On January 27, six women kindled a Watchfire on the White House pavement. They were arrested on the charge of starting a fire after sundown. They were as usual, tried the next day; sentenced to five days in jail. They went on a hunger-strike of course. They were: Bertha Moller; Gertrude Murphy; Rhoda Kellogg; Mary Carol Dowell; Martha Moore; Katherine Magee.
In the meantime an interesting event took place in France. President Wilson received a delegation representing the working women of France, Saturday, January 25, at the Murat Mansion in Paris. The delegation urged upon the President that the Peace Conference include Woman Suffrage among the points to be settled by the Conference. President Wilson replied as follows:
Mlle. Thomson and ladies: You have not only done me a great honor, but you have touched me very much by this unexpected tribute; and may I add that you have frightened me, because realizing the great confidence you place in me, I am led to the question of my own ability to justify that confidence?
You have not placed your confidence wrongly in my hopes and purposes, but perhaps not all of those hopes and purposes can be realized in the great matter that you have so much at heart—the right of women to take their full share in the political life of the nations to which they belong. That is necessarily a domestic question for the several nations. A conference of peace settling the relations of nations with each other would be regarded as going very much outside its province if it undertook to dictate to the several states what their internal policy should be.
At the same time these considerations apply also to the conditions of labor; and it does not seem to be unlikely that the conference will take some action by way of expressing its sentiments, at any rate, with regard to the international aspects at least of labor, and I should hope that some occasion might be offered for the case not only of the women of France, but of their sisters all over the world, to be presented to the consideration of the conference.
The conference is turning out to be a rather unwieldy body, a very large body representing a great many nations, large and small, old and new; and the method of organizing its work successfully, I am afraid will have to be worked out stage by stage. Therefore I have no confident prediction to make as to the way in which it can take up the question of this sort.
Suffragist Rebuilding the Fire Scattered by the Police.
Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.
The Last Suffragist Arrested—the Fire Burns On.
Photo Copr. Harris and Ewing, Washington, D. C.