The Women of the Suffrage Movement - Jane Addams

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"The ladies managed the business badly. If they had employed the female lobby, the venerable Solons would have softened and thrown open their doors as readily as their hearts." It seems an ungracious thing to say; but it is the truth. The woman who wins her way with the majority of these men is the siren of the gallery and the anteroom, who sends in her card and her invitation to the senator at his desk. She never talks of "rights." She cares for no "cause" but her own cause of ease and pelf. She shakes her tresses, "banged" and usually blonde; she lifts her alluring eyes, and nine times out of ten makes him do as she listeth. No wonder when the earnest appeal of honest women reaches his hands, he has neither response, honor nor justice to give it.

      Miss Anthony had been speaking in all parts of the country for a quarter of a century and generally had been her own manager. The preceding year she had given the Slayton Lyceum Bureau a partial trial and at the beginning of 1877 made a contract with it, commencing the last of January. The entire first page of the circular for the season was devoted to this new engagement and began:

      The manager takes pride in announcing the name of Susan B. Anthony, the most earnest, fearless advocate of the ballot for woman. She has hitherto confined herself entirely to this one question, which to her is most sacred and righteous, but this season we are to have something different, as will be seen from the titles of her new lectures. Her great speeches, "Woman and the Sixteenth Amendment," and "Woman wants Bread, not the Ballot," will still be called for, and committees will have their choice in all cases.... A certain gentleman frequently wrote us last year to avoid "all night rides" after his lectures; Miss Anthony never makes such a request. She can lecture every night in the season.... When a list of fifty or one hundred engagements has been mapped out and fixed, nothing but an act of God will prevent her filling them.... Of nearly fifty consecutive lectures, delivered by Miss Anthony last spring in the State of Illinois alone, only two failed to realize a profit.... She is always making converts among the men as well as the women.

      Among the notices quoted is one from Col. John W. Forney, of the Philadelphia Press, saying: "I must accept woman suffrage as I did negro emancipation; as a necessity made urgent and imperative by the times in which we live. Put me down then, if you please, as being an ardent woman's rights man, fighting under the banner of Susan B. Anthony, and proud of following such a leader."

      Miss Anthony found both advantages and disadvantages in this new arrangement; for while it relieved her of much responsibility, it took away the control of her own time and movements, a situation which she soon found very trying. She lectured through February and March, but by this time her sister, Mrs. Hannah Mosher, whose failing health had sent her to Kansas in the hope of benefit, was declared by the physicians beyond recovery. Miss Anthony's first impulse was to hasten to her side, but she was confronted with her lecture engagements and told that it would be impossible to release her until May. She was almost desperate to be with the loved one and at last could bear it no longer, so telegraphing Mr. Slayton to cancel everything after April 5, regardless of consequences, she took the train at Chicago and reached Leavenworth on the 7th. She found her sister rapidly declining with the same inexorable disease which had claimed another four years before, and at once installed herself beside the invalid, who was rejoiced indeed to have her companionship and ministrations. All that loving hands could do she had had from husband, children and brothers, but she had longed for the presence of her sister and it filled her with joy and peace.

      In just a week, though her heart was breaking, Miss Anthony was obliged to return to Illinois to fill four or five engagements in places which threatened claims for damages if this were not done. She hastened back to Leavenworth, reaching the bedside of her sister at midnight, April 20, and scarcely leaving it a moment until the end came, May 12. Between herself and this sister, just nineteen months younger, beautiful in character and strong in affection, there ever had existed the closest sympathy. For the last decade they had been separated only by a dooryard, they had shared each other's every joy and sorrow, and the severing of these ties of over a half-century seemed more than she could endure.

      Mrs. Stanton wrote her: "Do be careful, dear Susan, you can not stand what you once did. I should feel desolate indeed with you gone." When the lecturing had commenced she again wrote: "As I go dragging around in these despicable hotels, I think of you and often wish we had at least the little comfort of enduring it together. When is your agony over?" Referring to a young woman speaker who was being spoiled by flattery, she said: "We should be thankful, Susan, for the ridicule and abuse on which we have fed." To one who tried to make trouble between Miss Anthony and herself she sent this reply: "Our friendship is of too long standing and has too deep roots to be easily shattered. I think we have said worse things to each other, face to face, than we have ever said about each other. Nothing that Susan could say or do could break my friendship with her; and I know nothing could uproot her affection for me." And to Miss Anthony she wrote: "I send you letters from our children. As the environments of the mother influence the child in prenatal life, and you were with me so much, there is no doubt you have had a part in making them what they are. There are a depth and earnestness in these younger ones and a love for you that delight my heart." Such letters as these are scattered thickly through the correspondence of nearly fifty years, and while Miss Anthony seldom put her own feelings into words, her absolute loyalty and devotion to Mrs. Stanton during all the half-century bear their own testimony.

      The talented contributor to the Philadelphia Sunday Republic, Annie McDowell, paid a beautiful tribute to Miss Anthony at this time, illustrating how much she was loved by women:

      "Some one wishes to know which of the advocates of woman's rights we think the ablest. Why, Susan B., of course. Without her, the organization would have been utterly broken to pieces and scattered. She is the guiding spirit, the executive power that leads the forlorn hope and brings order out of chaos. Others seek to promote their own interests, but Susan, earnest, honest, self-sacrificing, much-enduring, thinks only of the work she has in hand, and speculates solely on the chances of living long enough to accomplish it. She has given up home, friends, her profession of teacher and the modest competence acquired by her labor; has been caricatured, ridiculed, maligned and persecuted, but has never turned aside or faltered in the work to which she has given her life. Whatever may be the opinion of the conservative or fogy world with regard to Susan B. Anthony, those who know her well and have watched her career most attentively, know her to be rich in all the best and most tender of womanly virtues, and possessed of as brave and noble a spirit and as great integrity of character as ever fell to the lot of mortal woman."

      The legislature of Colorado had submitted the question of woman suffrage to be voted on October 2, 1877, and notwithstanding the lucrative business under the lyceum bureau, Miss Anthony could not resist offering her services to the women of Colorado with their little money and few speakers. From Dr. Alida C. Avery, president of the State Suffrage Association, came the quick response: "Your generous proposal was duly received, and laid before the executive committee, who resolved that the thanks of the association be tendered you for your friendly offer, which we gratefully accept."

      Although inured to hardship, Miss Anthony found this Colorado campaign the most trying she ever had experienced, not excepting that of Kansas ten years before. The country was new, many of the towns were off the railroad among the mountains and in most of them woman suffrage never had been heard of; there was no one to advertise the meetings, nobody to meet her when she reached her destination, hotels were of the most primitive nature and there were few public halls. There were, of course, some oases in this desert, and occasionally she found a good hotel or was hospitably entertained in a comfortable home. At one place she spoke in the railroad station to about twenty-five men who could not understand what it was she wanted them to do, though all were

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