Who Has The Winning Plan?
While the NWP was picketing and fighting to raise awareness about the suffrage campaign, Carrie Chapman Catt, the new leader of NAWSA, and others were working on their own. The two groups were still firmly divided over how to best win support for the cause. In 1915, Catt and Paul had met at the Willard Hotel in Washington in a last effort to bridge their divide but the meeting ended without either side having made any concessions. Paul was firm in her belief that they must put pressure on the party in power, while Catt was in favor of a state-by-state strategy with tactical alliances being formed with the leading powers. Catt had come up with what she called her "winning plan," but she refused to reveal its details to the younger woman. In the end both sides remained staunchly opposed to the other's ideas. Catt, as the leader of NAWSA, worked in the years following WWI to strategically gain allies among the leading political parties. She enacted her secret "winning plan," which focused on both working for a federal suffrage amendment, while also campaigning at the state level (Mayo, 2007). Catt was an excellent strategist and by 1916 NAWSA had convinced both the Republican and Democratic parties to adopt suffrage as a plank in their platforms. Catt had also developed a relationship with President Wilson and was gently pressuring him to support woman suffrage (Mayo, 2007). The support of the major political parties was important, however, both platforms were firm in the individual states' rights to have the ultimate decision. The Republican platform stated, " The Republican party, reaffirming its faith in government of the people, by the people, for the people, as a measure of justice to one-half the adult people of this country, favors the extension of the suffrage to women, but recognizes the right of each state to settle this question for itself" (Republican Party Platform, 1916).
Mixed Messages
With NAWSA carefully gaining support and the NWP picketing daily outside the White House, there was no way for legislators to look the other way. The 1916 elections were evidence of how far women had come and of the growing rift between the two factions of the suffrage movement. President Wilson was invited, and attended the NAWSA convention in September of 1916 and gave a speech expressing his view that the victory of the suffrage movement was inevitable. He stated, "I have not come to ask you to be patient, because you have been, but I have come to congratulate you that there has been a force behind you that will...be triumphant" (Weatherford, 1998). His opinion was good news to the women of NAWSA, however, he was unclear as to whether or not he believed success would happen during his term. The threat of war had loomed over the United States since WWI began in 1914, and it was this issue that eclipsed woman suffrage during the 1916 campaign. In contrast to NAWSA's approach of making alliances, Alice Paul and the NWP continued to campaign against those in power that they held responsible for keeping their rights from them. They picketed against Wilson and urged women that did have the vote to use it against the Democratic party. Even as Catt and other leaders at NAWSA reasoned that all the state-level rejections of suffrage had been in states with Republican majorities, Alice Paul was determined to keep the focus on Washington (Weatherford, 1998). By 1917, twelve states had fully enfranchised women and, in the 1916 elections, Montana elected Jeannette Rankin as a Republican representative to Congress making her the first woman ever elected to the House of Representatives (Lopach and Luckowski, 2005). Rankin's election meant that the suffragists finally had an ally within the legislation with whom they could place their trust. Even with Rankin in office, however, and the majority of politicians, including President Wilson, coming out in support of woman suffrage, the political climate was not favorable to the suffragists.
NAWSA vs. the NWP: Who Is Making The Difference?
As the winter of 1917 came to a close, the nation turned its full attention to the war in Europe. On April 7, Congress officially declared war on Germany. Many suffragists also focused their attention on the war effort, as men left for the front women took up the jobs left vacant. As women demonstrated how important they could be to the country, New York became the first eastern state to pass a suffrage amendment (Clift, 2003). The women of NAWSA saw this as a huge victory and a testament to the changing attitudes of the American people. The idea of suffrage for all was finally being looked upon, not in disdain, but with acceptance and respect. The only thing the women of NAWSA saw standing in their way now was the continued militancy of the NWP. Catt and other leaders of NAWSA met with Alice Paul and implored her to end the pickets for the duration of the war (Clift, 2003). They saw her actions as being the only thing now that diminished the reputation of the movement. The women of the NWP had become more outspoken since the reelection of Wilson, Alice Paul burned an effigy of the President in an act of protest and several leading members had already been arrested on charges of disturbing the peace. With the country at war many Americans did not look favorably on these activities and many more conservative suffragists feared that their activities would diminish the reputation of the movement as a whole. In contrast, Alice Paul and her supporters felt that it was precisely these actions that had led to the shift in the attitudes of the American people. They felt that Catt and other mainstream women were simply following the routine of those that had come before them and that a new approach was exactly what was needed to change the dynamics of the fight (Weatherford, 1998).