He spoke the truth, and finished dramatically with:
"Gentlemen, there is only one question before the House today and that is, if you look at it from a political aspect, whether you wish to approve of the practices of these women who have been disgracing their cause here in Washington for the past several months."
Representative Volstead, of Minnesota, Republican, came the closest of all to real courage in his protest:-
"In this discussion some very unfair comments have been made upon the women who picketed the White House. While I do not approve of picketing, I disapprove more strongly of the hoodlum methods pursued in suppressing the practice. I gather from the press that this is what took place. Some women did in a peaceable, and perfectly lawful manner, display suffrage banners on the public street near the White House. To stop this the police allowed the women to be mobbed, and then because the mob obstructed the street, the women were arrested and fined, while the mob went scot-free . . . ."
The Suffrage Committee in the House was appointed. The creation of this committee, which had been pending since 1913, was now finally granted in September, 1917. To be sure this was accomplished only after an inordinate amount of time, money and effort had been spent on a sustained and relentless campaign of pressure. But the Administration had yielded.
As a means to remove the pickets, however, this yielding had failed. "We ask no more machinery; we demand the pa.s.sage of the amendment," said the pickets as they lengthened their line.
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Chapter 9
Political Prisoners
Finding that a Suffrage Committee in the House and a report in the Senate had not silenced our banners, the Administration cast about for another plan by which to stop the picketing. This time they turned desperately to longer terms of imprisonment. They were indeed hard pressed when they could choose such a cruel and stupid course.
Our answer to this policy was more women on the picket line, on the outside, and a protest on the inside of prison.
We decided, in the face of extended imprisonment, to demand to be treated as political prisoners. We felt that, as a matter of principle, this was the dignified and self-respecting thing to do, since we had offended politically, not criminally. We believed further that a determined, organized effort to make clear to a wider public the political nature of the offense would intensify the Administration"s embarra.s.sment and so accelerate their final surrender.
It fell to Lucy Burns, vice chairman of the organization, to be the leader of the new protest. Miss Burns is in appearance the very symbol of woman in revolt. Her abundant and glorious red hair burns and is not consumed-a flaming torch. Her body is strong and vital. It is said that Lucy Stone had the "voice" of the pioneers. Lucy Burns without doubt possessed the "voice" of the modern suffrage movement. Musical, appealing, persuading-she could move the most resistant person. Her talent as an orator is of the kind that makes for instant
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intimacy with her audience. Her emotional quality is so powerful that her intellectual capacity, which is quite as great, is not always at once perceived.
I find myself wanting to talk about her as a human being rather than as a leader of women. Perhaps it is because she has such winning, lovable qualities. It was always difficult for her to give all of her energy and power to a movement. She yearned to play, to read, to study, to be luxuriously indolent, to revel in the companionship of her family, to which she is ardently devoted; to do any one of a hundred things more pleasant than trying to reason with a politician or an unawakened member of her own s.e.x. But for these latter labors she had a most gentle and persuasive genius, and she would not shrink from hours of close argument to convince a person intellectually and emotionally.
Unlike Miss Paul, however, her force is not nonresistant. Once in the combat she takes delight in it; she is by nature a rebel. She is an ideal leader for the stormy and courageous attack-reckless and yet never to the point of unwisdom.
From the time Miss Burns and Miss Paul met for the first time in Cannon Row Police Station, London, they have been constant co- workers in suffrage. Both were students abroad at the time they met. They were among the hundred women arrested for attempting to present pet.i.tions for suffrage to Parliament. This was the first time either of them had partic.i.p.ated in a demonstration. But from then on they worked together in England and Scotland organizing, speaking, heckling members of the government, campaigning at bye- elections; going to Holloway Prison together, where they joined the Englishwomen on hunger strike. Miss Burns remained organizing in Scotland while Miss Paul was obliged to return to America after serious illness following a thirty day period of imprisonment, during all of which time she was forcibly fed.
Miss Burns and she did not meet again until 1913-three
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years having intervened-when they undertook the national work on Congress. Throughout the entire campaign Miss Burns and Miss Paul counseled with one another on every point of any importance. This combination of the cool strategist and pa.s.sionate rebel-each sharing some of the attributes of the other-has been a complete and unsurpa.s.sed leadership.
You have now been introduced, most inadequately, to Lucy Burns, who was to start the fight inside the prison.
She had no sooner begun to organize her comrades for protest than the officials sensed a "plot," and removed her at once to solitary confinement. But they were too late. Taking the leader only hastened the rebellion. A forlorn piece of paper was discovered, on which was written their initial demand, It was then pa.s.sed from prisoner to prisoner through holes in the wall surrounding leaden pipes, until a finished doc.u.ment had been perfected and signed by all the prisoners.
This historic doc.u.ment-historic because it represents the first organized group action ever made in America to establish the status of political prisoners-said:
To the Commissioners of the Distinct of Columbia:
As political prisoners, we, the undersigned, refuse to work while in prison. We have taken this stand as a matter of principle after careful consideration, and from it we shall not recede.
This action is a necessary protest against an unjust sentence. In reminding President Wilson of his pre-election promises toward woman suffrage we were exercising the right of peaceful pet.i.tion, guaranteed by the Const.i.tution of the United States, which declares peaceful picketing is legal in the District of Columbia.
That we are unjustly sentenced has been well recognized-when President Wilson pardoned the first group of suffragists who had been given sixty days in the workhouse, and again when Judge Mullowny suspended sentence for the last group of picketers. We wish to point out the inconsistency and injustice of our sentences-some of us have been given sixty days, a later group thirty days, and
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another group given a suspended sentence for exactly the same action.
Conscious, therefore, of having acted in accordance with the highest standards of citizenship, we ask the Commissioners of the District to grant us the rights due political prisoners. We ask that we no longer be segregated and confined under locks and bars in small groups, but permitted to see each other, and that Miss Lucy Burns, who is in full sympathy with this letter, be released from solitary confinement in another building and given back to us.
We ask exemption from prison work, that our legal right to consult counsel be recognized, to have food sent to us from outside, to supply ourselves with writing material for as much correspondence as we may need, to receive books, letters, newspapers, our relatives and friends.
Our united demand for political treatment has been delayed, because on entering the workhouse we found conditions so very bad that before we could ask that the suffragists be treated as political prisoners, it was necessary to make a stand for the ordinary rights of human beings for all the inmates. Although this has not been accomplished we now wish to bring the important question of the status of political prisoners to the attention of the commissioners, who, we are informed, have full authority to make what regulations they please for the :District prison and workhouse.
The Commissioners are requested to send us a written reply so that we may be sure this protest has reached them.
Signed by,
MARY WINSOR, Lucy BRANHAM, ERNESTINE HARA, HILDA BLUMBERG, MAUD MALONE, PAULINE F. ADAMS, ELEANOR. A. CALNAN, EDITH AINGE, ANNIE ARNEIL, DOROTHY J. BARTLETT, MARGARET FOTHERINGHAM.
The Commissioners" only answer to this was a hasty transfer of the signers and the leader, Miss Burns, to the District Jail, where they were put in solitary confinement. The women were not only refused the privileges asked but were denied some of the usual privileges allowed to ordinary criminals.
Generous publicity was given to these reasonable demands,
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and a surprisingly wide-spread protest followed the official denial of them. Scores of committees went to the District Commissioners. Telegrams backing up the women"s demand again poured in upon all responsible administrators, from President Wilson down. Not even foreign diplomats escaped protest or appeal.
Miss Vera Samarodin sent to the Russian Amba.s.sador the following touching letter, concerning her sister, which is translated from the Russian:-
The Russian Amba.s.sador, Washington, D.C.
Excellency:
I am appealing to you to help a young Russian girl imprisoned in the workhouse near Washington. Her name is Nina Samarodin. I have just come from one of the two monthly visits I am allowed to make her, as a member of her family.
The severity and cruelty of the treatment she is receiving at Occoquan are so much greater than she would have to suffer in Russia for the simple political offense she is accused of having committed that I hope you will be able to intercede with the officials of this country for her.
Her offense, aside from the fact that she infringed no law nor disturbed the peace, had only a political aim, and was proved to be political by the words of the judge who sentenced her, for he declared that because of the innocent inscription on her banner he would make her sentence light.
Since her imprisonment she has been forced to wear the dress of a criminal, which she would not in Russia; she has had to eat only the coa.r.s.e and unpalatable food served the criminal inmates, and has not been allowed, as she would in Russia, to have other food brought to her; nor has she, as she would be there been under the daily care of a physician. She is not permitted to write letters, nor to have free access to books and other implements of study.
Nina Samarodin has visibly lost in weight and strength since her imprisonment, and she has a constant headache from hunger.
Her motive in holding the banner by the White House, I
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feel, cannot but appeal to you, Excellency, for she says it was the knowledge that her family were fighting in Russia in this great war for democracy, and that she was cut off from serving with them that made her desire to do what she could to help the women of this nation achieve the freedom her own people have.