Two days' meetings were held at Abilene, Florence, Hutchinson, Wichita, Anthony, Winfield, Independence, Lawrence and Fort Scott. The speakers were entertained by prominent families, suffrage societies were formed at each place, the vast majority of public sentiment seemed favorable, and the collections paid all the expenses of the conventions.

In November and December a number of other speakers made a canvass of the State, and the following winter the legislature passed a bill conferring Municipal suffrage upon the women of Kansas. The bill was introduced in the Senate by R. W. Blue (Rep.) of Linn county; and in the House by T. T. Taylor (Rep.) of Reno county. It passed the Senate, 25 ayes, all Republicans; 13 noes, 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats; in the House 90 ayes, 84 Republicans and 6 Democrats; 21 noes, 5 Republicans and 16 Democrats. The bill was signed by Governor John A. Martin, February 15, 1887; and under its provisions women in that State have voted ever since at Municipal elections.[28]

Without a day's rest, Miss Anthony went direct from Kansas to Sandwich, Ill., to attend the State convention. After three days there and a Sunday in Chicago, Monday, November 8, found her at Racine, Wis., ready to begin a tour of conventions in every congressional district. That evening a reception was given her by Hon. and Mrs. M. B. Erskine, and the hospitality of their handsome home was offered for every day which she could spend in the city.

With Mrs. Colby and Rev. Olympia Brown, assisted by local speakers, meetings were held at Waukesha, Ripon, Oshkosh, Green Bay, Grand Rapids, Eau Claire, LaCrosse, Evansville, Milwaukee and Madison. At the last place the ladies spoke in the Senate chamber of the State House to an audience containing a number of dignitaries, among them President Bascom, of the State University, and his wife, who from this time were Miss Anthony's steadfast friends. Mrs. Colby gives a graphic description of Miss Anthony's sudden outburst here, when several members had exasperated her by their remarks, which closes: "I was writing at the secretary's desk and as I looked up I realized the full grandeur of the scene. It was woman standing at the bar of the nation, pleading for the recognition of her citizenship. Miss Anthony seemed positively Titanic as she leaned far over from the speaker's desk. Her tone and manner were superb, and the vast and sympathetic audience caught the electric thrill...." In this city she was the guest of an old schoolmate, Elizabeth Ford Proudfit. The meetings closed December 3, and Miss Anthony wrote Mrs. Spofford:

I intend now to make straight for Washington without a stop. I shall come both ragged and dirty. Think of two solid months of conventions, speaking every night! Don't worry about me. I was never better or more full of hope and good work. Though the apparel will be tattered and torn, the mind, the essence of me, is sound to the core. Please tell the little milliner to have a bonnet picked out for me, and get a dressmaker who will patch me together so I shall be presentable. Now for the Washington convention: Before settling upon the Universalist church, you would better pocket the insults and refusals of the Congregational church powers that be and send your most lovely and winning girls to ask for that. If you can't get it or the Metropolitan or the Foundry or the New York Avenue or any large and popular church, why take the Universalist, and then tell the saints of the fashionable churches that we dwell there because they refused us admission to their holy sanctuaries. Don't let us go into the heterodox houses, much as I love them, except because we are driven away from the orthodox.

In December the third volume of the History of Woman Suffrage at last was ready for the public, another book of nearly 1,000 pages. It completed the story up to 1884, and like its predecessors was cordially received by the press. The money swallowed up by this work hardly will be credited. Mrs. Stanton not being able or willing to revise the last volume until it was put into proof slips, and then making extensive changes, the cost for re-setting type was over $900. The fifty fine steel engravings and the prints made from them cost over $6,000. For proof reading $500 was paid, and for indexing, $250. Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Gage, seeing that there never would be any profits from the books and that Miss Anthony proposed to give most of them away, sold out their rights to her, the former for $2,000 and the latter for $1,000. She also, as has been stated, bought out the interest of Fowler & Wells. When the first edition of the three mammoth volumes finally came into her sole possession, they represented an outlay on her part of $20,000.

While there were many criticisms from certain quarters as to various errors and so-called misstatements, and many threats to write a history which should be free from all imperfections, the fact remains that, although fifty years have passed since the inception of the great movement to secure equal rights for women, there never has been another attempt to preserve the story. But for Miss Anthony's careful collecting and saving of newspaper accounts, manuscripts of speeches, published reports and the correspondence of half a century, her persistent and determined effort for ten years to have them put into readable shape, and Mrs. Stanton's fine ability to do it, the student never would have been able to trace the evolution of woman from a chattel in the eye of the law to a citizen with legal and social rights very nearly equal to those of man. While there is necessarily some repetition, so long a time elapsing between the writing of the different volumes, and perhaps a little prolixity, there is not a dull page in the whole work and the reader will find it difficult to reach a place where she is willing to stop. It contains a resume of early conditions; the persecutions endured by the pioneers in the struggle for freedom; the progress in each separate State, and in foreign countries; the action taken by different legislatures and congresses; the grand arguments made for equal rights; the position of woman in church and State. Into whatever library the student may go seeking information upon this question, it is to these volumes he must look to find it in collected and connected form. If Miss Anthony had done no other work but to produce this History, she would deserve a prominent place on the list of immortal names.

It was necessary to put so high a price upon it, $15 a set in cloth and $19.50 in leather binding, as to make a large sale impossible. Miss Anthony did not undertake it as a money-making scheme, and when the receipt of Mrs. Eddy's bequest enabled her to discharge all indebtedness connected with it, she felt herself at liberty to use it as a most valuable means of educating the people into an understanding of the broad principle of equality of rights. At her own expense she placed the History in over 1,000 of the libraries of Europe and America, including the British Museum, the university libraries of Oxford, Edinburgh, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Finland, Melbourne, Toronto, and many of the university and public libraries of the United States. The members of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees in several Congresses were presented with sets, and there are hundreds of letters on file from prominent persons in England and this country acknowledging the receipt of the books.



Chapters might be made of commendatory letters received from officials, writers, public workers and friends in private life. A few specimens must suffice. A letter from Senator H. B. Anthony to his "dear cousin," closed by saying: "The three volumes form a valuable history of the important enterprise in which you have borne so conspicuous and honorable a part, and you have added to the reputation of the name that we both bear."

Mary L. Booth, the gifted editor of Harper's Bazar, thus expressed her opinion of the work:

You and your colleagues have industriously placed on record a copious mass of documentary evidence which will be of the utmost value when the time arrives to sum up the final results. When this era comes, you will be foremost among the band of heroic pioneers who have endured discomfort, obloquy and privation of much that is dear to women for the sake of those who will profit by your labors while failing to recognize them. Posterity will do you this justice, whether your contemporaries do or not; but indeed, it is universally known to those with any knowledge of the facts, that among all the champions of women, none has been more distinguished for utter self-abnegation, single-heartedness and devotion to her life-work than Susan B. Anthony.

As you know, I have always felt the deepest interest in the elevation of women, which is synonymous with that of humanity, for man must be always on the plane of his wife, sister and mother.... The antagonism to political equality is rapidly disappearing, as it is beginning to be recognized that in politics, as in everything else, woman's help is needed, and the republic can not afford to have her stand aloof. But this phase of the subject has been so much misunderstood, both by men and women, that time is needed to clear away the mists of misconception which envelop it; and to prove that the co-operation of women in political life is not only just and expedient, but absolutely indispensable to the public weal.



No family in Rochester stood more steadfastly by Miss Anthony during all her long and eventful life than the Wilders—Carter, Samuel, Mrs. Maria Wilder Depuy and D. Webster. The last, in acknowledging the receipt of the books, wrote: "How much you have contributed to history in this grand publication! With woman as a part of humanity, what a revolution will be wrought! Changes everywhere—in social life, in morals, politics, business—and all for the better. In this world-revolution you have done a great work. My children are proud of the fact that you are my personal friend. I fully appreciate your gift. It will be a Bible in my home." From the philanthropist, Sarah B. Cooper, revered for her work in the kindergartens on the Pacific coast, came this tribute:

This book is the fruitage of all the years of your faith and work. It tells of the long preparation—the opening up of the forest; the blazing of the trail; the clearing of the underbrush; the deep sub-soiling; the lying fallow; the ploughing, sowing, harrowing, the patient tillage—and now comes the harvest. What courage, endurance, fidelity and faith! The pioneers of new thoughts and principles are the loneliest of mortals. Those who live ahead of their time must wait for the honors and plaudits of posterity to get their full meed of appreciation and reward. But after all, dear, honored friend, the richest reward of such a life as yours is to have lived it.

The History also was given to the libraries of those towns whose women would raise a certain amount towards various State suffrage campaigns, and in every possible way it always has been used for missionary work.[29]

The first week in 1887, in most inclement weather and against the protest of friends, Miss Anthony went all the way to Nebraska, to keep a promise to Mrs. Colby and other women of that State to attend their annual convention, January 7. She found a pleasant letter awaiting her at Lincoln, from her old friend, Mary Rogers Kimball, daughter of the noted Abolitionist, Nathaniel P. Rogers, and wife of the General Passenger Agent of the Union Pacific R. R., now living at Omaha, which closed: "How I wish you could come to us and rest a few days. Mr. Kimball would welcome you, as would every one of this household. You ought to make our home happy by coming once in a while.... Mother, who is able to walk a little and is interested in all you do and say, sends her love and hopes to see you." She spoke at Chicago, January 13, in the First Methodist church, where she was introduced by the well-known Rev. H. W. Thomas.[30] She went from there to the Michigan convention at Lansing, January 14, and here was presented to the audience by Governor Cyrus G. Luce.

She reached Washington January 17, 1887, and rushed the preparations for the Nineteenth National Convention, which opened on the 25th at the Metropolitan M. E. church. Zerelda G. Wallace gave a noteworthy address; Senator Carey, of Wyoming, made an able speech and Mrs. Carey sat by Miss Anthony during the proceedings. The second day of the convention, January 26, marked a great epoch, the first vote ever taken in Congress on a Sixteenth Amendment. The previous month, December 8, 1886, Henry W. Blair had asked the Senate to consider the following joint resolution: "The rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." He supported this in a long and comprehensive speech covering the whole ground on which the demand is based, quoting from the favorable reports of the judiciary committees, exposing the weakness and fallacy of the objections, and making an unanswerable argument on the justice of granting political liberty to women.

At the urgent request of opposing senators the matter had been postponed until January 25, when it was again called up by Mr. Blair. The opposition was led by Joseph A. Brown, of Georgia, who described in detail the intentions of the Creator when he made woman, and declared that females had not the physical strength to perform military duty, build railroads, raise crops, sit on juries or attend night caucuses, but that God had endowed men with strength and faculties for all these things. He stated that it was a grave mistake to say that woman is taxed without being represented, and added, "It is very doubtful whether the male or the female sex has more influence in the administration of the affairs of government and the enactment of laws!" He asserted that "the baser class of females would rush to the polls, and this would compel the intelligent, virtuous and refined females, including wives and mothers, to relinquish for a time their God-given trust and go, contrary to their wishes, to the polls and vote to counteract the other class;" and followed this by saying that "the ignorant female voters would be at the polls en masse, while the refined and educated, shrinking from public contact, would remain at home." He continued: "The ballot will not protect females against the tyranny of bad husbands, as the latter will compel them to vote as they dictate;" then in the next breath he declared: "Wives will form political alliances antagonistic to the husbands, and the result will be discord and divorce." In his entire speech Senator Brown ignored the existence of unmarried women and widows. He closed with copious extracts from "Letters from a Chimney Corner," written by some Chicago woman.

Senator Dolph, of Oregon, followed in a clear, concise argument, brushing away these sophistries by showing that such evils did not exist where women were enfranchised and voted at every election. He was interrupted by Senator Eustis, of Louisiana, who inquired whether he thought "it would be a decent spectacle to take a mother away from her nursing infant and lock her up all night with a jury?" Senator Dolph replied that there was not a judge in the world who would not excuse a woman under such circumstances, just as there were many causes which exempted men. He continued:

Government is but organized society.... It can only derive its just powers from the consent of the governed, and can be established only under a fundamental law which is self-imposed. Every citizen of suitable age and discretion has, in my judgment, a natural right to participate in its formation. The fathers of the republic enunciated the doctrine "that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." It is strange that any one in this enlightened age should be found to contend that this is true only of men, and that a man is endowed by his Creator with inalienable rights not possessed by a woman. The lamented Lincoln immortalized the expression that ours is a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people," and yet in reality it is far from that. There can be no government by the people where half of them are allowed no voice in its organization and control.... God speed the day when not only in all the States of the Union and in all the Territories, but everywhere, woman shall stand before the law freed from the last shackle which has been riveted upon her by tyranny, and the last disability which has been imposed upon her by ignorance; not only in respect to the right of suffrage, but in every other respect the peer and equal of her brother, man.



Senator Vest, of Missouri, came to the rescue of Senator Brown and in the course of his speech said:

I pity the man who can consider any question affecting the influence of woman, with the cold, dry logic of business. What man can, without aversion, turn from the blessed memory of that dear old grandmother, or the gentle words and caressing hand of that blessed mother gone to the unknown world, to face in its stead the idea of a female justice of the peace or township constable? For my part, I want when I go to my home—when I turn from the arena where man contends with man for what we call the prizes of this paltry world—I want to go back, not to be received in the masculine embrace of some female ward politician, but to the earnest, loving look and touch of a true woman. I want to go back to the jurisdiction of the wife, the mother; and instead of a lecture upon finance or the tariff, or upon the construction of the Constitution, I want those blessed, loving details of domestic life and domestic love.

I have said I would not speak of the inconveniences to arise from woman suffrage. I care not whether the mother is called upon to decide as a juryman, or a jurywoman, rights of property or rights of life, whilst her baby is "mewling and puking" in solitary confinement at home. There are other considerations more important, and one of them to my mind is insuperable. I speak now respecting women as a sex. I believe that they are better than men, but I do not believe they are adapted to the political work of this world. I do not believe that the Great Intelligence ever intended them to invade the sphere of work given to men, tearing down and destroying all the best influences for which God has intended them. The great evil in this country today is emotional suffrage. Women are essentially emotional. What we want in this country is to avoid emotional suffrage, and what we need is to put more logic into public affairs and less feeling.[31]

He presented a remonstrance against giving the ballot to women, signed by nearly 200 New England men, headed by President Eliot, of Harvard University, and including nearly fifty names prefixed by "Rev." He next drew from his budget a letter from Clara T. Leonard, of Boston, praying that the suffrage should not be granted to women, and Mr. Hoar remarked that the lady herself had been holding public office for a number of years.

Continuing Senator Vest said: "If we are to tear down all the blessed traditions, if we are to desolate our homes and firesides, if we are to unsex our mothers, wives and sisters, and turn our blessed temples of domestic peace into ward political assembly rooms, pass this joint resolution!" He now produced a document, entitled "The Law of Woman Life," and said: "This is signed Adeline D. T. Whitney—I can not say whether she be wife or mother. It contains not one impure or unintellectual aspiration. Would to God that I knew her so I could thank her in behalf of the society and politics of the United States. I shall ask that it be printed, as my strength does not suffice for me to read it."[32] It proved to be a long and involved essay begging that the ballot should not be given to women, and saying: "Are the daughters and granddaughters about to leap the fence, leave their own realm little cared for, undertake the whole scheme of outside creation, or contest it with the men? Then God help the men! God save the commonwealth!" Mr. Vest concluded with a blood-curdling picture of the French Revolution which would be repeated in this country if women were enfranchised.

Senator Blair then offered the appeal of the W. C. T. U. for the ballot, representing over 200,000 women, presented by Zerelda G. Wallace, who had reared thirteen children and grandchildren, among them the author of Ben Hur. He submitted also the matchless arguments which had been made by the most intellectual women of the nation before the congressional committees from year to year, including that of Miss Anthony in 1880, and urged that the question should be submitted to the legislatures of the various States for settlement.

The vote was taken on the question of submitting a Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution to the State legislatures for ratification, and resulted in 16 yeas and 34 nays, 26 absent.[33] Of the affirmative votes, all were Republican; of the negative, 24 Democratic and 10 Republican. Senator Farwell, of Illinois, was roundly denounced by the Chicago Tribune for his affirmative vote. Senators Chace, Dawes and Stanford, who were paired, and Plumb, who was absent, announced publicly that they would have voted "aye."

Over fifty of the distinguished women in attendance at the convention were in the Senate gallery during this debate. The most sanguine of them had not expected the necessary two-thirds, but had worked to obtain a vote simply for the prestige of a discussion in the Senate, the printing of the speeches in the Congressional Record and the wide agitation of the question through the medium of press and platform which was sure to follow. They felt especially incensed at Senator Ingalls, as the sentiment of his State had just shown itself to be overwhelmingly in favor of woman suffrage, and they did not hesitate to score him in public and in private. As soon as the news of the vote reached the convention Miss Anthony roundly denounced him from the platform. In the evening she received a note from him saying: "Will you do me the favor to designate an hour at which it would be convenient for you to give me a brief interview?" She did not answer, and on the 31st she received another: "I called Thursday and Friday mornings, but was not able to reach you with my card. My errand was personal and I hope I may be more fortunate when you are again in the city." When she did see him she found his purpose was to declare a truce, which she declined, as he already had done the cause all the harm possible for him.

From Washington Miss Anthony went to assist at a convention in Philadelphia, and "felt guilty for days," she says in her diary, because she refused to go on to Connecticut. She enjoyed a brief visit with Professor Maria Mitchell at Vassar College; and hastened to Albany to address the legislature in regard to the Constitutional Convention, "just as I did twenty years ago in the old Capitol," she writes. Then back to Washington to look after matters there, and thus on and on, never allowing herself to be delayed by weather, fatigue or social demands, month after month, year after year, with but one object in view, never losing sight of it for a moment, and making all else subservient to this single purpose.

In April she was terribly distressed at the malicious falsehoods which were sent out from Leavenworth in regard to the first voting of the women in Kansas, and says, "It will take oceans of breath and ink to counteract the baneful effects." On May 11, 1887, Frances E. Willard wrote her: "Will you please send me the form of resolution which would be the least that would satisfy you as a plank in the platform of the Prohibition party, or as a resolution to be adopted by the W. C. T. U.? I write this without authorization from any quarter, simply because I would like to find out what is the angle of vision along which you are looking." To this Miss Anthony replied:

What is the full significance of "would satisfy you?" Do you mean so satisfy me that I would work, and recommend all women to work, for the success of the Third party ticket? Or do you mean the least that I think it should say for its own sake? If the first, I am not sure that the fullest endorsement would cause me to throw all my sympathies and efforts into line with the Prohibition party, any more than if the same full suffrage plank should be put into the platform of the great Labor or Fourth party, which is pretty sure to take part in the presidential contest of 1888.

I can not answer for others, but I shall not pray or speak or work for the defeat of the nominees of the party of which every United States Senator who voted for us last winter is a leading member, and to which belongs every man but six in the Kansas Legislature who made the overwhelming vote giving municipal suffrage to the women of that State. Not until a third party gets into power or is likely to do so, which promises a larger per cent. of representatives on the floor of Congress and in the several State legislatures who will speak and vote for woman's enfranchisement, than does the Republican, shall I work for it. You see, as yet there is not a single Prohibitionist in Congress, while there are at least twenty Republicans on the floor of the United States Senate, besides fully one-half of the members of the House of Representatives, who are in favor of woman suffrage. For the women of Kansas or Iowa to work for any third party would be ungrateful and suicidal.

Since I hope to live to see a Sixteenth Amendment Bill through Congress and three-fourths of the State legislatures, I do not propose to work for the defeat of the party which thus far has furnished nearly every vote in that direction. If you will pardon me, I think it will be quite as suicidal a policy for the temperance women of the nation to work to defeat the party which contains so nearly all of their best friends and helpers. What it seems to me should be done by all women who want reforms in legislation, is to appoint committees to confer with leading Republicans asking them to make pledges in the direction of suffrage and temperance, with the assurance of our support in case of the insertion of the planks we ask in their platform. I fear, however, you are already pledged to the Third party, come what may, and if so it is of no use for me to advise.[34]

In May Miss Anthony again journeyed westward, though she says in her diary: "It never was harder for me to start. A heavy nothingness is upon head and heart." She went first to the State Suffrage Convention at Indianapolis, where as usual she was a guest in the beautiful home of Mr. and Mrs. Sewall. A reception was given her at the Bates House and she was cordially greeted by several hundred ladies. She went to meetings at Evansville, Richmond and Lafayette, and then to the Ohio convention at Cleveland; here, as always, the guest of her loved friend, Louisa Southworth.

She writes May 26: "Arrived home at 8 P. M. and found all well—the all consisting of sister Mary, the only one left." She was invited to meet with a large and conservative society of women who did not believe in equal suffrage. All made nice little addresses and when Miss Anthony was called on she said: "Ladies, you have been doing here today what I and a few other women were denounced as 'unsexed' for doing thirty years ago—speaking in public;" and then proceeded to point the moral. She attended the commencement exercises of a young ladies' seminary, whose principal would not acknowledge a handsome gift from her pupils by a few remarks because she "considered it would look too strong-minded." Miss Anthony comments on the graduates' essays: "They had as much originality as Baedecker's Guide-book."

In July she went as the guest of her friend Adeline Thomson, of Philadelphia, for two weeks at Cape May and here had her first experience in sea-bathing, although she always had lived within a short distance of the ocean. She says: "This is my first seaside dissipation. It seems very odd to be one of the giddy summer resort people!" She took Miss Thomson with her up into the Berkshire hills of northwestern Massachusetts to Adams, her birthplace, and visited the home of her grandfather. In the early days of her peregrinations she used to come often to this picturesque spot, but it now had been twenty years since her last visit. Time does not bring many changes to the New England nooks or the people who live in them, and she greatly enjoyed the nine days spent with uncles, aunts and cousins, exploring the well-remembered spots. They went from here to Magnolia for a two weeks' visit at the seaside cottage of Mr. and Mrs. James Purinton, of Lynn, Mass. At this time, in answer to a request for advice, Miss Anthony wrote to Olympia Brown and Mrs. Almedia Gray, of Wisconsin:

I have your letters relative to bringing suits under the school suffrage law, and hasten to say to you that Mrs. Minor's and my own experience in both suing and being sued on the Fourteenth Amendment claim leads me to beseech you not to make a test case unless you know you will get the broadest decision upon it. If you get the narrow one restricting the present law simply to school-district voting, there it will rest and no judge or inspector will transcend the limit of the decision. My judgment would be to say and do nothing about the law, but through the year keep up the educational work, showing that such and such cities allowed women to vote for mayor, common council, etc., and by the next election many others will let women vote; and so in a few years all will follow suit. Let what you have alone and try for more; for all your legislature has power to give. It will be vastly more likely to grant municipal suffrage than your supreme court will be to give a decision that the school law already allows women to vote for mayor, council, governor, etc.

They thought best, however, to bring the suits; the exact results which were predicted followed, and the school suffrage even was restricted until it was practically worthless.

During this summer Miss Anthony undertook to arrange her many years' accumulation of letters, clippings, etc., and knowing her reluctance ever to destroy a single scrap, Mrs. Stanton wrote from Paris: "I am glad to hear that you have at last settled down to look over those awful papers. It is well I am not with you. I fear we should fight every blessed minute over the destruction of Tom, Dick and Harry's epistles. Unless Mary, on the sly, sticks them in the stove when your back is turned, you will never diminish the pile during your mortal life. (Make the most of my hint, dear Mary.)" It is safe to say it was just as large at the end of the examination as at the beginning.

In September, 1887, Miss Anthony again made a circuit of conventions in every congressional district in Wisconsin and then turned her attention to Kansas. The officers of the State association had arranged a series of conventions for the purpose of demanding a constitutional amendment conferring full suffrage on women. Miss Anthony, with Mrs. Johns, Mrs. Letitia V. Watkins, State organizer, Rev. Anna Shaw and Rachel Foster, gave the month of October to this canvass. Senator Ingalls, in a speech at Abilene, had attempted to defend his vote in the Senate against the Sixteenth Amendment, and Miss Anthony took this as a text for the campaign. She had ample material for the excoriating which she gave him in every district in Kansas, as the Senator had declared: 1st, that suffrage was neither a natural nor a constitutional right, but a privilege conferred by the State; 2d, that no citizens should be allowed to participate in the formation of legislatures or the enactment of laws, who could not enforce their action at the point of a bayonet; 3d, that no immigrants should be allowed to enter the United States from any country on earth for the next twenty-five years; 4th, that negro suffrage had been an absolute and unqualified failure; 5th, that while there were thousands of women vastly more competent than men to vote upon questions of morality, they never should be allowed to do so—simply because they were women.

It hardly need be said that Miss Anthony found little difficulty in reducing to tatters these so-called arguments, and that her audiences were in hearty sympathy. To borrow her own expression, she "tried to use him up so there was not an inch of ground under his feet." When the convention was held at Atchison Mrs. Ingalls invited sixteen of the ladies to a handsome luncheon, where the senator placed Miss Anthony at his right hand and made her the guest of honor. She proposed that he debate the question of woman suffrage with her but he refused on the ground that he could not attack a woman, so she served up this objection in her speech that evening. To a reporter he is said to have given the reason that he "would not stoop to the intellectual level of a woman."

The month of November was given to holding a two days' convention in each of the thirteen congressional districts of Indiana. These meetings were arranged by the State secretary, Mrs. Ida H. Harper, and the strong force of speakers, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Wallace, Mrs. Sewall and Mrs. Gougar, aroused great enthusiasm and made many converts.[35] This ended three months of constant travelling and speaking almost every day and evening. On the first of December Miss Anthony writes: "I have laid me down to sleep in a new bed nearly every night of this entire time."

But the 10th found her in Washington fresh and vigorous for the work of the coming winter. She was anxious to know whether the reports of the Senate debate had been franked and sent out as promised and, to her inquiry, Senator Blair answered with his usual little joke: "I have had the speeches, etc., attended to and trust that the mails will do you justice if the males do not. But remember that men naturally fight for their lives, and on the same principle, you shall for yours!"

FOOTNOTES:

[28] Miss Anthony notes in her diary that she made her first Kansas campaign in '67 and the suffrage bill was signed on her sixty-seventh birthday. She received a letter of congratulation on the signing of the bill from Chief-Justice Horton, of Kansas.

[29] The total amount received from sales has been only $7,000. Now, however, in order to give the History the widest possible circulation, the price has been so reduced as to enable it to be placed in the hands of the reading public. It is the hope of Miss Anthony to publish the fourth volume in the year 1900, bringing the History up to that date.

[30] At this meeting a yellow dog came on the platform and Miss Anthony is quoted as afterwards making this apt comment: "She says that, at least where women are concerned, the reporters are sure to seize upon some triviality and ring its changes to the exclusion of serious matters. She mentioned that when she spoke in Chicago last a dog ran across the stage and, springing up, laid his nose on her shoulder. 'I prophesied to the audience then,' she continued, 'that the dog would figure in the press reports more conspicuously than anything that was said or done, and so he did. He occupied half of the space in nearly every paper.'"

[31] Both Senator Vest and Senator Brown had appealed wholly to the emotions in their speeches upon this question, which were overflowing with sentiment and "gush."

[32] This hardly corresponds with Senator Brown's glowing description of the physical strength conferred by the Creator on man so that he could do the voting for the family.

[33] Yeas: Blair, Bowen, Cheney, Conger, Cullom, Dolph, Farwell, Hoar, Manderson, Mitchell of Oregon, Mitchell of Pennsylvania, Palmer, Platt, Sherman, Teller, Wilson of Iowa. Nays: Beck, Berry, Blackburn, Brown, Call, Cockrell, Coke, Colquitt, Eustis, Evarts, George, Gray, Hampton, Harris, Hawley, Ingalls, Jones of Nevada, McMillan, McPherson, Mahone, Morgan, Morrill, Payne, Pugh, Saulsbury, Sawyer, Sewell, Spooner, Vance, Vest, Walthall, Whitthorne, Williams, Wilson of Maryland. Absent: Aldrich, Allison, Butler, Frye, Gibson, Gorman, Miller, Plumb, Ransom, Camden, Cameron, Chace, Dawes, Edmunds, Fair, Hale, Harrison, Jones of Arkansas, Jones of Florida, Kenna, Maxey, Riddleberger, Sabin, Stanford, Van Wyck, Voorhees.

[34] The skeptical can not but wonder whether the Republican party ever will have the grace and wisdom to justify the confidence which Miss Anthony has steadfastly placed in it, as regards this question, from the day of its birth.

[35] Conventions were held at Evansville, Vincennes, Bloomington, Kokomo, Logansport, Wabash, Lafayette, South Bend, Fort Wayne, Muncie, Anderson, Madison and New Albany. The largest of the series was at Terre Haute, where the opera house, donated by the citizens, was crowded both evenings with an audience representing the culture and intelligence of the city, and the convention was welcomed by the mayor, Jacob C. Kolsom.



CHAPTER XXXV.

UNION OF ASSOCIATIONS—INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL.

1888.

A preceding chapter described the forming in 1869 of the American Woman Suffrage Association at Cleveland, O., the overtures for union by the National Association the next year, and their rejection. No further efforts were made and each body continued to work in its own way. At the annual meeting of the American Association in Philadelphia, October 31, 1887, the following resolution from the business committee was unanimously adopted:

WHEREAS, The woman suffragists of the United States were all united until 1868 in the American Equal Rights Association; and whereas, The causes of the subsequent separation into the National and American Woman Suffrage Societies have since been largely removed by the adoption of common principles and methods; therefore

Resolved, That Mrs. Lucy Stone be appointed a committee of one from the American Woman Suffrage Association to confer with Miss Susan B. Anthony of the National and, if on conference it seems desirable, that she be authorized and empowered to appoint a committee of this association to meet a similar committee appointed by the National to consider a satisfactory basis of union, and refer it back to the executive committee of both associations for final action.

HENRY B. BLACKWELL,

Corresponding Secretary, A. W. S. A.

After conferring with the officers of the National Association, Miss Anthony informed Mrs. Stone that she would meet her in Philadelphia any time until December 9, and after that in Washington. She replied that she was not able to travel even so far as Philadelphia and, after some correspondence, Miss Anthony agreed to go to Boston. On the afternoon of December 21, 1887, accompanied by Rachel Foster, corresponding secretary of the National, she met Mrs. Stone and Alice Stone Blackwell, at No. 3 Park street, Boston, and held an extended conference in regard to the proposed union. Two days later Mrs. Stone sent to Miss Anthony, who was still in that city, the following:

In thinking over the points raised at our informal conference, it seems to me that the substantial outcome is this: The committees appointed by us respectively, if we conclude to appoint them, must each agree upon a common name, a common constitution and a common list of officers for the first year. A subsequent acceptance of these by each association will thereafter constitute the two societies one society. If you think there is a fair probability of coming to an agreement I will proceed to appoint my committee.

As the formal overtures for union have come from the American Association, it will be appropriate that our committee should draw up the plan for union which appears to them the most feasible, and forward it to Miss Foster, to be submitted to yours. Then your committee will suggest such modifications as they may think needful; and, if a mutually satisfactory result can be reached, the name, constitution and list of officers will go to the executive committee of each association for final action.

Christmas Day Miss Blackwell sent to Miss Foster a comprehensive plan for a union of the two societies, closing as follows: "Since many members of the National society regard Mrs. Stone as the cause of the division, and many members of the American regard Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony as the cause of it, Mrs. Stone suggested that it would greatly promote a harmonious union, for those three ladies to agree in advance that none of them would take the presidency of the united association." Early in January this formal announcement and letter were sent to Miss Foster:

The committee of the National to sit in counsel with that of the seven appointed by Lucy Stone, of the American, shall be: May Wright Sewall, Chairman, Harriette R. Shattuck, Olympia Brown, Helen M. Gougar, Laura M. Johns, Clara B. Colby, Rachel G. Foster, Secretary.[36]

I hope all will sink personalities and exalt principles, seeking only the best good for woman's enfranchisement, and that surely will come through the union of all the friends of woman suffrage into one great and grand national association which shall enable them to present a solid front to the enemy. This must be based on the principle of a genuine democracy, which shall give to each of its members a voice in all its deliberations, either in person or through representatives chosen by them, and to a constitution thus based I am sure each of my seven chosen ones will contribute her aid. Hoping that a consolidation of all our forces will be the result of this overture from Lucy Stone and her society, I am, very sincerely,

SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

On January 18, Miss Foster received from Miss Blackwell the list of the conference committee appointed by Mrs. Stone: Julia Ward Howe, Chairman, Wm. Dudley Foulke, Margaret W. Campbell, Anna H. Shaw, Mary F. Thomas, H. M. Tracy Cutler, Henry B. Blackwell, Secretary.

Miss Anthony again wrote Miss Foster: "I can not think of any stipulation I wish to make the basis of union save that we unite, and after that discuss all measures and ways and means, officers and newspapers, and cheerfully accept and abide by the rule of the majority. I do not wish to exact any pledges from Lucy Stone and her adherents, nor can I give any for Mrs. Stanton and her followers. When united we must trust to the good sense of each, just as we have trusted during the existence of the division. As Greeley said about resuming specie payment, 'the way to unite is to unite' and trust the consequences."

It is not essential for the completeness of this work to reproduce in detail the official proceedings, which extended through two years and caused Miss Anthony often to write, "I shall be glad when this frittering away of time on mere forms is past." A basis of agreement finally was reached, and the union was practically completed at the National Convention which met in Washington, January 21, 1889. A committee of thirteen was selected to confer with the committee from the American. This consisted of Miss Anthony and Mesdames Hooker, Minor, Duniway, Johns, Sewall, Perkins, Colby, Spofford, Brown, Blake, Gougar and Foster Avery. The Woman's Tribune thus described the result:

At the business session, January 24, 1889, they reported in substance as follows:

Name, etc.—The association to be called the National-American W. S. A. The annual convention to be held at Washington.

Chronology.—The next annual meeting of the joint society to be—as it would be for the National—the twenty-second annual Washington convention.

Work.—To be for National and State legislation protecting women in the exercise of their right to vote.

Representation.—As provided in the new National constitution.

Where two associations exist in one State and will not unite, both are to be accepted as auxiliary societies.

An earnest debate followed. Miss Anthony threw her influence strongly in favor of union and carried many with her, even those who openly expressed themselves that their judgment would be to continue the two societies. The vote was then taken on union, thirty voting for, eleven against.

Miss Alice Stone Blackwell and Rev. Anna H. Shaw were present on behalf of the American Association, accepted the deviations from the propositions as presented by that association, and felt reasonably certain that it would endorse their action.



No one person contributed so much toward effecting the union of these two societies as Alice Stone Blackwell. On February 17, 1890, both bodies met in Washington and it was decided that the official boards of the two should form the voting force until the joint temporary organization was completed. Councils were held in the great parlor and dining-room of the Riggs House. Both Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton had been willing, from the beginning of negotiations, to accept the proposition of the Americans that neither one of them, nor Lucy Stone, should take the presidency of the united association, but from the Nationals in every part of the country came a cry of dissent. Letters poured in declaring that Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton had borne the brunt of the battle for forty years, that they had not once lowered the flag or made the question of woman suffrage subservient to any other, that they were the head and heart of the movement, and that for them to be deposed was out of the question.[37] It soon became evident that unless this point were conceded all hope of union would have to be banished. While most of the delegates agreed that, in respect to seniority in years and work and also in consideration of her commanding ability, Mrs. Stanton should be president, there were many who thought that, because of her advanced age and the fact that she spent most of her time abroad, it would be better to elect Miss Anthony. The latter was distracted by such a thought and at the final meeting of National delegates preliminary to the joint convention, with all the earnestness of her strong nature and in a voice vibrating with emotion, she said:

I appeal to every woman who has any affection for the old National or for me not to vote for Susan B. Anthony for president. I stand in a delicate position. I have letters which accuse me of having favored the union solely for personal and selfish considerations, and of trying to put Mrs. Stanton out. Now what I have to say is, don't vote for any human being but Mrs. Stanton. There are other reasons why I wish her elected, but I have these personal ones: When the division was made twenty years ago, it was because our platform was too broad, because Mrs. Stanton was too radical; a more conservative organization was wanted. If we Nationals divide now and Mrs. Stanton is deposed from the presidency, we virtually degrade her. If you have any love for our old association, which, from the beginning, has stood like a rock in regard to creeds and politics, demanding that every woman should be allowed to come upon our platform to plead for her freedom—if you have any faith in that grand principle—vote for Mrs. Stanton....

The National always has allowed the utmost liberty. Anything and everything which stood in the way of progress was likely to get knocked off our platform. I want every one who claims to be a National to continue to stand for this principle. We have come now to another turning-point and, if it is necessary, I will fight forty years more to make our platform free for the Christian to stand upon whether she be a Catholic and counts her beads, or a Protestant of the straitest orthodox creed, just as I have fought for the rights of the infidels the last forty years. These are the principles I want you to maintain, that our platform may be kept as broad as the universe, that upon it may stand the representatives of all creeds and no creeds—Jew or Christian, Protestant or Catholic, Gentile or Mormon, pagan or atheist.

At the joint executive session after the union was formally declared to be consummated, the vote was: For president, Mrs. Stanton, 131; Miss Anthony, 90; for vice-president-at-large, Miss Anthony, 213. Lucy Stone was unanimously elected chairman of the executive committee; Rachel Foster Avery, corresponding secretary; Alice Stone Blackwell, recording secretary;[38] Jane H. Spofford, treasurer; Eliza T. Ward and Rev. Frederick W. Hinckley, auditors. This uniting of the two associations was begun in 1887 and finished in 1890, in the most thoroughly official manner, according to the most highly approved parliamentary methods, and the final result was satisfactory to a large majority of the members of both societies, who since that time have worked together in unbroken harmony.

The action of the American Association was almost unanimous, but the members of the National were widely divided. Letters of protest were received from many States, and several of its members attempted to form new organizations. The executive sessions in Washington were the most stormy in the history of the association, and only the unsurpassed parliamentary knowledge of the chairman, May Wright Sewall, aided by the firm co-operation of Miss Anthony, could have harmonized the opposing elements and secured a majority vote in favor of the union. There had been no time during the twenty years' division when Miss Anthony was not ready to sink all personal feeling and unite the two societies for the sake of promoting the cause which she placed before all else in the world; and from the first prospect of combining the forces, she used every effort toward its accomplishment. It was a source of especial gratification that this was practically assured by the winter of 1888, when the International Council of Women met in Washington, as it enabled the American Association to accept the invitation and send representatives to this great convocation—which will now be considered.



It had long been the dream of Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton to form an International Suffrage Association for purposes of mutual helpfulness and the strength of co-operation. During 1883, when in Great Britain, they discussed this subject with the women there and, as a result, a large committee of correspondence had been established to promote the forming of such an association. After a time it was judged expedient to enlarge its scope and make it an International Council, which should represent every department of woman's work. This was called to meet at Washington in 1888, the fortieth anniversary of the first organized demand for the rights of women, the convention at Seneca Falls, and active preparations had been in progress for more than a year. It was decided at the suffrage convention held the previous winter that the National Association should assume the entire responsibility for this International Council and should invite the participation of all organizations of women in the trades, professions, reforms, etc.

Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Spofford were in Europe and this herculean task was borne principally by Miss Anthony, May Wright Sewall and Rachel Foster.[39] Miss Anthony stayed in Washington for two months preceding the council, perfecting the last arrangements. The amount of labor, time, thought and anxiety involved in this year of preparation can not be estimated. Nothing to compare with it ever had been attempted by women. Not the least part of the undertaking was the raising of the $13,000 which were needed to defray expenses, all secured by personal letters of appeal and admission fees, and disbursed with careful economy and judgment. The intention was to give the suffrage association the same prominence as other organizations and no more. An entry in Miss Anthony's diary says: "I have just received proof of the 'call' for the council and struck out the paragraph saying, 'no one would be committed to suffrage who should attend.' I can't allow any such apologetic invitation as that! There is no need to say anything about it." To her old friend Antoinette Brown Blackwell, who asked if only those women ministers who had been regularly ordained were to be heard, Miss Anthony wrote:

I have felt all along that we ought to give a chance for the expression of the highest and deepest religious thought of those not ordained of men. Your wish to give the result of your research opens the way for us to make the last day—Easter Sunday—voice the new, the purer, the better worship of the living God. We'll have a real symposium of woman's gospel. It is not fair to give only the church-ordained women an opportunity to present their religious thoughts, and now it shall be fixed so that the laity may have the same. I don't want a controversy or a lot of negations, but shall tell each one to give her strongest affirmation. This forever saying a thing is false and failing to present the truth, is to me a foolish waste of time, when almost everybody feels the old forms, creeds and rituals to be only the mint, anise and cumin.

So, my dear, I am very, very glad that you and Lucy are both to be on our platform, and we are to stand together again after these twenty years. But none of the past! Let us rejoice in the good of the present, and hope for more and more in the future.

In response to her letter asking him to take part on Pioneer Day, Frederick Douglass wrote:

I certainly shall, if I live and am well. The cause of woman suffrage has under it a truth as eternal as the universe of thought, and must triumph if this planet endures. I have been calling up to my mind's eye that first convention in the small Wesleyan Methodist church at Seneca Falls, where Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Mott and those other brave souls began a systematic and determined agitation for a larger measure of liberty for woman, and how great that little meeting now appears! It seems only yesterday since it took place, and yet forty years have passed away and what a revolution on this subject have we seen in the sentiment of the American people and, in fact, of the civilized world! Who could have thought that humble, modest, maiden convention, holding its little white apron up to its face and wiping away the tear of sympathy with woman in her hardships and the sigh of her soul for a larger measure of freedom, would have become the mother of an International Council of Women, right here in the capital of this nation?

Maria Mitchell, who was in feeble health (and died the next year) in expressing her regrets said: "I am taking a rest. I have worked more than a half-century and, like stronger people, have become tired. I am meaning to build my small observatory and keep up a sort of apology for study—because I am too old to dare do nothing. I wish I felt able to take the journey and hear what others have to say and are ready to do. The world moves, and I have full faith it will continue to move and to move, for better and better, even when we have put aside the armor."



During the winter, Mrs. Stanton had written Miss Anthony: "We have jogged along pretty well for forty years or more. Perhaps mid the wreck of thrones and the undoing of so many friendships, sects, parties and families, you and I deserve some credit for sticking together through all adverse winds, with so few ripples on the surface. When I get back to America I intend to cling to you closer than ever. I am thoroughly rested now and full of fight and fire, ready to travel and speak from Maine to Florida. Tell our suffrage daughters to brace up and get ready for a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together when I come back."

What then were her amazement, anger and grief to receive another letter from Mrs. Stanton a short time before the council, saying that a voyage across the Atlantic so filled her with dread that she had about decided not to undertake it! A fortieth anniversary of the Seneca Falls convention without the woman who called it! And this when she had counted on Mrs. Stanton to make the greatest speech of the whole meeting and cover the National Association with immortal glory! She says in her journal: "I am ablaze and dare not write tonight." The next entry: "I wrote the most terrific letter to Mrs. Stanton; it will start every white hair on her head." And then the following day the little book records: "Well, I made my own heart ache all night, awake or asleep, by my terrible arraignment, whether it touches her feelings or not." Ten days later she writes: "Received a cablegram from Mrs. Stanton, 'I am coming,' so she has my letter. My mind is so relieved, I feel as if I were treading on air."

On Mrs. Stanton's arrival a few days before the convention, Miss Anthony learned, to her consternation, that she had prepared no speech for the occasion! She shut her up in a room at the Riggs House with pen and paper, kept a guard at the door, permitted no one to see her, and when the time arrived she was ready with her usual magnificent address.

The council opened Sunday, March 25, in Albaugh's new opera house, with religious services conducted entirely by women, Revs. Phebe A. Hanaford, Ada C. Bowles, Antoinette Blackwell, Amanda Deyo, and a matchless sermon by Rev. Anna H. Shaw, "The Heavenly Vision." It would be wholly impossible to enter into a detailed account of this council, the greatest woman's convention ever held.[40] Although twenty-five cents admission was charged, and fifty cents for reserved seats, the opera house was crowded during the eight days and evenings, and seats were at a premium. Miss Anthony presided over eight of the sixteen sessions. While every speaker was allowed the widest latitude, there was not at any time the slightest friction. Letters were read from celebrated people in most of the countries of Europe and all parts of America. At the pioneer's meeting were eight men and thirty-six women who had been connected with the movement for woman suffrage forty years.[41]

Among the social courtesies extended to this distinguished body of women, were a reception at the White House by President and Mrs. Cleveland; handsome entertainments by Senator and Mrs. Leland Stanford, and Senator and Mrs. T. W. Palmer; a reception at the Riggs House; many smaller parties, dinners and luncheons; and numerous social gatherings of women doctors, lawyers, etc. At all of the large functions Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton and Lucy Stone stood at the left hand of the hostess, while the other officials and the foreign delegates were also in the "receiving line." At the White House Miss Anthony made the presentations to the President. As every newspaper in the country had complimentary notices of this council and the prominent ladies connected with it, it is scarcely possible to discriminate. The Baltimore Sun said:

The council began its deliberations in the finest humor with everybody, particularly with that prime favorite, Susan B. Anthony. This lady daily grows upon all present; the woman suffragists love her for her good works, the audience for her brightness and wit, and the multitude of press representatives for her frank, plain, open, business-like way of doing everything connected with the council. Miss Anthony when in repose looks worn with the conflict she has waged, though when she goes into action her angular face loses its tired look and becomes all animation. Her word is the parliamentary law of the meeting. Whatever she says is done without murmur or dissent. The women of the council are saved any parliamentary discussions such as arise in the meetings of men; they acknowledge that she is an autocrat. All are agreed that no better system than the absolute control of Susan B. Anthony can be devised.

The New York World commented:

If ever there was a gay-hearted, good-natured woman it is certainly Miss Anthony. From the beginning of this council it is she who has kept the fun barometer away up. The gray-headed friends of her youth are all "girls" to her, and she is a girl among them. Parliamentary rules have been by no means so severe as to keep even the regular proceedings free from her lively interpolation and comment. When Miss Anthony has felt the public pulse or looked at her watch and seen that a speech has gone far enough, she says under her breath, "Your time's about up, my dear." If the speaker continues, the next thing is, "I guess you'll have to stop now; it's more than ten minutes." When this fails, she usually begins to hang gently on the orator's skirt, and if pluckings and pullings fail, she then subsides with a quizzical smile, or stands erect and uncompromising by the speaker's side. There is none of the rude beating of the gavel, nor any paraphrase of "The gentleman's time is up," which marks the stiff proceedings of men "in congress assembled." To an unprejudiced eye this free-and-easy method of procedure might lack symmetry and dignity, but there is not the slightest doubt that Miss Anthony has been as wise as a serpent while being as gentle as a dove.

When Frances E. Willard rose to address the council, she laid her hand tenderly on Miss Anthony's shoulder and said: "I remember when I was dreadfully afraid of Susan, and Lucy too; but now I love and honor them, and I can not put into words my sense of what it means to me to have the blessing of these women who have made it possible for more timid ones like myself to come forward and take our part in the world's work. If they had not blazed the trees and pioneered the way, we should not have dared to come. If there is one single drop of chivalric blood in woman's veins, it ought to bring a tinge of pride to the face that Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Julia Ward Howe and these other grand women, our leaders and our foremothers, are here for us to greet; that they, who heard so much that was not agreeable, may hear an occasional pleasant word while they are alive." Very few of the speakers failed to express their deep feeling of personal obligation and the indebtedness of all women to the early labors of Miss Anthony and the other pioneers.

In her letter to the Union Signal, Miss Willard gave this bit of description: "The central figure of the council was Susan B. Anthony, in her black dress and pretty red silk shawl, with her gray-brown hair smoothly combed over a regal head, worthy of any statesman. Her mingled good-nature and firmness, her unselfish purpose and keen perception of the right thing to do, endeared her alike to those whom she admonished and those whom she praised. In her sixty-ninth year, dear 'Susan B.' seems not over fifty-five. She has a wonderful constitution, and the prodigies of work she has accomplished have forever put to rout the ignorant notion that women lack physical endurance."

In the year of preliminary work for this great council, the thought came many times to May Wright Sewall that it ought to result in something more than one brief convention, and she conceived the idea of a permanent International and also a permanent National Council of Women. During the week in Washington she presented her plan to a large number of the leaders who regarded it with approval. Miss Anthony, chairman of the meeting, by request, appointed a committee of fifteen who reported in favor of permanent councils, and Miss Willard presented an outline of constitutions. After a number of meetings of the delegates the councils were officially formed, March 31, 1888, "to include the organized working forces of the world's womanhood," in the belief that "such a federation will increase the world's sum total of womanly courage, efficiency and esprit de corps, widen the horizon, correct the tendency of an exaggerated impression of one's own work as compared with that of others, and put the wisdom and experience of each at the service of all." A simple form of constitution was adopted, and it was decided that the National Council should meet once in three years and the International once in five.[42]

Immediately upon the close of the council, the National Suffrage Association held its twentieth annual convention and, as many of the delegates remained, the meetings were nearly as crowded as those of the council had been. A local paper remarked "that it seemed as if the Washington people could never hear enough about woman suffrage." A fine address by Caroline E. Merrick was an especial feature, as it presented the question from the standpoint of a southern woman. The Senate committee granted a hearing, the speakers being presented by Miss Anthony. Mrs. Stanton made the principal address, a grand plea for human equality, and the grave and dignified committee gave her a round of applause. She was followed by Frances E. Willard and Julia Ward Howe; Laura Ormiston Chant and Alice Scatcherd, England; Isabelle Bogelot, France; Sophia Magelsson Groth, Norway; Alli Trygg, Finland; Bessie Starr Keefer, Canada.

Miss Anthony received many pleasant letters after the council; among them one from her friend Mrs. Samuel E. Sewall, of Boston, in which she said: "We want to congratulate you upon the very satisfactory and gratifying result of the council. I hear from the delegates on all sides most enthusiastic accounts of the whole affair, and of your wonderful powers and energy. Mr. Blackwell is loud in your praise. All this might be expected from the delegates, but what pleases me still more is the respectful tone of nearly all the newspapers. Even the sneering Nation has admitted an article in praise of the council." In all Miss Anthony's own letters there was not the slightest reference to any feeling of fatigue or desire for rest, but she seemed only to be stimulated to greater energy. It was impossible for her to respond to half the invitations which came from all parts of the country, but usually she selected the places where she felt herself most needed, without any regard to her own pleasure or comfort. She did, however, accept a cordial invitation to attend the annual Boston Suffrage Festival, and was royally entertained for several days.

On the afternoon of June 9, Central Music Hall, Chicago, was packed with an audience of representative men and women. Frances E. Willard presided,[43] prayer was offered by Rev. Florence Kollock, and Mrs. Ormiston Chant gave a wonderfully electric address on the "Moral Relations of Men and Women to Each Other." She was followed by Dr. Kate Bushnell in a thrilling talk on "Legislation as it Deals with Social Purity." Miss Anthony closed the program with a ringing speech showing the need of the ballot in the hands of women to remedy such evils as had been depicted by the other speakers. No abstract can give an idea of her magnetic force when profoundly stirred by such recitals as had been made at this meeting.

A few days afterwards a largely-attended reception was given by the Woman's Club of Chicago to Miss Anthony, Isabella Beecher Hooker and Baroness Gripenberg, of Finland.

In the summer of 1888, the National Association as usual sent delegates to each of the presidential conventions, asking for a suffrage plank, and as usual they were ignored by Republicans and Democrats. Miss Anthony and Mrs. Hooker had headquarters in the parlors of Mrs. Celia Whipple Wallace, at the Sherman House, Chicago, during the Republican convention in June. They issued an open letter citing the record of the party in regard to women, and asking for recognition, but received no consideration. In the Woman's Tribune, Miss Anthony made this forcible statement:

Had the best representative suffrage women of every State in the Union been in Chicago, established in national headquarters, working with the men of their State delegations, as well as with the resolution committee, I have not a doubt that the Republican platform would have contained a splendid plank, pledging the party to this broad and true interpretation of the Constitution. Every other reform had its scores and hundreds of representatives here, pleading for the incorporation of its principles in the platform and working for the nomination of the men who would best voice their plans. Women never will be heard and heeded until they make themselves a power, irresistible in numbers and strength, moral, intellectual and financial, in all the formative gatherings of the parties they would influence. Therefore, I now beg of our women not to lose another opportunity to be present at every political convention during this summer, to urge the adoption of woman suffrage resolutions and the nomination of men pledged to support them. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" for women as well as for men.

From Chicago Miss Anthony went directly to Indianapolis and, with Mrs. Sewall, called at the Harrison residence. She says: "We met a most cordial reception and while the general did not declare himself in favor of woman's enfranchisement, he expressed great respect for those who are seeking it." The two ladies then addressed an open letter to General Harrison, urging that in accepting the nomination he would interpret as including women that plank in the Republican platform which declared: "We recognize the supreme and sovereign right of every lawful citizen to cast one free ballot in all public elections and to have that ballot duly counted;"[44] but this reasonable request was politely ignored.

Sarah Knox Goodrich and Ellen Clark Sargent, of California, sent the following telegram to their fellow-citizen, Morris M. Estee, chairman of the National Republican Convention: "Please ascertain, for many interested women, if the clause in the platform concerning the sovereign right of every lawful citizen to a free ballot, includes the women of the United States." To this Mr. Estee telegraphed reply, "I do not think the platform is so construed here." This ended the battle of 1888, as far as women were concerned, and those who might have been the ablest advocates which any political party could put upon its platform were relegated to silence during the campaign.

On August 7, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton spoke at Byron Center, and were entertained by Mrs. Newton Green. Miss Anthony addressed a large audience at Jamestown on the 10th and was the guest of Mrs. Reuben E. Fenton. During part of the summer, for a little recreation, she took hold of the great heterogeneous mass of bills and receipts of the National W. S. A. for the past four years and compiled them into a neat, accurate financial report of seventeen pages, in which every dollar received and disbursed during that time was acknowledged and accounted for, without any "sundries" or other makeshifts for the sake of accuracy. As the total amount reached nearly $18,000, a large part of which had been received in sums of one or two dollars, the labor involved may be appreciated. Miss Anthony did this, as she did many other disagreeable things, not because they were officially her duty, but because they ought to be done and there was no one else ready to undertake them. She always was restive under red tape regulations. For many years she was forced to take the lead in all departments of the suffrage work and when they finally became systematized, with a head at each, she sometimes grew impatient at delay and usurped the functions of others without intending any breach of official etiquette. And so when this financial statement was completed, she published it without waiting for money or authority, and wrote to the national treasurer, Mrs. Spofford, who had recently returned from Europe:

Andrew Jackson-like, I decided to assume the responsibility of sending to each member of the association a copy of the Council Report with one of the National's financial statement. I am writing a personal letter to all, explaining our double keeping of our pledge and asking them to return contributions, if they are able, for this permanent and nice report. I do not know what results in cash will come of it to the National, but I do know that the poorest and hardest-working women who pinched out their dollars to send, think that we promised them therefor this book-report of the council. So all in all I decided, against Miss Foster, Mrs. Stanton and your own dear self, to give each the report, leaving her to do as she feels most comfortable about sending to the treasurer payment in return.

A few days later she writes: "I mailed 800 letters yesterday, and we have sent over 1,500 Reports, with 800 more promised." Could any pen give an adequate idea of the amount of work accomplished by that tireless brain and those never-resting hands?

Miss Anthony spoke on Woman's Day, October 12, at the Centennial Celebration in Columbus, O. A newspaper correspondent drew this contrast between her address and those of the women of the W. C. T. U.:

Each prayer started heavenward was weighted with politics—political prohibition. When the eloquent speakers of the afternoon dealt a stinging blow under the belt to one of the leading political parties, the applause was tremendous, cheers and "amens" mingling in a sacrilegious chorus of approval. On the other hand, when Miss Anthony made her calm, strong and really logical argument in favor of woman suffrage, giving each party, so far as related to action of States, just praise or censure, she was received coldly. It did not seem to count for anything that she had been a pioneer in the cause of temperance. That white record was stained because she cast their idol down—she showed that prohibition had failed in Kansas in the large cities, whether under a Democratic or a Republican governor, or under St. John, the Prohibition governor; in every administration it was a failure, because even there women had only a restricted vote, and public sentiment without the ballot counted for naught. There were no little graves in her speech, no weeping willows by winding streams where lay broken hearts in tombs unmarked. It was a simple statement of the cause a brave woman had at heart.

She attended the State conventions at Ames, Ia., and at Emporia, Kan., where she was the guest of Senator and Mrs. Kellogg. From there she went to Leavenworth, and later to Omaha for the Nebraska convention. She then engaged for the fall and winter with the Slayton Lecture Bureau at $60 a night, and began again the tiresome round throughout the Western States.

In this autumn of 1888, Miss Anthony received a severe shock in the announcement of the approaching marriage of Rachel Foster to Cyrus Miller Avery, of Chicago. He had attended the International Council the preceding spring with his mother, Rosa Miller Avery, known prominently in suffrage and other public work in Illinois. Here he had seen Miss Foster in her youth and beauty, carrying a large part of the responsibility connected with that important gathering, and had fallen in love with her at first sight. During her long life Miss Anthony had seen one young girl after another take up the work of woman's regeneration, fit herself for it, grow into a power, then marry, give it all up and drop out of sight. "I would not object to marriage," she wrote, "if it were not that women throw away every plan and purpose of their own life, to conform to the plans and purposes of the man's life. I wonder if it is woman's real, true nature always to abnegate self." Miss Foster had developed unusual ability and for a number of years had been Miss Anthony's mainstay in the suffrage work, and had grown very close into her heart; it is not surprising, therefore, that she learned of the coming marriage with dismay. She accepted the situation as gracefully as possible, however, and, although too far away to attend the wedding, sent most cordial wishes for the happiness of the newly-married.[45]

The year 1888 brought to Miss Anthony many honors, but it brought also the usual quota of the bereavements which come with every passing year when one nears threescore and ten. Her cherished friend, Dr. Clemence Lozier, had passed away; Edward M. Davis, whose faithful friendship never had failed, was no more; A. Bronson Alcott and his daughter Louisa had gone to test the truth of the new philosophy; and other dear ones had dropped out of the narrowing circle. But as a partial compensation, there had come into her life some new friends who were destined, if not to fill the place of those who were gone, to make another for themselves in her affections and her labors quite as helpful and important. Chief among these was Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, who, from the time of the International Council, gave her deepest love and truest allegiance. Until then she had not been near enough Miss Anthony to realize the nobility and grandeur of her character, but thenceforth she accorded to her all the devotion and reverence of her own strong and beautiful nature. In a letter written after she had returned to her home in Boston, she said: "From my heart I pray that I may always be worthy your love and confidence. To know you is a blessing; to be trusted by you is worth far more than my efforts for our work have cost me."

FOOTNOTES:

[36] To these afterwards were added from the executive committee, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Chairman, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Mary B. Clay, Sarah M. Perkins, Lillie Devereux Blake, Mary F. Eastman, Clara Neymann, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert.

[37] Many letters are on file making these declarations. It is not practicable to quote them here, but a place may be made for an extract from that of Zerelda G. Wallace to Miss Anthony: "While they do not under-estimate the work of any of the pioneers, the hearts of the women all over the country are turning to you. They feel that they are yours, and you are theirs. The suffrage women look to you with as much loyalty and affection as the temperance women to Miss Willard. There are thousands of them who would rally around you with an enthusiasm which no one else can inspire. You will do me the credit to believe that I speak solely for the good of the work to which you have given your life."

[38] Mrs. Avery and Miss Blackwell have continued ever since to fill these positions most acceptably to the association.

[39] The magnitude of the work of the council may be better appreciated by the mention of a few figures in this connection. There were printed and distributed by mail 10,000 calls and 10,000 appeals; sketches were prepared of the lives and work of speakers and delegates and circulated by a press committee of over ninety persons in many States; March 10, the first edition (5,000) of the sixteen-page program was issued; this was followed by five other editions of 5,000 each and a final seventh edition of 7,000. About 4,000 letters were written. Including those concerning railroad rates, not less than 10,000 more circulars of various kinds were printed and distributed. A low estimate of the number of pages thus issued gives 672,000. During the week of the council and the week of the convention of the National W. S. A. the Woman's Tribune was published by Mrs. Colby eight times (four days sixteen pages, four days twelve pages), the daily edition averaging 12,500.

An international convention of men, held in Washington the same year, cost in round numbers $50,000.—Official Report.

[40] One session each was given to Education, Philanthropy, Temperance, Industries, Professions, Organizations, Legal Conditions, Social Purity, Political Conditions, etc., which were discussed by the women most prominent in the several departments. Fifty-three different national organizations of women were represented by eighty speakers and forty-nine delegates from England, France, Norway, Denmark, Finland, India, Canada and the United States.

[41] The fine stenographic reports of this council were made by Mary F. Seymour and a corps of women assistants. The official proceedings, with speeches in full, may be obtained of the corresponding secretary of the National-American W. S. A.

[42] National Council: President, Frances E. Willard; vice-president-at-large, Susan B. Anthony; corresponding secretary, May Wright Sewall; recording secretary, Mary F. Eastman; treasurer, M. Louise Thomas.

[43] This meeting was arranged by Dr. Frances Dickinson, who had persuaded Miss Anthony to make the journey to Chicago in order to preside over it. On the way to the hall she was detained at a drawbridge and Miss Willard kindly took her place.

[44] See Appendix for full text of letter.

[45] Mrs. Foster Avery has proved an exception to the rule and, during the ten years since her marriage, has performed as much work, to say the least, as any of the younger generation of women, besides contributing thousands of dollars.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

CONVENTIONS FROM WASHINGTON TO SOUTH DAKOTA.

1889.

The eleventh of January, 1889, found Miss Anthony in her usual pleasant suite of rooms at the Riggs House. She plunged at once into preparations for the approaching convention, interviewing congressmen, calling at the newspaper offices and conferring with local committees. The Twenty-first National Convention opened January 21, in the Congregational church, with the speakers as bright and full of hope as they had been through all the score of years. The opening address was given by Hon. A. G. Riddle and, during the sessions, excellent speeches were made by Hon. William D. Kelley, Senator Blair, Rev. Alexander Kent and State Senator Blue, of Kansas. Rev. Anna H. Shaw made her first appearance on the National platform and delivered her splendid oration, "The Fate of Republics." Laura M. Johns gave a practical and pleasing talk on "Municipal Suffrage in Kansas;" and there was the usual array of talent. Miss Anthony presided, putting every speaker to the front and making a substantial background of her own felicitous little speeches, each containing an argument in a nutshell.



While in Washington she was entertained at dinner by the "Six O'clock Club," and seated at the right hand of its president Dr. Wm. A. Hammond. The subject for the evening was "Robert Elsmere" and, in giving her opinion, she said she had found nothing new in the book; all those theological questions had been discussed and settled by the Quakers long ago. What distressed her most was the marriage of Robert and Catherine, who, any outsider could have seen, were utterly unfitted for one another, and she wondered if there could be any way by which young people might be able to know each other better before marrying.