Jailed for Freedom

by Doris Stevens

[2] Appointed to the bench by President Roosevelt.

Dudley Field Malone and Mr. O’Brien of counsel, belligerent in every nerve, were ready to try the case. The two dapper government attorneys, with immobile faces, twisted nervously in their chairs. There was the bevy of newspaper reporters struggling for places in the little courtroom, plainly sympathetic, for whatever they may have had to write for the papers they knew that this was a battle for justice against uneven odds. There were as many eager spectators as could be crowded into so small an area. Upon the whole an air of friendliness prevailed in this little court at Alexandria which we had never felt in the Washington courts. And the people there experienced a shock when the slender file of women, haggard, red- eyed, sick, came to the bar. Some were able to walk to their seats; others were so weak that they had to be stretched out 6n the wooden benches with coats propped under their heads for pillows. Still others bore the marks of the attack of the “night of terror.” Many of the prisoners lay back in their chairs hardly conscious of the proceedings which were to. free them. Mrs. Brannan collapsed utterly and had to be carried to a couch in an ante-room.

It was discovered just as the trial was to open that Miss Lucy Burns and Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, who it will be remembered had been removed to the jail before the writ had been issued, were absent from among the prisoners.

“They are too ill to be brought into court,” Mr. Whittaker replied to the attorneys for the defense.

“We demand that they be brought into court at our risk,” answered counsel for the defense.

The government’s attorneys sustained Mr. Whittaker in not producing them. It was clear that the government did not her wish to have Miss Burns with the marks still fresh on wrists from her manacling and handcuffing, and Mrs. Lewes with a fever from the shock of the first night, brought before the judge who was to decide the case.

“If it was necessary to handcuff Miss Burns to the bars of her cell, we consider her well enough to appear,” declared Mr. O’Brien. . “We consider we ought to know what has happened to all of these petitioners since these events. While I was at Occoquan Sunday endeavoring to see my clients, Mr. Whittaker was trying to induce the ladies, who, he says, are too sick to be brought here, to dismiss this proceeding. Failing in that, he refused to let me see them, though I had an order from Judge Mullowny, and they were taken back to the District of Columbia. From that time to this, though I had your Honor’s order which you signed in Norfolk, the superintendent of the Washington jail also refused to allow me to see my clients, saying that your order had no effect in the District of Columbia.”

“If there are any petitioners that you claim have not been brought here because they have been carried beyond the jurisdiction of the courts, I think we should know it,” ruled the court. “Counsel for these ladies want them here; and they say that they ought to be here and are well enough to b here; that the respondent here has spirited them away and put them beyond the jurisdiction of the court. On that showing, unless there is some reason why they ought not to come, they should be here.”

Miss Burns and Mrs. Lewes were accordingly ordered brought to court.

This preliminary skirmish over, the opening discussion revolved about a point of law as to whether the Virginia District Court had authority to act in this case.