My own story
also many men, did resign from the Liberal Party, but the defections
were not serious enough to affect the Government.
The militants declared, and proceeded instantly to carry out,
unrelenting warfare. We announced that either 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 England was won.
It was at this time, February, 1913, 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, destructive, guerilla
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, and our years of work and suffering and sacrifice had
taught us that the Government would not yield to right and justice, what
the majority of members of the House of Commons admitted was right and
justice, but that the Government would, as other governments invariably
do, 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 and every department of English life insecure and
unsafe. We had to make English law a failure and the courts farce comedy
theatres; we had to discredit the Government and Parliament in the eyes
of the world; we had to spoil English sports, hurt business, destroy
valuable property, demoralise the world of society, shame the churches,
upset the whole orderly conduct of life--
That is, we had to do as much of this guerilla warfare as the people of
England would tolerate. When they came to the point of saying to the
Government: "Stop this, in the only way 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
is 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,
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 it, 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. 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 of the Church of England, told me that
while he was a 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 emphasise 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 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 for 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 Gaderene swine
into the sea."
It was absolutely in this spirit that our women went forth to war. In
the first month of guerilla warfare an enormous amount of property was
damaged and destroyed. On January 31st a number of putting greens were
burned with acids; on February 7th and 8th telegraph and telephone wires
were cut in several places and for some hours all communication between
London and Glasgow were suspended; a few days later windows in various
of London's smartest clubs were broken, and the orchid houses at Kew
were wrecked and many valuable blooms destroyed by cold. The jewel room
at the Tower of London was invaded and a showcase broken. The residence
of H. R. H. Prince Christian and Lambeth Palace, seat of the Archbishop
of Canterbury, were visited and had windows broken. The refreshment
house in Regents Park was burned to the ground on February 12th and on
February 18th a country house which was being built at
Walton-on-the-Hill for Mr. 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 that care had been taken not to endanger any lives--led the
police to believe that the deed had been done by women enemies of Mr.
Lloyd-George. Four days later I was arrested and brought up in Epsom
police court, where I was charged with having "counselled and procured"
the persons who did the damage. Admitted to bail for the night, I
appeared next morning in court, where the case was fully reviewed.
Speeches of mine were read, one speech, made at a meeting held on
January 22nd, in which I called for volunteers to act with me in a
particular engagement; and another, made the day after the explosion, in
which I publicly accepted 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. Bail would be allowed, it was stated, if I would 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 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 him that if I lived at all until the summer it would
be a dying woman who would come up for trial.
Arriving at Holloway I carried out my intention, but within twenty-four
hours I heard that the authorities had arranged that my trial should
take place on April 1st, instead of at the end of June, and at the
Central Criminal Court, London, instead of the Guildford Court. I then
gave the required under-takings and was immediately released on bail.
CHAPTER V
When I entered Old Bailey on that memorable Wednesday, April 2nd, 1913,
to be tried for inciting to commit a felony, the court was packed with
women. A great crowd of women who could not obtain the necessary tickets
remained in the streets below for hours waiting news of the trial. A
large number of detectives from Scotland Yard, and a still larger number
of uniformed police were on duty both inside and outside the court. I
could not imagine why it was considered necessary to have such a
regiment of police on hand, for I had not, at that time, realised the
state of terror into which the militant movement, in its new
development, had thrown the authorities.
Mr. Bodkin and Mr. Travers Humphreys appeared to prosecute on behalf of
the Crown, and I conducted my own case, in consultation with my
solicitor, Mr. Marshall. The Judge, Mr. Justice Lush, having taken his
seat I entered the dock and listened to the reading of the indictment. I
pled "not guilty," not because I wished to evade responsibility for the
explosion,--I had already assumed that responsibility--but because the
indictment accused me of having wickedly and maliciously incited women
to crime. What I had done was not wicked of purpose, but quite the
opposite of wicked. I could not therefore truthfully plead guilty. The
trial having opened the Judge courteously asked me if I would like to
sit down. I thanked him, and asked if I might also have a small table on
which to place my papers. By orders of the Judge a table was brought me.
Mr. Bodkin opened the case by explaining the "Malicious Damages to
Property Act" of 1861, under which I was charged, and after describing
the explosion which had damaged the Lloyd-George house at Walton, said
that I was accused of being in the affair an accessory before the fact.
It was not suggested, he said, that I was present when the crime was
committed, but it was charged that I had moved and incited, counselled
and procured women whose names were unknown to carry out that crime. It
would be for the jury to decide, after the evidence had been presented,
whether the facts did not point most clearly to the conclusion that
women, probably two in number, who committed the crime were members of
the Women's Social and Political Union, which had its office in Kingsway
in London, and of which the defendant was the head, moving spirit and
recognised leader.
The blowing up of Mr. Lloyd-George's house was then described in detail.
That the damage was intended as an act against Mr. Lloyd-George was
clear, Mr. Bodkin said, from the malicious statements made against him
by the prisoner. He produced a private letter written by me to a friend
in which I had defended militancy, and said that not only had it become
a duty but in the circumstances it had also become a political
necessity. Said Mr. Bodkin:
"A letter of that kind proves very clearly several things. It shows
that she is the leader. It shows her influence over the emotional
members of this organisation. It shows that according to her, militancy
can be withheld for a time and let loose upon society at another time.
And it further shows that any person or any woman who wants to indulge
in militancy, which is only a picturesque expression for committing
crimes against society, has to communicate with her, and with her alone,
by word of mouth or by letter. That is the Proclamation which went out
to the members of this organisation. The plain language of that letter
is, 'If we don't get what we want, the Government and their members will
be responsible, and the Government and the public will be bullied into
giving us what we want.'"
Many extracts from my speeches made in January and February were read,
and the final speech made just before my arrest at Chelsea. But before
they were read I said:
"I wish to lodge an objection now to the police reports of my speeches.
They have been supplied to me, and the only report I accept is that of
the journalist of Cardiff who is one of the witnesses. He has furnished
a fairly accurate report of what I said in that town. The police reports
I do not accept. They are grossly inaccurate and ignorant and
ungrammatical, and they convey an absolutely wrong impression of what I
said in many respects."
Witnesses were then examined; the carter who heard and reported the