Such thoughts come to one in looking over the field of the Suffrage campaign and watching the pickets at the White House and at the Capitol, where sit the men who complacently enjoy the rights they deny to the women at their gates. Surely, nothing but the creeping paralysis of mental old age can account for the phenomenon of American men, law-makers, officials, administrators, and guardians of the peace, who can see nothing in the intrepid young pickets with their banners, asking for bare justice but common obstructors of traffic, naggers—nuisances that are to be abolished by passing stupid laws forbidding and repressing to add to the old junk-heap of laws which forbid and repress? Can it be possible that any brain cells not totally crystallized could imagine that giving a stone instead of bread would answer conclusively the demand of the women who, because they are young, fearless, eager, and rebellious, are fighting and winning a cause for all women—even for those who are timid, conventional, and inert? A fatal error—a losing fight. The old stiff minds must give way. The old selfish minds must go. Obstructive reactionaries must move on. The young are at the gates! LAVINIA DOCK. _The Suffragist_, June 30, 1917. This hostility in June had worked up suddenly after the five quiet months, during which the Woman’s Party had been peacefully picketing the White House. Perhaps their immunity was at first due to the fact that when the picketing in January began, the people in Washington did not expect it to last. “When the rain comes, they will go,” Washingtonians said, and then, as the line still continued to appear, “When the snow comes, they will go.” But, instead of going with the rain, the pickets waited for Smith, the janitor, to bring them slickers and sou’westers. And instead of leaving with the snow, they only put on heavier coats. The pickets became an institution. It is true, too, that, though that picket line was a surprise to every one (and to many a shock) to some it was a joke. There was one Congressman, for instance, who took it humorously. He said to Nina Allender, when the Suffragists began to picket the Special War Session of Congress: “The other day, a man covered the gravestones in a cemetery with posters which read: ‘Rise up! Your country needs you!’ Now that was poor publicity. I consider yours equally poor.” “But,” replied Mrs. Allender, “we are not picketing a graveyard. We are picketing Congress. We believe there are a few live ones left there.” The Congressman admitted that he had laid himself wide open to this. But, from the very beginning, there were those who did not consider it a joke. The first day the pickets appeared, a gentleman—old and white-haired—stopped to stare at the band of floating color. He read the words: MR. PRESIDENT, HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY?