The Women of the Suffrage Movement. Jane Addams

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      That such an attack can not be attributed to sectional prejudice may be proved by this extract from a column of vituperation in the Grand Rapids, Mich., Times, during this same trip, headed "Spinster Susan's Suffrage Show:"

      A "miss" of an uncertain number of years, more or less brains, a slimsy figure, nut-cracker face and store teeth, goes raiding about the country attempting to teach mothers and wives their duty.... As is the yellow-fever to the South, the grasshopper to the plains, and diphtheria to our northern cities, so is Susan B. Anthony and her class to all true, pure, lovely women. The sirocco of the desert blows no hotter or more tainting breath in the face of the traveller, than does this woman against all men who do not believe as she does, and no pestilence makes sadder havoc among them than would Susan B. Anthony if she had the power. The women who make homes, who are sources of comfort to husbands, fathers, brothers, sisters or themselves, who wish to keep sacred all that goes to make their lives noble, refined and worth the living, will be as diametrically opposed to the lecturer of last evening as are most intelligent men. Susan B. Anthony may find her remedy in suffrage, but alas! there is no remedy for us against Susan and her ilk.

      Each lecture usually was followed by letters not only from friends but from entire strangers, asking her forgiveness for having misjudged her so many years, and closing something like this from a lady in St. Paul, Minn.: "For the last ten years your name has been familiar to me through the newspapers, or rather through newspaper ridicule, and has always been associated with what was pretentious and wholly unamiable. Your lecture tonight has been a revelation to me. I wanted to come and touch your hand, but I felt too guilty. Henceforth I am the avowed defender of woman suffrage. Never again shall a word of mine be heard derogatory to the noble women who are working with heart and hand for the best welfare of humanity."

      A two-column interview in the Chicago Tribune during this tour gives Miss Anthony's views on many public matters, concluding thus:

      "If men would only think of the question without paying attention to prejudice or precedent, simply as one of political economy, they would soon begin to regard woman, and woman's rights, just as they regard themselves and their own rights," said she.

      "The W.C.T.U. are doing good work, are they not?"

      "Yes, Miss Willard is doing noble work, but I can not coincide with her views, and my new lecture, 'Will Home Protection Protect,' will combat them. The officer who holds his position by the votes of men who want free whiskey, can not prosecute the whiskey-sellers. The district-attorney and the judge can not enforce the law when they know that to do so will defeat them at the next election. If women had votes the officials would no longer fear to enforce the law, as they would know that though they lost the votes of 5,000 whiskey-sellers and drinkers, they would gain those of 20,000 women. Miss Willard has a lever, but she has no fulcrum on which to place it."

      "Where do you find the strongest antipathy to woman suffrage?"

      "In the fears of various parties that it might he disastrous to their interests. The Protestants fear it lest there should be a majority of Catholic women to increase the power of that church; the free-thinkers are afraid that, as the majority of church-members are women, they would put God in the Constitution; the free-whiskey men are opposed because they think women would vote down their interests; the Republicans would put a suffrage plank in their platform if they knew they could secure the majority vote of the women, and so would the Democrats, but each party fears the result might help the other. Thus, you see, we can not appeal to the self-interest of anybody and this is our great source of weakness."

      It was decided to bold this year's May Anniversary in St. Louis instead of New York, and all arrangements having been made by Virginia L. Minor and Phoebe Couzins, the convention opened formally on the evening of May 7, to quote the newspapers, "in the presence of a magnificent audience which packed every part of St. George's Hall, crowding gallery and stairs and leaving hardly standing room in the aisles." They also paid many compliments to the intellectual character of the audience, its evident sympathy with the cause for which the convention was assembled, and the elegant costumes worn by the ladies both in the body of the house and on the platform. Mrs. Minor presided and a beautiful address of welcome was delivered by Miss Couzins. The ladies were invited to the Merchants' Exchange by its president, and also visited the Fair grounds by invitation of the board. Miss Couzins gave a reception at her home, and the evening before the convention opened, Mrs. Minor entertained the delegates informally. Of this latter occasion the Globe-Democrat said:

      Miss Susan B. Anthony, perhaps the only lady present of national reputation, commanded attention at a glance. Her face is one which would attract notice anywhere; full of energy, character and intellect, the strong lines soften on a closer inspection. There is a good deal that is "pure womanly" in the face which has been held up to the country so often as a gaunt and hungry specter's crying for universal war upon mankind. The spectacles sit upon a nose strong enough to be masculine, but hide eyes which can beam with kindliness as well as flash with wit, irony and satire. Angular she may be—"angular as a Lebanon Shakeress" she said the New York Herald once termed her—but if so, the irregularities of outline were completely hidden under the folds of the modest and dignified black silk which covered her most becomingly.

      At this convention occurred that touching scene which has been so often described, when May Wright Sewall presented Miss Anthony, to her complete surprise, with a beautiful floral offering from the delegates. The Globe-Democrat thus reports:

      Miss Anthony, visibly affected, responded: "Mrs. President and Friends: I am not accustomed to demonstrations of gratitude or of praise. I don't know how to behave tonight. Had you thrown stones at me, had you called me hard names, had you said I should not speak, had you declared I had done women more harm than good and deserved to be burned at the stake; had you done anything, or said anything, against the cause which I have tried to serve for the last thirty years, I should have known how to answer, but now I do not. I have been as a hewer of wood and a drawer of water to this movement. I know nothing and have known nothing of oratory or rhetoric. Whatever I have done has been done because I wanted to see better conditions, better surroundings, better circumstances for women. Now, friends, don't expect me to make any proper acknowledgments for such a demonstration as has been made here tonight. I can not; I am overwhelmed."

      As the association wished to continue Mrs. Stanton at the head, they created the office of vice-president-at-large and elected Miss Anthony to fill it. Senator Sargent's term having expired, he returned with his family to San Francisco, and Mrs. Jane H. Spofford was elected national treasurer in place of Mrs. Sargent, who had served so acceptably for six years. Her return to California was deeply regretted by Miss Anthony. From the time of their first acquaintance, on that long snow-bound journey in 1871, they had been devoted friends, and on all her annual trips to Washington she was a guest at the spacious and comfortable home of the Sargents. The senator always was a true and consistent friend of suffrage, and frequently said to Miss Anthony: "Tell my wife what you want done and, if she indorses it, I will try to bring it about." Mrs. Sargent was of a serene, philosophical nature, with an unwavering faith in the evolution of humanity into a broader and better life. She was thoroughly without personal ends to serve, ready to receive new ideas and those who brought them, weigh them carefully in her well-balanced mind and pronounce the judgment which was usually correct. The closing of their Washington house was a severe loss to the many who had enjoyed their free and gracious hospitality.

      On May 24, 1879, Miss Anthony received notice of the death of her old and revered fellow-laborer, Wm. Lloyd Garrison. She could not attend the funeral but wrote at once, saying in part:

      The telegrams of the last few days had prepared us for this morning's tidings that your dear father and humanity's devoted friend had passed on to the beyond, where so many of his brave co-workers had gone before; and where his devoted life-companion, СКАЧАТЬ