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

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Speaker 1: Chapter twenty three of Susan b Anthony by all Malots.
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Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter twenty
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Speaker 1: three Liquor interests Alert foreign born voters against women's Suffrage.
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Speaker 1: I am in the midst of as severe a treadmill
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Speaker 1: as I ever experienced, traveling from fifty to one hundred
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Speaker 1: miles every day and speaking five or six nights a week.
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Speaker 1: Susan wrote a friend in eighteen ninety four, during the
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Speaker 1: campaign to wrest woman's suffrage from the New York Constitutional Convention.
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Speaker 1: She was now seventy four years old. Political machines and
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Speaker 1: financial interests were deeply entrenched in New York, and although
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Speaker 1: two governors had recommended that women be represented in the
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Speaker 1: Constitutional Convention and a bill had been passed making women
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Speaker 1: eligible as delegates, neither Republicans nor Democrats had the slightest
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Speaker 1: intention of allowing women to slip into men's stronghold. It
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Speaker 1: was obvious to Susan that without representation at the convention
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Speaker 1: and without power to enforce their demands, Women's only hope
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Speaker 1: was an intensive educational campaign, which she now directed with vigor.
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Speaker 1: Whenever she could, she conferred with missus Stanton, whose judgment
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Speaker 1: she valued, and there was zest in working together as
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Speaker 1: they had during the previous Constitutional convention in eighteen sixty seven,
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Speaker 1: the women of New York were aroused as never before.
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Speaker 1: Young able speakers went through the state, piling up signatures
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Speaker 1: on their petitions, but they had few influential friends among
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Speaker 1: the delegates. Anti suffragists were active, encouraged by a Bishop
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Speaker 1: done of the Protestant Episcopal Church and Missus Lyman Abbott,
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Speaker 1: whose name carried the prestige and influence of her husband's
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Speaker 1: popular magazine, The Outlook. With the election of Joseph Chowait
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Speaker 1: of New York as President of the convention, Susan knew
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Speaker 1: that woman's suffrage was doomed. For Chowit had political aspirations
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Speaker 1: and was not likely to let his sympathies for an
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Speaker 1: unpopular cause jeopardize his chances of becoming governor. While he
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Speaker 1: gave women every opportunity to be heard, at the same time,
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Speaker 1: he arranged for the defeat of women's suffrage by appointing
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Speaker 1: men to consider the subject who were definitely opposed, and
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Speaker 1: they submitted an adverse report. Here was a situation similar
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Speaker 1: to that in eighteen sixty seven. Her one time friend
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Speaker 1: Horace Greeley, had deserted women for political expediency. I'm used
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Speaker 1: to defeat every time and know how to pick up
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Speaker 1: and push on for another attack, she wrote, as she
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Speaker 1: now turned her attention to Kansas. The Republicans in Kansas
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Speaker 1: had sponsored school and municipal suffrage for women, and had
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Speaker 1: passed a woman's suffrage amendment to be referred to the
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Speaker 1: people in eighteen ninety four, yet they proved to be
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Speaker 1: as great a disappointment to Susan as they were in
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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty seven, when as a last resort she had
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Speaker 1: been obliged to campaign with the Democrats and George Francis Train.
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Speaker 1: The population of Kansas had changed with the years as
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Speaker 1: immigrants from Europe had come into the state, and Susan
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Speaker 1: was again confronted with the powerful opposition of foreign born
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Speaker 1: voters for whose support the political parties bargained. The liquor
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Speaker 1: interests were also active, and the Republicans, who had brought
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Speaker 1: prohibition to Kansas now left the question discreetly alone, even
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Speaker 1: making a deal with German Democrats for their votes by
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Speaker 1: promising to ignore in their platform both prohibition and women's suffrage.
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Speaker 1: Prohibition and women's suffrage were synonymous in the minds of
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Speaker 1: voters because women had generally voted for enforcement in municipal elections,
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Speaker 1: and no matter how hard Susan tried, she found it
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Speaker 1: impossible to have women's suffrage considered on its own merits.
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Speaker 1: Watching the straws in the wind, she saw Republicans supremacy
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Speaker 1: seriously threatened by the new Populist Party. Convinced that she
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Speaker 1: could no longer count on help from Kansas Republicans, she
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Speaker 1: turned to the Populist Party, ignoring the pleas of Republican
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Speaker 1: women who warned her she would hurt the cause by
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Speaker 1: association with such a radical group. The Populists were generally
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Speaker 1: regarded as the party of social unrest, of a regulated
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Speaker 1: economy and unsound money, and they were looked upon with suspicion.
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Speaker 1: To many, they represented a threat to the American free
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Speaker 1: enterprise system, and they were blamed for the labor troubles
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Speaker 1: which had flared up in the bloody homestead strike in
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Speaker 1: the steel mills of Pennsylvania and in the pullman strike
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Speaker 1: defying the powerful railroads. Susan was never afraid to side
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Speaker 1: with the underdog, and she could well understand why Western
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Speaker 1: farmers in the hope of relief were eagerly flocking into
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Speaker 1: the Populist Party when their corn sold for ten cents
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Speaker 1: a bushel, and the products they bought were high price,
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Speaker 1: and their mortgage interest was never lower than ten percent.
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Speaker 1: To the Populist convention, she declared, I have labored for
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Speaker 1: women's enfranchisement for forty years, and I have always said
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Speaker 1: that for the party that endorsed it, whether Republican, Democratic
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Speaker 1: or Populist, I would waive my handkerchief. We want more
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Speaker 1: than the waving of your handkerchief, miss Anthony, interrupted a delegate,
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Speaker 1: who then asked her, if the People's Party put a
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Speaker 1: woman's suffrage plank in its platform, will you go before
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Speaker 1: the voters of this state and tell them that because
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Speaker 1: the People's Party has espoused the cause of women's suffrage,
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Speaker 1: it deserves the vote of everyone who was a supporter
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Speaker 1: of that cause. I most certainly will, she replied, adding
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Speaker 1: as the audience cheered her wildly, for I would surely
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Speaker 1: choose to ask votes for the party which stood for
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Speaker 1: the principle of justice to women, though wrong on financial theories,
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Speaker 1: rather than for the party which was sound on questions
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Speaker 1: of money and tariff and silent on the pending amendment
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Speaker 1: to secure political equality to half of the people, I
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Speaker 1: most certainly will was the phrase which was remembered and
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Speaker 1: was flashed through the country, and as a result, the
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Speaker 1: Republican press and Susan's Republican friends harshly criticized her for
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Speaker 1: taking her stand with the radicals. Like all political parties,
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Speaker 1: the Populists found it hard to comprehend justice for women,
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Speaker 1: but after a four hour debate, the Convention endorsed the
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Speaker 1: women's suffrage Amendment, absolving, however, members who refused to support it.
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Speaker 1: The rank and file re ju as if each and
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Speaker 1: every one of them were heart and soul for the cause.
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Speaker 1: They cheered, they waved their canes, they threw their hats
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Speaker 1: high in the air, and then swarmed around Susan and
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Speaker 1: Anna Shaw to shake their hands and welcome them into
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Speaker 1: the Populist Party. With women's suffrage at last a political
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Speaker 1: issue in Kansas, Susan left the field to her girls.
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Speaker 1: Her home coming brought reporters to seventeen Madison Street for
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Speaker 1: the details about her alignment with the Populist Party. I
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Speaker 1: didn't go over to the Populists, she told them, I
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Speaker 1: have been like a drowning man for a long time,
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Speaker 1: waiting for some one to throw a plank in my direction.
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Speaker 1: I didn't step on the whole platform, but just on
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Speaker 1: the woman's suffrage plank. Here is a party in power,
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Speaker 1: which is likely to remain in power, and if it
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Speaker 1: will give its endorsement to our movement, we want it.
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Speaker 1: This explanation, however, did not satisfy her critics, and as
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Speaker 1: the Republican press circulated false stories about her enthusiasm for
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Speaker 1: the Populist Party, letters of protest poured in, among them,
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Speaker 1: one from Henry Blackwell. To him, she replied, I shall
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Speaker 1: not praise the Republicans of Kansas, or wish or work
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Speaker 1: for their success, when I know, by their own confessions
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Speaker 1: to me that the rights of the women of their
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Speaker 1: state have been traded by them in cold blood for
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Speaker 1: the votes of the lager beer foreigners and whisky Democrats.
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Speaker 1: I never, in my whole forty years of work so
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Speaker 1: utterly repudiated any set of politicians as I do those
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Speaker 1: Republicans of Kansas. I never was sure of my position
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Speaker 1: that no self respecting woman should wish or work for
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Speaker 1: the success of a party that ignores her political rights.
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Speaker 1: The contest in Kansas was close and bitter. Kansas women
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Speaker 1: carried on an able campaign with the help of Anna
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Speaker 1: Howard Shaw and Carrie Chapman cat. When Susan returned to
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Speaker 1: the state in October, she not only found that the
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Speaker 1: Democrats had entered the fight with an anti suffrage plank,
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Speaker 1: but the populists had noticeably lost ground since the Pullman
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Speaker 1: strike riots, the court injunction against the Strikers, and the
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Speaker 1: arrest of Eugene V. Debs. Again, this prairie state from
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Speaker 1: which she had hoped so much refused to extend suffrage
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Speaker 1: to women impulsively. She recommended a little Patrick Henryism to
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Speaker 1: the women of Kansas, suggest trusting that they fold their
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Speaker 1: hands and refused to help men run the churches, the charities,
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Speaker 1: and the reform movements. California was the next state to
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Speaker 1: demand Susan's attention. A Republican legislature had submitted a woman's
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Speaker 1: suffrage amendment to be voted on by the people in
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Speaker 1: eighteen ninety six, and the women of California asked for
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Speaker 1: her help. She toured the state in the spring of
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Speaker 1: eighteen ninety five with Anna Howard Shaw, and everywhere she
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Speaker 1: won friends. The continuous travel and speaking, however, taxed her
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Speaker 1: far more than she realized, and soon after her return
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Speaker 1: to the East, she collapsed. As this news flashed over
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Speaker 1: the wires, letters poured in from her friends begging her
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Speaker 1: to spare herself. Two of these letters were especially precious. One,
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Speaker 1: in bold, vigorous script, was from her good comrade Parker Pillsbury,
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Speaker 1: now eighty six, who had been an unfailing help during
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Speaker 1: the most difficult years of her career and whom she
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Speaker 1: probably trusted more completely than any other man. The other,
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Speaker 1: from her dearest friend Elizabeth Stanton, read, I never realized
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Speaker 1: how desolate the world would be to me without you
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Speaker 1: until I heard of your sudden illness. Let me urge you,
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Speaker 1: with all the strength I have and all the love
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Speaker 1: I bear you to stay at home and rest and
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Speaker 1: save your precious self. She now realized that rest was
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Speaker 1: imperative for a time, but it troubled her that people
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Speaker 1: thought of her as old and ill, and she wrote
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Speaker 1: Clara Colby never to mention any one's illness in her
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Speaker 1: Woman's Tribune, adding it is so dreadful to get public
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Speaker 1: thoughts entered on one as ill as I have had
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Speaker 1: it for the last two months. She had no intention
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Speaker 1: of retiring from the field. She knew her own strength
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Speaker 1: and that her life must be one of action. I
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Speaker 1: am able to endure the strain of daily traveling and
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Speaker 1: lecturing at over threescore and ten, she observed, mainly because
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Speaker 1: I have always worked and loved work. As machinery and
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Speaker 1: motion lasts longer than when lying idle, so a body
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Speaker 1: and soul an active exercise escapes the corroding rust of
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Speaker 1: physical and mental laziness, which prematurely cuts off the life
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Speaker 1: of so many women. Yet she did slow up a little,
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Speaker 1: refusing an offer from the Slaton Lecture Bureau for a
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Speaker 1: series of lectures at one hundred dollars a night, and
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Speaker 1: she engaged a capable secretary, Emma B. Sweet, to help
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Speaker 1: her with her tremendous correspondence. Dear Rachel had given her
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Speaker 1: a typewriter, and now instead of dashing off letters at
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Speaker 1: her desk late at night, she learned to dictate them
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Speaker 1: to missus Sweet at regular hours. As requests came in
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Speaker 1: from newspapers and magazines for her comments on a wide
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Speaker 1: variety of subjects, she answered those that made possible A
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Speaker 1: word on the advancement of women. Bicycling had come into vogue,
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Speaker 1: and women as well as men were taking it up,
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Speaker 1: some women even riding their bicycles in short skirts or bloomers.
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Speaker 1: What did she think of this? If women ride the
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Speaker 1: bicycle or climb mountains, she replied, they should don a
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Speaker 1: costume which will permit them the use of their legs.
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Speaker 1: Of bicycling, she said, I think it has done more
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Speaker 1: to emancipate women than any one thing in the world.
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Speaker 1: I rejoice every time I see a woman ride by
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Speaker 1: on a wheel. It gives her a feeling of self
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Speaker 1: reliance and independence. The moment she takes her seat and
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Speaker 1: away she goes the picture of untrammeled womanhood. Susan returned
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Speaker 1: to California in February eighteen ninety six. Through the generosity
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Speaker 1: and interest of two young Rochester friends, her Unitarian minister
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Speaker 1: William C. Gannett and his wife Mary Gannett, she was
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Speaker 1: able to take her secretary with her, making her home
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Speaker 1: in San Francisco with her devoted friend Ellen Sargent. She
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Speaker 1: at once began to plan speaking tours for herself and
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Speaker 1: her girls, many of whom including her niece Lucy, had
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Speaker 1: come West to help her. She appealed successfully to Francis
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Speaker 1: Willard to transfer the new national w C t U
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Speaker 1: Convention to another state, for she was determined to keep
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Speaker 1: the issue of prohibition out of the California campaign. With
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Speaker 1: the press more than friendly and several San Francisco dailies
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Speaker 1: running woman's suffrage departments, she realized the importance of keeping
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Speaker 1: newspapers fed with readable, factual material and enlisted the aid
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Speaker 1: of a young journalist, Ida Hustead Harper, whom she had
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Speaker 1: met in eighteen seventy eight while lecturing in Terre Haut, Indiana,
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Speaker 1: and who was in California that winter when the San
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Speaker 1: Francisco Examiner, William Randolph Hurst's powerful Democratic paper offered Susan
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Speaker 1: a column on the editorial page if she would write
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Speaker 1: it and sign it. She dictated her thoughts to missus Harper,
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Speaker 1: who smoothed them out for the column, helping her as
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Speaker 1: Missus Stanton had in the past, for writing was still
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Speaker 1: a great hardship. Grateful to Missus Harper, she sang, her
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Speaker 1: praises the moment I give the idea the point, she
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Speaker 1: formulates it into a good sentence, while I should have
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Speaker 1: to haggle over it half an hour. California women had
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Speaker 1: won suffrage planks from Republicans, populists, and prohibitionists, and the
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Speaker 1: prospects looked bright. Rich women came to their aid, Missus
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Speaker 1: Leland Stanford with her railroad fortune furnishing passes for all
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Speaker 1: the speakers and organizers, and Missus Phoebe Hurst contributing one
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Speaker 1: thousand dollars to their campaign. What warmed Susan's heart, however,
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Speaker 1: was the spirit of the rank and file. The seamstresses
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Speaker 1: and washerwomen paying their two dollar pledges and twenty five
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Speaker 1: cents installments, the poorly clad women bringing in fifty cents
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Speaker 1: or a dollar which they had saved by going without tea,
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Speaker 1: and the women who had worked all day at their jobs,
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Speaker 1: stopping at headquarters for a package of circulars to fold
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Speaker 1: and address at night. The working women of California made
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Speaker 1: it plain that they wanted to vote. Susan insisted upon
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Speaker 1: carrying out which she called her wild Goose chase over
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Speaker 1: the state. People crowded to hear her at farmers picnics
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Speaker 1: in the mountains, in schoolhouses in small towns, and in
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Speaker 1: pool rooms where chalked up on the blackboard, she often
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Speaker 1: found welcome, Susan b Anthony. She was at home everywhere
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Speaker 1: and ready for anything. The men liked her short, matter
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Speaker 1: of fact speeches and her flashes of wit. Her hopes
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Speaker 1: were high that the friendly people she met would not
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Speaker 1: failed to vote justice to women. She grew apprehensive, however,
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Speaker 1: when the newspapers, pressured by their advertisers, one by one,
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Speaker 1: began to ignore women's suffrage. The liquor Dealer's League had
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Speaker 1: been sending letters to hotel owners, grocers, and druggists, as
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Speaker 1: well as to saloons, warning that votes for women would
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Speaker 1: mean prohibition and would threaten their livelihood. Word was spread
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Speaker 1: that if women voted, not one glass of beer would
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Speaker 1: be sold in San Francisco. As in Kansas, liquor interests
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Speaker 1: had persuaded naturalized Irish, Germans and Swedes to oppose women's suffrage,
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Speaker 1: so now in California they appealed to the Chinese. On
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Speaker 1: election day, Susan was in San Francisco with Anna Howard
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Speaker 1: Shaw and Ellen Sargent, watching and anxiously waiting for the return.
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Speaker 1: Telling the story of those last tense hours when women's
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Speaker 1: fate hung in the balance. Anna Howard Shaw reported, I
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Speaker 1: shall always remember the picture of Miss Anthony and the
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Speaker 1: wife of Senator Sergeant wandering around the poles arm in
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Speaker 1: arm at eleven o'clock at night, their tired faces taking
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Speaker 1: on lines of deeper depression with every minute, for the
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Speaker 1: count was against us. When the final counts came in,
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Speaker 1: we found that we had won the state from the
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Speaker 1: north down to Oakland, and from the south up to
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Speaker 1: San Francisco, but there was not sufficient majority to overcome
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Speaker 1: the adverse votes of San Francisco and Oakland. In San Francisco,
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Speaker 1: the saloon element and the most aristocratic section made an
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Speaker 1: equal showing against us. Every Chinese vote was against us.
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Speaker 1: In spite of defeat in California, Susan had the joy
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Speaker 1: of marking up two more states for women's suffrage. In
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Speaker 1: eighteen ninety six, Utah was granted statehood with a woman's
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Speaker 1: suffrage provision in its constitution, and Idaho's favorable vote, though
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Speaker 1: contested in the courts, was upheld by the state Supreme Court.
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Speaker 1: Now women in Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah were voters.
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Speaker 1: End of Chapter twenty three