National Woman's Party - Militant Suffragists

Militant Suffragists

During the group's first meeting, Paul clarified that the party would not be a political party and therefore would not name a candidate for United States president during elections. While non-partisan, the NWP directed much of its fire at President Woodrow Wilson when criticizing those responsible for the social situation in which women of the era lived. The National Woman's Party also opposed World War I.

Women associated with the party staged a suffrage parade on March 3, 1913, the day before Wilson's inauguration. They also became the first women to picket for women's rights in front of the White House. The picketers were tolerated at first, but when they continued to picket after the United States declared war in 1917, they were arrested by police for obstructing traffic. Many of the NWP's members, upon arrest, went on hunger strikes; some, including Paul, were force-fed by jail personnel as a consequence. Anne Henrietta Martin, the NWP's first vice chairman, was sentenced to the Occoquan Workhouse, though Wilson pardoned her in less than a week. The resulting scandal and its negative impact on the country's international reputation at a time when Wilson was trying to build a reputation for himself and the nation as an international leader in human rights may have contributed to Wilson's decision to publicly call for the United States Congress to pass the Suffrage Amendment.