The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony Volume II Part 39

Miss Anthony was strong in her determination to remain at home and devote herself to the biographical task, but found it almost an impossibility to resist the calls for her services which came from all directions. Occasionally she would slip out for a lecture, but long journeys and convention work for the most part were given up, and never during fifty years had she remained at home a fraction of the time that she spent here in 1897. Monday evening of each week was set apart to receive callers and the pleasant parlors often were crowded, many of the Rochester people declaring that this was their first chance of getting acquainted with their ill.u.s.trious townswoman. There were two roles, however, which she never could fill with any pleasure to herself, that of the society or the literary woman. While no one loves her friends more faithfully or better enjoys receiving visits from them, she cares for social life, in general, only so far as it can advance her cause.

Although letter-writing is a pleasure, she hates the use of the pen for so-called literary work. Standing on the platform, words and ideas rush upon her more rapidly than she can give them utterance, but with pen in hand the thoughts still come but refuse to be formulated.

In the chapters describing the preparation of the History of Woman Suffrage was set forth in detail her restiveness at such confinement. "I love to make history but hate to write it," was her oft-repeated a.s.sertion. The years had brought no change of feeling and her correspondence shows how she chafed under the search of old records, the reading of faded letters. Many times she wrote: "There is so much to be done, so much more money is needed and so many more women are wanted for the present work, that half the time I feel conscience-smitten to be dwelling among the scenes and people of the past. There are so very few of my early co-workers now on this side of the big river, that I am really living with the dead most of the time; but as there is no way out of this job except through it--through it I must go." In the journal she says: "O, how it tires me to think over and talk over those old days, not only of my own labors, but of the never-ceasing efforts to stir up others to work."

The 9th of March Miss Anthony lectured before the Men's Club of the Central Church at Auburn. On the 12th she spoke at a meeting addressed by Booker Washington in the interest of the Tuskeegee Colored Inst.i.tute.

The 24th she went to Albany with Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, Mrs. Catt, Elizabeth Burrill Curtis, daughter of George William Curtis, Mrs.

Chapman, State president; and all addressed the senate judiciary committee in behalf of a woman suffrage amendment. Miss Anthony went to this hearing much against her will and, at its conclusion, declared she never again would stoop to plead her cause before one of these committees. She had made her appeals to their fathers and grandfathers, and she was tired of begging for her liberty from men not half her own age and with not a hundredth part of her knowledge of State and national affairs.

The seventieth birthday of the devoted sister Mary would occur on April 2, and Miss Anthony decided to have a home reception in her honor. When she broached the subject to a few intimate friends in the Unitarian church and the Political Equality Club, she found they already had such arrangements well under way and they insisted that she should leave the matter entirely in their hands. Anything which concerned the Anthony sisters interested Rochester, and the city papers contained extended notices. The Herald began a long interview as follows:

Seventy! It did not seem possible that the sprightly, energetic little woman who answered the reporter's ring could have reached the allotted threescore and ten. Old Father Time is certainly no more than a myth to Miss Mary Anthony. "Yes," said she, laughing, "I am about to make my debut. Just think of it, a real reception in my honor! By the time I'm eighty, my existence will probably have become one whirl of delicious excitement."

The reporter asked to see Miss Susan B. Anthony; five minutes would be sufficient; the matter was urgent and important.... Turning to her the reporter said: "The Herald would like you to give an account of your sister. You know she would never admit that she ever did anything worth mentioning, so it is from you that the true story must come."

She laughed as she took off her gla.s.ses, leaned back in her chair and asked, "Where shall I begin?"

"At the beginning, please."

"Well then, my sister was born in Battenville, the youngest of four daughters. One thing may surprise you. She, not I, is the suffrage pioneer in our family. She attended the first woman's rights convention, and when I came home from teaching school, I heard nothing but suffrage talk, and how lovely Lucretia Mott was, and how sweet Elizabeth Cady Stanton was. I didn't believe in it then, and made fun of it; but sister Mary was a firm advocate. My brother-in-law used to tell me that I could preach woman's rights, but it took Mary to practice them.

"For twenty-six consecutive years, from 1857 to 1883, she taught in our public schools. Many of the best citizens of Rochester once went to school to her; and it is perhaps her influence upon those minds and lives that my sister considers the most important part of her life-work. She has always been identified with the suffrage cause in this city and State, as I have with the national. For a number of years she was corresponding secretary of the State society, and for five years has been president of the city Political Equality Club.

"I can not tell you how she has helped and sustained me. She has kept a home where I might come to rest. From the very beginning, she has cheered and comforted me. She has looked after the great ma.s.s of details, my wardrobe, my business, etc., leaving me free.

She is the unseen worker who ought to share equally in whatever of reward and praise I may have won."

The Democrat and Chronicle thus commenced a two-column account of the reception:

... The occasion was the seventieth anniversary of Miss Mary Anthony's birth and, in the afternoon and evening, crowds of her friends gathered to offer their congratulations and do homage to one who has done so much for the educational interests of the city and social and political equality for her s.e.x. Miss Mary, to be sure, has not gained the national reputation which her famous sister enjoys, yet among the people of Rochester she is regarded as a sharer in the laurels won by Susan B. Whenever one is mentioned the personality of the other is immediately brought to mind.... It was with rare hospitality, interwoven with personal love and respect, that Dr. and Mrs. J. E. Sanford devoted their handsome home to the celebration of this birthday. Attired in black satin and d.u.c.h.esse lace, with a pretty bouquet of bride roses in her hand, Miss Mary presented a womanly and attractive appearance.

In the name of the club, Mrs. Sanford presented, with a felicitous little speech, a handsome, jetted broadcloth cape. She was followed by Mrs. Greenleaf, who tendered in affectionate words a purse containing $70, a golden tribute for each year from many friends.[128] John M.

Thayer then made a witty and interesting address. He was followed by Rev. W. C. Gannett, who dwelt especially on the work done by Miss Mary in looking after the poor and needy for the past twenty years, not only as an officer of the city charitable a.s.sociation but in a private capacity, and closed by saying:

It takes two sorts of people to make a reform: One who become public speakers and bear the brunt of obloquy, and the other who in obscurity lend their a.s.sistance to the work. There are hundreds of this latter cla.s.s that the world never hears about. It is the blessed silent side of life, and it seems to me that Mary is the very incarnation of the quiet majority of this great reform which is yet to celebrate its triumphs. In after years, when the story is written of this political equality movement, men will say that the battle was won by the two sisters, because there never could have been a Susan abroad if it had not been for a Mary at home.

If there ever was a time when Miss Anthony was speechless from supreme satisfaction it was on this occasion. All the honors ever bestowed upon herself had not afforded her the joy of this testimonial to her gentle, una.s.suming but strong and helpful sister, on whom she leaned far more than the world could ever know.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARY S. AND SUSAN B. ANTHONY, 1897.]

Miss Anthony a.s.sisted at the elegant golden wedding celebration of Mr.

and Mrs. James Sargent, April 29; not one in the receiving line under seventy, and yet not one broken or enfeebled by age. The men erect and vigorous, the women beautifully dressed and full of animation, formed a striking ill.u.s.tration of the changed physical and social conditions of the last half-century.

Early in June Miss Anthony, Rev. Anna Shaw, Miss Emily Howland and Mrs.

Harper went to Auburn to visit Eliza Wright Osborne, with whom Mrs.

Stanton and her daughter, Mrs. Lawrence, were spending the summer. The days were delightfully pa.s.sed, driving through the shaded streets of that "loveliest village of the plain" and walking about the s.p.a.cious park and gardens surrounding the Osborne mansion; while in the evenings the party gathered in the large drawing-room and listened to chapters from the forthcoming biography, followed with delightful reminiscences by the two elder ladies and Mrs. Osborne, whose mother, Martha C.

Wright, was one of their first and best-beloved friends and helpers. It was a rare and sacred occasion, and those who were present ever will cherish the memory of those two grand pioneers, sitting side by side--Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony--the one just beyond, the other nearing the eightieth milestone of life, both having given to the world fifty years of unremitting service, and yet both as strong in mind, as keen in satire, as br.i.m.m.i.n.g with cheerfulness, as in those early days when they set about to revolutionize the prejudices and customs of the ages.[129]

The correspondence this year seemed heavier than ever before, letters pouring in from all parts of the United States and Europe. Even from far-off Moscow, in conservative Russia, came the cry of women for help.

Pages written by the pen of another could not give so accurate an idea of Miss Anthony's opinions on various topics as single paragraphs culled from copies of her own letters, preserved, alas, only during the past few years since she has employed a stenographer. One scarcely knows which to select. To a newspaper inquiry she answered: "The 'greatest compliment' ever paid me was, that by my life-work I had helped to make the conditions of the world better for women." She wrote to an exasperated Ohio woman:

The plan you propose, of our getting all the members of suffrage clubs, and all individual women outside, in each State, to march to the polls every election day and attempt to deposit their ballots, sounds very well. But, my dear, it is impossible thus to persuade the women, after the Supreme Court of the United States has declared they have no right to vote under the National Const.i.tution. Your suggestion means a revolution which women will not create against their own fathers, husbands, brothers and sons.

A whole race of men under a foreign or tyrannical government, like the Cubans, may rise in rebellion, but for women thus to band themselves against the power enthroned in their own households is quite another matter. Hundreds have recommended your plan, so it is nothing new, but it is utterly impractical. There can be but one possible way for women to be freed from the degradation of disfranchis.e.m.e.nt, and that is through the slow processes of agitation and education, until the vast majority of women themselves desire freedom. So long as mothers teach their sons and daughters, by acquiescence at least, that present conditions need no improving, you can not expect men to change them. Therefore do not waste a single moment trying to devise any sort of insurrectionary movement on the part of the women.

In a letter to Mrs. Stanton she said:

Mrs. Besant lunched with us, and I heard her last evening for the second time. She is master of the English language, and whether or not one can believe she sees and hears from the world of the disembodied what she feels she does, one can not but realize that she is a great woman and has a wonderful theory of how human souls return to earth. But I tell her that it seems to me repellent that we have to come back here through Dame Nature's processes, after a period of such great freedom in the occult world, and again go through with teething, mumps, measles, and similar inflictions. The truth is, I can no more see through Theosophy than I can through Christian Science, Spiritualism, Calvinism or any other of the theories, so I shall have to go on knocking away to remove the obstructions in the road of us mortals while in these bodies and on this planet; and leave Madam Besant and you and all who have entered into the higher spheres, to revel in things unknown to me.... I will join you at Mrs. Miller's Sat.u.r.day, and we'll chat over men, women and conditions--not theories, theosophies and theologies, they are all Greek to me.

There had been a question after the late election in Idaho whether the suffrage amendment required a majority of all the votes cast, or only a majority of those cast on the amendment. If the former, then it was defeated. The case was carried to the supreme court, which put the latter construction on the law. Miss Anthony wrote to the judges, Isaac N. Sullivan, Joseph W. Huston, Ralph P. Quarles, (John T. Morgan retired):

On behalf of the suffrage women of the United States, I thank you for the decision which you have rendered. I had studied over the clause a great deal and felt that if your judgments were biased by the precedents and prejudices which had controlled the decisions of the Supreme Courts of the United States, and of the different States, upon the extension of rights to women, you certainly would give the narrow interpretation. Instead of that, for the first time in the history of our judiciary, the broadest and most liberal interpretation possible has been given.

The Kentucky Daughters of the American Revolution, who were marking historic spots, she advised as follows:

I hope in your selections you will be exceedingly careful to distinguish those actions in which our Revolutionary mothers took part. Men have been faithful in noting every heroic act of their half of the race, and now it should be the duty, as well as the pleasure, of women to make for future generations a record of the heroic deeds of the other half. It is a splendid thing for your a.s.sociation to devote the Fourth of July to a commemoration of women. If I had the time, I too might be one of the "Daughters,"[130] for my Grandfather Read enlisted and fought on the heights of Quebec and at the battles of Bennington and Ticonderoga; but I have been, and must continue to be, so busy working to secure to the women of this day the paramount right for which the Revolutionary War was waged, that I can give neither time nor money to a.s.sociations of women for any other purpose, however good it may be.

When the answer came that they were doing the very thing that she wished, she replied:

I am delighted; for however heroic our pioneer fathers may have been, our pioneer mothers, in the very nature of things, must have braved all the hardships of the men by their side with the added one of bearing and rearing children when deprived of even the vital necessities of maternity. Self-government is as necessary for the best development of women as of men. Sentiment never was and never can be a guarantee for justice, but with equal political power women will be able to secure justice for themselves. We have had chivalry and sentiment from the beginning of time, with some privileges granted as a favor. We now demand rights, guaranteed to us by codes and const.i.tutions; and if their possession shall forfeit us gallantry, we will make the best of it. But I do not believe woman's utter dependence on man wins for her his respect; it may cause him to love and pet her as a child, but never to regard and treat her as a peer.

To Prof. C. Howard Young, of Hartford, Conn., for thirteen years an invalid and yet an ardent advocate of woman suffrage, she wrote: "I want you to feel that the dollar you have sent from year to year all this time for your membership in the national a.s.sociation has helped bring to us Idaho, for our organization committee's work in that State was a large factor in securing the victory. Every one who gives a dollar helps do the work where it is most needed to gain the practical result."

The following extracts are self-explanatory:

The vast majority of women easily can have their sympathies drawn upon to help personal and public charities, while very few are capable of seeing that the cause of nine-tenths of all the misfortunes which come to women, and to men also, lies in the subjection of woman, and therefore the important thing is to lay the axe at the root. Now, my dear, if you and all the women who are working for the different charities and reforms of your city, had the right to vote, how long do you suppose the brothels and gambling houses would be allowed to keep their doors open? Do you believe that if women could vote for every officer whose duty it is to enforce the laws, these dens would be licensed, or if not absolutely licensed, would be allowed to run year in and year out merely by the payment of fines from time to time? How long do you think our streets would be infested with men walking up and down seeking whom they might devour, and with women doing the same?

While some of you must work, as you are doing, giving heart and soul to the mitigation of the horrors of our semi-barbaric conditions, I must strike at the cause which produces them.

To the women of Kansas:

I hope your State a.s.sociation won't do the foolish thing of wasting your time in asking the legislature to pa.s.s a law granting "presidential" suffrage to women. Our chances in your State have been postponed, if not absolutely killed, because of munic.i.p.al suffrage, and now if you should induce your legislature to give "presidential" suffrage and the women should thwart the men's wishes in their votes for President, as they already have done with their limited franchise, you would be doomed never to get the right to vote for congressmen, governor and legislators. I wish women never would ask for any but full suffrage; and also that they would stop asking the legislatures to submit an amendment to the voters, until they have created public sentiment enough to get at least one of the leading parties to stand for it from year to year. We have been working at the top with the members of legislatures, delegates to conventions, etc., too long; it is now time to begin at the bottom with the voting precincts. Nothing short of this should be considered organization.

Miss Anthony received many poems every year from admiring friends of both s.e.xes. This acknowledgment of one raises the suspicion that she was not so appreciative as she might have been: "I find in a very handsome lavender envelope a poem inscribed on lavender paper, addressed to Susan B. Anthony. Since I know nothing of the merits of poetry, I am not able to pa.s.s any opinion upon this, but I can see that 'reap' and 'deep,'

'prayers' and 'bears,' 'ark' and 'dark,' 'true' and 'grew' do rhyme, and so I suppose it is a splendid effort, but if you had written it in plain prose, I could have understood it a great deal better and read it a great deal more easily. Nevertheless, I am thankful to you for poetizing over me--although the fact is that I am the most prosaic, matter-of-fact creature that ever drew the breath of life."

A relative in California wrote that "G.o.d would punish the people in that State who worked against the woman suffrage amendment," and Miss Anthony replied:

It is hardly worth while for you or anybody to talk about "G.o.d's punishing people." If He does, He has been a long time about it in a good many cases and not succeeded in doing it very thoroughly. He certainly didn't punish the liquor dealers of San Francisco; instead of that, He let them rejoice over us women because of their power to cheat us out of right and justice. I think it is quite time, at least for anybody who has Anthony blood in her, to see that G.o.d allows the wheat and the tares to grow up together, and that the tares frequently get the start of the wheat and kill it out. The only difference between the wheat and human beings is that the latter have intellect and ought to combine and pull out the tares, root and branch. Instead of that, good men stay away from the ballot-box or else form third, fourth and forty-'leventh parties, thus leaving the liquor men and vicious elements, who always know enough to stand together, a balance of power on the side of the candidate or the party that will do most for their interests. If the good men were as bright as the bad men, they would pull together instead of separately.

To the Jewish Woman's Council: "From day to day I read the press reports of your meetings, and was pleased to see how successful they were; especially was I glad at the answer one of your women made to the criticism of your holding a meeting on Sunday. It is time to teach some of our Protestant women that it is just as worthy to do a good thing on Sunday as on Monday or any other day in the week, and no worse to do a bad one. They should learn also that they have no more right to ask you to hold their Sunday sacred than you have to demand that they shall observe your Jewish Sabbath."

Some California women wrote her that the politicians were advising them to ask for "educated and property suffrage," and she replied:

I should answer them that it is quite difficult enough for women to push their demand for enfranchis.e.m.e.nt on an _equal_ basis with men.

They all know there is not a man who has any political aspirations or a party which hopes for success, that would take a public stand in favor of such a measure as they wish us to adopt. I do not agree with them that we have too many voters now. Instead of that, I say we have just half enough, for a majority of the opinions of all the people combined is sure to be better than the opinions of any one cla.s.s. They call it a "mistake" giving to poor and uneducated men the right to vote; whereas, the greatest wrongs in our government are perpetrated by rich men, the wire-pulling agents of the corporations and monopolies, in which the poor and the ignorant have no part.

No, they can not persuade me that it would be a right or even a politic thing to ask that only educated, tax-paying women be enfranchised. It would antagonize not only every man who had neither property nor education but also every one whose wife had neither, and all such would vote against the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the rich and educated women. You can not start a demand for any sort of restrictive qualification for women which will not lose more votes for the measure in one direction than it can possibly gain in another.

The habit of many women of continually intruding their religious beliefs into their public work was a great annoyance to Miss Anthony. To a prominent speaker on the Prohibition platform with whom she was well acquainted, she wrote: "It seems to me that by your using constantly the words 'G.o.d' and 'Jesus' as if they were material beings, when to you they are no longer such, you impress upon your audience, grounded as the vast majority yet are in the old beliefs, that you still hold to the idea of their personality. The world, especially women, love to cling to a personal, material help--G.o.d a strong man, Jesus a loving man." And then a little further on, referring to the common habit of regarding physical misfortunes as the punishment of G.o.d, she said: "G.o.d is not responsible for our human ills and we should not believe or disbelieve in Him on account of our aches and pains. It surely is not the good people who escape bodily ailments. Certain fixed laws govern all, and those who come nearest to obeying these laws will suffer least; but even then we must suffer for the failures of our ancestors."