A Time for Courage: The Suffragette Diary of Kathleen Bowen, Washington D.C., 1917

January 18, 1917
The picket line has been going on for more than a week! And people said they would not last a day and the weather still has not broken. What's more, news of the pickets is spreading and more and more women are coming from other parts of the district and some from as far away as Maryland and Virginia. President Wilson felt so sorry for them in the cold that he invited them in for coffee but they refused. They said they would come in only to talk about a federal amendment for the women's right to vote. No coffee! This, made me think of Sojourner Truth's words about men who help lift women into carriages and over mud puddles — that, of course, is the easy part, just like giving them coffee. Giving them the vote is the hard part.