Silent Sentinels
The Silent Sentinels, also known as the Sentinels of Liberty,[1][2][3] were a group of over 2,000 women in favor of women's suffrage organized by Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party, who nonviolently protested in front of the White House during Woodrow Wilson's presidency starting on January 10, 1917.
[1][3] Later, they also protested in Lafayette Square, not stopping until June 4, 1919 when the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed both by the House of Representatives and the Senate.
[6] Throughout this two and a half year long vigil, many of the women who picketed[8] were harassed, arrested, and unjustly treated by local and US authorities, including the torture and abuse inflicted on them before and during the November 14, 1917 Night of Terror.
It covered the Sentinels' progress and included interviews with protesters, reports on President Woodrow Wilson's (non) reaction, and political essays.
Most copies went to party members, advertisers, branch headquarters, and NWP organizers, which strongly suggests that the suffragists themselves were a key audience of the publication.
"[6] The following are examples of banners held by the women: The Sentinels all wore purple, white, and gold sashes which were the NWP's colors.
Other ways of showing support included writing letters praising the Sentinels to The Suffragist and donating money.
[8] Members of the National American Woman Suffrage Association feared that pickets would create a backlash from male voters.
Mobs sometimes attempted to deter the Silent Sentinels through violence (which increased after US entry into World War I).
[14] On June 22, 1917, police arrested protesters Lucy Burns and Katherine Morey on charges of obstructing traffic because they carried a banner quoting from Wilson's speech to Congress: "We shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments."
On June 25, 12 women were arrested, including Mabel Vernon and Annie Arniel from Delaware, again on charges of obstructing traffic.
On July 14, 16 women, including Matilda Hall Gardner, Florence Bayard Hilles, Alison Turnbull Hopkins, and Elizabeth Selden Rogers (of the politically powerful Baldwin, Hoar & Sherman family) were arrested and sentenced to 60 days in jail or to pay a $25 fine.
When the number of women being arrested surpassed the resources of the District of Columbia Jail, the prisoners were taken to Virginia's Occoquan Workhouse (now the Lorton Correctional Complex).
[15] After a heated debate, the House of Representatives created a committee to deal with women's suffrage in September 1917.
Massachusetts Representative Joseph Walsh opposed the creation of the committee, thinking the House was yielding to "the nagging of iron-jawed angels."
Finally, police arrested Alice Paul on October 20, 1917, while she carried a banner that quoted Wilson: "The time has come to conquer or submit, for us there can be but one choice.
[15] In response to the hunger strike, the prison doctors forcefed the women by putting tubes down their throats.
"[18] A large number of Sentinels protested the forcefeeding of the suffragists on November 10 and around 31 of these were arrested and sent to Occoquan Workhouse.
Dorothy Day, who later co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement, was slammed repeatedly over the back of an iron bench.
To keep up the pressure, on December 16, 1918, protesters started burning Wilson's words in watch fires in front of the White House.
[25] On another front, the National Woman's Party, led by Paul, urged citizens to vote against anti-suffrage senators up for election in the fall of 1918.
