Author: David Dismore

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

Sixteen of the suffragists imprisoned in Occoquan Workhouse are continuing the hunger strike they began upon arrival on the evening of the 14th.

But their condition has now become so serious that according to Mary Short, who was just released today, Superintendent Whittaker has asked for permission to grant their demand to be treated as “political prisoners.” If true, this would be quite a change from Whittaker’s original view that they could “commit suicide” if they wanted to, and that he would not force-feed them to keep them alive, or give them “political prisoner” status.

According to Short, the strikers are all in a quite weakened condition but still able to get around, except for Dora Lewis, who can no longer move unassisted. Lewis was knocked unconscious on the night she arrived after striking her head on an iron bed frame when thrown into her unheated punishment cell by guards. Another suffrage prisoner, Anna Kelton Wiley, who was being held in the District Jail, was released on bond today pending an appeal of her conviction. Alice Paul and Rose Winslow are in the hospital ward of that facility, and being force-fed three times a day, an ordeal that began three days after they began a hunger strike on November 5th.

Meanwhile, the “antis” are questioning the patriotism of suffragists and linking the suffrage movement with pacifism and socialism. Yesterday, Alice Hay Wadsworth, wife of New York’s senior Senator, and president of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage said in an appeal sent out nationwide:

The New York suffrage victory may prove a means of arousing the people of America to the peril of woman suffrage. An analysis of the New York vote shows that suffrage was carried there by pro-Germans and pacifists. The inclosed statement proves this clearly. Therefore, suffrage in New York has raised a greater issue than ever before.

It has helped suffragists in their efforts to force the Federal amendment. The next step after the Federal amendment would be the demand for a referendum – to men and women voters – on this war! Nothing could so divide our country or help the Kaiser. With Russia and Italy defeated by internal discord and socialism, every patriotic American must be brought to realize that doubling the electorate at this time might lead to defeat in this war. We must arouse every real American man and woman to this menace of the triple alliance – socialism, suffragism, pacifism. Will you add the weight of your influence to carry these facts to the people of your State? ALICE HAY WADSWORTH.

Today, suffragists expressed indignation at Wadsworth’s charge. “Does she think President Wilson is pro-German?” Gertrude Foster Brown asked. “Does she think Theodore Roosevelt and Secretary McAdoo are pro-German? Does she not realize that President Wilson asked the men of New York to vote for suffrage as part of the battle for democracy and that it was in that spirit they responded?”

“It is an insult to loyal women who have done massive war work to intimate that the suffragists constitute a pro-German body or that we suffrage adherents do,” she went on to say.

Brown then turned the tables and wondered how Wadsworth’s statement might be viewed in the foreign press. “Does she think the reckless imputation of divided loyalty in New York State is helpful to this country in time of war? Is her patriotism so poor she is willing to befoul her own nest in this reckless and irresponsible manner?”

The battle for suffrage continues on many fronts, and tomorrow the New York State Woman Suffrage Party opens its convention. Coming just two weeks after New York women won the vote on November 6th, optimism is high about winning suffrage nationwide, so the goal of delegates gathering for the convention at New York City’s Ritz-Carlton is “Votes for All in Two Years.”

Cartoon: The cover of a recent issue of the National Woman’s Party’s official publication, “The Suffragist.” The drawing is by Nina Allender, and it shows suffrage prisoners asking: “Mr. President, What will you DO for WOMAN SUFFRAGE?” The caption at the bottom is: “President Wilson Says, ‘Godspeed to the Cause.’ ” The National Woman’s Party sees President Wilson’s endorsement of suffrage on a State-by-State basis, but his unwillingness to endorse or lobby Congress for the only realistic means of achieving it nationwide – the Susan B. Anthony Amendment – as insufficient. Many suffragists are now serving time in jail for displaying banners along the White House fence highlighting the hypocrisy of Wilson’s vigorously working to bring democracy to every other country, but not doing what’s needed to bring it to the female half of his own nation.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

Hunger strike!

The policy of total resistance to the authorities at Occoquan Workhouse by “Silent Sentinel” suffragists until they are granted “political prisoner” status has now expanded to rejecting all food, according to a bulletin from the National Woman’s Party.

Other news about the suffrage prisoners was learned from Catherine Morey. She went to the Workhouse earlier today in an attempt to see her mother, Agnes. Though all the suffrage prisoners are being denied contact with anyone on the outside, Morey did get some information about them from Assistant Warden Hall. He told her that the women were still refusing to give their names or any other personal information, and won’t change into prison clothes. Hall also confirmed that the suffrage pickets are now following the example of Alice Paul and Rose Winslow, currently being held in the District Jail, and will not take food voluntarily. According to the same source, the prisoners are still in the same unheated “punishment cells” they were brutally thrown into last night, are using flat mats for beds, and have no bedding.

The power of a hunger strike was demonstrated this morning when “Silent Sentinels” Gertrude Crocker and Gladys Greiner were freed from the District Jail seventy-seven hours after refusing all nourishment. They had been sentenced to 30 days on October 22nd. Paul and Winslow, the most prominent suffrage prisoners there, continue to refuse food, and are being force-fed three times a day. They show absolutely no signs of being ready to give up their hunger strike, and prison officials appear equally unwilling to compromise on any of the suffragists’ demands for fair treatment and better conditions, so this may be a very long standoff.

Alice Paul was arrested on October 20th, and on October 22nd began serving sentences totaling seven months (six months on one false charge of “blocking traffic” on the sidewalk while picketing along the White House fence, and 30 days for another such offense.) She stopped eating on November 5th, and the force-feedings began seventy-eight hours later on the 8th.

Rose Winslow was arrested on October 15th, and the next day was sentenced to six months by Police Court Judge Mullowney. On October 22nd, she and three other prisoners were given an additional 30 days by Mulllowney for a previous offense. At the time of their trial on that charge he had suspended their sentences, hoping that the threat of jail might keep them from picketing again. It didn’t, so on the 22nd, he decided to impose the 30 days for that earlier conviction. Winslow has been in prison since October 16th, and began her hunger strike at the same time as Alice Paul.

Some of the suffragists being held in Occoquan are shown in this photo taken three days ago. On November 12th, the same day they tried to stage another round of picketing along the White House fence, the National Woman’s Party held a press conference. Those who had been in jail previously, and were willing to face imprisonment again, put on replicas of their prison uniforms and explained to reporters why they must take the actions they do.

Front row, from left : Julia Hurlbut, the National Woman’s Party’s second-in-command in New Jersey; Nina Samrodin, union organizer, and Elizabeth Stuyvesant, birth-control advocate.

Middle row, from left: Eunice Dana Brannan, head of the N.W.P.’s New York branch, daughter of the late Charles Anderson Dana, who was editor and part-owner of the “New York Sun,” and wife of J.W. Brannan, head of Bellevue Hospital; Elizabeth Selden Rogers, a descendant of Roger Sherman, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and one of N.W.P.’s best speakers; Dora Lewis, from an influential Philadelphia family, and among the early activists who created what became the National Woman’s Party; Alison Turnbull Hopkins, head of the N.W.P.’s New Jersey branch, and married to J.A.H. Hopkins, a leader of the Progressive (“Bull Moose”) Party. 

In the back row is Virginia Bovee, who was fired from the Workhouse in September after verifying the abuse and unsanitary conditions in the jail that the ex-prisoners had exposed to the public. Brannan, Rogers and Lewis are currently in Occoquan.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

It’s not easy to shock the suffragists who have been picketing President Wilson over his refusal to support or work for the Susan B. Anthony (nationwide woman suffrage) Amendment, but today they were truly caught by surprise.

The “Silent Sentinels” have been standing along the White House fence each day since January 10th displaying their large, colorful banners. In addition to all the extremes of weather they’ve endured, they’ve been subjected to jeers and attacks by hostile crowds, followed by arrests beginning on June 22nd with increasingly long prison terms imposed on the protesters since June 27th. Alice Paul is currently serving sentences totaling seven months, and is being force-fed three times a day while being held in the psychopathic ward of the District Jail for being the “ringleader” of the pickets.

But today, Judge Mullowney of the D.C. Police Court did something absolutely no one expected. After all 41 of those arrested day before yesterday made their statements in his courtroom, they were given suspended sentences and permitted to go free. Whether this is a sign that the Government has decided to give up trying to persecute women for exercising their Constitutional right to peacefully protest, or is simply making it look as if leniency was shown before extreme sentences are imposed if the protests continue is being debated tonight. But the uncertainty won’t last long, because 31 of the banner-bearing protesters went right back to the White House fence, were once again arrested, and will be back in court soon.

At their trials today, the defendants told the judge – and the many reporters present – why they protest, and that they do so in what they believe is a totally legal manner. According to Anna Kelton Wiley:

I want to state that we took this action with great consecration of spirit. We took this action with willingness to sacrifice our personal liberty, in order to focus the attention of the nation on the injustice of our disenfranchisement, that we might thereby win political liberty for all women in this country. The Constitution says Congress shall not in any way abridge the right of citizens peacefully to assemble and petition. That is exactly what we did. We peacefully assembled, and then proceeded with our petition to the President for the redress of our grievance of disenfranchisement. The Constitution does not specify the form of petition. Ours was in the form of a banner. To say that we ‘broke the traffic regulations’ when we exercised our constitutional right of petition is therefore unconstitutional.

Elizabeth Kent added, “My conscience is clear. I walked on Saturday afternoon from Cameron House to the further gate of the White House. I obstructed no traffic. I was moving. At the further gate there was no crowd. I held a banner which all might read. The Administration should commend, instead of allowing a prison sentence to be imposed upon, women who hold aloft words which show the utmost devotion to the ideals of political liberty on which the Government is founded.”

Eunice Dana Brannan emphasized the need for a Federal suffrage amendment and reaffirmed the reason why the National Woman’s Party is picketing President Wilson at the White House. “As a newly enfranchised New York woman,” she said, “I realize more acutely than ever the limitations of the State referendum method, the fact that we are prisoners in our own State so far as our franchise is concerned. So long as the President refuses to endorse the Federal amendment he proves to his own country and to the whole world that he is an advocate of the unjust discrimination against American women – that he preaches democracy in words but not in democratic deeds.”

The tactics of the pickets are controversial, provoking both strong support and vehement opposition even among their fellow suffragists. A delegation of 40 women voters from New York – enfranchised just six days ago by a State referendum – went to the White House today in support of the protesters. Two were admitted and allowed to leave a petition asking for the release of the suffrage prisoners, and for President Wilson to recommend to Congress that it approve the Anthony Amendment so that it can be sent to the States for ratification.

But Carrie Chapman Catt, President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, spoke for more conservative suffragists and said today:

The pickets make the psychological mistake of injecting into this stage of the suffrage campaign tactics which are out of accord with it. Every reform, every change of idea in the world passes through three stages – agitation, argument and surrender. We have passed through the first two stages and entered into the third. The mistake of the pickets is that they have no comprehensive idea of the movement and are trying to work this first stage in the third. We stand on the threshold of final victory, and the only contribution these women make to it is to confuse the public mind.

However, according to Dora Hazard, who heads the Syracuse, New York, branch of the National Woman’s Party, many members of the public in her area who disapprove of picketing our wartime President are far more offended by the lengthy sentences and harsh prison treatments imposed on the protesters. Since the National Woman’s Party’s campaign seems to be succeeding in keeping the issue of suffrage before the public and generating sympathy for those who take part in the protests – and therefore for the cause itself – the “Silent Sentinels” will continue their militant tactics.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

Where did the 41 suffragists arrested yesterday while trying to picket along the White House fence spend part of what may be their last day of freedom before their trials tomorrow? Inside the walls of the District of Columbia Jail.

Why? So they could express their support for the suffrage prisoners already there, especially Alice Paul, being held in the jail’s psychopathic ward, and force-fed three times a day for being the “ringleader” of the “Silent Sentinel” White House pickets.

The assembly was not, of course, approved by the warden, but it went forward anyway. Anna Kelton Wiley, Elizabeth Kent and Lucy Burns led their fellow visitors double-file to the warden’s office where they demanded to talk to him. The warden’s wife came to the door and said they couldn’t see him because “the poor man is prostrated,” presumably due to the barrage of telephone calls from the public objecting to the extreme punishments being given to peaceful “Silent Sentinel” suffrage pickets.

The delegation decided they weren’t going to leave without accomplishing their mission, so they fanned out and began looking for Alice Paul, Rose Winslow, and other suffrage prisoners. Soon, someone called out: “There’s Miss Paul … There she is!” A few surprised guards were no match for the determination of the women, so some of Paul’s most ardent supporters rushed by and clustered below her window to salute her. “West Virginia greets you!” “Oklahoma is with you!” “New York salutes you!” were among the first words that rang out.

Despite force-feedings, and sleepless nights listening to the shrieks of patients in the psychopathic ward, Alice Paul seemed as spirited as ever. “Many of you will probably be here tomorrow,” she told supporters. “I want to say to you now that you will find the conditions intolerable. You must make it clear from the first that you are political offenders and demand that you be treated as such. Your number will make it impossible for them to do anything but grant your demands.”

When asked how she was doing, Paul replied, “Oh, I’m all right. I am being forcibly fed three times a day. It is worse than in England. There they feed you only twice. I am able to prevent them from giving me half of what they bring, but I have not the strength to prevent them from forcing me to take some.” She was told to “hold on,” and she assured those below, “Oh, I will.” Then she reiterated, “I want you all to demand that you be treated as political prisoners. That’s what you must do.” They assured her they would.

The guards regrouped, and began pushing the women away from Paul’s window and toward the prison gate. As they passed Rose Winslow’s window they called out to her as well. Winslow told them: “I am resisting their feeding all I can, but I am too weak to put up much resistance. My stomach is resisting, though.”

Officials at National Woman’s Party headquarters are telling of notes that Winslow has smuggled out of jail, calling prison conditions “frightful” and speaking of the torture of force-feeding, in which she and Alice Paul are held down while a rubber tube is forced into their throat and liquid poured in through a funnel. According to Winslow’s note:

Alice Paul dreads forcible feeding. I hate to think how she must be feeling. I had a nervous time of it, gasping a long time afterward and stomach rejecting during the process. Spent a bad, restless night, but otherwise all right …. We are denied food from outside, visitors, clothes, books, many things, so please make that clear. All of the prisoners have made most of the demands we are making, as you know.

In a note to Lucy Burns, Winslow says: “The feeding gives me a severe headache. My throat aches afterward, and I always weep and sob, to my great disgust, because I try to be less feeble. It is horrible. I’m very much interested in seeing how long our so-called splendid American men will stand for this form of discipline.”

The injustice of Alice Paul’s being held in the psychopathic ward became even more outrageous yesterday when it was reported by Lavinia Dock that even Warden Zinkham doesn’t think she belongs there. He reportedly told Dock that “I have never met a more brilliant mind” and that “I shall be a subject for the psychopathic ward myself if there is not a let-up in the flood of protests I am receiving.”

If protests are having such a powerful effect, they need to be kept up, and even increased. The National Woman’s Party is doing everything it can to make sure no one forgets the ordeals being undergone by the prisoners.

Protest meetings against the ridiculously long sentences given peaceful picketers for trivial – even false – offenses, such as allegedly “blocking traffic” on the wide Pennsylvania Avenue sidewalk, are being held all over the country by those who believe that public pressure can put an end to these outrages. A flyer for a meeting in New York City tonight – in a State where women won the vote five days ago – is shown here. Attend if you can, and then go to Washington to demand the release of the suffrage prisoners, and fair treatment for all those who want to exercise their Constitutional right to peacefully protest being denied the most basic right of a citizen in a democracy – the right to have an equal voice in selecting those who pass the laws they are equally compelled to obey.

Founding Feminists is the FMF’s daily herstory column.

The festive atmosphere which prevailed at suffrage offices last night continued this morning amid a run on “I Am A Voter” buttons by the newly enfranchised women of New York State at the headquarters of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The joy remained undiminished late tonight at the largest – and possibly loudest – meeting ever held in Cooper Union.

But even with all of today’s celebrations, there was still time to sift through the returns from yesterday’s suffrage referendum, as well as make serious plans for the next step in the battle. The unprecedented organizing efforts in New York City paid off well. Two years ago, the city voted against suffrage by an 82,755 vote margin, which would have sunk the 1915 campaign even if up-State voters hadn’t rejected the referendum by an even greater margin of 112,229 votes. But this year, the suffrage referendum appears to have broken about even in the rest of the State, while getting what looks like a 100,000 vote boost from New York City. This landslide endorsement of “Votes for Women” leaves no doubt about the outcome, even though a few results from rural areas are not in yet.

The Empire State’s victorious suffragists lost no time in gearing up for the next step of winning the vote nationwide. Both Mary Garrett Hay, head of the New York City branch of the Woman Suffrage Party, and the Executive Board of the New York State Woman Suffrage Party sent telegrams to President Wilson this morning thanking him for his support. Carrie Chapman Catt, head of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, her immediate predecessor, have been invited by the President to bring a delegation of suffragists to the White House later this week for a meeting. Catt and Shaw are expected to use their audience with the President to try to convince him to support nationwide woman suffrage via the Susan B. Anthony Amendment in addition to his already expressed support for winning suffrage on a State-by-State basis.

Former President Theodore Roosevelt expressed his happiness today at the result of yesterday’s election. According to Col. Roosevelt: “The women deserved it, they were entitled to it, and I am glad the voters saw it as they should. The vote for suffrage has grown wonderfully, and the vote of yesterday is an honor to every man who marked his ballot for women.” Apparently he did some local lobbying, because the measure passed 242 to 70 at his polling place in Oyster Bay.

Every major suffrage leader who took part in the campaign was at the Cooper Union victory jubilee tonight, but since the applause and cheering was virtually constant and unrestrained, it was often hard to hear the declarations of victory that everyone has waited for since the end of the first campaign in 1915. Carrie Chapman Catt got the first deafening ovation when she opened the meeting by addressing the predominantly female crowd as “My fellow citizens …” She then noted the historic significance of the ballot, and why November 6th will long be remembered as a red-letter day for women:

Mayors may come and Mayors may go. A hundred years from now the deeds of the present-day Mayors will have been forgotten. But the children of the centuries to come will learn that on November 6, 1917, a great step for human freedom was accomplished in the State of New York. I want to give our heartfelt thanks to the men who voted for suffrage; and to those who voted ‘No’ I want to say that we won fairly and squarely. Be good sports now and accept us into the fraternity of democracy.

Between Catt’s greeting and the singing of the “Star Spangled Banner” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic” which closed the program, there were other words of victory, but always mixed with re-dedication to the hard work that still remains.

Vera Boarman Whitehouse, head of the New York State Woman Suffrage Party was one of the many who said she had no intention of taking any time off: “People say to me, ‘Well now, I suppose you’re going to take a rest.’ But we shall never rest till every woman in the whole United States is enfranchised.” Reflecting on the unsuccessful campaigns in the Fall of 1915, and alluding to suffragists now turning their attention to a Federal amendment, she said: “We’re going to save Pennsylvania the trouble of another State campaign, and we’re going to save Massachusetts …. and New Jersey …” (At this point a member of the audience from the Buckeye State shouted, “Save Ohio, too, while you’re at it,” causing great laughter and applause.)

A resolution was adopted by those at the assembly to “renew our appeal to Congress to submit the Federal woman suffrage amendment to the legislatures of the several States in order that the suffrage campaign, stretching over a period of more than half a century, may be brought to a speedy close, thereby releasing the energies of the women of the nation from the struggle for political justice, so that with singleness of purpose we may work for worldwide democracy.”

Another resolution called for Rev. Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt “to carry to the President of the United States expressions of our gratitude for his assistance in the New York State woman suffrage campaign, and to urge him to extend further aid to our cause by recommending in his annual message that the Federal amendment be submitted to the States.” A final resolution expressed thanks to the press for its “valuable service” and hoped that it would give equally positive coverage to the campaign for nationwide suffrage.

Tonight’s final speaker was Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, who expressed the kind of unbounded optimism that is now becoming widespread in the aftermath of this landmark victory. She noted that back in 1906, when suffragists hadn’t won a victory in a decade, and only four States permitted women to vote, Susan B. Anthony, in her final days, predicted that the battle would be fully won by 1920. “That year will be the hundredth anniversary of Susan B. Anthony’s birth, and I hope we shall celebrate it by completing the triumph of democracy,” said Dr. Shaw. With the kind of enthusiasm shown tonight, and the sort of political expertise demonstrated in the recent campaign, that goal no longer seems an unrealistic one.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

Victory! The biggest prize of all.

New York is now an equal suffrage state, and tonight the campaign’s leaders are already enthusiastically planning how to use their new power to push for winning woman suffrage nationwide through the Susan B. Anthony Amendment.

Things began to go well right from the start when, as expected, suffrage workers took up their assigned posts as poll-watchers, covering every voting location in the city, while others stood 100 feet from the polls, giving out sample ballots and answering questions. Still more volunteers knocked on doors to be sure that all those who had said they were pro-suffrage would vote today, with rides available if needed. As the day progressed, reports came in that a number of local politicians who had been strong opponents of suffrage said that they voted for it this time, or had at least dropped their opposition, so optimism grew.

The offices of the suffrage organizations were beehives of activity all day, as leaders took in every tidbit of information – and rumor – trying to get some idea of how things were going, and making sure that any problems that came up at polling places were quickly fixed. But finally the last vote was cast, and for the first time since a similar election night two years and four days ago, there was nothing for anyone to do but wait.

Fortunately, the suspense didn’t last long. Though in the old days it was necessary to wait for an election “extra” to hit the streets, citizens in these modern times get the results much faster. For instance, in many of the vaudeville houses, theaters and restaurants, stereopticons projected slides with the latest results written on them onto walls, so patrons could read them.

Ironically, it was a vehemently anti-suffrage newspaper which broke the news that delighted suffrage forces. The New York Times uses a searchlight, plus similar lights of different colors, with each color symbolizing a particular contest, to give updates to the huge crowds that gather on election nights. When the big white searchlight was pointed West then moved up and down it meant they had projected that suffrage would win. Immediately, a woman began making her way through the crowd, and when she got to suffrage headquarters exclaimed: “The New York Times signals that suffrage has won!”

After what were probably the first three cheers for the “Times” ever given at any suffrage headquarters, Carrie Chapman Catt, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, Mary Garrett Hay, and other suffrage leaders got similar ovations and the party began in earnest. Things got even cheerier when word came that Associated Press had projected victory by at least 40,000 votes. At this point Dr. Shaw took out a brooch with a gold suffrage flag and some tiny diamonds, and pinned it on. It was originally given to Susan B. Anthony on her 80th birthday, and then had only 4 diamonds in it representing the 4 States where women could vote in 1900. Now it has eleven, and one more for New York will be added soon. Dr. Shaw then said:

Since December I have not slept nine nights in my own home, but I have said to myself, ‘If New York will only vote for suffrage I will be willing never to sleep there as long as I live.’ New York has gone ‘over the top’ today for the whole world by this great suffrage victory. The New York election will have a decided influence upon the British Parliament in granting the extension of suffrage to the women of Great Britain. It will also have an influence with the French Parliament.

Mary Garrett Hay, head of the New York City branch of the New York State Woman Suffrage Party, which hosted the gathering, was asked if this office would be closed now that suffrage was won in New York. “No, indeed,” she said emphatically. “We have leased our headquarters for another year and we shall go on with our work. Now we have to educate women for the full rights of citizenship. We are going to start tomorrow night with a meeting at Cooper Union to work for the Federal amendment. Our work has only begun.” She later went into more detail about the new campaign:

Another battle has been won in the great war for political equality. The men of New York City and State have proved themselves to be as broad-minded, and as just, as loyal to the principles of democracy as I have always thought they were. Although we have won the battle we must keep marching along the suffrage road, keeping our organization in good working order, so that we can fight for the Federal amendment. We have always championed it, but because of our too-strenuous campaign we have not been very active in its support. Now all our forces will be allied with the National American Woman Suffrage Association to win the Federal amendment, and then to see that our New York Legislature ratifies it, and we shall use our great organization also to further civic work in the City of New York.

The winning of New York – the first State East of the Mississippi where women have full suffrage – is not just of symbolic importance. It has the largest Congressional delegation of any State, and having all its members dependent upon women’s votes for their re-election should help with getting the Anthony Amendment through Congress and sent to the States for ratification. New York’s 43 Electoral Votes can now be added to the 172 in States where women already have full suffrage – or partial suffrage and the right to vote for President – so women’s votes will now always be crucial to anyone running for the White House. And no State without woman suffrage has as many voters to convince as there were in New York, so if it can be won here, it can be won anywhere.

The Great War for democracy is being fiercely fought worldwide, but tonight a major advance for that cause was achieved using only peaceful methods, and the suffrage army’s advance now seems unstoppable.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

It’s nearly all over but the voting!

Tonight, the final suffrage meetings and rallies are still going on, and leaders are making sure that their armies of volunteers who have been working almost non-stop through two successive campaigns are ready to shift gears overnight and work just as hard to assure a fair election, and also make sure that every man who wants to vote for woman suffrage in New York State gets to the polls tomorrow.

The battle in the newspapers continues unabated, with paid advertisements by both sides, and free editorials by the papers themselves. The New York State Woman Suffrage Party has an ad in many papers today entitled: “To Win The War!” It notes that the Empire State is:

 … the largest, richest State, nearest and most vulnerable and desirable a prize for an invading enemy. Yet half the force of the State has been fighting with hands bound. The men and women who ask you to vote for Woman Suffrage are not suggesting it as a pretty compliment to womanhood. They ask it as a vital, sound, tremendous step in putting every ounce of power that can be marshaled behind our country in its time of need.

President Wilson’s words of last week: “This is the time to vote for Woman Suffrage” were also featured in the Woman Suffrage Party’s ad. It concluded by saying: “Your country needs not half but all her power! Without the vote, the women of New York cannot give their whole great fund of strength. Release the added power that has been held in check! To win the war, vote ‘Yes’ Tuesday!”

Carrie Chapman Catt, head of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, has taken a similar stance. She recently attacked the anti-suffragists for their failure to support our wartime President in his call for equal suffrage, which he supports on a State-by-State basis: “Is this the loyalty of which the ‘antis’ prate so much? Is this to hold up the hands of the President in the hour of his greatest need of a country united under his leadership?” She reminds voters that: “To vote ‘yes’ is to uphold the hands of the nation’s leader, who puts woman suffrage in the front rank as part of that democracy the world is fighting for.”

Though the New York Times continues its 65-year tradition of anti-suffrage editorials, other papers are quite supportive. The Middletown Daily Press was just one of many New York State papers that had praise for the suffrage effort, as it declared today:

The suffragists have made a splendid campaign. They have lined up on their side all the leaders of thought and all the better element in politics in the State. If these forces are not sufficient to carry the day then one is moved to pity for the greatest State in the Union that, in this enlightened age, with such a furor about democracy and the entire world at war for it, it can still register its stand-pat-ism and Tory-ism by turning down a proposition that will do more toward advancing real democracy than anything that has happened in years.

Suffrage leaders from Syracuse to Manhattan are expressing no fears of defeat tonight, and expect just the reverse of two years ago, when New York City gave an 82,755 vote advantage to the “antis.” This year there was an unprecedented house-to-house campaign, and major unions worked zealously for suffrage. A number of women closely connected to Tammany Hall’s most powerful politicians were recruited into the New York City branch of the Woman Suffrage Party by Mary Garrett Hay, so the State’s biggest city is expected to provide a huge boost for suffrage tomorrow, instead of an insurmountable lead for the “antis.”

Even at this late hour tonight, the rallies still go on in large cities and small, with the same intensity as if suffrage was trailing badly, because no one can say with absolute certainty that it isn’t. Vira Boarman Whitehouse will be at her desk at the New York State Woman Suffrage Party’s headquarters tomorrow morning at 5:00, with leaders of all other suffrage organizations at their posts soon afterward, supervising the over 6,300 women who will either be poll-watchers inside the voting places or campaigning 100 feet outside them, or transporting voters there because turnout is critical. As the polls begin to close, there will be huge gatherings at each organization’s headquarters as the results come in, followed by a two-years-overdue celebration of victory – or the launching of the third New York State suffrage campaign.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

The New York State suffrage campaign is coming to an enthusiastic and optimistic finish with just two more days remaining until the vote.

In a statement issued today, Carrie Chapman Catt said, “In the name of the 2,000,000 women who comprise the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and who are straining their eyes toward the great promise of victory in New York State on Tuesday, I ask you for woman suffrage.” Referring to a giant petition containing 1,035,000 names, she went on to say:

Remember that more than 1,000,000 of your mothers, wives, sisters, and sweethearts want you to vote for it, and have said so over their signatures. Remember that our country is fighting for democracy, ‘for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government.’ Vote for woman suffrage, because it is part of the great struggle toward democracy. Vote for it as an earnest of our country’s sincerity, when it says that it fights for democracy.

A seasoned veteran of suffrage campaigns in New York and three other States in 1915, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise is still as dedicated as he is eloquent. Speaking in Carnegie Hall to the Free Synagogue today, he addressed and demolished every anti-suffrage argument one by one, and said that now is the time “to right a great moral wrong.” He expressed no sympathy for male anti-suffragists:

If we continue to disenfranchise the women, it will be because of the meanness and want of elementary generosity of the men. The men who vote against suffrage are cowards. They are guilty of cowardice, because they know that whether the women get the vote or not, these women will continue to do their duty by their families and by their country. So far as the men are concerned, they lose nothing by depriving the women of the vote. But democracy loses, and will continue to lose, as long as men continue to perpetuate this injustice.

Rabbi Wise also noted:

The argument that equal suffrage will weaken the strength of our Government is an argument against democracy, and an argument for just that kind of Prussianism which we are now fighting against. Before we can make the world safe for democracy we must de-Prussianize our own country by admitting the women to the franchise to which they are entitled.

To the argument that women in suffrage States have not yet succeeded in curing all political ills, he reminded those present that “not more than 30 per cent of the women are voting today, and yet they are expected to improve government. If woman suffrage has not purified politics already, it is because men have made politics so unclean, so filthy, that it will take 100 years of deodorizing cleanser in the hands of the women of America to make politics clean.”

Meanwhile, the Woman Suffrage Party gave out a letter today that shows great support for woman suffrage among our soldiers, contrary to the claims of Everett Wheeler and other anti-suffragists. It began:

Company ‘K’ of the Seventy-first New York Infantry wishes to go on record to say that its every member is in favor of woman suffrage. And allow us to tell you swivel chair polishers of the Man Suffrage Association that the real red blood of this country, the men who are today in khaki, are better able to judge whether or not the women of this country shall share the privilege of the franchise. We, who have sacrificed our positions, in order to better serve our country and have offered our lives that the same country might be safe and that democracy shall be made safe for the world, have seen, realize, and appreciate what the women of this country have been willing to do for us.

Through their powerful influence, laws for our betterment have been enacted. And, by the same token, we, the men of the United States Army, look forward to that same potent influence to cause proper protection for the wives and children that we are about to leave behind. We look forward to these future female legislators to properly enact laws so that our progeny may be educated and raised in a manner that shall be a monument to the sacrifice we are today making.

Vira Boarman Whitehouse, head of the New York State Woman Suffrage Party, is expressing confidence as well: “We have made a careful canvass of the State and we find that the sentiment is strongly in favor of the proposed suffrage amendment.” Recalling the election of 1915, and equally optimistic predictions by suffrage leaders before a similar measure was rejected by New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, she said, “We realize, of course, that many of the voters may express themselves on one side of the question and vote on the other, but in several cities men of affairs have altered their opinion since the last election. Mayor Stevens of Albany is one of these, and mayors of six other cities up-State have similarly expressed themselves.”

Though the outcome won’t be known for at least 48 hours, the kind of unprecedented organizing that’s gone on, and the high degree of support for suffrage that’s being expressed by prominent individuals, as well as by average voters in straw polls, has made for a good deal of justifiable optimism. But no one in any suffrage headquarters has forgotten what happened two years ago, or seems overconfident enough to ease up in their efforts until after the last polling place closes day after tomorrow.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

Election Day is tomorrow, so this final day of the New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts suffrage campaigns has been a hectic one.

In fact, for two volunteers at the Manhattan headquarters of the Women’s Political Union it’s unending, because Elizabeth Collins and Marian Tompkins are still there even at this late hour. They will be sleeping on cots until 3:45 in the morning, when they’ll begin to call poll-watchers, as well as other volunteers who will be stationed 100 feet from polling places with literature, and answers to any questions undecided voters may ask about suffrage.

Though some suffragists went to bed at a reasonable hour tonight for the first time in weeks in order to be rested for tomorrow’s work, others are still up and giving speeches. Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, whose dedication to the cause seems inexhaustible, was last seen at a Madison Square rally at 6:00 this evening exhorting a crowd of men to vote for suffrage. Another meeting arranged by Rose Sanderman didn’t even begin until 8:00 and is still going strong with no sign of breaking up anytime soon.

Members of the Men’s League for Woman Suffrage were active in both the East and West Sides late into the evening. The day’s major speechmaking effort began this morning when 200 automobiles carrying speakers, banners and literature met at the Battery, then went out to hold 500 separate suffrage rallies, visiting every district in Manhattan and the Bronx. Another smaller group, which used a wagon and goat cart to carry their literature, accompanied a separate group of automobiles. They started from the Bronx at about the same time, and all met together at 4:30 this afternoon.

Instructions to official poll-watchers who will be stationed inside the polling places have now been printed by the Women’s Political Union. Among their rules are: “Don’t bubble with exuberance at the polling places; be merely pleasant. Don’t wear fluffy ruffles. Make yourself small; most polling places are limited in space. Don’t get in the way of legitimate business, but tactfully obstruct illegitimate business.”

The Woman Suffrage Party has told its volunteers, who will stay 100 feet from the polls and therefore be able to continue to lobby for suffrage: “Do not enter into conversation with voters except to show them sample ballots … and to make a pleasant request to vote for the Woman Suffrage Amendment. Do not give to any one any information whatever as to how the election is going – do not discuss your hopes or fears with anyone, even your fellow-worker. Be dignified. Be serious. Do not enter into argument with any one, man or woman.”

Predictions about tomorrow’s outcome vary, though Carrie Chapman Catt’s optimism is always a constant:

I do believe we are going to win. There never was such a suffrage campaign in which things were apparently so favorable as they are here in New York, but at the same time I have never taken part in a campaign in which there has been such great hostility as here in New York. And, also, I have never been in a campaign where there was organized against women a band of influential men and men stooping to use such unscrupulous means of fighting.

She said the New York campaign has cost somewhere between $175,000 and $200,000 but that she expected to win by 50,000 votes.

Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association says, “The politicians, they tell me, have refused to predict. Well, I am not afraid to predict victory. It has been a most remarkable campaign – easily the most remarkable campaign I have even been through, and I have been campaigning for forty years.”

Harriot Stanton Blatch, a daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton – who would have been 100 this month – not only predicted victory, but like Catt, gave specific numbers: “I believe woman suffrage will win by a margin of 10,000. I do not believe that New York City will go for the women, but I think suffrage will lose by only a small majority, and that will be made up by the returns from up-State. (If so, the pattern would be reminiscent of the 1911 California suffrage referendum, when the farmers, ranchers and small town voters overcame the vote deficit run up in San Francisco and other cities in the Bay Area.)

Among the city’s gamblers, odds of four to one against passage are being offered, with even odds in regard to the New York County (Manhattan) vote. But there are few takers, even among the curb brokers on Wall Street who are noted for their election wagers. Tammany Hall politicians re-stated their neutrality, offering as proof the fact that when they sent out sample ballots they made no recommendation on the suffrage amendment. Most of the Tammany leaders are thought to be opposed to suffrage, and several of the city’s prominent politicians have said that they think suffrage will be beaten in New York City by two to one, and go down by 75,000 votes in the County.

But while some of the old, established politicians may not be sympathetic to the cause, suffrage certainly seems to have the support of the young. A straw poll was taken at Columbia University today and the vote was 431 for and 129 against. Ninety-seven of those student votes came from women, and all were in favor. Suffrage should get good press coverage in the future, as Journalism students voted for it by 30 to 4.

Pennsylvania suffragists have been working hard as well, and tonight the Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association made its final appeal in the newspapers:

Men of Philadelphia, your wives, mothers, sisters and daughters ask you to help make Pennsylvania the next State in the nation to give justice to its women. We ask it confidently – we have faith in Pennsylvania manhood.

There are interests opposing us that will not bear the light of day, but we do not fear them. We have faith in you. We believe that when you go to the polls tomorrow you will remember that the sole impulse behind our request for the ballot is the desire to help produce a better civilization of the kind we have today – a civilization in which men and women may work together for the common goal of family, State and nation.

Bearing that fact in mind we believe you will vote ‘Yes’ on Amendment No. 1 so that Pennsylvania may have, in addition to the strength of her manhood, the full service of her womanhood. We believe this because we have absolute faith in your sense of fair play, and in the spirit of faith and comradeship, we rest our case in your hands.

In Massachusetts tonight, eight thousand women are preparing to stand their shifts 100 feet from the polls tomorrow. They will be holding up signs saying: “SHOW YOUR FAITH IN THE WOMEN OF MASSACHUSETTS. VOTE ‘YES’ ON THE AMENDMENT ENABLING WOMEN TO VOTE.” The Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association has summarized its appeal by saying:

We believe the voters will heed this last personal voluntary appeal of the women rather than any appeal of a more political nature. The long campaign of the women of Massachusetts to win citizenship, as the women of 12 great Western States have done, is ended. We have appealed to the intelligence and sense of fair play of the voters. We have paid our campaign bills. We have tried to live up to the highest standards of our Commonwealth, and we await the verdict of the voters of Massachusetts at tomorrow’s election, with the utmost confidence in the result.

(The “12 great Western States” referred to are presumably the 11 equal-suffrage States, plus Illinois, where women can vote for President and local offices, though not yet for Statewide offices.)

Naturally, the “antis” are making their last-minute appeals as well, as in this one from the Fitchburg Branch of the Massachusetts Anti-Suffrage Association to the men of their city:

To the Men of Fitchburg. We appeal to you to vote ‘NO’ on the women’s suffrage amendment. We who are your partners in your home affairs and in widespread charitable work appeal to you not to throw this additional burden upon our shoulders. We do not believe that on the whole we could manage the business of government better than you do and we are sure that what falls to us under the partnership as it exists today could not be as well done. We appeal to you not to burden the majority of women whose lives are now filled in order to satisfy the desires and ambitions of the minority. We ask you to do this work yourselves as well as you can and we have confidence that in the future as in the past the men of Massachusetts will so act as to safeguard and promote the interests of all members of the community, women and children as well as men.

The suffrage struggle has become a test of endurance and resilience. There were defeats in 1912 in Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan, in 1913 in Michigan again, in 1914 in South Dakota, Ohio, North Dakota, Nebraska and Missouri, and just 13 days ago in New Jersey. But no one gave up, so there have been victories as well: Washington State in 1910, California in 1911, Arizona, Oregon and Kansas in 1912, Nevada and Montana in 1914. It’s still debatable whether tomorrow’s result will be a repeat of 1912’s three losses or its three victories, but one thing is for certain. The cause marches on, and now stands three years closer to final victory than it was in 1912 regardless of what happens tomorrow.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

Despite the fact that it was Sunday, this was no day of rest for New York’s suffragists with Election Day coming up on Tuesday.

The offices of the Woman Suffrage Party, Empire State Campaign Committee and Women’s Political Union were open early, and crowded at all times. Even the W.P.U.’s little “Suffrage Shop” somehow managed to host a total of about 1,000 people at various times during the day, while the final poll-watching class was going on back at their headquarters. The “antis” will not have poll-watchers, because they do not believe women are “fitted or qualified” for such work.

At the office of the Woman Suffrage Party there was clearly a good deal of activity going on, but exactly what’s being planned is a secret, with no one willing to discuss this latest project. “Be silent – the enemy listens” was the word here today, and many regular volunteers were nowhere to be seen, but are said to be busily working at some undisclosed location.

Th battle of statistics continues, with Carrie Chapman Catt, head of the Empire State Campaign Committee, defending her claim that 1,000,000 of New York State’s women want suffrage, while Alice Hill Chittenden and Josephine Dodge of the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage say that only 10% of the State’s women want the vote. According to Catt: “We have made no ‘wild guess,’ we have ‘framed up’ no false statement. We canvassed. We found our million women.” Catt’s organization has gone to a great deal of trouble to gather these statistics. Many communities have been canvassed house to house, and they have maintained booths at 98 county fairs, the State Fair, and numerous expositions.

Catt also noted that the “antis” have not changed their 10% estimate in ten years despite the phenomenal growth of suffrage sentiment in that time, as shown by the addition of seven States to the full-suffrage column in just the past five years. Suffrage parades didn’t even exist a decade ago, but the one on October 23rd was conceded by even the most vehemently anti-suffrage newspaper in the city to have been a stunning and massive spectacle. Even that turnout was not a complete reflection of suffrage sentiment because according to Catt: “Thousands of women did not possess the physical strength to stand waiting for hours and then walk two and a half miles. Many were obliged to work Saturday afternoon, and thousands more to remain home with their children.”

Carnegie Hall continues to be a focal point of the campaign, as the anti-suffrage rhetoric of last night was replaced by equally strong, but more eloquent oratory in favor of suffrage this evening. Rabbi Stephen S. Wise said, “The cause of equal suffrage is one additional symbol of the history of a great movement of the awakening, the revolt, the uprising of women against centuries of wrong and injustice, for repression and suppression are wrong and injustice.”

He also spoke to the issue of the current European war, and said that: “I do not say that wars will end when women have the vote, but I will essay the role of the prophet in this one instance and say that there is not going to be an end to war before the women have the vote.”

Rabbi Wise then went on to take his most radical stand yet, supporting a kind of “birth strike” if men continue to deny the ballot to women:

I can conceive that the time will come when women will say: ‘Either give us a share in the Government or else we will no longer be mothers. We will not give life to a child and a child to life; we will not bear sons unless we can assure ourselves that they will be permitted to live… In the face of this great calamity of war, how can men say that government could be made worse by the participation of women?

Enthusiasm for the cause has become so great that the police had to order a suffrage rally to quiet down because the singing of “America” was disturbing a church service being held by anti-suffragist Dr. Charles Parkhurst in the Madison Square Presbyterian Church. Once the service was over, the singing resumed, with a musical program that ran from “My Old Kentucky Home” to “The Star Spangled Banner.”

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, Margaret Foley addressed an audience of 2,000 in Worcester’s Mechanics Hall tonight. She admitted that this was an uphill struggle. She said that political bosses in her own city of Boston were “busy getting men out of jail so they will have their vote,” and U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and other powerful “Old Guard” politicians are working openly with the “antis.” She closed by saying: “We are not asking for any privileges. We are simply asking for justice. No more, no less.” She said that though all wrongs would not be righted if women won the vote, “the men must trust us; with their assistance we will win by the largest majority given woman suffrage by any State in the Union.” In Springfield, Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale addressed an audience of 1,000 on the subject of “Women and Democracy.”

Registration figures in all three States where suffrage referenda are on the ballot are unusually high, so interest in the election is great. That’s as it should be for such a momentous event, because nearly six million new voters could be added to the rolls if all the referenda pass. The number of women over the age of 21 in New York State is estimated at 2,757,521; in Pennsylvania there are 2,114,008, and in Massachusetts it’s 1,074,485, for a total of 5,946,014.

Though suffragists are expressing optimism, political leaders in each state are predicting defeat, so there are contingency plans. In Massachusetts the 1915 campaign will immediately shift into a 1916 campaign if necessary. It may take longer to get back on the ballot in New York because of the cumbersome procedure involved, and in Pennsylvania, the State Constitution requires that a failed amendment must wait five years before being re-submitted to the voters. But at the moment all efforts are concentrated on this year and the hope that no further campaigns will be needed in these three States.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

The last Saturday before Election Day is traditionally a time of frenzied activity, and today was no exception as New York suffragists expressed confidence about victory on Tuesday while working around the clock to attain it.

From elevated stages to down in the subways, “Votes for Women” advocates seemed to be everywhere, as did the color of “suffrage yellow.”

The twenty-four and twenty-six hour street corner speechmaking marathons in Times Square and Columbus Circle have successfully concluded, and the enthusiasm and eloquence of the speakers were the same regardless of whether the audience was someone pausing briefly while on their milk delivery rounds at dawn, or a large throng when the streets were crowded with those on their way to or from a restaurant or theater.

The suffrage orators at these marathons usually could be found in threes, assigned two hour shifts. One was an experienced veteran acting as a kind of chaperone as well as a senior speaker, accompanied by two younger suffrage speakers. It was estimated that at the 24-hour rally almost 20,000 stayed long enough to listen to the principal arguments being made. Attendance and enthusiasm was also high at the “Yellow Rally,” a concert in Madison Square this evening accompanied by speeches giving many persuasive reasons to vote “yes” on Tuesday made between the musical selections.

New volunteers are still coming in to the Woman Suffrage Party’s headquarters asking for work to do on Tuesday. Since there are already enough poll-watchers to staff every polling place in the city, the new recruits will be assigned electioneering duties, and stand the legally required 100 feet from the polls to answer any questions and give out sample ballots to voters. The official poll-watchers inside will be well-qualified, because the Party has been giving formal, mandatory training sessions for them since April.

One thousand women were in the Hotel Astor today at the Elizabeth Cady Stanton centennial luncheon, pledging themselves to victory. Then, as the event ended, they quickly rushed back to the various campaign offices to work to fulfill their pledges. Stanton was born on November 12, 1815, and it is hoped that women in her home State of New York may have the ballot by the time it would have been her 100th birthday. Harriot Stanton Blatch, head of the Women’s Political Union, and daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton said:

Our race is nearly run. Now, as we are approaching November 2nd and victory, we may well look back for 100 years and realize how, step by step, we have built up the organization of today. We have done this, too, of ourselves, for unlike every other disenfranchised class, we have not had one great group of men to fight our battles for us. With the exception of the aid of a few brilliant men, we have all these years been fighting our battle unaided.

There was a lively debate this morning at Carnegie Hall, with Katharine Houghton Hepburn, President of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association and Alice Hill Chittenden, of the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage doing most of the speaking. Among the best comebacks was one made by Hepburn, who said that if the “antis” really believed that there was great dissatisfaction with woman suffrage in the West among both men and women, they should be busy out there trying to get the women of those States to vote to disenfranchise themselves.

Carnegie Hall was filled again this evening, but by anti-suffragists, as they held their final big rally. James M. Beck, former Assistant Attorney General of the U.S., called woman suffrage “the most disastrous and absolutely irreparable experiment in the history of our Government” and said that if New York were to approve it on Tuesday, it would make State government such a farce that “Abandon hope all ye who enter here” should be written on the portals of the State Capitol. A number of suffragists were in the audience, not to disrupt, but to see if there were any new arguments being made that needed to be refuted in the closing days of the campaign.

But Carnegie Hall’s anti-suffrage speakers kept to the traditional arguments about how most women don’t want to have the vote “forced on them,” and that woman suffrage would destroy the family and society. In one rather fanciful example, Colonel John P. Irish said that even though “only 20%” of women in California had registered to vote since winning the ballot in 1911, there had been a “300% increase” in juvenile delinquency. He claimed that this was because mothers were neglecting their family duties to become involved in politics and therefore “the human chicks are left to the hawk while the hen is up on the fence trying to crow like a rooster.” He failed to give any evidence for either of the percentages he used in his premise, and both are disputed by suffragists.

Former President Roosevelt has reaffirmed his support in writing for the suffrage amendment, and in doing so noted four Queens who were excellent rulers: Isabella of Spain, Elizabeth of England, Catherine of Russia and Maria Theresa of Austria. “If a woman is deemed fit to be the head of a mighty monarchy, surely no adequate reason can be advanced against allowing her to exercise the rights of sovereignty in a democracy,” he observed.

Making sure that everyone on the streets would get the “Votes for Women” message was not enough today. Over 100 “Lap Board” women, about half of them teachers, boarded the subway at the Seventy-second Street Station, and took the message underground. The placards, printed in black ink on a yellow background, and about half a square yard in size, were quite favorably received by the riders, and a good antidote to the anti-suffrage ads that appear in the subway stations. Pro-suffrage ads were barred by Ward & Gow, the company that posts subway ads.

Though the vast majority of those speaking for the established political parties in New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts are of the opinion that the suffrage referenda in each of their States will be defeated, suffragists are undaunted and looking forward to Tuesday night’s results. Election predictions are always uncertain, but here is no doubt being expressed by anyone at any suffrage headquarters tonight that the pro-suffrage side is running an all-out, honorable, and highly effective campaign, and that many more people support suffrage today than just a few months ago. So, victory is approaching, the only question is whether it’s going to be this time around or the next.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

The final few days and most strenuous phase of the New York State suffrage campaign was kicked off at just after midnight this morning when the Women’s Political Union began 24 hours of continuous speeches at 47th and Broadway.

But that was only the first of 250 open-air suffrage meetings held today in various parts of New York City by all the suffrage groups as the November 2nd election approaches and last-minute arguments are being made to every potential voter.

The Woman Suffrage Party has just begun their own speech-making marathon at Columbus Circle late this evening, and among those expected to take the podium overnight will be “General” Rosalie Jones, who led her hardy band of suffrage hikers to Washington, D.C., in February, 1913, and on two hikes to Albany in 1912 and 1914.

The rally at Tompkins Square began a few hours ago and features a band, with Dora de Vera of the Boston Opera Company doing the singing. Another of the big rallies being held tonight is at Madison Square with music provided by the 100-piece Beethoven Symphony Orchestra.

But tonight’s rally in Carnegie Hall was certainly the biggest, and the best advertised. Not content to just distribute massive numbers of flyers around town, its sponsors had young women, led by a bugler, and wearing front and back “sandwich boards” promoting the rally, walking around town from 2 p.m. until just before the meeting began. This is a typical example of the enthusiasm of the entire campaign, because there was really no chance that the event would be less than a sellout thanks to Carrie Chapman Catt presiding, and a number of noted orators making the case for suffrage.

One of the Carnegie Hall speakers was Representative Edward Keating, Democrat of Colorado. He got a laugh when he addressed some of the statements made by anti-suffragists that “Votes for Women” had been a failure in the Western States: “I ride in the subways here in New York and I read the anti-suffrage signs and learn many new things about the West that I never knew before.”

Rabbi Stephen S. Wise’s speech was so well received that he was later compelled to do another, and in the encore he said that he wished he could do something similar on Tuesday and vote twice for suffrage. He also talked of the European war, and said that women should have a say about whether their nations should have become involved: “There will never be a beginning of the end of war until women have such a voice.”

Mothers who favor suffrage have been driving around town all day in the “Baby Truck,” decorated with drawings of “Kewpies” by suffragist Rose O’Neill. The truck contains suffrage balloons and toys to be given to children while their mothers go to meetings or listen to speeches given by, and addressed specifically to, mothers. Even though none of the women can vote, they can certainly influence the men who do.

This campaign is being run with professional political precision. Seven years ago names on suffrage petitions were gathered, then index cards made for each name. In addition to this, polling lists are used to gather more names for the index cards. Canvassers then go out and knock on doors and mark “S” on the cards of those who indicate they’re pro-suffrage, “I” if they’re indifferent, and “U” for unconverted, rather than a more pessimistic “O” for opposed. This tactic is proving to be as effective as anything used by any political machine in the city’s history.

Though no one at the Empire State Campaign Committee would give exact figures, and the outlook in Rochester and Syracuse is not favorable, there was a universal expectation of victory around their office today. Voter registration is up Statewide, and most of these new voters are thought to be pro-suffrage. Speeches have been well-received, and the turnout for the parades and other events has been phenomenal. Alva Belmont, of the Political Equality Association said today that:

Not long ago it was almost impossible to get a man to consider the subject, and now I find that they come into our headquarters and buy literature because they want to understand the question. Miss Florence Harmon, who does most of the speaking for the Association is often kept out, with her mother, until 1 o’clock in the morning answering questions. The men are so interested they buy literature off her on the street and give generously to the contributions for the work. As suffrage is only a question of reason and justice, as soon as people begin to consider it they will favor it.

Of course, no amount of confidence will lead to any slackening of efforts between now and November 2nd. In fact, the campaign will continue even on Election Day itself with 2,500 women officially certified in Manhattan alone as poll-watchers. They will be on duty inside the polling places to guard against fraud. There will also be volunteers stationed as closely as the law allows outside every polling place to give instructions, answer questions, and give out sample ballots showing how to vote for suffrage. The suffrage organizations are doing everything right – and in just four days we’ll know if the voters do their job right as well.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

Standing in the large, cheering crowd at 59th Street and 8th Avenue tonight watching the torchlight suffrage parade, it’s hard to imagine how the New York campaign could possibly get any more intense than it has been up until now.

But that’s exactly what’s about to happen in the five days remaining until Election Day on November 2nd. Tomorrow is when the unprecedented push actually begins, and today all the major suffrage groups were busy at their headquarters making sure that everything goes just as planned when the final offensive is launched.

There is quite an impressive alliance of organizations arrayed on the pro-suffrage side in New York: The National American Woman Suffrage Association, Empire State Campaign Committee, Woman Suffrage Party, Women’s Political Union, Equal Franchise Society, and the Political Equality Association. All of them have been working hard for months, but far more ambitious plans are now being finalized for everything from huge rallies in the city’s largest halls to subway “invasions.”

Improvisation brought about the subway event. Originally, suffrage groups wanted to simply post conventional subway ads by buying space and using some other space donated to them by a business that has a long-standing contract to post its own ads. But Ward & Gow, the advertising firm which places ads in subways, refused to sell them space, or allow them to use the space donated by one of their regular clients, and the Public Utilities Commission has just ruled that it has no power to compel Ward & Gow to allow the ads. So instead, women will ride around all day tomorrow holding big placards in their laps for their fellow passengers to read, in order to counteract the numerous anti-suffrage ads that the company has allowed to be displayed in the cars.

Not all sign-carriers will be underground, however. Tomorrow, from 2 p.m. until 7:30 p.m., women wearing “sandwich boards” front and back, advertising that night’s huge rally in Carnegie Hall, will be walking around town. And just to be certain they’ll be noticed by as many people as possible, they’ll be preceded by a bugler.

Though small in comparison to events to come, and the massive pageant five days ago, tonight’s parade was still quite impressive, with large, colorful banners, band music, decorated automobiles, and at the end of the parade route even a cartoonist, Lou Rogers, turning out drawings lampooning the opposition. A “Victory” banner led the procession, with four U.S. flags following. The best float showed “Miss New York” bound to “Ignorance,” “Prejudice” and “Vice” due to women not having the vote. At various points along the route, individual automobiles would drop out, park, and speakers would stand up in them and hold street corner rallies for the spectators.

While still confident about wining the State in general, a few places are now being conceded to the “antis.” Ironically enough, one of them is Monroe County. Its county seat is Rochester, which was the home of Susan B. Anthony. The Rochester Herald is vehemently opposed to suffrage. “The odds are heavily against us here, although we have worked hard and had good audiences. I fear Monroe is gone and our only hope is that the majority against us will not be too heavy,” said Alice Cramer Clement. But in other nearly rural counties, the outlook is far more optimistic. She thinks suffrage will carry in most of them. In Ontario and Wayne Counties, she said that 90 per cent of those surveyed favored woman suffrage.

But while prospects in Monroe County may look gloomy, there was plenty of optimism at a suffrage rally in Oyster Bay, where a letter from former President Roosevelt was read to the crowd. He wrote:

The opponents of woman suffrage say that it will take women away from the home. If this were so I should certainly not favor it, just as if giving man the suffrage took him away from his business I should not favor it, for making and keeping the home must always be the chief work for both man and woman. There is, however, in my opinion, nothing whatever in this objection. Undoubtedly some foolish women may believe that getting the vote will excuse them from the performance of home duties just as in every democratic extension of the suffrage some foolish men have believed that getting the vote somehow entitles them to live without working. But it is no more possible to base action on an argument of this kind in one case than the other.

In Pennsylvania, which also has a suffrage referendum coming up on November 2nd, Eudora Ramsey gave a fine speech at an open-air meeting tonight in front of Rhodes Drug Store in Wampum, south of New Castle. She made some excellent observations about the unfairness of restricting the vote to men, beginning with the fact that every year in almost every town she visited, more girls graduated from school than boys. Why should a woman not vote if she has more education than a man? And “why should a woman who owns property and pays taxes not be able to vote when a man votes whether he owns property or not?”

Ramsey then addressed some of the anti-suffrage arguments, starting with the one that voting would interfere with a woman’s duties at home and cause it great harm. She noted that no one thinks businesses collapse or that men can’t be excellent employees if they take a little time out once a year to vote. As to the “ballots = bullets” argument: “Some men are physically unable to go to war but yet they vote. A preacher is not supposed to fight, yet he votes …. Many under 21 fight but do not vote, therefore fighting and voting do not go together.” She concluded by telling the audience: “Would a woman vote for war? No, and this is why they need women’s votes. Remember the women on Tuesday. On Amendment Number One we find yes and no. Put a cross by the sign of yes, and you’ll pay tribute to the womanhood of the State, and by doing this you will line up with God’s progressive people.”

In Massachusetts, the third State which will vote on suffrage on Tuesday, there are always at least 50 women typing away every day at the Boston headquarters of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, with volunteers coming in and out all day and well into the evening. One of their goals is to send out 630,000 circulars, so they’ve been busy on that for a while and will keep working until every last one is mailed. Among the things mentioned in the flyer is that all the candidates for Governor favor suffrage.

The Gubernatorial nominees of the Progressive and Socialist Parties have gone a step further than endorsement, and given suffrage speeches. And though the two major party candidates have only given their endorsement, and not campaigned for the issue, the prestige of having Governor Walsh and his principal rival on record as favoring suffrage should be of great help on Election Day. President Wilson’s support for woman suffrage, at least on a State-by-State basis, is also prominently mentioned.

Boston suffragists are often cheered by the positive, free publicity given the movement by the local newspapers, who are “rooting for the cause” according to Mr. W.H. McMasters, a leading suffragist who can usually be found at the Boylston Street headquarters.

In addition to press support, there’s also organized labor on board. The State branch of the American Federation of Labor has endorsed suffrage, and many of its well-known leaders have given speeches calling woman suffrage a labor issue.

Of course, as everywhere else, saloon interests in Massachusetts are freely opening their wallets and quietly bankrolling anti-suffrage organizations. One of them, the Massachusetts Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, has its headquarters just a block away from the pro-suffrage group. Their campaign is much smaller, and more low-key than the sophisticated, aggressive, and overly political campaign being waged by suffragists because they don’t believe in “the woman politician.”

Rev. Anna Howard Shaw addressed a mass meeting at Associate Hall in Lowell tonight. The program opened with the band playing “America” while the audience waved small American flags provided to them. She eloquently pleaded not just for suffrage, but for every progressive reform that woman suffrage could help bring about. She also noted that the present European war might have been averted if women had been part of the political establishment: “What a different world it would be today if those few men in Europe had just consented to come together and talk the matter over. Women would have talked the matter over until it was settled. It might be wearisome, but it wouldn’t have been death.”

Shaw challenged the male voters of Massachusetts to live up to the principles of democracy:

All we are asking is that men should look the truth in the face, to believe the thing they believe. Do we believe that republican form of government is desirable? If we do, then let us have it. If we do not, then let us say so, honestly, like men, and say that we believe in an aristocracy.” She went on to define a republic as a government in which laws are made by representatives elected by the people. “When did the people of Massachusetts ever elect representatives?” she asked. “Never in the world! The men of Massachusetts have elected representatives, and men are people, admirable people, as far as they go; but then, you see, they go only half way. There is still another half of the people who have never elected their representatives. When one-half the people elect representatives to represent the whole of the people, it is not a republic but an aristocracy.

As in New York and Pennsylvania, the Republican and Democratic parties are observing an official “hands off” policy, so with the political machines standing on the sidelines in all three States with suffrage referenda, there’s a good chance of victory if, as suffragists believe, that’s what the average male voter wants.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

With just nine days left until three big Eastern States vote on woman suffrage referenda, the battle for women’s equality at the polls goes on in large cities as well as small towns, and is being waged by both women and men.

From Boston, Massachusetts, to Biglerville, Pennsylvania, there has been a great deal of activity, as suffragists in all States enjoy increased respect and feel more confident after the success of yesterday’s stunning pageant on Fifth Avenue in New York.

In Boston this evening, there was a suffrage rally in Tremont Temple in which California’s most noted anti-suffragist, Col. Irish, was the target of much humor. According to Samuel J. Elder: “A California colonel who has been making anti-suffrage speeches hereabouts says, if quoted correctly, that politics degrades women and makes them vulgar; if he means that the women of California have been degraded and vulgarized, I pity him when he goes home.” (California women won the vote four years ago.)

Elder himself was an anti-suffragist just a year ago, but has since been converted to the cause, and thinks that thousands of other Massachusetts men have also changed their minds: “The idea that a man should not know more today than he did a year ago is intolerable. That is what makes the suffrage cause a hopeful one.”

Elder said that those who think a woman’s place is in the home should consider the fact that “about nine-tenths of the legislation relates to the home. Why should not women, who ‘belong in the home’ and have to stay in the home have an equal share in deciding the nature of that legislation? Have women got to wait until all the old duffers are dead and a new generation of men has grown up to liberate their mothers, sisters and wives?”

Rabbi Harry Levy of Temple Israel got a good response to a speech in which he said that much of the opposition to woman suffrage is based on ignorance. He said that he was a suffragist because Judaism was democratic and democracy must include woman suffrage: “This is a Government of, by and for the people, and not a Government in which one-half the people are taken care of by the other half.” He then noted some of the benefits woman suffrage has brought to the Western States, such as mothers’ pensions, an eight-hour day with decent wages, and an increase in the age of consent.

Anne Martin, of Nevada, also addressed some of the objections to woman suffrage, then said that if the men of the East don’t approve the upcoming suffrage referenda, the 4.5 million voting women of the West would use their influence to get suffrage for Eastern women through a Constitutional amendment. Meanwhile, in Springfield, Senator William E. Borah, Republican of Idaho, praised the work the voting women of his State had done in the 19 years since they won the franchise as he addressed a meeting of the Springfield Equal Suffrage League attended by 1,200 people.

Various local polls show women far more supportive of suffrage than men. In Holyoke, a street car poll showed 7 men for and 6 against, while 5 women favored it and only one was opposed. In a lunchroom, 17 men were polled, with 10 against, 4 in favor and 3 undecided. In a barbershop it was 3 against, one for, and one undecided. In Fitchburg, a much larger poll was taken, which found that of 325 women, 222 favored suffrage and 103 opposed it. But of 416 men, 198 said they’d vote “yes” and 218 will vote “no.” Of course, only the men will be voting on November 2nd, but the local Equal Suffrage League has a membership of almost 400, and they’re still hoping their work will change a few minds by then.

The Boston Globe has been asking Governors of suffrage States about their views on the issue, and today received a telegram from the Governor of Oregon, where women won the vote on November 5, 1912, by a margin of 4,161 votes out of 118,369 cast:

“Replying to your inquiry as to my personal opinion regarding the working of woman suffrage in Oregon, it gives me sincere pleasure to indorse its operation here emphatically. I hope the voters of Massachusetts will have the good sense to take the forward step. The women of Oregon have taken and continue to take an active interest in public affairs and use their ballots thoughtfully and well. Education, child protection, civic morality and other of the larger issues of community life inevitably are closer to women than to the men, and where women vote these big questions, upon which rest our best development, they receive an oversight and direction which do not permit of their neglect or abuse. I favored woman suffrage many years before Oregon obtained it, and after two years of votes for women here I indorse it more emphatically than ever. James Withycombe, Governor of Oregon.”

In other Massachusetts actions, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, founder of New York City’s Free Synagogue, and who recently campaigned in New Jersey for that State’s October 19th suffrage referendum, took time out from suffrage work in New York to speak for equal suffrage tonight to the Zion Association of Greater Boston at Convention Hall. The Boston Typographical Union #13 met at Faneuil Hall and gave their endorsement to suffrage. Upcoming events include a speech by Rev. Anna Howard Shaw at Associate Hall in Lowell, and a meeting at City Hall by the Lowell Suffrage League.

In Pennsylvania, there was an open-air meeting last evening in Biglerville, at which John D. Keith, Esq., and Rev. J. B. Baker spoke to a large and attentive audience. Keith recounted the history of the country’s expansion of liberty, and said it was past time for women to be included. Baker emphasized that voting was consistent with women’s duties and privileges in regard to home, school, civic and reform movements. The “Women’s Liberty Bell,” which was featured in a big rally in Philadelphia on the 22nd, will arrive in Prospect Park tomorrow, where it will be the centerpiece for a meeting outside the Post Office. It will then go on to Chester, accompanied by Helen Todd.

Interestingly enough, Florence Piersol, head of the Philadelphia branch of the Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association, said yesterday that she found husbands more supportive than their wives: “Again and again, when we ask women how they stand on this vital question, we get a reply something like this: ‘I am on the fence, but my husband believes in it as is going to vote for it.’ ”

The importance of individual actions is critical to victory. Both Republicans and Democrats have taken a “hands off” position in regard to the suffrage referendum, and while the decision of Republican U.S. Senator Boise Penrose not to actively oppose the measure was clearly useful in getting it on the Pennsylvania ballot in the first place, the fact that neither party is actively working for it makes it hard to reach the State’s many voters. Fortunately, President Wilson, the nation’s highest-ranking Democrat, has given his support to suffrage – at least on a State-by-State basis – but he won’t be campaigning for it in any of the three States where it will be voted upon next month. Republican Governor Martin Brumbaugh has given some personal support in the past, but has remained silent on the issue lately. However, there was an exception made when he talked to the students at Swarthmore on Founders’ Day and said he saw no reason why “girls should not play a part in government as well as in the classroom.”

There’s still hope in Philadelphia, even though the city’s mayor, Democrat Rudolph Blankenburg, has thus far been keeping out of the campaign. He’s an avid reformer, known to be a supporter of woman suffrage, and married to an active suffragist, so he may yet take part if it looks like the voters of his city might make the difference between victory and defeat. But with or without the help of big-name politicians or party machinery, suffragists are confident that the three remaining, hard-fought suffrage battles of this year can be won, and no one will be letting up until the last vote is cast on November 2nd.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

Just eight days to go until New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts vote on woman suffrage, so the campaign in the Empire State, like everywhere else, is reaching its peak.

Six thousand five hundred volunteer workers have been here for weeks, and five hundred more are about to be added in Manhattan by the Woman Suffrage Party. The party’s fife and drum corps will open a 12-hour meeting tomorrow morning at 40th Street and Broadway, and they will have a huge rally in Carnegie Hall on Friday night, the 29th. The “antis” will hold their final mass meeting in that same location on Saturday night, and are keeping their headquarters at 37 West 39th Street open until 10 p.m. each night.

The Women’s Political Union has a room in the Tribune Building from which Margaret Stanton Lawrence (women’s rights pioneer Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s 5th child) supervises the many volunteers who work there during the day. Nora Blatch De Forest (Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s granddaughter) comes in at the end of the day to coordinate the work of those who can’t help out until after they’ve finished their day jobs and who work there until late at night. Between them, the two shifts have now sent out mailings to 50,000 voters. Each envelope contains a letter from Harriot Stanton Blatch (Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s 6th child and mother of Nora Blatch De Forest) explaining why voters should approve woman suffrage, and a sample ballot showing them how to do it. The mailings will continue until right before Election Day. The Union intends to outdo the Woman Suffrage Party’s speech making marathon by holding a 24-hour rally with “relays” of speakers beginning Friday, and twenty speakers will be out doing open-air street meetings around the city on Saturday night, the 30th.

There will be a “theater evening” two nights from now, with suffrage speeches and box parties at the city’s most prominent theaters, such as the Globe, Harris, Century, Candler, Gaiety, Lyceum, Hippodrome, Bandbox, Republic and George M. Cohan’s Theater. David Belasco not only offered his theater, but his best wishes as well, saying: “I am with you heart and soul.”

The Publicity Committee of the Empire State Campaign Committee is meeting every afternoon to make sure that each accusation, personal attack and misrepresentation of facts made by anti-suffragists is immediately countered. There seems to be an inexhaustible supply of such propaganda, so the committee has quite a job on its hands. During the New Jersey campaign, it has been reported that one anti-suffrage speaker told a crowd that in suffrage States: “The vote as been taken from the men, and the women have all the offices.” Opponents in New York are proving equally unscrupulous.

One recent example of opposition tactics here is a leaflet circulated by a men’s anti-suffrage group, entitled “Woman Suffrage: Some Underlying Principles and Comments.” It said, among other things, that: “Woman suffrage should be repudiated, because of the type and attitude of the leaders it has drawn to the cause,” then named Carrie Chapman Catt and several others as “accepted leaders.” It then claimed that all these suffrage leaders “are opposed to the doctrine that the family is the unit of society and the State.”

Catt replied that: “The inference from that statement, when taken in conjunction with the context of the rest of the leaflet, is that I hold immoral views and am an enemy to the home and family. I am not. The action of your association in delaying reply and in persistently circulating this libelous leaflet, cunningly designed to mislead, with its implication therein that millions of women who have or desire the vote wish to lead ‘loose’ lives, is rankly dishonorable, and the exact opposite of that chivalry of men to women on which you anti-suffragists claim women can rely for justice.” After first being re-edited yesterday to omit Catt’s name, the leaflet now appears to have been withdrawn, though in an unsigned letter about the controversy, the sponsors of the leaflet still claimed that: “We think the principles advocated by the suffragists injurious to the welfare of the State, and of the family, which latter we consider the unit of civilization.”

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, the campaign seems to be centering on the Pittsburgh area. Both sides are quite active in that part of the State, though suffragists seem to have the advantage, due to the use of open-air meetings, something the “antis” don’t do. Mrs. J. O. Miller, head of the Equal Franchise Federation, says: “Our sincere belief is that the Woman Suffrage Amendment will carry in Pittsburgh and Allegheny Counties; that rural districts throughout the State will return large majorities, and that Philadelphia will give at least a small majority that will be favorable.” But Julia Morgan Harding, President of the Pittsburgh Branch of the Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage was equally certain of victory for her side, and thinks the result here will be the same as it was in Pennsylvania’s neighbor, New Jersey, six days ago.

Though many of the young Democrats in Allegheny County support suffrage, the local party is keeping the same “hands-off” policy toward the suffrage amendment in their part of the State as other Democrats – and Republicans – are doing elsewhere. However, one powerful local Democratic politician, Joseph H. Guffey, has said: “I strongly favor woman suffrage. I shall vote to give the women of Pennsylvania the ballot and I shall give them all the personal support in my power.” Most of the newspapers have no reservations about getting involved. Six of Pittsburgh’s eight papers have come out strongly in favor of suffrage, and neither of the other two have come out against it yet, so if the voters read the editorial pages, suffrage should easily carry in the Keystone State a week from tomorrow.

Hard to believe that in just over a week the largest (New York), second largest (Pennsylvania) and sixth largest State (Massachusetts) in regard to population could all be added to the roll of Suffrage States, but if all goes well, that huge leap forward could occur on November 2nd, and add to the already growing impression that “Votes for Women” is an unstoppable force sweeping the nation!

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

Making bold predictions of a record-breaking number of marchers for a suffrage parade is always a very risky move. A moderate-sized procession could be described in the newspapers as a “disappointing turnout,” and in this case, coming just ten days before a vote, dim the chances for passage of the upcoming New York State suffrage referendum.

But much to the relief of organizers – and all who favor equal suffrage – the optimistic forecasts were at the very least fulfilled today, and in the opinion of some, exceeded. New York City saw a spectacle that will long be remembered by both participants and spectators, and which clearly must have made a highly favorable impression on undecided voters, and even on some of the movement’s skeptics.

Yesterday, organizers had announced that 47,230 people had pledged to march. But according to Police Inspector Myers, in charge of the traffic squads, there were 50,000 in the streets today, though the New York Times and other anti-suffragists naturally had lower estimates. Chief Inspector Max Schmittberger estimated at least 35,000 marchers, and said the crowd numbered 250,000. Other estimates went as high as 60,000 marchers. But there won’t be much time wasted quibbling over numbers, because absolutely no one doubts this was by far the largest suffrage parade in the nation’s history, and that it was a truly stunning procession.

Both the marchers and spectators began gathering at Washington Square in early afternoon, with each of the participants searching out the group they’d pledged to march with, while bystanders began buying huge amounts of suffrage pennants, balloons, buttons, and anything in “suffrage yellow,” or which had the name of a suffrage organization on it. By the time the parade was to start, the 1,500 police officers assigned to crowd control were fully occupied keeping the spectators on the sidewalks, and the street clear.

The parade kicked off right on time at 3:00, with the first group of marchers passing the Fifth Avenue and 41st Street reviewing stand in front of the Public Library at 3:40. The last of the marchers did not finish passing by the dignitaries until 7:10 this evening, their numbers leaving no doubt that the loss in the New Jersey suffrage referendum vote of four days ago has only spurred suffragists on to greater efforts, rather than discouraged anyone from making an all-out push to win in New York, as well as Pennsylvania and Massachusetts on November 2nd.

The procession was headed by mounted police, followed by New York’s Seventh Regiment band, and Grand Marshal Ethel Stebbins. Not far behind them was the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, displaying slogans noting that women in several other nations, such as Iceland, have won equal suffrage: “REYKJAVIC VOTES; WHY NOT NEW YORK?”

Though many of the most memorable sights were of huge, complex, horse or automobile-drawn floats, it was the well-known and highly respected Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, marching behind the National American Woman Suffrage Association banner in her cap and gown that brought the first big round of applause. The plucky New Jersey delegation, holding a banner that said: “NEW JERSEY: DELAYED BUT NOT DEFEATED” got even more applause. This expression of support was something they must have appreciated after having just suffered a major delay in attaining suffrage since they cannot re-submit their failed suffrage referendum again until five years have passed. The suffragists of Rutherford had their own banner, taking pride in the fact that the men of their city had voted nearly two-to-one in favor of equal suffrage for women.

One of the largest groups was composed of teachers, with some delegations wearing dark suits and yellow suffrage sashes, while others wore the traditional cap and gown. They held such banners as: “YOU TRUST US WITH THE CHILDREN; TRUST US WITH THE VOTE.”

As might be expected, the Manhattan delegation was huge and well-received by the crowd. It featured a blindfolded woman representing “Justice,” bound by a rope held by three masked men dressed in black, labeled “Vice,” “Ignorance,” and “Prejudice.” But it was an elderly woman in the delegation, carrying a placard that said: “GETTING THERE AFTER TRYING FOR FORTY YEARS” who may have gotten the biggest cheer of the day.

Young Brooklyn suffragists carried parasols inscribed: “THE SUN WILL SHINE FOR US NOVEMBER 2ND,” while some Bay Ridge activists wore white and blue costumes as they walked alongside a wagon containing two small children. The motto on the side was: “WE WANT OUR MOTHERS TO VOTE.” But it was the Woman Suffrage Party that earned the prize for putting the most children on a float, plus having Rose O’Neill herself decorate it with her famous “Kewpie” cartoons. Even a large “Kewpie” doll was swinging back and forth on the front as the float drove down the street.

There were floats illustrating everything from woman suffrage around the world to those showing women representing “Victory,” “Liberty,” “Equality,” and “Justice.” Some marchers were over 70 years old, while others as young as 7 months were pushed in carriages or carried on a marcher’s back. At least 2,500 men marched with the women, highly skilled equestrians impressed the crowd, and so many bands played that at no time or place along the route was there ever a lack of music in the chilly Autumn air.

Every imaginable occupational group was represented, generally with members in some costume denoting their profession, as well as a banner in front stating what their work was, in case there was any doubt. Each suffrage group, from the largest to the smallest, had its own delegation and unique colors, though white and “suffrage yellow” were the most common colors used today.

This was truly a great day to be a suffragist – or in some cases, to become one. If the victory sought today is achieved on November 2nd, it means this perfect parade will never have to be equaled or topped at any time in the future, and will be the way the final days of the suffrage campaign in New York will be fondly remembered.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

Children will definitely be marching in what’s planned to be the biggest suffrage parade in New York City’s history.

Recently the anti-suffragists accused “Votes for Women” forces of exploiting their children by having them march in their parades, so it had been previously announced that they would not be participating this time. But a backlash occurred among many of the mothers, and so today the policy was reversed. A typical reaction came from Elizabeth Selden Rogers, who had said:

My Betty shall march if there is not another child in the parade. Betty is 9, and she and the children of her age have learned in school about Washington and his fight for liberty, and they are old enough to understand women’s fight for freedom. There is no more reason why children should not appear in the suffrage parade than at the Piping Rock Horse Show or at other social events. They will be much safer in the parade with police protection than on the sidewalks watching with the crowds.

The children’s detachment will fall in line at Twenty-second Street and march to Fifty-eighth Street along the Fifth Avenue route. The girls will be wearing white dresses, white sweaters, white felt parade hats with small green ornaments, and will carry green pennants. Among those in the contingent will be Harriot Stanton De Forest, age 5, great-granddaughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

The parade is expected to be so large, and take so long, that the Women’s Political Union is stockpiling torches for use if the last of the marchers finish their journey after dark. One float – and there will be many – will have 10 elaborately costumed figures representing “Victory,” “Liberty,” “Equality,” “Justice,” and six continents. The W.P.U. will also have a “cavalry division” of women on horses, as well as their famous “Victory Van,” which suffragists used to give out so much literature in the New Jersey campaign. Hopefully it will live up to its name here, even if it failed to do so in our neighboring State day before yesterday. The event should certainly make quite an impression on the male voters of New York, who will vote on a woman suffrage referendum on November 2nd.

Alice Stone Blackwell, President of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, was optimistic today when asked about the prospects of winning in the Bay State. “Ohio defeated woman suffrage in 1912, but that had no effect on Kansas, Oregon and Arizona,” she said. “The failure in New Jersey does not mean that Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania will defeat suffrage. The question is much better understood in this State.”

In Hingham, Massachusetts, the outlook appears particularly favorable. The result of a straw poll of 14 men taken yesterday by the local Equal Suffrage League was revealed today. Twelve of the men surveyed said that would vote “yes” and only two “no.” Both sides have a presence there, with 40 active and 50 associate members in the Equal Suffrage League, though the Anti-suffrage Association is actually larger, with a claimed membership of 150, plus 200 more on their mailing list.

In Pennsylvania, there was a large audience assembled in the Gettysburg Court House this evening to hear suffrage speeches by Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale and others. The listeners must have enjoyed what they were hearing, because the room was full when the evening began, and ended the same way. Hale said that the fight was “a movement of progressive persons against conservatism – not a fight of women against men.” In fact, “from the inception of the movement, it has had the support of many fine, chivalrous, far-seeing men.” She noted that the fight for equality has gone through three stages. First came the fight for equal education, then equality in employment, and finally for equality for wives and husbands in the home, and those who opposed the first two steps are now fighting the third.

With less than two weeks left until the vote on the Pennsylvania suffrage referendum, Hale reminded her audience that suffrage has always been earned by actions and never just freely given: “Men won their freedom for themselves and that is why they value it so highly. In the same way we must work for it, we must sacrifice for it, we must give for it. We must remember that George the Third did not hand out independence with each pound of tea; neither can we sit down over our teacups and expect to get it.”

Suffragists in all three States with upcoming referenda are definitely not just sitting around drinking tea and hoping for victory. They’re working very hard for it, and generating unprecedented support. Though the New Jersey vote on the 19th was a disappointment, it certainly hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm of anyone working for a triple victory on November second.

Founding Feminists is FMF’s daily herstory column.

Just two more days remain until New Jersey votes on woman suffrage, and if women could vote, it would win in a landslide.

According to figures made public today, there are 75,000 members in the Women’s Political Union of New Jersey, and 25,000 in the New Jersey Woman Suffrage Association. The New Jersey Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage has a membership of only 25,000.

When asked if this four-to-one ratio was an indication that suffrage enjoyed great support from the women of New Jersey, an official of the anti-suffrage group said, “It might be an indication if the suffragists followed our rule and enrolled only women of voting age. But they will accept infants in cradles as members in order to swell their numbers.”

Since there are probably a little under 750,000 women of voting age in this State, it means that if we presume that the vast majority of members of suffrage groups actually are adults, then more than one in eight is not only pro-suffrage, but concerned enough about it to become an active member of a suffrage organization. Among the opposition, only one in thirty is similarly committed.

Though today was much closer to a traditional “day of rest” than most in this campaign, tomorrow will the the busiest so far. Three hundred and fifty-two suffrage speakers and campaign workers will be making their final pleas to voters. One meeting will be called to order at 6 a.m. by Mildred Taylor, and will continue for 24 hours, until just before the polls open on Tuesday. It will be conducted at the roving suffrage van and shop now stationed at Military Park, in Newark. That location gets more pedestrian traffic than any other place in the State.

As might be expected on a Sunday, most suffrage speeches in all four States with upcoming suffrage referenda were spoken from the pulpit, rather than on street corners. Three-time Democratic Presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan spoke at Grace Methodist Church in New York City. He told the church members:

You have had a recent convert to the cause of woman suffrage. I see that the President has recently announced that he will vote for woman suffrage at the New Jersey election. I have believed that women should have the vote, but if there was only one question on which they could vote I would say that should be the question of peace or war.

Bryan condemned “propagandists,” “preparedness societies,” and “jingoes” for trying to drag us into the war in Europe, and noted that: “If the jingoes in this country are able to scare us into preparing, although they cannot name a country which might attack us, would not the jingoes of some other country be able to scare that country by pointing us out and saying that we were preparing against it?”

Meanwhile, in another New York church, anti-suffragist Rev. Cyrus Townsend Brady was preaching that equality for women would bring about nothing less than the downfall of civilization:

What will be the ultimate result of this woman movement? We will have no more families, no more mothers, no more society, marriage will be a failure, for if it exists at all it will be a condition in which the husband will be one man and the wife another. The field for the practice of the highest virtues, the home, will be eliminated. The social purity of mankind will be undermined, prostitution will flourish, as it always does when marriage is neglected, and the result will be ruin.

Brady feels that “the perfection of the family is woman’s task,” and that “her struggle has been for monogamous marriage” and “her triumph, while not yet complete,” will succeed if she will “continue her struggle on the legitimate lines marked out for her by her successes of the past.” He thinks that voting, like decision-making in a marriage, is a male, not female function, and “so I say deliberately that the so-called woman movement is an attempt to escape the function of woman, a revolt against the fact that woman is not a man, an attempt to enter the field of effort in which man’s powers are properly exercised. It is a rising against nature.”

But it appears that Rev. Brady is the one who is fighting against nature, because the desire to be free and equal is inherent in all human beings. It is now being manifested in an unprecedented way as women enter many fields from which they were previously excluded – and one State at a time, even gain entrance to the voting booth.

Hopefully, there will be one more suffrage State on Tuesday, and three more on November 2nd. The elaborate, massive parades that have become annual events, and the fact that 5 of the 11 States in which women have full suffrage were won in just the past three years shows a powerful trend in its favor. Though more suffrage campaigns are lost than won, the gains still mount up, as no State in the modern era has ever revoked woman suffrage after granting it. This steady progress insures that regardless of the outcome of any specific election, nationwide woman suffrage is about “when” it will be achieved, and not “if.” The only question now is over which tactics will work best, and how much time and effort will be needed to win.