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The
Herald figure, blowing a trumpet and riding a horse (as
Inez Milholland did in the actual parade), is featured on
the cover of the official program of the suffrage parade
held in Washington, DC on March 3, 1913. |
INEZ MILHOLLAND (1896-1916) BECOMES A
MARTYR
In
addition to portraying the herald, Milholland was a lawyer and
social activist whose true interest was reform causes. She enthusiastically
worked long hours for the suffrage cause, and after several
years of constant campaigning, her health began to suffer. She
was suffering from pernicious anemia in 1916 when she undertook
a strenuous speaking tour for the National Woman's Party in
the enfranchised states of the West. The Woman's Party strategy
in the western states was to campaign against the Democrats
in 1914 and against the re-election of President Woodrow Wilson
in 1916, urging women voters to cast their votes against him
to protest the Democratic Party's failure to pass a constitutional
amendment for women's votes. This policy reflected the NWP's
strategy of "holding the party in power responsible." In September,
while campaigning in Los Angeles, Inez Milholland collapsed.
The last words ringing from her lips were, "Mr. President, how
long must women wait for liberty?" With her death ten weeks
later, the American suffrage movement had a martyr.
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Idealized
poster of Inez Milholland Boissevain produced and circulated
by the National Woman's Party after her death. The poster
uses the familiar colors purple, white, and gold, and the
motto "Forward Into Light." |
The National Woman's Party wasted no time
in elevating Milholland to sainthood and glorifying her death
for the cause. Her memorial service was a brilliantly staged
pageant of suffrage imagery and symbolism. On Christmas Day,
1916, the Woman's Party staged the first memorial service ever
held for a woman in the United States Capitol. Statuary Hall
was ornately decorated with the Woman's Party colors:
"Between the pillars of the balcony hung
. . . pennants of purple, white, and gold - the tricolor of
these feminist crusaders. . . . Presently . . . boy choristers
. . . marched into the hall chanting: 'Forward, out of error,/
Leave behind the night,/ Forward through the darkness/ Forward
into Light.' Behind . . . came a golden banner with the above
words inscribed on it. This was a duplicate of the banner that
Inez Milholland bore in the suffrage parade in New York. Behind
the golden banner came a great procession of young women . .
. the first division in purple, the next in white, the last
in gold, carrying high the standards which bore the tricolor."[17]
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Inez
Milholland as the purple and white logo on all National
Woman's Party stationery. |
Speeches of tribute followed. Maud Younger
of California delivered the memorial address, eulogizing Milholland
in familiar symbolic terms: "She was the flaming torch that
went ahead to light the way - the symbol of light and freedom..."[18]
After Milholland's death, the National
Woman's Party widely circulated an idealized poster of her,
clad in flowing white robes, with gold helmet and star, riding
a white horse and carrying a banner with the legend, "Forward
Into Light." The poster quickly became a classic as well as
the official logo of the National Woman's Party. "Forward Into
Light"[19] became the Party's official
motto. A reduced version of the logo continues today, rendered
in purple, on all the Party's official stationery and correspondence.
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