She was far too magnanimous, however, and loved the cause too well to relax her efforts for the welfare of the association. Before the year closed she received from Mrs. Avery and Mrs. Upton most tender and beautiful letters, acknowledging their mistake, expressing their sorrow and begging to be reinstated in her confidence and affection.[117]
In order that Miss Anthony's position maybe clearly understood and that she may not appear biased and one-sided, and in order also to consider this question all at one time, her point of view will be a little further illustrated. In an interview in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle she is thus reported:
"Did you have anything to do with the new Bible, Miss Anthony?" was asked.
"No, I did not contribute to it, though I knew of its preparation. My own relations to or ideas of the Bible always have been peculiar, owing to my Quaker training. The Friends consider the book as historical, made up of traditions, but not as a plenary inspiration. Of course people say these women are impious and presumptuous for daring to interpret the Scriptures as they understand them, but I think women have just as good a right to interpret and twist the Bible to their own advantage as men always have twisted and turned it to theirs.... It was written by men, and therefore its reference to women reflects the light in which they were regarded in those days. In the same way the history of our Revolutionary War was written, in which very little is said of the noble deeds of women, though we know how they stood by and helped the great work; and it is the same with history all through."
Although she stood so firm for individual rights she nevertheless regretted that Mrs. Stanton should give the few remaining years of her precious life to this commentary, and frequently wrote in the following strain, when importuned to assist in it:
I can not help but feel that in this you are talking down to the most ignorant masses, whereas your rule always has been to speak to the highest, knowing there would be a few who would comprehend, and would in turn give of their best to those on the next lower round of the ladder. The cultivated men and women of today are above the need of your book. Even the liberalized orthodox ministers are coming to our aid and their conventions are passing resolutions in favor of woman's equality, and I feel that these men and women who are just born into the kingdom of liberty can better reach the minds of their followers than can any of us out-and-out radicals. But while I do not consider it my duty to tear to tatters the lingering skeletons of the old superstitions and bigotries, yet I rejoice to see them crumbling on every side.
Months after this Washington convention, when Miss Anthony was in the midst of a great political campaign in California, she sent Mrs. Stanton this self-explanatory letter:
You say "women must be emancipated from their superstitions before enfranchisement will be of any benefit," and I say just the reverse, that women must be enfranchised before they can be emancipated from their superstitions. Women would be no more superstitious today than men, if they had been men's political and business equals and gone outside the four walls of home and the other four of the church into the great world, and come in contact with and discussed men and measures on the plane of this mundane sphere, instead of living in the air with Jesus and the angels. So you will have to keep pegging away, saying, "Get rid of religious bigotry and then get political rights;" while I shall keep pegging away, saying, "Get political rights first and religious bigotry will melt like dew before the morning sun;" and each will continue still to believe in and defend the other.
Now, especially in this California campaign, I shall no more thrust into the discussions the question of the Bible than the manufacture of wine. What I want is for the men to vote "yes" on the suffrage amendment, and I don't ask whether they make wine on the ranches in California or believe Christ made it at the wedding feast. I have your grand addresses before Congress and enclose one in nearly every letter I write. I have scattered all your "celebration" speeches that I had, but I shall not circulate your "Bible" literature a particle more than Frances Willard's prohibition literature. So don't tell Mrs. Colby or anybody else to load me down with Bible, social purity, temperance, or any other arguments under the sun but just those for woman's right to have her opinion counted at the ballot-box.
I have been pleading with Miss Willard for the last three months to withdraw her threatened W. C. T. U. invasion of California this year, and at last she has done it; now, for heaven's sake, don't you propose a "Bible invasion." It is not because I hate religious bigotry less than you do, or because I love prohibition less than Frances Willard does, but because I consider suffrage more important just now.
It seems that Miss Anthony's attitude ought to be perfectly understood by the testimony here presented. It is one from which she never has swerved and on which she is willing to stand in the pages of history—entire freedom for herself from religious superstition—the most absolute religious liberty for every other human being.
To return to the Washington convention: Among many pleasant social features Miss Anthony was invited to an elegant luncheon given by Mrs. John R. McLean in honor of the seventieth birthday of Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant and, at the reception which followed, received the guests with Mrs. Grant and Mrs. McLean.
