Celebrating ratification of the women's suffrage amendment, Alice Paul sews the 36th star on a banner, in August 1920. The banner flew in front of headquarters of the Women's Party in Washington of which Paul was national chairperson. The 36th star represented Tennessee, whose ratification completed the ratification process. | AP Photo This Day In Politics Women’s suffrage gains presidential support, Sept. 30, 1918

On this day 100 years ago, President Woodrow Wilson urged a joint session of Congress to guarantee women the right to vote. Although the House had already approved what ultimately became the 19th Amendment, the Senate had yet to vote on the measure.

On Jan. 12, 1915, the House had taken up a suffrage bill, but it failed to reach even the needed two-thirds majority, losing 174-204.


With women playing an expanded role in the mobilization effort during World War I, the bill came before the House again on Jan. 10, 1918. On the prior evening, Wilson had appealed to the House to approve the bill. This time, it went through — with one vote more than the needed two-thirds.

When Wilson renewed his appeal on this day in 1918, the Senate came up two votes short. On Feb. 10, 1919, Senate leaders tried again to pass the bill, failing by a single vote.

In his first term, Wilson voiced a lukewarm attitude toward women’s suffrage. In 1917, suffragists picketed the White House, berating Wilson for paying lip service to their cause. Several arrested suffragists went on a hunger strike. When Wilson appallingly learned that they were being force-fed in jail, he decided to champion their cause wholeheartedly.

In his Sept. 30 speech, Wilson said, "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?"

“This war could not have been fought, either by the other nations engaged or by America, if it had not been for the services of the women — services rendered in every sphere — not merely in the fields of effort in which we have been accustomed to see them work, but wherever men have worked and upon the very skirts and edges of the battle itself,” the president continued.

“We shall not only be distrusted but shall deserve to be distrusted if we do not enfranchise them with the fullest possible enfranchisement, as it is now certain that the other great free nations will enfranchise them. We cannot isolate our thought or our action in such a matter from the thought of the rest of the world. We must either conform or deliberately reject what they propose and resign the leadership of liberal minds to others. …”

“The tasks of the women lie at the very heart of the war, and I know how much stronger that heart will beat if you do this just thing and show our women that you trust them as much as you in fact and of necessity depend upon them.”

The 1918 midterm elections altered the political balance of power. On May 21, 1919, the House endorsed women’s suffrage 304-89. On June 4, the Senate approved the amendment 56-25, sending it to the states for ratification.

SOURCE: WWW.HISTORY.COM

