Jail to Victory

Page 49-50 – On January 10, 1917, the [National] Women’s Party arranged around-the-clock pickets at the White House. [After three months,] Police began arresting picketers for blocking traffic. Other women quickly replaced them. Over the next six months more than two hundred women faced trials. Alice Paul [the organizer of the Women’s Party] and ninety-six other who refused to pay their fines were thrown into filthy jails and work houses for up to six months. Guards beat and isolated troublemakers in cells. When women refused to eat, they were force-fed. Lucy Burns wrote:

[We] were dragged through halls by force, our clothing partly removed by force, and we were examined…. Dr. Gannon told me then I must be force fed. I was held down by five people at legs, arms and head. Gannon pushed tube up left nostril…. It hurts nose and throat very much….Food dumped directly into stomach feels like a ball of lead.

Reports of cruel treatment outraged the nation. On November 28, [1917], President Wilson ordered the women set free. The White House pickets remained. Member of the National American [Women Suffrage Association], with [Carrie Chapman] Catt as their president since 1915, disliked Paul’s tactics and kept their distance. [National American favored a state-by-state voting rights approach as opposed to the direct action of the Women’s Party.] Still, the Party’s daring moves opened many doors that strengthened Catt’s state groups. Paul’s antics forced the president and Congress to take action.