From Mrs. Avery's suburban home at Somerton, Miss Anthony sent grateful letters to every one of the 202 contributors to her annuity. She addressed the 500 students at Drexel Institute, and left for New York March 12. Here she had an important business meeting with Mary Lowe Dickinson, the newly elected president of the National Council, and then went to tell all about the Atlanta convention, the Woman's Council and various other events to Mrs. Stanton, who still felt the liveliest interest although not physically able to take an active part.
The day after Miss Anthony reached home she read in the morning paper that two of the State Industrial School girls and two of the free academy boys had been seen the night before coming out of a questionable place; the girls were arrested and locked up in the station house, the boys were told to go home. It was an everyday injustice but she determined to protest, so she went straightway to the police court, where she insisted that the boys should not go free while the girls were punished. She pleaded in vain; the girls were sent to the reformatory, the boys being used as witnesses against them and then dismissed without so much as a reprimand.
A short time afterwards Miss Anthony went to the Baptist church one Sunday evening to hear a young colored woman, Miss Ida Wells, lecture on the lynching of negroes in the South. The speaker was rudely interrupted several times by a fellow from Texas who was in Rochester attending the theological school. She answered him politely but at length he asked: "If the negroes don't like it in the South, why don't they leave and go North?" At this Miss Anthony, who had been growing more indignant every moment, sprung to her feet and, with flashing eyes and ringing voice, said: "I will tell you why; it is because they are treated no better in the North than they are in the South." She then related a number of instances, which had come to her own knowledge, of the cruel discrimination made against colored people, to the utter amazement of the audience who did not believe such things possible.[111]
She took Miss Wells home with her for the rest of her stay. She had employed a young woman stenographer for a few weeks to clear up her accumulated correspondence and, having to go away the next day, she told Miss Wells the girl might help her with her pile of letters. When she returned in the evening she found her scribbling away industriously and the stenographer at leisure. In answer to her inquiry the latter replied: "I don't choose to write for a colored person." "If you can not oblige me by assisting a guest in my house," said Miss Anthony, "you can not remain in my employ." The girl, although in destitute circumstances, gave up her situation.
Miss Anthony had been feeling for a long time that, in justice to herself and to the State Industrial School, she should resign her position on the board of managers. When she accepted it she had intended to give up the greater part of her travelling and direct her forces from the seat of government in her own home, but she had found this practically impossible. The demands for her actual presence and personal work were too strong to be resisted. There were very few women in the country who could draw so large an audience as herself, or who knew so well how to manage a convention or carry on a campaign, and the women of the different States, who had one or the other of these in hand, were unwilling to accept a substitute. She was as well and vigorous as at fifty, and there seemed to be no adequate reason why she should refuse the many opportunities to advance the cause for which she had given the active service of nearly half a century. The several years since she began housekeeping, therefore, had found her at home no more of the time than those which had preceded.
When she first visited the school she found the boys' departments fitted up with all the appliances of a steam laundry, while a large number of the girls were bending their backs over washtubs and ironing-boards the whole of every week. She soon succeeded in having the washing sent over to the laundry, where a few girls were able to do it all in two or three days; she also made many valuable suggestions in the sewing department. When in the city she went to the school on Sunday, helped with the services and talked to the 700 boys and 150 girls. Some of the latter came to her one Sunday and said pathetically that it was the first time a speaker ever had seemed to know there were any girls there! She wrote in her journal, with quiet humor, that the men on the board were going the next day to select a cooking stove. She realized even more strongly than ever that, though the best and wisest men may be on the boards of public institutions, there is need also of women, but she felt that, with so vast an amount of other work on hand, she could not do her duty by the school. As she was about to go away again for a number of months she decided to delay her resignation no longer and forwarded it to Governor Morton April 15, after having served about two and a half years. She then finished her lecture engagements and completed arrangements for what proved to be one of the pleasantest journeys of her life.
FOOTNOTES:
[107] At these annual feasts gentlemen are permitted to sit in the gallery, listen to the toasts and watch the ladies enjoy the dinner.
[108] During this year Mrs. Gross had presented Miss Anthony with $1,000 to complete the education of a nephew and niece.