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
While the Suffragists were still in the old Workhouse, Alice Paul,
following her usual system of complete publicity, had announced another
protest meeting at the Lafayette Monument.
Later Alice Paul received a letter from Colonel Ridley:
I have been advised that you desire to hold a demonstration in
Lafayette Square on Thursday, August 22. By direction of the Chief
of Engineers, U. S. Army, you are hereby granted permission to hold
this demonstration. You are advised good order must prevail.
Miss Paul replied:
We received yesterday your permit for a Suffrage demonstration in
Lafayette Park this afternoon, and are very glad that our meetings
are no longer to be interfered with. Because of the illness of so
many of our members, due to their treatment in prison this last
week, and with the necessity of caring for them at Headquarters, we
are planning to hold our next meeting a little later. We have not
determined on the exact date but we will inform you of the time as
soon as it is decided upon.
As a result of the first series of protest meetings, the Administration
had yielded to the point of no longer interfering with the meetings at
the Lafayette Monument. But as time went by and neither the Senate nor
the President did anything about Suffrage, the National Woman’s Party
announced that a protest meeting would be held at the Lafayette Monument
on September 16 at four o’clock. Immediately the President announced
that he would receive a delegation of Southern and Western Democratic
women that day at two.
The same day, September 16, as Maud Younger was coming back from the
Capitol to Headquarters, Senator Overman of the Rules Committee came and
sat by her in the car. In the course of his conversation, he remarked
casually: “I don’t think your bill is coming up this session.”
That afternoon, Abby Scott Baker went to see Senator Jones of New
Mexico, Chairman of the Suffrage Committee, to ask him to call a meeting
of the Committee to bring Suffrage to the vote. Senator Jones refused.
He said he would not bring up the Suffrage Amendment at this session in
Congress.
When—still later—that delegation of Southern and Western Democratic
women called on the President, he said to them:
I am, as I think you know, heartily in sympathy with you. I have
endeavored to assist you in every way in my power, and I shall
continue to do so. I shall do all that I can to assist the passage
of the Amendment by an early vote.
This was the final touch.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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