A model listener, Alice Paul has unlimited capacity for letting
the other person relieve herself of all her objections without
contest. Over and over again I have heard this scene enacted.

"Miss Paul, I have come to tell you that you are all wrong about
this federal amendment business. I don't believe in it. Suffrage
should come slowly but surely by the states. And although I have
been a life-long suffragist, I just want to tell you not to count
on me, for feeling as I do, I cannot give you any help."

A silence would follow. Then Miss Paul would say ingenuously,
"Have you a half hour to spare?"

"I guess so," would come slowly from the protestant. “Why?”

"Won't you please sit down right here and put the stamps on these
letters? We have to get them in the mail by noon."

"But I don't believe …”

"Oh, that's all right. These letters are going to women probably
a lot of whom feel as you do. But some of them will want to come
to the meeting to hear our side."

By this time Miss Paul would have brought a chair, and that ended
the argument. The woman would stay and humbly proceed to stick on
endless stamps. Usually she would come back, too, and before many
days would be an ardent worker for the cause against which she
thought herself invincible.