CLEP US History II

Answer: A - After a six-month protest outside the gates of the White House in 1917 (making her the first White House picket in American history), suffragist leader Alice Paul and her fellow protestors were jailed on the grounds that they were “obstructing traffic.” The women felt compelled to make the unprecedented demonstration after President Woodrow Wilson declared the United States would enter World War I on the grounds it needed to promote democracy around the world. Paul felt insulted that Wilson believed America should undertake such risk to promote democracy when the nation denied full democratic rights to its female citizens. Wilson was opposed to women’s suffrage and did not support the women’s movement in general. He once wrote that whenever he saw a woman speak in public, he got a “chilled, scandalized feeling.” However, in 1918 he reversed political course and began to support the legislation that ultimately paved the way for the 19th Amendment.