So great a storm of applause greeted these remarks that the Judge had thirteen of the applauders brought immediately to the dock and tried for contempt of Court. Thirteen women were sentenced to forty-eight hours in jail with no alternative of fines. These thirteen women were: Lucy Burns; Edith Ainge; Mary Gertrude Fendall; Phœbe Munnecke; Lucy Branham; Annie Arniel; Matilda Young; Ruth Crocker; Elsie Unterman; Kate Boeckh; Emily Huff; Lucile Shields; Elizabeth Walmsley.
Bertha Arnold received a sentence of five days, but Mrs. Nolan was released.
On Monday, January 27, Mrs. Nolan went out on the picket line again, this time with Sarah Colvin. As she burned in the Watchfire the text of the President’s words to the French workingwomen, she said:
President Wilson told the women of France that they had not placed their confidences wrongly in his hopes and purposes. I tell the women of France that the women of America have placed their confidence in President Wilson’s hopes and purposes for six years, and the Party of which he is a leader has continually, and is even now obstructing their enfranchisement.
President Wilson has the power to do for the women of this nation what he asserts he would like to do for the women of other nations.
There are thirty-one days left for the passage of the Suffrage Amendment in this Congress, of which his Party is in control. Let him return to this country and act to secure democracy for his own people. Then the words that he spoke for the women of Europe will have weight and will bear fruit. Sooner or later the women of the world will know what we know—that confidence cannot be placed in President Wilson’s hopes and purposes for the freedom of women.
The police seemed loath to arrest Mrs. Nolan, but they finally did so. The Court as reluctantly sentenced her to twenty-four hours in jail. Mrs. Colvin received the customary five days. Three more applauding Suffragists were committed at this last trial, for forty-eight hours: Cora Crawford, Margaret Rossett, Elsie Unterman.
On January 31, Mrs. Nolan was again arrested at a Watchfire demonstration with Mary Ingham and Annie Arniel. She was discharged by the Court. Mary Ingham and Annie Arniel, it may be mentioned, were held in jail for two days before they were brought to trial. There were no witnesses against them, and so they were freed.