proceedings by pointing out that the main reason why the venereal diseases that
afflicted 40,000 people in Toronto and half a million in the Dominion were not
spoken about was due to the false idea that they were invariably the ‘wages of
sin’. Nothing could be further from the truth. The vast majority of surgical
operations performed on women were due to such diseases. After Dr. Fred
Marlow had addressed the audience, emphasising that venereal diseases were
preventable, only if their spread was fought with a sensible strategy, it was
Emmeline’s turn to speak. She lifted the tone, claimed the Toronto Globe, ‘from
that of the purely medical to that of the spiritual’. In a speech reminiscent of
her suffrage days, she emphasised that people’s health was the cause of women
and that women’s viewpoint must be adopted when fighting the evil of venereal
diseases. She drew upon her life experiences as member of a School Board and
as a Registrar of Births and Deaths, emphasising that venereal diseases had
contributed to the high death rates she recorded in congested areas. Although it
might come as ‘a surprise’ to many in the audience, her belief that such things
must not continue had been a key impetus for the militant campaign that she
and her daughter Christabel began. While it would be a big struggle, Emmeline
insisted, to stamp out venereal diseases in crowded Britain, in ‘a young country
like Canada’, with its small population, results could be achieved more quickly,
especially through educational programmes. ‘As a practical woman’, she
concluded, to much applause, ‘and it is the women who are practical; you men
are the romancers – I ask you to send cheques as large as the importance of the
work to the Council under whose auspices I am speaking to-night.’^35
Further successful meetings were soon held in Windsor, Ontario, at
Winnipeg and Brandon in Manitoba, and at Regina, Saskatchewan. Writing to
Dr. Bates from Medicine Hat, Emmeline ventured to make a few suggestions for
improvement. ‘It seems necessary to find some way of interesting the large mass
of people who will not go to “lectures”. In order to do this I suggest that the
meetings might be called “public health demonstrations” or “Mass Meetings to
support a Campaign against Social Disease”.’ Part of the halls should be free
with a charge for reserved seats and collections taken to defray expenses and for
educational work. Educational literature should not be free, but on sale at every
meeting. ‘This I think very important’, Emmeline emphasised. One had also to be
prepared for invitations to speak outside the advertised programme, particularly
by institutions such as churches and clubs.^36
By 21 May, Emmeline and Catherine Pine were back in Victoria and living
with the children at 1610 Hollywood Crescent, in a select, residential area with
magnificent views over the bay. But although she was tired after her exhausting
tour, Emmeline had little time to settle into domesticity; her talks on venereal
diseases had to continue and she was also in demand as a speaker on ‘The ideals
of empire’ and ‘Rights of women’, to the International Order of the Daughters
of the Empire and the Women’s Canadian Club, respectively.^37 In early August,
again under the auspices of the CNCCVD, she began a twelve-day tour of
Vancouver Island, happy in the knowledge that Christabel, Elizabeth and Grace
LECTURER IN NORTH AMERICA