Part 26 (1/2)

The President was visibly moved as I added, ”You are the President now, reelected to office. You ask if I am going to sacrifice you. You sacrifice nothing by my resignation. But I lose much. I quit a political career. I give up a powerful office in my own state. I, who have no money, sacrifice a lucrative salary, and go back to revive my law practice. But most of all I sever a personal a.s.sociation with you of the deepest affection which you know has meant much to me these past seven years. But I cannot and will not remain in office and see women thrown into jail because they demand their political freedom.”

The President earnestly urged me not to resign, saying, ”What will the people of the country think when they hear that the Collector of the Port of New York has resigned because of an injustice done to a group of suffragists by the police officials of the city of Was.h.i.+ngton?”

My reply to this was, ”With all respect for you, Mr. President, my explanation to the public will not be as difficult as yours, if I am compelled to remind the public that you have appointed to office and can remove all the important officials of the city of Was.h.i.+ngton.”

The President ignored this and insisted that I should not resign, saying, ”I do not question your intense conviction about this matter as I know you have always been an ardent suf-

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fragist; and since you feel as you do I see no reason why you should not become their counsel and take this case up on appeal without resigning from the Administration.”

”But,” I said, ”Mr. President, that arrangement would be impossible for two reasons; first, these women would not want me as their counsel if I were a member of your Administration, for it would appear to the public then as if your Administration was not responsible for the indignities to which they have been subjected, and your Administration is responsible; and, secondly, I cannot accept your suggestion because it may be necessary in the course of the appeal vigorously to criticize and condemn members of your cabinet and others close to you, and I could not adopt this policy while remaining in office under you.” The President seemed greatly upset and finally urged me as a personal service to him to go at once and perfect the case on appeal for the suffragists, but not to resign until I had thought it over for a day, and until he had had an opportunity to investigate the facts I had presented to him. I agreed to this, and we closed the interview with the President saying, ”If you consider my personal request and do not resign, please do not leave Was.h.i.+ngton without coming to see me.” I left the executive offices and never saw him again.

There was just a day and a half left to perfect the exceptions for the appeal under the rules of procedure. No stenographic record of the trial had been taken, which put me under the greatest legal difficulties. I was in the midst of these preparations for appeal the next day when I learned to my surprise that the President had pardoned the women. He had not even consulted me as their attorney. Moreover, I was amazed that since the President had said he considered the treatment of the women ”shocking,” he had pardoned them without stating that he did so to correct a grave injustice. I felt certain that the high-spirited women in the workhouse would refuse to accept the pardon as a mere ”benevolent” act on the part of the President.

I at once went down to the workhouse in Virginia. My opinion was confirmed. The group refused to accept the President's pardon. I advised them that as a matter of law no one could compel them to accept the pardon, but that as a matter of fact they would have to accept it, for the Attorney

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General would have them all put out of the inst.i.tution bag and baggage. So as a solution of the difficulty and in view of the fact that the President had said to me that their treatment was ”shocking” I made public the following statement:

”The President's pardon is an acknowledgment by him of the grave injustice that has been done:” This he never denied.

Under this published interpretation of his pardon the women at Occoquan accepted the pardon and returned to Was.h.i.+ngton. The incident was closed. I returned to New York. During the next two months I carefully watched the situation. Six or eight more groups of women in that time were arrested on the same false charges, tried and imprisoned in the same illegal way. Finally a group of women was arrested in September under the identical circ.u.mstances as those in July, was tried in the same lawless fas.h.i.+on and given the same sentence of ”sixty days in the workhouse.” The President may have been innocent of responsibility for the first arrests, but he was personally and politically responsible for all the arrests that occurred after his pardon of the first, group. Under this development it seemed to me that self-respect demanded action, so I sent my resignation to the President, publicly stated my att.i.tude and regretfully left his Administration.”

Mr. Malone's resignation in September, 1917, came with a sudden shock, because the entire country and surely the Administration thought him quieted and subdued by the President's personal appeal to him in July.

Mr. Malone was shocked that the policy of arrests should be continued. Mr. Wilson and his Administration were shocked that any one should care enough about the liberty of women to resign a lucrative post in the Government. The nation was shocked into the realization that this was not a street brawl between women and policemen, but a controversy between suffragists and a powerful Administration. We had said so but it would have taken months to convince the public that the President was in any way responsible. Mr. Malone did what we could only have done with the greatest difficulty and after more pro-

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longed sacrifices. He laid the responsibility squarely and dramatically where it belonged. It is impossible to overemphasize what a tremendous acceleration Mr. Malone's fine, solitary and generous act gave to the speedy break-down of the Administration's resistance. His sacrifice lightened ours.

Women ought to be willing to make sacrifices for their own liberation, but for a man to have the courage and imagination to make such a sacrifice for the liberation of women is unparalleled. Mr. Malone called to the attention of the nation the true cause of the obstruction and suppression. He reproached the President and his colleagues after mature consideration, in the most honorable and vital way,-by refusing longer to a.s.sociate himself with an Administration which backed such policies.

And Mr. Malone's resignation was not only welcomed by the militant group. The conservative suffrage leaders, although they heartily disapproved of , picketing, were as outspoken in their grat.i.tude.

Alice Stone Blackwell, the daughter of Lucy Stone, herself a pioneer suffrage leader and editor, wrote to Mr. Malone:

”May I express my appreciation and grat.i.tude for the excellent and manly letter that you have written to President Wilson on woman suffrage? I am sure that I am only one of many women who feel thankful to you for it.

”The picketing seems to me a very silly business, and I am sure it is doing the cause harm instead of good; but the picketers are being shamefully and illegally treated, and it is a thousand pities, for President Wilson's own sake, that he ever allowed the Was.h.i.+ngton authorities to enter on this course of persecution. It was high time for some one to make a protest, and you have made one that has been heard far and wide . . . .”

Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, the President of the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation, wrote:

”I was in Maine when your wonderful letter announcing your resignation came out. It was the n.o.blest act that any man

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ever did on behalf of our cause. The letter itself was a high minded appeal . . . . ”