Administration Terrorism
The Administration tried in another way to stop picketing. It sentenced
the leader, Alice Paul, to the absurd and desperate sentence of seven
months in the Washington jail for “obstructing traffic.”
With the “leader” safely behind the bars for so long a time, the
agitation would certainly weaken! So thought the Administration! To
their great surprise, however, in the face of that reckless and extreme
sentence, the longest picket line of the entire campaign formed at the
White House in the late afternoon of November 10th. Forty-one women
picketed in protest against this wanton persecution of their leader, as
well as against the delay in passing the amendment. Face to face with
an embarrassing number of prisoners the Administration used its wits
and decided to reduce the number to a manageable size before
imprisoning this group. Failing of that they tried still another way
out. They resorted to imprisonment with terrorism.
In order to show how widely representative of the nation this group of
pickets was, I give its personnel complete:
First Group
New York—Mrs. John Winters Brannan, Miss Belle Sheinberg, Mrs. L. H.
Hornsby, Mrs. Paula Jakobi, Mrs. Cynthia Cohen, Miss M. Tilden Burritt,
Miss Dorothy Day, Mrs. Henry Butterworth, Miss Cora Week, Mrs. P. B.
Johns, Miss Elizabeth Hamilton, Mrs. Ella O. Guilford, New York City;
Miss Amy Juengling, Miss Hattie Kruger, Buffalo.
Second Group
Massachusetts—Mrs. Agnes H. Morey, Brookline; Mrs. William Bergen and
Miss Camilla Whitcomb, Worcester; Miss Ella Findeisen, Lawrence; Miss
L. J. C. Daniels, Boston.
New Jersey—Mrs. George Scott, Montclair.
Pennsylvania—Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Miss Elizabeth McShane, Miss
Katherine Lincoln, Philadelphia.
Third Group
California—Mrs. William Kent, Kentfield.
Oregon—Miss Alice Gram, Miss Betty Gram, Portland.
Utah—Mrs. R. B. Quay, Mrs. T. C. Robertson, Salt Lake City.
Colorado—Mrs. Eva Decker, Colorado Springs, Mrs. Genevieve Williams,
Manitou.
Fourth Group
Indiana—Mrs. Charles W. Barnes, Indianapolis.
Oklahoma—Mrs. Kate Stafford, Oklahoma City.
Minnesota—Mrs. J. H. Short, Minneapolis.
Iowa—Mrs. A. N. Beim, Des Moines; Mrs. Catherine Martinette, Eagle
Grove.
Fifth Group
New York—Miss Lucy Burns, New York City.
District of Columbia—Mrs. Harvey Wiley.
Louisiana—Mrs. Alice M. Cosu, New Orleans.
Maryland—Miss Mary Bartlett Dixon, Easton; Miss Julia Emory, Baltimore.
Florida—Mrs. Mary I. Nolan, Jacksonville.
There were exceptionally dramatic figures in this group. Mrs. Mary
Nolan of Florida, seventy-three years old, frail in health but militant
in spirit, said she had come to take her place with the women
struggling for liberty in the same spirit that her revolutionary
ancestor, Eliza Zane, had carried bullets to the fighters in the war
for independence.
Mrs. Harvey Wiley looked appealing and beautiful as she said in court,
“We took this action with great consecration of spirit, with
willingness to sacrifice personal liberty for al] the women of the
country.”
Judge Mullowny addressed the prisoners with many high-sounding words
about the seriousness of obstructing the traffic in the national
capital, and inadvertently slipped into a discourse on Russia, and the
dangers of revolution. We always wondered why the government was not
clever enough to eliminate political discourses, at least during
trials, where the offenders were charged with breaking a slight
regulation. But their minds were too full of the political aspect of
our offense to conceal it. “The truth of the situation is that the
court has not been given power to meet it,” the judge lamented. “It is
very, very puzzling—I find you guilty of the offense charged, but will
take the matter of sentence under advisement.”
And so the “guilty” pickets were summarily released.
The Administration did not relish the incarceration of forty-one women
for another reason than limited housing accommodations. Forty-one women
representing sixteen states in the union might create a considerable
political dislocation. But these same forty-one women were determined
to force the Administration to take its choice. It could allow them to
continue their peaceful agitation or it could stand the reaction which
was bound to come from imprisoning them. And so the forty-one women
returned to the White House gates to resume’ their picketing. They
stood guard several minutes before the police, taken unawares, could
summon sufficient force to arrest them, and commandeer enough cars to
carry them to police headquarters. As the Philadelphia North American
pointed out: “There was no disorder. The crowd waited with interest and
in a noticeably friendly spirit to see what would happen. There were
frequent references to the pluck of the silent sentinels.”
The following morning the women were ordered by Judge Mullowny to “come
back on Friday. I am not yet prepared to try the case.”
Logic dictated that either we had a right to stand at the gates with
our banners or we did not have that right; but the Administration was
not interested in logic. It had to stop picketing. Whether this was
done legally or illegally, logically or illogically, clumsily or
dexterously, was of secondary importance. Picketing must be stopped!
Using their welcome release to continue their protest, the women again
marched with their banners to the White House in an attempt to picket.
Again they were arrested. No one who saw that line will ever forget the
impression it made, not only on friends of the suffragists, but on the
general populace of Washington, to see these women force with such
magnificent defiance the hand of a wavering Administration. On the
following morning they were sentenced to from six days to six months in
prison. Miss Burns received six months.
In pronouncing the lightest sentence upon Mrs. Nolan, the judge said
that he did so on account of her age. He urged her, however, to pay her
fine, hinting that jail might be too severe on her and might bring on
death. At this suggestion, tiny Mrs. Nolan pulled herself up on her
toes and said with great dignity: “Your Honor, I have a nephew fighting
for democracy in France. He is offering his life for his country. I
should be ashamed if I did not join these brave women in their fight
for democracy in America. I should be proud of the honor to die in
prison for the liberty of American women.” Even the judge seemed moved
by her beautiful and simple spirit.
In spite of the fact that the women were sentenced to serve their
sentences in the District Jail, where they would join Miss Paul and her
companions, all save one were immediately sent to Occoquan workhouse.
It had been agreed that the demand to be treated as political
prisoners, inaugurated by previous pickets, should be continued, and
that failing to secure such rights they would unanimously refuse to eat
food or do prison labor.
Any words of mine would be inadequate to tell the story of the
prisoners’ reception at the Occoquan workhouse. The following is the
statement of Mrs. Nolan, dictated upon her release, in the presence of
Mr. Dudley Field Malone:
It was about half past seven at night when we got to Occoquan
workhouse. A woman [Mrs. Herndon] was standing behind a desk when we
were brought into this office, and there were five or six men also in
the room. Mrs. Lewis, who spoke for all of us, . . . said she must
speak to Whittaker, the superintendent of the place.
“You’ll sit here all night, then,” said Mrs. Herndon.
I saw men begin to come upon the porch, but I didn’t think anything
about it. Mrs. Herndon called my name, but I did not answer. . . ’
Suddenly the door literally burst open and Whittaker burst in like a
tornado; some men followed him. We could see a crowd of them on the
porch. They were not in uniform. They looked as much like tramps as
anything. They seemed to come in—and in—and in. One had a face that
made me think of an ourang-outang. Mrs. Lewis stood up. Some of us had
been sitting and lying on the floor, we were so tired. She had hardly
begun to speak, saying we demanded to be treated as political
prisoners, when Whittaker said:
“You shut up. I have men here to handle you.” Then he shouted, “Seize
her!” I turned and saw men spring toward her, and then some one
screamed, “They have taken Mrs. Lewis.”
A man sprang at me and caught me by the shoulder. I am used to
remembering a bad foot, which I have had for years, and I remember
saying, “I’ll come with you; don’t drag me; I have a lame foot.” But I
was jerked down the steps and away into the dark. I didn’t have my feet
on the ground. I guess that saved me. I heard Mrs. Cosu, who was being
dragged along with me, call, “Be careful of your foot.”
Out of doors it was very dark. The building to which they took us was
lighted up as we came to it. I only remember the American flag flying
above it because it caught the light from a window in the wing. We were
rushed into a large room that we found opened on a large hall with
stone cells on each side. They were perfectly dark. Punishment cells is
what they call them. Mine was filthy. It had no window save a slip at
the top and no furniture but an iron bed covered with a thin straw pad,
and an open toilet flushed from outside the cell . . . .
In the hall outside was a man called Captain Reems. He had on a uniform
and was brandishing a thick stick and shouting as we were shoved into
the corridor, “Damn you, get in here.”
I saw Dorothy Day brought in. She is a frail girl. The two men handling
her were twisting her arms above her head. Then suddenly they lifted
her up and banged her down over the arm of an iron bench—twice. As they
ran me past, she was lying there with her arms out, and we heard one of
the men yell, “The —— suffrager! My mother ain’t no suffrager. I’ll put
you through ——.”
At the end of the corridor they pushed me through a door. Then I lost
my balance and fell against the iron bed. Mrs. Cosu struck the wall.
Then they threw in two mats and two dirty blankets. There was no light
but from the corridor. The door was barred from top to bottom. The
walls and floors were brick or stone cemented over. Mrs. Cosu would not
let me lie on the floor. She put me on the couch and stretched out on
the floor on one of the two pads they threw in. We had only lain there
a few minutes, trying to get our breath, when Mrs. Lewis, doubled over
and handled like a sack of something, was literally thrown in. Her head
struck the iron bed. We thought she was dead. She didn’t move. We were
crying over her as we lifted her to the pad on my bed, when we heard
Miss Burns call:
“Where is Mrs. Nolan?”
I replied, “I am here.”
Mrs. Cosu called out, “They have just thrown Mrs. Lewis in here, too.”
At this Mr. Whittaker came to the door and told us not to dare to
speak, or he would put the brace and bit in our mouths and the
straitjacket on our bodies. We were so terrified we kept very still.
Mrs. Lewis was not unconscious; she was only stunned. But Mrs. Cosu was
desperately ill as the night wore on. She had a bad heart attack and
was then vomiting. We called and called. We asked them1to send our own
doctor, because we thought she was dying . . . . They [the guards paid
no attention. A cold wind blew in on us from the outside, and we three
lay there shivering and only half conscious until morning.
“One at a time, come out,” we heard some one call at the barred door
early in the morning. I went first. I bade them both good- by. I didn’t
know where I was going or whether I would ever see them again. They
took me to Mr. Whittaker’s office, where he called my name.
“You’re Mrs. Mary Nolan,” said Whittaker.
“You’re posted,” said I.
“Are you willing to put on prison dress and go to the workroom?” said
he.
I said, “No.”
“Don’t you know now that I am Mr. Whittaker, the superintendent?” he
asked.
“Is there any age limit to your workhouse?” I said. “Would a woman of
seventy-three or a child of two be sent here?”
I think I made him think. He motioned to the guard.
“Get a doctor to examine her,” he said.
In the hospital cottage I was met by Mrs. Herndon and taken to a little
room with two white beds and a hospital table.
“You can lie down if you want to,” she said.
I took off my coat and hat. I just lay down on the bed and fell into a
kind of stupor. It was nearly noon and I had had no food offered me
since the sandwiches our friends brought us in the courtroom at noon
the day before.
The doctor came and examined my heart. Then he examined my lame foot.
It had a long blue bruise above the ankle, where they had knocked me as
they took me across the night before. He asked me what caused’ the
bruise. I said, “Those fiends when they dragged me to the cell last
night.” It was paining me. He asked if I wanted liniment and I said
only hot water. They brought that, and I noticed they did not lock the
door. A negro trusty was there. I fell back again into the same stupor.
The next day they brought me some toast and a plate of food, the first
I had been offered in over 36 hours. I just looked at the food and
motioned it away. It made me sick . . . . I was released on the sixth
day and passed the dispensary as I came out. There were a group of my
friends, Mrs. Brannan and Mrs. Morey and many others. They had on
coarse striped dresses and big, grotesque, heavy shoes. I burst into
tears as they led me away.
(Signed) MARY I. NOLAN.
November 21, 1917,
The day following their commitment to Occoquan Mr. O’Brien, of counsel,
was directed to see the women, to ascertain their condition. Friends
and relatives were alarmed, as not a line of news had been allowed to
penetrate to the world. Mr. O’Brien was denied admission and forced to
come back to Washington without any report whatsoever.
The next day Mr. O’Brien again attempted to see his clients, as did
also the mother of Miss Matilda Young, the youngest prisoner in Mr.
Whittaker’s care, and Miss Katherine Morey, who went asking to see her
mother. Miss Morey was held under armed guard half a mile from the
prison. Admission was denied to all of them.
The terrible anxiety at Headquarters was not relieved the third day by
a report brought from the workhouse by one of the marines stationed at
Quantico Station, Virginia, who had been summoned to the workhouse on
the night the women arrived. He brought news that unknown tortures were
going on. Mr. O’Brien immediately forced his way through by a court
order, and brought back to Headquarters the astounding news of the
campaign of terrorism which had started the moment the prisoners had
arrived, and which was being continued at that moment. Miss Lucy Burns,
who had assumed responsibility for the welfare of the women, had
managed to secrete small scraps of paper and a tiny pencil, and jot
down briefly the day by day events at the workhouse.
This week of brutality, which rivaled old Russia, if it did not
outstrip it, was almost the blackest page in the Administration’s cruel
fight against women.
Here are some of the scraps of Miss Burn’s day-by-day log, smuggled out
of the workhouse. Miss Burns is so gifted a writer that I feel
apologetic for using these scraps in their raw form, but I know she
will forgive me.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14. Demanded to see Superintendent Whittaker.
Request refused. Mrs. Herndon, the matron, said we would have to wait
up all night. One of the men guards said he would “put us in sardine
box and put mustard on us.” Superintendent Whittaker came at 9 p. m. He
refused to hear our demand for political rights. Seized by guards from
behind, flung off my feet, and shot out of the room. All of us were
seized by men guards and dragged to cells in men’s part. Dorothy Day
was roughly used-back twisted. Mrs. Mary A. Nolan (73-year-old picket
from Jacksonville, Florida) flung into cell. Mrs. Lawrence Lewis shot
past my cell. I slept with Dorothy Day in a single bed. I was
handcuffed all night and manacled to the bars part of the time for
asking the others how they were, and was threatened with a straitjacket
and a buckle gag.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16 . . . . Asked for Whittaker, who came. He seized
Julia Emory by the back of her neck and threw her into the room very
brutally. She is a little girl. I asked for counsel to learn the status
of the case. I was told to “shut up,” and was again threatened with a
straitjacket and a buckle gag. Later I was taken to put on prison
clothes, refused and resisted strenuously. I was then put in a room
where delirium tremens patients are kept.
On the seventh day, when Miss Lucy Burns and Mrs. Lawrence Lewis were
so weak that Mr. Whittaker feared their death, they were forcibly fed
and taken immediately to the jail in Washington. Of the experience Mrs.
Lewis wrote:—
I was seized and laid on my back, where five people held me, a young
colored woman leaping upon my knees, which seemed to break under the
weight. Dr. Gannon then forced the tube through my lips and down my
throat, I gasping and suffocating with the agony of it. I didn’t know
where to breathe from and everything turned black when the fluid began
pouring in. I was moaning and making the most awful sounds quite
against my will, for I did not wish to disturb my friends in the next
room. Finally the tube was withdrawn. I lay motionless. After a while I
was dressed and carried in a chair to a waiting automobile, laid on the
back seat and driven into Washington to the jail hospital. Previous to
the feeding I had been forcibly examined by Dr. Gannon, I protesting
that I wished a woman physician.
Of this experience, Miss Burns wrote on tiny scraps of paper:
WEDNESDAY, 12 m. Yesterday afternoon at about four or five, Mrs. Lewis
and I were asked to go to the operating room. Went there and found our
clothes. Told we were to go to Washington. No reason as usual. When we
were dressed, Dr. Gannon appeared, and said he wished to examine us.
Both refused. Were dragged through halls by force, our clothing partly
removed by force, and we were examined, heart tested, blood pressure
and pulse taken. Of course such data was of no value after such a
struggle. Dr. Gannon told me then I must be fed. Was stretched on bed,
two doctors, matron, four colored prisoners present, Whittaker in hall.
I was held down by five people at legs, arms, and head. I refused to
open mouth. Gannon pushed tube up left nostril. I turned and twisted my
head all I could, but he managed to push it up. It hurts nose and
throat very much and makes nose bleed freely. Tube drawn out covered
with blood. Operation leaves one very sick. Food dumped directly into
stomach feels like a ball of lead. Left nostril, throat and muscles of
neck very sore all night. After this I was brought into the hospital in
an ambulance. Mrs. Lewis and I placed in same room. Slept hardly at
all. This morning Dr. Ladd appeared with his tube. Mrs. Lewis and I
said we would not be forcibly fed. Said he would call in men guards and
force us to submit. Went away and we were not fed at all this morning.
We hear them outside now cracking eggs.
With Miss Burns and Mrs. Lewis, who were regarded as leaders in the
hunger strike protest, removed to the district jail, Mr. Whittaker and
his staff at Occoquan began a systematic attempt to break down the
morale of the hunger strikers. Each one was called to the mat and
interrogated.
“Will you work?”—“Will you put on prison clothes?”—“Will you
eat?”—“Will you stop picketing?”—“Will you go without paying your fine
and promise never to picket again?”
How baffled he must have been! The answer was definite and final. Their
resistance was superb.
“One of the few warning incidents during the gray days of our
imprisonment was the unexpected sympathy and understanding of one of
the government doctors,” wrote Miss Betty Gram of Portland, Oregon.
“’This is the most magnificent sacrifice I have ever seen made for a
principle [he said I never believed that American women would care so
much about freedom. I have seen women in Russia undergo extreme
suffering for their ideals, but unless I had seen this with my own eyes
I never would have believed it. My sister hunger struck in Russia,
where she was imprisoned for refusing to reveal the whereabouts of two
of her friends indicted for a government offense. She was fed after
three days. You girls are on your ninth day of hunger strike and your
condition is critical. It is a great pity that such women should be
subjected to this treatment. I hope that you will carry your point and
force the hand of the government soon’.”
The mother of Matilda Young, the youngest picket, anxiously appealed to
Mr. Tumulty, Secretary to President Wilson, and a family friend, to be
allowed to see the President and ask for a special order to visit her
daughter. Failing to secure this, she went daily to Mr. Tumulty’s
office asking if he himself would not intercede for her. Mr. Tumulty
assured her that her daughter was in safe hands, that she need give
herself no alarm, the stories of the inhuman treatment at Occoquan were
false, and that she must not believe them. Finally Mrs. Young pleaded
to be allowed to send additional warm clothing to her daughter, whom
she knew to be too lightly clad for the vigorous temperature of
November. Mr. Tumulty assured her that the women were properly clothed,
and refused to permit the clothing to be sent. The subsequent stories
of the women showed what agonies they had endured, because they were
inadequately clad, from the dampness of the cells into which they were
thrown.
Mrs. John Winters Brannan was among the women who endured the “night of
terror.” Mrs. Brannan is the daughter of Charles A. Dana, founder of
the New York Sun and that great American patriot of liberty who was a
trusted associate -and counselor of Abraham Lincoln. Mrs. Brannan,
life-long suffragist, is an aristocrat of intellect and feeling, who
has always allied herself with libertarian movements. This was her
second term of imprisonment. She wrote a comprehensive affidavit of her
experience. After narrating the events which led up to the attack, she
continues:
Superintendent Whittaker . . . then shouted out in a loud tone of
voice, “Seize these women, take them off, that one, that one; take her
off.” The guards rushed forward and an almost indescribable scene of
violent confusion ensued. I . . . saw one of the guards seize her [Lucy
Burns] by the arms, twist or force them back of her, and one or two
other guards seize her by the shoulders, shaking her violently . . . .
I then . . took up my heavy sealskin coat, which was lying by, and put
it on, in order to prepare myself if attacked . . . . I was trembling
at the time and was stunned with terror at the situation as it had
developed, and said to the superintendent, “I will give my name under
protest,” and started to walk towards the desk whereon lay the books.
The superintendent shouted to me, “Oh, no, you won’t; don’t talk about
protest; I won’t have any of that nonsense.”
I . . . saw the guards seizing the different women of the party with
the utmost violence, the furniture being overturned and the room a
scene of the utmost disturbance. I saw Miss Lincoln lying on the floor,
with every appearance of having just been thrown down by the two guards
who were standing over her in a menacing attitude. Seeing the general
disturbance, I gave up all idea of giving my name at the desk, and
instinctively joined my companions, to go with them and share whatever
was in store for them. The whole group of women were thrown, dragged or
herded out of the office on to the porch, down the steps to the ground,
and forced to cross the road . . . to the Administration Building.
During all of this time, . . . Superintendent Whittaker was . . .
directing the whole attack. . . .
. . .All of us were thrown into different cells in the men’s prison, I
being put in one with four other women, the cell containing a narrow
bed and one chair, which was immediately removed . . . .
During the time that we were being forced into the cells the guards
kept up an uproar, shouting, banging the iron doors, clanging bars,
making a terrifying noise.
I and one of my companions were lying down on the narrow bed, on which
were a blanket and one pillow. The door of the cell was opened and a
mattress and a blanket being thrown in, the door was violently banged
to . . . . My other . . . companions arranged the mattress on the floor
and lay down, covering themselves with the blanket.
. . . I looked across the corridor and saw Miss Lincoln, . and asked
her whether she was all right, being anxious to know whether she had
been hurt by the treatment in the office building. . . Instantly
Superintendent Whittaker rushed forward, shouting at me, “Stop that;
not another word from your mouth, or I will handcuff you, gag you and
put you in a straitjacket. . .
I wish to state again that the cells into which we were put were
situated in the men’s prison. There was no privacy for the women, and
if any of us wished to undress we would be subject to the view or
observation of the guards who remained in the corridor and who could at
any moment look at us . . . . Furthermore, the water closets were in
full view of the corridor where Superintendent Whittaker and the guards
were moving about. The flushing of these closets could only be done
from the corridor, and we were forced to ask the guards to do this for
us,-the men who had shortly before attacked us . . . .
None of the matrons or women attendants appeared at any time that
night. No water was brought to us for washing, no food was offered to
us . . . .
I was exhausted by what I had seen and been through, and spent the
night in absolute terror of further attack and of what might still be
in store for us. I thought of the young girls who were with us and
feared for their safety. The guards acted brutal in the extreme,
incited to their brutal conduct towards us, . . , by the
superintendent. I thought of the offense with which we had been
charged,—merely that of obstructing traffic,—and felt that the
treatment that we had received was out of all proportion to the offense
with which we were charged, and that the superintendent, the matron and
guards would not have dared to act towards us as they had acted unless
they relied upon the support of higher authorities. It seemed to me
that everything had been done from the time we reached the workhouse to
terrorize us, and my fear lest the extreme of outrage would be worked
upon the young girls of our party became intense.
It is impossible for me to describe the terror of that night. . .
The affidavit then continues with the story of how Mrs. Brannan was
compelled the following morning to put on prison clothes, was given a
cup of skimmed milk and a slice of toast, and then taken to the sewing
room, where she was put to work sewing on the underdrawers of the male
prisoners.
I was half fainting all of that day and . . . requested permission to
lie down, feeling so ill . . . . I could not sleep, having a sense of
constant danger . . . . I was almost paralyzed and in wretched physical
condition.
On Friday afternoon Mrs. Herndon [matron]. . . led us through some
woods nearby, for about three-quarters of a mile, seven of us being in
the party. We were so exhausted and weary that we were obliged to stop
constantly to rest. On our way back from the walk we heard the baying
of hounds very near us in the woods. The matron said, “You must hurry,
the bloodhounds are loose.” One of the party, Miss Findeisen, asked
whether they would attack us, to which the matron replied, “That is
just what they would do,” and hurried us along. The baying grew louder
and nearer at times and then more distant, as the dogs rushed back and
forth, and this went on until we reached the sewing room. The effect of
this upon our nerves can better be imagined than described . . . .
Every conceivable lie was tried in an effort to force the women to
abandon their various form of resistance. They were told that no
efforts were being made from the outside to reach them, and that their
attorney had been called off the case. Each one was told that she was
the only one hunger striking. Each one was told that all the others had
put on prison clothes and were working. Although they were separated
from one another they suspected the lies and remained strong in their
resistance. After Mr. O’Brien’s one visit and the subsequent reports in
the press he was thereafter refused admission to the workhouse.
The judge had sentenced these women to the jail, but the District
Commissioners had ordered them committed to the workhouse. It was
evident that the Administration was anxious to keep this group away
from Alice Paul and her companions, as they counted on handling the
rebellion more easily in two groups than one.
Meanwhile the condition of the prisoners in the workhouse grew steadily
worse. It was imperative that we force the Administration to take them
out of the custody of Superintendent Whittaker immediately. We decided
to take the only course open—to obtain a writ of habeas corpus. A
hurried journey by counsel to United States District Judge Waddill of
Norfolk, Virginia, brought the writ. It compelled the government to
bring the prisoners into court and show cause why they should not be
returned to the district jail. This conservative, Southern judge said
of the petition for the writ, “It is shocking and blood- curdling.”
There followed a week more melodramatic than the most stirring moving
picture film. Although the writ had been applied for in the greatest
secrecy, a detective suddenly appeared to accompany Mr. O’Brien from
Washington to Norfolk, during his stay in Norfolk, and back to
Washington. Telephone wires at our headquarters were tapped.
It was evident that the Administration was cognizant of every move in
this procedure before it was executed. No sooner was our plan decided
upon than friends of the Administration besought us to abandon the
habeas corpus proceedings. One member of the Administration sent an
emissary to our headquarters with the following appeal:
“If you will only drop these proceedings, I can absolutely guarantee
you that the prisoners will be removed from the workhouse to the jail
in a week:”
“In a week? They may be dead by that time,” we answered. “We cannot
wait.”
“But I tell you, you must not proceed.”
“Why this mysterious week?” we asked. “Why not tomorrow? Why not
instantly?”
“I can only tell you that I have a positive guarantee of the District
Commissioners that the women will be removed,” he said in conclusion.
We refused to grant his request.
There were three reasons why the authorities wished for a week’s time.
They were afraid to move the women in their weakened condition and
before the end of the week they hoped to increase their facilities for
forcible feeding at the workhouse. They also wished to conceal the
treatment of the women, the exposure of which would be inevitable in
any court proceedings. And lastly, the Administration was anxious to
avoid opening up the whole question of the legality of the very
existence of the workhouse in Virginia.
Persons convicted in the District for acts committed in violation of
District law were transported to Virginia—alien territory—to serve
their terms. It was a moot point whether prisoners were so treated with
sufficient warrant in law. Eminent jurists held that the District had
no right to convict a person under its laws and commit that person to
confinement in another state. They contended that sentence imposed upon
a person for unlawful acts in the District should be executed in the
District.
Hundreds of persons who had been convicted in the District of Columbia
and who had served their sentences in Virginia had been without money
or influence enough to contest this doubtful procedure in the courts.
The Administration was alarmed.
We quickened our pace. A member of the Administration rushed his
attorney as courier to the women in the workhouse to implore them not
to consent to the habeas corpus proceedings. He was easily admitted and
tried to extort from one prisoner at a time a promise to reject the
plan. The women suspected his solicitude and refused to make any
promise whatsoever without first being allowed to see their own
attorney.
We began at once to serve the writ. Ordinarily this would be an easy
thing to do. But for us it developed into a very difficult task. A
deputy marshal must serve the writ. Counsel sought a deputy. For miles
around Washington, not one was to be found at his home or lodgings.
None could be reached by telephone.
Meanwhile Mr. Whittaker, had sped from the premises of the workhouse to
the District, where he kept himself discreetly hidden for several days.
When a deputy was found, six attempts were made to serve the writ. All
failed. Finally by a ruse, Mr. Whittaker was caught at his home late at
night. He was aroused to a state of violent temper and made futile
threats of reprisal when he learned that he must produce the suffrage
prisoners at the Court in Alexandria, Virginia, on the day of November
twenty- third.