THE ONE WORD OF THE HOUR
"If we women fail to speak the one word of the hour," Susan wrote Anna E. Dickinson, "who shall do it? No man is able, for no man sees or feels as we do. To whom God gives the word, to him or her he says, 'Go preach it.'"[207]
This is just what Susan aimed to do in her new paper, The Revolution. It's name, she believed, expressed exactly the stirring up of thought necessary to establish justice for all—for women, Negroes, workingmen and-women, and all who were oppressed. Her two editors, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury, reliable friends as well as vivid forceful writers, were completely in sympathy with her own liberal ideas and could be counted on to crusade fearlessly for every righteous cause. What did it matter if George Francis Train wanted space in the paper to publish his views and for a financial column, edited by David M. Melliss of the New York World? Brought up on the antislavery platform where free speech was the watchword and where all, even long-winded cranks, were allowed to express their opinions, Susan willingly opened the pages of The Revolution to Train and to Melliss in return for financial backing.
When on January 8, 1868, the first issue of her paper came off the press, her heart swelled with pride and satisfaction as she turned over its pages, read its good editorials, and under the frank of Democratic Congressman James Brooks of New York, sent out ten thousand copies to all parts of the country.
The Revolution promised to discuss not only subjects which were of particular concern to her and to Elizabeth Stanton, such as "educated suffrage, irrespective of sex or color," equal pay for women for equal work, and practical education for girls as well as boys, but also the eight-hour day, labor problems, and a new financial policy for America. This new financial policy, the dream of George Francis Train, advocated the purchase of American goods only; the encouragement of immigration to rebuild the South and to settle the country from ocean to ocean; the establishment of the French financing systems, the Crédit Foncier and Crédit Mobilier, to develop our mines and railroads; the issuing of greenbacks; and penny ocean postage "to strengthen the brotherhood of Labor."
All in all it was not a program with wide appeal. Dazzled by the opportunities for making money in this new undeveloped country, people were in no mood to analyze the social order, or to consider the needs of women or labor or the living standards of the masses. Unfamiliar with the New York Stock Exchange, they found little to interest them in the paper's financial department, while speculators and promoters, such as Jay Gould and Jim Fiske, wanted no advice from the lone eagle, George Francis Train, and resented Melliss's columns of Wall Street gossip which often portrayed them in an unfavorable light. Nor did a public-affairs paper edited and published by women carry much weight. None of this, however, mattered much to Susan, who did not aim for a popular paper but "to make public sentiment." It was her hope that just as the Liberator under William Lloyd Garrison had been "the pillar of light and of fire to the slave's emancipation," so The Revolution would become "the guiding star to the enfranchisement of women."[208]
Upon Susan fell the task of building up subscriptions, soliciting advertisements, and getting copy to the printer. As her office in the New York World building, 37 Park Row, was on the fourth floor and the printer was several blocks away on the fifth floor of a building without an elevator, her job proved to be a test of physical endurance. To this was added an ever-increasing financial burden, for Train had sailed for England when the first number was issued, had been arrested because of his Irish sympathies, and had spent months in a Dublin jail, from which he sent them his thoughts on every conceivable subject but no money for the paper. He had left $600 with Susan and had instructed Melliss to make payments as needed, but this soon became impossible, and she had to face the alarming fact that, if the paper were to continue, she must raise the necessary money herself. Because the circulation was small, it was hard to get advertisers, particularly as she was firm in her determination to accept only advertisements of products she could recommend. Patent medicines and any questionable products were ruled out. Subscriptions came in encouragingly but in no sense met the deficit which piled up unrelentingly. Her goal was 100,000 subscribers.
She had gone to Washington at once to solicit subscriptions personally from the President and members of Congress. Ben Wade of Ohio headed the list of Senators who subscribed, and loyal as always to woman suffrage, encouraged her to go ahead and push her cause. "It has got to come," he added, "but Congress is too busy now to take it up." Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts greeted her gruffly, telling her that she and Mrs. Stanton had done more to block reconstruction in the last two years than all others in the land, but he subscribed because he wanted to know what they were up to. Although Senator Pomeroy was "sore about Kansas" and her alliance with the Democrats, he nevertheless subscribed, but Senator Sumner was not to be seen. The first member of the House to put his name on her list was her dependable understanding friend, George Julian of Indiana, and many others followed his lead. For two hours she waited to see President Johnson, in an anteroom "among the huge half-bushel-measure spittoons and terrible filth ... where the smell of tobacco and whiskey was powerful." When she finally reached him, he immediately refused her request, explaining that he had a thousand such solicitations every day. Not easily put off, she countered at once by remarking that he had never before had such a request in his life. "You recognize, Mr. Johnson," she continued, "that Mrs. Stanton and myself for two years have boldly told the Republican party that they must give ballots to women as well as to Negroes, and by means of The Revolution we are bound to drive the party to this logical conclusion or break it into a thousand pieces as was the old Whig party, unless we get our rights." This "brought him to his pocketbook," she triumphantly reported, and in a bold hand he signed his name, Andrew Johnson, as much as to say, "Anything to get rid of this woman and break the radical party."[209]
She was proud of her paper, proud of its typography which was far more readable than the average news sheets of the day with their miserably small print. The larger type and less crowded pages were inviting, the articles stimulating.