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Today in Herstory: Jailed Suffrage Protesters Show Support for Alice Paul
Today in Herstory: Jailed Suffrage Protesters Show Support for Alice Paul
November 11, 1917: Where did the 41 suffragists arrested yesterday while trying to picket along the White House fence spend part of what may be their last day of freedom before their trials tomorrow? Inside the walls of the District of Columbia Jail. Why? So they could express their support for the suffrage prisoners already there, especially Alice Paul, being held in the jail’s psychopathic ward, and force-fed three times a day for being the “ringleader” of the “Silent Sentinel” pickets.
The assembly was not, of course, approved by the warden, but it went forward anyway. Anna Kelton Wiley, Elizabeth Kent and Lucy Burns led their fellow visitors double-file to the warden’s office where they demanded to talk to him. The warden’s wife came to the door and said they couldn’t see him because “the poor man is prostrated,” presumably due to telephone calls from the public objecting to the extreme punishments being given to peaceful “Silent Sentinel” suffrage pickets.
The delegation decided they weren’t going to leave without accomplishing their mission, so they fanned out and began looking for Alice Paul, Rose Winslow and other suffrage prisoners. Soon, someone called out: “There’s Miss Paul … There she is!” A few surprised guards were no match for the determination of the women, so some of Paul’s most ardent supporters rushed by and clustered below her window to salute her. “West Virginia greets you!” “Oklahoma is with you!” “New York salutes you!” were among the first words that rang out.
Despite force-feedings and sleepless nights spent listening to the shrieks of patients in the psychopathic ward, Alice Paul seemed as spirited as ever, and told supporters:
Many of you will probably be here tomorrow. I want to say to you now that you will find the conditions intolerable. You must make it clear from the first that you are political offenders and demand that you be treated as such. Your number will make it impossible for them to do anything but grant your demands.
. . .