of Inquiry which had a dossier of her legal case in England, presumably supplied
by the British authorities. At the end of her hearing it was stated that the immi-
gration authorities had ordered her deportation as an undesirable alien, on the
grounds that she was guilty of ‘moral turpitude’. Emmeline hastily retorted that
if she were guilty of moral turpitude so were ‘their ancestors and all the ances-
tors of those American colonists who tossed tea overboard in Boston
Harbour’.^10 There was such an outburst of indignation from suffragists and the
general public about the deportation order that on 20 October President Wilson
reversed the decision. ‘I knew I could rely upon American justice and fair play’,
said Emmeline tactfully, as standing up in a car she addressed an enthusiastic
crowd when she landed in New York.^11 The detention order added to her aura
as, apart from her first speech the following day, at Madison Square Garden,
New York, crowds flocked to hear the infamous and charismatic militant speak.
Since the date of the Madison Square meeting had had to be rearranged,
because of the detention order, only 3,000 people paid to hear her address. More
noticeable, however, was the absence on the platform, apart from Mrs. Belmont,
of prominent American suffrage workers. As Emmeline gave a review of the
reasons for militancy in Britain to a half empty hall she emphasised, ‘Nothing
ever has been got out of the British Parliament without something very nearly
approaching a revolution. ... Men got the vote because they were and would be
violent. The women did not get it because they were constitutional and law-
abiding.’^12 Although she spoke of the joy of battle, tears came to her eyes when,
towards the end of her speech, she spoke of the imprisonment and forcible
feeding of her daughter, Sylvia. But her request for a cash collection evoked no
enthusiasm and, according to the New York Times, increased the streetward
movement of the crowd. When Eleanor Garrison went onto the platform,
hoping to have a word with the WSPU leader, she found the women around
Emmeline so concerned for her safety that they quickly rushed the speaker
through the crowds, permitting not even the shaking of hands. The overall
verdict of the New York Timeswas that while Emmeline ‘made an impressive
figure’ as she stood on the platform in her black dress of brocaded crepe with a
dark tunic trimmed with gold Chinese embroidery and edged with black bead
fringe, her reception was ‘courteous’.^13 A tired Emmeline was determined that
her lukewarm reception at Madison Square should not set the tone for the rest
of her tour. With zest, before she left New York, she joined Harriot Stanton
Blatch in making a feature film about political corruption – 80 million women
want?– in which both women played themselves. Advance notices for the film,
which was released the following month, claimed that ‘no more advertised
personages can be found to-day’ than the two militant leaders.^14
After the Madison Square Garden fiasco, Emmeline was thrilled when large
enthusiastic crowds came to hear her. It was not only her star status that
attracted the audiences; interest in women’s suffrage was growing as the pace of
granting the vote to American women was quickening, some five states
granting such rights between 1910 and 1914. Emmeline journeyed on the East
OUSTING OF SYLVIA AND A FRESH START FOR ADELA