Meanwhile the condition of the prisoners in the workhouse grew steadily worse. It was imperative that we force the Ad-

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ministration to take them out of the custody of Superintendent Whittaker immediately. We decided to take the only course open-to obtain a writ of habeas corpus. A hurried journey by counsel to United States District Judge Waddill of Norfolk, Virginia, brought the writ. It compelled the government to bring the prisoners into court and show cause why they should not be returned to the district jail. This conservative, Southern judge said of the petition for the writ, "It is shocking and blood- curdling."

There followed a week more melodramatic than the most stirring moving picture film. Although the writ had been applied for in the greatest secrecy, a detective suddenly appeared to accompany Mr. O'Brien from Washington to Norfolk, during his stay in Norfolk, and back to Washington. Telephone wires at our headquarters were tapped.

It was evident that the Administration was cognizant of every move in this procedure before it was executed. No sooner was our plan decided upon than friends of the Administration besought us to abandon the habeas corpus proceedings. One member of the Administration sent an emissary to our headquarters with the following appeal:

"If you will only drop these proceedings, I can absolutely guarantee you that the prisoners will be removed from the workhouse to the jail in a week:"

"In a week? They may be dead by that time," we answered. "We cannot wait."

"But I tell you, you must not proceed."

"Why this mysterious week?" we asked. "Why not tomorrow? Why not instantly?"

"I can only tell you that I have a positive guarantee of the District Commissioners that the women will be removed," he said in conclusion. We refused to grant his request.

There were three reasons why the authorities wished for a week's time. They were afraid to move the women in their

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weakened condition and before the end of the week they hoped to increase their facilities for forcible feeding at the workhouse. They also wished to conceal the treatment of the women, the exposure of which would be inevitable in any court proceedings. And lastly, the Administration was anxious to avoid opening up the whole question of the legality of the very existence of the workhouse in Virginia.

Persons convicted in the District for acts committed in violation of District law were transported to Virginia-alien territory-to serve their terms. It was a moot point whether prisoners were so treated with sufficient warrant in law. Eminent jurists held that the District had no right to convict a person under its laws and commit that person to confinement in another state. They contended that sentence imposed upon a person for unlawful acts in the District should be executed in the District.

Hundreds of persons who had been convicted in the District of Columbia and who had served their sentences in Virginia had been without money or influence enough to contest this doubtful procedure in the courts. The Administration was alarmed.

We quickened our pace. A member of the Administration rushed his attorney as courier to the women in the workhouse to implore them not to consent to the habeas corpus proceedings. He was easily admitted and tried to extort from one prisoner at a time a promise to reject the plan. The women suspected his solicitude and refused to make any promise whatsoever without first being allowed to see their own attorney.

We began at once to serve the writ. Ordinarily this would be an easy thing to do. But for us it developed into a very difficult task. A deputy marshal must serve the writ. Counsel sought a deputy. For miles around 'Washington, not one was to be found at his home or lodgings. None could be reached by telephone.

Meanwhile Mr. Whittaker, had sped from the premises of

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the workhouse to the District, where he kept himself discreetly hidden for several days. When a deputy was found, six attempts were made to serve the writ. All failed. Finally by a ruse, Mr. Whittaker was caught at his home late at night. He was aroused to a state of violent temper and made futile threats of reprisal when he learned that he must produce the suffrage prisoners at the Court in Alexandria, Virginia, on the day of November twenty- third.

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Chapter 12

Alice Paul in Prison

Great passions when they run through a whole population, inevitably find a great spokesman. A people cannot remain dumb which is moved by profound impulses of conviction; and when spokesmen and leaders are found, effective concert of action seems to follow as naturally. Men spring together for common action under a common impulse which has taken hold upon their very natures, and governments presently find that they have those to reckon with who know not only what they want, but also the most effective means of making governments uncomfortable until they get it. Governments find themselves, in short, in the presence of Agitation, of systematic movements of opinion, which do not merely flare up in spasmodic flames and then die down again, but burn with an accumulating ardor which can be checked and extinguished only by removing the grievances, and abolishing the unacceptable institutions which are its fuel. Casual discontent can be allayed, but agitation fixed upon conviction cannot be. To fight it is merely to augment its force. It burns irrepressibly in every public assembly; quiet it there, and it gathers head at street corners; drive it thence, and it smolders in private dwellings, in social gatherings, in every covert of talk, only to break forth more violently than ever because denied vent and air. It must be reckoned with . . . .

Governments have been very resourceful in parrying agitation, in diverting it, in seeming to yield to it, and then cheating it of its objects, in tiring it out or evading it . . . . But the end, whether it comes soon or late, is quite certain to be always the same.

Constitutional Government in the United States." Woodrow Wilson, Ph.D., LL.D., President of Princeton University.

The special session of the 65th Congress, known as the "War Congress," adjourned in October, 1917, having passed every measure recommended as a war measure by the President.

In addition, it found time to protect by law migratory birds, to appropriate forty-seven million dollars for deepening rivers and harbors, and to establish more federal judgeships. No honest person would say that lack of time and pressure of

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war legislation had prevented its consideration of the suffrage measure. If one-hundredth part of the time consumed by its members in spreading the wings of the overworked eagle, and in uttering to bored ears "home-made" patriotic verse, had been spent in considering the liberty of women, this important legislation could have been dealt with. Week after week Congress met only for three days, and then often merely for prayer and a few hours of purposeless talking.

We had asked for liberty, and had got a suffrage committee appointed in the House to consider the pros and cons of suffrage, and a favorable report in the Senate from the Committee on Woman Suffrage, nothing more.

On the very day and hour of the adjournment of the special session of the War Congress, Alice Paul led eleven women to the White House gates to protest against the Administration's allowing its lawmakers to go home without action on the suffrage amendment.

Two days later Alice Paul and her colleagues were put on trial.

Many times during previous trials I had heard the District Attorney for the government shake his finger at Miss Paul and say, "We'll get you yet . . . . Just wait; and when we do, we'll give you a year!"

It was reported from very authentic sources that Attorney General Gregory had, earlier in the agitation, seriously considered arresting Miss Paul for the Administration, on the charge of conspiracy to break the law. We were told this plan was abandoned because, as one of the Attorney General's staff put it, "No jury would convict her."

However, here she was in their hands, in the courtroom.

Proceedings opened with the customary formality. The eleven prisoners sat silently at the bar, reading their morning papers, or a book, or enjoying a moment of luxurious idleness, oblivious of the comical movements of a perturbed court.

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Nothing in the world so baffles the pompous dignity of a court as non-resistant defendants. The judge cleared his throat and the attendants made meaningless gestures.

"Will the prisoners stand up and be sworn?"

They will not.

"Will they question witnesses?"

They will not.

"Will they speak in their own behalf ?"

The slender, quiet-voiced Quaker girl arose from her seat. The crowded courtroom pressed forward breathlessly. She said calmly and with unconcern: "We do not wish to make any plea before this court. We do not consider ourselves subject to this court, since as an unenfranchised class we have nothing to do with the making of the laws which have put us in this position."

What a disconcerting attitude to take! Miss Paul sat down as quietly and unexpectedly as she had arisen. The judge moved uneasily in his chair. The gentle way in which it was said was disarming. Would the judge hold them in contempt? He had not time to think. His part of the comedy he had expected to run smoothly, and here was this defiant little woman calmly stating that we were not subject to the court, and that we would therefore have nothing to do with the proceedings. The murmurs had grown to a babel of conversation. A sharp rap of the gavel restored order and permitted Judge Mullowny to say: "Unfortunately, I am here to support the laws that are made by Congress, and, of course, I am bound by those laws; and you are bound by them as long as you live in this country, notwithstanding the fact that you do not recognize the law."

Everybody strained his ears for the sentence. The Administration had threatened to "get" the leader. Would they dare?

Another pause!

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"I shall suspend sentence for the time being," came solemnly from the judge.

Was it that they did not dare confine Miss Paul? Were they beginning actually to perceive the real strength of the movement and the protest that would be aroused if she were imprisoned? Again we thought perhaps this marked the end of the jailing of women.

But though the pickets were released on suspended sentences, there was no indication of any purpose on the part of the Administration of acting on the amendment. Two groups, some of those on suspended sentence, others first offenders, again marched to the White House gates. The following motto:

THE TIME HAS COME TO CONQUER OR SUBMIT; FOR US THERE CAN BE BUT ONE CHOICE-WE HAVE MADE IT.

a quotation from the President's second Liberty Loan appeal, was carried by Miss Paul.

Dr. Caroline E. Spencer of Colorado carried:

RESISTANCE TO TYRANNY IS OBEDIENCE TO GOD.

All were brought to trial again.

The trial of Miss Paul's group ran as follows:

MR. HART (Prosecuting Attorney for the Government): Sergeant Lee, were you on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House Saturday afternoon?

SERGEANT LEE: I was.

MR. HART: At what time?

LEE: About 4:35 in the afternoon.

HART: Tell the court what you saw.

LEE: A little after half-past four, when the department clerks were all going home out Pennsylvania Avenue, I saw four

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suffragettes coming down Madison Place, cross the Avenue and continue on Pennsylvania Avenue to the gate of the White House, where they divided two on the right and two on the left side of the gate.

HART: What did you do?

LEE: I made my way through the crowd that was surrounding them and told the ladies they were violating the law by standing at the gates, and wouldn't they please move on?

HART: Did they move on?

LEE: They did not; and they didn't answer either.

HART: What did you do then?

LEE: I placed them under arrest.

HART: What did you do then?

LEE: I asked the crowd to move on.

Mr. Hart then arose and summing up said: "Your Honor, these women have said that they will picket again. I ask you to impose the maximum sentence."

Such confused legal logic was indeed drole!

"You ladies seem to feel that we discriminate in making arrests and in sentencing you," said the judge heavily. "The result is that you force me to take the most drastic means in my power to compel you to obey the law."

More legal confusion!

"Six months," said the judge to the first offenders, "and then you will serve one month more," to the others.

Miss Paul's parting remark to the reporters who intercepted her on her way from the courtroom to begin her seven months' sentence was:

"We are being imprisoned, not because we obstructed traffic, but because we pointed out to the President the fact that he was obstructing the cause of democracy at home, while Americans were fighting for it abroad."

I am going to let Alice Paul tell her own story, as she related it to me one day after her release:

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It was late afternoon when we arrived at the jail. There we found the suffragists who had preceded us, locked in cells.

The first thing I remember was the distress of the prisoners about the lack of fresh air. Evening was approaching, every window was closed tight. The air in which we would be obliged to sleep was foul. There were about eighty negro and white prisoners crowded together, tier upon tier, frequently two in a cell. I went to a window and tried to open it. Instantly a group of men, prison guards, appeared; picked me up bodily, threw me into a cell and locked the door. Rose Winslow and the others were treated in the same way.

Determined to preserve out health and that of the other prisoners, we began a concerted fight for fresh air. The windows were about twenty feet distant from the cells, and two sets of iron bars intervened between us and the windows, but we instituted an attack upon them as best we could. Our tin drinking cups, the electric light bulbs, every available article of the meagre supply in each cell, including my treasured copy of Browning's poems which I had secretly taken in with me, was thrown through the windows. By this simultaneous attack from every cell, we succeeded in breaking one window before our supply of tiny weapons was exhausted. The fresh October air came in like an exhilarating gale. The broken window remained untouched throughout the entire stay of this group and all later groups of suffragists. Thus was won what the "regulars" in jail called the first breath of air in their time.

The next day we organized ourselves into a little group for the purpose of rebellion. We determined to make it impossible to keep us in jail. We determined, moreover, that as long as we were there we would keep up an unremitting fight for the rights of political prisoners.

One by one little points were conceded to quiet resistance. There was the practice of sweeping the corridors in such a way that the dust filled the cells. The prisoners would be choking to the gasping point, as they sat, helpless, locked in the cells, while a great cloud of dust enveloped them from tiers above and below. As soon as our tin drinking cups, which were sacrificed in our attack upon the windows, were restored to us, we instituted a campaign against the dust. Tin cup after tin cup was filled and its contents thrown out into the corridor

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from every cell, so that the water began to trickle down from tier to tier. The District Commissioners, the Board of Charities, and other officials were summoned by the prison authorities. Hurried consultations were held. Nameless officials passed by in review and looked upon the dampened floor. Thereafter the corridors were dampened and the sweeping into the cells ceased. And so another reform was won.

There is absolutely no privacy allowed a prisoner in a cell. You are suddenly peered at by curious strangers, who look in at you all hours of the day and night, by officials, by attendants, by interested philanthropic visitors, and by prison reformers, until one's sense of privacy is so outraged that one rises in rebellion. We set out to secure privacy, but we did not succeed, for, to allow privacy in prison, is against all institutional thought and habit. Our only available weapon was our blanket, which was no sooner put in front of our bars than it was forcibly taken down by Warden Zinkhan.

Our meals had consisted of a little almost raw salt pork, some sort of liquid-I am not sure whether it was coffee or soup-bread and occasionally molasses. How we cherished the bread and molasses! We saved it from meal to meal so as to try to distribute the nourishment over a longer period, as almost every one was unable to eat the raw pork. Lucy Branham, who was more valiant than the rest of us, called out from her cell, one day, "Shut your eyes tight, close your mouth over the pork and swallow it without chewing it. Then you can do it." This heroic practice kept Miss Branham in fairly good health, but to the rest it seemed impossible, even with our eyes closed, to crunch our teeth into the raw pork.

However gaily you start out in prison to keep up a rebellious protest, it is nevertheless a terribly difficult thing to do in the face of the constant cold and hunger of undernourishment. Bread and water, and occasional molasses, is not a diet destined to sustain rebellion long. And soon weakness overtook us.

At the end of two weeks of solitary confinement, without any exercise, without going outside of our cells, some of the prisoners were released, having finished their terms, but five of us were left serving seven months' sentences, and two, one month sentences. With our number thus diminished to seven,

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the authorities felt able to cope with us. The doors were unlocked and we were permitted to take exercise. Rose Winslow fainted as soon as she got into the yard, and was carried back to her cell. I was too weak to move from my bed. Rose and I were taken on stretchers that night to the hospital.

For one brief night we occupied beds in the same ward in the hospital. Here we decided upon the hunger strike, as the ultimate form of protest left us-the strongest weapon left with which to continue within the prison our battle against the Administration.

Miss Paul was held absolutely incommunicado in the prison hospital. No attorney, no member of her family, no friend could see her. With Miss Burns in prison also it became imperative that I consult Miss Paul as to a matter of policy. I was peremptorily refused admission by Warden Zinkhan, so I decided to attempt to communicate with her from below her window. This was before we had established what in prison parlance is known as the "grape- vine route." The grape-vine route consists of smuggling messages oral or written via a friendly guard or prisoner who has access to the outside world.

Just before twilight, I hurried in a taxi to the far-away spot, temporarily abandoned the cab and walked past the dismal cemetery which skirts the prison grounds. I had fortified myself with a diagram of the grounds, and knew which entrance to attempt, in order to get to the hospital wing where Miss Paul lay. We had also ascertained her floor and room. I must first pick the right building, proceed to the proper corner, and finally select the proper window.

The sympathetic chauffeur loaned me a very seedy looking overcoat which I wrapped about me. Having deposited my hat inside the cab, I turned up the collar, drew in my chin and began surreptitiously to circle the devious paths leading to a side entrance of the grounds. My heart was palpitating, for the authorities had threatened arrest if any suffragists were

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found on the prison grounds, and aside from my personal feelings, I could not at that moment abandon headquarters.

Making a desperate effort to act like an experienced and trusted attendant of the prison, I roamed about and tried not to appear roaming. I successfully passed two guards, and reached the desired spot, which was by good luck temporarily deserted. I succeeded in calling up loudly enough to be heard by Miss Paul, but softly enough not to be heard by the guards.

I shall never forget the shock of her appearance at that window in the gathering dusk. Everything in the world seemed black-gray except her ghost-like face, so startling, so inaccessible. It drove everything else from my mind for an instant. But as usual she was in complete control of herself. She began to hurl questions at me faster than I could answer. "How were the convention plans progressing?" . . . "Had the speakers been secured for the mass meeting?" . . . "How many women had signed up to go out on the next picket line?" And so on.

"Conditions at Occoquan are frightful," said I. "We are planning to . . ."

"Get out of there, and move quickly," shouted the guard, who came abruptly around the corner of the building. I tried to finish my message. "We are planning to habeas corpus the women out of Occoquan and have them transferred up here."

"Get out of there, I tell you. Damn you!" By this time he was upon me. He grabbed me by the arm and began shaking me. "You will be arrested if you do not get off these grounds." He continued to shake me while I shouted back, "Do you approve of this plan?"

I was being forced along so rapidly that I was out of range of her faint voice and could not hear the answer. I plead with the guard to be allowed to go back quietly and speak a few more words with Miss Paul, but he was inflexible. Once out of the grounds I went unnoticed to the cemetery and sat on a

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tombstone to wait a little while before making another attempt, hoping the guard would not expect me to come back. The lights were beginning to twinkle in the distance and it was now almost total darkness. I consulted any watch and realized that in forty minutes Miss Paul and her comrades would again be going through the torture of forcible feeding. I waited five minutes-ten minutes-fifteen minutes. Then I went back to the grounds again. I started through another entrance, but had proceeded only a few paces when I was forcibly evicted. Again I returned to the cold tombstone. I believe that I never in my life felt more utterly miserable and impotent. There were times, as I have said, when we felt inordinately strong. This was one of the times when I felt that we were frail reeds in the hands of cruel and powerful oppressors. My thoughts were at first with Alice Paul, at that moment being forcibly fed by men jailers and men doctors. I remembered then the man warden who had refused the highly reasonable request to visit her, and my thoughts kept right on up the scale till I got to the man-President-the pinnacle of power against us. I was indeed desolate. I walked back to the hidden taxi, hurried to headquarters, and plunged into my work, trying all night to convince myself that the sting of my wretchedness was being mitigated by activity toward a release from this state of affairs.

Later we established daily communication with Miss Paul through one of the charwomen who scrubbed the hospital floors. She carried paper and pencil carefully concealed upon her. On entering Miss Paul's room she would, with very comical stealth, first elaborately push Miss Paul's bed against the door, then crawl practically under it, and pass from this point of concealment the coveted paper and pencil. Then she would linger over the floor to the last second, imploring Miss Paul to hasten her writing. Faithfully every evening this silent, dusky

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messenger made her long journey after her day's work, and patiently waited while I wrote an answering note to be delivered to Miss Paul the following morning. Thus it was that while in the hospital Miss Paul directed our campaign, in spite of the Administration's most painstaking plans to the contrary.

Miss Paul's story continues here from the point where I interrupted it.

From the moment we undertook the hunger strike, a policy of unremitting intimidation began. One authority after another, high and low, in and out of prison, came to attempt to force me to break the hunger strike.

"You will be taken to a very unpleasant place if you don't stop this," was a favorite threat of the prison officials, as they would hint vaguely of the psychopathic ward, and St. Elizabeth's, the Government insane asylum. They alternately bullied and hinted. Another threat was "You will be forcibly fed immediately if you don't stop"-this from Dr. Gannon. There was nothing to do in the midst of these continuous threats, with always the "very unpleasant place" hanging over me, and so I lay perfectly silent on my bed.

After about three days of the hunger strike a man entered my room in the hospital and announced himself as Dr. White, the head of St. Elizabeth's. He said that he had been asked by District Commissioner Gardner to make an investigation. I later learned that he was Dr. William A. White, the eminent alienist.

Coming close to my bedside and addressing the attendant, who stood at a few respectful paces from him, Dr. White said: "Does this case talk?"

"Why wouldn't I talk?" I answered quickly.

"Oh, these cases frequently will not talk, you know," he continued in explanation.

"Indeed I'll talk," I said gaily, not having the faintest idea that this was an investigation of my sanity.

"Talking is our business," I continued, "we talk to any one on earth who is willing to listen to our suffrage speeches."

"Please talk," said Dr. White. "Tell me about suffrage;

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why you have opposed the President; the whole history of your campaign, why you picket, what you hope to accomplish by it. Just talk freely."

I drew myself together, sat upright in bed, propped myself up for a discourse of some length, and began to talk. The stenographer whom Dr. White brought with him took down in shorthand everything that was said.

I may say it was one of the best speeches I ever made. I recited the long history and struggle of the suffrage movement from its early beginning and narrated the political theory' of our activities up to the present moment, outlining the status of the suffrage amendment in Congress at that time. In short, I told him everything. He listened attentively, interrupting only occasionally to say, "But, has not President Wilson treated you women very badly?" Whereupon, I, still unaware that I was being examined, launched forth into an explanation of Mr. Wilson's political situation and the difficulties he had confronting him. I continued to explain why we felt our relief lay with him; I cited his extraordinary power, his influence over his party, his undisputed leadership in the country, always painstakingly explaining that we opposed President Wilson merely because he happened to be President, not because he was President Wilson. Again came an interruption from Dr. White, "But isn't President Wilson directly responsible for the abuses anal indignities which have been heaped upon you? You are suffering now as a result of his brutality, are you not?" Again I explained that it was impossible for us to know whether President Wilson was personally acquainted in any detail with the facts of our present condition, even though we knew that he had concurred in the early decision to arrest our women.

Presently Dr. White took out a small light and held it up to my eyes. Suddenly it dawned upon me that he was examining me personally; that his interest in the suffrage agitation and the jail conditions did not exist, and that he was merely interested in my reactions to the agitation and to jail. Even then I was reluctant to believe that I was the subject of mental investigation and I continued to talk.

But he continued in what I realized with a sudden shock, was an attempt to discover in me symptoms of the persecution

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mania. How simple he had apparently thought it would be, to prove that I had an obsession on the subject of President Wilson!

The day following he came again, this time bringing with him the District Commissioner, Mr. Gardner, to whom he asked me to repeat everything that had been said the day before. For the second time we went through the history of the suffrage movement, and again his inquiry suggested his persecution mania clue? When the narrative touched upon the President and his responsibility for the obstruction of the suffrage amendment, Dr. White would turn to his associate with the remark: "Note the reaction."

Then came another alienist , Dr. Hickling, attached to the psychopathic ward in the District Jail, with more threats and suggestions, if the hunger strike continued. Finally they departed, and I was left to wonder what would happen next. Doubtless my sense of humor helped me, but I confess A was not without fear of this mysterious place which they continued to threaten.

It appeared clear that it was their intention either to discredit me, as the leader of the agitation, by casting doubt upon my sanity, or else to intimidate us into retreating from the hunger strike.

After the examination by the alienists, Commissioner Gardner, with whom I had previously discussed our demand for treatment as political prisoners, made another visit. "All these things you say about the prison conditions may be true," said Mr. Gardner, "I am a new Commissioner, and I do not know. You give an account of a very serious situation in the jail. The jail authorities give exactly the opposite. Now I promise you we will start an investigation at once to see who is right, you or they. If it is found you are right, we shall correct the conditions at once. If you will give up the hunger strike, we will start the investigation at once."

"Will you consent to treat the suffragists as political prisoners, in accordance with the demands laid before you?" I replied.

Commissioner Gardner refused, and I told him that the hunger strike would not be abandoned. But they had by no means exhausted every possible facility for breaking down our

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resistance. I overheard the Commissioner say to Dr. Gannon on leaving, "Go ahead, take her and feed her."

I was thereupon put upon a stretcher and carried into the psychopathic ward.

There were two windows in the room. Dr. Gannon immediately ordered one window nailed from top to bottom. He then ordered the door leading into the hallway taken down and an iron-barred cell door put in its place. He departed with the command to a nurse to "observe her."

Following this direction, all through the day once every hour, the nurse came to "observe" me. All through the night, once every hour she came in, turned on an electric light sharp in my face, and "observed" me. This ordeal was the most terrible torture, as it prevented my sleeping for more than a few minutes at a time. And if I did finally get to sleep it was only to be shocked immediately into wide-awakeness with the pitiless light.

Dr. Hickling, the jail alienist, also came often to "observe" me. Commissioner Gardner and others-doubtless officials came to peer through my barred door.

One day a young interne came to take a blood test. I protested mildly, saying that it was unnecessary and that I objected. "Oh, well," said the young doctor with a sneer and a supercilious shrug, "you know you're not mentally competent to decide such things." And the test was taken over my protest.

It is scarcely possible to convey to you one's reaction to such an atmosphere. Here I was surrounded by people on their way to the insane asylum. Some were waiting for their commitment papers. Others had just gotten them. And all the while everything possible was done to attempt to make me feel that I too was a "mental patient."

At this time forcible feeding began in the District Jail. Miss Paul and Miss Winslow, the first two suffragists to undertake the hunger strike, went through the operation of forcible feeding this day and three times a day on each succeeding day until their release from prison three weeks later. The

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hunger strike spread immediately to other suffrage prisoners in the jail and to the workhouse as recorded in the preceding chapter.

One morning [Miss Paul's story continues the friendly face of a kindly old man standing on top of a ladder suddenly appeared at my window. He began to nail heavy boards across the window from the outside. He smiled and spoke a few kind words and told me to be of good cheer. He confided to me in a sweet and gentle way that he was in prison for drinking, that he had been in many times, but that he believed he had never seen anything so inhuman as boarding up this window and depriving a prisoner of light and air. There was only time for a few hurried moments of conversation, as I lay upon my bed watching the boards go up until his figure was completely hidden and I heard him descending the ladder.

After this window had been boarded up no light came into the room except through the top half of the other window, and almost no air. The authorities seemed determined. to deprive me of air and light.

Meanwhile in those gray, long days, the mental patients in the psychopathic ward came and peered through my barred door. At night, in the early morning, all through the day there were cries and shrieks and moans from the patients. It was terrifying. One particularly melancholy moan used to keep up hour after hour, with the regularity of a heart beat. I said to myself, "Now I have to endure this. I have got to live through this somehow. I'll pretend these moans are the noise of an elevated train, beginning faintly in the distance and getting louder as it comes nearer." Such childish devices were helpful to me.

The nurses could not have been more beautiful in their spirit and offered every kindness. But imagine being greeted in the morning by a kindly nurse, a new one who had just come on duty, with, "I know you are not insane." The nurses explained the procedure of sending a person to the insane asylum. Two alienists examine a patient in the psychopathic ward, sign an order committing the patient to St. Elizabeth's Asylum, and there. the patient is sent at the end of one week.

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No trial, no counsel, no protest from the outside world! This was the customary procedure.

I began to think as the week wore on that this was probably their plan for me. I could not see my family or friends; counsel was denied me; I saw no other prisoners and heard nothing of them; I could see no papers; I was entirely in the hands of alienists, prison officials and hospital staff.

I believe I have never in my life before feared anything or any human being. But I confess I was afraid of Dr. Gannon, the jail physician. I dreaded the hour of his visit.

"I will show you who rules this place. You think you do. But I will show you that you are wrong." Some such friendly greeting as this was frequent from Dr. Gannon on his daily round. "Anything you desire, you shall not have. I will show you who is on top in this institution," was his attitude.

After nearly a week had passed, Dudley Field Malone finally succeeded in forcing an entrance by an appeal to court officials and made a vigorous protest against confining me in the psychopathic ward. He demanded also that the boards covering the window be taken down. This was promptly done and again the friendly face of the old man became visible, as the first board disappeared.

"I thought when I put this up America would not stand for this long," he said, and began to assure me that nothing dreadful would happen. I cherish the memory of that sweet old man.

The day after Mr. Malone's threat of court proceedings, the seventh day of my stay in the psychopathic ward, the attendants suddenly appeared with a stretcher. I did not know whither I was being taken, to the insane asylum, as threatened, or back to the hospital-one never knows in prison where one is being taken, no reason is ever given for anything. It turned out to be the hospital.

After another week spent by Miss Paul on hunger strike in the hospital, the Administration was forced to capitulate. The doors of the jail were suddenly opened, and all suffrage prisoners were released.

With extraordinary swiftness the Administration's almost

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incredible policy of intimidation had collapsed. Miss Paul had been given the maximum sentence of seven months, and at the end of five weeks the Administration was forced to acknowledge defeat. They were in a most unenviable position. If she and her comrades had offended in such degree as to warrant so cruel a sentence, (with such base stupidity on their part in administering it) she most certainly deserved to be detained for the full sentence. The truth is, every idea of theirs had been subordinated to the one desire of stopping the picketing agitation. To this end they had exhausted all their weapons of force.

From my conversation and correspondence with Dr. White, it is clear that as an alienist he did not make the slightest allegation to warrant removing Miss Paul to the psychopathic ward. On the contrary he wrote, "I felt myself in the presence of an unusually gifted personality" and . . . "she was wonderfully alert and keen . . . possessed of an absolute conviction of her cause . . . with industry and courage sufficient to avail herself of them [all diplomatic possibilities. He praised the "most admirable, coherent, logical and forceful way" in which she discussed with him the purpose of our campaign.

And yet the Administration put her in the psychopathic ward and threatened her with the insane asylum.

An interesting incident occurred during the latter part of Miss Paul's imprisonment. Having been cut off entirely from outside communication, she was greatly surprised one night at a late hour to find a newspaper man admitted for an interview with her. Mr. David Lawrence, then generally accepted as the Administration journalist, and one who wrote for the various newspapers throughout the country defending the policies of the Wilson Administration, was announced. It was equally well known that this correspondent's habit was to ascertain the position of the leaders on important questions, keeping inti-

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mately in touch with opinion in White House circles at the same time.

Mr. Lawrence came, as he said, of his own volition, and not as an emissary from the White House. But in view of his close relation to affairs, his interview is significant as possibly reflecting an Administration attitude at that ,point in the campaign.

The conversation with Miss Paul revolved first about our fight for the right of political prisoners, Miss Paul outlining the wisdom and justice of this demand.

"The Administration could very easily hire a comfortable house in Washington and detain you all there," said Mr. Lawrence, "but don't you see that your demand to be treated as' political prisoners is infinitely more difficult to grant than to give you the federal suffrage amendment? If we give you these privileges we shall have to extend them to conscientious objectors and to all prisoners now confined for political opinions. This the Administration cannot do."

The political prisoners protest, then, had actually encouraged the Administration to choose the lesser of two evils some action on behalf of the amendment.

"Suppose," continued Mr. Lawrence, "the Administration should pass the amendment through one house of Congress next session and go to the country in the 1918 elections on that record and if sustained in it, pass it through the other house a year from now. Would you then agree to abandon picketing?"

"Nothing short of the passage of the amendment through Congress will end our agitation," Miss Paul quietly answered for the thousandth time.

Since Mr. Lawrence disavows any connection with the 4dministration in this interview, I can only remark that events followed exactly in the order he outlined; that is, the Admin-

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istration attempted to satisfy the women by putting the amendment through the House and not through the Senate.

It was during Miss Paul's imprisonment that the forty-one women went in protest to the picket line and were sent to the workhouse, as narrated in the previous chapter. The terrorism they endured at Occoquan ran simultaneously with the attempted intimidation of Miss Paul and her group in the jail.

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Chapter 13

Administration Lawlessness Exposed

In August, 1917, when it was clear that the policy of imprisoning suffragists would be continued indefinitely, and under longer sentences, the next three groups of pickets to be arrested asked for a decision from the highest court, the District Court of Appeals. Unlike other police courts in the country, there is no absolute right of appeal-from the Police Court of the District of Columbia. Justice Robb, of the District Court of Appeals, after granting two appeals, refused to grant any more, upon the ground that he had discretionary power to grant or withhold an appeal. When further right of appeal was denied us, and when the Administration persisted in arresting us, we were compelled either to stop picketing or go to prison.

The first appealed case was heard by the Court of Appeals on January 8, 1918, and the decision[1] handed down in favor of the defendants on March 4, 1918. This decision was concurred in by all three judges, one of whom was appointed by President Wilson, a second by President Roosevelt and the third by President Taft.

In effect the decision declared that every one of the 218 suffragists arrested up to that time was illegally arrested, illegally convicted, and illegally imprisoned. The whole policy of the Administration in arresting women was by this decision held up to the world as lawless. The women could, if they had chosen, have filed suits for damages for false arrest and imprisonment at once.

[1]See Hunter vs. District of Columbia, 47 App. Cas. (D. C.) p. 406.

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The appeal cases of the other pickets were ordered dismissed and stricken from the records. Dudley Field Malone was chief counsel in the appeal.

Another example of ethical, if not legal lawlessness, was shown by the Administration in the following incident. Throughout the summer and early autumn we had continued to press for an investigation of conditions at Occoquan, promised almost four months earlier.

October 2nd was the date finally set for an investigation to be held in the District Building before the District Board of Charities. Armed with 18 affidavits and a score of witnesses as to the actual conditions at Occoquan, Attorney Samuel C. Brent and Judge J. K. N. Norton, both of Alexandria, Virginia, acting as counsel with Mr. Malone, appeared before the Board on the opening day and asked to be allowed to present their evidence. They were told by the Board conducting the investigation that this was merely "an inquiry into the workhouse conditions and therefore would be held in secret without reporters or outsiders present." The attorneys demanded a public hearing, and insisted that the question was of such momentous importance that the public was entitled to hear both sides of it. They were told they might submit in writing any evidence they wished to bring before the Board. They refused to produce testimony for a "star chamber proceeding," and refused to allow their witnesses to be heard unless they could be heard in public.

Unable to get a public hearing, counsel left the following letter with the President of the Board:

Hon. John Joy Edson, President Board of Charities, Washington, D. C.

Dear Sir:-We are counsel for a large group of citizens, men and women, who have in the past been associated with Occoquan work house as officials or inmates and who are ready

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to testify to unspeakable conditions of mismanagement, graft, sanitary depravity, indignity and brutality at the institution.

We are glad you are to conduct this long-needed inquiry and shall cooperate in every way to get at the truth of conditions in Occoquan through your investigation, provided you make the hearings public, subpoena all available witnesses, including men and women now prisoners at Occoquan, first granting them immunity, and provided you give counsel an opportunity to examine and cross examine all witnesses so called.

We are confident your honorable board will see the justice and wisdom of a public inquiry. If charges so publicly made are untrue the management of Occoquan work house is entitled to public vindication, and if these charges are true, the people of Washington and Virginia should publicly know what kind of a prison they have in their midst, and the people of the country should publicly know the frightful conditions in this institution which is supported by Congress and the government of the United States.

We are ready with our witnesses and affidavits to aid your honorable board in every way, provided you meet the conditions above named. But if you insist on a hearing behind closed doors we cannot submit our witnesses to a star chamber proceeding and shall readily find another forum in which to tell the American public the vivid story of the Occoquan work house.

Respectfully yours, (Signed) DUDLEY FIELD MALONE, J. K. N. NORTON, SAMUEL G. BRENT.

Subsequently the District Board of Charities reported findings on their secret investigation. After a lengthy preamble, in which they attempted to put the entire blame upon the suffrage prisoners, they advised:

That the investigation directed by the Commissioners of the District of Columbia be postponed until the conditions of unrest, excitement, and disquiet at Occoquan have been overcome:

That the order relieving W. H. Whittaker as superintend-

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ent, temporarily and without prejudice, be revoked, and Mr. Whittaker be restored to his position as superintendent:[1]

That the members of the National Woman's Party now at Occoquan be informed that unless they obey the rules of the institution and discontinue their acts of insubordination and riot, they will be removed from Occoquan to the city jail and placed in solitary confinement.

In announcing the report to the press the District Commissioners stated that they approved the recommendations of the Board of Charities "after most careful consideration," and that "as a matter of fact, the District workhouse at Occoquan is an institution of which the commissioners are proud, and is a source of pride to every citizen of the nation's Capital."

That the Administration was in possession of the true facts concerning Mr. Whittaker and his conduct in office there can be no doubt. But they supported him until the end of their campaign of suppression.

Another example of the Administration's lawlessness appeared in the habeas corpus proceedings by which we rescued the prisoners at the workhouse from Mr. Whittakers custody. The trial occurred on November 23rd.

No one present can ever forget the tragi-comic scene enacted in the little Virginia court room that cold, dark November morning. There was Judge Waddill[2]-who had adjourned his sittings in Norfolk to hasten the relief of the prisoners-a mild mannered, sweet-voiced Southern gentleman. There was Superintendent Whittaker in his best Sunday clothes, which mitigated very little the cruel and nervous demeanor which no one who has come under his control will ever forget. His thugs were there, also dressed in their best clothes, which only exaggerated their coarse features and their shifty eyes. Mrs. Herndon, the thin-lipped matron, was there, looking nervous

[1]Pending the investigation Mr. Whittaker was suspended, and his first assistant, Alonzo Tweedale, served in the capacity of superintendent.

[2]Appointed to the bench by President Roosevelt.

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and trying to seem concerned about the prisoners in her charge. Warden Zinkhan was there seeming worried at the prospect of the prisoners being taken from the care of Superintendent Whittaker and committed to him-he evidently unwilling to accept the responsibility.

Dudley Field Malone and Mr. O'Brien of counsel, belligerent in every nerve, were ready to try the case. The two dapper government attorneys, with immobile faces, twisted nervously in their chairs. There was the bevy of newspaper reporters struggling for places in the little courtroom, plainly sympathetic, for whatever they may have had to write for the papers they knew that this was a battle for justice against uneven odds. There were as many eager spectators as could be crowded into so small an area. Upon the whole an air of friendliness prevailed in this little court at 'Alexandria which we had never felt in the Washington courts. And the people there experienced a shock when the slender file of women, haggard, red- eyed, sick, came to the bar. Some were able to walk to their seats; others were so weak that they had to be stretched out 6n the wooden benches with coats propped under their heads for pillows. Still others bore the marks of the attack of the "night of terror." Many of the prisoners lay back in their chairs hardly conscious of the proceedings which were to. free them. Mrs. Brannan collapsed utterly and had to be carried to a couch in an ante-room.

It was discovered just as the trial was to open that Miss Lucy Burns and Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, who it will be remembered had been removed to the jail before the writ had been issued, were absent from among the prisoners.

"They are too ill to be brought into court," Mr. Whittaker replied to the attorneys for the defense.

"We demand that they be brought into court at our risk," answered counsel for the defense.

The government's attorneys sustained Mr. Whittaker in

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not producing them. It was clear that the government did not her wish to have Miss Burns with the marks still fresh on wrists from her manacling and handcuffing, and Mrs. Lewes with a fever from the shock of the first night, brought before the judge who was to decide the case.

"If it was necessary to handcuff Miss Burns to the bars of her cell, we consider her well enough to appear," declared Mr. O'Brien. . "We consider we ought to know what has happened to all of these petitioners since these events. While I was at Occoquan Sunday endeavoring to see my clients, Mr. Whittaker was trying to induce the ladies, who, he says, are too sick to be brought here, to dismiss this proceeding. Failing in that, he refused to let me see them, though I had an order from Judge Mullowny, and they were taken back to the District of Columbia. From that time to this, though I had your Honor's order which you signed in Norfolk, the superintendent of the Washington jail also refused to allow me to see my clients, saying that your order had no effect in the District of Columbia."

"If there are any petitioners that you claim have not been brought here because they have been carried beyond the jurisdiction of the courts, I think we should know it," ruled the court. "Counsel for these ladies want them here; and they say that they ought to be here and are well enough to b here; that the respondent here has spirited them away and put them beyond the jurisdiction of the court. On that showing, unless there is some reason why they ought not to come, they should be here."

Miss Burns and Mrs. Lewes were accordingly ordered brought to court.

This preliminary skirmish over, the opening discussion revolved about a point of law as to whether the Virginia District Court had authority to act in this case.

After hearing both sides on this point, Judge Waddill said:

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"These are not state prisoners; they are prisoners of the District of Columbia. They are held by an order of the court claiming to have jurisdiction in the District of Columbia. But they are imprisoned in the Eastern District of Virginia, in Occoquan workhouse which, very much to our regret, is down here, and is an institution that we alone have jurisdiction over. No court would fail to act when such a state of affairs as is set forth in this petition is brought to its attention.

"Here was a case concerning twenty-five or thirty ladies. The statement as to their treatment was bloodcurdling; it was shocking to man's ideas of humanity if it is true. They are here in court, and yet your answer denies all these facts which they submit, It is a question whether you can do that anal yet deny these petitioners the right of testimony."

Proceeding with this argument, the defense contended that the act itself of the District Commissioners in sending prisoners to the Occoquan workhouse was illegal; that no formal transfer from one institution to another had ever been made, the sentencing papers distinctly stating that all prisoners were committed to "the Washington Asylum and Jail."

"We deny that the records of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia can show that there was any order made by the Board for the removal of these women. The liberty of a citizen cannot be so disregarded and trifled with that any police official or jailer may at his own volition, commit and hold him in custody and compel him to work. The liberty of the people depends upon a broader foundation."

Repeated questions brought out from Mr. Zinkhan, Warden of the Jail, the fact that the directions given by the Commissioners to transfer prisoners from the jail to Occoquan rested entirely upon a verbal order given "five or six years ago."

"Do you really mean," interrupted the court, "that the only authority you have on the part of the Commissioners of

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the District of Columbia to transfer parties down to Occoquan is a verbal order made five or six years ago?"

Questions by the defense brought out the fact also that Mr. Zinkhan could remember in detail the first oral orders he had received for such a transfer, dating back to 1911, although he could not remember important details as to how he had received the orders concerning the suffragists committed to his care! He only knew that "orders were oral and explicit."

Q. [By defense in court You say the three commissioners were present?

A. Sure.

Q. Who else was present?

A. I am not sure just now who else was present. I remember somebody else was there, but I don't remember just who . . . .

Q. Were the three commissioners present at the time Mr. [Commissioner] Brownlow gave you this order?

A. Yes.

Q. You say it was a verbal order of the Commissioners?

A. Yes.

Q. Was the clerk of the Board present?

A. I think not.

Q. And you cannot remember who was present aside from the three Commissioners?

A. No, I cannot remember just now.

Q. Try to recollect who was present at that meeting when this order was given, aside from the Commissioners. There was somebody else present?

A. It is my impression that there was some one other person present, but I am not sure just now who it was.

Q. It was some official, some one well known, was it not . . . .?

A. I am not sure. . . .

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[This conference was one in which Mr. McAdoo was reported to have participated.]

The gentle judge was distressed when in answer to a question by the government's attorney as to what Mr. Zinkhan did when the prisoners were given into his charge, the warden replied:

A. I heard early in the afternoon of the sentence, and I did not get away from the Commissioners' meeting until nearly 4 o'clock and I jumped in my machine and went down to the jail, and I think at that time six of them had been delivered there and were in the rotunda of the jail, and a few minutes after that a van load came. The remaining number of ten or twelve had not arrived, but inasmuch as the train had to leave at 5 o'clock and there would not be time enough to receive them in the jail and get them there in time for the train, I took the van that was there right over to the east end of the Union Station, and I think I took some of the others in my machine and another machine we had there carried some of the others over, and we telephoned the other van at Police Court to go direct to the east end of the Union Station and to deliver them to me. I had of course the commitments of those that were brought up to the jail-about 20 of them-and received from the officer of the court the other commitments of the last van load, and there I turned all of them except one that I kept back . . over to the receiving and discharging officer representing the District Workhouse, and they were taken down there that evening.

There followed some questioning of the uneasy warden as to how he used this power to decide which prisoners should remain in jail and which should be sent to Occoquan. Warden Zinkhan stuttered something about sending "all the able bodied prisoners to Occoquan-women able to perform useful work"-and that "humanitarian motives" usually guided him in his selection. It was a difficult task for the warden for he had to

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conceal just why the suffrage prisoners were sent to Occoquan, and in so doing had to invent "motives" of his own.

Q. [By defense.] Mr. Zinkhan, were you or were you not actuated by humanitarian motives when you sent this group of women to the Occoquan Workhouse?

A. Yes.

Q. Were you actuated by humanitarian motives when you sent Mrs. Nolan, a woman of 73 years, to the workhouse? Did you think that she could perform some service at Occoquan that it was necessary to get her out of district jail and go down there?

Warden Zinkhan gazed at the ceiling, shifted in his chair and hesitated to answer. The question was repeated, and finally the warden admitted uncomfortably that he believed he was inspired by "humanitarian motives."

"Mrs. Nolan, will you please stand up?" called out Mr. Malone.

All eyes turned toward the front row, where Mrs. Nolan slowly got to her feet. The tiny figure of a woman with pale face and snowy hair, standing out dramatically against her black bonnet and plain black dress, was answer enough.

Warden Zinkhan's answers after that came even more haltingly. He seemed inordinately fearful of trapping himself by his own words.

"The testimony has brought out the fact," the judge remarked at this point, "that two of these ladies were old and one of them is a delicate lady. Her appearance would indicate that she is not strong. Under this rule, if one of these ladies had been eighty years old and unable to walk she would have gone along with the herd and nobody would have dared to say 'ought this to be done?' Would the Commissioners in a case of that sort, if they gave consideration to it, think of sending such an individual there? Was not that what the law expected them to do, and not take them off in droves and inspect them

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at the Union Station and shoot them on down? Yet that is about what was done in this case."

In summing up this phase of the case in an eloquent appeal, Mr. Malone said:

"Can the Commissioners, with caprice and no order and no record except that orally given five or six years ago, and one which this warden now says was given 'oral and explicit,' transfer defendants placed in a particular institution, and under a particular kind of punishment arbitrarily to another institution, and add to their punishment?

"Even if we admit that the Commissioners had power, did Congress ever contemplate that any District Commissioners would dare to exercise power affecting the life and health of defendants in this fashion? Did Congress ever contemplate that, by mere whim, these things could be done? I am sure it did not, and even on the admission of the government that they had the power, they have exercised this power in such a scandalous fashion that it is worthy of the notice of the court and worthy of the remedy which we seek-the removal of the suffrage prisoners from the Occoquan workhouse."

After a brief recess, Judge Waddill rendered this decision: "The locking up of thirty human beings is an unusual sort of thing and judicial officers ought to be required to stop long enough to see whether some prisoners ought to go and some not; whether some might not be killed by going; or whether they should go dead or alive. This class o f prisoners and this number of prisoners should haze been given special consideration. There cannot be any controversy about this question . . . . You ought to lawfully lock them up instead of unlawfully locking them up-if they are to be locked up . . . . The petitioners are, therefore, one and all, in the Workhouse 'without semblance of authority or legal process of any kind . . . . and they will accordingly be remanded to the custody of the Superintendent of the Washington Asylum and Jail." . . .

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It having been decided that the prisoners were illegally detained in the workhouse, it was not necessary to go into a discussion of the cruelties committed upon the prisoners while there.

The government's attorneys immediately announced that they would appeal from the decision of Judge Waddill. Pending such an appeal the women were at liberty to be paroled in the custody of counsel. But since they had come from the far corners of the continent and since some of them had served out almost half of their sentence, and did not wish in case of an adverse decision on the appeal, to have to return later to undergo the rest of their sentence, they preferred to finish their sentences.

These were the workhouse prisoners thus remanded to the jail who continued the hunger strike undertaken at the workhouse, and made a redoubtable reinforcement to Alice Paul and Rose Winslow and their comrades 'on strike in the jail when the former arrived.

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Chapter 14

The Administration Outwitted

With thirty determined women on hunger strike, of whom eight were in a state of almost total collapse, the Administration capitulated. It could not afford to feed thirty women forcibly and risk the social and political consequences; nor could it let thirty women starve themselves to death, and likewise take the consequences. For by this time one thing was clear, and that was that the discipline and endurance of the women could not be broken. And so all the prisoners were unconditionally released on November 27th and November 28th.

On leaving prison Miss Paul said: "The commutation of sentences acknowledges them to be unjust and arbitrary. The attempt to suppress legitimate propaganda has failed.

"We hope that no more demonstrations will be necessary, that the amendment will move steadily on to passage and ratification without further suffering or sacrifice. But what we do depends entirely upon what the Administration does. We have one aim: the immediate passage of the federal amendment"

Running parallel to the protest made inside the prison, a public protest of nation-wide proportions had been made against continuing to imprison women. Deputations of in- fluential women had waited upon all party leaders, cabinet officials, heads of the war boards, in fact every friend of the Administration, pointing out that we had broken no law, that

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we were unjustly held, and that .the Administration would suffer politically for their handling of the suffrage agitation.

A committee of women, after some lively fencing with the Secretary of War, finally drove Mr. Baker to admit that women had been sent to prison for a political principle; that they were not petty disturbers but part of a great fundamental struggle. Secretary Baker said, "This [the suffrage struggle] is a revolution. There have been revolutions all through his- tory. Some have been justified and some have not. The burden of responsibility to decide whether your revolution is justified or not is on you. The whole philosophy of your movement seems to be to obey no laws until you have a voice in those laws."

At least one member of the Cabinet thus showed that he had caught something of the purpose and depth of our movement. He never publicly protested, however, against the Administration's policy of suppression.

Mr. McAdoo, then Secretary of the Treasury, gave no such evidence of enlightenment as Mr. Baker. A committee of women endeavored to see him. He was reported "out. But we expect him here soon."

We waited an hour. The nervous private secretary returned to say that he had been mistaken. "The Secretary will not be in until after luncheon."

"We shall wait," said Mrs. William Kent, chairman of the deputation. "We have nothing more important to do to-day than to see Secretary McAdoo. We are willing to wait the whole day, if necessary, only it is imperative that we see him."

The private secretary's spirits sank. He looked as if he would give anything to undo his inadvertence in telling us that the Secretary was expected after luncheon! Poor man! We settled down comfortably to wait, a formidable looking committee of twenty women.

There was the customary gentle embarrassment of attend-

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ants whose chief is in a predicament from which they seem powerless to extricate him, but all were extremely courteous. The attendant at the door brought us the morning papers to read. Gradually groups of men began to arrive and cards were sent in the direction of the spot where we inferred the Secretary of the Treasury was safely hidden, hoping and praying for our early retirement.

Whispered conversations were held. Men disappeared in and out of strange doors. Still we waited.

Finally as the fourth hour of our vigil was dragging on, a lieutenant appeared to announce that the Secretary was very sorry but that he would not be able to see us "at all." We consulted, and finally sent in a written appeal, asking for "five minutes of his precious time on a matter of grave importance." More waiting! Finally a letter was brought to us directed to Mrs. William Kent, with the ink of the Secretary of the Treasury's signature still wet. With no concealment of contempt, he declared that under no circumstances could he speak with women who had conducted such an outrageous campaign in such an "illegal" way. We smiled as we learned from his pronouncement that "picketing" was "illegal," for we were not supposed to have been arrested for picketing. The tone of his letter, its extreme bitterness, tended to confirm what we had always been told, that Mr. McAdoo assisted in directing the policy of arrests and imprisonment.

I have tried to secure this letter for reproduction but unfortunately Mrs. Kent did not save it. We all remember its bitter passion, however, and the point it made about our "illegal picketing."

Congress convened on December 4th. President Wilson delivered a message, restating our aims in the war. He also recommended a declaration of a state of war against Austria; the control of certain water power sites; export trade-combination; railway legislation; and the speeding up of all neces-

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sary appropriation legislation. But he did not mention the suffrage amendment. Having been forced to release the prisoners, he again rested.

Immediately we called a conference in Washington of the Executive Committee and the National Advisory Council of the Woman's Party. Past activities were briefly reviewed and the political situation discussed. It is interesting to note that the Treasurer's report made at this conference showed that receipts in some months during the picketing had been double what they were the same month the previous year when there was no picketing. In one month of picketing the receipts went as high as six times the normal amount. For example in July of 1917, when the arrests had just begun, receipts for the month totalled $21,628.65 as against $8,690.62 for July of 1916. In November, 1917, when the militant situation was at its highest point, there was received at National Headquarters $81,117.87 as against $15,008.18 received in November, 1916. Still there were those who said we had no friends!

A rumor that the President would act persisted. But we could not rely on rumor. We decided to accelerate him and his Administration by filing damage suits amounting to $800,000 against the District Commissioners, against Warden Zinkhan, against Superintendent Whittaker and Captain Reams, a workhouse guard.[1] They were brought in no spirit of revenge, but merely that the Administration should not be allowed to forget its record of brutality, unless it chose to amend its conduct by passing the amendment. The suits were brought by the women woo suffered the greatest abuse during the "night of terror" at the workhouse.

If any one is still in doubt as to the close relation between the Court procedure in our case and the President's actions,

[1]We were obliged to bring the suits against individuals, as we could not in the law bring them against the government.

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this letter to one of our attorneys in January, 1918, must convince him.

My dear Mr. O'Brien:

I wish you would advise me as soon as you conveniently can, what will be done with the suffragist cases now pending against Whittaker and Reams in the United States District Court at Alexandria.

I have heard rumors, the truth of which you will understand better than I, that these cases will be dropped if the President comes out in favor of woman suffrage. This, I understand, he will do and certainly hope so, as I am personally in favor of it and have been for many years. But in case of his delay in taking any action, will you agree to continue these cases for the present?

Very truly yours,

(Signed) F. H. STEVENS, Assistant Corporation Counsel, D. C.

In order to further fortify themselves, the District Commissioners, when the storm had subsided, quietly removed Warden Zinkhan from the jail and Superintendent Whittaker resigned his post at the workhouse, presumably under pressure from the Commissioners.

The Woman's Party conference came to a dramatic close during that first week in December with an enormous mass meeting in the Belasco Theatre in Washington. On that quiet Sunday afternoon, as the President came through his gates for his afternoon drive, a passageway had to be opened for his motor car through the crowd of four thousand people who were blocking Madison Place in an effort to get inside the Belasco Theatre. Inside the building was packed to the rafters. The President saw squads of police reserves, who had been for the past six months arresting pickets for him, battling with a crowd that was literally storming the theatre in their eagerness to do honor to those who had been arrested. Inside there was a fever heat of enthusiasm, bursting cheers, and

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thundering applause which shook the building. America has never before nor since seen such a suffrage meeting.

Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont, chairman, opened the meeting by saying:

"We are here this afternoon to do honor to a hundred gallant women, who have endured the hardship and humiliation of imprisonment because they love liberty.

"The suffrage pickets stood at the White House gates for ten months and dramatized the women's agitation for political liberty. Self-respecting and patriotic American women will no longer tolerate a government which denies women the right to govern themselves. A flame of rebellion is abroad among women, and the stupidity and brutality of the government in this revolt have only served to increase its heat.

"As President Wilson wrote, 'Governments have been very successful in parrying agitation, diverting it, in seeming to yield to it and then cheating it, tiring it out or evading it. But the end, whether it comes soon or late, is quite certain to be the same.' While the government has endeavored to parry, tire, divert, and cheat us of our goal, the country has risen in protest against this evasive policy of suppression until to-day the indomitable pickets with their historic legends stand triumphant before the nation."

Mrs. William Kent, who had led the last picket line of forty-one women, was chosen to decorate the prisoners.

"In honoring these women, who were willing to go to jail for liberty," said Mrs. Kent, "we are showing our love of country and devotion to democracy." The long line of prisoners filed past her and amidst constant cheers and applause, received a tiny silver replica of a cell door, the same that appears in miniature on the title page of this book.

As proof of this admiration for what the women had done, the great audience in a very few moments pledged $86,826 to continue the campaign. Many pledges were made in honor of

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Alice Paul, Inez Milholland, Mrs. Belmont, Dudley Field Malone, and all the prisoners. Imperative resolutions calling upon President Wilson and his Administration to act, were unanimously passed amid an uproar.

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Chapter 15

Political Results

Immediately following the release of the prisoners and the magnificent demonstration of public support of them, culminating at the mass meeting recorded in the preceding chapter, political events happened thick and fast. Committees in Congress acted on the amendment. President Wilson surrendered and a date for the vote was set.

The Judiciary Committee of the House voted 18 to 2 to report the amendment to that body. The measure, it will be remembered, was reported to the Senate in the closing days of the previous session, and was therefore already before the Senate awaiting action.[1]

To be sure, the Judiciary Committee voted to report the amendment without recommendation. But soon after, the members of the - Suffrage Committee, provision for which had also been made during the war session, were appointed. All but four members of this committee were in favor of national suffrage, and immediately after its formation it met to organize and decided to take the suffrage measure out of the hands of the Judiciary Committee and to press for a vote.

A test of strength came on December 18th.

On a trivial motion to refer all suffrage bills to the new suffrage committee, the vote stood 204 to 10'7. This vote, although unimportant in itself, clearly promised victory for the amendment in the House. In a few days, Representative Mon-

[1]See Chapter 8.

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dell of Wyoming, Republican, declared that the Republican side of the House would give more than a two-thirds majority of its members to the amendment.

"It is up to our friends on the Democratic side to see that the amendment is not defeated through hostility or indifference on their side," said Mr. Mondell.

Our daily poll of the House showed constant gains. Pledges from both Democratic and Republican members came thick and fast; cabinet members for the first time publicly declared their belief in the amendment. A final poll, however, showed that we lacked a few votes of the necessary two-thirds majority to pass the measure in the House.

No stone was left unturned in a final effort to get the President to secure additional Democratic votes to insure the passage of the amendment. Finally, on the eve of the vote President Wilson made his first declaration of support of the amendment through a committee of Democratic Congressmen. During the vote the following day Representative Cantrill of Kentucky, Democrat, reported the event to the House. He said in part:

It was my privilege yesterday afternoon to be one of a committee of twelve to ask the President for advice and counsel on this important measure (prolonged laughter and jeers). Mr. Speaker, in answer to the sentiment expressed by part of the House, I desire to say that at no time and upon no occasion am I ever ashamed to confer with Woodrow Wilson upon any important question (laughter, applause, and, jeers) and that part of the House that has jeered that statement before it adjourns to-day will follow absolutely the advice which he gave this committee yesterday afternoon. (Laughter and applause.) After conference with the President yesterday afternoon he wrote with his own hands the words which I now read to you, and each member of the committee was authorized by the President to give full publicity to the following:

"The committee found that the President had not felt at liberty to volunteer his advice to Members of Congress in this

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important matter, but when we sought his advice (laughter) he very frankly and earnestly advised us to vote for the amendment as an act of right and justice to the women of the country and o f the world."

. . . To my Democratic brethren who have made these halls ring with their eloquence in their pleas to stand by the President, I will say that now is your chance to stand by the President and vote for this amendment, "as' an act of right and justice to the women of the country and of the world" . . .

Do you wish to do that which is right and just toward the women of your own country? If so, follow the President's advice and vote for this amendment. It will not do to follow the President in this great crisis in the world's history on those matters only which are popular in your own districts. The true test is to stand by him, even though your own vote is unpopular at home. The acid test for a Member of Congress is for him to stand for right and justice even if misunderstood at home at first. In the end, right and justice will prevail everywhere.

. . . No one thing connected with the war is of more importance at this time than meeting the reasonable demand of millions of patriotic and Christian women of the Nation that the amendment for woman suffrage be submitted to the States . . . .

The amendment passed the House January 10, 1918, by a vote of 274 to l36-a two-thirds majority with one vote to spare-exactly forty years to a day from the time the suffrage amendment was first introduced into Congress, and exactly one year to a day from the time the first picket banner appeared at the gates o f the White House.

Eighty-three per cent of the Republicans voting on the measure, voted in favor of it, while only fifty per cent of the Democrats voting, voted for it. Even after the Republicans had pledged their utmost strength, more than two-thirds of their membership, votes were still lacking to make up the Democratic deficiency, and the President's declaration that the measure ought to pass the House, produced them from his own

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party. Those who contend that picketing had "set back the clock,"-that it did "no good,"-that President Wilson would "not be moved by it"-have, we believe, the burden of proof on their side of the argument. It is our firm belief that the solid year of picketing, with all its political ramifications, did compel the President to abandon his opposition and declare himself for the measure. I do not mean to say that many things do not cooperate in a movement toward a great event. I do mean to say that picketing was the most vital force amongst the elements which moved President Wilson. That picketing had compelled Congress to see the question in terms of political capital is also true. From the first word uttered in the House debate, until the final roll-call, political expediency was the chief motif.

Mr. Lenroot of Wisconsin, Republican, rose to say:

"May I suggest that there is a distinction between the Democratic members of the Committee on Rules and the Republican members, in this, that all of the Republican members are for this proposition?" This was met with instant applause from the Republican side.

Representative Cantrill prefaced his speech embodying the President's statement, which caused roars and jeers from the opposition, with the announcement that he was not willing to risk another election, with the voting women of the West, and the amendment still unpassed.

Mr. Lenroot further pointed out that: "From a Republican standpoint-from a partisan standpoint, it would be an advantage to Republicans to go before the people in the next election and say that this resolution was defeated by southern Democrats."

An anti-suffragist tried above the din and noise to remind Mr. Lenroot that three years before Mr. Lenroot had voted "No," but a Republican colleague came suddenly to the rescue with "What about Mr. Wilson?" which was followed by, "He

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kept us out of war," and the jeers on the Republican side became more pronounced.

This interesting political tilt took place when Representatives Dennison and Williams of Illinois, and Representative Kearns of Ohio, Republicans, fenced with Representative Raker of California, Democrat, as he attempted, with an evident note of self-consciousness, to make the President's reversal seem less sudden.

MR. DENNISON : It was known by the committee that went to see the President that the Republicans were going to take this matter up and pass it in caucus, was it not?'

MR. RAKER: I want to say to my Republican friends upon this question that I have been in conference with the President for over three years upon this question . . . .

MR. KEARNS: How did the women of California find out and learn where the President stood on this thing just before election last fall? Nobody else seemed to know it.

MR. RAKER: They knew it.

MR. KEARNS: How did they find it out?

MR. RAKER: I will take a minute or two

MR. KEARNS: I wish the gentleman would.

MR. RAKER: The President went home and registered. The President went home and voted for woman suffrage.

MR. KEARNS: He said he believed in it for the several states . . . .

MR. RAKER: One moment

MR. KEARNS : That is the only information they had upon the subject, is it?

MR. WILLIAMS: . . . Will the gentleman yield?

MR. RAKER: I cannot yield.

MR. WILLIAMS: Just for a question.

MR. RAKER: I cannot yield . . . .

That the President's political speed left some overcome was clear from a remark of Mr. Clark of Florida when he said:

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"I was amused at my friend from Oklahoma, Mr. Ferris, who wants us to ,stand with the President. God knows I want to stand with him. I am a Democrat, and I want to follow the leader of my party, and I am a pretty good lightning change artist myself sometimes (laughter); but God knows I cannot keep up with his performance. (Laughter.) Why, the President wrote a book away back yonder" . . . and he quoted generously from President Wilson's many statements in defense of state rights as recorded in his early writings.

Mr. Hersey of Maine, Republican, drew applause when he made a retort to the Democratic slogan, "Stand by the President." He said:

"Mr. Speaker, I am still 'standing with the President,' or, in other words, the President this morning is standing with me."

The resentment at having been forced by the pickets to the point of passing the amendment was in evidence throughout the debate.

Representative Gordon of Ohio, Democrat, said with bitter ness : "We are threatened by these militant suffragettes with a direct and lawless invasion by the Congress of the United States of the rights of those States which have refused to confer upon their women the privilege of voting. This attitude on the part of some of the suffrage Members of this House is on an exact equality with the acts of these women militants who have spent the last summer and fall, while they were not in the district jail or workhouse, in coaxing, teasing, and nagging the Presi dent of the United States for the purpose of inducing him, by coercion, to club Congress into adopting this joint resolution."

Shouts of "Well, they got him!" and "They got it!" from all sides, followed by prolonged laughter and jeers, interrupted the flow of his oratory.