To a nephew, D. R. Anthony, Jr., and his bride on the day of their wedding, she telegraphed the beautiful words of Lucretia Mott: "May your independence be equal, your dependence mutual, your obligations reciprocal."
In the winter of 1897 a great cry was raised about what was called "yellow" journalism, the mischievous sensationalism of certain metropolitan newspapers. The matter was taken up by the W. C. T. U. and Miss Willard sent out an address to prominent women asking that they should protest against this journalism and also against such spectacles as the recent Corbett-Fitzsimmons prize fight. When it reached Miss Anthony she answered:
Your circular letter came duly, proposing that women should refuse to patronize the so-called "yellow" newspapers, and also protest against prize fighting. It seems to me that for the women of the country to come out now with their little piping voices, after all the great daily papers of the nation have written the strongest kind of editorials against both these evils, would be very like the caricatures of the old Conkling-Platt fight in the United States Senate—the tall Conkling dealing his blow, and the little Platt peeping, "Me, too."
Instead of going around echoing one or another class of men, it is time for women to put their heads together and demand to have their opinions counted the same as those of the men who make possible "yellow journalism" and prize fighting. They who wish may waste their time trying to make bricks without straw—to change the conditions of society without votes—I shall go on clamoring for the ballot and trying not to antagonize any man or set of men. Don't you see, if women ever get the right to vote it must be through the consent of not only the moral and decent men of the nation, but also through that of the other kind? Is it not perfectly idiotic for us to be telling the latter class that the first thing we shall do with our ballots will be to knock them out of the enjoyment of their pet pleasures and vices? If you still think it wise to keep on sticking pins into the men whom we are trying to persuade to give women equal power with themselves, you will have to go on doing it. I certainly will not be one of your helpers in that particular line of work.
In reading these and scores of similar expressions of wisdom and philosophy, one can but echo the words of Rev. Anna Shaw, who wrote to Miss Anthony: "Your letters sound like a trumpet blast. They read like St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans, so strong, so clear, so full of courage." Miss Anthony and Miss Willard always continued the best of friends, each great enough to respect the other's individuality. In reply to the above, Miss Willard wrote: "Dearest Susan, two women as settled in their opinions as you and I, show their highest wisdom when they mildly agree to differ and go on their way rejoicing, with mutual good word, good will, good heart. Ever yours with warm affection." A little later Miss Willard added to the official invitations to the World's and the National W. C. T. U. Conventions, her warm personal request for Miss Anthony's presence.
There was no end to the invitations which came by every mail: a banquet given by the New York Woman's Press Club; the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Woman's Club at Orange, N. J.; an anniversary breakfast of Sorosis, at the Waldorf; a reunion of the old Abolitionists in Boston; the Pilgrim Mothers' Dinner in the Astor Gallery; the dedication of the Mother Bickerdyke Hospital in Kansas; the opening reception of the Tennessee Centennial—the very answering of them consumed hours of precious time.[131] Neither was there any limit to the newspaper requests for opinions, such as, "Do you favor the use of birds for personal adornment? Why, or why not?" "Christ's message, 'Peace on earth, good will to men'—what has it done and what does it mean after nineteen centuries?" etc. She seldom attempted to answer such queries, but her comments while looking them over in her daily mail, if preserved by stenographer and historian, would make piquant reading.
An amusing letter turns up among the almost nine hundred received in 1897, in which a county official, not seventy-five miles from Rochester, asks these questions: "In how many cities have you spoken? How many lectures delivered? Have you ever spoken in Washington before Congress? Have you ever spoken in Albany before the legislature? How many people would you think you had addressed in your lifetime?" Miss Anthony responded: "It would be hard to find a city in the northern and western States in which I have not lectured, and I have spoken in many of the southern cities. I have been on the platform over forty-five years and it would be impossible to tell how many lectures I have delivered; they probably would average from seventy-five to one hundred every year. I have addressed the committees of every Congress since 1869, and our New York legislature scores of times."
As has been stated, she never replied to personal attacks, but during 1897 one so unjust and so bitter was made by a disgruntled woman of New York City in the St. Louis Republic, that she yielded to the importunity of friends and answered briefly:
I have been an officer in the National Suffrage Association since 1852, and its president since 1892. During that time I never have had one dollar of salary, nor have I ever received any money for my suffrage work from this association. I usually am paid for lectures by any society which sends for me to come to a special place. In all of the laborious State campaigns I have given my services without money and without price. The various bequests which have been left to me, to use at my discretion, all have been appropriated directly to the suffrage cause. Not one officer of the national association is or ever has been paid for her services, and most of them have contributed many years of hard work and a large amount of their own money.
By the middle of July the biography was so well advanced that the two workers felt entitled to a vacation during midsummer. The completed chapters were locked securely in the safety deposit vault and, with a fervent hope that the house would not catch fire and burn up the unwritten part of the book during their absence, they started, July 15, for a little tour, going first to the home of Mr. and Mrs. James Sargent on "Summerland," one of the loveliest of the Thousand Islands. Here Miss Anthony tried very hard for a whole week to do nothing. Even letter-writing was laid aside and she sat on the veranda and watched the great steamers and the pleasure boats go up and down the broad St. Lawrence; took long naps in the hammock swayed by the soft breezes; wandered through the picturesque ravine and along the water's edge; at evening watched the sun set in gorgeous splendor, leaving a trail of glory on the waters which slowly faded as the stars came out in the beauty of the night and were reflected in the still depths. Every day, with host and hostess and the other guests in the house, she boarded the little launch and sailed up the river, winding in and out among those wonderful islands with their diversity of hotels, clubhouses, elegant mansions and pretty cottages; but all surpassed by the adornments of nature, tall trees with luxuriant vines climbing to the very tops, and the great rocks of the ages, rent and cleft and covered with mosses and ferns.
It was a charming week but, although the stay might have been prolonged through the summer, Miss Anthony was far too busy a woman for much visiting, and on the 22d started for her old home at Adams, Mass., where a unique and long anticipated event took place, which will be described in the next chapter. A number of relatives, who had come from various parts of the country for this occasion, returned to Rochester with her. A little trip was made to Geneva to visit with Mrs. Stanton at Mrs. Miller's, and so the summer sped quickly and pleasantly away.