Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 137, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1914 — MILITANT "HEM OF TERROR" [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MILITANT "HEM OF TERROR"

SHE5 HE “Reign of Terror” of the militant auffragettes of Great Britain has now been In progress for slightly more than one year. The record of its first twelve months shows that Mrs. Johns chose the name well. On the night of April 3, 1913, this woman, one of the most aggressive of the leaders, speaking in Glasgow, borrowed from the French Revolution that appellation with which to 7 christen the new frenzy of militancy, come to life that day. She added that the militancy of the past would be “the merest pin pricks compared to what will happen at once all over the country.” On the same day, In London, officers of the Women's' Social and Political union turned to the Boer war for a phrase, and declared that what was to be done “would stagger humanity.” Tet another leader announced that “human life, we resolved, will be respected no longer.” Throughout the army of the militants, in short, there flamed fresh fury on ttmt day. / . The reason was that Mrs. Pankhurst was then sentenced to penal servitude for three years for inciting the destruction of the country house of Chancellor of the Exchequer Lloyd George. The suffragettes rioted In Old Bailey after Justice Sir Charles Lush pronounced sentence, and then went from the court to begin their reign of terror. The initial act of the militants was the defacing that afternoon in the Manchester art gallery of five paintings by Leighton and other famous artists. The initial act of the authorities, in preparation for the reign, was the issuance of a general warning by Scotland Yard to owners and tenants of property, and the taking of unusual precautions by the police throughout the United Kingdom. Sinoe then, according to the published records, not a day, and for days in sequence scarcely an hour, has passed without militant damage being done to person or td property, or without danger or fear or inconvenience being, caused to some ,of the public. The activities of the militants have ranged from throwing pepper on Premier Asquith and a dead cat at Augustine Birrell, chief secretary for Ireland, to burning the Midland railway sheds at Bradford with a loss of $500,000, and attempting to blow up part of the Bank of England. They have endangered hundreds of lives; they have done direct property damage and caused Indirect losses to the extent of millions of dollars. N The militants in their campaigns have used fire, bombs, mines, hatchets, hammers, revolvers, pokers, knives, bludgeons, stones; tar, paint, riding switches, horse whips, dog whips, umbrellas, foul smelling chemicals, corrosive chemicals, barbed wire entanglements for police, besides using as weapons their fists, nails, teeth and feet. S The militants have burned wholly or partly, country mansions in charge of servants, who escaped only by ■being awakened by the flames; castles, including Balll■kinrain, Alberuchile and Lisburn; unoccupied country houses, some owned by peers and members of parliament; railway stations, railway sheds, railway cars, •churches, factories, timber yards, hayricks, exhibition hulldings! conservatories, race track grandstands, cricket grandstands, football grandstands, furniture, organs, tapestries, paintings, boat houses, racing shells, a Carnegie library, town corporation structures, college and school buildings (including a Cambridge laboratory), and an empty hospital. ■ They have attempted to bum the R6yal academy, bafldlngs at Harrow school, aeroplane sheds of the army tying corps, and a historic church. They have plotted, aooordlng to (he Daily Mirror, to burn London by simultaneously firing all the big timber yards and cutting the telephone and telegraph wires surrounding. They have witb bombs destroyed or damaged shops, railway stations, railway cars, churches, country houses, conservatories, the Royal observatory at Edinburgh, the Liverpool cotton exchange and the Trade hall at Manchester. They have destroyed with a bomb an empty oar attached to an express train, endangering passengers In other cars, and they are charged with having tried to wreck an express by obstructing the track. They have placed bombs which failed to work or were found before exploding in streets, shops, tube stations; castles, a public library, a tennis club, a theater. St. Baal's cathedral and the football pavilion at Cambridge. They have sent bombs through the malls, addressed to Reginald McKenna, home secretary, and other prominent men, one of the bombs badly injuring the hand of a mail sorter; they have exploded mines in attempts to blow up Holloway prison, and to breach a canal to cause a flood; they have plotted to blow up houses of members of parliament; they have scattered dummy bombs broadcast, both to advertise their movement and to terrorize. At pne time the London papers declared that “every day brings its bomb.” and instructions on the art of handling unexploded bombs safely were printed dally. They have pummeled Premier Asquith, dog-whipped Lord Weardale, horsewhipped Holloway prison physicians, burled apples In court at Justice Lord Salvesen. thrown hammers at a Judge in, Old Bailey, scattered

flour over Thomas McKinnon Wood, secretary for Scotland, and over John Redmond, and have painted Redmond’s statue green; they have covered the earl of Derby’s statue with tar; they have harassed cabinet ministers at meetings; they have plotted to kidnap Chancellor Lloyd George, Justice Lush (who Mrs. Pankhurst) and the children of Winston Spencer Churchill, first lord of the admiralty; they have threatened Home Secretary Miflffenna with death, and are categorically charged with having tried to th,row over the cliffs into the sea the late Sir Henry Curtis Bennett, a judge who had sentenced many suffragettes. They have rioted Sunday after Sunday In Trafalgar square or Hyde park and have marched, now' shrieking, now singing “The .March of the Women,” to Downing street in -attempts to besiege Premier Asquith's official residence. These riots have meant serious affrays with the police aDd many arrests. They have ruined or injured thousands of letters In hundreds of mail boxes throughout the British isles by the U6e of corrosive fluids; court proceedings showed that in ten weeks in London alone they destroyed or damaged 8,445 mail packets in 565 boxes. They have smashed tens of thousands of windows in cities and towns all over the kingdom, including the windows of police stations. They have slashed famous paintings and smashed curios in museums; they have torn up public flower beds, ruined putting greens on golf courses, wrecked furniture in newspaper offices, caused disturbances in the house of commons, punctured hundreds of automobile tires, fired a huge Crimean war cannon at night and frightened the whole city of Blackburn, ruined library books by cutting the leaves, stamped hotel bedding with “Votes for Women,” thrown chemicals of foul odor at town councilors, wrecked taxicab interiors, interrupted meetings of learned societies and political parties, and daubed white paint over much of the Interior of Birmingham cathedral. They have plotted to damage lighthouses and to attack every theater and music ball in London simultaneously by scattering a pungent powder over the audiences to cause sneezing and skin burning. They have interrupted many services in Westminster abbey, St. Paul's cathedral, York minster. Glasgow cathedral, and other churches by chanting “God Save Mrs. Pankhurst," and before being ejected they have sometimes fought, shrieked and lain on the floor kicking. They have defaced tapestries and paintings during the progress of elaborate receptions in the West end of London, some of them given by peeresses, so that frightened hostesses had to engage numerous detectives «e. guards. They have scattered Buffragette leaflets )upon the king and queen, and have harangued the royal pair in'theaters and on the street; they have attempted to mob the royal carriage; they have caused discord In Buckingham palace. the queen becoming furiously angry with ladies-ln-waltlng who espoused the militant cause, among the resignations coujt entourage being that of Lady Shartesbury; thfey have obtained the private telephone number of the king and have got him on the wire, to hi* exasperation; they have caused cards for court presentations to be changed in form and have made extra precautions on court days necessary. They have hurt the London and the tourist trade and thus inflicted extensive loss of business upon shops and hotels: they have caused large sums to be spent for guards for country estates, historic castles, railroad stations and tunnels, churches, museums, shops, municipal buildings, and Shakespeare memorials; they have caused the regatta at Henley and the golf championships at St. Andrews to be “as If they were in a state of siege.” so the cables said, because of the numerous guards; they have caused wholesale closing of public buildings in London and other places, including Windsor castle, Tower of London (Jewel room), Hampton court palace. British museum, and cathedrals, museum* and art galleries generally; they have forced each cabinet minister to have three detectives as constant guards, and they haze made the police “nerve racked,” again In the words of the cables.