The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony Volume I Part 45

Another Indiana paper thus voiced the changing sentiment: "The fact is, that like the advance agent of any great reform--especially if a woman--Susan B. Anthony has been so belied and maligned by the press in years gone by that many who do not stop to think had come to believe her a perfect ogre, a cross-grained, incongruous old maid whom n.o.body could like, when the truth of the matter is, one has but to look at and listen to her, either in public or private, to realize that she is a pure, generous, deep-thinking, womanly woman. Simply because she has lived her own life, spoken her own thoughts and stood upon her own platform, the ma.s.ses have condemned her; but history has already recorded her as one of the most earnest, hard-working reformers of the day. If the women of this country only knew how many changes and ameliorations have been made in the laws regarding themselves through her unselfish, persistent efforts, at her approach they would all rise up and call her blessed." But that there still existed editors of the old-time caliber, this extract from the Richmond, Ky., Herald, October 29, 1879, shows:

Miss Anthony is above the medium height for women, dresses plainly, is uncomely in person, has rather coa.r.s.e, rugged features and masculine manners. Her piece, which doubtless she has been studying for thirty or forty years, was very well delivered for a woman, containing no original thought, but full of old hackneyed ideas, which every female suffrage shrieker has hurled from the stump against "ignorant men and small boys," for time out of mind all over this country and every other country where they could command an audience of curious people willing to throw away an hour or two on a vain, futile and foolish harangue, proposing to transform men into women and women into men. Such dissatisfied females should not hurl anathemas at men, forsooth, because they happened to be born into the world women instead of men. G.o.d alone is responsible for the difference between the s.e.xes, and he is able to bear it. Men are not to blame that women are women, for there is not a man in this whole land who wouldn't rather have a boy baby than a gal baby any time. There never was a newly-married man when he learned that his first born was a girl, that didn't try to tear out his hair by the roots because it wasn't a boy.... If this tirade against men is to be persisted in, we see no escape for man except to quit his foolishness and have no more children, unless he can have some sort of guarantee that they will all be boys. It will have come to a strange pa.s.s indeed when the good women of this land, who, as mothers, have the nurture, training and admonition of every boy from his cradle to mature manhood, are unwilling to trust in the hands of their own offspring the destinies of the nation.

That such an attack can not be attributed to sectional prejudice may be proved by this extract from a column of vituperation in the Grand Rapids, Mich., Times, during this same trip, headed "Spinster Susan's Suffrage Show:"

A "miss" of an uncertain number of years, more or less brains, a slimsy figure, nut-cracker face and store teeth, goes raiding about the country attempting to teach mothers and wives their duty.... As is the yellow-fever to the South, the gra.s.shopper to the plains, and diphtheria to our northern cities, so is Susan B. Anthony and her cla.s.s to all true, pure, lovely women. The sirocco of the desert blows no hotter or more tainting breath in the face of the traveller, than does this woman against all men who do not believe as she does, and no pestilence makes sadder havoc among them than would Susan B. Anthony if she had the power. The women who make homes, who are sources of comfort to husbands, fathers, brothers, sisters or themselves, who wish to keep sacred all that goes to make their lives n.o.ble, refined and worth the living, will be as diametrically opposed to the lecturer of last evening as are most intelligent men. Susan B. Anthony may find her remedy in suffrage, but alas! there is no remedy for us against Susan and her ilk.

Each lecture usually was followed by letters not only from friends but from entire strangers, asking her forgiveness for having misjudged her so many years, and closing something like this from a lady in St. Paul, Minn.: "For the last ten years your name has been familiar to me through the newspapers, or rather through newspaper ridicule, and has always been a.s.sociated with what was pretentious and wholly unamiable.

Your lecture tonight has been a revelation to me. I wanted to come and touch your hand, but I felt too guilty. Henceforth I am the avowed defender of woman suffrage. Never again shall a word of mine be heard derogatory to the n.o.ble women who are working with heart and hand for the best welfare of humanity."

A two-column interview in the Chicago Tribune during this tour gives Miss Anthony's views on many public matters, concluding thus:

"If men would only think of the question without paying attention to prejudice or precedent, simply as one of political economy, they would soon begin to regard woman, and woman's rights, just as they regard themselves and their own rights," said she.

"The W.C.T.U. are doing good work, are they not?"

"Yes, Miss Willard is doing n.o.ble work, but I can not coincide with her views, and my new lecture, 'Will Home Protection Protect,' will combat them. The officer who holds his position by the votes of men who want free whiskey, can not prosecute the whiskey-sellers. The district-attorney and the judge can not enforce the law when they know that to do so will defeat them at the next election. If women had votes the officials would no longer fear to enforce the law, as they would know that though they lost the votes of 5,000 whiskey-sellers and drinkers, they would gain those of 20,000 women. Miss Willard has a lever, but she has no fulcrum on which to place it."

"Where do you find the strongest antipathy to woman suffrage?"

"In the fears of various parties that it might he disastrous to their interests. The Protestants fear it lest there should be a majority of Catholic women to increase the power of that church; the free-thinkers are afraid that, as the majority of church-members are women, they would put G.o.d in the Const.i.tution; the free-whiskey men are opposed because they think women would vote down their interests; the Republicans would put a suffrage plank in their platform if they knew they could secure the majority vote of the women, and so would the Democrats, but each party fears the result might help the other. Thus, you see, we can not appeal to the self-interest of anybody and this is our great source of weakness."

It was decided to bold this year's May Anniversary in St. Louis instead of New York, and all arrangements having been made by Virginia L. Minor and Phoebe Couzins, the convention opened formally on the evening of May 7, to quote the newspapers, "in the presence of a magnificent audience which packed every part of St. George's Hall, crowding gallery and stairs and leaving hardly standing room in the aisles." They also paid many compliments to the intellectual character of the audience, its evident sympathy with the cause for which the convention was a.s.sembled, and the elegant costumes worn by the ladies both in the body of the house and on the platform. Mrs. Minor presided and a beautiful address of welcome was delivered by Miss Couzins. The ladies were invited to the Merchants' Exchange by its president, and also visited the Fair grounds by invitation of the board. Miss Couzins gave a reception at her home, and the evening before the convention opened, Mrs. Minor entertained the delegates informally. Of this latter occasion the Globe-Democrat said:

Miss Susan B. Anthony, perhaps the only lady present of national reputation, commanded attention at a glance. Her face is one which would attract notice anywhere; full of energy, character and intellect, the strong lines soften on a closer inspection. There is a good deal that is "pure womanly" in the face which has been held up to the country so often as a gaunt and hungry specter's crying for universal war upon mankind. The spectacles sit upon a nose strong enough to be masculine, but hide eyes which can beam with kindliness as well as flash with wit, irony and satire. Angular she may be--"angular as a Lebanon Shakeress" she said the New York Herald once termed her--but if so, the irregularities of outline were completely hidden under the folds of the modest and dignified black silk which covered her most becomingly.

At this convention occurred that touching scene which has been so often described, when May Wright Sewall presented Miss Anthony, to her complete surprise, with a beautiful floral offering from the delegates.

The Globe-Democrat thus reports:

Miss Anthony, visibly affected, responded: "Mrs. President and Friends: I am not accustomed to demonstrations of grat.i.tude or of praise. I don't know how to behave tonight. Had you thrown stones at me, had you called me hard names, had you said I should not speak, had you declared I had done women more harm than good and deserved to be burned at the stake; had you done anything, or said anything, against the cause which I have tried to serve for the last thirty years, I should have known how to answer, but now I do not. I have been as a hewer of wood and a drawer of water to this movement. I know nothing and have known nothing of oratory or rhetoric. Whatever I have done has been done because I wanted to see better conditions, better surroundings, better circ.u.mstances for women. Now, friends, don't expect me to make any proper acknowledgments for such a demonstration as has been made here tonight. I can not; I am overwhelmed."

As the a.s.sociation wished to continue Mrs. Stanton at the head, they created the office of vice-president-at-large and elected Miss Anthony to fill it. Senator Sargent's term having expired, he returned with his family to San Francisco, and Mrs. Jane H. Spofford was elected national treasurer in place of Mrs. Sargent, who had served so acceptably for six years. Her return to California was deeply regretted by Miss Anthony. From the time of their first acquaintance, on that long snow-bound journey in 1871, they had been devoted friends, and on all her annual trips to Washington she was a guest at the s.p.a.cious and comfortable home of the Sargents. The senator always was a true and consistent friend of suffrage, and frequently said to Miss Anthony: "Tell my wife what you want done and, if she indorses it, I will try to bring it about." Mrs. Sargent was of a serene, philosophical nature, with an unwavering faith in the evolution of humanity into a broader and better life. She was thoroughly without personal ends to serve, ready to receive new ideas and those who brought them, weigh them carefully in her well-balanced mind and p.r.o.nounce the judgment which was usually correct. The closing of their Washington house was a severe loss to the many who had enjoyed their free and gracious hospitality.

On May 24, 1879, Miss Anthony received notice of the death of her old and revered fellow-laborer, Wm. Lloyd Garrison. She could not attend the funeral but wrote at once, saying in part:

The telegrams of the last few days had prepared us for this morning's tidings that your dear father and humanity's devoted friend had pa.s.sed on to the beyond, where so many of his brave co-workers had gone before; and where his devoted life-companion, your precious mother, awaited his coming.... It is impossible for me to express my feelings of love and respect, of honor and grat.i.tude, for the life, the words, the works, of your father; but you all know, I trust, that few mortals had greater veneration for him than I. His approbation was my delight; his disapproval, my regret.... That each and all of you may strive to be to the injustice of your day and generation what he was to that of his, is the best wish--the best aspiration--I can offer. Blessed are you indeed, that you mourn so true, so n.o.ble, so grand a man as your loved and loving father.

In her diary that night she wrote: "I sent a letter, but how paltry it seemed compared to what was in my heart. Why can I not put my thought into words?"

The last of May she went home, having lectured and worked every day since the previous October. She records with much delight that she has now snugly tucked away in bank $4,500, the result of her last two lecture seasons. During the one just closed she spoke 140 nights, besides attending various conventions. This bank account did not represent all she had earned, for she always gave with a lavish hand.

How much she has given never can be known, but in the year 1879, for instance, one friend acknowledges the receipt of $50 to enable her to buy a dress and other articles so that she can attend the Washington convention. Another writes: "I have just learned that the $25 you handed me to pay my way home from the meeting had been given you to pay your own." To an old and faithful fellow-worker, now in California, she sends by express a warm flannel wrapper. There is scarcely a month which does not record some gift varying from $100 in value down to a trinket for remembrance. Each year she contributed $100 to the suffrage work, besides many smaller sums at intervals, and the account-books show that her benefactions were many. She never spared money if an end were to be accomplished, and never failed to keep an engagement, no matter at what risk or expense. On several occasions she chartered an engine, even though the cost was more than she would receive for the lecture. As she was now approaching her sixtieth birthday, relatives and friends were most anxious that she should lay aside part of her earnings for a time when even her indomitable spirit might have to succ.u.mb to physical weakness, but she herself never seemed to feel any anxiety as to the future.

Notwithstanding her own disastrous experiment, Miss Anthony never ceased to desire a woman's paper, one which not only should present the questions relating directly to women but should be edited and controlled entirely by women, and discuss all the issues of the day.

Scattered through the correspondence of years are letters on this subject, either wanting to resurrect The Revolution or to start a new paper. At intervals some wealthy woman would seem half-inclined to advance money for the purpose and then hope would be revived, only to be again destroyed. During the summer of 1872 a clever journalist, Mrs.

Helen Barnard, had edited a paper called the Woman's Campaign, supported by Republican funds. Miss Anthony had hoped to convert this into her ideal paper after the election, and spent considerable time in trying to form a stock company. A large amount was subscribed but not enough, and all was returned by Mrs. Sargent, then national treasurer.

Sarah L. Williams, editor of the woman's department of the Toledo Blade, started a bright suffrage paper called the Ballot-Box and edited it for several years. Miss Anthony a.s.sisted her in every possible way, and spoiled the effect of many a fine speech by asking at its close for subscribers to this paper. In 1878, '79 and '80 she secured 2,500 names. In 1878 Mrs. Williams turned her paper over to Matilda Joslyn Gage, who added National Citizen to the t.i.tle. Miss Anthony's and Mrs.

Stanton's names were placed at the head as corresponding editors, and the paper was ably conducted by Mrs. Gage, but it had not the financial backing necessary to success; when Miss Anthony ceased lecturing, new subscribers no longer came and, after much tribulation, it finally suspended in 1881.

While Miss Anthony continued for many years to cherish this idea of a distinctively woman's paper, the daily press grew more and more liberal, devoting larger s.p.a.ce to the interests of women every year, and she became of the opinion that possibly the most effective work might be accomplished through this medium. She held, however, that there should be one woman upon each paper whose special business it should be to look after this department, and who should be permitted to discuss not only the "woman question" but all others from a woman's standpoint. As newspapers are now managed, the readers have only man's views of all the vital issues attracting public attention. Woman occupies a subordinate position and must write on all subjects in a spirit which will be acceptable to the masculine head of the paper; so the public gets in reality his thought and not hers. She had come to see, also, that the newspaper work should be a leading and distinctive feature of the National a.s.sociation to a far greater extent than hitherto had been attempted, and which, until of late years, had not been possible. No man or woman ever had a higher opinion of the influence of the press, which she considered the most powerful agency in the world for good or for evil.

In the summer of 1879, Miss Anthony received from her friend, A.

Bronson Alcott, a complimentary ticket for three seasons of lectures at the Concord School of Philosophy; but the living questions of the day were too pressing for her to withdraw to this cla.s.sic and sequestered retreat, outside the busy and practical world.

[Autograph: A. Bronson Alcott]

During the decade from 1870 to 1880, there was a large accession of valuable workers to the cause of woman suffrage and many new friends came into Miss Anthony's life. Among these were May Wright Sewall; the sisters, Julia and Rachel Foster; Clara B. Colby; Zerelda G. Wallace; Frances E. Willard; J. Ellen Foster; the wife and three talented daughters of Ca.s.sius M. Clay, Mary B., Laura and Sallie Clay Bennett; M. Louise Thomas; Elizabeth Boynton Harbert and others, who became her devoted adherents and fellow-workers, and whose homes and hospitality she enjoyed during all the years which followed.

At the close of her lecture season in 1879 she was able to spend Christmas and New Year's at her own home for the first time in many years; but she left on January 2 to fill engagements, reaching Washington on the eve of the National Convention, which a.s.sembled at Lincoln Hall, January 21, 1880. As Mrs. Stanton was absent, Miss Anthony presided over the sessions. During this meeting, 250 new pet.i.tions for a Sixteenth Amendment, signed by over 12,000 women, were sent to Congress, besides over 300 pet.i.tions from individual women praying for a removal of their political disabilities. These were presented by sixty-five different representatives. Hon. T.W. Ferry, of Michigan, in the Senate, and Hon. George B. Loring, of Ma.s.sachusetts, in the House, introduced a resolution for a Sixteenth Amendment. This with all the pet.i.tions was referred to the judiciary committees, each of which granted a hearing of two hours to the ladies. Among the delegates who addressed them was Julia Smith Parker, of Glas...o...b..ry, Conn., at that time over eighty years old, who with her sister Abby annually resisted the payment of taxes because they were denied representation, and whose property was in consequence annually seized and sold. Mrs. Zerelda G. Wallace, the mother so beautifully pictured in Ben Hur, addressed a congressional committee for the first time, and among the other speakers were Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Blake, Miss Couzins, Mrs.

Emma Mont McRae, of Indiana, and Mrs. Elizabeth Lyle Saxon, of Louisiana. It was at this hearing that Senator Edmunds complimented Miss Anthony by saying, "Most speeches on this question are platform oratory; yours is argument." Through the influence of Hon. E.G. Lapham, all these addresses were printed in pamphlet form.

During this convention Miss Anthony was the guest of Mrs. Spofford, whose husband was proprietor of the Riggs House. The place of hostess, which had been so beautifully filled by Mrs. Sargent, was a.s.sumed at once by Mrs. Spofford, a lady of culture and position. For twelve years a suite of rooms was set apart for Miss Anthony in this commodious hotel whenever she was at the capital, whether for days or for months, and she received every possible courtesy and attention, without price.

Miss Anthony wrote her many times: "You can not begin to know what a blessing your home is to me, or how grateful I am to you for its comfort and luxury. You are indeed Mrs. Sargent's successor in love and hospitality, and my hope is always to deserve them."

After a brilliant reception at the Riggs House to the delegates, Miss Anthony left for Philadelphia, in company with the venerable Julia Smith Parker, and went to Roadside, the suburban home of Lucretia Mott, "where," she writes, "it was a wonderful sight to see the two octogenarians talking together, so bright and wide awake to the questions of the present." She never again saw Lucretia Mott or heard her sweet voice.

[Ill.u.s.tration HW: Jane H. Spofford]

The health of Miss Anthony's mother was now so precarious that she did not dare go far from home and a course of lectures was arranged for her through Pennsylvania by Rachel Foster, a young girl of wealth and distinction, who was growing much interested in the cause of woman and very devoted to Miss Anthony personally. Frequent trips were made to the home in Rochester through the inclement weather, and toward the last of March she saw that the end was near and did not go away. The beloved mother fell asleep on the morning of April 3, 1880, the two remaining daughters by her side. She was in her eighty-seventh year, her long life had been pa.s.sed entirely within the immediate circle of home, but her interest in outside matters was strong. The husband and children, in whatever work they were engaged, felt always the encouragement of her sanction and sympathy. Her ambition was centered in them, their happiness and success were her own; she was content to be the home-keeper, to have the house swept and garnished and the bountiful table ready for their return, finding a rich reward in their unceasing love and appreciation. She was extremely fond of reading, had read the Bible from cover to cover many times, and could give the exact location and wording of many texts of Scripture. She enjoyed history, was familiar with the works of d.i.c.kens and Scott and knew by heart The Lady of the Lake. In old age, when memory failed, she lived among historical personages and characters in books and would speak of them as persons she had known in her youth. As the four children gathered about the still form and looked lovingly upon the placid face, they could not remember that she ever had spoken an unkind word. And so, with tenderness and affection, they laid her to rest by the side of the husband whose memory she had so faithfully cherished for eighteen years.

A month later Miss Anthony again set forth on the weary round, leaving her sister Mary in the lonely house with two young nieces, Lucy and Louise, whose education she was superintending. Just before going she wrote to Rachel Foster: "Yes, the past three weeks are all a dream--such constant watching and care and anxiety for so many years all taken away from us! But my mother, like my father, if she could speak would bid us 'go forward' to greater and better work. She never asked me to stop at home when she was living, not even after she became feeble, but always said, 'Go and do all the good you can;' and I know my highest regard for her and for my father and sisters gone before will be shown by my best and n.o.blest doing."

[Footnote 94: In 1874, when a bill was pending to establish the Territory of Pembina, Senator Sargent wished to so amend it as to incorporate woman suffrage. After he had finished a matchless argument, in which he was supported by Senators Stewart, of Nevada, and Carpenter, of Wisconsin, Senator Morton made one of those grand speeches for which he was famous. He based his demands for woman suffrage on the Declaration of Independence, whose principles, he declared, did not apply to man alone but to the human family; and he demonstrated that no man or woman could "consent" to a government except through a vote.

For Sargent's and Morton's speeches see History of Woman Suffrage, Vol.

II, pp. 546 and 549.]

[Footnote 95: For full text see History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. III, p.

138.]

[Footnote 96: Miss Anthony lectured in Terre Haute under the auspices of the young men's Occidental Literary Club, Eugene V. Debs, president and one of its founders.]