Emerson, at first opposed to woman suffrage, became a convert to it
during the last years of his life--a fact his son and daughter omitted
to mention in his biography. After his death I gave two suffrage
lectures in Concord, and each time Mrs. Emerson paid for the hall. At
these lectures Louisa M. Alcott graced the assembly with her splendid,
wholesome presence, and on both occasions she was surrounded by a group
of boys. She frankly cared much more for boys than for girls, and boys
inevitably gravitated to her whenever she entered a place where they
were. When women were given school suffrage in Massachusetts, Miss
Alcott was the first woman to vote in Concord, and she went to the polls
accompanied by a group of her boys, all ardently "for the Cause." My
general impression of her was that of a fresh breeze blowing over wide
moors. She was as different as possible from exquisite little Mrs.
Emerson, who, in her daintiness and quiet charm, suggested an old New
England garden.
Of Abby May and Edna Cheney I retain a general impression of
"bagginess"--of loose jackets over loose waistbands, of escaping locks
of hair, of bodies seemingly one size from the neck down. Both women
were utterly indifferent to the details of their appearance, but they
were splendid workers and leading spirits in the New England Woman's
Club. It was said to be the trouble between Abby May and Kate Gannett
Wells, both of whom stood for the presidency of the club, that led to
the beginning of the anti-suffrage movement in Boston. Abby May was
elected president, and all the suffragists voted for her. Subsequently
Kate Gannett Wells began her anti-suffrage campaign. Mrs. Wells was the
first anti-suffragist I ever knew in this country. Before her there had
been Mrs. Dahlgren, wife of Admiral Dahlgren, and Mrs. William Tecumseh
Sherman. On one occasion Elizabeth Cady Stanton challenged Mrs. Dahlgren
to a debate on woman suffrage, and in the light of later events Mrs.
Dahlgren's reply is amusing. She declined the challenge, explaining that
for anti-suffragists to appear upon a public platform would be a
direct violation of the principle for which they stood--which was the
protection of female modesty! Recalling this, and the present hectic
activity of the anti-suffragists, one must feel that they have either
abandoned their principle or widened their views. For Julia Ward Howe I
had an immense admiration; but, though from first to last I saw much of
her, I never felt that I really knew her. She was a woman of the widest
culture, interested in every progressive movement. With all her big
heart she tried to be a democrat, but she was an aristocrat to the very
core of her, and, despite her wonderful work for others, she lived in
a splendid isolation. Once when I called on her I found her resting her
mind by reading Greek, and she laughingly admitted that she was using
a Latin pony, adding that she was growing "rusty." She seemed a little
embarrassed by being caught with the pony, but she must have been
reassured by my cheerful confession that if _I_ tried to read either
Latin or Greek I should need an English pony.
Of Frances E. Willard, who frequently came to Boston, I saw a great
deal, and we soon became closely associated in our work. Early in our
friendship, and at Miss Willard's suggestion, we made a compact that
once a week each of us would point out to the other her most serious
faults, and thereby help her to remedy them; but we were both too sane
to do anything of the kind, and the project soon died a natural death.
The nearest I ever came to carrying it out was in warning Miss Willard
that she was constantly defying all the laws of personal hygiene. She
never rested, rarely seemed to sleep, and had to be reminded at the
table that she was there for the purpose of eating food. She was always
absorbed in some great interest, and oblivious to anything else, I never
knew a woman who could grip an audience and carry it with her as she
could. She was intensely emotional, and swayed others by their emotions
rather than by logic; yet she was the least conscious of her physical
existence of any one I ever knew, with the exception of Susan B.
Anthony. Like "Aunt Susan," Miss Willard paid no heed to cold or heat or
hunger, to privation or fatigue. In their relations to such trifles both
women were disembodied spirits.
Another woman doing wonderful work at this time was Mrs. Quincy Shaw,
who had recently started her day nurseries for the care of tenement
children whose mothers labored by the day. These nurseries were new in
Boston, as was the kindergarten system she also established. I saw the
effect of her work in the lives of the people, and it strengthened my
growing conviction that little could be done for the poor in a spiritual
or educational way until they were given a certain amount of physical
comfort, and until more time was devoted to the problem of prevention.
Indeed, the more I studied economic issues, the more strongly I felt
that the position of most philanthropists is that of men who stand at
the bottom of a precipice gathering up and trying to heal those who
fall into it, instead of guarding the top and preventing them from going
over.
Of course I had to earn my living; but, though I had taken my medical
degree only a few months before leaving Cape Cod, I had no intention
of practising medicine. I had merely wished to add a certain amount
of medical knowledge to my mental equipment. The Massachusetts Woman
Suffrage Association, of which Lucy Stone was president, had frequently
employed me as a lecturer during the last two years of my pastorate. Now
it offered me a salary of one hundred dollars a month as a lecturer and
organizer. Though I may not have seemed so in these reminiscences, in
which I have written as freely of my small victories as of my struggles
and failures, I was a modest young person. The amount seemed too large,
and I told Mrs. Stone as much, after which I humbly fixed my salary at
fifty dollars a month. At the end of a year of work I felt that I had
"made good"; then I asked for and received the one hundred dollars a
month originally offered me.
During my second year Miss Cora Scott Pond and I organized and carried
through in Boston a great suffrage bazaar, clearing six thousand dollars
for the association--a large amount in those days. Elated by my share in
this success, I asked that my salary should be increased to one hundred
and twenty-five dollars a month--but this was not done. Instead, I
received a valuable lesson. It was freely admitted that my work was
worth one hundred and twenty-five dollars, but I was told that one
hundred was the limit which could be paid, and I was reminded that this
was a good salary for a woman.
The time seemed to have come to make a practical stand in defense of
my principles, and I did so by resigning and arranging an independent
lecture tour. The first month after my resignation I earned three
hundred dollars. Later I frequently earned more than that, and very
rarely less. Eventually I lectured under the direction of the Slaton
Lecture Bureau of Chicago, and later still for the Redpath Bureau of
Boston. My experience with the Redpath people was especially gratifying.
Mrs. Livermore, who was their only woman lecturer, was growing old and
anxious to resign her work. She saw in me a possible successor, and
asked them to take me on their list. They promptly refused, explaining
that I must "make a reputation" before they could even consider me. A
year later they wrote me, making a very good offer, which I accepted. It
may be worth while to mention here that through my lecture-work at this
period I earned all the money I have ever saved. I lectured night after
night, week after week, month after month, in "Chautauquas" in the
summer, all over the country in the winter, earning a large income and
putting aside at that time the small surplus I still hold in preparation
for the "rainy day" every working-woman inwardly fears.
I gave the public at least a fair equivalent for what it gave me, for I
put into my lectures all my vitality, and I rarely missed an engagement,
though again and again I risked my life to keep one. My special
subjects, of course, were the two I had most at heart-suffrage and
temperance. For Frances Willard, then President of the Woman's Christian
Temperance Union, had persuaded me to head the Franchise Department of
that organization, succeeding Ziralda Wallace, the mother of Gen.
Lew Wallace; and Miss Susan B. Anthony, who was beginning to study me
closely, soon swung me into active work with her, of which, later, I
shall have much to say. But before taking up a subject as absorbing to
me as my friendship for and association with the most wonderful woman
I have ever known, it may be interesting to record a few of my pioneer
experiences in the lecture-field.
In those days--thirty years ago--the lecture bureaus were wholly
regardless of the comfort of their lecturers. They arranged a schedule
of engagements with exactly one idea in mind--to get the lecturer from
one lecture-point to the next, utterly regardless of whether she had
time between for rest or food or sleep. So it happened that
all-night journeys in freight-cars, engines, and cabooses were casual
commonplaces, while thirty and forty mile drives across the country in
blizzards and bitter cold were equally inevitable. Usually these things
did not trouble me. They were high adventures which I enjoyed at the
time and afterward loved to recall. But there was an occasional hiatus
in my optimism.
One night, for example, after lecturing in a town in Ohio, it was
necessary to drive eight miles across country to a tiny railroad station
at which a train, passing about two o'clock in the morning, was to be
flagged for me. When we reached the station it was closed, but my driver
deposited me on the platform and drove away, leaving me alone. The
night was cold and very dark. All day I had been feeling ill and in the
evening had suffered so much pain that I had finished my lecture with
great difficulty. Now toward midnight, in this desolate spot, miles from
any house, I grew alarmingly worse. I am not easily frightened, but that
time I was sure I was going to die. Off in the darkness, very far away,
as it seemed, I saw a faint light, and with infinite effort I dragged
myself toward it. To walk, even to stand, was impossible; I crawled
along the railroad track, collapsing, resting, going on again, whipping
my will power to the task of keeping my brain clear, until after a
nightmare that seemed to last through centuries I lay across the door of
the switch-tower in which the light was burning. The switchman stationed
there heard the cry I was able to utter, and came to my assistance. He
carried me up to his signal-room and laid me on the floor by the stove;
he had nothing to give me except warmth and shelter; but these were now
all I asked. I sank into a comatose condition shot through with pain.
Toward two o'clock in the morning he waked me and told me my train was
coming, asking if I felt able to take it. I decided to make the effort.
He dared not leave his post to help me, but he signaled to the train,
and I began my progress back to the station. I never clearly remembered
how I got there; but I arrived and was helped into a car by a brakeman.
About four o'clock in the morning I had to change again, but this time I
was left at the station of a town, and was there met by a man whose wife
had offered me hospitality. He drove me to their home, and I was cared
for. What I had, it developed, was a severe case of ptomaine poisoning,
and I soon recovered; but even after all these years I do not like to
recall that night.
To be "snowed in" was a frequent experience. Once, in Minnesota, I was
one of a dozen travelers who were driven in an omnibus from a country
hotel to the nearest railroad station, about two miles away. It was
snowing hard, and the driver left us on the station platform and
departed. Time passed, but the train we were waiting for did not come.
A true Western blizzard, growing wilder every moment, had set in, and we
finally realized that the train was not coming, and that, moreover, it
was now impossible to get back to the hotel. The only thing we could do
was to spend the night in the railroad station. I was the only woman in
the group, and my fellow-passengers were cattlemen who whiled away the
hours by smoking, telling stories, and exchanging pocket flasks. The
station had a telegraph operator who occupied a tiny box by himself, and
he finally invited me to share the privacy of his microscopic quarters.
I entered them very gratefully, and he laid a board on the floor,
covered it with an overcoat made of buffalo-skins, and cheerfully
invited me to go to bed. I went, and slept peacefully until morning.
Then we all returned to the hotel, the men going ahead and shoveling a
path.
Again, one Sunday, I was snowbound in a train near Faribault, and this
time also I was the only woman among a number of cattlemen. They were an
odoriferous lot, who smoked diligently and played cards without ceasing,
but in deference to my presence they swore only mildly and under their
breath. At last they wearied of their game, and one of them rose and
came to me.
"I heard you lecture the other night," he said, awkwardly, "and I've bin
tellin' the fellers about it. We'd like to have a lecture now."
Their card-playing had seemed to me a sinful thing (I was stricter in
my views then than I am to-day), and I was glad to create a diversion.
I agreed to give them a lecture, and they went through the train, which
consisted of two day coaches, and brought in the remaining passengers. A
few of them could sing, and we began with a Moody and Sankey hymn or two
and the appealing ditty, "Where is my wandering boy to-night?" in which
they all joined with special zest. Then I delivered the lecture, and
they listened attentively. When I had finished they seemed to think that
some slight return was in order, so they proceeded to make a bed for me.
They took the bottoms out of two seats, arranged them crosswise, and
one man folded his overcoat into a pillow. Inspired by this, two others
immediately donated their fur overcoats for upper and lower coverings.
When the bed was ready they waved me toward it with a most hospitable
air, and I crept in between the overcoats and slumbered sweetly until I
was aroused the next morning by the welcome music of a snow-plow which
had been sent from St. Paul to our rescue. To drive fifty or sixty miles
in a day to meet a lecture engagement was a frequent experience. I have
been driven across the prairies in June when they were like a mammoth
flower-bed, and in January when they seemed one huge snow-covered
grave--my grave, I thought, at times. Once during a thirty-mile drive,
when the thermometer was twenty degrees below zero, I suddenly
realized that my face was freezing. I opened my satchel, took out the
tissue-paper that protected my best gown, and put the paper over my face
as a veil, tucking it inside of my bonnet. When I reached my destination
the tissue was a perfect mask, frozen stiff, and I had to be lifted
from the sleigh. I was due on the lecture platform in half an hour, so I
drank a huge bowl of boiling ginger tea and appeared on time. That
night I went to bed expecting an attack of pneumonia as a result of the
exposure, but I awoke next morning in superb condition. I possess what
is called "an iron constitution," and in those days I needed it.
That same winter, in Kansas, I was chased by wolves, and though I had
been more or less intimately associated with wolves in my pioneer life
in the Michigan woods, I found the occasion extremely unpleasant. During
the long winters of my girlhood wolves had frequently slunk around
our log cabin, and at times in the lumber-camps we had even heard them
prowling on the roofs. But those were very different creatures from the
two huge, starving, tireless animals that hour after hour loped behind
the cutter in which I sat with another woman, who, throughout the whole
experience, never lost her head nor her control of our frantic horses.
They were mad with terror, for, try as they would, they could not outrun
the grim things that trailed us, seemingly not trying to gain on us, but
keeping always at the same distance, with a patience that was horrible.
From time to time I turned to look at them, and the picture they made as
they came on and on is one I shall never forget. They were so near that
I could see their eyes and slavering jaws, and they were as noiseless as
things in a dream. At last, little by little, they began to gain on us,
and they were almost within striking distance of the whip, which was our
only weapon, when we reached the welcome outskirts of a town and they
fell back.
Some of the memories of those days have to do with personal encounters,
brief but poignant. Once when I was giving a series of Chautauqua
lectures, I spoke at the Chautauqua in Pontiac, Illinois. The State
Reformatory for Boys was situated in that town, and, after the lecture
the superintendent of the Reformatory invited me to visit it and say a
few words to the inmates. I went and spoke for half an hour, carrying
away a memory of the place and of the boys which haunted me for
months. A year later, while I was waiting for a train in the station
at Shelbyville, a lad about sixteen years old passed me and hesitated,
looking as if he knew me. I saw that he wanted to speak and dared not,
so I nodded to him.
"You think you know me, don't you?" I asked, when he came to my side.
"Yes'm, I do know you," he told me, eagerly. "You are Miss Shaw, and
you talked to us boys at Pontiac last year. I'm out on parole now, but I
'ain't forgot. Us boys enjoyed you the best of any show we ever had!"
I was touched by this artless compliment, and anxious to know how I had
won it, so I asked, "What did I say that the boys liked?"
The lad hesitated. Then he said, slowly, "Well, you didn't talk as if
you thought we were all bad."
"My boy," I told him, "I don't think you are all bad. I know better!"
As if I had touched a spring in him, the lad dropped into the seat by
my side; then, leaning toward me, he said, impulsively, but almost in a
whisper:
"Say, Miss Shaw, SOME OF US BOYS SAYS OUR PRAYERS!"
Rarely have I had a tribute that moved me more than that shy confidence;
and often since then, in hours of discouragement or failure, I have
reminded myself that at least there must have been something in me
once to make a lad of that age so open up his heart. We had a long
and intimate talk, from which grew the abiding interest I feel in boys
today.
Naturally I was sometimes inconvenienced by slight misunderstandings
between local committees and myself as to the subjects of my lectures,
and the most extreme instance of this occurred in a town where I arrived
to find myself widely advertised as "Mrs. Anna Shaw, who whistled before
Queen Victoria"! Transfixed, I gaped before the billboards, and by
reading their additional lettering discovered the gratifying fact that
at least I was not expected to whistle now. Instead, it appeared, I was
to lecture on "The Missing Link."
As usual, I had arrived in town only an hour or two before the time
fixed for my lecture; there was the briefest interval in which to clear
up these painful misunderstandings. I repeatedly tried to reach the
chairman who was to preside at the entertainment, but failed. At last
I went to the hall at the hour appointed, and found the local committee
there, graciously waiting to receive me. Without wasting precious
minutes in preliminaries, I asked why they had advertised me as the
woman who had "whistled before Queen Victoria."
"Why, didn't you whistle before her?" they exclaimed in grieved
surprise.
"I certainly did not," I explained. "Moreover, I was never called 'The
American Nightingale,' and I have never lectured on 'The Missing Link.'
Where DID you get that subject? It was not on the list I sent you."
The members of the committee seemed dazed. They withdrew to a corner and
consulted in whispers. Then, with clearing brow, the spokesman returned.
"Why," he said, cheerfully, "it's simple enough! We mixed you up with a
Shaw lady that whistles; and we've been discussing the missing link in
our debating society, so our citizens want to hear your views."
"But I don't know anything about the missing link," I protested, "and I
can't speak on it."
"Now, come," they begged. "Why, you'll have to! We've sold all our
tickets for that lecture. The whole town has turned out to hear it."
Then, as I maintained a depressed silence, one of them had a bright
idea.
"I'll tell you how to fix it!" he cried. "Speak on any subject you
please, but bring in something about the missing link every few minutes.
That will satisfy 'em."
"Very well," I agreed, reluctantly. "Open the meeting with a song. Get
the audience to sing 'America' or 'The Star-spangled Banner.' That will
give me a few minutes to think, and I will see what can be done."
Led by a very nervous chairman, the big audience began to sing, and
under the inspiration of the music the solution of our problem flashed
into my mind.
"It is easy," I told myself. "Woman is the missing link in our
government. I'll give them a suffrage speech along that line."
When the song ended I began my part of the entertainment with a portion
of my lecture on "The Fate of Republics," tracing their growth and
decay, and pointing out that what our republic needed to give it a
stable government was the missing link of woman suffrage. I got along
admirably, for every five minutes I mentioned "the missing link," and
the audience sat content and apparently interested, while the members of
the committee burst into bloom on the platform.
VIII. DRAMA IN THE LECTURE-FIELD
My most dramatic experience occurred in a city in Michigan, where I was
making a temperance campaign. It was an important lumber and shipping
center, and it harbored much intemperance. The editor of the leading
newspaper was with the temperance-workers in our fight there, and he had
warned me that the liquor people threatened to "burn the building over
my head" if I attempted to lecture. We were used to similar threats,
so I proceeded with my preparations and held the meeting in the town
skating-rink--a huge, bare, wooden structure.
Lectures were rare in that city, and rumors of some special excitement
on this occasion had been circulated; every seat in the rink was filled,
and several hundred persons stood in the aisles and at the back of the
building. Just opposite the speaker's platform was a small gallery, and
above that, in the ceiling, was a trap-door. Before I had been speaking
ten minutes I saw a man drop through this trap-door to the balcony and
climb from there to the main floor. As he reached the floor he shouted
"Fire!" and rushed out into the street. The next instant every person
in the rink was up and a panic had started. I was very sure there was
no fire, but I knew that many might be killed in the rush which was
beginning. So I sprang on a chair and shouted to the people with the
full strength of my lungs:
"There is no fire! It's only a trick! Sit down! Sit down!"
The cooler persons in the crowd at once began to help in this calming
process.
"Sit down!" they repeated. "It's all right! There's no fire! Sit down!"
It looked as if we had the situation in hand, for the people hesitated,
and most of them grew quiet; but just then a few words were hissed up to
me that made my heart stop beating. A member of our local committee was
standing beside my chair, speaking in a terrified whisper:
"There IS a fire, Miss Shaw," he said. "For God's sake get the people
out--QUICKLY!"
The shock was so unexpected that my knees almost gave way. The people
were still standing, wavering, looking uncertainly toward us. I raised
my voice again, and if it sounded unnatural my hearers probably thought
it was because I was speaking so loudly.
"As we are already standing," I cried, "and are all nervous, a little
exercise will do us good. So march out, singing. Keep time to the music!
Later you can come back and take your seats!"
The man who had whispered the warning jumped into the aisle and struck
up "Jesus, Lover of My Soul." Then he led the march down to the door,
while the big audience swung into line and followed him, joining in the
song. I remained on the chair, beating time and talking to the people
as they went; but when the last of them had left the building I almost
collapsed; for the flames had begun to eat through the wooden walls and
the clang of the fire-engines was heard outside.