As the Senate was still sitting and could at any time reverse its action in regard to the Suffrage Amendment, the Woman’s Party decided to protest against its defeat of the Amendment and to demand a reversal.

They began to picket the Senate and in especial the thirty-four Senators whose adverse vote had again delayed the passage of the Amendment.

On the morning of October 7, four banner bearers ascended the steps of the Capitol. They were: Elizabeth Kalb; Vivian Pierce; Bertha Moller; Mrs. Horton Pope. The lettered banner, flanked as usual with the Suffrage tri-color, read:
WE DEMAND AN AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED CONSTITUTION
ENFRANCHISING WOMEN.

They had hardly mounted the steps when the Capitol police placed them under arrest. They took the prisoners to the guard room in the Capitol, kept them there for fifteen minutes, and then released them. It was, of course, not exactly an arrest; and no one seemed exactly responsible for the order. The banners were, however, confiscated.

That afternoon, the same women, except that Bertha Arnold was substituted for Mrs. Pope, mounted the steps bearing a large banner which read:
WE PROTEST AGAINST THE 34 WILFUL SENATORS WHO HAVE
DELAYED THE POLITICAL FREEDOM OF AMERICAN WOMEN.
THEY HAVE OBSTRUCTED THE WAR PROGRAM OF THE PRESIDENT.
THEY HAVE LINED UP THE SENATE WITH PRUSSIA BY
DENYING SELF-GOVERNMENT TO THE PEOPLE.

373All the afternoon, the banner bearers were detained in the courtroom at intervals. When they were released, they went back to the Capitol; were arrested; detained in the courtroom again; released again.

On the morning of October 10, four more pickets, Edith Ainge, Bertha Moller, Maud Jamison, Clara Wold, started for the Capitol. Crowds of men and women gathered in the park to see what was going to happen, and rows of police stood on the Capitol steps awaiting the pickets. As soon as the big protest banner was unfurled, the police seized it. Maud Jamison and Clara Wold tried to mount the steps with the tri-color, but several policemen rushed upon them, and conducted them up the steps and into the Capitol building. As the police said over and over again that there were no arrests, the women insisted on carrying their banners.

Protesting against the curious and inconsistent action on the part of the police, the women were conducted into the presence of the captain. He iterated and reiterated that this action was all in accordance with the rules of Colonel Higgins, the Democratic Sergeant-at-Arms who is under the Rules Committee which carries out the Democratic program. The Suffragists demanded by what authority they were held and the captain informed them that it did not make any difference about the law, that Colonel Higgins had taken the law into his own hands. The four Suffragists waited for a few minutes. Their purple, white, and gold banners had been confiscated, but the protest banner was still there. Suddenly, without any interference from anybody, they took up their protest banner, walked out of the guard room, went over to the Senate Office Building and stood with it, at the top of the steps, the rest of the day. Later Vivian Pierce, Mrs. Stewart Polk, Mary Gertrude Fendall and Gladys Greiner joined this group of pickets.

In the meantime, other Suffragists were trying vainly to take the Suffrage colors to the Capitol steps. They walked from the Office Building on to the Plaza by twos. The instant they appeared, policemen, rushing down the steps, rushing 374from the curb, rushing from the crowd which had gathered, seized them. They tried to wrench the banners away; and this was, of course, an unequal contest, in which sometimes the women were pulled completely off the ground and always their wrists painfully twisted. But the women clung to the banners, walked as calmly as the situation permitted into the Capitol, and down to the guard room. Here the banners were always confiscated, but they, themselves, were released. If anybody in the crowd showed any disposition to resent the attitude of the police, he was placed under arrest too; but he also was released.

On October 11 the Suffragists picketed only the Senate Office Building, as Congress was not in session. At the beginning of the day, Mrs. George Atwater and Betty Cram held the banners. Mrs. Atwater’s two little girls, Edith and Barbara, assisted their mother by holding the tri-colors.

Others who picketed that day were: Grace Needham, Mrs. George Odell, Elizabeth Kalb, Virginia Arnold, Mary Gertrude Fendall, Gladys Greiner, Maud Jamison, Vivian Pierce, Bertha Moller, Clara Wold.

On October 13, plans for another demonstration were announced in the Washington papers. Edith Ainge, bearing the American flag, was to lead a procession of Suffragists on to the Senate floor. There the words of the anti-Suffrage Senators in praise of democracy were to be burned. For an hour before the line formed, the Capitol police were lined up, ready for the pickets. Above, Senators hung over the balcony where they could witness the demonstration. Below, motor after motor drove up to the curb and stopped, waiting to see what was going to happen. At length, the Suffragists arrived. They formed in line outside the Senate Office Building, and started towards the Capitol. They were beset by a battalion of police, and taken to the guard room. Women standing in the crowd, who were not in the procession, but who wore the Suffrage colors were taken along also. 375Alice Paul, who wore no regalia of any kind, was caught in the net.

These women were: Alice Paul; Vivian Pierce; Bertha Moller; Bertha Arnold; Elizabeth McShane; Edith Ainge; Edith Hilles; Julia Emory; Clara Wold; Elizabeth Kalb; Virginia Arnold; Grace Frost; Matilda Young; Mrs. K. G. Winston.

The Woman’s Party now decided to open a “banner” campaign on each of the Senators who had helped to defeat the Suffrage Amendment. They began with Senator Wadsworth. They unrolled on the steps of the Senate Office Building a banner which read:
SENATOR WADSWORTH’S REGIMENT IS FIGHTING FOR
DEMOCRACY ABROAD.
SENATOR WADSWORTH LEFT HIS REGIMENT AND IS FIGHTING
AGAINST DEMOCRACY IN THE SENATE.
SENATOR WADSWORTH COULD SERVE HIS COUNTRY BETTER BY
FIGHTING WITH HIS REGIMENT ABROAD THAN BY
FIGHTING WOMEN.

Later appeared another banner, proclaiming the case of Senator Shields:
SENATOR SHIELDS TOLD THE PEOPLE OF TENNESSEE HE
WOULD SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT’S POLICIES. THE ONLY TIME
THE PRESIDENT WENT TO THE SENATE TO ASK ITS SUPPORT,
SENATOR SHIELDS VOTED AGAINST HIM. DOES TENNESSEE BACK
THE PRESIDENT’S WAR PROGRAM OR SENATOR SHIELDS?

These banners were taken up by the newspapers of the Senators’ States and focussed unfavorable attention upon them.

By this time, the Capitol police had found that their system of arresting and detaining what threatene............