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

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  Speaker 1: Chapter nineteen of Susan b Anthony by al Malots. This
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter nineteen a
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  Speaker 1: federal woman suffrage Amendment like everybody else in the United States.
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  Speaker 1: In eighteen seventy six, Susan now turned her attention to
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  Speaker 1: the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, which was proclaiming to the
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  Speaker 1: world the progress this new country had made. Susan pointed out, however,
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  Speaker 1: that one hundred years after the signing of the Declaration
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  Speaker 1: of Independence, women were still deprived of basic citizenship rights.
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  Speaker 1: As an afterthought, a woman's pavilion had been erected on
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  Speaker 1: the exposition grounds and exhibited here she found only women's
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  Speaker 1: contribution to the arts, but nothing which would in any
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  Speaker 1: way show so the part woman had played in building
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  Speaker 1: up the country or developing industry. She longed to explain
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  Speaker 1: so that all could hear how the skilled work of
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  Speaker 1: women had contributed to the prosperous textile and shoe industries,
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  Speaker 1: to the manufacture of cartridges and Waltham watches, and countless
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  Speaker 1: other products. Could she have had her way, she would
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  Speaker 1: have had made the women's pavilion an eloquent appeal for
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  Speaker 1: equal rights. But Unable to do this, she established a
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  Speaker 1: Center of Rebellion for the National Women's Suffrage Association at
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  Speaker 1: fourteen thirty one Chestnut Street in Parlors, on the first floor.
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  Speaker 1: Here she spent many happy hours directing the work, often
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  Speaker 1: sleeping on the sofa so that she could work late
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  Speaker 1: and save money for the cause. Philadelphia had always been
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  Speaker 1: a friendly city because of Lucretia Mott. Now Lucretia came
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  Speaker 1: almost daily to the women's headquarters, bringing a comforting sense
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  Speaker 1: of support, approval, and friendship. When Missus Stanton, free at
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  Speaker 1: last from her lecture engagements, joined them in June, Susan's
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  Speaker 1: happiness was complete, and she confided to her diary, glad
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  Speaker 1: enough to see her and feel her strength come in.
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  Speaker 1: Susan and Missus Stanton now sent the Republican and Democratic
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  Speaker 1: National Conventions well written memorials pointing out the appropriateness of
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  Speaker 1: enfranchising women in this centennial year, but no woman's suffrage
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  Speaker 1: plank was adopted by either party. Susan put missus Stanton
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  Speaker 1: and missus Gage to work on a Woman's Declaration of
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  Speaker 1: eighteen seventy six, and so magnificent a document did they
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  Speaker 1: produce that she not only had many copies printed for distribution,
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  Speaker 1: but had one beautifully engrossed on parchment for presentation to
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  Speaker 1: President Grant at the fourth of July celebration in Independent Square.
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  Speaker 1: Unable to secure permission to present this declaration, she made
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  Speaker 1: plans of her own for herself. She managed to get
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  Speaker 1: a press card as reporter for her brother's paper, The
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  Speaker 1: Leavenworth Times. Missus Stanton and Lucretia Mott refused to attend
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  Speaker 1: the celebration, so indignant were they over the snubs women
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  Speaker 1: had received from the Centennial Commission, and they held a
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  Speaker 1: woman's meeting at the First Unitarian Church, When, at the
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  Speaker 1: last minute, four tickets were sent Susan by the Centennial Commission.
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  Speaker 1: She gave them to the most militant of her colleagues,
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  Speaker 1: Matilda Jostly Engage, Lee Devereux Blake, Sarah Andrews Spencer, and
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  Speaker 1: Phoebe Cousins. With Susan in the lead, they pushed through
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  Speaker 1: the jostling crowd to Independent Square on that bright, hot
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  Speaker 1: fourth of July and were seated among the elect on
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  Speaker 1: the platform. By this time they had learned that Thomas W.
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  Speaker 1: Ferry of Michigan, acting Vice President, would substitute for President
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  Speaker 1: Grant at the ceremony because he was a good friend
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  Speaker 1: of woman's suffrage. Phoebe Cousins made one more effort for
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  Speaker 1: orderly procedure, sending him a note asking for permission to
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  Speaker 1: present the Woman's Declaration. This failed, and rather than take
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  Speaker 1: part in creating a disturbance, she withdrew, leaving her four
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  Speaker 1: friends on the platform. We sat there waiting, reported Missus Blake.
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  Speaker 1: The heat was frightful mid such a throng, it was
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  Speaker 1: difficult to hear anything. We decided that our presentation should
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  Speaker 1: take place immediately after. Mister Richard Lee of Virginia, grandson
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  Speaker 1: of the signer, had read the Declaration of Independence. He
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  Speaker 1: read it from the original document, and it was an
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  Speaker 1: impressive moment when that time honored parchment was exposed to
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  Speaker 1: the view of the wildly cheering crowd. Mister Lee's voice
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  Speaker 1: was inaudible, but at last I caught the words our
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  Speaker 1: sacred honors and cried, now is the time. We all
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  Speaker 1: four a rose, Miss Anthony first, next, Missus Gage bearing
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  Speaker 1: our engrossed declaration, and Missus Spencer and myself following, with
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  Speaker 1: hundreds of printed copies in our hands. There was a
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  Speaker 1: stir in the crowd just at the time, and General Hawley,
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  Speaker 1: who had been keeping a wary eye on us, had
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  Speaker 1: relaxed his vigilance for a moment as he signed to
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  Speaker 1: the band to resume playing. He did not see us
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  Speaker 1: advancing until we reached the Vice President's dais there. Miss Anthony,
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  Speaker 1: taking the parchment from missus Gage, stepped forward and presented
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  Speaker 1: it to mister Fairy, saying, I present to you a
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  Speaker 1: declaration of rights from the women's citizens of the United States. Nonplussed,
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  Speaker 1: mister Fairy bowed low and received the declaration without a word.
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  Speaker 1: Then the four intrepid women filed out, distributing printed copies
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  Speaker 1: of their declarations, while General Hawley boomed out order order.
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  Speaker 1: Leaving the square and mounting a platform erected for musicians
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  Speaker 1: in front of Independence Hall, they waited until a curious
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  Speaker 1: crowd had gathered around them. Then, while missus Gage held
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  Speaker 1: an umbrella over Susan to shield her from the hot sun,
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  Speaker 1: she read the woman's declaration in a loud, clear voice
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  Speaker 1: that carried far. We do rejoice in the success thus
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  Speaker 1: far of our experiment of self government. She began. Our
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  Speaker 1: faith is firm and unwavering, in the broad principles of
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  Speaker 1: human rights proclaimed in seventeen seventy six, not only as
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  Speaker 1: abstract truths, but as the cornerstones of a republic. Yet
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  Speaker 1: we cannot forget, even in this glad hour, that while
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  Speaker 1: all men of every race, and climb and condition have
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  Speaker 1: been in invested with the full rights of citizenship under
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  Speaker 1: our hospitable flag, all women still suffer the degradation of disfranchisement.
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  Speaker 1: Then she enumerated women's grievances, and the crowd applauded as
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  Speaker 1: she drove home, point after point, women, she continued, has
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  Speaker 1: shown equal devotion with man to the cause of freedom,
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  Speaker 1: and has stood firmly by his side in its defense.
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  Speaker 1: Together they have made this country what it is. We
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  Speaker 1: ask our rulers at this hour, no special favors, no
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  Speaker 1: special privileges. We ask justice, We ask equality. We ask
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  Speaker 1: that all civil and political rights that belonged to the
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  Speaker 1: citizens of the Union United States be guaranteed to us
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  Speaker 1: and our daughters forever. Stepping down from the platform into
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  Speaker 1: the applauding crowd, which eagerly reached for printed copies of
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  Speaker 1: the declaration, she and her four companions hurried to the
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  Speaker 1: First Unitarian church, where an eager audience awaited their report
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  Speaker 1: and held their courage. The New York Tribune, commenting on
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  Speaker 1: Susan's militancy, prophesied that it foreshadowed the new forms of
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  Speaker 1: violence and disregard of order which may accompany the participation
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  Speaker 1: of women and active partisan politics. Nor was Congress impressed
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  Speaker 1: by Susan's centennial publicity demanding a federal woman's suffrage amendment.
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  Speaker 1: She had gathered petitions from twenty six states with ten
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  Speaker 1: thousand signatures, which were presented to the Senate in eighteen
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  Speaker 1: seventy seven. The majority of the Senators found these petitions
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  Speaker 1: uproariously funny, and Susan, in the visitor's gallery at the
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  Speaker 1: time of their presentation, was infuriated by the mirth and
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  Speaker 1: disrespect of these men. A few read the petitions as
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  Speaker 1: they would any other, with dignity and without comment, reported
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  Speaker 1: the popular journalist Mary Clemmer and her Weekly Washington column,
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  Speaker 1: But the majority seemed intensely conscious of holding something unutterably
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  Speaker 1: funny in their hands. The entire Senate presented the appearance
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  Speaker 1: of a laughing school, practicing sides splitting and ear extended grins.
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  Speaker 1: After a few humorous and sarcastic remarks, the petitions were
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  Speaker 1: referred to the Committee on Public Lands. Only one Senator,
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  Speaker 1: Baron A Sargeant of California, was man enough and gentleman
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  Speaker 1: enough to lift the petitions from this insulting proposition. He
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  Speaker 1: demanded for the petition of more than ten thousand women,
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  Speaker 1: at least the courtesy which would be given any other.
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  Speaker 1: Although his words did not deter the senators, Susan was
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  Speaker 1: proud of this tall, vigorous, white haired Californian and grateful
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  Speaker 1: for his spontaneous support in this humiliating situation. He had
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  Speaker 1: been a trusted friend and counselor ever since she had
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  Speaker 1: shared with him and his family the long, snowy journey
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  Speaker 1: from Nevada in eighteen seventy two. She looked forward to
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  Speaker 1: the time when woman's suffrage would have more such advocates
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  Speaker 1: in the Congress, and when she would find their new
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  Speaker 1: faces and a more liberal spirit. Disappointment only drove Susan
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  Speaker 1: into more intensive activity. Between lectures. She now nursed her
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  Speaker 1: sister Hannah, who was critically ill, and Daniel's home in Leavenworth.
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  Speaker 1: After Hannah's death in May eighteen seventy seven, Susan worked
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  Speaker 1: off her grief in Colorado, where the question of votes
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  Speaker 1: for women was being referred to the people of the state.
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  Speaker 1: The suffragists in Colorado were headed by doctor Alita Avery,
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  Speaker 1: who had left her post as resident physician at the
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  Speaker 1: New Woman's College Vassar to practice medicine in Denver, making
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  Speaker 1: doctor Avery's home her headquarters. Susan carried her plea for
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  Speaker 1: the ballot to settlements far from the railroads, traveling by
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  Speaker 1: stagecoach over rough, lonely roads through magnificent scenery, holding meetings
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  Speaker 1: wherever she could. She spoke in schoolhouses, in hotel dining rooms,
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  Speaker 1: and even in saloons when no other place was available,
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  Speaker 1: and always she was treated with respect and listened to
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  Speaker 1: with interest. Occasionally only a mere handful gathered to hear her,
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  Speaker 1: but in Lake City she spoke to an audience of
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  Speaker 1: a thousand or more from a dry goods box on
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  Speaker 1: the court house steps. She was equal to anything. But
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  Speaker 1: the mining towns depressed her, for they were swarming with
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  Speaker 1: foreigners who had been welcomed as naturalized and franchised citizens,
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  Speaker 1: and who almost to a man, opposed extending the vote
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  Speaker 1: to women. This precedence of foreign born men over American
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  Speaker 1: women was not only galling to her, but menaced, she
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  Speaker 1: believed the growth of American democracy. Women's suffrage was defeated
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  Speaker 1: in Colorado in eighteen seventy seven to one, with the
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  Speaker 1: Chinese coming into the state in great numbers to work
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  Speaker 1: in the mines. The specter that stalked through this campaign
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  Speaker 1: was the fear of putting the ballot into the hands
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  Speaker 1: of Chinese women. From Colorado, Susan moved on to Nebraska
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  Speaker 1: with a new lecture, the Homes of Single Women. Although
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  Speaker 1: she much preferred to speak on women and the Sixteenth
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  Speaker 1: Amendment or Bread and the Ballot, she realized that in
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  Speaker 1: order to be assured of return engagements, she must occasionally
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  Speaker 1: vary her subjects, But she was unwilling to wander far
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  Speaker 1: afield while women's needs still were so great. By means
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  Speaker 1: of this new lecture, she hoped to dispel the widespread,
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  Speaker 1: deeply ingrained fallacy that single women were unwonted, helpless creatures,
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  Speaker 1: wholly dependent upon some male relative for a home and support.
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  Speaker 1: Aware that this mistaken estimate was slowly yielding in the
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  Speaker 1: face of a changing economic order, she believed she could
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  Speaker 1: help lessen its hold by presenting concrete examples of independent,
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  Speaker 1: self supporting, single women who had proved that marriage was
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  Speaker 1: not the only road to security and a home. She
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  Speaker 1: told of Alice and Phoebe Carey, whose home in New
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  Speaker 1: York City was a rendezvous for writers, artists, musicians, and reformers,
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  Speaker 1: of doctor Clemens Loisier, the friend of women medical students,
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  Speaker 1: and Mary L. Booth Well established through her income as
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  Speaker 1: editor of Harper's Bazaar, and of her beloved Lydia Mott,
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  Speaker 1: whose home had been a refuge for fugitive slaves and reformers.
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  Speaker 1: In Nebraska, she made a valuable new friend for the cause,
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  Speaker 1: Clara Bewick Colby, whose zeal and, earnest, intelligent face at
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  Speaker 1: once attracted her. Within a few years, missus Colby established
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  Speaker 1: in Beatrice, Nebraska, a magazine for women, the Woman's Tribune, which,
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  Speaker 1: to Susan's joy, spoke out for a federal woman's suffrage amendment.
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  Speaker 1: Because Susan's contract with a Slayton lecture bureau allowed no
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  Speaker 1: break in her engagements, she was obliged to leave the
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  Speaker 1: Washington Convention of the National Woman's Suffrage Association in the
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  Speaker 1: hands of others. In eighteen seventy eight, it was much
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  Speaker 1: on her mind as she traveled through Dakota, Minnesota, Missouri,
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  Speaker 1: and Kansas, and she sent a check for one hundred
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  Speaker 1: dollars to help with the expenses of the convention. Particularly
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  Speaker 1: on her mind was a federal woman's suffrage amendment. For
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  Speaker 1: since eighteen sixty nine, when a sixteenth Amendment enfranchising woman
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  Speaker 1: had been introduced in Congress and ignored, no further efforts
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  Speaker 1: along that line had been made. Now good news came
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  Speaker 1: from missus Stanton, who had attended the convention. She had
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  Speaker 1: persuaded Senator Sergeant to introduce in the Senate on January tenth,
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  Speaker 1: eighteen seventy eight, a new draft of a sixteenth Amendment.
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  Speaker 1: Following the wording of the fifteenth. It read the right
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  Speaker 1: of citizens of the United States to vote shall not
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  Speaker 1: be denied or abridged by the United States or by
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  Speaker 1: any State on account of sex. During the next few years,
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  Speaker 1: the sixteenth Amendment made little headway, although the complexion of
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  Speaker 1: Congress changed, the Democrats breaking the Republicans hold and winning
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  Speaker 1: a substantial majority. Encouraging as was the more liberal spirit
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  Speaker 1: of the new Congress and the defeat of several implacable enemies.
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  Speaker 1: Susan found California's failure to return Senator Sergeant and irreparable loss.
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  Speaker 1: In addition, she now had to face a newly formed
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  Speaker 1: group of anti suffragists under the leadership of Missus Dahlgren,
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  Speaker 1: Missus Sherman, and Almira Lincoln Phelps, who sang the refrain
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  Speaker 1: which Congressmen loved to hear, that women did not want
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  Speaker 1: the vote because it would wreck marriage and the home.
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  Speaker 1: Hoping to counteract this adverse influence by increased pressure for
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  Speaker 1: the Sixteenth Amendment, Susan once more appealed for help to
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  Speaker 1: the American Woman Suffrage Association through her old friends William
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  Speaker 1: Lloyd Garrison and Wendel Preh Phillips. Garrison replied that her
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  Speaker 1: efforts for a federal amendment were premature and would bring
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  Speaker 1: the movement into needless contempt. This she found strange advice
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  Speaker 1: from the man who had fearlessly defied public opinion to
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  Speaker 1: crusade against slavery. Wendell Phillips did better, writing, I think
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  Speaker 1: you are on the right track the best method to
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  Speaker 1: agitate the question, and I am with you, though between
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  Speaker 1: you and me, I still think the individual states must
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  Speaker 1: lead off and that this reform must advance piecemeal, state
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  Speaker 1: by state, but I mean always to help everywhere and
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  Speaker 1: every one. The American Association continued to follow the state
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  Speaker 1: by state method, and this holding back aroused Susan to
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  Speaker 1: the boiling point. For experience had taught her that in
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  Speaker 1: state elections, women's suffrage faced the prejudiced opposition of an
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  Speaker 1: ever increasing number of naturalized immigrants who had little understanding
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  Speaker 1: of democratic government or sympathy with the rights of women.
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  Speaker 1: A federal amendment, on the other hand, depending for its
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  Speaker 1: adoption upon Congress and ratifying legislatures, was in the hands
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  Speaker 1: of a far more liberal, intelligent, and preponderantly American group.
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  Speaker 1: We have puttered with state rights for thirty years, she
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  Speaker 1: sputtered without a foothold except in the territories. Year by year,
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  Speaker 1: she continued her Washington conventions, convinced that these gatherings in
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  Speaker 1: the national capital could not fail to impress congressmen with
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  Speaker 1: the seriousness of their purpose. As women from many states
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  Speaker 1: lobbied for the sixteenth Amendment, reporting a growing sentiment everyone
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  Speaker 1: where for women's suffrage. As they received in the press
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  Speaker 1: respectful friendly publicity, Congressmen began to take notice at the
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  Speaker 1: large receptions held at the Riggs House. Through the generosity
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  Speaker 1: of the proprietors, Jane Spofford and her husband, Congressmen became
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  Speaker 1: better acquainted with the suffragists, finding that they were not
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  Speaker 1: cranks as they had supposed, but intelligent women and socially charming.
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  Speaker 1: Missus Stanton's poise as presiding Officer and the warmth of
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  Speaker 1: her personality made her the natural choice for President of
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  Speaker 1: the National Woman's Suffrage Association through the years, her popularity
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  Speaker 1: now well established throughout the country. After her ten years
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  Speaker 1: of lecturing on the Lyceum circuit lent prestige to the cause.
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  Speaker 1: To Susan, her presence brought strength and the assurance that
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  Speaker 1: the brave and true word would be spoken. A new
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  Speaker 1: office had been created for Susan that a Vice President
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  Speaker 1: at Large, and in that capacity she guided, studied, and
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  Speaker 1: prodded her flock. The subjects which the Conventions discussed covered
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  Speaker 1: a wide field, going far beyond their persistent demands for
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  Speaker 1: a federal woman's suffrage amendment. Not only did they at
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  Speaker 1: this time urge an educational qualification for voters to combat
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  Speaker 1: the argument that woman's suffrage would increase the ignorant vote,
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  Speaker 1: but they also protested the counting of women in the
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  Speaker 1: basis of representation so long as they were disfranchised. They
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  Speaker 1: criticized the Church for barring women from ministry and from
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  Speaker 1: a share in church government. They took up the case
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  Speaker 1: of Anna Ella Carroll, who had been denied reckon ignition
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  Speaker 1: and a pension for her services to her country during
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  Speaker 1: the Civil War, and they urged pensions for all women
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  Speaker 1: who had nursed soldiers during the war. They welcomed to
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  Speaker 1: their conventions Mormon women from Utah who came to Washington
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  Speaker 1: to protest efforts to disfranchise them as a means of
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  Speaker 1: discouraging polygamy. Susan injected international interest into these conventions by
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  Speaker 1: reading Alexander Dumat's Arguments for Women's Suffrage, letters from Victor
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  Speaker 1: Hugo and English suffragists, and a report by missus Stanton's son,
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  Speaker 1: Theodore now a journalist of the International Congress in Paris
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy eight, which discussed the rights of women. Occasionally,
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  Speaker 1: foreign born women now making new homes for themselves in
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  Speaker 1: this country joined the ranks of the suffragists, and a
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  Speaker 1: few of them, like Madame Anna Kay and Claric Hayman
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  Speaker 1: from Germany contributed a great deal through their eloquence and
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  Speaker 1: wider perspective. These contacts with the thoughts and aspirations of
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  Speaker 1: men and women of other countries led Susan to dream
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  Speaker 1: of an international conference of women in the not to
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  Speaker 1: distant future. End of Chapter nineteen