The women of the fifth group were: Mrs. Harvey Wiley, Alice Cosu, Mary Bartlett Dixon, Julia Emory, Mary A. Nolan, Lucy Burns.
The forty-one women were tried on November 12. They were charged with “obstructing traffic,” and pleaded “Not Guilty.” The police sergeants and plain-clothes men gave their testimony which was refuted absolutely by witnesses for the defendants—Helena Hill Weed, Olivia Dunbar Torrence, Marie Manning Gasch, Mary Ingham.
Mrs. John Winters Brannan said:
The responsibility for an agitation like ours against injustice rests with those who deny justice, not those who demand it. Whatever may be the verdict of this Court, we shall continue our agitation until the grievance of American women is redressed.
Mrs. Harvey Wiley said:
I want to state that we took this action with great consecration of spirit. We took this action with willingness to sacrifice our personal liberty in order to focus the attention of the nation on the injustice of our disfranchisement, that we might thereby win political liberty for all the women of the country. The Constitution says that Congress shall not in any way abridge the right of citizens peacefully to assembly and petition. That is exactly what we did. We peacefully assembled and then proceeded with our petition to the President for the redress of our grievance of disfranchisement. The Constitution does not specify the form of petition. Ours was in the form of a banner. To say that we “broke traffic regulations” when we exercised our constitutional right of petition is therefore unconstitutional.
Judge Mullowny admitted the embarrassment of the Administration.
“The trouble of the situation is that the Court has not been given power to meet it,” he complained. “It is very, very puzzling.”
A little after three o’clock, he dismissed the pickets without imposing sentence. He said he would take the case under advisement.