at half-past four on tuesday afternoon, august 6, a line of nearly one hundred women emerged from headquarters, crossed the other side of the street to the park; turned into pennsylvania avenue. at the head of the long line floated the red, white, and blue of the american flag carried by hazel hunkins. behind it came, banner after banner and banner after banner, the purple, white, and gold of the national woman’s party tri-color. the line proceeded along pennsylvania avenue until it came to the statue of lafayette just opposite the east gate of the white house. all along the way, the crowds cheered and applauded the women; soldiers and sailors saluted the red, white, and blue as it passed.
at the lafayette monument, two banner bearers emerged from the group; and stationed themselves on the platform at the base of the statue.
one of them, mary gertrude fendall, bore inez milholland’s banner, inscribed with her memorable last words:
how long must women wait for liberty?
the other, borne by clara wold and blanche mcpherson, carried what was really the message of the meeting:
we protest against the continued disfranchisement
of american women, for which the president of the
united states is responsible.
we condemn the president and his party for allowing
the obstruction of suffrage in the senate.
356we deplore the weakness of president wilson in permitting the senate to line itself with the prussian reichstag by denying democracy to the people we demand that the president and his party secure the passage of the suffrage amendment through the senate in the present session. the other banner bearers marched to both sides of the statue where they made solid banks of vivid color. mrs. lawrence lewis stepped forward. “we are here,” she said, “because when our country is at war for liberty and democracy....”
at the word “democracy,” the police, who had been drawing nearer and nearer, placed her under arrest. other women standing about her were arrested, although they had not even spoken.
for a moment there was a complete silence.
then hazel hunkins, who had led the line carrying the american flag, leaped upon the base of the statue and said:
here, at the statue of lafayette, who fought for the liberty of this country, and under the american flag, i am asking for the enfranchisement of american women.
she was immediately arrested. another woman took her place, and she was arrested; another; and another; and on and on, until forty-seven women had been taken into custody.
alice paul, who had not participated in the parade, was standing in the middle of the street, watching and listening. she had no banner. she had not spoken. she had not moved. but a policeman, pointing at her, said: “that is the leader; get her!” and she was arrested.
burning the president’s words at the lafayette monument, washington.
a summer picket line.
many women asked on what charge they were arrested. “do not answer them! do not tell them anything!” said a policeman. others answered with very labored charges, which were not substantiated later by police headquarters. patrol wagon after patrol wagon appeared, was filled with 357women, and dashed off, followed by the purple, white, and gold flutter of the banners.
when hazel hunkins was arrested, she forbade the policemen to take the american flag which she carried from her. at the municipal building, she refused to relinquish it. after the preliminaries of their arrest were over and the women released on bail, they marched back in an unbroken line behind hazel’s flag.
the arrested women were the following:
hazel adams, eva e. sturtevant, pauline clarke, blanche a. mcpherson, katherine r. fisher, rose lieberson, alice kimball, matilda terrace, lucy burns, edith ainge, may sullivan, mary gertrude fendall, julia emory, anna kuhn, gladys greiner, martha w. moore, cora crawford, dr. sarah hunt lockrey, mrs. lawrence lewis, ellen winsor, mary winsor, mrs. edmund c. evans, christine m. doyle, kate cleaver heffelfinger, lavinia dock, harriet keehn, alice paul, mary e. dubrow, lillian m. ascough, edna m. purtelle, ruby e. koeing, elsie hill, helena hill weed, eleanor hill weed, mrs. gilson gardner, sophie g. meredith, louise m. black, agnes chase, kate j. boeckh, hazel hunkins, cora wold, clara p. wold, margaret oakes, mollie marie green, gertrude lynde crocker, effie boutwell main, annie arniel, emily burke main.
the forty-seven were ordered to appear in court the next morning at half-past nine. the united states attorney told them, when he arrived at 10:30, that the case was postponed for a week. the police clerk told clara wold that she was arrested “for climbing the statue.”
clara wold describes her subsequent experiences when, dismissed by the court, she walked to headquarters past the lafayette monument, “there sat a colored man on the very same ledge—basket, bundles, and papers strewn about him as he comfortably devoured a sandwich.”
lafayette park was not under the district of columbia, but directly under the president’s military aide—colonel ridley, who was also superintendent of public buildings and grounds in washington.
358on august 13, the women appeared in the federal police court, as ordered, for trial. the charge had been decided on; “for holding a meeting in public grounds.” but again the court announced postponement until august 15.
after vigorous protests by the suffragists against further delay, the cases of the eighteen, who were charged in addition with “climbing a statue,” were tried separately.
the women had no lawyers. each spoke on her own behalf. they defended themselves on the ground of the constitutional right of free assemblage and appeal to the government for the redress of grievances. they all pleaded, not guilty. many of them added that they did not recognize the jurisdiction of the court. hazel hunkins explained: “women cannot be law-breakers until they are law-makers.”
one of the witnesses was the chief clerk of public grounds, an elderly man. elsie hill suddenly asked him when he had taken office. he replied, “in 1878.” “do you realize,” miss hill said, “that in that year a federal suffrage amendment was introduced, and that since then women have been helping to pay your salary and that of other government officials under protest?” the chief clerk was so astounded that he merely shook his head.
the trial of the remainder of the women on the charge of “holding a meeting on public grounds” took place on august 15.
at the very beginning of proceedings alice paul said:
as a disfranchised class we feel that we are not subject to the jurisdiction of this court and therefore refuse to take any part in its proceedings. we also feel that we have done nothing to justify our being brought before it.
they then sat down and refused to answer any question put to them.
the judge was utterly nonplussed by this situation. he said that he would call a recess of fifteen minutes to consider the question of contempt. among the spectators who packed the room was a lawyer—a visitor in washington. he extracted 359a great deal of enjoyment out of this occasion, because, he said, “if the women are not afraid of jail, there is nothing the judge can do.” he awaited the judge’s decision with an entertained anticipation. apparently the judge came to the same decision, for at the end of fifteen minutes, the court reconvened and the trial went on as though nothing had happened.
the women refused to rise when charged. they refused to plead guilty or not guilty. they sat and read, or knitted, or, as the proceedings bored them, fell asleep. the park police were, of course, the only witnesses. at last all the women whom they could identify were found guilty. they were sentenced to pay fines of five or ten dollars or to serve in prison ten or fifteen days. they all refused to pay the fine. mary winsor said: “it is quite enough to pay taxes when you are not represented, let alone pay a fine if you object to this arrangement.” the prisoners were then bundled in the black maria and taken off to prison.
before the pickets were released from prison at the end of the previous year, superintendent zinkham said to them:
now don’t come back, for, if you do, i will have a far worse place than the jail fixed up for you. i will have the old workhouse fixed up for you, and you will have cells without sunlight, with windows high up from the ground. you won’t be as comfortable as you are here.
everything happened as superintendent zinkham prophesied, and a great deal more that was worse. the old workhouse which he had promised them had been condemned in roosevelt’s administration, and had not been used for years. the lower tier of cells was below the level of the ground. the doors of the cells were partly of solid steel and only partly of grating, so that little light penetrated. the wash basin was small and inadequate. the toilet was open, the cots were of iron and without springs, and with a thin straw mattress on them. outside, they left behind a day so hot as to be almost insupportable, but in the workhouse, 360it was so cold that their teeth chattered. it was damp all the time. when the present writer visited this old workhouse in october, 1919, beads of water hung on everything. the walls were like the outside of an ice water pitcher in summer. several of the pickets developed rheumatism. but the unendurable thing about it was the stench which came in great gusts; component of all that its past history had left behind and of the closeness of the unaired atmosphere. apparently something was wrong with the water, or perhaps it was that the pipes had not been used for years. most of the women believe they suffered with lead poisoning. they ached all over; endured a violent nausea; chills.
however, all the twenty-six, with the exception of two elderly women, went on hunger-strikes. lucy burns presented a demand on behalf of the entire company to superintendent zinkham. she said: “we must have twenty-three more blankets and twenty-three hot-water bottles. this place is cold and unfit for human habitation.”
“i know it is cold and damp,” he replied, “but you can all get out of here by paying your fines.”
the woman’s party showed their usual ingenuity in bringing these conditions before the public. as fast as women were arrested, their state senators and representatives were besieged by letters and telegrams from home urging them to go to see these imprisoned constituents. the press of their district made editorial question or comment. as long as this imprisoning of the pickets continued, there was a file of representatives and senators visiting the victims. senator jones of washington was the first outside visitor to see them.
in the meantime, another meeting of protest, held at the lafayette monument on august 12, with the same speakers and many of the same banner bearers, was broken up by the police.
a curious feature of this case was that at police headquarters 361the police decided to confiscate, along with the banners, the suffragist regalia—a sash of purple, white, and gold without any lettering whatever. the women refused to relinquish these sashes, and there was in every case a struggle, in which wrists were twisted, fingers sprained; bruises and cuts of all kinds administered. all the thirty-eight women were, however, released unconditionally.
on august 14, the women held two meetings of protest at the lafayette monument—one at half-past four in the afternoon, and one at eight o’clock in the evening.
this double protest came about in this way.
at the afternoon demonstration, the women were immediately arrested. they were held at police headquarters for two hours. the authorities feeling then that the hour was too late for further demonstrations, released them. they did not require bail, or a promise to appear in court.
the women went at once to headquarters, snatched a hasty dinner; slipped quietly out of the building, and marched to the lafayette monument. everybody agrees that this evening demonstration was very beautiful. it was held in the soft dusk of the washington august. the crescent moon, which seemed tangled in the trees of the park, gave enough light to bring out the suffrage tri-color and the stars and stripes. as the women gathered closer and closer around the statue, the effect was of color, smudged with shadow; of shadow illuminated with color.
elsie hill, carrying the american flag in one hand, and the purple, white, and gold banner in the other spoke first; spoke wonderfully—as elsie hill always spoke. she said in part:
we know that our protest is in harmony with the belief of president wilson, for he has stood before the world for the right of the governed to a voice in their own government. we resent the fact that the soldiers of our country, the men drafted to fight prussia abroad, are used instead to help still the demand of american women for political freedom. we resent the suppression of our demands but our voices will carry across the country 362and down through time. the world will know that the women of america demand the passage of the federal suffrage amendment and that the president insists that the senate act.
there were only two policemen on duty. for two policemen to try to arrest nine lively and athletic pickets was a little like a scene in alice in wonderland. they would pull one woman down from the statue, start to get another, whereupon the first would be back again with her flying banner.
finally, the police reserves arrived, but every woman had managed to make a speech.
while the suffragists were still in the old workhouse, alice paul, following her usual system of complete publicity, had announced another protest meeting at the lafayette monument.
later alice paul received a letter from colonel ridley:
i have been advised that you desire to hold a demonstration in lafayette square on thursday, august 22. by direction of the chief of engineers, u. s. army, you are hereby granted permission to hold this demonstration. you are advised good order must prevail.
miss paul replied:
we received yesterday your permit for a suffrage demonstration in lafayette park this afternoon, and are very glad that our meetings are no longer to be interfered with. because of the illness of so many of our members, due to their treatment in prison this last week, and with the necessity of caring for them at headquarters, we are planning to hold our next meeting a little later. we have not determined on the exact date but we will inform you of the time as soon as it is decided upon.
as a result of the first series of protest meetings, the administration had yielded to the point of no longer interfering with the meetings at the lafayette monument. but as time went by and neither the senate nor the president did anything about suffrage, the national woman’s party announced that a protest meeting would be held at the lafayette 363monument on september 16 at four o’clock. immediately the president announced that he would receive a delegation of southern and western democratic women that day at two.
the same day, september 16, as maud younger was coming back from the capitol to headquarters, senator overman of the rules committee came and sat by her in the car. in the course of his conversation, he remarked casually: “i don’t think your bill is coming up this session.”
that afternoon, abby scott baker went to see senator jones of new mexico, chairman of the suffrage committee, to ask him to call a meeting of the committee to bring suffrage to the vote. senator jones refused. he said he would not bring up the suffrage amendment at this session in congress.
when—still later—that delegation of southern and western democratic women called on the president, he said to them:
i am, as i think you know, heartily in sympathy with you. i have endeavored to assist you in every way in my power, and i shall continue to do so. i shall do all that i can to assist the passage of the amendment by an early vote.
this was the final touch.
the national woman’s party hastily changed the type of its demonstration. instead of holding a mere meeting of protest, they decided to burn the words which the president had said that very afternoon to the southern and western democratic women. at four o’clock instead of two, forty women marched from headquarters to the lafayette monument. they carried the famous banners: how long must women wait for liberty? mr. president, what will you do for woman suffrage? at the lafayette statue, bertha arnold delivered an appeal to lafayette, written by mrs. richard wainwright and beginning with the famous words of pershing in france:
364lafayette, we are here!
we, the women of the united states, denied the liberty which you helped to gain, and for which we have asked in vain for sixty years, turn to you to plead for us.
speak, lafayette! dead these hundred years but still living in the hearts of the american people. speak again to plead for us, condemned like the bronze woman at your feet, to a silent appeal. she offers you a sword. will you not use the sword of the spirit, mightier far than the sword she holds out to you?
will you not ask the great leader of our democracy to look upon the failure of our beloved country to be in truth the place where every one is free and equal and entitled to a share in the government? let that outstretched hand of yours pointing to the white house recall to him his words and promises, his trumpet call for all of us to see that the world is made safe for democracy.
as our army now in france spoke to you there, saying, “here we are to help your country fight for liberty,” will you not speak here and now for us, a little band with no army, no power but justice and right, no strength but in our constitution and the declaration of independence, and win a great victory again in this country by giving us the opportunity we ask to be heard through the susan b. anthony amendment?
lafayette, we are here!
the police, having no orders to arrest the women, smiled and nodded. and while the crowd that had very quickly gathered applauded, lucy branham stepped forward. beside her was julia emory, holding a flaming torch.
“we want action,” miss branham stated simply, “not words.” she took the torch from julia emory, held the words of the president’s message of that afternoon in the flames. as it burned, she said:
the torch which i hold symbolizes the burning indignation of women who for a hundred years have been given words without action. in the spring our hopes were raised by words much like these from president wilson, yet they were permitted to be followed by a filibuster against our amendment on the part of the democratic senate leaders.
president wilson still refuses any real support to the movement for the political freedom of women....
we, therefore, take these empty words, spoken by president wilson this afternoon, and consign them to the flames.
lucy branham burning the president’s words at the lafayette monument.
photo copr. harris and ewing, washington, d. c.
the russian envoy banner, august, 1917.
photo copr. harris and ewing, washington, d. c.
365this is a symbol of the indignation of american women at the treatment given by the president to their plea for democracy.
we have protested to this administration by banners; we have protested by speeches; we now protest by this symbolic act.
as in the ancient fights for liberty the crusaders for freedom symbolized their protest against those responsible for injustice by consigning their hollow phrases to the flames, so we, on behalf of thousands of suffragists, in this same way today, protest against the action of the president and his party in delaying the liberation of american women.
for five years, women have appealed to this president and his party for political freedom. the president has given words, and words, and words. today, women receive more words. we announce to the president and the whole world today, by this act of ours, our determination that words shall no longer be the only reply given to american women—our determination that this same democracy, for whose establishment abroad we are making the utmost sacrifice, shall also prevail at home.
applause greeted these spirited words. as jessie hardy mackaye started to speak, a man in the crowd handed her a twenty-dollar bill for the woman’s party. others began passing money to her. the suffragists were busy running through the crowd collecting it. the crowd continued to applaud and cheer.
mrs. mackaye said:
against the twofold attitude on the part of the senate toward democracy, i protest with all the power of my being. the same congress and the same administration that are appropriating billions of dollars and enlisting the services of millions of men to establish democracy in europe, is at the same time refusing to do so common a piece of justice as to vote to submit the woman suffrage amendment to the states.
this was the first time the president’s words were burned.
the president’s car drove up to the door during the progress of this demonstration, and president wilson stepped in. but instead of going out at the usual gate, the driver turned the car about, so that he could make his exit elsewhere.
