“But going to jail. That was pretty shocking.”
“Yes, indeed it was. It not only shocked us that a government would be alarmed enough to do such a thing, but what was more to the point, it shocked the entire country into doing something quickly about Woman Suffrage.”
It will be seen by the foregoing pages of this book that Suffragists had exhausted every form of Suffrage agitation known to the United States. In particular, they had sent to the President every kind of deputation that could possibly move him.
They decided to send him a perpetual deputation.
Alice Paul, in explanation of her strategy in this matter, uses one of the vivid figures that are so typical of her: “If a creditor stands before a man’s house all day long, demanding payment of his bill, the man must either remove the creditor or pay the bill.”
At first, the President tried to remove the creditor. Later he paid the bill.
At ten o’clock on January 10, 1917, the day after the deputation to the President, twelve women emerged from Headquarters and marched across Lafayette Square to the White House. Four of them bore lettered banners, and eight of them carried purple, white, and gold banners of the Woman’s Party. They marched slowly—a banner’s length apart. Six of them took up their stand at the East gate, and six of them at the West gate. At each gate—standing between pairs of women holding on high purple, white, and gold colors—two women held lettered banners. One read:
MR. PRESIDENT WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE?