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
The action of the Court this morning makes more glaring than ever
the injustice of holding nineteen women on sixty and thirty day
sentences in Occoquan Workhouse for the same offense of petitioning
for liberty which we committed. We will use our unexpected freedom
to press our campaign with ever-increasing vigor.
On October 15, four pickets, under suspended sentence from their
picketing of October 6, went out again. They were Rose Winslow, Kate
Heffelfinger, Minnie Henesy, Maud Jamison. The police were taken
absolutely by surprise. It was ten minutes before the patrol wagons
appeared. In the meantime, of course, a crowd gathered to see what was
going to happen. When the patrol stopped at the curb, an officer
approached the pickets. “Move on!” he ordered, and, before the pickets
could move on, or even make a reply—“I will put you under arrest,” and
immediately, “You are under arrest.” Rose Winslow, one of the pickets,
lifted her banner high, and marched with the air of a conqueror to the
waiting patrol. The crowd burst into spontaneous applause.
In court Rose Winslow said:
We have seen officers of the law permit men to assault women, to
destroy their banners, to enter their residences. How, then, can you
ask us to have respect for the law? We thought that by dismissing
the Suffragists without sentence this Court had finally decided to
recognize our legal right to petition the government. We shall
continue to picket because it is our right. On the tenth of November
there will be a long line of Suffragists who will march to the White
House gates to ask for political liberty. You can send us to jail,
but you know that we have broken no law. You know that we have not
even committed the technical offense on which we were arrested. You
know that we are guiltless.
Judge Mullowny gave them the choice between a twenty-five dollar fine
and six months in the district workhouse. They, of course, refused to
pay the fine.
* * * * *
At half-past four on October 20, Alice Paul led a deputation of three
pickets to the West gate of the White House. The others were Dr.
Caroline Spencer, Gladys Greiner, Gertrude Crocker. Alice Paul carried a
banner with the words of President Wilson which had appeared recently on
the posters for the Second Liberty Bond Loan of 1917:
THE TIME HAS COME TO CONQUER OR SUBMIT. FOR US THERE
CAN BE BUT ONE CHOICE. WE HAVE MADE IT.
Dr. Caroline Spencer’s banner bore the watchword of ’76:
RESISTANCE TO TYRANNY IS OBEDIENCE TO GOD.
They were arrested as soon as the police had permitted what seemed a
sufficient crowd to gather, placed in the patrol wagon, and taken to the
district jail.
The officer testified as follows—the italics are my own:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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