During the entire afternoon of that day—August 17—the day that Major Pullman called on Alice Paul—the sentinels stood at their posts. One of the banners read:
ENGLAND AND RUSSIA ARE ENFRANCHISING WOMEN IN WAR TIME;
Another:
THE GOVERNMENT ORDERS OUR BANNERS DESTROYED BECAUSE THEY TELL THE TRUTH.
At intervals of fifteen minutes—for two hours—the pickets were told by a captain of police that they would be arrested if they did not move. But they held their station. At half-past four, the hour at which the thousand of government clerks invade the streets, there was enough of a crowd to give the appearance that the pickets were “blocking traffic.” Lavinia Dock; Edna Dixon; Natalie Gray; Madeline Watson; Catherine Flanagan; Lucy Ewing, were arrested soon after four o’clock. Their trial lasted just forty minutes. One police officer testified that they were obstructing traffic. They all refused to pay the ten-dollar fine, which, though it would have released them, would also have been an admission of guilt, and Police Magistrate Pugh sentenced them to serve thirty days in the Government Workhouse.
On August 23, six women appeared at the White House, bearing banners. They were, Pauline Adams; Gertrude Hunter; Clara Fuller; Kate Boeckh; Margaret Fotheringham; Mrs. Henry L. Lockwood. All of their banners quoted words from the President’s works:
I TELL YOU SOLEMNLY, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE CANNOT
POSTPONE JUSTICE ANY LONGER IN THESE UNITED
STATES, AND I DON’T WISH TO SIT DOWN AND LET ANY MAN