IGNORED BY THE PARTIES--APPOINTED TO OFFICE.
1892.
On her way to the convention of 1892, Miss Anthony stopped in New York
in response to an urgent letter from Mrs. Stanton, now comfortably
ensconced in a pleasant flat overlooking Central Park, saying that
unless she came and took her bodily to Washington she should not be able
to go. "All the influences about me urge to rest rather than action,"
she wrote--exactly what Miss Anthony had feared. She was now in her
seventy-seventh year and naturally her children desired that she should
give up public work; but Miss Anthony knew that inaction meant rust and
decay and, as her fellow-worker was in the prime of mental vigor, she
was determined that the world should continue to profit by it. Her
address this year was entitled "The Solitude of Self," considered by
many one of her finest papers.
Mrs. Stanton received a great ovation at the opening session, January
16, but this proved to be her last appearance at a national convention.
For more than forty years she had presided with a grace and dignity
which never had been surpassed, and now she begged that the scepter, or
more properly speaking the gavel, might be transferred to Miss Anthony,
whose experience had been quite as extended as her own. The delegates
yielded to her wishes and Miss Anthony was elected national president.
The office of chairman of the executive committee was abolished; Mrs.
Stanton and Lucy Stone were made honorary presidents, and Rev. Anna H.
Shaw vice-president-at-large.
Miss Anthony presided over the ten sessions of the convention and they
required a firm hand, for the discussions were spirited, as the
questions considered were important. Among them were the work to be done
at the World's Fair; the opening of the fair on Sunday; the proposition
to hold every alternate convention in some other city than Washington;
the plan to carry suffrage work into the southern States; the
advisability of making another campaign in Kansas; and other matters on
which there was a wide difference of opinion.
John B. Allen, of Washington, had introduced in the Senate, and Halbert
S. Greenleaf in the House, a joint resolution proposing an amendment to
the Constitution extending the right to women to vote at all federal
elections. The House Judiciary Committee, January 18, granted a hearing
to such speakers as should be selected by the national convention then
in session. Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton, Lucy Stone and Mrs. Hooker were
chosen. This was the first Democratic committee before whom an appeal
had been made; they listened courteously, but brought in no report on
the question.
The Senate committee granted a hearing January 20, and three-minute
addresses were made by eighteen women representing as many States.
Before they left the room, Senator Hoar moved that the committee make a
favorable report and the motion was seconded by Senator Warren, Senator
Blair also voting in favor. Senators Vance, of North Carolina, and
George, of Mississippi, voted in the negative. Senators Quay and
Carlisle were absent.
During the convention the district suffrage society gave a reception in
the parlors of the Wimodaughsis club house. Later, Mrs. Noble, wife of
the Secretary of the Interior, issued cards for a reception in honor of
Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton and Lucy Stone. It was attended by members of
the Cabinet, Senate, House, diplomatic corps and many others prominent
in official and social life.
As Miss Anthony had no longer her comfortable quarters at the Riggs
House free of all expense, she did not linger in Washington, but went to
Philadelphia for a week with the friends there and reached home
February 6. "I send congratulations, I always wanted you to be
president," wrote Mrs. Johns. "Now can't you come to our Kansas City
Inter-State Convention? We do need you so and there wouldn't be standing
room if you were there." And later: "Do any of my wails reach you? The
Kansas City people plead for you to come if only to be looked at. Is
there any hope?" Miss Anthony was perfectly willing to make a winter
campaign in Kansas, but her friends insisted that there were plenty of
younger women to do this work and she should wait till spring. So Anna
Shaw, Mary Seymour Howell and Florence Balgarnie, of England, went to
the assistance of the women there, and Rachel Foster Avery gave $1,000
to this canvass.
Every day at home was precious to Miss Anthony. Sometimes on Sunday
afternoon she went to Mount Hope, on whose sloping hillsides rest the
beloved dead of her own family and many of the friends of early
days;[73] or she walked down to the long bridge which spans the
picturesque Genesee river and commands a fine view of the beautiful
Lower Falls. Occasionally a friend called with a carriage and they took
the charming seven-mile drive to the shore of Lake Ontario. Sunday
mornings she listened to Mr. Gannett's philosophical sermons; and
through the week there were quiet little teas with old friends whom she
had known since girlhood, but had seen far too seldom in all the busy
years. Instead of forever giving lectures she was able to hear them from
others; and she could indulge to the fullest, on the big new desk, her
love of letter-writing, while the immense work of the national
association was always pressing. She had a number of applications for
articles from various magazines and newspapers, but her invariable reply
was, "I have no literary ability; ask Mrs. Stanton;" and no argument
could convince her that she could write well if she would give the time
to it.
She addressed the New York Legislature in April in reference to having
women sit as delegates in the approaching Constitutional Convention. In
response to a request from the Rochester Union and Advertiser, she wrote
an earnest letter advocating the opening of the World's Fair on Sunday,
and giving many strong reasons in favor. On April 22, she joined Miss
Shaw, who was lecturing at Bradford, Penn., and Sunday afternoon
addressed an audience which packed the opera house. The next day she
organized a suffrage club of seventy members among the influential women
of that city. After leaving there Rev. Anna Shaw, herself an ordained
Protestant Methodist minister, wrote her that she had been shut out of
several churches because she had addressed an audience at the Lily Dale
Spiritualist camp meeting. She said: "I told them that I would speak to
5,000 people on woman suffrage anywhere this or the other side of Hades
if they could be got together."
The first week in May, at the urgent invitation of her good friends,
Smith G. and Emily B. Ketcham, of Grand Rapids, Miss Anthony attended
their silver wedding. From this pleasant affair she went to the Michigan
Suffrage Convention at Battle Creek, where she visited an old
schoolmate, Mrs. Sarah Hyatt Nichols. She reached Chicago in time for
the biennial meeting of the General Federation of Woman's Clubs. Special
trains were run from New York and Boston, Central Music Hall was crowded
and numerous elegant receptions were given for the 300 delegates from
all parts of the country. Many eminent women sat upon the platform,
among them the president of the federation, Mrs. Charlotte Emerson
Brown, Frances E. Willard, Susan B. Anthony, Julia Ward Howe, May Wright
Sewall, Jenny June Croly and Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson, all of whom
were heard at different times during the convention. Miss Anthony was
the guest of Lydia Avery Coonley, whose mother wrote to Mary Anthony:
I have been intending for several days to tell you that however
your sister may have been regarded forty years ago, she is today
the most popular woman in these United States. The federation
closed, as you probably know, on Friday night. During the meetings
she was several times asked to come forward on the platform, which
she did to the manifest gratification of the people, saying
something each time which "brought down the house." On the last
night a note was sent to the president asking that "Susan B.,"
Julia Ward Howe and Ednah D. Cheney would please step forward. They
came, but only your sister spoke and what she said was vociferously
cheered over and over again.
The business committee of the National Council--Miss Willard, Mrs.
Sewall, Mrs. Foster Avery, Miss Anthony and others--met in Chicago the
same week, the principal subject of consideration being the Woman's
Congress to be held the next year during the World's Fair. While in the
city Miss Anthony gave a number of sittings to Lorado Taft, the
sculptor. Miss Willard had asked that he might make the bust to be
placed in the gallery of famous women at the World's Fair, she herself
to be responsible for all expenses. "Come and spend a week with me in my
home," she wrote, "while he prepares a model of that statesmanlike head,
the greatest of them all." Desirous of pleasing her, Miss Anthony
agreed, but at once many of the strong-minded protested that the bust
must be made by a woman.
A number of amusing letters were exchanged. From Miss Willard: "Mr. Taft
is the most progressive believer in woman and admirer of you, dear
Susan, that I know. He is in full sympathy with all of our ideas. I am
sure that as a friend of mine, appreciated by me as highly as you are by
any woman living, you will not place me in the position of declining to
have this work done. Please do not take counsel of women who are so
prejudiced that, as I once heard said, they would not allow a male
grasshopper to chirp on their lawn; but out of your own great heart,
refuse to set an example to such folly."
Mr. Taft himself wrote Miss Anthony: "I can put myself in your place
sufficiently to appreciate in part the objections which you or your
friends may feel toward having the work done by a man. My only regret is
that I am not to be allowed to pay this tribute to one whom I was early
taught to honor and revere.... Come to think of it, I believe I am
provoked after all. Sex is but an accident, and it seems to me that it
has no more to do with art than has the artist's complexion or the
political party he votes with." Again from Miss Willard: "Do you not
see, my friend and comrade, that having engaged a noble and large-minded
young man, who believes as we do, to make that bust, engaged him in good
faith and announced it to the public, it is a 'little rough on me,' as
the boys say, for my dear sister to wish me to break my contract? We can
not have too many busts of you, so let Miss Johnson go on and make hers,
and let me have mine, and let those other women make theirs, and we will
yet have one of them in the House of Representatives at Washington, the
other in the Senate, the third in the White House!... My dear mother and
Anna wish to be remembered to you, knowing that you are one of our best
and most trusted friends, only I must say that you are a naughty woman
in this matter of the 'statoot.'" Miss Anthony's common sense finally
induced her to waive objections and she gave Mr. Taft as many sittings
as he desired. When the work was finished Miss Willard wrote: "My
beloved Susan, your statue is perfect. Lady Henry and I think that _one_
man has seen your great, benignant soul and shown it in permanent
material."
The 25th of May Miss Anthony attended a meeting of the Ohio association
at Salem, where had been held in April, 1850, the second woman's rights
convention in all history. There was present one of the pioneers who had
called that convention, Emily, wife of Marius Robinson, editor of the
Anti-Slavery Bugle. Miss Anthony read her paper for her, as she was over
eighty years old, and added her own strong comments, of which the report
of the secretary said: "Her burning words can never be forgotten, and
many a soul must have responded to her call for workers to carry to
glorious completion what was begun in such difficulty."
There was some talk at this time of holding a Southern Woman's Council
and Miss Anthony wrote to the Arkansas Woman's Chronicle:
The New England States hold an annual suffrage convention and have
done so for nearly thirty years, and I do not see any valid reason
why the States of any section may not have a society or a
convention. Larger numbers from the six New England States can
meet and help each other in Boston, than could possibly go to
Washington to get the soul-refreshing which comes through the
gathering together of kindred spirits from the entire nation.
As I shall be glad to see the women of the South, of all possible
aims and ends, meet in council, so I should rejoice to see them
hold a southern States' suffrage convention. I say this because I
want you to know that my heartiest sympathy goes with you in your
effort to call together the women of your section of the Union; and
I shall rejoice to see the women of the far-off northwestern States
doing the same thing. Women should have their local societies and
meetings, their county, State and section conventions, and then,
for our great national gathering, each State should send its
representatives to Washington, there to confer together and go
before the committees of Congress to urge our claims. What a power
women would be if all could but see eye to eye in their struggle
for freedom!
She remained at home long enough to prepare the memorials to the
national political conventions, and June 4 found her at Minneapolis
ready for the Republican gathering. She was entertained by Mr. and Mrs.
T. B. Walker, and found Mrs. J. Ellen Foster also a guest in that
hospitable home. The memorial presented by the National-American W. S.
A. contained the same unanswerable arguments for the enfranchisement of
women which had been made for so many years, and asked for the following
plank: "As a voice in the laws and the rulers under which we live is the
inalienable right of every citizen of a republic, we pledge ourselves,
when again in power, to place the ballot in the hand of every woman of
legal age, as the only weapon with which she can protect her person and
property and defend herself against all aggressive legislation."
Miss Anthony was notified that she could have a hearing before the
platform committee on the evening of June 8. She was promptly on hand
and was kept standing in the hall outside of the committee room until
after 9 o'clock. Finally she was so tired she sent for one of the
committee to ask how much longer she would have to wait. She learned
that its chairman, J. B. Foraker, of Ohio, refused to preside or call
the committee to order to hear any argument on woman suffrage. Senator
Jones, of Nevada, then hunted him up and asked if he might preside in
his place, and permission being given she was invited into the room. She
spoke for thirty minutes as only a woman could speak who had suffered
the persecution of an Abolitionist before the Republican party was born,
who had been loyal to that party throughout all the dark days of the
Civil War, who had not once repudiated its principles in all the years
which had since elapsed. She pleaded that now she and the women she
represented might have its support and recognition in their right to
representation at the ballot-box. This committee was composed of
twoscore of the most prominent men in the Republican party and, at the
close of Miss Anthony's address, every one in the room arose and many
crowded about her, giving her the most earnest assurance of their belief
in the justice of her cause, but telling her frankly that they could not
put a woman suffrage plank in their platform as the party was not able
to carry the load! The plank eventually adopted read as follows:
We demand that every citizen of the United States shall be allowed
to cast one free and unrestricted ballot in all public elections,
and that such ballot shall be counted as cast; that such laws shall
be enacted and enforced as will secure to every citizen, be he rich
or poor, native or foreign, white or black, this sovereign right
guaranteed by the Constitution. The free and honest popular ballot,
the just and equal representation of all the people, as well as
their just and equal protection under the laws, are the foundation
of our republican institutions, and the party will never relax its
efforts until the integrity of the ballot and the purity of
elections shall be guaranteed and protected in every State.
This was identical with the one adopted in 1888, at which time a number
of women had telegraphed the chairman asking if the convention intended
it to apply to women, and he had answered that he did not understand it
to have any such intention. Therefore the women who went to the
Republican convention of 1892 asking for bread, received instead "the
water in which the eggs had been boiled."
There were present at this convention two regularly appointed women
delegates from Wyoming, and the difference in the attention bestowed
upon them and upon those who came to press the claims of the great class
of the disfranchised, ought to have been an object lesson to all who
assert that women will lose the respect of men when they enter
politics. Not a newspaper in the country had a slur to cast on these
women delegates. The Boston Globe made this pertinent comment: "An
elective queen in this country is no more out of place than one seated
by hereditary consent abroad. It is no rash prediction to assert that
the child is now born who will see a woman in the presidential chair.
Thomas Jefferson will not be fully vindicated until this government
rests upon the consent of all the governed."
After just five days at home Miss Anthony left for Chicago to attend the
Democratic National Convention, June 21, which was requested to adopt
the following plank: "Whether we view the suffrage as a privilege or as
a natural right, it belongs equally to every citizen of good character
and legal age under government; hence women as well as men should enjoy
the dignity and protection of the ballot in their own hands."
Miss Anthony and Isabella Beecher Hooker took rooms at the Palmer House
and the latter made arrangements for the hearing before the resolution
committee, which was assembled in one of the parlors, Henry Watterson,
of Louisville, chairman. The ladies made their speeches, were
courteously heard, politely bowed out, and the platform was as densely
silent on the question of woman suffrage as it had been during its whole
history. Mrs. Hooker remained alone in the convention until 2 o'clock in
the morning, hoping to get a chance to address that body. She had not
been fooled as many times as Miss Anthony, who returned to the hotel and
went to bed.
The Union Signal, Frances E. Willard, editor, spoke thus of the
occasion:
That heroic figure, Susan B. Anthony, sure to stand out in history
as plainly as any of our presidents, has given added significance
to the two great political conventions of the year. Neither party
has recognized her plea, but both have innumerable adherents who
openly declare themselves in favor of her principles. She states
that this year she felt for the first time that she had a pivot on
which to hang her quadrennial plea, and that pivot was Wyoming, the
men of that equal-minded State in both conventions holding up her
hands. Miss Anthony's pathetic eyes reveal that she has attained to
loneliness--the guerdon of great spirits who struggle from any
direction toward the mountain tops of human liberty. But on the
heights such souls meet God, and one day all women shall call her
blessed.
The National Prohibition Convention at Cincinnati, June 30, was not
visited by Miss Anthony, as she felt that the women of this party needed
no assistance in looking after the interests of suffrage. The third
plank in the platform there adopted read: "No citizen should be denied
the right to vote on account of sex."
From Chicago she went directly to Kansas to look after the fences in
that State. Mrs. Johns and Anna Shaw joined her and they spoke before
the Chautauqua Assembly at Ottawa, June 27, going thence to Topeka, as
Miss Anthony expressed it, "to watch the State Republican Convention."
They received a hearty greeting and she was invited to address the
convention June 30. The Capital said: "There were loud calls for Susan
B. Anthony and as she advanced to the platform she was greeted with the
most cordial applause." In the evening a reception was given in the
Senate chamber to the ladies in attendance at the convention. Miss
Anthony, Mrs. Johns and Mrs. May Belleville Brown addressed the
resolution committee. The platform was reported with a plank favoring
the submission to the voters of a woman suffrage amendment, which was
enthusiastically adopted--455 to 267--in the largest Republican
convention ever held in Kansas.[74]
Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw then hastened to Omaha for the first national
convention of the People's party July 4. They arrived about 9 P. M.,
July 2, to find they were booked for speeches at the Unitarian church
that evening and the audience had been waiting since 7:30, so they
rushed thither, hot, dusty and tired, and made their addresses. Sunday
afternoon they went to a workingwomen's meeting in the exposition
building and heard Master Workman Powderly for the first time. At his
invitation Miss Anthony also spoke.
The People's party, from its inception, had recognized women as speakers
and delegates and claimed to be the party of morality and reform, but
after a day at the convention Miss Anthony writes in her diary: "They
are quite as oblivious to the underlying principle of justice to women
as either of the old parties and, as a convention, still more so." The
resolution committee refused to grant the ladies even an opportunity to
address them, which had been done willingly by the Republicans and
Democrats. Their platform contained no reference to woman suffrage
except that in the long preamble occurred the sentence: "We believe that
the forces of reform this day organized will never cease to move forward
until every wrong is righted, and equal rights and equal privileges
securely established for all the men and women of this country." This
sentiment, however, was universally accepted by the delegates as
including the right of suffrage.
Miss Anthony spoke at the Beatrice Chautauqua Assembly, and then
returned to Rochester. She had some time before received a letter from
Chancellor John H. Vincent saying: "The subject of woman suffrage will
be presented at Chautauqua on Saturday, July 30, 1892. A prominent
speaker will be secured to present the question as forcibly as possible.
In behalf of the Chautauqua management, I take pleasure in extending to
you a hearty invitation to be present and take a place upon the platform
on that occasion. Trusting that you will be able to accept this
invitation, I am, faithfully yours."
She had had a long, hot and fatiguing trip and her cool, spacious home
was so restful that she decided to defer her visit to Chautauqua until
later in the season.[75] On August 8, Miss Shaw, Mrs. Foster Avery and
Miss Anthony, who had been having a little visit together, started from
Rochester for Chautauqua, where the Reverend Anna was to debate the
question of woman suffrage with Rev. J. M. Buckley, editor New York
Christian Advocate. She gave her address amidst a succession of cheers
and applause, Miss Anthony sitting on the platform with her, an honor
rarely accorded at the assembly. In the evening a delightful reception
was given to the three ladies in the Hall of Philosophy. Dr. Buckley
made his reply the next day to an audience so cold that even his supreme
self-satisfaction was disturbed. If any one thing ever has been
demonstrated at Chautauqua, by those speeches and all preceding and
following them on the same question, it is that the sentiment of the
vast majority of the people who annually visit this great assembly is in
favor of woman suffrage.
After speaking at the Cassadaga Lake camp meeting, August 24, Miss
Anthony went in September to the Mississippi Valley Conference at Des
Moines. It was thought that possibly by holding a great convention in
the West, large numbers in that section of the country and the States
along the Mississippi could attend who would find it inconvenient to go
to Washington. She was glad to give her co-operation and spoke and
worked valiantly through all the sessions. From Des Moines she went to
Peru, Neb., at the urgent invitation of President George L. Farnham, to
address the State Normal School.[76]
Early in October she began her tour of the State of Kansas under the
auspices of the Republican central committee. She was accompanied one
week by Mrs. Johns, and then each went with some of the men who were
canvassing the State. Mrs. Johns made Republican speeches; Miss Anthony
described the record of the party on human freedom and urged them to
complete that roll of honor by enfranchising women. The campaign
managers were very much dissatisfied because she talked suffrage instead
of tariff and finance, but as she was paying her own travelling expenses
and contributing her services, she reserved the right to speak on the
only subject in which she felt a vital interest. If the Republicans had
won the election, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Johns expected that of course
they would take up the question of woman suffrage and carry it to
success; but the State was carried by the newly formed People's party.
As soon as she was thoroughly rested and renovated in her own home,
after this hard campaign, Miss Anthony left for the State convention at
Syracuse, November 14.[77] The Standard, intending to compliment the
ladies, said: "The loud-voiced, aggressive woman of other days was not
here. In her place were low-voiced, quietly-dressed, womanly women, and
those who expected to see the 'woman rioter' of the past failed to find
one of the sort. The graceful, dignified and quiet woman of today bears
no likeness to some who have gone before, who thought to break through
and gain their desires."
A contemporary called the paper down as follows: "When it is remembered
that Susan B. Anthony was one of the originators of the movement, that
Lucy Stone and Mrs. Greenleaf and a host of others who have marched
right along in the suffrage ranks from the beginning, were also the
leaders in this 'low-voiced' assembly who came on tip-toe and acted in
pantomime, the compliment, to say the least, has negative qualities." An
interview on this statement contains the following paragraph:
"It simply shows," said Miss Anthony, smiling, "how differently the
question is regarded now. Among the women who were pioneers in the
movement were Elizabeth Cady Stanton and myself. I don't think it
probable that we are any sweeter-faced or that our voices are any
more melodious than they were thirty years ago. It is only that the
whole matter was regarded with such horror and aversion then that
any one connected with it was looked upon in a disagreeable light;
it is very different now." Her pleasant face, with a suggestion of
her Quaker descent in its soft bands of gray hair, took on a gently
reminiscent expression, which her visitor could not help but
contrast amusedly with the imaginary portrait of the redoubtable
Amazon that in her early years was conjured up by the sound of
Susan B. Anthony's name.
Thanksgiving Day she attended service at the Universalist church and
comments in her diary: "Mr. Morrill, the associate pastor, spoke on
'The undiscovered Church without a Bishop;' Mr. Gannett, 'The
undiscovered State without a King;' Mr. Lansberg, 'Many States in One;'
all good, but all alike gave not the faintest hint of any undiscovered
America, where the male head of the family should not be considered
'divinely appointed.' I had hard work to keep my peace."
The next day she went to Buffalo to address the alumnae of the ladies'
academy, and was entertained by Miss Charlotte Mulligan, founder of the
missionary school for boys. During this time she was investigating the
new law permitting women to vote for county school commissioners in New
York, and found to her disgust that by the use of the words "county
clerk" instead merely of "clerk who prints and distributes the ballots,"
all the women of the large towns and cities were still disfranchised;
just as the law of 1880 had used the words "school meeting," which also
cut off the women of the cities. This was another illustration of the
manner in which every step of the way to suffrage for women has been
made as difficult as possible.
In December Miss Anthony became an office-holder! It happened in this
way: Her neighbor, Dr. Jonas Jones, who had been one of the trustees of
the State Industrial School located at Rochester, died on the 4th. She
immediately wrote to Governor Roswell P. Flower requesting that a woman
be put on the board in his place, in addition to the one already serving
(Mrs. Emil Kuichling), and suggested Mrs. Lansberg, wife of the rabbi;
at the same time she asked Mary Seymour Howell, who resided in Albany,
to see the governor and use her influence. She did so and found he was
quite willing to appoint a woman but would not consider any but Miss
Anthony. She, however, was away from home so much she thought that in
justice to the institution she ought not take the position; but when she
learned that her refusal might result in a man's being given the place,
she telegraphed her willingness to accept. She was appointed at once to
fill out the unexpired term of Dr. Jones, and May 4, 1893, was
re-appointed by Governor Levi P. Morton for a full term. Of course
numerous letters and telegrams of congratulation were received and the
newspapers contained many kind notices, similar in tone to this from the
Democrat and Chronicle:
It is a good appointment; a fitting recognition of one of the
ablest and best women in the commonwealth. There has been a vast
amount of cheap wit expended upon Miss Anthony during the past
years, and although it has been almost entirely good-natured it has
served to give a wrong impression to the unthinking of one of the
clearest-headed and most unselfish women ever identified with a
public movement.... Speaking of her appointment she said: "You see
I have been regarded as a hoofed and horned creature for so long
that even a little thing touches my heart, and when it comes to
being recognized as an American citizen after fighting forty years
to prove my citizenship, it begins to look as if we women have not
fought in vain." ... A braver-hearted woman than Susan B. Anthony
never lived, but those who can read between the lines of her remark
will not miss the little touch of pathos in her pride, and the hint
of the disappointments which have hurt in the long struggle.
A new charter for the city of Rochester had been prepared and a mass
meeting of citizens was announced for December 12, to hear an exposition
of its points. The morning paper said: "By far the most largely attended
meeting the Chamber of Commerce has ever held was that of last evening.
The large attendance was due to the announcement that the new charter
would be discussed by Miss Susan B. Anthony, and the interest of the
meeting was largely due to the fact that, true to her colors, she kept
her engagement...." Miss Anthony's commission had been received from the
governor that day, which fact was announced by President Brickner as he
introduced her, and she was greeted with cheers. In the course of her
speech she said:
Since promising to address this body, I have tried in vain to find
some word which would settle the question with every member present
in favor of so amending the charter as to give our women equal
voice in conducting the affairs of the city. It seems such a
self-evident thing that the mother's opinion should be weighed and
measured in the political scales as well as that of her son. It is
so simple and just that the wife's judgment should be respected and
counted as well as the husband's. And who can give the reason why
the sister's opinion should be ignored and the brother's
honored?... Over 5,000 women of this city pay taxes on real estate,
and who shall say they are not as much interested in every
question of financial expenditure as any 5,000 men; in the public
parks, street railways, grade crossings, pavements, bridges, etc.?
And not only the 5,000 tax-paying women, but all the women of the
city are equally interested in the sanitary condition of our
streets, alleys, schools, police stations, jails and asylums....
To repair the damages of society seems to be the mission assigned
to women, and we ask that the necessary implements shall be placed
in their hands. But, you say, women can be appointed to see to
these matters without voting. Yes, but they are not; and if they
were, without the ballot they would be powerless to effect the
improvements they might find necessary. If the women of this city
had the right to vote, those on the board of charities, for
instance, would not be compelled year after year to beg each member
of every new council for the appointment of some women as city
physicians, as scores of them have done for the past six or eight
years. Had we the right to vote, do you suppose we should have to
plead in vain before the two parties to place women in nomination
for the school board?
I want this amendment of the charter first, because it is right and
just to women; second, that women may have a political fulcrum on
which to plant their lever for everything they wish to secure
through government; third, that the opinions of the women of this
city may be respected, and there is no other way to secure respect
but to have them counted with those of men in the ballot-box on
every possible question which is carried to that tribunal; and
fourth, to free the mothers from the cruel taunt of being
responsible for the character of their grown-up sons while denied
all power to control the conditions surrounding them after they
pass beyond the dooryards of their homes.
She continued by showing the good effects of woman's municipal suffrage
in England, Canada and also in Kansas, and full suffrage in Wyoming; and
closed with an earnest appeal for an amendment to the new charter which
should confer the municipal franchise upon women. A few days later the
board of trustees took final action on the charter, of which the
Democrat and Chronicle said: "The amendment proposed by Miss Susan B.
Anthony extending the suffrage to women was defeated, although by a
close vote. Had there been a full meeting of the board it is a question
whether it would not have been adopted, as several of the members who
were not present last evening had expressed themselves as
favorable."[78]
Miss Anthony addressed the Monroe County Teachers' Institute at
Brighton, December 16. The diary records many visits to the Industrial
School, conferences with the other fourteen trustees and much
correspondence with the boards of similar institutions elsewhere. In her
mail this year were letters from most of the civilized countries on the
globe, among them several from the leaders of the movement in New
Zealand, saying that her name was more familiar than all others there,
and asking for advice and encouragement in their work of securing the
ballot for women.[79] The following was received from Mrs. Kate Beckwith
Lee, Dowagiac, Mich.: "Mr. Bonet, our sculptor, obtained your
photograph, and we now have your grand face looking down in stone from
the front of our theater, which was erected as an educator to our people
and a memorial to my father, P. D. Beckwith, who was liberal toward all
mankind and a believer in woman's equality, and I sincerely hope you may
some time see the building." The other women sculptured on this handsome
edifice are George Eliot, George Sand, Rachel, Mary Anderson and Sarah
Bernhardt. Among the great mass of correspondence, this is selected:
An incident which is of no particular consequence to this inquiry,
constrains me to write in the hope that you may find time to place
upon paper your recollection of the connection that my father (the
late George H. Thacher, then mayor of the city of Albany) had with
your anti-slavery meeting in this city just before the war. I was
too young to have it make a vivid impression upon me, but it has
sometimes been said that was the first opportunity your
organization had to freely express its views within the State of
New York. I will be very grateful if you will permit your memory to
go back some thirty years and recall that incident.[80] Yours,
JOHN BOYD THACHER.
This illustrates the pride which the children of the future will have in
showing that their parents or grandparents rendered some assistance to
the cause of woman and of freedom. Yet Mr. Thacher, who, as a member of
the New York Board of General Managers of the Columbian Exposition, had
the selection of those who should compose the Woman's Board of the
State, did not name one who had been identified with the great movement
for equal rights during the past forty years, and had made it possible
for women to participate in this celebration.
A case which had been commenced in the courts of New York in 1891 and
had run along through several years, may as well be described here as
elsewhere. Miss Anthony had but an indirect connection with it and it is
mentioned more for its utter ridiculousness than for any other reason. A
woman's art association in New York City, Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson,
president, Miss Alice Donlevy, secretary, had the promise of a legacy to
build an academy, and they decided to place a statue or bust at each
side of the entrance, representing Reform and Philanthropy. Miss Anthony
was selected for the one and Mrs. Mary Hamilton Schuyler for the other.
The latter, in 1852, founded the New York School of Design for Women,
had been the friend and patron of art, and for many years before her
death had been noted for her philanthropic work.
A serious difficulty at once arose in the opposition of Mrs. Schuyler's
nephew and stepson, Philip Schuyler, who objected to the "disagreeable
notoriety." He carried the matter into the courts, which of course
attracted the comment of all the newspapers of the country, pro and con,
and caused more "disagreeable notoriety" than a dozen statues would have
done. He obtained a preliminary injunction against the art association
and then took the case to the supreme court for a permanent injunction,
on the ground that the "right of privacy" had been violated. The real
secret of his objections, however, was exposed in his complaint before
the supreme court. Among the twenty-eight grievances alleged were the
following:
Twenty-second.--The said Mary M. Hamilton Schuyler took no part
whatever in any of the various so-called woman's rights agitations,
with which the aforesaid Susan B. Anthony was, and is, prominently
identified; and that she took no interest in such agitations or
movements, and had no sympathy whatever with them; and that, as
the plaintiff believes, she would have resented any attempt such as
is made by the defendants to couple her name with that of the said
Susan B. Anthony.
Twenty-third.--The acts of the defendants in attempting to raise
money by public subscription for a statue of the said Mary M.
Hamilton Schuyler; in associating her name with the name of Susan
B. Anthony, and in announcing that the projected statue of her is
to be placed on public exhibition at the Columbian Exposition as a
companion piece to a statue of the said Susan B. Anthony,
constitute, and are an unlawful interference with the right of
privacy, and a gross and unwarranted outrage upon the memory of the
said Mary M. Hamilton Schuyler, under the specious pretense of
doing honor to her memory; and that the surviving members of her
family have been, and are, greatly distressed and injured thereby.
The supreme court continued the injunction, and the art association then
carried the case up to the court of appeals. Here the decision of the
lower court was reversed. The opinion was rendered by Justice Rufus W.
Peckham, afterwards appointed by President Cleveland to the Supreme
Bench of the United States. It is not often that a judge of the highest
court in the State incorporates in a legal decision a compliment to a
woman, and for this reason the tribute of Justice Peckham is the more
highly appreciated. After holding that "persons attempting to erect a
statue or bust of a woman no longer living, if their motive is to do
honor to her, and if the work is to be done in an appropriate manner,
can not be restrained by her surviving relatives," he continued:
Many may, and probably do, totally disagree with the advanced views
of Miss Anthony in regard to the proper sphere of women, and yet it
is impossible to deny to her the possession of many of the
ennobling qualities which tend to the making of great lives. She
has given the most unselfish devotion of a long life to what she
has considered would tend most for the benefit and practical
improvement of her sex, and she has thus lived almost literally in
the face of the whole world, and during that period there has never
been a single shadow of any dark or ugly fact connected with her or
her way of life to dim the lustre of her achievements and of her
efforts.
FOOTNOTES:
[73] In the center of the Anthony lot, not far from the main gateway, is
a square monument of Medina granite, the four sides of its cap-stone
inscribed Liberty, Justice, Fraternity, Equality.
[74] At the convention of Republican clubs a few days previous, Senator
Ingalls, having been defeated for re-election to the Senate and feeling
somewhat humbled, said in his speech: "I believe every man ought to be a
politician; I might say every woman also. If a plank endorsing woman
suffrage were inserted in the Republican platform, I would stand upon
it." Ten years before, in this same city, he had declared it to be "that
obscene dogma, whose advocates are long-haired men and short-haired
women, the unsexed of both sexes, human capons and epicenes."
[75] Henry B. Blackwell delivered the address at Chautauqua. At its
close he asked all who were opposed to woman suffrage to rise, and about
twenty persons stood up. He then asked all who were in favor to stand,
and the great audience, filling the huge amphitheater, rose in a body.
[76] When she spoke in the New York State Teachers' Convention in 1853,
the first time a woman's voice had been heard in that body, Professor
Farnham, then superintendent of the Syracuse public schools, was one of
the three men who came up and congratulated her.
[77] While here Miss Anthony received a telegram: "Greeting, gratitude
and good-by to the noblest Roman of them all and her brave host, from
Isabel Somerset and Frances E. Willard." They had expected to stop in
Rochester and visit her before leaving for England, but had gone to New
York by another route.
[78] Jean Brooks Greenleaf, at this time in Washington with her husband,
wrote Miss Anthony:
"I felt heart-sick when I learned the result of the charter business and
I am not over it yet. I told Mr. Greenleaf I would dispose of every bit
of taxable property I have in Rochester. I can not bear to think that,
with so glorious an opportunity to be just, men prefer to be so unjust.
They can help it if they will, those men who speak us so fair. If they
would make one solid stand for our rights they could overrule the masses
who are not half so unready to do women justice as they are represented.
Good God! when I think of it I wonder how you have borne it all these
years and not gone wild."
[79] Full suffrage was granted to the women of New Zealand in 1893.
[80] In February, 1861; see Chapter XIII.