'Lots of women don't want the vote.'
'What women don't want it? Are you worrying about a handful who think because they have been trained to like subservience everybody else ought to like subservience, too? The very existence of a movement like this is a thorn in their sleek sides. We are a reproach and a menace to such women. But this isn't a movement to compel anybody to vote. It is to give the right to those who do want it—to those signatories of the second largest petition ever laid on the table of the House of Commons—to the 96,000 textile workers—to the women who went last month in deputation to the Prime Minister, and who represented over half a million belonging to Trades Unions and organized societies. To—perhaps more than all, to the unorganized women, those whose voices are never heard in public. They, as Mrs. Bewley told you—they are beginning to want it. The women who are made to work over hours—they want the vote. To compel them to work over hours is illegal. But who troubles to see that laws are fairly interpreted for the unrepresented? I know a factory where a notice went up yesterday to say that the women employed there will be required to work twelve hours a day for the next few weeks. Instead of starting at eight, they must begin at six, and work till seven. The hours in this particular case are illegal—as the employer will find out!' she threw in with a flash, and one saw by that illumination the avenue through which his enlightenment would come. 'But in many shops where women work, twelve hours a day is legal. Much of women's employment is absolutely unrestricted, except that they may not be worked on Sunday. And while all that is going on, comfortable gentlemen sit in armchairs and write alarmist articles about the falling birth-rate and the horrible amount of infant mortality. A Government calling itself Liberal goes pettifogging on about side issues, while women are debased and babies die. Here and there we find a man who realizes that the main concern of the State should be its children, and that you can't get worthy citizens where the mothers are sickly and enslaved. The question of statecraft, rightly considered, always reaches back to the mother. That State is most prosperous that most considers her. No State that forgets her can survive. The future is rooted in the well-being of women. If you rob the women, your children and your children's children pay. Men haven't realized it—your boasted logic has never yet reached so far. Of all the community, the women who give the next generation birth, and who form its character during the most impressionable years of its life—of all the community, these mothers now or mothers to be ought to be set free from the monstrous burden that lies on the shoulders of millions of women. Those of you who want to see women free, hold up your [hands.']
A strange, orchid-like growth sprang up in the air. Hands gloved and ungloved, hands of many shades and sizes, hands grimy and hands ringed.
Something curious to the unaccustomed eye, these curling, clutching, digitated members raised above their usual range and common avocations, suddenly endowed with speech, and holding forth there in the silent upper air for the whole human economy.
'Now, down.' The pallid growth vanished. 'Those against the freedom of women.' Again hands, hands. Far too many to suit the promoters of the meeting. But Miss Claxton announced, 'The ayes are in the majority. The meeting is with us.'
'She can't even count!' The air was full of the taunting phrase—'Can't count!'
'Yes,' said Miss Claxton, wheeling round again upon the people, as some of her companions began to get down out of the cart. 'Yes, she can count, and she can see when men don't play fair. Each one in that group held up two hands when the last vote was taken.' She made a great deal of this incident, and elevated it into a principle. 'It is entirely characteristic of the means men will stoop to use in opposing the Women's Cause.'
To hoots and groans and laughter the tam-o'-shanter disappeared.
'Rank Socialists every one of 'em!' was one of the verdicts that flew about.