The Suffragist, vol. 5, no. 55, January 17, 1917, p. 6

Boxes

plished. They are not accomplished by the individual voice but by the concerted action, and that action must come only so fast as you can concert it. I have done my best and shall continue to do my best to concert it in the interest of a cause in which I personally believe."

DEAD silence followed the last words of A the President. It was not an expectant

silence. There was something stricken in it. The bitter disappointment of those hundreds of women was as keenly felt as if it had been shouted. The President paused the fraction of a second, as if waiting for applause or a stir of approval that failed to come. For that brief moment he had the subtly baffled air of a disappointed actor who has failed to “get across,” as he would put it. Then the President turned abruptly on his heel and left the room. The women filed quietly from the place.

Mrs. William Kent, wife of Representative Kent, of California, had invited the deputation to tea in the Congressional Union headquarters, and without breaking up the whole deputation filed back to Cameron House. There was a strange unanimity about their attitude. It was not until the deputation were seated in the great drawing rooms that the bitterness of the disappointment of these women from many states, and representing many political faiths, began to express itself.

RS. HARRIOT STANTON BLATCH M voiced the feeling of the body as a whole when she demanded action on the part of women in these stirring words: “We have got to take a new departure. It rests with women to go on with this fight. We have got to bring to the President individually, day by day, week in and week out, the fact that great numbers of women want to be free!"

N a ringing call for more drastic action, I action that would focus the attention of the nation on the unfavorable attitude of the President, Mrs. Blatch outlined the latest plan of the Congressional Union; to picket the White House every day demanding action of the chief executive.

RESIDENT WILSON displayed to the Con- P gressional Union woman suffrage delegation yesterday that slippery political evasion which has served him many times in the past. With the smoothness of a lecture-hall presentation he differentiated between “my personal action as a citizen" and what “I am doing as a party leader." The use of the word “leader" is a slip. It is mot as a leader that he evades the suffrage amendment issue, for if his personal convictions in favor of equal suffrage are deep and sincere, and if his conception of party leadership is true, it becomes his duty to protect his leader-

“We have gone to Congress, we have gone to the President during the past four years," said Mrs. Blatch, “with great deputations, with small deputations. We have shown the interest all over the country in self-government for women—something that the President as a great Democrat ought to understand and respond to instantly. Yet he tells us today that we must win his party. He said it was strange that we did not see before election that his party was more favorable to us than the Republican party. How did it show its favor? How did he show his favor today to us? He says we have got to convert his party. Why? Never before did the Democratic party lie more in the hands of one man than it lies today in the hands of President Wilson. Never did the Democratic party have a greater leader, and never was it more susceptible to the wish of that leader, than is the Democratic party of today to President Wilson. He controls his party, and I don't think he is too modest to know it. He can mold it as he wishes and he has molded it. He molded it quickly before election in the matter of the cight-hour law. Was that in his party platform? He had to crush and force his party to pass that measure. Yet he is not willing to lay a finger's weight on his party today for half the people of the United States.

“We have approached him with delegations. We have approached him with great processions. Women with full and beating hearts have individually gone to him—Republican women, Progressive women, Democratic women, to plead with him to do this thing; to do it in the name of justice and righteousness; to do it as a great Democrat. Yet today he tells us that we must wait more—and more.

“We can't organize bigger and more influential deputations. We can't organize bigger processions. We can't, women, do anything more in that line. We have got to take a new departure. We have got to keep the question before him all the time. We have got to begin and begin immediately. “Women, it rests with us. We have got to bring to the President, individually, day by day, week in and week out, the idea that great numbers of women want to be free, will be free, and want to know what he is going to do about it.

“Won't you come and join us in standing day after day at the gates of the White

Press Comment on the Deputation

ship—to lead his party into effective championship of a principle, which to him is important and honest. The suffragists have again forced national attention upon this issue. They will be criticised and in some measure condemned for undignified behavior towards the President. But they have reacted squarely to the situation created by the President's shiftiness on this issue, and have brought that issue into the minds of every newspaper reader in the country today.—Boston Record, January 10.

House with banners asking, What will you do, Mr. President, for one half of the people of this nmation? Stand there as sentinels—sentinels of liberty, sentinels of self-government— silent sentinels. Let us stand beside the gateway where he must pass us in and out, so that he can never fail to realize that there is a tremendous earnestness and insistence back of this measure. Will you not show your allegiance today to this ideal of liberty? Will you not be a silent sentinel of liberty and self-government?"

ARA BARD FIELD in her spirited ap- S peal to the members of the delegation brought out the fact that the President had actually advanced in regard to his attitude on the political liberty of women, and advanced in spite of himself. He had intended, she pointed out, to deliver a rebuff. But in mentioning the antagonistic attitude of suffragists in the last campaign, he had really for the first time in his career recognized women as political factors—as his political opponents. He showed in short that the campaign of the Woman's Party had hurt. “This," declared Mrs. Field, “is a great advance for the suffragists of this mation. A President has recognized us politically."

“We must now do," said Mrs. Field, “what the women of England did when they picketed parliament, calling silently for political recognition, what the women of Holland in their picket of parliament have been doing for the last two months—stand in hundreds outside the gates to let all men see that the women of this nation are demanding liberty. We will picket the President himself because we know that he can force legislation."

The response to the appeal of Mrs. Field was the raising of more than $3,000 within fifteen minutes by the members of the delegation that had been rebuffed by the President. In no way could they have shown more conclusively that the fight for the passage of the federal suffrage amendment was to go on with renewed vigor. Dozens of volunteers immediately asked for places on the picket line. Among the contributors were: Miss Mary Burnham, of Philadelphia, $1,100; Mrs. William Kent, of California, $1,200; Mrs. Sophie G. Meredith, $375; Miss Ella Riegel, of Philadelphia, $100; Delaware Branch of the Congressional Union, $100; and Maryland Branch of the Congressional Union, $100.

S the leader of a party my commands come A from the party and not from private personal convictions," said President Wilson to a suffragist delegation Tuesday. It would be interesting to have Mr. Wilson mame a few of the party commands he has heeded in the last four years, and also specify some of his private personal convictions that have been sacrificed in deference to his party's wishes.—New Springfield Union, January 11.