PANKHURST

Pankhurst. The world has been saying that word under its breath and over

its breath. You have been saying it. The papers have been saying it. It

has been on the lips of professors and agitators. It has been made fun

of and been shuddered over. Maybe you have thought it was the name of a

woman. So it was. But it was more than that. It was the name of a

revolution. As the name of a woman it would mean nothing in particular.

As the name of a revolution it becomes prophecy and history. That's why

the people who put the woman in jail found that they couldn't put the

revolution in jail. And if you cant forcibly feed a woman how much less

likely you are to forcibly feed a revolution. That single word of two

syllables. It cuts into prejudice like the blade of a knife. A woman's

name. Say it over to yourself. At first it may sound commonplace. But

keep on. Say it over and over. It will become marching armies. It will

become martial music. It will trumpet you to vast victories. Women don't

need to say woman now. They only need to say Pankhurst. You tell me I am

talking of an arrogant woman only a few feet high who is bent upon

destruction. Yes: I am talking of her. She is the gateway through which

I pass. But I am also talking of the revolution which is so high no

vision can reach its summit. Pankhurst is a dream come true. Pankhurst

is an ideal in action. This law. She's inveterate. She asserts, she

summons, she demands. Yet she's calm. She: the mother incarnate. She's

the maternal made revolution. She's sex. Women don't all recognize her.

They are dubious. But she proceeds and says nothing. She asks no favors

and gives none. She dont apologize. She asks nobody's forgiveness. She

makes no palsying explanations. She goes on and on. Just as gravitation

goes on and on. Just as time goes on and on. My eyes never stop with the

woman. I pass to that by which she is fortified. Listen to what she

says. Do you belittle her message? Return: listen again: weigh her grave

confessions. Every word she says is the word of revolution. Dont you

think you've been warned enough? Get your impudent property out of the

way. That infernal property. It interrupts the vision. But for it we'd

go straight to our end. Pankhurst. I heard her speak the other night. It

was in a hall. Thousands of people were there. She was on the big stage

in the half dark. She spoke to us. The great building disappeared. The

woman who spoke and those who were spoken to disappeared. I was left

alone with an idea. The pure, the undefiled, idea. Revolution. Are you

afraid now? Is the mother in you afraid--or the father? Or is the child

in you afraid? Do you shrink back with horror from this issue? You dare

to acknowledge mothers. But are you afraid of the maternal? You dare to

say woman. But are you afraid to say revolution? Woman is offering no

petition. She is not saying her prayers. She is not humbly beseeching

anybody for anything. Woman is vehemently afoot full armed marching

victoriously across the earth exacting tribute making light of the

phantom obstacles that formerly drove her back into the lambpit. If I

say Pankhurst I say all of you not one of you. The great auditorium

disappeared. I was alone somewhere with an idea. Her phrases are the

least of her. Revolution is the most of her. What she was there before

my eyes making a speech was as nothing compared with what she became to

me in the unseen and the silences. I am awed. The revolution becomes

flesh. The revolution becomes woman. She sailed across the ocean in a

ship. She put her name on the ship's register. Revolution came in

another name. And the registry registered it in another name. Then they

didn't want her to land. Some of them. They didn't know her by her real

name but even as it was they felt that her ominous entrance promised no

good. Revolution waited for revolution. Woman waited for woman. Have you

gone about all these years supposing woman wouldn't finally strike her

blow? She waited till it was time. The woman's day is here. The man's

day, too: for man can have no day without woman nor woman without man.

Many of you still tremble. You'd rather she hadn't come. But it had to

happen. The revolution was due. You harbored it under disguise. She set

it out in the open. You didn't want to acknowledge how big round it was.

She refused to hide the fact from itself. You were the disciples of

revolt. Or the partners. Or the revolutionary faithfuls. But she was

more. She was revolution incarnate. She was the godmade woman sent to

earth to proclaim the future. There you have it. Not a mere woman.

Though a mere woman is no more to be made light of than a mere man or a

mere cosmos. Yet not a mere woman. That, surely: then infinitely more

than that. Revolution. Pankhurst.

Pankhurst. The shadow on the horizon. The black darkness gathering

overhead and around. The threatening forefinger of fate. The menace of

maternity. The uprising of a sex. The comrade woman challenges the wife

woman. It must be resented. We must throw back the waves of the sea.

Here is another revolt against property. These people too put people

first. How monstrous. To put a woman or a man first. To put a mother

first. We must teach mothers their place. And people too: we must teach

them their place. The death of a man or a woman: what is that? But

burning down a house: that is an attack on civilization. These new women

want everything. They treat husbands as if they were no more than men.

They treat property as if it was dirt under their feet. They say nothing

matters but hearts and love. Well: hearts and love are not bad if you

keep them where hearts and love belong. But if you bring hearts and love

into politics or economics then you are invading a forbidden sphere.

We've got to set back the clock. Time's going too fast. A man said: I

dont like it. I asked him: Dont like what? He said: This woman business.

I asked: What woman business? He said: Woman in politics. I asked: Dont

you think they're capable of politics? He exclaimed: My God, yes: too

capable! I asked: Then why do you kick? He said: Because if they go into

politics they'll make this a woman's world and I dont want to live in a

woman's world. That's it. When the woman becomes real they dont want to

live in a woman's world. Just as profit-believing people don't want to

live in a man's world when a real man appears. If this is not a mother's

world whose world is it? The man said: I dont want to live in a woman's

world. Just as profit-believing people dont want from their own side: We

don't want to live in a man's world. Yet if this is not a father's world

whose world is it? You dont want the world the women will make it

possible for real fathers to live in. You don't want the world the men

will make it possible for real mothers to live in. You say: Half a

world's a good enough world for me. You say: A whole world's too big for

me. Then you hear the reply. Then you see the reply. Words reply. Mobs

reply. Conflagration replies. Quarrels, battles, reply. This still water

of man's peace has been ruffled by woman's tempest. Things were going on

so good. Then these sexless rebels had to come. Just as money says to

people in the economic sphere: Things were so serene: then you had to

come. Yes, something always has to come. Every time orthodoxy settles

itself for a long tenure something has to come. Just as clear days are

getting used to themselves stormy days come. We had things arranged just

about right. It wasn't ideal. We acknowledge imperfections. But on the

whole it was about right. Woman was just about where she ought to be.

Labor too was just about where it ought to be. Then something happened.

Something always does happen. Labor got to growling. And now woman's got

to growling. Woman. Haven't we given woman the choicest tidbits of life?

And yet she says no. She says that would be all right if something else

was first all right. That something else is her freedom. Is her claim to

herself. She says that comes first. Why: that's just what labor is

saying. We've got to fight labor. We've got to fight her. It's in fact

one quarrel with two wings. And we'll crush them with one answer. We've

got to or this world'll go to pot straightaway. If it's got so that a

man's got a right to be a man through a woman's right to be a woman. If

it's got so that a woman's got a right to be a woman through a man's

right to be a man. If that's so then I want to know the reason why. This

whole liberty stuff is nonsense. Don't you see how it is? My God! If

this keeps up the first thing you know this'll be a liberty world. Look

at it honest. Dont you see it yourself? Reason it out in your own mind.

Every other consideration will be set aside. Democracy will run homes,

business, states, everything. Horrible. This will be a liberty world.

And I dont want to live in a liberty world. Pankhurst.

Pankhurst. When I hear you say that word I can tell what you think of

yourself. I dont have to ask you for other evidences. Whether you lift

your voice or drop it. That tells the whole story. Whether there is any

mother in your voice. Whether there is any love in it. You're not

dealing here with a person. You're dealing with a race. The person comes

and goes. But the new day; it comes and never goes. Now and then the

world names a new star. All the glasses are lifted towards the revealed

luminary. There's the clamor of those who see it and those who half see

it and those who dont see it at all. You cant know Pankhurst by reading

the personals in the newspapers. You cant get acquainted with her by

taking the stories of her life for what they literally say. She brings

all that woman can bring. Then she brings what was before and what is

after. If you have the great person theory you'll not understand why she

is here and what she has accomplished. But if you have the great race

theory the clouds'll wash out of the skies and you'll see the sun. We

have long said: Man shall hold no property in man. The women come along

now and say: Man shall hold no property in woman. Then I go farther. I

go to the end. I say: Man shall hold no property in property. What are

you listening for? It's a great voice. Women are not primarily voters.

They are women. They are sex. They are mothers. The maternal is speaking

up for itself. Votes for women. That's the mere surface of the stream.

Souls for women. Bodies for women. That's the far cry. Every woman has a

father in her. Every man has a mother in him. That which has been

confined. That shall be released. That which has been refused woman.

That she demands. That which woman has refused herself. That she will

resume. A great flame lit in a vast shadow. That's what it all is. This

little woman overflowing with calm vehemence: what is she? Just the

mother of two daughters? Just the wife of a dead husband? Just a

prisoner in British jails? That's the average of her. But that's not the

most of her. She reaches out over the earth. She ceases to be a person.

She becomes a presence. She who can be measured becomes the

immeasurable. My eyes sweep her inspiring horizons. I follow her lead.

Let her go where her feet and her wings take her. Down anywhere, up

anywhere. Resisted no matter how, welcomed no matter where. Every mile

she travels is sacred to a common trust. Dedicated to a universal

purpose. Are you skulking? Do you worry the years away with quibbles?

Rather that every atom of property should go up in smoke if the people

are left. Rather anything than that the soul should pay the bills of

property. When men are victims you say: We are saved. When dollars are

victims you say: We are ruined. You can brush aside a man or a woman.

But you cant alter the will of the fates. You can turn your back to the

sunshine. But you cant stand in the way of the sun. You can take the

splash of the sea. But you cant stop it from rolling up the shore. You

can lock yourself in your house. But you close the rest of us out. When

the man comes what has the woman got to say? When the woman comes what

has the man got to say? The answer of the man is found in the woman. The

answer of the woman is found in the man. The woman has the floor. She

asks her pertinent impertinent questions. She asks whys and wherefores.

You exhibit your tax receipts in reply. She asks you what you are. You

answer by showing her what you have. You think you shine through what

you own. Far from that. You can only shine through what you dont own.

This little woman has made all your big fortunes look mean. This little

idea has made all your big theories look cheap. Everything else always

does look insignificant when a real man or woman comes round. When you

shook hands with this woman you more than touched the palms of life and

death. When you looked into her eyes you read more than the tablets of

Sinai. When you heard her speak words you listened to more than the

music of waters and winds. When you measured her and weighed her you

tested more than the sizes and shapes of starry universes. The woman

comes. Oh man: what has the woman in you got to say of it? The man

comes. Oh woman: what has the man in you got to say of it? Pankhurst.

I have met men and women and men and women: they are all sizes:

yet they are all one size:

I have never so far met a man or a woman little enough for me to

be arrogant with:

I have never so far met a man or a woman big enough for me to

humble myself to:

Men and women dont seem to me made to be figured upon: they are

made to be immeasurable:

They dont seem to me made to be accepted or rejected: they are

made to be my comrades:

We are all so much alike I dont see how we could be different:

We are all so different I don't see how we could fail to be

alike:

A few horizons added to a man's dream: do they make one man

better than another?

A few inches added to a man's waist: do they make one man

superior to another?

From way up these are such minor matters: the wave drops away in

the sea:

From way up our castes and borderlines are such minor matters:

they lapse away in the soul:

For we are in the end not masters and slaves, not up and down: we

are only brothers and sisters.