CHAPTER V

When I entered Old Bailey on that memorable Wednesday, April 2nd, 1913,

to be tried for inciting to commit a felony, the court was packed with

women. A great crowd of women who could not obtain the necessary tickets

remained in the streets below for hours waiting news of the trial. A

large number of detectives from Scotland Yard, and a still larger number

of uniformed police were on duty both inside and outside the court. I

could not imagine why it was considered necessary to have such a

regiment of police on hand, for I had not, at that time, realised the

state of terror into which the militant movement, in its new

development, had thrown the authorities.

Mr. Bodkin and Mr. Travers Humphreys appeared to prosecute on behalf of

the Crown, and I conducted my own case, in consultation with my

solicitor, Mr. Marshall. The Judge, Mr. Justice Lush, having taken his

seat I entered the dock and listened to the reading of the indictment. I

pled "not guilty," not because I wished to evade responsibility for the

explosion,--I had already assumed that responsibility--but because the

indictment accused me of having wickedly and maliciously incited women

to crime. What I had done was not wicked of purpose, but quite the

opposite of wicked. I could not therefore truthfully plead guilty. The

trial having opened the Judge courteously asked me if I would like to

sit down. I thanked him, and asked if I might also have a small table on

which to place my papers. By orders of the Judge a table was brought me.

Mr. Bodkin opened the case by explaining the "Malicious Damages to

Property Act" of 1861, under which I was charged, and after describing

the explosion which had damaged the Lloyd-George house at Walton, said

that I was accused of being in the affair an accessory before the fact.

It was not suggested, he said, that I was present when the crime was

committed, but it was charged that I had moved and incited, counselled

and procured women whose names were unknown to carry out that crime. It

would be for the jury to decide, after the evidence had been presented,

whether the facts did not point most clearly to the conclusion that

women, probably two in number, who committed the crime were members of

the Women's Social and Political Union, which had its office in Kingsway

in London, and of which the defendant was the head, moving spirit and

recognised leader.

The blowing up of Mr. Lloyd-George's house was then described in detail.

That the damage was intended as an act against Mr. Lloyd-George was

clear, Mr. Bodkin said, from the malicious statements made against him

by the prisoner. He produced a private letter written by me to a friend

in which I had defended militancy, and said that not only had it become

a duty but in the circumstances it had also become a political

necessity. Said Mr. Bodkin:

"A letter of that kind proves very clearly several things. It shows

that she is the leader. It shows her influence over the emotional

members of this organisation. It shows that according to her, militancy

can be withheld for a time and let loose upon society at another time.

And it further shows that any person or any woman who wants to indulge

in militancy, which is only a picturesque expression for committing

crimes against society, has to communicate with her, and with her alone,

by word of mouth or by letter. That is the Proclamation which went out

to the members of this organisation. The plain language of that letter

is, 'If we don't get what we want, the Government and their members will

be responsible, and the Government and the public will be bullied into

giving us what we want.'"

Many extracts from my speeches made in January and February were read,

and the final speech made just before my arrest at Chelsea. But before

they were read I said:

"I wish to lodge an objection now to the police reports of my speeches.

They have been supplied to me, and the only report I accept is that of

the journalist of Cardiff who is one of the witnesses. He has furnished

a fairly accurate report of what I said in that town. The police reports

I do not accept. They are grossly inaccurate and ignorant and

ungrammatical, and they convey an absolutely wrong impression of what I

said in many respects."

Witnesses were then examined; the carter who heard and reported the

explosion; the foreman in charge of the damaged house, who told the

cost of the damages, and described the explosives, etc., found on the

premises; several police officers who told of finding hairpins and a

woman's rubber golosh in the house, and so on. Absolutely nothing was

brought out that tended to show that the Suffragettes had anything to do

with the affair. The Judge noted this for he said to Mr. Bodkin:

"I am not quite sure how you present this case. There are two ways of

looking at it. Do you only ask the jury to say that the defendant

specifically counselled the perpetration of this crime, or do you also

say that, looking at her speeches that you read--assuming you prove that

they were uttered--that the language used being a general incitement to

damage property, any one who acted on this invitation and perpetrated

this outrage would be incited by her to do it?"

Mr. Bodkin replied that the latter assumption was correct.

"I say that the speeches generally are incitement to all kinds of acts

of violence against property, and that they present evidence of attacks

against property and a particular individual, and that there is evidence

in the speeches which have been read, and which will be proved, of

admissions by Mrs. Pankhurst of having been connected with the

particular outrage in a way which makes her in law an accessory before

the fact."

"But you do not confine the case to the latter way of putting it?"

"No," replied Mr. Bodkin.

"Even if the jury are satisfied," said the Judge, "that Mrs. Pankhurst

was not directly connected with this outrage by counselling it, you

still ask the jury to say that by counselling, as you say she had in the

speeches, the destruction of property, especially that belonging to a

particular gentleman, anybody who acted on that and committed this

outrage would have been incited by her to do it?"

"Yes, my lord."

"I think, Mrs. Pankhurst, you now understand the way it is put?" asked

the Judge.

"I understand it quite well, my lord," I replied.

Proceedings were resumed on the following day, and the examination of

witnesses for the prosecution went on. At the close of the examination,

the Judge inquired whether I desired to call any witnesses. I replied:

"I do not desire to give evidence or to call any witnesses, but I desire

to address your Lordship."

I began by objecting to some of the things Mr. Bodkin had said in his

speech which concerned me personally. He had referred to me--or at least

his words conveyed the suggestion--that I was a woman riding about in my

motor car inciting other women to do acts which entail imprisonment and

great suffering, while I, perhaps indulging in some curious form of

pleasure, was protected, or thought myself protected, from serious

consequences. I said that Mr. Bodkin knew perfectly well that I shared

all the dangers the other women faced, that I had been in prison three

times, serving two of the sentences in full, and being treated like an

ordinary felon--searched, put in prison clothes, eating prison fare,

given solitary confinement and conforming to all the abominable rules

imposed upon women who commit crimes in England. I thought I owed it to

myself, especially as the same suggestions--in regard to the luxury in

which I lived, supported by the members of the W. S. P. U.--had been

made, not only by Mr. Bodkin in court, but by members of the Government

in the House of Commons--I thought I owed it to myself to say that I

owned no motor car and never had owned one. The car in which I

occasionally rode was owned by the organisation and was used for general

propaganda work. In that car, and in cars owned by friends I had gone

about my work as a speaker in the Woman Suffrage movement. It was

equally untrue, I said, that some of us were making incomes of L1,000 to

L1,500 a year out of the suffrage movement, as had actually been alleged

in the debates in the House in which members of Parliament were trying

to decide how to crush militancy. No woman in our organisation was

making any such income, or anything remotely like it. Myself, I had

sacrificed a considerable portion of my income because I had to

surrender a very important part of it in order to be free to do what I

thought was my duty in the movement.

Addressing myself to my defence I told the Court that it was a very

serious condition of things when a large number of respectable and

naturally law abiding people, people of upright lives, came to hold the

law in contempt, came seriously to making up their minds that they were

justified in breaking the law.

"The whole of good government," I said, "rests upon acceptance of the

law, upon respect of the law, and I say to you seriously, my lord, and

gentlemen of the jury, that women of intelligence, women of training,

women of upright life, have for many years ceased to respect the laws of

this country. It is an absolute fact, and when you look at the laws of

this country as they effect women it is not to be wondered at."

At some length I went over these laws, laws that made it possible for

the Judge to send me, if found guilty, to prison for fourteen years,

while the maximum penalty for offences of the most revolting kind

against little girls was only two years' imprisonment. The laws of

inheritance, the laws of divorce, the laws of guardianship of

children--all so scandalously unjust to women, I sketched briefly, and I

said that not only these laws and others, but the administration of the

laws fell so far short of adequacy that women felt that they must be

permitted to share the work of cleaning up the entire situation. I tried

here to tell of certain dreadful things that I had learned as the wife

of a barrister, things about some of the men in high places who are

entrusted with the administration of the law, of a judge of Assizes

where many hideous crimes against women were tried, this judge himself

being found dead one morning in a brothel, but the Court would not allow

me to go into personalities, as he called it, with regard to

"distinguished people," and told me that the sole question before the

jury was whether or not I was guilty as charged. I must speak on that

subject and on no other.

After a hard fight to be allowed to tell the jury the reasons why women

had lost respect for the law, and were making such a struggle in order

to become law makers themselves, I closed my speech by saying:

"Over one thousand women have gone to prison in the course of this

agitation, have suffered their imprisonment, have come out of prison

injured in health, weakened in body, but not in spirit. I come to stand

my trial from the bedside of one of my daughters, who has come out of

Holloway Prison, sent there for two months' hard labour for

participating with four other people in breaking a small pane of glass.

She has hunger-struck in prison. She submitted herself for more than

five weeks to the horrible ordeal of feeding by force, and she has come

out of prison having lost nearly two stone in weight. She is so weak

that she cannot get out of her bed. And I say to you, gentlemen, that is

the kind of punishment you are inflicting upon me or any other woman who

may be brought before you. I ask you if you are prepared to send an

incalculable number of women to prison--I speak to you as representing

others in the same position--if you are prepared to go on doing that

kind of thing indefinitely, because that is what is going to happen.

There is absolutely no doubt about it. I think you have seen enough even

in this present case to convince you that we are not women who are

notoriety hunters. We could get that, heaven knows, much more cheaply if

we sought it. We are women, rightly or wrongly, convinced that this is

the only way in which we can win power to alter what for us are

intolerable conditions, absolutely intolerable conditions. A London

clergyman only the other day said that 60 per cent. of the married women

in his parish were breadwinners, supporting their husbands as well as

their children. When you think of the wages women earn, when you think

of what this means to the future of the children of this country, I ask

you to take this question very, very seriously. Only this morning I have

had information brought to me which could be supported by sworn

affidavits, that there is in this country, in this very city of London

of ours, a regulated traffic, not only in women of full age, but in

little children; that they are being purchased, that they are being

entrapped, and that they are being trained to minister to the vicious

pleasures of persons who ought to know better in their positions of

life.

"Well, these are the things that have made us women determined to go on,

determined to face everything, determined to see this thing out to the

end, let it cost us what it may. And if you convict me, gentlemen, if

you find me guilty, I tell you quite honestly and quite frankly, that

whether the sentence is a long sentence, whether the sentence is a short

sentence, I shall not submit to it. I shall, the moment I leave this

court, if I am sent to prison, whether to penal servitude or to the

lighter form of imprisonment--because I am not sufficiently versed in

the law to know what his lordship may decide; but whatever my sentence

is, from the moment I leave this court I shall quite deliberately refuse

to eat food--I shall join the women who are already in Holloway on the

hunger strike. I shall come out of prison, dead or alive, at the

earliest possible moment; and once out again, as soon as I am physically

fit I shall enter into this fight again. Life is very dear to all of us.

I am not seeking, as was said by the Home Secretary, to commit suicide.

I do not want to commit suicide. I want to see the women of this country

enfranchised, and I want to live until that is done. Those are the

feelings by which we are animated. We offer ourselves as sacrifices,

just as your forefathers did in the past, in this cause, and I would ask

you all to put this question to yourselves:--Have you the right, as

human beings, to condemn another human being to death--because that is

what it amounts to? Can you throw the first stone? Have you the right to

judge women?

"You have not the right in human justice, not the right by the

constitution of this country, if rightly interpreted, to judge me,

because you are not my peers. You know, every one of you, that I should

not be standing here, that I should not break one single law--if I had

the rights that you possess, if I had a share in electing those who make

the laws I have to obey; if I had a voice in controlling the taxes I am

called upon to pay, I should not be standing here. And I say to you it

is a very serious state of things. I say to you, my lord, it is a very

serious situation, that women of upright life, women who have devoted

the best of their years to the public weal, that women who are engaged

in trying to undo some of the terrible mistakes that men in their

government of the country have made, because after all, in the last

resort, men are responsible for the present state of affairs--I put it

to you that it is a very serious situation. You are not accustomed to

deal with people like me in the ordinary discharge of your duties; but

you are called upon to deal with people who break the law from selfish

motives. I break the law from no selfish motive. I have no personal end

to serve, neither have any of the other women who have gone through this

court during the past few weeks, like sheep to the slaughter. Not one of

these women would, if women were free, be law-breakers. They are women

who seriously believe that this hard path that they are treading is the

only path to their enfranchisement. They seriously believe that the

welfare of humanity demands this sacrifice; they believe that the

horrible evils which are ravaging our civilisation will never be removed

until women get the vote. They know that the very fount of life is being

poisoned; they know that homes are being destroyed; that because of bad

education, because of the unequal standard of morals, even the mothers

and children are destroyed by one of the vilest and most horrible

diseases that ravage humanity.

"There is only one way to put a stop to this agitation; there is only

one way to break down this agitation. It is not by deporting us, it is

not by locking us up in gaol; it is by doing us justice. And so I appeal

to you gentlemen, in this case of mine, to give a verdict, not only on

my case, but upon the whole of this agitation. I ask you to find me not

guilty of malicious incitement to a breach of the law.

"These are my last words. My incitement is not malicious. If I had

power to deal with these things, I would be in absolute obedience to the

law. I would say to women, 'You have a constitutional means of getting

redress for your grievances; use your votes, convince your fellow-voters

of the righteousness of your demands. That is the way to obtain

justice.' I am not guilty of malicious incitement, and I appeal to you,

for the welfare of the country, for the welfare of the race, to return a

verdict of not guilty in this case that you are called upon to try."

After recapitulating the charge the Judge, in summing up, said:

"It is scarcely necessary for me to tell you that the topics urged by

the defendant in her address to you with regard to provocation by the

laws of the country and the injustice done to women because they are not

given the vote as men are, have no bearing upon the question you have to

decide.

"The motive at the back of her mind, or at the back of the minds of

those who actually did put the gunpowder there, would afford no defence

to this indictment. I am quite sure you will deal with this case upon

the evidence, and the evidence alone, without regard to any question as

to whether you think the law is just or unjust. It has nothing to do

with the case. I should think you will probably have no doubt that this

defendant, if she did these things charged against her, is not actuated

by the ordinary selfish motive that leads most of the criminals who are

in this dock to commit the crimes that they do commit. She is none the

less guilty if she did these things which are charged against her,

although she believes that by means of this kind the condition of

society will be altered."

The jury retired, and soon after the afternoon session of the court

opened they filed in, and in reply to the usual question asked by the

clerk of arraigns, said that they had agreed upon a verdict. Said the

clerk:

"Do you find Mrs. Pankhurst guilty or not guilty?"

"Guilty," said the foreman, "with a strong recommendation to mercy."

I spoke once more to the Judge.

"The jury have found me guilty, with a strong recommendation to mercy,

and I do not see, since motive is not taken into account in human laws,

that they could do otherwise after your summing up. But since motive is

not taken into account in human laws, and since I, whose motives are not

ordinary motives, am about to be sentenced by you to the punishment

which is accorded to people whose motives are selfish motives, I have

only this to say: If it was impossible for a different verdict to be

found; if it is your duty to sentence me, as it will be presently, then

I want to say to you, as a private citizen, and to the jury as private

citizens, that I, standing here, found guilty by the laws of my country,

I say to you it is your duty, as private citizens, to do what you can to

put an end to this intolerable state of affairs. I put that duty upon

you. And I want to say, _whatever the sentence you pass upon me, I shall

do what is humanly possible to terminate that sentence at the earliest

possible moment. I have no sense of guilt. I feel I have done my duty. I

look upon myself as a prisoner of war. I am under no moral obligation

to conform to, or in any way accept, the sentence imposed upon me._ I

shall take the desperate remedy that other women have taken. It is

obvious to you that the struggle will be an unequal one, but I shall

make it--I shall make it as long as I have an ounce of strength left in

me, or any life left in me.

"I shall fight, I shall fight, I shall fight, from the moment I enter

prison to struggle against overwhelming odds; I shall resist the doctors

if they attempt to feed me. I was sentenced last May in this court to

nine months' imprisonment. I remained in prison six weeks. There are

people who have laughed at the ordeal of hunger-striking and forcible

feeding. All I can say is, and the doctors can bear me out, that I was

released because, had I remained there much longer, I should have been a

dead woman.

"I know what it is because I have gone through it. My own daughter[4]

has only just left it. There are women there still facing that ordeal,

facing it twice a day. Think of it, my lord, twice a day this fight is

gone through. Twice a day a weak woman resisting overwhelming force,

fights and fights as long as she has strength left; fights against women

and even against men, resisting with her tongue, with her teeth, this

ordeal. Last night in the House of Commons some alternative was

discussed, or rather, some additional punishment. Is it not a strange

thing, my lord, that laws which have sufficed to restrain men

throughout the history of this country do not suffice now to restrain

women--decent women, honourable women?

"Well, my lord, I do want you to realise it. I am not whining about my

punishment, I invited it. I deliberately broke the law, not hysterically

or emotionally, but of set serious purpose, because I honestly feel it

is the only way. Now, I put the responsibility of what is to follow upon

you, my lord, as a private citizen, and upon the gentlemen of the jury,

as private citizens, and upon all the men in this court--what are you,

with your political powers, going to do to end this intolerable

situation?

"_To the women I have represented, to the women who, in response to my

incitement, have faced these terrible consequences, have broken laws, to

them, I want to say I am not going to fail them, but to face it as they

face it, to go through with it, and I know that they will go on with the

fight whether I live or whether I die._

"_This movement will go on and on until we have the rights of citizens

in this country, as women have in our Colonies, as they will have

throughout the civilised world before this woman's war is ended._

"That is all I have to say."

Mr. Justice Lush, in passing sentence, said: "It is my duty, Mrs.

Emmeline Pankhurst, and a very painful duty it is, to pass what, in my

opinion, is a suitable and adequate sentence for the crime of which you

have been most properly convicted, having regard to the strong

recommendation to mercy by the jury. I quite recognise, as I have

already said, that the motives that have actuated you in committing

this crime are not the selfish motives that actuate most of the persons

who stand in your position, but although you blind your eyes to it, I

cannot help pointing out to you that the crime of which you have been

convicted is not only a very serious one, but, in spite of your motives,

it is, in fact, a wicked one. It is wicked because it not only leads to

the destruction of property of persons who have done you no wrong, but

in spite of your calculations, it may expose other people to the danger

of being maimed or even killed. It is wicked because you are, and have

been, luring other people--young women, it may be--to engage in such

crimes, possibly to their own ruin; and it is wicked, because you cannot

help being alive to it if you would only think.

"You are setting an example to other persons who may have other

grievances that they legitimately want to have put right by embarking on

a similar scheme to yours, and trying to effect their object by

attacking the property, if not the lives, of other people. I know,

unfortunately--at least, I feel sure--you will pay no heed to what I

say. I only beg of you to think of these things."

"I have thought of them," I interjected.

"Think, if only for one short hour, dispassionately," continued the

majesty of law, "I can only say that, although the sentence I am going

to pass must be a severe one, must be adequate to the crime of which you

have been found guilty, if you would only realise the wrong you are

doing, and the mistake you are making, and would see the error you have

committed, and undertake to amend matters by using your influence in a

right direction, I would be the first to use all my best endeavours to

bring about a mitigation of the sentence I am about to pass.

"I cannot, and I will not, regard your crime as a merely trivial one. It

is not. It is a most serious one, and, whatever you may think, it is a

wicked one. I have paid regard to the recommendation of the jury. You

yourself have stated the maximum sentence which this particular offence

is by the legislature thought to deserve. The least sentence I can pass

upon you is a sentence of three years' penal servitude."

As soon as the sentence was pronounced the intense silence which had

reigned throughout the trial was broken, and an absolute pandemonium

broke out among the spectators. At first it was merely a confused and

angry murmur of "Shame!" "Shame!" The murmurs quickly swelled into loud

and indignant cries, and then from gallery and court there arose a great

chorus uttered with the utmost intensity and passion. "Shame!" "Shame!"

The women sprang to their feet, in many instances stood on their seats,

shouting "Shame!" "Shame!" as I was conducted out of the dock in charge

of two wardresses. "Keep the flag flying!" shouted a woman's voice, and

the response came in a chorus: "We will!" "Bravo!" "Three cheers for

Mrs. Pankhurst!" That was the last I heard of the courtroom protest.

Afterwards I heard that the noise and confusion was kept up for several

minutes longer, the Judge and the police being quite powerless to

obtain order. Then the women filed out singing the Women's

Marseillaise--

"March on, march on,

Face to the dawn,

The dawn of liberty."

The Judge flung after their retreating forms the dire threat of prison

for any woman who dared repeat such a scene. Threat of prison--to

Suffragettes! The women's song only swelled the louder and the corridors

of Old Bailey reverberated with their shouts. Certainly that venerable

building had never in its checkered history witnessed such a scene. The

great crowd of detectives and police who were on duty seemed actually

paralysed by the audacity of the protest, for they made no attempt to

intervene.

At three o'clock, when I left the court by a side entrance in Newgate

Street, I found a crowd of women waiting to cheer me. With the two

wardresses I entered a four wheeler and was driven to Holloway to begin

my hunger strike. Scores of women followed in taxicabs, and when I

arrived at the prison gates there was another protest of cheers for the

cause and boos for the law. In the midst of all this intense excitement

I passed through the grim gates into the twilight of prison, now become

a battle-ground.

FOOTNOTE:

[4] Sylvia Pankhurst, who was forcibly fed for five weeks, during an

original sentence of two months imposed for breaking one window.