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Jailed for Freedom

Chapter 8 No.8

Word Count: 5980    |    Released on: 29/11/2017

st R

turned to their posts in steadily increasing numbers. Their presence at the gates was desired by the Administration no more now than it had been before the arrests and imprisonments. But they had found no way to rid themselves of the pickets. And as ano

al to women to give their work, their treasure and their sons to this enterprise. At the same time his now gigantic figure stood obstinately across the p

Envoy Root from hi

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o speak to the President we took

NVOY

ST THROW ITS MANHOOD TO

E LI

DENIED BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES THE

GHT AGAINST LIBERTY AT HOME WHILE HE

FORE HE ASKS THE MOTHERS OF AMERICA TO THROW T

CITIZENS WHEN HE IS FORCING MILLIONS OF AMERIC

for the two hours during which this banner made its appearance on the line. Police captains who three weeks befor

m to our allegiance. War had been made without our consent. The war would be finished and very like

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ent's hypocrisy, the hypocrisy so eager to sacrifice life without stint to the vague hope of liberty abroad, while refusing to assist in the peaceful legislative steps which would lead to self-government in our own country. As a matter of fact the Presid

to be told. We submitted to the world,

YOU SYMPATHIZED WITH THE POOR GERMANS

RE NOT SELF-GOVERNED. TAKE

d occasionally in debate, but more frequently in their cloak rooms, and often to us privately, called

ould be averse to attacking women in the meantime. They were out to fight and

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while a crowd was assembling in front of the White House either to watch or to assist in the attacks. At the very moment when one banner was being snatched away and destroyed, Presid

o the second and third floor balconies of our building and hung them out. At this point there was not a picket left on the street. The crowd was clearly obstructing the traffic, but no attempt was made to move them back or to protect the women, some of whom were attacked by sailors on their own doorsteps. The two police officers present watched without interference whi

do that?" s

and said, "I don't know." And with a violent wrench he

was the scene of

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ony to be plunged to the ground. The mob watched with fascination while she swayed to and fr

ceiling. The bullet grazed past the head of Mrs. Ella Morton Dean of Montana. Captain Flather of the 1st Precinct, with two detectives, later ex

urled at our fresh banners flying

y on the protection of the police, the women started with their banners for the White House. But the police looked on while all the banners were destr

ted on August 14, within a sto

up the situatio

amor over their imprisonments made this position untenable. The police were then ordered to protect suffragists. They were then ordered to attack suffragists.

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chief in the National Capital is

in Louisville, Kentucky. The auditorium was packed and overflowin

n this Southern State, part of President Wilson ,'s stronghold, that our

eeling timid and hesitant, wondering how this vast audience of Southerners would take it. Slowly I read the inscription on the famous banner, "Kaiser Wilson, have you forgo

gled with shouts of "Good! Good! He is, he is!" came to my amazed ears. As the applause died down there was almost universal good-natu

was brought to the platform ann

ced to-day to 30 days

f men and two women were on their feet calling for the pas

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as if the entire audience seconded it. It went through instant

s, making brief "testimonials" from the floor with almost evangelical fervor. Improvised collection baskets were piled high w

untry telling the story had similar experiences at this time. Indignation was swift and

such meetings to the President, his cabinet and to his leaders in Co

s again attempted to take

ed by sailors in uniform. Alice Paul was knocked down three times by a sailor in uniform and dra

crowd. Miss Elizabeth Stuyvesant was struck by a soldier in uniform and her blouse torn from her body. Miss Maud Jamison o

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s emerging from the White House, after an interview with the President. Dr. Ca

side entrance. Those damn

he same gate by which he had entered, and just in time to ward of

isted lit' police officers and plainclothes men. Two civilians who tried to rescue the women from the attacks of the police were arrested. The police fell upon these young w

summoned a sufficiently large and infuriated mob, they would rest. And so the passions of the mob cont

nding the agitation. Having lost public sympathy through workhouse sentences, having won it back by pardoning the women, the Administrat

tacks, when it was clear that the pickets

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hat "orders have been changed and hencefor

s shout to civilian friends as they

n hour in various nearby restaurants that "th

s hour by the police to arrest the women would enable them to have a large crowd passing t

afternoon the silent sentinels stoo

ARE ENFRANCHISING

T WOMEN WAIT

R BANNERS DESTROYED BECA

lvania, Miss Edna Dixon of Washington, D. C., a young public school teacher; Miss Natalie Gray of Colo

ial of these six women. One police officer te

y the mobs and police officers was allowed to be brought

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in Occoquan workhouse i

the cruel sentence of 30 days in the workhouse, while their cowardly assailants were not even r

against us and others against the rioters pressed upon them. Congress was provoked into a little activi

hich was successful, to give the Adm

hort blanket authority granting the President or his officials limitless power over the actions of human beings. Realizing that this could be used to prohibit p

melessness of admitting to the world that acts for which women had been repeatedly sentenced to jail, and for which women were at that moment lying in prison, were so legal as to make n

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ator Brandegee, of Co

or Myers, suffrage De

presented

legal proceedings by which these trouble makers

ot in a position to pass upon that. I

t to land them in jail . . . I fail to see why a

present law is sufficient and I think it ought to be put beyond dou

tringent enough to land the

agues, be was unable to command any support for his bill.

ndalous, and, I think, almost treasonable actions that have been going on around the White House for months past, which President of the United States have been a gross insult to the and to the people of

erred when he pardoned some of the women who have been con

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deserved the sentence, and they ought t

having the President of the United States insulted with impunity before the

on and that it may be enacted into law and may be found

uction. Although lamenting our comparison between the President and the Kaiser,

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ment of peace and order and the publi

banner, flag, streamer, sash, or other device having thereon any words or language with reference to the President or the Vice President of the United States, or any words or language with reference to the Constitution of the United States, or the right of suffrage, or right of citizenship, or any words or language with reference to the duties of any executive official or department of the United State

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thereof, for each offense be fined not less than $100 nor more than $1,000 or imprisoned

among them I note the following letter wri

ymond

of P

ngton

ar Pu

frage pickets. Of course the only way for you to get right is to resign. It has apparently

d the workhouse; you have permitted the crowd to mob them, and then you have had your officers do much the same thing by forcibly taking their banners from them. In some of the actions you

s must be a matter of law, not of personal discretion, and for you to attempt to substitute your discretion is to set up a litt

when you gave these women protection

Africa to meet Theodore Roosevelt and acco

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uell them, not by quelling the "proxim

usiness of permitting a lot of sailors and street rifraff to rough the girls. All that went against the grain, but when you let them protect the pic

when they could not have scattered any group gathered at the White

they did not

e addressed the President as "Kaiser Wilson." As a matter of fact not an arrest you have made-and the arrests now number more than sixty-has been

uch power. Even when you go through the farce of a police court trial the charge is "obstructin

bearer than you have to arrest the owner of the Washington Post . . . . Congress refused to pass a press censorship law. There are certain lingering traditions to the effect that a people's liberties are clos

thing for you to

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hat can be invoked against the wording of the banners it was the business of others in the government to start the legal machinery which would abate them. It was

gment to the district commissioners who have yielded their judgment to the White House. Being Chief of Police under such circumstances can hardly be worth while. You are a young man and

real democracy. You will not be alone. There are a lot of fine young men, vigorous and patriotic, in and out of the Administration who are preparing for this fight. Yours

cer

GILSON

lution[1] demanding an investigation of conditions in the Capital which permitted mobs to attack women. This, too, went to certain deat

3 for full tex

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o our best to keep them nervous o

d against mob violence and the severe sentences pronounced up

erald, August 19, printe

of the six suffragists; a touch of ruthlessness in their incarceration at Occoquan along with women of the street, pickpock

he week . . . . Washington is grateful that the disgraceful period of rioting and mob violence in front of the White House is

lice continue to arrest, instead of giving the women protection, will pass into a new phase. The suffragists as well as the public at larg

store for them. If they have deliberately sought martyrdom, as some critics have been unkind enough to suggest, they have it now. And if the

, 1917, said in an editorial wr

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the suffrage pickets has been suspected from the very beginning. Police power in Washington is sufficient to protect a handf

reets by government employees-including sailors in uniform. The police are strangely a

hes have "grown cold." Also a too vigorous use of the word "democracy" is distasteful to some government dignitaries, it seems. But right or wrong,

rades of all kinds, public mass meetings and other demonstrations of one set of opinions against another set. Such a law has been proposed by Senator Myers of Montana, the author of t

er of people believe that they have the right to vote we may either grant their claim or turn them sadly away, but we may not roll them into the gutter; if they see fit to tell us our professions of d

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amazed at their zeal and pitiful of their bad taste, but even for the sake of keeping their accusations out of

its single object the attainment of President Wi

d would carry the ques

frage resolution? That would end the disturbance and it w

e President

the Administration drifted helplessly. Unwilling to pa

m" down Pennsylvania Avenue in gala parade, on the first lap of their journey to the battlefields of France

tand, opposite the White House, they were gathered in and swept away by the polic

BE DENIED A VOICE IN A GOVERNMENT

nner carried by Miss Eleanor Calnan of Mas

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icy must go on. A few moments and Miss Lucy Branham of Maryland and Mrs. Pauline Adams of Virginia marched down the Avenue, their gay banners waving joyously in the autumn sun, to fill up the gap of t

anced. The crowd began to line the ropes and to watch eagerly the line of women indomitably coming, two by two, into the fac

sent to the workhouse for carryin

sort of criticism of public policy. We originated, to put it in the vernacular, in a kick, and if it be unpatriotic to kick, why then the grown man is unlike the child. We have forgotten the very principle of our origin if we have f

of removing the pickets. They persisted in the

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