XLIII. THE SECOND KANSAS CAMPAIGN
1894.
The Kansas legislature of 1893 had submitted an amendment conferring full suffrage on women, to be voted on in November, 1894. Mrs. Laura M. Johns, president of the State Suffrage Association, had written Miss Anthony in April, 1893: "Republicans and Populists are pledged to the support of the amendment. I consider both parties equally committed by their platforms this year, and by their votes in the legislature. We ought to have somebody present in each county convention of both, next year, to secure a suffrage resolution which would insure such a plank in each State platform. You see if one party leaves it out the other will take it up and use it against the first."
During all the voluminous correspondence of 1893, in which Mrs. Johns assured Miss Anthony again and again that her assistance in the campaign was absolutely necessary to success, the latter did not once fail to impress upon her that the endorsement of the political parties was the one essential without which they could hope for nothing. She mapped out and sent to Mrs. Johns a complete plan of work, covering many pages of foolscap, arranging for a thorough organization of every precinct in the State, for the specific purpose of bringing to bear a pressure upon the political conventions the next summer which would compel them to put a plank in their platforms endorsing the amendment. She made it perfectly clear that, if the conventions did not do this, she would not go into the State.
When the Kansas women came to the Washington convention in February, 1894, Miss Anthony for the first time had her suspicions aroused that the politicians of that State were getting in some shrewd work to prevent them from pressing the question of planks in the platforms. Mrs. Johns had made the serious mistake of accepting also the presidency of the State Republican Woman's Association, and had been actively organizing clubs and conferring with Republican leaders. She insisted that she was making woman suffrage the primary feature of her work, but Miss Anthony held that her strong Republican affiliations could not avoid weakening her influence with the Populists. She did, it is true, send out circulars urging the local organizations to work for planks in both State conventions; and she did advise the women to keep clear of partisan action, but this advice could hardly be effective coming from the State president of the Republican Woman's Association. Miss Anthony wrote her: "My dear Laura, you must choose whom you will serve--the Republican party or the cause of woman's enfranchisement;" and she replied: "Please don't insult my loyalty with any such suggestion as this; I have never served anything but the suffrage cause since I began the suffrage work;" and continued to look after the welfare of her Republican clubs and arrange Republican meetings.
There is no question that a tremendous pressure was brought to bear upon the suffrage leaders by the Republican politicians. If space would permit the publication of their many letters now on file they would make interesting reading. That of Charles F. Scott, of the Iola Register, urging Mrs. Johns to call off her women and telling her the exact language in which to do it, is a masterpiece of political shrewdness. It concludes: "Try to get E. W. Hoch nominated for governor and we won't need any platform." As a specimen of pure humor might be quoted one from Case Broderick, M. C., in which he says:
I have thought a good deal about this question and have concluded we can recognize the movement by a resolution similar to this: "While the question of the amendment of the constitution, now pending, granting the right of suffrage to women, is wholly non-partisan and should not be made a test of Republicanism, yet we can not view with apprehension the effort to fully confer upon the women of Kansas the elective franchise."
He then closes: "Some will contend that we ought to say one thing or the other ... but such a resolution as this would not drive any from our party." One must admit that it would not scare them to death. Mr. Broderick, however, was an honest believer in woman suffrage and later did attempt to secure some recognition for it in the platform. The Republicans sent an agent of adroit address among the suffrage clubs to explain to them how "an endorsement by the political parties would be really a hindrance to their success," and it was charged that this was done with the consent of some of the leading women.
Miss Anthony wrote to Mrs. Johns at this time: "You know as well as I do that not one of those Republicans thinks party endorsement will damage the suffrage amendment, as they are trying to make the women believe, but every one of them does fear that it will hurt his chances for some position and lose the party the votes of the Germans and the whiskey dealers. The shame for them now is vastly greater than it was twenty-seven years ago, for then they feared to lose the enfranchisement of the negro. Their proposal to leave out the plank now, after they have carried the question thus far, is too wicked to be tolerated by any sane woman![101] I marvel that you do not see and feel the insult and humiliation."
On March 6, 1894, Mrs. Johns wrote: "I find a stampede here on the plank question. Women of both parties are going against it. Judge Johnston of the supreme bench is opposed to it; so is Judge Horton. Do write them for their views; you know they are good friends of ours. I am worried. The Republicans will hold the first convention, and the general talk of candidates, managers and leaders is against a plank. I was yesterday about to go into print in regard to it, but am afraid if I make strenuous efforts and am beaten that it will hurt us more than if I keep quiet. Prominent men are writing and besieging me to relieve the party of the embarrassment of this demand. I am not clear in my own mind what to do."
As the weeks went on it became more and more apparent that the women were yielding to the pressure. The officers of the National-American Association, which had pledged nearly $2,300 to help Kansas, insisted that the women should continue to demand the endorsement of the political parties and let the onus of failure rest upon the men and not upon themselves. It might not be worth while to quote from the official letters sent, the campaign having passed into history, but for the fact that they may serve as a guide to other States in the future.
Carrie Chapman Catt, the national organizer, wrote: "It is very plain that the chief fight is now. We must compel endorsement, and I believe we can do it. How any man in his sane senses could think non-endorsement would give votes and sympathy, I can not conceive; or how the women can have a hope of winning without it, after all the experience of our campaigns." Henry B. Blackwell, editor of the Woman's Journal and an experienced politician, wrote Miss Anthony:
At the request of Mrs. Johns I enclose a letter from Mr. Wagener, of Topeka. He gives the worst possible advice, and Mrs. Johns' letter seems to show that she is surrounded by bad advisers and in doubt as to her course. If there is anything which twenty-seven years' work has taught us, it is that a woman suffrage amendment can not be carried without at least one political party squarely behind it. In Colorado, for the first time, we have had a majority; and Mrs. Catt, and Mrs. Reynolds and Mrs. Stansbury of Denver, all say that the amendment could not have been carried if the Republican, Populist and many of the Democratic district conventions had not first endorsed it in their platforms. It thus became a live issue and the masses of voters became interested and enlightened.
On the other hand, our South Dakota experience is conclusive.... All three parties ignored it, and the press of the State joined in a conspiracy of silence. The campaign speakers were instructed not to name it. We had to rely for the discussions upon the efforts of suffragists as outsiders. Consequently ... we were beaten two to one. The same will surely be true in Kansas in 1894.... If we do not capture the Republican and Populist State conventions we shall be beaten in advance. All hinges on that!
I have just talked with Mrs. Lease, who fully agrees with me. The Republican convention will be the first to meet. If Mrs. Johns will go before the resolution committee and urge her plank, securing at least its presentation as a minority report offered in open session, it will stampede the convention and be carried. Then the Populists will put one in so as not to be behind the Republicans, and then we shall probably win. Do write Mrs. Johns to stand by her guns. No one but her can do this work, because she is personally dear to the Republicans. The fate of the amendment will be then and there decided.
Rev. Anna Shaw, vice-president-at-large, wrote Mrs. Johns in this vigorous language:
I must confess that while I can readily understand the abject cowardice and selfishness which prompt men and political tricksters to urge the abandonment of the plank, I can not understand how you or any other woman with a grain of sense can listen to such proposals for a moment. That endorsement is our only hope. If that fail us, our cause is lost in advance; for it will show the body of the party what the leaders think and feel on the subject, and be a tacit command to kill it. The hypocrisy of the whole business should not receive from women even a show of belief. What wonder men despise us as a shallow lot of simpletons, if we are deceived by so thin a pretense as this? I for one protest against it so strongly that if your committee agree to it and do not push party endorsement, I must decline to fool away my time in Kansas. If you give up that point I must refuse to go a single step or raise a dollar. I am sick of the weakness of women, forever dictated to by men. Experience has taught us what a campaign unendorsed means. Think of submitting our measure to the advice of politicians! I would as soon submit the subject of the equality of a goose to a fox. No; we must have party endorsement or we are dead.
If I am not to go to Kansas, I want to know it immediately. It is too late even now, for I refused twenty consecutive engagements for May in one State, thinking it was all given up to Kansas. The man or woman who urges surrender now is more a political partisan than a lover of freedom. I care nothing for all the political parties in the world except as they stand for justice. I can not tell you how even the suggestion of this surrender affects me. For the love of woman, do not be fooled by those men any longer.
Finally, as the case grew more hopeless, Miss Anthony, as president of the National-American Association, on March 11, sent the following:
To the Kansas Woman Suffrage Amendment Campaign Committee--Laura M. Johns, Bina M. Otis, Sarah A. Thurston, Annie L. Diggs and Others:
MY DEAR FRIENDS: I have the letter of your chairman, Mrs. Johns, together with one she forwards from a lawyer of Topeka, with the added assertion that Judges Horton, Johnston et al., and leading editors and politicians, are begging your committee to cease to demand of the two great political parties, the Republican and People's, that they put a suffrage plank in their platforms; but instead, simply allow the amendment to go before the electors on its merits--that is to say, repeat the experiment as it has been made and has failed eight times over....
The one and only sure hope of carrying the amendment in Kansas is to have on its side all the aid of the political machinery of its two great parties. My one object in consenting to go into your campaign for May and June, was to create so strong a public demand as to make sure that every delegate elected to the State nominating conventions of the Republican and People's parties shall be instructed by his constituents, in county convention assembled, to vote for a woman suffrage plank in the platform. The moment your committee abandons this aim, I shall lose all interest in your work. You say: "Prominent Republicans are besieging us to relieve their party of the embarrassment of this demand." So did they besiege us twenty-seven years ago. No; not for a moment should you think of relieving the politicians from the duty of declaring for this amendment. If you do, you are unworthy the trust reposed in you. I surely never would have promised to go into your campaign, or begged the friends to contribute, had I dreamed of the possibility of your surrendering to the cowardice of political trimmers.
If the convention which meets first do not endorse the amendment, then the other will not; in which event, its discussion will not be germane in either party's fall campaign. On the other hand, if the first put a plank in its platform, the other will be sure to do so; and then the question will be a legitimate one to be advocated in the meetings of both parties and this will ensure the presentation of our cause to all the voters of the State.
By this means the two parties will run your amendment campaign, and you will not be compelled to make a separate suffrage campaign. That you can not do in any event, because (1st) you can not get either the speakers or the money necessary; and (2d) if you could get both, you would have only women in your meetings, and defeat would be just as certain as in the eight States which have had such separate woman's campaigns. Therefore, if you decide to abandon the demand for political endorsement and active help, as the first and chief object of this spring's work, you may count me out of it; for I will not be a party, even though a protesting one, to such a surrender of our only hope of success.
I came home for a rest over Sunday, after speaking five successive nights in five different counties, in our New York campaign, and these letters with the weak--the wicked--thought of not demanding of the political leaders to make their parties help carry the amendment, raged through my brain all night long. How to put the shame of surrender strongly enough was my constant study, sleeping and waking alike. No, a thousand times no, I say; and if you do yield to this demand at the behest of men claiming to be your friends, you make yourselves a party with those men to ensure your defeat. The speakers will advocate no measure, and the vast majority of men will vote for none, which is not approvingly mentioned in the platform. If you give up trying for political endorsement, or fail after trying, all hope of carrying the amendment will be gone. So, over and over I say, demand party help!
Lovingly but protestingly,
SUSAN B. ANTHONY.
Mrs. Johns, of course, indignantly rejected the imputation that she was not working night and day to secure a plank from the Republican convention. She was a most efficient manager, but the cause of her weakness and that of the other women, was that they were trying to serve two masters. The very fact that the Republican men were begging them not to ask for a plank, shows the power which the women already possessed in their municipal suffrage, and they should have had the courage to stand firm in their demands for recognition in the platform, for the dignity of their cause and their womanhood, whether there were hope of getting it or not. There is no doubt that Mrs. Johns did make an earnest effort to this end, but there is also no doubt that every Republican leader understood that even if the party did not endorse the suffrage amendment, she and her associates still would be no less Republicans and would work no less vigorously for the party's success. Miss Anthony's Kansas correspondence during 1894 comprises 300 letters and all confirm the statements thus briefly outlined.
The Republican politicians made the women believe if they would not insist on the party's placing itself on record and thus losing the support of the elements opposed to woman suffrage, all of them would vote for the amendment. Should the women of Kansas ever become politically free, the publication of these letters would be fatal to some aspiring male candidates, but so long as the men still have it in their power to grant to women or to withhold the full franchise, it is the part of wisdom to leave them on their files. There were many Kansas women, however, who refused to be deceived and sustained Miss Anthony's position. In April she wrote to one of the Republican leaders:
If the Republicans had two grains of political sense, they would see that for them to espouse the amendment and gain the glory, as they surely would, of lifting the women of the State into full suffrage, would give them new life, prestige and power greater and grander than they ever possessed; and they would not be halting and belittling themselves with such idiotic stuff and nonsense as their advice to let the amendment go to the electors of the State "on its own merits." But however politicians may waver, our suffrage women must not have a doubt, but must persist in the demand for full recognition in both platforms. We must exact justice and if they do not give it, the curse be on their heads, not ours.
The same month she wrote Mrs. Johns:
I can not tell you how more and more it is borne in upon me that our one chance lies in securing the Republican pledge to carry us to victory, for that will mean a Populist pledge, and both planks will mean a clean-cut battle between the different elements of the grand old party combined as one on this question--and the Democracy of the State. Even with so solid an alliance of the two branches, we shall have a hard enough fight of it. Every woman who listens to the siren tongues of political wire-pullers and office-seekers not to demand a plank, will thereby help to sell Kansas back into the hands of the whiskey power. Behind every anti-plank man's word, written or spoken, is his willingness to let Kansas return to saloon rule. Sugar coat it as they may, that is the unsavory pill in the motive of every one of them.
Sincerely and hopefully yours, trusting in good and keeping our powder dry.
Enough has been quoted to show the situation. Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt and Miss Shaw went to Kansas to open the spring canvass, May 4, to influence the State conventions. Miss Anthony had been advertised for forty-three speeches. The women of New York, where a great campaign was in progress, were highly indignant that she should leave her own State, but she had put her heart into this Kansas campaign as never into any other, and she fully believed that, if properly managed, the result could not fail to be victory for the amendment. The three ladies held the first meeting in Kansas City, May 4. Miss Anthony made a speech which fairly raised the hair of her audience, demanding in unqualified terms the endorsement of the amendment by the Republican and People's parties. She closed by offering the following resolution, which was unanimously adopted:
WHEREAS, From the standpoint of justice, political expediency and grateful appreciation of their wise and practical use of school suffrage from the organization of the State, and of municipal suffrage for the past eight years, we, of the Republican and People's parties, descendants of that grand old party of splendid majorities which extended these rights to the women of Kansas, in mass meeting assembled do hereby
Resolve, That we urgently request our delegates in their approaching State conventions to endorse the woman suffrage amendment in their respective platforms.
That night she wrote in her journal: "Never did I speak under such a fearful pressure of opposition. Mrs. Johns, presiding, never smiled, and other women on the platform whispered angrily and said audibly, 'She is losing us thousands of votes by this speech.'" Miss Anthony repeated it in the county mass conventions at Leavenworth and Topeka, to the dismay of the Republican women and the wrath of the men.[102] While at the latter place she received an urgent summons to return immediately to New York, as fresh dangers threatened; and so she hastened eastward, leaving the others to fill her engagements. On her way, she stopped by invitation at Kansas City, Mo., and with Miss Shaw held a Sunday afternoon meeting at which $133 were raised for the Kansas campaign.
In three weeks Miss Anthony returned to Kansas, arriving June 5. She found the Republican Woman's State Convention in session, Mrs. Johns presiding. The committee reported a weak resolution declaring that they would not make the adoption of a suffrage plank by the Republican State Convention "a test of party fealty," etc. Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw condemned this in the strongest English they could command. Mrs. Johns also severely criticised the committee, but Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, who had come for both conventions, said: "I care more for the dominant principles of the Republican party than I do for woman suffrage." The committee finally were compelled to report a stronger resolution asking for recognition.
The Republican convention met June 6. C. V. Eskridge, of Emporia, the oldest and bitterest opponent of woman suffrage in the State of Kansas, was made chairman of the committee on resolutions. The proposal to hear the women speak, during an interim in the proceedings, was met by a storm of noes. Finally Mrs. Foster and Mrs. Johns were permitted to present the claims of women, but neither Miss Anthony nor Miss Shaw was given an opportunity to address the convention. They did, however, plead the women's cause most eloquently before the resolution committee of thirty-five members, but the platform was entirely silent on the subject, not even containing the usual complimentary allusions, recognition of their services, etc.[103] Not the slightest attempt was made to deny the fact that agents of the party had been at work for weeks among the various county conventions to see that delegates were appointed who were opposed to a suffrage plank, and that the resolution committee had been carefully "packed" to prevent any danger of one. In conversations which Miss Anthony held with several of the leading candidates who in times past had advocated woman suffrage, they did not hesitate to admit that the party had formed an alliance with the whiskey ring to defeat the Populists. "We must redeem the State," was their only cry. "Redeem it from what?" she asked. "From financial heresies," was the answer. "Yes," she retorted, "even if you sink it to the depths of hell on moral issues."
It is not probable that any earthly power could have secured Republican endorsement at this time, although heretofore the party always had posed as the champion of this cause. There never was a more pitiable exhibition of abject subserviency to party domination. Men who had stood boldly for woman suffrage in the legislature, men who had spoken for it on the platform in every county in the State, sat dumb as slaves in this convention, sacrificing without scruple a lifelong principle for the sake of a paltry political reward. While many of the papers had spoken earnestly in favor of the amendment, the Leavenworth Times, owned and edited by D. R. Anthony, was the only one of size and influence which demanded party endorsement.[104] The Republican managers had but one idea--to overthrow Populist rule and get back the reins of government--and they were ready to take on or pitch overboard whatever would contribute to this end.
A suffrage mass meeting was held in Topeka the Saturday following the convention and, in spite of a heavy thunderstorm, there was an audience of over one thousand. Annie L. Diggs presided and Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw spoke, the former on "Reasons why the dominant parties do not put a plank in their platforms;" the latter on, "Woman first, Republican or Populist afterwards."
The great question now was whether it were wise to ask for a suffrage plank in the Populist platform, and here again was great diversity of opinion. Some thought that endorsement by this party would make it appear like a Populist measure, and the Republicans would vote against it rather than allow them to have the credit of carrying it. Others held that the Populists carried the State at the last election and were likely to do so again, and with their party vote, the Prohibition and such Republican votes as certainly could be counted on, the amendment would go through without fail. Miss Anthony belonged to the latter class and directed every energy towards securing an endorsement in their State convention, June 12. Although woman suffrage had been one of the tenets of this party from its beginning, there was by no means a unanimous sentiment in favor of a plank of endorsement. This was especially true in regard to the leaders. Governor Lewelling, who was a candidate for re-election, was openly opposed, and P. P. Elder, chairman of the resolution committee, made a determined fight against it.
While the resolution committee was out Miss Anthony addressed the convention, saying in the course of her remarks: "I belong to but one party under the shadow of the flag, and that is the party of idiots and criminals. I don't like my company. Are you going to leave your mothers, wives and sisters in that category? I ask you to say that every woman by your side shall have the same rights as you have." When she concluded one of the delegates said: "Miss Anthony, with all due respect, I wish to ask, in the event of the Populists putting a woman suffrage plank in their platform, will you work for the success of this party?" The newspapers thus report her reply and what followed:
"For forty years I have labored for woman's enfranchisement, and I have always said that for the party which endorsed it, whether Republican, Democratic or Populist, I would wave my handkerchief. I will go before the people at your meetings, and though I know very little about the other principles of your party and never discuss finance and tariff, I will try to persuade every man in those meetings to vote for woman suffrage."
"Miss Anthony," said Mr. Carpenter, "we want more than the waving of your handkerchief, and if the People's party put a woman suffrage plank in its platform, will you go before the voters of this State and tell them that because the People's party has espoused the cause of woman suffrage it deserves the vote of every one who is a supporter of that cause?"
Miss Anthony answered: "I most certainly will!"
Immediately upon hearing this, the convention went wild--yelled and cheered and applauded to its very utmost--hundreds rose to their feet--the cheering lasted five minutes without intermission.
In the confusion Miss Anthony thus finished her interrupted sentence:
"For I would surely choose to ask votes for the party which stood for the principle of justice to women, though wrong on financial theories, rather than for the party which was sound on the questions of money and tariff, and silent on the pending amendment to secure political equality to half the people."
None of the reporters caught this and, as a result, the simple statement, "I certainly will," appeared in all the Kansas papers and went the rounds of the press of the entire country.
The suffrage question had its opponents and advocates among leaders and delegates. It occupied the resolution committee until late at night, and finally went down to defeat, 8 to 13. When the resolutions were reported they considered finance, labor, taxes, banks, bonds, arbitration, pensions, irrigation, freight rates, transportation, initiative and referendum--everything under the sun but the suffrage amendment. In regard to that much agitated point they were painfully silent. On this committee was one woman delegate, Mrs. Eliza Hudson, who could not be coaxed or bullied. She gave notice at once that she would make a minority report and carry it to the floor of the convention. The following was signed by herself and seven other members of the committee: "Whereas, The People's party came into existence and won its glorious victories on the fundamental principles of equal rights to all and special privileges to none; therefore be it resolved that we favor the pending constitutional amendment."
Meanwhile Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt and Miss Shaw addressed the convention and were enthusiastically received. When the minority report was presented and every possible parliamentary tactic had failed to prevent its consideration, it was vehemently discussed for four hours, in five-minute speeches, Judge Frank Doster leading the affirmative. The debate was closed by Mrs. Diggs, and the resolution was adopted, ayes 337, noes 269; carried by 68 majority in a delegate body of 606. During the fray a tail in some way tacked itself on to the resolution, which said, "but we do not regard this as a test of party fealty." So the party adopted a plank declaring that it did not regard a belief in one of its own fundamental principles as a test of fealty; but in the wild excitement which ensued, a little thing like this was not noticed. The State Journal thus describes the scene:
When it became evident the resolution had carried, and before the vote could be announced, the convention jumped up and yelled. Canes were waved, hats thrown high in the air, men stood on chairs and shouted frantically. The whole convention was one deep, all-prevailing impersonated voice. How they howled and stamped, as though every one loved suffrage and suffragists with all their hearts!
"I want Miss Shaw to come forward and give that Populist whoop that she promised she would last night," said a delegate. Miss Shaw came to the front of the platform and said: "I do not know any better whoop than that good old tune, 'Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow.'" "Sing," said Chairman Dunsmore. The vast audience shook every particle of air in the big hall with the full round notes of the long meter doxology. "Let all the people cry amen," said Alonzo Wardall, who was on the platform. Hundreds of voices which had not pronounced the word for years joined in the great, resounding, unanimous "amen" that filled the hall.
Susan B. Anthony, Annie L. Diggs and Anna Shaw leaned over the front of the stage and shook every man's hand as he passed along, and hundreds of brown, calloused hands were thrust up to give a grasp of congratulation. Miss Anthony warmed to her work and had to push up her sleeves, but she didn't mind that for suffrage, for which she had just won a glorious victory. Many said, as they grasped her hand: "You're going to be a Populist now, ain't you?"
During the confusion an old soldier came up and pinned a Populist badge on her dress, and this was magnified by the newspapers into the thrilling description: "Miss Anthony seized a Populist badge and, pinning it on her breast, declared: 'Henceforth and forever I belong to the People's party!'"
The State Prohibition convention was in progress at Emporia at the same time, and the women had been notified that a suffrage plank would be adopted without any effort on their part. On June 13 the following telegram was sent by the secretary of the convention to Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw: "Recognizing the right of suffrage as inherent in citizenship, the Prohibition party stands unequivocally pledged to use its utmost efforts to secure the adoption of the pending constitutional amendment for the enfranchisement of women." This was their response from the Populist convention hall: "The National-American Woman Suffrage Association sends greeting, and is gratified that there is one political party which does not need to be urged to declare for justice to women." The Capitol said: "There was a wild demonstration as their names were read."
It is hardly possible to give an adequate idea of the storm which followed the announcement of Miss Anthony's declaration in regard to the People's party. There was scarcely a newspaper in the country which did not have its fling. Kate Field's Washington led off with a full first page entitled, "The Unholy Alliance." Editors opposed to woman suffrage made it a text for double leaders. Republican papers berated her without mercy. Letters poured in upon her from personal friends, judges, mayors, ministers, members of Congress, accepting the published reports and condemning her in unmeasured terms. Others wrote begging her to set herself right in the eyes of the public, as they knew she had been misrepresented. It seemed impossible, however, for her to make herself clearly understood. She writes in her journal: "One would think I had committed the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost in thanking the Populists for their good promise and saying I preferred them with justice to women, no matter what their financial folly, to the Republicans without justice to women, no matter what their financial wisdom."
She returned home June 20 and all the Rochester reporters were on hand for an interview. The following from the Democrat and Chronicle is practically what appeared in all:
Miss Anthony was perfectly willing to talk, and this is a resume of what the reporter learned: 1. Miss Anthony is not a Populist. 2. Miss Anthony is not a Democrat. 3. Miss Anthony is not a Republican. 4. Miss Anthony can not say what party she will join when the right to vote is given her.
"I didn't go over to the Populists by doing what I did in Kansas," she said. "I have been like a drowning man for a long time, waiting for some one to throw a plank to me. The Republicans refused, but the Populists threw an excellent plank in my direction. I didn't step on the whole platform, but just on the woman suffrage plank. I went forward at the close of the convention and told the men how glad I was to see one of the dominant parties take up woman suffrage. I said that we had been besieging the big political parties for twenty-five years. Here is a party in power which is likely to remain in power, and if it will give its endorsement to our movement, we want it.
"I do not claim to know anything of the merits of the issues which brought the Populist party into existence. All I know is that it is chiefly made up from the rank and file of the old Republican party of that State, and that the men who compose it think they have better methods for the correction of existing evils. They are protesting against the present order of things, and certainly no one will deny there is ground for it. I do not endorse their platform, but I would be one of the last to condemn an honest protest."
"But," said the reporter, "it always has been understood that you are a strong Republican."
"Why has it been so understood? Simply because a majority of the national legislators who have favored us have been Republicans. Suppose the Republican party of New York, at its coming convention, refuses to endorse woman suffrage; suppose the Democratic does endorse it. My action with the Democrats would be just what it was with the Populists of Kansas. I am for woman suffrage and will work with any party which will help us. Remember I say 'with,' not 'for.'"
Miss Shaw finished her two months' engagement in Kansas and did not return to that State. Mrs. Catt wrote Miss Anthony a few weeks after the conventions:
It is remarkable the difference of opinion that is floating about. We hear of Populists who are so mad about the plank they declare they will go back to the Democratic party. Others, even those who are suffragists, are so mad at the women for putting the plank forward they say they will vote against the amendment. Democrats say there can be no fusion and that will mean death to the Populist party. Some Republicans say they will not vote for the amendment because it is now a Populist question. Again some Republicans and some Democrats say they will vote the Populist ticket because of the plank. From all these varied ideas it is impossible to find out whether we are better or worse off.... At any rate, the question now has a political standing, and it will depend upon party developments where we find ourselves. My own hope is that it may bring the Republicans to time, but if the Populists say too much, it may drive them to secret opposition, and then we are done for.
Miss Anthony took a much more cheerful view and replied to the various letters:
At last one of the dominant parties in a State, and that one the party in power, has adopted a woman suffrage amendment, and upon that one plank I have planted my feet. The Republicans by ignoring us give party sanction to every anti-suffrage man among them; while the Populists' endorsement makes every anti-suffrage man among them feel that he will be the better Populist if he vote "yes."...
Meantime, every Farmers' Alliance picnic, every school-house meeting, will be on fire with the enthusiasm born of their party's heroic action; for such it was, in defiance of their leaders' command to imitate the Republicans and ignore the amendment. The 900 Republicans in the State convention obeyed their masters; while 68 more than one-half of the 606 Populists rebelled against theirs. Surely there is more to hope from the party, a majority of whose men dare vote opinions against their bosses, than for the one in which not a single man dares even raise a protest. What would our friends have had us do? Bless the Republicans for slapping us in the face, and blast the Populists for giving us a helping hand?
Among the comforting letters which came during these troublous times was one from Wm. Lloyd Garrison, with whose father she had fought the battle of Abolitionism, in which he said: "I saw Mrs. Isabel Barrows yesterday and heard from her of your weary journey together from Chicago, your discouragement regarding Kansas, and the personal pain occasioned you by untrue newspaper reports and the harsh criticism of friends. I write to express my word of sympathy and cheer. Send me a brief statement of the Populist matter and let me break a lance in your behalf. A reformer's life is full of misrepresentations. How little they signify in the long run and, if they did not wound the spirit, would not be worth the mention. To be misjudged by one's own friends hurts more than all the bitterness of the rest of the world."
In a public address made this summer, Miss Anthony referred to the matter in the following beautiful words:
Had the Republicans of Kansas adopted a woman suffrage plank, and Miss Shaw and Miss Anthony declared that, because of such endorsement, they would prefer the success of that party, nobody would have thought it meant that they had endorsed the whole Republican platform, and made themselves responsible for the right conduct of every officer and nominee of that party.
I was born and reared a Quaker, and am one still; I was trained by my father, a cotton manufacturer, in the Henry Clay school of protection to American products; but today all sectarian creeds and all political policies sink into utter insignificance compared with the essence of religion and the fundamental principle of government--equal rights. Wherever, religiously, socially, educationally, politically, justice to woman is preached and practiced, I find a bond of sympathy, and I hope and trust that henceforth I shall be brave enough to express my thanks to every individual and every organization, popular or unpopular, that gives aid and comfort to our great work for the emancipation of woman, and through her the redemption of the world.
To a letter from Henry B. Blackwell, urging her to be non-partisan if she could not be Republican, she replied, July 9:
The difference between yourself and me, and Mrs. Johns and me, is precisely this--that you two are and have been Republicans per se, while I have been a Republican only in so far as the party and its members were more friendly to the principle of woman suffrage. I agree with you that it will be in line with Mrs. Johns' ideas for her to work for the Republican party, false though its platform and its managers are to the pending amendment; but I could not do so. The rank and file of the Populist men of Kansas may not possess equal book or brain power with the Republicans, but they are more honest and earnest to establish justice, and 337 of their delegates had manhood enough to break out of the whiskey-Democratic bargain which their leaders, like the Republican fixers, had made. No, I shall not praise the Republicans of Kansas, or wish or work for their success, when I know by their own confessions to me that the rights of the women of their State have been traded by them in cold blood for the votes of the lager beer foreigners and whiskey Democrats....
I have not allied and shall not ally myself to any party or any measure save the one of justice and equality for woman; but the time has come when I strike, and proclaim my contempt for the tricksters who put their political heel on the rights of women at the very moment when their help is most needed. I never, in my whole forty years' work, so utterly repudiated any set of politicians as I do those Republicans of Kansas. When it is a mere matter of theory, a thousand miles from a practical question, they can resolve pretty words, but when the crucial moment comes they sacrifice us without conscience or honor. The hubbub with the Republicans shows they have been struck in the right place. I never was surer of my position that no self-respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party which ignores her political rights.
These few extracts from scores of similar letters, speeches and interviews, show the position consistently and unflinchingly maintained by Miss Anthony, and justified by many years of experience in such campaigns. During the summer of 1894, while she was being thus harassed, she kept steadily on, speaking and working in the New York campaign and preparing to return to Kansas in the fall. She wrote to the Republican and the Populist central committees, offering to speak on the suffrage question upon their platforms. The former, through its chairman, Cyrus Leland, declined her offer.
To John W. Breidenthal, of the People's party, she wrote: "Do you not think it will be a great deal better, both for the suffrage amendment and the Populist party, if in all the announcements it shall be distinctly stated that Miss Anthony speaks only on the subject of woman's enfranchisement?" To this he replied, August 6: "I leave the matter entirely with you whether you confine yourself only to the suffrage amendment, or whether you add to that the discussion of the other questions now attracting public attention." Meanwhile she had been receiving cheerful messages from the Populist women of Kansas, among them a long and cordial letter from Annie L. Diggs, written August 16:
Nearly everything along the line of my experience and observation would make you glad. I have large audiences, say the best and strongest things I know for suffrage and always find the heartiest response. I see more and more the wisdom of your insistence on platform mention. Oh, I am so thankful that I, too, saw straight before it was too late to get the Populist endorsement. I have been speaking almost constantly, sometimes twice a day, and at every meeting other speakers and candidates say the best kind of words for the amendment. Governor Lewelling speaks in warm endorsement, reports to the contrary notwithstanding. I can not say that he does so always, but he did at the three meetings which we held together. The Populists who wanted to shake my head off at the convention, give me, if possible, warmer greetings than the others. They are truly glad they took that righteous step....
We Populists wish so much for you and Miss Shaw to come to Kansas. People constantly ask me if you will talk for the Populists when you come. I answer that you will talk suffrage at Populist meetings and will also say that, inasmuch as in Kansas the Populists endorse suffrage, therefore the party ought to win. Is not that your intention? How I wish I could describe to you some of the success I have had in talking to German audiences. But I have not another minute only to thank you for your kind words about me, and to say again, as I have said so many years, "I love and revere you."
Mrs. Johns wrote, August 27: "I think the Republicans are conscious dimly of the increasing strength of the Populists. It looks as if they will win, and it is generally believed the amendment will go through." As late as October 12, Mrs. Catt, who had been speaking at suffrage meetings for the past six weeks and whose judgment was generally sound, said in a letter from Hutchinson:
After all the vicissitudes, hard feelings and distresses of the campaign, it begins to look as if we were going to come in "on the home stretch." The last two weeks have wrought wonderful changes. The tide has set in our favor. I think the chief cause is the published fact that we are going to count the votes to see how many out of each party are cast for the amendment, and Republicans understand they will be in a bad way if they don't make a good showing. Since this came out, Morrill has spoken for the amendment. Judge Peters, at the big McKinley meeting here, advocated it and they tell me it created more enthusiasm than anything else during the meeting. Cyrus Leland admits that it will carry. The Republicans are coming over splendidly and, if the Populists stand firm, we will surely come in with a fine majority. It seems as if nothing can defeat us now.
Two weeks before the election, October 21, Mr. Breidenthal wrote her: "I am confident the amendment will have 30,000 majority." Miss Anthony reached the State October 20 and began her two weeks' tour the 22d, speaking at Populist meetings in the largest cities up to election day, November 6.[105] From the hour of her arrival she realized there was not a shadow of hope for the amendment, and it was marvellous to her how the others could have been so deceived.
At the previous election when the Populists came into power it had been through a fusion with the Democrats. This year the Democrats had their own ticket, and not only had ignored the pleading of the Democratic women for a suffrage plank, but had adopted a resolution denouncing it.[106] The great railroad strike and its attendant evils, during that summer, were attributed by many to Populistic sentiment and created a strong prejudice against the party. The argument was made that if the amendment carried, the women would feel so grateful to the Populists that it would result in securing to them the woman's vote, thus keeping them in power. This induced many to vote against it who disliked Populism, and it decided a number of even those Republicans who believed in woman suffrage to reject the amendment this year rather than allow the Populists to have the credit of carrying it. To destroy the last hope, word came from Colorado that the People's party was about to be defeated there. It was the first time for the women of that State to vote and, while there was no evidence to prove that they were responsible, the bare possibility was enough to stampede the Kansas Populists and prevent their giving the ballot to the women of that State.
The amendment was lost by 34,827 votes; 95,302 for; 130,139 against. The total vote cast for governor was 299,231; total vote on suffrage amendment, 225,441; not voting on amendment, 73,790. There was an attempt to keep count of the ballots according to parties, but it was not successful and there was no way of correctly estimating the political complexion of the vote. The vote for Governor Morrill lacked only 1,800 of that for the other three candidates combined, which shows how easily the Republican party might have carried the amendment. Subtracting the 5,000 Prohibition votes which it was conceded were cast for the amendment, it lacked 28,000 of receiving as many votes as were cast for the Populist candidate for governor. Since some Republicans must have voted for it, the figures prove that a vast number of Populists did not do so. In Miss Anthony's journal on the night of the election she wrote: "Our friends remembered to forget to vote for the suffrage amendment, while not an enemy forgot to remember to stamp his ticket against it."
Though she had expected defeat, her regret was none the less keen. In all the past years she had given more time and work to Kansas than to any other State, even her own. Her hopes had been centered there. It having been the first State to grant school suffrage and the first to grant municipal suffrage to women, she had confidently expected that when the amendment for full suffrage was again submitted it would be carried. The events of the campaign confirmed her belief that the granting of municipal suffrage is a hindrance rather than a help toward securing full enfranchisement. By its exercise women naturally become partisan, show the influence they can wield through the ballot, and thereby create enmities and arouse antagonisms which bitterly oppose any further extension of this power. She resolved henceforth to advise women not to attempt to secure fragmentary suffrage, but to demand the whole right and work for nothing less.
FOOTNOTES:
[101] It was the Republicans who framed the original constitution of the State so as to give women liberal property rights, equal guardianship of their children, and school suffrage. In 1867 they gave to women an equal voice on the question of local option. In 1887 they granted to them municipal suffrage. In various State conventions they adopted an unequivocal endorsement of full suffrage for women.
[102] See Appendix for full speech.
[103] The women of the Topeka Equal Suffrage Club, at their next meeting, adopted a resolution thanking the Republican convention for not declaring against the amendment!
[104] It will be cowardice for the Republicans to fail to endorse woman suffrage in their State platform. In past years, when no amendment was pending, the Republican party of Kansas has encouraged the presentation of such an amendment. Will it now attempt to sneak out of the responsibility and go back on its past record? The women of our State have shown themselves intelligent voters, in every way worthy of being entrusted with full suffrage. None of the evils have come upon us which were predicted by the opponents of the reform, and they never will come. To place a plank in the platform will save many votes to the party. It is the right, the brave thing to do. What is brave and right has, in the past, been the thing that the Republican party has done. Let it not now begin to do the cowardly thing.--Leavenworth Times, May 17, 1894.
[105] Miss Anthony did not receive a dollar for her services daring the year in Kansas, and was enabled to make the three trips there solely through the kindness of her brother Daniel R., who furnished transportation. It was also by his assistance that she had made her long railroad journeys from east to west during the past thirty years.
[106] Fifteenth.--We oppose woman suffrage as tending to destroy the home and family, the true basis of political safety, and express the hope that the helpmeet and guardian of the family sanctuary may not be dragged from the modest purity of self-imposed seclusion to be thrown unwillingly into the unfeminine places of political strife.
XLIV. THE SOUTHERN TRIP--THE ATLANTA CONVENTION
1895
The day following the Kansas election, November 7, 1894, Miss Anthony started at 10 o'clock in the morning for Beatrice, Neb., to make the opening speech at the State Suffrage Convention; arrived at 6 P. M., took a cup of tea, dressed and, without having had one moment's rest, found herself at the opera house in the presence of a splendid audience. After she was seated on the platform a telegram was handed her saying the suffrage amendment had been lost in Kansas by an immense majority. Yet, in spite of the terrible physical strain of the past weeks and in the face of this stunning news, it is said she never made a stronger, more logical and comprehensive speech than on this occasion. She reviewed the amendment campaigns of the last twenty-five years, describing the causes of defeat or success, and pointing out the necessity of educational effort beginning with the primaries and continuing through all the conventions and political meetings up to the very day of election.
Although she received urgent invitations to speak at various points in the State, she declined all and left the next morning early for Leavenworth; and the day following, November 9, was on her way eastward. After a day in Chicago she went directly to Philadelphia, where she attended a reception given by the New Century Club to Mary Mapes Dodge; had several business meetings regarding the affairs of the national association; then hastened by night train to the New York convention at Ithaca. Here again, without a day's rest, she made a stirring address to an audience which packed the opera house to the top row of the upper gallery, sat on the steps and filled the aisles. The convention was welcomed by the mayor of Ithaca and President Schurmann, of Cornell. The latter invited the officers and delegates to visit the university and accompanied them on their tour of inspection. Miss Anthony spoke to the girls of Sage College after dinner, gave them many new ideas long to be remembered, and was received with enthusiasm and affection.
The next evening, November 15, she returned to Rochester. She had just concluded two of the hardest campaigns ever made for woman suffrage; for almost one year she had found no rest for the sole of her foot, not an hour's respite for the tired brain, and yet the letters and the entries in the journal show her to be as cheerful, as philosophical, as full of hopeful plans, as ever she had been in all her long and busy life. After just one day at home she started for Cleveland. The W. C. T. U. were holding a national convention in that city and were to have a great "gospel suffrage" meeting in Music Hall, Sunday afternoon, which she was invited to address. The Cleveland Leader, in describing the occasion, said:
Miss Willard, the chieftain of the white ribbon army, introduced Miss Anthony, the chieftain of the yellow ribbon army, saying: "Once we would not have allowed the yellow ribbon to be so generously displayed here. Had its wearers asked us to admit it with the white we might have voted it down; but the yellow badge of the suffragists looks natural now. The golden rule has done it. Well do I remember that in the hard struggle mother and I had in paying the taxes on our little home, no man appeared to pay them for us. Had I been condemned to death I would not have expected a man to startup and take my place. Susan B. Anthony--she of the senatorial mind--will be remembered when the politicians of today have long been doomed to 'innocuous desuetude.'" Miss Willard then quoted a few familiar lines ending with the sentence, "And Susan B. Anthony has been ordained of God to lead us on."
Miss Anthony was greeted with a rousing Chautauqua salute. "I am delighted beyond measure," she said, "that at last the women of this great national body have found there is only one way by which they can reach their desired end, and that is by the ballot. What is 'gospel suffrage?' It is a system by which truth and justice might be made the uppermost principles of government. Every election is the solution of a mathematical problem, the figuring out of what the majority desire. We have in this country mercantile, mining, manufacturing and all kinds of business by which money can be made. The interests of every one of these are put into the political scale, but when the moral issues are put in the other side the material pull them down. Why? Because the moral issues are not weighted with votes. The men who are associated with women in movements of reform get no more in the way of legislation than do women themselves, because when they go to the legislatures or to Congress they have back of them only a disfranchised class.
"If you would have your requests granted your legislators must know that you are a part of a body of constituents who stand with ballots in their hands. Women, we might as well be dogs baying the moon as petitioners without the power to vote! If you have no care for yourselves, you should at least take pity on the men associated with you in your good works. So long as State constitutions say that all may vote when twenty-one, save idiots, lunatics, convicts and women, you are brought down politically to the level of those others disfranchised. This discrimination is a relic of the dark ages. The most ignorant and degraded man who walks to the polls feels himself superior to the most intelligent woman. We should demand the wiping out of all legislation which keeps us disfranchised.
Almost every sentence of this brief address was punctuated with applause from the immense audience.
Always when in Cleveland Miss Anthony was a guest at the palatial home of Mrs. Louisa Southworth, At this time, with her hostess' permission, she had summoned the entire National-American Board to a business meeting, and all were entertained under this hospitable roof. For thirty years Mrs. Southworth had been among the leading representatives of the suffrage movement in northern Ohio, and during all that time had been Miss Anthony's staunch and unfailing friend. She had given thousands of dollars to the suffrage cause, and hundreds to Miss Anthony for her personal use. On this occasion she presented her with $1,000 to open the much desired national headquarters. One such supporter in every State would win many battles which are lost because of insufficient funds to do the necessary work.
Miss Anthony soon afterwards went to New York to prepare with Mrs. Stanton the call and resolutions for the approaching national convention, and to revise the article on "Woman's Rights" for Johnson's new edition of the Encyclopedia. She was the guest of her cousin, Mrs. Semantha Vail Lapham, whose home overlooked Central Park. Mrs. Stanton's cosy flat was on the other side, and through this lovely pleasure ground each bright day Miss Anthony took her morning walk. When the weather was inclement she was sent in the carriage, and the two old friends talked and worked together as they had done so many times in days gone by.
The evenings were spent with her cousin and various friends and relatives. Once they dined with a kinsman in his elegant Tiffany apartments. She and Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell, Mrs. Henry M. Sanders and Mrs. George Putnam, had a delightful luncheon with Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi. She was invited by Mr. and Mrs. Edward Lauterbach to hear the opera of Faust, which was followed by a supper at the Waldorf. With a relative she attended the "Authors' Uncut Leaves Club," at Sherry's. One Sunday she went to hear Robert Collyer and the diary says: "His grand face, his rich voice, his white hair, were all as attractive as ever; he was a beautiful picture in the pulpit. He gave me a cordial greeting at the close of the sermon." She ran over to Orange for a few days with a loved cousin, Ellen Hoxie Squier; and then on down to Philadelphia and Somerton for a little visit with the friends there, of which she writes: "Rachel and I had a soul-to-soul talk all the day long and until after midnight." She was a guest at the Foremothers' Dinner, December 22, given at Jaeger's by the New York City Woman Suffrage League, Lillie Devereux Blake, president, with nearly 300 prominent women at the table.[107] The dinner and the speeches lasted until after 5 o'clock, Miss Anthony responding to the toast, "Our Future Policy."
Thus a month slipped pleasantly by, and then, with the work all finished, the body rested and the mind refreshed, she returned home to spend Christmas. The two sisters dined with Dr. and Mrs. F. H. Sanford and a few old-time friends, and passed a happy day. Among the numerous Christmas remembrances were several pieces of fine china and an elegant velvet cloak from Mrs. Gross.[108]
On December 30, Miss Anthony received word of the death of her old co-worker, Amelia Bloomer, at Council Bluffs, Ia., aged seventy-seven, and sent a telegram of sympathy to the husband. A death felt most keenly in 1894 was that of Virginia L. Minor, of St. Louis, August 14, which closed a beautiful and unbroken friendship of thirty years. She left Miss Anthony a testimonial of her love and confidence in a legacy of $1,000.
The year ended amidst the usual pressure of requests, invitations and engagements. Would she lecture for the Art League, for the Musical Society, for the Church Guild and for a dozen other organizations of whose purposes she knew practically nothing? Would she accept a "reception" from the Scribblers' Club of Buffalo? Would she send a package of documents to the girls of Vassar College, who were going to debate woman suffrage? Would she please reply to the following questions, from various newspapers: "Have not women as many rights now as men have? What is woman's ideal existence and what woman has most nearly attained it? Have you formed any resolutions for the coming year, and what has been the fate of former New Year's resolutions?" and so on, ad infinitum.
The "woman's edition" fever raged with great violence at this time, and it is not an exaggeration to say that the editors of ninety-nine hundredths of them wrote to Miss Anthony for an article. Of course it was an impossibility to comply, but occasionally some request struck her so forcibly that she made time for an answer. For instance, the woman's edition of the Elmira Daily Advertiser was for the purpose of helping the Young Men's Christian Association, and to its editor, Mrs. J. Sloat Fassett, she wrote:
I should feel vastly more interested in, and earnest to aid the Y. M. C. A., if the men composing it were, as a body, helping to educate the people into the recognition of the right of their mothers and sisters to an equal voice with themselves in the government of the city, State and nation. Nevertheless, I avail myself of your kindly request, and urge all to study the intricate problem of bettering the world; not merely the individual sufferings in it, but the general conditions. Such study will show the great need of a new balance of power in the body politic; and the conscientious student must arrive at the conclusion that this will have to be obtained by enfranchising a new class--women. If the Y. M. C. A. really desire to make better moral and social conditions possible, they should hasten to obey the injunction of St. Paul, and "help those women" who are working to secure enfranchisement.
Miss Anthony received soon after this a consignment of pamphlets, etc., that she had ordered printed, on the outside of which the manager of the printing house, a man entirely unknown to her, had written:
"A wreath, twine a wreath for the brave and the true, Who, for love of the many, dared stand with the few."
Among the pleasant letters was one from Mrs. Mary B. Willard, who was then abroad, in which she said: "I am so glad that you live on to know how much you are loved and to enjoy the fruit of your blessed labors." One invitation which Miss Anthony especially appreciated came from Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, of Chicago, editor of Unity and pastor of All Souls church: "I am sure your heart goes out with us in our dreams as represented by the enclosed printed matter.[109] One number of the program is, 'What is woman's part in this larger synthesis,' or 'What can woman do for liberal religion?' I enclose Dr. Thomas' letter that it may reinforce my own pleading that you should come and speak on this topic. Phrase it yourself. Pour your whole heart into it. Make it the speech of your life. Give your large religious nature freedom. We will pay all your expenses and I do hope you will make an effort to come. We will give you from thirty to forty minutes, then we would want to ask one or two women to follow in the discussion, perhaps a Jewess and may be some woman who represents the independent church, like Dr. Thomas' and Prof. Swing's...."
Dr. H. W. Thomas' letter said in part: "Your suggestion is wise; no other can perhaps so fittingly and ably represent the larger place and work of woman as Susan B. Anthony. It will honor her and help the cause to have her speak at the congress. Bless her dear soul, how I would like to see her--to hear her--to have her one with us--her counsel, her spirit, her great heart of love and hope so much like the Christ."
After the receipt of Miss Anthony's reply Dr. Jones wrote again: "I received your modest protest against being made, as you are, one of the vice-presidents of the Liberal Congress organization; but the very reason you urged against it is the very reason for putting you on. We want you not for what you can do but for what you are. We can not take the congress into the polemics of the woman question, but George Washington went into the first Continental Congress with his uniform on, said nothing, yet that was his speech. So we organize with Susan B. Anthony's name among our vice-presidents, and this is our war speech on that question. Do let your name stay there.... Ever rejoicing in your work and its slowly approaching triumph, I am, brotherly yours."
The New Year of 1895 promised less in the way of work and anxiety than the one which had just closed. There were to be no State amendment campaigns with their annoying complexities, their arduous labors, their usual defeats. So many capable and energetic women had come into the national organization that Miss Anthony was relieved of much of the burden which used to rest upon her in the olden times, when she had to attend personally to details of arrangement and assume the financial responsibility. She found it difficult at first to adapt herself to the new regime, but soon learned to have confidence in the judgment and ability of her much-loved "body guard," as she liked to call the official board. It was not so easy for others of the old workers to accept the new order of things, and they rebelled occasionally against the "red tape" requirements of this executive body. To one of these Miss Anthony wrote: "My dear, what we older ones all have to learn is that these young and active women now doing the drudgery in each of the forty-five States, must be consulted and must have a vote on all questions pertaining to the association, and we must abide by the decision of the majority. This is what I am trying to learn. No one or two can manage now, but all must have a voice."
The voluminous correspondence shows, however, that the new workers were very glad to feel the touch of her firm and experienced hand on the helm, and that usually she was consulted on every point. She especially impressed upon them the necessity of keeping the financial accounts with the strictest care and accuracy, and for a number of years would not allow a report to be published until she herself had examined every detail. At one time when two contributions had been accidentally omitted from the statement sent for her inspection, she wrote: "Not finding those two in your copy congealed the blood to the very ends of my fingers and toes, lest the givers should think I had not sent their money to you."
New Year's Day twelve friends were gathered around the Anthony table, the Gannetts, the Greenleafs, the Sanfords, Mrs. Hallowell and Mrs. Willis, and the occasion was a pleasant one. A week later Miss Anthony started on an extended southern trip. There had been practically no suffrage work done in the South, with the exception of Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Louisiana. As the national convention was to meet in Atlanta, Miss Anthony thought it advisable to make a lecture tour through the South to arouse a sentiment which might be felt there a month later. She invited Mrs. Chapman Catt to accompany her, guaranteeing her expenses although she had no assurance she would be able to make even her own.
At Lexington they were guests in the fine old home of Mrs. Mary J. Warfield Clay and daughter Laura, and spoke in the Christian church to a sympathetic audience. They held meetings at Wilmore, Louisville, Owensboro, Paducah and Milan, receiving many social courtesies at each place visited, and they reached Memphis January 17. The management here was in the capable hands of the Woman's Council and a fine audience greeted them at the Young Men's Hebrew Association Hall. They were introduced by their hostess, Mrs. Lide Meriwether, president of the Equal Suffrage Club, and cordially received. The Appeal, Avalanche and Scimitar gave long and interesting reports. The next morning Miss Anthony and Mrs. Catt were handsomely entertained by the ladies of the Nineteenth Century Club. In the afternoon Mrs. Mary Jameson Judah, president of the Woman's Club, gave a reception in their honor. Saturday morning they were guests of the Colored Women's Club; in the afternoon the Woman's Council, composed of forty-six local clubs, tendered a large reception, and in the evening they lectured again. Sunday morning they spoke in the Tabernacle to the colored people; and they left at 5.30 P. M. feeling they had not wasted much time at Memphis.
They reached New Orleans Monday morning; were met at the train by the president and several members of the Portia Club, and escorted to the residence of Judge Merrick. Each of the daily papers contained lengthy and excellent mention of the lectures. The Picayune said at the beginning of a four-column report:
If any one doubted the interest that southern women feel in the all-absorbing question of the day, "Woman and her Rights," that idea would have forever been dispelled by a glance at the splendid audience assembled last night to hear Miss Susan B. Anthony, the world-famed apostle of woman suffrage, and Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, the distinguished western leader. The hall was literally packed to overflowing, not only with women but with men, prominent representatives in every walk of life. Standing room was at a premium, corridors and windows were filled with a sea of earnest, interested faces, the name of Miss Anthony was on every lip, and all eyes were directed to the platform, which was beautifully decorated with palms and potted plants, the suffrage color, yellow, predominating among the verdant foliage.
Seated upon the platform were the four ladies who have successively filled the position of president of the Portia Club, Mrs. Elizabeth Lyle Saxon, Mrs. Caroline E. Merrick, Mrs. Evelyn B. Ordway and Miss Florence Huberwald. The entrance of Miss Anthony and Mrs. Catt was the signal for a burst of applause, which rose into an ovation when Miss Huberwald, in a few graceful words, presented Mrs. Merrick, who in turn introduced Miss Anthony as the most famous woman in America. When the applause subsided, Miss Anthony, whose voice is singularly sweet and clear, began to speak.
She was presented with a basket of flowers and a bouquet from Mrs. J. M. Ferguson, president of the Arena club. At the close hundreds pressed forward to take the hands of the speakers.
They left this charming and hospitable city Wednesday evening, Mrs. Catt going to Greenville, Miss Anthony to Shreveport. Here she was entertained by Mrs. M. F. Smith and Professor C. E. Byrd, principal of the high school. The Hypatia Club sent her two lovely floral offerings. Of her lecture the Times said editorially:
This veteran apostle of woman's rights addressed a magnificent audience last evening at the court-house, a representative assemblage comprising all the best elements of all the best classes of Shreveport's citizens, and one which was equally divided between men and women. Miss Anthony is certainly a remarkable woman in every respect, and one whose genius will leave its mark not only on the recorded history of the nineteenth century, but in the advanced position of woman now and for all time to come. She was one of the first women in America to raise her voice in advocacy of woman's rights, and she has lived to see herself and her sisters gradually released from legalized bondage and, in everything but suffrage, made the full equal of man. No one can deny that her claims are founded on justice; and in the light of cold and clear reason, divested of all sentiment and cleansed of all prejudice, her arguments can not be successfully controverted.
By failure of the train to connect with the ferry she was unable to join Mrs. Catt and keep her appointment at Jackson. When, after waiting two hours, she finally reached that station at half-past nine, she found a message from Mrs. Catt that she was holding a magnificent audience for her. According to her journal she "was too oozed-out even to be looked at, much less to try to speak in the House of Representatives packed with the flower of southern chivalry;" so she went on to Birmingham. Here she found inadequate arrangements had been made and a northern blizzard interfered with her meetings. The News, however, gave an excellent two-column account beginning:
Only a moderate audience greeted Susan B. Anthony, the chief suffrage leader in the United States, but that audience was cultured and able to appreciate the very energetic, clear-minded and vigorous woman, whose name is as well-known as that of any man in the Union, and who has done more than any other woman to prove, by her strong and unique personality, the mental equality of woman with man and her fitness for the things sought to be entrusted to her care, share and share alike with the sterner sex. After a graceful introduction by Colonel J. W. Bush, the lecturer plunged at once with ease and distinction into her subject and line of argument.... She is a very able and incisive speaker, talks fluently and distinctly, and makes easy and graceful gestures. In a word, she is as good a lecturer as a good man-lecturer.
They spoke in the opera house at New Decatur, and were the guests of Mrs. E. S. Hildreth. At Huntsville they were entertained by Mrs. Milton Hume, and introduced to the audience by Mrs. Clay-Klopton. The Evening Tribune headed its report, "Grand and Enthusiastic Meeting; Eloquent Addresses Presented by Noble and Gifted Women;" and said:
Much to the surprise of a great many, the city hall was filled last night with a very large and intelligent audience of ladies and gentlemen.... Miss Anthony spoke for an hour in a plain, unassuming manner, but ably and learnedly. She has been an active worker for more than forty years in this cause and now, at life's closing hours, sees the right accorded woman in the States of Wyoming and Colorado, and the cause gaining momentum as intelligence spreads and the blessings become known which follow in the pathway of woman's ballot. No one can look upon the face of that venerated, noble woman, who has grown gray in her life-work, and not be impressed that there has been something more than sentiment, more than a cranky idea, impelling her in all these long, sacrificing years.
Mrs. Chapman Catt as completely charmed as she surprised the large audience. She is a young woman of winning personality, as beautiful as she is brilliant, with a command of language and convincing eloquence that would do credit to the matchless Prentiss....
The next day, with Mrs. Alberta Chapman Taylor, they started for Atlanta, joining the Kentucky delegation at Knoxville and reaching their destination at noon. The headquarters were at the Aragon, where they found a large number of delegates, warm rooms and everything bright and comfortable, with the promise of a fine meeting.
The Twenty-seventh Annual Convention opened at De Give's opera house, January 31, continuing six days. Ninety-three delegates were present from twenty-eight states, numbers were in attendance from southern cities, and the people of Atlanta turned out en masse. An evidence of the interest taken in this convention is the fact that a number of the New York papers had daily reports of several thousand words telegraphed, and the large newspapers throughout the country had extended accounts. The Atlanta Constitution had had columns of matter pertaining to it, pictures and personal descriptions of the prominent women, which, added to its extended daily reports, contributed largely to the success of the meeting; but it was as careful to avoid editorial endorsement as its contemporaries in the North. The other city papers were generous with space and complimentary mention, but the Sunny South, edited by Colonel Henry Clay Fairman, was the only one which advocated the principle of woman suffrage.
Many beautiful homes were opened to the visitors, and all the officers and speakers were entertained at the Aragon at the expense of the newly formed Georgia State Association. The most of it was borne, in fact, by three sisters residing at Columbus, H. Augusta Howard, Miriam Howard Du Bose and Claudia Howard Maxwell. With the genuine southern hospitality, they declined the offer of several societies and of the association to reimburse them. A handsome reception at the hotel was attended by hundreds of Atlanta's representative citizens. Mrs. W. A. Hemphill, one of the board of the Atlanta Exposition, received the visitors in her lovely home, assisted by the wife of the recently-elected Governor Atkinson.
A Baptist preacher, Rev. J. B. Hawthorne, built on the antiquated plan, delivered a sermon not only denouncing suffrage but abusing its advocates. The result was to make the other ministers in the city offer their pulpits to the convention speakers, and on Sunday lectures were given in various churches by Emily Howland, Elizabeth Upham Yates, Mrs. Colby and Mrs. Meriwether. Rev. Anna Shaw preached in the opera house and the Constitution prefaced its report as follows: "When the opening hour arrived there was not an empty chair in the house. So dense became the crowd that the doors were ordered closed before the services began. The vast congregation was made up of all classes of citizens. Every chair that could be found had been utilized and then boxes and benches were pressed into service. Many prominent professional and business men were standing on the stage and in different parts of the house."
Miss Anthony, besides her president's address, made many brief speeches and also read Mrs. Stanton's fine paper on "Educated Suffrage," which was especially acceptable to a southern audience.[110] One of the most eloquent speakers was General Robert R. Hemphill, member of the South Carolina legislature. Among the able and interesting southern delegates Laura Clay and Josephine K. Henry, of Kentucky, and A. Viola Neblett and Helen Lewis Morris, of North Carolina, were especial favorites. After the convention a mass meeting was held in the courthouse, which was crowded with an enthusiastic audience. Mrs. M. L. McLendon, president of the Atlanta Club, requested Miss Anthony to take charge. The Constitution said:
Miss Anthony was received with such a warmth of demonstration on the part of the large audience as to thoroughly convince her that she was addressing those who were in sympathy with the suffrage movement. As she stood up in the presence of the vast congregation of faces a profound silence filled the hall and every one seemed to be intently waiting for her opening words. Within the railing a large number of men, who preferred to stand near the speaker rather than secure seats in the rear of the hall, were grouped in a solid mass, and appeared to be equally as much concerned as the ladies.
There were many distinguished women present at the convention, from the South and the North, and all separated with the feeling that fraternal bonds had been strengthened and many converts made to the belief in equal suffrage.
Miss Anthony was much revered by the colored race and while here she addressed the students of the Atlanta University, and spoke with Bishop Turner to an immense audience at Bethel church. She was invited also to address the alumnæ of the girls' high school. At the close of the convention she went, with her sister Mary, niece Lucy, Anna Shaw and Mrs. Upton, for a three days' visit at the spacious old-time mansion of the Howards, in Columbus. She left for Aiken, S. C., February 9, where she spoke in the courthouse and was introduced by the Baptist minister. Here she was the guest of Miss Martha Schofield, and was much interested in the very successful industrial school for colored children, founded by her during the war. On February 12, she lectured at Columbia for the Practical Progress Club, introduced by Colonel V. P. Clayton. The Pine Tree State contained an excellent editorial in favor of woman suffrage, but thought "it could be more successfully advocated in that locality by some one of less pronounced abolitionism." Her hostess, Mrs. Helen Brayton, gave a reception for her, and she met a large number of the representative people of Columbia. Her last lecture was given at Culpepper, Va. The six weeks' southern trip had been very pleasant; she had made many friends and found much sentiment in favor of suffrage. The only drawback had been the severity of the weather, the coldest ever known in that locality, which will long be remembered because of the destruction of the orange groves.
Miss Anthony reached Washington on the morning of her seventy-fifth birthday, February 15. The National Woman's Council was to open its second triennial meeting on the 18th, and its official board and many delegates were already in the city. When she arrived she found that "her girls," as she was fond of designating the younger workers, had arranged for a banquet in her honor at the Ebbitt House that evening. Covers were laid for fifty and it was a beautiful affair. After a number of speeches had been made, Rachel Foster Avery arose and stated that the friends of Miss Anthony from ocean to ocean and the lakes to the gulf, had placed in her hands sums of money amounting to $5,000. This she had put into a trust fund, purchasing therewith an "annuity" of $800, which she now took great pleasure in presenting. There were 202 contributors and although Mrs. Avery had been for several months collecting the money, incredible as it may seem, the whole matter was a complete surprise to Miss Anthony. Realizing that during the last forty-five years she had spent practically all she had earned and all that had been given her, to advance the cause to which she had devoted her life, they determined to put this testimonial into such shape as would make it impossible thus to expend it. She was greatly overcome and for once could not command the words to voice her feelings.
As each three months have rolled around since that occasion, and the $200 check has been sent with a pleasant greeting from the Penn Mutual insurance company, hoping that she might live to use the entire principal, her heart has thrilled anew with gratitude and affection to Mrs. Avery and the friends who put their love and appreciation into this material shape. It suffices to pay the monthly expenses of the modest household and, with the income from the few thousands that have been laid away, an occasional paid lecture and the gifts from generous friends, Miss Anthony is freed from financial anxiety, although obliged to exercise careful economy.
It is impossible in this limited space to attempt a description of that great council extending through the days and evenings of two weeks, attended by delegates from twenty national organizations, representing the highest intellects and activities among women and covering a wide range of vital questions. Miss Anthony stood for the department of Government Reform. Although at this council she desired to be simply one of the many representatives of different organizations, the public would make her the central figure of all occasions. On February 28, Mrs. John R. McLean, assisted by Mrs. Calvin Brice, gave a reception in her honor, attended by many of the official, literary, artistic and musical people of the capital.
Frederick Douglass came into the council the afternoon of the 20th and was invited by the president, Mrs. Sewall, to a seat on the platform. He accepted, but declined to speak, acknowledging the applause only by a bow. Upon entering his home in Anacostia, a few hours later, he dropped to the floor and expired instantly. Funeral services were held in the African Metropolitan church, Washington, February 25, in which, at the request of the family, Miss Anthony took part, paid a brief tribute and read Mrs. Stanton's touching memorial of the only man who sustained her demand for the enfranchisement of women in that famous first convention of 1848.
At the close of the council Miss Anthony lectured at Lincoln, Va., in the ancient Quaker meeting house. Returning to Washington she was entertained by Mrs. Mary S. Lockwood at a dinner party on the evening of the Travel Club, at which she was one of the speakers. Reaching Philadelphia March 9, she turned her steps, as was always her custom, directly towards her old friend Adeline Thomson, and her surprise and grief may be imagined when she found that she had died a month previous. Her relations with Adeline and Annie Thomson, who had passed away nearly ten years before, had been those of affectionate sisters, and for nearly forty years their home had been as her own. She had received many contributions from them, and Adeline had made her a personal gift of $1,000. She often had said to her and written in her letters, that she had $5,000 more laid away for her after she herself should have no further use for it, but as is so often the case she neglected to make provision for this, and all her property went to a nephew.
From Mrs. Avery's suburban home at Somerton, Miss Anthony sent grateful letters to every one of the 202 contributors to her annuity. She addressed the 500 students at Drexel Institute, and left for New York March 12. Here she had an important business meeting with Mary Lowe Dickinson, the newly elected president of the National Council, and then went to tell all about the Atlanta convention, the Woman's Council and various other events to Mrs. Stanton, who still felt the liveliest interest although not physically able to take an active part.
The day after Miss Anthony reached home she read in the morning paper that two of the State Industrial School girls and two of the free academy boys had been seen the night before coming out of a questionable place; the girls were arrested and locked up in the station house, the boys were told to go home. It was an everyday injustice but she determined to protest, so she went straightway to the police court, where she insisted that the boys should not go free while the girls were punished. She pleaded in vain; the girls were sent to the reformatory, the boys being used as witnesses against them and then dismissed without so much as a reprimand.
A short time afterwards Miss Anthony went to the Baptist church one Sunday evening to hear a young colored woman, Miss Ida Wells, lecture on the lynching of negroes in the South. The speaker was rudely interrupted several times by a fellow from Texas who was in Rochester attending the theological school. She answered him politely but at length he asked: "If the negroes don't like it in the South, why don't they leave and go North?" At this Miss Anthony, who had been growing more indignant every moment, sprung to her feet and, with flashing eyes and ringing voice, said: "I will tell you why; it is because they are treated no better in the North than they are in the South." She then related a number of instances, which had come to her own knowledge, of the cruel discrimination made against colored people, to the utter amazement of the audience who did not believe such things possible.[111]
She took Miss Wells home with her for the rest of her stay. She had employed a young woman stenographer for a few weeks to clear up her accumulated correspondence and, having to go away the next day, she told Miss Wells the girl might help her with her pile of letters. When she returned in the evening she found her scribbling away industriously and the stenographer at leisure. In answer to her inquiry the latter replied: "I don't choose to write for a colored person." "If you can not oblige me by assisting a guest in my house," said Miss Anthony, "you can not remain in my employ." The girl, although in destitute circumstances, gave up her situation.
Miss Anthony had been feeling for a long time that, in justice to herself and to the State Industrial School, she should resign her position on the board of managers. When she accepted it she had intended to give up the greater part of her travelling and direct her forces from the seat of government in her own home, but she had found this practically impossible. The demands for her actual presence and personal work were too strong to be resisted. There were very few women in the country who could draw so large an audience as herself, or who knew so well how to manage a convention or carry on a campaign, and the women of the different States, who had one or the other of these in hand, were unwilling to accept a substitute. She was as well and vigorous as at fifty, and there seemed to be no adequate reason why she should refuse the many opportunities to advance the cause for which she had given the active service of nearly half a century. The several years since she began housekeeping, therefore, had found her at home no more of the time than those which had preceded.
When she first visited the school she found the boys' departments fitted up with all the appliances of a steam laundry, while a large number of the girls were bending their backs over washtubs and ironing-boards the whole of every week. She soon succeeded in having the washing sent over to the laundry, where a few girls were able to do it all in two or three days; she also made many valuable suggestions in the sewing department. When in the city she went to the school on Sunday, helped with the services and talked to the 700 boys and 150 girls. Some of the latter came to her one Sunday and said pathetically that it was the first time a speaker ever had seemed to know there were any girls there! She wrote in her journal, with quiet humor, that the men on the board were going the next day to select a cooking stove. She realized even more strongly than ever that, though the best and wisest men may be on the boards of public institutions, there is need also of women, but she felt that, with so vast an amount of other work on hand, she could not do her duty by the school. As she was about to go away again for a number of months she decided to delay her resignation no longer and forwarded it to Governor Morton April 15, after having served about two and a half years. She then finished her lecture engagements and completed arrangements for what proved to be one of the pleasantest journeys of her life.
FOOTNOTES:
[107] At these annual feasts gentlemen are permitted to sit in the gallery, listen to the toasts and watch the ladies enjoy the dinner.
[108] During this year Mrs. Gross had presented Miss Anthony with $1,000 to complete the education of a nephew and niece.
[109] A plan for a great Liberal Religious Congress, the outgrowth of the Parliament of Religions in 1893.
[110] After 1892 Miss Anthony had to read most of Mrs. Stanton's addresses, and the latter wrote her: "If you pronounce what I write 'good,' I know it is up to the mark. Many thanks for reading all my papers so well as everybody says you do. I am sure of your rich voice and deep sympathy with the subject, and I much prefer to have you read my speeches rather than any other person, as I am always told that your reading makes a deep impression. Our thoughts have the same trend on the woman suffrage question, and we have written and talked over every phase of the subject so much together that what I write is essentially yours as well as mine."
[111] The Rochester dailies came out next morning with full reports of this episode and editorial remarks; citizens of both sexes wrote to the papers, pro and con; other newspapers took up the question, and a wave of comment swept over the country.
XLV. THE SECOND VISIT TO CALIFORNIA
1895.
It has been said in another chapter that Miss Anthony established herself firmly and forever in the hearts of the people at the Columbian Exposition of 1893. Men and women were there from every State in the Union, many of whom never had seen or heard her and had been deeply prejudiced against her, but she conquered all and they returned home henceforth to sing her praises. Naturally they wanted their friends and neighbors to be converted like themselves, and invitations to lecture came from all quarters. One of the most urgent was from the Woman's Congress Auxiliary of the great California Midwinter Exposition, which followed the World's Fair, but as she had two campaigns on hand in 1894 she could not accept it. Out of this auxiliary had grown a permanent Woman's Congress Association, with Sarah B. Cooper at its head. When a pressing request came to attend their first anniversary in San Francisco, in 1895, she accepted with pleasure. The corresponding secretary, Mrs. Minna V. Gaden, wrote in reply:
I can not attempt to express to you the joy and gratification of the executive board over your consent to be with us and take part in the congress in May. I wish I could have phonographed the exclamations of delight and photographed the beaming countenances of the members when I read them your letter. In answer to your question as to whether we desired to have you speak upon some special point of the subject for which you stand, I would say we want Susan B. Anthony and all that she is; and we are sure that the right word will be said, the great facts made plain and the true inspiration given. We want you and all that your presence means and all that your life's work has brought.
Miss Anthony had another reason for wishing to go to California in addition to the desire of meeting and helping the women of that beautiful State in their congress. Its legislature, the previous winter, had submitted a woman suffrage amendment which was to be voted on in 1896. This visit would enable her to look over the field, talk with the men and women, and render any assistance they might desire towards planning their campaign. She wrote Mrs. Cooper stating that she did not wish to make the journey alone, that she liked to have one of her "lieutenants" to relieve her of the burden of much speaking, and would be glad of the privilege of bringing with her Rev. Anna Shaw. Mrs. Cooper responded with a check of $450, for travelling expenses, saying: "We rejoice to know that Miss Shaw will come with you, as another grand helper for us. I send you the money and want you to have every possible comfort on the journey."
From that time until Miss Anthony reached California not over three days ever passed without a letter from Mrs. Cooper, rejoicing over the promised visit. "Everybody is full of expectancy looking for your advent. I have engaged the First Congregational church of San Francisco for Miss Shaw's sermon. Hattie and I send you a heart full of love. May God hold you safe in His keeping." "San Francisco and the whole Pacific coast have a warm welcome for you both; every one is looking forward to meeting you, great and noble champion of all that is good." So the letters ran, and they were supplemented by long and loving ones from the daughter Harriet, who lived but to second her mother's work and wishes.
When the papers heralded abroad the news that Miss Anthony was going to California, the large western towns along the route sent earnest requests for lectures and visits, and the journey assumed the aspect of a triumphal tour. She started April 27, full of health and spirit and with happy anticipations; spent one day with Mrs. Upton, at Warren, O., one with Mrs. Sewall, at Indianapolis, going thence to Chicago, where she was entertained by Mr. and Mrs. Gross. Here she found Harriet Hosmer, who had been with them seven months, while she worked on her statue of Lincoln. In the evening half a dozen reporters called and the papers bristled with interviews. The next day she went with her hostess to the famous Woman's Club. Miss Shaw joined Miss Anthony in Chicago, and May 1 they left for St. Louis, where they remained four days at the New Planters' Hotel, the guests of Mrs. Gross, who had accompanied them.
Their mission at St. Louis was to address the Mississippi Valley Woman's Congress, under the auspices of the W. C. T. U., Mrs. E. B. Ingalls, presiding. Miss Anthony spoke on "The Present Outlook," and the papers described enthusiastically "the splendid ovation" she received, the many floral offerings, and the hundreds of personal greetings at the close of the evening. Just before her address, seventy-five little boys and girls, several colored ones among them, marched past her on the platform, each laying a rose in her lap. The day after the congress the State Suffrage Association held its convention, and on the evening of May 4 a handsome banquet, with covers laid for 200, was given for her at the Mercantile Club rooms.
She reached Denver May 8, at 4 A. M., remained in the sleeper till six and then could stand it no longer but took a carriage and sallied forth. When the reception committee came to the station at seven to escort her to the elaborate breakfast which had been prepared at the Brown Palace Hotel, where a large number of friends were waiting, the guest had flown and could not be found. While in the city she was entertained at the home of Hon. Thomas M. Patterson, of the Rocky Mountain News, whose progressive and cultured wife was her warm personal friend and had been an advocate of suffrage long before it was granted to the women of Colorado. Reverend Anna was the guest of ex-Governor and Mrs. Routt. That afternoon Miss Anthony went to Boulder, where she was engaged to lecture.
The next day the Woman's Club gave a large reception in their honor at the Brown Palace Hotel, attended by over 1,200 women. The News, in its account, said: "The scene marked, to the retrospective mind, the enormous change that has taken place in the status of the sex within the lifetime of one woman. It hardly seemed possible, as the spectator beheld Miss Anthony surrounded by the richest and most conservative women of Denver, to believe that in her youth the great lecturer was hissed from the stage in the most cultured and liberal cities of the United States, and cast out from polite society like a pariah. It is not often either that one who has been a pioneer in an unpopular cause lives to see it become fashionable and herself the center of attention from a younger generation which has profited by her labors of earlier years." The same paper commented editorially: "To accomplish the political enfranchisement of her sex and open a broader field of work and influence for women everywhere, Miss Anthony has devoted her life.... Among all the noble women who have stood boldly to champion the cause of their sisters, she is easily chief, and is worthy of all the honors that have been bestowed upon her. It must have been a proud satisfaction for her yesterday to meet the women of Colorado, who are now endowed with equal political rights because of the crusade she has been instrumental in starting and maintaining. Well may these newly enfranchised women do her reverence. Not more loyal should the silver men of Colorado be to Dick Bland, than the women of Colorado to the apostle of equal suffrage--Susan B. Anthony."
The Denver Times said in a leading editorial: "To Miss Anthony the women of today owe a great debt, for through her life's work they enjoy a hundred privileges denied them fifty years ago. From her devotion to a cause which for decades made her a martyr to the derision of an unsympathetic public, has grown a new order of things. Her hand has most helped to open every profession and every line of business to women. While all the women of the United States are under many obligations to her, those of Colorado, who are now equal citizens, owe her the greatest allegiance." The Times also quotes in an interview with Miss Anthony: "When asked what subject she would take for her speeches to the people of Colorado, she shook her head with a kindly smile and said: 'My usual lectures will not do. What can I say to the women who have the franchise? I can only encourage them to use their new power wisely, to stand bravely for the right, and to help the equal suffrage cause in other States.'"
The ladies lectured that evening to an immense audience in the Broadway Theater. The papers reported with great headlines: "Enthusiastic Greeting by Colorado's Enfranchised Citizens. Miss Anthony Overcome with Hearty Congratulations. America's Joan of Arc Shakes Hands with an Army of Women Voters." One searches in vain in these newspapers for evidences of the terrible loss of respect which women were to experience when they were endowed with the ballot. The News, in over a column report, said:
Miss Anthony's voice was clear and powerful, filling the big theater without any apparent effort. She began by saying that she believed the thing she had always claimed had come true; that the women had learned a new and higher self-respect with their added rights and responsibilities.... She paid the men of Colorado the compliment of declaring them the best in the world. The men of Wyoming had occupied this proud position up to 1893, but those of Colorado had granted the ballot to a disfranchised class not through the legislature, but by a popular vote. This act stands alone in the history of the world; no class of men has ever done as much for even another class of men....
She said she had heard that some of the women had voted with sagacity and some had not. This was not strange, since men continued to do this after more than one hundred years of voting. If women made mistakes this year, they would remedy them next year, and in time she believed they would become the balance of power between the two parties in all social, moral and educational questions.
At Cheyenne Senator and Mrs. Carey gave an elegant dinner party in their honor, attended by Governor and Mrs. Rich, Senator and Mrs. Warren, Mrs. Esther Morris, the first woman judge, Mrs. Therese Jenkins, State president, Mrs. Amalia Post, a suffrage pioneer, and other distinguished guests. They went immediately from dinner to the new Baptist church, which was filled to overflowing, and were introduced by the governor. At the close of the lectures, Mrs. Jenkins said, "Now I desire to introduce the audience to the speakers." She then called the names of the governor and all his staff, the attorney-general, the United States judges, the senators and congressmen, the mayor and members of the city council. Each rose as his name was mentioned, and before she was through, it seemed as if half the audience were on their feet, and the applause was most enthusiastic. Here again one could not discern an indication of the dreadful loss of respect which was to be the portion of enfranchised women.
It was long after midnight before the travellers were quietly in bed in the delightful home of the Careys, but at half-past seven they had finished breakfast and were on board train en route for Salt Lake City. Learning from the conductor that Mrs. Leland Stanford's private car was attached, Miss Anthony sent her card and soon was invited to a seat in that luxurious conveyance, where she enjoyed a visit of several hours. Mrs. Stanford told her of the government suit against the estate, and Miss Anthony's parting words were a warning not to leave her lawyers to go before the Supreme Court alone, but to be present herself in Washington to protect her own interests and those of the great university.
At Salt Lake, on Sunday morning, a large delegation of women, representing the different religious sects and political organizations, met the travellers and drove to the Templeton, where seventy-five sat down to breakfast, and they were then taken for a drive over the city. Miss Anthony was the guest of Mrs. Beatie, daughter of Brigham and Zina D. H. Young, and Miss Shaw of Mrs. McVicker. At 3 P. M., the Reverend Anna preached in the great Tabernacle, Bishops Whitney and Richards assisting. At the close they congratulated her on having preached a Mormon sermon; afterwards a Methodist minister who was in the audience thanked her for her good Methodist sermon; and a little later a Presbyterian minister shook her hand heartily and expressed his pleasure at hearing her Presbyterian doctrine; so she concluded she had made a politic address. Sunday evening she preached in the theater at what was intended to be a union service. All of the Gentile ministers had been invited to take part and all declined but the pastor of the Unitarian church. He and the principal of the public schools, formerly a Unitarian minister, were the only men on the stage.
The Inter-Mountain Woman Suffrage Association of Utah, Montana and Idaho opened the next morning, May 13. The first day's sessions were held in the new city building, but it was so crowded that an overflow meeting was necessary and the next day the convention was transferred to the big assembly hall. The seat of honor was given to Miss Anthony; on her right Mrs. Emmeline B. Wells, president of the Utah association, on her left, Rev. Anna Shaw. They were surrounded by a semicircle of the illustrious women of the Territory who, for many years, had been active in the work for suffrage. The hall was draped with the national colors and above the stage were portraits of Lincoln, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton. The introductory address was made by Governor West, who, after paying an earnest tribute to Miss Anthony, predicted that the new State constitution, which was to go to the voters containing a woman suffrage clause, would be overwhelmingly ratified.
During their stay in Salt Lake Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw received the highest consideration. Monday afternoon Mr. and Mrs. F. S. Richards gave a reception in their honor, and were assisted in receiving by Governor West, President Woodruff, Hon. George Q. Cannon, and many ladies. The next afternoon a reception was tendered by the W. C. T. U. In the evening, a large party went to Ogden, where a banquet was given, a great meeting held in the city hall, and an overflow meeting in one of the churches.
The 16th of May found the travellers at Reno, Nev., where they were the guests of Mrs. Elda A. Orr, president of the State association. In the morning Miss Anthony talked to the 800 men and women students of the State University. In the evening they spoke in the opera house, which was crowded to its limits, while on the stage were the representative men and women of the city and neighboring towns. The house was beautifully decorated with flowers and banners, a brass band played on the balcony and an orchestra within. They were introduced by Miss Hannah H. Clapp, who had presented Miss Anthony to a Nevada audience at Carson, in 1871. Saturday afternoon they enjoyed a charming reception in the parlors of the women's clubhouse.
Late that day they resumed their journey, took supper at Truckee on the summit of the Sierras, and had a delicious glimpse of Lake Donner just as they plunged into the forty miles of snow-sheds. They were glad of a long night's rest after the strain of the last three weeks and, when they awoke the next morning, were rolling through the fertile Sacramento valley. California in May! Never was there a pen inspired with the power to describe its beauties. Not the brush of the most gifted artist could picture the mountains with their green foot-hills and snow-capped summits; the valleys, nature's own lovely and fragrant conservatories of brilliant blossoms and luxuriant, riotous vines, and the great oaks with their glossy foliage, all enveloped in a warm and shimmering atmosphere and, bending above, the soft blue sky scarcely dimmed by a fleeting cloud. They can not be put into words, they must be lived.
The travellers had been up and dressed and enjoying the sweet air and lovely landscape for a long time when the train stopped at the Oakland station at half-past seven Sunday morning, May 19. Early as was the hour, with the mists still hovering over the bay, they found awaiting them, laden with flowers, Mrs. Cooper and her daughter Harriet, from San Francisco, Mrs. Isabel A. Baldwin, Mrs. Ada Van Pelt and several other Oakland ladies, and Rev. John K. McLean, the Congregational minister, whose eldest brother was the husband of Miss Anthony's sister. He conveyed her at once to his own home, while the others took charge of Miss Shaw. At 11 o'clock the reverend lady was in Dr. McLean's pulpit, fresh and smiling, in her soft, black ministerial robes, with dainty white lawn at neck and wrists. Every seat was filled, chairs were placed in the aisles, people sitting on the steps, and the happiest woman in all the throng was Susan B. Anthony as she sat beside her friend. That evening the scene was repeated in the Congregational church of San Francisco, where the chancel was adorned with lilies and the revered Sarah B. Cooper made the opening prayer.
The Woman's Congress opened at Golden Gate Hall, on the morning of May 20. The newspapers of San Francisco had decreed that this congress should be a success, and to this end they had been as generous with space and as complimentary in tone as the most exacting could have desired. The result was that at not a session during the week was the great hall large enough to hold the audience which sought admission. It presented a beautiful sight on the opening morning, festooned from end to end with banners; the stage a veritable conservatory, with a background of palms, bamboo and other tropical plants, and in front a bewildering array of lilies, roses, carnations, sweet peas and other fragrant blossoms. Grouped upon the platform, on chairs and divans, under tall, shaded lamps, were the speakers and guests. At the right of the president's desk was a large arm-chair artistically draped with flowers beneath a canopy of La France roses. At half-past ten Mrs. Cooper stepped out from the wings escorting Miss Anthony, followed by Mayor Adolph Sutro and Rev. Anna Shaw. The audience burst into a storm of applause and, amid cheers and the waving of handkerchiefs, Miss Anthony was conducted to her floral throne. As soon as she was seated, one woman after another came up with arms full of flowers until she was literally buried under an avalanche of the choicest blossoms. No one who was present ever will forget the lovely scene.
Mayor Sutro made the address of welcome, in which he emphasized his belief that "the ballot should be placed in the hands of woman as the most powerful agent for the uplifting of humanity." At the preceding congress the general topic had been, "The Relation of Women to the Affairs of the World," and the criticism had been made that it was too much of a woman suffrage meeting. For this one the subject selected was "The Home," but the results were the same. Whatever the paper--"Hereditary Influence," "The Parents' Power," "The Family and the State"--all led to suffrage; and the more suffrage, the greater the applause from the audience. Mrs. Cooper had written Miss Anthony, "I told the committee to put you and Miss Shaw anywhere on the program, that you could speak on one subject as well as another;" so they found themselves down for "Educational Influences of Home Life;" "Which Counts More, Father's or Mother's Influence?" "Does Wifehood Preclude Citizenship?" "The Evolution of the Home;" "The Family and the State;" "Shall We Co-operate?" "The Rights of Motherhood;" and numerous other topics. Both spoke every day during the Congress and the people seemed never to tire of hearing them.
Mrs. Cooper presided in her dignified and beautiful manner, and in her presentation said: "I have the very great honor and pleasure of introducing to this assembly one who has done more towards lifting up women than any other one person--Miss Susan B. Anthony." The Chronicle reported: "Then the audience made still further demonstrations. They clapped and cheered and waved, and some of the gray-haired women wiped their eyes because it is so seldom that people live to be appreciated. But Susan B. stood like a princess of the blood royal. Very erect of head and clear of voice she began her little speech. It was full of reminiscences, but some few people have the privilege of telling recollections without the fear of ever boring any one. Miss Anthony is one of these...."
Miss Shaw also received a hearty welcome; and all through that wonderful week the bright, appreciative, warm-hearted California audiences crowded the hall and listened and applauded and brought their offerings of flowers and fruit to lay at the feet of these two women, who had come from the far East to clasp their hands and unite with them in one great cause--the uplifting of womanhood. The Chronicle said:
Twelve hundred women went to Golden Gate Hall on Monday; fourteen hundred went Tuesday; two thousand Wednesday; twenty-five hundred Thursday. Golden Gate Hall could not hold one-fourth of the crowds, so all three of yesterday's sessions were held at the First Congregational church. Even there a stream of humanity blocked every aisle clear to the platform. Nobody ever supposed that the women of San Francisco cared for aught except their gowns, their teas and their babies. But they do. They like brains, even in their own sex. And they can applaud good speeches even if made by women, and they have all fallen madly, desperately in love with a very short, very plump little woman whose name is Anna Shaw. A year ago there were not more than a hundred women in San Francisco who could have been dragged to a suffrage meeting, but yesterday twenty-five times that number struggled and tore their clothing in their determination to hear Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw.
Again it commented: "There has been some talk that the Woman's Congress which expired last night attracted its crowds under false pretenses--that it promised to talk about the home and then preached suffrage. That is usually the case when Miss Anthony is about, but it was always suffrage in its relation to the home. Who, knowing Miss Anthony's reputation, could suppose that she would cross the continent in the evening of her life to discuss the draping of a lace curtain or the best colors for a parlor carpet?... Five thousand people waiting on the steps of the Temple Emanu-El for the purpose of hearing the woman preacher's last address does not look as if her position were uncertain. Mere curiosity does not take the same people to nineteen consecutive sessions."
"Apotheosis of Woman," the Examiner headed its fine reports; and the Call, the Bulletin, the Post, the Report, and the newspapers around the bay all gave columns of space to this great meeting which had discovered to the State of California its own remarkable women.
Miss Anthony had been the guest of her old friend, Mrs. A. A. Sargent, whose hospitality she had enjoyed so many years in Washington City. As the suffrage amendment was to come up the next year, Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw met with a large number of ladies at the Congregational church and helped them organize a campaign committee, with Mrs. Cooper as its chairman. In accepting the office she said: "I intend to put all there is of me into current coin and use it to forward this Heaven-ordained work. If ever a woman was thoroughly converted to this idea I have been, and in this spirit I accept the charge."
In the afternoon of this same day Mrs. Cooper escorted them to the Y. M. C. A. Hall to address the Congregational ministers at their regular Monday meeting, to which they had been officially invited. That evening they were the guests of honor at the Unitarian Club dinner at the Palace Hotel, Miss Anthony responding to the toast, "The Rights and Privileges of Man;" Miss Shaw to "The Manly Man;" Rev. A. C. Hirst and Dr. Horatio Stebbins to "The Rights and Privileges of Woman" and "The Womanly Woman;" and the evening was a lively one. They addressed the girls' high school, and accepted also an invitation to speak to the 900 teachers at the institute in session at Golden Gate Hall. They were the guests of the Century Club, Sorosis and other San Francisco societies of women.
A friend, Mrs. Mary Grafton Campbell, wrote from Palo Alto that she heard President Jordan say every remaining day and evening of the semester were filled, and when she exclaimed, "But Miss Anthony is coming; what about her?" he replied, "There will be room for Miss Anthony if we have to give up classes." Immediately he wrote her a cordial invitation to visit the university, offering to pay her travelling expenses and expressing a wish to entertain her in his home. She accepted for herself and Miss Shaw, and they spoke to as many students as could crowd into the chapel. Mrs. Stanford sent a personal invitation for them to attend the reception which she was to give the first graduating class in her San Francisco residence.[112] They were invited to the beautiful Water Carnival at Santa Cruz, and to the Flower Festival at Santa Barbara. It would be impossible, indeed, to mention all the delightful invitations of both a public and private nature, and there was not a day that did not bring a remembrance in the shape of flowers and the delicious fruit in which Miss Anthony revelled.
On May 29 the Ebell Club of Oakland gave them a breakfast at 11:30; at 2 P. M. they addressed the Alameda County Auxiliary of the Woman's Congress, Rev. Eliza Tupper Wilkes, president. The audience filled every inch of space in the Unitarian church, the most prominent ladies of Oakland occupied seats on the platform, and a large reception in the parlors followed the speaking. The evening session was held in the Congregational church, an enthusiastic crowd in attendance. The next afternoon they started for the Yosemite Valley, having for companions Dr. Elizabeth Sargent and Dr. Henry A. Baker, Miss Anthony's grand-nephew. There Miss Anthony, at the age of seventy-five, made the usual trips on the back of a mule. She relates that the name of her steed was Moses and Anna Shaw's Ephraim, and they had great sport over them. They enjoyed to the full all the beauties of that wonderful region, which never pall, no matter how often one visits them or how long one remains among them. During this trip Miss Shaw went with one of the Yosemite commissioners, George B. Sperry, to the Mariposa Big Trees. Two, in a group of the largest three, were christened George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and he offered her the privilege of naming the third. She gave it the title of Susan B. Anthony, it was appropriately marked, and thus it will be known to future generations.
At San Jose they were the guests of Mrs. Sarah Knox Goodrich, who gave a dinner for them, and over a hundred called during the evening. Sunday afternoon Miss Anthony spoke in the Unitarian church, and Monday morning addressed the students of the Normal School. At noon Mrs. Elizabeth Lowe Watson gave a luncheon party under the great trees at her lovely home, Sunny Brae, where the ladies spoke in the afternoon to several hundred people from neighboring ranches. In the evening they lectured at San Jose and, although fifty cents admission was charged, not nearly all who had bought tickets could get into the building. When they left for Los Angeles Mrs. Goodrich slipped into the hand of each $50 in gold, as a present; just as Mrs. Sargent had done when they left San Francisco.
Long before Miss Anthony had started for California, cordial invitations had been received from the southern part of the State, from old friends and new. It was of course impossible to accept more than a small fraction of these, but from the time the twain reached Los Angeles, there was one continuous ovation. On the evening of their arrival, June 12, they addressed an audience of over 2,000 in Simpson tabernacle, which had been transformed into a bower of choicest blossoms. While in the city they were the guests of Mrs. Caroline M. Severance, with whom Miss Anthony had worked for suffrage in Ohio forty years before.
In Riverside a reception was given them at the Glenwood by Mr. and Mrs. F. M. Richardson, relatives of Miss Anthony. The beautiful drives for which that place is famous were greatly enjoyed, and they went into raptures over the oranges, which they never before had seen in such quantities. They spoke to a large audience in the handsomely decorated Methodist tabernacle at Pasadena. While here they were the guests of Mrs. P. C. Baker, on Orange Avenue, and received many social attentions from the people of this lovely little city. Thence they went to Pomona, where they were met at the station by a delegation of ladies, escorted to the Palomares Hotel, and found the committee had adorned their rooms with flowers in a profusion which would be impossible outside of California. They spoke here also in the Methodist church. The next day Miss Shaw preached in Los Angeles and Miss Anthony spent the Sunday at Whittier with Mrs. Harriet R. Strong at her ranche, so widely noted for its walnut groves and pampas fields.
Monday morning they journeyed to San Diego where they were the guests of Miss Anthony's niece, Mrs. George L. Baker. Elaborate preparations had been made to receive them and they addressed a large audience in the evening. The next afternoon a reception was given at the Hotel Florence by all the woman's clubs of the city. The Union said: "The two guests of honor were simply loaded and garlanded with flowers. They were presented with baskets of sweet peas by the Y. W. C. A., yellow blossoms by the suffrage club, red, white and blue by the Datus Coon corps; bouquets of white roses by the W. C. T. U., of red and white carnations in a holder of blue satin by Heintzelman W. R. C., of red roses by the Woman's League, of pink roses by the Jewish women. There was music by an orchestra as an accompaniment to the sociability of the occasion, in which some 700 women participated during the afternoon."
The following day a picnic was given by the Woman's Club at "Olivewood," the home of Mrs. Flora M. Kimball, near National City, where tables were spread on the lawn for the 200 guests who came by train and carriage. That same evening, by request of many who could not be present at the first meeting, the two ladies lectured again in San Diego. The next day they returned to Los Angeles, laden with souvenirs of their delightful visit; and that evening, without an hour's rest, addressed a mass meeting there.
The following day the Los Angeles Herald gave an excursion to Santa Monica in their honor. The ladies of that pretty seaside resort, under the leadership of Mrs. C. H. Ivens, met them with carriages and conducted them to the Hotel Arcadia. After luncheon, as they started for the hall where they were to speak, twelve little girls strewed flowers in their pathway, and after the addresses twelve large bouquets of choice blossoms were laid at their feet. They were taken for a long drive by Mrs. E. J. Gorham, then to the residence of her brother, Senator John P. Jones; and at the close of a lovely day, returned to Los Angeles. That evening a reception was given them by Mrs. Mark Sibley Severance, which Miss Anthony always remembered as one of the handsomest in her long experience. The next morning they met a committee from the suffrage club and had a conference on the broad piazza of their hostess in regard to the work of the coming campaign; and in the afternoon took the train for San Francisco, after two of the most delightful weeks in all their recollection. An especially gratifying feature was the attitude of the press of Southern California. There had been scarcely a discordant note in the extended reports of the public meetings and social entertainments, and the editorial comments on the two ladies and the cause of which they were leading representatives, were dignified, fair and friendly.[113]
They reached San Francisco June 24 and were welcomed at the ferry by a number of friends from the two cities. The next day they were entertained at an elaborate dinner-party of ladies and gentlemen in the artistic home of Mrs. Emma Shafter Howard, of Oakland. From the table they went at once to the evening meeting. The Enquirer said: "It needed no preliminary brass band or blare of trumpets to pack the Congregational church with a live Oakland audience. The simple announcement that Susan B. Anthony and Rev. Anna H. Shaw were to speak was sufficient, and the chairman, Colonel John P. Irish, looked out over an animated sea of faces."
The following evening the San Francisco farewell meeting was held in Metropolitan Temple. Friday and Saturday were filled with social engagements, sight-seeing and shopping. On Sunday Miss Shaw preached in the California street Methodist church in the morning and the Second Congregational in the evening, while Miss Anthony addressed a union meeting of all the colored congregations in the city at the M. E. Zion church, the historic building in which Starr King preached before the war. Monday they spoke again at the Ministers' Meeting. The fact that they would be present had been announced in the papers, and ministers of all denominations were there from most of the towns within a radius of forty miles. Miss Anthony told them in vigorous language: "The reason why they, as a class, had so little influence with men of business and political affairs was because the vast majority of the people they represented had neither money nor votes; that if four or five hundred ministers of the State should go up to Sacramento to ask for any legislation, they would be treated politely and bowed out precisely as would so many of their women church members. Whereas, on the other hand, one manufacturer, one railroad official, one brewer or distiller, could go before the same body and get whatever he asked, because every member would know that behind this request were not only thousands of dollars but thousands of votes." The ministers seemed to realize fully the force of this statement and many expressed themselves thoroughly in favor of the enfranchisement of women.
The State Suffrage Association, with a good delegate representation, met in Golden Gate Hall, July 3, for their annual convention. There had been heretofore some dissensions in this organization and, at this critical time, co-operation was so vitally necessary that the friendly offices of Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw were requested in the interests of harmony. In view of the arduous campaign approaching, all desired that Mrs. A. A. Sargent should accept the presidency, and the close of the convention found the forces united and ready for work.
The Fourth of July witnessed the last public appearance of the two eminent visitors, and thereby hangs a tale. The last of May Miss Anthony had received from the chairman of the Fourth of July Executive Committee, William H. Davis, the following: "Fully realizing the great importance of your life-work, and rejoicing with you in the certainty that the fruition of your labors and hopes is now no longer problematic, but merely a question of days, we take much pleasure in extending to you the right hand of American fellowship ... We cordially invite you to an honorary position on our committee, and hope that you will do us the honor of allowing us to select for you an appropriate and prominent place in the celebration of our national independence."
When it had been decided to celebrate the Fourth on a more elaborate scale than usual, an auxiliary board was appointed, composed of the leading women of the city, with Sarah B. Cooper, chairman. Thinking to add an interesting feature to the occasion, she requested of the literary committee that Rev. Anna Shaw be placed on the program as one of the orators of the day. To her amazement she was refused in discourteous manner and language. The executive committee, learning of this action, requested that it should be reconsidered and Miss Shaw invited to speak. This being refused, the executive committee notified them that unless it was done, their committee would be discharged and a new one appointed. They then yielded to the inevitable, placing Miss Shaw's name upon the list of orators, and the announcement was received with cheers by all the other committees. The reverend lady had not the slightest desire to make a Fourth of July speech, but she did wish to see Mrs. Cooper win her battle with the little sub-committee. Meanwhile the committee in Oakland, P. M. Fisher, chairman, did not wait to be asked, but invited her to deliver an oration in that city as soon as she had finished in San Francisco, and she accepted.
In the great Fourth of July procession, the very next carriage to that of the mayor contained Mrs. Cooper, Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw, and the rousing cheers of the people along the whole line of march showed their appreciation of the victory gained for woman. At 2 o'clock in the afternoon the ladies took seats on the platform at Woodward's Pavilion, facing an audience of 5,000 people. San Francisco never heard such an oration as was delivered that day by the little Methodist preacher, her natural eloquence fired by the efforts to prevent her making it. After she had finished and the cheers upon cheers had died away, there was a great shout from the immense crowd, "Miss Anthony, Miss Anthony!" Finally she was obliged to come forward and, when a stillness had settled upon the audience, she said in strong, ringing tones: "You have heard today a great deal of what George Washington, the father of his country, said a hundred years ago. I will repeat to you just one sentence which Abraham Lincoln, the savior of his country, uttered within the present generation: 'No man is good enough to govern another man without his consent.' Now I say unto you, 'No man is good enough to govern any woman without her consent;'" and sat down amidst roars of applause.
Miss Shaw had been placed at the very end of the program and when she got out into the street it was 5 o'clock. It would require an hour to reach Oakland, and she supposed of course some one had telegraphed the situation and the people there had long since gone home; but this had not been done, and a great audience on that side of the bay had assembled in the Tabernacle, many going as early as 1 o'clock, and had waited until 6. Knowing there was some mistake they separated with the understanding that if Miss Shaw could be secured for the evening the church bells would be rung. That lady had just seated herself at the dinner table when a telegram was received explaining the situation. She replied at once: "I will be with you at half-past eight." Miss Anthony would not let her go alone and so, exhausted as they both were by the hard demands of the day, they crossed the bay, reaching Oakland at 8 o'clock. No one was at the station to meet them, so they took a carriage and drove to the Tabernacle but found it dark and deserted. They then went the rounds of the churches, but all were closed. Finally they gave up in despair and made the long journey back to San Francisco, reaching the Sargent home at 11 o'clock. Why the telegram was not received was never satisfactorily determined.
After a meeting with the amendment campaign committee the next morning and a long discussion of their plan of work, the travellers started eastward at 6 P. M. They were met at the Oakland ferry by a crowd of friends from both cities with flowers, fruit and lunch baskets, and left amidst a shower of affectionate farewells. They carried away the sweetest memories of a lifetime and could find no words to express their love and admiration for the people of California.
Miss Anthony preserves, as a memento of this visit, a large scrap-book of over 200 pages entirely filled with personal notices from the newspapers of that State during the six weeks of her stay, all, with a few exceptions, of such a character as to make their reading a pleasure. A source of even greater satisfaction was the wide discussion of woman suffrage which her visit had inspired and the favorable consideration accorded it by the press. In the months which followed she received scores of letters from California women, many of them unknown to her, expressing the sentiments of one from a teacher, which may be quoted: "Many of us who could attend but few of the meetings and had not even time to meet you personally, have caught something of their spirit and have been with you in heart. We bless the day which brought you to us; for your kindly words to women, and to men for women, have lifted the fog, and the veiling mists are drifting away, leaving us a clearer view of our duty not only to humanity but to ourselves. You have left a trail of light."
FOOTNOTES:
[112] As soon as they arrived in California they were presented by Mrs. Stanford with railroad passes throughout the State.
[113] The Los Angeles Times, Harrison Gray Otis, editor, furnished the only exception of any importance to this rule.
XLVI. MRS. STANTON'S BIRTHDAY--THE BIBLE RESOLUTION
1895-1896.
On the way homeward they were met at every large station by friends with something to add to the pleasure of their trip. Miss Shaw went through to Chicago, but Miss Anthony journeyed towards Leavenworth. She dined with friends at Topeka, and while waiting in the station, one of them remarked, "We are to have our suffrage meeting tomorrow, what shall we tell them from you?" In a spirit of fun she dashed off a resolution saying that "since 130,000 Kansas men declared themselves against woman suffrage at the late election and 74,000 showed their opposition by not voting; therefore it is the duty of every self-respecting woman in the State to fold her hands and refuse to help any religious, charitable or moral reform or any political association, until the men shall strike the adjective 'male' from the suffrage clause of the constitution."
She was in Topeka only five hours, but during that time attended a dinner party, gave a two-column interview to a reporter from each of the city papers, and furnished a resolution which set all the newspapers in the country by the ears. "Talk about hysterics," she said, laughingly, as she read the clippings, "it takes the editors to have 'em, if they are opposed to woman suffrage and can get hold of something to help them out." Any one who could have the patience to read the fearful morals which were deduced, the frightful sermons which were preached, from what was intended as a joking resolution, would quite agree with her. Even had it been meant seriously, it would have been only such retaliation as men would have visited upon women had the latter been possessed of the power and voted three to one to take the ballot away from them.
She visited a week in Leavenworth and Fort Scott, arrived at Chicago July 15, and was thus described by a Herald reporter:
Miss Anthony has grown slightly thinner since she was in Chicago attending the World's Fair Congresses, thinner and more spiritual-looking. As she sat last night with her transparent hands grasping the arms of her chair, her thin, hatchet face and white hair, with only her keen eyes flashing light and fire, she looked like Pope Leo XIII. The whole physical being is as nearly submerged as possible in a great mentality. She recalls facts, figures, names and dates with unerring accuracy. It was no Argus-eyed autocrat who told with pardonable pride last night of how her chair at every great function in San Francisco was hung with floral wreaths, how bouquets were piled at her feet until she could scarcely step for them. It was a pleasing story, told by a sweet old woman, of honors which she accepted for the sake of a beloved cause.
The next day she resumed her journey with Mr. and Mrs. Gross and Harriet Hosmer, who were going to Bar Harbor. She reached her own home at daybreak, and here, the diary shows, she sat down on the steps of the front porch and read the paper for an hour or two rather than disturb her sister's morning nap. The first word received from Miss Shaw was that she had arrived at her summer home on Cape Cod with a raging fever, the result of the great strain of constant speaking and travelling so many weeks without rest, and she continued alarmingly ill the remainder of the summer. She was much distressed because of an engagement she had to lecture to the Chautauqua Assembly at Lakeside, O., and to relieve her mind Miss Anthony telegraphed her that she would go in her place. She herself felt not the slightest ill effect from her journey, and the long interviews published in all the Rochester papers during the week she was at home, displayed the keenest and strongest mental power. She reached Lakeside on the 25th of July and the next day spoke to a large audience. Towards the close of her address, she ended abruptly, dropped into her chair and sank into a dead faint.
She was taken at once to Mrs. Southworth's summer home, at which she was a guest, and telegrams were sent out by the press reporters announcing that she could not live till morning. She learned afterwards that long obituary notices were put in type in many of the newspaper offices. One Chicago paper telegraphed its correspondent: "5,000 words if still living; no limit, if dead." She was very much vexed at this momentary weakness and, using her will-power, by the next day had rallied sufficiently to return home. The national suffrage business committee, by previous arrangement, met at her house, and she forced herself to keep up for two days, but felt very dull and tired, and on the morning of July 30 she did not rise. A physician was summoned and a trained nurse, and for a month she lay helpless with nervous prostration; her first serious illness in seventy-five years.
She is quoted as saying that if she "had pinched herself right hard she would not have fainted." One of the papers remarked that "then she never would have known how much the American people thought of her." Every newspaper had something pleasant to say,[114] many friends wrote letters of sympathy, and scores whom she had not known personally sent their words of admiration. Only her body was weak, her mind was abnormally alert; she appreciated all that was said and done for her, and remarked often that this was the only real rest of her lifetime. A number of relatives came to visit her, and a little later Mrs. Coonley and Mrs. Sewall. Mr. and Mrs. Gross also stopped on their way home, the latter leaving $50 for "the very prettiest wrapper that could be had." From her old anti-slavery co-worker, Samuel May, now eighty-five, came the words:
I suppose there is hardly another person in the United States, man or woman, who has been engaged in actual hard public labor so long as yourself; and is it not a part of your business and a part of your duty--in view of the unattained results--to allow yourself larger spaces of rest and to put upon yourself more moderate and less exhausting tasks? We would not willingly see you retire from the field altogether; therefore we want you to do less of the common soldier's work and take charge of the reserves, keeping watch from your tower of experience, and personally appearing only when and where the enemy rallies in unusual numbers or with unusual craftiness. This does not imply a lessening of your usefulness but an increase, being a wiser application of your strength and resources.
From Parker Pillsbury, the old comrade, aged eighty-six: "We have heard of your late illness, a warning to constant prudence and care for your health as you come down to 'life's latest stage.' Hold on, my dear--our dear--Susan, hold on to the last hour possible. You have seen great and glorious changes, almost revolutions, but yet how much remains to be encountered and accomplished.... We shall hope you may live to see the one grand achievement--the equal civil and political rights of all women before the law. Then you may well say: 'Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace; for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.'"
Mrs. Stanton wrote: "I never realized how desolate the world would be to me without you until I heard of your sudden illness. Let me urge you with all the strength I have, and all the love I bear you, to stay at home and rest and save your precious self." From Mrs. Cooper this urgent message: "You are too far along in years to work as hard as you do. Take it easy, my beloved friend, and let your young lieutenants bear the heat and burden of the day, while you give directions from the hill-top of survey. Age has the right to be peaceful, as childhood has the right to be playful. You are the youngest of us all, nevertheless nature cries a halt and you must obey her call in order to be with us as our leader for a score of years to come."
There is a long hiatus in the diary, and then for many days the brief entry, "On the mend." In September she began to walk out a little and then to call on the nearest friends, and by the last of the month she attended a few committee meetings. The rumor had been persistently circulated that she was to resign the presidency of the National-American Association and retire to private life. In fact, she never had the slightest intention of giving up active work. She realized that inactivity meant stagnation and hastened both physical and mental decay, and she was determined to keep on and "drop in the harness" when the time came to stop.[115] It was evident, however, that she must have relief in her immense correspondence. This she recognized, and so secured an efficient stenographer and typewriter in Mrs. Emma B. Sweet, who assumed her duties October 1, 1895. The five large files packed with copies of letters sent out during the remaining months of the year show how pressing was the need of her services. Miss Anthony relates in her diary with much satisfaction, that she "managed to have a letter at every State suffrage convention held that fall."
She thought possibly she might have to work a little more moderately for a while, and one of her first letters was written to the head of the Slayton Lecture Bureau: "I should love dearly to say 'yes' to your proposition for a series of lectures at $100 a night. Nothing short of that would tempt me to go on the lyceum platform again, and even to that, for the present, I must say 'nay.' I am resolved to be a home-body the coming year, with the exception of attending the celebration of Mrs. Stanton's eightieth birthday and our regular Washington convention." Among the characteristic short letters is this to Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson, of Chicago, who had asked for a word of encouragement in regard to a hospital she was founding for mothers whose children were born out of wedlock:
I hope your beneficent enterprise may succeed. I trust the day will come when there will be no such unfortunate mothers, but until then, it certainly is the duty of society to provide for them. The first step towards bringing that day is to make women not only self-supporting but able to win positions of honor and emolument. Since no disfranchised class of men ever had equal chances in the world, it is fair to conclude that the first requisite to bring them to women is enfranchisement. It is not that all when enfranchised will be capable, honest and chaste, but it is that they will possess the power to control their own conditions and those of society equally with men. Therefore my panacea for the ills which your hospital would fain mitigate is the ballot in the hands of women.
The editor of the Voice wrote for her opinion as to the cause of the prevailing "hard times," and she answered:
The work of my life has been less to find out the causes of men's failure to successfully manage affairs, than to try to show them their one great failure in attempting to make a successful government without the help of women. It used to be said in anti-slavery days that a people who would tacitly consent to the enslavement of 4,000,000 human beings, were incapable of being just to each other, and I believe the same rule holds with regard to the injustice practiced by men towards women. So long as all men conspire to rob women of their citizen's right to perfect equality in all the privileges and immunities of our so-called "free" government, we can not expect these same men to be capable of perfect justice to each other. On the contrary, the inevitable result must be trusts, monopolies and all sorts of schemes to get an undue share of the proceeds of labor. There is money enough in this country today in the hands of the few, if justly distributed, to make "good times" for all.
Reporters were constantly besieging her for her views on "bloomers," which had been re-introduced by the bicycle, and she usually replied in effect:
My opinion about "bloomers" and dress generally for both men and women is that people should dress to accommodate whatever business or pastime they pursue. It would be quite out of good taste as well as good sense, for a woman to go to her daily work with trailing skirts, flowing sleeves, fringes and laces; and certainly, if women ride the bicycle or climb mountains, they should don a costume which will permit them the use of their legs. It is very funny that it is ever and always the men who are troubled about the propriety of the women's costume. My one word about the "bloomers" or any other sort of dress, is that every woman, like every man, should be permitted to wear exactly what she chooses.
When women have equal chances in the world they will cease to live merely to please the conventional fancy of men. As long as there was no alternative for women but to marry, it was about as much as any woman's life was worth to be an old maid, and her one idea was to dress and behave so as to escape this fate. She now has other objects in life, and her new liberty has brought with it a freedom in matters of dress which is cause for rejoicing.
These opinions might be multiplied almost to infinity and all would emphasize two points: 1st, the broad views entertained by Miss Anthony on all questions, based on her idea of individual freedom, the same for both sexes; 2d, her fundamental belief that, until women cease to be a subject class, and until they stand upon the plane of perfect equality of rights and privileges, there can be no such thing as a fair solution or adjustment of the issues of the day, either great or small; in other words, that these can not be satisfactorily and permanently settled through the judgment and decision of only one-half the people.
On October 18 she celebrated her complete recovery by accepting an invitation to "come and take a cup of tea with Aunt Maria Porter," in honor of her ninetieth birthday. She was obliged to cancel her engagement to speak at the Atlanta Exposition, but during this month made a trial of her strength by an hour's speech at the annual meeting of the Monroe County Suffrage Club at Brockport, "attempting it," she says, "with fear and trembling, but going through as if I never had had a scare." Assured by this that she had herself well in hand once more, she went to Ashtabula, Ohio, for a three days' convention of the State association, attending every business meeting and public session. This fact being duly heralded in the newspapers, they put the obituary notices back into their pigeonholes.
She started for New York November 6 to be present at an event to which she had looked forward with more pleasure than to anything of that nature in all her life--the celebration of the eightieth birthday of Mrs. Stanton. At the convention in February it had been unanimously decided that the National-American Association should have charge of this, but at the Woman's Council in Washington it was agreed that it would have greater significance if held under the auspices of that body, which cheerfully accepted the charge. Its new president, Mary Lowe Dickinson, urged Miss Anthony to take the chairmanship of the committee of arrangements, insisting that no one else could make so great a success of it, but Miss Anthony assured her of what afterwards proved to be true, that no one could manage the affair more perfectly than Mrs. Dickinson herself.
Naturally many of the suffrage women resented having any one outside their own association as the leader on this great occasion, and Lillie Devereux Blake wrote: "Mrs. Stanton stands for suffrage above all else and she should be honored by our societies. To have the celebration under the charge of the secretary of the King's Daughters, an orthodox organization, seems very much out of taste, greatly as I honor Mrs. Dickinson. I do not think any one else will make the celebration such a success as you would; you, the long-time companion and co-worker with our dear leader, are the person who should be at the head and, with your admirable manner as a presiding officer, you would give a tone to it that no one else could." To this Miss Anthony replied:
All of you fail to see the higher honor to Mrs. Stanton in having the celebration mothered by a great body composed of twenty national societies, instead of by only our one. Surely, for all classes of women--liberal, orthodox, Jewish, Mormon, suffrage and anti-suffrage, native and foreign, black and white--to unite in paying a tribute of respect to the greatest woman reformer, philosopher and statesman of the century, will be the realization of Mrs. Stanton's most optimistic dream. I am surprised and delighted at the action of the council. It shows a breadth and comprehensiveness on the part of the leaders of its twenty-in-one organization of which I am very proud. Of course Mrs. Stanton stands for suffrage first, last and all the time, and the conservative women who join in this celebration do so knowing that she stands thus for a free and enfranchised womanhood.
Don't you see that for Anthony to head the fray, preside and be general master of ceremonies, would reduce it to a mere mutual admiration affair? The celebration is not taken away from us. We, the suffrage women, will have our modicum of time to set forth what Mrs. Stanton has done for our specific cause, and the other women will have theirs. O, no, my dear, it is not possible that the greater can be less than one of the parts which compose it.
Her own "girls," Mrs. Sewall and Mrs. Avery, could not help being a little jealous for their general, and insisted that her name should head the invitations, but to them she wrote:
Do you not see that for Susan B. Anthony's name to stand at the top, will frighten the conservatives? Everybody will conclude that the big suffrage elephant has possessed the council, body and soul--all thrust into the suffrage hopper and the wheel turned by S. B. A. To make me chairman will wholly spoil the intention of the council, which is and should be to bring the fruits of Mrs. Stanton's first demand, fifty years ago, and lay them at her feet; not only the suffrage children, but those of education, literature, science, reform, religion, all as one. If Mrs. Dickinson single out the hoofed and horned head of suffrage as the commander-in-chief, not only the nineteen other societies but all the world outside will say it is suffrage after all; which it will be, because the others won't train under our leadership. No, no; Mrs. Dickinson herself must be the chief cook of this broth and appoint her own lieutenants, one of whom, with name far down in the middle of the list, I shall be most happy to be, and do all I possibly can to help, but always in the name of the president of the council.
She was true to her word, and in every way assisted Mrs. Dickinson in the immense amount of preparation necessary for what was the largest and most perfect affair of this nature ever given in America. At her request Miss Anthony wrote over a hundred letters to collect funds, secure the presence of the pioneer workers among women, etc., but still insisted on keeping herself so much in the background as even to refuse to make one of the principal speeches of the occasion. When she reached New York, she went for the night to her cousin, Mrs. Lapham, and early the next morning to Mrs. Stanton's to read over the birthday speech, of which she writes: "My only criticism was that she did not rest her case after describing the wonderful advance made in state, church, society and home, instead of going on to single out the church and declare it to be especially slow in accepting the doctrine of equality to women. I tried to make her see that it had advanced as rapidly as the other departments but I did not succeed, and it is right that she should express her own ideas, not mine."
The next day she went to Newburgh to address the State convention, returning to New York on the 9th. Friends had come from all parts of the country to attend the celebration, and the three days following were pleasantly spent in visiting with them at the different hotels. On the evening of the 12th occurred the birthday fête. There is not room in these pages to describe in full that magnificent gathering, the great Metropolitan Opera House crowded from pit to dome, each of the boxes brilliantly and appropriately decorated and occupied by the representatives of some organization of women. On the stage was a throne of flowers and above it an arch with the name "Stanton" wrought in red carnations on a white ground. When Mrs. Stanton entered, the entire audience of 3,000 rose to salute her with waving handkerchiefs. At the right and left of the floral throne sat Miss Anthony and Mrs. Dickinson. Instead of responding with a set speech, when called upon, Miss Anthony paid an eloquent tribute to the "pioneers," and then read the most important of the one hundred telegrams of congratulation which had been received from noted societies and eminent men and women in the United States and Europe.[116] The New York Sun said: "In ordinary hands this task would have been dull enough, but Miss Anthony enlivened it with her wit and cleverness and made a success of it." It may be truly said that not one woman in that audience, not even Mrs. Stanton herself, was prouder or happier than Miss Anthony over this splendid ovation.
The next day a large reception was given at the Savoy by Mrs. Henry Villard, the only daughter of Wm. Lloyd Garrison; and after various luncheons and dinners and good-by calls, Miss Anthony returned to Rochester. She plunged into the mountain of correspondence and, expecting to spend most of the next year at home, gave every spare moment to the arranging and classifying of her mass of documents, preparatory to some contemplated literary work. On November 21, the Political Equality Club celebrated Mrs. Stanton's birthday in a beautiful manner at the Anthony home, over 200 guests attending. Several unkind newspaper attacks being made upon Miss Anthony by disgruntled women, she wrote Mrs. Stanton, who was much distressed: "This fresh onslaught reminds me of the old adage, 'When one is over-praised by the many, the few will try to pull down and destroy.' Certainly I know that in my head and heart there never has been any but the strongest desire that all the other workers should have their full meed of opportunity and reward."
A telegram came November 25 announcing the sudden death, in Boston, of Mrs. Ellen Battelle Dietrick. She had been actively in the suffrage work for only a few years, but in that time Miss Anthony had learned her splendid powers and had said of her: "I feel that into her hands can safely fall the work of the future, both as to principle and policy." She had been made chairman of the national press work, and had shown an unsurpassed beauty and strength of style and thought. "She was a philosopher, a student," Miss Anthony wrote, "possessed of the conscience and the courage to stand by the truth as she saw it. Can it be that she is gone in the very prime of her womanhood? Why can not we keep with us the brave and beautiful souls; why can not the weak and wicked go? The world seems darker to me now, a light has gone out."
On December 2 she gathered about her a group of the very oldest and dearest friends in memory of what would have been her mother's one hundred and second birthday. She records attending a lecture by President Andrew D. White, at the close of which he presented his wife to her, saying: "I want you to know her; she is of your kind." The day before Christmas came another telegram, this one from May Wright Sewall, containing simply the words: "Dear General, my Theodore is taken." It meant the desolation of one of the happiest, most perfect homes ever made by two mortals. It told the breaking of as strong and sweet a tie as ever united husband and wife. What could she write? Only, "Be brave in this inevitable hour; take unto yourself the 'joy of sorrow' that you did all in mortal power for his restoration, that his happiness was the desire of your life; find comfort in the blessed memories of his tender and never-failing love and care for you in all these beautiful years." But the poverty, the powerlessness of words in times like this!
And so the old year rolled into the past and the record was finished. Among the letters which came to cheer its close, was one from Mary Lowe Dickinson, which ended:
In every way, in all this work, how grandly you stood by and helped me! Some day you will understand how grateful I am, and how thoroughly I appreciate the support, moral and other, that you have given me. I know this holiday season will bring you a great many loving souvenirs from all over the world, and I haven't sent you anything at all; but I have a gift for you, notwithstanding, a gift of loyal reverence for the grand outspoken bravery of your life and service, a gift of genuine gratitude for what you have been and what you have done, and an affection that has been growing ever since my first talk with you in Chicago. This is quite a declaration for a reserved woman, but it is as sincere as it is unusual, and I wish you all sorts of blessings for the New Year, and most of all that it may show great progress in the work which lies so close to your heart.
And this from her beloved friend, Mrs. Leland Stanford:
It is needless for me to express all I feel in regard to your tender and long-continued friendship. I always prized it when I had my dear husband by my side to help me bear the burdens and sorrows of life, but now, standing as I do alone with the weighty cares and sacred duties depending upon me, I cherish your sympathy, your friendship and your tender words as an evidence of God's love. He can instigate and guide hearts to reach out sustaining helpfulness to His children, who need just such support as you have given me. Long years past and gone, you and Mrs. Stanton were appreciated and extolled by my husband more than you ever realized. He predicted twenty years ago what has now come, and mainly through the instrumentality of yourself and her--the advancement and elevation of womanhood--and we are only on the eve of what is to follow in the twentieth century.
Miss Anthony was very glad to go back to Washington with the annual convention, which was held January 23 to 28, 1896. She went on a week beforehand to satisfy herself that all was in readiness. Although the details of the work were assumed by the younger members of the board, she was always on the scene of action early enough to look over the ground before the battle opened. This year the papers said: "A notable feature of the suffrage movement is the large number of college alumnæ and professional women who are coming into the ranks." The committee reported organizations in every State and Territory except Alaska. Delegates were present from almost every one, among them Mrs. Hughes, wife of the governor of Arizona, Mrs. Teller, wife of the senator from Colorado, Mrs. Sanders, wife of the ex-senator from Montana, the wives of Representatives Arnold, Allen, Shafroth and Pickler, Mrs. Ella Knowles Haskell, assistant attorney-general of Montana. Most of them addressed the committees of the Senate and House, who gave long and respectful hearings.
The principal cause of rejoicing at this convention was the admission of Utah as a State with the full enfranchisement of women. A clause to this effect had been put into the State constitution, endorsed by all political parties, voted on by the men of the Territory and carried. This constitution had been accepted, the new State admitted by Congress, and the bill was signed by President Cleveland January 4, 1896. A noteworthy circumstance in this case was that, while the admission of Wyoming with a woman suffrage clause in its constitution was fought for many days in both Senate and House in 1890, that of Utah was accepted with scarcely a protest against its enfranchisement of women. There was also rejoicing over the fact that, during the autumn of 1895, the full franchise had been conferred upon the women of South Australia.
The occurrence of the convention which forever made its memory a sad one to Miss Anthony was the so-called "Bible resolution." It had this effect not only because of the resolution itself but because those who were responsible for it were especially near and dear to her. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, assisted by a committee of women, had been for several years preparing a work called the "Woman's Bible." It contained no discussion of doctrinal questions but was simply a commentary upon those texts and chapters directly referring to women, and a few others from which they were conspicuously excluded. Naturally, however, this pamphlet caused a great outcry, especially from those who had not read a word of it. That women should dare analyze even the passages referring to themselves in a book which heretofore, neither in the original writing nor in all the revisions of the centuries, had felt the impress of a woman's brain or the touch of a woman's hand, stirred the orthodox to their greater or less depths. Mrs. Stanton was honorary president of the National-American Suffrage Association, but had not attended its meetings or actively participated in its work for a number of years.
Several members of the board, who were children when she and Miss Anthony founded that organization, and unborn when Mrs. Stanton called the first woman's rights convention, decided that her Woman's Bible was injuring the association, although only the chapters on the Pentateuch thus far had been published. They determined that this body should take official action on the question, but they understood perfectly that it would have to be brought before the convention without any previous knowledge on the part of Miss Anthony. Therefore it was planned to have a paragraph of condemnation and renunciation of the Woman's Bible incorporated in the report of the corresponding secretary. When it was read in open meeting she was struck dumb. Mrs. Colby sprung to her feet and moved that the report be accepted, all but the paragraph relating to the Woman's Bible. After an animated discussion the secretary's report was laid on the table and later was adopted with the offending clause stricken out. Miss Anthony supposed this was the end of the matter but, to her amazement, the committee on resolutions reported the following: "This association is non-sectarian, being composed of persons of all shades of religious opinions, and has no official connection with the so-called Woman's Bible, or any theological publication."
This resolution was wholly gratuitous. While true that the association was composed of persons of all shades of religious opinion, it comprised also among some of its oldest and ablest members those who entertained no so-called religious beliefs. Mrs. Stanton invariably had announced that this revision of the Scriptures was the individual work of herself and her committee, and there was no ground for holding the whole association responsible. The resolution, however, was debated for an hour. Miss Anthony was moved as never before. Not only was she fired with indignation at this insult to the woman whom she loved and revered above all others, but she was outraged at this deliberate attempt to deny personal liberty of thought and speech. Leaving the chair she said in an impassioned appeal:
The one distinct feature of our association has been the right of individual opinion for every member. We have been beset at each step with the cry that somebody was injuring the cause by the expression of sentiments which differed from those held by the majority. The religious persecution of the ages has been carried on under what was claimed to be the command of God. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. All the way along the history of our movement there has been this same contest on account of religious theories. Forty years ago one of our noblest men said to me, "You would better never hold another convention than allow Ernestine L. Rose on your platform;" because that eloquent woman, who ever stood for justice and freedom, did not believe in the plenary inspiration of the Bible. Did we banish Mrs. Rose? No, indeed!
Every new generation of converts threshes over the same old straw. The point is whether you will sit in judgment on one who questions the divine inspiration of certain passages in the Bible derogatory to women. If Mrs. Stanton had written approvingly of these passages you would not have brought in this resolution for fear the cause might be injured among the liberals in religion. In other words, if she had written your views, you would not have considered a resolution necessary. To pass this one is to set back the hands on the dial of reform.
What you should say to outsiders is that a Christian has neither more nor less rights in our association than an atheist. When our platform becomes too narrow for people of all creeds and of no creeds, I myself can not stand upon it. Many things have been said and done by our orthodox friends which I have felt to be extremely harmful to our cause; but I should no more consent to a resolution denouncing them than I shall consent to this. Who is to draw the line? Who can tell now whether these commentaries may not prove a great help to woman's emancipation from old superstitions which have barred its way? Lucretia Mott at first thought Mrs. Stanton had injured the cause of all woman's other rights by insisting upon the demand for suffrage, but she had sense enough not to bring in a resolution against it. In 1860 when Mrs. Stanton made a speech before the New York Legislature in favor of a bill making drunkenness a ground for divorce, there was a general cry among the friends that she had killed the woman's cause. I shall be pained beyond expression if the delegates here are so narrow and illiberal as to adopt this resolution. You would better not begin resolving against individual action or you will find no limit. This year it is Mrs. Stanton; next year it may be I or one of yourselves, who will be the victim.
If we do not inspire in women a broad and catholic spirit, they will fail, when enfranchised, to constitute that power for better government which we have always claimed for them. Ten women educated into the practice of liberal principles would be a stronger force than 10,000 organized on a platform of intolerance and bigotry. I pray you vote for religious liberty, without censorship or inquisition. This resolution adopted will be a vote of censure upon a woman who is without a peer in intellectual and statesmanlike ability; one who has stood for half a century the acknowledged leader of progressive thought and demand in regard to all matters pertaining to the absolute freedom of women.
Rev. Anna Shaw, Carrie Chapman Catt, Henry B. and Alice Stone Blackwell, Laura M. Johns, Annie L. Diggs, Rachel Foster Avery, Laura Clay, Mariana W. Chapman, Elizabeth Upham Yates, and others spoke in favor of the resolution; Lillie Devereux Blake, Clara B. Colby, Mary S. Anthony, Emily Rowland, Charlotte Perkins Stetson and Caroline Hallowell Miller were among those who opposed it. The vote resulted, 53 ayes, 41 nays; and the resolution was adopted. The situation was felicitously expressed in a single sentence by Mrs. Caroline McCullough Everhard, president of the Ohio Suffrage Association: "If women were governed more by principle and less by prejudice, how strong they would be!"
Miss Anthony's feelings could not be put into words. At first she seriously contemplated resigning her office, but from all parts of the country came letters from the pioneer workers--the women who had stood by her for more than twoscore years--pointing out that this action of the convention was a striking illustration of the necessity for her remaining at the helm. Mrs. Stanton urged that they both resign, but Miss Anthony replied:
During three weeks of agony of soul, with scarcely a night of sleep, I have felt I must resign my presidency, but then the rights of the minority are to be respected and protected by me quite as much as the action of the majority is to be resented; and it is even more my duty to stand firmly with the minority because principle is with them. I feel very sure that after a year's reflection upon the matter, the same women, and perhaps the one man, who voted for this interference with personal rights, will be ready to declare that their duty as individuals does not require them to disclaim freedom of speech in their co-workers. Sister Mary says the action of the convention convinces her that the time has not yet come for me to resign; whereas she had felt most strongly that I ought to do it for my own sake. No, my dear, instead of my resigning and leaving those half-fledged chickens without any mother, I think it my duty and the duty of yourself and all the liberals to be at the next convention and try to reverse this miserable, narrow action.
In letters to the different members of her "cabinet," who had voted in favor of the resolution, she thus expressed herself:
In this action I see nothing but the beginning of a petty espionage, a revival of the Spanish inquisition, subjecting to spiritual torture every one who speaks or writes what the other members consider not good for the association. Such disclaimers bring quite as much of martyrdom for our civilization as did the rack and fire in the barbarous ages of the past.
That a majority of the delegates could see no wrong personally to Mrs. Stanton and no violation of the right of individual judgment, makes me sick at heart; and still, I don't know what better one could expect when our ranks are now so filled with young women not yet out of bondage to the idea of the infallibility of that book. To every person who really believes in religious freedom, it is no worse to criticise those pages in the Bible which degrade woman than it is to criticise the laws on our statute books which degrade her. Everything spoken or written by Jew or Greek, Gentile or Christian, or by any human being whomsoever, is not too sacred to be criticised by any other human being.
She was far too magnanimous, however, and loved the cause too well to relax her efforts for the welfare of the association. Before the year closed she received from Mrs. Avery and Mrs. Upton most tender and beautiful letters, acknowledging their mistake, expressing their sorrow and begging to be reinstated in her confidence and affection.[117]
In order that Miss Anthony's position maybe clearly understood and that she may not appear biased and one-sided, and in order also to consider this question all at one time, her point of view will be a little further illustrated. In an interview in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle she is thus reported:
"Did you have anything to do with the new Bible, Miss Anthony?" was asked.
"No, I did not contribute to it, though I knew of its preparation. My own relations to or ideas of the Bible always have been peculiar, owing to my Quaker training. The Friends consider the book as historical, made up of traditions, but not as a plenary inspiration. Of course people say these women are impious and presumptuous for daring to interpret the Scriptures as they understand them, but I think women have just as good a right to interpret and twist the Bible to their own advantage as men always have twisted and turned it to theirs.... It was written by men, and therefore its reference to women reflects the light in which they were regarded in those days. In the same way the history of our Revolutionary War was written, in which very little is said of the noble deeds of women, though we know how they stood by and helped the great work; and it is the same with history all through."
Although she stood so firm for individual rights she nevertheless regretted that Mrs. Stanton should give the few remaining years of her precious life to this commentary, and frequently wrote in the following strain, when importuned to assist in it:
I can not help but feel that in this you are talking down to the most ignorant masses, whereas your rule always has been to speak to the highest, knowing there would be a few who would comprehend, and would in turn give of their best to those on the next lower round of the ladder. The cultivated men and women of today are above the need of your book. Even the liberalized orthodox ministers are coming to our aid and their conventions are passing resolutions in favor of woman's equality, and I feel that these men and women who are just born into the kingdom of liberty can better reach the minds of their followers than can any of us out-and-out radicals. But while I do not consider it my duty to tear to tatters the lingering skeletons of the old superstitions and bigotries, yet I rejoice to see them crumbling on every side.
Months after this Washington convention, when Miss Anthony was in the midst of a great political campaign in California, she sent Mrs. Stanton this self-explanatory letter:
You say "women must be emancipated from their superstitions before enfranchisement will be of any benefit," and I say just the reverse, that women must be enfranchised before they can be emancipated from their superstitions. Women would be no more superstitious today than men, if they had been men's political and business equals and gone outside the four walls of home and the other four of the church into the great world, and come in contact with and discussed men and measures on the plane of this mundane sphere, instead of living in the air with Jesus and the angels. So you will have to keep pegging away, saying, "Get rid of religious bigotry and then get political rights;" while I shall keep pegging away, saying, "Get political rights first and religious bigotry will melt like dew before the morning sun;" and each will continue still to believe in and defend the other.
Now, especially in this California campaign, I shall no more thrust into the discussions the question of the Bible than the manufacture of wine. What I want is for the men to vote "yes" on the suffrage amendment, and I don't ask whether they make wine on the ranches in California or believe Christ made it at the wedding feast. I have your grand addresses before Congress and enclose one in nearly every letter I write. I have scattered all your "celebration" speeches that I had, but I shall not circulate your "Bible" literature a particle more than Frances Willard's prohibition literature. So don't tell Mrs. Colby or anybody else to load me down with Bible, social purity, temperance, or any other arguments under the sun but just those for woman's right to have her opinion counted at the ballot-box.
I have been pleading with Miss Willard for the last three months to withdraw her threatened W. C. T. U. invasion of California this year, and at last she has done it; now, for heaven's sake, don't you propose a "Bible invasion." It is not because I hate religious bigotry less than you do, or because I love prohibition less than Frances Willard does, but because I consider suffrage more important just now.
It seems that Miss Anthony's attitude ought to be perfectly understood by the testimony here presented. It is one from which she never has swerved and on which she is willing to stand in the pages of history--entire freedom for herself from religious superstition--the most absolute religious liberty for every other human being.
To return to the Washington convention: Among many pleasant social features Miss Anthony was invited to an elegant luncheon given by Mrs. John R. McLean in honor of the seventieth birthday of Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant and, at the reception which followed, received the guests with Mrs. Grant and Mrs. McLean.
At the close of the convention the principal speakers and many of the delegates went to Philadelphia to a national conference, which was largely attended. It was here that "Nelly Bly" had the famous interview published in the New York World of February 2, 1896. She had tried to secure this in Washington, but Miss Anthony could not spare time for it, so she followed her to Philadelphia. It filled a page of the Sunday edition and contained Miss Anthony's opinions on most of the leading topics of the day, in the main correctly reported, although not a note was taken. It began thus:
Susan B. Anthony! She was waiting for me. I stood for an instant in the doorway and looked at her. She made a picture to remember and to cherish. She sat in a low rocking-chair, an image of repose and restfulness. Her well-shaped head, with its silken snowy hair combed smoothly over her ears, rested against the back of the chair. Her shawl had half fallen from her shoulders and her soft black silk gown lay in gentle folds about her. Her slender hands were folded idly in her lap, and her feet, crossed, just peeped from beneath the edge of her skirt. If she had been posed for a picture, it could not have been done more artistically.
"Do you know the world is a blank to me?" she said after we had exchanged greetings. "I haven't read a newspaper in ten days and I feel lost to everything. Tell me about Cuba! I almost would be willing to postpone the enfranchisement of women to see Cuba free...."
"Do you believe in immortality?"
"I don't know anything about heaven or hell," she answered, "or whether I will meet my friends again or not, but as no particle of matter is ever destroyed, I have a feeling that no particle of mind is ever lost. I am sure that the same wise power which manages the present may be trusted with the hereafter."
"Then you don't find life tiresome?"
"O, mercy, no! I don't want to die as long as I can work; the minute I can not, I want to go. I dread the thought of being enfeebled. The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball--the further I am rolled the more I gain. But," she added, significantly, "I'll have to take it as it comes. I'm just as much in eternity now as after the breath goes out of my body."
"Do you pray?"
"I pray every single second of my life; not on my knees, but with my work. My prayer is to lift woman to equality with man. Work and worship are one with me. I can not imagine a God of the universe made happy by my getting down on my knees and calling him 'great.'...
"What do I think of marriage? True marriage, the real marriage of soul, when two people take each other on terms of perfect equality, without the desire of one to control the other, is a beautiful thing; it is the highest condition of life; but for a woman to marry for support is demoralizing; and for a man to marry a woman merely because she has a beautiful figure or face is degradation...."
"Do you like flowers?" I asked, leading her into another channel.
"I like roses first and pinks second, and nothing else after," Miss Anthony laughed. "I don't call anything a flower that hasn't a sweet perfume."
"What is your favorite hymn or ballad?"
"The dickens!" she exclaimed merrily. "I don't know! I can't tell one tune from another. I know there are such hymns as 'Sweet By and By' and 'Old Hundred,' but I can not tell them apart. All music sounds alike to me, but still if there is the slightest discord it hurts me. Neither do I know anything about art," she continued, "yet when I go into a room filled with pictures my friends say I invariably pick out the best. I have good company, I always think, in my musical ignorance. Wendell Phillips couldn't recognize tunes; neither could Anna Dickinson."
"What's your favorite motto, or have you one?"
"For the last thirty years I have written in all albums, 'Perfect equality of rights for women, civil and political;' or, 'I know only woman and her disfranchised.' There is another, one of Charles Sumner's, 'Equal rights for all.' I never write sentimental things....
"Yes, I'll tell you what I think of bicycling," she said, leaning forward and laying a hand on my arm. "I think it has done more to emancipate woman than any one thing in the world. I rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel. It gives her a feeling of self-reliance and independence the moment she takes her seat; and away she goes, the picture of untrammelled womanhood."
"What do you think the new woman will be?"
"She'll be free," said Miss Anthony. "Then she'll be whatever her best judgment dictates. We can no more imagine what the true woman will be than what the true man will be. We haven't him yet, and it will be generations after we gain freedom before we have the highest man and woman. They will constantly change for the better, as the world does. What is the best possible today will be outgrown tomorrow."
"What would you call woman's best attribute?"
"Good common sense; she has a great deal of uncommon sense now, but I want her to be an all-around woman, not gifted overly in one respect and lacking in others...."
"And now," I said, approaching a very delicate subject on tip-toe, "tell me one thing more. Were you ever in love?"
"In love?" she laughed. "Bless you, Nelly, I've been in love a thousand times!"
"Really!" I gasped, taken back by this startling confession.
"Yes, really," nodding her snowy head; "but I never loved anyone so much that I thought it would last. In fact, I never felt I could give up my life of freedom to become a man's housekeeper. When I was young, if a girl married poverty, she became a drudge; if she married wealth, she became a doll. Had I married at twenty-one, I would have been either a drudge or a doll for fifty-five years. Think of it!" and she laughed again....
Miss Anthony's seventy-sixth birthday was celebrated by the Rochester Political Equality Club at the residence of Dr. and Mrs. S. A. Linn. The spacious and beautifully decorated rooms were crowded with guests, and interesting addresses were given by Mrs. Greenleaf, Mrs. Gannett, Mr. J. M. Thayer and Mary Seymour Howell, to which Miss Anthony made a happy response. On February 17 she spoke at a church fair given by the colored people of Bath, and then completed her preparations for a long journey and a great campaign. It will be remembered that Miss Anthony had decided to rest from "field work" during 1896, and to arrange her papers for the writing of the history of her life, which her friends felt was now the most important thing for her to do. To this end a roomy half-story had been built on the substantial Rochester home, and therein were placed all the big boxes and trunks of letters and documents which had been accumulating during the last fifty years and stored in woodshed, cellar and closets; a stenographer had been engaged and all was in readiness for the great work. Then came an appeal from 3,000 miles away which rent asunder all her resolutions.
When she had been in California the previous year and had helped the women plan their approaching campaign, nothing had been further from her thoughts than returning to give her personal assistance. As the time for action drew near, those who had the matter in charge began to realize that the task before them was far greater than they had anticipated, and that they were lacking in the experience which would be needed. There were very few women who could be depended on to draw together and address great audiences of thousands of people, to speak thirty consecutive nights in each month, and to be equal to every emergency of a political campaign; nor were there any considerable number who understood the best methods of organization. It was then both natural and sensible that the State society should appeal to the national association for assistance. It is an essential part of the business of the officers of that body to respond to such calls.
Miss Anthony had been home from California but a short time in 1895 when Ellen C. Sargent, president of the State association, wrote an earnest official request for the help of the national board. At the same time Sarah B. Cooper, president of the campaign committee, sent the strongest letter her eloquent pen could write, emphasizing Mrs. Sargent's invitation. These were followed by similar pleas from the other members of the board and from many prominent women of the State. Miss Anthony felt at first as if it would not be possible for her to make the long trip and endure the fatigue of a campaign, which she understood so well from having experienced it seven times over. On the other hand she realized what a tremendous impetus would be given to the cause of woman suffrage if the great State of California should carry this amendment, and she longed to render every assistance in her power. It was not, however, until early in February that she yielded to the appeals and decided to abandon all the plans she had cherished for the year. The moment her decision reached California, Harriet Cooper, secretary of the committee, telegraphed their delight and sent her a check of $120 for travelling expenses.
The question now arose with Miss Anthony what she should do with her secretary, whom she had engaged for a year but did not feel able to take with her. This was settled in a few days through the action of Rev. and Mrs. W. C. Gannett, who went among the friends and in a short time raised the money to pay Mrs. Sweet's expenses to California and back, all agreeing that Miss Anthony must have some one to relieve her of the mechanical part of the burden she was about to assume. This seemed too good to be true, as she had had no such help in all her forty-five years of public work. The two started on the evening of February 27, a large party of friends assembling at the station to say good-by to the veteran of seventy-six years about to enter another battle. They stopped at Ann Arbor for the Michigan convention, the guests of Mrs. Hall, and then a few days in Chicago, where Miss Anthony and Mrs. Gross sat for a statuette by Miss Bessie Potter.
She reached San Diego March 10 and, after attending the Woman's Club, went to Los Angeles where she was beautifully received, sharing the honors with Robert J. Burdette at the Friday Morning Club. Mrs. Alice Moore McComas wrote to Mrs. Sargent and Mrs. Cooper the next day: "Dear Miss Anthony came, saw and conquered, and we are hers! Letters and telegrams were dispatched in every direction as soon as we found she was coming and she has been able to reach women that I have almost despaired of. Dozens who have heretofore held aloof, have promised me today to stand by the amendment till all is over, and with these recruits we feel that we can undertake the convention work in this county. The women are aroused and we will see that they stay aroused. Miss Anthony's visit was opportune and just what was needed."
She arrived at San Francisco a few days later, being joyfully greeted at the Oakland station by Mrs. Cooper and Harriet. She went directly to the Sargent residence, and from this delightful home, Miss Anthony, the National president, and Mrs. Sargent, the State president, directed the great campaign.
FOOTNOTES:
[114] The following from the Wichita Eagle is noteworthy because in the Kansas campaign the year before, and in all previous years, it had been abusive beyond description and had at all times put every possible stumbling-block in the way of woman suffrage and berated all who advocated it:
"What an experience Miss Anthony has had! None but a remarkable woman could have accepted such a life-work at a time when prejudice and education ran all in the opposite direction. Finely-balanced and self-educated as to her special cause, she has not only won a name and fame world-wide, but turned perceptibly the entire current of human conviction. And she has been, through it all, the modest woman, truly womanly. The men and women of this country--of the world--who believe that the ballot for woman means better government and the elevation of society to a higher plane, must ever recognize Susan B. Anthony as the real pioneer prophetess of the cause, for so will history record her."
[115] Miss Anthony was many times besought to tell the secret of her wonderful vitality and power for work, and on one occasion wrote the following:
"As machinery in motion lasts longer than when lying idle, so a body and soul in active exercise escape the corroding rust of physical and mental laziness, which prematurely cuts off the life of so many women. I believe I am able to endure the strain of daily travelling and lecturing at over threescore years and ten, mainly because I have always worked and loved work. As to my habits of life, it has been impossible for me to have fixed rules for eating, resting, sleeping, etc. The only advice I could give a young person on this point would be: 'Live as simply as you can. Eat what you find agrees with your constitution--when you can get it; sleep whenever you are sleepy, and think as little of these details as possible.'"
[116] Among others was a beautiful testimonial from Theodore Tilton, who had been for many years a resident of Paris, in which he said:
"At the present day, every woman who seeks the legal custody of her children, or the legal control of her property; every woman who finds the doors of a college or a university opening to her; every woman who administers a post-office or a public library; every woman who enters upon a career of medicine, law or theology; every woman who teaches a school, or tills a farm, or keeps a shop; every one who drives a horse, rides a bicycle, skates at a rink, swims at a summer resort, plays golf or tennis in a public park, or even snaps a kodak; every such woman, I say, owes her liberty largely to yourself and to your earliest and bravest co-workers in the cause of woman's emancipation. So I send my greetings not to you alone, but also to the small remainder now living of your original bevy of noble assistants, among whom--first, last and always--has been and still continues to be your fit mate, chief counselor and executive right hand, Susan B. Anthony; a heroine of hard work who, when her own eightieth birthday shall roll round, will likewise deserve a national ovation, at which she should not inappropriately receive the old Roman crown of oak."
This was accompanied by a personal letter to Miss Anthony, saying, besides other pleasant things: "I heard lately that you were dying! I did not believe the canard. Dying? No! You are to live forever. Give my love to the heroine of the hour--and prepare yourself for an equal picnic when your own time shall come. Ever yours as of old."
[117] In a letter to the Woman's Tribune Mrs. Jean Brooks Greenleaf said: "I was absent from the convention and could not vote against that resolution. The 'Woman's Bible' a hindrance to organization? Of course it is. What of it? The belief in the old theories about women, which had their basis in doctrines taught from King James' version of the Bible, was a much more monumental hindrance to the work of the pioneers, in not only the woman suffrage movement but in all movements for the advancement of women."