Before we examine the consideration which actuated the National Woman’s Party in waging the picket campaign of 1917, let us see where President Wilson stood at the beginning of the war; let us briefly recapitulate the steps which brought him there. It will be remembered that, shortly after the President took his seat in March, 1913, he told a deputation from the Congressional Committee that Suffrage was a question to which he had given no thought and on which he had no opinion. During the year, no longer stating that he knew nothing about Suffrage, he gave as a reason for inaction that the Congressional program was too crowded to consider it. By the end of the year, he had reached the point where he stated that he could take no action on the Suffrage Amendment until commanded by his Party. In 1914, he continued to state that he was prohibited from acting because of being bound by his Party until June, when he seized on the excuse of States Rights further to explain his inaction. In the autumn of 1915 he first came out personally for Suffrage by voting for it in New Jersey but still refused to support it in Congress. His next step forward came in June, 1916, when he caused the _principle_ of Suffrage to be recognized in the Party platform, though as yet neither he nor the Party had endorsed the Federal Amendment. In September of that same year—after the Woman’s Party had begun its active campaign in the Suffrage States—the President took another step and addressed a Suffrage Convention of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association. But as yet he was not committed to the Federal Amendment, had not begun to exert pressure on Congress. The situation of the President and the Woman’s Party at this juncture may be summed up in this way. Wilson, himself, was beginning to realize that the Suffrage Amendment must ultimately pass. But he had just been re-elected. He was safe for four years; he could take his time about it. The Woman’s Party on the other hand, realized that the President being safe for four years, no political pressure could be exerted upon him. They realized that they must devise other methods to keep Suffrage, as a measure demanding immediate enactment, before him.