The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1919-08-08
CBy William p. Harvey.)

(By William p. Harvey)
Striking analogies may be drawn
between the efforts of the militant
branch of the suffragists to force
votes for women and the methods
used by organized labor in reaching
its present stage of progress toward
a perfect day.
When the National Womans
Party was organized six years ago,
the suffrage for women movement
was in "a moribund state For more
than sixty years, for two genera
lions. champions of equal suffrage
had worked unsucCessfully to make
a dent in the callousness of the
men voters and get electoral rights
for women. They had succeeded in
a few States, in few enough to
show how big a job there was ahead
of the movement before it would
be established nationally.
Whereas the movement formerly
had been placed on silks and
jam basis, with an underground of
tea and mullins, the new order of
"suffs," as they really like to be
called, were in the habit of work
ing all of the morning, draping
themselves across stools for lunch
con and were pretty apt to work all
afternoon without resort to the
mild stimulation of tea and small
talk. And like as not, several hours
at night were devoted to street cor
ner meetings, to hall meetings. to
business sessions for organizers and
to general surveys that would make
for progress.
Rotund legislators who previous
ly restored to compliments to aged
ladies beseeching the vote, thereby
forestalling them, were a bit dazed
by the new order of "suffs." Mostly,
they were young girls, fired with
zeal and coached in reason. Com
pliments they had in plenty from
real admirers. What they wanted
from Senators and Representatives
were votes. They got them, one
by one, through a gruelling battle
in which pure reason was used as
the basic weapon.
But reason was only one Of the
employed. They also
used union labor's greatest weap
ons, the picket and an undaunted
front when made the victims of il
legal imprisonments. Previously,
the suffrage for women movement
had been a bit of farce comedy, a
butt for all the ancient jokes. I'm
der the leadership of Miss Alice
Paul, Chairman of the National
Woman's Party, suffrage and it's eff
forts were dramatized. The mar
tyrdom of delicate women facing
and Imprisonment
were limned against the decencies
Of thinking citizens. Their semi
fortunes in the odorous Jail of the
District of Columbia, incarceration
with negro women, with women of
shades of character, the
poor food, the hunger strikes, all
made effective weapons for prose-
lyting the public in every State
where picketing was allowed other
groups of citizens as a matter of
law.
Score after score of women, citi-
zens subject to laws which they had
no voice in making, taxed without
in imitation of the
ancient tyranny which forced this
country toward the freedom from
rule, walked up the
steps of the Capitol and were bru-
tally jerked by Capitol guards to
Some emerged from
their hunger strikes to go to hos
pitals. Others We're cared for in
the infirmary Miss Paul established
in the party headquarters here. All
were given medals, bits of metal
showing prison bars and in which
they gloried,
If the analogy may be continued,
woman suffrage has now reached
the stage of collective bargain
ing" The Congress had allowed it
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