My own story
We did not begin to fight, however, until we had given the new
Government every chance to give us the pledge we wanted. Early in
December the Conservative Government had gone out, and Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal leader, had formed a new Cabinet. On
December 21 a great meeting was held in Royal Albert Hall, London, where
Sir Henry, surrounded by his cabinet, made his first utterance as Prime
Minister. Previous to the meeting we wrote to Sir Henry and asked him,
in the name of the Women's Social and Political Union, whether the
Liberal Government would give women the vote. We added that our
representatives would be present at the meeting, and we hoped that the
Prime Minister would publicly answer the question. Otherwise we should
be obliged publicly to protest against his silence.
Of course Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman returned no reply, nor did his
speech contain any allusion to women's suffrage. So, at the conclusion,
Annie Kenney, whom we had smuggled into the hall in disguise, whipped
out her little white calico banner, and called out in her clear, sweet
voice: "Will the Liberal Government give women the vote?"
At the same moment Theresa Billington let drop from a seat directly
above the platform a huge banner with the words: "Will the Liberal
Government give justice to working-women?" Just for a moment there was a
gasping silence, the people waiting to see what the Cabinet Ministers
would do. They did nothing. Then, in the midst of uproar and conflicting
shouts, the women were seized and flung out of the hall.
This was the beginning of a campaign the like of which was never known
in England, or, for that matter, in any other country. If we had been
strong enough we should have opposed the election of every Liberal
candidate, but being limited both in funds and in members we
concentrated on one member of the Government, Mr. Winston Churchill. Not
that we had any animus against Mr. Churchill. We chose him simply
because he was the only important candidate standing for constituencies
within reach of our headquarters. We attended every meeting addressed by
Mr. Churchill. We heckled him unmercifully; we spoiled his best points
by flinging back such obvious retorts that the crowds roared with
laughter. We lifted out little white banners from unexpected corners of
the hall, exactly at the moment when an interruption was least desired.
Sometimes our banners were torn from our hands and trodden under foot.
Sometimes, again, the crowds were with us, and we actually broke up the
meeting. We did not succeed in defeating Mr. Churchill, but he was
returned by a very small majority, the smallest of any of the Manchester
Liberal candidates.
We did not confine our efforts to heckling Mr. Churchill. Throughout the
campaign we kept up the work of questioning Cabinet Ministers at
meetings all over England and Scotland. At Sun Hall, Liverpool,
addressed by the Prime Minister, nine women in succession asked the
important question, and were thrown out of the hall; this in the face of
the fact that Sir Campbell-Bannerman was an avowed suffragist. But we
were not questioning him as to his private opinions on the suffrage; we
were asking him what his Government were willing to do about suffrage.
We questioned Mr. Asquith in Sheffield, Mr. Lloyd-George in Altrincham,
Cheshire, the Prime Minister again in Glasgow, and we interrupted a
great many other meetings as well. Always we were violently thrown out
and insulted. Often we were painfully bruised and hurt.
What good did it do? We have often been asked that question, even by the
women our actions spurred into an activity they had never before thought
themselves capable of. For one thing, our heckling campaign made women's
suffrage a matter of news--it had never been that before. Now the
newspapers were full of us. For another thing, we woke up the old
suffrage associations. During the general election various groups of
non-militant suffragists came back to life and organised a gigantic
manifesto in favour of action from the Liberal Government. Among others,
the manifesto was signed by the Women's Co-operative Guild with nearly
21,000 members; the Women's Liberal Federation, with 76,000 members; the
Scottish Women's Liberal Federation, with 15,000 members; the
North-of-England Weavers' Association, with 100,000 members; the British
Women's Temperance Association, with nearly 110,000 members; and the
Independent Labour Party with 20,000 members. Surely it was something to
have inspired all this activity.
We decided that the next step must be to carry the fight to London, and
Annie Kenney was chosen to be organiser there. With only two pounds,
less than ten dollars, in her pocket the intrepid girl set forth on her
mission. In about a fortnight I left my official work as registrar in
the hands of a deputy and went down to London to see what had been
accomplished. To my astonishment I found that Annie, working with my
daughter Sylvia, had organised a procession of women and a demonstration
to be held on the opening day of Parliament. The confident young things
had actually engaged Caxton Hall, Westminster; they had had printed a
large number of handbills to announce the meeting, and they were busily
engaged in working up the demonstration. Mrs. Drummond, who had joined
the Union shortly after the imprisonment of Annie Kenney and Christabel,
sent word from Manchester that she was coming to help us. She had to
borrow the money for her railroad-fare, but she came, and, as ever
before and since, her help was invaluable.
How we worked, distributing handbills, chalking announcements of the
meeting on pavements, calling on every person we knew and on a great
many more we knew only by name, canvassing from door to door!
At length the opening day of Parliament arrived. On February 19, 1906,
occurred the first suffrage procession in London. I think there were
between three and four hundred women in that procession, poor
working-women from the East End, for the most part, leading the way in
which numberless women of every rank were afterward to follow. My eyes
were misty with tears as I saw them, standing in line, holding the
simple banners which my daughter Sylvia had decorated, waiting for the
word of command. Of course our procession attracted a large crowd of
intensely amused spectators. The police, however, made no attempt to
disperse our ranks, but merely ordered us to furl our banners. There
was no reason why we should not have carried banners but the fact that
we were women, and therefore could be bullied. So, bannerless, the
procession entered Caxton Hall. To my amazement it was filled with
women, most of whom I had never seen at any suffrage gathering before.
Our meeting was most enthusiastic, and while Annie Kenney was speaking,
to frequent applause, the news came to me that the King's speech (which
is not the King's at all, but the formally announced Government
programme for the session) had been read, and that there was in it no
mention of the women's suffrage question. As Annie took her seat I arose
and made this announcement, and I moved a resolution that the meeting
should at once proceed to the House of Commons to urge the members to
introduce a suffrage measure. The resolution was carried, and we rushed
out in a body and hurried toward the Strangers' Entrance. It was pouring
rain and bitterly cold, yet no one turned back, even when we learned at
the entrance that for the first time in memory the doors of the House of
Commons were barred to women. We sent in our cards to members who were
personal friends, and some of them came out and urged our admittance.
The police, however, were obdurate. They had their orders. The Liberal
government, advocates of the people's rights, had given orders that
women should no longer set foot in their stronghold.
Pressure from members proved too great, and the government relented to
the extent of allowing twenty women at a time to enter the lobby.
Through all the rain and cold those hundreds of women waited for hours
their turn to enter. Some never got in, and for those of us who did
there was small satisfaction. Not a member could be persuaded to take up
our cause.
Out of the disappointment and dejection of that experience I yet reaped
a richer harvest of happiness than I had ever known before. Those women
had followed me to the House of Commons. They had defied the police.
They were awake at last. They were prepared to do something that women
had never done before--fight for themselves. Women had always fought for
men, and for their children. Now they were ready to fight for their own
human rights. Our militant movement was established.
CHAPTER IV
To account for the phenomenal growth of the Women's Social and Political
Union after it was established in London, to explain why it made such an
instant appeal to women hitherto indifferent, I shall have to point out
exactly wherein our society differs from all other suffrage
associations. In the first place, our members are absolutely single
minded; they concentrate all their forces on one object, political
equality with men. No member of the W. S. P. U. divides her attention
between suffrage and other social reforms. We hold that both reason and
justice dictate that women shall have a share in reforming the evils
that afflict society, especially those evils bearing directly on women
themselves. Therefore, we demand, before any other legislation whatever,
the elementary justice of votes for women.
There is not the slightest doubt that the women of Great Britain would
have been enfranchised years ago had all the suffragists adopted this
simple principle. They never did, and even to-day many English women
refuse to adopt it. They are party members first and suffragists
afterward; or they are suffragists part of the time and social theorists
the rest of the time. We further differ from other suffrage
associations, or from others existing in 1906, in that we clearly
perceived the political situation that solidly interposed between us and
our enfranchisement.
For seven years we had had a majority in the House of Commons pledged to
vote favourably on a suffrage bill. The year before, they had voted
favourably on one, yet that bill did not become law. Why? Because even
an overwhelming majority of private members are powerless to enact law
in the face of a hostile Government of eleven cabinet ministers. The
private member of Parliament was once possessed of individual power and
responsibility, but Parliamentary usage and a changed conception of
statesmanship have gradually lessened the functions of members. At the
present time their powers, for all practical purposes, are limited to
helping to enact such measures as the Government introduces or, in rare
instances, private measures approved by the Government. It is true that
the House can revolt, can, by voting a lack of confidence in the
Government, force them to resign. But that almost never happens, and it
is less likely now than formerly to happen. Figureheads don't revolt.
This, then, was our situation: the Government all-powerful and
consistently hostile; the rank and file of legislators impotent; the
country apathetic; the women divided in their interests. The Women's
Social and Political Union was established to meet this situation, and
to overcome it. Moreover we had a policy which, if persisted in long
enough, could not possibly fail to overcome it. Do you wonder that we
gained new members at every meeting we held?
There was little formality about joining the Union. Any woman could
become a member by paying a shilling, but at the same time she was
required to sign a declaration of loyal adherence to our policy and a
pledge not to work for any political party until the women's vote was