This handwritten letter was written by Gertrude Crocker during her 30-day prison sentence at the District Jail in Washington, D.C. and had to be smuggled out since suffrage prisoners’ mail privileges were limited to non-existent.
Thursday Nov. 8 [1917?]
Underground [by?] – 2nd letter sent you underground
Dear Beulah
Will you please communicate with Dr. King or someone who can surely get in touch with Miss Paul immediately & find out whether Miss Paul knows that we are getting 4 eggs (inserted text) each (end of inserted text) & milk every day – the five of us here at the jail, that we get our mail, have been able to buy newspapers & cake, Jamie saw Mrs. Meredith, & Mrs. Hennessy saw Mrs. Weed each visit with Zinkhan or Ladd listening to every word said, that we were out for ¾ hour Wednesday in the yard, that they may let us out tomorrow.
We ask the people in charge here to bring Miss Paul & Winslow back & Let them have eggs & milk with us here. We feel that we on the inside ought to be able to do something to get her back but do not see anything we can do except those of us who wish to go on a hunger strike here to get her back. We do not see how that would succeed unless we could get publicity & that is very difficult for us to get as we are shut off from the outside world, much more than Miss Paul is. We do not know how many would go on the strike, I think three of the five of us would tho. We only know what we read in the papers about Miss Paul & gather from them that Miss Paul has not eaten yet & that they have not yet tried force feeding.
Remember this goes out via Underground. Don’t refer to it in answering. Refer to “Hunger Strike” as {page break} “Attitude” unless you can get the message over to us better some other way. My mail has never been opened yet. Miss Hennessy’s has.
Hurriedly
Gertrude L Crocker
Please give my best love to Ruth, Pappy, Ma, Dean (inserted text) Betty Smith (end of inserted text) and everyone. These messages are so hard to get out I don’t dare send many & so have not written my own little sister at all.
Citation:
Correspondence from Gertrude Crocker to Beulah Amidon, 8 November 1917, Box I:80, National Woman’s Party Records, Library of Congress Manuscript Division.