Daughters of the Empire (whose motto was ‘One Flag, one Throne, one Empire’),
in Philadelphia, where tea was given in her honour by the Equal Franchise
Society, and at Bryn Mawr College, where she met the young women students
and was the guest of its president, Dr. Carey Thomas.^86 In Canada, where she
arrived on 1 March, speaking to large audiences in places such as Montreal,
Quebec, Ottawa, Hamilton, London, Sarnia, Toronto and Saskatchewan, her
reception was equally enthusiastic. ‘Mrs. Pankhurst gave a magnificent address in
First Methodist Church’ ran a headline for theHamilton Daily Times. She left an
impression that ‘will never perish. Of course, the militant suffragette was always
in evidence, but it was overshadowed by the militant patriot. Her address was full
of fire.’^87 Nevertheless, the militant patriot had not forgotten the women’s
suffrage cause since she often emphasised, as in Saskatchewan, that war service in
Britain was bound up with the citizenship of women.^88
During the course of her tour, as Emmeline pleaded for the starving and
homeless of Serbia, she could raise large donations. ‘[I]t is the women of the
invaded countries who have shown to the world the finest example, of the
power of womanhood’, she told one audience. ‘In Belgium and in Serbia to-day
are women who have suffered unspeakable torture at the hands of the enemy.’^89
Such views were distinctly at odds with those recently expressed by Adela in
her anti-war, anti-British Empire book Put up the swordin which she was
‘scornful’ of accounts of German atrocities, but ready to believe those of the
British, and prepared to forgive German soldiers, not those of the Allies, for any
incidents of killing and rape.^90 Sylvia too was causing her mother sorrow. The
ELFS had recently been renamed the Worker’s Suffrage Federation (WSF) and
was active in organising anti-war protests. The 20,000 strong demonstration in
Trafalgar Square on 8 April 1916, with Sylvia as a key figure on the platform,
was organised in opposition to the British government’s introduction of
conscription, the Munitions Act and DORA. When Emmeline on her tour
heard the news of Sylvia’s stand, she felt ashamed and angry. Immediately she
cabled Christabel, ‘Strongly repudiate and condemn Sylvia’s foolish and unpa-
triotic conduct. Regret & cannot prevent use of name. Make this public.’ The
cable was reprinted in Britanniaand reported elsewhere in the press.^91
Emmeline must have hoped that her second family would give her another
chance to create the home she longed for. ‘I do so long to come home’, she
wrote to Ethel, ‘but how can I till I have earned enough to educate the babes
and keep myself in my old age?’^92 Yet her plan to earn enough money during her
tour, for the support of the children, fell by the wayside. ‘[S]omehow when I
came to it’, she explained to Ethel, ‘I couldn’t go in for personal money-making
in war-time, so I stick to considering the lilies of the field, as usual.’^93 Such a
decision was characteristic of Emmeline whose life was to become increasingly
burdened by financial difficulties. During the militant struggle for the vote,
which had occupied eleven years of her life, she had rarely thought about her
future; death for the cause, she believed, was her ‘inevitable lot’.^94 But now, at
fifty-eight years old, she was forced to think of how to provide for her old age –
WAR WORK AND A SECOND FAMILY