My own story
in Paris and took my place in my father's home as a finished young lady.
I sympathised with and worked for the woman-suffrage movement, and came
to know Dr. Pankhurst, whose work for woman suffrage had never ceased.
It was Dr. Pankhurst who drafted the first enfranchisement bill, known
as the Women's Disabilities Removal Bill, and introduced into the House
of Commons in 1870 by Mr. Jacob Bright. The bill advanced to its second
reading by a majority vote of thirty-three, but it was killed in
committee by Mr. Gladstone's peremptory orders. Dr. Pankhurst, as I have
already said, with another distinguished barrister, Lord Coleridge,
acted as counsel for the Manchester women, who tried in 1868 to be
placed on the register as voters. He also drafted the bill giving
married women absolute control over their property and earnings, a bill
which became law in 1882.
My marriage with Dr. Pankhurst took place in 1879.
I think we cannot be too grateful to the group of men and women who,
like Dr. Pankhurst, in those early days lent the weight of their
honoured names to the suffrage movement in the trials of its struggling
youth. These men did not wait until the movement became popular, nor did
they hesitate until it was plain that women were roused to the point of
revolt. They worked all their lives with those who were organising,
educating, and preparing for the revolt which was one day to come.
Unquestionably those pioneer men suffered in popularity for their
feminist views. Some of them suffered financially, some politically. Yet
they never wavered.
My married life lasted through nineteen happy years. Often I have heard
the taunt that suffragists are women who have failed to find any normal
outlet for their emotions, and are therefore soured and disappointed
beings. This is probably not true of any suffragist, and it is most
certainly not true of me. My home life and relations have been as nearly
ideal as possible in this imperfect world. About a year after my
marriage my daughter Christabel was born, and in another eighteen months
my second daughter Sylvia came. Two other children followed, and for
some years I was rather deeply immersed in my domestic affairs.
I was never so absorbed with home and children, however, that I lost
interest in community affairs. Dr. Pankhurst did not desire that I
should turn myself into a household machine. It was his firm belief that
society as well as the family stands in need of women's services. So
while my children were still in their cradles I was serving on the
executive committee of the Women's Suffrage Society, and also on the
executive board of the committee which was working to secure the Married
Women's Property Act. This act having passed in 1882, I threw myself
into the suffrage work with renewed energy. A new Reform Act, known as
the County Franchise Bill, extending the suffrage to farm labourers, was
under discussion, and we believed that our years of educational
propaganda work had prepared the country to support us in a demand for a
women's suffrage amendment to the bill. For several years we had been
holding the most splendid meetings in cities all over the kingdom. The
crowds, the enthusiasm, the generous response to appeals for support,
all these seemed to justify us in our belief that women's suffrage was
near. In fact, in 1884, when the County Franchise Bill came before the
country, we had an actual majority in favour of suffrage in the House of
Commons.
But a favourable majority in the House of Commons by no means insures
the success of any measure. I shall explain this at length when I come
to our work of opposing candidates who have avowed themselves
suffragists, a course which has greatly puzzled our American friends.
The Liberal party was in power in 1884, and a great memorial was sent
to the Prime Minister, the Right Honourable William E. Gladstone, asking
that a women's suffrage amendment to the County Franchise Bill be
submitted to the free and unbiased consideration of the House. Mr.
Gladstone curtly refused, declaring that if a women's suffrage amendment
should be carried, the Government would disclaim responsibility for the
bill. The amendment was submitted nevertheless, but Mr. Gladstone would
not allow it to be freely discussed, and he ordered Liberal members to
vote against it. What we call a whip was sent out against it, a note
virtually commanding party members to be on hand at a certain hour to
vote against the women's amendment. Undismayed, the women tried to have
an independent suffrage bill introduced, but Mr. Gladstone so arranged
Parliamentary business that the bill never even came up for discussion.
I am not going to write a history of the woman suffrage movement in
England prior to 1903, when the Women's Social and Political Union was
organised. That history is full of repetitions of just such stories as
the one I have related. Gladstone was an implacable foe of woman
suffrage. He believed that women's work and politics lay in service to
men's parties. One of the shrewdest acts of Mr. Gladstone's career was
his disruption of the suffrage organisation in England. He accomplished
this by substituting "something just as good," that something being
Women's Liberal Associations. Beginning in 1881 in Bristol, these
associations spread rapidly through the country and, in 1887, became a
National Women's Liberal Federation. The promise of the Federation was
that by allying themselves with men in party politics, women would soon
earn the right to vote. The avidity with which the women swallowed this
promise, left off working for themselves, and threw themselves into the
men's work was amazing.
The Women's Liberal Federation is an organisation of women who believe
in the principles of the Liberal party. (The somewhat older Primrose
League is a similar organisation of women who adhere to Conservative
party principles.) Neither of these organisations have woman suffrage
for their object. They came into existence to uphold party ideas and to
work for the election of party candidates.
I am told that women in America have recently allied themselves with
political parties, believing, just as we did, that such action would
break down opposition to suffrage by showing the men that women possess
political ability, and that politics is work for women as well as men.
Let them not be deceived. I can assure the American women that our long
alliance with the great parties, our devotion to party programmes, our
faithful work at elections, never advanced the suffrage cause one step.
The men accepted the services of the women, but they never offered any
kind of payment.
As far as I am concerned, I did not delude myself with any false hopes
in the matter. I was present when the Women's Liberal Federation came
into existence. Mrs. Gladstone presided, offering the meeting many
consolatory words for the absence of "our great leader," Mr. Gladstone,
who of course had no time to waste on a gathering of women. At Mrs.
Jacob Bright's request I joined the Federation. At this stage of my
development I was a member of the Fabian Society, and I had considerable
faith in the permeating powers of its mild socialism. But I was already
fairly convinced of the futility of trusting to political parties. Even
as a child I had begun to wonder at the _naive_ faith of party members
in the promises of their leaders. I well remember my father returning
home from political meetings, his face aglow with enthusiasm. "What
happened, father?" I would ask, and he would reply triumphantly, "Ah! We
passed the resolution."
"Then you'll get your measure through the next session," I predicted.
"I won't say that," was the usual reply. "Things don't always move as
quickly as that. But we passed the resolution."
Well, the suffragists, when they were admitted into the Women's Liberal
Federation must have felt that they had passed their resolution. They
settled down to work for the party and to prove that they were as
capable of voting as the recently enfranchised farm labourers. Of course
a few women remained loyal to suffrage. They began again on the old
educational lines to work for the cause. Not one woman took counsel with
herself as to how and why the agricultural labourers had won their
franchise. They had won it, as a matter of fact, by burning hay-ricks,
rioting, and otherwise demonstrating their strength in the only way that
English politicians can understand. The threat to march a hundred
thousand men to the House of Commons unless the bill was passed played
its part also in securing the agricultural labourer his political
freedom. But no woman suffragist noticed that. As for myself, I was too
young politically to learn the lesson then. I had to go through years of
public work before I acquired the experience and the wisdom to know how
to wring concessions from the English Government. I had to hold public
office. I had to go behind the scenes in the government schools, in the
workhouses and other charitable institutions; I had to get a close-hand
view of the misery and unhappiness of a man-made world, before I reached
the point where I could successfully revolt against it. It was almost
immediately after the collapse of the woman suffrage movement in 1884
that I entered upon this new phase of my career.
CHAPTER II
In 1885, a year after the failure of the third women's suffrage bill, my
husband, Dr. Pankhurst, stood as the Liberal candidate for Parliament in
Rotherline, a riverside constituency of London. I went through the
campaign with him, speaking and canvassing to the best of my ability.
Dr. Pankhurst was a popular candidate, and unquestionably would have
been returned but for the opposition of the Home-Rulers. Parnell was in
command, and his settled policy was opposition to all Government
candidates. So, in spite of the fact that Dr. Pankhurst was a staunch
upholder of home rule, the Parnell forces were solidly opposed to him,
and he was defeated. I remember expressing considerable indignation, but
my husband pointed out to me that Parnell's policy was absolutely right.
With his small party he could never hope to win home rule from a hostile
majority, but by constant obstruction he could in time wear out the
Government, and force it to surrender. That was a valuable political
lesson, one that years later I was destined to put into practice.
The following year found us living in London, and, as usual, interesting
ourselves with labour matters and other social movements. This year was
memorable for a great strike of women working in the Bryant and May
match factories. I threw myself into this strike with enthusiasm,
working with the girls and with some women of prominence, among these
the celebrated Mrs. Annie Besant. The strike was a successful one, the
girls winning substantial improvements in their working conditions.
It was a time of tremendous unrest, of labour agitations, of strikes and
lockouts. It was a time also when a most stupid reactionary spirit
seemed to take possession of the Government and the authorities. The
Salvation Army, the Socialists, the trade-unionists--in fact, all bodies
holding outdoor meetings--were made special objects of attack. As a
protest against this policy a Law and Liberty League was formed in
London, and an immense Free Speech meeting was held in Trafalgar Square,
John Burns and Cunningham Graham being the principal speakers. I was
present at this meeting, which resulted in a bloody riot between the
police and the populace. The Trafalgar Square Riot is historic, and to
it Mr. John Burns owes, in large part, his subsequent rise to political
eminence. Both John Burns and Cunningham Graham served prison sentences
for the part they played in the riot, but they gained fame, and they did