Sat.u.r.day night"s both black and white-are tried first. The suffrage prisoners strain their ears to hear the pitiful pleas of these unfortunates, most of whom come to the bar without counsel or friend. Sc.r.a.ps of evidence are heard.
JUDGE: "You say you were not quarreling, Lottie?"
LOTTIE: "I sho" do yo" hono". We wuz jes singin"-we wuz sho" nuf, sah."
JUDGE: "Singing, Lottie? Why your neighbors here testify to the fact that you were making a great deal of noise so much that they could not sleep."
[1]Mrs. Hilles is the daughter of the late Thomas Bayard, formerly America"s amba.s.sador to Great Britain, and Secretary of State in President Cleveland"s cabinet.
{101}
LOTTIE: "I tells yo" honor" we wuz jes singin" lak we allays do."
JUDGE : "What were you singing?"
LOTTIE: "Why, hymns, sah."
The judge smiles cynically.
A neatly-attired white man with a wizened face again takes the stand against Lottie. Hymns or no hymns he could not sleep. The judge p.r.o.nounces a sentence of "six months in the workhouse," for Lottie.
And so it goes on.
The suffrage prisoners are the main business of the morning.
Sixteen women come inside the railing which separates "tried"
from "untried" and take their seats.
"Do the ladies wish the government to provide them with counsel?"
They do not.
"We shall speak in our own behalf. We feel that we can best represent ourselves," we announce. Miss Anne Martin and I act as attorneys for the group.
The same panting policemen who could not identify the people they had arrested give their stereotyped, false and illiterate testimony. The judge helps them over the hard places and so does the government"s attorney. They stumble to an embarra.s.sed finish and retire.
An aged government clerk, grown infirm in the service, takes the stand and the government attorney proves through him that there is a White House; that it has a side-walk in front of it, and a pavement, and a hundred other overwhelming facts. The pathetic clerk shakes his dusty frame and slinks off the stand. The prosecuting attorney now elaborately proves that we walked, that we carried banners, that we were arrested by the aforesaid officers while attempting to hold our banners at the White House gates.
Each woman speaks briefly in her own defense. She de-
{102}
nounces the government"s policy with hot defiance. The blame is placed squarely at the door of the Administration, and in unmistakable terms. Miss Anne Martin opens for the defense:
"This is what we are doing with our banners before the White House, pet.i.tioning the most powerful representative of the government, the President of the United States, for a redress of grievances; we are asking him to use his great power to secure the pa.s.sage of the national suffrage amendment.
"As long as the government and the representatives of the government prefer to send women to jail on petty and technical charges, we will go to jail. Persecution has always advanced the cause of justice. The right of American women to work for democracy must be maintained . . . . We would hinder, not help, the whole cause of freedom for women, if we weakly submitted to persecution now. Our work for the pa.s.sage of the amendment must go on. It will go on."
Mrs. John Rogers, Jr., descendant of Roger Sherman, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, speaks: "We are not guilty of any offence, not even of infringing a police regulation. We know full well that we stand here because the President of the United States refuses to give liberty to American women. We believe, your Honor, that the wrong persons are before the bar in this Court . . . ."
"I object, your Honor, to this woman making such a statement here in Court," says the District Attorney.
"We believe the President is the guilty one and that we are innocent."
"Your Honor, I object," shouts the Government"s attorney.
The prisoner continues calmly: "There are votes enough and there is time enough to pa.s.s the national suffrage amendment through Congress at this session. More than 200 votes in the House and more than 50 in the Senate are pledged to this amendment. The President puts his power behind all measures in which he takes a genuine interest. If he will say one
{103}
frank word advocating this measure it will pa.s.s as a piece of war emergency legislation."
Mrs. Florence Bayard Hilles speaks in her own defense: "For generations the men of my family have given their services to their country. For myself, my training from childhood has been with a father who believed in democracy and who belonged to the Democratic Party. By inheritance and connection I am a Democrat, and to a Democratic President I went with my appeal . . . . What a spectacle it must be to the thinking people of this country to see us urged to go to war for democracy in a foreign land, and to see women thrown into prison who plead for that same cause at home.
"I stand here to affirm my innocence of the charge against me.
This court has not proven that I obstructed traffic. My presence at the White House gate was under the const.i.tutional right of pet.i.tioning the government for freedom or for any other cause.
During the months of January, February, March, April and May picketing was legal. In June it suddenly becomes illegal . . . .
"My services as an American woman are being conscripted by order of the President of the United States to help win the world war for democracy . . . . "for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government." I shall continue to plead for the political liberty of American women-and especially do I plead to the President, since he is the one person who . . . can end the struggles of American women to take their proper places in a true democracy."
There is continuous objection from the prosecutor, eager advice from the judge, "you had better keep to the charge of obstructing traffic" But round on round of applause comes from the intent audience, whenever a defiant note is struck by the prisoners, and in spite of the sharp rapping of the gavel confusion reigns. And how utterly puny the "charge" is! If it were true that the prisoners actually obstructed the traffic,
{104)
how grotesque that would be. The importance of their demand, the purity of their reasoning, the n.o.bility and gentle quality of the prisoners at the bar; all conspire to make the charge against them, and the attorney who makes it, and the judge who hears it, petty and ridiculous.
But justice must proceed.
Mrs. Gilson Gardner of Washington, D. C., a member of the Executive Committee of the National Woman"s party, and the wife of Gilson Gardner, a well-known Liberal and journalist, speaks:
"It is impossible for me to believe that we were arrested because we were obstructing traffic or blocking the public high- way.
"We have been carrying on activities of a distinctly political nature, and these political activities have seemingly disturbed certain powerful influences. Arrests followed. I submit that these arrests are purely political and that the charge of an unlawful a.s.semblage and of obstructing traffic is a political subterfuge. Even should I be sent to jail which, I could not, your Honor, antic.i.p.ate, I would be in jail, not because I obstructed traffic, but because I have offended politically, because I have demanded of this government freedom for women."
It was my task to sum up for the defense. The judge sat bored through my statement. "We know and I believe the Court knows also," I said, "that President Wilson and his Administration are responsible for our being here to-day. It is a fact that they gave the orders which caused our arrest and appearance before this bar.
"We know and you know, that the District Commissioners are appointed by the President, that the present commissioners were appointed by President Wilson. We know that you, your Honor, were appointed to the bench by President Wilson, and that the district attorney who prosecutes us was appointed by the President. These various officers would not dare bring us
{105}
here under these false charges without the policy having been decided upon by the responsible leaders.
"What is our real crime? What have these distinguished and liberty-loving women done to bring them before this court of justice? Why, your Honor, their crime is that they peacefully pet.i.tioned the President of the United States for liberty. What must be the shame of our nation before the world when it becomes known that here we throw women into jail who love liberty and attempt to peacefully pet.i.tion the President for it? These women are nearly all descended from revolutionary ancestors or from some of the greatest libertarian statesmen this country has produced. What would these men say now if they could see that pa.s.sion for liberty which was in their own hearts rewarded in the twentieth century with foul and filthy imprisonment!
"We say to you, this outrageous policy of stupid and brutal punishment will not dampen the ardor of the women. Where sixteen of us face your judgment to-day there will be sixty tomorrow, so great will be the indignation of our colleagues in this fight."
The trial came to an end after a tense two days. The packed court-room fat in a terrible silence awaiting the judge"s answer.