Monthly Archives: August 1912

Other People’s Opinions: Mr. Borden and the W.S.P.U.

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Three days later, on August 29th, she wrote the following letter to the “Other People’s

Opinions” section of The North Mail. It points out an inconsistency in the reporting of

the same meeting between Canadian Prime Minster Borden and the British suffragette

deputation. In addition to the recurrent charge that the British are behind their

former “colonies,” the letter contains an implication of press bias against the suffrage

movement, an anxiety shared by both “constitutionalists” and the WSPU:

August 30, 1912, To the Editor of The North Mail, “Other People’s Opinions:

Mr. Borden and the W.S.P. U.”

Sir, –In your issue to-day you give a very interesting account of Mr. Borden’s

reception of the W.S.P.U. deputation at the Savoy Hotel yesterday, which hardly

merits the description you give of the event in ‘To-day’s Story,’ for there you say

that they ‘received an unsympathetic reply.’ The excellent report which is given

in your columns of the interview by no means justifies this description, for the

following reasons:–

(1) If Mr. Borden had not been interested in the question of woman suffrage, it

is hardly likely that he would have given up some of his valuable time to receiving

the deputation, and apparently listening to it most courteously. In this respect Mr.

Borden showed an open-mindedness which, alas! is only too wanting amongst

our own politicians.

(2) Although pointing out to the deputation that he himself had no power to

introduce the measure in question, he indicated to those present the way in

which Canadian women must set to work, namely, through the nine separate

provincial Parliaments, which have ‘absolute control of the franchise laws.’

(3) Far from being ‘unsympathetic,’ Mr. Borden professed entire agreement

with regard to the particular law which the deputation instanced as needing

strengthening and amendment.

Such an interview, taken in conjunction with the fact that so prominent a

statesman of the Western Continent as Mr. Roosevelt has put woman suffrage in

the fore-front of his Presidential programme, should give food for thought to our

lagging British Legislature. Yours, etc.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

Longhorsley, August 29, 1912

The Canadian Premier and the Suffragists

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Canada, the United States, and Woman Suffrage: An Exchange

From the end of August through mid-September, 1912, Davison engaged in a

protracted correspondence in the pages of The Newcastle Daily Journal and The

North Mail about Canadian, American and British attitudes toward woman suffrage.

She repulses any hint that Canada is not pro-suffrage and uses Canadian and

American enthusiasm to paint England as laggard and backward in its attitudes. Her

characteristic rhetoric of modern times and forward thinking, typical of the 1911

letters, appears once more in these letters. In her scrapbook the exchange begins with

the following news story from The Newcastle Evening Chronicle:

August 26, 1912, The Newcastle Evening Chronicle , “Mr. Borden and Woman

Suffrage”;“Canadian Premier to Receive a Deputation”

Mr. Borden has consented to receive a deputation from the Women’s

Social and Political Union, and from those interested in the cause of woman

suffrage in Canada. The W.S.P.U. representatives will wait on the Canadian

premier at the Savoy Hotel, London, at 10 a.m. on Saturday.

When first approached on the subject, Mr. Borden refused to receive any

deputation on the question, but subsequently he changed his mind and wired an

acceptance. The primary object of the W.S.P.U. is to obtain a statement as to

what steps the Canadian Premier is prepared to take for the furtherance of the

cause of Female Suffrage Bill in Canada.

Emily Davison wasted no time in responding; the day she read this story she wrote

the following letter praising the forward thinking of the Canadian and American

governments, and castigating the British as backward:

August 28, 1912, To the Editor the Newcastle Evening Chronicle,

“The Canadian Premier and the Suffragists”

Sir, –In an interesting paragraph in your issue to-night, you announce that Mr.

Borden, the Canadian Premier, now in London, has consented to receive a

deputation of the W.S.P.U. on women suffrage next Saturday. This gentleman

is evidently one of those who can read the signs of the times, a remark which

applies equally to his go-ahead neighbour, Mr. Roosevelt, who, as we all know

well, is so ‘previous’ that he has actually put woman suffrage on the forefront of

the presidential programme. ‘Uncle Sam’ and his friendly rival, ‘Cousin Robert, ‘

are evidently wide awake, and as ready as ever to ‘lick creation,’ and give a

playful twist to the tail of the sleepy old British lion, whose attitude to the female

of his species seems to be as hoary as his constitution. ‘Wake up, England!’ is

the rousing motto painted in large plain letters on the bright blue driving-cart

of Mr. Graham White’s up-to-date water-plane. ‘Wake up! Wake up!!’ we

suffragist women cry, ‘Oh, beloved country, or thou will certainly find thyself in the

rearguard instead of the vanguard of progress!!’ Yours, etc.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

Longhorsley, Aug. 26, 1912

August 26, 1912, To the Editor of the Manchester Guardian Emily Davison’s reply:

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August 26, 1912, To the Editor of The Manchester Guardian
Emily Davison’s reply in their continuing exchange begun August 17, 1912:

Sir, In Mr. Dudley’s reply to my letter he has helped me very materially in my aim

of making clear the justice and inevitability of ‘militancy’ for keen suffragists at

this juncture. He takes up a sentence of mine and interprets it in a special sense

of his own, which however, suits my purpose very well. My sentence runs thus:

–‘The onus to prove that militancy, steadily increasing in force, is not needed

lies with Mr. Dudley and others who have not won for us yet that weapon which,

well manipulated, is the most effective and least destructive to win reform—

namely, the vote.’ My idea was to suggest to Mr. Dudley that our position was

an extremely hard one. The vote is the constitutional weapon which even men

nowadays do not wield as effectively as they might (hence the expression ‘well

manipulate’), and as a result have often to supplement by the clumsy and

dangerous addenda of strikes, riots, &c. But in our case we have not the up-to-

date weapon which so far surpasses the only one at present at our disposal, and

therefore we realize the extreme necessity of acquiring it.

Mr. Dudley, however, interprets my phrase as implying that we must win

our vote by means of the votes of men. This gives me an even better case. The

men who could bring the Government to book by means of ‘the fear of the loss of

votes and so of power’ ought to have seen to it that women had the vote. They

could have done so easily in 1884, and even more easily without loss of self-

respect in 1910 and 1911. What did they do? In 1884 women’s suffrage was

thrown overboard for fear of overweighting the ship. In 1910 and 1911 women’s

suffrage was tenderly and effectively killed by politicians who professed to be in

favour of it. Mr. Dudley must admit that there is no case for the men’s advocacy.

What, therefore, remains?

There is no hope in the men as yet. The matter must be therefore forced

into the forefront of politics by the women themselves. Owing to the foolish

violence opposed to justice by the Government, and therefore indirectly by the

men, the pace is now becoming more and more furious, and will be greater as

worse violence is displayed. But on every effort of the women the Government,

and therefore the men, persist in using more violence instead of doing the right

thing. What is the result? It is not a pitched battle between the women and the

Government. In that battle, tortured by cruel repression, the mental, moral, and

bodily anguish of forcible feeding, and the iniquity of vindictive sentences, the

women must inevitably suffer terribly to the point of death, lifelong injury, and the

like. Still, the men only stand by, and indeed, passively consent. Such is the

slow and conservative spirit of the nation. But there is another and a fine trait in

the national character. It is the love of fair play, the admiration of courage, the

dislike to see the physically weak suffer. That point will be reached some time,

though God only knows how much suffering we women will have to undergo to

rouse the national conscience. Our sure and certain hope of victory lies in this,

that we are ready to endure all things. The same spirit which nerved the

Christians to face death, and worse than death, the torture of mangling by beasts

and the ordeal of fire, inspires us to-day.

But, objects Mr. Dudley, you are turning those who could win you victory

into foes by injuring them. Why injure the innocent? They are not innocent. He

who is not for us is against us, and must take the risks of a battle which he

makes no attempt to stem. The earnest of victory lies in this, that for every step

in our violence the only alternative ways of dealing with us are either by doing

justice or by repressing us with far worse violence, encouraged by the men.

Either way we win. If by the former way (of love), so much the better for the

national conscience. But if by the way of repressive force, still we win, for, as I

have already asserted, we are bound to suffer the most physically in a combat of

brute force, but we also are victorious mentally and morally, for we offer up our

bodies to be a living sacrifice [Romans 12:1-2]. But a time will come, which some of us may not

see with our bodily eyes, when the nation will have exacted a sufficiently terrible

crucifixion, and then in very horror it will cry, ‘Halt, enough!’ In that day will dawn

for England a new era of true religion. But the price will have been gladly paid, –

Yours, &c.

Emily Wilding Davison,

Longhorsley, Northumberland, August, 22

Votes for Women

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August 21, 1912, Story from The Newcastle Daily Journal

Davison used this brief story, with its quiet North country humor, as a means of

critiquing the government and the unpopular Insurance Act, which provided insurance

for laboring men, but effectively denied its full benefit to women. Davison composed

a response sent on August 22 to the Newcastle Daily Journal and to the Birmingham

Evening Dispatch, in which it appeared on August 24. The quick turn-around of such

responses kept the stories and letters they addressed alive in readers’ minds.

Here (says the Evening Dispatch) is a little extract of humour out of the acrid

Insurance Act. In the Border district, near Kelso, a farmer ruefully contemplated

the sixteen cards of his farm servants. ‘Well,’ he says to the steward, ‘I’ll pay the

women’s insurance, but no’ the men’s!’ ‘What’s that for?’ asked the steward.

‘It’s the men’s votes that has dune a this, no the women’s. They had naething to

da w’it,’ was the explanation!

Davison’s response: To the Editor of The Newcastle Daily Journal, “Votes for

Women”

[this is a version of letter written same day Aug. 22, and published Aug 24 in

The Birmingham Evening Dispatch]

Sir,– The story from The Evening Dispatch of the logical Kelso farmer quoted

in your issue of August 21st serves a delightful double purpose. It points the

moral to adorn the tale of votes from women to the Government, which taxes

women without so much as a ‘by your leave,’ and tried to force down their throats

laws such as the Insurance Act, in which they have had no say, thereby directly

violating their own party principles.

The story also shows that many an ordinary decent working man like the

Kelso farmer has far more sense of justice and logic than the peddling politicians

whom he puts into office, and somewhat rashly allows to do as they like. Let him

just remember for one moment that if he likes to assert himself he is the

sovereign power in this country, and seeing that ‘union is strength,’ can soon

make the Government pay for introducing measures of which he does not

approve; whilst, also, he has the power to force it to do justice to women by

acknowledging them as part of the sovereign people.

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

22 August, 1912

August 21. 1912, Letter to the Editor of the Manchester Guardian From W. A. Dudley in reply to EWD of August 17, 1912

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August 21. 1912, Letter to the Editor of the Manchester Guardian
From W. A. Dudley in reply to EWD of August 17, 1912

Sir,– In her letter published on Saturday, Miss Davison calls upon me to prove

that militancy, steadily increasing in force, is not needed. My answer is that

women’s suffrage will be best won (to use her own words) by ‘that weapon

which, well manipulated, is the most effective and least destructive to win reform,

namely, the vote’ of the existing electors. She is quite mistaken in thinking that

I question for a moment the heroism and devotion of the militants. I oppose

militancy because, particularly in its later developments, it will not be effective to

win reform.

Miss Davison asks ’If Governments fail to yield to love who can blame women if

they bring the motive of fear into play?’ I do not blame them at all; they are quite

right; but fear of what? Physical violence? The worst Government will refuse

to be terrorized by physical violence. But the fear to which statesmen generally

succumb is the fear of the loss of votes and so of power. Miss Davison should

answer this question: ‘Do the militant outrages turn the votes of electors against

women’s suffrage?’ If so that weapon is not effective at all, but damages friend

and not foe.

Miss Barrett’s letter is answered fully and much better than I could by Mr.

Richardson to-day. My point was that in 1832 outrage was the action of the

mob and not the policy of the Reform leaders. Then, again, I oppose militancy

because it is most destructive and therefore the wrong weapon. If successful it

would destroy not only the present Government but all government. Would no

one imitate their anarchical methods? Their plea is that of Bassanio—

‘To do a great right, do a little wrong;

And curb this cruel devil of his will’

My reply is that of Portia—

‘ ‘Twill be recorded for a precedent;

And many an error, by the same example,

Will rush into the state; it cannot be.’[(12.)]

Yours, &c., W.A. Dudley

Manchester, August 20

Suffragist Tactics

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August 21, 1912, Article from The Newcastle Evening Chronicle,“Suffragists

Tactics” ;“Critical Struggle in the Autumn”; “Militants and the Reform Bill”

During the summer and autumn of 1912 Emily Davison was essentially based in the

Northeast, although, as later letters show, she travelled for several weeks of that time

to various parts of Britain. While she was recuperating, she was characteristically

active, pursuing her goal of contradicting factual errors that appeared in the press,

as well as mistaken imputations of militant motives and strategic goals. The two

texts below, the first, a clipping from the Newcastle Evening Chronicle of August

21, 1912 of an article on suffragists tactics written by one “P.W.W.”, and the second,

Davison’s letter in reply to the story, indicate the complex impasse the militants, the

constitutionalists, and the government had reached at that point. Davison’s reply

frames the situation within the struggle for Irish Home Rule, whose leaders were wary

of any alliance that might hinder the achievement of their goals.

The Parliamentary Correspondent of the ‘Daily News and Leader’ writes:

Although the Committee Stage of the Reform Bill is not expected until January,

or thereabouts, the months of September and October will be fully occupied

with activity for and against women’s suffrage. All parties recognize that a

most critical struggle of profound importance for the whole future of politics,

will then commence. The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies has

made arrangements to approach members of Parliament, irrespective of party,

by means of deputations, which will begin in September and continue far into

October until the investigation is complete. During the threatened disturbances

in Ulster and the excitement which is likely to attend the introduction of a time-

table on Home Rule, there will be steadily proceeding outside Parliament a

mobilization of the forces which make for women’s enfranchisement. In fact the

situation is even now quietly developing.

There is at the moment much speculation as to the strategy which,

under these altered circumstances, will be pursued by the militants. The

Women’s Freedom League, which is associated with the name of Mrs. Despard,

has frankly adopted the view that the case for the vote is now, as it were,

actually ‘sub judice,’ that a decision upon it cannot be evaded by the High

Court of Parliament, and that at this particular period, therefore, militancy is not

needed.

In the case of the Women’s Social and Political Union there is, indeed, a

lull due to the recess, but it is believed, doubtless with excellent reason, that the

old campaign will be resumed in a few weeks’ time with all the unpleasant

consequences of arrest and imprisonment. There is undoubtedly a strong

conviction that further attacks on Ministers and further disorder in and around

Parliament Square will retard rather than accelerate the obtaining of final

pledges. These troubles, coming when Home Rule is on the anvil, are held to

be particularly unfortunate in their effects upon Nationalist opinion. There is the

further fear lest the new outbreak of militancy, though carefully organized in

advance, may stimulate some of the less responsible extremists to deplorable

acts.

The nation is fully aware of the fact that a number of women are ready at

any time to undergo sufferings out of devotion to the cause of their

enfranchisement, and that their methods of necessity bring them into acute

conflict with the law. The nation also realizes that the matter has now got to be

decided one way or the other, and it is surely due to the nation that the whole

case should be summed up afresh in all its bearings by the women who, whether

militant or non-militant, have studied it most closely. Public opinion is neither so

unreasonable nor so unimportant as perhaps some militants imagine. People

will argue not on the merits of the suffrage, but about hatchet throwing and

theatre burning. Moreover, there will be the suspicion—and in politics suspicion

plays an important part—that the object of militancy is not so much to get the

suffrage as to break the Government.

August 23, 1912, To the Editor of The Newcastle Evening Chronicle, Emily

Davison’s Response

“Suffragist Tactics”

Sir, –In your last night’s issue you quote some very interesting paragraphs from

the Parliamentary correspondent of the ‘Daily News and Leader’ on ‘Suffragist

Tactics.’ How greatly the present position of women suffrage is due to militancy

is shown very clearly: — (a) by the fact that ‘P.W.W.’ thinks it worth his while

in between two portions of the Parliamentary Session to devote quite a large

amount of space and time to the questions; (b) by the fact that no less than half

that space is devoted to considering the attitude of the genuine militants, while

part of the remaining space goes to another body, which may become militant.

In ‘P.W.W.’s’ conception of the W.S.P.U. position, he makes several

mistakes, which I should be glad to show up. First of all, whilst acknowledging

that militancy is inevitable with the reopening of the session, he declares: ‘These

troubles, coming when Home Rule is on the anvil, are held to be particularly

unfortunate in their effects upon Nationalist opinion.’ This is to say that militancy

may antagonize the Irish party to us. There is no fear of this. The Nationalists

are far too anxious as to the safety of their beloved Home Rule to give support in

any case to votes for women, which, if it were rendered secure by their support,

would inevitably take time and attention from their own cynosure. That is, of

course, why Mr. Redmond’s14 Company killed the Conciliation Bill, and why they

are certain, whether we please them or no, to oppose any Woman Suffrage Bill

unless it be introduced as a Government measure.

Then, after acknowledging in a quite perspicacious way that the devotion

of the militants is undeniable, and actually acknowledging that ‘the matter has

now got to be decided one way or the other,’ two completely opposed statements

are made. They are as follows: — ‘Public opinion is neither so unreasonable nor

so unimportant as, perhaps some militants imagine, People will argue not on the

merits of the suffrage, but about hatchet-throwing and theatre-burning.’ Several

comments can be made on this, but the most obvious is to ask how it is possible

to reconcile the statement that public opinion is reasonable with an idea that it

cannot see ‘the wood for the trees,’ or the suffrage for its present natural

manifestations. It seems to me that the boot is on the other foot, and it

is ‘P.W.W.’ who is belittling public opinion, which, let me assure him we fully

recognize as the thing which counts, and which we have always tried to educate

and win.

Lastly, the old bogey is raised that we are opposed to the Liberals as

such. Once more let me repeat that we are out to make the Liberals act up to

their principles, just as the reformers in 1866 tried to save the fiasco, which the

obstinacy of the Whigs rendered inevitable of allowing Disraeli to enjoy ‘dishing’

the Whigs.—Yours, etc.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

Longhorsley, August 22, 1912

Feminism and Face Fins

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August 20, 1912, Article in The North Mail, “Feminism and Face Fins”

Apparently no story was too slight to attract Davison’s attention or to warrant a

salvo from the suffragette position. The brief story below entitled “Feminism and

Face Fins,” about the current fashion in men’s side burns and beards humorously but

gratuitously opined that men were safe from “the pushful feminist” in the matter of

facial hair.

There appears to be little doubt that we are in for an epidemic of side

whiskers. The mysterious gods who decide such matters have spoken, and there

seems to be nothing for it but to bear the affliction as best we may. It is curious,

however, to find the plea made in defence of the new ‘face-fin’ that it will help the

male person to more successfully resist the advancing forces of feminism. It is

suggested that the practice of shaving clean has tended to sap masculine

authority, if not to enervate the shaver himself, and it is further hinted that, by

again growing whiskers, he will demonstrate to the pushful feminist that there is

at least one thing in which women cannot compete. Perhaps.

To which Emily Davison responded, August 21, 1912, “Feminism and Face Fins”

Sir, — Under the heading of ‘Affairs of To-day’ there is quite a touching little

paragraph headed ‘Feminism and Face Fins,’ in which the writer wonders

despondently whether his sex will be allowed by my sex to retain the proud

monopoly of side-whiskers, the latest masculine fashion!

Will you allow one of us fierce tigresses to reassure him upon this

momentous question? Up till the present no desire has manifested itself among

the female of the species to poach on the male in his cherished preserves of the

artistic ‘topper’ and the beauteous Dundreary [long side whiskers]. The pathetic final

‘perhaps’ of the writer shows us that even in this direction the timorous male is

beginning to doubt his own superiority, having in mind the memory of various reports of

women who have to shave in order to avoid unsightly hirsute growth! Fear not,

neither be afraid, O literary Thomas! Even the tigrish suffragette is far too

thoughtful for her appearance to care to risk it by developing into a copy-cat of

masculine hideousities! Yours, etc.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

Longhorsley, Northumberland

August 20, 1912

Saturday, August 17, 1912, To the Editor of the Manchester Guardian

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Saturday, August 17, 1912, To the Editor of The Manchester Guardian

In mid August, 1912 Emily Davison entered into an exchange of letters in the pages of the Manchester Guardian with a Mr. W.A. Dudley who criticized militant tactics. Davison’s response, familiar in its argument, contains a slightly different tone from earlier letters. Her she allies the militant tactics increasingly applied by the WSPU with the prophecy of John Stuart Mill, the great liberal supporter of women’s rights, who foresaw the total dedication a campaign to obtain the full spectrum of civil rights for women would bring forth. Her central argument, in her second paragraph, is the one of women’s courage as a form of British courage, here mingled with frustrated anger at the “ribald laughter” and jeering bigotry in Parliament that had met stories of how imprisoned suffragettes have been force fed and mistreated. She recalls the length of time—four years– that women have “suffered violence in their own bodies” before being driven to violence themselves. No longer forward-looking in her expectations, but defensive and angry, Davison moves on the offensive in the last paragraph.

Her reply was met by Dudley’s subsequent response apparently to Davison and a Miss Barratt, who both took exception to his words. Dudley’s defense echoes the larger public sentiment that militancy will not work because it will create more enemies than friends to the cause, and hinder the achievement of Woman Suffrage. But he goes further to suggest that if militancy prevails, it will set a precedent for future militancy that might threaten the state, not just a particular government. He calls for reliance on the power of the vote, not force, to win the day. A certain circularity appears in this exchange, to use the power of the vote one must have the vote; to have the vote women seem to have to use power and force, because nothing else has worked for over fifty years. By the end of the third letter included in the scrapbook, Davison has moved very close to justifying the kind of sacrifice she herself would become on the track at Epsom. Her writing during 1912 is increasingly full of the rhetoric of sacrifice for the cause, a rhetoric which was not hers alone, but which also appears in various pro-suffrage works such as novels (Suffragette Sally), and in the pages of Votes for Women. Davison’s second letter, the third in the exchange to be included in her scrapbook, expatiates on these themes—that the vote, the surest way and the most desirable way for women to achieve political voice and equality can only come through men who so far have been either indifferent or opposed; that women have suffered grievous injury, to the point of death or maiming at the hands of their own government in their struggle; that women steel themselves to continue by invoking cultural heroes who have faced the prospect of death, here the Christian martyrs whose spirit “inspires us to-day.”

Sir.—Your correspondent Mr. W.A. Dudley evidently does not understand the true meaning of our militant tactics. That was, I venture to assert, very clearly foreshadowed and set forth by our pioneer champion, John Stuart Mil, when he declared that until some women were prepared to put the cause of their political emancipation before everything else in the world, including personal, home, and party ties, they would never win the day. This, of course, is the gist of militancy, which takes various forms according to the need of the moment, the weapon varying from that of the ‘powerful pen’ to the ‘the hammer, the axe, or the firebrand.’

The justification for the latter weapons is the violence used against us. Are we women such backboneless creatures, inferior in caliber to the proverbial worm, that we can tamely submit to the apparently interminable torture of our foremost fighters? Are we to bear without resentment the invariably ribald laughter which greets any mention of our comrades’ sufferings in Parliament? In short, have the women of England none of the pride which has made our island the world-power that it is? The spirit which made our ancestors win their freedom at all costs is burning brightly in the hearts of those who are called militants to-day. But the eyes of the larger number are still so holden [restrained, kept in one place?] that they cannot see, and they excuse their blindness by the readiest means. Until quite recently opponents excused their bigotry by jeering at our ‘pinprick’ methods. Having thereby roused us to the determination to show that we could adopt any methods when they were justified by abominable outrage, those who wish to delay justice to women turn round to abuse our violence, which at present has been done only by the advanced few.

Reforms can only be carried by one of two alternative motives, love or fear. Governments are not yet apparently civilized enough to yield to love. But if they fail to yield to love (the devoted service of women to the State for generations), who is Mr. Dudley, or anyone else, that he can blame women if they bring the motive of fear into play? Mr. Asquith referred in one of the Parliamentary debates on women’s suffrage to the saying that those who take up the sword will perish by the sword. But who took up the sword first in this case? Certainly not the militant women, who, determined though they were, suffered violence in their own bodies for at least four years of valiant agitation before even individual ones retaliated on Government windows.

The onus to prove that militancy, steadily increasing in force, is not needed lies with Mr. Dudley and others who have not won for us yet that weapon, which, well manipulated, is the most effective and least destructive to win reform—namely, the vote. Meantime the justification of our warfare lies in the urgency of our cause and the cant of those who refuse to act up to their principles. Yours, etc.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON
Longhorsley, S.O. Northumberland

Feminine Logic

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August 15, 1912, The North Mail , “Feminine Logic”

The article and responding letter below exemplify Davison’s propensity to engage attitudes which she deemed mistaken or dangerous. The title of the article in The North Mail is provocative in itself, while the tone is condescending. Davison’s reply is an example of her focused corrective responses. She draws a fine, but traceable distinction, and explains it by using a word unknown even to editors of newspapers. All in all, given her love of verbal jousting, and her sense of humour, a “victory” for Emily Davison.

The latest manifesto issued by the Women’s Social and Political Union is even more illogical than those which have preceded it—which is saying a great deal. The authors of it say that the militant suffragists desire it to be clearly understood by Mr. Chuchill that they are certainly the women to dare and suffer all things in resistance to the tyranny of disfranchisement imposed upon them by the Government.

This means, if it means anything, that women are voteless because the present Government have disfranchised them. It is hardly possible to conceive of a more flagrant misuse of words.

Response. Saturday, August 17, 1912 To the Editor of The North Mail, “Women and the Vote”

Sir, –In your notes on ‘Affairs of Today’ under the heading ‘Feminine Logic’ you demonstrate very clearly the truth of the adage that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

In criticising the W.S.P.U. application of Mr. Churchill’s own words in reply to Mr. Bonar Law to women in claiming that they will certainly ‘dare and suffer all things in resistance to the tyranny of disfranchisement imposed upon them by the Government,’ you assert that ‘this means if anything that women are voteless because the present Government have disfranchised them.’ This would be as you term it ‘a flagrant misuse of words’ if it were not that you yourselves are guilty of a ‘terminological inexactitude.’ The writer of the notes has evidently confused the two terms: ‘Disfranchisement’ and “Disenfranchisement’ in a way that he would not have done if he had carefully studied his own language. For whereas the term ‘Disenfranchisement’ clearly bears the meaning of ‘the act of enfranchising’ owing to the interpolation of the affix ‘en,’ which has a crescive [i.e. growing, enlarging] meaning, the term ‘Disfranchisement’ simply implies ‘the lack of or want of the franchise.’ Yours, etc.

EMILY WILDING DAVISON
Longhorsley, S.O. Northumberland
August 15, 1912