At first, President Wilson was not very sensitive to the women's protest. At times, he even seemed amused, tipping his hat and smiling. It was said that at one point Wilson even invited them over for coffee. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay At other times, he ignored the protests altogether, like when the Sentinels demonstrated on the day of his second inauguration ceremony. As the Sentinels continued to protest, the issue grew larger and Wilson's opinion began to change. Although he continued to hate the Silent Sentinels, he began to recognize them as a group that seriously posed a problem to him. After President Wilson's reelection, Alice Paul called on members of the National Woman's Party to picket the White House to convince the president to pressure Democratic senators to vote for an amendment to the constitutional suffrage. Lucy Burns led most of the protests. The protesters were not attacked and, in fact, the president often waved to them as he left the White House. To maintain press interest, Paul and Burns organized groups representing women from different backgrounds to demonstrate on different days. Founded by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns in 1913, the National Woman's Party (NWP) fought for women's right to vote. It was originally called the Congressional Union for Women's Suffrage (CU), until 1916, when it developed a new name, the NWP. The party split from a larger party, the National Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), headquartered primarily in Washington. The NWP split from NAWSA because it wanted women's suffrage work to focus at the federal level, rather than just at the state and local levels. They opposed President Wilson, all Democrats, and World War I, often finding themselves at odds. with other suffragists. The NWP was an aggressive party, whose goals were direct action and confrontation to get its message across, rather than the passive tactics practiced in the past. The NWP organized marches and acts of civil disobedience and became the first group to demonstrate in front of the White House. On June 22, 1917, police arrested protesters Lucy Burns and Katherine Morey on charges of obstructing traffic because they carried a banner quoting Wilson's speech. in Congress. The charges were dropped. Police warned the women they would be arrested if they continued. Nevertheless, they persisted. The first arrests took place in June – three-day sentences, mainly for “obstructing the sidewalk”. The judges fined the picketers $25, which they refused to pay. After serving three days, the women returned to their sites in front of the White House. But the women arrested in August were sentenced to 60 days in prison – in Occoquan. The military often agitated the demonstrators and, in some cases, attacked pickets while the police did nothing to prevent the confrontation. By November, several picketers had been arrested several times and Whittaker had lost his patience. Suffragists demanded to be considered political prisoners, a distinction that could eventually mean better treatment at the D.C. prison than at Occoquan. When the women arrived at the Occoquan Workhouse (now the Lorton Correctional Complex), they were asked to give up everything excepttheir clothes. They were then taken to a shower where they were ordered to undress and wash themselves. There was only one bar of soap available to everyone in the workshop, so all the suffragettes refused to use it. Then they were given loose, dirty, uncomfortable prison clothes and taken to dinner. They could barely eat dinner because it was sour and tasteless. Conditions at the Occoquan Workhouse were very unsanitary and dangerous. Prisoners had to share their cells and much else with those suffering from syphilis, and worms were frequently found in their food. After serving three days at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia, Wilson pardoned the women. At first they refused to be pardoned because they were innocent and had nothing to forgive, but they were eventually deported. After heated debate, the House of Representatives created a committee to address women's suffrage in September 1917. Massachusetts Representative Joseph Walsh opposed the creation of the committee, believing the House was giving in to the “harassing iron-jawed angels”. to the silent Sentinels as “disoriented and deluded creatures with short skirts and short hair”. As suffragists continued to protest, prison sentences lengthened. Eventually, police arrested Alice Paul on October 20, 1917, as she held up a banner quoting Wilson: "The time has come to conquer or submit, for us there can only be one choice." We did it. She was sentenced to seven months in prison. Paul and many others were again sent to the Occoquan Workhouse, where Paul was placed in solitary confinement for two weeks, with nothing to eat except bread and water. She became weak and unable to walk, so she was taken to the prison hospital. There she began a hunger strike and others joined her. In response to the hunger strike, prison doctors force-fed the women by inserting tubes down their throats. They force-fed them substances containing as much protein as possible, such as raw eggs mixed with milk. Many women ended up vomiting because their stomachs couldn't handle the protein. A doctor reported that Alice Paul had "a mind like Joan of Arc, and it is useless to try to change it." She will die but she will never give up. »[12]. Nolan and most of the others arrested on November 10, 1917, were sent to Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia. Upon arrival at the workhouse, the women refused to wear prison uniforms or work; guards became violent, kicking and beating prisoners in what became known in the voting rights movement as "The Night of Terror." The women again resorted to a hunger strike. When released, many were too weak to walk on their own. At the heart of the story, during the event: When Woodrow Wilson took office in January, protesters took positions outside the White House, holding vigils around the clock to demand the vote for women. Despite the ongoing world war, they refused to withdraw or suppress their demands. Instead, Alice Paul, Lucy Burns and other members of the National Woman's Party sought to humiliate the president and call out the hypocrisy of "making the world safer for democracy" when there is none. didn't have them at home. Their banners read: “Mr. President, how long must women wait for freedom.” They hung Wilson in effigy and burned copies of his speeches. The arrests began in June. “Obstructing traffic” was the chargeusual, but many prison officials, as well as citizens, considered the suffragists traitors. In the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia, they ate rancid food; were denied medical care and visits. The demonstrators demanded political prisoner status. This was refused. But the government's tactics did not work. Upon their release from prison, the women returned to the gates of the White House. Their ranks have grown. In November, there were more protests and more arrests. An investigation was opened into conditions at Occoquan and the activities of its superintendent, W. H. Whittaker, whose particular cruelty was well known. Whittaker and his shop guards welcomed 33 returning protesters during what became known as the infamous “Night of Terror” in November. 14, 1917. Forty-four men wielding clubs beat, kicked, dragged and choked their charges, including at least one 73-year-old woman. The women were lifted into the air and thrown to the ground. One was stabbed between the eyes with the broken staff of her banner. Lucy Burns was handcuffed to the bars of her cell in a torture position. The women were dragged by guards, twisting their arms, and thrown into concrete “punishment cells.” In Occoquan, rats ran in and out of unlit cells. Prisoners held competitionscounting the number of maggots in their food. And prison denied women one of the most basic human dignity: their privacy. “In the morning, we were taken one by one to the bathroom down the hall,” Day recalled in her memoir “The Long Loneliness.” “There were toilets in each cell, open, and the toilet paper and flush were provided by the guard. It was like being in a zoo with the open bars overlooking the hallway. » Four hours later, Occoquan's superintendent, WH Whittaker, placed his guards over the women. Dora Lewis, thrown into a cell, hit her head on an iron bed. His cellmate Alice Cosu thought Lewis was dead (she survived) and suffered a heart attack. Lucy Burns was stripped naked, with her hands raised above her head and chained to the bars until the next day. Some women protested the physical violence committed that night by going on hunger strike. For their troubles, they were force-fed raw eggs and milk, which made them seriously ill. Those who did not fast were fed such horrible food, as part of the psychological game of cat and mouse, that they sent the worms found in their soup and bread to the guard. Right after: Newspapers published articles about how the protesters were being treated. These stories angered some Americans and subsequently generated more support for the Voting Rights Amendment. On November 27 and 28, all the protesters were released, including Alice Paul, after five weeks in prison. Later, in March 1918, the Washington Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the convictions of six suffragists. The court ruled that the information on which the women's convictions were based was too vague. Despite all the pain, that brutal night may have turned the tide. Less than two weeks later, a court-ordered hearing exposed the battered women to the world and the judge acknowledged that they had been terrorized simply because they were exercising their constitutional right to protest. It would take another three years to win the vote, but the courageous women of 1917 had achieved a new definition of female patriotism..