Author Archives: Emily Davison

Food Riots and the Suffrage

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September 21, 1911, To the Editor of The Eye Witness, “Food Riots and the Suffrage”

Emily Davison knew France, had travelled there, and had planned to go to France after

the Derby in June, 1913, where she was mortally injured. Her letter correcting the mis-

interpretation of the connection between the vote and food riots in The Eye Witness

is a variation on the suffrage theme of no taxation without representation. Its connection of

women and food recalls the central role women play in the family and in the state.

Sir, –In your comments in this week’s issue of your paper upon the Dear Food Riots in

France, after scathing allusions to the capital made out of the riots by Free Traders, you go

out of your way to have a smack at Suffragettes. The passage which you criticise is one in

Votes for Women on these riots: ‘When a country becomes civilised enough to grant votes

to its women, and they learn how to use them, methods of riot and pillage will no longer be

resorted to.’

This you interpret as offering ‘votes as a substitute for food.’ You, however, in your

desire to have a jeer at Suffragettes have entirely missed the gist of the matter. What was

meant was that if women had votes they might use them to get a satisfactory state of affairs

in the conduct of taxation and customs, instead of having to groan and suffer under them

until at last, goaded to desperation, they rise up in mutiny and revolt. It is the women who

feel the food prices most, and in France they are politically dumb. They, therefore, become

publicly vociferous. The octrois and douanerie [tolls, toll collection and custom-tax systems]

of France are enough to make the weakest woman rise, and it is the women who pay them chiefly,

and who therefore feel the most. So it is in England. It is the women who feel the effects of

taxation on food, as well as having to pay the taxes. They have, however, had enough of the ‘pay up

and shut up’ regime, and mean to have a political voice. Yours, &c.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

31 Coram Street, W.C.

September 15, 1911

Women Strikers of Bermondsey

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September 19, 1911, to The Editor of The Morning Post, “Women Strikers of Bermondsey”

In this response to the writer of the original story about the Bermondsey strikes (Sept.

16, 1911, Morning Post), Davison renews her support for the strikers and shares some

of the values and perspectives that underlay her own militant commitment to justice for

women. To the charge that the strikers were in a “holiday” mode, laughing and talking—-

a thinly veiled reference to women’s supposed inherent frivolity—-she recognizes the value

of humor and good spirits as aids in facing “a very serious matter,” the fact that the strike

might deprive women of money necessary to buy food, literally to live. The qualities she

praises in the strikers are those that mark the suffragette—-“facing danger regardless of the

consequences,” a “saving sense of humour,” good will, and a spirit of unity. She sees the strike

as another manifestation of a new dawn of recognition that both women and men are full,

free, individual citizens.

Sir, –May I be allowed to make a few comments on the courteous answer from your Special

Correspondent who devoted his fourth article on the Revolt of Labour to the Women

Strikers of Bermondsey. In answer to his request, I have once more carefully read through

the article, and I still adhere to my contention, although I am prepared to allow that your

correspondent shows much sympathetic understanding of the girls’ case. The feature of

the article to which I specially objected was his implication that the strike was adopted by

those women-labourers in an irresponsible spirit. The words which gave this idea I

quote: ’Women who had never shown the least sign of discontent, and some whose wages

and conditions were far above the average of the district, were drawn in the excitement

and the chance of a holiday. Indeed, in some aspects the whole affair was more like a

holiday outing than a strike,’ and the article then went on to describe the procession to

which your correspondent alludes in his answer to-day, in which he notes the Cockney wit

and chaff. But even here I venture to criticize the general tone of his remarks, because the

wit and banter displayed by the girl strikers was no sign of an irresponsible and holiday

gaiety, which showed lack of appreciation of the serious issues involved. To my mind it

was rather the staunch and brave attempt to put a good face on a very serious matter. The

truth of this idea was well borne out by the keen remarks made to us onlookers by these

same strikers when we conversed with them. The feature of the strike was the never-

failing good courage, when all that seemed to be before them was starvation, which they

fully recognized. They displayed the courage of the ‘Suffragette,’ which means facing

danger regardless of consequences, and they displayed also that ‘Suffragette’ saving sense

of humour which has pulled us through many a dark hour. In short, to me the strike of

Bermondsey seemed to be one of the best manifestations of the new spirit among women,

the new sense of dignity and the right to assert individuality, and it seemed to me to be a

truly hopeful sign of the success that must soon be ours. What I also resented was the

implication that this natural and spontaneous rising was simply done in imitation of the

men strikers. It was the assertion of women workers of their right as human beings of

their place in the army of the workers of the world. Your correspondent in one of his

sentences gave an inkling that there was more in the revolt of the women than a mere

strike when he wrote ‘a new force has animated the most depressed and least skilled of all

industrial workers to a sudden passion for their rights.’ That force is the feeling fast

dawning among women that they have a right to demand full citizenship. Hence the

statement of your correspondent that ‘many of the girls thoroughly enjoyed the strike’

gains in force and meaning. What the girls enjoyed and what the Suffragettes have enjoyed

in undergoing their most horrible experiences has been that joy in at last asserting their

individuality as free-born Britons.

One further lesson of the women’s strike that might be given is the fact that the

women knew how to strike when the iron was hot, and that is one of the essentials of

politics.—Yours, &c.,

Emily Wilding Davison

31,Coram-street, Sept. 18 (1911)

The Anti-Suffrage Campaign

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September 18, 1911, To the Editor of The Standard. “The Anti-Suffrage Campaign”

Although Davison welcomes renewed interest in the question of woman suffrage in this

letter, her comment is both arch and disingenuous, given the successful media blitz the

suffrage movement had mounted since the formation of the WSPU in 1903, and the night in

1905 when Christabel Pankhurst stood up in a meeting in to ask if the Liberal government

was prepared to bring forward a bill for woman suffrage. Opposition to woman suffrage

came from many directions, including women like Miss Gladys Pott (1867-1961) who was a

vocal anti-suffragist and able organizer connected with the National League for Opposing

Woman Suffrage. In 1913 she became secretary of combined male and female anti-suffrage

organizations. She delighted in disrupting WSPU meetings with “anti” questions, and she

was frequently invited to debate suffragists. Like Emily Davison, she wrote prolifically,

particularly letters to the editor of The Times in which she refuted

suffragist claims of the benefits that would accrue to women once they had gained the

vote. Although an opponent, she was a kindred spirit to Davison in her commitment

to the printed word as a means of influence.

Sir, –There is a long account in your paper of a campaign against woman suffrage which

is being waged along the East Coast, to which you give great prominence. The National

League for Opposing Woman Suffrage is evidently quite awake to the fact that the

enfranchisement of women has every chance of taking place next year, and that if they are

to prevent it they must make super-human effort.

In despair the anti-suffragists are clinging to the straw that woman suffrage has

never been before the electorate. It has been before the electorate for the last 50 years, but

it has never been a live issue till six years ago. The jaunty assumption of Miss Gladys Pott

that ‘no member of Parliament has yet won his seat on the question of votes for women,

either one way or another,’ is somewhat ambiguously worded, but Miss Pott had better

turn up the Government organs on Mr. Masterman’s recent election by a much reduced

vote to see that woman suffrage figures very largely as a force in election contests to-day.

The National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage is doing us a great service in

removing the last shreds of apathy upon the question in the country,

I am Sir, your obedient servant,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

31 Coram-street, W.C.

To the Editor of The Morning Post

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September 16, 1911, To the Editor of The Morning Post

In the summer of 1911 women workers in the Bermondsey district of south London, an area

of factories then largely devoted to food processing—-jams, pickles, biscuits–spontaneously

walked out in protest of their low wages and poor working conditions. It is thought that the

London Dock Workers Strike of that same summer, a strike that was partially successful in

gaining increased wages and improved working conditions, may have inspired the women’s

action. Various labor and women’s organizations, including the National Federation of

Women Workers, moved to support the striking women who were able to gain increased

wages at a number of the factories. Members of the suffrage movement were naturally

interested in women’s economic status and in the trades union movement, and while

Emmeline Pankhurst did not follow her daughter’s path, Sylvia Pankhurst’s commitment

to labor, to trades unions and to women’s economic rights forged a link between labor and

the suffrage movement. Emily Davison was clearly among those who saw the connection

between the women’s movement and the right to bargain for decent wages and living

conditions. Most of all, she valued the concept of union that underlay the labor movement.

Her defense of the strikers is a clear and cogent contemporary description of how enthusiasm

for the trades union movement grew in London between 1910 and 1914.

Sir, — It is with interest that many of us read the fourth of the articles by your Special

Correspondent on the Revolt of Labour which deals with the women’s strikes. But as a

woman who went down among the women-strikers to ascertain the real facts of the case

for herself, I feel that I must take exception to some of the statements made by the writer of

the article.

First and foremost, it is a downright misapprehension of the facts to declare that

these girls came out on strike in an irresponsible, frivolous way with the idea of taking a

sort of Roman holiday. The first feature which struck me and another woman-observer

was the deadly earnestness of the girls in their action; and no wonder when we came to

hear their stories. If ever a strike was justified it was so in the case of these girls: tea and

cocoa packers, tinmakers, makers of jam, confectionery, and biscuits, their labour was

undoubtedly being exploited, if ever labour was exploited. Decent, honest-looking enough

girls they seemed, who had been roused into thought by the sight of the great industrial

upheaval which was taking place around them. They saw responsible, serious men laying

down tools and taking part in one of the greatest manifestations of labour ever made in the

country. The natural outcome was the thought: ‘We, too, are labourers; why should we,

too, not stand out for the right to live?’ These girls, most of them, earned hard-earned

wages averaging from 5s. to 10s. [a week] in a working day often lasting from six in the

morning till eight at night. They were also victims of the miserable ‘piece work’ system.

When they saw men striking for 35s. and more a week for a far shorter day what wonder

that they realized that something would have to be done for them.

Secondly, I object to the statement that ‘women who had never shown the least sign

of discontent and some whose wages and conditions were far above the average of the

district were drawn in the excitement and the chance of a holiday.’ This is an entirely

misleading statement. The spirit which had manifested itself among the women was that

of ‘union’ in the best sense of the word. The most luckily-placed women felt the common

bond of a common interest. Each felt morally responsible for the sweating conditions, if

they were allowed to continue. In short. Amongst those poor women of Bermondsey was

manifested the true spirit which should animate Trade Unionism to-day. It was the insight

into the real meaning of ‘res publica,’ the public welfare. Miss Mary MacArthur and Dr.

Marion Phillips supplied the finishing touch of good leadership.

One part of the article gets, however, to the root of the matter when it is indicated

that what enabled the women to win was public opinion. It was that fact and their own co-

operative powers which made them win. But wherever we went we found these women-

workers alive to the necessity of the vote to working women as a means of protection.

Yours, &c.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

31 Coram-street, Sept. 15 [1911]

The Suffragette

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September 16, 1911, to the Editor of The Queen, “The Suffragette”

During 1911 Davison frequently reviewed books and plays for Votes for Women. She writes

this “critique of a critique” as somewhat of an insider, both in respect to the fairness a review

should demonstrate, and in respect to her understanding of the history of the Pankhursts and

the WSPU. Her primary objection is that the reviewer faults the book for being what it is, a

history of the Suffragette movement, making it tantamount to a history of the WSPU. She

uses her critique to build a theme that begins by invoking the Anglican Church’s definition of a

sacrament as an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, and building that

invocation into a metaphor—the WSPU public meetings and demonstrations are important

in themselves, but not only as singular events. Rather they are the outward and visible signs

of “the mighty spirit of the movement.” Contemporary history, like history of the past (see

Lord Acton Aug.6, “The Spirit Behind History”), is not a list of events, but a sense of the inspiration

that gives rise to and emanates from events.

With reference to our recent review of this book, we have received the following

letter:

“Will you allow me to offer a few remarks on your critique on Miss Sylvia

Pankhurst’s recently published book, The Suffragette?

“First of all you say that ‘Miss Sylvia Pankhurst takes little account of any work

accomplished by persons before the society known as the W.S.P.U. came into being.’ But

surely this statement is beside the mark. The very title of the book itself precludes

anything beside the short but grateful mention of the brave pioneers. The

term ‘Suffragette’ did not enter our language until the militant tactics had been

inaugurated, and was a term which the older society very much disliked, and repudiated as

applying to themselves. Nowadays, of course, it has changed its value, and has improved in

interpretation, even as has the militant movement. Still, its reference is clear.

“Then, again, Miss Sylvia Pankhurst did not need to go at any length into the earlier

history of the English movement, seeing that there are already excellent histories of this.

Thus, for example, Miss Helen Blackburn in her Record of Women’s Suffrage, goes at detail

into the previous history of the movement. My criticism also explains the exclusively

W.S.P.U. tone given to the work, seeing that it was for a time the exclusively Suffragette

society.

“Your remark as to public meetings and demonstrations demands also some

comment. The wonderful success of these, which you so generously praise, is but

the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace achieved by militancy. It

is the cause rather than the result of the W.S.P.U. enthusiasm and activities which it has

been the aim of the authoress to bring before the public. She wishes to make people

understand the marvelous leverage which has produced all these results. As the book

does not aim at being a mere dry as dust report of events which resemble each other

closely, it would not be wise to chronicle every single demonstration and meeting. Who,

for example, would read what would be like a newspaper report of one great meeting after

another held in the Albert Hall, or demonstrations in Hyde Park, when they could peruse

Miss Pankhurst’s eloquent pages describing the hunger strike period? The former are but

ephemeral triumphs which achieved their meed of reward in attracting the public eye and

ear, but the latter get at the heart and brain of the public and make history. Moreover, the

demonstrations and the meetings, the successful newspaper and the vast funds, are all but

the manifestations of the mighty spirit of the movement, which it is the aim of the book to

reveal.

“The kindly remarks which are made here and there in appreciation of the book give

me the hope that you will, in fairness, publish this critique of a critique.

Emily Wilding Davison

Where Women Fail

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Saturday, September 16, 1911, To the Editor of The Yorkshire Weekly Post, “Where Women

Fail” ([16])

This letter is a classic example of the style and structure Davison adopts in the letters she

writes to rebut erroneous and misguided thinking. She begins with an introduction defining

the subject (women’s lack of initiative, termed “cheek”), develops a pun, “painful,” a play on

the name of the man whose words she refutes, reduces his argument to a stereotype in the

last sentence of the first paragraph, and then proceeds to pick at his points one by one. By

the time she has begun her second paragraph she has set up her opponent—-eliding cheek

with initiative and equating initiative with originality– as an exemplar of the very lack of

originality she accuses him of imputing to women. As it unfolds the letter touches on two

topics suffragists invoked to justify women’s right to vote: the fact that women’s lives are

increasingly impacted by legislation means that women need to be part of the legislative

process–“Politics are every day entering more and more into the home, therefore women

must enter politics” and the then popular but now-disputed myth of a population of “surplus

women” who may never marry and who will need to support themselves. Both are subsets of

the larger argument Davison evinces—that the times are changing and women are leading

England forward, even if they have to drag men all the way.

Sir,–In the last week’s issue of your paper you publish an article by Mr. Barry Pain, entitled

“Where Women Fail.” According to this wit, the quality which differentiates men from

women and makes them successful is “cheek.” Mr. Barry Pain takes it upon himself to give

a “painful” interpretation to this slang term, which has now become incorporated in our

language. The nearest equivalent to the particular sense in which Mr. Barry Pain uses it is

the word “initiative.” In other words, he is writing on the old theory that women have no

originality in them.

Now when Mr. Barry Pain asserts that women are lacking in initiative he is

apparently forgetting the fact that for centuries and centuries the faculty of initiative has

been absolutely taboo to “women.” Their education (if it might be so termed),

surroundings and influences were impossible soil for the rearing of originality. They were

trained up in one groove only, one inexorable routine, that of preparing to be housewives

for their husbands, and the only possible departure from that groove was to train to be the

spouse of the Church, a not very dissimilar vocation. Has Mr. Barry Pain forgotten that

until half a century ago or so the women of England rarely received any education at all,

except in the case of a very few ladies of exceptionally high or royal lineage? The women of

earlier days did not even have their minds opened by travel, and spent their lives in a rigid

groove. Yet even then here and there such wonderful women were produced as Caroline

Herschell [sic], the brilliant Sarah Jennings,18 or Hannah More.

Instead, then, of asserting that women are lacking in initiative, in view of the fact

that they have only been encouraged to think for half a century, and have only dared to give

utterance to independent thought during the last decade or so, we should rather stand lost

in amazement and wonder at the way women have come to the front in the last few years.

Feminine progress is, as even Mr. Barry Pain, allows, a truly marvelous feature of the

present age. This young century is already signalized by the title of the Woman’s Century.

In spite of the terrible handicaps against which women have had to fight, England and

France can boast of women in the foremost ranks of scientific achievement, such as

Madame Curie and Mrs. Hertha Ayrton. Women doctors are winning golden laurels. In

France women lawyers constantly win cases by clever initiative. Women are winning

artistic triumphs. In spite of all that Mr. Barry Pain may say, suffragettes are showing

plenty of “cheek,” or initiative, in politics, in the ever-changing nature of their campaign,

which finds new manoeuvres to meet every contingency. Into the field of invention, so

long forbidden ground to women, women are entering more and more every year. Mr.

Barry Pain has only to consult the records of the Patent Office. The peculiarity of women’s

inventions is that they are also of a pre-eminently useful nature.

Mr. Barry Pain quotes the fact that men decree the absurdities of fashion which

women sheepishly follow, as an example of the lack of initiative in women. He forgets

entirely that dress and fashion is entirely due to the convention long-ingrained in women

that it is their duty to dress to please and attract men, and that as a result man has long

held the control of this in his own hands. He also forgets that there is evident a decided

tendency nowadays not to follow Fashion blindly. Originality of design in dress, and an

increasing refusal to follow the slavish dictates of fashion is a notable feature of the modern

elegante.

Mr. Barry Pain is pleased to remark that “domestic affairs have always been the

province of woman.” If he had said instead that woman has always been trained to be the

unpaid housekeeper of some male, whose likes and dislikes she had to carefully study

almost under pain of death. Mr. Barry Pain would have got a little nearer the mark. It is

partly because women have realized that they must be really rulers in the so-called sphere

of theirs, that they are asserting themselves in public life. Politics are every day entering

more and more into the home, therefore women must enter politics.

With regard to Mr. Barry Pain’s scathing little remarks that men are more in

demand than women even in the kitchen, may I be allowed to remind him that the domain

of “feeding the brute” has always been recognized as the most necessary and paying of

callings. It is therefore, one which in its highest branches commands very high plums, and

these branches have been appropriated, as in most cases, by the male sex. But nowadays,

by training and originality, women are beginning to show that the excellence of the man

chef is an expensive fiction.

Mr. Barry Pain says that women excel rather in observation than in

imagination. Yet it used to be an old tradition that women were too imaginative.

Finally, Mr. Barry Pain asserts that women are handicapped by the fact that they do

not expect to take up a profession permanently, as they expect to marry. That absurd

notion is fast ceasing to be a handicap in these days, when there are more women than

men, and women are sensibly brought up to recognize [the] fact that matrimony may not

come their way, and that even if it does (vide Mr. Lloyd George’s Insurance Scheme) they

may become widows and have once more to earn a livelihood.

What Mr. Barry Pain means by saying that “while woman has progressed, Nature

has stood still,” goodness only knows. If he means Human Nature, that certainly is not the

same as before in these days of Veto, the Advance of Labour, and the Advance of Women. If

he means the world of Nature, that too is changing—-witness the use of Wireless Telegraph,

Aerial Posts, conquests of the Channel by air and sea! Perhaps, however, it does not do to

insist upon too much terminological exactitude from so brilliant a wit as Mr. Barry Pain. –

Yours, etc.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

31. Coram Street, London, W.C.

The Black Peril in South Africa

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Written . 7th, 1911, published September 14, 1911, To the Editor of The New Age, “The

Black Peril in South Africa”

While this letter purports to be about the imminent enfranchisement of Black South Africans,

its sub-text is the history of the American suffrage and abolitionist movements which began

in partnership and subsequently split apart. Black men were granted the vote in the United

States nearly fifty years before women. In the American South this enfranchisement was

resisted until well into the twentieth century. Davison was wrong about the

political future of South Africans, and she reveals that she is a daughter of her time in her

coincidental disparagement of the “primitive and unreasoning mind” of the South African

male, as in her use of the phrase “Black Peril.”

Sir, –May I be allowed to contribute my quota to the correspondence on “The Black Peril in

South Africa”? It seems to me in their zeal to prove their own pet theories, some of your

correspondents are swallowing a camel in straining after a gnat. This Black Peril question

is not a mere race question, as several of them appear to think. It is far more than that: it is

a sex question, and, as such, a world question. The whole trend of civilization is reaching

up to a new plane. The Universal Races Congress proved conclusively, if proof were

needed, that colour-bars no longer exist, or if they do exist, they are only retained in more

humane fashion. Every man nowadays is recognized as having a right to his own

individuality, to his own soul, whether in matters religious, social or political. Thus in

South Africa, for example, it is only a question of a short time as to when the franchise will

be extended to the native population. In Cape Town this is already the case, and the other

States will inevitably follow suit soon. And this is where the short–sightedness of some

critics comes in. The black man knows that his enfranchisement is but a question of time,

but he hears very little word of the enfranchisement of the white woman. What is the

natural result? He believes that the white woman is inferior to the white man. The white

woman occupies in his mind the same subject and degraded position that his own black

woman does towards him. They are the white man’s goods and chattels, and for the

present the black man has no great love or respect for the white man. Perhaps he even has

in his primitive and unreasoning mind the example set by the way in which the white man

takes and despoils his black women. He may even remember the terrible lessons of the

concentration and other camps of the Boer War! And the natural result is that now and

again his furious passions break forth. But we ask, “à qui la faute?” Not on the black man,

but on the white man lies the blame, for he set the hideous example. But he adds to it the

further enormity of expecting to go scot-free himself for a parallel crime, whilst exacting a

fierce penalty from the black. Where is his sense of justice?

The remedy is plain, and indeed shrieks to the skies. Before South Africa takes the

black native into the franchise she is bound to enfranchise her white women. Mr. Smuts,

Oliver Schreiner, and other great South African minds already perceive it, and perceive it

clearly. The Women’s Enfranchisement League is straining every nerve to make this fact

plain. It is the white population’s only chance of peace and salvation. The way lies clear!

Will South Africa give the same wise lead to the Mother Country as has already been given

by Australia and New Zealand? The statesmanlike way to end the Black Peril is to give

votes to white women.

Emily Wilding Davison

Woman Suffrage

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September 13, 1911, To the Editor of The Croydon Times, “Woman Suffrage”

Beginning with an acknowledgment of the cultural and historical differences that separate

the United States and Great Britain in the matter of suffrage, Davison moves on to explicate

the rationales the WSPU offered for the nature of the compromises it made. Choosing to

focus on the matter of woman suffrage, the militant suffrage movement sought above all

to displace the notion that, as Davison writes elsewhere, women were regarded as not fully

male and therefore not fully citizens. The shibboleth of women’s demi-humanity, in a world

in which maleness was regarded by default as the normal state of humanity, had persisted

in western culture from the time of Aristotle. Davison regarded it as a more pernicious and

dangerous threat to women’s suffrage than class, and so she finds herself arguing for limited

suffrage, rather than universal suffrage, in order to break “down forever” the “iniquitous sex

bar.”

Sir, –In your issue of September 2nd there is an article headed ‘Woman Suffrage—Limited

or Adult?’ by W.N.E. wherein some American opinions are quoted to show that in America

it is held by Suffragists that ‘limited suffrage’ for women is no good. This fact W.N.E. no

doubt intends to quote, to show that in England also ‘limited suffrage’ (as he, in ignorance,

calls it), is no good. But in pressing this argument W.N.E. is forgetful of one or two

important considerations.

(a) England and America are totally differently situations. England is a very old

country whose constitution is the result of centuries of slow construction and much

tradition. She is only now breaking away from feudalism into democracy. America is a

young country, and started with no traditions and conventions right away upon a

democratic foundation.

(b) The only reasonable principle to be insisted upon in both the old and new

country for the admission of women is that of equality with men. That is the demand upon

which it is made by all Suffrage Societies in Great Britain, which means that so long as the

franchise is a limited one for men, it must also be a limited one for women. The question

for Suffragists is not the franchise qualification, but the removal of the sex bar. Once that

bar is removed, then any further extension of the franchise cannot exclude women. If Adult

Suffrage were introduced before Woman Suffrage it would mean ‘Votes for all men’ and ‘no

votes for women’ and the last state would be worse than the first. With regard to America,

of course the only decent basis on which to give the franchise to women is to give it to all

women, seeing that all men have the vote there.

May I also criticise one or two special points in W.N.E.’s article? He declares

that ‘The claim for Woman Suffrage must rest upon the principles of democracy. There is

no other possible basis.’ I, of course, agree with him that on the two basic Liberal

principles of Government—‘Government of the people, by the people, and for the people, ‘

and that ‘those who obey the laws should have a voice in the laws,’ women should be

enfranchised; but he is wrong in asserting that these are the only possible principles of

democracy, and is once more forgetting that he must face facts and not merely air theories.

In Old England there is an other democratic principle which is so incontrovertible that it

led Democratic America to her independence. It is that ‘there must be no taxation without

representation.’ This is the principle which W.N.E. appears to ignore, and it is important

because it is, at any rate for the present, and for many a long day probably, the basis of the

English franchise. It is also the principle which justifies the present Conciliation Bill.

I really must protest at W.N.E.’s unwarranted assertion that Suffragists deny the

right of any woman to the vote, and that logically they therefore deny the right of every

woman to the vote. As a matter of plain fact Suffragists do not make any specification of a

franchise qualification at all. On nearly every publication issued by the W.S.P.U. runs the

motto—‘We demand the vote on the same terms as it is, or may be, granted to men.’ There

is no word in the demand of denying the vote to any woman or women. The number of

women to be enfranchised varies in proportion relatively to the men’s number. It is true

that the Conciliation Bill does not fully grant this demand. But then, the men did not win

their demand in one bound, and, in fact, have not yet won it. But the conciliation Bill effects

the most important desideratum of all: it breaks down forever the iniquitous sex bar,

which is far more iniquitous than any class bar.

Yours, etc.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

31, Coram street,

W.C.

Women on Juries

Posted on by Posted in Letters

Monday, September 11, 1911, To the Editor of The Standard. “Women on Juries”

This letter shows how, in the absence of facts, Davison is always ready with a logical

explanation for a perceived failure of women’s sense of responsibility. The reason she gives is

not a trivial one. Many suffragettes discovered in prison that facilities adequate to women’s

needs were not routinely provided. She is delicate in her assertion, but nonetheless touches

on a major hindrance to women as public citizens, the lack of adequate toilet facilities in

public spaces.

Sir, in your issue of Saturday, you give an account of the difficulties which appear to be

arising in Washington State, owing to the fact that women will not serve on juries, a civic

responsibility which comes upon them as a result of their enfranchisement. One is tempted

to point out, however, that there are probably special circumstances, which have forced

the women who were put down for duty to protest and to reject the duty. One seems to

be that they had not proper accommodation provided for them in their deliberations. It is

quite evident that where juries may have to discuss a case for some hours, where there is

a mixed jury, special arrangements may be necessary. Such facts as these must be made

clear before the charge is hurled against the women of Washington of wanting full civic

privileges without full civic responsibilities.

There is another thought to be put forward—that owing to the far better

consideration given to women in the United States women do not feel the same need for a

fairer chance before the law as is felt by English women, who would fain serve on juries.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

31, Coram-Street, W.C.

September 7, 1911, To the Editor of The Morning Post

Posted on by Posted in Letters

September 7, 1911, To the Editor of The Morning Post

This brief letter, with its sarcasm and energy, touches on several major themes Davison

frequently addresses in her public letters. Chief among these is the question of who the

English woman is. Invariably Davison answers this question by asserting that the true

Englishwoman cannot be known, because she has been so constructed by social expectations

and norms that her true nature, capacity, and potential are virtually hidden. Davison lays

the fault of this problem directly at the door of men. Yet she is hopeful, because her dismay

is over-matched by an absolute confidence that human culture is progressive. The signature

rhetoric she uses in her letters to convey this implicit faith comprises terms such as “Now,”

“Nowadays,” “no longer,” and “evolution.” Her vision of marriage as a mutual compact of

respect and compromise was a suffragist goal.

Sir,– Your correspondent who signs himself ‘One Who Knows,” has, probably unwittingly,

given in his letter one of the strongest arguments for Woman Suffrage. He asserts that

the modern English woman makes it her business to inveigle some man into marrying

her, and that once accomplished she proceeds to give herself up to selfish enjoyment

and shirks her duties. Although personally I should feel inclined to remark that your

correspondent must be unfortunate in the circle of his acquaintances, and that his remarks

apply rather to an age which is rapidly passing into Limbo with women’s increasing powers

and opportunities, yet, accepting his criterion for the sake of argument, I then throw down

to him the challenge: ‘If women act in this irresponsible, selfish way “a qui la faut”?’ The

fault lies with the men who trained up women in the idea that they were either to be over-

dressed, unintellectual dolls, or miserably underpaid and ill-treated drudges. Women were

either on a pedestal or in the mire. But this artificial absurdity is rapidly passing away.

Nowadays women are learning that they have a responsibility in life, a mission which they

must be free to discharge. They have a right to their own souls, and they have earned

economic independence. As a result, when they marry they do so more and more for love.

Marriage is no longer a soul-market. As women win more and more political and social

independence the standard of marriage will be inevitably raised. It will be entered into

as a solemn and holy contract, which entails self-sacrifice and self-respect on both sides,

and not on one side alone. In short, women’s direct entrance into the State and politics

means that the whole home-life of the nation will be raised and ennobled. This is the law of

evolution, –Yours, &c.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

31, Coram-street, Sept. 6