Free Thinker by Kimberly A. Hamlin

Author:Kimberly A. Hamlin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2020-02-06T16:00:00+00:00

DESPITE THE MISGIVINGS of NAWSA headquarters that the scope of the parade might be too militant or too ambitious, Paul, Gardener, and their small team had organized the biggest and highest-profile suffrage event in history. But just as the procession began, hostile men crowded onto Pennsylvania Avenue, obstructing the path of the marchers for several blocks, often reducing the parade to a single file. The men pressed up against the marchers, called them unprintable names, spat on them, tripped them, and assaulted them. Few policemen could be seen, and many simply joined the crowd. For almost two hours, thousands of women stood virtually unprotected against an angry, intoxicated mob. The procession stood at a standstill, from 6th to 14th Streets, until the U.S. Calvary was called in to clear Pennsylvania Avenue and restore order.55

In the short term, the police snafu succeeded in getting the suffragists an immediate audience before Congress. Just days after the procession, the Senate Subcommittee on the District of Columbia convened hearings to determine what had gone wrong and whose fault it was. The hearings lasted several days—nearly as long as the suffragists had ever testified before Congress over the past fifty years combined—and generated a tremendous amount of written material and photos. The women blamed Washington officials, Police Chief Sylvester, and his bosses, while Sylvester blamed individual officers themselves. Sen. Clyde Tavender reported that he and his wife saw just six policemen along the entire procession and long periods when absolutely no police could be seen to guard the “dignified women” against the “jeering hoodlums.”56 Another witness, William E. Ambrose, described police efforts to clear a path for the procession as “the efforts of a boy to stop a waterfall by using first one hand and then the other.”57

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