The Woman’s Party never grew so big nor its organization so cumbrous that its object was defeated by numbers and weight. It was distinguished always by quality rather than quantity, and its mechanical organization was sensitive and light. It lay over its members as delicately as a cobweb on the grass; and it responded as instantly as a cobweb to the touch of changing conditions. News from Washington went to the uttermost parts of the country as swiftly as electricity could bear it. The results in action were equally swift. That was because youth was everywhere, not only youth of body, but, perhaps more important, youth of spirit. Senators and Representatives frequently marveled at the power and strength of an organization which had come to fruition in so few years. Had they all visited Headquarters—as some of them did—I think that all would have understood. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ II LOBBYING I HAVE left until now all consideration of a department which had been, almost from the very beginning, of great importance to the Woman’s Party; the most important department of all; the crux of its work; a department which steadily augmented in importance—the lobbying. From the moment in 1912 that the Suffragists started their work in Washington, relations had to be established with the House and the Senate. At first, tentative, a little wavering, irregular, the lobbying became finally astute, intensive, and constant. The lobby grew in numbers. After the Congressional Committee had become the Congressional Union, and had separated from the National American Woman Suffrage Association, the latter body sent its own lobbyists to Washington. The anti-Suffragists sent lobbyists too. By 1914, the stream had grown to a flood. The halls of Congress were never free from this invasion. The siege lasted without cessation as long as a Congress was in session. “This place looks like a millinery establishment,” a Congressman said once. In the early days, the reception of the lobbyists at the hands of Congressmen lacked by many degrees that graciousness of which, at the very end, they were almost certain. A story of this early period taken from the Woman’s Party card-index, is most illuminating. Two Suffrage lobbyists were calling on Hoke Smith. “As you are Suffragists,” Mr. Smith said, “you won’t mind standing.” He himself sat, lounging comfortably in his chair. He took out a big cigar, inserted it in his mouth, lighted it. The two women said what they had to say, standing, while Mr. Smith smoked contemptuously on. Those two women were Emily Perry and Jeannette Rankin. * * * * *