In 1917, as the United States entered World War I, the National American Woman Suffrage Association under Carrie Chapman Catt publicly suspended its lobbying campaign and organized support for the war effort, while the National Woman's Party continued pressing for a constitutional amendment and picketing the White House. Its banners denounced President Wilson for promoting democracy abroad while denying women democracy at home, and despite public outrage and repeated attacks by military men and others, police did not protect the demonstrators. By late June 1917, the Wilson administration began arresting the "Silent Sentinel" pickets on the charge of obstructing traffic, and women including Catherine Flanagan and Madeleine Watson received increasingly harsh sentences in the District of Columbia Jail and the Occoquan Workhouse in Lorton, Virginia. Many suffragists refused the usual $25 fine because paying it would admit guilt, and even the seventy-three-year-old Mary Nolan refused. At Occoquan, the prisoners endured bug-infested food, unlaundered bedding, restricted and censored mail, no writing materials, no outside contact, enforced silence, confiscation of personal items, and coarse ill-fitting clothing and shoes, while repeatedly demanding better conditions and recognition as political prisoners.