At a meeting at the London Opera House on 2 December, held in honour of
Lansbury, Emmeline warned that the anti-government policy would be
continued at by-elections ‘with renewed vigour’ while other forms of militancy
would develop ‘as necessity arises ... the women’s civil war is going on and what
fresh developments are to come depends upon those who can give us the vote
and won’t’.^27 By such argument, she placed the responsibility for militancy not
on the militants but on an all-male oppressive government that refused to give
women justice. One of her audience, Nevinson, commented that although
Emmeline spoke well, ‘faith in her is much shaken’.^28 Plain-clothes policemen,
who were also present, made notes of all that was said in order to send transcrip-
tions to the Home Office. From now on Emmeline was regarded as a dangerous
subversive whose movements had to be monitored. Three days later, amidst
public condemnation of the letter burning, the woman who had threatened
civil war engaged in the feminine task of opening the Christmas Presents Sale
at Lincoln’s Inn House.^29 Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the militant
suffragettes, was a woman of contrasts.
The concern with sexual morality and especially the double moral standard,
which Emmeline had specifically raised in her Albert Hall speech, now became
a much more focused issue in statements from the WSPU leadership, primarily
as a tactic to arouse women to commit militant deeds on behalf of their sex and
defenceless little girls, action intended to bring women’s enfranchisement and
social reform. Christabel, in one of her important policy statements in an early
December issue of The Suffragette stated, ‘What is the object of the letter-
burners? It is to abolish White Slavery. It is to put an end to hideous assaults on
little girls. It is to stop the sweating of working women.’ On 9 December, when
speaking at the London Pavilion, Emmeline referred to the murder of the
Woking girl scout, Winnie Baker, and, to loud cheers, emphasised that these
attacks upon young children were ‘sufficient justification for civil war on the
part of the women, in order that they might secure their political rights and
obtain stronger legislation’.^30 There was nothing original about such concerns,
as historians such as Jeffreys, Jackson and Bland have so ably revealed; from the
1880s onwards, the feminist demand for a single moral standard for men and
women alike became central to the women’s movement.^31 The day after her
stirring Pavilion speech, Emmeline undertook the more mundane task of
writing to Alice Morgan Wright, apologising for the delay in sending a receipt
for her subscription to The Suffragette:
I am sorry you have had to wait so long but if you only knew how many
claims there are upon me just now you would not wonder that I make
my friends wait.
I am looking forward with great joy to the holidays so that I can
have long lazy days in bed. When I have slept & lazed my full I shall
come to Paris for a week & so hope to see you if you are there.HONORARY TREASURER OF THE WSPU AND AGITATOR