Susan B. Anthony Part 17

[202] Train, _The Great Epigram Campaign of Kansas_, p. 40.

[203] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 290.

[204] Inscription by Susan B. Anthony on copy of Train's _The Great Epigram Campaign of Kansas_, Library of Congress.

[205] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 293.

[206] _Ibid._, p. 295.

THE ONE WORD OF THE HOUR

"If we women fail to speak the _one word_ of the hour," Susan wrote Anna E. d.i.c.kinson, "who shall do it? No man is able, for no man sees or feels as we do. To whom G.o.d 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.e.x 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 Credit Foncier and Credit 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 a.n.a.lyze the social order, or to consider the needs of women or labor or the living standards of the ma.s.ses. 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 emanc.i.p.ation," so _The Revolution_ would become "the guiding star to the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women."[208]

Upon Susan fell the task of building up subscriptions, soliciting advertis.e.m.e.nts, 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 advertis.e.m.e.nts 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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.

Parker Pillsbury, covering Congressional and political developments and the impeachment trial of President Johnson with which he was not in sympathy, was fearless in his denunciations of politicians, their ruthless intrigue and disregard of the public. During the turbulent days when the impeachment trial was front-page news everywhere, _The Revolution_ proclaimed it as a political maneuver of the Republicans to confuse the people and divert their attention from more important issues, such as corruption in government, high prices, taxation, and the fabulous wealth being ama.s.sed by the few. This of course roused the intense disapproval of Wendell Phillips, Theodore Tilton, and Horace Greeley, all of whom regarded Johnson as a traitor and shouted for impeachment. It ran counter to the views of Susan's brother Daniel, who telegraphed Senator Ross of Kansas demanding his vote for impeachment. Although no supporter of President Johnson, Susan was now completely awake to the political manipulations of the radical Republicans and what seemed to her their readiness to sacrifice the good of the nation for the success of their party. She repudiated them all--all but the rugged Ben Wade, always true to woman suffrage, and the tall handsome Chief Justice, Salmon P. Chase, who, she believed, stood for justice and equality.

Both of these men Susan regarded as far better qualified for the Presidency than General Grant, who now was the obvious choice of the Republicans for 1868. "Why go pell-mell for Grant," asked _The Revolution_, "when all admit that he is unfit for the position? It is not too late, if true men and women will do their duty, to make an honest man like Ben Wade, President. Let us save the Nation. As to the Republican party the sooner it is scattered to the four winds of Heaven the better."[210] Later when Chase was out of the running among Republicans and not averse to overtures from the Democrats, _The Revolution_ urged him as the Democratic candidate with universal suffrage as his slogan.

Susan demanded civil rights, suffrage, education, and farms for the Negroes as did the Republicans, but she could not overlook the political corruption which was flouris.h.i.+ng under the military control of the South, and she recognized that the Republicans' insistence on Negro suffrage in the South did not stem solely from devotion to a n.o.ble principle, but also from an overwhelming desire to insure victory for their party in the coming election. These views were reflected editorially in _The Revolution_, which, calling attention to the fact that Connecticut, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania had refused to enfranchise their Negroes, asked why Negro suffrage should be forced on the South before it was accepted in the North.

The Fourteenth Amendment was having hard sledding and _The Revolution_ repudiated it, calling instead for an amendment granting universal suffrage, or in other words, suffrage for women and Negroes. _The Revolution_ also discussed in editorials by Mrs. Stanton other subjects of interest to women, such as marriage, divorce, prost.i.tution, and infanticide, all of which Susan agreed needed frank thoughtful consideration, but which other papers handled with kid gloves.

In still another unpopular field, that of labor and capital, _The Revolution_ also pioneered fearlessly, asking for shorter hours and lower wages for workers, as it pointed out labor's valuable contribution to the development of the country. It also called attention to the vicious contrasts in large cities, where many lived in tumbledown tenements in abject poverty while the few, with more wealth than they knew what to do with, spent lavishly and built themselves palaces.

Sentiments such as these increased the indignation of Susan's critics, but she gloried in the output of her two courageous editors just as she had gloried in the evangelistic zeal of the antislavery crusaders.

Wisely, however, she added to her list of contributors some of the popular women writers of the day, among them Alice and Phoebe Cary.

She ran a series of articles on women as farmers, machinists, inventors, and dentists, secured news from foreign correspondents, mostly from England, and published a Was.h.i.+ngton letter and woman's rights news from the states. Believing that women should become acquainted with the great women of the past, especially those who fought for their freedom and advancement, she printed an article on Frances Wright and serialized Mary Wollstonecraft's _A Vindication of the Rights of Women_.

Eagerly Susan looked for favorable notices of her new paper in the press. Much to her sorrow, Horace Greeley's New York _Tribune_ completely ignored its existence, as did her old standby, the _Antislavery Standard_. The New York _Times_ ridiculed as usual anything connected with woman's rights or woman suffrage. The New York _Home Journal_ called it "plucky, keen, and wide awake, although some of its ways are not at all to our taste." Theodore Tilton in the Congregationalist paper, _The Independent_, commented in his usual facetious style, which pinned him down neither to praise nor unfriendliness, but Susan was grateful to read, "_The Revolution_ from the start will arouse, thrill, edify, amuse, vex, and non-plus its friends. But it will command attention: it will conquer a hearing."

Newspapers were generally friendly. "Miss Anthony's woman's rights paper," declared the Troy (New York) _Times_, "is a realistic, well-edited, instructive journal ... and its beautiful mechanical execution renders its appearance very attractive." The Chicago _Workingman's Advocate_ observed, "We have no doubt it will prove an able ally of the labor reform movement." Nellie Hutchinson of the Cincinnati _Commercial_, one of the few women journalists, described sympathetically for her readers the neat comfortable _Revolution_ office and Susan with her "rare" but "genial smile," Susan, "the determined--the invincible ... destined to be Vice-President or Secretary of State...," adding, "The world is better for thee, Susan."[211]

While new friends praised, old friends pleaded unsuccessfully with Mrs. Stanton and Parker Pillsbury to free themselves from Susan's harmful influence. William Lloyd Garrison wrote Susan of his regret and astonishment that she and Mrs. Stanton had so taken leave of their senses as to be infatuated with the Democratic party and to be a.s.sociated with that "crack-brained harlequin and semi-lunatic,"

George Francis Train. She published his letter in _The Revolution_ with an answer by Mrs. Stanton which not only pointed out how often the Republicans had failed women but reminded Garrison how he had welcomed into his antislavery ranks anyone and everyone who believed in his ideas, "a motley crew it was." She recalled the label of fanatic which had been attached to him, how he had been threatened and pelted with rotten eggs for expressing his unpopular ideas and for burning the Const.i.tution which he declared sanctioned slavery. With such a background, she told him, he should be able to recognize her right and Susan's to judge all parties and all men on what they did for woman suffrage.[212]

None of these arguments made any impression upon Garrison, or upon Lucy Stone, whose bitter criticism and distrust of Susan's motives wounded Susan deeply. Only a few of her old friends seemed able to understand what she was trying to do, among them Martha C. Wright, who, at first critical of her a.s.sociation with Train, now wrote of _The Revolution_, "Its vigorous pages are what we need. Count on me now and ever as your true and unswerving friend."[213]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Anna E. d.i.c.kinson]

Another bright spot was Susan's friends.h.i.+p with Anna E. d.i.c.kinson, with whom she carried on a lively correspondence, scratching oft hurried notes to her on the backs of old envelopes or any odd sc.r.a.ps of paper that came to hand. Whenever Anna was in New York, she usually burst into the _Revolution_ office, showered Susan with kisses, and carried on such an animated conversation about her experiences that the whole office force was spellbound, admiring at the same time her stylish costume and jaunty velvet cap with its white feather, very becoming on her short black curls.

Repeatedly Susan urged Anna to stay with her in her "plain quarters"

at 44 Bond Street or in her "nice hall bedroom" at 116 East Twenty-third Street. That Anna could have risen out of the hards.h.i.+ps of her girlhood to such popularity as a lecturer and to such financial success was to Susan like a fairy tale come true. Scarcely past twenty, Anna not only had moved vast audiences to tears, but was sought after by the Republicans as one of their most popular campaign speakers and had addressed Congress with President Lincoln in attendance. Susan had been sadly disappointed that Anna had not seen her way clear to speak a strong word for women in the Kansas campaign, but she hoped that this vivid talented young woman would prove to be "the evangel" who would lead women "into the kingdom of political and civil rights." It never occurred to her that she herself might even now be that "evangel."[214]

By this time Susan had been called on the carpet by some of the officers of the American Equal Rights a.s.sociation because she had used the a.s.sociation's office as a base for business connected with the Train lecture tour and the establishment of _The Revolution_. She was also accused of spending the funds of the a.s.sociation for her own projects and to advertise Train. Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Stephen Foster were particularly suspicious of her. Her accounts were checked and rechecked by them and found in good order. However, at the annual meeting of the a.s.sociation in May 1868, Henry Blackwell again brought the matter up. Deeply hurt by his public accusation, she once more carefully explained that because there had been no funds except those which came out of her own pocket or had been raised by her, she had felt free to spend them as she thought best. This obviously satisfied the majority, many of whom expressed appreciation of her year of hard work for the cause. She later wrote Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "Even if not one old friend had seemed to have remembered the past and it had been swallowed up, overshadowed by the Train cloud, I should still have rejoiced that I have done the work--for no _human_ prejudice or power can rob me of the joy, the compensation, I have stored up therefrom. That it is wholly spiritual, I need but tell you that this day, I have not two hundred dollars more than I had the day I entered upon the public work of woman's rights and antislavery."[215]

What troubled her most at these meetings was not the animosity directed against her by Henry Blackwell and Lucy Stone, but the a.s.sertion, made by Frederick Dougla.s.s and agreed to by all the men present, that Negro suffrage was more urgent than woman suffrage. When Lucy Stone came to the defense of woman suffrage in a speech whose content and eloquence Susan thought surpa.s.sed that of "any other mortal woman speaker," she was willing to forgive Lucy anything, and wrote Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "I want you to _know_ that it is impossible for me to lay a straw in the way of anyone who _personally wrongs me_, if only that one will work n.o.bly in the _cause_ in their own way and time. They may try to hinder my success but I _never_ theirs."

Realizing that it would be futile for her to spend any more time trying to persuade the American Equal Rights a.s.sociation to help her with her woman suffrage campaign, she now formed a small committee of her own, headed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It included Elizabeth Smith Miller, the liberal wealthy daughter of Gerrit Smith, Abby Hopper Gibbons, the Quaker philanthropist and social worker; and Mary Cheney Greeley, the wife of Horace Greeley, who, in spite of the fact that her husband now opposed woman suffrage, continued to take her stand for it. This committee, with _The Revolution_ as its mouthpiece, was soon acting as a clearing house for woman suffrage organizations throughout the country and called itself the Woman's Suffrage a.s.sociation of America.

To the national Republican convention in Chicago which nominated General Grant for President, these women sent a carefully worded memorial asking that the rights of women be recognized in the reconstruction. It was ignored. Thereupon Susan turned to the Democrats, attending with Mrs. Stanton a preconvention rally in New York, addressed by Governor Horatio Seymour. Given seats of honor on the platform, they attracted considerable attention and the New York _Sun_ commented editorially that this honor conferred upon them by the Democrats not only committed Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton to Governor Seymour's views but also committed the Democrats to incorporate a woman suffrage plank in their platform.

This was too much for some of the officers of the American Equal Rights a.s.sociation, whose executive committee now adopted a sarcastic resolution proposing that Susan attend the national Democratic convention and prove her confidence in the Democrats by securing a plank in their platform.

Ignoring the unfriendly implications of this resolution and the ridicule heaped upon her by the New York City papers, Susan made plans to attend the Democratic convention, which for the first time since the war was bringing northern and southern Democrats together for the dedication of their new, imposing headquarters, Tammany Hall, and which was also attracting many liberals who, disgusted by the corruption of the Republicans, were looking for a "new departure" from the Democrats. To the amazement of the delegates, Susan with Mrs.

Stanton and several other women walked into the convention when it was well under way and sent a memorial up to Governor Seymour who was presiding. He received it graciously, announcing that he held in his hand a memorial of the women of the United States signed by Susan B.

Anthony, and then turned it over to the secretary to be read while the audience shouted and cheered. The sonorous pa.s.sages demanding the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women rang out through and above the bedlam: "We appeal to you because ... you have been the party heretofore to extend the suffrage. It was the Democratic party that fought most valiantly for the removal of the 'property qualification' from all white men and thereby placed the poorest ditch digger on a political level with the proudest millionaire.... And now you have an opportunity to confer a similar boon on the women of the country and thus ... perpetuate your political power for decades to come...."[216]

To hear these words read in a national political convention was to Susan worth any ridicule she might be forced to endure. She was not allowed to speak to the convention as she had requested, and shouts and jeers continued as her memorial was hurriedly referred to the Resolutions committee where it could be conveniently overlooked.

The Republican press reported the incident with sarcasm and animosity, the _Tribune_ deeply wounding her: "Miss Susan B. Anthony has our sincere pity. She has been an ardent suitor of democracy, and they rejected her overtures yesterday with screams of laughter."[217]

The Democrats' nomination of Horatio Seymour and Frank Blair was as reactionary and unpromising of a "new departure" as was the choice of General Grant and Schuyler Colfax by the Republicans. Thereupon _The Revolution_ called for a new party, a people's party which would be sincerely devoted to the welfare of all the people. So strongly did Susan feel about this that in one of her few signed editorials she declared, "Both the great political parties pretending to save the country are only endeavoring to save themselves.... In their hands humanity has no hope.... The sooner their power is broken as parties the better.... _The Revolution_ calls for construction, not reconstruction.... Who will aid us in our grand enterprise of a nation's salvation?"[218]

To "darling Anna" she wrote more specifically, "Both parties are owned body and soul by the _Gold Gamblers_ of the Nation--and so far as the honest working men and women of the country are concerned, it matters very little which succeeds. Oh that the G.o.ds would inspire men of influence and money to move for a third party--universal suffrage and anti-monopolist of land and gold."[219]

FOOTNOTES:

[207] July 6, 1866, Anna E. d.i.c.kinson Papers, Library of Congress.

[208] _The Revolution_, I, Jan. 8, 1868, pp. 1-12.