I'd like to thank Amy Hackett and Kristie Miller for their useful suggestions to this paper. This article uses “Mrs.” and “Miss” because that is how women referred to themselves in 1912. “Afro-American” was also commonly used at that time.
The
Rise of Political Woman in the Election of 1912
by Jo Freeman (2003)
 “
With a suddenness and force that have left observers gasping, women
have injected themselves into the national campaign this year in a
manner never before dreamed of in American politics.” New
York Herald, Aug. 11, 1912“Never before in the history of the United States have women taken a deeper interest in a presidential campaign than this year.” New Orleans Picayune, Aug. 19, 1912
“Unprecedented in this country is the prominent part which women are taking in the presidential campaign this year.” Calumet Michigan News, Aug 21, 1912
"Woman's Day in national politics seems to many an editorial observer to be now dawning." N.Y. Literary Digest, Aug. 31, 1912 |
The election of 1912 marked the take-off point for two progressive
movements
-- that for woman suffrage and that of women into politics. Both movements
had roots deep in the nineteenth century, both got a boost
from the Populist Movement in the 1890s and both saw a decline in public
interest in the early 1900s. During these decades they had moved on parallel
tracks, each movement working to bring women into public life, but only
occasionally borrowing from or working with each other. The election of
1912 put both on the national agenda. It expanded their ranks and increased
public awareness of women's political work. And, while suffragists still
proclaimed their nonpartisanship and party women kept their official distance
from suffrage, the election of 1912 saw the beginning of mutual support.
The best known party women -- the ones quoted in the newspapers -- admitted
they favored woman suffrage even while they said it wasn't an issue in
the
campaign. In previous elections such women had refused to state their own
attitude toward suffrage out of fear of alienating men. Before the 1912
election, only a few women were active both in suffrage and in political
campaigns; afterwards, women working in politics saw the need for both.
What was different about 1912? Although individual women had been active
in political campaigns for many decades, by 1912 there was a critical mass
of women eager and willing to work for the presidential candidates of all
political parties. They were energized by the issues raised by the Progressive
Movement and saw the outcome of the 1912 election as crucial to the country’s
future. In 1912 there were 1.3 million women of voting age in the six states
where women had equal suffrage with men. When women were given the vote
in Washington in 1910 and in California in 1911, the electoral college vote
which women could affect more than doubled. The four states which had fully
enfranchised women in the 19th Century -- Wyoming (1869), Utah
(1870/96), Colorado (1893), Idaho (1896) -- had smaller populations.1
For the first time all presidential candidates treated women as important
to victory.
The presidential campaign of 1912 promised to be a highly competitive race.
Deep divisions within both the Democratic and Republican parties portended
close contests for each party’s nomination, even for Republican incumbent
William Howard Taft. An uncertain outcome gave all factions an incentive
to look for new sources of support. Progressivism split the Republican Party.
The new Progressive Party had the most to gain from spreading its net widely
and made the biggest leap by endorsing woman suffrage in its platform. The
suffrage movement had been slowly pushing votes for women onto the political
agenda but it was acceptance by the Progressive Party that gave it legitimacy
as a national issue. For the first time a major party candidate, Theodore
Roosevelt, spoke in favor of woman suffrage as he campaigned.
Because of this split, 1912 was one of those rare elections in which there
were three major candidates. As a former President, TR brought status
and legitimacy to the Progressive Party that was created for his candidacy.
As a reformer, he opened the door to new ideas. This combination made it
possible for woman suffrage to move from being a state issue into the national
debate. In turn, the sheer numbers of women working in the various campaigns
demonstrated their value as a political resource and undermined the many
objections to their voting as well as working for candidates.
The presidential campaigns had their headquarters in New York City, the
political capitol of the country. It was common to have a second headquarters
in Chicago to help with the Western campaign, and occasionally a third some
place else. These headquarters housed different committees, which raised
money, produced and distributed campaign literature, badges and posters
directed at different groups of voters, sent out surrogate speakers and
spoke to reporters. Presidential candidates relied on their friends to campaign
for them in their home states. Some presidential candidates traveled to
address mass audiences; others stayed at home and let their supporters visit
them. In 1912, TR was a one-man locomotive until he was shot by a madman
on October 14. Taft went on vacation, then returned to the White House,
making a few speeches along the way. Wilson continued to govern New Jersey,
making short trips to give carefully crafted speeches until he called a
moratorium when TR was incapacitated by his wound.
All eyes were on California, where women would cast their third vote in
a year in the November 5 general election. California was a progressive
Republican state. Democratic candidates for president had won only four
times since it joined the Union in 1850. Reformers and Suffragists had worked
together to achieve equal suffrage along with several other progressive
measures in a statewide referenda held on October 10, 1911. The Women’s
Progressive League quickly organized a voter registration drive which helped
over 70,000 women register to vote in time for the December 5 municipal
elections in Los Angeles; 65,000 women actually voted — only a few
thousand less than the number of men. California women were well organized
and politically conscious; many quickly turned their attention to the presidential
election. By the time California held its primary on May 14, women had organized
for all the leading candidates. A greater proportion of eligible women registered
and voted than men. (letter to New York Times, 5/17/12, 2:4) California
women didn’t wait for the national committees and the national candidates
to tell them what to do.
This article will describe what women did in that election and the consequences
for enlarging women's public role. Since women who supported candidates
for president worked through political parties, each of the major parties
will be treated separately. California women will receive special emphasis
because of their importance to this election.
The Republican Party
The Republican Party had controlled the federal government since 1896 but
it was not a united party. When an increasingly conservative President William
Howard Taft tried to purge progressives during the 1910 primaries they coalesced
against him. That year the Democrats captured the House for the first time
since 1892. Several prominent progressive Republicans asked former President
Theodore Roosevelt to challenge President Taft’s renomination, and
in February he announced that he would do so. By the time the Republican
convention opened in Chicago on June 18, Roosevelt had won more of the popular
votes in the fourteen states which held a primary, but Taft had more delegates.
The turbulent convention was rife with controversy and heated by rhetoric,
but was still controlled by the Taft forces, which won the nomination on
the first ballot and wrote the party platform. Angry at the Taft steamroller,
Roosevelt delegates bolted the convention to found a new Progressive Party.
They included the only two women who were delegates, Florence C. Porter
and Isabella W. Blaney, both from California.
Running the presidential campaign was the responsibility of the national
committee. The Republican National Committee (RNC) lost no time in setting
up headquarters in the Times Square Building in New York City. The Republican
party had recognized the importance of women since 1888, when it asked J.
Ellen Foster to form the Women's National Republican Association. Although
she mounted a major appeal to women during the campaigns of the 1890s, her
efforts in the elections of 1904 and 1908 were subdued. Foster died in 1910,
and her place as head of the WNRA was taken by her protégée,
Helen Varick Boswell. Thus it was only natural for the party to turn to
Boswell to be director of women's work in 1912. In Chicago, the director
of the western headquarters named Mrs. J.D. Whitmore as head of his women’s
bureau. (Topeka Daily Capitol, 9/10/12, 1) Taft women had already
organized in California under the leadership of Mrs. Abbie E. Krebs and
were putting out their own literature. (San Francisco Call, 5/1/12,
5:1)
Boswell was given two rooms on the ninth floor of the campaign headquarters.
She wanted her office to be in the Astor Hotel, where women often went for
teas and lectures, but the campaign wanted it nearby so she “gracefully
yielded... to the superior political wisdom of the men.” (New York
Tribune, 8/14/12 [5], quote in The Sun, (New York) 8/18/12 [6])
For a few weeks Boswell worked there with a small staff, including her assistant,
Miss Elizabeth Toombs, a press agent, Miss Mary C. Francis, an organizational
secretary, Miss Mary Woods, and two stenographers. When her office staff
grew to 35, an elaborate suite on the fourteenth floor was offered by a
woman of means who was sailing for Europe. The Women’s Department quickly
moved upstairs. (NY Tribune, 9/4/12 [32]) These rooms were so elegant
that the men used them for special conferences, pushing the women out of
sight when important visitors were present.
An experienced party worker with a network of Republican women to draw upon,
Boswell immediately announced that “committees of women are being organized
in the counties of all the States where women have the ballot” which
will “work in harmony with the respective County Chairmen.” (New
York Times, 8/20/12, 18:2) Mary Woods was put in charge of organization.
She contacted every Republican County Chairman in the country, asking him
to recommend women leaders. She also had “thousands of names of women
given up by the women leaders.” More names were culled from letters
written by Taft supporters to the campaign offices. All of these were filed
on index cards. Each woman county leader was asked to send a report weekly,
and each state leader daily. Speakers were constantly recruited, cleared
with the campaign’s speaker’s bureau, and sent out to address
meetings. Researchers prepared packets of information, and even entire speeches
with “the facts, the fancies and the eloquence that we hope is going
to make converts,” so that strict Republican doctrine would be adhered
to. The woman’s department also recommended items to the publicity
bureau, which telegraphed material around the country every day. The women
spoke to visiting reporters “each day between three and four o’clock.”
By the end of the campaign “there was a strong organization of women
in almost every state, seconding the efforts of the men.” (National
Republican, 3/8/19 8:5,6; 3/1/19, 7:3)
In 1912 Afro-American women were still loyal to the party of Lincoln. While
some joined the progressive cause, most were turned-off by Roosevelt’s
refusal to seat black-and-tan delegations from the Southern states at the
Party convention, in preference to “lily white” ones. TR welcomed
integrated delegations from northern states, but most Afro-Americans stayed
away from his campaign, even when they agreed with his platform. Some supported
Wilson, but TR’s “Southern strategy” and Wilson’s Southern
sentiments gave scant reason to desert Taft. Boswell wrote later that “we
were fortunate in finding some excellent leaders for that race, both in
speaking and organizational work.” (National Republican, 3/1/19
7:3)
Mary Francis, an author of several books, wrote campaign literature while
Boswell was one of the campaign’s top speakers. Boswell became the
first woman to address the New York State Republican convention, and that
of Maryland, her home state. She also visited many other states, speaking
and checking up on the Taft women’s organization. She wrote later that
“it became the fashion at every big dinner or large gathering to have
women from the three parties” debate their choices. Most of the women
who participated in these debates knew each other, having all been active
in politics or women’s clubs for many years; some were personal friends.
Because of this, Boswell wrote, there was no acrimony among the speakers
as they explained their positions. This did not always hold for their partisan
followers; Boswell never forgot the time she was hissed.
The
Progressive Party
The new Progressive Party held its first national convention in Chicago
in early August. It aimed to be a major party -- perhaps supplanting the
Republican Party as the latter had the Whigs in the 1850s -- and therefore
created a party structure as well as a campaign organization. It selected
a national committee, state committees, held state conventions and ran
candidates for state and local office. Western states in particular leaned
to the Progressive Party. Women’s Roosevelt Leagues had helped TR
win the California primary in May by two to one. (San Francisco Call,
3/17/12, 43:1; 3/26/12 2:6; 3/29/12, 7:3)
As is true of all new parties, the Progressive Party sought to expand
its reach by appealing to new constituencies which the old parties had
neglected. TR had long been receptive to women's greater participation
in public life, which he saw as an expansion of women's natural maternal
role, not a derogation of it. In 1880 he had written his senior thesis
at Harvard on the "Practicability of Equalizing Men and Women before
the Law," in which he was favorable if somewhat skeptical that it
could be done. He voted for a woman suffrage bill while serving in the
New York State Assembly (1881-5) and urged the gradual expansion of suffrage
for women in his speech to the Legislature after election as Governor
in 1898. (IV HWS, 1902, 1075). However, TR did not think that women
voters would change electoral outcomes so he did nothing while President.
Out of office he was more outspoken. In 1910, he told a meeting of Colorado
women that “I am in favor of woman’s suffrage.” But, he
added, “I think there are many more important questions to be settled.
I am much more interested in the economic questions that effect the women
than in those purely political.” (Rocky Mountain News, 8/30/10,
10) A year later he wrote a suffrage opponent that “I am rather in
favor of the suffrage, but very tepidly.” (Morison, 1954, 7:240)
TR changed his mind late in the Spring of 1912. Right before the Republican
convention, Judge “Ben” Lindsey of Denver, a progressive Democrat,
persuaded him that a strong stand in favor of woman suffrage would benefit
his campaign. Lindsey had been organizing Woodrow Wilson clubs until TR
announced his candidacy in February. He subsequently became one of TR’s
closest advisors, mentioned as a possible running-mate before the Progressive
convention. Realizing “the advantage of enlisting the help of women
who through their large organizations had become a strong factor in public
life,” (V HWS, 1922, 706) TR authorized Judge Lindsey to announce
that there would be a woman suffrage plank in his platform. (The New
York Times, 6/13/12 1:4; The Evening Star, 6/13/12 9:4) His
conversion from passive to active supporter may have been prompted by
the intention of Wisconsin Senator Robert M. LaFollette, one of his rivals
for progressive support in the Republican primaries, to propose his own
platform containing a strong suffrage plank (V HWS, 1922, 705).
Women were quite visible both at the Progressive Party convention and
during the campaign. Reporting on the first day of the new party’s
convention, The New York Times described it as “a convention
managed by women and has-beens.... Everybody who is not an ex is a woman.”
(The New York Times, 8/5/12/, 1:1) When Jane Addams, the most prominent
American woman of her time, seconded TR’s nomination, the press loudly
but wrongly proclaimed her the first woman to have such an honor. It also
noted that women wrote, or helped write, important planks in the platform.
Between 20 and 40 women were official delegates, compared to two each
at the Democratic and Republican conventions. Nineteen women from seven
states signed a call “From the Women Delegates to the National Convention
of The Progressive Party to the Women of the United States.” Four
women sat on the national committee and many others on state and local
committees, though only one headed a county committee (Park County,
Wyoming). One fourth of the delegates to the New York State convention
were women, where four women were chosen to be delegates to the national
convention. (The New York Times, 8/4/12, 4:1) A third of those
at ward meetings of the Progressive Party in Chicago were women. (Chicago
Daily Tribune, 9/3/12, 5:6)
TR greatly admired Addams and women like her. As was true of most progressives,
he wanted to believe that women would add a finer, nobler, element to
the coarse world of party politics. On August 8 he telegraphed Addams
to thank her for seconding his nomination at the Progressive Party convention
and reiterate his commitment to women’s full inclusion in the new
party.
... In this great National Convention, starting the new party, women have thereby been shown to have their place to fill precisely as men have, and on an absolute equality. It is idle now to argue whether women can play their part in politics because in this convention we saw the accomplished fact, and moreover, the women who have actively participated in this work of launching the new party represent all that we are most proud to associate with American womanhood. (Morison, 1954, 7:594-5)
Like
Taft and Wilson, Roosevelt believed that woman’s place was to care
for home and family. Unlike them, he did not believe that this responsibility
excluded participation in public life, or that suffrage unsexed or masculinized
women. In a speech in Vermont later that month TR declared that “I
have said not once but a score of times, that I put the domestic life
above every other kind of life, and I honor the good wife and mother as
I honor no other woman and no man.... Real issues affect women precisely
as much as men. The women who bear children and attend to their own homes
have precisely the same right to speak in politics that their husbands
have who are the fathers of their children and who work to keep up their
homes... I do not believe that there is identity in functions between
men and women, but I do believe that there should be equality of rights.”
(The New York Times, 8/31/12, 2:4-6)
Within the Democratic and Republican parties women automatically organized
themselves into separate sections and held separate meetings specifically
for women. Because the Progressive Party had called for women to fully
partake in the organization and management of the new party, women were
urged to join regular party organizations and sit on state and local committees,
in preference to forming auxiliaries or separate clubs. Some did. Most
did not. In 1912 women were used to having their own organizations and
their own meetings, where they specialized in appealing to women and did
not have to defer to men. Women’s Roosevelt Leagues and Clubs proliferated.
A separate Women’s National Finance Committee, headed by Mrs. Kellogg
Fairbank in Chicago, focused on raising money. It “sold Bull Moose
stamps in drugstores and started a People’s Dollar Campaign,”
while staffing “Bull Moose stores in Chicago and New York [which]
marketed TR badges, stuffed moose, bronze lapel pins, and red silk bandannas
with the Colonel’s face imprinted on them.” (Dalton, 2002, 399)
The Progressive Party attracted to it many women who had made their reputations
and spent their careers working for reform. In addition to Jane Addams,
these women included Lillian Wald, Frances Kellor, Alice Carpenter, Katherine
Phillips Edson, Margaret Dreier Robbins and her sister Mary Dreier. Most,
though not all, of these women were Republicans. Only a few, such as Ruth
Hanna McCormick of Illinois, had been active Republicans. Although these
women supported woman suffrage, those women whose primary work had been
in the suffrage movement were less active. Journalist and suffragist Ida
Husted Harper wrote that while there were many women at the Progressive
Convention, there were only a few suffragists. (The New York Times,
8/10/12, 6:7)
When the new party set up its headquarters at the Manhattan Hotel, Alice
Carpenter was initially put in charge of women. She soon left to go on
the stump and Frances Kellor took over responsibility for organization.
She wrote numerous letters looking for women ready to work for Roosevelt
and the Progressive Party. She asked the national committeemen and the
state and county chairmen to appoint women to their respective organizations
whom she could aid to do “women’s part of the work” of
electing TR. She also wrote suffragists, extolling the opportunity the
campaign presented as “an unparalleled training school for women
who have not participated in political affairs.” She urged them to
“work for suffrage within party lines.” To other women’s
clubs she asked the help of “every earnest and able woman in the
work of promoting interest in suffrage and the protection of working women
and children.” (Jane Addams Papers, Reel 7:0023-30)
Under her direction, 250 female orators were deployed throughout the east
coast. Instructions to women speakers told them not to attack the other
parties except on the issue of suffrage. The Progressive Party’s
first women’s rally in New York City’s Union Square featured
two war horses of reform: Mary Dreier and Mary Ellen Lease. (The Evening
Star, 8/24/12, 2:6) The former was president of the New York Women’s
Trade Union League. The latter had made a national name for herself as
a Kansas agitator in the 1880s and a Populist speaker in the election
of 1892. Progressives made the most of Jane Addams support. In Los Angeles,
a Woman’s Rally Committee wrote campaign songs for a “Jane Addams
Chorus” which debuted on August 26. The songs, and the chorus, soon
spread throughout the country.
The Democratic Party
The Democratic Party had the most traditional attitude toward woman’s
place and was the least responsive to pleas for woman suffrage. While
Democratic women had organized local campaign clubs during elections for
decades, these were notencouraged or endorsed by the national party, and
were sometimes actively discouraged. Only in states where women could
vote were direct appeals made to women to support the party’s candidates.
The election of 1912 was the first time that the Democratic National Committee
authorized and supported an appeal to women.
The opening move to organize Democratic women nationally was made by backers
of Champ Clark, who had represented Missouri in Congress since the 1890s.
When the Democrats gained a majority of House seats in 1910, he was elected
Speaker. With a campaign based “mainly in Congress” (Goldman,
1990, 224), Clark was the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination
at the beginning of 1912. His sister, Mrs. Annie Pitzer of Colorado, would
become one of the two women delegates to the Democratic National Convention
in June. He had long supported William Jennings Bryan, who headed the
Party’s ticket in 1896, 1900 and 1908. However, Bryan’s radical
populism alienated many voters, especially in the east, and he had always
lost by substantial margins. Although many felt the Democratic Party had
become more conservative and less receptive to “Bryanism” over
time, division in the Republican party created a window of opportunity
which others thought Bryan might use to advance his own candidacy one
more time. This explained why Bryan had not declared his personal support
for Clark even though he headed the Nebraska delegation to the national
convention, which was pledged to Clark.
On February 28, 1912 The Evening Star in Washington, D.C. announced
that “Wives of Prominent Democrats to have Harmony Feast” —
“Just Like the Men.” The occasion would be a Dolly Madison Breakfast
to be held on May 20th with Mrs. Clark presiding. The wives of prominent
Democrats were invited to what was intended to be an annual event. Several
hundred guests, mostly “wives, daughters and descendants of democratic
statesmen” heard numerous orations and toasts. Two of these were
given by the wives who sat on either side of Mrs. Clark: Mrs. William
Jennings Bryan and Mrs. Judson Harmon, wife of the Ohio governor and dark
horse presidential candidate. At the end it was announced that a meeting
would be held in a few days to form a permanent organization of Democratic
women. (The Evening Star, 2/28/12 7:5; quote in 5/20/12 1:8)
One of those attending the breakfast was Nellie Fassett (Mrs. John Sherwin)
Crosby of New York City. She was not a political wife, but a political
organizer and the personal friend of William Jennings Bryan. Mrs. Crosby
had been organizing and presiding over women’s political clubs since
the 1890s. She had founded the Woman’s Democratic Club of New York
City in 1905 — “the only organization of Democratic women [in
New York] to outlive its birth year” — and was still its only
president (Philadelphia Telegraph, 9/25/12 [48]). She had long
wanted to head a national organization; the election of 1912 gave her
the opportunity to do so. It’s possible that Bryan or his wife had
asked her to take control from Clark’s wife and supporters, who did
not have her organizational or political experience. It’s also possible
that her mentor was fellow New Yorker Norman Mack, Chairman of the Democratic
National Committee. Mack was the publisher and editor of the Buffalo Daily
Times and a “regular” Democrat. In spite of the traditional
alliance between New York and Southern Democrats, Mack was neutral in
the presidential contest.
The organizing meeting of the Woman’s National Democratic League
(WNDL) was held on June 2 at Washington’s Willard Hotel with 50 charter
members. Mrs. Crosby was elected President. All of the officers and many
members soon departed for the Democratic convention in Baltimore where
the WNDL “made its real debut” (Hopkins, 1912). The fact that
most of them were married to Members of Congress who were convention delegates
made this easy. At the first meeting of the WNDL Executive Board, held
on July 3, the day after the convention ended, the wives of the presidential
and vice presidential nominees were promptly made the WNDL’s honorary
President and Vice-President. Its business completed, Mrs. Crosby returned
to New York and incorporated the WNDL in New York state on June 27, 1912.
The women named in the newspapers as the new officers and directors of
the WNDL did not include any of the women named as organizers of the Dolly
Madison Breakfast, but at least five were wives and two were widows of
Members of Congress. Among the latter was Phoebe Apperson Hearst, who
was also the mother of prominent newspaper publisher William Randolph
Hearst. Hearst was a major Clark supporter, and quite antagonistic to
the man who finally won the Democratic nomination on the 46th
ballot at the Baltimore convention — Woodrow Wilson. (The New
York Times, 6/1/12 4:2; 6/28/12, 7:12; The Evening Star, 6/2/12
16:6)
These connections may explain why the Wilson campaign didn’t want
the WNDL to be Wilson’s representative to women. Wilson was a political
neophyte, having held no public office other than governor of New Jersey,
and that only for a year and a half. Nor did he rise as a Democratic Party
activist; indeed he often turned against the party bosses who helped elect
him. Most likely he did not know, or did not trust, the men behind the
WNDL. Instead, Wilson aide Archie Alexander decided that there needed
to be a separate Women’s National Wilson and Marshall Association.
His mother and her friend, society matron Florence J. Harriman, officially
Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, called "Daisy" by her many friends,
drew it “up on paper” but couldn’t find a prominent woman
to head it. “All our birds had gone to perch on the suffrage plank”
of the Progressive Party, Daisy wrote later (Harriman, 1923, 111-112).
In the end, Daisy agreed to be its head.
The new organization was announced in the press with the publication of
a letter written on August 5, to Harriman from William F. McCombs, the
new Chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Thanking her
for her July 31st letter asking the DNC’s approval of a Woman's National
Wilson and Marshall Organization, McCombs assured her that “We welcome
the support and aid of your organization.” Within two days Harriman
had issued a press release and settled herself to the task of mobilizing
women to help elect Wilson. One of her first acts was to hire a professional
clipping service to fill a scrapbook with newspaper stories about her
activities.
Harriman claimed that her organization was non-partisan -- hence the lack
of “Democrat” in its name -- and that she was an “independent.”
She said that her “husband is a Republican, but he’s going to
vote for Wilson.... I believe in getting the best man for the place, whatever
his party.” Despite this disclaimer, the WNW&M organization operated
under the auspices of the DNC, which provided space in its campaign headquarters
at 200 Fifth Avenue (The New York Times, 8/7/12, 4:3).
The Wilson campaign didn’t completely ignore the WNDL while it was
arranging for its own women’s group. Mrs. Wilson officially invited
the WNDL officers to attend the traditional notification ceremony on August
7 at the Wilson summer cottage in Sea Girt, New Jersey. (The Evening
Star, 8/4/12 2:4; The New York Times, 8/4/12, 5:3). There the
WNDL executive board elected Mrs. Harriman to the League’s Board
of Directors.
The WNDL opened its headquarters at 1123 Broadway in New York City, two
blocks away from DNC headquarters. The WNDL’s Corresponding Secretary,
Mrs. Steven B. Ayres, wife of a Bronx Congressman, ran the office (Iowa
City Press, 10/7/12 [54]). She immediately created a National Wilson-Marshall
Women’s League, through which little girls could recruit paying members
to the WNDL. (New York Evening Sun, 10/18/12 [86])
Rather than explain why her group was not part of the official campaign,
Mrs. Crosby bragged that “our work... is carried on without any expense
to the men in the campaign work.” She planned to raise money through
teas and bridge parties, and use it to mail literature “full of good
Democratic doctrines.” (Philadelphia Telegraph, 9/25/12 [48]). The
WNDL still had the support of Norman Mack, even though he was no longer
DNC Chairman. His wife was named Vice President for New York, and his
magazine, the National Monthly, proclaimed itself “the official
organ of the League.” A column on the work of the WNDL appeared every
month during the rest of 1912.
Unlike the WNW&M organization, the WNDL was intended to be a permanent
organization for Democratic women. Mrs. Crosby began appointing state
vice presidents who are “carrying on the work of organizing permanent
state and county organizations." Sometimes she appointed women known
for their political work to head a state organization; other times she
asked a prominent local politician to do so. By October there were eight
state vice presidents, including Wyoming and Washington where women could
vote for president. (National Monthly, October 1912, 123) Leading
political women in a dozen other states announced the formation of state-wide
Democratic Leagues without the formality of official affiliation with
the WNDL.
One of these was in Los Angeles, where the L.A.County Women’s Democratic
League set up headquarters on the 3rd floor of the Alexandria
hotel. From there they organized mass meetings in halls and hotels and
sent out speakers to address workers at factory gates, shops and railroad
yards. Women were asked to make their automobiles available on election
day to bring voters to the polls. (Los Angeles Times, 10/20/12
[98])
Ten days after accepting the nomination, Woodrow Wilson welcomed women
into “the field of politics.” In a brief, impromptu speech to
several hundred women who came to participate in “New Jersey Day”
at Sea Girt, he said that “when the women come into politics they
come in to show us all those little contacts between life and politics,
on account of which I for myself rejoice that they have come to our assistance;
they will be as indispensable as they are delightful.” (quote in
The Evening Star, 8/18/12, 1:1, The New York Times, 8/18/12,
4:3) After listening to Wilson, women flocked to the booth of the WW&M
Club of New Jersey to hear Daisy speak and to sign up to help out in the
campaign. (New York World, 8/18/12 [9])
Harriman set up her campaign office in Room 1058 of the Fifth Avenue Building.
Aided by a group of society women, she gathered a mailing list of 50,000
women from all over the country, especially those in women’s clubs
and professional positions. Harriman planned to send them a circular every
week, discussing issues and explaining why women should use their indirect
influence to get the men in their families to vote for Wilson, or vote
for him themselves in the six states where they could do so. (New York
Globe, 8/12/12 [4], The Evening World, 8/8/12 [18]) First the
Wilson women prepared an 8 page document describing the work Governor
Wilson had done for women, children, and working men in New Jersey. (The
New York Times 8/9/12 2:4). This was sent out two weeks later with
a letter importuning women to join and make a small contribution. (Trenton
N.J. Times, 8/24/12 [6])
Next the WNW&MO organized mass meetings for women throughout New York
City. Harriman was often surprised to find that more men than women came
to her meetings. At her first mass meeting on August 20th in Union Square,
Harriman found herself addressing a crowd of 388 men and boys, but only
12 women. She asked the men to pass on her remarks to their wives, overlooking
the fact that New York women were being appealed to solely so they could
influence their husbands’ votes. All went smoothly until Harriman
and her band pulled out campaign buttons and started to toss them to the
crowd. In the men’s rush to grab the trinkets, the rally almost became
a riot, and the police had to be called in. (New York Post, 8/20/12
[12], New York World, New York Herald, 8/21/12 [14], New
York Globe, 8/21/12 [16]). This got more press coverage than anything
the women had to say.
Nonetheless, Harriman kept trying to reach housewives. She called for
a housewives meeting in Union Square on Sept. 13, where she spoke to 500
men and several dozen women. (New York Globe, 9/13/12 [42]) A leaflet
for a “Monster Mass-Meeting” in Brownsville declared that “THIS
IS A WOMAN’S MEETING.” “Women should come and be told the
reason that they be in politics and for WILSON this year.” Women
did turn out, but not as many as men. (Brooklyn Eagle, 9/10/12
[38]). This pattern prevailed even outside New York. Men outnumbered women
in a luncheon at Chicago’s Iroquois Club on September 17 called to
organize a local Women’s Wilson & Marshall Club. They applauded
loudly when Harriman, the first woman to ever address the Iroquois Club,
told her audience that “Party alignments are rapidly disintegrating....
[I]t is our opportunity, as loyal women, to turn [men] to the Democratic
Party.” (Inter-Ocean, 9/18/12 [39]) The WNDL apparently was
more successful at appealing to housewives, which it claimed were 90 percent
of its membership. It told them that “housewives know that the Republican
Presidents and the Republican Congresses have proved bad housekeepers”
(Ayres, 1912, 146)
When Harrriman went to Chicago, she bypassed the men in the western Wilson
headquarters and the local Democratic Party to seek the help of another
society woman, Ruth Hanna McCormick. Unlike Daisy, Ruth was experienced
in and knowledgeable of politics. A supporter of Roosevelt and a Republican
by birth, her husband was running the Progressive Party’s Chicago
campaign office while also running for the Illinois legislature on its
ticket. Ruth gave Daisy many names and lots of advice. (Harriman 1923,
112) A month later Mrs. E.S. Borneman, became Western director, after
forming the Chicago Women’s Wilson League. (Chicago American,
10/19/12 [90])
Daisy was soon sidelined by illness and spent the rest of the campaign
directing her organization from her bed. This did not inhibit action because
women in the states did not wait to be told what to do. All over the country
they organized Women’s Wilson and Marshall clubs, woman’s Democratic
Leagues, and just plain women’s Democratic clubs. They set up meetings
for local notables and local candidates to speak on behalf of the presidential
candidates. Some women running for local office found audiences at these
meetings larger than they could get on their own.
In Seattle, Washington, where women could vote, the local WNW&MO had
a heated debate over whether to admit men to its big women’s rally.
According to the local newspapers, “It had been planned at first
to exclude men entirely, but the fear was expressed that some of the men
might refuse to let their wives go out in the evening, if they would have
to stay at home. So the ban was lifted.” Officially, “men would
be tolerated” but not encouraged to attend, even in the audience.
Presiding was Mrs. May Arkwright Hutton of Spokane, a mine owner known
as “the richest woman in the West.” As one of the two women
delegates to the Democratic National Convention, “she came to fight
for Clark; but she stays in the campaign to fight for Wilson.” The
featured speakers were Democratic candidates for the state legislature,
superintendent of public instruction, and clerk of King Co. -- all women.
(Seattle, Wash. Intelligence and Times, 10/10/12 [59], Dallas,
TX Herald, 10/13/12 [70])
California organized its Woman’s Woodrow Wilson League soon after
the Democratic convention (San Francisco Call, 7/5/12 5:3). Progressives
in California were strong enough to put TR on the ballot as both the Republican
and Progressive Party nominee, but he still attracted almost as much anger
as adoration. One of the best known women in that state was novelist Gertrude
Atherton, who scathingly denounced of Roosevelt in her effort to secure
women’s vote for Wilson. In her first campaign speech at San Francisco’s
Palace Hotel, she called him “a colossal bluffer, absolutely selfish.”
(San Francisco Examiner, 8/16/12 ) In the next two months she made
30 speeches for Wilson up and down the state; later confessing that she
converted numerous Republican women but only three “Moosettes.”
(Letter to The New York Times, 11/20/12 14:7)
Not all Democratic women were welcome as speakers. The Ohio state committee
rejected Dr. Mary Walker, famed Civil War surgeon, made even more famous
for her insistence on wearing men’s clothes. The state party chairman
said he’d rather have a two-headed calf. (Butler, Tenn. Herald,
10/11/12 [61])
The Prohibition and Socialist Parties
The usual plethora of minor parties ran candidates in the 1912 election.
Some had put woman suffrage in their platforms and women candidates on
their slates for decades. The Prohibition Party had supported woman suffrage
since its founding in 1872. Its 1912 Platform said “We favor suffrage
for women on the same terms as men.” Although the party had declined
considerably by 1912, women were integral; a woman defeated an incumbent
man for election as secretary of its national committee. (The Washington
D.C. Evening Star 7/13/12, 7:6)
The Socialist Party, with Eugene Debs as its perennial presidential standard
bearer, had also supported woman suffrage since its founding in 1901.
Its 1912 Platform declared that “We demand unrestricted and equal
suffrage for men and women” and it ran women for office in several
states,
including governor of Washington. (Bedford Mass. Standard, 9/1/12
[31]). About ten percent of the delegates to its 1912 convention were
women; two women sat on its national committee and one on the executive
committee.
The Issues
Regardless of what was in the party platforms, the actual issues of the
campaign were chosen by the candidates and their campaign committees.
They reflected a combination of the personal preferences of each candidate
and what each committee thought would win the most votes. Some issues,
such as the tariff and what to do about the trusts, were addressed by
all three candidates, but on others they spoke past each other. The national
Democratic and Republican parties had been fighting about the tariff for
half a century. The Republican party favored protective tariffs which
the Democrats denounced as special privileges. While not quite committed
to free trade, Democrats argued that tariffs should only be high enough
to generate necessary revenue. Taft and Wilson took the traditional position
of their respective parties. Roosevelt disagreed with both on how to control
the trusts, but on the tariff he was still a Republican. The parties also
disagreed on how to achieve their goals. The Democrats were the party
of states’ rights and limited government. The Progressives favored
strong national regulation, especially of corporations. Republicans were
not opposed to national regulation, but thought it should be done lightly
and not be destructive of business.
Wilson announced his themes in his speech accepting the nomination, at
Sea Girt on August 7. From this Democratic campaign managers chose two
issues “by which they hope to make a bid for the feminine vote in
the six woman suffrage states.” (The Evening Star, 8/12/12,
2:1) They were: 1) The high cost of living, which would be aided through
reduction of the tariff. 2) Social legislation, in particular laws bettering
the condition of women and children through protective labor laws. A postcard
poll several weeks later, asking women what they considered the vital
issues of the campaign, found that 40 percent identified the first issue
and 30 percent the second as the most important. (Sacramento Sun,
10/1/12 [48])
At Sea Girt, Wilson had said that women should participate in politics
because “Nobody certainly is more directly in contact with the cost
of living than the women are.” (quote in The Evening Star,
8/18/12 1:1) To demonstrate the importance of the tariff to women, Harriman’s
group calculated how it affected the cost of items women purchased for
their homes and families. A letter sent out by the Wilson women claimed
that the tariff cost each family $125 a year. It asked housewives how
they managed to pay for commodities which had increased in price by 61
percent between 1896 and 1910, when wages had only gone up by 20 percent.
(Los Angeles Examiner, 8/21/12 [22])
On September 9 the Democrats opened a Tariff "Chamber of Horrors"
exhibit at 29 Union Square West in New York City to illustrate the effects
of protection on prices. A booth aimed at housewives had a fully furnished
three room flat with tags on each item giving the cost at home and abroad.
For example, a sewing machine cost $30 in New York and $24.83 in England;
frying pans cost $.95 at home and $.64 abroad. Another “horror”
was that the tariff reduced the amount of sugar that a dollar could buy
from 25 to 16 pounds. (Brooklyn Eagle, 9/8/12, New York Telegram,
9/13/12 [37]). Deemed a rousing success, this exhibit was replicated elsewhere.
(New York Globe, 9/13/12 [41]) The WNW&MO and the WNDL shared
responsibility for this exhibit on alternate Fridays.
The Republicans countered with a doll, known as the Protective Tariff
Lady. The brainchild of Mary Francis, she was dressed as the wife of a
man of modest means might wish to dress, with prices labeling all items
of her attire. The purpose was to show that an American woman could dress
well for between $22 and $25 dollars, even though every item she wore
was made in America. Women did not need the lower priced goods of Europe,
made by men paid half what their husbands received for the same work.
This doll was part of the Republicans’ Dollar Wage Show, strategically
placed near the Democratic exhibit. (New York Telegraph, "Tariff
Doll is Terror to Foes," 10/19/12 [89]; New York Times, 10/11/12,
1:2) While Republicans admitted that the cost of living was high, the
official position -- repeated frequently by Boswell in the tripartite
debates -- was that this was not caused by the protective tariff. The
states took a somewhat different position on the tariff. California Taft
women argued that “we have the best tariff schedule for California
products in the history of the state.” (San Francisco Call, 5/5/12,
40:2)
Unlike the tariff, the parties did not disagree on the desirability of
protecting women, children and workers. They competed on how much protection
was desirable and who passed what laws first. Harriman’s letter on
all the “progressive and humanitarian” legislation enacted in
New Jersey while Wilson was governor was quickly objected to by the Chairman
of the Republican State Committee, Edmund W. Wakelee. The credit, he insisted
in a very lengthy letter to newspaper editors, belonged to the Republican-run
legislature. (Henderson N.Y. Gleaner, 9/12/12 [35], Millville,
N.J. Republican, 9/12/12 [43], New York Tribune, 9/14/12
[38]) Mary Woods, Secretary for Women’s Work for the RNC, wrote a
letter to the New York Times claiming the “honor... [for]
the clubwomen of New Jersey, who side by side have worked and at least
succeeded in obtaining the passage of laws to ameliorate the conditions
of women and children.” (New York Times, 9/9/12, 8:5)
Progressive women claimed such “social legislation” as their
mantra, highlighting the many planks in the Progressive Party platform
for “the protection of home life against the hazards of sickness,
irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system of social
insurance.” They spoke about suffrage, but it was not the main topic
on their agenda. Indeed Jane Addams would speak on suffrage only in those
states where the men were to vote on it in a November referendum. Progressive
women thought that trusts and tariffs were as important to women as to
men, but did not emphasize these concerns in literature aimed at women.
Literature aimed at women, mostly written by Frances Kellor, based its
appeal on the need for “humanitarian measures” such as the prohibition
of child labor, the ”protection of the home”, and “betterment
of industrial conditions” and the role women played in achieving
these.
There was another “women’s issue,” raised largely as part
of the personal crusade of Dr. Harvey W. Wiley. He had been a chemist
in the Federal Bureau of Pure Food, where he felt his efforts to curb
food adulteration had been thwarted by both the Roosevelt and Taft administrations
in deference to “special interests.” He joined the Wilson campaign,
and as a result the WNW&M organization published a booklet documenting
his charges called The War of Wealth Against Health. In it Harriman
appealed “to the patriotic women of America for their active participation
... in behalf of these measures.” She argued that “No function
is so essentially the women’s function as the protection of the food
supply.” (Omaha, Neb. World Herald, 10/9/12 [58]) Only Wilson
campaigned on this issue; both TR’s and Taft’s campaign ignored
these charges. (The New York Times, 9/18/12, 3:4)
Although women were not an important constituency to the Democrats, Woodrow
Wilson specifically addressed the women of the country in a widely reprinted
article published in Woman’s Home Companion. The “new
meaning of government” he said, was that “those who exercise
its authority must ‘keep house’ for the whole people.”
One example was pure food laws, properly administrated. Another was “conservation
of our natural resources.” He concluded by explaining why government
had a “direct and manifest” interest “in high prices and
an excessive cost of living.” In effect, the Governor was explaining
that women should be interested in who governed because government was
responsible for concerns within the realm of women.
It was harder for Republican women to find a theme because the Taft campaign
wasn’t doing much campaigning. Nonetheless Boswell declared that
her purpose was to “show the women voters of the country why they
must vote for President Taft in the interest of their homes, State and
Union.” (The New York Times, 8/20/12, 18:2)
Woman Suffrage
Only the Progressive Party saw woman suffrage as an issue in the 1912
campaign. The Democratic and Republican Parties continued to ignore it
as they had in the past. The Socialist and Prohibition Parties supported
woman suffrage, but it was not a priority. The women in charge of women
at the Democratic and Republican campaign headquarters personally favored
woman suffrage, but, since their candidates did not, none thought it should
be a campaign issue.
Wilson was personally opposed to suffrage but officially "on the
fence." Harriman did not see it as her task to push him over. (New
York Times, 8/18/12 II:4:3) From the beginning she emphasized that
“We don’t want the idea of suffrage to enter the work of this
committee at all.” (New York Tribune, 8/7/12 [2]) While she
did encourage women who wanted suffrage to join the campaign, she only
wanted those “who are willing to leave the suffrage issue temporarily
in abeyance.” (New York Herald, 8/18/12 2:1 [7]) In a letter
to the New York Times she explained that while she endorsed suffrage
“There are ... communities in this country where equal suffrage is
not understood.... [where] there are women who can and will help women
without regard to whether they vote or do not vote." (9/7/12, 10:7)
The WNDL admitted that it attracted few suffragists to its ranks. Nonetheless,
suffrage crept in. As Mrs. Crosby told the New York Evening Sun
“We are not working at suffrage over the campaign season, but we
can't keep it out. None of us means to drag it in, but it crops up on
every occasion. At our latest meeting Mrs. Stephen B. Ayres and Mrs. Eva
MacDonald Valesh, neither of whom is an avowed suffragist, found themselves
talking about suffrage.” (9/26/12 [35])
Taft avoided suffrage, but since he did little campaigning, that was not
hard to do. His public position had been stated earlier when he said he
was willing to wait for “a substantial call from that sex before
the suffrage is extended.” (V HWS 1922, 708) Boswell personally
believed in suffrage as a right and a duty of all citizens, but followed
the path laid out by her mentor, J. Ellen Foster, to keep politics and
suffrage quite separate. In the Republican clubs that she organized as
well as in the campaign, she welcomed both those who opposed and those
who favored woman suffrage. Whether addressing men or women, Boswell always
gave “straight political” speeches without mentioning woman
suffrage or women’s rights. She firmly believed that “the way
to demonstrate one’s fitness for the suffrage was to be intelligent
on political matters, and be not only able but willing to do some party
work.” (National Republican, 3/1/19, 7:1)
TR’s own position on suffrage had moved considerably since he became
a candidate. In February he had written an editorial in The Outlook,
the progressive magazine where he was a contributing editor, proposing
a special election at which only women would vote on the question of woman
suffrage. “Where they do not want it the suffrage should not be forced
upon them.... [W]here the vote is so light, those not voting should be
held to have voted no.” (Roosevelt, 1912, 262). This was also the
plank he intended to propose to the Progressive convention. However, the
members of the Resolutions Committee made sure that this did not happen.
The platform pledged the party “to the task of securing equal suffrage
to men and women alike.” In his keynote speech former Senator Beveridge
(R. IN) dwelt on it at length, declaring suffrage both a “matter
of natural right” and a “matter of political wisdom.” TR
followed his August 8 telegram to Addams with a second one: "Did
I put into telegram the flat-footed statement without qualification or
equivocation that I was for woman suffrage, the Progressive Party is for
woman suffrage, and that I believe within half a dozen years we shall
have no one in the United States against it." (Morison, 1954, 7:595)
TR explained his own conversion as a result of associating with women
like Addams, Frances Kellor and Florence Kelly, — all women who had
devoted their lives to bettering the conditions of workers, the poor and
immigrants. In a speech given on August 30 he explained that “I grew
to believe in woman suffrage not because of associating with women whose
chief interest was in woman suffrage, but because of finding out that
the women from whom I received most aid in endeavoring to grapple with
the social and industrial problems of the day were themselves believers
in woman suffrage.” This, he added, was reinforced by what women
did with the vote where they had it. (The New York Times, 8/31/12,
2:4-6)
TR articulated the position “that women should have the same right
to vote as men have” as though it had been his from the beginning.
He maintained that “I see no reason why voting should interfere with
woman’s home life any more than it interferes with the everyday work
of the man which enable him to support the home.” (The New York
Times, 8/31/12, 2:4-6) Several states were holding referendums on
woman suffrage that fall. Campaigning in Oregon, TR urged it to “follow
the example of other western states in giving women the right to vote.”
(The Evening Star 9/12/12, 2:1) Even if he had embraced equal suffrage
for political reasons at first, by late summer he was a believer.
This conversion was not accepted by suffrage leaders. The National American
Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was officially nonpartisan. The fact
that one party and its candidates supported suffrage while the others
ignored it put the organization in an awkward position. Many criticized
Jane Addams, a NAWSA vice president, for violating the tradition of nonpartisanship.
Although Addams generated much publicity for suffrage, no other national
NAWSA officers and few state officers followed her lead into active partisanship.
NAWSA’s president, the Rev. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, said “I have
no use for Theodore Roosevelt.” In a speech to the Detroit Equal
Suffrage societies she denounced TR for supporting woman suffrage only
when it was politically expedient to do so. (The New York Times,
9/6/12, 1:6) Harriet Stanton Blatch of the Woman’s Political Union
publicly criticized Roosevelt and the Progressive Party for not actively
supporting the Ohio suffrage referendum on Sept. 3 - the only proposed
amendment to the state constitution that lost. (New York Times,
9/4/12, 1:3; 9/5/12, 6:1; 9/6/12, 3:6) Ida Husted Harper published several
letters to the editor attacking TR for “insincerity” and “political
dishonesty.” (The New York Times, 8/10/12, 6:7; quotes in
8/22/12, 8:7)
While NAWSA officers stayed out of the partisan fray, not all suffragists
stayed away from the candidates. Maud Malone made it a point to go to
every speech given by a presidential candidate in New York City and yell
out "What about woman suffrage?" from the audience. Malone heckled
TR in March and Wilson in October. The male audience was hostile, demanding
that she be thrown out, while the candidate insisted that she be allowed
to stay. Malone persisted with her questions until physically carried
from the scene. After heckling Wilson at the Brooklyn Academy of Music,
she spent the night in jail. (The Evening Star, 3/26/12, 10:2,
10/20/12, 2:7; Pueblo Co. Chieftain, 10/6/12 [54], New York Times,
3/26/12, 1:2, 10/20/12, II:4:4) The men she heckled did not ignore her
question, but neither did they answer it. Roosevelt said he was in favor
of woman suffrage if the women voted to have it — his standard position
before the Progressive Party convention. Wilson insisted that suffrage
was a state, not a national, matter and that he was “only here as
a representative of the national party.” (The New York Times,
6/13/12, 1:4, The Evening Star, 10/20/12, 2:7) Taft escaped being
heckled by not speaking in New York, so he didn’t need a reply.
Anti-Suffrage
While opposed to woman suffrage, the “antis” were not opposed
to women helping in the presidential campaigns. Indeed Ida Tarbell, a
well known journalist who thought women didn’t need to vote, was
even offered the presidency of the WNW&MO. She demurred, saying she
“could be more useful writing about the tariff.” (Kansas
City Star 8/20/12 [23]) Quite a few female “antis” were
caught up by the campaign. At a Woman’s Day held at the Democratic
“Chamber of Tariff Horrors” suffragists and anti-suffragists
sat side by side on the platform listening to speeches in support of Wilson.
(New York Herald, 9/14/12 [38])
Nor did all progressives support suffrage. One reason the woman suffrage
referendum lost so badly in Ohio was that the head of the Progressive
Party was an ardent “anti,” while the head of the Taft Republicans
in that state was an outspoken suffragist.
Nonetheless, some women’s groups found it hard to maintain their
opposition to woman suffrage while actively participating in the campaign.
The League for Civic Education of women sponsored a debate between women
supporting the three contenders. Its president, Mrs. John Jerome Rooney,
explained that her League had abandoned active opposition to suffrage
in favor of concentrating on civic education. Previously the League had
sponsored lectures on eugenics, and discourses by physicians on the "probable
effects of political excitement" to discourage support for woman
suffrage. Helen Varick Boswell told the League that “having spent
many years in political service, she could offer personal testimony that
it in no wise affected the health.” (New Brunswick, N.J. News,
10/19/12 [89])
The Outcome
Wilson won with only 42 percent of the popular vote but 435 votes in the
electoral college. Roosevelt came in second with 27 percent of the national
vote, but only 88 electoral college votes. Taft, the incumbent, ran a
very poor third with 23 percent of the popular vote. His plurality in
Utah and Vermont gave him 8 votes in the electoral college. Socialist
Eugene Debs made the best showing of his political career, getting 6 percent
of the popular vote. The Prohibition Party got 1.4 percent. Nationally,
fewer people voted for Wilson in 1912 than had voted for Bryan in 1896,
1900 or 1908, while the overall distribution of the Democratic vote remained
the same. It appears that many Taft supporters, especially in states where
he wasn’t on the ballot, simply stayed home. This helped the Democrats
increase their control in the House to over two-thirds and to capture
a majority in the Senate for the first time in 20 years. In the six states
where women could vote for president, Roosevelt won California and Washington;
Taft took Utah; and Wilson won Colorado, Idaho and Wyoming. There is no
way of knowing how women voted, though most speculation was that
women were more likely than men to favor Roosevelt. Estimates of how
many women voted ranged from one-fifth to one-third of the total voters
in those states. (New York Journal, 11/6/12, 10:3) The Registrar
in Los Angeles reported that 80 percent of all registered women went to
the polls. Roosevelt won California (where Taft was not on the ballot)
by only 174 votes. It’s quite possible that women gave him that margin
of victory. The day after the election the New York Times reported
that
Everyone
involved believed that the suffrage cause had been helped considerably
by the election of 1912. Referenda in Kansas, Oregon and Arizona gave
women equal suffrage -- the most states to so in a single year. Women
came very close to winning in Michigan, though suffrage lost decisively
in Wisconsin and Ohio. Jane Addams reported to NAWSA that,
„ ...on the Progressive platform I had the best chance to talk woman suffrage that I ever had in my life. I talked it to vast audiences of men who would not have come to a suffrage meeting or to a social reform meeting, but they would come to a political meeting, and there they had it driven into them night after night and day after day. (The Woman's Journal, 12/14/12, 400).
National
magazines described how woman suffrage worked in California and Washington.
The issue was publicized in several journals which
had heretofore ignored it; the National Monthly published several
articles, pro and con while The Crisis published a special symposia
in September.
The following year a record number of suffrage bills were introduced
into state legislatures, setting the stage for more referenda asking
men to give women the vote. In 1916 both the Republican and the Democratic
Platforms included support of woman suffrage by state, following
rancorous debate and despite much opposition.
Although TR lost decisively, the Progressive Party made a better showing
in 1912 than the Republican Party had in its first national campaign in
1856. It elected 13 new Members of Congress and 260 state legislators.
The latter were a sufficiently important block in the Illinois legislature
for it to pass a law enfranchising women for all matters except those
specifically mentioned in the Illinois constitution (which would have
required a referendum); this included voting for president in 1916. To
keep progressive ideas before the people, the Party set up a Progressive
Service Bureau headed by Frances Kellor. However, the times were not auspicious
and the party did not thrive. It lost in state and local elections in
1913 and 1914. In 1916 both the Republican Party and the Progressive Party
held their conventions during the second week in June in Chicago. The
former nominated Supreme Court Justice and former New York Governor Charles
Evans Hughes as its candidate. The latter nominated TR. When TR refused
to accept the nomination so that Hughes could beat Wilson, the Progressive
Party died. TR put in one last blow for suffrage by convincing Hughes
to come out for a federal amendment even though the Republican Party platform
only supported suffrage by state. (New York Times, 8/2/16, 1:2)
Harriman’s Women’s National Wilson and Marshall Organization
folded after the election, though Democratic women continued to organize
locally. The WNDL did survive, until at least 1918, but as a Washington,
D.C. club rather than a national one. The Women’s National Republican
Association, which was more of a shell than an organization, faded from
view. In 1916 both the Democratic and Republican National Committees would
organize women for the presidential campaigns from scratch, with new women
at their head; they would have a large number of state women’s party
organizations to work with. The one holdover from the election of 1912
was Frances Kellor, who organized Progressive Party women into the Women’s
Committee of the Hughes Alliance. In the election of 1916 its work received
more press — not always favorable — than all the other women’s
campaign organizations combined.
SOURCES
The primary sources for this article are newspaper stories, which are
referenced internally. Most of these were collected for Daisy Harriman
by a professional clipping service and pasted into a scrapbook, which
is now in the possession of the Woman’s National Democratic Club
in Washington, D.C.. The Club graciously allowed me to spend time in its
archives going through that scrapbook in the summers of 1999 and 2000
and the winter of 2002. I found other relevant stories from the indexes
of the New York Times, The (Washington, D.C.) Evening
Star, The New York Herald, and The San Francisco Call,
and read them on microfilm mostly in Howard University and New York Public
Library. Clippings from the scrapbook are cited with a date and the page
number from the scrapbook in brackets []. Stories that I read on microfilm
are cited by page and column number.
A page from the Daisy Harriman scrapbook
In addition I relied on the following secondary sources for background, but only cited them if quoted.
Addams, Jane,
“Why I Seconded Roosevelt’s Nomination,” The Woman’s
Journal, August 17, 1912, p. 257.
______, “My Experience as a Progressive Delegate,” McClure’s
Magazine, November 1912, pp. 12-14.
Ayres, Mrs. Steven B., “Woman’s National Democratic League,”
National Monthly, November 1912, pp. 146, 151.
Boswell, Helen V., "A Republican Woman in Politics" Parts XIII
and XIV, in The National Republican, Vol. 5, Nos. 47 and 48, March
1 and 8, 1919.
_____, "Political Episodes" Chapter XII, in Woman Republican,
May 1936, Vol. 13, No. 5 p. 9.
Dalton, Kathleen, Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life, New York:
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1
The electoral college votes were: California, 13; Colorado, 7;
Idaho, 4; Utah, 4; Washington, 7; Wyoming, 3. Total: 38 out of 531.
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