My own story
Another deputation, I declared, must go to the House of Commons to carry
a petition to the Prime Minister. I myself would lead, and if no one
cared to follow me I would go alone. Instantly, all over the hall, women
sprang to their feet crying out, "Mrs. Pankhurst, I will go with you!"
"I will go!" "I will go!" And I knew that our brave women were as ever
ready to give themselves, their very lives, if need be, for the cause of
freedom.
The autumn session convened on Friday, November 18th, and Mr. Asquith
announced that Parliament would be adjourned on November 28th. While his
speech was in progress, 450 women, in small groups, to keep within the
strict letter of the law, were marching from Caxton Hall and from the
headquarters of the Union.
How to tell the story of that dreadful day, Black Friday, as it lives in
our memory--how to describe what happened to English women at the behest
of an English Government, is a difficult task. I will try to tell it as
simply and as accurately as possible. The plain facts, baldly stated, I
am aware will strain credulity.
Remember that the country was on the eve of a general election, and that
the Liberal Party needed the help of Liberal women. This fact made the
wholesale arrest and imprisonment of great numbers of women, who were
demanding the passage of the Conciliation Bill, extremely undesirable
from the Government's point of view. The Women's Liberal Federations
also wanted the passage of the Conciliation Bill, although they were not
ready to fight for it. What the Government feared, was that the Liberal
women would be stirred by our sufferings into refraining from doing
election work for the party. So the Government conceived a plan whereby
the Suffragettes were to be punished, were to be turned back and
defeated in their purpose of reaching the House, but would not be
arrested. Orders were evidently given that the police were to be present
in the streets, and that the women were to be thrown from one uniformed
or ununiformed policeman to another, that they were to be so rudely
treated that sheer terror would cause them to turn back. I say orders
were given and as one proof of this I can first point out that on all
previous occasions the police had first tried to turn back the
deputations and when the women persisted in going forward, had arrested
them. At times individual policemen had behaved with cruelty and malice
toward us, but never anything like the unanimous and wholesale brutality
that was shown on Black Friday.
The Government very likely hoped that the violence of the police
towards the women would be emulated by the crowds, but instead the
crowds proved remarkably friendly. They pushed and struggled to make a
clear pathway for us, and in spite of the efforts of the police my small
deputation actually succeeded in reaching the door of the Strangers'
Entrance. We mounted the steps to the enthusiastic cheers of the
multitudes that filled the streets, and we stood there for hours gazing
down on a scene which I hope never to look upon again.
At intervals of two or three minutes small groups of women appeared in
the square, trying to join us at the Strangers' Entrance. They carried
little banners inscribed with various mottoes, "Asquith Has Vetoed Our
Bill," "Where There's a Bill There's a Way," "Women's Will Beats
Asquith's Won't," and the like. These banners the police seized and tore
in pieces. Then they laid hands on the women and literally threw them
from one man to another. Some of the police used their fists, striking
the women in their faces, their breasts, their shoulders. One woman I
saw thrown down with violence three or four times in rapid succession,
until at last she lay only half conscious against the curb, and in a
serious condition was carried away by kindly strangers. Every moment the
struggle grew fiercer, as more and more women arrived on the scene.
Women, many of them eminent in art, in medicine and science, women of
European reputation, subjected to treatment that would not have been
meted out to criminals, and all for the offence of insisting upon the
right of peaceful petition.
This struggle lasted for about an hour, more and more women successfully
pushing their way past the police and gaining the steps of the House.
Then the mounted police were summoned to turn the women back. But,
desperately determined, the women, fearing not the hoofs of the horses
or the crushing violence of the police, did not swerve from their
purpose. And now the crowds began to murmur. People began to demand why
the women were being knocked about; why, if they were breaking the law,
they were not arrested; why, if they were not breaking the law, they
were not permitted to go on unmolested. For a long time, nearly five
hours, the police continued to hustle and beat the women, the crowds
becoming more and more turbulent in their defence. Then, at last the
police were obliged to make arrests. One hundred and fifteen women and
four men, most of them bruised and choked and otherwise injured, were
arrested.
While all this was going on outside the House of Commons, the Prime
Minister was obstinately refusing to listen to the counsels of some of
the saner and more justice-loving members of the House. Keir Hardie, Sir
Alfred Mondell and others urged Mr. Asquith to receive the deputation,
and Lord Castlereagh went so far as to move as an amendment to a
Government proposal, another proposal which would have compelled the
Government to provide immediate facilities to the Conciliation Bill. We
heard of what was going on, and I sent in for one and another friendly
member and made every possible effort to influence them in favour of
Lord Castlereagh's amendment. I pointed to the brutal struggle that was
going on in the square, and I begged them to go back and tell the others
that it must be stopped. But, distressed as some of them undoubtedly
were, they assured me that there was not the slightest chance for the
amendment.
"Is there not a single _man_ in the House of Commons," I cried, "one who
will stand up for us, who will make the House see that the amendment
must go forward?"
Well, perhaps there were men there, but all save fifty-two put their
party loyalty before their manhood, and, because Lord Castlereagh's
proposal would have meant censure of the Government, they refused to
support it. This did not happen, however, until Mr. Asquith had resorted
to his usual crafty device of a promise of future action. In this
instance he promised to make a statement on behalf of the Government on
the following Tuesday.
The next morning the suffrage prisoners were arraigned in police court.
Or rather, they were kept waiting outside the court room while Mr.
Muskett, who prosecuted on behalf of the Chief Commissioner of Police,
explained to the astounded magistrate that he had received orders from
the Home Secretary that the prisoners should all be discharged. Mr.
Churchill it was declared, had had the matter under careful
consideration, and had decided that "no public advantage would be gained
by proceeding with the prosecution, and accordingly no evidence would
be given against the prisoners."
Subdued laughter and, according to the newspapers, some contemptuous
booing were raised in the court, and when order was restored the
prisoners were brought in in batches and told that they were discharged.
On the following Tuesday the W. S. P. U. held another meeting of the
Women's Parliament in Caxton Hall to hear the news from the House of
Commons. Mr. Asquith said: "The Government will, if they are still in
power, give facilities in the next Parliament for effectively proceeding
with a franchise bill which is so framed as to admit of free amendment."
He would not promise that this would be done during the first year of
Parliament.
We had demanded facilities for the Conciliation Bill, and Mr. Asquith's
promise was too vague and too ambiguous to please us. The Parliament now
about to be dissolved had lasted a scant ten months. The next one might
not last longer. Therefore, Mr. Asquith's promise, as usual, meant
nothing at all. I said to the women, "I am going to Downing Street. Come
along, all of you." And we went.
We found a small force of police in Downing Street, and we easily broke
through their line and would have invaded the Prime Minister's residence
had not reinforcements of police arrived on the scene. Mr. Asquith
himself appeared unexpectedly, and as we thought, very opportunely.
Before he could have realised what was happening he found himself
surrounded by angry Suffragettes. He was well hooted and, it is said,
well shaken, before he was rescued by the police. As his taxicab rushed
away some object struck one of the windows, smashing it.
Another Cabinet Minister, Mr. Birrell, unwittingly got into the midst of
the melee, and I am obliged to record that he was pretty thoroughly
hustled. But it is not true that his leg was injured by the women. His
haste to jump into a taxicab resulted in a slightly sprained ankle.
That night and the following day windows were broken in the houses of
Sir Edward Grey, Mr. Winston Churchill, Mr. Lewis Harcourt and Mr. John
Burns; and also in the official residences of the Premier and the
Chancellor of the Exchequer.
That week 160 Suffragettes were arrested, but all except those charged
with window-breaking or assault were discharged. This amazing court
action established two things: First, that when the Home Secretary
stated that he had no responsibility for the prosecution and sentencing
of Suffrage prisoners, he told a colossal falsehood; and second, that
the Government fully realised that it was bad election tactics to be
responsible for the imprisonment of women of good character who were
struggling for citizenship.
CHAPTER VIII
Almost immediately after the events chronicled in the preceding chapter
I sailed for my second tour through the United States. I was delighted
to find a thoroughly alive and progressive suffrage movement, where
before had existed with most people only an academic theory in favour of
equal political rights between men and women. My first meeting, held in
Brooklyn, was advertised by sandwich women walking through the principal
streets of the city, quite like our militant suffragists at home. Street
meetings, I found, were now daily occurrences in New York. The Women's
Political Union had adopted an election policy, and throughout the
country as far west as I travelled, I found women awakened to the
necessity of political action instead of mere discussion of suffrage.
My second visit to America, like my first one, is clouded in my memory
with sorrow. Very soon after my return to England a beloved sister, Mrs.
Mary Clarke died. My sister, who was a most ardent suffragist and a
valued worker in the Women's Social and Political Union, was one of the
women who was shockingly maltreated in Parliament Square on Black
Friday. She was also one of the women who, a few days later, registered
their protest against the Government by throwing a stone through the
window of an official residence. For this act she was sent to Holloway
prison for a term of one month. Released on December 21st, it was plain
to those who knew her best that her health had suffered seriously from
the dreadful experience of Black Friday and the after experience of
prison. She died suddenly on Christmas day, to the profound sorrow of
all her associates. Hers was not the only life that was sacrificed as a
result of that day. Other deaths occurred, mostly from hearts weakened