lofty discussions that were constantly going on, and the varied characteristics of our leaders cropped up in amusing fashion. Mrs. Stanton, for example, was rarely accurate in giving figures or dates, while Miss Anthony was always very exact in such matters. She frequently corrected Mrs. Stanton’s statements, and Mrs. Stanton usually took the interruption in the best possible spirit, promptly admitting that “Aunt Susan” knew best. On one occasion I re- call, however, she held fast to her opinion that she was right as to the month in which a certain inci- dent had occurred.
“No, Susan,” she insisted, “you’re wrong for once. I remember perfectly when that happened, for it was at the time I was beginning to wean Harriet.”
Aunt Susan, though somewhat staggered by the force of this testimony, still maintained that Mrs. Stanton must be mistaken, whereupon the latter repeated, in exasperation, “I tell you it happened when I was weaning Harriet.” And she added, scornfully, “What event have you got to reckon from?”
Miss Anthony meekly subsided.
Mrs. Stanton had wonderful blue eyes, which held to the end of her life an expression of eternal youth. During our conventions she usually took a little nap in the afternoon, and when she awoke her blue eyes always had an expression of pleased and innocent surprise, as if she were gazing on the world for the first time–the round, unwinking, interested look a baby’s eyes have when something attractive is held up before them.
Let me give in a paragraph, before I swing off into the bypaths that always allure me, the consecutive suffrage events of the past quarter of a century. Having done this, I can dwell on each as casually as I choose, for it is possible to describe only a few incidents here and there; and I shall not be depart- ing from the story of my life, for my life had become merged in the suffrage cause.
Of the preliminary suffrage campaigns in Kansas, made in company with “Aunt Susan,” I have al- ready written, and it remains only to say that dur- ing the second Kansas campaign yellow was adopted as the suffrage color. In 1890, ’92, and ’93 we again worked in Kansas and in South Dakota, with such indefatigable and brilliant speakers as Mrs. Catt (to whose efforts also were largely due the winning of Colorado in ’93), Mrs. Laura Johns of Kansas, Mrs. Julia Nelson, Henry B. Blackwell, Dr. Helen V. Putnam of Dakota, Mrs. Emma Smith DeVoe, Rev. Olympia Browne of Wisconsin, and Dr. Mary Seymour Howell of New York. In ’94, ’95, and ’96 special efforts were devoted to Idaho, Utah, Cali- fornia, and Washington, and from then on our campaigns were waged steadily in the Western states.
The Colorado victory gave us two full suffrage states, for in 1869 the Territory of Wyoming had en- franchised women under very interesting conditions, not now generally remembered. The achievement was due to the influence of one woman, Esther Morris, a pioneer who was as good a neighbor as she was a suffragist. In those early days, in homes far from physicians and surgeons, the women cared for one another in sickness, and Esther Morris, as it happened, once took full and skilful charge of a neighbor during the difficult birth of the latter’s child. She had done the same thing for many other women, but this woman’s husband was especially grateful. He was also a member of the Legislature, and he told Mrs. Morris that if there was any measure she wished put through for the women of the territory he would be glad to introduce it. She immediately took him at his word by asking him to introduce a bill enfranchising women, and he promptly did so.
The Legislature was Democratic, and it pounced upon the measure as a huge joke. With the amiable purpose of embarrassing the Governor of the ter- ritory, who was a Republican and had been appointed by the President, the members passed the bill and put it up to him to veto. To their combined horror and amazement, the young Governor did nothing of the kind. He had come, as it happened, from Salem, Ohio, one of the first towns in the United States in which a suffrage convention was held. There, as a boy, he had heard Susan B. Anthony make a speech, and he had carried into the years the impression it made upon him. He signed that bill; and, as the Legislature could not get a two- thirds vote to kill it, the disgusted members had to make the best of the matter. The following year a Democrat introduced a bill to repeal the measure, but already public sentiment had changed and he was laughed down. After that no further effort was ever made to take the ballot away from the women of Wyoming.
When the territory applied for statehood, it was feared that the woman-suffrage clause in the con- stitution might injure its chance of admission, and the women sent this telegram to Joseph M. Carey:
“Drop us if you must. We can trust the men of Wyoming to enfranchise us after our territory be- comes a state.”
Mr. Carey discussed this telegram with the other men who were urging upon Congress the admission of their territory, and the following reply went back:
“We may stay out of the Union a hundred years, but we will come in with our women.”
There is great inspiration in those two messages– and a great lesson, as well.
In 1894 we conducted a campaign in New York, when an effort was made to secure a clause to en- franchise women in the new state constitution; and for the first time in the history of the woman-suf- frage movement many of the influential women in the state and city of New York took an active part in the work. Miss Anthony was, as always, our leader and greatest inspiration. Mrs. John Brooks Greenleaf was state president, and Miss Mary Anthony was the most active worker in the Roches- ter headquarters. Mrs. Lily Devereaux Blake had charge of the campaign in New York City, and Mrs. Marianna Chapman looked after the Brooklyn sec- tion, while a most stimulating sign of the times was the organization of a committee of New York women of wealth and social influence, who estab- lished their headquarters at Sherry’s. Among these were Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell, Mrs. Joseph H. Choate, Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, Mrs. J. Warren Goddard, and Mrs. Robert Abbe. Miss Anthony, then in her seventy-fifth year, spoke in every county of the state sixty in all. I spoke in forty, and Mrs. Catt, as always, made a superb record. Miss Har- riet May Mills, a graduate of Cornell, and Miss Mary G. Hay, did admirable organization work in the dif- ferent counties. Our disappointment over the re- sult was greatly soothed by the fact that only two years later both Idaho and Utah swung into line as full suffrage states, though California, in which we had labored with equal zeal, waited fifteen years longer.
Among these campaigns, and overlapping them, were our annual conventions–each of which I at- tended from 1888 on–and the national and inter- national councils, to a number of which, also, I have given preliminary mention. When Susan B. An- thony died in 1906, four American states had granted suffrage to woman. At the time I write–1914–the result of the American women’s work for suffrage may be briefly tabulated thus:
SUFFRAGE STATUS
FULL SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN
Number of
State Year Won Electoral Votes Wyoming 1869 3
Colorado 1893 6
Idaho 1896 4
Utah 1896 4
Washington 1910 7
California 1911 13
Arizona 1912 3
Kansas 1912 10
Oregon 1912 5
Alaska 1913 —
Nevada 1914 3
Montana 1914 4
PRESIDENTIAL AND MUNICIPAL SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN Number of
State Year Won Electoral Votes
Illinois 1913 29
STATES WHERE AMENDMENT HAS PASSED ONE LEGISLATURE AND MUST PASS ANOTHER
Number
Goes to of Elec- State House Senate Voters toral Votes Iowa 81-26 31-15 1916 13
Massachusetts 169-39 34-2 1915 18 New Jersey 49-4 15-3 1915 14
New York 125-5 40-2 1915 45 North Dakota 77-29 31-19 1916 5 Pennsylvania 131-70 26-22 1915 38
To tabulate the wonderful work done by the conventions and councils is not possible, but a con- secutive list of the meetings would run like this:
First National Convention, Washington, D.C., 1887. First International Council of Women, Washington, D.C., 1888. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1889. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1890. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1891. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1892. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1893. International Council, Chicago, 1893.
National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1894. National Suffrage Convention, Atlanta, Ga., 1895. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1896. National Suffrage Convention, Des Moines, Iowa, 1897. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1898. National Suffrage Convention, Grand Rapids, Mich., 1899. International Council, London, England, 1899. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1900. National Suffrage Convention, Minneapolis, Minn., 1901. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1902. National Suffrage Convention, New Orleans, La., 1903. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1904. International Council of Women, Berlin, Germany, 1904. Formation of Intern’l Suffrage Alliance, Berlin, Germany, 1904. National Suffrage Convention, Portland, Oregon, 1905. National Suffrage Convention, Baltimore, Md., 1906. International Suffrage Alliance, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1906. National Suffrage Convention, Chicago, III., 1907. International Suffrage Alliance, Amsterdam, Holland, 1908. National Suffrage Convention, Buffalo, N. Y., 1908. New York Headquarters established, 1909. National Suffrage Convention, Seattle, Wash., 1909. International Suffrage Alliance, London, England, 1909. National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C., 1910. International Council, Genoa, Italy, 1911. National Suffrage Convention, Louisville, Ky., 1911. International Suffrage Alliance, Stockholm, Sweden, 1911. National Suffrage Convention, Philadelphia, Pa., 1912. International Council, The Hague, Holland, 1913 National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D.C.; 1913. International Suffrage Alliance, Budapest, Hungary, 1913. National Suffrage Convention, Nashville, Tenn., 1914. International Council, Rome, Italy, 1914.
The winning of the suffrage states, the work in the states not yet won, the conventions, gatherings, and international councils in which women of every nation have come together, have all combined to make this quarter of a century the most brilliant period for women in the history of the world. I have set forth the record baldly and without com- ment, because the bare facts are far more eloquent than words. It must not be forgotten, too, that these great achievements of the progressive women of to-day have been accomplished against the opposi- tion of a large number of their own sex–who, while they are out in the world’s arena fighting against progress for their sisters, still shatter the ear-drum with their incongruous war-cry, “Woman’s place is in the home!”
Of our South Dakota campaign in 1890 there re- mains only one incident which should have a place here: We were attending the Republican state nominating convention at Mitchell–Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt, other leaders, and myself–having been told that it would be at once the largest and the most interesting gathering ever held in the state as it proved to be. All the leading politicians of the state were there, and in the wake of the white men had come tribes of Indians with their camp outfits, their wives and their children–the groups forming a picturesque circle of tents and tepees around the town. It was a great occasion for them, an Indian powwow, for by the law all Indians who had lands in severalty were to be permitted to vote the fol- lowing year. They were present, therefore, to study the ways of the white man, and an edifying exhibition of these was promptly offered them.
The crowd was so great that it was only through the courtesy of Major Pickler, a member of Con- gress and a devoted believer in suffrage, that Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt, and the rest of us were able to secure passes to the convention, and when we reached the hall we were escorted to the last row of seats on the crowded platform. As the space be- tween us and the speakers was filled by rows upon rows of men, as well as by the band and their in- struments, we could see very little that took place. Some of our friends pointed out this condition to the local committee and asked that we be given seats on the floor, but received the reply that there was “absolutely no room on the floor except for dele- gates and distinguished visitors.” Our persistent friends then suggested that at least a front seat should be given to Miss Anthony, who certainly came under the head of a “distinguished visitor”; but this was not done–probably because a large number of the best seats were filled by Russian la- borers wearing badges inscribed “Against Woman Suffrage and Susan B. Anthony.” We remained, perforce, in our rear seats, finding such interest as we could in the back view of hundreds of heads.
Just before the convention was called to order it was announced that a delegation of influential In- dians was waiting outside, and a motion to invite the red men into the hall was made and carried with great enthusiasm. A committee of leading citizens was appointed to act as escort, and these gentlemen filed out, returning a few moments later with a party of Indian warriors in full war regalia, even to their gay blankets, their feathered head-dresses, and their paint. When they appeared the band struck up a stirring march of welcome, and the en- tire audience cheered while the Indians, flanked by the admiring committee, stalked solemnly down the aisle and were given seats of honor directly in front of the platform.
All we could see of them were the brilliant feathers of their war-bonnets, but we got the full effect of their reception in the music and the cheers. I dared not look at Miss Anthony during this remarkable scene, and she, craning her venerable neck to get a glimpse of the incident from her obscure corner, made no comment to me; but I knew what she was thinking. The following year these Indians would have votes. Courtesy, therefore, must be shown them. But the women did not matter, the politi- cians reasoned, for even if they were enfranchised they would never support the element represented at that convention. It was not surprising that, notwithstanding our hard work, we did not win the state, though all the conditions had seemed most favorable; for the state was new, the men and women were working side by side in the fields, and there was discontent in the ranks of the political parties.
After the election, when we analyzed the vote county by county, we discovered that in every county whose residents were principally Americans the amendment was carried, whereas in all counties populated largely by foreigners it was lost. In cer- tain counties–those inhabited by Russian Jews– the vote was almost solidly against us, and this not- withstanding the fact that the wives of these Rus- sian voters were doing a man’s work on their farms in addition to the usual women’s work in their homes. The fact that our Cause could be defeated by ignorant laborers newly come to our country was a humiliating one to accept; and we realized more forcibly than ever before the difficulty of the task we had assumed–a task far beyond any ever under- taken by a body of men in the history of democratic government throughout the world. We not only had to bring American men back to a belief in the fundamental principles of republican government, but we had also to educate ignorant immigrants, as well as our own Indians, whose degree of civiliza- tion was indicated by their war-paint and the flaunting feathers of their head-dresses.
The Kansas campaign, which Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt, Mrs. Johns, and I conducted in 1894, held a special interest, due to the Populist movement. There were so many problems before the people– prohibition, free silver, and the Populist propaganda –that we found ourselves involved in the bitterest campaign ever fought out in the state. Our desire, of course, was to get the indorsement of the differ- ent political parties and religious bodies, We suc- ceeded in obtaining that of three out of four of the Methodist Episcopal conferences–the Congrega- tional, the Epworth League, and the Christian En- deavor League–as well as that of the State Teachers’ Association, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and various other religious and philanthropic societies. To obtain the indorsement of the polit- ical parties was much more difficult, and we were facing conditions in which partial success was worse than complete failure. It had long been an un- written law before it became a written law in our National Association that we must not take partisan action or line up with any one political party. It was highly important, therefore, that either all parties should support us or that none should.
The Populist convention was held in Topeka be- fore either the Democratic or Republican convention, and after two days of vigorous fighting, led by Mrs. Anna Diggs and other prominent Populist women, a suffrage plank was added to the platform. The Populist party invited me, as a minister, to open the convention with prayer. This was an innova- tion, and served as a wedge for the admission of women representatives of the Suffrage Association to address the convention. We all did so, Miss Anthony speaking first, Mrs. Catt second, and I last; after which, for the first time in history, the Doxology was sung at a political convention.
At the Democratic convention we made the same appeal, and were refused. Instead of indorsing us, the Democrats put an anti-suffrage plank in their platform–but this, as the party had little standing in Kansas, probably did us more good than harm. Trouble came thick and fast, however, when the Republicans, the dominant party in the state, held their convention; and a mighty struggle began over the admission of a suffrage plank. There was a Woman’s Republican Club in Kansas, which held its convention in Topeka at the same time the Republicans were holding theirs. There was also a Mrs. Judith Ellen Foster, who, by stirring up op- position in this Republican Club against the in- sertion of a suffrage plank, caused a serious split in the convention. Miss Anthony, Mrs. Catt, and I, of course, urged the Republican women to stand by their sex, and to give their support to the Republi- cans only on condition that the latter added suffrage to their platform. At no time, and in no field of work, have I ever seen a more bitter conflict in prog- ress than that which raged for two days during this Republican women’s convention. Liquor-dealers, joint-keepers, “boot-leggers,” and all the lawless element of Kansas swung into line at a special con- vention held under the auspices of the Liquor League of Kansas City, and cast their united weight against suffrage by threatening to deny their votes to any candidate or political party favoring our Cause. The Republican women’s convention finally adjourned with nothing accomplished except the passing of a resolution mildly requesting the Re- publican party to indorse woman suffrage. The result was, of course, that it was not indorsed by the Republican convention, and that it was defeated at the following election.
It was at the time of these campaigns that I was elected Vice-President of the National Association and Lecturer at Large, and the latter office brought in its train a glittering variety of experiences. On one occasion an episode occurred which “Aunt Susan” never afterward wearied of describing. There was a wreck somewhere on the road on which I was to travel to meet a lecture engagement, and the trains going my way were not running. Look- ing up the track, however, I saw a train coming from the opposite direction. I at once grasped my hand-luggage and started for it.
“Wait! Wait!” cried Miss Anthony. “That train’s going the wrong way!”
“At least it’s going SOMEWHERE!” I replied, tersely, as the train stopped, and I climbed the steps.
Looking back when the train had started again, I saw “Aunt Susan” standing in the same spot on the platform and staring after it with incredulous eyes; but I was right, for I discovered that by going up into another state I could get a train which would take me to my destination in time for the lecture that night. It was a fine illustration of my pet theory that if one intends to get somewhere it is better to start, even in the wrong direction, than to stand still.
Again and again in our work we had occasion to marvel over men’s lack of understanding of the views of women, even of those nearest and dearest to them; and we had an especially striking illustra- tion of this at one of our hearings in Washington. A certain distinguished gentleman (we will call him Mr. H—-) was chairman of the Judiciary, and after we had said what we wished to say, he remarked:
“Your arguments are logical. Your cause is just. The trouble is that women don’t want suffrage. My wife doesn’t want it. I don’t know a single woman who does want it.”
As it happened for this unfortunate gentleman, his wife was present at the hearing and sitting beside Miss Anthony. She listened to his words with sur- prise, and then whispered to “Aunt Susan”:
“How CAN he say that? _I_ want suffrage, and I’ve told him so a hundred times in the last twenty years.”
“Tell him again NOW,” urged Miss Anthony. “Here’s your chance to impress it on his memory.”
“Here!” gasped the wife. “Oh, I wouldn’t dare.”
“Then may I tell him?”
“Why–yes! He can think what he pleases, but he has no right to publicly misrepresent me.”
The assent, hesitatingly begun, finished on a sud- den note of firmness. Miss Anthony stood up.
“It may interest Mr. H—-,” she said, “to know that his wife DOES wish to vote, and that for twenty years she has wished to vote, and has often told him so, though he has evidently forgotten it. She is here beside me, and has just made this explana- tion.”
Mr. H—- stammered and hesitated, and finally decided to laugh. But there was no mirth in the sound he made, and I am afraid his wife had a bad quarter of an hour when they met a little later in the privacy of their home.
Among other duties that fell to my lot at this period were numerous suffrage debates with promi- nent opponents of the Cause. I have already re- ferred to the debate in Kansas with Senator Ingalls. Equaling this in importance was a bout with Dr. Buckley, the distinguished Methodist debater, which had been arranged for us at Chautauqua by Bishop Vincent of the Methodist Church. The bishop was not a believer in suffrage, nor was he one of my admirers. I had once aroused his ire by replying to a sermon he had delivered on “God’s Women,” and by proving, to my own satisfaction at least, that the women he thought were God’s women had done very little, whereas the work of the world had been done by those he believed were not “God’s Women.” There was considerable interest, there- fore, in the Buckley-Shaw debate he had arranged; we all knew he expected Dr. Buckley to wipe out that old score, and I was determined to make it as difficult as possible for the distinguished gentleman to do so. We held the debate on two succeeding days, I speaking one afternoon and Dr. Buckley replying the following day. On the evening before I spoke, however, Dr. Buckley made an indiscreet remark, which, blown about Chautauqua on the light breeze of gossip, was generally regarded as both unchivalrous and unfair.
As the hall in which we were to speak was enor- mous, he declared that one of two things would cer- tainly happen. Either I would scream in order to be heard by my great audience, or I would be un- able to make myself heard at all. If I screamed it would be a powerful argument against women as public speakers; if I could not be heard, it would be an even better argument. In either case, he sum- med up, I was doomed to failure. Following out this theory, he posted men in the extreme rear of the great hall on the day of my lecture, to report to him whether my words reached them, while he him- self graciously occupied a front seat. Bishop Vin- cent’s antagonistic feeling was so strong, however, that though, as the presiding officer of the occasion, he introduced me to the audience, he did not wait to hear my speech, but immediately left the hall– and this little slight added to the public’s interest in the debate. It was felt that the two gentlemen were not quite “playing fair,” and the champions of the Cause were especially enthusiastic in their efforts to make up for these failures in courtesy. My friends turned out in force to hear the lecture, and on the breast of every one of them flamed the yellow bow that stood for suffrage, giving to the vast hall something of the effect of a field of yellow tulips in full bloom.
When Dr. Buckley rose to reply the next day these friends were again awaiting him with an equal- ly jocund display of the suffrage color, and this did not add to his serenity. During his remarks he made the serious mistake of losing his temper; and, unfortunately for him, he directed his wrath toward a very old man who had thoughtlessly applauded by pounding on the floor with his cane when Dr. Buckley quoted a point I had made. The doctor leaned forward and shook his fist at him.
“Think she’s right, do you?” he asked.
“Yes,” admitted the venerable citizen, briskly, though a little startled by the manner of the ques- tion.
“Old man,” shouted Dr. Buckley, “I’ll make you take that back if you’ve got a grain of sense in your head!”
The insult cost him his audience. When he realized this he lost all his self-possession, and, as the Buffalo Courier put it the next day, “went up and down the platform raving like a Billingsgate fishwife.” He lost the debate, and the supply of yellow ribbon left in the surrounding counties was purchased that night to be used in the suffrage celebration that followed. My friends still refer to the occasion as “the day we wiped up the earth with Dr. Buckley”; but I do not deserve the im- plied tribute, for Dr. Buckley would have lost his case without a word from me. What really gave me some satisfaction, however, was the respective degree of freshness with which he and I emerged from our combat. After my speech Miss Anthony and I were given a reception, and stood for hours shaking hands with hundreds of men and women. Later in the evening we had a dinner and another reception, which, lasting, as they did, until midnight, kept us from our repose. Dr. Buckley, poor gentle- man, had to be taken to his hotel immediately after his speech, given a hot bath, rubbed down, and put tenderly to bed; and not even the sympathetic heart of Susan B. Anthony yearned over him when she heard of his exhaustion.
It was also at Chautauqua, by the way, though a number of years earlier, that I had my much mis- quoted encounter with the minister who deplored the fashion I followed in those days of wearing my hair short. This young man, who was rather a pompous person, saw fit to take me to task at a table where a number of us were dining together.
“Miss Shaw,” he said, abruptly, “I have been asked very often why you wear your hair short, and I have not been able to explain. Of course”– this kindly–” I know there is some good reason. I ventured to advance the theory that you have been ill and that your hair has fallen out. Is that it?”
“No,” I told him. “There is a reason, as you suggest. But it is not that one.”
“Then why–” he insisted.
“I am rather sensitive about it,” I explained. “I don’t know that I care to discuss the subject.”
The young minister looked pained. “But among friends–” he protested.
“True,” I conceded. “Well, then, among friends, I will admit frankly that it is a birthmark. I was born with short hair.”
That was the last time my short hair was criticized in my presence, but the young minister was right in his disapproval and I was wrong, as I subsequently realized. A few years later I let my hair grow long, for I had learned that no woman in public life can afford to make herself conspicuous by any eccen- tricity of dress or appearance. If she does so she suffers for it herself, which may not disturb her, and to a greater or less degree she injures the cause she represents, which should disturb her very much.
XII
BUILDING A HOME
It is not generally known that the meeting of the International Council of Women held in Chicago during the World’s Fair was suggested by Miss Anthony, as was also the appointment of the Exposition’s “Board of Lady Managers.” “Aunt Susan” kept her name in the background, that she might not array against these projects the opposi- tion of those prejudiced against woman suffrage. We both spoke at the meetings, however, as I have already explained, and one of our most chastening experiences occurred on “Actress Night.” There was a great demand for tickets for this occasion, as every one seemed anxious to know what kind of speeches our leading women of the stage would make; and the programme offered such magic names as Helena Modjeska, Julia Marlowe, Georgia Cayvan, Clara Morris, and others of equal appeal. The hall was soon filled, and to keep out the increasing throng the doors were locked and the waiting crowd was directed to a second hall for an overflow meeting.
As it happened, Miss Anthony and I were among the earliest arrivals at the main hall. It was the first evening we had been free to do exactly as we pleased, and we were both in high spirits, looking forward to the speeches, congratulating each other on the good seats we had been given on the plat- form, and rallying the speakers on their stage fright; for, much to our amusement, we had found them all in mortal terror of their audience. Georgia Cayvan, for example, was so nervous that she had to be strengthened with hot milk before she could speak, and Julia Marlowe admitted freely that her knees were giving way beneath her. They really had something of an ordeal before them, for it was de- cided that each actress must speak twice going immediately from the hall to the overflow meeting and repeating there the speech she had just made. But in the mean time some one had to hold the im- patient audience in the second hall, and as it was a duty every one else promptly repudiated, a row of suddenly imploring faces turned toward Miss An- thony and me. I admit that we responded to the appeal with great reluctance. We were SO com- fortable where we were–and we were also deeply interested in the first intimate glimpse we were having of these stars in the dramatic sky. We saw our duty, however, and with deep sighs we rose and departed for the second hall, where a glance at the waiting throng did not add to our pleasure in the prospect before us.
When I walked upon the stage I found myself facing an actually hostile audience. They had come to look at and listen to the actresses who had been promised them, and they thought they were being deprived of that privilege by an interloper. Never before had I gazed out on a mass of such unresponsive faces or looked into so many angry eyes. They were exchanging views on their wrongs, and the gen- eral buzz of conversation continued when I appeared. For some moments I stood looking at them, my hands behind my back. If I had tried to speak they would undoubtedly have gone on talking; my si- lence attracted their attention and they began to wonder what I intended to do. When they had stopped whispering and moving about, I spoke to them with the frankness of an overburdened heart.
“I think,” I said, slowly and distinctly, “that you are the most disagreeable audience I ever faced in my life.”
They gasped and stared, almost open-mouthed in their surprise.
“Never,” I went on, “have I seen a gathering of people turn such ugly looks upon a speaker who has sacrificed her own enjoyment to come and talk to them. Do you think I want to talk to you?” I de- manded, warming to my subject. “I certainly do not. Neither does Miss Anthony want to talk to you, and the lady who spoke to you a few moments ago, and whom you treated so rudely, did not wish to be here. We would all much prefer to be in the other hall, listening to the speakers from our com- fortable seats on the stage. To entertain you we gave up our places and came here simply because the committee begged us to do so. I have only one thing more to say. If you care to listen to me courteously I am willing to waste time on you; but don’t imagine that I will stand here and wait while you criticize the management.”
By this time I felt as if I had a child across my knee to whom I was administering maternal chastise- ment, and the uneasiness of my audience underlined the impression. They listened rather sulkily at first; then a few of the best-natured among them laughed, and the laugh grew and developed into applause. The experience had done them good, and they were a chastened band when Clara Morris appeared, and I gladly yielded the floor to her.
All the actresses who spoke that night delivered admirable addresses, but no one equaled Madame Modjeska, who delivered exquisitely a speech writ- ten, not by herself, but by a friend and country- woman, on the condition of Polish women under the regime of Russia. We were all charmed as we listened, but none of us dreamed what that address would mean to Modjeska. It resulted in her banish- ment from Poland, her native land, which she was never again permitted to enter. But though she paid so heavy a price for the revelation, I do not think she ever really regretted having given to America the facts in that speech.
During this same period I embarked upon a high adventure. I had always longed for a home, and my heart had always been loyal to Cape Cod. Now I decided to have a home at Wianno, across the Cape from my old parish at East Dennis. Deep-seated as my home-making aspiration had been, it was realized largely as the result of chance. A special hobby of mine has always been auction sales. I dearly love to drop into auction-rooms while sales are in progress, and bid up to the danger-point, taking care to stop just in time to let some one else get the offered article. But of course I sometimes failed to stop at the psychological moment, and the result was a sudden realization that, in the course of the years, I had accumulated an extraordinary number of articles for which I had no shelter and no possible use.
The crown jewel of the collection was a bedroom set I had picked up in Philadelphia. Usually, cautious friends accompanied me on my auction- room expeditions and restrained my ardor; but this time I got away alone and found myself bidding at the sale of a solid bog-wood bedroom set which had been exhibited as a show-piece at the World’s Fair, and was now, in the words of the auctioneer, “going for a song.” I sang the song. I offered twenty dollars, thirty dollars, forty dollars, and other excited voices drowned mine with higher bids. It was very thrilling. I offered fifty dollars, and there was a horrible silence, broken at last by the auctioneer’s final, “Going, going, GONE!” I was mis- tress of the bog-wood bedroom set–a set wholly out of harmony with everything else I possessed, and so huge and massive that two men were re- quired to lift the head-board alone. Like many of the previous treasures I had acquired, this was a white elephant; but, unlike some of them, it was worth more than I had paid for it. I was offered sixty dollars for one piece alone, but I coldly refused to sell it, though the tribute to my judgment warmed my heart. I had not the faintest idea what to do with the set, however, and at last I confided my dilemma to my friend, Mrs. Ellen Dietrick, who sagely advised me to build a house for it. The idea intrigued me. The bog-wood furniture needed a home, and so did I.
The result of our talk was that Mrs. Dietrick promised to select a lot for me at Wianno, where she herself lived, and even promised to supervise the building of my cottage, and to attend to all the other details connected with it. Thus put, the temptation was irresistible. Besides Mrs. Dietrick, many other delightful friends lived at Wianno–the Garrisons, the Chases of Rhode Island, the Wymans, the Wel- lingtons–a most charming community. I gave Mrs. Dietrick full authority to use her judgment in every detail connected with the undertaking, and the cottage was built. Having put her hand to this plow of friendship, Mrs. Dietrick did the work with characteristic thoroughness. I did not even visit Wianno to look at my land. She selected it, bought it, engaged a woman architect–Lois Howe of Boston–and followed the latter’s work from be- ginning to end. The only stipulation I made was that the cottage must be far up on the beach, out of sight of everybody–really in the woods; and this was easily met, for along that coast the trees came almost to the water’s edge.
The cottage was a great success, and for many years I spent my vacations there, filling the place with young people. From the time of my sister Mary’s death I had had the general oversight of her two daughters, Lola and Grace, as well as of Nicolas and Eleanor, the two motherless daughters of my brother John. They were all with me every sum- mer in the new home, together with Lucy Anthony, her sister and brother, Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, and other friends. We had special fishing costumes made, and wore them much of the time. My nieces wore knickerbockers, and I found vast content- ment in short, heavy skirts over bloomers. We lived out of doors, boating, fishing, and clamming all day long, and, as in my early pioneer days in Michigan, my part of the work was in the open. I chopped all the wood, kept the fires going, and looked after the grounds.
Rumors of our care-free and unconventional life began to circulate, and presently our Eden was in- vaded by the only serpent I have ever found in the newspaper world–a girl reporter from Boston. She telegraphed that she was coming to see us; and though, when she came, we had been warned of her propensities and received her in conventional attire, formally entertaining her with tea on the veranda, she went away and gave free play to a hectic fancy. She wrote a sensational full-page article for a Sun- day newspaper, illustrated with pictures showing us all in knickerbockers. In this striking work of art I carried a fish net and pole and wore a handkerchief tied over my head. The article, which was headed THE ADAMLESS EDEN, was almost libelous, and I admit that for a long time it dimmed our enjoy- ment of our beloved retreat. Then, gradually, my old friends died, Mrs. Dietrick among the first; others moved away; and the character of the entire region changed. It became fashionable, privacy was no longer to be found there, and we ceased to visit it. For five years I have not even seen the cottage.
In 1908 I built the house I now occupy (in Moylan, Pennsylvania), which is the realization of a desire I have always had–to build on a tract which had a stream, a grove of trees, great boulders and rocks, and a hill site for the house with a broad outlook, and a railroad station conveniently near. The friend who finally found the place for me had begun his quest with the pessimistic remark that I would better wait for it until I got to Paradise; but two years later he telegraphed me that he had discovered it on this planet, and he was right. I have only eight acres of land, but no one could ask a more ideal site for a cottage; and on the place is my beloved forest, including a grove of three hundred firs. From every country I have visited I have brought back a tiny tree for this little forest, and now it is as full of memories as of beauty.
To the surprise of my neighbors, I built my house with its back toward the public road, facing the valley and the stream. “But you will never see anybody go by,” they protested. I answered that the one person in the house who was necessarily in- terested in passers-by was my maid, and she could see them perfectly from the kitchen, which faced the road. I enjoy my views from the broad veranda that overlooks the valley, the stream, and the country for miles around.
Every suffragist I have ever met has been a lover of home; and only the conviction that she is fighting for her home, her children, for other women, or for all of these, has sustained her in her public work. Looking back on many campaign experi- ences, I am forced to admit that it is not always the privations we endure which make us think most tenderly of home. Often we are more overcome by the attentions of well-meaning friends. As an example of this I recall an incident of one Oregon campaign. I was to speak in a small city in the southern part of the state, and on reaching the station, hot, tired, and covered with the grime of a midsummer journey, I found awaiting me a delegation of citizens, a brass-band, and a white carriage drawn by a pair of beautiful white horses. In this carriage, and devotedly escorted by the citi- zens and the band, the latter playing its hardest, I was driven to the City Hall and there met by the mayor, who delivered an address, after which I was crowned with a laurel wreath. Subsequently, with this wreath still resting upon my perspiring brow, I was again driven through the streets of the city; and if ever a woman felt that her place was in the home and longed to be in her place, I felt it that day.
An almost equally trying occasion had San Fran- cisco for its setting. The city had arranged a Fourth of July celebration, at which Miss Anthony and I were to speak. Here we rode in a carriage deco- rated with flowers–yellow roses–while just in front of us was the mayor in a carriage gorgeously fes- tooned with purple blossoms. Behind us, for more than a mile, stretched a procession of uniformed policemen, soldiers, and citizens, while the sidewalks were lined with men and women whose enthusiastic greetings came to Miss Anthony from every side. She was enchanted over the whole experience, for to her it meant, as always, not a personal tribute, but a triumph of the Cause. But I sat by her side acutely miserable; for across my shoulders and breast had been draped a huge sash with the word “Orator” emblazoned on it, and this was further embellished by a striking rosette with streamers which hung nearly to the bottom of my gown. It is almost unnecessary to add that this remarkable decoration was furnished by a committee of men, and was also worn by all the men speakers of the day. Possibly I was overheated by the sash, or by the emotions the sash aroused in me, for I was stricken with pneumonia the following day and experienced my first serious illness, from which, however, I soon recovered.
On our way to California in 1895 Miss Anthony and I spent a day at Cheyenne, Wyoming, as the guests of Senator and Mrs. Carey, who gave a dinner for us. At the table I asked Senator Carey what he considered the best result of the enfranchisement of Wyoming women, and even after the lapse of twenty years I am able to give his reply almost word for word, for it impressed me deeply at the time and I have since quoted it again and again.
“There have been many good results,” he said, “but the one I consider above all the others is the great change for the better in the character of our candidates for office. Consider this for a moment: Since our women have voted there has never been an embezzlement of public funds, or a scandalous misuse of public funds, or a disgraceful condition of graft. I attribute the better character of our public officials almost entirely to the votes of the women.”
“Those are inspiring facts,” I conceded, “but let us be just. There are three men in Wyoming to every woman, and no candidate for office could be elected unless the men voted for him, too. Why, then, don’t they deserve as much credit for his election as the women?”
“Because,” explained Senator Carey, promptly, “women are politically an uncertain factor. We can go among men and learn beforehand how they are going to vote, but we can’t do that with women; they keep us guessing. In the old days, when we went into the caucus we knew what resolutions put into our platforms would win the votes of the ranch- men, what would win the miners, what would win the men of different nationalities; but we did not know how to win the votes of the women until we began to nominate our candidates. Then we im- mediately discovered that if the Democrats nomi- nated a man of immoral character for office, the women voted for his Republican opponent, and we learned our first big lesson–that whatever a candi- date’s other qualifications for office may be, he must first of all have a clean record. In the old days, when we nominated a candidate we asked, `Can he hold the saloon vote?’ Now we ask, `Can he hold the women’s vote?’ Instead of bidding down to the saloon, we bid up to the home.”
Following the dinner there was a large public meeting, at which Miss Anthony and I were to speak. Mrs. Jenkins, who was president of the Suffrage Association of the state, presided and introduced us to the assemblage. Then she added: “I have intro- duced you ladies to your audience. Now I would like to introduce your audience to you.” She be- gan with the two Senators and the member of Con- gress, then introduced the Governor, the Lieutenant- Governor, the state Superintendent of Education, and numerous city and state officials. As she went on Miss Anthony grew more and more excited, and when the introductions were over, she said: “This is the first time I have ever seen an audience assembled for woman suffrage made up of the public officials of a state. No one can ever persuade me now that men respect women without political power as much as they respect women who have it; for certainly in no other state in the Union would it be possible to gather so many public officials under one roof to listen to the addresses of women.”
The following spring we again went West, with Mrs. Catt, Lucy Anthony, Miss Hay and Miss Sweet, her secretary, to carry on the Pacific coast campaign of ’96, arranged by Mrs. Cooper and her daughter Harriet, of Oakland–both women of re- markable executive ability. Headquarters were se- cured in San Francisco, and Miss Hay was put in charge, associated with a large group of California women. It was the second time in the history of campaigns–the first being in New York–that all the money to carry on the work was raised by the people of the state.
The last days of the campaign were extremely interesting, and one of their important events was that the Hon. Thomas Reed, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, for the first time came out publicly for suffrage. Mr. Reed had often ex- pressed himself privately as in favor of the Cause– but he had never made a public statement for us. At Oakland, one day, the indefatigable and irresisti- ble “Aunt Susan” caught him off his guard by per- suading his daughter, Kitty Reed, who was his idol, to ask him to say just one word in favor of our amendment. When he arose we did not know whether he had promised what she asked, and as his speech progressed our hearts sank lower and lower, for all he said was remote from our Cause. But he ended with these words:
“There is an amendment of the constitution pending, granting suffrage to women. The women of California ought to have suffrage. The men of California ought to give it to them–and the next speaker, Dr. Shaw, will tell you why.”
The word was spoken. And though it was not a very strong word, it came from a strong man, and therefore helped us.
Election day, as usual, brought its surprises and revelations. Mrs. Cooper asked her Chinese cook how the Chinese were voting–i. e., the native-born Chinamen who were entitled to vote–and he re- plied, blithely, “All Chinamen vote for Billy McKee and `NO’ to women!” It is an interesting fact that every Chinese vote was cast against us.
All day we went from one to another of the polling- places, and I shall always remember the picture of Miss Anthony and the wife of Senator Sargent wan- dering around the polls arm in arm at eleven o’clock at night, their tired faces taking on lines of deeper depression with every minute; for the count was against us. However, we made a fairly good show- ing. When the final counts came in we found that we had won the state from the north down to Oak- land, and from the south up to San Francisco; but there was not a sufficient majority to overcome the adverse votes of San Francisco and Oakland. With more than 230,000 votes cast, we were defeated by only 10,000 majority. In San Francisco the saloon element and the most aristocratic section of the city made an equal showing against us, while the section occupied by the middle working-class was largely in favor of our amendment. I dwell es- pecially on this campaign, partly because such splen- did work was done by the women of California, and also because, during the same election, Utah and Idaho granted full suffrage to women. This gave us four suffrage states–Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho–and we prepared for future struggles with very hopeful hearts.
It was during this California campaign, by the way, that I unwittingly caused much embarrass- ment to a worthy young man. At a mass-meeting held in San Francisco, Rabbi Vorsanger, who was not in favor of suffrage for women, advanced the heart- ening theory that in a thousand years more they might possibly be ready for it. After a thousand years of education for women, of physically de- veloped women, of uncorseted women, he said, we might have the ideal woman, and could then begin to talk about freedom for her.
When the rabbi sat down there was a shout from the audience for me to answer him, but all I said was that the ideal woman would be rather lonely, as it would certainly take another thousand years to develop an ideal man capable of being a mate for her. On the following night Prof. Howard Griggs, of Stanford University, made a speech on the modern woman–a speech so admirably thought out and delivered that we were all delighted with it. When he had finished the audience again called on me, and I rose and proceeded to make what my friends frank- ly called “the worst break” of my experience. Rabbi Vorsanger’s ideal woman was still in my mind, and I had been rather hard on the men in my reply to the rabbi the night before; so now I hastened to give this clever young man his full due. I said that though the rabbi thought it would take a thousand years to make an ideal woman, I believed that, after all, it might not take as long to make the ideal man. We had something very near it in a speaker who could reveal such ability, such chivalry, and such breadth of view as Professor Griggs had just shown that he possessed.
That night I slept the sleep of the just and the well-meaning, and it was fortunate I did, for the morning newspapers had a surprise for me that called for steady nerves and a sense of humor. Across the front page of every one of them ran startling head-lines to this effect:
DR. SHAW HAS FOUND HER IDEAL MAN
The Prospects Are That She Will
Remain in California
Professor Griggs was young enough to be my son, and he was already married and the father of two beautiful children; but these facts were not per- mitted to interfere with the free play of fancy in journalistic minds. For a week the newspapers were filled with all sorts of articles, caricatures, and editorials on my ideal man, which caused me much annoyance and some amusement, while they plunged Professor Griggs into an abysmal gloom. In the end, however, the experience proved an excellent one for him, for the publicity attending his speech made him decide to take up lecturing as a profession, which he eventually did with great success. But neither of us has yet heard the last of the Ideal Man episode. Only a few years ago, on his return to California after a long absence, one of the leading Sunday newspapers of the state heralded Professor Griggs’s arrival by publishing a full-page article bearing his photograph and mine and this flam- boyant heading:
SHE MADE HIM
And Dr. Shaw’s Ideal Man Became the Idol of American Women and
Earns $30,000 a Year
We had other unusual experiences in California, and the display of affluence on every side was not the least impressive of them. In one town, after a heavy rain, I remember seeing a number of little boys scraping the dirt from the gutters, washing it, and finding tiny nuggets of gold. We learned that these boys sometimes made two or three dollars a day in this way, and that the streets of the town– I think it was Marysville–contained so much gold that a syndicate offered to level the whole town and repave the streets in return for the right to wash out the gold. This sounds like the kind of thing Ameri- cans tell to trustful visitors from foreign lands, but it is quite true.
Nuggets, indeed, were so numerous that at one of our meetings, when we were taking up a collec- tion, I cheerfully suggested that our audience drop a few into the box, as we had not had a nugget since we reached the state. There were no nuggets in the subsequent collection, but there was a note which read: “If Dr. Shaw will accept a gold nugget, I will see that she does not leave town without one.” I read this aloud, and added, “I have never refused a gold nugget in my life.”
The following day brought me a pin made of a very beautiful gold nugget, and a few days later another Californian produced a cluster of smaller nuggets which he had washed out of a panful of earth and insisted on my accepting half of them. I was not accustomed to this sort of generosity, but it was characteristic of the spirit of the state. No- where else, during our campaign experiences, were we so royally treated in every way. As a single example among many, I may mention that Mrs. Leland Stanford once happened to be on a train with us and to meet Miss Anthony. As a result of this chance encounter she gave our whole party passes on all the lines of the Southern Pacific Rail- road, for use during the entire campaign. Similar generosity was shown us on every side, and the ques- tion of finance did not burden us from the beginning to the end of the California work.
In our Utah and Idaho campaigns we had also our full share of new experiences, and of these perhaps the most memorable to me was the sermon I preached in the Mormon Tabernacle at Salt Lake City. Before I left New York the Mormon women had sent me the invitation to preach this sermon, and when I reached Salt Lake City and the so-called “Gentile” women heard of the plan, they at once invited me to preach to the “Gentiles” on the evening of the same Sunday, in the Salt Lake City Opera House.
On the morning of the sermon I approached the Mormon Tabernacle with much more trepidation than I usually experienced before entering a pulpit. I was not sure what particular kind of trouble I would get into, but I had an abysmal suspicion that trouble of some sort lay in wait for me, and I shivered in the anticipation of it. Fortunately, my anxiety was not long drawn out. I arrived only a few moments before the hour fixed for the sermon, and found the congregation already assembled and the Tabernacle filled with the beautiful music of the great organ. On the platform, to which I was escorted by several leading dignitaries of the church, was the characteristic Mormon arrangement of seats. The first row was occupied by the deacons, and in the center of these was the pulpit from which the deacons preach. Above these seats was a second row, oc- cupied by ordained elders, and there they too had their own pulpit. The third row was occupied by, the bishops and the highest dignitaries of the church, with the pulpit from which the bishops preach; and behind them all, an effective human frieze, was the really wonderful Mormon choir.
As I am an ordained elder in my church, I oc- cupied the pulpit in the middle row of seats, with the deacons below me and the bishops just behind. Scattered among the congregation were hundreds of “Gentiles” ready to leap mentally upon any con- cession I might make to the Mormon faith; while the Mormons were equally on the alert for any implied criticism of them and their church. The problem of preaching a sermon which should offer some appeal to both classes, without offending either, was a perplexing one, and I solved it to the best of my ability by delivering a sermon I had once given in my own church to my own people. When I had finished I was wholly uncertain of its effect, but at the end of the services one of the bishops leaned toward me from his place in the rear, and, to my mingled horror and amusement, offered me this tribute, “That is one of the best Mormon sermons ever preached in this Tabernacle.”
I thanked him, but inwardly I was aghast. What had I said to give him such an impression? I racked my brain, but could recall nothing that justified it. I passed the day in a state of nervous apprehension, fully expecting some frank criticism from the “Gen- tiles” on the score of having delivered a Mormon sermon to ingratiate myself into the favor of the Mormons and secure their votes for the constitu- tional amendment. But nothing of the kind was said. That evening, after the sermon to the “Gen- tiles,” a reception was given to our party, and I drew my first deep breath when the wife of a well- known clergyman came to me and introduced her- self in these words:
“My husband could not come here to-night, but he heard your sermon this morning. He asked me to tell you how glad he was that under such unusual conditions you held so firmly to the teachings of Christ.”
The next day I was still more reassured. A re- ception was given us at the home of one of Brigham Young’s daughters, and the receiving-line was graced by the presiding elder of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was a bluff and jovial gen- tleman, and when he took my hand he said, warmly, “Well, Sister Shaw, you certainly gave our Mormon friends the biggest dose of Methodism yesterday that they ever got in their lives.”
After this experience I reminded myself again that what Frances Willard so frequently said is true; All truth is our truth when it has reached our hearts; we merely rechristen it according to our individual creeds.
During the visit I had an interesting conversation with a number of the younger Mormon women. I was to leave the city on a midnight train, and about twenty of them, including four daughters of Brig- ham Young, came to my hotel to remain with me until it was time to go to the station. They filled the room, sitting around in school-girl fashion on the floor and even on the bed. It was an unusual op- portunity to learn some things I wished to know, and I could not resist it.
“There are some questions I would like to ask you,” I began, “and one or two of them may seem impertinent. But they won’t be asked in that spirit–and please don’t answer any that embarrass you.”
They exchanged glances, and then told me to ask as many questions as I wished.
“First of all,” I said, “I would like to know the real attitude toward polygamy of the present gen- eration of Mormon women. Do you all believe in it?”
They assured me that they did.
“How many of you,” I then asked, “are polyga- mous wives?”
There was not one in the group.
“But,” I insisted, “if you really believe in polyg- amy, why is it that some of your husbands have not taken more than one wife?”
There was a moment of silence, while each woman looked around as if waiting for another to answer. At last one of them said, slowly:
“In my case, I alone was to blame. For years I could not force myself to consent to my husband’s taking another wife, though I tried hard. By the time I had overcome my objection the law was passed prohibiting polygamy.”
A second member of the group hastened to tell her story. She had had a similar spiritual struggle, and just as she reached the point where she was willing to have her husband take another wife, he died. And now the room was filled with eager voices. Four or five women were telling at once that they, too, had been reluctant in the beginning, and that when they had reached the point of consent this, that, or another cause had kept the husbands from marrying again. They were all so passion- ately in earnest that they stared at me in puzzled wonder when I broke into the sudden laughter I could not restrain.
“What fortunate women you all were!” I ex- claimed, teasingly. “Not one of you arrived at the point of consenting to the presence of a second wife in your home until it was impossible for your hus- band to take her.”
They flushed a little at that, and then laughed with me; but they did not defend themselves against the tacit charge, and I turned the conversation into less personal channels. I learned that many of the Mormon young men were marrying girls outside of the Church, and that two sons of a leading Mormon elder had married and were living very happily with Catholic girls.
At this time the Mormon candidate for Congress (a man named Roberts) was a bitter opponent of woman suffrage. The Mormon women begged me to challenge him to a debate on the subject, which I did, but Mr. Roberts declined the challenge. The ground of his refusal, which he made public through the newspapers, was chastening to my spirit. He explained that he would not debate with me because he was not willing to lower himself to the intellectual plane of a woman.
XIII
PRESIDENT OF “THE NATIONAL”
In 1900 Miss Anthony, then over eighty, decided that she must resign the presidency of our Nation- al Association, and the question of the successor she would choose became an important one. It was conceded that there were only two candidates in her mind–Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt and myself– and for several months we gave the suffrage world the unusual spectacle of rivals vigorously pushing each other’s claims. Miss Anthony was devoted to us both, and I think the choice was a hard one for her to make. On the one hand, I had been vice-president at large and her almost constant companion for twelve years, and she had grown ac- customed to think of me as her successor. On the other hand, Mrs. Catt had been chairman of the organization committee, and through her splendid executive ability had built up our organization in many states. From Miss Anthony down, we all recognized her steadily growing powers; she had, moreover, abundant means, which I had not.
In my mind there was no question of her superior qualification for the presidency. She seemed to me the logical and indeed the only possible successor to Miss Anthony; and I told “Aunt Susan” so with all the eloquence I could command, while simul- taneously Mrs. Catt was pouring into Miss Anthony’s other ear a series of impassioned tributes to me. It was an unusual situation and a very pleasant one, and it had two excellent results: it simplified “Aunt Susan’s” problem by eliminating the element of per- sonal ambition, and it led to her eventual choice of Mrs. Catt as her successor.
I will admit here for the first time that in urging Mrs. Catt’s fitness for the office I made the greatest sacrifice of my life. My highest ambition had been to succeed Miss Anthony, for no one who knew her as I did could underestimate the honor of being chosen by her to carry on her work.
At the convention in Washington that year she formally refused the nomination for re-election, as we had all expected, and then, on being urged to choose her own successor, she stepped forward to do so. It was a difficult hour, for her fiery soul re- sented the limitations imposed by her worn-out body, and to such a worker the most poignant ex- perience in life is to be forced to lay down one’s work at the command of old age. On this she touched briefly, but in a trembling voice; and then, in furtherance of the understanding between the three of us, she presented the name of Mrs. Catt to the convention with all the pride and hope a mother could feel in the presentation of a daughter.
Her faith was fully justified. Mrs. Catt made an admirable president, and during every moment of the four years she held the office she had Miss Anthony’s whole-hearted and enthusiastic support, while I, too, in my continued office of vice-president, did my utmost to help her in every way. In 1904, however, Mrs. Catt was elected president of the International Suffrage Alliance, as I have mentioned before, and that same year she resigned the presi- dency of our National Association, as her health was not equal to the strain of carrying the two offices.
Miss Anthony immediately urged me to accept the presidency of the National Association, which I was now most unwilling to do; I had lost my ambition to be president, and there were other rea- sons, into which I need not go again, why I felt that I could not accept the post. At last, however, Miss Anthony actually commanded me to take the place, and there was nothing to do but obey her. She was then eighty-four, and, as it proved, within two years of her death. It was no time for me to rebel against her wishes; but I yielded with the heaviest heart I have ever carried, and after my election to the presidency at the national convention in Washing- ton I left the stage, went into a dark corner of the wings, and for the first time since my girlhood “cried myself sick.”
In the work I now took up I found myself much alone. Mrs. Catt was really ill, and the strength of “Aunt Susan” must be saved in every way. Neither could give me much help, though each did all she should have done, and more. Mrs. Catt, whose husband had recently died, was in a deeply despondent frame of mind, and seemed to feel that the future was hopelessly dark. My own panacea for grief is work, and it seemed to me that both physically and mentally she would be helped by a wise combination of travel and effort. During my lifetime I have cherished two ambitions, and only two: the first, as I have already confessed, had been to succeed Miss Anthony as president of our association; the second was to go around the world, carrying the woman-suffrage ideal to every country, and starting in each a suffrage society. Long before the inception of the International Suf- frage Alliance I had dreamed this dream; and, though it had receded as I followed it through life, I had never wholly lost sight of it. Now I realized that for me it could never be more than a dream. I could never hope to have enough money at my disposal to carry it out, and it occurred to me that if Mrs. Catt undertook it as president of the Inter- national Suffrage Alliance the results would be of the greatest benefit to the Cause and to her.
In my first visit to her after her husband’s death I suggested this plan, but she replied that it was impossible for her to consider it. I did not lose thought of it, however, and at the next International Conference, held in Copenhagen in 1907, I suggested to some of the delegates that we introduce the matter as a resolution, asking Mrs. Catt to go around the world in behalf of woman suffrage. They approved the suggestion so heartily that I followed it up with a speech setting forth the whole plan and Mrs. Catt’s peculiar fitness for the work. Several months later Mrs. Catt and Dr. Aletta Jacobs, presi- dent of the Holland Suffrage Association, started on their world tour; and not until after they had gone did I fully realize that the two great personal am- bitions of my life had been realized, not by me, but by another, and in each case with my enthusiastic co-operation.
In 1904, following my election to the presidency, a strong appeal came from the Board of Managers of the exposition to be held in Portland, Oregon, urging us to hold our next annual convention there during the exposition. It was the first time an important body of men had recognized us in this manner, and we gladly responded. So strong a political factor did the men of Oregon recognize us to be that every political party in the state asked to be represented on our platform; and one entire evening of the convention was given over to the representatives chosen by the various parties to indorse the suffrage movement. Thus we began in Oregon the good work we continued in 1906, and of which we reaped the harvest in 1912.
Next to “Suffrage Night,” the most interesting feature of the exposition to us was the unveiling of the statue of Saccawagea, the young Indian girl who led the Lewis and Clark expedition through the dangerous passes of the mountain ranges of the Northwest until they reached the Pacific coast. This statue, presented to the exposition by the women of Oregon, is the belated tribute of the state to its most dauntless pioneer; and no one can look upon the noble face of the young squaw, whose out- stretched hand points to the ocean, without marvel- ing over the ingratitude of the nation that ignored her supreme service. To Saccawagea is due the opening up of the entire western country. There was no one to guide Lewis and Clark except this Indian, who alone knew the way; and she led the whole party, carrying her papoose on her back. She was only sixteen, but she brought every man safely through an experience of almost unparalleled hardship and danger, nursing them in sickness and setting them an example of unfaltering courage and endurance, until she stood at last on the Pacific coast, where her statue stands now, pointing to the wide sweep of the Columbia River as it flows into the sea.
This recognition by women is the only recognition she ever received. Both Lewis and Clark were sin- cerely grateful to her and warmly recommended her to the government for reward; but the government allowed her absolutely nothing, though each man in the party she had led was given a large tract of land. Tradition says that she was bitterly disap- pointed, as well she might have been, and her Indian brain must have been sadly puzzled. But she was treated little worse than thousands of the white pioneer women who have followed her; and standing: there to-day on the bank of her river, she still seems sorrowfully reflective over the strange ways of the nation she so nobly served.
The Oregon campaign of 1906 was the carrying out of one of Miss Anthony’s dearest wishes, and we who loved her set about this work soon after her death. In the autumn preceding her passing, head- quarters had been established in Oregon, and Miss Laura Gregg had been placed in charge, with Miss Gale Laughlin as her associate. As the money for this effort was raised by the National Association, it was decided, after some discussion, to let the National Association develop the work in Oregon, which was admittedly a hard state to carry and full of possible difficulties which soon became actual ones.
As a beginning, the Legislature had failed to sub- mit an amendment; but as the initiative and referen- dum was the law in Oregon, the amendment was sub- mitted through initiative patent. The task of se- curing the necessary signatures was not an easy one, but at last a sufficient number of signatures were secured and verified, and the authorities issued the necessary proclamation for the vote, which was to take place at a special election held on the 5th of June. Our campaign work had been carried on as extensively as possible, but the distances were great and the workers few, and as a result of the strain upon her Miss Gregg’s health soon failed alarm- ingly.
All this was happening during Miss Anthony’s last illness, and it added greatly to our anxieties.
She instructed me to go to Oregon immediately after her death and to take her sister Mary and her niece Lucy with me, and we followed these orders within a week of her funeral, arriving in Portland on the third day of April. I had at- tempted too much, however, and I proved it by fainting as I got off the train, to the horror of the friendly delegation waiting to receive us. The Portland women took very tender care of me, and in a few days I was ready for work, but we found conditions even worse than we had expected. Miss Gregg had collapsed utterly and was unable to give us any information as to what had been done or planned, and we had to make a new foundation. Miss Laura Clay, who had been in the Portland work for a few weeks, proved a tower of strength, and we were soon aided further by Ida Porter Boyer, who came on to take charge of the publicity department. During the final six weeks of the campaign Alice Stone Blackwell, of Boston, was also with us, while Kate Gordon took under her special charge the or- ganization of the city of Portland and the parlor- meeting work. Miss Clay went into the state, where Emma Smith DeVoe and other speakers were also working, and I spent my time between the office headquarters and “the road,” often working at my desk until it was time to rush off and take a train for some town where I was to hold a night meeting. Miss Mary and Miss Lucy Anthony confined them- selves to office-work in the Portland headquarters, where they gave us very valuable assistance. I have always believed that we would have carried Oregon that year if the disaster of the California earthquake had not occurred to divert the minds of Western men from interest in anything save that great catastrophe.
On election day it seemed as if the heavens had opened to pour floods upon us. Never before or since have I seen such incessant, relentless rain. Nevertheless, the women of Portland turned out in force, led by Mrs. Sarah Evans, president of the Oregon State Federation of Women’s Clubs, while all day long Dr. Pohl took me in her automobile from one polling-place to another. At each we found representative women patiently enduring the drench- ing rain while they tried to persuade men to vote for us. We distributed sandwiches, courage, and in- spiration among them, and tried to cheer in the same way the women watchers, whose appointment we had secured that year for the first time. Two women had been admitted to every polling-place–but the way in which we had been able to secure their pres- ence throws a high-light on the difficulties we were meeting. We had to persuade men candidates to select these women as watchers; and the only men who allowed themselves to be persuaded were those running on minority tickets and hopeless of election –the prohibitionists, the socialists, and the candi- dates of the labor party.
The result of the election taught us several things. We had been told that all the prohibitionists and socialists would vote for us. Instead, we discovered that the percentage of votes for woman suffrage was about the same in every party, and that whenever the voter had cast a straight vote, without inde- pendence enough to “scratch” his ticket, that vote was usually against us. On the other hand, when the ticket was “scratched” the vote was usually in our favor, whatever political party the man be- longed to.
Another interesting discovery was that the early morning vote was favorable to our Cause the vote cast by working-men on their way to their employ- ment. During the middle of the forenoon and after- noon, when the idle class was at the polls, the vote ran against us. The late vote, cast as men were returning from their work, was again largely in our favor–and we drew some conclusions from this.
Also, for the first time in the history of any cam- paign, the anti-suffragists had organized against us. Portland held a small body of women with anti- suffrage sentiments, and there were others in the state who formed themselves into an anti-suffrage society and carried on a more or less active warfare. In this campaign, for the first time, obscene cards directed against the suffragists were circulated at the polls; and while I certainly do not accuse the Oregon anti-suffragists of circulating them, it is a fact that the cards were distributed as coming from the anti-suffragists–undoubtedly by some vicious element among the men which had its own good rea- son for opposing us. The “antis” also suffered in this campaign from the “pernicious activity” of their spokesman–a lawyer with an unenviable reputation. After the campaign was over this man declared that it had cost the opponents of our measure $300,000.
In 1907 Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont began to show an interest in suffrage work, and through the influence of several leaders in the movement, notably that of Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, she decided to assist in the establishment of national headquarters in the State of New York. For a long time the associa- tion’s headquarters had been in Warren, Ohio, the home of Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, then national treasurer, and it was felt that their removal to a larger city would have a great influence in develop- ing the work. In 1909 Mrs. Belmont attended as a delegate the meeting of the International Suffrage Alliance in London, and her interest in the Cause deepened. She became convinced that the head- quarters of the association should be in New York City, and at our Seattle convention that same year I presented to the delegates her generous offer to pay the rent and maintain a press department for two years, on condition that our national head- quarters were established in New York.
This proposition was most gratefully accepted, and we promptly secured headquarters in one of the most desirable buildings on Fifth Avenue. The wisdom of the change was demonstrated at once by the extraordinary growth of the work. During our last year in Warren, for example, the proceeds from the sale of our literature were between $1,200 and $1,300. During the first year in New York our returns from such sales were between $13,000 and $14,000, and an equal growth was evident in our other departments.
At the end of two years Mrs. Belmont ceased to support the press department or to pay the rent, but her timely aid had put us on our feet, and we were able to continue our splendid progress and to meet our expenses.
The special event of 1908 was the successful com- pletion of the fund President M. Carey Thomas of Bryn Mawr and Miss Mary Garrett had promised in 1906 to raise for the Cause. For some time after Miss Anthony’s death nothing more was said of this, but I knew those two indefatigable friends were not idle, and “Aunt Susan” had died in the blessed conviction that their success was certain. In 1907 I received a letter from Miss Thomas telling me that the project was progressing; and later she sent an outline of her plan, which was to ask a certain number of wealthy persons to give five hundred dollars a year each for a term of years. In all, a fund of $60,000 was to be raised, of which we were to have $12,000 a year for five years; $4,500 of the $12,000 was to be paid in salaries to three active officers, and the remaining $7,500 was to go toward the work of the association. The entire fund was to be raised by May 1, 1908, she added, or the plan would be dropped.
I was on a lecture tour in Ohio in April, 1908, when one night, as I was starting for the hall where the lecture was to be given, my telephone bell rang. “Long distance wants you,” the operator said, and the next minute a voice I recognized as that of Miss Thomas was offering congratulations. “The last dollar of the $60,000,” she added, “was pledged at four o’clock this afternoon.”
I was so overcome by the news that I dropped the receiver and shook in a violent nervous attack, and this trembling continued throughout my lecture. It had not seemed possible that such a burden could be lifted from my shoulders; $7,500 a year would greatly aid our work, and $4,500 a year, even though divided among three officers, would be a most wel- come help to each. As subsequently arranged, the salaries did not come to us through the National Association treasury; they were paid directly by Miss Thomas and Miss Garrett as custodians of the fund. So it is quite correct to say that no salaries have ever been paid by the National Association to its officers.
Three years later, in 1911, another glorious sur- prise came to me in a very innocent-looking letter. It was one of many in a heavy mail, and I opened it absent-mindedly, for the day had been problem-filled.
The writer stated very simply that she wished to put a large amount into my hands to invest, to draw on, and to use for the Cause as I saw fit. The matter was to be a secret between us, and she wished no subsequent accounting, as she had entire faith in my ability to put the money to the best possible use.
The proposition rather dazed me, but I rallied my forces and replied that I was infinitely grateful, but that the amount she mentioned was a large one and I would much prefer to share the responsibility of dis- bursing it. Could she not select one more person, at least, to share the secret and act with me? She re- plied, telling me to make the selection, if I insisted on having a confidante, and I sent her the names of Miss Thomas and Miss Garrett, suggesting that as Miss Thomas had done so much of the work in con- nection with the $60,000 fund, Miss Garrett might be willing to accept the detail work of this fund. My friend replied that either of these ladies would be perfectly satisfactory to her. She knew them both, she said, and I was to arrange the matter as I chose, as it rested wholly in my hands.
I used this money in subsequent state campaigns, and I am very sure that to it was largely due the winning of Arizona, Kansas, and Oregon in 1912, and of Montana and Nevada in 1914. It enabled us for the first time to establish headquarters, se- cure an office force, and engage campaign speakers. I also spent some of it in the states we lost then but will win later–Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan– using in all more than fifteen thousand dollars. In September, 1913, I received another check from the same friend, showing that she at least was satisfied with the results we had achieved.
“It goes to you with my love,” she wrote, “and my earnest hopes for further success–not the least of this a crowning of your faithful, earnest, splendid work for our beloved Cause. How blessed it is that you are our president and leader!”
I had talked to this woman only twice in my life, and I had not seen her for years when her first check came; so her confidence in me was an even greater gift than her royal donation toward our Cause.
XIV
RECENT CAMPAIGNS
The interval between the winning of Idaho and Utah in 1896 and that of Washington in 1910 seemed very long to lovers of the Cause. We were working as hard as ever–harder, indeed, for the opposition against us was growing stronger as our opponents realized what triumphant woman suf- frage would mean to the underworld, the grafters, and the whited sepulchers in public office. But in 1910 we were cheered by our Washington victory, followed the next year by the winning of California. Then, with our splendid banner year of 1912 came the winning of three states–Arizona, Kansas, and Oregon–preceded by a campaign so full of vim and interest that it must have its brief chronicle here.
To begin, we conducted in 1912 the largest num- ber of campaigns we had ever undertaken, working in six states in which constitutional amendments were pending–Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Oregon, Arizona, and Kansas. Personally, I began my work in Ohio in August, with the modest aspiration of speaking in each of the principal towns in every one of these states. In Michigan I had the invaluable assistance of Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, of Philadelphia, and I visited at this time the region of my old home, greatly changed since the days of my girlhood, and talked to the old friends and neighbors who had turned out in force to welcome me. They showed their further interest in the most satisfactory way, by carrying the amendment in their part of the state.
At least four and five speeches a day were expected, and as usual we traveled in every sort of conveyance, from freight-cars to eighty horse-power French auto- mobiles. In Eau Clair, Wisconsin, I spoke at the races immediately after the passing of a procession of cattle. At the end of the procession rode a wom- an in an ox-cart, to represent pioneer days. She wore a calico gown and a sunbonnet, and drove her ox-team with genuine skill; and the last touch to the picture she made was furnished by the presence of a beautiful biplane which whirred lightly in the air above her. The obvious comparison was too good to ignore, so I told my hearers that their women to-day were still riding in ox-teams while the men soared in the air, and that women’s work in the world’s service could be properly done only when they too were allowed to fly.
In Oregon we were joined by Miss Lucy Anthony. There, at Pendleton, I spoke during the great “round up,” holding the meeting at night on the street, in which thousands of horsemen–cowboys, Indians, and ranchmen–were riding up and down, blowing horns, shouting, and singing. It seemed impossible to interest an audience under such con- ditions, but evidently the men liked variety, for when we began to speak they quieted down and closed around us until we had an audience that filled the streets in every direction and as far as our voices could reach. Never have we had more courteous or enthusiastic listeners than those wild and happy horsemen. Best of all, they not only cheered our sentiments, but they followed up their cheers with their votes. I spoke from an automobile, and when I had finished one of the cowboys rode close to me and asked for my New York address. “You will hear from me later,” he said, when he had made a note of it. In time I received a great linen banner, on which he had made a superb pen-and-ink sketch of himself and his horse, and in every corner sketches of scenes in the different states where women voted, together with drawings of all the details of cowboy equipment. Over these were drawn the words:
WOMAN SUFFRAGE–WE ARE ALL FOR IT.
The banner hangs to-day in the National Head- quarters.
In California Mr. Edwards presented me with the money to purchase the diamond in Miss Anthony’s flag pin representing the victory of his state the preceding year; and in Arizona one of the high-