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
We had many interesting things happen. The second day we were in the
Seventh District we held seven meetings. Six meetings had been
planned, but after we reached Dodge City we found there was a
political meeting in progress out on the prairie and they telephoned
in and asked one of us to come out there and speak to them. If any
of you have ever been to Kansas, you know they have schools
everywhere, though for miles and miles you never see a house and you
wonder where the children come from to go to the schools. At eleven
o’clock at night we arrived at the schoolhouse where the meeting was
held, and found three hundred people waiting to hear a Suffrage
speech. After the meeting the women came up and said, “That is just
what we need. We are glad to help the Eastern women, but we do not
know anything about it. We are so glad you have come to tell us
these things because we did not know them.”
The men in the West feel the same way. When I was waiting for a
freight train about five o’clock in the morning, a man came up and
said, “My wife was at your meeting yesterday afternoon, and I
thought I would tell you that I have voted the Democratic ticket for
forty years, but I have voted it the last time.” That is the spirit
of the men. Because they respect their women out there, they do not
like to feel that the men in the East and the Democratic Party do
not consider the woman movement. People would come in and say,
“Well, you are on the right track now,” and that seems to be the
spirit everywhere in Kansas.
Miss Pincus said:
I am sorry I cannot come to you with the air of a conquering hero,
but I am sure that any person who understands the situation in
Arizona will acknowledge that the purpose of our campaign was
accomplished. Despite the fact that the Democrats were in
control—had all the money in the State and owned nearly all the
newspapers—a Democratic leader came to my office one day and told me
that the Democrats were absolutely sure that the women of Arizona
would defeat Smith. He said the Democratic Party was scared to
death. It was most amusing. Every candidate who was running, even
for State and County offices, felt it necessary to declare that he
had always believed in Woman Suffrage, that his mother had believed
in Woman Suffrage and that his grandmother believed in it. I suppose
you know what action our friends Senator Smith and Congressman
Hayden took. Both of them telegraphed from Washington to the
Democratic State Convention in session at Phœnix and pledged
themselves absolutely to support national Woman Suffrage. Mr. Hayden
stood up on the floor of the House and filled three pages of the
_Congressional Record_ on his attitude on Woman Suffrage and Arizona
was simply flooded with this copy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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