The Story of the Woman's Party

by Inez Haynes Gillmore

Upon entering Occoquan Workhouse, we were separated from the preceding group of Suffragists. Efforts were made by the officers to impress us by their good will towards us. Entirely new clothing, comfortable rooms in the hospital, and the substitution of milk and buttered toast for cold bread, cereal, and soup, ameliorated the trials of the table. The head matron was chatty and confidential. She told us of the wonderful work of the superintendent in creating these institutions out of the wilderness and of the kindness shown by the officers to inmates. She lamented that some of the other Suffragists did not appreciate what was done for them....

“Why are we segregated from all the white prisoners?” I asked the superintendent of the Workhouse. Part of the time we were not segregated from the colored prisoners, a group of whom were moved into the hospital and shared with us the one bathroom and toilet. “That is for your good and for ours,” was the bland reply....

That was quite in the tone of his answer to another inquiry made when the superintendent told me that no prisoner under punishment—that is, in solitary confinement—was allowed to see counsel. “Is that the law of the District of Columbia?” I inquired. “It is the law here because it is the rule I make,” he replied.

We learned what it is to live under a one-man law. The doctor’s orders for our milk and toast and even our medicine were countermanded by the superintendent, so we were told. Our counsel after one visit was forbidden, upon a pretext, to come again.

On Tuesday, September 18, we were made to exchange our new gingham uniforms for old spotted gray gowns covered with patches upon patches; were taken to a shed to get pails of paint and brushes, and were set to painting the dormitory lavatories and toilets. By this time we were all hungry and more or less weak from lack of food. A large brush wet with white paint weighs at least two pounds. Much of the work required our standing on a table or stepladder and reaching above our heads. I think the wiser of us rested at every opportunity, but we did not refuse to work.

All this time we had been without counsel for eight days....

The food, which had been a little better, about the middle of the month reached its zenith of rancidity and putridity. We tried to make a sport of the worm hunt, each table announcing its score of weevils and worms. When one prisoner reached the score of fifteen worms during one meal, it spoiled our zest for the game....

We had protested from the beginning against doing any manual labor upon such bad and scanty food as we received....

Mrs. Kendall, who was the most emphatic in her refusal, was promptly locked up on bread and water. The punishment makes a story to be told by itself. It clouded our days constantly while it lasted and while we knew not half of what she suffered....

All this time—five days—Mrs. Kendall was locked up, her pallid face visible through the windows to those few Suffragists who had opportunity and ventured to go to her window for a moment at the risk of sharing her fate.