Jailed for Freedom Part 52

was the statement of each on entering the judge's private trial room.

While the trial was proceeding without the women's cooperation; some were tried under wrong names, some were tried more than once under different names, but most of them under the name of Jane Doe-vigorous protests were being made to all the city officials by individuals among the throngs who had come to the court house to attend the trial. This protest was so strong that the last three women were tried in open court. The judge sentenced everybody impartially to eight days in j ail in lieu of fines, with the exception of Miss Wilma Henderson, who was released when it was learned that she was a minor.

The women were taken to the Charles Street Jail to serve their sentences. "The cells were immaculately clean," said Miss Morey, "but there was one feature of this experience which obliterated all its advantages. The cells were without modern toilet facilities. The toilet equipment consisted of a heavy wooden bucket, about two and a half feet high and a foot and a half in diameter, half filled with water. No one of us will ever forget that foul bucket. It had to be carried to the lower floor-we were on the third and fourth floors-every morning. I could hardly lift mine off the floor, to say nothing of getting

{324}

it down stairs (Miss Morey weighs 98 pounds), so there it stayed.

Berry Pottier managed to get hers down, but was so exhausted she was utterly unable to get it back to her cell.

"The other toilet facility provided was a smaller bucket of water to wash in, but it was of such a strangely unpleasant odor that we did not dare use it."

The Boston reporters were admitted freely-and they wrote columns of copy. There was the customary ridicule, but there were friendly light touches such as, "Militant Highlights-To be roommates at Va.s.sar College and then to meet again as cellmates was the experience of Miss Elsie Hill and Mrs. Lois Warren Shaw."

. . . "Superintendent Kelleher didn't know when he was in Congress with Elsie Hill's father he would some day have Congressman Hill's daughter in his jail."

And there were friendly serious touches in these pages of sensational news-such as this excerpt from the front page of the Boston Traveler of February 25, 1919. "The reporter admired the spirit of the women. Though weary from loss of sleep, the fire of a great purpose burned in their eyes . . . .

"It was a sublime forgetting of self for the goal ahead, and whether the reader is in sympathy with the principle for which these women are ready to suffer or not, he will be forced to admire the spirit which leads them on."

Photographs of the women were printed day by day giving their occupations, if any, noting their revolutionary ancestors, ascertaining the att.i.tude of husbands and fathers. Mrs. Shaw's husband's telegram was typical of the support the women got.

"Don't be quitters," he wired, "I have competent nurses to look after the children." Mr. Shaw is a Harvard graduate and a successful manufacturer in Manchester, New Hamps.h.i.+re.

Telegrams of protest from all over the country poured in upon all the Boston officials who had had any point of contact with the militants. All other work was for the moment sus-

{325}

pended. Such is the quality of Mrs. Morey's organizing genius that she did not let a solitary official escape. Telegrams also went from Boston, and especially from the jail, to President Wilson.

Official Boston was in the grip of this militant invasion when suddenly a man of mystery, one E. J. Howe, appeared and paid the women's fines. It was later discovered that the mysterious E. J.

Howe alleged to have acted for a "client." Whether the "client"

was a part of Official Boston, no one ever knew. There were rumors that the city wished to end its embarra.s.sment.

Sedate Boston had been profoundly shaken. Sedate Boston gave more generously than ever before to militant finances. And when the "Prison Special" arrived a few days later a Boston theatre was filled to overflowing with a crowd eager to hear more about their local heroines, and to cheer them while they were decorated with the already famous prison pin.

Something happened in Was.h.i.+ngton, too, after the President's safe journey thither from Boston.

{326}

Chapter 24

Democratic Congress Ends

It would be folly to say that President Wilson was not at this time aware of a very d.a.m.ning situation.

The unanswerable "Prison Special"-a special car of women prisoners-was touring the country from coast to coast to keep the public attention, during the closing days of the session, fixed upon the suffrage situation in the Senate. The prisoners were addressing enormous meetings and arousing thousands, especially in the South, to articulate condemnation of Administration tactics. It is impossible to calculate the number of cables which, as a result of this sensational tour, reached the President during his deliberations at the Peace Table. The messages of protest which did not reach the President at the Peace Conference were waiting for him on his desk at the White House.

Even if some conservative Boston suffragists did present him with a beautiful bouquet of jonquils tied with a yellow ribbon, as their welcome home, will any one venture to say that that token of trust was potent enough to wipe from his consciousness the other welcome which led his welcomers to jail? Will any one contend that President Wilson upon his arrival in Was.h.i.+ngton, and after changing his clothes, piously remarked:

"By the way, Tumulty, I want to show you some jonquils tied with a yellow ribbon that were presented to me in Boston. I am moved, I think I may say deeply moved by this sincere tribute, to do something this morning for woman suffrage.

{327}

Just what is the state of affairs? And does there seem to be any great demand for it?" We do not know what, if anything, he did say to Secretary Tumulty, but we know what he did. He hurried over to the Capitol, and there made his first official business a conference with Senator Jones of New Mexico, Chairman of the Senate Suffrage Committee. After expressing chagrin over the failure of the measure in the Senate, the President discussed ways and means of getting it through.

An immediate result of the conference was the introduction in the Senate, February 28th, by Senator Jones, of another resolution on suffrage. Senator Jones had refused to reintroduce the original suffrage resolution immediately after the Senate defeat, February 10th. Now he came forward with this one, a little differently worded, but to the same purpose as the original amendment.[1]

This resolution was a concession to Senator Gay of Louisiana, Democrat, who had voted against the measure on February 10th, but who immediately pledged his vote in favor of the new resolution.

Thus the sixty-fourth and last vote was won. The majority instantly directed its efforts toward getting a vote on the new resolution.

On March 1st Senator Jones attempted to get unanimous consent to consider it. Senator Wadsworth, of New York, Republican anti- suffragist, objected. When consent was again asked, the following day, Senator Weeks of Ma.s.sachusetts, Republican anti-suffragist, objected. On the last day of the session, Senator Sherman of Illinois, Republican suffragist, objected. And so the Democratic Congress ended without pa.s.sing the amendment.

On the face of it, these parliamentary objections from Republicans prevented action, when the Democrats had finally

[1]This amendment, although to the same purpose as the original amendment, was not as satisfactory because of possible controversial points in the enforcement article. The original amendment is of course crystal clear in this regard.

{328}

secured the necessary votes. As a matter of fact, however, the President and his party were responsible for subjecting the amendment to the tactical obstruction of individual anti-suffrage Senators. They waited until the last three days to make the supreme effort. That the President did finally get the last vote even at a moment when parliamentary difficulties prevented it from being voted upon, proved our contention that he could pa.s.s the amendment at any time he set himself resolutely to it. This last ineffective effort also proved how hard the President had been pushed by our tactics.

But it seems to me that President Wilson has a pathetic apt.i.tude for acting a little too late. The fact that the majority of the Southern contingent in his party stood stubbornly against him on woman suffrage, was of course a real obstacle. But we contended that the business of a statesman who declared himself to be a friend of a measure was to remove even real obstacles to the success of that measure. Perhaps our standard was too high. It must be confessed that people in general are distressingly patient, easily content with p.r.o.nouncements, and shockingly inert about seeing to it that political leaders act as they speak.

We had seen the President overcome far greater obstacles than stood in his way on this issue. We had seen him lead a country which had voted to stay out of the European war into battle almost immediately after they had so voted. We had seen him conscript the men of the same stubborn South, which had been conspicuously opposed to conscription. We had seen him win mothers to his war point of view after they had fought pa.s.sionately for him and his peace program at election time. He had taken pains to lead men and women influential and obscure to his way of thinking. I do not condemn him-I respect him for being able to do this. The point is that he dirt overcome obstacles when his heart and head were set to the task.

{329}

Since our problem was neither in his head nor his heart, it was our task to put it there. Having got it there, it was our - responsibility to see that it churned and churned there, until he had to act. We did our utmost.

For six full years, through three Congresses under President Wilson's power, the continual Democratic resistance, meandering, delays, deceits had left us still disfranchised. A world war had come and gone during this span of effort. Vast millions had died in pursuit of liberty. A Czar and a Kaiser had been deposed. The Russian people had revolutionized their whole social and economic system. And here in the United States of America we couldn't even wrest from the leader of democracy and his poor miserable a.s.sociates the first step toward our political liberty-the pa.s.sage of an amendment through Congress, submitting the question of democracy to the states!

What a magnificent thing it was for those women to rebel! Their solitary steadfastness to their objective stands out in this world of confused ideals and half hearted actions, clear and lonely and superb!

{330}

Chapter 25

A Farewell to President Wilson

The Republican Congress elected in November, 1918, would not sit until December, 1919-such is our unfortunate system-unless called together by the President in a special session. We had polled the new Congress by personal interviews and by post, and found a safe two-thirds majority for the amendment in the House. In the new Senate we still lacked a fateful one vote.

Our task was, therefore, to induce the President to call a special session of Congress at the earliest possible moment, and to see that he did not relax his efforts toward the last vote.

"He won't do it!" . . ."President Wilson will never let the Republican Congress come together until the regular time." . . .

"Especially with himself in Europe!" The usual points of objection were raised. But we persisted. We felt that the President could win this last vote. And the fear that a Republican Congress might, if he did not, was an accelerating factor.

One feature of the campaign to force a special session was a demonstration in New York, on the eve of President Wilson's return to Europe, at the time he addressed a ma.s.s meeting in the Metropolitan Opera House on behalf of his proposed League of Nations. The plan of demonstration was to hold outside of the Opera House banners addressed to President Wilson, and to consign his speech to the flames of a torch at a public meeting nearby.

{331}

It was a clear starry night in March when the picket line of 26 women proceeded with tri-colored banners from New York headquarters in Forty-first street to the Opera House. As we neared the corner of the street opposite the Opera House and before we could cross the street a veritable battalion of policemen in close formation rushed us with unbelievable ferocity. Not a word was spoken by a single officer of the two hundred policemen in the attack to indicate the nature of our offense. Clubs were raised and lowered and the women beaten back with such cruelty as none of us had ever witnessed before.