Suffragists -- United States; Women -- Suffrage -- United States
Not a move was made by the police to control the growing crowd. Such
inaction is always a signal for more violence on the part of rowdies.
As the throng moved to and fro between the White House and our
Headquarters immediately opposite, so many banners were destroyed that
finally Miss Lucy Burns, Miss Virginia Arnold and Miss Elizabeth
Stuyvesant took those remaining to 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 while three sailors
brought a ladder from the Belasco Theater in the same block, leaned it
against the side of the Cameron House, the Headquarters, climbed up to
the second floor balcony, mounted the iron railing and tore down all
banners and the American flag. One sailor administered a severe blow in
the face with his clenched fist upon Miss Georgina Sturgis of
Washington.
“Why did you do that?” she demanded.
The man halted for a brief instant in obvious amazement and said, “I
don’t know.” And with a violent wrench he tore the banner from her
hands and ran down the ladder.
The narrow balcony was the scene of intense excitement.
But for Miss Burns’ superb strength she would have been dragged over
the railing of the balcony to be plunged to the ground. The mob watched
with fascination while she swayed to and fro in her wrestle with two
young sailors. And still no attempt by the police to quell the riot!
The climax came when in the late afternoon a bullet was fired through
one of the heavy glass windows of the second floor, embedding itself in
the ceiling. The bullet grazed past the head of Mrs. Ella Morton Dean
of Montana. Captain Flather of the 1st Precinct, with two detectives,
later examined the holes and declared they had been made by a 38
caliber revolver, but no attempt was ever made to find the man who had
drawn the revolver.
Meanwhile eggs and tomatoes were hurled at our fresh banners flying
from the flag poles on the building.
Finally police reserves were summoned and in less than five minutes the
crowd was pushed back and the street cleared. Thinking now that they
could rely 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 destroyed, a few paces from Headquarters. More banners
,went out,—purple, white and gold ones. They, too, were destroyed
before they reached the White House.
This entire spectacle was enacted on August 14, within a stone’s throw
of the White House.
Miss Paul summed up the situation when she said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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