At half-past four on Tuesday afternoon, August 6, a line of nearly one hundred women emerged from Headquarters, crossed the other side of the street to the Park; turned into Pennsylvania Avenue. At the head of the long line floated the red, white, and blue of the American flag carried by Hazel Hunkins. Behind it came, banner after banner and banner after banner, the purple, white, and gold of the National Woman’s Party tri-color. The line proceeded along Pennsylvania Avenue until it came to the statue of Lafayette just opposite the east gate of the White House. All along the way, the crowds cheered and applauded the women; soldiers and sailors saluted the red, white, and blue as it passed.

At the Lafayette monument, two banner bearers emerged from the group; and stationed themselves on the platform at the base of the statue.

One of them, Mary Gertrude Fendall, bore Inez Milholland’s banner, inscribed with her memorable last words:
HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY?

The other, borne by Clara Wold and Blanche McPherson, carried what was really the message of the meeting:
WE PROTEST AGAINST THE CONTINUED DISFRANCHISEMENT
OF AMERICAN WOMEN, FOR WHICH THE PRESIDENT OF THE
UNITED STATES IS RESPONSIBLE.
WE CONDEMN THE PRESIDENT AND HIS PARTY FOR ALLOWING
THE OBSTRUCTION OF SUFFRAGE IN THE SENATE.

356WE DEPLORE THE WEAKNESS OF PRESIDENT WILSON IN PERMITTING THE SENATE TO LINE ITSELF WITH THE PRUSSIAN REICHSTAG BY DENYING DEMOCRACY TO THE PEOPLE WE DEMAND THAT THE PRESIDENT AND HIS PARTY SECURE THE PASSAGE OF THE SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT THROUGH THE SENATE IN THE PRESENT SESSION. The other banner bearers marched to both sides of the statue where they made solid banks of vivid color. Mrs. Lawrence Lewis stepped forward. “We are here,” she said, “because when our country is at war for liberty and democracy....”

At the word “democracy,” the police, who had been drawing nearer and nearer, placed her under arrest. Other women standing about her were arrested, although they had not even spoken.

For a moment there was a complete silence.

Then Hazel Hunkins, who had led the line carrying the American flag, leaped upon the base of the statue and said:

Here, at the statue of Lafayette, who fought for the liberty of this country, and under the American flag, I am asking for the enfranchisement of American women.

She was immediately arrested. Another woman took her place, and she was arrested; another; and another; and on and on, until forty-seven women had been taken into custody.

Alice Paul, who had not participated in the parade, was standing in the middle of the street, watching and listening. She had no banner. She had not spoken. She had not moved. But a policeman, pointing at her, said: “That is the leader; get her!” And she was arrested.

Burning the President’s Words at the Lafayette Monument, Washington.

A Summer Picket Line.

Many women asked on what charge they were arrested. “Do not answer them! Do not tell them anything!” said a policeman. Others answered with very labored charges, which were not substantiated later by Police Headquarters. Patrol wagon after patrol wagon appeared, was filled with 357women, and dashed off, followed by the purple, white, and gold flutter of the banners.

When Hazel Hunkins was arrested, she forbade the policemen to take the American flag which she carried from her. At the Municipal Building, she refused to relinquish it. After the preliminaries of their arrest were over and the women released on bail, they marched back in an unbroken line behind Hazel’s flag.

The arrested women were the following:

Hazel Adams, Eva E. Sturtevant, Pauline Clarke, Blanche A. McPherson, Katherine R. Fisher, Rose Lieberson, Alice Kimball, Matilda Terrace, Lucy Burns, Edith Ainge, May Sullivan, Mary Gertrude Fendall, Julia Emory, Anna Kuhn, Gladys Greiner, Martha W. Moore, Cora Crawford, Dr. Sarah Hunt Lockrey, Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Ellen Winsor, Mary Winsor, Mrs. Edmund C. Evans, Christine M. Doyle, Kate Cleaver Heffelfinger, Lavinia Dock, Harriet Keehn, Alice Paul, Mary E. Dubrow, Lillian M. Ascough, Edna M. Purtelle, Ruby E. Koeing, Elsie Hill, Helena Hill Weed, Eleanor Hill Weed, Mrs. Gilson Gardner, Sophie G. Meredith, Louise M. Black, Agnes Chase, Kate J. Boeckh, Hazel Hunkins, Cora Wold, Clara P. Wold, Margaret Oakes, Mollie Marie Green, Gertrude Lynde Crocker, Effie Boutwell Main, Annie Arniel, Emily Burke Main.

The forty-seven were ordered to appear in court the next morning at half-past nine. The United States attorney told them, when he arrived at 10:30, that the case was postponed for a week. The police clerk told Clara Wold that she was arrested “for climbing the statue.”

Clara Wold describes her subsequent experiences when, dismissed by the court, she walked to Headquarters past the Lafayette monument, “there sat a colored man on the very same ledge—basket, bundles, and papers strewn about him as he comfortably devoured a sandwich.”

Lafayette Park was not under the District of Columbia, but directly under the President’s military aide—Colonel Ridley, who was also Superintendent of Public Buildings and grounds in Washington.

358On August 13, the women appeared in the Federal Police Court, as ordered, for trial. The charge had been decided on; “For holding a meeting in public grounds.” But again the Court announced postponement until August 15.

After vigorous protests by the Suffragists against further delay, the cases of the eighteen, who were charged in addition with “climbing a statue,” were tried separately.

The women had no lawyers. Each spoke on her own behalf. They defended themselves on the ground of the constitutional right of free assemblage and appeal to the Government for the redress of grievances. They all pleaded, Not Guilty. Many of them added that they did not recognize the jurisdiction of the Court. Hazel Hunkins explained: “Women cannot be law-breakers until they are law-makers.”

One of the witnesses was the Chief Clerk of Public Grounds, an elderly man. Elsie Hill suddenly asked him when he had taken office. He replied, “In 1878.” “Do you realize,” Miss Hill said, “that in that year a Federal Suffrage Amendment was introduced, and that since then women have been helping to pay your salary and that of other government officials under protest?” The Chief Clerk was so astounded that he merely shook his head.

The trial of the remainder of the women on the charge of “holding a meeting on public grounds” took place on August 15.

At the very beginning of proceedings Alice Paul said:

As a disfranchised class we feel that we are not subject to the jurisdiction of this court and therefore refuse to take any part in its proceedings. We also feel that we have done nothing to justify our being brought before it.

They then sat down and refused to answer any question put to them.

The judge was utterly nonplussed by this situation. He said that he would call a recess of fifteen minutes to consider the question of contempt. Among the spectators who packed the room was a lawyer—a visitor in Washington. He extracted 359a great deal of enjoyment out of this occasion, because, he said, “if the women are not afraid of jail, there is nothing the judge can do.” He awaited the judge’s decision with an entertained anticipation. Apparently the judge came to the same decision, for at the end of fifteen minutes, the Court reconvened and the trial went on as though nothing had happened.

The women refused to rise when charged. They refused to plead Guilty or Not Guilty. They sat and read, or knitted, or, as the proceedings bored them, fell asleep. The Park Police were, of course, the only witnesses. At last all the women whom they could identify were found Guilty. They were sentenced to pay fines of five or ten dollars or to serve in prison ten or fifteen days. They all refused to pay the fine. Mary Winsor said: “It is quite enough to pay taxes when you are not represented, let alone pay a fine if you object to this arrangement.” The prisoners were then bundled in the Black Maria and taken off to prison.

Before the pickets were released from prison at the end of the previous year, Superintendent Zinkham said to them:

Now don’t come back, for, if you do, I will have a far worse place than the jail fixed up for you. I will have the old workhouse fixed up for you, and you will have cells without sunlight, with windows high up from the ground. You won’t be as comfortable as you are here.

Everything happened as Superintendent Zinkham prophesied, and a great deal more that was worse. The old workhouse which he had promised them had been condemned in Roosevelt’s Administration, and had not been used for years. The lower tier of cells was below the level of the ground. The doors of the cells were partly of solid steel and only partly of grating, so that little light penetrated. The wash basin was small and inadequate. The toilet was open, the cots were of iron and without springs, and with a thin straw mattress on them. Outside, they left behind a day so hot as to be almost insupportable, but in the Workhouse, 360it was so cold that their teeth chattered. It was damp all the time. When the present writer visited this old Workhouse in October, 1919, beads of water hung on everything. The walls were like the outside of an ice water pitcher in summer. Several of the pickets developed rheumatism. But the unendurable thing about it was the stench which came in great gusts; component of all that its past history had left behind and of the closeness of the unaired atmosphere. Apparently something was wrong with the water, or perhaps it was that the pipes had not been used for years. Most of the women believe they suffered with lead poisoning. They ached all over; endured a violent nausea; chills.

However, all the twenty-six, with the exception of two elderly women, went on hunger-strikes. Lucy Burns presented a demand on behalf of the entire company to Superintendent Zinkham. She said: “We must have twenty-three more blankets and twenty-three hot-water bottles. This place is cold and unfit for human habitation.”

“I know it is cold and damp,” he replied, “but you can all get out of here by paying your fines.”

The Woman’s Party showed their usual ingenuity in bringing these conditions before the public. As fast as women were arrested, their State Senators and Representatives were besieged by letters and telegrams from home urging them to go to see these imprisoned constituents. The Press of their district made editorial question or comment. As long as this imprisoning of the pickets continued, there was a file of Representatives and Senators vis............