Politics & Power Quote by Alice Paul

Coalition is the point, and it’s framed as both moral stance and tactical necessity. When Alice Paul describes the Woman’s Party as “made up of women of all races, creeds and nationalities,” she’s not just offering a feel-good roll call of inclusion; she’s building legitimacy in a political culture that loved to dismiss women’s organizing as parochial, sentimental, or “special interest.” The phrasing borrows the grammar of the nation-state itself: plural peoplehood, one program, one mission. It’s a move that makes women’s rights sound less like a plea and more like governance.

The key word is “united,” followed immediately by constraint: “the one program.” Paul’s intent is disciplined power. The National Woman’s Party was famous for its message control and single-issue pressure tactics, especially around suffrage and later the Equal Rights Amendment. This line signals a coalition wide enough to claim representativeness, but narrow enough to act like a machine. It’s an activist’s answer to the problem of dilution: welcome everyone, but don’t let everything in.

The subtext is also defensive. By foregrounding diversity across “races, creeds and nationalities,” Paul anticipates attacks that the movement is only for a certain kind of woman. Historically, that claim sits uneasily beside suffrage’s ugly compromises and exclusions. The sentence works because it performs an aspiration while asserting authority: whatever the movement has been, it insists on what it needs to become to win.