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Militant Woman Suffragists

Posted on November 17, 1911 by Emily Davison Posted in Letters

November 17, 1911, To the Editor of The Yorkshire Observer, “Militant Woman Suffragists”

If the letters Davison wrote over the month of November, in which she seems to take on all

comers, give the reader a sense that she may have felt embattled, the letter below suggests

she felt her back against a wall. Of course her determination did not flinch, but it may have

occurred to her that the goal she sought would be denied and that the Woman Suffrage

movement might die the death of a thousand cuts. Here she tries to explain why Asquith’s

“universal suffrage” is not universal at all. She argues against the “yes, but” syndrome typified

by the editorial addendum to her letter.

Davison seems to take comfort in the fact that the national Press coverage of Asquith’s

proposal to bring a bill for universal manhood suffrage recognized the proposal as a dodge,

and as a betrayal of the woman’s suffrage movement. But she pushes back on criticism of all

suffragists’ disappointment that after two years of waiting with justifiable expectation that

a woman suffrage bill would become law, they are angry. Faithful to her cause, she rebuts

the charge that suffragettes are hysterical, saying that they are “practical” politicians who

will now think about how and when to press their cause further. In a sentence that seems to

presage the events about to unfold when in early December she initiates her own militant

campaign of setting fire to Post Office boxes in London, she shows her determination to win,

at all costs.

This letter is the first of a series of letters accompanied by editorial responses to her

words. The letters she writes over the next year are often part of a dialogue with another

writer, or the editor of a paper. It seems that she had become well-known for her militant

devotion, as well as for her active pen.

Sir, –The Press of the country were practically united in attributing the Prime Minister’s

Manhood Suffrage more to a desire to swamp votes for women. We of the Women’s Social

and Political Union at once saw through the move, took up the challenge, and hurled

defiance at the enemies of our cause. But we are not, as recent criticisms of yours would

seem to suggest, hysterical fanatics, who need but a word of opposition to break out into

blind frenzy. Our self-restraint during the past two years is evidence enough of that. We

are, above all, practical politicians nowadays, and we shall make our moves when and

how it seems best to us. You seem to think that the mere raison d’etre of militancy is

advertisement. That, of course, follows, but it is not, and never has been, the chief reason

for militancy. Militancy means in plain language determination to win at all costs—I am,

&c.,

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

31, Coram Street, London, W.C. November 15

[We distinguish the end in view from the methods pursued. While we condemn many of

the latter, we are in sympathy with the former.—Editor.]

The Yorkshire Observer
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Available now from the University of Michigan Press:

In the Thick of the Fight: the Writing of Emily Wilding Davison, Militant Suffragette, by Carolyn Collette.

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