POLITICAL CANDIDATES—WRITING THE HISTORY.
1880-1881.
During her May lecture trip Miss Anthony was formulating a scheme for a series of conventions, opening and closing with a great mass meeting, which should influence the national political conventions to recognize in their platforms the rights of woman. As usual most of the women opposed this plan and as usual Miss Anthony carried the day. The following letters to Mrs. Spencer, national secretary, will serve as specimens of hundreds which she wrote with her own hand, before every similar occasion:
I want the rousingest rallying cry ever put on paper—first, to call women by the thousand to Chicago; and second, to get every one who can not go there to send a postal card to the mass convention, saying she wants the Republicans to put a Sixteenth Amendment pledge in their platform. Don't you see that if we could have a mass meeting of 2,000 or 3,000 earnest women, June 2, and then receive 10,000 postals from women all over the country, what a tremendous influence we could bring to bear on the Republican convention, June 3? We can get Farwell Hall for $40 a day, and I think would do well to engage it for the 2d and 3d, then we could make it our headquarters—sleep in it even, if we couldn't get any other places.
Besides this, I want to make the best possible use of all our speakers between June 3 and 21, when we shall have a mass meeting in Cincinnati, the day before the Democratic convention. My proposition is that I, as vice-president-at-large, call conventions of two days each at a number of cities. We could divide our speakers and thus fill in the entire two weeks between Chicago and Cincinnati with capital good work. How does the plan strike you? Can we summon the women from the vasty deeps—or distances? Can we get 5,000 or 10,000 to send on their postals? Do the petitions still come in? How many thousands of appeals and documents have you had printed and how many have you sent out?
After the ball was set rolling she wrote:
A letter from Mrs. Stanton tells of her being on the verge of pneumonia, and rushing home to rest and recruit. She is better and, since she has been to the dinner-table, I infer she is well enough to begin to work up the thunder and lightning for Indianapolis and Chicago. Now won't you at once scratch down the points with which you want to fire her soul and brain, and get her at work on the resolutions, platform and address? She won't go out to lecture any more this spring, and if you will only put her en rapport with your thought she will do splendid work in the herculean task awaiting us.
It is simply impossible for me to go to her at present, and we must all give her our ideas in the rough, from time to time, and let her weld them together as best she can; and then, as she says, when we meet in Indianapolis we all will put in our happiest ideas, metaphysical, political, logical and all other "cals," and make these the strongest and grandest documents ever issued from any organization of women. It does seem to me that if we can succeed in grinding out just the right appeal, demand, or whatever it may be called, the Republican convention must heed us. At any rate, we will do our level best at a strong pull, a long pull and a pull all together to compel them to surrender.
I enclose my list of May lecture engagements. I shall be able to help in money from them soon, and better than I could in any other way. I watch both Congress and our State legislatures, but the "scamps" are vastly better at promising than fulfilling. The politicians, of course, expect all this flutter and buncombe about doing something for women in New York—in California—in Iowa—is going to spike our guns and make us help the Republican party to carry all before it; but we must not be thus fooled by them.
After a lecture at Waynesburg, Penn., when she had gone to her train at 4 a. m. to find it an hour late, she wrote on the ticket-office shelf, by the light of a smoky lamp, this letter to her sister:
Just three years ago this day was our dear Hannah's last on earth, and I can see her now sitting by the window and can hear her say, "Talk, Susan." I knew she wanted me to talk of the future meetings in the great beyond, all of them, as she often said, so certain and so beautiful to her; but they were not to me, and I could not dash her faith with my doubts, nor could I pretend a faith I had not; so I was silent in the dread presence of death. Three years—and yet what a living presence has she been in my thoughts all the days! There has been scarcely one waking hour that I have not felt the loss of her. We can not help trying to peer through the veil to find the certainty of things over there, but nothing comes to our eyes unless we accept the Spiritualistic testimony, which we can not wholly do.
Well, only you and I are left of mother's four girls, and when and how we also shall pass on is among the unknown problems of the future. Of course I feel and know that your loss is far beyond mine; for never was there a child who so faithfully devoted herself to a mother, and made all other interests subserve that mother's happiness as did you, and I feel, too, that but for you I never could have done my public work.
The great series of conventions began with the May Anniversary, which was held at Indianapolis, the 25th and 26th, in the Park Theater, Miss Anthony presiding. All arrangements had been made and all expenses assumed by the local suffrage society under the leadership of Mrs. Sewall. The Sentinel, edited at that time by Colonel J. B. Maynard, welcomed the convention in a strong editorial declaring for woman suffrage in unmistakable terms. The very successful meetings closed with a handsome reception tendered by Mrs. John C. New.
The mass meeting opened in Farwell Hall, Chicago, June 1, the day before the Republican convention, with delegates from twenty-six States, and continued in session three days. The welcoming address was made by Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, the speakers comprised the most prominent women of the nation, the audience numbered 3,000 and the enthusiasm was unprecedented in all the records of this movement.[1] The History of Woman Suffrage says:
The mass convention had been called for June 2, but the crowds in the city gave promise of such extended interest that Farwell Hall was engaged for June 1, and before the second day's proceedings closed, funds were voluntarily raised by the audience to continue the meeting the third day. So vast was the number of letters and postals from women who desired to vote, that the whole time of each session could have been spent in reading them—one day's mail alone bringing them from twenty-three States and three Territories. Some contained hundreds of names, others represented town, county and State societies. Many were addressed to the different nominating conventions, Republican, Greenback, Democratic, while the reasons given for desiring to vote ranged from the simple demand, through all the scale of those connected with good government and morality. So highly important a contribution to history did the Chicago Historical Society deem these expressions that it made a formal request to be put in possession of all letters and postals, with a promise that they should be carefully guarded in a fire-proof safe.
A large parlor in the Palmer House was tendered to the ladies by the proprietor for business meetings and for a reception room. They were visited by a number of Republican delegates, many of whom were thoroughly in favor of a suffrage plank in the platform and of giving the ladies seats in the convention. A letter was sent to the chairman of the Republican national committee, Don Cameron, signed by one hundred and eighteen United States senators and representatives, asking that seventy-six seats on the floor of the convention be given to as many accredited delegates from the National Suffrage Association. Although the veteran soldiers and sailors were liberally provided for, Mr. Cameron granted only ten seats to the women, and those not to the association in its official capacity but as "guest" tickets for seats on the platform. Miss Anthony was allowed ten minutes before a sub-committee to present the argument for a suffrage plank. It was favorably regarded by scattered members of various delegations, but the platform was silent on the subject.
The Republican convention of 1880 did not even adopt the "recognition" planks of 1872 and 1876, and all the demonstrations of this great mass meeting of women had not the slightest influence, because made by a disfranchised class. Before closing they adopted a resolution that they would support no party which did not endorse the political equality of woman; but all the "support" which they could give or withhold was not likely to be considered of much value by political leaders.
Miss Anthony and four others attended the Greenback-Labor Convention, a few days later, in the same city. They were well received. Mrs. Gage read the suffrage memorial in open session and Miss Anthony was permitted to address the convention. This privilege was violently opposed by Dennis Kearney, who said that "his wife instructed him before he left California not to mix up with woman suffragists, and if he did she would meet him at the door with a flat-iron when he came home." Failing to frighten the convention with Mrs. Kearney's flat-iron, he declined to hear Miss Anthony's speech and left the hall in disgust. The committee refused to incorporate a suffrage plank in its platform, but the next day in convention, after the nominations were concluded, a delegate introduced an equal suffrage resolution which passed by a large majority.
The delegates and speakers of the National Association then held meetings at Milwaukee, Wis., Bloomington, Ill., Grand Rapids, Mich., Lafayette and Terre Haute, Ind., and reached Cincinnati in time for the Democratic National Convention, June 22. They were received here with unexpected courtesy. Mayor Prince, of Boston, and Mr. Eaton, of Kansas, presented their request for seats, and sixteen were granted them on the floor of the house, just behind the delegates. A committee room was placed at their disposal and their notices and placards were printed by the convention. A hearing was given before the platform committee, with no limit as to time, and after several had spoken the others were invited to do so. The chairman, Henry Watterson, declared himself in favor of the plank desired. The delegations from Maine, New York and Kansas also were favorable. Miss Anthony was escorted to the platform upon the arm of Carter Harrison, amid wild applause, given a seat beside the presiding officer, Wade Hampton, and the clerk was ordered to read the address which she presented.[2] After all this parade, however, the platform contained not the slightest reference to the claims of women or, in fact, to their existence. The results of the appeal to the Republican and Democratic conventions were precisely the same, except that the latter administered the dose with chivalry.
The National Prohibition Convention at Bloomington, Ill., officially invited the suffrage advocates to meet with them and participate in their proceedings. Phœbe Couzins was sent as a delegate, and the convention adopted the following plank: "We also demand that women having privileges as citizens in other respects, shall be clothed with the ballot for their own protection, and as a rightful means for the proper settlement of the liquor question." This body, it will be noticed, not only demanded the ballot for woman but told her what she would be expected to do with it.
While not at all surprised, Miss Anthony was greatly disgusted with the action of the Republican and Democratic conventions, but, determined to leave nothing undone, she soon afterwards called upon General Garfield at Mentor. He was cordial and expressed himself in favor of equality for woman in matters of education, work, wages and civil rights, but was not ready to declare himself in favor of the suffrage and, as was always the case, urged that the issue be not pressed during that campaign. Mrs. Blake and others visited General Hancock, the Democratic candidate, and the New York Sun reports the interview in part:
Mrs. Blake said the delegation had come to ask the general what hope the woman suffrage party might entertain in case any measure came before him, as President, which bore upon granting women the ballot. The general replied that the movement was a growing one, and that everything which tended toward the amelioration of woman's condition had his sympathy. In the course of conversation he said that women should be paid equally with men for the same work equally well performed.
Mrs. Slocum said that the delegation desired a decided expression from him as to whether he would or would not veto any measure favorable to woman suffrage that might come before him as President. The general replied that if such a measure were voted upon by Congress as a constitutional amendment, it would not come before the President. If, however, Congress accorded women the right to vote in the District of Columbia, he certainly would offer no obstruction.
Mrs. Blake asked if he considered women as "people."
"Undoubtedly," replied the general. "He would be a bold man who would undertake to say they were not."
"Then, general," said Mrs. Blake, "we ask nothing more than what you say in your letter of acceptance: 'It is only by a full vote, a free ballot and a fair count that the people can rule in fact, as required by the theory of our government.'"
"I am perfectly willing," said General Hancock, "that you should say I take my stand on that paragraph in my letter of acceptance."
In order to exhaust every resource, Miss Anthony, on August 17, addressed this letter to each of the presidential candidates:
As vice-president-at-large of the National Woman Suffrage Association, I am instructed to ask you if, in the event of your election, you, as President of the United States, would recommend to Congress the submission to the several legislatures of a Sixteenth Amendment to the National Constitution, prohibiting the disfranchisement of United States citizens on account of sex. What we wish to ascertain is whether you, as President, would use your official influence to secure to the women of the several States a national guarantee of their right to a voice in the government on the same terms with men. Neither platform makes any pledge to secure political equality to women—hence we are waiting and hoping that one candidate or the other, or both, will declare favorably, and thereby make it possible for women, with self-respect, to work for the success of one or the other or both nominees. Hoping for a prompt and explicit statement, I am, sir, very respectfully yours.
General Hancock did not so much as acknowledge the receipt of this, but General Garfield answered promptly, writing with his own hand:
Your letter of the 17th inst. was duly received. I take the liberty of asking your personal advice before I answer your official letter. I assume that all the traditions and impulses of your life lead you to believe that the Republican party has been and is more nearly in the line of liberty than its antagonist, the Democratic party; and I know you desire to advance the cause of woman. Now, in view of the fact that the Republican convention has not discussed your question, do you not think it would be a violation of the trust they have reposed in me, to speak "as their nominee"—and add to the present contest an issue which they have not authorized?
Again, if I answer your question on the ground of my own private opinion, I shall be compelled to say that, while I am open to the freest discussion and fairest consideration of your question, I have not yet reached the conclusion that it would be best for woman and for the country that she should have the suffrage. I may reach it; but whatever time may do to me, that fruit is not yet ripe on my tree. I ask you, therefore, for the sake of your own question, do you think it wise to pick my apples now? Please answer me in the frankness of personal friendship.
With kind regards, I am, very truly yours.
Under date of September 9 Miss Anthony sent a spirited reply:
Yours of the 25th ult. has waited all these days that I might carefully consider it.
First.—The Republican party did run well for a season in the "line of liberty," but since 1870, its congressional enactments, majority reports, Supreme Court decisions, and now its presidential platform, show a retrograde movement—not only for women but for colored men—limiting the power of the national government in the protection of United States citizens against the injustice of the States, until what we gained by the sword is lost by political surrenders. We need nothing but a Democratic administration to demonstrate to all Israel and the sun the fact, the sad fact, that all is lost by the Republican party. I mean, of course, the one vital point of national supremacy in the protection of United States citizens in the enjoyment of their right to vote, and the punishment of States or individuals thereof, for depriving citizens of the exercise of that right. The first and fatal mistake was in ceding to Rhode Island the right to "abridge" the suffrage to foreign born men; and to all the States to "deny" it to women, in direct violation of the principle of national supremacy. From that time, inch by inch, point by point has been surrendered, until it is only in name that the Republican party is the party of national supremacy. Grant did not protect the negro's ballot in the presidential election of 1876—Hayes can not in 1880—nor will Garfield be able to do so in 1884—for the "scepter has departed from Judah."
Second.—For the candidate of a party to add to the discussions of the contest an issue unauthorized or unnoted in its platform, when that issue is one vital to its very life, it seems to me would be the grandest act imaginable. For doing that very thing, with regard to the protection of the negroes of the South, you are today receiving more praise from the best men of the party than for any and all of your utterances inside the line of the platform. I know, if you had in your letter of acceptance, or in your New York speech, declared yourself in favor of "perfect equality of rights for women, civil and political," you would have touched an electric spark which would have fired the hearts of the women of the entire nation, and made the triumph of the Republican party more grand and glorious than any it ever has seen.
Third.—As to picking fruit before it is ripe! Allow me to remind you that very much fruit is never picked; some is nipped in the bud; some is worm-eaten and falls to the ground; some rots on the trees before it ripens; some, too slow in ripening, is bitten by the early frosts of autumn; while some rare, ripe apples hang until frozen and worthless on the leafless boughs! Really, Mr. Garfield, if after passing through the war of the rebellion and sixteen years in Congress; if after seeing and hearing and repeating that no class ever got justice and equality of chances from any government except it had the power—the ballot—to clutch them for itself; if after all your opportunities for growth and development, you can not yet see the truth of the great principle of individual self-government; if you have reached only the idea of class-government, and that, too, of the most hateful and cruel form—bounded by sex—there must be some radical defect in the ethics of the party of which you are the chosen leader.
No matter which party administers the government, women will continue to get only subordinate positions and half pay, not because of the party's or the President's lack of chivalric regard, but because, in the nature of things, it is impossible for any government to protect a disfranchised class in equality of chances. Women, to get justice, must have political freedom. But pardon this long trespass upon your time and patience, and please bear in mind that it is not for the many good things the Republican party and its nominee have done in extending the area of liberty that I criticise them, but because they have failed to place the women of the nation on the plane of political equality with men. I do not ask you to go beyond your convictions, but I do most earnestly beg you to look at this question from the standpoint of the woman—alone, without father, brother, husband, son—battling for bread. It is to help the millions of these unfortunate ones that I plead for the ballot in the hands of all women.
With great respect for your frank and candid talk with one of the disfranchised, I am, very sincerely yours.
On the strength of Hancock's perfectly non-committal interview and Garfield's frank letter, several of the prominent Democratic women rushed into a campaign for that party, whereupon Miss Anthony called them down in vigorous language. After expressing her indignation at the many false newspaper reports of her correspondence and interview with General Garfield, she said:
He has always stood ready to aid us in getting our demand before Congress, and was one of the three who reported in favor of a special woman suffrage committee in the House the last session. He has actually done a thousand things a thousand times more friendly to woman suffrage than Hancock now talks of doing. Then, again, Hancock has given us no public statement that, if elected, he will recommend a Sixteenth Amendment in his inaugural; and in his letter of acceptance he said nothing more that can be twisted into suffrage for women than Garfield did in his, and there is no more in the Democratic platform that can be thus construed than there is in the Republican.
I never intended that the National Association should accept any sort of "under the ink or between the lines" as favorable pledges; and before I shall consent to put my name to any document favoring either candidate, I must see in black and white, in the candidate's own pen tracks, something to warrant such favoring. Mere gallantry will not do.
During the campaign which followed, neither she nor the other leading women of the country did any public work, and both parties lost the splendid services which would have been gladly rendered had they recognized the simple principle of justice. When the success of Garfield was practically assured, Miss Anthony wrote to a friend on the evening of election day: "I am fairly holding my breath tonight, waiting for the morning reports, as I feel it will be an overwhelming triumph for the Republican party. If their majority should be immense, perhaps it will give them courage and strength to speak for woman—and so let us hope and hope on."
As Mrs. Stanton's health forbade her going on the lecture platform in the autumn of 1880, and as Miss Anthony had now enough money ahead to dare claim a little leisure from public work, they decided to settle down to the serious business of writing the History of Woman Suffrage. For this purpose Miss Anthony went to Tenafly in October and ensconced herself in Mrs. Stanton's cosy home among the "blue hills of Jersey." The work already was advanced far enough to show that it could not possibly be restricted to the one volume into which it had enlarged from the 500-page pamphlet at first intended, and the task loomed up in an appalling manner. Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson, the generous patron of so many progressive movements, gave Miss Anthony $1,000 for immediate expenses and so they went on with the work, delving among old papers and letters, compiling, cutting, pasting, writing and re-writing, sending over and over to the women of different States for local history, going into New York again and again to see the publishers, and performing all the drudgery demanded by such an undertaking, which can be appreciated only by the few who have experienced it.
Miss Anthony hated this kind of work and it was torture for her to give up her active life and sit poring over the musty records of the past. Her diary contains the usual impatient expressions of this feeling, and in her letters to friends she says: "O, how tired and sick I am of boning down to facts and figures perpetually, and how I long to be set free from what to me has been a perfect prison for the last six months!" She stuck to it with Spartan heroism, however, knowing that otherwise it never would be done, but she was not unwilling occasionally to sally forth and fill a lecture engagement or attend a convention. At the Rhode Island annual meeting she made the principal address, and the next day went, with Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, to Danbury, Mass., to call on John G. Whittier. Almost his first words were, "And so our dear Lucretia Mott is gone!" She had died the evening before, November 11, aged nearly eighty-eight.
Miss Anthony had expected her death, but was inexpressibly grieved to lose from out her life that sweet presence which had been an inspiration for thirty years, whose staunch support had never failed, even when friends were fewest and fortune at its lowest ebb. In times of greatest perplexity she could slip down to the Philadelphia home for sympathy and encouragement, and there was always a corner in the pocketbook from which a contribution came when it was most needed. If ever any human character was without a flaw it was that of Lucretia Mott. Her motto was "Truth for authority, not authority for truth." She faded away like a spirit and her dying words, whispered many times during the last day or two, were, "O, let me go, let this little standard bearer go!" For freedom, for peace, for temperance, for equality, she was indeed the standard bearer through all her long and beautiful life.
On election day, prompted no doubt by the unconquered and unconquerable Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton made an effort to vote. This act created much excitement and called forth columns of comment in the newspapers, to the great amusement of the two conspirators in their quiet retreat.
Toward the end of 1880, Miss Anthony wrote to the treasurer, Mrs. Spofford, asking if she did not think it would be best to omit the National Convention of 1881, giving as reasons that there had been such a surfeit of conventions during the past year and that she was very busy with the History. Mrs. Spofford was much surprised, for Miss Anthony never had been known to yield in the matter of holding this annual meeting, even when all others were opposed, but she advised against postponement and by the next mail received this reply:
I feel exactly as you do about having the convention. I have never for a moment felt ready not to hold it. I wrote you under Mrs. Stanton's orders not to tell you how I felt, as that would be sure to influence you. Now I have read her your letter and told her my determination was to go ahead. She won't promise to attend, she never does, but I never fail to take her with me when I am on the spot, as I shall be when the time comes next January. So you may save us each a bedroom away up, no matter how lofty—you know I love the fresh air of the high heavens. Don't give yourself one moment's uneasiness in regard to the convention. I am going to set about it and am bound to make it one of the best, if not the best ever held in Washington, and you shall have Mrs. Stanton too, unless I miss my guess.
At the same time came the following from Mrs. Stanton: "Your kind invitation I fully appreciate, and feel that the pleasure of seeing you is one of the compensations of these conventions, which I dread more than I can tell. But Susan says truly that when she is at hand, she always dragoons me into what she considers my duty, so I never venture to say what I will or will not do. Although I have solemnly vowed I will go nowhere this winter, I should not be surprised if I found myself in Lincoln Hall the middle of January."
The Thirteenth Annual Convention of the National Association opened January 18, 1881, Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the chair. The first session was devoted to a memorial service for Lucretia Mott. The stage was decorated with draperies and flowers and a large portrait of Mrs. Mott stood on an easel. An exquisite floral harp was presented by the colored citizens of the District. In the audience were many distinguished people, including Mrs. Hayes and her guests from the White House, members of the Supreme Court and of Congress, and other noted personages. The music was rendered by the colored choir of St. Augustine's Church. Miss Anthony said in part: "The highest tribute she could pay was that during the past thirty years she had always felt sure she was right when she had the sanction of Lucretia Mott. Next to that of her own conscience she most valued the approval of her sainted friend; and it was now a great satisfaction that in all the differences of opinion as to principles and methods in their movement, Mrs. Mott had stood firmly with the National Association, of which she was, to the day of her death, the honored and revered vice-president." Short and touching addresses were made by Mrs. Sewall, Miss Couzins, Frederick Douglass and Robert Purvis, and the eulogy was delivered by Mrs. Stanton.
There was an effort during this convention to secure in Congress a "standing committee on the rights of women." It was ably advocated by Senator McDonald and defeated largely through the smooth manipulation of Roscoe Conkling. The convention closed with a reception and supper for the delegates, given by Mrs. Spofford at the Riggs House.
Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton went from Washington to the home of Mrs. Mott, where they were welcomed by her daughters, who sent for Sarah Pugh, and the old friends had a lovely day, made sacred by reminiscences of the dear one gone forever. For more than a quarter of a century this had been Miss Anthony's stopping-place when in Philadelphia,[3] but she was welcomed at once into another beautiful home, that of the wife and daughters of J. Heron Foster, founder of the Pittsburg Dispatch. All were deeply interested in the great question, and Julia and Rachel henceforth were ranked among the most earnest and valued workers.
It was soon afterwards that a reporter of the Chicago News started the following paragraph:
Susan B. Anthony has never condescended to love a man but she lavishes a heap of affection on a little gray Skye terrier which she takes around with her wherever she goes. This dog was given her by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and having recently lost a favorite Newfoundland pet, she accepted the frolicsome Skye with hearty gratitude. She has taught the apt brute every variety of trick and its intelligence seems to be unlimited. The little creature sleeps on her bed, eats from her hand, has blankets, gold and silver collars and every kind of ornament and comfort. Miss Anthony is accompanied by this accomplished canine everywhere, and during the recent convention in Washington "Birdie," as the dog is called, occupied a prominent place on the platform, either cuddled up in her voluminous lap or coiled in a frowsy heap at her feet.
This was copied into many newspapers throughout the country, often accompanied by editorial comment, facetious, disapproving, and sometimes deducing from this text the solemn fact that every woman's nature must have something to love, or that while women were so frivolous they had no right to ask for the ballot. This extract from a half-column editorial in the New York Graphic will serve as an example:
There is something wrong here. If Miss Anthony were to carry around with her a Newfoundland or a good bloodhound the spectacle would have nothing incongruous in it. If she would make a pet of a six-barrelled revolver and another of a large club that would be appropriate. But a Skye terrier, a miserable, little, whining pup, a coached, coddled and coaxed dog making repeated journeys in a basket and fed on crackers and milk—what sort of a thing is this for a person of reformative powers to be associated with? It is an argument in favor of woman's rights that women are capable of all the masculinity necessary to voting and the making of laws; but who ever heard of a President, a senator, a member of the House of Representatives, a legislator of any kind, going about with a sick dog in his arms, soothing the little wretch into its proper sleep, providing it with its regular nourishment and superintending its morning awakenings and the accompanying ablutions?
Women can never come to the head of the government, can never assist to a large extent in its management, until they reform these weaknesses. It isn't necessary that they should chew tobacco and swear, and perhaps they needn't smoke cigars and drive fast horses; but their leaders must abandon the pet dog, the favorite kitten, the especial hen and the abominable bird. They may still sew and still wear the petticoat; but if they enter politics they must submit to the hard raps that men expect, without putting their hands to their eyes and sobbing that their feelings have been hurt. There must be reform, and Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton must set about it in earnest and at once.
A Skye terrier for Miss Anthony! Merciful heavens! after all these years has it come to this? Catnip for Julius Cæsar! Boneset tea and black stockings with garters for Alexander the Great! A locket with hair in it on the bosom of the first Napoleon! A Skye terrier! We have fallen upon evil days.
Under this in her scrap-book Miss Anthony wrote, "Doesn't this cap the climax?" Of course, there was not the slightest foundation for the paragraph. Miss Anthony never owned a dog or any pet animal, not from dislike but because she felt that humanity needed all her time and affection.
Work on the History was at once resumed, as its editors were now convinced that it never could be finished except by the hardest kind of labor without cessation. Of the able assistance rendered by many women throughout the country, perhaps that of Clarina Howard Nichols was the most valuable. She possessed not only great literary ability but also the true editorial instinct and was one of the few left of the "old guard." Out of her fine memory she wove a number of delightful chapters, all written while lying on her back an almost helpless invalid and over seventy years old. She had long ago gone to California to be with her children, and Miss Anthony's weekly letters to her were of the most loving character and answered in the same affectionate strain. Mrs. Nichols hesitated to use the names of those who had been most violent in their opposition to the rights of women, because she disliked to make their children blush for them, but Miss Anthony wrote:
History ought to be true, and the men and women who at the time enjoyed the glory of opposing us ought to be known to posterity even if it is to their children's sorrow; just as those who suffered the torments of ridicule and hatred then, now enjoy the rewards, and their children and grandchildren glory in their ancestors. Robert Dale Owen's daughter, in writing up the Indiana Constitutional Convention and her father's opponents, withheld their names from sympathy for their children. I have told her, that as she now rejoices in what was then considered her father's reproach, so she should let the children of those men hang their heads now for what then was their father's pride. Isn't that fair? Garrison used to say, "Where there is a sin, there must be a sinner." When people understand that their descendants and all Israel will know of their deeds, a hundred years hence, maybe they will learn to be and do better.
I am a genuine believer in the doctrine of letting the seed bear its fruit on the sower's own ground. For us not to give the names of our opponents, but only of those who were wise and good, not only would not be true history, but would rob the book of one-half its interest. If all persons felt that their children must suffer for their wrong-doings, they would be more cautious, but the belief that all their ill record is to be hidden out of sight helps them to go on reckless of truth and justice. It is not in malice or with a desire to make any one suffer, but to be true to history that every name should stand and be judged as the facts merit.
Miss Anthony in reality seldom carried out this theory, but usually desired that personal failings should not be recorded and handed down to posterity. She scarcely could be persuaded to allow the bare facts in many instances to be stated lest surviving relatives should be hurt thereby.
Without knowing where the money was to be obtained for publishing the History but determined that it should be done, Miss Anthony pushed on the work. The steel engravings cost $126 apiece and where women were unable or unwilling to pay for their own, she herself assumed the responsibility. To Mrs. Nichols she wrote: "I shall have your picture and that of Ernestine L. Rose if it takes the last drop in the bucket."[4] Because of the unpopularity of the subject the large firms would not consider the publication of this work, which it was now found would fill two huge volumes, but arrangements were concluded finally with Fowler & Wells. In their great anxiety to get their work before the public while they yet lived to see it properly done, each chapter was hurried to the publishers the moment it was completed and immediately stereotyped and printed, which made revising, condensing and re-arranging impossible.
The first volume was issued in May, 1881, a royal octavo of 900 pages, bringing the record down to the beginning of the Civil War. It is not an exaggeration to say that no history during the century had been more favorably received by the press. The New York dailies contained from one to two or more columns of most complimentary reviews. The National Citizen and Ballot-Box gave up almost an entire edition to notices of the History taken from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and other papers, with not a disparaging criticism. Most of them echoed the sentiment of the New York Sun: "We have long needed an authentic and exhaustive account of the movement for the enfranchisement of women;" and of the Chicago News: "The appearance of this book, long expected by the friends, is not only an important literary occurrence, but it is a remarkable event in the history of civilization." The personal commendations from such men as President Andrew D. White, of Cornell University, Hon. C. B. Waite, of Chicago, Rev. William Henry Channing, and from scores of eminent women, would in themselves require several chapters.
Nobody realized so well as the authors the imperfections of the work, but when one considered that it had to be gathered piecemeal from old letters, personal recollections, imperfect newspaper reports, mere scraps of material which never had been put into shape as to time and place, the result was remarkable. They were indeed correct in their assertion that no one but the actual participants ever could have described the early history of this movement to secure equal rights for women. "We have furnished the bricks and mortar," they said, "for some future architect to rear a beautiful edifice." These "bricks and mortar" were supplied almost wholly by Miss Anthony, who, from the beginning, had carefully preserved every letter, newspaper clipping and report, and whose persistent and endless labor in collecting facts, dates, etc., never can be estimated or sufficiently appreciated; and it is not probable that any more forcible or graceful pens than those of Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Gage ever will be found to enhance their splendid work.
So unanimous and hearty was the reception of this book, to which they had devoted every moment of spare time for five years, that they felt encouraged to spend the next five, if necessary, upon the other volume, which the mass of material now demanded; but if all the criticism had been unfavorable and everybody had declared the work not needed, they still would have gone straight on to the finish, because they realized so strongly the value of putting into permanent form the story of the struggle for the emancipation of woman. Many letters were received urging that it was too soon to write this history, to which Mrs. Stanton invariably responded in her humorous way: "Well, we old workers might perhaps have 'reminisced' after death, but I doubt if the writing mediums could do as well as we have done with our pens. You say the history of woman suffrage can not be written until it is accomplished. Why not describe its initiative steps? The United States has not completed its grand experiment of equality, universal suffrage, etc., and yet Bancroft has been writing our history for forty years. If no one writes up his own times, where are the materials for the history of the future?"
Before the task should be resumed, however, there must be a little rest and a great deal of work of another kind. The diary says: "Had a man today and toted all my documents out to the barn, storing them in big boxes, then packed my winter clothes away in the attic, so that my room might be renovated for Theodore Stanton and his bride from Paris." Miss Anthony then returned home, filled several lecture engagements and in May started for Massachusetts, stopping at Tenafly to take Mrs. Stanton with her in order that she might not escape.