June 21-28, 1917

On the topic of suffrage names like Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul come quickly to mind as warriors for the women’s vote, but leave it to Kate Roosevelt and her historic diary entries to add something interesting to the mix.  On June 27, 1917, she wrote, “The women were finally arrested after several exhibitions of themselves and their banners.  This happened when the Russian Mission was visiting the White House. The Suffrage women exhibited banners with insulting implications on them directed at President Wilson and Mr. Root, who is going on a special mission to Russia. One of the women was Dora Lewis, who married Larry Lewis. She is a widow and rather out of her mind, but the world at large does not know this.”

Suffragists being arrested outside of White House

Well the New York Times couldn’t have summed up the day’s events better. According to my research, the women known as “silent sentinels” picketed in front of the White House carrying Russian banners accusing President Wilson and the American Envoy to Russia during World War One, Elihu Root, of deceiving Russia by claiming that America was a democracy as long as women were denied the right to vote. An angry crowd destroyed the banners and the women were arrested. Along with the so- called “mentally disturbed” Dora Lewis, suffragette Lucy Burns was also carted off to jail.

Dora Lewis being release from jail

Both women were part of society’s, educated  upper-class willing to risk their family fortune and tarnish their good name with their fight for the cause. Dora Lewis married into a prominent Philadelphia family. Her husband, Lawrence Lewis or “Larry” as Kate casually referred to him, was a wealthy philanthropist and a cousin of Kate Roosevelt’s on the Shippen side of the family. Dora’s son, Shippen Lewis, was a well-respected constitutional lawyer often called upon to defend his mother. Now I saw the connection and why Kate Roosevelt felt comfortable calling her cousin-by-marriage “unstable.” Dora, like Kate was widowed at a young age when her thirty-two year-old husband, Lawrence Lewis, was run over by a train. But unlike Kate Roosevelt, she soon became swept up in the National Women’s Right to Vote Movement and spent many a night in jail after engaging in provocative protests.

Dora Lewis

Dora Lewis’ controversial side-kick was the activist Lucy Burns and from her biography, I could only imagine what Kate Roosevelt thought of her. Lucy Burns was an Irish-Catholic from Brooklyn, New York. According to Kate Roosevelt’s standards, she was plagued with the “double whammy.” She was Catholic and a suffragist. Kate referred to Catholics as “that religious group who participated in long-winded rituals” and suffragists as “soap box militants.”

Lucy Burns

Besides her ethnic and religious affiliations, Lucy Burns was more well-known for her firebrand fight to gain the right to vote and she was imprisoned for her efforts more than any other suffragette. In October, 1917, she spent sixty days in Virginia’s Occoquan Workhouse for refusing to pay a ten dollar fine for obstructing traffic in front of the White House. Called political prisoners, Lucy Burns and her cell-mates were subjects of an HBO film, Iron-Jawed Angels, starring Hillary Swank as Alice Paul and Frances O’Connor as Lucy Burns. Lucy Burns was educated at Vassar and Yale and while pursuing a degree in linguistics at Oxford, became involved in the British Suffrage Movement. She met the American activist Alice Paul protesting outside of Parliament and the two became fast friends, taking their fight back to the United States.

Suffragists spreading the word

With the country in the midst of World War One, it seemed to Kate and many other patriots that it was the wrong time to burden President Wilson with a domestic conflict. “Selfish suffragists” is what Kate Roosevelt thought of Dora Lewis, Lucy Burns, and the other protestors and she ended her diary entry for June 27, 1917 by saying so, “National Woman’s Party maintains suffrage pickets in front of the White House.  Is it an American organization or has it been transferred into a bureau of the German propaganda?  They have done the cause of women’s votes a grave injury by accusing the president of deceiving Russia, our ally.”

Sharon Hazard’s Dowager’s Diary appears on Thursday.

Photo One:
Picket Line in front of White House, 1917
Library of Congress

Photo Two:
Suffragists being arrested outside of White House
Library of Congress

Photo Three:
Dora Lewis being release from jail
Library of Congress

Photo Four:
Dora Lewis
Library of Congress

Photo Five:
Lucy Burns
Library of Congress

Photo Six:
Suffragists spreading the word
Library of Congress

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