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