Inside, eighty-one women in white, all of whom had served in the Jail or the Workhouse, carrying lettered banners and purple, white, and gold banners, marched down the two center aisles of the theatre and onto the stage. There were speeches by Mrs. Thomas Hepburn, Dudley Field Malone, Mrs. William Kent, Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont, and Maud Younger. Then came an interval in which money was raised. Two touching details were sums of fifty cents and thirty cents pledged from Occoquan “because the Suffragettes helped us so much down there.” And Mrs. John Rogers, Jr., on behalf of the pickets gave “tenderest thanks for this help from our comrades in the Workhouse.” Eighty-six thousand, three hundred and eighty-six dollars was raised in honor of the pickets. On that occasion, prison pins which were tiny replicas in silver of the cell doors, were presented to each “prisoner of freedom.” As Alice Paul appeared to receive her pin, Dudley Field Malone called, “Alice Paul,” and the audience leaped to its feet; the cheers and applause lasted until she disappeared at the back of the platform. * * * * * It is a poignant regret to the present author that she cannot go further into conditions at the District Jail and at Occoquan in regard to the other prisoners there. But that is another story and must be told by those whose work is penal investigation. The Suffragists uncovered conditions destructive to body and soul; incredibly inhumane! One of the heart-breaking handicaps of the swift, intensive warfare of the pickets was that, although they did much to ameliorate conditions for their fellow prisoners, they could not make them ideal. Piteous appeal after piteous appeal came to them from their “comrades in the Workhouse.” “If we go on a hunger-strike, will they make things better for us?” the other prisoners asked again and again. “No,” the Suffragists answered sadly. “You have no organization back of you.” However, in whatever ways were open to them the Suffragists offered counsel and assistance of all kinds. * * * * * I asked one of the pickets once how the other prisoners regarded them. She answered: “They called us ‘the strange ladies.’” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ II TELLING THE COUNTRY