ability that the duty demanding especial care was always given into her
hands. But ever, amid school and household tasks, her day-dream was
that, in time, she might be a "high-seat" Quaker. Each Sunday, up to the
time of the third disobedience, Mr. Anthony went to the Quaker meeting
house, some thirteen miles from home, his wife and children usually
accompanying him, though, as non-members, they were rigidly excluded
from all business discussions. Exclusion was very pleasant in the bright
days of summer; but, on one occasion in December, decidedly unpleasant
for the seven-year-old Susan. When the blinds were drawn, at the close
of the religious meeting, and non-members retired, Susan sat still. Soon
she saw a thin old lady with blue goggles come down from the "high
seat." Approaching her, the Quakeress said softly, "Thee is not a
member--thee must go out." "No; my mother told me not to go out in the
cold," was the child's firm response. "Yes, but thee must go out--thee
is not a member." "But my father is a member." "Thee is not a member,"
and Susan felt as if the spirit was moving her and soon found herself in
outer coldness. Fingers and toes becoming numb, and a bright fire in a
cottage over the way beckoning warmly to her, the exile from the chapel
resolved to seek secular shelter. But alas! she was confronted by a huge
dog, and just escaped with whole skin though capeless jacket. We may be
sure there was much talk, that night, at the home fireside, and the good
Baptist wife declared that no child of hers should attend meeting again
till made a member. Thereafter, by request of her father, Susan became a
member of the Quaker church.

Later, definite convictions took root in Miss Anthony's heart. Hers is,
indeed, a sincerely religious nature. To be a simple, earnest Quaker was
the aspiration of her girlhood; but she shrank from adopting the formal
language and plain dress. Dark hours of conflict were spent over all
this, and she interpreted her disinclination as evidence of
unworthiness. Poor little Susan! As we look back with the knowledge of
our later life, we translate the heart-burnings as unconscious protests
against labeling your free soul, against testing your reasoning
conviction of to-morrow by any shibboleth of to-day's belief. We hail
this child-intuition as a prophecy of the uncompromising truthfulness of
the mature woman. Susan Anthony was taught simply that she must enter
into the holy of holies of her own self, meet herself, and be true to
the revelation. She first found words to express her convictions in
listening to Rev. William Henry Channing, whose teaching had a lasting
spiritual influence upon her. To-day Miss Anthony is an agnostic. As to
the nature of the Godhead and of the life beyond her horizon she does
not profess to know anything. Every energy of her soul is centered upon
the needs of this world. To her, work is worship. She has not stood
aside, shivering in the cold shadows of uncertainty, but has moved on
with the whirling world, has done the good given her to do, and thus, in
darkest hours, has been sustained by an unfaltering faith in the final
perfection of all things. Her belief is not orthodox, but it is
religious. In ancient Greece she would have been a Stoic; in the era of
the Reformation, a Calvinist; in King Charles' time, a Puritan; but in
this nineteenth century, by the very laws of her being, she is a
Reformer.

For the arduous work that awaited Miss Anthony her years of young
womanhood had given preparation. Her father, though a man of wealth,
made it a matter of conscience to train his girls, as well as his boys,
to self-support. Accordingly Susan chose the profession of teacher, and
made her first essay during a summer vacation in a school her father had
established for the children of his employes. Her success was so marked,
not only in imparting knowledge, but also as a disciplinarian, that she
followed this career steadily for fifteen years, with the exception of
some months given in Philadelphia to her own training. Of the many
school rebellions which she overcame, one rises before me, prominent in
its ludicrous aspect. This was in the district school at Center Falls,
in the year 1839. Bad reports were current there of male teachers driven
out by a certain strapping lad. Rumor next told of a Quaker maiden
coming to teach--a Quaker maiden of peace principles. The anticipated
day and Susan arrived. She looked very meek to the barbarian of fifteen,
so he soon began his antics. He was called to the platform, told to lay
aside his jacket, and, thereupon, with much astonishment received from
the mild Quaker maiden, with a birch rod applied calmly but with
precision, an exposition of the _argumentum ad hominem_ based on the _a
posteriori_ method of reasoning. Thus Susan departed from her
principles, but not from the school.

But, before long, conflicts in the outside world disturbed our young
teacher. The multiplication table and spelling book no longer enchained
her thoughts; larger questions began to fill her mind. About the year
1850 Susan B. Anthony hid her ferule away. Temperance, anti-slavery,
woman suffrage,--three pregnant questions,--presented themselves,
demanding her consideration. Higher, ever higher, rose their appeals,
until she resolved to dedicate her energy and thought to the burning
needs of the hour. Owing to early experience of the disabilities of her
sex, the first demand for equal rights for women found echo in Susan's
heart. And, though she was in the beginning startled to hear that women
had actually met in convention, and by speeches and resolutions had
declared themselves man's peer in political rights, and had urged
radical changes in State constitutions and the whole system of American
jurisprudence; yet the most casual review convinced her that these
claims were but the logical outgrowth of the fundamental theories of our
republic.

At this stage of her development I met my future friend and coadjutor
for the first time. How well I remember the day! George Thompson and
William Lloyd Garrison having announced an anti-slavery meeting in
Seneca Falls, Miss Anthony came to attend it. These gentlemen were my
guests. Walking home, after the adjournment, we met Mrs. Bloomer and
Miss Anthony on the corner of the street, waiting to greet us. There she
stood, with her good, earnest face and genial smile, dressed in gray
delaine, hat and all the same color, relieved with pale blue ribbons,
the perfection of neatness and sobriety. I liked her thoroughly, and why
I did not at once invite her home with me to dinner, I do not know. She
accuses me of that neglect, and has never forgiven me, as she wished to
see and hear all she could of our noble friends. I suppose my mind was
full of what I had heard, or my coming dinner, or the probable behavior
of three mischievous boys who had been busily exploring the premises
while I was at the meeting.

That I had abundant cause for anxiety in regard to the philosophical
experiments these young savages might try the reader will admit, when
informed of some of their performances. Henry imagined himself possessed
of rare powers of invention (an ancestral weakness for generations), and
so made a life preserver of corks, and tested its virtues on his
brother, who was about eighteen months old. Accompanied by a troop of
expectant boys, the baby was drawn in his carriage to the banks of the
Seneca, stripped, the string of corks tied under his arms, and set
afloat in the river, the philosopher and his satellites, in a rowboat,
watching the experiment. The baby, accustomed to a morning bath in a
large tub, splashed about joyfully, keeping his head above water. He was
as blue as indigo and as cold as a frog when rescued by his anxious
mother. The next day the same victimized infant was seen, by a passing
friend, seated on the chimney, on the highest peak of the house. Without
alarming anyone, the friend hurried up to the housetop and rescued the
child. Another time the three elder brothers entered into a conspiracy,
and locked up the fourth, Theodore, in the smoke-house. Fortunately, he
sounded the alarm loud and clear, and was set free in safety, whereupon
the three were imprisoned in a garret with two barred windows. They
summarily kicked out the bars, and, sliding down on the lightning rod,
betook themselves to the barn for liberty. The youngest boy, Gerrit,
then only five years old, skinned his hands in the descent. This is a
fair sample of the quiet happiness I enjoyed in the first years of
motherhood.

It was 'mid such exhilarating scenes that Miss Anthony and I wrote
addresses for temperance, anti-slavery, educational, and woman's rights
conventions. Here we forged resolutions, protests, appeals, petitions,
agricultural reports, and constitutional arguments; for we made it a
matter of conscience to accept every invitation to speak on every
question, in order to maintain woman's right to do so. To this end we
took turns on the domestic watchtowers, directing amusements, settling
disputes, protecting the weak against the strong, and trying to secure
equal rights to all in the home as well as the nation. I can recall many
a stern encounter between my friend and the young experimenter. It is
pleasant to remember that he never seriously injured any of his victims,
and only once came near fatally shooting himself with a pistol. The ball
went through his hand; happily a brass button prevented it from
penetrating his heart.

It is often said, by those who know Miss Anthony best, that she has been
my good angel, always pushing and goading me to work, and that but for
her pertinacity I should never have accomplished the little I have. On
the other hand it has been said that I forged the thunderbolts and she
fired them. Perhaps all this is, in a measure, true. With the cares of a
large family I might, in time, like too many women, have become wholly
absorbed in a narrow family selfishness, had not my friend been
continually exploring new fields for missionary labors. Her description
of a body of men on any platform, complacently deciding questions in
which woman had an equal interest, without an equal voice, readily
roused me to a determination to throw a firebrand into the midst of
their assembly.

Thus, whenever I saw that stately Quaker girl coming across my lawn, I
knew that some happy convocation of the sons of Adam was to be set by
the ears, by one of our appeals or resolutions. The little portmanteau,
stuffed with facts, was opened, and there we had what the Rev. John
Smith and Hon. Richard Roe had said: false interpretations of Bible
texts, the statistics of women robbed of their property, shut out of
some college, half paid for their work, the reports of some disgraceful
trial; injustice enough to turn any woman's thoughts from stockings and
puddings. Then we would get out our pens and write articles for papers,
or a petition to the legislature; indite letters to the faithful, here
and there; stir up the women in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Massachusetts;
call on _The Lily, The Una, The Liberator, The Standard_ to remember our
wrongs as well as those of the slave. We never met without issuing a
pronunciamento on some question. In thought and sympathy we were one,
and in the division of labor we exactly complemented each other. In
writing we did better work than either could alone. While she is slow
and analytical in composition, I am rapid and synthetic. I am the better
writer, she the better critic. She supplied the facts and statistics, I
the philosophy and rhetoric, and, together, we have made arguments that
have stood unshaken through the storms of long years; arguments that no
one has answered. Our speeches may be considered the united product of
our two brains.

So entirely one are we that, in all our associations, ever side by side
on the same platform, not one feeling of envy or jealousy has ever
shadowed our lives. We have indulged freely in criticism of each other
when alone, and hotly contended whenever we have differed, but in our
friendship of years there has never been the break of one hour. To the
world we always seem to agree and uniformly reflect each other. Like
husband and wife, each has the feeling that we must have no differences
in public. Thus united, at an early day we began to survey the state and
nation, the future field of our labors. We read, with critical eyes, the
proceedings of Congress and legislatures, of general assemblies and
synods, of conferences and conventions, and discovered that, in all
alike, the existence of woman was entirely ignored.

Night after night, by an old-fashioned fireplace, we plotted and planned
the coming agitation; how, when, and where each entering wedge could be
driven, by which women might be recognized and their rights secured.
Speedily the State was aflame with disturbances in temperance and
teachers' conventions, and the press heralded the news far and near that
women delegates had suddenly appeared, demanding admission in men's
conventions; that their rights had been hotly contested session after
session, by liberal men on the one side, the clergy and learned
professors on the other; an overwhelming majority rejecting the women
with terrible anathemas and denunciations. Such battles were fought over
and over in the chief cities of many of the Northern States, until the
bigotry of men in all the reforms and professions was thoroughly
exposed. Every right achieved, to enter a college, to study a
profession, to labor in some new industry, or to advocate a reform
measure was contended for inch by inch.

Many of those enjoying all these blessings now complacently say, "If
these pioneers in reform had only pressed their measures more
judiciously, in a more ladylike manner, in more choice language, with a
more deferential attitude, the gentlemen could not have behaved so
rudely." I give, in these pages, enough of the characteristics of these
women, of the sentiments they expressed, of their education, ancestry,
and position to show that no power could have met the prejudice and
bigotry of that period more successfully than they did who so bravely
and persistently fought and conquered them.

Miss Anthony first carried her flag of rebellion into the State
conventions of teachers, and there fought, almost single-handed, the
battle for equality. At the close of the first decade she had compelled
conservatism to yield its ground so far as to permit women to
participate in all debates, deliver essays, vote, and hold honored
positions as officers. She labored as sincerely in the temperance
movement, until convinced that woman's moral power amounted to little as
a civil agent, until backed by ballot and coined into State law. She
still never loses an occasion to defend co-education and prohibition,
and solves every difficulty with the refrain, "woman suffrage," as
persistent as the "never more" of Poe's raven.




CHAPTER XI.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY--_Continued_.


It was in 1852 that anti-slavery, through the eloquent lips of such men
as George Thompson, Phillips, and Garrison, first proclaimed to Miss
Anthony its pressing financial necessities. To their inspired words she
gave answer, four years afterward, by becoming a regularly employed
agent in the Anti-slavery Society. For her espoused cause she has always
made boldest demands. In the abolition meetings she used to tell each
class why it should support the movement financially; invariably calling
upon Democrats to give liberally, as the success of the cause would
enable them to cease bowing the knee to the slave power.

There is scarce a town, however small, from New York to San Francisco,
that has not heard her ringing voice. Who can number the speeches she
has made on lyceum platforms, in churches, schoolhouses, halls, barns,
and in the open air, with a lumber wagon or a cart for her rostrum? Who
can describe the varied audiences and social circles she has cheered and
interested? Now we see her on the far-off prairies, entertaining, with
sterling common sense, large gatherings of men, women, and children,
seated on rough boards in some unfinished building; again, holding
public debates in some town with half-fledged editors and clergymen;
next, sailing up the Columbia River and, in hot haste to meet some
appointment, jolting over the rough mountains of Oregon and Washington;
and then, before legislative assemblies, constitutional conventions, and
congressional committees, discussing with senators and judges the letter
and spirit of constitutional law.

Miss Anthony's style of speaking is rapid and vehement. In debate she is
ready and keen, and she is always equal to an emergency. Many times in
traveling with her through the West, especially on our first trip to
Kansas and California, we were suddenly called upon to speak to the
women assembled at the stations. Filled with consternation, I usually
appealed to her to go first; and, without a moment's hesitation, she
could always fill five minutes with some appropriate words and inspire
me with thoughts and courage to follow. The climax of these occasions
was reached in an institution for the deaf and dumb in Michigan. I had
just said to my friend, "There is one comfort in visiting this place; we
shall not be asked to speak," when the superintendent, approaching us,
said, "Ladies, the pupils are assembled in the chapel, ready to hear
you. I promised to invite you to speak to them as soon as I heard you
were in town." The possibility of addressing such an audience was as
novel to Miss Anthony as to me; yet she promptly walked down the aisle
to the platform, as if to perform an ordinary duty, while I, half
distracted with anxiety, wondering by what process I was to be placed in
communication with the deaf and dumb, reluctantly followed. But the
manner was simple enough, when illustrated. The superintendent, standing
by our side, repeated, in the sign language, what was said as fast as
uttered; and by laughter, tears, and applause, the pupils showed that
they fully appreciated the pathos, humor, and argument.

One night, crossing the Mississippi at McGregor, Iowa, we were icebound
in the middle of the river. The boat was crowded with people, hungry,
tired, and cross with the delay. Some gentlemen, with whom we had been
talking on the cars, started the cry, "Speech on woman suffrage!"
Accordingly, in the middle of the Mississippi River, at midnight, we
presented our claims to political representation, and debated the
question of universal suffrage until we landed. Our voyagers were quite
thankful that we had shortened the many hours, and we equally so at
having made several converts and held a convention on the very bosom of
the great "Mother of Waters." Only once in all these wanderings was Miss
Anthony taken by surprise, and that was on being asked to speak to the
inmates of an insane asylum. "Bless me!" said she, "it is as much as I
can do to talk to the sane! What could I say to an audience of
lunatics?" Her companion, Virginia L. Minor of St. Louis, replied: "This
is a golden moment for you, the first opportunity you have ever had,
according to the constitutions, to talk to your 'peers,' for is not the
right of suffrage denied to 'idiots, criminals, lunatics, and women'?"

Much curiosity has been expressed as to the love-life of Miss Anthony;
but, if she has enjoyed or suffered any of the usual triumphs or
disappointments of her sex, she has not yet vouchsafed this information
to her biographers. While few women have had more sincere and lasting
friendships, or a more extensive correspondence with a large circle of
noble men, yet I doubt if one of them can boast of having received from
her any exceptional attention. She has often playfully said, when
questioned on this point, that she could not consent that the man she
loved, described in the Constitution as a white male, native born,
American citizen, possessed of the right of self-government, eligible to
the office of President of the great Republic, should unite his
destinies in marriage with a political slave and pariah. "No, no; when I
am crowned with all the rights, privileges, and immunities of a citizen,
I may give some consideration to this social institution; but until then
I must concentrate all my energies on the enfranchisement of my own
sex." Miss Anthony's love-life, like her religion, has manifested itself
in steadfast, earnest labors for men in general. She has been a watchful
and affectionate daughter, sister, friend, and those who have felt the
pulsations of her great heart know how warmly it beats for all.

As the custom has long been observed, among married women, of
celebrating the anniversaries of their wedding-day, quite properly the
initiative has been taken, in late years, of doing honor to the great
events in the lives of single women. Being united in closest bonds to
her profession, Dr. Harriet K. Hunt of Boston celebrated her
twenty-fifth year of faithful services as a physician by giving to her
friends and patrons a large reception, which she called her silver
wedding. From a feeling of the sacredness of her life work, the admirers
of Susan B. Anthony have been moved to mark, by reception and
convention, her rapid-flowing years and the passing decades of the
suffrage movement. To the most brilliant occasion of this kind, the
invitation cards were as follows:

The ladies of the Woman's Bureau invite you to a reception on
Tuesday evening, February 15th, to celebrate the fiftieth birthday
of Susan B. Anthony, when her friends will have an opportunity to
show their appreciation of her long services in behalf of woman's
emancipation.

No. 49 East 23d St., New York,

February 10, 1870.

Elizabeth B. Phelps,

Anna B. Darling,

Charlotte Beebe Wilbour.

In response to the invitation, the parlors of the bureau were crowded
with friends to congratulate Miss Anthony on the happy event, many
bringing valuable gifts as an expression of their gratitude. Among other
presents were a handsome gold watch and checks to the amount of a
thousand dollars. The guests were entertained with music, recitations,
the reading of many piquant letters of regret from distinguished people,
and witty rhymes written for the occasion by the Cary sisters. Miss
Anthony received her guests with her usual straightforward simplicity,
and in a few earnest words expressed her thanks for the presents and
praises showered upon her. The comments of the leading journals, next
day, were highly complimentary, and as genial as amusing. All dwelt on
the fact that, at last, a woman had arisen brave enough to assert her
right to grow old and openly declare that half a century had rolled over
her head.

Of carefully prepared written speeches Miss Anthony has made few; but
these, by the high praise they called forth, prove that she can--in
spite of her own declaration to the contrary--put her sterling thoughts
on paper concisely and effectively. After her exhaustive plea, in 1880,
for a Sixteenth Amendment before the Judiciary Committee of the Senate,
Senator Edmunds accosted her, as she was leaving the Capitol, and said
he neglected to tell her, in the committee room, that she had made an
argument, no matter what his personal feelings were as to the
conclusions reached, which was unanswerable--an argument, unlike the
usual platform oratory given at hearings, suited to a committee of men
trained to the law.

It was in 1876 that Miss Anthony gave her much criticised lecture on
"Social Purity" in Boston. As to the result she felt very anxious; for
the intelligence of New England composed her audience, and it did not
still her heart-beats to see, sitting just in front of the platform, her
revered friend, William Lloyd Garrison. But surely every fear vanished
when she felt the grand old abolitionist's hand warmly pressing hers,
and heard him say that to listen to no one else would he have had
courage to leave his sick room, and that he felt fully repaid by her
grand speech, which neither in matter nor manner would he have changed
in the smallest particular. But into Miss Anthony's private
correspondence one must look for examples of her most effective writing.
Verb or substantive is often wanting, but you can always catch the
thought, and will ever find it clear and suggestive. It is a strikingly
strange dialect, but one that touches, at times, the deepest chords of
pathos and humor, and, when stirred by some great event, is highly
eloquent.

From being the most ridiculed and mercilessly persecuted woman, Miss
Anthony has become the most honored and respected in the nation. Witness
the praises of press and people, and the enthusiastic ovations she
received on her departure for Europe in 1883. Never were warmer
expressions of regret for an absence, nor more sincere prayers for a
speedy return, accorded to any American on leaving his native shores.
This slow awaking to the character of her services shows the abiding
sense of justice in the human soul. Having spent the winter of 1882-83
in Washington, trying to press to a vote the bill for a Sixteenth
Amendment before Congress, and the autumn in a vigorous campaign through
Nebraska, where a constitutional amendment to enfranchise women had been
submitted to the people, she felt the imperative need of an entire
change in the current of her thoughts. Accordingly, after one of the
most successful conventions ever held at the national capital, and a
most flattering ovation in the spacious parlors of the Riggs House, and
a large reception in Philadelphia, she sailed for Europe.

Fortunate in being perfectly well during the entire voyage, our traveler
received perpetual enjoyment in watching the ever varying sea and sky.
To the captain's merry challenge to find anything so grand as the ocean,
she replied, "Yes, these mighty forces in nature do indeed fill me with
awe; but this vessel, with deep-buried fires, powerful machinery,
spacious decks, and tapering masts, walking the waves like a thing of
life, and all the work of man, impresses one still more deeply. Lo! in
man's divine creative power is fulfilled the prophecy, 'Ye shall be as
Gods!'"

In all her journeyings through Germany, Italy, and France, Miss Anthony
was never the mere sight-seer, but always the humanitarian and reformer
in traveler's guise. Few of the great masterpieces of art gave her real
enjoyment. The keen appreciation of the beauties of sculpture, painting,
and architecture, which one would have expected to find in so deep a
religious nature, was wanting, warped, no doubt, by her early Quaker
training. That her travels gave her more pain than pleasure was,
perhaps, not so much that she had no appreciation of aesthetic beauty,
but that she quickly grasped the infinitude of human misery; not because
her soul did not feel the heights to which art had risen, but that it
vibrated in every fiber to the depths to which mankind had fallen.
Wandering through a gorgeous palace one day, she exclaimed, "What do you
find to admire here? If it were a school of five hundred children being
educated into the right of self-government I could admire it, too; but
standing for one man's pleasure, I say no!" In the quarters of one of
the devotees, at the old monastery of the Certosa, at Florence, there
lies, on a small table, an open book, in which visitors register. On the
occasion of Miss Anthony's visit the pen and ink proved so unpromising
that her entire party declined this opportunity to make themselves
famous, but she made the rebellious pen inscribe, "Perfect equality for
women, civil, political, religious. Susan B. Anthony, U.S.A." Friends,
who visited the monastery next day, reported that lines had been drawn
through this heretical sentiment.

During her visit at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Sargent, in Berlin, Miss
Anthony quite innocently posted her letters in the official envelopes of
our Suffrage Association, which bore the usual mottoes, "No just
government can be formed without the consent of the governed," etc. In a
few days an official brought back a large package, saying, "Such
sentiments are not allowed to pass through the post office." Probably
nothing saved her from arrest as a socialist, under the tyrannical
police regulations, but the fact that she was the guest of the Minister
Plenipotentiary of the United States.

My son Theodore wrote of Miss Anthony's visit in Paris: "I had never
before seen her in the role of tourist. She seemed interested only in
historical monuments, and in the men and questions of the hour. The
galleries of the Louvre had little attraction for her, but she gazed
with deep pleasure at Napoleon's tomb, Notre Dame, and the ruins of the
Tuileries. She was always ready to listen to discussions on the
political problems before the French people, the prospects of the
Republic, the divorce agitation, and the education of women. 'I had
rather see Jules Ferry than all the pictures of the Louvre, Luxembourg,
and Salon,' she remarked at table. A day or two later she saw Ferry at
Laboulaye's funeral. The three things which made the deepest impression
on Miss Anthony, during her stay at Paris, were probably the interment
of Laboulaye (the friend of the United States and of the woman
movement); the touching anniversary demonstration of the Communists, at
the Cemetery of Pere La Chaise, on the very spot where the last
defenders of the Commune of 1871 were ruthlessly shot and buried in a
common grave; and a woman's rights meeting, held in a little hall in the
Rue de Rivoli, at which the brave, far-seeing Mlle. Hubertine Auchet was
the leading spirit."

While on the Continent Miss Anthony experienced the unfortunate
sensation of being deaf and dumb; to speak and not to be understood, to
hear and not to comprehend, were to her bitter realities. We can imagine
to what desperation she was brought when her Quaker prudishness could
hail an emphatic oath in English from a French official with the
exclamation, "Well, it sounds good to hear someone even swear in old
Anglo-Saxon!" After two months of enforced silence, she was buoyant in
reaching the British Islands once more, where she could enjoy public
speaking and general conversation. Here she was the recipient of many
generous social attentions, and, on May 25, a large public meeting of
representative people, presided over by Jacob Bright, was called, in our
honor, by the National Association of Great Britain. She spoke on the
educational and political status of women in America, I of their
religious and social position.

Before closing my friend's biography I shall trace two golden threads in
this closely woven life of incident. One of the greatest services
rendered by Miss Anthony to the suffrage cause was in casting a vote in
the Presidential election of 1872, in order to test the rights of women
under the Fourteenth Amendment. For this offense the brave woman was
arrested, on Thanksgiving Day, the national holiday handed down to us by
Pilgrim Fathers escaped from England's persecutions. She asked for a
writ of habeas corpus. The writ being flatly refused, in January, 1873,
her counsel gave bonds. The daring defendant finding, when too late,
that this not only kept her out of jail, but her case out of the Supreme
Court of the United States, regretfully determined to fight on, and gain
the uttermost by a decision in the United States Circuit Court. Her
trial was set down for the Rochester term in May. Quickly she canvassed
the whole county, laying before every probable juror the strength of her
case. When the time for the trial arrived, the District Attorney,
fearing the result, if the decision were left to a jury drawn from Miss
Anthony's enlightened county, transferred the trial to the Ontario
County term, in June, 1873.

It was now necessary to instruct the citizens of another county. In this
task Miss Anthony received valuable assistance from Matilda Joslyn Gage;
and, to meet all this new expense, financial aid was generously given,
unsolicited, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Gerrit Smith, and other
sympathizers. But in vain was every effort; in vain the appeal of Miss
Anthony to her jurors; in vain the moral influence of the leading
representatives of the bar of Central New York filling the courtroom,
for Judge Hunt, without precedent to sustain him, declaring it a case of
law and not of fact, refused to give the case to the jury, reserving to
himself final decision. Was it not an historic scene which was enacted
there in that little courthouse in Canandaigua? All the inconsistencies
were embodied in that Judge, punctilious in manner, scrupulous in
attire, conscientious in trivialities, and obtuse on great principles,
fitly described by Charles O'Conor--"A very ladylike Judge." Behold him
sitting there, balancing all the niceties of law and equity in his Old
World scales, and at last saying, "The prisoner will stand up."
Whereupon the accused arose. "The sentence of the court is that you pay
a fine of one hundred dollars and the costs of the prosecution." Then
the unruly defendant answers: "May it please your Honor, I shall never
pay a dollar of your unjust penalty," and more to the same effect, all
of which she has lived up to. The "ladylike" Judge had gained some
insight into the determination of the prisoner; so, not wishing to
incarcerate her to all eternity, he added gently: "Madam, the court
will not order you committed until the fine is paid."

It was on the 17th of June that the verdict was given. On that very day,
a little less than a century before, the brave militia was driven back
at Bunker Hill--back, back, almost wiped out; yet truth was in their
ranks, and justice, too. But how ended that rebellion of weak colonists?
The cause of American womanhood, embodied for the moment in the liberty
of a single individual, received a rebuff on June 17, 1873; but, just as
surely as our Revolutionary heroes were in the end victorious, so will
the inalienable rights of our heroines of the nineteenth century receive
final vindication.

In his speech of 1880, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard,
Wendell Phillips said--what as a rule is true--that "a reformer, to be
conscientious, must be free from bread-winning." I will open Miss
Anthony's accounts and show that this reformer, being, perhaps, the
exception which proves the rule, has been consistently and
conscientiously in debt. Turning over her year-books the pages give a
fair record up to 1863. Here began the first herculean labor. The
Woman's Loyal League, sadly in need of funds, was not an incorporated
association, so its secretary assumed the debts. Accounts here became
quite lamentable, the deficit reaching five thousand dollars. It must be
paid, and, in fact, will be paid. Anxious, weary hours were spent in
crowding the Cooper Institute, from week to week, with paying audiences,
to listen to such men as Phillips, Curtis, and Douglass, who contributed
their services, and lifted the secretary out of debt. At last, after
many difficulties, her cash-book of 1863 was honorably pigeon-holed. In
1867 we can read account of herculean labor the second. Twenty thousand
tracts are needed to convert the voters of Kansas to woman suffrage.
Traveling expenses to Kansas, and the tracts, make the debtor column
overreach the creditor some two thousand dollars. There is recognition
on these pages of more than one thousand dollars obtained by soliciting
advertisements, but no note is made of the weary, burning July days
spent in the streets of New York to procure this money, nor of the ready
application of the savings made by petty economies from her salary from
the Hovey Committee.

It would have been fortunate for my brave friend, if cash-books 1868,
1869, and 1870 had never come down from their shelves; for they sing and
sing, in notes of debts, till all unite in one vast chorus of far more
than ten thousand dollars. These were the days of the _Revolution_, the
newspaper, not the war, though it was warfare for the debt-ridden
manager. Several thousand dollars she paid with money earned by
lecturing, and with money given her for personal use. One Thanksgiving
was, in truth, a time for returning thanks; for she received, canceled,
from her cousin, Anson Lapham, her note for four thousand dollars. After
the funeral of Paulina Wright Davis, the bereaved widower pressed into
Miss Anthony's hand canceled notes for five hundred dollars, bearing on
the back the words, "In memory of my beloved wife." One other note was
canceled in recognition of her perfect forgetfulness of self-interest
and ready sacrifice to the needs of others. When laboring, in 1874, to
fill every engagement, in order to meet her debts, her mother's sudden
illness called her home. Without one selfish regret, the anxious
daughter hastened to Rochester. When recovery was certain, and Miss
Anthony was about to return to her fatiguing labors, her mother gave
her, at parting, her note for a thousand dollars, on which was written,
in trembling lines, "In just consideration of the tender sacrifice made
to nurse me in severe illness." At last all the _Revolution_ debt was
paid, except that due to her generous sister, Mary Anthony, who used
often humorously to assure her she was a fit subject for the bankrupt
act.

There is something humorously pathetic in the death of the
_Revolution_--that firstborn of Miss Anthony. Mrs. Laura Curtis Bullard
generously assumed the care of the troublesome child, and, in order to
make the adoption legal, gave the usual consideration--one dollar. The
very night of the transfer Miss Anthony went to Rochester with the
dollar in her pocket, and the little change left after purchasing her
ticket. She arrived safely with her debts, but nothing more--her pocket
had been picked! Oh, thief, could you but know what value of faithful
work you purloined!

From the close of the year 1876 Miss Anthony's accounts showed favorable
signs as to the credit column. Indeed, at the end of five years there
was a solid balance of several thousand dollars earned on lecturing
tours. But alas! the accounts grow dim again--in fact the credit column
fades away. "The History of Woman Suffrage" ruthlessly swallowed up
every vestige of Miss Anthony's bank account. But, in 1886, by the will
of Mrs. Eddy, daughter of Francis Jackson of Boston, Miss Anthony
received twenty-four thousand dollars for the Woman's Suffrage Movement,
which lifted her out of debt once more.

In vain will you search these telltale books for evidence of personal
extravagance; for, although Miss Anthony thinks it true economy to buy
the best, her tastes are simple. Is there not something very touching in
the fact that she never bought a book or picture for her own enjoyment?
The meager personal balance-sheets show four lapses from
discipline,--lapses that she even now regards as ruthless
extravagance,--viz.: the purchase of two inexpensive brooches, a much
needed watch, and a pair of cuffs to match a point-lace collar presented
by a friend. Those interested in Miss Anthony's personal appearance long
ago ceased to trust her with the purchase-money for any ornament; for,
however firm her resolution to comply with their wish, the check
invariably found its way to the credit column of those little cash-books
as "money received for the cause." Now, reader, you have been admitted
to a private view of Miss Anthony's financial records, and you can
appreciate her devotion to an idea. Do you not agree with me that a
"bread-winner" can be a conscientious reformer?

In finishing this sketch of the most intimate friend I have had for the
past forty-five years,--with whom I have spent weeks and months under
the same roof,--I can truly say that she is the most upright,
courageous, self-sacrificing, magnanimous human being I have ever known.
I have seen her beset on every side with the most petty annoyances,
ridiculed and misrepresented, slandered and persecuted; I have known
women refuse to take her extended hand; women to whom she presented
copies of "The History of Woman Suffrage," return it unnoticed; others
to keep it without one word of acknowledgment; others to write most
insulting letters in answer to hers of affectionate conciliation. And
yet, under all the cross-fires incident to a reform, never has her hope
flagged, her self-respect wavered, or a feeling of resentment shadowed
her mind. Oftentimes, when I have been sorely discouraged, thinking that
the prolonged struggle was a waste of force which in other directions
might be rich in achievement, with her sublime faith in humanity, she
would breathe into my soul renewed inspiration, saying, "Pity rather
than blame those who persecute us." So closely interwoven have been our
lives, our purposes, and experiences that, separated, we have a feeling
of incompleteness--united, such strength of self-assertion that no
ordinary obstacles, difficulties, or dangers ever appear to us
insurmountable. Reviewing the life of Susan B. Anthony, I ever liken her
to the Doric column in Grecian architecture, so simply, so grandly she
stands, free from every extraneous ornament, supporting her one vast
idea--the enfranchisement of woman.

As our estimate of ourselves and our friendship may differ somewhat from
that taken from an objective point of view, I will give an extract from
what our common friend Theodore Tilton wrote of us in 1868:

"Miss Susan B. Anthony, a well-known, indefatigable, and lifelong
advocate of temperance, anti-slavery, and woman's rights, has been,
since 1851, Mrs. Stanton's intimate associate in reformatory
labors. These celebrated women are of about equal age, but of the
most opposite characteristics, and illustrate the theory of
counterparts in affection by entertaining for each other a
friendship of extraordinary strength.

"Mrs. Stanton is a fine writer, but a poor executant; Miss Anthony
is a thorough manager, but a poor writer. Both have large brains
and great hearts; neither has any selfish ambition for celebrity;
but each vies with the other in a noble enthusiasm for the cause to
which they are devoting their lives.

"Nevertheless, to describe them critically, I ought to say that,
opposites though they be, each does not so much supplement the
other's deficiencies as augment the other's eccentricities. Thus
they often stimulate each other's aggressiveness, and, at the same
time, diminish each other's discretion.

"But, whatever may be the imprudent utterances of the one or the
impolitic methods of the other, the animating motives of both are
evermore as white as the light. The good that they do is by design;
the harm by accident. These two women, sitting together in their
parlors, have, for the last thirty years, been diligent forgers of
all manner of projectiles, from fireworks to thunderbolts, and have
hurled them with unexpected explosion into the midst of all manner
of educational, reformatory, religious, and political assemblies;
sometimes to the pleasant surprise and half welcome of the members,
more often to the bewilderment and prostration of numerous victims;
and, in a few signal instances, to the gnashing of angry men's
teeth. I know of no two more pertinacious incendiaries in the whole
country. Nor will they, themselves deny the charge. In fact this
noise-making twain are the two sticks of a drum, keeping up what
Daniel Webster called 'The rub-a-dub of agitation.'"




CHAPTER XII.

MY FIRST SPEECH BEFORE A LEGISLATURE.


Women had been willing so long to hold a subordinate position, both in
private and public affairs, that a gradually growing feeling of
rebellion among them quite exasperated the men, and their manifestations
of hostility in public meetings were often as ridiculous as humiliating.

True, those gentlemen were all quite willing that women should join
their societies and churches to do the drudgery; to work up the
enthusiasm in fairs and revivals, conventions and flag presentations; to
pay a dollar apiece into their treasury for the honor of being members
of their various organizations; to beg money for the Church; to
circulate petitions from door to door; to visit saloons; to pray with or
defy rumsellers; to teach school at half price, and sit round the
outskirts of a hall, in teachers' State conventions, like so many
wallflowers; but they would not allow them to sit on the platform,
address the assembly, or vote for men and measures.

Those who had learned the first lessons of human rights from the lips of
Henry B. Stanton, Samuel J. May, and Gerrit Smith would not accept any
such position. When women abandoned the temperance reform, all interest
in the question gradually died out in the State, and practically nothing
was done in New York for nearly twenty years. Gerrit Smith made one or
two attempts toward an "anti-dramshop" party, but, as women could not
vote, they felt no interest in the measure, and failure was the result.

I soon convinced Miss Anthony that the ballot was the key to the
situation; that when we had a voice in the laws we should be welcome to