The Women of the Suffrage Movement. Jane Addams

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ it is sure to come, and then the thing itself turns to dross. When will the children of men learn this fact, that nothing pays but that which is obtained fairly, openly and honestly?

This year the Michigan Legislature submitted a woman suffrage amendment to the voters, and Miss Anthony decided to canvass the State. To do this would ruin her own lecture season for the autumn, and those in charge of the suffrage campaign could offer her no salary. She did not hesitate, however, but without any financial guarantee, began her work there September 24. On the eve of going she wrote to a friend: "I leave home without having had one single week of rest this summer—not this year, indeed, nor for twenty-five years." She made a forty days' canvass, taking out three days for the Illinois convention at Chicago, and during that time spoke in thirty-five different places. Everywhere she addressed immense and enthusiastic crowds. She was frequently preceded by Senator Zach. Chandler, speaking for the Republican party, and often her audiences were much larger than the senator's.4 Toward the close of the campaign she wrote home:

      If these meetings of mine were only by and in favor of an enfranchised class, they would carry almost the solid vote of every town for the measure advocated; but alas, they are for a class powerless to help or hinder any party for good or for evil. It is wonderful to see how quickly the prejudices yield to a little common sense talk. If only we had speakers and time, we could carry the vote of this State, but we have neither, and so all we can hope for is a respectable minority. I enclose $200 left above travelling expenses, hall rent, etc., from collections and the sale of my trial pamphlets. If I could have had even a twenty-five cents admission, I should have cleared over $1,000, but I could not have it said that I went to Michigan, at such a crisis, to make money for myself; it would have ruined the moral effect of my work. Now they are calling on me from Washington to stay in that city all next winter to get our measure considered by Congress, but I ought to go to work to earn money, for I need it if ever anybody did. If I have to get it, however, at the cost of losing our golden opportunity there, it will be too dear a price to pay.

      Miss Anthony was correct in her forecast, the suffrage amendment was defeated in Michigan by more than three to one, but there is no doubt her able canvass contributed largely to secure "a respectable minority."

      In the summer of 1874 the so-called Beecher-Tilton scandal, which had been smouldering a long time, burst into full blaze. Miss Anthony had been for many years on intimate terms with all the parties in this unfortunate affair, and there was a persistent rumor that she had at one time received a confession from Mrs. Tilton which, if given by her to the public, would settle the vexed question beyond a doubt. It is scarcely possible to describe the pressure brought to bear to force her to disclose what she knew. During her lecture tours of that summer and fall, while the trial was in progress before the church committee, she never entered a railroad car, an omnibus or a hotel but there was somebody ready to question her. In every town and city she was called upon for an interview before she had time to brush off the dust of travel. One of the New York papers detailed a reporter to follow her from point to point, catch every word she uttered, ferret out all she said to her friends and in some way extort what was wanted. She often remarked that "in this case men proved themselves the champion gossips of the world."

      Papers which had befriended her and her cause reminded her of this fact and urged her to return the favor by telling them what she knew. Telegrams and letters poured in upon her from strangers and friends, some commending and begging her to continue silent; others censuring and urging her to tell the whole story. Lawyers connected with the case wrote her the shrewdest of pleas, telling her how the other side were trying to defame her character and urging her to speak in self-defense; but it is a significant fact that she received no official summons either during the church committee investigation or the trial in court.

      The Chicago Tribune, having failed to secure an interview, said: "Miss Anthony keeps her own counsel in this matter with a resolution which would do credit to General Grant." Several papers manufactured interviews with her out of whole cloth. Everybody else, man or woman, who had the slightest knowledge of the affair, rushed into print, but under all the pressure she remained as immovable and silent as the granite mountains amid which she was born. The universal desire to have her speak was because of the value placed upon her integrity and veracity. John Hooker, the eminent lawyer of Hartford, Conn., brother-in-law of Mr. Beecher, voiced the opinion of her friends when he wrote under date of November 9, 1874: "A more truthful person does not live. The whole world could not get her to go into a conspiracy against one whom she believed to be innocent. I have perfect confidence in her truthfulness and always stoutly assert it."

      The New York Sun expressed the general sentiment of the press when it said in this connection: "Miss Anthony is a lady whose word will everywhere be believed by those who know anything of her character." Her home paper, the Democrat and Chronicle, paid this tribute: "Whether she will make any definite revelations remains to be seen, but whatever she does say will be received by the public with that credit which attaches to the evidence of a truthful witness. Her own character, known and honored by the country, will give importance to any utterances she may make."

      Most of the charges made against her during this ordeal were so manifestly absurd they did not need refuting, but the oft-repeated assertions that she believed in what was popularly termed "free love" were a source of great annoyance. In a letter written at this time to Elizabeth Smith Miller she thus definitely expressed herself: "I have always believed the 'variety' system vile, and still do so believe. I am convinced that no one has yet wrought out the true social system. I am sure no theory can be correct which a mother is not willing for her daughter to practice. Decent women should not live with licentious husbands in the relation of wife. As society is now, good, pure women, by so living, cover up and palliate immorality and help to violate the law of monogamy. Women must take the social helm into their own hands and not permit the men of their own circle, any more than the women, to be transgressors."

      To Mr. Hooker, on this same subject, she wrote: "In my heart of hearts I hate the whole doctrine of 'variety' or 'promiscuity.' I am not even a believer in second marriages after one of the parties is dead, so sacred and binding do I consider the marriage relation." A few extracts from her diary during these days will show the trend of her thoughts:

      Silence alone is all there is for me at present. I appreciate as never before the value of having lived an open life.... The parlor, the street corner, the newspapers, the very air seem full of social miasma.... Sad, sad revelations! There is nothing more demoralizing than lying. The act itself is scarcely so base as the lie which denies it.... It is almost an impossibility for a man and a woman to have a close, sympathetic friendship without the tendrils of one soul becoming fastened around the other, with the result of infinite pain and anguish.... The great financial rings, Christian Union, Life of Christ and Plymouth church, the three in one, most powerful trinity, seem to have subsidized the entire New York press.

      In her positive refusal to speak the word which would criminate a woman, Miss Anthony was actuated by the highest sense of honor. She loved Mr. and Mrs. Tilton as her own family. She had enjoyed the hospitality of their beautiful home and seen their children grow up from babyhood. Mrs. Tilton was one of the loveliest characters she ever had known, an exquisite housekeeper, an ideal mother; a woman of wide reading and fine literary taste, of sunny temperament and affectionate disposition. To violate the confidence of such a woman, given in an hour of supreme anguish, would have been treachery unparalleled. In answer to the charge that Mrs. Tilton was a very weak or a very wicked woman, Miss Anthony always maintained that none ever was called upon to suffer such temptation. On the one hand was her husband, one of the most brilliant writers and speakers of the day, a man of marvellously attractive powers in the home as well as in the outside world. At his table often sat Phillips, Garrison, Sumner, Wilson and many other prominent men, who all alike admired and loved him.

      On the other hand was her pastor, the most powerful and magnetic preacher and orator not only in Brooklyn but in the nation. When he spoke on Sunday to his congregation of 3,000 people, there was not a man present СКАЧАТЬ