 Chapter 7 of the Suffragette The History of the Woman's Militant Suffrage Movement by E. Sylvia Pankhurst This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. 7. November 1906 to February 1907. Further arrests. The mudmarch. Whilst their comrades were in Holloway, the W.S.P.U. members were putting forth redoubled efforts to press forward the work outside. A manifesto explaining the objects of our movement and calling upon the women of the country to stand by those who had gone to prison and to fight with them to secure enfranchisement was posted upon the walls and circulated broadcast as a leaflet. This appeal met with a far-readier response than any that had yet been made. Amongst people of all parties there was a growing feeling that the imprisoned suffragette should receive the treatment due to political offenders. The liberals, large numbers of whom knew her personally, found an especial difficulty in reconciling themselves to the idea that Richard Govden's daughter should be thrown into prison and treated by a liberal government as though she had been a drunkard or a pickpocket. Mr. Keir Hardy, Lord Robert Cecil and others, raised the matter in the House of Commons and drew comparisons between our lot and that of the Jameson Raiders, Mr. W. Stead, and others who had been imprisoned for political reasons. In reply to this, Mr. Gladstone, the Home Secretary, began by saying that he had no power to take action. On October 28, however, Mrs. Pethic Lawrence left Holloway owing to serious illness. On the following day Mrs. Montefiore was also released for the same reason, and a day or two afterwards it became known that Mrs. Howe Martin and Mrs. Balddock had been removed to the prison hospital. Protest against the treatment of the suffragettes daily became more and more insistent, and at last on October 31 Mr. Herbert Gladstone changed his mind and ordered, or as he put it, intimated his desire that the suffrage prisoners should be transferred to the first class. Note 18 On the eighth day of our imprisonment my cell door was flung open suddenly, and the matron announced that an order had come from the Home Office to say that I was to be transferred to the first class. I was then hurriedly bustled out of my cell, and a few minutes afterwards as, in charge of a wardress, I was staggering along the passage carrying my brush and comb, the sheets that I was hemming, and all my bed linen. I met my comrades going in the same direction. We were ushered into a row of rather dark cells adjoining each other in an old part of the prison, which is cheaply occupied by prisoners on remand who have not yet been tried. These women, we were horrified to find, are treated exactly like second class prisoners, except that their dress is blue instead of green, and that some, to whom permission has been given, are allowed to wear their own clothes and to have food sent in to them at their own expense. We were now offered the same privileges, but these we declined. On consulting the prison rules however, I found that first class misdemeanants are entitled to exercise their profession whilst in prison, if they're doing so does not interfere with the ordinary prison regulations. I therefore applied to the governor to be allowed to have pen, pencils, ink, and paper, and after a day's waiting my request was granted. For me prison had now lost the worst of its terrors because I had congenial work to do. We were now able to write and to receive a letter once a fortnight and to have books and one newspaper a day sent in by our friends. The food served out to us was exactly like that of the second class, except that instead of oatmeal, gruel, a pint of tea was substituted for breakfast and a pint of cocoa for supper. As the second class is that into which the majority of the suffragettes have been relegated, it is useful to give the table of dinners here. Monday Eight ounces haricot beans One ounce fat bacon Eight ounces potatoes Six ounces bread Tuesday One pint soup Eight ounces potatoes Six ounces bread Wednesday Eight ounces suet pudding Exactly like that served in the third class Six ounces bread And eight ounces potatoes Thursday Six ounces bread Eight ounces potatoes Three ounces cooked meat A kind of stew Friday Soup one pint Six ounces bread Eight ounces potatoes Saturday Suet pudding Eight ounces Bread six ounces Potatoes eight ounces Sunday Bread six ounces Potatoes eight ounces Three ounces meat Preserved by heat i.e. some kind of preserved meat slightly warmed The soups or meat for each prisoner was served in a cylindrical quart tin into the top of which, like a lid, was fitted another shallow tin holding the potatoes. One did not clean these tins oneself as one did the other utensils, and probably because the kitchen attendants were overburdened with work they were always exceedingly dingy and dirty looking. Everything was as badly cooked and as uninviting as it could be. The cocoa, which was quite unlike any cocoa that I have ever tasted, had little pieces of meat and fat floating about in it. It was evidently made in the same vessel in which the meat was cooked. To cut up our meat in addition to the wooden spoon which is common to the second and third classes we were now provided with a knife. This knife was made of tin. It was about four inches in length and Mrs. Drummond later on aptly described it as being hemmed at the edge. There was no fork. On November 6 my sentence came to an end and the newspaper representatives were all eager to hear from me what the inside of Holloway was like. I was thus able to make known exactly what the conditions of imprisonment had been both before and after our transfer to the First Division and to show that even under the new conditions the treatment of the suffragettes was very much more rigorous than that applied to men political prisoners in this and other countries. Next day, November 7, Mr. Keir Hardy introduced a woman's suffrage bill into the House of Commons under the Ten Minutes Rule. It had only two chances of passing into law, the first that the government should provide time for it and the second that not one single member of parliament should oppose it in any of its stages. The government refused to give the time and the second chance was destroyed by a liberal member Mr. Julius Bertram. On November 19 another demonstration was therefore held outside the House of Commons as a result of which Miss Alice Milne of Manchester was arrested and imprisoned for one week. Public sympathy was still daily turning more and more to the side of the suffragettes and when a by-election became necessary at Huddersfield Mr. Herbert Gladstone decided to release Mrs. Cobden Sanderson and her colleagues, though they had served but half of their sentences, and on November 24 they were set free after one month's imprisonment. They were not only welcomed with enthusiasm by their fellow militant suffragettes but a dinner was given in their honour by the older non-militan suffragettes at the Savoy Hotel. Believing that it was to the Huddersfield's by-election that they owed their unexpected freedom, a number of the released prisoners at once hurried off to the constituency where Mrs. Pankhurst and a band of other women were strenuously working against the government and had already become the most popular people in the election. Though the train by which the prisoners arrived was more than two hours late, they were welcomed at the station by cheering crowds and found that a great meeting of women which had been called for the due time of their arrival was still patiently waiting to hear them speak. The three candidates, Liberal, Unionist and Labour were now, because of its extraordinary popularity, all anxious to be known as supporters of women's suffrage and they went about wearing the white votes for women buttons of the WSBU. Mr. Sherwell the Liberal tried to sidetrack the suffragettes' appeal to the electors to vote against him because he was the nominee of the government by constantly announcing that he was in favour of women's suffrage and that the Liberal Party was the best of all parties for women. The following hand-bill issued from his committee rooms. Men of Huddersfield, don't be misled by socialists, suffragettes or Tories, vote for Sherwell. Polling took place on November 28 and when the votes were counted it was found that the Liberal poll as recorded at the general election had been reduced by 540. The figures were Arthur Sherwell, Liberal, 5762, T. R. Williams, Labour, 5422, J. Foster Fraser, Unionist, 4844, Liberal Majority, 340. At the general election the figures had been Sir J. T. Woodhouse, Liberal, 6302, T. R. Williams, Labour, 5813, J. Foster Fraser, Unionist, 4391, Liberal Majority, 489. Meanwhile the government had been pushing on with its bill for the abolition of plural voting to which the Women's Social and Political Union had persistently claimed that a clause providing for the registration of qualified women voters should be added. When the bill reached the report stage on November 26 Lord Robert Cecil moved and Mr. Keir Hardy seconded and Mr. Balfour supported an amendment to postpone the operation of the bill until after the next general election unless in the meantime the franchise had been given to women on the same terms as men. The object was of course to call attention to the need of votes for women and this somewhat roundabout way had been adopted because it was ruled out of order to simply suggest that votes for women should be enacted as a part of the plural voting bill. The amendment was opposed by the government and defeated by 278 votes to 50. Our Manchester members were now anxious to organize a protest on their own account and it was agreed that they should have their way. Accordingly on December 13 a valiant little army of some 20 or 30 North Country women came down to London and proceeded straight to Parliament Square carrying a small wooden packing case which they set down in the gutter opposite the stranger's entrance. The box was mounted by Mrs. Jenny Baines of Stockport, a fragile little woman who had begun her strenuous life as a Birmingham child home worker, rising early in the morning in order to help her mother to stitch hooks and eyes onto cards before going to school, snatching a few moments for the same task in the dinner hour and on returning home in the evening, working far into the night. In her girlhood she had been a Salvation Army captain. Later she had married a journeyman bootmaker and though in addition to caring for her home and her children, she had been forced to toil in the factory in order to keep the home together, she had still managed to work as a police court missionary and temperance and social reformer. Therefore it was with the knowledge born of much experience that Mrs. Baines now pleaded for the enfranchisement of her sex. Within a few moments a strong force of police came hurrying up and she was roughly dragged down and hustled away. Her place was instantly taken by Mrs. Morrissey of Manchester whilst the other woman linked arms and pressed closely round to form a guard but after a short heart struggle the police broke through, tore the speaker from the box and made five arrests. One woman was thrown to the ground and lay unconscious and Mrs. August McDougal, an Australian, knelt on the ground beside her, raised her head and held a cup of water to her lips. Note 19 Then a heavy hand was laid upon Mrs. McDougal's shoulder and a rough voice ordered her to go but she remained to attend to the injured woman. For this offense she was arrested whilst Mrs. Knight, the woman who had been hurt, was removed to Westminster Hospital. Next day the five women who had been taken into custody were at Westminster Police Court each ordered by Mr. Horace Smith either to pay a fine of twenty shillings or go to prison for fourteen days in the first class. They all chose the latter alternative and were taken to the cells. Two days afterwards some of our members attempted to hold a meeting in the stranger's lobby. As a result of this eleven of them were sent off to join their comrades in jail for fourteen days. Still the government refused to withdraw their hostility to votes for women, parliament remained apathetic and still the majority of the general public were content to allow things to remain as they were. Therefore we felt that yet another protest must be made before the year 1906 should come to an end and on December 20 the eve of parliament's rising for the Christmas holidays Mrs. Drummond who had now settled in London organised a third attack upon the house. Whilst her followers were attempting to speak in the lobby she succeeded in entering the house unobserved and in making her way to the back passages to within a few yards of the sacred chamber of debate itself. Here she was captured by the police but she resisted their efforts to remove her with so much spirit that she won the sympathy and admiration of the constables. One of whom was heard to say, I wish the members of parliament would come here and do their own dirty work. Next day as the evening paper boys were eagerly crying the news that another five women were gone to join those already in prison and that twenty one suffragettes would now be spending Christmas there parliament rose for the holidays. As the members left the house comrades of the imprisoned women handed each one an envelope inscribed what a woman really wants for a Christmas box and within was a small slip of paper bearing the words a vote. For the first batch of suffragettes to be released from prison in January a Christmas dinner was provided by Mr. and Mrs. Pethic Lawrence at the Hallburn restaurant and for Mrs. Drummond and those of the suffragettes who were set free later the first of the public welcome breakfast which have since become an institution was held at Anderton's hotel. The release prisoners were able to tell us that Christmas Day in Holloway is except that one goes twice to chapel exactly like all the other days of the year and that the Christmas dinner of which so very much as thought outside is just the usual one that would naturally fall at any other season to that particular day of the week. But as Mrs. Hillier on their release said they went to prison for a cause that they held dear and so as Mrs. Martha Jones added they regarded having gone there not as a sacrifice but as an honor. What they had seen in Holloway had more than ever convinced them of the pressing need that women should be enfranchised. The stories that I have heard in the prison hospital said Mrs. Baines have reached to the bottom of my heart. I have come out with the firm resolve to work on. So the year 1906 the first year of the union's work in London came to an end. In October the step of opening a permanent central office had been decided upon and a large general office having a small private room opening out of it was taken in Clemens Inn's Strand. It seemed a big undertaking at first but the offices were indispensable. The small room was considered chiefly as Christabel's office but all private business was transacted there whilst the large room was used for general clerical work and as a meeting place. Weekly Monday afternoon and Thursday evening at homes were held there and all those who had joined the union in those early days can remember Mrs. Farberl making tea and handing round bread and butter and biscuits and Christabel with a sheaf of newspaper cuttings in her hand standing up on one of the chairs to furnish the latest news of the militant campaign and to explain the next move in the plan of action. On the following February 4th Mr. Winston Churchill spoke in the Free Trade Hall Manchester and he bargained beforehand with the suffragettes that they should not interrupt him during his speech on condition that he would answer a question on women's suffrage before he left the platform. At the close of the meeting he accordingly did so by saying definitely that he would not vote for a bill to enfranchise women on the same terms as men. He added that he greatly regretted that earnest good-hearted women should pursue courses which brought them suffering and humiliation but God forbid that he should mock them by concealing his opinion. My sister Adela then rose to ask if he had intended to speak for himself alone or on behalf of the government an exceedingly important point. What followed is best described in the words of an eyewitness who wrote it once to Christabel at Clemens Inn. Last night's affair was terrible. It was a wonder someone was not killed. Your sister was thrown down and kicked by several men. The attack was really unprovoked. The stewards had made up their minds to do it before the meeting. Your sister has a black eye, Mrs. Chariton's throat was hurt, and Miss Gothorpe would have been seriously handled but that some men came to her rescue. Many women who had long felt that there was something wrong with the position of their sex but had not realized that the possession of the parliamentary franchise could do anything to remove the disabilities, both of law and custom from which they suffered, were now being awakened by the much talked-off militant tactics to a knowledge of what the vote could do for them. Moreover, many who for years had been nominal adherents of the suffrage movement now began to feel that if some other women cared so passionately for the cause that they were prepared to throw aside all the usual conventions of good manners and to thrust themselves forward to meet ridicule, scandalous abuse, ill usage and imprisonment it was surely time that they too should make sacrifices. Their hearts smote them that they had not done more for it in the past. But most of them as yet thought only of bolstering up and stirring to new activity the old national union of women's suffrage societies for they still looked upon the militant women as a rather dreadful body of fanatics who could have no notion either of systematic organization or the prudent laying out of money. Therefore, though the WSPU was already growing largely, the NUWSS was as yet benefiting most largely from its activities. But times had changed and even the most old fashioned of the suffragists were now ready to copy the first non-militant doings of the suffragettes and in order to prove that they really wanted the franchise they too determined to march in procession through the London streets. Therefore, on February 9, 1907, three days before the opening of Parliament, a crowd of the non-militants assembled close to the Achilles statue at Hyde Park Corner. It was a dismal wet Saturday afternoon, but in spite of the rain and the muddy streets a procession of women half a mile in length was formed and marched steadily on to attend meetings in Exeter Hall in the Strand and in Trafalgar Square. This procession was afterwards known as the Mud March. At the Exeter Hall the principal speakers who had been chosen to address the gathering of women were Mr. Keir Hardy and Mr. Israel Zangwill. Mr. Hardy devoted himself to urging the women to place the question of their enfranchisement before all other party considerations. Meanwhile a most extraordinary scene occurred for whilst his remarks were punctuated by volumes of cheers from the great body of the audience a number of liberal ladies on the platform set up a hissing chorus. When Mr. Zangwill came to speak he too declared himself to be a supporter of the militant tactics and the anti-government policy and the same liberal ladies although they had themselves asked him to speak for them expressed their dissent and disapproval as audibly as though they had been suffragettes and he a cabinet minister. From Mr. Zangwill's brilliant speech his maiden speech as a politician as he said it was which has since been published under the title One and One are Two I can but quote an extract to conclude this chapter. What is it that prevents the prime minister bringing in a bill for female suffrage at once in this very parliament that is opening? He is in favor of it himself and so is the majority of the house. The bulk of the representatives of the people are pledged to it. Here then is a measure which both parties deem necessary. A sensible woman would think that the first thing a parliament would do would be to pass those measures about which both parties agree. Simple female. That is not man's way. That is not politics. What is wanted in parliament is measures about which both parties disagree and which in consequence can never be passed at all. I declare I know nothing outside Swift or W.S. Gilbert to equal the present situation of women's suffrage. The majority have promised to vote for women's suffrage but whom have they promised? Women. And women have no votes. Therefore the MPs do not take them seriously. You see the vicious circle. In order for women to get votes they must have votes already. And so the men will be mocked and be fooled them from session to session. Who can wonder if tired of these gay deceivers they begin to take the law into their own hands? And public opinion. I warn the government. Public opinion is with the women. They are unwomenly and therein consists the martyrdom of the pioneers. They have to lower themselves to the manners of men. They have to be unwomenly in order to promote the cause of womenhood. They have to do the dirty work. Let those ladies suffragists who sit by their cozy firesides at least give them admiration and encouragement. Qui veut la fin veut les moyens. And undoubtedly the means are not the most ladylike. Ladylike means are all very well if you are dealing with gentlemen, but you are dealing with politicians. In politics only force counts. But how is a discredited minority to exercise force? There is a little loophole. Every now and then the party in power has to venture outside its citadel to contest a by-election. The ladies are waiting. The constituency becomes the arena of battle and every government candidate whether he is for female suffrage or not is opposed to the nail. For every government liberal or conservative that refuses to grant female suffrage is ipso facto the enemy. The cause is to be greater than mere party. Damage the government that is the whole secret. Are these tactics sound? In my opinion absolutely so. They are not only ladylike they are constitutional. They are the only legitimate way in which women can bring direct political pressure upon the government. For better than to put yourself in prison is to keep a man out of parliament. What Christianity cannot do, what charity cannot do, what all the thunder of your car-liles and your russkins cannot do, a simple vote does. And so to these myriads of tired women who rise in the raw dawn and troop to their cheerless factories in who when the twilight falls return not to rest but to the labours of a squalid household, to these the thought of women's suffrage which comes as a sneer to the man about town comes as a hope and a prayer. Who dares leave that hope unillumined, that prayer unanswered? For fifty years now women has stood crying. I stand for justice. Answer, shall I have it? And the answer has been a mocking no or a still more mocking yes. With this flabby friendliness this policy of endless evasion. Today she cries, I fight for justice and I answer that I shall have it. Footnotes. 18. Speaking at Leicester on January 30th, the home secretary Mr. Herbert Gladstone was proceeding to extol the promptitude and care with which he asserted the home office inquired into alleged cases of miscarriage of justice when he was interrupted by cries of protest from Annie Kenny and a band of other suffragettes. Whilst they were speedily ejected Mr. Gladstone tried to curry favour with the audience by saying that he particularly regretted what had taken place because his action in regard to the suffragettes had been to reduce the sentences passed upon them and to ameliorate their prison treatment. As we have seen the change was only made in response to an unmistakable public demand and after Mr. Gladstone had begun by saying he had no power to effect it. Note 19. A cultured literary woman who with her husband had recently published two anthologies of music. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of the Suffragette, The History of the Woman's Militant Suffrage Movement by E. Sylvia Pankhurst This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. 8. February and March 1907 The first woman's parliament in the Caxton Hall and the sending out of the mounted police to drive away the woman's deputation. Mr. Dickinson's bill and the second woman's parliament. And now again the thoughts of all the women who wanted votes were turning towards the opening of parliament. The old fashioned suffragettes had held their demonstration during the recess but that of the suffragettes was still to come and it had been announced that on February 13th 1907 a parliament of women would sit in the Caxton Hall to consider the provision of the king's speech to be read in the nation's parliament on the previous day. It was but a year since Annie Kenney had set off to rouse London and since Mrs. Pankhurst had feared that we should neither fail the Caxton Hall nor induce a body of women to march for the sake of a vote through the London streets. But the tickets were now sold off so rapidly that the Exeter Hall in the Strand was also requisitioned and we could now firmly rely on hundreds of women who were ready and eager not merely to walk in procession but if need be to risk imprisonment for the cause. Parliament met on Tuesday the 12th and we soon learnt that the king's speech had made no mention of votes for women. Therefore when the woman's parliament met at three o'clock next day it did so ready for decisive action. Mrs. Pankhurst was in the chair and throughout the proceedings there were manifestations of an enthusiasm such as the women of our time had before then never learnt to show. A resolution expressive of indignation that votes for women had been emitted from the king's speech and calling upon the House of Commons to insist that precedence should be given to such a measure was moved in stirring words and carried with every demonstration of fervent eagerness. A motion that the resolution should be taken to the Prime Minister by a deputation from the meeting was greeted with cheering and waving of handkerchiefs. Then the watch word, rise up women, was sounded and the answer came in a great unanimous shout. Now, while hundreds of our women volunteers ready for parliament or prison sprang to their feet. Mrs. Desperd was chosen to lead the deputation and as each woman marched out of the Caxton Hall a copy of the resolution for the Prime Minister was put into her hand. We formed up in orderly procession and amid the cheers of the thousands of men and women who had gathered in sympathy and with the police walking in front of us we marched into Victoria Street and on towards the House of Commons. It was cold but a shimmering dainty day, the sky a delicate rain washed blue and the sunshine gleaming on the fine gilded points on the roof of the tall clock tower. We stepped out smartly and all seemed to be going well but when those who were in front reached the green in front of the Abbey a body of police barred their way and an inspector called to them to turn back and ordered his men to break up the procession. The police strode through and through our ranks but the women at once united again and pressed bravely on. A little further we went thus when suddenly a body of mounted police came riding up. In an instant Mrs. Despard and several others in the front rank were arrested and the troopers were urging their horses into the midst of the women behind scattering them right and left. Still we strove to reach our destination and returned again and again. Those of us who rushed from the roadway onto the pavement were pressed by the horses closer and closer against the walls and railings until at last we retreated or were forced away by the constables on foot. Those of us who took refuge in doorways were dragged roughly down the steps and hurled back in front of the horses. When even this failed to banish us the foot constables rushed at us and catching us fiercely by the shoulders turned us round again and then seizing us by the back of the neck and thumping us cruelly between the shoulders forced us at a running pace along the streets until we were far from the House of Commons. They had been told to drive us away and to make as few arrests as possible. Still we returned again until at last sixty-five women and two men all of them bruised and disheveled had been taken to the police station and those who had not been arrested were almost fainting from fatigue. Then after ten o'clock the police succeeded in clearing the approaches to the House of Commons and the mounted men were left galloping about in the empty square till midnight when the house rose. In spite of the fierce battle to keep them out fifteen of the suffragettes succeeded by strategy in making their way into the stranger's lobby of the House of Commons and at about six o'clock attempted to hold a meeting there. The police of course rushed to put them out and in the confusion that ensued one of the women succeeded in getting past the barriers and making her way down the passage leading to the beautiful white inner lobby which opens into the sacred chamber of debate. She had just reached the first set of swing doors when a member of Parliament dashed up and slammed them against her with such force that she was thrown to the ground and carried out in a fainting condition. Members of Parliament could scarcely fail to have been impressed by the extraordinary scenes which had taken place and when the adjournment of the House was moved that night a Unionist member, Mr Claude Hay, asked the Home Secretary whether it had been necessary to inconvenience its members by surrounding Parliament with a body of police both upon horse and foot as great as though it had been a fortress instead of a deliberative assembly. It appeared to him, he said, that Mr Gladstone was afraid of the women but they were entitled to make a protest even if it were not agreeable to members of Parliament and there was no need to browbeat them by using force. Mr Gladstone replied that he had very little knowledge of what had been going on outside the House but Mr Claude Hay interrupted him with, then you ought to have. At that he hesitated and changed his tone saying that it was the police who were responsible for keeping open the approaches to the House that they had only done their duty in that he hoped they would continue to do it in the same way. Next morning all the world was talking of the melee and in the newspapers there were long accounts and startling headlines describing the scenes that had taken place. These were very much more favorable to the women than any which had been published hitherto for though the press was still far from admitting the extreme urgency of the cause of women's suffrage or the need for the militant tactics as a means of obtaining the parliamentary vote still a large section of both press and public were unanimous in condemning the government for the violent measures which it had employed to suppress the women's deputation. Many compared the sending out of mounted police against a procession of unarmed women to the employment of Cossacks in Russia and the Liberal Daily Chronicle published a cartoon called The London Cossack which showed a portly policeman riding off with a trophy of ladies hats. At 10 o'clock on Thursday morning January 14th the 57 women and the two men who had been arrested on the previous day appeared at the Westminster Police Court. The women were put in one of the side rooms and then a band of policemen filed in and each one identified his prisoner. For most of the women this was a first visit to the police court and though many of them were severely bruised by the previous day's encounter they were all determined to make the best of the experience and to dwell as far as possible upon the humorous side of the situation. Whilst the suffragettes were ready to forgive the constables seemed mostly anxious to forget the violence and many of them asked their captives to give them the round white votes for women buttons which they were wearing as mementos of the women's famous raid on the House of Commons. After waiting until the drunkers and pickpockets had been disposed of the suffragettes were taken into the court one or two at a time. Christabel Pankhurst as organiser of the demonstration was at her own request the first to be placed in the dock. She explained clearly that many of our members had suffered very seriously but that the WSPU wished to fix the blame for what had occurred not upon the police but upon the government that had dictated the use of these measures for clearing the women away. If the government refused to take the only just simple and proper way out of the difficulty that of giving women their undoubted right to vote she said the responsibility must be theirs and if lives are lost in this campaign the liberal government will be directly responsible. One thing is certain there can be no going back for us and more will happen if we do not get justice. Mr. Curtis Bennett the magistrate here intervened saying with what he evidently thought was unanswerable firmness that the women undoubtedly were responsible for all the trouble that there were other means of obtaining votes and that these disorderly scenes in the streets must be stopped. They can be stopped she retorted but only in one way. He looked at her sternly and twenty shillings or fourteen days was his sole reply. Then she was hurried away and in an incredibly short space of time fifty four suffragettes had been tried and sentenced to undergo punishment varying from ten shillings or seven days imprisonment to forty shillings or one month. Forty shillings or one month's imprisonment had also been imposed on a working man Mr. Edward Croft who had been arrested for trying to defend one of the women in Parliament Square. All those who had been convicted refused to pay their fines and decided to go to prison and whilst Mr. Croft was removed to Pentonville we suffragettes were taken away in the van to Holloway Jail. On arriving at the prison we found that as was now the rule most of our number were to be treated as first class misdemeanants though some few without any apparent reason were to be placed in the second division. Those of us who had been there some months before now found that several minor innovations had been introduced since our last visit to Holloway. When we had originally been put in the first class Mrs. Croft and Sanderson who was a vegetarian was daily served with the usual prison diet and though she was obliged to leave the meat no extra vegetables were allowed her and she was obliged to exist on her potatoes and bread. Now a special dietary have been introduced for vegetarians which consisted at this season of an alternation of carrots and onions with occasional rather stale eggs as a substitute for meat and milk, night and morning instead of cocoa and tea. Butter was sometimes allowed by the doctor's special order. Now that so large a number of us occupied adjoining cells in one corridor and were sent out to exercise together apart from the other prisoners the authorities found it difficult to enforce the full rigor of the prison regime. They found it difficult to prevent our speaking to each other occasionally when we stood together in line waiting to be marched to exercise our chapel. They could scarcely stop the tapping out conversations on the cell walls which was carried on by neighboring suffragettes. Sometimes when the wardresses were off duty one of our number would strike up a hymn or march to which words suitable to our movement had been adapted. The others would join in chorus and when the officers came hurrying back it would be some moments before silence could be restored. For one cause or another many of us were sent to the hospital some being placed in a ward with some twenty or thirty other prisoners others in separate hospital cells. With the exception of Mrs. Despart and myself all the suffragettes were released at the end of the first fortnight but our sentences did not expire until a week later. A procession had been organized to welcome our comrades and a ban had played for an hour outside the prison gates. It is difficult to describe the effect upon ourselves which was created by the music. We knew that it was being played by our friends. We felt almost as though they were speaking to us and to hospital prisoners who are not even allowed to attend service in the chapel the very sound of the music in that dreary place was extraordinarily impressive. It made one's pulses throb and filled one's eyes with tears. The poor ordinary prisoners were filled with excitement and delight and when we were out at exercise with them on the day before our release woman after woman could drive to walk for a few moments either before or after one or other of us in the line and to ask us if we also would be met by a band. How splendid for you! said one of the girls to me wistfully. I only wish I had friends to meet me but I am glad for you. We are looking forward to the band but we shall be sorry to lose you! another said. While so many of us had been in prison a by-election had taken place in South Aberdeen where Mrs. Pankhurst at the head of the suffragettes forces had vigorously opposed the government candidate whose majority had fallen by more than 4,000 votes. The figures were G. B. Esselmont liberal 3,779 R. McNeil conservative 3,412 F. Bramley socialist 1,740 at the general election the figures had been J. Bryce liberal 6,780 W. G. Black unionist 2,332 The suffragists too had not been inactive for Mrs. Henry Fawcett and four of her colleagues had written to the prime minister asking that they might be allowed to plead the cause of women's suffrage at the bar of the house. They pointed out that in 1688 Anne the widow of Edward Fitz Harris who was executed for treason in 1681 had been allowed to speak for herself and her children at the bar and that Mrs. Clark mistress of the Duke of York had been summoned thither to give evidence in regard to the charges of corruption against the Duke. Nevertheless Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman refused to grant their request on the ground that there was no precedent for women to appear at the bar of the house in support of a petition. Meanwhile since the so-called raid on the house that had led to our imprisonment candid friends had been constantly telling us that we had entirely alienated the sympathy of those who had hitherto supported the enfranchisement of women. Yet even whilst the raid had been in progress a very much larger number of parliamentary representatives were agreeing to give their places in the private member's ballot to a woman's suffrage bill than had ever done so before. When the result of the ballot became known it was found that for the first time in the history of the movement the fortunate member who had secured the coveted first place out of 670 was willing to devote it to introducing a measure to give votes to women. It was a liberal member Mr. Dickinson who had won the first place and had decided to introduce the women's enfranchisement bill. The anti-suffragists that once began to work actively against the measure and the first women's anti-suffrage society that had ever been formed was inaugurated to oppose it. Two petitions against the women's enfranchisement bill one of them said to be signed by 21,000 and the other by 16,500 persons were presented to parliament on March 5 and March 22. They were heralded by the jubilations of our opponents but when the petitions came to be examined they were rejected by the petitions committee of parliament as informal. This was because the separate sheets upon which the signatures had been written were not each headed by the prayer against the granting of women's suffrage and there was consequently no evidence to prove that the signatories had known for what purpose their names were being collected. Afterwards Mr. J. M. Robertson examined the anti-suffrage petitions and reported that whole batches of signatures had been written in by a single hand, that the batch work began on the very first sheets and that it had appeared as though the petitions had been got up wholesale in this fashion. Mr. J. H. Wilson, MP, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Public Petitions, afterwards stated in the House of Commons that the names of whole families of persons had undoubtedly been written in by the same hand. But even had these petitions been so evidently authentic as to have been accepted by parliament without question they would still have been quite insignificant as compared with the great petitions and memorials in support of votes for women which had been presented year after year since 1866. But the days in which women might have won or lost the parliamentary vote by petitioning had long gone by and all politically minded women knew this. For a member of parliament to declare himself an open opposition to votes for women rendered him extremely unpopular. Many of the anti-suffragists, especially of the Liberal Party, now pretended that their reason for objecting to Mr. Dickinson's bill was that they did not consider it to be a democratic measure. They declared that it would disenfranchise married women, would give the vote to women of wealth and property only, and would exclude all those who had to work for their own living. So emphatically was this statement made that it was difficult to convince many people that the measure in question was the old equal women's enfranchisement bill and that there was no intention of introducing some new fangled fancy franchise. Yet as a matter of fact Mr. Dickinson's bill contained only a slight alteration in the wording though not in the sense of the last clause of the original measure. Instead of the phrase, any law or usage to the contrary notwithstanding, which occurred in the original bill and was intended to strike at the disability of coverture which affects married women, the words, a woman shall not be disqualified by reason of marriage from being so registered and voting, notwithstanding any law or custom to the contrary, were substituted. On moving the second reading of the bill Mr. Dickinson dealt especially with the objections of those who declared that the measure was anti-democratic. He stated that in 1904 the women-electors in his constituency of North St. Pancras had numbered 1014. Of these women 3% had belonged to the wealthy upper class, 37% to the middle class, and 60% to the working class, many of the latter being exceedingly poor. When asked by the Secretary of the Local Woman's Suffer Society in his constituency of Dunferman whether he would support the second reading of the bill, Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman had replied, I will, with much pleasure, give my support to Mr. Dickinson's bill when it comes before the House of Commons. Now that the moment for fulfilling his promise had arrived, however, the Prime Minister threw cold water upon the measure. I am not very warmly enamored of it, he said, and after casting doubt upon the accuracy of Mr. Dickinson's figures he added that in his opinion the bill would merely and franchise a small minority of well-to-do women. Where the Prime Minister had led, the rank-and-file anti-suffragist liberal members of parliament followed. Though they had neither facts nor figures of their own to quote in support of their contention, and in face of both of Mr. Dickinson's figures and Mr. Snowden's reminder that the ILP Census of 1904 had shown that 82% of the women on the municipal register belonged to the working classes, they still continued to assert that only a handful of property women could obtain votes under this bill. At the same time, although they themselves belonged almost exclusively to the middle and upper classes, they persistently stated their belief in the dangerous influence of the women who belonged to those same classes. As the afternoon wore on, attempts were made to move the closure of the debate in order that a vote on the bill might be taken, but the speaker refused to accept the resolution and at five o'clock Mr. Ease, the liberal member for Montgomery Bergs, talked the measure out after a five-hours debate. There was no protest from the ladies' gallery this time as the suffragettes had all been rigorously excluded, but both suffragettes and suffragists combined in urging the government to give another day for the discussion of the bill. This they curtly refused, and though the suffragettes had not agreed to accept the decision as final and intended to renew their demand until it was granted, Mr. Dickinson shortly afterwards withdrew his bill in order to make way for a woman's suffrage resolution, a place for which had been obtained by Sir Charles McLaren. No sooner had Mr. Dickinson's bill been withdrawn and Sir Charles McLaren's resolution set down in its stead than it was blocked by discredible move on the part of a well-known anti-suffragist, Mr., afterwards Sir., Morris Levy. Taking advantage of a rule of the House of Commons by which a resolution cannot be proceeded with, if a bill dealing with a similar subject has been introduced, this liberal member now brought forward a bill which he never intended to be discussed to give a vote to every adult man and woman. Therefore Sir Charles McLaren's resolution was thus entirely shelved. This was not by any means the first time that the trick had been used in the case of a woman's suffrage motion, but the device was acknowledged to be an unjustifiable abuse of the procedure rules. Mr. Levy refused even the speaker's request to withdraw his dummy bill. Protests were raised on all sides of the House because it was realized that, if the practice of bringing in dummy bills to prevent discussion were to become common, the right of private members to introduce resolutions would be entirely destroyed. A resolution embodying this point of view was therefore agreed to, and Mr. Asquith promised that the government would take action in the matter. Note 20. Though the question was raised again three months later, however, the promise was never kept, and though the general feeling was that Mr. Levy had offended against the recognized etiquette of Parliament, it must be remembered that, as the standard put it, if the government had chosen to exercise pressure, Mr. Levy would have proved complacent. Note 21. But after all this was only a resolution, and realizing that the government, with practically all the time of Parliament at its disposal, could easily provide the few days necessary for carrying into law a woman's suffrage measure, the women's social and political union were now preparing for further militant action. On the day of the talking out of Mr. Dickinson's bill, a meeting had been held by the Union in the Exeter Hall at which Mrs. Pethic Lawrence had called for subscriptions to inaugurate a £20,000 campaign fund, and over £1,400 had been sent up to the platform during the meeting. On March 20, 1907, the second woman's Parliament assembled in the Caxton Hall. Note 22. This Parliament was specially characterized by the large number of delegates from the provinces, amongst whom was a contingent of Lancashire-Caughton operatives led by Annie Kenney and wearing their clogs and shawls. As before, the decision to carry a resolution to the Prime Minister was heralded with an enthusiasm that was almost fiercely overwhelming. Then, when Christabel Panker is called out from the platform, who will lead the deputation? Lady Haberton, for many years a suffragist of the old school, eagerly answered, I, and at once hundreds of women sprang up to follow her. As soon as the deputation gained the street, the police began to push and hustle them, but though overwhelmingly outnumbered, they bravely strove hour after hour to carry out their purpose. Rigid lines of police drawn up across the approaches to the house prevented their even getting near to it, and though at one point a number of Lancashire mill hands drove up in a couple of wagonettes, and being mistaken for sightseers succeeded in reaching the stranger's entrance, they were discovered and beaten back. Meanwhile, Caxton Hall was kept open all the afternoon and on into the evening, and the disabled women were constantly returning thither. They brought with them the news that numbers of women had been arrested, and that though Lady Haberton had at last got into the House of Commons, her petition had been ignored. Christabel Pankers then advised any who might succeed in entering Parliament to take sterner measures, to rush, if they could, into the sacred chamber of the debate itself, to seat themselves upon the government bench and demand a hearing. If possible, she cried, seize the mace, and you will be the Cromwells of the twentieth century. The women rushed back with renewed zeal. It was now dark, and as the crowds grew denser and denser and the police turned on them more angrily, many members of the Parliament, including Mr. Herbert Gladstone and Mr. Lloyd George, came out to watch the scene. Some showed distress at the way in which the women were being treated, but others regarded it as a joke. Many of the women were roughly handled and some were seriously hurt, but speaking generally, the violence used against them was not so great as on the previous February 13th. It was said that no fewer than a thousand extra police were especially drafted into Parliament Square to guard the House of Commons. Amongst those who had been arrested were Dr. Mabel Hardy, Ms. Nisey Peters, a Norwegian painter and a friend of Ibsen, Ms. Kimino Fogliero, a portrait painter from Rome and Ms. Constance Clyde, a well-known Australian journalist and novelist. Next day when the women were brought up before Mr. Horace Smith at the Westminster Police Court, Mr. Musket, who appeared to prosecute on behalf of the police, protested that the suffragettes had hitherto been treated with the utmost indulgence and begged that they should in future be dealt with as ordinary lawbreakers. Therefore the magistrate gave to most of the women exactly the same sentences, varying from twenty shillings or fourteen days to forty shillings or one month's imprisonment that had been meted out to their comrades on the last occasion. Ms. Patricia Woodlock and Mrs. Ada Chatterton, the former having only left Holloway on the expiration of her previous month's imprisonment one week before, were, as old offenders, sentenced to one month's imprisonment without the option of a fine. Mrs. Mary Lee, though this was her first arrest, also received a month's imprisonment because, by hanging a votes for woman banner over the edge of the dock, she annoyed the magistrate, who said that he did not think it a decent thing to wave a flag in a court of justice. Thus, as a result of two attempts within the short space of five weeks to carry resolutions to the prime minister, from meetings of women held in the Caxton Hall, one hundred and thirty women who were agitating for an eminently just and absolutely simple reform had been imprisoned. Even to the next generation this state of things will appear monstrous, how much more so to those that are to follow in the dim future. Footnotes Twenty When Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman introduced a resolution dealing with the veto of the House of Lords three months afterwards, Lord Robert Cecil introduced a dummy bill for the abolition of the House of Lords veto in order to prevent Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman's motion being discussed, and thus to teach the anti-severages that their own blocking tactics could be used against themselves. As Lord Robert Cecil came forward with his bill, Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman, knowing what he was going to do, begged him not to introduce it in order that the government's resolution might not be delayed. If Lord Robert Cecil would not agree, the prime minister threatened to call the sitting of the House for the next Saturday, the day which had been fixed for the King's Garden Party, in order to pass a special motion to allow the government's resolution to be proceeded with. Still Lord Robert Cecil protested that the government must draw up the proposed standing order, or he would insist upon introducing his bill and Mr. Balfour supported him saying, you can cook up a land bill in three days yet you cannot draft a standing order in three months. In the end the government again promised to make such action as Mr. Levy's impossible, and Lord Robert Cecil withdrew his bill, but the promise has not yet been redeemed. Note 21 So far from exercising pressure upon Mr. Levy, the Liberal government shortly afterwards gave him a knighthood. The failure to carry out their pledge, which I have referred to in the previous note, clearly shows that the government did not in any way disapprove of Mr. Levy's action, and were anxious that the possibility of its being repeated should remain. Note 22 Shortly after the Second Woman's Parliament, a proposal was raised that the Westminster City Council should prevent the Hall being led to the Woman's Social and Political Union. The Chairman of the General Purposes Committee then stated that this course would be adopted if any damage were done to the Hall itself. Up to the present no further attempt has been made to prevent the holding of the Woman's Parliament in the Hall. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Of the Suffragette The History of the Woman's Militant Suffrage Movement by E. Sylvia Pankhurst This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. 9 A Crop of Bi-Elections March to May 1907 No sooner had the Second Woman's Parliament been concluded than Mrs. Pankhurst had hurried off by the night train to take command of the Suffragette forces against the government at a bi-election at Exum in Northumberland where the liberal majority was reduced by more than a thousand votes. This election was scarcely over when it was followed with scarcely a week's intermission by no fewer than seven others at six of which the Suffragettes were to the fore. From Exum our militant army was transferred to Stepney and then to Rutland, the smallest English county. Writing at the beginning of the Rutland Contest, the Daily News Correspondent said, Each of the three parties, the third being the Woman's Social and Political Union, opened its campaign with meetings in the Rutland division tonight. Thus recognized from the start as one of the three forces to be reckoned with in the election, the WSBU kept its important position right through until the end. In every hamlet and village the Woman's Speakers were cordially received and their speeches were listened to with earnest attention and respect. After the meetings men and women clustered round to ask questions and tell how, before the passing of the 1884 Reform Act, which had enfranchised the agricultural laborers in the days when voters were scarce, widows and daughters whose fathers were dead had been frequently turned out of their farms, not because they could not pay the rent but because they could not vote. Even today the people said that a woman tenant was sometimes looked upon with disfavor on that account. Though the wages of the agricultural laborers in this district were exceedingly low, there was hardly a single member of the audience who did not buy at least one badge or penny pamphlet, whilst the free leaflets were eagerly seized upon and laborers would come hurrying across the fields to the roadside in order to secure them. As the days went by the journeyings of the suffragettes from meeting place to meeting place throughout the constituency became a sort of triumphal progress. We were cheerily hailed from afar by distant workers among the crops and by drivers of passing carts. Men, women and children ran to the cottage doors to see us pass, and everywhere we were greeted with smiles and kindly words. Only in the towns of Occam the capital and at Uppingham did we meet any opposition, but here most of the working men were deeply anxious that the liberal should be returned. Rightly or wrongly they believed in the liberal party, believed it to be the party of progress and the one that would stand by the poor man. Nevertheless the majority listened courteously to our arguments and admitting at last that our policy was logical and right for us although inconvenient to them. Many of the staunchest liberals were even one over to go all the way with us and to help us to keep the liberal out. But whilst the majority was thus willing to listen and anxious to understand, there was also a bitterly hostile element which was inflamed by an absolutely unreasoning spirit of party antagonism, and it was well known and quite openly stated in Occam that a certain well to do liberal was paying a gang of youths to shut down the suffragettes at their nightly meetings in the market place. It is always found by those who take part in political warfare that the roughest and least civilized members of society are invariably opposed to the pioneer and the reformer and usually support the government in power to whatever party it may belong just as they try to back the winner in a race. With the additional monetary incentive to create a disturbance, this element soon rendered our marketplace meetings unpleasantly turbulent with the result that the local police were kept busier than they had been for a generation and reinforcements had to be sent in from Leicestershire in order to keep the peace. The tradesmen from whom we hired the lorry that we used as a platform now announce that he dared not let us have it in future because he had been warned not only that the vehicle itself would be damaged but that his windows would be broken and his shop looted. Not until we had tried without success every lorry owner in Occam did a man who was storing a wagon for a farmer living many miles outside the constituency at last come to us and say that if we could go to the barn in the field where it was kept and fetched for ourselves we might have the use of this wagon on promising to make good any damage that might be done. We agreed to this and were able to hold our meetings right on until the end of the contest though on the last two nights very little that we said could be heard owing to the number of horns bells and rattles that were loudly sounded by our opponents. After these stormy meetings the police and hosts of sympathizers always escorted us home to protect us from the rowdies. Just as we reached our door there was generally a little scuffle with a band of youths who waited there to pelt us with sand and gravel as we passed in. Once inside the house the rest of the evening was always taken up with interviewing the host of previously unknown callers who came to ask whether we had arrived home safely to apologize for the roughs to express sympathy with votes for women to buy literature, badges and buttons or to ask us to inscribe our names in autograph albums. At Uppingham the second largest town the hostel element was smaller than at Occam but its methods were more dangerous. Whilst Mary Gothorp was holding an open air meeting there one evening a crowd of noisy youths began to throw up peppermint, bull's eyes and other hard-boiled sweets. Sweets to the sweet, said little Mary smiling and continued her argument but a pot egg thrown from the crowd behind, struck her on the head and she fell unconscious. She was carried away but next day appeared again like a true suffragette quite undaunted and the incident and her plucky spirit made her the heroine of the election. Polling took place on June 11 and instead of the great increase in the government vote that had been expected the conservative majority was nearly doubled. The figures were Jay Gretton, conservative, 2213, W. F. Lyon, liberal, 1362, conservative majority, 851. The figures at the general election had been H. G. Finch, conservative, 2047, Harold Pearson, liberal, 1564, conservative majority, 483. The campaign in Rutland was not yet over when Mrs. Pankhurst and part of our forces were obliged to go north to Gerald where there was a government majority of nearly 3,000 votes to pull down. The conservatives, the Labour Party, the Irish Nationalists and of course the liberals themselves had each put a candidate into the field and every one of this bevy of candidates was in favour of votes for women. Whether the majority of these who came in contact with the suffragettes during these by-election campaigns understood the workings of the party machinery which controls the government of our country well enough to realise that by voting against the government they would help the votes for women cause may perhaps be doubted by some. Though these suffragettes were constantly receiving both written and verbal assurances from electors who declared that their votes had turned upon this question but that the hearts of the people were stirred by the suffragettes appeal is absolutely sure. In the leafy lanes and tiny villages of Rutland great interest and sympathy had been evoked but in smoky struggling Gerald with its coal mines, shipbuilding yards and engineering works, with its dingy slums were overcrowding and infant mortality are, in common with the rest of this district, more rife than in any other part of the country, the message of the suffragettes came to the overburgent woman as a wonderful ray of hope that had burst in upon the squalor of their lives. On the first night of their arrival in Gerald, Mrs. Pankhurst and Annie Kenny held the largest open-air meeting that had ever been seen in that town and the numberless subsequent gatherings whether for men and women or for women only which were held in halls, in open spaces, at work gates and at the collieries where in every case larger and more orderly than those held by any of the other parties. A systematic canvas was made of the women householders who numbered more than one thousand and a committee of local women who had come forward with offers of help sprang almost spontaneously into being. Three days before the end of the contest it was suggested that a woman's procession should march to the various polling booths in order to remind the men to vote against the nominee of the government that had refused to allow women to become voters too. The idea was eagerly caught up. Banners were quickly made by voluntary helpers, the news was carried throughout the district and on polling day great crowds of women came flocking to the mechanics hall where they were to assemble. They came early but found that a well-dressed mob of men and youths wearing the liberal colors had already gathered to bar the doorway and the women were literally obliged to fight their way both in and out of their own meeting. As soon as the procession had got fairly out into the main road however everything went well for though at no time did the police put in an appearance either to keep order or to clear the way for them the women were protected from obstruction by the sympathy and goodwill of the populace. As they passed onward greater and greater numbers joined their ranks until it seemed as though all the women of Jero were marching along the road. The men whom they met coming from the polling booths greeted them with cheers and cries of, we have voted for the women this time, we have kept the liberal out. They spoke truly for when the votes were counted it was found that the government candidate was third on the list and that the liberal vote at the general election had been reduced by more than half. The figures were Pete Curran, Labour, 4698 P. Rose Innis, Conservative, 3930 Spencer Lee Hughes, Liberal, 3474 J. O'Hanlon, Nationalist, 2124 The figures at the general election had been Sir C. M. Palmer, Liberal, 8047 Pete Curran, Labour, 5093 Before the Jero election was over came another in the Cone Valley in Yorkshire and here again an old liberal stronghold was rested from the government. After the declaration of the poll Mr. Grayson, the successful candidate, publicly admitted that his return was largely due to the heavily damaging effect of the Savajets attack upon his liberal opponent. An article on this election headed, Votes for Women but Fair Play for Liberals, which appeared in the Liberal Tribune condemning the anti-government by election policy of the Savajets, was an admission of the great influence which they had been able to exercise at this and other recent by elections. Note 23. A more gracious tribute to the electioneering capabilities of the Savajets by the special correspondent of the Morning Post appeared in that paper on August 1st, 1909 during the Northwest Staffordshire by-election. The next election was at Barry St. Edmunds in Suffolk. Here the Liberal vote was greatly reduced and that of the Conservative more than doubled. The figures were the Honourable W. Guinness, Unionist, 1631, W. B. Yates, Liberal, 741, Unionist Majority, 890. The figures at the general election had been Captain F. W. Harvey, Unionist, 1481, W. B. Yates, Liberal, 1047, Unionist Majority, 434. When after the declaration of the poll the successful candidate, the Honourable W. Guinness appeared at the window of the Angel Hotel to thank his supporters and to speak to the people in the customary way, he asked, what has been the cause of this great and glorious victory? He was interrupted by cries of votes for women and by three cheers for the Savajets, vigorously given from the assembled crowd. No doubt the ladies had something to do with it. He was constrained to agree. During this first year of by-election work since the anti-government campaign had been started at Eye and Cockermouth in 1906, the suffragette forces had grown very largely and instead of the one or two workers who had gone to the first contest, there were now upwards of 30 regular by-election campaigners who could always be relied upon at headquarters. During each contest from 16 to 20 meetings were held by the Union each day. At all these gatherings collections were taken and admission was charged for many of the election meetings held in halls, though both practices were unexampled at election times. A fine answer to the liberal cry that they were fighting with Tory Gold and a striking proof of the suffragette speaker's popularity with the audiences were thus provided. At every contest in which the suffragettes had fought hitherto, there had been a fall in the government vote which had been reduced to Cockermouth by 1,446, at Huddersfield by 540, in Northwest Derbyshire by 1,021, in South Aberdeen by 3,001, at Exham by 231, at Stepney by 503, at Rutland by 202, at Jero by 4,573, at Cone Valley by 2,204, in Northwest Staffordshire by 271, and at Barry St. Edmonds by 306, making in all a total loss of votes to the government of 13,300. In spite of the denials of party wire pullers a part of this loss was certainly due to the suffragettes. At some of the later election contests beginning at Exham a new complication had been introduced. During all the years of its existence the old non-millitant National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies had held entirely aloof from all election warfare but seeing that the suffragettes during the first year of their anti-government by-election campaigning had rapidly grown not only in service popularity but in real influence with the electorate the older suffragettes now came to the conclusion that they too must adopt a by-election policy. Unfortunately however the older suffragettes had not the courage to make common cause with the suffragettes who had raised the question of women's suffrage from the position of a stale, old-fashioned joke to that of a living moving force in practical politics. They decided instead not to oppose the government but to support any parliamentary candidate who should declare himself to be favorable to women's suffrage. If as generally happened nowadays all the candidates should claim to be favorable the NUSS should either support the most favorable or remain neutral. In the event of no candidate being favorable a special women's suffrage candidate might be run. Thus rather than boldly oppose a government that had only too clearly shown that it would never give women the vote until it was forced to do so these old-fashioned suffragettes preferred to ignore entirely the dominating principle of the politics of their own time namely government by party. They preferred to go on working for the return of a few more of the private members of parliament who, though they already formed a majority of more than two-thirds of the House of Commons, had themselves, for the hundredth time, been proved to be incapable of doing anything to prevent the wrecking of a women's suffrage bill when in that very march in which this futile election policy was decided upon Mr. Dickinson's bill had been talked out. It is always more difficult to carry out a weak policy than a strong one and the adoption of this particular policy not only failed to advance the suffrage cause but also failed in one object for which it primarily was designed namely to prevent dissension in the ranks of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies itself. Many members at once seceded and joined the Women's Social and Political Union and many of those who did not actually resign their membership of the old society now threw all their energy into working for the younger, more active and courageous body. On the other hand, there were still those liberal women who cared more for party than for principal to be reckoned with and one of these, Lady Carlisle, resigned the vice-presidentship of the NUWSS which she had accepted but a few days before the new by-election policy had been announced because in her party-ridden opinion to oppose a liberal candidate who was opposed to their enfranchisement seemed too drastic and extreme a course for women to adopt. When the by-election policy of the NUWSS came to be put into practice its unworkable character was immediately demonstrated. The candidates at Exum were interviewed with the result that the Unionist, Colonel Bates, returned what was considered to be a favorable answer was the reply of Mr. R. D. Holt the liberal was said to be unsatisfactory. The National Union of Women's Suffered Societies was therefore, according to the newly framed policy obliged to support the conservative candidate, but when they proceeded to do so many of the liberal members of the organization objected and some even went so far as to work for the liberal candidate in opposition to their secretary Miss Edith Palliser and the rest of the society. To make matters even more embarrassing for those who were endeavoring to carry out the policy the liberal candidate now veered round a point or two as candidates so often will and stated that he had always been in favor of women's enfranchisement and that his only fear was that women were not asking for their votes upon a sufficiently democratic basis. He was therefore proclaimed by his supporters to be a staunch and devoted friend of the women's suffrage cause. Meanwhile, the suffragettes foresaw very clearly that this new policy which would sometimes cause the suffragists to support the government candidate whom they themselves were strenuously working against would confuse the electors and increase the difficulty of explaining the anti-government policy and though the anti-government policy was a very simple one, even simple things are difficult to explain when hosts of people are striving to misrepresent them. In May the National Union of Suffrage Societies decided to run a parliamentary candidate of their own at a by-election in Wimbledon and had chosen as their nominee a well-known liberal, the Hon. Bertrand Russell. The crushing defeat which resulted has unfortunately been quoted as a proof that the majority of the parliamentary voters in that constituency were opposed to the principle of women's enfranchisement but an impartial examination into the facts shows clearly that they do not in any way justify this conclusion. The Wimbledon seat had always been held by the conservatives and their majority of the general election in spite of the then great liberal revival had numbered more than 2,000 votes. Now with the well-known and typical old conservative, Mr. Henry Chaplin in the field, the liberal party considered it wisest not to fight. Therefore, but for the intervention of the National Union of Suffrage Societies who opposed him because of his anti-suffragist views, Mr. Chaplin would have been returned without a contest. Opinions may reasonably be divided as to whether the game of running parliamentary candidates would possibly be worth the candle to a woman's suffrage society but everyone will surely agree that if suffrage candidates were to be run at all, the chief object of the suffragist ought to have been to a face as far as possible all other points of political difference between the rival candidates in order that upon the question of votes for women and upon the question alone, the electors might have decided how to vote. To ensure that the single issue should predominate, it might have been well to choose as the suffragist nominee a candidate whose views upon general political questions were either similar to those of his anti-suffrage opponent or altogether colorless and obscure. In any case, it was essential that the suffragist candidate should be willing to subordinate all his other political opinions and to concentrate his attention absolutely upon the question of votes for women. In this election, however, though it was well known that liberalism was unpopular, the suffragist chose to represent them a strong liberal who was determined to make the election contest an opportunity for propagating his liberal principles. That Mr. Bertrand Russell cared very much more for liberalism than he did for women's votes was at once apparent. With the news that he had consented to stand as a suffrage candidate came the announcement that he would not in any circumstances have agreed to do so had an official liberal been nominated and he showed clearly that he had no intention of standing out against the wishes of his party leaders in order to press forward the woman's cause. Right from the outset, the record of the liberal government and the general principles of liberalism were the points constantly put before the electors and it was upon these points that the election was really fought. Mr. Russell's election address, which was in fact the manifesto of the suffragist advocated free trade, the taxation of land values and other questions quite unconnected with their cause. In his last message to the electors he said, Do you prefer Mr. Chaplin, the protectionist and crusted Tory, to one who is at least a free trader and progressive? Such person should remember that every vote not given to me is given to my opponent. The conservatives eagerly seized the opportunity of fighting Mr. Russell on the ground of his liberalism and scouted the idea of his being considered a woman's suffrage candidate. At the same time the liberals disassociated themselves from his candidature. It was no great matter for surprise therefore that Mr. Russell was defeated by more than 6,000 votes. The figures were H. Chaplin, Unionist, 10,263 B. Russell, Liberal, 3,299 Unionist majority, 6,964 The figures of the general election had been C. E. Hambrough, Unionist, 9,523 Mr. Lane Fox, Pitt, Liberal, 7,409 Unionist majority, 2,114 It is interesting to note that in the six elections which had taken place since 1885 the liberals had only thought it worked their while to contest the seat on three occasions and on one of these the liberal vote had fallen below that recorded for Mr. Bertrand Russell. Perhaps the most unfortunate feature of the contest was that those of the suffragist women who genuinely wished to further the interests of the women's cause without respect to party instead of taking command of the situation leading their candidate a right and showing that they were determined that women's suffrage should be the only feature of the election allowed the contest to be dominated by Mr. Russell and his liberal opinions. Herein lay the great point of difference between the suffragists and the suffragettes. The suffragists were ever prone to look upon their cause as a side issue and to apologize for any impatient attempt to press it to the front. The suffragettes on the other hand were ready to stake their all upon it and constantly proclaimed it to be the highest and greatest in the world. Footnotes 23 If Mr. Stanley is the saint and Mr. Twyford the hero, these suffragettes are the politicians of the election. I confess that until I had seen the suffragette iron sides at work I thought the terror for form rupert's unsurpassed. The organization of the suffragettes is as good as their political insight. They adopt the fan formation. They usually have three or four local centers in a scattered constituency. The members of each group in each center live together irrespective of class differences. It is a pleasure to see the fan opened, controlled and set by the controlling hand at the center. Early in the morning while men are sleeping or at the committee rooms a group of women will walk up the street of their center. At the crossroads of each center each single group becomes a fan itself. Each member takes a different road. Chock and hand, each woman whilst going to one meeting makes the announcement of another. The men usually hunt in couples. They do not care to face these hostile audiences single handed but each of these women as often as not tackles an audience alone. If combined hammering is necessary the central hand sends to the rescue. Their staying power judging them by the standard of men is extraordinary. By taking afternoon as well as evening meetings they have worked twice as hard as the men. They are up earlier, they retire just as late. Women against men they are better speakers, more logical, better informed, better phrased with a sure insight for the telling argument. End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of the Suffragette The History of the Woman's Militant Suffrage Movement by E. Sylvia Pankhurst This labor box recording is in the public domain. 10. The Formation of the Woman's Freedom League Revival of Militant Tactics In spite of its unprecedented growth the woman's social and political union was now approaching a very difficult crisis in its history. Little by little differences of opinion in regard to questions of organization and policy had begun to show themselves amongst the members of its governing body and finally in September 1907 a reconstruction of the committee and constitution of the union took place. Now, although every one of the original founders of the union remained, a number of those who had for some time belonged to the Central Committee left to form a new militant society called the Woman's Freedom League which opened its offices at 18 Buckingham Street Strand and of which Mrs. Despard became honorary treasurer, Mrs. Billington Greig, honorary organizer, and Mrs. Edith Howe Martin, honorary secretary. Note 24 At the same time a reconstruction of the organizing basis of the woman's social and political union itself was affected and it became obligatory for all members of the union to sign the following pledge. I endorsed the objects and methods of the woman's social and political union and hereby undertake not to support the candidate of any political party at parliamentary elections until women have obtained the parliamentary vote. All the prominent members of the WSPU who had not already done so now formally severed their connection with the political parties to which they had one time belonged. During the past year a useful little weekly paper entitled Woman's Franchise had been started by Mr. and Mrs. Francis as the joint organ of the various suffrage societies and in the month of October 1907, Note 24, Votes for Women, the Organ of the Woman's Social and Political Union was first issued as a monthly paper by Mr. and Mrs. Pethic Lawrence. Our members at once volunteered to sell it in the streets and were soon turning themselves into sandwich women and parading about with its contents bills slung from their shoulders, writing on horseback through Piccadilly with its posters hanging from the saddle, selling it from decorated buses and carriages, canvassing for subscribers and advertisers for it, and evolving 101 devices to increase its sale. As a result of these efforts both its size and circulation increased rapidly. In May 1908 it became a penny weekly paper and in the beginning of the year 1909 its circulation had risen to between 30,000 and 50,000 copies weekly and it was handed over by Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence to the Union itself as a paying concern. On October 5th a woman's suffrage procession was organized in Edinburgh by the militant and non-militant women's suffragist societies and some 4,000 women from all parts of Scotland assembled under the shadow of Arthur's seat and cheered by upwards of 100,000 people who had gathered to see them march thence to the Synod Hall where there was held a crowded demonstration which overflowed into the Pillar Hall. Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman was in Edinburgh at the time and was asked to receive a deputation from the processionists but though this was backed by many influential Scots women he refused. When on October 22nd he spoke at Dunferman in his own constituency the Premier was obliged as Scotch Heckling is a recognized institution to reply to the questioning of women as well as of men. He was asked, as the Prime Minister believes in women's suffrage would he suggest some fresh methods which we could adopt in order to gain our enfranchisement? He replied, I think women ought to go on agitating, holding meetings and pestering as much as they can as all other men and women who are interested in public questions have to do. Whatever this piece of advice may have been intended to suggest it certainly sounded very much like a justification of the policy of pestering members of the government at their meetings. For six months the suffragettes have devoted themselves to strengthening and extending their organization, electioneering, the distribution of literature and the holding of propaganda meetings of which between May and October some 3,000 had taken place including a demonstration in Bogart Hall-Claw, Manchester, attended by 15,000 people, another in Stevenson Square, Manchester, attended by 20,000 people and meetings in Hyde Park each Sunday at many of which the audiences had numbered upwards of 12,000. Nevertheless the question of votes for women which had bulked so largely in the papers whilst the militant tactics had been in full swing had almost entirely disappeared from the press during these latter months and anyone who judged from the newspapers alone might well have imagined that the agitation had died down. This fact together with the government's continued refusal even to consider the question of granting votes to women was enough without the Prime Minister's curiously provocative statement to convince the suffragettes that the time had come to recommend an active militant campaign and from this time onward a cabinet minister's meeting was invaded on almost every day until parliament met in the new year. Again and again members of our union with a courage and perseverance which too few people have ever recognized presented themselves at these meetings and having asked their question or made their protest were rudely set upon by crowds of stewards and flung fiercely and violently out into the street. Many outsiders preferred to look upon the women who faced this violence as being harder and less sensitive or as differing in some other way from the rest of their sex but this was not by any means the case. Many of those who bore the worst brunt of the battle were women who had hitherto taken no part in politics and had always led quiet and sheltered lives. Others had had to fight hard for their livelihood. Indeed they were of all ages and of all classes. Week by week greater numbers of them were joining the union and coming forward to take a part in this work but young and old, rich and poor were treated in the same way. Meanwhile cabinet ministers either expressed surprise and horrified disapproval of their behavior or sought instead to cover them with ridicule. Mr. Sidney Buxton at his meeting at Poplar on October 12th cynically called to his women questioners whom the stewards were maltreating to behave decorously like men. That old self-styled friend of women's suffrage Mr. Haldane addressing a meeting of women liberals in Glasgow on January 8th 1908 devoted the greater part of his speech to condemning the suffragettes saying that men did not like to be fought with pinpricks and that though women might wage war he should advise them not to do it with botkins. At a meeting in his own constituency shortly afterwards he insisted that the women who interrupted him should be ejected by the police and when finally with bruised and aching limbs and torn in disheveled clothing they had all been thrown out of the hall he treated the whole matter as a joke saying that he was bachelor proof against these bells. Mr. Asquith like the Prime Minister was forced to reply to a question put to him in his own scotch constituency at Taeport on October 29th. There he said that if the vote were granted to women it would do more harm than good and that in any case the House of Commons is not elected on a basis of universal suffrage for children are not represented there. At several meetings notably those of Mr. Asquith at Non-Eton on November 16th and of Mr. Winston Churchill in the historic free trade hall the stewards behaved with so much brutality that the police intervened to protect the women. But though at these gatherings of liberal partisans the women were usually flung outside without delay there were still some occasions on which the audience rallied around them. Incidents of this kind occurred when Mr. Herbert Gladstone now frequently nicknamed the prison secretary spoken his constituency and leads on November 21st and 22nd. On the first night the audience prevented the ejection of women questioners and on the second Mr. Gladstone was howled down by both men and women and next morning the paper stated in startling headlines that the home secretary had been put to flight. Mr. Lewis Harcourt the first commissioner of works had a similar experience in his constituency the Rossendale Valley on October 28th. During the day he declared to a deputation of women that he was opposed to their cause because he was. At his evening meeting women protested again so vigorously and in such numbers that it was broken up and his departing audience flocked to hear Mrs. Pankhurst who was speaking from a wagon outside the hall. On November 22nd Mr. Lloyd George stated to a deputation of the members of the old non-militant Glasgow and West of Scotland Association for women's suffrage that votes could not be granted to women until the subject of their enfranchisement had been made a test question at a general election and dispose of the contention that this had already been done because over 400 members of parliament out of 670 returned at the last general election had been pledged to support women's suffrage by saying that these pledges did not count because they had not been made to constituents. As unenfranchised women were no man's constituents Mr. Lloyd George therefore evidently saw no harm in the breaking of promises that had been made to them and he gave no indication as to how whilst neither political party was prepared to put votes for women upon its program women were to make their franchise a test question at election times except either by obtaining pledges from individual members or by attacking the government in power as the suffragettes were doing. He yet went on to say that he should oppose very strenuously any legislation that excluded any class of women from its scope and any measure to enfranchise women that would not give to the working man's wife as much voice in the making of the laws of the country as her husband possessed. This meant of course that Mr. Lloyd George would strenuously oppose the women's enfranchisement bill to give women the vote on the same terms as those upon which it had already been or might in the future be granted to men but he did not seem to realize that if he meant what he said and wished to act with honesty, fairness and consistency towards this great question he ought strenuously to oppose the status quo which not only refused the voice in the making of the laws which governed her to the wife of the working man but to every other woman beside. On December 19th a strange drama was played out in Aberdeen. The liberal officials of the town had succeeded in inducing the suffragettes to promise not to interrupt Mr. Asquith if he would answer the question of one woman and they had begged Mrs. Black, the president of the local women's liberal federation, to be the woman. Mrs. Black had agreed in the interest of peace, as she said. When she rose up to comply with the liberal officials' request however she was howled at by their enthusiastic followers in the audience threatened by the stewards of the meeting and told by the chairman that she was out of order almost as though she had been a real suffragette. Though at last she succeeded in putting her question, Mr. Asquith replied in snappish and hostile manner. Mr. Alexander Webster, a Unitarian minister and well-known citizen of Aberdeen, a slender elderly figure with long grey hair and the face of a saint was afterwards violently handled for trying to move a woman's suffrage rider to the official resolution. Finally Mrs. Pankhurst, who was seated at the back of the hall, rose to explain the situation to the curious and excited audience and was immediately thrown out of the hall. Then the meeting broke up in disorder. As the Aberdeen Free Press put it, many a liberal left the meeting with the uneasy feeling that the suffragettes had had the best of it. Nevertheless the suffragettes were loudly censured for these incidents especially by those who had consistently boycotted the suffrage question when women had worked quietly for it in the old days. In reply to the critics Dr. George Cooper, an honest, radical and member of Parliament for Bermancy in the course of a letter to the Daily News said My political life began as a member of the Reform League. It is within my recollection that in 1867 and also in 1884 very few public speakers who were opposed to the extension of the parliamentary franchise to men whether members of the cabinet or otherwise could utter a single word at a public meeting. Meetings were broken up, platforms stormed and their occupants had to escape the best way they could. In 1884 every Tory speaker used against the extension of the franchise the same arguments now used by some liberal speakers and newspapers against the extension of the parliamentary franchise to women. Why should women be condemned for using the same weapons men found so useful when demanding the vote for themselves? Cabinet ministers do not recognize antagonists using any other. There is one fact which cannot be denied. The activity of the suffragettes has lifted the women's franchise bill out of the category of amusing and frivolous debate into that of a serious political question. Meanwhile the suffragettes were fighting at two more by-elections. The first of these was at Hull, where polling took place on November 29, the result being that the liberal vote was reduced from 8,652 to 5,623 and the liberal majority from 2,247 to 241. The second of these contests, one of the most striking at which the WSPU has ever fought, was at Middevin. In each of the seven elections that had occurred in this constituency since its creation in 1885 a liberal candidate had been returned, the majority on the last occasion having numbered 1,289 votes. The suffragettes at once opened committee rooms in the main street of Newton Abbot, the principal town in the division and published a manifesto calling upon every elector who wished to see fair play for women to vote against the liberal candidate and concluding, we want votes for women this year. Defeat the government in Middevin as a message that women are to have votes in 1908. The contest was a very trying one for the workers, for in addition to the extensive area covered by the constituency it took place in a season of heavy snowfalls and bitter winds which came driving in from the sea. Besides this, there was a most turbulent variety of human nature to contend with. The Middevin elections had always been notorious for their violent character and the ruffs of Newton Abbot had long been a byword in the district. Early in the campaign the speakers representing both candidates were frequently hauled down and were unable to continue their meetings and though on the whole we fared very much better we ourselves had some similar experiences. On one occasion some of the conservatives had arranged to speak at a place called Bovi Tracy but they fled away on being told that the liberals of the town were not only preparing to break up the meetings of their opponents but had even built a cage in which to imprison them. On the same day three young members of our union had also appeared in Bovi Tracy. They too were warned of the terrible cage but decided to haul their meetings in spite of it. All went well and they were told by the men who went to hear them that they had no desire to injure those who trusted them and that the cage had only been built for cowards. On one occasion it happened that Mr. Buxton the liberal candidate and the suffragettes held simultaneous school room meetings in the same village. The liberal meetings had been advertised several days beforehand but though ours was arranged on the spur of the moment all the people came to our meeting and not a single person turned up to hear him. As time went on the state of the district became more and more turbulent in the great party newspapers the London Tribune Daily News and others sought to stir up the wildest and most unrestrained element in the constituency. The Daily News hailed with enthusiasm the formation of what was known as the League of Young Liberals which was in reality a gang of young roughs whose first act was to push a policeman through the plate class window of the shop which served as our committee rooms. This and other violent acts were described by the Daily News as diverting incidents with the suffragettes but the special correspondent of the Daily Mail said Ms. Mary Gauthorpe who usually has no difficulty in maintaining good-humored relations with audiences of every class was not only compelled to hear language from some of the Newton Abbott liberal partisans that brought a flush to her face and tears into her eyes but had to resist by force the efforts of one man to mount the wagon from which she and several other ladies were speaking and the most pitiful part of the business was that the language and the conduct seemed to be regarded by their perpetrators as engaging little gallantries appropriate to be offered to a lady. A few days later the roughs dragged the Lorian which our women were speaking round and round with such violence that it was feared that it would be overturned and they only stopped when a little boy had been run over and trampled upon and seriously injured. Still the liberal politicians made no protest. Mr. Buxton's reply to a newspaper correspondent who asked him what he thought of the disorder was you must remember that they are keen politicians down here from the fact that mid-devinous had three elections within the space of four years the people have necessarily heard a great deal about politics. So the contest went on liberals and conservatives smashing up each other's meetings howling each other down pelting each other with vegetables from the market and snowballing each other on Dartmoor The Daily Telegraph for January 10th writing in regard to a liberal meeting threatened that if the Unionists were not admitted the building would be stormed when on January 17th the poll was declared it was found that the liberal candidate had been defeated everyone was surprised except the suffragettes the figures were Captain Morrison Bell Unionist 5191 Mr. C. R. Buxton Liberal 4632 Unionist majority 559 At the general election the figures had been Mr. H. T. Eve K. C. Liberal 5079 Captain Morrison Bell Unionist 3790 Liberal majority 1280 After the declaration of the poll Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Martel the only members of the suffragette band left in the storm center of Newton Abbott saw Captain Morrison Bell escorted from the market square by a strong force of police and were themselves urged to hurry away and leave the town at once the warning seemed to them absurd and Mrs. Pankhurst laughingly said that she had never yet been afraid to trust herself in a crowd immediately afterwards she and her companion met a procession of young men and boys wearing the liberal colors who were hurrying from their work in the clay pits as soon as they heard that the liberal had been defeated one of them pointed to Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Martel those women have done it then the whole crowd of them started running and from somewhere or other came a shower of rotten eggs the two women were completely taken by surprise and more anxious to avoid the eggs than the angry crowd they rushed into a grosser shop whilst a big brewers dremen who had been standing by jumped into the doorway and fought their assailants off until they were safe the men and boys outside howled as their prey escaped them and the people to whom the shop belonged though anxious to protect the women cried out despairingly that the windows would be broken in Mrs. Pankhurst at once said that she could not bear to be the cause of loss to those who had sheltered her and at her own request she and Mrs. Martel were led through a back door and across a yard leading to a narrow lane behind once it was thought that they would be able to escape as soon as the door had been shut upon them there assailants who had guessed their movements came rushing up Mrs. Martel was seized by one who caught her by the throat and began to beat her about the head but in a flash the shopkeeper's wife had heard the noise and had opened the door again and somehow or other she and Mrs. Pankhurst had rescued Mrs. Martel and had dragged her into the yard the door was shut and safely bolted in all haste but just as it closed a man struck Mrs. Pankhurst a heavy blow on the back of the head and as she staggered on the threshold pulled her back and she was left outside then the man gave an angry shout into one of them seizing her by the collar of her coat and by her wrists flung her to the ground she caught a glimpse of them all rushing on her then for a time she knew nothing until she felt the wet mud soaking through her clothes there was a pause as she lay there looking at them she saw that they had all closed around her in a ring and that in the center was an empty barrel are they going to put me into it the thought flashed through her mind hours seemed to pass as she watched them all dressed and drab colored clothes smeared with yellow clay and everyone wearing a red liberal rosette they all seemed to be puny half grown youths and without knowing why she did so she asked are there no men here for an instant they still stood then one of them came forward and she felt that whatever was to be done to her was about to begin but suddenly there was a shout and the police came galloping up with a crowd of rescuers at their heels her assailants turned tail and she was lifted up and carried back through the yard into the shop a large force of police now surrounded the premises but a great crowd had assembled and it was two hours before a motor car could be brought through it and the women were able to get away the disorder did not end here for the rowdies flocked thence to the conservative club smashed every one of its windows and kept its members besieged there all through the night next morning the body of sergeant major Randall of the Royal Marines an ex-instructor of the Newton Abbot College was found in the mill race foul play was suspected as he had been severely bruised about the head throughout this violent disturbance not a single arrest was made during the whole course of the election but one man was fined five shellings and costs for assaulting one of his political opponents well indeed might the suffragettes say that the treatment muted out to them was very different from that extended to men who were fighting on the government side as a result of the attack which had been made upon her mrs. Pankhurst was unable to walk for some considerable time and her ankle was so severely injured that it gave her trouble for more than a year whilst owing to the treatment she received mrs. Martel will probably always bear a scar upon her neck scarcely a word of regret for the violence which had been done to these two women ever appeared in the liberal newspapers who were so largely to blame for what had occurred after the election was over the conservative politicians claimed that they alone had kept out the liberals and the liberals also preferred to attribute their defeat to the tariff for formers rather than to the suffragettes only one of the liberal newspapers the Manchester Guardian admitted both during and after the election that the woman's question had played a decisive part these special correspondent of this paper in the issue of January 20th said I think there can be no doubt that the suffragettes did influence votes their activity the interest shown in their meetings the success of their persuasive methods in enlisting the popular sympathy the large number of working women who acted with them as volunteers these were features of the election which although strangely ignored by most of the newspapers must have struck most visitors to the constituency an amusing proof that the liberals in the district had considered the suffragettes to be very formidable opponents came to light in the following mock morning card which had been got out in expectation of the liberal victory in fond and loving memory of the tariff reformers and suffragettes who fell asleep at mid-devin on January 17th 1908 the suffragettes and tariff reformers are now very sore and should see it's no use contesting mid-devin anymore and the hooligans of Shalden you can send over and tell that a strong and Buxton liberal has broken their bell R. I. P. meanwhile the suffragettes were fighting the government at three other elections at South Hairford Ross Wooster and South Leeds the result of the poll at Ross was that the liberal majority of three hundred twelve was turned into a conservative majority of over one thousand the figures were Captain Clive Unionist four thousand nine hundred forty five Mr. Whiteley Thompson liberal three thousand nine hundred twenty eight Unionist majority one thousand nineteen the figures at the general election had been Lieutenant Colonel Alan C. Gardner liberal four thousand four hundred ninety seven Captain Percy A. Clive Unionist four thousand one hundred eighty five liberal majority three hundred twelve footnotes twenty four they afterwards moved to Robert Street Strand end of chapter ten