"If this resolution fails now," said Senator Jones of Washington, ranking Republican member of the Suffrage Committee, "it fails for lack of Democratic votes."

Senator Cummins of Iowa, Republican, also a member of the Suffrage Committee, reminded opponents of the measure of the retaliatory tactics used by President Wilson when repudiated by senators on other issues. "I sincerely hope," he said tauntingly, "that the President may deal kindly and leniently with those who are refusing to remove this obstacle which stands in his way. It has not been very long since the President retired the junior Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Vardaman] from public life. Why? Because he refused at all times to obey the commands which were issued for his direction. The junior Senator from Georgia [Mr. Hardwick] suffered the same fate. How do you hope to escape? . . . My Democratic friends are either proceeding upon the hypothesis that the President is insincere or that they may be able to secure an immunity from him that these other unfortunate aspirants for office failed to secure."

Senator Cummins chided Senator Reed for denouncing "the so-called militants who sought to bring their influence to bear upon the situation in rather a more forcible and decisive method than was employed by the national association. . . I did not believe in the campaign they were pursuing (not one senator was brave enough to say outright that he did). . . .

"But that was simply a question for them to determine; and if they thought that in accordance with the established custom the President should bring his influence to bear more effectively than he had, they had a perfect right to burn his message; they had a perfect right to carry banners in Lafay- ette Park, in front of the White House, or anywhere else; they had a perfect right to bring their banners into the Capitol and display them with all the force and vigor which they could command. I did not agree with them; but they also were making a campaign for an inestimable and a fundamental right.

"What would you have done, men, if you had been deprived of the right to vote? What would you have done if you had been deprived of the right of representation? Have the militants done anything worse than the revolutionary forces who gathered about the tea chests and threw them into the sea? . . .