At noon two days later, I joined the other journalists at the press club to prepare for our March for Equality, in protest of Betsy Beecher’s firing and the mistreatment of all women journalists.
We had an hour in the auditorium to organize before we headed out. A subcommittee had made up placards and had flyers printed that included sample letters for sympathizers to send to publishers, along with the addresses of the ten most highly circulated newspapers. We each took a sign and a handful of pamphlets. We had chosen the lunchtime period because more people would be out and about to see us. At twelve thirty, we left the building on Twenty-third Street.
It was a chilly November day, the week before Thanksgiving, but our energy kept our chills at bay. We walked east toward Fifth, planning on reaching as far uptown as Central Park.
Fanny and Martha and I were in a line toward the front.
My sign: Women reporters get the same news.
Fanny’s: Equal pay and equal opportunity.
Martha’s was the line I’d used in my column, which I couldn’t take credit for, obviously, but pleased me nonetheless: If we’re the fairer sex, treat us fairly.
As we made our way, we declared our mission, shouting, “Newsmen of quality don’t fear equality!” “Equal pay every day!” and “Women reporters’ rights are right!”
Hundreds of women stepped out of stores and homes to cheer us on, and a few dozen joined us. I recognized a handful of society ladies from galas and soirees and made a note to applaud them in my next Silk, Satin and Scandals column.
Of the many men who came out to see what we were doing, few supported our cause. Most shouted epithets as we passed.
We were a disparate group of female journalists of all ages and levels of experience, from wet-behind-the-ears twenty-year-olds to gray-haired matriarchs, cub reporters, and editors of women’s pages, all keeping up with aplomb.
“The crowds aren’t as big as I’d hoped,” Martha said as we passed Thirty-fourth Street.
“Equality for female journalists isn’t exactly top of mind for most,” Fanny countered.
“It would be if people realized the changes we have helped bring about,” Martha said.
“Would it?” I asked. “Sometimes I think we think more highly of those changes than the people they affect.”
Fanny took my arm in hers. “Even if they do, we know what our kind has done since Nellie first went undercover in that madhouse for ten days. They call us stunt reporters, but laws have been changed because of us, Vee, and you know it. Many factories are safer, awareness of the plight of women sex workers is up, people have gone to prison for running slave trades. So many tenement landlords are being more reactive or forced into being reactive because of the articles you wrote about Charlotte and her family…”
I did know it. Everything she was saying was true, but it wasn’t enough. Never enough. There was so much unfairness and so many problems and so little power. All we had was the printed word.
We’d reached Forty-first Street and were waiting at a traffic light when a man on the sidelines began shouting at us.
“Why aren’t you all taking care of your babies? Go home where you belong!”
We’d discussed the importance of not engaging with hecklers, but it was difficult to ignore the nasty comments. But we did and just kept marching. He continued following us, shouting at us.
On the next block, three more men joined him. And then a few more.
By the time we reached Forty-fourth Street, there were more than two dozen men following us, walking beside us, heckling us. The jibes getting nastier and nastier.
“You’re too ugly to find a man, so you’re trying to be one!” one voice yelled.
“The only job you’re good for is spreading your legs!” another shouted.
“You are no better than the heathens and whores you write about!” came a harsh voice from the crowd.
Some of the younger women in our group were becoming frightened. I noticed two crying, with a third consoling them. I wondered if they were going to drop out, but instead, they linked arms and kept going.
Fanny was seething. “A bunch of know-nothings. We have to get rid of them.”
“No, we have to ignore them,” I said.
We crossed Forty-fifth Street.
A crowd of female office workers was standing on the next corner—young girls, all excited to see us, cheering us on.
Our band of male followers caught sight of them and stopped. So did I. Martha and Fanny did as well.
“What are you little ladies doing out here?” the male leader asked.
“You should go back to looking for husbands. You’re not going to get more money any more than you’re going to get the vote. You don’t deserve it,” another taunted.
“You are only good for two things,” a third said again. He’d been chanting it for blocks now.
The women office workers started to argue with the men. Martha and Fanny and I broke out of the march and stepped up onto the curb. Our leaving the group alerted the rest of our tribe that there were rustlings that something was afoot, and the march slowed.
“Girls, go back to your office,” I said to the troupe. “These are not gentlemen, and you don’t need to engage with them.”
“Who are you calling names?” One of the men turned on me.
“Girls!” I ignored the lout. “Please, we don’t want any trouble. You need to know when to fight and when not to. These lowlifes are not worth your time.”
“So now we aren’t worth their time?” one of the men jeered.
I pleaded with the women for a few moments longer, while we all tried to ignore the comments the men continued hurling. They were a rough-looking group, with caps pulled low over their eyes, foul body odor, and breath that smelled of beer. They were probably agitators, I thought. Hired by politicians or businesses—depending on the situation—to break up peaceful marches like ours.
After the office workers finally heeded my warning and left, the men turned on us.
“Why’d you go and do that?” one of them said. “They were just getting cozy with us.”
Ignoring him, I said to Martha and Fanny, “Let’s get back to the march.”
We hurried toward our group, the men at our heels like angry dogs. The marchers hadn’t completely stopped but had slowed down for us, and we had no trouble rejoining them at the rear. But the men remained with us, intent, it seemed, on causing trouble, and began their own chant.
“Back to the kitchen. Back to the bedroom. Back to the nursery. Back to the kitchen. Back to the bedroom. Back to the nursery. Back to the kitchen. Back to the bedroom. Back to the nursery. Back to the kitchen. Back to the bedroom. Back to the nursery!”
Onward we walked, holding our signs higher the louder the chant grew. But as we continued, additional men on the street joined in, until there were more men than women marching. The men sounded so menacing that the female sidewalk spectators didn’t want to have anything to do with us and shrank back.
“Why do these men hate us so much?” one of the younger reporters asked me.
“We threaten their way of life. Even the poorest of them can be the boss of a weak-minded woman,” I said.
“Back to the kitchen. Back to the bedroom. Back to the nursery…” Their chanting continued, their cries even louder than before, drowning out ours completely.
I turned around to see how many there were. Then I poked Martha and Fanny. “Look!”
There had to be at least a hundred men following us and shouting at us.
“What should we do?” Martha asked.
“Keep going,” Fanny said. She pointed to the crowds on the street. “They may be quiet now, but they’re witnessing this. They’re understanding it’s what we deal with every day—an angry, insecure mob of men who want to stop us.”
For all our bravado, I was growing more frightened by the second. An angry man or two was one thing, but a seething mob was something else. And while we believed we were equal in brains and abilities, few of us were physically equal to these men. Fewer of us still knew how to use our fists to defend ourselves. How was this going to end? We were certain to get hurt unless we could curtail the rising passions.
“I have an idea,” I said to Fanny. “This is ugly and getting worse. I think we should change our route and march toward the next precinct house. Do you know where it is?”
Among the three of us, we didn’t, but I went off through our crowd, asking other women, until one said she did know and that it was on Fifty-second Street. I hurried to the front of our crowd, to the club president, Katharine Evan von Klenner, who was holding a banner with the press club secretary, Louise Talesnick.
“You hear that roar behind us?” I asked Katharine.
“Of course! We can’t see that far back, though. What is it, a dozen or so men?”
“That’s how it started. We’ve estimated it’s now close to a hundred. And all of them are angry. Some of them have clubs. Some, I’m sure, have guns.”
“We didn’t realize it was that dangerous,” Louise said.
I told them our plan, and they agreed to it. So I returned to the back of the line, and we all kept marching.
We were only two blocks from the police station when the incident occurred. The men were not just behind us now. They were also walking alongside us. Two or three abreast, so we were surrounded by them.
Nervously, I watched the women around me. I took in their anxious glances to the right and left where the men were. I saw some of the women gripping each other by the hand. A few were openly weeping. Others had their heads down, trying to put one foot in front of the other and keep going without losing their tempers and shouting back.
But there was one woman among us who couldn’t ignore the agitators anymore. I was standing just behind Betty Cantor when she began shouting back at one of the men marching alongside her.
“Go to hell! You’re not better than me, you just think what you have between your legs makes you better!”
The man rushed up to her. He pulled her sign out of her hands, held it like a weapon, and smacked her over the head with it. She crumpled and went down. The man started to beat her, even though she was prostrate on the sidewalk. A dozen or so women quickly mobilized around her once they realized what had happened. Two jumped on the assaulter from behind, and two others jumped on each side of him. They worked at pulling him off Betty and pushing him away, hitting him with their fists and their placards, raining punches on him.
If there had only been one or two men versus the women, it might have ended there, but we were outnumbered. As angry as we were, the men who had seen one of their own get beat up by a group of women became incensed and descended on us.
A blur of men swarmed through our ranks, shoving us away, pushing us to the ground. They grabbed our signs and snapped them in half, ripped our banners out of our hands and stomped on them. They got their hands on our flyers and threw them underfoot. Some of the women tried to fight back but were met with fists. I didn’t see any of the men strike the first blow, but damn if they weren’t willing to strike back with double the force once attacked.
I can never forget the sound of the shrieks and cries as some of us refused to back down. We were not unscathed. But we were undaunted. Despite scratches, bloody noses, pulled hair, punched guts, few of us fled despite being overpowered and outnumbered.
Our plan worked. In less than five minutes, five policemen on horseback and a paddy wagon descended on us. I believe only their swift arrival prevented the melee from becoming tragic.
Except they weren’t there to help us. They rounded us up and arrested us for disturbing the peace—not the men!
“You realize that if you arrest us and put us in jail, our editors are going to be delighted,” I said to the officer who took my name. I spelled out “Vee Swann” and asked him to get in touch with Ronald Nevins at the World to post bail. Even though I wasn’t currently writing for Mr. Nevins, several of us here were, and I knew he would come through. “You are giving them headlines to run.”
“That may be, ma’am, but I’m still going to do my job.”
“We’re going to write about everything that happens to us,” Fanny said.
He ignored her.
“You are making a mistake,” I said.
But either the policemen didn’t care, or they didn’t believe us.
“It’s not fair,” one of the younger reporters griped, and I laughed sardonically, hearing the leitmotif of our lives expressed with such innocence. Could she truly be surprised by the unfairness? Had she really expected something fair and right and true to happen?
Well, that certainly wasn’t what occurred. With a brutality that was unnecessary, while the men dissipated and disappeared, the police pulled and shoved us, dragging us up the block and a half to the station house, arresting every one of us. None of us tried to get away. We all knew that what was happening to us was a story. Too good a story to run away from.
We were fifty strong, and the jail cells in that precinct house couldn’t hold more than twenty, but they shoved us into the stinking, slimy, filthy cells anyway. We couldn’t even all sit down.
We were members of the press; we knew our rights. The courts were open till four p.m. for our contacts to post bail. But the hour came and went. Our next hope was night court, created three years before to handle bail and releases after regular hours.
But the hours wore on, and we remained ignored. No one brought us water or food. The police acted as if we didn’t exist at all. Six o’clock slid into seven. None of us had imagined when we started our march that this was where we’d be so many hours later. When eight p.m. rolled around, we were still behind bars.
I don’t know what was worst—the heat, the hunger, the thirst, or the stench. Old urine and stale body odor plus cheap perfume and the smells of more than four dozen angry and frightened women crammed into two cells, each with space too small for ten.
We organized a schedule so that a third of us could nap at a time. That required the other two-thirds to stand at even closer quarters to make room for those getting their rest. We also kept the police busy, calling for them to take us to the bathroom. We’d concocted a plan to ask one at a time and always wait ten minutes between requests, to keep the officers in charge on their feet and hopefully annoyed.
It worked too well. After hours of them escorting us back and forth to the lavatory, the chief of the station house came to talk to us—or, rather, yell at us—that he wasn’t going to put up with our shenanigans, as he called them. We could ask all we wanted, but there would be fifteen minutes set aside every two hours, and those who needed to use the facilities could use them then, or they would have to wait until the next two-hour stretch was over.
We demanded water. Received none. Demanded food. Got none. Several women fainted, and the police did nothing when we asked for medical assistance. It was that time of month for at least half a dozen of us, but no provisions were made.
I had done many things as a reporter in the ten years since I’d been working, but I’d never been incarcerated. I’d visited women in prisons and wasn’t surprised by the horrific conditions. From reform schools to orphanages to factories and tenements, filth and squalor and rot were ubiquitous. But it was very different to be locked inside the jail cell knowing I was powerless to leave.
That we were treated with so little respect didn’t surprise me. Or any of us, really. We’d all been victims of misogyny, sexual harassment, male dominance, racial or sexual slurs in our jobs and personal lives. But two things did surprise me.
One was how quickly we began to stink, shoved up against one another in the small, windowless cells. Second was how distracting it was to be hungry and thirsty. Even when I’d gone undercover and had lived in almost abject poverty, I’d always had water to drink, and I’d always made enough money to afford a can of beans, a loaf of bread, or an apple. Even if the bread was a little stale and the apple a little mealy, I could eat.
So while I’d been hungry before, I’d never focused on the feeling for long. Few of us had ever been in situations where there was no possibility of nourishment. And that awareness was what made it so unbearable there.
We’d met up at the club at noon, and most of us hadn’t had anything to drink or eat for at least an hour before that, since we’d been in transit. We’d marched for almost two hours before our arrest. And by the time we were all locked up, another hour had passed. So by six p.m., we were all hungry and thirsty, and by eight, our stomachs were growling. Of course, I’d skipped dinner before without noticing or caring. But knowing I had no access to food put me in a state of crisis.
Our helplessness worked against us.
What woman hasn’t felt helpless? Who of us hasn’t felt defenseless against fate? Against illness? Against cruelty? Against someone bigger, stronger, more ruthless, or cruel? A sexual predator? A thief? An angry husband? A drunk father? A jealous brother? A thwarted lover? And now we could add power-hungry policemen to our list of men who take advantage of their place in society.
They reveled in what they were doing. Laughed at us. Berated us. Taunted us. They were nasty to us and took pleasure in our discomfort.
When morning came, we were all released, simply informed that the charges had been dropped. We found out later that the mayor had been pressured by the city’s newspaper editors and had ordered the chief of police to handle the situation immediately and as quietly as possible.
But there was nothing quiet about what came next.
Those of us who had regular jobs went straight to their city rooms to write up the incident, each trying to scoop the other. As much as we were sisters in arms, we were still a group of competing reporters. Someone was going to be first, and everyone wanted to be that someone.
For us freelancers, there was no reason to fight the clock. We went home to bathe, dress, and eat. Most of us then went to see our editors at magazines and newspapers about longer stories on prison reform, women’s rights, the anger of the mob, the lack of protection for women marching… there were endless angles to pitch.
I had my platform—Silk, Satin and Scandals—so I stayed home. First, I took a long bath, and then I made eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee. Still sitting in the dining room, which I also used as an office, I poured a second cup of coffee and went to work. I sat at my typewriter and composed a column for the next two hours. Not my usual fare—there was no description of pearls or silks. I wrote about the women from the upper echelons of society who had joined the march and described what they had seen.
Since I didn’t need any more material for my column, I wrote a note to my mother saying that I wouldn’t attend the opera with her that evening. I knew she’d be annoyed that she’d lost her companion for the night. I also knew she wouldn’t worry. Her motherly concern was not as strong as her displeasure at having her plans changed.
That task completed, I penned a two-page article about the violence at the march and the way the police had treated us, which I thought would be of interest to Mr. Oxley. Then, dressed as Vee Swann, I left the apartment by way of the tunnel.
When my father had first showed me the secret passageway that led out to Fifty-eighth Street, I’d questioned its function. He’d told me it was a safety precaution. There were thugs and robbers on the streets of New York, and as someone who owned such a successful store, he was a target for all kinds of criminals.
But after I’d found the letter from my uncle, who had built both the department store and the rooftop apartment, I believed the tunnel had been designed for quite another purpose. It had allowed my father to come and go without being noticed and must have given my uncle the same kind of access.
I found it very convenient for Vee Swann’s comings and goings as well. No one paid any attention to the plain, black-haired woman walking out of an alley behind the Fifth Avenue store. Surely, anyone who might have noticed the spinster carrying a sewing box would have assumed she was a seamstress. But had they opened the box, they would have found the envelopes I delivered to my editor at the World once a week. Added to that, they would have been able to identify the author of Satin, Silk and Scandals, which many readers were not only curious about but also anxious to learn. Over the years, its anonymous author had not only entertained but angered and embarrassed many.
That week’s installment would prove to be no exception.
After delivering the column, I walked over to the Gotham Gazette offices. Mr. Oxley saw me immediately, read my article, and rubbed his hands with delight as he read through it a second time.
“Great job. This will ruffle a few feathers at City Hall. Are the same rate and caveats I offered you for the Cartier piece all right with you?”
I said yes and asked him when it would run.
“Is there anything in here that you have exclusively?” he asked.
“I’m not sure why you are asking.” Though I had a very good idea why. Surely, if I had lied and said yes, he would have taken the article to someone in city politics and tried to make a deal. He’d agree not to run it, for this favor or that promise or political ads during the next election.
“Don’t let it bother you why I’m asking. Just tell me,” he said.
“No, we all were there and were treated the same way. I saw and heard the same things as everybody else. It’s simply my interpretation of what happened.”
“Then we’ll run it in this Friday’s edition of the magazine,” he said. “And thank you for bringing it to me first. I know you have relationships around town with other editors.”
“But none with your circulation,” I countered, flattering him, as was my intention.
“How is your Cartier exposé coming?” Mr. Oxley asked.
“A little more slowly than I’d hoped, but I think you are going to be very pleased,” I lied. There was no exposé yet. I was concerned that I hadn’t come across anything other than exaggeration, and that wasn’t salacious enough for Mr. Oxley to use to blackmail Cartier.
“Well, we need your piece before he sells the stone.”
“That won’t be a problem,” I assured him.
Of course, it wouldn’t, since Vera Garland could always engage in a bidding war with whoever else wanted the stone, submit the article, and, when the time came, pull out of the negotiations.
Finally returning to my apartment, I crawled into bed. Exhausted from the ordeal of the day and night before, I slept from three that afternoon straight through till six the next morning. I woke up refreshed and walked to the newsstand to buy all the morning editions, to read the various reporting about our arrest and incarceration.
Each paper reported the story differently. Most editors had allowed their female reporters to express outrage and fury over how they had been treated by police, shining the unflattering light on them that they deserved. Some articles, written by male reporters who had not even been present, painted a very different picture of unruly women breaking the law. But in all cases, it was exactly what we had predicted and warned the police about. More than seventy-five percent of the papers led with a firsthand account highlighting how New York City’s police had mishandled the situation and contributed to the brutality we’d endured. It wasn’t that the majority of the editors were sympathetic to our plight—certainly not. Very few were. Hell, they were as responsible as anyone for our need to march in the first place. But they were newspaper men first and foremost, and they knew what sold papers. And sell they did.
At a little after noon, I met with Fanny and Martha for lunch at Dorlon’s Oyster House on East Twenty-third street. We celebrated the attention the march had garnered with a bottle of champagne. As Fanny pointed out, the vile heckling men had done us a favor of sorts. Without them, our efforts might never have made the front pages.
When I returned to the apartment, there was a note from Mr. Cartier. Slitting it open, I thought back to my meeting with Mr. Oxley and how I’d exaggerated my progress on the story. For a moment, as I pulled out the note, I wondered if the bad luck surrounding the Hope Diamond might have been true and if it had begun for me.
I had been arrested, after all. And for the first time. But then again, everyone was released, and no one had been badly hurt. No, it wasn’t bad luck. I knew better.
I needed to focus on finding the story—and soon. Mr. Oxley had reminded me that time was of the essence.
I looked down and read the note. Mr. Cartier had written that he had more pearls and would like to show them to me, along with a design for a clasp. Was I available at four thirty that afternoon?