CHARACTERISTIC VIEWS ON MANY QUESTIONS.
1897.
Miss Anthony was strong in her determination to remain at home and
devote herself to the biographical task, but found it almost an
impossibility to resist the calls for her services which came from all
directions. Occasionally she would slip out for a lecture, but long
journeys and convention work for the most part were given up, and never
during fifty years had she remained at home a fraction of the time that
she spent here in 1897. Monday evening of each week was set apart to
receive callers and the pleasant parlors often were crowded, many of the
Rochester people declaring that this was their first chance of getting
acquainted with their illustrious townswoman. There were two roles,
however, which she never could fill with any pleasure to herself, that
of the society or the literary woman. While no one loves her friends
more faithfully or better enjoys receiving visits from them, she cares
for social life, in general, only so far as it can advance her cause.
Although letter-writing is a pleasure, she hates the use of the pen for
so-called literary work. Standing on the platform, words and ideas rush
upon her more rapidly than she can give them utterance, but with pen in
hand the thoughts still come but refuse to be formulated.
In the chapters describing the preparation of the History of Woman
Suffrage was set forth in detail her restiveness at such confinement. "I
love to make history but hate to write it," was her oft-repeated
assertion. The years had brought no change of feeling and her
correspondence shows how she chafed under the search of old records, the
reading of faded letters. Many times she wrote: "There is so much to be
done, so much more money is needed and so many more women are wanted for
the present work, that half the time I feel conscience-smitten to be
dwelling among the scenes and people of the past. There are so very few
of my early co-workers now on this side of the big river, that I am
really living with the dead most of the time; but as there is no way out
of this job except through it--through it I must go." In the journal she
says: "O, how it tires me to think over and talk over those old days,
not only of my own labors, but of the never-ceasing efforts to stir up
others to work."
The 9th of March Miss Anthony lectured before the Men's Club of the
Central Church at Auburn. On the 12th she spoke at a meeting addressed
by Booker Washington in the interest of the Tuskeegee Colored Institute.
The 24th she went to Albany with Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, Mrs. Catt,
Elizabeth Burrill Curtis, daughter of George William Curtis, Mrs.
Chapman, State president; and all addressed the senate judiciary
committee in behalf of a woman suffrage amendment. Miss Anthony went to
this hearing much against her will and, at its conclusion, declared she
never again would stoop to plead her cause before one of these
committees. She had made her appeals to their fathers and grandfathers,
and she was tired of begging for her liberty from men not half her own
age and with not a hundredth part of her knowledge of State and national
affairs.
The seventieth birthday of the devoted sister Mary would occur on April
2, and Miss Anthony decided to have a home reception in her honor. When
she broached the subject to a few intimate friends in the Unitarian
church and the Political Equality Club, she found they already had such
arrangements well under way and they insisted that she should leave the
matter entirely in their hands. Anything which concerned the Anthony
sisters interested Rochester, and the city papers contained extended
notices. The Herald began a long interview as follows:
Seventy! It did not seem possible that the sprightly, energetic
little woman who answered the reporter's ring could have reached
the allotted threescore and ten. Old Father Time is certainly no
more than a myth to Miss Mary Anthony. "Yes," said she, laughing,
"I am about to make my debut. Just think of it, a real reception in
my honor! By the time I'm eighty, my existence will probably have
become one whirl of delicious excitement."
The reporter asked to see Miss Susan B. Anthony; five minutes would
be sufficient; the matter was urgent and important.... Turning to
her the reporter said: "The Herald would like you to give an
account of your sister. You know she would never admit that she
ever did anything worth mentioning, so it is from you that the true
story must come."
She laughed as she took off her glasses, leaned back in her chair
and asked, "Where shall I begin?"
"At the beginning, please."
"Well then, my sister was born in Battenville, the youngest of four
daughters. One thing may surprise you. She, not I, is the suffrage
pioneer in our family. She attended the first woman's rights
convention, and when I came home from teaching school, I heard
nothing but suffrage talk, and how lovely Lucretia Mott was, and
how sweet Elizabeth Cady Stanton was. I didn't believe in it then,
and made fun of it; but sister Mary was a firm advocate. My
brother-in-law used to tell me that I could preach woman's rights,
but it took Mary to practice them.
"For twenty-six consecutive years, from 1857 to 1883, she taught in
our public schools. Many of the best citizens of Rochester once
went to school to her; and it is perhaps her influence upon those
minds and lives that my sister considers the most important part of
her life-work. She has always been identified with the suffrage
cause in this city and State, as I have with the national. For a
number of years she was corresponding secretary of the State
society, and for five years has been president of the city
Political Equality Club.
"I can not tell you how she has helped and sustained me. She has
kept a home where I might come to rest. From the very beginning,
she has cheered and comforted me. She has looked after the great
mass of details, my wardrobe, my business, etc., leaving me free.
She is the unseen worker who ought to share equally in whatever of
reward and praise I may have won."
The Democrat and Chronicle thus commenced a two-column account of the
reception:
... The occasion was the seventieth anniversary of Miss Mary
Anthony's birth and, in the afternoon and evening, crowds of her
friends gathered to offer their congratulations and do homage to
one who has done so much for the educational interests of the city
and social and political equality for her sex. Miss Mary, to be
sure, has not gained the national reputation which her famous
sister enjoys, yet among the people of Rochester she is regarded as
a sharer in the laurels won by Susan B. Whenever one is mentioned
the personality of the other is immediately brought to mind.... It
was with rare hospitality, interwoven with personal love and
respect, that Dr. and Mrs. J. E. Sanford devoted their handsome
home to the celebration of this birthday. Attired in black satin
and duchesse lace, with a pretty bouquet of bride roses in her
hand, Miss Mary presented a womanly and attractive appearance.
In the name of the club, Mrs. Sanford presented, with a felicitous
little speech, a handsome, jetted broadcloth cape. She was followed by
Mrs. Greenleaf, who tendered in affectionate words a purse containing
$70, a golden tribute for each year from many friends.[128] John M.
Thayer then made a witty and interesting address. He was followed by
Rev. W. C. Gannett, who dwelt especially on the work done by Miss Mary
in looking after the poor and needy for the past twenty years, not only
as an officer of the city charitable association but in a private
capacity, and closed by saying:
It takes two sorts of people to make a reform: One who become
public speakers and bear the brunt of obloquy, and the other who in
obscurity lend their assistance to the work. There are hundreds of
this latter class that the world never hears about. It is the
blessed silent side of life, and it seems to me that Mary is the
very incarnation of the quiet majority of this great reform which
is yet to celebrate its triumphs. In after years, when the story is
written of this political equality movement, men will say that the
battle was won by the two sisters, because there never could have
been a Susan abroad if it had not been for a Mary at home.
If there ever was a time when Miss Anthony was speechless from supreme
satisfaction it was on this occasion. All the honors ever bestowed upon
herself had not afforded her the joy of this testimonial to her gentle,
unassuming but strong and helpful sister, on whom she leaned far more
than the world could ever know.
[Illustration: MARY S. AND SUSAN B. ANTHONY, 1897.]
Miss Anthony assisted at the elegant golden wedding celebration of Mr.
and Mrs. James Sargent, April 29; not one in the receiving line under
seventy, and yet not one broken or enfeebled by age. The men erect
and vigorous, the women beautifully dressed and full of animation,
formed a striking illustration of the changed physical and social
conditions of the last half-century.
Early in June Miss Anthony, Rev. Anna Shaw, Miss Emily Howland and Mrs.
Harper went to Auburn to visit Eliza Wright Osborne, with whom Mrs.
Stanton and her daughter, Mrs. Lawrence, were spending the summer. The
days were delightfully passed, driving through the shaded streets of
that "loveliest village of the plain" and walking about the spacious
park and gardens surrounding the Osborne mansion; while in the evenings
the party gathered in the large drawing-room and listened to chapters
from the forthcoming biography, followed with delightful reminiscences
by the two elder ladies and Mrs. Osborne, whose mother, Martha C.
Wright, was one of their first and best-beloved friends and helpers. It
was a rare and sacred occasion, and those who were present ever will
cherish the memory of those two grand pioneers, sitting side by
side--Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony--the one just beyond, the
other nearing the eightieth milestone of life, both having given to the
world fifty years of unremitting service, and yet both as strong in
mind, as keen in satire, as brimming with cheerfulness, as in those
early days when they set about to revolutionize the prejudices and
customs of the ages.[129]
The correspondence this year seemed heavier than ever before, letters
pouring in from all parts of the United States and Europe. Even from
far-off Moscow, in conservative Russia, came the cry of women for help.
Pages written by the pen of another could not give so accurate an idea
of Miss Anthony's opinions on various topics as single paragraphs culled
from copies of her own letters, preserved, alas, only during the past
few years since she has employed a stenographer. One scarcely knows
which to select. To a newspaper inquiry she answered: "The 'greatest
compliment' ever paid me was, that by my life-work I had helped to make
the conditions of the world better for women." She wrote to an
exasperated Ohio woman:
The plan you propose, of our getting all the members of suffrage
clubs, and all individual women outside, in each State, to march to
the polls every election day and attempt to deposit their ballots,
sounds very well. But, my dear, it is impossible thus to persuade
the women, after the Supreme Court of the United States has
declared they have no right to vote under the National
Constitution. Your suggestion means a revolution which women will
not create against their own fathers, husbands, brothers and sons.
A whole race of men under a foreign or tyrannical government, like
the Cubans, may rise in rebellion, but for women thus to band
themselves against the power enthroned in their own households is
quite another matter. Hundreds have recommended your plan, so it is
nothing new, but it is utterly impractical. There can be but one
possible way for women to be freed from the degradation of
disfranchisement, and that is through the slow processes of
agitation and education, until the vast majority of women
themselves desire freedom. So long as mothers teach their sons and
daughters, by acquiescence at least, that present conditions need
no improving, you can not expect men to change them. Therefore do
not waste a single moment trying to devise any sort of
insurrectionary movement on the part of the women.
In a letter to Mrs. Stanton she said:
Mrs. Besant lunched with us, and I heard her last evening for the
second time. She is master of the English language, and whether or
not one can believe she sees and hears from the world of the
disembodied what she feels she does, one can not but realize that
she is a great woman and has a wonderful theory of how human souls
return to earth. But I tell her that it seems to me repellent that
we have to come back here through Dame Nature's processes, after a
period of such great freedom in the occult world, and again go
through with teething, mumps, measles, and similar inflictions. The
truth is, I can no more see through Theosophy than I can through
Christian Science, Spiritualism, Calvinism or any other of the
theories, so I shall have to go on knocking away to remove the
obstructions in the road of us mortals while in these bodies and on
this planet; and leave Madam Besant and you and all who have
entered into the higher spheres, to revel in things unknown to
me.... I will join you at Mrs. Miller's Saturday, and we'll chat
over men, women and conditions--not theories, theosophies and
theologies, they are all Greek to me.
There had been a question after the late election in Idaho whether the
suffrage amendment required a majority of all the votes cast, or only a
majority of those cast on the amendment. If the former, then it was
defeated. The case was carried to the supreme court, which put the
latter construction on the law. Miss Anthony wrote to the judges, Isaac
N. Sullivan, Joseph W. Huston, Ralph P. Quarles, (John T. Morgan
retired):
On behalf of the suffrage women of the United States, I thank you
for the decision which you have rendered. I had studied over the
clause a great deal and felt that if your judgments were biased by
the precedents and prejudices which had controlled the decisions of
the Supreme Courts of the United States, and of the different
States, upon the extension of rights to women, you certainly would
give the narrow interpretation. Instead of that, for the first time
in the history of our judiciary, the broadest and most liberal
interpretation possible has been given.
The Kentucky Daughters of the American Revolution, who were marking
historic spots, she advised as follows:
I hope in your selections you will be exceedingly careful to
distinguish those actions in which our Revolutionary mothers took
part. Men have been faithful in noting every heroic act of their
half of the race, and now it should be the duty, as well as the
pleasure, of women to make for future generations a record of the
heroic deeds of the other half. It is a splendid thing for your
association to devote the Fourth of July to a commemoration of
women. If I had the time, I too might be one of the
"Daughters,"[130] for my Grandfather Read enlisted and fought on
the heights of Quebec and at the battles of Bennington and
Ticonderoga; but I have been, and must continue to be, so busy
working to secure to the women of this day the paramount right for
which the Revolutionary War was waged, that I can give neither time
nor money to associations of women for any other purpose, however
good it may be.
When the answer came that they were doing the very thing that she
wished, she replied:
I am delighted; for however heroic our pioneer fathers may have
been, our pioneer mothers, in the very nature of things, must have
braved all the hardships of the men by their side with the added
one of bearing and rearing children when deprived of even the vital
necessities of maternity. Self-government is as necessary for the
best development of women as of men. Sentiment never was and never
can be a guarantee for justice, but with equal political power
women will be able to secure justice for themselves. We have had
chivalry and sentiment from the beginning of time, with some
privileges granted as a favor. We now demand rights, guaranteed to
us by codes and constitutions; and if their possession shall
forfeit us gallantry, we will make the best of it. But I do not
believe woman's utter dependence on man wins for her his respect;
it may cause him to love and pet her as a child, but never to
regard and treat her as a peer.
To Prof. C. Howard Young, of Hartford, Conn., for thirteen years an
invalid and yet an ardent advocate of woman suffrage, she wrote: "I want
you to feel that the dollar you have sent from year to year all this
time for your membership in the national association has helped bring to
us Idaho, for our organization committee's work in that State was a
large factor in securing the victory. Every one who gives a dollar helps
do the work where it is most needed to gain the practical result."
The following extracts are self-explanatory:
The vast majority of women easily can have their sympathies drawn
upon to help personal and public charities, while very few are
capable of seeing that the cause of nine-tenths of all the
misfortunes which come to women, and to men also, lies in the
subjection of woman, and therefore the important thing is to lay
the axe at the root. Now, my dear, if you and all the women who are
working for the different charities and reforms of your city, had
the right to vote, how long do you suppose the brothels and
gambling houses would be allowed to keep their doors open? Do you
believe that if women could vote for every officer whose duty it is
to enforce the laws, these dens would be licensed, or if not
absolutely licensed, would be allowed to run year in and year out
merely by the payment of fines from time to time? How long do you
think our streets would be infested with men walking up and down
seeking whom they might devour, and with women doing the same?
While some of you must work, as you are doing, giving heart and
soul to the mitigation of the horrors of our semi-barbaric
conditions, I must strike at the cause which produces them.
To the women of Kansas:
I hope your State association won't do the foolish thing of wasting
your time in asking the legislature to pass a law granting
"presidential" suffrage to women. Our chances in your State have
been postponed, if not absolutely killed, because of municipal
suffrage, and now if you should induce your legislature to give
"presidential" suffrage and the women should thwart the men's
wishes in their votes for President, as they already have done with
their limited franchise, you would be doomed never to get the right
to vote for congressmen, governor and legislators. I wish women
never would ask for any but full suffrage; and also that they would
stop asking the legislatures to submit an amendment to the voters,
until they have created public sentiment enough to get at least one
of the leading parties to stand for it from year to year. We have
been working at the top with the members of legislatures,
delegates to conventions, etc., too long; it is now time to begin
at the bottom with the voting precincts. Nothing short of this
should be considered organization.
Miss Anthony received many poems every year from admiring friends of
both sexes. This acknowledgment of one raises the suspicion that she was
not so appreciative as she might have been: "I find in a very handsome
lavender envelope a poem inscribed on lavender paper, addressed to Susan
B. Anthony. Since I know nothing of the merits of poetry, I am not able
to pass any opinion upon this, but I can see that 'reap' and 'deep,'
'prayers' and 'bears,' 'ark' and 'dark,' 'true' and 'grew' do rhyme, and
so I suppose it is a splendid effort, but if you had written it in plain
prose, I could have understood it a great deal better and read it a
great deal more easily. Nevertheless, I am thankful to you for poetizing
over me--although the fact is that I am the most prosaic, matter-of-fact
creature that ever drew the breath of life."
A relative in California wrote that "God would punish the people in that
State who worked against the woman suffrage amendment," and Miss Anthony
replied:
It is hardly worth while for you or anybody to talk about "God's
punishing people." If He does, He has been a long time about it in
a good many cases and not succeeded in doing it very thoroughly. He
certainly didn't punish the liquor dealers of San Francisco;
instead of that, He let them rejoice over us women because of their
power to cheat us out of right and justice. I think it is quite
time, at least for anybody who has Anthony blood in her, to see
that God allows the wheat and the tares to grow up together, and
that the tares frequently get the start of the wheat and kill it
out. The only difference between the wheat and human beings is that
the latter have intellect and ought to combine and pull out the
tares, root and branch. Instead of that, good men stay away from
the ballot-box or else form third, fourth and forty-'leventh
parties, thus leaving the liquor men and vicious elements, who
always know enough to stand together, a balance of power on the
side of the candidate or the party that will do most for their
interests. If the good men were as bright as the bad men, they
would pull together instead of separately.
To the Jewish Woman's Council: "From day to day I read the press reports
of your meetings, and was pleased to see how successful they were;
especially was I glad at the answer one of your women made to the
criticism of your holding a meeting on Sunday. It is time to teach some
of our Protestant women that it is just as worthy to do a good thing on
Sunday as on Monday or any other day in the week, and no worse to do a
bad one. They should learn also that they have no more right to ask you
to hold their Sunday sacred than you have to demand that they shall
observe your Jewish Sabbath."
Some California women wrote her that the politicians were advising them
to ask for "educated and property suffrage," and she replied:
I should answer them that it is quite difficult enough for women to
push their demand for enfranchisement on an _equal_ basis with men.
They all know there is not a man who has any political aspirations
or a party which hopes for success, that would take a public stand
in favor of such a measure as they wish us to adopt. I do not agree
with them that we have too many voters now. Instead of that, I say
we have just half enough, for a majority of the opinions of all the
people combined is sure to be better than the opinions of any one
class. They call it a "mistake" giving to poor and uneducated men
the right to vote; whereas, the greatest wrongs in our government
are perpetrated by rich men, the wire-pulling agents of the
corporations and monopolies, in which the poor and the ignorant
have no part.
No, they can not persuade me that it would be a right or even a
politic thing to ask that only educated, tax-paying women be
enfranchised. It would antagonize not only every man who had
neither property nor education but also every one whose wife had
neither, and all such would vote against the enfranchisement of the
rich and educated women. You can not start a demand for any sort of
restrictive qualification for women which will not lose more votes
for the measure in one direction than it can possibly gain in
another.
The habit of many women of continually intruding their religious beliefs
into their public work was a great annoyance to Miss Anthony. To a
prominent speaker on the Prohibition platform with whom she was well
acquainted, she wrote: "It seems to me that by your using constantly the
words 'God' and 'Jesus' as if they were material beings, when to you
they are no longer such, you impress upon your audience, grounded as the
vast majority yet are in the old beliefs, that you still hold to the
idea of their personality. The world, especially women, love to cling to
a personal, material help--God a strong man, Jesus a loving man." And
then a little further on, referring to the common habit of regarding
physical misfortunes as the punishment of God, she said: "God is not
responsible for our human ills and we should not believe or disbelieve
in Him on account of our aches and pains. It surely is not the good
people who escape bodily ailments. Certain fixed laws govern all, and
those who come nearest to obeying these laws will suffer least; but even
then we must suffer for the failures of our ancestors."
One of the leading women in a State where a suffrage amendment was
pending, wrote her that she felt sure the Lord would interpose in its
behalf and she should try to influence the voters by prayer. In response
Miss Anthony said:
I think you do not fully realize that the vast majority of the men
whom you have to convert to suffrage, neither know nor care whether
you and the rest of the women who want to vote, are especially
inspired by God to make the demand. Those who are good Methodists
like yourself ought to believe in suffrage already, and therefore
your appeals are to be made to the men who are not Methodists,
possibly not even Christians, and would be repelled by your
presenting any of the religious motives which are so powerful with
you and other church members. To prevail with the rank and file of
voters, you must appeal to their sense of justice. I am glad to
have you tell me personally about your communings with the Lord,
but for you to give that talk of "miraculous intervention" to the
common run of voters would be, as the Good Book says, "casting
pearls before swine."
To a nephew, D. R. Anthony, Jr., and his bride on the day of their
wedding, she telegraphed the beautiful words of Lucretia Mott: "May your
independence be equal, your dependence mutual, your obligations
reciprocal."
In the winter of 1897 a great cry was raised about what was called
"yellow" journalism, the mischievous sensationalism of certain
metropolitan newspapers. The matter was taken up by the W. C. T. U. and
Miss Willard sent out an address to prominent women asking that they
should protest against this journalism and also against such spectacles
as the recent Corbett-Fitzsimmons prize fight. When it reached Miss
Anthony she answered:
Your circular letter came duly, proposing that women should refuse
to patronize the so-called "yellow" newspapers, and also protest
against prize fighting. It seems to me that for the women of the
country to come out now with their little piping voices, after all
the great daily papers of the nation have written the strongest
kind of editorials against both these evils, would be very like the
caricatures of the old Conkling-Platt fight in the United States
Senate--the tall Conkling dealing his blow, and the little Platt
peeping, "Me, too."
Instead of going around echoing one or another class of men, it is
time for women to put their heads together and demand to have their
opinions counted the same as those of the men who make possible
"yellow journalism" and prize fighting. They who wish may waste
their time trying to make bricks without straw--to change the
conditions of society without votes--I shall go on clamoring for
the ballot and trying not to antagonize any man or set of men.
Don't you see, if women ever get the right to vote it must be
through the consent of not only the moral and decent men of the
nation, but also through that of the other kind? Is it not
perfectly idiotic for us to be telling the latter class that the
first thing we shall do with our ballots will be to knock them out
of the enjoyment of their pet pleasures and vices? If you still
think it wise to keep on sticking pins into the men whom we are
trying to persuade to give women equal power with themselves, you
will have to go on doing it. I certainly will not be one of your
helpers in that particular line of work.
In reading these and scores of similar expressions of wisdom and
philosophy, one can but echo the words of Rev. Anna Shaw, who wrote to
Miss Anthony: "Your letters sound like a trumpet blast. They read like
St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans, so strong, so clear, so full of
courage." Miss Anthony and Miss Willard always continued the best of
friends, each great enough to respect the other's individuality. In
reply to the above, Miss Willard wrote: "Dearest Susan, two women as
settled in their opinions as you and I, show their highest wisdom when
they mildly agree to differ and go on their way rejoicing, with mutual
good word, good will, good heart. Ever yours with warm affection." A
little later Miss Willard added to the official invitations to the
World's and the National W. C. T. U. Conventions, her warm personal
request for Miss Anthony's presence.
There was no end to the invitations which came by every mail: a banquet
given by the New York Woman's Press Club; the twenty-fifth anniversary
of the Woman's Club at Orange, N. J.; an anniversary breakfast of
Sorosis, at the Waldorf; a reunion of the old Abolitionists in Boston;
the Pilgrim Mothers' Dinner in the Astor Gallery; the dedication of the
Mother Bickerdyke Hospital in Kansas; the opening reception of the
Tennessee Centennial--the very answering of them consumed hours of
precious time.[131] Neither was there any limit to the newspaper
requests for opinions, such as, "Do you favor the use of birds for
personal adornment? Why, or why not?" "Christ's message, 'Peace on
earth, good will to men'--what has it done and what does it mean after
nineteen centuries?" etc. She seldom attempted to answer such queries,
but her comments while looking them over in her daily mail, if preserved
by stenographer and historian, would make piquant reading.
An amusing letter turns up among the almost nine hundred received in
1897, in which a county official, not seventy-five miles from Rochester,
asks these questions: "In how many cities have you spoken? How many
lectures delivered? Have you ever spoken in Washington before Congress?
Have you ever spoken in Albany before the legislature? How many people
would you think you had addressed in your lifetime?" Miss Anthony
responded: "It would be hard to find a city in the northern and western
States in which I have not lectured, and I have spoken in many of the
southern cities. I have been on the platform over forty-five years and
it would be impossible to tell how many lectures I have delivered; they
probably would average from seventy-five to one hundred every year. I
have addressed the committees of every Congress since 1869, and our New
York legislature scores of times."
As has been stated, she never replied to personal attacks, but during
1897 one so unjust and so bitter was made by a disgruntled woman of New
York City in the St. Louis Republic, that she yielded to the importunity
of friends and answered briefly:
I have been an officer in the National Suffrage Association since
1852, and its president since 1892. During that time I never have
had one dollar of salary, nor have I ever received any money for my
suffrage work from this association. I usually am paid for
lectures by any society which sends for me to come to a special
place. In all of the laborious State campaigns I have given my
services without money and without price. The various bequests
which have been left to me, to use at my discretion, all have been
appropriated directly to the suffrage cause. Not one officer of the
national association is or ever has been paid for her services, and
most of them have contributed many years of hard work and a large
amount of their own money.
By the middle of July the biography was so well advanced that the two
workers felt entitled to a vacation during midsummer. The completed
chapters were locked securely in the safety deposit vault and, with a
fervent hope that the house would not catch fire and burn up the
unwritten part of the book during their absence, they started, July 15,
for a little tour, going first to the home of Mr. and Mrs. James Sargent
on "Summerland," one of the loveliest of the Thousand Islands. Here Miss
Anthony tried very hard for a whole week to do nothing. Even
letter-writing was laid aside and she sat on the veranda and watched the
great steamers and the pleasure boats go up and down the broad St.
Lawrence; took long naps in the hammock swayed by the soft breezes;
wandered through the picturesque ravine and along the water's edge; at
evening watched the sun set in gorgeous splendor, leaving a trail of
glory on the waters which slowly faded as the stars came out in the
beauty of the night and were reflected in the still depths. Every day,
with host and hostess and the other guests in the house, she boarded the
little launch and sailed up the river, winding in and out among those
wonderful islands with their diversity of hotels, clubhouses, elegant
mansions and pretty cottages; but all surpassed by the adornments of
nature, tall trees with luxuriant vines climbing to the very tops, and
the great rocks of the ages, rent and cleft and covered with mosses and
ferns.
It was a charming week but, although the stay might have been prolonged
through the summer, Miss Anthony was far too busy a woman for much
visiting, and on the 22d started for her old home at Adams, Mass., where
a unique and long anticipated event took place, which will be described
in the next chapter. A number of relatives, who had come from various
parts of the country for this occasion, returned to Rochester with her.
A little trip was made to Geneva to visit with Mrs. Stanton at Mrs.
Miller's, and so the summer sped quickly and pleasantly away.
Miss Anthony attended the Ohio convention at Alliance, October 5, and
was the guest of Mrs. Emma Cantine. While here, at the request of
President Marsh, she addressed the students of Mount Union College on
"The Progress of Women during my Lifetime." She had said again and again
that she would not leave her work and go to this convention, but when at
last a telegram was received, "For heaven's sake come; all depends on
you"--she put on her bonnet and went, just as she had done a hundred
times before.
She spoke, October 20, at the celebration of the hundredth birthday of
Rev. Samuel J. May, in the beautiful church erected to his memory in
Syracuse. She had known Mr. May intimately from 1850 to the time of his
death, and those who have read the first chapters of this book and seen
what he was to her in those early days of abolitionism and woman's
rights when the enemies far outnumbered the friends, can imagine how
eloquently she voiced the love and gratitude in her heart.
The next evening Miss Anthony left Rochester for ten days at Nashville,
Tenn. The Woman's Board had invited a number of national organizations
to hold conventions during the Exposition, and the last week was set
apart for the Woman's Council. This was not a suffrage meeting; it was
simply a national council where each one of the speakers asked for the
suffrage to enable her association to do its work. Headquarters were at
the Maxwell House, and the officers and many other notable women came
from various parts of the country for the week. The public sessions were
held in the Woman's Building, which was crowded to its capacity.
Although suffrage was a comparatively new subject in this city, the
announcement of Miss Anthony's address filled the assembly-room and she
was received with enthusiasm.
They met with a hearty greeting from the people of Nashville. Among the
elegant receptions given in their honor was one by Mr. and Mrs. W. W.
Berry at Vauxhall Place. The president of the Exposition, Mr. John W.
Thomas, and his wife gave a handsome entertainment, of which the
American's account said: "By the hostess stood her honored guest, Miss
Susan B. Anthony, in simple attire. Warm was the reception accorded this
gray-haired woman, and her grand face impressed all with the noble part
she had played in this century." At the close of the council the
visitors, as the guests of the lady directors, were driven in tally-ho
and carriages to the beautiful country-seat of the president of the
board, Mrs. Van Leer Kirkman, where they were royally received.
Miss Anthony spoke also before the Liberal Congress of Religions in
session at this time, and was introduced by the president, Dr. Thomas,
as "one who had stood for the cause of liberty when it cost something to
stand, and had borne the storm of calumny and abuse for fifty years."
While she was in Nashville President Erastus M. Cravath, of Fiske
University, called with his carriage and took her to that institution,
where she addressed the faculty and 600 students, speaking, by request,
on "The Early Days of Abolitionism."
After a day or two at home Miss Anthony attended the New York Suffrage
Convention at Geneva, November 3. Here she made a speech criticising the
women of New York City for having gone so actively into partisan
politics during the recent campaign, although none of the parties
advocated giving them the right of suffrage, and pointed out the
absurdity of hoping for "good government" from any party until it was
reinforced by the votes of women. The speech created something of a
sensation, and when she reached home a reporter was waiting for her, to
whom she gave an interview which intensified the original excitement.
Not only did she review the political situation in New York, but she
declared also that no movement could succeed unless it were managed by a
so-called "ring." Leaders must be surrounded by those who are in
sympathy with their ideas and willing to carry out their methods, or
nothing can be accomplished. In commenting, the paper quoted the remark
so often made, "When Susan B. Anthony was born a woman, an adroit
statesman was lost to the world."
On November 11 Miss Anthony started on a great swing of western
conventions, or conferences, stopping on her way to the railroad station
to attend the golden wedding reception of her friends of nearly fifty
years, Dr. and Mrs. Edward M. Moore. These conferences--Miss Anthony,
Mrs. Catt, Miss Shaw, speakers--were for the purpose of arousing
interest and raising money for the suffrage celebration to be held in
Washington in the winter of 1898. They began at Minneapolis and
continued for two days each in Madison, Chicago, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo
and Toledo. At the first city Miss Anthony addressed the students of the
State University, introduced by President Cyrus Northrop. A reception
was given in the public library building by the local Woman's Council.
At each of the cities visited the ladies were entertained by prominent
residents, the audiences were large and appreciative, and the newspapers
contained long and favorable reports. There was not a discord in the
chorus of pleasant welcome; not a disrespectful word of either the
speakers or the cause they advocated. The question was treated with the
same consideration and dignity as others before the public for
discussion, and it required no more courage to present it than to talk
of any other reform of the day.
If one desire an illustration of the progress made by women during half
a century, let him turn to the early chapters of this book and read the
story of those first meetings where Miss Anthony, rising timidly in her
seat and asking to make a remark, was literally howled down because no
woman was allowed to speak in public; and then let him read these
closing chapters of her ovations extending from ocean to ocean. From a
canvass of New York State in a sleigh, speaking to little handfuls of
people in country schoolhouses, ridiculed by the newspapers and outlawed
by society--to an endless series of conventions and congresses in all
the great cities of the country, with no hall large enough to hold the
audiences and with almost the unanimous approval of press and people!
Only a short period of less than fifty years, scarcely a second in the
eons of history, and yet in that brief time a revolution in public
sentiment, an overturning of the customs and prejudices of the ages, the
release of womanhood from unknown centuries of bondage!
FOOTNOTES:
[128] Among other birthday remembrances were a diamond pin from Miss
Shaw, Mrs. Avery, Mrs. Louise Mosher James and Lucy E. Anthony; $50 from
Mrs. Gross; many smaller gifts and quantities of flowers.
[129] During this month a fine medallion of Miss Anthony was made for
the Political Equality Club of Rochester and put on sale to obtain money
for the suffrage fund. Some time before, a handsome souvenir spoon was
designed by Mrs. Millie Burtis Logan, of Rochester.
[130] Later Miss Anthony was made honorary member of Irondequoit
Chapter, D. A. R. (Rochester).
[131] Miss Anthony was this year made honorary member of the Cuban
League, the Rochester Historical Society, the Ladies of the Maccabees,
and various other organizations.