army.’^9 But the announcements by the WSPU leaders were regarded as irra-
tional and insane by an irritated Chancellor, who breakfasted with C. P. Scott.
‘[T]hey must be mad’, opined Lloyd George. ‘They are mad’, agreed Scott. ‘It’s
just like going to a lunatic asylum and talking to a man who thinks he’s God
Almighty’, retorted Lloyd George, who felt upstaged by the militant leaders’
exposure of his supposedly radical views.^10 But there was nothing mad about
Emmeline. Nor did the Canadian press see her in that way. When she spoke in
Massey Hall, Toronto, on 12 December, she was described as ‘eminently
womanly and essentially sane. She is logical, witty and graceful, with the
convincing force of the woman who knows whereof she speaks. ... Justice is her
plea, and, as a pleader she is most effective.’ Nevertheless, it was also suggested
that she lacked that vitality so evident when she spoke in Toronto some two
years earlier.^11
Keen to be back home, Emmeline wrote again to Alice Morgan Wright, glad
that they would be travelling back to England together. ‘Will you secure a cabin
for me at lowest rate possible for the exclusive use of one to myself ’, she asked. ‘I
am feeling rather tired & shall be glad when I get on board the steamer for a
good rest.’ Emmeline gave her itinerary to Alice. That evening they would
make their way to Fort William, and then on to Winnipeg and Victoria. On 21
December they would go to Seattle, in the equal suffrage state of Washington,
where they would spend Christmas. Then they would travel back across the
States, via Butte in Montana.^12
On 28 December 1911, en route from Seattle to Chicago, a weary but fasci-
nated Emmeline wrote to Elizabeth Robins, reflecting on her endless journeying
and the constant flow of new people she was meeting:
You will be surprised to get this letter from me knowing what a
dreadful correspondent I am. ... This tour of mine is a strange experi-
ence. I do not stay long enough in any place to learn very much of
either place or people & my mind is full of impressions.
I almost went to Florida but the distance was too great to cover for
one meeting.
What a huge country this is. I have lost count of the thousand of
miles I have travelled.
Out of all the confused impressions comes clearly the fact that
everywhere the woman’s movement is growing steadily.
I believe Canada is quite ripe & is only waiting for leaders. Oh to be
young again with all this wide world to conquer!^13In Britain, WSPU militancy had taken a different turn earlier that month.
On 15 December, Emily Wilding Davison, a well-known freelance, rank-and-
file militant, was arrested for trying to force a piece of linen saturated in
paraffin and alight, through the slot of a letter box just outside Parliament
Street post office, something which she claimed she had already done to two
THE WOMEN’S REVOLUTION