White House Picketing

Watch from 1:51 to 2:32

During January 1917, women started picketing in front of the White House protesting for Women’s Suffrage.  January 10^th was the first day that the daily picketing began. During that year, more than 1,000 women across the country picketed and lined outside the White House.  While picketing, the women held a silent protest and would stand silently holding their signs which read things like “MR. PRESIDENT, WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE?” and “HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY?” These women donned the name "Silent Sentinels" because they stood in silence.

The New York Times said of the picketers, "their purpose is to make it impossible for the President to enter or leave the White House without encountering a picket bearing some device pleading the suffrage cause."

On June 27, 1917, six of the protesters attended Police Court in Washington, D.C., on the accusations of "obstructing traffic." Each of these women were were well educated and successful women who, like all of the other protesters, had been picketing the white house silently.  According to the article entitled "Suffragists Storm Over Washington D.C. in 1917", each of these women were given the option of a 25 dollar fine or a three day imprisonment.  Each women chose to be imprisoned because they felt if they had payed the fine, they would be admitting to the crimes the judge had accused them of.  The women were sent to the Washington jail. 

According to history.net, "All were members of the National Woman's Party (NWP). They were the first of a long procession of women jailed on trumped-up charges solely for demonstrating for their right to vote."

http://www.historynet.com/nineteenth-amendment

Later in the year, the cards and posters began to read more blatant and provocative messages.  The banners would read things like “DEMOCRACY SHOULD BEGIN AT HOME” or “TIME HAS COME TO CONQUER OR SUBMIT, FOR US THERE CAN BE BUT ONE CHOICE.  WE HAVE MADE IT,” which is the sign Alice Paul held while being arrested.   During this time, while Woodrow Wilson would pass the protesters, he would graciously tip his hat in recognition that the picketers were there.

http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/jazz/jb_jazz_sufarrst_1.html

According to the website Women In History, "spectators began assaulting the women verbally and physically, while the police did nothing to protect them."  After the June arrests, the women continued to picket the White House and the arrests became more frequent, violent, and serious, and "the jail terms grew longer."

"Between the dates of June and November 1917, 218 women from 26 states were arrested and charged with “obstructing sidewalk traffic” outside the White House."  97 of those women, including Alice Paul, were jailed.  According to Alice Paul's biography on the website Women In History, Alice Paul was arrested on October 20, 1917  and was sentenced to seven months in the Washington D.C. jail.  Woodrow Wilson, the President himself, was responsible for the arrests. "The banner she carried that day said: "The time has come to conquer or submit, for us there can be but one choice.  We have made it." President Wilson's words."

The above statistics were taken from the following:
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/jazz/jb_jazz_sufarrst_2.html
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/aug28.html
http://historywired.si.edu/detail.cfm?ID=492
http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/paul-ali.htm

After her arrest, Paul was placed in solitary confinement and then staged one of her two famous hunger strikes.  According to Women In History, Alice was taken to the prison hospital where they put Alice in the psychopathic ward with the intent of declaring her insane. Officials threatened to take her to St. Elizabeth's Hospital, an asylum in Washington, D.C., but Alice would not yield. According to the article "Suffragists Storm Over Washington D.C. in 1917" in the D.C. jail, Paul and other suffragists rivaled the hardships encountered by their fellow suffragists like Lucy Burns at the Occoquan jail. "No privacy; stifling, overcrowded, vermin-infested cells; close to total isolation.  Privileges enjoyed by regular inmates were denied the suffragists."

“I resorted to the hunger strike method twice… When the forcible feeding was ordered I was taken from my bed, carried to another room and forced into a chair, bound with sheets and sat upon bodily by a fat murderer, whose duty was to keep me still.  Then the prison doctor, assisted by two woman attendants, placed a rubber tube up my nostrils and pumped liquid food through it into the stomach.  Twice a day for a month, from November 1 to December 1, this was done. “

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/aug28.html

To learn more about the treatment of the women in the jail, visit the Imprisonment and Hunger Strike section of our blog.