Today in Herstory: Suffragists Vow to Meet with President Wilson

[niyad]

Today in Herstory: Suffragists Vow to Meet with President Wilson



December 5, 1913: “We are going to see President Wilson if it takes all Winter.”
That was the statement given out today by the National American Woman Suffrage Association on the final day of its convention in Washington, D.C. After Ruth Hanna McCormick and Madeline McDowell Breckenridge were unable to arrange a meeting with the President yesterday, due to his alleged “illness,” fifty-five suffragists agreed to stay behind after the convention for the purpose of meeting with Wilson and trying to get him to help push the Susan B. Anthony (nationwide woman suffrage) Amendment through a Congress controlled by his own Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, a split in N.A.W.S.A. seems to have been avoided, or at least temporarily postponed. After a meeting in which the discussion became rather heated at times, N.A.W.S.A. President Reverend Anna Howard Shaw announced that Alice Paul, who now heads the group’s Congressional Committee, and Lucy Burns would “remain members” of the committee.



A number of N.A.W.S.A. officers have expressed growing discomfort over Alice Paul’s simultaneous leadership of both N.A.W.S.A.’s Congressional Committee and Paul’s own more militant Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage. One major issue is the fact that though the two groups are totally separate, the names are similar, so this invites confusion in the public mind. But, “while no committee has been appointed, it is certain that Miss Alice Paul and Miss Lucy Burns will remain on the Congressional Committee,” said Shaw today. Skepticism about whether this will actually happen when the new committee is appointed runs high, however, due to irreconcilable differences between the moderate and the more militant factions of N.A.W.S.A. over authority, strategy, tactics and funds. Conditions for their continued work on the committee may also be attached that Paul and Burns may find unacceptable.

But for today, at least, there were some cheers for Alice Paul when she gave her report about the Congressional Committee’s activities. It began work on January 2nd, with the opening of its headquarters in Washington, D.C., at 1420 “F” Street, N.W. Paul’s first task was to organize a huge suffrage parade and pageant for March 3rd, the day before President Wilson’s inauguration. She succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations, and the bravery of the thousands who marched is now legendary. Despite encountering a rowdy, disruptive mob and having virtually no protection by the D.C. police, the marchers still managed to push on to the end of the route. The committee then went on to do even more public events, the largest of which involved twelve separate automobile “pilgrimages” by suffragists around the nation, all converging on Washington, D.C., then embarking on a procession through the city ending with the presentation of suffrage petitions containing about 200,000 signatures to the Senate on July 31st.
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http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2014/12/05/today-in-herstory-suffragists-vow-to-meet-with-president-wilson/