Marie Jenney Howe and Paula Jakobi, Sept 1917
“The government orders our banners destroyed because they tell the truth”
-suffrage banner, August 17, 1917
“Of course it was embarrassing. We meant it to be. The truth must be told at all costs. This was no time for
manners.”
-Doris Stevens, Jailed for Freedom (93).
-The New York Call, June 29, 1917
Historical Context
essay
Biography
Suffrage Trial Narratives
Read the Play
Bibliography
Historical Context
I will provide the immediate historical context for the events portrayed in Howe and
Jakobi’s play. For a more complete history of the suffrage movement and Alice Paul’s National
Women’s Party (NWP), please consult the sources in my bibliography.
In 1914, Alice Paul left the constraints of NAWSA to form the radical Congressional
Union (CU) and embarked on an energetic, newsworthy, militant campaign (Ryan 28). Paul’s
political theory stemmed from a single premise: that “electoral survival determines political
behaviour” (Graham 666). Graham states that “From that departure point, she reasoned that
politicians could be convinced of the political expediency of suffrage in less time than it would
take to convert each congressman to the principle of woman suffrage” (666). Thus, she set in
motion a powerful publicity campaign to “sell” the suffrage issue to Americans and to coerce
politicians to support a federal suffrage amendment (666). She
“‘staged scenes,’ introducing tactics and splash not found in the movement since its inception.
Always calling the newspapers ahead of time, she organized demonstrations on a grand scale
with stirring songs and pageantry. The Union adopted colours—purple, white, and gold—held
parades with women dressed in white carrying tri-coloured banners, and established a weekly
publication, The Suffragist” (Ryan 28).
In December of 1916, frustrated by the continued lack of action on the part of Woodrow
Wilson, the suffragists formulated a new plan (Graham 667). Harriot Stanton Blatch delivered
this “ringing call for action”:
“We have gone to Congress, we have gone to the President during the last four years with great
deputations, with small deputations. We have shown the interest all over the country in selfgovernment for women-something that the President as a great Democrat ought to understand
and respond to instantly. Yet he tells us to-day that … we have got to convert his party . . . Why?
Never before did the Democratic Party lie more in the hands of one man than it lies to-day in the
hands of President Wilson. […]
Yet to-day he tells us that we must wait more-and more. We can't organize bigger and
more influential deputations. We can't organize bigger processions. We can't, women, do
anything more in that line. We have got to take a new departure. We have got to keep the
question before him all the time…We have got to bring to the President individually, day by day,
week in and week out, the idea that great numbers of women want to be free, will be free, and
want to know what he is going to do about it. Won't you come and join us in standing day after
day at the gates of the White House with banners asking, `What will you do, Mr. President, for
one-half the people of this nation?' Stand there as sentinels sentinels of liberty, sentinels of selfgovernment-silent sentinels” (Stevens e-text 58-59).
The NWP picketing campaign at the White House began on
the 10th of January, 1917 (Graham 667). The women stood
silently at the gates, holding banners that called for women’s
suffrage and quoted statements from Woodrow Wilson on
humanity’s need for freedom and democracy. At first,
President Wilson was courteous, if somewhat patronizing, to
the suffragists (667). However, after the United States
declared war on Germany, his attitude, and that of many
other Americans changed (667). The women were seen as
unpatriotic for continuing to picket during wartime and for
using Wilson’s war speeches on their banners (Ryan 29).
In June, after six months of uneventful picketing,
police began to arrest the picketers, and attacks by heckling
crowds became a regular event (Ryan 29). On June 22nd, the
police arrested Lucy Burns and Katherine Morey for
Alice Paul
obstructing the sidewalk, and ordered that picketing of the
White House cease (Graham 668). Burns and Morey were released on their own recognizance
(Stevens 76). The next day, more arrests were made, again on the charge of “obstructing the
traffic” (76). On June 26th, six women were tried in the police court of the District of Columbia
(Clift 131). They were found guilty of obstructing traffic, and were given the choice of a $25 fine
or 3 days in a DC jail for what the court called “unpatriotic, almost treasonable behaviour” (131).
The women refused to pay the fine, and served their 3 days in jail (Stevens 77). On July 4, 1917,
Independence Day, eleven women were arrested with banner that read “Governments derive their
just power from the consent of the governed” (77). They were once again charged with
“obstructing the traffic” and were sentenced to a $25 fine or 3 days in jail (132). On Bastille Day,
July 14, sixteen women were arrested and sentenced to 60 days in the Occoquan workhouse in
Virginia (132). Alice Paul took advantage of the situation and published leaked accounts of the
terrible conditions in the workhouse (134). The President realized he had lost the public relations
battle, and pardoned the suffragists on July 19 (134). The women returned to the picket lines,
carrying a banner that read, “We ask not pardon for ourselves but justice for all American
women” (135). On August 14th, women arrived at the White House bearing a banner that read,
“Kaiser Wilson. Have you forgotten how you sympathized with the poor Germans because they
were not self-governed? 20 000 000 American women are not self-governed. Take the beam out
of your own eye” (Stevens 88).
An angry mob of sailors and government workers attacked the suffragists (673). The next day,
rioting continued; the NWP headquarters was vandalized, several pickets were injured, and over
$1000 in damage was caused (673). The police made no effort to stop the riots and arrest any
members of the mob, although six pickets were arrested for obstructing traffic (673). The riots
continued for four more days (674). Daily, police passed by the angry mob to arrest the pickets
(674). These women were given lengthy sentences at the Occoquan workhouse (Stevens 91). As
the fall progressed, the arrests continued, and suffragists were given longer and longer sentences
(Graham 676). On September 7th, Dudley Field Malone, one of Woodrow Wilson’s best friends
and political backers, resigned as Collector of the Port of New York (Clift 141). He had
previously campaigned in the West, urging women to re-elect Wilson, on the promise that there
would be a federal suffrage amendment (141). Instead, claimed Malone, Wilson dealt out mass
arrests on “trumped-up charges”, and jailed women illegally under terrible conditions (141). It is
in this context that Marie Jenney Howe and Paula Jakobi wrote their satire of the events of the
summer of 1917, “Telling the Truth at the White House.” The NWP women continued to picket,
hold protests, and suffer arrests and attacks until the suffrage amendment passed on June 4, 1919
(Stevens 182).
Biography
Sections: Marie Jenney Howe and Heterodoxy
Paula Jakobi
Heterodoxy and Suffrage
Other Works by Howe and Jakobi
Marie Jenney Howe and Heterodoxy
Marie Jenney Howe was born on December 26, 1870 in Syracuse, New York (Adickes 59). Her
parents belonged to old and prosperous New York families (59). In 1893, she attended the
Unitarian Theological Seminary in Meadville, Pennsylvania (59). Because of her good looks, the
townspeople could not take her ambition to become a minister seriously
(59). One observer relates,
“There were other women studying at the school, but Miss Jenney was
different. She was too beautiful to be a minister…Only a man could
explain such a beautiful girl at a theological seminary. Women did not go
in for careers….and saving souls was a man’s job. It seemed absurd for
her to go into the ministry” (Schwarz 8).
One of the skeptics was Frederic C. Howe, a law student returning home
to Syracuse for a visit (Adickes 59). On his first meeting with her, he
informed her that Johns Hopkins, his school, did not admit women and he
hoped it never would (Schwarz 8). He had grown up with the belief that a
woman’s proper place was in the home (Adickes 59). Thus, he was
surprised and intrigued to find that, to Marie Jenney, “life was not a man’s
thing, it was a human thing. It was to be enjoyed by women as it was by
men” (Schwartz 9). Although their first meeting seems acrimonious, they
kept up a correspondence even after she graduated in 1897, and became
the assistant to another woman minister, Mary A. Sanford (Adickes 59). In
1904, Marie gave up the ministry to marry Frederic Howe (60). He
remained ambivalent about women’s rights even after their marriage
(Adickes 91). He once wrote,
“As to women, I followed the changing mores. I spoke for women’s
suffrage without much wanting it. And I urged freedom for women without liking it. My mind
gave way, but not my instincts…I hated privilege in the world of economics; I chose it in my
own home” (Schwarz 10).
The couple moved to New York in 1910 and Frederic Howe became the Commissioner of
Immigration (Adickes 60). Marie became active in the New York suffrage movement and the
National Consumer’s League, a group of middle class women seeking to improve conditions for
working women (60). She became the chair of the 25th Assembly District Division of the New
York City Woman Suffrage Party, a branch of NAWSA, which became known as “the fighting
twenty-fifth” under her leadership (60). She also founded the women’s club, Heterodoxy,
described by here by Judith Schwarz:
“’There was a club called Heterodoxy for unorthodox women, women who did things and did
them openly,’ wrote Mabel Dodge Luhan. Founded in 1912 by Unitarian minister Marie Jenney
Howe in New York City's Greenwich Village, Heterodoxy was a unique gathering place for
feminists, radicals, labor organizers, and professional women. Thirty to fifty women of the one
hundred twenty known members usually met every other Saturday from September to May at
Village restaurants until 1940 to debate such issues as women's rights, pacifism, birth control,
revolutionary politics, and civil rights. […]
Members ranged in age from their twenties to their early sixties. Most were AngloAmericans; one member was African American, and several members were Jewish or Irish. The
women ranged from nudists and free-love advocates to lesbian couples, from oft-married
heterosexuals to monogamous wives in lifelong relationships.
What held this ‘little band of willful women, the most unruly and individualistic females’
together for thirty years was their pride in the group's enormous range of personalities, interests,
and occupations, and their common belief in suffrage. As Inez Haynes Irwin noted, the members
‘possessed minds startlingly free of prejudice. They were at home with ideas. All could talk; all
could argue; all could listen” (“Heterodoxy”)
In the pre-war years, Heterodoxy included most of the major activists in political, social, and
artistic movements (Adickes 33). Many of these women were economically independent
(Schwarz 2). Also, most had some college education, at a time when college education was still
unusual for women (55). Marie Jenney Howe was known to the women of Heterodoxy as the
“mother”; she nurtured the women emotionally, intellectually, politically, while delighting in
individuality (7). In 1920, the women of Heterodoxy presented her with an album with this
inscription:
“To Queen Marie
Who gathers folk of warring creed
And holds them all as friends
Who ministers to social needs
And strives for social ends
All praise her for her deed
and the great gift she spends” (15)
The Heterodites formed an important part
of the feminist movement in early 20th
Century New York. Feminists believed in
social, political, and economic equality of
the sexes (Glenn 4). Feminists wanted the
right to be independent from men and also
from other women; they wanted “the right
to realize personality” (Glenn 5). Unlike
many suffragists, they believed in selfdevelopment rather than self-sacrifice in
the family (Adickes 90). Also, modern
feminists did not believe that all women
shared a common set of concerns (Glenn
5). They acknowledged that women
differed across class boundaries, and other
boundaries of social location (5). Women
who defined themselves as feminists were
often advocates of radical trends, and
worked in such fields as the labour
movement, art, and politics (Adickes 89).
Feminism overlapped with the suffrage
movement, but also broadened its scope,
and saw suffrage as a platform upon which
to gain other benefits for women (90). In
1914, Marie Jenney Howe and other
Heterodoxy members organized two
feminist mass meetings (Schwarz 27).
Howe stated her main focus for the
meetings: “We’re sick of being specialized
to sex…We intend simply to be ourselves, not just out little female selves, but our whole, big,
human selves” (29). Rose Young spoke for virtually all of Heterodoxy when she said, “To me,
feminism means that woman wants to develop her own womanhood. It means that she wants to
push on to the finest, fullest, freest expression of herself. She wants to be an individual…The
freeing of the individuality of woman does not mean original sin; it means the finding of her own
soul” (25).
Marie Jenney Howe died of a heart attack, in her sleep, in 1934 (Schwarz 101).
Heterodoxy’s surviving members immediately began organizing a memorial service, which was
held at the home of Alice Duer Miller (101, 102). The Heterodites mourned the loss of her
friendship, which they valued highly.
Paula Jakobi
Paula Jakobi was a member of Heterodoxy and a friend to Marie Jenney Howe. She famously
characterized Howe as having “a genius for friendship” (Schwartz 59). In the 1920 Heterodoxy
album, she wrote this inscription describing what the club meant to her:
“As I look round and see your faces—
The actress, the editors, the businesswomen, the artists—
The writers, the dramatists, the psychoanalysts, the dancers
The doctors, the lawyers, the propagandists.
As I look round and see your faces
it really seems quite common to do anything!
Only she who does nothing is unusual” (53).
She aligns herself with Heterodoxy’s feminist attitude
toward work and economic independence for women (53).
She worked for a short time as a guard or matron at the
Framingham, Massachusetts Reformatory for women in
order to study prison conditions there (121). She involved herself in the literary and theatrical
pursuits of the Heterodites and the Greenwich Village circle, and wrote at least one play,
“Chinese Lily” (121). She was a lesbian and lived with her lover Anna Elizabeth Snyder Van
Vechten for 14 years (121). After Van Vechten’s death, she turned to her friend Marie Jenney
Howe for comfort (101).
Heterodoxy and Suffrage
While the fight for suffrage did not necessarily imply a fight for feminism and complete
equality for women, the causes often did overlap. Alice Paul’s NWP often reflected feminist
ideals in that Paul argued for women’s equality in society, and not their traditional place in the
home. The NWP “saw women as persons in their own right” (Ryan 34). The feminists of
Greenwich Village and Heterodoxy had many links to Alice Paul’s National Woman’s Party.
Nearly all of the Heterodites had been volunteers or marchers for NAWSA (Schwarz 25).
However, by 1915, many of the club members including Marie Jenney Howe had left NAWSA
for Alice Paul’s Congressional Union, soon to become the NWP (39). Likely, they found this
organization more in tune with their own ideas of feminism and activism. Many prominent NWP
suffragists, including as Inez Milholland, Alice Duer Miller, Rheta Childe Dorr, and Doris
Stevens, were Heterodites (14).
The Heterodites were highly involved in the staging of the feminist and suffrage causes.
They produced independent theatre productions, on such subjects as politics, feminism, suffrage,
and sexual freedom (Schwartz 63). Also, according to Glenn, “In the United States the most
prominent of the suffrage theater groups was Marie Jenney Howe’s Twenty-Fifth District
Players, a theatrical stock company composed of the Twenty-Fifth Assembly District members of
the New York Woman Suffrage Party. In addition to Howe….the players included popular
Broadway actress Mary Shaw, Fola La Folette, charismatic daughter of the Wisconsin senator
(both members of Heterodoxy) and Caroline Caffin, who wrote on modern dance and vaudeville”
(137).
In Jailed For Freedom, Doris Stevens reports that Frederic C. Howe attended her July
14th trial (e-text 105). Also, four Heterodoxy members served jail sentences with the NWP
suffragists. Alice Turnbull and Doris Stevens served 60 days at the Occoquan workhouse (44).
Paula Jakobi later experienced firsthand the arrests and trials that she and Howe satirized in
“Telling the Truth at the White House.” She was arrested on November 10, 1917, and was
sentenced to 30 days at the Occoquan workhouse (45). She was one of 17 suffragists who
underwent a hunger strike and force feeding. She describes her force feeding experience: “By the
third day, I was rather nervous…I could remember no names, and it was impossible to read”
(Lumsden 133). Lastly, Heterodite Alice Kimball was arrested on August 10th, 1918, to 15 days
in a DC jail, for attending a public meeting in Lafayette Square (Schwarz 45). Thus, the NWP
picketing campaign, led by Alice Paul, and the feminist movement of New York were intimately
intertwined. Heterodites such as Marie Jenney Howe and Paula Jakobi would have had firsthand
experience, or at least the experiences of their friends, to guide them in writing their satirical oneact play for Pearson’s Magazine.
Other Works By Marie Jenney Howe:
“An Anti-Suffrage Monologue.” New York: National American Woman Suffrage Association,
1913.
Link: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4963/
George Sand: The Search For Love. Garden City, NY: Garden City Publishers, 1927.
George Sand’s Intimate Journal. Preface by Aurore Sand. New York: John Day, Inc., 1929.
reprinted New York: Haskell House Pubs., 1975.
“The Cigar Smoker.” written with Rose Young. Performed 1936.
Other works by Paula Jakobi:
“The Chinese Lily.” Performed 1916.
Telling the Truth at the White House
Pearson’s Magazine, Sept 1917
SCENE: Court room. Audience hall crowded with curious throng. Loud whispers.
OFFICER: (raps his club authoritatively) : Silence in the name of the law!
(Enter thirteen prisoners bearing suffrage banners, two other white women and two colored
women. The prisoners take seats at one side. The two colored women are in front.)
FIRST COLORED WOMAN: Say, they’s a lot o’ white folks heah today! What they in foh?
They been drinkin’?
SECOND COLORED WOMAN: No, you nigger! They don’t drink.
FIRST C.W.(intently): They been anykine disorderly?—fightin maybe?
SECOND C..W.: Not that I knows of—Say, ain’t I God Almighty!
FIRST C.W. (edges over to white prisoner seated next to her on the bench; she has been looking
very thoughtful): Doan’ mine, Honey! doan’ mine! You ain’t never been there before? ‘Tain’t bad
I tells you! You can get anything you like ef you got the price, scusin whiskey!
(The white prisoner smiles at her.)
SECOND C.W. (hums):
“Miss Lizzie King’s a coal black lady,
Her husband’s a colod man!”
OFFICER (tapping vigorously): Order in the court!
(The Judge and the District Attorney enter. All except the colored prisoners rise.)
JUDGE O’NEIL: What is on the docket today?
CLERK: Your Honor, these 13 women (the 13 rise)
JUDGE O’NEIL: And these? (indicating the two negresses) We’ll have these two cases first.
(The 13 sit.)
CLERK (indicates First C.W. Officer makes her rise): Drunk and disorderly.
JUDGE O’NEIL: 14 days in the workhouse. Next case.
CLERK (indicates Second C.W. Officer makes her rise): Drunk and disorderly.
JUDGE O’NEIL: 14 days in the workhouse. Next case.
CLERK: Your Honor, these 13 women have been arrested for obstructing the traffic.
DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Your Honor, let me request that you do not hear these cases separately.
If you do you will hear 11 suffrage speeches. Each of these women can speak on endlessly. I
wish to spare your Honor.
MRS. HEWIS: Your Honor, we insist that our cases be tried separately.
JUDGE O’NEIL: Well, really, ladies, really—I want you to regard me as your friend. I wish to
help you, but 11 suffrage speeches—really!
MRS. HEWIS: We demand separate trial. Each woman will act as her own attorney.
(Judge makes a gesture of resignation and taps on his desk.)
JUDGE O’NEIL: Proceed with the prosecution!
D.ATTORNEY: These women stood on the sidewalk obstructing the traffic, to the great
annoyance of the President of the U.S.A.
MRS. REED: Your Honor, may I ask a question?
JUDGE O’NEIL: Granted.
MRS. REED: Is it not the right of every peaceful citizen to stand on the sidewalk?
D. ATTORNEY: But they carried banners, your Honor, they carried banners.
MRS REED: Has not a citizen the right to carry a banner?
JUDGE O’NEIL: Not unless he moves up and down.
MISS STURDEVANT: We did move up and down, your Honor. We kept moving. I know I kept
moving. No matter in which direction I turned I moved against the chest of a policeman.
(She pauses)
JUDGE O’NEIL: Well, well, what then?
MISS STURDEVANT: Then he arrested me because he got in my way.
JUDGE O’NEIL: Three days’ imprisonment or 25 dollars fine!
MISS STURDEVANT: But, your Honor—
JUDGE O’NEIL: Don’t make any harder for me. Can’t you see how I hate to do this?
D. ATTORNEY (turning to Vera Hollenden): This woman is guilty of leading the procession.
JUDGE O’NEIL: State your defense.
V. HOLLENDEN: On the fourth of March, I led a thousand women around the White
House. No objection was made. Yesterday I led four women a half a block and we were all
arrested. I can’t understand the reason why. I don’t understand law.
JUDGE (leaning over his desk): Well, law is very difficult to understand. It takes a special
training and a special aptitude. Let me explain the law as it applies in this case. (Consulting his
law-books.) The law holds that though you may be doing nothing illegal, yet if you cause
someone else to act illegally you are guilty; that is, you are the proximate cause. The precedent
established goes back to 1660, at which time a tradesman in Shropshire, England, displayed
goods in his window in so attractive a manner that crowds gathered to stare and admire. An
ox-team was unable to pass by this shop. Were the people guilty of traffic obstruction? No. The
man who caused the trouble was guilty—the shopkeeper—a clear analogy. The tradesman was
arrested for obstructing the traffic, although he remained unseen inside his shop.
MISS BALDERHEAD (demurely): Then, your honor, if it was the shopkeeper’s fault that the
crowd collected before the window, by clear deduction it is the fault of the man who remained
inside the White House that the crowd collected outside its gates.
JUDGE O’NEIL: Silence! this is treason! (Great emotion.)
LUCY BARNES: Your Honor, allow me to quote from the English law a precedent of a much
later date. In 1890 a group of Salvation Army workers were followed by so great a crowd that the
traffic was obstructed, but the police arrested not the Salvation Army but the curious mob.
JUDGE O’NEIL: My dear lady, you do not understand the law. These Salvation Army people did
not know they would be followed by a crowd.
LUCY BARNES: Excuse me, your Honor (reads from the law-book): “The Salvationists,
knowing they were certain to be followed”…(her voice trails off into silence).
JUDGE (mopping his brow, sinks back disconcerted): Well, well—that’s not like any law I ever
studied. (He leans over to the District Attorney and shakes his head.) What shall I do? What shall
I do?
ELIZABETH STURDEVANT (rises): Let me quote another case, your Honor.
LUCY BARNES (who has been watching the Judge, pushes the picket back into her seat, with
stage whisper): For heaven’s sake keep still or we’ll be acquitted. (Whispering to them all) Not
another word. Alice Paul will never forgive us if we don’t go to jail.
D. ATTORNEY (trying to prove his case): This young woman when arrested was carrying a
banner on which were printed traitorous and seditious words.
JUDGE (severely): What was printed on your banner? (Picket unfurls banner. Judge leans
forward and reads) : “We shall fight for the things we have always carried nearest our
hearts, for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own
governments.” Hm! Hm! Sounds like anarchy. Who said this?
PICKET: The President of the United States.
JUDGE O’NEIL (hastily turning to another picket): What was on your banner? (Picket raises
banner. Judge reads): “All just governments derive their powers from the consent of the
governed.” (Sternly) Young ladies, perhaps you do not realize that these words are taken from the
Declaration of Independence, therefore they should not be displayed on the White House
grounds. These sentiments are appropriate when spoken by a Fourth-of-July orator, but (shaking
his finger sternly) the Declaration of Independence is too sacred to be carried on a banner by a
woman. During this trial you have shown clear minds—judicial minds, I might say (mopping his
brow), but I promised—at least—it is quite clear, that you are guilty. (They sigh with relief.) I
can’t exactly say of what, but, to the sorrow of the court, it has decided that you are guilty and it
sentences you to three days or $25. (Imploringly) Now, ladies, I earnestly recommend that you
pay these fines.
LUCILLE FIELDS: I shall not pay the fine!
JUDGE O’NEIL: You are not strong enough to go to prison.
LUCILLE FIELDS: I shall not pay the fine!
JUDGE O’NEIL (aside to District Attorney): What shall I do?
THIRD PICKET: Nor I!
JUDGE (turning to Third Picket): Your mother paid the fine for you. You are discharged.
PICKET (weeping): How could she? How could she do that to me?
JUDGE (turning to the prisoners): You have enough money to pay the fine, and if you haven’t
I’ll loan the money to you. I’ll give you the money. I’ll pay the fine myself, only don’t go to jail.
You’ve no idea, ladies, how the place smells. There are rats. How can I sleep in my
comfortable bed when I think of the cockroaches and the—and the—O, ladies, don’t go to jail!
(He leans over persuasively) You did obstruct the traffic, you know, now didn’t you?
M VERNER: We destroyed no property, we injured no one and we broke no law. Therefore, I
say it was the police and the police alone who created the disorder, obstructed the traffic and
disobeyed the law.
JUDGE O’NEIL: But ladies, we have to arrest you, you know, for annoying the President.
M.VERNER: But the law under which you arrest us is for obstruction of the traffic.
JUDGE O’NEIL: Well, you see there isn’t any law yet against ladies annoying the President. But
it’s a grave offense, a very grave offense. I want to give you one more chance. I can’t think of
you in prison—the shame—the stigma of having been there—ten promising lives…If you will
promise me not to picket for six months I will let you off. You can all go home and sleep in
your clean sheets and in your quiet homes and have a comfortable night, and I, too, can enjoy a
comfortable night.
LUCY BARNES: We make no such promise. It is our duty to protest against injustice.
JUDGE O’NEIL: Anyhow, you ladies ought not to annoy the President. He is overworked and
tired.
MABEL VERNER: So are we—most awfully overworked and very, very tired. If we annoy the
President he can put an end to the annoyance by calling the Federal Suffrage amendment a war
measure. It will then be voted on by Congress. Two-thirds of the Republicans are pledged to vote
in favor and two-thirds of the Democrats are ready to vote for the amendment as soon as the
President says the word. The bill would be passed in less than an hour, and the annoyance be
removed from Congress.”
JUDGE O’NEIL: Why don’t you put all this energy into some patriotic direction?
LUCY BARNES: We call it essential patriotism to demand a real democracy at home before we
try to give democracy to Europe.
JUDGE O’NEIL: The case is closed. I sentence you to three days in prison and I warn you that if
you ladies continue this unladylike behaviour you will receive a longer sentence for your next
offense.
PICKETS (in chorus): Thank you, your Honor.
JUDGE (distractedly): What is it? What is it that you say? You thank me? (Sternly) I understand.
The more severe I am, the more I play into your hands. (Sadly) I am the only one who suffers by
the sentence I impose. The court is adjourned. (The judge leaves the court-room.)
(Matron of the detention house enters. She is fussy, officious, desirous to please.)
MATRON: O, ladies, I hope I’ll make you comfortable. I’ve fixed up everything. The prisoners
are all prepared to be most respectful. (Enter porter with suitcases.) Here are your clean clothes
from home. We hope to provide you with every comfort. Is Mrs. Belmont here? O, I’m so
disappointed. I did so want to meet her. (Matron exits, then returns.) I understand that Miss
Hollenden sings beautifully. I regret that we have no piano in the cells. The prisoners would be
so pleased to hear her sing. (She exits. Puts her head in the door) I’m sure I’ll do everything to
make you comfortable. (Exits, returns) O, I forgot. (Finds a small package and hands it to one of
the pickets. Exits.)
PICKET (reading card on the package): Five pounds of Huyler’s candy from Judge O’Neil!
(Prisoners bearing their banners aloft are ushered from the court-room by the officers, singing
the ‘Marseillaise.’)
CURTAIN
Footnotes
Pearson’s Magazine
According to Stephenson-Payne:
This magazine appears to have emerged in 1899, as an American printing of the British magazine
of the same name. The British Pearson’s Magazine was second only to The Strand Magazine in
its printings of romantic tales of love and adventure. The American version of the magazine ran
monthly from 1899 to April 1925. While it initially printed the same content as the British
magazine, it “later diverged quite considerably, running original US material as well as reprinting
from other UK magazines.” From September 1916 to 1922, its editor was Frank Harris.
For a biography of Frank Harris or for further information, please visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Harris
According to Alfred Armstrong, “Pearson's Magazine, when Harris took it
over, was … a fairly conservative, dull affair with falling circulation and
advertising. Harris turned it into a radical anti-war paper with new writers
and a growing readership. He wrote much of it himself, some under pseudonyms so as not to
seem to dominate it.” Pearson’s Magazine, among other radical topics, covered the trial of
anarchist Emma Goldman:
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Writings/Essays/TrialSpeeches/impressions.html
…two colored women
Paul and the NWP used the fact that suffragists occupied the same prison cells as negro
prisoners as a powerful tool in condemning the government. Paul told the country that the
suffragettes shared quarters with criminals and black women (Clift 132). Husbands of imprisoned
suffragists made statements about the unsuitability of this situation; one said of the prison food,
“What is good for a drunken Negro is not good for a refined woman” (134). Doris Stevens, in her
account of her prison experience, plays on racial tension in order to gain sympathy:
“The correspondent could not know that we went back to our cots to try to sleep side by side with
negro prostitutes. Not that we shrank from these women on account of their color, but how
terrible to know that, the institution had gone out of its way to bring these prisoners from their
own wing to the white wing in an attempt to humiliate us. There was plenty of room in the negro
wing. But prison must be made so unbearable that no more women would face it. That was the
policy attempted here” (e-text 109).
There do exist stories of friendships between suffragists and the negro inmates (128). However,
the suffragists’ compassion for the negro prisoners tended to be mixed with condescension (128).
This passage, from Stevens’ account, demonstrates this mixture of compassion and superiority:
“When our untasted supper was over that night we were ordered into the square, bare-walled
‘recreation’ room, where we and the other prisoners sat, and sat, and sat, our chairs against the
walls, a dreary sight indeed, waiting for the forty five minutes before bedtime to pass. The sight
of two negro girl prisoners combing out each other's lice and dressing their kinky hair in such a
way as to discourage permanently a return of the vermin did not produce in us exactly a feeling
of ‘recreation.’ But we tried to sing. The negroes joined in, too, and soon outsang us, with their
plaintive melodies and hymns” (e-text 114).
No matter how well they sing, the negro prisoners are shown to inhabit a different world from
that of the middle and upper class suffragists. It was believed to have been improper for the two
worlds to be forced together in such a way.
They don’t drink.
Many suffrage leaders, including Susan B. Anthony, Anna Shaw, and Carrie Chapman
Catt, launched their careers in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (Lumsden xxxi).
However, this link of suffrage and temperance was often perceived as negative for the suffrage
cause. While Susan B. Anthony had been an active member of the temperance movement, she
later refused to turn the suffrage cause into a debate about prohibition:
“Don’t you see, if women ever got the right to vote, it must be through the consent of not only the
moral and decent men of the nation, but also through that of the other kind? Is it not perfectly
idiotic of us to be telling the latter class that the first thing we shall do with our ballots will be to
knock them out of their pet pleasures and vices?” (Clift 69).
However, these two causes remained linked in the mind of the public (68). Throughout the
suffrage campaign, the liquor industry and brewers’ associations worked behind the scenes to set
up anti-suffrage organizations, buy editorial support for “educational campaigns” and even
“supported legislators so that they would vote against suffrage bills (Adickes 94).
The women’s temperance movement partially inspired the spectacular tactics of Alice
Paul’s NWP. The “Women’s Temperance Crusade” of 1873-74 was the first women’s mass
movement in the United States (Lumsden xxxi). These women held mass outdoor meetings, mass
picketing events, and destroyed casks of liquor with hatchets (xxxi). They marched to liquor
outlets across America to sing and pray, in what Lumsden characterizes as a “spectacular
nineteenth century version of street theater” (xxxi).
Also, Howe and Jakobi are making another distinction between the white suffragists and
the black prisoners, one that implies that they are of radically different classes. The suffragists are
compared to not only negroes, but drunk and disorderly negroes, reinforcing the absurdity of the
suffragists’ presence in the courtroom. The placing of upper class white suffragists in the same
category as “drunk and disorderly” negroes would have been seen as ludicrous, and would have
been a powerful tool to vindicate the suffragists’ position, accentuate the sense of martyrdom,
and condemn the government’s treatment of them.
Workhouse
The Occoquan workhouse in Virginia, located outside of their district (Stevens 82). This
workhouse was the site of the worst abuses of suffragists. In November 1917, the NWP got a writ
of habeas corpus compelling the Government “to bring the prisoners into court and show cause
why they should not be returned to the District jail,” (126). Court officials found the women so
weakened that they had to lie down throughout the court proceedings (Clift 153). The court ruled
that they had been illegally removed from the district and had been subject to cruel and unusual
punishment (Lumsden 134). They were immediately ordered transferred to the district jail, and all
were released without condition on November 27 and 28 (Clift 153, 154).
…obstructing the traffic.
This was the charge continually brought against the suffragists, a charge that has often
been viewed as spurious. Doris Stevens, in her account of the arrest of Lucy Burns and Katherine
Morey on June 22nd, implies that this charge were false:
“Two solitary figures remained, standing on the sidewalk, flanked by the vast Pennsylvania
Avenue, looking quite abandoned and alone, when suddenly without any warrant in law, they
were arrested on a completely deserted avenue” (76).
Stevens then implies that Burns and Morey were arrested first without charge, and legal officials
retrospectively applied the charge of obstructing traffic to them (e-text 95). Stevens also claims
that the police later manufactured this charge:
“Four o'clock is the hour the Government clerks begin to swarm homewards. The choice of this
hour by the police to arrest the women would enable them to have a large crowd passing the
White House gates to lend color to the fiction that "pickets were blocking the traffic. Throughout
the earlier part of the afternoon the silent sentinels stood unmolested” (95).
Stevens quotes Gilson Gardner, who protested the charges against the suffragists:
“In excusing what you have done, you say that the women carried banners with
“offensive” inscriptions on them… As a matter of fact not an arrest you have made-and the
arrests now number more than sixty-has been for carrying one of those “offensive” banners...
But, suppose the banners were offensive. Who made you censor of banners? The law
gives you no such power. Even when you go through the farce of a police court trial the charge is
‘obstructing traffic’; which shows conclusively that you are not willing to go into court on the
real issue” (135).
Alice Paul announced, upon her arrest: “I am being imprisoned not because I obstructed traffic,
but because I point out to President Wilson the fact that he is obstructing the progress of justice
and democracy at home while Americans fight for it abroad!” (Clift 144) The suffragists were
frequently informally accused of sedition, but were never charged under sedition laws (Lumsden
129).
…you will hear 11 suffrage speeches.
In Doris Stevens’s trial, each woman each spoke on her own behalf, and introduced suffrage into
her defense.
Also, the District Attorney’s plea to be spared from 11 suffrage speeches is a typical antisuffrage sentiment. Anti-suffragists warned against the dangers of setting women loose in the
public sphere, fearing that if they were allowed to start speaking in public, they would never stop.
Francis Parkman predicted that, if women gained the vote: “we shall have shrill-tongued
discussions of subjects which had far better be left alone” (209).
Is it not the right of every peaceful citizen to stand on the sidewalk?
The 1st Amendment of the United States Constitution established that:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” (Lumsden).
The first amendment formed an integral part of the women’s courtroom defenses (Lumsden 123).
Also, according to Stevens, “Picketing is a guaranteed right under the Clayton act of Congress”
(76). Alice Paul had consulted with lawyers and knew that the picketing was legal (Clift 130).
Stevens records this exchange between Paul and the Chief of Police on the eve of the first arrests:
“We have picketed for six months without interference,” said Miss Paul. “Has the law
been changed?”
“No,” was the reply, “But you must stop it.”
“But, Major Pullman, we have consulted our lawyers and know we have a legal right to
picket.”
“I warn you, you will be arrested if you attempt to picket again” (75).
One Senator did attempt to pass a bill making suffrage picketing illegal:
A BILL
For the better protection and enforcement of peace and order and the public welfare in the
District of Columbia.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America
in Congress assembled, That when the United States shall be engaged in war it shall be unlawful
for any person or persons to carry, hold, wave, exhibit, display, or have in his or her possession in
any public road, highway, alley, street, thoroughfare, park, or other public place in the District of
Columbia, any banner, flag, streamer, sash, or other device having thereon any words or language
with reference to the President or the Vice President of the United States, or any words or
language with reference to the Constitution of the United States, or the right of suffrage, or right
of citizenship, or any words or language with reference to the duties of any executive official or
department of the United States, or with reference to any proposed amendment to the
Constitution of the United States, or with reference to any law or proposed law of the United
States, calculated to bring the President of the United States or the Government of the United
States into contempt, or which may tend to cause confusion, or excitement, or obstruction of the
streets or sidewalks thereof, or any passage in any public place” (Stevens e-text 133).
citizen….he
The 14th Amendment specifically extended citizenship to black males (Ryan 19). For the
first time in the American Constitution, women were explicitly excluded from political
involvement (20).
…against the chest of a policeman.
The pickets often claimed that policemen “framed-up” crowds in order to arrest the
women for obstructing the sidewalks (Graham 675). On Independence Day, July 4, 1917, the
women reportedly attempted to keep moving as per the dictates in the court, to avoid obstructing
traffic (131). However, the police purposely stood in their paths (131) Some accused the police of
negligence in their failure to protect the women from mob attacks (139). Others accused the
police of moving beyond neglect into the participation in and instigation of mob violence.
Stevens writes:
“On August 16th, fifty policemen led the mob in attacking the women. Hands were bruised and
arms twisted...Two civilians who tried to rescue the women from the attacks of the police were
arrested. The police fell upon these young women with more brutality even than the mobs they
had before encouraged. Twenty-five lettered banners and 123 Party flags were destroyed by mobs
and police on this afternoon” (e-text 129).
Stevens goes on to implicate the government in the police brutality:
”As the crowd grew more dense, the police temporarily retired from the attack. When their
activities had summoned a sufficiently large and infuriated mob, they would rest. And so the
passions of the mob continued unchecked upon these irrepressible women, and from day to day
the Administration gave its orders” (129).
On the Fourth of March I led….
March 4, 1917, was President Wilson’s inauguration day (Stevens 65). Doris Stevens
gives this account of the March 4th protest.
“It was a day of high wind and stinging, icy rain, that March 4th, 1917, when a thousand
women, each bearing a banner, struggled against the gale to keep their banners erect. It is always
impressive to see a thousand people march, but the impression was imperishable when these
thousand women marched in rain-soaked garments, hands bare, gloves roughly torn by the sticky
varnish from the banner poles and the streams of water running down the poles into the palms of
their hands. It was a sight to impress even the most hardened spectator who had seen all the
various forms of the suffrage agitation in Washington. For more than two hours the women
circled the White House-the rain never ceasing for an instant- hoping to the last moment that at
least their leaders would be allowed to take in to the President the resolutions which they were
carrying. […]
Miss Vida Milholland led the procession carrying her sister's last words, "Mr. President,
how long must women wait for liberty?" She was followed by Miss Beulah Amidon of North
Dakota, who carried the banner that the beloved Inez Milholland carried in her first suffrage
procession in New York. The long line of women fell in behind.
Most extraordinary precautions had been taken about the White House. Everything had
been done except the important thing. There were almost as many police officers as marchers.
The Washington force had been augmented by a Baltimore contingent and squads of plainclothes
men. On every fifty feet of curb around the entire White House grounds there was a policeman.,
About the same distance apart on the inside of the tall picket-fence which surrounds the grounds
were as many more. (e-text 75-59).
…displayed his goods in so attractive a manner…
Here, the judge makes a “clear analogy” between the suffrage picketers and attractive
goods in a shop window. He illustrates one of the dangers inherent in suffrage spectacle. Women
appearing in public for the suffrage cause had to make themselves attractive. While this was
empowering in a way, the women also risked becoming mere objects for public consumption.
Many went to suffrage parades, and went to stare at suffrage picketers, who were still antisuffrage but wanted free entertainment (Lumsden 95). Also, a public woman was still considered
sexually suspect; some spectators may have felt that the suffragist picketers were putting
themselves on display for immodest purposes (xviii). Thus, there existed a fine line between
women being assertive public spectacles and being commodities, attractively displayed goods,
for male consumption (Glenn 8).
“For heaven’s sake keep still or we’ll be acquitted”
One important role that female suffragists enacted in the public sphere was that of the martyr.
Often, in parades and pageants, suffragists literally played martyr characters, for example, Joan of
Arc (Lumsden 101). At other times, they turned their
oppression by the government into a spectacle of martyrdom.
The arrests of the White House pickets provided many
opportunities to play the roles of martyrs on the public stage.
Wilson himself wrote to a political colleague: “we have made
a fearful blunder, that we never ought to have indulged these
women in their desire for arrest and martyrdom” (Graham
Suffrage Martyrs
670). Howe and Jakobi here show the suffragists’ martyrdom to be very much a performed role.
The women in the trial cannot be acquitted; they must go to jail in order to fulfill their parts in the
suffrage spectacle.
We shall fight for the things we have always carried nearest our hearts ….
On April 7th, the day after the United States declared war on Germany, President Wilson
delivered this stirring war message (Clift 125). Alice Paul and other NWP members seized on the
hypocrisy of waging war abroad for democracy while denying women the vote (Graham 667).
The first arrests of Lucy Burns and Katharine Morey occurred when they were carrying a banner
with this message on it. The suffragists often quoted Wilson on their protest banners, and, when
they were arrested, asked that these banners be entered into evidence (Clift 131).
“I promised—at least, it is quite clear that you are guilty.”
From Stevens’s account:
“Was not the judge who tried and sentenced them a direct appointee of President Wilson? Were
not the District Commissioners who gave orders to prepare the cells the direct appointees of
President Wilson? And was not the Chief of Police of the District of Columbia a direct appointee
of these same commissioners? And was not the jail warden who made life for the women so
unbearable in prison also a direct appointee of the commissioners?” (e-text 96)
Here, Stevens links the judge and District Attorney directly to the President, and makes the claim
that the President himself orchestrated the suffragists’ oppression.
“You’ve no idea, ladies, how the place smells. There are rats.”
From Doris Stevens’ account of her trial: “The judge attempted persuasion. ‘You had
better decide to pay your fines,’ he ventured. And ‘you will not find jail a pleasant place to be.’”
(e-text 106). The judge’s mention of the prison conditions is contradictory. On one hand, the
judge appears to see the women as weaker creatures under his protection. He even goes so far as
to offer to pay their fines for them. However, there is another side to the matter. Howe and Jakobi
imply that the judge, and by extension the government, knows about the terrible conditions of the
Occoquan workhouse. Underneath their airs of chivalric concern for women, they know perfectly
well that punishments they condemn the suffragists to. Schwarz claims that “Woodrow Wilson…
made sure the jail officials knew that they should make the entire experience so unpleasant that
the women would think twice before continuing the picketing and protest”(44).
“But ladies, we have to arrest you, you know, for annoying the President.”
This line further contributes to the sinister image of Woodrow Wilson and his
government. Stevens recounts one particularly frightening prison anecdote:
“’You must not speak against the President,’ said the servile wardress, when she discovered we
were telling our story to the inmates. ‘You know you will be thrashed if you say anything more
about the President; and don't forget you're on Government property and may be arrested for
treason if it happens again.’
We doubted the seriousness of this threat of thrashing until one of the girls confided to us
that such outrages happened often. We afterward obtained proof of these brutalities” (e-text 113).
Stevens’ account, as well as Howe and Jakobi’s scene, paints Woodrow Wilson, the supposed
beacon of American democracy, as a ruthless and even sadistic dictator.
Also, the question of whether or not to annoy the President was a very real debate among
women’s rights leaders; some saw it as a crime, and others saw it as necessary. The women of
NAWSA believed that Paul’s exploits would cause the suffragists to lose the influential friends
they already had (Clift 108). As such, NAWSA did not participate in the pickets, remained on
cordial terms with Wilson, and denounced the NWP’s tactics (Ryan 30). When NWP picketers
were sent to prison, NAWSA did not speak out in support of them (30). NAWSA even tried to
censor news of the NWP (Lumsden 127).
If you will promise me not to picket for six months I will let you off.
The judge in Stevens’ case also stated that he did not care to send “ladies of standing” to
jail, and offered to let them go free if they promised to stop picketing (Clift 138). This judge, and
Howe and Jakobi’s judge, forget that the women were not in fact charged with picketing (138).
Why don’t you put all this energy into some patriotic direction?
This is precisely what NAWSA and most other women’s organizations attempted to do
during wartime. These groups contributed to the war effort, in order to convince the President
that as patriotic citizens they were entitled to the ballot (Graham 667). Paul’s NWP, however,
“remained a single-issue party” and continued to fight for the vote throughout the entire course of
America’s involvement in World War I (667). The NWP stated, “We will not bargain with our
country for our services….We will not say to the government, ‘give us the vote and we will nurse
your soldiers’ but we will insist on suffrage now” (667).
Matron
From Doris Stevens’ account:
“Mrs. Bovee, a matron, was discharged from the workhouse because she tried to be kind
to the suffrage prisoners. She also gave them warnings to guide them past the possible
contamination of hideous diseases. As soon as she was discharged from the workhouse she went
to the headquarters of the Woman's Party and volunteered to make an affidavit:
‘I am well acquainted with the conditions at Occoquan. I have had charge of all the
suffragist prisoners who have been there. I know that their mail has been withheld from them.
Mrs. Herndon, the matron, reads the mail, and often discussed it with us at the officers' table…
The blankets now being used in the prison have been in use since December without
being washed or cleaned. Blankets are washed once a year. Officers are warned not to touch any
of the bedding. The one officer who handles it is compelled by the regulations to wear rubber
gloves while she does so…
The prisoners with disease are not always isolated, by any means. In the colored
dormitory there are two women in the advanced stages of consumption. Women suffering from
syphilis, who have open sores, are put in the hospital. But those whose sores are temporarily
healed are put in the same dormitory with the others. There have been several such in my
dormitory.
When the prisoners come they must undress and take a shower bath. For this they take a
piece of soap from a bucket in the store room. When they are finished they throw the soap back
in the bucket. The suffragists are permitted three showers a week and have only these pieces of
soap which are common to all inmates. There is no soap at all in wash rooms.
The beans, hominy, rice, cornmeal (which is exceedingly coarse, like chicken feed) and
cereal have all had worms in them. Sometimes the worms float on top of the soup. Often they are
found in the cornbread. The first suffragists sent the worms to Whittaker on a spoon…
Prisoners are punished by being put on bread or water, or by being beaten. I know of one
girl who has been kept seventeen days on only water this month in the "booby house." The same
was kept nineteen days on water last year because she beat Superintendent Whittaker when he
tried to beat her.
[…] I know of one girl beaten until the blood had to be scrubbed from her clothing and
from the floor of the “booby house.” I have never actually seen a girl beaten, but I have seen her
afterwards and I have heard the cries and blows. Dorothy Warfield was beaten and the suffragists
heard the beating.
(Signed) MRS. VIRGINIA BOVEE.
Subscribed and sworn to before me this day of disgust, 1917.
JOSEPH H. BATT, Notary Public” (e-text 144-146).
“I understand that Miss Hollenden sings beautifully.”
From Doris Stevens’ account:
“Locked in separate cells, the suffragists could still communicate by song…Sometimes it was the
beautiful voice of Vida Milholland which rang through the corridors of the dreary prison, with a
stirring Irish ballad, a French love song, or the ‘Woman’s Marseillaise’:
‘March on, march on,
face to the dawn,
the dawn of liberty’” (98).
‘Marseillaise’
The suffragists admired the libertarian ideals of the French Revolution, and, accordingly,
adopted the symbolism of the French Revolution. There are frequent accounts in suffrage
histories of women singing the ‘Marseillaise,’ characterized by Clift as “the French freedom
anthem the women had adopted as their cry for liberty” (169). Doris Stevens attaches great
significance to Bastille Day, the anniversary of the beginning of the French Revolution, and also
the day she was arrested:
“It was Bastille Day, July fourteenth. Inspiring scenes and tragic sacrifices for liberty
came to our minds. Sixteen women marched in single file from Headquarters to the White House
gates. They carried a banner with the French motto: LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY”
(Stevens 79).
‘La Marseillaise’-lyrics, sound files, translations, sheet music: http://marseillaise.org/english/
‘The Women’s Marseillaise’—lyrics unknown
The Characters (information on the women from Jailed for Freedom pp. 354-371):
Judge O’Neil:
Perhaps the tyrannical Judge Mullowny, named in Jailed For Freedom by a black female
prisoner: “I hopes yo' git it, [the vote] fo' women certainly do need protextion against men like
Judge Mullowny. He has us allatime picked up an' sen' down here (e-text 112).”
Mrs. Hewis
MRS. LAWRENCE LEWIS, Philadelphia, Pa., maternal ancestor of
family which took possession 1660 land grant in Conn. from King,
paternal ancestor Michael Hillegas who came Phila. 1727, a founder of
Phila. Academy Fine Arts, Assembly, etc. Son of Hillegas was first U. S.
treasurer; sister of Dr. Howard A. Kelly, well-known surgeon, formerly
professor Johns Hopkins Hospital, author of many medical books; sister of
Mrs. R. R. P. Bradford, founder and Pres. of Lighthouse Settlement, Phila.;
member executive committee of N.W.P. since 1913; chairman of finance
1918; national treasurer, 1919; chairman ratification committee 1920;
active in state suffrage work many years; served 3 days in jail for picketing
July, 1917; arrested Nov. 10, 1917, sentenced to 60 days; arrested
Lafayette Sq. meeting, Aug., 1918, sentenced to 15 days; arrested watchfire demonstration Jan.,
1919, sentenced to 5 days in jail.
More information: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/profiles8.html
Mrs. Reed
MRS. HELENA HILL WEED, Norwalk, Conn., graduate of Vassar and
Montana School of Mines. One of few qualified women geologists of
country. Daughter of late Congressman Ebenezer Hill. At one time vicepresident general of D.A.R. Prominent member of Congressional Union
and N.W.P. from early days. One of first pickets arrested, July 4, 1917;
served 3 days in District Jail. Aug., 1918, arrested for participation in
Lafayette Sq. meeting; sentenced to 15 days. Jan., 1918, sentenced to 24
hours for applauding in court.
Miss Sturdevant
ELIZABETH STUYVESANT, New York City, formerly of Cincinnati;
dancer by profession; active in settlement work and in campaign for birthcontrol. July 4, 1917, arrested for picketing and sentenced to 3 days in District
Jail.
Vera Hollenden
VIDA MILHOLLAND, New York City; daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John E.
Milholland and sister of Inez Milholland Boissevain. Student at Vassar where
won athletic championships and dramatic honors. Studied singing here and
abroad, but on death of sister gave up career of promise to devote herself to
suffrage work. July 4, 1917 arrested and served 3 days in District Jail for
picketing. In 1919 toured the country with "Prison Special," singing at all meetings.
Miss Balderhead
IRIS CALDERHEAD [now wife of John Brisben Walker], Marysville,
Kansas, now resident of Denver, Colo., daughter of former-Representative
Calderhead of Kansas. Graduate of Univ. of Kansas and student at Bryn
Mawr. Abandoned school teaching to work for suffrage; became organizer and
speaker for N.W.P. July 4, 1917, arrested for picketing and served 3 days in
District Jail.
Lucy Barnes
LUCY BURNS, New York City, graduate Vassar College, student
of Yale Univ. and Univ. of Bonn, Germany. High School teacher.
Joined English militant suffrage movement 1909, where she met
Alice Paul, with whom she joined in establishing first permanent
suffrage headquarters in Washington in Jan., 1913; helped organize
parade of March 3, 1913; vice chairman and member of executive
committee Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage [later the
N.W.P.], for a time editor of The Suffragist. Leader of most of the
picket demonstrations and served more time in jail than any other
suffragist in America. Arrested picketing June, 1917, sentenced to
3 days; arrested Sept., 1917, sentenced to 60 days; arrested Nov.
10, 1917, sentenced to six months; in January, 1919, arrested
watchfire demonstrations for which she served one 3 day and two 5
day sentences. She also served 4 prison terms in England.
Lucille Fields
MRS. LUCILLE SHIELDS, Amarillo, Texas. Picketed regularly during 1917. July 4, 1917,
served 3 days in District Jail for picketing; served 5 days Jan. 13, 1919, for participation in
watchfire demonstration. Soon after release sentenced to 3 days for applauding suffrage prisoners
in Court.
M. Verner
MABEL VERNON, Wilmington, Del., Secretary N.W.P., graduate
Swarthmore College. Fellow student with Alice Paul. Gave up position
as high school teacher when Congressional Union was founded to
become organizer and speaker. With remarkable gifts as a speaker, has
addressed large meetings in every part of the country. As brilliant
organizer has had charge of many important organization tasks of
N.W.P. Organized the transcontinental trip of voting envoys to the
President. Campaigned in Nev. 1914 and 1916. Became national
organization chairman N.W.P. Organized the Washington picket line
for several months. One of the first six women to serve prison sentence for suffrage in District
Jail. For picketing June, 1917, served 3 days.
More information: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/profiles9.html
Essay: Staging Justice and Gender
\
Suffragists on “Stage”
The woman suffrage movement of the early Twentieth Century was highly theatrical.
Suffrage events were carefully orchestrated for maximum exposure and publicity (Glenn 127).
Organizers focused strongly on scene-setting and image making (132). These spectacular
suffrage protests were productions written, directed, and acted by women, for the advancement of
women (Lumsden 105). As such, they projected images of strength, artistry, capability, and
dignity. Howe and Jakobi, in their choice of the play format for their satire, are strongly informed
by the culture of female spectacle in the suffrage movement. However, in “Telling the Truth at
the White House,” they take a different focus: they use the theatrical format as a tool of satire in
order to demonstrate how male government officials were involved in a ‘counter-spectacle’ to
that of the women’s movement. These men orchestrated arrests and trials of suffragists in order to
win public favour and appear as if they were on the side of justice. They proclaimed their
adherence to rationality and good government; but Howe and Jakobi demonstrate how they were
instead merely acting out rationality and good government. While the suffragists’ use of spectacle
was highly self-aware, that of the male anti-suffragists was not. Howe and Jakobi’s male
characters demonstrate how male politicians and anti-suffragists participated in a staging of
justice, and unwittingly made a spectacle of themselves.
Many suffrage banners point out that President Woodrow Wilson was merely acting the
part of a democratic leader. He proclaimed his zeal for fighting for democracy overseas, but
denied democracy to women in his own country (Graham 667). Also, he and his administration
played the role of impartiality and justice, while at the same time seeking ways to justify the
arrests of peaceful protesters. With the suffrage arrests, Wilson and other government officials
attempted to create their own spectacle to rival that of the suffragists. These arrests were meant to
belittle the suffragists and portray them as criminals, while at the same time projecting an image
of a government ruled by law. Doris Stevens relates the theatrical nature of the first arrests:
“News had spread through the city that the pickets were to be arrested. A moderately large crowd
had gathered to see the ‘fun.’... Some members of the crowd made sport of the women. Others
hurled cheap and childish epithets at them. Small boys were allowed to capture souvenirs, shreds
of the banners torn from non-resistant women, as trophies of the sport” (e-text 94).
The arrests of the suffragists became a sort of public theatrical event, and the government made
use of publicity in order to advertise them and bring in a large audience. In August, according to
Stevens,
“the pickets heard officers shout to civilian friends as they passed—‘Come back at four o'clock.’
Members of the daily mob announced at the noon hour in various nearby restaurants that ‘the
suffs will be arrested to-day at 4 o'clock’ (e-text 130).
According to Stevens, “the Administration…felt that it had supplied itself with an appropriate
amount of stage-setting” to turn the arrests of the suffragists into an enjoyable spectacle (e-text
129). Much like the suffragists, the proper authorities wanted to put on a good show to appease
the theatrical appetites of the masses and thus gain their support. However, this strategy
backfired. Stevens recounts how the planned spectacle of government power was transformed
into a suffrage spectacle of martyrdom:
“Meanwhile the crowd grows, attracted to the spot by the presence of the police and the patrol
wagon. Applause is heard. There are cries of ‘shame’ for the police, who, I must say, did not
always act as if they relished carrying out what they termed ‘orders from higher up.’ An
occasional hoot from a small boy served to make the mood of the hostile ones a bit gayer. But for
the most part an intense silence fell upon the watchers, as they saw not only younger women, but
white haired grandmothers hoisted before the public gaze into the crowded patrol, their heads
erect, their eyes a little moist and their frail hands holding tightly to the banner until wrested from
them by superior brute force” (e-text 99).
While the police and the government attempted to stage a demonstration of the rule of law, they
ended up by staging a spectacle of oppression that the suffragists could turn against them.
The trials of the suffragists can also be compared to theatre, in that court officials went
“on-stage” in the courtroom and enacted the motions of justice, and not true justice. These court
officials wished to put on a convincing performance of legality in order to intimidate the women
and transform them into criminals in the public eye. However, they achieved neither of these
aims. Their pretence of legal procedure failed to impress the women. When Lucy Burns and
Katherine Morey were arrested, police officials attempted to intimidate them with a show of
police procedure. However, Burns and Morey would not accept the act. When the women
demanded true justice, the officials found themselves at a loss for what to do:
“Miss Burns and Miss Morey upon arriving at the police station, insisted, to the great surprise of
all the officials, upon knowing the charge against them. Major Pullman and his entire staff were
utterly at a loss to know what to answer. The Administration had looked ahead only as far as
threatening arrest. They doubtless thought this was all they would have to do. …
Officials and subofficials passed hurriedly to and fro. Whispered conversations were
heard. The book on rules and regulations was hopefully thumbed. Hours passed. Finally the two
prisoners were pompously told that they had "obstructed the traffic" on Pennsylvania Avenue,
were dismissed on their own recognizance, and never brought to trial… It seemed clear that the
Administration hoped to suppress picketing merely by arrests. When, however, women continued
to picket in the face of arrest, the Administration quickened its advance into the venture of
suppression. It decided to bring the offenders to trial” (e-text 94-95).
They had hoped that staging the arrests would be both intimidating and convincing to the women;
however, their plan backfired when the women demanded not a pretence but actual substance.
Doris Stevens characterizes her own trial as a sort of play, and not a very good one at that.
She writes,
“The same panting policemen who could not identify the people they had arrested give their
stereotyped, false and illiterate testimony. The judge helps them over the hard places and so does
the government's attorney. They stumble to an embarrassed finish and retire” (e-text 101).
Thus, the writing and characters of this ‘play’ are stereotyped and tired. The actors, the
policemen, stumble over their lines and miss their cues. Also, later in the trial, the judge and the
district attorney become stock characters, going through the motions that we associate with
judges and district attorneys, but not truly working as agents of the law. For example, the district
attorney constantly shouts, “Objection, your honour,” while the judge, unsure of what else to do,
raps his gavel (102, 103). The speeches of the district attorney miss the crucial issues of the trial
and exist solely as shows of legal speech:
“The prosecuting attorney now elaborately proves that we walked, that we carried banners, that
we were arrested by the aforesaid officers while attempting to hold our banners at the White
House gates” (101).
Then, Mrs. John Rogers, Jr., makes this statement, deflating the entire suspension of disbelief
required to keep the play going: “We are not guilty of any offence, not even of infringing a police
regulation. We know full well that we stand here because the President of the United States
refuses to give liberty to American women” (101). The acting taking place on the stage of the
courtroom fails to impress the women, and also fails to impress the members of the public who
sit in the “audience.” One of the men in the audience characterizes the trial as “a tragic farce”
(106). However, despite the failure of the play for its intended audience, Stevens states that the
show must go on; “ justice must proceed” (103). This notion of a suffrage trial as a bad play is
not confined to Stevens’ account: it also surfaces in secondary histories of the events. For
example, Clift summarizes one trial in this way:
“After sentencing twenty-six of them to jail, the judge asked how many were left. Told that a
third of the women remained, the judge threw up his hands and arbitrarily dismissed the last
thirteen cases. He was weary of the charade” (172).
Thus, the male judicial spectacle was weak and full of holes. The women, and some members of
the public, saw through the façade to the government repression that lay beneath.
In “Telling the Truth at the White House,” there exists a play within a play. The
characters of the court act before an “Audience hall crowded with curious throng” (Howe and
Jakobi). The male court officials are not true representatives of justice, but bad actors attempting
to play true representatives of justice. The court officer begins the scene by rapping his club
authoritatively and shouting, “Silence in the name of the law!” (Howe and Jakobi). One receives
the impression that he is a bit part actor who studied the art of rapping clubs authoritatively, but
is ignorant of true legal practice. He performs mere actions of law, and not law itself. Howe and
Jakobi’s judge, much like Stevens’ District Attorney, puts great effort into the performance of
legal language. He makes a show of consulting his law books in an appropriately grave manner,
and attempts to cite a ridiculous precedent with an air of legal authority. Immediately afterwards,
the women easily defeat him with their superior knowledge of the law (Howe and Jakobi). The
judge attempts to recover the integrity of his role by saying in a patronizing fashion, “My dear
lady, you do not understand the law” (Howe and Jakobi). When Lucy Barnes proves that she
understands the law much better than he does, he improvises hastily: “Well, well—that’s not like
any law I ever studied” (Howe and Jakobi).
The judge is merely going through the motions of law. The trials themselves are shown to
be equally hollow and staged. Often, it appears that the verdicts have already been decided upon,
and the trials is merely for show. For example, the two coloured women are tried exceedingly
quickly. The first women’s charges are stated: “Drunk and disorderly” (Howe and Jakobi).
Immediately, the judge pronounces: “14 days in the workhouse. Next case” (Howe and Jakobi).
The woman does not have the chance to defend herself. Her sentence was written before she
entered the courthouse. The second coloured woman is accused and sentenced in two lines, to the
exact same punishment as the other woman, thus reinforcing the sense that her verdict was
predetermined and her trial existed merely to mask this injustice. In the ensuing trial of the
suffragist pickets, one also gets a sense that the verdict has been decided in advance and that the
trial is again, merely for show. The District Attorney turns to Vera Hollenden and says, “This
woman is guilty of leading the procession” (Howe and Jakobi). Then, the Judge asks her to state
her defense (Howe and Jakobi). In a truly just proceeding, a defendant should not be pronounced
guilty before she states her defense. Then, the judge informs another picket that she is free to go,
as her mother has already paid her fine (Howe and Jakobi). Apparently, the verdict was decided
far enough in advance of the trial for the mother to have had enough time to go to the appropriate
office and pay the fine. At one point, the judge breaks down and nearly admits that the trial is
rigged. He addresses the women:
“During this trial you have shown clear minds—judicial minds, I might say…but I promised—at
least—it is quite clear, that you are guilty… I can’t exactly say of what, but, to the sorrow of the
court, it has decided that you are guilty and it sentences you to three days or $25” (Howe and
Jakobi).
He basically admits that there is no actual charge brought against the women, and his slip of the
tongue suggests that trial is a mask for Woodrow Wilson’s repressive, dictatorial tactics. Thus,
the male spectacle of the courtroom is not an empowering one, but instead leaves the men
appearing weak, deceitful, and quite silly. Their convoluted attempts to suppress the suffragists
through feeble fictions and dramas end up being the best possible support for the suffragist cause.
The men’s acting, however, goes even deeper than their professions as officers of the law.
They become actors of traditional gender roles. Male anti-suffragists tended to profess the
traditional view that,
“men represented rationality and assumed responsibility for politics, commerce, and other aspects
of the amoral public sphere. Women represented the inner emotional life and assumed
responsibility for the home, where their most pressing duty was to nurture and preserve morality”
(Lumsden xviii).
Horace Bushnell, a prominent voice in the anti-suffragist cause, writes,
“The old statements that one is passive, the other active; one emotional, the other moral; one
affectionate, the other rational; one sentimental, the other intellectual, are likely to be more than
verified by science… both can not occupy the same place, do the same work, or reach the same
standard, ought, we think, to be assumed. Nature has decreed it so” (196).
Thus, men only are fitted for the rational and intellectual work of the public sphere. Because they
are strong, they must protect “the weaker sex” of woman. Many critics have remarked that antisuffragist men feared a loss of their considerable power if women gained the vote. For example,
Bushnell writes of the danger of women voting against their husbands (203). He claims that this
conflict will lead to arguments and eventually to divorce (203). His statements hint at a fear of
being argued against, a fear that women will see past his public persona as a rational political
man. Critics have also implied that male politicians held more sinister motives for proclaiming
traditional views on gender roles. In the colourful words of Lumsden,
“The idea of women imposing their morality and values upon the male political system caused
many cigar-chomping, whiskey-swilling, epithet-spewing backroom politicians to eye them as a
‘Puritan scourge incarnate’” (xxv).
She suggests that male politicians had their own, corrupt reasons for keeping the women out of
the vote, and created the spectacle of proper manhood and proper womanhood to keep their
power. Francis Parkman, another anti-suffragist, writes, “It is no right, but a wrong, that a small
number of women should impose on all the rest political duties which there is no call for their
assuming, which they do not want to assume” (209). In other words, he fears that women will try
to clean up the world of politics, thus destroying the men’s corrupt system, which they have until
recently managed to hide from women. Men were afraid of losing their power, and therefore
made sure to constantly display rationality and act as if they were in complete control and that
gender roles were a matter of fact.
In the history of suffrage, many examples can be found of men attempting to play the role
of ‘those who know best.’ However, when these roles met facts, they fell apart, and the men were
exposed for what they truly were; they were not rational, confident players in the public sphere,
but frightened and illogical pretenders. One extreme example of men trying to act logically at the
expense of women was when prison officials placed Alice Paul in a psychiatric ward (Graham
677). They attempted to place her back into the role of the hysterical, irrational woman by
“diagnosing’ her political fight as an unhealthy obsession with Woodrow Wilson (Clift 148). In
staging Alice Paul’s “insanity,” they hoped to strengthen their own public roles as bastions of
reason. However, they failed when Alice Paul was revealed to be in fact quite sane (Graham
677). Wilson and prison officials were revealed to be frightened men abusing a woman in an
attempt to regain the appearance of control.
In “Telling the Truth at the White House,” the male figures attempt, unsuccessfully, to act
out their traditional gender role. However, their act is proven to be merely a performance that
does not correlate with reality. When Vera Hollenden, probably tongue-in-cheek, says that she
does not understand law, the judge takes her statement as his cue to act the traditional
condescending male, who occasionally explains tidbits of knowledge to women but knows that
he has full control over the information (“Him”13). He acts out the traditional men’s role of
commanding facts and reason, and is confident that his act will convince. He leans over his desk,
eager to explain the law and demonstrate his benevolent superiority (Howe and Jakobi).
However, his role as a rational man, alone capable of decoding the language of law and of the
public sphere, falls apart when the women shatter his logic and cite precedent that is more
applicable to the situation. The judge responds by shouting, “Silence! this is treason!” with great
emotion (Howe and Jakobi). If he was truly the rational male in perfect possession of his own
sphere, he would not have made such an emotional outburst. Thus, it appears that his
condescending manner toward the women was merely a front, covering his fear. He then tries to
recover from his slippage of character by telling Lucy Barnes, “My dear lady, you do not
understand the law” (Howe and Jakobi). However, Lucy Barnes defeats him in the realm of logic
once again (Howe and Jakobi). His panic becomes obvious as he turns to the District Attorney
and demands, “What shall I do? What shall I do?” (Howe and Jakobi). Throughout the rest of the
play, he frequently turns to the District Attorney in hopes of getting a cue on how he should act
and what his next lines should be.
It appears, then, that it is fear that informs the male spectacle. The spectacles of the
suffragist women reflected confidence and grandeur of vision. They played roles that they felt to
be true; they believed that they could gracefully operate, with capability and dignity, in the public
sphere. The male counter-spectacle, however, was just that: a reaction. As women gained more
and more control in the public sphere, the men reacted defensively. They realized, at least on
some level, that the women told the truth. Thus, they invented spectacles and fictions to prevent
that truth from upsetting the order of their world. They staged arrests and trials, and projected the
image of justice where there was none. They also acted out and exaggerated traditional gender
roles which placed men in control of reason and the public sphere. However, as Howe and Jakobi
demonstrate, once these male performances are scrutinized, they became ridiculous, and easy
targets for satire.
Suffrage Trial Narratives
The suffrage trial narrative appears to have been a very powerful propaganda tool. Suffragists
such as Susan B. Anthony and Doris Stevens released accounts of their trials, and allowed the
evident injustice of these trials to speak for themselves. Howe and Jakobi likely drew on these
trial narratives when deciding on the format of their satirical piece, “Telling the Truth at the
White House.”
The trial of Susan B. Anthony
In 1872, Susan B. Anthony and fourteen other women intimidated election officers into
allowing them to vote (Clift 53). Three weeks after the election, a federal marshal arrived at
Anthony’s door with a warrant for her arrest (53). The marshal was uncomfortable with arresting
her and told her she could come to the station at her convenience (54). Anthony replied: “Oh
dear, no…I much prefer to be taken, handcuffed, if possible” (54). The judge in her case, Justice
Ward Hunt, wrote his opinion of the case before the evidence was presented, and ordered the jury
to reach a guilty verdict (55). Her trial, like that of the NWP suffragists, was just for show; the
verdict had been predetermined. The judge then asked if Anthony had anything to say for herself
(57). The content of her statement can be read here:
http://ecssba.rutgers.edu/docs/sbatrial.html
The trial of Doris Stevens
The memories of the Heterodite Doris Stevens were likely an important source for Howe
and Jakobi. There are many similarities between the two scenes, such as the presence of the black
prisoner at the beginning, the partial script format, the panicked interactions between the judge
and the prosecutor, and the women’s insistence on going to jail in order to show the world that
their trial was a “tragic farce” (e-text 106). It can be read in full here:
http://www.fullbooks.com/Jailed-for-Freedom2.html
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