Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Florence BAYARD
When Florence Bayard Hilles of Wilmington heard Mabel Vernon speak on woman's suffrage, she realized that she "is saying what I believe in and I'm not doing anything about it." From that moment on Mrs. Hilles was totally committed. She gave her time, her money, and her car --the "Votes for Women Flyer"--to the cause. She and Mabel Vernon began the Congressional Union organization in Delaware, becoming fast friends along the way. Mrs. Hilles became a national leader in the movement as well. One of the "Silent Sentinels" who picketed the White House, she was arrested in July 1917, tried, and sentenced to sixty days in jail. Her courtroom speech is printed below. After three days in jail, she was pardoned by President Wilson. The library at the headquarters of the National Woman's Party in Washington, D.C., is named after her.
The daughter of Senator Thomas F. Bayard, Mrs. Hilles came from a family long active in state and national politics. She married William S. Hilles, a lawyer in 1898. In addition to suffrage, Mrs. Hilles was involved in many community organizations in Delaware
Back to Suffrage Battle in Delaware
Speech by Florence Bayard Hilles taken from
The Suffragist, Saturday, July 21, 1917, p. 8
MRS. FLORENCE BAYARD HILLES, one of the most brilliant figures in the suffrage movement, said: "For generations the men of my family have given their services to their country. For myself, my training from childhood has been with a father who believed in democracy and who belonged to the Democratic party. By inheritance and conviction I am a Democrat, and to a Democratic President I went with my appeal. What a spectacle it must be to the thinking- people of this country to see us urged to go to war for democracy in a foreign land, and to see women thrown into prison who plead for that same cause at home.
"I stand here to affirm my innocence of the charge against me. This court has not proved that I obstructed traffic. My presence at the White House gate was under the constitutional right of petitioning the government for freedom, or for any other cause. During the months of January, February, March, April, and May picketing, such as we have been doing, has been held legal. During the month of June it apparently becomes illegal.
"We have every right to believe that we may continue our course-since under arbitrary ruling the precedent has been established, though not yet definitely established, that during certain months picketing is legal under the act of Congress, and during certain other months is illegal.
"My services as an American woman are being conscripted by order of the President of the United States to help win his world war for democracy . . . . 'that the right of those who submit to authority shall have a voice in their own government.' I shall continue to plead for the political liberty of American women-and especially do I plead to the President, since he is the one person who by a suggestion can end the struggles of American women to take their proper places in a true democracy."
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