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Woodrow Wilson's Conversion Experience: the President and the Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment Beth Behn University of Massachusetts Amherst, [email protected]

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Woodrow Wilson's Conversion Experience: the President and the Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment Beth Behn University of Massachusetts Amherst, Beth.Behn@Us.Army.Mil University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Open Access Dissertations 2-2012 Woodrow Wilson's Conversion Experience: The President and the Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment Beth Behn University of Massachusetts Amherst, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Behn, Beth, "Woodrow Wilson's Conversion Experience: The rP esident and the Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment" (2012). Open Access Dissertations. 511. https://doi.org/10.7275/e43w-h021 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations/511 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WOODROW WILSON’S CONVERSION EXPERIENCE: THE PRESIDENT AND THE FEDERAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT A Dissertation Presented by BETH A. BEHN Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY February 2012 Department of History © Copyright by Beth A. Behn 2012 All Rights Reserved WOODROW WILSON’S CONVERSION EXPERIENCE: THE PRESIDENT AND THE FEDERAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT A Dissertation Presented by BETH A. BEHN Approved as to style and content by: _________________________________ Joyce Avrech Berkman, Chair _________________________________ Gerald Friedman, Member _________________________________ David Glassberg, Member _________________________________ Gerald McFarland, Member ________________________________________ Joye Bowman, Department Head Department of History ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would never have completed this dissertation without the generous support of a number of people. It is a privilege to finally be able to express my gratitude to many of them. As a graduate student, I benefitted from work with a number of distinguished scholars at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Chief among them was my dissertation advisor and mentor, Joyce Avrech Berkman. Joyce encouraged me to write a master’s thesis and later assisted me in making the decision to expand that thesis into a dissertation. Along the way, she carefully reviewed drafts of chapters, always pushing me to refine my analysis and improve the clarity of my writing. Patient but exacting, compassionate but firm – Joyce was everything that one could want in a mentor. I will be forever indebted to her for teaching me the craft of history. I am also grateful for the feedback that I received from the other members of my dissertation committee – David Glassberg, Jerry Friedman, and Gerald McFarland. Besides my advisor and the other members of my committee, I want to thank two people – Bruce Laurie and Carlin Barton – for helping me build an entirely new set of mental muscles. I did doctoral fields with Bruce and Carlin and my challenging work with both of them significantly deepened and sharpened my thinking. My superiors at the United States Military Academy provided support and encouragement to me throughout this process. By bringing me back to West Point for a second teaching tour, they afforded me the time to complete the final chapters of this work. I especially want to thank Colonels Lance Betros, Mat Moten, Pilar Ryan, and Ty Seidule. iv My parents have always been a tremendous source of support for any project that I undertook and this dissertation was no exception. They cheered from the sidelines at every step along the way. My dad – to whom I credit my love of history – passed away just five days after my successful dissertation defense, but I had a chance to share the good news with him and I will be forever grateful for the fact that he lived long enough to help me celebrate this milestone. During the eight years of my doctoral work, my family and I moved five times as a result of my being an active duty army officer – from Massachusetts to New York to Kansas to Iowa to Colorado and then back to New York. In addition to those five moves, I completed two tours of duty to Iraq. And my partner, Julie Shappy, gave birth to our two children, Parke and Twila. In between the moves, deployments and pregnancies, Julie managed to complete her PhD in Exercise Physiology. She is the most remarkable woman that I have ever met. Without Julie’s patient support and encouragement, I would never have finished this dissertation. I dedicate this work to her. v ABSTRACT WOODROW WILSON’S CONVERSION EXPERIENCE: THE PRESIDENT AND THE FEDERAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT FEBRUARY 2012 BETH A. BEHN, B.S., UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Joyce Avrech Berkman This study explores President Woodrow Wilson’s evolution between his 1912 presidential campaign and the mid-point of his second term from staunch opposition to a federal woman suffrage amendment to an active advocate for the cause. Besides clearly identifying the array of forces within and outside Congress that pressured Wilson and the extent to which he was, in turn, able to influence Congress and voters, this study more fully integrates the suffragists and anti-suffragists into American political history and situates the issue of woman suffrage in the broader context of Wilson’s two administrations. I argue that the National American Woman Suffrage Association, not the National Woman’s Party, was decisive in Wilson’s conversion to the cause of the federal amendment because its approach mirrored his own conservative vision of the appropriate method of reform: win a broad consensus, develop a legitimate rationale, and make the issue politically valuable. Additionally, I contend that Wilson did have a significant role to play in the successful congressional passage and national ratification of the 19th Amendment, though powerful currents of sectionalism, race, and economic interests sometimes limited the extent of his influence. vi A deeper understanding of the final stages of the woman suffrage movement holds relevance for our understanding of both Progressive Era America and our present times. Observing Wilson treading the fragile line between executive interference and reasonable influence provides great insight into Progressive Era conceptions of separation of powers and presidential power and leadership. Furthermore, debates over woman suffrage contributed to the larger late-19th and early-20th century debates over the meaning of citizenship and the role of the state in an increasingly industrialized nation. Enfranchising one-half the population marked a significant moment in our nation’s history. This study deepens and enriches our understanding of the process by which that momentous event came to pass. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………….…….iv ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………...…vi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………….…….....1 2. WILSON’S FIRST TERM……………………………………………………….…...22 3. PRELUDE TO THE 1916 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION………...………..…..…....54 4. WILSON’S PROGRESSIVE TURN AND THE 1916 ELECTION ……..…………90 5. 1917 - THE YEAR OF DECISIONS…………………………….…………....……139 6. FIGHTING FOR WILSON: THE IMPACT OF THE ANTI-SUFFRAGISTS…….187 7. WILSON AS AN ADVOCATE: 1918-1919...……………………………...……....218 8. CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………….…..…253 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………267 viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION As Woodrow Wilson traveled the 1912 presidential campaign trail, he confided to one of his staff members that he was “definitely and irreconcilably opposed to woman suffrage; woman’s place was in the home, and the type of woman who took an active part in the suffrage agitation was totally abhorrent to him.”1 Just six years later, though, halfway through his second term, he pleaded with the United States Senate to pass the federal woman suffrage amendment. In the midst of a world war and with significant mid-term elections looming just days away, Wilson took the unprecedented step of personally injecting his voice into the Senate debate over woman suffrage. The future direction of the nation rests on granting women the right to vote, he argued, because “we shall need their moral sense to preserve what is right and fine and worthy in our system of life as well as to discover just what it is that ought to be purified and reformed. Without their counselings we shall only be half wise.”2 What had transpired during the first six years of his presidency to bring about such a dramatic change in Wilson’s position? How had the federal suffrage amendment been elevated to an issue of such importance that the president felt compelled to personally intervene with Congress on its behalf? Did Wilson’s support indicate a principled shift on the issue or was it mere political expediency? This study seeks to 1 Frank P. Stockbridge, "How Woodrow Wilson Won His Nomination," Current History 20 (July 1924): 567. 2 Congress, Senate, President Woodrow Wilson’s message to the U.S. Senate urging passage of the suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 65th Congress, 2nd sess., Congressional Record (30 September 1918), vol. 56, pt. 1, 10900-10901. 1 understand the array of forces that pressured Wilson and the extent to which he was, in turn, able to influence Congress and voters. Its aim is to more fully integrate the suffragists into American political history and to situate the issue of woman suffrage in the broader context of Wilson’s two administrations. In doing so, this study has the potential to enhance our understanding not just of Wilson and the woman suffrage movement, but also of the nature of legislative change in our representative system and of presidential power during the Progressive Era. Failure to fully understand the process by which one-half of the population attained the franchise will – to use Wilson’s words - leave us only “half wise.” By focusing on Wilson’s relationship to woman suffrage, this study is designed to both fill voids in the existing scholarship and to weigh in on key historiographical debates.
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