Woman Triumphant: The story of her struggles for freedom, education and political rights.: Dedicated to all noble-minded women by an appreciative member of the other sex.Cronau, Rudolf
History
Woman Triumphant: The story of her struggles for freedom, education and political rights.: Dedicated to all noble-minded women by an appreciative member of the other sex.
Cronau, Rudolf
Women -- History
The next country was =England=, for many years the storm center of the
suffrage movement. While in all other lands had been steps in evolution,
England was the scene of a revolution. Not one with guns, and powder and
bloodshed, but nevertheless with all other evidences of war. As Mrs.
Carrie Chapman Catt, President of the International Woman Suffrage
Alliance, graphically described, “there were brave generals and well
trained armies, and many a well-fought battle; there have been tactics
and strategies, sorties, sieges, and even prisoners of war, many of whom
had to be released as they went on a hunger-strike. But in time, by the
restless activity of the leaders, every class, including women of the
nobility, working girls, housewives and professional women, became
engaged in the campaign, and not a man, woman or child in England was
permitted to plead ignorance concerning the meaning of woman suffrage.
Together, men and women suffragists carried their appeal into the byways
and most hidden corners of the kingdom. They employed more original
methods, enlisted a larger number of women workers, and grasped the
situation in a bolder fashion than had been done elsewhere. In other
countries persuasion had been the chief, if not the only, weapon relied
upon; in England it was persuasion plus political methods.
“First, the world expressed disgust at the alleged unfeminine conduct of
English suffragists. Editorial writers in many lands scourged the
suffrage workers of their respective countries over the shoulders of
these lively English militants. But time passed; comment ceased; and the
world, which had ridiculed, watched the contest in silence, but with
never an eye closed. It assumed the attitude of the referee who realizes
he is watching a cleverly played game, with the chances hanging in the
balance. Then came a laugh. The dispatches flashed the news to the
remotest corners of the globe that English Cabinet Ministers were
“protected” in the street by bodyguards; the houses of Cabinet Ministers
were “protected” by relays of police, and even the great Houses of
Parliament were “protected” by a powerful cordon of police. Protected!
and from what? The embarrassing attack of unarmed women! In other lands
police have protected emperors, czars, kings and presidents from the
assaults of hidden foes, whose aim has been to kill. That there has been
such need is tragic; and when, in contrast, the vision was presented of
the Premier of England hiding behind locked doors, skulking along side
streets, and guarded everywhere by officers, lest an encounter with a
feminine interrogation point should put him to rout, it proved too much
for the ordinary sense of humor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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