The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-05-23


 has been freely poured upon the mili- tant section of English suffragists is lachingnin in force and applicability be- cause there is behind it no clear com prehension of the real character of the movement fand of the aim and policy of it's leaders Such adjectives as "emotional,'' unbalanced" ''hys- terical' are frequently applied to the women who for. six years have been Csirg militant methods to bring about the enfranchisement of their sex. Such adjectives are certainly inappli- cable to women who form disciplin- ed force, which renders instant obe. dience to the commands of its trust ed leaders. Every move in the mili- tant campaign has been planned be- forehand. Volunteers are called for, when danger duty. is required, and on every occasion on which the women have gone to jail after a raid it has been determined beforehand in the councils of the party who shaN be the victims and by what means they shall bring themselves within the clutch es of the law. ,
 On the 17th of June, 1911-the day of the magnificent Women's Corona tion procession in, London-a truce was declared by the Women's Social and Political Union. on the faith of MT. Asquith's pledge that ample time during the next session of Parliament should be allowed for all stages of the conciliation bill, a bill which would have conferred votes upon about one-twelfth of the women of England. With the declaration of the truce ey- cry trace of militant action disappear ed. and though there was much cause for irritation before the truce came to an end on November IS, not a single woman in the ranks of the W. s. P. U. gave any occasion for an accusa- $ln~. ,H 1s~A oAI~ <~Rf e; !. ,1o to the truce after Mr. Asquith had announced that the Government would bring in a manhood suffrage bill in the present session of Parliament-an announcement which, in the words of Mir. Lloyd George, "torpedoed the con> cilfation bili." A great deputation of women, composed of representatives from every woman suffrage associa- tion of Great Britainv-peaceful and militant-went to MT. AAsquith on No vember r to ask the inclusion of wo- men in the bill for manhood suffrage. They. were met by the Premier with a rude rebuH. T am the head of the Government MT. Asquith then .a as- serted, "and I am not going to make myself responsible for measure which I do not believe to be demand ed in the interest of the country" Tricked out of the conciliation bill. fand refused place in. the gfeat new reform measure of the Liberal Gov 'ernment, the w. s. F. U.- publicly pro- claimed the truce to be at an end, and on November 21 over two hundred wo- men were arrested and sent to jail for breaking windows-at that time almost entirely of government build ings. The breaking of windows is not usually considered pleasing or lady-like act, and the women who did it are not the kind of women whom one would associate with the acts of mere hooliganism. The women of the w. S. F. U. in prison for the most recent rain-that of March l. include the octogenarian widow of General Brackenbury and her two daughters: Mrs. Saul Solomon, wid- ow of the South African statesman who was of so great assistance to Lord Milner in bringing the Boer war to an end; pr. Ethel Smyth, one of the foremost English musical compo- sers and daughter of General T. H. Smyth c. B.; Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, Dr. l.. Garrett Anderson. and Mrs. Guerney and Mrs. Tuke, both of prom inent Quaker banking families we'll ic workers.
 It is not for nothing that women of this standing rise in revolt and take to actual fighting, accepting the cer- tainty of grievous casualties in their struggle against overwhelming odds. D6 swept aside as hysterical Maenads, two questions should be asked and answered.: First, is the cause for which they are rishing life and lib- erty worth fighting for; and second, is their plan of campaign likely to lead to victory?
 The first question answers itself to every liberty-loving son of the Anglo Saxon race. To assert that liberty and self-government are not worth fighting for would be to stultify the whole history of England and Amer ica. Is there a son or daughter of the Revolution in this country who would dare to condemn the action of the American cOlonists in opposing the tyranny of King George III and his ministers; or can one find an Eng lishman who condemns the struggles by which the English nation put a limit to the power of it's kings, and won the right to make and admins ter it's own laws? What men won long ago-not without bloodshed and much destruction of property-women are now demanding; and cause. which has always been considered sa- cred, cannot now be judged ignoble or of no account.
 1t is the second question to which Americans find it difficult to return an. answer favorable to the women. How can breaking windows and go- ing to Jail be effective in bringing about the enfranchisement of women It may be remembered that the re- volt of the American colonists be- gan with an act of wanton destruction of private property. The Boston tea party has always been considered in the light of a warning to the English Government that the colonists would not submit to taxation without rep resentation, and had the King and his ministers been wise enough to heed the warning, much bloodshed and misery might have been avoided. The whole course of English history is series of similar warnings from people, who were shut out from a share in the government, that their patience had reached the breaking point. and that it behooved the Gov ernment to hearken to their demands. Never have the English governing classes parted with any of their pow CT or their privileges so long as they could count on patient endurance by the people under their rule. The speech of the Right Hon. c. B. Hob house-himself a member of the terri torial aristocracy-at Bristol in Feb ruary, which has been seized upon by the English press as an indictment of the women to violence, did but allude to two well-known episodes in the long fight for votes for men. "In the case of the suffrage demands said MT Hobhouse, in an effort to prove that women did not really want to vote, e'there had not been the kind of popular sentimental uprising which accounted for Nottingham Castle in 1882, or Hyde Park railings in 1867" uA~-.1a& &ataazattinxham. during which