The Eleventh Virgin by Dorothy Day (important books to read .TXT) 📕

who refused to allow her to marry a young anarchist, whom she had met at a radical club on Ashburton Place.

Two young Christian Scientists came from California and their religious fervor was only exceeded by their enthusiasm for suffrage. One of them was about to be married to a soldier who expected to be sent to France at any moment. But she had postponed her wedding in order that she might give her full attention to the suffrage work.

Old Mrs. Angell represented Florida and newspapers made much of the fact that she was eighty-six years old. She had been working for suffrage all her life and when she learned of what seemed to her a quicker way of attaining her end, she took the first train to Washington. The organization accepted her gladly. She was the most effective figure in the demonstration.

The youngest demonstrator was eighteen, a slim thing just out of school who looked four years younger than she was. Her sister was one of the leaders of the party. She was a quiet, gentle little creature and it was infinitely pathetic to think of her being locked in a cold “solitary” cell. She looked even more pathetic and young photographed.

And middle-aged maiden ladies and straight-backed school teachers completed the group.

After you had met the two women who were at the head of the movement it was easy to see why it was so many women clung to the cause and made a life work of it. They merely reflected the religious zeal which was undercurrent in the entire organization.

June had no opportunity to meet the head of the party. Jane Worth was already in jail⁠—had already served two months of her sentence of six months and was now with one companion hunger-striking for the rights of political prisoners. The thirty-five women who were about to picket burned to join her, and when it was suggested to them that they hunger strike too, all agreed and ate the cakes of chocolate which they had been accumulating to eke out their prison fare. Jane Worth was a short, brown-eyed young woman of the south who had served her apprenticeship to the suffrage cause with her assistant, Helen Drummond, in London. Both had served jail sentences there and had returned to start a militant party in America.

There was something compelling about Miss Worth’s eyes. It was said around headquarters that she could make a fractious devotee do anything she wished by just looking at her, backing up her steady gaze by a soft argument in a most ladylike tone of voice. June thought at first that these remarks arose from admiration, but the more she saw of the suffragists, the more she realized that it was something more than just admiration in the attitude of her followers towards her. There was a quality of blind adoration.

There was nothing militant about her appearance. On the other hand, her assistant Grace Drummond, tall, deep-chested, red-haired and vigorous, brought with her the atmosphere of combat. She was a type that appealed to June far more than little Miss Worth with her quietly compelling and assured eyes.

There was a story about her which some English friend must have repeated, for she never talked about herself, of a suffrage adventure which she had while she was in London.

She had been appointed by the suffragists as one having more than woman’s usual share of poise, to smuggle herself into a reception given to members of Parliament and their guests and confront Lloyd George and make a speech. A thing which seemed at first thought impossible to do. In the first place it would be difficult to get into the reception as all the doors and windows were guarded against any outbreak of the suffragists. Once in, however, it would be easy enough to confront Lloyd George. The problem then would be to get him to listen to a speech. It wasn’t to be thought that he would stand still and courteously listen to a suffrage appeal.

But Grace Drummond carried out the plan successfully. Enlisting the aid of a tall, broad-shouldered young man, and borrowing the elegant equipage which the people who attend such functions have at their disposal, she dressed in full evening costume and sailed up to the door like a queen. Tickets were expected by the doorkeeper and her companion turned to her.

“Where are the tickets?”

She started to open her bag and then desisted. “But I expressly said that I had left them in your dressing-room,” she replied6 in evident but well-bred irritation.

She lifted her haughty eyebrows, he shrugged, looked at the doorkeeper and smiled as a patient husband will do, and the doorkeeper allowed them to pass.

What followed took more courage. In the midst of the reception when all the guests had arrived, Miss Drummond went quietly up to Lloyd George while her companion took his station directly behind the minister. When she began her little speech which she had been repeating frantically all the way in the cab, the strong young man seized the arms of Lloyd George from behind and held him fast. The minister couldn’t release himself from the iron grip and it would have been most undignified to wriggle. So he stood and listened to what Miss Drummond had to say. Her remarks were short and swift and to the point and no one had time to interfere or do more than stand thunderstruck until the little scene was over. Then miraculously enough, the two were able to get away and the end of the story was that she sat in the cab and wept on the way back to the suffrage headquarters.

This was the woman who was to head the line of picketers and join Miss Worth in jail. Not that the headquarters were to be left without control during the thirty days or six months that the women were in prison. Many were there to carry out the directions and work of the militant party.

The parade