my own country had been subjected to brutal treatment long
since abandoned in Russia.
“I wish now to contribute ten thousand dollars to the campaign for the
passage of the suffrage amendment through the Senate,, one hundred
dollars for each of the pickets who went to prison because she stood at
the gates of the White House, asking for the passage of the suffrage
measure.”
This was the largest single contribution received during the national
agitation. Colonel Thompson had been a suffragist all his life, but he
now became actively identified with the work for the national
amendment. Since then he has continued to give generously of his money
and to lend his political prestige as often as necessary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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