In reply to a letter asking her opinion, Mrs. Stanton wrote: "As for changing the name of The Revolution, I should consider it a great mistake. We are thoroughly advertised under the present title. There is no other like it, never was, and never will be. The establishing of woman on her rightful throne is the greatest of revolutions. It is no child's play. You and I know the conflict of the last twenty years; the ridicule, persecution, denunciation, detraction, the unmixed bitterness of our cup for the last two, when even friends have crucified us. We have so much hope and pluck that none but the Good Father knows how we have suffered. A journal called 'The Rose-bud' might answer for those who come with kid gloves and perfumes to lay immortelle wreaths on the monuments which in sweat and tears we have hewn and built; but for us, and that great blacksmith of ours who forges such red-hot thunderbolts for Pharisees, hypocrites and sinners, there is no name but The Revolution."

Miss Anthony consulted many newspaper men and all advised against the proposed change, saying that experience had shown this to be fatal to a paper. Acting upon this advice, and also upon her own strong convictions, she decided to retain the original title. Meanwhile, tremendous pressure had been brought to bear upon Mrs. Hooker and Mrs. Stowe not to identify themselves with The Revolution. After Mrs. Stowe's salutatory had been prepared, Mrs. Hooker wrote as follows:

I think the name should not be changed. If you change it in deference to our wishes and against good advice, it would lay an obligation on us that we could ill endure. Already I was feeling uneasy under the thought, and Mrs. Stowe actually said to me that she should prefer greatly to write as contributor and would do just as much work as if called editor. She settled down on consenting to be corresponding editor; and Mrs. Davis and I will be assistant editors. I will write for The Revolution and work for it just as hard as I can, sending out a circular through Connecticut asking contributions to it.

Later—Since reading Mrs. Stanton on the Richardson-McFarland case, I feel disinclined to be associated with her in editorial work. I want to say this very gently; but I have no time for circumlocution....

[Autograph: Alice Cary]

The promised contributions did not materialize, and The Revolution received no aid of any description. The struggle was bravely continued throughout the first five months of 1870. The Cary sisters were devoted friends of Miss Anthony and deeply interested in the paper, and some of their sweetest poems had appeared in its columns. Their beautiful home was just three blocks below The Revolution office, and she spent many hours with them. These frequent calls, breakfasts and luncheons were much more delightful to her than their Sunday evening receptions, although at those were gathered the writers, artists, musicians, reformers and politicians of New York, besides eminent persons who happened to be in the city. It was a literary center which never has been equalled since those lovely and cultured sisters passed away. In her lecture on "Homes of Single Women," Miss Anthony thus describes one of her visits:

[Autograph: Phoebe Cary]

I shall never forget the December Sunday morning when a note came from Phoebe asking, "Will you come round and sit with Alice while I go to church?" Of course I was only too glad to go; and it was there in the cheery sick-room, as I sat on a cushion at the feet of this lovely, large-souled, clear-brained woman, that she told me how ever and anon in the years gone by, as she was writing her stories for bread and shelter, her pen would run off into facts and philosophies of woman's servitude that she knew would ruin her book with the publishers, but which, for her own satisfaction, she had carefully treasured, chapter by chapter, as her heart had thus overflowed. "I am now," she said, "financially free, where I could write my deepest and best thought for woman, and now I must die. O, how much of my life I have been compelled to write what men would buy, not what my heart most longed to say, and what a clog to my spirit it has been."

As she sat there, reading from those chapters, her sweet face, her lustrous eyes, her musical voice all aglow as with a live coal from off the altar, I said: "Alice, I must have that story for The Revolution!" "But I may never be able to finish it," she objected. "We'll trust to Providence for that," I replied; and the last five months of The Revolution carried The Born Thrall to thousands of responsive hearts. But, alas, nature gave way and she was never well enough to put the finishing touches to those terribly true-to-life pictures of the pioneer wife and mother.

The poetry for The Revolution was selected by Mrs. Tilton, who had rare literary taste and discrimination. The exquisite child articles, entitled "Dot and I" and signed Faith Rochester, were written by Francis E. Russell. It had a corps of foreign correspondents, among them the English philanthropist, Rebecca Moore. The distinguished list of contributors and the broad scope of The Revolution may be judged from its prospectus for 1870.[55] The chances of its paying expenses, however, did not increase, and the hoped-for stock company never was formed. Mr. Pillsbury had been most anxious for the past year to be released from his editorial duties, and had remained only because he could not bear to desert the paper in its distress. Mrs. Stanton, engaged in the lecture field, had sent only an occasional article, and now declined to continue her services longer without a salary. One person who stood by Miss Anthony unflinchingly through all this trying period was the publisher, R.J. Johnston, who never once failed in prompt and efficient service, and gave the most conscientious care to the make-up of the paper. Although her indebtedness to him finally reached the thousands, he remained faithful up to the printing of the very last number, and his was the first debt she paid out of the proceeds of her lyceum lectures.

When Mrs. Phelps had opened the Woman's Bureau and invited The Revolution to take an office therein, Miss Anthony had warned her that it might keep other organizations of women away; but she was willing to take the risk. It resulted as prophesied. Not even the strong-minded Sorosis would have its clubrooms there, nor would any other society of women, and after a year's experiment, she gave up her project, rented the building to a private family and The Revolution moved to No. 27 Chatham street. The generous Anna Dickinson, because of her friendship for Miss Anthony, presented Mrs. Phelps with $1,000, as a recompense for any loss she might have sustained through The Revolution. Mrs. Phelps being very ill that winter, added a codicil to her will giving Miss Anthony $1,000 to show that she had only the kindest feelings for her.

At the beginning of 1870, a stock company was formed and the Woman's Journal established in Boston. Mrs. Livermore merged her Chicago paper, the Agitator, into this new enterprise (as she had proposed to do into The Revolution the year previous) removed to Boston and became editor-in-chief; Lucy Stone was made assistant editor and H.B. Blackwell business manager. This paper secured the patronage of all those believers in the rights of women who were not willing to accept the bold, fearless and radical utterances of The Revolution. The latter had exhausted the finances of its friends and had no further resources. The strain upon Miss Anthony, who alone was carrying the whole burden, was terrible beyond description. Never was there a longer, harder, more persistent struggle against the malice of enemies, the urgent advice of friends, against all hope, than was made by this heroic woman. As the inevitable end approached she wrote of it to Mrs. Stanton, who answered: "Make any arrangement you can to roll that awful load off your shoulders. If Anna Dickinson will be sole editor, I say, glory to God! Leave me to my individual work, the quiet of my home for the summer and the lyceum for the winter.... Tell our glorious little Anna if she only will nail her colors to that mast and make the dear old proprietor free once more, I will sing her praises to the end of time."

Anna Dickinson very wisely concluded that she was not suited for an editor. Laura Curtis Bullard was much interested in reform work, possessed of literary ability and very desirous of securing The Revolution. Theodore Tilton, who was editing the New York Independent and the Brooklyn Daily Union, promised to assist her in managing the paper. Miss Anthony at last agreed to let her have it, and on May 22, 1870, the formal transfer was made. She received the nominal sum of one dollar, and assumed personally the entire indebtedness. She had this dollar alone to show for two and a half years of as hard work as ever was performed by mortal, besides all the money she had earned and begged which had gone directly into the paper. During that time $25,000 had been expended, and the present indebtedness amounted to $10,000 more.

Miss Anthony could not view this giving up of The Revolution so philosophically as did Mrs. Stanton; she was of very different temperament. Into this paper she had put her ambition, her hope, her reputation. The stronger the opposition, the firmer was her determination not to yield, nor was it a relief to be rid of it. She would have counted no cost too great, no work too hard, no sacrifice too heavy, could she but have continued the publication. Not only was it a terrible blow to her pride, but it wrung her heart. She could bear the triumph of her enemies far better than she could the giving up of the means by which she had expected to accomplish a great and permanent good for women and for all humanity. On the evening of the day when the paper passed out of her hands forever, she wrote in her diary, "It was like signing my own death-warrant;" and in a letter to a friend she said, "I feel a great, calm sadness like that of a mother binding out a dear child that she could not support." To the public she kept the same brave, unruffled exterior, but in a private letter, written a short time afterwards, is told in a few sentences a story which makes the heart ache:

My financial recklessness has been much talked of. Let me tell you in what this recklessness consists: When there was need of greater outlay, I never thought of curtailing the amount of work to lessen the amount of cash demanded, but always doubled and quadrupled the efforts to raise the necessary sum; rushing for contributions to every one who had professed love or interest for the cause. If it were 20,000 tracts for Kansas, the thought never entered my head to stint the number—only to tramp up and down Broadway for advertisements to pay for them. If to meet expenses of The Revolution, it was not to pinch clerks or printers, but to make a foray upon some money-king. None but the Good Father can ever begin to know the terrible struggle of those years. I am not complaining, for mine is but the fate of almost every originator or pioneer who ever has opened up a way. I have the joy of knowing that I showed it to be possible to publish an out-and-out woman's paper, and taught other, women to enter in and reap where I had sown.

Heavy debts are still due, every dollar of which I intend to pay, and I am tugging away, lecturing amid these burning suns, for no other reason than to keep pulling down, hundred by hundred, that tremendous pile. I sanguinely hope to cancel this debt in two years of hard work, and cheerfully look forward to the turning of every possible dollar into that channel. If you today should ask me to choose between the possession of $25,000 and the immense work accomplished by my Revolution during the time in which I sank that amount, I should choose the work done—not the cash in hand. So, you see, I don't groan or murmur—not a bit of it; but for the good name of humanity, I would have liked to see the moneyed men and women rally around the seed-sowers.

Parker Pillsbury wrote her after he returned home: "No one could do better than you have done. If any complain, ask them what they did to help you carry the paper. I am glad you are relieved of a load too heavy for you to bear. Worry yourself no more. Work of course you will, but let there be no further anxiety and nervousness. Suffrage is growing with the oaks. The whirling spheres will usher in the day of its triumph at just the right time, but your full meed of praise will have to be sung over your grave."

The motto of The Revolution, "The True Republic—Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less," was succeeded by "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." It was transformed into a literary and society journal, established in elegant headquarters at Brooklyn, inaugurated with a fashionable reception, and conducted by Mrs. Bullard for eighteen months, when she tired of it, or her father tired of advancing money, and it passed into other hands.

When Miss Anthony had her accounts audited by an expert, he stated that The Revolution was in a better financial condition than was the New York Independent at the end of its first five years. She had just begun to realize her power as a lyceum lecturer and was in constant demand at large prices. The last two months before giving up the paper, she sent in from her lectures, above all her expenses, $1,300. She always felt that, with this source of revenue, she could have sustained and in time put it on a paying basis, as her subscription list was rapidly increasing, she had learned the newspaper business, and The Revolution was gaining the confidence of the public. But the experience came too late and she was driven to the wall—not a single friend would longer give her money, assistance or encouragement to continue the paper. To this day, she will take up the bound volumes with caressing fingers, touch them with pathetic tenderness, and pore over their pages with loving reverence, as one reads old letters when the hands which penned them are still forever.

Miss Anthony did not waste a single day in mourning over her great disappointment. In fact, between May 18, when she agreed to give up The Revolution, and May 22, when the transfer actually was made, she went to Hornellsville and lectured, receiving $150 for that one evening. There are not many instances on record where a woman starts out alone to earn the money with which to pay a debt of $10,000. Very few of the advocates of woman suffrage contributed a dollar toward the payment of this debt, which had nothing in it of a personal nature but had been made entirely in the effort to advance the cause. Miss Anthony worked unceasingly through winter's cold and summer's heat, lecturing sometimes under private auspices, sometimes under those of a bureau, and herself arranging for unengaged nights. As she had all her expenses to pay and continued to contribute from her own pocket whenever funds were needed for suffrage work, it was six years before "she could look the whole world in the face for she owed not any man."

She started at once on a western tour, lecturing through Ohio, Kansas and Illinois, speaking in the Methodist church at Evanston, June 3, 1870. Dr. E.O. Haven, president of the university, (afterwards Bishop) in presenting her endorsed woman suffrage. At Bloomington she held a debate with a young professor from the State Normal School. The manager asked if she would take $100 instead of half the receipts, as agreed on. She replied that if the prospects were so good as to warrant him in making this offer, she was just Yankee enough to take her chances. This was a shrewd decision, as her half amounted to $250. The professor opposed the enfranchisement of women because they could not fight. As is the case invariably with men who make this objection, he was a very diminutive specimen, and Miss Anthony could not resist observing as she commenced her speech: "The professor talks about the physical disabilities of women; why, I could take him in my arms and lift him on and off this platform as easily as a mother would her baby!" Of course this put the audience in a fine humor.

In every place she was entertained by representative people and received many social courtesies. She returned to Rochester July 27, spent just twelve hours at home, then hastened eastward, travelling by night in order to reach the Saratoga convention on the 28th. This was held under the auspices of the New York State Association, and managed by the secretary, Matilda Joslyn Gage. Miss Anthony was paid $100, for the first time in the history of conventions. Mrs. Gage wrote: "She is heavily burdened with debt, no one has made so great sacrifices all these years, and she deserves the money." During the summer she sent to a friend in England this summing up of the condition of the suffrage movement in the United States:

The secret of the present inaction is that all our best suffrage men are in the Republican party and must keep in line with its interests, make no demands beyond its possibilities, its safety, its sure success. Hence, just now, while that party is trembling lest it should fall into the minority, and thus give place to the Democracy in 1872, it dares not espouse woman suffrage. So our friends quietly drop our demand on Congress for a Sixteenth Amendment, since to press that body to a vote would compel the Republican members to show their hands; and if those who have in private spoken for woman suffrage should not make a false public record, the number in favor would commit the majority of their party to our question; and by so doing give its opponents fresh opportunity to appeal to the ignorant masses, which must inevitably throw it out of power. The extension of the ballot to woman is a question of intelligence and culture, and is sure to have enrolled against it every narrow, prejudiced, small-brained man in all classes. This being the state of things, our movement is at a dead-lock. Practical action, political action, therefore, is almost hopeless until after the presidential election of 1872; and after that for still another four years, unless the Republican party should be defeated and the Democracy come into power.

Just as soon as the Republicans are out of power, they will betake themselves to the study of principles and begin to preach and promise. Hence I devoutly pray without ceasing for the overthrow of that purse-proud, corrupt, cowardly party; not that I expect from the Democracy anything better than their antecedents promise, but that I know such chastisement, such retirement, is the only means by which conscience and courage can be injected into the heads and hearts of the Republicans, the only way to make them see the political necessity of enfranchising the women of the country, and thereby securing their gratitude and through it their vote to place and hold that party in power.

Then as to our woman suffrage organizations: There are first, the Cleveland movement with all the strategy and maneuvering of its semi-Republican managers, assented to and accepted by the women in their train; then the Fifth Avenue Union Committee affair, which seems not less likely to be under Republican man-power. With Mrs. Stanton's utter refusal to stand at the helm of the National, and our merging it into the Union Society, and with my transferring The Revolution to the new company—we, E.C.S. and S.B.A., have let slip from our hands all control of organizations and newspapers; thus leaving them, I fear, to drift together into the management of mere politicians. All are lulled into the strictest propriety of expression, according to the gospel of St. Republican. And unless that saint shall enact some new and more blasphemous law against woman, which shall wake our confiding sisterhood into a sense of their befoolment, you will neither see nor hear a word from suffrage society or paper which will be in the slightest out of line with the plan and policy of the dominant party. Nothing less atrocious to woman than was the Fugitive Slave Law to the negro, can possibly sting the women of this country into a knowledge of their real subserviency, and out of their sickening sycophancy to the Republican politicians associated with them.

So while I do not pray for anybody or any party to commit outrages, still I do pray, and that earnestly and constantly, for some terrific shock to startle the women of this nation into a self-respect which will compel them to see the abject degradation of their present position; which will force them to break their yoke of bondage, and give them faith in themselves; which will make them proclaim their allegiance to woman first; which will enable them to see that man can no more feel, speak or act for woman than could the old slaveholder for his slave. The fact is, women are in chains, and their servitude is all the more debasing because they do not realize it. O, to compel them to see and feel, and to give them the courage and conscience to speak and act for their own freedom, though they face the scorn and contempt of all the world for doing it!

Not another woman possessed this strong grasp of the whole situation, this deep comprehension of the abject condition of women, the more hopeless because of their own failure to feel or resent it.

During the summer Miss Anthony attended the National Labor Congress in Philadelphia. A great strike of bookbinders had been in progress in New York and she had advised the women to take the vacant places. They were denied admission to all labor unions and their only chance of securing work was when the men and their employers disagreed. This gave a pretext for those who were opposed to a representation of women in labor conventions, and a bitter fight was made upon accepting her as a delegate. Charges of every description were preferred against her which she refuted in a spirited manner, but her credentials were finally rejected. The newspapers took up the fight on both sides, the opposition to Miss Anthony being led by the New York Star, always abusive where the question of woman's rights was concerned. During this controversy the Utica Herald contained a disgraceful editorial, saying:

Who does not feel sympathy for Susan Anthony? She has striven long and earnestly to become a man. She has met with some rebuffs, but has never succumbed. She has never done any good in the world, but then she doesn't think so. She is sweet in the eyes of her own mirror, but her advanced age and maiden name deny that she has been so in the eyes of others. Boldly she marched, and well, into the presence of 200 horrid male delegates of the Labor Congress, and took somebody's seat.... Susan felt very much like a grizzly bear unable to get at its tormentor. She had gone to the length of her chain and couldn't get her claws into any one's hair. She could only sit and glare.

At length Susan's case came up for consideration, and the congress committed the crowning act of rashness and, without a thought of the consequences, made an everlasting enemy of Susan Anthony by ruling her out of the convention as a delegate. This was the unkindest cut of all. "A lone, lorn old critter," with whom everything "goes contrairie," was denied the solace of being counted the one-two-hundreth part of a man by a labor convention! We may well believe that Susan wept with sorrow at the blindness of man, and our sympathy if not our tears is freely offered. But so goes the world. This is not the first time that "man's inhumanity to woman" has made Miss Anthony mourn and, as it is not her first rebuff, we counsel her to seek admission again to the ranks of her sex, and cease to cast reproach upon it by struggling to be a man.

When some of the women remonstrated, the editor replied that he had not supposed there was one woman in Utica who believed in equal rights.

Paulina Wright Davis had been actively arranging for a great convention in New York to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the first woman's rights convention in Massachusetts, which was held at Worcester, in October, 1850. That one had been managed almost wholly by Mrs. Davis and she had presided over its deliberations, therefore it seemed proper for her to be the central figure in celebrating its second decade. The New England suffrage people declined to take part in this meeting and, for some reason, Mr. Tilton's Union Society was decidedly averse to it. Mrs. Davis finally became ill from anxiety and overwork and joined her entreaties to Mrs. Stanton's that Miss Anthony should drop her lectures and come to New York; so she started for that city September 30, determined that Mrs. Davis' scheme should not be a failure. The entries in her journal give some idea of her energetic and unwearied action:

As soon as I reached New York I went to Dr. Lozier's for lunch, then to see Mrs. Phelps. All in despair about the decade meeting. Went at once to consult Alice and Phoebe Cary; from them to Mrs. Winchester, found her just home from Europe; then to Julia Brown Bemis, and thence to Murray street to see Mr. Studwell; then to Tenafly on the evening train.... Back to New York the next morning, to Tilton's, to Curtis', to Mrs. Wilbour's, and then to Providence to see Mrs. Davis. Beached there late at night, woke her up and we talked till morning. She was terribly distressed at the thought of giving up the decade and in the morning I telegraphed to New York that it must go on.... Went there by first train, had all the newspaper notices of its abandonment countermanded and new ones put in, and an item sent out by Associated Press. Too late for last train to Tenafly and had to hire a carriage to take me there.

Her time was then divided between working on speeches with Mrs. Stanton and rushing over to New York to prepare for this meeting. On October 19 she writes: "Ground out the resolutions, and took the afternoon train for the city. Met Martha Wright and Mrs. Davis at the St. James Hotel."

There was a great reception the next afternoon in the hotel parlors, and the convention met at Apollo Hall, October 21, the whole of the arrangements having been made in three weeks. Mrs. Davis presided, everybody had been brought into line and it was a notable gathering. Cordial and approving letters to Mrs. Davis were read from Jacob Bright, Canon Kingsley, Frances Power Cobbe, Emily Faithfull, Mary Somerville, Emelie J. Meriman (afterwards the wife of Pere Hyacinthe), and other distinguished foreigners. Miss Anthony spoke strongly against their identifying themselves with either of the parties until it had declared for woman suffrage, urging them to accept every possible help from both but to form no alliance, as had been proposed. The feature of the occasion was "The History of the Woman's Rights Movement for Twenty Years," carefully prepared by Mrs. Davis.[56] In addition to this valuable work, she contributed $300 to the expenses of the meeting. It was an unqualified success and her letters were full of warmest gratitude to Miss Anthony.

In November the latter resumed her lecturing tour which was arranged by Elizabeth Brown, who had been her head clerk in The Revolution office. The first of December she attended the Northwestern Woman Suffrage Convention at Detroit. Here she received a telegram to hasten home and arrived just in time to stand by the death-bed of a dear nephew, Thomas King McLean, twenty-one years old, brother of the beloved Ann Eliza who had died a few years before, and only son of her sister Guelma. He was a senior of brilliant promise in Rochester University. His death was a heavy blow to all the family and one from which his mother never recovered.

With her debts pressing upon her and an array of lecture engagements ahead, Miss Anthony could neither pause to indulge her own grief nor to console and sympathize with the loved ones. The very night of the funeral she again set forth. By the New Year she had lessened her debt $1,600. This trip extended through New York and Pennsylvania, to Washington and into Virginia. Of the last she writes: "A great work to be done here but the lectures can not possibly be made to pay expenses." In Philadelphia she spoke in the Star course, was the guest of Anna Dickinson and was introduced to her audience by Lucretia Mott, then seventy-seven years old. The diary relates that Mrs. Mott came next morning before 8 o'clock to give her $20, saying it was very little but would show her confidence and affection. The lecture given on this tour was entitled "The False Theory" and was highly commended by the press. It never was written and probably never twice delivered in the same words, Miss Anthony always depending largely upon the inspiration of the occasion.

The middle of December she slipped back to Rochester to see her bereaved sister, and speaks of their receiving a letter of sympathy from Rev. J.K. McLean, which, she says, "is the first philosophical word that has been spoken." While at home she was invited to the Hallowells' to see Wendell Phillips, their first meeting since their sad difference of opinion concerning the Fourteenth Amendment. They had a cordial interview and she went with him to his lecture in the evening. The entry in the journal that night closes with the underscored sentence, "Phillips is matchless."

[Footnote 54: On the platform or in the audience were to be seen the beloved Quaker, Mrs. John J. Merrit, of Brooklyn, Margaret E. Winchester, Mrs. Theodore Tilton, Mrs. Edwin A. Studwell, Catharine Beecher—her plain face illuminated with the fire of indignation—Jenny June Croly, writing rapidly for the New York World, Cora Tappan, Hannah Tracy Cutler, president of the Ohio Woman Suffrage Association, Phoebe Couzins, Mrs. Benjamin F. Butler, Mrs. James Parton, better known as Fanny Fern, Charlotte B. Wilbour, Elizabeth B. Phelps, two nieces of Mrs. U. S. Grant, Laura Curtis Bullard. Frances Dietz Hallock, Ella Dietz Clymer, Anne Lynch Botta, Mary F. Gilbert, Mrs. Moses Beach, Julia Ward Howe, and many other well-known women.]

[Footnote 55: The demands for woman everywhere today are for a wider range of employment, higher wages, thorough mental and physical education, and an equal right before the law in all those relations which grow out of the marriage state. While we yield to none in the earnestness of our advocacy of these claims, we make a broader demand for the enfranchisement of woman, as the only way in which all her just rights can be permanently secured. By discussing, as we shall incidentally, leading questions of political and social importance, we hope to educate women for an intelligent judgment upon public affairs, and for a faithful expression of that judgment at the polls.

As masculine ideas have ruled the race for six thousand years, we especially desire that The Revolution shall be the mouth piece of women, to give the world the feminine thought in politics, religion and social life; so that ultimately in the union of both we may find the truth in all things. On the idea taught by the creeds, codes and customs of the world, that woman was made for man, we declare war to the death, and proclaim the higher truth that, like man, she was created by God for individual moral responsibility and progress here and forever.

Our principal contributors this year are: Anna Dickinson, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Alice and Phoebe Cary, Olive Logan, Mary Clemmer, Mrs. Theodore Tilton, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Phoebe Couzins, Elizabeth Boynton and others; and foreign, Rebecca Moore, Lydia E. Becker and Madame Marie Goeg.

The Revolution is an independent journal, bound to no party or sect, and those who write for our columns are responsible only for what appears under their own names. Hence, if old Abolitionists and Slaveholders, Republicans and Democrats, Presbyterians and Universalists, Catholics and Protestants find themselves side by side in writing on the question, of woman suffrage, they must pardon each other's differences on all other points, trusting that by giving their own views strongly and grandly, they will overshadow the errors by their side.]

[Footnote 56: Frances Wright, from Scotland, in 1828 was the first woman to speak on a public platform in this country. Ernestine L. Rose, from Poland, gave political lectures in 1836; Mary S. Gove, of New York, lectured oil woman's rights in 1837; Sarah and Angelina Grimke, from South Carolina, commenced their anti-slavery speeches in 1837, and Abby Kelly, of Massachusetts, in 1839; Eliza W. Farnham, of New York, lectured in 1843; between 1840 and 1845 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Paulina Wright (afterwards Davis) and Ernestine L. Rose circulated petitions for a bill to secure property rights for married women, and several times addressed committees of the New York Legislature; Margaret Fuller gave lectures in Massachusetts, in 1845; Lucy Stone spoke for the rights of women in 1847. The first woman's rights convention was called by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Martha C. Wright and Mary Ann McClintock, at Seneca Falls, N.Y., in 1848; Susan B. Anthony made her first speech on temperance in 1849. From 1850 the number of women speakers rapidly increased.]



CHAPTER XXII.

MRS. HOOKER'S CONVENTION—THE LECTURE FIELD.

1871.

A large correspondence was conducted in regard to the Third National Convention, which was to be held in Washington in January, 1871. Isabella Beecher Hooker, who had all the zeal of a new convert, created some amusement among the old workers by offering to relieve them of the entire management of the convention, intimating that she would avoid the mistakes they had made and put the suffrage work on a more aristocratic basis. To Mrs. Stanton she wrote:

I have proposed taking the Washington convention into my own hands, expenses and all; arranging program, and presiding or securing help in that direction, if I should need it. I shall hope to get Robert Collyer, and a good many who might not care to speak for "the Union" but would speak for me. I should want from you a pure suffrage argument, much like that you made before the committee at Washington last winter. I know you are tired of this branch, but you are fitted to do a great work still in that direction.... Won't you promise to come to my convention, without charge save travelling expenses, provided I have one? I am waiting to hear from Susan, Mrs. Pomeroy and you, and then shall get Tilton's approval and the withdrawal of the society from the work, if they have undertaken it, and go ahead.

Mrs. Stanton consented gladly and wrote the other friends to do likewise, saying: "I should like to have Susan for president, as she has worked and toiled as no other woman has, but if we think best not to blow her horn, then let us exalt Mrs. Hooker, who thinks she could manage the cause more discreetly, more genteelly than we do. I am ready to rest and see the salvation of the Lord." On their rounds the letters came to Martha Wright, the gentle Quaker, who commented with the fine irony of which she was master: "It strikes me favorably. It would be a fine thing for Mrs. Hooker to preside over the Washington convention, while her sister, Catharine Beecher, was inveighing against suffrage, for the benefit of Mrs. Dahlgren and others. Perhaps she is right in thinking that Robert Collyer and a good many others who would not care to speak for 'the Union,' would speak for her—I for one would be glad to have her try it! If 'Captain Susan' would consent to be placed at the head of the association, there could not be a more suitable and just appointment."

Mrs. Stanton wrote that her lecture engagements would not permit her to go to Washington and she would send $100 instead. Mrs. Hooker replied:

Your offer just suits me, and of myself I should accept $100 with thankfulness, and excuse you, as you desire, but Susan looked disgusted and said, "She must appear before the Congressional committees, at any rate." I had not thought of that, but of course, if you were in Washington, it would be absurd not to be on our platform; and so I don't know what to say. You will talk more forcibly than any one else, and in committee you are invaluable. Still, I want your money, and I could do without you on the platform.... I fully expect, to accomplish far more by a convention devoted to the purely political aspect of the woman question, than by a woman's rights convention, however well-managed; and this, because the time has come for this practical work—discussion has prepared the way, now we must have the thing, the vote itself. It just occurs to me that you might write an argument for the committee, which I would read, but of course your presence is most desirable, and I incline to have you on hand for this last, great effort; for it does seem to me that we need not have another convention in Washington, but only a select committee to work privately every winter, and send for speakers, etc., when the committees are ready to grant hearings.

It is the part of wisdom to suppress Mrs. Stanton's reply to this, but she sent it to Martha Wright, who answered her:

You can imagine what success Mrs. Hooker will have with those wily politicians. She thinks they will come serenely from their seats to the lobby, when she tries "all the means known to an honest woman." I fear the means known to the other sort would meet a readier response. I forget which of the senators it was, last winter, who said rudely to Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Griffing, "You just call us out because you like to."... Mrs. Hooker will find it no easy matter to hook them on to her platform, but she will be wiser after trying. She is mistaken in considering the cause so nearly won, but it would be as impossible for her to realize the situation as it was for Rev. Thomas Beecher to be convinced that Mr. Smith saw more clearly than he. "Do you mean," said this potentate, "to bring down the whole Beecher family on your head?" "No," was the reply, "do you mean to bring the whole Smith family on to yours?"

The following circular letter was sent to Curtis, Phillips and other prominent men:

A convention has been announced at Washington, for January 11 and 12, to push the Sixteenth Amendment. The management is solely in my hands, and I alone assume the financial responsibility. I go to Washington January 1 to spend some days enlisting members of Congress in this purely political question, and securing short speeches from them on our platform. I have neither State nor national society behind me, but am attempting to carry on a convention with this single aim—to awaken Congress and, through it, the country, to the fact that a Sixteenth Amendment is needed, in order to carry out the principles of the Declaration of Independence; and that we women are tired of petitioning, and would fain begin to vote without delay. Will you speak for me in the day or the evening, and much oblige your sincere friend, ISABELLA B. HOOKER.

Evidently they would not speak, even "for me," and Mrs. Hooker sends around this note of explanation to the "old guard:" "I know of no gentlemen outside of members of Congress, that can help us at all, who can come. Beecher, Collyer, Curtis and Phillips are all unable. If you think of any one else it would be worth while to invite, please write me at once. I have such a strong determination that members shall understand how much we are in earnest at this time, and how we won't wait any longer, that it does seem to me they will take up a burden of speech themselves, and work also. Mr. Sewall, of Boston, writes me that he will urge Mr. Sumner, as I requested, and other members, but thinks they can not need it."

Miss Anthony, however, declined to be snubbed, subdued or displaced, and wrote to Mrs. Stanton in the following vigorous style:

Mrs. Hooker's attitude is not in the least surprising. She is precisely like every new convert in every reform. I have no doubt but each of the Apostles in turn, as he came into the ranks, believed he could improve upon Christ's methods. I know every new one thought so of Garrison's and Phillips'. The only thing surprising in this case is that you, the pioneer, should drop, and say to each of these converts: "Yes, you may manage. I grant your knowledge, judgment, taste, culture, are all superior to mine. I resign the good old craft to you altogether." To my mind there never was such suicidal letting go as has been yours these last two years.

But I am now teetotally discouraged, and shall make no more attempts to hold you up to what I know is not only the best for our cause, but equally so for yourself, from the moral standpoint if not the financial. O, how I have agonized over my utter failure to make you feel and see the importance of standing fast and holding the helm of our good ship to the end of the storm. Mr. Greeley's "On to Richmond" backdown was not more sad to me, not half so sad. How you can excuse yourself, is more than I can understand.

Mrs. Stanton commented to Mrs. Wright: "For your instruction in the ways of the world, I send you Susan's letter. You see I am between two fires all the time. Some are determined to throw me overboard, and she is equally determined that I shall stand at the masthead, no matter how pitiless the storm."

Mrs. Hooker found hers was a greater task than she had anticipated and finally wrote Miss Anthony: "God knows, and you ought to know, that any one who undertakes a convention has put self-seeking one side and is nearer to being a martyr, stake, fagots and all, than any of us care to be unless called by duty with a loud and unmistakable call. I shirked the labor last year and pitied you because so much fell upon you, and out of pure love to you and to the cause determined this time to take all I could on my own shoulders, but you must come and help out."

Mrs. Stanton still persisted in her determination not to go to this convention but Miss Anthony cancelled eight or ten lecture engagements, at from $50 to $75 each, in order to be present in person and see that the affair was properly managed. Mrs. Hooker, however, was fully equal to the occasion, her convention was a marked success and she proved to be one of the most valuable acquisitions to the ranks of workers for woman suffrage. She soon learned that the opposition to be overcome was far greater than she had imagined, and after nearly thirty years' effort, not even in her own State have women been able to secure their enfranchisement. It seems, however, a bit of poetic justice that this convention, which was to lift the movement for woman suffrage to a higher plane than it ever before had occupied, should have been the first to invite to its platform Victoria C. Woodhull, whose advent precipitated a storm of criticism compared to which all those that had gone before were as a summer shower to a Missouri cyclone.



On December 21, 1870, Mrs. Woodhull had gone to Washington with a memorial praying Congress to enact such laws as were necessary for enabling women to exercise the right to vote vested in them by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. This was presented in the Senate by Harris, of Louisiana, and in the House by Julian, of Indiana, referred to the judiciary committees and ordered printed. She had taken this action without consulting any of the suffrage leaders and they were as much astonished to hear of it as were the rest of the world. When they arrived at the capital another surprise awaited them. On taking up the papers they learned that Mrs. Woodhull was to address the judiciary committee of the House of Representatives the very morning their convention was to open. Miss Anthony hastened to confer with Mrs. Hooker, who was a guest at the home of Senator Pomeroy, and to urge that they should be present at this hearing and learn what Mrs. Woodhull proposed to do. Mrs. Hooker emphatically declined, but the senator said: "This is not politics. Men never could work in a political party if they stopped to investigate each member's antecedents and associates. If you are going into a fight, you must accept every help that offers."

Finally they postponed the opening of their convention till afternoon and, on the morning of January 11, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Hooker, Paulina Wright Davis and Hon. A. G. Riddle appeared in the judiciary committee room. None of them had met Mrs. Woodhull, whom they found to be a beautiful woman, refined in appearance and plainly dressed. She read her argument in a clear, musical voice with a modest and engaging manner, captivating not only the men but the ladies, who invited her to come to their convention and repeat it. Mrs. Hooker and Judge Riddle also addressed the committee and Miss Anthony closed the proceedings with a short speech, thus reported by the Philadelphia Press:

She said few women had persecuted Congress as she had done, and she was glad that new, fresh voices were heard today. "But, gentlemen," she continued, "I entreat you to bring this matter before the House. You let our petition, presented by Mr. Julian last winter, come to its death. I ask you to grant our appeal so that I can lay off my armor, for I am tired of fighting. The old Constitution did not disfranchise women, and we begged you not to put the word 'male' into the Fourteenth Amendment. I wish, General Butler, you would say contraband for us. But, gentlemen, bring in a report of some kind, either for or against; don't let the matter die in committee. Make it imperative that every man in the House shall show whether he is for or against it." Mrs. Hooker caught the refrain as Miss Anthony sat down, and said: "Pledge yourselves that we shall have a hearing before Congress."

The Daily Patriot, of Washington, gave this account of the opening of the convention:

About 3 o'clock the principal actors came upon the stage in Lincoln Hall. In the center of the front row was Paulina Wright Davis, a stately, dignified lady with a full suit of frosted hair. On her right was Isabella Beecher Hooker, the ruling genius of the assembly, of commanding voice and look, and evidently at home on the rostrum. On the left was Josephine S. Griffing, of this city, wearing the calm, imperturbable expression which is so eminently her characteristic. Further on was Susan B. Anthony, "the hero of a hundred fights," but still as eager for the fray as when she first enlisted under the banner of woman's rights.... Then came the two New York sensations, Woodhull and Claflin, both in dark dresses, with blue neckties, short, curly brown hair, and nobby Alpine hats, the very picture of the advanced ideas they are advocating. All were fresh from the scene of their contest in the Capitol, wreathed with smiles, flushed with victory, and evidently determined to let the world know that the goal of their ambition was nearly reached; that Congress had virtually surrendered at discretion, and hereafter they were to be considered part and parcel of that great body denominated American citizens.

Mrs. Hooker introduced Victoria Woodhull, saying it was her first attempt at public speaking, but her heart was so in the movement that she was determined to try. She advanced to the front of the platform, but was so nervous that she required the assuring arm of the president and her kindly voice to give her courage to proceed. When she did, it was with a perceptible tremor in her tones. After an apology, she read her memorial, which had been presented to the judiciary committee, reported the result of her interview with them, and said she had the assurance that it would be favorably reported, and that the heart of every man in Congress was in the movement. Thus ended the first effort of the great Wall street broker as a public speaker.

She was followed by Josephine S. Griffing, Lillie Devereux Blake, Frederick Douglass and others. Judge Riddle made the address of the evening. Senator Nye, of Nevada, presided over one evening session; Senator Warner, of Alabama, over one; and Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, over another. The correspondent of the Philadelphia Press wrote: "Mrs. Woodhull sat sphynx-like during the convention. General Grant himself might learn a lesson of silence from the pale, sad face of this unflinching woman. No chance to send an arrow through the opening seams of her mail.... She reminds one of the forces in nature behind the storm, or of a small splinter of the indestructible; and if her veins were opened they would be found to contain ice." The National Republican thus describes one session:

The attendance yesterday morning clearly demonstrated that the woman's movement has received an immense addition in numbers, quality and earnestness.... Miss Anthony, with her face all aglow, her eyes sparkling with indignation, said that a petition against suffrage had been presented in the Senate by Mr. Edmunds, signed by Mrs. General Sherman, Mrs. Admiral Dahlgren and others. She was glad the enemies of the movement at last had shown themselves. They were women who never knew a want, and had no feeling for those who were less fortunate. They had boasted that if necessary they could get one thousand more signatures of the best women in the land to their petition. What are a thousand names, and who are the best women in the land? In answer to the one thousand the advocates of suffrage could bring tens, aye, hundreds of thousands of women who desire the ballot for self-protection. The fight had now commenced in earnest, and it would not be ended until every woman in this broad land was vested with the full rights of citizenship.

The tenor of all the speeches was the right of women to vote under the recently adopted Fourteenth Amendment. There was an absence of the usual long series of resolutions, and all were concentrated in the following, presented by Miss Anthony:

Whereas, The Fourteenth Article of the Constitution of the United States declares that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens thereof, and of the State wherein they reside, and as such entitled to the unabridged exercise of the privileges and immunities of citizens, among which are the rights of the elective franchise; therefore

Resolved, That the Congress of the United States be earnestly requested to pass an act declaratory of the true extent and meaning of the said Fourteenth Article.

Resolved, That it is the duty of American women in the several States to apply for registration at the proper times and places, and in all cases when they fail to secure it to see that suits be instituted in the courts having jurisdiction, and that their right to the franchise shall secure general and judicial recognition.

In presenting the resolutions she said that if Congress failed to do what was asked, and if the courts decided that "persons" are not citizens, then the women had another resource; they could go back to first principles and push the Sixteenth Amendment. A national woman suffrage and educational committee of six was formed, herself among the number; and a large book was opened containing a "Declaration and Pledge of Women of the United States," written by Mrs. Hooker, asserting their belief in their right to the suffrage and their desire to use it. This was signed within a few months by 80,000 women and presented to Congress. The following spring large numbers attempted to vote in various parts of the country.

The advent of Mrs. Woodhull on the woman suffrage platform created a wide-spread commotion. The old cry of "free love" was redoubled, the enemies exulted loud and long, the friends censured and protested. Regarding this matter, Mrs. Hooker wrote:

My sister Catharine says she is convinced now that I am right and that Mrs. Woodhull is a pure woman, holding a wrong social theory, and ought to be treated with kindness if we wish to win her to the truth. Catharine wanted me to write her a letter of introduction, so that when she went to New York she could make her acquaintance and try to convince her that she is in error in regard to her views on marriage. I gave her the letter and she is in New York now. When she sees her she will be just as much in love with her as the rest of us. Imagine the Dahlgren coterie when they get Catharine to Washington to fight suffrage and find her visiting Victoria and proclaiming her sweetness and excellence.

The rest of the story is told in a subsequent letter: "Sister Catharine returned last night. She saw Victoria and, attacking her on the marriage question, got such a black eye as filled her with horror and amazement. I had to laugh inwardly at her relation of the interview and am now waiting for her to cool down!"

The men especially were exercised over the new convert to suffrage and flooded the ladies with letters of protest. To one of these Mrs. Stanton replied:

In regard to the gossip about Mrs. Woodhull I have one answer to give to all my gentlemen friends: When the men who make laws for us in Washington can stand forth and declare themselves pure and unspotted from all the sins mentioned in the Decalogue, then we will demand that every woman who makes a constitutional argument on our platform shall be as chaste as Diana. If our good men will only trouble themselves as much about the virtue of their own sex as they do about ours, if they will make one moral code for both men and women, we shall have a nobler type of manhood and womanhood in the next generation than the world has yet seen.

We have had women enough sacrificed to this sentimental, hypocritical prating about purity. This is one of man's most effective engines for our division and subjugation. He creates the public sentiment, builds the gallows, and then makes us hangmen for our sex. Women have crucified the Mary Wollstonecrafts, the Fanny Wrights, the George Sands, the Fanny Kembles, of all ages; and now men mock us with the fact, and say we are ever cruel to each other. Let us end this ignoble record and henceforth stand by womanhood. If Victoria Woodhull must be crucified, let men drive the spikes and plait the crown of thorns.

[Autograph: Lucinda Hinsdale Stone]

Immediately after the Washington convention, Miss Anthony went to fill a lecture engagement at Kalamazoo, the arrangements made by her friend, the widely-known and revered Lucinda H. Stone. She spoke also at Grand Rapids and other points in Michigan. At Chicago she was fortunate enough to have a day with Mrs. Stanton, also on a lecturing tour, and then took the train for Leavenworth. At Kansas City the papers said she made "the success of the lecture season." She spoke in Leavenworth, Lawrence, Topeka, Paola, Olathe and other places throughout the State. Although it was very cold and the half-frozen mud knee deep, she usually had good audiences. At Lincoln, Neb., she was entertained at the home of Governor Butler and introduced by him at her lecture. At Omaha her share of the receipts was $100. At Council Bluffs she was the guest of her old fellow-worker, Amelia Bloomer. Cedar Rapids and Des Moines gave packed houses. She lectured in a number of Illinois towns, taking trains at midnight and at daybreak; and, waiting four hours at one little station, the diary says she was so thoroughly worn-out she was compelled to lie down on the dirty floor. On the homeward route she spoke at Antioch College, and was the guest of President Hosmer's family. According to the infallible little journal: "The president said he had listened to all the woman suffrage lecturers in the field, but tonight, for the first time, he had heard an argument; a compliment above all others, coming from an aged and conservative minister."

She spoke also at Wilberforce University, at Dayton, Springfield, Crestline, and in Columbus before the two Houses of the Legislature. At Salem she ran across Parker Pillsbury, who was lecturing there. When she took the train at Columbus "there sat Mrs. Stanton, fast asleep, her gray curls sticking out." Then again into Michigan she went, speaking at Jackson, Lansing, Ann Arbor and other cities. Mrs. Stanton had preceded her and it was many times said that her lecture needed Miss Anthony's to make it complete. Then to Chicago, where she spoke at a suffrage matinee in Farwell Hall and at the Cook county annual suffrage convention, and dined at Robert Collyer's; back to Iowa, speaking at Burlington, Davenport, Mount Pleasant and Ottumwa; over into Nebraska once more, from there returning to Illinois; into Indiana, thence to Milwaukee and points in Wisconsin; and once more to Chicago, where, as was often the case, she was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Fernando Jones; from here across to Painesville and other towns in northern Ohio; then on to numerous places in western New York, and finally home to Rochester, April 25, having slept scarcely two nights in the same bed for over three months.

Such is the hard life of the public lecturer, the most exhausting and exacting which man or woman can experience. During all this long trip Miss Anthony had met everywhere a cordial welcome and had been entertained in scores of delightful homes. Her speech on this tour was entitled "The New Situation," and was a clear and comprehensive argument to prove that the Fourteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote. Although composed largely of legal and constitutional references, it was not written but drawn from the storehouse of her wonderful memory, aided only by a few notes.

At the close of the Washington convention the advocates of woman suffrage honestly believed that the battle was almost won. They felt sure Congress would pass the enabling act, permitting them to exercise the right that they claimed to be conferred by the Fourteenth Amendment, in which claim they were sustained by some of the best constitutional lawyers in the country. The agricultural committee room in the Capitol was placed at the disposal of the national woman suffrage committee, who put Josephine S. Griffing in charge. The latter part of January she wrote:

Our room is thronged. Yesterday and today no less than twelve wives of members of Congress were here and large numbers of the aristocratic women of Washington. Blanche Butler Ames assures me that all her sympathies are with us. President Grant's sister, Mrs. Cramer, has been here and given her name, saying that Mrs. Grant sent her regards and sympathized with our movement, and that she had refused from principle to sign Mrs. Sherman's protest.... The daily press is on its knees and is publishing long editorials in our favor. You ask if this is a Republican dodge. I do not know. I feel as Douglass did, ready to welcome the bolt from heaven or hell that shivers the chains. If the Republicans hope to save their lives by our enfranchisement, let them live.

Mrs. Hooker wrote from Washington: "Everything conspires to bring about the early confirmation of our hopes. Republicans are discovering that without this new, live issue, they are dead, and once more party necessity is to be God's opportunity. Let us, who know so many good men and true who are in this party, be thankful that through it, rather than through the Democratic, deliverance is to come, for to owe gratitude to a pro-slavery party would nearly choke my thanksgiving."

To this Mrs. Stanton replied: "That is not the point, but which party, as a party, has the best record on our question. For four years I have chafed under the Republican maneuvering to keep us still. Let me call your attention to my speech on the Fifteenth Amendment, in which I said 'this is a new stab at womanhood, to result in deeper degradation to her than she has ever known before.'... Sometimes I exclaim in agony, 'Can nothing raise the self-respect of women?' I despise the Republican party for the political serfdom we suffer today, under the heel of every foreign lord and lackey who treads our soil. If all of you have turned to such idols, I will go alone to Jerusalem."

When the judiciary committee made its adverse report[57] which was merely that Congress had not the power to act, most of the friends were not discouraged but believed another committee would decide differently. Mrs. Hooker, however, was at the boiling point of indignation over the report and reversed her decision in regard to the Republican party, writing: "Thank God! that party is dead; every one here knows it, feels it, and is waiting to see what will take its place. A great labor and woman suffrage party is ready to spring into life, and a hundred aristocratic Democrats are pledged to the work. You can have no conception of the new conditions unless you are here in the midst of things and read the telegrams from all parts of the country. Early next winter we shall be declared voting citizens." She then quotes a number of prominent Democratic politicians whom she has interviewed and who have given her reason for having faith in that party. But many of the women were fooled then by both political parties, just as they have continued to be up to the present time.

A letter from Phoebe Couzins expressed the sentiment of numbers which were received this spring: "We made a grand mistake in giving up the National. If you and Mrs. Stanton think best, as your fingers are on the pulse of the people, let us resolve the Union Society into the National Association. So say Mr. and Mrs. Minor, but whatever is done, the two grand women who have the qualifications for leadership must be at the head; the cause will languish until you are back in your old places."

The suffrage anniversary was held in Apollo Hall, New York, May 11 and 12, 1871. Mrs. Griffing read an able report on the work at Washington the previous winter. There were strong objections by a number of ladies to sitting on the platform with Mrs. Woodhull, but Mrs. Stanton said she should be sandwiched between Lucretia Mott and herself and that surely would give her sufficient respectability. She made a fine constitutional argument, to which the most captious could not object. The excitement created by her appearance at the Washington meeting was mild compared to that in New York City where she was becoming so well-known. The great dailies headed all reports, "The Woodhull Convention." The injustice and vindictiveness of the Tribune, that paper which once had been the champion of woman's cause, were especially hard to bear. It rang the changes upon the term "free love," insisted that, because the women allowed Mrs. Woodhull to stand upon their platform and advocate suffrage, they thereby indorsed all her ideas on social questions, and by every possible means it cast odium on the convention.

There is no doubt that the advocates of "free love," in its usually accepted sense, did endeavor to insinuate themselves among the suffrage women and make this movement responsible for their social doctrines, but every great reform has to suffer from similar parasites. The lives of Miss Anthony, Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Hooker, Mrs. Davis, and of all the old and tried leaders in this cause, form the strongest testimony of their utter repudiation of any such heresy. It was impossible, however, for the world in general to understand their broad ground that it was their business to accept valuable services without inquiring into the private life of the persons who offered them. If this were a mistake, these pioneers, who fought single-handed such a battle as the women of later days can not comprehend, had to learn the fact by experience.

The notorious Stephen Pearl Andrews prepared a set of involved and intricate resolutions which were read by Paulina Wright Davis, the chairman, without any thought of their possessing a deeper meaning than appeared on the surface, but they fell flat on the convention, and were neither discussed nor voted upon. The papers got possession of them, nevertheless, declared that they were adopted as part of the platform, read "free love" between the lines, and used them as the basis of many ponderous and prophetic editorials.

A national committee was formed of one woman from each State, with Mrs. Stanton as chairman, of which the New York Standard, edited by John Russell Young, said: "Miss Susan B. Anthony holds a modest position, but we can well believe that in any movement for the enfranchisement of women, like MacGregor, wherever she sits will be the head of the table." The New York Democrat commented: "She deals with facts, not theories, but just gets hold of one nail after another and drives it home.... Her words were to the point, as they always are, and abounded in telling hits in every direction." Even the Tribune was generous enough to say: "The ranks of the agitators with whom Captain Anthony is identified contain no one more indiscreet, more reckless or more honest. We have no sort of sympathy with the object to which the fair captain is now devoting her life; but we know no person before the country more single-minded, sincere and unselfish and, for these reasons, more honestly entitled to the regard of a public which will always appreciate upright intentions and disinterested devotion."

In the closing days of May, she wrote to her old paper, The Revolution:

Your "Stand by the Cause," this week, is the timely word to the friends of woman suffrage. The present howl is an old trick of the arch-fiend to divert public thought from the main question, viz: woman's equal freedom and equal power to make and control her own conditions in the state, in the church and, most of all, in the home.

Though the ballot is the open sesame to equal rights, there is a fundamental law which can not be violated with impunity between woman and man, any more than between man and man; a law stated a hundred years ago by Alexander Hamilton: "Give to a man a right over my subsistence, and he has power over my whole moral being." Woman's subsistence is in the hands of man, and most arbitrarily and unjustly does he exercise his consequent power, making two moral codes: one for himself, with largest latitude—swearing, chewing, smoking, drinking, gambling, libertinism, all winked at—cash and brains giving him a free pass everywhere; another quite unlike this for woman—she must be immaculate. One hair's breadth deviation, even the touch of the hem of the garment of an accused sister, dooms her to the world's scorn. Man demands that his wife shall be above suspicion. Woman must accept her husband as he is, for she is powerless so long as she eats the bread of dependence. Were man today dependent upon woman for his subsistence, I have no doubt he would very soon find himself compelled to square his life to an entirely new code, not a whit less severe than that to which he now holds her. In moral rectitude, we would not have woman less but man more.

It is to put an end to such heresies as the following, from the Rochester Democrat, that all women should most earnestly labor. That paper begs us not to forget, "that what may be pardonable in a man, speaking of evils generally, may and perhaps ought to be unpardonable in one of the presumably better sex; because there can not and must not be perfect equality between men and women when the disposition to do wrong is under discussion. Women are permitted to be as much better than men as they choose; but there ought to be no law, on or oft the statute books, recognizing their social and political right to be worse or even as bad as men; and it is shameful that intelligent women should claim such a right, or even dare to mention it at all." No human being or class of human beings would venture to talk thus to equals. It is only because women are dependent on men that such cowardly impudence can be dished out to them day after day by puny legislators and editors, themselves often reeking in social corruption which should banish them forever from the presence of womanhood. Yours for an even-handed scale in morals as well as politics, SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

[Footnote 57: The committee reported January 30, 1871, John A. Bingham, of Ohio, chairman. The minority report, signed by Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts, and William Loughridge, of Iowa, is perhaps the strongest and most exhaustive argument ever written on woman's right to vote under the Constitution. It is given in full in the History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 464.]



CHAPTER XXIII.

FIRST TRIP TO THE PACIFIC COAST.

1871.

At the close of the New York convention Miss Anthony, Rev. Olympia Brown and Josephine S. Griffing went with Mrs. Hooker to Hartford for a short visit, which it may be imagined was one protracted "business session." Then Miss Anthony hastened to her own home to prepare for a long journey, as she and Mrs. Stanton had decided to make a lecture tour through California. She left Rochester the last day of May, and met Mrs. Stanton in Chicago where a reception was given them by the suffrage club, in its elegant new headquarters. They spoke in a number of cities en route and attended numerous handsome receptions held in their honor. At Denver they were entertained by Governor and Mrs. McCook. Their audiences were large and enthusiastic, the press respectful and often cordial and appreciative.[58] At Laramie City they were accompanied to the station by a hundred women whom Mrs. Stanton addressed from the platform. A letter written by Miss Anthony during the journey contains these beautiful paragraphs:

We have a drawing-room all to ourselves, and here we are just as cozy and happy as lovers. We look at the prairie schooners slowly moving along with ox-teams, or notice the one lone cabin-light on the endless plains, and Mrs. Stanton will say: "In all that there is real bliss, if only the two are perfect equals, two loving people, neither assuming to control the other." Yes, after all, life is about one and the same thing, whether in the prairie schooner and sod cabin, or the Fifth Avenue palace. Love for and faith in each other alone can make either a heaven, and without these any home is a hell. It is not the outside things which make life, but the inner, the spirit of love which casteth out all devils and bringeth in all angels.

Ever since 4 o'clock this morning we have been moving over the soil that is really the land of the free and the home of the brave—Wyoming, the Territory in which women are the recognized political equals of men. Women here can say: "What a magnificent country is ours, where every class and caste, color and sex, may find equal freedom, and every woman sit under her own vine and fig tree." What a blessed attainment at last; and that it should be here among these everlasting mountains, midway between the Atlantic and Pacific, seems significant of the true growth of the individual—the center pure, the heart-beats free and equal.

At Salt Lake City they were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. W.S. Godbe, and were presented to their audience by Mayor Wells, who afterward took them to call on his five wives. The second evening they were introduced by Bishop Orson Pratt. From here Miss Anthony writes to The Revolution:

If I were a believer in special providences, I should say that our being in Salt Lake City at the dedication of the New Liberal Institute was one. On Sunday morning, July 2, this beautiful hall of the Liberal party—Apostate party, the Saints call it—was well filled. The services consisted of invocations, hymns and brief addresses. Messrs. Godbe, Harrison, Lyman and Lawrence seem to be the advance-guard—the high priests of the new order—and as they sang their songs of freedom, poured out their rejoicings over their emancipation from the Theocracy of Brigham, and told of the beatitudes of soul-to-soul communion with the All-Father, my heart was steeped in deepest sympathy with the women around me and, rising at an opportune pause, I asked if a woman and a stranger might be permitted to say a word. At once the entire circle of men on the platform arose and beckoned me forward; and, with a Quaker inspiration not to be repeated, much less put on paper, I asked those men, bubbling over with the divine spirit of freedom for themselves, if they had thought whether the women of their households were today rejoicing in like manner? I can not tell what I said—only this I know, that young and beautiful, old and wrinkled women alike wept, and men said, "I wanted to get out of doors where I could shout."

The transition of this people into the new life is complicated—is heartrending. Remember that when these men began their rebellion against Brigham, it was simply a protest against his tyranny—his exorbitant tithing system—a mere refusal to render tribute unto him; not at all a disavowal of the Morman religion or of polygamy. But as bond after bond has burst, this last, strongest and tightest one of plurality of wives is beginning to snap asunder. To illustrate: One man, a noble, loving, beautiful spirit—nothing of the tyrant, nothing of the sensualist—with four lovely wives, three of whom I have seen, and in the homes of two of whom I have broken bread, with thirteen loved and loving children—wakes up to the new idea. Four women's hearts breaking, three sets of children who must leave their father that the one-wife system may be realized! I can assure you my heart aches for the man, the women and the children, and cries, "God help them, one and all."

Where the man is a brutal tyrant, the problem is comparatively easy. What we have tried to do is to show them that the principle of the subjection of woman to man is the point of attack; and that woman's work in monogamy and polygamy is one and the same—that of planting her feet on the ground of self-support. The saddest feature here is that there really is nothing by which these women can earn an independent livelihood for themselves and their children, no manufacturing establishments, no free schools to teach. Women here, as everywhere, must be able to live honestly and honorably without the aid of men, before it can be possible to save the masses of them from entering into polygamy or prostitution, legal or illegal. Whichever way I turn, whatever phase of social life presents itself, the same conclusion comes: "Independent bread alone can redeem woman from her curse of subjection to man."

I attended the Liberals' Fourth of July celebration. Their beautiful hall was packed; their souls were on fire with their new freedom. Never since the first reading of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, were its great truths responded to with such real and deep feeling as on this occasion. I did not intrude myself on them again—but my soul, too, was on fire for freedom for my sex, as was that of every wife and daughter in that assembly. But these men have yet to learn to loose the bonds of power over the women by their side, precisely as have the men in the States and the world over.

Here is missionary work—not for any "thus saith the Lord" canting priests or echoing priestesses by divine right, but for great, Godlike, humanitarian men and women, who "feel for those in bonds as bound with them." No Phariseeism, no shudders of Puritanic horror, no standing afar off; but a simple, loving, fraternal clasp of hands with these struggling women, and an earnest work with them—not to ameliorate but to abolish the whole system of woman's subjection to man in both polygamy and monogamy.

In a letter home she says:

Our afternoon meeting of women alone was a sad spectacle. There was scarcely a sunny, joyous countenance in the whole 300, but a vast number of deep-lined, careworn, long-suffering faces—more so, even, than those of our own pioneer farmers' and settlers' wives, as I have many times looked into them. Their life of dependence on men is even more dreadful than that of monogamy, for here it is two, six, a dozen women and their great broods of children each and all dependent on the one man. Think of fifteen, twenty, thirty pairs of shoes at one strike, or as many hats and dresses!...

But when I look back into the States, what sorrow, what broken hearts are there because of husbands taking to themselves new friendships, just as really wives as are these, and the legal wife feeling even more wronged and neglected. I have not the least doubt but the suffering there equals that here—the difference is that here it is a religious duty for the man to commit the crime against the first wife, and for her to accept the new-comer into the family with a cheerful face; while there the wrong is done against law and public sentiment. But even the most devoted Mormon women say it takes a great deal of grace to accept the other wives, and be just as happy when the husband devotes himself to any of them as to herself, yet the faithful Saint attains to such angelic heights and finds her glory and the Lord's in so doing. The system of the subjection of woman here finds its limit, and she touches the lowest depths of her degradation.

The empire totters and Brigham feels the ground sliding from under his feet. These men will be very likely to try the "variety" plan of Stephen Pearl Andrews, but the women will hate that even worse than polygamy. One man came to me relating a new vision, direct from Christ himself, to that effect, and I said: "Away with your man-visions! Women propose to reject them all, and begin to dream dreams for themselves."

While at Salt Lake they received complimentary passes to California and throughout that State, from Governor Leland Stanford, always a helpful friend to woman suffrage. They reached San Francisco July 9, and took rooms at the Grand Hotel, at that time the best in the city. Their coming had been heralded by the press and they experienced the royal California welcome, receiving flowers, fruit, calls and invitations in abundance. Mrs. Stanton made her first speech in Platt's Hall to an audience of 1,200; all seemed delighted and the papers were very complimentary. At that time the whole coast was much excited over the murder of A.P. Crittenden by Laura D. Fair, and the entire weight of opinion was against her. Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, always ready to defend their sex, determined to hear the story from her own lips, hoping for the sake of womanhood to learn some mitigating circumstances. The afternoon papers came out with an attack upon them for making this visit to the jail, and in the evening at Miss Anthony's first lecture there was an immense audience, including many friends of Crittenden, determined that there should be no justification of the woman who killed him.

Miss Anthony made a strong speech on "The Power of the Ballot," which was well received until she came to the peroration. Her purpose had been to prove false the theory that all women are supported and protected by men. She had demonstrated clearly the fact that in the life of nearly every woman there came a time when she must rely on herself alone. She asserted that while she might grant, for the sake of the argument, that every man protected his own wife and daughter, his own mother and sister, the columns of the daily papers gave ample evidence that man did not protect woman as woman. She gave sundry facts to illustrate this point, among them the experience of Sister Irene, who had established a foundling hospital in New York two years before, and at the close of the first year reported 1,300 little waifs laid in the basket at the door. These figures, she said, proved that there were at least 1,300 women in that city who had not been protected by men. She continued impressively: "If all men had protected all women as they would have their own wives and daughters protected, you would have no Laura Fair in your jail tonight."

Then burst forth a tremendous hissing, seemingly from every part of the house! She had heard that sound in the old anti-slavery days and quietly stood until there came a lull, when she repeated the sentence. Again came a storm of hisses, but this time they were mingled with cheers. Again she waited for a pause, and then made the same assertion for the third time. Her courage challenged the admiration of the audience, which broke out into a roar of applause, and she closed by saying: "I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand."

The next morning, however, she was denounced by the city papers as having vindicated the murder and justified the life which Mrs. Fair had led! Those who had not heard the lecture believed these reports, and other papers in the State took up the cry. Even the press of New York and other eastern cities joined in the chorus, but the latter was much more severe on Mrs. Stanton, who in newspaper interviews did not hesitate to declare her sympathy for Mrs. Fair; and yet for some reason, perhaps because Miss Anthony had dared refer boldly to crime in high places in San Francisco, the batteries there were turned wholly upon her. In her diary she says: "Never in all my hard experience have I been under such fire." So terrific was the onslaught that no one could come to her rescue with a public explanation or defense. Miss Anthony had cut San Francisco in a sore spot and it did not propose to give her another chance to use the scalpel. She attempted to speak in adjacent towns but her journal says: "The shadow of the newspapers hung over me." At length she resolved to cancel all her lecture engagements and wait quietly until the storm passed over and the public mind grew calm. She writes in her diary, a week later: "Some friends called but the clouds over me are so heavy I could not greet them as I would have liked. I never before was so cut down." She tells the story to her sister Mary, who replies:

I am so sorry for you. It will spoil your pleasure, and then I think of that load of debt which you hoped to lighten, yet I should have felt ashamed of you if you had failed to say a word in behalf of that wretched woman. I am sick of one-sided justice; for the same crime, men glorified and women gibbeted. If your words for Mrs. Fair have made your trip a failure, so let it be—it is no disgrace to you. It is scandalous the way the papers talk of you, but stick to what you feel to be right and let the world wag.

On July 22, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton started for the Yosemite Valley, a harder trip in those days even than now. It is best described in her own words:

Mrs. Stanton, writing to The Revolution, and S.B.A., scribbling home, are thirty miles out of the wonderful valley of the Yosemite.... We shall have compassed the Calaveras Big Trees and the Yosemite Valley in twelve days out from Stockton, where we expect to arrive August 2. Mrs. Stanton is to speak there Thursday night and I at San Jose, where I shall learn whether the press has forgiven me. We both lecture the rest of the week, and Sunday get into San Francisco, speak at different points the 7th and 8th, and on the 9th go to the Geysers and stay two nights; then out again and on with meetings almost every night till the end of the month. We shall visit lakes Donner and Tahoe and some other points of interest as they come in our reach. Mr. Hutchings would not take a penny for our three days' sojourn in the valley, horses and all, so our trip is much less expensive than we had anticipated.

With our private carriage we drove three miles nearer the top of the mountain than the stage passengers go. Mrs. Stanton and I each had a pair of linen bloomers which we donned last Thursday morning at Crane's Flats, and we arrived at the brow of the mountain at 9 o'clock. Our horses were fitted out with men's saddles, and Mrs. Stanton, perfectly confident that she would have no trouble, while I was all doubts as to my success, insisted that I should put my foot over the saddle first, which I did by a terrible effort. Then came her turn, but she was so fat and her pony so broad that her leg wouldn't go over into the stirrup nor around the horn of a sidesaddle, so after trying several different saddles she commenced the walk down hill with her guide leading her horse, and commanded me to ride on with the other. By this time the sun was pouring down and my horse was slowly fastening one foot after another in the rocks and earth and thus carefully easing me down the steeps, while my guide baited me on by saying, "You are doing nicely, that is the worst place on the trail," when the fact was it hardly began to match what was coming.

At half-past two we reached Hutchings', and a more used-up mortal than I could not well exist, save poor Mrs. Stanton, four hours behind in the broiling sun, fairly sliding down the mountain. I had Mr. Hutchings fit out my guide with lunch and tea, and send him right back to her. About six she arrived, pretty nearly jelly. We both had a hot bath and she went supperless to bed, but I took my rations. Presently John K. McLean and party, of Oakland, came in. They had scaled Glacier Point that day and were about as tired and fagged as we. The next day Mrs. Stanton kept her bed till nearly noon; but I was up and on my horse at eight and off with the McLean party for the Nevada and Vernal Falls....

Saturday morning, with Stephen M. Cunningham for my guide, I went up the Mariposa trail seven miles to Artist's Point, and there under a big pine tree, on a rock jutting out over the valley, sat and gazed at the wondrous walls with their peaks and spires and domes. I could take in not only the whole circuit of the mountain tops but the valley enshrined below, with the beautiful Merced river meandering over its pebbly bed among the grass and shrubs and towering pines. We reached the hotel at 7 P.M.—tired—tired. Not a muscle, not one inch of flesh from my heels to my hands that was not sore and lame, but I took a good rub-off with the powerful camphor from the bottle mother so carefully filled for me, and went to bed with orders for my horse at 6 A.M.

Sunday morning's devotion for Minister McLean and the Rochester strong-minded was to ride two and a half miles to Mirror lake, and there wait and watch the coming of the sun over the rocky spires, reflected in the placid water. Such a glory mortal never beheld elsewhere. The lake was smooth as finest glass; the lofty granite peaks with their trees and shrubs were reflected more perfectly than costliest mirror ever sent back the face of most beautiful woman, and as the sun slowly emerged from behind a point of rock, the thinnest, flakiest white clouds approached or hung round it, and the reflection shaded them with the most delicate, yet most perfect and richest hues of the rainbow. And while we watched and worshipped we trembled lest some rude fish or bubble should break our mirror and forever shatter the picture seemingly wrought for our special eyes that Sunday morning. Then and there, in that holy hour, I thought of you, dear mother, in the body, and of dear father in the beyond, with eyes unsealed, and of Ann Eliza and Thomas King. I talked to John of them and wondered if they too sat not with us in that holy of holies not made with hands. O, how nothing seemed man-made temples, creeds and codes!