Report of the Senate Hearing on the 1913 Woman Suffrage Parade

On the day before the 1913 presidential inauguration, more than 5,000 women marched up Pennsylvania Avenue demanding the right to vote. Women from around the country came to Washington in a show of strength and determination to obtain the ballot. More than 10,000 spectators crowded the parade route. Some were simply boisterous but others were hostile. They spilled past the barriers and off the sidewalks, clogging Pennsylvania Avenue. Police officers were unable or unwilling to hold back the crowds and after the first four blocks the parade stalled as the marchers couldn’t pass through the mob. A cavalry unit from Fort Myer was finally called in to restore order and the parade finished hours late. The public was horrified, and a one-day event became an ongoing story, with demands for an investigation of the police department’s failure to protect the women.

The Senate held eleven days of hearings and gathered contradictory testimony from more than 150 witnesses. The committee decided that the police had not done an adequate job of protecting the parade or clearing the parade route. But although some officers had behaved badly, there had been no official policy to harass the marchers or leave them unprotected.

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