Susan B. Anthony Part 29

During the next few years the Sixteenth Amendment made little headway, although the complexion of Congress changed, the Democrats breaking the Republicans' hold and winning a substantial majority. Encouraging as was the more liberal spirit of the new Congress and the defeat of several implacable enemies, Susan found California's failure to return Senator Sargent an irreparable loss. In addition she now had to face a newly formed group of anti-suffragists under the leaders.h.i.+p of Mrs.

Dahlgren, Mrs. Sherman, and Almira Lincoln Phelps, who sang the refrain which Congressmen loved to hear, that women did not want the vote because it would wreck marriage and the home.

Hoping to counteract this adverse influence by increased pressure for the Sixteenth Amendment, Susan once more appealed for help to the American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation through her old friends, William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips. Garrison replied that her efforts for a federal amendment were premature and "would bring the movement into needless contempt." This she found strange advice from the man who had fearlessly defied public opinion to crusade against slavery.

Wendell Phillips did better, writing, "I think you are on the right track--the best method to agitate the question, and I am with you, though between you and me, I still think the individual States must lead off, and that this reform must advance piecemeal, State by State.

But I mean always to help everywhere and everyone."[334]

The American a.s.sociation continued to follow the state-by-state method, and this holding back aroused Susan to the boiling point, for experience had taught her that in state elections woman suffrage faced the prejudiced opposition of an ever-increasing number of naturalized immigrants, who had little understanding of democratic government or sympathy with the rights of women. A federal amendment, on the other hand, depending for its adoption upon Congress and ratifying legislatures, was in the hands of a far more liberal, intelligent, and preponderantly American group. "We have puttered with State rights for thirty years," she sputtered, "without a foothold except in the territories."[335]

Year by year she continued her Was.h.i.+ngton conventions, convinced that these gatherings in the national capital could not fail to impress Congressmen with the seriousness of their purpose. As women from many states lobbied for the Sixteenth Amendment, reporting a growing sentiment everywhere for woman suffrage, as they received in the press respectful friendly publicity, Congressmen began to take notice. At the large receptions held at the Riggs House, through the generosity of the proprietors, Jane Spofford and her husband, Congressmen became better acquainted with the suffragists, finding that they were not cranks, as they had supposed, but intelligent women and socially charming.

Mrs. Stanton's poise as presiding officer and the warmth of her personality made her the natural choice for president of the National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation through the years. Her popularity, now well established throughout the country after her ten years of lecturing on the Lyceum circuit, lent prestige to the cause. To Susan, her presence brought strength and the a.s.surance that "the brave and true word" would be spoken.[336] A new office had been created for Susan, that of vice-president at large, and in that capacity she guided, steadied, and prodded her flock.

The subjects which the conventions discussed covered a wide field going far beyond their persistent demands for a federal woman suffrage amendment. Not only did they at this time urge an educational qualification for voters to combat the argument that woman suffrage would increase the ignorant vote, but they also protested the counting of women in the basis of representation so long as they were disfranchised. They criticized the church for barring women from the ministry and from a share in church government. They took up the case of Anna Ella Carroll,[337] who had been denied recognition and a pension for her services to her country during the Civil War, and they urged pensions for all women who had nursed soldiers during the war.

They welcomed to their conventions Mormon women from Utah who came to Was.h.i.+ngton to protest efforts to disfranchise them as a means of discouraging polygamy.

Susan injected international interest into these conventions by reading Alexander Dumas's arguments for woman suffrage, letters from Victor Hugo and English suffragists, and a report by Mrs. Stanton's son, Theodore, now a journalist, of the International Congress in Paris in 1878, which discussed the rights of women. Occasionally foreign-born women, now making new homes for themselves in this country, joined the ranks of the suffragists, and a few of them, like Madam Anneke and Clara Heyman from Germany contributed a great deal through their eloquence and wider perspective. These contacts with the thoughts and aspirations of men and women of other countries led Susan to dream of an international conference of women in the not too distant future.[338]

FOOTNOTES:

[327] Ms., Diary, June 18, 1876.

[328] Katherine D. Blake and Margaret Wallace, _Champion of Women, The Life of Lillie Devereux Blake_ (New York, 1943), pp. 124-126.

[329] _History of Woman Suffrage_, III, pp. 31, 34. The Woman's Journal surprised Susan with a friendly editorial, "Good Use of the Fourth of July," written by Lucy Stone, July 15, 1876.

[330] _History of Woman Suffrage_, III, p. 43. The Philadelphia _Press_ praised the Declaration of Rights and the women in the suffrage movement. The report of the New York _Post_ was patronizingly favorable, pointing out the indifference of the public to the subject.

[331] Harper, _Anthony_, I, pp. 485-486.

[332] Ms., Susan B. Anthony Papers, Library of Congress.

[333] This amendment was re-introduced in the same form in every succeeding Congress until it was finally pa.s.sed in 1919 as the Nineteenth Amendment. It was ratified by the states in 1920, 14 years after Susan B. Anthony's death. When occasionally during her lifetime it was called the Susan B. Anthony Amendment by those who wished to honor her devotion to the cause, she protested, meticulously giving Elizabeth Cady Stanton credit for making the first public demand for woman suffrage in 1848. She also made it clear that although she worked for the amendment long and hard, she did not draft it. After her death, during the climax of the woman suffrage campaign, these facts were overlooked by the younger workers who made a point of featuring the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, both because they wished to immortalize her and because they realized the publicity value of her name.

[334] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 484.

[335] _History of Woman Suffrage_, III, p. 66.

[336] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 544.

[337] _History of Woman Suffrage_, III, p. 153; II, pp. 3-12, 863-868; Sarah Ellen Blackwell, _A Military Genius, Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland_ (Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., 1891), I, pp. 153-154.

[338] "Woman Suffrage as a Means of Moral Improvement and the Prevention of Crime" by Alexander Dumas, _History of Woman Suffrage_, III, p. 190. Theodore Stanton, foreign correspondent for the New York _Tribune_, now lived in Paris.

RECORDING WOMEN'S HISTORY

Recording women's history for future generations was a project that had been in the minds of both Susan and Mrs. Stanton for a long time.

Both looked upon women's struggle for a share in government as a potent force in strengthening democracy and one to be emphasized in history. Men had always been the historians and had as a matter of course extolled men's exploits, pa.s.sing over women's record as negligible. Susan intended to remedy this and she was convinced that if women close to the facts did not record them now, they would be forgotten or misinterpreted by future historians. Already many of the old workers had died, Martha C. Wright, Lydia Mott, whom Susan had nursed in her last illness, Lucretia Mott, and William Lloyd Garrison.

There was no time to be lost.[339]

In the spring of 1880, Susan's mother died, and it was no longer necessary for her to fit into her schedule frequent visits in Rochester. Her sister Mary, busy with her teaching, was sharing her home with her two widowed brothers-in-law and two nieces whose education she was supervising.[340] Mrs. Stanton had just given up the strenuous life of a Lyceum lecturer and welcomed work that would keep her at home. Susan, who had managed to save $4,500 out of her lecture fees, felt she could afford to devote at least a year to the history.

She now s.h.i.+pped several boxes of letters, clippings, and doc.u.ments to the Stanton home in Tenafly, New Jersey.[341] As they planned their book, it soon became obvious that the one volume which they had hoped to finish in a few months would extend to two or three volumes and take many years to write. They called in Matilda Joslyn Gage to help them, and the three of them signed a contract to share the work and the profits.

The history presented a publis.h.i.+ng problem as well as a writing ordeal, and Susan, interviewing New York publishers, found the subject had little appeal. Finally, however, she signed a contract with Fowler & Wells under which the authors agreed to pay the cost of composition, stereotyping, and engravings; and as usual she raised the necessary funds.[342]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Matilda Joslyn Gage]

Returning to Tenafly as to a second home, Susan usually found Mrs.

Stanton beaming a welcome from the piazza and Margaret and Harriot running to the gate to meet her. The Stanton children were fond of Susan. It was a comfortable happy household, and Susan, thoroughly enjoying Mrs. Stanton's companions.h.i.+p, attacked the history with vigor. Sitting opposite each other at a big table in the sunny tower room, they spent long hours at work. Susan, thin and wiry, her graying hair neatly smoothed back over her ears, sat up very straight as she rapidly sorted old clippings and letters and outlined chapters, while Mrs. Stanton, stout and placid, her white curls beautifully arranged, wrote steadily and happily, transforming ma.s.ses of notes into readable easy prose.[343]

Having sent appeals for information to colleagues in all parts of the country, Susan, as the contributions began to come in, struggled to decipher the often almost illegible, handwritten ma.n.u.scripts, many of them careless and inexact about dates and facts. To their request for data about her, Lucy Stone curtly replied, "I have never kept a diary or any record of my work, and so am unable to furnish you the required dates.... You say 'I' must be referred to in the history you are writing.... I cannot furnish a biographical sketch and trust you will not try to make one. Yours with ceaseless regret that any 'wing' of suffragists should attempt to write the history of the other."[344]

The greater part of the writing fell upon Mrs. Stanton, but Matilda Joslyn Gage contributed the chapters, "Preceding Causes," "Women in Newspapers," and "Women, Church, and State." Susan carefully selected the material and checked the facts. She helped with the copying of the handwritten ma.n.u.script and with the proofreading. Believing that pictures of the early workers were almost as important for the _History_ as the subject matter itself, she tried to provide them, but they presented a financial problem with which it was hard to cope, for each engraving cost $100.[345]

When the first volume of the _History of Woman Suffrage_ came off the press in May 1881, she proudly and lovingly scanned its 878 pages which told the story of women's progress in the United States up to the Civil War.

She was well aware that the _History_ was not a literary achievement, but the facts were there, as accurate as humanly possible; all the eloquent, stirring speeches were there, a proof of the caliber and high intelligence of the pioneers; and out of the otherwise dull record of meetings, conventions, and pet.i.tions, a spirit of independence and zeal for freedom shone forth, highlighted occasionally by dramatic episodes. As Mrs. Stanton so aptly expressed it, "We have furnished the bricks and mortar for some future architect to rear a beautiful edifice."[346]

The distribution of the book was very much on Susan's mind, for she realized that it would not be in great demand because of its cost, bulk, and subject matter. Nor could she at this time present it to libraries, as she wished, for she had already spent her savings on the ill.u.s.trations. "It ought to be in every school library," she wrote Amelia Bloomer, "where every boy and girl of the nation could see and read and learn what women have done to secure equality of rights and chances for girls and women...."[347]

So much material had been collected while Volume I was in preparation that both Susan and Mrs. Stanton felt they should immediately undertake Volume II. After a summer of lecturing to help finance its publication, Susan returned to Tenafly to the monotonous work of compilation. "I am just sick to death of it," she wrote her young friend Rachel Foster. "I had rather wash or whitewash or do any possible hard work than sit here and go there digging into the dusty records of the past--that is, rather _make_ history than write it."[348]

Yet she never entirely gave up making history, for she was always planning for the future and Rachel Foster was now her able lieutenant, relieving her of details, doing the spade work for the annual Was.h.i.+ngton conventions, and arranging for an occasional lecture engagement. Susan would not leave Tenafly for a lecture fee of less than $50.

She took this intelligent young girl to her heart as she had Anna E.

d.i.c.kinson in the past. Rachel, however, had none of Anna's dramatic temperament or love of the limelight, but in her orderly businesslike way was eager to serve Susan, whom she had admired ever since as a child she had heard her speak for woman suffrage in her mother's drawing room.

While Susan was pondering the ways and means of financing another volume of the _History_, the light broke through in a letter from Wendell Phillips, announcing the astonis.h.i.+ng news that she and Lucy Stone had inherited approximately $25,000 each for "the woman's cause"

under the will of Eliza Eddy, the daughter of their former benefactor, Francis Jackson. Although the legacy was not paid until 1885 because of litigation, its promise lightened considerably Susan's financial burden and she knew that Volumes II and III were a.s.sured. Her grat.i.tude to Eliza Eddy was unbounded, and better still, she read between the lines the good will of Wendell Phillips who had been Eliza Eddy's legal advisor. That he, whom she admired above all men, should after their many differences still regard her as worthy of this trust, meant as much to her as the legacy itself.

In May 1882 she had the satisfaction of seeing the second volume of the _History of Woman Suffrage_ in print, carrying women's record through 1875. Volume III was not completed until 1885.

Women's response to their own history was a disappointment. Only a few realized its value for the future, among them Mary L. Booth, editor of _Harper's Bazaar_. The majority were indifferent and some even critical. When Mrs. Stanton offered the three volumes to the Va.s.sar College library, they were refused.[349] Nevertheless, every time Susan looked at the three large volumes on her shelves, she was happy, for now she was a.s.sured that women's struggle for citizens.h.i.+p and freedom would live in print through the years. To libraries in the United States and Europe, she presented well over a thousand copies, grateful that the Eliza Eddy legacy now made this possible.

In 1883, Susan surprised everyone by taking a vacation in Europe. Soon after Volume II of the _History_ had been completed, Mrs. Stanton had left for Europe with her daughter Harriot.[350] Her letters to Susan reported not only Harriot's marriage to an Englishman, William Henry Blatch, but also encouraging talks with the forward-looking women of England and France whom she hoped to interest in an international organization. Repeatedly she urged Susan to join her, to meet these women, and to rest for a while from her strenuous labors. The possibility of forming an international organization of women was a greater attraction to Susan than Europe itself, and when Rachel Foster suggested that she make the journey with her, she readily consented.

"She goes abroad a republican Queen," observed the Kansas City _Journal_, "uncrowned to be sure, but none the less of the blood royal, and we have faith that the n.o.blest men and women of Europe will at once recognize and welcome her as their equal."[351]

In London, Susan met Mrs. Stanton, "her face beaming and her white curls as lovely as ever." Then after talking with English suffragists and her two old friends, William Henry Channing and Ernestine Rose, now living in England, Susan traveled with Rachel through Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and France, where a whole new world opened before her. She thoroughly enjoyed its beauty; yet there was much that distressed her and she found herself far more interested in the people, their customs and living conditions than in the treasures of art. "It is good for our young civilization," she wrote Daniel, "to see and study that of the old world and observe the hopelessness of lifting the ma.s.ses into freedom and freedom's industry, honesty and integrity. How any American, any lover of our free inst.i.tutions, based on equality of rights for all, can settle down and live here is more than I can comprehend. It will only be by overturning the powers that education and equal chances ever can come to the rank and file. The hope of the world is indeed our republic...." To a friend she reported, "Amidst it all my head and heart turn to our battle for women at home. Here in the old world, with ... its utter blotting out of women as an equal, there is no hope, no possibility of changing her condition; so I look to our own land of equality for men, and partial equality for women, as the only one for hope or work."[352]

Back in London again, she allowed herself a few luxuries, such as an expensive India shawl and more social life than she had had in many a year, and she longed to have Mary enjoy it all with her. She visited suffragists in Scotland and Ireland as well as in England and occasionally spoke at their meetings.[353] Here as in America suffragists differed over the best way to win the vote, and even the most radical among them were more conservative and cautious than American women, but she admired them all and tried to understand the very different problems they faced. Gradually she interested a few of them in an international conference of women, and before she sailed back to America with Mrs. Stanton in November 1883, she had their promise of cooperation.