The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony Volume II Part 24

Among the notable letters received by the convention was the following from Lucy Stone: "Wherever woman suffragists are gathered together in the name of equal rights, there am I always in spirit with them.

Although absent, my personal glad greeting goes to every one; to those who have borne the heat and burden of the day, and to the strong, brave, younger workers who have come to lighten the load and complete the victory. We may surely rejoice now when there are so many gains won and conceded, and when favorable indications are on every hand. The way before us is shorter than that behind; but the work still calls for patient perseverance and ceaseless endeavor. The end is not yet in sight, but it can not be far away." Those who listened little thought that this would be the last message ever received from that earnest worker of fifty long years. Letters of greeting were sent to her and to Mrs. Stanton. Miss Anthony was unanimously re-elected president.

She lingered for a few days' visit with Mrs. Greenleaf, who gave a reception for her, at which Grace Greenwood was one of the receiving party. She had a luncheon at Mrs. Waite's, wife of the Chief-Justice, and after several other pleasant social functions, left Washington February 1.[81] There was now a magnet in New York City and henceforth she always arranged her hurried eastern trips so that she might spend a few hours or days with Mrs. Stanton, when as in the old time, they wrote calls, resolutions and memorials and made plans to storm the strongholds.

On February 8, Miss Anthony spoke at Warsaw, the guest of Mrs. Maud Humphrey; and for the next week the journal says: "Trying all these days to get to the bottom of my piles of acc.u.mulated letters." On her seventy-third birthday the Political Equality Club gave a reception at the pleasant home of Rev. and Mrs. W. C. Gannett, and presented her with a handsome silver teapot, spirit lamp and tray. Mrs. George Hollister gave her a set of point lace which had belonged to her mother, the daughter of Thurlow Weed; and there were numerous other gifts. She wrote to Mrs. Avery on the 23d: "It is just ten years ago this morning, dear Rachel, since we two went gypsying into the old world. Well, it was a happy acquaintance we made then and it has been a blessed decade which has intervened. Ten years of constant work and thought, but ten years nearer the golden day of jubilee!"

She arranged a meeting at the Rochester Chamber of Commerce, March 1, for May Wright Sewall, president National Council of Women, to speak on the approaching Woman's Congress at the World's Fair. On March 6 she began a brief lecture tour, speaking in Hillsdale, Detroit, Saginaw, Bay City, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Battle Creek, Charlotte and in Toledo. Nine evening addresses, several receptions, and over a thousand miles of travel in twelve days, was not a bad record for a woman past seventy-three.[82]

Among the pleasant letters received through the winter were several from the South. Miss Anthony was especially appreciative of the friendship of southern women, as her part in the "abolition" movement in early times had created a prejudice against her, and in later days the sentiment for suffrage had not been sufficient to call her into that part of the country, where she might form personal acquaintances and friendships.

She had, during these months, earnest letters from the women of Italy asking for encouragement and co-operation in their struggles. Many letters came also from teachers, stenographers and other wage-earning women, full of grateful acknowledgment of their indebtedness to her.

There were invitations enough for lectures to fill every month in the year, ranging from the Christian a.s.sociation at Cornell to the Free-thinkers' Club in New York, and covering all the grades of belief or non-belief between the two. She was asked to contribute to a symposium on "The Ideal Man," to write an account of "The Underground Railroad," and to give so many written opinions on current topics of discussion that to have complied would have kept her at her desk from early morning until the midnight hour.

In a letter to a friend she said: "The other day a millionaire who wrote me, 'wondered why I didn't have my letters typewritten.' Why, bless him, I never, in all my fifty years of hard work with the pen, had a writing desk with pigeonholes and drawers until my seventieth birthday brought me the present of one, and never had I even a dream of money enough for a stenographer and typewriter. How little those who have realize the limitations of those who have not."

She wrote to Robert Purvis at this time: "What a magnificent opening speech Gladstone made, and how splendid his final remarks: 'It would be misery for me if I had foregone or omitted in these closing years of my life any measure it was possible for me to take towards upholding and promoting the cause--not of one party or one nation, but of all parties and all nations.' So can you and I say with Gladstone, we should be miserable but for the consciousness that we have done all in our power to help forward every measure for the freedom and equality of the races and the s.e.xes."

In April she lectured at a number of places in New York to add to the limited fund which kept the pot boiling at home.[83] She also went to Buffalo to talk over Industrial School matters with Mrs. Harriet A.

Townsend, president of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, which had proved so great a success in that city. On the 28th she spoke before the Woman's Columbian Exposition Committee of Cincinnati, "to a very fashionable and representative audience," the Enquirer said. For this lecture she received $125. During the spring she wrote the Woman's Tribune:

How splendidly Kansas women voted, and now come suffrage amendments in Colorado, New York and Kansas! Well, we must buckle on our armor for a triple fight, and we must shout more loudly than ever to our friends all over the country for money to help these States.

Although Kansas is the most certain to carry the question, nevertheless we must organize every school district of every county of each State in which the battle of the ballot for woman is to be fought. _Organize_, _agitate_, _educate_, must be our war cry from this to the day of the election.

Today's mail brought $100 to our national treasury from Mrs. P. A.

Moffett, of Fredonia. How my heart leaped for joy as I read her letter and again and again looked at her check, and how I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed over and over, "O that a thousand of our good women who _wish_ success to our cause would be moved thus to send in their checks!" Only a very few can go outside to work, but many can contribute money to help pay the expenses of those who do leave all their home-friends, comforts and luxuries. If the many who stay at home and wish, could only believe for a moment that we who go out not knowing where our heads will rest when night comes, really love our homes as they love theirs, they would vie with each other to throw in their mite to make the path smooth for the wayfarers. But we, every one of us who can speak acceptably, must do all in our power to persuade the men of these States to vote for the amendment. Do let us all take to ourselves new hope and courage for the herculean task before us. Who will send the next $100? O, that we had $10,000 to start with!

Miss Anthony and Mrs. Avery met at Mrs. Sewall's for a conference on Woman's Congress matters and then went to Chicago to attend, by invitation, the formal opening of the Columbian Exposition May 1, 1893.

Miss Anthony wrote: "Mrs. Palmer's speech was very fine, covering full equality for woman." Her address the year before at the dedication ceremonies contained one of the n.o.blest tributes ever paid to women, closing with these beautiful sentences: "Even more important than the discovery of Columbus, which we are gathered together to celebrate, is the fact that the general government has just discovered woman. It has sent out a flashlight from its heights, so inaccessible to us, which we shall answer by a return signal when the exposition is opened. What will be its next message to us?" Upon this occasion she was even more eloquent. Her keen expose of the absurd plat.i.tudes in regard to woman's sphere, and her fine defence of women in the industrial world, deserve a place among the cla.s.sics.

Since Miss Anthony's part in this great world's exposition must necessarily be condensed into small s.p.a.ce, it seems most satisfactory to place it all together. It has been related in the chapter of 1876 how women were denied practically all governmental recognition in the Centennial. They were determined that this should not be the case in 1893. As early as 1889 she began making plans to this effect and conferring with other prominent women. Several officials, who were in positions to influence action on this question, had declared that "those suffrage women should have nothing to do with the World's Fair;"

and as some women whose social prestige might be needed were likely to be frightened off if suffrage were in any way connected with the matter, Miss Anthony felt the necessity of moving very discreetly. As "those suffrage women" had been behind every progressive movement that ever had been made in the United States for their own s.e.x, it was hardly possible that they would not be the moving force in this. Miss Anthony was not seeking for laurels, however, either for herself or for her cause, but only to carry her point--that women should partic.i.p.ate in this great national celebration and that they should do this with the sanction and a.s.sistance of the national government. In her plans she had the valuable backing of Mrs. Spofford, who made it possible for her to remain in Washington every winter, gave the use of the Riggs House parlors for meetings and aided in many other ways.

Miss Anthony went quietly about among the ladies in official life whom she could trust, and as a result various World's Fair meetings were held at the hotel, partic.i.p.ated in by Washington's influential women, and a committee appointed to wait upon Congress and ask that women be placed on the commission. She did not appear at these gatherings, and only her few confidantes knew that she was behind them. Meanwhile it was announced early in January, 1890, that the World's Fair Bill had been brought before the House, and Miss Anthony at once prepared a pet.i.tion asking for the appointment of women on the National Board of Management.

This was placed in the hands of ladies of influence and in a few days one hundred and eleven names were obtained of the wives and daughters of the judges of the Supreme Court, the Cabinet, senators, representatives, army officials; as distinguished a list as could be secured in the national capital.

This pet.i.tion was presented to the Senate January 12. It requested that women should be placed on the board with men, but instead, the bill was pa.s.sed in March creating a commission of men and authorizing them to appoint a number of women to const.i.tute a "Board of Lady Managers."

These 115 appointments were intended to be practically of a complimentary nature, it was not expected that the women would take any prominent part, and no particular rule was observed in their selection.

While perhaps in some States they were not the ablest who might have been found, they were, as a board, fairly representative. To bring this great body into harmonious action and guide it along important lines of work, required a leader possessed of a combination of qualities rarely existing in one person--not only the highest degree of executive ability but self-control, tact and the power of managing men and women. They were found, however, in the woman elected to preside over this board, Mrs. Bertha Honore Palmer, of Chicago. At the close of the exposition it was universally conceded that she had proved herself pre-eminently the one woman in all the country for this place. Her record, during the several years that she held this very responsible position, is one of the most remarkable ever made by any woman.

At the time Miss Anthony prepared her pet.i.tion to Congress for representation, no action had been taken by any organized body of women in the country, and if she had not been on the field of battle in Washington and acted at the very moment she did, the bill would have pa.s.sed Congress without any provision for women. They would have had no recognition from the government, no appropriations for their work, no official power, and their splendid achievements at the Columbian Exposition, which did more to advance the cause of women than all that had been accomplished during the century, would have been lost to the world. Having secured this great object, she asked no office for herself or for any other woman. On several public occasions, in the early months of the fair, she refused to speak or to sit on the platform, lest she might embarra.s.s the President of the Board of Lady Managers by committing her to woman suffrage. Mrs. Palmer, however, showed her the most distinguished courtesy, in both public and private affairs, inviting her to the platform and including her in the social functions at her own residence. Miss Anthony soon felt that she was in full sympathy with herself in every measure which tended to secure for women absolute equality of rights, a point which Mrs. Palmer emphasized in the most unmistakable language in her eloquent address delivered in the Woman's Building, at the close of the exposition.

In these circ.u.mscribed limits it will be impossible to give any adequate account of that greatest of all accomplishments of women at the World's Fair--the Woman's Congress--whose proceedings fill two large volumes in the official report. In order that intellectual as well as material progress should be presented, it had been decided to hold a series of congresses which should bring together a representation of the great minds of the world. C. C. Bonney was made president of the Congress Auxiliary; Mrs. Palmer, president, and Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin, vice-president of the Woman's Branch. Although women were to partic.i.p.ate in all, Mr. Bonney desired to have one composed of them alone. To a.s.sist Mrs. Henrotin, who had been made acting president, as well as to further insure the success of this congress, Mr. Bonney appointed May Wright Sewall chairman, and Rachel Foster Avery secretary, of the committee of organization, and they were a.s.sisted by an efficient local committee.

As president and secretary of the National Council of Women, and Mrs.

Sewall vice-president of the International Council, no two could have been secured with so wide a knowledge of the organizations of women throughout the world and the best methods of securing their co-operation. The magnitude of their labors can be appreciated only by an examination of the official report. The fact of their merging into this congress the International Council of Women, which was to have been held in London that year, was one of the most potent elements of its success. Miss Anthony wrote Mrs. Sewall: "The suffrage work has missed you, oh, so much, still I would not have had you do differently. I glory in Rachel's and your work this year beyond words."

The World's Congress of Representative Women, which opened May 15, 1893, was the largest and most brilliant of any of the series which extended through the six months of the fair, and was considered by many the most remarkable ever convened. Twenty-seven countries and 126 organizations were represented by 528 delegates. During the week eighty-one meetings were held in the different rooms of the Art Palace.

There were from seven to eighteen in simultaneous progress each day and, according to official estimate, the total attendance exceeded 150,000 persons. The fifteen policemen stationed in the building stated that often hundreds of people were turned away before the hour of opening arrived, not only the audience-rooms but the halls and ante-rooms being so crowded that no more could enter the building, which held 10,000.

All who were in attendance at this congress, all who read the accounts in the Chicago daily papers, will testify that it is not the bias of a partial historian which prompts the statement that Susan B. Anthony was the central figure of this historic gathering. Every time she appeared on the stage the audience broke into applause; when she rose to speak, they stood upon the seats and waved hats and handkerchiefs. People watched the daily program and when she was advertised for an address, there was a rush from other halls and an impenetrable jam in the corridors. Again and again she was obliged to call upon a stout policeman to make a way for her through the throngs which pressed about her, anxious to get even a sight of her face. No matter what department of the congress she visited, whether of education, religion, philanthropy or industries, the audience demanded a speech and would not be satisfied until it was made.[84] Large numbers of the women who gave addresses in these various meetings paid tribute to her work, and the mention of her name never failed to elicit a burst of applause. At the many public and private receptions given to the congress the post of honor was a.s.signed to her, and no guest ever was satisfied to leave without having touched her hand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: May Knight Sewall (with signature)]

It is not too much to say that no woman in this country, or in any other, ever was so honored because of her own individual services to humanity. It was the universal recognition of her labors of nearly half a century, that had laid the foundation upon which had been reared all the great organizations represented by the women in this congress. Hers had been the pioneer work, the blazing of the pathway through the forests of custom and prejudice which for untold centuries had forbidden them to step beyond the narrow limits of domestic occupations. All of a sudden, it seemed, the women of the world had awakened to the knowledge that she had borne ridicule, abuse, misrepresentation, disgrace, that they might enter into the kingdom of woman's right to her highest development. Long-delayed though it had been, the women of her own and other countries came to lay their homage at her feet, to bow before her in loving grat.i.tude, to rise up and call her blessed.

Letters of congratulation were received from far and wide; one from Frances E. Willard in Switzerland said:

MY BELOVED SUSAN: You are a happy woman and we are all crowing to think the people love, honor and call for you so loud and long. It suits one's sense of poetic justice; it confirms one's faith in human nature and the Heavenly Power not ourselves "that makes for righteousness." Lady Henry, Anna Gordon and I have "hoorayed" over your laurels and said, "Bless her; she is not only _our_ Susan but everybody's." Lady Henry says you have the true sign of greatness that you are absolutely without pretension. You do not take up all the time and luxuriate in the sound of your own voice, but are glad to give the other ones a bit of breath too. She says no woman of fame has ever so thoroughly made this impression of modesty and unselfishness upon her mind. And I say Selah.[85]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Autograph: "Isabel Somerset"]

In her London letter the noted correspondent, Florence Fenwick Miller, of England, wrote:

Amidst all the attractive personalities and ideas presented, the most sought of all--the one whose presence drew crowds everywhere, who was made to speak in whatever hall she entered, and who was surrounded in every corridor and every reception, just as the queen-bee is surrounded in the hive by her courtiers, was the veteran leader of the woman suffragists of America, Susan B.

Anthony. At seventy-three she is as upright of form, as clear and powerful of mind, as strong of voice, as courageous and uncompromising as ever. Let our revered and beloved Miss Anthony have the last word.

The program for the Woman's Congress a.s.signed but one session to the National-American Suffrage a.s.sociation, and it was the honest intention to give no more time to the discussion of political equality than to each of the other departments. It made a place for itself, however, in practically every one of the meetings. Whether the subject were education, philanthropy, reform or some other, the speakers were sure to point out the disabilities of woman without the ballot. So strong was the desire to hear this question discussed that it became necessary to hold afternoon meetings in the large halls, aside from those on the regular morning and evening program, in order to give the eager crowds an opportunity to hear its distinguished advocates from all parts of the world. It is doubtful if the whole fifty years of agitation made as many converts to equal suffrage as did the great object lesson of the Woman's Congress.

Many pleasant letters pa.s.sed between Miss Anthony and Mr. Bonney, Mrs.

Palmer and Mrs. Henrotin. The last named asked her to take part in the Temperance, the Labor and the Social and Moral Reform Congresses and requested her advice and a.s.sistance. She was placed by Mr. Bonney on the advisory council of the Political, Social and Economic Congresses. Mrs.

Palmer wrote: "I should like you to send us special suggestions for speakers and topics." Miss Anthony was much pleased at the selection of Mrs. Palmer for president of the Board of Lady Managers, heartily seconded all her efforts and lent no support to the dissensions made by several women who thought there should have been more recognition of those who had been pioneer workers. That this was appreciated is shown by a letter written as early as April, 1891:

I feel that I must express my thanks to you that you did not condemn us unheard, for I naturally supposed that as ---- ---- belonged to your organization you would take her view of any matter which interested her. I thank you very much for your fair-mindedness, and beg that you will read the statement which I shall send you and which will probably give you a better idea of this unpleasant matter than anything else you have seen.

I remember with great pleasure our meeting in Washington, and hope it was only the first of many such pleasant occasions for me.

Thanking you again, I am most cordially yours,

[Ill.u.s.tration: Autograph: "Most Cordially Yours, Bertha M H Palmer"]

Miss Anthony spoke several times at the noon-hour meetings held in the Woman's Building.[86] Mrs. James P. Eagle, chairman, who edited the report of the noon-hour addresses, wrote her: "I would not take much pleasure in publishing our book if I could not have something from your addresses to go in it. You must not deny me. One of your talks was 'Woman's Influence vs. Political Power,' another 'The Benefits of Organization.' If it is your best and easiest way, make the speeches and employ a stenographer to take them and send me the bill. I can not afford to miss them. You have been so very kind and encouraging to me all along that I shall feel it a Brutus blow if you fail me now." As she never wrote a speech in these days and could not make the same one twice, she was unable to comply with this request.

Miss Anthony was invited to speak at the Press Congress May 27, the day when the religious press as a leader of reforms was under consideration.

The managers became very uneasy and began trying to find out how she meant to handle the question. Her only reply was, "I shall speak the truth." The speech, delivered before an audience containing many ministers, caused a tremendous sensation. She took up the reforms, temperance, anti-slavery, woman's rights, labor, and showed conclusively that in every one the church and the religious press, instead of being leaders, were laggards. At the close the chairman remarked apologetically that of course the speaker did not expect people in general to agree with everything she had said. The Chicago Tribune thus finished its report: "As Miss Anthony had an engagement she was obliged to leave at this point, and most of the audience went with her."

The Congress on Government convened August 7 and, at Mr. Bonney's request, Miss Anthony was present at the opening ceremony and responded to an address of welcome in behalf of the civil service commission. Five sessions of this Government Congress were devoted to a discussion of equal suffrage, the speakers being women. The chairman, Hon. Wm. Dudley Foulke, said it was not the intention to give this subject such prominence, but women had shown so much more interest than men, half of them accepting the invitation to take part and only one man in twenty responding, that he was compelled thus to arrange the program.

Soon after the adjournment of the Woman's Congress Miss Anthony left the Palmer House, which had been its headquarters, and, accepting the invitation of Mrs. Lydia Avery c.o.o.nley, enjoyed the congenial atmosphere of her beautiful home for a month. At the conclusion of her visit with Mrs. c.o.o.nley she went for six weeks with Mr. and Mrs. Sewall, who had taken a large house for the season. This was a social center and the weekly receptions were a prominent feature, bringing together distinguished people from all countries, who were in Chicago, as officials or visitors, during this wonderful summer. While at Mrs.

c.o.o.nley's Miss Anthony formed two acquaintances who from that date have been among her most valued friends--Mr. and Mrs. Samuel E. Gross. After leaving the Sewalls she spent a delightful month with them at their residence on the Lake Sh.o.r.e drive, where she was surrounded with every luxury which wealth and affection could bestow. This added another to the homes in that city always open to her, and Mrs. Gross often wrote: "Your visits are a sweet benediction to our family."[87]

Among the most elegant of the many social affairs to which she was invited was the luncheon in the great banquet hall of the Hotel Richelieu, given by the officers of the National Council to those of the International, the foreign delegates and a few other guests, 150 in all.

May Wright Sewall presided with great dignity and charm over the "after dinner speech-making" of this a.s.semblage of the representative women from the most highly civilized nations of the world, and Miss Anthony sat at her right hand.

Once she went to Harvey and spoke at a camp meeting of 3,000 persons; and later to the Bloomington Chautauqua to give an address; then all the way to Kansas to speak at the State Fair in Topeka and fill a month's lecture engagements. Two weeks she spent in her own home visiting with relatives; then rushed down to Long Island to hurry Mrs. Stanton with her paper; and back again to Chicago to read it for her at the Educational Congress. Many days and evenings were pa.s.sed among the wealth of attractions on the exposition grounds; and so the summer waxed and waned, one of the longest holidays she ever had known, and yet with not an idle hour through all the four months of delightful a.s.sociations and cherished acquaintances. She writes in the diary October 30: "This was my last sight of the White City in its full glory by night."

Among the many graceful words of farewell spoken by the press of Chicago, may be quoted the following from the Inter-Ocean, which suggests the strong and graceful pen of Mary H. Krout:

It is pleasant in these reminiscent days when we talk over the glories and delights of the World's Fair, to recall the honors heaped upon Susan B. Anthony. Her personal friends vied with each other in arranging elaborate entertainments of which she was the central figure. There were dinners and luncheons, banquets and receptions, and at each and all the refined and delicate face shone above the board with a beauty and tranquillity far exceeding the mere beauty of youth and faultlessness of feature. It was the beauty of experience, sweetened and purified by success and appreciation....

It must seem a strange contrast to the woman who has worked so perseveringly in the face of untold difficulties--this change that a few years have wrought. It has not been so very long since she was the universal b.u.t.t of ridicule, lampooned and caricatured, with all that malice, in its coa.r.s.est and most brutal form, could suggest. Her age was the favorite theme of the callow witling, her cause a never-failing subject for reproach and abuse. It is all over and done with, thanks to the new race of men which women themselves are training and educating. There are no words for her nowadays but those of praise and affection. She has lived to see truth survive and justice vindicated. Men no longer regard her as the arch-enemy to domestic peace, disseminating doctrines that mean the destruction of home and the disorganization of society. They perceive in her, rather, the advocate of that liberty which knows no limitations either of s.e.x or of condition--a freedom which, achieved, means the incalculable advancement of the race.