August 18, 2025 • 18 mins
In My Own Story, Emmeline Pankhurst, the renowned British political activist and leader of the suffragette movement, shares her compelling journey in the fight for womens rights. Despite facing significant criticism for her militant approach, her relentless efforts played a pivotal role in securing womens suffrage in Britain. Written and published on the brink of the Great War, Pankhursts autobiography offers an intimate glimpse into her experiences and the challenges she faced along the way. (Summary by Petra)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Book three, Chapter four of My Own Story by Emmeline
Pain Cursed. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
recording my k Hand the Women's Revolution, Chapter four. I
had called upon women to join me in striking the
government through the only thing that governments are really very
much concerned about property, and the response was immediate. Within
(00:21):
a few days, the newspapers rang with the stories of
the attack made on letter boxes in London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol,
and half a dozen other cities. In some cases, the boxes,
when opened by postmen, mysteriously burst into flame. In others,
the letters were destroyed by corrosive chemicals. In still others,
the addresses were rendered illegible by black fluids. Altogether, it
was estimated that over five thousand letters were completely destroyed,
(00:43):
and many thousands more were delayed in transit. It was
with a deep sense of their gravity that these letter
burning protests were undertaken. But we felt that something drastic
must be done in order to destroy the apathy of
the men of England who view with indifference the suffering
of women oppressed by unjust laws. As we pointed out,
letters press as though they may be, are less precious
than human bodies and souls. This fact was universally realized
(01:05):
that the sinking of the Titanic letters and valuables disappeared forever,
but their loss was forgotten in the far more terrible
loss of the multitude of human lives. And so, in
order to call attention to greater crimes against human beings,
our letter burnings continued. In only a few cases were
the offenders apprehended, and one of the few women arrested
was a helpless cripple, a woman who could move about
only in a wheelchair. She received a sentence of eight
(01:27):
months in the first division, and resolutely hunger striking was
forcibly fed with unusual brutality, the prison doctor deliberately breaking
one of her teeth in order to insert a gag.
In spite of her disabilities and her weakness, the crippled
girl persisted in her hunger strike and her resistance to
prison rules, and within a short time had to be released.
The excessive sentences of other pillar box destroyers resolved themselves
(01:48):
into very short terms because of the resistance of the prisoners,
every one of whom adopted the hunger strike. Having shown
the government that we were in deadly earnest when we
declared that we would adopt guerrilla warfare, and also that
we would not remain in prison. We announced a truce
in order that the government might have full opportunity to
fulfill their pledge. And in regard to a woman's suffrage amendment
to the Franchise Bill. We did not for one moment
(02:10):
believe that mister Asquith would willingly keep his word. We
knew that he would break it if he could, but
there was a bare chance that he would not find
this possible. However, our principal reason for declaring the truce
was that we believed that the Prime Minister would find
a way of evading his promise, and we were determined
that the blame should be placed not on militancy, but
on the shoulders of the real trader. We reviewed the
(02:31):
history of pass suffrage bills. In nineteen o eight, the
bill had passed its second reading by a majority of
one hundred seventy nine, and then mister Asquith had refused
to allow it to go on. In nineteen ten, the
Conciliation Bill passed its second reading by a majority of
one hundred ten, and again mister Asquith blocked its progress,
pledging himself that if the bill were reintroduced to nineteen
eleven in a form rendering it to capable of free amendment,
(02:53):
it would be given full facilities for becoming law. These
conditions were met in nineteen eleven, and we saw how
the bill, after receiving an increased majority of one hundred
sixty seven votes, was torpedoed by the introduction of a
government manhood Suffrage Bill. Mister Asquith this time had pledged
himself that the bill would be so framed that a
woman's suffrage amendment could be added, and he further pledged
that in case such an amendment was carried through to
(03:15):
its second reading, he would allow it to become part
of the bill. Just exactly how the Government would manage
to wriggle out of their promise was a matter of
excited speculation. All sorts of rumors were flying about, some
hinting at the resignation of the Prime Minister, some suggesting
the possibility of a general election, others that the amended
bill would carry with it a forced referendum on women's suffrage.
It was also said that the intention of the government
(03:37):
was to delay the bill so long that after it
was passed in the House, it would be excluded from
the benefits of parliament acts, according to which a bill
delayed of passage beyond the first two years of the
life of a Parliament has no chance of being considered
by the Lords. In order to become a law without
the sanction of the House of Lords, a bill must
pass three times through the House of Commons. The prospect
of a woman's suffrage bill doing that was practically nil.
(03:59):
Now the rumors would Mister Asquith give a specific denial,
and in fact, the only positive utterance he made on
the subject of the franchise Bill was that he considered
it highly improbable that the House would pass a woman's
suffrage amendment. In order to discourage women's suffrage sentiment in
the House, mister Lloyd George and mister Lewis Harcourt again
busied themselves with spreading pessimistic prophecies of a cabinet split
in case an amendment was carried. No other threat they
(04:21):
well knew would so terrorize the timid back bench liberals, who,
in addition to their blind party loyalty, stood in fear
of losing their seats in the general election which would
follow such a split. Rather than risk their political jobs,
they would have sacrificed any principle. Of course, the hint
of a cabinet split was pure buoncom and it deceived
few of the members, but it established very clearly one thing,
(04:42):
and this was that mister Asquith's promised that the House
should be left absolutely free to decide the suffrage issue,
and that the Cabinet stood ready to bow to the
decision of the House was never meant to be fulfilled.
The Franchise Bill, unamended by its very wording, specifically denied
the right of any woman to vote. Sir Edward Gray
moved an amendment deleting from the bill the word mail,
thus leaving room for a women's suffrage amendment. Two such
(05:03):
amendments were moved, one providing for adult suffrage for men
and women, and the other providing full suffrage for women
householders and wives of householders. The latter postponed the voting
age of women to twenty five years instead of the
men's twenty one. On January twenty fourth, nineteen thirteen, debate
on the first of the amendments was begun. A day
and a half had been allotted to consideration of Sir
Edward Gray's amendment, which if carried, would leave the way
(05:25):
clear for consideration of the other two, to each of
which one third of a day was allotted. We had
arranged for huge meetings to be held every day during
the debates, and on the day before they were to open,
we sent a deputation working women, led by Missus Drummond
and miss Annie Kenney to interview mister Lloyd George and
Sir Edward Gray. We had asked mister Asquith to receive
the deputation, but as usual he refused. The deputation consisted
(05:47):
of the two leaders, four cotton mill operatives from Lancashire,
four workers in sweated trades of London, two pit brow lassies,
two teachers, two trained nurses, one shop assistant, one laundress,
one boot and shoe worker and one domestic worker. Twenty
e nive and all the exact numbers specified by mister
Lloyd George. Some hundreds of working women escorted the deputation
to the official residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer
(06:07):
and waited anxiously in the street to hear the result
of the audience. The result was, of course, Baron mister
Lloyd George glibly repeated his confidence that in the great
opportunity afforded by the Franchise Bill, and Sir Edward Gray,
reminding the women of the divergence of view held by
the members of the Cabinet on the suffrage question, assured
them that the best opportunity for success lay in an
amendment to the present bill. The women spoke with the
(06:27):
greatest candor to the two ministers and questioned them sharply
as to the integrity of the Prime Minister's pledge to
accept the amendments of pasted to such depth of infamy
had English politics sunk that it was possible for women
to openly question the plighted word of the King's Chief Minister.
Missus Drummond, who stands in awe of no human being,
in plain words, invited the slippery mister Lloyd George to
clear his own character from obloquy. In the closing words
(06:50):
of her speech, she put the whole matter clearly up
to him, saying, now, mister Lloyd George, you have doggedly
stuck to your old age pensions and the Insurance Act
and secured them. And what you have done for these
measures you can also do for the women. The House
met on the following afternoon to debate Sir Edward Gray's
permissive amendment, but no sooner had the discussion opened than
a veritable bombshell was cast into the situation. Mister bonar
(07:13):
Law rose and asked for a ruling on the constitutionality
of a women's suffrage amendment to the bill is framed.
The Speaker, who besides acting as a presiding officer of
the House is its official parliamentarian, replied that in his opinion,
such an amendment would make a huge difference in the bill,
and that he would be obliged at later stages of
the debates to consider carefully whether, if carried, any women's
suffrage amendment, would not so materially alter the bill that
(07:36):
it would have to be withdrawn. In spite of this
sinister pronouncement, the House continued to debate the Gray amendment,
which was ably supported by Lord Hugh Cecil, Lord John
Rawliston and others. During the intervening weekend holiday, two Cabinet
councils were held, and when the House met on Monday,
the Prime Minister caught upon the Speaker for his ruling.
The Speaker declared that, in his opinion, the passage of
any one of the women's suffrage amendments would so alter
(07:57):
the scope of the Franchise Bill as practically to create
a new bill, because the measure as it was framed
did not have for its main object the bestowal of
the franchise on a hitherto excluded class. Had it been
so framed, a woman's suffrage amendment would have been entirely proper.
But the main object with the bill was to alter
the qualification or basis of registration for a parliamentary vote.
It would increase the mail electorate, but only as an
(08:19):
indirect result of the changed qualifications. An amendment to the
bill removing the sex barrier from the election laws was not,
in the Speaker's opinion, a proper one. The Prime Minister
then announced the intentions of the Cabinet, which were to
withdraw the Franchise Bill and to refrain from introducing during
that session a plural voting bill. Mister Asquith blandly admitted
that his pledge in regard to women's suffrage had been
rendered incapable of fulfillment, and he said that he felt
(08:42):
constrained to give a new pledge to take its place.
There were only two that could be given. The first
was that the Government should bring in a bill to
enfranchise women, and this the Government would not do. The
second was that the Government agreed to give full facilities
as to time during the next session of Parliament to
a private member's bill so drafted as to be capable
of free amendment. This was the course that the Government
had decided to adopt. Mister Asquith had the effrontery to
(09:04):
say in conclusion that he thought that the House would
agree that he had striven and had succeeded in giving effect,
both in letter and in spirit, to every undertaking which
the Government had given. Two members, only mister Henderson and
mister Keirhardy had the courage to stand up on the
floor of the House and denounce the government's treachery. For treachery,
it unquestionably was mister Asquith had pledged his sacred honor
(09:25):
to introduce a bill that would be capable of an
amendment to include women's suffrage, and he had framed a
bill that could not be so amended. Whether he had
done the thing deliberately with the plain intention of selling
out the women or whether ignorance of parliamentary rules accounted
for the failure of the bill was immaterial. The bill
need not have been drawn in ignorance. The fount of
wisdom represented by mister Speaker could have been consulted at
(09:46):
the time the bill was under construction quite as easily
as when it had reached the debating stage. Our paper said,
editorially representing and perfectly expressing our member's views. Either the
Government are so ignorant of parliamentary procedure that they are
unf fit to occupy any position of responsibility, or else
they are scoundrels of the worst kind. I am inclined
to think that the verdict of posterity will lean toward
(10:08):
the later conclusion. If mister Asquith had been a man
of honor, he would have reframed the Franchise Bill in
such a way that it could have included a suffrage amendment,
or else he would have made amends for his stupendous blunder,
if it was a blunder, by introducing a government measure
for women's suffrage. He did neither, but disposed of the
matter by promising facilities for a private member's bill which
he knew and which everybody knew could not possibly pass.
(10:30):
There was no chance for a private member's bill, even
with facilities, because of a number of reasons, but principally
because the torpedo wing of the Conciliation Bill had destroyed
utterly the spirit of conciliation in which conservatives, liberals and
radicals in the House of Commons, and militant and non
militant women throughout the Kingdom had set aside their differences
of opinion and agreed to come together on a compromise measure.
(10:51):
When the Second Conciliation Bill of nineteen eleven was under discussion,
Lord Linton had said, if this bill does not go through,
the women's suffrage movement will not be stopped, but the
spirit of conciliation of which this bill is an expression,
will be destroyed, and there will be war throughout the country, raging, tearing, fierce,
bitter strife, though nobody wants it. Lord Lytton's words were prophetic.
(11:12):
At this last brazen piece of trickery on the part
of the government, the country blazed with bitter wrath. All
the suffrage societies united in calling for a government measure
for women's suffrage to be introduced without delay. The idle
promise of facilities for a private member's bill was rejected
with contumely and scorn. The Liberal Women's Executive Committee met
and a strong effort was made to pass a resolution
threatening the withdrawal from party work of the entire federation,
(11:34):
but this failed and the Executive merely passed a feeble
resolution of regret. The membership of the Women's Liberal Federation
was at that time close to two hundred thousand, and
if the Executive had passed the strong resolution refusing to
do any more work for the party until government measure
had been introduced, the government would have been forced to yield.
They could not have faced the country without the support
of the women. But these women, many of them, were
(11:56):
wives of men in the service the paid service of
the Liberal Party. Of them were wives of Liberal members.
They lacked the courage, or the intelligence or the insight
to declare war as a body on the government. A
large number of women and also many men, did resign
from the Liberal Party, but the defections were not serious
enough to effect the government. The militants declared and proceeded
instantly to carry out unrelenting warfare. We announced that either
(12:19):
we must have a government measure, or a cabinet split,
those men in the cabinet calling themselves suffragists going out,
or we would take up the sword again, never to
lay it down until the enfranchisement of the women of
le England was won. It was at this time February
nineteen thirteen, less than two years ago, as I write
these words, that militancy, as it is now generally understood
by the public, began militancy in the sense of continued
(12:41):
destructive guerrilla warfare against the government through injury to private property.
Some property had been destroyed before this time, but the
attacks were sporadic and were meant to be in the
nature of a warning as to what might become a
settled policy. Now we indeed lighted the torch, and we
did it with the absolute conviction that no other course
was open to us. We had tried every other measure,
as I am sure that I have demonstrated to my readers,
(13:02):
and our years of work in suffering and sacrifice had
taught us that the government would not yield to right
and justice. What the majority of the members of the
House of Commons admitted was right and justice, but that
the government would as other governments invariable. Do you yield
to expediency? Now, our task was to show the government
that it was expedient to yield to the women's just demands.
In order to do that, we had to make England,
in every department of English life insecure and unsafe. We
(13:24):
had to make English law a failure in the court's farce,
comedy theaters. We had to discredit the government in parliament
in the eyes of the world. We had to spoil
English sports, hurt business, destroy valuable property, demoralize the world
of society, shame the churches, upset the whole orderly conduct
of life. That is, we had to do as much
of this guerrilla warfare as the people of England would tolerate.
(13:46):
When they came to the point of saying to the government,
stop this in the only way that it can be stopped,
by giving the women of England representation, then we should
extinguish our torch. Americans, of all people, ought to see
the logic of our reasoning. There was one piece of
American oratory, beloved of schoolboys, which has often been quoted
from militant platforms. In a speech now included among the
classics of the English language. Your Great statesman Patrick Henry
(14:09):
summed up the causes that led to the American Revolution.
He said, we have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have supplicated,
we have prostrated ourselves at the foot of the throne,
and it has all been in vain. We must fight,
I repeat, sir, we must fight. Patrick Henry remember was
advocating killing people as well as destroying private property as
the proper means of securing the political freedom of men.
(14:31):
The Suffragettes have not done that, and they never will.
In fact, the moving spirit of militancy is deep and
abiding reverence for human life. In the latter course of
our agitation, I have been called upon to discuss our
policies with many eminent men, politicians, literary men, barristers, scientists, clergymen.
One of the last named, a high dignitary in the
Church of England, told me that while he was a
(14:51):
convinced suffragist, he found it impossible to justify our doing
wrong that right might follow. I said to him, we
are not doing wrong. We are doing right in our
use of revolutionary methods against private property. It is our
work to restore thereby true values, to emphasize the value
of human rights against property rights. You are well aware, sir,
that property has assumed a value in the eyes of
men and in the eyes of the law, that it
(15:13):
ought never to claim. It is placed above all human values.
The lives and health and happiness, and even the virtue
of women and children. That is to say, the race
itself are being ruthlessly sacrificed to the God of property
every day of the world. To this, my reverend friend agreed,
and I said, if we women are wrong in destroying
private property in order that human values may be restored,
then I say in all reverence that it was wrong
(15:35):
in the founder of Christianity to destroy private property, as
he did when he lashed the money changers out of
the temple, and when he drove the Gatherine swine into
the sea. It was absolutely in this spirit that our
women went forth to war. In the first month of
guerrilla warfare, an enormous amount of property was damaged and destroyed.
On January thirty first, a number of putting greens were
burned with acids. On February seventh and eighth, telegraph and
(15:57):
telephone wires were cut in several places, and for some
hours all communication between London and Glasgow was suspended. A
few days later, windows in various of London's smartest clubs
were broken and the orchid houses at Kew were wrecked.
In many valuable ballooms destroyed by cold. The jewel room
at the Tower of London was invaded and a showcase broken.
The residents of His Royal Highness, Prince Christian and Lambeth Palace,
(16:19):
seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, were visited and had
windows broken. The Refreshment House in Regent's Park was burned
to the ground on February twelfth, and on February eighteenth,
a country house which was being built at Walton on
the Hill for mister Lloyd George, was partially destroyed, a
bomb having been exploded in the early morning before the
arrival of the workmen. A hat pin and a hair
pin picked up near the house, coupled with the fact
(16:42):
that care had been taken not to endanger any lives,
led police to believe that the deed had been done
by women enemies of mister Lloyd George. Four days later,
I was arrested and brought up an Epshom Police Court,
where I was charged with having counseled and procured. The
persons who did the damage admitted to bail for the night.
I appeared the next morning in court, where the case
was fully reviewed. Speeches of mine were read, one speech
(17:03):
made at a meeting held on January twenty second, in
which I called for volunteers to act with me in
a particular engagement, and another made the day after the exposure,
in which I publicly accept a responsibility for all militant
acts done in the past, and even for what had
been done at Walton. At the conclusion of the hearing,
I was committed for trial at the may Assizes at Guildford.
Bale would be allowed. It was stated, if I would
(17:24):
agree to give the usual undertaking to refrain from all
militancy or incitement to militancy. I asked that the case
be set for speedy trial at the assizes then in progress.
I was entirely willing. I said to give an undertaking
for a short period, for a week or even two weeks,
but I could not possibly do so for a much
longer period, looking at the fact that a new session
of Parliament began in March and was vitally concerned with
(17:44):
the interests of women. The request was refused, and I
was ordered to be taken to Holloway. I warned the
magistrate that I should at once adopt the hunger strike,
and I told them that if I lived at all
intil the summer, it would be a dying woman who
had come up for trial. Arriving at Holloway, I carried
out my intentions, but within twenty four hours I heard
that the authorities had arranged that my trial should take
place on April first, instead of at the end of June,
(18:04):
and at the Central Criminal Court, London instead of the
Guildford Court. I then gave the required undertakings and was
immediately released on bail. End of Book three, Chapter four,
Book three, Chapter four of My Own Story by Emmeline
Pain Cursed. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
recording my k Hand the Women's Revolution, Chapter four. I
had called upon women to join me in striking the
government through the only thing that governments are really very
much concerned about property, and the response was immediate. Within
(00:21):
a few days, the newspapers rang with the stories of
the attack made on letter boxes in London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol,
and half a dozen other cities. In some cases, the boxes,
when opened by postmen, mysteriously burst into flame. In others,
the letters were destroyed by corrosive chemicals. In still others,
the addresses were rendered illegible by black fluids. Altogether, it
was estimated that over five thousand letters were completely destroyed,
(00:43):
and many thousands more were delayed in transit. It was
with a deep sense of their gravity that these letter
burning protests were undertaken. But we felt that something drastic
must be done in order to destroy the apathy of
the men of England who view with indifference the suffering
of women oppressed by unjust laws. As we pointed out,
letters press as though they may be, are less precious
than human bodies and souls. This fact was universally realized
(01:05):
that the sinking of the Titanic letters and valuables disappeared forever,
but their loss was forgotten in the far more terrible
loss of the multitude of human lives. And so, in
order to call attention to greater crimes against human beings,
our letter burnings continued. In only a few cases were
the offenders apprehended, and one of the few women arrested
was a helpless cripple, a woman who could move about
only in a wheelchair. She received a sentence of eight
(01:27):
months in the first division, and resolutely hunger striking was
forcibly fed with unusual brutality, the prison doctor deliberately breaking
one of her teeth in order to insert a gag.
In spite of her disabilities and her weakness, the crippled
girl persisted in her hunger strike and her resistance to
prison rules, and within a short time had to be released.
The excessive sentences of other pillar box destroyers resolved themselves
(01:48):
into very short terms because of the resistance of the prisoners,
every one of whom adopted the hunger strike. Having shown
the government that we were in deadly earnest when we
declared that we would adopt guerrilla warfare, and also that
we would not remain in prison. We announced a truce
in order that the government might have full opportunity to
fulfill their pledge. And in regard to a woman's suffrage amendment
to the Franchise Bill. We did not for one moment
(02:10):
believe that mister Asquith would willingly keep his word. We
knew that he would break it if he could, but
there was a bare chance that he would not find
this possible. However, our principal reason for declaring the truce
was that we believed that the Prime Minister would find
a way of evading his promise, and we were determined
that the blame should be placed not on militancy, but
on the shoulders of the real trader. We reviewed the
(02:31):
history of pass suffrage bills. In nineteen o eight, the
bill had passed its second reading by a majority of
one hundred seventy nine, and then mister Asquith had refused
to allow it to go on. In nineteen ten, the
Conciliation Bill passed its second reading by a majority of
one hundred ten, and again mister Asquith blocked its progress,
pledging himself that if the bill were reintroduced to nineteen
eleven in a form rendering it to capable of free amendment,
(02:53):
it would be given full facilities for becoming law. These
conditions were met in nineteen eleven, and we saw how
the bill, after receiving an increased majority of one hundred
sixty seven votes, was torpedoed by the introduction of a
government manhood Suffrage Bill. Mister Asquith this time had pledged
himself that the bill would be so framed that a
woman's suffrage amendment could be added, and he further pledged
that in case such an amendment was carried through to
(03:15):
its second reading, he would allow it to become part
of the bill. Just exactly how the Government would manage
to wriggle out of their promise was a matter of
excited speculation. All sorts of rumors were flying about, some
hinting at the resignation of the Prime Minister, some suggesting
the possibility of a general election, others that the amended
bill would carry with it a forced referendum on women's suffrage.
It was also said that the intention of the government
(03:37):
was to delay the bill so long that after it
was passed in the House, it would be excluded from
the benefits of parliament acts, according to which a bill
delayed of passage beyond the first two years of the
life of a Parliament has no chance of being considered
by the Lords. In order to become a law without
the sanction of the House of Lords, a bill must
pass three times through the House of Commons. The prospect
of a woman's suffrage bill doing that was practically nil.
(03:59):
Now the rumors would Mister Asquith give a specific denial,
and in fact, the only positive utterance he made on
the subject of the franchise Bill was that he considered
it highly improbable that the House would pass a woman's
suffrage amendment. In order to discourage women's suffrage sentiment in
the House, mister Lloyd George and mister Lewis Harcourt again
busied themselves with spreading pessimistic prophecies of a cabinet split
in case an amendment was carried. No other threat they
(04:21):
well knew would so terrorize the timid back bench liberals, who,
in addition to their blind party loyalty, stood in fear
of losing their seats in the general election which would
follow such a split. Rather than risk their political jobs,
they would have sacrificed any principle. Of course, the hint
of a cabinet split was pure buoncom and it deceived
few of the members, but it established very clearly one thing,
(04:42):
and this was that mister Asquith's promised that the House
should be left absolutely free to decide the suffrage issue,
and that the Cabinet stood ready to bow to the
decision of the House was never meant to be fulfilled.
The Franchise Bill, unamended by its very wording, specifically denied
the right of any woman to vote. Sir Edward Gray
moved an amendment deleting from the bill the word mail,
thus leaving room for a women's suffrage amendment. Two such
(05:03):
amendments were moved, one providing for adult suffrage for men
and women, and the other providing full suffrage for women
householders and wives of householders. The latter postponed the voting
age of women to twenty five years instead of the
men's twenty one. On January twenty fourth, nineteen thirteen, debate
on the first of the amendments was begun. A day
and a half had been allotted to consideration of Sir
Edward Gray's amendment, which if carried, would leave the way
(05:25):
clear for consideration of the other two, to each of
which one third of a day was allotted. We had
arranged for huge meetings to be held every day during
the debates, and on the day before they were to open,
we sent a deputation working women, led by Missus Drummond
and miss Annie Kenney to interview mister Lloyd George and
Sir Edward Gray. We had asked mister Asquith to receive
the deputation, but as usual he refused. The deputation consisted
(05:47):
of the two leaders, four cotton mill operatives from Lancashire,
four workers in sweated trades of London, two pit brow lassies,
two teachers, two trained nurses, one shop assistant, one laundress,
one boot and shoe worker and one domestic worker. Twenty
e nive and all the exact numbers specified by mister
Lloyd George. Some hundreds of working women escorted the deputation
to the official residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer
(06:07):
and waited anxiously in the street to hear the result
of the audience. The result was, of course, Baron mister
Lloyd George glibly repeated his confidence that in the great
opportunity afforded by the Franchise Bill, and Sir Edward Gray,
reminding the women of the divergence of view held by
the members of the Cabinet on the suffrage question, assured
them that the best opportunity for success lay in an
amendment to the present bill. The women spoke with the
(06:27):
greatest candor to the two ministers and questioned them sharply
as to the integrity of the Prime Minister's pledge to
accept the amendments of pasted to such depth of infamy
had English politics sunk that it was possible for women
to openly question the plighted word of the King's Chief Minister.
Missus Drummond, who stands in awe of no human being,
in plain words, invited the slippery mister Lloyd George to
clear his own character from obloquy. In the closing words
(06:50):
of her speech, she put the whole matter clearly up
to him, saying, now, mister Lloyd George, you have doggedly
stuck to your old age pensions and the Insurance Act
and secured them. And what you have done for these
measures you can also do for the women. The House
met on the following afternoon to debate Sir Edward Gray's
permissive amendment, but no sooner had the discussion opened than
a veritable bombshell was cast into the situation. Mister bonar
(07:13):
Law rose and asked for a ruling on the constitutionality
of a women's suffrage amendment to the bill is framed.
The Speaker, who besides acting as a presiding officer of
the House is its official parliamentarian, replied that in his opinion,
such an amendment would make a huge difference in the bill,
and that he would be obliged at later stages of
the debates to consider carefully whether, if carried, any women's
suffrage amendment, would not so materially alter the bill that
(07:36):
it would have to be withdrawn. In spite of this
sinister pronouncement, the House continued to debate the Gray amendment,
which was ably supported by Lord Hugh Cecil, Lord John
Rawliston and others. During the intervening weekend holiday, two Cabinet
councils were held, and when the House met on Monday,
the Prime Minister caught upon the Speaker for his ruling.
The Speaker declared that, in his opinion, the passage of
any one of the women's suffrage amendments would so alter
(07:57):
the scope of the Franchise Bill as practically to create
a new bill, because the measure as it was framed
did not have for its main object the bestowal of
the franchise on a hitherto excluded class. Had it been
so framed, a woman's suffrage amendment would have been entirely proper.
But the main object with the bill was to alter
the qualification or basis of registration for a parliamentary vote.
It would increase the mail electorate, but only as an
(08:19):
indirect result of the changed qualifications. An amendment to the
bill removing the sex barrier from the election laws was not,
in the Speaker's opinion, a proper one. The Prime Minister
then announced the intentions of the Cabinet, which were to
withdraw the Franchise Bill and to refrain from introducing during
that session a plural voting bill. Mister Asquith blandly admitted
that his pledge in regard to women's suffrage had been
rendered incapable of fulfillment, and he said that he felt
(08:42):
constrained to give a new pledge to take its place.
There were only two that could be given. The first
was that the Government should bring in a bill to
enfranchise women, and this the Government would not do. The
second was that the Government agreed to give full facilities
as to time during the next session of Parliament to
a private member's bill so drafted as to be capable
of free amendment. This was the course that the Government
had decided to adopt. Mister Asquith had the effrontery to
(09:04):
say in conclusion that he thought that the House would
agree that he had striven and had succeeded in giving effect,
both in letter and in spirit, to every undertaking which
the Government had given. Two members, only mister Henderson and
mister Keirhardy had the courage to stand up on the
floor of the House and denounce the government's treachery. For treachery,
it unquestionably was mister Asquith had pledged his sacred honor
(09:25):
to introduce a bill that would be capable of an
amendment to include women's suffrage, and he had framed a
bill that could not be so amended. Whether he had
done the thing deliberately with the plain intention of selling
out the women or whether ignorance of parliamentary rules accounted
for the failure of the bill was immaterial. The bill
need not have been drawn in ignorance. The fount of
wisdom represented by mister Speaker could have been consulted at
(09:46):
the time the bill was under construction quite as easily
as when it had reached the debating stage. Our paper said,
editorially representing and perfectly expressing our member's views. Either the
Government are so ignorant of parliamentary procedure that they are
unf fit to occupy any position of responsibility, or else
they are scoundrels of the worst kind. I am inclined
to think that the verdict of posterity will lean toward
(10:08):
the later conclusion. If mister Asquith had been a man
of honor, he would have reframed the Franchise Bill in
such a way that it could have included a suffrage amendment,
or else he would have made amends for his stupendous blunder,
if it was a blunder, by introducing a government measure
for women's suffrage. He did neither, but disposed of the
matter by promising facilities for a private member's bill which
he knew and which everybody knew could not possibly pass.
(10:30):
There was no chance for a private member's bill, even
with facilities, because of a number of reasons, but principally
because the torpedo wing of the Conciliation Bill had destroyed
utterly the spirit of conciliation in which conservatives, liberals and
radicals in the House of Commons, and militant and non
militant women throughout the Kingdom had set aside their differences
of opinion and agreed to come together on a compromise measure.
(10:51):
When the Second Conciliation Bill of nineteen eleven was under discussion,
Lord Linton had said, if this bill does not go through,
the women's suffrage movement will not be stopped, but the
spirit of conciliation of which this bill is an expression,
will be destroyed, and there will be war throughout the country, raging, tearing, fierce,
bitter strife, though nobody wants it. Lord Lytton's words were prophetic.
(11:12):
At this last brazen piece of trickery on the part
of the government, the country blazed with bitter wrath. All
the suffrage societies united in calling for a government measure
for women's suffrage to be introduced without delay. The idle
promise of facilities for a private member's bill was rejected
with contumely and scorn. The Liberal Women's Executive Committee met
and a strong effort was made to pass a resolution
threatening the withdrawal from party work of the entire federation,
(11:34):
but this failed and the Executive merely passed a feeble
resolution of regret. The membership of the Women's Liberal Federation
was at that time close to two hundred thousand, and
if the Executive had passed the strong resolution refusing to
do any more work for the party until government measure
had been introduced, the government would have been forced to yield.
They could not have faced the country without the support
of the women. But these women, many of them, were
(11:56):
wives of men in the service the paid service of
the Liberal Party. Of them were wives of Liberal members.
They lacked the courage, or the intelligence or the insight
to declare war as a body on the government. A
large number of women and also many men, did resign
from the Liberal Party, but the defections were not serious
enough to effect the government. The militants declared and proceeded
instantly to carry out unrelenting warfare. We announced that either
(12:19):
we must have a government measure, or a cabinet split,
those men in the cabinet calling themselves suffragists going out,
or we would take up the sword again, never to
lay it down until the enfranchisement of the women of
le England was won. It was at this time February
nineteen thirteen, less than two years ago, as I write
these words, that militancy, as it is now generally understood
by the public, began militancy in the sense of continued
(12:41):
destructive guerrilla warfare against the government through injury to private property.
Some property had been destroyed before this time, but the
attacks were sporadic and were meant to be in the
nature of a warning as to what might become a
settled policy. Now we indeed lighted the torch, and we
did it with the absolute conviction that no other course
was open to us. We had tried every other measure,
as I am sure that I have demonstrated to my readers,
(13:02):
and our years of work in suffering and sacrifice had
taught us that the government would not yield to right
and justice. What the majority of the members of the
House of Commons admitted was right and justice, but that
the government would as other governments invariable. Do you yield
to expediency? Now, our task was to show the government
that it was expedient to yield to the women's just demands.
In order to do that, we had to make England,
in every department of English life insecure and unsafe. We
(13:24):
had to make English law a failure in the court's farce,
comedy theaters. We had to discredit the government in parliament
in the eyes of the world. We had to spoil
English sports, hurt business, destroy valuable property, demoralize the world
of society, shame the churches, upset the whole orderly conduct
of life. That is, we had to do as much
of this guerrilla warfare as the people of England would tolerate.
(13:46):
When they came to the point of saying to the government,
stop this in the only way that it can be stopped,
by giving the women of England representation, then we should
extinguish our torch. Americans, of all people, ought to see
the logic of our reasoning. There was one piece of
American oratory, beloved of schoolboys, which has often been quoted
from militant platforms. In a speech now included among the
classics of the English language. Your Great statesman Patrick Henry
(14:09):
summed up the causes that led to the American Revolution.
He said, we have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have supplicated,
we have prostrated ourselves at the foot of the throne,
and it has all been in vain. We must fight,
I repeat, sir, we must fight. Patrick Henry remember was
advocating killing people as well as destroying private property as
the proper means of securing the political freedom of men.
(14:31):
The Suffragettes have not done that, and they never will.
In fact, the moving spirit of militancy is deep and
abiding reverence for human life. In the latter course of
our agitation, I have been called upon to discuss our
policies with many eminent men, politicians, literary men, barristers, scientists, clergymen.
One of the last named, a high dignitary in the
Church of England, told me that while he was a
(14:51):
convinced suffragist, he found it impossible to justify our doing
wrong that right might follow. I said to him, we
are not doing wrong. We are doing right in our
use of revolutionary methods against private property. It is our
work to restore thereby true values, to emphasize the value
of human rights against property rights. You are well aware, sir,
that property has assumed a value in the eyes of
men and in the eyes of the law, that it
(15:13):
ought never to claim. It is placed above all human values.
The lives and health and happiness, and even the virtue
of women and children. That is to say, the race
itself are being ruthlessly sacrificed to the God of property
every day of the world. To this, my reverend friend agreed,
and I said, if we women are wrong in destroying
private property in order that human values may be restored,
then I say in all reverence that it was wrong
(15:35):
in the founder of Christianity to destroy private property, as
he did when he lashed the money changers out of
the temple, and when he drove the Gatherine swine into
the sea. It was absolutely in this spirit that our
women went forth to war. In the first month of
guerrilla warfare, an enormous amount of property was damaged and destroyed.
On January thirty first, a number of putting greens were
burned with acids. On February seventh and eighth, telegraph and
(15:57):
telephone wires were cut in several places, and for some
hours all communication between London and Glasgow was suspended. A
few days later, windows in various of London's smartest clubs
were broken and the orchid houses at Kew were wrecked.
In many valuable ballooms destroyed by cold. The jewel room
at the Tower of London was invaded and a showcase broken.
The residents of His Royal Highness, Prince Christian and Lambeth Palace,
(16:19):
seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, were visited and had
windows broken. The Refreshment House in Regent's Park was burned
to the ground on February twelfth, and on February eighteenth,
a country house which was being built at Walton on
the Hill for mister Lloyd George, was partially destroyed, a
bomb having been exploded in the early morning before the
arrival of the workmen. A hat pin and a hair
pin picked up near the house, coupled with the fact
(16:42):
that care had been taken not to endanger any lives,
led police to believe that the deed had been done
by women enemies of mister Lloyd George. Four days later,
I was arrested and brought up an Epshom Police Court,
where I was charged with having counseled and procured. The
persons who did the damage admitted to bail for the night.
I appeared the next morning in court, where the case
was fully reviewed. Speeches of mine were read, one speech
(17:03):
made at a meeting held on January twenty second, in
which I called for volunteers to act with me in
a particular engagement, and another made the day after the exposure,
in which I publicly accept a responsibility for all militant
acts done in the past, and even for what had
been done at Walton. At the conclusion of the hearing,
I was committed for trial at the may Assizes at Guildford.
Bale would be allowed. It was stated, if I would
(17:24):
agree to give the usual undertaking to refrain from all
militancy or incitement to militancy. I asked that the case
be set for speedy trial at the assizes then in progress.
I was entirely willing. I said to give an undertaking
for a short period, for a week or even two weeks,
but I could not possibly do so for a much
longer period, looking at the fact that a new session
of Parliament began in March and was vitally concerned with
(17:44):
the interests of women. The request was refused, and I
was ordered to be taken to Holloway. I warned the
magistrate that I should at once adopt the hunger strike,
and I told them that if I lived at all
intil the summer, it would be a dying woman who
had come up for trial. Arriving at Holloway, I carried
out my intentions, but within twenty four hours I heard
that the authorities had arranged that my trial should take
place on April first, instead of at the end of June,
(18:04):
and at the Central Criminal Court, London instead of the
Guildford Court. I then gave the required undertakings and was
immediately released on bail. End of Book three, Chapter four,
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