VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Alice Paul and Women’s Suffrage | The Great War

NARRATOR: [Alice] Paul and her small band of a dozen suffragists had been the first Americans to actively picket the White House. When war was declared in April, most mainstream suffrage groups suspended their efforts. Not Alice Paul. “If the lack of democracy at home weakens the . . .  fight for democracy 3,000 miles away,” she declared, “the responsibility . . .  is with the government and not with the women of America.”

ADRIANE LENTZ-SMITH, Historian: Alice Paul is deeply critical of Wilson. She turns his language back on him, and says, we are going to continue pushing for the vote, through the war.

CHRISTOPHER CAPOZZOLA, Historian: At first, Wilson sort of ignored them. Condescended to them. Had hot chocolate sent out from the White House kitchen to keep them warm on winter days, but it became increasingly embarrassing that these protests were happening.  And over time Wilson wanted the protesters gone. 

NARRATOR: The president came to see the defiant women outside his window as a threat to the war effort, and conspired with the Washington police to crack down on them. 

In June, when the suffragists raised a banner reading “This Nation is Not Free,” mobs of angry men and women assaulted them, throwing eggs and tomatoes, and shredding their signs. Police and Secret Service men on the scene did nothing to stop the violence, intervening only to arrest the women for “obstructing traffic” and “loud and boisterous talking.”

NARRATOR:  On October 20th, Paul herself was arrested and sentenced to seven months in a Virginia prison.

CAPOZZOLA: Alice Paul knows that imprisoned women suffragists, particularly young, middle-class women, make very good newspaper copy. So she encourages women to stay arrested to refuse to pay bail. 

Shortly after arriving at the prison, Alice Paul went on a hunger strike. Doctors forced a tube down her throat three times a day. When she became too weak to stay in her cell, she was transferred to the hospital, then the psychiatric ward.

CAPOZZOLA: Most Americans, I think, thought that Alice Paul was crazy. That she had gone too far. But then, a crucial thing happened. Late one night in prison, Alice Paul is visited by a close Wilson confidante. Now, we don’t know why he went. We don’t know what they said. But we do know that very soon after this visit, Alice Paul encouraged the National Women’s Party to call off their protests. And we also know that very soon after that, Woodrow Wilson came out in support of women’s suffrage.

KIMBERLY JENSEN, Historian: Wilson understands that these are women who are resilient, who will not give up. Alice Paul is a force of nature. The publicity was destroying the credibility of the Wilson administration in many people’s minds.  

NARRATOR: Despite the possibility of progress, Alice Paul continued to accuse the government of hypocrisy. “We are. . . imprisoned, not because we obstructed traffic,” she said, “but because we pointed out to the President . . . that he was obstructing the cause of democracy at home, while Americans were fighting for it abroad.”