As always, when she was arrested, she took charge of the situation. In her clear, beautiful voice, she began calling the roll one name after another, to see if all were there and alive. The guards called, “Shut up!” but she paid no more attention to them than if they had not spoken. “Where is Mrs. Lewis?” she demanded. Mrs. Cosu answered: “They have just thrown her in here.” The guard yelled to them that if they spoke again, he would put them in strait-jackets. Mrs. Nolan and Mrs. Cosu were so terrified that they kept still for a while.

But Lucy Burns went right on calling the roll. When she refused—at the guard’s orders—to stop this, they handcuffed her wrists and fastened the handcuffs above her head to the cell door. They threatened her with a buckle gag. Little Julia Emory could do nothing to help, of course, but she put her hands above her head in exactly the same position and stood before her door until they released Lucy Burns. Lucy Burns wore her handcuffs all night.

Mrs. Henry Butterworth, for some capricious reason, was taken away from the rest, and placed in a part of the jail where there were only men. They told her that she was alone with the men, and that they could do what they pleased with her. Her Night of Terror was doubly terrifying—with this menace hanging over her.

For a description of the rest of that night, and of succeeding days, I quote the account of Paula Jakobi:

I didn’t know at the time what happened to the other women. I only knew that it was hell let loose with Whittaker as the instigator of the horror. In the ante-chamber to the cells, some of the guards were standing, swinging night sticks in a menacing manner. We were thrust into cells; the ventilators were closed. The cells were bitter cold. There was an open toilet in the corner of the cell, which was flushed from the outside. We had to call a guard who had previously attacked us to flush them. The doors were barred, there were no windows. The doors were uncurtained, so that through the night the guard could look into the cell. There was no light in the room, only one in the corridor. Three of us were thrown into every cell. There was a single bed in each room and a mattress on the floor. The floors were filthy as were the blankets.

In the morning, we were roughly told to get up. No facilities for washing were given us. Faint, ill, exhausted, we were ordered before the superintendent. It was eight o’clock and we had had no food since the preceding day at twelve. None had been offered us, nor were any inquiries made about our physical condition. Whittaker asked my name; then whether I would go to the Workhouse and obey prison regulations and be under the care of the ladies. I told him I would not. I would not wear prison clothes, and I demanded the rights of political prisoners. He interrupted me with, “Then you’ll go to the male hospital”—he emphasized the “male”—“and be in solitary confinement. Do you change your mind?” I said “No!” and was taken to the hospital by a trusty.

Then followed a series of bullying, of privileges, and of curtailing them. The first day at three o’clock milk and bread were brought to the room. After I refused it, it was taken away. That evening some more milk and bread were brought. These were left in the room all night. The second day toast and milk were brought. These were left in the room all night. The third day the matron suggested an egg and coffee for breakfast. I told her I did not want anything to eat. This day at lunch time fried chicken and salad were brought in. Later Miss Burns passed a note which read, “I think this riotous feast which has just passed our doors is the last effort of the institution to dislodge all of us who can be dislodged. They think there is nothing in our souls above fried chicken.” No matter what was offered, a glass of milk and piece of bread were left from meal to meal, and once bouillon and bread was left.

The fast did not make me ill at this time, only weak. The second day there was slight nausea and headache; the third day, fever and dizziness; the fever remained, causing very dry, peeling skin and swollen lips. By the third day, I was rather nervous—there were no other manifestations except increasing weakness and aphasia. I could remember no names, and it was quite impossible to read.

We were summoned so often and so suddenly from our rooms to see Whittaker, or to have the rooms changed—we were in the same room scarcely two consecutive nights—that one was never sure when she would be searched and when the few remaining treasures would be taken from us, so I hid stubs of pencils in my pillow, ripping the ticking with a hairpin, and one pencil in the hem of the shade. The dimes and nickels for the trusty I placed in a row over the sill of the door, paper behind the steam radiator pipes. It was difficult to find places to secrete anything, for the only furniture in the room was a single iron bed and one chair. Notes to one another are passed by tapping furtively on the steampipe running through the walls; then, when the answer comes, passing the note along the pipe. Everything is conducive to concealment.

The second day our writing materials were asked for (I did not give up those I had hidden). Then we were summoned to Whittaker—each of the hunger-strikers. (There were now seventeen of us.) He had a stenographer with him. He asked my name; then, “Are you comfortable?” His manner was quite changed; he was as civil as he could be. I answered him with the little formula, “I demand the right to be treated as a political prisoner. I am now treated as a common criminal.”

He: If you have steak and vegetables, will you go to the Workhouse and obey rules?

I: I will not.

He: If you will promise not to picket any more and to leave Washington soon, I will let you go without paying any fine and I’ll take you to Washington in my own automobile.

I: I will not promise this.

He: What is it you want?

I: The right to keep my own clothes, to have nourishing food permanently, which will not be taken away and given back at your will, the right to send and receive mail, and above all, the right to see counsel and have fresh air exercise.

He: If I grant you all these things, will you go to the Workhouse and work?

I: I will not.

He: Are the matrons and interns kind to you?

I: Yes.

He: What food is left in your room?

I: Chiefly bread and milk, once bouillon and toast.

He: Anything else?

I: No.

He: Have you any request?

I: That I receive the rights due me—those of a political prisoner.

Whittaker will use these interviews in expurgated form, I am sure. When I said anything which did not please him, he said to the stenographer, “You needn’t put that down.”

After the above interviews, he absolutely refused to let our counsel who came from Washington see us.

After my visit to Whittaker this day, I was summoned to the Workhouse. My clothes were listed—those I wore—before two matrons, just as those of criminals are listed; then I was obliged to undress before the two matrons and two trusties, walk to a shower, take a bath, and dress before them in prison clothes. The clothes were clean, but so coarse that they rubbed my skin quite raw. They have two sizes of shoes for the prisoners—large and small.

The only message which reached me from “outside” was a telegram from a friend asking that I allow my bail to be paid. I answered that I would not. This day six girls in our section were taken away “somewhere.” The sense of some unknown horror suddenly descending is the worst of the whole situation. Whittaker’s suave manner was interrupted for a moment this day when he came into the hospital ward and saw Julia Emory in the corridor—she was returning from the wash-room—and taking Julia by the neck he threw her into her cell. “Get in there,” he snarled, or words to that effect.... I was coming out of an adjoining wash-room at the moment, and saw this.

This night I had a most vivid dream. The interne brought in a rabbit. He held it up and told us he would cook it for us. The women—our women—did not wait for him to cook it, but rushed toward him, pulled it from his hands, and tore the living animal into pieces and ate it. I awoke, sobbing.

Next evening, there was great commotion in our corridor. The doors, which did not lock, were held; there were rapid footsteps to and fro. Distressed sounds came from the room adjoining mine, and soon it was evident that Miss Burns was being forcibly fed. Half an hour earlier, her condition was found normal by the doctor, who strolled casually through our ward, looked in at the door, nodded, felt her pulse, and went on. Now Miss Burns was being forcibly fed. What could it mean? Then there were more hurried steps, and the men went to Mrs. Lewis’s room. Fifteen minutes later, they were both hurried into an ambulance and taken away—no one told us where. We had visions accentuated that night, of being separated, hurried out of sight to oblivion, somewhere away from every one we knew.

A detachment of the United States Marines guarded the place. The prisoners were kept incommunicado. That meant, not only were they not allowed visitors, but they were not allowed counsel—and counsel is one of the inalienable rights of citizenship.

In the meantime at Headquarters, the Suffragists, under the leadership of Doris Stevens, now that Alice Paul and Lucy Burns were both in prison, could not even find out where the prisoners were. They had received a jail sentence but were not in the District Jail. Katherine Morey, in great anxiety in regard to her mother, who was one of the prisoners, came from Boston to see her. She could not even locate her. Finally, she hit on the device of meeting the morning train, on which released prisoners always came from Occoquan, and one of them informed her that her mother was at the Workhouse.

In the meantime, sixteen of the women had gone on a hunger-strike. They were committed to Occoquan on Wednesday, November 14. By the following Sunday, Superintendent Whittaker became alarmed. He declared he would not forcibly feed any of them unless they signed a paper saying that they themselves were responsible for any injury upon their health. Of course, they all refused to do this, whereupon Superintendent Whittaker said: “All right, you can starve.” However, by Sunday night, he was a little shaken in this noble resolution. He went to Mrs. Lewis, and asked her what could be done. Mrs. Lewis answered that all they asked was to be treated as political offenders, which provided for exercise, receiving of mail and visitors, buying food and reading matter. He asked her to write this statement out in his name, as though he demanded it. On Monday he brought the statement to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia. Commissioner Gardner gave out a statement that such demands would never be granted.

In the meantime too, Matthew O’Brien, the counsel for the Woman’s Party, succeeded in getting an order from the Court which admitted him to Occoquan. He saw Mrs. Lewis, Mrs. Brannan, and Miss Burns once; but afterwards in spite of his Court order, they refused him admission.

It had been part of the system in attempting to lower Miss Burns’s morale to take her clothes away from her. When Mr. O’Brien visited Miss Burns she was lying on a cot in a dark cell, wrapped in blankets. He came back to Headquarters filled with admiration for her extraordinary spirit. He said that she was as much herself as if they were talking in the drawing-room of Cameron House. Mrs. Nolan, released at the end of her six day sentence, also brought the news of what happened back to Headquarters. These were the things that made the Suffragists determine on habeas corpus proceedings. Mr. O’Brien applied to the United States District Court at Richmond for this writ. It was granted returnable on November 27. Mr. O’Brien, however, afraid that, in combination with the indignities to which they were being submitted, the women would collapse from starvation, made another journey to Judge Waddill, who set the hearing forward to the 23rd.

The next step was serving the writ on Superintendent Whittaker. This was done by a ruse. On the night of the 21st, Mr. O’Brien called at Superintendent Whittaker’s home. He was told that the Superintendent was not there. Mr. O’Brien went not far away, and telephoned that he would not return until the morning. Then he returned immediately to Superintendent Whittaker’s home, found him there, of course, and served the papers.

In the meantime, Superintendent Whittaker began to fear that Mrs. Lawrence Lewis and Lucy Burns would die. Unknown to the other prisoners—and thereby causing them the most intense anguish—he had them taken to the hospital of the District Jail. They had been forcibly fed at Occoquan, and the feeding was continued at the jail.

Mrs. Lewis writes:

I was seized and laid on my back, where five people held me, a young colored woman leaping upon my knees, which seemed to break under the weight. Dr. Gannon then forced the tube through my lips and down my throat, I gasping and suffocating with the agony of it. I didn’t know where to breathe from, and everything turned black when the fluid began pouring in. I was moaning and making the most awful sounds quite against my will, for I did not wish to disturb my friends in the next room. Finally the tube was withdrawn. I lay motionless. After a while I was dressed and carried in a chair to a waiting automobile, laid on the back seat, and driven into Washington to the jail hospital. Previous to the feeding I had been forcibly examined by Dr. Gannon, I struggling and protesting that I wished a woman physician.

Lucy Burns was fed through the nose. Her note, smuggled out of jail, is as follows:

Wednesday, 12 M. Yesterday afternoon at about four or five, Mrs. Lewis and I were asked to go to the operating room. Went there and found our clothes. Told we were to go to Washington. No reason, as usual. When we were dressed Dr. Gannon appeared, said he wished to examine us. Both refused. Were dragged through halls by force, our clothing partly removed by force, and we were examined, heart tested, blood pressure and pulse taken. Of course such data was of no value after such a struggle. Dr. Gannon told me that I must be fed. Was stretched on bed, two doctors, matron, four colored prisoners present, Whittaker in hall. I was held down by five people at legs, arms, and head. I refused to open mouth, Gannon pushed the tube up left nostril. I turned and twisted my head all I could, but he managed to push it up. It hurts nose and throat very much and makes nose bleed freely. Tube drawn out covered with blood. Operation leaves one very sick. Food dumped directly into stomach feels like a ball of lead. Left nostril, throat, and muscles of neck very sore all night. After this I was brought into the hospital in an ambulance. Mrs. Lewis and I placed in same room. Slept hardly at all.

This morning Dr. Ladd appeared with his tube. Mrs. Lewis and I said we would not be forcibly fed. Said he would call in men guards and force us to submit. Went away and we not fed at all this morning. We hear them outside now cracking eggs.

We resume Paula Jakobi’s account:

We were summoned two days later to appear at Alexandria jail next day, Friday of that week—that would make nine days spent in the Workhouse.

A writ of habeas corpus had been issued for our unjust imprisonment at Occoquan when we had been sentenced to Washington jail. This day I fainted. It was now seven and a half days since I had started hunger-striking. Three young doctors came in to have a look at the hunger-strikers. They did not take our pulse; they just gazed and departed. Later in the day, I was told that I could not go to court next day if I did not eat, as they would not take the responsibility for my trip. They prepared to forcibly feed me. I concluded to eat voluntarily, since I had to break my fast, so that evening I had a baked potato and a baked apple. Next morning I ate no breakfast, but was threatened with forcible feeding at noon if I did not eat, so I ate again.

The next day we were taken to Alexandria Court House. There we found out why Miss Burns and Mrs. Lewis had been taken away from Occoquan. It was to prevent their appearance at Court, although it was shown that Whittaker had been removed after he had received the writ of habeas corpus. Our counsel pleaded for their appearance in Court. The warden of the Washington jail, where they now were, was so solicitous for their health that he feared to move them. Mr. Dudley Field Malone asked him whether they were being forcibly fed. The warden replied that they were. “How many men does it take to hold Miss Burns?” Mr. Malone quietly questioned, “while she is being forcibly fed?” Zinkham answered, “Four.” “Then, your Honor,” asked Mr. Malone, “don’t you think that if it takes four men to hold Miss Burns to give her forcible feeding, she is strong enough to appear in Court?”

Next day, both Mrs. Lewis and Miss Burns were at the trial.

It was found that our detention in the Workhouse was illegal and we were given our freedom on parole. I refused to accept it, and with twenty-two other prisoners was taken to Washington jail to finish my term of imprisonment.

The Suffragists were brought from Occoquan to the Court on November 23, according to schedule. Their condition was shocking. They all showed in their pallor and weakness the effect of the brutal régime to which they had been subjected. The older women could hardly walk, and were supported by their younger and stronger companions. When they reached their chairs, they lay back in them, utterly worn out. Mrs. John Winters Brannan collapsed, and had to be taken from the Courtroom.

As Paula Jakobi has stated, Judge Waddill decided that the thirty-one Suffragists had been illegally committed to Occoquan Workhouse, and were entitled to liberation on bail pending an appeal or the return to the District Jail. Rose Winslow, it will be remembered, was tried at the same time as Alice Paul and received a sentence of seven months. Here are some extracts from the prison notes of Rose Winslow smuggled out to friends:

The women are all so magnificent, so beautiful. Alice Paul is as thin as ever, pale and large-eyed. We have been in solitary for five weeks. There is nothing to tell but that the days go by somehow. I have felt quite feeble the last few days—faint, so that I could hardly get my hair combed, my arms ached so. But today I am well again. Alice Paul and I talk back and forth though we are at opposite ends of the building and a hall door also shuts us apart. But occasionally—thrills—we escape from behind our iron-barred doors and visit. Great laughter and rejoicing!...

I told about a syphilitic colored woman with one leg. The other one was cut off, having rotted so that it was alive with maggots when she came in. The remaining one is now getting as bad. They are so short of nurses that a little colored girl of twelve, who is here waiting to have her tonsils removed, waits on her. This child and two others share a ward with a syphilitic child of three or four years, whose mother refused to have it at home. It makes you absolutely ill to see it. I am going to break all three windows as a protest against their boarding Alice Paul with these!

Dr. Gannon is chief of a hospital. Yet Alice Paul and I found we had been taking baths in one of the tubs here, in which this syphilitic child, an incurable, who has his eyes bandaged all the time, is also bathed. He has been here a year. Into the room where he lives came yesterday two children to be operated on for tonsillitis. They also bathed in the same tub. The syphilitic woman has been in that room seven months. Cheerful mixing, isn’t it? The place is alive with roaches, crawling all over the walls everywhere. I found one in my bed the other day....

In regard to the forcible feeding, she said:

Yesterday was a bad day for me in feeding. I was vomiting continually during the process. The tube has developed an irritation somewhere that is painful....

I fainted again last night. I just fell flop over in the bathroom where I was washing my hands, and was led to bed, when I recovered, by a nurse. I lost consciousness just as I got there again. I felt horribly faint until twelve o’clock, then fell asleep for awhile....

The same doctor feeds us both.... Don’t let them tell you we take this well. Miss Paul vomits much. I do, too, except when I’m not nervous, as I have been every time but one. The feeding always gives me a severe headache. My throat aches afterward, and I always weep and sob, to my great disgust, quite against my will. I try to be less feeble-minded.

The final barbarity, however, in the treatment of the pickets came out in the experience of Alice Paul. Of course, the Administration felt that in jailing Alice Paul, they had the “ringleader.” That was true. What they did not realize, however, was that they had also jailed the inspired reformer, the martyr-type, who dies for a principle, but never bends or breaks. Miss Paul was arrested, it will be remembered, on October 20. The banner that she carried had, in the light of later events, a grim significance. It bore President Wilson’s own words:

Her sentence was seven months.

“I am being imprisoned,” said Miss Paul as she was taken from the District Police Court to the patrol wagon that carried her to jail, “not because I obstructed traffic, but because I pointed out to President Wilson the fact that he is obstructing the progress of justice and democracy at home while Americans fight for it abroad.”

When Alice Paul reached the jail, she found ten other Suffragists who had been brought there four days before from Occoquan. The air of this jail was stifling. There were about seventy-five women prisoners locked in three tiers of cells, and no window had been opened. The first appeal of the Suffragists to Alice Paul was for air.

Alice Paul, not committed to her cell yet, looked about her. High up she saw a little, round window with a rope hanging from it. She asked the matron why they did not open the window. “If we started opening windows, we should have to give the colored women more clothes,” the matron told her.

With her usual promptness and decision Alice Paul crossed the corridor and pulled the window open. There was no place to fasten the rope so she stood there holding it. The matron called for the guards. Two of them, unusually big and husky in comparison with Alice Paul’s ninety-five pounds, tried to take the rope away. It broke in her hands, the window closed, and the guards carried Miss Paul to her cell.

Alice Paul had brought, in the pocket of her coat, a volume of Browning. Before they closed the door, she threw it with what Florence Boeckel describes as a “desperate, sure aim,” through the window.

Miss Paul’s confrères say that it is amusingly symbolic of the perfection of her aim in all things that she hit one of the little panes of that far-away window. As the glass had not been repaired when the Suffragists left jail, they had the pure air they demanded. They said that the old-timers told them it was the first good air they had ever smelled in jail.

Alice Paul and Rose Winslow went on hunger-strike at once. This strike lasted three weeks and a day. The last two weeks they were forcibly fed. Both women became so weak that they were finally moved to the hospital.

Two or three alienists with Commissioner Gardner were brought in to examine Alice Paul. They usually referred to her in her presence as “this case.” One of the alienists, visiting her for the first time, said to the nurse, “Will this patient talk?” Alice Paul burst into laughter.

“Talk!” she exclaimed. “That’s our business to talk. Why shouldn’t we talk?”

“Well, some of them don’t talk, you know,” the alienist said.

“Well, if you want me to talk——” Weak as she was, Miss Paul sat up in bed and gave him a history of the Suffrage movement beginning just before the period of Susan B. Anthony and coming down to that moment. It lasted an hour. This alienist told the present writer that in his report to the authorities he said in effect:

“There is a spirit like Joan of Arc, and it is as useless to try to change it as to change Joan of Arc. She will die but she will never give up.”

Alice Paul says that she realized after a while that the questions of the alienists were directed towards establishing in her one of the well-known insane phobias—the mania of persecution. The inquiries converged again and again toward one point: “Did she think the President personally responsible for what was occurring?” As it happened her sincere conclusion in this matter helped in establishing their conviction of her sanity. She always answered that she did not think the President was responsible in her case—that he was perhaps uninformed as to what was going on.

Notwithstanding the favorable report of the alienist, after a while they removed Alice Paul from the hospital to the psychopathic ward. The conditions under which she lived here are almost incredibly sinister. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it was hoped that they would affect Alice Paul’s reason; would certainly discredit the movement she led by making the world believe that she was mentally unbalanced. The room in which she was confined was big and square, pleasant enough. It had two windows, one of which they boarded up. They took off the wooden door and replaced it with a grated door. All day long patients—mentally unbalanced—came to that door and peered in at her. All night long, shrieks rang in her ears. Just before dawn would come an interval of quiet, then invariably it was broken by the long, harrowing, ululating cries of a single patient who kept this up for hours.

One of the alienists told the nurse to keep Miss Paul under observation. This observation consisted of flashing a light in her face every hour all night long. This—naturally—brought her with a start out of her sleep. She averaged, she says, only a little sleep between flashes. Of course one cannot but think that if she had been trembling on the verge of insanity, this process would certainly have pushed her over the edge.

The women nurses were almost unfailingly kind and thoughtful. One carried her kindness to the point of saying once, “You know, I don’t think you are insane.” Alice Paul says, it was staggering to have people express their friendliness for you by assuring you that they thought you were in your right mind. The doctor who forcibly fed her protested against having to do it. She was kept in the psychopathic ward a week incommunicado. When it was discovered where she was, Dudley Field Malone got her removed back to the hospital. Of course the forcible feeding went on.

In the files at Headquarters, there are dozens of affidavits made by the women who went to jail for picketing. It is a great pity that they cannot all be brought to the attention of a newly enfranchised sex. More burningly than anything else, these affidavits would show that sex what work lies before them, as far as penal institutions are concerned. I quote but one of them—that of Ada Davenport Kendall—because it sums up so succinctly and specifically the things that the prison pickets saw.

I went into Occoquan Prison as a prisoner on September 13, 1917.

I went in with the idea of obeying the regulations and of being a reasonable prisoner.

While there I saw such injustice, neglect, and cruelty on the part of the officials that I was forced into rebellion.

During my thirty days’ imprisonment I saw that commissioners and other officials made occasional visits but that the people in charge were usually warned and used much deception on the occasion of these visits. Specially prepared food replaced the wormy, fermenting, and meager fare of ordinary days. Girls too frail to work were hurried off the scrubbing and laundry gangs, and were found apparently resting. Sick women were hidden. Girls were hurried out of punishment cells as the visitors proceeded through the buildings, and were hidden in linen rooms or rooms of matrons already inspected.

While there I was treated with indignities. I was insulted by loud-mouthed officials at every turn, was stripped before other women, stripped of all toilet necessities, warm underwear, and ordinary decencies, was deprived of soap, tooth-brush, writing materials, and sufficient clothing and bed coverings. I was dressed first in clean garments, but the officials later punished me by putting me in unclean clothing and into a filthy bed in which a diseased negress had slept. In the hospital I was obliged to use the toilet which diseased negro women used, although there was a clean unused toilet in the building.

With the four other women who were sentenced with me I was fed food filled with worms and vile with saltpeter; food consisting of cast-off and rotting tomatoes, rotten horse meat and insect-ridden starches. There were no fats: no milk, butter, nor decent food of any kind. Upon this fare I was put at hard labor from seven a.m. until five p.m., with a short luncheon out. We were not allowed to use the paper cups we had brought, but were forced to drink from an open pail, from common cups.

After several days of driven labor this group was ordered to wash the floors and clean the toilets in the dormitory for the colored inmates. I protested for the whole group: said we would not do this dangerous work. For this I was put in solitary confinement which lasted for nearly seven days. Water was brought three times in the twenty-four hours, in a small paper cup. Three thin slices of bread were brought in twenty-four hours. Several times matrons with attendants came in and threatened me and threw me about. They searched me for notes or any writing, and threw me about and tore my clothes. I was allowed no water for toilet, and the only toilet convenience was an open bucket. No reading nor writing materials were allowed. Mail was cut off, as it was nearly all of the time while I was in prison. I was not allowed to see an attorney during this period. The bed had been slept in and was filthy, and there was no other furniture. After six days, influential friends were able to reach my case from outside the prison, and I was taken out of solitary confinement.

While in prison I heard men and women crying for help, and heard the sound of brutal lashes for long periods,—usually in the evening, after visitors were not expected.

I saw a woman have a hemorrhage from the lungs at nine in the morning—saw her lie neglected, heard the matrons refuse to call a doctor; and at eleven saw the woman carry a tobacco pail filled with water to scrub a floor; saw her bleeding while she was scrubbing, and when she cried a matron scolded her.

Saw a young dope fiend who was insane run out of a door, and heard a matron at the telephone order men to loose the bloodhounds upon this girl in the dark. Soon heard the dogs howling and running about.

Saw men with fetters on legs being driven to and from work.

Saw matrons choke and shake girls.

Was continually disgusted with lack of fair play in the institution.

Inmates were set to spy upon the others, and were rewarded or punished, as they played the game of the matrons.

Saw sick girls working in laundry. Saw diseased women sleeping, bathing, and eating with other inmates.

Saw armed men driving prisoners to work.

Saw milk and vegetables shipped to Washington, and rotting vegetables brought up from city market.

Saw unconscious women being brought from punishment cells.

Saw sick women refused medical help, and locked in the hospital without attendance to suffer. Saw them refused milk or proper food. Saw them refused rest, and once I saw the only medical attendant kick at a complaining inmate and slam the office door in her face.

Found that while the institution was supposed to build and improve inmates, they were ordinarily not allowed any recreation nor proper cleanliness. No classes were held, and no teaching of any sort was attempted. They were deprived of all parcels, and mail was usually withheld both coming and going. Visitors and attorneys were held up, and the prisoners usually absolutely shut away from help.

Found that no rules governing the rights of the prisoners had been codified by the Congressional Committee responsible for the institution, and was told by the superintendent that the prisoners had no rights and that the superintendent could treat the inmates as he liked.

Under that management, the matrons, while apparently ordinarily decent and often making a good first impression, were found to be brutal and unreasonable in their care of inmates.

The inmates were driven, abused, insulted. They were not allowed to speak in the dining-room or workrooms or dormitories. It was a place of chicanery, sinister horror, brutality, and dread.

No one could go there for a stay who would not be permanently injured. No one could come out without just resentment against any government which could maintain such an institution.

As has been told before Judge Waddill decided that the pickets had been illegally transferred from the Jail to Occoquan and they were sent back to the Jail. But between Occoquan and Jail occurred one night, in which the pickets were released in the custody of Dudley Field Malone, their counsel. They went immediately to Cameron House and broke their hunger-strike—spent the evening before the fire, talking and sipping hot milk. The next day they were committed to jail again and immediately started a new hunger-strike.

The government, however, undoubtedly appalled by the protests that came from all over the country, and perhaps, in addition, staggered at the prospect of forcibly feeding so many women, released them all three days later.

A mass-meeting was held at the Belasco Theatre early in December to welcome them. The auditorium was crowded and there was an overflow meeting of four thousand outside on the sidewalk. The police reserves, who had so often, in previous months, come out to arrest pickets, now came out to protect them from the thousands of people who gathered in their honor. Elsie Hill addressed this overflow meeting, which shivered in the bitter cold for over an hour, yet stayed to hear her story.

Inside, eighty-one women in white, all of whom had served in the Jail or the Workhouse, carrying lettered banners and purple, white, and gold banners, marched down the two center aisles of the theatre and onto the stage. There were speeches by Mrs. Thomas Hepburn, Dudley Field Malone, Mrs. William Kent, Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont, and Maud Younger. Then came an interval in which money was raised. Two touching details were sums of fifty cents and thirty cents pledged from Occoquan “because the Suffragettes helped us so much down there.” And Mrs. John Rogers, Jr., on behalf of the pickets gave “tenderest thanks for this help from our comrades in the Workhouse.”

Eighty-six thousand, three hundred and eighty-six dollars was raised in honor of the pickets.

On that occasion, prison pins which were tiny replicas in silver of the cell doors, were presented to each “prisoner of freedom.”

As Alice Paul appeared to receive her pin, Dudley Field Malone called, “Alice Paul,” and the audience leaped to its feet; the cheers and applause lasted until she disappeared at the back of the platform.

It is a poignant regret to the present author that she cannot go further into conditions at the District Jail and at Occoquan in regard to the other prisoners there. But that is another story and must be told by those whose work is penal investigation. The Suffragists uncovered conditions destructive to body and soul; incredibly inhumane! One of the heart-breaking handicaps of the swift, intensive warfare of the pickets was that, although they did much to ameliorate conditions for their fellow prisoners, they could not make them ideal. Piteous appeal after piteous appeal came to them from their “comrades in the Workhouse.”

“If we go on a hunger-strike, will they make things better for us?” the other prisoners asked again and again.

“No,” the Suffragists answered sadly. “You have no organization back of you.”

However, in whatever ways were open to them the Suffragists offered counsel and assistance of all kinds.

I asked one of the pickets once how the other prisoners regarded them. She answered: “They called us ‘the strange ladies.’”