Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1912-04-11
S%UFFRAC|STS
40 YEARS AGO.
When Women Stormed a Sen.
ate Committee Room.
CONVENTION IN WASHINGTON.

1t Terminated In a Demonstration
Which Brought the Police to the Cap
itol-lncidents Like Those Now o.
curing In London.
Rampant Women Suffragists' is the
scare head" on the leading story of
the Kansas City Times Of forty years
ago. The incidents Of the story are not
unlike those of the stories which ap-
pear almost every day in the London
Times Of the present.
The story is a dispatch from Wash
ington dated Jan. II, 1872. Many Of
the women who were leaders in the
movement are widely known today.
Miss Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Stanton,
Josephine Hooper and Victoria Wood
hull are mentioned as being 'in the
ranks that filled up the passage leading
up to the committee room with grim
faces and loud, excited voices" I'm
der the first bank Of the headline is
the line, Three Hundred and Odd
Strong Minded Creatures on Duty
Bent" The last bank of the head
states that They Refuse to Listen to
Entreaties and Are Treated to Police
COurtesies."
A woman suffrage convention had
been in session in Washington for four
days, and the story refers to the feel
ing of unrest and %dissension (which
has pervaded the very air Of the city
during that time" Just four years
previously the fourteenth amendment
was added to the constitution Of the
United States to give the right of the
ballot to the recently freed slaves.
"Ail persons born or n%aturalized in
the United States and subject 20 tho
jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the
United States and of the state wherein
they reside" says the amendment.
While this was intended solely for the
benefit of the former slaves, the suffra-
gettes saw in it "the opportunity for is
to throw off the shackles which have
CALLED and chafed our oppressed sex
through all time,' as one of the elo,
quent speakers had said in the convell-
ton.
"Slaves, slaves! Tell me of the en-
shaved race which has knelt to the
tyranny Of mans oppression so long
and suffered SO much as we. Then if
this amendment is to set the negro
slaves of men upon the pedestal of
equality it shall also give to women
the right which has been her fondest
hope and dream through all these cen
turies."
The convention moved in a body to
the committee room of the senate.
where the question was to be debated.
The women gathered in the corridor
outside the room to wait for the ar
rival of the committee. "And so I'M
merous were the 'gentler sex that the
members of the committee could not
get to their room until the ~sergeant-at-
arms called upon the women to clear
the way" relates the Times. He eX-
postulated with the female suffragists
and besought them to consider, but
all to no effect. Not n would move
to either side for fear Of losing her
chance to get into the room.
FINALLY a large force of police were
summoned. and they went forward
and pushed the 1uttering mass of GRIN
oline back far enough to allow Trum-
bull and the other senators to march
into the committee room. Speeches
were made by Mrs. Stanton and others
in which it was argued that the four
teenth amendment gave to women the
right to vote. Such a scene has never
been witnessed in the capitol before,
and in the ease Of their being men
there would have been numerous ar
rests, as there would in this case if
these women had obtained their
rights"