Jailed for Freedom Part 9

"unwomanly" ...dangerous." Gradually the people most hostile to the idea of suffrage in any form marshaled forth the fears which accompany every departure from the prescribed path. Partisan Democrats frowned. Partisan Republicans chuckled. The rest remained in cautious silence to see how "others" would take it.

Following the refrain of the press, the protest-chorus grew louder.

"Silly women" . . : "uns.e.xed" . . ." pathological" . . .

"They must be crazy" . . . "Don't they know anything about politics?" . . . "What can Wilson do? He does not have to sign the const.i.tutional amendment." . . . So ran the comment from the wise elderly gentlemen sitting buried in their cushioned chairs at the gentlemen's club across the Park, watching eagerly the "shocking," "shameless" women at the gates of the White House. No wonder these gentlemen found the pickets irritating! This absorbing topic of conversation, we are told, shattered many an otherwise quiet afternoon and broke up many a quiet game. Here were American women before their very eyes daring to shock them into having to think about liberty. And what was worse-liberty for women. Ah well, this could not go on,-this insult to the President. They could with impunity condemn him and gossip about his affairs. But that women should stand at his gates asking for liberty that was a sin without mitigation.

Disapproval was not confined merely to the gentlemen in their Club. I merely mention them as an example, for they were our neighbors, and the strain on them day by day, as our beautiful banners floated gaily out from our headquarters was, I am told, a heavy one.

Yet, of course, we enjoyed irritating them. Standing on the icy pavement on a damp, wintry day in the penetrating cold of a Washington winter, knowing that within a stone's throw of our agony there was a greater agony than ours there was a joy in that!

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There were faint rumblings also in Congress, but like so many of its feelings they were confined largely to the cloak rooms.

Representative Emerson of Ohio did demand from the floor of the House that the "suffrage guard be withdrawn, as it is an insult to the President," but his protest met with no response whatever from the other members. His oratory fell on indifferent ears. And of course there were always those in Congress who got a vicarious thrill watching women do in their fight what they themselves had not the courage to do in their own. Another representative, an anti-suffrage Democrat, inconsiderately called us "Iron-jawed angels," and hoped we would retire. But if by these protests these congressmen hoped to arouse their colleagues, they failed.

We were standing at the gates of the White House because the American Congress had become so supine that it could not or would not act without being compelled to act by the Presi- dent. They knew that if they howled at us it would only afford an opportunity to retort "Very well then, if you do not like us at the gates of your leader; if you do not want us to 'insult'

the President, end this agitation by taking the matter into your own hands and pa.s.sing the amendment." Such a sug- gestion would be almost as severe a shock as our picketing.

The thought of actually initiating legislation left a loyal Demo- cratic follower transfixed.

The heavy dignity of the Senate forbade their meddling much in this controversy over tactics. Also they were more interested in the sporting prospect of our going into the world war. There was no appeal to blood-l.u.s.t in the women's fight. There were no shining rods of steel. There was no martial music. We were not pledging precious lives and vast billions in our crusade for liberty. The beginning of our fight did indeed seem tiny and frail by the side of the big game of war, and so the senators were at first scarcely aware of our presence.

But the intrepid women stood their long vigils, day

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by day, at the White House gates, through biting wind and driving rain, through sleet and snow as well as sunshine, waiting for the President to act. Above all the challenges of their banners rang this simple, but insistent one:

Mr. President

How Long Must Women Wait for Liberty?

The royal blaze of purple, white and gold-the Party's tricolored banners-made a gorgeous spot of color against the bare, blacklimbed trees.

There were all kinds of pickets and so there were all kinds of reactions to the experience of picketing. The beautiful lady, who drove up in her limousine to do a twenty minute turn on the line, found it thrilling, no doubt. The winter tourist who had read about the pickets in her home paper thought it would be "so exciting" to hold a banner for a few minutes. But there were no illusions in the hearts of the women who stood at their posts day in and day out. None of them will tell you that they felt exalted, enn.o.bled, exhilarated, possessed of any rare and exotic emotion. They were human beings before they were pickets. Their reactions were those of any human beings called upon to set their teeth doggedly and hang on to an unpleasant job.

"When will that woman come to relieve me? I have stood here an hour and a half and my feet are like blocks of ice," was a more frequent comment from picket to picket than "Isn't it glorious to stand here defiantly no matter what the stupid people say about us?"

"I remember the thousand and one engaging things that would come to my mind on the picket line. It seemed that anything but standing at a President's gate would be more diverting. But there we stood.

And what were the reflections of a President as he saw the indomitable little army at his gates? We can only venture to

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say from events which happened. At first he seemed amused and interested. Perhaps he thought it a trifling incident staged by a minority of the extreme "left" among suffragists and antic.i.p.ated no popular support for it. When he saw their persistence through a cruel winnter his sympathy was touched. He ordered the guards to invite them in for a cup of hot coffee, which they declined.

He raised his hat to them as he drove through the line. Sometimes he smiled. As yet he was not irritated. He was fortified in his national power.

With the country's entrance into the war and his immediate elevation to world leadership, the pickets began to be a serious thorn in his flesh. His own statements of faith in democracy and the necessity for establishing it .throughout the world left him open to attack. His refusal to pay the just bill owed the women and demanded by them brought irritation.

What would you do if you owed a just bill and every day some one stood outside your gates as a quiet reminder to the whole world that you had not paid it?

You would object. You would get terribly irritated. You would call the insistent one all kinds of harsh names. You might even arrest him. But the scandal would be out.

Rightly or wrongly, your sincerity would be touched; faith in you would be shaken a bit. Perhaps even against your will you would yield.

But you would yield. And that was the one important fact to the women.

This daily sight, inspiring, gallant and impressive, escaped no visitor to the national capital. Distinguished visitors from the far corners of the earth pa.s.sed by the pickets on those days which made history. Thousands read the compelling messages on the banners, and literally hundreds of thousands learned the story, when the visitors got "back home."

Real displeasure over the sentinels by those who pa.s.sed was negligible. There was some mirth and joking, but the vast

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majority were filled with admiration, either silent or expressed.

"Keep it up." . . . "You are on the right track." . . .

"Congratulations." . . . "I certainly admire your pluck-stick to it and you will get it." . . . This last from a military officer . . . . "It is an outrage that you women should have to stand here and beg for your rights. We gave it to our women in Australia long ago:" . . . This from a charming gentleman who bowed approvingly.

Often a lifted hat was held in sincere reverence over the heart as some courteous gentleman pa.s.sed along the picket line. Of course there were some who came to try to argue with the pickets; who attempted to dissuade them from their persistent course. But the serene, good humor and even temper of the women would not allow heated arguments to break in on the military precision of their line. If a question was asked, a picket would answer quietly. An occasional sneer was easy to meet. That required no acknowledgment.

A sweet old veteran of the Civil War said to one of my comrades: "Yous all right; you gotta fight for your rights in this world, and now that we are about to plunge into another war, I want to tell you women there'll be no end to it unless you women get power. We can't save ourselves and we need you . . . . I am 84 years old, and I have watched this fight since I was a young man.

Anything I can do to help, I want to do. I am living at the Old Soldiers' Home and I ain't got mach money, but here's something for your campaign. It's all I got, and G.o.d bless you, you've gotta win." He spoke the last sentence almost with desperation as he shoved a crumpled $2.00 bill into her hand. His spirit made it a precious gift.

Cabinet members pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed. Congressmen by the hundreds came and went. Administration leaders tried to conceal under an.

artificial indifference their sensitiveness to our strategy.

And domestic battles were going on inside the homes

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throughout the country, for women were coming from every state in the Union, to take their place on the line. For the first time good "suffrage-husbands" were made uncomfortable. Had they not always believed in suffrage? Had they not always been uncomplaining when their wife's time was given to suffrage campaigning? Had they not, in short, been good sports about the whole thing? There was only one answer. They had. But it had been proved that all the things that women had done and all the things in which their menfolk had cooperated, were not enough. Women were called upon for more intensive action. "You cannot go to Washington and risk your health standing in front of the White House. I cannot have it."

"But the time has come when we have to take risks of health or anything else."

"Well, then, if you must know, I don't believe in it. Now I am a reasonable man and I have stood by you all the way up to now, but I object to this. It isn't ladylike, and it will do the cause more harm than good. You women lay yourselves open to ridicule."

"That's just it-that's a fine beginning. As soon as men get tired laughing at us, they will do something more about it. They won't find our campaign so amusing before long."

"But I protest. You've no right to go without considering me."

"But if your country called you in a fight for democracy, as it is likely to do at any moment, you'd go, wouldn't you?"

"Why, of course."

"Of course you would. You would go to the front and leave me to struggle on as best I could without you. That is the way you would respond to your country's call, whether it was a righteous cause or not. Well, I am going to the front too. I am going to answer the women's call to fight for democracy. I would be ashamed of myself if I were not willing to

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join my comrades. I am sorry that you object, but if you will just put yourself in my place you will see that I cannot do otherwise."

It must be recorded that there were exceptional men of sensitive imaginations who urged women against their own hesitancy. They are the handful who gave women a hope that they would not always have to struggle alone for their liberation. And women pa.s.sed by the daily picket line as spectators, not as partic.i.p.ants.