PRESIDENT WILSON IS DECEIVING THE WORLD. HE PREACHES
DEMOCRACY ABROAD AND THWARTS DEMOCRACY HERE.
Behind these banners came Nell Mercer and Elizabeth McShane bearing an earthen urn filled with fire. Behind them came Sue White and Gabrielle Harris, who were to perform the leading act of the demonstration.
After these came twenty-six wood bearers, and long eddying waves of the purple, white, and gold. The urn bearers deposited the urn in its place on the pavement opposite the White House door. The wood bearers and the banner bearers formed a guard about it. Sue White then advanced and dropped into the flames a paper figure—a cartoon—of the President. Mrs. Havemeyer then attempted to make a speech. Before she was arrested, she managed to say the following three sentences:
Every Anglo-Saxon government in the world has enfranchised its women. In Russia, in Hungary, in Austria, in Germany itself, the women are completely enfranchised, and thirty-four are now sitting in the new Reichstag. We women of America are assembled here today to voice our deep indignation that while such efforts are being made to establish democracy for Europe, American women are still deprived of a voice in their government here at home.
Speaker after speaker attempted to follow her, but they were all arrested. The police patrols were soon filled up, and nearby cars were commandeered. There was an enormous crowd present. The police—nearly a hundred of them—tried to force them back, and succeeded in getting them part way across Pennsylvania Avenue. When they turned back, more wood had been brought from Headquarters, and another fire started. Other women who came from Headquarters with further reinforcements of wood were stopped and arrested. The police then declared the open space between the encircling crowd and the banner-bearing women a military zone. No person was allowed to enter it. For an hour, therefore, the women stood there. For the most part, they were motionless, but at intervals they marched slowly round their small segment of sidewalk. The crowd stayed until the banner bearers started homeward. They followed them to the very entrance of Suffrage Headquarters.
All this time the bell was tolling.
Those arrested were: Mrs. T. W. Forbes, Mary Nolan, Sue White, Mrs. L. V. G. Gwynne Branham, Lillian Ascough, Jennie Bronenberg, Rose Fishstein, Nell Mercer, Amy Juengling, Reba Comborrov, Mildred Morris, Clara Wold, Louise Bryant, Bertha Wallerstein, Martha Shoemaker, Rebecca Garrison, Pauline Adams, Marie Ernst Kennedy, Willie Grace Johnson, Phœbe Munnecke, Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, Edith Ainge, Lucy Daniels, Mary Ingham, Elizabeth McShane, Sarah T. Colvin, Ella Riegel, Mrs. William Upton Watson, Anne Herkner, Palys Chevrier, Anna Ginsberg, Estella Eylward, Annie Arniel, Cora Weeks, Lucy Burns, Helena Hill Weed, Mrs. John Rogers, Gladys Greiner, Rose G. Fishstein.
On February 10, the Anthony Amendment came up once more for the vote in the Senate of the United States. Perhaps at this juncture recapitulation in regard to the Senate situation will be illuminating.
It will be remembered that when the Amendment passed the House on January 10, 1918, the Suffragists were eleven votes short in the Senate, and how—Maud Younger told the story most vivaciously—nine of these votes were obtained. For a long time, the Suffragists continued to lack the remaining two votes. The first thing that promised to ameliorate this deadlock was the nomination in the South Carolina primaries of Pollock for the short term of the Sixty-fifth Congress, convening December 2, 1918. Senator Pollock confused the situation extraordinarily for the Suffragists. The South Carolina branch of the Woman’s Party interviewed him immediately after his election and it was their understanding that he told them that he would vote “yes” on the Amendment. When he came to Washington, however, he refused to state how he would vote. The Suffragists were in a difficult situation. Many of them believed that he intended to vote for the Amendment but he would not say that he did. They believed they had one of the two necessary votes but they could never be sure of it. All the time, therefore, they were trying to get the votes of Moses of New Hampshire, Gay of Louisiana, Hale of Maine, Trammell of Florida, and Borah of Idaho, as they seemed the most likely of the opposed or non-committal men.