The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony Volume I Part 43

We are thankful to see the recognition accorded to the worth of our townswoman. She has been often misjudged and sometimes abused; but unfalteringly and unselfishly she has devoted herself to her life-work, and despite cavilling and sneers, has deeply impressed her thought upon the age in which she has been placed. Her executive talent has unceasingly declared itself and her character has been without reproach. She is today a power in the land, respected even by those who oppose her. She may not witness the full triumph of her cause; but her fame as a brave, truthful and consistent advocate of a conquering cause is secure. Even in her lifetime she is receiving something of the reward to which her fidelity to principle ent.i.ties her.--Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.]

[Footnote 87: When this work finally was issued at $15 per set, every one of these pledges was carefully fulfilled, necessarily at a great pecuniary loss.]

[Footnote 88: For full text of this magnificent doc.u.ment see History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. III, p. 31.]

[Footnote 89: The little teapot and the cup and saucer which she used now stand upon Miss Anthony's sideboard.]

[Footnote 90: To this work, which these women expected to accomplish in four months, they gave every day that could be spared from other duties for the next ten years!]

CHAPTER XXVIII.

COLORADO CAMPAIGN--POLITICAL ATt.i.tUDE.

1877-1878.

The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Virginia L. Minor rendered useless any further efforts to obtain suffrage under the National Const.i.tution until it should be amended for this special purpose. The agitation of the last eight years, however, had not been without its value. The student of history will observe that the ablest const.i.tutional arguments ever made in favor of the practical application of the great underlying principles of our government, were those of Benjamin F. Butler, A.G. Riddle, Henry R.

Selden, William Loughridge, Francis Minor, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage on the right of women to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment. These were reviewed by the newspapers and law journals and widely discussed by the people, while the congressional debates, published in the Record, became a part of history.

Although from the standpoint of justice these arguments were unanswerable, they did not succeed in establishing the political rights of women, and the advocates therefore were compelled to return to their former policy of demanding a Sixteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution, which should protect them as the Fifteenth protected the negroes. To this end, in November, 1876, an earnest appeal was sent out by Mrs.

Stanton, president; Miss Anthony, secretary; and Mrs. Gage, chairman of the executive committee of the National a.s.sociation, asking the women to secure pet.i.tions for the amendment and send them to the annual meeting. Two letters received by Miss Anthony in January, 1877, ill.u.s.trate the wide difference of opinion which prevailed. Wm. Lloyd Garrison wrote:

You desire me to send you a letter, to be read at the Washington convention, in favor of a pet.i.tion to Congress, asking that body to submit to the several States a Sixteenth Amendment securing suffrage for all, irrespective of s.e.x. On fully considering the subject, I must decline doing so, because such a pet.i.tion I deem to be quite premature. If its request were complied with by the present Congress--a supposition simply preposterous--the proposed amendment would be rejected by every State in the Union, and in nearly every instance by such an overwhelming majority as to bring the movement into needless contempt. Even as a matter of "agitation," I do not think it would pay. Look over the whole country and see in the present state of public sentiment on the question of woman suffrage what a mighty primary work remains to be done in enlightening the ma.s.ses, who know nothing and care nothing about it and, consequently, are not at all prepared to cast their vote for any such thing. I think it is a mistake to look for a favorable consideration of the question on the part of legislators under such circ.u.mstances. More light is needed for the popular mind.

In the early days of the anti-slavery agitation, Mr. Garrison never waited for the popular mind to become prepared but, by the ploughshare of bold, aggressive action, he turned up the soil and made it ready for the seed. When "more light" was needed, by vigorous effort he stirred up a blaze which illuminated the world.

From Wendell Phillips came the old-time clarion note: "I think you are on the right track--the best method to agitate the question--and I am with you, though, between you and me, I still think the individual States must lead off and that this reform must advance piecemeal, State by State. But I mean always to help everywhere and every one."

The convention met in Lincoln Hall, January 16 and 17. Although there had been but a few weeks for the work, pet.i.tions asking a Sixteenth Amendment were received from twenty-six different States, aggregating over 10,000 names. The History says: "To Sara Andrews Spencer we are indebted for the great labor of receiving, a.s.sorting, counting, rolling-up and planning the presentation of the pet.i.tions. It was by a well-considered coup d'etat that, with her brave coadjutors, she appeared on the floor of the House and gave each member a pet.i.tion from his own State. Even Miss Anthony, always calm in the hour of danger, on finding herself suddenly whisked into those sacred enclosures, amid a crowd of stalwart men, spittoons and sc.r.a.p-baskets, when brought vis-a-vis with our champion, Mr. h.o.a.r, hastily apologized for the intrusion, to which the honorable gentleman promptly replied, 'I hope, madam, yet to see you on this floor in your own right and in business hours too.'"

The spectacle is variously described.[91] The trustworthy correspondent of the Independent, Mary Clemmer, looked at the proceedings with a woman's eyes and, in her weekly letter, thus vented her indignation:

A few read the pet.i.tions as they would any other, with dignity and without comment; but the majority seemed intensely conscious of holding something unutterably funny in their hands. They appeared to consider it a huge joke. The entire Senate presented the appearance of a laughing-school practising side-splitting and ear-extended grins. Mr. Wadleigh leaned back in his chair and shook with laughter, after portraying to his next neighbor, Pinkney Whyte, of Maryland, the apparition of Pinkney's landlady descending upon the polls like a wolf on the fold, to annihilate his election.

Oglesby, erst warrior of Illinois, spake with such endearing gallantry of his "dear const.i.tuents," whom he did all his wit could do to make ridiculous, that the Senate laughed, and even Roscoe Conkling, who never condescends to sneer at a woman in public, turned and listened and smiled his most sardonic smile. Then Thurman blew his loudest regulation blast--sure portent of approaching battle--and rose and moved that the pet.i.tion be referred to the committee on public lands, of which Oglesby is chairman. At this proposition--intended to be equally humorous and contemptuous--the whole Senate laughed aloud.

There was one senator man enough and gentleman enough to lift the pet.i.tion from this insulting proposition. It was Senator Sargent, of California, the husband of the woman who, though a senator's wife, is brave enough to be the treasurer of the National Suffrage a.s.sociation. He turned to Mr. Thurman and demanded for the pet.i.tion of more than 10,000 women at least the courtesy which would be given to any other.... Then the craven Senate declared Thurman's motion, which was only an insult, carried. Let it be recorded of the Senate of the Forty-fifth Congress that the one pet.i.tion which it received as a preposterous joke and treated with utter contempt and outrage was that of tens of thousands of the mothers, wives and daughters of the land.

The Capital of Sunday was perfectly correct when it said: "The ladies managed the business badly. If they had employed the female lobby, the venerable Solons would have softened and thrown open their doors as readily as their hearts." It seems an ungracious thing to say; but it is the truth. The woman who wins her way with the majority of these men is the siren of the gallery and the anteroom, who sends in her card and her invitation to the senator at his desk. She never talks of "rights." She cares for no "cause"

but her own cause of ease and pelf. She shakes her tresses, "banged" and usually blonde; she lifts her alluring eyes, and nine times out of ten makes him do as she listeth. No wonder when the earnest appeal of honest women reaches his hands, he has neither response, honor nor justice to give it.

Miss Anthony had been speaking in all parts of the country for a quarter of a century and generally had been her own manager. The preceding year she had given the Slayton Lyceum Bureau a partial trial and at the beginning of 1877 made a contract with it, commencing the last of January. The entire first page of the circular for the season was devoted to this new engagement and began:

The manager takes pride in announcing the name of Susan B. Anthony, the most earnest, fearless advocate of the ballot for woman. She has. .h.i.therto confined herself entirely to this one question, which to her is most sacred and righteous, but this season we are to have something different, as will be seen from the t.i.tles of her new lectures. Her great speeches, "Woman and the Sixteenth Amendment,"

and "Woman wants Bread, not the Ballot," will still be called for, and committees will have their choice in all cases.... A certain gentleman frequently wrote us last year to avoid "all night rides"

after his lectures; Miss Anthony never makes such a request. She can lecture every night in the season.... When a list of fifty or one hundred engagements has been mapped out and fixed, nothing but an act of G.o.d will prevent her filling them.... Of nearly fifty consecutive lectures, delivered by Miss Anthony last spring in the State of Illinois alone, only two failed to realize a profit....

She is always making converts among the men as well as the women.

Among the notices quoted is one from Col. John W. Forney, of the Philadelphia Press, saying: "I must accept woman suffrage as I did negro emanc.i.p.ation; as a necessity made urgent and imperative by the times in which we live. Put me down then, if you please, as being an ardent woman's rights man, fighting under the banner of Susan B.

Anthony, and proud of following such a leader."

[Autograph:

Very truly yours.

J W Forney]

Miss Anthony found both advantages and disadvantages in this new arrangement; for while it relieved her of much responsibility, it took away the control of her own time and movements, a situation which she soon found very trying. She lectured through February and March, but by this time her sister, Mrs. Hannah Mosher, whose failing health had sent her to Kansas in the hope of benefit, was declared by the physicians beyond recovery. Miss Anthony's first impulse was to hasten to her side, but she was confronted with her lecture engagements and told that it would be impossible to release her until May. She was almost desperate to be with the loved one and at last could bear it no longer, so telegraphing Mr. Slayton to cancel everything after April 5, regardless of consequences, she took the train at Chicago and reached Leavenworth on the 7th. She found her sister rapidly declining with the same inexorable disease which had claimed another four years before, and at once installed herself beside the invalid, who was rejoiced indeed to have her companionship and ministrations. All that loving hands could do she had had from husband, children and brothers, but she had longed for the presence of her sister and it filled her with joy and peace.

In just a week, though her heart was breaking, Miss Anthony was obliged to return to Illinois to fill four or five engagements in places which threatened claims for damages if this were not done. She hastened back to Leavenworth, reaching the bedside of her sister at midnight, April 20, and scarcely leaving it a moment until the end came, May 12.

Between herself and this sister, just nineteen months younger, beautiful in character and strong in affection, there ever had existed the closest sympathy. For the last decade they had been separated only by a dooryard, they had shared each other's every joy and sorrow, and the severing of these ties of over a half-century seemed more than she could endure.

She remained at Leavenworth,[92] trying to renew her strength and courage, until the last of June, when she returned to Rochester, taking with her the orphaned daughter Louise. Many comforting letters and tokens of affection came to her during these months, among them a gift of $100 from Helen Potter, the famous impersonator. Her imitations of Gough, Ristori, Charlotte Cushman, Anna d.i.c.kinson, Mrs. Stanton and even Miss Anthony herself were most remarkable. During the Centennial they had become warm personal friends, and in giving the money she said: "Now, this is not for any society or committee or cause, but for your very self."

Mrs. Stanton wrote her: "Do be careful, dear Susan, you can not stand what you once did. I should feel desolate indeed with you gone." When the lecturing had commenced she again wrote: "As I go dragging around in these despicable hotels, I think of you and often wish we had at least the little comfort of enduring it together. When is your agony over?" Referring to a young woman speaker who was being spoiled by flattery, she said: "We should be thankful, Susan, for the ridicule and abuse on which we have fed." To one who tried to make trouble between Miss Anthony and herself she sent this reply: "Our friendship is of too long standing and has too deep roots to be easily shattered. I think we have said worse things to each other, face to face, than we have ever said about each other. Nothing that Susan could say or do could break my friendship with her; and I know nothing could uproot her affection for me." And to Miss Anthony she wrote: "I send you letters from _our_ children. As the environments of the mother influence the child in prenatal life, and you were with me so much, there is no doubt you have had a part in making them what they are. There are a depth and earnestness in these younger ones and a love for you that delight my heart." Such letters as these are scattered thickly through the correspondence of nearly fifty years, and while Miss Anthony seldom put her own feelings into words, her absolute loyalty and devotion to Mrs.

Stanton during all the half-century bear their own testimony.

The talented contributor to the Philadelphia Sunday Republic, Annie McDowell, paid a beautiful tribute to Miss Anthony at this time, ill.u.s.trating how much she was loved by women:

"Some one wishes to know which of the advocates of woman's rights we think the ablest. Why, Susan B., of course. Without her, the organization would have been utterly broken to pieces and scattered. She is the guiding spirit, the executive power that leads the forlorn hope and brings order out of chaos. Others seek to promote their own interests, but Susan, earnest, honest, self-sacrificing, much-enduring, thinks only of the work she has in hand, and speculates solely on the chances of living long enough to accomplish it. She has given up home, friends, her profession of teacher and the modest competence acquired by her labor; has been caricatured, ridiculed, maligned and persecuted, but has never turned aside or faltered in the work to which she has given her life. Whatever may be the opinion of the conservative or fogy world with regard to Susan B. Anthony, those who know her well and have watched her career most attentively, know her to be rich in all the best and most tender of womanly virtues, and possessed of as brave and n.o.ble a spirit and as great integrity of character as ever fell to the lot of mortal woman."

The legislature of Colorado had submitted the question of woman suffrage to be voted on October 2, 1877, and notwithstanding the lucrative business under the lyceum bureau, Miss Anthony could not resist offering her services to the women of Colorado with their little money and few speakers. From Dr. Alida C. Avery, president of the State Suffrage a.s.sociation, came the quick response: "Your generous proposal was duly received, and laid before the executive committee, who resolved that the thanks of the a.s.sociation be tendered you for your friendly offer, which we gratefully accept."

Although inured to hardship, Miss Anthony found this Colorado campaign the most trying she ever had experienced, not excepting that of Kansas ten years before. The country was new, many of the towns were off the railroad among the mountains and in most of them woman suffrage never had been heard of; there was no one to advertise the meetings, n.o.body to meet her when she reached her destination, hotels were of the most primitive nature and there were few public halls. There were, of course, some oases in this desert, and occasionally she found a good hotel or was hospitably entertained in a comfortable home. At one place she spoke in the railroad station to about twenty-five men who could not understand what it was she wanted them to do, though all were voters. Sometimes a landlord would clear out the hotel dining-room and she would gather her audience there, but they would have to stand and soon would grow tired. The mining towns were filled with a densely ignorant cla.s.s of foreigners, and some of the southern counties were almost wholly populated by Mexicans. It was to these men that an American woman, her grandfather a soldier of the Revolution, appealed for the right of women to representation in this government.

To reach Del Norte Miss Anthony rode sixty-five miles by stage over a vast, arid tract evidently once the bed of an inland sea, but the terrible discomforts of the journey were almost overlooked in the enjoyment of the magnificent scenery. She travelled all the next night; at Wagon Wheel Gap the stage stopped for a while and, taking a cup, she went alone down to the river, drank of its icy waters and stood a long time absorbed in the glory of the moonlight on the mountain peaks. In all this weary journey of two days, she was the only woman in a stage filled with men. When she reached Lake City she was delightfully entertained, finding her hostess to be a college graduate, and spoke in the evening from a dry-goods box on the courthouse steps to an enthusiastic audience of a thousand persons. Ouray was the next place marked on the route sent her, but to reach it would require a ride of fifty miles over a dangerous mountain trail or a three days' journey of 150 miles around, for which she must hire a private conveyance, so she gave it up.

She rested one whole day and night and started at 6 A.M. on a buckboard for the next place, wound around the mountainsides by the picturesque Gunnison river, and reached her destination at 5 o'clock. She found a disbeliever of equal rights in her landlady, whom she describes as "a weak, silly woman and a wretched cook and housekeeper." To be an opponent of suffrage and a poor housekeeper Miss Anthony always regarded as two unpardonable sins. The husband, however, intended to vote for it. At the next stopping-place her hostess was a cultured woman, her house neatly kept and meals well-cooked, and she wanted to vote. The husband in this case was violently opposed and expected to cast his ballot against the amendment. Thus it is that wives are "represented by their husbands."

On she went, over mountain and through canyon, across the "great divide," sometimes having large audiences, more often only a handful, and enduring every possible hardship in the way of travel, sleep and food. At Oro City she lectured in a saloon, as she had done at a number of places, and Governor Routt, happening to be in town, stood by her and spoke also in favor of woman suffrage. At many places she slept on a straw-filled tick laid on planks, with sometimes a "corded" bed for a luxury. A door with a lock scarcely ever was found. Once she had a room with a board part.i.tion which extended only half-way up, separating it from one adjoining where half a dozen men slept. It is hardly necessary to say that this was a wakeful night and the dawn was hailed with rejoicing. At Leadville the gold fever was at its height and she spoke in a big saloon to the roughest crowd she had encountered. They were good-natured, however, and when they saw she was coughing from the tobacco smoke, put out their pipes and made up for the sacrifice by more frequent drinks. At Fair Play she found the Democratic editor had placarded the town with bills announcing in big letters: "A New Version! Suffrage! Free Love in the Ascendency. Anthony! On the Gale Tonight." The citizens were indignant, there was a large and respectful audience, Miss Anthony was introduced by Judge Henry and resolutions were unanimously pa.s.sed denouncing the posters.

On election day, her work finished, she started on a stage ride of eighty-five miles to Denver. The collections at her twenty-four meetings amounted to $165. Her fare to Colorado and return, exclusive of some pa.s.ses furnished by her brother and including sleeper and meals, was $100, and her expenses during the tour more than used up the other $65, so it hardly could be called a good financial speculation.

Soon afterwards she received from Mr. and Mrs. Israel Hall, of Ann Arbor, Mich., a deed for 320 acres of well-timbered land in St. Francis county, Ark., "as a tribute to her life-work for woman suffrage and especially her hard campaign in Colorado." There came also a letter from the ever-generous and faithful Mrs. Knox Goodrich, of San Jose, Cal., with a draft for $50 "to be used for your campaign expenses;" and in her diary Miss Anthony writes: "It is a great comfort, after all these years of financially unrequited work, to receive such marks of appreciation."

At Denver she met Margaret Campbell, of Iowa, and Matilda Hindman, of Pennsylvania, who also had been campaigning in Colorado. They had an amusing time comparing notes, but as Mrs. Campbell had travelled in her own carriage with her husband, and Miss Hindman had spoken mostly in towns along the railroad, their experiences had been less picturesque and less harrowing. She also met here Abby Sage Richardson, who was giving a course of readings in Denver. It was in this locality that her sister Hannah had spent many weary weeks the year before, seeking for health, and Miss Anthony hunted up every person who had known her, hoping each would recall some incident of her stay; visited every spot her sister had loved, and felt the whole place haunted with her hallowed memory.

Dr. Alida C. Avery was going East for some time, but was to leave two young women medical students in her house and she invited Miss Anthony to stay there while she remained in Denver. She was soon installed in the large, airy front chamber of this lovely home, looking down on a gra.s.sy and well-irrigated lawn and outward towards the rugged and ma.s.sive Rocky mountains. It was an inspiring spot and, as she had promised a new lecture for the Slayton Bureau, she decided to remain and write it here. Her surroundings recalled the many charming homes made and maintained by unmarried women whom she had visited, and so in the three weeks that she enjoyed Dr. Avery's hospitality, she wrote her lecture, "Homes of Single Women." During this time she spoke at Boulder; and also in the opera house at Denver under the auspices of a committee, receiving $100.

She started, October 23, on a long lecture tour arranged for her through Nebraska,[93] Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Wisconsin, which lasted the remainder of the year. She almost perished with cold and fatigue before it was finished but found some compensation in the $30 a night which the lectures yielded. At this time she received an urgent request from a San Francisco lecture committee to come to that State, but was unable to accept. "If I only could have sister Mary with me over Sunday in these dull and lonely little towns, I could stand it the rest of the week," she wrote; and to a friend who sent her an account of a visit to her mother: "I am very glad you do go occasionally to see dear mother, sitting there in her rocking-chair by the window as life ebbs out and out. O, how I fear the final ebb will come when I am away, but still I hope and trust it may not, and work and work on."

As Miss Anthony was still under contract with the lecture bureau, she was once more compelled to forego the satisfaction of attending the annual convention in Washington, January 8 and 9, 1878, but as in 1876 she sent $100 of the money she had worked so hard to earn. "It is not quite just to myself to do it," she wrote a friend, "but if the women of wealth and leisure will not help us, we must give both the labor and the money." While this convention was a success as to numbers and enthusiasm, several things occurred which the ladies thought might have been avoided if Miss Anthony had been in command with her cool head and firm hand. Especially was this true in regard to a prayer meeting which some of the religious zealots, in spite of the most urgent appeals from the other members, persisted in holding in the reception room of the Capitol directly after a morning session of the convention. The affair itself was most inopportune but, to make it still worse, the cranks and bores who always are watching for an opportunity, gained control and turned it into a farce.

In her disgust and wrath Mrs. Stanton wrote Miss Anthony: "Mrs. Sargent and I did not attend the prayer meeting. As G.o.d has never taken a very active part in the suffrage movement, I thought I would stay at home and get ready to implore the committee, having more faith in their power to render us the desired aid." Mrs. Sargent, with her usual calm and beautiful philosophy, wrote: "Do not let yourself be troubled. We can not take down and rebuild without a great deal of dirt and rubbish, and we must endure it all for the sake of the grand edifice that is to appear in due time. Work and let work, each in her own way. We can not all work alike any more than we can look alike. We must not require impossibilities. All action helps us, it shows life; inaction, we know, means death. I hope you can be with us next convention. The women of this country and of the world owe you a debt they never can repay. I know, however, that you will get your reward."

Virginia L. Minor sent this earnest plea: "Can not you and Mrs.

Stanton, before another convention, manage in some way to civilize our platform and keep off that element which is doing us so much harm? I think the ship never floated that had so many barnacles attached as has ours.... I have a compliment for you, my dear. Wendell Phillips has just told a reporter of the St. Louis Post that, 'of all the advocates of the woman's movement, Miss Anthony stands at the head.'"

In her usual racy style Phoebe Couzins concluded her description by saying: "It seems very strange that when you are not about, things generally break loose and no woman can be found who unites the moderation, brains and common sense necessary to carry matters to a respectable conclusion. That meeting was like those they used to have in the District of Columbia. Not until the National a.s.sociation, in the persons of Mrs. Stanton and yourself, came to the rescue and raised them to a dignified standard did they attain any degree of hearing from the thoughtful people of the capital." And so Miss Anthony determined that no lecture bureau should keep her away from another National convention.