The Story of the Woman's PartyGillmore, Inez Haynes
History
The Story of the Woman's Party
Gillmore, Inez Haynes
National Woman's Party; Paul, Alice, 1885-1977; Women -- Suffrage -- United States
PRESIDENT WILSON, WHAT DID YOU MEAN WHEN YOU SAID, “WE HAVE SEEN A
GOOD MANY SINGULAR THINGS HAPPEN RECENTLY. WE HAVE BEEN TOLD THAT IT
IS UNPATRIOTIC TO CRITICIZE PUBLIC ACTION. WELL, IF IT IS, THERE IS
A DEEP DISGRACE RESTING UPON THE ORIGIN OF THIS NATION. THIS NATION
ORIGINATED IN THE SHARPEST SORT OF CRITICISM OF PUBLIC POLICY. WE
ORIGINATED, TO PUT IT IN THE VERNACULAR, IN A KICK AND IF IT IS
UNPATRIOTIC TO KICK, WHY, THEN THE GROWN MAN IS UNLIKE THE CHILD. WE
HAVE FORGOTTEN THE VERY PRINCIPLE OF OUR ORIGIN IF WE HAVE FORGOTTEN
HOW TO OBJECT, HOW TO RESIST, HOW TO AGITATE, HOW TO PULL DOWN AND
BUILD UP EVEN TO THE EXTENT OF REVOLUTIONARY PRACTICES IF IT BE
NECESSARY TO READJUST MATTERS. I HAVE FORGOTTEN MY HISTORY IF THAT
BE NOT TRUE HISTORY.”
The _Suffragist_ of September 29 describes this event:
When the pickets this week took up their stations at the East gate
of the White House, and unfurled the “seditious” utterance of the
President himself, the banner was almost immediately confiscated by
the two police officers who had hurried to the spot. They seemed
anxious to keep from the little pressing crowd the fact that the
President had once been not only a Democrat, but a democrat.
The two officers then stood directly in front of the little group of
women carrying tri-colored flags, with their backs to what crowd
there was. More than half of the wide White House sidewalks were
vacant of pedestrians. The officers had evidently been ordered to
let the crowd collect for a certain number of minutes before they
arrested the women. They betrayed not the slightest interest in the
spectators, but watched their victims with bored attention as they
waited for the patrol....
The four young women were, on the following day, after the usual
court proceeding, sentenced to thirty days in the government
workhouse for “obstructing traffic.”
A brief statement was made by each of the little group. “We are not
citizens,” said these young women. “We are not represented. We were
silently, peacefully attempting to gain the freedom of twenty
million women in the United States of America. We have broken no
law. We are guilty of no crime. We have been illegally arrested. We
demand our freedom, and we shall continue to ask for it until the
government acts.”
They were given thirty days in the workhouse.
The last picketing of the Emergency War Session of the Sixty-fifth
Congress took place on October 6, the day Congress adjourned. There were
eleven women in this picket line: Dr. Caroline Spencer, Vivian Pierce,
Louise Lewis Kahle, Rose Winslow, Joy Young, Matilda Young, Minnie
Henesy, Kate Heffelfinger, Maud Jamison, Lou C. Daniels.
Alice Paul led them. Congress was adjourning. The work of the Woman’s
Party was going on smoothly. For the first time, Alice Paul felt that
she had the leisure to go to jail.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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