The Suffragette

  Shall I speak of her logic? It is inexorable. It is not on mere smart retort that she depends when heckled — she has a good case and relies on it. She is saturated with facts, and the hecklers find themselves heckled, twitted, tripped, floored. I think they like it. She does, and shows it. She flings herself into the fray, and literally pants for the next question to tear to shreds. Her questioners are for the most part earthenware, and this bit of porcelain does them in the eye, quaintly, daintily, intellectually, glibly.

  Look to it, Mr. Gautrey, or the witchery of Christabel will “do you in the eye.”

  No, the electors of Peckham agreed, these Suffragettes were not the sort of women they had read of. They were neither the “disorderly,” “shouting,” “abusive,” “unsexed,” “violent” creatures, nor the “soured,” “dry,” and “disappointed” women they had been led to expect.

  It was not merely the “enthusiast” in the Daily Mail who testified to the work that the Suffragettes were doing. Conservative newspapers, though they generally preferred to ignore the Suffragettes because, though opposing the Government, they were not supporting either the Conservative candidates or their proposals, nevertheless they allowed some of the truths that the special correspondent told them about the women’s campaign to filter into their columns.

  The Standard said: “These women are prepared to kill themselves with fatigue and exposure, not for the vote but for what the vote means.” The By-Stander said: “The ladies’ tongues have been tireless and their brains inexhaustible. Of all the assembled bodies, and their name was legion, who thronged Peckham, theirs has been the most persistent.” The Pall Mall Gazette said: “Everybody seems agreed that the best speeches in the election are being made by the lady Suffragists,” whilst the Daily Mail asserted that “in no contest have the Suffragettes figured so largely or done such harm to the Radical candidate.”

  There is a type of man who will sometimes ask a woman’s advice about politics and may even admit that she is not only a better speaker than he is but knows more about public questions than he will ever know, and who yet thinks it quite tolerable that she should be forever debarred from voting, though he has had that privilege since he was twenty-one. Men of this type are usually great followers of Party, and allow their ideas of right and wrong in politics to be almost entirely dictated by the actions of the very fallible gentlemen who happen to be their Party leaders. Liberals of this type, whether editors of newspapers, journalists, Members of Parliament, or merely rank and file, had always condemned the Suffragettes because the Liberal party happened to be attacked by them.

  The Suffragette opposition at Peckham caused them to be more indignant than ever, for Peckham was a Liberal seat that had been held at the last election by the great majority of 2,339 votes, and if this big majority were to be pulled down they feared that the House of Lords would be emboldened to throw out the Government’s Licensing Bill which was then being debated in Parliament. It was true that, though the Liberals now spoke of this Bill as being of paramount importance, they had themselves been just as keen upon a host of other questions and had over and over again before this called upon the Suffragettes to stand aside and refrain from pressing their claim at what on each occasion they assured them was the crisis of all crises. First it had been that the Liberal Government might come safely into power that they had charged the women to wait, then that Free Trade might be put out of danger, then for the passage of the Education Bill, the Plural Voting Bill and every measure put forward. In every case they assumed that the proposal advanced by the Liberal Cabinet was the only possible solution of the problem and in spite of the differences of opinion amongst men, they maintained that no right-minded woman could conscientiously wish for any other.

  When it came to the question of the Licensing Bill, the Liberal politicians declared that the sole issue of the election was between the Licensing Bill on the one hand and intemperance on the other. This was absurd, for if the Liberals wished to be rid of the Suffragette opposition, they had only to remove their veto from the Woman’s Bill.

  On the morning after their release from Holloway, Mrs. Pankhurst and the other ex-prisoners drove off to Peckham in brakes and paraded the constituency holding meetings at various points, and worked there incessantly until the end. A procession of their own ex-prisoners was also organised by the Suffragettes of the Women’s Freedom League who were also helping to fight the Government in this election. The Liberals retorted by displaying a big stocking, blue, the Peckham Liberals colour, labelled, “since my wife turned Suffragette I can’t get my stockings darned!” but this fell very flat. On polling day the Star showed its belief in the strong influence which women were exerting in the election, by making its final appeal on behalf of the Government candidate, not to the men voters but to the women of Peckham. The Suffragettes were stationed at every polling booth, and, as the voters passed in, many of those who had hitherto voted for the Liberal party handed their colours and polling cards to the women with a promise to vote against the Government on this occasion. On seeing this one of the Liberal officials became so angry that he threatened to prosecute a member of the Freedom League under the Corrupt Practices Act.

  In the evening after the poll closed, Mrs. Drummond, upon whom the organisation of the Suffragettes’ campaign had chiefly fallen, and who had been too busy all day even to get a meal, repaired to the Town Hall where the votes were being counted. As she stood waiting on the steps, weariness showing at last in every line of her bonnie round face and sturdy little figure, the door-keeper, invited her to rest in the entrance hall until the result was known. Presently she heard a loud burst of shouting, and a number of men, in the midst of whom was Mr. Winston Churchill, came running down the stairs from the count. She started up, eager to learn the news, but was swept out into the street in the midst of those who were impetuously rushing on. At that moment there flared out a magnesium light — red, the Conservative colour. It was known that the Government candidate had been defeated,1 and the huge crowd outside broke into cheers. Mr. Churchill was pushed about like anyone else, and had to work his way out of the throng, but the working men seeing Mrs. Drummond there, a worker like themselves, who had been labouring strenuously amongst them during the past week, and whom they all thoroughly respected, crowded round her cheering, and as her husband’s constituents did to little Scotch Maggie in Mr. Barriers play “What Every Woman Knows,” they lifted her shoulder-high, and bore her in triumph down the street. But Mrs. Drummond felt exceedingly uncomfortable in this exalted state, and, asking to be released, hurriedly sped away.

  Now that their late majority of 2,339 had been turned into a majority for the Conservatives of 2,494, the Liberals proceeded to heap abuse upon the electors and to assert that the contest had been disgraced by unprecedented corruption and insobriety. But the experience of the Suffragettes was that the election was one of the most sober and orderly that they had ever attended, and their feeling was that the defeat of the Liberal candidate was very much more largely due to the Government’s refusal to grant votes to women and to its coercive treatment of the women’s movement than to any other cause. This opinion was shared by many others. Dr. Robert Esler, the Divisional Surgeon for Peckham, wrote to the Daily Telegraph as follows:

  Sir:

  The statement was advanced several times that the new member was floated into the House on beer…. Lest others should infer from the words that the electors constitute a drunken community, may I, being in a position to know the facts, indicate them…. During the ten days of intense tension in canvassing and speaking, there was literally no insobriety…. The charges at the police station fell much below the usual low average, … and there was not a single assault case. … In my opinion a high moral tone was imparted at the beginning by the presence on the Rye of the ladies who took part in the proceedings. Their dignified demeanour and cultured oratory made a profound impression, and I think this should not be overlooked when considering the result.

&nb
sp; Mr. St. John G. Ervine wrote to the Liberal organ, The Nation, on March 28th, saying:

  There is not a man in the National Liberal Club today who does not know that Mid-Devon was lost to the Liberals because of the adverse action of the militant suffragists, a fact which was patent even to the rowdy mob who rolled Mrs. Pankhurst in the mud when the result of that poll was declared. There is not a Liberal member to-day who does not dread the prospect of a General Election with the absolute certainty that he will have to fight, not only the usual enemy, but also a very determined body, which, at the present time, has no political creed other than that expressed in the three words “Votes for Women.” I am wrong, there is one man who does not seem to realise all this, to whom Mid-Devon was not a warning, to whom Peckham will convey no sign of further trouble, the Premier elect, Mr. Asquith…. This Peckham election has been a revelation to me of the perfectly wonderful forces which the Women’s Social and Political union are bringing to bear on by-elections. … As a purely impartial observer of the Peckham election I submit to you, Sir, and to the Liberal party, that it is time they started doing something for the women. The mandate might not have been there in 1906, but it most certainly is there now.

  Mr. Gooch, the successful candidate, stated: “A great feature of this election has been the activity of the supporters of women’s suffrage.” And even the Daily News, which published a correspondence from its readers dealing with the Liberal defeat at Peckham, stated in its issue of March 31st, that the majority of the letters received referred to the action taken by the Suffragettes.

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  1

  CHAPTER XII

  APRIL AND MAY, 1908

  MR. ASQUITH BECOMES PRIME MINISTER. DEFEAT OF MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL IN NORTH WEST MANCHESTER AND HIS ELECTION AT DUNDEE; MR. ASQUITH’S OFFER AND THE WOMEN’S REPLY.

  OWING to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s continued illness, Mr. Asquith had been acting as his deputy for many months past, and the Easter Holidays were scarcely over when it was announced that he had become Prime Minister in fact, for the state of Sir Henry’s health had compelled him to resign. The Ex-Premier did not live long afterwards. Though he had been converted to Women’s Suffrage late in life when his fighting powers were always seriously impaired, there is little doubt that he spoke truly when he declared his disappointment at not being able to do anything for the Suffragists when they waited upon him in deputation on the 19th of May, 1906; and, if ever the secret history of the Government during that time comes to be written, we shall probably learn that, had he possessed the strength to enforce his will upon his colleagues, votes would have been granted to women that very year. Once when Annie Kenney and Mary Gawthorpe were travelling with Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence to Bordighera, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and they chanced to enter the same train and afterwards Sir Henry happened to seat himself at the very table where Annie and Mary were taking tea. They at once introduced themselves to him and all three had a long talk together in the course of which Annie naively assured him, “You have no one in the Cabinet so clever as Miss Christabel Pankhurst.” Other things, too, she must have told him out of her loyal, earnest heart for, as she explained to us later, “he looked so much happier afterwards,” and we have been told by some who knew him that, when criticisms of the Suffragettes were subsequently made in his hearing, he would invariably protest, “Oh, you must not say anything against my little friend, Annie Kenney.”

  Mr. Asquith who had come to take his place, was a man of very different metal. He was one whom nobody seemed to like and the only reason for his having become Prime Minister appeared to be that he had the reputation of being what is called “a strong man,” and what generally turns out to be an obstinate one. It was a significant fact that it was whilst he had held the reins of power during Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s illness, that the practice of treating the Suffragettes as first class misdemeanants had been abandoned. On the promotion of Mr. Asquith, a general move up to better paid and more important posts took place in the Cabinet. According to the Constitutional Law of the country, the newcomers into the Cabinet were obliged to vacate their seats and to offer themselves for reelection. At the same time there were three elevations from the lower to the upper House, curtailing a choice of new representatives in the Commons by the constituencies for which the new peers had sat. Two vacancies also occurred owing to deaths, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s own seat at Stirling Burghs was soon vacant. Something almost like a miniature General Election was therefore sprung upon the country, and the Suffragettes were compelled to marshal their forces simultaneously in no fewer than nine constituencies.

  The election at North West Manchester, where a vigorous campaign was organised in opposition to Mr. Winston Churchill, who was endeavouring to obtain the people’s sanction to his appointment as President of the Board of Trade, was the most hardly fought, and aroused the greatest interest. It was the scene of the first anti-Government struggle during which Mr. Churchill had angrily declared that he was being “hen-pecked”; but the women had no need to go round to his meetings now, as they had done then, in order to attract public attention to their cause, for all Manchester was now wanting to hear about it. The Suffragettes had but to arrange their own meetings and the Manchester Guardian itself was ready to publish a detailed list of them in its columns.

  Mr. Churchill himself, Cabinet Minister though he was to be, could not obtain such crowded audiences as the Suffragettes.

  At the same time many Liberal women, dissatisfied with the behaviour of the Government and profoundly distrustful of Mr. Asquith, held almost entirely aloof from the contest while Miss Margaret Ashton, one of the most prominent, publicly stated that she would work no more for the Liberal Party until the Liberal Party were prepared to give her a vote. The Manchester Guardian wofully deplored these defections; declaring that “the Women’s Liberal Associations were deprived in a large measure of their natural leaders” and tended “to become as sheep without a shepherd,” and Mr. Churchill now began to realise that the women’s opposition was a serious matter. Therefore, asked at an election meeting on April 15th, what he intended to do to help women to obtain the Parliamentary franchise, Mr. Churchill made the following statement: “I will try my best as and when occasion offers, because I do think sincerely that the women have always had a logical case and they have now got behind them a great popular demand amongst women. It is no longer a movement of a few extravagant and excitable people, but one which is gradually spreading to all classes of women, and, that being so, it assumes the same character as franchise movements have previously assumed.”

  Some people thought that the Suffragettes would be satisfied with Mr. Churchill’s promise to use his influence, and would accordingly withdraw their opposition to his return, but Christabel Pankhurst at once addressed a letter to the Manchester press explaining that the W. S. P. U. would be satisfied with nothing less than a definite understanding from the Prime Minister, and the Government as a whole, that the equal Women’s Enfranchisement Bill would be carried into law without delay.

  When polling began at eight o’clock on the morning of April 25th the Suffragettes took their places at the entrance to the booths in the midst of a heavy snow storm and remained there is spite of it, throughout the day. The excitement which had been growing as the contest progressed was not confined to the poorer members of the electorate, but spread in all its force to the candidates themselves, and one of the Suffragettes was able to tell that when Mr. Churchill drove past the polling booth at which she was stationed, he stood up in his open carriage, shouting and shaking his fist at her.

  During the counting of the votes, huge crowds assembled in Albert Square outside the Town Hall, and inside there was a large gathering of the more favoured persons. With pallid face the future Cabinet Minister walked feverishly up and down the room and when the figures were announced and it was known that Mr. Joynson-Hicks had defeated him by a majority of 429 votes, the Suffragettes, although they were
his opponents, could not refrain from pitying him, for he burst into tears and hid his face on his mother’s breast. As he passed out of the room, Mrs. Drummond, always eager and impulsive, darted up to him and, laying her hand on his arm, said: “It is the women that have done this, Mr. Churchill. You will understand now that we must have our vote.” But he shook her off petulantly saying, “Get away, woman!” Meanwhile, Mr. Joynson-Hicks was outside thanking the electors who had returned him to Parliament, and in the course of his remarks he said: “I acknowledge the assistance I have received from those ladies who are sometimes laughed at, but who, I think, will now be feared by Mr. Churchill,— the Suffragists.” These words were received with cheers. Next day all the newspapers were discussing Mr. Churchill’s defeat and amongst others, the Manchester Guardian (L), the Daily News (L), the Morning Leader (L), the Daily Mirror (C), the Daily Telegraph (C), the Daily Chronicle (L), and the Standard (C), admitted that this was largely due to the opposition of the Suffragettes, whilst the Daily News now called upon the Liberal Party to bring this state of affairs to an end by granting the suffrage to women.

  Of course it was a foregone conclusion that a safe seat would now be found for Mr. Churchill, and that of Dundee, which happened to be vacant, was immediately offered to him. On his accepting the invitation, the Suffragettes’ armies hastened North to oppose him, and Mrs. Pankhurst held a great meeting in the Kinnaird Hall on the evening before his arrival. One of Mr. Churchill’s first acts on reaching the constituency was to address a gathering of Liberal women, for he was determined to make every effort to secure their help in counteracting the influence of the Suffragettes. Instead of expatiating on the greatness of the general principles of his party, and calling upon his hearers to support him on those grounds, as politicians had been wont to do in the past, he dealt almost entirely with votes for women, saying that there was a “general demand” for the suffrage on the part of “a very large body of women throughout the country,” and that the question had “now come into the arena of practical politics.” He asked to be considered as a friend of the movement, and added, “No one can be blind to the fact that at the next General Election, Women’s Suffrage will be a real practical issue and the next Parliament, I think, ought to see the gratification of the women’s claims. I do not exclude the possibility of the suffrage being dealt with in this Parliament” He refused, however, to give any pledge that those in power would take action. He went on to describe the Suffragettes, as “hornets,” and presumably referring to the by-election at Peckham, he said: “I have seen with regret, some of the most earnest advocates of the cause allying themselves with the forces of drink and reaction carried shoulder high, so I am informed, by the rowdy elements which are always to be found at the tail of a public-house made agitation.”