The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony Volume II Part 16

In the diary's mention of busy days is one item: "Went to the Capitol to the celebration of the centennial of the First Congress. Justice Fuller made a beautiful oration on the progress of the century but failed to have discovered a woman all the way down;" and another: "This morning called on Mrs. Harrison, Mrs. Stanford and Mrs. Manderson to talk about having women represented in the Columbian Exposition of 1892. All are in favor of it."

Every hour was filled with business, and with social duties undertaken solely because of the influence they might have on the great and only question. The last day of 1889 she went to pay the final honors to the wife of her faithful ally, Hon. A. G. Riddle. Death had robbed her of many friends during the past year. On February 1 her old co-worker Amy Post, of Rochester, was laid to rest, one of the veteran Abolitionists who commenced the work in 1833 with Garrison, and who had stood by the cause of woman as faithfully as by that of the slave. In March pa.s.sed away in the prime of womanhood, Mary L. Booth, editor of Harper's Bazar from its beginning in 1867. In June died Maria Mitch.e.l.l, the great astronomer, in the fullness of years, having completed threescore and ten. In November was finished the work of Dinah Mendenhall, the venerable Quaker and philanthropist, wife of Isaac Mendenhall, whose home near Philadelphia had been for sixty years the refuge of the poor and oppressed, without regard to s.e.x, color or creed.[52]

At the close of the old year, the Was.h.i.+ngton Star in a long interview, headed "A Leader of Women," said.

Miss Anthony is now at the capital, ready for the regular annual agitation before Congress of the proposed Sixteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution. She is one of the remarkable women of the world.

In appearance she has not grown a day older in the past ten years.

Her manner has none of the excitement of an enthusiast; never discouraged by disappointment, she keeps calmly at work, and she could give points in political organization and management to some of the best male politicians in the land. Her face is strong and intellectual, but full of womanly gentleness. Her gold spectacles give her a motherly rather than a severe expression, and a stranger would see nothing incongruous in her doing knitting or fancy-work.

In no sense does she correspond with the distorted idea of a woman's rights agitator. In conversation her manner is that of perfect repose. She is always entertaining, and the most romantic idealizer of women would not expect frivolity in one of her age and would not charge it to strong-mindedness that she is sedate....

Speaking of the Columbus celebration, she said she understood it was probable that the board of promotion at the capital would decide to permit women a part in the organization and management of the enterprise.

FOOTNOTES:

[46] In response to a letter of introduction from Mr. Spofford, of the Riggs, Miss Anthony was the guest of the Burnet House with a fine suite of apartments. In a letter home she writes: "The chambermaid said, 'Why, you have had more calls than Mrs. Hayes had when she occupied these rooms.'"

[47] Mrs. Minor managed this meeting and also tried to arrange for Miss Anthony to address a large Catholic gathering but was unsuccessful. She writes: "The vicar-general was on the side of your lecture and spoke in complimentary terms of you and your work."

[48] In a letter Miss Thomson wrote: "I want you to know that my heart is warmer for you than for any other mortal, my thoughts follow you wheresoever you go, and I am always glad when your footsteps turn toward me."

[49] A little incident showed the family spirit. When her lover was about to present her with a handsome diamond engagement ring, she requested that instead the money should be given to the National Suffrage a.s.sociation, which was done.

[50] In a letter to Mrs. Avery relative to some pressing work, Miss Anthony wrote: "I would not for anything have you drudge on this during your husband's vacation. No, no, there is none too much of life and happiness for any of us, so plan to go and be and do whatever seemeth best unto the twain made so beautifully one."

[51] She spoke at Huron, Mitch.e.l.l, Yankton, Sioux Falls, Madison, Brookings, DeSmet, Watertown, Parker, Pierre, St. Lawrence and Aberdeen, and presented a full set of the History of Woman Suffrage to libraries in each of these towns.

[52] The year previous Mrs. Mendenhall had given Miss Anthony and Frances Willard each her note for $1,000 payable after her death, to be used for the cause of woman suffrage and temperance, but the heirs refused to honor the notes.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

AT THE END OF SEVENTY YEARS.

1890.

Miss Anthony received New Year's calls in the Red Parlor of the Riggs House, January 1, 1890, entertained a party of friends at dinner in the evening, and had the usual number of pleasant gifts and loving letters.

While busy with preparations for the national convention, she learned of the project to celebrate her seventieth birthday on February 15.

Supposing it to be simply a tribute from her friends, like the observance of her fiftieth anniversary twenty years before in New York, she was pleased at the compliment, but after the arrangements were commenced she learned that it was to take the form of an elegant banquet at the Riggs and tickets were to be sold at $4 each. Her feelings were expressed in a letter to May Wright Sewall and Rachel Foster Avery, who had the matter in charge:

I write in utter consternation, hoping it is not too late to recall every notice sent for publication. I never dreamed of your doing other than issuing pretty little private invitations signed by Mrs.

Stanton and yourselves as officers of the National a.s.sociation. If its official board is too far dissolved for this, please let the whole matter drop, and I will invite a few special friends to sup with me on my birthday. I know Mr. and Mrs. Spofford would love to unite with you in a personal entertainment of this kind. I may be wrong as to the bad taste of issuing a notice, just like a public meeting, and letting those purchase tickets who wish; but it seems to me the very persons least desired by us may be the first to buy them. I should be proud of a banquet with invited guests who would make it an honor, but with such persons as will pay $5, more or less, it resolves itself into a mere matter of cash. I would vastly prefer to ask those we wanted and foot the entire bill myself.

Mrs. Sewall wrote at once to Mrs. Avery, "This letter strikes dismay to my soul. I will share with you the expense of the banquet." In a day or two Miss Anthony's heart smote her and she wrote again: "I have blown my bugle blast and I know I have wounded your dear souls, but I can not see the plan a bit prettier than I did at first. I may be very stupid or supersensitive. If it were to honor Mrs. Stanton, I would be willing to charge for tickets." And then a few days later: "Have I killed you outright? I can not tell you how much I have suffered because I can not see this as you do, but I would rather never have a mention of my birthday than to have it in that way. I know you meant it all lovely for me, but you did not look at it outside your own dear hearts. Do tell me that I have not alienated the two best-beloved of all my girls."

They finally effected a compromise on the money feature by sending out handsomely engraved invitations to those whom they wished as guests and letting them pay $4 a plate if they came. Although they proved to Miss Anthony that this always was done in such cases, she a.s.sented very unwillingly, and begged that they would ask the friends to contribute $4 apiece to the fund for South Dakota instead of the birthday banquet.

Finally, when all her scruples had been overcome, she made out so long a list of people whom she wished to have complimentary invitations that they would have filled every seat in the dining hall. She also was so anxious that no one should be slighted in a chance to speak that Mrs.

Avery wrote: "The banquet would have to last through eternity to hear all those Miss Anthony thinks ought to be heard."

On the evening of the birthday over 200 of her distinguished friends were seated in the great dining-room of the Riggs House, including a delegation from Rochester and a number of relatives from Leavenworth, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia. Miss Anthony occupied the place of honor, on her right hand were Senator Blair and Mrs. Stanton; on her left, Robert Purvis, Isabella Beecher Hooker and May Wright Sewall.

(Mrs. Foster Avery was detained at home.) The room was beautifully decorated and the repast elaborate, but with such an array of intellect, the after-dinner speeches were the distinguis.h.i.+ng feature of the occasion. The Was.h.i.+ngton Star, in a long account, said:

A company of the most remarkable women in the world were a.s.sembled.

As she sat there, surrounded by the skirted knights of her long crusade, Miss Anthony looked no older than fifty, but she had got a good start into her seventy-first year before the dinner ended. May Wright Sewall presided. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, that venerable and beautiful old stateswoman, sat at the right of Senator Blair, looking as if she should be the Lord Chief-Justice, with her white hair puffed all over her head, and her amiable and intellectual face marked with the lines of wisdom. Isabella Beecher Hooker, who reminds one of her great brother, with the stamp of genius on her brow and an energy of intellect expressed upon her face, sat at the left of Miss Anthony. Old John Hutchinson, the last of the famous singing family, his white hair and beard forming a fringe about his shoulders; Clara Barton, her breast sparkling with Red Cross medals; and many other women of wide fame were present. Before the banquet the guests a.s.sembled in the Red Parlor of the Riggs, where a levee was held and congratulations were offered. It was after 10 o'clock when the line was formed and the guests marched down to the dining-room, Miss Anthony, on the arm of Senator Blair, leading the way.

The correspondent of the New York Sun said in a brilliant description: "The dining-room was a splendid scene, long to be remembered. The American flag was everywhere and, with tropical flowers and foliage, made bright decorations.... It was a notable gathering of women world-wide in fame, and of distinguished men. The lady with a birthday--seventy of them indeed--was of course the star on which all others gazed. She never looked better, never happier, and never so much like breaking down before her feelings. No wonder, with such a birthday party! Friends of her youth calling her 'Susan,' affectionate deference from everybody, and all saying she deserved a thousand just such birthdays--young in heart, beautiful in spirit."

Phoebe Couzins replied to the toast "St. Susan," making a witty contrast between the austere St. Anthony of old and the St. Anthony of today, representing self-abnegation for the good, the beautiful, the true. Rev.

Anna Shaw made a delightfully humorous response to "The Modern Peripatetic," referring to the ancient philosopher who had founded the school of men, and Miss Anthony who had founded the modern school of women peripatetics, ready to grab their grips and start around the world at a moment's notice. Matilda Joslyn Gage responded to "Miss Anthony as a Fellow-worker;" Clara Bewick Colby to "Miss Anthony as a Journalist;"

Laura Ormiston Chant, of England, to "American Womanhood;" Mrs. Jane Marsh Parker, sent by the Ignorance Club of Rochester, to "Miss Anthony at Home," beginning: "To have brought to Miss Anthony all the testimonials which Rochester would have laid at her feet tonight would have made me appear at the banquet like the modern Santa Claus--the postman at Christmastide." Rev. Frederick W. Hinckley, of Providence, began his graceful address by saying:

King Arthur, sword in hand, is not at the head of the table, but Queen Susan is, the silver crown of seventy honorable years upon her brow; and we gather here from every quarter of the Union, little knights and great knights, without distinction of s.e.x, to take anew at her hands the oath of loyal service to the cause of universal liberty. Those of us who have followed her through all these years know that she has been a knight without reproach, that her head has been level and her heart true. Faithful to the cause of her s.e.x, she has been broad enough to grasp great general principles. She has been not only an advocate of equal rights, but the prophet of humanity; and a better advocate of equal rights because a prophet of humanity. There never has been a time when Whittier's lines concerning Sumner would not have been applicable to her:

"Wherever wrong doth right deny, Or suffering spirits urge their plea, Here is a voice to smite the lie, A hand to set the captive free."

Nineteenth century chivalry renders all honor to that type of womanhood of which she is an ill.u.s.trious example.

Robert Purvis eloquently referred to Miss Anthony's grand work for the abolition of slavery, which, he said, was still continued in the vaster and more complicated work for the freedom of women. Mrs. Stanton's two daughters, Mrs. Lawrence and Mrs. Blatch, made sparkling responses.

Representative J. A. Pickler said in part:

Five years since, when a member of the Dakota legislature and in charge of the bill giving full suffrage to women, I was characterized in the public press as "Susan B. Pickler." I look upon this as one of the greatest honors ever bestowed upon me. I have never learned how Miss Anthony regarded it....

Unswerved by the shafts of ridicule, without love of gain, she has sublimely borne through all these years ridicule and reproach for principle, for humanity, for womanhood. The soldier battles amid the plaudits of his countrymen, the statesman supported by his party, the clergyman sanctioned by his church, but alone, this great woman has stood for half a century, contending for the rights of women. Says Professor Swing: "Mark any life pervaded by a worthy plan, and how beautiful it is! Webster, Gladstone, Sumner, Disraeli; fifty years were these temples in the building!" How aptly these words describe our great advocate of woman. Gratifying it must be to Susan B. Anthony; gratifying, we bear witness, it is to her friends, that in her maturer years we see this cause, long hated by others but by her always loved, now respected by all; and herself, its representative and exponent, revered, loved and honored by a whole nation.

The main address was made by Mrs. Stanton, who responded to the sentiment "The Friends.h.i.+ps of Women," in an oration full of humor, and closed:

If there is one part of my life which gives me more intense satisfaction than another, it is my friends.h.i.+p of more than forty years' standing with Susan B. Anthony. Ours has been a friends.h.i.+p of hard work and self-denial.... Emerson says, "It is better to be a thorn in the side of your friend than his echo." If this add weight and stability to friends.h.i.+p, then ours will endure forever, for we have indeed been thorns in the side of each other. Sub rosa, dear friends, I have had no peace for forty years, since the day we started together on the suffrage expedition in search of woman's place in the National Const.i.tution. She has kept me on the war-path at the point of the bayonet so long that I have often wished my untiring coadjutor might, like Elijah, be translated a few years before I was summoned, that I might spend the sunset of my life in some quiet chimney-corner and lag superfluous on the stage no longer.

After giving up all hope of her sweet repose in Abraham's bosom, I sailed some years ago for Europe. With an ocean between us I said, now I shall enjoy a course of light reading. I shall visit all the wonders of the old world, and write no more calls, resolutions or speeches for conventions--when lo! one day I met Susan face to face in the streets of London with a new light in her eyes. Behold there were more worlds to conquer. She had decided on an international council in Was.h.i.+ngton, so I had to return with her to the scenes of our conflict.... Well, I prefer a tyrant of my own s.e.x, so I shall not deny the patent fact of my subjection; for I do believe that I have developed into much more of a woman under her jurisdiction, fed on statute laws and const.i.tutional amendments, than if left to myself reading novels in an easy-chair, lost in sweet reveries of the golden age to come without any effort of my own.

As Mrs. Stanton concluded, "The Guest of the Evening" was announced and, amidst long continued applause and waving of handkerchiefs, Miss Anthony arose and made one of those little speeches that never can be reported, in which she said:

I have been half inclined while listening here to believe that I had pa.s.sed on to the beyond. If there is one thing I hope for more than another, it is that, should I stay on this planet thirty years longer, I still may be worthy of the wonderful respect you have manifested for me tonight. The one thought I wish to express is how little my friend or I could have accomplished alone. What she said is true; I have been a thorn in her side and in that of her family too, I fear. I never expect to know any joy in this world equal to that of going up and down the land, getting good editorials written, engaging halls, and circulating Mrs. Stanton's speeches.

If I ever have had any inspiration she has given it to me, for I never could have done my work if I had not had this woman at my right hand. If I had had a husband and children, or opposition in my own home, I never could have done it. My father and mother, my brothers and sisters, those who are gone and those who are left, all have been a help to me. How much depends on the sympathy and co-operation of those about us! It is not necessary for all to go to the front. Every woman presiding over her table in the homes where I have been, has helped sustain me, I wish they could know how much.

Poems were read or sent by Harriet Hosmer, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Alice Williams Brotherton and a number of others. At the close of Mrs.

Hooker's verses ent.i.tled "Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot?" the entire company arose and sang two stanzas of "Auld Lang Syne," led by the venerable John Hutchinson. From the many letters received only a few extracts can be given:

Allow me to congratulate you on your safe arrival at the age of threescore and ten. How much we may congratulate ourselves on the great gains that have come to woman during these years; gains for which you have worked so hard and so long! Hoping that you may still be on this planet when the ballot is the sure possession of our s.e.x, I am very truly your co-worker,

LUCY STONE.

None can more heartily congratulate thee on thy threescore and ten years n.o.bly devoted to the welfare of humanity, to unremitting labor for temperance, for the abolition of slavery and for equal rights of citizens.h.i.+p, irrespective of s.e.x or color. We have lived to see the end of slavery, and I hope thou wilt live to see prohibition enforced in every State in the Union, and s.e.x no longer the condition of citizens.h.i.+p. G.o.d bless thee and give thee many more years made happy by works of love and duty. I am truly thy friend,

JOHN G. WHITTIER.