The Administration Outwitted
With thirty determined women on hunger strike, of whom eight were in a
state of almost total collapse, the Administration capitulated. It
could not afford to feed thirty women forcibly and risk the social and
political consequences; nor could it let thirty women starve themselves
to death, and likewise take the consequences. For by this time one
thing was clear, and that was that the discipline and endurance of the
women could not be broken. And so all the prisoners were
unconditionally released on November 27th and November 28th.
On leaving prison Miss Paul said: “The commutation of sentences
acknowledges them to be unjust and arbitrary. The attempt to suppress
legitimate propaganda has failed.
“We hope that no more demonstrations will be necessary, that the
amendment will move steadily on to passage and ratification without
further suffering or sacrifice. But what we do depends entirely upon
what the Administration does. We have one aim: the immediate passage of
the federal amendment”
Running parallel to the protest made inside the prison, a public
protest of nation-wide proportions had been made against continuing to
imprison women. Deputations of in- fluential women had waited upon all
party leaders, cabinet officials, heads of the war boards, in fact
every friend of the Administration, pointing out that we had broken no
law, that we were unjustly held, and that .the Administration would
suffer politically for their handling of the suffrage agitation.
A committee of women, after some lively fencing with the Secretary of
War, finally drove Mr. Baker to admit that women had been sent to
prison for a political principle; that they were not petty disturbers
but part of a great fundamental struggle. Secretary Baker said, “This
[the suffrage struggle] is a revolution. There have been revolutions
all through his- tory. Some have been justified and some have not. The
burden of responsibility to decide whether your revolution is justified
or not is on you. The whole philosophy of your movement seems to be to
obey no laws until you have a voice in those laws.”
At least one member of the Cabinet thus showed that he had caught
something of the purpose and depth of our movement. He never publicly
protested, however, against the Administration’s policy of suppression.
Mr. McAdoo, then Secretary of the Treasury, gave no such evidence of
enlightenment as Mr. Baker. A committee of women endeavored to see him.
He was reported “out. But we expect him here soon.”
We waited an hour. The nervous private secretary returned to say that
he had been mistaken. “The Secretary will not be in until after
luncheon.”
“We shall wait,” said Mrs. William Kent, chairman of the deputation.
“We have nothing more important to do to-day than to see Secretary
McAdoo. We are willing to wait the whole day, if necessary, only it is
imperative that we see him.”
The private secretary’s spirits sank. He looked as if he would give
anything to undo his inadvertence in telling us that the Secretary was
expected after luncheon! Poor man! We settled down comfortably to wait,
a formidable looking committee of twenty women.
There was the customary gentle embarrassment of attendants whose chief
is in a predicament from which they seem powerless to extricate him,
but all were extremely courteous. The attendant at the door brought us
the morning papers to read. Gradually groups of men began to arrive and
cards were sent in the direction of the spot where we inferred the
Secretary of the Treasury was safely hidden, hoping and praying for our
early retirement.
Whispered conversations were held. Men disappeared in and out of
strange doors. Still we waited.
Finally as the fourth hour of our vigil was dragging on, a lieutenant
appeared to announce that the Secretary was very sorry but that he
would not be able to see us “at all.” We consulted, and finally sent in
a written appeal, asking for “five minutes of his precious time on a
matter of grave importance.” More waiting! Finally a letter was brought
to us directed to Mrs. William Kent, with the ink of the Secretary of
the Treasury’s signature still wet. With no concealment of contempt, he
declared that under no circumstances could he speak with women who had
conducted such an outrageous campaign in such an “illegal” way. We
smiled as we learned from his pronouncement that “picketing” was
“illegal,” for we were not supposed to have been arrested for
picketing. The tone of his letter, its extreme bitterness, tended to
confirm what we had always been told, that Mr. McAdoo assisted in
directing the policy of arrests and imprisonment.
I have tried to secure this letter for reproduction but unfortunately
Mrs. Kent did not save it. We all remember its bitter passion, however,
and the point it made about our “illegal picketing.”
Congress convened on December 4th. President Wilson delivered a
message, restating our aims in the war. He also recommended a
declaration of a state of war against Austria; the control of certain
water power sites; export trade-combination; railway legislation; and
the speeding up of all necessary appropriation legislation. But he did
not mention the suffrage amendment. Having been forced to release the
prisoners, he again rested.
Immediately we called a conference in Washington of the Executive
Committee and the National Advisory Council of the Woman’s Party. Past
activities were briefly reviewed and the political situation discussed.
It is interesting to note that the Treasurer’s report made at this
conference showed that receipts in some months during the picketing had
been double what they were the same month the previous year when there
was no picketing. In one month of picketing the receipts went as high
as six times the normal amount. For example in July of 1917, when the
arrests had just begun, receipts for the month totalled $21,628.65 as
against $8,690.62 for July of 1916. In November, 1917, when the
militant situation was at its highest point, there was received at
National Headquarters $81,117.87 as against $15,008.18 received in
November, 1916. Still there were those who said we had no friends!
A rumor that the President would act persisted. But we could not rely
on rumor. We decided to accelerate him and his Administration by filing
damage suits amounting to $800,000 against the District Commissioners,
against Warden Zinkhan, against Superintendent Whittaker and Captain
Reams, a workhouse guard.[1] They were brought in no spirit of revenge,
but merely that the Administration should not be allowed to forget its
record of brutality, unless it chose to amend its conduct by passing
the amendment. The suits were brought by the women woo suffered the
greatest abuse during the “night of terror” at the workhouse.
[1] We were obliged to bring the suits against individuals, as we could
not in the law bring them against the government.
If any one is still in doubt as to the close relation between the Court
procedure in our case and the President’s actions, this letter to one
of our attorneys in January, 1918, must convince him.
My dear Mr. O’Brien:—
I wish you would advise me as soon as you conveniently can, what will
be done with the suffragist cases now pending against Whittaker and
Reams in the United States District Court at Alexandria.
I have heard rumors, the truth of which you will understand better than
I, that these cases will be dropped if the President comes out in favor
of woman suffrage. This, I understand, he will do and certainly hope
so, as I am personally in favor of it and have been for many years. But
in case of his delay in taking any action, will you agree to continue
these cases for the present?
Very truly yours,
(Signed) F. H. STEVENS,
Assistant Corporation Counsel, D. C.
In order to further fortify themselves, the District Commissioners,
when the storm had subsided, quietly removed Warden Zinkhan from the
jail and Superintendent Whittaker resigned his post at the workhouse,
presumably under pressure from the Commissioners.
The Woman’s Party conference came to a dramatic close during that first
week in December with an enormous mass meeting in the Belasco Theatre
in Washington. On that quiet Sunday afternoon, as the President came
through his gates for his afternoon drive, a passageway had to be
opened for his motor car through the crowd of four thousand people who
were blocking Madison Place in an effort to get inside the Belasco
Theatre. Inside the building was packed to the rafters. The President
saw squads of police reserves, who had been for the past six months
arresting pickets for him, battling with a crowd that was literally
storming the theatre in their eagerness to do honor to those who had
been arrested. Inside there was a fever heat of enthusiasm, bursting
cheers, and thundering applause which shook the building. America has
never before nor since seen such a suffrage meeting.
Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont, chairman, opened the meeting by saying:
“We are here this afternoon to do honor to a hundred gallant women, who
have endured the hardship and humiliation of imprisonment because they
love liberty.
“The suffrage pickets stood at the White House gates for ten months and
dramatized the women’s agitation for political liberty. Self-respecting
and patriotic American women will no longer tolerate a government which
denies women the right to govern themselves. A flame of rebellion is
abroad among women, and the stupidity and brutality of the government
in this revolt have only served to increase its heat.
“As President Wilson wrote, ‘Governments have been very successful in
parrying agitation, diverting it, in seeming to yield to it and then
cheating it, tiring it out or evading it. But the end, whether it comes
soon or late, is quite certain to be the same.’ While the government
has endeavored to parry, tire, divert, and cheat us of our goal, the
country has risen in protest against this evasive policy of suppression
until to-day the indomitable pickets with their historic legends stand
triumphant before the nation.”
Mrs. William Kent, who had led the last picket line of forty-one women,
was chosen to decorate the prisoners.
“In honoring these women, who were willing to go to jail for liberty,”
said Mrs. Kent, “we are showing our love of country and devotion to
democracy.” The long line of prisoners filed past her and amidst
constant cheers and applause, received a tiny silver replica of a cell
door, the same that appears in miniature on the title page of this
book.
As proof of this admiration for what the women had done, the great
audience in a very few moments pledged $86,826 to continue the
campaign. Many pledges were made in honor of Alice Paul, Inez
Milholland, Mrs. Belmont, Dudley Field Malone, and all the prisoners.
Imperative resolutions calling upon President Wilson and his
Administration to act, were unanimously passed amid an uproar.