The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony Volume II Part 27

[94] In December Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton had issued an address calling upon the women of New York to unite in this grand effort for political freedom. During the entire campaign Mrs. Stanton contributed to the New York Sun masterly arguments for woman suffrage, which were widely copied by the press of the State.

[95] Mrs. Jane Marsh Parker, a newspaper woman of Rochester, attempted to organize a club there and secure a pet.i.tion in opposition to the amendment. Her efforts evidently did not meet with marked success for, in a letter to the New York Evening Post, she says, "In offering the 'protest' for signatures, quality rather than quant.i.ty has been considered." That prince of editors, Joseph O'Connor, at that time in charge of the Rochester Post-Express, gave the lady a delicious dressing down in an editorial beginning: "What is 'quality'?" and ending: "Probably she means no more by the offensive words 'quality' and 'quant.i.ty' than this--that she has secured to the protest only the signatures of a few representative women, no better and no worse than many of their opponents. Such an interpretation saves the statement from being insulting; but unhappily very many women in Rochester give it a different interpretation."

[96] Mr. Choate might claim that he did not know the position of these men on this question, but it was so well understood that Miss Anthony and her a.s.sociates felt all hope depart when they read the names of the committee. John Bigelow and Gideon J. Tucker had favored a woman suffrage amendment when they were members of the Const.i.tutional Convention in 1867, but, being now over eighty, were not able to make an aggressive fight for it.

[97] The addresses made on this occasion were issued in pamphlet form and presented to the suffrage a.s.sociation by Messrs. Lauterbach and Towns, of the committee.

[98] Although their pet.i.tions contained 600,000 names and those of the "Antis" 15,000.

[99] Mrs. Choate was one of the women who signed the first call for the suffrage advocates to meet at Sherry's; just as, in 1867, Mrs. Greeley canva.s.sed her whole county to secure signatures to the woman's pet.i.tion.

Horace Greeley, as chairman of the suffrage committee of that Const.i.tutional Convention, threw the whole weight of his influence against the amendment, lest it might hurt the Republican party; just as Mr. Choate did in this one, lest it might hurt the party and himself.

Significant answers to the threadbare a.s.sertion that the husband represents the wife!

[100] From official report: Emily Howland generously contributed $1,200.

That staunch friend, Sarah L. Willis, of Rochester, gave $720. Abby L.

Pettengill, of Chautauqua county, gave $220. General Christiansen, of Brooklyn, began the contributions of $100, of which there were, if I mistake not, seven others from our own State--Semantha V. Lapham, Ebenezer b.u.t.terick, of New York, Mrs. H. S. Holden, of Syracuse, Marian Skidmore, of Chautauqua county, Hannah L. Howland, of Sherwood, Mr. and Mrs. James Sargent and Colonel H. S. Greenleaf, of Rochester, completing the number.

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE SECOND KANSAS CAMPAIGN.

1894.

The Kansas legislature of 1893 had submitted an amendment conferring full suffrage on women, to be voted on in November, 1894. Mrs. Laura M.

Johns, president of the State Suffrage a.s.sociation, had written Miss Anthony in April, 1893: "Republicans and Populists are pledged to the support of the amendment. I consider both parties equally committed by their platforms this year, and by their votes in the legislature. We ought to have somebody present in each county convention of both, next year, to secure a suffrage resolution which would insure such a plank in each State platform. You see if one party leaves it out the other will take it up and use it against the first."

During all the voluminous correspondence of 1893, in which Mrs. Johns a.s.sured Miss Anthony again and again that her a.s.sistance in the campaign was absolutely necessary to success, the latter did not once fail to impress upon her that the endors.e.m.e.nt of the political parties was the one essential without which they could hope for nothing. She mapped out and sent to Mrs. Johns a complete plan of work, covering many pages of foolscap, arranging for a thorough organization of every precinct in the State, for the specific purpose of bringing to bear a pressure upon the political conventions the next summer which would compel them to put a plank in their platforms endorsing the amendment. She made it perfectly clear that, if the conventions did not do this, she would not go into the State.

When the Kansas women came to the Washington convention in February, 1894, Miss Anthony for the first time had her suspicions aroused that the politicians of that State were getting in some shrewd work to prevent them from pressing the question of planks in the platforms. Mrs.

Johns had made the serious mistake of accepting also the presidency of the State Republican Woman's a.s.sociation, and had been actively organizing clubs and conferring with Republican leaders. She insisted that she was making woman suffrage the primary feature of her work, but Miss Anthony held that her strong Republican affiliations could not avoid weakening her influence with the Populists. She did, it is true, send out circulars urging the local organizations to work for planks in both State conventions; and she did advise the women to keep clear of partisan action, but this advice could hardly be effective coming from the State president of the Republican Woman's a.s.sociation. Miss Anthony wrote her: "My dear Laura, you must choose whom you will serve--the Republican party or the cause of woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt;" and she replied: "Please don't insult my loyalty with any such suggestion as this; I have never served anything but the suffrage cause since I began the suffrage work;" and continued to look after the welfare of her Republican clubs and arrange Republican meetings.

There is no question that a tremendous pressure was brought to bear upon the suffrage leaders by the Republican politicians. If s.p.a.ce would permit the publication of their many letters now on file they would make interesting reading. That of Charles F. Scott, of the Iola Register, urging Mrs. Johns to call off her women and telling her the exact language in which to do it, is a masterpiece of political shrewdness. It concludes: "Try to get E. W. Hoch nominated for governor and we won't need any platform." As a specimen of pure humor might be quoted one from Case Broderick, M. C., in which he says:

I have thought a good deal about this question and have concluded we can recognize the movement by a resolution similar to this: "While the question of the amendment of the const.i.tution, now pending, granting the right of suffrage to women, is wholly non-partisan and should not be made a test of Republicanism, yet we can not view with apprehension the effort to fully confer upon the women of Kansas the elective franchise."

He then closes: "Some will contend that we ought to say one thing or the other ... but such a resolution as this would not drive any from our party." One must admit that it would not scare them to death. Mr.

Broderick, however, was an honest believer in woman suffrage and later did attempt to secure some recognition for it in the platform. The Republicans sent an agent of adroit address among the suffrage clubs to explain to them how "an endors.e.m.e.nt by the political parties would be really a hindrance to their success," and it was charged that this was done with the consent of some of the leading women.

Miss Anthony wrote to Mrs. Johns at this time: "You know as well as I do that not one of those Republicans thinks party endors.e.m.e.nt will damage the suffrage amendment, as they are trying to make the women believe, but every one of them does fear that it will hurt his chances for some position and lose the party the votes of the Germans and the whiskey dealers. The shame for them now is vastly greater than it was twenty-seven years ago, for then they feared to lose the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the negro. Their proposal to leave out the plank now, after they have carried the question thus far, is too wicked to be tolerated by any sane woman![101] I marvel that you do not see and feel the insult and humiliation."

On March 6, 1894, Mrs. Johns wrote: "I find a stampede here on the plank question. _Women_ of _both_ parties are going against it. Judge Johnston of the supreme bench is opposed to it; so is Judge Horton. Do write them for their views; you know they are good friends of ours. I am worried.

The Republicans will hold the first convention, and the general talk of candidates, managers and leaders is against a plank. I was yesterday about to go into print in regard to it, but am afraid if I make strenuous efforts and am beaten that it will hurt us more than if I keep quiet. Prominent men are writing and besieging me to relieve the party of the embarra.s.sment of this demand. I am not clear in my own mind what to do."

As the weeks went on it became more and more apparent that the women were yielding to the pressure. The officers of the National-American a.s.sociation, which had pledged nearly $2,300 to help Kansas, insisted that the women should continue to demand the endors.e.m.e.nt of the political parties and let the onus of failure rest upon the men and not upon themselves. It might not be worth while to quote from the official letters sent, the campaign having pa.s.sed into history, but for the fact that they may serve as a guide to other States in the future.

Carrie Chapman Catt, the national organizer, wrote: "It is very plain that the chief fight is now. We must compel endors.e.m.e.nt, and I believe we can do it. How any man in his sane senses could think non-endors.e.m.e.nt would give votes and sympathy, I can not conceive; or how the women can have a hope of winning without it, after all the experience of our campaigns." Henry B. Blackwell, editor of the Woman's Journal and an experienced politician, wrote Miss Anthony:

At the request of Mrs. Johns I enclose a letter from Mr. Wagener, of Topeka. He gives the worst possible advice, and Mrs. Johns'

letter seems to show that she is surrounded by bad advisers and in doubt as to her course. If there is anything which twenty-seven years' work has taught us, it is that a woman suffrage amendment can not be carried without at least one political party squarely behind it. In Colorado, for the first time, we have had a majority; and Mrs. Catt, and Mrs. Reynolds and Mrs. Stansbury of Denver, all say that the amendment could not have been carried if the Republican, Populist and many of the Democratic district conventions had not first endorsed it in their platforms. It thus became a live issue and the ma.s.ses of voters became interested and enlightened.

On the other hand, our South Dakota experience is conclusive....

All three parties ignored it, and the press of the State joined in a conspiracy of silence. The campaign speakers were instructed not to name it. We had to rely for the discussions upon the efforts of suffragists as outsiders. Consequently ... we were beaten two to one. The same will surely be true in Kansas in 1894.... If we do not capture the Republican and Populist State conventions we shall be beaten in advance. All hinges on that!

I have just talked with Mrs. Lease, who fully agrees with me. The Republican convention will be the first to meet. If Mrs. Johns will go before the resolution committee and urge her plank, securing at least its presentation as a minority report offered in open session, it will stampede the convention and be carried. Then the Populists will put one in so as not to be behind the Republicans, and _then_ we shall probably win. Do write Mrs. Johns to stand by her guns. No one but her can do this work, because she is personally dear to the Republicans. The fate of the amendment will be then and there decided.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Carrie Chapman Catt (Signed: "Yours Faithfully Carrie Chapman Catt")]

Rev. Anna Shaw, vice-president-at-large, wrote Mrs. Johns in this vigorous language:

I must confess that while I can readily understand the abject cowardice and selfishness which prompt men and political tricksters to urge the abandonment of the plank, I can not understand how you or any other woman with a grain of sense can listen to such proposals for a moment. That endors.e.m.e.nt is our only hope. If that fail us, our cause is lost in advance; for it will show the body of the party what the leaders think and feel on the subject, and be a tacit command to kill it. The hypocrisy of the whole business should not receive from women even a show of belief. What wonder men despise us as a shallow lot of simpletons, if we are deceived by so thin a pretense as this? I for one protest against it so strongly that if your committee agree to it and do not push party endors.e.m.e.nt, I must decline to fool away my time in Kansas. If you give up that point I must refuse to go a single step or raise a dollar. I am sick of the weakness of women, forever dictated to by men. Experience has taught us what a campaign unendorsed means.

Think of submitting our measure to the advice of politicians! I would as soon submit the subject of the equality of a goose to a fox. No; we must have party endors.e.m.e.nt or we are dead.

If I am not to go to Kansas, I want to know it immediately. It is too late even now, for I refused twenty consecutive engagements for May in one State, thinking it was all given up to Kansas. The man or woman who urges surrender now is more a political partisan than a lover of freedom. I care nothing for all the political parties in the world except as they stand for justice. I can not tell you how even the suggestion of this surrender affects me. For the love of woman, do not be fooled by those men any longer.

Finally, as the case grew more hopeless, Miss Anthony, as president of the National-American a.s.sociation, on March 11, sent the following:

_To the Kansas Woman Suffrage Amendment Campaign Committee--Laura M. Johns, Bina M. Otis, Sarah A. Thurston, Annie L. Diggs and Others:_

MY DEAR FRIENDS: I have the letter of your chairman, Mrs. Johns, together with one she forwards from a lawyer of Topeka, with the added a.s.sertion that Judges Horton, Johnston et al., and leading editors and politicians, are begging your committee to cease to demand of the two great political parties, the Republican and People's, that they put a suffrage plank in their platforms; but instead, simply allow the amendment to go before the electors on its merits--that is to say, repeat the experiment as it has been made and has failed eight times over....

The one and only sure hope of carrying the amendment in Kansas is to have on its side all the aid of the political machinery of its two great parties. My one object in consenting to go into your campaign for May and June, was to create so strong a public demand as to make sure that every delegate elected to the State nominating conventions of the Republican and People's parties shall be instructed by his const.i.tuents, in county convention a.s.sembled, to vote for a woman suffrage plank in the platform. The moment your committee abandons this aim, I shall lose all interest in your work. You say: "Prominent Republicans are besieging us to relieve their party of the embarra.s.sment of this demand." So did they besiege us twenty-seven years ago. No; not for a moment should you think of relieving the politicians from the duty of declaring for this amendment. If you do, you are unworthy the trust reposed in you. I surely never would have promised to go into your campaign, or begged the friends to contribute, had I dreamed of the possibility of your surrendering to the cowardice of political trimmers.

If the convention which meets first do not endorse the amendment, then the other will not; in which event, its discussion will not be germane in either party's fall campaign. On the other hand, if the first put a plank in its platform, the other will be sure to do so; and then the question will be a legitimate one to be advocated in the meetings of both parties and this will ensure the presentation of our cause to all the voters of the State.

By this means the two parties will run your amendment campaign, and you will not be compelled to make a separate suffrage campaign.

That you can not do in any event, because (1st) you can not get either the speakers or the money necessary; and (2d) if you could get both, you would have only women in your meetings, and defeat would be just as certain as in the eight States which have had such separate woman's campaigns. Therefore, if you decide to abandon the demand for political endors.e.m.e.nt and active help, as the first and chief object of this spring's work, you may count me out of it; for I will not be a party, even though a protesting one, to such a surrender of our only hope of success.

I came home for a rest over Sunday, after speaking five successive nights in five different counties, in our New York campaign, and these letters with the weak--the wicked--thought of not demanding of the political leaders to make their parties help carry the amendment, raged through my brain all night long. How to put the shame of surrender strongly enough was my constant study, sleeping and waking alike. No, a thousand times no, I say; and if you do yield to this demand at the behest of men claiming to be your friends, you make yourselves a party with those men to ensure your defeat. The speakers will advocate no measure, and the vast majority of men will vote for none, which is not approvingly mentioned in the platform. If you give up trying for political endors.e.m.e.nt, or fail after trying, all hope of carrying the amendment will be gone. So, over and over I say, demand party help!

Lovingly but protestingly,

SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

Mrs. Johns, of course, indignantly rejected the imputation that she was not working night and day to secure a plank from the Republican convention. She was a most efficient manager, but the cause of her weakness and that of the other women, was that they were trying to serve two masters. The very fact that the Republican men were begging them not to ask for a plank, shows the power which the women already possessed in their munic.i.p.al suffrage, and they should have had the courage to stand firm in their demands for recognition in the platform, for the dignity of their cause and their womanhood, whether there were hope of getting it or not. There is no doubt that Mrs. Johns did make an earnest effort to this end, but there is also no doubt that every Republican leader understood that even if the party did not endorse the suffrage amendment, she and her a.s.sociates still would be no less Republicans and would work no less vigorously for the party's success. Miss Anthony's Kansas correspondence during 1894 comprises 300 letters and all confirm the statements thus briefly outlined.

The Republican politicians made the women believe if they would not insist on the party's placing itself on record and thus losing the support of the elements opposed to woman suffrage, all of them would vote for the amendment. Should the women of Kansas ever become politically free, the publication of these letters would be fatal to some aspiring male candidates, but so long as the men still have it in their power to grant to women or to withhold the full franchise, it is the part of wisdom to leave them on their files. There were many Kansas women, however, who refused to be deceived and sustained Miss Anthony's position. In April she wrote to one of the Republican leaders:

If the Republicans had two grains of political sense, they would see that for them to espouse the amendment and gain the glory, as they surely would, of lifting the women of the State into full suffrage, would give them new life, prestige and power greater and grander than they ever possessed; and they would not be halting and belittling themselves with such idiotic stuff and nonsense as their advice to let the amendment go to the electors of the State "on its own merits." But however politicians may waver, our suffrage women must not have a doubt, but must persist in the demand for full recognition in both platforms. We must exact justice and if they do not give it, the curse be on their heads, not ours.

The same month she wrote Mrs. Johns:

I can not tell you how more and more it is borne in upon me that our one chance lies in securing the Republican pledge to carry us to victory, for that will mean a Populist pledge, and both planks will mean a clean-cut battle between the different elements of the grand old party combined as one on this question--and the Democracy of the State. Even with so solid an alliance of the two branches, we shall have a hard enough fight of it. Every woman who listens to the siren tongues of political wire-pullers and office-seekers not to demand a plank, will thereby help to sell Kansas back into the hands of the whiskey power. Behind every anti-plank man's word, written or spoken, is his willingness to let Kansas return to saloon rule. Sugar coat it as they may, that is the unsavory pill in the motive of every one of them.

Sincerely and hopefully yours, trusting in good and keeping our powder dry.