at the opening of the year 1918, the woman’s party made another change in the location of its headquarters. it will be recalled that during the first part of its history, it had premises in f street. in the middle years, it was located at cameron house. it was now to go directly across the park to 14 jackson place. like cameron house, this new mansion had had a vivid and picturesque history. it was built by the hon. levi woodbury while he was serving in the cabinet of president jackson and president van buren. later, it became the home of schuyler colfax, when he was vice-president. during the civil war, postmaster william denison, a member of lincoln’s cabinet, lived there. and perhaps it was at this period that the house achieved the apex of its reputation for official hospitality. later, it was the scene of the tragic triangle of general sickles, his beautiful young spanish wife and the brilliant barton key. still later it fell into the hands of mrs. washington mclean, and then of her grandson’s family—the bughers. then it was turned into the home club.
it is a charming house. the fa?ade is a pleasing combination of cream-colored tiling trimmed with white. immediately, of course, the woman’s party adorned that delicate, lustrous expanse with the red, white, and blue of the big national banner, which always flies over their headquarters, and the purple, white, and gold of the equally big party tri-color. later, in the little oval made by the porte-cochère, they erected a bulletin board presented by mrs. o. h. p. belmont. by this means the casual passer-by was 312kept informed, by bulletin and by photographs, of the activities of the woman’s party.
inside there are rooms and rooms, rooms big and small, rooms of all sizes and heights. a spacious ball-room on the second floor with a seating capacity of three hundred, was of course of great practical advantage to the party. the other rooms on this floor were made into offices; the rooms on the floor above into bedrooms. mrs. lawrence lewis and mrs. william kent raised the money for the maintenance of this huge establishment.
alice paul, always economically inclined where expenditure is not absolutely necessary, immediately asked for contributions of furnishings. all kinds of things were given of course, from pianos to kitchen pans. from mrs. pflaster of virginia came a load of heirlooms, in various colonial patterns—furniture which makes the connoisseur positively gasp. chairs of the hepplewhite and sheraton periods; tables made by phyffe; tables in the most graceful style of empire furniture; mahogany cabinets, delicately inlaid—they gave the place an extraordinary atmosphere. huge, dim, old-gold-framed mirrors and a few fine old paintings reinforced the effect.
alice paul’s office, which is on the second floor, was done in purple and gold; the woodwork of gold, the furniture upholstered in purple velvet.
later, a large room, originally a stable at the rear of the first floor, was transformed into a tea-room. vivian pierce had charge of the decorations here; and she made it very attractive. the brick walls were painted yellow, the tables and chairs black. the windows and doors were all enclosed in flat frames of brilliant chintz, of which the background was black, but the dominating note blue. the many hanging lights were swathed in yellow silk. the tea-room rapidly became very popular in washington; and, as rapidly, became one of the most interesting places in the city. visitors of many distinguished kinds came there in preference to the larger restaurants or hotels. they knew the members of 313the woman’s party who lived in the house, and they gradually came to know the habitués of the tea-room. at meals, separated parties were always coalescing into one big party. people wandered from table to table. there was an air of comradeship and sympathy. afterwards, groups often went up the little flight of stairs which leads to the ball-room, and sitting before the fire in the huge fireplace, drank their after-dinner coffee together. these talks sometimes lasted until midnight.
as for the atmosphere of the place itself—it can be summed up by only one word, and that word is—youth. not that everybody who came to headquarters was—as years go—young. there were, for instance, lavinia dock who was sixty, mary nolan who was seventy, and the rev. olympia brown who was an octogenarian. of course, though, when one considers that the rev. olympia brown took part in that rain-drenched and wind-driven picket deputation of a thousand women on march 4, and that mary nolan and lavinia dock both served their terms in prison, one must admit that they were as young in spirit as the youngest picket there. but young pickets were there—i mean, young in actual years; young and fresh and gay; able and daring. alice paul, herself, whimsically relates what an obstacle their very youth seemed to them during the early part of the movement. when first they began to wage their warfare on the democratic party, old suffragists rebuked them; and rebuked them always on the score that they were too young to know any better. “how hard we tried to seem old,” alice paul said. “on all occasions we pushed elderly ones into the foreground and when mrs. lawrence lewis became a grandmother, how triumphant we were. oh, we encouraged grandmotherhood in those days.” but now—triumphantly successful—they were no longer afraid of their own youth. they knew it was their greatest asset. they made the place ring with its gaiety. they made it seethe with its activity. they made it rock with its resolution. “the young are at the gates!” said lavinia dock. and 314these were young who would not brook denial of their demands.
as you entered headquarters, that breath of youth struck you in the face with its wild, fresh sweetness. it was as pungent as a wind blowing over spring flowers. it was as vivid as the flash of spring clouds hurrying over the new blue of the sky. in actuality, youthful activity rang from every corner of the house. in the white entrance hall, a young girl sat at the switchboard; and she was always a very busy person. to the left was the press headquarters, full of that mad turmoil which, seemingly, is inevitable to any press activity. upstairs, alice paul was always interviewing or being interviewed; reading letters or answering them; asking questions or giving information; snatching a hurried meal from a tray; dictating all manner of business; or giving the last orders before she darted east, west, north, or south. she was sure to be doing one of these things, or some of them, or—this really seems not an exaggeration—all of them.
all about and from the offices that ran beside the ball-room sounded the click of typewriters—some one counted twenty-four typewriters in the house once. everywhere, you ran into busy, business-like stenographers with papers in their hands, proceeding from one office to another. if it were lunch time, or dinner time, pairs of young girls, with their arms around each other’s waists, chattering busily, were making their way to the tea-room. at night, the big ball-room was filled with groups reading magazines at the big (and priceless) tables; or talking over the events of the day ... congress ... the picketing. late at night, the discussions still went on. upstairs, they followed each other from bedroom to bedroom, still arguing, still comparing notes, still making suggestions in regard to a hundred things: organizing, lobbying, personal appeal to political leaders, et caetera, ad infinitum. the huge, four-poster bed—big enough for royalty—in mrs. lawrence lewis’s room was the scene—with ardent pickets sitting all over it—of 315many a discussion that threatened to prolong itself until dawn.
and all day long, and all evening long—any time—organizers with their harvests of facts and ideas were likely to appear from the remotest parts of the country. young, enthusiastic, unconscious of bodily discomfort, if the beds were all full, they pulled a mattress onto the floor and slept there or curled up on a couch—anything so long as they could stay at the friendly, welcoming headquarters. to middle age, it was all a revelation of the unsounded, unplumbed depths of endurance in convinced, emancipate, determined youth. there was no end to their strength apparently. apparently there was no possibility of palling their spirit. arriving at nine at night from oregon, they would depart blithely the next morning at six for alabama. to those women who had the privilege of taking part, either as active participants, or enthralled lookers-on, this will always stand out as one of their most thrilling life experiences. katherine rolston fisher’s fine descriptive phrase in regard to it all inevitably recurs: “it was,” she says, “the renaissance of the suffrage movement.”
speed was their animating force: “the suffrage amendment passed at once,” their eternal motto.
in the nomenclature of the great war, the pickets were the shock troops of the suffrage forces. they took the first line trenches. the forces of the organization back of them secured and maintained these positions; held those trenches until the time came for the next advance. as for the organizers working all over the country, they were the air force and—still using the nomenclature of that great struggle—they were like the little, swift, quickly-turning chase-planes which so effectually harassed the huge enemy machines.
the woman’s party never grew so big nor its organization so cumbrous that its object was defeated by numbers and weight. it was distinguished always by quality rather than quantity, and its mechanical organization was sensitive 316and light. it lay over its members as delicately as a cobweb on the grass; and it responded as instantly as a cobweb to the touch of changing conditions. news from washington went to the uttermost parts of the country as swiftly as electricity could bear it. the results in action were equally swift. that was because youth was everywhere, not only youth of body, but, perhaps more important, youth of spirit. senators and representatives frequently marveled at the power and strength of an organization which had come to fruition in so few years. had they all visited headquarters—as some of them did—i think that all would have understood.
