THE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF WOMEN.
Pursuant to the idea of the feasibility and need of an International
Council of Women, mentioned in a preceding chapter, it was decided to
celebrate the fourth decade of the woman suffrage movement in the United
States by calling together such a council. At its nineteenth annual
convention, held in January, 1887, the National Woman Suffrage
Association resolved to assume the entire responsibility of holding a
council, and to extend an invitation, for that purpose, to all
associations of women in the trades, professions, and reforms, as well
as those advocating political rights. Early in June, 1887, a call was
issued for such a council to convene under the auspices of the National
Woman Suffrage Association at Washington, D. C, on March 25, 1888. The
grand assemblage of women, coming from all the countries of the
civilized globe, proved that the call for such a council was opportune,
while the order and dignity of the proceedings proved the women worthy
the occasion. No one doubts now the wisdom of that initiative step nor
the added power women have gained over popular thought through the
International Council.
As the proceedings of the contention were fully and graphically reported
in the _Woman's Tribune_ at that time, and as its reports were afterward
published in book form, revised and corrected by Miss Anthony, Miss
Foster, and myself, I will merely say that our most sanguine
expectations as to its success were more than realized. The large
theater was crowded for an entire week, and hosts of able women spoke,
as if specially inspired, on all the vital questions of the hour.
Although the council was called and conducted by the suffrage
association, yet various other societies were represented. Miss Anthony
was the financier of the occasion and raised twelve thousand dollars for
the purpose, which enabled her to pay all the expenses of the delegates
in Washington, and for printing the report in book form. As soon as I
reached Washington, Miss Anthony ordered me to remain conscientiously in
my own apartment and to prepare a speech for delivery before the
committees of the Senate and House, and another, as President, for the
opening of the council. However, as Mrs. Spofford placed her carriage at
our service, I was permitted to drive an hour or two every day about
that magnificent city.
One of the best speeches at the council was made by Helen H. Gardener.
It was a criticism of Dr. Hammond's position in regard to the inferior
size and quality of woman's brain. As the doctor had never had the
opportunity of examining the brains of the most distinguished women,
and, probably, those only of paupers and criminals, she felt he had no
data on which to base his conclusions. Moreover, she had the written
opinion of several leading physicians, that it was quite impossible to
distinguish the male from the female brain.
The hearing at the Capitol, after the meeting of the council, was very
interesting, as all the foreign delegates were invited to speak each in
the language of her own country; to address their alleged
representatives in the halls of legislation was a privilege they had
never enjoyed at home. It is very remarkable that English women have
never made the demand for a hearing in the House of Commons, nor even
for a decent place to sit, where they can hear the debates and see the
fine proportions of the representatives. The delegates had several
brilliant receptions at the Riggs House, and at the houses of Senator
Stanford of California and Senator Palmer of Michigan. Miss Anthony and
I spent two months in Washington, that winter. One of the great
pleasures of our annual conventions was the reunion of our friends at
the Riggs House, where we enjoyed the boundless hospitality of Mr. and
Mrs. Spofford.
The month of June I spent in New York city, where I attended several of
Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll's receptions and saw the great orator and
iconoclast at his own fireside, surrounded by his admirers, and heard
his beautiful daughters sing, which gave all who listened great
pleasure, as they have remarkably fine voices. One has since married,
and is now pouring out her richest melodies in the opera of lullaby in
her own nursery.
In the fall of 1888, as Ohio was about to hold a Constitutional
convention, at the request of the suffrage association I wrote an appeal
to the women of the State to demand their right to vote for delegates to
such convention. Mrs. Southworth had five thousand copies of my appeal
published and distributed at the exposition in Columbus. If ten
righteous men could save Sodom, all the brilliant women I met in
Cleveland should have saved Ohio from masculine domination.
The winter of 1888-89 I was to spend with my daughter in Omaha. I
reached there in time to witness the celebration of the completion of
the first bridge between that city and Council Bluffs. There was a grand
procession in which all the industries of both towns were represented,
and which occupied six hours in passing. We had a desirable position for
reviewing the pageant, and very pleasant company to interpret the
mottoes, symbols, and banners. The bridge practically brings the towns
together, as electric street cars now run from one to the other in ten
minutes. Here, for the first time, I saw the cable cars running up hill
and down without any visible means of locomotion.
As the company ran an open car all winter, I took my daily ride of nine
miles in it for fifteen cents. My son Daniel, who escorted me, always
sat inside the car, while I remained on an outside seat. He was greatly
amused with the remarks he heard about that "queer old lady that always
rode outside in all kinds of wintry weather." One day someone remarked
loud enough for all to hear: "It is evident that woman does not know
enough to come in when it rains." "Bless me!" said the conductor, who
knew me, "that woman knows as much as the Queen of England; too much to
come in here by a hot stove." How little we understand the comparative
position of those whom we often criticise. There I sat enjoying the
bracing air, the pure fresh breezes, indifferent to the fate of an old
cloak and hood that had crossed the Atlantic and been saturated with
salt water many times, pitying the women inside breathing air laden with
microbes that dozens of people had been throwing off from time to time,
sacrificing themselves to their stylish bonnets, cloaks, and dresses,
suffering with the heat of the red-hot stove; and yet they, in turn,
pitying me.
My seventy-third birthday I spent with my son Gerrit Smith Stanton, on
his farm near Portsmouth, Iowa. As we had not met in several years, it
took us a long time, in the network of life, to pick up all the stitches
that had dropped since we parted. I amused myself darning stockings and
drawing plans for an addition to his house. But in the spring my son and
his wife came to the conclusion that they had had enough of the solitude
of farm life and turned their faces eastward.
Soon after my return to Omaha, the editor of the _Woman's Tribune_, Mrs.
Clara B. Colby, called and lunched with us one day. She announced the
coming State convention, at which I was expected "to make the best
speech of my life." She had all the arrangements to make, and invited me
to drive round with her, in order that she might talk by the way. She
engaged the Opera House, made arrangements at the Paxton House for a
reception, called on all her faithful coadjutors to arouse enthusiasm in
the work, and climbed up to the sanctums of the editors,--Democratic and
Republican alike,--asking them to advertise the convention and to say a
kind word for our oppressed class in our struggle for emancipation. They
all promised favorable notices and comments, and they kept their
promises. Mrs. Colby, being president of the Nebraska Suffrage
Association, opened the meeting with an able speech, and presided
throughout with tact and dignity.
I came very near meeting with an unfortunate experience at this
convention. The lady who escorted me in her carriage to the Opera House
carried the manuscript of my speech, which I did not miss until it was
nearly time to speak, when I told a lady who sat by my side that our
friend had forgotten to give me my manuscript. She went at once to her
and asked for it. She remembered taking it, but what she had done with
it she did not know. It was suggested that she might have dropped it in
alighting from the carriage. And lo! they found it lying in the gutter.
As the ground was frozen hard it was not even soiled. When I learned of
my narrow escape, I trembled, for I had not prepared any train of
thought for extemporaneous use. I should have been obliged to talk when
my turn came, and if inspired by the audience or the good angels, might
have done well, or might have failed utterly. The moral of this episode
is, hold on to your manuscript.
Owing to the illness of my son-in-law, Frank E. Lawrence, he and my
daughter went to California to see if the balmy air of San Diego would
restore his health, and so we gave up housekeeping in Omaha, and, on
April 20, 1889, in company with my eldest son I returned East and spent
the summer at Hempstead, Long Island, with my son Gerrit and his wife.
We found Hempstead a quiet, old Dutch town, undisturbed by progressive
ideas. Here I made the acquaintance of Chauncey C. Parsons and wife,
formerly of Boston, who were liberal in their ideas on most questions.
Mrs. Parsons and I attended one of the Seidl club meetings at Coney
Island, where Seidl was then giving some popular concerts. The club was
composed of two hundred women, to whom I spoke for an hour in the dining
room of the hotel. With the magnificent ocean views, the grand concerts,
and the beautiful women, I passed two very charming days by the seaside.
My son Henry had given me a phaeton, low and easy as a cradle, and I
enjoyed many drives about Long Island. We went to Bryant's home on the
north side, several times, and in imagination I saw the old poet in the
various shady nooks, inditing his lines of love and praise of nature in
all her varying moods. Walking among the many colored, rustling leaves
in the dark days of November, I could easily enter into his thought as
he penned these lines:
"The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread."
In September, 1889, my daughter, Mrs. Stanton Lawrence, came East to
attend a school of physical culture, and my other daughter, Mrs. Stanton
Blatch, came from England to enjoy one of our bracing winters.
Unfortunately we had rain instead of snow, and fogs instead of frost.
However, we had a pleasant reunion at Hempstead. After a few days in and
about New York visiting friends, we went to Geneva and spent several
weeks in the home of my cousin, the daughter of Gerrit Smith.
She and I have been most faithful, devoted friends all our lives, and
regular correspondents for more than fifty years. In the family circle
we are ofttimes referred to as "Julius" and "Johnson." These euphonious
names originated in this way: When the Christy Minstrels first appeared,
we went one evening to hear them. On returning home we amused our
seniors with, as they said, a capital rehearsal. The wit and philosopher
of the occasion were called, respectively, Julius and Johnson; so we
took their parts and reproduced all the bright, humorous remarks they
made. The next morning as we appeared at the breakfast table, Cousin
Gerrit Smith, in his deep, rich voice said: "Good-morning, Julius and
Johnson," and he kept it up the few days we were in Albany together. One
after another our relatives adopted the pseudonyms, and Mrs. Miller has
been "Julius" and I "Johnson" ever since.
From Geneva we went to Buffalo, but, as I had a bad cold and a general
feeling of depression, I decided to go to the Dansville Sanatorium and
see what Doctors James and Kate Jackson could do for me. I was there six
weeks and tried all the rubbings, pinchings, steamings; the Swedish
movements of the arms, hands, legs, feet; dieting, massage, electricity,
and, though I succeeded in throwing off only five pounds of flesh, yet I
felt like a new being. It is a charming place to be in--the home is
pleasantly situated and the scenery very fine. The physicians are all
genial, and a cheerful atmosphere pervades the whole establishment.
As Christmas was at hand, the women were all half crazy about presents,
and while good Doctors James and Kate were doing all in their power to
cure the nervous affections of their patients, they would thwart the
treatment by sitting in the parlor with the thermometer at seventy-two
degrees, embroidering all kinds of fancy patterns,--some on muslin, some
on satin, and some with colored worsteds on canvas,--inhaling the
poisonous dyes, straining the optic nerves, counting threads and
stitches, hour after hour, until utterly exhausted. I spoke to one poor
victim of the fallacy of Christmas presents, and of her injuring her
health in such useless employment. "What can I do?" she replied, "I must
make presents and cannot afford to buy them." "Do you think," said I,
"any of your friends would enjoy a present you made at the risk of your
health? I do not think there is any 'must' in the matter. I never feel
that I must give presents, and never want any, especially from those who
make some sacrifice to give them." This whole custom of presents at
Christmas, New Year's, and at weddings has come to be a bore, a piece of
hypocrisy leading to no end of unhappiness. I do not know a more pitiful
sight than to see a woman tatting, knitting, embroidering--working cats
on the toe of some slipper, or tulips on an apron. The amount of nervous
force that is expended in this way is enough to make angels weep. The
necessary stitches to be taken in every household are quite enough
without adding fancy work.
From Dansville my daughters and I went on to Washington to celebrate the
seventieth birthday of Miss Anthony, who has always been to them as a
second mother. Mrs. Blatch made a speech at the celebration, and Mrs.
Lawrence gave a recitation. First came a grand supper at the Riggs
House. The dining room was beautifully decorated; in fact, Mr. and Mrs.
Spofford spared no pains to make the occasion one long to be remembered.
May Wright Sewall was the mistress of ceremonies. She read the toasts
and called on the different speakers. Phoebe Couzins, Rev. Anna Shaw,
Isabella Beecher Hooker, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Clara B. Colby, Senator
Blair of New Hampshire, and many others responded. I am ashamed to say
that we kept up the festivities till after two o'clock. Miss Anthony,
dressed in dark velvet and point lace, spoke at the close with great
pathos. Those of us who were there will not soon forget February 15,
1890.
After speaking before committees of the Senate and House, I gave the
opening address at the annual convention. Mrs. Stanton Blatch spoke a
few minutes on the suffrage movement in England, after which we hurried
off to New York, and went on board the _Aller_, one of the North German
Lloyd steamers, bound for Southampton. At the ship we found Captain
Milinowski and his wife and two of my sons waiting our arrival. As we
had eighteen pieces of baggage it took Mrs. Blatch some time to review
them. My phaeton, which we decided to take, filled six boxes. An easy
carriage for two persons is not common in England. The dogcarts prevail,
the most uncomfortable vehicles one can possibly use. Why some of our
Americans drive in those uncomfortable carts is a question. I think it
is because they are "so English." The only reason the English use them
is because they are cheap. The tax on two wheels is one-half what it is
on four, and in England all carriages are taxed. Before we Americans
adopt fashions because they are English, we had better find out the
_raison d'être_ for their existence.
We had a very pleasant, smooth voyage, unusually so for blustering
February and March. As I dislike close staterooms, I remained in the
ladies' saloon night and day, sleeping on a sofa. After a passage of
eleven days we landed at Southampton, March 2, 1890. It was a beautiful
moonlight night and we had a pleasant ride on the little tug to the
wharf. We reached Basingstoke at eleven o'clock, found the family well
and all things in order.