“I cannot go on with this case,” he said, “I have had no orders. There are no precedents for cases like these . . . .” The women demanded that their cases be dismissed, or else a charge made against them. They were merely told to return on the appointed day. Such was the indignation aroused against the Administration for taking this action that Senator Curtis of Kansas, Republican whip, could say publicly: “The truth of this statement is made evident by the admission of the court that the forty-eight suffragists are arrested upon absolutely no charges, and that these women, among them munition workers and Red Cross workers, are held in Washington until next Tuesday, under arrest, while the United States attorney for the District of Columbia decides for what offense, ‘if any,’ they were arrested. “The meeting was called to make a justified protest against continued blocking of the suffrage amendment by the Democratic majority in the Senate. It is well known that three-fourths of the Republican membership in the Senate are ready to vote for the amendment, but under the control of the Democratic majority the Senate has recessed for six weeks without making any provision for action on this important amendment. “In justice to the women who have been working so hard for the amendment it should be passed at the earliest date, and if action is not taken on it soon after the resumption of business in the Senate there is every possibility that it will not be taken during this Congress, and the hard-won victory in the House of Representatives will have been won for nothing.” When they finally came to trial ten days after their arrest, to face the charge of “holding a meeting in public grounds,” and for eighteen of the defendants an additional charge of “climbing on a statue,” the women answered the roll call but remained silent thereafter. The familiar farce ensued. Some were released for lack of identification. The others were sentenced to the District Jail—for ten days if they had merely assembled to hold a public meeting, for fifteen days if they had also “climbed on a statue” The Administration evidently hoped by lighter sentences to avoid a hunger strike by the prisoners. The women were taken immediately to a building, formerly used as a man’s workhouse, situated in the swamps of the District prison grounds. This building, which had been declared unfit for human habitation by a committee appointed under President Roosevelt in 1909, and which had been uninhabited ever since, was now reopened, nine years later, to receive twenty-six women who had attempted to hold a meeting in a public park in Washington. The women protested in a body and demanded to be treated as political prisoners. This being refused, all save two very elderly women, too frail to do so, went on hunger strike at once.