Books: Jailed for Freedom
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Doris Stevens >> Jailed for Freedom
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"I shall leave you for a while to consider this. Mind! I have not
yet received information of a pardon, but I have been asked to
ascertain your attitude."
Our consultation was brief. We were of one mind. We
{116}
were unanimous in wishing to reject a pardon for a crime which we
had never committed. We said so with some spirit when Mr.
Whittaker returned for our decision.
"You have no choice. You are obliged to accept a pardon."
That settled it, and we waited. That the protest on the outside
had been strong enough to precipitate action from the government
was the subject of our conversation. Evidently it had not been
strong enough to force action on the suffrage amendment, but it
was forcing action, and that was important.
Mr. Whittaker returned triumphant.
"Ladies, you are pardoned by the President. You are free to go as
soon as you have taken off your prison clothes and put on your
own."
It was sad to leave the other prisoners behind. Especially
pathetic were the girls who helped us with our clothes. They
whispered such eager appeals in our ears, telling us of their
drastic sentences for trifling offenses and of the cruel
punishments. It was hard to resist digressing into some effort at
prison reform. That way lay our instincts. Our reason told us
that we must first change the status of women.
As we were leaving the workhouse to return to Washington we had
an unexpected revelation of the attitude of officialdom toward
our campaign. Addressing Miss Lucy Burns, who had arrived to
assist us in getting on our way, Superintendent Whittaker, in an
almost unbelievable rage, said, "Now that you women are going
away, I have something to say and I want to say it to you. The
next lot of women who come here won't be treated with the same
consideration that these women were." I will show later on how he
made good this terrible threat.
Receiving a Presidential pardon through the Attorney General had
its amusing aspect. My comrades shared this amusement when I told
them the following incident.
On the day after our arrest, I was having tea at the Chevy
{117}
Chase Country Club in Washington. Quite casually a gentleman
introduced me to Mr. Gregory, the Attorney General.
"I see you were mixed up with the suffragettes yesterday," was
the Attorney General's first remark to the gentleman. And before
the latter could explain that he had settled accounts quietly but
efficiently with a hoodlum who was attempting to trip the women
up on their march, the chief law officer of the United States
contributed this important suggestion: "You know what I'd do if I
was those policemen. I'd just take a hose out with me and when
the women came out with their banners, why I'd just squirt the
hose on 'em . . . ."
"But Mr. Gregory . . ."
"Yes, sir! If you can just make what a woman does look
ridiculous, you can sure kill it . . . ."
"But, Mr. Attorney General, what right would the police have to
assault these or any other women?" the gentleman managed finally
to interpolate.
"Hup-hup-"denoting great surprise, came from the Attorney
General, as he looked to me for reassurance.
His expectant look vanished when I said, "Mr. Gregory, did it
ever occur to you that it might make the government
look ridiculous instead of the women?"
You can imagine bow the easy manner of one who is sure of his
audience melted from his face.
"This is one of the women arrested yesterday," continued the
gentleman, while the Attorney General smothered a "Well, I'll be
. . ."
"I am out on bail," I said. " To-morrow we go to jail. It is all
prearranged, you understand. The trial is merely a matter of
form."
The highest law officer of the land fled gurgling. s
The day following our release Mrs. J. A. H. Hopkins carried a
picket banner to the gates of the White House to test
{118}
the validity of the pardon. Her banner read, "We do not ask
pardon for ourselves but justice for all American women." A
curious crowd, as large as had collected on those days when the
police arrested women for "obstructing traffic," stood watching
the lone picket. The President passed through the gates and
saluted. The police did not interfere.
Daily picketing was resumed and no arrests followed for the
moment.
It was now August, three months since the Senate Suffrage
Committee authorized its chairman, Mr. Jones, to report the
measure to the Senate for action. Mr. Jones said, however, that
he was too busy to make a report; .that he wanted to make a
particularly brilliant one, one that would "be a contribution to
the cause"; that he did not approve of picketing, but that he
would report the measure "in a reasonable time." So much for the
situation in the Senate!
From the House we gathered some interesting evidence. We reminded
Mr. Webb, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, that out of a
total membership of twenty-one men on his committee, twelve were
Democrats, two-thirds of whom were opposed to the measure; we
reminded him that the Republicans on the committee were for
action. Mr. Webb wrote in answer:
"The Democratic caucus passed a resolution that only war
emergency measures would be considered during this extra session,
and that the President might designate from time to time special
legislation which he regarded as war legislation, and such would
be acted on by the House. The President, not having designated
woman suffrage and national prohibition so far as war measures,
the judiciary committee up to this time has not felt warranted
under the caucus rule, in reporting either of these measures. If
the President should request either or both of them as war
measures, then I think the Committee would attempt to take some
action on them promptly. So you see after all it is important to
your cause to make the
{119}
President see that woman suffrage comes within the rules laid
down."[1]
Here was a frank admission of the assumption upon which women had
gone to jail-that the President was responsible for action on the
amendment.
Now that we were again allowed to picket the White House, the
Republicans seized the opportunity legitimately to embarrass
their opponents by precipitating a bitter debate.
Senator Cummins of Iowa, Republican member of the Suffrage
Committee, moved, as had Mr. Mann in the House at an earlier
date, to discharge the Suffrage Committee for failing to make the
report authorized by the entire Committee. Mr. Cummins said,
among other things:
". . . I look upon the resolution as definitely and certainly a
war measure. There is nothing that this country could do which
would strengthen it more than to give the disfranchised women . .
. the opportunity to vote . . . .
"Last week . . . I went to the Chairman of the Committee and told
him that . . . we had finished the hearings, reached a conclusion
and that it was our bounden duty to make the report to the Senate
. . . . I asked him if he would not call a meeting of the
Committee. He said that it would be impossible, that he had some
other engagements which would prevent a meeting of the
Committee."
Senator Cummins explained that he finally got the promise of the
Chairman that a meeting of the Committee would be called on a
given date. When it was not called he made his motion.
Chairman Jones made some feeble remarks and some evasive excuses
which meant nothing, and which only further aroused Republican
friends of the measure on the Committee.
Senator Gronna of North Dakota, Republican, interrupted
[1]Italics are mine.
{120}
him with the direct question, "I ask the chairman of this
committee why this joint resolution has not been reported? The
Senator, who is chairman of the committee, I suppose, knows as
well as I do that the people of the entire country are anxious to
have this joint resolution submitted and to be given an
opportunity to vote upon it.
Senator Johnson of California, Republican, proposed that Chairman
Jones consent to call the Committee together to consider
reporting out the bill, which Senator Jones flatly refused to do.
Senator Jones of Washington, another Republican member of the
Committee, added:
"I agree with the Senator from Iowa that this is a war measure
and ought to be considered as such at this time. I do not see how
we can very consistently talk democracy while disfranchising the
better half of our citizenship-1 may not approve of the action of
the women picketing the White House, but neither do I approve of
what I consider the lawless action toward these women in
connection with the picketing . . . ."
"I do not want to think the chairman does not desire to call the
committee together because of some influence outside of Congress
as some have suggested . . . ."
At this point Senator Hollis of New Hampshire, Democrat, arose to
say:
"There is a small but very active group of women suffragists who
have acted in such a way that some who are ardently in favor of
woman suffrage believe that their action should not be encouraged
by making a favorable report at this time."
Senator Johnson protested at this point, but Senator Hollis
continued:
"To discharge the committee would focus the attention of the
country upon the action and would give undue weight to what has
been done by the active group of woman suffragists."
{121}
I think that any student of psychology will acknowledge that our
picketing had stimulated action in Congress, and that what was
now needed was some still more provocative action from us.
{122}
Chapter 5
August Riots
Imprisoning women had met with considerable public disapproval,
and attendant political embarrassment to the Administration. That
the presidential pardon would end this embarrassment was
doubtless the hope of the Administration. The pickets, however,
returned to their posts in steadily increasing numbers. Their
presence at the gates was desired by the Administration no more
now than it had been before the arrests and imprisonments. But
they had found no way to rid themselves of the pickets. And as
another month of picketing drew to an end the Administration
ventured to try other ways to stop it and with it the consequent
embarrassment. Their methods became physically more brutal and
politically more stupid. Their conduct became lawless in the
extreme.
Meanwhile the President had drafted the young men of America in
their millions to die on foreign soil for foreign democracy. He
had issued a special appeal to women to give their work, their
treasure and their sons to this enterprise. At the same time his
now gigantic figure stood obstinately across the path to our main
objective. It was our daily task to keep vividly in his mind that
objective. It was our responsibility to compel decisive action
from him.
Using the return of Envoy Root from his mission to Russia
{123}
as another dramatic opportunity to speak to the President we took
to the picket line these mottoes:
TO ENVOY ROOT
YOU SAY THAT AMERICA MUST THROW ITS MANHOOD TO THE SUPPORT OF
LIBERTY.
WHOSE LIBERTY?
THIS NATION IS NOT FREE. TWENTY MILLION WOMEN ARE DENIED BY THE
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES THE RIGHT TO REPRESENTATION IN
THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT.
TELL THE PRESIDENT THAT HE CANNOT FIGHT AGAINST LIBERTY AT HOME
WHILE HE TELLS US TO FIGHT FOR LIBERTY ABROAD.
TELL HIM TO MAKE AMERICA SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY BEFORE HE ASKS THE
MOTHERS OF AMERICA TO THROW THEIR SONS TO THE SUPPORT OF
DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE.
ASK HIM HOW HE CAN REFUSE LIBERTY TO AMERICAN CITIZENS WHEN HE IS
FORCING MILLIONS OF AMERICAN BOYS OUT OF THEIR COUNTRY TO DIE FOR
LIBERTY.
At no time during the entire picketing was the traffic on
Pennsylvania Avenue so completely obstructed as it was for the
two hours during which this banner made its appearance on the
line. Police captains who three weeks before were testifying that
the police could not manage the crowds, placidly looked on while
these new crowds increased.
We did not regard Mr. Wilson as our President. We felt that he
had neither political nor moral claim to our allegiance. War had
been made without our consent. The war would be finished and very
likely a bad peace would be written without our consent. Our
fight was becoming increasingly difficult-I
{124}
might almost say desperate. Here we were, a band of women
fighting with banners, in the midst of a world armed to the
teeth. And so it was not very difficult to understand how high
spirited women grew more resentful, unwilling to be a party to
the President's hypocrisy, the hypocrisy so eager to sacrifice
life without stint to the vague hope of liberty abroad, while
refusing to assist in the peaceful legislative steps which would
lead to self-government in our own country. As a matter of fact
the President's constant oratory on freedom and democracy moved
them to scorn. They were stung into a protest so militant as to
shock not only the President but the public. We inscribed on our
banner what countless American women` had long thought in their
hearts.
The truth was not pleasant but it had to be told. We submitted to
the world, through the picket line, this question:
KAISER WILSON
HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN HOW YOU SYMPATHIZED WITH THE POOR GERMANS
BECAUSE THEY WERE NOT SELF GOVERNED?
20,000,000 AMERICAN WOMEN ARE NOT SELF-GOVERNED.
TAKE THE BEAM OUT OF YOUR OWN EYE.
We did not expect public sympathy at this point. We knew that not
even the members of Congress who had occasionally in debate, but
more frequently in their cloak rooms, and often to us privately,
called the President "autocrat"-"Kaiser"-"Ruler"-"King"-"Czar"-
would approve our telling the truth publicly.
Nor was it to be expected that eager young boys, all agog to
fight Germans, would be averse to attacking women in the
meantime. They were out to fight and such was the public hysteria
that it did not exactly matter whom they fought.
{125}
And so those excited boys of the Army and Navy attacked the women
and the banner. The banner was destroyed. Another was brought up
to take its place. This one met the same fate. Meanwhile a crowd
was assembling in front of the White House either to watch or to
assist in the attacks. At the very moment when one banner was
being snatched away and destroyed, President and Mrs. Wilson
passed through the gates on their way to a military review at
Fort Myer. The President saw American women being attacked, while
the police refused them protection.
Not a move was made by the police to control the growing crowd.
Such inaction is always a signal for more violence on the part of
rowdies. As the throng moved to and fro between the White House
and our Headquarters immediately opposite, so many banners were
destroyed that finally Miss Lucy Burns, Miss Virginia Arnold and
Miss Elizabeth Stuyvesant took those remaining to the second and
third floor balconies of our building and hung them out. At this
point there was not a picket left on the street. The crowd was
clearly obstructing the traffic, but no attempt was made to move
them back or to protect the women, some of whom were attacked by
sailors on their own doorsteps. The two police officers present
watched without interference while three sailors brought a ladder
from the Belasco Theater in the same block, leaned it against the
side of the Cameron House, the Headquarters, climbed up to the
second floor balcony, mounted the iron railing and tore down all
banners and the American flag. One sailor administered a severe
blow in the face with his clenched fist upon Miss Georgina
Sturgis of Washington.
"Why did you do that?" she demanded.
The man halted for a brief instant in obvious amazement and said,
"I don't know." And with a violent wrench he tore the banner from
her hands and ran down the ladder.
The narrow balcony was the scene of intense excitement.
{126}
But for Miss Burns' superb strength she would have been dragged
over the railing of the balcony to be plunged to the ground. The
mob watched with fascination while she swayed to and fro in her
wrestle with two young sailors. And still no attempt by the
police to quell the riot!
The climax came when in the late afternoon a bullet was fired
through one of the heavy glass windows of the second floor,
embedding itself in the ceiling. The bullet grazed past the head
of Mrs. Ella Morton Dean of Montana. Captain Flather of the 1st
Precinct, with two detectives, later examined the holes and
declared they had been made by a 38 caliber revolver, but no
attempt was ever made to find the man who had drawn the revolver.
Meanwhile eggs and tomatoes were hurled at our fresh banners
flying from the flag poles on the building.
Finally police reserves were summoned and in less than five
minutes the crowd was pushed back and the street cleared.
Thinking now that they could rely on the protection of the
police, the women started with their banners for the White House.
But the police looked on while all the banners were destroyed, a
few paces from Headquarters. More banners ,went out,-purple,
white and gold ones. They, too, were destroyed before they
reached the White House.
This entire spectacle was enacted on August 14, within a stone's
throw of the White House.
Miss Paul summed up the situation when she said:
"The situation now existing in Washington exists because
President Wilson permits it. Orders were first handed down to the
police to arrest suffragists. The clamor over their imprisonments
made this position untenable. The police were then ordered to
protect suffragists. They were then ordered to attack
suffragists. They have now been ordered to encourage
irresponsible crowds to attack suffragists. No police head would
dare so to besmirch his record without orders from his
{127}
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 anticipated 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 passage of a
resolution denouncing the Administration's policy
{128}
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
Washington.
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 mass
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.
{129}
In the midst of these riotous scenes, a well-known Washington
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 damned 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 passions 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
{130}
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 passed-"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 passing 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 Washington, 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-
{131}
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 assailants were not even
reprimanded, nor were those who destroyed over a thousand
dollars' worth of banners apprehended.
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