The Story of the Woman's PartyGillmore, Inez Haynes
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The Story of the Woman's Party
Gillmore, Inez Haynes
National Woman's Party; Paul, Alice, 1885-1977; Women -- Suffrage -- United States
The women, we found, were very open to reason, and one thing I had
not expected to find was how chivalrous all the men were. I have
never been so overwhelmed with courtesy and chivalry as I was out in
Arizona. Every candidate from every county came into our
Headquarters to shake hands and say what a nice day it was and how
he had always been in favor of Woman Suffrage. Each political Party
in Arizona claims absolute credit for Woman Suffrage out there. To
me, coming from a plain campaign State, New York, it was most
encouraging to find all the men such good Suffragists, and I would
like to turn all anti-Suffragists into a Suffrage State to let them
see how women are treated at election time.
Mrs. Helena Hill Weed said:
I am very glad to be able to report that no Democrat will come to
the United States Senate or House of Representatives from Idaho—and
the Congressional Union had a hand in it.
We do not claim entire responsibility for the large Republican
victory, but we do claim the credit for turning many hundreds of
votes from the Democratic Party. When I reached Idaho I found the
question simmered down to the Senatorial race. The two candidates
were Senator Brady, Republican, and ex-Governor Hawley, who was
running on the Democratic ticket.
I began by sending out copies of all of our literature and the
current number of the _Suffragist_ to every editor, club woman,
minister, or other person of influence. I began with a meeting which
was organized by the working women in the hotel where I was
stopping. I told them of our work and what it meant. Many of the
women had worked in the East and they knew what conditions were
among the laboring women there, and they said they never before
realized that they could do anything to help the women in the East.
About three days after the meeting a woman came into my office and
said, “I want to tell you, Mrs. Weed, that that meeting is going to
bring out at least two hundred Republican votes in my ward which are
never cast, and is going to turn many more.” I positively could not
fill the requests that were made to speak and explain the
Congressional Union policy. Men and women of the labor unions were
much enthused over our work and we won hundreds and hundreds of
votes simply because our policy was non-partisan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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