from the University of Upsala, wearing white uni- versity caps with black vizors, and sashes in the university colors. The anthem was composed es- pecially for the occasion by the first woman cathe- dral organist in Sweden–the organist of the cathe- dral in Gothenburg–and she had brought with her thirty members of her choir, all of them remarkable singers.
The whole occasion was indescribably impressive, and I realized in every fiber the necessity of being worthy of it. Also, I experienced a sensation such as I had never known before, and which I can only describe as a seeming complete separation of my physical self from my spiritual self. It was as if my body stood aside and watched my soul enter that pulpit. There was no uncertainty, no nervousness, though usually I am very nervous when I begin to speak; and when I had finished I knew that I had done my best.
But all this is a long way from the early days I was discussing, when I was making my first diffident bows to lecture audiences and learning the lessons of the pioneer in the lecture-field. I was soon to learn more, for in 1888 Miss Anthony persuaded me to drop my temperance work and concentrate my energies on the suffrage cause. For a long time I hesitated. I was very happy in my connection with the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and I knew that Miss Willard was depending on me to continue it. But Miss Anthony’s arguments were irrefutable, and she was herself, as always, irresistible.
“You can’t win two causes at once,” she reminded me. “You’re merely scattering your energies. Be- gin at the beginning. Win suffrage for women, and the rest will follow.” As an added argument, she took me with her on her Kansas campaign, and after that no further arguments were needed. From then until her death, eighteen years later, Miss Anthony and I worked shoulder to shoulder.
The most interesting lecture episode of our first Kansas campaign was my debate with Senator John J. Ingalls. Before this, however, on our arrival at Atchison, Mrs. Ingalls gave a luncheon for Miss Anthony, and Rachel Foster Avery and I were also invited. Miss Anthony sat at the right of Senator Ingalls, and I at his left, while Mrs. Ingalls, of course, adorned the opposite end of her table. Mrs. Avery and I had just been entertained for several days at the home of a vegetarian friend who did not know how to cook vegetables, and we were both half starved. When we were invited to the Ingalls home we had uttered in unison a joyous cry, “Now we shall have something to eat!” At the luncheon, however, Senator Ingalls kept Miss Anthony and me talking steadily. He was not in favor of suffrage for women, but he wished to know all sorts of things about the Cause, and we were anxious to have him know them. The result was that I had time for only an occasional mouthful, while down at the end of the table Mrs. Avery ate and ate, pausing only to send me glances of heartfelt sympathy. Also, whenever she had an especially toothsome morsel on the end of her fork she wickedly succeeded in catching my eye and thus adding the last sybaritic touch to her enjoyment.
Notwithstanding the wealth of knowledge we had bestowed upon him, or perhaps because of it, the following night Senator Ingalls made his famous speech against suffrage, and it fell to my lot to answer him. In the course of his remarks he asked this question: “Would you like to add three million illiterate voters to the large body of illiterate voters we have in America to-day?” The audience ap- plauded light-heartedly, but I was disturbed by the sophistry of the question. One of Senator Ingalls’s most discussed personal peculiarities was the parting of his hair in the middle. Cartoonists and news- paper writers always made much of this, so when I rose to reply I felt justified in mentioning it.
“Senator Ingalls,” I began, “parts his hair in the middle, as we all know, but he makes up for it by parting his figures on one side. Last night he gave you the short side of his figures. At the present time there are in the United States about eighteen million women of voting age. When the Senator asked whether you wanted three million additional illiterate women voters, he forgot to ask also if you didn’t want fifteen million additional intelligent women voters! We will grant that it will take the votes of three million intelligent women to wipe out the votes of three million illiterate women. But don’t forget that that would still leave us twelve million intelligent votes to the good!”
The audience applauded as gaily as it had ap- plauded Senator Ingalls when he spoke on the other side, and I continued:
“Now women have always been generous to men. So of our twelve million intelligent voters we will offer four million to offset the votes of the four million illiterate men in this country–and then we will still have eight million intelligent votes to add to the other intelligent votes which are cast.” The audience seemed to enjoy this.
“The anti-suffragists are fairly safe,” I ended, “as long as they remain on the plane of prophecy. But as soon as they tackle mathematics they get into trouble!”
Miss Anthony was much pleased by the wide publicity given to this debate, but Senator Ingalls failed to share her enthusiasm.
It was shortly after this encounter that I had two traveling experiences which nearly cost me my life. One of them occurred in Ohio at the time of a spring freshet. I know of no state that can cover itself with water as completely as Ohio can, and for no apparent reason. On this occasion it was break- ing its own record. We had driven twenty miles across country in a buggy which was barely out of the water, and behind horses that at times were almost forced to swim, and when we got near the town where I was to lecture, though still on the opposite side of the river from it, we discovered that the bridge was gone. We had a good view of the town, situated high and dry on a steep bank; but the river which rolled between us and that town was a roaring, boiling stream, and the only possible way to cross it, I found, was to walk over a railroad trestle, already trembling under the force of the water.
There were hundreds of men on the river-bank watching the flood, and when they saw me start out on the empty trestle they set up a cheer that nearly threw me off. The river was wide and the ties far apart, and the roar of the stream below was far from reassuring; but in some way I reached the other side, and was there helped off the trestle by what the newspapers called “strong and willing hands.”
Another time, in a desperate resolve to meet a lecture engagement, I walked across the railroad trestle at Elmira, New York, and when I was half- way over I heard shouts of warning to turn back, as a train was coming. The trestle was very high at that point, and I realized that if I turned and faced an oncoming train I would undoubtedly lose my nerve and fall. So I kept on, as rapidly as I could, accompanied by the shrieks of those who objected to witnessing a violent death, and I reached the end of the trestle just as an express-train thundered on the beginning of it. The next instant a policeman had me by the shoulders and was shaking me as if I had been a bad child.
“If you ever do such a thing again,” he thundered, “I’ll lock you up!”
As soon as I could speak I assured him fervently that I never would; one such experience was all I desired.
Occasionally a flash of humor, conscious or un- conscious, lit up the gloom of a trying situation. Thus, in Parkersburg, West Virginia, the train I was on ran into a coal-car. I was sitting in a sleep- er, leaning back comfortably with my feet on the seat in front of me, and the force of the collision lifted me up, turned me completely over, and deposited me, head first, two seats beyond. On every side I heard cries and the crash of human bodies against unyielding substances as my fellow-passengers flew through the air, while high and clear above the tumult rang the voice of the conductor:
“Keep your seats!” he yelled. “KEEP YOUR SEATS!”
Nobody in our car was seriously hurt; but, so great is the power of vested authority, no one smiled over that order but me.
Many times my medical experience was useful. Once I was on a train which ran into a buggy and killed the woman in it. Her little daughter, who was with her, was badly hurt, and when the train had stopped the crew lifted the dead woman and the injured child on board, to take them to the next station. As I was the only doctor among the pas- sengers, the child was turned over to me. I made up a bed on the seats and put the little patient there, but no woman in the car was able to assist me. The tragedy had made them hysterical, and on every side they were weeping and nerveless. The men were willing but inefficient, with the exception of one un- couth woodsman whose trousers were tucked into his boots and whose hands were phenomenally big and awkward. But they were also very gentle, as I realized when he began to help me. I knew at once that he was the man I needed, notwithstanding his unkempt hair, his general ungainliness, the hat he wore on the back of his head, and the pink carnation in his buttonhole, which, by its very in- congruity, added the final accent to his unprepossess- ing appearance. Together we worked over the child, making it as comfortable as we could. It was hard- ly necessary to tell my aide what I wanted done; he seemed to know and even to anticipate my efforts.
When we reached the next station the dead woman was taken out and laid on the platform, and a nurse and doctor who had been telegraphed for were wait- ing to care for the little girl. She was conscious by this time, and with the most exquisite gentleness my rustic Bayard lifted her in his arms to carry her off the train. Quite unnecessarily I motioned to him not to let her see her dead mother. He was not the sort who needed that warning; he had already turned her face to his shoulder, and, with head bent low above her, was safely skirting the spot where the long, covered figure lay.
Evidently the station was his destination, too, for he remained there; but just as the train pulled out he came hurrying to my window, took the car- nation from his buttonhole, and without a word handed it to me. And after the tragic hour in which I had learned to know him the crushed flower, from that man, seemed the best fee I had ever received.
IX
“AUNT SUSAN”
In The Life of Susan B. Anthony it is mentioned that 1888 was a year of special recognition of our great leader’s work, but that it was also the year in which many of her closest friends and strongest supporters were taken from her by death. A. Bron- son Alcott was among these, and Louisa M. Alcott, as well as Dr. Lozier; and special stress is laid on Miss Anthony’s sense of loss in the diminishing circle of her friends–a loss which new friends and workers came forward, eager to supply.
“Chief among these,” adds the record, “was Anna Shaw, who, from the time of the International Coun- cil in ’88, gave her truest allegiance to Miss An- thony.”
It is true that from that year until Miss Anthony’s death in 1906 we two were rarely separated; and I never read the paragraph I have just quoted with- out seeing, as in a vision, the figure of “Aunt Susan” as she slipped into my hotel room in Chicago late one night after an evening meeting of the Inter- national Council. I had gone to bed–indeed, I was almost asleep when she came, for the day had been as exhausting as it was interesting. But notwith- standing the lateness of the hour, “Aunt Susan,” then nearing seventy, was still as fresh and as full of enthusiasm as a young girl. She had a great deal to say, she declared, and she proceeded to say it– sitting in a big easy-chair near the bed, with a rug around her knees, while I propped myself up with pillows and listened.
Hours passed and the dawn peered wanly through the windows, but still Miss Anthony talked of the Cause always of the Cause–and of what we two must do for it. The previous evening she had been too busy to eat any dinner, and I greatly doubt whether she had eaten any luncheon at noon. She had been on her feet for hours at a time, and she had held numerous discussions with other women she wished to inspire to special effort. Yet, after it all, here she was laying out our campaigns for years ahead, foreseeing everything, forgetting nothing, and sweeping me with her in her flight toward our com- mon goal, until I, who am not easily carried off my feet, experienced an almost dizzy sense of exhilara- tion.
Suddenly she stopped, looked at the gas-jets paling in the morning light that filled the room, and for a fleeting instant seemed surprised. In the next she had dismissed from her mind the realization that we had talked all night. Why should we not talk all night? It was part of our work. She threw off the enveloping rug and rose.
“I must dress now,” she said, briskly. “I’ve called a committee meeting before the morning session.”
On her way to the door nature smote her with a rare reminder, but even then she did not realize that it was personal. “Perhaps,” she remarked, tenta- tively, “you ought to have a cup of coffee.”
That was “Aunt Susan.” And in the eighteen years which followed I had daily illustrations of her superiority to purely human weaknesses. To her the hardships we underwent later, in our Western campaigns for woman suffrage, were as the airiest trifles. Like a true soldier, she could snatch a mo- ment of sleep or a mouthful of food where she found it, and if either was not forthcoming she did not miss it. To me she was an unceasing inspira- tion–the torch that illumined my life. We went through some difficult years together–years when we fought hard for each inch of headway we gained –but I found full compensation for every effort in the glory of working with her for the Cause that was first in both our hearts, and in the happiness of being her friend. Later I shall describe in more detail the suffrage campaigns and the National and Inter- national councils in which we took part; now it is of her I wish to write–of her bigness, her many- sidedness, her humor, her courage, her quickness, her sympathy, her understanding, her force, her supreme common-sense, her selflessness; in short, of the rare beauty of her nature as I learned to know it.
Like most great leaders, she took one’s best work for granted, and was chary with her praise; and even when praise was given it usually came by indirect routes. I recall with amusement that the highest compliment she ever paid me in public involved her in a tangle from which, later, only her quick wit extricated her. We were lecturing in an especially pious town which I shall call B—-, and just before I went on the platform Miss Anthony remarked, peacefully:
“These people have always claimed that I am ir- religious. They will not accept the fact that I am a Quaker–or, rather, they seem to think a Quaker is an infidel. I am glad you are a Methodist, for now they cannot claim that we are not orthodox.”
She was still enveloped in the comfort of this re- flection when she introduced me to our audience, and to impress my qualifications upon my hearers she made her introduction in these words:
“It is a pleasure to introduce Miss Shaw, who is a Methodist minister. And she is not only ortho- dox of the orthodox, but she is also my right bower!”
There was a gasp from the pious audience, and then a roar of laughter from irreverent men, in which, I must confess, I light-heartedly joined. For once in her life Miss Anthony lost her presence of mind; she did not know how to meet the situation, for she had no idea what had caused the laughter. It bubbled forth again and again during the eve- ning, and each time Miss Anthony received the dem- onstration with the same air of puzzled surprise. When we had returned to our hotel rooms I explained the matter to her. I do not remember now where I had acquired my own sinful knowledge, but that night I faced “Aunt Susan” from the pedestal of a sophisticated worldling.
“Don’t you know what a right bower is?” I de- manded, sternly.
“Of course I do,” insisted “Aunt Susan.” “It’s a right-hand man–the kind one can’t do without.”
“It is a card,” I told her, firmly–“a leading card in a game called euchre.”
“Aunt Susan” was dazed. “I didn’t know it had anything to do with cards,” she mused, mournfully. “What must they think of me?”
What they thought became quite evident. The newspapers made countless jokes at our expense, and there were significant smiles on the faces in the audience that awaited us the next night. When Miss Anthony walked upon the platform she at once proceeded to clear herself of the tacit charge against her.
“When I came to your town,” she began, cheer- fully, “I had been warned that you were a very religious lot of people. I wanted to impress upon you the fact that Miss Shaw and I are religious, too. But I admit that when I told you she was my right bower I did not know what a right bower was. I have learned that, since last night.”
She waited until the happy chortles of her hearers had subsided, and then went on.
“It interests me very much, however,” she con- cluded, “to realize that every one of you seemed to know all about a right bower, and that I had to come to your good, orthodox town to get the informa- tion.”
That time the joke was on the audience. Miss Anthony’s home was in Rochester, New York, and it was said by our friends that on the rare occasions when we were not together, and I was lecturing independently, “all return roads led through Rochester.” I invariably found some ex- cuse to go there and report to her. Together we must have worn out many Rochester pavements, for “Aunt Susan’s” pet recreation was walking, and she used to walk me round and round the city squares, far into the night, and at a pace that made policemen gape at us as we flew by. Some dis- respectful youth once remarked that on these oc- casions we suggested a race between a ruler and a rubber ball–for she was very tall and thin, while I am short and plump. To keep up with her I literally bounded at her side.
A certain amount of independent lecturing was necessary for me, for I had to earn my living. The National American Woman Suffrage Association has never paid salaries to its officers, so, when I be- came vice-president and eventually, in 1904, presi- dent of the association, I continued to work gratui- tously for the Cause in these positions. Even Miss Anthony received not one penny of salary for all her years of unceasing labor, and she was so poor that she did not have a home of her own until she was seventy-five. Then it was a very simple one, and she lived with the utmost economy. I decided that I could earn my bare expenses by making one brief lecture tour each year, and I made an arrange- ment with the Redpath Bureau which left me fully two-thirds of my time for the suffrage work I loved.
This was one result of my all-night talk with Miss Anthony in Chicago, and it enabled me to carry out her plan that I should accompany her in most of the campaigns in which she sought to arouse the West to the need of suffrage for women. From that time on we traveled and lectured together so con- stantly that each of us developed an almost uncanny knowledge of the other’s mental processes. At any point of either’s lecture the other could pick it up and carry it on–a fortunate condition, as it some- times became necessary to do this. Miss Anthony was subject to contractions of the throat, which for the moment caused a slight strangulation. On such occasions–of which there were several–she would turn to me and indicate her helplessness. Then I would repeat her last sentence, complete her speech, and afterward make my own.
The first time this happened we were in Washing- ton, and “Aunt Susan” stopped in the middle of a word. She could not speak; she merely motioned to me to continue for her, and left the stage. At the end of the evening a prominent Washington man who had been in our audience remarked to me, con- fidentially:
“That was a nice little play you and Miss An- thony made to-night–very effective indeed.”
For an instant I did not catch his meaning, nor the implication in his knowing smile.
“Very clever, that strangling bit, and your going on with the speech,” he repeated. “It hit the au- dience hard.”
“Surely,” I protested, “you don’t think it was a deliberate thing–that we planned or rehearsed it.”
He stared at me incredulously. “Are you going to pretend,” he demanded, “that it wasn’t a put-up job?”
I told him he had paid us a high compliment, and that we must really have done very well if we had conveyed that impression; and I finally convinced him that we not only had not rehearsed the episode, but that neither of us had known what the other meant to say. We never wrote out our speeches, but our subject was always suffrage or some ramifica- tion of suffrage, and, naturally, we had thoroughly digested each other’s views.
It is said by my friends that I write my speeches on the tips of my fingers–for I always make my points on my fingers and have my fingers named for points. When I plan a speech I decide how many points I wish to make and what those points shall be. My mental preparation follows. Miss An- thony’s method was much the same; but very fre- quently both of us threw over all our plans at the last moment and spoke extemporaneously on some theme suggested by the atmosphere of the gathering or by the words of another speaker.
From Miss Anthony, more than from any one else, I learned to keep cool in the face of interruptions and of the small annoyances and disasters inevitable in campaigning. Often we were able to help each other out of embarrassing situations, and one incident of this kind occurred during our campaign in South Dakota. We were holding a meeting on the hottest Sunday of the hottest month in the year–August– and hundreds of the natives had driven twenty, thirty, and even forty miles across the country to hear us. We were to speak in a sod church, but it was discovered that the structure would not hold half the people who were trying to enter it, so we decided that Miss Anthony should speak from the door, in order that those both inside and outside might hear her. To elevate her above her audience, she was given an empty dry-goods box to stand on.
This makeshift platform was not large, and men, women, and children were seated on the ground around it, pressing up against it, as close to the speaker as they could get. Directly in front of Miss Anthony sat a woman with a child about two years old–a little boy; and this infant, like every one else in the packed throng, was dripping with perspiration and suffering acutely under the blazing sun. Every woman present seemed to have brought children with her, doubtless because she could not leave them alone at home; and babies were crying and fretting on all sides. The infant nearest Miss Anthony fretted most strenuously; he was a sturdy little fellow with a fine pair of lungs, and he made it very difficult for her to lift her voice above his dismal clamor. Sud- denly, however, he discovered her feet on the dry- goods box, about on a level with his head. They were clad in black stockings and low shoes; they moved about oddly; they fascinated him. With a yelp of interest he grabbed for them and began pinching them to see what they were. His howls ceased; he was happy.
Miss Anthony was not. But it was a great relief to have the child quiet, so she bore the infliction of the pinching as long as she could. When endurance had found its limit she slipped back out of reach, and as his new plaything receded the boy uttered shrieks of disapproval. There was only one way to stop his noise; Miss Anthony brought her feet for- ward again, and he resumed the pinching of her ankles, while his yelps subsided to contented mur- murs. The performance was repeated half a dozen times. Each time the ankles retreated the baby yelled. Finally, for once at the end of her patience, “Aunt Susan” leaned forward and addressed the mother, whose facial expression throughout had shown a complete mental detachment from the situa- tion.
“I think your little boy is hot and thirsty,” she said, gently. “If you would take him out of the crowd and give him a drink of water and unfasten his clothes, I am sure he would be more comfortable.” Before she had finished speaking the woman had sprung to her feet and was facing her with fierce indignation.
“This is the first time I have ever been insulted as a mother,” she cried; “and by an old maid at that!” Then she grasped the infant and left the scene, amid great confusion. The majority of those in the audience seemed to sympathize with her. They had not seen the episode of the feet, and they thought Miss Anthony was complaining of the child’s crying. Their children were crying, too, and they felt that they had all been criticized. Other women rose and followed the irate mother, and many men gallantly followed them. It seemed clear that motherhood had been outraged.
Miss Anthony was greatly depressed by the epi- sode, and she was not comforted by a prediction one man made after the meeting.
“You’ve lost at least twenty votes by that little affair,” he told her.
“Aunt Susan” sighed. “Well,” she said, “if those men knew how my ankles felt I would have won twenty votes by enduring the torture as long as I did.”
The next day we had a second meeting. Miss Anthony made her speech early in the evening, and by the time it was my turn to begin all the children in the audience–and there were many–were both tired and sleepy. At least half a dozen of them were crying, and I had to shout to make my voice heard above their uproar. Miss Anthony remarked afterward that there seemed to be a contest between me and the infants to see which of us could make more noise. The audience was plainly getting rest- less under the combined effect, and finally a man in the rear rose and added his voice to the tumult.
“Say, Miss Shaw,” he yelled, “don’t you want these children put out?”
It was our chance to remove the sad impression of yesterday, and I grasped it.
“No, indeed,” I yelled back. “Nothing inspires me like the voice of a child!”
A handsome round of applause from mothers and fathers greeted this noble declaration, after which the blessed babies and I resumed our joint vocal efforts. When the speech was finished and we were alone together, Miss Anthony put her arm around my shoulder and drew me to her side.
“Well, Anna,” she said, gratefully, “you’ve cer- tainly evened us up on motherhood this time.”
That South Dakota campaign was one of the most difficult we ever made. It extended over nine months; and it is impossible to describe the poverty which prevailed throughout the whole rural com- munity of the State. There had been three con- secutive years of drought. The sand was like pow- der, so deep that the wheels of the wagons in which we rode “across country” sank half-way to the hubs; and in the midst of this dry powder lay with- ered tangles that had once been grass. Every one had the forsaken, desperate look worn by the pioneer who has reached the limit of his endurance, and the great stretches of prairie roads showed innumerable canvas-covered wagons, drawn by starved horses, and followed by starved cows, on their way “Back East.” Our talks with the despairing drivers of these wagons are among my most tragic memories. They had lost everything except what they had with them, and they were going East to leave “the wom- an” with her father and try to find work. Usually, with a look of disgust at his wife, the man would say: “I wanted to leave two years ago, but the woman kept saying, `Hold on a little longer.’ ”
Both Miss Anthony and I gloried in the spirit of these pioneer women, and lost no opportunity to tell them so; for we realized what our nation owes to the patience and courage of such as they were. We often asked them what was the hardest thing to bear in their pioneer life, and we usually received the same reply:
“To sit in our little adobe or sod houses at night and listen to the wolves howl over the graves of our babies. For the howl of the wolf is like the cry of a child from the grave.”
Many days, and in all kinds of weather, we rode forty and fifty miles in uncovered wagons. Many nights we shared a one-room cabin with all the mem- bers of the family. But the greatest hardship we suffered was the lack of water. There was very little good water in the state, and the purest water was so brackish that we could hardly drink it. The more we drank the thirstier we became, and when the water was made into tea it tasted worse than when it was clear. A bath was the rarest of luxuries. The only available fuel was buffalo manure, of which the odor permeated all our food. But despite these handicaps we were happy in our work, for we had some great meetings and many wonderful experiences.
When we reached the Black Hills we had more of this genuine campaigning. We traveled over the mountains in wagons, behind teams of horses, visit- ing the mining-camps; and often the gullies were so deep that when our horses got into them it was al- most impossible to get them out. I recall with special clearness one ride from Hill City to Custer City. It was only a matter of thirty miles, but it was thoroughly exhausting; and after our meeting that same night we had to drive forty miles farther over the mountains to get the early morning train from Buffalo Gap. The trail from Custer City to Buffalo Gap was the one the animals had originally made in their journeys over the pass, and the drive in that wild region, throughout a cold, piercing October night, was an unforgetable experience. Our host at Custer City lent Miss Anthony his big buffalo over- coat, and his wife lent hers to me. They also heated blocks of wood for our feet, and with these pro- tections we started. A full moon hung in the sky. The trees were covered with hoar-frost, and the cold, still air seemed to sparkle in the brilliant light. Again Miss Anthony talked to me throughout the night–of the work, always of the work, and of what it would mean to the women who followed us; and again she fired my soul with the flame that burned so steadily in her own.
It was daylight when we reached the little sta- tion at Buffalo Gap where we were to take the train. This was not due, however, for half an hour, and even then it did not come. The station was only large enough to hold the stove, the ticket-office, and the inevitable cuspidor. There was barely room in which to walk between these and the wall. Miss Anthony sat down on the floor. I had a few raisins in my bag, and we divided them for breakfast. An hour passed, and another, and still the train did not come. Miss Anthony, her back braced against the wall, buried her face in her hands and dropped into a peaceful abyss of slumber, while I walked restlessly up and down the platform. The train arrived four hours late, and when eventually we had reached our destination we learned that the min- isters of the town had persuaded the women to give up the suffrage meeting scheduled for that night, as it was Sunday.
This disappointment, following our all-day and all-night drive to keep our appointment, aroused Miss Anthony’s fighting spirit. She sent me out to rent the theater for the evening, and to have some hand-bills printed and distributed, announcing that we would speak. At three o’clock she made the concession to her seventy years of lying down for an hour’s rest. I was young and vigorous, so I trotted around town to get somebody to preside, somebody to introduce us, somebody to take up the collection, and somebody who would provide music–in short, to make all our preparations for the night meeting.
When evening came the crowd which had assem- bled was so great that men and women sat in the windows and on the stage, and stood in the flies. Night attractions were rare in that Dakota town, and here was something new. Nobody went to church, so the churches were forced to close. We had a glorious meeting. Both Miss Anthony and I were in excellent fighting trim, and Miss Anthony remarked that the only thing lacking to make me do my best was a sick headache. The collection we took up paid all our expenses, the church singers sang for us, the great audience was interested, and the whole occasion was an inspiring success.
The meeting ended about half after ten o’clock, and I remember taking Miss Anthony to our hotel and escorting her to her room. I also remember that she followed me to the door and made some laughing remark as I left for my own room; but I recall nothing more until the next morning when she stood beside me telling me it was time for break- fast. She had found me lying on the cover of my bed, fully clothed even to my bonnet and shoes. I had fallen there, utterly exhausted, when I entered my room the night before, and I do not think I had even moved from that time until the moment– nine hours later–when I heard her voice and felt her hand on my shoulder.
After all our work, we did not win Dakota that year, but Miss Anthony bore the disappointment with the serenity she always showed. To her a failure was merely another opportunity, and I men- tion our experience here only to show of what she was capable in her gallant seventies. But I should misrepresent her if I did not show her human and sentimental side as well. With all her detachment from human needs she had emotional moments, and of these the most satisfying came when she was listening to music. She knew nothing whatever about music, but was deeply moved by it; and I re- member vividly one occasion when Nordica sang for her, at an afternoon reception given by a Chicago friend in “Aunt Susan’s” honor. As it happened, she had never heard Nordica sing until that day; and before the music began the great artiste and the great leader met, and in the moment of meeting became friends. When Nordica sang, half an hour later, she sang directly to Miss Anthony, looking into her eyes; and “Aunt Susan” listened with her own eyes full of tears. When the last notes had been sung she went to the singer and put both arms around her. The music had carried her back to her girlhood and to the sentiment of sixteen.
“Oh, Nordica,” she sighed, “I could die listening to such singing!”
Another example of her unquenchable youth has also a Chicago setting. During the World’s Fair a certain clergyman made an especially violent stand in favor of closing the Fair grounds on Sunday. Miss Anthony took issue with him.
“If I had charge of a young man in Chicago at this time,” she told the clergyman, “I would much rather have him locked inside the Fair grounds on Sunday or any other day than have him going about on the outside.”
The clergyman was horrified. “Would you like to have a son of yours go to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show on Sunday?” he demanded.
“Of course I would,” admitted Miss Anthony. “In fact, I think he would learn more there than from the sermons preached in some churches.”
Later this remark was repeated to Colonel Cody (“Buffalo Bill”), who, of course, was delighted with it. He at once wrote to Miss Anthony, thanking her for the breadth of her views, and offering her a box for his “Show.” She had no strong desire to see the performance, but some of us urged her to accept the invitation and to take us with her. She was always ready to do anything that would give us pleasure, so she promised that we should go the next afternoon. Others heard of the jaunt and begged to go also, and Miss Anthony blithely took every applicant under her wing, with the result that when we arrived at the box-office the next day there were twelve of us in the group. When she presented her note and asked for a box, the local manager looked doubtfully at the delegation.
“A box only holds six,” he objected, logically. Miss Anthony, who had given no thought to that slight detail, looked us over and smiled her seraphic smile.
“Why, in that case,” she said, cheerfully, “you’ll have to give us two boxes, won’t you?”
The amused manager decided that he would, and handed her the tickets; and she led her band to their places in triumph. When the performance be- gan Colonel Cody, as was his custom, entered the arena from the far end of the building, riding his wonderful horse and bathed, of course, in the efful- gence of his faithful spot-light. He rode directly to our boxes, reined his horse in front of Miss An- thony, rose in his stirrups, and with his characteris- tic gesture swept his slouch-hat to his saddle-bow in salutation. “Aunt Susan” immediately rose, bowed in her turn and, for the moment as enthusiastic as a girl, waved her handkerchief at him, while the big audience, catching the spirit of the scene, wildly applauded. It was a striking picture this meeting of the pioneer man and woman; and, poor as I am, I would give a hundred dollars for a snapshot of it.
On many occasions I saw instances of Miss An- thony’s prescience–and one of these was connected with the death of Frances E. Willard. “Aunt Susan” had called on Miss Willard, and, coming to me from the sick-room, had walked the floor, beating her hands together as she talked of the visit.
“Frances Willard is dying,” she exclaimed, pas- sionately. “She is dying, and she doesn’t know it, and no one around her realizes it. She is lying there, seeing into two worlds, and making more plans than a thousand women could carry out in ten years. Her brain is wonderful. She has the most extraor- dinary clearness of vision. There should be a stenog- rapher in that room, and every word she utters should be taken down, for every word is golden. But they don’t understand. They can’t realize that she is going. I told Anna Gordon the truth, but she won’t believe it.”
Miss Willard died a few days later, with a sudden- ness which seemed to be a terrible shock to those around her.
Of “Aunt Susan’s” really remarkable lack of self- consciousness we who worked close to her had a thousand extraordinary examples. Once, I remem- ber, at the New Orleans Convention, she reached the hall a little late, and as she entered the great audience already assembled gave her a tremendous reception. The exercises of the day had not yet begun, and Miss Anthony stopped short and looked around for an explanation of the outburst. It never for a moment occurred to her that the tribute was to her.
“What has happened, Anna?” she asked at last.
“You happened, Aunt Susan,” I had to explain.
Again, on the great “College Night” of the Balti- more Convention, when President M. Carey Thomas of Bryn Mawr College had finished her wonderful tribute to Miss Anthony, the audience, carried away by the speech and also by the presence of the vener- able leader on the platform, broke into a whirlwind of applause. In this “Aunt Susan” artlessly joined, clapping her hands as hard as she could. “This is all for you, Aunt Susan,” I whispered, “so it isn’t your time to applaud.”
“Aunt Susan” continued to clap. “Nonsense,” she said, briskly. “It’s not for me. It’s for the Cause–the Cause!”
Miss Anthony told me in 1904 that she regarded her reception in Berlin, during the meeting of the International Council of Women that year, as the climax of her career. She said it after the unex- pected and wonderful ovation she had received from the German people, and certainly throughout her inspiring life nothing had happened that moved her more deeply.
For some time Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, of whose splendid work for the Cause I shall later have more to say, had cherished the plan of forming an International Suffrage Alliance. She believed the time had come when the suffragists of the entire world could meet to their common benefit; and Miss Anthony, always Mrs. Catt’s devoted friend and ad- mirer, agreed with her. A committee was appointed to meet in Berlin in 1904, just before the meeting of the International Council of Women, and Miss Anthony was appointed chairman of the committee. At first the plan of the committee was not welcomed by the International Council; there was even a sus- picion that its purpose was to start a rival organiza- tion. But it met, a constitution was framed, and officers were elected, Mrs. Catt–the ideal choice for the place–being made president. As a climax to the organization, a great public mass-meeting had been arranged by the German suffragists, but at the special plea of the president of the International Council Miss Anthony remained away from this meeting. It was represented to her that the in- terests of the Council might suffer if she and other of its leading speakers were also leaders in the suf- frage movement. In the interest of harmony, there fore, she followed the wishes of the Council’s presi- dent–to my great unhappiness and to that of other suffragists.
When the meeting was opened the first words of the presiding officer were, “Where is Susan B. An- thony?” and the demonstration that followed the question was the most unexpected and overwhelm- ing incident of the gathering. The entire audience rose, men jumped on their chairs, and the cheering continued without a break for ten minutes. Every second of that time I seemed to see Miss Anthony, alone in her hotel room, longing with all her big heart to be with us, as we longed to have her. I prayed that the loss of a tribute which would have meant so much might be made up to her, and it was. Afterward, when we burst in upon her and told her of the great demonstration the mere mention of her name had caused, her lips quivered and her brave old eyes filled with tears. As we looked at her I think we all realized anew that what the world called stoicism in Susan B. Anthony throughout the years of her long struggle had been, instead, the splendid courage of an indomitable soul–while all the time the woman’s heart had longed for affection and recognition. The next morning the leading Berlin newspaper, in reporting the debate and describing the spontaneous tribute to Miss Anthony, closed with these sentences: “The Americans call her `Aunt Susan.’ She is our `Aunt Susan,’ too!”
Throughout the remainder of Miss Anthony’s visit she was the most honored figure at the Inter- national Council. Every time she entered the great convention-hall the entire audience rose and re- mained standing until she was seated; each mention of her name was punctuated by cheers; and the en- thusiasm when she appeared on the platform to say a few words was beyond bounds. When the Em- press of Germany gave her reception to the officers of the Council, she crowned the hospitality of her people in a characteristically gracious way. As soon as Miss Anthony was presented to her the Empress invited her to be seated, and to remain seated, al- though every one else, including the august lady herself, was standing. A little later, seeing the in- trepid warrior of eighty-four on her feet with the other delegates, the Empress sent one of her aides across the room with this message: “Please tell my friend Miss Anthony that I especially wish her to be seated. We must not let her grow weary.”
In her turn, Miss Anthony was fascinated by the Empress. She could not keep her eyes off that charming royal lady. Probably the thing that most impressed her was the ability of her Majesty as a linguist. Receiving women from every civilized country on the globe, the Empress seemed to address each in her own tongue-slipping from one language into the next as easily as from one topic to another.
“And here I am,” mourned “Aunt Susan,” “speak- ing only one language, and that not very well.”
At this Berlin quinquennial, by the way, I preached the Council sermon, and the occasion gained a cer- tain interest from the fact that I was the first or- dained woman to preach in a church in Germany. It then took on a tinge of humor from the additional fact that, according to the German law, as suddenly revealed to us by the police, no clergyman was per- mitted to preach unless clothed in clerical robes in the pulpit. It happened that I had not taken my clerical robes with me–I am constantly forgetting those clerical robes!–so the pastor of the church kindly offered me his robes.
Now the pastor was six feet tall and broad in pro- portion, and I, as I have already confessed, am very short. His robes transformed me into such an absurd caricature of a preacher that it was quite impossible for me to wear them. What, then, were we to do? Lacking clerical robes, the police would not allow me to utter six words. It was finally decided that the clergyman should meet the letter of the law by entering the pulpit in his robes and standing by my side while I delivered my sermon. The law soberly accepted this solution of the problem, and we offered the congregation the extraordinary tableau of a pulpit combining a large and impressive pastor standing silently beside a small and inwardly con- vulsed woman who had all she could do to deliver her sermon with the solemnity the occasion re- quired.
At this same conference I made one of the few friendships I enjoy with a member of a European royal family, for I met the Princess Blank of Italy, who overwhelmed me with attention during my visit, and from whom I still receive charming letters. She invited me to visit her in her castle in Italy, and to accompany her to her mother’s castle in Austria, and she finally insisted on knowing exactly why I persistently refused both invitations.
“Because, my dear Princess,” I explained, “I am a working-woman.”
“Nobody need KNOW that,” murmured the Princess, calmly.
“On the contrary,” I assured her, “it is the first thing I should explain.”
“But why?” the Princess wanted to know.
I studied her in silence for a moment. She was a new and interesting type to me, and I was glad to exchange viewpoints with her.
“You are proud of your family, are you not?” I asked. “You are proud of your great line?”
The Princess drew herself up. “Assuredly,” she said.
“Very well,” I continued. “I am proud, too. What I have done I have done unaided, and, to be frank with you, I rather approve of it. My work is my patent of nobility, and I am not willing to associate with those from whom it would have to be concealed or with those who would look down upon it.”
The Princess sighed. I was a new type to her, too, as new as she was to me; but I had the ad- vantage of her, for I could understand her point of view, whereas she apparently could not follow mine. She was very gracious to me, however, showing me kindness and friendship in a dozen ways, giving me an immense amount of her time and taking rather more of my time than I could spare, but never for- getting for a moment that her blood was among the oldest in Europe, and that all her traditions were in keeping with its honorable age.
After the Berlin meeting Miss Anthony and I were invited to spend a week-end at the home of Mrs. Jacob Bright, that “Aunt Susan” might re- new her acquaintance with Annie Besant. This visit is among my most vivid memories. Originally “Aunt Susan” had greatly admired Mrs. Besant, and had openly lamented the latter’s concentration on theosophical interests–when, as Miss Anthony put it, “there are so many live problems here in this world.” Now she could not conceal her disapproval of the “other-worldliness” of Mrs. Besant, Mrs. Bright, and her daughter. Some remarkable and, to me, most amusing discussions took place among the three; but often, during Mrs. Besant’s most sus- tained oratorical flights, Miss Anthony’s interest would wander, and she would drop a remark that showed she had not heard a word. She had a great admiration for Mrs. Besant’s intellect; but she dis- approved of her flowing and picturesque white robes, of her bare feet, of her incessant cigarette-smoking; above all, of her views. At last, one day.{sic} the climax of the discussions came.
“Annie,” demanded “Aunt Susan,” “why don’t you make that aura of yours do its gallivanting in this world, looking up the needs of the oppressed, and investigating the causes of present wrongs? Then you could reveal to us workers just what we should do to put things right, and we could be about it.”
Mrs. Besant sighed and said that life was short and aeons were long, and that while every one would be perfected some time, it was useless to deal with individuals here.
“But, Annie!” exclaimed Miss Anthony, patheti- cally. “We ARE here! Our business is here! It’s our duty to do what we can here.”
Mrs. Besant seemed not to hear her. She was in a trance, gazing into the aeons.
“I’d rather have one year of your ability, backed up with common sense, for the work of making this world better,” cried the exasperated “Aunt Susan,” “than a million aeons in the hereafter!”
Mrs. Besant sighed again. It was plain that she could not bring herself back from the other world, so Miss Anthony, perforce, accompanied her to it.
“When your aura goes visiting in the other world,” she asked, curiously, “does it ever meet your old friend Charles Bradlaugh?”
“Oh yes,” declared Mrs. Besant. “Frequently.”
“Wasn’t he very much surprised,” demanded Miss Anthony, with growing interest, “to discover that he was not dead?”
Mrs. Besant did not seem to know what emotion Mr. Bradlaugh had experienced when that revela- tion came.
“Well,” mused “Aunt Susan,” “I should think he would have been surprised. He was so certain he was going to be dead that it must have been astounding to discover he wasn’t. What was he doing in the other world?”
Mrs. Besant heaved a deeper sigh. “I am very much discouraged over Mr. Bradlaugh,” she ad- mitted, wanly. “ He is hovering too near this world. He cannot seem to get away from his mun- dane interests. He is as much concerned with par- liamentary affairs now as when he was on this plane.”
“Humph!” said Miss Anthony; “that’s the most sensible thing I’ve heard yet about the other world. It encourages me. I’ve always felt sure that if I entered the other life before women were enfran- chised nothing in the glories of heaven would in- terest me so much as the work for women’s freedom on earth. Now,” she ended, “I shall be like Mr. Bradlaugh. I shall hover round and continue my work here.”
When Mrs. Besant had left the room Mrs. Bright felt that it was her duty to admonish “Aunt Susan” to be more careful in what she said.
“You are making too light of her creed,” she ex- postulated. “You do not realize the important position Mrs. Besant holds. Why, in India, when she walks from her home to her school all those she meets prostrate themselves. Even the learned men prostrate themselves and put their faces on the ground as she goes by.”
“Aunt Susan’s” voice, when she replied, took on the tones of one who is sorely tried. “But why in Heaven’s name does any sensible Englishwoman want a lot of heathen to prostrate themselves as she goes up the street?” she demanded, wearily. “It’s the most foolish thing I ever heard.”
The effort to win Miss Anthony over to the theo- sophical doctrine was abandoned. That night, after we had gone to our rooms, “Aunt Susan” summed up her conclusions on the interview:
“It’s a good thing for the world,” she declared, “that some of us don’t know so much. And it’s a better thing for this world that some of us think a little earthly common sense is more valuable than too much heavenly knowledge.”
X
THE PASSING OF “AUNT SUSAN”
On one occasion Miss Anthony had the doubt- ful pleasure of reading her own obituary notices, and her interest in them was characteristically naive. She had made a speech at Lakeside, Ohio, during which, for the first time in her long experience, she fainted on the platform. I was not with her at the time, and in the excitement following her collapse it was rumored that she had died. Immediately the news was telegraphed to the Associated Press of New York, and from there flashed over the country. At Miss Anthony’s home in Rochester a reporter rang the bell and abruptly informed her sister, Miss Mary Anthony, who came to the door, that “Aunt Susan” was dead. Fortunately Miss Mary had a cool head.
“I think,” she said, “that if my sister had died I would have heard about it. Please have your editors telegraph to Lakeside.”
The reporter departed, but came back an hour later to say that his newspaper had sent the tele- gram and the reply was that Susan B. Anthony was dead.
“I have just received a better telegram than that,” remarked Mary Anthony. “ Mine is from my sister; she tells me that she fainted to-night, but soon recovered and will be home to-morrow.”
Nevertheless, the next morning the American newspapers gave much space to Miss Anthony’s obituary notices, and “Aunt Susan” spent some in- teresting hours reading them. One that pleased her vastly was printed in the Wichita Eagle, whose editor, Mr. Murdock, had been almost her bitterest op- ponent. He had often exhausted his brilliant vo- cabulary in editorial denunciations of suffrage and suffragists, and Miss Anthony had been the special target of his scorn. But the news of her death seemed to be a bitter blow to him; and of all the tributes the American press gave to Susan B. Anthony dead, few equaled in beauty and appreciation the one penned by Mr. Murdock and published in the Eagle. He must have been amused when, a few days later, he received a letter from “Aunt Susan” herself, thanking him warmly for his changed opinion of her and hoping that it meant the conversion of his soul to our Cause. It did not, and Mr. Murdock, though never again quite as bitter as he had been, soon resumed the free editorial expression of his anti- suffrage sentiments. Times have changed, however, and to-day his son, now a member of Congress, is one of our strongest supporters in that body.
In 1905 it became plain that Miss Anthony’s health was failing. Her visits to Germany and England the previous year, triumphant though they had been, had also proved a drain on her vitality; and soon after her return to America she entered upon a task which helped to exhaust her remaining strength. She had been deeply interested in se- curing a fund of $50,000 to enable women to enter Rochester University, and, one morning, just after we had held a session of our executive committee in her Rochester home, she read a newspaper an- nouncement to the effect that at four o’clock that afternoon the opportunity to admit women to the university would expire, as the full fifty thousand dollars had not been raised. The sum of eight thousand dollars was still lacking.
With characteristic energy, Miss Anthony under- took to save the situation by raising this amount within the time limit. Rushing to the telephone, she called a cab and prepared to go forth on her difficult quest; but first, while she was putting on her hat and coat, she insisted that her sister, Mary Anthony, should start the fund by contributing one thousand dollars from her meager savings, and this Miss Mary did. “Aunt Susan” made every second count that day, and by half after three o’clock she had secured the necessary pledges. Several of the trustees of the university, however, had not seemed especially anxious to have the fund raised, and at the last moment they objected to one pledge for a thousand dollars, on the ground that the man who had given it was very old and might die before the time set to pay it; then his family, they feared, might repudiate the obligation. Without a word Miss Anthony seized the pledge and wrote her name across it as an indorsement. “I am good for it,” she then said, quietly, “if the gentleman who signed it is not.”
That afternoon she returned home greatly fa- tigued. A few hours later the girl students who had been waiting admission to the university came to serenade her in recognition of her successful work for them, but she was too ill to see them. She was passing through the first stage of what proved to be her final breakdown.
In 1906, when the date of the annual convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Baltimore was drawing near, she became convinced that it would be her last convention. She was right. She showed a passionate eagerness to make it one of the greatest conventions ever held in the history of the movement; and we, who loved her and saw that the flame of her life was burning low, also bent all our energies to the task of realizing her hopes. In November preceding the convention she visited me and her niece, Miss Lucy Anthony, in our home in Mount Airy, Philadelphia, and it was clear that her anxiety over the convention was weighing heavily upon her. She visibly lost strength from day to day. One morning she said abruptly, “Anna, let’s go and call on President M. Carey Thomas, of Bryn Mawr.”
I wrote a note to Miss Thomas, telling her of Miss Anthony’s desire to see her, and received an im- mediate reply inviting us to luncheon the following day. We found Miss Thomas deep in the work connected with her new college buildings, over which she showed us with much pride. Miss Anthony, of course, gloried in the splendid results Miss Thomas had achieved, but she was, for her, strangely silent and preoccupied. At luncheon she said:
“Miss Thomas, your buildings are beautiful; your new library is a marvel; but they are not the cause of our presence here.”
“No,” Miss Thomas said; “I know you have something on your mind. I am waiting for you to tell me what it is.”
“We want your co-operation, and that of Miss Garrett,” began Miss Anthony, promptly, “to make our Baltimore Convention a success. We want you to persuade the Arundel Club of Baltimore, the most fashionable club in the city, to give a recep- tion to the delegates; and we want you to arrange a college night on the programme–a great college night, with the best college speakers ever brought together.”
These were large commissions for two extremely busy women, but both Miss Thomas and Miss Garrett–realizing Miss Anthony’s intense earnest- ness–promised to think over the suggestions and see what they could do. The next morning we re- ceived a telegram from them stating that Miss Thomas would arrange the college evening, and that Miss Garrett would reopen her Baltimore home, which she had closed, during the convention. She also invited Miss Anthony and me to be her guests there, and added that she would try to arrange the reception by the Arundel Club.
“Aunt Susan” was overjoyed. I have never seen her happier than she was over the receipt of that telegram. She knew that whatever Miss Thomas and Miss Garrett undertook would be accomplished, and she rightly regarded the success of the conven- tion as already assured. Her expectations were more than realized. The college evening was un- doubtedly the most brilliant occasion of its kind ever arranged for a convention. President Ira Remsen of Johns Hopkins University presided, and addresses were made by President Mary E. Woolley of Mount Holyoke, Professor Lucy Salmon of Vassar, Professor Mary Jordan of Smith, President Thomas herself, and many others.
From beginning to end the convention was prob- ably the most notable yet held in our history. Julia Ward Howe and her daughter, Florence Howe Hall, were also guests of Miss Garrett, who, more- over, entertained all the speakers of “College Night.” Miss Anthony, now eighty-six, arrived in Baltimore quite ill, and Mrs. Howe, who was ninety, was taken ill soon after she reached there. The two great women made a dramatic exchange on the programme, for on the first night, when Miss Anthony was un- able to speak, Mrs. Howe took her place, and on the second night, when Mrs. Howe had succumbed, Miss Anthony had recovered sufficiently to appear for her. Clara Barton was also an honored figure at the convention, and Miss Anthony’s joy in the presence of all these old and dear friends was over- flowing. With them, too, were the younger women, ready to take up and carry on the work the old leaders were laying down; and “Aunt Susan,” as she surveyed them all, felt like a general whose superb army is passing in review before him. At the close of the college programme, when the final address had been made by Miss Thomas, Miss Anthony rose and in a few words expressed her feeling that her life-work was done, and her con- sciousness of the near approach of the end. After that night she was unable to appear, and was indeed so ill that she was confined to her bed in Miss Gar- rett’s most hospitable home. Nothing could have been more thoughtful or more beautiful than the care Miss Garrett and Miss Thomas bestowed on her. They engaged for her one of the best physicians in Baltimore, who, in turn, consulted with the leading specialists of Johns Hopkins, and they also secured a trained nurse. This final attention required special tact, for Miss Anthony’s fear of “giving trouble” was so great that she was not willing to have a nurse. The nurse, therefore, wore a house- maid’s uniform, and “Aunt Susan” remained wholly unconscious that she was being cared for by one of the best nurses in the famous hospital.
Between sessions of the convention I used to sit by “Aunt Susan’s” bed and tell her what was going on. She was triumphant over the immense success of the convention, but it was clear that she was still worrying over the details of future work. One day at luncheon Miss Thomas asked me, casually:
“By the way, how do you raise the money to carry on your work?”
When I told her the work was wholly dependent on voluntary contributions and on the services of those who were willing to give themselves gratui- tously to it, Miss Thomas was greatly surprised. She and Miss Garrett asked a number of practical questions, and at the end of our talk they looked at each other.
“I don’t think,” said Miss Thomas, “that we have quite done our duty in this matter.”
The next day they invited a number of us to dinner, to again discuss the situation; and they admitted that they had sat up throughout the previous night, talking the matter over and trying to find some way to help us. They had also dis- cussed the situation with Miss Anthony, to her vast content, and had finally decided that they would try to raise a fund of $60,000, to be paid in yearly instalments of $12,000 for five years–part of these annual instalments to be used as salaries for the active officers.
The mere mention of so large a fund startled us all. We feared that it could not possibly be raised. But Miss Anthony plainly believed that now the last great wish of her life had been granted. She was convinced that Miss Thomas and Miss Gar- rett could accomplish anything–even the miracle of raising $60,000 for the suffrage cause–and they did, though “Aunt Susan” was not here to glory over the result when they had achieved it.
On the 15th of February we left Baltimore for Washington, where Miss Anthony was to cele- brate her eighty-sixth birthday. For many years the National American Woman Suffrage Associa- tion had celebrated our birthdays together, as hers came on the 15th of the month and mine on the 14th. There had been an especially festive banquet when she was seventy-four and I was forty-seven, and our friends had decorated the table with floral “4’s” and “7’s”–the centerpiece representing “74” during the first half of the banquet, and “47” the latter half. This time “Aunt Susan” should not have attempted the Washington celebration, for she was still ill and exhausted by the strain of the con- vention. But notwithstanding her sufferings and the warnings of her physicians, she insisted on being present; so Miss Garrett sent the trained nurse to Washington with her, and we all tried to make the jour- ney the least possible strain on the patient’s vitality.
On our arrival in Washington we went to the Shoreham, where, as always, the proprietor took pains to give Miss Anthony a room with a view of the Washington monument, which she greatly admired. When I entered her room a little later I found her standing at a window, holding herself up with hands braced against the casement on either side, and so absorbed in the view that she did not hear my ap- proach. When I spoke to her she answered with- out turning her head.
“That,” she said, softly, “is the most beautiful monument in the world.”
I stood by her side, and together we looked at it in silence I realizing with a sick heart that “Aunt Susan” knew she was seeing it for the last time.
The birthday celebration that followed our exec- utive meeting was an impressive one. It was held in the Church of Our Father, whose pastor, the Rev. John Van Schaick, had always been exceedingly kind to Miss Anthony. Many prominent men spoke. President Roosevelt and other statesmen sent most friendly letters, and William H. Taft had promised to be present. He did not come, nor did he, then or later, send any excuse for not coming–an omission that greatly disappointed Miss Anthony, who had always admired him. I presided at the meeting, and though we all did our best to make it gay, a strange hush hung over the assemblage a solemn stillness, such as one feels in the presence of death. We became more and more conscious that Miss Anthony was suffering, and we hastened the exer- cises all we could. When I read President Roose- velt’s long tribute to her, Miss Anthony rose to comment on it.
“One word from President Roosevelt in his mes- sage to Congress,” she said, a little wearily, “would be worth a thousand eulogies of Susan B. Anthony. When will men learn that what we ask is not praise, but justice?”
At the close of the meeting, realizing how weak she was, I begged her to let me speak for her. But she again rose, rested her hand on my shoulder, and, standing by my side, uttered the last words she ever spoke in public, pleading with women to consecrate themselves to the Cause, assuring them that no power could prevent its ultimate success, but reminding them also that the time of its coming would depend wholly on their work and their loyalty. She ended with three words–very fitting words from her lips, expressing as they did the spirit of her life-work–“FAILURE IS IMPOSSIBLE.”
The next morning she was taken to her home in Rochester, and one month from that day we con- ducted her funeral services. The nurse who had accompanied her from Baltimore remained with her until two others had been secured to take her place, and every care that love or medical science could suggest was lavished on the patient. But from the first it was plain that, as she herself had foretold, “Aunt Susan’s” soul was merely waiting for the hour of its passing.
One of her characteristic traits was a dislike to being seen, even by those nearest to her, when she was not well. During the first three weeks of her last illness, therefore, I did what she wished me to do–I continued our work, trying to do hers as well as my own. But all the time my heart was in her sick-room, and at last the day came when I could no longer remain away from her. I had awakened in the morning with a strong conviction that she needed me, and at the breakfast-table I announced to her niece, Miss Lucy Anthony, the friend who for years has shared my home, that I was going at once to “Aunt Susan.”
“I shall not even wait to telegraph,” I declared. “I am sure she has sent for me; I shall take the first train.”
The journey brought me very close to death. As we were approaching Wilkes-Barre our train ran into a wagon loaded with powder and dynamite, which had been left on the track. The horses attached to it had been unhitched by their driver, who had spent his time in this effort, when he saw the train coming, instead of in signaling to the engineer. I was on my way to the dining-car when the collision occurred. and, with every one else who happened to be stand- ing, I was hurled to the floor by the impact; flash after flash of blinding light outside, accompanied by a terrific roar, added to the panic of the passengers. When the train stopped we learned how narrow had been our escape from an especially unpleasant form of death. The dynamite in the wagon was frozen, and therefore had not exploded; it was the ex- plosion of the powder that had caused the flashes and the din. The dark-green cars were burned almost white, and as we stood staring at them, a silent, stunned group, our conductor said, quietly, “You will never be as near death again, and escape, as you have been to-day.”
The accident caused a long delay, and it was ten o’clock at night when I reached Rochester and Miss Anthony’s home. As I entered the house Miss Mary Anthony rose in surprise to greet me.
“How did you get here so soon?” she cried. And then: “We sent for you this afternoon. Susan has been asking for you all day.”
When I reached my friend’s bedside one glance at her face showed me the end was near; and from that time until it came, almost a week later, I re- mained with her; while again, as always, she talked of the Cause, and of the life-work she must now lay down. The first thing she spoke of was her will, which she had made several years before, and in which she had left the small property she possessed to her sister Mary, her niece Lucy, and myself, with instructions as to the use we three were to make of it. Now she told me we were to pay no attention to these instructions, but to give every dollar of her money to the $60,000 fund Miss Thomas and Miss Garrett were trying to raise. She was vitally in- terested in this fund, as its success meant that for five years the active officers of the National Ameri- can Woman Suffrage Association, including myself as president, would for the first time receive salaries for our work. When she had given her instructions on this point she still seemed depressed.
“I wish I could live on,” she said, wistfully. “But I cannot. My spirit is eager and my heart is as young as it ever was, but my poor old body is worn out. Before I go I want you to give me a promise: Promise me that you will keep the presi- dency of the association as long as you are well enough to do the work.”
“But how can I promise that?” I asked. “I can keep it only as long as others wish me to keep it.”
“Promise to make them wish you to keep it,” she urged. “Just as I wish you to keep it.”
I would have promised her anything then. So, though I knew that to hold the presidency would tie me to a position that brought in no living income, and though for several years past I had already drawn alarmingly upon my small financial reserve, I promised her that I would hold the office as long as the majority of the women in the association wished me to do so. “But,” I added, “if the time comes when I believe that some one else can do better work in the presidency than I, then let me feel at liberty to resign it.”
This did not satisfy her.
“No, no,” she objected. “You cannot be the judge of that. Promise me you will remain until the friends you most trust tell you it is time to with- draw, or make you understand that it is time. Promise me that.”
I made the promise. She seemed content, and again began to talk of the future.
“You will not have an easy path,” she warned me. “In some ways it will be harder for you than it has ever been for me. I was so much older than the rest of you, and I had been president so long, that you girls have all been willing to listen to me. It will be different with you. Other women of your own age have been in the work almost as long as you have been; you do not stand out from them by age or length of service, as I did. There will be inevi- table jealousies and misunderstandings; there will be all sorts of criticism and misrepresentation. My last word to you is this: No matter what is done or is not done, how you are criticized or misunder- stood, or what efforts are made to block your path, remember that the only fear you need have is the fear of not standing by the thing you believe to be right. Take your stand and hold it; then let come what will, and receive blows like a good soldier.”
I was too much overcome to answer her; and after a moment of silence she, in her turn, made me a promise.
“I do not know anything about what comes to us after this life ends,” she said. “But if there is a continuance of life beyond it, and if I have any conscious knowledge of this world and of what you are doing, I shall not be far away from you; and in times of need I will help you all I can. Who knows? Perhaps I may be able to do more for the Cause after I am gone than while I am here.”
Nine years have passed since then, and in each day of them all it seems to me, in looking back, I have had some occasion to recall her words. When they were uttered I did not fully comprehend all they meant, or the clearness of the vision that had suggested them. It seemed to me that no position I could hold would be of sufficient importance to attract jealousy or personal attacks. The years have brought more wisdom; I have learned that any one who assumes leadership, or who, like myself, has had leadership forced upon her, must expect to bear many things of which the world knows nothing. But with this knowledge, too, has come the memory of “Aunt Susan’s” last promise, and again and yet again in hours of discouragement and despair I have been helped by the blessed conviction that she was keeping it.
During the last forty-eight hours of her life she was unwilling that I should leave her side. So day and night I knelt by her bed, holding her hand and watching the flame of her wonderful spirit grow dim. At times, even then, it blazed up with startling sud- denness. On the last afternoon of her life, when she had lain quiet for hours, she suddenly began to utter the names of the women who had worked with her, as if in a final roll-call. Many of them had preceded her into the next world; others were still splendidly active in the work she was laying down. But young or old, living or dead, they all seemed to file past her dying eyes that day in an endless, shadowy re- view, and as they went by she spoke to each of them.
Not all the names she mentioned were known in suffrage ranks; some of these women lived only in the heart of Susan B. Anthony, and now, for the last time, she was thanking them for what they had done. Here was one who, at a moment of special need, had given her small savings; here was another who had won valuable recruits to the Cause; this one had written a strong editorial; that one had made a stirring speech. In these final hours it seemed that not a single sacrifice or service, however small, had been forgotten by the dying leader. Last of all, she spoke to the women who had been on her board and had stood by her loyally so long–Rachel Foster Avery, Alice Stone Blackwell, Carrie Chap- man Catt, Mrs. Upton, Laura Clay, and others. Then, after lying in silence for a long time with her cheek on my hand, she murmured: “They are still passing before me–face after face, hundreds and hundreds of them, representing all the efforts of fifty years. I know how hard they have worked I know the sacrifices they have made. But it has all been worth while!”
Just before she lapsed into unconsciousness she seemed restless and anxious to say something, search- ing my face with her dimming eyes.
“Do you want me to repeat my promise?” I asked, for she had already made me do so several times. She made a sign of assent, and I gave her the assurance she desired. As I did so she raised my hand to her lips and kissed it–her last conscious action. For more than thirty hours after that I knelt by her side, but though she clung to my hand until her own hand grew cold, she did not speak again.
She had told me over and over how much our long friendship and association had meant to her, and the comfort I had given her. But whatever I may have been to her, it was as nothing compared with what she was to me. Kneeling close to her as she passed away, I knew that I would have given her a dozen lives had I had them, and endured a thousand times more hardship than we had borne together, for the inspiration of her companionship and the joy of her affection. They were the greatest blessings I have had in all my life, and I cherish as my dearest treas- ure the volume of her History of Woman Suffrage on the fly-leaf of which she had written this in- scription:
REVEREND ANNA HOWARD SHAW:
This huge volume IV I present to you with the love that a mother beareth, and I hope you will find in it the facts about women, for you will find them nowhere else. Your part will be to see that the four volumes are duly placed in the libraries of the country, where every student of history may have access to them.
With unbounded love and faith,
SUSAN B. ANTHONY.
That final line is still my greatest comfort. When I am misrepresented or misunderstood, when I am accused of personal ambition or of working for per- sonal ends, I turn to it and to similar lines penned by the same hand, and tell myself that I should not allow anything to interfere with the serenity of my spirit or to disturb me in my work. At the end of eighteen years of the most intimate companionship, the leader of our Cause, the greatest woman I have ever known, still felt for me “unbounded love and faith.” Having had that, I have had enough.
For two days after “Aunt Susan’s” death she lay in her own home, as if in restful slumber, her face wearing its most exquisite look of peaceful serenity; and here her special friends, the poor and the unfor- tunate of the city, came by hundreds to pay their last respects. On the third day there was a public funeral, held in the Congregational church, and, though a wild blizzard was raging, every one in Rochester seemed included in the great throng of mourners who came to her bier in reverence and left it in tears. The church services were conducted by the pastor, the Rev. C. C. Albertson, a lifelong friend of Miss Anthony’s, assisted by the Rev. Will- iam C. Gannett. James G. Potter, the Mayor of the city, and Dr. Rush Rhees, president of Rochester University, occupied prominent places among the distinguished mourners, and Mrs. Jerome Jeffries, the head of a colored school, spoke in behalf of the negro race and its recognition of Miss Anthony’s services. College clubs, medical societies, and re- form groups were represented by delegates sent from different states, and Miss Anna Gordon had come on from Illinois to represent the Woman’s National Christian Temperance Union. Mrs. Catt delivered a eulogy in which she expressed the love and recognition of the organized suffrage women of the world for Miss Anthony, as the one to whom they had all looked as their leader. William Lloyd Garrison spoke of Miss Anthony’s work with his father and other anti- slavery leaders, and Mrs. Jean Brooks Greenleaf spoke in behalf of the New York State Suffrage Association. Then, as “Aunt Susan” had requested, I made the closing address. She had asked me to do this and to pronounce the benediction, as well as to say the final words at her grave.
It was estimated that more than ten thousand persons were assembled in and around the church, and after the benediction those who had been pa- tiently waiting out in the storm were permitted to pass inside in single file for a last look at their friend. They found the coffin covered by a large American flag, on which lay a wreath of laurel and palms; around it stood a guard of honor composed of girl students of Rochester University in their college caps and gowns. All day students had mounted guard, relieving one another at intervals. On every side there were flowers and floral emblems sent by various organizations, and just over “Aunt Susan’s” head floated the silk flag given to her by the women of Colorado. It contained four gold stars, representing the four enfranchised states, while the other stars were in silver. On her breast was pinned the jeweled flag given to her on her eightieth birthday by the women of Wyoming–the first place in the world where in the constitution of the state women were given equal political rights with men. Here the four stars representing the enfranchised states were made of diamonds, the others of silver enamel. Just before the lid was fastened on the coffin this flag was removed and handed to Mary Anthony, who presented it to me. From that day I have worn it on every occasion of importance to our Cause, and each time a state is won for woman suffrage I have added a new diamond star. At the time I write this–in 1914–there are twelve.
As the funeral procession went through the streets of Rochester it was seen that all the city flags were at half-mast, by order of the City Council. Many houses were draped in black, and the grief of the citizens manifested itself on every side. All the way to Mount Hope Cemetery the snow whirled blind- ingly around us, while the masses that had fallen covered the earth as far as we could see a fitting winding-sheet for the one who had gone. Under the fir-trees around her open grave I obeyed “Aunt Susan’s” wish that I should utter the last words spoken over her body as she was laid to rest:
“Dear friend,” I said, “thou hast tarried with us long. Now thou hast gone to thy well-earned rest. We beseech the Infinite Spirit Who has upheld thee to make us worthy to follow in thy steps and to carry on thy work. Hail and farewell.”
XI
THE WIDENING SUFFRAGE STREAM
In my chapters on Miss Anthony I bridged the twenty years between 1886 and 1906, omitting many of the stirring suffrage events of that long period, in my desire to concentrate on those which most vitally concerned her. I must now retrace my steps along the widening suffrage stream and de- scribe, consecutively at least, and as fully as these incomplete reminiscences will permit, other inci- dents that occurred on its banks.
Of these the most important was the union in 1889 of the two great suffrage societies–the Ameri- can Association, of which Lucy Stone was the presi- dent, and the National Association, headed by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. At a convention held in Washington these societies were merged as The National American Woman Suffrage Association–the name our association still bears– and Mrs. Stanton was elected president. She was then nearly eighty and past active work, but she made a wonderful presiding officer at our subsequent meetings, and she was as picturesque as she was efficient.
Miss Anthony, who had an immense admiration for her and a great personal pride in her, always escorted her to the capital, and, having worked her utmost to make the meeting a success, invariably gave Mrs. Stanton credit for all that was accom- plished. She often said that Mrs. Stanton was the brains of the new association, while she herself was merely its hands and feet; but in truth the two women worked marvelously together, for Mrs. Stanton was a master of words and could write and speak to perfection of the things Susan B. Anthony saw and felt but could not herself express. Usually Miss Anthony went to Mrs. Stanton’s house and took charge of it while she stimulated the venerable president to the writing of her annual address. Then, at the subsequent convention, she would listen to the report with as much delight and pleasure as if each word of it had been new to her. Even after Mrs. Stanton’s resignation from the presidency– at the end, I think, of three years–and Miss An- thony’s election as her successor, “Aunt Susan” still went to her old friend whenever an important reso- lution was to be written, and Mrs. Stanton loyally drafted it for her.
Mrs. Stanton was the most brilliant conversa- tionalist I have ever known; and the best talk I have heard anywhere was that to which I used to listen in the home of Mrs. Eliza Wright Osborne, in Auburn, New York, when Mrs. Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Emily Howland, Elizabeth Smith Miller, Ida Husted Harper, Miss Mills, and I were gathered there for our occasional week-end visits. Mrs. Osborne inherited her suffrage sympathies, for she was the daughter of Martha Wright, who, with Mrs. Stanton and Lucretia Mott, called the first suffrage convention in Seneca Falls, New York. I must add in passing that her son, Thomas Mott Osborne, who is doing such admirable work in prison reform at Sing Sing, has shown himself worthy of the gifted and high-minded mother who gave him to the world.
Most of the conversation in Mrs. Osborne’s home was contributed by Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony, while the rest of us sat, as it were, at their feet. Many human and feminine touches brightened the