Monthly Archives: October 1911

Property v. Human Life

Posted on by Posted in Letters

October 15, 1911, To The Editor of The Sunday Chronicle, “Property v. Human Life”

This letter, written at virtually the same time as the one above, shows how Davison, like

other suffragists, accepted that men and women’s perspectives on life were fundamentally

different. A state which does not recognize and cherish both perspectives puts itself at risk.

Sir, — The letter which you published in your last Sunday’s issue by ‘Alice Bain’ shows

a humane comprehension, which is apparently lacking in ‘Hubert’ and illustrates well a

fact which suffragists are always preaching, namely, that even if the Conciliation Bill will

enfranchise mainly widows and spinsters, whilst clearly asserting that marriage, qua

marriage, is not to act as a bar to the franchise if the given conditions are fulfilled, yet, even

so, the interests of women would be better safe-guarded by them than by men, however

well intentioned.

The real gist of the matter is that men think more highly of property than of person.

Our law courts afford an endless vista of this truism. Now, woman’s tendency is to think

more of human life, as is only natural, for she is the gates of life. That is where woman’s

influence in the State is absolutely indispensable, and that is the fact which Miss Bain’s

letter brings clearly to the thinking mind. Votes for Women is the salvation of the nation.

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

31, Coram-street, London, W.C.

Liberal Measures Affecting the Working Classes

Posted on by Posted in Letters

October 13, 1911, To the Editor of The Times, “Liberal Measures Affecting the Working

Classes”

The “intrusion” of legislation into social and domestic space that resulted from the various

reforms of the later nineteenth and earlier twentieth century in England became an argument

for woman suffrage. Here, the presence of children in public houses becomes the center of

an argument in favor of the social benefits of woman suffrage in New Zealand, where female

drunkenness has decreased since the enfranchisement of women, and the suffragist argument

that women’s perspectives on social problems expressed through their votes will yield better

legislation.

Sir, –The letter which you publish in your columns to-day, signed, ‘A Working Woman,’

forms a strong prima facie argument for the need of woman’s point of view in the State

to-day. Legislation, especially under Liberal administration, is tending to become more

and more domestic and social in trend. Here is a case where it is deliberately interfering

with the relations of parent and child. As Mr. Chesterton put it at the Queen’s Hall the

other night, an immense step would have been taken in the direction of social reform if

all those women who entered a public-house refused point-blank to leave their children

outside. Such a situation would undoubtedly have arisen if the women had possessed a

feeling that they were responsible citizens of their country. But, being in their present

irresponsible position, they accept the status quo as inevitable. Undoubtedly the drink

problem is a terrible one, but this is not the way to solve it—at the expense of the children.

If women had had the voice in national affairs which they demand, such harmful and

sentimental tinkering as this would not have taken place. For a wiser example let us look

to New Zealand, where women have had the vote since 1893, and where the Licensing Act

of 1908 has got well to grips with this problem, for the average of convictions of women for

drunkenness per 1,000 has been steadily lowered from 2.51 to 1.68. Your working woman

correspondent, having more sense upon such a matter as this than a whole male Cabinet,

suggests that while public-houses exist under their present condition the only feasible

alternatives are to let the children in or to force the public-houses to provide decent

nurseries for the children. That the innocent should suffer for the guilty is unpardonable.

But it will happen so long as the State is one-sided in view.

Yours, &c.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

31, Coram-street, W.C., Oct. 12

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

Posted on by Posted in Letters

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

Pit-Brow Women

Posted on by Posted in Letters

October 7, 1911, To the Editor of The Manchester Guardian, “Pit-Brow Women” ([33.])

In this letter Davison responds to a correspondent whose opinions reflect the complicated

range of attitudes toward women, class, and autonomy which spawned a genre of social

criticism ostensibly directed to “protecting” women from exploitation. Familiar with such

arguments, Davison hits back in her typical second-paragraph fashion, pointing out that no

one seems to worry about the women who have to lug pails of water for men to wash after

leaving their mine shifts. A trades unions’ struggle for showers and changing facilities at

the mine heads was going on at the same time as this exchange occurred. The second half of

the letter addresses an equally complicated range of attitudes within the suffrage movement

about its priorities and proper focus—-the vote, or support of labour. Davison makes clear

here, once again, that for her the two were inevitably and directly connected.

Sir,–The action of the Miners’ Federation with regard to women’s labour at the pit brow

only affords further proof, if any were required, of the necessity of women having direct

representation. These men, on the specious plea of sentimentalism, assume their right

to interfere in women’s labour, or, as Mr. Masterman put it so well at the Home Office on

August 3,”the argument was unanswerable that if they had an occupation for women which

was acknowledge to be healthy and not dangerous to their limbs or their morals a men’s

Parliament selected by men had no right to prevent that occupation.”

Mr. Smillie, the advocate of spurious sentimentalism, says that he has seen women

twisted nearly double at the work below-ground. Such statements go directly counter to

the picture drawn by the women themselves at the deputations and also at the recent

demonstration in Manchester. Mr. Smillie and his like, while making such meretricious

appeals as these, do not seem to hesitate to go on wishing that miners’ wives and

womenkind should have to stagger about with heavy pails of water for their menfolk,

rather than agree to legislation which would allow them to get cleansed at the pits

themselves.

Further, when Mr. Smillie accuses “suffragettes” of acting unfairly by taking up the

women’s cause he has got his facts all wrong. The agitation arose quite naturally and

spontaneously among the women themselves, supported by the public-spirited Mayor and

Mayoress of Wigan, who, I submit, knew a good deal more about the facts of the case than

Mr. Smillie or any other delegate of the men. It was not till the pit-brow deputation had

actually arrived in London that anything was done by the W.S.P.U., but on the news of that

event, Miss Annie Kenny, the ex-factory girl, especially hurried along to support her fellow-

workers at Westminster, which she could do so well, as she knew the condition of factory

girls’ work. After that it is true the suffragist societies supported the women might and

main, and were of course right to do so. If they had not done so those very sentimental

gentlemen would have been the first to say that they were neglecting their duty as

women’s advocates. But the agitation began, as it was right and wise, among the women

themselves. It is a strong prima facie case for the vote, as Sir Frederick Banbury put it in

the Committee which passed the iniquitous amendment. –Yours, &c.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

31 Coram-street, London, W.C., October 5

Suffragette Survivals

Posted on by Posted in Letters

October 4, 1911, To the Editor of The Morning Advertiser, “Suffragette Survivals”

Invoking the trope of Rip Van Winkle to characterize the ignorance of the writer of

“Suffragette Survivals,” Davison does not contradict his immediate charges about the desire

of the WSPU to use violence to highlight the injustices under which women live. She proceeds

to offer a classic defense of action, rather than passive acceptance, citing the axiom that

resistance to tyrants is obedience to God, a concept which flourished during the Civil War

years of the seventeenth century and found expression in the American Revolution. The

phrase, frequently invoked in Suffragette speeches and writing, is popularly associated with

Thomas Jefferson.

Sir, –The writer of your leader to-day header “Suffragette Survivals” must surely be a

modern Rip Van Winkle, who has been asleep during the past four of five years. Because

in your paper you have a report of some unfortunate lady who had once upon a time been

a militant Suffragette, and has now apparently turned her back upon the movement, you

have seized the opportunity to pour the vials of your wrath upon Suffragettes in general.

You say that the lessons that this woman has not forgotten from her previous actions are:–

(1)—that attention must be called to distress or grievance by violence, instead of appealing

to the proper institutions; (2) that the demonstration must be violent and calculated

to cause inconvenience to the public. May I be allowed, however, to set Rip Van Winkle

right? It is perfectly true that the right way to get grievances redressed is to appeal to the

institutions appointed for that purpose. But what is to be done if the appointed institutions

fail to take notice of the grievance, although reiterated often and strongly during, say, 50

years? Is it right to continue to sit down under the grievance? Is it not indeed criminal and

cowardly? It is an axiom of politics that those who accept tyranny are worthy of tyranny,

and further that rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God! So much for your first

lesson.

With regard to the second, it is the inevitable conclusion of the lessons of history.

No reform was ever won in this country without a very great deal of effort. It is impossible

to avoid remarking that in the case of the women’s agitation the violence done so far has

been mild compared to the men’s agitation in past days, especially in 1832 , 1867, and

during this strike year of 1911, and the resulting inconvenience has been suffered by the

women themselves and not the public, as in the men’s cases. In the case of this poor

woman, too, the public seems not to have been troubled at all, as according to the accounts

of the incident, after breaking the windows she went to Cannon-row [police station] and

delivered herself up.

Having indulged in a tirade against the deputations to Parliament-square, which

apparently your Rip Van Winkle does not know have been so conducted as to come strictly

within the meaning of the law, by avoiding the character of a procession and by consisting

of separate detachments of less than 13, the leader next attacks the action of Miss Clemence

Housman in refusing to pay her Inhabited House Duty on the strictly constitutional

ground that taxation without representation is legalized robbery. Rip Van Winkle shows

that he is still too sleepy to talk common sense when he remarks that “it did not seem to

strike her that the tax in question was imposed on her by a higher power than her own

individuality.” Yet it is now established and has been the theory for centuries that it is “the

people” who, by the voice of their representatives, consent to their own taxation. She,

therefore, in logic is part of “the higher power” herself. The point that is now being

rammed home by the political descendants of John Hampden is that women are “people”

as well as men, and until their consent is given they refuse to be taxed. It is the British

nation to-day which has evidently to be taught logic.

The only logical grounds on which the nation can refuse votes to women is that they

do not require them to pay taxes.—I am, Sir, yours, &c.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

31, Coram-street, Oct. 2