NAWSA SUBJECT FILE Pankhurst, Christabel Christabel By ELIZABETH ROBINS Christabel Pankhurst's outstanding quality is radiant purity [photograph caption] What is she like? Well, if you care to take my word for it, she is, in sum, unlike anything the world has seen before. I ought to begin by admitting that I am not a wholly uncritical observer of Miss Pankhurst. I do not agree with all her theories, I am not with her in all her practice. But any one can make a fancy sketch of a young woman who presents as many points of attractiveness as the Organizer-in-Chief of the W.S.P.U. While my sketch will be fact rather than fancy, it will not pretend to be all the facts, even in so far as I see them. The hour for final judgment is not yet. In the meantime women who realize what is involved in the fight for the Suffrage have no duty more binding than to prevent misrepresentation of those who are in the forefront of the fight, those captains who, by the various roads, are leading the legions which converge towards the Parliaments of the world. The duty I speak of is most imperative towards those most grossly misrepresented. I have often refused to do a study of Miss Pankhurst. She seemed so much more capable than most people of making herself clear. The misunderstanding of her that I find current on my arrival in America moves me to set down these impressions from our acquaintanceship extending over something like eight years. She lives in the memory of the most, turning up that round chin of hers to meet a question as to tactics; a slender body braced for defense; flinging out a hand to send some home some thrust, shrivelling criticism in the caustic of her wit; intolerant of opposition, burying objections under weight of controverting fact; reconciling the objector by an imperturbable good-humor; often harnessing him to the Movement by virtue of her own completeness of dedication. We saw her "full face" in the early raids on Westminster, those called with an audacious irony: "Going on Deputation to the Prime Minister,"-much as a warder might go to the door of a cell and ask the prisoner, "will you kindly come out, sir, and be hanged." One sees again the face under a hat awry, yet every flower, or end of ribbon, showing flag-like where was the thickest of the flight and where the straight way lay- the way to the rudest publicity for matters never so fully stated before. One sees her facing the police, stopped by them, protesting, always with self-possession and with apparent expectation of succeeding in the impossible errand. Profile, this time, as she rises in the dock. A half sheet of paper in her hand with its three or four notes; the stylograph stuck back in the case which is pinned to the yoke of her gown. You see her lifting that face to the perplexed Jury, to the scandalized Judge. "Come," she seems to say, "let us reason together." She is complimented from the bench upon her able advocacy, and sent to prison. She seems to have had her fill of such compliments. No one must suppose that she wears always the militant face. I think of the one I saw flushed with fever, lying on a sofa in a Yorkshire Hotel. I had just heard her speak in the market place-speak with strange patience in the teeth of ignorance and insult, speak to an audience I wondered she would care about convincing. She was ill at the time, struggling with a cold that would have extinguished most people. I had watched her standing for an hour in the windy market place, had listened to her clouded voice, growing hoarser as she explained to the foolish, and endured the drunken. Half an hour after, she lay in my room with closed eyes and fever-bright cheeks, while her mother went out to buy quinine, or what not. Had this not been our first meeting I should have known better than to waste breath urging her to stay on the sofa all the evening. She had, I knew, no meeting of her own, but up she stands and we three go to a man's political gathering. The girl and I had thought fit only for bed, rises in her place and attacks a scheme advocated by the man, afterwards her (and all women's) good friend, George Lansbury. That night he was explaining the need of an appropriation for poor boys' school games and athletics- in the name of the betterment of the race. He found no fault with, he even defended, the grotesquely smaller provision proposed for the benefit of poor girls (and presumably for the benefit of such little share as they might conceivably have in the matter-of bettering the race). Suddenly the girl was on her feet by my side, hardly audible at first, through the fog of her stifling cold, but still able hotly to denounce Mr. Lansbury for not protesting against unfair discrimination in favor of physical training for the stronger sex. He, poor man, astonished, a little injured, feeling apparently that he had done rather well (considering the strength of conservative opposition to get any appropriation whatsoever), modestly looking, as I thought, for congratulation -to find himself hauled over the coals, and baited and trounced by this little girl with the hoarse voice. I rather think that was the first time Mr. Lansbury ever saw Christabel "full face." Little enough in any case could he have dreamed then, that he would listen to that voice till it should lead him and his children to prison. HARPER'S WEEKLY for December 27, 1913 7 Another time I see her lying in the shade of a cypress tree in a Sussex garden-a lissome, relaxed figure in an apple-green gown. In the dark eyes none of the fire we had seen burning on Westminster raids, but a light that seemed more a childish gladness of spirit. She lies there and gives and takes chaff with a school-boy. He, not a being of easy enthusiasms, is soon among Christabel's friends. They sit side by side, he showing her some illustrations in the Sphere. An Anti-militant, struck by the tableau, drew me aside- "I've watched her for two days. I have the very strongest feeling there must be some mistake. That little schoolgirl can't be making all this trouble." That was the opinion in the adjacent village, though obviously shaken by her ringing up the London Headquarters office to insist that the Mayor of Dublin should be held to the promise that had been extracted from him -heaven knows how-the amazing promise to make an official visit to London in order to exercise an ancient and forgotten right, unused for centuries, to plead before the bar of the House of Commons. The plea in this case was of course: "give women a share in citizenship"-and Christabel in Sussex pulled the strings that brought the chief civic dignitary out of Dublin and drew him over the Irish Sea to stand in his mayoral robes and insignia before the English Commons-adjuring them "do justice to women!" We have in London a great music hall whose name, the Pavilion, was long associated solely with the most frivolous form of variety entertainment. This hall has been crowded to its capacity, year in, year out, at the Monday suffrage meetings, and not only by those interested in the women's movement. We have seen the boxes there filled with the gilded youth turning their backs on the stage and talking among themselves on those Monday afternoons, just as they are in the habit of doing during the less diverting "turns" at night. We have seen, at Christabel Pankhurst's standing up to speak, all those backs turn, and the faces of the men crane over the box, curious, alert, responsive to as much as they understand-to the life and youth and valor of her, if nothing more-nudging one another at some hit; seizing her points, laughing with her at her enemies, applauding her impassioned attacks upon the government with as much enthusiasm as though she were a Russian dancer. And when Christabel Pankhurst's "turn" was over we have seen the entire party rise and leave the hall. The Christabel these young gentlemen thought such good fun was the Christabel who, already for some years, had been trudging up and down the country, going through mud and rain, holding little obscure meetings in stuffy rooms; the Christabel who was the first to brave the horrors of the unreformed Holloway; the Christabel who gave the flower of her youth to make votes for women the most vital issue of the day. Had you called to see Miss Pankhurst?-so had all these sitting in the entry room. At last you stood in her little office. The only room she had of all the many in use by the Union was a sort of passage. A big desk occupied a good share of the space. On a swivel chair, a little person writing an editorial. One window, two doors, and in and out of these doors a constant procession-girls with armfuls of literature, girls with letters, girls with telegrams, girls and women hurrying through one way or another no matter who was there, or what was being said, written, or thought out. In the heart of that hurly-burly all the most vital business of the Union was shaped and launched up to the hour when she left that night just in time to escape the clutches of an exasperated government. In the great new building in the Kingsway, Christabel has her more comfortable quarters. She has never occupied them, never seen them. When the W.S.P.U. Fund had rolled up its staggering sum, to women's innocent surprise, the mere financial prosperity of the Union bred in the breasts of politicians a respect they had never shown towards the principles of justice, or the spectacle of devotion to an ideal. The Fund became also a source of envy and all charitableness in certain adherents of cause less generously supported. The air grew thick with vague suspicion and open charges that the Pankhursts were feathering their nests. They were living extravagantly on the fat of the land. Mrs. Pankhurst and Miss Sylvia lived enough of their time in prison to take the point out of an application of the charge to them. So it was oftenest referred to the Pankhurst who was contained to live on the fat of "the pleasant land of France." Christabel Pankhurst in three years of militant martyrdom has changed from the girl shown in the right hand picture to that shown in the left 8 HARPER'S WEEKLY for December 27, 1913 Coming down from the mountains of Savoy I dropped in one evening on the exiled Organizer. I found her in the luxury she had then for months been steeped in - living en pension in a third-class hotel in a town on the coast. One room served the controlling spirit of the rich Union - one room to sleep in and to work in. That narrow bed-chamber on the top floor - no lift - reached only by climbing endless stairs, that place of meager, dingy furnishing, constituted not only the luxury of her personal establishment, but served as editor's office for the Union paper - the read Headquarters of the Movement. Out of that little room went forth the energy which, if it was not responsible for keeping the question of Woman Suffrage intensely alive, did certainly control and guide the more militant forces. Talking till late into the night, we spoke of a woman whose latitude of view in matters of sex-relation had given much offense both to Suffragists and Antis. Christabel had no love for the theme, but she pitied the woman- explained her as a doctor diagnoses disease. Her attitude to the subject reminded me of another midnight talk a year or so before. She had come down into the south of England for a little rest and I was remorseful at letting her sit up so late. I offered her a novel to take to bed. Yes, she would like a novel. She took the one I offered and with a gesture of distaste gave it back. "I began it," she said, "but I couldn't stomach those scenes between the wife and the husband." I had not myself read the book, which had not long been out. Miss Pankhurst described cursorily, with an effect of haste to be done with it, a certain scene which, along with the critics' comment on its "strength," and Maupassant-like veracity, the world in general had swallowed without blinking. At sight of Christabel Pankhurst's loathing, I remembered the unblushing utilitarian she is. Whatever expresses the views she shares she will applaud, however little literate the effort may be. However well done, what runs counter to her views she sees no merit in. In fact she cannot "see" it at all. So I urged the right of the artist (and the author in question is one_ to treat of any and everything under heaven. In any case, as Christabel could not deny, scenes far more risque had been written by men of repute. Whereupon she jumped down my throat. That was precisely the trouble, she said, with this woman-writer. She was trying to go one better - or worse - than men. Men have some excuse. They have to invent. They know very little about women. But "women must stop going to me for information about their own sex." I had long known that many women, and not a few men, accustomed to look upon themselves as fastidious in matters touching sex-dignity recognized in Christabel Pankhurst and unconscious critic of their meaner standards. Not only is the mind of this young woman constitutionally incapable of making a base use of unsavory topics, she is (not deliberately, but inevitable, because so was she created,) a touchstone of moral soundness. If I were told that, leaving out the politician and speaking for essential woman, I must give in two words the sum of eight years' knowledge - I would out of all the resources of the dictionary, content myself with saying that Christabel Pankhurst's outstanding quality is a valiant purity. Was Tammany Really Destroyed? A British View of an American Triumph By SYDNEY BROOKS Illustrated by Herb Roth First let me congratulate you and all your colleagues and associates in the Fusion ranks on the magnitude of your victory of Tammany last month. Then let me temper my congratulations with the reminder that the real test and proof of the value and durability of any and every electoral triumph is the use made of it in office. What New York accomplished on November 6th was essentially a work of destruction. It got rid of Tammany. But that is a fact is has frequently performed before, and always with the same result of Tammany regaining at the next election every inch of the ground it had temporarily lost. Do I exaggerate in saying that the whole history of municipal administration, not merely in New York but throughout the United States, shows that while Americans can pull down they cannot build up? They can overthrow a bad government; they have yet to prove they can sustain a good one. Some too flagrant scandal may rouse them for a moment to wreck a "machine" and to fill the air with good resolutions. But good resolutions are fleeting things, and the "machine", in the long run and under present conditions, is well-nigh indestructible. I do not say that those are wholly wrong who see in the recent election a sign that New Yorkers, like the American people generally, are beginning to cut loose from the domination of the "bosses" and to treat municipal government as primarily a business and not a political problem. But that movement will have to develop far more strength and constancy than it has done so far if it is to win more than a casual victory or to endanger Tammany's security at all permanently. The citizens of new York have won a respite for the next four years. But they have not won freedom nor anything like it. I fancy this would be more clearly realized were it not for the common American habit of regarding the suffrage as the essence of democracy. So long as they could vote at recurring periods for a multitude of short-term officers, your people have persuaded themselves that little more was needed to fulfil the amplest ideal of popular government. They have always had a tendency to look upon the ballot-box as an end in itself, to think more of a success at the polls than of efficiency in office, to regard the problem of government as solved when they had elected one set of candidates to office in preference to another set, to spend their energies on choosing their representatives and then to forget to watch over them, to pay too much attention to who is to do the work, and too little to how it is being done, and to sleep with the comfortable assurance of a public duty adequately performed from the morrow of one election day to the dawn of the next. I need not tell you that a political philosophy so defective as all this is singularly ill-equipped for grappling with the concrete and positive problem of city government. Democracy, of course, is criticism, is control, is an alert and informed public opinion, and is not really machinery at all. While, therefore, I rejoice with you that Mr. Mitchel has been elected to the mayoralty I still maintain that we shall not know what his election means until the votes are counted in November, 1917. Why is it that New Yorkers cannot be induced to support a reform administration for more than a single term of office and that Tammany has never, in all its long and malodorous history, been beaten twice running? Sometimes, undoubtedly, it is because the reform administration neither reforms nor administers and sometimes because it reforms and administers too much. I know of nothing more comical than a reform mayor prowling round New York in a fever to detect "vice." You are dealing, remember, with a cosmopolitan, vivacious, pleasure-loving population, pagan in its tastes, its habits and its opinions, imbued with the mercenary view of politics, and always in more or less open revolt against the laws with which the state legislature, largely elected and controlled by rural votes under the guidance of machine politicians, attempts to regulate its behavior. It is a populat- HARPER's WEEKLY for December 27, 1913 5 The Oak Park Idea Some Chicago ladies have been criticising the "rag-time novelists." They complain because novels nowadays are not "slices of life" but rather "a ragged hole in life into which the authors have poked and experimented." This is complicated, but when Mrs. Johnson of Oak Park comes down to tacks we understand: "A good criterion upon which to judge a book, to my notion, is to ask yourself whether you would tolerate the hero or heroine in real life. The situation in American literature today is such that we would not relish the acquaintance of the characters of our novelists." On that principle what about the old favorites? Would you like to shake hands with Bill Sykes? Pitt Crawley is no gentleman in spite of his title; the Marquis of Steyne it wouldn't be safe even to meet. Could you tolerate Iago and Lady Macbeth? It would never do to invite either of these persons to tea in Oak Park. A Theater Enterprise In opening the Little Theater this month, Los Angeles falls in with an interesting tendency already shown in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago. The theater is supported by a club of well-to-do business men. It has a seating capacity of only three hundred and thirty-four. There are no boxes, no balconies, and only fourteen rows of seats. It has a club atmosphere, cigars, cigarettes, tea and coffee being served gratuitously, and the actors of the company meeting the audience on the same friendly terms that marked the green-room days of earlier times. there are to be no leading men or women, each player being called upon for whatever part the management desires. The play selected promises well. Along with Shakespeare, Molière, and Sheridan comes the work of moderns, including Maeterlinck, Shaw, Schnitzler, Ibsen, Galsworthy, Brieux, and various Americans. Enterprising cities all over the country will soon have theaters of exactly that type, and much will be done by them for the raising of dramatic standards. Foreign and American Plays Some interesting aspects of the theatrical situation in this country are brought out by the fact that the Stage Society of New York, which has produced such interesting plays and produced them so well, is compelled to give more foreign plays and fewer American plays than it wishes to. Just now, for example, it particularly desires to give an American drama, and finds it impossible to get hold of the right one. The American drama is in a much more promising condition than it ever has been before, but it will have a long distance to travel before it will produce much that can be ranked with the best work of Germany, France and Great Britain. Although that distance is long, it may be travelled with speed, since so many of the young men and women now coming out of our colleges are turning their attention toward the theater as the forum from which they can reach the whole public and reach it in a peculiarly human and appealing form of art. Humility We tell this story because it seems to us a beautiful story that ought to be told. It concerns General Bell and the opening of the gigantic amphitheater in Manila that follows the lines of the land. The general was much praised for having built this imposing and enormous structure. He pointed to the savage Igorrotes that were standing about, trying to understand what was going on. "I did not build it," he said. "God Almighty built it; but if you want to take building in a different sense, to consider what we did, using the great plans of nature, those poor fellows built it." Speed "No orchestral concert should last over two hours, if as long as that. But last night's lasted nearly two hours and a half." So wrote a newspaper of a distinguished performance by the Philharmonic Orchestra. What has become of our faculty of attention! In our larger cities, well-fed persons will linger over the multitudinous courses of a dinner for several hours. But when artists render beauty they are timed to their finish as if they were on a speed race. In the early days, the Puritans, a hardy folk, hemmed in by Indians, took over a continent, and subdued a granite soil And yet they had time enough to sit all day and listen to their parson uncover hell, and picture heaven. To us of today the outer conditions of living are easy. Never was there so much time to spare for whatsoever things are excellent. The hours of our work are cut down to ever-diminishing limits. Yet, too restless to enjoy, we bring our jaded taste to each fresh offering, and expect it to win its way through fatigue and ennui. If it can't reach our jangled mood, we say, "It hasn't got the drive." How can anything great break though that tension? You might as well write on the shifting sands as make a lasting impression on tortured readjusting nerve centers. Where are those evening when Dr. Johnson would talk his fill through a series of golden hours? Now we crowd an afternoon with a round of calls, a half hour to a place, and then tune up the motor for the next fluttering descent and departure. A person will go from a Paderewski recital to a Bridge party, and then top off with a late supper and a cabaret performance. And when the variegated day is ended, no echo of Chopin is left. How else can beauty establish its own conditions, and become a presence, except as one goes to the appointed place early, and catches the hush, and lives quietly with that presence, and comes away to a period of rest for reflection? Today the romance and unfolding tragedy of life must be reduced to an anecdote. A speech must be susceptible of being boxed in as a string of epigrams. A policy in statecraft must be rendered in a head line. "Speed is life," said the rich young ruler who died the other day. But speed is the great refusal to live. It is the attempt to cover emptiness with sensation. Speed carries us far away from home, from noble poetry, from quiet thought. Anthony Comstock: A Suppressor or a Protector of Vice? An audience which listened sympathetically and intelligently to the reading of a so-called "sex play in a New York church on a recent Sunday was assured that the drama would be staged and presented "despite any interference by Anthony Comstock." The president of an organization which has for its purpose the combating of the social evil by attacking it at its very source with the weapons of light and of education, finds it necessary to say of a book written by Miss Christabel Pankhurst: "I understand that Mr. Comstock has threatened with arrest any one selling this volume. I can understand a man of his calibre making such a threat, and, if so, he certainly will have an opportunity of proving whether or not he means it." To any one not conversant with New York institutions, and ignorant of the life and public services of Mr. Anthony Comsock, the question would suggest itself: "Who is this man who crusaders against the forces of evil are thus forced to defy? What does he set himself squarely across the path of an intelligent attack upon an evil which, though sheltered behind a conspiracy of silence, is notorious, and menaces the vitality of individuals, the integrity of the family, and the foundations of the State?" Comstock is the head of a society created for the suppression of vice, but which is in grave danger of continuing as the protector of vice. For vice, like noxious vermin, flourishes best, nay, flourishes only, in darkness. concealment is its weapon; publicity its most certain destruction. Social workers and university settlements strove long against the loathsome "cadet" organization which preyed upon the daughters of the great East Side, but not until the Lexow Committee turned the bright light of the fullest publicity upon the panders and their system was the traffic in girlhood checked. That it has been wholly abolished, no one claims, but that it is greatly circumscribed, made more perilous for its practitioners, and less menacing to possible victims, who are widely warned by the publicity shed upon the cadets and their methods, is unquestionable. Much of this publicity has taken the form of romance. Some of it has been embodied in dramatic form. Its literature has included " best sellers" and stage successes. But if the greatest god is to be accomplished, precisely such success for the novel or the play in which the lesson is taught is needed. Sensational? Perhaps they are, but if the sensation is one of aversion to the practitioners of vice and all their wiles and ways, it cannot be too widely spread—even "despite any interference by Anthony Comstock." The social evil, the results of which are an ever present and malignant menace to the health and mind of man, is by no means confined to the slums. It is doubtful whether its creatures can segregated, but nothing is more certain than that its results cannot. Its records are not written on police blotters along, but blister and sear the flesh of many an innocent woman and child. The pestilence appears from its source and the most numerous victims of the poison are not those by whom it was distilled. We have had other curses in the land than those attaching to sexual immorality, but we have not endured them in silence. Certainly we have no silenced the brave champions who attacked them with the weapons of speech or of science. "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard!" cried William Lloyd Garrison when weaker enemies of slavery urged him to cease his attack upon that "peculiar system" lest greater evil should result. But he refused to be silenced. The truths he preached were offensive to refined tastes. Some of the evils of human slavery which he told in all their bare and revolting truth were nauseating. He shocked the squeamish, but he compelled attention. The very people who his revelations most revolted were the ones whom his facts compelled to action, and with the spread of precise knowledge of its meaning slavery was swept away. Tuberculosis is a human scourge. Its victims deserve all of sympathy, all of human aid and kindness than can possibly be given them. A few years ago it was thought the part of sympathy and kindness to ignore, at least in their presence, their ailment, and to speak of it in their absence vaguely as something not to be combated and little to be discussed. We have changed all that. Tuberculosis is recognized as a highly communicable evil, curable indeed, but, unless properly controlled in individual cases, rapidly contracted by others than the original victim. The consumptive of the slum may loose the bacteria which infect the dweller in the city's most exclusive neighborhoods. So we compel the slum landlord to make his tenements hygienic; we isolate as far as possible the consumptive in every stage of the disease; we educate the public to avoid contagion in every way. About consumption is no mysterious silence. Rather by continued agitation, preaching and teaching we have made its nature so known to all men that it is becoming a disappearing disease. So, too, with smallpox, with yellow fever, with all the communicable ills with which mankind is afflicted—save one sort only. Prudery has hedged about with a veil of silence those diseases which, usually have their origin in sexual immorality, are often conveyed without any immoral act. Even to know of their existence is in some prudish minds a moral taint, while to explain their genesis to the world, and to make the methods of preventing their transmission common knowledge, seems to be thought a violation of the properties, if not indeed a gross infraction of good morals. Thus the world is presented with the paradoxical, the inexplicable spectacle of the head of a society for the suppression of vice interfering to conceal from people in general the facts concerning the horrible penalties which vice lays upon its practitioners, and the piteous suffering visited upon the wholly innocent as the result of ignorant, thoughtless of careless violations of moral law. Such a situation would be incredible if it did not exist. Vice shielded by prudery, and prudery in turn guarded from the disquieting attacks of truth by an official legally entrusted with the machinery for the suppression of vice! It is quite idle (more than that, it is utter folly) to look upon the growing tendency to discuss problems of sex freely and frankly as either a passing craze or a symptom of morbid decadence. It is an evidence of returning sanity, of new enlightenment. Sex is the great factor of nature. Upon its impulses the continuance of the human race devolves. But to the abuse or misdirection of these impulses are due many of the gravest diseases, physical and mental, with which mankind is cursed. Shall vices of Mr. Anthony Comstock, the question would suggest itself: "Who is this man whom crusaders against the forces of evil are thus forced to defy? Why does he set himself squarely across the path of an intelligent attack upon an evil which, though sheltered behind a conspiracy of silence, is notorious, and menaces the vitality of individuals, the integrity of the family, and the foundations of the State?" Comstock is the head of a society created for the suppression of vice, but which is in grave danger of continuing as the protector of vice. For vice, like noxious vermin, flourishes best, nay, flourishes only, in darkness. Concealment is its weapon; publicity its most certain destruction. Social workers and university settlements strove long against the loathsome "cadet" organization which preyed upon the daughters of the great East Side, but not until the Lexow Committee turned the bright light of the fullest publicity upon the panders and their system was the traffic in girlhood checked. That is has been wholly abolished, no one claims, but that it is greatly circumscribed, made more perilous for its practitioners, and less menacing to possible victims, who are widely warned by the publicity shed upon the cadets and their methods, is unquestionable. Much of this publicity has taken the form of romance. Some of it has been embodied in dramatic form. Its literature has included "best sellers" and stage successes. But if the greatest good is to be accomplished, precisely such success for the novel or the play in which the lesson is taught is needed. Sensational? Perhaps they are, but if the sensation is one of aversion to the practitioners of vice and all their wiles and ways, it cannot be too widely spread - even "despite any interference by Anthony Comstock." The social evil, the results of which are an ever present and malignant menace to the health and mind of man, is by no means confined to the slums. It is doubtful whether its creatures can be segregated, but nothing is more certain than that its results cannot. Its records are not written on police blotters alone, but blister and sear the flesh of many an innocent woman and child. The pestilence appears far from its source and the most numerous victims of the poison are not those by whom it was distilled. We have had other curses in the land than those attaching to sexual immorality, but we have not endured them in silence. Certainly we have not silenced the brave champions who attacked them with the weapons of speech or of science. "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard!" cried William Lloyd Garrison when weaker enemies of slavery urged him to cease his attack upon that "peculiar system" lest grater evil should result. But he refused to be silenced. The truths he preached were offensive to refined tastes. Some of the evils of human slavery which he told in all their bare and revolting truth were nauseating. He shocked the squeamish, but he compelled attention. The very people whom his revelations most revolted were the ones whom his facts compelled to action, and with the spread of precise knowledge of its meaning slavery was swept away. Tuberculosis is a human scourge. Its victims deserve all of sympathy, all of human aid and kindness than can possibly given them. A few years ago it was thought the part of sympathy and kindness to ignore, at least in their presence, their ailment, and to speak of it in their absence vaguely as something not to be combated and little to be discussed. We have changed all that. Tuberculosis is recognized as a highly communicable evil, curable indeed, but unless properly controlled in individual cases, rapidly contracted by others than the original victim. The consumptive of the slum may loose the bacteria which infect the dweller in the city's most exclusive neighborhoods. So we compel the slum landlord to make his tenements hygienic; we isolate as far as possible the consumptive in every stage of the disease; we educate the public to avoid contagion in every way. About consumption is no mysterious silence. Rather by continued agitation, preaching and teaching we have made its nature so known to all men that it is becoming a disappearing disease. So, too, with smallpox, with yellow fever, with all the communicable ills with which mankind is afflicted - save one sort only. Prudery has hedged about with a veil of silence those diseases which, usually having their origin in sexual immorality, are often conveyed without any immoral act. Even to know or their existence is in some prudish minds a moral taint, while to explain their genesis to the world, and to make the methods of preventing their transmission common knowledge, seems to be thought a violation of the proprieties, if not indeed a gross infraction of good morals. Thus the world is presented with the paradoxical, the inexplicable spectacle of the head of a society for the suppression of vice interfering to conceal from people in general the facts concerning the horrible penalties which vice lays upon its practitioners, and the piteous suffering visited upon the wholly innocent as the result of ignorant, thoughtless or careless violations of moral law. Such a situation would be incredible if it did not exist. Vice shielded by prudery, and prudery in turn guarded from the disquieting attacks of truth by an official legally entrusted with the machinery for the suppression of vice! It is quite idle (more than that, it is utter folly) to look upon the growing tendency to discuss problems of sex freely and frankly as either a passing craze or a symptom of morbid decadence. It is an evidence of returning sanity, of new enlightenment. Sex is the great factor of nature. Upon its impulses the continuance of the human race devolves. But to the abuse or misdirection of these impulses are due many of the gravest diseases, physical and mental, with which mankind is cursed. Shall the facts concerning the origin and dissemination of these evils be kept secret, that in utter and needless ignorance men and women may innocently, or even with guilt, contract them? Concealment of vice is not suppression of vice. Mr. Comstock, though misdirected and unintelligent zeal, is not doing his immediate cause a service, while he is working irreparable hurt to the public health. A vial of typhoid germs poured into a water main would work a pestilence in New York. Would Mr. Comstock silence the witness who should detect a man in the commission of that crime? A case of bubonic plague would be swiftly stopped at Quarantine, and the sufferer isolated. Mr. Comstock apparently would let the vessel proceed on its way without remark, the subject of bubonic plague not being pleasant to talk of publicly. The thoughtful men and women who have undertaken to educate the public on sexual dangers do well to defy Comstock. They have undertaken a work as unsavory as that of the scavenger - and as needful; as cruel as that of the surgeon, and as merciful. They will be accused of sensationalism, of notoriety seeking, of indecency, but they should persist. The evils they attack are very real, very glaring, very noisome, very pestilential and cannot be dispelled with feather dusters or with rosewater. READ "The Suffragette" EDITED BY CHRISTABEL PANKHURST. The Official Organ of the Women's Social and Political Union. Of all Newsagents, and of the Publisher :-- LINCOLN'S INN HOUSE, KINGSWAY. ONE PENNY WEEKLY. The Great Scourge And How to End It. BY CHRISTABEL PANKHURST, LL.B. Price 1/-, or 1/2 post free; and 2/6 Cloth Bound. To be obtained from all Booksellers and THE WOMAN'S PRESS, Lincoln's Inn House, Kingsway. VOTES FOR WOMEN. The Women's Social & Political Union. Head Office: Lincoln's Inn House, Kingsway, W.C. Telegrams: "WOSPOLU, LONDON." Telephone: HOLBORN 2724 (3 lines). Publishing Office: The Woman's Press Weekly Newspaper and Review: THE SUFFRAGETTE. Auditor: FRANK WITTING, Chartered Accountant, 20, Bucklersbury, E.C. Colours: Purple, White and Green. MRS. PANKHURST, Founder and Hon. Treasurer. MRS. TUKE, Hon. Secretary. Special Collecting Card. SELF-DENIAL WEEK 1914. SPECIAL COLLECTING CARD. Name of Local Union with which Collector is connected _________ Name of Collector (Mrs. or Miss) __ Full Address __ No. 12683 Votes For Women -------------------- W.S.P.U. SELF-DENIAL WEEK. -------------------- A MESSAGE FROM MRS. PANKHURST. The Women's Social and Political Union deserves your financial support because it has brought the cause of Votes for Women into the forefront of politics, whereas before the Union came into existence that cause was almost dead. Those of us who are prisoners under the Cat and Mouse Act, and the other prisoners who endure the agony of forcible feeding are fighting at the risk of our life for the freedom of Womanhood. We look to other women to give at least their money in the same cause. Of prisoners who face the torture inflicted upon them by the Government, great self-denial is demanded, and we know that the women who are not in the fighting line will deny themselves by giving money to the W.S.P.U. funds. It is now recognised and admitted that the militancy of women is morally and politically the same as the militancy of Ulster, and that just as the Government are offering concessions to Ulster, so they ought to make peace with women by giving them the vote. This admission means that our victory is brought nearer than ever. Show that you rejoice in this - express your determination that our cause shall triumph without more delay by giving the largest sum you can to the Self-Denial Fund! This Union has great tasks to fulfil, not only now, but also when the vote is gained. These tasks include the abolition of White Slavery ; the winning of a fair and equal wage for women; the enactment of just laws for wives and mothers/ the establishment of an equal moral standard for men and women, and, as a consequence, the physical and spiritual regeneration of the race. This magnificent and inspiring work has begun already. -- -- Kindly send in this Collecting Card (which for this purpose may be folded up) and money collected not later than June 22nd, 1914, to Mrs. Pankhurst, Hon. Treasurer, Women's Social and Political Union, Lincoln's Inn House, Kingsway, W.C. As it is important that this card should not get into the hands of unauthorised persons, friends are requested, if they are unable to use it themselves, to return it in enclosed envelope. No. 24. TWO HUNDREDTH THOUSAND. Fifth Edition. Telegrams: "Wospolu, London." Telephone: No. 2724 Holborn (3 lines). THE WOMEN'S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UNION. OFFICES - - - - 4, CLEMENTS INN, W.C. "We demand the Vote on the same terms as it is or may be granted to men." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Founder and Hon. Secretary - Mrs. PANKHURST. Hon. Treasurer - Mrs. PETHICK LAWRENCE. Joint Hon. Secretary - Mrs. TUKE. Organising Secretary - Miss CHRISTABEL PANKHURST, LL.B. Bankers - Messrs. BARCLAY & CO., Fleet Street. Newspaper - "VOTES FOR WOMEN." Publishing Office - THE WOMAN'S PRESS, 156, Charing Cross Road, London, W.C. Tel.: City 3961. Colours: Purple, White, and Green. -------------------------------------------------------- Some Questions Answered. By CHRISTABEL PANKHURST. ------------------------------------------ Do Women Want the Vote? Women, especially those who have to earn their own living, do want the vote. They have been asking for votes for nearly 50 years, and so long ago as 1884 it was stated in the House of Commons that women were making a stronger demand for political power than were the male agricultural labourers. There is not space here to record in detail all the proofs given during half a century that women want the vote. All that is possible is to mention the main features of the Suffrage Campaign of the past five years. On May 19th, 1906, a deputation representing nearly all the organised women of the country waited upon the Prime Minister and asked him to grant them the Parliamentary vote. On Saturday, June 13th, 1908, 10,000 women marched from the Thames Embankment to the Albert Hall, where they held a great meeting to demand the immediate passing of Mr. Stanger's Bill. A week later the greatest Demonstration ever organized in political history took place in Hyde Park, the number of persons present being estimated at more than a half a million. In the spring of 1909 the women doctors to the number of 538 out of 553 (that is, all but 15) petitioned Mr. Asquith on the subject of the vote. During every month of 1909 women were in prison for demanding the vote. The total number of arrests during that year was 294, and the total number of imprisonments 183. The Hunger-strike was carried out in 110 cases, and in 36 of these the barbarity of Forcible Feeding was practised by the Government. Since the militant movement began there have have been 692 imprisonments of women suffragists. In 1910 women of all kinds of organizations, trade, political and suffrage, worked hard in support of the Woman Suffrage Bill, their efforts culminating in a great Demonstration inaugurated by the W.S.P.U., on Saturday, June 18th, when 15,000 women marched from the Embankment to the Albert Hall where a Mass Meeting was held, and a sum of £5,000 was subscribed. As a result of all the efforts made by women, the Government gave two days for the discussion of the Bill, which passed its second reading by a majority of 110 votes. In order to demand that this Bill be finally carried into law, a further demonstration was organised for July 23rd, 1910, when two great Processions marched from the Thames Embankment and from Shepherd's Bush to Hyde Park, where from 40 platforms resolutions were carried calling for further facilities for the Woman Suffrage Bill. This demand was further emphasized at a huge meeting held in the Albert Hall on November 10th, when £9,000 was raised. In spite of the great public demand expressed in this and other ways, the Government blocked the Bill, and refused even to give a satisfactory pledge for the new Parliament elected in January, 1911. Therefore, on the reassembling of Parliament, 450 women went in deputation to Parliament Square on November 18th and 22nd, and were so barbarously treated that the Parliamentary Conciliation Committee demanded that a public inquiry should be held, but the demand was refused. In April a great protest was made by women who refused, because of their exclusion from citizenship, to take part in the Census. On June 17th the greatest political Demonstration the world has ever seen was held by women. A procession seven miles long of women, walking five abreast, marched from the Embankment to the Albert Hall, and was distinguished from all others organised by the Women's Social and Political Union in that the National Union of Woman Suffrage Societies, in addition to every other Woman Suffrage Society, took part, and so marked the solidarity of women in their demand for the vote. The Demonstration concluded by unique meetings in the Albert Hall and other large halls. The Women's Social and Political Union alone has raised about £100,000 in the course of its work, and its annual total of meetings held amounts to 20,000. A sign of the great strength of the women's demand is seen in the great number of new societies formed to promote Woman Suffrage, such as the Women Writers' Suffrage League, the Artists' Suffrage League, the Actresses' Franchise League, the Musicians' League - all representing various bodies of professional women. Two societies, more general in scope, the Women's Tax Resistance League and the New Constitutional Society for Women's Suffrage, take up special means of propaganda. The Conservative and Unionist Women have formed a Franchise Association. Another especially interesting fact is the growth of suffrage bodies within the various denominations, such as the Church League for Women's Suffrage, the Free Church League for Women's Suffrage, and the Catholic Women's Suffrage Society. Men as well as women are joining in the demand for Women's Suffrage. The Men's Political Union for Women's Enfranchisement have adopted the militant methods, and have made protests on behalf of the women at meetings from which women were excluded; several of their members have as a result suffered great personal injury and imprisonment. Besides this union, the Men's League for Women Suffrage, the Men's Committee for Justice to Women, and others are doing good service to the women's cause. Notwithstanding this enormous Constitutional campaign women are still voteless. No wonder that militant methods are resorted to! It is true that there are still a few women who do not want the vote, but numbers of them are being converted every day, and it is surely unreasonable to refuse to give votes to women who do want them because there are other women who do not. There are men who do not want the vote, and never use it. Nobody proposes on this account to take away the vote from men who do want it. What Good will the Vote be to Women? The vote will be quite as useful to women as it is to men. Every extension of the franchise has been followed by legislation beneficial to the new voters. For example, after the Reform Bill of 1832 was carried came the enactment of the Municipal Reform Act, the Public Health Act, the abolition of the window duty and paper duty. The Reform Act of 1867 led to the passing of the Elementary Education Act, the Ballot Act, the legislation of Trade Unions, the Employers' Liability Act. Since the enfranchisement of the agricultural labourer in 1884 have come the Local Government Act, the Allotment Act. The rise of the Labour Party and the very great and increasing attention now given by Parliament to the demands of working men are proof positive of the power which the vote gives to those who have it. In Australia women voters have secured Acts of Parliament raising their wages, a revision of the Food and Health Acts, legislation protecting young girls and improving the condition of the children. In New Zealand, the excellent effects of Woman Suffrage are no less marked. The women of Norway have recently won the vote, and already the Government has decided to give the same pay to women as to men in the Post Office. If the women of this country had the vote members of Parliament would be careful to look after their interests, and would deal with all questions that women think important. That is to say, more attention would be given to the condition of the children, to the housing of the people, to the care of the sick and the aged, to the education of women, and to the position of women workers. According to the late Lord Salisbury, the condition of the working women of this country is a blot upon our civilisation. Wages for women home-workers are often no more than 1d. an hour, working out at only 5s. or 6s. a week, and sometimes even loss, and for women who work in the factories wages of 7s. to 10s. a week are quite common. In the Albert Hall Mr. Lloyd George on December 5th, 1908, said that the Government could not give unequal pay for equal work if women had the vote, and, therefore, the same right to call the Government to account as men have. The improvement of working women's wages is a very urgent need. The chief cause of the under-payment of female labour is that women regard themselves and are regarded by others as socially and politically inferior to men. To give women the vote will be a great education, and will teach them to respect themselves more and stand out for better conditions. The men employers and the working men will think that, as women are citizens, they ought to have better treatment that they have at the present time. During the past half-century the wages of working men have gone up 50 per cent., whereas in the same period the wages of women have on the whole become lower than they used to be. This is because the men have had the vote, and been able to better their position, while women have had no vote, and have been unable to work out their own industrial salvation. It is idle to tell working women that if they join trade unions they can do without the vote. The men trade unionists say that if they had not the vote, they would be unable to protect their interests, a point reinforced by the present position with regards to the Osborne judgment, and women's trade unions with no political power behind them are of very little use. Working women, if they had the vote, could demand legislation which would help them to get better wages and better conditions of labour. In New Zealand and Australia, where women have the vote, the evil of sweated labour, as we know it here, has now been done away with by law. The women of England, because they have no vote, are either unable to get any factory legislation at all, or they have put up with such legislation as their men employers and their men competitors in the labour market think fit to give them. The only certain way of getting justice for working women is to give them the vote so that they can protect themselves. Will Women bear the Same Responsibility as Men if they have the Vote? Are they prepared to become Soldiers? Women at the present time are fulfilling all the obligations which entitle men to vote. That is to say, they pay rates and taxes. Men are not obliged to fight as a condition of getting the vote, and it is unfair to say that women shall not have votes unless they are prepared to fight, because it is expecting more of them than is expected of men. As a matter of fact, in time of war women play a very important part because they go out to the scene of warfare as nurses. The War Office are making increasing demands upon women nurses in the matter of national military service. Not only so, but it is women who, as nurses, are fighting the battle against disease at home. Added to this women are the mothers of the race, and they are entitled to expect that men will do the fighting which may be necessary. The acts of wonderful heroism constantly being performed by women show that if they do not fight it is not for want of the necessary courage, both moral and physical. Will not the Home be neglected if Women have the Vote? Women have already got municipal votes, and this has not led to any neglect of the home. In the countries where women have votes families are quite as united, and homes as well kept, as in this country. Votes will be a weapon in the hands of women for the defense and improvement of the home. Now that Parliament is so much concerned with questions relating to the home it is more than ever necessary that the women should have the vote so as to be able to express their views. Do Women want to be in Parliament? Women believe that to have the vote is far more important than to have a seat in Parliament. Some day, however, the men and women electors may want to elect suitable women as members of Parliament, and in that case they ought to be allowed to do so, but even then women will not get into Parliament unless the electors send them there. Why should Men help Women to get the Vote? There are several reasons why men should help women to win the vote. Men who are husbands and fathers ought to wish to improve the conditions of women, so that their wives and daughters may be more respected and have a more secure position in the world. Working men ought for their own sakes to help women, because the under-payment of women workers at the present time is a serious danger to men. Employers are constantly turning men out of situations in order to replace them by women who can be obtained at much lower ages, and the fact that women are obliged to accept very small earnings often forces the men to accept low wages too. It is well known that numbers of women have to keep themselves. Therefore it is impossible to prevent them from going out to work. The only way in which men can do away with the bad effects of female competition is to help the women to get a vote, so that women's wages may be increased as quickly as possible. Men ought to want women to have the vote because, if we are to have strong and intelligent men, we must first see that nothing is done to hinder the development of the mothers. Further, to give women political responsibility will make them more able to educate their children to be public-spirited and to be worthy citizens of this great nation. Copies of this Leaflet can be obtained from the Secretary, The Woman's Press, 156, Charing Cross Road, W.C. Price 9d. per 100; 6s. per 1,000, Post Free. Published by the Woman's Press, 156, Charing Cross, Road, W.C., and Printed by the St. Clements Press, Portugal St., W.C. THE SUNDAY HERALD, BOSTON, OCTOBER 31, 1909—MAGAZINE SECTION. RISE OF THE POOR BOY AGAIN---NEW PERSONALITIES IN THE GREAT RAILROADS GEORGE GOULD CHARLES H. SCHLACK RIGHT HAND MAN OF E.T. JEFFERY ALBERT J. EARLING, PRESIDENT OF CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE AND ST PAUL SENETOR WM. A. CLARK OF MONTANA [?] [?] MILLER [?] [ST PAUL] [?] EDWARD T. JEFFERY [?] WILLIAM [RO????????] THE SUNDAY HERALD, BOSTON, OCTOBER 31, 1909—MAGAZINE SECTION. MRS. PANKHURST AT CLOSE RANGE---A TALK WITH A REMARKABLE PERSONALITY She Is Quiet but Magnetic, Forceful but Dignified, Alert and Sure, and a Cultured Gentlewoman---This English Leader of the Woman Suffrage Movement. By F.L. BULLARD. ACROSS the table sat the woman who has made the prime minister of the British empire afraid to go out to play golf. She said: "The premier and all the members of the cabinet are guarded today just as the Czar of Russia is guarded." When she says that to you in the quiet of a little room here in Boston, and states it as a fact indicating progress in a campaign that is not over, you look and marvel. Your lips form conventional queries, but the woman who answers knows that you are all the time turning over in your mind the stories you have heard. She has been called a "holy terror." She has been sent to jail for inciting women to "rush" the House of Commons. She is the leader of the militant suffragettes of England. Is she a Joan of Arc. slight but mighty, or is she a woman of the Amazon type? She sat at a small round table in the [??dy] of the Dorchester home of Miss Alice Stone Blackwell. It is a room full of memories of the man whose portrait hangs on the wall, Henry B. Blackwell, reformer and advocate of many causes, and of Lucy Stone, his wife. These are tokens of their work all about the room, books and pictures. This English woman reformer fitted into the scene effectively. She talks very quietly. Her characteristics flash into view, however, as she goes on. She is dignified and earnest, cordial and serene, evidently used to inspection. She has a charming smile. She is slight, almost frail in figure. She does not look as if made for wars. But she talks in terms of battle of her work over the ocean. After a quiet arm's-length talk one knows that she is a leader with magnetic qualities, that hers is a strong personality. And when one studies her for two hours on the platform at Tremont Temple the first impression is confirmed and deepened. Emmeline Pankhurst has the appearance of a cultivated, quiet and thoughtful matron. A face framed in hair streaked with gray hanging across the forehead on either side. Gray eyes that seem to be looking into the distance, careless of objects close at hand, half closed except when they open with a flash as she makes a point in her remarks. Her cheeks are fresh with color. The skin is drawn somewhat tightly over the cheek bones. There are lines about the firm mouth and dark patches under the eyes that make the face wear at times a tired, wistful look. The chin is good, but not the block of granite that one might expect from a woman who dares the government of the British empire to do its worst—or best. Even a man can see that she knows how to dress. Her gown was simple, but the sash was elaborate and added a little suggestion of class to the simplicity of the wearer. There were no ornaments but a plain gold ring on the left hand and a long chain that hung from her neck. Her step is alert and light. The whole effect at the first is that of a well bred English woman, [???stomed] to all the conventionally [?] society and used [?] to being quizzed about her hopes and plans. One asks questions not so much to get her views now, however, as to get the chance to study her while she talks. There is much more for the eyes to see than for the pencil to record. By the happy chance the first query interests, almost excites her, and very soon the qualities that have made her a leader begin to emerge. It's the question that Lowell put into his poem many years ago: "He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest— In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?" Just the old question as to the real [?phere] of woman, man's idealization of her, his wish to keep her out of the dust and dirt of the world of politics, and her great function of mothering the race and making the home. If she got the ballot would she be a poorer mother? Would man have to take her down from the pedestal where he put her? What about all this idealizing and setting apart of womanhood? Are the suffragettes trying to make clumsy substitutions for divine arrangements? She smiled when she saw the scope and drift of the question. The first sentence of her reply indicated that she has the art of putting things. "It is for women to decide what is womanly," she said, "Would it not be impertinent for women to take men and mould them and tell them what they ought to consider manly?" "Why, these views that you suggest to me are altogether wrong." And she went on to tell what had been done in New Zealand and Australia, where "woman is even more indispensable, honored and exalted than in countries where she does not have the ballot." Mrs. Pankhurst uses her hands unlike the average English woman. The gesticulations are as rapid and as various as those of the typical French woman. Every instant one hand or the other is on the move. Sometimes she lifts and extends the forearm and her fingers curl over the upturned palm as the voice takes the rising infection; the question is asked both by words and gesture. Then the hands sweep downward and add an exclamation point to the statement she is making. But it is when the eyes wake into action that one begins to see the woman who has led the suffragettes there years. "All this sentimental talk about homes—why, there would be no homes at all if we did not go out into the world and make them. The idealizing view of woman means in the ultimate keeping her in idleness and idleness is not ideal. "Our daughters must go out and face the hardships of the world, nowadays. Men can't make homes alone as things are now. Conditions make it imperative that woman should share the making of the homes—not merely the homes after they are made." Now the whole woman was in action. As she related an incident of a woman's destitution and her little child's need, to illustrate the necessity of social legislation in England in behalf of women, her eyes began to kindle. The wistful look, the look of the mystic who sees visions, disappeared, and the listener was almost bewildered when a litlte glint of light seemed to flash right across into his face like the swift lunge of a rapier. MISS CHRISTABEL PANKHURST. It was now, also that the gesture or pose most characteristic of them all, as later one learned it to be, appeared for the first time. She leaned forward and tilted her head to one side at the close of what would be a period in an address, but would be a paragraph in print. She cannot talk or speak long without bringing that movement into use. It suggests conviction and appeal at the same time. "The women who are working for the vote have very high ideals of womanhood," she was saying. "They are not trying to enter into competition with men. These are refined women. They do not wish to cease to be womanly. But"-and here a glowing smile lighted her face-"because we are women we wish to become better women. We shall never make the race what it ought to be until the mothers of the race have all the opportunities for development opened to them." Her hearer now ventured another question. He referred to the well remembered cross-examination in the Bow street jail, .when Lloyd-George, chancellor of the exchequer, and Herbert Gladstone, another member of the present cabinet, were quizzed by her daughter, Christabel, the lawyer. "What is the real feeling of the British cabinet toward us and our demand?" She repeated the question, "Well," and the smile appeared again, "these cabinet men want to postpone as long as they can. Why? They feel that they understand the present political situation in England. But they also feel that they cannot tell what women will do when they get the ballot. They are not able to make forecasts based upon the votes of women. Would the government lose and a new government come in? They do not know. Would this bill fail and that bill pass? They do not know. They have no clear ideas of what might happen if we were able to win." As she said these things Mrs. Pankhurst sat in a meditative attitude over the table and fingered a book that was lying there. "Then, is it all a matter of expediency?" hazarded the interviewer. "Well," she replied, "that may be expediency, but we are practical politicians. We are proving our political ability every day. We must create public unrest. We must stir up public turmoil. We propose to make it expedient for the men to give us the vote in order to keep us quiet." There was a pause after each sentence. The whole woman was now in action. The head was on one side, the eyes were flashing and the hands were both in use. It was at this point that she said the English premier was guarded as the Czar is guarded. "Those cabinet ministers know that any time any anywhere they may be assailed, quizzed, made to say something about our issue." On American criticisms of her methods -well, she was adroit. Mrs. Pankhurst is a diplomat in some degree at least. "I am not here to tell American women what to do," she said. "They know the conditions here. I do not. Nor am I here to argue with any of my critics. I am here just to do one thing, to tell what I do not know and what we have done and expect to do in England." You come away from such a half- hour's interview with the impression that this is a remarkable woman. To be sure these notions in the nature of the case must be superficial. You do not see all of a person in 30 minutes. But subtle suggestions of power may, of course be conveyed in a three-minute interview. There are open questions in [?open] mind. One is not sure if Mrs. Pankhurst is more anxious to be right than to be consistent. Somehow you feel that it would be hard for her to five up the militant tactics. She is sure she is right. And she is a leader. She has magnetism. One's sympathies warm toward her as one listens to her. MRS. EMMELINE PANKHURST. That same evening she spoke for two hours in Tremont Temple. Now she was facing a crowd of perhaps 2000 people. A fourth, perhaps a third of the audience, were men. It was a representative audience. There were young men and old, old women and young, people in evening dress and people in very plain clothes, professional men and reformers of many stripes, in the Temple. They were all there to study this woman whose fame-some insist upon the word notoriety-has come across the Atlantic. They saw a woman splendidly gowned. The face was placid. There was no shrinking visible. A lot of opera glasses were trained upon her, but she did not mind them in the least. She wore only that one ring, but the necklace seemed costly and beautiful. Her face had a tired look. The eyes were steady, and not the audience, but some far picture seemed to fill them. As she proceeded with her address there was plenty of heat in her remarks. But there were no bursts of passion. Only once was there a letting-go of what seemed almost a leash and that was when she fires a five word answer to a question asked at the close of her speech. Mrs. Pankhurst's voice is disappointing. It has good quality, but it does not thrill and ring. There is an occasional throb of earnestness. But the voice does not carry well. The people [?in] the galleries did not hear. Either she holds the voice in or it is not a powerful vocal instrument. Still no one doubts her earnestness. She held the 2000 without effort. Only a score went out until the end, and they left the upper gallery. The speech almost deserves the term "brilliant." It was able, adroit, epigrammatic, witty. There were a good many laughs and considerable applause during the evening. These responses became more frequent after the first hour of her speech. On the platform she was what she had been in Miss Blackwell's home. The hands were almost incessantly in motion. The most distinctive gesture was the tilting of the head. Only once was the arm raised above the level of the shoulder. Note the way she put her points. Referring to the peculiarities of British law: "It does not add much to the dignity of motherhood to have the law say that the father and mother are not co-parents." Again: "Imagine a country where only the women were voters. They make the laws for women-and men. All details of government are managed by women. Well, I suppose there would be such a revolution there as the world has never seen." Great applause and laughter followed that sally. Once more: "We are learning the A B C facts about political procedure, you know. Now, a government to stay in office must do the least possible in order to make the fewest enemies. That's obvious." Another laugh. Then she went on to tell the story of their adoption of [?the] militant methods. "The [?] too busy receiving [?] to receive deputat[?ing] [?] [?voters.] Finally Mr. Balfour, 'who knew the Conservatives were going to lose the impending election anyway,' did receive them. He gave them an hour, with two bodies of men waiting outside. MISS ALICE STONE BLACKWELL. "Mr. Balfour was very frank with us. He said: 'You can't solve this question until you put it in the forefront of practical politics. So we adopted the militant methods. The newspapers gave space to them for the first time. People came to know at last that some women wanted to vote." Sarcasm played an effective part in the address, as when she described the alacrity with which candidates in the by- elections claimed to be ardent suffragists. And when she referred to the cabinet meetings in which the great question under discussion was that of forcing food upon the women who were on a hunger strike in the jails, where they had been put for their services in the suffrage cause. "It was ungentlemanly, it was rude, to cut off the head of Charles I. It was very discourteous to seize the tea in Boston harbor. And it was very unceremonious for us to interfere with the game of golf of Mr. Asquith, the British premier. * * * You cannot put women on a pedestal; we are all human beings together." So she went on for an hour and a half. The audience was solemnly still, and the thrill of tense listening was felt only once or twice. When she told of the court decision which might be made while she is in America, and would determine if she and 90 other women must go to jail for exercising what they hold to be their right of petition, a wave of sympathy swept through the room. Once it seemed, to some listeners at least, that she was on the defensive. That was when she referred to "the flinty messengers." These were the stones which were thrown, the breaking of windows, but always with care that no persons should be hurt. The only persons ever hurt had been the women themselves. There was no applause when she told [?] patriotic saying, "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." Nine questions in all were asked at the close of the address, and they were answered readily and skilfully. No, she had not seen a petition asking that the militant methods cease. The only petition she had seen was one asking for a truce. And the only truce possible would be based upon the promise to give this question attention in the immediate future. Then she told the story of the "x chopper" episode at Newcastle, where barricades 20 feet high were attacked by one woman with a hatchet. The story of Mr. Asquith escaping once by going down a tube through which "parcels are propelled" raised a laugh. And finally the audience applauded these things: "When I was thrown out of the House of Commons I felt more self-respect than when I sat there and begged and wheeled and pleaded for attention. * * * Had this been a man's agitation there would have been blood- shed long ago." Some of the most fetching allusions she made were the dry and sly references to the wonderful competency men have shown in the management of the affairs of cities and nations. This is an able woman. At times one is sure that she is a brilliant woman. She is magnetic. She is a strong personality. She has many of the gifts of the most effective platform speaker. You would like to study this woman at other angles and to confirm or disprove your first impressions by more prolonged observations. She has three daughters, one of whom, Christabel, is almost as well known as her mother. One would wish to see Mrs. Pankhurst with these daughters when the cause and the public are for a time out of sight and one feels sure that one would find her a charming woman with womanly interests [?] the conventional [?tional] [?arts] [?] Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.