“The Administration could very easily hire a comfortable house in Washington and detain you all there,” said Mr. Lawrence, “but don’t you see that your demand to be treated as’ political prisoners is infinitely more difficult to grant than to give you the federal suffrage amendment? If we give you these privileges we shall have to extend them to conscientious objectors and to all prisoners now confined for political opinions. This the Administration cannot do.”
The political prisoners protest, then, had actually encouraged the Administration to choose the lesser of two evils some action on behalf of the amendment.
“Suppose,” continued Mr. Lawrence, “the Administration should pass the amendment through one house of Congress next session and go to the country in the 1918 elections on that record and if sustained in it, pass it through the other house a year from now. Would you then agree to abandon picketing?”
“Nothing short of the passage of the amendment through Congress will end our agitation,” Miss Paul quietly answered for the thousandth time.
Since Mr. Lawrence disavows any connection with the 4dministration in this interview, I can only remark that events followed exactly in the order he outlined; that is, the Administration attempted to satisfy the women by putting the amendment through the House and not through the Senate.
It was during Miss Paul’s imprisonment that the forty-one women went in protest to the picket line and were sent to the workhouse, as narrated in the previous chapter. The terrorism they endured at Occoquan ran simultaneously with the attempted intimidation of Miss Paul and her group in the jail.
Chapter 13
Administration—Lawlessness Exposed
In August, 1917, when it was clear that the policy of imprisoning suffragists would be continued indefinitely, and under longer sentences, the next three groups of pickets to be arrested asked for a decision from the highest court, the District Court of Appeals. Unlike other police courts in the country, there is no absolute right of appeal-from the Police Court of the District of Columbia. Justice Robb, of the District Court of Appeals, after granting two appeals, refused to grant any more, upon the ground that he had discretionary power to grant or withhold an appeal. When further right of appeal was denied us, and when the Administration persisted in arresting us, we were compelled either to stop picketing or go to prison.
The first appealed case was heard by the Court of Appeals on January 8, 1918, and the decision[1] handed down in favor of the defendants on March 4, 1918. This decision was concurred in by all three judges, one of whom was appointed by President Wilson, a second by President Roosevelt and the third by President Taft.
[1] See Hunter vs. District of Columbia, 47 App. Cas. (D. C.) p. 406.