Monthly Archives: November 1911

The Conciliation Bill

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Tuesday, November 11, 1911, Paper unknown, “The Conciliation Bill”

31 Coram Street, London, W.C., November 11

Sir, –The president and secretary of the Scottish National Anti-Suffrage League (Glasgow

Branch) makes in your columns of November 7 a vain protest against statistics. Glasgow,

like other great municipalities such as Manchester, Dublin, and Leeds, passed a resolution

in favour of the Conciliation Bill. The Anti-Suffrage League protests that they had no right

to do so, as town councils are non-political bodies. These antis, however, forget that the

councils had the right to express the views of the women as well as the men by whom

they are elected, especially as these women are the very ones to be enfranchised under

the bill, which until recently was the main hope of the suffragists. If Dundee were accused

of offending in this respect, then the antis should also fulminate against no less than 142

town, county, borough, and district councils which have similarly offended. Also these

antis have forgotten that the bill was strictly non-party and therefore a bill on which these

councils had every right to express a ’collective’ opinion. I am, etc.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

Funds of Suffragists

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The letters Emily Davison wrote during the month of November, 1911, immediately before her

decision to initiate a campaign to set fire to Post Office Boxes, seem to suggest an embattled

mentality. Often the letters are brief and to the point, as the one below, firing off a rebuttal

to a Mr. Geeson who apparently suggests the whole Woman Suffrage Movement could give up

its funding (women, after all, do do volunteer work) to more meritorious causes. Obviously

his ‘sweetly pretty girls’ phrase piqued Davison’s annoyance. The second letter calls attention

to the difference between municipal franchise and the parliamentary franchise, by rebutting

Anti objections to municipalities taking a position in favor of the current proposed woman

suffrage act. Davison herself, and her family as well, had close ties with Scotland, especially

Aberdeenshire, so it is not surprising that she would be attentive to where various Scottish

cities stood on the matter of the bill.

November 10, 1911, The Standard, “Funds of Suffragists”

Sir, — In extracts from letters Mr. A. Geeson asks why suffragists collect thousands of

pounds at meetings which they use for ‘paying salaries’ and organizing processions

of ‘sweetly pretty girls,’ when they might use them to help excellent charities and

similar institutions. Mr. Geeson has surely not seriously reflected when he made such a

suggestion. To apply suffragist funds to other purposes than those for which they were

raised would, if described in plain or in legal language, be termed by a very ugly word.

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

November 7, 1911, To the Editor of The World

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November 7, 1911, To the Editor of The World

The same issues appear in this more extended and serious consideration of women’s ability to

effect social and political changes. The letter begins with an analogy that equates arming

women facing wild beasts with a revolver to enfranchising women to deal with male

politicians. Subsequent paragraphs engage the arguments that women’s suffrage will mean

universal suffrage (a reasonable assumption, given the strategies of Asquith’s government);

Davison overturns the argument that the effect of woman suffrage will be to enfranchise

“ignorant electors,” without engaging in class politics. Her main concerns, which echo those

in the letter above, are how women may be able to effect the reforms they value and work for.

They appear in the third paragraph in which she acknowledges the immense cost in time and

effort required to raise public opinion, “it is often a killing process,” and the irony that women

who choose the “longer, more cumbrous, the more nerve-wracking, the more doubtful, method

of working” not only face long years of labor, but also, ironically, may be separated from the

domestic sphere which is their own. She uses Josephine Butler’s work to rescind the

Contagious Diseases Acts as a case in point. The original Act (1864) aimed to control the

spread of venereal diseases by state regulation of prostitution, granting to magistrates the

power to order genital examinations of prostitutes for symptoms of venereal disease, and to

incarcerate women in hospital for three months to cure the disease. Women could be so

examined as a result of an accusation by one police officer. Initially applied to specific areas

and towns, the act was proposed to apply to all of the United Kingdom in 1869. A groundswell

of opposition formed at this point, resulting in the Ladies National Association for the Repeal

of the Contagious Diseases Acts. The Acts were repealed in 1886, about the same time that

Butler took up a campaign against child prostitution in London. As a result of this campaign,

the age of consent was raised from 13 to 16 throughout Great Britain. Davison’s references to

the “several urgent laws upon the White Slave Traffic” refer to the continuing anxiety about

the sex trade, an anxiety that came to the fore among advocates of the Woman Suffrage

movement at just the time that Davison was writing.

“Women’s Point of View”

Madam,–A very interesting statement has been extracted from your anti-Suffragist

correspondent, Gwladys Gladstone Solomon—namely, that ‘there is no doubt that the

possession of such a powerful weapon as the Parliamentary vote would be useful to

woman, qua woman,’ in the light of the fact that anti-Suffragists usually set up as reasons

for the withholding of the vote from women either that (1) the vote is of no use (vide Mr.

Chesterton), or (2) that the vote would do women harm. Yet here we have one confessing

that the vote certainly is a powerful weapon, and, as she probably will allow that women

have a very hard battle in life, often at a disadvantage, therefore the only wise thing to do is

to arm the women as well as possible. Just as one woman with a good revolver can keep a

host of savages or wild beasts at bay, so no one would dream of sending a woman out into

such a situation without arms because it is ‘unwomanly.’

Mrs. Solomon’s objections to woman suffrage are, she says, twofold,( 1) ‘Any

possible measure of woman suffrage must inevitably lead to adult suffrage, and England

will not be ready for that for many years to come.’ I answer, why? On what basis can Mrs.

Solomon suppose that the addition of one million women voters to the seven and a quarter

million men voters will bring about that for which England is not yet ready? There can be

only one plea put forward to justify such a statement, and that is that one million women

are cleverer than seven and a quarter million men. As Mr. Philip Snowden and other

adultists have told us, this cry of adult suffrage has only been raised as woman suffrage got

near to success. Why? By one set of people with the idea of wrecking the women’s cause;

by the other set of people with the idea of surreptitiously stealing the fruits of the women’s

valiant efforts. But then, to return to the anti point of view, are the women cleverer than

the men? Well, if so, they ought certainly to have the vote. But again, these dear antis

maintain that to give votes to women would mean adding to an already too large number of

ignorant electors. And so the antis get lost in the maze of their own sophistics.

To turn to Mrs. Solomon’s second point, which is ‘that all the reforms women might

bring about with the vote they can certainly bring about without it.’ No doubt they can do

so, but only by an iniquitous waste of energy and time. Here is an anti who probably

believes ardently in woman keeping to woman’s sphere, telling us to choose the longer, the

more cumbrous, the more nerve-wearing, the more doubtful, method of working, by

means of stirring public opinion (which, of course, can be stirred, but it is often a killing

process), instead of using the obviously practical, effective, and easy way of the vote. Why,

such advice indicts all government, and would bring people round to Mr. Chesterton’s

paradoxical attitude that the vote is no good, and is therefore not worth fighting for. But it

is worse than that, for it means that the women must take upon themselves such cumbrous,

burdensome work that they cannot possibly attend to their own peculiar sphere. When

one reflects that Josephine Butler had to devote her whole life, had to ‘scorn delights and

live laborious days,’ in getting one injustice to women, which shrieked aloud to the skies,

removed, and that very little has been done in that direction since, and that several urgent

laws upon the White Slave Traffic are waiting, and waiting in vain, to be put on the Statute

Book, one begins to cry aloud—‘How Long, O Lord! How long!’ and bitterly to deplore that

one of those who (unwittingly, of course, but nevertheless blameworthily) are seeking to

keep upon women’s backs the grievous yoke, which is almost too heavy to bear, is a

woman. Yet such crosses have to be borne by all reformers!—Yours, &c.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

31 Coram Street, W.C.,

November 1st, 1911

A Woman Returning Officer

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November 6, 1911, To the Editor of The Manchester Guardian, “A Woman Returning

Officer”

Emily Davison could not resist the chance to point out the paradox resulting from separating

the local franchise from the parliamentary one. While she recognized a “woman’s point of

view” and wrote frequently about women’s special interest in local and domestic issues of

health, education, and sanitation, she did not accept that the “work of women on municipal

and other bodies concerned with domestic and social affairs of the community” provided

women the power or scope they deserved and, indeed, which was only to be found in

Parliamentary action.

Sir, –In your columns to-day you note that for the first time on record a lady occupies the

position of returning officer for a Parliamentary election. Mrs. Lees, the Mayor of Oldham,

is the phenomenon, and it has been decided that she is the proper person to have the duty.

But the especially interesting feature of this remarkable occasion is that if by any chance

the poll resulted in a draw Mrs. Lees would have the casting vote; the woman would decide.

Here is a genuine nut for anti-suffragists to crack! The constitution of their League runs

thus:–

‘To resist the proposal to admit women to the Parliamentary franchise and to

Parliament, whilst at the same time maintaining the principle of the representation of

women on municipal and other bodies concerned with the domestic and social affairs of

the community.’

This dilemma into which they are thrust by these two objectives is here evident. By

becoming mayor of a town a woman may be obliged to exercise the Parliamentary

franchise, and with more than the average amount of effect. Therefore by their illogical

attitude, whilst they are ostensibly working to prevent women getting the Parliamentary

vote, by the second part of their creed they are promoting women’s enfranchisement. –

Yours., &c.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

31, Coram-street, W.C., November 3

Politics from the Woman’s Point of View

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November 4, 1911, To the Editor East Anglian Daily Times, “Politics from the Woman’s

Point of View”

Continuing the theme of defense of militant tactics, Davison lays out the forty-year history of

women’s attempts to use regular political channels to achieve suffrage. Once more she links

woman’s vote to the protection of women and of children, and once more she accepts that a

“woman’s point of view” is both real and necessary to a properly functioning political system.

The history of woman suffrage in Sweden was not a smooth one: some women guild

members living in cities in the eighteenth century were enfranchised in local elections and

general elections, but both franchises were revoked in 1758 and 1771, respectively. The

franchise in local elections was returned to women in 1862, but universal franchise did not

occur until 1918. Swedish suffragettes in 1911 were, like British suffragettes, “no nearer the

goal,” as Davison puts it. This letter is also notable for its enumeration of the various political

associations open to women, including the Conservative Ladies’ Grand Council of the Primrose

League. Ultimately, she claims, it has not been such associations, but the “rise of a new

school,” the militant WSPU, which has succeeded in raising public consciousness and imbuing

the movement with renewed energy.

Sir,–In the East Anglian Daily Times of October 20th there are some paragraphs on the

considerable part which women have played in the recent elections in Sweden, in which

they have thrown out the Conservatives and helped to put in their allies, the Liberals and

Social Democrats. After a description of their really marvelous activities in the campaign,

the paragraph winds up with the words, ‘Their campaign was not marked by any outbreaks

of violence against their opponents or the Government. The Swedish Suffragettes seem

to have campaigned on the lines of peaceful persuasion from the first. And, perhaps,

comments the “Westminster Gazette,” that is why the mere man in Sweden seems to have

listened to them.’

Will you allow me to point out three facts as criticism on this passage? First of all

the methods of the Swedish Suffragettes (sic!), as you term them, are precisely those of

English women without exception, until six years ago. Thus the oldest Suffrage Society of

all, the London National Society for Woman Suffrage, formed in 1867, followed by the

National Union for Woman’s Suffrage Societies, worked on entirely peaceful and

constitutional lines with an election policy of supporting a candidate ‘who declares himself

the best friend to the cause of women.’

When women formed themselves into societies for party work they took up a line

similar to that of the Swedish women. Thus the first Liberal Association was formed in

1881, ‘For the furtherance of Liberal thought and Liberal policy, which includes just

legislation for women, and the protection of the interest of children.’ In 1885 the Primrose

League instituted the Ladies’ Grand Council, to maintain the three clearly defined political

principles for which the Conservative Party claimed to stand, namely, Religion, the

Constitution, and the Empire. In 1887 the Women’s Liberal Federation was inaugurated ‘to

promote the adoption of Liberal principles in the Government of the country and just

legislation for women and children.’

These various women’s organizations have done long, loyal, and yeomen [sic] service for

the men’s parties, without any return, in spite of the great fact that the two Liberal

women’s societies stand for woman suffrage. May I add that Swedish Suffragettes (!) also

seem no nearer to that goal.

Secondly, no person heard of woman suffrage till six years ago, except the few

advanced thinkers who looked upon it as an impossible scheme in practical politics. The

change of public attitude may be seen to have grown in vigour from six years ago with the

rise of a new school. The success of that school is its justification.

Thirdly, the ‘mere man’ in Sweden, like his prototype in England, is quite ready to

listen to the women so long as they are merely doing his work for him. No doubt, like his

English confrere, it is a far cry to the time when he will begin to consider politics from the

woman’s point of view, and to see that things are not as they should be so long as the

woman’s point of view is unexpressed in the State. I am, etc.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

31, Coram Street, W.C.,

31st October, 1911

The ‘Masculine Woman’

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November 3, 1911, To the Editor of The Morning Leader, “The ‘Masculine Woman’”

Another brief letter arguing the theme that it is impossible to know what women are by

nature, what they are capable of, and what they may attain, given the restrictions imposed

upon them by male culture. For a fuller exposition of this theme in reference to the strengths

of the women of the Suffrage Movement, see “To the Editor of The Throne and Country,’

October 25, 1911. Clearly this is a subject on Davison’s mind in the dark fall of 1911.

Sir,– In answer to ‘Z’s’ question, I should like to inform him what a genuinely ‘masculine

woman’ is. She is the result of man’s own work for centuries–the clinging, dependent,

irresponsible creature, with but one function which she was allowed to fulfill, and

handicapped in fulfilling that one, because of the rigid grooves into which she was bound

by men. What a ‘womanly’ woman really is, we do not yet know for she has not yet

emerged from the chrysalis state into the free air of nature.—Yours, etc.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

31, Coram-St., W.C., 1 Nov.

Women as Municipal Candidates

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Thursday, Nov. 2, 1911, To the Editor of The Yorkshire Observer, “Women as Municipal

Candidates”

While women did not have the parliamentary franchise, they did have the vote in municipal

elections in which they could run for various offices—but the attention to economic

qualifications that underlay the extension of the parliamentary franchise in the various

nineteenth century reform acts slowly enfranchising men, worked to limit women’s public

service. Davison, no friend to the Liberal Government, nevertheless calls attention to a

speaker at a Women’s Liberal Association as offering a reasonable and needed exposition of

the problem women faced and a solution: qualification would be changed from an economic

(ratable) one to a residential one, thus allowing women who had no direct income of their

own to stand for election and to serve on boards in the boroughs in which they lived.

Sir, –In your issue of October 28 you mention the fact that there are very few women

standing as candidates for the municipal elections throughout the country this year, and

you remark, ‘Probably, as mentioned by our London Correspondent, many more women

would offer themselves as candidates but for the unsatisfactory state of the law.’

At a meeting of the Didsbury and Withington Women’s Liberal Association on

October 2 Miss Margaret Ashton explained why so small a number of women can serve

on local authorities. She said that ‘the right to sit upon Town and County Councils had been

given to women with one hand only to be taken away with the other.’ The real source of the

difficulty was, as she explained, that the qualification for such service was a ratable one,

which thus ruled out both wives and daughters who were living with their parents, and

only isolated women were eligible. Thus the number of women who were both suitable and

willing to serve on public bodies was very much limited. This restriction formerly held

good with regard to Boards of Guardians, and few women were able to qualify. The

qualification having been changed to a residential one, wives and daughters living at home

were able to serve, and there is no dearth of suitable and useful women candidates as

Guardians. In fact, the number of such was multiplied by five in a single year. At this

meeting, as a result of Miss Ashton’s admirable exposition, a resolution was passed

unanimously urging the Government to give facilities for a Bill putting the right to sit on

Town and County Councils on a residential instead of a ratable qualification. I am, &c.

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

31, Coram Street, London, W.C., October 31

Physical Force

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November 2, 1911, to the Editor of The Standard, “Physical Force”

Emily Davison engages two important elements of suffrage politics in this brief letter.

First she uses Gladstone’s own words to support the suffrage cause. The Woman Suffrage

movement regarded Gladstone as a betrayer after the parliamentary debate on the 1884

Reform Bill (Representation of the People Act 1884) to which an amendment was proposed

to grant women the vote on an equal basis with men. The amendment was defeated when

Gladstone would not support it because he feared that it would adversely affect the bill’s

chances in the House of Lords, and he feared that if women were given the vote they would

vote Conservative. In 1892 he publicly acknowledged that he opposed woman suffrage in

principle. The Woman Suffrage movement thus regarded the great Liberal as a betrayer, and

an opponent. That Davison uses his own words, knowing this history as her readers would,

too, is a deft trick. The chief argument against WSPU tactics in 1911 was their resort to

a degree of force. That Gladstone should have said that the end they sought was a triumph

over force scores a strong point against the opponents of Woman Suffrage, generally termed

“antis” by the suffragists. It is also notable that the argument that the status of women

indicates the status of the individual in society is one that Ferdinand Braudel would use

nearly a century later as a basic principle in A History of Civilizations (trans. Richard Mayne,

New York: 1994).

Sir, –With regard to the physical force argument which is always being raised by Anti-

Suffragists, as, for example, by Lord George Hamilton yesterday, will you allow me to

quote some words of Mr. William Ewart Gladstone in his “Gleanings of Past Years,” which

come in very aptly, as the Antis are always quoting his opinions 39:–

“But when we are seeking to ascertain the measure of that conception which any

given race has formed of our nature, there is perhaps no single text so effective as the

position which it assigns its women. For as the law of force is the law of brute creatures, so

in proportion as he is under the yoke of that law does man approximate the brute; and in

proportion, on the other hand, as he has escaped from its dominion is he ascending into the

higher sphere of being, and claiming relationship with deity. But the emancipation and due

ascendency of women are not a mere fact: they are the emphatic assertions of a principle;

and that principle is the dethronement of the law of force and the enthronement of other

and higher laws in its place, and in its despite.”

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

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

Special Points

Nov. 2, 1911 con’t The Standard

Miss Emily W. Davison writes: –“Men can use the vote to get women the vote, for the vote

will not be really effective until it is genuinely representative. Injustice hurts the offender

more than the sufferer.”