The next day, June 21, Lucy Burns and Katherine Morey carried a banner which was the duplicate of the one borne the day before to the lower White House gate. Before they could set it up some boys destroyed it. The police did not interfere; they looked placidly on. Immediately other banners were sent off from Headquarters. Hazel Hunkins carried one which said harmlessly: DEMOCRACY SHOULD BEGIN AT HOME. The crowds gathered and surged up and down the street but the two pickets stood motionless. Nothing happened for a while. Then a man, who stopped to congratulate Miss Hunkins, was applauded by the crowd. It is an interesting example of mob psychology that after this applause such an incident as happened five minutes later could happen. A woman of the War Department, who had been boasting that morning in her office that she was going to do this, attacked Hazel Hunkins. She tore the banners and spat on them. The avenue was crowded with government clerks and they immediately fell on the banners and destroyed them after a struggle. Katherine Morey, who was lunching at Headquarters, says in almost Bunyanesque language: “And I heard a great roar.” She ran towards the White House gates and saw that the mobs had charged the pickets, had torn the banners into shreds. The mob then rushed to the other gate, picketed by Catherine Lowry and Lillian Crans. After a struggle, their banners also were destroyed. Lillian Crans ran to Headquarters for another banner, carrying the news of what had happened. Immediately, there emerged from the Little White House four women led by Mabel Vernon, carrying purple, white, and gold banners. It was a moment of tension, and the pickets were white-faced with that tension. This silent, persistent courage had, however, its inevitable effect on the crowd. It fell back. Before it could recover from its interval of indecision, the police met the groups of girls, and conducted them to their places. Police reserves ultimately appeared, and cleared the crowd from Pennsylvania Avenue. The pickets kept guard the rest of the day in peace. One of them even did her war-time knitting. About this time a prominent newspaper man was sent to Alice Paul by the powers that be, on a mission of intervention. He told her it was feared the President might be assassinated by some one in the crowds that the pickets collected. “Is the Administration willing to have us make this public?” Alice Paul asked. “Oh, no!” was the answer. Alice Paul replied, “The picketing will go on as usual.” So now Major Pullman, Chief of Police for the District of Columbia, called at Headquarters. He told Alice Paul that if the pickets went out again they would be arrested. Alice Paul answered in effect: “Why has picketing suddenly become illegal? Our lawyers have assured us all along that picketing was legal. Certainly it is as legal in June as in January.” She concluded, “The picketing will go on as usual.”