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18 - Susan B. Anthony Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian by Alma Lutz · Susan B. Anthony Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian

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Speaker 1: Chapter eighteen of Susan B. Anthony by all Malots. This
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Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter eighteen Social purity.
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Speaker 1: Militancy among the Suffragists continued to flare up here and
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Speaker 1: there in resistance to taxation without representation. Abby Kelly Foster's
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Speaker 1: home in Worcester was sold for taxes for a mere
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Speaker 1: fraction of its worth, while in Glastonbury, Connecticut, Abby and
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Speaker 1: Julius Smith's cows and personal property were seized for taxes.
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Speaker 1: Both doctor Harriet K. Hunt in Boston and Mary Anthony
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Speaker 1: in Rochester continued their tax protests. Much as Susan admired
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Speaker 1: this spirited rebellion, she recognized that these militant gestures were
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Speaker 1: but flames in the wind unless they had behind them
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Speaker 1: a well organized, sustained campaign for a sixteenth Amendment, and
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Speaker 1: this she could not undertake until the revolution debt was paid.
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Speaker 1: Nor was there anyone to pinch hit for her, since
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Speaker 1: Ernestine Rose had returned to England and Missus Stanton gave
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Speaker 1: all her time to lyceum lectures. At the moment, the
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Speaker 1: prospect looked bleak for women's suffrage in Congress. There was
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Speaker 1: not the slightest hope of the introduction of or action
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Speaker 1: on a sixteenth Amendment in the States. Interest was kept
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Speaker 1: alive by women's suffrage bills before the legislatures, and year
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Speaker 1: by year, with more people recognizing the inherent justice of
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Speaker 1: the demand, the margin of defeat grew smaller. Whenever these
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Speaker 1: state contests were critical, Susan managed to be on hand,
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Speaker 1: giving up profitable lecture engagements to speak without fees. In
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Speaker 1: Michigan in eighteen seventy four and in Iowa in eighteen
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Speaker 1: seventy five. She made new friends for the cause, but
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Speaker 1: was unable to stem the tide of prejudice against granting
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Speaker 1: women the vote. After the defeat in Michigan, she wrote
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Speaker 1: in her diary, every whiskey maker, vender, drinker, gambler, every ignorant,
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Speaker 1: besotted man is against us. And then the other extreme,
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Speaker 1: every narrow, selfish religious bigot. A new militant movement swept
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Speaker 1: the country in eighteen seventy four, starting in small Ohio
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Speaker 1: towns among women who were so aroused over the evil
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Speaker 1: influence of liquor on husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers that
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Speaker 1: they gathered in front of saloons to sing and pray,
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Speaker 1: hoping to persuade drunkards to reform and saloon keepers to
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Speaker 1: close their doors. Out of this uprising, the Woman's Christian
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Speaker 1: Temperance Union developed and within the next few years was
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Speaker 1: organized into a powerful reform movement by a young school
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Speaker 1: teacher from Illinois, Francis E. Willard. A lifelong advocate of temperance,
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Speaker 1: Susan had long before reached the conclusion that this reform
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Speaker 1: could not be achieved by a strictly temperance or religious movement,
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Speaker 1: but only through the votes of women. Nevertheless, she lent
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Speaker 1: a helping hand to the Rochester women who organized a
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Speaker 1: branch of the w c t U. But she told
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Speaker 1: them just how she felt the best thing this organization
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Speaker 1: will do for you will be to show you how
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Speaker 1: utterly powerless you are to put down the liquor traffic.
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Speaker 1: You can never talk down, or sing down, or pray
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Speaker 1: down an institution which is voted into existence. You will
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Speaker 1: never be able to lessen this evil until you have votes.
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Speaker 1: As she traveled through the West for the Lyceum Bureau,
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Speaker 1: she did what she could to stimulate interest in a
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Speaker 1: federal women's suffrage amendment, speaking out of a full heart
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Speaker 1: and with sure knowledge on bread and the ballot and
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Speaker 1: the power of the ballot, earning on average one hundred
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Speaker 1: dollars a week, which she applied to the revolution debt
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Speaker 1: Lyceum lecturers were now at the height of their popularity,
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Speaker 1: particularly in the West, where in the little towns scattered
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Speaker 1: across the prairies, there were few libraries and theaters, and
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Speaker 1: the distribution of books, magazines, and newspapers in no way
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Speaker 1: met the people's thirst for information or entertainment. Men, women
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Speaker 1: and children rode miles on horseback or drove over rough
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Speaker 1: roads and wagons to see and hear a prominent lecturer.
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Speaker 1: Susan was always a drawing card for a woman on
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Speaker 1: the lecture platform. Still was a novelty, and almost everyone
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Speaker 1: was curious about Susan b. Anthony. Many, to their surprise,
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Speaker 1: discovered she was not the caricature they had been led
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Speaker 1: to believe. She looked very ladylike and proper as she
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Speaker 1: stood before them in her dark silk platform dress. A
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Speaker 1: little too stern and serious, perhaps, but frequently her face
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Speaker 1: lighted up with a friendly smile. She spoke to them
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Speaker 1: as equals, and they could follow her reasoning. Her simple
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Speaker 1: conversational manner was refreshing after the sonorous, pretentious oratory of
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Speaker 1: other lecturers. Continuous travel in all kinds of weather was difficult.
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Speaker 1: Branch lines were slow and connections poor. Often trains were
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Speaker 1: delayed by blizzards. And then to keep her in goin agments,
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Speaker 1: she was obliged to travel by sleigh over the snowy prairies.
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Speaker 1: There were long waits in dingy, dirty railroad stations late
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Speaker 1: at night. Even there, she was always busy reading her
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Speaker 1: newspapers in the dim light, or dashing off letters home
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Speaker 1: on any scrap of paper she had at hand, thinking
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Speaker 1: gratefully of her sister Mary, who, in addition to her
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Speaker 1: work as superintendent of the neighborhood public school, supervised the
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Speaker 1: household at seven Madison Street. Hotel rooms were cold and drab,
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Speaker 1: the food was uninviting, and only occasionally did she find,
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Speaker 1: to her delight a Christian cup of coffee. She often
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Speaker 1: felt that the Lyceum bureau drove her unnecessarily hard, routed
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Speaker 1: her inefficiently, and profited too generously from her labors. Now
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Speaker 1: and then, she dispensed with their services, sent out her
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Speaker 1: own circulars soliciting engagements, and arranged her own tours proving
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Speaker 1: to her satisfaction that a woman could be as business
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Speaker 1: like as a man, and sometimes more so. Weighed down
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Speaker 1: by worry over the illness of her sisters, Guelma and Hannah,
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Speaker 1: she felt a lack of fire and enthusiasm in her work.
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Speaker 1: Anxiously she waited for letters from home, and when none
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Speaker 1: reached her, she was in despair. At such times, hotel
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Speaker 1: rooms seemed doubly lonely, and she reproached herself for being
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Speaker 1: away from home and for putting too heavy a burden
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Speaker 1: on her sister Mary. Yet there was nothing else to
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Speaker 1: be done until the Revolution debt was paid for. Some
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Speaker 1: of her creditors were becoming impatient as often as possible.
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Speaker 1: Susan returned to Rochester to be with her family and
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Speaker 1: was able to nurse Guelma through the life last weeks
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Speaker 1: of her illness. Heartbroken when she died in November eighteen
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Speaker 1: seventy three, she resolved to take better care of Hannah,
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Speaker 1: sending her out to Colorado and Kansas for her health.
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Speaker 1: She then tried to spend the summer months at home
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Speaker 1: so that Mary could visit Hannah and Colorado and Daniel
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Speaker 1: and Merritt in Kansas. These months at home with her mother,
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Speaker 1: whom she dearly loved, were a great comfort to them.
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Speaker 1: Both they enjoyed reading aloud, finding George Eliot's Middlemarch and
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Speaker 1: Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter of particular interest. As Susan was searching
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Speaker 1: for the answers to many questions which had been brought
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Speaker 1: into sharp focus by the Beecher Tilton case, now filling
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Speaker 1: the newspapers. Like everyone else, she read the latest developments
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Speaker 1: in this tragic involvement of three of her good friends.
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Speaker 1: She was especially con concerned about Elizabeth and Theodore Tilton,
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Speaker 1: in whose home she had so often visited, and toward
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Speaker 1: whom she felt a warm motherly affection. Her sympathy went
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Speaker 1: out to Elizabeth Tilton, whose help and loyalty during the
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Speaker 1: difficult days of the revolution she never forgot. Although she
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Speaker 1: had often differed with Theodore, whose quick changes of policy
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Speaker 1: and temperament she could not understand, he had won her
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Speaker 1: gratitude many times by befriending the cause. The same was
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Speaker 1: true of Henry Ward Beecher, who had found time in
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Speaker 1: his busy life to say a good word for women's rights.
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Speaker 1: Susan was close to the facts, for in desperation. A
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Speaker 1: few years before, Elizabeth Tilton had confided in her. Unfortunately,
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Speaker 1: both Elizabeth and Theodore had made confidants of others less
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Speaker 1: wise than Susan. Missus Stanton had passed the story along
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Speaker 1: to Victoria Woodhall, who late in eighteen seventy two had
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Speaker 1: revived her Weekly for a crusade on what she called
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Speaker 1: the social Question, and had published her expose a the
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Speaker 1: Beecher Tilton's scandal case. As a result, the lives of
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Speaker 1: all involved were being ruined by merciless publicity. The Beecher
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Speaker 1: Tilton story, as it unfolded, revealed three admirable people caught
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Speaker 1: in a tangled web of human relationships. Henry Ward Beecher,
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Speaker 1: for years a close friend and benefactor of his young parishioners,
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Speaker 1: Theodore and Elizabeth Tilton, had been accused by Theodore of
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Speaker 1: immoral relations with Elizabeth. Accusations and denials continued, while intrigue
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Speaker 1: and negotiations deepened the confusion. The whole matter burst into
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Speaker 1: flame in eighteen seventy four in the trial of Henry
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Speaker 1: Ward Beecher before a committee of Plymouth Church, which exonerated him.
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Speaker 1: Reading Beecher's statement in her newspaper, Susan impulsively wrote, Isabella
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Speaker 1: Beecher Hooker, wouldn't you think if God ever did strike
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Speaker 1: anyone debt for telling a lie? He would have struck then?
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Speaker 1: When early in eighteen seventy five, the Beecher Tilton case
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Speaker 1: reached the courts, in a suit brought by Theodore Tilton
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Speaker 1: against Henry Ward Beecher for the alienation of his wife's affections,
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Speaker 1: it became headline news throughout the country. The press, greedy
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Speaker 1: for sensation, published anything and everything even remotely connected with
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Speaker 1: the case. Reporters hounded Susan, who by this time was
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Speaker 1: again lecturing in the West, and she seldom entered a train, bus,
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Speaker 1: or hotel without finding them at her heels, as if
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Speaker 1: by their very persistence they meant to force her to
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Speaker 1: express her opinion regarding the guilt or innocence of Henry
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Speaker 1: Ward Beecher. They never caught her off guard, and she
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Speaker 1: steadfastly refused to reveal to them or to the lawyers
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Speaker 1: of either side, who astuteley approached her the story which
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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Tilton had told her in confidence. Yet in spite
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Speaker 1: of her continued silence, she was twice quoted by the press,
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Speaker 1: once through the impulsiveness of Missus Stanton, who expressed herself
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Speaker 1: frankly at every opportunity, and again when the New York Graphic,
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Speaker 1: without Susan's consent, published her letter to Missus Hooker. The
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Speaker 1: sympathy of the public was generally with Henry Ward Beecher,
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Speaker 1: whose popularity and prestige were tremendous. A dynamic preacher whose
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Speaker 1: sermons drew thousands to his church, and whose written word
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Speaker 1: carried religion and comfort to every part of the country,
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Speaker 1: he could not suddenly be ruined by the circulation of
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Speaker 1: a scandal, or even by a sensational trial. Behind him
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Speaker 1: were all those who were convinced that the future of
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Speaker 1: the church and morality demanded his vindication. On his side. Also,
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Speaker 1: as Susan well knew, was the powerful, behind the scenes
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Speaker 1: influence of the financial interests who profited from Plymouth Church
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Speaker 1: real estate, from the earnings of Beecher's paper Christian Union,
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Speaker 1: and from his book The Life of Christ, now in preparation,
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Speaker 1: and for which he had already been paid twenty thousand dollars.
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Speaker 1: Susan and Missus Stanton paid the penalty of being on
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Speaker 1: the unpopular side. When Elizabeth Tilton was not allowed to
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Speaker 1: testify in her own defense. They accused Beecher and Tilton
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Speaker 1: of ruthlessly sacrificing her to save their own reputations. In fact,
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Speaker 1: Susan and missus Stanton knew far too much about the
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Speaker 1: case for the comfort of either Beecher or Tilton, and
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Speaker 1: to discredit them, a whispering campaign and then a press
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Speaker 1: campaign was initiated against them. They and their National Women's
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Speaker 1: Suffrage Association were again accused of upholding free love. Their
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Speaker 1: previous association with Victoria Woodhull was held against them, as
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Speaker 1: were the frank discussions of marriage and divorce published in
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Speaker 1: the Revolution six years before. Actually, Susan's views on marriage
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Speaker 1: were idealistic. I hate the whole doctrine of variety or promiscuity,
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Speaker 1: she wrote John Hooker, the husband of her friend Isabella.
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Speaker 1: I am not even a believer in second marriages after
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Speaker 1: one of the parties is dead, so sacred and binding
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Speaker 1: do I consider them marriage relation. Although in public Susan
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Speaker 1: uttered not one word relating to the guilt or innocence
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Speaker 1: of Henry Ward Beecher, she did confide her real feelings
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Speaker 1: to her diary. She believed that to save himself. Beecher
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Speaker 1: was withholding the explanation which the situation demanded. It is
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Speaker 1: almost an impossibility, she wrote in her diary, for a
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Speaker 1: man and woman to have a close, sympathetic friendship without
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Speaker 1: the tendrils of one soul becoming fastened around the other,
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Speaker 1: with the result of infinite pain and anguish. Then again,
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Speaker 1: she wrote, there is nothing more demoralizing than lying. The
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Speaker 1: act itself is scarcely so base as the lie which
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Speaker 1: denies it. Susan's silence probably brought her more notoriety than
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Speaker 1: anything she could have said on this much discussed subject,
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Speaker 1: and had heightened her reputation for honesty and integrity. Miss
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Speaker 1: Anthony commented the New York Sun as a lady whose
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Speaker 1: word will everywhere be believed by those who know anything
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Speaker 1: of her character. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle had this
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Speaker 1: to say. Whether she will make any definite revelations remains
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Speaker 1: to be seen, but whatever she does say will be
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Speaker 1: received by the public with that credit which attaches to
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Speaker 1: the evidence of a truthful witness. Her own character, known
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Speaker 1: and honored by the country, will give importance to any
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Speaker 1: utterances she may make. She was not called as a
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Speaker 1: witness by either side during the one hundred and twelve
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Speaker 1: days of trial, which ended in July eighteen seventy five
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Speaker 1: with the jury unable to agree on a verdict. Realizing
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Speaker 1: that many taboos were being broken down by the lurid
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Speaker 1: nationwide publicity on the Beecher Tilting case, and that as
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Speaker 1: a result, people were more willing to consider subjects which
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Speaker 1: hitherto had not been discussed in polite society, Susan began
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Speaker 1: to plan a lecture on social purity. She was familiar
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Speaker 1: with the public protest englishwomen under the leadership of Josephine
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Speaker 1: Butler were making against the state regulation of vice. Following
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Speaker 1: with interest and admiration their courageous fight for the repeal
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Speaker 1: of the Contagious Diseases Acts, which placed women suspected of
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Speaker 1: prostitution under police power. Susan found encouragement in the support
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Speaker 1: these reformers had received from such men as John Stuart
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Speaker 1: Mill and Jacob Bright. Such legislation, she resolved, must not
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Speaker 1: gain a foothold in her country, because it not only
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Speaker 1: disregarded women's right to personal liberty, but showed a danger
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Speaker 1: risk callousness towards men's share of responsibility for prostitution. She
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Speaker 1: was awake to the problems prostitution presented in cities like
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Speaker 1: New York and Washington, its prevalence, the police protection it received,
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Speaker 1: the political corruption it fostered, and the reluctance of the
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Speaker 1: public to face the situation, the majority of men regarding
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Speaker 1: it as a necessity, and most women closing their eyes
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Speaker 1: to its existence. During the winter of eighteen seventy five,
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Speaker 1: while the Beecher Tilton case was being tried in Brooklyn,
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Speaker 1: she delivered her speech on social purity at the Chicago
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Speaker 1: Grand Opera House in the Sunday dime lecture course, facing
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Speaker 1: with trepidation the immen's crowd which gathered to hear her.
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Speaker 1: Even the daring Missus Stanton had warned her that she
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Speaker 1: would never be asked to speak in Chicago again, And
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Speaker 1: with this the manager of the Slayton Lecture Bureau agree,
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Speaker 1: But they were wrong. The people were hungry for the
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Speaker 1: truth and for a constructive policy. In the past, they
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Speaker 1: had heard these social evil described and denounced in vivid,
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Speaker 1: thunderous words by eloquent men and by the dramatic Anna E. Dickinson.
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Speaker 1: Now an earnest woman with graying hair, one of their
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Speaker 1: own kind, talked to them without mincing matters, calmly and logically,
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Speaker 1: and offered them a remedy. Calling their attention to the
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Speaker 1: daily newspaper reports of divorce and breach of promise, suits
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Speaker 1: of wife murders, and paramour shootings, of abortions and infanticide,
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Speaker 1: she told them that the prevalence of these evils showed
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Speaker 1: clearly that men were incapable of coping with them successfully
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Speaker 1: and needed the help of women. She cited statistics revealing
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Speaker 1: twenty thousand prostitutes in the city of New York, where
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Speaker 1: Foundling Hospital, during the first six months of its existence,
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Speaker 1: rescued one thousand, three hundred waifs laid in baskets on
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Speaker 1: its doorstep. She courageously mentioned the prevalence of venereal disease
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Speaker 1: and spoke out against England's Contagious Diseases Acts, which were
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Speaker 1: repeatedly suggested for New York and Washington, and which she
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Speaker 1: described as licensed prostitution, Men's futile and disastrous attempt to
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Speaker 1: deal with social corruption, declaring that the poverty and economic
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Speaker 1: dependence of women, as well as the passions of men,
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Speaker 1: were the causes of prostitution. She quoted more statistics which
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Speaker 1: showed a great increase in the poverty of women. Work
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Speaker 1: formerly done in the household, she explained, was being gradually
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Speaker 1: taken over by factories, with the result that women, in
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Speaker 1: order to earn a living, had been forced to follow
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Speaker 1: it out of the home and were supporting themselves holy
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Speaker 1: or in part, at a wage inadequate to meet their needs.
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Speaker 1: No wonder many were tempted by food, clothes, and comfortable
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Speaker 1: shelter into an immoral life. Her solution was to lift
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Speaker 1: this vast army of poverty stricken women who now crowd
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Speaker 1: our cities above the temptation the necessity to sell themselves
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Speaker 1: in marriage or out for bread and shelter. Women, she
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Speaker 1: told them, must be educated out of their unthinking acceptance
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Speaker 1: of financial dependence on man into mental and economic independence.
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Speaker 1: Girls like boys, must be educated to some lucrative employment.
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Speaker 1: Women like men, must have an equal chance to earn
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Speaker 1: a living. Whoever controls work and wages, she continued, controls morals. Therefore,
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Speaker 1: we must have women employers, superintendents, committees, legislators. Wherever girls
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Speaker 1: go to seek the means of subsistence, there must be
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Speaker 1: some women. Nay more, we must have women preachers, lawyers,
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Speaker 1: doctors that wherever women go to seek counsel spiritual, legal, physical,
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Speaker 1: there too they will be sure to find the best
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Speaker 1: and noblest of their own sex to minister to them. Then,
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Speaker 1: she added, marriage to women, as to men, must be
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Speaker 1: a luxury, not a necessity, an incident of life, not
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Speaker 1: all of it. Marriage never will cease to be a
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Speaker 1: wholly unequal partnership until the law recognizes the equal ownership
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Speaker 1: and the joint earnings and possessions. She asked for the
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Speaker 1: vote so that women would have the power to to
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Speaker 1: help make the laws relating to marriage, divorce, adultery, breach
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Speaker 1: of promise, rape, bigamy, infanticide, and so on. These laws,
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Speaker 1: she reminded them, have not only been framed by men,
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Speaker 1: but are administered by men. Judges, jurors, lawyers are all men,
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Speaker 1: and no woman's voice is heard in our courts except
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Speaker 1: as accused or witness, and in many cases the married
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Speaker 1: woman is denied the right to testify as to her
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Speaker 1: guilt or innocence. Never before had the audience heard the
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Speaker 1: case for social purity presented in this way, and they
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Speaker 1: listened intently when the applause was subsiding Susan saw Parker
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Speaker 1: Pillsbury and Branson Alcott, fellow lecturers on the Lyceum circuit.
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Speaker 1: Coming toward her smiling approval, they were generous in their praise,
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Speaker 1: Bronson Alcott declaring, you have stated here this afternoon, in
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Speaker 1: a fearless manner, truths that I have hardly dared to think,
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Speaker 1: much less to utter. She repeated this lecture in Saint Louis,
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Speaker 1: in Wisconsin, and in Kansas, and while most city newspapers,
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Speaker 1: acknowledging the need of facing the issues, praised her courage,
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Speaker 1: small town papers were frankly disturbed by a spinster's public
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Speaker 1: discussion of the social evil. One paper observing, the best
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Speaker 1: lecture a woman can give the community on the sad
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Speaker 1: evil is the sincerity of her profound ignorance on the subject.
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Speaker 1: Having bravely done her bit for social purity, Susan, with relief,
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Speaker 1: turned again to her favorite lecture, Bread and the ballot.
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Speaker 1: Her message fell on fertile ground. These Western men and
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Speaker 1: women saw justice in her reas, having broken with tradition
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Speaker 1: by leaving the East for the frontier, they could more
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Speaker 1: easily drop old ways for new. Western men also recognized
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Speaker 1: the influence for good that women had brought to lonely,
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Speaker 1: bleak western towns, better homes, cleanliness, comfort than schools, churches,
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Speaker 1: law and order, and many of them were willing to
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Speaker 1: give women the vote. All they needed was prodding to
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Speaker 1: translate that willingness into law. As she continued her lecturing,
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Speaker 1: she kept her watchful eye on her family and the
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Speaker 1: annual New York and Washington conventions, attending to many of
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Speaker 1: the routine details herself. Finally, on May first, eighteen seventy six,
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Speaker 1: she recorded in her diary, the day of jubilee for
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Speaker 1: me has come. I have paid the last dollar of
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Speaker 1: the revolution debt. Even the press took notice, the Chicago
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Speaker 1: Daily News commenting, by working six years and devoting to
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Speaker 1: the purpose all the money she could earn, she has
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Speaker 1: paid the debt and interest. And now when the creditors
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Speaker 1: of that paper and others who really know her hear
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Speaker 1: the name of Susan B. Anthony, they feel inclined to
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Speaker 1: raise their hats in reverence. End of Chapter eighteen