We waited an hour. The nervous private secretary returned to say that he had been mistaken. “The Secretary will not be in until after luncheon.”
“We shall wait,” said Mrs. William Kent, chairman of the deputation. “We have nothing more important to do to-day than to see Secretary McAdoo. We are willing to wait the whole day, if necessary, only it is imperative that we see him.”
The private secretary’s spirits sank. He looked as if he would give anything to undo his inadvertence in telling us that the Secretary was expected after luncheon! Poor man! We settled down comfortably to wait, a formidable looking committee of twenty women.
There was the customary gentle embarrassment of attendants whose chief is in a predicament from which they seem powerless to extricate him, but all were extremely courteous. The attendant at the door brought us the morning papers to read. Gradually groups of men began to arrive and cards were sent in the direction of the spot where we inferred the Secretary of the Treasury was safely hidden, hoping and praying for our early retirement.
Whispered conversations were held. Men disappeared in and out of strange doors. Still we waited.
Finally as the fourth hour of our vigil was dragging on, a lieutenant appeared to announce that the Secretary was very sorry but that he would not be able to see us “at all.” We consulted, and finally sent in a written appeal, asking for “five minutes of his precious time on a matter of grave importance.” More waiting! Finally a letter was brought to us directed to Mrs. William Kent, with the ink of the Secretary of the Treasury’s signature still wet. With no concealment of contempt, he declared that under no circumstances could he speak with women who had conducted such an outrageous campaign in such an “illegal” way. We smiled as we learned from his pronouncement that “picketing” was “illegal,” for we were not supposed to have been arrested for picketing. The tone of his letter, its extreme bitterness, tended to confirm what we had always been told, that Mr. McAdoo assisted in directing the policy of arrests and imprisonment.
I have tried to secure this letter for reproduction but unfortunately Mrs. Kent did not save it. We all remember its bitter passion, however, and the point it made about our “illegal picketing.”
Congress convened on December 4th. President Wilson delivered a message, restating our aims in the war. He also recommended a declaration of a state of war against Austria; the control of certain water power sites; export trade-combination; railway legislation; and the speeding up of all necessary appropriation legislation. But he did not mention the suffrage amendment. Having been forced to release the prisoners, he again rested.
Immediately we called a conference in Washington of the Executive Committee and the National Advisory Council of the Woman’s Party. Past activities were briefly reviewed and the political situation discussed. It is interesting to note that the Treasurer’s report made at this conference showed that receipts in some months during the picketing had been double what they were the same month the previous year when there was no picketing. In one month of picketing the receipts went as high as six times the normal amount. For example in July of 1917, when the arrests had just begun, receipts for the month totalled $21,628.65 as against $8,690.62 for July of 1916. In November, 1917, when the militant situation was at its highest point, there was received at National Headquarters $81,117.87 as against $15,008.18 received in November, 1916. Still there were those who said we had no friends!
A rumor that the President would act persisted. But we could not rely on rumor. We decided to accelerate him and his Administration by filing damage suits amounting to $800,000 against the District Commissioners, against Warden Zinkhan, against Superintendent Whittaker and Captain Reams, a workhouse guard.[1] They were brought in no spirit of revenge, but merely that the Administration should not be allowed to forget its record of brutality, unless it chose to amend its conduct by passing the amendment. The suits were brought by the women woo suffered the greatest abuse during the “night of terror” at the workhouse.