Unexpected Gifts (29 page)

I loved it when she slammed her palm down on the desk. It was so at odds with her lady-like appearance.

“How dare these women be content with only state suffrage!” she continued. “That's it! We are going to start picketing next week.
”

“Picketing?” I echoed.

Her eyes had glazed over. “Yes, we're going to be in front of the White House every single day with signs and banners, no matter what.
Forward out of Darkness; Forward into Light!
”

The winds of war can change everything. In 1861, the women's suffrage movement was stalled for five long years while the Civil War raged, but in 1917, when Wilson at last agreed to enter World War I after the United States'
Lucitania
was torpedoed, Alice wasn't so patient. She continued plotting endlessly with plans for After The War, grousing about how women were once again being pushed towards helping these poor soldiers rather than helping themselves gain equal rights.

1918 brought with it the end of global bloodshed, our soldiers' return home, and a massive flu epidemic. Once again, mothers, daughters, and grandmothers were expected to aid the sick as Suffrage in Congress sat as dormant as the jar of preserves in our pantry.

Then one day, Alice bubbled over with excitement. Finally, the Women's Vote issue was being revisited, and her “We're back in business!” was met with a barrage of thunderous applause.

And we were. Picketing in front of the White House took up the majority of our time. Rain or shine, drenched in perspiration or shivering from the eye-stinging cold, I was out in front of those iron gates, holding up a sign that read:

MR. PRESIDENT HOW LONG MUST WOMEN WAIT FOR LIBERTY?

In the mornings, as we hopped up and down to keep warm, there might be a kindly little old man carrying a warm brick for us to take turns standing on, by noon, a gathering of
Anti's
, recently organized into the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, telling us we should go home to our parents or our husbands where we belonged, and by nightfall, a rowdy group of men, all liquored up, bombarding us with rotten fruit.

I'll never forget the day Alice caught me leaning against the White House fence, my sash askew, my banner drooping like a soft curtain. “Adriana! This is not how soldiers behave.”

I stared at the whites of her wildly protruding eyes as I struggled for something to say. The ladies around me were beginning to shuffle their boots and clear their throats, when from out of nowhere, a familiar voice rang out.

“Adriana!” Sarah cried.

“Sarah! Why in the world are you here?” I threw my arms around her like a long lost child. It wasn't timed, but I swear we must have held onto each other for a good half minute before Alice came charging over.

“Sarah Braunstein, I presume?”

“Yes, it is I.” I had never heard Sarah's voice so frigid. “I'd like to speak to Adriana alone, if you don't mind.”

Alice stepped back, then retreated further down the line to give support to her
girls
and sharp words to any Anti's standing nearby.

Sarah pulled me away towards a street vendor. “Adriana, what are you doing?”

“Sarah, let's not have this conversation. I'm fighting for our cause.”

Sarah lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “Yes, but with Alice Paul? Are you aware of what she has just done?”

I straightened up. “What, pray tell? What thing has she done that is so terrible, besides looking out for all womankind?”

“Why, she's been sending out the word to women and men advocates across the country to vote against the Democratic ticket next election, just because Wilson is a Democrat and she feels he hasn't been doing enough for us.”

“So?”

“So, that means even Democrats who are in full support of our cause might not be re-elected, just because Alice is so dogmatically against Wilson. It also means that all the states that already have full suffrage for women might go down in flames because if their Democratic leaders are not re-elected, once the Republicans get in, they'll try very hard to disenfranchise us and we'll have to begin all over again.”

“Oh.”

“Look, dear. Just promise me you'll think about this woman you are following so blindly, that's all I ask.” Her hug good-bye felt bittersweet, and in hindsight, I wish she hadn't left so early. By four o'clock I was sitting in a cramped, foul-smelling paddy wagon with Alice and eight others, on our way to jail.

“Remember, stay silent and strong, like the true sentinels you are. Refuse to eat! Refuse to eat!” Alice kept reiterating, and like good little draftees, we did as we were told. But after they split us up, Alice off to a solitary cell. I, crammed in next to Karina and three others on a hard, cold bench in an unidentified hallway, my bladder weakened, causing an accident on the urine-steeped floor.

We could hear Alice's crazed voice hurling directives in the background, growing weaker by the minute. “Never give in, never give in,” she cried, as two guards grabbed me by my arms and flung me into a five-by-five foot room, fit for a medieval torture session. Once there, I was handed over to someone who looked like a doctor, and who, along with three nurses, shoved me down unceremoniously onto a large, scratch-worn chair and tied me up like one of those hogs Mama and I had seen in a
Ma and Pa Kettle
movie so long ago in Detroit.

As they tented around me, sucking out what little air was left in the threadbare chamber, I thought of Mama. Perhaps her docility wasn't so terrible, maybe none of this was worth it. I thought of Tony, how young he was when I had left, and I pictured Sarah and Corlie. Suddenly, without warning, I began to cry.

“Are you sure you don't want to eat, love?” A nurse sing-songed with an Irish lilt.

I was tempted to shake my head no, but Alice's presence loomed too near. Instead, I nodded twice and as the nurse jammed a twenty foot tube, topped off with a funnel on one end, far up into my right nostril, all my senses heightened. I could smell the stench of urine in my underwear, feel the ties on my hands digging into my skin, the hard chair under me prodding my backbone, and just before the steady flow of liquid food descended into my nasal cavity, I heard the nurse heave the tiniest of sighs.

The liquid came down surprisingly fast, swirling around in my sinuses and making my ears feel as if they were about to explode. My constant gagging, coughing, and shifting of position must have posed a problem for them because at one point the doctor growled, “Strap her down tighter, for God's sake. She's a handful, this one. Tie her down!”

The gag, cough, shift routine seemed to carry on forever, but dragging me away for an overnight rest bit before the morning replay, I caught someone's comment. “Thank God that's over. What did it take, just ten, fifteen minutes? It felt like hours.”

Back in our cell, Karina was lying in a fetal position on a lice-infested mattress, with Alice, in the cell across from us, stretching a frail arm out through the bars towards me and whispering, “God bless you. God bless you.”

The following days were a blur of repeat performances; gag–cough–shift. The third time out, I vomited. Or tried to. All I could manage was what the doctor called the dry heaves. Returning to my cell a fourth time, Alice waved a limp hand across the way and croaked, “Keep going, Adriana. Keep going. Show them what we're made of.”

I stared at her dazed, inert eyes, the outer edge of her right eye twitching uncontrollably.

By the fifth morning I had made up my mind. No more force-feedings.

Prison food was barely edible—some sort of unidentifiable gruel. But at least after I had something in my stomach I could stand without help, and more importantly, I could breathe regularly again. Until Alice refused to talk to me, that is. For the remaining time in prison, she was cold as ice.

Finally released, we sentinels returned home, Alice and Karina walking together arm-in-arm, verbalizing softly about how amazing it was that our presence in the upstairs gallery was permitted for the upcoming vote on the House floor, while I stayed a good two paces behind, pretending I was still part of their group.

The House floor balcony reminded me of the top cheap seats in a theater. Congested, dank from overactive rains, and a reminder of our peripheral status. Not knowing what else to do, I filed in with Alice and her entourage right before the Montana Republican representative Jeanette Rankin opened the debate on the long, enduring suffrage amendment.

After various deliberations, a vote was demanded. I knew the House needed a two-thirds majority, which after a harrowing tally, some representatives claimed they had, others claimed not. A free-for-all ensued, and from our bird's eye perspective, we watched people's arms flying up into the air like so many flocks of birds as the delegates argued and a roll call had to be issued three separate times to ensure accuracy.

Sitting across several aisles from us, I spotted Sarah and Corlie and without thinking, gave a broad wave. They enthusiastically waved back in turn.

“Adriana, stop it!” Karina hissed.

I waved a second time. “Adriana!” Alice joined in.

I never felt as sure of myself as when I rose up and inched my way across the aisles, squeezing by muddied petticoats and boots coupled with fur-lined collared coats, to my two friends who happily sandwiched me between them. Back in the bosom of my family, I looked back over at the Paul camp and laughed when they arched their noses high into the air.

By five p.m., the House passed the 19
^th
,
the Susan B. Anthony Amendment
, later calling it the closest margin in its history and with the Senate an unsure entity, both the Alice Paul and the Carrie Chapman Catt circles recognized a victory might not be so eminent.

Back in Detroit, my fervor had been reinstated, this time, with patience and a bit more wisdom as I continued our center's work and watched the amendment process from a safer distance. Month by month, one senator after another promised support for women's suffrage and with each new conquest, Sarah, Corlie and I toasted each other with fine, apple cider by the fireplace. Still, no Senate passage.

We went about our business, nodding, smiling, but inside, always praying for the good word. When it came at last, how the Senate had narrowly squeaked by the amendment, we cautiously cheered. It was all boiling down to Tennessee and obtaining a three-quarters U.S. state legislative passage. Not an easy task in such an Anti-state. For days, there came little communication and with it being held in August, the heat became a definite factor. No one could think, much less act expeditiously.

Reports from Carrie Chapman Catt began to leak out. Apparently, outside men had suddenly arrived on the scene, buying votes by promising liquor to Tennessee lawmakers, keeping them up drinking the entire night before a vote, and telling them how they should mark their ballots for the good of their country.

But no one in their right mind would have thought Harry Burn, one of the youngest legislators on record, would have actually listened to his mother's plea for womanhood and take such a courageous stand. Even after the passage, outside the building, surrounded by ecstatic women, furious men, and curious reporters, he knew his life would never be the same: