Volume 16 , Issue 18

Parade of Suffragists 24 October 1915

It was in The Sun, Sunday, 24 October 1915, in New York, that we found this front page article, "25,000 Get in Line for Parade of Suffragists in Face of a Biting Wind." Thousands of others waited for places but were kept from marching, grandmothers played prominent parts. The Mayor reviewed the stirring spectacle.

From Wasington Square to Fifty-ninth street two solid walls of sympathetic humanity watched the suffragettes marched. Twenty-five thousand of them there were determined women and a regiment of men who strode up Fifth Avenue with a magnificent precision that silenced scoffers. The women ruled the day.

It was a three mile argument for equal rights, a dignified, splendid argument, and every vantage point along the gay colored way was covered with men and a women who saw its force. Through the chill of a windy afternoon, though the sun shone on the mighty host, the great army of women passed, the white costumes of many glittering in the sunlight, defying the cold wind that the onlookers felt to their spines as they stood to see it all.

Every type of woman that wants to vote passed by in that blue and yellow pageant. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, artists, scrubwomen, home women, working girls, school girls, their faces set as on their ideal before them, swept up through the avenue. And bands played with a military flare that befitted the marchers' stride.

No one could accurately estimate the number of participants in the great demonstration. For three hours the courageous battalions were on their way. Nothing could stop them and nothing did, except Cupid, and he but for a very short time. He held up his hand for a bride and bridegroom and their attendants to swing through the line, but the suffragists did not mind. They smiled on the bride and the parade went on.

It was reported as a bright sunshine when the crowd gathered, but the sun went down, the stars came out, the cold wind which swept down the avenue grew more biting, and still they stuck, with nothing to see but endless lines of marching women each with her little pennant Votes for women. It was not a spectacular parade. There were few floats, few fancy costumes, only the hosts of women pressing on and on in the teeth of the cold wind. In that fact lay the impressiveness of the demonstration.

One man muttered as he turned away from below the reviewing stand at Forty-second street after standing there four hours, said, "I didn't know there were so many suffragists in the world."

Mayor Mitchel and his official family, or a large share of it, gave the crowds a good example in staying quality. The Mayor had with him not only his official but his own private family, for Mrs. Mitchel sat in the front row of the seats in the reviewing stand between her husband and Dudley Field Malone. Comptroller Prendergust, Mr. McAneny, President of the Board of Aldermen; Borough President Marks and several other members of the Mayor's cabinet sat from 3 o'clock, when the line was starting from Washington Arch, until nearly half past 6, when the head of the Men's League division, the last section, came into sight.

It wasn't a nice day for women to march in white dresses such as many of them wore. The sun shone and the air was clear, but the weather man proved that he must have an evil stark by sending a wind that penetrated to the marrow. But no a woman flinched.

Mrs. Leonard Thomas, who led the parade, carrying the banner of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, had the hardest time of all. Two women walked, one on each side of her, helping to bear the huge banner, but they weren't enough, and at Twenty-third street, where a fierce gust threatened to carry it away and Mrs. Thomas with it, Miss Rose Young, one of the guard of honor behind Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, the International president, was forced to appeal to the crowd.

Mrs. Thomas finally shouted out, "Will some strong man volunteer to carry the banner?"

Sad to say the crowd snickered, but a knight rushed back from the Seventh Regiment band, just in front. He didn't carry the banner, but he broke off the staff so it was easier for Mrs. Thomas to hold it against the wind.

The parade was three hours passing the reviewing stand at Forty-second street. Conservative estimates made the number in line 28,000, but Mrs. Norman De R. Whitehouse, chairman of the parade committee, declared that 0,000 were on hand ready to march, but didn't get a chance.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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