The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony Volume II Part 21

After a few days at home Miss Anthony started for Meriden, to attend the Connecticut convention on May 22, and when this was over went home with Mrs. Hooker. A letter to the Woman's Tribune said:

I wish I could tell you of my journeyings. I had a pleasant visit with Mrs. Hooker at her charming home in Hartford. En route from Boston I spent a few days with Hon. and Mrs. William Whiting in their beautiful home at Holyoke. One day was devoted to a luncheon party of a hundred or more in their picturesque log cabin three miles down the river, through the lovely Connecticut valley. This cabin, with fireplace worthy the grandest old back-log and fore-stick, polished floors, and lunch served by a Springfield caterer, is not like those of our dear old grandmothers. After the tables were cleared, Mrs. Whiting called on me for a talk. Another day we visited Mount Holyoke Seminary, going through the various buildings and, in the great old kitchen, looking upon neat plateaus of light, sweet-smelling bread, biscuits and cake, all made by the girls during the morning. Each must do a certain amount of work, and all is done in memory of the sainted Mary Lyon, whose monument stands under the grand old trees which surround the buildings.

Then on Sunday I went to Ches.h.i.+re, to dine with my mother's dear cousin, ninety-five years of age, bright and cheerful in her on-look. Next I hied me to the house of my Grandfather Anthony, who lived in it from the day of his marriage in 1792, to his death at the age of ninety-six.... From here I went to Saratoga and took a drink from the old Congress Spring, and Wednesday reached home. The paper tells you what happened on Thursday evening, and now I am enjoying to the fullest all the good-will of my dear friends.

"What happened" was that Miss Anthony went to housekeeping! After the mother's death, Miss Mary rented the lower part of the house, which now belonged to her, reserved the upper rooms for herself and sister, and took her meals with her tenants. This plan was followed for a number of years. Now, however, Miss Anthony had pa.s.sed one year beyond the threescore and ten which are supposed to mark the limit of activity if not of life, and her friends urged that she should give up her long journeys from one end of the continent to the other, her hard State campaigns, her constant lectures and conventions. She felt as vigorous as ever but had long wished for the comforts and conveniences of her own home, and she concluded that perhaps her friends were right and she should settle down in one place and direct the work, rather than try to do so much of it herself. She thought this might be safely done now, as so many new and efficient workers had been developed and the cause had acquired a standing which made its advocacy an easy task compared to what it had been in the past, when only a few women had the courage and strength to take the blows and bear the contumely. So Miss Mary took possession of the house; masons, carpenters, painters and paper-hangers were put to work, and by June all was in in beautiful readiness.

The friends in various parts of the country were deeply interested in the new move. Letters of approval came from all directions, among them this from Mrs. Stanton in England: "I rejoice that you are going to housekeeping. The mistake of my life was selling Tenafly. My advice to you, Susan, is to keep some spot you can call your own; where you can live and die in peace and be cremated in your own oven if you desire."

When Miss Anthony returned from her eastern trip on June 11, a pleasant surprise awaited her. The Political Equality Club had taken part in the housekeeping program. Handsome rugs had been laid on the floor, lace curtains hung at the windows, easy chairs placed in the rooms, a large desk in Miss Mary's study, a fine oak table in the dining-room, all the gift of the club. Mrs. Avery had sent a big, roomy desk and Mrs. Sewall an office chair for Miss Anthony's study; Miss Shaw and Lucy Anthony, a set of china; Mr. Avery, the needed cutlery; the brother Daniel R., a great box of sheeting, spreads, bolts of muslin, table linen and towels, enough to last a lifetime. From other friends came pictures, silver and bric-a-brac without limit. The events of the evening after Miss Anthony arrived at home are thus described by the Rochester Herald:

The truth of the matter is that for a long time the Woman's Political Club has been in love with Miss Anthony, a feeling which she has not been slow to reciprocate. The affair culminated last evening, the nuptial ceremony being a housewarming tendered by the club. The reception was a complete success, and the rooms were crowded for several hours, the number of visitors being estimated at no less than 300. The house was brilliantly lighted and everywhere was a profusion of cut flowers and potted ferns. At the entrance the visitors were greeted by Mrs. Greenleaf, president of the club, who presented them to Miss Anthony. In greeting each new-comer the hostess displayed her remarkable power of memory and brilliance as a conversationalist, having a reminiscent word for every one. In the parlor before the fireplace stood the old spinning-wheel which in 1817 had been a wedding gift to her mother.

It was decked with marguerites and received no small degree of attention....

A short time after the housewarming, her cousin, Charles d.i.c.kinson, of Chicago, stopped over night and, after he had gone, Miss Anthony found this note: "It makes me blush for the wealthy people of the country, that they forget their duty to others. Here art thou, with thy moderate income, spending all of it for humanity's cause, thinking, speaking, doing a work that will last forever. Please take rest enough for good health to be with thee, and to make this easier I enclose a check for $300. Call it a loan without interest, already repaid by the good done to our fellow-beings."

In June she made a long-promised visit to her friend Henrietta M. Banker at her home in the Adirondacks, which she thus describes:

Rev. Anna Shaw and I have had a lovely week. Almost every day we drove out among the mountains; one day to the Ausable lakes, through beautiful woods, up ravines a thousand feet; another to Professor Davidson's summer school, high up on the mountainside.

But the day of days was when we drove to the farm-home of old Captain John Brown at North Elba. We found a broad plateau, surrounded with mountain peaks on every side. We ate our dinner in the same dining-room in which the old hero and his family partook of their scanty fare in the days when he devoted his energies to teaching the colored men, who accepted Gerrit Smith's generous offer of a bit of real estate, which should ent.i.tle the possessor to a right to vote. Of all who settled on those lands, called the "John Brown opening," only one grayheaded negro still lives, though many of their old houses and barns yet stand, crumbling away on their deserted farms.

In front of the house is a small yard and occupying one-half of it is a grand old boulder with steps leading to the top, where one sees chiseled in large letters, "John Brown, December 2, 1859." At the foot is the grave of the martyr, marked by an old granite headstone which once stood at his grandfather's grave, and on it are inscribed the names of three generations of John Browns. The vandals visiting that sacred spot chipped off bits of the granite until it became necessary to make a cover and padlock it down, so that the farmer unlocks the cap and lifts it off for visitors now.

Thus is commemorated that fatal day which marks the only hanging for treason against the United States Government. John Brown was crucified for doing what he believed G.o.d commanded him to do, "to break the yoke and let the oppressed go free," precisely as were the saints of old for following what they believed to be G.o.d's commands. The barbarism of our government was by so much the greater as our light and knowledge are greater than those of two thousand years ago....

July 25 is to be Suffrage Day at Chautauqua, and dear Mrs. Wallace and Anna Shaw are to preach the gospel of equal rights. I do hope Bishop Vincent will be present and there learn from those two, who are surely "G.o.d's women," the law of love to thy neighbor--woman, as to thyself--man. I am hoping the gate receipts on that day will be greater than those of any other during the summer. Wouldn't that tell the story of the interest in this question?

In June she accepted the urgent invitation of the Ignorance Club to honor them by being their guest at their annual frolic on Manitou beach and respond to a toast which should allow her to say anything she liked.

Three most enjoyable weeks were spent at home and during this time Miss Anthony addressed the W. C. T. U. She expressed herself in no uncertain tones as to the futility of third parties, declaring that the Prohibition party already had taken some of the best temperance men out of Congress, and made a speech so forcible that it lifted the bonnets of some of the timid sisters. The evening paper reported:

... Rev. C. B. Gardner said Miss Anthony had given the company some excellent political advice, but he inclined to the belief that the temperance reform could be brought about without woman suffrage.

"The women would bring the men around in time; they could accomplish much by their moral influence; in this they resembled ministers." Miss Anthony wished to know if it would not be a good thing then, to disfranchise the ministers and let them depend entirely on their moral influence. She explained that in what she had said about prayer she meant prayer by action. She would not have it understood that she did not believe in prayer; she thought, however, that an emotion never could be equal to an action.

She went to Chautauqua July 25, when, for the first time in its history, woman suffrage was presented. Zerelda G. Wallace delivered a grand address and Rev. Anna Shaw gave "The Fate of Republics." Miss Anthony followed in a short speech, and the Jamestown Sunday News said: "Woman's Day was fully justified by the reception given to that intrepid Arnold Winkelreid of women." Frances Willard wrote a few days later from the a.s.sembly grounds: "Dearest Susan, I could sing hallelujah over you and our Anna Shaw and 'Deborah' Wallace! It was the best and biggest day Chautauqua ever saw. Do urge your suffragists to go in for this on next year's program."

Miss Anthony attended the golden wedding of John and Isabella Beecher Hooker, in Hartford, August 5; "a most beautiful occasion," she writes in her diary, "but to the surprise of all there was no speaking." An affair without speeches was to her what a feast without wine would have been to the ancients. On the 15th suffrage had a great day at Lily Dale, the famous Spiritualist camp meeting grounds, Miss Shaw and herself making the princ.i.p.al addresses. Miss Anthony thus speaks of the meeting in a letter:

... To Brother Buckley's a.s.sertion, made a short time before, that women should not be allowed to vote because the majority of Spiritualists, Christian Scientists and all false religions were women, Miss Shaw replied that there was a larger ratio of men in the audience before her than she had seen in any Methodist or temperance camp meeting or Chautauqua a.s.sembly this summer. When Mr. Buckley charged that women were too numerous in the false religions to vote, she would remind him that there were three women to one man in the Methodist church also; and she was quite willing to match the vast majorities of women in the various religions, false and true, with the vast majorities of men at the horse races, variety theaters, police stations, jails and penitentiaries throughout the country. She brought the house down with, "Too much religion unfits women to vote! Too much vice and crime qualifies men to vote!"

People came from far and near. Fully 3,000 were a.s.sembled in that beautiful amphitheater decorated with the yellow and the red, white and blue.... There hanging by itself was our national suffrage flag, ten by fourteen feet, with its regulation red and white stripes, and in the center of its blue corner just one great golden star, Wyoming, blazing out all alone. Every cottage in the camp was festooned with yellow, and when at night the Chinese lanterns on the piazzas were lighted, Lily Dale was as gorgeous as any Fourth of July, all in honor of Woman's Day and her coming freedom and equality.

Our hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Skidmore, are the center of things at Lily Dale, and right royal are they in their hospitality as well as their love of liberty for all. This camp has been in existence twelve summers, there has been no police force, and no disturbance ever has occurred. Every one is left to his own sense of propriety of behavior and every one behaves properly.

Miss Anthony still intended, however, to remain at home and in the intervals when she was not coaxed away no bride ever enjoyed more fully her first experiment at housekeeping. All the forty years of travelling up and down the face of the earth had not eradicated from her nature the domestic tastes, and she loved every nook and corner of the old home made new, going from room to room, putting the finis.h.i.+ng touches here and there, and fairly revelling in the sense of possession. Hospitality was her strongest instinct, and during all these years she had accepted so much from her friends in Rochester and elsewhere without being able to return it, that now she wanted to entertain everybody and all at once. The diary speaks often of ten and twelve at the table for dinner or tea, and Miss Mary, who const.i.tuted the committee of ways and means, was quite overwhelmed with the new regime. The story in the journal runs like this:

Our dear old friends, Sarah Willis and Mary Hallowell, shared our first Sunday dinner with us.... Our old Abolition friends, Giles B.

and Catharine F. Stebbins and three or four others took tea with us tonight.... My old friend Adeline Thomson has come to stay several weeks with us. How nice to have my own home to entertain my friends.... Anna Shaw and niece Lucy came today and we had five others to dinner. A very pleasant thing to be able to ask people to stop and dine.... Brother D. R., sister Anna and niece Maud came today for a week. It is so good to receive them in our own home. D.

R. enjoys the fire on the hearth.... Had Maria Porter, Mr. and Mrs.

Greenleaf and eleven altogether to tea this evening. How I do enjoy it!... Who came this day? O, yes, Mrs. Lydia Avery c.o.o.nley, of Chicago, her son and her mother, Mrs. Susan Look Avery, of Louisville, Ky. It makes me so happy to return some of the courtesies I have had in their beautiful home.... Just before noon Mrs. Greenleaf popped into the woodshed with a great sixteen-quart pail full of pound b.a.l.l.s of the most delicious b.u.t.ter, and we made her stay to dinner. The girl was was.h.i.+ng and I got the dinner alone: broiled steak, potatoes, sweet corn, tomatoes and peach pudding, with a cup of tea. All said it was good and I enjoyed it hugely. How I love to receive in my own home and at my own table!

She went to Warsaw September 17 to help the Wyoming county women hold their convention. The 23d had been set apart as Woman's Day at the Western New York Fair, held at the Rochester driving park. Mrs.

Greenleaf presided; Miss Anthony and Rev. Anna Shaw were the speakers.

The former spoke briefly, insisting with her usual generosity that the honors of the occasion should belong to Miss Shaw.[72] In the course of her few remarks she said: "We who represent the suffrage movement ask not that women be like men, but that they may be greater women by having their opinions respected at the ballot-box. Only men's opinions have prevailed in this government since it was founded. Enfranchis.e.m.e.nt says to every man outside of the State prisons, the insane and idiot asylums: 'Your judgment is sound; your opinions are worthy of being crystallized in the laws of the land.' Disfranchis.e.m.e.nt says to all women: 'Your judgment is not sound; your opinions are not worthy of being counted,'

Man is the superior, woman the subject, under the present condition of political affairs, and until this great wrong is righted, ignorant men and small boys will continue to look with disdain on the opinion of women."

From the time that Mrs. Stanton had decided to return to America for the remainder of her days, Miss Anthony had hoped they might have a home together and finish their life-work of history and reminiscence. When she learned that her friend, with a widowed daughter and a bachelor son, contemplated taking a house in New York, she was greatly distressed, as she felt that this would be the end of all her plans. She wrote her immediately:

We have just returned from the Unitarian church where we listened to Mr. Gannett's rare dissertation on the religion of Lowell; but all the time there was an inner wail in my soul, that by your fastening yourself in New York City I couldn't help you carry out the dream of my life--which is that you should take all of your speeches and articles, carefully dissect them, and put your best utterances on each point into one essay or lecture; first deliver them in the Unitarian church on Sunday afternoon, and then publish in a nice volume, just as Phillips culled out his best. Your Reminiscences give only light and incidental bits of your life--all good but not the greatest of yourself. This is the first time since 1850 that I have anch.o.r.ed myself to any particular spot, and in doing it my constant thought was that you would come here, where are the doc.u.ments necessary to our work, and stay for as long, at least, as we must be together to put your writings into systematic shape to go down to posterity. I have no writings to go down, so my ambition is not for myself, but it is for one by the side of whom I have wrought these forty years, and to get whose speeches before audiences and committees has been the delight of my life.

Well, I hope you will do and be as seemeth best unto yourself, still I can not help sending you this inner groan of my soul, lest you are not going to make it possible that the thing shall be done first which seems most important to me. Then, too, I have never ceased to hope that we would finish the History of Woman Suffrage, at least to the end of the life of the dear old National.

Mrs. Stanton's children would not consent to this plan, but she came to Rochester for a month's visit in September. It was desired by many friends that to the very satisfactory busts of Miss Anthony and Lucretia Mott, which had been made by Adelaide Johnson, should be added one of Mrs. Stanton, and all be placed in the Woman's Building at the World's Fair. To accomplish this Miss Anthony rented a large room in the adjoining house for a studio and invited the sculptor to her home for a number of weeks, until the sittings were finished.

During Mrs. Stanton's visit Miss Anthony entertained the Political Equality Club and a large company of guests, the evening being devoted to the subject of the admission of women to Rochester University. A number of the faculty, Congressmen Greenleaf and Baker, several ministers, the princ.i.p.al of the free academy--about 200 altogether were present and the discussion was very animated. Practically all of them believed in opening the doors and a letter of approval was read from David J. Hill, president of the university. The trustees were represented by Dr. E. M. Moore, who was in favor of admitting women but declared that it would be impossible unless an additional fund of $200,000 was provided beforehand. Miss Anthony insisted that the girls should first be admitted and then, when a necessity for more money was apparent, it would be much easier to raise it. In the course of his remarks Dr. Moore said it was more important to educate boys than girls because they were the breadwinners.

The Utica Sunday paper came out a few days later with a half-page cartoon representing the university campus; on the outside of the fence were Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton heading a long procession of girls, books in hand; standing guard over the fence, labeled "prejudice and old fogyism," was Dr. Moore pointing proudly to the "breadwinners," who consisted of two confused and struggling ma.s.ses, one engaged in a "cane rush" and the other in a fight over a football. This little incident merely proved the oft-repeated a.s.sertion that these two women never were three days together without stirring up a controversy, in which the opposing forces invariably were worsted and public sentiment was moved up a notch in the direction of larger liberty for woman.

Together they visited the palatial home, at Auburn, of Eliza Wright Osborne, daughter of Martha C. Wright, where they were joined by Elizabeth Smith Miller, daughter of Gerrit Smith; and there were delightful hours of reminiscence and chat of mutual friends, past and present. The diary shows that Miss Anthony purchased a full set of books to join the Emerson and Browning cla.s.ses this year, but there is no record of attendance save at one meeting. One entry says: "Dancing to the dentist's these days." Another tells of forgetting to go to a luncheon after the invitation had been accepted; and still another of inviting a number of friends to tea and forgetting all about it.

In November she went again to Auburn to the State convention, remaining four days. The Daily Advertiser said: "Miss Susan B. Anthony, the grand old woman of the equal rights cause, was then introduced and spoke at length upon the objects for which she had labored so faithfully all her life. Except for her gray hair and a few wrinkles, no one would suppose the speaker to be in her seventy-second year. The full, firm voice, the active manner and clear logic, all belonged to a young woman." At the close of the convention Mrs. Osborne gave a reception in her honor, attended by nearly one hundred ladies.

By invitation of the Unitarian minister, Rev. W. C. Gannett, Miss Anthony partic.i.p.ated with himself and Rabbi Max Lansberg in Thanksgiving services at the Unitarian church. The topic was "The Unrest of the Times a Cause for Thankfulness," as indicated by "The Woman, the Social and the Religious Movements." Miss Anthony responded to the first in a concise address, considered under twelve heads and not occupying more than that number of minutes in delivery, beginning with Ralph Waldo Emerson's declaration, "A wholesome discontent is the first step toward progress," and giving a resume of women's advancement during the past forty years, due chiefly to dissatisfaction with their lot.

It had not been an easy matter for Miss Anthony to have even this fragment of a year at home. From many places she had received letters begging her to come to the a.s.sistance of societies and conventions, and she was just as anxious to go as they were to have her. The most urgent of these appeals came from Mrs. Johns, of Kansas, where a const.i.tutional convention was threatened and the women wanted a suffrage amendment.

When Miss Anthony did not go to the spring convention, Mrs. Johns wrote, April 18: "I can never tell you how I missed you, and the people--they seemed to think they must have you. Letter after letter came asking, 'Is there no way by which we can get Miss Anthony?'" When she declined to go to the fall convention, Mrs. Johns wrote, November 26: "I declare it seemed as if I did not know how to go on without you, and our women felt just as I did. We have had you with us so often that we depended on your presence more than we knew." In another long letter she said:

I hope the national a.s.sociation will not leave Kansas to work out her own salvation. Surely you, to whom we owe munic.i.p.al suffrage, are not going to fail to come to us at this awful juncture! Dear Aunt Susan, you won't get any wounds here. I will take charge of the office and make the routes, which I am able to do well; I will speak; I will organize; I will do anything you think best, and there will be n.o.body inquiring what you do with funds, and there will be no disgraceful charges and counter-charges, unless I am greatly mistaken in Kansas women and in myself. We all love you here and we want the cause to succeed more than we want personal aggrandizement.

Mrs. Johns persuaded Mrs. Avery to join in her plea and finally Miss Anthony could hold out no longer, but December 11 wrote to the latter: "I have been fully resolved all along not to go to Kansas during this first campaign, because I felt that my threescore and ten and two years added ought to excuse me from the fearful exposure; still, since you and dear Laura are left so deserted and will be so heartbroken if I stick to my resolve, I will say yes, tuck on my coat and mittens and start. But alas! how soon must that be? I am thoroughly in the dark as to when and where I shall be wanted to begin, but I will do my level best."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Autograph: "Very truly yours, Frances E Warren"]

The closing days of 1891 were devoted to the voluminous correspondence which preceded every national convention. The large number of letters on file from prominent senators and representatives show that Miss Anthony was keeping an eye on the committees and pulling the wires to have known friends placed on those which would report on woman suffrage. "I am in full sympathy with you upon the question of woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt,"

wrote Senator Dolph, of Oregon, "and also with your effort to secure a chairman of the committee who favors the movement and is able to present it with intelligence and ability." Speaker Reed closed his letter by saying, "When the eleventh hour comes, we all shall flock in, clamorous for pennies." Words of encouragement were received from many others, and Senator and ex-Governor Francis E. Warren, of Wyoming, wrote: "I am always in harness for woman suffrage wherever I may be. My spoken and written testimony for a score of years has been in its praise and of its perfect working and results in Wyoming."

FOOTNOTES:

[66] While here Miss Anthony received a letter from Rev. N. M. Mann, formerly pastor of the Unitarian church in Rochester but now residing in Omaha, which said: "Are you not coming to the metropolis of the State, when some of us here are just peris.h.i.+ng for the sight of your face? I speak for myself and Mrs. Mann firstly, though judging from the number of parlors I go into where your picture is the first thing one sees, I fancy there are a good many others who would be hardly less glad than we to greet you. Come and spend a Sunday, and hear a good old sermon, and lecture in my church."

[67] As women had been voting in the Territory over twenty years and this answer was sent by a legislature composed entirely of men, it would seem to show that the evils predicted of woman suffrage were wholly disproved by actual experience.

[68] Mr. Taylor wrote Miss Anthony: "The delay, which seemed long to you, was absolutely necessary and I am sure you will understand that I have been faithful to the cause. My daughter Harriet, the most wonderful of all women to me, is largely influential in the result...."

[69] DEAR SUSAN ANTHONY: We are to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the First National Woman's Rights Convention in this State and want to make the meeting as useful to the cause as we can. You ought to be here.

Will you come? The sheaves gathered in these forty years are to be presented, and of course there will be some reminiscences of pioneer times. We shall be glad to announce you as one of the speakers. I hope you are a little rested since the hard campaign in Dakota. Yours truly,

LUCY STONE.

[70] In her letter describing the council Mrs. Margaret Bottome wrote of Miss Anthony: "I have met, since I have been in Was.h.i.+ngton, a woman whom I have heard of since I can remember anything. We are not of the same faith--she has devoted her life to what during the past I have shrunk from--and I met her here for the first time; but I shall carry with me always the impression of her spirit upon my own, of the Christ-life, the Christ-spirit. I got it before she had said five words to me, and I could have sat down at her feet and drank in the spirit of Jesus Christ that is in her, though she does not see him just as I do."