 Section 14 of Jailed for Freedom. In August 1917, when it was clear that the policy of imprisoning suffragists would be continued indefinitely and under longer sentences, the next three groups of pickets to be arrested asked for a decision from the highest court, the District Court of Appeals. Unlike other police courts in the country, there is no absolute right of appeal from the police court of the District of Columbia. Justice Robb of the District Court of Appeals, after granting two appeals refused to grant any more upon the ground that he had discretionary power to grant or withhold an appeal. When further right of appeal was denied us, and when the administration persisted in arresting us, we were compelled either to stop picketing or go to prison. The first appealed case was heard by the Court of Appeals on January 8, 1918, and the decision, footnote, C. Hunter v. District of Columbia, 47, App Cass, D.C., page 406, and a footnote, handed down in favor of the defendants on March 4, 1918. This decision was concurred in by all three judges, one of whom was appointed by President Wilson, a second by President Roosevelt, and the third by President Taft. In effect, the decision declared that every one of the 218 suffragists arrested up to that time was illegally arrested, illegally convicted, and illegally imprisoned. The whole policy of the administration in arresting women was by this decision held up to the world as lawless. The women could, if they had chosen, have filed suits for damages, for false arrest and imprisonment at once. The appeal cases of the other pickets were ordered dismissed and stricken from the records. Dudley Field Malone was chief counsel in the appeal. Another example of ethical, if not legal, lawlessness was shown by the administration in the following incident. Throughout the summer and early autumn we had continued to press for an investigation of conditions at Alcoquan, promised almost four months earlier. October 2nd was the date finally set for an investigation to be held in the District Building before the District Board of Charities. Armed with 18 affidavits and a score of witnesses as to the actual conditions at Alcoquan, Attorney Samuel C. Brent and Judge J. K. N. Norton, both of Alexandria, Virginia, acting as counsel with Mr. Malone, appeared before the board on the opening day and asked to be allowed to present their evidence. They were told by the board conducting the investigation that this was merely, quote, an inquiry into the workhouse conditions and therefore would be held a secret without reporters or outsiders present, unquote. The attorneys demanded a public hearing and insisted that the question was of such momentous importance that the public was entitled to hear both sides of it. They were told they might submit in writing any evidence they wished to bring before the board. They refused to produce testimony for a star chamber proceeding and refused to allow their witnesses to be heard unless they could be heard in public. Unable to get a public hearing, counsel left the following letter with the president of the board. Honorable John Joy Edson, President Board of Charities, Washington, D.C. Dear sir, we are counsel for a large group of citizens, men and women who have in the past been associated with Alcoquan workhouse as officials or inmates and who are ready to testify to unspeakable conditions of mismanagement, graft, sanitary depravity, indignity, and brutality at the institution. We are glad you are to conduct this long-needed inquiry and shall cooperate in every way to get at the truth of conditions in Alcoquan through your investigation, provided you make the hearings public, subpoena all available witnesses, including men and women now prisoners at Alcoquan, first granting them immunity, and provided you give counsel an opportunity to examine and cross-examine all witnesses so-called. We are confident your honorable board will see the justice and wisdom of a public inquiry. If charges so publicly made or untrue, the management of Alcoquan workhouse is entitled to public vindication, and if these charges are true, the people of Washington and Virginia should publicly know what kind of a prison they have in their midst, and the people of the country should publicly know the frightful conditions in this institution, which is supported by Congress and the government of the United States. We are ready with our witnesses and affidavits to aid your honorable board in every way, provided you meet the conditions above named. But if you insist on hearing behind closed doors, we cannot submit our witnesses to a star chamber proceeding, and shall readily find another forum in which to tell the American public the vivid story of the Alcoquan workhouse. Respectfully yours, signed Dudley Field Malone, J. K. N. Samuel G. Brent. Subsequently, the District Board of Charities reported findings on their secret investigation, after a lengthy preamble in which they attempted to put the entire blame upon the suffrage prisoners they advised, that the investigation directed by the commissioners of the District of Columbia be postponed until the conditions of unrest, excitement, and disquiet at Alcoquan have been overcome, that the order relieving W. H. Whitaker as superintendent, temporarily and without prejudice be revoked, and Mr. Whitaker be restored to his position as superintendent. Footnote, pending the investigation, Mr. Whitaker was suspended, and his first assistant, Alonzo Tweedale, served in the capacity of superintendent. And a footnote, that the members of the National Woman's Party now at Alcoquan be informed that unless they obey the rules of the institution and discontinue their acts of insubordination and riot, they will be removed from Alcoquan to the city jail and placed in solitary confinement. In announcing the report to the press, the District Commissioners stated that they approved the recommendations of the Board of Charities after most careful consideration, and that, as a matter of fact, the District Workhouse at Alcoquan is an institution of which the commissioners are proud, and is a source of pride to every citizen of the nation's capital. That the administration was in possession of the true facts concerning Mr. Whitaker and his conduct in office, there can be no doubt, but they supported him until the end of their campaign of suppression. Another example of the administration's lawlessness appeared in the habeas corpus proceedings by which we rescued the prisoners at the workhouse from Mr. Whitaker's custody. The trial occurred on November twenty-third. No one present can ever forget the tragic comic scene enacted in the little Virginia courtroom that cold dark November morning. There was Judge Waddell, footnote, appointed to the bench by President Roosevelt, and a footnote, who had adjourned his sittings in Norfolk to hasten the relief of the prisoners, a mild-mannered, sweet-voice southern gentleman. There was Superintendent Whitaker in his best Sunday clothes, which mitigated very little the cruel and nervous demeanor which no one who has come under his control will ever forget. His thugs were there, also dressed in their best clothes, which only exaggerated their coarse features and their shifty eyes. Mrs. Herndon, the thin-lipped matron, was there, looking nervous, and trying to seem concerned about the prisoners in her charge. Warden Zinkin was there, seeming worried at the prospect of the prisoners being taken from the care of Superintendent Whitaker, and committed to him, he evidently unwilling to accept the responsibility. Dudley Field Malone and Mr. O'Brien of Council, belligerent in every nerve, were ready to try the case. The two dapper government attorneys, within mobile faces, twisted nervously in their chairs. There was the bevy of newspaper reporters struggling for places in the little courtroom, plainly sympathetic for whatever they've had to write for the papers. They knew that this was a battle for justice against uneven odds. There were as many eager spectators as could be crowded into so small an area. Upon the whole, an air of friendliness prevailed in this little court of Alexandria, which we had never felt in the Washington courts. And the people there experienced a shock when the slender file of women, haggard, red-eyed, sick, came to the bar. Some were able to walk to their seats. Others were so weak that they had to be stretched out on the wooden benches, with coats propped under their heads for pillows. Still others bore the marks of the attack of the night of terror. Many of the prisoners lay back in their chairs, hardly conscious of the proceedings which were to free them. Mrs. Brannon collapsed unerly and had to be carried to a couch in an anti-room. It was discovered, just as the trial was to open, that Miss Lucy Byrds and Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, who it will be remembered had been removed to the jail before the writ had been issued, were absent from among the prisoners. They are too ill to be brought into court, Mr. Whitaker replied to the attorneys for the defense. We demand that they be brought into court at our risk, answered counsel for the defense. The government's attorneys sustained Mr. Whitaker in not producing them. It was clear that the government did not wish to have Miss Burns with the marks still fresh on her wrists from her manickling and handcuffing, and Mrs. Lewis with a fever from the shock of the first night, brought before the judge who was to decide the case. If it was necessary to handcuff Miss Burns to the bars of her cell, we consider her well enough to appear, declared Mr. O'Brien. We consider we ought to know what has happened to all of these petitioners since these events. While I was at Occoquan Sunday, endeavouring to see my clients, Mr. Whitaker was trying to induce the ladies, who, he says, are too sick to be brought here, to dismiss this proceeding. Failing in that, he refused to let me see them, though I had an order from Judge Maloney, and they were taken back to the District of Columbia. From that time to this, though I had your Honour's Order, which you signed in Norfolk, the Superintendent of the Washington Jail also refused to allow me to see my clients, saying that your order had no effect in the District of Columbia. If there are any petitioners that you claim have not been brought here, because they have been carried beyond the jurisdiction of the courts, I think we should know it, ruled the court. Council for these ladies want them here, and they say that they ought to be here and are well enough to be here, that the respondent here has spirited them away and put them beyond the jurisdiction of the court. On that showing, unless there is some reason why they ought not to come, they should be here. Miss Burns and Mrs. Luz were accordingly ordered brought to court. This preliminary skirmish over, the opening discussion revolved about a point of law as to whether the Virginia District Court had authority to act in this case. After hearing both sides on this point, Judge Waddle said, These are not state prisoners. They are the prisoners of the District of Columbia. They are held by an order of the court claiming to have jurisdiction in the District of Columbia. But they are imprisoned in the Eastern District of Virginia in Occoquan Workhouse, which, very much to our regret, is down here, and is an institution that we alone have jurisdiction over. No court would fail to act when such a state of affairs as a set forth in this petition is brought to its attention. Here was the case concerning 25 or 30 ladies. The statement as to their treatment was blood curdling. It was shocking to man's idea of humanity if it is true. They are here in court and yet your answer denies all these facts which they submit. It is a question whether you can do that yet deny these prisoners the right of testimony. Proceeding with this argument, the defense contended that the act itself of the District Commissioners in sending prisoners to the Occoquan Workhouse was illegal, that no formal transfer from one institution to the other had ever been made. The sentencing papers distinctly stating that all prisoners were committed to the Washington Asylum and Jail. We deny that the records of the commissioners of the District of Columbia can show that there was any order made by the board for the removal of these women. The liberty of a citizen cannot be so disregarded and trifled with that any police official or jailer may add his own volition, commit and hold him in custody and compel him to work. The liberty of the people depends on a broader foundation. Repeated questions brought out from Mr. Zinkin, warden of the jail, the fact that the directions given by the commissioners to transfer prisoners from the jail to Occoquan rested entirely upon a verbal order given five or six years ago. Do you really mean, interrupted the court, that the only authority you have on the part of the commissioners of the District of Columbia to transfer parties down to Occoquan is a verbal order made five or six years ago? Questions by the defense brought out the fact also that Mr. Zinkin could remember in detail the first oral orders he had received for such a transfer dating back to 1911, although he could not remember important details as to how he had received the orders concerning the suffragists committed to his care. He only knew that orders were oral and explicit. Question by defense in court. You say the three commissioners were present? Sure. Who else was present? I am not sure just now who else was present. I remember somebody else was there, but I don't remember just who. Were the three commissioners present at the time Mr. Brownlow gave you this order? Yes. You say it was a verbal order of the commissioners. Yes. Was the clerk of the board present? I think not. And you cannot remember who was present aside from the three commissioners. No, I cannot remember just now. Try to recollect who was present at that meeting when this order was given aside from the commissioners. There was somebody else present? It is my impression that there was some one other person present, but I am not sure just now who it was. It was some official, someone well known, was it not? I am not sure. This conference was one in which Mr. McAdoo was reported to have participated. The gentle judge was distressed when an answer to a question by the government's attorney as to what Mr. Zinkin did when the prisoners were given into his charge. The warden replied, I heard early in the afternoon of the sentence and I did not get away from the commissioners meeting until nearly four o'clock and I jumped in my machine and went down to the jail and I think at that time six of them had been delivered there and were in the rotunda of the jail and a few minutes after that a van load came. The remaining number of ten or twelve had not arrived, but in as much as the train had to leave at five o'clock and there would not be time enough to receive them in the jail and get them there in time for the train. I took the van that was there right over to the east end of the union station and I think I took some of the others in my machine and another machine we had there carried some of the others over and we telephoned the other van at police court to go direct to the east end of the union station and to deliver them to me. I had, of course, the commitments of those that were brought up to the jail, about twenty of them, and received from the officer of the court the other commitments of the last van load and there I turned all of them except one that I kept back over to the receiving and discharging officer representing the district workhouse and they were taken down there that evening. There followed some questioning of the uneasy warden as to how he used this power to decide which prisoners should remain in jail and which should be sent to Akaquan. Warden Zinkan stuttered something about sending all the able-bodied prisoners to Akaquan women able to perform useful work and that humanitarian motives usually guided him in his selection. It was a difficult task for the warden for he had to conceal just why the suffrage prisoners were sent to Akaquan and in doing so had to invent motives of his own. Question by defense. Mr. Zinkan were you or were you not actuated by humanitarian motives when you sent this group of women to the Akaquan workhouse? Yes. Were you actuated by humanitarian motives when you sent Mrs. Nolan a woman of 73 years to the workhouse? Did you think that she could perform some service at Akaquan that it was necessary to get her out of district jail and go down there? Warden Zinkan gazed at the ceiling shifted in his chair and hesitated to answer. The question was repeated and finally the warden admitted uncomfortably that he believed he was inspired by humanitarian motives. Mrs. Nolan, will you please stand up? called out Mr. Malone. All eyes turned toward the front row where Mrs. Nolan slowly got to her feet. The tiny figure of a woman with pale face and snowy hair standing out dramatically against her black bonnet and plain black dress was answer enough. Warden Zinkan's answers after that came out even more haltingly. He seemed inordinately fearful of trapping himself by his own words. The testimony has brought out the fact, the judge remarked at this point, that two of these ladies were old and one of them is a delicate lady. Her appearance would indicate that she is not strong. Under this rule if one of these ladies had been 80 years old and unable to walk, she would have gone along with the herd and nobody would have dared to say, ought this to be done? Would the commissioners in a case of that sort, if they gave consideration to it, think of sending such an individual there? Was not that what the law expected them to do and not take them off in droves and inspect them at the union station and shoot them on down? Yes that is about what was done in this case. In summing up this phase of the case in an eloquent appeal Mr. Malone said, can the commissioners with caprice and no order and no record accept that orally given five or six years ago, and one which this warden now says was given oral and explicit, transfer defendants placed in a particular institution and under a particular kind of punishment arbitrarily to another institution and add to their punishment? Even if we admit that commissioners had power, did Congress ever contemplate that any district commissioners would dare to exercise power affecting the life and health of defendants in this fashion? Did Congress ever contemplate that by mere whim, these things could be done? I am sure it did not, and even on the admission of the government that they had this power they have exercised this power in such a scandalous fashion that it is worthy of the notice of the court and worthy of the remedy which we seek. The removal of the suffrage prisoners from the aquaquan workhouse. After a brief recess, Judge Waddell rendered this decision. The locking up of 30 human beings is an unusual sort of thing, and judicial officers ought to be required to stop long enough to see whether some prisoners ought to go and some not, whether some might not be killed by going, or whether they should go dead or alive. This class of prisoners and this number of prisoners should have been given special consideration. There cannot be any controversy about this question. You ought to lawfully lock them up instead of unlawfully locking them up if they are to be locked up. The petitioners are therefore one and all in the workhouse without semblance of authority or legal process of any kind, and they will accordingly be remanded to the custody of the superintendent of the Washington Asylum and Jail. It having then decided that the prisoners were illegally detained in the workhouse, it was not necessary to go into the discussion of the cruelties committed upon the prisoners while there. The government's attorneys immediately announced that they would appeal from the decision of Judge Waddell. Pending such an appeal, the women were at liberty to be paroled in the custody of counsel, but since they had come from the far corners of the continent, and since some of them had served out almost half of their sentence and did not wish in case of an adverse decision on the appeal to have to return later to undergo the rest of their sentence, they preferred to finish their sentences. These were the workhouse prisoners thus remanded to the jail, who continued the hunger strike undertaken at the workhouse, and made a redoubtable reinforcement to Alice Paul and Rose Winslow and their comrades on strike in the jail when the former arrived. Part 3 Chapter 14 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 of the prisoners were unconditionally released on November twenty-seventh and November twenty-eighth. 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 nationwide proportions had been made against continuing to imprison women. Deputations of influential 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 history. 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 today 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 spirit 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 attendance, whose chief is at a predicament from which they seemed 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 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 Women'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 totaled $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 that 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 Zinkin, against Superintendent Whitaker and Captain Reames, a workhouse guard. Footnote, we were obliged to bring the suits against individuals as we could not in the law bring them against the government. End of footnote. They were broad and 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 who suffered the greatest abuse during the Night of Terror at the workhouse. If anyone 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 Whitaker and Reames 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 women's 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 Council, D.C. In order to further fortify themselves, the district commissioners, when the storm had subsided, quietly removed Warden Zinkin from the jail, and Superintendent Whitaker resigned his post at the workhouse, presumably under pressure from the commissioners. The women's party conference came to a dramatic close during that first week in December, with an enormous mass meeting in the Belasco Theater 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 medicine-place in an effort to get inside the Belasco Theater. 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 theater in their eagerness to do honor to those who had been arrested. Inside there was a fever heat of enthusiasm, bursting cheers and thuddering applause which shook the building. America has never before, nor since, seen such a suffrage meeting. Mrs. OHP 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, and seeming to yield to it and then cheating it, tiring it out, or invading 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 rule, the country has risen in protest against this evasive policy of suppression until today 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 eighty-six thousand eight hundred and twenty-six dollars 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. Part Three, Chapter Fifteen, Political Results. Immediately following the release of the prisoners, and the magnificent demonstration of public support of them, culminating at the mass meeting recorded in the preceding chapter, political events happened thick and fast. Committees in Congress acted on the amendment. President Wilson surrendered, and a date for the vote was set. The Judiciary Committee of the House voted eighteen to two to report the amendment to that body. The measure, it will be remembered, was reported to the Senate in the closing days of the previous session, and was therefore already, before the Senate, awaiting action. Footnote, C. Chapter Eight, End of Footnote. To be sure, the Judiciary Committee voted to report the amendment without recommendation. But soon after, the amendments of the Suffrage Committee, provision for which had also been made during the war session, were appointed. All but four members of this committee were in favor of national suffrage, and immediately after its formation it met to organize, and decided to take the suffrage measure out of the hands of the Judiciary Committee, and to press for a vote. A test of strength came on December 18. On a trivial motion to refer all suffrage bills to the new suffrage committee, the vote stood two hundred and four to one hundred and seven. This vote, although unimportant in itself, clearly promised victory for the amendment in the House. In a few days, Representative Mondell of Wyoming, Republican, declared that the Republican side of the House would give more than a two-thirds majority of its members to the amendment. It is up to our friends on the Democratic side to see that the amendment is not defeated through hostility or indifference on their side, said Mr. Mondell. Our daily poll of the House showed constant gains. Pledges from both Democratic and Republican members came thick and fast. Cabinet members, for the first time, publicly declared their belief in the amendment. A final poll, however, showed that we lacked a few votes of the necessary two-thirds majority to pass the measure in the House. No stone was left unturned in a final effort to get the President to secure additional Democratic votes to ensure the passage of the amendment. Finally, on the eve of the vote, President Wilson made his first declaration of support of the amendment through a committee of Democratic congressmen. During the vote, the following day, Representative Cantrell of Kentucky, Democrat, reported the event to the House. He said in part, It was my privilege yesterday afternoon to be one of a committee of twelve to ask the President for advice and counsel on this important measure, prolonged laughter and jeers. Mr. Speaker, in answer to the sentiment expressed by part of the House, I desire to say that in no time and upon no occasion am I ever ashamed to confer with Woodrow Wilson upon any important question. Laughter, applause, and jeers. And that part of the House that has jeered that statement before an adjournce today will follow absolutely the advice which he gave this committee yesterday afternoon. Laughter and applause. After conference with the President yesterday afternoon, he wrote with his own hands the words which I now read to you, and each member of the committee was authorized by the President to give full publicity to the following. The committee found that the President had not felt at liberty to volunteer his advice to members of Congress in this important matter, but when we sought his advice, laughter, he very frankly and earnestly advised us to vote for the amendment as an act of right and justice to the women of the country and of the world. To my Democratic brethren who have made these holes ring with their eloquence in their pleas to stand by the President, I will say that now is your chance to stand by the President and vote for this amendment as an act of right and justice to the women of the country and of the world. Do you wish to do that which is right and just toward the women of your own country? If so, follow the President's advice and vote for this amendment. It will not do to follow the President in this great crisis in the world's history on those matters only which are popular in your own districts. The true test is to stand by him even though your own vote is unpopular at home. The acid test for a member of Congress is for him to stand for right and justice even if misunderstood at home and first. In the end, right and justice will prevail everywhere. No one thing connected with the war is of more importance at this time than meeting the reasonable demand of millions of patriotic and Christian women of the nation that the amendment for women's suffrage be submitted to the states. The amendment passed the house January 10th, 1918 by a vote of 274 to 136, a two-thirds majority with one vote to spare. Exactly 40 years to a day from the time the suffrage amendment was first introduced into Congress and exactly one year to a day from the time the first picket banner appeared at the gates of the White House. 83% of the Republicans voting on the measure voted in favor of it while only 50% of the Democrats voting voted for it. Even after the Republicans had pledged their utmost strength, more than two-thirds of their membership, votes were still lacking to make up the Democratic deficiency and the President's declaration that the measure ought to pass the house produced them from his own party. Those who contend that picketing had set back the clock, that it did no good, that President Wilson would not be moved by it, have, we believe, the burden of proof on their side of the argument. It is our firm belief that the solid year of picketing with all its political ramifications did compel the President to abandon his opposition and declare himself for the measure. I do not mean to say that many things do not cooperate in a movement toward a great event. I do mean to say that picketing was the most vital force among the elements which moved President Wilson. That picketing had compelled Congress to see the question in terms of political capital is also true. From the first word uttered in the House debate until the final roll call, political expediency was the chief motif. Mr. Lenrude of Wisconsin, Republican, rose to say, may I suggest that there is a distinction between the Democratic members of the Committee on Rules and the Republican members in this, that all of the Republican members are for this proposition? This was met with instant applause from the Republican side. Representative Cantrell prefaced his speech embodying the President's statement, which caused roars and jeers from the opposition, with the announcement that he was not willing to risk another election with the voting women of the West and the amendment still unpassed. Mr. Lenrude further pointed out that from a Republican standpoint, from a partisan standpoint, it would be an advantage to Republicans to go before the people in the next election and say that this resolution was defeated by Southern Democrats. An anti-suffer just tried above the din and noise to remind Mr. Lenrude the three years before Mr. Lenrude had voted no, but a Republican colleague came suddenly to the rescue with, what about Mr. Wilson, which was followed by, he kept us out of war and the jeers on the Republican side became more pronounced. This interesting political tilt took place when representatives Denison and Williams of Illinois and Representative Kearns of Ohio, Republicans, fenced with Representative Raker of California, Democrat, as he attempted with an evident note of self-consciousness to make the President's reversal seem less sudden. Mr. Denison, it was known by the committee that went to see the President that the Republicans were going to take this matter up and pass it in caucus, was it not? Mr. Raker, I want to say to my Republican friends upon this question that I have been in conference with the President for over three years upon this question. Mr. Kearns, how did the women of California find out and learn where the President stood on this thing just before election last fall? Nobody else seemed to know it. Mr. Raker, they knew it. Mr. Kearns, how did they find it out? Mr. Raker, I will take a minute or two. Mr. Kearns, I wish the gentleman would. Mr. Raker, the President went home and registered. The President went home and voted for woman suffrage. Mr. Kearns, he said he believed in it for the several states. Mr. Raker, one moment. Mr. Kearns, that is the only information they had upon the subject, is it? Mr. Williams, will the gentleman yield? Mr. Raker, I cannot yield. Mr. Williams, just for a question. Mr. Raker, I cannot yield. That the President's political speed left some overcome was clear from a remark of Mr. Clark of Florida when he said, I was amused at my friend from Oklahoma, Mr. Ferris, who wants us to stand with the President. God knows I want to stand with him. I am a Democrat, and I want to follow the leader of my party. And I am a pretty good lightning change artist myself sometimes, laughter. But God knows I cannot keep up with his performance, laughter. Why the President wrote a book away back yonder. And he quoted generously from President Wilson's many statements in defense of state rights as recorded in his early writings. Mr. Hersey of Maine, Republican, drew applause when he made a retort to the Democratic slogan, Stand by the President. He said, Mr. Speaker, I am still standing with the President, or in other words, the President this morning is standing with me. The resentment at having been forced by the Pickets to the point of passing the amendment was in evidence throughout the debate. Representative Gordon of Ohio, Democrat, said with bitterness, we are threatened by these militant suffragettes with a direct and lawless invasion by the Congress of the United States of the rights of those states which have refused to confer upon their women the privilege of voting. This attitude on the part of some of the suffrage members of this house is on an exact equality with the acts of those women militants who've spent the last summer and fall while they were not in the district jail or workhouse encroaching, teasing, and nagging the President of the United States for the purpose of inducing him by coercion to club Congress into adopting this joint resolution. Shouts of, well, they got him and they got it from all sides, followed by prolonged laughter and jeers interrupted the flow of his oratory. Mr. Ferris of Oklahoma, Democrat, hoped to minimize the effectiveness of the Picket. Mr. Speaker, he said, I do not approve or believe in picketing the White House, the national capital, or any other station to bring about votes for women. I do not approve of wild militancy, hunger strikes, and efforts of that sort. I do not approve of the course of those women that become agitators, lay off their womanly qualities in their efforts to secure votes. I do not approve of anything unwomely anywhere, any time, and my course today in supporting the suffrage amendment is not guided by such conduct on the part of a very few women here or elsewhere. Applause. Representative Langley of Kentucky, Republican, was able to see picketing in a fairer light. Much has been said, pro and con, about picketing, that rather dramatic chapter in the history of this great movement. It is not my purpose to speak either in criticism or condemnation of that, but if it be true, I do not say that it is, because I do not know, but if it be true, as has been alleged, that certain promises were made, as a result of which a great campaign was won, and those promises were not kept. I wonder whether in that silent, peaceful protest that was against this broken faith there can be found sufficient warrant for the indignities which the so called pickets suffered, and when, in passing up and down the avenue, I frequently witnessed cultured, intellectual women arrested, and dragged off to prison because of their method of giving publicity to what they believed to be the truth. I will confess that the question sometimes arose in my mind, whether when the impartial history of this great struggle has been written, their names may not be placed upon the role of martyrs to the cause, to which they were consecrating their lives in the manner that they deemed most effective. Mr. Maze of Utah was one Democrat who placed the responsibility for militancy where it rightly belonged when he said, some say today that they are ashamed of the action of the militants in picketing the capital, but we should be more ashamed of the unreasonable stubbornness on the part of the men who refused them the justice they have so long and patiently asked. And so the debate ran on. Occasionally one caught a glimmer of real comprehension amongst these men about to vote on our political liberty, but more often the discussion stayed on a very inferior level, and there were gems imperishable. Even friends of the measure had difficulty not to romanticize about woman, God's noblest creature, man's better counterpart, humanity's perennial hope, the world's object most to be admired and loved and so forth. Representative Elliott of Indiana, Republican, favored the resolution because, a little more than 400 years ago, Columbus discovered America. Before that page of American history was written, he was compelled to seek the advice and assistance of a woman. From that day until the present day, the noble women of America have done their part in times of peace and of war. If Queen Isabella was an argument in favor for Mr. Elliott of Indiana, Lady Macbeth played the opposite part for Mr. Parker of New Jersey, Republican. I will not debate the question as to whether in time of war women are the best judges of policy. That great student of human nature, William Shakespeare, in the play of Macbeth, makes Lady Macbeth eager for deeds of blood until they are committed and war is begun, and then just as eager that it may be stopped. Said Mr. Gray of New Jersey, Republican, a nation will endure just so long as its men are virile. History, physiology, and psychology all show that giving women equal political rights with man makes ultimately for the deterioration of manhood. It is therefore not only because I want our country to win this war, but because I want our nation to possess the male virility necessary to guarantee its future existence that I am opposed to the pending amendment. The hope was expressed that President Wilson's conversion would be like that of St. Paul and that he will become a master worker in the vineyards of the Lord for this proposition. Applause. Mr. Gallivan, Democrat, although a representative of Massachusetts, the cradle of American liberty, called upon a great Persian philosopher to sustain him in his support. Dogs bark, but the caravan moves on. Democracy cannot live half free and half female. Mr. Dill of Washington, Democrat, colored his support with the following tribute. It was woman who first learned to prepare skins of animals for a protection from the elements, and tamed and domesticated the dog and horse and cow. She was a servant and a slave. Today she is the peer of man. Mr. Little of Kansas, Republican, tried to bring his colleagues back to a moderate course by interpolating. It seems to me, gentlemen, that it is time for us to learn that woman is neither a slave nor an angel, but a human being, entitled to be treated with ordinary common sense in the adjustment of human affairs. But this calm statement could not allay the terror of Representative Clark of Florida, Democrat, who cried, In the hearings before the committee it will be found that one of the leaders among the suffragettes declared that they wanted the ballot for protection, and when asked against whom she desired protection she promptly and frankly replied, Men. My God! Has it come to pass in America that the women of the land need to be protected from the men? The galleries quietly nodded their heads, and Mr. Clark continued to predict either the complete breakdown of family life, or they, man and wife, must think alike, act alike, have the same ideals of life, and look forward with like vision to the happy consummation beyond the veil. God knows that when you get factional politics limited to husband and wife, oh, what a spectacle will be presented my countrymen! Love will vanish while hate ascends the throne. Today woman stands the uncrowned queen in the hearts of all right-thinking American men. To her is rightful sovereign, we render the homage of protection, respect, love, and may the guiding hand of an all-wise providence stretch forth in this hour of peril to save her from a change of relation which must bring in its trained discontent, sorrow, and pain, he concluded desperately, with the trend obviously toward crowning the queens. There was the disturbing consideration that women know too much to be trusted. I happen to have a mother, said Mr. Gray of New Jersey, Republican, as most of us have, and incidentally I think we all have fathers, although a father does not count for much anymore. My mother has forgotten more political history than he ever knew, and she knows more about the American government and American political economy than he has ever shown symptoms of knowing, and for the good of mankind as well as the country, she is opposed to women getting into politics. The perennial lament for the passing of the good old days was raised by Representative Welty of Ohio, Democrat, who said, The old ship of state has left her moorings and seems to be sailing on an unknown and uncharted sea. The government founded in the blood of our fathers is fading away. Last fall, a year ago, both parties recognized these principles in their platforms, and each candidate solemnly declared that he would abide by them if elected. But lo, all old things are passing away, and the lady from Montana has filed a bill asking that separate citizenship be granted to American women marrying foreigners. Representative Green of Massachusetts, Republican, all but shed tears over the inevitable amending of the Constitution. I have read it, the Constitution, many times, and there have been just seventeen amendments adopted since the original Constitution was framed by the master minds whom God had inspired in the Cabin of the Mayflower to formulate the Constitution of the Plymouth Colony, which was made the basis of the Constitution of Massachusetts, and subsequently resulted in the establishment of the Constitution of the United States under which we now live. Fancy his shock at finding the picket's triumphant. Since the second session of the sixty-fifth Congress opened, he said, I have met several women suffragists from the State of Massachusetts. I have immediately propounded to them this one question. Do you approve or disapprove of the suffrage banners in front of the White House? The answer in nearly every case to my question was, I glory in that demonstration. The response to my question was very offensive, and I immediately ordered these suffrage advocates from my office. And again the pickets featured in the final remarks of Mr. Small of North Carolina, Democrat, who deplored the fact that advocates of the amendment had made it an issue inducing party rivalry. This is no party question, and such efforts will be futile. It almost equals in intelligence the scheme of that delectable and inane group of women who picketed the White House on the theory that the President could grant them the right to vote. Amid such gems of intellectual delight, the House of the Great American Congress passed the National Suffrage Amendment. We turned our entire attention then to the Senate. Seven months. The President has finally thrown his power to putting the amendment through the House. We hoped he would follow this up by insisting upon the passage of the amendment in the Senate. We ceased our acts of dramatic protest for the moment and gave our energy to getting public pressure upon him to persuade him to see that the Senate acted. We also continue to press directly upon recalcitrant senators of the minority party. There could be one only through appeals other than from the President. There are in the Senate 96 members, two elected from each of the 48 states. To pass the constitutional amendment through the Senate, 64 votes are necessary, a two-thirds majority. At this point in the campaign, 58 senators were pledged to support the Major and 48 were opposed. We therefore had to win 11 more votes. A Major passed through one branch of Congress must be passed through the other branch during the life of that Congress. Otherwise, it dies automatically and must be born again in a new Congress. We therefore hit only the remainder of the first regular session of the 65th Congress, and failing of that the short second session from December 1918 to March 1919 in which to win those votes. Backfires were started in the states of the senators not yet committed to the amendment. Organizing for action in the Senate grew to huge proportions. We turned also to the leading influential members of the respective parties for active help. Colonel Roosevelt said his most effective suffrage work at this period in a determined attack upon the few unconvinced Republican senators. The Colonel was one of the few leaders in our national life who was never too busy to confer or to offer and accept suggestions as to procedure. He seemed to have imagination about women. He never took a patronizing attitude, nor did he with moral unction, dogmatically tell you how the fight should be waged and won. He's the possibility among women leaders. He was not offended morally or politically by our preferring to go to jail rather than to submit in silence. In fact, he was at this time under administration fire because it was bold attacks upon some other policies and remarked during the interview at Oyster Bay. I may soon join you women in jail. One can never tell these days. His sagacious attitude for conservative and radical suffrage forces was always delightful and indicative of his appreciation of the political and social value of the women having vitality enough to disagree on methods. None of the banal philosophy that you can never win until all your forces get together from the Colonel. One day, as I came into his office for an interview, I met a member of the conservative suffragists just leaving and we spoke. In his office, the Colonel remarked, you know, I couldn't complain having both you and Mrs. Whitney come to see me at the same time. However, it was on a similar mission but I didn't quite know whether the lion and the lamb would lie down together and I thought I'd better take no chances. But I see your own speaking terms, he added. I answered that our relations were extremely amenable but remarks of the other side might not like to be called lambs. You delight in being the lions. On that point I am safe. Am I not? And he smiled his widest smile as he plunged into a vivid expository attack upon senatorial opponents of suffrage in his own party. He wrote letters to them. If this failed, he invited them to Oyster Bay for the weekend. Never did he abandon them until there was literally not a shadow of hope to bank on. When the Colonel got into action, something always happened on the Democratic side. He made a public statement to Senator Gallinger of New Hampshire, a Republican leader in the Senate, in which lies point into the superior support of the Republicans and urged even more liberal party support to ensure the passage of the amendment in the Senate. Action when the Democrats followed fast on the heels of this public statement. The National Executive Committee of the Democratic Party after a referendum voted the members of the National Committee men passed a resolution calling for favorable action in the Senate. Mr. A. Mitchell Palmer wrote to the Women's Party saying that this resolution must be regarded as an official expression of the Democratic Party through the only organization which can speak for it between national conventions. The Republican National Committee meeting at the same time commended the course taken by Republican representatives who have voted for the amendment in the House and declared their position to be a true interpretation of the thought of the Republican Party. Republican Democratic State, County, and City committees followed the lead and called for Senate action. State legislatures in rapid succession called upon the Senate to pass the measure that they in turn might immediately ratify North Dakota, New York, Rhode Island, Arizona, Texas, and other states acted in this matter. Intermittent attempts on the Republican side to force action followed by eloquent speeches from time to time picking their opponents left the Democrats bison-like across the past. The majority of them were content to rest upon the action taken in the House. I was at this time chairman of the political department of the Women's Party and in that capacity interviewed practically every national leader in both major parties. I cannot resist recording a few impressions. Colonel William Boyce Tomstead of New York, now chairman of Ways and Means of the Republican National Committee, who with Raymond Robbins has served in Russia as a member of the United States Red Cross. Mission had just returned. The deadlock was brought to his attention. He immediately responded in a most effective way in a brief but dramatic speech at a great mass meeting at the Women's Party at Palm Beach, Florida, he said. The story of a brutal imprisonment in Washington of women advocating suffrage is shocking and almost incredible. I became accustomed in Russia to the stories of men and women who served terms of imprisonment under the czar because of their love of liberty but did not know that women in my own country had been subjected to brutal treatment long since abandoned in Russia. I wish now to contribute $10,000 to the campaign for the passage of the suffrage amendment through the senate. $100 for each of the pickets who went to prison because she stood at the gates of the White House asking for the passage of the suffrage major. This was the largest single contribution received during the national agitation. Colonel Thompson had been a suffragist all his life but he now became actively identified with the work for the national amendment. Since then he has continued to give generously of his money and to lend his political prestige as often as necessary. Colonel Hauss was importun to use his influence to win additional democratic votes in the senate or better still to urge the president to win them. Colonel Hauss is an interesting but not unfamiliar type in politics. Extremely courteous, mild mannered, able, quickly sympathetic. He listens with undistracted attention to your request. His round bright eyes snap as he comes at you with a counter proposal. It seems so reasonable and while you know he's putting back upon you the very task you are trying to persuade him to undertake, he does it so graciously that you can scarcely resist liking it. He is the manner of having done what you ask without doing more than to make you feel warm and having met him. But what is exasperating when effectiveness is needed? Not that Colonel Hauss was not a supporter of the federal amendment, he was. But his gentle, soft and traditional kind of diplomacy would not employ high-powered pressure. I shall be going to Washington soon on other matters and I shall doubtlessly see the president. Perhaps he may bring up the subject in conversation and if he does, and the opportunity offers itself, I may be able to do something. But such a gentle threat would come from the Colonel. He was not quite so tender, however, in dealing with Democratic senators after the president declared for the amendment. He did try to win them. Ex-president Taft, then joint chairman of the National War Labor Board, was interviewed at his desk just after rendering an important Democratic Labor Award. No, indeed. I'll do nothing for a proposition which adds more voters to our electorate. I thought my position on this question was well known to Mr. Taft. But we thought, you doubtlessly changed your minds since the beginning of our war for democracy. I started to answer, this is not a war for democracy, he said emphatically, looking critically at me for my assertion. If it were, I wouldn't be doing anything for it. The trouble in this country is we've got too many voting as it is. While I take them away from most of the men he added, I want to ask him what men he would be voting. I wanted also to tell him that they were not taking the vote away from one class of men in Russia at that moment. Instead, I said, well, I'm not quite sure who we could trust to sit in judgment. Well, he looked smiling and serene, as much as to say, oh, that would be a simple matter. However, I said, we have no quarrel with you. You are an avowal aristocrat and we respect your candor. One quarrel is with Democrats who will not trust their own doctrines. Again, he smiled with as much sophistication as such a passive face could achieve, and that was all. I believe Mr. Taft has lately modified his attitude toward women voting. I do not know how he squares that with his taste of democracy. There was Daniel Gompert, president of the American Federation of Labor, high administration confidence. It was a long wait before Abby Scott Banker and I were allowed into a sanctum. While ladies, what can I do for you? With the opening question, and we thought happily here is a man who will not bore us with his life record on behalf of women. He comes to the point with direction. When you speak to the president on behalf of the organization, which has repeatedly endorsed national suffrage, to induce him to put more pressure behind the Senate, which is delaying suffrage, we ask of equal direction. We can feel the heavy side as the reminiscent look came into his true way in eyes, and he began. Doubtless you ladies do not know that as long ago as 1888, I believe that was the date. My organization sent a petition to the United States Congress praying for the adoption of this very amendment and we have stood for it ever since. Did you think it's about time that prayer was answered? We venture to interrupt, but his reverie could not be disturbed. He was thrown as coldly for he was living in the past and continued to recount the patient enduring qualities of his organization. I will speak to my secretary and see what the organization can do, he said finally. We murmured again that it was the president we wish him to speak to, but we left feeling reasonably certain there would be no dynamic pressure from this cautious leader. Mr. Hoover has appointments a week ahead, he said. For example, his chart for today includes a very important conference with some green men from the northwest, and he continued to recite the items of the chart ending with a dinner at the White House tonight. Although you see him for just five minutes we persisted, he could do what we asked this very night at the White House, but the train to protect secretary was obdurate. We shall leave the written request for five minutes and Mr. Hoover's convenience, we said, and prepared the letter. Time passed without answer. Mrs. Baker and I were compelled to go again to Mr. Hoover's office. Again we agree that by the affable secretary, who on this occasion recounted not only his chief's many pressing engagement, but his devoted family life, his Saturday and Sunday habits which were so dreadfully cut into by his heavy work. We were sympathetic but firm, but Mr. Hoover would not be willing to answer our letter. Would he not be willing to state publicly that he thought the amendment ought to be passed in the Senate? With the secretary in short, please go to him to ascertain if he will be willing to say a single word in behalf of the political liberty of women. The secretary disappeared and returned to say, Mr. Hoover wishes me to tell you, ladies, you can give no time, whatever, to the consideration of your question until after the war is over. This is final. The chief's boot administrator will continue to demand sacrifices of women throughout the war, but he would not give so much of the thought to their rights in return. Mr. Hoover was the only important man in public life who steadfastly refused to see our representatives. After announcing his candidacy for nomination to the presidency, he authorized his secretary to write a letter saying he had always been full women's suffrage. Mr. Bainbridge Colby, then member of the emergency fleet corporation of the shipping board and member of the inter-athlete council, which sat on shipping problems, now secretary of state in President Wilson's cabinet was approached as a suffragist known to have access to the president. Mr. Colby had just returned from abroad when I saw him. He's the cultivated gentleman, but he knows how to have superlative enthusiasm. In the light of the world events, he said, this reform is insignificant. No time or energy ought to be diverted from the great program of crushing the Germans. They can we not do that, I asked, without neglecting internal liberties. Mr. Colby is a strong conformist. He became grave when I was indiscreet enough to reveal that I was inclined to pin my faith to the concrete liberty of women rather than to a vague and abstract human freedom which was supposed to descend upon the world once the Germans were beaten. I know he wanted to call me seditious, but he is the gallant gentleman and he only frown with the stress. He continued with enthusiasm to plan to build ships. Bernard Baruch, then member of the advisory committee of the council of national defense, later economic expert at the peace conference, was able to see the war and the women's problems at the same time. He's an able politician and was therefore sensitive to our appeal. He saw the passage of the amendment as a political asset. I do not know how much he believed in the principle. That was of minor importance. What was important was that he agreed to tell the president that he believed it wise to put more pressure on the major in the senate. Also, I believe Mr. Baruch is one member of the administration who realized in the midst of the episode that arresting women with bad politics say nothing of the doubtful chivalry of it. George Creole, chairman of the committee on public information, was also asked for help. He went to him many times because his contact with the president was constant. A suffragist of long standing, he nevertheless hated our militant tactics, for he knew we were winning and the administration was losing. He's a strange composite. Working at terrific tension and mostly under fire, he is rarely in calm enough move to sit down and devise ways and means. But I can talk to the president every day on this matter and I'm doing all I can and the president is doing all he can. He would drive at you without stopping for breath. But if you would just ask him to get senator, he's working on senator now. You people must give him time. He's other things to do, he would say. Sweeping aside every suggestion, familiar advice. Charles C. Hills, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, was a leader who would come slowly to believe in national suffrage. But once convinced, he was a faithful and dependable colleague who gave practical political assistance. William Randolph Hurst in powerful editorials called upon senators to act. Mr. RJ Caldwell of New York, lifelong suffragist, financier and man of affairs, faithfully and persistently stood by the amendment and by the militant. A more generous contributor and more diligent ally could not be found. A host of public men were interviewed and the great majority of them did help at this critical juncture. It is impossible to give a list that even approach adequacy, so I shall not attempt it. Our pressure from below and that of the leaders from above began to have its effect and attempt was made by administration leaders to force the vote on May 19th, 1918. Friends interceded when it was shown that not enough votes were pledged to secure a path. Again the vote was tentatively set for June 27th and again post-pote. The Republicans led by Senator Gallinger provided skirmishes from time to time. The administration was accused on the floor of blocking action to which accusation its leaders did not even reply. Still unwilling to believe that he would be forced to resume our militancy, we attempted to talk to the president again. A special deputation of women, munition workers, was sent to him under our r-spices. The women waited for a week, hoping he would consent to see them among his reception to the blue devils of France, to a committee of Indians, to a committee of Irish patriots and so forth. No time was the answer and the munition workers were forced to submit their appeal in writing. We were only a few of the thousands of American women, they wrote the president, who are forming a growing part of the army at home. The work we are doing is hard and dangerous to life and help, making detonators handling TNT the highest of all explosives. We want to recognize by our country so much our citizens as our soldiers are. Mr. Tomalti replied for the president. The president asked me to say that nothing you or your associates could say could possibly increase his very deep interest in this matter and that he is doing everything that he could with honor and propriety to do on behalf of the Suffrage Amendment. An opportunity was given to the president to show again his sympathy for a worldwide endeavor, just after having ignored this specific opportunity at home. He hastened to accept the larger field. In response to a memorial transmitted through Mrs. Carrie Chapman-Cat, president of the International Women's Suffrage Alliance, the French Union Women's Suffrage urged the president to use this aid. In response to a memorial transmitted through Mrs. Carrie Chapman-Cat, president of the International Women's Suffrage Alliance, the French Union Women's Suffrage, urged the president to use this aid on their behalf, which will have a powerful influence for women's suffrage in the entire world. The memorial was endorsed by the Suffrage Committee of Great Britain, Italy, Belgium, and Portugal. The president took the occasion to say, the democratic reconstruction of the world will not have been completely or adequately obtained until women are admitted to the suffrage. As for America, it is my earnest hope that the Senate of the United States will give an unmistakable answer by passing the federal amendment before the end of this session. Meanwhile, four more Democratic senators pledged their support to the amendment, influenced by the president's declaration of support and by widespread demands for their constituents. Senators Fielin of California, King of Utah, Jerry of Rhode Island, and Culberson of Texas abandoned the ranks of the opposition. During the same period, the Republican side of the Senate gave five more Republican senators to the amendment. They were Senator McComber of North Dakota, Kellogg of Minnesota, Harding of Ohio, Page of Vermont, and Sutherland of West Virginia. All these men except Senator McComber were one through the pressure from Republican Party leaders. This gained nine recruits, reduced to two, the number of votes to be one. Well, at the end of seven months, from the time the amendment had passed, the House, we still lack these two votes, and the president gave no assurance that he would put forth sufficient effort to secure them. We were compelled to renew our attacks upon the president. Senator McComber, they opposed, was compelled to support the measure by the action of the ND legislature, commanding him to do so. Part three, Chapter 17, New Attacks from the President. The Senate was about to reset. No assurance was given by the majority that suffrage would be considered either before or after the recess. Alarmed in a rouse, we decided upon a national protest in Washington, August 6th, the anniversary of the birth of Inan Smith-Hollins. The protest took the form of a meeting at the base of the Lafayette monument in the park, directly opposite the White House. Women from many states in the Union dressed in white hatless and coatless in the mid-summer heat of Washington marched in the monument carrying banners of purple, white, and gold led by a standard bearer carrying the American flag. They made a beautiful mass of colors. They grouped themselves around the statue against the abundant green foliage of the park. The administration met this simple reasonable form of protest by further arrests. Mrs. Lawrence Lewis of Philadelphia, the first speaker began, we are here because when our country is at war for liberty and democracy, at that point she was roughly seized by a policemen and placed under arrest. The great audience stood in absolute and amazed silence. Ms. Hazel Hunk as a Montana took her place here at the statue of Lafayette who fought for the liberty of this country she began and under the American flag I'm asking for she was immediately arrested. Ms. Vivian Pierce of California began President Wilson has said she was dragged from the plinth to the waiting patrol. One after another came forward in an attempt to speak but no one was allowed to continue. Wholesale arrests followed. Just as the woman was being taken into custody according to the New York Evening World of August 13th, the president walked out of the northeast gate of the White House and up Pennsylvania Avenue for a conference with Director General Rear Roads McAddo. The president glanced across the street and smiled. Before the crowd could really appreciate what had happened, 48 women had been hustled to the police station by the wagon load. Their gate banished from the backs of the somber patrols. They were told that the police had arrested them under the orders of Colonel CS Riley. The president's military aide and assistant to the chief engineer attached to the ward department all released on bail in order to appear in court the following day. When they appeared they were informed by the government's attorney that he would have to postpone the trial until the following Tuesday so that he might examine witness to see what offense if any the woman will be charged with. I cannot go on with this case, he said. I've had no orders. There are no precedents for cases like these. Women demanded that their cases be dismissed or else a charge made against. They were really told to return on the appointed day such as the indignation aroused against the administration for taking this action. Senator Curtis of Kansas or Republican whip could say publicly. The truth of the statement is made evident by the admission of the court that the 48 suffragists are rested upon absolutely no charges. At these women, among the munition workers and Red Cross workers are held in Washington until next Tuesday under arrest while the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia decides for what offense if any they were arrested. The meeting was called to make a justified protest against continued blocking of the suffrage amendment by the Democratic majority in the Senate. It is well known that three-fourths of the Republican membership in the Senate are ready to vote for the amendment. But under the control of the Democratic majority, the Senate has recessed for six weeks without making any provision for action on this important amendment. Injustice to the women who have been working so hard for the amendment. It should be passed at the earliest date and if action is not taken on it soon after the resumption of business in the Senate, there's every possibility that it will not be taken during this Congress. And the hard-won victory in the House of Representatives will have been won for nothing. When they finally came to trial 10 days after their arrest to face the charge of holding a meeting in public grounds and for 18 of the defendants an additional charge of climbing on a statue, the women answered the roll call but remained silent thereafter. The familiar farce ensued. Some were released for lack of identification. The others were sentenced to the district jail for 10 days if they had merely assembled to hold a public meeting for 15 days if they had also climbed on a statue. The administration evidently hoped by lighter sentences to avoid a hunger strike by the prisoners. The women were taken immediately to a building formally used as a man's workhouse situated in the swarms of the district prison grounds. This building which had been declared unfit for human cavitation by a committee appointed under President Roosevelt in 1909 which had been uninhabited ever since was now reopened. Nine years later to receive 26 women who attempted to hold a meeting in a public park in Washington. The women protested in a body and demanded to be treated as political prisoners. This being refused all saved two very elderly women too feral to do so went on hunger strike at once. This last lodgement was the worst. Hittiest aspects which had not been encountered in the workhouse and jail proper were encountered here. The cells damp and cold were below the level of the upper door and entirely below the high windows. The doors of the cell were partly of solid steel with only a small section of grating so that a very tiny amount of light penetrated the cells. The wash basins were small and unsightly. The toilet opened with no pretense of covering. The cots were of iron without any spring and was only a thin straw palette to lie upon. The heating facilities were antiquated and the place was always cold. So frightful were the nauseating odors which permeated the place and so terrible was the drinking water from the disused pipes that one prisoner after another became violently ill. I can hardly describe that atmosphere to Mrs. W. D. Ascoff of Connecticut. It was a deadly sort of smell insidious and revolting. It oppressed and stifled us. There was no escape. As a kind of relief from these revolting odors they took their straw pallets from the cells of the floor outside. They were ordered bachelor cells would refuse in a body to go. They preferred the stone floors to the vile odors within which kept them not even. Conditions were so shocking that senators began to visit the constituents in this terrible hole. Many of them protested to the authorities. Prisoners came in from the country too. At the end of the fifth day the administrations have come to the hunger strike and release the prisoners trembling with weakness. Some of them with chills and some of them in high fever scarcely able to walk to the ambulance or motor car. We had won from the administration however a concession to our protests. Prior to the release of the prisoners we had announced that in spite of the previous arrests a second protest meeting would be held on the same spot. Our permit to hold the second protest meeting was granted us. I have been advised Colonel Bradley wrote to Ms. Paul that you desire to hold a demonstration in Lafayette Square on Thursday, August 9th. By the direction of the chief of engineers, U.S. Army, you are hereby granted permission to hold this demonstration. Your advice, good order, must prevail. We received yesterday Ms. Paul replied your permit for a suffrage demonstration in Lafayette part this afternoon and are very glad that our meetings are no longer to be interviewed with because of the illness of so many of our members due to their treatment in prison this last week and within the necessity of caring for them headquarters. We are planning to hold our neat meeting a little later. We have not determined on the exact date but we will inform you of the time as soon as it is decided upon. It was responded, on credible authority that this concession was the result of a conference at which the President, Secretary of War Baker and Colonel Bradley were present. It was said that Secretary Baker and Colonel Bradley persuaded the President to withdraw the orders to arrest us and allow our meetings to go on. Even though they took the form of attacks upon the President, two days after the release of the women their public and party for the first time in history of women's suffrage caucused in the Senate in favor of forcing suffrage to a vote. The resolution which was passed unanimously by the caucus determined to insist upon consideration immediately and also to insist upon a final vote at the earliest possible moment provides that this resolution shall not be construed as in any way binding the action or vote of any member of the Senate upon the merits of the said women's suffrage amendment. While not a direct attempt therefore to win more Republican senators, this proved a very great tactical contribution to the cause. The Republicans were proud of their suffrage strength. They knew the Democrats were not. With the congressional elections approaching, the Republicans meant to do their part toward acquainting the country with the administration's policy a vacillation and delay. This does not only help with the Republicans politically, it is also advantageous to the amendment in that it go to the majority into action. Nine months had passed since the vote in the House and we were pairlessly near the end of the session. While on the 16th of September, Senator Overman, Democrat, chairman of the rules committee stated to our legislative chairman that suffrage was not on the program for the session and that the Senate would resets in a few days for the election campaigns without considering any more legislation. On the same day, Senator Jones, chairman of the suffrage committee announced to us that he would not even call his committee together to consider taking a vote. We had announced a fortnight earlier that another protest meeting will be held at the base of the Lafayette monument that day, September 16th at four o'clock. No sooner had this protest been announced than the President publicly stated that he would receive a delegation of Southern and Western women partisans on the question of the amendment at two o'clock the same day. To this delegation, he said, I am, as I think you know, heartily in sympathy with you. I have endeavored to assist you in every way in my power and I shall continue to do so. I would do all I can to urge the passage of the amendment by an early vote. Presumably, this was expected to his arm us and perhaps silence or demonstration. However, it really moved us to make another hasty visit to Senator Oberman, chairman of the rules committee, and to Senator Jones, chairman of the suffrage committee, between the hour of two and four to see if the President's statement that he would do all he could to secure an early vote had altered their statements made earlier in the day. These administration leaders assured us that their statement stood that no provision has been made for action on the amendment. But the President's statement did not mean that a vote will be taken this session and that they did not contemplate being so advised by him. Such situation was intolerable. The President was uttering more fine words while his administration leaders interpreted them to mean nothing because they were not followed up by action on his part. We thereupon changed our demonstration at four o'clock in the morning to a more drastic form of protest. We took these words of the President to the base of Lafayette Monument and burned them in a flaming torch. A throne gathered to hear the speakers. Ceremonies were opened with the reading of the following appeal by Mrs. Richard Wainwright, wife of Rear Admiral Wainwright. Lafayette, we are here. We, the women of the United States, deny the liberty which you helped to gain and for which we have asked in vain for 60 years turn to you to plead for us. Speak, Lafayette. Dead these hundred years but still living in the hearts of the American people. Speak again to plead for us like the bronze women at your feet. Condemn like us to a silent appeal. She offers you a sword. Will you not use for us the sword of the spirit mightier far than the sword she holds out to you. Will you not ask the great leader of democracy to look upon the failure of our beloved country to be in truth the place where everyone is free and equal and entitled to a share in the government. Let that outstretched hand of yours pointing to the White House recalls to him his words and promises, his trumpet call for all of us to see what the world has made safe for democracy. As our Army now in France spoke to you there, saying here we are to help your country fight for liberty. Will you not speak here now for us a little band with no army, no power but justice and right, no strength but in our Constitution and in the Declaration of Independence and win a great victory again in this country by giving us the opportunity we ask to be heard through the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. Lafayette, we are here. Before the enthusiastic applause from Mrs. Wayne Wright's appeal had died away, Miss Lucy Branham of Baltimore stepped forward with the flaming torch which she applied to the president's latest words on suffrage. The police looked on smiled and the crowd cheered as she said. The torch which I hold, symbolizes the burning indignation of the women who for years had been given words without action. For five years women have appealed to this president and his party for political freedom. The president has given words and words and words. Today women receive more words. We announced to the president and the whole world today by this act of ours our determination that words shall no longer be the only reply given to American women our determination of this same democracy for his establishment abroad we are making the utmost sacrifice shall also prevail at home. We are protested to this administration by banners. We are protested by speeches. We now protest by the symbolic act. As in the ancient fights for liberty the crusaders for freedom symbolize their protest against those responsible for injustice by cosigning their hollow phrases to the flames. So we on behalf of thousands of suffragists in this same way today protest against the action of the president and his party in delaying the liberation of American women. Mrs. Jessie Hardy McKay of Washington DC then came forward to the end of the plinth to speak and as she appeared a man in the crowd handed her a $20 bill for the campaign in the senate. This was a signal for others. Bills and coins were passed up. Instantly marshals were in hither and thither collecting the money and improvised baskets while the cheers grew louder and louder. Many of the policemen present were among the donors. Burning president Wilson's words had met with popular approval from a large crowd. The retention of women was starting back to headquarters. The police were eagerly clearing the way for the line. The crowd was dispersing in order. The great golden banner, Mr. President, what will you do for women's suffrage was just swinging past the White House gate when President Wilson stepped into his car for the afternoon drive. End of section 16. Recording by Margaret Montesante