President Woodrow Wilson Endorses the Women’s Suffrage Amendment
Maneuvering to get it passed, he maintains it is “in the public interest,” and opposition does not represent “the true feelings and spirit of the people...”.
By 1918, President Wilson dropped his previously indifferent attitude and fully supported a constitutional amendment to grant women the right to vote. On the morning of September 30, 1918, the President went to Capitol Hill, and in an address to the Senate, he urged members to adopt the amendment, saying “We have...
By 1918, President Wilson dropped his previously indifferent attitude and fully supported a constitutional amendment to grant women the right to vote. On the morning of September 30, 1918, the President went to Capitol Hill, and in an address to the Senate, he urged members to adopt the amendment, saying “We have made partners of the women in this war. Shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil, and not to a partnership of privilege and right?” The House of Representatives had approved the amendment months earlier, but Senate vote counters predicted that without the President’s help, they would miss the required two-thirds majority by two votes. One of the two votes he sought was David Baird, a Republican boss from Wilson’s home state of New Jersey, who was then serving in the U.S. Senate and running for reelection in November 1918. In August 1918, to the delight of the suffrage movement, Wilson had written him, asking him to vote for woman suffrage. Baird refused.
Charles O’Connor Hennessy was a prominent New Jersey banker and newspaper editor. Between 1911 and 1917, as a state assemblyman and then a state senator, he was a champion of the women’s suffrage movement. He was the Democratic candidate for Baird’s seat, and Wilson hoped that a strong endorsement would help his campaign.
Typed Letter Signed as President, on White House letterhead, Washington, October 26, 1918, to Charles O. Hennessy, endorsing women’s suffrage. “May I not say how deeply interested I am in the contest you are conducting? I cannot but feel that in ignoring my earnest appeal with regard to the suffrage amendment, made in the public interest and because of my intimate knowledge of the issues involved both on the other side of the water and here, Sen. Baird has certainly not represented the true feelings and spirit of the people of New Jersey. I'm sure that they must have felt that such an appeal could not and should not be ignored. It would be a very great make-weight thrown into the international scale if his course of action while in the Senate could be reversed by the people of our great State.” The envelope is still present.
The Senate vote went against suffrage, and Baird won the election, but the tide was rushing in Hennessy’s and Wilson’s direction. In 1919, a new Congress brought an increase in the ranks of the amendment’s supporters, permitting adoption of what would become the Constitution’s 19th Amendment. The amendment was sent to the states for ratification. New Jersey ratified on February 10, 1920. Full ratification was achieved on August 18, 1920, and women voted in the 1920 presidential election.
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