Alison Turnbull Hopkins.
After having written this letter, quite alone and at the crowded hour of five o’clock in the afternoon, Mrs. Hopkins carried a banner to the White House gates, and stood there for ten minutes. The banner said: WE ASK NOT PARDON FOR OURSELVES BUT JUSTICE FOR ALL AMERICAN WOMEN. A large and curious crowd gathered, but nobody bothered her. While she stood there, the President passed through the gates and saluted.
On Monday, July 23, exactly a month from the time that the police had first interfered with the picketing and the Suffragists, the daily Suffrage picket was resumed. The crowds streaming home in the afternoon from the offices, laughed when they saw the banners at the White House gates again. Some stopped to congratulate the women.
Time went on and still the President did nothing about putting the Amendment through. As always when it was not strikingly brought to his attention, Suffrage seemed to pass from his mind. It became again necessary to call his attention to the Amendment. Often it seemed as though the President’s attention could be gained only by calling the country’s attention to his inaction.
Within a week appeared a new banner. Elihu Root, the Special Envoy of the United States to Russia, had just come home from a country which had enfranchised its women. With the other members of the American Mission to Russia, he called at the White House, and at the gates he was confronted by these words:
TO ENVOY ROOT:
YOU SAY THAT AMERICA MUST THROW ITS MANHOOD IN THE
SUPPORT OF LIBERTY.
WHOSE LIBERTY?