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