We are glad you are to conduct this long-needed inquiry and shall cooperate in every way to get at the truth of conditions in Occoquan through your investigation, provided you make the hearings public, subpoena all available witnesses, including men and women now prisoners at Occoquan, first granting them immunity, and provided you give counsel an opportunity to examine and cross examine all witnesses so called.
We are confident your honorable board will see the justice and wisdom of a public inquiry. If charges so publicly made are untrue the management of Occoquan work house is entitled to public vindication, and if these charges are true, the people of Washington and Virginia should publicly know what kind of a prison they have in their midst, and the people of the country should publicly know the frightful conditions in this institution which is supported by Congress and the government of the United States.
We are ready with our witnesses and affidavits to aid your honorable board in every way, provided you meet the conditions above named. But if you insist on a hearing behind closed doors we cannot submit our witnesses to a star chamber proceeding and shall readily find another forum in which to tell the American public the vivid story of the Occoquan work house.
Respectfully yours, (Signed) DUDLEY FIELD MALONE, J. K. N. NORTON, SAMUEL G. BRENT.
Subsequently the District Board of Charities reported findings on their secret investigation. After a lengthy preamble, in which they attempted to put the entire blame upon the suffrage prisoners, they advised:
That the investigation directed by the Commissioners of the District of Columbia be postponed until the conditions of unrest, excitement, and disquiet at Occoquan have been overcome:
That the order relieving W. H. Whittaker as superintendent, temporarily and without prejudice, be revoked, and Mr. Whittaker be restored to his position as superintendent:[1]
[1] Pending the investigation Mr. Whittaker was suspended, and his first assistant, Alonzo Tweedale, served in the capacity of superintendent.
That the members of the National Woman’s Party now at Occoquan be informed that unless they obey the rules of the institution and discontinue their acts of insubordination and riot, they will be removed from Occoquan to the city jail and placed in solitary confinement.
