When, for instance, Suffragists refused bail, the police did not like to hold them overnight because it was such an expense to the District of Columbia to feed them. Julia Emory describes one evening when a roomful of them, arrested, and having refused to put up bail, were waiting the will of the powers. During this wait, which lasted several hours, they entertained themselves by singing.
Once a policeman came in:
“Will you pay your bail if we put it at twenty-five dollars?”
“No,” answered the pickets promptly.
He went out, but later he returned.
“Will you pay your bail if we put it at five dollars?”
“No.”
“Then march out.”
But those light moments were only foam thrown up from serious and sometimes desperate times. When a crowd of ex-pickets gather together and indulge in reminiscences, extraordinary revelations occur. Looking at their faces and estimating their youth, one wonders at a world which permitted one per cent of these things to happen.
And as for their experiences with the mobs.... Not the least of the psychological factors in the situation was the slow growth of the crowds; the circle of little boys who gathered about them first, spitting at them, calling them names, making personal comments; then the gathering gangs of young hoodlums who encouraged the boys to further insults; then more and more crowds; more and more insults; the final struggle.