They are all true—the old adages about pride and falls, boasters who forget to rap on wood, chickens and hatchings—West Virginia proved it. Last August the card catalogue files carefully compiled by Maud Younger, Legislative Chairman of the Woman’s Party, showed an overwhelming majority for ratification in the West Virginia legislature. To check up on this poll, a member of the legislature took another and discovered the same overwhelming majority. Our National Headquarters kept in touch with the situation until the special session was called. The West Virginia delegation in Congress, the Democratic governor of the state, and the Republican national committeeman, all alike expressed certainty of ratification. As I left for West Virginia I confided to everyone I met how happy I was to go to a state which would probably ratify unanimously, and every leading citizen I interviewed for the first four day confirmed by expectation. Then the legislators began to assemble at the Kanawha Hotel, the political center of Charleston. I had their written pledges and I approached them more to exchange pleasant anticipations of victory than for any other purpose, and my fall began—a gradual inch-by-inch fall. The first man I met said: “Well, I haven’t been here very long and I don’t know just how I will vote. You see our great state voted suffrage down by a majority of—” And the second man said the same thing, and the third repeated the remark. Then the splendid men who were leading our fight and who were standing staunch came to me with appalling reports of the wavering of this one and that one. It was an opposition stampede—nothing less. I hurriedly told the Washington headquarters the situation and the National Republican senatorial Committee was prevailed upon to send a representative, Mr. Frank Barrow, to West Virginia to urge the Republicans in the legislature to remember their party and vote for ratification. Our chairman in West Virginia, Mrs. William Gay Brown, a staunch Democrat, conferred with the Democrats and made them appreciate their responsibility. Miss Anita Pollitzer, legislative secretary of the Woman’s Party working in Washington, convinced Senator Sutherland that his state could not afford to defeat the amendment.
We re-polled the House of Delegates and one hour before the vote was taken in that body on March 4 we knew we had 40 votes and the opposition had 41, and that there were six members who would tell neither friend, enemy nor party leader how they stood—the silent six they were called. In the Senate we were certain of 14 both ways. But the Republican leaders were sure they could get one more. Some of them were even sure they could get three! Senator Harmer, who led the fight in the Senate and who is one of the best parliamentarians in the state, nevertheless was not for allowing ratification to come to a vote. The vote was taken—and the clerk announced it— “14 to 14.” Senator Harmer saved the situation by changing his vote and making reconsideration possible. The Senate adjourned. It was the turn of the House. When the debate began speeches were tossed from an to man like balls in a game, and never for four hours was there a moment of silence in the House. At six o’clock the vote was taken. Forty-six men, in the face of the action of the Senate, stood sound—not as Republicans, not as Democrats, but as suffragists, every one of the six voting for us. With the announcement of the tie in the Senate, national leaders who had paid no attention to our repeated warnings of peril sprang into action. Representative Fess, chairman of the Republican Congressional Committee, immediately wired the following telegram to Republicans: “Can not overestimate importance from party standpoint of Republican legislature West Virginia ratification and desire to maintain this position. Any attempt substitute referendum would be grave mistake. Can we count on your active and immediate aid?” Senator Poindexter, chairman of the Republican Senatorial Committee, told of the situation by leaders in Washington, sent the following message: “Republican Senatorial Committee is deeply concerned over result of suffrage vote in your Senate. We could on West Virginia’s ratification. Republican party has pioneered every fight for suffrage and every state where Republicans had control of the legislature had ratified. Party will be greatly embarrassed if West Virginia breaks that most gratifying record through failure to cooperate with us at this critical time.” Senator Capper and Senator Kendrick likewise sent messages urging the Republicans to reconsider this fatal step.
Senator Owen, Senator Walsh and Attorney General Palmer, Secretary Daniels and Secretary Baker all used every effort to make it a Democratic victory. As a climax to all this, the President himself, realizing that one Democratic vote could save the situation, sent every opposed Democratic member of the Senate a telegram urging him to cast the deciding vote. If we would not obtain one vote from this pressure, there was only one chance left to us. Senator Bloch, who was wintering in California, had asked to be paired for suffrage. The opposition refused to consider his request and no pressure could obtain from the opposed senators this ordinary senatorial courtesy. A long-distance call was put in for Senator Bloch in San Francisco. That night he started east.
Now came the test of all our resources and of the loyalty of our friends, and I do not believe that any stauncher loyalty has been displayed by any group of men in the whole ratification campaign than by the 14 suffrage senators of the West Virginia legislature. For five days these 14 men had to wait in Charleston while the fifteenth vote crossed the continent. Every day they held conferences and buoyed one another up, while Betty Gram, who had been sent from Washington to help in the campaign, and I hovered round about trying, with radiant cheerfulness, to instill into everyone the feeling: “Senator Bloch is on his way and all is well with the world.” Telegraphic dispatches constantly arrived saying Senator Bloch was in New Mexico or Omaha or some other remote place that gradually grew nearer. Our enemies once more began their attack in the House. The opposition tried to reconsider and were beaten; tried a referendum and were beaten; tried to prevent reconsideration from being tabled and were beaten. Nevertheless, all of the delegates of this lower House had to be held in Charleston as well as the Senators. One man got as far as his comfortable seat in the train, but we heard that he had bought a ticket. I took a taxicab, Miss Gram and Mrs. Puffenbarger [Poffenbarger?], Chairman of the Women’s Committee of West Virginia, took another. We arrived simultaneously and that bewildered delegate was rushed off the train and back to his less comfortable seat in the Capitol. At one time it looked as if we could not get enough votes to recess from day to day until Senator Bloch arrived, and our friends prepared for continuous session. They carried pillows in their hands and playing cards in their pockets, and we on the outside had all our arrangements made for relaying them sandwiches and coffee. It was the opposition that weakened in the face of this ordeal.
Then came Monday, the day set for Mr. Bloch’s arrival, and suddenly a senator disappeared. We thought that he had had been abducted. His 13 suffrage colleagues rushed about searching for him. Miss Gram and I walked the streets, even daring to peer into barber-shop windows. At last the mystery was solved. He had gone home and was delayed by a blizzard. The Senate did not convene until he reappeared at 2:50 and saved the situation.
And then Senator Bloch arrived—one man alone in two coaches bouncing behind an engine that broke the world record for speed. He had chosen the special train rather than the airplane that was put at his disposal by the Republicans, but, as he said himself, he was traveling in the air mots of the way to Charleston. As he got off the train, pale but smiling, he was grasping his golf sticks desperately in one hand and a thermos bottle of coffee in the other. And at 2:40 a.m., when his private train pulled in, the town was out to meet him. While the senator tried to catch his breath, he gave this statement to the press: “The fourteen men who have so splendidly held together until my arrival deserve all the credit for the victory which we hope to gain tomorrow.” Even then our victory was won as by a miracle, for while we brought our vote from California, the anti-suffragists were also brining a senator more quietly from Peoria, Ill. Senator Montgomery, who had moved out of the state and resigned from the Senate, was persuaded to come back and attempt to regain his seat. But one of the opposition whom it had happened by chance Senator Montgomery had told personally of his resignation, refused to dishonor himself by voting to reseat even a member of his own party under these conditions, and the day was saved again for the women of America.
Mary Dubrow. |