Chapter 9

Picketing a President

When all suffrage controversy has died away it will be the little army of women with their purple, white and gold banners, going to prison for their political freedom, that will be remembered. They dramatized to victory the long suffrage fight in America. The challenge of the picket line roused the government out of its half-century sleep of indifference. It stirred the country to hot controversy. It made zealous friends and violent enemies. It produced the sharply-drawn contest which forced the surrender of the government in the second Administration of President Wilson.

The day following the memorial deputation to the President, January 10th, 1917, the first line of sentinels, a dozen in number, appeared for duty at the White House gates. In retrospect it must seem to the most inflexible person a reasonably mild and gentle thing to have done. But at the same time it caused a profound stir. Columns of front page space in all the newspapers of the country gave more or less dispassionate accounts of the main facts. Women carrying banners were standing quietly at the White House gates “picketing” the President; women wanted President Wilson to put his power behind the suffrage amendment in Congress. That did not seem so shocking and only a few editors broke out into hot condemnation.

When, however, the women went back on the picket line the next day and the next and the next, it began to dawn upon the excited press that such persistence was “undesirable” . . . “unwomanly” …“dangerous.” Gradually the people most hostile to the idea of suffrage in any form marshaled forth the fears which accompany every departure from the prescribed path. Partisan Democrats frowned. Partisan Republicans chuckled. The rest remained in cautious silence to see how “others” would take it. Following the refrain of the press, the protest-chorus grew louder.

“Silly women” . . . “unsexed” . . .” pathological” . . . “They must be crazy” . . . “Don’t they know anything about politics?” . . . “What can Wilson do? He does not have to sign the constitutional amendment.” . . . So ran the comment from the wise elderly gentlemen sitting buried in their cushioned chairs at the gentlemen’s club across the Park, watching eagerly the “shocking,” “shameless” women at the gates of the White House. No wonder these gentlemen found the pickets irritating! This absorbing topic of conversation, we are told, shattered many an otherwise quiet afternoon and broke up many a quiet game. Here were American women before their very eyes daring to shock them into having to think about liberty. And what was worse—liberty for women. Ah well, this could not go on,—this insult to the President. They could with impunity condemn him and gossip about his affairs. But that women should stand at his gates asking for liberty—that was a sin without mitigation.

Disapproval was not confined merely to the gentlemen in their Club. I merely mention them as an example, for they were our neighbors, and the strain on them day by day, as our beautiful banners floated gaily out from our headquarters was, I am told, a heavy one.

Yet, of course, we enjoyed irritating them. Standing on the icy pavement on a damp, wintry day in the penetrating cold of a Washington winter, knowing that within a stone’s throw of our agony there was a greater agony than ours—there was a joy in that!

There were faint rumblings also in Congress, but like so many of its feelings they were confined largely to the cloak rooms. Representative Emerson of Ohio did demand from the floor of the House that the “suffrage guard be withdrawn, as it is an insult to the President,” but his protest met with no response whatever from the other members. His oratory fell on indifferent ears. And of course there were always those in Congress who got a vicarious thrill watching women do in their fight what they themselves had not the courage to do in their own. Another representative, an anti-suffrage Democrat, inconsiderately called us “Iron-jawed angels,” and hoped we would retire. But if by these protests these congressmen hoped to arouse their colleagues, they failed.

We were standing at the gates of the White House because the American Congress had become so supine that it could not or would not act without being compelled to act by the President. They knew that if they howled at us it would only afford an opportunity to retort—“Very well then, if you do not like us at the gates of your leader; if you do not want us to ‘insult’ the President, end this agitation by taking the matter into your own hands and passing the amendment.” Such a sug- gestion would be almost as severe a shock as our picketing. The thought of actually initiating legislation left a loyal Demo- cratic follower transfixed.

The heavy dignity of the Senate forbade their meddling much in this controversy over tactics. Also they were more interested in the sporting prospect of our going into the world war. There was no appeal to blood-lust in the women’s fight. There were no shining rods of steel. There was no martial music. We were not pledging precious lives and vast billions in our crusade for liberty. The beginning of our fight did indeed seem tiny and frail by the side of the big game of war, and so the senators were at first scarcely aware of our presence.

But the intrepid women stood their long vigils, day by day, at the White House gates, through biting wind and driving rain, through sleet and snow as well as sunshine, waiting for the President to act. Above all the challenges of their banners rang this simple, but insistent one:

Mr. President How Long Must Women Wait for Liberty?

The royal blaze of purple, white and gold-the Party’s tricolored banners—made a gorgeous spot of color against the bare, blacklimbed trees.

There were all kinds of pickets and so there were all kinds of reactions to the experience of picketing. The beautiful lady, who drove up in her limousine to do a twenty minute turn on the line, found it thrilling, no doubt. The winter tourist who had read about the pickets in her home paper thought it would be “so exciting” to hold a banner for a few minutes. But there were no illusions in the hearts of the women who stood at their posts day in and day out. None of them will tell you that they felt exalted, ennobled, exhilarated, possessed of any rare and exotic emotion. They were human beings before they were pickets. Their reactions were those of any human beings called upon to set their teeth doggedly and hang on to an unpleasant job.

“When will that woman come to relieve me? I have stood here an hour and a half and my feet are like blocks of ice,” was a more frequent comment from picket to picket than “Isn’t it glorious to stand here defiantly no matter what the stupid people say about us?”

“I remember the thousand and one engaging things that would come to my mind on the picket line. It seemed that anything but standing at a President’s gate would be more diverting. But there we stood.

And what were the reflections of a President as he saw the indomitable little army at his gates? We can only venture to say from events which happened. At first he seemed amused and interested. Perhaps he thought it a trifling incident staged by a minority of the extreme “left” among suffragists and anticipated no popular support for it. When he saw their persistence through a cruel winnter his sympathy was touched. He ordered the guards to invite them in for a cup of hot coffee, which they declined. He raised his hat to them as he drove through the line. Sometimes he smiled. As yet he was not irritated. He was fortified in his national power.

With the country’s entrance into the war and his immediate elevation to world leadership, the pickets began to be a serious thorn in his flesh. His own statements of faith in democracy and the necessity for establishing it .throughout the world left him open to attack. His refusal to pay the just bill owed the women and demanded by them brought irritation.

What would you do if you owed a just bill and every day some one stood outside your gates as a quiet reminder to the whole world that you had not paid it?

You would object. You would get terribly irritated. You would call the insistent one all kinds of harsh names. You might even arrest him. But the scandal would be out.

Rightly or wrongly, your sincerity would be touched; faith in you would be shaken a bit. Perhaps even against your will you would yield.

But you would yield. And that was the one important fact to the women.

This daily sight, inspiring, gallant and impressive, escaped no visitor to the national capital. Distinguished visitors from the far corners of the earth passed by the pickets on those days which made history. Thousands read the compelling messages on the banners, and literally hundreds of thousands learned the story, when the visitors got “back home.”

Real displeasure over the sentinels by those who passed was negligible. There was some mirth and joking, but the vast majority were filled with admiration, either silent or expressed.

“Keep it up.” . . . “You are on the right track.” . . . “Congratulations.” . . . “I certainly admire your pluck—stick to it and you will get it.” . . . This last from a military officer . . . . “It is an outrage that you women should have to stand here and beg for your rights. We gave it to our women in Australia long ago:” . . . This from a charming gentleman who bowed approvingly.

Often a lifted hat was held in sincere reverence over the heart as some courteous gentleman passed along the picket line. Of course there were some who came to try to argue with the pickets; who attempted to dissuade them from their persistent course. But the serene, good humor and even temper of the women would not allow heated arguments to break in on the military precision of their line. If a question was asked, a picket would answer quietly. An occasional sneer was easy to meet. That required no acknowledgment.

A sweet old veteran of the Civil War said to one of my comrades: “Yous all right; you gotta fight for your rights in this world, and now that we are about to plunge into another war, I want to tell you women there’ll be no end to it unless you women get power. We can’t save ourselves and we need you . . . . I am 84 years old, and I have watched this fight since I was a young man. Anything I can do to help, I want to do. I am living at the Old Soldiers’ Home and I ain’t got mach money, but here’s something for your campaign. It’s all I got, and God bless you, you’ve gotta win.” He spoke the last sentence almost with desperation as he shoved a crumpled $2.00 bill into her hand. His spirit made it a precious gift.

Cabinet members passed and repassed. Congressmen by the hundreds came and went. Administration leaders tried to conceal under an. artificial indifference their sensitiveness to our strategy.

And domestic battles were going on inside the homes throughout the country, for women were coming from every state in the Union, to take their place on the line. For the first time good “suffrage-husbands” were made uncomfortable. Had they not always believed in suffrage? Had they not always been uncomplaining when their wife’s time was given to suffrage campaigning? Had they not, in short, been good sports about the whole thing? There was only one answer. They had. But it had been proved that all the things that women had done and all the things in which their menfolk had cooperated, were not enough. Women were called upon for more intensive action. “You cannot go to Washington and risk your health standing in front of the White House. I cannot have it.”

“But the time has come when we have to take risks of health or anything else.”

“Well, then, if you must know, I don’t believe in it. Now I am a reasonable man and I have stood by you all the way up to now, but I object to this. It isn’t ladylike, and it will do the cause more harm than good. You women lay yourselves open to ridicule.”

“That’s just it—that’s a fine beginning. As soon as men get tired laughing at us, they will do something more about it. They won’t find our campaign so amusing before long.”

“But I protest. You’ve no right to go without considering me.”

“But if your country called you in a fight for democracy, as it is likely to do at any moment, you’d go, wouldn’t you?”

“Why, of course.”

“Of course you would. You would go to the front and leave me to struggle on as best I could without you. That is the way you would respond to your country’s call, whether it was a righteous cause or not. Well, I am going to the front too. I am going to answer the women’s call to fight for democracy. I would be ashamed of myself if I were not willing to join my comrades. I am sorry that you object, but if you will just put yourself in my place you will see that I cannot do otherwise.”

It must be recorded that there were exceptional men of sensitive imaginations who urged women against their own hesitancy. They are the handful who gave women a hope that they would not always have to struggle alone for their liberation. And women passed by the daily picket line as spectators, not as participants. Occasionally a woman came forward to remonstrate, but more often women were either too shy to advance or so enthusiastic that nothing could restrain them. The more kind-hearted of them, inspired by the dauntless pickets in the midst of a now freezing temperature, brought mittens, fur pieces, golashes, wool -lined raincoats: hot bricks to stand on, coffee in thermos bottles and what not.

Meanwhile the pickets became a household word in Washington, and very soon were the subject of animated conversation in practically every corner of the nation. The Press cartoonists, by their friendly and satirical comments, helped a great deal in popularizing the campaign. In spite of the bitter editorial comment of most of the press, the humor of the situation had an almost universal appeal.

At the Washington dinner of the Gridiron Club, probably the best known press club in the world,—a dinner at which President Wilson was a guest,—one of the songs sung for his benefit was as follows:

“We’re camping to-night on the White House grounds Give us a rousing cheer; Our golden flag we hold aloft, of cops we have no fear. Many of the pickets are weary to-night, Wishing for the war to cease; many are the chilblains and frost- bites too; It is no life of ease. Camping to-night, camping to-night, Camping on the White House grounds.”

The White House police on duty at the gates came to treat the picketers as comrades.

“I was kinds worried,” confessed one burly officer when the pickets were five minutes late one day. “We thought perhaps you weren’t coming and we world have to hold down this place alone.”

The bitter-enders among the opponents of suffrage broke into such violent criticism that they won new friends to the amendment.

People who had never before thought of suffrage for women had to think of it, if only to the extent of objecting to the way in which we asked for it. People who had thought a little about suffrage were compelled to think more about it. People who had believed in suffrage all their lives, but had never done a, stroke of work for it, began to make speeches about it, if only for the purpose of condemning us.

Some politicians who had voted for it when there were not enough votes to carry the measure loudly threatened to commit political suicide by withdrawing their support. But it was easy to see at a glance that they would not dare to run so great a political risk on an issue growing daily more important.

As soon as the regular picket line began to be accepted as a matter of course, we undertook to touch it up a bit to sustain public interest. State days were inaugurated, beginning with Maryland. The other states took up the idea with enthusiasm. There was a College Day, when women representing 15 American colleges stood on the line; a Teachers’ Day, which found the long line represented by almost every state in the Union, and a Patriotic Day, when American flags mingled with the party’s banners carried by representatives of the Women’s Reserve Corps, Daughters of the Revolution and other patriotic organizations. And there were professional days when women doctors, lawyers and nurses joined the picket appeal.

Lincoln’s birthday anniversary saw another new feature. A long line of women took out banners bearing the slogans:

LINCOLN STOOD FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE 60 YEARS AGO. MR. PRESIDENT, WHY DO YOU BLOCK THE NATIONAL SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT TO-DAY?

WHY ARE YOU BEHIND LINCOLN?

and another:

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 RICANS HOUR?[1]

[1] President Wilson had just advocated self-government for Porto Rican men.

A huge labor demonstration on the picket line late in February brought women wage earners from office and factory throughout the Eastern States.

A special Susan B. Anthony Day on the anniversary of the birth of that great pioneer, served to remind. the President who said, “You can afford to wait,” that the women had been waiting and fighting for this legislation to pass Congress since the year 1878.

More than one person came forward to speak with true religious fervor of the memory of the great Susan B. Anthony. Her name is never mentioned nor her words quoted without finding such a response.

In the face of heavy snow and rain, dozens of young women stood in line, holding special banners made for this occasion. Thousands of men and women streaming home from work in the early evening read words of hers spoken during the Civil War, so completely applicable to the policy of the young banner- bearers at the gates.

WE PRESS OUR DEMAND FOR THE BALLOT AT THIS TIME IN NO NARROW, CAPIOUS OR SELFISH SPIRIT, BUT FROM PUREST PATRIOTISM FOR THE HIGHEST GOOD OF EVERY CITIZEN, FOR THE SAFETY OF THE REPUBLIC AND A3 A GLORIOUS EXAMPLE TO THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH.

AT THIS TIME OUR GREATEST NEED IS NOT MEN O$ MONEY, VALIANT GENERALS OR BRILLIANT VICTORIES, BUT A CONSISTENT NATIONAL POLICY BASED UPON THE PRINCIPLE THAT ALL GOVERNMENTS DERIVE THEIR JUST POWERS FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED.

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.

During the reunion week of the Daughters and Veterans of the Confederacy, the picket line was the center of attraction for the sight-seeing veterans and their families. For the first time in history the troops of the Confederacy had crossed the Potomac and taken possession of the capital city. The streets were lined with often tottering but still gallant old men, whitehaired and stooped, wearing their faded badges on their gray uniforms, and carrying their tattered flags.

It seemed to the young women on picket duty during those days that not a single veteran had failed to pay his respects to the pickets. They came and came; and some brought back their wives to show them the guard at the gates.

One old soldier with tears in his dim eyes came to say, “I’ve done sentinel duty in my time. I know what it is . . . And now it’s your turn. You young folks have the strength and the courage to keep it up . . . . You are going to put it through!”

One sweet old Alabamian came shyly up to one of the pickets and said, “I say, Miss, this is the White House, isn’t it?”

Before she could answer, he added: “We went three times around the place and I told the boys, the big white house in the center was the White House, but they wasn’t believing me and I wasn’t sure, but as soon as I saw you girls coming with your flags, to stand here, I said, ‘This must be the White House. This is sure enough where the President lives; here are the pickets with their banners that we read about down home.’’ A note of triumph was in his frail voice.

The picket smiled, and thanked him warmly, as he finished with, “You are brave girls. You are bound to get him”—pointing his shaking finger toward the White House.

President Wilson’s second inauguration was rapidly approaching. Also war clouds were gathering with all the increased emotionalism that comes at such a crisis. Some additional demonstration of power and force must be made before the President’s inauguration and before the excitement of our entry into the war should plunge our agitation into obscurity. This was the strategic moment to assemble our forces in convention in Washington.

Accordingly, the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage and the Woman’s Party, that section of the Congressional Union in suffrage states made up of women voters, convened in Washington and decided unanimously to unite their strength, money and political power in one organization, and called it the National Woman’s Party.

The following officers were unanimously elected to direct the activities of the new organization: Chairman of the National Woman’s Party, Miss Alice Paul, New Jersey; Vice-chairman, Miss Anne Martin, Nevada; secretary, Miss Mabel Vernon, Nevada; treasurer, Miss Gertrude Crocker, Illinois; executive members, Miss Lucy Burns, Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont, Mrs. John Winters Brannan, New York; Mrs. Gilson Gardner, Illinois; Mrs. Robert Baker, Washington, D. C.; Mrs. William Kent and Miss Maud Younger, California; Mrs. Florence Bayard Hilles, Delaware; Mrs. Donald Hooker, Maryland; Mrs. J. A. H. Hopkins, New Jersey; Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Pennsylvania, and Miss Doris Stevens, Nebraska.

The convention came to a close on the eve of inauguration, culminating in the dramatic picket line made up of one thousand delegates who sought an interview with the President. The purpose of the interview was to carry to him the resolutions of the convention, and further plead with him to open his second administration with a promise to back the amendment.

In our optimism we hoped that this glorified picket-pageant might form a climax to our three months of picketing. The President admired persistence. He said so. He also said he appreciated the rare tenacity shown by our women. Surely “now” he would be convinced! No more worrying persistence would be needed ! The combined political strength of the western women and the financial strength of the eastern women would surely command his respect and entitle us to a hearing.

What actually happened?

It was a day of high wind and stinging, icy rain, that March 4th, 1917, when a thousand women, each bearing a banner, struggled against the gale to keep their banners erect. It is always impressive to see a thousand people march, but the impression was imperishable when these thousand women marched in rain-soaked garments, hands bare, gloves roughly torn by the sticky varnish from the banner poles and the streams of water running down the poles into the palms of their hands. It was a sight to impress even the most hardened spectator who had seen all the various forms of the suffrage agitation in Washington. For more than two hours the women circled the White House—the rain never ceasing for an instant—hoping to the last moment that at least their leaders would be allowed to take in to the President the resolutions which they were carrying.

Long before the appointed hour for the march to start, thousands of spectators sheltered by umbrellas and raincoats lined the streets to watch the procession. Two bands whose men managed to continue their spirited music in spite of the driving rain led the march playing “Forward Be Our Watchword”; “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”; “Onward Christian Soldiers”; “The Pilgrim’s Chorus” from Tannhäuser; “The Coronation March” from Le Prophète, the Russian Hymn and “The Marsellaise”

Miss Vida Milholland led the procession carrying her sister’s last words, “Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?” She was followed by Miss Beulah Amidon of North Dakota, who carried the banner that the beloved Inez Milholland carried in her first suffrage procession in New York. The long line of women fell in behind.

Most extraordinary precautions had been taken about the White House. Everything had been done except the important thing. There were almost as many police officers as marchers. The Washington force had been augmented by a Baltimore contingent and squads of plainclothes men. On every fifty feet of curb around the entire White House grounds there was a policeman., About the same distance apart on the inside of the tall picket-fence which surrounds the grounds were as many more.

We proceeded to the main gate. Locked! I was marshalling at the head of the line and so heard first hand what passed between the leaders and the guards. Miss Anne, Martin addressed the guard—

“We have come to present some important resolutions to the President of the United States.”

“I have orders to keep the gates locked, Ma’am.”

“But there must be some mistake. Surely the President does not mean to refuse to see at least . . .”

“Those are my only orders, Ma’am.”

The procession continued on to the second gate on Pennsylvania Avenue. Again locked. Before we could address the somewhat nervous policeman who stood at the gates, he hastened to say, “You can’t come in here; the gates are locked.”

“But it is imperative; we are a thousand women from all States in the Union who have come all the way to Washington to see the President and lay before him . . .”

“No orders, Ma’am.”

The line made its way to the third and last gate—the gate leading to the Executive offices. As we came up to this gate a small army of grinning clerks and secretaries manned the windows of the Executive offices, evidently amused at the sight of the women struggling in the wind and rain to keep their banners intact. Miss Martin, Mrs. William Kent of California, Mrs. Florence Bayard Hilles of Delaware, Miss Mary Patterson of Ohio, niece of John C. Patterson of Dayton, Mrs. J. A. H. Hopkins of New Jersey, Miss Eleanor Barker of Indiana, and Mrs. Mary Darrow Weible of North Dakota,—the leaders—stayed at the gate, determined to get results from the guard, while the women continued to circle the White House.

“Will you not carry a message to the President’s Secretary asking him to tell the President that we are here waiting to see him?”

“Can’t do that, Ma’am.”

“Will you then take our cards to the Secretary to the president, merely announcing to him that we are here, so that he may send somebody to carry in our resolutions?”

Still the guard hesitated. Finally he left the gate and carried the message a distance of a few rods into the Executive offices. He had scarcely got inside when he rushed back to his post. When we sought to ascertain what had happened to the cards—had they been given and what the answer was—he quietly confided to us that he had been reprimanded for even attempting to bring them in and informed us that the cards were still in his pocket. “I have orders to answer no questions and to carry no messages. If you have anything to leave here you might take it to the entrance below the Executive offices, and-when I go off my beat at six o’clock I will leave it as I go by the White House.”

We examined this last entrance suggested. It, did not strike us as the proper place to leave an important message for the President.

“What is this entrance used for?” I asked the guard.

“It’s all right, lady. If you’ve got something you’d like to leave, leave it with me. It will be safe.”

I retorted that we were not seeking safety for our message, but speed in delivery.

The guard continued: “This is the gate where Mrs. Wilson’s clothes and other packages are left.”

It struck us as scarcely fitting that we should leave our resolutions amongst “Mrs. Wilson’s clothes and other packages,” so we returned to the last locked gate to ask the guard if he had any message in the meantime for us. He shook his head regretfully.

Meanwhile the women marched and marched, and the rain fell harder and as the afternoon wore on the cold seemed almost unendurable.

The white-haired grandmothers in the procession—there were some as old as 84—were as energetic as the young girls of 20. What was this immediate hardship compared to eternal subjection! Women marched and waited—waited and marched, under the sting of the biting elements and under the worse sting of the indignities heaped upon them. It was impossible to believe that in democratic America they could not see the President to lay before him their grievance.

It was only when they saw the Presidential limousine, in the late afternoon, roll luxuriously out of the grounds, and through the gates down Pennsylvania Avenue, that the weary marchers realized that President Wilson had deliberately turned them away unheard!

The car for an instant, as it came through the gates, divided the banner-bearers on march. President and Mrs. Wilson looked straight ahead as if the long line of purple, white and gold were invisible.

All the women who took part in that march will tell you what was burning in their hearts on that dreary day. Even if reasons had been offered—and they were not—genuine reasons why the President could not see them, it would not have cooled the women’s heat. Their passionate resentment went deeper than any reason could possibly have gone.

This one single incident probably did more than any other to make women sacrifice themselves. Even something as thin as diplomacy on the part of President Wilson might have saved him many restless hours to follow, but he did not take the trouble to exercise even that.

The women returned to headquarters and there wrote a letter which was dispatched with the resolutions to President Wilson. In a letter to the National Woman’s Party, acknowledging the receipt of them, he concluded by saying: “May I not once more express my sincere interest in the cause of woman suffrage?”

Three months of picketing had not been enough. We must not only continue on duty at his gates but also, at the gates of Congress.