October 25, 1918, Washington DC. Rumors swirl that the war will be ending soon. Schools and other gathering places are cautiously re-opening, despite the Flu epidemic. And at the Senate Office Building, a small group of women were still fighting for the right to vote.
They were peaceful protestors…or tried to be. As Elizabeth explains to her mother:
Friday p.m. [Senate] Guard Room
No’m, I have not busted my promise [to avoid picketing].[i] The police busted it. In this wise:
Julia [Emory], Matilda Young and I came down the first hour today to peaceably picket the Senate Office steps, as usual.
They took the top of the steps with one of the big gold and white “We Demand an Amendment—” banners and I stood at the bottom in the center with a tricolor floating bravely in the wind.
Thus we stood for perhaps five minutes.
Then in the offing appeared Colonel Higgins, handsome Sergeant at Arms of the Senate, and at his heels 2 police. The police stayed on the curb across the street and the Colonel came on. He passed me, ascended the steps and spoke to Julia. I could not tell what was happening, until I saw the 2 police come across the street and also ascend the steps. Then three dirty, ugly-looking plainclothes men who had been hanging about unnoticed, descended upon me.
I was so astonished I didn’t know what to do. While one wrenched my banner away, two others grabbed me, one on each side. I was so furious I was afraid I would weep for rage. The nasty, dirty things!
Our policy is not to speak to the officers, but that got the best of me—one creature with both paws on one arm and another grabbing my other wrist, me wholly unresisting—so I said in a furious voice: “Does it take both you brutes to hold me?” So one of them let go my arm. And the other stood there and deliberately twisted my wrist as far ’round as he could! Just deliberately, with me not even offering to pull away! “Let go my wrist!” I demanded, which he finally did, grabbing my sleeve, and jerking me zip-zag all the way over to the Capitol, giving me here a pull and there a jerk so that I could not even walk straight. Imagine such treatment, even with the most hardened criminals who were not trying to escape.[ii] My arm aches from fingers to shoulders from that twisting.
We are now here in the guard room. Jamie and Berthe Arnold, who came all unsuspectingly at 3 o’clock to relieve us on picket duty, have joined us here having been arrested also. We have no phone connection—as usual. This is all the paper we can find to write on. The men tried to scare us by talking about the rats in this room, as they brought us over.
I have just had a good compliment. Julia said to Matilda Young: “Gee—I never saw anyone with more spirit than Kalb for a new one!” So often, they say, perfectly courageous women get cold feet after they get here & back down or else it takes so long for them really to get into the spirit of thing. Coming from J. Emory, I certainly treasure that remark. “You’d be perfectly corking in jail,” she said. “We’d never have to worry about you losing your nerve.” They’ve spent the afternoon telling me all sorts of their prison experiences.
It’s beginning to get dark and I suppose they’ll release us soon.
It’s perfectly great the way they’ve stupidly played into our hands & brazenly removed us from the [Senate Office] steps after allowing us to say there peaceably since October 1. When it comes down to a matter of right, of course the Capitol Police had no right to molest us off the Capitol grounds. We were under District police jurisdiction there. But we hear it rumored that they were acting under orders of the Dept of Justice!
We divided our paper up evenly among us, so I’ll have to stop as I’ve come to the end of mine. Will add a note & mail when we get out.
The next is written on a small piece of yellow paper, apparently mailed together with the above.
[National Woman’s Party] Headquarters
They let us out at 10:30 pm and we have just got home. Miss Paul has had everybody in the District telephoning the Capitol & the newspapers, protesting & asking for news. Everybody was tremendously excited. If they’d only kept us all night what a story that would have made! We had bolted ourselves in and made beds of chairs turned upside down and arranged to be quite comfortable.
The place was a sort of junkpile for all kinds of things & we found a sewing machine all threaded up & some sort of striped linen stuff for chair covers. Julia and I each made a lovely big laundry bag, with one of these U.S. Senate tags sewed on them, for souvenirs.
I am quite safe and none the worse for wear, except for a blister on one finger. I think I’ll say the policeman bit it! Goodnight, E.
[i] Her mother made this notation on the copy she shared with other people: “This was following her attack of influenza while she was still weak and had promised to keep out of the picketing at the Capitol steps where she and others had been rough-handled a few days previous.”
[ii] Elizabeth had only been picketing for a month and her naivete/privilege is evident. Yes, she was being abused for no reason. But the belief that “even hardened criminals” would not be treated that way? Twisting wrists is mild compared to what was done to some suspected criminals. In particular, those people perceived as a different race/ethnicity/gender identity. And the early twentieth century was worse than the still-problematic twenty-first century.
Eye-Witness History 
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