Jailed for Freedom Part 20

responsible chief. The responsible chief in the National Capital is the President of the United States."

Shortly after the incident of the "Kaiser banner" I was speaking in Louisville, Kentucky. The auditorium was packed and overflowing with men and women who had come to hear the story of the pickets.

Up to this time we had very few members in Kentucky and had antic.i.p.ated in this Southern State, part of President Wilson ,'s stronghold, that our Committee would meet with no enthusiasm and possibly with warm hostility.

I had related briefly the incidents leading up to the picketing and the Government's suppressions. I was rather cautiously approaching the subject of the "Kaiser banner," feeling timid and hesitant, wondering how this vast audience of Southerners would take it. Slowly I read the inscription on the famous banner, "Kaiser Wilson, have you forgotten how you sympathized with the poor Germans because they were not self-governed? Twenty million American women are not self-governed. Take the beam out of your own eye."

I hardly reached the last word, still wondering what the, intensely silent audience would do, when a terrific outburst of applause mingled with shouts of "Good! Good! He is, he is!" came to my amazed ears. As the applause died down there was almost universal good-natured laughter. Instead of the painstaking and eloquent explanation which I was prepared to offer, I had only to join in their laughter.

A few minutes later a telegram was brought to the platform announcing further arrests. I read:

"Six more women sentenced to-day to 30 days in Occoquan workhouse."

Instant cries of "Shame! Shame! It's an outrage!" Scores of men and two women were on their feet calling for the pa.s.sage of a resolution denouncing the Administration's policy

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of persecution. The motion of condemnation was put. It seemed as if the entire audience seconded it. It went through instantly, unanimously, and again with prolonged shouts and applause.

The meeting continued and I shall never forget that audience. It lingered to a late hour, almost to midnight, asking questions, making brief "testimonials" from the floor with almost evangelical fervor. Improvised collection baskets were piled high with bills. Women volunteered for picket duty and certain imprisonment, and the following day a delegation left for Was.h.i.+ngton.

I cite this experience of mine because it was typical. Every one who went through the country telling the story had similar experiences at this time. Indignation was swift and hot. Our ma.s.s meetings everywhere became meetings of protest during the entire campaign.

And resolutions of protest which always went immediately by wire from such meetings to the President, his cabinet and to his leaders in Congress, of course created increasing uneasiness in Democratic circles.

On August 15th the pickets again attempted to take their posts on the line.

On this day one lettered banner and fifty purple, white and gold flags were destroyed by a mob led by sailors in uniform. Alice Paul was knocked down three times by a sailor in uniform and dragged the width of the White House sidewalk in his frenzied attempt to tear off leer suffrage sash.

Miss Katharine Morey of Boston was also knocked to the pavement by a sailor, who took her flag and then darted off into the crowd. Miss Elizabeth Stuyvesant was struck by a soldier in uniform and her blouse torn from her body. Miss Maud Jamison of Virginia was knocked down and dragged along the sidewalk. Miss Beulah Amidon of North Dakota was knocked down by a sailor.

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In the midst of these riotous scenes, a well-known Was.h.i.+ngton correspondent was emerging from the White House, after an interview with the President. Dr. Cart' Grayson, the President's physician, accompanying him to the door, advised:

"You had better go out the side entrance. Those d.a.m.ned women are in the front."

In spite of this advice the correspondent made his exit through the same gate by which he had entered, and just in time to ward off an attack by a sailor on one of the frailest girls in the group.

The Administration, in its desperation, ordered the police to lawlessness. On August 16th, fifty policemen led the mob in attacking the women. Hands were bruised and arms twisted lit'

police officers and plainclothes men. Two civilians who tried to rescue the women from the attacks of the police were arrested.

The police fell upon these young women with more brutality even than the mobs they had before encouraged. Twenty-five lettered banners and 123 Party flags were destroyed by mobs and police on this afternoon.

As the crowd grew more dense, the police temporarily retired from the attack. When their activities had summoned a sufficiently large and infuriated mob, they would rest.

And so the pa.s.sions of the mob continued unchecked upon these irrepressible women, and from day to day the Administration gave its orders.

Finding that riots and mob attacks had not terrorized the pickets, the Administration decided again to arrest the women in the hope of ending the agitation. Having lost public sympathy through workhouse sentences, having won it back by pardoning the women, the Administration felt it could afford to risk losing it again, or rather felt that it had supplied itself with an appropriate amount of stage-setting.

And so on the third day of the riotous attacks, when it was clear that the pickets would persist, the Chief of Police called

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at headquarters to announce to Miss Paul that "orders have been changed and henceforth women carrying banners will be arrested"

Meanwhile the pickets heard officers shout to civilian friends as they pa.s.sed-"Come back at four o'clock."

Members of the daily mob announced at the noon hour in various nearby restaurants that "the suffs will be arrested to-day at 4 o'clock."

Four o'clock is the hour the Government clerks begin to swarm homewards. The choice of this hour by the police to arrest the women would enable them to have a large crowd pa.s.sing the White House gates to lend color to the fiction that "pickets were blocking the traffic."

Throughout the earlier part of the afternoon the silent sentinels stood unmolested, carrying these mottoes:

ENGLAND AND RUSSIA ARE ENFRANCHISING WOMEN IN WAR-TIME.

HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOB LIBERTY?

THE GOVERNMENT ORDERS OUR BANNERS DESTROYED BECAUSE THEY TELL THE TRUTH.

At four o'clock the threatened arrests took place. The women arrested were Miss Lavinia Dock of Pennsylvania, Miss Edna Dixon of Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., a young public school teacher; Miss Natalie Gray of Colorado, Mrs. Win. Upton Watson and Miss Lucy Ewing of Chicago, and Miss Catherine Flanagan of Connecticut.

Exactly forty minutes were allowed for the trial of these six women. One police officer testified that they were "obstructing traffic."

None of the facts of the hideous and cruel manhandling by the mobs and police officers was allowed to be brought out. Nothing the women could say mattered. The judge pro-

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nounced : "Thirty days in Occoquan workhouse in lieu of a $10.00 fine."

And so this little handful of women, practically all of them tiny and frail of physique, began the cruel sentence of 30 days in the workhouse, while their cowardly a.s.sailants were not even reprimanded, nor were those who destroyed over a thousand dollars' worth of banners apprehended.

The riots had attracted sufficient attention to cause some anxiety in Administration circles. Protests against us and others against the rioters pressed upon them. Congress was provoked into a little activity; activity which reflected some doubt as to the wisdom of arresting women without some warrant in law.

Two attempts were made, neither of which was successful, to give the Administration more power and more law.

Senator Culberson of Texas, Democrat, offered a bill authorizing President Wilson at any time to prohibit any person from approaching or entering any place in short blanket authority granting the President or his officials limitless power over the actions of human beings. Realizing that this could be used to prohibit picketing the White House we appeared before a committee hearing on the bill and spoke against it. The committee did not have the boldness to report such a bill.

Senator Myers of Montana, an influential member of the Democratic majority, introduced into the Senate a few days later a resolution making it illegal to picket the White House. The shamelessness of admitting to the world that acts for which women had been repeatedly sentenced to jail, and for which women were at that moment lying in prison, were so legal as to make necessary a special act of Congress against them, was appalling.

The Administration policy seemed to be "Let us put women in jail first-let us enact a law to keep them there afterwards,"

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This tilt between Senator Brandegee, of Connecticut, antisuffrage Republican, and Senator Myers, suffrage Democrat, took place when Mr. Myer's presented his bill:

MR. BRANDEGEE: . . . Was there any defect in the legal proceedings by which these trouble makers were sentenced and put in jail a few weeks ago?

MR. MYERS: None that I know of. I am not in a position to pa.s.s upon that. I do not believe any was claimed . . . .

MR. BRANDEGEE: Inasmuch as the law was sufficient to land them in jail . . . I fail to see why additional legislation is necessary on the subject.