A Centennial for the Parade that Changed the Game

A lot of folks are making a very big deal about a parade in Washington, D.C. a hundred years ago today.  This is why.

Alice Paul and Lucy Burns were uppity women.  Worse they were angry, uppity women.  They were more youthful than the dowagers whose decades’ long drive for women’s suffrage had been noble, but fruitless.  Paul had been in England and been impressed with how Christabel Pankhurst and her mother Emmeline, leaders of a new militant suffrage movement which was making a sensation by using direct action tactics such as publicly heckling politicians, window smashing, and rock throwing, were raising the profile of the cause there.

When Paul returned to the United States in 1910 she joined the National American Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and soon advanced to a leadership role.  Although the national organization was committed to a state-by-state strategy as its top priority, Paul was made Chair of the Congressional Committee with the responsibility of lobbying for Federal action.  Carrie Chapman Catt, formidable leader of the NAWSA, did not have much faith in Paul or her project, but was probably glad to have the gadfly out her hair in New York where she was carefully planning an elaborate political effort to win state approval of the Vote by referendum.

By 1912 Paul and Burns had set up shop in the Capitol as the as a semi-autonomous affiliate of the NAWSA called the Congressional Union. 

In the Presidential election that year, Catt had broken ranks with many older suffragists who were traditionally Republican, and endorsed Woodrow Wilson, a distinguished academic and supposedly a new breed of progressive Democrat, in the hopes that he would swing his party behind suffrage.

Paul, however, did not want to wait for a painfully slow lobbing process to nudge the new Chief Executive in the right direction.  She declared her intention to “hold his feet to the fire” from the very beginning with a huge Suffrage demonstration on the eve of his inaugural.

Don’t imagine a modern march on Washington with mobs of somewhat disorganized marchers carrying banners, signs, and puppets in an indistinguishable mass thronging of the Capitol’s wide avenues.  Paul’s Women’s Suffrage Procession was planned out with military precision, the thousands of women marchers were arrayed in designated units, marching abreast.  Most units wore white, the symbol of purity and adopted color of the suffrage movement.   The procession would be led by equestrians and floats with women as various allegorical figures broke up the ranks of marchers.  An elaborate program was printed for onlookers and a proper parade permit had been obtained from local authorities.

Wilson arrived by train from his New Jersey home on Monday, March 3, 1913, the day before his inauguration.  As the first Democrat since Grover Cleveland to break the grip of Republican dominance and as a man of known Southern roots and sympathies, he likely expected a whoopty do reception.  Instead only a handful of dignitaries, politicians, and the press were at hand.  Everybody else in town seems to have been lining Pennsylvania Avenue.

No wonder, for Paul had put on a dazzling show led by the beautiful blonde lawyer and activist Inez Milholland astride a white horse in flowing Greek robes.  Behind her, Paul and her friends, also on horseback, led 8,000 marchers, almost all women, and a few men, on parade. 

An estimated half a million onlookers crowded the route including cheering supporters, the idly curious, a lot of very, very angry men.

The procession was quickly attacked by mobs of men along the route, throwing rocks and battering participants with clubs and fists as the police stood by without intervening.  Retaining as much courage and dignity as they could muster, the marchers continued on their route while running a virtual gauntlet.  Before the rear of the march reached its destination some hastily mobilized troops from Fort Myer arrived to provide some protection.  Over 800 marchers, almost all women, were injured in the attacks.

Reaction to the parade and the attacks threatened to overwhelm news of the Presidential inauguration the next day, much to the annoyance of Wilson.  And to the delight of Paul who regarded the operation as successful in every way. She was sure that public outrage would lead to greater support of the cause.

A subsequent investigation held the police derelict in their duty for failing to protect the lawful demonstration and the Police Chief was fired.

In New York Catt was less than thrilled and feared the bold confrontation would alienate male supporters critical for here state-by-state attack.  None the less Catt staged her own giant parade down Fifth Avenue in May as the kick off for her ballot initiative plan.  A fifth the marchers in her parade were men.

The breach over militancy and confrontation between Catt and Paul became irreparable in 1914 and Paul’s group severed ties with the national organization.  Two years later they reorganized as the National Women’s Party (NWP.) 

They continued to press Wilson for action with daily picketing at the White House.  When the picketing continued even after the country entered World War I, Wilson had Paul and dozens of her associates and supporters arrested, jailed, and force fed during hunger strikes.  When word got out about the abuse, Wilson was embarrassed yet again. Exasperated, Wilson finally declared his support of a Federal Constitutional Amendment for women’s suffrage as a “war measure” and in recognition of the contribution of women to the effort.  He made no mention of Paul or the NWP, but no one doubted that their stubborn militancy had forced his hand.

Both houses of Congress passed the 19th Amendment in 1919.  Then the battle moved to ratification by state legislature the state-by-state struggle advocated by Catt was back on.  The NAWSA and NWP played a kind of “good cop/bad cop” tag team on state legislatures with Catt’s group wooing them with compliments and kindness, and Paul threatening disruption and defiance. 

It proceeded, all things considered, with astonishing speed. On August 19, 1920 Tennessee passed the Amendment with one vote, securing the necessary support to become a part of the Constitution.  When the Secretary of State certified at the adoption on August 26, Paul and her cohorts proudly unfolded a banner on the NWP headquarters building in Washington and toasted the event—with grape juice, of course.

Ladies Get the Vote, Plot to Use It

Shortly after being founded the League of Women Voters  lobbied both parties at their 1920 National Conventions.  Carrie Chapman Catt stands at the far left.   

I know today is St. Valentine’s Day, but you didn’t expect us to go for the obvious, did you?  Today we celebrate the birth of the League of Women Voters on February 14, 1920. 

The League was founded by the doughty Suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt at the last meeting of the National American Women’s Suffrage Association.  The final ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment was still six month in the future, but certain victory was in the air.  The founders wanted to establish a non-partisan political organization that would educate women voters on the issues and advocate for issues important to them.

In its earliest years it often presented platform plank proposals to both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

The other main organization in the push for suffrage, the much more militant National Women’s Party, took another path.  Alice Paul kept her organization intact and turned attention to the adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Catt characteristically wanted a civic organization where respectable club women could do community service and education in keeping with high minded ideals. And she succeeded.  Local chapters took hold all around the country

Membership originally was limited to women, but men have been admitted since 1973. 

The League is perhaps best known for facilitating debates among candidates on the local, state, and national level.  Their traditional management of the Presidential Debates was so even handed and fair that they threatened to include minor party and “nuisance” candidates, much to the displeasure of both Democrats and Republicans.  In 1987 The Commission on Presidential Debates was established to manage the debates and make sure that no outbreak of serious inclusion was possible.

On the local level, despite the fact that for many years moderate Republican women and good government activists often dominated local chapters, some GOP and many Tea Party candidates have boycotted League debates.  They are suspicious that the League is biased toward the pro-choice side of the abortion debate and they prefer to limit their public appearances to partisan Town Hall rallies where they control the questions and screen the attendees.

Although weakened in recent years by the difficulty in recruiting busy younger women, many of whom now have careers, the League remains a favorite organization of those who yearn for respectful discourse in politics and a focus on substantial policy issues. 

Naturally that included a lot of Unitarian Universalists.  You may have heard the old joke about UUs:  A group of children were gathered on the playground.  “My family are Christians,” proclaimed the first.  “Well, we’re Catholics,” added another.  “My folks are Jewish,” said the third.  The last boy didn’t speak up.  “Well, what are you?” the others demanded.  “I’m not sure,” he said, “I think we’re League of Women Voters.”

The One, The Only, The Original Victoria Clafin Woodhull

Victoria Claflin Woodhull announced her candidacy for President of the United States almost 50 years before the passage of the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote in all of the United States.  Woodhull stood apart from other leaders of the Suffrage movement by her audacity, frank embrace of the most radical social causes, her shocking open challenge to Victorian sensibilities, and her mesmerizing affect on the public and press. 

She was born in Homer, Ohio on September 23 1838, the daughter of a ne’er-do-well con artist and patent medicine peddler who may have passed on some of his persuasive flair to his beautiful older daughter. 

At the age of 15 she married a 28 year old doctor—and perhaps a quack—Canning Woodhull.  The couple had two children including a boy with an “intellectual disability.” Victoria soon discovered that her husband was an alcoholic, chronic womanizer, and was abusive.  Unable, or unwilling, to support the family, he relied on his wife to provide income.    In San Francisco she worked as a cigar girl in rough and tumble saloons, and likely at least occasionally as a prostitute. 

Later in New York she began her long collaboration with her younger sister Tennessee Claflin presenting themselves as clairvoyants and spiritual healers.  When her husband essentially abandoned the family, the sisters successfully took their act to Cincinnati and Chicago and began touring as spiritualist lecturers.  After 11 years Victoria obtained a divorce from her husband. 

Her experience would inform her public rejection of conventional marriage as a form of chattel slavery for women.  She became attracted to the Free Love movement that percolated on the very most advanced frontiers of Free Thinking.  Around 1866 she either married or took up a common law relationship with Col. James Blood, a kind and cultured gentleman who subscribed to Free Love. 

They settled back in New York with sister Tennessee and her extended family.  Living in relative comfort and respectability, the sisters established a popular salon where advanced thinkers and practical politicians rubbed shoulders.  Among her admirers was Benjamin Buttler, the Radical Republican politician and former general who espoused both suffrage for women and free love. 

Virgina proved a brilliant and daring conversationalist  and advocated by turns and in combinations anarchism, socialism, Spiritualism, and racial equality. 

Sister Tennessee caught the fancy of 76 year old Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, who took her for a lover, consulted with her for spiritual advice and returned the favor by offering inside stock tips.  Armed with such information, the sisters invested and reaped fabulous profits.  Vanderbilt helped set them up in the first woman owned brokerage firm on Wall Street, Woodhull, Claflin & Company.  The press hailed them as Queens of Finance. Susan B. Anthony regarded the venture as “a new phase of the woman's rights question.”  Victoria, with typical blunt frankness noted that, “Woman's ability to earn money is better protection against the tyranny and brutality of men than her ability to vote.”

  In 1870 the sisters took advantage of their fame by launching their own weekly newspaper, Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly.  Victoria was the principle editor and writer.  The paper took on and advanced all of the most progressive causes of its day.  But it also pioneered in muckraking and investigative journalism, exposing fraudulent stock schemes, insurance frauds, and shady Congressional land deals.  The newspaper, which was often sold under the counter and was sometimes banned from the mails, had a very respectable circulation of more than 20,000 copies weekly for most of its seven year run. 

In 1870 Woodhull used the pages of the New York Herald to announce her candidacy for President in the 1872 election.  She maintained that while the law forbad women from voting, there was not a statutory ban on women running for, or being elected to office.  She used the pages of her newspaper and the lecture stage to campaign. 

In January 1871 she personally petitioned Congress on behalf of women’s suffrage.  She argued that the recently enacted 13th and 14th Amendments extended to women the same rights as newly freed slaves. Her argument attracted wide attention and admiration.  Although a majority report rejected her assertions, Benjamin Butler filed a minority report in her favor.  Leaders of the Suffrage movement including Anthony, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton invited her to address a meeting of the National Women Suffrage Association (NWSA) the next day. 

But the spotlight of the campaign was thrown on Woodhull’s most unusual household, which included not only her present husband, but also her first who had shown up penniless and addicted to morphine and was taken in out of charity; her sisters and their liaisons; and her parents including the father who still was running patent medicine scams.  When her mother tried to blackmail Vanderbilt posing as Tennessee, he naturally withdrew his support and advice and turned his significant power against the sisters, who were soon forced out of their mansion ending their Salon. 

Woodhull simply replaced the money lost from her business with speaking fees.  The powerful Beecher family, evangelist Henry Ward and his sisters Harriet Beecher Stowe and Catherine began a concerted campaign against Woodhull for her advocacy of Free Love.  A third sister, Isabella Beecher Hooker, a leader in the NWSA, supported her. 

Woodhull became aware that Henry Ward was carrying on an adulterous affair with the wife of an associate.  She attempted to use that knowledge to get the Reverend not only to back off his attacks, but to introduce her at a major public lecture at Steinway Hall.  Despite the thinly veiled blackmail attempt, Beecher backed out at the last moment and Woodhull was introduced by Theodore Tilton, the cuckolded husband of Beecher’s lover. 

The speech itself went well until Woodhulls younger sister Utica, bitter over Victoria’s fame and notoriety stood up in a box and directly challenged her sister to publicly proclaim her support of free love.  “Yes, I am a free lover!” Woodhull defiantly retorted, “I have an unalienable, constitutional, and natural right to love whom I may, to love as long or as short a period as I can, to change that love every day if I please! And with the right neither you nor any law you can frame have any right to interfere.” 

The subsequent scandal rocked the country and split the suffrage movement.  None the less the NWSA stood by her and formally nominated her for President with Fredrick Douglas for Vice President in January of 1872.  Woodhull ran against Republican incumbent Ulysses S. Grant and the Democratic nominee, famed editor and publisher Horace Greely.  Victoria attempted to concentrate her campaign on the highly progressive Woodhull Platform.  But her now considerable enemies beset her at every turn. 

Susan B. Anthony, broke with other NWSA leaders to support Grant in an attempt to distance the movement from the increasingly scandalous Woodhull.  After the family was evicted from their home, they could not even find a house to rent and for a while had to sleep on the floor of their newspaper offices.  Business deals fell through and speaking engagements were cancelled.  The paper had to suspend publication for four months.  When it returned it ran a full expose of the Beecher/Tilton affair and another on a prominent broker with a predilection for young girls.  While circulation soared, the sisters were sued for libel and prosecuted for “pornography.” 

Woodhull spent Election Day in jail.  No votes were recorded for her, but it is assumed that some of the 4000 or so “rejected” ballots in the election were for her. 

Her legal difficulties dragged on.  In 1874 both sisters were finally cleared of criminal charges.  But they had to pay fines and court costs amounting to an astonishing half a million dollar.  All of the sisters’ assets, including their brokerage accounts, printing press, personal papers, and even their clothing were seized to pay the fines.  By 1876 she was divorced from Col. Blood and her beloved newspaper was silenced. 

She turned to the comforts of religion while continuing to eek out a living as a lecturer.  After Cornelius Vanderbilt died unhappy heirs attempted to subpoena the sisters for testimony that he was not of sound mind.  Somehow—and speculation runs heavily to the Vanderbilt estate—money was found to send the sisters to England with a comfortable stipend on which to live.  Victoria lectured there, but her message was subdued. 

She met a wealthy and conservative banker, John Biddulph Martin and married him in 1882 and settled into a life of respectability and sponsorship of various humanitarian causes.  On a trip back to the U.S. she joined the tiny Humanitarian Party and was nominated as their candidate for President in 1892.  It was a last hurrah in the United States. 

Back in England Victoria divided her husband’s estates after his death and backed a scheme to rent small plots to impoverished women so that they could become self-sufficient, founded an experimental school and sponsored an annual agricultural fair.  She was active in World War I relief work and died in her sleep in 1927 at the age of 88.