Woodrow Wilson Speaks to a Group of Suffragettes

Woodrow Wilson Speaks to a Group of Suffragettes

Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924

WWP18212

1913 December 8

Woodrow Wilson speaks to a group of suffragettes at the White House.

Wilson Papers, Library of Congress, Library of Congress, Washington, District of Columbia

Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924--Correspondence

[From RSB] 1 Mr. Wilson’s address to a delegation from the Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, December 8, 1913.
(Copied from IH Irwin, “The Story of the Woman’s Party”, pp. 43-44; see also NY T., December 9, p. 5, col. 2)

I want you ladies, if possible –– if I can make it clear to you –– to realize just what my present position is. Whenever I walk abroad, I realize that I am not a free man; I am under arrest. I am so carefully and admirably guarded that I have not even the privilege of walking the street. That is, as it were, typical of my present transference from being an individual with his mind on any and every subject, to being an official of a great Government and, incidentally, or so it falls out under our system of Government, the spokesman of a Party. I set myself this strict rule when I was Governor of New Jersey and have followed it as President, and shall follow it as President, that I am not at liberty to urge upon Congress policies which have not had the organic consideration of those for whom I am spokesman.
In other words, I have not yet presented to any legislature my private views on any subject, and I never shall; because I conceive that to be a part of the whole process of government, that I shall be spokesman for somebody, not for myself.
When I speak for myself, I am an individual; when I speak for an organic body, I am a representative. For that reason you see, I am by my own principles shut out, in the language of the street, from starting anything. I have to confine myself to those things which have been embodied as promises to the people at an election. That is the strict rule I set for myself. I want to say that with regard to all other matters I am not only glad to be consulted by my colleagues in the two Houses, but I hope that they will often pay me the compliment of consulting me when they want to know my opinions on any subject. One member of the Rules Committee did come to ask me what I thought about this suggestion of yours of appointing a special committee for consideration of the question of Woman Suffrage, and I told him that I thought it was a proper thing to do. So that as far as my personal advice has been asked by a single member of the Committee, it has been given to that effect. I wanted to tell you thtat to show you that I am strictly living up to my principles. When my private opinion is asked by those who are cooperating with me, I am most glad to give it; but I am not at liberty until I speak for somebody besides myself to urge legislation upon the Congress.

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