WEBVTT 00:00:05.527 --> 00:00:09.769 ♪I've been down to Madison To see the folks and sights;♪ 00:00:09.769 --> 00:00:15.217 ♪You'd laugh, I'm sure, to hear them talk About the women's rights.♪ 00:00:15.857 --> 00:00:21.099 ♪Now it's just as plain as my old hat, That's plain as plain can be♪ 00:00:21.099 --> 00:00:26.519 ♪That if the women want the vote, They'll get no help from me.♪ 00:00:27.119 --> 00:00:29.586 ♪Not from Joe, not from Joe; If he knows it..♪ 00:00:29.586 --> 00:00:33.038 Looking back today, it's somewhat difficult to understand 00:00:33.038 --> 00:00:36.743 the violence of the opposition to woman's suffrage. 00:00:36.743 --> 00:00:40.422 Conservative opinion in the country was of course almost universally opposed 00:00:40.422 --> 00:00:42.515 to the idea of women voting. 00:00:42.515 --> 00:00:45.482 The Church was divided in its position. 00:00:45.482 --> 00:00:48.844 While some denominations and individual clergymen 00:00:48.844 --> 00:00:51.032 were among the most zealous advocates of the movement, 00:00:51.032 --> 00:00:54.952 others took the stand that women's political emancipation would mean 00:00:54.959 --> 00:00:57.470 the beginning of the end of the social morality 00:00:57.470 --> 00:01:00.099 which constituted the moral strength of the nation. 00:01:00.940 --> 00:01:03.250 The enfranchisement of women, it was feared 00:01:03.250 --> 00:01:06.490 would result in the dissolution of the home and family 00:01:06.492 --> 00:01:08.870 and the destruction of the institution of marriage. 00:01:09.750 --> 00:01:13.664 The most pessimistic of the prophets predicted that the very act of 00:01:13.664 --> 00:01:17.500 women's going to the polls and mingling with the rough crowds on election day 00:01:17.500 --> 00:01:20.342 would plunge the country into moral chaos. 00:01:21.514 --> 00:01:25.753 Professional politicians and certain powerful big business interests 00:01:25.753 --> 00:01:28.548 were just as violently opposed to vote for women, 00:01:28.548 --> 00:01:29.972 if for very different reasons. 00:01:30.752 --> 00:01:34.684 Political leaders felt that they knew how to manipulate men for party purposes 00:01:34.684 --> 00:01:38.034 but manipulating women was an unknown quality 00:01:38.034 --> 00:01:40.326 which they wished to avoid as long as possible. 00:01:41.380 --> 00:01:44.544 The organized liquor industries, with their fear of women's influence 00:01:44.544 --> 00:01:47.787 on the prohibition issue, spent countless thousands of dollars 00:01:47.787 --> 00:01:52.438 lobbying against women's suffrage, which they felt threatened their very existence. 00:01:53.458 --> 00:01:56.334 Add to these elements the fact that most men of the country 00:01:56.334 --> 00:01:58.459 were understandably reluctant to forego 00:01:58.459 --> 00:02:01.494 their traditional position of sex superiority, 00:02:01.494 --> 00:02:04.691 which was in a sense symbolized by their power to vote 00:02:04.691 --> 00:02:07.510 and the fact that many women were quite as unwilling to give up 00:02:07.510 --> 00:02:10.992 the protected position in which men's chivalry had placed them 00:02:10.992 --> 00:02:14.485 and perhaps we can understand why the battle for woman's suffrage 00:02:14.485 --> 00:02:17.342 was inevitably a long and stormy one. 00:02:18.966 --> 00:02:22.943 After the disheartening failure to obtain the franchise by federal amendment 00:02:22.943 --> 00:02:26.512 at the close of the Civil War, when the Negro was admitted to the vote, 00:02:26.512 --> 00:02:31.616 the suffragists changed their tactics and began to concentrate their main strength 00:02:31.616 --> 00:02:35.505 on a policy of winning the suffrage state by state. 00:02:35.505 --> 00:02:39.647 By the turn of the 20th century the National Woman Suffrage Association 00:02:39.647 --> 00:02:43.258 was a powerful organization with headquarters in New York 00:02:43.258 --> 00:02:47.056 and an efficiently functioning machine in almost every state of the Union. 00:02:48.152 --> 00:02:52.218 Four states in the far West had already granted women full suffrage as a result of 00:02:52.218 --> 00:02:58.579 the Association's work and by 1914 almost all the states west of the Mississippi had 00:02:58.579 --> 00:03:02.998 joined the ranks of the suffrage states and the Association was turning its forces 00:03:02.998 --> 00:03:06.356 to the conquest of the traditionally more conservative East. 00:03:08.266 --> 00:03:14.112 Sinclair Lewis in the novel 'Ann Vickers', published in 1932, has left an amusing 00:03:14.112 --> 00:03:17.555 account of one of these state suffrage campaigns during this period. 00:03:18.515 --> 00:03:23.759 In the following incident from this work one Dr Melvina Wormser of New York, 00:03:23.759 --> 00:03:28.146 purportedly Chief Surgeon of the Manhattan Hospital for Women, 00:03:28.146 --> 00:03:33.781 President of the Better Obstetrical League, author of 'Emancipation in Sex', 00:03:33.781 --> 00:03:39.867 Doctor of Science of Yale and Vassar and an officer in all known birth control organizations, 00:03:39.867 --> 00:03:45.405 is interviewed by the press in advance of her scheduled speech at a suffrage rally 00:03:45.405 --> 00:03:47.702 in a city called Clateburn, Ohio. 00:03:48.947 --> 00:03:53.060 The professional suffragist, says Lewis, had been cautioned about talking to the 00:03:53.060 --> 00:03:57.350 press since the reporters, or at least their editors, were always on the alert 00:03:57.350 --> 00:04:02.178 for something scandalous from suffrage headquarters, some hint that it was a 00:04:02.178 --> 00:04:07.227 free love colony or (what was nearly as good, says Lewis) a frenzied zoo of 00:04:07.227 --> 00:04:11.790 manhaters, anarchists, atheists, spiritualists or anything else 00:04:11.790 --> 00:04:14.974 eccentric or discreditable. 00:04:14.974 --> 00:04:18.509 The workers for the cause might attack the water or gas departments, 00:04:18.509 --> 00:04:23.749 the city orphanages, President Wilson or even the Allies in the Great War, 00:04:23.759 --> 00:04:29.242 but they must do so only as Christian gentlewomen and solid taxpayers. 00:04:29.242 --> 00:04:33.579 They must convince others that the vote will not lead to moral laxity 00:04:33.579 --> 00:04:39.291 but would immediately end prostitution, gambling and the drinking of beer. 00:04:40.412 --> 00:04:43.931 But Dr Melvina Wormser of New York, as guest speaker, 00:04:43.931 --> 00:04:48.252 was outside headquarters discipline and a law unto herself. 00:04:49.385 --> 00:04:53.537 Here the young suffrage workers in 'Ann Vickers' stand by in shocked silence 00:04:53.537 --> 00:04:58.571 as Dr Wormser delivers her opinions to the delighted reporters: 00:05:01.281 --> 00:05:04.012 [Dr Wormser, do you believe in free love?] 00:05:04.012 --> 00:05:08.348 Do I believe in free love? What do you mean by that, young lady? 00:05:08.348 --> 00:05:13.808 How can love be anything but free? If you mean, do I believe that any authentic 00:05:13.808 --> 00:05:20.204 passion, not just a momentary itch in the moonlight, is superior to any ceremony 00:05:20.204 --> 00:05:23.168 performed by some preacher, why of course, don't you? 00:05:23.168 --> 00:05:25.397 [What do you think about birth control?] 00:05:25.397 --> 00:05:27.123 [Do you think women are brighter than men?] 00:05:27.123 --> 00:05:29.469 [Do you think there's any field women should not enter?] 00:05:29.469 --> 00:05:36.959 Oh, one at a time please! Let's see: do I believe that women are brighter than men? 00:05:37.516 --> 00:05:44.064 Tut tut, what a question! Not brighter -- just less mean. But don't try to get me to 00:05:44.064 --> 00:05:48.595 riding men. I'm a folorn old maid, but I adore 'em, the darlings. 00:05:49.168 --> 00:05:52.767 What do you suppose men doctors would ever do without their women nurses 00:05:52.767 --> 00:05:58.023 and secretaries? I know! I was a nurse myself, before I became a doc. 00:05:58.023 --> 00:06:03.534 And now my chief satisfaction in life is that I don't have to stand up when a 00:06:03.534 --> 00:06:05.044 surgeon enters the room! 00:06:05.044 --> 00:06:12.676 Silly customs like that -- just what a man WOULD institute -- poor lambs, we have 00:06:12.676 --> 00:06:17.595 to take care of 'em and their little egos! That's why we need the vote, for THEIR sake! 00:06:17.595 --> 00:06:19.317 [Do you think there will ever be a woman President?] 00:06:19.317 --> 00:06:24.750 How do I know, young man? But let me point out that women rulers -- Queen Elizabeth, 00:06:24.750 --> 00:06:29.936 that lovely rakehell Catherine of Russia, the last Chinese Empress, 00:06:29.936 --> 00:06:36.220 Maria Theresa of Austria, Queen Anne, and Victoria -- were better rulers than any 00:06:36.220 --> 00:06:39.034 equal number of kings OR Presidents! 00:06:39.034 --> 00:06:42.696 [How soon do you predict women's suffrage will be the law of the land?] 00:06:42.696 --> 00:06:47.498 You boys and girls might as well know that I don't believe in hedging and pussyfooting. 00:06:47.498 --> 00:06:51.617 This is going to be a long struggle. Not just getting the vote. 00:06:51.617 --> 00:06:55.086 That's a matter of a couple of years. Then we've got to go on. 00:06:55.086 --> 00:07:00.630 Birth control. Separate apartments for married couples, if they happen to like them. 00:07:00.630 --> 00:07:05.726 What women need is not merely the vote but something more up here, in the head. 00:07:05.726 --> 00:07:12.260 Don't need just exterior opportunity but something interior, with which to grab the 00:07:12.260 --> 00:07:14.811 opportunity when we get it, and use it. 00:07:14.811 --> 00:07:19.107 Freedom's no good to a pussycat, only to a tigress! 00:07:19.107 --> 00:07:24.513 And women have got to stick together. Men always have had the sense to -- drat 'em -- 00:07:24.513 --> 00:07:29.598 Sex loyalty. We ought to lie for one another and sneak off and have a good drink 00:07:29.598 --> 00:07:31.245 together, like the men. 00:07:31.245 --> 00:07:33.455 [Do you want to rival men?] 00:07:33.455 --> 00:07:35.891 [Do you think there's any field that should be closed to women?] 00:07:35.891 --> 00:07:41.484 I believe that there is no field that men control now that women can't enter, 00:07:41.484 --> 00:07:48.747 completely. Medicine, law, politics, physics, aviation, exploring, engineering, 00:07:48.747 --> 00:07:56.439 soldiering, prize-fighting, writing sweet little rondels -- only I hope women'll be 00:07:56.439 --> 00:08:01.858 too sensible for either the prize-fighting or the rondels, which are both forms of 00:08:01.858 --> 00:08:05.737 male escapism, and singularly alike if you look at 'em! 00:08:05.737 --> 00:08:10.889 Only I don't expect women to imitate or try to displace men in any of these fields. 00:08:10.889 --> 00:08:15.790 I'm not one of the gels who believes that the sole difference between males and 00:08:15.790 --> 00:08:20.720 females is in conception. Women have special qualities which the human race has 00:08:20.720 --> 00:08:25.684 failed to use for civilization. I know a woman can be as good an architect 00:08:25.684 --> 00:08:31.772 as any man -- but she may be a different sort of architect. I bring something to 00:08:31.772 --> 00:08:35.230 medicine that no man can, no matter how good he is. 00:08:35.230 --> 00:08:37.052 [Well, how about the army?] 00:08:37.052 --> 00:08:43.223 Well, if you think women can't go to war, remember what the Teuton tribes, marching 00:08:43.223 --> 00:08:47.266 with their women along, did to the beautiful, virile, professional men 00:08:47.266 --> 00:08:52.683 soldiers of Rome! But the pig-headed masculine world forgot that lesson for 00:08:52.683 --> 00:08:58.592 fifteen hundred years and never discovered it till Florence Nightingale happened in 00:08:58.592 --> 00:09:03.269 and bullied the masculine British War Office into some of the common sense that 00:09:03.269 --> 00:09:05.195 any normal girl would have at seven! 00:09:05.195 --> 00:09:07.299 [Do you want to rival men?] 00:09:07.299 --> 00:09:12.927 No, I don't want to rival men. But I don't want to be kept by the tradition of 00:09:12.927 --> 00:09:16.371 feminine subjection from the privilege of working eighteen hours a day. 00:09:16.371 --> 00:09:20.951 I'm not much of a democrat. Believe inferiors ought to be subjected, 00:09:20.951 --> 00:09:26.862 if they ARE inferiors! But if a girl secretary is smarter than her male boss, 00:09:26.862 --> 00:09:29.032 let HIM be HER secretary. 00:09:30.262 --> 00:09:36.290 Listen! In 1945, maybe you'll have to go to England -- that's where they invented 00:09:36.290 --> 00:09:40.708 this Inferior Women myth, so men could have their clubs -- maybe you'll have to 00:09:40.708 --> 00:09:45.020 go to England to find anybody so benighted that he'll even know what you're talking 00:09:45.020 --> 00:09:49.362 about when you speak of considering candidates for a job as male and female, 00:09:49.362 --> 00:09:52.495 or on any other basis except their ability! 00:09:52.495 --> 00:09:54.663 [Why 1945, Dr Wormser?] 00:09:54.663 --> 00:10:00.301 I speak of 1945 because I have a hunch that after we get the vote we'll be less 00:10:00.301 --> 00:10:05.553 ardent feminists. We'll find that work is hard. That jobs are insecure. That we must 00:10:05.553 --> 00:10:11.886 go much deeper than woman suffrage -- maybe to Socialism; anyway, to something 00:10:11.886 --> 00:10:16.785 that fundamentally represents both men and women, not just women alone. 00:10:16.785 --> 00:10:23.014 And a lot of suffragists that pretend to hate men will find the dear brutes are 00:10:23.014 --> 00:10:29.317 nice to have around the house. We'll slump. But then we'll come back -- not as shadows 00:10:29.317 --> 00:10:34.355 of men, or as noisy professional females, but, for the first time since 00:10:34.355 --> 00:10:40.393 Queen Elizabeth, as human beings! There! You ought to be able to get sufficient out 00:10:40.393 --> 00:10:44.566 of what I've said to make trouble enough for me to satisfy even a suffrage speaker! 00:10:44.566 --> 00:10:46.384 Good-day. 00:10:46.384 --> 00:10:48.232 [Oh, thank you, Dr Wormser!] [Goodbye, Doctor, and thank you!] NOTE Paragraph 00:10:51.762 --> 00:10:56.723 This goes on Sinclair Lewis's Ann Vickers as what the newspapers made of Dr. Wormser's 00:10:56.723 --> 00:11:03.615 interview the next morning: "Love is nothing but a temporary itch caused by 00:11:03.615 --> 00:11:08.276 moonlight. But even so, it is more important than lasting marriage. 00:11:08.378 --> 00:11:14.914 Because marriages are performed by ministers who are all childish. Free 00:11:14.914 --> 00:11:20.859 love-that is, taking any sweetheart, any time you choose is not only permissible 00:11:20.859 --> 00:11:28.896 but necessary for any free woman. Men are much meaner than women. Men doctors boss 00:11:28.896 --> 00:11:34.566 their nurses around and treat them simply terrible. The next president of the United 00:11:34.566 --> 00:11:41.267 States will be a woman and she will be lots better than any man. Marie Louise of 00:11:41.267 --> 00:11:48.191 Russia was the greatest king who ever lived. As soon as we get the vote, then 00:11:48.191 --> 00:11:55.282 we're going on and advocate birth control socialism, and atheism. All married 00:11:55.282 --> 00:12:01.537 couples will live in separate apartments and women will imitate men and sneak off 00:12:01.537 --> 00:12:07.597 and get drunk together. Women must lie about one another's whereabouts to fool 00:12:07.597 --> 00:12:13.730 the men. Women will make better soldiers, prize-fighters, engineers, and poets than 00:12:13.730 --> 00:12:21.138 men, and men are fit only to be the secretaries and servants of women. I know 00:12:21.138 --> 00:12:26.253 that talking frankly like this will get me into trouble, but all suffrage speakers 00:12:26.253 --> 00:12:33.831 love publicity and I guess I'll get plenty on this." Dr. Wormster's interview had the 00:12:33.831 --> 00:12:37.342 effect of selling out the house for the suffrage meeting that evening, with 00:12:37.342 --> 00:12:42.089 hundreds more trying to get in. (Crowd sounds) The crowd was threatening 00:12:42.089 --> 00:12:46.506 and snarling. ["I oughta ride them out on a rail!" "Bunch of floozies, all of them 00:12:46.506 --> 00:12:50.734 crazy, that's what they are!" "I wouldn't have a woman doc for a sick cat!' 00:12:50.734 --> 00:12:55.859 "Free love! I'd like to show em some free love..with a club!" "Bunch of crazy 00:12:55.951 --> 00:12:59.917 anarchists!"] But there were enough sympathizers with the movement to keep 00:12:59.917 --> 00:13:04.372 down violence. Backstage, before the meeting, the suffragists were nervous and 00:13:04.372 --> 00:13:08.842 apprehensive. "Oh, those cursed newspapers! Will some of you explain to me why every 00:13:08.842 --> 00:13:13.073 single reporter and editor on a paper can be a liberal or perhaps a Red and the 00:13:13.073 --> 00:13:17.559 paper itself is conservative as the measles? Oh, don't worry Dr. Wormser, I 00:13:17.559 --> 00:13:21.461 have my Dudley and my two large brothers out there. They've stopped at the club 00:13:21.461 --> 00:13:25.800 for a drink and by this time they'll be equal to handling at least 300 bullies." 00:13:25.800 --> 00:13:33.648 (Cheers) "8:27. Oo, let's get started, Doctor, and get it over!" "Listen, you 00:13:33.648 --> 00:13:37.442 girls. Eleanor, Pat, and Ann. The minute the doctor starts talking, you all skip 00:13:37.445 --> 00:13:41.287 to the back of the house and if anything starts, see what you can do will you?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Right, Mrs. Birgardes I certainly will! "Come on girls let's go, let's go out 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 there and face them Dr. Wormser, are you game?" "Oh, they don't 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 bother me in the least, I'm used to them. After you Ms. Bogardes." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "At a girl Dr. Wormser, Never say die!" (Cheering) "Let's start the convention." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "On with the ball and chain!" "Hooray for the lady Doc!" "Votes for the skirts!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm afraid that in unavoidable haste of getting out the news 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 papers our friends and reporters considerably exaggerated the radicalism of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of the speaker for this evening. I will let her speak now for herself, I present 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Dr. Melvina Wormser!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "ladies and gentlemen" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "boo, go on back to New York" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Ladies and gentlemen, and also anti-suffragist. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Ladies and gentlemen I agree with you. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If I knew myself only through reading the papers this evening, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I would thoroughly disapprove of myself." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (laughter) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Yes I would tell Melvina Wormser to get out of this lovely city 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and go back to the sinfulness of New York." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Go on back then, we don't want you" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and in the mean time in the back of of the hall, the three girls confer 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "What are we going to do? If that one drunk would keep quiet she could speak." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "He's going to ruin everything" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "lets get one of those policemen to through him out." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Good Idea." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Hey officer, you've gotta throw that man out, he will start a riot!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Oh he ain't doin nothin lady, He'll shut up" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (drunk singing) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "I'll get him myself then, come on Elanor there he is." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "you get out of here you drunk!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Go fly a kite you. Who do you think your talking to you floozy?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Don't you talk to her like that, don't you dare!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "I'll fix you" (smacking sound) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "She hit him, that brazen hussy hit him." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "That's no way to act, slapping a man around, you bunch of tough" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Hes making a disturbance, here officer take him out." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (man)"He's got a right to talk" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (woman) "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, call yourselves ladies" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (man) "let a bunch of hellions like you have the vote" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "here officer get these rough skirts away from here." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (officer) "you get back to yourself ladies your making all the fuss not this guy" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "you baited her I'll run you in, we'll take care of the rumpus." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (drunk singing) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (man) "come on boys lets spank a whole bunch of em and then start on the lady doc" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (man) "Just a minute, don't start anything" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "I came to hear a speech and if this gentleman is going to interfere" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "I suggest he be removed. And if the officers refuse to do it, who'll help me" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (man) "I will! Hey, which one you want out, lady?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (woman) "That one! Kick him out! And that one! And that one! Oh, thank you Officer 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm so glad to see you're helping, thank you! " 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (man) "That's alright, lady!" And Dr. Wormser resumed her address. A fictitious 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 episode from Sinclair Lewis's novel Ann Vickers. In 1917, the American Woman's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Suffrage Association won a victory which made universal suffrage for women almost 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 inevitable. The state of New York yielded to 69 years of persistent agitation and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 granted the franchise to women. During the last few years of the campaign, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 200,000 women worked tirelessly for their cause like a well-trained army, organizing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 every county, borough, and precinct in New York on the model of a political 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 machine, frankly patterned after the Tammany Organization. In 1910, when the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 state legislature refused to act on the suffrage petition the workers of greater 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 New York organized a protest parade in which thousands of woman marched up 5th ave. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 A demonstration which they repeated every year afterward until suffrage was won. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 On one occasion in New York, the women joined in a night torchlight parade 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In which a seemingly endless stream of women each carrying a lighted lantern, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 marched up 5th avenue in a procession which went on for hours. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 One parade toward the end of the campaign 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Lasted all day long. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Two factors states Inez Haynes Irwin in Angels and Amazons, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 besides the unceasing efforts of the organization workers contributed to the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 final victory. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 One was that the organized liquor industries were by this time, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 occupied in fighting the prohibition amendment and could give only 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 secondary attention to the campaign against women suffrage. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And the second factor was that so many 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 New York women had become enthusiastic 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 supporters of the suffrage movement. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But Tammany hall refused to make a stand against it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In 1917 the New York victory was won. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And the largest state in the union had granted women full suffrage. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Even before this notable triumph however, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 much headway had been made towards obtaining suffrage for women on a national scale 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In 1913 a new element had entered the struggle. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 A group young militant intellectuals 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 led by Ellis Paul, from Swarthmore in Pennsylvania from which he held a PHD 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And lucy Burns from Vassare, Berlin and Bonn had organized a national womens party 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and was striking boldly for a womens 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 suffrage amendment to the United States Constitution. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The day before Woodrow Wilsons innaguration as president, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 These women, with the approval Jane adams of the national association 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Had organized a demonstration of 8000 women in Washington D.C. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 As the procession moved down Pennsylvania avenue towards the White House, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It ran into unexpected difficulties. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Washington was crowded with people who had come from all over the country 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to witness the inauguration and violence broke out. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Women were spat upon, tripped, slapped in the face, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 pelted with burning cigar stubs, and insulted by jeers and obscene language. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The secretary of war finally called in 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 troops from Fort Meyer to settle the rioting. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But afterwards the suffragist forced a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 congressional inquiry on the neglect of the police 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which resulted in the chief of police losing his job. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The suffrage cause received unprecedented publicity 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The radical faction continued the campaign 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with tactics which grew more and more militant. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They held meeting and demonstrations 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they exerted pressure on the president and on congress, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They sent delegations, caused thousands 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of letters and telegrams to flood the capital. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They worked on political leaders. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In 1914 they initiated their policy 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in holding the political party in power 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 responsible for the fact that womens suffrage was not yet the law of the land. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And they campaigned actively against the democratic candidates 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in the 9 states in which women could already vote. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 According to Ellis Pauls testimony they campaigned that year against 43 men 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who running for congress on the democratic ticket. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Only 19 of those campaigned against were returned by their states to Washington. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The Democratic party was forced to acknowledge the power of the women. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In 1916 president Wilson recognized the principle of women's suffrage 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In his parties platform. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But he did not yet commit himself to the national amendment. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Later that year he addressed the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 convention of the national association advising patience. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Knowing that the president could compel passing of the amendment if he would. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Alice Paul concentrated on winning Wilsons support. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 To keep the matter constantly in his mind, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 she set the famous suffrage pickets before the White house. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Which for a year and a half made front page news in America. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Mister president, what will you do for womans suffrage? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 How long must women wait for liberty" their banners read. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 On inauguration day of that year 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 A thousand pickets surrounded the white house four times. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Even after the declaration of war with Germany the picketing continued. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The women knew from their experience 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of the civil war that they cannot afford to stop now with their final goal in sight 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But suddenly in June 1918, on who's order know one knows. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The police began to arrest the pickets. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Scores of women were arrested, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 including both Lucy Burns and Alice Paul. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They were subjected to all manner of atrocities and persecutions 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which culminated in the following episode 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which the national womans party refers to as the night of terror. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The party historian tells the story thus: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 On November 14, 1917, a group of pickets was 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 arrested and taken to the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they protested against being sent there and refused to register 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 demanding that they be considered political prisoners. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The officers tried to force them to register. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Why'd you hit me, you?" "Come on girls, over here! Be nice, now! Over here at the desk!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "We demand to see Superintendent Whittaker!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Superintendent Whittaker is away! You'd better all line up and get registered!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "But, I'm sure there's some mistake about our being sent here! We're political prisoners, not common criminals! We'll wait and talk to Mr. Whittaker!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Sit there all night, then!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Well, they're not going to sit here all night! You get right over there and register, you! Go on, now!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Leave me alone!" "You stop pushing me!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Come now, ladies. You can't wait here all night. You, there, come over here and register. I want to ask you a few questions." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Get going, now! Get a move on!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "We won't answer any questions until we've seen Mr. Whittaker!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "You'd better answer or it'll be the worse for you!" "I'll handle you so you'll be sorry you made me!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Get a move on!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Wait boys, here's Superintendent Whittaker now!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Alright, what's all this? What's going on here? What's all the trouble about?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "We demand to be treated as political prisoners!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Political prisoners! Oh, ugh, you shut up! I have men here who will political prisoners you!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Here, grab that woman! You take that one! Here, each of you take one!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Come on boys, come on now! Now you'll see how you'll be treated as political prisoners!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "In there, lady, get going! Get in there through that door! Don't you claw me, you cat!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Let go of her! That woman's over seventy years old!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "I'll come with you. Don't drag me! I have a lame foot. Oh, oh, help me! Help me!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "That damn suffrager! My mother ain't no suffrager! I'll put you through hell!" [scream] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Oh, please don't! Please!" "Now, damn you, old lady, you get in there through that door!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "My foot! I told you I'd go with you! Please don't drag me!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Oh, be careful of your foot, Mrs. Nolan!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Mrs. J.W. Brannan, who was one of those arrested, says of the attack 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Its perfectly unexpected ferocity stunned us. I saw two men seize Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, lift her from her feet, and catapult her through the doorway." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "I saw three men take Lucy Burns, twisting her arms behind her and then two other men grasp her shoulders." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "There were six to ten guards in the room and many others collected on the porch - forty to fifty in all." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "These all rushed in with Whittaker when he first entered. The guards brought from the male prison fell upon us." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Miss Lincoln, a slight young girl, was thrown to the floor." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Mrs. Nolan a delicate old lady of seventy-three was mastered by two men." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "The furniture was overturned and the room was a scene of havoc. Whittaker, in the center of the room, directed the whole attack, inciting the guards to every brutality." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "The women were dragged out of the office, down the steps and across the road and field to the administation building. They were thrown into the cells with such violence that several of them were seriously injured." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "And Mrs. Lewis, whose head struck an iron bedstead, was unconscious for some time." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "As always when arrested, Lucy Burns took charge of the situation. Now, from her cell, she began calling the roll." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Paula Jacoby?" "Here." "Julia Emory?" "Here." "Mrs. Brannan?" "Here." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Shut up!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Mrs. Lewis?" "They've thrown her in here. She's in here, Lucy." "Thank you, Mrs. Nolan." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Mrs. [inaudible]?" "She's in here, too. They've both..." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "You, old lady in there, if you open your mouth again, I'll put you in a straitjacket!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Mrs. Butterworth?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Listen, are you gonna stop that?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Not until I find out if we are all here and all still alive." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Well, I guess we know how to fix you! You, guard there! Bring me those handcuffs!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Uh, here they are!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Don't you put those on me!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Quick! Hold her hands! No use fighting, lady." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Oh! Let go of me! Ohhhh!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "I've got her! Now, then, we'll fasten them to the top of the door and her with 'em. How do you like that, my fine lady?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "That's a good place for you!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "I guess that'll keep her out of mischief for a while!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "And if I hear anymore noise out of you, I'll bring the buckle gag!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The country resented the persecution of the pickets and a month later, they were all suddenly released. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In another month, President Wilson declared himself in favor of the federal amendment, and two days later it was passed by the House. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 By June of 1919, the 19th Amendment had passed both houses of the 65th Congress and was ready for ratification by the states. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The American women voted in the presidential election of 1920.