Susan B. Anthony Part 38

The newspapers welcomed her home, and in her own comfortable sitting room she read Rochester's greeting in the _Democrat and Chronicle_, "There are woman suffragists and anti-suffragists, but all Rochester people, irrespective of opinion ... are Anthony men and women. We admire and esteem one so single-minded, earnest and unselfish, who, with eighty-four years to her credit, is still too busy and useful to think of growing old."[449]

Her happiness over this welcome was clouded, however, by the serious illness of her brother Daniel, and she and Mary hurried to Kansas to see him. Two months later he pa.s.sed away. Now only she and Mary were left of all the large Anthony family. Without Daniel, the world seemed empty. His strength of character, independence, and sympathy with her work had comforted and encouraged her all through her life. A fearless editor, a successful businessman, a politician with principles, he had played an important role in Kansas, and proud of him, she cherished the many tributes published throughout the country.

Courageously she now picked up the threads of her life. Her precious National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation was out of her hands, but she still had the _History of Woman Suffrage_ to distribute, and it gave her a great sense of accomplishment to hand on to future generations this record of women's struggle for freedom.[450]

Missing the stimulous of work with her "girls," she took more and more pleasure in the company of William and Mary Gannett of the First Unitarian Church, whose liberal views appealed to her strongly. She liked to have young people about her and followed the lives of all her nieces and nephews with the greatest interest, spurring on their ambitions and helping finance their education. The frequent visits of "Niece Lucy" were a great joy during these years, as was the nearness of "Niece Anna O,"[451] who married and settled in Rochester. The young Canadian girl, Anna Dann, had become almost indispensable to her and to Mary, as companion, secretary, and nurse, and her marriage left a void in the household. Anna Dann was married at 17 Madison Street by Anna Howard Shaw with Susan beaming upon her like a proud grandmother.

Longing to see one more state won for suffrage, Susan carefully followed the news from the field, looking hopefully to California and urging her "girls" to keep hammering away there in spite of defeats.

Her eyes were also on the Territory of Oklahoma, where a const.i.tution was being drafted preparatory to statehood. "The present bill for the new state," she wrote Anna Howard Shaw, in December 1904, "is an insult to women of Oklahoma, such as has never been perpetrated before. We have always known that women were in reality ranked with idiots and criminals, but it has never been said in words that the state should ... restrict or abridge the suffrage ... on account of illiteracy, minority, _s.e.x_, conviction of felony, mental condition, etc.... We must fight this bill to the utmost...."[452]

The brightest spot in the West was Oregon, where suffrage had been defeated in 1900 by only 2,000 votes. In June 1905, when the National American a.s.sociation held its first far western convention in Portland during the Lewis and Clark Exposition, Susan could not keep away, although she had never expected to go over the mountains again. As she traveled to Portland with Mary and a hundred or more delegates in special cars, she recalled her many long tiring trips through the West to carry the message of woman suffrage to the frontier. In comparison, this was a triumphal journey, showing her, as nothing else could, what her work had accomplished. Greeted at railroad stations along the way by enthusiastic crowds, showered with flowers and gifts, she stood on the back platform of the train with her "girls," shaking hands, waving her handkerchief, and making an occasional speech.

Presiding over the opening session of the Portland convention, standing in a veritable garden of flowers which had been presented to her, she remarked with a droll smile, "This is rather different from the receptions I used to get fifty years ago.... I am thankful for this change of spirit which has come over the American people."[453]

On Woman's Day, she was chosen to speak at the unveiling of the statue of Sacajawea, the Indian woman who had led Lewis and Clark through the dangerous mountain pa.s.ses to the Pacific, winning their grat.i.tude and their praise. In the story of Sacajawea who had been overlooked by the government when every man in the Lewis and Clark expedition had been rewarded with a large tract of land, Susan saw the perfect example of man's thoughtless oversight of the valuable services of women. Looking up at the bronze statue of the Indian woman, her papoose on her back and her arm outstretched to the Pacific, Susan said simply, "This is the first statue erected to a woman because of deeds of daring....

This recognition of the a.s.sistance rendered by a woman in the discovery of this great section of the country is but the beginning of what is due." Then, with the sunlight playing on her hair and lighting up her face, she appealed to the men of Oregon for the vote. "Next year," she reminded them, "the men of this proud state, made possible by a woman, will decide whether women shall at last have the rights in it which have been denied them so many years. Let men remember the part women have played in its settlement and progress and vote to give them these rights which belong to every citizen."[454]

Reporters were at Susan's door, when she returned to Rochester, for comments on ex-President Cleveland's tirade against clubwomen and woman suffrage in the popular _Ladies' Home Journal_. "Pure fol-de-rol," she told them, adding testily, "I would think that Grover Cleveland was about the last person to talk about the sanct.i.ty of the home and woman's sphere." This was good copy for Republican newspapers and they made the most of it, as women throughout the country added their protests to Susan's. A popular jingle of the day ran, "Susan B.

Anthony, she took quite a fall out of Grover C."[455]

Susan, however, had something far more important on her mind than fencing with Grover Cleveland--an interview with President Theodore Roosevelt. Here was a man eager to right wrongs, to break monopolies, to see justice done to the Negro, a man who talked of a "square deal"

for all, and yet woman suffrage aroused no response in him.

In November 1905, she undertook a trip to Was.h.i.+ngton for the express purpose of talking with him. The year before, at a White House reception, he had singled her out to stand at his side in the receiving line. She looked for the same friendliness now. Memorandum in hand, she plied him with questions which he carefully evaded, but she would not give up.

"Mr. Roosevelt," she earnestly pleaded, "this is my principle request.

It is almost the last request I shall ever make of anybody. Before you leave the Presidential chair recommend to Congress to submit to the Legislatures a Const.i.tutional Amendment which will enfranchise women, and thus take your place in history with Lincoln, the great emanc.i.p.ator. I beg of you not to close your term of office without doing this."[456]

To this he made no response, and trying once more to wring from him some slight indication of sympathy for her cause, she added, "Mr.

President, your influence is so great that just one word from you in favor of woman suffrage would give our cause a tremendous impetus."

"The public knows my att.i.tude," he tersely replied. "I recommended it when Governor of New York."

"True," she acknowledged, "but that was a long time ago. Our enemies say that was the opinion of your younger years and that since you have been President you have never uttered one word that could be construed as an endors.e.m.e.nt."

"They have no cause to think I have changed my mind," he suavely replied as he bade her good-bye. In the months that followed he gave her no sign that her interview had made the slightest impression.

One of the most satisfying honors bestowed on Susan during these last years was the invitation to be present at Bryn Mawr College in 1902 for the unveiling of a bronze portrait medallion of herself. Bryn Mawr, under its brilliant young president, M. Carey Thomas, herself a pioneer in establis.h.i.+ng the highest standards for women's education, showed no such timidity as Va.s.sar where neither Susan nor Elizabeth Cady Stanton had been welcome as speakers. At Bryn Mawr, Susan talked freely and frankly with the students, and best of all, became better acquainted with M. Carey Thomas and her enterprising friend, Mary Garrett of Baltimore, who was using her great wealth for the advancement of women. She longed to channel their abilities to woman suffrage and a few years later arranged for a national convention in their home city, Baltimore, appealing to them to make it an outstanding success.[457]

Arriving in Baltimore in January 1906 for this convention, Susan was the honored guest in Mary Garrett's luxurious home. Frail and ill, she was unable to attend all the sessions, as in the past, but she was present at the highlight of this very successful convention, the College Evening arranged by M. Carey Thomas. With women's colleges still resisting the discussion of woman suffrage and the a.s.sociation of Collegiate Alumnae refusing to support it, the College Evening marked the first public endors.e.m.e.nt of this controversial subject by college women. Up to this time the only encouraging sign had been the formation in 1900 of the College Equal Suffrage League by two young Radcliffe alumnae, Maud Wood Park and Inez Haynes Irwin. Now here, in conservative Baltimore, college presidents and college faculty gave woman suffrage their blessing, and Susan listened happily as distinguished women, one after another, allied themselves to the cause: Dr. Mary E. Woolley, who as president of Mt. Holyoke was developing Mary Lyons' pioneer seminary into a high ranking college; Lucy Salmon, Mary A. Jordan, and Mary W. Calkins of the faculties of Va.s.sar, Smith, and Wellesley; Eva Perry Moore, a trustee of Va.s.sar and president of the a.s.sociation of Collegiate Alumnae, with whom she dared differ on this subject; Maud Wood Park, representing the younger generation in the College Equal Suffrage League; and last of all, the president of Bryn Mawr, M. Carey Thomas. After expressing her grat.i.tude to the pioneers of this great movement, Miss Thomas turned to Susan and said, "To you, Miss Anthony, belongs by right, as to no other woman in the world's history, the love and grat.i.tude of all women in every country of the civilized globe. We your daughters in spirit, rise up today and call you blessed.... Of such as you were the lines of the poet Yeats written:

'They shall be remembered forever, They shall be alive forever, They shall be speaking forever, The people shall hear them forever.'"[458]

During the thundering applause, Susan came forward to respond, her face alight, and the audience rose. "If any proof were needed of the progress of the cause for which I have worked, it is here tonight,"

she said simply. "The presence on the stage of these college women, and in the audience of all those college girls who will someday be the nation's greatest strength, tell their story to the world. They give the highest joy and encouragement to me...."[459]

During her visit at the home of Mary Garrett, Susan spoke freely with her and with M. Carey Thomas of the needs of the National American a.s.sociation, particularly of the Standing Fund of $100,000 of which she had dreamed and which she had started to raise. Now, like an answer to prayer, Mary Garrett and President Thomas, fresh from their successful money-raising campaigns for Johns Hopkins and Bryn Mawr, offered to undertake a similar project for woman suffrage, proposing to raise $60,000--$12,000 a year for the next five years.

"As we sat at her feet day after day between sessions of the convention, listening to what she wanted us to do to help women and asking her questions," recalled M. Carey Thomas in later years, "I realized that she was the greatest person I had ever met. She seemed to me everything that a human being could be--a leader to die for or to live for and follow wherever she led."[460]

Immediately after the convention, Susan went to Was.h.i.+ngton with the women who were scheduled to speak at the Congressional hearing on woman suffrage. In her room at the Sh.o.r.eham Hotel, a room with a view of the Was.h.i.+ngton Monument which the manager always saved for her, she stood at the window looking out over the city as if saying farewell.

Then turning to Anna Shaw, she said with emotion, "I think it is the most beautiful monument in the whole world."[461]

That evening she sat quietly through the many tributes offered to her on her eighty-sixth birthday, longing to tell all her friends the grat.i.tude and hope that welled up in her heart. Finally she rose, and standing by Anna Howard Shaw who was presiding, she impulsively put her hand on her shoulder and praised her for her loyal support. Then turning to the other officers, she thanked them for all they had done.

"There are others also," she added, "just as true and devoted to the cause--I wish I could name everyone--but with such women consecrating their lives--" She hesitated a moment, and then in her clear rich voice, added with emphasis, "Failure is impossible."[462]

In Rochester, in the home she so dearly loved, she spent her last weeks, thinking of the cause and the women who would carry it on.

Longing to talk with Anna Shaw, she sent for her, but Anna, feeling she was needed, came even before a letter could reach her. With Anna at her bedside, Susan was content.

"I want you to give me a promise," she pleaded, reaching for Anna's hand. "Promise me you will keep the presidency of the a.s.sociation as long as you are well enough to do the work."[463]

Deeply moved, Anna replied, "But how can I promise that? I can keep it only as long as others wish me to keep it."

"Promise to make them wish you to keep it," Susan urged. "Just as I wish you to keep it...."

After a moment, she continued, "I do not know anything about what comes to us after this life ends, but ... if I have any conscious knowledge of this world and of what you are doing, I shall not be far away from you; and in times of need I will help you all I can. Who knows? Perhaps I may be able to do more for the Cause after I am gone than while I am here."

A few days later, on March 13, 1906, she pa.s.sed away, her hand in Anna's.

Asked, a few years before, if she believed that all women in the United States would ever be given the vote, she had replied with a.s.surance, "It will come, but I shall not see it.... It is inevitable.

We can no more deny forever the right of self-government to one-half our people than we could keep the Negro forever in bondage. It will not be wrought by the same disrupting forces that freed the slave, but come it will, and I believe within a generation."[464]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Susan B. Anthony, 1905]

She had so longed to see women voting throughout the United States, to see them elected to legislatures and Congress, but for her there had only been the promise of fulfillment in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and Idaho, and far away in New Zealand and Australia.

"Failure is impossible" was the rallying cry she left with her "girls"

to spur them on in the long discouraging struggle ahead, fourteen more years of campaigning until on August 26, 1920, women were enfranchised throughout the United States by the Nineteenth Amendment.

Even then their work was not finished, for she had looked farther ahead to the time when men and women everywhere, regardless of race, religion, or s.e.x, would enjoy equal rights. Her challenging words, "Failure is impossible," still echo and re-echo through the years, as the crusade for human rights goes forward and men and women together strive to build and preserve a free world.