June 6, 1915
Suffragist Silently Suffer Watching Men Get Vote Right
College Women Wearing Caps and Gowns Make Voiceless Protest in Federal Court--Judge Doesn't See Why They Are So Anxious for Ballot.
It may seem remarkable to those familiar with the campaign of argument the suffragists have carried on, but Mrs. Charles L. Tiffany and her co-workers of the College Equal Suffrage League proved, in their visit to the Naturalization Court, that votes for women workers can present their case without speaking. Garbed in their caps and gowns, these native-born, college-bred women sat silent and attentive while thirty-six Germans, Austrians, Italians, Frenchmen, Scandinavians, Jews and Britons were made full citizens of this country with the right to participate in its government.
"Of course there will be no demonstration," Mrs. Tiffany said before entering the courtroom. "We come to protest by our presence against the exclusion of the 1,000,000 native-born women of this state from the franchise, and surely words are not needed."
The women came in automobiles, and changed from their street wraps to caps and gowns in the lower corridor of the Federal Building, with a crowd of the curious looking on. Then they made their way to the Naturalization Court, on the fifth floor, and from 10:30 o'clock until 12 sat in two rows in the rear seats. The doorman was struck with fright when he saw them approaching.
"Will they try to address the judge?" he inquired, and, though he was assured that they wouldn't, he kept an uneasy eye upon them until they left.
Miss Becky Edelson, the girl leader of the I.W.W.'s was one of the spectators and sat near the college women.
"I read in the paper that they were going to do this, and I thought I'd like to see them," she said. "It's quite a novelty for me to come to court as a looker-on. I don't usually go to court unless I'm arrested.
"I think this stunt ought to have some effect. Anything that takes the starch out of the men is good. Some have to be convinced one way, some another. Some require bombs, some more quiet methods. I don't know that the vote is of such great value, but I think women ought to have it as well as the men."
Judge Augustus Noble Hand, who was presiding, didn't appear to be at all disconcerted by his voiceless visitors, but neither did their presence have any effect on his opinions about suffrage.
"I don't value my own vote enough to understand to understand why women should be so anxious for the ballot," he observed after court adjourned. "It seems to me that women are quite as well represented now as they would be if they had the franchise. I'd be quite willing to give up my vote if I could be represented by others, those of my class, understanding my needs. Of course," added Judge Hand, "if all the women want to vote they ought to have the right. But all of them don't."
However, the woman had some effect on at least one of the men who was naturalized. He was an Austrian, and at first he didn't understand what those black-gowned women were doing. When it was explained to him he nodded.
"Ya, ya," he said. "I vote now, I help the suffrages all I can."
The women represented various professions, including those of lawyer, doctor and writer. Several admitted that they were "just plain mothers." Among the thirty were Mrs. Charles Darnton (Wellesley), Miss Jessie Ashley (New York University), Miss Alice Morgan Wright (Smith), Mrs. Alice Baldridge (Wellesley), Mrs. Wendell Bush (Radcliffe), Miss Pauline Angell (Vassar), Mrs. William Spinney (Bryn Mawr), Dr. Elizabeth Balch Holmes (Bryn Mawr), Mrs. Edgerton Parsons (Smith), Mrs. Walter L. Harvey (Wellesley), Mrs. Frederick Pease (Bryn Mawr), Mrs. Francis Brewer (Vassar), Mrs. Frederick T. Ackerman (Bryn Mawr), Miss Margaret Calhoun (Vassar), Mrs. Clara Vail Brooks (Bryn Mawr), Miss Marian Bradley (Vassar), Mrs. Anne O'Hagan Shinn (Boston University), Miss Elinor Byrns (University of Chicago), and Mrs. Charles Tiffany (Bryn Mawr).
Dean Virginia Gildersleeve of Barnard promised to attend, but was unable at the last minute to do so.
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