Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors and misprints have been corrected.
Blank pages present in the printed original have been deleted in the e-text version.
Chapter XVI appears to be missing in the printed original.
In Chapter I, the sentence starting with "Many other women'ssocieties..." has been retained as printed in the original.
THE SUFFRAGETTE
THE HISTORY OF THE WOMEN'SMILITANT SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT1905-1910
BY
E. SYLVIA PANKHURST
"You have made of your Prisons a temple of honour."
W. E. Gladstone
New York
STURGIS & WALTON
COMPANY
1911
All rights reserved
PREFACE BY MRS. PANKHURST
This history of the Women's Suffrage agitationis written at a time when the question is in the veryforefront of British politics. What the immediatefuture holds for those women who are most activelyengaged in fighting for their political freedom noone can foretell, but one thing is certain: completevictory for their cause is not far distant.
When the long struggle for the enfranchisementof women is over, those who read the history of themovement will wonder at the blindness that led theGovernment of the day to obstinately resist so simpleand obvious a measure of justice.
The men and women of the coming time will, Iam persuaded, be filled with admiration for thepatient work of the early pioneers and the heroicdetermination and persistence in spite of coercion,repression, misrepresentation, and insult of thosewho fought the later militant fight.
Perhaps the women born in the happier days thatare to come, while rejoicing in the inheritance thatwe of to-day are preparing for them, may sometimeswish that they could have lived in the heroic daysof stress and struggle and have shared with us thejoy of battle, the exaltation that comes of sacrificeof self for great objects and the prophetic visionthat assures us of the certain triumph of this twentieth-centuryfight for human emancipation.
E. Pankhurst.
4, Clement's Inn, W. C., London.
January, 1911.
PREFACE
In writing this history of the Militant Women'sSuffrage Movement