|
|
|
& Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) & Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), abolitionists, educational reformers, labor activists, temperance workers, suffragists and woman's rights campaigners. They met in 1851. starting a most fruitful collaboration. They began publishing a weekly newspaper, the Revolution, in 1868. and founded the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869. Together the authored many writings, pamphlets and speeches, including the History of Woman Suffrage (1881-85) with Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826-1898). & "If
there is one part of my life that gives me more intense satisfaction
than another, it is my friendship of forty years' standing with Susan B.
Anthony. . . . Sub rosa, dear friends, I have had no peace for forty
years, since the day we started together on the suffrage expedition . .
. She has kept me on the war-path, at the point of the bayonet . . . .
[But] I do believe that I have developed into much more of a woman under
Susan's jurisdiction, fed on statute laws and constitutional amendments,
than if left to myself reading novels in an easy-chair, lost in sweet
reveries of the golden age to come, without any effort of my own."
ECS, "The Friendship of Woman," Woman's Tribune, 22 February 1890. & "The
one thought I wish to express is how little my friend and I could
accomplish alone. What she has said is true; I have been a thorn in her
side, and in that of her family, too, I fear. . . . If I have ever had
any inspiration she has given it to me. I want you to understand that I
never could have done the work I have if I had not had this woman at my
right hand." SBA's response, Woman's Tribune, 22 February 1890.
|
& Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/9/8/11982/11982-h/11982-h.htm & & by Elizabeth Cady Stanton & I
DEDICATE THIS VOLUME TO SUSAN
B. ANTHONY, MY
STEADFAST FRIEND FOR HALF A CENTURY. CHAPTER X. SUSAN B. ANTHONY The
reports of the conventions held in Seneca Falls and Rochester, N.Y., in
1848, attracted the attention of one destined to take a most important
part in the new movement—Susan B. Anthony, who, for her courage and
executive ability, was facetiously called by William Henry Channing, the
Napoleon of our struggle. At this time she was teaching in the academy
at Canajoharie, a little village in the beautiful valley of the Mohawk. "The
Woman's Declaration of Independence" issued from those conventions
startled and amused her, and she laughed heartily at the novelty and
presumption of the demand. But, on returning home to spend her vacation,
she was surprised to find that her sober Quaker parents and sister,
having attended the Rochester meetings, regarded them as very profitable
and interesting, and the demands made as proper and reasonable. She was
already interested in the anti-slavery and temperance reforms, was an
active member of an organization called "The Daughters of
Temperance," and had spoken a few times in their public meetings.
But the new gospel of "Woman's Rights," found a ready response
in her mind, and, from that time, her best efforts have been given to
the enfranchisement of women. As,
from this time, my friend is closely connected with my narrative and
will frequently appear therein, a sketch of her seems appropriate. Lord
Bacon has well said: "He that hath wife and children hath given
hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises
either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest
merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless
men; which, both in affection and means, have married and endowed the
public." This
bit of Baconian philosophy, as alike applicable to women, was the
subject, not long since, of a conversation with a remarkably gifted
Englishwoman. She was absorbed in many public interests and had
conscientiously resolved never to marry, lest the cares necessarily
involved in matrimony should make inroads upon her time and thought, to
the detriment of the public good. "Unless," said she,
"some women dedicate themselves to the public service, society is
robbed of needed guardians for the special wants of the weak and
unfortunate. There should be, in the secular world, certain orders
corresponding in a measure to the grand sisterhoods of the Catholic
Church, to the members of which, as freely as to men, all offices, civic
and ecclesiastical, should be open." That this ideal will be
realized may be inferred from the fact that exceptional women have, in
all ages, been leaders in great projects of charity and reform, and that
now many stand waiting only the sanction of their century, ready for
wide altruistic labors. The
world has ever had its vestal virgins, its holy women, mothers of ideas
rather than of men; its Marys, as well as its Marthas, who, rather than
be busy housewives, preferred to sit at the feet of divine wisdom, and
ponder the mysteries of the unknown. All hail to Maria Mitchell, Harriet
Hosmer, Charlotte Cushman, Alice and Phoebe Gary, Louisa Alcott, Dr.
Elizabeth Blackwell, Frances Willard, and Clara Barton! All honor to the
noble women who have devoted earnest lives to the intellectual and moral
needs of mankind! Susan
B. Anthony was of sturdy New England stock, and it was at the foot of
Old Greylock, South Adams, Mass., that she gave forth her first
rebellious cry. There the baby steps were taken, and at the village
school the first stitches were learned, and the A B C duly mastered.
When five winters had passed over Susan's head, there came a time of
great domestic commotion, and, in her small way, the child seized the
idea that permanence is not the rule of life. The family moved to
Battenville, N.Y., where Mr. Anthony became one of the wealthiest men in
Washington County. Susan can still recall the stately coldness of the
great house—how large the bare rooms, with their yellow-painted
floors, seemed, in contrast with her own diminutiveness, and the outlook
of the schoolroom where for so many years, with her brothers and
sisters, she pursued her studies under private tutors. Mr.
Anthony was a stern Hicksite Quaker. In Susan's early life he objected
on principle to all forms of frivolous amusement, such as music,
dancing, or novel reading, while games and even pictures were regarded
as meaningless luxuries. Such puritanical convictions might have easily
degenerated into mere cant; but underlying all was a broad and firm
basis of wholesome respect for individual freedom and a brave adherence
to truth. He was a man of good business capacity, and a thorough manager
of his wide and lucrative interests. He saw that compensation and not
chance ruled in the commercial world, and he believed in the same just,
though often severe, law in the sphere of morals. Such a man was not apt
to walk humbly in the path mapped out by his religious sect. He early
offended by choosing a Baptist for a wife. For this first offense he was
"disowned," and, according to Quaker usage, could only be
received into fellowship again by declaring himself "sorry"
for his crime in full meeting. He was full of devout thankfulness for
the good woman by his side, and destined to be thankful to the very end
for this companion, so calm, so just, so far-seeing. He rose in meeting,
and said he was "sorry" that the rules of the society were
such that, in marrying the woman he loved, he had committed offense! He
admitted that he was "sorry" for something, so was taken back
into the body of the faithful! But his faith had begun to weaken in many
minor points of discipline. His coat soon became a cause of offense and
called forth another reproof from those buttoned up in conforming
garments. The petty forms of Quakerism began to lose their weight with
him altogether, and he was finally disowned for allowing the village
youth to be taught dancing in an upper room of his dwelling. He was
applied to for this favor on the ground that young men were under great
temptation to drink if the lessons were given in the hotel; and, being a
rigid temperance man, he readily consented, though his principles, in
regard to dancing, would not allow his own sons and daughters to join in
the amusement. But the society could accept no such discrimination in
what it deemed sin, nor such compromise with worldly frivolity, and so
Mr. Anthony was seen no more in meeting. But, in later years, in
Rochester he was an attentive listener to Rev. William Henry Channing. The
effect of all this on Susan is the question of interest. No doubt she
early weighed the comparative moral effects of coats cut with capes and
those cut without, of purely Quaker conjugal love and that deteriorated
with Baptist affection. Susan had an earnest soul and a conscience
tending to morbidity; but a strong, well-balanced body and simple family
life soothed her too active moral nature and gave the world, instead of
a religious fanatic, a sincere, concentrated worker. Every household art
was taught her by her mother, and so great was her ability that the duty
demanding especial care was always given into her hands. But ever, amid
school and household tasks, her day-dream was that, in time, she might
be a "high-seat" Quaker. Each Sunday, up to the time of the
third disobedience, Mr. Anthony went to the Quaker meeting house, some
thirteen miles from home, his wife and children usually accompanying
him, though, as non-members, they were rigidly excluded from all
business discussions. Exclusion was very pleasant in the bright days of
summer; but, on one occasion in December, decidedly unpleasant for the
seven-year-old Susan. When the blinds were drawn, at the close of the
religious meeting, and non-members retired, Susan sat still. Soon she
saw a thin old lady with blue goggles come down from the "high
seat." Approaching her, the Quakeress said softly, "Thee is
not a member—thee must go out." "No; my mother told me not
to go out in the cold," was the child's firm response. "Yes,
but thee must go out—thee is not a member." "But my father
is a member." "Thee is not a member," and Susan felt as
if the spirit was moving her and soon found herself in outer coldness.
Fingers and toes becoming numb, and a bright fire in a cottage over the
way beckoning warmly to her, the exile from the chapel resolved to seek
secular shelter. But alas! she was confronted by a huge dog, and just
escaped with whole skin though capeless jacket. We may be sure there was
much talk, that night, at the home fireside, and the good Baptist wife
declared that no child of hers should attend meeting again till made a
member. Thereafter, by request of her father, Susan became a member of
the Quaker church. Later,
definite convictions took root in Miss Anthony's heart. Hers is, indeed,
a sincerely religious nature. To be a simple, earnest Quaker was the
aspiration of her girlhood; but she shrank from adopting the formal
language and plain dress. Dark hours of conflict were spent over all
this, and she interpreted her disinclination as evidence of
unworthiness. Poor little Susan! As we look back with the knowledge of
our later life, we translate the heart-burnings as unconscious protests
against labeling your free soul, against testing your reasoning
conviction of to-morrow by any shibboleth of to-day's belief. We hail
this child-intuition as a prophecy of the uncompromising truthfulness of
the mature woman. Susan Anthony was taught simply that she must enter
into the holy of holies of her own self, meet herself, and be true to
the revelation. She first found words to express her convictions in
listening to Rev. William Henry Channing, whose teaching had a lasting
spiritual influence upon her. To-day Miss Anthony is an agnostic. As to
the nature of the Godhead and of the life beyond her horizon she does
not profess to know anything. Every energy of her soul is centered upon
the needs of this world. To her, work is worship. She has not stood
aside, shivering in the cold shadows of uncertainty, but has moved on
with the whirling world, has done the good given her to do, and thus, in
darkest hours, has been sustained by an unfaltering faith in the final
perfection of all things. Her belief is not orthodox, but it is
religious. In ancient Greece she would have been a Stoic; in the era of
the Reformation, a Calvinist; in King Charles' time, a Puritan; but in
this nineteenth century, by the very laws of her being, she is a
Reformer. For
the arduous work that awaited Miss Anthony her years of young womanhood
had given preparation. Her father, though a man of wealth, made it a
matter of conscience to train his girls, as well as his boys, to
self-support. Accordingly Susan chose the profession of teacher, and
made her first essay during a summer vacation in a school her father had
established for the children of his employés. Her success was so
marked, not only in imparting knowledge, but also as a disciplinarian,
that she followed this career steadily for fifteen years, with the
exception of some months given in Philadelphia to her own training. Of
the many school rebellions which she overcame, one rises before me,
prominent in its ludicrous aspect. This was in the district school at
Center Falls, in the year 1839. Bad reports were current there of male
teachers driven out by a certain strapping lad. Rumor next told of a
Quaker maiden coming to teach—a Quaker maiden of peace principles. The
anticipated day and Susan arrived. She looked very meek to the barbarian
of fifteen, so he soon began his antics. He was called to the platform,
told to lay aside his jacket, and, thereupon, with much astonishment
received from the mild Quaker maiden, with a birch rod applied calmly
but with precision, an exposition of the argumentum
ad hominem based on the a
posteriori method of reasoning. Thus Susan departed from her
principles, but not from the school. But,
before long, conflicts in the outside world disturbed our young teacher.
The multiplication table and spelling book no longer enchained her
thoughts; larger questions began to fill her mind. About the year 1850
Susan B. Anthony hid her ferule away. Temperance, anti-slavery, woman
suffrage,—three pregnant questions,—presented themselves, demanding
her consideration. Higher, ever higher, rose their appeals, until she
resolved to dedicate her energy and thought to the burning needs of the
hour. Owing to early experience of the disabilities of her sex, the
first demand for equal rights for women found echo in Susan's heart.
And, though she was in the beginning startled to hear that women had
actually met in convention, and by speeches and resolutions had declared
themselves man's peer in political rights, and had urged radical changes
in State constitutions and the whole system of American jurisprudence;
yet the most casual review convinced her that these claims were but the
logical outgrowth of the fundamental theories of our republic. At
this stage of her development I met my future friend and coadjutor for
the first time. How well I remember the day! George Thompson and William
Lloyd Garrison having announced an anti-slavery meeting in Seneca Falls,
Miss Anthony came to attend it. These gentlemen were my guests. Walking
home, after the adjournment, we met Mrs. Bloomer and Miss Anthony on the
corner of the street, waiting to greet us. There she stood, with her
good, earnest face and genial smile, dressed in gray delaine, hat and
all the same color, relieved with pale blue ribbons, the perfection of
neatness and sobriety. I liked her thoroughly, and why I did not at once
invite her home with me to dinner, I do not know. She accuses me of that
neglect, and has never forgiven me, as she wished to see and hear all
she could of our noble friends. I suppose my mind was full of what I had
heard, or my coming dinner, or the probable behavior of three
mischievous boys who had been busily exploring the premises while I was
at the meeting. That
I had abundant cause for anxiety in regard to the philosophical
experiments these young savages might try the reader will admit, when
informed of some of their performances. Henry imagined himself possessed
of rare powers of invention (an ancestral weakness for generations), and
so made a life preserver of corks, and tested its virtues on his
brother, who was about eighteen months old. Accompanied by a troop of
expectant boys, the baby was drawn in his carriage to the banks of the
Seneca, stripped, the string of corks tied under his arms, and set
afloat in the river, the philosopher and his satellites, in a rowboat,
watching the experiment. The baby, accustomed to a morning bath in a
large tub, splashed about joyfully, keeping his head above water. He was
as blue as indigo and as cold as a frog when rescued by his anxious
mother. The next day the same victimized infant was seen, by a passing
friend, seated on the chimney, on the highest peak of the house. Without
alarming anyone, the friend hurried up to the housetop and rescued the
child. Another time the three elder brothers entered into a conspiracy,
and locked up the fourth, Theodore, in the smoke-house. Fortunately, he
sounded the alarm loud and clear, and was set free in safety, whereupon
the three were imprisoned in a garret with two barred windows. They
summarily kicked out the bars, and, sliding down on the lightning rod,
betook themselves to the barn for liberty. The youngest boy, Gerrit,
then only five years old, skinned his hands in the descent. This is a
fair sample of the quiet happiness I enjoyed in the first years of
motherhood. It
was 'mid such exhilarating scenes that Miss Anthony and I wrote
addresses for temperance, anti-slavery, educational, and woman's rights
conventions. Here we forged resolutions, protests, appeals, petitions,
agricultural reports, and constitutional arguments; for we made it a
matter of conscience to accept every invitation to speak on every
question, in order to maintain woman's right to do so. To this end we
took turns on the domestic watchtowers, directing amusements, settling
disputes, protecting the weak against the strong, and trying to secure
equal rights to all in the home as well as the nation. I can recall many
a stern encounter between my friend and the young experimenter. It is
pleasant to remember that he never seriously injured any of his victims,
and only once came near fatally shooting himself with a pistol. The ball
went through his hand; happily a brass button prevented it from
penetrating his heart. It
is often said, by those who know Miss Anthony best, that she has been my
good angel, always pushing and goading me to work, and that but for her
pertinacity I should never have accomplished the little I have. On the
other hand it has been said that I forged the thunderbolts and she fired
them. Perhaps all this is, in a measure, true. With the cares of a large
family I might, in time, like too many women, have become wholly
absorbed in a narrow family selfishness, had not my friend been
continually exploring new fields for missionary labors. Her description
of a body of men on any platform, complacently deciding questions in
which woman had an equal interest, without an equal voice, readily
roused me to a determination to throw a firebrand into the midst of
their assembly. Thus,
whenever I saw that stately Quaker girl coming across my lawn, I knew
that some happy convocation of the sons of Adam was to be set by the
ears, by one of our appeals or resolutions. The little portmanteau,
stuffed with facts, was opened, and there we had what the Rev. John
Smith and Hon. Richard Roe had said: false interpretations of Bible
texts, the statistics of women robbed of their property, shut out of
some college, half paid for their work, the reports of some disgraceful
trial; injustice enough to turn any woman's thoughts from stockings and
puddings. Then we would get out our pens and write articles for papers,
or a petition to the legislature; indite letters to the faithful, here
and there; stir up the women in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Massachusetts;
call on The Lily, The Una, The Liberator, The Standard to remember our
wrongs as well as those of the slave. We never met without issuing a
pronunciamento on some question. In thought and sympathy we were one,
and in the division of labor we exactly complemented each other. In
writing we did better work than either could alone. While she is slow
and analytical in composition, I am rapid and synthetic. I am the better
writer, she the better critic. She supplied the facts and statistics, I
the philosophy and rhetoric, and, together, we have made arguments that
have stood unshaken through the storms of long years; arguments that no
one has answered. Our speeches may be considered the united product of
our two brains. So
entirely one are we that, in all our associations, ever side by side on
the same platform, not one feeling of envy or jealousy has ever shadowed
our lives. We have indulged freely in criticism of each other when
alone, and hotly contended whenever we have differed, but in our
friendship of years there has never been the break of one hour. To the
world we always seem to agree and uniformly reflect each other. Like
husband and wife, each has the feeling that we must have no differences
in public. Thus united, at an early day we began to survey the state and
nation, the future field of our labors. We read, with critical eyes, the
proceedings of Congress and legislatures, of general assemblies and
synods, of conferences and conventions, and discovered that, in all
alike, the existence of woman was entirely ignored. Night
after night, by an old-fashioned fireplace, we plotted and planned the
coming agitation; how, when, and where each entering wedge could be
driven, by which women might be recognized and their rights secured.
Speedily the State was aflame with disturbances in temperance and
teachers' conventions, and the press heralded the news far and near that
women delegates had suddenly appeared, demanding admission in men's
conventions; that their rights had been hotly contested session after
session, by liberal men on the one side, the clergy and learned
professors on the other; an overwhelming majority rejecting the women
with terrible anathemas and denunciations. Such battles were fought over
and over in the chief cities of many of the Northern States, until the
bigotry of men in all the reforms and professions was thoroughly
exposed. Every right achieved, to enter a college, to study a
profession, to labor in some new industry, or to advocate a reform
measure was contended for inch by inch. Many
of those enjoying all these blessings now complacently say, "If
these pioneers in reform had only pressed their measures more
judiciously, in a more ladylike manner, in more choice language, with a
more deferential attitude, the gentlemen could not have behaved so
rudely." I give, in these pages, enough of the characteristics of
these women, of the sentiments they expressed, of their education,
ancestry, and position to show that no power could have met the
prejudice and bigotry of that period more successfully than they did who
so bravely and persistently fought and conquered them. Miss
Anthony first carried her flag of rebellion into the State conventions
of teachers, and there fought, almost single-handed, the battle for
equality. At the close of the first decade she had compelled
conservatism to yield its ground so far as to permit women to
participate in all debates, deliver essays, vote, and hold honored
positions as officers. She labored as sincerely in the temperance
movement, until convinced that woman's moral power amounted to little as
a civil agent, until backed by ballot and coined into State law. She
still never loses an occasion to defend co-education and prohibition,
and solves every difficulty with the refrain, "woman
suffrage," as persistent as the "never more" of Poe's
raven. CHAPTER XI. SUSAN B. ANTHONY—Continued. It
was in 1852 that anti-slavery, through the eloquent lips of such men as
George Thompson, Phillips, and Garrison, first proclaimed to Miss
Anthony its pressing financial necessities. To their inspired words she
gave answer, four years afterward, by becoming a regularly employed
agent in the Anti-slavery Society. For her espoused cause she has always
made boldest demands. In the abolition meetings she used to tell each
class why it should support the movement financially; invariably calling
upon Democrats to give liberally, as the success of the cause would
enable them to cease bowing the knee to the slave power. There
is scarce a town, however small, from New York to San Francisco, that
has not heard her ringing voice. Who can number the speeches she has
made on lyceum platforms, in churches, schoolhouses, halls, barns, and
in the open air, with a lumber wagon or a cart for her rostrum? Who can
describe the varied audiences and social circles she has cheered and
interested? Now we see her on the far-off prairies, entertaining, with
sterling common sense, large gatherings of men, women, and children,
seated on rough boards in some unfinished building; again, holding
public debates in some town with half-fledged editors and clergymen;
next, sailing up the Columbia River and, in hot haste to meet some
appointment, jolting over the rough mountains of Oregon and Washington;
and then, before legislative assemblies, constitutional conventions, and
congressional committees, discussing with senators and judges the letter
and spirit of constitutional law. Miss
Anthony's style of speaking is rapid and vehement. In debate she is
ready and keen, and she is always equal to an emergency. Many times in
traveling with her through the West, especially on our first trip to
Kansas and California, we were suddenly called upon to speak to the
women assembled at the stations. Filled with consternation, I usually
appealed to her to go first; and, without a moment's hesitation, she
could always fill five minutes with some appropriate words and inspire
me with thoughts and courage to follow. The climax of these occasions
was reached in an institution for the deaf and dumb in Michigan. I had
just said to my friend, "There is one comfort in visiting this
place; we shall not be asked to speak," when the superintendent,
approaching us, said, "Ladies, the pupils are assembled in the
chapel, ready to hear you. I promised to invite you to speak to them as
soon as I heard you were in town." The possibility of addressing
such an audience was as novel to Miss Anthony as to me; yet she promptly
walked down the aisle to the platform, as if to perform an ordinary
duty, while I, half distracted with anxiety, wondering by what process I
was to be placed in communication with the deaf and dumb, reluctantly
followed. But the manner was simple enough, when illustrated. The
superintendent, standing by our side, repeated, in the sign language,
what was said as fast as uttered; and by laughter, tears, and applause,
the pupils showed that they fully appreciated the pathos, humor, and
argument. One
night, crossing the Mississippi at McGregor, Iowa, we were icebound in
the middle of the river. The boat was crowded with people, hungry,
tired, and cross with the delay. Some gentlemen, with whom we had been
talking on the cars, started the cry, "Speech on woman
suffrage!" Accordingly, in the middle of the Mississippi River, at
midnight, we presented our claims to political representation, and
debated the question of universal suffrage until we landed. Our voyagers
were quite thankful that we had shortened the many hours, and we equally
so at having made several converts and held a convention on the very
bosom of the great "Mother of Waters." Only once in all these
wanderings was Miss Anthony taken by surprise, and that was on being
asked to speak to the inmates of an insane asylum. "Bless me!"
said she, "it is as much as I can do to talk to the sane! What
could I say to an audience of lunatics?" Her companion, Virginia L.
Minor of St. Louis, replied: "This is a golden moment for you, the
first opportunity you have ever had, according to the constitutions, to
talk to your 'peers,' for is not the right of suffrage denied to
'idiots, criminals, lunatics, and women'?" Much
curiosity has been expressed as to the love-life of Miss Anthony; but,
if she has enjoyed or suffered any of the usual triumphs or
disappointments of her sex, she has not yet vouchsafed this information
to her biographers. While few women have had more sincere and lasting
friendships, or a more extensive correspondence with a large circle of
noble men, yet I doubt if one of them can boast of having received from
her any exceptional attention. She has often playfully said, when
questioned on this point, that she could not consent that the man she
loved, described in the Constitution as a white male, native born,
American citizen, possessed of the right of self-government, eligible to
the office of President of the great Republic, should unite his
destinies in marriage with a political slave and pariah. "No, no;
when I am crowned with all the rights, privileges, and immunities of a
citizen, I may give some consideration to this social institution; but
until then I must concentrate all my energies on the enfranchisement of
my own sex." Miss Anthony's love-life, like her religion, has
manifested itself in steadfast, earnest labors for men in general. She
has been a watchful and affectionate daughter, sister, friend, and those
who have felt the pulsations of her great heart know how warmly it beats
for all. As
the custom has long been observed, among married women, of celebrating
the anniversaries of their wedding-day, quite properly the initiative
has been taken, in late years, of doing honor to the great events in the
lives of single women. Being united in closest bonds to her profession,
Dr. Harriet K. Hunt of Boston celebrated her twenty-fifth year of
faithful services as a physician by giving to her friends and patrons a
large reception, which she called her silver wedding. From a feeling of
the sacredness of her life work, the admirers of Susan B. Anthony have
been moved to mark, by reception and convention, her rapid-flowing years
and the passing decades of the suffrage movement. To the most brilliant
occasion of this kind, the invitation cards were as follows: The
ladies of the Woman's Bureau invite you to a reception on Tuesday
evening, February 15th, to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of Susan B.
Anthony, when her friends will have an opportunity to show their
appreciation of her long services in behalf of woman's emancipation. No.
49 East 23d St., New York, February
10, 1870. Elizabeth
B. Phelps, In
response to the invitation, the parlors of the bureau were crowded with
friends to congratulate Miss Anthony on the happy event, many bringing
valuable gifts as an expression of their gratitude. Among other presents
were a handsome gold watch and checks to the amount of a thousand
dollars. The guests were entertained with music, recitations, the
reading of many piquant letters of regret from distinguished people, and
witty rhymes written for the occasion by the Cary sisters. Miss Anthony
received her guests with her usual straightforward simplicity, and in a
few earnest words expressed her thanks for the presents and praises
showered upon her. The comments of the leading journals, next day, were
highly complimentary, and as genial as amusing. All dwelt on the fact
that, at last, a woman had arisen brave enough to assert her right to
grow old and openly declare that half a century had rolled over her
head. Of
carefully prepared written speeches Miss Anthony has made few; but
these, by the high praise they called forth, prove that she can—in
spite of her own declaration to the contrary—put her sterling thoughts
on paper concisely and effectively. After her exhaustive plea, in 1880,
for a Sixteenth Amendment before the Judiciary Committee of the Senate,
Senator Edmunds accosted her, as she was leaving the Capitol, and said
he neglected to tell her, in the committee room, that she had made an
argument, no matter what his personal feelings were as to the
conclusions reached, which was unanswerable—an argument, unlike the
usual platform oratory given at hearings, suited to a committee of men
trained to the law. It
was in 1876 that Miss Anthony gave her much criticised lecture on
"Social Purity" in Boston. As to the result she felt very
anxious; for the intelligence of New England composed her audience, and
it did not still her heart-beats to see, sitting just in front of the
platform, her revered friend, William Lloyd Garrison. But surely every
fear vanished when she felt the grand old abolitionist's hand warmly
pressing hers, and heard him say that to listen to no one else would he
have had courage to leave his sick room, and that he felt fully repaid
by her grand speech, which neither in matter nor manner would he have
changed in the smallest particular. But into Miss Anthony's private
correspondence one must look for examples of her most effective writing.
Verb or substantive is often wanting, but you can always catch the
thought, and will ever find it clear and suggestive. It is a strikingly
strange dialect, but one that touches, at times, the deepest chords of
pathos and humor, and, when stirred by some great event, is highly
eloquent. From
being the most ridiculed and mercilessly persecuted woman, Miss Anthony
has become the most honored and respected in the nation. Witness the
praises of press and people, and the enthusiastic ovations she received
on her departure for Europe in 1883. Never were warmer expressions of
regret for an absence, nor more sincere prayers for a speedy return,
accorded to any American on leaving his native shores. This slow awaking
to the character of her services shows the abiding sense of justice in
the human soul. Having spent the winter of 1882-83 in Washington, trying
to press to a vote the bill for a Sixteenth Amendment before Congress,
and the autumn in a vigorous campaign through Nebraska, where a
constitutional amendment to enfranchise women had been submitted to the
people, she felt the imperative need of an entire change in the current
of her thoughts. Accordingly, after one of the most successful
conventions ever held at the national capital, and a most flattering
ovation in the spacious parlors of the Riggs House, and a large
reception in Philadelphia, she sailed for Europe. Fortunate
in being perfectly well during the entire voyage, our traveler received
perpetual enjoyment in watching the ever varying sea and sky. To the
captain's merry challenge to find anything so grand as the ocean, she
replied, "Yes, these mighty forces in nature do indeed fill me with
awe; but this vessel, with deep-buried fires, powerful machinery,
spacious decks, and tapering masts, walking the waves like a thing of
life, and all the work of man, impresses one still more deeply. Lo! in
man's divine creative power is fulfilled the prophecy, 'Ye shall be as
Gods!'" In
all her journeyings through Germany, Italy, and France, Miss Anthony was
never the mere sight-seer, but always the humanitarian and reformer in
traveler's guise. Few of the great masterpieces of art gave her real
enjoyment. The keen appreciation of the beauties of sculpture, painting,
and architecture, which one would have expected to find in so deep a
religious nature, was wanting, warped, no doubt, by her early Quaker
training. That her travels gave her more pain than pleasure was,
perhaps, not so much that she had no appreciation of aesthetic beauty,
but that she quickly grasped the infinitude of human misery; not because
her soul did not feel the heights to which art had risen, but that it
vibrated in every fiber to the depths to which mankind had fallen.
Wandering through a gorgeous palace one day, she exclaimed, "What
do you find to admire here? If it were a school of five hundred children
being educated into the right of self-government I could admire it, too;
but standing for one man's pleasure, I say no!" In the quarters of
one of the devotees, at the old monastery of the Certosa, at Florence,
there lies, on a small table, an open book, in which visitors register.
On the occasion of Miss Anthony's visit the pen and ink proved so
unpromising that her entire party declined this opportunity to make
themselves famous, but she made the rebellious pen inscribe,
"Perfect equality for women, civil, political, religious. Susan B.
Anthony, U.S.A." Friends, who visited the monastery next day,
reported that lines had been drawn through this heretical sentiment. During
her visit at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Sargent, in Berlin, Miss Anthony
quite innocently posted her letters in the official envelopes of our
Suffrage Association, which bore the usual mottoes, "No just
government can be formed without the consent of the governed," etc.
In a few days an official brought back a large package, saying,
"Such sentiments are not allowed to pass through the post
office." Probably nothing saved her from arrest as a socialist,
under the tyrannical police regulations, but the fact that she was the
guest of the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States. My
son Theodore wrote of Miss Anthony's visit in Paris: "I had never
before seen her in the role of tourist. She seemed interested only in
historical monuments, and in the men and questions of the hour. The
galleries of the Louvre had little attraction for her, but she gazed
with deep pleasure at Napoleon's tomb, Notre Dame, and the ruins of the
Tuileries. She was always ready to listen to discussions on the
political problems before the French people, the prospects of the
Republic, the divorce agitation, and the education of women. 'I had
rather see Jules Ferry than all the pictures of the Louvre, Luxembourg,
and Salon,' she remarked at table. A day or two later she saw Ferry at
Laboulaye's funeral. The three things which made the deepest impression
on Miss Anthony, during her stay at Paris, were probably the interment
of Laboulaye (the friend of the United States and of the woman
movement); the touching anniversary demonstration of the Communists, at
the Cemetery of Père La Chaise, on the very spot where the last
defenders of the Commune of 1871 were ruthlessly shot and buried in a
common grave; and a woman's rights meeting, held in a little hall in the
Rue de Rivoli, at which the brave, far-seeing Mlle. Hubertine Auchet was
the leading spirit." While
on the Continent Miss Anthony experienced the unfortunate sensation of
being deaf and dumb; to speak and not to be understood, to hear and not
to comprehend, were to her bitter realities. We can imagine to what
desperation she was brought when her Quaker prudishness could hail an
emphatic oath in English from a French official with the exclamation,
"Well, it sounds good to hear someone even swear in old
Anglo-Saxon!" After two months of enforced silence, she was buoyant
in reaching the British Islands once more, where she could enjoy public
speaking and general conversation. Here she was the recipient of many
generous social attentions, and, on May 25, a large public meeting of
representative people, presided over by Jacob Bright, was called, in our
honor, by the National Association of Great Britain. She spoke on the
educational and political status of women in America, I of their
religious and social position. Before
closing my friend's biography I shall trace two golden threads in this
closely woven life of incident. One of the greatest services rendered by
Miss Anthony to the suffrage cause was in casting a vote in the
Presidential election of 1872, in order to test the rights of women
under the Fourteenth Amendment. For this offense the brave woman was
arrested, on Thanksgiving Day, the national holiday handed down to us by
Pilgrim Fathers escaped from England's persecutions. She asked for a
writ of habeas corpus. The writ being flatly refused, in January, 1873,
her counsel gave bonds. The daring defendant finding, when too late,
that this not only kept her out of jail, but her case out of the Supreme
Court of the United States, regretfully determined to fight on, and gain
the uttermost by a decision in the United States Circuit Court. Her
trial was set down for the Rochester term in May. Quickly she canvassed
the whole county, laying before every probable juror the strength of her
case. When the time for the trial arrived, the District Attorney,
fearing the result, if the decision were left to a jury drawn from Miss
Anthony's enlightened county, transferred the trial to the Ontario
County term, in June, 1873. It
was now necessary to instruct the citizens of another county. In this
task Miss Anthony received valuable assistance from Matilda Joslyn Gage;
and, to meet all this new expense, financial aid was generously given,
unsolicited, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Gerrit Smith, and other
sympathizers. But in vain was every effort; in vain the appeal of Miss
Anthony to her jurors; in vain the moral influence of the leading
representatives of the bar of Central New York filling the courtroom,
for Judge Hunt, without precedent to sustain him, declaring it a case of
law and not of fact, refused to give the case to the jury, reserving to
himself final decision. Was it not an historic scene which was enacted
there in that little courthouse in Canandaigua? All the inconsistencies
were embodied in that Judge, punctilious in manner, scrupulous in
attire, conscientious in trivialities, and obtuse on great principles,
fitly described by Charles O'Conor—"A very ladylike Judge."
Behold him sitting there, balancing all the niceties of law and equity
in his Old World scales, and at last saying, "The prisoner will
stand up." Whereupon the accused arose. "The sentence of the
court is that you pay a fine of one hundred dollars and the costs of the
prosecution." Then the unruly defendant answers: "May it
please your Honor, I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust
penalty," and more to the same effect, all of which she has lived
up to. The "ladylike" Judge had gained some insight into the
determination of the prisoner; so, not wishing to incarcerate her to all
eternity, he added gently: "Madam, the court will not order you
committed until the fine is paid." It
was on the 17th of June that the verdict was given. On that very day, a
little less than a century before, the brave militia was driven back at
Bunker Hill—back, back, almost wiped out; yet truth was in their
ranks, and justice, too. But how ended that rebellion of weak colonists?
The cause of American womanhood, embodied for the moment in the liberty
of a single individual, received a rebuff on June 17, 1873; but, just as
surely as our Revolutionary heroes were in the end victorious, so will
the inalienable rights of our heroines of the nineteenth century receive
final vindication. In
his speech of 1880, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard,
Wendell Phillips said—what as a rule is true—that "a reformer,
to be conscientious, must be free from bread-winning." I will open
Miss Anthony's accounts and show that this reformer, being, perhaps, the
exception which proves the rule, has been consistently and
conscientiously in debt. Turning over her year-books the pages give a
fair record up to 1863. Here began the first herculean labor. The
Woman's Loyal League, sadly in need of funds, was not an incorporated
association, so its secretary assumed the debts. Accounts here became
quite lamentable, the deficit reaching five thousand dollars. It must be
paid, and, in fact, will be paid. Anxious, weary hours were spent in
crowding the Cooper Institute, from week to week, with paying audiences,
to listen to such men as Phillips, Curtis, and Douglass, who contributed
their services, and lifted the secretary out of debt. At last, after
many difficulties, her cash-book of 1863 was honorably pigeon-holed. In
1867 we can read account of herculean labor the second. Twenty thousand
tracts are needed to convert the voters of Kansas to woman suffrage.
Traveling expenses to Kansas, and the tracts, make the debtor column
overreach the creditor some two thousand dollars. There is recognition
on these pages of more than one thousand dollars obtained by soliciting
advertisements, but no note is made of the weary, burning July days
spent in the streets of New York to procure this money, nor of the ready
application of the savings made by petty economies from her salary from
the Hovey Committee. It
would have been fortunate for my brave friend, if cash-books 1868, 1869,
and 1870 had never come down from their shelves; for they sing and sing,
in notes of debts, till all unite in one vast chorus of far more than
ten thousand dollars. These were the days of the Revolution, the newspaper, not the war, though it was warfare for
the debt-ridden manager. Several thousand dollars she paid with money
earned by lecturing, and with money given her for personal use. One
Thanksgiving was, in truth, a time for returning thanks; for she
received, canceled, from her cousin, Anson Lapham, her note for four
thousand dollars. After the funeral of Paulina Wright Davis, the
bereaved widower pressed into Miss Anthony's hand canceled notes for
five hundred dollars, bearing on the back the words, "In memory of
my beloved wife." One other note was canceled in recognition of her
perfect forgetfulness of self-interest and ready sacrifice to the needs
of others. When laboring, in 1874, to fill every engagement, in order to
meet her debts, her mother's sudden illness called her home. Without one
selfish regret, the anxious daughter hastened to Rochester. When
recovery was certain, and Miss Anthony was about to return to her
fatiguing labors, her mother gave her, at parting, her note for a
thousand dollars, on which was written, in trembling lines, "In
just consideration of the tender sacrifice made to nurse me in severe
illness." At last all the Revolution
debt was paid, except that due to her generous sister, Mary Anthony, who
used often humorously to assure her she was a fit subject for the
bankrupt act. There
is something humorously pathetic in the death of the Revolution—that
firstborn of Miss Anthony. Mrs. Laura Curtis Bullard generously assumed
the care of the troublesome child, and, in order to make the adoption
legal, gave the usual consideration—one dollar. The very night of the
transfer Miss Anthony went to Rochester with the dollar in her pocket,
and the little change left after purchasing her ticket. She arrived
safely with her debts, but nothing more—her pocket had been picked!
Oh, thief, could you but know what value of faithful work you purloined! From
the close of the year 1876 Miss Anthony's accounts showed favorable
signs as to the credit column. Indeed, at the end of five years there
was a solid balance of several thousand dollars earned on lecturing
tours. But alas! the accounts grow dim again—in fact the credit column
fades away. "The History of Woman Suffrage" ruthlessly
swallowed up every vestige of Miss Anthony's bank account. But, in 1886,
by the will of Mrs. Eddy, daughter of Francis Jackson of Boston, Miss
Anthony received twenty-four thousand dollars for the Woman's Suffrage
Movement, which lifted her out of debt once more. In
vain will you search these telltale books for evidence of personal
extravagance; for, although Miss Anthony thinks it true economy to buy
the best, her tastes are simple. Is there not something very touching in
the fact that she never bought a book or picture for her own enjoyment?
The meager personal balance-sheets show four lapses from
discipline,—lapses that she even now regards as ruthless
extravagance,—viz.: the purchase of two inexpensive brooches, a much
needed watch, and a pair of cuffs to match a point-lace collar presented
by a friend. Those interested in Miss Anthony's personal appearance long
ago ceased to trust her with the purchase-money for any ornament; for,
however firm her resolution to comply with their wish, the check
invariably found its way to the credit column of those little cash-books
as "money received for the cause." Now, reader, you have been
admitted to a private view of Miss Anthony's financial records, and you
can appreciate her devotion to an idea. Do you not agree with me that a
"bread-winner" can be a conscientious reformer? In
finishing this sketch of the most intimate friend I have had for the
past forty-five years,—with whom I have spent weeks and months under
the same roof,—I can truly say that she is the most upright,
courageous, self-sacrificing, magnanimous human being I have ever known.
I have seen her beset on every side with the most petty annoyances,
ridiculed and misrepresented, slandered and persecuted; I have known
women refuse to take her extended hand; women to whom she presented
copies of "The History of Woman Suffrage," return it
unnoticed; others to keep it without one word of acknowledgment; others
to write most insulting letters in answer to hers of affectionate
conciliation. And yet, under all the cross-fires incident to a reform,
never has her hope flagged, her self-respect wavered, or a feeling of
resentment shadowed her mind. Oftentimes, when I have been sorely
discouraged, thinking that the prolonged struggle was a waste of force
which in other directions might be rich in achievement, with her sublime
faith in humanity, she would breathe into my soul renewed inspiration,
saying, "Pity rather than blame those who persecute us." So
closely interwoven have been our lives, our purposes, and experiences
that, separated, we have a feeling of incompleteness—united, such
strength of self-assertion that no ordinary obstacles, difficulties, or
dangers ever appear to us insurmountable. Reviewing the life of Susan B.
Anthony, I ever liken her to the Doric column in Grecian architecture,
so simply, so grandly she stands, free from every extraneous ornament,
supporting her one vast idea—the enfranchisement of woman. As
our estimate of ourselves and our friendship may differ somewhat from
that taken from an objective point of view, I will give an extract from
what our common friend Theodore Tilton wrote of us in 1868: "Miss
Susan B. Anthony, a well-known, indefatigable, and lifelong advocate of
temperance, anti-slavery, and woman's rights, has been, since 1851, Mrs.
Stanton's intimate associate in reformatory labors. These celebrated
women are of about equal age, but of the most opposite characteristics,
and illustrate the theory of counterparts in affection by entertaining
for each other a friendship of extraordinary strength. "Mrs.
Stanton is a fine writer, but a poor executant; Miss Anthony is a
thorough manager, but a poor writer. Both have large brains and great
hearts; neither has any selfish ambition for celebrity; but each vies
with the other in a noble enthusiasm for the cause to which they are
devoting their lives. "Nevertheless,
to describe them critically, I ought to say that, opposites though they
be, each does not so much supplement the other's deficiencies as augment
the other's eccentricities. Thus they often stimulate each other's
aggressiveness, and, at the same time, diminish each other's discretion. "But, whatever may be the imprudent utterances of the one or the impolitic methods of the other, the animating motives of both are evermore as white as the light. The good that they do is by design; the harm by accident. These two women, sitting together in their parlors, have, for the last thirty years, been diligent forgers of all manner of projectiles, from fireworks to thunderbolts, and have hurled them with unexpected explosion into the midst of all manner of educational, reformatory, religious, and political assemblies; sometimes to the pleasant surprise and half welcome of the members, more often to the bewilderment and prostration of numerous victims; and, in a few signal instances, to the gnashing of angry men's teeth. I know of no two more pertinacious incendiaries in the whole country. Nor will they, themselves deny the charge. In fact this noise-making twain are the two sticks of a drum, keeping up what Daniel Webster called 'The rub-a-dub of agitation.'" |
