The last letter in Emily Davison’s scrapbook collection was written in response to a story in The Newcastle Daily Chronicle about Emmeline Pankhurst’s declaring an armistice while the amendments to the Franchise Bill—which gave Secretary Acland such hope—are all defeated. The logic of the article is a bit twisted, contending as it does that if militant violence is good some of the time it must be good all of the time; one can only suppose that Davison’s and others’ explanations about the tactical and strategic use of militancy by the WSPU fell on some deaf ears.

story:
It is announced that Mrs. Pankhurst has declared an armistice, and that there is to be no more militancy until the last of the amendments to the Franchise Bill has been defeated. We may pass over the confession, or the assumption, of the militant leader that she is able to control the action of the militants, and proceed to say that the armistice must inevitably lead the ‘enemy’ to see in it an admission of the folly of the violent tactics. If militancy is a good thing at any time it is a good thing all the time, and if it is a bad thing between the present date and the consideration of the last amendment it is surely a bad thing at any time. For ourselves we have no doubt that the cessation of hostilities will enhance the prospect of some form of women’s suffrage finding its way into the Bill, but we must say the prospect would have been brighter still had not a good cause been injured in the past by its too ardent and too indiscreet friends.

Emily Davison’s response January, 17, 1913, To the Editor, The Newcastle Daily Chronicle, “The Women’s Armistice”

Sir, Among your leaderettes to-day is one on ‘The Women’s Armistice’ in which you criticize the W.S.P.U. for proclaiming a truce to militancy till the last of the amendments to the Franchise Bill has been defeated. This you say is an admission of the folly of the violent tactics, for “if militancy is a good thing at any time it is all the time, and if it is a bad thing between the present date and the consideration of the last amendment it is surely a bad thing at any time.”

Will you allow me to point out that this is bad reasoning? Every good general knows that a charge is good at one time, guerilla warfare at another, and at other times it is well to use Fabian tactics. Policy which would be wise at one point of a campaign may be quite mistaken at another and it is the mark of a good general to know the times and seasons. Thus all the way through the years 1910 and 1911, when the conciliation Bill had a good chance of becoming law if given fair play, we kept a truce from militancy, doing only so-called constitutional work; but we at once resumed militancy when the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer showed their hand in November,1911. Now we are prepared to wait for a few days for several reasons: (a) Our working-women’s deputation may be able to affect something; (b) We are willing, like all others, to bring every constitutional pressure to bear; (c) If the amendments are each and severally killed, it will be proof complete of the trickery and treachery on the part of the House of Commons, the members of which will then not have the excuses of quoting militancy to cloak their own wickedness. There is a time to wait and a time to work. But if what we fear happens, and the amendments receive one by one their coup de grace, there will be no person in the whole of this kingdom who will dare to question the inevitability and justice of militancy.
Yours, Etc.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON
Longhorsley, Jan 17

Editor’s note after letter:
[We did not say ‘this is an admission of the folly,’ etc. We said, ‘The armistice must inevitably lead the “enemy” to see in it an admission of the folly’ etc.—rather a different thing. Ed. N.D.C.J.]

These two letters, one embedded in an article in The Newcastle Daily Chronicle, the other from Davison to that paper, span the end of 1912 and the beginning of 1913. To the optimistic—if complex—political tactics of Secretary Acland’s call to vote in earnest, not in principle, for woman suffrage, Davison turns a skeptical ear and eye, based on her own calculus that the parliamentary session will likely develop to the disappointment of the suffragists, whose cause seems always to be postponed.

“A Lesson in Tactics” –story

Mr. F. D. Acland, Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, has sent the following letter on the subject of woman suffrage to the January number of the ‘Englishwoman’:–

‘It is rumoured that the anti-suffragists in the House of Commons do not intend to divide the House upon Sir Edward Grey’s amendment to omit the word “male.” If there be such an intention, and it be carried out, anti-suffragists will, no doubt, explain that they regard this amendment not as a positive but a permissive one. They would say, “All right. If the House wants an opportunity to decide for or against particular plans for woman suffrage we have no objection. Let’s get to practical business. We don’t want to fight on preliminaries.”

‘Now what is our position in view of this possible attitude? Let us take honest account, both of our strength and our weakness. Three points are to be noted. We cannot force a division on Sir Edward Grey’s amendment. So we cannot maintain that the amendment is more than an enabling one without agreeing to the contention of the “Times” that it is a women-hood suffrage amendment. At the most a vote in its favour is a declaratory vote on the principle. But we are not out this time for a vote on principle but on practice. It has been the weakness of our cause in the House of commons hitherto that we have had votes ad nauseum on the principle of woman suffrage, but no vote on carrying the principle into actual practice. Essentially it does not matter to us at this juncture whether or not we obtain another vote on the bare principle. In [the fact?] fact we should gain by carrying out Sir Edward Grey’s amendment without a division is simply a demonstration that the “antis’ dare not challenge a division in the House on the principle. They rely now solely on the hope of splitting up our forces and beating us in detail on the question of precisely what classes of women, and how many women are to be enfranchised. Personally I cannot complain of this attitude. I do not think it is a discreditable trick or manoeuvre, but it is a direct challenge to us. It narrows the issue. It is a direct challenge to suffragists of every shade of political opinion to concentrate on that amendment which by consent of all parties is known to have the best chance—the Dickinson amendment.

‘Incidentally this reported manoeuvre of the “antis” cuts the ground from under the feet of some half-hearted supporters of ours, who have been thinking they might save their face by voting for Sir E. Grey’s amendment, and subsequently only for one or other of the amendments which can not be carried, and not for Mr. Dickinson’s which can. There are, we know, a great many suffragists in the House who would prefer either a wider or a narrower franchise for women than that to be proposed by Mr. Dickinson. To all of those who are in earnest we must appeal once again, and can do so with renewed force in view of these latest rumours of anti-suffragist intentions to vote solid for the amendment standing half-way between the other two, which respectively represent the ideal of the Democratic and the Conservative wings. Let every suffragist member of Parliament realise that he is a unit in a majority so undeniable that the anti-suffragist minority fear to meet it. And let him take the field this January armed, not with the dummy rifles of good intentions and votes on principle, but with the powder and shot of firm determination to see the women citizens of his country, married and unmarried, represented in the next Parliament. Let adultists follow Mr. Henderson, let Conservatives follow Lord Robert Cecil into the lobby on the division on Mr. Dickinson’s amendment, and we have nothing to fear from our declared opponents.

To which Davison replies, using the same expression, “when pigs fly” that she used in her previous correspondence in The North Mail:

January 1, 1913, To the Editor of The Newcastle Daily Chronicle

Sir, of what use is Mr. F.D. Acland’s ingenuous letter sent to the January number of the ‘Englishwoman’ as to the duty of suffragists to support the Dickinson amendment to the Reform Bill? It’s common knowledge to anyone who has an ounce of political sense that any woman suffrage amendments to the Bill have as much chance of being brought forward as that ‘pigs might fly,’ for something has to go by the board in this tremendously full session. At first there was a whisper of Welsh Disestablishment going, but owing to the immediately militant attitude of the Welsh members of the Cabinet and the House of Commons, that was soon disavowed. Then there was a rumour of the Trade Union Bill being dropped. Labour members (who could not bring themselves to oppose the Government for women’s sake) pretty soon rectified that! What, then, remains? Why, of course the adult suffrage proposition, which none want and which was only brought forward to checkmate the women’s cause. All that will be taken is a Plural Voting Bill! And if the impossible should happen, and the amendments ever came forward, has not the fate of the Conciliation Bill and Mr. Snowden’s amendment to the Home Rule Bill shown clearly enough what will happen? A proper Government measure for woman suffrage is the only right and dignified thing—Yours, Etc.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON
Longhorsley, Dec. 31

Article in The North Mail, Dec. 18, 1912, “Murderous Militants”

There will be very widespread satisfaction this morning at the news that one at least of the women who have resorted to giving bogus fire alarms has been captured by the police. Of all the outrages to which civilized society has been subjected by the militant suffragettes, the wanton ringing of the fire alarm bells is probably the most dangerous. In yesterday’s case, the female Anarchist who broke the glass and gave the false alarm succeeded in hurrying five engines to the scene of the supposed fire. One shudders at the bare contemplation of what this might mean if an actual fire, in which human life was in peril, should have broken out in the same district at the same time. Compared with such cruel and abominable attacks on society as these, the attempts to blow up theatres are comparatively trivial, while the letter-box fiends are merely foolish. It is sincerely to be hoped that the authorities will not be influenced by any mistaken chivalry in punishing miscreants found guilty of such callous criminality. In dealing with the militant peril, we are bound, sooner or later, to be driven to defend ourselves irrespective of the sex of the offenders. This seems to be the point at which it would be wise to begin.

Emily Davison responded in “Other People’s Opinions: Topics and Affairs Discussed by ‘North Mail Readers’” December 19, 1912, “Murderous Militants”:

Sir, in your issue to-day there is a hysterical and amusing leader on ‘Murderous Militants,’ in which you denounce the latest manifestation of militancy. As each new occasion arises, fresh epithets of vituperation have to be found if possible to denounce the act till perhaps the Press and Parliament will at last grasp the sovereign truth that it is ‘deeds, not words’ that are needed, and ‘the only way’ to put an end to these manifestations of unrest and discontent is to remove the cause of the grievance, a fact which the Government realized clearly enough in the case of the recently ended strike in Newcastle, and which the combatants of Central Europe are endeavoring to carry out in London to-day.

Anything else is hysteria and waste of breath! Thus, for example, in your desire to pile on the agony in the matter of abuse, you describe ‘the wanton ringing of the fire alarm bells’ as ‘the most dangerous’ of all the methods so far adopted not even excepting, ‘attempts to blow up (sic!) theatres,’ because, forsooth, a genuine alarm of fire might have taken place in the same neighbourhood! What would then have happened? Why, the engines would have been ready and able to reach the scene of action a little more promptly, and those in danger might have had reason to bless the militants!

How much more humane is our way of warfare than that of men as exemplified in strikes and the Balkan war! It is, perhaps, too humane for those who only understand the language of inhumanity, but it is none the less determined! He that hath ears to hear, let him hear!– Yours, etc.

Emily Wilding DAVISON
Longhorsley, Dec. 18, 1912

This letter evoked the following insulting response in “Other People’s Opinions” on Friday, Dec. 20, 1912, “Murderous Militants”

Sir, I am afraid you must accept the criticism of Miss E.W. Davison on your leader on ‘Murderous Militants,’ which she describes as hysterical. She having had a large experience in the various degrees of hysteria, even up to acute forms of suicidal and homicidal mania, there can be no appeal against such an authoritative decision, and your only alternative is to seek a more level-headed leader writer.

Her attempt to minimize the serious consequences of calling out fire engines on fruitless errands is typical of the logic displayed by Mrs. Pankhurst and Co. How on earth would an engine be able to reach the scene of action a little more promptly if it happened to be a mile or two away when the real alarm was given?

Her Biblical quotation is very apt. We have ears and we can hear right enough, but oh! What rot we are deafened with—Yours, etc.

“HENPECKED”
Gateshead, Dec. 19, 1912

Prompting this response from Davson in “Other People’s Opinions” December 21, 1912, “Murderous Militants”

Sir, –The anonymous letter in your columns to-day signed suggestively enough, ‘Henpecked,’ clearly emanates from just such a brave and chivalrous one as those who, according to another paragraph in your issue, have once more seized two frail women, with whom they have been playing a cat and mouse game for the past three months, after having tortured them by forcible feeding for one or two months before that, so that both have been at death’s door.

fBut with regard to the terrible bogeys which are exercising your unfortunate correspondent, and apparently leading him into the wildest flights of imagination, they cannot fail to remind us of the salutary douche applied to similar visionaries that ‘pigs might fly!’ The prospect is terrific and awe-inspiring, but the contingency is as yet remote enough for us to urge your ‘preux chevalier’ to keep his hirsute growth firmly fixed to the upper part of his cranium! Yours, etc.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON
Longhorsley, Dec. 20, 1912

This is the final letter in the Davison-Knox exchange, where she pulls no punches.

Sir, –Mr. Knox is just as illogical as most of his sex when, after stoutly affirming that he is of the same opinion still, he, curiously enough, asserts that he fails ‘to see the reasonableness of rejecting good evidence that was ever vouchsafed to men’ (sic!), and yet himself rejects the evidence of the great anthropologist Broca (not Brocus, as he writes).

The same criticism rises to our minds when Mr. Knox argues that ‘if women are so well equipped as men in the size of brains, the average weight of a group of women ought to be equal to the average group of men’ (sic!). In this sentence his meaning and language are terribly obscure, but his argument seems to infer that he considers that brains are co-extensive with height! Is Mr. Knox so ignorant that he does not know that some of the cleverest men (and women) in the world have been the smallest in height?

In spite of all his elaborate disclaimers of the value of medical statistics, Mr. Knox seems to have been obliged to grub hard among them, and has then made the same error of allowing himself to be led off the track. As it is necessary to bring him back to the point at issue, I must briefly lay down the results arrived at: –(a) Size of brain is no proof of capacity of brain, amply shown by the fact that some of the largest and heaviest brains belong to lunatics: (b) in comparing brains, it is necessary to take all facts into consideration together: (c) quality is more important than quantity.

Now argument (a) at once takes the force out of Mr. Knox’s long list of statistics as to the greater brain weight of men, for it may, indeed, only point to their greater lunacy! Argument (b) also puts a tremendous discount on Mr. Knox’s statistics, because he has not co-ordinated all his facts: he has only taken brains relatively (1) as to height of body, (2) as to weight of body. That he makes this error wittingly is proved by his own summary of the matter, in asserting that ‘when women and men are of equal height or equal weight, the men have something like 10 per cent. More brains than the women.’ But this gives his case completely away, for if he will take as much trouble to verify his facts as he has apparently taken to get these statistics, which, as usual in anti-suffragist arguments, are only partial and misleading, he will find that a man and woman of the same height of body are never of the same weight of body; and, per contra, a man and woman of the same weight are rarely, if ever, of the same height. But it is this meretricious form of argument of which anti-suffragists are almost always guilty, forgetting that the wits of women are far too nimble to be deceived by it. And it is this fact which is constantly being attested to to-day which displays the quality of women’s brains and reasoning capacity, and which proves my arguments.

dMr. Knox, it is true, has ‘endeavoured’ very hard indeed to prove ‘the quality in the male to be superior to that of the female,’ but I am afraid that he has not managed to do it, for again and again he has allowed himself to be led away into ‘terminological inexactitudes,’ as, for example, when he asserts that reason and will are identical: and, again, when he goes out of his way to state that ‘no amount of female education can overcome the natural and fundamental distinctions of sex.’ All the way through this controversy it is I who have reminded him that ‘men are men and women are women,’ and that, therefore, it is the men who all along the line have been trying to overcome the natural and fundamental distinctions of sex by forcing women into one groove. What we suffragists are fighting for is that women, qua women, should have the same opportunities and facilities to develop that men have, qua men. The fact that Mr. Knox and his like ignore is that women are not at present free to develop as women, and it is that which is wrong. Whilst confessing that they do not understand women, men impose their ideals or limitations on women, and therefore women are as far from being what they might be naturally, as is the domestic animal from its wild progenitor. And that brings me back to the point with which I started, namely, that men will not acknowledge the common humanity of man and woman: and still keep up the error that ‘man has a sex, but woman is a sex,– [no final quotation mark]
Yours, etc.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON
Longhorsley

During the course of her public exchange with Mr. Knox, Davison travelled to Aberdeen where she was arrested for mistakenly horse-whipping a Baptist minister whom she mistook for Lloyd George, who was in the city at the same time. Employing a suffragette custom, she provided a false name to the authorities, saying she was Mary Brown, a pseudonym which was actually her close friend Mary Leigh’s married name. Her true identity is recorded on the arrest record, and she was apparently freed by a friend or family member’s paying her fine. The Davisons had close ties with the Aberdeen area, and Emily had close friends in the area with whom she must have been staying, as she gives their address as her current address in her signature. Her liberty was not exactly her choice and she wrote to several news papers protesting what she seems to have felt was a kind of “letting down the side” in being released from prison. The letter below, sent to The Aberdeen Daily Journal was also sent to The Scotsman on December 10, printed on December 12, and to The Aberdeen Free Press on December 9, printed on December 10.

Sir, — A report is being spread as to my release that my fine was paid ‘anonymously, probably by a ‘suffragist sympathizer.’ I entirely deny this! No suffragist would have done such a thing, as my feelings in the matter would have been known and respected! Moreover, when I was told of my release at 6.30 this morning, I was solemnly assured that an order for my release had come, otherwise I should have refused to leave the prison. This is a trumped-up excuse to cover a fine reality! The truth is that bonnie Scotland will not adopt the barbarity of forcible feeding!! All honour to her! Yours, etc.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON
(B.A., Lon. And Oxford Final Honour School)
Ryedale, Rubislaw Don South,
Aberdeen, December 9, 1912

Sir, — I am extremely obliged to Miss E. Davison for drawing my attention to the medical evidence she quoted in a recent issue, although there was no need to throw at my head the old saw, ‘Convince a man against his will, he is of the same opinion still.’ Everyone, Miss Davison, runs the risk of having this applied to him, who, after what seems to him due examination and deliberation, has come to hold a certain set of opinions, and who, with his best endeavours, does not find any opposing views and arguments, any that can outbear his own. I rest content with my position, and it seems to me the only one open under the circumstances, for I fail to see the reasonableness of rejecting sound, good evidence that was ever vouchsafed to man.

Let me admit there was good evidence to support Miss Davison’s argument: but, on the other hand, there is as good—and I think better—to uphold mine, and in all matters of discordant opinions only one side can possibly be in the right. In establishing my theory against Miss Davison’s, let me quote some figures which speak for themselves; and, if I mistake not, will be more convincing than many arguments.

It may be presumed that if women are so well equipped as men in the size of brains, the average height of a group of women ought to be equal to the average group of men. But it is not so. Whatever the size chosen for comparison, the woman’s brain is always less than the man’s. Whether the observations be made in England, France, or Germany, the results are the same. From Boyd’s figures, taken in England, there can be picked out 102 men and 113 women between 64 and 66 inches high, averaging close on 64 inches for each group. But the brains of men average 46.9 ounces, while those of the women are only 41.9 which give the men the advantage of 12 per cent. There are 21 small men whose height average 62 inches, and there are 135 women of the same height. The brains of the men weigh 45.6 ounces, those of the women only 42.9 ounces, giving the men an advantage of 6.3 per cent. From the figures which Brocus gathered in Paris, there may be selected 54 men and 23 women whose heights were 1.61 metre, the average of women, however, being nearly half and inch more than that of the men; yet their brains were 9 per cent less than the men’s, the weights being 12.13 grammes for the females and 13.29 for the males.

It makes no difference if, instead of taking equal heights we take body weight. Bischoff figures, gathered in Bonn, will give us the data. There are 91 men and 116 women whose bodies were between 30 and 39 kilogrammes. The brains of the men weighted 13.48 grammes, and those of the women 12.06, which gives the men an excess of 11 percent. There were 206 men and 125 women whose body weights lay between 40 and 49 kilogrammes. The brains of the men averaged 13.62 grammes, those of the women only 12.15. Here the men have the advantage of 12 per cent. Between 50 and 59 kilogrammes there were 148 men and 50 women. The men’s brains averaged 13.70 grammes, the women’s only 12.45. The excess is 10 per cent. In favour of the men.

Taking our stand by these figures, we can safely form the opinion that when women and men are of equal height or equal weight, the men have something like 10 per cent more brains than the women. We might go further, and compare the weight of the brain with the height of the body. In that case man has the advantage. Boyd’s figures, taken at Marylebone Hospital, shows that man has .73 ounce of brain for every inch in his height, while woman has only .70. this gives him an excess of 4 per cent. Brocus figures in Paris gives by this method an excess of 6 ½ per cent. To the male brain.

Miss Davison will admit, I hope, that I have made ample amends for my apparent neglect in dealing with the medical evidence she quoted. It may be also hoped these figures will tell for something with her, and until they have been answered by other proofs as direct, I fear Miss Davison will fail in convincing me to the contrary. We cannot but yield allegiance to honest figures and these figures have been taken in places and at different times by men whose business it was to measure and weigh without regard to the conclusions. The lesson to be drawn from them is one that leaves but little room for doubt.

In dealing thus with quantity, I have by no means forgotten quality. There are no facts—at least not to my knowledge—to be procured in reference to quality, except such as arise out of the practical experience of every-day life. The question of relative quality is, therefore, one that is a matter of speculation. I have, moreover, from every-day life, endeavoured to show the quality in the male to be superior to that of the female; but Miss Davison over-rides my arguments by saying that I am tinged with a strong bias, and therefore no true philosopher. But whatever she may say and do, the excess of 10 per cent. of brain matter is no mere trifle, and not so easily brushed aside.

I take exception to the insulting remark attributed to me by Miss Davison about American women. I only stated what had been said by great American physicians, whose testimony can be borne out by every-day experience happening in that State. Although the climate may have something to do in oppressing American females more than English women, yet it is the physiological side that is at fault, and is engaging the attention of the American doctors.

Miss Davison does not dwell long on the physiological part of this discussion, and when I refer to it she passes it by with some brief comment. For of all the pricks against which it hard to kick, the hardest are those which are presented by nature in the form of facts, as a great scientist puts it. No amount of female education can overcome the natural and fundamental distinctions of sex. Women are women, and [here a vertical marginal line] they cannot choose but be women. This, Miss Davison, is not an empirical assertion, but a plain statement of physiological fact.

I have often wondered what is the future the new women are preparing for their own branch of the human race. Would it not happen that the strongest faculties of women are such, if exercised without social restraint, will most surely estrange them, if not from the feelings, from the habits and associations of the traditional female life. What number of new women will choose to become mothers, and what at best will be the maternal qualities of women [here a vertical marginal line] for whom maternity is no longer a primary object, but a possible incident of life? Would there not be one result of female emancipation, and that is, that in its full and final attainment, not only the power of love in women, but for either sex its possibility will have passed away?

These are only musings on my part, and I do not expect them to enter into this discussion. I could not resist the temptation to place them on paper, and from man’s standpoint of view they will be accepted as very interesting and deserving to be pondered over. –Yours, etc.,

A. KNOX
Bedlington Colliery

Davison returns to her debate with A. Knox in the pages of The Morpeth Herald two weeks after his last letter. They exchange two more letters before the editor of the Herald puts an end to what has become a circular exchange, a round of “he said,” “she said.” It is worth noting, however, that Davison does have the last word in the exchange. The Morpeth Herald, Davison’s “home town” newspaper was not a supporter of her actions or of the suffrage movement in general. Suffrage news is hard to find in the weekly issues, while news of the Primrose League and of the Liberal Party men’s and women’s meetings is frequent and regular. News of Davison’s imprisonments is reported with little sympathy. But she is the one who wins the field in this debate.

November 15, 1912, To the Editor of The Morpeth Herald, “The Woman Suffrage Question”

Sir, — As I am in Wales for the moment, and did not receive the ‘Morpeth Herald’ till yesterday, I am hurrying to answer Mr. Knox’s latest effusion, trusting to be in time for your next issue.

Mr. A. Knox appears to be of the type to which the old saw ( brought aptly up to date) applies, ‘Convince a man against his will, he is of the same opinion still.’ The doctors’ or, rather, the scientists’ opinion, being too overwhelming for Mr. Knox’s empirical belief, he wisely confines himself to a mysterious hint that he could an’ he would (!) bring evidence to confute me, and unwisely shifts the ground (which he finds to be of the nature of a quagmire) to the, if anything, more insecure tenure of personal observation. Now we all know that personal observation, especially if tinged with a strong bias, is a very unreliable thing. It takes the wide-minded view of a true philosopher to make really useful criteria, and Mr. Knox is apparently no philosopher, for he refuses to face the facts.

Thus it is only that we can account for the glaring error which lies at the basis of all Mr. Knox’s special pleadings in that he seems to take it for granted that the volition and reasoning or judgment are identical functions of the brain, and form criteria of its value. These are, of course, quite distinct. Thus idiots are known to have the most intense will-power, and, indeed, it is that fact which makes them dangerous. Again, I have already mentioned that some of the heaviest brains in the world belong to idiots, all of which goes to show the futility of Mr. Knox’s arguments. It is not this or that faculty, or this or that comparison of size, which goes to prove the value of the brain. I was never maintaining that because nowadays it is a recognized fact that women have relatively equal brains, if not larger brains than men, therefore they are either equal or superior to men. If I did, I should be falling into an error, similar to that of Mr. Knox. I was merely pointing out the absurdity of making wild assumptions from special facts, and, above all, that Mother Nature (whom our anti-suffragist friends so slander and misrepresent) is so wise that even when for centuries man has sought to upset her law that man and woman, male and female, are both equally necessary, yet she has been quietly at work readjusting men’s follies.

So in his attempt to avoid one error, Mr. Knox has fallen into a greater one, the personal one. He accuses women of indecision of character and lack of will power. Why? The antitheses of these are the peculiarity of the so-called ‘new woman,’ or, as I prefer to dub her, ‘womanly woman,’ as she is beginning to realize her own possibilities. No man in his senses can seriously accuse us suffragettes of indecision or lack of will power and intensity of purpose. Again, as to the ancient bogies raised unchivalrously enough by me against the unfortunate ‘manly’ women (who are the result of men’s arrogant attempt to assume the role of creator and moulder) of hysteria and childishness, we ask a little too logically to please them, ‘a qui la faute?’ We do not hesitate nowadays to blame the parents for the faults of the children, and men have hitherto treated these women too much like children to be able to escape from a similar reproach.

Mr. Knox, who is apparently too fond of rushing into assumptions, says: ‘Miss Davison will probably tell us that, giving a woman the same education and the same social advantages as man, will enable her to rise in time to the level of men.’ Considering what women have done when held completely at a disadvantage, I sincerely believe that, given equality of opportunity (which, with all regard to Mr. Knox, is not necessarily ‘the same education’), they will, I hope, rise considerably above the present low level of men, and as a result drag the men up with them to a higher place.

As to Mr. Knox’s truly insulting remarks about American women, he is, of course, doing what he has done all along the line, making empirical assertions, which we must excuse on the ground of ignorance. In this case, for example, Mr. Knox is apparently ignorant of the important consideration of the effects of climate. It is amusing that Mr. Knox, having abandoned the evidence of the doctors when they do not suit his purpose, returns to them when convenient.

The last words of Mr. Knox prove conclusively what we suffragists (male and female) have found to be the bedrock feeling of ‘antis,’ namely, that women are not human beings equally with men, or, as I put it in one letter, they hold the fossilized theory that ‘man has a sex, but woman is a sex.’—Yours, etc.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON
Longhorsley, Nov. 7, 1912

While the leaders of the Irish Nationalist cause in Parliament (the Home Rule Party) were on the cusp of success, they retreated from supporting woman suffrage in Ireland. Davison’s letter of Nov. 12th, addresses the retreat by pointing out how much support the suffrage movement had among the people of Ireland, using specific examples, in her characteristic fashion.

Sir, –In the course of the debate on Mr. Philip Snowden’s amendment to the Home Rule Bill, taken last Tuesday, both Mr. W. Rock and Mr. Lansbury uttered a solemn warning to the Irish Nationalists that in behaving treacherously to the women’s cry for freedom they were betraying their own highest principles, and that for so doing they would reap exactly what they had sowed themselves. There are already signs for those who can read them that such a warning is justified, and they are all to be read in Ireland herself.

First and foremost, the action of the Irish magistrates, who on two separate occasions have refused to endorse the ‘cat and mouse’ game that the Government has been playing with Miss Gladys Evans [imprisoned in Mountjoy for setting fire to an empty theatre], shows unmistakably that the Irish nation itself will be no party to the Government’s disgraceful treatment of those who are fighting for freedom.

Secondly, the action of the jurymen in petitioning the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to release the four Irish Suffragists who last July were given the vindictive sentence of six months for the smashing of Government glass as a protest against Mr. Asquith’s talking about Home Rule for Ireland whilst refusing to include Irish-women in the Bill, is a pretty clear indication of the feeling of the average Irishman in the matter, and should afford a very strong warning indeed to Mr. Redmond of the way the wind is blowing.
Lastly, there is the fact that although the two Irishwomen, who were arrested on Wednesday night for breaking windows at the Custom House, Dublin, were originally charged with doing damage to the amount of £5, yet when brought up they were merely found guilty of doing 12s 6d. worth of damage, which they were condemned to pay, with a fine, in the course of a week.

Signs of the times are to be found, too, in England, but for him who runs and can read the signs of the times in Ireland are writ clear and large. Had not Messrs. Redmond and the Nationalists better pay a little more attention to them?

EMILY WILDING DAVISON
Longhorsley, Northumberland, Nov. 8, 1912

This letter is Davison’s response to “Bachelor’s” letter of November 3, the previous week, alleging women’s inferiority in respect to male accomplishments. She takes a new approach, arguing that women have expressed their ability and creativity with people, in the family especially, an argument that changes the playing field of the debate and rouses little opposition in people who fear that suffrage will separate women from their domestic duties:

Sir, –The point missed by your correspondent is that women have been creative and inventive all down the ages and centuries, but that until recently their efforts have been confined to persons rather than to things. That is the subtle distinction. Mothers and wives of great men have been the greatest creators of their ages and their name is legion and ever recurring. It is only in a later age that women, being in the majority, have found that the human field is no longer the exclusive object of their constructive power. –Yours, etc.

The “Samuels” Davison refers to here seems to have been a “terrorist” in the 1890s when he advocated smashing and burning as a means of protest. Davison is leery of his attempts to influence the working women of the East End and objects to his not focusing on what she sees as primary goal of all organizations, social, economic, or political, the vote. Her reference to Sylvia Pankhurst underscores the separation between Sylvia’s dedication to Labour politics and to working women, her focus on economic justice above all. Davison seems a bit leery of Samuels’ influence and contemptuous of his advice.

Sir, — In your columns appears a letter from the indefatigable Mr. H.B. Samuels, which truly points the moral to adorn the tale, and fully confirms Miss Sylvia Pankhurst’s view of the usefulness of the appearance of the worthy gentleman on the scene to the cause of Woman Suffrage. We might almost suspect him of being a rabid Suffragist in disguise, for nothing is so likely to rouse the women of the East-End so completely as to hear the elegant platitudes of Mr. H.B. Samuel on their sex.

Suffragists also cannot fail to appreciate the irony of the fact that Mr. H. B. Samuels is striving to make the East-Enders see ‘the importance of organization and agitation,’ whilst almost in the same breath he adjures them to despise and reject the only effective means to make the organisation and agitation successful, i.e., political power. Mr. H.B. Samuels is not wise to show so clearly his contempt for the sagacity of working women, if he thinks that they will not have the ordinary common-sense to see that they can ‘inspire’ and ‘encourage’ their fathers and husbands to far more purpose if they are able to bring to their support that which is the only thing for which politicians have a respect—votes. Yours, etc.

EMILY WILDING DAVISON
Longhorsley, Northumberland