“I Screamed Murder with All My Voice”
THE CONDUCTOR SAID NO.
Elizabeth tried to explain her situation. In her mind it was a perfectly reasonable request.
“I told him that I could not wait, as I was in a hurry to go to church and the other car was about a block off,” she wrote later. “He then told me that the other car had my people in it, that it was appropriated* for that purpose. I then told him I had no people; it was no particular occasion, I wished to go to church, as I had been going for the last six months, and I did not wish to be detained.”
The conductor, however, would not change his mind. “He insisted upon my getting off the car,” Elizabeth wrote. “I told him I would wait on the car until the other car came up. He again insisted on my waiting in the street, but I did not get off.
“By this time the other car came up, and I asked the driver if there was any room in his car,” she continued. “He told me very distinctly, No, that there was more room in my car than there was in his, yet this did not satisfy the conductor. He still kept driving me out or off of the car and said he had as much time as I had and could wait just as long.”
Elizabeth did not give up. “I replied, ‘Very well, we’ll see.’ He waited some few minutes, when the driver* becoming impatient, he said to me, ‘Well, you may go in, but remember, if the passengers raise any objections you shall go out, whether or not, I’ll put you out.’ I answered again and told him I was a respectable person, born and raised in New-York, did not know where he was born, that I had never been insulted before while going to church, and that he was a good for nothing impudent fellow for insulting decent persons while on their way to church.”
The conductor told her that he was from Ireland, although that made no difference to Elizabeth. “I made answer it made no difference where a man was born, that he was none the worse or better for that, provided he behaved himself and did not insult genteel persons,” she wrote.
Her words enraged the conductor.
“He then said I should come out** [or] he would put me out***. I told him not to lay his hands on me,” she wrote. “He took hold of me and I took hold of the window sash and held on. He pulled me until he broke my grasp and I took hold of his coat and held onto that. He also broke my grasp**** but previously he had dragged my companion***** out, she all the while screaming for him to let go. He then ordered the driver to fasten his horses, which he did, and come and help him put me out of the car. They then both seized hold of me by the arms and pulled and dragged me flat down on the bottom of the platform, so that my feet hung one way and my head the other, nearly on the ground.
“I screamed murder with all my voice, and my companion screamed out ‘You’ll kill her, don’t kill her.’ The driver then let go of me and went to his horses.”
But this would not be the end of the violent encounter. What happened next surprised Sarah, the conductor, and probably everyone on the streetcar.