the young are at the gates
if any one says to me: “why the picketing for suffrage?” i should say in reply, “why the fearless spirit of youth? why does it exist and make itself manifest?”
is it not really that our whole social world would be likely to harden and toughen into a dreary mass of conventional negations and forbiddances—into hopeless layers of conformity and caste, did not the irrepressible energy and animation of youth, when joined to the clear-eyed sham-hating intelligence of the young, break up the dull masses and set a new pace for laggards to follow?
what is the potent spirit of youth? is it not the spirit of revolt, of rebellion against senseless and useless and deadening things? most of all, against injustice, which is of all stupid things the stupidest?
such thoughts come to one in looking over the field of the suffrage campaign and watching the pickets at the white house and at the capitol, where sit the men who complacently enjoy the rights they deny to the women at their gates. surely, nothing but the creeping paralysis of mental old age can account for the phenomenon of american men, law-makers, officials, administrators, and guardians of the peace, who can see nothing in the intrepid young pickets with their banners, asking for bare justice but common obstructors of traffic, naggers—nuisances that are to be abolished by passing stupid laws forbidding and repressing to add to the old junk-heap of laws which forbid and repress? can it be possible that any brain cells not totally crystallized could imagine that giving a stone instead of bread would answer conclusively the demand of the women who, because they are young, fearless, eager, and rebellious, are fighting and winning a cause for all women—even for those who are timid, conventional, and inert?
a fatal error—a losing fight. the old stiff minds must give way. the old selfish minds must go. obstructive reactionaries must move on. the young are at the gates!
lavinia dock.
the suffragist, june 30, 1917.
213this hostility in june had worked up suddenly after the five quiet months, during which the woman’s party had been peacefully picketing the white house. perhaps their immunity was at first due to the fact that when the picketing in january began, the people in washington did not expect it to last. “when the rain comes, they will go,” washingtonians said, and then, as the line still continued to appear, “when the snow comes, they will go.” but, instead of going with the rain, the pickets waited for smith, the janitor, to bring them slickers and sou’westers. and instead of leaving with the snow, they only put on heavier coats. the pickets became an institution.
it is true, too, that, though that picket line was a surprise to every one (and to many a shock) to some it was a joke.
there was one congressman, for instance, who took it humorously. he said to nina allender, when the suffragists began to picket the special war session of congress:
“the other day, a man covered the gravestones in a cemetery with posters which read: ‘rise up! your country needs you!’ now that was poor publicity. i consider yours equally poor.”
“but,” replied mrs. allender, “we are not picketing a graveyard. we are picketing congress. we believe there are a few live ones left there.”
the congressman admitted that he had laid himself wide open to this.
but, from the very beginning, there were those who did not consider it a joke. the first day the pickets appeared, a gentleman—old and white-haired—stopped to stare at the band of floating color. he read the words:
mr. president, how long must women wait for liberty?
then he took off his hat, and held it off, bowing his white head to each of the six silent sentinels. having passed them, he covered his head again. but he repeated this reverential formality as he passed the six women at the other gate.
one washingtonian took his children out to see the picket 214line. he told them he wanted them to witness history in the making.
that first day when the president came out for his daily afternoon drive, he seemed utterly unaware of the pickets; but the next day he laughed with frank good-nature as he passed, and thereafter he too bared his head as he drove between them.
it was the intention at first for these sentinels to keep complete silence. but, as the throngs hurrying past began to question them, continued to question them, conversation became inevitable.
the commonest question, of course, was, “why are you doing this?”
the pickets always answered, “the president asked us to concert public opinion before we could expect anything of him. we are concerting it upon him.” the second most popular question was, “why don’t you go to congress?” the answer, “we have—again and again and again; and they tell us if the president wants it, it will go through.”
that hurrying crowd was made up of many types. in the early morning and the late afternoon, government clerks predominated. almost as many were the sight-seers from every part of the country. then there were diplomats, newspapermen, schoolboys, and schoolgirls, and the matinée crowds. in the streets came the endless file of motor-cars, filled mainly with women going to teas. many people pretended not to see the sentinels. they would walk straight ahead with an impassive expression, casting furtive, side-long glances at the banners. again and again, the pickets enjoyed the wicked satisfaction of seeing them walk straight into the wire wickets which enclosed the pennsylvania avenue trees. at first, congressmen tried not to see what was going on. after a while, however, they too stopped to chat with the pickets. one congressman told mrs. gilson gardner that he felt there was “something religious about that bannered picket line; that it had already become to him a part of the modern religion of this country.”
215another congressman, who had been opposed at first to the picketing, called out one day, “that’s right. keep it up! don’t let us forget you for a moment!”
all kinds of pretty incidents occurred. once, ex-senator henry w. blair visited the picket line. he had been a friend of susan b. anthony, and he made the first speech ever delivered in the senate in favor of suffrage. white-haired, keen-eyed, walking with a crutch and a stick, he came along the line of pickets, greeting each one of them in turn—ninety years old.
“and i, too, have been a picket,” said general sherwood to them.
“i salute you as soldiers in a great revolution,” said one chance passer-by to the women workers’ delegation on labor day. and—struck apparently by the high spiritual quality in the beautiful procession—a woman, a stranger to them, remarked to the pickets: “i wonder if you realize what a medi?val spectacle you young women present. you have made us realize that this cause is a crusade.”
workmen digging trenches in the streets discussed the matter among themselves. picketing is an institution very dear to the heart of labor. these men showed their sympathy by devising and making supports for the banners. they offered to make benches for the pickets, but agreed with the women when they said that sentinels must stand, not sit, at their posts.
when the confederate reunion occurred in washington, many of the feeble, white-haired men in their worn confederate grey and their faded confederate badges, stopped to talk with the pickets. i quote the suffragist:
“we-all came out early to see the sights,” said one. “we went three times around this place, and i thought the big house in the center was the white house. but we weren’t sure—not until you girls came out with your flags and stood here. ‘this is sure enough where the president lives,’ i said, ‘here are the suffrage pickets and there are the purple and gold flags we read about down home.’ you are brave girls.”
216one old soldier, hat off, said, “i have picketed in my time. and now it is your turn, you young folks. you have the courage. you are going to put it through.”
that was the note many of them sounded. “girls, you are right,” a third encouraged them. “i have been through wars, and i know. you-all got to have some rights.”
even the anti-suffragists were moved sometimes. one of them said: “i have never been impressed by suffragists before, but the sincerity you express in being willing to stand here in all weathers for the thing you believe in makes me think that there is something in the suffrage fight after all.”
and yet, suffragists themselves were occasionally antagonistic. “you have put the suffrage cause back fifty years!” said one. she little suspected that, within a year, the house of representatives would have passed the amendment; within less than two years thereafter the senate.
people went further than words. many paused to shake hands. many asked to be allowed to hold the banners for a moment.
once a bride and groom—very young—stopped. the groom talked to one picket, the bride to another. the man said: “i think this is outrageous. i have no sympathy with you whatever. i wouldn’t any more let my wife——” at that moment the little bride came rushing up, radiant. “oh, do you mind,” she said to her husband, “if i hold one of those banners for a while?”
“no, if you want to,” the bridegroom answered.
and she took her stand on the picket line.
children stopped to spell out the inscriptions, and sometimes asked what they meant.
once, a group of boys from a massachusetts school inquired what the colors stood for, and asked to have the slogan translated. as by one impulse, they lifted their hats and said, “you ought to have it now.”
occasionally, distinguished visitors leaving the white house would smile their appreciation and approval. on one occasion theodore roosevelt beamed vividly on the 217pickets, waving his hat as he passed. as the weather changed and the winter storms began, the gaiety in the attitude of their audience deepened to a real admiration. with the rains, the pickets appeared in slickers and rubber hats. this was not, of course, unendurable. but, when the freezing cold came, often with snow and swirling winds, picketing became a real hardship. there were days when it was almost impossible to stand on the picket line for more than half an hour at a time. at regular intervals, smith, the janitor, assisted at times by a little colored boy, used to appear from headquarters, trundling a wheelbarrow. that wheelbarrow was piled high with hot bricks covered with gunny-sacking. he would distribute the bricks among the pickets and they would stand on them. an observer said that, when the relay of pickets, leaving at the end of the day, stepped down from the bricks at the word of command, it was like a line of statues stepping from their pedestals.
but others—and sometimes strangers—sought to mitigate for the pickets the rigors of the freezing weather. one woman, coming regularly every day in her car, brought thermos bottles filled with hot coffee. on one occasion, a young girl—a passing volunteer—came on picket duty in a coat too light and shoes too low. while she stood there, a closed limousine drew up to the curb. a woman alighted and forced the girl to retire to her car and put on her fur coat and her gaiters. the stranger held the banner while the warming-up process was going on. she offered to organize a committee, made up of older women, who would collect warm clothing for the pickets. in point of fact, the virginia and philadelphia branches of the congressional union presented the pickets with thick gloves, spats, and slickers for rainy days. thousands of men and women from all over the country sent suggestions for their comfort.
official kindness, even, was not lacking. one superlatively cold day, an attaché of the president invited the whole company of pickets into the east room of the white house. 218the superintendents of the treasury building and the war department annex extended to them similar invitations.
the police were, at the beginning, friendly, not only in words but in acts. an officer stopped one day, after telephoning at the near police box, to say: “you are making friends every minute. stick to it! do not give up. we are with you and admire your pluck.” the majority of them did not like to do what afterwards they had to do.
as for the white house guards—they were the champions of the pickets. at the outbreak of the war, the white house gates were closed for the first time in its history. the pickets without often informed the guards within as to the kind of vehicle that demanded entrance of them. the guards came to treat them as comrades patrolling the same beat. once, when the pickets were five minutes late, one of these guards said: “we thought you weren’t coming, and we’d have to hold down this place alone.”
when the pickets reconvened with the special war session of the sixty-fifth congress on april 2, the white house police were most demonstrative in their welcome. they were glad to see them back: they said they had missed them. and indeed they had come to look on the women as a kind of auxiliary police force. once, when somebody asked a policeman, “when is the president coming out?” mary gertrude fendall said, “i guess you’d like a dollar for every time people ask you that.” the policeman answered, “i’d rather have a dollar for every time they ask when are the suffragists coming out?” the country at large had accepted the pickets. the directors of the sight-seeing busses pointed them out as one of the city’s sights. tourists said, oftener and oftener, “well, we weren’t quite sure where the white house was until we saw you pickets.” and when these tourists used to crowd about the gates, waiting for the president’s limousine to come out, and the signal was flashed that the presidential motor had started, the guards pressed the crowds away. “back!” they would order. “back! 219back! all back but the pickets! no one allowed inside the line but the pickets!”
as can be imagined, headquarters was a busy place during the picketing; and sometimes a hectic one. later, of course, when the arrests began, and mobs besieged it, it seethed with excitement. it was not easy always to find women with the leisure and the inclination to serve on the picket line before the arrests. but, when arrests began and imprisonments followed, naturally it became increasingly difficult.
many members of the woman’s party in washington looked on their picketing as a part of the day’s work. mrs. william kent, who said that no public service she had ever done gave her such an exalted feeling, always excused herself early from teas on monday. “i picket mondays from two to six,” she explained simply.
watchers said that those high groups of purple, white, and gold banners coming down the streets of washington were like the sails, magically vivid and luminous, of some strange ship. they were indeed the sails of a ship—the mightiest that women ever launched—but only the women who manned those sails saw that ship.
