During the World's Fair a certain clergyman made an especially violent
stand in favor of closing the Fair grounds on Sunday. Miss Anthony took
issue with him.
"If I had charge of a young man in Chicago at this time," she told the
clergyman, "I would much rather have him locked inside the Fair grounds
on Sunday or any other day than have him going about on the outside."
The clergyman was horrified. "Would you like to have a son of yours go
to Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show on Sunday?" he demanded.
"Of course I would," admitted Miss Anthony. "In fact, I think he would
learn more there than from the sermons preached in some churches."
Later this remark was repeated to Colonel Cody ("Buffalo Bill"), who,
of course, was delighted with it. He at once wrote to Miss Anthony,
thanking her for the breadth of her views, and offering her a box for
his "Show." She had no strong desire to see the performance, but some of
us urged her to accept the invitation and to take us with her. She was
always ready to do anything that would give us pleasure, so she promised
that we should go the next afternoon. Others heard of the jaunt and
begged to go also, and Miss Anthony blithely took every applicant under
her wing, with the result that when we arrived at the box-office the
next day there were twelve of us in the group. When she presented her
note and asked for a box, the local manager looked doubtfully at the
delegation.
"A box only holds six," he objected, logically. Miss Anthony, who had
given no thought to that slight detail, looked us over and smiled her
seraphic smile.
"Why, in that case," she said, cheerfully, "you'll have to give us two
boxes, won't you?"
The amused manager decided that he would, and handed her the tickets;
and she led her band to their places in triumph. When the performance
began Colonel Cody, as was his custom, entered the arena from the far
end of the building, riding his wonderful horse and bathed, of course,
in the effulgence of his faithful spot-light. He rode directly to our
boxes, reined his horse in front of Miss Anthony, rose in his stirrups,
and with his characteristic gesture swept his slouch-hat to his
saddle-bow in salutation. "Aunt Susan" immediately rose, bowed in
her turn and, for the moment as enthusiastic as a girl, waved her
handkerchief at him, while the big audience, catching the spirit of the
scene, wildly applauded. It was a striking picture this meeting of the
pioneer man and woman; and, poor as I am, I would give a hundred dollars
for a snapshot of it.
On many occasions I saw instances of Miss Anthony's prescience--and
one of these was connected with the death of Frances E. Willard. "Aunt
Susan" had called on Miss Willard, and, coming to me from the sick-room,
had walked the floor, beating her hands together as she talked of the
visit.
"Frances Willard is dying," she exclaimed, passionately. "She is dying,
and she doesn't know it, and no one around her realizes it. She is lying
there, seeing into two worlds, and making more plans than a thousand
women could carry out in ten years. Her brain is wonderful. She has the
most extraordinary clearness of vision. There should be a stenographer
in that room, and every word she utters should be taken down, for every
word is golden. But they don't understand. They can't realize that she
is going. I told Anna Gordon the truth, but she won't believe it."
Miss Willard died a few days later, with a suddenness which seemed to be
a terrible shock to those around her.
Of "Aunt Susan's" really remarkable lack of selfconsciousness we who
worked close to her had a thousand extraordinary examples. Once, I
remember, at the New Orleans Convention, she reached the hall a little
late, and as she entered the great audience already assembled gave her
a tremendous reception. The exercises of the day had not yet begun, and
Miss Anthony stopped short and looked around for an explanation of the
outburst. It never for a moment occurred to her that the tribute was to
her.
"What has happened, Anna?" she asked at last.
"You happened, Aunt Susan," I had to explain.
Again, on the great "College Night" of the Baltimore Convention,
when President M. Carey Thomas of Bryn Mawr College had finished her
wonderful tribute to Miss Anthony, the audience, carried away by the
speech and also by the presence of the venerable leader on the platform,
broke into a whirlwind of applause. In this "Aunt Susan" artlessly
joined, clapping her hands as hard as she could. "This is all for you,
Aunt Susan," I whispered, "so it isn't your time to applaud."
"Aunt Susan" continued to clap. "Nonsense," she said, briskly. "It's not
for me. It's for the Cause--the Cause!"
Miss Anthony told me in 1904 that she regarded her reception in Berlin,
during the meeting of the International Council of Women that year, as
the climax of her career. She said it after the unexpected and
wonderful ovation she had received from the German people, and certainly
throughout her inspiring life nothing had happened that moved her more
deeply.
For some time Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, of whose splendid work for the
Cause I shall later have more to say, had cherished the plan of forming
an International Suffrage Alliance. She believed the time had come when
the suffragists of the entire world could meet to their common benefit;
and Miss Anthony, always Mrs. Catt's devoted friend and admirer, agreed
with her. A committee was appointed to meet in Berlin in 1904, just
before the meeting of the International Council of Women, and Miss
Anthony was appointed chairman of the committee. At first the plan of
the committee was not welcomed by the International Council; there was
even a suspicion that its purpose was to start a rival organization.
But it met, a constitution was framed, and officers were elected, Mrs.
Catt--the ideal choice for the place--being made president. As a climax
to the organization, a great public mass-meeting had been arranged by
the German suffragists, but at the special plea of the president of the
International Council Miss Anthony remained away from this meeting. It
was represented to her that the interests of the Council might suffer if
she and other of its leading speakers were also leaders in the suffrage
movement. In the interest of harmony, there fore, she followed the
wishes of the Council's president--to my great unhappiness and to that
of other suffragists.
When the meeting was opened the first words of the presiding officer
were, "Where is Susan B. Anthony?" and the demonstration that followed
the question was the most unexpected and overwhelming incident of the
gathering. The entire audience rose, men jumped on their chairs, and the
cheering continued without a break for ten minutes. Every second of that
time I seemed to see Miss Anthony, alone in her hotel room, longing with
all her big heart to be with us, as we longed to have her. I prayed that
the loss of a tribute which would have meant so much might be made up
to her, and it was. Afterward, when we burst in upon her and told her
of the great demonstration the mere mention of her name had caused, her
lips quivered and her brave old eyes filled with tears. As we looked at
her I think we all realized anew that what the world called stoicism
in Susan B. Anthony throughout the years of her long struggle had been,
instead, the splendid courage of an indomitable soul--while all the time
the woman's heart had longed for affection and recognition. The next
morning the leading Berlin newspaper, in reporting the debate and
describing the spontaneous tribute to Miss Anthony, closed with these
sentences: "The Americans call her 'Aunt Susan.' She is our 'Aunt
Susan,' too!"
Throughout the remainder of Miss Anthony's visit she was the most
honored figure at the International Council. Every time she entered the
great convention-hall the entire audience rose and remained standing
until she was seated; each mention of her name was punctuated by cheers;
and the enthusiasm when she appeared on the platform to say a few words
was beyond bounds. When the Empress of Germany gave her reception to the
officers of the Council, she crowned the hospitality of her people in a
characteristically gracious way. As soon as Miss Anthony was presented
to her the Empress invited her to be seated, and to remain seated,
although every one else, including the august lady herself, was
standing. A little later, seeing the intrepid warrior of eighty-four
on her feet with the other delegates, the Empress sent one of her aides
across the room with this message: "Please tell my friend Miss Anthony
that I especially wish her to be seated. We must not let her grow
weary."
In her turn, Miss Anthony was fascinated by the Empress. She could not
keep her eyes off that charming royal lady. Probably the thing that most
impressed her was the ability of her Majesty as a linguist. Receiving
women from every civilized country on the globe, the Empress seemed to
address each in her own tongue-slipping from one language into the next
as easily as from one topic to another.
"And here I am," mourned "Aunt Susan," "speaking only one language, and
that not very well."
At this Berlin quinquennial, by the way, I preached the Council sermon,
and the occasion gained a certain interest from the fact that I was the
first ordained woman to preach in a church in Germany. It then took on
a tinge of humor from the additional fact that, according to the
German law, as suddenly revealed to us by the police, no clergyman was
permitted to preach unless clothed in clerical robes in the pulpit. It
happened that I had not taken my clerical robes with me--I am constantly
forgetting those clerical robes!--so the pastor of the church kindly
offered me his robes.
Now the pastor was six feet tall and broad in proportion, and I, as I
have already confessed, am very short. His robes transformed me into
such an absurd caricature of a preacher that it was quite impossible for
me to wear them. What, then, were we to do? Lacking clerical robes, the
police would not allow me to utter six words. It was finally decided
that the clergyman should meet the letter of the law by entering the
pulpit in his robes and standing by my side while I delivered my sermon.
The law soberly accepted this solution of the problem, and we offered
the congregation the extraordinary tableau of a pulpit combining a large
and impressive pastor standing silently beside a small and inwardly
convulsed woman who had all she could do to deliver her sermon with the
solemnity the occasion required.
At this same conference I made one of the few friendships I enjoy with
a member of a European royal family, for I met the Princess Blank of
Italy, who overwhelmed me with attention during my visit, and from whom
I still receive charming letters. She invited me to visit her in her
castle in Italy, and to accompany her to her mother's castle in Austria,
and she finally insisted on knowing exactly why I persistently refused
both invitations.
"Because, my dear Princess," I explained, "I am a working-woman."
"Nobody need KNOW that," murmured the Princess, calmly.
"On the contrary," I assured her, "it is the first thing I should
explain."
"But why?" the Princess wanted to know.
I studied her in silence for a moment. She was a new and interesting
type to me, and I was glad to exchange viewpoints with her.
"You are proud of your family, are you not?" I asked. "You are proud of
your great line?"
The Princess drew herself up. "Assuredly," she said.
"Very well," I continued. "I am proud, too. What I have done I have done
unaided, and, to be frank with you, I rather approve of it. My work is
my patent of nobility, and I am not willing to associate with those from
whom it would have to be concealed or with those who would look down
upon it."
The Princess sighed. I was a new type to her, too, as new as she was to
me; but I had the advantage of her, for I could understand her point
of view, whereas she apparently could not follow mine. She was very
gracious to me, however, showing me kindness and friendship in a dozen
ways, giving me an immense amount of her time and taking rather more of
my time than I could spare, but never forgetting for a moment that her
blood was among the oldest in Europe, and that all her traditions were
in keeping with its honorable age.
After the Berlin meeting Miss Anthony and I were invited to spend a
week-end at the home of Mrs. Jacob Bright, that "Aunt Susan" might renew
her acquaintance with Annie Besant. This visit is among my most vivid
memories. Originally "Aunt Susan" had greatly admired Mrs. Besant,
and had openly lamented the latter's concentration on theosophical
interests--when, as Miss Anthony put it, "there are so many live
problems here in this world." Now she could not conceal her disapproval
of the "other-worldliness" of Mrs. Besant, Mrs. Bright, and her
daughter. Some remarkable and, to me, most amusing discussions took
place among the three; but often, during Mrs. Besant's most sustained
oratorical flights, Miss Anthony's interest would wander, and she would
drop a remark that showed she had not heard a word. She had a great
admiration for Mrs. Besant's intellect; but she disapproved of her
flowing and picturesque white robes, of her bare feet, of her incessant
cigarette-smoking; above all, of her views. At last, one day.{sic} the
climax of the discussions came.
"Annie," demanded "Aunt Susan," "why don't you make that aura of
yours do its gallivanting in this world, looking up the needs of the
oppressed, and investigating the causes of present wrongs? Then you
could reveal to us workers just what we should do to put things right,
and we could be about it."
Mrs. Besant sighed and said that life was short and aeons were long,
and that while every one would be perfected some time, it was useless to
deal with individuals here.
"But, Annie!" exclaimed Miss Anthony, pathetically. "We ARE here! Our
business is here! It's our duty to do what we can here."
Mrs. Besant seemed not to hear her. She was in a trance, gazing into the
aeons.
"I'd rather have one year of your ability, backed up with common sense,
for the work of making this world better," cried the exasperated "Aunt
Susan," "than a million aeons in the hereafter!"
Mrs. Besant sighed again. It was plain that she could not bring herself
back from the other world, so Miss Anthony, perforce, accompanied her to
it.
"When your aura goes visiting in the other world," she asked, curiously,
"does it ever meet your old friend Charles Bradlaugh?"
"Oh yes," declared Mrs. Besant. "Frequently."
"Wasn't he very much surprised," demanded Miss Anthony, with growing
interest, "to discover that he was not dead?"
Mrs. Besant did not seem to know what emotion Mr. Bradlaugh had
experienced when that revelation came.
"Well," mused "Aunt Susan," "I should think he would have been
surprised. He was so certain he was going to be dead that it must have
been astounding to discover he wasn't. What was he doing in the other
world?"
Mrs. Besant heaved a deeper sigh. "I am very much discouraged over Mr.
Bradlaugh," she admitted, wanly. "He is hovering too near this world.
He cannot seem to get away from his mundane interests. He is as much
concerned with parliamentary affairs now as when he was on this plane."
"Humph!" said Miss Anthony; "that's the most sensible thing I've heard
yet about the other world. It encourages me. I've always felt sure that
if I entered the other life before women were enfranchised nothing in
the glories of heaven would interest me so much as the work for women's
freedom on earth. Now," she ended, "I shall be like Mr. Bradlaugh. I
shall hover round and continue my work here."
When Mrs. Besant had left the room Mrs. Bright felt that it was her duty
to admonish "Aunt Susan" to be more careful in what she said.
"You are making too light of her creed," she expostulated. "You do not
realize the important position Mrs. Besant holds. Why, in India, when
she walks from her home to her school all those she meets prostrate
themselves. Even the learned men prostrate themselves and put their
faces on the ground as she goes by."
"Aunt Susan's" voice, when she replied, took on the tones of one who is
sorely tried. "But why in Heaven's name does any sensible Englishwoman
want a lot of heathen to prostrate themselves as she goes up the
street?" she demanded, wearily. "It's the most foolish thing I ever
heard."
The effort to win Miss Anthony over to the theosophical doctrine was
abandoned. That night, after we had gone to our rooms, "Aunt Susan"
summed up her conclusions on the interview:
"It's a good thing for the world," she declared, "that some of us don't
know so much. And it's a better thing for this world that some of us
think a little earthly common sense is more valuable than too much
heavenly knowledge."
X. THE PASSING OF "AUNT SUSAN"
On one occasion Miss Anthony had the doubtful pleasure of reading her
own obituary notices, and her interest in them was characteristically
naive. She had made a speech at Lakeside, Ohio, during which, for the
first time in her long experience, she fainted on the platform. I was
not with her at the time, and in the excitement following her collapse
it was rumored that she had died. Immediately the news was telegraphed
to the Associated Press of New York, and from there flashed over the
country. At Miss Anthony's home in Rochester a reporter rang the bell
and abruptly informed her sister, Miss Mary Anthony, who came to the
door, that "Aunt Susan" was dead. Fortunately Miss Mary had a cool head.
"I think," she said, "that if my sister had died I would have heard
about it. Please have your editors telegraph to Lakeside."
The reporter departed, but came back an hour later to say that his
newspaper had sent the telegram and the reply was that Susan B. Anthony
was dead.
"I have just received a better telegram than that," remarked Mary
Anthony. "Mine is from my sister; she tells me that she fainted
to-night, but soon recovered and will be home to-morrow."
Nevertheless, the next morning the American newspapers gave much
space to Miss Anthony's obituary notices, and "Aunt Susan" spent some
interesting hours reading them. One that pleased her vastly was printed
in the Wichita Eagle, whose editor, Mr. Murdock, had been almost her
bitterest opponent. He had often exhausted his brilliant vocabulary in
editorial denunciations of suffrage and suffragists, and Miss Anthony
had been the special target of his scorn. But the news of her death
seemed to be a bitter blow to him; and of all the tributes the
American press gave to Susan B. Anthony dead, few equaled in beauty and
appreciation the one penned by Mr. Murdock and published in the Eagle.
He must have been amused when, a few days later, he received a letter
from "Aunt Susan" herself, thanking him warmly for his changed opinion
of her and hoping that it meant the conversion of his soul to our Cause.
It did not, and Mr. Murdock, though never again quite as bitter as he
had been, soon resumed the free editorial expression of his antisuffrage
sentiments. Times have changed, however, and to-day his son, now a
member of Congress, is one of our strongest supporters in that body.
In 1905 it became plain that Miss Anthony's health was failing. Her
visits to Germany and England the previous year, triumphant though they
had been, had also proved a drain on her vitality; and soon after her
return to America she entered upon a task which helped to exhaust her
remaining strength. She had been deeply interested in securing a fund of
$50,000 to enable women to enter Rochester University, and, one morning,
just after we had held a session of our executive committee in her
Rochester home, she read a newspaper announcement to the effect that
at four o'clock that afternoon the opportunity to admit women to the
university would expire, as the full fifty thousand dollars had not been
raised. The sum of eight thousand dollars was still lacking.
With characteristic energy, Miss Anthony undertook to save the situation
by raising this amount within the time limit. Rushing to the telephone,
she called a cab and prepared to go forth on her difficult quest; but
first, while she was putting on her hat and coat, she insisted that her
sister, Mary Anthony, should start the fund by contributing one thousand
dollars from her meager savings, and this Miss Mary did. "Aunt Susan"
made every second count that day, and by half after three o'clock
she had secured the necessary pledges. Several of the trustees of the
university, however, had not seemed especially anxious to have the
fund raised, and at the last moment they objected to one pledge for a
thousand dollars, on the ground that the man who had given it was very
old and might die before the time set to pay it; then his family, they
feared, might repudiate the obligation. Without a word Miss Anthony
seized the pledge and wrote her name across it as an indorsement. "I am
good for it," she then said, quietly, "if the gentleman who signed it is
not."
That afternoon she returned home greatly fatigued. A few hours later the
girl students who had been waiting admission to the university came to
serenade her in recognition of her successful work for them, but she
was too ill to see them. She was passing through the first stage of what
proved to be her final breakdown.
In 1906, when the date of the annual convention of the National American
Woman Suffrage Association in Baltimore was drawing near, she became
convinced that it would be her last convention. She was right. She
showed a passionate eagerness to make it one of the greatest conventions
ever held in the history of the movement; and we, who loved her and saw
that the flame of her life was burning low, also bent all our energies
to the task of realizing her hopes. In November preceding the convention
she visited me and her niece, Miss Lucy Anthony, in our home in
Mount Airy, Philadelphia, and it was clear that her anxiety over the
convention was weighing heavily upon her. She visibly lost strength from
day to day. One morning she said abruptly, "Anna, let's go and call on
President M. Carey Thomas, of Bryn Mawr."
I wrote a note to Miss Thomas, telling her of Miss Anthony's desire to
see her, and received an immediate reply inviting us to luncheon the
following day. We found Miss Thomas deep in the work connected with her
new college buildings, over which she showed us with much pride. Miss
Anthony, of course, gloried in the splendid results Miss Thomas had
achieved, but she was, for her, strangely silent and preoccupied. At
luncheon she said:
"Miss Thomas, your buildings are beautiful; your new library is a
marvel; but they are not the cause of our presence here."
"No," Miss Thomas said; "I know you have something on your mind. I am
waiting for you to tell me what it is."
"We want your co-operation, and that of Miss Garrett," began Miss
Anthony, promptly, "to make our Baltimore Convention a success. We want
you to persuade the Arundel Club of Baltimore, the most fashionable club
in the city, to give a reception to the delegates; and we want you to
arrange a college night on the programme--a great college night, with
the best college speakers ever brought together."
These were large commissions for two extremely busy women, but both
Miss Thomas and Miss Garrett--realizing Miss Anthony's intense
earnestness--promised to think over the suggestions and see what they
could do. The next morning we received a telegram from them stating that
Miss Thomas would arrange the college evening, and that Miss Garrett
would reopen her Baltimore home, which she had closed, during the
convention. She also invited Miss Anthony and me to be her guests there,
and added that she would try to arrange the reception by the Arundel
Club.