26 August 2003

Mars and Venus

Mars is hanging over Washington like an orange basketball. OK, OK, maybe not that dramatic. I am accused sometimes of hyperbole, and I do believe that nothing exceeds like excess. But Mars is bright in the night sky, not at all subtle. This is a shout-out apparition. Mars, god of War, muse of the hard, masculine sciences and Orson Welles, is passing within 35 million miles of the Nation's capital and it won't be this close again for another 284 years, on Aug. 28, 2287.

I am not planning on attending that one, so I am luxuriating in this proximity to the Red Planet. Maybe it is a way to understand what is happening this season. The bombs in Bombay. The anger of the young men who cheerfully blow themselves up on buses, guaranteeing the continuation of the violence. The Farmers' Almanac is just out with the prediction that we are in for a cold winter with plenty of snow. It must be the testosterone in the air. I could sense it down by the pool last night, where the Ironworkers Union men were congregated on the patio. They gather on Monday nights to see the cute Czech lifeguard and vie to impress her with their masculinity. The raw maleness they exuded was doubtless enhanced by the closeness of Mars and was as pungent as Cuban cigar and powerful as a straight-up vodka martini. As the moon and tides influence the cycles of human affairs, so too must the influence of Mars affect our daily intercourse, and when the Ironworkers discovered the lithe young blonde was not working their disappointment was palpable. Perhaps when time takes Mars further away, perhaps by a century or so, the proximity of Venus might provide a counterbalance of celestial estrogen and restore equilibrium to the spinning cycle of Ying and Yang.

There is an anniversary to celebrate in that cycle today. The struggle to bring the women of America the right to vote ended eighty-three years ago, at eight o'clock in the morning on this day, calculated to occur at the time when the Capital was shrouded in the miasma of late August. It was deliberately low keyed, the ceremony, and President Wilson was busy coping with the effects of his long convalescence. No one in their right mind would willingly be here in a city without air conditioning without compelling reason. The 19th amendment to the Constitution was signed by Bainbridge Colby, Secretary of State.

He signed the proclamation at his residence at 1507 K Street NW, without ceremony or pageant of any kind. It is hard to picture the moment, since it is completely undocumented. There are no grainy motion pictures and there if you can bring up the visage of Bainbridge Colby atop a morning coat, you have probably misspent your youth. The times were contentious. The Great War was only eighteen months history. President Wilson was largely indisposed since his stroke during a nation-wide tour to drum up support for his League of Nations concept. His wife, the implacable Edith Bolling Galt Wilson intervened and was managing what some have called the "First Lady Regency." It was ironic that while the nation enjoyed its first woman president, a bitter struggle raged between the women's groups who had so earnestly pushed the amendment, and they were anxious to be present and to have the moment of their triumph recorded for posterity. The National Woman's Party, militant predecessor to today's NOW was pointedly excluded. The NWP had been founded in 1916 as the guns roared overseas by Alice Paul, a Quaker suffragist. She made her headquarters in the Old Brick Capitol, where the Supreme Court stands today. She was a feisty one, Alice was, and quite unladylike at times. She targeted Congress and the White House with a strategy of sustained and dramatic protest. NWP members marched and sang and carried banners. There were daily pickets and arrests at the White House, frequent hunger strikes and national speaking tours. And there was forced-feeding of prisoners. It was quite spectacular and all of it made headlines and increased the pressure for the States to ratify the Constitution.

But no one was getting arrested in front of the White House today, and there was no picket line at 1507 K Street. Secretary Colby was not a hasty man, and he reviewed the package with due diligence. He carefully examined the package that had arrived by the morning post. Imagine a time when the mail came early enough in the day to do something with it! The package included a certificate signed by the Governor of Tennessee that that State's Legislature had ratified the Congressional resolution. It passed by a one-vote majority, the man who tipped the balance being one Harry Burn, a 24-year-old delegate who voted against his conscience because his Mom told him to.

Secretary Bainbridge quoted Admiral Dewey, hero of Manila Bay on the significance of the moment. The Secretary harked back to a dawn in May of 1898, when George Dewey's flagship USS Olympia led seven U.S. Navy cruisers and gunboats into the Bay. Bainbridge must have been referring to the hour, rather than the moment, and he was probably thinking about breakfast. By 8 AM that morning Dewey's Asiatic Squadron had located and destroyed virtually the entire Spanish naval force in the Philippines. Damage to the American ships was negligible, and their crews suffered no fatalities and few injuries. It is quite an astonishing analogy, and I wish it had been recorded by the cameras. The Secretary cleared his throat, thinking of muffins and toast. He said Dewey had waited until just that time of the morning to enter the Bay. He rose from the table in his cabin and went up to the bridge of the armored cruiser. Bainbridge said Dewey "wiped the egg stains of breakfast from his moustache," observing the disposition of the enemy's ships. Taking out a cigar, he turned to the Commanding Officer of the Olympia and said, "When you are ready, you may fire, Gridley."

The Secretary looked at the few representatives of the print media who were present and said "So I turn to the women of America and say: 'You may now fire when you are ready. You have been enfranchised." I like to think of him wiping the egg stains from his moustache as he did so.

President Wilson, weak as he was, was wheeled into one of the public rooms at the White House that sultry afternoon to meet with Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, head of the National American Suffrage Association, and her able lieutenant Helen H. Gardiner. Cattt lead the mainstream women’s groups and was a formidable woman and an intimate of Susan B. Anthony. In addition to Women’s Sufferage, she was an avid supporter of the League of Nations and would later found the League of Women Voters. She was determinedly ladylike. The National Woman's Party was not represented at the White House. The women gave the President a token of appreciation in the form of a bound volume with a page from each State celebrating the work he did in support of suffrage. The ladies had expected the President to issue a written statement to be read at the mass meeting and celebration that night at Poll's Theatre. The President informed the ladies that he had handed the matter over to Secretary Colby, that he would be sure to include it in his remarks to the women at the mass meeting.

Thus Mars handed over to Venus the right of full participation in the Great Democracy pausing only to wipe the egg stains from his moustache. In 1923, Alice Paul wrote the original Equal Rights Amendment and launched a campaign to win full equality for women. It was another radical idea that died after passing 35 of 38 required state legislatures in 1982. Perhaps we will try it again sometime. Maybe somebody’s mother should write them a note.