had been diverted into new channels, and the funds contributed for suffrage
work had been set aside and not touched for the purposes of the war campaigns.
‘If we issue a report and balance-sheet for the year 1914–15 it will mean intro-
ducing a record of the suffrage work before the war, and that is most undesirable
during the present truce. All our accounts are periodically audited by a firm of
accountants.’^83 The statement was not enough to silence her critics in the
WSPU, one group of whom left to set up ‘The Suffragettes of the WSPU’ and
another, in March 1916, formed the ‘Independent WSPU’; both of the new
societies sought to revive the suffrage campaign. Nor did Emmeline’s statement
quieten unease in government circles about the virulent attacks being made on
Asquith and Grey in the 10 December issue of Britannia, still being edited by
Christabel in Paris. On 15 December, the police seized Britannia’s printing press
which had been installed in a garage in Kensington, an action that was later
defended by Herbert Samuel, the Secretary of State for the Home Department,
as necessary under the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) since the paper was
printing statements which were ‘absolutely untrue’ and ‘calculated to prejudice
our relations with our Allies’. Hereafter Britanniaappeared in a variety of sizes
and types, sometimes just two pages of foolscap produced on a hand-worked
duplicating machine. When a second press seizure failed to prevent its publica-
tion, Samuel arranged with the post office for issues to be stopped in the mail.^84
It was a relief to Emmeline when, on 6 January 1916, she sailed from
Liverpool on the St Paulto New York, to begin a seven-month lecture tour in
America and Canada, principally to raise funds for Serbia. This small country,
which stood in the way of Germany’s push to the East, was fighting back
bravely, despite the shortage of munitions and food. Emmeline was to plead
especially for the plight of its starving and homeless children, women and
elderly folk. On the free days she was not so occupied, she planned to give
lectures on social hygiene, the takings from which would be used to help
support her second family. Emmeline was accompanied on her visit by Mr.
Miyatovich, the former Serbian Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and his attaché,
and Joan Wickham, her secretary; Jessie Kenney went in advance to arrange
visits. As in 1913, Emmeline was detained when she arrived in New York, on
Ellis Island, but this time only for three hours. Although she felt indignant
about this treatment, it was soon forgotten as she met – and charmed – the
American press. Emmeline Pankhurst looked ‘as much as ever like a Watteau
shepherdess, with lines of experience in her face and dressed in modern clothes’
commented one reporter while another suggested that she looked ‘younger than
her years’ with a face that was ‘alert, smiling, sanguine’. ‘Mrs. Pankhurst is ideal
grandmother’ ran another headline as it was pointed out that Emmeline, who
had just received from Catherine Pine a photo of the ‘war babies’, doted on
them. For Eleanor Garrison, however, Emmeline looked considerably older,
especially with her china front teeth.^85
In the course of her American tour, Emmeline moved in a variety of settings
as in Brooklyn, where she spoke under the auspices of the Imperial Order of
WAR WORK AND A SECOND FAMILY