A magnificent argument in behalf of the petitions was made by Mr. Curtis, and the discussion lasted several days; but the committee handed in an adverse report, which was sustained by a large majority of the convention. When this result was announced, Anna Dickinson wrote Miss Anthony:

My blood boiled, my nerves thrilled, as I read from day to day the reports of the convention debate. Reasons urged for the enfranchisement of paupers, of idiots, of the ignorant, the degraded, the infamous—none for women! The exquisite care with which men guard their own rights in the most vulnerable of their sex—the silence, the scorn, the ridicule with which they pass by or allude to our claims—great God! it is too much for endurance and patience. Daily I pray for a tongue of flame and inspired lips to awaken the sleeping, arouse the careless, shake to trembling and overthrow the insolence of opposition.... After men and women have alike borne the burden and heat of battle, to mark the absolute silence with which these men regard the rights of half the race, while they squabble and wrangle, debate and contend, for exact justice to the poorest and meanest man—to mark this spectacle is to be filled with alternate pity and disgust.

Naturally the women felt highly indignant at the treatment they had received, especially from the Republican party, which was so deeply indebted for their services and from which they had every reason to expect recognition and support, and they did not hesitate freely to express themselves. Soon after their defeat at Albany Mr. Curtis wrote: "I beg you and your friends to understand that the real support of this measure, the support from conviction, comes from men who believe in Republican principles, and not from the Democracy as such." While a close analysis might prove the truth of this assertion, the women were not able to find comfort in the fact. As a party, the Republicans were opposed to their claims, and with the immense majority of its members completely under the domination of party, the result could be nothing but defeat. Not only was this the case, but the leaders, who dictated its policy and directed its action, although avowed believers in the political rights of women, did not hesitate to sacrifice them for the success of the party.

Lucy Stone and her husband had returned from Kansas the last of May, reporting a good prospect for carrying the woman suffrage amendment; but the Republicans there soon became frightened lest the one enfranchising the negro should be lost and, in order to lighten their ship, decided to throw the women overboard. Although the proposition had been submitted by a Republican legislature and signed by a Republican governor, the Republican State Committee resolved to remain "neutral," and then sent out speakers who, with the sanction of the committee, bitterly assailed this amendment and those advocating it. Prominent among these were P.B. Plumb, I.S. Kalloch, Judge T.C. Sears and C.V. Eskridge. The Democratic State Convention vigorously denounced the amendment. The State Temperance Society endorsed it, and this aroused the active enmity of the Germans. Eastern politicians warned those of Kansas not to imperil the negro's chance by taking up the woman question. Mr. Greeley, who at the beginning of the campaign warmly espoused woman suffrage in Kansas,[42] soured by his experience in the New York Constitutional Convention, withdrew the support of the Tribune and threw his influence against the amendment. Even the Independent, under the editorship of Tilton, was so dominated by party that, notwithstanding the appeals of the women, it had not one word of endorsement. There was scarcely a Republican home in that State which did not take one or the other of these papers, looking upon its utterances as inspired, and their influence was so great that their support alone could have carried the amendment.

Such was the situation when Miss Anthony started with Mrs. Stanton for Kansas, hoping to turn the tide. She learned, however, to her great disappointment, that no more money was available from the Jackson or the Hovey fund. The proposed campaign would call for so large an amount that any other woman would have given up in despair. Even the stock of literature had been exhausted and there was nothing left in the way of tracts or pamphlets. Undaunted, she set forth under a blazing July sun and tramped up and down Broadway soliciting advertisements for the fly-leaves of the new literature she meant to have printed.[43] She then visited various friends who were interested in the woman's cause, and received such sums as they could spare, but their number was not large and the demands were numerous. She also sent out many appealing letters, like this to her friend Mrs. Wright:

Mrs. Stanton and I start for Kansas Wednesday evening, stopping at Rochester just to look at my mother and my dear sister, sick so long, and I devoting scarce an hour to her the whole year. How will the gods make up my record on home affections?

You see our little trust fund—$1,800—of Jackson money is wrenched from us. The Hovey Committee gave us our last dollar in May, to balance last year's work, and I am responsible for stereotyping and printing the tracts, for the New York office expenses, and for Mrs. Stanton and myself in Kansas, in all not less than $2,000. Not one of the friends wants the Kansas work to go undone, and to do it, both tracts and lecturers must be sent out. We need money as never before. I have to take from my lean hundreds, that never dreamed of reaching thousands, to pay our travelling expenses. It takes $50 each for bare railroad tickets. We are advertised to speak every day—Sundays not excepted—from September 2, one week from today, to November 6. What an awful undertaking it looks to me, for I know Kansas possibilities in fare, lodging and travelling. I never was so nearly driven to desperation—so much waiting to be done, and not a penny but in hope and trust. Oh, if somebody else could go and I stay here, I could raise the money; but there is no one and I must go. We must not lose Kansas now, at least not from lack of work done according to our best ability.

Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton left New York August 28, 1867. It was necessary then to change cars several times to reach Atchison, their first appointment, and the trains being late they missed connections and were finally stranded at Macon City over Sunday. They found that while Mr. Wood had made out a very elaborate plan for their meetings and had posters printed for each place, these still remained piled up in the printing office. After making a two weeks' tour of the principal towns with Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony saw that an entire new program was necessary, that the meetings must be better advertised and there must be a central distributing point for tracts, etc., so she stationed herself at Lawrence. Senators Pomeroy and Ross gave the full use of their "franking" privilege and the former contributed $50 besides.

The Republicans called a mass meeting at Lawrence, September 5, of citizens from all parts of the State, "for consultation concerning the best method for defeating the proposition to strike the word 'male' from the Constitution of Kansas, and for arranging a canvass of the State in opposition to this amendment." A newspaper account said:

On motion of Judge G. W. Smith, Messrs. T. C. Sears, Rev. S. E. McBurney and C. V. Eskridge were appointed a committee on resolutions, and reported the following, which were unanimously adopted:

Resolved, That we recognize the doctrine of manhood suffrage as a principle of the Republican party, supported by reason, experience and justice.

Resolved, That we are unqualifiedly opposed to the dogma of "Female Suffrage," and while we do not recognize it as a party question, the attempt of certain persons within the State, and from without it, to enforce it upon the people of the State, demands the unqualified opposition of every citizen who respects the laws of society and the well-being and good name of our young commonwealth.

On motion, the executive committee were instructed to open a campaign based upon the foregoing resolutions; and an Anti-Female Suffrage Committee appointed of one member from each county.

At the beginning of the campaign, Republican leaders and newspapers were in favor of woman suffrage, but when it was feared that its advocacy would hazard the chances of negro suffrage, they repudiated the amendment. While it was by no means certain that all women when enfranchised would vote the Republican ticket, there was no doubt whatever that the negroes would, and so it was party expediency to sacrifice the women. Notwithstanding the opposition of both Republican and Democratic politicians, the woman suffrage advocates had large and friendly audiences and the amendment would have been carried beyond a doubt, if it had had the continued sanction of Republican leaders. In October, stung by the reproaches of the women, a number of influential Republicans from different parts of the country[44] sent out an appeal which was published in the newspapers of Kansas, but this was wholly offset by the active opposition of the State Committee.

The hardships of a campaign in the early days of Kansas scarcely can be described. Much of the travelling had to be done in wagons, fording streams, crossing the treeless prairies, losing the faintly outlined road in the darkness of night, sleeping in cabins, drinking poor water and subsisting on bacon, soda-raised bread, canned meats and vegetables, dried fruits and coffee without cream or milk, sweetened with sorghum. The nights offered the greatest trial, owing to a species of insect supposed to breed in the cotton wood trees. In one of her letters home Miss Anthony says: "It is now 10 A. M. and Mrs. Stanton is trying to sleep, as we have not slept a wink for several nights, but even in broad daylight our tormentors are so active that it is impossible. We find them in our bonnets, and this morning I think we picked a thousand out of the ruffles of our dresses. I can assure you that my avoirdupois is being rapidly reduced. It is a nightly battle with the infernals.... Twenty-five years hence it will be delightful to live in this beautiful State, but now, alas, its women especially see hard times, and there is no poetry in their lives." She was not given to complaining but again she writes:

It is enough to exhaust the patience of Job, the slip-shod way in which telegraph, express and postoffices are managed here. It is almost impossible to arrange for halls or to get literature delivered at the point where it is sent. We speak in school houses, barns, sawmills, log cabins with boards for seats and lanterns hung around for lights, but people come twenty miles to hear us. The opposition follow close upon our track, but they make converts for us. The fact is that most of them are notoriously wanting in right action toward women. Their objections are as low and scurrilous as they used to be in the East fifteen or twenty years ago. There is a perfect greed for our tracts, and the friends say they do more missionary work than we ourselves. If our suffrage advocates only would go into the new settlements at the very beginning, they could mould public sentiment, but they wait until the comforts of life are attainable and then find the ground occupied by the enemy.

Of course they were guests in some beautiful homes, free from all discomforts, but these were the exceptions. A striking instance of the first reception usually accorded the two ladies is given by Mrs. Starrett, in her Kansas chapter in the History of Woman Suffrage:

All were prepared beforehand to do Mrs. Stanton homage for her talents and fame, but many persons who had formed their ideas of Miss Anthony from the unfriendly remarks in opposition papers had conceived a prejudice against her. Perhaps I can not better illustrate how she everywhere overcame and dispelled this prejudice than by relating my own experience. A convention was called at Lawrence, and the friends of woman suffrage were asked to entertain strangers who might come from abroad. Ex-Governor Robinson asked me to entertain Mrs. Stanton. We had all things in readiness when I received a note stating that she had found relatives in town with whom she would stop, and Miss Anthony would come instead. I hastily put on bonnet and shawl, saying, "I won't have her and I am going to tell Governor Robinson so."

At the gate I met a dignified Quaker-looking lady with a small satchel and a black and white shawl on her arm. Offering her hand she said, "I am Miss Anthony, and I have been sent to you for entertainment during the convention."... Half disarmed by her genial manner and frank, kindly face, I led the way into the house and said I would have her stay to tea and then we would see what farther arrangements could be made. While I was looking after things she gained the affections of the babies; and seeing the door of my sister's sick-room open, she went in and in a short time had so won the heart and soothed instead of exciting the nervous sufferer, entertaining her with accounts of the outside world, that by the time tea was over I was ready to do anything if Miss Anthony would only stay with us. And stay she did for over six weeks, and we parted from her as from a beloved and helpful friend. I found afterwards that in the same way she made the most ardent friends wherever she became personally known.

The physical discomforts could have been borne without a murmur, but it was the treachery of friends, both East and West, which brought the discouragement and heart-sickness. One of the active opponents who canvassed the State was Charles Langston, the negro orator, whose brother John M. had met with much kindness from Miss Anthony and her family before the war. When one considers how these women had spent the best part of their lives in working for the freedom of the negro, their humiliation can be imagined at seeing educated colored men laboring with might and main to prevent white women from obtaining the same privileges which they were asking for themselves. It was a bitter dose and one which women have been compelled to take in every State where a campaign for woman suffrage has been made.

The Hutchinsons—John, his son Henry and lovely daughter Viola—were giving a series of concerts, travelling in a handsome carriage drawn by a span of white horses. As they had one vacant seat, they were carrying Rev. Olympia Brown, a talented Universalist minister from Massachusetts, who had been canvassing the State for several months, and she spoke for suffrage while they sang for both the negro and woman. Hon. Charles Robinson, the first Free State governor of Kansas, volunteered to take Mrs. Stanton in his carriage and pay all expenses. Their hard trip killed a pair of mules and a pair of Indian ponies. Miss Anthony directed affairs from her post at Lawrence and made herculean efforts to raise money for the campaign, which thus far was dependent on the collections at the meetings. There was scarcely a hope of victory.

On the 7th of October came a telegram from George Francis Train, who was then at Omaha, largely interested in the Union Pacific railroad. He had been invited by the secretary and other members of the St. Louis Suffrage Association to go to Kansas and help in the woman's campaign. Accordingly he telegraphed that if the committee wanted him he was ready, would pay his own expenses and win every Democratic vote. Miss Anthony never had seen Mr. Train; she merely knew of him as very wealthy and eccentric. The Republicans not only had forsaken the women but were waging open war upon them. The sole hope of carrying the amendment was by adding enough Democratic votes to those of Republicans who would not obey their party orders to vote against it. Every member of the woman suffrage committee who could be communicated with—Rev. and Mrs. Starrett, Rev. John S. Brown and daughter Sarah, Judge Thatcher and others—said that Mr. Train was an eloquent speaker and advised that he be invited, so the following telegram was sent: "Come to Kansas and stump the State for equal rights and woman suffrage. The people want you, the women want you. S. N. Wood, M. W. Reynolds, Charles Robinson, Mrs. J. H. Lane, E. Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony."

Mr. Train accepted and Miss Anthony at once began laying out a route for him and telegraphed: "Begin at Leavenworth Monday, October 21. Yes, with your help we shall triumph. All shall be ready for you." If she had had any political experience, she would have made his appointments along the railroad, whose employes were largely Irish, with whom he was very popular on account of his Fenian affiliations; but in her ignorance, she arranged for most of the meetings in small towns off the railroads, where the inhabitants were chiefly Republicans.

Mark W. Reynolds, editor of the Democratic paper at Lawrence, agreed to accompany him; but when the time arrived, although Mr. Reynolds had joined in the telegram of invitation, he took to the woods, going on a buffalo hunt without any excuse or explanation. Mr. Train made his first speech at Leavenworth, Mayor John A. Halderman presiding, Colonel D. R. Anthony, Rev. William Starrett and other Republicans on the platform. Laing's Hall was packed with Irishmen and when he first mentioned woman suffrage all of them hissed, but after he pointed out the absurdity of letting the negroes vote and shutting out their own mothers and wives, the tide turned and they cheered for the women. The next meeting was at Lawrence, and here Mr. Train objected decidedly to the route marked out, saying it was too rough a trip for any man, and as Mr. Reynolds had deserted him he was for giving up the tour. Not so Miss Anthony; she said: "Your offer and his were accepted in good faith. The engagements have been made and hand-bills sent to every post-office within fifty miles of the towns where meetings are to be held. The next announcement is for Olathe tomorrow night. I shall take Mr. Reynolds' place. At one o'clock I shall send a carriage to your hotel. You can do as you please about going. If you decline I shall go there and to all the other meetings alone." He replied: "Miss Anthony, you know how to make a man feel ashamed."

The next day when the carriage came to the Starretts, for Miss Anthony, Mr. Train was in it and, with her heart in her throat, she took her seat beside him. The situation was entirely unforeseen and decidedly embarrassing, but she never turned back, never allowed any earthly obstacle to stand in her way. There was a crowded house at Olathe and when the meeting closed two young men announced that they had been sent to take Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Train to Paola, and they would have to leave at 4 A. M. Miss Anthony was the guest of Rev. and Mrs. J. C. Beach. Next morning they started on time in a pouring rain, stopping at a little wayside inn for breakfast at six. The meeting was at eleven, in the Methodist church.

After it was over the county superintendent of schools, Mr. Bannister, took them to Ottawa in a lumber wagon. The steady rain had put the roads in a fearful condition and by the time they reached the river bottoms it was very dark and pouring in torrents. The driver lost his way and brought them up against a brush fence. Mr. Train jumped out of the vehicle, took off his coat so that his white shirtsleeves would show and thus guided the team back to the road; then he and the county superintendent took turns walking in front of the horses. The river finally was crossed and they reached Ottawa at 9 o'clock. Mr. Train was very fastidious and, no matter how late the hour, never would appear in public before he had changed his gray travelling suit for full dress costume with white vest and lavender kid gloves, declaring that he would not insult any audience by shabby clothes. This evening he made no exception and so, while he went to the hotel, Miss Anthony, wet, hungry and exhausted, made her way straight to the hall to see what had become of their audience.

She found that it had been taken in charge by General Blunt, one of the Republican campaign orators, and as she entered, he was making a violent attack on woman suffrage. Her arrival was not noticed and she concluded to sit quietly down in a corner and let matters take their course. A stairway led from some lower region up to the platform and, just as the speaker was declaring, "This man Train is an infernal traitor and a vile copperhead," Mr. Train appeared at the top of the stairs. The audience broke into a roar, and in a few moments he had the general under a scathing fire.

From Ottawa they travelled, still in a lumber wagon, to Mound City and then to Fort Scott, where they had an immense audience. After the meeting Train went to the newspaper office and wrote out his speech, which filled two pages of the Monitor, and Miss Anthony and the friends spent all of Sunday in wrapping and mailing these papers. From here they drove to Humboldt in a mail wagon, stopping for dinner at a little "half-way house," a cabin with no floor. Miss Anthony retains a lively recollection of this place, for the hostess brought a platter of fried pork, swimming in grease, and in her haste emptied the contents the whole length of her light gray travelling dress. They found many people ill, and Mr. Train always prescribed not a drop of green tea, not a mouthful of pork, though that was the only meat they could get, plenty of fruit, though there was none to be had in Kansas, and a thorough bath every morning, although there was not enough water to wash the dishes. During this trip he stopped at hotels, but Miss Anthony usually was invited to stay with families who were either her personal friends or warm advocates of the cause she represented.

So on they went, to Leroy, Burlington, Emporia, Junction City. It was 9 o'clock when they reached the last and, as usual, Miss Anthony had to make her speech without change of dress, and a half hour later Mr. Train stepped on the platform, refreshed and resplendent. His first words were: "When Miss Anthony gets back to New York she is going to start a woman suffrage paper. Its name is to be The Revolution; its motto, 'Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.' This paper is to be a weekly, price $2 per year; its editors, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury; its proprietor, Susan B. Anthony. Let everybody subscribe for it!" Miss Anthony was dumbfounded. During the long journey that day, he had asked her why the equal rights people did not have a paper and she had replied that it was not for lack of brains but want of money. "Will not Greeley and Beecher and Phillips and Tilton advance the money?" "No, they say this is the negro's hour and no time to advocate woman suffrage." "Well," said he, "I will give you the money." She had not taken him seriously and was amazed when he made this public statement, announcing name, price, editors, motto and everything complete.

[Autograph: Sincerely, Geo. Francis Train]

They spoke at Topeka and Wyandotte and reached Leavenworth the Sunday previous to election. Mr. Train spent the evening at Colonel Anthony's, entertaining them in his inimitable manner till midnight, and after he left the colonel declared that "he knew more about more things than any man living." Governor Robinson and Mrs. Stanton were to close the campaign in this city the day before election, and the meeting had been thoroughly advertised, but at the last moment they telegraphed that they would be unable to arrive till evening, so it was decided that Mr. Train should remain at Leavenworth to speak in the afternoon, and Miss Anthony should keep the engagement at Atchison, announcing Mr. Train for the evening. This she did, but at night, when a great crowd had assembled, a telegram brought word that the cars were off the track and he could not reach that city. There was nothing for her to do but make a short speech and adjourn the meeting.

Mr. Train had promised Miss Anthony that he really would advance the money to start a paper and, in addition, had proposed to defray all the expenses of Mrs. Stanton and herself if they would join him in a lecture tour of the principal cities on the way eastward. It was essential, therefore, for her to have a talk with him before she could make a definite statement to Mrs. Stanton, and her only chance for this was to cross the Missouri river and wait for the belated train from Leavenworth. She found the ferryboats had stopped running for the night, but George Martin, chairman of the suffrage committee of Atchison, offered to take her across in a skiff. Undaunted, she seated herself therein and in the dense darkness was safely landed on the opposite shore. Here she boarded the cars and went to St. Joseph where she met Mr. Train, made the necessary arrangements and returned to Leavenworth by the first train.

On election day the Hutchinsons, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, in open carriages, visited all the polling-places in Leavenworth, where the two ladies spoke and the Hutchinsons sang. Both amendments were overwhelmingly defeated, that for negro suffrage receiving 10,843 votes, and that for woman suffrage 9,070, out of a total of about 30,000. These 9,000 votes were the first ever cast in the United States for the enfranchisement of women. How many of them were Republican and how many Democratic, and how much influence Mr. Train may have had one way or another, never can be known; but it is a significant fact that Douglas county, the most radical Republican district, gave the largest vote against woman suffrage, and Leavenworth, the strongest Democratic county, gave the largest majority in its favor.

The Commercial, the Democratic paper of this city, said:

When we consider the many obstacles thrown in the way of the advocates of this measure, the indifference with which the masses look upon anything new in government and their indisposition to change, the degree of success of these advocates is not only remarkable, but one of which they have a just right to feel proud. To these two ladies, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, to their indomitable will and courage, to their eloquence and energy, is due much of the merit of the work performed in the State.... While in the recent election these ladies were not successful to the full extent of their wishes, they have the consciousness of knowing that their work has been commensurate with the combined efforts of party organization, congressmen, senators, press and ministers to enfranchise the negro, and that the people of Kansas are not more averse to giving the franchise to woman than to the black man.

During the campaign the usual order was for Miss Anthony to speak the first half hour, making a clear, concise, strong argument for suffrage as the right of an American citizen, pleading for the negro as well as for the women, and urging men to vote for both amendments. She then was followed by Mr. Train, who insisted that it would be one of the grossest outrages to give suffrage to the black man and not to the white woman, and pleaded earnestly that the women of Kansas should be enfranchised. In this he was sincere, as he believed thoroughly that women ought to have the ballot. He was an inimitable mimic and was unsparing in his ridicule of those Republicans who had battled so valiantly for equal rights but now demanded that American women should stand back quietly and approvingly and see the negro fully invested with the powers denied to themselves. He had a remarkable memory, an unequalled quickness of repartee, a peculiar gift of improvising epigrams and, while erratic, was a brilliant and entertaining speaker. He was at this time about thirty-five, nearly six feet tall, a handsome brunette, with curling hair and flashing dark eyes, the picture of vigorous health. He was exquisitely neat in person and irreproachable in habits, and had a fine courtliness of bearing toward women which suggested the old-school gentleman. Miss Anthony often said that all the severe criticisms made upon him for years had not been able to impair the respect with which he inspired her during that most trying campaign. Mrs. Stanton, essentially an aristocrat and severe in her judgment of men and manners, spoke most highly of Mr. Train in her Reminiscences.

Some of the friends in Kansas were opposed to the contemplated lecture tour, and letters were received from the East urging that it be abandoned. Mrs. Stanton was accustomed to defer to Miss Anthony in such matters.[45] The latter felt that they had been deserted by their old friends and supporters and the breach was too wide to be soon healed. Here was a man of wealth and high personal character, who offered to arrange a lecture tour of the principal cities of the country, pay all expenses and at the end of the journey furnish capital for a paper. It seemed to her she could best serve the cause she placed above all else by accepting the offer, and she did so.

As time was limited, Miss Anthony had to make arrangements for hall, etc., by telegraph, which cost Mr. Train $100. The series commenced in Omaha, November 19, and continued in Chicago, Springfield. St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, Springfield (Mass.), Worcester, Boston and Hartford, ending with a great meeting in Steinway Hall, New York, December 14. Mr. Train engaged the most elegant suites of rooms in the best hotels for the ladies, secured the finest halls, and this was remembered as the only luxurious suffrage tour they ever had made. There was a railway wreck between Louisville and Cincinnati, and he chartered a special train in order that they might keep their engagement at the latter place. This trip cost him $3,000.

Where heretofore the Democratic papers had been abusive and some, at least, of the Republican papers complimentary, the tone was now completely reversed. Because they had affiliated with Mr. Train, the former had nothing but praise, and for the same reason the latter were unsparing in their denunciations, and were bitterly indignant at the women for accepting from Mr. Train and other Democrats the help which they themselves had positively refused. They insisted that the Democrats only used woman suffrage as a club to beat negro suffrage, which doubtless was true of many, but Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton claimed the right to accept proffered aid without looking behind it for the motive. The opposition, however, did not arise alone from the press and the politicians. From the leading advocates of suffrage came a vehement protest against any partnership with George Francis Train. The old associates wrote scores of letters expressing their personal allegiance, but refusing to attend the meetings and repudiating the connection of Mr. Train with the woman suffrage movement. Miss Anthony was made to realize to the fullest extent the feeling which had been aroused, but the last entry in the diary says: "The year goes out, and never did one depart that had been so filled with earnest and effective work; 9,000 votes for woman in Kansas, and a newspaper started! The Revolution is going to be work, work and more work. The old out and the new in!"

[Footnote 40: Helen Skin Starrett, in her Kansas reminiscences, says: "Miss Anthony always looked after Mrs. Stanton's interests and comfort in the most cheerful and kindly manner. I remember one evening in Lawrence when the hall was crowded with an eager and expectant audience. Miss Anthony was there early, looking after everything, seats, lights, ushers, doorkeepers. Presently Governor Robinson said to her, 'Where's Mrs. Stanton? It's time to commence.' 'She's at Mrs.——'s waiting for some of you men to go for her with a carriage,' was the reply. The hint was quickly acted upon and Mrs. Stanton, fresh, smiling and unfatigued, was presented to the audience."]

[Footnote 41: His intense feeling on the matter is thus described in the History of Woman Suffrage:

"A few weeks after this he met Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony at one of Alice Cary's Sunday evening receptions. As he approached, both arose and with extended hands exclaimed most cordially, 'Good evening, Mr. Greeley.' But his hands hung limp by his side, as he said in measured tones: 'You two ladies are the most maneuvering politicians in the State of New York. I saw in the manner my wife's petition was presented, that Mr. Curtis was acting under instructions, and I saw the reporters prick up their ears.' Turning to Mrs. Stanton, he asked, 'You are so tenacious about your own name, why did you not inscribe my wife's maiden name, Mary Cheney Greeley, on her petition?' 'Because,' she replied, 'I wanted all the world to know that it was the wife of Horace Greeley who protested against her husband's report.' 'Well,' said he, 'I understand the animus of that whole proceeding, and I have given positive instructions that no word of praise shall ever again be awarded you in the Tribune, and that if your name is ever necessarily mentioned, it shall be as Mrs. Henry B. Stanton!' And so it has been to this day."]

[Footnote 42: Womanhood suffrage is now a progressive cause beyond fear of cavil. It has won a fair field where once it was looked upon as an airy nothing, and it has gained champions and converts without number. The young State of Kansas is fitly the vanguard of this cause, and the signs of the agitation therein hardly allow a doubt that the citizenship of women will be ere long recognized in its laws. Fourteen out of twenty of its newspapers are in favor of making woman a voter.... The vitality of the Kansas movement is indisputable, and whether defeated or successful in the present contest, it will still hold strongly fortified ground.—New York Tribune, May 29, 1867.]

[Footnote 43: From the Howe Sewing Machine Co., she got $150; from the Samuel Browning Washing Machine Co., $100; from Dr. Dio Lewis' Gymnasium, $100, and from Madame Demorest's Fine Millinery and Patterns, a considerable sum; besides a donation of $100 from Mr. and Mrs. E. D. Draper, of Massachusetts, and $150 from Sarah B. Shaw, mother of Mrs. George Wm. Curtis; and in this way raised partly enough to print 50,000 tracts.]

[Footnote 44: Charles Robinson, S. N. Wood, Samuel C. Pomeroy, E. G. Ross, Sidney Clark, S. G. Crawford, Kansas; James W. Nye, Nevada; William Loughridge, Iowa; Robert Collyer, Illinois; George W. Julian, H. D. Washburn, Indiana; R. E. Trowbridge, John F. Driggs, Michigan; Benjamin F. Wade, Ohio; J. W. Broomall, William D. Kelley, Pennsylvania; Henry Ward Beecher, Gerrit Smith, George William Curtis, New York; Dudley S. Gregory, George Polk, John G. Foster, James L. Hayes, Z. H. Pangborn, New Jersey; Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Samuel E. Sewall, Oakes Ames, Massachusetts; William Sprague, T. W. Higginson, Rhode Island; Calvin E. Stowe, Connecticut.]

[Footnote 45: "I take my beloved Susan's judgment against the world, I have always found that when we see eye to eye we are sure to be right, and when we pull together we are strong. After we discuss any point and fully agree, our faith in our united judgment is immovable, and no amount of ridicule and opposition has the slightest influence, come from what quarter it may."]



CHAPTER XVIII.

ESTABLISHING THE REVOLUTION.

1868.

The first entry in the diary of 1868, January 1, reads: "All the old friends, with scarce an exception, are sure we are wrong. Only time can tell, but I believe we are right and hence bound to succeed." Immediately after the meeting at Steinway Hall, Mr. Train had brought with him to call on Miss Anthony, David M. Melliss, financial editor of the New York World, and they entered into an agreement by which the two men were to supply the funds for publishing a paper until it was on a paying basis. It was to be conducted by Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton in the interests of women, and Mr. Train and Mr. Melliss were to use such space as they desired for expressing their financial and other opinions. The first number was issued January 8, a handsome quarto of sixteen pages.

Ten thousand copies were printed and, under the congressional frank of Representative James Brooks, of New York, were sent to all parts of the country. The advent of this element in the newspaper world created a sensation such as scarcely ever has been equalled by any publication. From hundreds of clippings a few characteristic examples are selected. The New York Sunday Times said:

THE LADIES MILITANT.—It is out at last. If the women as a body have not succeeded in getting up a revolution, Susan B. Anthony, as their representative, has. Her Revolution was issued last Thursday as a sort of New Year's gift to what she considered a yearning public, and it is said to be "charged to the muzzle with literary nitre-glycerine." If Mrs. Stanton would attend a little more to her domestic duties and a little less to those of the great public, perhaps she would exalt her sex quite as much as she does by Quixotically fighting windmills in their gratuitous behalf, and she might possibly set a notable example of domestic felicity. No married woman can convert herself into a feminine Knight of the Rueful Visage and ride about the country attempting to redress imaginary wrongs without leaving her own household in a neglected condition that must be an eloquent witness against her. As for the spinsters, we have always said that every woman has a natural and inalienable right to a good husband and a pretty baby. When, by proper "agitation," she has secured this right, she best honors herself and her sex by leaving public affairs behind her, and endeavoring to show how happy she can make the little world of which she has just become the brilliant center.

The New York Independent, the great organ of the Congregationalists, had this breezy editorial:

The Revolution is the martial name of a bristling and defiant new weekly journal, the first number of which has just been laid on our table. When we mention that it is edited by Mr. Parker Pillsbury and Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, all the world will immediately know what to expect from it. Those two writers can never be accused of having nothing to say, or of backwardness in saying it. Each has separately long maintained a striking individuality of tongue and pen. Working together, they will produce a canvas of the Rembrandt school—Mrs. Stanton painting the high lights and Mr. Pillsbury the deep darks. In fact, the new journal's real editors are Hope and Despair. Beaumont and Fletcher were intellectually something alike; but Mrs. Stanton and Mr. Pillsbury are totally different. The lady is a gay Greek, come forth from Athens; the gentleman is a sombre Hebrew, bound back to Jerusalem. We know of no two more striking, original, and piquant writers. What keen criticisms, what knife-blade repartees, what lacerating sarcasms we shall expect from the one! What solemn, reverberating, sanguinary damnations we shall hear from the other!

Conspicuous among the new journal's contributors is that great traveller, hotel-builder, epigrammatist and kite-flyer, Mr. George Francis Train. So The Revolution, from the start, will arouse, thrill, edify, amuse, vex and nonplus its friends. But it will compel attention; it will conquer a hearing. Its business management is in the good hands of Miss Susan B. Anthony, who has long been known as one of the most indefatigable, honest, obstinate, faithful, cross-grained and noble-minded of the famous women of America. It only remains to add that, as "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance," so the price of The Revolution is two dollars a year.

The Cincinnati Enquirer in a complimentary notice said: "Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Revolution grows with each additional number more spicy, readable and revolutionary. It hits right and left, from the shoulder and overhand, at every body and thing that opposes the granting of suffrage to females as well as males. The Revolution is mourning over no lost cause, but is aggressive, bold and determined to win one dear to its heart." New York's society paper, the Home Journal, commented: "The Revolution is plucky, keen and wide awake, and although some of its ways are not at all to our taste, we are glad to recognize in it the inspiration of the noblest aims, and the sagacity and talent to accomplish what it desires. It is on the right track, whether it has taken the right train or not;" while the Chicago Workingman's Advocate declared: "We have no doubt it will prove an able ally of the labor reform movement." The Boston Commonwealth observed approvingly: "It is edited by Mrs. E.C. Stanton and Parker Pillsbury, whose names are guarantees of ability and character. Their effusions are able, pertinent and courageous."

To quote from Mrs. Stanton: "Radical and defiant in tone, it awoke friends and foes alike to action. Some denounced it, some ridiculed it, but all read it. It needed just such clarion notes, sounded forth long and loud each week, to rouse the friends of the movement from the apathy into which they had fallen after the war." Miss Anthony went to Washington to introduce the paper and returned with a list of distinguished subscribers, including President Johnson himself! The following from Mrs. Stanton will show how criticising letters usually were answered:

I know that you would feel that we were right if I could talk with you. If George Francis Train had done for the negro all that he has done for woman the last three months, the Abolitionists would enshrine him as a saint. The attacks on Susan and me by a few persons have been petty and narrow, but we are right and this nine days' wonder will soon settle itself. Of course, people turn up the whites of their eyes, but time will bring them all down again. We have reason to congratulate ourselves that we have shocked more friends of the cause into life than we ever dreamed we had—persons who never gave a cent or said a word for our movement are the most concerned lest Susan and I should injure it. Mr. Train has some extravagances and idiosyncrasies, but he is willing to devote his energies to our cause when no other man is, and we should be foolish not to accept his aid. To think of Boston women holding a festival to aid the Anti-Slavery Standard, while their own petitions are ignored in the Senate of the United States! Women have been degraded so long they have lost all self-respect. If we love the black man as well as ourselves we shall fulfill the Bible injunction. The anti-slavery requirement to love him better is a little too much for human nature.

A few members of the executive board of the Equal Rights Association made a strong attempt to prevent the editors of The Revolution from occupying the room at No. 37 Park Row, used for their headquarters. Miss Anthony soon showed, however, that she had made herself personally responsible for the rent, that while she was overwhelmed with the work of the Kansas campaign letters were continually sent her asking if she could not somehow get the money to pay it, and that as soon as she returned, she borrowed $100 on her own note and paid it in full. So she held possession and the committee, after voting itself out at one session, voted itself back at the next, and finally abandoned the room.

On the very day the first copy of The Revolution appeared, Mr. Train announced that he was going to England immediately. Miss Anthony says in her diary: "My heart sank within me; only our first number issued and our strongest helper and inspirer to leave us! This is but another discipline to teach us that we must stand on our own feet." Mr. Train gave her $600 and assured her that he had arranged with Mr. Melliss to supply all necessary funds during his short absence, but she felt herself invested with a heavy responsibility. A few days later Mrs. Stanton said in a letter to a friend:

Our paper has a monied basis of $50,000 and men who understand business to push it. Train is engaging writers and getting subscribers in Europe. It will improve in every way when we are thoroughly started. Just now we are fighting for our life among reformers; they pitch into us without mercy. We are trying to make the Democrats take up our question, for that is the only way to move the Republicans. Subscribers come in rapidly, beyond our most sanguine expectations. The press in the main is cordial, but looks askance at a political paper edited by a woman. If we had started a "Lily" or a "Rosebud" and remained in the region of sentiment, we should have been eulogized to the skies, but here is something dangerous.

Instead of Mr. Train's securing writers and subscribers in Europe, he was arrested for complicity with the Fenians the moment he made his first speech, and spent the year in a Dublin jail. He wrote that the finding of fifty copies of The Revolution in his possession was an additional reason for his arrest, as the officials did not stop to read a word, the name was sufficient. While Mr. Train continued his contributions to the paper during his residence in jail, he was not able to meet his financial obligations to it. Mr. Melliss made heroic efforts to pay in his quota, but the days were full of anxiety for everybody connected with The Revolution. Miss Anthony was used to such care. She had been the financial burden-bearer of every reform with which she had been connected, but to this crushing weight was added such a persecution as she never had experienced before, even in the days of pro-slavery mobs. Then the attacks had been made by open and avowed enemies, and she had had a host of staunch supporters to share them and give her courage; now her persecutors were in ambush and were those who had been her nearest and dearest friends; and now she was alone except for Mrs. Stanton and Mr. Pillsbury. Even they were labored with, and besought to renounce one who seemed to have complete mastery over them and was leading them to destruction, but nothing could shake their allegiance. The excuse for this persecution was that the Equal Rights Association was injured by the publication of The Revolution.

That there should be a paper published in the interest of the rights of women had been the dream of the advocates for many years. Antoinette Blackwell had written Miss Anthony several years before: "I wish we had the contemplated paper for Mrs. Stanton's especial benefit. I am afraid it will be too late for her when we get it fairly established, which does not promise to be very soon. Lucy believes her own talents lie in other directions, and gives no approval to the plan for herself." Lucy Stone had written: "We must have a paper and dear, brave, sensible Mrs. Stanton must be the editor." And at another time: "I feel very proud of Mrs. Stanton, she is so strong and noble. When we have a new paper she must be the editor."

Mrs. Stanton, with her house and her large family, had no desire for this position. Miss Anthony herself was not a writer, and many times of late years had agitated the question of raising money to have Lucy Stone and her husband at the head of a paper, they having now signified their willingness to hold such a place. The founding of The Revolution was totally unexpected and its editors accepted it only because of the great need of a medium through which the cause of woman might be thoroughly advocated. There was not the slightest desire to enter into rivalry with anybody or to antagonize the Republicans. If the latter had been willing to furnish the money to start a paper, or had allowed space in their own publications, the favor would have been most gladly accepted. Had the members of the Equal Rights Association raised a fund to establish an organ, so much the better, but although the subject had been talked of for years, the capital had not been forthcoming. There was no attempt to make the association responsible for the opinions of The Revolution, as this letter from Mrs. Stanton indicates:

Susan and I, though members of the Equal Rights Association, do many things outside that body for which no one is responsible. The idea of starting a paper under its auspices, or as an organ for it, never entered our minds. We went to Kansas as individuals; personal friends outside that association gave us money to go and contributed the funds to start a paper. We object to that resolution of censure, first, because we were outside its province; second, because it was an outrage to repudiate Susan and me, who have labored without cessation for twenty years and had just returned from a hard three months' campaign. For any one to question our devotion to this cause is to us amazing. The treatment of us by Abolitionists also is enough to try the souls of better saints than we. The secret of all this furor is Republican spite. They want to stave off our question until after the presidential campaign. They can keep all the women still but Susan and me. They can't control us, therefore the united effort of Republicans, Abolitionists and certain women to crush us and our paper.

In showing how the women were sacrificed, The Revolution said:

Charles Sumner, Horace Greeley, Gerrit Smith and Wendell Phillips, with one consent, bid the women of the nation stand aside and behold the salvation of the negro. Wendell Phillips says, "One idea for a generation," to come up in the order of their importance. First negro suffrage, then temperance, then the eight-hour movement, then woman suffrage. Three generations hence, woman suffrage will be in order! What an insult to the women who have labored thirty years for the emancipation of the slave, now when he is their political equal, to propose to lift him above their heads. Gerrit Smith, forgetting that our great American idea is "individual rights," on which Abolitionists have ever based their strongest arguments for emancipation, says: "This is the time to settle the rights of races; unless we do justice to the negro we shall bring down on ourselves another bloody revolution, another four years' war, but we have nothing to fear from woman, she will not avenge herself!" Woman not avenge herself? Look at your asylums for the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the insane, and there behold the results of this wholesale desecration of the mothers of the race! Woman not avenge herself? Go into the streets of your cities at the midnight hour, and there behold those whom God meant to be queens in the moral universe giving your sons their first lessons in infamy and vice. No, you can not wrong the humblest of God's creatures without making discord and confusion in the whole social system.

In regard to the bitter persecution waged upon the two women, Ellen Wright Garrison said in a letter to Miss Anthony: "This sitting in judgment upon those whose views differ from our own, pouring vials of wrath on their heads and calling in the outside and prejudiced public to help condemn, is unwise and un-Christian." Her mother, Martha Wright, who at first was inclined to blame, wrote in the spring of 1868: "As regards the paper, its vigorous pages are what we need. I regret the idiosyncrasies of Mr. Train, as they give occasion to the sons and daughters of the Philistines to rejoice, and the children of the uncircumcised only wanted a good excuse to triumph. Shall you be at the May meeting? I will not be there under any circumstances without you and Susan and our good friend Parker; so whatever may become of Mr. Train or of the paper, count me now and ever as your true and unswerving friend."

The following graphic description, by the correspondent, Nellie Hutchinson, was published in the Cincinnati Commercial:

There's a peculiarly resplendent sign at the head of the third flight of stairs, and obeying its directions I march into the north corridor and enter The Revolution office. Nothing so very terrible after all. The first face that salutes my vision is a youthful one—fresh, smiling, bright-eyed, auburn-crowned. It belongs to one of the employes of the establishment, and its owner conducts me to a comfortable sofa, then trips lightly through a little door opposite to inform Miss Anthony of my presence.

I glance about me. What editorial bliss is this! Actually a neat carpet on the floor, a substantial round table covered by a pretty cloth, engravings and photographs hung thickly over the clear white walls. Here is Lucretia Mott's saintly face, beautiful with eternal youth; there Mary Wollstonecraft looking into futurity with earnest eyes. In an arched recess are shelves containing books and piles of pamphlets, speeches and essays of Stuart Mill, Wendell Phillips, Higginson, Curtis. Two screens extend across the front of the room, inclosing a little space around the two large windows which give light, air and glimpses of City Hall park. Glancing around the corner we see editor Pillsbury seated at his desk by the further window. Opposite is another desk covered with brown wrappers and mailing books. Close against the screen stands yet another, at which sits the bookkeeper, an energetic young woman who ably manages all the business affairs of The Revolution. There's an atmosphere of womanly purity and delicacy about the place; everything is refreshingly neat and clean, and suggestive of reform.

Ah! here comes Susan—the determined—the invincible, the Susan who is possibly destined to be Vice-President or Secretary of State some of these days! What a delicious thought! I tremble as she steps rapidly toward me and I perceive in her hand a most statesmanlike roll of MSS. The eyes scan me coolly and interrogatively but the pleasant voice gives me a yet pleasanter greeting. There's something very attractive, even fascinating in that voice—a faint echo of the alto vibration—the tone of power. Her smile is very sweet and genial, and lights up the pale, worn face rarely. She talks awhile in her kindly, incisive way. "We're not foolishly or blindly aggressive," says she, tersely; "we don't lead a fight against the true and noble institutions of the world. We only seek to substitute for various barbarian ideas, those of a higher civilization—to develop a race of earnest, thoughtful, conscientious women." And I thought as I remembered various newspaper attacks, that here was not much to object to. The world is the better for thee, Susan.

She rises; "Come, let me introduce you to Mrs. Stanton." And we walk into the inner sanctum, a tiny bit of a room, nicely carpeted, one-windowed and furnished with two desks, two chairs, a little table—and the senior editor, Mrs. Stanton. The short, substantial figure, with its handsome black dress and silver crown of curls, is sufficiently interesting. The fresh, girlish complexion, the laughing blue eyes and jolly voice are yet more so. Beside her stands her sixteen-year-old daughter, who is as plump, as jolly, as laughing-eyed as her mother. We study Cady Stanton's handsome face as she talks on rapidly and facetiously. Nothing little or mean in that face; no line of distrust or irony; neither are there wrinkles of care—life has been pleasant to this woman.



We hear a bustle in the outer room—rapid voices and laughing questions—then the door is suddenly thrown open and in steps a young Aurora, habited in a fur-trimmed cloak, with a jaunty black velvet cap and snowy feather set upon her dark clustering curls. What sprite is this, whose eyes flash and sparkle with a thousand happy thoughts, whose dimples and rosy lips and white teeth make so charming a picture? "My dear Anna," says Susan, starting up, and there's a shower of kisses. Then follows an introduction to Anna Dickinson. As we clasp hands for a moment, I look into the great gray eyes that have flashed with indignation and grown moist with pity before thousands of audiences. They are radiant with mirth now, beaming as a child's, and with graceful abandon she throws herself into a chair and begins a ripple of gay talk. The two pretty assistants come in and look at her with loving eyes; we all cluster around while she wittily recounts her recent lecturing experience. As the little lady keeps up her merry talk, I think over these three representative women. The white-haired, comely matron sitting there hand-in-hand with her daughter, intellectual, large-hearted, high-souled—a mother of men; the grave, energetic old maid—an executive power; the glorious girl, who, without a thought of self, demands in eloquent tones justice and liberty for all, and prophesies like an oracle of old.

May we not hope that America's coming woman will combine these salient qualities, and with all the powers of mind, soul and heart vivified and developed in a liberal atmosphere, prove herself the noblest creature in the world? And so I leave them there—the pleasant group—faithful in their work, happy in their hopes.

On May 14, 1868, the American Equal Rights Association held its second anniversary in Cooper Institute. Mrs. Stanton, who had a wholesome dread of anything disagreeable, was determined not to go, but Miss Anthony declared that to stay away would be showing the "white feather" and that, as their enemies had been many weeks working up a sentiment against them, their presence would prove they had nothing to fear. When the convention assembled, Lucretia Mott, the president, being absent on account of the recent death of her husband, Colonel Higginson said to Miss Anthony: "Now we want everything pleasant and peaceable here, do we not?" "Certainly," she replied. "Well then, we must have Lucy Stone open this meeting." "Why so," asked Miss Anthony, "when Mrs. Stanton is first vice-president? It would be not only an insult to her but a direct violation of parliamentary usage. I shall never consent to it." Finding that, nevertheless, there was a scheme to carry out this plan, she put Mrs. Stanton on the alert and, as the officers filed on the platform, gave her a gentle push to the front, whereupon she opened the convention with the utmost suavity.

It was here that these pioneers of the movement for woman suffrage had the humiliation of hearing Frederick Douglass announce that it was women's duty to take a back seat and wait till the negro was enfranchised before they put in their claim. Rev. Olympia Brown and Lucy Stone both declared the Republican party false to its principles unless it protected women as well as colored men in their right to vote, and in his report on the Kansas campaign, Mr. Blackwell, after speaking of the splendid work of Lucy Stone, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton and Miss Brown, said: "Their eloquence and determination gave great promise of success; but, in an inopportune moment, Horace Greeley and others saw fit in the Constitutional Convention to report adversely to woman suffrage in New York, which influenced the sentiment in the younger western State and its enterprise was crushed. Even the Republicans in Kansas set their faces against the extension of suffrage to women."

Throughout the entire convention there was much resentment on the part of the women at the manner in which they had been abandoned in favor of the negro. During the same week, at the anti-slavery meeting in Steinway Hall, Anna Dickinson, in the midst of an impassioned speech, declared: "The position of the black woman today is no better than before her emancipation from slavery. She has simply changed masters from a white owner to a black husband in many cases." She demanded freedom and franchise for woman as for man, irrespective of color; and, while giving Mr. Phillips credit for his years of service in the cause of woman, took occasion to enter her protest against the tenor of a portion of his morning address—in effect, that woman's rights must be set aside until the rights of the black man were fully secured.

As there was so much cavilling and faultfinding on the part of many of the Equal Rights Association at every forward and radical step taken by Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, they formed an independent committee of themselves, Elizabeth Smith Miller, daughter of Gerrit Smith, Mrs. Horace Greeley and Abby Hopper Gibbons, daughter of Isaac T. Hopper, the noted Abolitionist, and wife of a prominent banker. These ladies sent a memorial to the Republican National Convention, which met in Chicago and nominated General Grant, but it never saw the light after reaching there. Snubbed on every hand by the Republicans, they determined to appeal to the Democrats. On June 27 Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton attended a mass convention addressed by Governor Seymour, calling out the following editorial from the New York Sun:

The fact that Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Miss Susan B. Anthony were the only ladies admitted upon the platform at Cooper Institute, may be regarded as not only committing them to Governor Seymour's views, but as committing the approaching Democratic convention, in whose behalf he spoke, to the doctrine of woman suffrage. Therefore, whether Miss Anthony is received as a delegate to the July convention, it is clear that female suffrage must be incorporated among the planks of the national Democratic platform; and if Governor Seymour, who is a remarkably fine-looking man, is nominated, he will receive the undivided support of the women of the North, which will more than compensate for the loss of the negro vote of the South.

At the meeting of the Equal Rights Committee, held in New York, a half-sarcastic resolution was offered by Theodore Tilton and adopted by the committee declaring that as "Miss Susan B. Anthony, through various published writings in The Revolution, had given the world to understand that the hope of the woman's rights cause rests more largely with the Democratic party than with any other portion of the people; therefore she be requested to attend the approaching National Democratic Convention in New York for the purpose of fulfilling this cheerful hope by securing in the Democratic platform a recognition of woman's right to the elective franchise."

Miss Anthony ignored the sarcasm, and with Mrs. Stanton at once prepared a memorial.[46] The convention met and dedicated Tammany Hall on July 4, 1868. This was the first time since the war that the southern Democrats had joined with the northern in national convention and, conservative as they naturally were and separated as they had been from all the woman's rights agitation which had kept the North stirred up for the past decade, one can imagine their amazement when Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton and a few other ladies walked into the great hall and occupied reserved seats at the left of the platform. Their memorial was sent to the president, Horatio Seymour, and by him handed to the secretary, who read it amid jeers and laughter. It was then referred to the resolution committee where it slept the sleep of death. The special correspondent of the Chicago Republican thus describes the scene when the memorial was presented:

Susan B. Anthony appeared to the convention like Minerva, goddess of wisdom. Her advent was with thunders, not of applause, but of the scorn of a degenerate masculinity. The great Horatio said, with infinite condescension, that he held in his hand a memorial of the women of the United States. The name of Miss Anthony was greeted with a yell such as a Milton might imagine to rise from a conclave of the damned. "She asked to plead the cause of her sex; to demand the enfranchisement of the women of America—the only class of citizens not represented in the government, the only class without a vote, and their only disability, the insurmountable one of sex." As these last significant words, with more than significant accent and modulation, came from the lips of the knightly, the courtly Horatio, a bestial roar of laughter, swelling now into an almost Niagara chorus, now subsiding into comparative silence, and again without further provocation rising into infernal sublimity, shook the roof of Tammany. Sex—the sex of women—was the subject of this infernal scorn; and the great Democratic gathering, with yells and shrieks and demoniac, deafening howls, consigned the memorial of Susan B. Anthony to the committee on resolutions.

The World, the Herald, the Democratic press generally, spoke of this incident in satirical and half-contemptuous tones, and the few papers which treated it seriously declared in effect that, if they had to take the "nigger," they might as well add woman to the unpalatable dose. A petition from the Workingmen's Association to this same convention, demanding a "greenback plank" in the platform, was received with great respect and the plank put in as requested—offering the very strongest object lesson of the superiority of an enfranchised over a disfranchised class. It was not that the convention had more respect for the workingman, per se, but they feared his vote and so adopted the greenback plank in order to placate him, and then nominated for President the most ultra of gold bond-paying advocates.

The Revolution took up with great earnestness the cause of workingwomen, investigated their condition and published many articles in regard to it. A meeting was called at the office of The Revolution and a Workingwoman's Association formed, with officers chosen from the various occupations represented, which ranged from typesetters to ragpickers. In September the National Labor Union Congress was held in Germania Hall, New York, and Miss Anthony was selected to represent this association. Mr. J. C. C. Whaley, a master workman from the great iron mills of Philadelphia, presided and she was cordially received. A committee on female labor was formed with her as chairman, and reported a strong set of resolutions, urging the organization of women's trades unions, demanding an eight-hour law and equal pay in all positions, and pledging support to secure the ballot for women.

After an extended discussion the words "to secure the ballot" were stricken out, and a resolution adopted that "by accepting Miss Anthony as a delegate, the Labor Congress did not commit itself to her position on female suffrage." Here was this great body of men, honestly anxious to do something to ameliorate the condition of workingwomen, and yet denying to them the ballot, the strongest weapon which the workingman possessed for his own protection; unable to see that by placing it in the hands of women, they would not only give to them immense power but would double the strength of all labor organizations.

Miss Anthony gave a large amount of time to the cause of workingwomen, taught them how to organize among themselves, stirred up the newspapers to speak in their behalf, and interested in them many prominent women and also "Sorosis," that famous club, which had just been formed. In addressing women typesetters she said: "The four things indispensable to a compositor are quickness of movement, good spelling, correct punctuation and brains enough to take in the idea of the article to be set up. Therefore, let no young woman think of learning the trade unless she possesses these requisites. Without them there will be only hard work and small pay. Make up your minds to take the 'lean' with the 'fat,' and be early and late at the case precisely as men are. I do not demand equal pay for any women save those who do equal work in value. Scorn to be coddled by your employers; make them understand that you are in their service as workers, not as women."

The diary says in October, "Blue days these." Mr. Train was still in the Dublin jail. Mr. Melliss was doing his part manfully, subscribers were constantly coming in, but no paper can be sustained by its subscription-list. Miss Anthony wrote hundreds of letters in its interests, and walked many a weary mile and had many an unpleasant experience soliciting advertisements, but the Republicans were hostile and the Democrats had no use for The Revolution. Invariably the more liberal-minded men would say: "We advertise in the Tribune and Independent, and your paper will reach few homes where one or the other is not taken;" which was true. All the business and financial management devolved upon Miss Anthony, and she was untrained in this department. She labored all the day and late into the night over these details, longing to be in the field and pushing the cause by means of the platform, as she had been accustomed to do, and yet feeling that through the paper she could reach a larger audience. Her diary shows that, notwithstanding past differences, she still visited at Phillips', Garrison's, Greeley's and very often at Tilton's. In August she tells of attending the funeral of the baby in the family of the last, the departure from the usual customs, the house filled with sunshine, the mother dressed in white, and the inspired words of Mr. Beecher.

She is invited to Flushing, Oswego and various places to address teachers' institutes and occasionally to give a lyceum lecture and, regardless of all fatigue, goes wherever a few dollars may be gathered. Mrs. Stanton finishes her new home at Tenafly, N. J., and Miss Anthony enjoys slipping over there for a quiet Sunday. Mrs. Stanton did most of her editorial work at home and Mr. Pillsbury stayed in the office.

The last battle for 1868 was made in what was known as the Hester Vaughan case. When Anna Dickinson lectured in New York before the Workingwoman's Association she told the story of Hester Vaughan: A respectable English girl, twenty years old, married and came to Philadelphia only to find that the husband had another wife. She then secured employment at housework and was seduced by a man who deserted her as soon as he knew she was to become a mother. She wandered about the streets and finally, in the dead of winter, after being alone and in labor three days, her child was born in a garret and she lay on the floor twenty-four hours without fire or food. When discovered the child was dead and the mother had nearly perished. Circumstances indicated that she might have killed the child. Four days after its birth, she was taken to prison, where she was kept for five months, then tried, found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. She had now been in jail ten months.

The Revolution and the Workingwoman's Association, headed by Miss Anthony, took up the case, not so much because of the individual as to call attention to the wrongs constantly perpetrated against woman. They created such a public sentiment that a great meeting was held in Cooper Institute, where Horace Greeley presided and a number of well-known men and women took part, including Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Rose, Dr. Lozier and Eleanor Kirk.[47] Speaking briefly but to the point Miss Anthony submitted resolutions demanding that women should be tried by a jury of their peers, have a voice in making the laws and electing the officers who execute them; and declaring for the abolition of capital punishment. These were adopted with enthusiasm and the meeting, by unanimous vote, asked the governor of Pennsylvania for an unconditional pardon for the girl, while over $300 were subscribed for her benefit. Through Miss Anthony arrangements were made for Mrs. Stanton and Elizabeth Smith Miller to carry to Governor Geary a memorial from the Workingwoman's Association in behalf of Hester Vaughan. During their interview the governor declared emphatically that justice never would be done in such cases until women were in the jury-box. These efforts, supplemented by others afterwards made in Philadelphia, resulted in his granting the pardon, and the girl was assisted back to her home in England.

Although The Revolution suffered the anxieties inseparable from the launching of a new paper, it found much reason for encouragement. A number of prominent men and newspapers, during the year, had come out boldly in favor of woman suffrage and there seemed to be a considerable public sentiment drifting in that direction; but there were signs even more hopeful than these. Immediately upon the assembling of Congress, in December, 1868, Senator S. C. Pomeroy, of Kansas, presented a resolution as an amendment to the Federal Constitution providing that "the basis of suffrage in the United States shall be that of citizenship; and all native or naturalized citizens shall enjoy the same rights and privileges of the elective franchise; but each State shall determine by law the age," etc.

[Autograph:

Very Cordially & Truly S.C. Pomeroy]

A few days later George W. Julian, of Indiana, offered a similar amendment in the House of Representatives, as follows: "The right of suffrage in the United States shall be based upon citizenship, and shall be regulated by Congress; and all citizens of the United States, whether native or naturalized, shall enjoy this right equally, without any distinction or discrimination whatever founded on sex."

[Autograph: Geo W. Julian]

The last of December Senator Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, and Mr. Julian introduced bills to enfranchise women in the District of Columbia, the latter including also the women in the Territories. A review of the situation in The Revolution of December 31, said:

In our political opinions, we have been grossly misunderstood and misrepresented. There never was a time, even in the re-election of Lincoln, when to differ from the leading party was considered more inane and treasonable. Because we made a higher demand than either Republicans or Abolitionists, they in self-defense revenged themselves by calling us Democrats; just as the church at the time of its apathy on the slavery question revenged the goadings of Abolitionists by calling them "infidels." If claiming the right of suffrage for every citizen, male and female, black and white, a platform far above that occupied by Republicans or Abolitionists today, is to be a Democrat, then we glory in the name, but we have not so understood the policy of modern Democracy. Though The Revolution and its founders may have been open to criticism in many respects, all admit that we have galvanized the people into life and slumbering friends to action on this question.

[Footnote 46: On the Sunday before, the two ladies were invited to breakfast at the home of Mr. Melliss, with the president of the National Labor Union and a number of prominent men from Wall street, to talk over their prospects in the convention.]

[Footnote 47: Dr. Clemence Lozier and Mrs. Eleanor Kirk went to Moyamensing prison to see the unfortunate girl. In passing the different cells they noticed many women prisoners and one of the ladies asked the inspector if he could give any idea of the cause of the downfall of these women. "Yes," he replied, "faith in men."]



CHAPTER XIX.

AMENDMENT XV—FOUNDING OF NATIONAL SOCIETY.

1869.

Notwithstanding the protests and petitions of the women, the Fourteenth Amendment had been formally declared ratified July 28, 1868, the word "male" being thereby three times branded on the Constitution. In the resolutions of Senator Pomeroy and Mr. Julian, however, they found new hope and fresh courage. They had learned that the Federal Constitution could be so amended as to enfranchise a million men who but yesterday were plantation slaves. Here, then, was the power which must be invoked for the enfranchisement of women. From the office of The Revolution went out thousands of petitions to the women of the country to be circulated in the interests of an amendment to regulate the suffrage without making distinctions of sex. It was decided that a convention should be held in Washington in order to meet the legislators on their own ground. A suffrage association had been formed in that city with Josephine S. Griffing, founder of the Freedmen's Bureau, president; Hamilton Willcox, secretary. This was the first ever held in the capital, and it brought many new and valuable workers into the field. Clara Barton here made her first appearance at a woman suffrage meeting, and was a true and consistent advocate of the principle from that day forward.

The venerable Lucretia Mott presided, and Senator Pomeroy opened the convention with an eloquent speech, January 19, 1869. A feature of this occasion was the appearance of several young colored orators, speaking in opposition to suffrage for women and denouncing them for jeopardizing the black man's claim to the ballot by insisting upon their own. One of them, George Downing, standing by the side of Lucretia Mott, declared that God intended the male should dominate the female everywhere! Another was a son of Robert Purvis, who was earnestly and publicly rebuked by his father. Edward M. Davis, son-in-law of Lucretia Mott, also condemned the women for their temerity and severely criticised the resolutions, which demanded the same political rights for women as for negro men.

Miss Anthony called on Senator Harlan, of Iowa, chairman of the District committee, who readily granted the women a hearing which took place January 26, when she and Mrs. Stanton gave their arguments. This was the first congressional hearing ever granted to present the question of woman suffrage. An appeal was sent to Congress praying that women should be recognized in the next amendment. In her letter to the Philadelphia Press, Grace Greenwood thus described the leading spirits of the convention:

Near Lucretia Mott sat her sister, Martha Wright, a woman of strong, constant character and rare intellectual culture; Mrs. Cady Stanton, of impressive and beautiful appearance, in the rich prime of an active, generous and healthful life; Miss Susan B. Anthony, looking all she is, a keen, energetic, uncompromising, unconquerable, passionately earnest woman; Clara Barton, whose name is dear to soldiers and blessed in thousands of homes to which the soldiers shall return no more—a brave, benignant-looking woman....

Miss Anthony followed in a strain not only cheerful, but exultant—reviewing the advance of the cause from its first despised beginning to its present position, where, she alleged, it commanded the attention of the world. She spoke in her usual pungent, vehement style, hitting the nail on the head every time, and driving it in up to the head. Indeed, it seems to me, that while Lucretia Mott may be said to be the soul of this movement, and Mrs. Stanton the mind, the "swift, keen intelligence," Miss Anthony, alert, aggressive and indefatigable, is its nervous energy—its propulsive force....

To see the three chief figures of this great movement sitting upon a stage in joint council, like the three Fates of a new dispensation—dignity and the ever-acceptable grace of scholarly earnestness, intelligence and beneficence making them prominent—is assurance that the women of our country, bereft of defenders or injured by false ones, have advocates equal to the great demands of their cause.

[Autograph:

Yours affectionately Grace Greenwood]

Immediately after this convention, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, by invitation of a number of State suffrage committees, made a tour of Chicago, Springfield, Bloomington, Galena, St. Louis, Madison, Milwaukee and Toledo, speaking to large audiences. At St. Louis they were met by a delegation of ladies and escorted to the Southern Hotel, and then invited by the president of the State association, Mrs. Virginia L. Minor, to visit various points of interest in the city. At Springfield, Ill., the lieutenant-governor presided over their convention, and Governor Palmer and many members of the legislature were in the audience. With the Chicago delegation, Mrs. Livermore, Judge Waite, Judge Bradwell, Mrs. Myra Bradwell, editor of the Legal News, and others, they addressed the legislature. At Chicago, in Crosby Music Hall, the meeting was decidedly aggressive. Miss Anthony's resolutions stirred up the politicians, but she defended them bravely, according to report:

She stood outside of any party which threw itself across the path of complete suffrage to woman, and therefore she stood outside of the Republican party, where all her male relatives and friends were to be found. Republican leaders had told them to wait; that the movement was inopportune; but all the time had continued to put up bars and barriers against its future success. No woman should belong at present to either party; she should simply stand for suffrage.... She protested against any Republicans saying that Mrs. Stanton or herself had laid a straw in the way of the negro. Because they insisted that the rights of women ought to have equal prominence with the rights of black men, it was assumed that they opposed the enfranchisement of the negro. She repelled the assumption. She arraigned the entire Republican party because they refused to see that all women, black and white, were as much in political servitude as the black men.

At this meeting Robert Laird Collyer (not the distinguished Robert Collyer) made a long address against the enfranchisement of women, mixing up purity, propriety and pedestals in the usual incoherent fashion. He was so completely annihilated by Anna Dickinson that no further defense of the measure was necessary. Suffrage societies were organized in Chicago, Milwaukee and Toledo. In her account of this convention, Mrs. Livermore wrote of Miss Anthony:

She is entirely unlike Mrs. Stanton, notwithstanding the twain have been fast friends and diligent co-laborers for a quarter of a century.... Miss Anthony is a woman whom no one can know thoroughly without respect. Entirely honest, fearfully in earnest, energetic, self-sacrificing, kind-hearted, scorning difficulties of whatever magnitude, and rigidly sensible, she is the warm friend of the poor, oppressed, homeless and friendless of her own sex. Her labors in their behalf are tireless and judicious. You think her plain until she smiles, and then the worn face lights up so pleasantly and benignly that you forget to criticise and your heart warms towards her. Knowing her great goodness, and how she has devoted her life to hard, unpaid work for the negro slave and for woman, we can never read jibes and jeers at her expense without a twinge of pain. Let the press laugh at her as it may, she is a mighty power among both men and women, and those who really love as well as respect her are a host.

In this winter of 1869 the Press Club of New York made the startling innovation of giving a dinner to which ladies were invited. Among the guests were Phoebe and Alice Gary, Mary L. Booth, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Olive Logan, Mary Kyle Dallas and Miss Anthony. J. W. Simonton, of the Associated Press, was toast-master. Not having had the slightest intimation that she was expected to speak, Miss Anthony was called upon to respond to the question, "Why don't the women propose?" Without a moment's hesitation she arose and said: "Under present conditions, it would require a good deal of assurance for a woman to say to a man, 'Please, sir, will you support me for the rest of my life?' When all avocations are open to woman and she has an opportunity to acquire a competence, she will then be in a position where it will not be humiliating for her to ask the man she loves to share her prosperity. Instead of requesting him to provide food, raiment and shelter for her, she can invite him into her home, contribute her share to the partnership and not be an utter dependent. There will be also another advantage in this arrangement—if he prove unworthy she can ask him to walk out." It will be seen by this original and daring reply that Miss Anthony could not attend a dinner party even without creating a sensation.