When Congress adjourned at noon March 3, President Wilson left immediately for Europe, stopping in New York to speak at the Metropolitan Opera House. Alice Paul arranged at once a demonstration in New York as a protest against the President leaving the Suffrage question still unsettled. Her plan was to have every word on democracy, uttered by the President inside the Opera House, immediately burned outside the Opera House.

On the evening of March 4 a long line of Suffragists started from the New York Headquarters at 13 East Forty-first Street. Margaretta Schuyler carried the American flag. Lucy Maverick followed her carrying the purple, white, and gold tri-color. Florence De Shan carried:
MR. PRESIDENT, HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY?

Beatrice Castleton bore:
MR. PRESIDENT, HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY?

The lettered banner for the occasion said:
MR. PRESIDENT, AMERICAN WOMEN PROTEST AGAINST THE
DEFEAT OF SUFFRAGE FOR WHICH YOU AND YOUR PARTY ARE
RESPONSIBLE. WE DEMAND THAT YOU CALL AN EXTRA SESSION
OF CONGRESS IMMEDIATELY TO PASS THE SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT.
AN AUTOCRAT AT HOME IS A POOR CHAMPION FOR
DEMOCRACY ABROAD.

413At the corner of Fortieth Street and Broadway, this line met a barrier of more than a hundred policemen. As the Suffragists tried to pass through them, the police—assisted by soldiers and sailors from the crowd—rushed upon them; tore down the banners; broke them.

In her book, Jailed for Freedom, Doris Stevens tells how in perfect silence, but in the most business-like way, the New York police clubbed the pickets. They arrested six of the women; Alice Paul, Elsie Hill, Doris Stevens, Beatrice Castleton, Lucy Maverick, Marie Bodenheim. These were taken to the police station charged with disorderly conduct. After half an hour, they were suddenly released.

They went back to Headquarters, re-formed into a second line and ............