XII
THE WATCHFIRES OF FREEDOM
Alice Paul spent all day Christmas of 1918 in bed resting. At least, she was resting physically. Mentally....
On that day she evolved a new plan of bringing the attention of the President, the attention of the country, the attention of the world, to the fact that the Susan B. Anthony Amendment must be passed. It was impossible—because of the action of the police in putting out the fires and arresting those who tended them—to carry out, in all its detail, her original plan which was extraordinarily striking and picturesque. Perhaps at no time in the history of the world has there ever been projected a demonstration so full of a beautiful symbolism.
The original plan was to keep a fire burning on the pavement in front of the White House till the Susan B. Anthony Amendment was passed. Wood for this bonfire was to be sent from all the States. Whenever the President made a speech in Europe for democracy, that speech was to be burned in the watchfire. While this was going on a bell, which was set above the door of Headquarters, would toll.
On the afternoon of New Year’s Day, 1919, therefore, a wagon drove up to the White House pavement and deposited an urn filled with firewood—on a spot in line with the White House door. Presently the bell at Headquarters began to toll, and a group of women marched from Headquarters to the urn. Edith Ainge lighted the fire, and Mrs. Lawrence Lewis dropped into the flames the most recent words, in regard to democracy, that President Wilson had addressed to the people of Europe.
The first was from the Manchester speech:
We will enter into no combinations of power which are not combinations of all of us.
The second was from his toast in Buckingham Palace:
We have used great words, all of us. We have used the words “right” and “justice,” and now we are to prove whether or not we understand these words.