The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony Volume I Part 24

It is enough to exhaust the patience of Job, the slip-shod way in which telegraph, express and postoffices are managed here. It is almost impossible to arrange for halls or to get literature delivered at the point where it is sent. We speak in school houses, barns, sawmills, log cabins with boards for seats and lanterns hung around for lights, but people come twenty miles to hear us. The opposition follow close upon our track, but they make converts for us. The fact is that most of them are notoriously wanting in right action toward women. Their objections are as low and scurrilous as they used to be in the East fifteen or twenty years ago. There is a perfect greed for our tracts, and the friends say they do more missionary work than we ourselves. If our suffrage advocates only would go into the new settlements at the very beginning, they could mould public sentiment, but they wait until the comforts of life are attainable and then find the ground occupied by the enemy.

Of course they were guests in some beautiful homes, free from all discomforts, but these were the exceptions. A striking instance of the first reception usually accorded the two ladies is given by Mrs.

Starrett, in her Kansas chapter in the History of Woman Suffrage:

All were prepared beforehand to do Mrs. Stanton homage for her talents and fame, but many persons who had formed their ideas of Miss Anthony from the unfriendly remarks in opposition papers had conceived a prejudice against her. Perhaps I can not better ill.u.s.trate how she everywhere overcame and dispelled this prejudice than by relating my own experience. A convention was called at Lawrence, and the friends of woman suffrage were asked to entertain strangers who might come from abroad. Ex-Governor Robinson asked me to entertain Mrs. Stanton. We had all things in readiness when I received a note stating that she had found relatives in town with whom she would stop, and Miss Anthony would come instead. I hastily put on bonnet and shawl, saying, "I won't have her and I am going to tell Governor Robinson so."

At the gate I met a dignified Quaker-looking lady with a small satchel and a black and white shawl on her arm. Offering her hand she said, "I am Miss Anthony, and I have been sent to you for entertainment during the convention."... Half disarmed by her genial manner and frank, kindly face, I led the way into the house and said I would have her stay to tea and then we would see what farther arrangements could be made. While I was looking after things she gained the affections of the babies; and seeing the door of my sister's sick-room open, she went in and in a short time had so won the heart and soothed instead of exciting the nervous sufferer, entertaining her with accounts of the outside world, that by the time tea was over I was ready to do anything if Miss Anthony would only stay with us. And stay she did for over six weeks, and we parted from her as from a beloved and helpful friend. I found afterwards that in the same way she made the most ardent friends wherever she became personally known.

The physical discomforts could have been borne without a murmur, but it was the treachery of friends, both East and West, which brought the discouragement and heart-sickness. One of the active opponents who canva.s.sed the State was Charles Langston, the negro orator, whose brother John M. had met with much kindness from Miss Anthony and her family before the war. When one considers how these women had spent the best part of their lives in working for the freedom of the negro, their humiliation can be imagined at seeing educated colored men laboring with might and main to prevent white women from obtaining the same privileges which they were asking for themselves. It was a bitter dose and one which women have been compelled to take in every State where a campaign for woman suffrage has been made.

The Hutchinsons--John, his son Henry and lovely daughter Viola--were giving a series of concerts, travelling in a handsome carriage drawn by a span of white horses. As they had one vacant seat, they were carrying Rev. Olympia Brown, a talented Universalist minister from Ma.s.sachusetts, who had been canva.s.sing the State for several months, and she spoke for suffrage while they sang for both the negro and woman. Hon. Charles Robinson, the first Free State governor of Kansas, volunteered to take Mrs. Stanton in his carriage and pay all expenses.

Their hard trip killed a pair of mules and a pair of Indian ponies.

Miss Anthony directed affairs from her post at Lawrence and made herculean efforts to raise money for the campaign, which thus far was dependent on the collections at the meetings. There was scarcely a hope of victory.

On the 7th of October came a telegram from George Francis Train, who was then at Omaha, largely interested in the Union Pacific railroad. He had been invited by the secretary and other members of the St. Louis Suffrage a.s.sociation to go to Kansas and help in the woman's campaign.

Accordingly he telegraphed that if the committee wanted him he was ready, would pay his own expenses and win every Democratic vote. Miss Anthony never had seen Mr. Train; she merely knew of him as very wealthy and eccentric. The Republicans not only had forsaken the women but were waging open war upon them. The sole hope of carrying the amendment was by adding enough Democratic votes to those of Republicans who would not obey their party orders to vote against it. Every member of the woman suffrage committee who could be communicated with--Rev.

and Mrs. Starrett, Rev. John S. Brown and daughter Sarah, Judge Thatcher and others--said that Mr. Train was an eloquent speaker and advised that he be invited, so the following telegram was sent: "Come to Kansas and stump the State for equal rights and woman suffrage. The people want you, the women want you. S. N. Wood, M. W. Reynolds, Charles Robinson, Mrs. J. H. Lane, E. Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony."

Mr. Train accepted and Miss Anthony at once began laying out a route for him and telegraphed: "Begin at Leavenworth Monday, October 21. Yes, with your help we shall triumph. All shall be ready for you." If she had had any political experience, she would have made his appointments along the railroad, whose employes were largely Irish, with whom he was very popular on account of his Fenian affiliations; but in her ignorance, she arranged for most of the meetings in small towns off the railroads, where the inhabitants were chiefly Republicans.

Mark W. Reynolds, editor of the Democratic paper at Lawrence, agreed to accompany him; but when the time arrived, although Mr. Reynolds had joined in the telegram of invitation, he took to the woods, going on a buffalo hunt without any excuse or explanation. Mr. Train made his first speech at Leavenworth, Mayor John A. Halderman presiding, Colonel D. R. Anthony, Rev. William Starrett and other Republicans on the platform. Laing's Hall was packed with Irishmen and when he first mentioned woman suffrage all of them hissed, but after he pointed out the absurdity of letting the negroes vote and shutting out their own mothers and wives, the tide turned and they cheered for the women. The next meeting was at Lawrence, and here Mr. Train objected decidedly to the route marked out, saying it was too rough a trip for any man, and as Mr. Reynolds had deserted him he was for giving up the tour. Not so Miss Anthony; she said: "Your offer and his were accepted in good faith. The engagements have been made and hand-bills sent to every post-office within fifty miles of the towns where meetings are to be held. The next announcement is for Olathe tomorrow night. I shall take Mr. Reynolds' place. At one o'clock I shall send a carriage to your hotel. You can do as you please about going. If you decline I shall go there and to all the other meetings alone." He replied: "Miss Anthony, you know how to make a man feel ashamed."

The next day when the carriage came to the Starretts, for Miss Anthony, Mr. Train was in it and, with her heart in her throat, she took her seat beside him. The situation was entirely unforeseen and decidedly embarra.s.sing, but she never turned back, never allowed any earthly obstacle to stand in her way. There was a crowded house at Olathe and when the meeting closed two young men announced that they had been sent to take Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Train to Paola, and they would have to leave at 4 A. M. Miss Anthony was the guest of Rev. and Mrs. J. C.

Beach. Next morning they started on time in a pouring rain, stopping at a little wayside inn for breakfast at six. The meeting was at eleven, in the Methodist church.

After it was over the county superintendent of schools, Mr. Bannister, took them to Ottawa in a lumber wagon. The steady rain had put the roads in a fearful condition and by the time they reached the river bottoms it was very dark and pouring in torrents. The driver lost his way and brought them up against a brush fence. Mr. Train jumped out of the vehicle, took off his coat so that his white s.h.i.+rtsleeves would show and thus guided the team back to the road; then he and the county superintendent took turns walking in front of the horses. The river finally was crossed and they reached Ottawa at 9 o'clock. Mr. Train was very fastidious and, no matter how late the hour, never would appear in public before he had changed his gray travelling suit for full dress costume with white vest and lavender kid gloves, declaring that he would not insult any audience by shabby clothes. This evening he made no exception and so, while he went to the hotel, Miss Anthony, wet, hungry and exhausted, made her way straight to the hall to see what had become of their audience.

She found that it had been taken in charge by General Blunt, one of the Republican campaign orators, and as she entered, he was making a violent attack on woman suffrage. Her arrival was not noticed and she concluded to sit quietly down in a corner and let matters take their course. A stairway led from some lower region up to the platform and, just as the speaker was declaring, "This man Train is an infernal traitor and a vile copperhead," Mr. Train appeared at the top of the stairs. The audience broke into a roar, and in a few moments he had the general under a scathing fire.

From Ottawa they travelled, still in a lumber wagon, to Mound City and then to Fort Scott, where they had an immense audience. After the meeting Train went to the newspaper office and wrote out his speech, which filled two pages of the Monitor, and Miss Anthony and the friends spent all of Sunday in wrapping and mailing these papers. From here they drove to Humboldt in a mail wagon, stopping for dinner at a little "half-way house," a cabin with no floor. Miss Anthony retains a lively recollection of this place, for the hostess brought a platter of fried pork, swimming in grease, and in her haste emptied the contents the whole length of her light gray travelling dress. They found many people ill, and Mr. Train always prescribed not a drop of green tea, not a mouthful of pork, though that was the only meat they could get, plenty of fruit, though there was none to be had in Kansas, and a thorough bath every morning, although there was not enough water to wash the dishes. During this trip he stopped at hotels, but Miss Anthony usually was invited to stay with families who were either her personal friends or warm advocates of the cause she represented.

So on they went, to Leroy, Burlington, Emporia, Junction City. It was 9 o'clock when they reached the last and, as usual, Miss Anthony had to make her speech without change of dress, and a half hour later Mr.

Train stepped on the platform, refreshed and resplendent. His first words were: "When Miss Anthony gets back to New York she is going to start a woman suffrage paper. Its name is to be The Revolution; its motto, 'Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.' This paper is to be a weekly, price $2 per year; its editors, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury; its proprietor, Susan B. Anthony. Let everybody subscribe for it!" Miss Anthony was dumbfounded. During the long journey that day, he had asked her why the equal rights people did not have a paper and she had replied that it was not for lack of brains but want of money. "Will not Greeley and Beecher and Phillips and Tilton advance the money?" "No, they say this is the negro's hour and no time to advocate woman suffrage." "Well,"

said he, "I will give you the money." She had not taken him seriously and was amazed when he made this public statement, announcing name, price, editors, motto and everything complete.

[Autograph: Sincerely, Geo. Francis Train]

They spoke at Topeka and Wyandotte and reached Leavenworth the Sunday previous to election. Mr. Train spent the evening at Colonel Anthony's, entertaining them in his inimitable manner till midnight, and after he left the colonel declared that "he knew more about more things than any man living." Governor Robinson and Mrs. Stanton were to close the campaign in this city the day before election, and the meeting had been thoroughly advertised, but at the last moment they telegraphed that they would be unable to arrive till evening, so it was decided that Mr.

Train should remain at Leavenworth to speak in the afternoon, and Miss Anthony should keep the engagement at Atchison, announcing Mr. Train for the evening. This she did, but at night, when a great crowd had a.s.sembled, a telegram brought word that the cars were off the track and he could not reach that city. There was nothing for her to do but make a short speech and adjourn the meeting.

Mr. Train had promised Miss Anthony that he really would advance the money to start a paper and, in addition, had proposed to defray all the expenses of Mrs. Stanton and herself if they would join him in a lecture tour of the princ.i.p.al cities on the way eastward. It was essential, therefore, for her to have a talk with him before she could make a definite statement to Mrs. Stanton, and her only chance for this was to cross the Missouri river and wait for the belated train from Leavenworth. She found the ferryboats had stopped running for the night, but George Martin, chairman of the suffrage committee of Atchison, offered to take her across in a skiff. Undaunted, she seated herself therein and in the dense darkness was safely landed on the opposite sh.o.r.e. Here she boarded the cars and went to St. Joseph where she met Mr. Train, made the necessary arrangements and returned to Leavenworth by the first train.

On election day the Hutchinsons, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, in open carriages, visited all the polling-places in Leavenworth, where the two ladies spoke and the Hutchinsons sang. Both amendments were overwhelmingly defeated, that for negro suffrage receiving 10,843 votes, and that for woman suffrage 9,070, out of a total of about 30,000. These 9,000 votes were the first ever cast in the United States for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women. How many of them were Republican and how many Democratic, and how much influence Mr. Train may have had one way or another, never can be known; but it is a significant fact that Douglas county, the most radical Republican district, gave the largest vote against woman suffrage, and Leavenworth, the strongest Democratic county, gave the largest majority in its favor.

The Commercial, the Democratic paper of this city, said:

When we consider the many obstacles thrown in the way of the advocates of this measure, the indifference with which the ma.s.ses look upon anything new in government and their indisposition to change, the degree of success of these advocates is not only remarkable, but one of which they have a just right to feel proud.

To these two ladies, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, to their indomitable will and courage, to their eloquence and energy, is due much of the merit of the work performed in the State.... While in the recent election these ladies were not successful to the full extent of their wishes, they have the consciousness of knowing that their work has been commensurate with the combined efforts of party organization, congressmen, senators, press and ministers to enfranchise the negro, and that the people of Kansas are not more averse to giving the franchise to woman than to the black man.

During the campaign the usual order was for Miss Anthony to speak the first half hour, making a clear, concise, strong argument for suffrage as the right of an American citizen, pleading for the negro as well as for the women, and urging men to vote for both amendments. She then was followed by Mr. Train, who insisted that it would be one of the grossest outrages to give suffrage to the black man and not to the white woman, and pleaded earnestly that the women of Kansas should be enfranchised. In this he was sincere, as he believed thoroughly that women ought to have the ballot. He was an inimitable mimic and was unsparing in his ridicule of those Republicans who had battled so valiantly for equal rights but now demanded that American women should stand back quietly and approvingly and see the negro fully invested with the powers denied to themselves. He had a remarkable memory, an unequalled quickness of repartee, a peculiar gift of improvising epigrams and, while erratic, was a brilliant and entertaining speaker.

He was at this time about thirty-five, nearly six feet tall, a handsome brunette, with curling hair and flas.h.i.+ng dark eyes, the picture of vigorous health. He was exquisitely neat in person and irreproachable in habits, and had a fine courtliness of bearing toward women which suggested the old-school gentleman. Miss Anthony often said that all the severe criticisms made upon him for years had not been able to impair the respect with which he inspired her during that most trying campaign. Mrs. Stanton, essentially an aristocrat and severe in her judgment of men and manners, spoke most highly of Mr. Train in her Reminiscences.

Some of the friends in Kansas were opposed to the contemplated lecture tour, and letters were received from the East urging that it be abandoned. Mrs. Stanton was accustomed to defer to Miss Anthony in such matters.[45] The latter felt that they had been deserted by their old friends and supporters and the breach was too wide to be soon healed.

Here was a man of wealth and high personal character, who offered to arrange a lecture tour of the princ.i.p.al cities of the country, pay all expenses and at the end of the journey furnish capital for a paper. It seemed to her she could best serve the cause she placed above all else by accepting the offer, and she did so.

As time was limited, Miss Anthony had to make arrangements for hall, etc., by telegraph, which cost Mr. Train $100. The series commenced in Omaha, November 19, and continued in Chicago, Springfield. St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, Springfield (Ma.s.s.), Worcester, Boston and Hartford, ending with a great meeting in Steinway Hall, New York, December 14. Mr. Train engaged the most elegant suites of rooms in the best hotels for the ladies, secured the finest halls, and this was remembered as the only luxurious suffrage tour they ever had made. There was a railway wreck between Louisville and Cincinnati, and he chartered a special train in order that they might keep their engagement at the latter place. This trip cost him $3,000.

Where heretofore the Democratic papers had been abusive and some, at least, of the Republican papers complimentary, the tone was now completely reversed. Because they had affiliated with Mr. Train, the former had nothing but praise, and for the same reason the latter were unsparing in their denunciations, and were bitterly indignant at the women for accepting from Mr. Train and other Democrats the help which they themselves had positively refused. They insisted that the Democrats only used woman suffrage as a club to beat negro suffrage, which doubtless was true of many, but Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton claimed the right to accept proffered aid without looking behind it for the motive. The opposition, however, did not arise alone from the press and the politicians. From the leading advocates of suffrage came a vehement protest against any partners.h.i.+p with George Francis Train. The old a.s.sociates wrote scores of letters expressing their personal allegiance, but refusing to attend the meetings and repudiating the connection of Mr. Train with the woman suffrage movement. Miss Anthony was made to realize to the fullest extent the feeling which had been aroused, but the last entry in the diary says: "The year goes out, and never did one depart that had been so filled with earnest and effective work; 9,000 votes for woman in Kansas, and a newspaper started! The Revolution is going to be work, work and more work. The old out and the new in!"

[Footnote 40: Helen Skin Starrett, in her Kansas reminiscences, says: "Miss Anthony always looked after Mrs. Stanton's interests and comfort in the most cheerful and kindly manner. I remember one evening in Lawrence when the hall was crowded with an eager and expectant audience. Miss Anthony was there early, looking after everything, seats, lights, ushers, doorkeepers. Presently Governor Robinson said to her, 'Where's Mrs. Stanton? It's time to commence.' 'She's at Mrs.----'s waiting for some of you men to go for her with a carriage,'

was the reply. The hint was quickly acted upon and Mrs. Stanton, fresh, smiling and unfatigued, was presented to the audience."]

[Footnote 41: His intense feeling on the matter is thus described in the History of Woman Suffrage:

"A few weeks after this he met Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony at one of Alice Cary's Sunday evening receptions. As he approached, both arose and with extended hands exclaimed most cordially, 'Good evening, Mr.

Greeley.' But his hands hung limp by his side, as he said in measured tones: 'You two ladies are the most maneuvering politicians in the State of New York. I saw in the manner my wife's pet.i.tion was presented, that Mr. Curtis was acting under instructions, and I saw the reporters p.r.i.c.k up their ears.' Turning to Mrs. Stanton, he asked, 'You are so tenacious about your own name, why did you not inscribe my wife's maiden name, Mary Cheney Greeley, on her pet.i.tion?' 'Because,'

she replied, 'I wanted all the world to know that it was the wife of Horace Greeley who protested against her husband's report.' 'Well,'

said he, 'I understand the animus of that whole proceeding, and I have given positive instructions that no word of praise shall ever again be awarded you in the Tribune, and that if your name is ever necessarily mentioned, it shall be as Mrs. Henry B. Stanton!' And so it has been to this day."]

[Footnote 42: Womanhood suffrage is now a progressive cause beyond fear of cavil. It has won a fair field where once it was looked upon as an airy nothing, and it has gained champions and converts without number.

The young State of Kansas is fitly the vanguard of this cause, and the signs of the agitation therein hardly allow a doubt that the citizens.h.i.+p of women will be ere long recognized in its laws. Fourteen out of twenty of its newspapers are in favor of making woman a voter.... The vitality of the Kansas movement is indisputable, and whether defeated or successful in the present contest, it will still hold strongly fortified ground.--New York Tribune, May 29, 1867.]

[Footnote 43: From the Howe Sewing Machine Co., she got $150; from the Samuel Browning Was.h.i.+ng Machine Co., $100; from Dr. Dio Lewis'

Gymnasium, $100, and from Madame Demorest's Fine Millinery and Patterns, a considerable sum; besides a donation of $100 from Mr. and Mrs. E. D. Draper, of Ma.s.sachusetts, and $150 from Sarah B. Shaw, mother of Mrs. George Wm. Curtis; and in this way raised partly enough to print 50,000 tracts.]

[Footnote 44: Charles Robinson, S. N. Wood, Samuel C. Pomeroy, E. G.

Ross, Sidney Clark, S. G. Crawford, _Kansas;_ James W. Nye, _Nevada;_ William Loughridge, _Iowa;_ Robert Collyer, _Illinois;_ George W.

Julian, H. D. Washburn, _Indiana;_ R. E. Trowbridge, John F. Driggs, _Michigan;_ Benjamin F. Wade, _Ohio;_ J. W. Broomall, William D.

Kelley, _Pennsylvania;_ Henry Ward Beecher, Gerrit Smith, George William Curtis, _New York;_ Dudley S. Gregory, George Polk, John G.

Foster, James L. Hayes, Z. H. Pangborn, _New Jersey;_ Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Samuel E. Sewall, Oakes Ames, _Ma.s.sachusetts;_ William Sprague, T. W. Higginson, _Rhode Island;_ Calvin E. Stowe, _Connecticut_.]

[Footnote 45: "I take my beloved Susan's judgment against the world, I have always found that when we see eye to eye we are sure to be right, and when we pull together we are strong. After we discuss any point and fully agree, our faith in our united judgment is immovable, and no amount of ridicule and opposition has the slightest influence, come from what quarter it may."]

CHAPTER XVIII.

ESTABLIs.h.i.+NG THE REVOLUTION.

1868.

The first entry in the diary of 1868, January 1, reads: "All the old friends, with scarce an exception, are sure we are wrong. Only time can tell, but I believe we are right and hence bound to succeed."

Immediately after the meeting at Steinway Hall, Mr. Train had brought with him to call on Miss Anthony, David M. Melliss, financial editor of the New York World, and they entered into an agreement by which the two men were to supply the funds for publis.h.i.+ng a paper until it was on a paying basis. It was to be conducted by Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton in the interests of women, and Mr. Train and Mr. Melliss were to use such s.p.a.ce as they desired for expressing their financial and other opinions. The first number was issued January 8, a handsome quarto of sixteen pages.

Ten thousand copies were printed and, under the congressional frank of Representative James Brooks, of New York, were sent to all parts of the country. The advent of this element in the newspaper world created a sensation such as scarcely ever has been equalled by any publication.

From hundreds of clippings a few characteristic examples are selected.