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
Lucy Burns thinks she first met Alice Paul at a Suffrage demonstration.
Alice Paul thinks she first met Lucy Burns in that same policemen’s
billiard room of the Cannon Row Police Station, London. Both these young
women remember their English experiences in flashes and pictures. They
worked too hard and too militantly to keep any written record; and
successive hardships wiped away all traces of their predecessors. At any
rate, Alice Paul says that she spoke to Miss Burns because she noticed
that she wore a little American flag. Sitting on the billiard table,
they talked of home. Alice Paul also says that Lucy Burns, a student at
that time of the University of Bonn in Germany, had come to England for
a holiday. She entered the militant movement a few weeks after she
landed and this was her first demonstration.
The women were held for trial, giving bail for their appearance. Alice
Paul had engaged passage home, but she had to cancel it as the trial did
not occur until after the date of her sailing. The case was appealed in
the courts and was finally dropped by the government.
From this time on, the paths of the two girls kept crossing. Frequently,
indeed, they worked together. The next time Alice Paul was arrested,
however, Lucy Burns was not with her. This was at Norwich. Winston
Churchill, a member of the cabinet, was holding a meeting. Outside,
Alice Paul spoke at a meeting too—a protest against the government’s
stand on Woman Suffrage. On this occasion, she was released without
being tried. At the next Suffrage demonstration—at Limehouse in
London—both girls assisted. On this occasion, Lloyd George was holding a
meeting. Miss Paul and Miss Burns were arrested for trying to speak at a
protest meeting outside, and were sentenced to two weeks in Holloway
Jail. They went on a hunger-strike; but were released after five days
and a half.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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