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October 30, 1911 To the Editor of The Daily Chronicle , “Alice in Ganderland”

Laurence Housman, a member of a distinguished literary family which included his brother

A.E. Housman and his sister Clemence Housman, was a committed suffragist whose extensive

body of work frequently addressed issues of women and gender; he wrote “Alice in Ganderland,”

a suffragette play in 1911. It was published in the same year by the Women’s Press.

The criticism in your paper to-day of ‘Alice in Ganderland’ gives the idea that the wit

of it was poor. The interesting fact about most people who read or see political satires is

that the parties which are satirized generally make just such a criticism; the plain human

comment upon which is that most people are so devoid of genuine humour that they

cannot manage to join in the laugh when it is turned against themselves. Now, as all

political parties are subjected to a very hailstone [sic] of satire in this genuinely witty little

play, the certainties are that all parties will declare that it is devoid of true humour, thereby

clearly proving that the shafts have gone too unerringly home. Moreover, as the woman

suffragist has undoubtedly the best of it, the play cannot be expected to please the anti-

suffragist.

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

31, Coram-street, W.C., Oct. 28

October 10, 1911, to The Editor of The Daily Chronicle

A brief and trenchant rebuttal to an “anti” whose argument against woman suffrage reveals

class anxiety typical of the time. Woman suffrage was seen as the opening of universal

suffrage, a vote for every man and woman would mean a change in politics and likely

in government. Davison deploys dates and numbers to demonstrate the illogic of her

“opponent’s” argument, and to lay bare its roots. The second paragraph of this short letter is

a succinct, pithy analogy. Davison wrote before the feminist movement of the mid-twentieth

century would render the use of masculine pronouns in such an analogy “sexist.”

Among your correspondence to-day you publish a letter from “A Woman of

Property,” who writes against woman suffrage. This lady brings up the favourite anti-

Suffragist red herring that votes for a million women mean votes for all women and all

men. But on what possible grounds of logic do anti-Suffragists base this contention? Votes

given to one million working men in 1867, and votes to another two million in 1884, have

not yet led to votes for all working men. Adult suffrage is only as yet an academic question.

The only basis on which anti-Suffragists could make such a contention would be that they

thought a million women were cleverer than 7 ½ million men voters.

Your correspondent also asserts that women do get value for paying taxes, in

protection and other ways. May I put the case in a parable? Women’s position in this

matter is analogous to that of a person who, instead of being free to buy what he wants

where and when he likes, is forced to buy in one shop only, even though neither the price,

the service, nor the goods satisfy him. But of course, he who pays the piper is in his rights

to call the tune.

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

31, Coram-street, W.C., Oct. 9