‘was due to many causes, chiefly bad government’.^22 The problem with the
socialism of men, she pointed out, was that it ‘had failed to put theory into
practice’.^23 The separatist Women’s Party, on the other hand, could focus on
the interests of the nation and of women.
Emmeline launched the Women’s Party at the Queen’s Hall on 7 November
in an afternoon meeting, since blackouts and possible air raids made evening
attendance difficult. She said little to the packed audience about the post-war
reform programme but mounted instead a scathing attack on the ‘committee
mania’ that was creating internal chaos in Bolshevik Russia and which was ‘an
object-lesson’ to the democracies of the world. ‘In one works where 30,000 men
are employed there are 800 committee men, who sit all day deciding how the
others are to do their work. Committees manage hospitals; and they decide
whether they shall take the pills ordered.’ When her audience laughed,
Emmeline quickly interjected, ‘This is all literally true, ladies and gentlemen’,
and went on to point out that, even worse, there were committees that
discussed and voted whether men should go into the trenches or not. Again she
called upon the Allies, especially America and Japan, to intervene in Russia.^24
The press largely welcomed the advent of the Women’s Party. ‘We realise
that patriotism is the inspiration of Mrs. Pankhurst’s new organisation’, opined
the right-wingDaily Express. ‘The Labour Party is already angling for the woman
vote, and the Labour Party is still liable to fall under the sway of Mr. Ramsay
MacDonald. Mrs. Pankhurst intends to use woman suffrage to save the country
from MacDonaldism, and for that reason we wish her God-speed.’^25 But for
Sylvia, now a revolutionary socialist who had changed the title of theWomen’s
Dreadnoughtto theWorkers’ Dreadnought, it was all too much.^26 She had told
the delegates at the Women’s Civic and Political Responsibilities conference
that ‘too much importance should not be attached to the Women’s Party, which
was using the name “Women’s” in a way which none of us could accept’.
Similarly, the socialist Susan Lawrence had maintained ‘there was an objection
to a Party really political calling itself a non-party organisation’.^27 The Common
Cause, the official newspaper of the NUWSS, warned that the Women’s Party
‘will of course be an autocracy like the old WSPU’.^28 And it was.
Emmeline summoned all her fathomless reserves of strength and began her
patriotic campaign for the Women’s Party, gathering about her a formidable
team of speakers, including Christabel, Flora Drummond, Annie Kenney,
Phyllis Ayrton, Cynthia Maguire and Elsie Bowerman. Since her health was
prone to relapses, she was grateful for the continued love and support of
Catherine Pine. ‘How lucky I am’, she wrote to Ethel Smyth, ‘to have such a
faithful, devoted and useful friend to take care of me and be happy in doing
it.’^29 Early in the New Year, on 10 January 1918, the House of Lords passed the
women’s suffrage clause by a vote of 134 to 71, a majority of 63. Even Lord
Curzon, President of the League for Opposing Woman Suffrage and Leader of
the House, admitted defeat. In what The Timescalled a remarkable speech, he
delivered an onslaught on the principle of women’s suffrage and then, in the
LEADER OF THE WOMEN’S PARTY