The Story of the Woman's PartyGillmore, Inez Haynes
History
The Story of the Woman's Party
Gillmore, Inez Haynes
National Woman's Party; Paul, Alice, 1885-1977; Women -- Suffrage -- United States
When Alice Paul spoke to me about the federal work, I knew that she
had an extraordinary mind, extraordinary courage and remarkable
executive ability. But I felt she had two disabilities—ill-health
and a lack of knowledge of human nature. I was wrong in both. I was
staggered by her speed and industry and the way she could raise
money. Her great assets, I should say, are her power, with a single
leap of the imagination, to make plans on a national scale; and a
supplementary power to see that done down to the last postage stamp.
But because she can do all this, people let her do it—often she has
to carry her own plans out down to the very last postage stamp. She
used all kinds of people; she tested them through results. She is
exceedingly charitable in her judgments of people and patient. She
assigned one inept person to five different kinds of work before she
gave her up. Her abruptness lost some workers, but not the finer
spirits. The very absence of anything like personal appeal seemed to
help her.
[Illustration: LUCY BURNS AT THE HEAD OF THE “PRISON SPECIALISTS.” These
Women, All of Whom Served Terms in Jail, Are Wearing a Reproduction of
Their Prison Garb. Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.]
Lucy Burns is as different a type from Alice Paul as one could imagine.
She is tall—or at least she seems tall; rounded and muscular; a
splendidly vigorous physical specimen. If Alice Paul looks as though she
were a Tanagra carved from alabaster, Lucy Burns seems like a figure,
heroically sculptured, from marble. She is blue-eyed and
fresh-complexioned; dimpled; and her head is burdened, even as Alice
Paul’s, by an enormous weight of hair. Lucy Burn’s hair is a brilliant
red; and even as she flashes, it flashes. It is full of sparkle. She is
a woman of twofold ability. She speaks and writes with equal eloquence
and elegance. Her speeches before Suffrage bodies, her editorials in the
_Suffragist_ are models of clearness; conciseness; of accumulative force
of expression. Mentally and emotionally, she is quick and warm. Her
convictions are all vigorous and I do not think Lucy Burns would
hesitate for a moment to suffer torture, to die, for them. She has
intellectuality of a high order; but she overruns with a winning
Irishness which supplements that intellectuality with grace and charm; a
social mobility of extreme sensitiveness and swiftness. In those early
days in Washington, with all her uncompromising militantism, Lucy Burns
was the diplomat of the pair; the tactful, placating force.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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