“The sex is learning sense.”
—Grierson’s Way.
I am not going to embark upon a long discussion as to the wrongs and rights of the question, I am not going to attempt to write a history of the movement; I am only going to try to tell you of some of the incidents, the thoughts, and personalities that remain with me.
Why did I become a Suffragist? Because all my life I had been a working woman; I had, and still have, a passionate love for England; I believed that I ought to be able to have a voice in the government of that country; and believed, too, that simply because I was a woman, there were certain very vital questions on which my opinion, and the opinion of my sister-women, might be of value—questions which affected “us” as women, and “us” as mothers.
I did not go to prison; but I had, and have, the deepest respect for the women who did. When you look back on the ordeals which women endured, and what they suffered, as suffer they did, remember that no woman who faced those ordeals or endured those sufferings did it for either notoriety, enjoyment, or bravado!
As for the “damage” they did, well, I am content to leave the wisdom of such methods to be justified by wiser heads than mine, and to believe, as I do firmly, that those methods were only resorted to when the leaders believed that all other means had failed. Were we not advised by Mr. Hobhouse to abandon a policy of “pinpricks”, and “do as the men had done”?
There were many funny incidents connected with the Suffrage Movement, and not the least funny was Mr. Austen Chamberlain’s reason why women ought not to have the vote: “Because women are women, and men are men.” It was Mr. Chamberlain who said that women ought not to mix at all in political affairs. My sister Decima wrote to him at once, to ask if by that statement he meant that he wished women to discontinue working for the Tariff Reform League, and she received a prompt answer “in the negative”.
My first public speech was made at the Queen’s Hall. They rang up at very short notice to ask if I would “say a few words”. Rather fearful as to my powers of oratory, I went. I remember Christabel Pankhurst was in the chair. I began to speak, and a small blood vessel broke in my lip. I stood there speaking, and between sentences mopping up the small but persistent stream of blood. When my own handkerchief was no longer of any use, Christabel passed me another. By the time I finished my speech a small pile of “gory” looking handkerchiefs lay at my feet, and not a woman on the platform had a handkerchief left. It was a horrible experience for a “raw hand”.
What a fighter Christabel Pankhurst was! The hall might be in an uproar, but it did not daunt Christabel; she spoke, and, if no one listened, she went on speaking until they did! She was a brilliant speaker, who never let her brilliance get above the heads of her audience, and never let them feel she was “talking down to them”. I have never known any woman, who was so ready-witted; no one ever “caught her out”.
A man once got up and asked, “Now, Miss Pankhurst, putting all the fun of talking in public on one side, don’t you really wish you were a man?” Miss Pankhurst gave the question a second’s consideration, looked carefully at the speaker, then gave her head that queer little jerk which always heralded some unexpected answer—the crowds knew it, and used to watch for it. “Don’t you?” was all she said. Another occasion a man got up and commenced a long, rambling question as to what would happen to “the home” if he got into Parliament and his wife got into Parliament too. It took him a long time to say it all, and he drew a really very touching picture. “I don’t know your wife, sir,” said Christabel; “I’ve never seen her; she might, of course, be returned for Parliament; but you—oh! (very soothingly) I don’t think you need worry!” Taking the audiences on the whole, they liked her. If there was a row that even she could not talk down, it was an extraordinary thing. They liked her humour, they liked her doggedness, her pugnacity, and her youthful enjoyment of any and every joke, even if one was turned against her. The famous Pantechnicon was Christabel’s idea. Everyone has heard of it, and it is exactly the same story as the “Wooden Horse of Troy”, only “the horse” was a furniture van, the occupants were Suffragists, and “Troy” was the sacred precincts of the House of Commons.