before we examine the consideration which actuated the national woman’s party in waging the picket campaign of 1917, let us see where president wilson stood at the beginning of the war; let us briefly recapitulate the steps which brought him there.
194it will be remembered that, shortly after the president took his seat in march, 1913, he told a deputation from the congressional committee that suffrage was a question to which he had given no thought and on which he had no opinion. during the year, no longer stating that he knew nothing about suffrage, he gave as a reason for inaction that the congressional program was too crowded to consider it. by the end of the year, he had reached the point where he stated that he could take no action on the suffrage amendment until commanded by his party.
in 1914, he continued to state that he was prohibited from acting because of being bound by his party until june, when he seized on the excuse of states rights further to explain his inaction. in the autumn of 1915 he first came out personally for suffrage by voting for it in new jersey but still refused to support it in congress. his next step forward came in june, 1916, when he caused the principle of suffrage to be recognized in the party platform, though as yet neither he nor the party had endorsed the federal amendment. in september of that same year—after the woman’s party had begun its active campaign in the suffrage states—the president took another step and addressed a suffrage convention of the national american woman’s suffrage association. but as yet he was not committed to the federal amendment, had not begun to exert pressure on congress.
the situation of the president and the woman’s party at this juncture may be summed up in this way. wilson, himself, was beginning to realize that the suffrage amendment must ultimately pass. but he had just been re-elected. he was safe for four years; he could take his time about it. the woman’s party on the other hand, realized that the president being safe for four years, no political pressure could be exerted upon him. they realized that they must devise other methods to keep suffrage, as a measure demanding immediate enactment, before him.
in the meantime, a feeling of acute discontent was growing 195in the women of the united states. the older women—and they were the third generation to demand the vote—were beginning to ask how long this period of entreaty must be protracted. the younger women—the fourth generation to demand the vote—were becoming impatient with the out-worn methods of their predecessors. moreover, when the disfranchised women of the east visited the enfranchised states of the west, their eyes were opened in a practical way to the extraordinary injustice of their own disfranchisement. equally, the enfranchised women of the west, moving to eastern states, resented their loss of this political weapon. on many women in america the militant movement of england had produced a profound impression.
a new note had crept into the speeches made by the members of the woman’s party—the note of this impatience and resentment. it will be remembered that mrs. kent told the president that the women voters of the west were accustomed to being listened to with attention by politicians, and that they resented the effort to make it seem that they were merely trying to bother a very busy official. mrs. blatch had told him that the time had gone by when she would stand on street corners and ask the vote from every tom, dick, and harry; that she was determined to appeal instead to the men who spoke her own language and who had in charge the affairs of the government.
doris stevens, in an interview in the omaha daily news for june 29, 1919, voices perfectly what her generation was feeling.
a successful young harvard engineer said to me the other day, “i don’t believe you realize how much men objected to your picketing the white house. now i know what i’m talking about. i’ve talked with men in all walks of life, and i tell you they didn’t approve of what you women did.”
this last with warmer emphasis and a scowl of the brow. “i don’t suppose you were in a position to know how violently men felt about it.”
i listened patiently and courteously. should i disillusion him? i thought it was the honest thing to do. “why, of course 196men didn’t like it. do you think we imagined they would? we knew they would disapprove. when did men ever applaud women fighting for their own liberty? we are approved only when we fight for yours!”
“you don’t mean to say you planned to do something knowing men would not approve?”
i simply had to tell him, “why, certainly! we’re just beginning to get confidence in ourselves. at last we’ve learned to make and stand by our own judgments.”
“but going to jail. that was pretty shocking.”
“yes, indeed it was. it not only shocked us that a government would be alarmed enough to do such a thing, but what was more to the point, it shocked the entire country into doing something quickly about woman suffrage.”
it will be seen by the foregoing pages of this book that suffragists had exhausted every form of suffrage agitation known to the united states. in particular, they had sent to the president every kind of deputation that could possibly move him.
they decided to send him a perpetual deputation.
alice paul, in explanation of her strategy in this matter, uses one of the vivid figures that are so typical of her: “if a creditor stands before a man’s house all day long, demanding payment of his bill, the man must either remove the creditor or pay the bill.”
at first, the president tried to remove the creditor. later he paid the bill.
at ten o’clock on january 10, 1917, the day after the deputation to the president, twelve women emerged from headquarters and marched across lafayette square to the white house. four of them bore lettered banners, and eight of them carried purple, white, and gold banners of the woman’s party. they marched slowly—a banner’s length apart. six of them took up their stand at the east gate, and six of them at the west gate. at each gate—standing between pairs of women holding on high purple, white, and gold colors—two women held lettered banners. 197one read:
mr. president what will you do for woman suffrage?
the other read:
how long must women wait for liberty?
these were the first women to picket the white house.
the first picket line appeared on january 10, 1917; the last, over a year and a half later. between those dates, except when congress was not in session, more than a thousand women held lettered banners, accompanied by the purple, white, and gold tri-colors, at the white house gates, or in front of the capitol. they picketed every day of the week, except sunday; in all kinds of weather, in rain and in sleet, in hail, and in snow. all varieties of women picketed: all races and religions; all cliques and classes; all professions and parties. washington became accustomed to the dignified picture—the pickets moving with a solemn silence, always in a line that followed a crack in the pavement; always a banner’s length apart; taking their stand with a precision almost military; maintaining it with a movelessness almost statuesque. washington became accustomed also to the rainbow splash at the white house gates—“like trumpet calls,” somebody described the banners. artists often spoke of the beauty of their massed color. in the daytime, those banners gilded by the sunlight were doubly brilliant, but at twilight the effect was transcendent. everywhere the big, white lights—set in the parks on such low standards that they seemed strange, luminous blossoms, springing from the masses of emerald green shrubbery—filled the dusk with bluish-white splendor, and, made doubly colorful by this light, the long purple, white, and gold ribbon stood out against a background beautiful and appropriate; a mosaic on the gray of the white house pavement; the pen-and-ink blackness of the white house iron work; the bare, brown 198crisscross of the white house trees, and the chaste colonial simplicity of the white house itself.
with her abiding instinct for pageantry and for telling picturesqueness of demonstration, alice paul soon punctuated the monotony of the picketing by special events. various states celebrated state days on the picket line. maryland was the first of these, and the long line of maryland women bearing great banners, extended along pennsylvania avenue the entire distance from the east gate to the west gate. pennsylvania day, new york day, virginia day, new jersey day, followed. the monday of every week was set aside finally for district of columbia day.
the new york delegation carried on their banners phrases from president wilson’s book, the new freedom.
liberty is a fundamental demand of the human spirit.
we are interested in the united states, politically
speaking, in nothing but human liberty.
on college day, thirteen colleges were represented, the biggest group from goucher college, baltimore. then came teachers’ day; patriotic day, and lincoln day. on patriotic day, one of the banners read:
denmark on the verge of war gave women the vote.
why not give it to american women now?
on lincoln day, they said:
why are you behind lincoln?
after the civil war women asked for political freedom.
they were told to wait—this was the negro’s hour.
in 1917, american women still ask for freedom.
will you, mr. president, tell them to wait—that this is the porto rican’s hour?
199on sunday, february 18, came labor day on the picket line. it was, of course, impossible for wage-earning women to picket the white house on any other day. they represented not only office workers, but factory workers from the great industrial centers. many of them had come from other cities.
susan b. anthony’s birthday, february 15, was celebrated impressively, although it rained and snowed heavily. three new banners appeared that day. the first—big enough and golden enough even to suit that big, golden woman—bore quotations from susan b. anthony:
we press our demand for the ballot at this time in
no narrow, captious, or self-seeking spirit, but from
purest patriotism for the highest good of every citizen,
for the safety of the republic, and as a glorious
example to the nations of the earth.
the second susan b. anthony banner said:
at this time our greatest need is not men or money,
valiant generals or brilliant victories, but a consistent
national policy based upon the principles that
all governments derive their just powers from the
consent of the governed.
the third susan b. anthony banner said:
the right of self-government for one-half of its
people is of far more vital consequence to the nation
than any or all other questions.
on march 2, 1917, the congressional union and its western organization, the woman’s party, met in joint convention and organized themselves into the national woman’s party.
on that occasion, alice paul said:
200we feel that by combining the congressional union and the woman’s party we shall bring about a unity in organization which will make impossible duplication, difference of opinion, and divergence of method. by uniting we make, moreover, for unity of spirit in the whole suffrage movement, bringing the voters and non-voters together in a movement in which they should both be integral parts.
the original purpose for which the woman’s party, as an organization confined to women voters alone, was formed, has, we believe, been served. in the first three years of our work we endeavored to call the attention of political leaders and congress to the fact that women were voting and that these voting women were interested in suffrage. but words alone did not have much effect. we found we had to visualize the existence of voting women out in the west and their support of the suffrage amendment. the woman’s party was formed as one means of doing this.
the woman’s party did, i believe, have an effect on the political leaders. it was very clear, i think, at the convention in chicago and in st. louis that the idea that women were voting and that those women were interested in the federal amendment was at last appreciated. this november’s election completed our work in getting that fact into the minds of congressmen and political leaders. there is no longer any need to draw a line around women voters and set them off by themselves in order to call attention to them. they now enter into the calculations of every political observer.
if we amalgamate and make ourselves one great group of voters and non-voters all working for the federal amendment, the question arises: what name shall we be called by, the congressional union or the woman’s party? our executive committee felt that we ought to keep the name of the woman’s party, because it stands for political power.
the objections brought against this are, i think, two. first, that non-voters should not, according to custom, be part of a political party; second, that if they are included, that party will not command as much respect as would a party composed solely of voters. there are non-voters in the socialist, the progressive, and the prohibition parties; there is no reason why, if we are interested in precedent and custom, they should not be in our party also. as to the second point: the congressional union has the reputation of being an active, determined, and well-financed organization. when the political world realizes that this young woman’s party has been strengthened by the influx 201of twenty-five thousand workers of the congressional union ready to give their service and money it will consider that the woman’s party stands for more power than if formed of the women of the western states only.
wage earners picketing the white house, february, 1917.
photo copr. harris and ewing, washington, d. c.
all of us in the congressional union feel an affection for it. but that is no reason for continuing the organization. the congressional union has served a useful purpose, we believe. but now that we have created the woman’s party we ought, it seems to me, to develop and make that the dominant suffrage factor in this country because that, through its name and associations, throws the emphasis more than does the congressional union on the political power of women.
the following officers were elected unanimously at the morning session: chairman of the national woman’s party, alice paul; vice-chairman, anne martin; secretary, mabel vernon; treasurer, gertrude crocker. the executive board elected were: lucy burns, mrs. o. h. p. belmont, mrs. j. w. brannan, mrs. gilson gardner, abby scott baker, mrs. william kent, maud younger, doris stevens, florence bayard hilles, mrs. donald hooker, mrs. j. a. h. hopkins, and mrs. lawrence lewis.
at that convention, various resolutions were passed; the most notable in regard to the attitude of the national woman’s party towards the rapidly developing war situation. that resolution runs as follows:
whereas the problems involved in the present international situation, affecting the lives of millions of women in this country, make imperative the enfranchisement of women,
be it resolved that the national woman’s party, organized for the sole purpose of securing political liberty for women, shall continue to work for this purpose until it is accomplished, being unalterably convinced that in so doing the organization serves the highest interests of the country.
and be it further resolved that to this end we urge upon the president and the congress of the united states the immediate passage of the national suffrage amendment.
it was decided to present these resolutions to the president. shortly after, dudley field malone, collector of the 202port of new york, on behalf of the woman’s party, informed the president that a deputation would visit him for that purpose.
this demonstration was not so much a protest at the failure of the first administration to pass the anthony amendment, or at the adjournment of congress without passing it, as a presentation of the demands of the national woman’s party immediately upon the opening of president wilson’s second term.
during the first three days in march, washington filled steadily with inauguration crowds. when they got off the train, the great demand banner of the national woman’s party confronted them, and girls handed them slips inviting them to the demonstration of the national woman’s party at the white house on inauguration day and to the mass-meeting of the national woman’s party to be held that night. girls also stood in theatre lobbies, handing out more of these slips. girls made the rounds of the government departments, handing out still more. everywhere great posters said:
come to the white house on march 4.
come in thousands.
inauguration day dawned a day of biting wind and slashing rain.
outside headquarters was turmoil; inside a boiling activity. hundreds of women were preparing to picket the white house. to accommodate them, a rubber company, hastily summoned, had commandeered one room and was selling rain-coats; tarpaulin hats; rubbers.
an extraordinary, a magnificent demonstration followed. to the music of several bands, nearly a thousand pickets circled the white house four times—a distance of four miles. vida milholland, the younger sister of inez milholland, marched at the head, carrying on a golden banner her sister’s last words for suffrage.
203mr. president, how long must women wait for liberty?
the great demand banner followed, carried by mrs. benton mackaye:
we demand an amendment to the constitution of
the united states enfranchising women.
beulah amidon carried the suffrage banner which inez milholland bore in the first suffrage procession in new york:
“forward, out of darkness,
leave behind the night.
forward out of error,
forward into light.”
behind there came hundreds of women bearing the purple, white, and gold. they were divided according to states; and before each division marched the state flag of the division. the drenching rain fell steadily. the pavements turned to shallow lakes, and the banners—their brilliancy accentuated by the wet—threw long, wavy reflections on the glassy, gray streets. they were of course expecting this demonstration at the white house, and, as though it were dangerous, unusual precautions had been taken against it. every gate was locked. the washington force of police officers, augmented by police from baltimore and by squads of plain-clothes men, guarded the grounds without and within. gilson gardner said the president seemed to think the women were going to steal his grass roots.
there was no one at the locked gates to receive the women or the resolutions except the guards; these guards protested that they had not been ordered to receive either. the women visited every gate, but received the same answer. the cards of the leaders were finally handed over to a guard to present at the white house. he tried to deliver them, but was reprimanded for leaving his post, and sent back. learning 204that the cards would be delivered at the end of the day, as is the custom with visiting-cards of casual visitors at the white house, the thousand pickets took up their march again.
gilson gardner wrote of this demonstration:
the weather gave this affair its character. had there been fifteen hundred women carrying banners on a fair day, the sight would have been a pretty one. but to see a thousand women—young women, middle-aged and old women—and there were women in the line who had passed their three score and ten—marching in a rain that almost froze as it fell; to see them standing and marching and holding their heavy banners, momentarily growing heavier—holding them against a wind that was half gale—hour after hour, until their gloves were wet, their clothes soaked through; to see them later with hands sticky from the varnish from the banner poles—bare hands, for the gloves had by this time been pulled off, and the hands were blue with cold—to see these women keep their lines and go through their program fully, losing only those who fainted or fell from exhaustion, was a sight to impress even the dulled and jaded senses of one who has seen much.
one young woman from north dakota i saw clinging to the iron pickets around the white house, her banner temporarily abandoned, fighting against what was to her a new feeling, faintness resulting from the pain in her hands. she was brought to the automobile in which i was riding before she actually fell to the ground; but after a short rest she was back in the line, and finished with the others.
there is no doubt that what gilson gardner said was true—the weather gave this affair its character.
people passing by, thrilled by the gallantry of the marchers, joined the procession. and as gilson gardner says, it was not because it was a pretty sight, or because these women were all young. anna norris kendall of wisconsin, seventy-two years old, and the rev. olympia brown, eighty-two years old, one of the pioneer suffragists of the country, both took part.
the thousand pickets try vainly to deliver their resolutions to the president, march 4, 1917.
a thousand pickets marching around the white house, march 4, 1917.
that day, a newly elected congressman drove about washington, showing the city to his wife. he had always 205been a suffragist. she had always been an anti-suffragist. the sudden sight of the thousand women marching in the rain not only converted her, but it produced such an effect on her she burst into tears.
later, president wilson sent a letter to the national woman’s party, acknowledging the resolutions presented to him by the deputations of march 4, and concluded: “may i not once more express my sincere interest in the cause of woman suffrage?”
congress adjourned on march 3, 1917. the pickets adjourned with it. on april 2, a special war session of congress convened. the suffragist gives an interesting description of that interesting day.
just half an hour before congress formally opened, the suffrage sentinels at the capitol took their places.... there was tensity in the atmosphere. the capitol grounds were overrun with pacifists from many cities wearing white-lettered badges; and with war advocates, as plainly labeled, with partisan demands. they swarmed over the capitol grounds unmolested, though extra precautions were taken throughout the day and in the evening when troops of cavalry were called out. the silent sentinels stood unmoved the while for democracy while peace and war agitation eddied around them.
the pickets convened with congress. they continued to stand at the gates of the white house, but they extended their line to the capitol. three pickets, led by elsie hill, took up their station by the house entrance and three by the senate entrance. at night—this evoked from the newspapers sly allusions to the trojan horse—they used to store their banners in the house office building.
on april 7, the united states declared itself to be at war with germany.
after war was declared, the woman’s party continued—and continued with an increasing force and eloquence—to 206demand the enfranchisement of the women of the united states by constitutional amendment. this brought down upon their heads a storm of criticism; antagonism; hostility. but alice paul was not deflected by it from her purpose. she recalled that, at the outbreak of the civil war, suffragists of that day, were entreated to relinquish their suffrage work in favor of war work. they were promised that, at the end of the war, they would be enfranchised. susan b. anthony complied with great reluctance, carried on, against her will, by the majority of those who surrounded her.
at the end of the war, the black man was enfranchised. the white women had been asking for the vote ever since.
every effort was made to shake this young leader in her fearless stand. all kinds of people came to her and begged her to give up the picketing. one strong friend, a newspaper man, said, “it’s as though you opened the windows and said, ‘there’s a nice big cyclone coming. come out of your cyclone-cellars, girls, and let’s go in it!’” denunciations, violence, mobs, murders were predicted.
there was no officer of the national woman’s party who did not realize what it meant to go on with such a fight at such a time.
they determined, whatever befell, not to lower their banners; to hold them high.
alice paul announced in the editorial columns of the suffragist, that members of the woman’s party would, if they so desired, work for war through various organizations, especially organized for war work, but that the woman’s party itself would continue to work only for the enfranchisement of women.
the eyes of the world were now turned on the white house. distinguished men from all over the country visited the president. foreign missions came one after another.
207picturesque events continued to happen on the picket line. arthur balfour, the leader of the british mission, called at the white house to pay his respects. he was confronted with forty pickets. their banners were inscribed with the president’s own words:
we shall fight for the things which we have always held nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments.—president wilson’s war message, april 2, 1917.
this quotation from the president’s words became a slogan among the suffragists.
the pickets recalled that when arthur balfour used to emerge into downing street, where the english militants were producing a demonstration, he always wore a bunch of violets in his buttonhole, to show his sympathy with them.
the spring brought its usual beautiful metamorphosis to washington. if the pickets had seemed beautiful in the winter, they were quadruply so when the fresh green came. everywhere that luxuriance of foliage, exquisitely tender and soft, which marks washington, made an intensive background for their great golden banners and their tri-color. the pickets found it a delightfully humorous coincidence that, when they came to take up their station at the white house, the white house lawns were ablaze with their tri-color—the white of hyacinths, the purple of azalea, and the gold of forsythia. the little white house itself was not exempt from this burst of bloom. the huge wistaria vine on its fa?ade turned to a purple cascade; and out of it spirted the purple, white, and gold of their tri-color and the red, white, and blue of the national banner. when the french commission, including joffre and viviani, passed all this massed color, they leaped to their feet, waving their hats and shouting their approval.
208on june 20, the mission headed by bakmetief, sent by the new russian republic which had just enfranchised its women, was officially received by president wilson. when they reached the white house gates, they were confronted by a big banner—since known as the “russian” banner—borne by lucy burns and mrs. lawrence lewis.
president wilson and envoy root are deceiving russia.
they say “we are a democracy. help us win the
war so that democracies may survive.”
we women of america tell you that america is not a
democracy. twenty million women are denied the
right to vote. president wilson is the chief opponent
of their national enfranchisement.
help us make this nation really free. tell our
government that it must liberate its people before
it can claim free russia as an ally.
the appearance of this banner produced strange results. a man standing at the white house gates leaped at it—the instant the russian mission had vanished—and tore the sign from its supports.
the crowd closed in around them. the two women continued to stand facing them. nina allender, who saw this from across the street, said that the surging back and forth of straw hats as the crowd closed in upon the women gave her a sense of faintness. “one instant the banners were there, the next there were only bare sticks.”
later, a prominent member of the mission said to a no less prominent american, “you know, it was very embarrassing for us, because we were in sympathy with those women at the gates.”
the next day, june 21, lucy burns and katherine morey carried a banner which was the duplicate of the one borne the day before to the lower white house gate. before they could set it up some boys destroyed it. the police did 209not interfere; they looked placidly on. immediately other banners were sent off from headquarters. hazel hunkins carried one which said harmlessly:
democracy should begin at home.
the crowds gathered and surged up and down the street but the two pickets stood motionless. nothing happened for a while. then a man, who stopped to congratulate miss hunkins, was applauded by the crowd. it is an interesting example of mob psychology that after this applause such an incident as happened five minutes later could happen. a woman of the war department, who had been boasting that morning in her office that she was going to do this, attacked hazel hunkins. she tore the banners and spat on them. the avenue was crowded with government clerks and they immediately fell on the banners and destroyed them after a struggle. katherine morey, who was lunching at headquarters, says in almost bunyanesque language: “and i heard a great roar.” she ran towards the white house gates and saw that the mobs had charged the pickets, had torn the banners into shreds. the mob then rushed to the other gate, picketed by catherine lowry and lillian crans. after a struggle, their banners also were destroyed. lillian crans ran to headquarters for another banner, carrying the news of what had happened.
immediately, there emerged from the little white house four women led by mabel vernon, carrying purple, white, and gold banners. it was a moment of tension, and the pickets were white-faced with that tension. this silent, persistent courage had, however, its inevitable effect on the crowd. it fell back. before it could recover from its interval of indecision, the police met the groups of girls, and conducted them to their places. police reserves ultimately appeared, and cleared the crowd from pennsylvania avenue. the pickets kept guard the rest of the day in peace. one of them even did her war-time knitting.
about this time a prominent newspaper man was sent to 210alice paul by the powers that be, on a mission of intervention. he told her it was feared the president might be assassinated by some one in the crowds that the pickets collected.
“is the administration willing to have us make this public?” alice paul asked.
“oh, no!” was the answer.
alice paul replied, “the picketing will go on as usual.”
so now major pullman, chief of police for the district of columbia, called at headquarters. he told alice paul that if the pickets went out again they would be arrested. alice paul answered in effect:
“why has picketing suddenly become illegal? our lawyers have assured us all along that picketing was legal. certainly it is as legal in june as in january.” she concluded, “the picketing will go on as usual.”
major pullman then told her again that the pickets would be arrested if they went out.
alice paul replied, “the picketing will go on as usual.”
the next morning, june 22, miss paul telephoned major pullman that the pickets were going out with the banners. rows of policemen stood outside headquarters. however, that did not daunt the pickets. suffragists began to come out; return; emerge again. all this made so much coming and going that, when mabel vernon appeared, carrying a box under her arm, nobody paid any attention. that box, however, contained a banner. miss vernon crossed to the park and sat down. presently lucy burns came out of headquarters and walked leisurely in one direction; a little later katherine morey came out, and strolled in another direction. at a given moment these two women met at the east gate of the white house. mabel vernon joined them with the banner. they set it up and stood undisturbed in front of the white house for several minutes. suddenly one of the policemen caught sight of them: “the little devils!” he exclaimed: “can you beat that!”
211the banner carried the president’s own words: “we shall fight for the things, etc.”
the day before the police had been in a bad quandary. now they were in a worse one: it did not seem reasonable to arrest such a banner. one policeman did, however, start to do so. “my god, man, you can’t arrest that,” another policeman remonstrated. “them’s the president’s own words.” they did make the arrest, though—after seven minutes of indecision. when the prisoners arrived at the police station lucy burns asked what the charge was: “charge! charge!” the policeman said, obviously much puzzled: “we don’t know what the charge is yet. we’ll telephone you that later.”
these two, lucy burns and katherine morey, were the first of the long list of women to be arrested for picketing the white house. they were, however, never brought to trial.
