Leaflet produced by the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) called ‘An open letter to one who condemns violence’, May 1913 (Catalogue ref: CRIM 1/140/1)
Transcript
Exhibit 5
Obtained by P.S.Mole from the Offices of the W.S.P.U.
Lincoln’s Inn House, Kingsway, W.C. 14th April, 1913.
No.67.
Telegrams: “Wospolu, London” Telephone: No. 2724 Holborn (3 lines).
THE WOMEN’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UNION.
OFFICES – – – – 4,CLEMENTS INN, W.C.
“We demand the Vote on the same terms as it is or may be granted to men.”
Founder and Hon. Secretary – Mrs Pankhurst Hon. Treasurer – Mrs. Pethick Lawrence
Joint Hon. Secretary – Mrs Tuke. Organising Secretary – Miss Christabel Pankhurst, LL.B.
Bankers – Messrs. Barclay & Co., Fleet Street. Newspaper – “Votes for Women.”
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An Open Letter to One Who Condemns Violence.
Dear Madam, — You “deplore and condemn methods of personal violence when used against persons in prominent positions,” and I must confess that, coming from a Liberal woman, the qualification implied in those last words sounds somewhat discordantly in my ears. It is, of course, true that sanction has been lent to it by the action of the present Government, which has shrunk from applying to the daughter of a peer those methods of torture which it has not scrupled to use against a working man’s wife. But you, though supporting this Government in their general policy, claim, I understand, to be a devotee of true Liberal principles, and I cannot but hope that those words, importing distinctions of class, escaped from you by a mere slip of the pen, and that you have not in your heart harboured a thought so treasonable to the principles you profess. Indeed, reading your letter as a whole, I gather that your real meaning is that you deplore personal violence altogether, against whomsoever it may be directed, and even when used by way of resistance to political oppression or to secure political freedom. You, in fact, go further, and say that in this condemnation of violence you have the support “of all right-thinking people.”
But if you consider it you will see that in this proposition you exclude from the category of “right-thinking people” almost every reformer of ancient and modern times. You exclude, for instance, to go back only one generation, John Bright and the great Gladstone; you exclude Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. John Burns, and indeed almost every member of the present Cabinet, of which you so warmly approve – for who is there amongst these who has not either actually instigated or at least deliberately defended and justified personal violence used in the cause of political freedom, even though that violence has been far more extreme than any that the women Suffragists have yet employed or contemplated?
Indeed, I think that before uttering such a condemnation of violence you can hardly have fully considered what it would mean. You can hardly, for instance, have put to yourself such questions as these:-
Do you condemn the personal violence by which the barons wrung the Magna Carta from the reluctant John?
Do you condemn the personal violence by which Cromwell and his Ironsides overthrew the tyranny of Charles the First?
Do you condemn the personal violence by which the great Reform Acts of 1832 and 1867 were secured?
You condemn, of course, the later excesses of the French Revolution committed after the cause was already won, but do you condemn the initial violence without which the people’s victory would never have been attained at all?
Do you condemn the personal violence used by the Northern States of America against the Southern to bring about the abolition of slavery?
Do you condemn the personal violence by which so recently the Young Turks have won constitutional liberty for their country?
And lastly, speaking with all reverence, I must cite a higher example still, and must ask you this question: Do you condemn the words and actions of Christ Himself, His words in the parable of the vineyard, or when He declared that He came not to bring peace upon earth but a sword; His actions when He scoured the money-changers with a whip of cords, and by personal violence drove them forth from the Temple they were desecrating?
And if you condemn all these acts of violence, are you prepared to face the logical consequences? Would you, in order that deeds of violence might be expunged from your country’s annals – would you, on that consideration, be content to live in an England such as she would be without these great reforms; in an England as she was before 1867 and before 1832, before the Commonwealth, before even Magna Charta? [sic] Would you willingly see the people of France sunk again in their pre-revolutionary subjection and misery, or have Turkey groaning once more under the bloodstained tyranny of Abdul Hamid?
I think not. I think that you, with your Liberal principles, must applaud the violence – the necessary, and therefore justifiable, violence – by which those beneficial changes have been brought about. And I venture to think that if you analyse more closely your feelings – if you consider why you applaud those great examples of violence, and yet condemn the violence now at length so reluctantly used by women – you will find that there is a very simple solution of the matter.
Is it not the fact that you, in common with so many others, look askance upon force which has not yet been successful, upon force where the issue is, or seems to you to be, still in doubt – that you, in short, condemn force militant, and applaud only force triumphant? And are you quite sure that when this fight is won your voice will not join in the chorus of acclamation that will hail the victors? But would it not be a happier and prouder moment for you – when you claim, as you will claim, your share in the spoils of victory – if you could say, “I, too, while the battle was raging – if I could not stand shoulder to shoulder with my sisters in the thickest of the fight – at least encouraged and supported them, and did not hold aloof”?
Yours very faithfully,
G. Penn Gaskell.
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