from a strong man, and therefore helped us.
Election day, as usual, brought its surprises and revelations. Mrs.
Cooper asked her Chinese cook how the Chinese were voting--i. e.,
the native-born Chinamen who were entitled to vote--and he replied,
blithely, "All Chinamen vote for Billy McKee and 'NO' to women!" It is
an interesting fact that every Chinese vote was cast against us.
All day we went from one to another of the polling-places, and I shall
always remember the picture of Miss Anthony and the wife of Senator
Sargent wandering around the polls arm in arm at eleven o'clock at
night, their tired faces taking on lines of deeper depression with every
minute; for the count was against us. However, we made a fairly good
showing. When the final counts came in we found that we had won the
state from the north down to Oakland, and from the south up to San
Francisco; but there was not a sufficient majority to overcome the
adverse votes of San Francisco and Oakland. With more than 230,000 votes
cast, we were defeated by only 10,000 majority. In San Francisco the
saloon element and the most aristocratic section of the city made an
equal showing against us, while the section occupied by the middle
working-class was largely in favor of our amendment. I dwell especially
on this campaign, partly because such splendid work was done by the
women of California, and also because, during the same election, Utah
and Idaho granted full suffrage to women. This gave us four suffrage
states--Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho--and we prepared for future
struggles with very hopeful hearts.
It was during this California campaign, by the way, that I unwittingly
caused much embarrassment to a worthy young man. At a mass-meeting held
in San Francisco, Rabbi Vorsanger, who was not in favor of suffrage for
women, advanced the heartening theory that in a thousand years more they
might possibly be ready for it. After a thousand years of education for
women, of physically developed women, of uncorseted women, he said, we
might have the ideal woman, and could then begin to talk about freedom
for her.
When the rabbi sat down there was a shout from the audience for me to
answer him, but all I said was that the ideal woman would be rather
lonely, as it would certainly take another thousand years to develop an
ideal man capable of being a mate for her. On the following night Prof.
Howard Griggs, of Stanford University, made a speech on the modern
woman--a speech so admirably thought out and delivered that we were all
delighted with it. When he had finished the audience again called on
me, and I rose and proceeded to make what my friends frankly called "the
worst break" of my experience. Rabbi Vorsanger's ideal woman was still
in my mind, and I had been rather hard on the men in my reply to the
rabbi the night before; so now I hastened to give this clever young
man his full due. I said that though the rabbi thought it would take a
thousand years to make an ideal woman, I believed that, after all, it
might not take as long to make the ideal man. We had something very near
it in a speaker who could reveal such ability, such chivalry, and such
breadth of view as Professor Griggs had just shown that he possessed.
That night I slept the sleep of the just and the well-meaning, and it
was fortunate I did, for the morning newspapers had a surprise for me
that called for steady nerves and a sense of humor. Across the front
page of every one of them ran startling head-lines to this effect:
DR. SHAW HAS FOUND HER IDEAL MAN
The Prospects Are That She Will
Remain in California
Professor Griggs was young enough to be my son, and he was already
married and the father of two beautiful children; but these facts were
not permitted to interfere with the free play of fancy in journalistic
minds. For a week the newspapers were filled with all sorts of articles,
caricatures, and editorials on my ideal man, which caused me much
annoyance and some amusement, while they plunged Professor Griggs
into an abysmal gloom. In the end, however, the experience proved an
excellent one for him, for the publicity attending his speech made him
decide to take up lecturing as a profession, which he eventually did
with great success. But neither of us has yet heard the last of the
Ideal Man episode. Only a few years ago, on his return to California
after a long absence, one of the leading Sunday newspapers of the state
heralded Professor Griggs's arrival by publishing a full-page article
bearing his photograph and mine and this flamboyant heading:
SHE MADE HIM
And Dr. Shaw's Ideal Man Became the
Idol of American Women and
Earns $30,000 a Year
We had other unusual experiences in California, and the display of
affluence on every side was not the least impressive of them. In one
town, after a heavy rain, I remember seeing a number of little boys
scraping the dirt from the gutters, washing it, and finding tiny nuggets
of gold. We learned that these boys sometimes made two or three dollars
a day in this way, and that the streets of the town--I think it was
Marysville--contained so much gold that a syndicate offered to level the
whole town and repave the streets in return for the right to wash out
the gold. This sounds like the kind of thing Americans tell to trustful
visitors from foreign lands, but it is quite true. Nuggets, indeed,
were so numerous that at one of our meetings, when we were taking up a
collection, I cheerfully suggested that our audience drop a few into the
box, as we had not had a nugget since we reached the state. There were
no nuggets in the subsequent collection, but there was a note which
read: "If Dr. Shaw will accept a gold nugget, I will see that she does
not leave town without one." I read this aloud, and added, "I have never
refused a gold nugget in my life."
The following day brought me a pin made of a very beautiful gold nugget,
and a few days later another Californian produced a cluster of smaller
nuggets which he had washed out of a panful of earth and insisted on my
accepting half of them. I was not accustomed to this sort of generosity,
but it was characteristic of the spirit of the state. Nowhere else,
during our campaign experiences, were we so royally treated in every
way. As a single example among many, I may mention that Mrs. Leland
Stanford once happened to be on a train with us and to meet Miss
Anthony. As a result of this chance encounter she gave our whole party
passes on all the lines of the Southern Pacific Railroad, for use during
the entire campaign. Similar generosity was shown us on every side, and
the question of finance did not burden us from the beginning to the end
of the California work.
In our Utah and Idaho campaigns we had also our full share of new
experiences, and of these perhaps the most memorable to me was the
sermon I preached in the Mormon Tabernacle at Salt Lake City. Before I
left New York the Mormon women had sent me the invitation to preach this
sermon, and when I reached Salt Lake City and the so-called "Gentile"
women heard of the plan, they at once invited me to preach to the
"Gentiles" on the evening of the same Sunday, in the Salt Lake City
Opera House.
On the morning of the sermon I approached the Mormon Tabernacle with
much more trepidation than I usually experienced before entering a
pulpit. I was not sure what particular kind of trouble I would get into,
but I had an abysmal suspicion that trouble of some sort lay in wait for
me, and I shivered in the anticipation of it. Fortunately, my anxiety
was not long drawn out. I arrived only a few moments before the hour
fixed for the sermon, and found the congregation already assembled and
the Tabernacle filled with the beautiful music of the great organ. On
the platform, to which I was escorted by several leading dignitaries
of the church, was the characteristic Mormon arrangement of seats. The
first row was occupied by the deacons, and in the center of these was
the pulpit from which the deacons preach. Above these seats was a second
row, occupied by ordained elders, and there they too had their own
pulpit. The third row was occupied by, the bishops and the highest
dignitaries of the church, with the pulpit from which the bishops
preach; and behind them all, an effective human frieze, was the really
wonderful Mormon choir.
As I am an ordained elder in my church, I occupied the pulpit in the
middle row of seats, with the deacons below me and the bishops just
behind. Scattered among the congregation were hundreds of "Gentiles"
ready to leap mentally upon any concession I might make to the Mormon
faith; while the Mormons were equally on the alert for any implied
criticism of them and their church. The problem of preaching a sermon
which should offer some appeal to both classes, without offending
either, was a perplexing one, and I solved it to the best of my ability
by delivering a sermon I had once given in my own church to my own
people. When I had finished I was wholly uncertain of its effect, but
at the end of the services one of the bishops leaned toward me from his
place in the rear, and, to my mingled horror and amusement, offered me
this tribute, "That is one of the best Mormon sermons ever preached in
this Tabernacle."
I thanked him, but inwardly I was aghast. What had I said to give him
such an impression? I racked my brain, but could recall nothing that
justified it. I passed the day in a state of nervous apprehension,
fully expecting some frank criticism from the "Gentiles" on the score of
having delivered a Mormon sermon to ingratiate myself into the favor of
the Mormons and secure their votes for the constitutional amendment.
But nothing of the kind was said. That evening, after the sermon to the
"Gentiles," a reception was given to our party, and I drew my first deep
breath when the wife of a well-known clergyman came to me and introduced
herself in these words:
"My husband could not come here to-night, but he heard your sermon this
morning. He asked me to tell you how glad he was that under such unusual
conditions you held so firmly to the teachings of Christ."
The next day I was still more reassured. A reception was given us at
the home of one of Brigham Young's daughters, and the receiving-line was
graced by the presiding elder of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was
a bluff and jovial gentleman, and when he took my hand he said, warmly,
"Well, Sister Shaw, you certainly gave our Mormon friends the biggest
dose of Methodism yesterday that they ever got in their lives."
After this experience I reminded myself again that what Frances Willard
so frequently said is true; All truth is our truth when it has reached
our hearts; we merely rechristen it according to our individual creeds.
During the visit I had an interesting conversation with a number of the
younger Mormon women. I was to leave the city on a midnight train, and
about twenty of them, including four daughters of Brigham Young, came to
my hotel to remain with me until it was time to go to the station. They
filled the room, sitting around in school-girl fashion on the floor and
even on the bed. It was an unusual opportunity to learn some things I
wished to know, and I could not resist it.
"There are some questions I would like to ask you," I began, "and one
or two of them may seem impertinent. But they won't be asked in that
spirit--and please don't answer any that embarrass you."
They exchanged glances, and then told me to ask as many questions as I
wished.
"First of all," I said, "I would like to know the real attitude toward
polygamy of the present generation of Mormon women. Do you all believe
in it?"
They assured me that they did.
"How many of you," I then asked, "are polygamous wives?"
There was not one in the group. "But," I insisted, "if you really
believe in polygamy, why is it that some of your husbands have not taken
more than one wife?"
There was a moment of silence, while each woman looked around as if
waiting for another to answer. At last one of them said, slowly:
"In my case, I alone was to blame. For years I could not force myself to
consent to my husband's taking another wife, though I tried hard. By
the time I had overcome my objection the law was passed prohibiting
polygamy."
A second member of the group hastened to tell her story. She had had a
similar spiritual struggle, and just as she reached the point where she
was willing to have her husband take another wife, he died. And now the
room was filled with eager voices. Four or five women were telling at
once that they, too, had been reluctant in the beginning, and that when
they had reached the point of consent this, that, or another cause had
kept the husbands from marrying again. They were all so passionately in
earnest that they stared at me in puzzled wonder when I broke into the
sudden laughter I could not restrain.
"What fortunate women you all were!" I exclaimed, teasingly. "Not one of
you arrived at the point of consenting to the presence of a second wife
in your home until it was impossible for your husband to take her."
They flushed a little at that, and then laughed with me; but they
did not defend themselves against the tacit charge, and I turned the
conversation into less personal channels. I learned that many of the
Mormon young men were marrying girls outside of the Church, and that two
sons of a leading Mormon elder had married and were living very happily
with Catholic girls.
At this time the Mormon candidate for Congress (a man named Roberts)
was a bitter opponent of woman suffrage. The Mormon women begged me to
challenge him to a debate on the subject, which I did, but Mr. Roberts
declined the challenge. The ground of his refusal, which he made public
through the newspapers, was chastening to my spirit. He explained that
he would not debate with me because he was not willing to lower himself
to the intellectual plane of a woman.
XIII. PRESIDENT OF "THE NATIONAL"
In 1900 Miss Anthony, then over eighty, decided that she must resign
the presidency of our National Association, and the question of the
successor she would choose became an important one. It was conceded that
there were only two candidates in her mind--Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt and
myself--and for several months we gave the suffrage world the unusual
spectacle of rivals vigorously pushing each other's claims. Miss Anthony
was devoted to us both, and I think the choice was a hard one for her to
make. On the one hand, I had been vice-president at large and her almost
constant companion for twelve years, and she had grown accustomed to
think of me as her successor. On the other hand, Mrs. Catt had been
chairman of the organization committee, and through her splendid
executive ability had built up our organization in many states. From
Miss Anthony down, we all recognized her steadily growing powers; she
had, moreover, abundant means, which I had not.
In my mind there was no question of her superior qualification for the
presidency. She seemed to me the logical and indeed the only possible
successor to Miss Anthony; and I told "Aunt Susan" so with all the
eloquence I could command, while simultaneously Mrs. Catt was pouring
into Miss Anthony's other ear a series of impassioned tributes to me.
It was an unusual situation and a very pleasant one, and it had two
excellent results: it simplified "Aunt Susan's" problem by eliminating
the element of personal ambition, and it led to her eventual choice of
Mrs. Catt as her successor.
I will admit here for the first time that in urging Mrs. Catt's fitness
for the office I made the greatest sacrifice of my life. My highest
ambition had been to succeed Miss Anthony, for no one who knew her as I
did could underestimate the honor of being chosen by her to carry on her
work.
At the convention in Washington that year she formally refused the
nomination for re-election, as we had all expected, and then, on being
urged to choose her own successor, she stepped forward to do so. It was
a difficult hour, for her fiery soul resented the limitations imposed by
her worn-out body, and to such a worker the most poignant experience in
life is to be forced to lay down one's work at the command of old age.
On this she touched briefly, but in a trembling voice; and then, in
furtherance of the understanding between the three of us, she presented
the name of Mrs. Catt to the convention with all the pride and hope a
mother could feel in the presentation of a daughter.
Her faith was fully justified. Mrs. Catt made an admirable president,
and during every moment of the four years she held the office she had
Miss Anthony's whole-hearted and enthusiastic support, while I, too,
in my continued office of vice-president, did my utmost to help her
in every way. In 1904, however, Mrs. Catt was elected president of the
International Suffrage Alliance, as I have mentioned before, and that
same year she resigned the presidency of our National Association, as
her health was not equal to the strain of carrying the two offices.
Miss Anthony immediately urged me to accept the presidency of the
National Association, which I was now most unwilling to do; I had lost
my ambition to be president, and there were other reasons, into which I
need not go again, why I felt that I could not accept the post. At last,
however, Miss Anthony actually commanded me to take the place, and there
was nothing to do but obey her. She was then eighty-four, and, as it
proved, within two years of her death. It was no time for me to rebel
against her wishes; but I yielded with the heaviest heart I have
ever carried, and after my election to the presidency at the national
convention in Washington I left the stage, went into a dark corner of
the wings, and for the first time since my girlhood "cried myself sick."
In the work I now took up I found myself much alone. Mrs. Catt was
really ill, and the strength of "Aunt Susan" must be saved in every way.
Neither could give me much help, though each did all she should have
done, and more. Mrs. Catt, whose husband had recently died, was in a
deeply despondent frame of mind, and seemed to feel that the future was
hopelessly dark. My own panacea for grief is work, and it seemed to
me that both physically and mentally she would be helped by a wise
combination of travel and effort. During my lifetime I have cherished
two ambitions, and only two: the first, as I have already confessed, had
been to succeed Miss Anthony as president of our association; the second
was to go around the world, carrying the woman-suffrage ideal to every
country, and starting in each a suffrage society. Long before the
inception of the International Suffrage Alliance I had dreamed this
dream; and, though it had receded as I followed it through life, I had
never wholly lost sight of it. Now I realized that for me it could never
be more than a dream. I could never hope to have enough money at my
disposal to carry it out, and it occurred to me that if Mrs. Catt
undertook it as president of the International Suffrage Alliance the
results would be of the greatest benefit to the Cause and to her.
In my first visit to her after her husband's death I suggested this
plan, but she replied that it was impossible for her to consider it.
I did not lose thought of it, however, and at the next International
Conference, held in Copenhagen in 1907, I suggested to some of the
delegates that we introduce the matter as a resolution, asking Mrs. Catt
to go around the world in behalf of woman suffrage. They approved the
suggestion so heartily that I followed it up with a speech setting forth
the whole plan and Mrs. Catt's peculiar fitness for the work. Several
months later Mrs. Catt and Dr. Aletta Jacobs, president of the Holland
Suffrage Association, started on their world tour; and not until after
they had gone did I fully realize that the two great personal ambitions
of my life had been realized, not by me, but by another, and in each
case with my enthusiastic co-operation.
In 1904, following my election to the presidency, a strong appeal came
from the Board of Managers of the exposition to be held in Portland,
Oregon, urging us to hold our next annual convention there during
the exposition. It was the first time an important body of men had
recognized us in this manner, and we gladly responded. So strong a
political factor did the men of Oregon recognize us to be that every
political party in the state asked to be represented on our platform;
and one entire evening of the convention was given over to the
representatives chosen by the various parties to indorse the suffrage
movement. Thus we began in Oregon the good work we continued in 1906,
and of which we reaped the harvest in 1912.
Next to "Suffrage Night," the most interesting feature of the exposition
to us was the unveiling of the statue of Saccawagea, the young Indian
girl who led the Lewis and Clark expedition through the dangerous passes
of the mountain ranges of the Northwest until they reached the Pacific
coast. This statue, presented to the exposition by the women of Oregon,
is the belated tribute of the state to its most dauntless pioneer;
and no one can look upon the noble face of the young squaw, whose
outstretched hand points to the ocean, without marveling over the
ingratitude of the nation that ignored her supreme service. To
Saccawagea is due the opening up of the entire western country. There
was no one to guide Lewis and Clark except this Indian, who alone knew
the way; and she led the whole party, carrying her papoose on her
back. She was only sixteen, but she brought every man safely through an
experience of almost unparalleled hardship and danger, nursing them
in sickness and setting them an example of unfaltering courage and
endurance, until she stood at last on the Pacific coast, where her
statue stands now, pointing to the wide sweep of the Columbia River as
it flows into the sea.
This recognition by women is the only recognition she ever received.
Both Lewis and Clark were sincerely grateful to her and warmly
recommended her to the government for reward; but the government allowed
her absolutely nothing, though each man in the party she had led was
given a large tract of land. Tradition says that she was bitterly
disappointed, as well she might have been, and her Indian brain must
have been sadly puzzled. But she was treated little worse than thousands
of the white pioneer women who have followed her; and standing: there
to-day on the bank of her river, she still seems sorrowfully reflective
over the strange ways of the nation she so nobly served.
The Oregon campaign of 1906 was the carrying out of one of Miss
Anthony's dearest wishes, and we who loved her set about this work soon
after her death. In the autumn preceding her passing, headquarters had
been established in Oregon, and Miss Laura Gregg had been placed in
charge, with Miss Gale Laughlin as her associate. As the money for this
effort was raised by the National Association, it was decided, after
some discussion, to let the National Association develop the work in
Oregon, which was admittedly a hard state to carry and full of possible
difficulties which soon became actual ones.
As a beginning, the Legislature had failed to submit an amendment; but
as the initiative and referendum was the law in Oregon, the amendment
was submitted through initiative patent. The task of securing the
necessary signatures was not an easy one, but at last a sufficient
number of signatures were secured and verified, and the authorities
issued the necessary proclamation for the vote, which was to take place
at a special election held on the 5th of June. Our campaign work had
been carried on as extensively as possible, but the distances were great
and the workers few, and as a result of the strain upon her Miss Gregg's
health soon failed alarmingly.
All this was happening during Miss Anthony's last illness, and it added
greatly to our anxieties.