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
Let us by all means deal directly with the people who can give us
what we want. The Democrats have it in their power to enfranchise
women.... This is not only our most logical method of work, but it
is also the most economical and expeditious. Assuming that the
Democrats yield nothing in the present session, we can, when
Congress closes, concentrate our forces on those points where the
Party is weakest, and thus become a force worth bargaining with. At
the present moment, the Senate is the weakest point in the
Democratic armor. To defeat even a few Democratic Senators in
November, 1914, would make a serious breach in the Party
organization.... If, on the other hand, we set out to attack every
anti-Suffragist in Congress, we should have hundreds to defeat, and
every man would be safe in whose constituency we did not organize.
Imagine that, if at the end of arduous labor, we had contrived to
defeat a number of Democratic anti-Suffragists, and an equal number
of Republican anti-Suffragists, we should by immense sacrifice have
completely nullified our own efforts, and left the strength of the
Parties just where it was before....
What should we do in our enfranchised States, if we confined
ourselves to the plan of supporting individual Suffragists and
attacking individual anti-Suffragists, irrespective of their Party
affiliations? All the candidates for office in the enfranchised
States are Suffragists. Is it suggested that we be inactive in the
only places where we possess real political power? Our problem at
the present moment is to use the strength of women’s votes in
national elections so as to force attention to the justice of our
claim from the present administration....
But the Congressional Union cannot make it too clear that we are not
opposed to any Party today. We are asking the Democrats to help us;
we are awaiting their answer. We will frame no policy for or against
them or any other Party until this session closes, and the great
opportunity of the present Administration has come to an end. We
entertain steady and undiminished hopes that the Administration will
recognize the justice and expediency of women’s claims to
self-government. The movement is making immense strides in every
part of the country; our present voting strength is great, and will
undoubtedly be increased in the present year. It takes no great
imaginative reach for the ordinary Congressman to foresee the day
when Woman Suffrage will be an established fact throughout these
United States.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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