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
On the morning of October 7, four banner bearers ascended the steps of
the Capitol. They were: Elizabeth Kalb; Vivian Pierce; Bertha Moller;
Mrs. Horton Pope. The lettered banner, flanked as usual with the
Suffrage tri-color, read:
WE DEMAND AN AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED CONSTITUTION
ENFRANCHISING WOMEN.
They had hardly mounted the steps when the Capitol police placed them
under arrest. They took the prisoners to the guard room in the Capitol,
kept them there for fifteen minutes, and then released them. It was, of
course, not exactly an arrest; and no one seemed exactly responsible for
the order. The banners were, however, confiscated.
That afternoon, the same women, except that Bertha Arnold was
substituted for Mrs. Pope, mounted the steps bearing a large banner
which read:
WE PROTEST AGAINST THE 34 WILFUL SENATORS WHO HAVE
DELAYED THE POLITICAL FREEDOM OF AMERICAN WOMEN.
THEY HAVE OBSTRUCTED THE WAR PROGRAM OF THE PRESIDENT.
THEY HAVE LINED UP THE SENATE WITH PRUSSIA BY
DENYING SELF-GOVERNMENT TO THE PEOPLE.
All the afternoon, the banner bearers were detained in the courtroom at
intervals. When they were released, they went back to the Capitol; were
arrested; detained in the courtroom again; released again.
On the morning of October 10, four more pickets, Edith Ainge, Bertha
Moller, Maud Jamison, Clara Wold, started for the Capitol. Crowds of men
and women gathered in the park to see what was going to happen, and rows
of police stood on the Capitol steps awaiting the pickets. As soon as
the big protest banner was unfurled, the police seized it. Maud Jamison
and Clara Wold tried to mount the steps with the tri-color, but several
policemen rushed upon them, and conducted them up the steps and into the
Capitol building. As the police said over and over again that there were
no arrests, the women insisted on carrying their banners.
Protesting against the curious and inconsistent action on the part of
the police, the women were conducted into the presence of the captain.
He iterated and reiterated that this action was all in accordance with
the rules of Colonel Higgins, the Democratic Sergeant-at-Arms who is
under the Rules Committee which carries out the Democratic program. The
Suffragists demanded by what authority they were held and the captain
informed them that it did not make any difference about the law, that
Colonel Higgins had taken the law into his own hands. The four
Suffragists waited for a few minutes. Their purple, white, and gold
banners had been confiscated, but the protest banner was still there.
Suddenly, without any interference from anybody, they took up their
protest banner, walked out of the guard room, went over to the Senate
Office Building and stood with it, at the top of the steps, the rest of
the day. Later Vivian Pierce, Mrs. Stewart Polk, Mary Gertrude Fendall
and Gladys Greiner joined this group of pickets.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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