The Long Loneliness

Day goes to Washington to protest the imprisonment of the suffragettes. She has a struggle with some men who try to grab the banners that they are marching with and is put in a police van: “Our banners were carried, protruding from the back of the car, and we made a gay procession through the streets” (73). Day and her fellow female protestors are tried the next day and the judge determines that they are guilty, but postpones the sentence.

They are arrested for picketing twice more. At the point of the third arrest, they are refused bail and taken to the House of Detention. They are sentenced in the morning. Day gets 30 days. Some of the leaders get six months. The women are taken in wagons and then by train to a workhouse. Their leaders tell the administration that all of the women plan to go on a hunger strike. The guards grab the women roughly and when Day tries to cross the room, in order to be nearer to a friend, she is seized. She resists, which just makes them grip her tighter. They throw her down on a bench, and when she again tries to be with her friend, they toss her to the floor and “pummeled and pushed and kicked and dragged” her (76).