That hurrying crowd was made up of many types. In the early morning and the late afternoon, government clerks predominated. Almost as many were the sight-seers from every part of the country. Then there were diplomats, newspapermen, schoolboys, and schoolgirls, and the matinée crowds. In the streets came the endless file of motor-cars, filled mainly with women going to teas. Many people pretended not to see the sentinels. They would walk straight ahead with an impassive expression, casting furtive, side-long glances at the banners. Again and again, the pickets enjoyed the wicked satisfaction of seeing them walk straight into the wire wickets which enclosed the Pennsylvania Avenue trees. At first, Congressmen tried not to see what was going on. After a while, however, they too stopped to chat with the pickets. One Congressman told Mrs. Gilson Gardner that he felt there was “something religious about that bannered picket line; that it had already become to him a part of the modern religion of this country.”
Another Congressman, who had been opposed at first to the picketing, called out one day, “That’s right. Keep it up! Don’t let us forget you for a moment!”
All kinds of pretty incidents occurred. Once, Ex-Senator Henry W. Blair visited the picket line. He had been a friend of Susan B. Anthony, and he made the first speech ever delivered in the Senate in favor of Suffrage. White-haired, keen-eyed, walking with a crutch and a stick, he came along the line of pickets, greeting each one of them in turn—ninety years old.
“And I, too, have been a picket,” said General Sherwood to them.
“I salute you as soldiers in a great revolution,” said one chance passer-by to the Women Workers’ Delegation on Labor Day. And—struck apparently by the high spiritual quality in the beautiful procession—a woman, a stranger to them, remarked to the pickets: “I wonder if you realize what a mediæval spectacle you young women present. You have made us realize that this cause is a crusade.”
Workmen digging trenches in the streets discussed the matter among themselves. Picketing is an institution very dear to the heart of Labor. These men showed their sympathy by devising and making supports for the banners. They offered to make benches for the pickets, but agreed with the women when they said that sentinels must stand, not sit, at their posts.
When the Confederate Reunion occurred in Washington, many of the feeble, white-haired men in their worn Confederate grey and their faded Confederate badges, stopped to talk with the pickets. I quote the Suffragist:
“We-all came out early to see the sights,” said one. “We went three times around this place, and I thought the big house in the center was the White House. But we weren’t sure—not until you girls came out with your flags and stood here. ‘This is sure enough where the President lives,’ I said, ‘here are the Suffrage pickets and there are the purple and gold flags we read about down home.’ You are brave girls.”
One old soldier, hat off, said, “I have picketed in my time. And now it is your turn, you young folks. You have the courage. You are going to put it through.”
That was the note many of them sounded. “Girls, you are right,” a third encouraged them. “I have been through wars, and I know. You-all got to have some rights.”