The President of the United States returned to America from Europe on February 24, 1919, landing in Boston. Boston arranged an enormous welcome-home demonstration. The Woman’s Party determined to take part in that welcome to remind him of the Suffrage work to be done, and they announced this to the world at large. Alice Paul went to Boston to arrange this demonstration. The Boston police announced in their turn that they would establish a dead line in front of the reviewing stand beyond which the Suffragists would not be allowed to penetrate. However, the Suffragists, following the Red Cross women, marched through the line of Marines who held the crowd back, and took up their position before the reviewing stand where the President was to appear. At the head of the line in the place of honor, waving the American flag, was Katherine Morey. On one side of the Stars and Stripes was the historic banner:
MR. PRESIDENT, HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY?

On the other side of the Stars and Stripes was a second historic banner:
MR. PRESIDENT, WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE?

The special lettered banner for the occasion read:
MR. PRESIDENT, YOU SAID IN THE SENATE ON SEPTEMBER 30,
“WE SHALL NOT ONLY BE DISTRUSTED BUT WE SHALL DESERVE
TO BE DISTRUSTED IF WE DO NOT ENFRANCHISE WOMEN.”
409YOU ALONE CAN REMOVE THIS DISTRUST NOW BY SECURING
THE ONE VOTE NEEDED TO PASS THE SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT
BEFORE MARCH 4.

This banner was carried by Lois Shaw and Ruth Small.

The police politely requested the pickets to depart and the pickets politely refused to go; whereupon the police politely arrested them. The arrested women were: Jessica Henderson, Ruth Small, Lou Daniels, Mrs. Frank Page, Josephine Collins, Berry Pottier, Wilma Henderson, Mrs. Irving Gross, Mrs. George Roewer, Francis Fowler, Camilla Whitcomb, Mrs. H. L. Turner, Eleanor Calnan, Betty Connelly, Betty Gram, Lois Warren Shaw, Rose Lewis, Mrs. E. T. Russian.

They were charged with “loitering more than seven minutes.”

In the afternoon while the President was making a speech in Mechanics Hall, a Watchfire demonstration occurred on Boston Common. A vast crowd gathered about it. From three o’clock in the afternoon until six, the women made speeches.

The speakers were: Louise Sykes, Mrs. C. C. Jack, Mrs. Mortimer Warren, Mrs. Robert Trent Whitehouse, Agnes H. Morey, Elsie Hill.

Louise Sykes burned the President’s words—and they were the words that he was speaking that very afternoon. Mrs. Mortimer Warren and Mrs. C. C. Jack were arrested at six o’clock and released immediately. Elsie Hill was detained on the charge of speaking without a permit.

That day the President’s carriage drove by the Boston Headquarters. When Wilson saw the purple, white, and gold colors, his expression changed. Quickly he looked the other way. It was observed that he held across his knees a newspaper whose flaring headlines announced that day’s picketing.

410The Suffragists were tried on February 25, by what was very like a Star Chamber proceeding, in the Judge’s lobby on the second floor of the court house. The Press was not excluded from the hearing, but the public............