 CHAPTER 22 THE HISTORY OF THE WOMEN'S MILITAN SUFFERGE MOVEMENT by E. Sylvia Pankhurst 22. October 1909-January 1910 A rest of Lady Constance Lytton and others at Newcastle. Supperjets attacked at Abernethy. Hosepipe played on Miss Davison in Strangeways jail Manchester. Mr. Asquith at the Albert Hall. While star comrades with us enduring agonies in prison, protest meetings were being held in all parts of the country. The Daily News said of the people in our movement, they are no longer men and women, they are a whirlwind. During the first three days of forcible feeding, 1,200 pounds was collected. At a great demonstration in the Albert Hall on October 7th, a further 2,300 pounds was subscribed, and the 50,000 pound campaign fund being complete, a fund of 100,000, was started. At this meeting, a procession of women who had already gone through the hunger strike marched up to the platform carrying the purple, white and green tricolored flags of the Union, and here Mrs. Pankhurst, who was on the eve of her departure for America, decorated them with medals in recognition of their services to the cause. The scene was one of the most tremendous enthusiasm. It was one which none of those present will ever forget. On October 9th, a great political pageant was held in Edinburgh, when a procession of women led by Scotch Fipers and Mrs. Drummond in her general's uniform astride a prancing charger, marched through the streets accompanied by a number of tableaux representing the figures of heroic women famous in Scottish history. On October 4th, Lord Morley as Chancellor of the Victoria University visited Manchester to open the university's new chemical laboratory. Deeply moved by the sufferings of Mrs. Lee and her comrades in Winston-Green Jail, Miss Rona Robinson M.S.C. and Miss Dora Marsden B.A., both graduates of the university and the former a subscriber also to the new laboratory, attended in their academic robes and, with Miss Mary Garthorpe, advanced down the central aisle of the Whitworth Hall of the university just as Lord Morley was about to speak. Each one raising a hand in appeal, they said in concert, My Lord, our women are in prison. The rowdiness of the young men students of our British universities is time-honoured. Their almost deafening shouts and yells and practical jokes, always in evidence at functions such as this, are invariably received with amused tolerance by the authorities. Mr. Asquith himself, when addressing the students of the university of which he is Chancellor, did not disdain to wait with a smile until their play was done before he could address them. Nevertheless, the earnest, quietly spoken words of these three young women were scarcely uttered when they were pounced upon by a number of strange men who dragged them out of the hall, and as soon as they were lost to sight by the audience fell to striking, pummeling, and pinching them as they pushed them into the street. The passers-by rushed up to know what had happened, and at once the police ordered the three women to move on. They replied that they would not leave until their graduates' caps and other belongings which had been torn from them were restored, and until the names of the men who had ejected them were given. Thereupon, without further argument, the police seized them and dragged them to the police station, where they were accused of disorderly conduct and abusive language in Oxford Street. These ridiculous charges could not be substantiated and were afterwards withdrawn by the Chief Constable of Manchester and the Vice-Chancellor of the university. Such women as Mrs. Baines and Mrs. Lee, both capable of the fireous zeal and the most reckless heroism, spurred on by stern first-hand knowledge of the crushing handicaps with which the women wage earner has to contend, and the terrible disabilities which are riveted upon her had found it not difficult to become rebels. The torture of women in prison was now making it easy for gentler and happier spirits to cast aside, also the mere going on deputations and asking of questions and whilst doing hurt to none, yet by symbolic acts to shadow forth the violence that coercion always breeds. On October 9th, Mr. Lloyd George was to speak at Newcastle and the town was prepared as though for a revolution. Police and detectives were to be seen in hundreds and great barriers were erected across the streets. The night before the meeting, twelve women met quietly together to lay their plans for opposing these tremendous forces. Amongst them was Lady Constance Lytton who had already served one imprisonment for the cause in the previous February and who as daughter and sister of an English peer wished to place herself side by side with Mrs. Lee, the working woman who was being tortured in Birmingham, to do what she had done, prepared to suffer the same penalty. Mrs. J. E. M. Brailsford who had joined the women's social and political union but a few weeks before was another who had come forward to bear her share in this fight. It was Mrs. Brailsford's husband who with Mr. Nevenson had recently thrown up his post as leader writer to the Daily News because of his sympathy with the suffragettes. Amongst these women were also two hospital nurses whilst two of the others, Miss Kathleen Brown and Miss Dorothy Shallard had already won their way out of prison through the hunger strike. Next night whilst vast throngs of people lined the streets and the police were masked in their thousands to guard from them the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the son of the people, as he called himself, the twelve women quietly proceeded to do their deeds. It was rumored that Mr. Lloyd George was to stay with Sir Walter Runciman and seeing the latter gentleman's motor car driving through the streets, Lady Constance Lytton threw a stone at it, carefully aiming at the radiator in order that, without injuring anyone, she might strike the car. Miss Dorothy Pethick and Miss Kitty Marion entered the General Post Office and, having carefully selected a window in the neighborhood of which there was no one to be hurt, they went out and cast their stones through it with a cry of, VOTES FOR WOMEN! A number of other women were also arrested for similar acts. Mrs. Brailsford walked quietly up to one of the police barriers and stood resting an innocent-looking bouquet of chrysanthemums upon it. Suddenly the flowers fell to the ground, disclosing an ax which she raised and let fall with one dull thud on the wooden bar. It was a symbolic act of revolution and, like her comrades, she was dragged away by the police. By direct order of the Home Office, Bale was refused and eight of these suffragettes were kept in the police court cells from Saturday until Monday, without an opportunity of undressing, without a mattress, and with nothing but a rug in which to wrap themselves at night. Whilst the women who had thus been lodged in prison had been making their protest outside Mr. Lloyd George's meeting, there were men who were speaking for them within. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer was running through the list of taxes in the budget, a man complained that, there was no tax on stomach pumps. The whole house rose at that and the man was violently ejected. Many others followed his example. Mr. Lloyd George taunted them by saying, There are many ways of earning a living and I think this is the most objectionable of them. And by asking, are there any more of these hirelings? Evidently he thought that there were no men disinterested enough to support the cause of women unless they received pay for it. Note 42. On Monday, whilst the other women received sentences varying from 14 days to one month's hard labor, Lady Constance Lytton and Mrs. Brailford were ordered to be bound over to be of good behavior and on refusing were sent to prison in the Second Division for one month. The authorities were evidently very loath to convict these two ladies, one of them because of her rank and the other because of her own and her husband's association with the Liberal Party, but both were determined to stand by their comrades and steadfastly refused to express any regret for what they had done. Their hope that their courageous action might save Mrs. Lee and the other Birmingham prisoners from further suffering proved to be vain and on Wednesday, October 13, Lady Constance Lytton and Mrs. Brailford, both of whom had refused food, were released after having been imprisoned for no more than two-and-a-half days. Mr. Gladstone asserted that in deciding to release them he had not been in any way influenced by regard for their position but that they had been turned out of prison on purely medical grounds. It was indeed true that Lady Constance was exceedingly fragile and delicate and that she suffered from a slight heart affectation, but Mrs. Brailford protested that she herself was perfectly well and strong. The eight other women were all forcibly fed and all but two were retained in prison till the end of their sentence. In most cases the nasal tube was used. It always caused headache and sickness. The nostril soon became terribly inflamed and every one of the women lost weight and suffered from great and growing weakness. On Saturday, October 16, Mr. Winston Churchill was to speak at an open-air gathering at Abernethy some sixteen miles from Dundee. The WSPU had no intention of heckling him or creating any disturbance for after much pressing and a lengthy correspondence he had agreed to fulfill a promise made to the Women's Freedom League in the previous January to receive a women's suffrage deputation on the following Monday. Nevertheless, the occasion was thought a suitable one for distributing suffrage literature and for holding a meeting somewhere in the neighborhood. Adela Pankhurst, Mrs. Archdale, the daughter of Russell, the founder of the great liberal newspaper The Scotsman, Mrs. Frank Corbett, the sister-in-law of a member of parliament and Ms. C. Jolly accordingly decided to motor over there. They started off on a crisp bright autumn day, the clouds high, the sun shining and the trees all turning gold, and the little frost sparkles gleaming on the good hard road. Everything began auspiciously, but before long they were held up by a punctured tire. Owing to this delay they lost the opportunity of giving out leaflets to the people as they arrived for the audience had already entered the big tent where the speaking was to take place when the suffragettes drove up. Standing in the road were some 30 or 40 men, all wearing the yellow rosettes of official liberal stewards, and as the car slowed down they rushed furiously towards it, shouting and tearing up sods from the road and pelting the women with them. One man pulled out a knife and began to cut the tires, whilst the others feverishly pulled the loose pieces off with their fingers. These suffragettes tried to quiet them with a few words of explanation, but their only reply was to pull the hood of the motor over the woman's head and then to beat it and batter it until it was broken in several places. Then they tore at the woman's clothes and tried to pull them out of the car, whilst the son of the gentleman in whose grounds the meeting was being held then drove up in another motor and threw a shower of pepper in the woman's eyes. The shouts of the men reached the tent where Mr. Churchill was speaking and numbers of people flocked out and watched the scene from over the hedge, but only two gentlemen had the courage to come to the aid of the women and their efforts availed little against the large band of stewards. At last, fearing that his motor would be entirely wrecked, the driver put on full speed and drove away. The only excuse for the stewards who took part in this extraordinary occurrence is that many of them were intoxicated. On Monday, as he had promised, Mr. Churchill received the deputation from the woman's freedom league. He then entirely departed from what he had said during the elections both in Manchester and at Dundee itself. In Manchester, when asked what he would do to help to secure the enfranchisement of women he had said, I will try my best as and when occasion offers. He had added that the women's suffragists had now got behind them a great popular demand and that their movement was assuming the same character as franchise movements have previously assumed. In Dundee he had said that women's suffrage would be a real practical issue at the next general election and that he thought that the next parliament ought to see the gratification of the woman's claim. Now that no election was in prospect, he said, looking back over the last four years I am bound to say I think your cause has marched backwards. He further said that the mass of people still remained to be converted and that so far as he could see women's enfranchisement could not figure either in the programme of any great political party or in the election address of any prominent man and that until militant tactics were discontinued he himself would render no assistance to the cause. A more flagrant example of political dishonesty than that which these conflicting statements of Mr. Churchill's presented it would be difficult to find and not merely the suffragettes but the people of Dundee freely expressed their disapproval. On Tuesday Mr. Churchill was to speak in the Kinnerd Hall and huge crowds then filled the streets and in spite of the tremendous force of police the barricades were stormed. Led by Mrs. Corbett, Miss Joaquim and Mrs. Archdale they shouted votes for women and rushed again and again at the doors of the hall. The three women who led the crowds were arrested but the storm still went on. Adele Pankhurst and Miss C. Jolly who had lain concealed there since the previous Sunday had raised the cry votes for women in a little dark room the windows of which overlooked the large hall. After a tussle with the police and stewards which lasted three quarters of an hour they were arrested and with the three who had been taken in the street were eventually sent to prison for ten days. They immediately commenced the hunger strike and were set free on Sunday 24th October after having gone without food for five and a half days. Whilst they were in prison huge crowds came to the gates every night to cheer them and on the next night after their release the men have done de-organized a meeting of protest in the Kinnerd Hall. Meanwhile, four suffragettes were suffering the torture of forcible feeding in strange ways jail Manchester. They had been arrested in connection with a meeting held by Mr. Runciman at Radcliffe and sentenced to one month's imprisonment with hard labour on October 21st. They had gone into prison on the Thursday and had begun the hunger strike at once and on Friday the doctors and wardresses came to feed them by force. Ms. Emily Wilding Davison urged that the operation was illegal but she was seized and forced down on her bed. The scene which followed, she says, will haunt me with its horror all my life and is almost indescribable. Each time it happened she felt she could not possibly live through it again. On Monday a wardress put her into an empty cell next door to her own and there she found that instead of one plank bed there were two. She saw in a flash a way to escape the torture. She hastily pulled down the two bed boards and laid them end to end upon the floor, one touching the door, the other the opposite wall, and as the door opened inwards she thus hoped to prevent anyone entering. A space of a foot or more however remained but she jammed in her stool her shoes and her hairbrush and sat down holding this wedge firm. Soon the wardress returned, unlocked the door and pushed it sharply but it would not move. Looking through the spyhole she discovered the reason and called, opened the door but the prisoner would not budge. After some threats and coaxing the window of her cell was broken, the nozzle of a hosepipe was poked through and the water was turned full upon her. She clung to the bed boards with all her strength gasping for breath until a voice called out quickly, stop, no more, no more. She sat there drenched and shivering still crouching on the bed boards the water six inches deep around her. After a time they decided to take the heavy iron door off its hinges and when this was done a warder rushed in and seized her saying as he did so you ought to be horse-whipped for this. Now her clothes were torn off, she was wrapped in blankets, put into an invalid's chair and rushed off to the hospital there to be plunged into a hot bath and rubbed down and then still gasping and shivering miserably she was put into bed between blankets with a hot bottle. At 6 p.m. on Thursday she was released. Meanwhile the whole country had heard of the incident and an outcry had been raised. A correspondent wrote that he had seen a hosepipe played on drunken stokers at sea. They were Norwegian stokers, the officer would not have dared to do it had they been English but the passengers had intervened at what they felt to be revolting justifiable brutality. The thought of turning that fearful force of ice-cold water upon a woman already weak from several days of fasting was horrible indeed to anyone who realized what it meant. Mr. Gladstone himself admitted that the visiting committee who had ordered it were guilty of a grave error of judgment and ordered the discharge of Miss Davison. But later on he addressed a letter to the officials of Strangeways Jail through the prison commissioners expressing his appreciation of the way the medical officers had carried out their duties and commending the efficiency of the prison service, the carefulness and good sense shown by the staff and the tact, care, humanity and firmness with which the problem of the suffragette imprisonments had been handled by all concerned. The other Manchester prisoners were obliged to complete their sentences being forcibly fed during the whole time. At this point the government had an opportunity of learning the view of the electorate after their treatment of the women for a by-election was now taking place in Bermondsey and the suffragettes were as usual actively opposing the government candidate. In order that every elector might understand as far as possible what forcible feeding really meant a pictorial poster showing the operation was displayed throughout the constituency and models representing forcible feeding were shown at the WSPU committee rooms. A manifesto against the government was also issued by nine representative men including Mr. Brailsford, Mr. Nevenson and Dr. Hugh Fenton which urged the electors in the name of chivalry and humanity as well as in the interest of true liberalism to see to it that whatever else may happen at this particular election the government candidate is left at the bottom of the pole. The suffragettes worked if possible more vigorously than ever and after the first three days of their campaign liberal workers came to them in despair saying why have you come down to boss our election? The suffragettes never go to liberal meetings at election times but the liberal speakers were constantly being heckled by the men and women of Burmency as to the forcible feeding of the suffragettes. The suffragettes themselves were greeted with cheers and words of encouragement wherever they went. All the policemen in this constituency are going to vote for you, one of the constables said and others testified that they preferred to keep order at the women's meetings than at any other because they talk sense. And the result the liberal candidate was defeated and the liberal pole was reduced by more than 1,400 votes. The figures were Mr. Dumfries Unionist 4,278 Mr. Spencer Lee Hugh Liberal 3,291 Dr. Salter Socialist 1,435 Unionist Majority 987 The figures at the last election had been George J. Cooper Liberal 4,775 H. J. Cawkein Cust Conservative 3,016 Liberal Majority 1,759 On polling day an unlooked for and to the women's social and political union unwelcome incident occurred. The women's freedom league endeavored to render the election void because they objected to any election being held at which women might not vote. The W. S. P. U. were against this because their policy was to prove that the electors were prepared to defeat the government candidate in order to show their belief in votes for women. The attempt of the freedom league members to render the election void was carried out in the following manner. Two members of the league, Mrs. Chapin and Ms. Allison Nealins each entered a separate polling booth with a glass test tube filled with a solution of ink and photographic chemicals which had been carefully prepared by the members without any risk of injury to any person who might happen to touch it. In each case the woman concerned broke the test tube by striking it on top of the ballot box so that the black liquid might fall into the slot. When this was done by Mrs. Chapin a Mr. Thorley rushed forward and some of the black liquid splashed into his eye. In Ms. Nealins case a man stretched out his hand and some of the liquid fell upon it. In both cases the men asked if the stuff would burn and were told it would do no harm if it were washed off at once. Ms. Nealins own hands and gloves were soaked with the fluid but she suffered no harm. Only five papers were touched by the fluid and none of these were indecipherable. A great outcry was raised however for it was declared that Mr. Thorley would be blind for life. For some time he went out wearing a black shade over his eye but when he was called upon unexpectedly by some members of the women's freedom league without the shade and his eye appeared perfectly normal. The cases hung over for some time and eventually on November 24th Mrs. Chapin was sentenced to three months imprisonment for interfering with the ballot box and four months for a common assault upon Mr. Thorley the sentences to run concurrently whilst Ms. Nealins was ordered three months imprisonment. After a time it leaked out that the slight injury from which Mr. Thorley had suffered had been caused not by the liquid which Mrs. Chapin had thrown but by some ammonia which he had used to counteract any after effects. Two days after Ms. Nealins release Mrs. Chapin was granted the King's pardon. On October 30th Mrs. Lee was suddenly released from Birmingham jail in a very critical state though two months out of the four to which she had been sentenced still remained to run. She was at once removed to a nursing home. November 9th was Lord Mayor's Day and as usual the Lord Mayor had invited the cabinet ministers to a banquet in the Guild Hall. Knowing this Ms. Alice Paul an American citizen and Ms. Amelia Brown disguised themselves as char-women and carrying buckets and brushes entered the building with the other cleaners at nine o'clock in the morning. There they hid themselves and waited until the evening when they took their stand in the gallery outside the banqueting hall. When Mr. Asquith was about to speak Ms. Brown having carefully selected a pane of the stained glass window upon which there was no ornament and which she thought might be easily replaced stooped down, took off her shoe and smashed the chosen pane in order that her shout of, Boats for Women might be heard by those below. Ms. Alice Paul also took up the cry. Both women were arrested and afterwards sent to prison for one month's hard labor on refusing to pay fines of five pounds and damages of two pounds ten shillings each. They were both forcibly fed and as a result of this Ms. Brown was attacked with severe gastritis. Three days later on November 13 Mr. Winston Churchill visited Bristol to speak at the Caulston Hall. Mr. Teresa Garnett, the woman who had been twice through the hunger strike and whom the home secretary had wrongfully accused of biting, resolved to humiliate Mr. Churchill, both as a member of the government which preferred rather to imprison women than to enfranchise them and to torture them rather than to extend towards them the ordinary privileges of political prisoners and also on his own account for his slippery and disingenuous statements in regard to the votes for women questioned. She therefore met the train by which he was arriving from London and found him on the platform in the midst of a large force of detectives who formed a semi-circle around him. She rushed straight forward and they either did not or would not see her coming, but the cabinet minister saw her, he paled and stood there as though petrified only raising his guard himself. She reached him and with a light writing switch struck at him three times saying, take that in the name of the insulted women of England. At that he grappled with her, rested the switch from her hand and put it in his pocket. Then she was seized and dragged away to prison. She was charged with assaulting Mr. Churchill, but eventually this charge was withdrawn, presumably because Mr. Churchill knew that he would be subpoenaed as a witness and that of having disturbed the peace was sentenced to one month's imprisonment on refusing to be bound over. Meanwhile, 30,000 men and women had turned out to help the suffragettes and their protest around the Colston Hall where Mr. Churchill was speaking, and during the evening four women were arrested and afterwards punished with from two months hard labor to 14 days in the Second Division while several men who had spoken up for them inside the Colston Hall were beaten unmercifully by the possible feeding was resorted to in Bristol Prison also and handcuffs were used in some cases. Meanwhile, the supporters of the Liberal government were adopting militant tactics on their own account. What was called a League Against the Lords had been formed with the warmly expressed approval of many of the Liberal leaders and though the leaders had kept in the background, the members of the League had twice assembled in Parliament Square to hoot the piers as they drove by in their carriages and had come into the police. At the same time the Liberal newspapers were openly commending the efforts of gangs of men who were going from meeting to meeting held by the Conservatives and with shouts and violence were making it impossible for their political opponents to speak. Columns were devoted to describing the doings of what was called the Voice which persistently heckled tariff reformers and supporters of the House of Lords. Mr. Winston Churchill was now arranging to hold a campaign for public meetings in Lancashire and the WSPU publicly and openly appealed for funds to ensure that protests and demonstrations should be made in connection with all his meetings. Thousands of pounds were on the other hand spent by the authorities to defeat the woman's intentions. In Preston, in addition to many other precautions, 70 men were employed and 150 pounds spent on barricading the windows and roof of the hall where Mr. Churchill was to speak and the South Port, 250 pounds was laid out on mounted police to protect the Empire Music Hall alone. When the South Port meeting began, Mr. Churchill looked ill at ease and turned about sharply from time to time as though expecting an interruption. But at last he seemed to gain confidence and was proceeding briskly with his remarks when, suddenly, there floated down from the roof a soft voice, faint and greedy and peering through one of the great porthole-like openings in the slope was seen a strange little elfin form with one childish face, broad-brow and big grey eyes looking like nothing real or earthly but a dream-wave. But for the weary paleness of her she might have been one of those dainty little child angels the old Italian painters loved to show peeping down the tops of high clouds or nestling amongst the details of their stately architecture. It was Dora Marsden who with two other women had lain concealed on the roof since two o'clock in the small hours of the previous morning. So unexpected and pathetic was this little figure that leaned further forward to repeat her message that the audience could not forbear to cheer her. They stood up waving their hats and programs looking delighted as the loftily placed intruder herself observed. Mrs. Churchill smiled also and waved her hand and even Mr. Churchill though this was probably because of his wife's presence and of the general feeling of the audience himself looked lately up and said if some stewards will fetch those ladies after my speech is concluded I shall be glad to answer any questions they may put to me. But the stewards who by this time had found the women were not disposed to bring them into the hall. A hand was thrust over Dora Marsden's mouth and she and the others were roughly pulled back from their coin advantage and sent rolling down the steep sloping roof. Stop that you fools! Someone cried out you will all fall over the edge but one of the stewards answered I do not care what happens. Fortunately two of the suffragettes were caught in their perilous descent by the edge of a water trough whilst a policeman seized Dora Marsden by the ankle telling her if I had not caught your foot you would have gone to glory. Once safely on the ground the women were placed under arrest but the case against them was eventually dismissed. At Preston suffragettes dressed in shawls and dogs sallied forth at night and pasted forcible feeding posters on the street pillar boxes, the prison and other public buildings and the windows and doors of the Liberal Club as a welcome to Mr Churchill and in connection with turbulent scenes which occurred whilst his meeting was in progress four women were arrested. At every other town he visited the same kind of thing occurred. At Waterloo there was one arrest at Liverpool there were two and one at Bolton and one at Crue. Meanwhile Mr Harcourt had held a series of meetings in the Rossendale Valley. On December 1st the door and windows of the house in which he was staying were found to have been covered during the night with forcible feeding posters. The next evening three men were set to watch with large hose pipes attached to the main but somehow or other the connection was mysteriously cut and the windows were broken without there being aware of it by some person or persons unknown. Two women were arrested in connection with the cases on the following Monday and were sent to prison for one month and 14 days respectively. They both adopted the hunger strike and were both forcibly fed. Two women were arrested outside Sir Edward Gray's meeting at Leith on December 4th, 1909. A general election was now announced and on December 10th Mr Asquith was to speak at a great meeting in the Albert Hall and whilst the authorities were making every attempt to keep them out of course making every attempt to get into the building. Some of them did succeed in concealing themselves inside but were discovered. Jesse Kenney who disguised herself as a telegraph boy and tried to get in while the meeting was in progress was also detected and turned back but three men sympathizers protested during the meeting. To these Mr Asquith replied nearly two years ago I declared on behalf of the present government that in the event of our reform bill we should make the question of suffrage for women and open one for the House of Commons to decide. My declaration survives the general election and this cause so far as the government is concerned shall be no worse off in the new parliament than it would have been in the old. Thus Mr Asquith was cheerfully preparing for another general election without one word of regret or apology to those women who had been misled by his promise to introduce the reform bill before parliament came that was almost the last of the old false promise. Meanwhile Charlotte Marsh who had gone into Winston Green Jail with the first batch of prisoners to be forcibly fed was still being detained there whilst Mrs Lee and all the rest had been released. Those who went to visit her once at the expiration of each month were only allowed to look at her through a small square of perforated zinc. They could neither see her clearly nor hear distinctly what she said. Nevertheless they gathered that she was suffering greatly. Our hearts ached for that noble girl. Often there came before our eyes the picture of the tall, straight figure that had carried the colours of our union before us in so many gay processions. We saw the fair, fresh face with its delicate, regular Saxon features, those masses of bright golden hair, the head so proudly held and the faint flicker of a shy smile that always came when one spoke to her. We heard the boyish ring in her voice and realised again her earnestness and enthusiasm and the unaffected gentleness of her address. There was always something about her that made many a woman think of some dear young brother. Her father called her Charlie and thought of her as his only boy amongst the family of girls. It was expected that she would have been released on December 7th but the government who had held her in torment for so long were anxious to come her the very last ounce of their pound of flesh. They determined not to grant her the remission of one sixth of the sentence usually allowed but to withhold it as a punishment for her refusal to take food and this they did though they knew that her father was dangerously ill and though her mother had appealed for her release on that ground a week before. There was no fine that could be laid down to buy her out for she had been sentenced without a warrant. On the 8th of December it was known that Charlotte Marsh's father was dying and her family made another urgent appeal that she might be brought to him but it was not until the 9th that the home secretary at last totally let her go. She hurried at once to her home in Newcastle so thin and worn from what she had suffered that her sister scarcely knew her as she came into the house only to find that her father Footnotes 42 Mr. Lloyd George's baseless insinuation was of course indignantly and publicly repudiated by the men concerned. End of Chapter 22 Chapter 23 of the Suffragette, the history of the woman's militant suffrage movement by E. Sylvia Pankhurst. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. 23 December 1909 to January 1910. The appeal of Pankhurst and Haverfield versus Jarvis. The Freedom League pickets. Mrs. Pankhurst returns from America. Mrs. Lee's action against the home secretary and the governor and doctor of Winston Green Jail, Birmingham. Ms. Davison's action against the visiting justices of Strangeway's Jail, Manchester. Hail treatment of Ms. Selena Martin Jail, Liverpool. Lady Constance Lytton imprisoned in Walton Jail as Jane Morton. Whilst Mrs. Pankhurst was still in America, the case in which she, Mrs. Haverfield and the 92 other women were concerned, which had been hanging over since the summer, was heard in the divisional court on December 1st. It will be remembered that the suffragettes had sought to put into practice the constitutional right to petition the prime minister as the prime minister. They held that this right was especially defined by two acts. The Bill of Rights, which declares that, it is the right of the subject to petition the king and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal. And the Statute 13, Charles II, which states, that no person or persons whatsoever shall repair to his majesty, or both or either houses of parliament upon pretense of petition, complaint, remonstrance, or declaration or other address accompanied with excessive number of people, nor at any time with above the number of ten persons. Upon pain of incurring a penalty not exceeding the sum of 100 pounds in money or three months imprisonment without bail or main prize for every offence, which offence to be prosecuted at the court of king's bench or at the assizes or general quarter sessions within six months after the approved by two more credible witnesses. Provided always that this act or anything therein contained shall not be considered to extend to debar or hinder any person or persons not exceeding the number of ten aforesaid to present any public or private grievance or complaint to any member or members of parliament. Though the women had complied with every provision of the act, Sir Albert Dirutzen had decided at Bow Street that they had broken the law. In appealing against that decision in the divisional court, Lord Robert Cecil contended that in this country there was and always has been a right of petition, and he urged that this right was a necessary condition of all free and indeed of all civilized government. He pointed out that the right of petition had three characteristics. In the first place it was the right to petition the actual repositories of power. In the second place it was the right to petition in person and in the third place it must be exercised reasonably. In support of his contention that petitions might be presented in person he quoted several historic instances including a petition of women to Humphrey Duke of Gloucester in the reign of Henry IV many petitions to various powerful personages from all sorts of men and women in the time of the civil wars and the disputes immediately preceding them and petitions to the Lord High Stewart asking for the conviction he cited numbers of petitions presented in 1640 when deputations came to the House of Commons and the members were instructed to go out and interview the petitioners and hear what they had to say. A great petition of 1680 as well as the petitions from the gentleman of Kent in 1701 that of the silk weavers in 1765 and that of the trade unionists in 1834 all of which were presented in person. Throughout our history it was clear that petitions had been presented sometimes to the Houses of Parliament sometimes to powerful individuals and sometimes to the King. He referred to a case mentioned in Sir Walter Scoss Fortune of Nigel in which on King James II complaining of the way in which a petition was thrust into his hand in the streets a gentleman named Jingling Geordie had taken the opportunity of presenting a petition to him then and there in his private closet. Even without these historic examples the Statute 13 Charles II already quoted was enough to establish the right to present petitions in person. The Bill of Rights had specially confirmed the right of petition in so far as the King was concerned because the right to present a petition to the King had recently been called into question by the case of the Seven Bishops which had taken place on June 29th and 30th 1688 in the reign of James II. The case had arisen because the King had ordered that his declaration of indulgence should be read in all the churches in the country and the Seven Bishops headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury being of opinion that the declaration of indulgence was beyond the power of the King had therefore presented a petition to him setting forth this view. The King declared the petition to be a seditious libel and the Bishops had been brought before the court of King's bench. In summing up the case for the jury Mr. Justice Holloway said so that if there was no ill intent and they were not, as it is not or can be pretended they were, men of evil lives, to deliver a petition cannot be a fault, it being the right of every subject to petition. The jury found the Seven Bishops to be guiltless and the right of petition was thus confirmed. In quoting Mr. Justice Holloway's summing up, Lord Robert Cecil pointed out that the use of the words to deliver a petition clearly indicated that the right was to present the petition in person. Also, the women who had gone to Parliament Square on June 29th had done so in the exercise of a constitutional right. So long as they were denied votes this was their only constitutional method of agitation for the redress of their grievances. If, as was contented the right not only to petition but to petition in person belonged to each and every subject the only point left to consider was to whether the right had been exercised reasonably. If one wished to be prime minister or any member of Parliament it was surely reasonable to go to the House of Commons by means of the stranger's entrance. The evidence clearly showed that Mrs. Haverfield and the others had been on the public highway and had been brought up to the door of the House of Commons by Superintendent Isaacs of the police so that up to that point they could not possibly have done anything wrong. Opposite the door of the House of Commons an open space had been kept clear by the presence of a police cordon the crowd not being allowed to reach this point within the cordon there were only members of the police force persons who had business in the House of Commons and the eight members of the women's deputation therefore it was absurd to say that these eight ladies had caused an obstruction it was suggested that the women ought to have gone away because as he put it a casual policeman had said that the prime minister was not in the House of Commons but that was really not a sufficient answer the ordinary procedure certainly was not to take an answer from a policeman in the street if one wished to interview a member of parliament the police had no right to stop anyone from going into the House of Commons it was also said that the women had been given a letter from the prime minister saying that he would not or could not see them had he said I cannot see you here and now but I will see you on such and such an occasion this is not a convenient time that, argued Lord Robert would have been a sufficient answer but his letter contained an unqualified refusal and if the right to petition exists that is no answer at all Lord Robert then submitted that if there is a right to petition a member of parliament there must be a duty on the part of the member of parliament to receive that petition and that no one is justified in interfering with the exercise of that right if the women were legally justified and insisting upon the right to present their petition they were also justified in refusing the order of the police to go away for there was no obligation to obey the police if the police were acting beyond the scope of their proper duties or contrary to the law of the land in the case of Codd vs. Cave a warrant had been issued against a man and a policeman had gone to his house to arrest him without taking a warrant with him the man had declined to go with the policeman and had knocked him down and injured him severely but it had been held by the court that the man was not guilty and the policeman had no right to arrest him without a warrant in delivering judgment the lord chief justice said that he entirely agreed that there was a right to present a petition either to the prime minister as prime minister or as a member of parliament and that petitions to the king should be presented to the prime minister but he said the claim of the women was not only to present a petition but to be received in deputation had it been only to present the petition he did not think that Mr. Asquith refused and he expressed the opinion that his refusal to receive the women in deputation was not unnatural in consequence of what we know did happen on previous occasions in making this remark the lord chief justice showed that instead of concentrating his mind upon the actual case before him he was allowing himself to be biased by inaccurate reports as to what had taken place on previous occasions as a matter of fact Mr. Asquith never had received a deputation of women since he had been prime minister and never at any time had he received a deputation of the women's social and political union in the House of Commons therefore it was absurd to talk about what had taken place on previous occasions and moreover even if Mr. Asquith had received deputations on previous occasions and trouble had resulted the lord chief justice would have had no right to take these occurrences into account unless reliable evidence as to what actually had occurred had been laid for him in connection with the case relying on the Metropolitan Police Act of 1839 which provides that it shall be lawful for the commissioner of police to make regulations and to give directions to the constables for keeping order and for preventing any obstruction of the thoroughfares in the immediate neighborhood of the House of Commons and the sessional order which empowers the police to keep clear the approaches to the House of Commons the lord chief justice declared that Mrs. Pankhurst, Mrs. Haverfield and the other women had broken the law when they had insisted that they had a right to enter the House of Commons and that for this reason they had been properly convicted and that the appeal must be dismissed with costs by this decision the ancient constitutional right of petition secured to the people of this country by the act of 13 Charles II and the Bill of Rights was for all practical purposes rendered null and void what is the use of a right that one cannot put into practice does anyone suppose for one moment that the right of petition would have been cherished as it has been and that people would have suffered heavy punishment for putting it into practice in troublesome times if it had merely consisted in sending a written document obscurely through the post or by a messenger to the person in power whom it was intended to influence no, for the right could never have been anything but valueless had the presentation of the petition not been accompanied by the pomp and circumstance and the dramatic and spectacular character of a public deputation and by the influence that only personal pleading can lend every scrap of evidence tends to show that the right of petition was to be exercised personally if it were otherwise, why should the act of Charles II have insisted that the signatories to the petition should be represented by a limited deputation moreover there is no suggestion that a written document was required that the petition might not have been made as it frequently was by word of mouth shortly after this case of Pankhurst and Haverfield versus Jarvis had been decided the divisional court was again occupied with an appeal case bearing upon the right of petition this time at the instance of the women's freedom league in July the league had followed the example of the WSPU in claiming the constitutional right of personal petition to the prime minister after much preliminary negotiation a deputation of their number had appeared at the stranger's entrance to the House of Commons on July 5 and on being told that Mr. Asquith would not receive them they had announced their intention of waiting there until he should change his mind they were allowed to wait and reinforced by relays of others continued to do so right on into the new year and were constantly to be seen standing outside on the pavement both day and night whenever the house was sitting many members of parliament appealed to Mr. Asquith to receive them and so bring their weary vigil to an end but he obstinately refused and always evaded the suffragette pickets as they were called usually he left the house by one of the underground passages but it was said that one night he hurried unrecognized through their lines Punch then published a cartoon by E.T. Reed entitled Mr. Asquith's Disguises showing the prime minister as a cab driver a postman, a policeman lady and in other characters on July 9th the pickets were also put on at number 10 Downing Street where they succeeded in wailing the prime minister at about two o'clock in the afternoon and ran towards him crying a petition, a petition will you give us a hearing Mr. Asquith as he rushed past he snatched the document from one of them saying well I will take the petition and then fled on up the steps in the door the pickets were still waiting for the interview when the police arrived to arrest them they were afterwards sentenced to three weeks imprisonment and default of paying fines of three pounds on July 15th four women again picketed Downing Street but were arrested and sent to prison without even so much as catching a glimpse of the premier on August 16th a line of women was drawn up between the House of Commons and the door of 10 Downing Street and Mrs. Despart this time they saw Mr. Asquith but though some of the women spoke to him he hurried on without making any reply three days later on the 19th the line of women was again formed but Mrs. Despart Mrs. Cobden Sanderson and six others were placed under arrest Mr. Tim Healy the well-known Irish Member of Parliament was briefed for their defense but on August 27th Mr. Curtis Bennett decided to find the women 40 shillings to send them to prison for seven days he stated a case for the High Court and this was heard on January 14th 1910 when the Lord Chief Justice decided against the women saying that there were other means of presenting petitions than going in numbers to do so meanwhile it was announced that the cases against the 94 women who were concerned with Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Haverfield would be withdrawn but at the same time application was made by the authorities for the fines Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Haverfield and it was intimated that unless these were forthcoming steps would be taken to arrest and imprison them but immediately after this on Monday December 6th an official receipt for the amount of Mrs. Pankhurst's fine was sent to Clemens Inn and it was stated that the money had been paid by some unknown person Note 43 two days later Mrs. Pankhurst returned from her lecturing tour in the United States and Canada on December 9th the action by Mrs. Lee against Mr. Gladstone as home secretary and the governor and doctor of Winston Green Jail which as to decide the question of the legality of forcible feeding by the prison authorities was tried before the Lord Chief Justice it was pointed out on Mrs. Lee's behalf that there was no rule or regulation to justify forcible feeding Dr. Ernest Dormer Kirby who had attended her on her release testified that her condition was distinctly grave and that she had then weighed no more than six stone six pounds Sir Victor Horsley Mr. William Hugh Fenton senior surgeon at the Chelsea hospital for women and Mr. Mansell Moulin all declared forcible feeding by means of the nasal tube to be painful dangerous injurious to health and incapable of providing adequate nourishment Dr. Maurice Craig consulting physician of Wellbox Street and a late senior assistant physician at Bethlehem hospital who was called as a witness for the defense of Mr. Gladstone and of the officials said that the operation of nasal feeding was a simple one on the average he considered it more dangerous to leave a patient starving than to overcome resistance Sir Richard Douglas Powell also called for the defense admitted that he would not willingly resort to artificial feeding unless it was quite necessary the Lord Chief Justice said he should rule that it was the duty of the medical officer of the prison to take all reasonable steps to preserve Mrs. Lee's life and to prevent her committing suicide the only question he should leave to the jury would be whether the governor and doctor had taken the right steps in his seming up he assumed throughout that the jury must decide against Mrs. Lee they did as he directed and she thereupon lost her case on January 19th an action was begun by Miss Emily Wilding and Miss Davison against the visiting justices of Strangeways Jail Manchester for having ordered that a hose pipe should be played upon her Judge Perry said that the use of the hose pipe was both ineffective and unnecessary that the duty of the visiting justices was to prevent any abuse of authority by the officials of the jail and to report and make suggestions therefore he held that they were not justified in ordering the assault and decided the case in Miss Davison's favor in assessing the damages however he said that he should take into account the fact that the hose pipe incident had resulted in the prisoner's release before the expiration of her sentence had provided her with copy for a vivacious and entertaining account of the affair in the press and had advertised her cause under these circumstances the damages should be no more than 40 shillings a nominal sum the costs which were charged against the visiting magistrates as the case was held to be one of great importance meanwhile there was no lack of turbulent scenes all over the country cabinet ministers meetings were daily being interrupted both by women who had succeeded in concealing themselves and by men who urged the question of votes for women on their behalf when Mr Lloyd George spoke at reading two women started up from under the platform during his speech in the Queens Hall London a few days afterwards a forcible feeding tube was suddenly flung at him and he caught it in his hands as these two words fell upon the man who had thrown it Mr Lloyd George cried I do not envy him his paid job when speaking in the Louth Town Hall Mr Lloyd George was referring to the House of Lords as an unrepresentative chamber when a voice from the roof remarked so is the House of Commons as far as women are concerned I see some rats I've got in let them squeal and it does not matter said the Chancellor of the Exchequer and amidst a terrible uproar Miss Hudson and Miss Bertha Brewster were dragged down from amongst the rafters where they had lain concealed for many hours they were taken to the police station charged with infringing the public meeting act and detained in custody from Saturday until Monday both in the same small cell which contained only one narrow prison mattress and some rugs on Monday the magistrate discharged them with a caution implementing them on their pluck the government was averse to allowing them to be let off so lightly and on Wednesday Miss Brewster was re-arrested for having broken her cell windows in Walton Jail Liverpool in the previous August she was sentenced to six weeks imprisonment but gave notice to appeal against a sentence on the ground that she had already been specially punished for this offenced whilst in prison on January 31st she was released in order that she might prosecute the appeal thinking that the case hardly did him credit Mr Gladstone announced that she would not be asked to complete her term of imprisonment the appeal was therefore dropped on December 20th Mr Asquith had arranged to speak both at Liverpool and Birkenhead and owing to his desire to avoid the suffragettes detectives smuggled him across the river amongst the luggage nevertheless outside the Liberal Club Miss Selena Martin and Miss Leslie Hall who stood in the gutter the match girl and the other as an orange seller spoke to him as he stepped from his motor car and urged him the necessity for granting the franchise to women he dashed away without answering and in protest and by way of warning Miss Selena Martin tossed a ginger beer bottle into the empty car which he had left both women were at once arrested and were afterwards remanded in custody for six days Bale was refused though Miss Selena Martin promised that she and her comrade would follow it in action until the case should come on Note 44 the women were removed to Walton Jail and were there treated as though they had been ordinary convicted criminals they protested by refusing to eat just as so many of their comrades had done before them Miss Martin also barricaded her cell but the officials forced their way in pulled her off the bed and flung her on the floor shaking and striking her unmercifully shortly afterwards Bale was visited by the deputy medical officer who ordered that she should get up and dress she explained that she had been wet through by the snowstorm on the previous day and that her clothes were still saturated for no attempt had been made to get them dry but she was forcibly dressed and with her hands handcuffed behind her was dragged to a cold dark punishment cell and flung on the stone floor she lay there in an exhausted state for some hours being unable to rise without the aid of her hands and arms which were still fastened behind her back until at last a wardress came in and lifted her on to the bed board the irons were kept on all night on Friday the third day of her imprisonment Miss Martin was brought up before the visiting magistrates she protested against the way in which she was being treated pointing out that she was still an unconvicted prisoner but she was told that the officials were quite justified in all they might do the same evening several wardresses entered her cell and ordered her to go to the doctor's room to be forcibly fed I refused, she says and was dragged to the foot of the stairs with my hands handcuffed behind then I was frog-marched that is to say carried face downwards by the arms and legs to the doctor's room after a violent struggle I was forced into a chair the handcuffs removed my arms being held by the wardresses whilst the doctor forcibly fed me by that obnoxious instrument a tube most unnecessary force was used by the assistant medical officer when applying the gag the operation finished I walked handcuffed to the top of the stairs but refused to return to the punishment cell then two wardresses caught me by the shoulders and dragged me down the steps another kicking me from behind as I reached the bottom step they relaxed their hold and I fell on my head I was picked up and carried to the cell the next day she was forcibly fed and afterwards again refused to return to the dark cell but she says I was seized by a number of wardresses and carried down the steps my head being allowed to bump several times meanwhile, Miss Leslie Hall had also broken her windows and had been placed in a punishment cell and kept in handcuffs continuously for three days after two and a half days fasting she was fed by the stomach tube the doctor had taunted her meanwhile and jokingly told the wardress that she was mentally sick and that it was like stuffing a turkey for Christmas on Monday December 27th the women were again brought into court when Miss Leslie Hall was ordered one month's imprisonment with hard labor and Miss Selena Martin two months on returning to prison both the women refused to wear prison dress and recommenced the hunger strike each one was then clothed in a straight jacket and placed in a punishment cell forcible feeding was continued and they both grew rapidly weaker until February 3rd when they were released meanwhile, the facts as to their treatment whilst imprisoned under a man had been widely circulated for they had dictated statements for their friends used whilst their trial was being conducted Mr Gladstone wrote to the Times denying the truth of the statements declaring that the reason for refusing bail to the women was that they had refused to promise to be of good behavior until their trial came on that no unnecessary violence had been used and that the women themselves had made no complaint but indeed the inaccuracy of Mr Gladstone's statements had become proverbial for he was constantly denying the truth of charges which were clearly substantiated by the most reliable evidence now, Lady Constance Lytton in spite of her fragile constitution and the disease from which she suffered again determined to place herself beside the women in the fighting ranks who were enduring the greatest hardship believing that she had been released from Newcastle prison on account of her rank and family influence, she determined that this time she would go disguised she knew that not only her family but the leaders of the militant movement would try to dissuade her on account of her health she therefore decided to speak of her intention to no one except Mrs Baines and a few local workers whom she pledged to secrecy on January 14th she and Mrs Baines organized a procession to Walton Jail a halt was called opposite the prison and having told the story of what was happening inside Lady Constance called the people to follow her to its gates and demand the release of the tortured women then she moved forward and as she had foreseen she was immediately placed under arrest at the same time Elsie Howie dashed into the prison yard and broke one of the windows of the governor's house by striking it with a purple-white and green flag she too was taken into custody and Bale being refused the two comrades past the night in the cells Lady Constance had disguised herself by cutting her hair wearing spectacles and dressing herself in poor and plain garments and now she gave Jane Wharton seamstress as her name and occupation next morning she was sentenced to 14 days hard labor without the option of a fine whilst Elsie Howie was sent to prison for six weeks hard labor then they were dragged ruthlessly away to the torture which they well knew was to come on arriving at the prison on Saturday, January 15th they made the usual claim to be treated as political prisoners and on this being refused signified their intention of refusing to conform to any of the prison rules thereupon they were forcibly stripped by the wardresses and dressed in the prison clothes at five o'clock on Tuesday the doctor entered Lady Constance with four wardresses and the forcible feeding apparatus then without testing her heart or feeling her pulse though she had not been medically examined since entering the prison he ordered that she should be placed in position she did not resist but lay down on the bed board voluntarily well knowing that she would need all her strength for the ordeal that was to come her poor heart was palpating wildly but she set her teeth and tried to calm herself the doctor then produced a wooden and a steel gag and told her that he would not use the ladder which would hurt unless she resisted him but as she would not unlock her teeth he threw the milder wooden instrument aside and pried her mouth open with the steel one then the stomach tube was forced down and the whole hateful feeding business was gone through the reality surpassed all that I had anticipated she said it was a living nightmare pain, horror and revolting degradation the sense is of being strangled suffocated by the thrust down of the large rubber tube which arouses great irritation in the throat and nausea in the stomach the anguish and effort of retching whilst the tube is forcibly pressed back into the stomach and the natural writhing of the body restrained to defy description I forgot what I was in there for I forgot women I forgot everything except my own sufferings and I was completely overcome by them the doctor annoyed by her one effort to resist affected to consider her distress assumed and struck her contemptuously on the cheek as he rose to leave but the water showed pity for her weakness and they helped to wipe her clothes over which she had been sick they promised to bring her others in the morning but she was obliged to pass the night as she was for owing both to the low temperature of the cell and her own lack of vitality she was always so cold that she wore her nightdress and all her clothes both day and night even then her limbs remained stiff with cold and though at last as a special favour she was allowed first one and then another extra blanket and the cape which the prisoners wear at exercise she remained cold for she says it was like clothing a stone to warm it when she was fed the second time the vomiting was more excessive the doctor's clothes suffered he was angry and left her cell hastily saying you did that on purpose if you do it again tomorrow I shall feed you twice how very much easier would it have been to have given in or never to have started this resistance how very much more natural to this gentle creature whose whole life had been one of affectionate deference to the wishes of others who because of her kindly sweetness had been named by her family would it have been to save others trouble and quietly to submit to the discomforts of prison life but where principles were in question none could be stronger or firmer than Constance Lytton and she was determined to go on with the bitter thing until the end yet through it all her gentle nature was apparent she could not bear that any of the ordinary prisoners should be brought in to clean up the mess on herself floor and except upon one or two occasions she always managed to do it for herself in spite of her weakness and distress notwithstanding his brutal rudeness to her she even tried to wipe the doctor's clothes if anything was spilt upon them for the sake of the other prisoner she tried too to help him with his hateful task by making suggestions to him as to how it might be rendered more efficacious and some of its horrors mitigated but her suggestions were contemptuously disregarded the third time she was fed she vomited continuously but the doctor kept pouring in more food until she was seized with a violent fit of shivering then he became alarmed he hastily told the wardresses to lay her on the floor and called in his assistant to test her heart but after a brief and superficial investigation it was pronounced quite sound and the pulse steady next time he appeared he pleaded with her saying I do beg of you I appeal to you not as a prison doctor but as a man to give over you are a delicate woman you are not fit for this sort of thing is anybody fit for it she answered I beg of you I appeal to you not as a prisoner but as a woman to refuse to continue this inhuman treatment from Wednesday January 19th and onwards she began to find that not only did she receive greater consideration from the doctor but there was a marked change in her treatment generally this led her to conclude that her identity had been discovered or at least suspected and she therefore tried to take advantage of whatever privileges might be made to her in order to secure concessions for her comrades and to induce the officials to act with more humanity but though she considered that she had been treated with more kindness than was usual we learned that obvious simple necessities were denied her the processes of digestion were fairly stagnant and she was losing weight daily and though she made several suggestions as to remedies and at last an apparent drug was promised to her it was never supplied she was right however in thinking that her identity had been discovered on Friday the authorities made up their minds that she was not Jane Wharton and on Sunday morning both the governor and doctor appeared and told her that she was to be released and that her sister had come to fetch her Lady Constance Lytton and a careful statement to Mr Gladstone asserting that the forcible feeding was performed with unnecessary cruelty and without proper care he declared that all her charges were unfounded and the visiting magistrates having held a one-sided inquiry into the matter announced that the regulations had been carried out with the greatest care and consideration footnotes 43 a few days later the same thing happened Mrs Haverfield and later still in regard to the members of the women's freedom league 44 Miss Martin's promise was reported in the Liverpool Daily Post and other papers End of Chapter 23 Chapter 24 of the suffragette the history of the women's militant suffrage movement by E. Sylvia Pankhurst this LibriVox recording is in the public domain 24 1910 the general election the truce the conciliation committee a series of great demonstrations war is again declared another general election conclusion with the opening of the new year 1910 whilst many of the women were still in prison the general election began the women's social and political union fought the government in 40 constituencies in almost every one of these contests the Liberal vote was reduced and 18 of the seats which had been held by government representatives at the dissolution were rested from them during the election the Liberal government's absolute majority over all sections of the house had been swept away and they were now dependent for their existence upon the votes of the Labour and Irish parties these suffragettes were now advised in many quarters that the militant tactics had forced the government to the point of wishing to gain peace by granting votes to women but that cabinet ministers were now afraid to do so lest they should seem to have given way to coercion the contest for supreme power in the new parliament being over the women therefore decided to give the re-elected government and the parliamentary supporters of women's suffrage a quiet opportunity to settle the matter between them on February 14th the WSPU proclaimed a truce and the women's freedom league followed suit during the past year more than 20,000 meetings had been held by the WSPU alone in addition to the many thousands organized by the other suffrage societies now that militancy was to be laid aside a period of even greater effort in the direction of building up the organization and extending the purely educational work was to be entered upon important developments were also to take place within parliament itself for many years a committee of parliamentary supporters of women's suffrage had existed this was originally inaugurated on June 10th, 1887 under the influence of Miss Lydia Becker it was strictly non-party members from all sections of the house having belonged to it during the parliament elected in 1906 however the old committee had been allowed to lapse the liberal supporters of the question formed a women's suffrage committee of their own and abandoning the attempt to secure votes for women and seeking instead to extend the franchise all around they had put forward Mr. Jeffrey Howard's reform bill which had had no chance of being carried now largely owing to the efforts of Mr. H. N. Brailsford a conciliation committee was formed with the object of uniting all sections of opinion favorable to women's enfranchisement and of coming to a common agreement upon some particular measure the Earl of Lytton acted as chairman of this committee and Mr. Brailsford himself as secretary its members consisted of 25 liberals 17 conservatives 6 irish nationalists and 6 members of the labor party in discussing the terms of the bill to be adopted the unionist members urged that it should be moderate whilst the liberals insisted that it must give no loophole for increasing the possibilities of plural voting or adding to the power of the property classes though the majority of the women who attend the English universities do so as a preparation for earning their livelihood the liberals did not wish to see the franchise for university graduates which is exercised by men extended to women because as they said the poorest women do not graduate for similar reasons they oppose the granting of votes to women under the joint household qualification which applies only to houses rented at 20 pounds a year and upwards under the larger franchise which applies only to those who pay 20 pounds a week for an unfurnished room and under the ownership franchise to overcome the objections of the self-styled Democrats the old women's and franchisement bill which would have given bare justice to women by extending the parliamentary vote to them on equal terms with men was therefore abandoned and a measure was drafted on the lines of the existing municipal franchise of which the basis is occupation and under which there is no qualification for owners, lodgers or graduates local government was the earliest form of government in this country it has been the most persistent and staple government from the center was of later growth and has many times been interrupted the municipal franchise as it exists today is chiefly dependent on the municipal corporations acts of 1835 and 1839 before the passing of the first of these acts women possessed and exercised equal voting rights with men in regard to matters of local government but the act of 1835 deprived them of these rights in all towns incorporated under it in 1865 however women suffered societies demanding the admission of women to both national and local franchises sprang into being and when the municipal corporations act of 1869 was before parliament Mr. Jacob Bright succeeded in carrying an amendment to restore to women the rights of which the act of 1835 had deprived them it was a liberal government that framed and carried the municipal corporations act of 1869 and that government accepted the amendment to extend its provisions to women there was no suggestion then nor has any since been made that that franchise when exercised either by men or women is undemocratic when applied to municipal purposes therefore following the lines of the existing municipal franchise the conciliation committee proposed to extend the parliamentary vote to women householders and to women occupiers of business premises paying 10 pounds a year and upwards it was estimated that 95% of the women who would be enfranchised under this conciliation bill would be householders to the householder franchise no monetary qualification whatsoever is attached and everyone who inhabits even a single room over which he or she has full control is counted as a householder as soon as this bill had been decided upon by the members of parliament who formed the conciliation committee it was submitted to the various suffrage in other women's organizations with a request to adopt it many of the societies including the militants at first demurred on the ground that though the number of women enfranchised would not differ greatly the principle of equality between men and women which the women's enfranchisement bill had laid down would be sacrificed by the new measure Mr. Brailsford and others urged however that the conciliation bill was the only one to which the various sections in the house who supported women's suffrage would agree they also pointed out that as the women whom it was proposed to enfranchise were already upon the municipal register no difficulty would be experienced in adding the lists of their names to the parliamentary register also before the next general election even should this take place within the year therefore on condition that it should be passed during the session all the various women's organizations worked wholeheartedly for the measure on June 18 the WSPU organized in support of the conciliation bill a greater procession of women than had ever yet been held in which joined numbers of organizations both national and international headed by a company of 617 women in white dresses carrying long gleaming silver staves tipped with broad arrows each representing an imprisonment the massed ranks with their gay banners took more than an hour and a half to pass a given point the great Albert Hall was able to contain but a section of the processionists no place for women's suffrage had been obtained in the private members ballot the conciliation bill had been drafted in the hope that the government would provide time for its discussion and five days after the great procession the prime minister in reply to an influentially signed petition of parliament promised to give facilities for the second reading of the bill at the same time he stated that he could not provide an early date for this but just as the militant forces were preparing for action he agreed to fix Monday and Tuesday, July the 11th and 12th for the discussion of the bill the object of the conciliation bill's promoters was, of course not merely to secure the passage of the second reading by a substantial majority but also that it should be sent for discussion to one of the standing committees instead of being referred to a committee of the whole house because if the latter course were pursued no further progress could be made unless the government were prepared to provide more time as usual the attitude of the government was anxiously awaited it was rumored that Mr. Lloyd George would speak in opposition to the bill but those who believed his professions of friendship for the women's cause hoped against hope that he would not do so Mr. Winston Churchill had been in conference with the officials of the conciliation committee and had expressed sympathy with their object they counted confidently upon his help it is true that some days before the debate they had received a letter from him criticizing the terms of the bill but they still regarded him as a friend to the measure nevertheless early in the second day's debate he rose to make a bitter and uncompromising attack upon it he began by seeking to prove that the grievance of excluding women in franchise was greatly exaggerated that they did not suffer any legislative disability therefrom and that neither the mass of the women themselves nor of the male electorate desired the enfranchisement of women he went on to speak vaguely of the danger of creating a vast body of privileged and dependent voters who might be manipulated, maneuvered in this division or in that then having elaborately striven to build up a case against the granting of votes to women on any terms proceeded with an air of considerable magnanimity to admit that a slight grievance existed because all women were disfranchised he was of the opinion that this grievance could only be redressed in one or two ways either by giving the vote to some of the best women of all classes or by giving the vote to every woman the former method he described as the first way and he said I always hoped the conciliation committee would travel along that road in particularizing his favorite method of proceeding by means of his proposed special franchises he admitted that no doubt these would be disrespectfully called fancy franchises and explained that they would give the vote to a comparatively small number of women of all classes on considerations of property, earning capacity or education these special franchises would he said be fairly balanced one against the other so as not on the whole to give an undue advantage to the property vote as against the wage earning vote that, he said would not be a democratic proposal it would provide for the representation of the sex through the strongest, most capable and most responsible women in every class and that would meet the main grievance in my humble judgment thus the loudly professing democrat Mr. Churchill proposed to enfranchise only those women whom the members of the conciliation committee in the earnest and patient effort to comply with Mr. Asquith's proviso that their bill must be democratic had gradually weeded out they had excluded the property owners as such in favor of their poor sisters the graduates because only the comfortably circumstance can go to college and the lodgers because the majority of women wage earners to the shame of our country cannot afford to pay for shilling a week for their rooms these three classes the women who own property those who have graduated at college and those who earn comparatively high wages were surely those whom Mr. Churchill had intended to indicate the women had agreed to their exclusion because as compared with the householders their numbers were small this was the very reason for which Mr. Churchill had selected them for inclusion for he described the conciliation bill as an enormous addition to the franchise though it would only enfranchise one million women as against seven million men he went on to attack the terms of the conciliation bill describing it as anti-democrat and declaring that it gave representation to property as against persons the more I studied the bill he said the more astonished I am that such a large number of respected members of parliament should have found it possible to put their names to it he complained that the bulk of married women would not be able to qualify but that a man who owned a house and stable would be able to qualify his wife for the former and himself for the latter as though that would not also be the case under his own proposed fancy franchises he asserted that the young and experienced girl of 21 would be enfranchised under the conciliation bill whilst the women who keeps by her labour and invalid husband and his family would get no vote yet in practice we all know that girls of 21 are not usually qualified either as householders or occupiers and injustice and let us hope in its practice also the woman who works to maintain her husband and family is counted as the responsible householder and would vote instead of the husband she maintains he ended with a final appeal to members to vote against the bill saying that a vote on the second reading of this bill was equivalent to that on the third reading of any other and that those who cast their votes for it should be able to say I want this bill passed into law this session regardless of all other consequences I want it as it is and I want it now Mr. Asquith spoke against the principle of women's enfranchisement in general and against the conciliation bill in particular he began by saying that a franchise measure ought not to be sent to a standing committee but to one of the whole house he declared also that his conditions that proof must be shown that the majority of the women desired any proposed measures for their enfranchisement and that the measure should be democratic in its character had not been complied with towards the end of the debate Mr. Lloyd George also threw the weight of his influence into the scale against the bill he stated that he agreed with every word both relevant and irrelevant that had been uttered by Mr. Churchill nevertheless he refrained from depreciating the abstract principle of women's suffrage as the home secretary had done and directed his attack wholly against the terms of the bill in defiance of the fact he persistently declared that the conciliation committee which had drafted the bill was a committee of women meeting outside the house and that they had come to the house saying not merely must you vote for women's suffrage but you must vote for the particular form upon which we agree and we will not even allow you to deliberate upon any other form he said that this was a position which no self-respecting legislature could possibly accept yet the government had all the parliamentary year at their disposal to introduce what measures they chose and for years and years the women had been calling upon them to formulate a woman's suffrage measure of their own it had been urged he said that this bill was better than none at all why should that be the alternative he asked but when a member called out what is the other he answered evasively well I cannot say for the moment but allow me I am trying to concentrate for the sake of others who desire to follow me in this debate he said if the promoters of this bill say that they regard the second reading merely as an affirmation of the principle of women's suffrage and if they promise that when they reintroduce the bill it will be in a form which will enable the House of Commons to move any amendment either for restriction or for extension I shall be happy to vote for this bill will the government give time asked Mr. Rock a liberal member but the only answer was that is a question for the prime minister Mr. Snowden winding up the debate for the promoters of the bill replied to Mr. Lloyd George's challenge he said we will withdraw this bill if the right honorable gentleman on behalf of the government or the prime minister himself will undertake to give to this house the opportunity of discussing and carrying through its various stages another form of franchise bill if we cannot get that then we shall prosecute this bill Mr. Lloyd George and the other members of the government that silent they well knew the difficulties under which the conciliation committee labored and they knew too that the women were striving at great cost and sacrifice to obtain for their sex the largest possible measure of representation but with the power to speedily bring them out to a satisfactory conclusion they preferred to hamper the efforts of both with obstructive criticism as Mr. Snowden aptly put it it would pass the wit of man to put that principle into a bill which would meet with the approval of the chancellor of the exchequer and the home secretary Mr. Balfour Mr. Haldane and Mr. Runciman were amongst those who spoke in support of the bill but the two ministers urged that it should not be allowed to pass to one of the standing committees after 39 speeches had been delivered the division was taken the second reading was then found to have been carried by 299 votes to 190 giving a favorable majority of 109 a majority larger than that cast during the parliament for any measure and even for the government's vaunted budget and House of Lords resolutions a division was next taken on a resolution to refer the bill to a committee of the whole house the anti-suffragist in the hope of shelving the bill those who feared to anger the government and those who genuinely believed that so important a measure should be considered by the whole house in each of its stages combined to carry this resolution by 320 votes to 175 the question was now whether the government would allow the few days necessary for the committee and other final stages practically all other important legislative work was hanging fire because of the deadlock in regard to the House of Lords controversy the conference between the leaders of the conservative and liberal parties which after King Edward's death had been set up to discuss this matter was still sitting and until its deliberations were at end no progress towards a settlement would be made therefore for the moment parliament had plenty of time on its hands and urgent pressure was brought upon the government to give out of this abundance to the women's bill on July 17 the men's political union for women's suffrage the men's league for women's suffrage and the conciliation committee held a joint meeting in Hyde Park in support of the bill on July 23 the anniversary of the day in 1867 as the pulling down of the Hyde Park railings won the vote for the working men in the towns the women's social and political union held another great demonstration there for which a space of half a square mile was specially cleared there were 40 platforms many societies cooperated and two fine processions one from the east and the other from the west marched to the meeting the older suffragists had also demonstrated in Trafalgar Square but on the very day of the WSPU's Hyde Park meeting the prime minister wrote to Lord Lytton refusing to allow any further time for the bill that session but parliament was to meet again in the autumn it was still hoped that the government might concede the time then resolutions urging them to do so were sent in from numbers of popularly elected bodies including the corporations of Manchester, Liverpool, Bradford, Nottingham, Glasgow, Dundee, Dublin, Cork and 30 others there were signs that the truce of the militants which had lasted for nine months would soon be at an end this time it was men friends to the cause who gave the first warning on October 17 young Mr. Victor Duval now secretary of the men's political union for women's suffrage was arrested for seizing Mr. Lloyd George by the lapel of his coat and rebuking him for his hostility to the women's bill as he passed into the city temple where he was to speak Mr. Lloyd George Jacobs an elderly man saw that the police were tweeting Duval roughly and called out to them to not hurt him he was also arrested and both men were imprisoned for a week Mr. Lloyd George had been speaking against the conciliation bill in Wales and numbers of Welsh women liberals plainly showed their disapproval of his action the women constituents of several other cabinet ministers were pressing to be received in deputation and in view of the general election they were denied on October 27 Mr. Asquith consented to see the women of East Fife he told them that facilities could not be granted before the close of the year and even when asked what of next year he merely answered wait and see other ministers seconded him they were all agreed and refusing to allow the bill to pass into law that year therefore at a great meeting in the Albert Hall war was once more declared Mrs. Pankhurst announced that another deputation would march to the House of Commons to carry a petition to the Prime Minister she herself would lead the deputation if I were to go alone she said still I would go but at that hundreds of women's voices cried out from all parts of the hall Mrs. Pankhurst I will go with you I will go I will go then Mrs. Pethic Lawrence called for funds for the campaign and 9000 pounds was immediately subscribed the autumn session lasted but a few days for on November 18 Mr. Asquith announced that Parliament would be dissolved on November 28 and that a general election would take place even whilst he spoke the women 450 of them divided into companies of less than 12 to keep within the law were marching from the Caxton Hall in Clemens Inn Mrs. Pankhurst Dr. Garrett Anderson founder of Gerton College and one of the medical women pioneers now over 70 years of age Mrs. Hertha Aiton the scientist Mrs. Cobden Sanderson and Mrs. Nelligan and Mrs. Brackenberry both of whom had reached the great age of 78 were among the first little band they soon learnt that the Prime Minister had refused to see them some of their number were hurled back into the crowd the remainder were kept standing on the porch for hours with the shut door before them and a surging crowd behind the companies of women who came after were torn apart fell to the ground struck again and again bruised and battered and tossed hither and thither with a violence that perhaps excelled anything that had gone before 115 women and four men were eventually arrested but the full story of that day's happenings belongs to another and let us hope to the last chapter of this long fight meanwhile the Prime Minister forgot to reply to Mr. Keir Hardy's question as to the fate of the conciliation bill Lord Balcarries then moved a resolution which was practically a vote of censure upon the government for their treatment of the women 52 members voted for it but it was lost eventually Mr. Lloyd George said the Prime Minister would make a statement on the following Tuesday Tuesday saw the women's parliament again in session and the women waiting eagerly for the news Mr. Asquith said the government will, if they are still in power, give facilities in the next parliament for effectively proceeding with a bill which is so framed as to admit a free amendment he refused however to promise that this should be done during the first year of the new parliament facilities for the conciliation bill had been asked for the reply that facilities would be given to a bill so framed as to admit a free amendment was too vague to please the women but the refusal to grant an opportunity for passing a suffrage bill into law during the first year of parliament was more serious the parliament now to be dissolved had lasted less than a year who could ensure a longer life for its successor Mr. Asquith had given the women scant reason to trust any vague promises of his therefore Mrs. Pankhurst announced to the women I am going to Downing Street come along all of you and the women went the police however gradually beat them back and over a hundred arrests were made on Wednesday there were 18 further arrests and 29 more on Thursday many of the women were discharged but 75 received sentences of imprisonment varying from 14 days to one month then came the general election and again the suffragettes strenuously opposed the government in almost every constituency fought by them the liberal vote was reduced a notable instance was that of Cardiff where a liberal majority of 1555 was converted into a conservative majority of 299 here the 800 members of the women's liberal association abstained from working for their party because its candidate Sir Clarendon Hyde was opposed to votes for women the end of the election saw the liberal government still in power during the year the women's suffrage societies had all grown largely the women's social and political union salaried staff now stands at 110 persons its central offices at Clemens Inn occupy 23 rooms and a shop in 13 rooms have also been taken for the women's press at 156 sharing cross road there are also 105 local centers of the union the income of the central organization of the wspu during 1910 was 34,500 pounds excluding 9,000 pounds made by the women's press and many thousands collected by the local unions the 20,000 pound campaign fund is now complete the conciliation bill has been again introduced again its scope and title have been modified to please the democrats its text now is every woman possessed of a household qualification within the meaning of the representation of the people act 1884 shall be entitled to be registered as a voter and when registered to vote for the country or borough in which the qualifying premises are situate for the purposes of this act a woman shall not be disqualified by marriage from being registered as a voter provided that a husband and wife shall not both be registered as voters in the same parliamentary borough or county division in reply to a deputation of women who waited upon him over 1910 mr. Burrell said I am strongly of opinion that in the course of next year facilities must be given for the bill you are perfectly right he added in feeling irritated and annoyed at the delay that has taken place and in insisting on a date for parliament reaction Mr. Asquiss promise is that facilities for a woman's suffrage measure will be granted during this parliament such statements as these must now be held as binding and the long standing government veto of this question must be withdrawn so the gallant struggle for a great reform draws to its close full of stern fighting and bitter hardship as it has been it has brought much to the women of our time the courage a self-reliance a comradeship and above all a spiritual growth a conscious dwelling in company with the ideal which has tended to strip the littleness from life and to give to it the character of an heroic mission may we prize and cherish the great selfless spirit that has been engendered and applying it to the purposes of our government the nation's housekeeping the management of our collective affairs may we, men and women together not in antagonism but in comradeship strive on till we have built up a better civilization than any that the world has known for surely just as those children are fortunate to have two parents and a father to care for them so is the nation fortunate that has its mothers and its fathers, its brothers and its sisters working together for the common good End of Chapter 24 End of The Suffragette The History of the Women's Militant Suffrage Movement by E. Sylvia Pankhurst Recorded by Céline Majore