The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1917-03-30
"SUFFs" STOOD THE GROUND
DESPITE the ELEMENTS
Gibson Gardner, Washington Cores
pondent, Describes the Women Who
Were Sentinels at the Presidents
Gates; They Are Martyrs 10 Their
Cause; Some Old and Others Young;
Cold and Dreary Weather Did Not
Bother Them
From Thursdays Daily.

| In the recent issue of 'The Suffra-
gist," the official weekly organ of the
National Woman's Party, some bits
of news are contained that are of
general interest to all those who have
watched the present suffrage cam
paign.
One result of The hurry call for one
thousand more government munition
makers sent out February 16, is that
the, war department has opened
| the United States arsenals to women
workers, and the employment agency
of the department of labor is directed
to procure the necessary number.
President Woodrow Wilson was
asked to open his second term in
office with action on suffrage, but he
refused to see the delegation which
waited two hours in the rain. The
Suffrage party took his refused to
mean that his real attitude toward
suffrage was not favorable, and much
indignation was expressed at the
Presidents rebuff of the delegation,
and refusal to support the suffrage
amendment for which the women have
struggled for years. ''The Suffra gist,"
presents a full page picture of the
suffrage delegation, carrying their
banners, and encircIng the white
house in the rain. An idea of the inn
preston made by this big demon
stration of educated, intelligent
women seeking recognition, is graph
ically given by the following descrip-
ton, which was written by Gibson
Gardner, Washington correspondent
of the Scripps Papers:
During the eighteen years / have
been correspondent in Washington
have seen no more impressive sight
than the spectacle of the pickets
surrounding the White House on the
afternoon of March 4. The weather
gave the affair its character. Had there
, been fifteen hundred women carry
ing banners on a fair day the sight
would have been pretty one.
"To see a thousand women-young
women, middle-aged women, and old
wonderland there were women in
! the line who had passed their three
score and ten-marching in rain that
almost froze as it fell; to see them
standing and marching and holding
their heavy banners against a gale OF
wind, hour after hour until their
gloves were wet and clothes soaked
| through: to see them with wet gloves
pulled from hands blue with cold and
sticky with the varnish from the
banner poles-to see these women
keep their lines and go through their
program fully, losing only those who
tainted or fell from exhaustion, was
sight to impress even the dulled
and jaded senses of one who, has seen
much. The rain never ceased for an
| instant. A special committee carry
| ing the resolutions of the woman's
party convention went to the west
gates leading to the executive offices
i of the White House but these gates,
! for the first time in two decades,
were locked.
"The president seemed to think the
women were going to steal his grass
roots. Policemen were stationed at
| intervals of fifty feet inside the iron
fence and there were almost as NUM-
erous elsewhere as the pickets. There
was not even messenger or watch
| man to accept the written resolutions
The delegation parleyed with the
I policemen and waited in the rain
They waited for long time-which
| was typical of the attitude OF the
administration on the subject Of the
federal amendment for women suff-
rage. Mr.. Wilson, from the first, has
kept the women waiting.
at is poor business both for the
women and for wilson"