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
In April, Senator Gallinger told Miss Paul that the Republicans
counted four more votes for Suffrage—Kellogg, Harding, Page, and
Borah. “We understand Borah will vote for the Amendment if it will
not pass otherwise. But he will not vote for it if it will pass
without him. But if his vote will carry it, he will vote for it.”
Thus far we had come on our journey toward the eleven, when Senator
Andreus Aristides Jones of New Mexico, Chairman of the Woman
Suffrage Committee, rose in the Senate and announced that on May 10
he would move to take up the Suffrage resolution. There was great
rejoicing. We thought that now the Administration would get the
needed votes.
Indeed, with only two votes more to get, everything looked promising.
* * * * *
In May, members of the Woman’s Committee of the Council of National
Defense were received by the President and Mrs. Wilson.
Florence Bayard Hilles, State Chairman in Delaware for the National
Woman’s Party, who had campaigned for the Liberty Loan throughout her
State, and was then working in the Bethlehem Steel Plant, as a munition
maker, said to the President:
Mr. President, it would be a great inspiration to all of us in our
war work if you would help towards our immediate enfranchisement.
Behind Mrs. Hilles came Mrs. Arthur Kellam, who is Chairman of the
Woman’s Party in New Mexico, who said:
Mr. President, we, women of the West, are growing very restless
indeed waiting for the long-delayed passage of the Federal Suffrage
Amendment. Won’t you help to secure this recognition of citizens?
The women of New Mexico and many other States have no redress save
through the Federal Amendment. They are eagerly waiting for action
on this measure in the Senate. Will you help us?
The President, with marked cordiality, answered:
“I will. I will do all I can.”
In the meantime, the President was receiving picturesque groups of many
descriptions: Pershing’s Veterans went to the White House; the Blue
Devils of France. Finally a group of women munition workers from the
Bethlehem Plant, led by Florence Bayard Hilles, came to Washington to
see the President in regard to Suffrage. They were: Catherine Boyle; Ada
Walling; Mary Gonzon; Lula Patterson; Marie McKenzie; Isabel C. Aniba;
Lilian Jerrold; Mary Campbell; Mildred Peck; Ida Lennox. The experience
of the war workers was amusing. They wrote at once asking for an
interview with the President. Mr. Tumulty responded saying that the
President bade him to tell them that “nothing you or your associates
could say could possibly increase his very deep interest in this
matter.”
Mrs. Aniba despatched an answer, again asking for an interview. She said
among other things:
The work I do is making detonators, handling TNT, the highest of all
explosives. We want to be recognized by our country as much her
citizens as soldiers are.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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