Washington Disgraced by Hoodlums;
Suffrage Parade Marches Into History
"The Ides of March have come and
gone and Ceasar's yet alive," which, being interpreted means that the great
suffrage pageant, so long in the planning, so arduous in the execution, passed
triumphantly down the disputed avenue
into the domain of national history on
March 8, 1913, in spite of the hostility
of the police force of Washington—and
the thousands of women who composed
its ranks every blessed one of them
still lives—-will push their cause forward to victory already within sight.
The memorable day dawned bright
and clear, and soon the city was aglow
with "Miss Columbia's own particular
color"—suffrage yellow floating in flags,
pennants and streamers, from every
available point and person. Even mother nature rallied loyally to the aid of
her daughters, and sent a flood of sweet
spring sunshine to temper the sharp
western winds, and by means of a
hurry order, brought to swift blossom
great masses of golden forsythia, daffodils and tulips, all quivering with excitement and with eagerness to lend enchantment to the momentous occasion.
At an early hour throngs of busy
women began to pour into the streets
and to hurry to and from headquarters
to receive their marching orders and complete the last details of preparations. At the appointed hour the grand
army of women, more than five thousand strong, with its hundreds of divisions, floats, chariots, classes, crafts, professions and orders, all symbolically
(missing)parisoned stood to attention. At the
single blast of the chief herald Miss Inez
Millholland, the parade started from its
rendezvous at the base of the capitol,
while at the same moment the call which
set in motion the pantomime was passed
on from herald to herald until it
reached the actors waiting on the plaza
of the treasury building. Beautiful beyond description was this allegorical
symphony in coloring and grouping,
which portrayed woman's struggle for
freedom and the final victory of her
cause throughout the world. Thus
ended the first glorious act of the pageant. Then tug of war, so to speak,
for in the meantime the great surging
masses of humanity that lined the street
had broken through the unguarded barriers. And the pageant, which would
have been the most imposing spectacle
ever witnessed in Washington, was separated into fragments, halted at every
pace, and reduced to a single file line
struggling against, a crushing, ruffianly
mob that was fast closing in on both
sides, unrestrained, by the policemen
who stood idly by or joined in the scoffs
of the hoodlums. Seeing that the police were making no effort to clear the
route the marshals and heralds appealed
to the secretary off war, and soon troops
from Fort Myer were rushed to the rescue. Amid a wild burst of applause
from the stands the boys in brown
pushed aside the (missing)aping policemen and
charged down (missing) side of the solid
walls of stubborn humanity and quickly
cleared the way for the undaunted suffragists who completed
their triumphant
march to Continental hall, where the
proposed suffrage demonstration resolved
itself into an indignation meeting. Dr.
Anna Shaw led the meeting and opened
it with a scathing denunciation of the
officials who had disobeyed the explicit
order of congress and failed to provide
the same protection for the women
marchers that is always furnished for
masculine paraders. On motion of Os-
wald Garrison Villiard, editor of the
New York Evening Post, this denunciation was embodied in the following resolution:—
