The Olivia Letters / Being Some History of Washington City for Forty Years as Told by the Letters of a Newspaper Correspondent

by Emily Edson Briggs

Rev. Mr. May now came forward. He said that our late civil war was brought on by the deprivation of the rights of four millions of the people, and consequently certain things will follow like a natural law, the taking away of the rights of fifteen millions more. Woman cannot be denied her rights. She cannot be degraded without degrading the other half of creation. God made man dual. How absurd for man to assume the right to all power; to take all power into his hands. Why do not women take all the power to themselves? It would be just as reasonable. Barbarians subject the weak to the strong.

Miss Anthony now came forward and wanted to have a resolution introduced into Congress to equalize wages. The motion was put and carried with the exception of one male voice. Here was a chance for Susan to score the Adam, and the opportunity was not lost. No eagle from his eyrie ever pounced upon a chicken with more force than did Susan upon this masculine biped. Nobody knew whether the unfortunate had a wife, but Susan assumed that he had, and that it was his intent and purpose to sneak away her wages. Susan finished him on the spot, and the audience applauded the heroic act.

Mrs. Stanton then rose and said a woman had just visited her who was connected with the Washington public schools. For a long time she had tried to get her wages; that she was in debt, with all its attendant evils; that she had applied time after time for her dues, but they were withheld, but that a school trustee had put his hand in his pocket and offered the teacher forty dollars instead of forty-five, the amount due. She instanced this as an atrocious advantage taken of a helpless woman. As she took her seat a man in a distant part of the hall arose for an explanation. He painted the awful picture of a depleted city treasury, of the inability of the school committee to get blood out of a stone, and thought the man did a most generous act to give the woman forty dollars and wait indefinitely for the forty-five. He said the man was touched by her necessities, and no doubt cramped himself to do a good act, for the school committee are poor men.

A silence followed. Mr. May again came forward to bring forth some mental gem that in his former speech had been forgotten. He wanted to say something about woman as an inventor. A woman had invented the cotton-gin, but in this case she had been maliciously deprived of her rights. The audience listened patiently and his last talk came to an end. Then Mrs. Charlotte Wilbour took the stand and read one of her sleepy essays. But she made rather a handsome figure with the gaslight dancing on the golden sheaves that bespangled her royal drapery. Her costly fan was suspended from her waist by a heavy gold chain, and this, with the length of her long train, made her look anything else but “strong-minded.”

When her essay came to an end, Mr. May arose for an explanation, but the decorous, good humored audience had swallowed enough of Mr. May, and its stomach actually refused any more of the decoction. Stamp! Stamp! Stamp! Motherly Mrs. Stanton came forward and said, “Be a good child. Take it down; take it for the sake of free speech.” Mr. May began. Hissing, stamping. Again Mrs. Stanton’s sweet face beams on the audience and says, “Why will ye?”

Mr. May began and said: “I shall stand here until you hear me, if stay till to-morrow morning.” Determination was written on that face, with the broad lower jaw and mouth, which sprung together like the shutting of a steel trap. His arms were folded, and his whole person breathed the spirit of the Egyptian sphinx. The audience felt the presence of its master, and yielded as good naturedly as it began the battle. Mr. May told us something about a State’s prison, where there were nothing but female convicts and female officers, but whether this model prison is in his own State of New York or elsewhere escaped the ear of the writer, but it is safe to say if it is not in New York it certainly ought to be there.

Miss Anthony now came forward and told a good story, a noble one, about Olympia Brown. Four months Olympia traveled in Kansas in every way except by railroad. She spoke every day of the four months, and oftener twice than otherwise. Generally she had met the kindest treatment, but sometimes not, for in every audience there is generally a fringe of humanity where there is more boot-heel than brain. There was one district in Kansas where intelligent people lived, where for years they were unable to get a schoolhouse. They could get no majority to vote upon the question, because the claims in the town were owned by single men, who did not want to vote to be taxed, or else by non-residents who were never there to give a decision one way or another. The father worked on year after year, but all in vain. After the passage of the law giving woman the right to vote on the school question, the mothers arose at 11 o’clock at night, voted, and got a schoolhouse. Why the women should be obliged to arise at 11 o’clock at night to vote, instead of waiting until a respectable hour in the morning, Susan forgot to mention. Miss Anthony said once upon a time she was announced to speak in Brooklyn, at the same time with Miss Anna Dickinson. Just as she had changed her frock, and got ready for starting, the fickle Anna telegraphed that she could not be there. There was no time to prepare for this unforeseen catastrophe, so she put on her bonnet and went over to Brooklyn—went into the vast hall, crowded with humanity, who had come to see Anna, not her. Had the heavens opened and buckets of ice-water been showered down upon her head she could have felt no worse. She looked around and there sat Henry Ward Beecher, and Chapin, and a host of intellectual lights, which were enough to cook any woman’s marrow to the bones, and she was as bare of thought as New York is of honesty. She applied a forcing pump to her mind, but still the water of thought wouldn’t come; her brain was as dry as a squeezed orange. What should she do? She looked around on the hungry audience, and at last her eyes rested on Henry Ward Beecher, and she felt saved. Leaving her place on the platform, she advanced to the great preacher, and, laying her hand on his shoulder she said, “You must help me; I can’t do it.” Susan did not tell us whether it was owing to her command or the pressure which she brought to bear on his shoulder that conquered him. At any rate, he came gallantly to her side; and never was such a rousing speech made by the great parson in all the days of his life. Then she said, “What did I tell this story for? Something I am sure! Let me see. Oh, yes! I wanted to prove that men and women needed to work together side by side. When one fails, the other can come to the rescue.” At this moment Susan gave evidence of having touched the bottom of her remarkable strength and vitality. The unmitigated drain upon her vital forces for three days of convention seemed to have done its work. Any other woman would have fainted, but not Susan. She only said, “I think I’ll sit down.”

Mrs. Stanton came forward and said she wanted to talk an hour to the young ladies about health and strength. Napoleon could not make a soldier of a sick man. If girls are left with white hands and poverty an inheritance, as it often is when they are orphaned, the sin of it lies at the parents’ door. Educate women for ministers, and there will be better theology preached. Let them study the law. Would it bring them more into notice than the public ball? There is no place where there are such temptations as in fashionable life, for nowhere are such sensuous men found. If marriage is contemplated, it is not thought whether a man has character but whether he has wealth. She said she had an interest in the perpetuity of the American Constitution. Women will never respect themselves, but will be ground down until they learn self-support. She had personal knowledge of many girls who wanted to do something for themselves, but the fathers stood by, saying, “Degrade women to go to the polls?” If a woman is so rash as to marry a man, should she be afraid to go by his side to the ballot-box? She had six men in her family, and, excepting the tobacco, she found them very endurable. She thought men and women ought to be together in every movement. A drunken man will try to act sober when women are around. Conversation is never so good when men are alone; nor is it so elevating among women as when a few philosophers or well-informed men are present.

Senator Wilson arrives and is lustily cheered. He ascends the platform and shakes hands with his personal friends. He said he did not come to address an argument to this meeting; he did not come to add his faith to the creed to be promulgated. Whenever he had a vote to give to any practical measure which should benefit this country it should be given to men and women alike. But he came there to redeem a promise to Miss Anthony, who really would not let him say “no.” “But I am with you. For the last thirty-four years I have tried, in private and in public, to emancipate a race. The work is done. Complete political equality is nearly accomplished; and what little time may be allotted me I shall still go on with the work which has given four and a half millions freedom. I am with you in sentiment, feeling, and all which relates to the work.”

Mrs. Stanton having perceived several Congressmen in the hall, invites them to the platform. They do not choose to come. Senator Tipton is called by name, and rises and begs to be excused, and Mrs. Stanton shows her weakness by excusing him.