Jailed for Freedom | Page 4

as it was by national dignitaries and crowned heads, was astir.
The women retired, distributing to the gasping spectators copies of
their Declaration. Miss Anthony had reminded the nation of the
hollowness of its celebration of an independence that excluded women.
Susan B. Anthony's aim was the national enfranchisement of women.
As soon as she became convinced that the constitution would have to
be specifically amended to include woman suffrage, she set herself to
this gigantic task. For a quarter of a century she appealed to Congress
for action and to party. conventions for suffrage endorsement. When,
however, she saw that Congress was obdurate, as an able and intensely

practical leader she temporarily directed the main energy of the
suffrage movement to trying to win individual states. With women
holding the balance of political power, she argued, the national
government will be compelled to act. She knew so well the value of
power. She went to the West to get it.
She was a shrewd tactician; with prophetic insight, without
compromise. To those women who would yield to party expediency as
advised by men, or be diverted into support of other measures, she
made answer in a spirited letter to Lucy Stone:
"So long as you and I and all women are political slaves, it ill becomes
us to meddle with the weightier discussions of our' sovereign masters.
It will be quite time enough for us, with self-respect, to declare
ourselves for or against any party upon
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the intrinsic merit of its policy, when men shall recognize us as their
political equals . . . .
"If all the suffragists of all the States could see eye to eye on this point,
and stand shoulder to shoulder against every party and politician not
fully and unequivocally committed to `Equal Rights for Women,' we
should become at once the moral balance of power which could not fail
to compel the party of highest intelligence to proclaim woman suffrage
the chief plank of its platform . . . . Until that good day comes, I shall
continue to invoke the party in power, and each party struggling to get
into power, to pledge itself to the emancipation of our enslaved half of
the people . . . ."
She did not live to see enough states grant suffrage in the West to form
a balance of power with which to carry out this policy. She did not live
to turn this power upon an unwilling Congress. But she stood to the last,
despite this temporary change of program, the great dramatic
protagonist of national freedom for women and its achievement
through rebellion and practical strategy.

With the passing of Miss Anthony and her leadership, the movement in
America went conscientiously on endeavoring to pile up state after
state in the "free column." Gradually her followers lost sight of her
aggressive attack and her objective-the enfranchisement of women by
Congress. They did not sustain her tactical wisdom. This reform
movement, like all others when stretched over a long period of time,
found itself confined in a narrow circle of routine propaganda. It lacked
the power and initiative to extricate itself. Though it had many eloquent
agitators with devoted followings, it lacked generalship.
The movement also lost Miss Anthony's militant spirit, her keen
appreciation of the fact that the attention of the nation must be focussed
on minority issues by dramatic acts of protest.
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Susan B. Anthony's fundamental objective, her political attitude toward
attaining it, and her militant spirit were revived in suffrage history in
1913 when Alice Paul, also of Quaker background, entered the national
field as leader of the new suffrage forces in America.
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Chapter 2
A Militant General—Alice Paul
Most people conjure up a menacing picture when a person is called not
only a general, but a militant one. In appearance Alice Paul is anything
but menacing. Quiet, almost mouselike, this frail young Quakeress sits
in silence and baffles you with her contradictions. Large, soft, gray
eyes that strike you with a positive impact make you feel the
indescribable force and power behind them. A mass of soft brown hair,
caught easily at the neck, makes the contour of her head strong and
graceful. Tiny, fragile hands that look more like an X-ray picture of
hands, rest in her lap in Quakerish pose. Her whole atmosphere when
she is not in action is one of strength and quiet determination. In action
she is swift, alert, almost panther-like in her movements. Dressed

always in simple frocks, preferably soft shades of purple, she conforms
to an individual style and taste of her own rather than to the prevailing
vogue.
I am going recklessly on to try to tell what I think about Alice Paul. It
is difficult, for when I begin to put