“You had better answer up, or it will be the worse for you,” said one man.
“I will handle you so you’ll be sorry you made me,” said another.
The Suffragists did not reply. Mrs. Nolan says that she could see that Mrs. Herndon was afraid of what was going to happen.
Suddenly the door burst open, and Whittaker came rushing in from a conference, it was later discovered, of the District of Columbia Commissioners at the White House—followed by men—more and more of them. The Suffragists had been sitting or lying on the floor. Mrs. Lewis stood up.
“We demand to be treated as political pris——” she began. But that was as far as she got.
“You shut up! I have men here glad to handle you!” Whittaker said. “Seize her!”
Two men seized Mrs. Lewis, dragged her out of the sight of the remaining Suffragists.
In the meantime, another man sprang at Mrs. Nolan, who, it will be remembered, was over seventy years old, very frail and lame. She says:
I am used to being careful of my bad foot, and I remember saying: “I will come with you; do not drag me. I have a lame foot.” But I was dragged down the steps and away into the dark. I did not have my feet on the ground. I guess that saved me.
It was black outside, and all Mrs. Nolan remembers was the approach to a low, dark building from which, made brilliantly luminous by a window light, flew the American flag.