agitator, were delighted to interview her later in the year. If elected to parlia-
ment, Emmeline told one interviewer, ‘reforms concerning women and children
will, of course, be one of my chief concerns’. She would work for equal adult
suffrage for women as well as for legislation to bring ‘absolutely equal rights with
men’ in other walks of life. ‘How absurd to think a youth of twenty-one ...
knows better how to vote than a girl of twenty-one. Why, everybody admits
that a girl of twenty-one is usually years older in common sense than a boy of
the same age.’ Prison reform, for both women and men, would be another task.
‘I was put into solitary confinement because in the exercise yard I spoke to my
daughter. ... My daughter was also penalised because she waited for me to catch
up with her as we marched round the yard. This seems a bit harsh.’ The reporter
noted that although a few years ago Emmeline’s views were considered
‘advanced’, today in any crowd of fashionable women she appeared not to be so
- her hair was not bobbed, her clear complexion had no make-up and her dress,
although by no means dowdy, was hopelessly behind in dress length. ‘The other
day in the drawing-room of her sister’s London home she wore a black frock
which was very smart without being at all extreme. It came a trifle more than
midway to her ankles. Her grey hair, beautifully waved and coiffed, was crowned
with a Spanish comb of conservative design.’
Had it not been for Mrs. Pankhurst and the struggle of women led by her for
greater freedom, the article continued, it was doubtful whether emancipated
dress would have reached its present lengths. ‘Aren’t they ridiculous?’ remarked
Emmeline, referring to the short skirts that younger women now wore.
Emmeline explained that although she did not like short skirts nor heavily
rouged faces, it was not that she was narrow-minded, but old-fashioned enough
to consider that there was a difference between style and good taste. Tactfully
she added that she did not expect young girls, like her nieces Enid and Sybil
Goulden Bach, to dress like her and that ‘while the post-war girl may do and
wear things that shock her grandmother, she is still just as sweet and moral and
fine as the average girl has always been. I believe in women, you know.
Completely.’ The article ended on a high note, praising Emmeline’s integrity of
character and common sense.^11
The British press, on the other hand, greeted the news of Emmeline’s
‘conversion’ in a sour manner. The Evening Standardcommented that the
announcement was hardly surprising since Mrs. Pankhurst had not run the
WSPU democratically, but like an autocracy.^12 When an interviewer for the
Morning Postasked Emmeline why, in view of her previous association with
more ‘advanced’ political causes, she had decided to stand as a Conservative,
she replied that she no longer believed, as she once did, that the state could do
everything. ‘Certainly in my younger days I believed in State Socialism of the
kind advocated by Mr. Sidney Webb’, Emmeline said, but now:
I can no longer support the view that State ownership of the means of
distribution, production, and exchange would be of any benefit to theCONSERVATIVE PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATE