Jailed for Freedom Part 39

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, s.h.i.+fted 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 n.o.body 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 inst.i.tution, and under a particular kind of punishment arbitrarily to another inst.i.tution, 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 fas.h.i.+on? 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 cla.s.s 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 pet.i.tioners 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 pa.s.sage and ratification without further suffering or sacrifice. But what we do depends entirely upon what the Administration does. We have one aim: the immediate pa.s.sage 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 embarra.s.sment 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 circ.u.mstances could he speak with women who had conducted such an outrageous campaign in such an "illegal" way. We smiled as we learned from his p.r.o.nouncement 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 a.s.sisted 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 pa.s.sion, 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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