The Story of a Pioneer Part 13

After the Berlin meeting Miss Anthony and I were invited to spend a week-end at the home of Mrs. Jacob Bright, that "Aunt Susan" might renew her acquaintance with Annie Besant. This visit is among my most vivid memories. Originally "Aunt Susan" had greatly admired Mrs. Besant, and had openly lamented the latter's concentration on theosophical interests--when, as Miss Anthony put it, "there are so many live problems here in this world." Now she could not conceal her disapproval of the "other-worldliness" of Mrs. Besant, Mrs. Bright, and her daughter. Some remarkable and, to me, most amusing discussions took place among the three; but often, during Mrs. Besant's most sustained oratorical flights, Miss Anthony's interest would wander, and she would drop a remark that showed she had not heard a word. She had a great admiration for Mrs. Besant's intellect; but she disapproved of her flowing and picturesque white robes, of her bare feet, of her incessant cigarette-smoking; above all, of her views. At last, one day.{sic} the climax of the discussions came.

"Annie," demanded "Aunt Susan," "why don't you make that aura of yours do its gallivanting in this world, looking up the needs of the oppressed, and investigating the causes of present wrongs? Then you could reveal to us workers just what we should do to put things right, and we could be about it."

Mrs. Besant sighed and said that life was short and aeons were long, and that while every one would be perfected some time, it was useless to deal with individuals here.

"But, Annie!" exclaimed Miss Anthony, pathetically. "We ARE here! Our business is here! It's our duty to do what we can here."

Mrs. Besant seemed not to hear her. She was in a trance, gazing into the aeons.

"I'd rather have one year of your ability, backed up with common sense, for the work of making this world better," cried the exasperated "Aunt Susan," "than a million aeons in the hereafter!"

Mrs. Besant sighed again. It was plain that she could not bring herself back from the other world, so Miss Anthony, perforce, accompanied her to it.

"When your aura goes visiting in the other world," she asked, curiously, "does it ever meet your old friend Charles Bradlaugh?"

"Oh yes," declared Mrs. Besant. "Frequently."

"Wasn't he very much surprised," demanded Miss Anthony, with growing interest, "to discover that he was not dead?"

Mrs. Besant did not seem to know what emotion Mr. Bradlaugh had experienced when that revelation came.

"Well," mused "Aunt Susan," "I should think he would have been surprised. He was so certain he was going to be dead that it must have been astounding to discover he wasn't. What was he doing in the other world?"

Mrs. Besant heaved a deeper sigh. "I am very much discouraged over Mr.

Bradlaugh," she admitted, wanly. "He is hovering too near this world.

He cannot seem to get away from his mundane interests. He is as much concerned with parliamentary affairs now as when he was on this plane."

"Humph!" said Miss Anthony; "that's the most sensible thing I've heard yet about the other world. It encourages me. I've always felt sure that if I entered the other life before women were enfranchised nothing in the glories of heaven would interest me so much as the work for women's freedom on earth. Now," she ended, "I shall be like Mr. Bradlaugh. I shall hover round and continue my work here."

When Mrs. Besant had left the room Mrs. Bright felt that it was her duty to admonish "Aunt Susan" to be more careful in what she said.

"You are making too light of her creed," she expostulated. "You do not realize the important position Mrs. Besant holds. Why, in India, when she walks from her home to her school all those she meets prostrate themselves. Even the learned men prostrate themselves and put their faces on the ground as she goes by."

"Aunt Susan's" voice, when she replied, took on the tones of one who is sorely tried. "But why in Heaven's name does any sensible Englishwoman want a lot of heathen to prostrate themselves as she goes up the street?" she demanded, wearily. "It's the most foolish thing I ever heard."

The effort to win Miss Anthony over to the theosophical doctrine was abandoned. That night, after we had gone to our rooms, "Aunt Susan"

summed up her conclusions on the interview:

"It's a good thing for the world," she declared, "that some of us don't know so much. And it's a better thing for this world that some of us think a little earthly common sense is more valuable than too much heavenly knowledge."

X. THE Pa.s.sING OF "AUNT SUSAN"

On one occasion Miss Anthony had the doubtful pleasure of reading her own obituary notices, and her interest in them was characteristically naive. She had made a speech at Lakeside, Ohio, during which, for the first time in her long experience, she fainted on the platform. I was not with her at the time, and in the excitement following her collapse it was rumored that she had died. Immediately the news was telegraphed to the a.s.sociated Press of New York, and from there flashed over the country. At Miss Anthony's home in Rochester a reporter rang the bell and abruptly informed her sister, Miss Mary Anthony, who came to the door, that "Aunt Susan" was dead. Fortunately Miss Mary had a cool head.

"I think," she said, "that if my sister had died I would have heard about it. Please have your editors telegraph to Lakeside."

The reporter departed, but came back an hour later to say that his newspaper had sent the telegram and the reply was that Susan B. Anthony was dead.

"I have just received a better telegram than that," remarked Mary Anthony. "Mine is from my sister; she tells me that she fainted to-night, but soon recovered and will be home to-morrow."

Nevertheless, the next morning the American newspapers gave much s.p.a.ce to Miss Anthony's obituary notices, and "Aunt Susan" spent some interesting hours reading them. One that pleased her vastly was printed in the Wichita Eagle, whose editor, Mr. Murdock, had been almost her bitterest opponent. He had often exhausted his brilliant vocabulary in editorial denunciations of suffrage and suffragists, and Miss Anthony had been the special target of his scorn. But the news of her death seemed to be a bitter blow to him; and of all the tributes the American press gave to Susan B. Anthony dead, few equaled in beauty and appreciation the one penned by Mr. Murdock and published in the Eagle.

He must have been amused when, a few days later, he received a letter from "Aunt Susan" herself, thanking him warmly for his changed opinion of her and hoping that it meant the conversion of his soul to our Cause.

It did not, and Mr. Murdock, though never again quite as bitter as he had been, soon resumed the free editorial expression of his antisuffrage sentiments. Times have changed, however, and to-day his son, now a member of Congress, is one of our strongest supporters in that body.

In 1905 it became plain that Miss Anthony's health was failing. Her visits to Germany and England the previous year, triumphant though they had been, had also proved a drain on her vitality; and soon after her return to America she entered upon a task which helped to exhaust her remaining strength. She had been deeply interested in securing a fund of $50,000 to enable women to enter Rochester University, and, one morning, just after we had held a session of our executive committee in her Rochester home, she read a newspaper announcement to the effect that at four o'clock that afternoon the opportunity to admit women to the university would expire, as the full fifty thousand dollars had not been raised. The sum of eight thousand dollars was still lacking.

With characteristic energy, Miss Anthony undertook to save the situation by raising this amount within the time limit. Rushing to the telephone, she called a cab and prepared to go forth on her difficult quest; but first, while she was putting on her hat and coat, she insisted that her sister, Mary Anthony, should start the fund by contributing one thousand dollars from her meager savings, and this Miss Mary did. "Aunt Susan"

made every second count that day, and by half after three o'clock she had secured the necessary pledges. Several of the trustees of the university, however, had not seemed especially anxious to have the fund raised, and at the last moment they objected to one pledge for a thousand dollars, on the ground that the man who had given it was very old and might die before the time set to pay it; then his family, they feared, might repudiate the obligation. Without a word Miss Anthony seized the pledge and wrote her name across it as an indors.e.m.e.nt. "I am good for it," she then said, quietly, "if the gentleman who signed it is not."

That afternoon she returned home greatly fatigued. A few hours later the girl students who had been waiting admission to the university came to serenade her in recognition of her successful work for them, but she was too ill to see them. She was pa.s.sing through the first stage of what proved to be her final breakdown.

In 1906, when the date of the annual convention of the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation in Baltimore was drawing near, she became convinced that it would be her last convention. She was right. She showed a pa.s.sionate eagerness to make it one of the greatest conventions ever held in the history of the movement; and we, who loved her and saw that the flame of her life was burning low, also bent all our energies to the task of realizing her hopes. In November preceding the convention she visited me and her niece, Miss Lucy Anthony, in our home in Mount Airy, Philadelphia, and it was clear that her anxiety over the convention was weighing heavily upon her. She visibly lost strength from day to day. One morning she said abruptly, "Anna, let's go and call on President M. Carey Thomas, of Bryn Mawr."

I wrote a note to Miss Thomas, telling her of Miss Anthony's desire to see her, and received an immediate reply inviting us to luncheon the following day. We found Miss Thomas deep in the work connected with her new college buildings, over which she showed us with much pride. Miss Anthony, of course, gloried in the splendid results Miss Thomas had achieved, but she was, for her, strangely silent and preoccupied. At luncheon she said:

"Miss Thomas, your buildings are beautiful; your new library is a marvel; but they are not the cause of our presence here."

"No," Miss Thomas said; "I know you have something on your mind. I am waiting for you to tell me what it is."

"We want your co-operation, and that of Miss Garrett," began Miss Anthony, promptly, "to make our Baltimore Convention a success. We want you to persuade the Arundel Club of Baltimore, the most fashionable club in the city, to give a reception to the delegates; and we want you to arrange a college night on the programme--a great college night, with the best college speakers ever brought together."

These were large commissions for two extremely busy women, but both Miss Thomas and Miss Garrett--realizing Miss Anthony's intense earnestness--promised to think over the suggestions and see what they could do. The next morning we received a telegram from them stating that Miss Thomas would arrange the college evening, and that Miss Garrett would reopen her Baltimore home, which she had closed, during the convention. She also invited Miss Anthony and me to be her guests there, and added that she would try to arrange the reception by the Arundel Club.

"Aunt Susan" was overjoyed. I have never seen her happier than she was over the receipt of that telegram. She knew that whatever Miss Thomas and Miss Garrett undertook would be accomplished, and she rightly regarded the success of the convention as already a.s.sured. Her expectations were more than realized. The college evening was undoubtedly the most brilliant occasion of its kind ever arranged for a convention. President Ira Remsen of Johns Hopkins University presided, and addresses were made by President Mary E. Woolley of Mount Holyoke, Professor Lucy Salmon of Va.s.sar, Professor Mary Jordan of Smith, President Thomas herself, and many others.

From beginning to end the convention was probably the most notable yet held in our history. Julia Ward Howe and her daughter, Florence Howe Hall, were also guests of Miss Garrett, who, moreover, entertained all the speakers of "College Night." Miss Anthony, now eighty-six, arrived in Baltimore quite ill, and Mrs. Howe, who was ninety, was taken ill soon after she reached there. The two great women made a dramatic exchange on the programme, for on the first night, when Miss Anthony was unable to speak, Mrs. Howe took her place, and on the second night, when Mrs. Howe had succ.u.mbed, Miss Anthony had recovered sufficiently to appear for her. Clara Barton was also an honored figure at the convention, and Miss Anthony's joy in the presence of all these old and dear friends was overflowing. With them, too, were the younger women, ready to take up and carry on the work the old leaders were laying down; and "Aunt Susan," as she surveyed them all, felt like a general whose superb army is pa.s.sing in review before him. At the close of the college programme, when the final address had been made by Miss Thomas, Miss Anthony rose and in a few words expressed her feeling that her life-work was done, and her consciousness of the near approach of the end. After that night she was unable to appear, and was indeed so ill that she was confined to her bed in Miss Garrett's most hospitable home. Nothing could have been more thoughtful or more beautiful than the care Miss Garrett and Miss Thomas bestowed on her. They engaged for her one of the best physicians in Baltimore, who, in turn, consulted with the leading specialists of Johns Hopkins, and they also secured a trained nurse.

This final attention required special tact, for Miss Anthony's fear of "giving trouble" was so great that she was not willing to have a nurse.

The nurse, therefore, wore a housemaid's uniform, and "Aunt Susan"

remained wholly unconscious that she was being cared for by one of the best nurses in the famous hospital.

Between sessions of the convention I used to sit by "Aunt Susan's" bed and tell her what was going on. She was triumphant over the immense success of the convention, but it was clear that she was still worrying over the details of future work. One day at luncheon Miss Thomas asked me, casually:

"By the way, how do you raise the money to carry on your work?"

When I told her the work was wholly dependent on voluntary contributions and on the services of those who were willing to give themselves gratuitously to it, Miss Thomas was greatly surprised. She and Miss Garrett asked a number of practical questions, and at the end of our talk they looked at each other.

"I don't think," said Miss Thomas, "that we have quite done our duty in this matter."

The next day they invited a number of us to dinner, to again discuss the situation; and they admitted that they had sat up throughout the previous night, talking the matter over and trying to find some way to help us. They had also discussed the situation with Miss Anthony, to her vast content, and had finally decided that they would try to raise a fund of $60,000, to be paid in yearly instalments of $12,000 for five years--part of these annual instalments to be used as salaries for the active officers. The mere mention of so large a fund startled us all.

We feared that it could not possibly be raised. But Miss Anthony plainly believed that now the last great wish of her life had been granted.

She was convinced that Miss Thomas and Miss Garrett could accomplish anything--even the miracle of raising $60,000 for the suffrage cause--and they did, though "Aunt Susan" was not here to glory over the result when they had achieved it.

On the 15th of February we left Baltimore for Washington, where Miss Anthony was to celebrate her eighty-sixth birthday. For many years the National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation had celebrated our birthdays together, as hers came on the 15th of the month and mine on the 14th. There had been an especially festive banquet when she was seventy-four and I was forty-seven, and our friends had decorated the table with floral "4's" and "7's"--the centerpiece representing "74"

during the first half of the banquet, and "47" the latter half. This time "Aunt Susan" should not have attempted the Washington celebration, for she was still ill and exhausted by the strain of the convention. But notwithstanding her sufferings and the warnings of her physicians, she insisted on being present; so Miss Garrett sent the trained nurse to Washington with her, and we all tried to make the journey the least possible strain on the patient's vitality.