AT THE END OF SEVENTY YEARS.
1890.
Miss Anthony received New Year's calls in the Red Parlor of the Riggs
House, January 1, 1890, entertained a party of friends at dinner in the
evening, and had the usual number of pleasant gifts and loving letters.
While busy with preparations for the national convention, she learned of
the project to celebrate her seventieth birthday on February 15.
Supposing it to be simply a tribute from her friends, like the
observance of her fiftieth anniversary twenty years before in New York,
she was pleased at the compliment, but after the arrangements were
commenced she learned that it was to take the form of an elegant banquet
at the Riggs and tickets were to be sold at $4 each. Her feelings were
expressed in a letter to May Wright Sewall and Rachel Foster Avery, who
had the matter in charge:
I write in utter consternation, hoping it is not too late to recall
every notice sent for publication. I never dreamed of your doing
other than issuing pretty little private invitations signed by Mrs.
Stanton and yourselves as officers of the National Association. If
its official board is too far dissolved for this, please let the
whole matter drop, and I will invite a few special friends to sup
with me on my birthday. I know Mr. and Mrs. Spofford would love to
unite with you in a personal entertainment of this kind. I may be
wrong as to the bad taste of issuing a notice, just like a public
meeting, and letting those purchase tickets who wish; but it seems
to me the very persons least desired by us may be the first to buy
them. I should be proud of a banquet with invited guests who would
make it an honor, but with such persons as will pay $5, more or
less, it resolves itself into a mere matter of cash. I would vastly
prefer to ask those we wanted and foot the entire bill myself.
Mrs. Sewall wrote at once to Mrs. Avery, "This letter strikes dismay to
my soul. I will share with you the expense of the banquet." In a day or
two Miss Anthony's heart smote her and she wrote again: "I have blown my
bugle blast and I know I have wounded your dear souls, but I can not see
the plan a bit prettier than I did at first. I may be very stupid or
supersensitive. If it were to honor Mrs. Stanton, I would be willing to
charge for tickets." And then a few days later: "Have I killed you
outright? I can not tell you how much I have suffered because I can not
see this as you do, but I would rather never have a mention of my
birthday than to have it in that way. I know you meant it all lovely for
me, but you did not look at it outside your own dear hearts. Do tell me
that I have not alienated the two best-beloved of all my girls."
They finally effected a compromise on the money feature by sending out
handsomely engraved invitations to those whom they wished as guests and
letting them pay $4 a plate if they came. Although they proved to Miss
Anthony that this always was done in such cases, she assented very
unwillingly, and begged that they would ask the friends to contribute $4
apiece to the fund for South Dakota instead of the birthday banquet.
Finally, when all her scruples had been overcome, she made out so long a
list of people whom she wished to have complimentary invitations that
they would have filled every seat in the dining hall. She also was so
anxious that no one should be slighted in a chance to speak that Mrs.
Avery wrote: "The banquet would have to last through eternity to hear
all those Miss Anthony thinks ought to be heard."
On the evening of the birthday over 200 of her distinguished friends
were seated in the great dining-room of the Riggs House, including a
delegation from Rochester and a number of relatives from Leavenworth,
Chicago, New York and Philadelphia. Miss Anthony occupied the place of
honor, on her right hand were Senator Blair and Mrs. Stanton; on her
left, Robert Purvis, Isabella Beecher Hooker and May Wright Sewall.
(Mrs. Foster Avery was detained at home.) The room was beautifully
decorated and the repast elaborate, but with such an array of intellect,
the after-dinner speeches were the distinguishing feature of the
occasion. The Washington Star, in a long account, said:
A company of the most remarkable women in the world were assembled.
As she sat there, surrounded by the skirted knights of her long
crusade, Miss Anthony looked no older than fifty, but she had got a
good start into her seventy-first year before the dinner ended. May
Wright Sewall presided. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, that venerable and
beautiful old stateswoman, sat at the right of Senator Blair,
looking as if she should be the Lord Chief-Justice, with her white
hair puffed all over her head, and her amiable and intellectual
face marked with the lines of wisdom. Isabella Beecher Hooker, who
reminds one of her great brother, with the stamp of genius on her
brow and an energy of intellect expressed upon her face, sat at the
left of Miss Anthony. Old John Hutchinson, the last of the famous
singing family, his white hair and beard forming a fringe about his
shoulders; Clara Barton, her breast sparkling with Red Cross
medals; and many other women of wide fame were present. Before the
banquet the guests assembled in the Red Parlor of the Riggs, where
a levee was held and congratulations were offered. It was after 10
o'clock when the line was formed and the guests marched down to the
dining-room, Miss Anthony, on the arm of Senator Blair, leading the
way.
The correspondent of the New York Sun said in a brilliant description:
"The dining-room was a splendid scene, long to be remembered. The
American flag was everywhere and, with tropical flowers and foliage,
made bright decorations.... It was a notable gathering of women
world-wide in fame, and of distinguished men. The lady with a
birthday--seventy of them indeed--was of course the star on which all
others gazed. She never looked better, never happier, and never so much
like breaking down before her feelings. No wonder, with such a birthday
party! Friends of her youth calling her 'Susan,' affectionate deference
from everybody, and all saying she deserved a thousand just such
birthdays--young in heart, beautiful in spirit."
Phoebe Couzins replied to the toast "St. Susan," making a witty contrast
between the austere St. Anthony of old and the St. Anthony of today,
representing self-abnegation for the good, the beautiful, the true. Rev.
Anna Shaw made a delightfully humorous response to "The Modern
Peripatetic," referring to the ancient philosopher who had founded the
school of men, and Miss Anthony who had founded the modern school of
women peripatetics, ready to grab their grips and start around the world
at a moment's notice. Matilda Joslyn Gage responded to "Miss Anthony as
a Fellow-worker;" Clara Bewick Colby to "Miss Anthony as a Journalist;"
Laura Ormiston Chant, of England, to "American Womanhood;" Mrs. Jane
Marsh Parker, sent by the Ignorance Club of Rochester, to "Miss Anthony
at Home," beginning: "To have brought to Miss Anthony all the
testimonials which Rochester would have laid at her feet tonight would
have made me appear at the banquet like the modern Santa Claus--the
postman at Christmastide." Rev. Frederick W. Hinckley, of Providence,
began his graceful address by saying:
King Arthur, sword in hand, is not at the head of the table, but
Queen Susan is, the silver crown of seventy honorable years upon
her brow; and we gather here from every quarter of the Union,
little knights and great knights, without distinction of sex, to
take anew at her hands the oath of loyal service to the cause of
universal liberty. Those of us who have followed her through all
these years know that she has been a knight without reproach, that
her head has been level and her heart true. Faithful to the cause
of her sex, she has been broad enough to grasp great general
principles. She has been not only an advocate of equal rights, but
the prophet of humanity; and a better advocate of equal rights
because a prophet of humanity. There never has been a time when
Whittier's lines concerning Sumner would not have been applicable
to her:
"Wherever wrong doth right deny,
Or suffering spirits urge their plea,
Here is a voice to smite the lie,
A hand to set the captive free."
Nineteenth century chivalry renders all honor to that type of
womanhood of which she is an illustrious example.
Robert Purvis eloquently referred to Miss Anthony's grand work for the
abolition of slavery, which, he said, was still continued in the vaster
and more complicated work for the freedom of women. Mrs. Stanton's two
daughters, Mrs. Lawrence and Mrs. Blatch, made sparkling responses.
Representative J. A. Pickler said in part:
Five years since, when a member of the Dakota legislature and in
charge of the bill giving full suffrage to women, I was
characterized in the public press as "Susan B. Pickler." I look
upon this as one of the greatest honors ever bestowed upon me. I
have never learned how Miss Anthony regarded it....
Unswerved by the shafts of ridicule, without love of gain, she has
sublimely borne through all these years ridicule and reproach for
principle, for humanity, for womanhood. The soldier battles amid
the plaudits of his countrymen, the statesman supported by his
party, the clergyman sanctioned by his church, but alone, this
great woman has stood for half a century, contending for the rights
of women. Says Professor Swing: "Mark any life pervaded by a worthy
plan, and how beautiful it is! Webster, Gladstone, Sumner,
Disraeli; fifty years were these temples in the building!" How
aptly these words describe our great advocate of woman. Gratifying
it must be to Susan B. Anthony; gratifying, we bear witness, it is
to her friends, that in her maturer years we see this cause, long
hated by others but by her always loved, now respected by all; and
herself, its representative and exponent, revered, loved and
honored by a whole nation.
The main address was made by Mrs. Stanton, who responded to the
sentiment "The Friendships of Women," in an oration full of humor, and
closed:
If there is one part of my life which gives me more intense
satisfaction than another, it is my friendship of more than forty
years' standing with Susan B. Anthony. Ours has been a friendship
of hard work and self-denial.... Emerson says, "It is better to be
a thorn in the side of your friend than his echo." If this add
weight and stability to friendship, then ours will endure forever,
for we have indeed been thorns in the side of each other. Sub rosa,
dear friends, I have had no peace for forty years, since the day we
started together on the suffrage expedition in search of woman's
place in the National Constitution. She has kept me on the war-path
at the point of the bayonet so long that I have often wished my
untiring coadjutor might, like Elijah, be translated a few years
before I was summoned, that I might spend the sunset of my life in
some quiet chimney-corner and lag superfluous on the stage no
longer.
After giving up all hope of her sweet repose in Abraham's bosom, I
sailed some years ago for Europe. With an ocean between us I said,
now I shall enjoy a course of light reading. I shall visit all the
wonders of the old world, and write no more calls, resolutions or
speeches for conventions--when lo! one day I met Susan face to face
in the streets of London with a new light in her eyes. Behold there
were more worlds to conquer. She had decided on an international
council in Washington, so I had to return with her to the scenes of
our conflict.... Well, I prefer a tyrant of my own sex, so I shall
not deny the patent fact of my subjection; for I do believe that I
have developed into much more of a woman under her jurisdiction,
fed on statute laws and constitutional amendments, than if left to
myself reading novels in an easy-chair, lost in sweet reveries of
the golden age to come without any effort of my own.
As Mrs. Stanton concluded, "The Guest of the Evening" was announced and,
amidst long continued applause and waving of handkerchiefs, Miss Anthony
arose and made one of those little speeches that never can be reported,
in which she said:
I have been half inclined while listening here to believe that I
had passed on to the beyond. If there is one thing I hope for more
than another, it is that, should I stay on this planet thirty years
longer, I still may be worthy of the wonderful respect you have
manifested for me tonight. The one thought I wish to express is how
little my friend or I could have accomplished alone. What she said
is true; I have been a thorn in her side and in that of her family
too, I fear. I never expect to know any joy in this world equal to
that of going up and down the land, getting good editorials
written, engaging halls, and circulating Mrs. Stanton's speeches.
If I ever have had any inspiration she has given it to me, for I
never could have done my work if I had not had this woman at my
right hand. If I had had a husband and children, or opposition in
my own home, I never could have done it. My father and mother, my
brothers and sisters, those who are gone and those who are left,
all have been a help to me. How much depends on the sympathy and
co-operation of those about us! It is not necessary for all to go
to the front. Every woman presiding over her table in the homes
where I have been, has helped sustain me, I wish they could know
how much.
Poems were read or sent by Harriet Hosmer, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert,
Alice Williams Brotherton and a number of others. At the close of Mrs.
Hooker's verses entitled "Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot?" the
entire company arose and sang two stanzas of "Auld Lang Syne," led by
the venerable John Hutchinson. From the many letters received only a few
extracts can be given:
Allow me to congratulate you on your safe arrival at the age of
threescore and ten. How much we may congratulate ourselves on the
great gains that have come to woman during these years; gains for
which you have worked so hard and so long! Hoping that you may
still be on this planet when the ballot is the sure possession of
our sex, I am very truly your co-worker,
LUCY STONE.
None can more heartily congratulate thee on thy threescore and ten
years nobly devoted to the welfare of humanity, to unremitting
labor for temperance, for the abolition of slavery and for equal
rights of citizenship, irrespective of sex or color. We have lived
to see the end of slavery, and I hope thou wilt live to see
prohibition enforced in every State in the Union, and sex no longer
the condition of citizenship. God bless thee and give thee many
more years made happy by works of love and duty. I am truly thy
friend,
JOHN G. WHITTIER.
[Illustration: Autograph: "John G Whittier"]
My heart honors, loves and blesses you. Every woman's would if she
only knew you. You'll have a statue some day in the Capitol at
Washington, but your best monument is built already in your
countrywomen's hearts. God bless you, brave and steadfast elder
sister! Accept this as the only valentine I ever wrote. May you
live a hundred years and vote the last twenty-five, is the wish and
prediction of your loyal sister,
FRANCES E. WILLARD.
Miss Anthony's sole and effective fidelity to the cause of the
equal rights of her sex is worthy of the highest honor, and I know
that it will be eloquently and fitly acknowledged at the dinner,
which I trust will be in every way successful. Very respectfully
yours,
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
It is a grief to me that I can not be present to honor the birthday
of our dear Susan B. Anthony; long life to her! I should have been
delighted to respond to the toast proposed, and to bear my
heartfelt tribute of respect and love for the true and unselfish
reformer, to whom women are no more indebted than are men. "Time
shall embalm and magnify her name." Very sincerely yours,
WM. LLOYD GARRISON.
I know her great earnestness in every righteous cause, especially
that most righteous of all, woman suffrage, which I hope may
receive a new impulse from your gathering. As I grow older I feel
assured, year by year, that the granting of suffrage to women will
remedy many evils which now are attendant on popular government;
and if we are to despair of that cause we must despair of the final
establishment of justice as the controlling power in the political
affairs of mankind. I am faithfully yours,
GEORGE F. HOAR.
[Illustration: Autograph: "Yours Sincerely, T B Reed"]
I can not venture to promise to be present at the dinner to be
given to Miss Anthony, but I should be sorry to lose an opportunity
to express my admiration of her life and character. In themselves
they are ample refutation of the charges made by the unthinking
that participation in public affairs would make women unwomanly. If
any system of subjection has enabled any woman to preserve more
thoroughly the respect and affectionate regard of all her friends
than has Miss Anthony amid the struggles of an active and
strenuous life I have yet to learn of it. With sincere hope that
she may have many years still left to her, I am yours sincerely,
THOMAS B. REED.
I think I express the feeling of most if not all the workers in our
cause when I say that the women of America owe more to Susan B.
Anthony than to any other woman living. While Mrs. Stanton has been
the standard bearer of liberty, announcing great principles, Miss
Anthony has been the power which has carried those principles on
toward victory and impressed them upon the hearts of the people.
Yours truly,
OLYMPIA BROWN.
May you live many years longer to enjoy the results of your
herculean work, and score as many triumphs in the future as you
have in the past. On the morning of the 15th some flowers will be
sent you with my love. I wish they were as imperishable as your
name and fame. Affectionately,
MRS. JOHN A. LOGAN.
[Illustration: Autograph: "Affectionately, Mrs. John A Logan"]
How good to have lived through the laugh of the world into its
smiles of welcome and honor--how much better to have reached these
with a heart gentle and humble like hers--how best of all to care,
as she must, scarce a rush for the personal honor and accept it
only as an honor to the cause for which she has given so many of
the seventy years. Truly yours,
W. C. AND MARY LEWIS GANNETT.
With the hope that you may live to one hundred or until, like
ancient Simeon, you behold what you hope for, I am yours very
truly,
T. W. PALMER.
My wife and I send you our hearty congratulations on your birthday.
May you have many happy returns of the day, with increasing honor
and affection from your numerous friends, amongst whom we hope you
will let us count ourselves. Yours very truly,
CHARLES NORDHOFF.
I congratulate you with all my heart upon your health and happiness
on this your seventieth birthday, and wish to say that I believe no
woman lives in the United States who has done more for her sex, and
for ours as well, than yourself. The great advancement of women,
not alone in the direction of suffrage, but in every field of labor
and every department of the better and nobler life of manhood and
womanhood, during the past generation, has sprung from the work
which you inaugurated years ago. Mrs. Carpenter joins me in
congratulations and good wishes. Very truly yours,
FRANK G. CARPENTER.
Cordial greetings were received from Neal Dow and Senator Dawes, and
letters and telegrams came from distinguished individuals and societies
in every State and from many foreign countries. Over 200 of these are
preserved among other mementoes of this occasion. Among the telegrams
were these, representing the great labor organization of the country:
We congratulate you on the seventieth anniversary of a useful and
successful life. May you enjoy many years of health and happiness.
HANNAH POWDERLY, T. V. POWDERLY.
May your noble, self-sacrificing life be spared to participate in
your heart's dearest wish--woman's full emancipation.
LEONORA M. BARRY, _Grand Organizer K. of L._
[Illustration: Autograph: "Faithfully yours, Clara Bewick Colby."]
Mrs. Colby issued a birthday edition of the Woman's Tribune containing a
history of Miss Anthony's trial, a fine biographical sketch written by
herself and many beautiful tributes from other friends, among them this
from Laura M. Johns: "Always to efface herself and her own interests and
to put the cause to the fore; to be striving to place a crown upon some
other brow; to be receiving and giving, but never retaining; ever
enriching the work but never herself; to be busy through weariness and
difficulty and resting only in a change of labor; to bear the stinging
hail of ridicule which fell on this movement, and to receive with
surprised tears the flowers that bloomed in her thorny path; to be in
the heat of the noonday harvest field at seventy, with years of activity
and usefulness still remaining to add to her glorious life and crown it
with such dignity as belongs to few--this is the story of Susan B.
Anthony."
Miss Anthony carried in her arms seventy pink carnations with the card,
"For she's the pink o' womankind and blooms without a peer," from Miss
Cummings, of Washington. Flowers were sent in profusion, and there was
no end of lovely little remembrances of jewelry, water colors, books,
portfolios, card cases, handkerchiefs, fans, satin souvenirs,
fancy-work, the gifts of loving women in all parts of the country.[53]
The evening was one of the proudest and happiest of a life which,
although filled with toil and hardship, had been brightened, as had that
of few other women, with the bountiful tributes and testimonials not
only of personal friends but of people in all parts of the world who
knew of her only through her work for humanity. The next day she sat
down to Sunday dinner at a table which, thanks to Mrs. Spofford's
thoughtfulness, had been arranged especially for the occasion,
surrounded by twenty-five of her own relatives who had come to
Washington to celebrate her birthday.
Among many newspaper editorials upon this celebration, an extract from
the Boston Traveller, which bears the impress of the gifted Lilian
Whiting, may be taken as an example of the general sentiment:
Without any special relay of theories on the subject, Miss Susan B.
Anthony discovered early in life the secret of imperishable youth
and constantly increasing happiness--a secret that may be
translated as personal devotion to a noble purpose. To devote one's
self to something higher than self--this is the answer of the ages
to those who would find the source of immortal energy and
enjoyment. It is a statement very simply and easily made but
involving all the philosophy of life. Miss Anthony recognized it
intuitively. She translated it into action with little
consciousness of its value as a theory; but it is the one deepest
truth in existence, and one which every human soul must sometime or
somewhere learn.
On February 15, 1820, when Susan B. Anthony was born, Emerson was a
youth of seventeen; Henry Ward Beecher was a child of seven and
Harriet Beecher Stowe a year his junior; Wendell Phillips was nine,
Whittier thirteen, and Wm. Lloyd Garrison fifteen years of age.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was four years old, and Lucy Stone, Julia
Ward Howe and James Russell Lowell were Miss Anthony's predecessors
in this world only by one or two years. Margaret Fuller was ten,
Abraham Lincoln was eleven, and thus, between 1803-20, inclusive,
were born a remarkable group of people--a galaxy whose influence on
their century has been unequalled in any age or in any country,
since that of Pericles and his associates in the golden age of
Greece. It is only now, as the work of these immortals begins to
assume something of the definite outline of completeness; as some
results of the determining forces for which this great galaxy has
stood, begin to be discerned, that we can adequately recognize how
important to the century their lives have been. There are
undoubtedly high spirits sent to earth with a definite service to
render to their age and generation; a service that prepares the way
for the next ascending round on the great cycle of progress, and it
is no exaggeration to say that Susan B. Anthony is one of these....
[Illustration: Autograph: "I am always faithfully yours, Lilian
Whiting."]
Even brief quotations must be omitted for want of space, but this from
the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Charles E. Fitch, editor, is
entitled to a place as the sentiment in the city where Miss Anthony had
made her home for nearly half a century:
The occasion is a notable one. It is in honor of one of the noblest
women of her time. The day is past when Susan B. Anthony is met
with ridicule. She is honored everywhere. Consistent earnestness
will, at the last if not at the first, command respect. Slowly but
surely, Miss Anthony has won that respect from her countrymen. The
cause of the emancipation of women, for which she has labored so
long and so zealously, is not yet triumphant, nor is it probable
that she will live to see woman suffrage the rule of the land; but
at threescore years and ten, she may freely cherish the faith that
it is a conquering cause, destined some day to be vindicated in the
organic law of the separate American commonwealths and the Federal
union.
But it is not alone for the service which Miss Anthony has rendered
to the cause of woman suffrage that she is highly honored. She is
honored because of her womanhood, because she has ever been brave
without conceit and earnest without pretense, because she has the
heart to sympathize with suffering humanity in its various phases,
and the will to redress human wrongs. She has revealed a true
nobility of soul, and has ever been patient under abuse and
misrepresentation. She has allied herself with all good causes, and
has been the friend of those struggling against the dominion of
appetite as well as of those who have sought to free themselves
from political thralldom. She has earned the esteem even of those
who were diametrically opposed to her views. Within the movements
which she has urged, she has been an administrator rather than an
orator, although on occasions her speech has been informed with
the eloquence of conviction. In private life she has constrained
affection by a gentleness with which the world would hardly credit
her; but those who best know her, best know also the gracious
womanhood which illustrates itself in acts of unselfishness and
beneficence.
The birthday was celebrated by individuals and clubs in many states with
luncheons, teas, receptions and literary entertainments. After all these
pleasant happenings, Miss Anthony felt new courage and hope to enter
upon the Twenty-second National Suffrage Convention, February 18, at
Lincoln Music Hall. This was to be an important meeting, as it was to
consummate the union of the National and American organizations, and she
was anxious for a large attendance. "Do come," she wrote to the most
influential friends, "if you stay away forever afterwards. This will be
the crucial test whether our platform shall continue broad and free as
it has been for forty years. Some now propose secession because it is to
be narrow and bigoted; others left us twenty years ago because it was
too liberal. Some of the prominent women are writing me that the union
means we shall be no more than an annex to the W. C. T. U. hereafter;
others declare we are going to sink our identity and become sectarian
and conservative. There is not the slightest ground for any of these
fears, but come and be our stay and support."
She also had the annual struggle to secure the presence of Mrs. Stanton,
who was about to sail with her daughter for England, but, after the
usual stormy correspondence, the day of departure was postponed and she
wrote: "You will have me under your thumb the first of February." As her
time was limited, Miss Anthony arranged for the hearing before the
Senate committee on February 8, which was held in the new room assigned
to the committee on woman suffrage. A few days later the ladies spoke
before the House Judiciary Committee.
The union of the two organizations was effected before the opening of
the convention and Mrs. Stanton elected president.[54] She faced a
brilliant assemblage at the opening of the National-American Convention
and made one of the ablest speeches of her life, stating in the first
sentence that she considered it a greater honor to go to England as the
president of this association than to be sent as minister
plenipotentiary to any court in Europe. She closed by introducing her
daughter, Mrs. Stanton Blatch, who captivated the audience.[55] Hon. Wm.
Dudley Foulke, ex-president of the American Association, then delivered
an eloquent and scholarly address. At its close Mrs. Stanton was obliged
to leave, as she sailed for Europe the next morning. When she arose to
say farewell the entire audience joined in the waving of handkerchiefs,
the clapping of hands, and the men in three rousing cheers.
[Illustration: Autograph: "Wm D Youlke"]
The usual corps of National speakers received a notable addition in Wm.
Lloyd Garrison, Julia Ward Howe, Henry B. Blackwell, Carrie Chapman
Catt, Hon. J. A. Pickler and Alice Stone Blackwell. Lucy Stone, being
detained at home by illness, sent a letter of greeting. When Miss
Anthony, as vice-president-at-large, took the chair after Mrs. Stanton's
departure, a great bouquet of white lilies was presented to her.
A woman suffrage amendment was pending in South Dakota, and the claims
of the new State were presented by Representative and Mrs. Pickler and
Alonzo Wardall, secretary of the Farmer's Alliance and vice-president of
the suffrage association, all of whom felt confident that with financial
help the amendment could be carried but, as the State was poor, most of
this would have to come from outside. The convention became very
enthusiastic and a South Dakota campaign committee was formed; Susan B.
Anthony, chairman, Clara B. Colby, Alice Stone Blackwell. Rev. Anna H.
Shaw made a stirring appeal for money. Miss Anthony pledged all that she
could raise between then and the November election. Mrs. Clara L.
McAdow, of Montana, headed the list with $250. A number of ladies
followed with pledges for their respective States. In a short time it
seemed evident that a large sum could be raised and, at Miss Anthony's
request, the association directed all contributions to be sent to its
treasurer, Mrs. Spofford, at Washington, and she herself agreed to
devote a year's work to Dakota.[56]
Miss Anthony remained in Washington several weeks, looking after various
matters: first of all, a representation of women in the management of
the Columbian Exposition; then there were the reports of the Senate and
the House committees, upon which she always brought to bear as much as
possible of that "indirect influence" which women are said to possess.
Just now the admission of Wyoming as a State with woman suffrage in its
constitution was hanging in the balance, but on March 26 she had the
inexpressible pleasure of witnessing, from her seat in the gallery of
the House, the final discussion and passage of the bill.[57] She also
was arranging for the incorporation of the National-American
Association, the old National, which had been a corporate body for a
number of years, having added American to its name. The bills of the
convention were to be settled,[58] and there were still other subjects
claiming her attention before she started for the far West to inaugurate
the South Dakota campaign.
Miss Anthony was a welcome guest at dinners and receptions in the homes
of many of the dignitaries in Washington, but accepted these invitations
only when she saw an opportunity thereby to further the cause of woman
suffrage. She realized fully that one important step in the work was to
interest women of influence, socially and financially, and the high
plane of respectability which this question had now attained was at
least partly due to her winters in Washington, where, at the Riggs House
and in society, she met and made friends with prominent men and women
from all parts of the country and converted them to her doctrines, which
they disseminated in their various localities upon returning home.
She writes her sister, in describing social events, of a dinner at the
handsome home of John R. McLean, owner of the Cincinnati Enquirer, who
in person brought the invitation, while his wife, the daughter of
General Beale, looked after her "as if she had been the Queen of Sheba."
Here she met Senator and Mrs. Payne of Ohio, Senator and Mrs. Cockrell
of Missouri, Senator and Mrs. Butler of South Carolina, Speaker and Mrs.
Reed of Maine, Justice and Mrs. Field and other notables. Then she
speaks of a meeting of the Cobweb Club, composed of women in official
life, where, at the close of her informal talk, they crowded around her
and exclaimed: "Why, Miss Anthony, we never understood this question
before; of course we believe in it." Mrs. Hearst, wife of the Senator,
said: "Had any one ever presented this subject to me as you have done
today, you should have had my help long ago." "And so you see," she
writes, "that at this juncture of our movement much could be
accomplished by accepting such invitations, but it costs me more courage
than to face an audience of a thousand people."
While Miss Anthony was still in Washington she sat for her bust by a
young sculptor, Adelaide Johnson. "So marble and canvas both are to tell
the story," she wrote, "for I have sat also for a painting. The time
draws near when I must start out campaigning and O, how I dread it!"
During this winter she received an invitation from a State W. C. T. U.
to bring a suffrage convention to their city and they would bear the
expenses, stipulating only that she herself should be present, and that
"no speaker should say anything which would seem like an attack on
Christianity." She wrote Miss Shaw: "Won't that prevent your going, Rev.
Anna? I wonder if they'll be as particular to warn all other speakers
not to say anything which shall sound like an attack on liberal
religion. They never seem to think we have any feelings to be hurt when
we have to sit under their reiteration of orthodox cant and dogma. The
boot is all on one foot with the dear religious bigots--but if they will
all pull together with us for suffrage we'll continue to bear and
forbear, as we have done for the past forty years."
In this winter of 1890 many loving letters passed between Miss Anthony
and Rachel Foster Avery, almost too sacred to be quoted, and yet a few
sentences may be used to show the maternal tenderness in the nature of
the great reformer:
Of course I miss you from my side, but do not feel for a moment
that any doubt of your love and loyalty ever crosses my mind. No,
my dear, you and all of us must consider only the best interests of
the loved though not yet seen. Banish anxiety and let the rest of
us take all the work and care. Be happy in the new life you are
molding; avoid all but lovely thoughts; let your first and nearest
and dearest feelings be for the precious little one whose
temperament and nature you are now stamping. Your every heartbeat,
not only of love and peace and beauty, but of the reverse as well,
is making its mark on the unborn.... I feel much better satisfied
to know Sister Mary is with you for a few days. If her presence is
comforting, why don't you ask her to stay with you till the wee one
arrives?
And so the serene and helpful sister Mary remains until a telegram is
sent to the anxious one, by that time in far-off Dakota, announcing the
birth of a daughter. "My heart bounded with joy," wrote Miss Anthony,
"to hear the ordeal was passed and the little, sassie Rose Foster Avery
safely launched upon the big ocean of time." And in a little while the
mother replied: "Darling Aunt Susan, when I lie with baby Rose in my
arms, I think so often of what she and I and all women, born and to be
born, owe to you, and my heart overflows with love and gratitude."
FOOTNOTES:
[53] There were also more substantial tokens, an Irish wool shawl from
Mrs. Chant; a Webster's Unabridged Dictionary from Mrs. Colby, with the
inscription, "The words in this volume can not express what women owe
you;" a silk dress pattern from brother Daniel R.; a $50 check from
sister Mary; $200 from Sarah Willis of Rochester, and $100 from the
Woman's Political Equality Club of that city; seventy golden dollars
from the Toledo Suffrage Club; $50 from Mrs. Arthur A. Mosher of St.
Louis, and enough $5 bills in friendly letters to bring the amount to
over $500. The very next day Miss Anthony gave a part of this to friends
who were ill or needy, including $50 to Phoebe Couzins.
[54] Described in detail in Chapter XXXV.
[55] Miss Anthony wrote in her journal that night: "Harriot said but a
few words, yet showed herself worthy her mother and her mother's
life-long friend and co-worker. It was a proud moment for me."
[56] Among those who contributed largely to this fund were Senator
Stanford, $300; Rachel Foster Avery, $300; George C. Lemon, Washington
City; Hon. Ezra V. Meeker, Puyallup; Rev. Anna H. Shaw; Isabella
Hedenberg, Chicago; Alice Stone Blackwell; Emily Howland, Sherwood, N.
Y.; O. G. and Alice Peters, Columbus, O.; John L. Whiting, Boston;
Senator R. F. Pettigrew, Sioux Falls; Albert O. Willcox, New York, $100
each; Mary H. Johnson, Louisville, $115, which she earned by knitting
wool shawls and fascinators; May Wright Sewall sent nearly $200,
collected from Indiana friends; James and Martha Callanan, Des Moines,
$150; Mary Grew, $143 for the Pennsylvania society. Other women sent
their jewelry to be sold, and one offered a gift of western land. The
rest of the $5,500 was sent in smaller amounts, and all receipts and
expenditures were carefully entered on the national treasurer's books
for 1890. When later some carping individuals complained at so much
money passing through Miss Anthony's hands, Mrs. Livermore silenced them
by saying: "Susan would use every dollar for suffrage if millions were
given to her."
[57] Mary Grew wrote her immediately: "All hail and congratulations! I
read in this morning's paper that you were in the House yesterday; and I
have no doubt that today you are doing something to promote the passage
of the bill through the Senate.... One object of this letter is to urge
you to take more care of your health. Emily Howland reports that you are
very much overworked and exhausted. Pray stop awhile and rest yourself,
for the sake of the cause as well as for your own and your friends'."
[58] I will authorize you to add my signature to yours in approving any
bills relating to the expenses of the National-American convention just
past. It will save time and trouble. You are on the spot and know all
about the bills. Yours sincerely,
LUCY STONE.