The Story of the Woman's Party

by Inez Haynes Gillmore

A writ of habeas corpus had been issued for our unjust imprisonment at Occoquan when we had been sentenced to Washington jail. This day I fainted. It was now seven and a half days since I had started hunger-striking. Three young doctors came in to have a look at the hunger-strikers. They did not take our pulse; they just gazed and departed. Later in the day, I was told that I could not go to court next day if I did not eat, as they would not take the responsibility for my trip. They prepared to forcibly feed me. I concluded to eat voluntarily, since I had to break my fast, so that evening I had a baked potato and a baked apple. Next morning I ate no breakfast, but was threatened with forcible feeding at noon if I did not eat, so I ate again.

The next day we were taken to Alexandria Court House. There we found out why Miss Burns and Mrs. Lewis had been taken away from Occoquan. It was to prevent their appearance at Court, although it was shown that Whittaker had been removed after he had received the writ of habeas corpus. Our counsel pleaded for their appearance in Court. The warden of the Washington jail, where they now were, was so solicitous for their health that he feared to move them. Mr. Dudley Field Malone asked him whether they were being forcibly fed. The warden replied that they were. “How many men does it take to hold Miss Burns?” Mr. Malone quietly questioned, “while she is being forcibly fed?” Zinkham answered, “Four.” “Then, your Honor,” asked Mr. Malone, “don’t you think that if it takes four men to hold Miss Burns to give her forcible feeding, she is strong enough to appear in Court?”

Next day, both Mrs. Lewis and Miss Burns were at the trial.

It was found that our detention in the Workhouse was illegal and we were given our freedom on parole. I refused to accept it, and with twenty-two other prisoners was taken to Washington jail to finish my term of imprisonment.

The Suffragists were brought from Occoquan to the Court on November 23, according to schedule. Their condition was shocking. They all showed in their pallor and weakness the effect of the brutal régime to which they had been subjected. The older women could hardly walk, and were supported by their younger and stronger companions. When they reached their chairs, they lay back in them, utterly worn out. Mrs. John Winters Brannan collapsed, and had to be taken from the Courtroom.

As Paula Jakobi has stated, Judge Waddill decided that the thirty-one Suffragists had been illegally committed to Occoquan Workhouse, and were entitled to liberation on bail pending an appeal or the return to the District Jail. Rose Winslow, it will be remembered, was tried at the same time as Alice Paul and received a sentence of seven months. Here are some extracts from the prison notes of Rose Winslow smuggled out to friends:

The women are all so magnificent, so beautiful. Alice Paul is as thin as ever, pale and large-eyed. We have been in solitary for five weeks. There is nothing to tell but that the days go by somehow. I have felt quite feeble the last few days—faint, so that I could hardly get my hair combed, my arms ached so. But today I am well again. Alice Paul and I talk back and forth though we are at opposite ends of the building and a hall door also shuts us apart. But occasionally—thrills—we escape from behind our iron-barred doors and visit. Great laughter and rejoicing!...

I told about a syphilitic colored woman with one leg. The other one was cut off, having rotted so that it was alive with maggots when she came in. The remaining one is now getting as bad. They are so short of nurses that a little colored girl of twelve, who is here waiting to have her tonsils removed, waits on her. This child and two others share a ward with a syphilitic child of three or four years, whose mother refused to have it at home. It makes you absolutely ill to see it. I am going to break all three windows as a protest against their boarding Alice Paul with these!

Dr. Gannon is chief of a hospital. Yet Alice Paul and I found we had been taking baths in one of the tubs here, in which this syphilitic child, an incurable, who has his eyes bandaged all the time, is also bathed. He has been here a year. Into the room where he lives came yesterday two children to be operated on for tonsillitis. They also bathed in the same tub. The syphilitic woman has been in that room seven months. Cheerful mixing, isn’t it? The place is alive with roaches, crawling all over the walls everywhere. I found one in my bed the other day....

In regard to the forcible feeding, she said: