by Elaine Weiss
* * *
Betty Gram slipped into Memphis with no entourage and no welcoming delegation to greet her, but she made her entry with a certain theatrical flair that the press couldn’t resist:
110 Pounds of Femininity to Hit Legislators for Vote
Young Militant Arrives to Make Canvas
IS HUNGER STRIKER
Miss Gram “Did Time” for Suffrage Cause
Betty Gram wasn’t shy about being a “militant” and not coy about why she’d come to Memphis. She wore her prison pin and she made her intentions clear. The reporters got the hint.
“Here’s just a little inside tip for Shelby county legislators,” the Memphis newspaper article advised. “There’s a real militant suffragist in town for the purpose of calling on each one of you and securing your written pledge to ratify the suffrage amendment. You’d better sign up, because she means business. And she has a record to back up her determination. She’s been in jail three times and hunger-struck for ten days. Lest timorous legislators might suddenly feel the necessity of leaving town.” Fear not, the news article continued, this militant was not what a legislator might expect: “She’s young and she’s pretty, and to add to the triumvirate of femininity, she’s stylish.”
Betty Gram was all of those things, but not only those things. She was also clever, wily, intrepid, and fiercely dedicated to her cause. The photograph of Gram accompanying the article (she provided the photo) proved the reporter’s point: it was a close-up studio portrait, the kind movie stars used, Gram’s lovely face framed by a stylish feather cloche hat. She enjoyed the role of ingenue agitator, and if unsuspecting legislators simply saw a pretty face, then woe be to them. Gram excelled in the arts of direct action.
Gram had aspired to become an actress and singer but abandoned her stage career for a part in the suffrage movement. Raised in Portland, Oregon, she discovered the Cause at college, then moved to New York City to further her theatrical career. She had just landed a part on Broadway when she answered Alice Paul’s call for volunteers to join the “Silent Sentinels” picketing the White House in November 1917. Gram and her younger sister Alice took the train down to Washington, arriving at party headquarters just as the picketing crew was setting off. Drawn into the excitement, Betty and Alice Gram grabbed the last two picket poles and joined the protest. They soon found themselves in a Black Maria and carted off to jail.
The sisters were sentenced to thirty days in the infamous Occoquan Workhouse and, claiming they were political prisoners, joined in a suffragist hunger strike. They watched their comrades beaten by prison guards, thrown into isolation cells, forbidden to speak, read, or write; pens and pencils were confiscated. The squalor and starvation weakened them but also stiffened their resolve and strengthened their loyalty to Miss Paul. The intensity of the experience convinced them both to devote themselves to the Woman’s Party. Alice joined the headquarters press staff, and Betty became a fixture on the picket line. She was imprisoned two more times, deepening her pride in her prison pin and earning a berth on the “Prison Special.”
She met Sue White on that trip, and they struck up a fast friendship. That month of traveling together in the railroad car, packed into little sleeping berths, emerging in each city dressed in their prison outfits to lead a parade, speak on street corners, or conduct a big rally, was an experience they’d always share. Miss Paul dispatched Gram to eleven states during the ratification campaign; Gram was in New Jersey for that uncomfortably close decision and in Delaware for that disaster. She and Sue were side by side in the losing battle in Alabama and picketed together at the Republican National Convention in Chicago earlier in the summer. Now they were reunited in Tennessee.
Gram unpacked her bag in Memphis. She had her list of men to see; she began her calls. “Sentiment in favor of ratification is running high and everyone seems to think we will win,” she wrote in her first report to Alice Paul, “but so did they in Delaware, and sentiment doesn’t get votes.”
* * *
Like an impatient fisherman, Sue White wanted to reel in Seth Walker quickly. He was the slippery sort, but he was an essential catch. As Speaker of the house, he had enormous visibility; legislators would be watching his movements and signs on the question of ratification. His position also endowed him with all sorts of parliamentary powers that he could use to ease, or obstruct, the passage of the amendment through the General Assembly.
Walker was a Roberts man; he sided with the governor on most policies and dutifully pushed through the administration’s legislative agenda. He’d made that forceful speech on the lower house floor in favor of limited woman suffrage last year, and he’d given every indication that he would support ratification. But now that it was time to actually sign a pledge form, he was balking. He said he needed more time to investigate the “constitutionality” of the present legislature acting on ratification. White feared Walker had swallowed the Antis’ bait.
She’d sent Betty Gram into Walker’s district in Lebanon, about twenty-five miles east of Nashville, to talk to his political friends and associates. Gram had stopped in Nashville for a few days en route to Memphis and was a great help. White was stretched so thin: running the headquarters office, juggling orders from Miss Paul in Washington, maintaining close contact with the party’s lobbyists in Ohio, sending detailed instructions to her field deputies around the state, all while coordinating the legislative canvass, keeping an eye on Anti activities, and getting her own assigned men pledged. White had never before been in charge of a state campaign all by herself, as the senior officer on the ground as well as the local political expert. And this was shaping up to be a campaign like no other; she was nervous about making a mistake. She tried not to feel overwhelmed, but she was anxious for Miss Paul to finally come to Nashville and take charge. In the meantime, it was up to her.
Seth Walker was tall and strapping, with the trim physique of the college athlete he’d once been. He was only twenty-eight years old, still something of a neophyte in the legislature, but his reputation as a clever lawyer, together with his canny political instincts and his loyalty to the governor, quickly boosted him into the Speaker’s chair. He was a solid family man, married with kids; he was unapologetically ambitious. His career was well launched, as in addition to his law office and legislative post, he served as an attorney for the Nashville, Chattanooga, and St. Louis Railway. Gram found Walker in his district office in Lebanon; he was polite but abrupt. If he could convince himself that there were no legal obstructions to ratifying, he promised her, he could then see clear to support the amendment; he was looking into it. Gram reported all this to Sue White: Walker was still at large.
Anne Dallas Dudley, the savvy doyenne of Nashville Suffs who was helping Catherine Kenny keep some semblance of order at the League of Women Voters ratification headquarters, was also angling for Seth Walker. He’d been one of the unexpected heroes during the partial suffrage debate in the legislature last year—such a thrilling surprise—and she had high hopes for his ratification support now. He was a man whom others followed. But he hadn’t responded to the poll, he hadn’t sent in his pledge, he wasn’t answering her messages. Dudley consulted with Mrs. Catt and they hatched a plan: Get Governor Cox, the new captain of the Democratic ship, to bring Seth Walker on board. Dudley wired to NAWSA’s liaisons to the candidate in Ohio, asking them to deliver a message to Cox: Please urge Seth Walker to be your personal representative in the Tennessee legislature, ask him to lead the fight for ratification in the house. Action is urgent.
Sue White took a different tack in her pursuit of Walker: badgering him, appearing in his office, flooding him with legal opinions on the validity of ratifying. Finally, in the very last days of July, he informed White that he’d decided that there were no constitutional barriers to acting on ratification and he would support the amendment. White was elated: she wired the news to Alice Paul and called Anita Pollitzer in Knoxville, whooping with del
ight. She issued an announcement to the press. SPEAKER WALKER TO SUPPORT RATIFICATION, the headlines read. MISS SUE WHITE WAS CREDITED WITH THE CONVERSION.
With Walker secured, the Suffs could move to the next step. There is a formal choreography to amending the U.S. Constitution, an elaborate little dance set in motion as soon as both houses of Congress pass a joint resolution proposing a new article for inclusion. It must be signed by the Speaker of the House and the president of the Senate, then sent by the secretary of state to the governors of each state. The governor presents the proposed amendment to the presiding officers of the state legislature, convened in regular or extraordinary session, and these officers introduce it into their respective houses for consideration and ratification. This dance can be tripped or stalled at any of several key steps: by a governor who chooses not to convene his legislature, by legislative officers employing parliamentary maneuvers to block forward motion, or by a few hostile lawmakers intent on throwing the proceedings off balance.
The Tennessee suffragists couldn’t afford to allow any such missteps, and even if they still had some doubts about whether Governor Roberts would keep his promise and play his part, they needed to secure their next set of necessary partners, the Speakers of the General Assembly. They chose Anne Dudley to fill the dance card. With a formal flourish, she, on behalf of the four official ratification committees—the Tennessee League of Women Voters, Democratic women, Republican women, and the Men’s Ratification Committee (but not the Woman’s Party)—invited senate Speaker Andrew Todd and house Speaker Seth Walker to introduce the federal amendment into their respective houses of the legislature. Both Speakers accepted Mrs. Dudley’s invitation. Seth Walker confidently predicted that the legislature would ratify swiftly.
* * *
Meanwhile, Anita Pollitzer moved on to Knoxville, where she made her base at the Farragut Hotel and made herself a charming pest around town. She bantered with the fellows hanging around the courthouse; she cracked wise with the newspaper guys; she wangled appointments with the district party leaders; she found out which politicians were dining together, who was talking to whom.
She found a crucial ally in state senator Erastus Eugene Patton, who offered Pollitzer advice, assistance, and useful warnings: See this man, avoid that one, make sure these businessmen are with you. Patton also insisted: You must reach Herschel Candler. Candler was admired in the senate and respected as a man of strong, forcefully articulated convictions. But Candler had already made his stance pretty clear: “I will not perjure myself to open violation of the constitution of the state of Tennessee,” he’d announced. “I unalterably oppose suffrage and shall vote against the bill.” While Candler was already well-known to have Anti inclinations, sowing legality doubts among his colleagues made him even more destructive.
As she circulated through the environs of Knoxville, Pollitzer found that the legislators she approached seemed more and more skittish: those who’d not yet pledged tried strenuously to dodge; those who had already pledged favorably now hedged. “I fear the Republicans are holding back,” Pollitzer wrote to Alice Paul.
Her suspicions were confirmed when the Harding-Coolidge Republican League, a Washington-based campaign group, conducted a telegraphic poll of Republicans in the Tennessee legislature during the first days of August and reported to state and national party leaders: “It does not look good.” Republican legislators were claiming constitutional objections, “which is obviously only an excuse,” the Harding-Coolidge Leaguers said bluntly, and the national party was just sitting on its hands. “Suggest that you put all forces in motion for ratification,” the telegram continued. “If Tennessee fails to ratify the women will certainly blame the Republicans. . . .”
The Harding-Coolidge boosters sent an even more dismal assessment directly to their candidate: “Situation in Tennessee Legislature seems worse from Republican viewpoint,” they reported to Harding. “We now know that majority Republican members are definitely against suffrage amendment although five of those men voted for suffrage last year. It is possible that women all over the country are now beginning to believe that Republican opposition in Nashville will be responsible for defeat of the Amendment.” They begged him to take a more active role: “Suggest that a personal telegram from you to each Republican member of legislature will undoubtedly result in all voting for the amendment. Do not believe that anything else will result in solid Republican support.”
But the Harding-Coolidge men were sorely disappointed by the tepid response they received from their candidate: “You can understand why I cannot consistently urge Tennessee legislators to vote for ratification without knowing their reasons for such commitment as they have made,” Harding dissembled. “The situation is being reported to national headquarters where it will be given attention at once.”
The Harding-Coolidge League was so frustrated by Harding’s response that they leaked the correspondence; Woman’s Party headquarters in Washington got hold of it and released the exchange of telegrams to the press. Tepid Harding was in hot water again.
* * *
Facing less resistance than Anita Pollitzer was encountering in East Tennessee did not mean that Betty Gram could take it easy. “Tired unto death,” she reported to Paul. “Arose 6:30, motored 75 miles.” In her travels to pledge the area’s state legislators, Gram came across a thin, dapperly dressed, thirty-year-old Memphis delegate named Joseph Hanover, who not only eagerly signed his pledge to ratify, but was willing to make significant sacrifices to help achieve ratification.
Once Gram ventured beyond the protected precincts of Crump’s Shelby County into the surrounding Mississippi River delta towns, things looked grimmer: “At present I am truly apprehensive,” Gram wrote to Paul in the first days of August, “because these southern Democrats are concerned that their allegiance is just to the state constitution” and they’d break their oath of office by voting to ratify. “So many who voted for presidential suffrage will NOT vote for SBA this session,” Gram reported, using the Woman’s Party favored name for the federal amendment, honoring their patron saint, Susan B. Anthony. Gram’s early optimism was fading; Tennessee was in danger of slipping away, she feared.
* * *
The Woman’s Party sent Catherine Flanagan to Johnson City, in the northeast region of the state, near the tip of the pointing-finger section that poked toward North Carolina. Her assignment was to extract pledges from the candidates running for vacant legislative seats, get them on record: If elected, I will vote to ratify the federal suffrage amendment. It was just the kind of advanced pledge the Antis were railing about.
Flanagan was a slight woman, thirty-one years old, with auburn hair, a pale complexion, and a broad, toothy smile. When she wasn’t on the road as a Woman’s Party organizer—or in prison—she lived with her widowed mother in Hartford, Connecticut. She’d worked as a stenographer and had been secretary of the Connecticut chapter of NAWSA until the time, in the summer of 1917, that she decided to use her vacation to serve on the Woman’s Party picket line at the gates of the White House. To those who knew Flanagan well, this wasn’t so surprising: her father had been active in the Ireland home rule movement of the late nineteenth century, forced to flee to America as a political exile. The Irish Easter uprising of spring 1916 was still fresh in Catherine’s mind in August 1917 when she decided to cast her lot with the suffrage group willing to fight, and be imprisoned, for women’s freedom. Her father would have been proud.
She was arrested for obstructing traffic and sentenced to thirty days in the fetid Occoquan Workhouse. Her picketing actions were condemned by many of her colleagues in the Connecticut branch of the National Association but applauded by others, including Katharine Houghton Hepburn, president of the state suffrage organization. Flanagan’s imprisonment split Connecticut’s suffragists, and following her release, Flanagan joined Hepburn in forming a Connecticut unit of the Woman’s Party. She went out to Montana to work on Jeannette
Rankin’s campaign for reelection to the Congress in 1918, and then Miss Paul dispatched her to the tough ratification states: West Virginia, Delaware, Vermont, and her own impossibly frustrating Connecticut. Now she was in Tennessee, sporting her prison pin.
She set out to find her men. “Today I drove over 30 miles in a jitney from Johnson City” to visit two uncommitted legislators, she reported to Miss Paul. One of them had no telephone and lived many miles down a badly rutted road; two miles from the lawmaker’s house she had to abandon the jitney and walk, as the road was impassable. She was drenched by thunderstorms but finally made it to his door. He wanted to vote for ratification, he told her, but was afraid he’d be violating his oath. He refused to pledge but promised to deliberate on the matter. Flanagan came away encouraged. “I am sure we’re going to win him over.” The Antis were equally sure she would not.