Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/163

 recounted on previous pages; that the pressure to which Governments are amenable need not be the pressure of physical violence, but may be supplied by the pressure which the defeat of their candidates at by-elections constitutes, and by the withdrawal of active help and money support from the Government's party.

The argument that because men have used violence in the past for the accomplishment of their purpose women should use it in the present is not a good one. Those methods were used by unlettered men, hungry men with starving wives and families, in hot moments of terrible indignation, and what was pardonable in these circumstances is not pardonable in educated women with every facility for education and with the enormous weapon of passive resistance at their command with which to bring men and Governments to reason. The indifference of the general public is unquestioned, but this is an argument for further propaganda and not for stone-throwing. Quite half the public is composed of women, and these women must be converted. The Government cannot be held responsible for the acts of sane people, endowed with free-will, and no end is justified which involves the sacrifice of innocent people against their wills by arbitrary, self-elected judges.