The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony Volume II Part 12

[Ill.u.s.tration: Autograph: "Faithfully yours, H B Anthony"]

Chapters might be made of commendatory letters received from officials, writers, public workers and friends in private life. A few specimens must suffice. A letter from Senator H. B. Anthony to his "dear cousin,"

closed by saying: "The three volumes form a valuable history of the important enterprise in which you have borne so conspicuous and honorable a part, and you have added to the reputation of the name that we both bear."

Mary L. Booth, the gifted editor of Harper's Bazar, thus expressed her opinion of the work:

You and your colleagues have industriously placed on record a copious ma.s.s of doc.u.mentary evidence which will be of the utmost value when the time arrives to sum up the final results. When this era comes, you will be foremost among the band of heroic pioneers who have endured discomfort, obloquy and privation of much that is dear to women for the sake of those who will profit by your labors while failing to recognize them. Posterity will do you this justice, whether your contemporaries do or not; but indeed, it is universally known to those with any knowledge of the facts, that among all the champions of women, none has been more distinguished for utter self-abnegation, single-heartedness and devotion to her life-work than Susan B. Anthony.

As you know, I have always felt the deepest interest in the elevation of women, which is synonymous with that of humanity, for man must be always on the plane of his wife, sister and mother....

The antagonism to political equality is rapidly disappearing, as it is beginning to be recognized that in politics, as in everything else, woman's help is needed, and the republic can not afford to have her stand aloof. But this phase of the subject has been so much misunderstood, both by men and women, that time is needed to clear away the mists of misconception which envelop it; and to prove that the co-operation of women in political life is not only just and expedient, but absolutely indispensable to the public weal.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Autograph: "I am now and always, Yours faithfully, Mary L. Booth"]

No family in Rochester stood more steadfastly by Miss Anthony during all her long and eventful life than the Wilders--Carter, Samuel, Mrs. Maria Wilder Depuy and D. Webster. The last, in acknowledging the receipt of the books, wrote: "How much you have contributed to history in this grand publication! With woman as a part of humanity, what a revolution will be wrought! Changes everywhere--in social life, in morals, politics, business--and all for the better. In this world-revolution you have done a great work. My children are proud of the fact that you are my personal friend. I fully appreciate your gift. It will be a Bible in my home." From the philanthropist, Sarah B. Cooper, revered for her work in the kindergartens on the Pacific coast, came this tribute:

This book is the fruitage of all the years of your faith and work.

It tells of the long preparation--the opening up of the forest; the blazing of the trail; the clearing of the underbrush; the deep sub-soiling; the lying fallow; the ploughing, sowing, harrowing, the patient tillage--and now comes the harvest. What courage, endurance, fidelity and faith! The pioneers of new thoughts and principles are the loneliest of mortals. Those who live ahead of their time must wait for the honors and plaudits of posterity to get their full meed of appreciation and reward. But after all, dear, honored friend, the richest reward of such a life as yours is _to have lived it_.

The History also was given to the libraries of those towns whose women would raise a certain amount towards various State suffrage campaigns, and in every possible way it always has been used for missionary work.[29]

The first week in 1887, in most inclement weather and against the protest of friends, Miss Anthony went all the way to Nebraska, to keep a promise to Mrs. Colby and other women of that State to attend their annual convention, January 7. She found a pleasant letter awaiting her at Lincoln, from her old friend, Mary Rogers Kimball, daughter of the noted Abolitionist, Nathaniel P. Rogers, and wife of the General Pa.s.senger Agent of the Union Pacific R. R., now living at Omaha, which closed: "How I wish you could come to us and rest a few days. Mr.

Kimball would welcome you, as would every one of this household. You ought to make our home happy by coming once in a while.... Mother, who is able to walk a little and is interested in all you do and say, sends her love and hopes to see you." She spoke at Chicago, January 13, in the First Methodist church, where she was introduced by the well-known Rev.

H. W. Thomas.[30] She went from there to the Michigan convention at Lansing, January 14, and here was presented to the audience by Governor Cyrus G. Luce.

She reached Was.h.i.+ngton January 17, 1887, and rushed the preparations for the Nineteenth National Convention, which opened on the 25th at the Metropolitan M. E. church. Zerelda G. Wallace gave a noteworthy address; Senator Carey, of Wyoming, made an able speech and Mrs. Carey sat by Miss Anthony during the proceedings. The second day of the convention, January 26, marked a great epoch, the first vote ever taken in Congress on a Sixteenth Amendment. The previous month, December 8, 1886, Henry W.

Blair had asked the Senate to consider the following joint resolution: "The rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of s.e.x." He supported this in a long and comprehensive speech covering the whole ground on which the demand is based, quoting from the favorable reports of the judiciary committees, exposing the weakness and fallacy of the objections, and making an unanswerable argument on the justice of granting political liberty to women.

At the urgent request of opposing senators the matter had been postponed until January 25, when it was again called up by Mr. Blair. The opposition was led by Joseph A. Brown, of Georgia, who described in detail the intentions of the Creator when he made woman, and declared that females had not the physical strength to perform military duty, build railroads, raise crops, sit on juries or attend night caucuses, but that G.o.d had endowed men with strength and faculties for all these things. He stated that it was a grave mistake to say that woman is taxed without being represented, and added, "It is very doubtful whether the male or the female s.e.x has more influence in the administration of the affairs of government and the enactment of laws!" He a.s.serted that "the baser cla.s.s of females would rush to the polls, and this would compel the intelligent, virtuous and refined females, including wives and mothers, to relinquish for a time their G.o.d-given trust and go, contrary to their wishes, to the polls and vote to counteract the other cla.s.s;"

and followed this by saying that "the ignorant female voters would be at the polls en ma.s.se, while the refined and educated, shrinking from public contact, would remain at home." He continued: "The ballot will not protect females against the tyranny of bad husbands, as the latter will compel them to vote as they dictate;" then in the next breath he declared: "Wives will form political alliances antagonistic to the husbands, and the result will be discord and divorce." In his entire speech Senator Brown ignored the existence of unmarried women and widows. He closed with copious extracts from "Letters from a Chimney Corner," written by some Chicago woman.

Senator Dolph, of Oregon, followed in a clear, concise argument, brus.h.i.+ng away these sophistries by showing that such evils did not exist where women were enfranchised and voted at every election. He was interrupted by Senator Eustis, of Louisiana, who inquired whether he thought "it would be a decent spectacle to take a mother away from her nursing infant and lock her up all night with a jury?" Senator Dolph replied that there was not a judge in the world who would not excuse a woman under such circ.u.mstances, just as there were many causes which exempted men. He continued:

Government is but organized society.... It can only derive its just powers from the consent of the governed, and can be established only under a fundamental law which is self-imposed. Every citizen of suitable age and discretion has, in my judgment, a natural right to partic.i.p.ate in its formation. The fathers of the republic enunciated the doctrine "that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." It is strange that any one in this enlightened age should be found to contend that this is true only of men, and that a man is endowed by his Creator with inalienable rights not possessed by a woman. The lamented Lincoln immortalized the expression that ours is a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people," and yet in reality it is far from that. There can be no government by the people where half of them are allowed no voice in its organization and control.... G.o.d speed the day when not only in all the States of the Union and in all the Territories, but everywhere, woman shall stand before the law freed from the last shackle which has been riveted upon her by tyranny, and the last disability which has been imposed upon her by ignorance; not only in respect to the right of suffrage, but in every other respect the peer and equal of her brother, man.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Autograph: "J N Dolph"]

Senator Vest, of Missouri, came to the rescue of Senator Brown and in the course of his speech said:

I pity the man who can consider any question affecting the influence of woman, with the cold, dry logic of business. What man can, without aversion, turn from the blessed memory of that dear old grandmother, or the gentle words and caressing hand of that blessed mother gone to the unknown world, to face in its stead the idea of a female justice of the peace or towns.h.i.+p constable? For my part, I want when I go to my home--when I turn from the arena where man contends with man for what we call the prizes of this paltry world--I want to go back, not to be received in the masculine embrace of some female ward politician, but to the earnest, loving look and touch of a true woman. I want to go back to the jurisdiction of the wife, the mother; and instead of a lecture upon finance or the tariff, or upon the construction of the Const.i.tution, I want those blessed, loving details of domestic life and domestic love.

I have said I would not speak of the inconveniences to arise from woman suffrage. I care not whether the mother is called upon to decide as a juryman, or a jurywoman, rights of property or rights of life, whilst her baby is "mewling and puking" in solitary confinement at home. There are other considerations more important, and one of them to my mind is insuperable. I speak now respecting women as a s.e.x. I believe that they are better than men, but I do not believe they are adapted to the political work of this world. I do not believe that the Great Intelligence ever intended them to invade the sphere of work given to men, tearing down and destroying all the best influences for which G.o.d has intended them. The great evil in this country today is emotional suffrage. Women are essentially emotional. What we want in this country is to avoid emotional suffrage, and what we need is to put more logic into public affairs and less feeling.[31]

He presented a remonstrance against giving the ballot to women, signed by nearly 200 New England men, headed by President Eliot, of Harvard University, and including nearly fifty names prefixed by "Rev." He next drew from his budget a letter from Clara T. Leonard, of Boston, praying that the suffrage should not be granted to women, and Mr. h.o.a.r remarked that the lady herself had been holding public office for a number of years.

Continuing Senator Vest said: "If we are to tear down all the blessed traditions, if we are to desolate our homes and firesides, if we are to uns.e.x our mothers, wives and sisters, and turn our blessed temples of domestic peace into ward political a.s.sembly rooms, pa.s.s this joint resolution!" He now produced a doc.u.ment, ent.i.tled "The Law of Woman Life," and said: "This is signed Adeline D. T. Whitney--I can not say whether she be wife or mother. It contains not one impure or unintellectual aspiration. Would to G.o.d that I knew her so I could thank her in behalf of the society and politics of the United States. I shall ask that it be printed, as my strength does not suffice for me to read it."[32] It proved to be a long and involved essay begging that the ballot should not be given to women, and saying: "Are the daughters and granddaughters about to leap the fence, leave their own realm little cared for, undertake the whole scheme of outside creation, or contest it with the men? Then G.o.d help the men! G.o.d save the commonwealth!" Mr.

Vest concluded with a blood-curdling picture of the French Revolution which would be repeated in this country if women were enfranchised.

Senator Blair then offered the appeal of the W. C. T. U. for the ballot, representing over 200,000 women, presented by Zerelda G. Wallace, who had reared thirteen children and grandchildren, among them the author of Ben Hur. He submitted also the matchless arguments which had been made by the most intellectual women of the nation before the congressional committees from year to year, including that of Miss Anthony in 1880, and urged that the question should be submitted to the legislatures of the various States for settlement.

The vote was taken on the question of submitting a Sixteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution to the State legislatures for ratification, and resulted in 16 yeas and 34 nays, 26 absent.[33] Of the affirmative votes, all were Republican; of the negative, 24 Democratic and 10 Republican. Senator Farwell, of Illinois, was roundly denounced by the Chicago Tribune for his affirmative vote. Senators Chace, Dawes and Stanford, who were paired, and Plumb, who was absent, announced publicly that they would have voted "aye."

Over fifty of the distinguished women in attendance at the convention were in the Senate gallery during this debate. The most sanguine of them had not expected the necessary two-thirds, but had worked to obtain a vote simply for the prestige of a discussion in the Senate, the printing of the speeches in the Congressional Record and the wide agitation of the question through the medium of press and platform which was sure to follow. They felt especially incensed at Senator Ingalls, as the sentiment of his State had just shown itself to be overwhelmingly in favor of woman suffrage, and they did not hesitate to score him in public and in private. As soon as the news of the vote reached the convention Miss Anthony roundly denounced him from the platform. In the evening she received a note from him saying: "Will you do me the favor to designate an hour at which it would be convenient for you to give me a brief interview?" She did not answer, and on the 31st she received another: "I called Thursday and Friday mornings, but was not able to reach you with my card. My errand was personal and I hope I may be more fortunate when you are again in the city." When she did see him she found his purpose was to declare a truce, which she declined, as he already had done the cause all the harm possible for him.

From Was.h.i.+ngton Miss Anthony went to a.s.sist at a convention in Philadelphia, and "felt guilty for days," she says in her diary, because she refused to go on to Connecticut. She enjoyed a brief visit with Professor Maria Mitch.e.l.l at Va.s.sar College; and hastened to Albany to address the legislature in regard to the Const.i.tutional Convention, "just as I did twenty years ago in the old Capitol," she writes. Then back to Was.h.i.+ngton to look after matters there, and thus on and on, never allowing herself to be delayed by weather, fatigue or social demands, month after month, year after year, with but one object in view, never losing sight of it for a moment, and making all else subservient to this single purpose.

In April she was terribly distressed at the malicious falsehoods which were sent out from Leavenworth in regard to the first voting of the women in Kansas, and says, "It will take oceans of breath and ink to counteract the baneful effects." On May 11, 1887, Frances E. Willard wrote her: "Will you please send me the form of resolution which would be the least that would satisfy you as a plank in the platform of the Prohibition party, or as a resolution to be adopted by the W. C. T. U.?

I write this without authorization from any quarter, simply because I would like to find out what is the angle of vision along which you are looking." To this Miss Anthony replied:

What is the full significance of "would satisfy you?" Do you mean so satisfy me that I would work, and recommend all women to work, for the success of the Third party ticket? Or do you mean the least that I think it should say for its own sake? If the first, I am not sure that the fullest endors.e.m.e.nt would cause me to throw all my sympathies and efforts into line with the Prohibition party, any more than if the same full suffrage plank should be put into the platform of the great Labor or Fourth party, which is pretty sure to take part in the presidential contest of 1888.

I can not answer for others, but I shall not pray or speak or work for the defeat of the nominees of the party of which every United States Senator who voted for us last winter is a leading member, and to which belongs every man but six in the Kansas Legislature who made the overwhelming vote giving munic.i.p.al suffrage to the women of that State. Not until a third party gets into power or is likely to do so, which promises a larger per cent. of representatives on the floor of Congress and in the several State legislatures who will speak and vote for woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, than does the Republican, shall I work for it. You see, as yet there is not a single Prohibitionist in Congress, while there are at least twenty Republicans on the floor of the United States Senate, besides fully one-half of the members of the House of Representatives, who are in favor of woman suffrage. For the women of Kansas or Iowa to work for any third party would be ungrateful and suicidal.

Since I hope to live to see a Sixteenth Amendment Bill through Congress and three-fourths of the State legislatures, I do not propose to work for the defeat of the party which thus far has furnished nearly every vote in that direction. If you will pardon me, I think it will be quite as suicidal a policy for the temperance women of the nation to work to defeat the party which contains so nearly all of their best friends and helpers. What it seems to me should be done by all women who want reforms in legislation, is to appoint committees to confer with leading Republicans asking them to make pledges in the direction of suffrage and temperance, with the a.s.surance of our support in case of the insertion of the planks we ask in their platform. I fear, however, you are already pledged to the Third party, come what may, and if so it is of no use for me to advise.[34]

In May Miss Anthony again journeyed westward, though she says in her diary: "It never was harder for me to start. A heavy nothingness is upon head and heart." She went first to the State Suffrage Convention at Indianapolis, where as usual she was a guest in the beautiful home of Mr. and Mrs. Sewall. A reception was given her at the Bates House and she was cordially greeted by several hundred ladies. She went to meetings at Evansville, Richmond and Lafayette, and then to the Ohio convention at Cleveland; here, as always, the guest of her loved friend, Louisa Southworth.

She writes May 26: "Arrived home at 8 P. M. and found all well--the all consisting of sister Mary, the only one left." She was invited to meet with a large and conservative society of women who did not believe in equal suffrage. All made nice little addresses and when Miss Anthony was called on she said: "Ladies, you have been doing here today what I and a few other women were denounced as 'uns.e.xed' for doing thirty years ago--speaking in public;" and then proceeded to point the moral. She attended the commencement exercises of a young ladies' seminary, whose princ.i.p.al would not acknowledge a handsome gift from her pupils by a few remarks because she "considered it would look too strong-minded." Miss Anthony comments on the graduates' essays: "They had as much originality as Baedecker's Guide-book."

In July she went as the guest of her friend Adeline Thomson, of Philadelphia, for two weeks at Cape May and here had her first experience in sea-bathing, although she always had lived within a short distance of the ocean. She says: "This is my first seaside dissipation.

It seems very odd to be one of the giddy summer resort people!" She took Miss Thomson with her up into the Berks.h.i.+re hills of northwestern Ma.s.sachusetts to Adams, her birthplace, and visited the home of her grandfather. In the early days of her peregrinations she used to come often to this picturesque spot, but it now had been twenty years since her last visit. Time does not bring many changes to the New England nooks or the people who live in them, and she greatly enjoyed the nine days spent with uncles, aunts and cousins, exploring the well-remembered spots. They went from here to Magnolia for a two weeks' visit at the seaside cottage of Mr. and Mrs. James Purinton, of Lynn, Ma.s.s. At this time, in answer to a request for advice, Miss Anthony wrote to Olympia Brown and Mrs. Almedia Gray, of Wisconsin:

I have your letters relative to bringing suits under the school suffrage law, and hasten to say to you that Mrs. Minor's and my own experience in both suing and being sued on the Fourteenth Amendment claim leads me to beseech you not to make a test case unless you _know_ you will get the broadest decision upon it. If you get the narrow one restricting the present law simply to school-district voting, there it will rest and no judge or inspector will transcend the limit of the decision. My judgment would be to say and do nothing about the law, but through the year keep up the educational work, showing that such and such cities allowed women to vote for mayor, common council, etc., and by the next election many others will let women vote; and so in a few years all will follow suit.

Let what you have alone and try for more; for all your legislature has power to give. It will be vastly more likely to grant munic.i.p.al suffrage than your supreme court will be to give a decision that the school law already allows women to vote for mayor, council, governor, etc.

They thought best, however, to bring the suits; the exact results which were predicted followed, and the school suffrage even was restricted until it was practically worthless.

During this summer Miss Anthony undertook to arrange her many years'

acc.u.mulation of letters, clippings, etc., and knowing her reluctance ever to destroy a single sc.r.a.p, Mrs. Stanton wrote from Paris: "I am glad to hear that you have at last settled down to look over those awful papers. It is well I am not with you. I fear we should fight every blessed minute over the destruction of Tom, d.i.c.k and Harry's epistles.

Unless Mary, on the sly, sticks them in the stove when your back is turned, you will never diminish the pile during your mortal life. (Make the most of my hint, dear Mary.)" It is safe to say it was just as large at the end of the examination as at the beginning.

In September, 1887, Miss Anthony again made a circuit of conventions in every congressional district in Wisconsin and then turned her attention to Kansas. The officers of the State a.s.sociation had arranged a series of conventions for the purpose of demanding a const.i.tutional amendment conferring _full_ suffrage on women. Miss Anthony, with Mrs. Johns, Mrs.

Let.i.tia V. Watkins, State organizer, Rev. Anna Shaw and Rachel Foster, gave the month of October to this canva.s.s. Senator Ingalls, in a speech at Abilene, had attempted to defend his vote in the Senate against the Sixteenth Amendment, and Miss Anthony took this as a text for the campaign. She had ample material for the excoriating which she gave him in every district in Kansas, as the Senator had declared: 1st, that suffrage was neither a natural nor a const.i.tutional right, but a privilege conferred by the State; 2d, that no citizens should be allowed to partic.i.p.ate in the formation of legislatures or the enactment of laws, who could not enforce their action at the point of a bayonet; 3d, that no immigrants should be allowed to enter the United States from any country on earth for the next twenty-five years; 4th, that negro suffrage had been an absolute and unqualified failure; 5th, that while there were thousands of women vastly more competent than men to vote upon questions of morality, they never should be allowed to do so--simply because they were women.

It hardly need be said that Miss Anthony found little difficulty in reducing to tatters these so-called arguments, and that her audiences were in hearty sympathy. To borrow her own expression, she "tried to use him up so there was not an inch of ground under his feet." When the convention was held at Atchison Mrs. Ingalls invited sixteen of the ladies to a handsome luncheon, where the senator placed Miss Anthony at his right hand and made her the guest of honor. She proposed that he debate the question of woman suffrage with her but he refused on the ground that he could not attack a woman, so she served up this objection in her speech that evening. To a reporter he is said to have given the reason that he "would not stoop to the intellectual level of a woman."

The month of November was given to holding a two days' convention in each of the thirteen congressional districts of Indiana. These meetings were arranged by the State secretary, Mrs. Ida H. Harper, and the strong force of speakers, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Wallace, Mrs. Sewall and Mrs.

Gougar, aroused great enthusiasm and made many converts.[35] This ended three months of constant travelling and speaking almost every day and evening. On the first of December Miss Anthony writes: "I have laid me down to sleep in a new bed nearly every night of this entire time."

But the 10th found her in Was.h.i.+ngton fresh and vigorous for the work of the coming winter. She was anxious to know whether the reports of the Senate debate had been franked and sent out as promised and, to her inquiry, Senator Blair answered with his usual little joke: "I have had the speeches, etc., attended to and trust that the mails will do you justice if the males do not. But remember that men naturally fight for their lives, and on the same principle, you shall for yours!"

FOOTNOTES:

[28] Miss Anthony notes in her diary that she made her first Kansas campaign in '67 and the suffrage bill was signed on her sixty-seventh birthday. She received a letter of congratulation on the signing of the bill from Chief-Justice Horton, of Kansas.

[29] The total amount received from sales has been only $7,000. Now, however, in order to give the History the widest possible circulation, the price has been so reduced as to enable it to be placed in the hands of the reading public. It is the hope of Miss Anthony to publish the fourth volume in the year 1900, bringing the History up to that date.

[30] At this meeting a yellow dog came on the platform and Miss Anthony is quoted as afterwards making this apt comment: "She says that, at least where women are concerned, the reporters are sure to seize upon some triviality and ring its changes to the exclusion of serious matters. She mentioned that when she spoke in Chicago last a dog ran across the stage and, springing up, laid his nose on her shoulder. 'I prophesied to the audience then,' she continued, 'that the dog would figure in the press reports more conspicuously than anything that was said or done, and so he did. He occupied half of the s.p.a.ce in nearly every paper.'"