Saturday I sauntered along the streets of Killarney, passed the market, and saw all sorts of poor humanity coming in with their cattle to sell or to buy. Many rode in two-wheeled carts without seat or spring, drawn by little donkeys, and nearly all the women and girls were bareheaded and barefooted. On the bridge I saw some boys looking down. I looked too and there was a spectacle—a ragged, bareheaded, barefooted woman tossing a wee baby over her shoulders and trying to get her apron switched around to hold it fast on her back. I heard her say to herself, "I'll niver do it," so I said, "Boys, one of you run down there and help her." At that instant she succeeded in getting the baby adjusted, and to my horror took up a bundle from the grass and disclosed a second baby! Then I went down. I learned that she had just come from the poorhouse, where she had spent six weeks, and before going further had laid her two three-weeks-old boys on the cold, wet grass, while she washed out their clothes in the stream. The clothing was the merest rags, all scrambled up in a damp bundle. She had heard her old mother was ill in Milltown and had "fretted" about her till she could bear it no longer, so had started to walk ten miles to her. I hailed a boy with a jaunting-car—told her to wait and I would take her home—got my luncheon—fed the boy's horse, bought lunch for boy and woman—and off we went, she sitting on one side of the car with her two babies, wet bundle, two milk bottles and rubber appendages, bare feet and flying hair, and I on the other, with the boy in front.

For a long way both babies cried; they were blue as pigeons, and had on nothing but little calico slips, no socks even. She had four children older than these—a husband who went to fairs selling papers and anything he could to support them all—and an aged father and mother who lived with them. She said if God had given her only one child, she could still help earn something to live on, but now He had given her two, she couldn't. When we reached Milltown I followed her home. It was in a long row of one-room things with a door—but no window. Some peat was smouldering under a hole in the roof called a chimney, and the place was thick with smoke. On the floor in one corner was some straw with a blanket on it, which she said was her bed; in another were some boards fastened into bed-shape, with straw packed in, and this belonged to her father and mother. Where the four other children, with the chickens and the pig, found their places to sleep, I couldn't see. I went to the home of another tenant, and there again was one room, and sitting around a pile of smoking-hot potatoes on the cold, wet ground—not a board or even a flag-stone for a floor—were six ragged, dirty children. Not a knife, fork, spoon or platter was to be seen. The man was out working for a farmer, his wife said, and the evidences were that "God" was about to add a No. 7 to her flock. What a dreadful creature their God must be to keep sending hungry mouths while he withholds the bread to fill them!...

I went back to Killarney heart-sick; wrote letters Sunday, and Monday took train for Limerick, where I rushed round for an hour or two.... Then went on to Galway. Tuesday morning took the mail-car to Connemara, and had company all the way—a judge, an Irish M.P., and two Dublin drummers—with whom I talked over the Irish problem. I had meant to make the tour of the western coast up to Londonderry, but my courage failed. It was to be the same soul-sickening sight all the way—only, I was assured, worse than anything yet seen. I took the stage back to Galway, every one saying it was sure to be a fine day, but it proved to be terrific wind and rain, and before I had gone ten miles my seat was a pool of water and it took all my skill to keep my umbrella right side out.... Once while the driver changed horses I stood in front of a big fire on the hearth of the best farmer's house I have seen here. Everything was clean and cheerful—two rooms—a bed made up with a spotless white spread—the old father smoking and the wife cooking dinner. She lifted a wooden cover from a jar and proudly showed me her butter—patted down with her hands, I could see—and near by was another jar with milk. Think of butter being made in a room full of tobacco-smoke! Then I went my last ten out of the fifty miles, having been soaking wet for eight hours. At my hotel I had room and fire on a "double-quick," bath-tub and hot water, and put myself through a regular grooming. In the morning I rode around Galway, saw Queen's College and the bay, and then took train for Belfast.

From the diary:

Sept. 11.—In Dublin. The Professor of Arabic took me through Trinity College, with its library of 200,000 volumes. Thence to the old Parliament House, now the Bank of Ireland. In the afternoon Alfred Webb went with me to the National League rooms and from there to Thomas Webb's for tea, where I saw the names of Garrison and N. P. Rogers written in 1840. We called on Michael Davitt, the leader of the Irish Land League, who impressed me as an earnest, honest man, deeply-rooted in the principles of freedom and equality, and claiming all for woman that he does for man.

Sept. 16.—At Youghal. Visited the home of Sir Walter Raleigh, Lady Hennessy, eighty years old, showing me around. Found in a library Children of the Abbey, and read again the story of Lord Mortimer and Amanda. Once it thrilled my young soul, but now it seems inexpressibly thin.

Sept. 20.—While I was talking in the car today with an Irishwoman about the poverty here, another behind me shouted: "It is very ill manners for an American to come over here and abuse the English government."

Sept. 29.—In Belfast. O, how I would like to purchase all the linen I want for myself and my friends! Have bought as much as I dared and after all perhaps I'm cheated—but it's done, so I won't worry.

Sept. 30.—Landed at Fleetwood and went direct to Rugby. Walked all around the famous school, but had not courage to go in and introduce myself to Doctor Jex-Blake, whose sister's guest I had so recently been.

Oct. 1.—At Leamington. Went direct to Kenilworth Castle, a grand old ruin; the home of Leicester, where Queen Elizabeth visited him in the olden days.

Oct. 2.—Mrs. Mullinor called at our hotel and accompanied us to Warwick Castle, a splendid pile. We lunched with her, and when Mr. M. put fork into the roast he remarked: "Wife asked me what she should order for dinner and I said, 'a leg of mutton, for Americans never see such a thing at home.'" We smiled and ate it with a relish.

Oct. 3.—At Stratford on Avon, and we have visited every spot sacred to the memory of Shakespeare, and walked through the meadows and down by the riverside....

Oct. 4.—In Oxford. I have visited many of the colleges, and as I saw where all the millions of dollars had been expended for the education of boys alone, I groaned in spirit and betook me to Somerville and St. Margaret's Halls, where at least there is a shelter for girls, and a beginning.

Oct. 5.—In London; and how almost like getting home it seems to come back here.

LONDON, October 7.

MY DEAR SISTER: Mrs. Stanton feels that she must stay with Hattie till the baby is a month old, and then have a week for farewell visits in London. Cousins Fannie and Charles Dickinson are here. Today I learned that I should have a chance to see and hear John Bright at a convention of the Liberal Party at Leeds, October 17; all these together have made me put off leaving a little longer. Since yesterday we have been in the midst of a genuine London fog. It is now 10 A. M. and even darker than it was two hours ago, when we dressed and breakfasted by gaslight. I saw smoky, foggy days here last March but they could not compare with this, and yet the people say, "O, this is nothing to what November will bring."...

LONDON, October 27.

MY DEAR SISTER: Since I last wrote you I have visited Leeds where I was the guest of Mrs. Hannah Ford, who has an elegant home—Adel Grange. There were several other guests who had come to attend the great Liberal demonstration, among them Mrs. Margaret Priestman Tanner, a sister-in-law of John Bright, and his son Albert. Mrs. Alice Scatcherd, of Leeds, was the person who had the sagacity to get women sent as delegates and secure them admission on terms of perfect equality. The amendment was a great triumph. She invited the friends to meet next day at her house, where I saw John Bright's daughter, Mrs. Helen Clark, and Richard Cobden's, Miss Jane Cobden. Both made speeches at the convention, and most fitting it was they should—the daughters of the two leading Radicals of a half century ago.

On Saturday, Mrs. Ford took me to Haworth, the home of the Bronte sisters. It is a bleak enough place now, and must have been even more so forty or fifty years ago when those sensitive plants lived there. A most sad day it was to me, as I looked into the little parlor where the sisters walked up and down with their arms around each other and planned their novels, or sat before the fireplace and built air-castles. Then there were the mouldering tombstones of the graveyard which lies in front and at one side of the house, and the old church-pew, directly over the vault where lay their loved mother and two sisters. And later, when Emily and Anne and the erring brother Branwell had joined the others, poor Charlotte sat there alone. The pew had to be removed every time the vault was opened to receive another occupant. Think of those delicate women sitting in that fireless, mouldy church, listening to their old father's dry, hard theology, with their feet on the cold, carpetless stones which covered their loved dead. It was too horrible! Then I walked over the single stone pathway through the fields toward the moor, opened the same wooden gates, and was, and still continue to be, dipped into the depths of their utter loneliness and sadness, born so out of time and place. How much the world of literature has lost because of their short and ill-environed lives, we can guess only from its increased wealth in spite of all their adverse conditions.

From Leeds I went to Birmingham to attend an Anti-Contagious Diseases Acts conference, and there heard the serene, lovely Josephine E. Butler.



Miss Mueller has invited Mrs. Stanton and me to spend the rest of our time with her. Mrs. Lucas and some others are going to Liverpool to say good-by to us. The cordiality, instead of decreasing, grows greater and greater as the day of departure draws near.... I dread stepping on shipboard, but long to set foot upon my native soil again. Only think, I shall have been gone over nine months when I land in New York!

From the diary:

Oct. 13.—Last evening at Mrs. Rose's I met the daughter of Charles Bradlaugh, a talented young woman, whom the college refused to admit to botany lectures because of her father's atheism.

Oct. 18.—At Leeds. Liberal party convention; went this evening to hear John Bright remember to forget to mention the extension of suffrage to women in 1869 and 1870, and the property law for married women in 1882. He did not meet my expectations as a speaker, but far surpasses any other Englishman I have heard. None of them can touch Wendell Phillips.

Oct. 28.—Had a four hours' row on the Thames today with some friends. This evening went to hear Mrs. Annie Besant.

Nov. 2.—Have been out to Basingstoke to see the new baby. Mrs. Mona Caird lunched with us. Have heard Michael Davitt, Mr. Fawcett and Helen Taylor, all masterly speakers.



LONDON, November 6.

MY DEAR SISTER: ... As soon as I finish this scribble I am to have 5 o'clock tea with Frances Power Cobbe. Tomorrow I go shopping, Thursday Millicent Garrett Fawcett is to dine with us, and Mrs. Peter Taylor is to call here, and all are to take "substantial tea" with dear, noble Mrs. Lucas, and then go to hear Henry Fawcett on the political issues. Friday afternoon we receive at Miss Mueller's. Saturday morning I leave for Bristol to visit Miss Mary Estlin, Mrs. Tanner and the Misses Priestman, three sisters-in-law of John Bright, who give a reception in my honor. The 12th I visit Margaret E. Parker, at Warrington, and the next afternoon Mrs. Stanton and I both go to Alderley Edge, near Manchester, to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Bright.[18] On the 14th we attend the annual meeting of the Manchester Women's Suffrage Association, and on the 16th go to Liverpool where a reception will be given us in the afternoon. That evening we shall spend at our hotel with the friends who go to see us off, and on the 17th we give ourselves to old ocean's care in the Cunarder Servia.



Don't worry now if you do not hear from me again until I touch Yankee soil; and don't worry if the wind blows or if you learn the vessel is late or lost. If the Servia fail to land me safe and sound, don't repine or stop because I am not, but buckle on a new and stronger harness and do double work for the good cause of woman. You have the best of judgment in our work and are capable of doing much if only you had confidence in yourself, so whatever comes to me, do you be all the more for the less that I am.

Half of Miss Anthony's nine-months' trip abroad had been spent in Great Britain. To her all the other attractions of the old world were as nothing compared with its living, breathing humanity. On the continent she was deprived of any exchange of thought with its people because she spoke no language but her own, and this made her prefer England; but there was another and a stronger interest—the great progressive movement which was going forward in regard to woman. Here she found women of fine intellect and high social position engaged in the same work to which she had given more than thirty years of her own life; and here she met sympathy and recognition which would have been impossible in any other country in Europe. Her central thought in going to Great Britain had been to secure the co-operation of Englishwomen in holding an international suffrage convention. At first her proposition met with no response. The most radical of English women were conservative compared to those of America, but after they had become thoroughly acquainted with Mrs. Stanton and herself and prejudice had been supplanted by confidence, the idea began to be more favorably regarded. One serious difficulty in the way of the proposed convention lay in the fact that the suffrage women of England and Scotland were not themselves in thorough unison as to plans and purposes. No definite action was taken until the last afternoon of their stay, when, at the reception given in their honor by Dr. Ewing Whittle, in Liverpool, with the hearty concurrence of Mrs. McLaren, Mrs. Lucas, Mrs. Scatcherd and Mrs. Parker, who had accompanied Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton to see them safely on board their vessel, a strong committee was formed to promote international organization.



They sailed from Liverpool on the Servia, November 17, 1883. Among their fellow voyagers were Mrs. Cornelia C. Hussey, of Orange, N. J., to whom the cause of woman suffrage and Miss Anthony personally are deeply indebted; and Mrs. Margaret B. Sullivan, of Chicago, the distinguished editorial writer. There was some lovely weather, which was greatly enjoyed, but heavy fogs impeded the ship and it was just ten days from the time of starting when, on November 27, they steamed into New York harbor and stepped again on the shores of loved America.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] The many inquiries and directions in regard to the suffrage work, and the loving messages to friends and relatives at home, are omitted in the extracts made from Miss Anthony's letters; but they are of constant occurrence, and show that these were never absent from her thoughts.

[15] While in Florence, Miss Anthony was entertained by the Countess de Resse, daughter of Elizabeth B. Phelps, of New York, and by the Princess Koltzoff-Massalsky, the distinguished author and artist, known through Europe by her pen-name of Dora d'Istria.

[16] Miss Anthony occupied some rainy days, while here, in wrapping up papers and writing letters which she put in her official envelopes, bearing the revolutionary mottoes, "No just government can be formed without the consent of the governed," "Taxation without representation is tyranny." After a few days a dignified official appeared at the American legation with a large package of mail bearing the proscribed mottoes, and said, "Such sentiments can not pass through the post-office in Germany." So in modest, uncomplaining wraps the letters and papers started again for the land of the free.—E. C. S.

[17]

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE. A Public Meeting will be held in ST. JAMES' HALL, PICCADILLY, Thursday, July 5th, 1883,

In Support of the Resolution to be moved by Mr. Mason in the House of Commons, on July 6th, for extending the Parliamentary Franchise to Women who possess the qualifications which entitle men to Vote.

Doors open at 7. Organ Recital 7 to 8. The Chair will be taken at 8 o'clock by

WILLIAM WOODALL, ESQ., M.P.

Mrs. Fawcett. Dr. Cameron, M.P. Miss Tod. J. P. Thomasson, Esq., M.P. Mrs. Beddoe. Mrs. E. Cady Stanton. Miss Susan B. Anthony. W. S. Caine, Esq., M.P. Mrs. Fenwick Miller. Arthur Arnold, Esq., M.P. Miss Becker. A. Illingworth, Esq., M.P. Miss Mueller. C. H. Hopwood, Esq., M.P. Mrs. Oliver Scatcherd. R. P. Blennerhassett, Esq., M.P. Miss Eliza Sturge. Thos. Roe, Esq., M.P. J. A. Blake, Esq., M.P. W. Summers, Esq., M.P. Thos. Burt, Esq., M.P.

Mrs. Ashford, Miss Bewicke, Miss C. A. Biggs, Miss Cobden, Mrs. Cowen, Mrs. Ormiston Chant, Mrs. J. R. Ford, Mrs. Hoggan, M.D., Mrs. Lucas, Miss Frances Lord, Miss Lupton, Mrs. McLaren, Mrs. Paterson, Miss E. Smith, Miss Stacpoole, Mrs. J. P. Thomasson, Miss Laura Waittle, and other Ladies and Gentlemen are expected to be present.

Numbered Sofa Stalls, 2s. 6d. Balcony and Reserved Seats, 1s. Body of the Hall and Gallery Free.

[18] A pleasant letter was received afterwards from Mrs. Bright, in which she made this playful reference to Miss Anthony's always depreciating herself in favor of Mrs. Stanton:

"We have thought of you often and hoped that the wind, which has been rough here, has been tempered on the Atlantic for your sakes. Apropos of the very beautiful allusion you made to Mrs. Cady Stanton's popularity and the effect produced by her personal appearance, I must tell you of a remark made by my little son John immediately after your departure. I found him sitting on the sofa in my bedroom, thinking deeply. 'Mamma,' he said, 'I wish you could get me a photograph of Miss Anthony. I think she has such a fine face. There is something about it so firm and yet so kind.' I said, 'Do you like her better than Mrs. Stanton?' 'Oh dear, yes, much better,' replied Johnnie. So you see she does not monopolize all the admiration!"



CHAPTER XXXIII.

CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS—VISIT TO NEW ORLEANS.

1884-1885.

Most of the newspapers had a welcome for Miss Anthony. In a two-column report in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle she is quoted as saying:

"I can scarcely tell you of the hospitality extended, the dinners, teas and receptions given in our honor. I had no idea we were so well-known in Great Britain or that there was such cordial feeling toward us. Of course, I met chiefly those known as Liberals and the sympathizers with our cause. Public sentiment there is rapidly growing in our favor. In the discussion I heard in Parliament not a Conservative uttered a word against the suffrage already possessed by women but relied upon the hackneyed argument that when married women were included there would be trouble."

"You saw the Queen, I suppose?"

"No; I thought more of seeing the Bright family than the Queen and I never happened to be near where she was. I really had very little leisure to look around. I am ashamed to say I did not visit Westminster until the morning before I came away, but it was simply for lack of time. The social idea was of more importance to me."

The New York Evening Telegram said editorially: "The statement of Miss Susan B. Anthony, in another column, illustrates the superb determination of that champion of woman's political rights. In the struggle which has constituted her life-work she has the rare advantage of not being able to comprehend defeat. Battling under the inspiration of an enthusiast—of a fanatic, some may be disposed to say—she knows no such word as fail. The most disheartening reverses appear to her inspired imagination but steps in an undeviating march of progress. It was enthusiasm such as this that made the career of Joan of Arc. Without it, not even the broad intellect and strong soul of Miss Anthony could sustain the burden of the struggle which she is called upon to lead." The Washington correspondent of the Cleveland Leader thus began a long interview:

Susan B. Anthony is back from Europe, and is here for the winter's fight in behalf of woman suffrage. She seems remarkably well, and has gained fifteen pounds since she left last spring. She is sixty-three, but looks just the same as twenty years ago. There is perhaps an extra wrinkle in her face, a little more silver in her hair, but her blue eyes are just as bright, her mouth as serious and her step as active as when she was forty. She would attract attention in any crowd. She is of medium height and medium form but her face is wonderfully intellectual, and she moves about like the woman of a purpose that she is. She says she experiences far different treatment by public men now from what she did years ago. The statesman of the past always came to her with a smirk on his face as though he considered woman's rights nonsensical and thought himself wonderfully condescending to take notice of her at all. "Now," says she, "public men look upon our mission as a matter of business, and we are considered from that standpoint."

The interview closed:

"One question more, Miss Anthony. Will you please tell me what is your highest ideal of the woman of the future?"

"It is hard to say," was the reply. "The woman of the future will far surpass the one of the present, even as the man of the future will surpass the one of today. The ages are progressive, and I look for a far higher manhood and womanhood than we now have. I think this will come through making the sexes co-equal. When women associate with men in serious matters, as they do now in frivolous, both will grow stronger and the world's work will be better done. I look for the day when the woman who has a political or judicial brain will have as much right to sit in the Senate or on the Supreme Bench as men have; when women will have equal property, business and political rights with men; when the only criterion of excellence or position shall be the ability and character of the individual; and this time will come. All of the Western colleges are now open to women, and send forth more than 2,000 women graduates every year. Think of the effect upon the race to come! The woman of the future will be a better wife, mother and citizen than the woman of today."

There were, however, some discordant notes in the symphony of pleasant things which by 1883 had become customary in the newspapers. For instance, the Cincinnati Times-Star headed its interview: "Susan Speaks—Miss Anthony Corralled by a Times-Star Correspondent—The Old Lady Wears Good Clothes and Stops at First-class Hotels—Bubbling about the Ballot." The smart reporter described the size of her foot, devoted a paragraph to the question whether her teeth were natural or artificial, and said: "There must be money in being a reformer, for Miss Anthony lives at the Riggs House in good style, and expects to be there all winter, and this, after a summer in Europe, would be a pretty severe drain on any but a long purse." When one thinks of Miss Anthony's uniform kindness and courtesy to reporters, always granting an interview no matter how tired or how busy she might be, and assisting them in every possible way with information and suggestions, it is astonishing that any one of them could indulge in petty, personal criticism and innuendoes.

Miss Anthony had now another friend at court, Col. Halbert S. Greenleaf, of Rochester, having been elected to Congress. Both he and his wife were strong and influential advocates of suffrage, and her warm personal friends. The diary shows that every day of December she was conferring with officials and their wives who were friendly to the cause, making converts wherever possible and co-operating actively with the District committee in all the drudgery of detail necessary to a successful convention. It is only by reading her diary that one can understand what a mental agony it was for Miss Anthony to press this matter upon congressmen, year after year, to be repulsed by those who were opposed and only tolerated by those in favor, who had many other matters on hand which to them seemed of much greater importance. "Oh, if men only could know how hard it is for women to be forever snubbed when they attempt to plead for their rights! It is perfectly disheartening that no member feels any especial interest or earnest determination in pushing this question of woman suffrage, to all men only a side issue," she writes in this little confidant; but not even in her letters is there ever a note of discouragement. To the world at large and to those who were associated with her, she was always brave, bright and hopeful. It causes a keen heartache to reflect upon how she crucified herself for fifty years, unfaltering and uncomplaining, in order to make conditions better for womankind. To Hon. William D. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, who believed in woman suffrage and voted for it, but did not feel enough interest to push the matter in Congress, she wrote, January 6, 1884:

No one shrinks more from making herself obnoxious than I do, and but for the sake of all women, your darling Florence included, I should never again say a word to you on the subject of using your influence to secure the passage of a Sixteenth Amendment proposition. Last winter you put off my appeal for help with, "This is the short session and the tariff question is of momentous importance." Now, since this is the "long session," will you not take hold of this work, and with the same earnestness that you do other questions?

It is cruel for you to leave your daughter, so full of hope and resolve, to suffer the humiliations of disfranchisement she already feels so keenly, and which she will find more and more galling as she grows into the stronger and grander woman she is sure to be. If it were your son who for any cause was denied his right to have his opinion counted, you would compass sea and land to lift the ban from him. And yet the crime of denial in his case would be no greater than in that of your daughter. It is only because men are so accustomed to the ignoring of woman's opinions, that they do not believe women suffer from the injustice as would men; precisely as people used to scout the idea that negroes, whose parents before them always had been enslaved, suffered from that cruel bondage as white men would.

Now, will you not set about in good earnest to secure the enfranchisement of woman? Why do not the Republicans push this question? The vote on Keifer's resolution showed almost a party line. Of the 124 nays, only 4 were Republicans; while of the 85 yeas, only 13 were Democrats. Even should you fail to get another committee, the discussion and the vote would array the members and set each man and party in their true places to be seen of all men, and all women too.

The term of the select committee on woman suffrage having expired with the close of the Forty-seventh Congress, a new one was appointed by the Senate of the Forty-eighth. The House committee on rules refused to report such a committee but placed the question in the hands of Representative Warren Keifer, of Ohio, who made a gallant fight for it on the floor, during which he said: "Is not the right of petition a constitutional right? Has not woman, in this country at least, risen above the rim and horizon of servitude, discredit and disgrace, and has she not a right, representing as she does in many instances great questions of property, to present her appeals to this national council and have them wisely and judiciously considered? I think it is due to our wives, daughters, mothers and sisters to afford them an avenue through which they can legitimately and judicially reach the ear of this great nation."

He was ably assisted by Mr. Belford, of Colorado. The measure to appoint this committee was bitterly opposed by Mr. Reagan, of Texas, who said in a long speech: "When woman so far misunderstands her duty as to want to go to working on the roads and making rails and serving in the militia and going into the army, I want to protect her against it." The vote resulted—yeas, 85, nays, 124; absent or not voting, 112.

Immediately after the return of members from the holiday recess, Miss Anthony wrote to each of the 112 asking how he would vote if the question came up again. To these letters 52 replies were received, 26 from Republicans, all of whom would vote yes; 26 from Democrats, 10 of whom would vote yes, 10, no; while 6 did not know how they would vote. As these 36 affirmative votes added to the 85 yeas would so nearly have overcome the adverse majority, John D. White, of Kentucky, at the solicitation of Miss Anthony, made another earnest effort in February to secure the desired committee, but the Democrats refused to allow the question to come to a vote. She was greatly disappointed at the failure to get the select committee, but afterwards became of the opinion that it was more advantageous to return to the old plan of working through the judiciary committee.

Miss Anthony had to be continually on the alert to head off zealous but injudicious women who were determined to commit the suffrage movement to the various ologies and isms of the day, and especially to personal matters. Even a woman so intellectually great as Mrs. Stanton could not be relied upon always to make her individual opinions subserve what was demanded of her position as president of the National Association. In January Miss Anthony received a document which Mrs. Stanton had prepared as an "open letter," to be signed by both of them officially and given to the press, congratulating Frederick Douglass upon his marriage to a white woman and sympathizing with him because of the adverse criticism it had called out! She especially urged that he be given a prominent place on the program at the approaching convention. Miss Anthony replied at once:

I do hope you won't put your foot into the question of intermarriage of the races. It has no place on our platform, any more than the question of no marriage at all, or of polygamy, and, so far as I can prevent it, shall not be brought there. I beg you therefore not to congratulate him publicly. Were there a proposition to punish the woman and leave the man to go scot free, then we should have a protest to make against the invidious discrimination.

The question of the amalgamation of the different races is a scientific one, affecting women and men alike. I do not propose to have it discussed on our platform. Our intention at this convention is to make every one who hears or reads believe in the grand principle of equality of rights and chances for women, and if they see on our program the name of Douglass every thought will be turned toward the subject of amalgamation and away from that of woman and her disfranchised. Neither you nor I have the right thus to complicate or compromise our question, and if we take the bits in our teeth in one direction we must expect our compeers to do the same in others. You very well know that if you plunge in, as your letter proposes, your endorsement will be charged upon me and the whole association. Do not throw around that marriage the halo of a pure and lofty duty to break down race lines. Your sympathy has run away with your judgment. Lovingly and fearfully yours.

It is hardly necessary to say that the "open letter" was not published.

Everybody's burdens were laid upon Miss Anthony's shoulders. In looking over the mass of correspondence it seems as if each writer wanted something and looked to her to supply it. All expected her to take the lead, to do the planning, to bear the responsibility, and usually she was equal to the demand, but even her brave spirit could not resist an occasional groan on the pages of the diary. When a new accession to the ranks, from whom she expected great assistance, wrote, "I do not know how to plan but tell me what to do and I will obey," she says, "My heart sinks within me; so few seem to use their brain-power on ways and means." And again: "This drain of helpless women, able and willing to work but utterly ignorant of how to do it, wears me out body and soul." She was greatly distressed because so many of the younger women were frequently incapacitated by illness, and writes: "O, the weak-bodied girls of the present generation, they make me heart-sick!"

But never did the women themselves know of these feelings. To the younger ones she wrote: "Don't give up 'beat' at any of those places till I have dropped my plummet into them.... Your young shoulders will have to learn to bear the crotchets of all sorts of people and not bend or break under them.... Put all the blame on me; they may abuse me but not you.... It makes my heart ache every minute to see you so tired.... Vent all your ill-feelings on me but keep sweet as June roses to everybody else. It does not pay to lose your temper.... You will have to learn to let people pile injustice on you and then trust to time to right it all." If on rare occasions she spoke a word of censure, it was followed by a letter in the next mail, full of sorrow and repentance. She always signed herself, even in the darkest hours, "Yours with love and hope." Beautiful optimism, sublime courage!

Sunday, February 3, 1884, Miss Anthony read in the morning papers of the sudden death of Wendell Phillips. He had been to her always the one being without a peer, the purest, sweetest, best of men. The news overwhelmed her with grief and she wrote at once to Robert Purvis:

How cut down I am at the telegram, "Wendell Phillips is dead," and I know you are equally so. I hope you can go on to Boston to the funeral, and help tenderly to lay away that most precious human clay. Who shall say the fitting word for Wendell Phillips at this last hour as lovingly and beautifully as he has done so many, many times for the grand men and women who have gone before him? There seem none left but you and Parker Pillsbury to pour out your souls' dearest love in his memory. Would that I had the tongue of an angel and could go and bear my testimony to the grandeur of that noblest of God's works! I can think of no one who can rightly and fully estimate that glorious character. What a sad hour for his beloved wife! He said to me on my last visit: "My one wish has come to be that I may live to bury Ann." He doubtless knew of his impending disease of the heart. On whose shoulders will fall the mantle of Wendell Phillips? When will the children of men ever listen to such a matchless voice? How poor the world seems! In sorrow I am with you.

She could not stay away and, inclement as was the weather, went to Boston three days later to look for the last time upon the loved face.

At the request of many ladies in Washington the National Convention was held in March, instead of earlier in the winter, to avoid the social distractions which always precede the Lenten season. The ladies were pleasantly received by President Arthur.[19] This was an exceptionally brilliant convention, a noteworthy feature being the large number of letters containing the greetings of the distinguished men and women of Great Britain, whom Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton had met and interested during their trip abroad. The following was read from Matthew Simpson, senior bishop in the Methodist church, among his last public utterances, as he died a few months later:

For more than thirty years I have been in favor of suffrage for woman. I was led to this position, not by the consideration of the question of natural rights or of alleged injustice or of inequality before the law, but by what I believed would be her influence on the great moral questions of the day. Were the ballot in the hands of women, I am satisfied that the evils of intemperance would be greatly lessened; and I fear, without that ballot, we shall not succeed against the saloons and kindred evils in large cities. You will doubtless have many obstacles placed in your way; there will be many conflicts to sustain; but I have no doubt that the coming years will see the triumph of your cause, and that our higher civilization and morality will rejoice in the work which enlightened women will accomplish.[20]



Both Senate and House committees granted hearings, and eloquent addresses were made by delegates from many States. Miss Anthony said in part:

This is the fifteenth year we have appeared before Congress in person, and the nineteenth by petitions, asking national protection for women in the exercise of their right to vote. In the winter of 1865 and 1866 we sent your honorable body a ten-thousand prayer, asking you not to put "male" in the second section of the proposed Fourteenth Amendment; and again we appealed to you by thousands of petitions that you would add "sex" after "race or color" in the Fifteenth, but all to no avail. Then by an eighty-thousand petition in 1871 we demanded the enactment of a declaratory law that women had the right to vote under the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment. This, too, was denied us, not only by Congress but by the Supreme Court, which held that the framers of the amendment had only "colored men" in their thought, therefore none others could come within its purview. From 1876 to the present we have from year to year poured into Congress hundreds of thousands of petitions asking you to take the initiative step for another amendment which shall specifically prohibit the disfranchisement of women.

But, you say, why do you not go to your several States to secure this right? I answer, because we have neither the women nor the money to make the canvasses of the thirty-eight States, school district by school district, to educate each individual man out of the old belief that woman was created to be his subject. Four State legislatures submitted the question of striking "male" from their constitutions—Kansas, Michigan, Colorado and Nebraska—and we made the best canvass of each which was possible for a disfranchised class outside of all political help. Negro suffrage was again and again overwhelmingly voted down in various States; and you know, gentlemen, that if the negro had never had the ballot until the majority of white men, particularly the foreign born, had voted "yes," he would have gone without it until the crack of doom. It was because of this prejudice of the unthinking majority that Congress submitted the question of the negro's enfranchisement to the legislatures of the several States, to be adjudicated by the educated, broadened representatives of the people. We now appeal to you to lift the decision of our question from the vote of the populace to that of the legislatures, that thereby you may be as considerate and just to the women of this nation as you were to the freedmen.

Every new privilege granted to woman has been by the legislatures. The liberal laws for married women, the right of the wife to own and control her inherited property and separate earnings, the right of women to vote at school elections in a dozen States, full suffrage in two Territories, all have been gained through the legislatures. Had any one of these beneficent propositions been submitted to the vote of the rank and file do you believe a majority would have placed their sanction upon it? I do not; and I beg you, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, that you will at once recommend to the House the submission of the proposition now before you, and thus place the decision of this great constitutional question of the right of one-half the people of this republic to a voice in the government, with the legislatures of the several States. You need not fear that our enfranchisement will come too suddenly or too soon by this method. After the proposition shall have passed Congress by the requisite two-thirds vote, it may require five, ten or twenty years to secure its ratification by the necessary three-fourths of the State legislatures; but, once submitted by Congress, it always will stand until ratified by the States.

It takes all too many of us women from our homes and from the works of charity and education in our respective localities, even to come to Washington, session after session, until Congress shall have submitted the proposition, and then to go from legislature to legislature, urging its adoption. But when you insist that we shall beg at the feet of each individual voter of every one of the States, native and foreign, black and white, learned and ignorant, you doom us to incalculable hardships and sacrifices, and to most exasperating insults and humiliations. I pray you to save us from the fate of waiting and working for our freedom until we shall have educated the ignorant masses of men to consent to give their wives and sisters equality of rights with themselves. You surely will not compel us to await the enlightenment of all the freedmen of this nation and the newly-made voters from the monarchial governments of the old world!

Liberty for one's self is a natural instinct possessed alike by all men, but to be willing to accord liberty to another is the result of education, of self-discipline, of the practice of the golden rule. Therefore we ask that the question of equality of rights to women shall be decided by the picked men of the nation in Congress, and the picked men of the several States in their respective legislatures.

The Senate committee again submitted a majority report in favor of a Sixteenth Amendment enfranchising women, signed by T. W. Palmer, Blair, Lapham and Anthony. The minority report, by Joseph E. Brown, Cockrell and Fair, began: "The undersigned believe that the Creator intended that the sphere of the males and females of our race should be different," etc.

The House Judiciary Committee gave a majority report in the negative.[21] The minority report in favor was signed by Thomas B. Reed, Maine; Ezra B. Taylor, Ohio; Thomas M. Browne, Indiana; Moses A. McCoid, Iowa. It is one of the keenest, clearest expositions of the absurdity of the objections against woman suffrage that ever has been made, and ends with this trenchant paragraph:

It is sometimes asserted that women now have a great influence in politics through their husbands and brothers. That is undoubtedly true. But this is just the kind of influence which is not wholesome for the community, for it is influence unaccompanied by responsibility. People are always ready to recommend to others what they would not do themselves. If it be true that women can not be prevented from exercising political influence, is not that only another reason why they should be steadied in their political action by that proper sense of responsibility which comes from acting themselves? We conclude then, that every reason which in this country bestows the ballot upon man is equally applicable to the proposition to bestow the ballot upon woman, and in our judgment there is no foundation for the fear that woman will thereby become unfitted for all the duties she has hitherto performed.

Miss Anthony mailed 500 packages of copies of this report to different points for distribution. Upon the urgent invitation of the suffrage association of Connecticut she went there for a few days to assist at their State convention, but in a letter to Mrs. Spofford she said: "I shall return tomorrow night, if possible. I keep thinking of those men at the Capitol not doing what I want them to." She afterwards wrote to May Wright Sewall:

My plan is to get away from here the minute I can do so without letting our work suffer in Congress. A week ago the House Judiciary Committee voted down a motion to print our "hearing" speeches. Yesterday I went up and called out a Democrat who I knew had voted "no," and hence could move to reconsider, and he promised to go back and thus move, and did so, and Mr. Browne, of Indiana, asked leave of the House to print them. I wish you would write to Mr. Browne that he is splendid and our main help now in the committee. Cockrell has been trying to prevent printing the Senate "hearing," but Blair, Lapham, Palmer and Anthony are bound it shall be printed. Still, all would fall flat and dead if some one were not here to keep them in mind of their duty to us.



Miss Anthony remained in Washington till April 14, managing her forces like an experienced general until the last gun had been fired. When she returned home ready to begin work on the History, she found to her amazement that the officer who had been charged with preparing the report of the Sixteenth National Suffrage Convention, a woman of great literary ability, had given it up in despair, declaring that it would be utterly impossible to make anything creditable out of such a mass of unsatisfactory material, most of which would have to be entirely re-written. Miss Anthony did not stop to sit down and weep, but wrote her at once to send to Rochester every document she had in her possession. Then, taking all of them to Mrs. Stanton, who had gone to her old paternal home at Johnstown, they arranged, edited, re-wrote and put into shape the conglomerate of letters, speeches, etc., and in less than two weeks prepared and sent to the printer the most complete report ever made of a National convention.[22]

The middle of May, after two years' interruption, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton set themselves diligently to finish the third volume of the History of Woman Suffrage, all the boxes and trunks of material having been shipped from Tenafly. Although submerged in the avalanche of old documents, Miss Anthony's mind was full of current events. She writes in her journal June 2: "I wait with bated breath the news from Oregon, where today the men are voting on the question of woman's enfranchisement. My heart almost stands stills. I hope against hope, but still I hope." When the news of the defeat comes, she says: "Dear Mrs. Duniway, with all that debt left on her shoulders, which she assumed to carry on the campaign! I felt so agonized for her that on the very day of election I rushed to the bank and sent her $100. We must not leave her to carry it alone, after all her brave work. I have written a dozen letters to friends asking them to give her assistance. I feel like a lion champing the bars of his cage, shut up here digging and delving among the records of the past when I long to be out doing the work of the present." In a letter received from Senator Palmer at this time he says:

I fully sympathize with your regret and chagrin over the reverse in Oregon but hardly with your conclusion, viz., that "the women should stop asking legislatures to submit this question to the electors, to have it killed by the majority, made up of ignorance and whiskey, native and foreign, and all go to Congress for success," etc. It seems to me that nothing is to be lost and much to be gained by local discussions and temporary defeats. You know in 1850 Webster, in his unfortunate Revere House speech, stigmatized the anti-slavery movement as "a rub-a-dub agitation," and Wendell Phillips closed his masterly philippic thereon with what was accepted as a motto: Agitate! Agitate!! Agitate!!! Another decade of that rub-a-dub agitation sufficed to divide the continent in a political earthquake and from out the chasm the negro emerged to citizenship. It may still require years to educate a majority of our women to demand the franchise and a majority of our men or their representatives in Congress and the legislatures, to proclaim it, but that the way leads through constant agitation I make no doubt. The still pool casts nothing to shore.



She watches events across the water and writes on July 7: "Well, the House of Lords is today discussing whether 2,000,000 farm laborers shall have the ballot placed in their hands, while the half-million, more or less, women who employ them are left without it. What an outrage that Mr. Gladstone refused to allow Mr. Woodall's amendment to his bill to be at least voted upon! He applied the party whip and made voting for the woman suffrage amendment disloyalty to the government, and over one hundred Liberals, who had previously declared themselves in favor of women's sharing in this new extension of the franchise, voted against allowing them to do so. I do not believe a more humiliating abnegation of principle at the behest of a party leader ever was witnessed in our Congress."

The national political conventions in the summer of 1884 received the usual appeal to recognize the claims of women. The Republican, Democratic, Anti-Monopoly and Greenback parties equivocated, although the last two nominated Benjamin F. Butler, an avowed advocate of woman suffrage; the Prohibition convention relegated the question to the States[23]. The American party put in a plank and nominated S. C. Pomeroy, a champion of woman suffrage, but it had too small a following to offer any hope of success. Blaine was not a friend, Logan was an earnest one; Cleveland was not acceptable to many women, Hendricks had never shown himself favorable. In the midst of such a conglomeration the wise thing for all women would have been to remain non-partisan and take no share in the campaign. Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, however, watching events from their secluded nook, issued a manifesto urging women to stand by the Republican party. They were led to take this action by the tendency of large numbers to rush to the support of the Prohibitionists, because of their suffrage plank; and they believed that if women were determined to work for some political party, the Republican at that time held out most hope. This aroused the antagonism of the Prohibitionists and Democrats, both men and women, and afforded the strongest possible object lesson to Miss Anthony of the wisdom of henceforth adhering to her policy of non-partisanship until one of the dominant parties should declare unmistakably for woman suffrage and advocate it by means of press and platform.

In August occurred the death of Sarah Pugh, the gentle Quaker and staunch Abolitionist, her old and faithful friend. It was followed by that of Frances D. Gage a few months later; and in December passed away the true and helpful ally, William Henry Channing. Each left a void in her heart, and yet the memory of these great souls impelled to renewed effort. There was no cessation of the work on the History, which was slowly evolved through the heat of summer and the beautiful days of early autumn, but by the end of October the funds were exhausted, the money left by Mrs. Eddy was still in litigation, and Miss Anthony again went on the lecture platform, speaking almost every night through November and December.

She did not fail, however, to look carefully after the interests of the Seventeenth National Convention which met as usual in Washington, January 20, 1885. A letter from Clarina Howard Nichols was sent to be read at this meeting, but the hand which penned it was stilled in death before it was received. Of all the pioneer workers with whom Miss Anthony had been associated in the early days so full of scorn, ridicule and abuse, Mrs. Nichols was among the nearest and dearest, a forceful speaker and writer, a tender, loving woman. It was in this convention that the resolution denouncing dogmas and creeds was introduced by Mrs. Stanton, and caused much commotion and heated argument. Miss Anthony opposed it, saying:

I object to the words "derived from Judaism." It does not matter where the dogma came from. I was on the old Garrison platform, and found long ago that the settling of any question of human rights by people's interpretation of the Bible is utterly impossible. I hope we shall not go back to that war. We all know what we want, and that is the recognition of woman's perfect equality. We all admit that such recognition never has been granted in the centuries of the past; but for us to begin a discussion here as to who established this injustice would be anything but profitable. Let those who wish go back into their history, but I beg it shall not be done on our platform.[24]

The public, which always longed for a sensation at these suffrage conventions and was disappointed if it did not come, seized upon this resolution, and press and pulpit made it a text. The following Sunday W. W. Patton, D. D., president of Howard University, preached in the Congregational church of Washington a sermon entitled, "Woman and Skepticism." He took the ground that as soon as women depart from their natural sphere they become skeptical if not immoral. He gave as examples Hypatia, Madame Roland, Harriet Martineau, Frances Power Cobbe and George Eliot! Then turning his attention to America he said that "the recent convention of woman suffragists gave evidence of atheism and immorality," and that "Victoria Woodhull was the representative of the movement in this country"[25]. And this when Mrs. Woodhull had not been on the suffrage platform for thirteen years! Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton occupied front seats and at the close of the sermon went forward, shook hands with the preacher and Miss Anthony remarked earnestly: "Doctor, your mother, if you have one, should lay you across her knee and give you a good spanking for that sermon." "O, no," said Mrs. Stanton quickly, "allow me to congratulate you. I have been trying for years to make women understand that the worst enemy they have is in the pulpit, and you have illustrated the truth of it." Then, while the great divine was trying to recover his breath, they walked out of the church. The nine days' commotion which this produced can be imagined better than described. After some reflection Miss Anthony regretted that she should have been provoked into her remark, but Mrs. Stanton wrote: "Don't worry a moment. The more I think about it, the better I like it, because it was the most contemptuous thing which could have been said. Like that shot at Lexington, it will go round the world."

On February 6, Thomas W. Palmer called up in the Senate the resolution for a Sixteenth Amendment and supported it by that masterly speech which ever since has been one of the strongest suffrage campaign documents. At the request of Miss Anthony thousands of copies were sent out under his frank. She went from Washington to Boston to attend a meeting of the National branch of the Massachusetts association, and soon afterwards, on March 2, started for the New Orleans Exposition. She was warmly welcomed by Mrs. Caroline E. Merrick, wife of Judge E. T. Merrick, at whose lovely home she was entertained during part of her stay. It was her first visit to the Crescent City and she was soon deluged with invitations to speak and received many charming tokens of the justly-famed southern hospitality.

She spoke before the Woman's Club in the hall of the Continental Guards, with May Wright Sewall, representative from Indiana; gave seven addresses, in as many days, before schools and colleges and, by invitation of the Press Association, spoke in Agricultural Hall at the exposition and visited the headquarters of the different papers. The next day, by request of Commissioner Truman, she gave an address and held a reception at the New York headquarters. Her last appearance was at Tulane Hall under the auspices of the teachers of the city schools. She was everywhere beautifully received, although her doctrines were new and unpopular, and at the close of each meeting her audience crowded about her with words of appreciation and cordiality. Miss Anthony here met for the first time "Catherine Cole," of the editorial staff, and Mrs. Eliza J. Nicholson, owner and manager of the Picayune. The latter presented her with an Indian basket filled to overflowing with orange blossoms, and this tribute was paid in her paper:

THE APOSTLE OF WOMAN'S RIGHTS.—Miss Susan B. Anthony has made a most favorable impression upon the New Orleans public, and has by her gentleness and courtesy won many friends for herself and her cause. She came here a total stranger, and recognized the fact that there were many who did not approve of her or her doctrines. She has been sincere, truly polite and simply womanly in all her dealings with the southern people, and by these very qualities has commanded the respectful esteem of all. Miss Anthony has not striven to make herself "solid" with the people who give the best dinners.... The workingwoman, the unfashionable woman, have been made as heartily welcome as the leader of society; and for their appreciation they have been repaid by the friendship and esteem of one of the grandest old maids that ever lived.

The Times-Democrat and Daily States also gave full and favorable reports of her visit and lectures. The two weeks allowed for this holiday sped quickly away and Miss Anthony left for the North on March 20, laden with luncheon, flowers and many tokens of affection from the women of New Orleans. At Marshall, Tex., she dined with President and Mrs. Culver, of Bishops' University, and reached St. Louis Sunday evening, where she was the guest of her nephew, Arthur A. Mosher, and his wife. The next four or five weeks were spent in the lecture field at hard work, under the management of the Slayton Bureau. In answer to her letter of regret at not meeting Mrs. J. Ellen Foster at an Iowa convention, as she had requested, Mrs. Foster wrote: "I was sorry enough not to see you but I gave the people your message in the evening. Dear soul, how long you have stood for the truth delivered unto you! God bless your words and works. I do not see creeds and dogmas just as you see them, I do not believe in all that you do, but I believe in you!"

The last of April came the long-expected summons to Boston to receive the legacy of Mrs. Eddy, the courts having sustained the will. While eastward bound, crossing the State of Illinois, newspapers were brought on the train announcing the death of Grant, and she writes: "The weather is lovely and springlike today, but how still and solemn it seems out here on these broad prairies with that great general gone forever!" The case had been in litigation three years, Benjamin F. Butler appearing for Miss Anthony and Lucy Stone. His fees were very reasonable but several thousand dollars were swallowed up in the suit. The legacy, in first-class securities, stocks, bonds, etc., was paid April 27, each receiving $24,125.[26] Miss Anthony gives an amusing account, in one of her letters, of the awful nightmare she had on board the sleeper going home, when she dreamed that a woman was at the head of her berth stifling her while a man knelt in front, his hand cautiously creeping toward the inside pocket where she had sewed the money and bonds. She awoke with a scream and did not go to sleep again.

If this bequest had been left to Miss Anthony for her own personal use, she could not have felt one-half the joy she now experienced in having the means to carry on the work which always had been so seriously impeded for lack of funds. Of course its receipt was heralded far and wide by the papers, and appeals began to pour in from all sides, nor were they always appeals, but often demands. Scores of women considered themselves entitled to a share because the money had been left to further the cause of woman. One wanted it to help lift a mortgage on her home, others to educate their children, to pay a debt, to reward them for the valuable services they had given to woman suffrage, to start a paper, to carry one already started, and so on without end. The men also were willing to relieve her of a portion. "I am terribly oppressed by it all," Miss Anthony writes, "and nothing would make me happier than to respond to every one, but my money would melt away in a month." It was ludicrous and yet pitiful to see certain persons who had repudiated her in days gone by because she was too radical and too aggressive, discovering all at once how much they always had valued her and how anxious they had been for a long time to renew the old friendship—the common story, ancient as the world.

The one thing she was determined to do first of all was to complete the History of Woman Suffrage, upon which she and Mrs. Stanton had spent all the days that could be spared for nearly ten years. The work had been delayed by the many other demands upon their time, by their trips abroad, but more than all else by lack of money. The authors were to pay for composition, stereotyping, the making of the plates for the engravings and the printing of the same; Fowler & Wells for the paper, press-work, binding and advertising. Miss Anthony and her co-workers were to receive only 12-1/2 per cent. commission on the sales. It readily may be seen that she did not go into this as a money-making scheme. Her only thought, her only desire, was to collect the facts in connection with the movement to secure the rights of women, before they should be scattered and lost, and to preserve and put them into shape for reference.

In preparing the first two volumes she had used every dollar she had been able to earn and all she could obtain from generous friends, and there were still large unpaid bills. Now, with plenty of money at her command, she bought out the rights of Fowler & Wells, and engaged Charles Mann, of Rochester, to print the third volume. Mrs. Stanton had returned to Tenafly, and there Miss Anthony again sent all the trunks and boxes of precious documents. She completed her lecture engagements and the first of June, 1885, found the two women once more hard at work.

"I really think of you with pity these hot midsummer days," wrote Mrs. Sewall to Mrs. Stanton, "under the lash of blessed Susan's relentless energy; but the reflection that she applies it with the most vigor to her own back enables one to regard that instrument, after all, with more admiration than terror." It was indeed true that Mrs. Stanton's luxury and ease-loving nature required much urging,[27] and while Miss Anthony took upon herself all the drudgery possible and all the financial anxiety and burden, she was compelled to keep Mrs. Stanton keyed up to do a great portion of the literary work. "It is the one drawback at every turn," she writes, "that I have not the faculty to frame easy, polished sentences. If I could but do this, I would finish up the History without asking aid of anyone." And again: "It has been the bane of my life that I am powerless to put on paper the glimpses of thoughts which come and go like flashes of lightning." As has been said before in these pages, she is a perfect critic and delightful letter-writer, but finds difficulty in doing what is called "literary work." Practice undoubtedly would have enabled her to overcome this, but she felt always that her chief strength lay in executive ability.



Early in June Miss Anthony slipped away from the work long enough to go to the Progressive Friends' meeting at Kennett Square, Penn., where she was the guest of Deborah Pennock and met, for the first time, Sarah J. Eddy. In her diary she says: "Last evening as I sat on the sofa Miss Eddy put her arms around me and said, 'I am so glad I love you; I should have felt very sorry if I had not.' And so should I, for the sake of her dear mother and grandfather, who had so much confidence in me." The two went on to New York together and then over to Mrs. Stanton's for a little visit, and the friendship formed at that time has been maintained ever since. Later when Miss Eddy was going to Rochester to a convention, Miss Anthony wrote Mrs. Hallowell: "I am sure you would be glad to entertain her; she is a sweet, lovely little woman; thoroughly sympathizing with everything and everybody that suffers injustice. I am very sorry that sister Mary and I must be away and can not have the dear girl with us."

Miss Anthony experienced a great disadvantage in being so far away from her publisher, the more especially as she had to send a chapter at a time, read proofs of each as soon as it was set up, send back corrected proof, get the revises, etc., and she soon found it necessary to spend about half her time in Rochester. The women who were preparing the chapters for their respective States delayed the work, neglecting to send them when promised; many occupied twice as much space as had been assigned them and were highly indignant when Mrs. Stanton used the blue pencil unsparingly on their productions. They vented their feelings on Miss Anthony, knowing that nothing they could say would ruffle Mrs. Stanton's equipoise, and she writes in her diary: "To decide between the two has almost torn me in twain. People who can write are so tenacious, each thinking her own style better than any other, while poor I don't know which is the best."

Every few weeks she was obliged to rush over to Fayetteville to confer with Mrs. Gage, who was industriously preparing her part of the work. Urgent appeals came from women in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Kansas and Indiana that they could not possibly make a success of their State conventions unless she came to their assistance, but she steeled her heart against them and stuck closely to her task. From the lecture bureau came a list of ten engagements at $50 a night, but she refused them. Some of the expressions in her letters of those busy days show the state of her mind better than could volumes of description:

All the work of today put aside to grope into the old past. I feel like rushing to you this very minute, but here Mrs. Stanton and I are, scratching, scratching every hour, not each other's eyes but the History papers. I am a fish out of water.... It makes me feel growly all the time.... I can not get away from my ball and chain.... I think we'll make things snap and crackle a little.... This is the biggest swamp I ever tried to wriggle through.... We'll both put on our thinking caps and I guess get quite a lot of funnies in the reminiscences.... Now here is the publisher's screech for money.... O, to get out of this History prison!... I am too tired to write—I mean too lazy.... No warhorse ever panted for the rush of battle more than I for outside work. I love to make history but hate to write it.

On November 12 Mrs. Stanton's seventieth birthday was celebrated by a large reception held in the parlors of Dr. Lozier in New York, where Mrs. Stanton read a charming paper on "The Pleasures of Old Age." Her daughter, Harriot Stanton Blatch, sent the following bright and breezy message:

... How I wish I could give my congratulations in the flesh! Distance is the foe of love. Kiss dear Susan and let her kiss you for me. On November 12 I shall think of you both, for you two are not easily separated in my mind, and there will be a tenderness in my thoughts and a thankfulness that you both have lived. In your worries over the History, remember that at least one woman appreciates the fact that her life has been made easier because of your combined public work. You ought to be overflowing with gratitude for each other's existence, for neither without the other would have achieved the work you have accomplished. Every day of your lives let your hearts praise the good fortune that brought you together. Friendship is the grandest relation in the world, and I feel infinitely blessed in having two such women as friends. You and dear Susan are not yet to be sainted; you have no end of work in you still, and must labor on for many a long year, and gain many a triumphant victory. I throw up my cap and cry hurrah for you two grand old warriors! The curl is from Nora's little head. She shall be taught to reverence her Queen Mother and Maid of Honor Susan. Now farewell, dear ladies; I am wishing you on birthdays and every day a long and happy life.

The next morning came the cablegram announcing the sudden death in Switzerland of the mother of Julia and Rachel Foster. Miss Anthony dropped all work when the sisters arrived at New York, went with them to Philadelphia and rendered every possible consolation and assistance. But not even to go to Washington to push the work in Congress and arrange for the National Convention would she delay the task she was so anxious to finish. She wrote scores of letters, however, in regard to both, and the congressmen particularly had reason to feel that she had not forgotten their promises. Her long and persistent labors were rewarded, for the close of 1885 found the whole third volume of the History in the hands of the printers.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] An official request was sent to the heads of the departments to permit the women employes to attend one session of this convention but it was refused. A few days later permission was given them to go to Mrs. McElroy's reception at the White House, and the male employes were given a half-holiday to attend the exercises on St. Patrick's Day.

[20] The Methodist bishops Bowman, Warren, Newman, Haven, Turner and Walters have favored woman suffrage.

[21] Signed by Maybury, Michigan; Poland, Vermont; Tucker, Virginia; Hammond, Georgia; Culbertson, Texas; Moulton, Illinois; Broadhead, Missouri; Dorsheimer, New York; Collins, Massachusetts; Seney, Ohio; Bisbee, Florida.

[22] Miss Anthony's letters show how desirous she was that everybody who assisted at these conventions should have full measure of credit: "They are earnest and anxious to do for woman's cause and I want them treated fairly and leniently as to all mistakes." Again she writes: "Since Oregon was never before represented in our conventions, her speakers must have more room in the report than we old stagers."

[23] When Miss Anthony learned that this action had been taken with the sanction of Frances E. Willard, she pointed out to her in vigorous language how the Prohibition-Republicans had left that party this year because a temperance resolution had failed in the platform committee and had gone over to the Prohibition party, charging that the Republicans were cowardly. Yet the very first act of this Prohibition convention, to which Miss Willard was a delegate, was to abandon the idea of National Supremacy and accept that of State Rights in order to conciliate the southern members. She further said: "When the time comes in which it will be political expediency for the Prohibition party to throw woman suffrage overboard altogether, over it will go." Miss Willard lived to see this prophecy fulfilled at the National Prohibition Convention of 1896.

[24] Apropos of this discussion, an amusing anecdote is related of Miss Anthony. When confronted, in an argument, with the passage of scripture, "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands," etc., she replied: "Gentlemen, no one objects to the husband being the head of the wife as Christ was the head of the church—to crucify himself; what we object to is his crucifying his wife."

[25] This account of the sermon is taken from the reports of half a dozen reputable newspapers.

[26] This is the only instance where a woman has bequeathed a large amount of money to the cause of equal rights, although a number of small bequests have been made. Women have given millions of dollars to churches, charities, and colleges for men but comparatively nothing to secure freedom for those of their own sex.

[27] In one of Miss Anthony's letters she relates with amusement that Mr. Stanton had just come in and, seeing his wife lying on the couch, remarked, "Ah, resting, I see." "No," she replied, "I am exercising by lying down."



CHAPTER XXXIV.

MANY TRIPS—FIRST VOTE ON SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT.

1886-1887.

Miss Anthony started for Washington toward the last of January, 1886, with a lighter heart than she had possessed for many years. The dreadful burden of the labor on the History was lifted, all the bills were paid, she had given a helping hand to several of the old workers, which made her very happy, and she had one or two good dresses in her trunk. There was nothing which the paragrapher who hated what Miss Anthony represented, liked so well as to make disagreeable flings at her clothes, and yet it is an indisputable fact of history that she was one of the most perfectly dressed women on the platform, although her tastes were very plain and simple. A lady once wrote her asking if it would not be possible to make the suffrage conventions a little more aesthetic, they were so painfully practical. She sent the letter to Mrs. Stanton, who commented: "Well now, perhaps if we could paint injustice in delicate tints set in a framework of poetical argument, we might more easily entrap the Senator Edmunds and Oscar Wilde types of Adam's sons. Suppose at our next convention all of us dress in pale green, have a faint and subdued gaslight with pink shades, write our speeches in verse and chant them to a guitar accompaniment. Ah me! alas! how can we reform the world aesthetically?"

The members of Congress always knew when Miss Anthony had arrived in Washington. Other women accepted their word that they were going to do something, and waited patiently at home. Miss Anthony followed them up and saw that they did it. If she could not find them at the Capitol, she went to their homes. If they promised to introduce a certain measure on a certain day, she was in the gallery looking them squarely in the face. If they failed to do it, they found her waiting for them at the close of the session. Senator Blair wrote this humorous note January 15: "I thought just as likely as not you would come fussing round before I got your amendment reported to the Senate. I wish you would go home. Cockrell has agreed to let me know soon whether he won't allow the report to be made right off without any bother, and I have been to him several times before. I don't see what you want to meddle for, anyway. Go off and get married!"



Miss Anthony has been directly connected with every action taken by Congress or by any congressional committee on the question of woman suffrage. There are on file among her papers hundreds of letters from members during the past thirty years, showing her energy and persistence in compelling attention to this subject, in learning who were its friends, in attempting to convert the doubters and in spurring the believers to effort. This is something for the women of the future to remember.

The Eighteenth Annual Convention opened February 17. Prominent features were a fine address by Rev. Rush R. Shippen, of All Souls church, and the first appearance on the platform of Mary F. Eastman, Ada C. Sweet, the pension agent, the eloquent southern speakers, Mrs. Elizabeth A. Meriwether and Mrs. Sallie Clay Bennett, and the talented German, Madame Clara Neymann. Among many letters was one from George W. Childs to Miss Anthony, saying: "I am always glad to hear from you and I keep track of your continued good work. Do not be discouraged. I take pleasure in sending the enclosed check ($100) with my sincere regards and very best wishes."

The crowds were so great that policemen had to be stationed at the door to prevent late comers from trying to enter during the evening sessions. The resolutions scored the bill before Congress proposing to disfranchise all Utah women, both Gentile and Mormon, to punish the crime of polygamy. The usual hearing was granted before the congressional committees. The fight for woman suffrage in the Forty-ninth Congress was conducted by Ezra B. Taylor, of Ohio, who prepared the favorable minority report of the House Judiciary Committee. The adverse majority report was signed by John Randolph Tucker, of Virginia.

On March 25 "the general" slipped up to New York City, to assist her forces at the State convention, and then hastened back to Washington to direct the main line of attack. The diary says:

March 30.—Went to House of Representatives, saw Messrs. Tucker and Taylor of judiciary committee; both promised to report soon. Then went to Senate, saw Messrs. Blair, Stanford and Bowen; all agreed to work to bring up our bill by May 1. In the evening took a cab and went in a pouring rain to Senator Stanford's, where I spent an hour. How keen and true are his perceptions in regard to public questions!

March 31.—Pouring rain, dark and muggy. I went to the Senate; sat with Mrs. Dolph and Mrs. Stanford; heard Senator Dolph's fine speech on the admission of Washington Territory as a State and his splendid word for woman suffrage. Mrs. Dolph took me home in her carriage.

April 1.—Went to the Senate again to secure pledges for votes and speeches for the Sixteenth Amendment Bill. Got Senator Dolph's strongest paragraphs, and at 8 P. M. went to the top floor of the Associated Press rooms and gave them to Mr. Boynton, who sent them over the wires.

April 9.—The United States Senate today voted down Eustis' motion to refuse to admit Washington Territory unless the woman suffrage clause were eliminated from its constitution, 25 to 12. Senator Ingalls was the only Republican who voted with the enemy.

A few days later Miss Anthony received the following from Mrs. Caroline E. Merrick, of New Orleans: "... I feel defrauded that I never knew you until last year. Judge Merrick says you are the most sensible person he ever met (without any sex qualifications, of course). Like you, I was indignant at Mr. Eustis in regard to his course toward Washington Territory. I was ashamed and blushed for my Louisiana senator that time. Thanks for your sympathy in my illness. When my head lies low I pray that you may find another and even better friend in my State, who will come to the front in the cause of equal rights for women." An extract from a letter of Rev. Olympia Brown to Mrs. Stanton shows how much the old workers as well as the young depended upon Miss Anthony: "I wish to inquire what has become of Susan? You know she is my North Star. I take all my bearings from her, and when I lose sight of her I wander helplessly, uncertain of my course."

The diary of April 30 says: "Heard Phoebe Couzins had been taken to Hot Springs, terribly crippled with rheumatism. Wrote her at once and enclosed $100, telling her I wanted it used to provide delicacies and make her comfortable. I have thought it would be Phoebe whom I should take with me on my southern tour next year, but I fear her work is done."



By the middle of May, 1886, the last bit of History proof was read, and unlimited leave of absence was granted Miss Anthony by her publisher, while the indexer and binder completed the work which was begun in 1876. On the 19th she started for Kansas, stopping for the usual visit in Chicago with her cousins. In Kansas she visited her brothers at Leavenworth and Fort Scott for nearly two months, making an occasional speech. On the morning of July 4, under the auspices of the W. C. T. U., she addressed a large audience at Salina on, "The powerlessness of woman so long as she is dependent on man for bread." In the hot afternoon, as she was about to enjoy a nap, word came that a hundred people had united in a request that she should speak again, as they had come from ten to twenty miles on purpose to hear her; so she returned to the grove, and Mrs. Griffith, State evangelist, kindly yielded her hour. On July 11 Miss Anthony went again to Chicago, and on the 14th spoke at Lake Bluff Camp Meeting, which was under the management of Frances E. Willard. She then visited the summer homes of her cousins and of Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, at Lake Geneva. On this trip she was accompanied by her dearly-loved niece, Susie B., who went with her to Rochester and spent the summer. The diary briefly records:

September 28.—Left Chicago at noon and lunched with Miss Willard at Rest Cottage, Evanston. Her mother bright and charming at eighty-two, and Anna Gordon sweet as ever. It was very good to see Miss Willard under her own roof. Reached Racine in time for the State convention, was met by a delegation of ladies and taken to the home of Martha Parker Dingee, niece of the great Theodore Parker, a lovely woman. Fine audiences.

October 2.—Reached St. Louis at 8 A. M. As I was looking for my trunk I heard some one cry out, "Is that you, Susan?" and there were Phoebe Couzins and her father. I had made my trip that way for the special purpose of seeing her, expecting to find her confined to the house; so I went home and breakfasted with them.

October 4.—Reached Leavenworth and found Mrs. Colby and Mrs. Saxon ready to begin the campaign for arousing public sentiment to demand a bill from the next legislature to secure Municipal suffrage for women. Dr. Ruth M. Wood is the mainspring of the movement here.

This series of conventions was held in the congressional districts from October 5 to November 3, Mrs. Laura M. Johns, manager, assisted by Mrs. Anna C. Wait, president of the State Association, and by a number of capable and energetic Kansas women at each place visited. Under date of October 11, Miss Anthony wrote to eastern friends: "We are having the loveliest weather you ever dreamed of and the most magnificent audiences—no church or hall holding them. If our legislators, State or national, could only see these gatherings and look into the earnest faces of these people, coming so many miles in wagons to see and hear and get fresh courage, they would surely answer our demands by something else than silence." The press corroborated this description and the following special dispatch may be taken as a fair specimen:

The seventh district convention, the third of the series, has just closed in Lincoln, and was a beautiful ovation to Miss Anthony. Crowded houses greeted her—every available foot of space filled with chairs, window-sills utilized for seats, and conveyances drawn up outside of windows and filled with listeners. People came thirty, forty and fifty miles in buggies and wagons to shake hands with the pioneer suffragist. Grizzly-headed opposers succumbed to Miss Anthony's logic and came up to grasp her hand and say God bless her, and proved the depth of their fervor by generous financial aid to the cause she so ably represents. It is seldom that the beginner of a great reform lives to see such fruitage of her labors as does she. People often descant upon the indifference of women to the question of their own enfranchisement and to political matters generally; but there is serious doubt of greater interest ever having been shown by men in political meetings than women exhibit in these conventions....

On the evening of the second day the house was so densely packed that a messenger for a glass of water had to go out through a window. But in spite of all discomfort and the many standing, the audience maintained perfect order and gave the utmost attention throughout Miss Anthony's speech of two hours. Learning that she would remain in Lincoln over Sunday the people importuned her to speak that afternoon in the Presbyterian church, which she did to a large audience.

The diary relates: "A mother brought her four-weeks-old girl baby twenty-five miles in a carriage, so she might tell it, when grown, that Susan B. Anthony had taken it in her arms. 'And the trip has not hurt baby a particle,' she said brightly." And again it tells, with a good deal of gusto, that one Baptist minister was determined the suffrage speakers should not have his church and only yielded after several of the richest pew-holders declared they never would pay another dollar towards his salary if he did not. He then made his appearance at the meeting, opened it with his blessing and closed it with his benediction! Miss Anthony was not always able to speak to her own satisfaction. At Salina she lectured for the Y. M. C. A. and writes: "I went to the opera house and found a fine audience. Tried to give 'Moral Influence vs. Political Power,' but the spirit wouldn't soar; its wings flapped on the earth perpetually for the whole hour. I took my $25 from the treasurer and went home with a heavy heart. It is beyond my knowledge why, after speaking every day for a whole week, freely and decently, my wits should desert me and my tongue be tied just at the time when I am most anxious to do my best."