Madeleine Pelletier 1913
Violence Sometimes Does More than Gentleness
First Published :: La Suffragiste, January 1913 ;
Source: Madeleine Pelletier, J'ai acheté un pistolet à la jeune fille. (Articles feministes). Edited by Christine Bard;
Translated: for Marxists.org by Mitch Abidor.
In Le Molvement Feministe an English suffragist, Mlle. Ford, after condemning those of her sisters who break windows and destroy fire alarm boxes, etc., etc., notes with disappointment that London’s newspapers are only interested in these acts and are silent about well-behaved crowds at meetings, even when they are large.
When you want to work at promoting humanity, you must take humanity as it is. It’s certain that breaking a window is not an argument, but if public opinion, deaf to arguments, only pays attention to broken windows, what is to be done? Break them, of course.