The Senate Committee on the District of Columbia held hearings to determine why police had failed to carry out a Senate directive to clear the parade route and protect the marchers. More than 150 witnesses testified, describing the crowd jeering, grabbing, and pushing the women while police failed to intervene. The District superintendent of police was subsequently fired.
Senate Library
Suffrage Parade: Report of the Committee of the District of Columbia, May 29, 1913
The 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession
On March 3, 1913, more than 5,000 suffragists paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue from the U.S. Capitol to the Treasury Building to demand a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women’s right to vote. Crowds of men in town for the following day’s presidential inauguration blocked the route and harassed the marchers. Public outcry over the violence led to congressional hearings. Press coverage boosted the suffrage movement, helping to bring about passage of the Nineteenth Amendment granting women the right to vote.
I asked the policeman would he not please protect this woman, and he said, “There would be nothing like this happen[ing] if you would stay at home.”
Patricia M. Street, Suffrage Parade: Report of the Committee on the District of Columbia, May 29, 1913
The Senate Committee on the District of Columbia held hearings to determine why police had failed to carry out a Senate directive to clear the parade route and protect the marchers. More than 150 witnesses testified, describing the crowd jeering, grabbing, and pushing the women while police failed to intervene. The District superintendent of police was subsequently fired.
Senate Library
