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
Here, perhaps, is the place to tell of a curious incident that happened
during Alice Paul’s jail term. For this to strike the reader with the
force it deserves, he must remember that Alice Paul was held almost
incommunicado, that she saw but two friends from the outside, and then
only for a few minutes, that she could not confer with her counsel,
Dudley Field Malone, who had to overcome extraordinary obstacles—had
finally to threaten habeas corpus proceedings and to see high officials
who were his personal friends—to get to her. Two newspaper men were
admitted, but they were friendly to the Administration.
One evening, at nine o’clock—an hour when all the prisoners were
supposed to be in bed—the door opened and a stranger entered her room.
He proved to be David Lawrence, a newspaper man, very well known as one
who was closely associated with the Administration. He did not say that
he had come from the Administration, but, of course, it is obvious that
if he had not been in favor with the Administration, he would not have
been admitted. He stayed two hours, and Miss Paul talked over the
situation with him.
I now quote Miss Younger, who has told this episode on many platforms:
He asked Miss Paul how long she and the other pickets would give the
Administration before they began picketing again. She said it would
depend upon the attitude the Administration and Congress seemed to
be taking toward the Federal Amendment. He said he believed the
prohibition bill would be brought up and passed, and after that was
out of the way the Suffrage bill would be taken up.
He asked if we would be content to have it go through one House this
session and wait till the next session for it to pass the other
House. Miss Paul said that if the bill did not go through both
Houses this session, the Woman’s Party would not be satisfied.
Then the man said he believed that the President would not mention
Suffrage in his message at the opening of Congress, but would make
it known to the leaders of Congress that he wanted it passed and
would see that it passed.
He said in effect: Now the great difficulty is for these
hunger-strikers to be recognized as political prisoners. Every day
you hunger-strike, you advertise the idea of political prisoners
throughout the country. It would be the easiest thing in the world
for the Administration to treat you as political prisoners; to put
you in a fine house in Washington; give you the best of food; take
the best of care of you; but if we treat you as political prisoners,
we would have to treat other groups which might arise in opposition
to the war program as political prisoners too, and that would throw
a bomb in our war program. It would never do. It would be easier to
give you the Suffrage Amendment than to treat you as political
prisoners.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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