Suffragettes Still Struggling For A Presence

List the famous tourism spots in Washington, D.C., and they roll easily off the tongue: the Jefferson, the Washington, the Lincoln. Who isn’t moved by the Vietnam memorial? I can spend hours on the mall and just looking at some of those buildings puts a lump in my throat.

I have a new favorite now. It’s in a basement.

Not just any basement, mind you. It’s the basement of the Capitol, a room known as “the crypt.”

That’s where the Woman Suffrage Statue is.

All of the memorials erected in Washington are intended to make us remember, to honor the strife and labor people suffered to give this country its greatness. The tale of the suffrage statue is a cautionary one.

I saw it for the first time last weekend, at the end of a visit in Washington. The heads and shoulders of three suffragettes rise out of a massive piece of marble: Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. A fourth, unfinished slab rises behind them, meant to represent all the women after them. The portrait monument was presented to Congress in 1921, in a dedication ceremony in the Rotunda. It had been only a year since women were granted the vote, and feelings among the congressmen were still running rather high about the matter. Or that’s what you have to surmise when you consider that the members of the National Woman’s Party tried to present the statue for eight months and were continually refused.

Historical records showed that all sorts of reasons were given for the refusal, including my personal favorite, an objection that there were already too many statues in the Capitol.

The women finally shamed the Congress into accepting it, according to Karen Staser, co-chairwoman of the Woman Suffrage Statue Campaign.

“They just showed up,” she says. “They had the statue pulled by oxen in front of the Capitol.” Within 24 hours of accepting the statue, Congress had it dumped in a basement, where it was hidden from public view until the crypt area was opened in 1963. In 1976, the area was spruced up for the Bicentennial. Now, you can see models of the Capitol, buy souvenirs at a kiosk and, with a little looking, you can find the suffrage statue. A small sign explains the importance of the piece.

The current campaign to move the statue back to the Rotunda is the fourth legislative attempt; women protested to no avail in 1928, 1932 and 1956. Each time the arguments were the same: The monument was too heavy; it lacked historical significance; or it was not aesthetically pleasing.

Staser has seen the files on the statues in the offices of the Architect of the Capitol; no other monument is so contested, she says.

The most recent fight to move the statue was launched several years ago, with women’s rights activists hoping to complete the transfer in time for the 75th anniversary of women’s suffrage.

That didn’t happen. Although the Senate voted unanimously last July to move the statue, the measure stalled in the House, where some of the old arguments resurfaced, including the weight issue.

Last month, statue supporters decided to launch their own fund-raising drive, which will help to pay for an alteration replacing the piece’s heavy base with a lighter metal one. Their goal is $75,000.

So far, they have $12,000, much of it in small donations from individuals. The Republican National Committee, the Federation of Republican Women and the League of Women Voters have also contributed.

I know there are people who don’t understand the importance of a statue such as the portrait monument, who wonder why its placement is of such consequence. Memorials are part of the language we use to convey history; Significance is registered by things like placement.

Think about what it says that women were put in the basement. Think about what it would say if we took one of the men out of the Rotunda and put him in the crypt.

I take my right to vote for granted, which would probably make the suffragettes of old sigh with envy. They had to fight so hard, and I simply consider it my right. They did their job well. Can’t we at least move them out of the basement?

MEMO: The Woman Suffrage Statue Campaign is located at 303 W. Glendale Ave., Alexandria, Va. 22301. And yes, Susan B. Anthony dollars are accepted.