"We were taken to the House of Detention and there charged with `loitering more than seven minutes'."

As Mrs. Agnes H. Morey, Massachusetts Chairman of the Woman's Party, later remarked:

"It is a most extraordinary thing. Thousands loitered from curiosity on the day the President arrived. Twenty-two loitered for liberty, and only those who loitered for liberty were arrested."

Realizing that the event of the morning had diverted public attention to our issue, and undismayed by the arrests, other women entered the lists to sustain public attention upon our demand to the President.

The ceremony on the Common began at three o'clock. Throngs of people packed in closely in an effort to hear the speakers, and to catch a glimpse of the ceremony, presided over by Mrs. Louise Sykes of Cambridge, whose late husband was President of the Connecticut College for Women. From three o'clock until six, women explained the purpose of the protest, the status of the amendment, and urged those present to help. At six o'clock came the order to arrest. Mrs. C. C. Jack, wife of Professor Jack of Harvard University, Mrs. Mortimer Warren of Boston, whose husband was head of a base hospital in France, and Miss Elsie Hill, daughter of the late Congressman Hill, were arrested and were taken to the House of Detention, where they joined their comrades.

"Dirty, filthy hole under the Court House," was the general characterization of the House of Detention. "Jail was a Paradise compared to this depraved place," said Miss Morey. "We slept in our clothes, four women to a cell, on iron shelves two feet wide. In the cell was an open toilet. The place slowly filled up during the night with drunks and disorderlies until pandemonium reigned. In the evening, Superintendent Crowley and Commissioner Curtis came to call on us. I don't believe they had ever been there before, and they were painfully embarrassed. Superintendent Crowley said to me, "If you were drunk we could release you in the morning, but unfortunately since you are not we have got to take you into court."

When the prisoners were told next morning the decision of Chief Justice Bolster to try each prisoner separately and in closed court, they all protested against such proceedings. But guards took the women by force to a private room. "The Matron, who was terrified," said Miss Morey, "shouted to the guards, `You don't handle the drunks that way. You know you don't.' But they continued to push, shove and shake the women while forcing them to the ante room."

"As an American citizen under arrest, I demand a public trial," was the statement of each on entering the judge's private trial room.