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THE LIFE AND WORK
OF
SUSAN B. ANTHONY

INCLUDING PUBLIC ADDRESSES, HER OWN LETTERS
AND MANY FROM HER CONTEMPORARIES
DURING FIFTY YEARS

BY

IDA HUSTED HARPER

A Story of the Evolution of the Status of Woman

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOLUME II
ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS, PICTURES OF HOMES, ETC.

indianapolis and kansas city
THE BOWEN-MERRILL COMPANY
1898

Copyright 1898
by
THE BOWEN-MERRILL COMPANY


TO WOMAN, FOR WHOSE FREEDOM
SUSAN B. ANTHONY
HAS GIVEN FIFTY YEARS OF NOBLE ENDEAVOR
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED


SUSAN B. ANTHONY.
In the California Campaign. 1896.


TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Vol. II.


[CHAPTER XXX.]

Political Candidates—Writing the History. (1880-1881.)515-532
Miss Anthony's rallying cry; letter on death of sister; Convention at Indianapolis; Mass Meeting in Farwell Hall, Chicago; suffrage advocates neither unmarried nor childless; Republican National Convention refuses even "recognition" plank of former years; Greenback-Labor Convention passes Woman Suffrage resolution in spite of Dennis Kearney; Democratic Convention at Cincinnati receives ladies with great courtesy but ignores their claims; tribute of Commercial; Prohibition Convention adopts Suffrage plank; interviews with Garfield and Hancock; correspondence of General Garfield and Miss Anthony on Woman Suffrage; martyrdom to writing the History; Thirteenth Washington Convention and memorial service to Lucretia Mott; ridiculous press items on Skye terrier; letter on sparing parents for children's sake; first volume of History issued.

[CHAPTER XXXI.]

The Legacy—Nebraska Campaign—Off for Europe. (1881-1882-1883.)533-550
National Association in Boston; badge presented Miss Anthony by Philadelphia Citizens' Suffrage Association; comments of Traveller and Globe; sweep of New England; tribute of Zerelda G. Wallace; no welcome for Miss Anthony in Albany; letter on death of Garfield; attends National W. C. T. U. Convention in Washington; Phillips' seventieth birthday; Mrs. Eddy's handsome legacy; Fourteenth Washington Convention; amusing suffrage debate in Senate; meeting in Philadelphia; tributes from Elmira Free Press and Washington Republic; favorable Senate and House Committee reports; campaign in Nebraska; addresses Lincoln Club, Rochester; decides to go abroad; Philadelphia Times account of Birthday reception; Mrs. Sewall's description in Indianapolis Times of farewell honors; fine tributes from Chicago Tribune and Kansas City Journal; N. Y. Times describes departure for Europe.

[CHAPTER XXXII.]

Miss Anthony's European Letters. (1883.)551-579
On shipboard; in Liverpool and London; in Milan and Rome; in Naples; in Zurich, Berlin, Cologne, Heidelberg; in Paris; back to London; Mrs. Jacob Bright, Moncure D. Conway, Wm. Henry Channing, Mrs. Rose, Stopford Brooke; speech at Prince's Hall; Helen Taylor, Jane Cobden and others; speech at St. James Hall; Mrs. Mellen's Fourth of July reception; Canon Wilberforce, Sarah Bernhardt; Edinburgh; Elizabeth Pease Nichol, Priscilla Bright McLaren, Professor Blackie, Dr. Jex-Blake; home of Harriet Martineau; Dublin; Isabella M. S. Tod and others; trip through Ireland; characteristic descriptions; John Bright, Hannah Ford, home of the Brontës; Henrietta Müller, Margaret Bright Lucas, Frances Power Cobbe, Millicent Garrett Fawcett, Mrs. Peter Taylor; home again.

[CHAPTER XXXIII.]

Congressional Hearings—Visit to New Orleans. (1884-1885.)581-6032
Welcome Home from Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, N. Y. Evening Telegram, Cleveland Leader; unkind comment Cincinnati Times-Star; dislike of interviewing Congressmen shown by letter to Wm. D. Kelley; Warren Keifer in favor of Woman Suffrage; opposition of Reagan, of Texas; members for and against Special Committee; Douglass marriage; letters to young workers; death of Wendell Phillips; Bishop Simpson on Woman Suffrage; fine speech before Congressional Committee; Thomas B. Reed's report; letter from Senator Palmer; Miss Anthony on Suffrage Bill in Parliament; attitude of Presidential candidates; opposes resolution denouncing dogmas and creeds; attack of Rev. W. W. Patton; Senator Palmer's speech; trip to New Orleans; tribute of Picayune; Eddy legacy received; working on History; Miss Anthony's dislike of literary labor; Mrs. Stanton's seventieth birthday; letter from Harriet Stanton Blatch.

[CHAPTER XXXIV.]

Many Trips—First Vote on Sixteenth Amendment. (1886-1887.)605-626
Miss Anthony's persistence with members of Congress; Eighteenth Washington Convention; committee reports; canvass of the State of Kansas; Municipal Suffrage Bill passed by Legislature; speaking throughout Wisconsin; advice as to Church for holding convention; History of Woman Suffrage and valuable work accomplished by it; opinions of Mary L. Booth, Sarah B. Cooper and others; Nineteenth Annual Convention; Senator Blair's bill for Woman Suffrage; Senators Brown and Vest in opposition; Senators Dolph and Blair in favor; remonstrance from Boston; the Vote; women incensed at Ingalls; letter to Frances Willard on Prohibition Party; letter to Olympia Brown against bringing suit under school suffrage law; scores Senator Ingalls in Kansas; canvass of Indiana.

[CHAPTER XXXV.]

Union of Associations—International Council. (1888.)627-645
American Association proposes Union; negotiations to that end; plea for Mrs. Stanton's election as president; Union completed; International Council of Women; magnitude of preparations; Miss Anthony's idea of a sermon; letter of Douglass on First Woman's Rights Convention; letter of Maria Mitchell; efforts to secure Mrs. Stanton's presence; comment of Baltimore Sun and N. Y. World; Frances Willard's speech and letter to Union Signal; National and International Councils formed; at Central Music Hall, Chicago; letter urging women to go to National Political conventions; open letter to General Harrison; Republican "free ballot" plank does not include Women; dislike of "red tape;" speech at Columbus W. C. T. U. celebration not well received.

[CHAPTER XXXVI.]

Conventions from Washington to South Dakota. (1889.)647-661
Twenty-first Washington Convention; address before Unity Club, Cincinnati; death of niece Susie B.; letters on Death; newspaper comment on Dress; at Seidl Club on Coney Island and "Broadbrim's" account; a round of lectures and conventions; letter of Harriet Hosmer; canvass of South Dakota; Miss Anthony outlines plan of campaign; nephew D. R. describes speech at Ann Arbor; "Andrew Jackson-like responsibility"; work for South Dakota; description in Washington Star.

[CHAPTER XXXVII.]

At the End of Seventy Years. (1890.)663-678
Consternation at idea of selling tickets for Birthday banquet; description of banquet by Washington Star and N. Y. Sun; speeches of Rev. F. W. Hinckley, Hon. J. A. Pickler, Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony; congratulatory letters from distinguished people; eloquent tributes from Boston Traveller and Rochester Democrat and Chronicle; first Convention of United Associations; money for South Dakota; in Washington society; letter on pre-natal influence.

[CHAPTER XXXVIII.]

The South Dakota Campaign. (1890.)679-696
Appeals from South Dakota; Miss Anthony lays down the law regarding National funds; pledges of Farmers' Alliance leaders; contributions to campaign; goes to South Dakota; Farmers' Alliance and Knights of Labor form new party and repudiate pledges for Woman Suffrage; insults at Democratic Convention; Republican Convention has room for Indian men but none for white women; Miss Anthony's cheerful letters; hardships of campaign; Mrs. Howell's description of meetings at Madison; Rev. Anna Shaw's account of crying babies and drunken man; Mrs. Chapman Catt's summing-up of situation; statistics of Defeat; Miss Anthony endorsed by State W. C. T. U. and Suffrage Associations.

[CHAPTER XXXIX.]

Wyoming—Miss Anthony Goes to Housekeeping. (1890-1891.)697-716
Debate in Congress on admission of Wyoming; first majority report from House Committee in favor of Sixteenth Amendment; Wimodaughsis; in Boston; letter of sympathy from Lucy Stone; first triennial meeting of National Woman's Council; Miss Anthony's joy; Twenty-third Washington Convention; breakfast at Sorosis; letter from ex-Secretary Hugh McCulloch; leaving Riggs House; letter describing visits in New England; goes to housekeeping; kindness of press and people; letter from Adirondacks and John Brown's home; stirs up Rochester W. C. T. U.; at Chautauqua; describes meeting at Lily Dale; happiness in keeping house; speaks at N. Y. State Fair; invites Mrs. Stanton to share her home; calls meeting to admit girls to Rochester University; speaks at Thanksgiving services in Unitarian church; appeals from Kansas.

[CHAPTER XL.]

Ignored by the Parties—Appointed to Office. (1892.)717-735
Mrs. Stanton's last appearance at National Convention; Miss Anthony made president; home life; attends biennial meeting Federation of Woman's Clubs; bust made by Lorado Taft; letter approving Southern Woman's Council; ignored by Republican National Convention at Minneapolis; "every citizen" does not include Women; bowed out of Democratic National Convention at Chicago; Frances Willard's beautiful tribute; at People's National Convention in Omaha; Woman Suffrage at Chautauqua; campaign of Kansas on Republican platform; illustrates difference in treatment of same women now and forty years ago; appointed on Board of Managers State Industrial School; press comment; addresses mass meeting on including Women in provisions of New Charter for Rochester; face sculptured on theater in Dowagiac, Mich.; John Boyd Thacher asks his father's record; Philip Schuyler objects to his stepmother's statue in company with Miss Anthony's; Justice Rufus W. Peckham's tribute.

[CHAPTER XLI.]

World's Fair—Congress of Representative Women. (1893.)737-754
Miss Anthony opposes holding National Conventions outside Washington; extended range of letters and invitations; urges those who can not work to contribute money; opening of World's Fair; Bertha Honoré Palmer's words for women; Miss Anthony behind movement to have women on Board of Managers; President and Board of Lady Managers; Woman's Congress; Miss Anthony center of attraction; compliments from Frances Willard and Lady Somerset; letter of Florence Fenwick Miller; Suffrage leads at Congress; letters from Mrs. Palmer, Mrs. James P. Eagle; speech on Religious Press; pleasant visits in Chicago; tribute from Inter-Ocean; Woman Suffrage granted in Colorado; preparing for New York and Kansas amendment campaigns.

[CHAPTER XLII.]

The Second New York Campaign. (1894.)755-776
Speeches in Ann Arbor, Toledo, Baltimore and Washington; no creeds, no politics in National-American Association; congratulations of Chicago Journal; great New York campaign inaugurated to secure Amendment from Constitutional Convention; headquarters in Anthony home; Corresponding Secretary Mary S. Anthony reports amount of work done; opening rally in Rochester; women of wealth and fashion in New York and Brooklyn take part; N. Y. World describes the movement; "Remonstrants" organize; Miss Anthony's opinion of them; 600,000 signatures secured; Joseph H. Choate, President of Constitutional Convention, uses his influence against Woman Suffrage Amendment; Miss Anthony and many other women address delegates; representatives of the "Antis" speak in opposition; Edward Lauterbach and other members support Amendment; Elihu Root, Wm. P. Goodelle and others oppose; Amendment Defeated; tribute by State president, Mrs. Greenleaf; appreciative letters; incorrect report of speech at Spiritualist camp meeting; Miss Anthony, Frances Willard, Lady Somerset and others at Republican State Convention in Saratoga; starting for Kansas.

[CHAPTER XLIII.]

The Second Kansas Campaign. (1894.)777-798
Miss Anthony insists that political State conventions must put Woman Suffrage planks in their platforms; politicians try to persuade Kansas women not to ask for them; dilemma of State president, Mrs. Johns; letters of Mrs. Chapman Catt, Henry B. Blackwell, Rev. Anna Shaw, showing uselessness of campaign without Political endorsement; Miss Anthony's rousing letters to Woman's State Committee, Republican leaders and Mrs. Johns; great speech at Kansas City; action taken by Republican Woman's Convention; Suffrage plank refused by Republican State Convention; fight for it in Populist Convention; wild scene when secured; "not a test of party fealty;" Prohibitionists adopt plank; Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw censured by Republicans; Miss Anthony states their reasons and takes a cheerful view; friendly words from Wm. Lloyd Garrison; her brave declaration; scores Kansas Republicans in letter to Mr. Blackwell; cordial support of Annie L. Diggs; Mrs. Johns and Mr. Breidenthal hopeful; Amendment Defeated; possession of Limited Suffrage a hindrance to securing Full Suffrage.

[CHAPTER XLIV.]

The Southern Trip—The Atlanta Convention. (1895.)799-817
Not cast down by Kansas defeat, Miss Anthony speaks at Nebraska Convention; goes to New York State Convention at Ithaca; visits Cornell University and speaks to girls of Sage College; addresses National W. C. T. U. on Sunday at Cleveland, showing weakness of all attempts at Reform unsupported by the Ballot; pleasant month in New York City; letter on Y. M. C. A. for "woman's edition;" invitation from Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones and Rev. H. W. Thomas to take part in Liberal Religious Congress; addresses at Lexington, Louisville, Memphis and New Orleans; complimentary reports of Picayune, Shreveport Times, Birmingham News, Huntsville Tribune; National-American Convention in Atlanta; courtesy of press, pulpit and people; Seventy-fifth Birthday celebration and presentation of Annuity of $800; second triennial of Woman's Council; speaks at Douglass' funeral; stirs up the audience in Rochester at Ida B. Wells' lecture on Lynching; resigns position on State Industrial School Board.

[CHAPTER XLV.]

The Second Visit to California. (1895.)819-838
Invitation from California Woman's Congress; Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw have royal welcome at St. Louis, Denver, Cheyenne, Salt Lake City, Reno; cordial reception at Oakland; beautiful scene at Woman's Congress; eulogies of press; visit Stanford University; entertained by many clubs and societies; go to Yosemite Valley; joyfully received at San Jose, Los Angeles, Riverside, Pasadena, Pomona, San Diego, Santa Monica; address Ministers' Meeting in San Francisco; Mrs. Cooper's victory over Fourth of July Committee; speak at the celebration; miss audience at Oakland; affectionate farewell.

[CHAPTER XLVI.]

Mrs. Stanton's Birthday—The Bible Resolution. (1895-1896.)839-862
Miss Anthony stirs up papers with resolution on Kansas men; description by Chicago Herald; seized with nervous prostration at Lakeside, O.; sympathy of people and press; secret of vitality; letter on maternity hospitals; on "hard times;" on woman's dress; Mrs. Stanton's birthday celebration; Miss Anthony magnanimously refuses to take the lead; tribute from Tilton; appreciative letters from Mary Lowe Dickinson, Mrs. Leland Stanford; Twenty-eighth Annual Convention; Utah admitted with Woman Suffrage; women of South Australia enfranchised; resolution against Woman's Bible; speech on Religious Liberty; grief over action of convention; view of the Bible; Suffrage will emancipate from Superstition; Nelly Bly's racy interview; loud call from California; can not refuse but goes to the Golden State.

[CHAPTER XLVII.]

The California Campaign. (1896.)863-893
Effort to secure Woman Suffrage Bill from California Legislature; State committees formed; county conventions; Mrs. Sargent's hospitality; work of women throughout the State; attitude of press; the Call declares for Woman Suffrage; Republican Convention; Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw before platform committee; tributes to Mrs. Duniway and Mrs. McCann; Populist Convention; Prohibition Convention; Democratic Convention; women's ratification; headquarters opened; principal speakers; great work of Miss Anthony; social courtesies extended; goes to Portland and Seattle; can not go to Idaho; Suffrage plank in National Republican convention repudiated; tour of Southern California; letters to Miss Willard and Mrs. Peet on holding National W. C. T. U. Convention in California; action of Chairman Republican State Committee; attempts of Women to speak at Political conventions; the Call coerced; the orators "flunk;" Liquor Dealers fight Woman Suffrage; efforts to register new voters; amount of money raised; Women outwitted by State officials; Defeat; summing-up of vote; a touching sight; pleasant campaign; State Suffrage Convention; Mrs. Sargent's tribute; homeward bound.

[CHAPTER XLVIII.]

Her Letters—Birthday Party—Biography. (1896-1897.)895-911
Reception in Rochester; never denies charges; urges women not to "scramble" for office; Book of Proverbs; constancy of purpose; women have nothing to do with Reform parties; objects to calling God the author of Civil Government; men trying to lift themselves by their bootstraps; no time for Speculation; opposes Educated and Property Suffrage; eloquent tribute of Dr. H. W. Thomas; pleasant letters from Mrs. Henrotin, John Hutchinson, Mrs. Dickinson; National-American Convention in Des Moines; letter urging that all National conventions be held at Washington; reception at Indianapolis; addresses Indiana Legislature; kindness to reporters; birthday of Frederick Douglass; Miss Anthony's great Birthday reception in Rochester; compliments of Post-Express and Herald; the day at Anthony home; Mrs. Chapman Catt's tribute; speech at Cuban League; remarks at funeral of Mrs. Humphrey; beginning the Biography; immense amount of material; description of attic workroom.

[CHAPTER XLIX.]

Characteristic Views on Many Questions. (1897.)913-930
Monday evenings at home; Miss Anthony dislikes rôle of Literary or Society woman; declares she never again will speak before Legislative Committee at Albany; Miss Mary Anthony's birthday; Herald's interview; description by Democrat and Chronicle; remarks of Rev. W. C. Gannett and others; assists at golden wedding; visits Eliza Wright Osborne with Mrs. Stanton; her greatest compliment; opinion on Women rising in Rebellion; on Mrs. Besant and Theosophy; letter to Supreme Court of Idaho; on commemorating deeds of Revolutionary Mothers; Sentiment no guarantee for Justice; Subjection of Woman the cause of public Immorality; opposed to asking Partial Suffrage for women; opinion on Poetry; God not responsible for human ills; Sunday observance; objects to asking for Educated and Property Suffrage; voters not influenced by Religious arguments; refuses to join Miss Willard in attack on "yellow journalism" and prize fighting; wide scope of invitations, etc.; amusing letter of inquiry; never received salary from National Association; visit to Thousand Islands; centennial of Rev. Samuel J. May; at Nashville Exposition; criticises Women for going into Partisan Politics and defends "rings;" Woman Suffrage movement of the Present contrasted with that of the Past.

[CHAPTER L.]

Home Life—The Reunion—The Woman. (1897.)931-953
Daily habits of life; dress; harmonious relations of the two sisters; description of Anthony home; outline of Miss Anthony's vast private correspondence; her patience and conscientiousness; objects to which close of life is being given; invited to Berkshire; Suffrage Committee meeting in the "Old Hive" at Adams; guest of Berkshire Historical Society; addresses of Mrs. Chapman Catt, Mrs. Foster Avery, Mrs. Sewall, Mrs. Colby, Rev. Anna Shaw and others; Anthony Reunion; picturesque old homestead; visit to birthplace and loved spots of childhood; contrast in position of Woman now and fifty years ago; Miss Anthony's part in securing reforms; face carved in Capitol at Albany; tributes of Mrs. Sewall, Miss Willard and Mrs. Stanton; Miss Anthony's characteristics; compared to Napoleon, Gladstone, Lincoln, Garrison; finis.


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Vol. II.


Susan B. Anthony in California Campaign, 1896 [Frontispiece]
Harriet Purvis [faces page 526]
Mentia Taylor [554]
Priscilla Bright McLaren [564]
Elizabeth Pease Nichol [568]
Margaret Bright Lucas [578]
Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton writing the History of Woman Suffrage [600]
Caroline E. Merrick [608]
Zerelda G. Wallace [632]
Rev. Anna Howard Shaw [688]
Harriet Taylor Upton [700]
May Wright Sewall [746]
Mary S. Anthony [760]
Carrie Chapman Catt [780]
Rachel Foster Avery [814]
Sarah B. Cooper [828]
Ellen Clark Sargent [864]
Sarah L. Knox Goodrich [888]
Anthony Residence in Rochester [904]
Attic Work-Rooms [910]
Mary S. and Susan B. Anthony [916]
Anthony Family at Reunion [938]
At the Old Homestead [942]
Quaker Meeting-House, Adams, Mass [946]

CHAPTER XXX.

POLITICAL CANDIDATES—WRITING THE HISTORY.

1880-1881.

During her May lecture trip Miss Anthony was formulating a scheme for a series of conventions, opening and closing with a great mass meeting, which should influence the national political conventions to recognize in their platforms the rights of woman. As usual most of the women opposed this plan and as usual Miss Anthony carried the day. The following letters to Mrs. Spencer, national secretary, will serve as specimens of hundreds which she wrote with her own hand, before every similar occasion:

I want the rousingest rallying cry ever put on paper—first, to call women by the thousand to Chicago; and second, to get every one who can not go there to send a postal card to the mass convention, saying she wants the Republicans to put a Sixteenth Amendment pledge in their platform. Don't you see that if we could have a mass meeting of 2,000 or 3,000 earnest women, June 2, and then receive 10,000 postals from women all over the country, what a tremendous influence we could bring to bear on the Republican convention, June 3? We can get Farwell Hall for $40 a day, and I think would do well to engage it for the 2d and 3d, then we could make it our headquarters—sleep in it even, if we couldn't get any other places.

Besides this, I want to make the best possible use of all our speakers between June 3 and 21, when we shall have a mass meeting in Cincinnati, the day before the Democratic convention. My proposition is that I, as vice-president-at-large, call conventions of two days each at a number of cities. We could divide our speakers and thus fill in the entire two weeks between Chicago and Cincinnati with capital good work. How does the plan strike you? Can we summon the women from the vasty deeps—or distances? Can we get 5,000 or 10,000 to send on their postals? Do the petitions still come in? How many thousands of appeals and documents have you had printed and how many have you sent out?

After the ball was set rolling she wrote:

A letter from Mrs. Stanton tells of her being on the verge of pneumonia, and rushing home to rest and recruit. She is better and, since she has been to the dinner-table, I infer she is well enough to begin to work up the thunder and lightning for Indianapolis and Chicago. Now won't you at once scratch down the points with which you want to fire her soul and brain, and get her at work on the resolutions, platform and address? She won't go out to lecture any more this spring, and if you will only put her en rapport with your thought she will do splendid work in the herculean task awaiting us.

It is simply impossible for me to go to her at present, and we must all give her our ideas in the rough, from time to time, and let her weld them together as best she can; and then, as she says, when we meet in Indianapolis we all will put in our happiest ideas, metaphysical, political, logical and all other "cals," and make these the strongest and grandest documents ever issued from any organization of women. It does seem to me that if we can succeed in grinding out just the right appeal, demand, or whatever it may be called, the Republican convention must heed us. At any rate, we will do our level best at a strong pull, a long pull and a pull all together to compel them to surrender.

I enclose my list of May lecture engagements. I shall be able to help in money from them soon, and better than I could in any other way. I watch both Congress and our State legislatures, but the "scamps" are vastly better at promising than fulfilling. The politicians, of course, expect all this flutter and buncombe about doing something for women in New York—in California—in Iowa—is going to spike our guns and make us help the Republican party to carry all before it; but we must not be thus fooled by them.

After a lecture at Waynesburg, Penn., when she had gone to her train at 4 a. m. to find it an hour late, she wrote on the ticket-office shelf, by the light of a smoky lamp, this letter to her sister:

Just three years ago this day was our dear Hannah's last on earth, and I can see her now sitting by the window and can hear her say, "Talk, Susan." I knew she wanted me to talk of the future meetings in the great beyond, all of them, as she often said, so certain and so beautiful to her; but they were not to me, and I could not dash her faith with my doubts, nor could I pretend a faith I had not; so I was silent in the dread presence of death. Three years—and yet what a living presence has she been in my thoughts all the days! There has been scarcely one waking hour that I have not felt the loss of her. We can not help trying to peer through the veil to find the certainty of things over there, but nothing comes to our eyes unless we accept the Spiritualistic testimony, which we can not wholly do.

Well, only you and I are left of mother's four girls, and when and how we also shall pass on is among the unknown problems of the future. Of course I feel and know that your loss is far beyond mine; for never was there a child who so faithfully devoted herself to a mother, and made all other interests subserve that mother's happiness as did you, and I feel, too, that but for you I never could have done my public work.

The great series of conventions began with the May Anniversary, which was held at Indianapolis, the 25th and 26th, in the Park Theater, Miss Anthony presiding. All arrangements had been made and all expenses assumed by the local suffrage society under the leadership of Mrs. Sewall. The Sentinel, edited at that time by Colonel J. B. Maynard, welcomed the convention in a strong editorial declaring for woman suffrage in unmistakable terms. The very successful meetings closed with a handsome reception tendered by Mrs. John C. New.

The mass meeting opened in Farwell Hall, Chicago, June 1, the day before the Republican convention, with delegates from twenty-six States, and continued in session three days. The welcoming address was made by Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, the speakers comprised the most prominent women of the nation, the audience numbered 3,000 and the enthusiasm was unprecedented in all the records of this movement.[1] The History of Woman Suffrage says:

The mass convention had been called for June 2, but the crowds in the city gave promise of such extended interest that Farwell Hall was engaged for June 1, and before the second day's proceedings closed, funds were voluntarily raised by the audience to continue the meeting the third day. So vast was the number of letters and postals from women who desired to vote, that the whole time of each session could have been spent in reading them—one day's mail alone bringing them from twenty-three States and three Territories. Some contained hundreds of names, others represented town, county and State societies. Many were addressed to the different nominating conventions, Republican, Greenback, Democratic, while the reasons given for desiring to vote ranged from the simple demand, through all the scale of those connected with good government and morality. So highly important a contribution to history did the Chicago Historical Society deem these expressions that it made a formal request to be put in possession of all letters and postals, with a promise that they should be carefully guarded in a fire-proof safe.

A large parlor in the Palmer House was tendered to the ladies by the proprietor for business meetings and for a reception room. They were visited by a number of Republican delegates, many of whom were thoroughly in favor of a suffrage plank in the platform and of giving the ladies seats in the convention. A letter was sent to the chairman of the Republican national committee, Don Cameron, signed by one hundred and eighteen United States senators and representatives, asking that seventy-six seats on the floor of the convention be given to as many accredited delegates from the National Suffrage Association. Although the veteran soldiers and sailors were liberally provided for, Mr. Cameron granted only ten seats to the women, and those not to the association in its official capacity but as "guest" tickets for seats on the platform. Miss Anthony was allowed ten minutes before a sub-committee to present the argument for a suffrage plank. It was favorably regarded by scattered members of various delegations, but the platform was silent on the subject.

The Republican convention of 1880 did not even adopt the "recognition" planks of 1872 and 1876, and all the demonstrations of this great mass meeting of women had not the slightest influence, because made by a disfranchised class. Before closing they adopted a resolution that they would support no party which did not endorse the political equality of woman; but all the "support" which they could give or withhold was not likely to be considered of much value by political leaders.

Miss Anthony and four others attended the Greenback-Labor Convention, a few days later, in the same city. They were well received. Mrs. Gage read the suffrage memorial in open session and Miss Anthony was permitted to address the convention. This privilege was violently opposed by Dennis Kearney, who said that "his wife instructed him before he left California not to mix up with woman suffragists, and if he did she would meet him at the door with a flat-iron when he came home." Failing to frighten the convention with Mrs. Kearney's flat-iron, he declined to hear Miss Anthony's speech and left the hall in disgust. The committee refused to incorporate a suffrage plank in its platform, but the next day in convention, after the nominations were concluded, a delegate introduced an equal suffrage resolution which passed by a large majority.

The delegates and speakers of the National Association then held meetings at Milwaukee, Wis., Bloomington, Ill., Grand Rapids, Mich., Lafayette and Terre Haute, Ind., and reached Cincinnati in time for the Democratic National Convention, June 22. They were received here with unexpected courtesy. Mayor Prince, of Boston, and Mr. Eaton, of Kansas, presented their request for seats, and sixteen were granted them on the floor of the house, just behind the delegates. A committee room was placed at their disposal and their notices and placards were printed by the convention. A hearing was given before the platform committee, with no limit as to time, and after several had spoken the others were invited to do so. The chairman, Henry Watterson, declared himself in favor of the plank desired. The delegations from Maine, New York and Kansas also were favorable. Miss Anthony was escorted to the platform upon the arm of Carter Harrison, amid wild applause, given a seat beside the presiding officer, Wade Hampton, and the clerk was ordered to read the address which she presented.[2] After all this parade, however, the platform contained not the slightest reference to the claims of women or, in fact, to their existence. The results of the appeal to the Republican and Democratic conventions were precisely the same, except that the latter administered the dose with chivalry.

The National Prohibition Convention at Bloomington, Ill., officially invited the suffrage advocates to meet with them and participate in their proceedings. Phœbe Couzins was sent as a delegate, and the convention adopted the following plank: "We also demand that women having privileges as citizens in other respects, shall be clothed with the ballot for their own protection, and as a rightful means for the proper settlement of the liquor question." This body, it will be noticed, not only demanded the ballot for woman but told her what she would be expected to do with it.

While not at all surprised, Miss Anthony was greatly disgusted with the action of the Republican and Democratic conventions, but, determined to leave nothing undone, she soon afterwards called upon General Garfield at Mentor. He was cordial and expressed himself in favor of equality for woman in matters of education, work, wages and civil rights, but was not ready to declare himself in favor of the suffrage and, as was always the case, urged that the issue be not pressed during that campaign. Mrs. Blake and others visited General Hancock, the Democratic candidate, and the New York Sun reports the interview in part:

Mrs. Blake said the delegation had come to ask the general what hope the woman suffrage party might entertain in case any measure came before him, as President, which bore upon granting women the ballot. The general replied that the movement was a growing one, and that everything which tended toward the amelioration of woman's condition had his sympathy. In the course of conversation he said that women should be paid equally with men for the same work equally well performed.

Mrs. Slocum said that the delegation desired a decided expression from him as to whether he would or would not veto any measure favorable to woman suffrage that might come before him as President. The general replied that if such a measure were voted upon by Congress as a constitutional amendment, it would not come before the President. If, however, Congress accorded women the right to vote in the District of Columbia, he certainly would offer no obstruction.

Mrs. Blake asked if he considered women as "people."

"Undoubtedly," replied the general. "He would be a bold man who would undertake to say they were not."

"Then, general," said Mrs. Blake, "we ask nothing more than what you say in your letter of acceptance: 'It is only by a full vote, a free ballot and a fair count that the people can rule in fact, as required by the theory of our government.'"

"I am perfectly willing," said General Hancock, "that you should say I take my stand on that paragraph in my letter of acceptance."

In order to exhaust every resource, Miss Anthony, on August 17, addressed this letter to each of the presidential candidates:

As vice-president-at-large of the National Woman Suffrage Association, I am instructed to ask you if, in the event of your election, you, as President of the United States, would recommend to Congress the submission to the several legislatures of a Sixteenth Amendment to the National Constitution, prohibiting the disfranchisement of United States citizens on account of sex. What we wish to ascertain is whether you, as President, would use your official influence to secure to the women of the several States a national guarantee of their right to a voice in the government on the same terms with men. Neither platform makes any pledge to secure political equality to women—hence we are waiting and hoping that one candidate or the other, or both, will declare favorably, and thereby make it possible for women, with self-respect, to work for the success of one or the other or both nominees. Hoping for a prompt and explicit statement, I am, sir, very respectfully yours.

General Hancock did not so much as acknowledge the receipt of this, but General Garfield answered promptly, writing with his own hand:

Your letter of the 17th inst. was duly received. I take the liberty of asking your personal advice before I answer your official letter. I assume that all the traditions and impulses of your life lead you to believe that the Republican party has been and is more nearly in the line of liberty than its antagonist, the Democratic party; and I know you desire to advance the cause of woman. Now, in view of the fact that the Republican convention has not discussed your question, do you not think it would be a violation of the trust they have reposed in me, to speak "as their nominee"—and add to the present contest an issue which they have not authorized?

Again, if I answer your question on the ground of my own private opinion, I shall be compelled to say that, while I am open to the freest discussion and fairest consideration of your question, I have not yet reached the conclusion that it would be best for woman and for the country that she should have the suffrage. I may reach it; but whatever time may do to me, that fruit is not yet ripe on my tree. I ask you, therefore, for the sake of your own question, do you think it wise to pick my apples now? Please answer me in the frankness of personal friendship.

With kind regards, I am, very truly yours.

Under date of September 9 Miss Anthony sent a spirited reply:

Yours of the 25th ult. has waited all these days that I might carefully consider it.

First.—The Republican party did run well for a season in the "line of liberty," but since 1870, its congressional enactments, majority reports, Supreme Court decisions, and now its presidential platform, show a retrograde movement—not only for women but for colored men—limiting the power of the national government in the protection of United States citizens against the injustice of the States, until what we gained by the sword is lost by political surrenders. We need nothing but a Democratic administration to demonstrate to all Israel and the sun the fact, the sad fact, that all is lost by the Republican party. I mean, of course, the one vital point of national supremacy in the protection of United States citizens in the enjoyment of their right to vote, and the punishment of States or individuals thereof, for depriving citizens of the exercise of that right. The first and fatal mistake was in ceding to Rhode Island the right to "abridge" the suffrage to foreign born men; and to all the States to "deny" it to women, in direct violation of the principle of national supremacy. From that time, inch by inch, point by point has been surrendered, until it is only in name that the Republican party is the party of national supremacy. Grant did not protect the negro's ballot in the presidential election of 1876—Hayes can not in 1880—nor will Garfield be able to do so in 1884—for the "scepter has departed from Judah."

Second.—For the candidate of a party to add to the discussions of the contest an issue unauthorized or unnoted in its platform, when that issue is one vital to its very life, it seems to me would be the grandest act imaginable. For doing that very thing, with regard to the protection of the negroes of the South, you are today receiving more praise from the best men of the party than for any and all of your utterances inside the line of the platform. I know, if you had in your letter of acceptance, or in your New York speech, declared yourself in favor of "perfect equality of rights for women, civil and political," you would have touched an electric spark which would have fired the hearts of the women of the entire nation, and made the triumph of the Republican party more grand and glorious than any it ever has seen.

Third.—As to picking fruit before it is ripe! Allow me to remind you that very much fruit is never picked; some is nipped in the bud; some is worm-eaten and falls to the ground; some rots on the trees before it ripens; some, too slow in ripening, is bitten by the early frosts of autumn; while some rare, ripe apples hang until frozen and worthless on the leafless boughs! Really, Mr. Garfield, if after passing through the war of the rebellion and sixteen years in Congress; if after seeing and hearing and repeating that no class ever got justice and equality of chances from any government except it had the power—the ballot—to clutch them for itself; if after all your opportunities for growth and development, you can not yet see the truth of the great principle of individual self-government; if you have reached only the idea of class-government, and that, too, of the most hateful and cruel form—bounded by sex—there must be some radical defect in the ethics of the party of which you are the chosen leader.

No matter which party administers the government, women will continue to get only subordinate positions and half pay, not because of the party's or the President's lack of chivalric regard, but because, in the nature of things, it is impossible for any government to protect a disfranchised class in equality of chances. Women, to get justice, must have political freedom. But pardon this long trespass upon your time and patience, and please bear in mind that it is not for the many good things the Republican party and its nominee have done in extending the area of liberty that I criticise them, but because they have failed to place the women of the nation on the plane of political equality with men. I do not ask you to go beyond your convictions, but I do most earnestly beg you to look at this question from the standpoint of the woman—alone, without father, brother, husband, son—battling for bread. It is to help the millions of these unfortunate ones that I plead for the ballot in the hands of all women.

With great respect for your frank and candid talk with one of the disfranchised, I am, very sincerely yours.

On the strength of Hancock's perfectly non-committal interview and Garfield's frank letter, several of the prominent Democratic women rushed into a campaign for that party, whereupon Miss Anthony called them down in vigorous language. After expressing her indignation at the many false newspaper reports of her correspondence and interview with General Garfield, she said:

He has always stood ready to aid us in getting our demand before Congress, and was one of the three who reported in favor of a special woman suffrage committee in the House the last session. He has actually done a thousand things a thousand times more friendly to woman suffrage than Hancock now talks of doing. Then, again, Hancock has given us no public statement that, if elected, he will recommend a Sixteenth Amendment in his inaugural; and in his letter of acceptance he said nothing more that can be twisted into suffrage for women than Garfield did in his, and there is no more in the Democratic platform that can be thus construed than there is in the Republican.

I never intended that the National Association should accept any sort of "under the ink or between the lines" as favorable pledges; and before I shall consent to put my name to any document favoring either candidate, I must see in black and white, in the candidate's own pen tracks, something to warrant such favoring. Mere gallantry will not do.

During the campaign which followed, neither she nor the other leading women of the country did any public work, and both parties lost the splendid services which would have been gladly rendered had they recognized the simple principle of justice. When the success of Garfield was practically assured, Miss Anthony wrote to a friend on the evening of election day: "I am fairly holding my breath tonight, waiting for the morning reports, as I feel it will be an overwhelming triumph for the Republican party. If their majority should be immense, perhaps it will give them courage and strength to speak for woman—and so let us hope and hope on."

As Mrs. Stanton's health forbade her going on the lecture platform in the autumn of 1880, and as Miss Anthony had now enough money ahead to dare claim a little leisure from public work, they decided to settle down to the serious business of writing the History of Woman Suffrage. For this purpose Miss Anthony went to Tenafly in October and ensconced herself in Mrs. Stanton's cosy home among the "blue hills of Jersey." The work already was advanced far enough to show that it could not possibly be restricted to the one volume into which it had enlarged from the 500-page pamphlet at first intended, and the task loomed up in an appalling manner. Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson, the generous patron of so many progressive movements, gave Miss Anthony $1,000 for immediate expenses and so they went on with the work, delving among old papers and letters, compiling, cutting, pasting, writing and re-writing, sending over and over to the women of different States for local history, going into New York again and again to see the publishers, and performing all the drudgery demanded by such an undertaking, which can be appreciated only by the few who have experienced it.

Miss Anthony hated this kind of work and it was torture for her to give up her active life and sit poring over the musty records of the past. Her diary contains the usual impatient expressions of this feeling, and in her letters to friends she says: "O, how tired and sick I am of boning down to facts and figures perpetually, and how I long to be set free from what to me has been a perfect prison for the last six months!" She stuck to it with Spartan heroism, however, knowing that otherwise it never would be done, but she was not unwilling occasionally to sally forth and fill a lecture engagement or attend a convention. At the Rhode Island annual meeting she made the principal address, and the next day went, with Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, to Danbury, Mass., to call on John G. Whittier. Almost his first words were, "And so our dear Lucretia Mott is gone!" She had died the evening before, November 11, aged nearly eighty-eight.

Miss Anthony had expected her death, but was inexpressibly grieved to lose from out her life that sweet presence which had been an inspiration for thirty years, whose staunch support had never failed, even when friends were fewest and fortune at its lowest ebb. In times of greatest perplexity she could slip down to the Philadelphia home for sympathy and encouragement, and there was always a corner in the pocketbook from which a contribution came when it was most needed. If ever any human character was without a flaw it was that of Lucretia Mott. Her motto was "Truth for authority, not authority for truth." She faded away like a spirit and her dying words, whispered many times during the last day or two, were, "O, let me go, let this little standard bearer go!" For freedom, for peace, for temperance, for equality, she was indeed the standard bearer through all her long and beautiful life.

On election day, prompted no doubt by the unconquered and unconquerable Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton made an effort to vote. This act created much excitement and called forth columns of comment in the newspapers, to the great amusement of the two conspirators in their quiet retreat.

Toward the end of 1880, Miss Anthony wrote to the treasurer, Mrs. Spofford, asking if she did not think it would be best to omit the National Convention of 1881, giving as reasons that there had been such a surfeit of conventions during the past year and that she was very busy with the History. Mrs. Spofford was much surprised, for Miss Anthony never had been known to yield in the matter of holding this annual meeting, even when all others were opposed, but she advised against postponement and by the next mail received this reply:

I feel exactly as you do about having the convention. I have never for a moment felt ready not to hold it. I wrote you under Mrs. Stanton's orders not to tell you how I felt, as that would be sure to influence you. Now I have read her your letter and told her my determination was to go ahead. She won't promise to attend, she never does, but I never fail to take her with me when I am on the spot, as I shall be when the time comes next January. So you may save us each a bedroom away up, no matter how lofty—you know I love the fresh air of the high heavens. Don't give yourself one moment's uneasiness in regard to the convention. I am going to set about it and am bound to make it one of the best, if not the best ever held in Washington, and you shall have Mrs. Stanton too, unless I miss my guess.

At the same time came the following from Mrs. Stanton: "Your kind invitation I fully appreciate, and feel that the pleasure of seeing you is one of the compensations of these conventions, which I dread more than I can tell. But Susan says truly that when she is at hand, she always dragoons me into what she considers my duty, so I never venture to say what I will or will not do. Although I have solemnly vowed I will go nowhere this winter, I should not be surprised if I found myself in Lincoln Hall the middle of January."

The Thirteenth Annual Convention of the National Association opened January 18, 1881, Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the chair. The first session was devoted to a memorial service for Lucretia Mott. The stage was decorated with draperies and flowers and a large portrait of Mrs. Mott stood on an easel. An exquisite floral harp was presented by the colored citizens of the District. In the audience were many distinguished people, including Mrs. Hayes and her guests from the White House, members of the Supreme Court and of Congress, and other noted personages. The music was rendered by the colored choir of St. Augustine's Church. Miss Anthony said in part: "The highest tribute she could pay was that during the past thirty years she had always felt sure she was right when she had the sanction of Lucretia Mott. Next to that of her own conscience she most valued the approval of her sainted friend; and it was now a great satisfaction that in all the differences of opinion as to principles and methods in their movement, Mrs. Mott had stood firmly with the National Association, of which she was, to the day of her death, the honored and revered vice-president." Short and touching addresses were made by Mrs. Sewall, Miss Couzins, Frederick Douglass and Robert Purvis, and the eulogy was delivered by Mrs. Stanton.

There was an effort during this convention to secure in Congress a "standing committee on the rights of women." It was ably advocated by Senator McDonald and defeated largely through the smooth manipulation of Roscoe Conkling. The convention closed with a reception and supper for the delegates, given by Mrs. Spofford at the Riggs House.

Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton went from Washington to the home of Mrs. Mott, where they were welcomed by her daughters, who sent for Sarah Pugh, and the old friends had a lovely day, made sacred by reminiscences of the dear one gone forever. For more than a quarter of a century this had been Miss Anthony's stopping-place when in Philadelphia,[3] but she was welcomed at once into another beautiful home, that of the wife and daughters of J. Heron Foster, founder of the Pittsburg Dispatch. All were deeply interested in the great question, and Julia and Rachel henceforth were ranked among the most earnest and valued workers.

It was soon afterwards that a reporter of the Chicago News started the following paragraph:

Susan B. Anthony has never condescended to love a man but she lavishes a heap of affection on a little gray Skye terrier which she takes around with her wherever she goes. This dog was given her by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and having recently lost a favorite Newfoundland pet, she accepted the frolicsome Skye with hearty gratitude. She has taught the apt brute every variety of trick and its intelligence seems to be unlimited. The little creature sleeps on her bed, eats from her hand, has blankets, gold and silver collars and every kind of ornament and comfort. Miss Anthony is accompanied by this accomplished canine everywhere, and during the recent convention in Washington "Birdie," as the dog is called, occupied a prominent place on the platform, either cuddled up in her voluminous lap or coiled in a frowsy heap at her feet.

This was copied into many newspapers throughout the country, often accompanied by editorial comment, facetious, disapproving, and sometimes deducing from this text the solemn fact that every woman's nature must have something to love, or that while women were so frivolous they had no right to ask for the ballot. This extract from a half-column editorial in the New York Graphic will serve as an example:

There is something wrong here. If Miss Anthony were to carry around with her a Newfoundland or a good bloodhound the spectacle would have nothing incongruous in it. If she would make a pet of a six-barrelled revolver and another of a large club that would be appropriate. But a Skye terrier, a miserable, little, whining pup, a coached, coddled and coaxed dog making repeated journeys in a basket and fed on crackers and milk—what sort of a thing is this for a person of reformative powers to be associated with? It is an argument in favor of woman's rights that women are capable of all the masculinity necessary to voting and the making of laws; but who ever heard of a President, a senator, a member of the House of Representatives, a legislator of any kind, going about with a sick dog in his arms, soothing the little wretch into its proper sleep, providing it with its regular nourishment and superintending its morning awakenings and the accompanying ablutions?

Women can never come to the head of the government, can never assist to a large extent in its management, until they reform these weaknesses. It isn't necessary that they should chew tobacco and swear, and perhaps they needn't smoke cigars and drive fast horses; but their leaders must abandon the pet dog, the favorite kitten, the especial hen and the abominable bird. They may still sew and still wear the petticoat; but if they enter politics they must submit to the hard raps that men expect, without putting their hands to their eyes and sobbing that their feelings have been hurt. There must be reform, and Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton must set about it in earnest and at once.

A Skye terrier for Miss Anthony! Merciful heavens! after all these years has it come to this? Catnip for Julius Cæsar! Boneset tea and black stockings with garters for Alexander the Great! A locket with hair in it on the bosom of the first Napoleon! A Skye terrier! We have fallen upon evil days.

Under this in her scrap-book Miss Anthony wrote, "Doesn't this cap the climax?" Of course, there was not the slightest foundation for the paragraph. Miss Anthony never owned a dog or any pet animal, not from dislike but because she felt that humanity needed all her time and affection.

Work on the History was at once resumed, as its editors were now convinced that it never could be finished except by the hardest kind of labor without cessation. Of the able assistance rendered by many women throughout the country, perhaps that of Clarina Howard Nichols was the most valuable. She possessed not only great literary ability but also the true editorial instinct and was one of the few left of the "old guard." Out of her fine memory she wove a number of delightful chapters, all written while lying on her back an almost helpless invalid and over seventy years old. She had long ago gone to California to be with her children, and Miss Anthony's weekly letters to her were of the most loving character and answered in the same affectionate strain. Mrs. Nichols hesitated to use the names of those who had been most violent in their opposition to the rights of women, because she disliked to make their children blush for them, but Miss Anthony wrote:

History ought to be true, and the men and women who at the time enjoyed the glory of opposing us ought to be known to posterity even if it is to their children's sorrow; just as those who suffered the torments of ridicule and hatred then, now enjoy the rewards, and their children and grandchildren glory in their ancestors. Robert Dale Owen's daughter, in writing up the Indiana Constitutional Convention and her father's opponents, withheld their names from sympathy for their children. I have told her, that as she now rejoices in what was then considered her father's reproach, so she should let the children of those men hang their heads now for what then was their father's pride. Isn't that fair? Garrison used to say, "Where there is a sin, there must be a sinner." When people understand that their descendants and all Israel will know of their deeds, a hundred years hence, maybe they will learn to be and do better.

I am a genuine believer in the doctrine of letting the seed bear its fruit on the sower's own ground. For us not to give the names of our opponents, but only of those who were wise and good, not only would not be true history, but would rob the book of one-half its interest. If all persons felt that their children must suffer for their wrong-doings, they would be more cautious, but the belief that all their ill record is to be hidden out of sight helps them to go on reckless of truth and justice. It is not in malice or with a desire to make any one suffer, but to be true to history that every name should stand and be judged as the facts merit.

Miss Anthony in reality seldom carried out this theory, but usually desired that personal failings should not be recorded and handed down to posterity. She scarcely could be persuaded to allow the bare facts in many instances to be stated lest surviving relatives should be hurt thereby.

Without knowing where the money was to be obtained for publishing the History but determined that it should be done, Miss Anthony pushed on the work. The steel engravings cost $126 apiece and where women were unable or unwilling to pay for their own, she herself assumed the responsibility. To Mrs. Nichols she wrote: "I shall have your picture and that of Ernestine L. Rose if it takes the last drop in the bucket."[4] Because of the unpopularity of the subject the large firms would not consider the publication of this work, which it was now found would fill two huge volumes, but arrangements were concluded finally with Fowler & Wells. In their great anxiety to get their work before the public while they yet lived to see it properly done, each chapter was hurried to the publishers the moment it was completed and immediately stereotyped and printed, which made revising, condensing and re-arranging impossible.

The first volume was issued in May, 1881, a royal octavo of 900 pages, bringing the record down to the beginning of the Civil War. It is not an exaggeration to say that no history during the century had been more favorably received by the press. The New York dailies contained from one to two or more columns of most complimentary reviews. The National Citizen and Ballot-Box gave up almost an entire edition to notices of the History taken from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and other papers, with not a disparaging criticism. Most of them echoed the sentiment of the New York Sun: "We have long needed an authentic and exhaustive account of the movement for the enfranchisement of women;" and of the Chicago News: "The appearance of this book, long expected by the friends, is not only an important literary occurrence, but it is a remarkable event in the history of civilization." The personal commendations from such men as President Andrew D. White, of Cornell University, Hon. C. B. Waite, of Chicago, Rev. William Henry Channing, and from scores of eminent women, would in themselves require several chapters.

Nobody realized so well as the authors the imperfections of the work, but when one considered that it had to be gathered piecemeal from old letters, personal recollections, imperfect newspaper reports, mere scraps of material which never had been put into shape as to time and place, the result was remarkable. They were indeed correct in their assertion that no one but the actual participants ever could have described the early history of this movement to secure equal rights for women. "We have furnished the bricks and mortar," they said, "for some future architect to rear a beautiful edifice." These "bricks and mortar" were supplied almost wholly by Miss Anthony, who, from the beginning, had carefully preserved every letter, newspaper clipping and report, and whose persistent and endless labor in collecting facts, dates, etc., never can be estimated or sufficiently appreciated; and it is not probable that any more forcible or graceful pens than those of Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Gage ever will be found to enhance their splendid work.

So unanimous and hearty was the reception of this book, to which they had devoted every moment of spare time for five years, that they felt encouraged to spend the next five, if necessary, upon the other volume, which the mass of material now demanded; but if all the criticism had been unfavorable and everybody had declared the work not needed, they still would have gone straight on to the finish, because they realized so strongly the value of putting into permanent form the story of the struggle for the emancipation of woman. Many letters were received urging that it was too soon to write this history, to which Mrs. Stanton invariably responded in her humorous way: "Well, we old workers might perhaps have 'reminisced' after death, but I doubt if the writing mediums could do as well as we have done with our pens. You say the history of woman suffrage can not be written until it is accomplished. Why not describe its initiative steps? The United States has not completed its grand experiment of equality, universal suffrage, etc., and yet Bancroft has been writing our history for forty years. If no one writes up his own times, where are the materials for the history of the future?"

Before the task should be resumed, however, there must be a little rest and a great deal of work of another kind. The diary says: "Had a man today and toted all my documents out to the barn, storing them in big boxes, then packed my winter clothes away in the attic, so that my room might be renovated for Theodore Stanton and his bride from Paris." Miss Anthony then returned home, filled several lecture engagements and in May started for Massachusetts, stopping at Tenafly to take Mrs. Stanton with her in order that she might not escape.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The Chicago press gave very satisfactory reports of this meeting, but the Springfield Republic was vulgar and abusive, called the ladies "withered beldames," "cats on the back roof," and advised them to "go home and attend to their children, if they had any, and if not, to engage in that same occupation as soon as they could regularly do so."

The charge being so often made that the leaders of the suffrage movement were a lot of old maids and childless wives, Miss Anthony prepared a list showing that sixteen of the most prominent were the mothers of sixty-six children. Of the pioneers she herself was the only one who never married. Of the younger speakers Phœbe Couzins was the only one who remained single.

[2] The Cincinnati Commercial said at this time: "Miss Anthony is the same clear, calm reasoner—a woman of the same firm convictions and with the same forcible, dignified and essentially womanly manner of expressing them—that she has always been. While in Cincinnati she is the guest of her cousin, Mrs. A. B. Merriam, of Walnut Hills, where many call upon her and find a talk with a woman so earnest and fine in intellectual power to be a genuine satisfaction. On the 'woman question,' she is hopeful but not a hopeless enthusiast. She is too clear-headed for that, and has overcome too many obstacles not to appreciate the requisite momentum and the force necessary to produce it. Her life is great in that it has made a larger life and higher work possible to other women, who share her aspirations without her invincible strength to carve their way."

[3] This and the hospitable homes of Robert and Harriet Purvis, Sarah Pugh, and Adeline and Annie Thomson, sisters of J. Edgar Thomson.

[4] The women of Kansas contributed $75 toward Mrs. Nichols' picture as a testimonial to her suffrage work in that State.


CHAPTER XXXI.

THE LEGACY—NEBRASKA CAMPAIGN—OFF FOR EUROPE.

1881-1882-1883.

It had been decided this year of 1881 to take the anniversary meeting into the very heart of New England, and for the first time the National Association went to Boston, opening in Tremont Temple, May 26. The address of welcome was made by Harriet H. Robinson, wife of "Warrington," the well-known newspaper correspondent, and there were several new speakers in the convention, including A. Bronson Alcott, Mary F. Eastman, Anna Garlin Spencer, Frank Sanborn, ex-Governor Lee, of Wyoming, the noted politician, Francis W. Bird, Harriette Robinson Shattuck and Rev. Ada C. Bowles. The ladies had no cause to complain of the hospitality of this conservative New England center. The Boston Traveller expressed the general sentiment in saying:

The National Suffrage Association has reason to congratulate itself on one of the most notable and successful conventions ever held. Boston's attitude to her distinguished guests has been uniformly hospitable, the audiences have been large and enthusiastic, the press co-operative in every sense. The eminent women who are its leaders are ladies whose acquaintance is an unmixed pleasure, and not least in importance have been the friendships formed and renewed at this meeting. The business management of the convention has been superb; the sympathy between audience and speakers reciprocal.

The guests received an invitation from Governor John D. Long to visit the State House and were received by him in person. In his remarks he said he believed women should vote, not because they are women but because they are a part of the people and government should be of the people regardless of sex; he thought the extension of suffrage to women could not fail to give stability to the government. Mrs. Hooker thanked him for coming to their support and in her letter describing the occurrence she says: "Miss Anthony standing close to the governor said in low; pathetic tones, 'Yes, we are tired, we are weary with our work. For thirty years some of us have carried this burden, and now if we might put it in the hands of honorable men, such as you, how happy we would be.'" The ladies also accepted an invitation from Mayor Prince to visit the city hall and were cordially received by him. They were invited to inspect the great dry goods store of Jordan, Marsh & Co. and see the arrangements for the comfort and pleasure of the employes many of whom were women. Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Robinson were entertained at the Parker House by the famous Bird Club.

Miss Anthony received several beautiful floral offerings during the convention, and also a handsome pin in the shape of a Greek cross. The golden bar from which it was suspended bore the letters S. B. A., on the points were the initials N. W. S. A., and on the reverse was engraved, "Presented by the Citizens' Suffrage Association of Philadelphia as a token of gratitude for her life-long devotion to the interests of woman." The little presentation speech was made in a most tender and graceful manner by May Wright Sewall. The Boston Globe in describing the scene pays this compliment:

Miss Anthony was as deeply touched as she was surprised. Recovering herself, she responded eloquently and in her usual interesting and magnetic manner. Of all the eminent women who are here, no one is such a favorite with a Boston audience as Susan B. Anthony. Her courage and strength and the patient devotion of a life consecrated to the advancement and the elevation of womanhood, her invincible honor, her logic and her power to touch and sway all hearts, are felt and reverently recognized. The young women of the day may well feel that it is she who has made life possible to them; who has trodden the thorny paths and, by her unwearied devotion, has opened to them the professions and higher applied industries; nor is this detracting from those who now share with her the labor and the glory. Each and all recognize the individual devotion, the purity and singleness of purpose that so eminently distinguish Miss Anthony.

The convention closed with a reception at the elegant home of Mrs. Fenno Tudor, on Beacon Hill.

After leaving Boston, this distinguished body of women, made the sweep of New England, holding conventions in Providence, R. I.; Portland, Me.; Dover, Concord and Keene, N. H.; Hartford and New Haven, Conn. The national board of officers received an infusion of new blood this year through the election of May Wright Sewall, chairman executive committee, and Rachel Foster, corresponding secretary. Miss Anthony writes, "It is such a relief to roll off part of the burden on stronger, younger shoulders." This entire round of conventions was arranged by Miss Foster, a remarkable work for an inexperienced girl.

At Concord Miss Anthony was entertained in the family of her old friend and co-laborer, Parker Pillsbury, and after her departure Mrs. Pillsbury wrote: "I am so very happy to know you personally, and I thank you for the compliment you bestow in asking me to enroll my name among the most grand and noble women of our land. I shall enjoy being counted worthy to place it in company with dear Miss Anthony. Mr. Cogswell says many men (some members of the Legislature among them) in talking with him have expressed unexpected satisfaction in the speeches of the convention just holden—especially in yours, and he says, 'She is a host in herself, I like her practical common sense.'"

There was comfort in a letter received at this time from Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, president of the Illinois Suffrage Association and one of the Inter-Ocean staff:

Before entering upon our usual business talk, I want to wish you all beautiful and peaceful things this summer morning, and tell you of a rare and genuine tribute to yourself which brought tears of gladness to my own eyes when I heard it. In talking to some of the old workers, I referred to your life-long sacrifice and wondered how we could develop a similar spirit in our younger women, when Mrs. Zerelda Wallace said with great impressiveness: "My dear sisters, I want to say this, and to say it with a profound realization of all that it means, that to me, the person who, next to Jesus Christ himself, has shown to the world a life of perfect unselfishness, is Susan B. Anthony." I tell you this, my dear friend, because I believe such a tribute from such a woman will lighten some of the burdens.

Many similar letters were now received every year, and were as sweet and fragrant flowers in a pathway which had contained more thorns than roses.

In the hot summer of 1881 Miss Anthony went again to Albany to spend the last weeks with another friend, Phebe Hoag Jones, who passed away July 27. She was the intimate associate of Lydia Mott and the last of that little band of Abolitionists so conspicuous in the Democratic stronghold of Albany for many years preceding the war. At her death Miss Anthony felt that she had no longer an abiding place in the State capital, and expressed this feeling in a letter to Mrs. Spofford, who replied: "You speak of no longer having a home in Albany. Why, the best homes in that city should be gladly opened to you, and some day those people will wake up and wonder why they did not take you in their arms and hearts and help you in your work."[5]

All the letters during this summer are filled with sorrow over the assassination, long suffering and death of President Garfield. After all was ended Miss Anthony wrote to a friend:

In the reported death-bed utterances of our President, the only one which has grated on my ears was that in answer to the query whether he had made a will: "No, and he did not wish one, as he could trust the courts to do justice to his wife and children." How little even the best of men see and feel the dire humiliation and suffering to the wife, the widow, who is left to the justice of the courts! My heart aches because of man's insensibility to the cruelty of thus leaving woman. How can we teach them the lesson that the wife suffers all the torment under the law's assuming her rights to her property and her children, which the husband would, should it assume similar ownership and control over him, his property and children after his wife's death.

What a twelve weeks these have been, and what a funeral pall has rested upon us the past week. Every nook and corner, every mountaintop and valley is shrouded in sorrow for this crime against the nation. Today the ministers are preaching their sermons on the life and character of Garfield. Our Unitarian, Mr. Mann, made his special point on the fact that all the people of every sect had united in endorsement of Garfield's religion, which was most emphatically one of life and action, natural, without cant or observance of the outward rites and ceremonies. There is no report of even a minister's being asked to pray with him. When the bells told of the people's day of special prayer for his life, he exclaimed, "God bless the people," but covered his face, as much as to say, "Nothing but science can determine this case."

In the late summer and fall Mrs. Stanton had a tedious and alarming attack of malarial fever, and Miss Anthony was greatly distressed because some of her family insisted that it was produced by the long, hard strain of the work on the History. She writes: "It is so easy to charge every ill to her labors for suffrage, while she knows and I know that it is her work for woman which has kept her young and fresh and happy all these years. Mrs. Stanton has written me that during her illness 'she suffered more from her fear that she never should finish the History than from the thought of parting with all her friends.'"

The National Prohibition Alliance, which met in New York, October 18, invited her to take an official part in its proceedings. She declined to do so but attended the meeting and, after a visit to Mrs. Stanton, went to Washington to the national convention of the W. C. T. U. She had three reasons for this: 1st, she understood there was to be an attempt to supersede Miss Willard, to whom she had become very much attached; 2d, an effort was to be made to commit the association to woman suffrage; and 3d, she had made up her mind to see President Arthur on business connected with her own organization. She sat in the convention through all the three days' sessions and, on motion of Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, was invited to address it and was introduced by Miss Willard in words of strong approval. A prominent woman who was opposed to Miss Willard's re-election went among the delegates, assuring them in the most solemn manner that Miss Willard had insulted every one of them by introducing Miss Anthony on the platform, as she did not recognize God. "Well," replied one of them, an Indianapolis woman, "I don't know about that, but I do know that God has recognized her and her work for the last thirty years."

She had the pleasure of seeing Miss Willard triumphantly re-elected, an equal suffrage resolution adopted and a department of franchise established. "So the Christian craft of that great organization has set sail on the wide sea of woman's enfranchisement," she comments. At the close of the convention this amusing card was sent to the press: "All presidents of State delegations represented in the National W. C. T. U. desire to explain, in refutation of a statement in the Post of October 31, that, so far from 'capturing the convention,' Miss Susan B. Anthony made no effort to influence their delegations in public or in private, and is not, nor ever has been, a member of the W. C. T. U., either local, State or national, hence has had no part in its deliberations."

The President, who was an old schoolmate of her brother Daniel R., granted her a pleasant interview, arranged by Senator Jones, of Nevada, in which she urged him to recommend in his message to Congress a standing committee on the rights of women and also a Sixteenth Amendment which should enfranchise them. The reporters learned of this interview and, as a result, newspapers throughout the country used a portion of their valuable space in describing "how President Arthur squeezed Susan B. Anthony's hand!"

On the way home she stopped in Philadelphia and, with Rachel Foster and Adeline Thomson, called on George W. Childs, who gave to her $50 for "the cause," and to each of them one of his rare china cups and saucers. On November 7 work on the History was again resumed. The 29th was Wendell Phillips' seventieth birthday and Miss Anthony wrote him a letter of congratulation, telling him that she always had found comfort in the thought that, when there were differences between them, she had had his respect if not his approval. He replied with the following affectionate note: "Hearty thanks for your congratulations. The band grows smaller month by month. We ought to stand closer together. You and I have differed as all earnest souls must. I trust each always believed the other to be true in spirit. I know I always did, touching yourself. You are good to assure me you have had the same faith in me, and I hope when you reach threescore and ten, some kind friend will cheer you with equally generous and welcome words."

The last entry in the diary for 1881 says: "The year closes down on a wilderness of work, a swamp of letters and papers almost hopeless." She attacked it, however, with that sublime courage which was ever her strongest characteristic, and at the end of the first week of the new year the heaviest part of the burden was lifted from her shoulders by the receipt of this letter from Mr. Phillips:

Dear Susan: Our friend Mrs. Eliza Eddy, Francis Jackson's daughter, died a week ago Thursday. At her request, I made her will some weeks before. Her man of business, devoted to her for twenty-five years, Mr. C. R. Ransom (ex-president of one of our banks) is the executor. He and I were present and consulted, and we know all her intentions and wishes from long talks with her in years gone by. After making various bequests, she ordered the remainder divided equally between you and Lucy Stone. There is no question whatever that your portion will be $25,000 or $28,000. I advised her, in order to avoid all lawyers, to give this sum to you outright, with no responsibility to any one or any court, only "requesting you to use it for the advancement of the woman's cause."

After all the years of toil without financial recompense, of struggling to accomplish her work with wholly insufficient means, of depending from month to month on the few dollars which could be gathered in, Miss Anthony's joy and gratitude scarcely could find expression in words. She answered at once:

Your most surprising letter reached me last evening. How worthy the daughter of Francis Jackson! How it carries me back to his generous gift of $5,000; to that noble, fatherly man and that quiet, lovely daughter in his home. Never going to Boston during the past fifteen years, I had lost sight of her, though I had not forgotten her by any means. How little thought have I had all these years that she cherished this marvellous trust in me, and now I recognize in her munificent legacy your own faith in me, for such was her confidence in you that I feel sure she would not have thus willed, if you had not fully endorsed her wish. So to you, my dear friend, as to her, my unspeakable gratitude goes out. May I prove worthy the care and disposal of whatever shall come into my hands. Will you, as my friend and Mrs. Eddy's, ever feel free to suggest and advise me as to a wise use thereof? I am very glad it was your privilege to be with her through these years of her loneliness. I am pleased that you and Mr. Ransom propose to appropriate something to her faithful brother James, and most cheerfully do I put my name to the paper you enclose, with the fullest confidence that you would ask of me nothing but right and justice to all parties.

A few days afterwards she received another letter from Mr. Phillips:

You remember Mrs. Bacon (Mrs. Eddy's daughter) died about a week after she did. Her husband (who Mrs. Eddy knew would disturb her will if he could) is trying ostensibly to break it, really to force you and Lucy Stone to buy him off. The grounds on which he objects to the will are "that she was of unsound mind; that I and her executor exercised over her an undue influence in urging her to leave her money as she did; and that she did not know how much she was willing away." The truth is, we never said one word to her. It was her own plan entirely to leave it to woman's rights. Mr. Bacon knows there is not a ghost of a chance of his succeeding. The executor and I have retained Benjamin F. Butler and mean to fight to have Mrs. Eddy's will executed as she wished. The Misses Eddy sustain the will and wish it carried out to the letter, and say if it is broken they shall give their portion to the woman's rights cause, to you and Lucy. I'll tell you when any news is to be had. We are doing our best to protect your interests.

This was the beginning of litigation which continued for three years, and was a source of annoyance to Miss Anthony in other respects besides being deprived of the money. The fact of the bequest naturally being heralded far and wide by the newspapers, appeals and demands for a share of it poured in from all quarters, and she had much difficulty in persuading people that she had not the money already in her hands to be divided.

In company with Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony arrived in Washington January 16, 1882, to attend the Fourteenth Annual Convention. The effort to secure a special committee on woman suffrage which had failed in the Forty-sixth Congress was successful in the Forty-seventh, through the championship of Senators Hoar and John A. Logan, Representatives John D. White, of Kentucky, Thomas B. Reed and others. There was bitter opposition by Senator Vest, of Missouri, who declared it to be "a step toward the recognition of woman suffrage, which has nothing in it but mischief to the institutions and to the society of the whole country." In his zeal he dropped into poetry, saying,

"A woman's noblest station is retreat,
Her fairest virtues fly from public sight,"

and so, of course, she had no need of a special committee. It was vigorously opposed also by Senator Beck, of Kentucky, who said "the colored women's votes could be bought for fifty cents apiece;" and by Senator Morgan, of Alabama, who made a stump speech on "dissevered homes, disbanded families, pot-house politicians seated at the fireside with another man's wife, women fighting their way to the polls through crowds of negroes and ruffians," etc.[6] It was carried in the Senate by a vote of 35 to 23; in the House, a month later, by a vote of 115 to 84. Miss Anthony says of this in her diary: "If the best of worldly good had come to me personally, I could not feel more joyous and blest."

In addition to the usual distinguished array of speakers were Rev. Frederick Hinckley, Representative G. S. Orth, of Indiana, Senator Saunders, of Nebraska, Clara B. Colby, Harriette R. Shattuck and Helen M. Gougar, all new on the National platform. The Senate committee on woman suffrage just appointed, granted a hearing January 20, and at its close expressed a desire to hear other speakers among the ladies on the following day. Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton presented each of the members of the committee with the first volume of the History of Woman Suffrage.

The convention closed with the usual handsome reception at the Riggs House and immediately afterwards most of the speakers went to Philadelphia, where Rachel Foster had arranged for another convention.[7] This was held at St. George's Hall, January 23, 24, 25, welcomed by Rev. Charles G. Ames, and was highly successful. A pleasant feature of this occasion was a luncheon given by that revered Quaker and temperance worker, Mrs. Hannah Whitall Smith, of Germantown, to twelve of the prominent speakers.

The two historians hastened back to their work, which was interrupted only by Miss Anthony's going to the New York State Suffrage Convention held in Chickering Hall, February 1. Calls for her presence and help came from many parts of the country. "O, how I long to be in the midst of the fray," she writes, "and here I am bound hand and foot. I shall feel like an uncaged lion when this book is off my hands." On February 15, her birthday was celebrated by suffrage clubs in many places,[8] but she refused to be drawn out of her retreat, where she was remembered with telegrams, newspaper notices and gifts. In quoting a complimentary reference from the Rochester Herald, the Elmira Free Press commented:

The Herald says too little. Miss Anthony has labored for the most part without money, and from pure love of the principle to which she has devoted her life. She is as good a knight as has enlisted in any crusade, and has sacrificed as much and been as faithful and true. She has been thrice true, indeed, because of the ridicule showered on her as a woman trying to do a man's work. No man ever had the courage of his convictions as much as she. It takes a bold spirit to stand up against the dangers of gunpowder in the old-time, legitimate way; but it is a braver one that withstands ridicule and that mean cunning which makes wit of every act looking toward the advancement of women. The Free Press has perhaps had as many of the frowns of this "good gray poet" of the woman's cause as anybody. It has seen enough of them to know, however, that behind that somewhat frigid exterior is a sensitiveness which would well become a girl of sixteen rather than a lady of sixty-two and which shows that the woman is always the woman; and it wants to present its compliments to the bravest and grandest old lady within the circle of its acquaintance.

The Washington Republic furnished another example of the pleasant things said:

Miss Anthony, whom we know well and of whom we can speak from personal experience, is so broad in her charity, so cosmopolitan in her sympathies, that she will stand, without fearing speck or soil, beside any publican or sinner whose eyes have been opened to see the good in woman's rights, and who is willing to help on the work in his own way. For herself she never deviates from the principles she espoused when, stepping upon the rostrum to plead for disfranchised women, she determined that her life work should be endeavoring to procure for her sex all the rights and privileges of which exclusively male legislation had for ages defrauded them. With eyes steadily fixed upon the goal she has in view, neither the jeers nor ridicule of the crowds without, nor the jealous asides of those claiming to be workers in the same cause, have had power to distract her attention or make her turn from her labor to answer or rebuke.

The last of April the second volume of the History was completed and its editors found to their dismay that they still had enough material on hand for a third huge volume. Mrs. Stanton sailed for Europe with her daughter Harriot, and after Miss Anthony had read the last bit of proof and seen all safe at the publishers, she obeyed an urgent call from the women at Washington and hastened thither to look after the congressional committees on woman suffrage.

She was fortunate in her friends at court at this time, having two cousins, Elbridge G. Lapham and Henry B. Anthony, in the United States Senate, and her lawyer, John Van Voorhis, of Rochester, in the House of Representatives, all in favor of woman suffrage, and the two cousins on the "select committee" of the Senate. On June 5, 1882, this committee made a report in favor of a Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, signed by the Republican senators, E. G. Lapham, T. W. Ferry, H. W. Blair and H. B. Anthony. The minority report took the ground that suffrage was a matter which should be regulated solely by the States, not by Congress, and was signed by J. Z. George and Howell E. Jackson (Dems.), and James G. Fair (Rep.).

The following year, March 1, 1883, the House committee, John D. White, chairman, presented a favorable report. This was the first time woman suffrage had received a majority report from a Senate or House committee.[9]

When Miss Anthony returned home she found this bright note from Harriot Stanton, dated Paris: "... Dear Susan, you often seem to me like a superb warhorse. You are completely swallowed up in an idea, and it's a glorious thing to be. Carlyle says, 'The end of man is an Action, not a Thought,' and what a realization of that truth has your life been. You have never stopped for idle culture or happy recreations. You are possessed by a moral force, and you act. You are a Deed, not a Thinking.... I should love to be your biographer. You are to other women of your time just what Greek architecture is to Gothic. I long to carve your literary image, and know I could."

If Miss Anthony had any hope of rest it was soon dispelled. The legislature of Nebraska had submitted a woman suffrage amendment, and the women of that State called upon the National Association for assistance. After a vast amount of preliminary correspondence she left Rochester September 2, and travelled westward, leaving a trail of newspaper interviews in her wake, as she was intercepted by reporters at every city. En route she wrote to her friend Mrs. Nichols: "Only think, I shall not have a white-haired woman on the platform with me, and shall be alone there of all the pioneer workers. Always with the 'old guard' I had perfect confidence that the wise and right thing would be said. What a platform ours then was of self-reliant, strong women! I felt sure of you all, and since you earliest ones have not been with us, Mrs. Stanton's presence has ever made me feel that we should get the true and brave word spoken. Now that she is not to be there, I can not quite feel certain that our younger sisters will be equal to the emergency, yet they are each and all valiant, earnest and talented, and will soon be left to manage the ship without even me."

The opening convention was held in Boyd's Opera House, Omaha, September 26, 27, 28. The Bee was ironical and contemptuous in its treatment, heading its report "Mad Anthony's Raid." The Herald, under control of a young son of U. S. Senator Hitchcock, was vulgar and abusive, referring to the question as a "dead issue." The Republican, edited by D. C. Brooks, replied:

Pretty Lively "Dead Issue."—During the three days' sessions of the woman suffrage convention, we estimate that 7,000 people were in attendance. The Republican, in its three daily issues, and its coming weekly issue, will have laid the proceedings in full before about 75,000 readers, and the Bee and Herald will have given them nearly as many more. For a "dead issue" we submit this is a pretty respectable showing. Considered as a series of political meetings, the suffrage convention had more hearers than all the Democratic meetings and conventions held in Omaha during the last five years. The audiences were truly representative, embracing the business, professional and working interests of our city, and composed very largely of voters and citizens influential in politics.

The next convention was held in Lincoln with the same crowded houses. The newspapers were fair in their reports. The National Association raised $5,000 by contributions, mostly from outside the State. Miss Anthony gave her time and services and over $1,000 in money besides all she collected. Mrs. Foster and daughters contributed $500. Eleven speakers were kept in the field,[10] and all the complicated series of meetings was arranged and managed by Rachel Foster, assisted by Mrs. Colby. Miss Anthony herself spoke in forty counties, free transportation being given her by all the railroads in the State. On October 13, she held the famous debate at Omaha with Edward Rosewater, editor of the Bee, in the presence of an immense audience. Everywhere her meetings were perfect ovations, people coming in from a radius of twenty-five miles; and outside of Lincoln and Omaha, there was no audience-room large enough to hold the crowds.

A splendid force of Nebraska women conducted the campaign in behalf of the State. Every effort possible was made in the brief space of six weeks, but the masses of voters were not prepared for the question, most of the leading newspapers opposed it, and the women had no help from either of the political parties. In spite of these fatal drawbacks, the suffrage amendment received about one-third of the total vote.[11]

Miss Anthony returned home by way of St. Louis, where Mrs. Minor gave a large reception in her honor. When she reached Rochester she was invited by the Lincoln Club, one of the leading political organizations of the city, to give her address, "Woman Wants Bread, not the Ballot." The Democrat and Chronicle said in its report: "The large audience-room of the city hall was completely filled, and many extra seats were brought in. A number of prominent ladies and gentlemen occupied seats upon the platform. W. E. Werner, president of the club, in introducing the speaker, said it was fitting the hall should be full to overflowing with an audience anxious to hear the greatest advocate of one of the greatest questions of the day."

Miss Anthony had made a short trip to Washington immediately upon her return from Nebraska, to confer with the select committees on woman suffrage and also to make final arrangements for the approaching National Convention. It met in Lincoln Hall, January 23, 24 and 25, 1883, and she presided over its deliberations.

In response to many urgent letters written by Mrs. Stanton from England, and encouraged by friends at home who felt that she needed a long rest after more than thirty years of uninterrupted public work, Miss Anthony decided to make a trip abroad. As Rachel Foster contemplated a few years' study in Europe, the pleasant arrangement was made that she should undertake the financial management of the journey, act as interpreter and give Miss Anthony the care and attention her loving heart would suggest.[12] Miss Anthony's sixty-third birthday being near at hand, the friends in Philadelphia, led by the Citizens' Suffrage Association, Edward M. Davis, president, tendered her a reception, which circumstances rendered it necessary to hold on the 19th instead of the 15th of February. The Philadelphia Times gave this account:

The parlor of the Unitarian church was filled to overflowing on the occasion of the farewell reception to Miss Susan B. Anthony. After prayer by Rev. Charles G. Ames, Robert Purvis, who presided, said in a brief and earnest address: "I have the honor, on behalf of the National Suffrage Association, to present to you these resolutions testifying to their high regard, confidence, and affection." After the applause which the resolutions evoked, Mr. Purvis continued: "I present these with feelings which I can not express in words, for my thoughts take me back in vivid recollection to those stormy periods of persecution and outrage when you, Miss Anthony, with the foremost in the ranks of the Abolitionists, battled for the freedom and rights of the enslaved race. You have lived, with many compeers, to see the glorious result of your labors in redeeming from the infamy and degradation of chattelism 4,000,000 slaves. That done, your attention was turned to the greater question—in view of numbers—of woman's emancipation from civil and political debasement."

Upon rising to reply Miss Anthony received an ovation. She said: "I feel that I must speak, because if I should hear all these words of praise and remain silent, I should seem to assent to tributes which I do not wholly deserve. My kind friends have spoken almost as if I had done the work, or the greater part of it, alone, whereas I have been only one of many men and women who have labored side by side in this cause. Philadelphia has had the honor of giving to the world a woman who led the way in this noble effort. Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were active in the good work ere my attention had been called to it. It was through their influence that I was led to consider and accept the then new doctrine. Alone I should have been as a mere straw in the wind.... I have known nothing the last thirty years save the struggle for human rights on this continent. If it had been a class of men who were disfranchised and denied their legal rights, I believe I should have devoted my life precisely as I have done in behalf of my own sex. I hope while abroad that I shall do something to recommend our work here, so as to make them respect American women and their demand for political equality...."

Letters, telegrams, flowers and gifts were received in great numbers.[13]

May Wright Sewall had this graphic description in the Indianapolis Times, owned and edited by Col. Wm. R. Holloway, an earnest advocate of woman suffrage:

The few days spent in Philadelphia by Miss Anthony prior to sailing were a series of fêtes. She spoke to over one thousand girls of the Normal School on the public duties of women; was officially invited to visit the Woman's Medical College; was given a reception by the New Century Club; was tendered a complimentary dinner by Mrs. Emma J. Bartol, in her own elegant home, where ten courses were served and toasts were drunk to the guest of honor.... Letters of introduction, quite unsolicited, poured in from friends and countrymen personally unknown to her, who thus showed their desire to facilitate her meeting with the stars of various desirable circles abroad. At the public reception, Robert Purvis presented the following testimonial, beautifully engrossed on vellum, and encased in garnet velvet with gold borders:

"Resolved, That the National Woman Suffrage Association of the United States does hereby testify its appreciation of the life-long devotion of Susan B. Anthony to the cause of woman; that it acknowledges her as the chief inspirer of women in their struggle for personal liberty, for civil equity, and for political equality; that as one of the foremost of American women it commends her to the women of foreign lands.

"Resolved, That the members of the association rejoice in the approaching holiday of their beloved leader; that they will follow her wanderings with affection and sympathy; that during her absence they will steadfastly uphold the principles to which her life has been devoted; that on her return they will welcome her to a resumption of her labors and hold themselves ready to work under her able and devoted leadership."

Among the numerous letters and telegrams were messages from Wendell Phillips, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Mary Clemmer, Helen Potter, Emma C. Bascom and Dr. Alida C. Avery.... Probably no testimony was more enjoyed than the following:

"Rochester, N. Y., the Home of Susan B. Anthony: In this open letter old friends and neighbors unite with all who honor the birthday of its true citizen, and express the sincere wish that Miss Anthony in her sojourn in strange lands may find what she has in full measure here at home—a genuine appreciation of her true womanliness, her sturdy adherence to honest conviction and her heroic stand, against all opposition, for the higher education and enfranchisement of women. Wishing her Godspeed and a safe return, we, the undersigned, do not need to assure her that neither the triumphs nor the defeats of her future public life will change our estimation of her, for to us she will ever remain what her life among us has proved her to be—a good, true woman, self-consecrated to the cause of woman in every land."

The signatures include the names of eighty of the leading men and women of Rochester; among them editors of the papers of both parties, pastors of the prominent churches, university professors, bankers, politicians, etc. Honor, if tardy, surely comes at last to the prophet in her own country. A song written for the occasion and inscribed to Miss Anthony, by Annie E. McDowell, one of the first editors of a woman's paper, was splendidly sung by Mr. Ford, the composer, who had set it to music.

Among the telegrams was this from her brother, D. R. Anthony: "Sixty-three years have crowned you with the honor and respect of the people of America, and with the love of your brothers and sisters." From the friends in Washington, D. C., came a plush case, on whose satin lining rested an exquisite point lace fichu and sleeve ruffles. A New York gentleman sent $100 to be used toward the purchase of an India shawl, writing: "I don't believe in woman suffrage, but I do believe in Susan B. Anthony." The Cheney Brothers sent a handsome black silk dress pattern; Helen Potter, a steamer rug; the Fosters, a travelling bag; Adeline and Annie Thomson, a silver cup; Robert Purvis, a gold-handled umbrella, and there were various other tokens of remembrance. Many of the leading papers contained an editorial farewell, with a hearty compliment and Godspeed. The Chicago Tribune, edited by Joseph Medill, offered this tribute:

The best known and most popular woman in the United States, engaged in public work, is Susan B. Anthony, the co-worker of Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Lydia Maria Child, Wendell Phillips, Lucretia Mott and others in the anti-slavery movement, and the fellow-laborer of Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the woman's rights movement. She ranks first among the warriors in this latter contest, because she has lived her life in its service and there has been no side issue to it. Neither father nor mother, husband nor children, have diverted her mind from her hobby, or led her to cease for a day from the prosecution of the task she set out to accomplish.... Miss Anthony is an American woman whom the better class of English people particularly, and of foreigners generally, will delight to honor, and one that her country-women are pleased to have represent them. She is, in point of character and ability, one of the few of her sex who have made themselves a name and a place in the history of her time....

She has had occasion to speak sharply, to lecture women severely, when in her heart she would have preferred to praise; but women love her dearly all the same, and trust her implicitly. In integrity, stainless honor and generosity of sentiment and of deed she has no peer. She has stood the storm of raillery and abuse she aroused, as the leader of the "shrieking sisterhood," with perfect equanimity, and while others were cowed by the ridicule which was hardest of all to bear, Miss Anthony busied herself using this opportunity to show to women the real opinion of them entertained by the stronger sex.

Only those who are aware of the great and beneficent changes made in the laws relating to the rights of property, for instance, can at all estimate the good accomplished by these brave women. Almost all the leaders in the movement are gone. Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony, both elderly women, now remain in the work, and Miss Anthony alone still labors with the old-time zeal and freedom. She is at her best mentally and physically, and is likely to live many years to follow up the work she is now doing. The best lesson that women can learn from her life is that success in any one thing is secured only by the sacrifice of many others, and that for a woman to reach the highest place in her chosen pursuit is for her to work with an eye single to it, counting it a privilege to forego pleasures and affections which tend to distract and divide attention. Miss Anthony knew this secret of success, as she has proven.

When the history of the reform work done in this country in this century is written, no individual laborer will have higher praise than that which belongs to Miss Anthony. Honest, sincere, tolerant and kind, she has won the homage of her adversaries; for while there is but a small minority of men and women who believe in woman suffrage, there are none who fail to pay tribute to the sterling qualities of this representative woman.

The Kansas City Journal said good-by in these graceful words: "Susan B. Anthony will celebrate her sixty-third birthday tomorrow, and in a few days will sail for England.... She goes abroad a republican queen—uncrowned to be sure, but none the less of the blood royal, and we have faith that the noblest men and women of Europe will at once recognize and welcome her as their equal. Fair winds waft her over the sea and home again!"

The two ladies sailed from Philadelphia on the morning of February 23, and a special dispatch to the New York Times thus announced their departure:

Miss Susan B. Anthony, accompanied by Miss Rachel Foster, embarked on the British Prince, of the American Steamship Line, at 9 o'clock this morning, for Liverpool. Notwithstanding the cold and cheerless weather, quite a number of persons stood patiently on the wharf, facing the raw and snow-laden air which blew from the river, waiting to see the steamer get under way and to catch a glimpse of the celebrated champion of woman's rights. A little before 10 o'clock Miss Anthony came out of her stateroom with several friends and, bidding them a final farewell, watched with sober countenance as they passed down the gang-plank. Among those present were Miss Mary Anthony, of Rochester, Miss Julia Foster, Miss Thomson, a sister of the first president of the Pennsylvania R. R.; Rev. Dr. Soule, formerly of Scotland; Mrs. M. Louise Thomas and Edward M. Davis....

Miss Anthony was attired in a black silk dress and wore a black velvet bonnet. A beaver-lined satin circular was drawn tightly about her form. She retired immediately to her stateroom, where a pleasant surprise awaited her in the shape of a handsome silk flag, the gift of a friend, which was suspended in a corner of the room. Her eyes rested upon the tasty and comfortable apartment, bearing numerous evidences of the kindly feeling and good wishes of her friends, with visible enjoyment and emotion.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] This comment applies with equal force to Albany today. It is the only city in the United States where Miss Anthony has not a standing invitation to a number of hospitable homes.

[6] For full report of debate see History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. III, p. 198.

[7] Miss Anthony, Mrs. Sewall and Mrs. Jane Graham Jones remained over one day to appear before the House committee, presenting arguments in favor of abolishing the word "male" from the Constitution of Dakota before admitting it as a State.

[8] This national celebration of Miss Anthony's birthday by suffrage clubs was first suggested by Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, in her department, "Woman's Kingdom," in the Chicago Inter-Ocean.

[9] For full text of reports see History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. III., p. 263.

[10] Mrs. Sewall, Mrs. Gougar, Miss Couzins, Mrs. Minor, Mrs. Saxon, Miss Hindman, Mrs. Shattuck, Mrs. Mason, Madame Neymann, Mrs. Blake and Miss Anthony.

[11] After the election some of the students of the State University placed an effigy of Miss Anthony in a coffin and with torches and pallbearers started in a funeral procession. They were met by another crowd of students who, to preserve the honor of the university, overpowered them and took the effigy away.

[12] It was on this trip that, as "Miss Anthony" seemed too formal and "Susan" too familiar, Miss Foster adopted the endearing title "Aunt Susan." After they returned and a few of the younger workers most closely associated with her began to use this name, Miss Anthony did not object; but when it came into general use and not only older women and comparative strangers, but men also, and the newspapers, fell into the habit of calling her "Aunt Susan," she was very much annoyed and never heard or saw the name without an inward protest.

[13] Among the letters was the following from Senator John J. Ingalls: "I see by the papers that you are about to depart for Europe. Though I do not sympathize with the opinions whose advocacy has made you famous, yet I am not insensible to the great value of the example of your courageous and self-denying labors to the cause of American womanhood. I hope that none but prosperous gales may follow your ship, that your visit may be happy, and that your life may be spared till your aspirations are realized."


CHAPTER XXXII.

MISS ANTHONY'S EUROPEAN LETTERS.

1883.

No pen so well as Miss Anthony's own, can describe her delightful tour abroad, and although her letters were dashed off while travelling from point to point, or at the close of a hard day's sight-seeing, and the entries in the diary are a mere word, they tell in a unique way her personal impressions. Because of limited space descriptions of scenery will be omitted in order to leave room for opinions of people and events.

On Board the British Prince, February 24.

My Dear Mrs. Spofford: Here we are at noon, Friday, steaming down Delaware Bay. We got along nicely until 3 p. m. yesterday, when we came to a standstill. "Stuck in the mud," was the report. There we lay until eight, when with the incoming tide we made a fruitless attempt to get over the bar; then had to steam back up the river to anchor, and lie there until nine this morning—twenty-four hours almost in sight of the loved ones! It is a break from all fastenings to friends to be thus cut loose from the wharf and wafted out into the waters. These long hours of delay have given me time to think of those left behind, and how very far short I have come of doing and saying all I should have done and said....

From the diary:

Feb. 24.—The weather lovely; saloon cozy and pleasant with piano, flowers and canaries. There are only seven passengers, among them a Catholic priest, a dear little three-year-old child and a baby. We sent twenty letters on shore, written during the day we have been detained.

Feb. 25.—Today dawns with no possibility of communicating with a soul outside the ship, a lonely feeling indeed; but I am determined to get all the good I can to mind and body out of this trip, and as little harm as possible.

Feb. 26.—I sit at the captain's right hand at table. The sea is perfectly smooth; I wonder if this broad expanse can be rolled up into mountains.

4 p.m.—The wind and waves are beginning to roar. The priest shows signs of surrender.

Mar. 2.—Sea calm and dishes no longer have to be fastened to table. It seems like freedom again. I can think of nothing beyond shipboard, can see no moves to be made when we reach Liverpool.

Mar. 4.—Winds fair, sea smooth, whole company at breakfast. Captain Burton read the church service. Rachel played the piano and led the singing.

On Board the British Prince, March 5.

My Dear Sister Mary: At lunch the captain said, "I'll soon show you land! It will be Mizzenhead, the farthest southwest point of Ireland." This is the first pen put to paper since I wrote you at the Delaware breakwater, eleven days ago. Think of it, oh, ye scribbling fairies, almost two weeks and not a letter written by S. B. A.!

Well, we are thus far and have had no more than what the sailors call a "stiff breeze" and only two whiffs of that sort. Since Thursday the weather has been lovely—bright sun and crisp air. Rachel succumbed one night when the "stiff breeze" first opened upon us, and I felt a little squalmy. The next morning a sudden lurch of the ship took both feet from under me and I was flat on my back. The following day while I was lying on a seat, reading and half-dozing, the first I knew I was in a heap on the floor. Then I learned it wasn't safe to lie down without a board fence in front. Again, in the evening I had taken the one loose chair in the saloon, drawn it under a lamp and seated myself very complacently to read, when lo, I was pitched over as if propelled from a ten-pounder! Three times and out—all in rapid succession—taught me to trust not to myself at all, but always to something fast to the ship. I haven't lost a meal during the whole trip. Another time I should take a larger stock of oranges, lemons and other fruit.

3 p. m.—We have just been up on the bridge for a first sight of the Emerald Isle. So long as there was no immediate prospect of setting foot on land, I could get up no spirit to write or think. I have worn the old velvet-trimmed black silk dress right through, and it is pretty well salted. I should love to have Lucy and Louise and Maud along on this trip, with sister Mary, too. What a jolly lot of tramps we would make! Well, their one ray of hope is to "pull through" the free academy and get on their own feet. There is plenty of good in store for all who can bring themselves in line to get it. Holding a dish right side up to catch the shower is the work for each one of us. How much I do think and hope for the three nieces now entering womanhood. For Susie B. Jr., and little Anna O. and Gula, I shall think and hope by and by. As for the nephews, I do not forget them, but they'll fight their way through somehow, as have all boys before them....

Dinner is over and an hour's talk at table after it. The Englishman Mr. Mullinor, summed up: "Your country will come to ruin from such doctrines as you woman's rights folks advocate;" and I have put the case to him to the best of my sea-brain's ability. This is the very first time I have let my tongue loose. We expect to be in Liverpool tomorrow early, and then I will write you. Just take it for granted all is well with me, and I will try to do the same with you.

Miss Anthony found at Liverpool a cordial letter from Mrs. A. A. Sargent, whose husband was now United States Minister to Germany. She welcomed her to Europe, saying: "You always have the entree to our home and hearts. Come and stay as long as you will." A note from Mrs. Stanton to her "beloved Susan" said: "I came up to London the moment I heard of the arrival of the British Prince. To think of your choosing a 'Prince' when a 'Queen' was coming! I am on the tiptoe of expectation to meet you.... I write in the suffrage rooms surrounded with ladies."

A week later the diary records: "Left London at 10 a. m. for Rome, Rachel and self, also Hattie Daniels, Alice Blatch and Mrs. Fanny Keartland, five in all, three of the Eagle and two of the Lion, each glorying in her own nationality!"

Rome, No. 75 Via Nazionale, March 22.

My Dear Sister: Here it is a whole month tomorrow since we took a last glimpse of each other and scarce a decent letter have I written you; but it is fearfully hard work to find the minutes. There is so much to tell, and the spelling and pronunciation of the names are so perfectly awful.... At Liverpool we drove two hours in the Princess and Sefton parks and then went to the city museum, where the most interesting things to us were the portraits of all the Bonapartes—men and women, old and young—Josephine's very lovely; and to the city library, which is free. There is also an immense free lecture hall, which was built for an aquarium but found impracticable, so it is an enormous circle, seated from the circumference down to the center, with a large platform at one side and every step and seat cut out of solid stone. Here the most learned men of the English colleges give free lectures, the city fund being ample to meet all expenses. The librarian, on hearing we were Americans, took great pains to show us everything. Of course when he said, "We have over 80,000 volumes," I asked, "Have you among them the History of Woman Suffrage, by Mesdames Stanton, etc., of America?" And lo, he had never heard of it!

Thursday morning we took train—second-class carriage—for London. Mrs. Stanton was at the station, her face beaming and her white curls as lovely as ever, and we were soon landed at our boarding-house. Lydia Becker came to dinner by Mrs. Stanton's invitation, so she was the first of England's suffrage women for us to meet. Friday afternoon we glanced into the House of Commons and happened to see Gladstone presenting some motion. Spent the evening chatting with Mrs. Stanton—a world of things to talk over....

Saturday we went again to Bayswater to see Mrs. Rose—found her very lonely because of the death of her devoted husband a year ago. She threw her arms around my neck and her first words were: "O, that my heart would break now and you might close my eyes, dear Susan!" She is vastly more isolated in England because of her non-Christian views than she ever was in America. Sectarianism sways everything here more now than fifty years ago with as.

That afternoon I left for Basingstoke, the new home of darling Harriot Stanton, now with Blatch suffixed. Her husband is a fine specimen of a young Englishman of thirty. Sunday morning he took me in a dog-cart through two gentlemen's parks, a pleasant drive through pasture and woodland, thousands of acres enclosed by a stone wall. When I said, "What a shame that all these acres should thus lie waste, while myriads of poor people are without an inch of ground whereon to set foot," he replied: "They would be no better off if all should be cut up into forty-acre farms and divided among the poor, for no man could possibly support a family upon one. The owners of these parks are actually reduced to poverty trying to keep them up." So you see it is of no use to talk of giving every Englishman a farm, when the land is so poor no one can make a living off of it. Of course this is not true of all England, but evidently its inhabitants must be fed from other countries. On our return I was conducted through the garden and green-house of Mr. Blatch's father, where I saw peach trees in blossom and grape vines budding. The tree-trunks were not larger than my arm and I exclaimed, "How many peaches can you get off these little trees?" "Why, last year, we had 250," said he. How is that by the side of our old farm harvest of 1,000 trees? And yet these English people talk as if they raised fruit!...

The next day I returned to London and Mrs. Stanton and I called on Rev. William Henry Channing at the West End, and had a two hours' chat with him.... He was very cordial and on our leaving said, "I can't tell you how grateful I am for this interview. You have my blessing and benediction;" so we were glad at heart. Mr. Channing loves America above all other countries and feels it was a mistake for him to have left it. His elder daughter is the wife of Edwin Arnold. March 12 we dined with the son-in-law of William Ashurst, the friend of Wm. Lloyd Garrison—Mr. Biggs, and his four daughters. Caroline Ashurst Biggs, the second, is the editor of the Englishwoman's Review and one of the leading suffrage women of England.

After dinner some twenty ladies and gentlemen came in and we had a delightful evening, but such a continual serving of refreshments!

Tuesday morning I went again to Mrs. Rose's and finding her bonneted and cloaked for a chair ride, I walked beside her, holding her hand, through Kensington Park. I hope and almost believe she will go back to America with me. I feel sure that we, who have not forgotten her early and wonderful work for woman and for freedom of thought, will do all in our power to smooth her last days.... That evening Rachel and I went to see Irving and Ellen Terry in Much Ado About Nothing. The painting and the lights and shadows of the scenery were lovely, and I suppose the acting was good, but I can not enjoy love and flirtation exhibited on the stage any more than off. All passional demonstrations seem to belong to the two concerned, not to other persons. The lovemaking, however, was cooler, more distant and more piquant than usual.

Wednesday afternoon Mrs. Rebecca Moore, our old Revolution correspondent, took me to a meeting at Mrs. Müller's, about the Contagious Diseases Acts—fifty or sixty ladies present—was introduced, and several invited me to speak for them when I returned to London. Miss Rye, who has made between thirty and forty trips across the Atlantic with little girls, taking over more than 10,000 and placing them in good homes in Canada, was there and spoke. She said all her efforts could accomplish nothing in thinning out the more than 1,000,000 surplus women of the island. Not one seemed to dare speak out the whole of the facts and philosophy. Each promised, "I will not shock you by calling the names," etc. Mrs. Peter Taylor's reception that evening was an unusually brilliant affair. She is looked upon as the mother of the English movement, as Mrs. Stanton is of the American. She is a magnificent woman and acted the part of hostess most gracefully. Her husband is a member of Parliament. At eleven we went home and packed our trunks to be off for Rome on the morrow, half-regretting that we had planned to leave London....

Rome, March 23.

My Dear Sister: It is noon—Good Friday—and just set in for a steady rain, so I will give you the goings, seeings and sayings of our company since leaving London.... We started from Victoria Station—second-class carriage, no sleeper—for a three days' and two nights' journey to Rome. It looked appalling, even to so old a traveller as myself, but I inwardly said, "I can stand it if the younger ones can." The crossing of the straits of Dover was rough, the sea dashing over the sides of the boat, but Rachel and I went through the two hours without a quaver. At Calais we had the same good luck as at London—a compartment of the car all to ourselves. Here we were to be settled without change for that night and the next day, so with bags and shawl-straps, bundles, lunch-baskets and a peck of oranges, we adjusted ourselves. We breakfasted at Basle, after having pillowed on each other for the night as best we could. Now we were in the midst of the Jura mountains, and all day long we wound up and down their snowy sides and around the beautiful lakes nestling at their feet—through innumerable tunnels, one of them, the St. Gothard, taking twenty-three minutes—over splendid bridges and along lovely brooks and rivers.

We arrived at Milan at 7:50 p. m., when even the bravest of our party voted to stop over twenty-four hours and try the virtues of a Christian bed. Rachel and I shared a large old-fashioned room with a soap-stone stove, where we had a wood-fire built at once. (Remember that all the houses have marble floors and stairs, and are plastered on the stone walls, so they seem like perfect cellars.) We had two single bedsteads (I haven't seen any other sort on the continent) with the same bedclothes covering both. Our big room was lighted with just two candles! We "slept solid" till 8 a. m., when Rachel got out her Italian phrase-book, rang the bell and ordered a fire and hot water.

After fairly good steak and coffee, we five began a day of steady sight-seeing.... In the evening we went to the station, and here found a wood-fire in a fireplace and monstrous paintings of Christ and the saints on the walls. All who had trunks had now to pay for every pound's weight. I had brought only my big satchel and shawl-strap. We were not so fortunate as to find a compartment to ourselves but had two ladies added to our number, while four or five men in the next one smoked perpetually and the fumes came over into ours. We growled but that availed nothing, as men here have the right of way. At Genoa the ladies left us—midnight—and two men took their places. These proved to be seafarers and could talk English, so we learned quite a bit from them. At ten we were halted and rushed in to breakfast. Sunday afternoon we reached the Eternal City and came direct to the Pension Chapman, tired and hungry, but later went to St. John's Cathedral to vespers.... After dinner we were glad to lay ourselves away. We have a pleasant room, with windows opening upon a broad court and lovely garden and fountain. Monday we drove around the city for bird's-eye views from famous points. Such wonders of ruins upon ruins!

Sunday Evening.—It is of no avail that I try and try to write-when the sight-seeing is done for the day I am too tired.... Last evening the Coliseum was illuminated—a weird, wonderful sight. Today, Easter Sunday, I have seen crowds of people reverently kissing St. Peter's big toe. Tomorrow we go to Naples for a week and then return and finish Rome.

Naples, March 27.

Here we are, Rachel and I, at the Pension Brittanique, far up a high hill, in a room overlooking the beautiful bay of Naples. It is lovely, lovely! The little island of Capri, the city, the bold shores and mountain setting—a perfect gem.... We have a little bit of wood-fire with the smallest sticks—twigs we should call them—two sperm candles to light our bedroom and no matches except what we furnish. But 8 o'clock is here and we are all to meet for breakfast....

Yesterday was a lovely May day, and our party drove to the village of Resina, which is built forty feet above the ruins of Herculaneum. There, with a guide, we descended a hundred steps and walked through the old theater, over the same stone stairs and seats which two thousand years ago were occupied by the gayest of mortals. Then we went to the ruins of Pompeii and ate our lunch under large old trees growing upon the debris left by the great eruption. We passed through the narrow streets, over stone pavements worn by the tread of long-buried feet, through palaces, public gardens and baths, temples, the merchants' exchange, customhouse and magnificent theater....

I have just received John Bright's splendid address before the 2,000 students of Glasgow University on being made Lord Rector. It fired my soul beyond all the ruins and all the arts in Rome or Naples. It is grand indeed, and reminds one of our own Wendell Phillips' address to the Harvard students two years ago.[14]

Rome, March 29.

To Madam Susan B. Anthony, of New York, U. S. A.

Madam: We had the honor to announce your coming to Rome some three weeks ago in the Italian Times. While we ourselves have an impressive appreciation of your distinguished mental acquirements, yet we would wish to carry to our numerous English-speaking subscribers on this continent some testimony of your presence in our midst. Therefore we place our columns at your disposal, and will esteem the privilege of presenting to the public any topic your facile pen may write. To this end we will wait upon you or be pleased to see you at our sanctum. With much respect, we are, Madam, your obedient servants,

The Proprietors of the Italian Times.

[Only English newspaper published in Italy.]

Rome, April 1.

Dear Brother D. R.: We have climbed Vesuvius. One feels richly paid when the puffing and exploding and ascending of the red-hot lava meet the ears and eyes. The mountains, the Bay of Naples, the sail to Capri and the Blue Grotto are fully equal to my expectations.... The squalid-looking people, however, and their hopeless fate make one's stay at any of these Italian resorts most depressing. Troops of beggars beset one all along the streets and roads, and with tradesmen there is no honesty. For instance, a man charged some twenty francs for a shell comb, then came down to seven, six, five, and finally asked, "What will you give?" I, never dreaming he would take it, said, "two francs," and he threw the comb into the carriage.... Saturday we took the cars from Naples to Palermo. Every mountainside having a few seven-by-nine patches of soil in a place, is terraced and covered with grape vines and lemon trees, the latter now yellow with fruit. On many I counted twenty and thirty terraces, each with a solid stone wall to hold the earth in place. It is wonderful what an amount of labor it costs to earn even the little the natives seem to care for. Our hotel here is an old monastery, and on one side of the court is the cathedral with its grotesque paintings. One becomes fairly sickened with the ghastly spectacle of the dead Christ. It is amazing how little they make of the living Christ.

On Monday morning we drove back over that magnificent road, and took the train to Naples. In the afternoon we went to Lake Avernus and into the grotto of the sibyls, the entrance to Dante's Inferno. It was a dark, cavernous passage and with the flaring candles making the darkness only more visible, we could not but feel there was reason for the old superstition. The narrowness of the streets of Naples—and they are without the pretense of a sidewalk—leave the men, women and children, horses and carriages, funny little donkeys with their big loads, the cows and goats (which are each night and morning driven along and halted at the doors while the pint cupful, more or less, is milked to supply the people within) all marching along together in the filthy road, jostling each other at every step.

But we are back in Rome now and this forenoon we spent in the galleries of the Vatican. One is simply dazed with the wealth of marble—not only statuary, but stairs, pillars and massive buildings. We stop here till the 9th, then go to Florence.[15]

It is good for our young civilization to see and study that of the old world, and observe the hopelessness of lifting the masses into freedom and freedom's industry, honesty and integrity. How any American, any lover of our free institutions based on equality of rights for all, can settle down and live here is more than I can comprehend. It will be only by overturning the powers that education and equal chances ever can come to the rank and file. The hope of the world is indeed in our republic; so let us work to make it a genuine democracy, where every citizen—woman as well as man—shall be crowned with the one symbol of equality—the ballot....

Rome, April 5.

My Dear Sister: How these anniversary days of our dear mother's illness and death bring back to me everything, even at this distance and amid these strange surroundings. How she would have enjoyed these sights because of her knowledge and love of history. She could have told the Bible story of every one of these great frescoes. What a woman she would have been, could she have had the opportunities of education and culture which her granddaughters are having....

Tell Mrs. Lewia Smith her lovely piece of lace has been honored with the wearing in London and Rome several times and has been pronounced beautiful; but I prize it most of all for the giver's sake. No one but she would have trudged through the slush and rain to get those splendid names to that testimonial. Nothing which came to me gave so much pleasure as those signatures of my own townsmen and women, from President Anderson all the way to the end of the list.... This evening Rachel has gone to a friend's to study German so as to make our way with that nationality. What a jumble, that by just crossing an imaginary line one finds people who can't understand a word one says!

Last evening we heard the grand Ristori render a part of Dante's Inferno and a selection from Joan of Arc. Of course I couldn't understand a word she said, but her voice, her gestures, her expression told the whole story. Then the music, vocal and instrumental, was the softest and sweetest....

Zurich, April 23.

My Dear Sister: We spent Friday night at Milan—there took our last look at Italian cathedrals, as we did our first, and its own still holds highest place as to beauty. We left early next morning and very soon were among the Alps.... The eleven hours' stretch was tiresome and disgusting inside our compartment, with from three to five stalwart men puffing away at their pipes all day long, and at every station rushing out for a drink of wine or beer. Our only chance of a free breath was to open the window, and then all the natives were in consternation!

We reached Zurich at six and, after a splendid dinner of roast chicken, green peas and lettuce, took a cab and called on Elizabeth Sargent, who is studying medicine at the university, and found her very happy and glad to see us. In the afternoon we took a delightful drive, as it was too cold and misty for the lake excursion we had intended. The highest Alps are still lost to us by fog and clouds. After supper we called at the American consulate. Think of our government supporting a consul in most of the twenty-two cantons of Switzerland!

Tuesday.—At Munich. We saw princes and princesses galore out driving this afternoon, but not the king. We leave tomorrow morning for Nuremberg, and reach Berlin Saturday, and there I hope to rest at least a week—but then the Emperor William must be seen, and lots of other curiosities.... If I could command the money, as soon as each of our girls graduated, I would take her first on a tour of her own continent and then through the old world, before she settled down to the hard work of life either in a profession or in marriage. Thus she would have much to think of and live over, no matter how heavy might be the burdens and sorrows of her after life....

Cologne, May 8.

My Dear Sister: We left Berlin yesterday morning after a delightful week with the Sargents. I do not believe our nation ever has been represented at any foreign court by such genuine republican women, in the truest and broadest sense, as are Mrs. Sargent and her daughters. Mr. Sargent, too, touches the very height of democratic principle. Their association with monarchial governments and subjects but makes them love our free institutions the more.[16]

Our last evening was spent with the Frau Dr. Liburtius—formerly Henriette Hirschfeldt—a practicing dentist in Berlin since 1869, who studied at the Philadelphia Dental College. No college in Germany will admit women. Frau Libertius is dentist for various members of the royal family as well as for the Sisters of Charity. She says there are no dental colleges in the world equal to those of America....

May 10.—At Worms—where Martin Luther made his glorious declaration for the right of private judgment. There is a magnificent monument in a beautiful square; Luther's is the central statue—a standing one; below, at the corners, are sitting Huss, Savonarola, Wycliffe and Peter Waldo, and on a still lower pedestal are four more worthies—one of them Melancthon.... We spent Tuesday at Cologne—visited the splendid cathedral and the church of St. Ursula. The latter contains the bones of 11,000 virgins martyred at Cologne in the fifth century. Whole broadsides of chapels are lined with shelves of skulls, which the noble ladies of the twelfth century partly covered with embroidery. Wednesday we took steamer up the Rhine at six in the morning and landed at Mayence at eight. It was a beautiful panorama, but not surpassing all others I have seen. The vine-clad hillsides, the ruins of the old castles (nothing like as many of them as I had thought) and the winding of the river were all very lovely. We visited the cathedral, the monuments of Gutenberg and Schiller, and then the fortress and the remains of a Roman monument erected nine years before Christ....

Heidelberg, May 11.

Dear Brother D. R.: As I clambered among the ruins of Heidelberg Castle today, I wished for each of my loved ones to come across old ocean and look upon the remains of ancient civilization—of art and architecture, bigotry and barbarism. I am enjoying my "flying," though I would not again make such a rush, but I am getting a good relish for a more deliberate tour at some later day. All of life should not be given to one's work at home, whether that be woman suffrage, journalism or government affairs.

After being perpetually among people whose language I could not understand, it was doubly grateful to be in the midst of not only my countrymen but my dearest friends, and I enjoyed their society so much that I almost forgot there were any wonders to be seen in Berlin. But we did make an excursion to Potsdam—a jolly company of us, Mr. and Mrs. Sargent and their gifted daughter Ella, also the professor of Greek in your Kansas State University, Miss Kate Stephens. She interpreted the utterances of the ever-present guides, whose jabber was worse than Greek.

At Potsdam we were shown the very rooms in which Frederick the Great lived and moved and had his being, plotted and planned to conquer his neighbors. In the little church are myriads of tattered flags, taken in their many wars, and two great stone caskets in which repose the bodies of Frederick the Great and his father, Frederick William, peaceful in death, however warlike in life. We also visited the new palace where the present Emperor spends the summer. We saw parlors, dining-rooms, bedrooms, the plain, narrow bedstead the Emperor sleeps upon, the great workshop, in which are maps and all sorts of material for studying and planning how to hold and gain empires. I even peered into the kitchen and saw the pitchers, plates, coffee-pots and stew-pans. It was my first chance of a real mortal living look of things, so I enjoyed it hugely. There are rooms enough in these palaces for an army of people. All of these magnificent displays of wealth in churches, palaces and castles, citadels, fortifications and glittering military shows of monarchial governments, only make more conspicuous the poverty, ignorance and degradation of the masses; and all pleasure in seeing them is tinged with sadness.

From the diary for May:

12.—Showering, but I walked up the mountain to pay a last visit to Heidelberg Castle, the most magnificent ruin in Germany. Its ivy-covered towers always will be pictured in my memory.

13.—At Strasburg. We have driven over the city, looked at the wonderful fortifications and explored the great cathedral with its famous clock. We heard the grand organ and saw 250 priests conduct the services before an audience of 2,000 people, nine-tenths women. Then to St. Thomas' church and the monument to Marshal Saxe.

14.—Left for Paris and had a beautiful ride through Alsace and Lorraine, the lost kingdoms of France. It made me sad all day; I wanted them returned to their own mother country. Theodore Stanton and his wife Marguerite met us at the station.

15.—Madam de Barron has invited me to be her guest while here. Such a delightful home and intelligent hostess! I have a charming room, and this morning the sun is shining bright and warm and the robins are singing in the trees. My continental breakfast—rolls, butter and coffee—was sent to my room and, for the first time in my life, I ate it in bed. What would my mother have said?

16.—Went to grand opera last night; magnificent house, scenery, toilets, equipages; but with my three "lacks," a musical ear, a knowledge of French and good eyesight, I could not properly appreciate the performance.

17.—Theodore took me to the Chamber of Deputies to see how Frenchmen look in legislative assembly—very like Americans. Then we called on friends at the American Exchange and the Hotel Normandie, and I was too tired to go to U. S. Minister Morton's reception at night.

22.—Called and had a good chat with Charlotte B. Wilbour, of New York; called also on Grace Greenwood; visited the Hotel des Invalides and walked in the gardens.

23.—Theodore and Marguerite took me to St. Cloud by boat and back on top of tram-car. Delightful!

27.—Today, Sunday, we went to Père la Chaise and saw great crowds of Communists hanging wreaths on the wall where hundreds of their friends were shot down in 1871—a sorrowful sight.

28.—At noon we went to the College of France to witness the last honors to Laboulaye, the scholar and Liberal. Saw his little study and sadly watched the priests perform the services over his coffin.

29.—Left Paris at 9 a. m., Theodore and his little Elizabeth Cady going with me to the station. The parks and forests are green and lovely, the homes cozy and pretty, France is a beautiful country. I have enjoyed the last three months exceedingly, but I am very, very tired; and yet it is a new set of faculties which are weary, and the old ones, so long harped upon, are really resting.

Paris.

To Miss Susan B. Anthony,

Madam: Having been informed of your arrival in Paris, I take the liberty of writing to ask from your courtesy the favor of a short interview. I have since several years heard of all the work you have done in behalf of womankind, and I need not say how happy I would be to meet a person who has so often been praised in my presence. Hoping you will forgive my intrusion, and have the great kindness to let me know when I may have the honor to call, I am, madam, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

A. Salvador.

[Of Le Soir.]

Paris, May 20.

My Dear Mrs. Spofford: I have just come from a call on Mademoiselle Hubertine Auclert, editor of La Citoyenne. I can not tell you how I constantly long to be able to speak and understand French. I lose nearly all the pleasure of meeting distinguished people, because they are as powerless with my language as I with theirs. We called also on Leon Richer, editor of La Femme. He thinks it inopportune to demand suffrage for women in France now, when they are yet without their civil rights. I wanted so much to tell him that political power was the greater right which included the less....

Miss Foster has gone to London for presentation at Court. She had the "regulation" dress made in Berlin—cream-white satin, low neck, no sleeves at all, and a four-yard train!... I have not decided when I shall go home, but before many months, for I long to be about the work that remains undone. The fact is, I am weary of mere sight-seeing. Amidst it all my head and heart turn to our battle for women at home. Here in the old world, with its despotic governments, its utter blotting out of woman as an equal, there is no hope, no possibility of changing her condition, so I look to our own land of equality for men, and partial equality for women, as the only one for hope or work.

Paris, May 24.

My Dear Rachel: I am glad to hear that you were not cheated out of teetering through the palace halls in front of the princess, and that you are not utterly prostrated by it.... I attended the suffrage meeting last evening, and heard and saw several men speak—well, I inferred from the cheering and shouting of "bravo!"

This afternoon I visited the tomb of Napoleon. It surpasses every mausoleum I have ever seen, not excepting that of Frederick the Third and Queen Louise in Berlin. It is well that his memory should be thus honored, for had he been born a hundred years later, when the march of civilization had pointed to some other goal to gratify his great nature than that of bloody conquest of empire, I believe he would have stood at the head of those who strive to make free and independent sovereigns of all men and all women. Everywhere here are reminders of the ravages of war, the madness of ignorance and unreason. I want to get away from them and their saddening associations. You will think I am blue. So I am, from having lived a purposeless life these three months. I don't know but the women of America, myself in particular, will be the greater and grander for it, but I can not yet see how this is to be....

London, June 7.

My Dear Sister: For the hundredth time I am going to beg you to shut up the house and come over here. It does seem as if now we two sisters, left so alone, ought to be able to travel and enjoy together. You can not know how I long to have you with me; it hurts every minute to think of you treading round and round, with never a moment of leisure or enjoyment. Surely you have given a mother's love and care to our nieces for eight years, and now you can let them go out from under your eye....

Rachel and I came up from Basingstoke on Sunday to attend a small reception at Mrs. Jacob Bright's. Her husband has championed woman suffrage in Parliament for years, and she has led the few who have dared say, "And married women, too, should have the franchise." When the powers that be forbade her to include married women in the Parliamentary Suffrage Bill now pending, Mrs. Bright withdrew and started a bill for their property rights, which was passed last session and is now in force.

Monday morning we went to Bedford Park and spent two hours at Moncure D. Conway's. His charming wife read us what a delegate here from the American Unitarians says of Emerson, Alcott, Frothingham and George Ripley—that all are wearying of their early theories and theologies and returning to the old faith. Today I had an hour with William Henry Channing, and he virtually told me this was true of himself! I exclaimed: "Do you mean to say that you have returned to the belief in the immaculate conception of Jesus and in the miracles—that you no longer explain all these things as you used to do in your Bible readings at Rochester?" He replied: "I never disbelieved in miracles. Man's levelling and tunnelling the mountains is a miracle." Well, I was stunned and left. Even if all these grand men, in old age, or when broken in body, decide that the conclusions of their early and vigorous manhood were false, which shall we accept as most likely to be true—the strong or the weakened thought? It is very disheartening if we are so constituted that with our deepest, sincerest study we grope and dwell in error through our threescore and ten, and after those allotted years find all we believed fact to be mere hallucination. It is—it must be—simply the waning intellect returning to childish teachings.

That evening we visited the House of Commons and heard several members speak as we peeped through the wire latticework of the ladies' cage. The next afternoon we attended a large reception at Mrs. J. P. Thomasson's, daughter of Margaret Bright Lucas and wife of a member of Parliament. There we met the leading suffrage women. Wednesday morning I went to Tunbridge Wells—thirty miles—to see Mrs. Rose, who is trying the waters there in hope of relief.... I should have told you that I dined on Sunday with Margaret Lucas—John Bright's sister—and lunched today with Mrs. Mellen, mother-in-law of General Palmer, of Colorado, president of the Rio Grande R. R.—an elegant and wealthy woman.

London, June 22.

My Dear Sister: ... Sunday morning we went to hear Stopford Brooke, a seceder from the established church. I could see no diminution in the poppings up and down, nor in the intonings and singsongs, but when, after a full hour of the incantations, he came to his sermon on the Christian duty of total abstinence, he gave us a splendid one. Before commencing he said that, from his request the previous Sunday, twenty members out of his congregation of 600 came to the meeting to form a Church Total Abstinence Society, and ten of those made special and earnest protest against the formation of such a society! Can you imagine the chilliness of the spiritual air in that church as he laid down the Christian's duty of denying himself that he might save his fellow who had not the power to drink moderately?

Afterwards, we called on Hon. William D. Kelley, wife and daughter Florence, of Philadelphia. We also attended a reception at Emily Faithfull's and met a number of nice people; then took underground railway for Bedford Park and had tea with Eliza Orme, England's first and only woman lawyer—or as nearly one as she can be and not have passed the Queen's Bench. Her mother was lovely and so proud of her daughter and glad to see me. Miss Orme has a partner, Miss Richardson, who is a member of the London school board and has visited our schools in America. She says London has none, public or private, to compare with those of the United States.

The next morning we went to hear Laura Curtis Bullard read her sketch of Mrs. Stanton, which is to go into Famous Women, the same book for which Mrs. Stanton is writing me up. In the afternoon we called on Miss Müller, who purchased a house and lives in it that she may be a householder, as is necessary to hold office. She too is a member of the school board. Miss Müller insisted that I should talk to the ladies there, about thirty of them, and so I did, sitting under the trees in her garden, where we had our tea. Thence we went to the women's suffrage parlors and met some fifty or sixty, and then to the Albemarle Club of both ladies and gentlemen, the only one of the kind in London. Then came a meeting at the Somerville Club—all ladies. A paper was read on the topic, "Sentiment is not founded on reason and is a hindrance to progress," and followed by a bright discussion, in which both Rachel and I were invited to take part. A pretty full afternoon and evening!

Wednesday morning I studied on my speech for the 25th under the auspices of the National Women's Suffrage Society. Harriot has so divided the subject, that Mrs. Stanton is to take the educational, social and religious departments, and S. B. A. the industrial, legal and political. That evening we went to the Court Theater with Mrs. Florence Fenwick Miller, another member of the London school board. The nights are all days here now—daylight till after 9 o'clock and again at 3. Rachel and I lunched with Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Bright, and had a splendid visit; then went to the school board meeting.

Saw there five of the seven women members, among them Miss Helen Taylor, stepdaughter of John Stuart Mill, and the senior woman member of the board. Today I spent an hour with Mrs. Lucas, sister of John and Jacob Bright, and this afternoon Rachel and I are going to a Women's Poor Law Guardian meeting, at which Mrs. Lucas is to preside and other ladies to speak....

Just back from the meeting. In all England there are thirty-one women poor law guardians. There are 19,000 of the guardians elected and 1,000, mainly clergymen, are honorary. They have over 1,000,000 paupers to look after. The secretary, Mrs. Chamberlain, stated that in her section of London there were 16,000. The guardians overlook everything about the workhouses and asylums, get no pay, and yet the public hesitates to put women on the board. One man stirred up the handful present by saying, "suffrage not only for widows and spinsters, but for married women."

June 26.—Well, the ordeal is over and everybody is delighted. Moncure D. Conway said: "I have learned more of American history from your speech than I ever dreamed had been made during the past thirty years." Even the timid ones expressed great satisfaction. Mrs. Stanton gave them the rankest radical sentiments, but all so cushioned they didn't hurt. Mrs. Duncan McLaren came down from Edinburgh and Mrs. Margaret Parker from Dundee. Rachel said I made a good statement of the industrial, legal and political status of women in America. We went to tea with Mrs. Jacob Bright; then I took dinner with Mrs. Stanton at Mrs. Mellen's, getting up from table at 9:15 p. m.

Saturday Rachel and I drove four hours in Miss Müller's carriage and called on Lady Wilde, a bright, quaint woman. Sunday morning I went to Friends' meeting and had a look at John Bright, though I was not sure it was he until after the meeting was over; then he was gone, and I not introduced to him! In the afternoon I called on Miss Jane Cobden, daughter of Richard Cobden, a charming woman. Yesterday I presented her with a set of our History in memory of her noble father, and for her own sake also. I will not foreshadow the coming days but they are busy indeed. You will see that the Central Committee have put both my name and Mrs. Stanton's on the card for the meeting of July 5....

London, June 28.

My Dear Sister: It is now just after luncheon and at 4 o'clock we are to be at Mrs. Jacob Bright's reception, tomorrow evening at one at Mrs. Thomasson's, which she gives to friends for the special purpose of meeting Stanton and Anthony, and Saturday at Frances Power Cobbe's—and so we go. Yesterday morning Miss Frances Lord—a poor law guardian—escorted us through Lambeth workhouse. It has 1,000 inmates and 700 more in the infirmary, and gives out-door relief to 2,000 besides.

[Jacob Bright presided over the Prince's Hall meeting, and William Woodall over that at St. James' Hall.[17] All of the prominent newspapers in Great Britain contained editorials on the meetings, and noted especially the addresses of Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, speaking of them in a dignified and respectful manner.]

London, July 13.

My Dear Sister: My last letter was mailed the 3d. That afternoon I was at Rebecca Moore's reception. We dined at Miss Müller's and afterwards went to Horn's assembly rooms to a suffrage meeting. Her sister Eva, wife of Walter McLaren, M.P., was one of the speakers.... At 9 p. m., we went to a Fourth of July reception at Mrs. Mellen's, given in honor of Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony, and a brilliant affair it was. About 150 were there; she had elegant refreshments; and the young American girls gave songs, recitations, violin music, etc. Grace Greenwood recited her "Mistress O'Rafferty"—a woman's rights poem in Irish brogue—very rich and racy; her daughter Annie sang, also Mrs. Carpenter, of Chicago; Kate Hillard, of Brooklyn, Adelaide Detchon, the actress, and Mildred Conway recited; Frank Lincoln impersonated; Nathaniel Mellen sang a negro jubilee melody; Maude Powell played the violin. She is not fifteen yet and is a charming player. The company did not disperse until after one.

July 5, drove to Mrs. Mellen's to a 10 o'clock breakfast, and worked on Rachel's report of my Prince's Hall speech—you'll find it in full in the Englishwoman's Review. In the evening Mrs. Thomasson gave a splendid dinner-party, and afterwards took us all in carriages to the St. James' Hall suffrage demonstration, where there was a fine audience of about 2,000.... Next morning I went to a meeting of the suffrage friends from various towns who had come up for the demonstration. At 8 p. m. Mrs. McLaren took me to the House of Commons, to witness Mr. Hugh Mason present the Women's Suffrage Bill; so I heard all the speeches pro and con, up to 1:30 a. m., and how tired I was! Mr. Jacob Bright's was the strongest and most earnest.

The morning of July 7, at the suffrage rooms, I heard strong protests against the way Mr. Mason disclaimed all intention of enfranchising married women. He carried the matter too far even for the most timid. In the afternoon, we went to the Somerville Club, and Rachel spoke beautifully on the need of union and co-operation among women. I followed her, and Mrs. McLaren moved a vote of thanks.... Rachel left for Antwerp this evening, to meet her mother and sister, and I returned to my room, lonesome enough. Sunday I lunched with Mrs. Lucas and Mrs. McLaren. I had calls from three factory-women, who told a sad story of the impossibility of getting even a dollar ahead by the most frugal and temperate habits.

Have I told you that I have a new dark garnet velvet? I wore it with my point lace at Mrs. Mellen's reception on the Fourth, and the India shawl I have worn today for the first time.... Tuesday I went with Mrs. Lucas to the Crystal Palace at Sydenham to a great national temperance demonstration. More than 50,000 people passed the gates at a shilling apiece, and we saw a solid mass of 5,000 boys and girls from all parts of the kingdom seated in a huge amphitheater, singing temperance songs—a beautiful sight. Then in another part of the palace was an audience of 2,000 listening to speeches. Among the speakers was Canon Wilberforce, a grandson of the great Abolitionist but a degenerate one. He said the reason the temperance movement was now progressing so rapidly was because the persons who led it were praying people, and that the Lord had willed it, and all depended on whether it was kept in the Lord's hands—if not, then it would fall back like the old Washingtonian movement in America. Mrs. Lucas was very wroth, and so was I. He never spoke of woman except as "maiden aunt" or "old grandmother," and advised the boys to take a little wine for the stomach's sake.

At 6 o'clock we went to Miss Müller's where I remained until today. She took me to the Gaiety Theater to see Sarah Bernhardt. What a magnificent actor! I never saw any man or woman who so absolutely buried self out of sight and became the very being personated. Though I couldn't understand a single word, I enjoyed it all until the curtain fell at half-past eleven. I was tired beyond telling, but felt richly repaid by the seeing. She must be master of her divine art thus to impress one by action alone. Today Mrs. McLaren invites me to dine at her son's, Charles McLaren, M.P. All this is written in a hurry but is perhaps better than nothing. It is so difficult to clutch a moment to write.

London, July 19.

My Dear Rachel: ... I am to attend a suffrage meeting at the Westminster Palace Hotel Hall this afternoon, and tomorrow at 10:25 a. m. I start for Edinburgh with Mrs. Moore. I am bound to suck all the honey possible out of everybody and everything as they come to me or I go to them. It is such unwisdom, such unhappiness, not to look for and think and talk of the best in all things and all people; so you see at threescore and three I am still trying always to keep the bright and right side up. I am expecting a great ferment at the meeting today, for those who agree with Mrs. Jacob Bright have asked Mrs. Stanton to confer with them about what they shall do now. She advises them to demand suffrage for all women, married and single; but I contend that it is not in good taste for either of us to counsel public opposition to the bill before Parliament....

I wrote you about Miss ——. She is settled in the conviction that she never will marry any man—not even the one with whom she has had so close a friendship for the past ten years. She feels that to do the work for the world which she has mapped out she must eschew marriage, accepting platonic friendship but no more. I tell her she is giving her nature a severe trial by allowing herself this one particular friend, that if he does not in the end succeed in getting her to marry him, it will be the first escape I ever have heard of. She is a charming, earnest, conscientious woman, and I feel deeply interested in her experiment.

[After being royally entertained in London and making many little trips into the beautiful country around, Miss Anthony left for Edinburgh July 20, carrying with her many pleasant remembrances of friends.]

Edinburgh, July 22.

My Dear Sister: Here I am in Huntley Lodge, the delightful home of Mrs. Elizabeth Pease Nichol, whose name we so often used to see in the Liberator and the Anti-Slavery Standard, and of whom we used to hear from Mr. Phillips and others who had visited England. We had a most cordial welcome from Mrs. Nichol—a queenly woman. She is now seventy-seven, and lives in this handsome house, two miles from the center of the city, with only her servants....

Mrs. Nichol has gone to her room to rest and Mrs. Moore and I are writing in the little, sunny southeast parlor. I have an elegant suite of three rooms, the same Mr. Garrison occupied when he visited here in 1867 and in 1877. Mrs. Nichol is one of the few left of that historic World's Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840. We are going to a "substantial tea" with Dr. Agnes McLaren, daughter of Duncan McLaren. She is very bright—spent four years in France studying her profession—has a good practice, takes a house by herself, and invites to it her friends. So many young Englishwomen are doing this, and indeed it is a good thing for single women to do.

The suffrage society—Eliza Wigham, president, Jessie M. Wellstood, secretary—has invited a hundred or more of the friends to an afternoon tea on Tuesday next in honor of my visit, and I am to make a brief speech, so what to say and how to say it come uppermost with me again....

The Raven Hotel, Droitwich, August 5.

My Dear Friend Susan B. Anthony: I have often wished to write thee since we parted in London, my heart has been so full of loving thought. It has been a greater trial than I can describe that I have been denied the pleasure of receiving thee in my home in Edinburgh. If it had been only for an hour, I should have looked back on that hour as one of great privilege. But even if we should not meet again, I have had a pleasure which seems almost like a dream to me, in having made the personal acquaintance of thyself and dear Mrs. Stanton....

That thou shouldst have been on the 1st of August with the Elizabeth Pease of those grand anti-slavery times, revived in me the thought I expressed in moving a vote of thanks to thee and Mrs. Cady Stanton for the noble addresses you gave at the Prince's Hall Meeting in London; ... that you had been brought here to give us the hand of rejoicing fellowship; and that it gave me great faith to believe the God of Justice was leading us on, and had brought England and America together by your presence amongst us at this most critical and hopeful time of our agitation....

I have addressed thee in the dear singular person, because it seemed to me in harmony with the noble simplicity of thy character, and also more affectionate—just as I feel toward thee. Believe me, dear friend—I love so to call thee—thine very affectionately,

Priscilla Bright McLaren.

[The diary notes many teas and luncheons in Edinburgh, drives to Melrose Abbey, Holyrood Palace, Roslyn Castle, to the celebrated monuments, the old cathedrals and the university; calls from distinguished professors and those interested in philanthropic movements, visits to public institutions, and lovely gifts from the new friends. Every day of the month was filled with pleasant incidents. The scenery through the lake and mountain regions Miss Anthony found so beautiful that, although there was a steady downpour of rain for days, she sat on the outside of boat or stage in order not to miss a moment of it. She hunted up the old home of Thomas Clarkson but could not find there a person who ever had heard of him. She went also to the Friends' meeting house at Ulverston, presented to the Society by George Fox and completed in 1688. To her such spots as these were more interesting and hallowed than towering castles and vine-clad abbeys.]

Ballachulish Hotel, August 13.

My Dear Sister: Miss Julia Osgood and I are here, waiting for sunshine.... While in Edinburgh Mrs. Nichol drove us out to Craigmillar Castle, where I saw the very rooms in which Queen Mary lived. We bought for a shilling a basket of strawberries plucked—no, "pulled"—the old man who sold them said, from the very garden in which berries and vegetables were "pulled" for Queen Mary three hundred years ago. One evening Professor Blackie, of the Edinburgh University, dined with Mrs. Nichol. At my reception he had said he did not want to "see refined, delicate women going down into the muddy pool of politics," and I asked him if he had ever thought that, since the only places which were too filthy for women were those where men alone went, perhaps they might be so from lack of women. At dinner Mrs. Nichol rallied him on the report that he had been converted, and he admitted that it was true; so as he was leaving I said, "Then I am to reckon an Edinboro' professor among my converts?" He seized my hand and kissed it, saying, "I'll seal it with a kiss." Don't be alarmed—he is fully eighty years of age but blithe and frolicsome—sang and acted out a Scotch war-song in the real Gaelic.

On August 1 we saw 200 medical students capped—and not a woman among them, because the powers ruled that none should be admitted. That afternoon we called on Professor Masson, a great champion of co-education. We took tea with Mrs. Jane and Miss Eliza Wigham. The stepmother, now eighty-two, was Jane Smeale in 1840. In their house have visited Henry C. Wright, Parker Pillsbury, and of course Mr. Garrison. Mrs. Nichol went with us to Melrose by rail, from which we drove to Abbotsford....

Tuesday at 2 o'clock Miss Osgood and I landed at Stirling. At 4:30 we reached Callander, where I found no trunk, and not a man of them could give a guess as to its whereabouts. They give you no check here, but just stick a patch on your trunk. I had expected not to find it at every stop, and now it was gone for sure; but the station-master was certain he could find it and forward it to me, so he wrote out its description and telegraphed in every direction. Meanwhile we went to a hotel for luncheon and there in the hall was my trunk! Nobody knew why or how it got there and all acknowledged our American check system superior. I was raging at their stupidity, and no system at all, but laughingly said, "You ought to send this trunk free a thousand miles to pay for my big scold at you." The man good-naturedly replied, "Where will you have it sent?" I answered "Oban," and he booked it.

At 6 o'clock we took the front seat with the driver on a great high stage which we mounted by a ladder—they call the stage the "machine"—and drove a few miles to the Trossachs Hotel, past Loch Achray and Loch Vennachar.... While the rain rested this noon I took a walk up the ravine and it seemed very like going up the mountain at Grandfather Anthony's. Indeed, there is nothing here more beautiful than we have in America, only everything has some historic or poetic association....

Bruntsfield Lodge, Whitehouse Loan, Edinburgh, August 23.

My Dear Sister: Here am I, back in Edinboro' again, at Dr. Jex-Blake's delightful home—at least one hundred and fifty years old, with an acre or more of garden all enclosed with a six-foot wall. Lodge means a walled-in house; loan means lane, and the street took its name from a white house which two hundred and fifty years ago stood in this road. Every day the doctor has taken me a long and beautiful ride in her basket-carriage, driving her own little pony, White Angel, or her hay horse, while her boy-groom rides in his perch behind. Today she drove me through Lord Rosebery's park of thousands of acres. It is lovely as a native forest—the roads macadamized all through—and a palace-like residence set deep within....

Ambleside, August 27.

My Dear Sister: Last Thursday I left Edinburgh for Penrith, which has a fine view of the lake and the hills beyond. Next morning I took steamer at Pooley Bridge. The trip the whole length of the lake was beautiful, but can not compare with Lake George—indeed, nothing I have seen equals that—but the hills (mountains, they call them here), the water and the sky all were lovely. At Patterdale I had a cup of tea, with bread and butter and the veritable orange marmalade manufactured at Dundee. Thence I took a stage over Kirkstone Pass, and walked two miles up the hills to a small hotel with a signboard saying it is the highest inhabited house in England, 1,114 feet above the sea—not very much beside Denver's 6,000 and others in Colorado 10,000 or 12,000. Arrived at Ambleside to find the hotel overflowing, so they sent me to a farmer's house where I had a good bed, splendid milk and sweet butter. Saturday morning I went by coach to Coniston, then railway to Furness Abbey, a seven-hundred-year-old ruin of magnificent proportions. After four hours there, I took a train to Lakeside and then steamer up Lake Windermere back to Ambleside. The hotel still being full, "the Boots," as they call the porter or runner, found me lodgings at a private house, where I am now. It is the tiniest little stone cottage, but they have a cow, so I am in clover. My breakfasts consist of a bit of ham, cured by the hostess, a boiled egg, white and graham bread with butter and currant jam, and a cup of tea.

Saturday evening I strolled out and entered the gate of Harriet Martineau's home. On the terrace I met the present occupants, Mr. and Mrs. William Henry Hills. They invited me to call in the morning, when they would be happy to show me over the house. In naming the hour they said: "We never go to church—we are Liberal Friends—real Friends." At that I immediately felt at home with them. I called and spent two hours sitting and chatting in the drawing-room where Harriet Martineau received her many distinguished guests, and in the kitchen saw the very same table, chairs and range which were there when she died, and sitting on the doorsill was the same black-and-yellow cat, said to be fourteen years old now. The Hills invited me to 5 o'clock tea, which we took in the library, where Miss Martineau used to sit and study as well as entertain her guests at dinner. It seemed impossible to realize that I was actually in her house. It is not large and is covered with ivy, which grows most luxuriantly everywhere. It fronts on a large field, much lower than the knoll on which it stands, and fine hills stretch off beyond. The old gardener, who has been here more than thirty years, still lives in a little stone cottage just under the terrace.

Mr. Hills is a great lover of America and its institutions. He is one of the very few I have met here who really love republicanism. Nearly every one clings to the caste and class principle, thinks the world can not exist if a portion of the people are not doomed to be servants, and that for the poor to have an ambition to rise and become something more than their parents makes them discontented. "Yes," I answer, "and that is just what I want them to be, because it is only through a wholesome discontent with things as they are, that we ever try to make them any better."...

Dublin, September 10.

My Dear Sister: ... I stayed in Belfast some days, and visited the Giant's Causeway with Miss Isabella Tod, amidst sunshine and drenching showers; still it was a splendid sight, fully equal to Fingal's Cave. The day before, we went nearly one hundred miles into the country to a village where she spoke at a temperance meeting. Here we were guests of the Presbyterian minister—a cousin of Joseph Medill, of the Chicago Tribune—and a cordial greeting he and his bright wife gave me. They have three Presbyterian churches in that one little village. All welcomed the woman speaker most kindly, but not a person could be urged to vote down the whiskey shops, as these are licensed by a justice of the peace, appointed by the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who receives his appointment from the Queen of England!

So all she could ask was that every one should become a total abstainer. I do not see how they can submit to be thus voiceless as to their own home regulations.

Saturday I took tea with Mrs. Haslam, a bright, lovely "come-outer" from the Friends. She had invited some twenty or thirty to be present at eight, and I spoke, they asking questions and I answering. Among them were a son of the Abolitionist Richard D. Webb, and ever so many nephews and nieces. Eliza Wigham's brother Henry and his wife had come ten miles to be there.... This afternoon I am going to the common council meeting with Alfred Webb, who is a member and a strong Home Ruler. The question of electing their own tax collector is to be discussed.

Cork, September 16.

My Dear Sister: ... Your heart would break if you were here to see the poverty and rags, and yet the people seem cheerful under it all. Something surely must be wrong at the root to bear such fruit. I have had an awfully "hard side of a board time" of ten hours in a third-class car, paying therefor just as much as I would on the N. Y. Central for a first-class ticket. I not only saved $4.25 by going third-class, but I saw the natives. Men, women, boys and girls who had been to the market towns with their produce were on the train, and to see them as they tumbled in toward evening, at town after town, one would think that whiskey and tobacco were the main articles they bought. Any number of men and boys, and at least four women, were drunk enough, and they brought bottles with them and added to their puling idiocy as they went on. Nothing short of a pig-sty could match the filth, but it is only in that class of cars that you see anything of the vast number of poor farmers and laborers. If they can not pay exorbitant rates, refined, educated men and women are thrust into pens and seated face to face with the smoking, drinking, carousing rabble. I have everywhere protested against this outrage and urged the women to demand that the railway companies should give them separate cars, with no smoking allowed....

Leamington, October 1.

My Dear Rachel: ... I must have told you of my good times at Belfast with Miss Tod, who gave a reception for me and I had a welcome all round.

Miss Osgood met me at Cork, and we went by rail to Macroom. Tuesday morning we visited the convent, nuns' schools, and the poorhouse with 400 helpless mortals, old and young; then took an Irish jaunting-car, and were driven some forty miles through "the Gap" to Glengariff. It rained almost all the way, much to our disgust. Next morning we packed into two great stages with thirty or more others, and started for the lakes of Killarney; but soon the rain poured again, and as we were losing so much of the scenery we stopped half-way at Kenmare. We visited the convent and the Mother Abbess showed us every cranny. Thirty girls were at work on beautiful Irish point and Limerick lace. These nuns have 400 pupils, and give 200 of the poorest their breakfast and lunch—porridge and a bit of bread. At two we took stage again, the sky looked promising, but alas! for half an hour it fairly poured. Then it grew lighter, and we got very fine views of hills and dales. Killarney is lovely....

Saturday I sauntered along the streets of Killarney, passed the market, and saw all sorts of poor humanity coming in with their cattle to sell or to buy. Many rode in two-wheeled carts without seat or spring, drawn by little donkeys, and nearly all the women and girls were bareheaded and barefooted. On the bridge I saw some boys looking down. I looked too and there was a spectacle—a ragged, bareheaded, barefooted woman tossing a wee baby over her shoulders and trying to get her apron switched around to hold it fast on her back. I heard her say to herself, "I'll niver do it," so I said, "Boys, one of you run down there and help her." At that instant she succeeded in getting the baby adjusted, and to my horror took up a bundle from the grass and disclosed a second baby! Then I went down. I learned that she had just come from the poorhouse, where she had spent six weeks, and before going further had laid her two three-weeks-old boys on the cold, wet grass, while she washed out their clothes in the stream. The clothing was the merest rags, all scrambled up in a damp bundle. She had heard her old mother was ill in Milltown and had "fretted" about her till she could bear it no longer, so had started to walk ten miles to her. I hailed a boy with a jaunting-car—told her to wait and I would take her home—got my luncheon—fed the boy's horse, bought lunch for boy and woman—and off we went, she sitting on one side of the car with her two babies, wet bundle, two milk bottles and rubber appendages, bare feet and flying hair, and I on the other, with the boy in front.

For a long way both babies cried; they were blue as pigeons, and had on nothing but little calico slips, no socks even. She had four children older than these—a husband who went to fairs selling papers and anything he could to support them all—and an aged father and mother who lived with them. She said if God had given her only one child, she could still help earn something to live on, but now He had given her two, she couldn't. When we reached Milltown I followed her home. It was in a long row of one-room things with a door—but no window. Some peat was smouldering under a hole in the roof called a chimney, and the place was thick with smoke. On the floor in one corner was some straw with a blanket on it, which she said was her bed; in another were some boards fastened into bed-shape, with straw packed in, and this belonged to her father and mother. Where the four other children, with the chickens and the pig, found their places to sleep, I couldn't see. I went to the home of another tenant, and there again was one room, and sitting around a pile of smoking-hot potatoes on the cold, wet ground—not a board or even a flag-stone for a floor—were six ragged, dirty children. Not a knife, fork, spoon or platter was to be seen. The man was out working for a farmer, his wife said, and the evidences were that "God" was about to add a No. 7 to her flock. What a dreadful creature their God must be to keep sending hungry mouths while he withholds the bread to fill them!...

I went back to Killarney heart-sick; wrote letters Sunday, and Monday took train for Limerick, where I rushed round for an hour or two.... Then went on to Galway. Tuesday morning took the mail-car to Connemara, and had company all the way—a judge, an Irish M.P., and two Dublin drummers—with whom I talked over the Irish problem. I had meant to make the tour of the western coast up to Londonderry, but my courage failed. It was to be the same soul-sickening sight all the way—only, I was assured, worse than anything yet seen. I took the stage back to Galway, every one saying it was sure to be a fine day, but it proved to be terrific wind and rain, and before I had gone ten miles my seat was a pool of water and it took all my skill to keep my umbrella right side out.... Once while the driver changed horses I stood in front of a big fire on the hearth of the best farmer's house I have seen here. Everything was clean and cheerful—two rooms—a bed made up with a spotless white spread—the old father smoking and the wife cooking dinner. She lifted a wooden cover from a jar and proudly showed me her butter—patted down with her hands, I could see—and near by was another jar with milk. Think of butter being made in a room full of tobacco-smoke! Then I went my last ten out of the fifty miles, having been soaking wet for eight hours. At my hotel I had room and fire on a "double-quick," bath-tub and hot water, and put myself through a regular grooming. In the morning I rode around Galway, saw Queen's College and the bay, and then took train for Belfast.

From the diary:

Sept. 11.—In Dublin. The Professor of Arabic took me through Trinity College, with its library of 200,000 volumes. Thence to the old Parliament House, now the Bank of Ireland. In the afternoon Alfred Webb went with me to the National League rooms and from there to Thomas Webb's for tea, where I saw the names of Garrison and N. P. Rogers written in 1840. We called on Michael Davitt, the leader of the Irish Land League, who impressed me as an earnest, honest man, deeply-rooted in the principles of freedom and equality, and claiming all for woman that he does for man.

Sept. 16.—At Youghal. Visited the home of Sir Walter Raleigh, Lady Hennessy, eighty years old, showing me around. Found in a library Children of the Abbey, and read again the story of Lord Mortimer and Amanda. Once it thrilled my young soul, but now it seems inexpressibly thin.

Sept. 20.—While I was talking in the car today with an Irishwoman about the poverty here, another behind me shouted: "It is very ill manners for an American to come over here and abuse the English government."

Sept. 29.—In Belfast. O, how I would like to purchase all the linen I want for myself and my friends! Have bought as much as I dared and after all perhaps I'm cheated—but it's done, so I won't worry.

Sept. 30.—Landed at Fleetwood and went direct to Rugby. Walked all around the famous school, but had not courage to go in and introduce myself to Doctor Jex-Blake, whose sister's guest I had so recently been.

Oct. 1.—At Leamington. Went direct to Kenilworth Castle, a grand old ruin; the home of Leicester, where Queen Elizabeth visited him in the olden days.

Oct. 2.—Mrs. Mullinor called at our hotel and accompanied us to Warwick Castle, a splendid pile. We lunched with her, and when Mr. M. put fork into the roast he remarked: "Wife asked me what she should order for dinner and I said, 'a leg of mutton, for Americans never see such a thing at home.'" We smiled and ate it with a relish.

Oct. 3.—At Stratford on Avon, and we have visited every spot sacred to the memory of Shakespeare, and walked through the meadows and down by the riverside....

Oct. 4.—In Oxford. I have visited many of the colleges, and as I saw where all the millions of dollars had been expended for the education of boys alone, I groaned in spirit and betook me to Somerville and St. Margaret's Halls, where at least there is a shelter for girls, and a beginning.

Oct. 5.—In London; and how almost like getting home it seems to come back here.

London, October 7.

My Dear Sister: Mrs. Stanton feels that she must stay with Hattie till the baby is a month old, and then have a week for farewell visits in London. Cousins Fannie and Charles Dickinson are here. Today I learned that I should have a chance to see and hear John Bright at a convention of the Liberal Party at Leeds, October 17; all these together have made me put off leaving a little longer. Since yesterday we have been in the midst of a genuine London fog. It is now 10 a. m. and even darker than it was two hours ago, when we dressed and breakfasted by gaslight. I saw smoky, foggy days here last March but they could not compare with this, and yet the people say, "O, this is nothing to what November will bring."...

London, October 27.

My Dear Sister: Since I last wrote you I have visited Leeds where I was the guest of Mrs. Hannah Ford, who has an elegant home—Adel Grange. There were several other guests who had come to attend the great Liberal demonstration, among them Mrs. Margaret Priestman Tanner, a sister-in-law of John Bright, and his son Albert. Mrs. Alice Scatcherd, of Leeds, was the person who had the sagacity to get women sent as delegates and secure them admission on terms of perfect equality. The amendment was a great triumph. She invited the friends to meet next day at her house, where I saw John Bright's daughter, Mrs. Helen Clark, and Richard Cobden's, Miss Jane Cobden. Both made speeches at the convention, and most fitting it was they should—the daughters of the two leading Radicals of a half century ago.

On Saturday, Mrs. Ford took me to Haworth, the home of the Brontë sisters. It is a bleak enough place now, and must have been even more so forty or fifty years ago when those sensitive plants lived there. A most sad day it was to me, as I looked into the little parlor where the sisters walked up and down with their arms around each other and planned their novels, or sat before the fireplace and built air-castles. Then there were the mouldering tombstones of the graveyard which lies in front and at one side of the house, and the old church-pew, directly over the vault where lay their loved mother and two sisters. And later, when Emily and Anne and the erring brother Branwell had joined the others, poor Charlotte sat there alone. The pew had to be removed every time the vault was opened to receive another occupant. Think of those delicate women sitting in that fireless, mouldy church, listening to their old father's dry, hard theology, with their feet on the cold, carpetless stones which covered their loved dead. It was too horrible! Then I walked over the single stone pathway through the fields toward the moor, opened the same wooden gates, and was, and still continue to be, dipped into the depths of their utter loneliness and sadness, born so out of time and place. How much the world of literature has lost because of their short and ill-environed lives, we can guess only from its increased wealth in spite of all their adverse conditions.

From Leeds I went to Birmingham to attend an Anti-Contagious Diseases Acts conference, and there heard the serene, lovely Josephine E. Butler.

Miss Müller has invited Mrs. Stanton and me to spend the rest of our time with her. Mrs. Lucas and some others are going to Liverpool to say good-by to us. The cordiality, instead of decreasing, grows greater and greater as the day of departure draws near.... I dread stepping on shipboard, but long to set foot upon my native soil again. Only think, I shall have been gone over nine months when I land in New York!

From the diary:

Oct. 13.—Last evening at Mrs. Rose's I met the daughter of Charles Bradlaugh, a talented young woman, whom the college refused to admit to botany lectures because of her father's atheism.

Oct. 18.—At Leeds. Liberal party convention; went this evening to hear John Bright remember to forget to mention the extension of suffrage to women in 1869 and 1870, and the property law for married women in 1882. He did not meet my expectations as a speaker, but far surpasses any other Englishman I have heard. None of them can touch Wendell Phillips.

Oct. 28.—Had a four hours' row on the Thames today with some friends. This evening went to hear Mrs. Annie Besant.

Nov. 2.—Have been out to Basingstoke to see the new baby. Mrs. Mona Caird lunched with us. Have heard Michael Davitt, Mr. Fawcett and Helen Taylor, all masterly speakers.

London, November 6.

My Dear Sister: ... As soon as I finish this scribble I am to have 5 o'clock tea with Frances Power Cobbe. Tomorrow I go shopping, Thursday Millicent Garrett Fawcett is to dine with us, and Mrs. Peter Taylor is to call here, and all are to take "substantial tea" with dear, noble Mrs. Lucas, and then go to hear Henry Fawcett on the political issues. Friday afternoon we receive at Miss Müller's. Saturday morning I leave for Bristol to visit Miss Mary Estlin, Mrs. Tanner and the Misses Priestman, three sisters-in-law of John Bright, who give a reception in my honor. The 12th I visit Margaret E. Parker, at Warrington, and the next afternoon Mrs. Stanton and I both go to Alderley Edge, near Manchester, to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Bright.[18] On the 14th we attend the annual meeting of the Manchester Women's Suffrage Association, and on the 16th go to Liverpool where a reception will be given us in the afternoon. That evening we shall spend at our hotel with the friends who go to see us off, and on the 17th we give ourselves to old ocean's care in the Cunarder Servia.

Don't worry now if you do not hear from me again until I touch Yankee soil; and don't worry if the wind blows or if you learn the vessel is late or lost. If the Servia fail to land me safe and sound, don't repine or stop because I am not, but buckle on a new and stronger harness and do double work for the good cause of woman. You have the best of judgment in our work and are capable of doing much if only you had confidence in yourself, so whatever comes to me, do you be all the more for the less that I am.

Half of Miss Anthony's nine-months' trip abroad had been spent in Great Britain. To her all the other attractions of the old world were as nothing compared with its living, breathing humanity. On the continent she was deprived of any exchange of thought with its people because she spoke no language but her own, and this made her prefer England; but there was another and a stronger interest—the great progressive movement which was going forward in regard to woman. Here she found women of fine intellect and high social position engaged in the same work to which she had given more than thirty years of her own life; and here she met sympathy and recognition which would have been impossible in any other country in Europe. Her central thought in going to Great Britain had been to secure the co-operation of Englishwomen in holding an international suffrage convention. At first her proposition met with no response. The most radical of English women were conservative compared to those of America, but after they had become thoroughly acquainted with Mrs. Stanton and herself and prejudice had been supplanted by confidence, the idea began to be more favorably regarded. One serious difficulty in the way of the proposed convention lay in the fact that the suffrage women of England and Scotland were not themselves in thorough unison as to plans and purposes. No definite action was taken until the last afternoon of their stay, when, at the reception given in their honor by Dr. Ewing Whittle, in Liverpool, with the hearty concurrence of Mrs. McLaren, Mrs. Lucas, Mrs. Scatcherd and Mrs. Parker, who had accompanied Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton to see them safely on board their vessel, a strong committee was formed to promote international organization.

They sailed from Liverpool on the Servia, November 17, 1883. Among their fellow voyagers were Mrs. Cornelia C. Hussey, of Orange, N. J., to whom the cause of woman suffrage and Miss Anthony personally are deeply indebted; and Mrs. Margaret B. Sullivan, of Chicago, the distinguished editorial writer. There was some lovely weather, which was greatly enjoyed, but heavy fogs impeded the ship and it was just ten days from the time of starting when, on November 27, they steamed into New York harbor and stepped again on the shores of loved America.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] The many inquiries and directions in regard to the suffrage work, and the loving messages to friends and relatives at home, are omitted in the extracts made from Miss Anthony's letters; but they are of constant occurrence, and show that these were never absent from her thoughts.

[15] While in Florence, Miss Anthony was entertained by the Countess de Resse, daughter of Elizabeth B. Phelps, of New York, and by the Princess Koltzoff-Massalsky, the distinguished author and artist, known through Europe by her pen-name of Dora d'Istria.

[16] Miss Anthony occupied some rainy days, while here, in wrapping up papers and writing letters which she put in her official envelopes, bearing the revolutionary mottoes, "No just government can be formed without the consent of the governed," "Taxation without representation is tyranny." After a few days a dignified official appeared at the American legation with a large package of mail bearing the proscribed mottoes, and said, "Such sentiments can not pass through the post-office in Germany." So in modest, uncomplaining wraps the letters and papers started again for the land of the free.—E. C. S.

[17]

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE.
A Public Meeting will be held in
ST. JAMES' HALL, PICCADILLY,
Thursday, July 5th, 1883,

In Support of the Resolution to be moved by Mr. Mason in the House of Commons, on July 6th, for extending the Parliamentary Franchise to Women who possess the qualifications which entitle men to Vote.

Doors open at 7. Organ Recital 7 to 8. The Chair will be taken at 8 o'clock by
WILLIAM WOODALL, ESQ., M.P.

Mrs. Fawcett. W. S. Caine, Esq., M.P. Mrs. Oliver Scatcherd.
Dr. Cameron, M.P. Mrs. Fenwick Miller. R. P. Blennerhassett, Esq., M.P.
Miss Tod. Arthur Arnold, Esq., M.P. Miss Eliza Sturge.
J. P. Thomasson, Esq., M.P. Miss Becker. Thos. Roe, Esq., M.P.
Mrs. Beddoe. A. Illingworth, Esq., M.P. J. A. Blake, Esq., M.P.
Mrs. E. Cady Stanton. Miss Müller. W. Summers, Esq., M.P.
Miss Susan B. Anthony. C. H. Hopwood, Esq., M.P. Thos. Burt, Esq., M.P.

Mrs. Ashford, Miss Bewicke, Miss C. A. Biggs, Miss Cobden, Mrs. Cowen, Mrs. Ormiston Chant, Mrs. J. R. Ford, Mrs. Hoggan, M.D., Mrs. Lucas, Miss Frances Lord, Miss Lupton, Mrs. McLaren, Mrs. Paterson, Miss E. Smith, Miss Stacpoole, Mrs. J. P. Thomasson, Miss Laura Waittle, and other Ladies and Gentlemen are expected to be present.

Numbered Sofa Stalls, 2s. 6d. Balcony and Reserved Seats, 1s. Body of the Hall and Gallery Free.

[18] A pleasant letter was received afterwards from Mrs. Bright, in which she made this playful reference to Miss Anthony's always depreciating herself in favor of Mrs. Stanton:

"We have thought of you often and hoped that the wind, which has been rough here, has been tempered on the Atlantic for your sakes. Apropos of the very beautiful allusion you made to Mrs. Cady Stanton's popularity and the effect produced by her personal appearance, I must tell you of a remark made by my little son John immediately after your departure. I found him sitting on the sofa in my bedroom, thinking deeply. 'Mamma,' he said, 'I wish you could get me a photograph of Miss Anthony. I think she has such a fine face. There is something about it so firm and yet so kind.' I said, 'Do you like her better than Mrs. Stanton?' 'Oh dear, yes, much better,' replied Johnnie. So you see she does not monopolize all the admiration!"


CHAPTER XXXIII.

CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS—VISIT TO NEW ORLEANS.

1884-1885.

Most of the newspapers had a welcome for Miss Anthony. In a two-column report in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle she is quoted as saying:

"I can scarcely tell you of the hospitality extended, the dinners, teas and receptions given in our honor. I had no idea we were so well-known in Great Britain or that there was such cordial feeling toward us. Of course, I met chiefly those known as Liberals and the sympathizers with our cause. Public sentiment there is rapidly growing in our favor. In the discussion I heard in Parliament not a Conservative uttered a word against the suffrage already possessed by women but relied upon the hackneyed argument that when married women were included there would be trouble."

"You saw the Queen, I suppose?"

"No; I thought more of seeing the Bright family than the Queen and I never happened to be near where she was. I really had very little leisure to look around. I am ashamed to say I did not visit Westminster until the morning before I came away, but it was simply for lack of time. The social idea was of more importance to me."

The New York Evening Telegram said editorially: "The statement of Miss Susan B. Anthony, in another column, illustrates the superb determination of that champion of woman's political rights. In the struggle which has constituted her life-work she has the rare advantage of not being able to comprehend defeat. Battling under the inspiration of an enthusiast—of a fanatic, some may be disposed to say—she knows no such word as fail. The most disheartening reverses appear to her inspired imagination but steps in an undeviating march of progress. It was enthusiasm such as this that made the career of Joan of Arc. Without it, not even the broad intellect and strong soul of Miss Anthony could sustain the burden of the struggle which she is called upon to lead." The Washington correspondent of the Cleveland Leader thus began a long interview:

Susan B. Anthony is back from Europe, and is here for the winter's fight in behalf of woman suffrage. She seems remarkably well, and has gained fifteen pounds since she left last spring. She is sixty-three, but looks just the same as twenty years ago. There is perhaps an extra wrinkle in her face, a little more silver in her hair, but her blue eyes are just as bright, her mouth as serious and her step as active as when she was forty. She would attract attention in any crowd. She is of medium height and medium form but her face is wonderfully intellectual, and she moves about like the woman of a purpose that she is. She says she experiences far different treatment by public men now from what she did years ago. The statesman of the past always came to her with a smirk on his face as though he considered woman's rights nonsensical and thought himself wonderfully condescending to take notice of her at all. "Now," says she, "public men look upon our mission as a matter of business, and we are considered from that standpoint."

The interview closed: