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The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) by Ida Husted Harper

I >> Ida Husted Harper >> The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2)




January 2.--Still stationary. The railroad company has supplied the
passengers with dried fish and crackers. Mrs. Sargent and I have
made tea and carried it throughout the train to the nursing
mothers. It is the best we can do. Five days out from Ogden! This
is indeed a fearful ordeal, fastened here in a snowbank, midway of
the continent at the top of the Rocky mountains. They are melting
snow for the boilers and for drinking water. A train loaded with
coal is behind us, so there is no danger of our suffering from
cold. Mr. Sargent, Mr. Mitchell and Major Elliott walked to Sherman
and an old man drove them back at dusk with two ponies. The train
had moved up to Dale creek bridge and drawn into a long snow-shed.
Here, we remained all night and, with the rarified air and the
smoke from the engine, were almost suffocated, while the wind blew
so furiously we could not venture to open the doors.

January 3.--Bright sunshine and perfectly calm. Ernest and Norman
Melliss, sons of David M. Melliss, of New York City, came into our
car from the other train, which is twelve days from Ogden. How they
do revive The Revolution experiences, Train and the Wall street
gossip! Stood still in the snow-shed till noon and reached Sherman
about 6 P.M. Mr. Sargent had brought some potatoes which we roasted
on top of the stove and they proved a delicious addition to our
meal. In the car "Sacramento" we had a mock trial, Judge Mitchell
presiding and the jury composed of women. He wrote out a verdict,
which the women insisted on bringing in, not because they agreed
with it but because they wanted to please him and the other men,
but I rebelled and hung the jury!

January 4.--Morning found us still at Sherman and we did not move
till 1 P.M. There is another train ahead of us, and here we are,
four passenger trains pushing on for Cheyenne. The people from the
different ones visit among each other. Half-way to Granite Canyon
the snowplow got off the track and one wheel broke, so a dead
standstill for hours. Reached Granite Canyon at dark, a whole day
getting there from Sherman, and remained over night.

January 5.--Bright and beautiful. Reached Cheyenne at 11:30 A.M.
Little George Sargent coaxed his papa to let him walk over the
bridge to the town and fell through and broke his arm. Mrs.
Sargent, after holding him till the bone was set, fainted.
Afterwards I called on Mrs. Amalia Post. It was at her house the
Cheyenne women met and went in a body to Governor Campbell's
residence in 1869, and announced their intention of staying till he
signed the woman suffrage bill, which he did without further delay.
Met the governor and several other notables. At 1:30 P.M. our train
was off at first-class speed, and oh, what joy in every face!

January 6.--Arrived at Omaha at 3 P.M. Found letter from brother
D.R., enclosing pass to Leavenworth and saying he had passes for me
from there to Chicago and eastward. If I go to L. I shall miss the
Washington convention, where I am so badly needed. If it had not
been for this vexatious delay I could have had a day or two there
and several more at Rochester. Now I must push straight on. It is
my hard fate always to sacrifice affection and pleasure to duty and
work.

January 7.--All the baggage had to be rechecked at Omaha and when I
insisted upon attending to my own, because I had found that the
only safe way, Mr. Sargent looked so offended that I at once handed
over my checks.

January 8.--Arrived at Chicago at 3 A.M. Went at once to my aunt
Ann Eliza Dickinson's and visited with her till 7 o'clock, had
breakfast and went to Fort Wayne depot where, as I feared, I found
one of my checks called for the wrong piece of baggage; so I took
one trunk, left the baggage-master to hunt up the other, and
started straight for Washington on a train without a sleeper.

January 9.--Passed Pittsburg at 2 A.M. Breakfasted at Altoona on
top of the Alleghanies; scenery most beautiful, but not on so grand
a scale as among the Rockies.

This is the last entry. It is hardly necessary to add that Miss Anthony
reached Washington in time for the opening of the convention on the
morning of January 10. To the question whether she were not very tired,
she replied: "Why, what would make me tired? I haven't been doing
anything, for two weeks!"

[Footnote 58: Miss Anthony's lecture was a decided success, judged
either by the number and intelligence of those present or the able
manner in which she discussed the salient points pertaining to woman
suffrage. She displayed an ability, conciseness and force that must
have carried conviction to every impartial listener.... Her visit here
has done more to advance the cause of woman suffrage than can now be
fully appreciated. She has sown the germ of a movement which can not
fail to inoculate our people with a belief in the justice of her cause
and the injustice of longer depriving the more intelligent, purer and
consequently better portion of our inhabitants of that greatest of
boons, the ballot.--Sioux City Daily Times.

Miss Anthony's lecture was full of good, sound common sense, and an
opponent of woman suffrage said it was the best speech he ever heard on
the subject. Wyoming was highly complimented as being the first
Territory to recognize the equality of woman, and pronounced as much
ahead of her eastern sisters in civilization as she is higher in
altitude. The lecture abounded with gems of wit, humor and pathos, and
the audience would willingly have listened another hour.--Cheyenne
Tribune.

The press sneers at Miss Anthony, men tell her she is out of her proper
sphere, people call her a scold, good women call her masculine, a
monstrosity in petticoats; but if one-half of her sex possessed
one-half of her acquirements, her intellectual culture, her
self-reliance and independence of character, the world would be the
better for it.--Denver News.

A large and attentive audience filled the Denver theater last night to
hear Miss Susan B. Anthony, champion of the "new departure in
politics," called the woman suffrage movement. The fact that there was
not sitting room for all who came is evidence of deep interest in the
subject, or great curiosity to hear the lady speak.... It is impossible
to give an outline of her speech. It was a string of strong arguments
put in a straightforward, clear and vigorous way, eliciting favor and
inviting the attention of the audience throughout. The lecture was
suggestive, and of the kind that sets people to thinking.--Denver
Tribune.]

[Footnote 59: Notwithstanding this tribute, the Herald printed a long
string of verses with this introduction: "We trust our readers will not
miss the perusal of this piece of rhythmical irony. It is certainly one
of the happiest hits we have seen for many a day. No one can mistake
the allusion to the 'Old Gal.' who has been so recently among us
'tooting her horn.'"

"Along the city's thoroughfare,
A grim Old Gal with manly air
Strode amidst the noisy crowd,
Tooting her horn both shrill and loud;
Till e'en above the city's roar,
Above its din and discord, o'er
All, was heard, 'Ye tyrants, fear!
The dawn of freedom's drawing near--
Woman's Rights and Suffrage.'

"A meek old man, in accents wild,
Cried,'Sal! turn back and nurse our child!'
She bent on him a withering look,
Her bony fist at him she shook.
And screeched, 'Ye brute! ye think I'm flat
To mend your clo'es and nurse your brat?
Nurse it yourself; I'll change the plan,
When I am made a congressman--
Woman's Rights and Suffrage,'" etc.
*/]

[Footnote 60: Coming from The Dalles, the boat tied up for the night at
Umatilla Landing. Miss Anthony and Mrs. Duniway walking on shore saw a
man sitting in front of a little corner grocery and stopped to ask some
questions. They found that when a boy he had run away from home in Miss
Anthony's own neighborhood, had never written back and his family had
long believed him dead. After some conversation he consented that she
might write to his mother and then in his softened mood insisted that
they should have a glass of wine. Miss Anthony was a total abstainer
but not wishing to offend him, took one sip from a glass of Angelica
and then the ladies hurried back to the boat. Some one who had seen the
occurrence spread the story and the result was an Associated Press item
sent broadcast, stating that, since coming to the coast, Miss Anthony
was visiting saloons and associating with low characters.]

[Footnote 61: Two examples will suffice:

"EDITOR COLONIST: I have read with a feeling of thankfulness the letter
of 'A Male Biped,' in this day's Colonist. The writer deserves the
thanks of every good woman in the land for the bold and able manner in
which he has administered a shaking to a shrewish old mischief-maker
who, having failed to secure a husband herself, is tramping the
continent to make her more fortunate sisters miserable by creating
dissensions in their households. O, why do not some of our divines or
lawyers upset this woman's sophistries, and convince even her that
woman's true sphere is in 'submitting herself to her husband,' and
religiously fulfilling the marriage vows the wise organizers of society
have prescribed?

A WIFE AND A MOTHER."

"MR. EDITOR: America, the home of many humbugs, which produced Brigham
Young, Barnum, Home, the medium, and many others, has, it appears,
another human curiosity in Miss Anthony. This specimen from over the
way comes amongst us, and because our ladies fail to recognize or
encourage her in her vagaries, she gets very rabid and snarls and snaps
at the 'women of Victoria who had so sunk their womanhood that they
were happy even in their degradation.' The degradation referred to is
that of whipping, which this female firebrand appears to believe is the
rule hers. Surely the complete immunity from castigation of such a
noxious creature as Miss Anthony is sufficient answer to this libel.
Men in British Columbia no more countenance bad husbands than do the
women a quack apostle in petticoats. They look upon such persons as
sexual mistakes, like the two-headed lady or the four-legged baby, and
as safe guides on social questions as George Francis Train is in
politics.

AN INSULTED HUSBAND."

And yet during the few days she was in Victoria no leas than half a
dozen women came to her to protest against the law which allowed the
husband to whip his wife.]

[Footnote 62: During Mr. Sargent's candidacy for the Senate, a
California newspaper objected that he was in favor of woman suffrage,
and called for a denial of the truth of the damning charge. He took no
notice of it until a week or two later, when a suffrage convention met
in San Francisco; he then went before that body and delivered a radical
speech in favor of woman's rights, taking the most advanced grounds.
When he was through he remarked to a friend, "They have my views now,
and can make the most of them. I would not conceal them to be
senator."--History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 483.]




CHAPTER XXIV.

REPUBLICAN SPLINTER----MISS ANTHONY VOTES.

1872.


The leading women in the movement for suffrage, supported by some of
the ablest constitutional lawyers in the country, continued to claim
the right to vote under the following:

FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT, JULY 28, 1868.

SECTION 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United
States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or
enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of
citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any
person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection
of the laws.

FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT, MARCH 30, 1870.

SECTION 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall
not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on
account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Many of the Republican leaders admitted that these amendments might be
construed to include women, but were silenced by the cry of "party
expediency." The fear of defeating the attempt to enfranchise the
colored male citizen made them refuse to add the word "sex" to the
Fifteenth Amendment, which would have placed this question beyond
debate and put an end to the agitation that has continued for thirty
years. The women insisted that the exigency which compelled the
ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment by the various State
legislatures was strong enough to carry it, even with the word "sex"
included. Having failed to gain this point, the National Association
determined to maintain the position that women were already
enfranchised, and embodied it in the call for the Washington convention
of 1872: "All those interested in woman's enfranchisement are invited
to consider the 'new departure'--women already citizens, and their
rights as such secured by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of
the Federal Constitution."

The same position was re-asserted in the resolutions adopted at that
meeting, which declared that "while the Constitution of the United
States leaves the qualifications of electors to the various States, it
nowhere gives them the right to deprive any citizen of the elective
franchise which is possessed by any other citizen; the right to
regulate not including the right to prohibit the franchise;" that
"those provisions of the several State constitutions which exclude
women from the franchise on account of sex, are violative alike of the
letter and spirit of the Federal Constitution;" and that "as the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution have
established the right of women to the elective franchise, we demand of
the present Congress a declaratory act which shall secure us at once in
the exercise of this right."

Miss Anthony and other leaders officially asked the privilege of
addressing the Senate and House upon this momentous question. This was
refused, as contrary to precedent, but a hearing was granted before the
Senate Judiciary Committee,[63] Friday morning, January 12. Not only
the committee room but the corridors were crowded. Mrs. Stanton and
Mrs. Hooker spoke grandly,[64] and as usual Miss Anthony was chosen to
clinch the argument, which she did as follows:

You already have had logic and Constitution; I shall refer,
therefore, to existing facts. Prior to the war the plan of
extending suffrage was by State action, and it was our boast that
the National Constitution did not contain a word which could be
construed into a barrier against woman's right to vote. But at the
close of the war Congress lifted the question of suffrage for men
above State power, and by the amendments prohibited the deprivation
of suffrage to any citizen by any State. When the Fourteenth
Amendment was first proposed in Congress, we rushed to you with
petitions praying you not to insert the word "male" in the second
clause. Our best friends on the floor of Congress said to us: "The
insertion of that word puts up no new barrier against woman;
therefore do not embarrass us but wait until we get the negro
question settled." So the Fourteenth Amendment with the word "male"
was adopted.

Then, when the Fifteenth was presented without the word "sex," we
again petitioned and protested, and again our friends declared that
the absence of that word was no hindrance to us, and again begged
us to wait until they had finished the work of the war. "After we
have enfranchised the negro we will take up your case." Have they
done as they promised? When we come asking protection under the new
guarantees of the Constitution, the same men say to us that our
only plan is to wait the action of Congress and State legislatures
in the adoption of a Sixteenth Amendment which shall make null and
void the word "male" in the Fourteenth, and supply the want of the
word "sex" in the Fifteenth. Such tantalizing treatment imposed
upon yourselves or any class of men would have caused rebellion and
in the end a bloody revolution. It is only the close relations
existing between the sexes which have prevented any such result
from this injustice to women.

Gentlemen, I should be sure of your decision could you but realize
the fact that we, who have been battling for our rights now more
than twenty years, feel precisely as you would under such
circumstances. One of the most ardent lovers of freedom (Senator
Sumner) said to me two winters ago, after our hearing before the
committee of the District: "I never realized before that you or any
woman could feel the disgrace, the degradation of disfranchisement
precisely as I should if my fellow-citizens had conspired to
deprive me of my right to vote." Although I am a Quaker and take no
oath, yet I have made a most solemn "affirmation" that I will never
again beg my rights, but will come to Congress each year and demand
the recognition of them under the guarantees of the National
Constitution.

What we ask of the Republican party is simply to take down its own
bars. The facts in Wyoming show how it is that a Republican party
can exist in that Territory. Before women voted, there was never a
Republican elected to office; after their enfranchisement, the
first election sent one Republican to Congress and seven to the
Territorial Legislature. Thus the nucleus of a Republican party
there was formed through the enfranchisement of women. The
Democrats, seeing this, are now determined to disfranchise them.
Can you Republicans so utterly stultify yourselves, can you so
entirely work against yourselves, as to refuse us a declaratory
law? We pray you to report immediately, as Mrs. Hooker has said,
"favorably, if you can; adversely, if you must." We can wait no
longer.

The committee reported adversely on the question of woman's right to
vote under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

At the close of the convention, Miss Anthony hastened to her home in
Rochester, which she had not seen since her departure to California
eight months before. Soon after her arrival she was invited to meet a
number of her acquaintances at the home of her dear friend, Amy Post,
and give them an account of her experiences on the Pacific slope. At
its conclusion she was surprised by the presentation of a purse
containing $50, with a touching address by Mrs. Post asking her to
accept it as a testimonial of the appreciation in which her friends and
neighbors held her work for woman and humanity. At the same time she
received a gift of money from Sarah Pugh, in an envelope marked, "For
thine own dear self." In her acknowledgment she says:

The tears started when I read your sweet letter. Were it not for
the loving sympathy and confidence of the little handful of
ever-faithful such as you, my spirit, I fear, would have fainted
long ago. There are yourself, dear Lucretia and her equally dear
sister, Martha, who never fail to know just the moment when my
purse is drained to the bottom and to drop the needed dollar into
it. It is really wonderful how I have been carried through all
these years financially. I often feel that Elijah's being fed by
the ravens was no more miraculous than my being furnished with the
means to do the great work which has been for the past twenty years
continuously presenting itself--yes, presenting itself, for it has
always come to me. My thought has been to escape the hardships but
they come ever and always, and so I try to accept the situation and
work my way through as best I can.

[Autograph:

My love and good wishes are
always flowing toward thyself and
dear Mrs Stanton--

Thine truly
Amy Post]

She was soon off again, lecturing in various cities and towns, going as
far west as Nebraska. Early in April, while waiting at a little
railroad station in Illinois, a gentleman came in and handed her a copy
of Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly containing this double-leaded
announcement:

The undersigned citizens of the United States, responding to the
invitation of the National Woman Suffrage Association, propose to
hold a convention at Steinway Hall, in the city of New York, the
9th and 10th of May. We believe the time has come for the formation
of a new political party whose principles shall meet the issues of
the hour and represent equal rights for all. As women of the
country are to take part for the first time in political action, we
propose that the initiative steps in the convention shall be taken
by them.... This convention will declare the platform of the
People's party, and consider the nomination of candidates for
President and Vice-President of the United States, who shall be the
best possible exponents of political and industrial reform....

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, SUSAN E. ANTHONY,
ISABELLA B. HOOKER, MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE.

It was followed by the call of Mrs. Woodhull and others for a delegate
convention to form a new party. Miss Anthony was thunderstruck. Not
only had she no knowledge of this action, but she was thoroughly
opposed both to the forming of a new party and to the National
Association's having any share in such a proceeding. She immediately
telegraphed an order to have her name removed from the call, and wrote
back indignant letters of protest against involving the association in
such an affair. A month prior to this, on March 13, she had written
Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Hooker from Leavenworth:

We have no element out of which to make a political party, because
there is not a man who would vote a woman suffrage ticket if
thereby he endangered his Republican, Democratic, Workingmen's or
Temperance party, and all our time and words in that direction are
simply thrown away. My name must not be used to call any such
meeting. I will do all I can to support either of the leading
parties which may adopt a woman suffrage plank or nominee; but no
one of them wants to do anything for us, while each would like to
use us....

I tell you I feel utterly disheartened--not that our cause is going
to die or be defeated, but as to my place and work. Mrs. Woodhull
has the advantage of us because she has the newspaper, and she
persistently means to run our craft into her port and none other.
If she were influenced by _women_ spirits, either in the body or
out of it, in the direction she steers, I might consent to be a
mere sail-hoister for her; but as it is, she is wholly owned and
dominated by _men_ spirits and I spurn the control of the whole lot
of them, just precisely the same when reflected through her woman's
tongue and pen as if they spoke directly for themselves.

After sending this letter she had supposed the question settled until
she saw this notice, hence her anger and dismay can be imagined.

The regular anniversary meeting of the National Association was to
begin in New York on May 9, and on the 6th Miss Anthony reached the
city to prevent, if possible, the threatened coalition with the
proposed new party. She engaged the parlors of the Westmoreland Hotel
for headquarters and then hastened over to Tenafly to get Mrs. Stanton.
As soon as the suffrage committee opened its business session, Mrs.
Woodhull and her friends appeared by previous arrangement made during
Miss Anthony's absence in the West, and announced that they would hold
joint sessions with the suffrage convention the next two days at
Steinway Hall. It was only by Miss Anthony's firm stand and indomitable
will that this was averted, and that the set of resolutions which they
brought, cut and dried, was defeated in the committee. She positively
refused to allow them the use of Steinway Hall, which had been rented
in her name, and at length they were compelled to give up the game and
engage Apollo Hall for their "new party" convention. Mrs. Stanton and
Mrs. Hooker called her narrow, bigoted and headstrong, but the
proceedings of the "people's convention" next day, which nominated Mrs.
Woodhull for President, showed how suicidal it would have been to have
had it under the auspices of the National Suffrage Association.

The forces of the latter, however, were greatly demoralized, the
attendance at the convention was small, and Mrs. Stanton refused to
serve longer as president. Miss Anthony was elected in her stead and,
just as she was about to adjourn the first evening session, to her
amazement Mrs. Woodhull came gliding in from the side of the platform
and moved that "this convention adjourn to meet tomorrow morning at
Apollo Hall!" An ally in the audience seconded the motion, Miss Anthony
refused to put it, an appeal was made from the decision of the chair,
Mrs. Woodhull herself put the motion and it was carried overwhelmingly.
Miss Anthony declared the whole proceeding out of order, as the one
making the motion, the second, and the vast majority of those voting
were not members of the association. She adjourned the convention to
meet in the same place the next morning and, as Mrs. Woodhull persisted
in talking, ordered the janitor to turn off the gas.

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