MANY TRIPS--FIRST VOTE ON SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT.
1886-1887.
Miss Anthony started for Washington toward the last of January, 1886,
with a lighter heart than she had possessed for many years. The dreadful
burden of the labor on the History was lifted, all the bills were paid,
she had given a helping hand to several of the old workers, which made
her very happy, and she had one or two good dresses in her trunk. There
was nothing which the paragrapher who hated what Miss Anthony
represented, liked so well as to make disagreeable flings at her
clothes, and yet it is an indisputable fact of history that she was one
of the most perfectly dressed women on the platform, although her tastes
were very plain and simple. A lady once wrote her asking if it would not
be possible to make the suffrage conventions a little more aesthetic,
they were so painfully practical. She sent the letter to Mrs. Stanton,
who commented: "Well now, perhaps if we could paint injustice in
delicate tints set in a framework of poetical argument, we might more
easily entrap the Senator Edmunds and Oscar Wilde types of Adam's sons.
Suppose at our next convention all of us dress in pale green, have a
faint and subdued gaslight with pink shades, write our speeches in verse
and chant them to a guitar accompaniment. Ah me! alas! how can we reform
the world aesthetically?"
The members of Congress always knew when Miss Anthony had arrived in
Washington. Other women accepted their word that they were going to do
something, and waited patiently at home. Miss Anthony followed them up
and saw that they did it. If she could not find them at the Capitol,
she went to their homes. If they promised to introduce a certain measure
on a certain day, she was in the gallery looking them squarely in the
face. If they failed to do it, they found her waiting for them at the
close of the session. Senator Blair wrote this humorous note January 15:
"I thought just as likely as not you would come fussing round before I
got your amendment reported to the Senate. I wish you would go home.
Cockrell has agreed to let me know soon whether he won't allow the
report to be made right off without any bother, and I have been to him
several times before. I don't see what you want to meddle for, anyway.
Go off and get married!"
[Illustration: Autograph: "I hope you will live always in this world.
Heaven has got more than it's share of good people already. Sincerely &
Respectfully, Henry W. Blair."]
Miss Anthony has been directly connected with every action taken by
Congress or by any congressional committee on the question of woman
suffrage. There are on file among her papers hundreds of letters from
members during the past thirty years, showing her energy and persistence
in compelling attention to this subject, in learning who were its
friends, in attempting to convert the doubters and in spurring the
believers to effort. This is something for the women of the future to
remember.
The Eighteenth Annual Convention opened February 17. Prominent features
were a fine address by Rev. Rush R. Shippen, of All Souls church, and
the first appearance on the platform of Mary F. Eastman, Ada C. Sweet,
the pension agent, the eloquent southern speakers, Mrs. Elizabeth A.
Meriwether and Mrs. Sallie Clay Bennett, and the talented German, Madame
Clara Neymann. Among many letters was one from George W. Childs to Miss
Anthony, saying: "I am always glad to hear from you and I keep track of
your continued good work. Do not be discouraged. I take pleasure in
sending the enclosed check ($100) with my sincere regards and very best
wishes."
The crowds were so great that policemen had to be stationed at the door
to prevent late comers from trying to enter during the evening sessions.
The resolutions scored the bill before Congress proposing to
disfranchise all Utah women, both Gentile and Mormon, to punish the
crime of polygamy. The usual hearing was granted before the
congressional committees. The fight for woman suffrage in the
Forty-ninth Congress was conducted by Ezra B. Taylor, of Ohio, who
prepared the favorable minority report of the House Judiciary Committee.
The adverse majority report was signed by John Randolph Tucker, of
Virginia.
On March 25 "the general" slipped up to New York City, to assist her
forces at the State convention, and then hastened back to Washington to
direct the main line of attack. The diary says:
March 30.--Went to House of Representatives, saw Messrs. Tucker and
Taylor of judiciary committee; both promised to report soon. Then
went to Senate, saw Messrs. Blair, Stanford and Bowen; all agreed
to work to bring up our bill by May 1. In the evening took a cab
and went in a pouring rain to Senator Stanford's, where I spent an
hour. How keen and true are his perceptions in regard to public
questions!
March 31.--Pouring rain, dark and muggy. I went to the Senate; sat
with Mrs. Dolph and Mrs. Stanford; heard Senator Dolph's fine
speech on the admission of Washington Territory as a State and his
splendid word for woman suffrage. Mrs. Dolph took me home in her
carriage.
April 1.--Went to the Senate again to secure pledges for votes and
speeches for the Sixteenth Amendment Bill. Got Senator Dolph's
strongest paragraphs, and at 8 P. M. went to the top floor of the
Associated Press rooms and gave them to Mr. Boynton, who sent them
over the wires.
April 9.--The United States Senate today voted down Eustis' motion
to refuse to admit Washington Territory unless the woman suffrage
clause were eliminated from its constitution, 25 to 12. Senator
Ingalls was the only Republican who voted with the enemy.
A few days later Miss Anthony received the following from Mrs. Caroline
E. Merrick, of New Orleans: "... I feel defrauded that I never knew you
until last year. Judge Merrick says you are the most sensible person he
ever met (without any sex qualifications, of course). Like you, I was
indignant at Mr. Eustis in regard to his course toward Washington
Territory. I was ashamed and blushed for my Louisiana senator that time.
Thanks for your sympathy in my illness. When my head lies low I pray
that you may find another and even better friend in my State, who will
come to the front in the cause of equal rights for women." An extract
from a letter of Rev. Olympia Brown to Mrs. Stanton shows how much the
old workers as well as the young depended upon Miss Anthony: "I wish to
inquire what has become of Susan? You know she is my North Star. I take
all my bearings from her, and when I lose sight of her I wander
helplessly, uncertain of my course."
The diary of April 30 says: "Heard Phoebe Couzins had been taken to Hot
Springs, terribly crippled with rheumatism. Wrote her at once and
enclosed $100, telling her I wanted it used to provide delicacies and
make her comfortable. I have thought it would be Phoebe whom I should
take with me on my southern tour next year, but I fear her work is
done."
[Illustration: Caroline E. Merrick (Signed: "I am thine ever faithfully
and affectionately Caroline E. Merrick")]
By the middle of May, 1886, the last bit of History proof was read, and
unlimited leave of absence was granted Miss Anthony by her publisher,
while the indexer and binder completed the work which was begun in 1876.
On the 19th she started for Kansas, stopping for the usual visit in
Chicago with her cousins. In Kansas she visited her brothers at
Leavenworth and Fort Scott for nearly two months, making an
occasional speech. On the morning of July 4, under the auspices of
the W. C. T. U., she addressed a large audience at Salina on, "The
powerlessness of woman so long as she is dependent on man for bread." In
the hot afternoon, as she was about to enjoy a nap, word came that a
hundred people had united in a request that she should speak again, as
they had come from ten to twenty miles on purpose to hear her; so she
returned to the grove, and Mrs. Griffith, State evangelist, kindly
yielded her hour. On July 11 Miss Anthony went again to Chicago, and on
the 14th spoke at Lake Bluff Camp Meeting, which was under the
management of Frances E. Willard. She then visited the summer homes of
her cousins and of Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, at Lake Geneva. On this
trip she was accompanied by her dearly-loved niece, Susie B., who went
with her to Rochester and spent the summer. The diary briefly records:
September 28.--Left Chicago at noon and lunched with Miss Willard
at Rest Cottage, Evanston. Her mother bright and charming at
eighty-two, and Anna Gordon sweet as ever. It was very good to see
Miss Willard under her own roof. Reached Racine in time for the
State convention, was met by a delegation of ladies and taken to
the home of Martha Parker Dingee, niece of the great Theodore
Parker, a lovely woman. Fine audiences.
October 2.--Reached St. Louis at 8 A. M. As I was looking for my
trunk I heard some one cry out, "Is that you, Susan?" and there
were Phoebe Couzins and her father. I had made my trip that way for
the special purpose of seeing her, expecting to find her confined
to the house; so I went home and breakfasted with them.
October 4.--Reached Leavenworth and found Mrs. Colby and Mrs. Saxon
ready to begin the campaign for arousing public sentiment to demand
a bill from the next legislature to secure Municipal suffrage for
women. Dr. Ruth M. Wood is the mainspring of the movement here.
This series of conventions was held in the congressional districts from
October 5 to November 3, Mrs. Laura M. Johns, manager, assisted by Mrs.
Anna C. Wait, president of the State Association, and by a number of
capable and energetic Kansas women at each place visited. Under date of
October 11, Miss Anthony wrote to eastern friends: "We are having the
loveliest weather you ever dreamed of and the most magnificent
audiences--no church or hall holding them. If our legislators, State or
national, could only see these gatherings and look into the earnest
faces of these people, coming so many miles in wagons to see and hear
and get fresh courage, they would surely answer our demands by something
else than silence." The press corroborated this description and the
following special dispatch may be taken as a fair specimen:
The seventh district convention, the third of the series, has just
closed in Lincoln, and was a beautiful ovation to Miss Anthony.
Crowded houses greeted her--every available foot of space filled
with chairs, window-sills utilized for seats, and conveyances drawn
up outside of windows and filled with listeners. People came
thirty, forty and fifty miles in buggies and wagons to shake hands
with the pioneer suffragist. Grizzly-headed opposers succumbed to
Miss Anthony's logic and came up to grasp her hand and say God
bless her, and proved the depth of their fervor by generous
financial aid to the cause she so ably represents. It is seldom
that the beginner of a great reform lives to see such fruitage of
her labors as does she. People often descant upon the indifference
of women to the question of their own enfranchisement and to
political matters generally; but there is serious doubt of greater
interest ever having been shown by men in political meetings than
women exhibit in these conventions....
On the evening of the second day the house was so densely packed
that a messenger for a glass of water had to go out through a
window. But in spite of all discomfort and the many standing, the
audience maintained perfect order and gave the utmost attention
throughout Miss Anthony's speech of two hours. Learning that she
would remain in Lincoln over Sunday the people importuned her to
speak that afternoon in the Presbyterian church, which she did to a
large audience.
The diary relates: "A mother brought her four-weeks-old girl baby
twenty-five miles in a carriage, so she might tell it, when grown, that
Susan B. Anthony had taken it in her arms. 'And the trip has not hurt
baby a particle,' she said brightly." And again it tells, with a good
deal of gusto, that one Baptist minister was determined the suffrage
speakers should not have his church and only yielded after several of
the richest pew-holders declared they never would pay another dollar
towards his salary if he did not. He then made his appearance at the
meeting, opened it with his blessing and closed it with his benediction!
Miss Anthony was not always able to speak to her own satisfaction. At
Salina she lectured for the Y. M. C. A. and writes: "I went to the
opera house and found a fine audience. Tried to give 'Moral Influence
vs. Political Power,' but the spirit wouldn't soar; its wings flapped on
the earth perpetually for the whole hour. I took my $25 from the
treasurer and went home with a heavy heart. It is beyond my knowledge
why, after speaking every day for a whole week, freely and decently, my
wits should desert me and my tongue be tied just at the time when I am
most anxious to do my best."
Two days' meetings were held at Abilene, Florence, Hutchinson, Wichita,
Anthony, Winfield, Independence, Lawrence and Fort Scott. The speakers
were entertained by prominent families, suffrage societies were formed
at each place, the vast majority of public sentiment seemed favorable,
and the collections paid all the expenses of the conventions.
In November and December a number of other speakers made a canvass of
the State, and the following winter the legislature passed a bill
conferring Municipal suffrage upon the women of Kansas. The bill was
introduced in the Senate by R. W. Blue (Rep.) of Linn county; and in the
House by T. T. Taylor (Rep.) of Reno county. It passed the Senate, 25
ayes, all Republicans; 13 noes, 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats; in the
House 90 ayes, 84 Republicans and 6 Democrats; 21 noes, 5 Republicans
and 16 Democrats. The bill was signed by Governor John A. Martin,
February 15, 1887; and under its provisions women in that State have
voted ever since at Municipal elections.[28]
Without a day's rest, Miss Anthony went direct from Kansas to Sandwich,
Ill., to attend the State convention. After three days there and a
Sunday in Chicago, Monday, November 8, found her at Racine, Wis., ready
to begin a tour of conventions in every congressional district. That
evening a reception was given her by Hon. and Mrs. M. B. Erskine, and
the hospitality of their handsome home was offered for every day which
she could spend in the city.
With Mrs. Colby and Rev. Olympia Brown, assisted by local speakers,
meetings were held at Waukesha, Ripon, Oshkosh, Green Bay, Grand Rapids,
Eau Claire, LaCrosse, Evansville, Milwaukee and Madison. At the last
place the ladies spoke in the Senate chamber of the State House to an
audience containing a number of dignitaries, among them President
Bascom, of the State University, and his wife, who from this time were
Miss Anthony's steadfast friends. Mrs. Colby gives a graphic description
of Miss Anthony's sudden outburst here, when several members had
exasperated her by their remarks, which closes: "I was writing at the
secretary's desk and as I looked up I realized the full grandeur of the
scene. It was woman standing at the bar of the nation, pleading for the
recognition of her citizenship. Miss Anthony seemed positively Titanic
as she leaned far over from the speaker's desk. Her tone and manner were
superb, and the vast and sympathetic audience caught the electric
thrill...." In this city she was the guest of an old schoolmate,
Elizabeth Ford Proudfit. The meetings closed December 3, and Miss
Anthony wrote Mrs. Spofford:
I intend now to make straight for Washington without a stop. I
shall come both ragged and dirty. Think of two solid months of
conventions, speaking every night! Don't worry about me. I was
never better or more full of hope and good work. Though the apparel
will be tattered and torn, the mind, the essence of me, is sound to
the core. Please tell the little milliner to have a bonnet picked
out for me, and get a dressmaker who will patch me together so I
shall be presentable. Now for the Washington convention: Before
settling upon the Universalist church, you would better pocket the
insults and refusals of the Congregational church powers that be
and send your most lovely and winning girls to ask for that. If you
can't get it or the Metropolitan or the Foundry or the New York
Avenue or any large and popular church, why take the Universalist,
and then tell the saints of the fashionable churches that we dwell
there because they refused us admission to their holy sanctuaries.
Don't let us go into the heterodox houses, much as I love them,
except because we are driven away from the orthodox.
In December the third volume of the History of Woman Suffrage at last
was ready for the public, another book of nearly 1,000 pages. It
completed the story up to 1884, and like its predecessors was cordially
received by the press. The money swallowed up by this work hardly will
be credited. Mrs. Stanton not being able or willing to revise the last
volume until it was put into proof slips, and then making extensive
changes, the cost for re-setting type was over $900. The fifty fine
steel engravings and the prints made from them cost over $6,000. For
proof reading $500 was paid, and for indexing, $250. Mrs. Stanton and
Mrs. Gage, seeing that there never would be any profits from the books
and that Miss Anthony proposed to give most of them away, sold out their
rights to her, the former for $2,000 and the latter for $1,000. She
also, as has been stated, bought out the interest of Fowler & Wells.
When the first edition of the three mammoth volumes finally came into
her sole possession, they represented an outlay on her part of $20,000.
While there were many criticisms from certain quarters as to various
errors and so-called misstatements, and many threats to write a history
which should be free from all imperfections, the fact remains that,
although fifty years have passed since the inception of the great
movement to secure equal rights for women, there never has been another
attempt to preserve the story. But for Miss Anthony's careful collecting
and saving of newspaper accounts, manuscripts of speeches, published
reports and the correspondence of half a century, her persistent and
determined effort for ten years to have them put into readable shape,
and Mrs. Stanton's fine ability to do it, the student never would have
been able to trace the evolution of woman from a chattel in the eye of
the law to a citizen with legal and social rights very nearly equal to
those of man. While there is necessarily some repetition, so long a time
elapsing between the writing of the different volumes, and perhaps a
little prolixity, there is not a dull page in the whole work and the
reader will find it difficult to reach a place where she is willing to
stop. It contains a resume of early conditions; the persecutions endured
by the pioneers in the struggle for freedom; the progress in each
separate State, and in foreign countries; the action taken by different
legislatures and congresses; the grand arguments made for equal rights;
the position of woman in church and State. Into whatever library the
student may go seeking information upon this question, it is to these
volumes he must look to find it in collected and connected form. If Miss
Anthony had done no other work but to produce this History, she would
deserve a prominent place on the list of immortal names.
It was necessary to put so high a price upon it, $15 a set in cloth and
$19.50 in leather binding, as to make a large sale impossible. Miss
Anthony did not undertake it as a money-making scheme, and when the
receipt of Mrs. Eddy's bequest enabled her to discharge all indebtedness
connected with it, she felt herself at liberty to use it as a most
valuable means of educating the people into an understanding of the
broad principle of equality of rights. At her own expense she placed the
History in over 1,000 of the libraries of Europe and America, including
the British Museum, the university libraries of Oxford, Edinburgh,
Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Finland, Melbourne, Toronto, and many of the
university and public libraries of the United States. The members of the
Senate and House Judiciary Committees in several Congresses were
presented with sets, and there are hundreds of letters on file from
prominent persons in England and this country acknowledging the receipt
of the books.
[Illustration: Autograph: "Faithfully yours, H B Anthony"]
Chapters might be made of commendatory letters received from officials,
writers, public workers and friends in private life. A few specimens
must suffice. A letter from Senator H. B. Anthony to his "dear cousin,"
closed by saying: "The three volumes form a valuable history of the
important enterprise in which you have borne so conspicuous and
honorable a part, and you have added to the reputation of the name that
we both bear."
Mary L. Booth, the gifted editor of Harper's Bazar, thus expressed her
opinion of the work:
You and your colleagues have industriously placed on record a
copious mass of documentary evidence which will be of the utmost
value when the time arrives to sum up the final results. When this
era comes, you will be foremost among the band of heroic pioneers
who have endured discomfort, obloquy and privation of much that is
dear to women for the sake of those who will profit by your labors
while failing to recognize them. Posterity will do you this
justice, whether your contemporaries do or not; but indeed, it is
universally known to those with any knowledge of the facts, that
among all the champions of women, none has been more distinguished
for utter self-abnegation, single-heartedness and devotion to her
life-work than Susan B. Anthony.
As you know, I have always felt the deepest interest in the
elevation of women, which is synonymous with that of humanity, for
man must be always on the plane of his wife, sister and mother....
The antagonism to political equality is rapidly disappearing, as it
is beginning to be recognized that in politics, as in everything
else, woman's help is needed, and the republic can not afford to
have her stand aloof. But this phase of the subject has been so
much misunderstood, both by men and women, that time is needed to
clear away the mists of misconception which envelop it; and to
prove that the co-operation of women in political life is not only
just and expedient, but absolutely indispensable to the public
weal.
[Illustration: Autograph: "I am now and always, Yours faithfully, Mary
L. Booth"]
No family in Rochester stood more steadfastly by Miss Anthony during all
her long and eventful life than the Wilders--Carter, Samuel, Mrs. Maria
Wilder Depuy and D. Webster. The last, in acknowledging the receipt of
the books, wrote: "How much you have contributed to history in this
grand publication! With woman as a part of humanity, what a revolution
will be wrought! Changes everywhere--in social life, in morals,
politics, business--and all for the better. In this world-revolution you
have done a great work. My children are proud of the fact that you are
my personal friend. I fully appreciate your gift. It will be a Bible in
my home." From the philanthropist, Sarah B. Cooper, revered for her work
in the kindergartens on the Pacific coast, came this tribute:
This book is the fruitage of all the years of your faith and work.
It tells of the long preparation--the opening up of the forest; the
blazing of the trail; the clearing of the underbrush; the deep
sub-soiling; the lying fallow; the ploughing, sowing, harrowing,
the patient tillage--and now comes the harvest. What courage,
endurance, fidelity and faith! The pioneers of new thoughts and
principles are the loneliest of mortals. Those who live ahead of
their time must wait for the honors and plaudits of posterity to
get their full meed of appreciation and reward. But after all,
dear, honored friend, the richest reward of such a life as yours is
_to have lived it_.
The History also was given to the libraries of those towns whose women
would raise a certain amount towards various State suffrage campaigns,
and in every possible way it always has been used for missionary
work.[29]
The first week in 1887, in most inclement weather and against the
protest of friends, Miss Anthony went all the way to Nebraska, to keep a
promise to Mrs. Colby and other women of that State to attend their
annual convention, January 7. She found a pleasant letter awaiting her
at Lincoln, from her old friend, Mary Rogers Kimball, daughter of the
noted Abolitionist, Nathaniel P. Rogers, and wife of the General
Passenger Agent of the Union Pacific R. R., now living at Omaha, which
closed: "How I wish you could come to us and rest a few days. Mr.
Kimball would welcome you, as would every one of this household. You
ought to make our home happy by coming once in a while.... Mother, who
is able to walk a little and is interested in all you do and say, sends
her love and hopes to see you." She spoke at Chicago, January 13, in the
First Methodist church, where she was introduced by the well-known Rev.
H. W. Thomas.[30] She went from there to the Michigan convention at
Lansing, January 14, and here was presented to the audience by Governor
Cyrus G. Luce.
She reached Washington January 17, 1887, and rushed the preparations for
the Nineteenth National Convention, which opened on the 25th at the
Metropolitan M. E. church. Zerelda G. Wallace gave a noteworthy address;
Senator Carey, of Wyoming, made an able speech and Mrs. Carey sat by
Miss Anthony during the proceedings. The second day of the convention,
January 26, marked a great epoch, the first vote ever taken in Congress
on a Sixteenth Amendment. The previous month, December 8, 1886, Henry W.
Blair had asked the Senate to consider the following joint resolution:
"The rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied
or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." He
supported this in a long and comprehensive speech covering the whole
ground on which the demand is based, quoting from the favorable reports
of the judiciary committees, exposing the weakness and fallacy of the
objections, and making an unanswerable argument on the justice of
granting political liberty to women.
At the urgent request of opposing senators the matter had been postponed
until January 25, when it was again called up by Mr. Blair. The
opposition was led by Joseph A. Brown, of Georgia, who described in
detail the intentions of the Creator when he made woman, and declared
that females had not the physical strength to perform military duty,
build railroads, raise crops, sit on juries or attend night caucuses,
but that God had endowed men with strength and faculties for all these
things. He stated that it was a grave mistake to say that woman is taxed
without being represented, and added, "It is very doubtful whether the
male or the female sex has more influence in the administration of the
affairs of government and the enactment of laws!" He asserted that "the
baser class of females would rush to the polls, and this would compel
the intelligent, virtuous and refined females, including wives and
mothers, to relinquish for a time their God-given trust and go, contrary
to their wishes, to the polls and vote to counteract the other class;"
and followed this by saying that "the ignorant female voters would be at
the polls en masse, while the refined and educated, shrinking from
public contact, would remain at home." He continued: "The ballot will
not protect females against the tyranny of bad husbands, as the latter
will compel them to vote as they dictate;" then in the next breath he
declared: "Wives will form political alliances antagonistic to the
husbands, and the result will be discord and divorce." In his entire
speech Senator Brown ignored the existence of unmarried women and
widows. He closed with copious extracts from "Letters from a Chimney
Corner," written by some Chicago woman.
Senator Dolph, of Oregon, followed in a clear, concise argument,
brushing away these sophistries by showing that such evils did not exist
where women were enfranchised and voted at every election. He was
interrupted by Senator Eustis, of Louisiana, who inquired whether he
thought "it would be a decent spectacle to take a mother away from her
nursing infant and lock her up all night with a jury?" Senator Dolph
replied that there was not a judge in the world who would not excuse a
woman under such circumstances, just as there were many causes which
exempted men. He continued:
Government is but organized society.... It can only derive its just
powers from the consent of the governed, and can be established
only under a fundamental law which is self-imposed. Every citizen
of suitable age and discretion has, in my judgment, a natural right
to participate in its formation. The fathers of the republic
enunciated the doctrine "that all men are created equal; that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." It
is strange that any one in this enlightened age should be found to
contend that this is true only of men, and that a man is endowed by
his Creator with inalienable rights not possessed by a woman. The
lamented Lincoln immortalized the expression that ours is a
government "of the people, by the people, and for the people," and
yet in reality it is far from that. There can be no government by
the people where half of them are allowed no voice in its
organization and control.... God speed the day when not only in all
the States of the Union and in all the Territories, but everywhere,
woman shall stand before the law freed from the last shackle which
has been riveted upon her by tyranny, and the last disability which
has been imposed upon her by ignorance; not only in respect to the
right of suffrage, but in every other respect the peer and equal of
her brother, man.
[Illustration: Autograph: "J N Dolph"]
Senator Vest, of Missouri, came to the rescue of Senator Brown and in
the course of his speech said:
I pity the man who can consider any question affecting the
influence of woman, with the cold, dry logic of business. What man
can, without aversion, turn from the blessed memory of that dear
old grandmother, or the gentle words and caressing hand of that
blessed mother gone to the unknown world, to face in its stead the
idea of a female justice of the peace or township constable? For my
part, I want when I go to my home--when I turn from the arena where
man contends with man for what we call the prizes of this paltry
world--I want to go back, not to be received in the masculine
embrace of some female ward politician, but to the earnest, loving
look and touch of a true woman. I want to go back to the
jurisdiction of the wife, the mother; and instead of a lecture upon
finance or the tariff, or upon the construction of the
Constitution, I want those blessed, loving details of domestic life
and domestic love.
I have said I would not speak of the inconveniences to arise from
woman suffrage. I care not whether the mother is called upon to
decide as a juryman, or a jurywoman, rights of property or rights
of life, whilst her baby is "mewling and puking" in solitary
confinement at home. There are other considerations more important,
and one of them to my mind is insuperable. I speak now respecting
women as a sex. I believe that they are better than men, but I do
not believe they are adapted to the political work of this world. I
do not believe that the Great Intelligence ever intended them to
invade the sphere of work given to men, tearing down and destroying
all the best influences for which God has intended them. The great
evil in this country today is emotional suffrage. Women are
essentially emotional. What we want in this country is to avoid
emotional suffrage, and what we need is to put more logic into
public affairs and less feeling.[31]
He presented a remonstrance against giving the ballot to women, signed
by nearly 200 New England men, headed by President Eliot, of Harvard
University, and including nearly fifty names prefixed by "Rev." He next
drew from his budget a letter from Clara T. Leonard, of Boston, praying
that the suffrage should not be granted to women, and Mr. Hoar remarked
that the lady herself had been holding public office for a number of
years.
Continuing Senator Vest said: "If we are to tear down all the blessed
traditions, if we are to desolate our homes and firesides, if we are to
unsex our mothers, wives and sisters, and turn our blessed temples of
domestic peace into ward political assembly rooms, pass this joint
resolution!" He now produced a document, entitled "The Law of Woman
Life," and said: "This is signed Adeline D. T. Whitney--I can not say
whether she be wife or mother. It contains not one impure or
unintellectual aspiration. Would to God that I knew her so I could thank
her in behalf of the society and politics of the United States. I shall
ask that it be printed, as my strength does not suffice for me to read
it."[32] It proved to be a long and involved essay begging that the
ballot should not be given to women, and saying: "Are the daughters and
granddaughters about to leap the fence, leave their own realm little
cared for, undertake the whole scheme of outside creation, or contest it
with the men? Then God help the men! God save the commonwealth!" Mr.
Vest concluded with a blood-curdling picture of the French Revolution
which would be repeated in this country if women were enfranchised.
Senator Blair then offered the appeal of the W. C. T. U. for the ballot,
representing over 200,000 women, presented by Zerelda G. Wallace, who
had reared thirteen children and grandchildren, among them the author
of Ben Hur. He submitted also the matchless arguments which had been
made by the most intellectual women of the nation before the
congressional committees from year to year, including that of Miss
Anthony in 1880, and urged that the question should be submitted to the
legislatures of the various States for settlement.
The vote was taken on the question of submitting a Sixteenth Amendment
to the Constitution to the State legislatures for ratification, and
resulted in 16 yeas and 34 nays, 26 absent.[33] Of the affirmative
votes, all were Republican; of the negative, 24 Democratic and 10
Republican. Senator Farwell, of Illinois, was roundly denounced by the
Chicago Tribune for his affirmative vote. Senators Chace, Dawes and
Stanford, who were paired, and Plumb, who was absent, announced publicly
that they would have voted "aye."
Over fifty of the distinguished women in attendance at the convention
were in the Senate gallery during this debate. The most sanguine of them
had not expected the necessary two-thirds, but had worked to obtain a
vote simply for the prestige of a discussion in the Senate, the printing
of the speeches in the Congressional Record and the wide agitation of
the question through the medium of press and platform which was sure to
follow. They felt especially incensed at Senator Ingalls, as the
sentiment of his State had just shown itself to be overwhelmingly in
favor of woman suffrage, and they did not hesitate to score him in
public and in private. As soon as the news of the vote reached the
convention Miss Anthony roundly denounced him from the platform. In the
evening she received a note from him saying: "Will you do me the favor
to designate an hour at which it would be convenient for you to give me
a brief interview?" She did not answer, and on the 31st she received
another: "I called Thursday and Friday mornings, but was not able to
reach you with my card. My errand was personal and I hope I may be more
fortunate when you are again in the city." When she did see him she
found his purpose was to declare a truce, which she declined, as he
already had done the cause all the harm possible for him.
From Washington Miss Anthony went to assist at a convention in
Philadelphia, and "felt guilty for days," she says in her diary, because
she refused to go on to Connecticut. She enjoyed a brief visit with
Professor Maria Mitchell at Vassar College; and hastened to Albany to
address the legislature in regard to the Constitutional Convention,
"just as I did twenty years ago in the old Capitol," she writes. Then
back to Washington to look after matters there, and thus on and on,
never allowing herself to be delayed by weather, fatigue or social
demands, month after month, year after year, with but one object in
view, never losing sight of it for a moment, and making all else
subservient to this single purpose.
In April she was terribly distressed at the malicious falsehoods which
were sent out from Leavenworth in regard to the first voting of the
women in Kansas, and says, "It will take oceans of breath and ink to
counteract the baneful effects." On May 11, 1887, Frances E. Willard
wrote her: "Will you please send me the form of resolution which would
be the least that would satisfy you as a plank in the platform of the
Prohibition party, or as a resolution to be adopted by the W. C. T. U.?
I write this without authorization from any quarter, simply because I
would like to find out what is the angle of vision along which you are
looking." To this Miss Anthony replied:
What is the full significance of "would satisfy you?" Do you mean
so satisfy me that I would work, and recommend all women to work,
for the success of the Third party ticket? Or do you mean the least
that I think it should say for its own sake? If the first, I am not
sure that the fullest endorsement would cause me to throw all my
sympathies and efforts into line with the Prohibition party, any
more than if the same full suffrage plank should be put into the
platform of the great Labor or Fourth party, which is pretty sure
to take part in the presidential contest of 1888.
I can not answer for others, but I shall not pray or speak or work
for the defeat of the nominees of the party of which every United
States Senator who voted for us last winter is a leading member,
and to which belongs every man but six in the Kansas Legislature
who made the overwhelming vote giving municipal suffrage to the
women of that State. Not until a third party gets into power or is
likely to do so, which promises a larger per cent. of
representatives on the floor of Congress and in the several State
legislatures who will speak and vote for woman's enfranchisement,
than does the Republican, shall I work for it. You see, as yet
there is not a single Prohibitionist in Congress, while there are
at least twenty Republicans on the floor of the United States
Senate, besides fully one-half of the members of the House of
Representatives, who are in favor of woman suffrage. For the women
of Kansas or Iowa to work for any third party would be ungrateful
and suicidal.
Since I hope to live to see a Sixteenth Amendment Bill through
Congress and three-fourths of the State legislatures, I do not
propose to work for the defeat of the party which thus far has
furnished nearly every vote in that direction. If you will pardon
me, I think it will be quite as suicidal a policy for the
temperance women of the nation to work to defeat the party which
contains so nearly all of their best friends and helpers. What it
seems to me should be done by all women who want reforms in
legislation, is to appoint committees to confer with leading
Republicans asking them to make pledges in the direction of
suffrage and temperance, with the assurance of our support in case
of the insertion of the planks we ask in their platform. I fear,
however, you are already pledged to the Third party, come what may,
and if so it is of no use for me to advise.[34]
In May Miss Anthony again journeyed westward, though she says in her
diary: "It never was harder for me to start. A heavy nothingness is upon
head and heart." She went first to the State Suffrage Convention at
Indianapolis, where as usual she was a guest in the beautiful home of
Mr. and Mrs. Sewall. A reception was given her at the Bates House and
she was cordially greeted by several hundred ladies. She went to
meetings at Evansville, Richmond and Lafayette, and then to the Ohio
convention at Cleveland; here, as always, the guest of her loved friend,
Louisa Southworth.
She writes May 26: "Arrived home at 8 P. M. and found all well--the all
consisting of sister Mary, the only one left." She was invited to meet
with a large and conservative society of women who did not believe in
equal suffrage. All made nice little addresses and when Miss Anthony was
called on she said: "Ladies, you have been doing here today what I and
a few other women were denounced as 'unsexed' for doing thirty years
ago--speaking in public;" and then proceeded to point the moral. She
attended the commencement exercises of a young ladies' seminary, whose
principal would not acknowledge a handsome gift from her pupils by a few
remarks because she "considered it would look too strong-minded." Miss
Anthony comments on the graduates' essays: "They had as much originality
as Baedecker's Guide-book."
In July she went as the guest of her friend Adeline Thomson, of
Philadelphia, for two weeks at Cape May and here had her first
experience in sea-bathing, although she always had lived within a short
distance of the ocean. She says: "This is my first seaside dissipation.
It seems very odd to be one of the giddy summer resort people!" She took
Miss Thomson with her up into the Berkshire hills of northwestern
Massachusetts to Adams, her birthplace, and visited the home of her
grandfather. In the early days of her peregrinations she used to come
often to this picturesque spot, but it now had been twenty years since
her last visit. Time does not bring many changes to the New England
nooks or the people who live in them, and she greatly enjoyed the nine
days spent with uncles, aunts and cousins, exploring the well-remembered
spots. They went from here to Magnolia for a two weeks' visit at the
seaside cottage of Mr. and Mrs. James Purinton, of Lynn, Mass. At this
time, in answer to a request for advice, Miss Anthony wrote to Olympia
Brown and Mrs. Almedia Gray, of Wisconsin:
I have your letters relative to bringing suits under the school
suffrage law, and hasten to say to you that Mrs. Minor's and my own
experience in both suing and being sued on the Fourteenth Amendment
claim leads me to beseech you not to make a test case unless you
_know_ you will get the broadest decision upon it. If you get the
narrow one restricting the present law simply to school-district
voting, there it will rest and no judge or inspector will transcend
the limit of the decision. My judgment would be to say and do
nothing about the law, but through the year keep up the educational
work, showing that such and such cities allowed women to vote for
mayor, common council, etc., and by the next election many others
will let women vote; and so in a few years all will follow suit.
Let what you have alone and try for more; for all your legislature
has power to give. It will be vastly more likely to grant municipal
suffrage than your supreme court will be to give a decision that
the school law already allows women to vote for mayor, council,
governor, etc.
They thought best, however, to bring the suits; the exact results which
were predicted followed, and the school suffrage even was restricted
until it was practically worthless.
During this summer Miss Anthony undertook to arrange her many years'
accumulation of letters, clippings, etc., and knowing her reluctance
ever to destroy a single scrap, Mrs. Stanton wrote from Paris: "I am
glad to hear that you have at last settled down to look over those awful
papers. It is well I am not with you. I fear we should fight every
blessed minute over the destruction of Tom, Dick and Harry's epistles.
Unless Mary, on the sly, sticks them in the stove when your back is
turned, you will never diminish the pile during your mortal life. (Make
the most of my hint, dear Mary.)" It is safe to say it was just as large
at the end of the examination as at the beginning.
In September, 1887, Miss Anthony again made a circuit of conventions in
every congressional district in Wisconsin and then turned her attention
to Kansas. The officers of the State association had arranged a series
of conventions for the purpose of demanding a constitutional amendment
conferring _full_ suffrage on women. Miss Anthony, with Mrs. Johns, Mrs.
Letitia V. Watkins, State organizer, Rev. Anna Shaw and Rachel Foster,
gave the month of October to this canvass. Senator Ingalls, in a speech
at Abilene, had attempted to defend his vote in the Senate against the
Sixteenth Amendment, and Miss Anthony took this as a text for the
campaign. She had ample material for the excoriating which she gave him
in every district in Kansas, as the Senator had declared: 1st, that
suffrage was neither a natural nor a constitutional right, but a
privilege conferred by the State; 2d, that no citizens should be allowed
to participate in the formation of legislatures or the enactment of
laws, who could not enforce their action at the point of a bayonet; 3d,
that no immigrants should be allowed to enter the United States from any
country on earth for the next twenty-five years; 4th, that negro
suffrage had been an absolute and unqualified failure; 5th, that while
there were thousands of women vastly more competent than men to vote
upon questions of morality, they never should be allowed to do
so--simply because they were women.
It hardly need be said that Miss Anthony found little difficulty in
reducing to tatters these so-called arguments, and that her audiences
were in hearty sympathy. To borrow her own expression, she "tried to use
him up so there was not an inch of ground under his feet." When the
convention was held at Atchison Mrs. Ingalls invited sixteen of the
ladies to a handsome luncheon, where the senator placed Miss Anthony at
his right hand and made her the guest of honor. She proposed that he
debate the question of woman suffrage with her but he refused on the
ground that he could not attack a woman, so she served up this objection
in her speech that evening. To a reporter he is said to have given the
reason that he "would not stoop to the intellectual level of a woman."
The month of November was given to holding a two days' convention in
each of the thirteen congressional districts of Indiana. These meetings
were arranged by the State secretary, Mrs. Ida H. Harper, and the strong
force of speakers, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Wallace, Mrs. Sewall and Mrs.
Gougar, aroused great enthusiasm and made many converts.[35] This ended
three months of constant travelling and speaking almost every day and
evening. On the first of December Miss Anthony writes: "I have laid me
down to sleep in a new bed nearly every night of this entire time."
But the 10th found her in Washington fresh and vigorous for the work of
the coming winter. She was anxious to know whether the reports of the
Senate debate had been franked and sent out as promised and, to her
inquiry, Senator Blair answered with his usual little joke: "I have had
the speeches, etc., attended to and trust that the mails will do you
justice if the males do not. But remember that men naturally fight for
their lives, and on the same principle, you shall for yours!"
FOOTNOTES:
[28] Miss Anthony notes in her diary that she made her first Kansas
campaign in '67 and the suffrage bill was signed on her sixty-seventh
birthday. She received a letter of congratulation on the signing of the
bill from Chief-Justice Horton, of Kansas.
[29] The total amount received from sales has been only $7,000. Now,
however, in order to give the History the widest possible circulation,
the price has been so reduced as to enable it to be placed in the hands
of the reading public. It is the hope of Miss Anthony to publish the
fourth volume in the year 1900, bringing the History up to that date.
[30] At this meeting a yellow dog came on the platform and Miss Anthony
is quoted as afterwards making this apt comment: "She says that, at
least where women are concerned, the reporters are sure to seize upon
some triviality and ring its changes to the exclusion of serious
matters. She mentioned that when she spoke in Chicago last a dog ran
across the stage and, springing up, laid his nose on her shoulder. 'I
prophesied to the audience then,' she continued, 'that the dog would
figure in the press reports more conspicuously than anything that was
said or done, and so he did. He occupied half of the space in nearly
every paper.'"
[31] Both Senator Vest and Senator Brown had appealed wholly to the
emotions in their speeches upon this question, which were overflowing
with sentiment and "gush."
[32] This hardly corresponds with Senator Brown's glowing description of
the physical strength conferred by the Creator on man so that he could
do the voting for the family.
[33] _Yeas_: Blair, Bowen, Cheney, Conger, Cullom, Dolph, Farwell, Hoar,
Manderson, Mitchell of Oregon, Mitchell of Pennsylvania, Palmer, Platt,
Sherman, Teller, Wilson of Iowa. _Nays_: Beck, Berry, Blackburn, Brown,
Call, Cockrell, Coke, Colquitt, Eustis, Evarts, George, Gray, Hampton,
Harris, Hawley, Ingalls, Jones of Nevada, McMillan, McPherson, Mahone,
Morgan, Morrill, Payne, Pugh, Saulsbury, Sawyer, Sewell, Spooner, Vance,
Vest, Walthall, Whitthorne, Williams, Wilson of Maryland. _Absent_:
Aldrich, Allison, Butler, Frye, Gibson, Gorman, Miller, Plumb, Ransom,
Camden, Cameron, Chace, Dawes, Edmunds, Fair, Hale, Harrison, Jones of
Arkansas, Jones of Florida, Kenna, Maxey, Riddleberger, Sabin, Stanford,
Van Wyck, Voorhees.
[34] The skeptical can not but wonder whether the Republican party ever
will have the grace and wisdom to justify the confidence which Miss
Anthony has steadfastly placed in it, as regards this question, from the
day of its birth.
[35] Conventions were held at Evansville, Vincennes, Bloomington,
Kokomo, Logansport, Wabash, Lafayette, South Bend, Fort Wayne, Muncie,
Anderson, Madison and New Albany. The largest of the series was at Terre
Haute, where the opera house, donated by the citizens, was crowded both
evenings with an audience representing the culture and intelligence of
the city, and the convention was welcomed by the mayor, Jacob C.
Kolsom.