Memories! 107 Years Ago, Suffragettes Burned an Effigy of Woodrow Wilson for Being a Shitty President

On this day, 107 years ago, a couple of dozen suffragettes got arrested for burning an effigy of Woodrow Wilson in front of the White House because the president was dragging his fucking feet on supporting women’s right to vote. 

“The scenes in front of the White House were exciting,” reads a New York Times article about the protest from the National Women’s Party. Love that description—apt in every sense. Sue White, the Tennessee Chairwoman of the NWP, led the demonstration and threw a two-foot-tall Wilson paper doll stuffed with straw into a cauldron. They also held up banners that read “The President is responsible for the betrayal of American women” and “He preaches democracy abroad and thwarts democracy here.” 

Police then went on an arresting spree, with the NYT writing that they needed help from the military police and the Boy Scouts to round up all the women, and had to seize people’s private vehicles because the paddy wagons were full. “We burn not the effigy of the President of a free people, but the leader of an autocratic party organization whose tyrannical power holds millions of women in political slavery,” White reportedly said during her arrest. It’s like speaking into a mirror.

The NWP had already been protesting Wilson for months for failing to effectively lobby for the 19th Amendment, despite finally endorsing it in 1918 as a “justice to women.” In January 1919, the NWP launched their “Watchfires of Freedom” protests, in which they stood outside the White House and burned copies of Wilson’s speeches that mentioned the words “freedom,” “democracy,” or “liberty.” They kept getting arrested, and other suffragettes kept replacing them. It ultimately forced the Senate to schedule a new vote for the 19th Amendment on the 10th. 

Which is why, on the 9th, they burned the effigy of Wilson, even though he was out of the country at the Paris Peace Conference. While the NWP, led by Alice Paul, was considered the “militant” suffragette organization, Carrie Chapman Catt led the moderate National American Woman Suffrage Association—and she was not happy about their effigy burning. 

“The suffragists, with all the women of America, have been obliged to stand the shame and stigma of the outrageous performances of the members of the National Woman’s Party,” she told the New York Times. “This is not a party issue. Such an insult to the President of this great nation must be resented by all Republicans and Democrats alike.” Regardless, the 19th Amendment failed to pass by one vote—though it did eventually pass that summer.

Hopefully, women’s suffrage will stick around for another century, at least, but I’m not holding my breath. 

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