XII THE WATCHFIRES OF FREEDOM

Alice Paul spent all day Christmas of 1918 in bed resting. At least, she was resting physically. Mentally....

On that day she evolved a new plan of bringing the attention of the President, the attention of the country, the attention of the world, to the fact that the Susan B. Anthony Amendment must be passed. It was impossible—because of the action of the police in putting out the fires and arresting those who tended them—to carry out, in all its detail, her original plan which was extraordinarily striking and picturesque. Perhaps at no time in the history of the world has there ever been projected a demonstration so full of a beautiful symbolism.

The original plan was to keep a fire burning on the pavement in front of the White House till the Susan B. Anthony Amendment was passed. Wood for this bonfire was to be sent from all the States. Whenever the President made a speech in Europe for democracy, that speech was to be burned in the watchfire. While this was going on a bell, which was set above the door of Headquarters, would toll.

On the afternoon of New Year’s Day, 1919, therefore, a wagon drove up to the White House pavement and deposited an urn filled with firewood—on a spot in line with the White House door. Presently the bell at Headquarters began to toll, and a group of women marched from Headquarters to the urn. Edith Ainge lighted the fire, and Mrs. Lawrence Lewis dropped into the flames the most recent words, in regard to democracy, that President Wilson had addressed to the people of Europe.

The first was from the Manchester speech:

392We will enter into no combinations of power which are not combinations of all of us.

The second was from his toast in Buckingham Palace:

We have used great words, all of us. We have used the words “right” and “justice,” and now we are to prove whether or not we understand these words.

The third was from his speech at Brest:

Public opinion strongly sustains all proposals for co-operation of self-governing peoples.

The fourth was from the speech to the English wounded:

I want to tell you how much I honor you men who have been wounded fighting for freedom.

As Mrs. Lewis burned these “scraps of paper,” Mary Dubrow and Annie Arniel, standing behind the urn, unfurled a lettered banner:
PRESIDENT WILSON IS DECEIVING THE WORLD WHEN HE
APPEARS AS THE PROPHET OF DEMOCRACY.
PRESIDENT WILSON HAS OPPOSED THOSE WHO DEMAND
DEMOCRACY FOR THIS COUNTRY.
HE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DISFRANCHISEMENT OF
MILLIONS OF AMERICANS.
WE IN AMERICA KNOW THIS.
THE WORLD WILL FIND HIM OUT.

This was the first of the many Watchfires of Freedom kindled by the Woman’s Party.

After these words were burned, Mrs. Lewis addressed the crowd that had gathered. When Helena Hill Weed, who 393had followed her, was speaking, a group of soldiers and sailors rushed forward, overturned the urn, and began to stamp out the blazing pieces of wood. There were two sentinels on each side of the urn, Gertrude Crocker, Harriet U. Andrews, Mrs. A. P. Winston, Julia Emory. They bore the tri-color, but they also bore torches. They quickly lighted the torches from the embers, and held them aloft. The rioting continued, but Mrs. Weed went calmly on with her speech.

Suddenly there was an exclamation from the crowd. Everybody turned. Flames were issuing from the huge, bronze urn in Lafayette Square directly opposite the bonfire.

Hazel Hunkins—clinging to the high-pedestaled urn—was holding aloft the Suffrage tri-color. The flames played over the slender Tanagra-like figure of the girl and glowed through the purple, white, and gold. People said it was—that instant’s picture—like a glimpse from the G?tterd?mmerung. Policemen immediately rushed over there, followed by a large crowd. They arrested Alice Paul, Julia Emory, Hazel Hunkins, Edith Ainge.

In the meantime, the fire in front of the White House had been rebuilt and rekindled. It burned all night long and all the next day. Alice Paul, who had been released with her three companions after being detained at the police station for a while, remained on guard until morning. Annie Arniel and Julia Emory stayed with her. It rained all night. But until late, crowds gathered, quiet and very interested, to listen to the speeches. This was Wednesday. All day Thursday succeeding groups of women took up their watch on the fire.

Friday afternoon, the same banner was carried out. As soon as it was unfurled, a crowd of soldiers, sailors, and small boys, a chief petty officer in the navy being most violent, attacked the Suffragists, Mary Dubrow and Matilda Young. They tore the banner, broke the urn and attacked the purple, white, and gold flags. The fires, were, 394however, at once rekindled. It was still raining, and the rain was mixed with snow, which became a steady sleet. But the fires continued. Finally a force of policemen put them out with chemicals. That night they were relighted. Mary Logue and Miss Ross guarded it until two in the morning; Mrs. Lawrence Lewis and Julia Emory from two until seven.

Saturday afternoon, the bell at Headquarters tolled again. Immediately the flames leaped up on the White House pavement. Alice Paul, Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, and Ph?be Munnecke burned the first speech on Liberty made by President Wilson on reaching Italy. They were arrested, and the police put out the watchfire with chemicals. Instantly the fire started in the urn. Mary Dubrow and Julia Emory were arrested. All five women were released on bail.

On Sunday, January 5, Julia Emory, Mary Dubrow, Annie Arniel, and Ph?be Munnecke started a fire in front of the White House. They burned the second speech on Liberty made by the President in Italy. All the time the bell pealed its solemn tocsin. The four sentinels were arrested. This time they refused to give bail and were sent to the house of detention. The fire had now burned all day and all night on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

All these sentinels were charged, when they were arrested, with breaking a Federal Park regulation. But when they came to court, they were charged with building a bonfire on a public highway between sunset and sunrise. Three of them went to prison for five days, and three for ten days. They all went on hunger-strike.

January 7, evidently the official mind changed. The fire which consumed the President’s speech on democracy delivered in Turin was allowed to burn for three hours. Nevertheless the crowd kept kicking it about, so that there was a line of flames across the pavement and trailing into the gutter. By hook or by crook—three of the Suffragists—Harriet Andrews, Mrs. A. P. Winston, Mrs. Edmund C. Evans—managed to keep it going.

395At the end of three hours, new orders seemed to materialize out of the air; for then the police took a hand and put the fire out. With the extinction of the last ember, however, a second fire burst into flames at the base of the Lafayette Monument across the street. The police rushed to it, and put it out. Immediately another fire started at the opposite corner of the Park. And then fires became general ... here ... there ... everywhere....

The police arrested the three women who had kept the fire going. On the following day they were sentenced to five days in jail.

On the afternoon of that day, Mrs. M. Toscan Bennett and Matilda Young burned the speech that the President had just made at the statue of Columbus in Genoa. They were arrested at once, and they too were given five days in jail.

By this time, there were eleven women in jail, all on a hunger-strike.

On the afternoon of January 13, just as the thousands of government clerks began to pour down Pennsylvania Avenue past the White House, twenty-five Suffragists, each one bearing a banner of purple, white, and gold, came round the corner of Lafayette Square. They proceeded to the White House pavement, where they built a watchfire. The crowds, of course, stopped to watch the proceedings. Policemen finally broke through them and arrested three of the women. The other twenty-two closed in their line a little, and went on with their fire-building. The police returned, but they did not arrest the others. But they tried to break up the fire with huge shovels and a fire extinguisher. They tried to trample it out. But it was useless. Wherever a bit of the watchfire fell, it broke into flames. Finally, they arrested seventeen more women. Four remained, holding the purple, white, and gold banners.

Suddenly a great tongue of flame leaped upwards from the urn in Lafayette Square. The crowd rushed towards it. 396Then for a moment it seemed to go mad. A group of young men rushed over to the Headquarters; climbed up the pillars; tore down the flag, the uprights, and the pole. The bell ultimately crashed to the ground.

The police arrested the remaining four sentinels. By eight o’clock that afternoon, released on bail, all the women were back in Headquarters. Half an hour later, they went out with their banners again. The streets seemed deserted even by policemen. But, as they crossed the street, the park police began to materialize from the shrubs and trees of the square. However, they built their watchfire on the White House pavement, and stood there on guard for an hour and a half. Crowds gathered, of course. Occasionally, a man would rush over to one of the girls, and tear her banner from her. The girl would hold it as long as it was a physical possibility, the crowd meanwhile calling remonstrance or encouragement according to their sympathies. By ten o’clock the women were all arrested again. They spent the night in the house of detention. They were: Dr. Caroline Spencer; Adelina Piunti; Helen Chisaski; Mrs. C. Weaver; Eva Weaver; Ruth Scott; Elsie Ver Vane; Julia Emory; Lucia Calmes; Mrs. Alexander Shields; Elizabeth Kalb; Mildred Morris; Lucy Burns; Edith Ainge; Mrs. Gilson Gardner; Gertrude Crocker; Ellen Winsor; Kate Heffelfinger; Katherine Boyle; Naomi Barrett; Palys L. Chevrier; Maud Jamison; Elizabeth Huff.

Suffragists filled the court when these women came up for trial. Four of them were tried at once. They were sentenced to a ten-dollar fine or five days’ imprisonment. Their entrance into court had been greeted with applause from the audience. When the next four women appeared, they too were applauded. The Judge said, “The bailiffs will escort the prisoners out and bring them in again, and if there is any applause this time....”

One of the Watchfires of Freedom.
Taken Just Before the Arrest of the Picket Line.

Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.

A Policeman Scatters the Watchfire.
Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.

The prisoners returned, and the applause was a roar. Three women among those who applauded were taken out 397of the mass. “The police will escort the women out of the courtroom,” said the Court. When they reached the door, “And see that they do not return,” added the Court. As the door closed, “And lock the doors,” shouted the Court. Thereafter, the prisoners were brought in one at a time, and were sent to jail immediately. Twenty-two women were thus sentenced. There remained one for whom there was no prosecuting witness—Naomi Barrett.

The next day, Naomi Barrett was tried alone. As she came forward, applause greeted her—applause long and continued. The Judge ordered silence. The applause continued. He ordered the applauders to be brought forward. One, Mrs. Pflaster, sank to the floor in a faint. She was picked up and put on a chair, but as she fell from the chair, the Judge ordered her removed at once. A physician was sent for. Her fellow Suffragists demanded that they be permitted to see her. Finally one of them was allowed to go to her. The Court had scarcely reached the next case when word came that Mrs. Pflaster was in a serious condition. The Suffragists came rushing in and demanded that the Judge come off the Bench and see what had happened; the Court obeyed. In due time the doctor arrived, a stretcher came, and the patient was taken to the Emergency Hospital.

The Judge resumed his seat, and sentenced Bertha Moller, Gertrude Murphy, Rhoda Kellogg, and Margaret Whittemore—the applauders—to twenty-four hours in jail for contempt of court. Mrs. Barrett was sentenced to five days in jail. They joined the twenty-two women who were already there and hunger-striking.

On January 27, six women kindled a Watchfire on the White House pavement. They were arrested on the charge of starting a fire after sundown. They were as usual, tried the next day; sentenced to five days in jail. They went on a hunger-strike of course. They were: Bertha Moller; Gertrude Murphy; Rhoda Kellogg; Mary Carol Dowell; Martha Moore; Katherine Magee.

398In the meantime an interesting event took place in France. President Wilson received a delegation representing the working women of France, Saturday, January 25, at the Murat Mansion in Paris. The delegation urged upon the President that the Peace Conference include Woman Suffrage among the points to be settled by the Conference. President Wilson replied as follows:

Mlle. Thomson and ladies: You have not only done me a great honor, but you have touched me very much by this unexpected tribute; and may I add that you have frightened me, because realizing the great confidence you place in me, I am led to the question of my own ability to justify that confidence?

You have not placed your confidence wrongly in my hopes and purposes, but perhaps not all of those hopes and purposes can be realized in the great matter that you have so much at heart—the right of women to take their full share in the political life of the nations to which they belong. That is necessarily a domestic question for the several nations. A conference of peace settling the relations of nations with each other would be regarded as going very much outside its province if it undertook to dictate to the several states what their internal policy should be.

At the same time these considerations apply also to the conditions of labor; and it does not seem to be unlikely that the conference will take some action by way of expressing its sentiments, at any rate, with regard to the international aspects at least of labor, and I should hope that some occasion might be offered for the case not only of the women of France, but of their sisters all over the world, to be presented to the consideration of the conference.

The conference is turning out to be a rather unwieldy body, a very large body representing a great many nations, large and small, old and new; and the method of organizing its work successfully, I am afraid will have to be worked out stage by stage. Therefore I have no confident prediction to make as to the way in which it can take up the question of this sort.

Suffragist Rebuilding the Fire Scattered by the Police.
Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.

The Last Suffragist Arrested—the Fire Burns On.

Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.

But what I have most at heart today is to avail myself of this opportunity to express my admiration for the women of all the nations that have been engaged in the war. By the fortunes of this war the chief burden has fallen upon the women of 399France, and they have borne it with a spirit and a devotion which has commanded the admiration of the world.

I do not think that the people of France fully realize, perhaps, the intensity of the sympathy that other nations have felt for them. They think of us in America, for example, as a long way off. And we are in space but we are not in thought. You must remember that the United States is made up of the nations of Europe: that French sympathies run straight across the seas, not merely by historic association but by blood connection, and that these nerves of sympathy are quick to transmit the impulses of one nation to the other.

We have followed your sufferings with a feeling that we were witnessing one of the most heroic, and may I add, at the same time satisfactory things in the world, satisfactory because it showed the strength of the human spirit, the indomitable power of women and men alike to sustain any burden if the cause was great enough.

In an ordinary war there might have been some shrinking, some sinking of effort; but this was not an ordinary war. This was a war not only to redeem France from an enemy, but to redeem the world from an enemy. And France, therefore, and the women of France strained their hearts to sustain the world. I hope that the strain has not been in vain. I know that it has not been in vain.

This war has been popular and unlike other wars in that it seemed sometimes as if the chief strain was behind the lines and not at the lines. It took so many men to conduct the war that the older men and the women at home had to carry the nation. Not only so, but the industries of the nation were almost as much a part of the fighting as the things that took place at the fronts.

So it is for that reason that I have said to those with whom I am at present associated that this must be a people’s peace, because this was a people’s war. The people won this war, not the governments, and the people must reap the benefits of the war. At every turn we must see to it that it is not an adjustment between governments merely, but an agreement for the peace and security of men and women everywhere.

The little obscure sufferings and the daily unknown privations, the unspoken sufferings of the heart, are the tragical things of this war. They have been borne at home, and the center of the home is the woman. My heart goes out to you, therefore, ladies, in a very unusual degree, and I welcome this opportunity to bring you this message, not from myself merely, but from the great people whom I represent.

400Mary Nolan—over seventy years old—immediately made Suffrage capital of this speech by the President. Mrs. Nolan’s record in the period of the Watchfires is positively heroic.

On January 19, with Bertha Arnold, Mrs. Nolan was arrested for the first time in connection with the Watchfires of Freedom demonstrations. On January 24, while under suspended sentence, the two women again fed the flames in front of the White House. They were immediately arrested; the next day, tried. Mrs. Nolan said:

I am guilty if there is any guilt in a demand for freedom. I protest against the action of the President who is depriving American women of freedom. I have been sent to represent my State Florida, and I am willing to do or suffer anything to bring victory to the long courageous struggle. I have fought this fight many years. I have seen children born to grow to womanhood to fight at my side. I have seen their children grow up to fight with us.

So great a storm of applause greeted these remarks that the Judge had thirteen of the applauders brought immediately to the dock and tried for contempt of Court. Thirteen women were sentenced to forty-eight hours in jail with no alternative of fines. These thirteen women were: Lucy Burns; Edith Ainge; Mary Gertrude Fendall; Ph?be Munnecke; Lucy Branham; Annie Arniel; Matilda Young; Ruth Crocker; Elsie Unterman; Kate Boeckh; Emily Huff; Lucile Shields; Elizabeth Walmsley.

Bertha Arnold received a sentence of five days, but Mrs. Nolan was released.

On Monday, January 27, Mrs. Nolan went out on the picket line again, this time with Sarah Colvin. As she burned in the Watchfire the text of the President’s words to the French workingwomen, she said:

President Wilson told the women of France that they had not placed their confidences wrongly in his hopes and purposes. I tell the women of France that the women of America have placed 401their confidence in President Wilson’s hopes and purposes for six years, and the Party of which he is a leader has continually, and is even now obstructing their enfranchisement.

President Wilson has the power to do for the women of this nation what he asserts he would like to do for the women of other nations.

There are thirty-one days left for the passage of the Suffrage Amendment in this Congress, of which his Party is in control. Let him return to this country and act to secure democracy for his own people. Then the words that he spoke for the women of Europe will have weight and will bear fruit. Sooner or later the women of the world will know what we know—that confidence cannot be placed in President Wilson’s hopes and purposes for the freedom of women.

The police seemed loath to arrest Mrs. Nolan, but they finally did so. The Court as reluctantly sentenced her to twenty-four hours in jail. Mrs. Colvin received the customary five days. Three more applauding Suffragists were committed at this last trial, for forty-eight hours: Cora Crawford, Margaret Rossett, Elsie Unterman.

On January 31, Mrs. Nolan was again arrested at a Watchfire demonstration with Mary Ingham and Annie Arniel. She was discharged by the Court. Mary Ingham and Annie Arniel, it may be mentioned, were held in jail for two days before they were brought to trial. There were no witnesses against them, and so they were freed.

On February 4, Mrs. Nolan was arrested again with Elsie T. Russian and Bertha Wallerstein for burning the President’s speech to French Deputies. There was the usual applause when the three women appeared in Court, and, as usual, the Judge ordered silence; as usual, the applause continued. Three applauders were thrown out.

Mrs. Russian made the following statement to the Court:

By burning the hypocritical words of President Wilson, we have expressed the unmistakable impatience of American women. In place of words, these women demand action. I am glad to have taken part in the expression of that demand.

402The watchfires had been going since New Year’s Day, growing in numbers until they culminated in the biggest demonstration of all, two days before the day set for the vote.

On February 9, they burned the President in effigy.

At half-past four that Sunday, the bell at Headquarters began to toll. A procession of a hundred women, headed by Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer bearing the American flag, marched to the White House pavement. Behind Mrs. Havemeyer came Ella Riegel, bearing the purple, white, and gold banner. Behind the color bearers came Mrs. John Rogers and Mary Ingham, carrying a lettered banner which said:
ONLY FIFTEEN LEGISLATIVE DAYS ARE LEFT FOR
THIS CONGRESS.
FOR MORE THAN A YEAR THE PRESIDENT’S PARTY HAS
BLOCKED SUFFRAGE IN THE SENATE.
IT IS BLOCKING IT TODAY.
THE PRESIDENT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BETRAYAL
OF AMERICAN WOMANHOOD.

Behind this came Sarah T. Colvin and Mrs. Walter Adams, carrying a second lettered banner:
WHY DOES NOT THE PRESIDENT ENSURE THE PASSAGE OF
SUFFRAGE IN THE SENATE TOMORROW?
WHY DOES HE NOT WIN FROM HIS PARTY THE ONE
VOTE NEEDED?
HAS HE AGREED TO PERMIT SUFFRAGE AGAIN TO BE
PUSHED ASIDE?
PRESIDENT WILSON IS DECEIVING THE WORLD. HE PREACHES
DEMOCRACY ABROAD AND THWARTS DEMOCRACY HERE.

Behind these banners came Nell Mercer and Elizabeth McShane bearing an earthen urn filled with fire. Behind 403them came Sue White and Gabrielle Harris, who were to perform the leading act of the demonstration.

After these came twenty-six wood bearers, and long eddying waves of the purple, white, and gold. The urn bearers deposited the urn in its place on the pavement opposite the White House door. The wood bearers and the banner bearers formed a guard about it. Sue White then advanced and dropped into the flames a paper figure—a cartoon—of the President. Mrs. Havemeyer then attempted to make a speech. Before she was arrested, she managed to say the following three sentences:

Every Anglo-Saxon government in the world has enfranchised its women. In Russia, in Hungary, in Austria, in Germany itself, the women are completely enfranchised, and thirty-four are now sitting in the new Reichstag. We women of America are assembled here today to voice our deep indignation that while such efforts are being made to establish democracy for Europe, American women are still deprived of a voice in their government here at home.

Speaker after speaker attempted to follow her, but they were all arrested. The police patrols were soon filled up, and nearby cars were commandeered. There was an enormous crowd present. The police—nearly a hundred of them—tried to force them back, and succeeded in getting them part way across Pennsylvania Avenue. When they turned back, more wood had been brought from Headquarters, and another fire started. Other women who came from Headquarters with further reinforcements of wood were stopped and arrested. The police then declared the open space between the encircling crowd and the banner-bearing women a military zone. No person was allowed to enter it. For an hour, therefore, the women stood there. For the most part, they were motionless, but at intervals they marched slowly round their small segment of sidewalk. The crowd stayed until the banner bearers started homeward. They followed them to the very entrance of Suffrage Headquarters.

404All this time the bell was tolling.

Those arrested were: Mrs. T. W. Forbes, Mary Nolan, Sue White, Mrs. L. V. G. Gwynne Branham, Lillian Ascough, Jennie Bronenberg, Rose Fishstein, Nell Mercer, Amy Juengling, Reba Comborrov, Mildred Morris, Clara Wold, Louise Bryant, Bertha Wallerstein, Martha Shoemaker, Rebecca Garrison, Pauline Adams, Marie Ernst Kennedy, Willie Grace Johnson, Ph?be Munnecke, Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, Edith Ainge, Lucy Daniels, Mary Ingham, Elizabeth McShane, Sarah T. Colvin, Ella Riegel, Mrs. William Upton Watson, Anne Herkner, Palys Chevrier, Anna Ginsberg, Estella Eylward, Annie Arniel, Cora Weeks, Lucy Burns, Helena Hill Weed, Mrs. John Rogers, Gladys Greiner, Rose G. Fishstein.

On February 10, the Anthony Amendment came up once more for the vote in the Senate of the United States. Perhaps at this juncture recapitulation in regard to the Senate situation will be illuminating.

It will be remembered that when the Amendment passed the House on January 10, 1918, the Suffragists were eleven votes short in the Senate, and how—Maud Younger told the story most vivaciously—nine of these votes were obtained. For a long time, the Suffragists continued to lack the remaining two votes. The first thing that promised to ameliorate this deadlock was the nomination in the South Carolina primaries of Pollock for the short term of the Sixty-fifth Congress, convening December 2, 1918. Senator Pollock confused the situation extraordinarily for the Suffragists. The South Carolina branch of the Woman’s Party interviewed him immediately after his election and it was their understanding that he told them that he would vote “yes” on the Amendment. When he came to Washington, however, he refused to state how he would vote. The Suffragists were in a difficult situation. Many of them believed that he intended to vote for the Amendment but he would not say that he did. They believed they had one of the two necessary votes but they could never be sure of it. 405All the time, therefore, they were trying to get the votes of Moses of New Hampshire, Gay of Louisiana, Hale of Maine, Trammell of Florida, and Borah of Idaho, as they seemed the most likely of the opposed or non-committal men.

Indeed, two kinds of campaigns were going on—one in the States among the constituents of these possible men and the campaign of the Watchfires in Washington. As soon as the Watchfires began, the President again began to work. He called various Senators asking them to support the Amendment. The Democratic leaders became alarmed at the effect on the country of this constant turmoil in front of the White House. In fact they did the thing they had always steadfastly refused to do—called a caucus to mobilize the Democrats back of the Suffrage Amendment. At this caucus, various Administration leaders appealed to the Party members in the Senate to give their support to the measure. Pollock then made his first public declaration that he would vote for the Suffrage Amendment.

The Amendment now needed but one vote.

The chairman of the Suffrage Committee then announced that another effort would be made to pass the measure and it would be brought up for a vote on February 10, although until the Watchfires started, they had repeatedly declared that it would be impossible to bring it up twice in the same session.

As Congress was coming to an end, it was decided to take the vote anyway, although, as things stood, even with Pollock, the Suffragists lacked one vote. Pollock did vote for Suffrage but the other vote was not forthcoming. The Amendment was therefore defeated on February 10.

From February 10 to June 4, the Woman’s Party was working to get that one vote.

While the Senate was debating Suffrage, thirty-nine of the women who had burned the President in effigy the day before were being tried. Twenty-five sentences of five days and one of two days were pronounced. Then the Judge demanded, 406“How many more women are there out there?” When he found that several were still waiting, he dismissed them without trial.

They were not charged with burning the effigy of the President, but with unlawfully setting fire to certain combustibles in that part of the District of Columbia known as the White House grounds.

The prison conditions which these Suffragists endured were as unpleasant as before. At first they went to the District of Columbia jail. Since previous incarcerations and the resulting complaints and investigations, soap and water had been used to some extent in this jail. So much, indeed, had soap and water been used that the prisoners could now clearly distinguish the vermin of more than one species creeping up and down the walls. The rats ran about in hordes. While conditions were somewhat improved, they were still bad.

Harriet Andrews, writing of her impressions of the jail in the Suffragist of January 25, says:

The jail was real. And it was not funny. I had a book of poetry to read, but I was sorry I hadn’t taken a volume from the works of the late Henri Fabre. It would have been interesting to study the habits of cockroaches. I lay on my straw pallet and watched them clustered in the upper right hand corner of my cell waiting for my light to be put out before they began their nightly invasion. And when my light went out, the bulb that still burned in the corridor enabled me to watch them crawling down in a long, uninterrupted line.... There were also other things that crawled.

The last group were sent to the old Workhouse in which Suffragists had been imprisoned the August before.

Of that Helena Hill Weed says in the Suffragist of February 22:

No fire had been built in the old Workhouse this winter until a few hours before we were imprisoned there. The dampness 407and cold of the first floor was quite unbearable. They permitted the women to sleep in the upper tier of cells, where the ventilation is better than on the ground floor where we were forced to sleep last summer. But these cells are too dark to stay in during the day, and the only other place is the cold, damp stone floor on the ground. The only fresh air in the prison enters the building through windows fifteen feet above the level of the floor where the women have to spend their waking hours. The warm air from the furnaces, which enters the building on the first floor immediately rises to the roof. The damp, icy winter air and all the noxious gases and foul odors sink to the floor, where the women have to sit. They are serving their imprisonment under practically cellar conditions. The authorities are not forcing us to drink the water in the pipes of the Workhouse this time, but are supplying fresh water.

Harriet Andrews said that in coming out, “the sense of air and light and space burst upon me like a shout.”

In the meantime, the Woman’s Party, carrying out its extraordinary thorough and forthright policy of publicity, had not failed to tell the country at large about all this. They sent throughout the United States a carfull of speakers; all women who had served sentences in prison. They were: Abby Scott Baker, Lucy Burns, Bertha Arnold, Mary Ingham, Mabel Vernon, Mrs. Robert Walker, Gladys Greiner, Mrs. A. R. Colvin, Ella Riegel, Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, Mrs. W. D. Ascough, Mary Winsor, Elizabeth McShane, Vida Milholland, Sue White, Lucy Ewing, Lucy Branham, Edith Ainge, Pauline Adams, Mrs. John Rogers, Cora Week, and Mary Nolan.

This car was called the Prison Special and the newspapers soon called the women the Prison Specialists. On the platform the speakers all wore duplicates of their prison costumes. Perhaps in all its history, the Woman’s Party has never gathered—not a more brilliant company of speakers—but speakers with so marvelous a story to tell. They spoke to packed houses. At their very first meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, traffic was actually stopped by the overflow meeting.