There was a great reception the next afternoon in the hotel parlors,

and the convention met at Apollo Hall, October 21, the whole of the

arrangements having been made in three weeks. Mrs. Davis presided,

everybody had been brought into line and it was a notable gathering.

Cordial and approving letters to Mrs. Davis were read from Jacob

Bright, Canon Kingsley, Frances Power Cobbe, Emily Faithfull, Mary

Somerville, Emelie J. Meriman (afterwards the wife of Père Hyacinthe),

and other distinguished foreigners. Miss Anthony spoke strongly against

their identifying themselves with either of the parties until it had

declared for woman suffrage, urging them to accept every possible help

from both but to form no alliance, as had been proposed. The feature of

the occasion was "The History of the Woman's Rights Movement for Twenty

Years," carefully prepared by Mrs. Davis.[56] In addition to this

valuable work, she contributed $300 to the expenses of the meeting. It

was an unqualified success and her letters were full of warmest

gratitude to Miss Anthony.

In November the latter resumed her lecturing tour which was arranged by

Elizabeth Brown, who had been her head clerk in The Revolution office.

The first of December she attended the Northwestern Woman Suffrage

Convention at Detroit. Here she received a telegram to hasten home and

arrived just in time to stand by the death-bed of a dear nephew, Thomas

King McLean, twenty-one years old, brother of the beloved Ann Eliza who

had died a few years before, and only son of her sister Guelma. He was

a senior of brilliant promise in Rochester University. His death was a

heavy blow to all the family and one from which his mother never

recovered.

With her debts pressing upon her and an array of lecture engagements

ahead, Miss Anthony could neither pause to indulge her own grief nor to

console and sympathize with the loved ones. The very night of the

funeral she again set forth. By the New Year she had lessened her debt

$1,600. This trip extended through New York and Pennsylvania, to

Washington and into Virginia. Of the last she writes: "A great work to

be done here but the lectures can not possibly be made to pay

expenses." In Philadelphia she spoke in the Star course, was the guest

of Anna Dickinson and was introduced to her audience by Lucretia Mott,

then seventy-seven years old. The diary relates that Mrs. Mott came

next morning before 8 o'clock to give her $20, saying it was very

little but would show her confidence and affection. The lecture given

on this tour was entitled "The False Theory" and was highly commended

by the press. It never was written and probably never twice delivered

in the same words, Miss Anthony always depending largely upon the

inspiration of the occasion.

The middle of December she slipped back to Rochester to see her

bereaved sister, and speaks of their receiving a letter of sympathy

from Rev. J.K. McLean, which, she says, "is the first philosophical

word that has been spoken." While at home she was invited to the

Hallowells' to see Wendell Phillips, their first meeting since their

sad difference of opinion concerning the Fourteenth Amendment. They had

a cordial interview and she went with him to his lecture in the

evening. The entry in the journal that night closes with the

underscored sentence, "Phillips is matchless."

[Footnote 54: On the platform or in the audience were to be seen the

beloved Quaker, Mrs. John J. Merrit, of Brooklyn, Margaret E.

Winchester, Mrs. Theodore Tilton, Mrs. Edwin A. Studwell, Catharine

Beecher--her plain face illuminated with the fire of indignation--Jenny

June Croly, writing rapidly for the New York World, Cora Tappan, Hannah

Tracy Cutler, president of the Ohio Woman Suffrage Association, Phoebe

Couzins, Mrs. Benjamin F. Butler, Mrs. James Parton, better known as

Fanny Fern, Charlotte B. Wilbour, Elizabeth B. Phelps, two nieces of

Mrs. U. S. Grant, Laura Curtis Bullard. Frances Dietz Hallock, Ella

Dietz Clymer, Anne Lynch Botta, Mary F. Gilbert, Mrs. Moses Beach,

Julia Ward Howe, and many other well-known women.]

[Footnote 55: The demands for woman everywhere today are for a wider

range of employment, higher wages, thorough mental and physical

education, and an equal right before the law in all those relations

which grow out of the marriage state. While we yield to none in the

earnestness of our advocacy of these claims, we make a broader demand

for the enfranchisement of woman, as the only way in which all her just

rights can be permanently secured. By discussing, as we shall

incidentally, leading questions of political and social importance, we

hope to educate women for an intelligent judgment upon public affairs,

and for a faithful expression of that judgment at the polls.

As masculine ideas have ruled the race for six thousand years, we

especially desire that The Revolution shall be the mouth piece of

women, to give the world the feminine thought in politics, religion and

social life; so that ultimately in the union of both we may find the

truth in all things. On the idea taught by the creeds, codes and

customs of the world, that woman was made for man, we declare war to

the death, and proclaim the higher truth that, like man, she was

created by God for individual moral responsibility and progress here

and forever.

Our principal contributors this year are: Anna Dickinson, Isabella

Beecher Hooker, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Alice and Phoebe Cary, Olive

Logan, Mary Clemmer, Mrs. Theodore Tilton, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Phoebe

Couzins, Elizabeth Boynton and others; and foreign, Rebecca Moore,

Lydia E. Becker and Madame Marie Goeg.

The Revolution is an independent journal, bound to no party or sect,

and those who write for our columns are responsible only for what

appears under their own names. Hence, if old Abolitionists and

Slaveholders, Republicans and Democrats, Presbyterians and

Universalists, Catholics and Protestants find themselves side by side

in writing on the question, of woman suffrage, they must pardon each

other's differences on all other points, trusting that by giving their

own views strongly and grandly, they will overshadow the errors by

their side.]

[Footnote 56: Frances Wright, from Scotland, in 1828 was the first

woman to speak on a public platform in this country. Ernestine L. Rose,

from Poland, gave political lectures in 1836; Mary S. Gove, of New

York, lectured oil woman's rights in 1837; Sarah and Angelina Grimké,

from South Carolina, commenced their anti-slavery speeches in 1837, and

Abby Kelly, of Massachusetts, in 1839; Eliza W. Farnham, of New York,

lectured in 1843; between 1840 and 1845 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Paulina

Wright (afterwards Davis) and Ernestine L. Rose circulated petitions

for a bill to secure property rights for married women, and several

times addressed committees of the New York Legislature; Margaret Fuller

gave lectures in Massachusetts, in 1845; Lucy Stone spoke for the

rights of women in 1847. The first woman's rights convention was called

by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Martha C. Wright and Mary Ann

McClintock, at Seneca Falls, N.Y., in 1848; Susan B. Anthony made her

first speech on temperance in 1849. From 1850 the number of women

speakers rapidly increased.]

CHAPTER XXII.

MRS. HOOKER'S CONVENTION--THE LECTURE FIELD.

1871.

A large correspondence was conducted in regard to the Third National

Convention, which was to be held in Washington in January, 1871.

Isabella Beecher Hooker, who had all the zeal of a new convert, created

some amusement among the old workers by offering to relieve them of the

entire management of the convention, intimating that she would avoid

the mistakes they had made and put the suffrage work on a more

aristocratic basis. To Mrs. Stanton she wrote:

I have proposed taking the Washington convention into my own hands,

expenses and all; arranging program, and presiding or securing help

in that direction, if I should need it. I shall hope to get Robert

Collyer, and a good many who might not care to speak for "the

Union" but would speak for me. I should want from you a pure

suffrage argument, much like that you made before the committee at

Washington last winter. I know you are tired of this branch, but

you are fitted to do a great work still in that direction.... Won't

you promise to come to my convention, without charge save

travelling expenses, provided I have one? I am waiting to hear from

Susan, Mrs. Pomeroy and you, and then shall get Tilton's approval

and the withdrawal of the society from the work, if they have

undertaken it, and go ahead.

Mrs. Stanton consented gladly and wrote the other friends to do

likewise, saying: "I should like to have Susan for president, as she

has worked and toiled as no other woman has, but if we think best not

to blow her horn, then let us exalt Mrs. Hooker, who thinks she could

manage the cause more discreetly, more genteelly than we do. I am ready

to rest and see the salvation of the Lord." On their rounds the letters

came to Martha Wright, the gentle Quaker, who commented with the fine

irony of which she was master: "It strikes me favorably. It would be a

fine thing for Mrs. Hooker to preside over the Washington convention,

while her sister, Catharine Beecher, was inveighing against suffrage,

for the benefit of Mrs. Dahlgren and others. Perhaps she is right in

thinking that Robert Collyer and a good many others who would not care

to speak for 'the Union,' would speak for her--I for one would be glad

to have her try it! If 'Captain Susan' would consent to be placed at

the head of the association, there could not be a more suitable and

just appointment."

Mrs. Stanton wrote that her lecture engagements would not permit her to

go to Washington and she would send $100 instead. Mrs. Hooker replied:

Your offer just suits me, and of myself I should accept $100 with

thankfulness, and excuse you, as you desire, but Susan looked

disgusted and said, "She must appear before the Congressional

committees, at any rate." I had not thought of that, but of course,

if you were in Washington, it would be absurd not to be on our

platform; and so I don't know what to say. You will talk more

forcibly than any one else, and in committee you are invaluable.

Still, I want your money, and I could do without you on the

platform.... I fully expect, to accomplish far more by a convention

devoted to the purely political aspect of the woman question, than

by a woman's rights convention, however well-managed; and this,

because the time has come for this practical work--discussion has

prepared the way, now we must have the thing, the vote itself. It

just occurs to me that you might write an argument for the

committee, which I would read, but of course your presence is most

desirable, and I incline to have you on hand for this last, great

effort; for it does seem to me that _we need not have another

convention_ in Washington, but only a select committee to work

privately every winter, and send for speakers, etc., when the

committees are ready to grant hearings.

It is the part of wisdom to suppress Mrs. Stanton's reply to this, but

she sent it to Martha Wright, who answered her:

You can imagine what success Mrs. Hooker will have with those wily

politicians. She thinks they will come serenely from their seats to

the lobby, when she tries "all the means known to an honest woman."

I fear the means known to _the other sort_ would meet a readier

response. I forget which of the senators it was, last winter, who

said rudely to Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Griffing, "You just call us out

because you like to."... Mrs. Hooker will find it no easy matter to

hook them on to _her_ platform, but she will be wiser after trying.

She is mistaken in considering the cause so nearly won, but it

would be as impossible for her to realize the situation as it was

for Rev. Thomas Beecher to be convinced that Mr. Smith saw more

clearly than he. "Do you mean," said this potentate, "to bring down

the whole Beecher family on your head?" "No," was the reply, "do

you mean to bring the whole Smith family on to yours?"

The following circular letter was sent to Curtis, Phillips and other

prominent men:

A convention has been announced at Washington, for January 11 and

12, to push the Sixteenth Amendment. The management is solely in my

hands, and I alone assume the financial responsibility. I go to

Washington January 1 to spend some days enlisting members of

Congress in this purely political question, and securing short

speeches from them on our platform. I have neither State nor

national society behind me, but am attempting to carry on a

convention with this single aim--to awaken Congress and, through

it, the country, to the fact that a Sixteenth Amendment is needed,

in order to carry out the principles of the Declaration of

Independence; and that we women are tired of petitioning, and would

fain begin to vote without delay. Will you speak for _me_ in the

day or the evening, and much oblige your sincere friend, ISABELLA

B. HOOKER.

Evidently they would not speak, even "for me," and Mrs. Hooker sends

around this note of explanation to the "old guard:" "I know of no

gentlemen outside of members of Congress, that can help us at all, who

can come. Beecher, Collyer, Curtis and Phillips are all unable. If you

think of any one else it would be worth while to invite, please write

me at once. I have such a strong determination that members shall

understand how much we are in earnest at this time, and how we won't

wait any longer, that it does seem to me they will take up a burden of

speech themselves, and work also. Mr. Sewall, of Boston, writes me that

he will urge Mr. Sumner, as I requested, and other members, but thinks

they can not need it."

Miss Anthony, however, declined to be snubbed, subdued or displaced,

and wrote to Mrs. Stanton in the following vigorous style:

Mrs. Hooker's attitude is not in the least surprising. She is

precisely like every new convert in every reform. I have no doubt

but each of the Apostles in turn, as he came into the ranks,

believed he could improve upon Christ's methods. I know every new

one thought so of Garrison's and Phillips'. The only thing

surprising in this case is that you, the pioneer, should drop, and

say to each of these converts: "Yes, you may manage. I grant your

knowledge, judgment, taste, culture, are all superior to mine. I

resign the good old craft to you altogether." To my mind there

never was such suicidal letting go as has been yours these last two

years.

But I am now teetotally discouraged, and shall make no more

attempts to hold you up to what I know is not only the best for our

cause, but equally so for yourself, from the moral standpoint if

not the financial. O, how I have agonized over my utter failure to

make you feel and see the importance of standing fast and holding

the helm of our good ship to the end of the storm. Mr. Greeley's

"On to Richmond" backdown was not more sad to me, not half so sad.

How you can excuse yourself, is more than I can understand.

Mrs. Stanton commented to Mrs. Wright: "For your instruction in the

ways of the world, I send you Susan's letter. You see I am between two

fires all the time. Some are determined to throw me overboard, and she

is equally determined that I shall stand at the masthead, no matter how

pitiless the storm."

Mrs. Hooker found hers was a greater task than she had anticipated and

finally wrote Miss Anthony: "God knows, and you ought to know, that any

one who undertakes a convention has put self-seeking one side and is

nearer to being a martyr, stake, fagots and all, than any of us care to

be unless called by duty with a loud and unmistakable call. I shirked

the labor last year and pitied you because so much fell upon you, and

out of pure love to you and to the cause determined this time to take

all I could on my own shoulders, but you must come and help out."

Mrs. Stanton still persisted in her determination not to go to this

convention but Miss Anthony cancelled eight or ten lecture engagements,

at from $50 to $75 each, in order to be present in person and see that

the affair was properly managed. Mrs. Hooker, however, was fully equal

to the occasion, her convention was a marked success and she proved to

be one of the most valuable acquisitions to the ranks of workers for

woman suffrage. She soon learned that the opposition to be overcome was

far greater than she had imagined, and after nearly thirty years'

effort, not even in her own State have women been able to secure their

enfranchisement. It seems, however, a bit of poetic justice that this

convention, which was to lift the movement for woman suffrage to a

higher plane than it ever before had occupied, should have been the

first to invite to its platform Victoria C. Woodhull, whose advent

precipitated a storm of criticism compared to which all those that had

gone before were as a summer shower to a Missouri cyclone.

[Illustration: Isabella Beecher Hooker]

On December 21, 1870, Mrs. Woodhull had gone to Washington with a

memorial praying Congress to enact such laws as were necessary for

enabling women to exercise the right to vote vested in them by the

Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. This was

presented in the Senate by Harris, of Louisiana, and in the House by

Julian, of Indiana, referred to the judiciary committees and ordered

printed. She had taken this action without consulting any of the

suffrage leaders and they were as much astonished to hear of it as were

the rest of the world. When they arrived at the capital another

surprise awaited them. On taking up the papers they learned that Mrs.

Woodhull was to address the judiciary committee of the House of

Representatives the very morning their convention was to open. Miss

Anthony hastened to confer with Mrs. Hooker, who was a guest at the

home of Senator Pomeroy, and to urge that they should be present at

this hearing and learn what Mrs. Woodhull proposed to do. Mrs. Hooker

emphatically declined, but the senator said: "This is not politics. Men

never could work in a political party if they stopped to investigate

each member's antecedents and associates. If you are going into a

fight, you must accept every help that offers."

Finally they postponed the opening of their convention till afternoon

and, on the morning of January 11, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Hooker, Paulina

Wright Davis and Hon. A. G. Riddle appeared in the judiciary committee

room. None of them had met Mrs. Woodhull, whom they found to be a

beautiful woman, refined in appearance and plainly dressed. She read

her argument in a clear, musical voice with a modest and engaging

manner, captivating not only the men but the ladies, who invited her to

come to their convention and repeat it. Mrs. Hooker and Judge Riddle

also addressed the committee and Miss Anthony closed the proceedings

with a short speech, thus reported by the Philadelphia Press:

She said few women had persecuted Congress as she had done, and she

was glad that new, fresh voices were heard today. "But, gentlemen,"

she continued, "I entreat you to bring this matter before the

House. You let our petition, presented by Mr. Julian last winter,

come to its death. I ask you to grant our appeal so that I can lay

off my armor, for I am tired of fighting. The old Constitution did

not disfranchise women, and we begged you not to put the word

'male' into the Fourteenth Amendment. I wish, General Butler, you

would say _contraband_ for us. But, gentlemen, bring in a report of

some kind, either for or against; don't let the matter die in

committee. Make it imperative that every man in the House shall

show whether he is for or against it." Mrs. Hooker caught the

refrain as Miss Anthony sat down, and said: "Pledge yourselves that

we shall have a hearing before Congress."

The Daily Patriot, of Washington, gave this account of the opening of

the convention:

About 3 o'clock the principal actors came upon the stage in Lincoln

Hall. In the center of the front row was Paulina Wright Davis, a

stately, dignified lady with a full suit of frosted hair. On her

right was Isabella Beecher Hooker, the ruling genius of the

assembly, of commanding voice and look, and evidently at home on

the rostrum. On the left was Josephine S. Griffing, of this city,

wearing the calm, imperturbable expression which is so eminently

her characteristic. Further on was Susan B. Anthony, "the hero of a

hundred fights," but still as eager for the fray as when she first

enlisted under the banner of woman's rights.... Then came the two

New York sensations, Woodhull and Claflin, both in dark dresses,

with blue neckties, short, curly brown hair, and nobby Alpine hats,

the very picture of the advanced ideas they are advocating. All

were fresh from the scene of their contest in the Capitol, wreathed

with smiles, flushed with victory, and evidently determined to let

the world know that the goal of their ambition was nearly reached;

that Congress had virtually surrendered at discretion, and

hereafter they were to be considered part and parcel of that great

body denominated American citizens.

Mrs. Hooker introduced Victoria Woodhull, saying it was her first

attempt at public speaking, but her heart was so in the movement

that she was determined to try. She advanced to the front of the

platform, but was so nervous that she required the assuring arm of

the president and her kindly voice to give her courage to proceed.

When she did, it was with a perceptible tremor in her tones. After

an apology, she read her memorial, which had been presented to the

judiciary committee, reported the result of her interview with

them, and said she had the assurance that it would be favorably

reported, and that the heart of every man in Congress was in the

movement. Thus ended the first effort of the great Wall street

broker as a public speaker.

She was followed by Josephine S. Griffing, Lillie Devereux Blake,

Frederick Douglass and others. Judge Riddle made the address of the

evening. Senator Nye, of Nevada, presided over one evening session;

Senator Warner, of Alabama, over one; and Senator Wilson, of

Massachusetts, over another. The correspondent of the Philadelphia

Press wrote: "Mrs. Woodhull sat sphynx-like during the convention.

General Grant himself might learn a lesson of silence from the pale,

sad face of this unflinching woman. No chance to send an arrow through

the opening seams of her mail.... She reminds one of the forces in

nature behind the storm, or of a small splinter of the indestructible;

and if her veins were opened they would be found to contain ice." The

National Republican thus describes one session:

The attendance yesterday morning clearly demonstrated that the

woman's movement has received an immense addition in numbers,

quality and earnestness.... Miss Anthony, with her face all aglow,

her eyes sparkling with indignation, said that a petition against

suffrage had been presented in the Senate by Mr. Edmunds, signed by

Mrs. General Sherman, Mrs. Admiral Dahlgren and others. She was

glad the enemies of the movement at last had shown themselves. They

were women who never knew a want, and had no feeling for those who

were less fortunate. They had boasted that if necessary they could

get one thousand more signatures of the best women in the land to

their petition. What are a thousand names, and who are the best

women in the land? In answer to the one thousand the advocates of

suffrage could bring tens, aye, hundreds of thousands of women who

desire the ballot for self-protection. The fight had now commenced

in earnest, and it would not be ended until every woman in this

broad land was vested with the full rights of citizenship.

The tenor of all the speeches was the right of women to vote under the

recently adopted Fourteenth Amendment. There was an absence of the

usual long series of resolutions, and all were concentrated in the

following, presented by Miss Anthony:

Whereas, The Fourteenth Article of the Constitution of the United

States declares that all persons born or naturalized in the United

States are citizens thereof, and of the State wherein they reside,

and as such entitled to the unabridged exercise of the privileges

and immunities of citizens, among which are the rights of the

elective franchise; therefore

_Resolved_, That the Congress of the United States be earnestly

requested to pass an _act declaratory_ of the true extent and

meaning of the said Fourteenth Article.

_Resolved_, That it is the duty of American women in the several

States to apply for registration at the proper times and places,

and in all cases when they fail to secure it to see that suits be

instituted in the courts having jurisdiction, and that their right

to the franchise shall secure general and judicial recognition.

In presenting the resolutions she said that if Congress failed to do

what was asked, and if the courts decided that "persons" are not

citizens, then the women had another resource; they could go back to

first principles and push the Sixteenth Amendment. A national woman

suffrage and educational committee of six was formed, herself among the

number; and a large book was opened containing a "Declaration and

Pledge of Women of the United States," written by Mrs. Hooker,

asserting their belief in their right to the suffrage and their desire

to use it. This was signed within a few months by 80,000 women and

presented to Congress. The following spring large numbers attempted to

vote in various parts of the country.

The advent of Mrs. Woodhull on the woman suffrage platform created a

wide-spread commotion. The old cry of "free love" was redoubled, the

enemies exulted loud and long, the friends censured and protested.

Regarding this matter, Mrs. Hooker wrote:

My sister Catharine says she is convinced now that I am right and

that Mrs. Woodhull is a pure woman, holding a wrong social theory,

and ought to be treated with kindness if we wish to win her to the

truth. Catharine wanted me to write her a letter of introduction,

so that when she went to New York she could make her acquaintance

and try to convince her that she is in error in regard to her views

on marriage. I gave her the letter and she is in New York now. When

she sees her she will be just as much in love with her as the rest

of us. Imagine the Dahlgren coterie when they get Catharine to

Washington to fight suffrage and find her visiting Victoria and

proclaiming her sweetness and excellence.

The rest of the story is told in a subsequent letter: "Sister Catharine

returned last night. She saw Victoria and, attacking her on the

marriage question, got such a black eye as filled her with horror and

amazement. I had to laugh inwardly at her relation of the interview and

am now waiting for her to cool down!"

The men especially were exercised over the new convert to suffrage and

flooded the ladies with letters of protest. To one of these Mrs.

Stanton replied:

In regard to the gossip about Mrs. Woodhull I have one answer to

give to all my gentlemen friends: When the men who make laws for us

in Washington can stand forth and declare themselves pure and

unspotted from all the sins mentioned in the Decalogue, then we

will demand that every woman who makes a constitutional argument on

our platform shall be as chaste as Diana. If our good men will only

trouble themselves as much about the virtue of their own sex as

they do about ours, if they will make one moral code for both men

and women, we shall have a nobler type of manhood and womanhood in

the next generation than the world has yet seen.

We have had women enough sacrificed to this sentimental,

hypocritical prating about purity. This is one of man's most

effective engines for our division and subjugation. He creates the

public sentiment, builds the gallows, and then makes us hangmen for

our sex. Women have crucified the Mary Wollstonecrafts, the Fanny

Wrights, the George Sands, the Fanny Kembles, of all ages; and now

men mock us with the fact, and say we are ever cruel to each other.

Let us end this ignoble record and henceforth stand by womanhood.

If Victoria Woodhull must be crucified, let men drive the spikes

and plait the crown of thorns.

[Autograph: Lucinda Hinsdale Stone]

Immediately after the Washington convention, Miss Anthony went to fill

a lecture engagement at Kalamazoo, the arrangements made by her friend,

the widely-known and revered Lucinda H. Stone. She spoke also at Grand

Rapids and other points in Michigan. At Chicago she was fortunate

enough to have a day with Mrs. Stanton, also on a lecturing tour, and

then took the train for Leavenworth. At Kansas City the papers said she

made "the success of the lecture season." She spoke in Leavenworth,

Lawrence, Topeka, Paola, Olathe and other places throughout the State.

Although it was very cold and the half-frozen mud knee deep, she

usually had good audiences. At Lincoln, Neb., she was entertained at

the home of Governor Butler and introduced by him at her lecture. At

Omaha her share of the receipts was $100. At Council Bluffs she was the

guest of her old fellow-worker, Amelia Bloomer. Cedar Rapids and Des

Moines gave packed houses. She lectured in a number of Illinois towns,

taking trains at midnight and at daybreak; and, waiting four hours at

one little station, the diary says she was so thoroughly worn-out she

was compelled to lie down on the dirty floor. On the homeward route she

spoke at Antioch College, and was the guest of President Hosmer's

family. According to the infallible little journal: "The president said

he had listened to all the woman suffrage lecturers in the field, but

tonight, for the first time, he had heard an _argument_; a compliment

above all others, coming from an aged and conservative minister."

She spoke also at Wilberforce University, at Dayton, Springfield,

Crestline, and in Columbus before the two Houses of the Legislature. At

Salem she ran across Parker Pillsbury, who was lecturing there. When

she took the train at Columbus "there sat Mrs. Stanton, fast asleep,

her gray curls sticking out." Then again into Michigan she went,

speaking at Jackson, Lansing, Ann Arbor and other cities. Mrs. Stanton

had preceded her and it was many times said that her lecture needed

Miss Anthony's to make it complete. Then to Chicago, where she spoke at

a suffrage matinee in Farwell Hall and at the Cook county annual

suffrage convention, and dined at Robert Collyer's; back to Iowa,

speaking at Burlington, Davenport, Mount Pleasant and Ottumwa; over

into Nebraska once more, from there returning to Illinois; into

Indiana, thence to Milwaukee and points in Wisconsin; and once more to

Chicago, where, as was often the case, she was the guest of Mr. and

Mrs. Fernando Jones; from here across to Painesville and other towns in

northern Ohio; then on to numerous places in western New York, and

finally home to Rochester, April 25, having slept scarcely two nights

in the same bed for over three months.

Such is the hard life of the public lecturer, the most exhausting and

exacting which man or woman can experience. During all this long trip

Miss Anthony had met everywhere a cordial welcome and had been

entertained in scores of delightful homes. Her speech on this tour was

entitled "The New Situation," and was a clear and comprehensive

argument to prove that the Fourteenth Amendment gave women the right to

vote. Although composed largely of legal and constitutional references,

it was not written but drawn from the storehouse of her wonderful

memory, aided only by a few notes.

At the close of the Washington convention the advocates of woman

suffrage honestly believed that the battle was almost won. They felt

sure Congress would pass the enabling act, permitting them to exercise

the right that they claimed to be conferred by the Fourteenth

Amendment, in which claim they were sustained by some of the best

constitutional lawyers in the country. The agricultural committee room

in the Capitol was placed at the disposal of the national woman

suffrage committee, who put Josephine S. Griffing in charge. The latter

part of January she wrote:

Our room is thronged. Yesterday and today no less than twelve wives

of members of Congress were here and large numbers of the

aristocratic women of Washington. Blanche Butler Ames assures me

that all her sympathies are with us. President Grant's sister, Mrs.

Cramer, has been here and given her name, saying that Mrs. Grant

sent her regards and sympathized with our movement, and that she

had refused from principle to sign Mrs. Sherman's protest.... The

daily press is on its knees and is publishing long editorials in

our favor. You ask if this is a Republican dodge. I do not know. I

feel as Douglass did, ready to welcome the bolt from heaven or hell

that shivers the chains. If the Republicans hope to save their

lives by our enfranchisement, let them live.

Mrs. Hooker wrote from Washington: "Everything conspires to bring about

the early confirmation of our hopes. Republicans are discovering that

without this new, live issue, they are dead, and once more party

necessity is to be God's opportunity. Let us, who know so many good men

and true who are in this party, be thankful that through it, rather

than through the Democratic, deliverance is to come, for to owe

gratitude to a pro-slavery party would nearly choke my thanksgiving."

To this Mrs. Stanton replied: "That is not the point, but which party,

as a party, has the best record on our question. For four years I have

chafed under the Republican maneuvering to keep us still. Let me call

your attention to my speech on the Fifteenth Amendment, in which I said

'this is a new stab at womanhood, to result in deeper degradation to

her than she has ever known before.'... Sometimes I exclaim in agony,

'Can nothing raise the self-respect of women?' I despise the Republican

party for the political serfdom we suffer today, under the heel of

every foreign lord and lackey who treads our soil. If all of you have

turned to such idols, I will go alone to Jerusalem."

When the judiciary committee made its adverse report[57] which was

merely that Congress had not the power to act, most of the friends were

not discouraged but believed another committee would decide

differently. Mrs. Hooker, however, was at the boiling point of

indignation over the report and reversed her decision in regard to the

Republican party, writing: "Thank God! that party is dead; every one

here knows it, feels it, and is waiting to see what will take its

place. A great labor and woman suffrage party is ready to spring into

life, and a hundred aristocratic Democrats are pledged to the work. You

can have no conception of the new conditions unless you are here in the

midst of things and read the telegrams from all parts of the country.

Early next winter we shall be declared voting citizens." She then

quotes a number of prominent Democratic politicians whom she has

interviewed and who have given her reason for having faith in that

party. But many of the women were fooled then by both political

parties, just as they have continued to be up to the present time.

A letter from Phoebe Couzins expressed the sentiment of numbers which

were received this spring: "We made a grand mistake in giving up the

National. If you and Mrs. Stanton think best, as your fingers are on

the pulse of the people, let us resolve the Union Society into the

National Association. So say Mr. and Mrs. Minor, but whatever is done,

the two grand women who have the qualifications for leadership _must be

at the head_; the cause will languish until you are back in your old

places."

The suffrage anniversary was held in Apollo Hall, New York, May 11 and

12, 1871. Mrs. Griffing read an able report on the work at Washington

the previous winter. There were strong objections by a number of ladies

to sitting on the platform with Mrs. Woodhull, but Mrs. Stanton said

she should be sandwiched between Lucretia Mott and herself and that

surely would give her sufficient respectability. She made a fine

constitutional argument, to which the most captious could not object.

The excitement created by her appearance at the Washington meeting was

mild compared to that in New York City where she was becoming so

well-known. The great dailies headed all reports, "The Woodhull

Convention." The injustice and vindictiveness of the Tribune, that

paper which once had been the champion of woman's cause, were

especially hard to bear. It rang the changes upon the term "free love,"

insisted that, because the women allowed Mrs. Woodhull to stand upon

their platform and advocate suffrage, they thereby indorsed all her

ideas on social questions, and by every possible means it cast odium on

the convention.

There is no doubt that the advocates of "free love," in its usually

accepted sense, did endeavor to insinuate themselves among the suffrage

women and make this movement responsible for their social doctrines,

but every great reform has to suffer from similar parasites. The lives

of Miss Anthony, Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Hooker, Mrs. Davis, and

of all the old and tried leaders in this cause, form the strongest

testimony of their utter repudiation of any such heresy. It was

impossible, however, for the world in general to understand their broad

ground that it was their business to accept valuable services without

inquiring into the private life of the persons who offered them. If

this were a mistake, these pioneers, who fought single-handed such a

battle as the women of later days can not comprehend, had to learn the

fact by experience.

The notorious Stephen Pearl Andrews prepared a set of involved and

intricate resolutions which were read by Paulina Wright Davis, the

chairman, without any thought of their possessing a deeper meaning than

appeared on the surface, but they fell flat on the convention, and were

neither discussed nor voted upon. The papers got possession of them,

nevertheless, declared that they were adopted as part of the platform,

read "free love" between the lines, and used them as the basis of many

ponderous and prophetic editorials.

A national committee was formed of one woman from each State, with Mrs.

Stanton as chairman, of which the New York Standard, edited by John

Russell Young, said: "Miss Susan B. Anthony holds a modest position,

but we can well believe that in any movement for the enfranchisement of

women, like MacGregor, wherever she sits will be the head of the

table." The New York Democrat commented: "She deals with facts, not

theories, but just gets hold of one nail after another and drives it

home.... Her words were to the point, as they always are, and abounded

in telling hits in every direction." Even the Tribune was generous

enough to say: "The ranks of the agitators with whom Captain Anthony is

identified contain no one more indiscreet, more reckless or more

honest. We have no sort of sympathy with the object to which the fair

captain is now devoting her life; but we know no person before the

country more single-minded, sincere and unselfish and, for these

reasons, more honestly entitled to the regard of a public which will

always appreciate upright intentions and disinterested devotion."

In the closing days of May, she wrote to her old paper, The Revolution:

Your "Stand by the Cause," this week, is the timely word to the

friends of woman suffrage. The present howl is an old trick of the

arch-fiend to divert public thought from the main question, viz:

woman's equal freedom and equal power to make and control her own

conditions in the state, in the church and, most of all, in the

home.

Though the ballot is the open sesame to equal rights, there is a

fundamental law which can not be violated with impunity between

woman and man, any more than between man and man; a law stated a

hundred years ago by Alexander Hamilton: "Give to a man a right

over my subsistence, and he has power over my whole moral being."

Woman's subsistence is in the hands of man, and most arbitrarily

and unjustly does he exercise his consequent power, making two

moral codes: one for himself, with largest latitude--swearing,

chewing, smoking, drinking, gambling, libertinism, all winked

at--cash and brains giving him a free pass everywhere; another

quite unlike this for woman--she must be immaculate. One hair's

breadth deviation, even the touch of the hem of the garment of an

_accused_ sister, dooms her to the world's scorn. Man demands that

his wife shall be above suspicion. Woman must accept her husband as

he is, for she is powerless so long as she eats the bread of

dependence. Were man today dependent upon woman for his

subsistence, I have no doubt he would very soon find himself

compelled to square his life to an entirely new code, not a whit

less severe than that to which he now holds her. In moral

rectitude, we would not have woman less but man more.

It is to put an end to such heresies as the following, from the

Rochester Democrat, that all women should most earnestly labor.

That paper begs us not to forget, "that what may be pardonable in a

man, speaking of evils generally, may and perhaps ought to be

unpardonable in one of the presumably better sex; because there can

not and must not be perfect equality between men and women when the

disposition to do wrong is under discussion. Women are permitted to

be as much better than men as they choose; but there ought to be no

law, on or oft the statute books, recognizing their social and

political right to be worse or even as bad as men; and it is

shameful that intelligent women should claim such a right, or even

dare to mention it at all." No human being or class of human beings

would venture to talk thus to equals. It is only because women are

dependent on men that such cowardly impudence can be dished out to

them day after day by puny legislators and editors, themselves

often reeking in social corruption which should banish them forever

from the presence of womanhood. Yours for an even-handed scale in

morals as well as politics, SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

[Footnote 57: The committee reported January 30, 1871, John A. Bingham,

of Ohio, chairman. The minority report, signed by Benjamin F. Butler,

of Massachusetts, and William Loughridge, of Iowa, is perhaps the

strongest and most exhaustive argument ever written on woman's right to

vote under the Constitution. It is given in full in the History of

Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 464.]

CHAPTER XXIII.

FIRST TRIP TO THE PACIFIC COAST.

1871.

At the close of the New York convention Miss Anthony, Rev. Olympia

Brown and Josephine S. Griffing went with Mrs. Hooker to Hartford for a

short visit, which it may be imagined was one protracted "business

session." Then Miss Anthony hastened to her own home to prepare for a

long journey, as she and Mrs. Stanton had decided to make a lecture

tour through California. She left Rochester the last day of May, and

met Mrs. Stanton in Chicago where a reception was given them by the

suffrage club, in its elegant new headquarters. They spoke in a number

of cities en route and attended numerous handsome receptions held in

their honor. At Denver they were entertained by Governor and Mrs.

McCook. Their audiences were large and enthusiastic, the press

respectful and often cordial and appreciative.[58] At Laramie City they

were accompanied to the station by a hundred women whom Mrs. Stanton

addressed from the platform. A letter written by Miss Anthony during

the journey contains these beautiful paragraphs:

We have a drawing-room all to ourselves, and here we are just as

cozy and happy as lovers. We look at the prairie schooners slowly

moving along with ox-teams, or notice the one lone cabin-light on

the endless plains, and Mrs. Stanton will say: "In all that there

is real bliss, if only the two are perfect equals, two loving

people, neither assuming to control the other." Yes, after all,

life is about one and the same thing, whether in the prairie

schooner and sod cabin, or the Fifth Avenue palace. Love for and

faith in each other alone can make either a heaven, and without

these any home is a hell. It is not the outside things which make

life, but the inner, the spirit of love which casteth out all

devils and bringeth in all angels.

Ever since 4 o'clock this morning we have been moving over the soil

that is really the land of the free and the home of the

brave--Wyoming, the Territory in which women are the recognized

political equals of men. Women here can say: "What a magnificent

country is ours, where every class and caste, color and sex, may

find equal freedom, and every woman sit under her own vine and fig

tree." What a blessed attainment at last; and that it should be

here among these everlasting mountains, midway between the Atlantic

and Pacific, seems significant of the true growth of the

individual--the center pure, the heart-beats free and equal.

At Salt Lake City they were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. W.S. Godbe, and

were presented to their audience by Mayor Wells, who afterward took

them to call on his five wives. The second evening they were introduced

by Bishop Orson Pratt. From here Miss Anthony writes to The Revolution:

If I were a believer in special providences, I should say that our

being in Salt Lake City at the dedication of the New Liberal

Institute was one. On Sunday morning, July 2, this beautiful hall

of the Liberal party--Apostate party, the Saints call it--was well

filled. The services consisted of invocations, hymns and brief

addresses. Messrs. Godbe, Harrison, Lyman and Lawrence seem to be

the advance-guard--the high priests of the new order--and as they

sang their songs of freedom, poured out their rejoicings over their

emancipation from the Theocracy of Brigham, and told of the

beatitudes of soul-to-soul communion with the All-Father, my heart

was steeped in deepest sympathy with the women around me and,

rising at an opportune pause, I asked if a woman and a stranger

might be permitted to say a word. At once the entire circle of men

on the platform arose and beckoned me forward; and, with a Quaker

inspiration not to be repeated, much less put on paper, I asked

those men, bubbling over with the divine spirit of freedom for

themselves, if they had thought whether the women of their

households were today rejoicing in like manner? I can not tell what

I said--only this I know, that young and beautiful, old and

wrinkled women alike wept, and men said, "I wanted to get out of

doors where I could shout."

The transition of this people into the new life is complicated--is

heartrending. Remember that when these men began their rebellion

against Brigham, it was simply a protest against his tyranny--his

exorbitant tithing system--a mere refusal to render tribute unto

him; not at all a disavowal of the Morman religion or of polygamy.

But as bond after bond has burst, this last, strongest and tightest

one of plurality of wives is beginning to snap asunder. To

illustrate: One man, a noble, loving, beautiful spirit--nothing of

the tyrant, nothing of the sensualist--with four lovely wives,

three of whom I have seen, and in the homes of two of whom I have

broken bread, with thirteen loved and loving children--wakes up to

the new idea. Four women's hearts breaking, three sets of children

who must leave their father that the one-wife system may be

realized! I can assure you my heart aches for the man, the women

and the children, and cries, "God help them, one and all."

Where the man is a brutal tyrant, the problem is comparatively

easy. What we have tried to do is to show them that the principle

of the subjection of woman to man is the point of attack; and that

woman's work in monogamy and polygamy is one and the same--that of

planting her feet on the ground of self-support. The saddest

feature here is that there really is nothing by which these women

can earn an independent livelihood for themselves and their

children, no manufacturing establishments, no free schools to

teach. Women here, as everywhere, must be able to live honestly and

honorably without the aid of men, before it can be possible to save

the masses of them from entering into polygamy or prostitution,

legal or illegal. Whichever way I turn, whatever phase of social

life presents itself, the same conclusion comes: "Independent bread

alone can redeem woman from her curse of subjection to man."

I attended the Liberals' Fourth of July celebration. Their

beautiful hall was packed; their souls were on fire with their new

freedom. Never since the first reading of the Declaration of

Independence in 1776, were its great truths responded to with such

real and deep feeling as on this occasion. I did not intrude myself

on them again--but my soul, too, was on fire for freedom for my

sex, as was that of every wife and daughter in that assembly. But

these men have yet to learn to loose the bonds of power over the

women by their side, precisely as have the men in the States and

the world over.

Here is missionary work--not for any "thus saith the Lord" canting

priests or echoing priestesses by divine right, but for great,

Godlike, humanitarian men and women, who "feel for those in bonds

as bound with them." No Phariseeism, no shudders of Puritanic

horror, no standing afar off; but a simple, loving, fraternal clasp

of hands with these struggling women, and an earnest work with

them--not to ameliorate but to abolish the whole system of woman's

subjection to man in both polygamy and monogamy.

In a letter home she says:

Our afternoon meeting of women alone was a sad spectacle. There was

scarcely a sunny, joyous countenance in the whole 300, but a vast

number of deep-lined, careworn, long-suffering faces--more so,

even, than those of our own pioneer farmers' and settlers' wives,

as I have many times looked into them. Their life of dependence on

men is even more dreadful than that of monogamy, for here it is

two, six, a dozen women and their great broods of children each and

all dependent on the one man. Think of fifteen, twenty, thirty

pairs of shoes at one strike, or as many hats and dresses!...

But when I look back into the States, what sorrow, what broken

hearts are there because of husbands taking to themselves new

friendships, just as really wives as are these, and the legal wife

feeling even more wronged and neglected. I have not the least doubt

but the suffering there equals that here--the difference is that

here it is a religious duty for the man to commit the crime against

the first wife, and for her to accept the new-comer into the family

with a cheerful face; while there the wrong is done against law and

public sentiment. But even the most devoted Mormon women say it

takes a great deal of grace to accept the other wives, and be just

as happy when the husband devotes himself to any of them as to

herself, yet the faithful Saint attains to such angelic heights and

finds her glory and the Lord's in so doing. The system of the

subjection of woman here finds its limit, and she touches the

lowest depths of her degradation.

The empire totters and Brigham feels the ground sliding from under

his feet. These men will be very likely to try the "variety" plan

of Stephen Pearl Andrews, but the women will hate that even worse

than polygamy. One man came to me relating a new vision, direct

from Christ himself, to that effect, and I said: "Away with your

man-visions! Women propose to reject them all, and begin to dream

dreams for themselves."

While at Salt Lake they received complimentary passes to California and

throughout that State, from Governor Leland Stanford, always a helpful

friend to woman suffrage. They reached San Francisco July 9, and took

rooms at the Grand Hotel, at that time the best in the city. Their

coming had been heralded by the press and they experienced the royal

California welcome, receiving flowers, fruit, calls and invitations in

abundance. Mrs. Stanton made her first speech in Platt's Hall to an

audience of 1,200; all seemed delighted and the papers were very

complimentary. At that time the whole coast was much excited over the

murder of A.P. Crittenden by Laura D. Fair, and the entire weight of

opinion was against her. Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, always ready to

defend their sex, determined to hear the story from her own lips,

hoping for the sake of womanhood to learn some mitigating

circumstances. The afternoon papers came out with an attack upon them

for making this visit to the jail, and in the evening at Miss Anthony's

first lecture there was an immense audience, including many friends of

Crittenden, determined that there should be no justification of the

woman who killed him.

Miss Anthony made a strong speech on "The Power of the Ballot," which

was well received until she came to the peroration. Her purpose had

been to prove false the theory that all women are supported and

protected by men. She had demonstrated clearly the fact that in the

life of nearly every woman there came a time when she must rely on

herself alone. She asserted that while she might grant, for the sake of

the argument, that every man protected his own wife and daughter, his

own mother and sister, the columns of the daily papers gave ample

evidence that man did not protect woman as woman. She gave sundry facts

to illustrate this point, among them the experience of Sister Irene,

who had established a foundling hospital in New York two years before,

and at the close of the first year reported 1,300 little waifs laid in

the basket at the door. These figures, she said, proved that there were

at least 1,300 women in that city who had not been protected by men.

She continued impressively: "If all men had protected all women as they

would have their own wives and daughters protected, you would have no

Laura Fair in your jail tonight."

Then burst forth a tremendous hissing, seemingly from every part of the

house! She had heard that sound in the old anti-slavery days and

quietly stood until there came a lull, when she repeated the sentence.

Again came a storm of hisses, but this time they were mingled with

cheers. Again she waited for a pause, and then made the same assertion

for the third time. Her courage challenged the admiration of the

audience, which broke out into a roar of applause, and she closed by

saying: "I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the

protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I

take my stand."

The next morning, however, she was denounced by the city papers as

having vindicated the murder and justified the life which Mrs. Fair had

led! Those who had not heard the lecture believed these reports, and

other papers in the State took up the cry. Even the press of New York

and other eastern cities joined in the chorus, but the latter was much

more severe on Mrs. Stanton, who in newspaper interviews did not

hesitate to declare her sympathy for Mrs. Fair; and yet for some

reason, perhaps because Miss Anthony had dared refer boldly to crime in

high places in San Francisco, the batteries there were turned wholly

upon her. In her diary she says: "Never in all my hard experience have

I been under such fire." So terrific was the onslaught that no one

could come to her rescue with a public explanation or defense. Miss

Anthony had cut San Francisco in a sore spot and it did not propose to

give her another chance to use the scalpel. She attempted to speak in

adjacent towns but her journal says: "The shadow of the newspapers hung

over me." At length she resolved to cancel all her lecture engagements

and wait quietly until the storm passed over and the public mind grew

calm. She writes in her diary, a week later: "Some friends called but

the clouds over me are so heavy I could not greet them as I would have

liked. I never before was so cut down." She tells the story to her

sister Mary, who replies:

I am so sorry for you. It will spoil your pleasure, and then I

think of that load of debt which you hoped to lighten, yet I should

have felt ashamed of you if you had failed to say a word in behalf

of that wretched woman. I am sick of one-sided justice; for the

same crime, men glorified and women gibbeted. If your words for

Mrs. Fair have made your trip a failure, so let it be--it is no

disgrace to you. It is scandalous the way the papers talk of you,

but stick to what you feel to be right and let the world wag.

On July 22, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton started for the Yosemite

Valley, a harder trip in those days even than now. It is best described

in her own words:

Mrs. Stanton, writing to The Revolution, and S.B.A., scribbling

home, are thirty miles out of the wonderful valley of the

Yosemite.... We shall have compassed the Calaveras Big Trees and

the Yosemite Valley in twelve days out from Stockton, where we

expect to arrive August 2. Mrs. Stanton is to speak there Thursday

night and I at San Jose, where I shall learn whether the press has

forgiven me. We both lecture the rest of the week, and Sunday get

into San Francisco, speak at different points the 7th and 8th, and

on the 9th go to the Geysers and stay two nights; then out again

and on with meetings almost every night till the end of the month.

We shall visit lakes Donner and Tahoe and some other points of

interest as they come in our reach. Mr. Hutchings would not take a

penny for our three days' sojourn in the valley, horses and all, so

our trip is much less expensive than we had anticipated.

With our private carriage we drove three miles nearer the top of

the mountain than the stage passengers go. Mrs. Stanton and I each

had a pair of linen bloomers which we donned last Thursday morning

at Crane's Flats, and we arrived at the brow of the mountain at 9

o'clock. Our horses were fitted out with men's saddles, and Mrs.

Stanton, perfectly confident that she would have no trouble, while

I was all doubts as to my success, insisted that I should put my

foot over the saddle first, which I did by a terrible effort. Then

came her turn, but she was so fat and her pony so broad that her

leg wouldn't go over into the stirrup nor around the horn of a

sidesaddle, so after trying several different saddles she commenced

the walk down hill with her guide leading her horse, and commanded

me to ride on with the other. By this time the sun was pouring down

and my horse was slowly fastening one foot after another in the

rocks and earth and thus carefully easing me down the steeps, while

my guide baited me on by saying, "You are doing nicely, that is the

worst place on the trail," when the fact was it hardly began to

match what was coming.

At half-past two we reached Hutchings', and a more used-up mortal

than I could not well exist, save poor Mrs. Stanton, four hours

behind in the broiling sun, fairly sliding down the mountain. I had

Mr. Hutchings fit out my guide with lunch and tea, and send him

right back to her. About six she arrived, pretty nearly jelly. We

both had a hot bath and she went supperless to bed, but I took my

rations. Presently John K. McLean and party, of Oakland, came in.

They had scaled Glacier Point that day and were about as tired and

fagged as we. The next day Mrs. Stanton kept her bed till nearly

noon; but I was up and on my horse at eight and off with the McLean

party for the Nevada and Vernal Falls....

Saturday morning, with Stephen M. Cunningham for my guide, I went

up the Mariposa trail seven miles to Artist's Point, and there

under a big pine tree, on a rock jutting out over the valley, sat

and gazed at the wondrous walls with their peaks and spires and

domes. I could take in not only the whole circuit of the mountain

tops but the valley enshrined below, with the beautiful Merced

river meandering over its pebbly bed among the grass and shrubs and

towering pines. We reached the hotel at 7 P.M.--tired--tired. Not a

muscle, not one inch of flesh from my heels to my hands that was

not sore and lame, but I took a good rub-off with the powerful

camphor from the bottle mother so carefully filled for me, and went

to bed with orders for my horse at 6 A.M.

Sunday morning's devotion for Minister McLean and the Rochester

strong-minded was to ride two and a half miles to Mirror lake, and

there wait and watch the coming of the sun over the rocky spires,

reflected in the placid water. Such a glory mortal never beheld

elsewhere. The lake was smooth as finest glass; the lofty granite

peaks with their trees and shrubs were reflected more perfectly

than costliest mirror ever sent back the face of most beautiful

woman, and as the sun slowly emerged from behind a point of rock,

the thinnest, flakiest white clouds approached or hung round it,

and the reflection shaded them with the most delicate, yet most

perfect and richest hues of the rainbow. And while we watched and

worshipped we trembled lest some rude fish or bubble should break

our mirror and forever shatter the picture seemingly wrought for

our special eyes that Sunday morning. Then and there, in that holy

hour, I thought of you, dear mother, in the body, and of dear

father in the beyond, with eyes unsealed, and of Ann Eliza and

Thomas King. I talked to John of them and wondered if they too sat

not with us in that holy of holies not made with hands. O, how

nothing seemed man-made temples, creeds and codes!

At San Jose Miss Anthony was the guest of Rev. and Mrs. Charles G.

Ames. Her audience was small but appreciative, and the Mercury, edited

by J.J. Owen, said: "After all the mean notices by certain of the daily

papers in San Francisco, her hearers were astonished at the masterly

character of her address. She held her audience delighted for an hour

and forty minutes." From here she went to the Geysers, riding on the

front seat with driver Foss, and she says in her diary: "On the way out

he explained to me the philosophy of fast driving down the steep

mountain sides; and on the way back he unfolded to me the sad story of

his life."

Miss Anthony spoke at a number of small towns but it did not seem

advisable for her to try again in San Francisco, so she devoted herself

to contributing in every possible way to the success of Mrs. Stanton's

lectures. On August 22 the latter completed her tour and left for the

East, but Miss Anthony decided to accept the numerous calls to go up

into Oregon and Washington Territory. She went to Oakland for a brief

visit with Mrs. Randall, the Mary Perkins who used to teach in her

childhood's home more than thirty years before, and her diary says:

"They are glad to see me and we have enjoyed talking over old times.

They are wholly oblivious to our reform agitation and I am glad to get

out of it for a while." But a few days later she called on the Curtis

family, who were interested in reforms, and wrote: "I got back into my

own world again and the springs of thought and conversation were

quickly loosened. It is marvelous how far apart the two worlds are."

She started on the ship Idaho for Portland, August 25. The sea was very

rough, they were seven days making the trip and, judging from the

almost illegible entries in the diary, it was not a pleasant one:

1st day.--I feel forlorn enough thus left alone on the ocean but I

am in for it and bound to go through.... Before 6 o'clock my time

came and old ocean received my first contribution.

2d day.--Strong gale and rough sea. Tried to dress--no use--back to

my berth and there I lay all day. Everybody groaning, babies

crying, mothers scolding, the men making quite as much fuss as the

women.

3d day.--Tried to get up but in vain. In the afternoon staggered up

on deck--men stretched out on all sides looking as wretched as I

felt--glad to get back to bed. Captain sent some frizzled ham and

hard tack, with his compliments. Sea growing heavier all the time.

4th day.--Terribly rough all night. Could not sleep for the thought

that every swell might end the ship's struggles. Felt much nearer

to the dear ones who have crossed the great river than to those on

this side. Out of sight of land all day and ship making only two

and a half miles an hour.

5th day.--The same pitching down into the ocean's depths, the same

unbounded waste of surging waters, but a slight lessening of the

sea-sickness.

6th day.--Quite steady this morning. Went on deck and met several

pleasant people. Took my spirit-lamp and treated the captain's

table to some delicious tea.

7th day.--First word this morning, "bar in sight." The shores look

beautiful. All faces are bright and cheery and many appear not seen

before. I felt well enough to discuss the woman question with

several of the passengers. Arrived at Portland at 10 P.M., glad

indeed to touch foot on land again.

In the first letter home she says:

Abigail Scott Duniway, editor of the New Northwest, was my first

caller this morning. I like her appearance and she will be business

manager of my lectures. The second caller was Mr. Murphy, city

editor of the Herald, and the third Rev. T.L. Eliot, of the

Unitarian church, son of Rev. William Eliot, of St. Louis. I am to

take tea at his house next Monday. I am not to speak until

Wednesday, and thus give myself time to get my head straightened

and, I hope, my line of argument. Mrs. Duniway thinks I will find

two months of profitable work in Oregon and Washington Territory,

but I hardly believe it possible. If meetings pay so as to give me

hope of adding to my $350 in the San Francisco Bank (my share of

the profits on Mrs. Stanton's and my lectures, which we divided

evenly), making it reach $2,000 or even $1,000 by December first, I

shall plod away.

I miss Mrs. Stanton, still I can not but enjoy the feeling that the

people call on _me_, and the fact that I have an opportunity to

sharpen my wits a little by answering questions and doing the

chatting, instead of merely sitting a lay figure and listening to

the brilliant scintillations as they emanate from her

never-exhausted magazine. There is no alternative--whoever goes

into a parlor or before an audience with that woman does it at the

cost of a fearful overshadowing, a price which I have paid for the

last ten years, and that cheerfully, because I felt that our cause

was most profited by her being seen and heard, and my best work was

making the way clear for her.

Miss Anthony could not entirely recover from the disappointment of her

reception in San Francisco, but a letter written to Mrs. Stanton, just

before her first lecture in Oregon, shows no regrets but a wish that

she had put the case even more strongly:

I am awaiting my Wednesday night execution with fear and trembling

such as I never before dreamed of, but to the rack I must go,

though another San Francisco torture be in store for me.... The

real fact is we ought to be ashamed of ourselves that we failed to

say the whole truth and illustrate it too by the one terrible

example in their jail. That would have caused not me alone but both

of us to be hissed out of the hall and hooted out of that Godless

city--Godless in its treading of womanhood under its heel. I assure

you, as I rolled on the ocean last week feeling that the very next

strain might swamp the ship, and thinking over all my sins of

omission and commission, there was nothing undone which haunted me

like that failure to speak the word at San Francisco over again and

more fully. I would rather today have the satisfaction of having

said the true and needful thing on Laura Fair and the social evil,

with the hisses and hoots of San Francisco and the entire nation

around me, than all that you or I could possibly experience from

their united eulogies with that one word unsaid. To my mind the

failure to put our heads together and work up that lecture grows

every day a greater blunder, if nothing more. It was like going

down into South Carolina and failing to illustrate human oppression

by negro slavery. I hope you are not haunted with it as I am. God

helping me, I will yet ease my spirit of the load.

After this lecture she wrote again:

The first fire is passed. I send you the Bulletin and Oregonian

notices. I have not seen the Democratic paper--the Herald--but am

told it says Miss Anthony failed to interest her audience. Not a

person stirred save when I made them laugh. But tomorrow night's

audience will tell the people's estimate. My speech then will be on

the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Last night I made the San

Francisco speech, but was not nearly so free and easy in the

brain-working; still I got my points clearly stated. The wet

blanket is now somewhat off. I hope to present the fact of our

right to vote under these amendments with a great deal more

freedom. If I am able to do so, I shall talk to women alone

Saturday afternoon on the social evil; then, if interest warrants,

answer objections Monday evening, and close here. I have contracted

for one-half the gross receipts of evening and the entire receipts

of afternoon lectures.

I want to tell you that with my gray silk I wore a pink bow at my

throat and a narrow pink ribbon in my hair! Mrs. Duniway is

delighted, so you see my tide is turning a little from that

terrible, killing experience. _You_ never received such wholesale

praise--_I_ never such wholesale censure. But enough; it is a

comfort to get a little outside assurance again.

Miss Anthony met with a friendly reception from the press of Oregon.

She was extensively interviewed by the leading papers and reported in a

complimentary manner. The Oregonian thus closed a column account: "The

audience, which listened attentively and with evident deep interest to

this address, was large and chiefly composed of the intelligent portion

of our citizens. Miss Anthony talked clearly, more concisely than the

average speaker, kept the thread of her logic well in hand and, it must

be confessed, made a strong argument, though we can hardly admit that

it was conclusive. She is a fluent speaker and well sustains the cause

she advocates." The Herald said in a lengthy interview: "Her

conversation is fluent and concise, each word expressing its full

complement of meaning. Her system of argument is logical and, in

contradistinction to the sex in general, she does not depend on mere

assertions but gives proofs to carry conviction."[59]

The Bulletin thus began a fine report: "As a speaker she has the happy

faculty of presenting her subject in a clear and convincing manner. Her

style is forcible and argumentative. She contents herself with

facts--presenting them in plain language, resting her case upon these,

unaided by sophistry and the blinding influence of oratory." This

paper, however, was very severe upon her doctrines, declaring

editorially that they were "mischievous, revolutionary and

impracticable, and would result in anarchy in homes and chaos in

society." Mrs. Duniway's paper, the New Northwest, said: "Miss Anthony

is a stirring and vigorous worker, a profound and logical speaker, has

a truly wonderful influence over her audiences and produces conviction

wherever she goes.... She has a peculiarly happy manner of using the

right word in the right place, never hesitates in her language, and is

evidently as brimful of argument at the close of her lectures as at

their beginning. She has awakened the dormant feelings of duty and true

womanhood in many a woman's heart in Portland, and scores of ladies in

our community who never before gave the question a moment's

consideration are now eager for the ballot."

From Portland Miss Anthony wrote to The Revolution:

There is something lovely in this Oregon climate beyond any I have

yet known on either side the Rocky mountains. It is neither too hot

nor too cold, but a delightful medium which I enjoy as I sit this

second September Sunday in my room at the St. Charles Hotel, with

its windows opening upon the broad and beautiful Willamette. I am

surprised at the size of this city, and the evidences of business

and solid wealth all about....

John Chinaman too is here, cooking, washing and ironing, quiet and

meek-looking as in San Francisco. The Republicans of this coast,

like the Democrats, talk and resolve against him for political

effect, merely to cater to the ignorant voters of their party. They

say he can not be naturalized on account of some stipulation in the

old treaty with China, when they know or ought to know that the

Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments have as effectually blotted the

word "white" out of all United States treaties and naturalization

laws, as out of all the State and Territorial constitutions and

statutes. Their pretence that the Chinaman may not become a citizen

of the United States, precisely the same as an African, German or

Irishman, is matched only by their denial of citizenship to the

women of the entire nation. Under the old regime it was the negro

with whom we had to make common cause in our demand for the

practical recognition of our right to representation. In snatching

the black man from our side, the Republicans, out of pure sympathy

doubtless, lest we should be without any "male" compeer in our

degradation, leave the innocent Chinaman to comfort and console us.

Are we not most unreasonable in our dissatisfaction with the

company our fathers and brothers constitutionally rank with

us--idiots, lunatics, convicts, Chinamen?

While sailing up the Columbia, Mrs. Duniway wrote Mrs. Stan ton: "Miss

Anthony has been holding large meetings in Portland, Salem and Oregon

City, and has conquered the press and brought the whole fraternity to

terms. She has also succeeded in holding important and successful

meetings at The Dalles, and is now returning with me from a series of

lectures in Walla Walla. We find the people everywhere enthusiastic and

delighted. Her fund of logic, fact and fun seems inexhaustible. She

speaks three and four consecutive evenings in one place, and each time

increases the interest. We are all justly proud of her."

At Walla Walla the church doors were closed to her but she spoke in the

schoolhouse. At Salem all the judges of the supreme court were in her

audience and afterward called on her. She had good houses everywhere

but money was hard to get, and she speaks in her letters of being

almost frantic lest she may not be able to meet her notes on January

first, "the one cherished dream of this year's work."

In a letter from Olympia describing the journey she said: "Here I am,

October 22, at the head of Puget Sound. This was my route--Portland,

down the Willamette river twelve miles to the Columbia; then down that

river one hundred miles to the mouth of the Cowlitz, Monticello; then

ninety miles stage-ride, full sixty of it over the roughest kind of

corduroy. Twenty-five miles to Pumphrey's Hotel, arriving at 6 p.m.;

supper and bed; called up at 2 o'clock, and off again at

2:30--perfectly dark--lantern on each side of coach--fourteen miles to

breakfast at 7, horses walked every step of the way; eighteen more,

walk and corduroy, to dinner; then thirty miles of splendid road, and

arrival here at 5:30 p.m." At Seattle, November 4, she wrote home:

For the first time I have seen the glory of the sunrise upon the

entire Coast Range. The whole western horizon was one fiery glow on

mountain tops, all cragged and jagged from two miles in height down

to the line of perpetual snow. It has been very tantalizing to be

on this wonderful Puget Sound these ten days, and never see the

clouds and fogs lift themselves long enough to give a vision of the

majestic mountains on either side. My one hope now is that they may

rise on both sides at the same time; but the rainy season has

fairly set in. It has rained part of every twenty-four hours since

we reached Olympia ten days ago. The grass and shrubbery are as

green and delightful as with us in June, and roses and other

flowers are blooming all fragrant and fresh. The forests are

evergreen--mainly firs and cedars--and on the streets here are

maple and other deciduous trees. The feeling of the air is like

that during the September equinoctial storm. The sound, from twenty

to forty miles wide, with inlets and harbors extending full two or

three miles into the land, is the most beautiful sheet of water I

ever have seen.

I go to Port Madison this afternoon, and on Monday to Port Gamble;

back to Olympia for the Territorial Convention Wednesday; then down

to Portland and thence southward. I have traveled 1,800 miles in

fifty-six days, spoken forty-two nights and many days, and I am

tired, tired. Lots of good missionary work, but not a great deal of

money.

The last letter from Portland, November 16, said:

The mortal agony of speaking again in Portland is over, but the

hurt of it stings yet. I never was dragged before an audience so

utterly without thought or word as last night and, had there been

any way of escape, would have taken wings or, what I felt more

like, have sunk through the floor. It was the strangest and most

unaccountable condition, but nothing save bare, bald points stared

me in the face. Must stop; here is card of Herald reporter.

Before the reporter left, some ladies called, among them Mrs.

Harriet W. Williams, at whose house we all used to stop in Buffalo,

in the olden days of temperance work. She is like a mother to me.

Mrs. Eliot, wife of the Unitarian minister, also came. They formed

a suffrage society here Tuesday with some of the best women as

officers. What is more and most of all I received a letter from a

gentleman, enclosing testimonials from half a dozen of the

prominent men of the city, asking an interview looking to marriage!

I also received a serenade from a millionaire at Olympia. If any of

the girls want a rich widower or an equally rich bachelor, here is

decidedly the place to get an offer of one. But tell brother Aaron

I expect to survive them all and reach home before the New Year, as

single-handed and penniless as usual.[60]

Miss Anthony was invited to address the legislature while at Olympia.

Notwithstanding her extreme need of money she donated the proceeds of

one lecture to the sufferers by the Chicago fire. Usually she had good

audiences but occasionally would fall into the hands of persons

obnoxious to the community and the meeting would be a failure. She

writes in her diary, "It seems impossible to escape being sacrificed by

somebody." The press of Washington was for the most part very

favorable. The Olympia Standard said: "We had formed a high opinion of

the ability of the lady and her remarkable talent as a public speaker,

and our expectations have been more than realized. She presents her

arguments in graceful and elegant language, her illustrations are ample

and well chosen, and the hearer is irresistibly drawn to her

conclusions.... There is no gainsaying the sound logic of her

arguments. They appeal to a sense of right and justice which ought not

longer be denied." There was sometimes, however, a discordant note, as

may be shown by the following from the Territorial Despatch, of

Seattle, edited by Beriah Brown:

It is a mistake to call Miss Anthony a reformer, or the movement in

which she is engaged a reform; she is a revolutionist, aiming at

nothing less than the breaking up of the very foundations of

society, and the overthrow of every social institution organized

for the protection of the sanctity of the altar, the family circle

and the legitimacy of our offspring, recognizing no religion but

self-worship, no God but human reason, no motive to human action

but lust. Many, undoubtedly, will object that we state the case too

strongly; but if they will dispassionately examine the facts and

compare them with the character of the leaders and the inevitable

tendency of their teachings, they must be convinced that the

apparently innocent measure of woman suffrage as a remedy for

woman's wrongs in over-crowded populations, is but a pretext or

entering wedge by which to open Pandora's box and let loose upon

society a pestilential brood to destroy all that is pure and

beautiful in human nature, and all that has been achieved by

organized associations in religion, morality and refinement; that

the whole plan is coarse, sensual and agrarian, the worst phase of

French infidelity and communism....

She did not directly and positively broach the licentious social

theories which she is known to entertain, because she well knew

that they would shock the sensibilities of her audience, but

confined her discourse to the one subject of woman suffrage as a

means to attain equality of competitive labor. This portion of her

lecture we have not time to discuss. Our sole purpose now is to

enter our protest against the inculcation of doctrines which we

believe are calculated to degrade and debauch society by

demolishing the dividing lines between virtue and vice. It is true

that Miss Anthony did not openly advocate "free love" and a

disregard of the sanctity of the marriage relation, but she did

worse--under the guise of defending women against manifest wrongs,

she attempts to instil into their minds an utter disregard for all

that is right and conservative in the present order of society.

Apparently Mr. Brown did not approve of woman suffrage. According to

his own statement Miss Anthony confined her entire discourse to the one

point of competitive labor. The editorial was founded wholly upon his

own depraved imagination.

Miss Anthony went into British Columbia and spoke several times at

Victoria. The doctrine of equal rights was entirely new in that city

and on the first evening there was not a woman in the hall. At no

succeeding lecture were twenty women present, although there were fair

audiences of men. The press was respectful in its treatment of speaker

and speeches, but some of the "cards" which were sent to the papers

were amusing, to say the least.[61]

The journal depicts the hardships of a new country, the poor hotels,

the long stage-rides, the inconvenient hours, etc. At one place, where

there was an appalling prospect of spending Sunday in the wretched

excuse for a hotel, a lady came and took her to a fine, new home and

Miss Anthony was delighted; but when the husband appeared he announced

that he "did not keep a tavern," and so, after her evening lecture, she

returned to her former quarters, the wife not daring to remonstrate.

After meeting one woman who had had six husbands, and at least a dozen

whose husbands had deserted them and married other women without the

formality of a divorce, she writes in her journal, "Marriage seems to

be anything but an indissoluble contract out here on the coast."

Meanwhile she had received urgent invitations from California once more

to try her fortune in that State. After lecturing to crowded houses at

Oregon City, Eugene and other points, she continued southward, her

rough experience on shipboard deciding her to go by stage. From

Roseburg she wrote her mother, November 24:

I am now over one hundred miles on my stage-route south, and

horrible indeed are the roads--miles and miles of corduroy and then

twenty miles of "Joe Lane black mud," as they call it, because old

Joseph Lane settled right here in the midst of it. It is heavy clay

without a particle of loam and rolls up on the wheels until rim,

spokes and hub are one solid circle. The wheels cease to turn and

actually slide over the ground, and then driver and men passengers

jump out and with chisels and shingles cut the clay off the wheels.

* * * * *

How my thought does turn homeward, mother. I wanted always to be at

home every recurring birthday of yours so long as you remained this

side with us. I can not this year, but in spirit I shall be with

you all that day, as I am so very, very often on every other day.

The courtesy of a seat outside with the driver was usually extended to

her and she picked up much information in regard to the people and

customs, some of it perhaps not wholly reliable. On this journey she

encountered a drenching rain and heavy snow, and finally was driven

inside. When they stopped for the night she had a little, cold bedroom,

sometimes next to the bar-room, where the carousing kept her awake all

night. She wrote home from Yreka, November 28:

Last evening I lectured in the courthouse to a splendid audience,

and speak again this afternoon at 2 o'clock to answer objections.

Several lawyers threaten to be on hand and force me to the wall on

legal points, but we shall see. Then at four I am to drive with

Mrs. Jerome Churchill, and at seven board the stage again for Red

Bluff, 125 miles, riding steadily all tonight and the next day and

night. It is snowing here and southward, which delays us more and

more every day.

I rode three miles yesterday for a full view of Mount Shasta, but

the summit was hidden by a dense fog, and I saw only one of its

side-points called the crater; so all hope of seeing this lofty

snow-peak is over, unless it should clear off and I see it by

moonlight as I go out tonight. This long stage route is a new and

interesting experience to me, and I am so glad I returned this way.

The first day, in spite of the corduroy ruckabuck jouncing, I felt

a sort of halo of joy hovering around me. It was indescribable; it

was like a benediction of "well done, decided right."

From the diary:

Snow storm today but a fine moonlight view of Mount Shasta at

night. Rode all night in the stage, splendid sunrise view of Castle

Rock. Today through Sacramento canyon, fine day and grand scenery.

Supped at 9 P.M. and then nine of us were packed into a short wagon

and did not arrive at Red Bluff till 3 A.M.... No arrangements had

been made for my lecture. Sheriff refused to let me have the

courthouse. Secured the schoolhouse, but no fire and small audience

after all my hard trip to get here. Called at 2:30 A.M. to take the

stage again.... Reached Chico at last. Mr. Allen, agent of General

Bidwell, met me, and such a good cup of coffee and cosy,

comfortable time as his wife Emma gave me! Good audience, although

heavy storm.... At Marysville spoke in the theater to a small but

select audience. Expenses $20 over receipts. The fates are opposed

to my financial success, and the interest is piling up on my

debts.... Mrs. Laura de Force Gordon and a dozen other ladies met

me at Sacramento, and she and I went on to San Francisco where I

found thirty letters awaiting me at the Grand Hotel.

The flurry of prejudice against Miss Anthony had died out and she

accepted an invitation for a public address signed by a number of

influential citizens. She spoke several times to good audiences and was

fairly treated by the press, but she was too frank and outspoken to be

very popular, especially at that time. The people were greatly stirred

up over what was known as the Holland Social Evil Bill, which was under

consideration by the board of supervisors and had roused public opinion

to white heat, both in favor and in opposition. Miss Anthony naturally

made a fight against it, calling a meeting of women only and explaining

to them, point by point, its vicious propositions. This provoked both

favorable and adverse criticism by the press. At Mayfield she was a

guest at the handsome home of Judge and Mrs. Sarah Wallis. Mrs. Knox,

Mrs. Watson, Mrs. McKee and a big omnibus load drove up from San Jose,

seventeen miles. She spoke at a number of neighboring towns and the

sympathizers with the cause she represented were delighted with her

masterly efforts, but she felt everywhere the need of a good manager to

make her lectures a financial success. On December 15 her friends in

San Francisco tendered her a reception and banquet at the Grand Hotel.

All the newspapers in the city gave complimentary accounts, of which

the following from the Chronicle will serve as a specimen:

The friends of Miss Susan B. Anthony, to the number of about fifty,

comprising the more prominent leaders of the suffrage movement,

assembled in the parlors of the Grand Hotel last evening. After an

hour spent in social conversation and the interchange of

congratulations upon the bright prospects of the cause they

represent, the guests were ushered into the spacious dining-hall,

where a bountiful collation had been spread....

Miss Anthony said: "....I go from you freighted with a burden of

love and gratitude, and no greetings have been more precious than

those of working men and women. Tonight when the woman who earns

her livelihood by selling flowers through the hotel came to the

door of the parlor and, presenting me with the beautiful bouquet

which I hold in my hand, asked, 'Will you accept this because you

have spoken so nobly for us poor workingwomen?' it brought tears to

my eyes, unused to weeping. I felt a thrill of gratitude that I had

been permitted to prosecute this work. We who are seated around

this board may have all the rights we need; we are not working for

ourselves, but for those now suffering around us. For them, our

sisters, and for future generations must we labor...."

She took her seat amid warm applause. A number of brief, pithy

speeches were made and all dispersed with a hearty Godspeed to the

talented lady in whose behalf they had assembled.

Laura de Force Gordon had arranged a number of lectures for Miss

Anthony on the route eastward. At Nevada City she was the guest of A.

A. Sargent, the newly elected United States senator, and his wife, both

earnest friends of woman suffrage.[62] The rainy season had set in and

the diary says: "These storms which bring new life and hope to farmers

and miners, mean empty benches for me." The mud, snow and wind in

Nevada were terrible. At Virginia City, where she lectured, she was

snowed in for several days and finally left in a six-horse sleigh, in

the midst of a blinding storm, on Christmas Day.

[Autograph:

I wish you a successful

meeting, and encouraging

progress for your cause.

Resp'y

A. A. Sargent.]

She arrived at Reno to find that the Sargents, whom she expected to

join on their way to Washington, had passed through a day or two before

but, as they were delayed by snowdrifts, she overtook them at Ogden,

and enjoyed the privileges of their luxurious staterooms until they

reached Chicago. It happened most fortunately that the Sargents were

supplied with inexhaustible hampers of provisions, for the trip from

Ogden to Chicago occupied twelve days. Senator Mitchell and family, of

Oregon, and several other friends were on the train, but with all the

pleasant companionship and all the entertainment which could be

devised, the journey was long and tedious. The ever-faithful diary

contains a brief record of each day:

December 28.--The western-bound train arrived at noon, eight days

from Omaha, a happy set of people to be so far along on their

journey. We left Ogden at 3 p. M., three packed sleeping-cars. All

went smoothly to Bitter Creek, then we waited three or four hours

for an extra engine to take us up the grade.

December 29.--Starting and backing, then starting and backing

again. Prospect very discouraging. Mr. Sargent makes the tea,

unpacks the hampers and serves as general steward, but draws the

line at washing the dishes. We women-folks take that as our part.

Delayed all night at Percy. Here overtook the passenger train which

left Ogden last Monday.

December 30.--Detained all day and all night at Medicine Bow. Four

passenger trains packed into two, and long freight trains passed us

in the night.

December 31.--Left Medicine Bow at noon, went through deep snow

cuts ten miles in length. One heavy passenger and two long freight

trains in front of us. Reached Laramie at 10 P.M. Thus closes 1871,

a year full of hard work, six months east, six months west of the

Rocky mountains; 171 lectures, 13,000 miles of travel; gross

receipts $4,318, paid on debts, $2,271. Nothing ahead but to plod

on.

A few blank pages in an old account-book tell the rest of the story:

January 1, 1872.--Laramie City. On Pullman car "America," Union

Pacific R.R. Lay here all night and breakfasted at railway hotel.

J.H. Hayford, editor Laramie Sentinel, told us of the bill to

repeal the woman suffrage law in Wyoming. The law had been passed

by a Democratic legislature as a jest, but five Democrats voted for

repeal and four Republicans against it, in one house, and in the

other, three Republicans voted against and every Democrat for the

repeal. Governor Campbell, a Republican, vetoed this repeal bill

and woman suffrage still stands, as a Territorial legislature can

not pass a bill over the governor's veto.... Here we are at noon,

stuck in a snowdrift five miles west of Sherman, on a steep grade,

with one hundred men shovelling in front of us. Dined, Mr. Sargent

officiating, on roast turkey, jelly, bread and butter, spice cake

and excellent tea. At dark, wind and snow blowing terrifically, but

a bright sky.

January 2.--Still stationary. The railroad company has supplied the

passengers with dried fish and crackers. Mrs. Sargent and I have

made tea and carried it throughout the train to the nursing

mothers. It is the best we can do. Five days out from Ogden! This

is indeed a fearful ordeal, fastened here in a snowbank, midway of

the continent at the top of the Rocky mountains. They are melting

snow for the boilers and for drinking water. A train loaded with

coal is behind us, so there is no danger of our suffering from

cold. Mr. Sargent, Mr. Mitchell and Major Elliott walked to Sherman

and an old man drove them back at dusk with two ponies. The train

had moved up to Dale creek bridge and drawn into a long snow-shed.

Here, we remained all night and, with the rarified air and the

smoke from the engine, were almost suffocated, while the wind blew

so furiously we could not venture to open the doors.

January 3.--Bright sunshine and perfectly calm. Ernest and Norman

Melliss, sons of David M. Melliss, of New York City, came into our

car from the other train, which is twelve days from Ogden. How they

do revive The Revolution experiences, Train and the Wall street

gossip! Stood still in the snow-shed till noon and reached Sherman

about 6 P.M. Mr. Sargent had brought some potatoes which we roasted

on top of the stove and they proved a delicious addition to our

meal. In the car "Sacramento" we had a mock trial, Judge Mitchell

presiding and the jury composed of women. He wrote out a verdict,

which the women insisted on bringing in, not because they agreed

with it but because they wanted to please him and the other men,

but I rebelled and hung the jury!

January 4.--Morning found us still at Sherman and we did not move

till 1 P.M. There is another train ahead of us, and here we are,

four passenger trains pushing on for Cheyenne. The people from the

different ones visit among each other. Half-way to Granite Canyon

the snowplow got off the track and one wheel broke, so a dead

standstill for hours. Reached Granite Canyon at dark, a whole day

getting there from Sherman, and remained over night.

January 5.--Bright and beautiful. Reached Cheyenne at 11:30 A.M.

Little George Sargent coaxed his papa to let him walk over the

bridge to the town and fell through and broke his arm. Mrs.

Sargent, after holding him till the bone was set, fainted.

Afterwards I called on Mrs. Amalia Post. It was at her house the

Cheyenne women met and went in a body to Governor Campbell's

residence in 1869, and announced their intention of staying till he

signed the woman suffrage bill, which he did without further delay.

Met the governor and several other notables. At 1:30 P.M. our train

was off at first-class speed, and oh, what joy in every face!

January 6.--Arrived at Omaha at 3 P.M. Found letter from brother

D.R., enclosing pass to Leavenworth and saying he had passes for me

from there to Chicago and eastward. If I go to L. I shall miss the

Washington convention, where I am so badly needed. If it had not

been for this vexatious delay I could have had a day or two there

and several more at Rochester. Now I must push straight on. It is

my hard fate always to sacrifice affection and pleasure to duty and

work.

January 7.--All the baggage had to be rechecked at Omaha and when I

insisted upon attending to my own, because I had found that the

only safe way, Mr. Sargent looked so offended that I at once handed

over my checks.

January 8.--Arrived at Chicago at 3 A.M. Went at once to my aunt

Ann Eliza Dickinson's and visited with her till 7 o'clock, had

breakfast and went to Fort Wayne depot where, as I feared, I found

one of my checks called for the wrong piece of baggage; so I took

one trunk, left the baggage-master to hunt up the other, and

started straight for Washington on a train without a sleeper.

January 9.--Passed Pittsburg at 2 A.M. Breakfasted at Altoona on

top of the Alleghanies; scenery most beautiful, but not on so grand

a scale as among the Rockies.

This is the last entry. It is hardly necessary to add that Miss Anthony

reached Washington in time for the opening of the convention on the

morning of January 10. To the question whether she were not very tired,

she replied: "Why, what would make me tired? I haven't been doing

anything, for two weeks!"

[Footnote 58: Miss Anthony's lecture was a decided success, judged

either by the number and intelligence of those present or the able

manner in which she discussed the salient points pertaining to woman

suffrage. She displayed an ability, conciseness and force that must

have carried conviction to every impartial listener.... Her visit here

has done more to advance the cause of woman suffrage than can now be

fully appreciated. She has sown the germ of a movement which can not

fail to inoculate our people with a belief in the justice of her cause

and the injustice of longer depriving the more intelligent, purer and

consequently better portion of our inhabitants of that greatest of

boons, the ballot.--Sioux City Daily Times.

Miss Anthony's lecture was full of good, sound common sense, and an

opponent of woman suffrage said it was the best speech he ever heard on

the subject. Wyoming was highly complimented as being the first

Territory to recognize the equality of woman, and pronounced as much

ahead of her eastern sisters in civilization as she is higher in

altitude. The lecture abounded with gems of wit, humor and pathos, and

the audience would willingly have listened another hour.--Cheyenne

Tribune.

The press sneers at Miss Anthony, men tell her she is out of her proper

sphere, people call her a scold, good women call her masculine, a

monstrosity in petticoats; but if one-half of her sex possessed

one-half of her acquirements, her intellectual culture, her

self-reliance and independence of character, the world would be the

better for it.--Denver News.

A large and attentive audience filled the Denver theater last night to

hear Miss Susan B. Anthony, champion of the "new departure in

politics," called the woman suffrage movement. The fact that there was

not sitting room for all who came is evidence of deep interest in the

subject, or great curiosity to hear the lady speak.... It is impossible

to give an outline of her speech. It was a string of strong arguments

put in a straightforward, clear and vigorous way, eliciting favor and

inviting the attention of the audience throughout. The lecture was

suggestive, and of the kind that sets people to thinking.--Denver

Tribune.]

[Footnote 59: Notwithstanding this tribute, the Herald printed a long

string of verses with this introduction: "We trust our readers will not

miss the perusal of this piece of rhythmical irony. It is certainly one

of the happiest hits we have seen for many a day. No one can mistake

the allusion to the 'Old Gal.' who has been so recently among us

'tooting her horn.'"

"Along the city's thoroughfare,

A grim Old Gal with manly air

Strode amidst the noisy crowd,

Tooting her horn both shrill and loud;

Till e'en above the city's roar,

Above its din and discord, o'er

All, was heard, 'Ye tyrants, fear!

The dawn of freedom's drawing near--

Woman's Rights and Suffrage.'

"A meek old man, in accents wild,

Cried,'Sal! turn back and nurse our child!'

She bent on him a withering look,

Her bony fist at him she shook.

And screeched, 'Ye brute! ye think I'm flat

To mend your clo'es and nurse your brat?

Nurse it yourself; I'll change the plan,

When I am made a congressman--

Woman's Rights and Suffrage,'" etc.

*/]

[Footnote 60: Coming from The Dalles, the boat tied up for the night at

Umatilla Landing. Miss Anthony and Mrs. Duniway walking on shore saw a

man sitting in front of a little corner grocery and stopped to ask some

questions. They found that when a boy he had run away from home in Miss

Anthony's own neighborhood, had never written back and his family had

long believed him dead. After some conversation he consented that she

might write to his mother and then in his softened mood insisted that

they should have a glass of wine. Miss Anthony was a total abstainer

but not wishing to offend him, took one sip from a glass of Angelica

and then the ladies hurried back to the boat. Some one who had seen the

occurrence spread the story and the result was an Associated Press item

sent broadcast, stating that, since coming to the coast, Miss Anthony

was visiting saloons and associating with low characters.]

[Footnote 61: Two examples will suffice:

"EDITOR COLONIST: I have read with a feeling of thankfulness the letter

of 'A Male Biped,' in this day's Colonist. The writer deserves the

thanks of every good woman in the land for the bold and able manner in

which he has administered a shaking to a shrewish old mischief-maker

who, having failed to secure a husband herself, is tramping the

continent to make her more fortunate sisters miserable by creating

dissensions in their households. O, why do not some of our divines or

lawyers upset this woman's sophistries, and convince even her that

woman's true sphere is in 'submitting herself to her husband,' and

religiously fulfilling the marriage vows the wise organizers of society

have prescribed?

A WIFE AND A MOTHER."

"MR. EDITOR: America, the home of many humbugs, which produced Brigham

Young, Barnum, Home, the medium, and many others, has, it appears,

another human curiosity in Miss Anthony. This specimen from over the

way comes amongst us, and because our ladies fail to recognize or

encourage her in her vagaries, she gets very rabid and snarls and snaps

at the 'women of Victoria who had so sunk their womanhood that they

were happy even in their degradation.' The degradation referred to is

that of whipping, which this female firebrand appears to believe is the

rule hers. Surely the complete immunity from castigation of such a

noxious creature as Miss Anthony is sufficient answer to this libel.

Men in British Columbia no more countenance bad husbands than do the

women a quack apostle in petticoats. They look upon such persons as

sexual mistakes, like the two-headed lady or the four-legged baby, and

as safe guides on social questions as George Francis Train is in

politics.

AN INSULTED HUSBAND."

And yet during the few days she was in Victoria no leas than half a

dozen women came to her to protest against the law which allowed the

husband to whip his wife.]

[Footnote 62: During Mr. Sargent's candidacy for the Senate, a

California newspaper objected that he was in favor of woman suffrage,

and called for a denial of the truth of the damning charge. He took no

notice of it until a week or two later, when a suffrage convention met

in San Francisco; he then went before that body and delivered a radical

speech in favor of woman's rights, taking the most advanced grounds.

When he was through he remarked to a friend, "They have my views now,

and can make the most of them. I would not conceal them to be

senator."--History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 483.]

CHAPTER XXIV.

REPUBLICAN SPLINTER----MISS ANTHONY VOTES.

1872.

The leading women in the movement for suffrage, supported by some of

the ablest constitutional lawyers in the country, continued to claim

the right to vote under the following:

FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT, JULY 28, 1868.

SECTION 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and

subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United

States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or

enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of

citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any

person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,

nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection

of the laws.

FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT, MARCH 30, 1870.

SECTION 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall

not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on

account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Many of the Republican leaders admitted that these amendments might be

construed to include women, but were silenced by the cry of "party

expediency." The fear of defeating the attempt to enfranchise the

colored male citizen made them refuse to add the word "sex" to the

Fifteenth Amendment, which would have placed this question beyond

debate and put an end to the agitation that has continued for thirty

years. The women insisted that the exigency which compelled the

ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment by the various State

legislatures was strong enough to carry it, even with the word "sex"

included. Having failed to gain this point, the National Association

determined to maintain the position that women were already

enfranchised, and embodied it in the call for the Washington convention

of 1872: "All those interested in woman's enfranchisement are invited

to consider the 'new departure'--women already citizens, and their

rights as such secured by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of

the Federal Constitution."

The same position was re-asserted in the resolutions adopted at that

meeting, which declared that "while the Constitution of the United

States leaves the qualifications of electors to the various States, it

nowhere gives them the right to deprive any citizen of the elective

franchise which is possessed by any other citizen; the right to

regulate not including the right to prohibit the franchise;" that

"those provisions of the several State constitutions which exclude

women from the franchise on account of sex, are violative alike of the

letter and spirit of the Federal Constitution;" and that "as the

Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution have

established the right of women to the elective franchise, we demand of

the present Congress a declaratory act which shall secure us at once in

the exercise of this right."

Miss Anthony and other leaders officially asked the privilege of

addressing the Senate and House upon this momentous question. This was

refused, as contrary to precedent, but a hearing was granted before the

Senate Judiciary Committee,[63] Friday morning, January 12. Not only

the committee room but the corridors were crowded. Mrs. Stanton and

Mrs. Hooker spoke grandly,[64] and as usual Miss Anthony was chosen to

clinch the argument, which she did as follows:

You already have had logic and Constitution; I shall refer,

therefore, to existing facts. Prior to the war the plan of

extending suffrage was by State action, and it was our boast that

the National Constitution did not contain a word which could be

construed into a barrier against woman's right to vote. But at the

close of the war Congress lifted the question of suffrage for men

above State power, and by the amendments prohibited the deprivation

of suffrage to any citizen by any State. When the Fourteenth

Amendment was first proposed in Congress, we rushed to you with

petitions praying you not to insert the word "male" in the second

clause. Our best friends on the floor of Congress said to us: "The

insertion of that word puts up no new barrier against woman;

therefore do not embarrass us but wait until we get the negro

question settled." So the Fourteenth Amendment with the word "male"

was adopted.

Then, when the Fifteenth was presented without the word "sex," we

again petitioned and protested, and again our friends declared that

the absence of that word was no hindrance to us, and again begged

us to wait until they had finished the work of the war. "After we

have enfranchised the negro we will take up your case." Have they

done as they promised? When we come asking protection under the new

guarantees of the Constitution, the same men say to us that our

only plan is to wait the action of Congress and State legislatures

in the adoption of a Sixteenth Amendment which shall make null and

void the word "male" in the Fourteenth, and supply the want of the

word "sex" in the Fifteenth. Such tantalizing treatment imposed

upon yourselves or any class of men would have caused rebellion and

in the end a bloody revolution. It is only the close relations

existing between the sexes which have prevented any such result

from this injustice to women.

Gentlemen, I should be sure of your decision could you but realize

the fact that we, who have been battling for our rights now more

than twenty years, feel precisely as you would under such

circumstances. One of the most ardent lovers of freedom (Senator

Sumner) said to me two winters ago, after our hearing before the

committee of the District: "I never realized before that you or any

woman could feel the disgrace, the degradation of disfranchisement

precisely as I should if my fellow-citizens had conspired to

deprive me of my right to vote." Although I am a Quaker and take no

oath, yet I have made a most solemn "affirmation" that I will never

again beg my rights, but will come to Congress each year and demand

the recognition of them under the guarantees of the National

Constitution.

What we ask of the Republican party is simply to take down its own

bars. The facts in Wyoming show how it is that a Republican party

can exist in that Territory. Before women voted, there was never a

Republican elected to office; after their enfranchisement, the

first election sent one Republican to Congress and seven to the

Territorial Legislature. Thus the nucleus of a Republican party

there was formed through the enfranchisement of women. The

Democrats, seeing this, are now determined to disfranchise them.

Can you Republicans so utterly stultify yourselves, can you so

entirely work against yourselves, as to refuse us a declaratory

law? We pray you to report immediately, as Mrs. Hooker has said,

"favorably, if you can; adversely, if you must." We can wait no

longer.

The committee reported adversely on the question of woman's right to

vote under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

At the close of the convention, Miss Anthony hastened to her home in

Rochester, which she had not seen since her departure to California

eight months before. Soon after her arrival she was invited to meet a

number of her acquaintances at the home of her dear friend, Amy Post,

and give them an account of her experiences on the Pacific slope. At

its conclusion she was surprised by the presentation of a purse

containing $50, with a touching address by Mrs. Post asking her to

accept it as a testimonial of the appreciation in which her friends and

neighbors held her work for woman and humanity. At the same time she

received a gift of money from Sarah Pugh, in an envelope marked, "For

thine own dear self." In her acknowledgment she says:

The tears started when I read your sweet letter. Were it not for

the loving sympathy and confidence of the little handful of

ever-faithful such as you, my spirit, I fear, would have fainted

long ago. There are yourself, dear Lucretia and her equally dear

sister, Martha, who never fail to know just the moment when my

purse is drained to the bottom and to drop the needed dollar into

it. It is really wonderful how I have been carried through all

these years financially. I often feel that Elijah's being fed by

the ravens was no more miraculous than my being furnished with the

means to do the great work which has been for the past twenty years

continuously presenting itself--yes, presenting itself, for it has

always come to me. My thought has been to escape the hardships but

they come ever and always, and so I try to accept the situation and

work my way through as best I can.

[Autograph:

My love and good wishes are

always flowing toward thyself and

dear Mrs Stanton--

Thine truly

Amy Post]

She was soon off again, lecturing in various cities and towns, going as

far west as Nebraska. Early in April, while waiting at a little

railroad station in Illinois, a gentleman came in and handed her a copy

of Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly containing this double-leaded

announcement:

The undersigned citizens of the United States, responding to the

invitation of the National Woman Suffrage Association, propose to

hold a convention at Steinway Hall, in the city of New York, the

9th and 10th of May. We believe the time has come for the formation

of a new political party whose principles shall meet the issues of

the hour and represent equal rights for all. As women of the

country are to take part for the first time in political action, we

propose that the initiative steps in the convention shall be taken

by them.... This convention will declare the platform of the

People's party, and consider the nomination of candidates for

President and Vice-President of the United States, who shall be the

best possible exponents of political and industrial reform....

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, SUSAN E. ANTHONY,

ISABELLA B. HOOKER, MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE.

It was followed by the call of Mrs. Woodhull and others for a delegate

convention to form a new party. Miss Anthony was thunderstruck. Not

only had she no knowledge of this action, but she was thoroughly

opposed both to the forming of a new party and to the National

Association's having any share in such a proceeding. She immediately

telegraphed an order to have her name removed from the call, and wrote

back indignant letters of protest against involving the association in

such an affair. A month prior to this, on March 13, she had written

Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Hooker from Leavenworth:

We have no element out of which to make a political party, because

there is not a man who would vote a woman suffrage ticket if

thereby he endangered his Republican, Democratic, Workingmen's or

Temperance party, and all our time and words in that direction are

simply thrown away. My name must not be used to call any such

meeting. I will do all I can to support either of the leading

parties which may adopt a woman suffrage plank or nominee; but no

one of them wants to do anything for us, while each would like to

use us....

I tell you I feel utterly disheartened--not that our cause is going

to die or be defeated, but as to my place and work. Mrs. Woodhull

has the advantage of us because she has the newspaper, and she

persistently means to run our craft into her port and none other.

If she were influenced by _women_ spirits, either in the body or

out of it, in the direction she steers, I might consent to be a

mere sail-hoister for her; but as it is, she is wholly owned and

dominated by _men_ spirits and I spurn the control of the whole lot

of them, just precisely the same when reflected through her woman's

tongue and pen as if they spoke directly for themselves.

After sending this letter she had supposed the question settled until

she saw this notice, hence her anger and dismay can be imagined.