Jailed for Freedom
by
Doris Stevens
Part 4 out of 8
your special attention, as a sanitation, the totally inadequate
sustenance given to these prisoners.
The food at the county jail at Washington is much better than the
food at Occoquan, but still bad enough. This increased excellence
of food is set off by the miserable ventilation of the cells, in
which these noble women are kept in solitary confinement. Not
only have they had a struggle to get the windows open slightly,
but also at the time of their morning meal, the sweeping is done.
The air of the cells is filled with dust and they try to cover
their coffee and other food with such articles as they can find
to keep the dust out of their food. Better conditions for
promoting tuberculosis could not be found.
I appeal to you as a well-known sanitarian to get the Board of
Charities to make such rules and regulations as would secure to
prisoners of all kinds, and especially to political prisoners, as
humane an environment as possible.
I also desire to ask that the Board of Charities would authorize
me to make inspections of food furnished to prisoners at Occoquan
and at the District Jail, and to have physical and chemical
analysis made without expense to the Board, in
{151}
order to determine more fully the nutritive environment in which
the prisoners live.
Sincerely,
(Signed) HARVEY WILEY.
This striking telegram from Richard Bennett, the distinguished
actor, must have arrested the attention of the Administration.
September 22, 1917.
Hon. Newton Baker,
Secretary of War,
War Department,
Washington, D. C.
I have been asked to go to France personally, with the film of
"Damaged Goods," as head of a lecture corps to the American army.
On reliable authority I am told that American women, because they
have dared demand their political freedom, are held in vile
conditions in the Government workhouse in Washington; are
compelled to paint the negro toilets for eight hours a day; are
denied decent food and denied communication with counsel. Why
should I work for democracy in Europe when our American women are
denied democracy at home? If I am to fight for social hygiene in
France, why not begin at Occoquan workhouse?
RICHARD BENNETT.
Mr. Bennett never received a reply to this message.
Charming companionships grew up in prison. Ingenuity at lifting
the dull monotony of imprisonment brought to light many talents
for camaraderie which amused not only the suffrage prisoners but
the "regulars." Locked in separate cells, as in the District
Jail, the suffragists could still communicate by song. The
following lively doggerel to the tune of "Captain Kidd" was sung
in chorus to the accompaniment of a hair comb. It became a saga.
Each day a new verse was added, relating the day's particular
controversy with the prison authorities.
{152)
We worried Woody-wood,
As we stood, as we stood,
We worried Woody-wood,
As we stood.
We worried Woody-wood,
And we worried him right good;
We worried him right good as we stood.
We asked him for the vote,
As we stood, as we stood,
We asked him for the vote
As we stood,
We asked him for the vote,
But he'd rather write a note,
He'd rather write a note so we stood.
We'll not get out on bail,
Go to jail, go to jail-
We'll not get out on bail,
We prefer to go to jail,
We prefer to go to jail-we're not frail.
We asked them for a brush,
For our teeth, for our teeth,
We asked them for a brush
For our teeth.
We asked them for a brush,
They said, "There ain't no rush,"
They said, "There ain't no rush-darn your teeth."
We asked them for some air,
As we choked, as we choked,
We asked them for some air
As we choked.
We asked them for some air
And they threw us in a lair,
They threw us in a lair, so we choked.
{153}
We asked them for our nightie,
As we froze, as we froze,
We asked them for our nightie
As we froze.
We asked them for our nightie,
And they looked-hightie-tightie-
They looked hightie-tightie-so we froze.
Now, ladies, take the hint,
As ye stand, as ye stand,
Now, ladies, take the hint,
As ye stand.
Now, ladies, take the hint,
Don't quote the Presidint,
Don't quote the Presidint, as ye stand.
Humor predominated in the poems that came out of prison. There
was never any word of tragedy.
Not even an intolerable diet of raw salt pork, which by actual
count of Miss Margaret Potheringham, a teacher of Domestic
Science and Dietetics, was served the suffragists sixteen times
in eighteen days, could break their spirit of gayety. And when a
piece of fish of unknown origin was slipped through the tiny
opening in the cell door, and a specimen carefully preserved for
Dr. Wiley-who, by the way, was unable to classify it-they were
more diverted than outraged.
Sometimes it was a "prayer" which enlivened the evening hour
before bedtime. Mary Winsor of Haverford, Pennsylvania, was the
master prayer-maker. One night it was a Baptist prayer, another a
Methodist, and still another a stern Presbyterian prayer. The
prayers were most disconcerting to the matron for the "regulars"
became almost hysterical with laughter, when they should be
slipping into sleep. It was trying also to sit in the corridor
and hear your daily cruelties narrated to God and punishment
asked. This is what happened to the embarrassed warden and jail
attendants if they came to protest.
{154}
Sometimes it was the beautiful voice of Vida Milholland which
rang through the corridors of the dreary prison, with a stirring
Irish ballad, a French love song, or the Woman's Marseillaise.
Again the prisoners would build a song, each calling out from
cell to cell, and contributing a line. The following song to the
tune of "Charlie Is My Darling" was so written and sung with Miss
Lucy Branham leading:
SHOUT THE REVOLUTION OF WOMEN
Shout the revolution
Of women, of women,
Shout the revolution
For liberty.
Rise, glorious women of the earth,
The voiceless and the free
United strength assures the birth
Of true democracy.
REFRAIN
Invincible our army,
Forward, forward,
Triumphant daughters pressing
To victory.
Shout the revolution
of women, of women,
Shout the revolution
For liberty.
Men's revolution born in blood,
But ours conceived in peace,
We hold a banner for a sword,
Till all oppression cease.
REFRAIN
Prison, death, defying,
Onward, onward,
Triumphant daughters pressing
To victory.
{155}
The gayety was interspersed with sadness when the suffragists
learned of new cruelties heaped upon the helpless ones, those who
were without influence or friends. .. They learned of that
barbarous punishment known as "the greasy pole" used upon girl
prisoners. This method of punishment consisted of strapping girls
with their hands tied behind them to a greasy pole from which
they were partly suspended. Unable to keep themselves in an
upright position, because of the grease on the pole, they slipped
almost to the floor, with their arms all but severed from the arm
sockets, suffering intense pain for long periods of time. This
cruel punishment was meted out to prisoners for slight
infractions of the prison rules.
The suffrage prisoners learned also of the race hatred which the
authorities encouraged. It was not infrequent that the jail
officers summoned black girls to attack white women, if the
latter disobeyed. This happened in one instance to the suffrage
prisoners who were protesting against the warden's forcibly
taking a suffragist from the workhouse without telling her or her
comrades whither she was being taken. Black girls were called and
commanded to physically attack the suffragists. The negresses,
reluctant to do so, were goaded to deliver blows upon the women
by the warden's threats of punishment.
And as a result of our having been in prison, our headquarters
has never ceased being the mecca of many discouraged "inmates,"
when released. They come for money. They come for work. They come
for spiritual encouragement to face life after the wrecking
experience of imprisonment. Some regard us as "fellow prisoners."
Others regard us as "friends at court."
Occasionally we meet a prison associate in the workaday world.
Long after Mrs. Lawrence Lewis' imprisonment, when she was
working on ratification of the amendment in Delaware, she was
greeted warmly by a charming young woman who came forward at a
meeting. "Don't you remember me?" she asked, as
{156}
Mrs. Lewis struggled to recollect. "Don't you remember me?
I met you in Washington."
"I'm sorry but I seem to have forgotten where I met you,"
said Mrs. Lewis apologetically.
"In jail," came the answer hesitantly, whereupon Mrs.
Lewis listened sympathetically while her fellow prisoner told her
that she had been in jail at the tipie Mrs. Lewis was, that her
crime was bigamy and that she was one of the traveling circus
troupe then in Dover.
"She brought up her husband, also a member of the circus," said
Mrs. Lewis in telling of the incident, "and they both joined
enthusiastically in a warm invitation to come and see them in the
circus."
As each group of suffragists was released an enthusiastic welcome
was given to them at headquarters and at these times, in the
midst of the warmth of approving and appreciative comrades, some
of the most beautiful speeches were delivered. I quote a part of
Katharine Fisher's speech at a dinner in honor of released
prisoners:
Five of us who are with you to-night have recently come out from
the workhouse into the world. A great change? Not so much of a
change for women, disfranchised women. In prison or out, American
women are not free. Our lot of physical freedom simply gives us
and the public a new and vivid sense of what our lack of
political freedom really means.
Disfranchisement is the prison of women's power and spirit. Women
have long been classed with criminals so far as their voting
rights are concerned. And how quick the Government is to live up
to its classification the minute women determinedly insist upon
these rights. Prison life epitomizes all life under undemocratic
rule. At Occoquan, as at the Capitol and the White House, we
faced hypocrisy, trickery and treachery on the part of those in
power. And the constant appeal to us to "cooperate" with the
workhouse authorities sounded wonderfully like the exhortation
addressed to all women to "support the Government."
{157}
"Is that the law of the District of Columbia?" I asked
Superintendent Whittaker concerning a statement he had made to
me. "It is the law," he answered, "because it is the rule I
make." The answer of Whittaker is the answer Wilson makes to
women every time the Government, of which he is the head, enacts
a law and at the same time continues to refuse to pass the Susan
B. Anthony amendment . . . .
We seem to-day to stand before you free, but I have no sense of
freedom because I have left comrades at Occoquan and because
other comrades may at any moment join them there . . . .
While comrades are there what is our freedom? It is as empty as
the so-called political freedom of women who have won suffrage by
a state referendum. Like them we are free only within limits . .
. .
We must not let our voice be drowned by war trumpets or cannon.
If we do, we shall find ourselves, when the war is over, with a
peace that will only prolong our struggle, a democracy that will
belie its name by leaving out half the people.
The Administration continued to send women to the workhouse and
the District Jail for thirty and sixty day sentences.
{158}
Chapter 7
An Administration Protest-Dudley Field Malone Resigns
Dudley Field Malone was known to the country as sharing the
intimate confidence and friendship of President Wilson. He had
known and supported the President from the beginning of the
President's political career. He had campaigned twice through New
Jersey with Mr. Wilson as Governor; he had managed Mr. Wilson's
campaigns in many states for the nomination before the Baltimore
Convention; he had toured the country with Mr. Wilson in 1912 ;
and it was he who led to victory President Wilson's fight for
California in 1916.
So when Mr. Malone went to the White House in July, 1917, to
protest against the Administration's handling of the suffrage
question, he went not only as a confirmed suffragist, but also a5
a confirmed supporter and member of the Wilson Administration-the
one who had been chosen to go to the West in 1916 to win women
voters to the Democratic Party.
Mr. Malone has consented to tell for the first time, in this
record of the militant campaign, what happened at his memorable
interview with President Wilson in July, 1917, an interview which
he followed up two months later with his resignation as Collector
of the Port of New York. I quote the story in his own words:
Frank P. Walsh, Amos Pinchot, Frederic C. Howe, J. A.
H. Hopkins, Allen McCurdy and I were present throughout
the trial of the sixteen women in July. Immediately after the
police court judge had pronounced his sentence of sixty days
{159}
in the Occoquan workhouse upon these "first offenders," on the
alleged charge of a traffic violation, I went over to Anne
Martin, one of the women's counsel, and offered to act as
attorney on the appeal of the case. I then went to the court
clerk's office and telephoned to President Wilson at the Whit
House, asking him to see me at once. It was three o'clock. I
called a taxicab, drove direct to the executive offices and met
him.
I began by reminding the President that in the seven years and a
half of our personal and political association we had never had a
serious difference. He was good enough to say that my loyalty to
him bad been one of the happiest circumstances of his public
career. But I told him I had come to place my resignation in his
hands as I could not remain a member of any administration which
dared to send American women to prison for demanding national
suffrage. I also informed him that I had offered to act as
counsel for the suffragists on the appeal of their case. He asked
me for full details of my complaint and attitude. I told Mr.
Wilson everything I had witnessed from the time we saw the
suffragists arrested in front of the White House to their
sentence in the police court. I observed that although we might
not agree with the "manners" of picketing, citizens had a right
to petition the President or any other official of the government
for a redress of grievances. He seemed to acquiesce in this view,
and reminded me that the women had been unmolested at the White
House gates for over five months, adding that he had even ordered
the head usher to invite the women on cold days to come into the
White House and warm themselves and have coffee.
"If the situation is as you describe it, it is shocking," said
the President'. "The manhandling of the women by the police was
outrageous and the entire trial (before a judge of your own
appointment) was a perversion of justice," I said. This seemed to
annoy the President and he replied with asperity, "Why do you
come to me in this indignant fashion for things which have been
done by the police officials of the city of Washington?"
"Mr. President," I said, "the treatment of these women is the
result of carefully laid plans made by the District Com-
{160}
missioners of the city of Washington, who were appointed to
office by you. Newspaper men of unquestioned information and
integrity have told me that the District Commissioners have been
in consultation with your private secretary, Mr. Tumulty, and
that the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. McAdoo, sat in at a
conference when the policy of these arrests was being
determined."
The President asserted his ignorance of all this.
"Do you mean to tell me," he said, "that you intend to resign, to
repudiate me and my Administration and sacrifice me for your
views on this suffrage question?"
His attitude then angered me and I said, "Mr. President, if there
is any sacrifice in this unhappy circumstance, it is I who am
making the sacrifice. I was sent twice as your spokesman in the
last campaign to the Woman Suffrage States of the West. You have
since been good enough to say publicly and privately that I did
as much as any man to carry California for you. After my first
tour I had a long conference with you here at the White House on
the political situation in those states. I told you that I found
your strength with women voters lay in the fact that you had with
great patience and statesmanship kept this country out of the
European war. But that your great weakness with women voters was
that you had not taken any step throughout your entire
Administration to urge the passage of the Federal Suffrage
Amendment, which Mr. Hughes was advocating and which alone can
enfranchise all the women of the nation. You asked me then how I
met this situation, and I told you that I promised the women
voters of the West that if they showed the political sagacity to
choose you as against Mr. Hughes, I would do everything in my
power to get your Administration to take up and pass the suffrage
amendment. You were pleased and approved of what I had done. I
returned to California and repeated this promise, and so far as I
am concerned, I must keep my part of that obligation."
I reiterated to the President my earlier appeal that he assist
suffrage as an urgent war measure and a necessary part of
America's program for world democracy, to which the President
replied: "The enfranchisement of women is not at all necessary to
a program of democracy and I see nothing in
{161}
the argument that it is a war measure unless you mean that
American women will not loyally support the war unless they are
given the vote." I firmly denied this conclusion of the President
and told him that while American women with or without the vote
would support the United States Government against German
militarism, yet it seemed to me a great opportunity of his
leadership to remove this grievance which women generally felt
against him and his administration. "Mr. President," I urged, "if
you, as the leader, will persuade the administration to pass the
Federal Amendment you will release from the suffrage fight the
energies of thousands of women which will be given with redoubled
zeal to the support of your program for international justice."
But the President absolutely refused to admit the validity of my
appeal, though it was as a "war measure" that the President some
months later demanded that the Senate pass the suffrage
amendment.
The President was visibly moved as I added, "You are the
President now, reelected to office. You ask if I am going to
sacrifice you. You sacrifice nothing by my resignation. But I
lose much. I quit a political career. I give up a powerful office
in my own state. I, who have no money, sacrifice a lucrative
salary, and go back to revive my law practice. But most of all I
sever a personal association with you of the deepest affection
which you know has meant much to me these past seven years. But I
cannot and will not remain in office and see women thrown into
jail because they demand their political freedom."
The President earnestly urged me not to resign, saying, "What
will the people of the country think when they hear that the
Collector of the Port of New York has resigned because of an
injustice done to a group of suffragists by the police officials
of the city of Washington?"
My reply to this was, "With all respect for you, Mr. President,
my explanation to the public will not be as difficult as yours,
if I am compelled to remind the public that you have appointed to
office and can remove all the important officials of the city of
Washington."
The President ignored this and insisted that I should not resign,
saying, "I do not question your intense conviction about this
matter as I know you have always been an ardent suf-
{162}
fragist; and since you feel as you do I see no reason why you
should not become their counsel and take this case up on appeal
without resigning from the Administration."
"But," I said, "Mr. President, that arrangement would be
impossible for two reasons; first, these women would not want me
as their counsel if I were a member of your Administration, for
it would appear to the public then as if your Administration was
not responsible for the indignities to which they have been
subjected, and your Administration is responsible; and, secondly,
I cannot accept your suggestion because it may be necessary in
the course of the appeal vigorously to criticize and condemn
members of your cabinet and others close to you, and I could not
adopt this policy while remaining in office under you." The
President seemed greatly upset and finally urged me as a personal
service to him to go at once and perfect the case on appeal for
the suffragists, but not to resign until I had thought it over
for a day, and until he had had an opportunity to investigate the
facts I had presented to him. I agreed to this, and we closed the
interview with the President saying, "If you consider my personal
request and do not resign, please do not leave Washington without
coming to see me." I left the executive offices and never saw him
again.
There was just a day and a half left to perfect the exceptions
for the appeal under the rules of procedure. No stenographic
record of the trial had been taken, which put me under the
greatest legal difficulties. I was in the midst of these
preparations for appeal the next day when I learned to my
surprise that the President had pardoned the women. He had not
even consulted me as their attorney. Moreover, I was amazed that
since the President had said he considered the treatment of the
women "shocking," he had pardoned them without stating that he
did so to correct a grave injustice. I felt certain that the
high-spirited women in the workhouse would refuse to accept the
pardon as a mere "benevolent" act on the part of the President.
I at once went down to the workhouse in Virginia. My opinion was
confirmed. The group refused to accept the President's pardon. I
advised them that as a matter of law no one could compel them to
accept the pardon, but that as a matter of fact they would have
to accept it, for the Attorney
{163}
General would have them all put out of the institution bag and
baggage. So as a solution of the difficulty and in view of the
fact that the President had said to me that their treatment was
"shocking" I made public the following statement:
"The President's pardon is an acknowledgment by him of the grave
injustice that has been done:" This he never denied.
Under this published interpretation of his pardon the women at
Occoquan accepted the pardon and returned to Washington. The
incident was closed. I returned to New York. During the next two
months I carefully watched the situation. Six or eight more
groups of women in that time were arrested on the same false
charges, tried and imprisoned in the same illegal way. Finally a
group of women was arrested in September under the identical
circumstances as those in July, was tried in the same lawless
fashion and given the same sentence of "sixty days in the
workhouse." The President may have been innocent of
responsibility for the first arrests, but he was personally and
politically responsible for all the arrests that occurred after
his pardon of the first, group. Under this development it seemed
to me that self-respect demanded action, so I sent my resignation
to the President, publicly stated my attitude and regretfully
left his Administration."
Mr. Malone's resignation in September, 1917, came with a sudden
shock, because the entire country and surely the Administration
thought him quieted and subdued by the President's personal
appeal to him in July.
Mr. Malone was shocked that the policy of arrests should be
continued. Mr. Wilson and his Administration were shocked that
any one should care enough about the liberty of women to resign a
lucrative post in the Government. The nation was shocked into the
realization that this was not a street brawl between women and
policemen, but a controversy between suffragists and a powerful
Administration. We had said so but it would have taken months to
convince the public that the President was in any way
responsible. Mr. Malone did what we could only have done with the
greatest difficulty and after more pro-
{164}
longed sacrifices. He laid the responsibility squarely and
dramatically where it belonged. It is impossible to overemphasize
what a tremendous acceleration Mr. Malone's fine, solitary and
generous act gave to the speedy break-down of the
Administration's resistance. His sacrifice lightened ours.
Women ought to be willing to make sacrifices for their own
liberation, but for a man to have the courage and imagination to
make such a sacrifice for the liberation of women is
unparalleled. Mr. Malone called to the attention of the nation
the true cause of the obstruction and suppression. He reproached
the President and his colleagues after mature consideration, in
the most honorable and vital way,-by refusing longer to associate
himself with an Administration which backed such policies.
And Mr. Malone's resignation was not only welcomed by the
militant group. The conservative suffrage leaders, although they
heartily disapproved of , picketing, were as outspoken in their
gratitude.
Alice Stone Blackwell, the daughter of Lucy Stone, herself a
pioneer suffrage leader and editor, wrote to Mr. Malone:
"May I express my appreciation and gratitude for the excellent
and manly letter that you have written to President Wilson on
woman suffrage? I am sure that I am only one of many women who
feel thankful to you for it.
"The picketing seems to me a very silly business, and I am sure
it is doing the cause harm instead of good; but the picketers are
being shamefully and illegally treated, and it is a thousand
pities, for President Wilson's own sake, that he ever allowed the
Washington authorities to enter on this course of persecution. It
was high time for some one to make a protest, and you have made
one that has been heard far and wide . . . ."
Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, the President of the National American
Woman Suffrage Association, wrote:
"I was in Maine when your wonderful letter announcing your
resignation came out. It was the noblest act that any man
{165}
ever did on behalf of our cause. The letter itself was a high
minded appeal . . . . "
Mrs. Norman de R. Whitehouse, the President of the New York State
Woman Suffrage Party, with which Mr. Malone had worked for years,
wired:
"Although we disagree with you on the question of picketing every
suffragist must be grateful to you for the gallant support you
are giving our cause and the great sacrifice you are making."
Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw, Vice Chairman of the New York Suffrage
Party, said:
"No words of mine can tell you how our hearts have been lifted
and our purposes strengthened in this tremendous struggle in New
York State by the reading of your powerful and noble utterances
in your letter to President Wilson. There flashed through my mind
all the memories of Knights of chivalry and of romance that I
have ever read, and they all paled before your championship, and
the sacrifice and the high-spirited leadership that it signifies.
Where you lead, I believe, thousands of other men will follow,
even though at a distance, and most inadequately . . . ."
And from the women voters of California with whom Mr. Malone had
kept faith came the message:
"The liberty-loving women of California greet you as one of the
few men in history who have been willing to sacrifice material
interests for the liberty of a class to which they themselves do
not belong. We are thrilled by your inspiring words. We
appreciate your 'sympathetic understanding of the viewpoint of
disfranchised women. We are deeply grateful for the incalculable
benefit of your active assistance in the struggle of American
women for political liberty and for a real Democracy."
I reprint Mr. Malone's letter of resignation which sets forth in
detail his position.
{166}
September 7, 1917.
The President,
The White House,
Washington, D. C.
Dear Mr. President:
Last autumn, as the representative of your Administration, I went
into the woman suffrage states to urge your reelection. The most
difficult argument to meet among the seven million voters was the
failure of the Democratic party, throughout four years of power,
to pass the federal suffrage amendment looking toward the
enfranchisement of all the women of the country. Throughout those
states, and particularly in California, which ultimately decided
the election by the votes of women, the women voters were urged
to support you, even though Judge Hughes had already declared for
the federal suffrage amendment, because you and your party,
through liberal leadership, were more likely nationally to
enfranchise the rest of the women of the country than were your
opponents.
And if the women of the West voted to reelect you, I promised
them that I would spend all my energy, at any sacrifice to
myself, to get the present Democratic Administration to pass the
federal suffrage amendment.
But the present policy of the Administration, in permitting
splendid American women to be sent to jail in Washington, not for
carrying offensive banners, not for picketing, but on the
technical charge of obstructing traffic, is a denial even of
their constitutional right to petition for, and demand the
passage of, the federal suffrage amendment. It, therefore, now
becomes my profound obligation actively to keep my promise to the
women of the West.
In more than twenty states it is a practical impossibility to
amend the state constitutions; so the women of those States can
only be enfranchised by the passage of the federal suffrage
amendment. Since England and Russia, in the midst of the great
war, have assured the national enfranchisement of their women,
should we not be jealous to maintain our democratic leadership in
the world by the speedy national enfranchisement of American
women?
To me, Mr. President, as I urged upon you in Washington two
months ago, this is not only a measure of justice and democracy,
it is also an urgent war measure. The women of
{167}
the nation are, and always will be, loyal to the country, and the
passage of the suffrage amendment is only the first step toward
their national emancipation. But unless the government takes at
least this first step toward their enfranchisement, how can the
government ask millions of American women, educated in our
schools and colleges, and millions of American women, in our
homes, or toiling for economic independence in every line of
industry, to give up by conscription their men and happiness to a
war for democracy in Europe, while these women citizens are
denied the right to vote on the policies of the Government which
demands of them such sacrifice?
For this reason many of your most ardent friends and supporters
feel that the passage of the federal suffrage amendment is a war
measure which could appropriately be urged by you at this session
of Congress. It is true that this amendment would have to come
from Congress, but the present Congress shows no earnest desire
to enact this legislation for the simple reason that you, as the
leader of the party in power, have not yet suggested it.
For the whole country gladly acknowledges, Mr. President, that no
vital piece of legislation has come through Congress these five
years except by your extraordinary and brilliant leadership. And
what millions of men and women to-day hope is that you will give
the federal suffrage amendment to the women of the country by the
valor of your leadership now. It will hearten the mothers of the
nation, eliminate a just grievance, and turn the devoted energies
of brilliant women to a more hearty support of the Government in
this crisis.
As you well know, in dozens of speeches in many states I have
advocated your policies and the war. I was the first man of your
Administration, nearly five years ago, to publicly advocate
preparedness, and helped to found the first Plattsburg training
camp. And if, with our troops mobilizing in France, you will give
American women this measure for their political freedom, they
will support with greater enthusiasm your hope and the hope of
America for world freedom.
I have not approved all the methods recently adopted by women in
pursuit of their political liberty; yet, Mr. President, the
Committee on Suffrage of the United States Senate was formed in
1883, when I was one year old; this same federal
{168}
suffrage amendment was first introduced in Congress in 187'8,
brave women like Susan B. Anthony were petitioning Congress for
the suffrage before the Civil War, and at the time of the Civil
War men like William Lloyd Garrison, Horace Greeley, and Wendell
Phillips assured the suffrage leaders that if they abandoned
their fight for suffrage, when the war was ended the men of the
nation "out of gratitude" would enfranchise the women of the-
country.
And if the men of this country had been peacefully demanding for
over half a century the political right or privilege to vote, and
had been continuously ignored or met with evasion by successive
Congresses, as have the women, you, Mr. President, as a lover of
liberty, would be the first to comprehend and forgive their
inevitable impatience and righteous indignation. Will not this
Administration, reelected to power by the hope and faith of the
women of the West, handsomely reward that faith by taking action
now for the passage of the federal suffrage amendment?
In the Port of New York, during the last four years, billions of
dollars in the export and import trade of the country have been
handled by the men of the customs service; their treatment of the
traveling public has radically changed, their vigilance supplied
the evidence of the Lusitania note; the neutrality was rigidly
maintained; the great German fleet guarded, captured, and
repaired-substantial economies and reforms have been concluded
and my ardent industry has been given to this great office of
your appointment.
But now I wish to leave these finished tasks, to return to my
profession of the law, and to give all my leisure time to fight
as hard for the political freedom of women as I have always
fought for your liberal leadership.
It seems a long seven years, Mr. President, since I first
campaigned with you when you were running for Governor of New
Jersey. In every circumstance throughout those years I have
served you with the most respectful affection and unshadowed
devotion. It is no small sacrifice now for me, as a member of
your Administration, to sever our political relationship. But I
think it is high time that men in this generation, at some cost
to themselves, stood up to battle for the national
enfranchisement of American women. So in order effectively
{169}
to keep my promise made in the West and more freely to go into
this larger field of democratic effort, I hereby resign my office
as Collector of the Port of New York, to take effect at once, or
at your earliest convenience.
Yours respectfully,
(Signed) DUDLEY FIELD MALONE.
The President's answer has never before been published:
U. S. S. MAYFLOWER,
12 September, 1917.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
My dear Mr. Collector:
Your letter of September 7th reached me just before I left home
and I have, I am sorry to say, been unable to reply to it sooner.
I must frankly say that I cannot regard your reasons for
resigning your position as Collector of Customs as convincing,
but it is so evidently your wish to be relieved from the duties
of the office that I do not feel at liberty to withhold my
acceptance of your resignation. Indeed, I judge from your letter
that any discussion of the reasons would not be acceptable to you
and that it is your desire to be free of the restraints of public
office. I, therefore, accept your resignation, to take effect as
you have wished.
I need not say that our long association in public affairs makes
me regret the action you have taken most sincerely.
Very truly yours,
(Signed) WOODROW WILSON.
Hon. Dudley Field Malone,
Collector of Customs,
New York City.
To this Mr. Malone replied:
New York, N.Y.,
September 15th, 1917.
The President,
The White House,
Washington, D. C.
Dear Mr. President:
Thank you sincerely for your courtesy, for I knew you were on a
well-earned holiday and I did not expect an earlier reply to my
letter of September 7th, 1917.
{170}
After a most careful re-reading of my letter, I am unable to
understand how you could judge that any discussion by you of my
reasons for resigning would not be acceptable to me since my
letter was an appeal to you on specific grounds for action now by
the Administration on the Federal Suffrage amendment.
However, I am profoundly grateful to you for your prompt
acceptance of my resignation.
Yours respectfully,
(Signed) DUDLEY FIELD MALONE.
It may have been accidental but it is interesting to note that
the first public statement of Mr. Byron Newton, appointed by the
Administration to succeed Mr. Malone as Collector of the Port of
New York, was a bitter denunciation of all woman suffrage whether
by state or national action.
{171}
Chapter 8
The Administration Yields
Immediately after Mr. Malone's sensational resignation the
Administration sought another way to remove the persistent
pickets without passing the amendment. It yielded on a point of
machinery. It gave us a report in the Senate and a committee in
the House and expected us to be grateful.
The press had turned again to more sympathetic accounts of our
campaign and exposed the prison regime we were undergoing. We
were now for a moment the object of sympathy; the Administration
was the butt of considerable hostility. Sensing their predicament
and fearing any loss of prestige, they risked a slight advance.
Senator Jones, Chairman of the Suffrage Committee, made a visit
to the workhouse. Scarcely had the women recovered from the
surprise of his visit when the Senator, on the following day,
September 15th, filed the favorable report which had been lying
with his Committee since May 15th, exactly six months.
The Report, which he had so long delayed because he wanted [he
said] to make it a particularly brilliant and elaborate one,
read:
"The Committee on Woman Suffrage, to which was referred the
joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of
the United States, conferring upon women the right of suffrage,
having the same under consideration, beg leave to report it back
to the Senate with the recommendation that the joint resolution
do pass."
{172}
This report to the Senate was immediately followed by a vote of
181 to 107 in the House of Representatives in favor of creating a
Committee on Woman Suffrage in the House. This vote was
indicative of the strength of the amendment in the House. The
resolution was sponsored by Representative Pou, Chairman of the
Rules Committee and Administration leader, himself an anti-
suffragist.
It is an interesting study in psychology to consider some of the
statements made in the peculiarly heated debate the day this vote
was taken.
Scores of Congressmen, anxious to refute the idea that the
indomitable picket had had anything to do with their action,
revealed naively how surely it had.
Of the 291 men present, not one man stood squarely up for the
right of the hundreds of women who petitioned for justice. Some
indirectly and many, inadvertently, however, paid eloquent
tribute to the suffrage picket.
From the moment Representative Pou in opening the debate spoke of
the nation-wide request for the committee, and the President's
sanction of the committee, the accusations and counter-
accusations concerning the wisdom of appointing it in the face of
the pickets were many and animated.
Mr. Meeker of Missouri, Democrat, protested against Congress
"yielding to the nagging of a certain group."
Mr. Cantrill of Kentucky, Democrat, believed that "millions of
Christian women in the nation should not be denied the right of
having a Committee in the House to study the problem of suffrage
because of the mistakes of some few of their sisters."
"One had as well say," he went on, "that there should be no
police in Washington because the police force of this city
permitted daily thousands of people to obstruct the streets and
impede traffic and permitted almost the mobbing of the women
without arresting the offenders. There was a lawful and peaceful
way in which the police of this city could have taken charge
{173}
of the banners of the pickets without permitting the women
carrying them to be the objects of mob violence. To see women
roughly handled by rough men on the streets of the capital of the
nation is not a pleasing sight to Kentuckians and to red-blooded
Americans, and let us hope the like will never again be seen
here."
Mr. Walsh, an anti-suffrage Democrat from Massachusetts, deplored
taking any action which would seem to yield to the demand of the
pickets who carried banners which "if used by a poor workingman
in an attempt to get his rights would speedily have put him
behind the bars for treason or sedition, and these poor,
bewildered, deluded creatures, after their disgusting exhibition
can thank their stars that because they wear skirts they are now
incarcerated for misdemeanors of a minor character . . . . To
supinely yield to a certain class of women picketing the gates of
the official residence,-yes, even posing with their short skirts
and their short hair within the view of this `very capitol and
our office buildings,' with banners which would seek to lead the
people to believe that because we did not take action during this
war session upon suffrage, if you please, and grant them the
right of the ballot that we were traitors to the American
Republic, would be monstrous."
The subject of the creation of a committee on suffrage was almost
entirely forgotten. The Congressmen were utterly unable to shake
off the ghosts of the pickets. The pickets had not influenced
their actions! The very idea was appalling to Representative
Stafford of Wisconsin, anti-suffrage Republican, who joined in
the Democratic protests. He said:
"If a Suffrage Committee is created the militant class will
exclaim, `Ah, see how we have driven the great House of
Representatives to recognize our rights. If we keep up this sort
of practices, we will compel the House, when they come to vote on
the constitutional amendment, to surrender obediently likewise'."
{174}
He spoke the truth, and finished dramatically with:
"Gentlemen, there is only one question before the House today and
that is, if you look at it from a political aspect, whether you
wish to approve of the practices of these women who have been
disgracing their cause here in Washington for the past several
months."
Representative Volstead, of Minnesota, Republican, came the
closest of all to real courage in his protest:-
"In this discussion some very unfair comments have been made upon
the women who picketed the White House. While I do not approve of
picketing, I disapprove more strongly of the hoodlum methods
pursued in suppressing the practice. I gather from the press that
this is what took place. Some women did in a peaceable, and
perfectly lawful manner, display suffrage banners on the public
street near the White House. To stop this the police allowed the
women to be mobbed, and then because the mob obstructed the
street, the women were arrested and fined, while the mob went
scot-free . . . ."
The Suffrage Committee in the House was appointed. The creation
of this committee, which had been pending since 1913, was now
finally granted in September, 1917. To be sure this was
accomplished only after an inordinate amount of time, money and
effort had been spent on a sustained and relentless campaign of
pressure. But the Administration had yielded.
As a means to remove the pickets, however, this yielding had
failed. "We ask no more machinery; we demand the passage of the
amendment," said the pickets as they lengthened their line.
{175}
Chapter 9
Political Prisoners
Finding that a Suffrage Committee in the House and a report in
the Senate had not silenced our banners, the Administration cast
about for another plan by which to stop the picketing. This time
they turned desperately to longer terms of imprisonment. They
were indeed hard pressed when they could choose such a cruel and
stupid course.
Our answer to this policy was more women on the picket line, on
the outside, and a protest on the inside of prison.
We decided, in the face of extended imprisonment, to demand to be
treated as political prisoners. We felt that, as a matter of
principle, this was the dignified and self-respecting thing to
do, since we had offended politically, not criminally. We
believed further that a determined, organized effort to make
clear to a wider public the political nature of the offense would
intensify the Administration's embarrassment and so accelerate
their final surrender.
It fell to Lucy Burns, vice chairman of the organization, to be
the leader of the new protest. Miss Burns is in appearance the
very symbol of woman in revolt. Her abundant and glorious red
hair burns and is not consumed-a flaming torch. Her body is
strong and vital. It is said that Lucy Stone had the "voice" of
the pioneers. Lucy Burns without doubt possessed the "voice" of
the modern suffrage movement. Musical, appealing, persuading-she
could move the most resistant person. Her talent as an orator is
of the kind that makes for instant
{176}
intimacy with her audience. Her emotional quality is so powerful
that her intellectual capacity, which is quite as great, is not
always at once perceived.
I find myself wanting to talk about her as a human being rather
than as a leader of women. Perhaps it is because she has such
winning, lovable qualities. It was always difficult for her to
give all of her energy and power to a movement. She yearned to
play, to read, to study, to be luxuriously indolent, to revel in
the companionship of her family, to which she is ardently
devoted; to do any one of a hundred things more pleasant than
trying to reason with a politician or an unawakened member of her
own sex. But for these latter labors she had a most gentle and
persuasive genius, and she would not shrink from hours of close
argument to convince a person intellectually and emotionally.
Unlike Miss Paul, however, her force is not nonresistant. Once in
the combat she takes delight in it; she is by nature a rebel. She
is an ideal leader for the stormy and courageous attack-reckless
and yet never to the point of unwisdom.
From the time Miss Burns and Miss Paul met for the first time in
Cannon Row Police Station, London, they have been constant co-
workers in suffrage. Both were students abroad at the time they
met. They were among the hundred women arrested for attempting to
present petitions for suffrage to Parliament. This was the first
time either of them had participated in a demonstration. But from
then on they worked together in England and Scotland organizing,
speaking, heckling members of the government, campaigning at bye-
elections; going to Holloway Prison together, where they joined
the Englishwomen on hunger strike. Miss Burns remained organizing
in Scotland while Miss Paul was obliged to return to America
after serious illness following a thirty day period of
imprisonment, during all of which time she was forcibly fed.
Miss Burns and she did not meet again until 1913-three
{177}
years having intervened-when they undertook the national work on
Congress. Throughout the entire campaign Miss Burns and Miss Paul
counseled with one another on every point of any importance. This
combination of the cool strategist and passionate rebel-each
sharing some of the attributes of the other-has been a complete
and unsurpassed leadership.
You have now been introduced, most inadequately, to Lucy Burns,
who was to start the fight inside the prison.
She had no sooner begun to organize her comrades for protest than
the officials sensed a "plot," and removed her at once to
solitary confinement. But they were too late. Taking the leader
only hastened the rebellion. A forlorn piece of paper was
discovered, on which was written their initial demand, It was
then passed from prisoner to prisoner through holes in the
wall surrounding leaden pipes, until a finished document had been
perfected and signed by all the prisoners.
This historic document-historic because it represents the first
organized group action ever made in America to establish the
status of political prisoners-said:
To the Commissioners of the Distinct of Columbia:
As political prisoners, we, the undersigned, refuse to work while
in prison. We have taken this stand as a matter of principle
after careful consideration, and from it we shall not recede.
This action is a necessary protest against an unjust sentence. In
reminding President Wilson of his pre-election promises toward
woman suffrage we were exercising the right of peaceful petition,
guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, which
declares peaceful picketing is legal in the District of Columbia.
That we are unjustly sentenced has been well recognized-when
President Wilson pardoned the first group of suffragists who had
been given sixty days in the workhouse, and again when Judge
Mullowny suspended sentence for the last group of picketers. We
wish to point out the inconsistency and injustice of our
sentences-some of us have been given sixty days, a later group
thirty days, and
{178}
another group given a suspended sentence for exactly the same
action.
Conscious, therefore, of having acted in accordance with the
highest standards of citizenship, we ask the Commissioners of the
District to grant us the rights due political prisoners. We ask
that we no longer be segregated and confined under locks and bars
in small groups, but permitted to see each other, and that Miss
Lucy Burns, who is in full sympathy with this letter, be released
from solitary confinement in another building and given back to
us.
We ask exemption from prison work, that our legal right to
consult counsel be recognized, to have food sent to us from
outside, to supply ourselves with writing material for as much
correspondence as we may need, to receive books, letters,
newspapers, our relatives and friends.
Our united demand for political treatment has been delayed,
because on entering the workhouse we found conditions so very bad
that before we could ask that the suffragists be treated as
political prisoners, it was necessary to make a stand for the
ordinary rights of human beings for all the inmates. Although
this has not been accomplished we now wish to bring the important
question of the status of political prisoners to the attention of
the commissioners, who, we are informed, have full authority to
make what regulations they please for the :District prison and
workhouse.
The Commissioners are requested to send us a written reply so
that we may be sure this protest has reached them.
Signed by,
MARY WINSOR, Lucy BRANHAM, ERNESTINE HARA, HILDA BLUMBERG, MAUD
MALONE, PAULINE F. ADAMS, ELEANOR. A. CALNAN, EDITH AINGE, ANNIE
ARNEIL, DOROTHY J. BARTLETT, MARGARET FOTHERINGHAM.
The Commissioners' only answer to this was a hasty transfer of
the signers and the leader, Miss Burns, to the District Jail,
where they were put in solitary confinement. The women were not
only refused the privileges asked but were denied some of the
usual privileges allowed to ordinary criminals.
Generous publicity was given to these reasonable demands,
{179}
and a surprisingly wide-spread protest followed the official
denial of them. Scores of committees went to the District
Commissioners. Telegrams backing up the women's demand again
poured in upon all responsible administrators, from President
Wilson down. Not even foreign diplomats escaped protest or
appeal.
Miss Vera Samarodin sent to the Russian Ambassador the following
touching letter, concerning her sister, which is translated from
the Russian:-
The Russian Ambassador,
Washington, D.C.
Excellency:
I am appealing to you to help a young Russian girl imprisoned in
the workhouse near Washington. Her name is Nina Samarodin. I have
just come from one of the two monthly visits I am allowed to make
her, as a member of her family.
The severity and cruelty of the treatment she is receiving at
Occoquan are so much greater than she would have to suffer in
Russia for the simple political offense she is accused of having
committed that I hope you will be able to intercede with the
officials of this country for her.
Her offense, aside from the fact that she infringed no law nor
disturbed the peace, had only a political aim, and was proved to
be political by the words of the judge who sentenced her, for he
declared that because of the innocent inscription on her banner
he would make her sentence light.
Since her imprisonment she has been forced to wear the dress of a
criminal, which she would not in Russia; she has had to eat only
the coarse and unpalatable food served the criminal inmates, and
has not been allowed, as she would in Russia, to have other food
brought to her; nor has she, as she would be there been under the
daily care of a physician. She is not permitted to write letters,
nor to have free access to books and other implements of study.
Nina Samarodin has visibly lost in weight and strength since her
imprisonment, and she has a constant headache from hunger.
Her motive in holding the banner by the White House, I
{180}
feel, cannot but appeal to you, Excellency, for she says it was
the knowledge that her family were fighting in Russia in this
great war for democracy, and that she was cut off from serving
with them that made her desire to do what she could to help the
women of this nation achieve the freedom her own people have.
Will you, if it is within your power, attempt to have her
recognized as a political prisoner, and relieve the severity of
the treatment she is receiving for obeying this impulse born of
her love of liberty and the dictates of her conscience?
I have, Excellency, the honor to be,
Respectfully, your countrywoman,
(Signed) VERA SAMARODIN,
Baltimore, Maryland.
Another Russian, Maria Moravsky, author and poet, who had herself
been imprisoned in Czarist Russia and who was touring America at
the time of this controversy, expressed her surprise that our
suffrage prisoners should be treated as common criminals. She
wrote:[1] "I have been twice in the Russian prison; life in the
solitary cell was not sweet; but I can assure you it was better
than that which American women suffragists must bear.
"We were permitted to read and write; we wore our own clothes; we
were not forced to mix with the criminals; we did no work. (Only
a few women exiled to Siberia for extremely serious political
crimes were compelled to work.) And our guardians and even judges
respected us; they felt we were victims, because we struggled for
liberty."
The Commissioners, who bad to bear the responsibility of an
answer to these protests and to the demand of the prisoners,
contended to all alike that political prisoners did not exist.
"We shall be happy to establish a precedent," said the women.
"But in America," stammered the Commissioners, "there is no need
for such a thing as political prisoners."
[1]Reprinted from The Suffragist, Feb. 8, 1919.
{181}
"The very fact that we can be sentenced to such long terms for a
political offense shows that there does exist, in fact, a group
of people who have come into conflict with state power for
dissenting from the prevailing political system," our
representatives answered.
We cited definitions of political offenses by eminent
criminologists, penologists, sociologists, statesmen and
historians. We declared that all authorities on political crime
sustained our contention and that we clearly came under the
category of political, if any crime. We pointed as proof to James
Bryce, George Sigerson, Maurice Parmelee and even to Clemenceau,
who defined the distinction between political offenses and common
law crimes thus: " . . . theoretically a crime committed in the
interest of the criminal is a common law crime, while an offense
committed in the public interest is a political crime."[1]
We called to their attention the established custom of special
treatment of political prisoners in Russia, France, Italy and
even Turkey.[2]
We told them that as early as 18'72 the International Prison
Congress meeting in London recommended a distinction in the
treatment of political and common law criminals and the
resolution of recommendation was "agreed upon by the
representatives of all the Powers of Europe and America-with the
tacit concurrence of British and Irish officials."[3]
Mr. John Koren, International Prison Commissioner[4] for the
United States, was throughout this agitation making a study of
this very problem. As chairman of a Special Commit-
[1]Speech before the French Chamber of Deputies May 16, 1876,
advocating amnesty for those who participated in the Commune of
1871. From the Annales de la Chambre des Deputes, 1876, v. 2, pp.
44-48.
[2]Those interested in the question of political prisoners and
their treatment abroad may want to read Concerning Political
Prisoners, Appendix 6.
[3]Siegerson, Political Prisoners at Home and Abroad, p. 10.
[4]Appointed and sponsored by the Department of State as delegate
to the International Prison Congress.
{182}
tee of the American Prison Association, empowered to investi-
gate the problem of political prisoners for America, he made a
report at the annual meeting of the American Prison Associ-
ation in New York, October, 1919, entitled "The Political Of
fenders and their Status in Prison"[1] in which he says:
"The political offender . . . must be measured by a different
rule, and . . . is a creature of extraordinary and temporary
conditions . . . .
"There are times in which the tactics used in the pursuit of
political recognition may result in a technical violation of the
law for which imprisonment ensues, as witness the suffragist
cases in Washington . . . . These militants were completely out
of place in a workhouse, . . . they could not be made to submit
to discipline fashioned to meet the needs of the derelicts of
society, and . . . they therefore destroyed it for the entire
institution."
There was no doubt in the official mind but that our claim was
just. But the Administration would not grant this demand, as
such, of political prisoners. It must continue to persuade public
opinion that our offense was not of a political nature; that it
was nothing more than unpleasant and unfortunate riotous conduct
in the capital. The legend of "a few slightly mad women seeking
notoriety" must be sustained. Our demand was never granted, but
it was kept up until the last imprisonment and was soon
reinforced by additional protest tactics. Our suffrage prisoners,
however, made an important contribution toward establishing this
reform which others will consummate. They were the first in
America to organize and sustain this demand over a long period of
time. In America we maintain a most backward policy in dealing
with political prisoners. We have neither regulation nor
precedent for special treatment of them. Nor have we official
flexibility.
[1]Mr. Koren discusses the political offender from the
penological, not the social, point of view.
{183}
This controversy was at its height in the press and in the public
mind when President Wilson sent the following message, through a
New York State suffrage leader, on behalf of the approaching New
York referendum on state woman suffrage:
"May I not express to you my very deep interest in the campaign
in New York for the adoption of woman suffrage, and may I not say
that I hope no voter will be influenced in his decision with
regard to the great matter by anything the so-called pickets may
have done here in Washington. However justly they may have laid
themselves open to serious criticism, their action represents, I
am sure, so small a fraction of the women of the country who are
urging the adoption of woman suffrage that it would be most
unfair and argue a narrow view to allow their actions to
prejudice the cause itself. I am very anxious to see the great
state of New York set a great example in this matter."
This statement showed a political appreciation of the growing
power of the movement. Also it would be difficult to prove that
the "small fraction" had not shown political wisdom in injecting
into the campaign the embarrassment of a controversy which was
followed by the above statement of *the President. In the
meantime he continued to imprison in Washington the "so-called
pickets" whom he hoped would not influence the decision of the
men voters of New York. It will be remembered, in passing, that
the New York voters adopted suffrage at this time, although they
had rejected it two years earlier. If the voters of New York were
influenced at all by the "so-called pickets," could even
President Wilson himself satisfactorily prove that it had been an
adverse influence?
{184}
Chapter 10
The Hunger Strike-A Weapon
When the Administration refused to grant the demand of the
prisoners and of that portion of the public which supported them,
for the rights of political prisoners, it was decided to resort
to the ultimate protest-weapon inside prison. A hunger strike was
undertaken, not only to reinforce the verbal demand for the
rights of political prisoners, but also as a final protest
against unjust imprisonment and increasingly long sentences. This
brought the Administration face to face with a more acute
embarrassment. They had to choose between more stubborn
resistance and capitulation: They continued for a while longer on
the former path.
Little is known in this country about the weapon of the hunger
strike. And so at first it aroused tremendous indignation. "Let
them starve to death," said the thoughtless one, who did not
perceive that that was the very thing a political administration
could least afford to do. "Mad fanatics," said a kindlier critic.
The general opinion was that the hunger strike was "foolish."
Few people realize that this resort to the refusal of food is
almost as old as civilization. It has always represented a
passionate desire to achieve an end. There is not time to go into
the religious use of it, which would also be pertinent, but I
will cite a few instances which have tragic and amusing
likenesses to the suffrage hunger strike.
According to the Brehon Law,[1] which was the code of
[1]Joyce, A Social History of Ancient Ireland, Vol. I, Chapter
VIII.
{185}
ancient Ireland by which justice was administered under ancient
Irish monarchs (from the earliest record to the 17th century), it
became the duty of an injured person, when all else failed, to
inflict punishment directly, for wrong done. "The plaintiff
`fasted on' the defendant." He went to the house of the defendant
and sat upon his doorstep, remaining there without food to force
the payment of a debt, for example. The debtor was compelled by
the weight of custom and public opinion not to let the plaintiff
die at his door, and yielded. Or if he did not yield, he was
practically outlawed by the community, to the point of being
driven away. A man who refused to abide by the custom not only
incurred personal danger but lost all character.
If resistance to this form of protest was resorted to it had to
take the form of a counter-fast. If the victim of such a protest
thought himself being unjustly coerced, he might fast in
opposition, "to mitigate or avert the evil."
"Fasting on a man" was also a mode of compelling action of
another sort. St. Patrick fasted against King Trian to compel him
to have compassion on his [Trian's] slaves.[1] He also fasted
against a heretical city to compel it to become orthodox.[2] He
fasted against the pagan King Loeguire to "constrain him to his
will."[3]
This form of hunger strike was further used under the Brehon Law
as compulsion to obtain a request. For example, the Leinstermen
on one occasion fasted on St. Columkille till they obtained from
him the promise that an extern King should never prevail against
them.
It is interesting to note that this form of direct action was
adopted because there was no legislative machinery to enforce
justice. These laws were merely a collection of customs attaining
the force of law by long usage, by hereditary habit, and by
[1]Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, CLXXVII, p. 218.
[2]Ibid. CLXXVII, p. 418.
[3]Ibid. CLXXVII, p. 556.
{186}
public opinion. Our resort to this weapon grew out of the same
situation. The legislative machinery, while empowered to give us
redress, failed to function, and so we adopted the fast.
The institution of fasting on a debtor still exists in the East.
It is called by the Hindoos "sitting dharna."
The hunger strike was continuously used in Russia by prisoners to
obtain more humane practices toward them. Kropotkin 1 cites an
instance in which women prisoners hunger struck to get their
babies back. If a child was born to a woman during her
imprisonment the babe was immediately taken from her and not
returned. Mothers struck and got their babies returned to them.
He cites another successful example in Rharkoff prison in 1878
when six prisoners resolved to hunger strike to death if
necessary to win two things-to be allowed exercise and to have
the sick prisoners taken out of chains.
There are innumerable instances of hunger strikes, even to death,
in Russian prison history. But more often the demands of the
strikers were won.. Breshkovsky[2] tells of a strike by 17 women
against outrage, which elicited the desired promises from the
warden.
As early as 1877 members of the Land and Liberty Society s
imprisoned for peaceful and educational propaganda, in the
Schlusselburg Fortress for political prisoners, hunger struck
against inhuman prison conditions and frightful brutalities and
won their points.
During the suffrage campaign in England this weapon was used for
the double purpose of forcing the release of imprisoned militant
suffragettes, and of compelling the British government to act.
Among the demonstrations was a revival of the ancient Irish
[1]See In Russian and French Prisons, P. Kropotkin.
[2]For Russia's Freedom, by Ernest Poole,-An Interview with
Breshkovsky.
[3]See The Russian Bastille, Simon O. Pollock.
{187}
custom by Sylvia Pankhurst, who in addition to her hunger strikes
within prison, "fasted on" the doorstep of Premier Asquith to
compel him to see a deputation of women on the granting of
suffrage to English women. She won.
Irish prisoners have revived the hunger strike to compel either
release or trial of untried prisoners and have Lyon. As I write,
almost a hundred Irish prisoners detained by England for alleged
nationalist activities, but not brought to trial, hunger struck
to freedom. As a direct result of this specific hunger strike
England has promised a renovation of her practices in dealing
with Irish rebels.
And so it was that when we came to the adoption of this
accelerating tactic, we had behind us more precedents for winning
our point than for losing. We were strong in the knowledge that
we could "fast on" President Wilson and his powerful
Administration, and compel him to act or "fast back."
Among the prisoners who with Alice Paul led the hunger strike was
a very picturesque figure, Rose Winslow (Ruza Wenclawska) of New
York, whose parents had brought her in infancy from Poland to
become a citizen of "free" America. At eleven she was put at a
loom in a Pennsylvania mill, where she wove hosiery for fourteen
hours a day until tuberculosis claimed her at nineteen. A poet by
nature she developed her mind to the full in spite of these
disadvantages, and when she was forced to abandon her loom she
became an organizer for the Consumers' League, and later a vivid
and eloquent power in the suffrage movement.
Her group preceded Miss Paul's by about a week in prison.
These vivid sketches of Rose Winslow's impressions while in the
prison hospital were written on tiny scraps of paper and smuggled
out to us, and to her husband during her imprisonment. I reprint
them in their original form with cuts but no editing.
{188}
"If this thing is necessary we will naturally go through with it.
Force is so stupid a weapon. I feel so happy doing my bit for
decency-for our war, which is after all, real and fundamental."
"The women are all so magnificent, so beautiful. Alice Paul is as
thin as ever, pale and large-eyed. We have been in solitary for
five weeks. There is nothing to tell but that the days go by
somehow. I have felt quite feeble the last few days faint, so
that I could hardly get my hair brushed, my arms ached so. But
to-day I am well again. Alice Paul and I talk back and forth
though we are at opposite ends of the building and, a hall door
also shuts us apart. But occasionally thrills-we escape from
behind our iron-barred doors and visit. Great laughter and
rejoicing!"
To her husband:
"My fainting probably means nothing except that I am not strong
after these weeks. I know you won't be alarmed.
“I told about a syphilitic colored woman with one leg. The other
one cut off, having rotted so that it was alive with maggots when
she came in. The remaining one is now getting as bad. They are so
short of nurses that a little colored girl of twelve, who is here
waiting to have her tonsils removed, waits on her. This child and
two others share a ward with a syphilitic child of three or four
years, whose mother refused to have it at home. It makes you
absolutely ill to see it. I am going to break all three windows
as a protest against their confining Alice Paul with these!
"Dr. Gannon is chief of a hospital. Yet Alice Paul and I found we
had been taking baths in one of the tubs here, in which this
syphilitic child, an incurable, who has his eyes bandaged all the
time, is also bathed. He has been here a year. Into the room
where he lives came yesterday two children to be
{189}
operated on for tonsillitis. They also bathed in the same tub.
The syphilitic woman has been in that room seven months. Cheerful
mixing, isn't it? The place is alive with roaches, crawling all
over the walls, everywhere. I found one in my bed the other day .
. . ."
"There is great excitement about my two syphilitics. Each nurse
is being asked whether she told me. So, as in all institutions
where an unsanitary fact is made public, no effort is made to
make the wrong itself right. All hands fall to, to find the
culprit, who made it known, and he is punished."
"Alice Paul is in the psychopathic ward. She dreaded forcible
feeding frightfully, and I hate to think how she must be feeling.
I had a nervous time of it, gasping a long time afterward, and my
stomach rejecting during the process. I spent a bad, restless
night, but otherwise I am all right. The poor soul who fed me got
liberally besprinkled during the process. I heard myself making
the most hideous sounds . . . . One feels so forsaken when one
lies prone and people shove a pipe down one's stomach."
'
"This morning but for an astounding tiredness, I am all right. I
am waiting to see what happens when the President realizes that
brutal bullying isn't quite a statesmanlike method for settling a
demand for justice at home. At least, if men are supine enough to
endure, women-to their eternal glory-are not.
"They took down the boarding from Alice Paul's window yesterday,
I heard. It is so delicious about Alice and me. Over in the jail
a rumor began that I was considered insane and would be examined.
Then came Doctor White, and said he had come to see 'the thyroid
case.' When they left we argued about the matter, neither of us
knowing which was considered `suspi-
{190}
cious.' She insisted it was she, and, as it happened, she was
right. Imagine any one thinking Alice Paul needed to be `under
observation!' The thick-headed idiots!"
"Yesterday was a bad day for me in feeding. I was vomiting
continually during the process. The tube has developed an
irritation somewhere that is painful.
"Never was there a sentence[1] like ours for such an offense as
ours, even in England. No woman ever got it over there even for
tearing down buildings. And during all that agitation we were
busy saying that never would such things happen in the United
States. The men told us they would not endure such
frightfulness."
"Mary Beard and Helen Todd were allowed to stay only a minute,
and I cried like a fool. I am getting over that habit, I think.
"I fainted again last night. I just fell flop over in the
bathroom where I was washing my hands and was led to bed when I
recovered, by a nurse. I lost. consciousness just as I got there
again. I felt horribly faint until 12 o'clock, then fell asleep
for awhile."
"I was getting frantic because you seemed to think Alice was with
me in the hospital. She was in the psychopathic ward. The same
doctor feeds us both, and told me. Don't let them tell you we
take this well. Miss Paul vomits much. I do, too, except when I'm
not nervous, as I have been every time against my will. I try to
be less feeble-minded. It's the nervous reaction, and I can't
control it much. I don't imagine bathing one's food in tears very
good for one.
"We think of the coming feeding all day. It is horrible.
[1]Sentence of seven months for "obstructing traffic."
{191}
The doctor thinks I take it well. I hate the thought of Alice
Paul and the others if I take it well."
"We still get no mail; we are `insubordinate.' It's strange,
isn't it; if you ask for food fit to eat, as we did, you are
`insubordinate'; and if you refuse food you are `insubordinate.'
Amusing. I am really all right. If this continues very long I
perhaps won't be. I am interested to see how long our so-called
`splendid American men' will stand for this form of discipline.
"All news cheers one marvelously because it is hard to feel
anything but a bit desolate and forgotten here in this place.
"All the officers here know we are making this hunger strike that
women fighting for liberty may be considered political prisoners;
we have told them. God knows we don't want other women ever to
have to do this over again."
There have been sporadic and isolated cases of hunger strikes in
this country but to my knowledge ours was the first to be
organized and sustained over a long period of time. We shall see
in subsequent chapters how effective this weapon was.
{192}
Chapter 11
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. Cyn-
thia Cohen, Miss M. Tilden Burritt, Miss Dorothy Day, Mrs.
Henry Butterworth, Miss Cora Week, Mrs. P. B. Johns, Miss
{193}
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
{194}
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
{195}
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
{196}
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;
{197}
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."
{198}
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
Back to Full Books
|