Whittaker will use these interviews in expurgated form, I am sure. When I said anything which did not please him, he said to the stenographer, “You needn’t put that down.”
After the above interviews, he absolutely refused to let our counsel who came from Washington see us.
After my visit to Whittaker this day, I was summoned to the Workhouse. My clothes were listed—those I wore—before two matrons, just as those of criminals are listed; then I was obliged to undress before the two matrons and two trusties, walk to a shower, take a bath, and dress before them in prison clothes. The clothes were clean, but so coarse that they rubbed my skin quite raw. They have two sizes of shoes for the prisoners—large and small.
The only message which reached me from “outside” was a telegram from a friend asking that I allow my bail to be paid. I answered that I would not. This day six girls in our section were taken away “somewhere.” The sense of some unknown horror suddenly descending is the worst of the whole situation. Whittaker’s suave manner was interrupted for a moment this day when he came into the hospital ward and saw Julia Emory in the corridor—she was returning from the wash-room—and taking Julia by the neck he threw her into her cell. “Get in there,” he snarled, or words to that effect.... I was coming out of an adjoining wash-room at the moment, and saw this.
This night I had a most vivid dream. The interne brought in a rabbit. He held it up and told us he would cook it for us. The women—our women—did not wait for him to cook it, but rushed toward him, pulled it from his hands, and tore the living animal into pieces and ate it. I awoke, sobbing.
Next evening, there was great commotion in our corridor. The doors, which did not lock, were held; there were rapid footsteps to and fro. Distressed sounds came from the room adjoining mine, and soon it was evident that Miss Burns was being forcibly fed. Half an hour earlier, her condition was found normal by the doctor, who strolled casually through our ward, looked in at the door, nodded, felt her pulse, and went on. Now Miss Burns was being forcibly fed. What could it mean? Then there were more hurried steps, and the men went to Mrs. Lewis’s room. Fifteen minutes later, they were both hurried into an ambulance and taken away—no one told us where. We had visions accentuated that night, of being separated, hurried out of sight to oblivion, somewhere away from every one we knew.
A detachment of the United States Marines guarded the place. The prisoners were kept incommunicado. That meant, not only were they not allowed visitors, but they were not allowed counsel—and counsel is one of the inalienable rights of citizenship.
In the meantime at Headquarters, the Suffragists, under the leadership of Doris Stevens, now that Alice Paul and Lucy Burns were both in prison, could not even find out where the prisoners were. They had received a jail sentence but were not in the District Jail. Katherine Morey, in great anxiety in regard to her mother, who was one of the prisoners, came from Boston to see her. She could not even locate her. Finally, she hit on the device of meeting the morning train, on which released prisoners always came from Occoquan, and one of them informed her that her mother was at the Workhouse.
In the meantime, sixteen of the women had gone on a hunger-strike. They were committed to Occoquan on Wednesday, November 14. By the following Sunday, Superintendent Whittaker became alarmed. He declared he would not forcibly feed any of them unless they signed a paper saying that they themselves were responsible for any injury upon their health. Of course, they all refused to do this, whereupon Superintendent Whittaker said: “All right, you can starve.” However, by Sunday night, he was a little shaken in this noble resolution. He went to Mrs. Lewis, and asked her what could be done. Mrs. Lewis answered that all they asked was to be treated as political offenders, which provided for exercise, receiving of mail and visitors, buying food and reading matter. He asked her to write this statement out in his name, as though he demanded it. On Monday he brought the statement to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia. Commissioner Gardner gave out a statement that such demands would never be granted.
In the meantime too, Matthew O’Brien, the counsel for the Woman’s Party, succeeded in getting an order from the Court which admitted him to Occoquan. He saw Mrs. Lewis, Mrs. Brannan, and Miss Burns once; but afterwards in spite of his Court order, they refused him admission.