Ida Husted HarperIda Husted Harper
Susan returned to California in February 1896. Through the generosity and interest of two young Rochester friends, her Unitarian minister, William C. Gannett, and his wife, Mary Gannett, she was able to take her secretary with her. Making her home in San Francisco with her devoted friend, Ellen Sargent, she at once began to plan speaking tours for herself and her "girls," many of whom, including her niece Lucy, had come West to help her. She appealed successfully to Frances Willard to transfer the national W.C.T.U. convention to another state, for she was determined to keep the issue of prohibition out of the California campaign.
With the press more than friendly and several San Francisco dailies running woman suffrage departments, she realized the importance of keeping newspapers fed with readable factual material and enlisted the aid of a young journalist, Ida Husted Harper, whom she had met in 1878 while lecturing in Terre Haute, Indiana, and who was in California that winter. When the San FranciscoExaminer, William Randolph Hearst's powerful Democratic paper, offered Susan a column on the editorial page if she would write it and sign it, she dictated her thoughts to Mrs. Harper, who smoothed them out for the column, helping her as Mrs. Stanton had in the past, for writing was still a great hardship. Grateful to Mrs. Harper, she sang her praises: "The moment I give the idea—the point—she formulates it into a good sentence—while I should have to haggle over it half an hour."[397]
California women had won suffrage planks from Republicans, Populists, and Prohibitionists, and the prospects looked bright. Rich women came to their aid, Mrs. Leland Stanford, with her railroad fortune, furnishing passes for all the speakers and organizers, and Mrs. Phoebe Hearst contributing $1,000 to their campaign. What warmed Susan's heart, however, was the spirit of the rank and file, the seamstresses and washerwomen, paying their two-dollar pledges in twenty-five-cent installments, the poorly clad women bringing in fifty cents or a dollar which they had saved by going without tea, and the women who had worked all day at their jobs, stopping at headquarters for a package of circulars to fold and address at night. The working women of California made it plain that they wanted to vote.
Susan insisted upon carrying out what she called her "wild goose chase" over the state.[398]People crowded to hear her at farmers' picnics in the mountains, in schoolhouses in small towns, and in poolrooms where chalked up on the blackboard she often found "Welcome Susan B. Anthony." She was at home everywhere and ready for anything. The men liked her short matter-of-fact speeches and her flashes of wit. Her hopes were high that the friendly people she met would not fail to vote justice to women.
She grew apprehensive, however, when the newspapers, pressured by their advertisers, one by one began to ignore woman suffrage. The Liquor Dealers' League had been sending letters to hotel owners, grocers, and druggists, as well as to saloons, warning that votes for women would mean prohibition and would threaten their livelihood. Word was spread that if women voted not one glass of beer would be sold in San Francisco. As in Kansas, liquor interests had persuaded naturalized Irish, Germans, and Swedes to oppose woman suffrage, so now in California, they appealed to the Chinese.
On election day Susan was in San Francisco with Anna Howard Shaw and Ellen Sargent, watching and anxiously waiting for the returns. Telling the story of those last tense hours when women's fate hung in the balance, Anna Howard Shaw reported, "I shall always remember the picture of Miss Anthony and the wife of Senator Sargent wandering around the polls arm in arm at eleven o'clock at night, their tired faces taking on lines of deeper depression with every minute, for the count was against us.... When the final counts came in, we found that we had won the state from the north down to Oakland and from the south up to San Francisco; but there was not sufficient majority to overcome the adverse votes of San Francisco and Oakland. In San Francisco the saloon element and the most aristocratic section ... made an equal showing against us.... Every Chinese vote was against us."[399]
In spite of defeat in California, Susan had the joy of marking up two more states for woman suffrage in 1896. Utah was granted statehood with a woman suffrage provision in its constitution and Idaho's favorable vote, though contested in the courts, was upheld by the State Supreme Court. Now women in Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah were voters.
The future of the National American Woman Suffrage Association was much on Susan's mind. This organization which she had conceived and nursed through its struggling infancy had grown in numbers and prestige, and she understood, as no one else could, the importance of leaving it in the right hands so that it could function successfully without her.
The young women now in the work, many of them just out of college, were intelligent, efficient, and confident, and yet as she compared them with the vivid consecrated women active in the early days of the movement, she observed in her diary, "[Clarina] Nichols—Paulina Davis—Lucy Stone—Frances D. Gage—Lucretia Mott & E. C. Stanton—each without peer among any of our college graduates—young women of today."[400]
Even so, she appreciated the "young women of today" whom she affectionately called her girls or her adopted nieces, but she still held the reins tightly, although they often champed at the bit. Recognizing, however, that she must choose between personal power and progress for her cause, she characteristically chose progress. Quick to appreciate ability and zeal when she saw it, she seldom failed to make use of it. When Carrie Chapman Catt presented a detailed plan for a thorough overhauling of the mechanics of the organization, she gave her approval, remarking drily, "There never yet was a young woman who did not feel that if she had had the management of the work from the beginning, the cause would have been carried long ago. I felt just that way when I was young."[401]
On four of her adopted nieces, Rachel Foster Avery, Anna Howard Shaw, Harriet Taylor Upton, and Carrie Chapman Catt, Susan felt that the greater part of her work would fall and be "worthily done."[402]Yet she feared that in their enthusiasm for efficient organization they might lose the higher concepts of freedom and justice which had been the driving force behind her work. Not having learned the lessons of leadership when the cause was unpopular, they lacked the discipline of adversity, which bred in the consecratedreformer the wisdom, tolerance, and vision so necessary for the success of her task. What they did understand far better than the highly individualistic pioneers was the value of teamwork, which grew in importance as the National American Association expanded far beyond the ability of one person to cope with it.
Rachel Foster AveryRachel Foster Avery
Probably first in her affections was Rachel Foster Avery, who had been like a daughter to her since their trip to Europe together in 1883. The confidence she felt in their friendship was always a comfort. Rachel's intelligent approach to problems made her an asset at every meeting, and Susan relied much on her judgment.
In Anna Howard Shaw, ten years older than Rachel, Susan had found the hardy campaigner and orator for whom she had longed. Anna expressed a warmth and understanding that most of the younger women lacked, and best of all she loved the cause as Susan herself loved it. Because of her close friendship with Susan's niece Lucy, she was regarded as one of the family, and whenever possible between lectures she stopped over in Rochester for a good talk with "Aunt Susan."
Harriet Taylor Upton of Warren, Ohio, had enlisted in the ranksin the 1880s when her father was a member of Congress. Because of her influence in Washington and Ohio, Harriet was invaluable, and Susan speedily brought her into the official circle of the National American Association as treasurer, even thinking of her as a possible president.[403]Harriet's jovial irrepressible personality readily won friends, and Susan found her a refreshing and comfortable companion, able to see a bit of humor in almost every situation. When differences of opinion at meetings threatened to get out of hand, Harriet could always be relied on to break the tension with a few witty remarks.
Harriet Taylor UptonHarriet Taylor Upton
Carrie Chapman Catt gave every indication of developing into an outstanding executive. Not another one of Susan's "girls" could so quickly or so intelligently size up a situation as Carrie, nor could they so effectively put into action well-thought-out plans. Not as popular a speaker as the more emotional Anna Howard Shaw, she held her audiences by her appeal to their intelligence. Tall, handsome, and well dressed, she never failed to leave a favorable impression. Only her name irked Susan, and as Susan wrote Clara Colby, "If Catt it must be then I insist, she should keep her own father'sname—Lane—and not her first husband's name—Chapman,"[404]but the three Cs intrigued Carrie and she continued to be known as Carrie Chapman Catt. Now living in the East because her husband's expanding business had brought him to New York, she was easily accessible, and from her beautiful new home at Bensonhurst, a suburb of Brooklyn, she carried on the rapidly growing work of the organization committee until a New York City office became imperative. In Carrie, Susan recognized qualities demanded of a leader at this stage of the campaign when suffragists must learn to be as keen as politicians and as well organized.
"Spring is not heralded in Washington by the arrival of the robin," commented a Washington newspaper, "but by the appearance of Miss Anthony's red shawl." Susan was still the dominating figure at the annual woman suffrage conventions. Everyone looked eagerly for the tall lithe gray-haired woman with a red shawl on her arm or around her shoulders. Once when Susan appeared on the platform with a new white crepe shawl, the reporters immediately registered their displeasure by putting down their pencils. This did not escape her, and always on good terms with the newsmen and informal with her audiences, she called out, "Boys, what is the matter?"[405]
"Where is the red shawl?" one of them asked. "No red shawl, no report."
Enjoying this little by-play, she sent her niece Lucy back to the hotel for the red shawl, and when Lucy brought it up to the platform and put it about her shoulders, the audience burst into applause, for the red shawl, like Susan herself, had become the well-loved symbol of woman suffrage.
Susan was convinced that the annual national convention should always be held in Washington, where Congress could see and feel the growing strength and influence of the movement. Her "girls," on the other hand, wanted to take their conventions to different parts of the country to widen their influence. Not as certain as Susan that work for a federal amendment must come first, many of them contended that a few more states won for woman suffrage would best help the cause at this time. The southern women, now active, were firm believers in states' rights and supported state work.[406]Susan'sexperience had taught her the impracticability of direct appeal to the voters in the states, now that foreign-born men in increasing numbers were arrayed against votes for women. In spite of her arguments and her pleas, the National American Association voted in 1894 to hold conventions in different parts of the country in alternate years. Disappointed, but trying her best graciously to follow the will of the majority, she traveled to Atlanta and to Des Moines for the conventions of 1895 and 1897.
Nor did the younger women welcome the messages which Mrs. Stanton, at Susan's insistence, sent to every convention. Susan herself often wished her good friend would stick more closely to woman suffrage instead of introducing extraneous subjects, such as "Educated Suffrage," "The Matriarchate," or "Women and the Church," but nevertheless she proudly read her papers to successive conventions. Insisting that the conventions were too academic, Mrs. Stanton urged Susan to inject more vitality into them by broadening their platform. Susan, however, had come to the conclusion that concentration on woman suffrage was imperative in order to unite all women under one banner and build up numbers which Congressmen were bound to respect. With this her "girls" agreed 100 per cent. While all of them were convinced suffragists, they were divided on other issues, and few of them were wholehearted feminists, as were Susan and Mrs. Stanton.
With the publication ofThe Woman's Biblein 1895, Mrs. Stanton almost upset the applecart, stirring up heated controversy in the National American Woman Suffrage Association.The Woman's Biblewas a keen and sometimes biting commentary on passages in the Bible relating to women. It questioned the traditional interpretation which for centuries has fastened the stigma of inferiority upon women, and pointed out that the female as well as the male was created in the image of God. To those who regarded every word of the Bible as inspired by God,The Woman's Biblewas heresy, and both the clergy and the press stirred up a storm of protest against it. Suffragists were condemned for compiling a new Bible and were obliged to explain again and again thatThe Woman's Bibleexpressed Mrs. Stanton's personal views and not those of the movement.
Susan regardedThe Woman's Bibleas a futile, questionable digression from the straight path of woman suffrage. To Clara Colby, who praised it in herWoman's Tribune, she wrote, "Of all her great speeches, I am always proud—but of her Bible commentaries, I am not proud—either of their spirit or letter.... I could cry a heap—every time I read or think—if it would undo them—or do anybody or myself or the cause or Mrs. Stanton any good—they are so entirely unlike her former self—so flippant and superficial. But she thinks I have gone over to the enemy—so counts my judgment worth nothing more than that of any other narrow-souled body.... But I shall love and honor her to the end—whether herBibleplease me or not. So I hope she will do for me."[407]
She was, however, wholly unprepared for the rebellion staged by her "girls" at the Washington convention of 1896, when, led by Rachel Foster Avery, they repudiatedThe Woman's Bibleand proposed a resolution declaring that their organization had no connection with it. This was clear proof to Susan that her "girls" lacked tolerance and wisdom. Listening to the debate, she was heartsick. Anna Howard Shaw and Mrs. Catt as well as Alice Stone Blackwell spoke for the resolution. Only a few raised their voices against it, among them her sister Mary, Clara Colby, Mrs. Blake, and a young woman new to the ranks, Charlotte Perkins Stetson.
Susan was presiding, and leaving the chair to express her opinions, she firmly declared, "To pass such a resolution is to set back the hands on the dial of reform.... We have all sorts of people in the Association and ... a Christian has no more right on our platform than an atheist. When this platform is too narrow for all to stand on, I shall not be on it.... Who is to set up a line? Neither you nor I can tell but Mrs. Stanton will come out triumphant and that this will be the great thing done in woman's cause. Lucretia Mott at first thought Mrs. Stanton had injured the cause of woman's rights by insisting on the demand for woman suffrage, but she had sense enough not to pass a resolution about it....[408]
"Are you going to cater to the whims and prejudices of people?" she asked them. "We draw out from other people our own thought. If, when you go out to organize, you go with a broad spirit, you willcreate and call out breadth and toleration. You had better organize one woman on a broad platform than 10,000 on a narrow platform of intolerance and bigotry."
Her voice tense with emotion, she concluded, "This resolution adopted will be a vote of censure upon a woman who is without a peer in intellectual and statesmanlike ability; one who has stood for half a century the acknowledged leader of progressive thought and demand in regard to all matters pertaining to the absolute freedom of women."[409]
When the resolution was adopted 53 to 40, she was so disappointed in her "girls" and so hurt by their defiance that she was tempted to resign. Hurrying to New York after the convention to talk with Mrs. Stanton, she found her highly indignant and insistent that they both resign from the ungrateful organization which had repudiated the women to whom it owed its existence. The longer Susan considered taking this step, the less she felt able to make the break. She severely reprimanded Mrs. Catt, Rachel, Harriet Upton, and Anna, telling them they were setting up an inquisition.
Finally she wrote Mrs. Stanton, "No, my dear, instead of my resigning and leaving those half-fledged chickens without any mother, I think it my duty and the duty of yourself and all the liberals to be at the next convention and try to reverse this miserable narrow action."[410]
To a reporter who wanted her views onThe Woman's Bible, she made it plain that she had no part in writing the book, but added, "I think women have just as good a right to interpret and twist the Bible to their own advantage as men have always twisted it and turned it to theirs. It was written by men, and therefore its reference to women reflects the light in which they were regarded in those days. In the same way the history of our Revolutionary War was written, in which very little is said of the noble deeds of women, though we know how they stood by and helped the great work; it is so with history all through."[411]
For some years, Susan's girls had been urging her to write her reminiscences, spurred on by the fact that Mrs. Stanton, Mary Livermore, and Julia Ward Howe were writing theirs. There were alsoother good reasons for putting her to work at this task. Writing would keep her safely at home and away from the strenuous work in the field which they feared was sapping her strength. It would keep her well occupied so that they could develop the work and the conventions in their own way.
Susan put off this task from month to month and from year to year, torn between her desire to leave a true record of her work and her longing to be always in the thick of the suffrage fight. Finally she began looking about for a collaborator, convinced that she herself could never write an interesting line. Ida Husted Harper, with her newspaper experience and her interest in the cause, seemed the logical choice, and in the spring of 1897, she came to 17 Madison Street to work on the biography.[412]
The attic had been remodeled for workrooms and here Susan now spent her days with Mrs. Harper, trying to reconstruct the past. She had definite ideas about how the book should be written, holding up as a model the biography of William Lloyd Garrison recently written by his children. Mrs. Harper also had high standards, and influenced by the formalities of the day, edited Susan's vivid brusque letters—hurriedly written and punctuated with dashes—so that they conformed with her own easy but more formal style. To this Susan readily consented, for she always depreciated her own writing ability. On one point, however, she was adamant, that her story be told without dwelling upon the disagreements among the old workers.
The household was geared to the "bog," as they called the biography. Mary, supervising as usual, watched over their meals and the housework with the aid of a young rosy-cheeked Canadian girl, Anna Dann, who had recently come to work for them and whom they at once took to their hearts, making her one of the family. Soon another young girl, Genevieve Hawley from Fort Scott, Kansas, was employed to help with the endless copying, sorting of letters, and pasting of scrapbooks, and with the current correspondence which piled up and diverted Susan from the book.[413]Through 1897 and 1898, they worked at top speed.
The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, A Story of the Evolution of the Status of Women, in two volumes, by Ida Husted Harper, was published by the Bowen Merrill Company of Indianapolisjust before Christmas 1898. Happy as a young girl out of school, Susan inscribed copies for her many friends and eagerly watched for reviews, pleased with the favorable comments in newspapers and magazines throughout this country and Europe.[414]
By this time the Cuban rebellion was crowding all other news out of the papers, and Susan followed it closely, for this struggle for freedom instantly won her sympathy. She hoped that Spain under pressure from the United States might be persuaded to give Cuba her independence, but the blowing up of the battleshipMaineand the war cries of the press and of a faction in Congress led to armed intervention in April 1898. Always opposed to war as a means of settling disputes, she wrote Rachel, "To think of the mothers of this nation sitting back in silence without even the power of a legal protest—while their sons are taken without a by-your-leave! Well all through—it is barbarous ... and I hope you and all our young women will rouse to work as never before—and get the women of the Republic clothed with the power of control of conditions in peace—or when it shall come again—which Heaven forbid—in war."[415]
Not only did she express these sentiments in letters to her friends, but in a public meeting, where only patriotic fervor and flag-waving were welcome, she dared criticize the unsanitary army camps and the greed and graft which deprived soldiers of wholesome food. "There isn't a mother in the land," she declared, "who wouldn't know that a shipload of typhoid stricken soldiers would need cots to lie on and fuel to cook with, and that a swamp was not a desirable place in which to pitch a camp.... What the government needs at such a time is not alone bacteriologists and army officers but also women who know how to take care of sick boys and have the common sense to surround them with sanitary conditions."[416]At this her audience, at first hostile, burst into applause.
More and more disturbed by the inefficient care of the wounded and the feeding of enlisted men, she wrote Rachel, "Every day's reports and comments about the war only show the need of women at the front—not as employees permitted to be there because they begged to be—but there by right—as managers and dictatorsin all departments in which women have been trained—those of feeding and caring for in health and nursing the sick."[417]
The war over, the problem of governing the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii was of great interest to her, and she at once asked for the enfranchisement of the women of these newly won island possessions. She regarded it as an outrage for the most democratic nation in the world to foist upon them an exclusively masculine government, a "male oligarchy," as she called it. "I really believe I shall explode," she wrote Clara Colby, "if some of you young women don't wake up and raise your voice in protest.... I wonder if when I am under the sod—or cremated and floating in the air—I shall have to stir you and others up. How can you not be all on fire?"[418]
The unwillingness of her "girls" to relate woman suffrage to contemporary public affairs such as this, repeatedly disappointed her. Yet she was well aware that the younger generation would never see the work through her eyes, or exactly follow her pattern.
Disappointed that her National American Woman Suffrage Association did not attract members as did the W.C.T.U. or the General Federation of Women's Clubs, she confessed to Clara Colby, "It is the disheartening part of my life that so very few women will work for the emancipation of their own half of the race."[419]Watching women flock into these other organizations and contributing to all sorts of charities, she was obliged to admit that "very few are capable of seeing that the cause of nine-tenths of all the misfortunes which come to women, and to men also, lies in the subjection of women, and therefore the important thing is to lay the ax at the root."[420]
She also discovered that it was one thing to build up a large organization and another to keep women so busy with pressing work for the cause that they did not find time to expend their energies on the mechanics of organization. Not only did she chafe at the red tape most of them spun, but she often felt that they were too prone to linger in academic by-ways, listening to speeches and holding pleasant conventions. Since the California campaign of 1896, only one state, Washington, had been roused to vote on a woman suffrage amendment, which was defeated and only onemore state Delaware had granted women the right to vote for members of school boards.
Again and again she warned her "girls" that some kind of action on woman suffrage by Congress every year was important. A hearing, a committee report, a debate, or even an unfavorable vote would, she was convinced, do more to stir up the whole nation than all the speakers and organizers that could be sent through the country.
Such thoughts as these, relative to the work which was always on her mind, she dashed off to one after another of her young colleagues. "Your letters sound like a trumpet blast," wrote Anna Howard Shaw, grateful for her counsel. "They read like St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans, so strong, so clear, so full of courage."[421]
At seventy-eight, Susan realized that the time was approaching when she must make up her mind to turn over to a younger woman the presidency of the National American Association, and during the summer of 1898 she announced to her executive committee that she would retire on her eightieth birthday in 1900.
The last year of Susan's presidency was particularly precious to her. In a sense it represented her farewell to the work she had carried on most of her life, and at the same time it was also the hopeful beginning of the period leading to victory. Yet she had no illusion of speedy or easy success for her "girls" and she did her best to prepare them for the obstacles they would inevitably meet. She warned them not to expect their cause to triumph merely because it was just. "Governments," she told them, "never do any great good things from mere principle, from mere love of justice.... You expect too much of human nature when you expect that."[422]
The movement had reached an impasse. The temper of Congress, as shown by the admission of Hawaii as a territory without woman suffrage, was both indifferent and hostile. That this attitude did not express the will of the American people, she was firmly convinced. It was due, she believed, to the political influence of powerful groups opposed to woman suffrage—the liquor interests controlling the votes of increasing numbers of immigrants, machine politicians fearful of losing their power, and financial interests whose conservatism resisted any measure which might upset the status quo. How to undermine this opposition was now her main problem, and she saw no other way but persistent agitation through a more active, more effective, ever-growing woman suffrage organization, reaching a wider cross section of the people. She herself had established a press bureau which was feeding interesting factual articles on woman suffrage to newspapers throughout the country, for as she wrote Mrs. Colby, the suffrage cause "needs to picture its demands in the daily papers where the unconverted can see them rather than in special papers where only those already converted can see them."[423]
Of greatest importance to her was winning the support of organized labor. Samuel Gompers, the president of the American Federation of Labor, had already shown his friendliness toward equal pay and votes for women and was putting women organizersin the field to speed the unionization of women. Even so she was surprised at the enthusiasm with which she was received at the American Federation of Labor convention in 1899, when the four hundred delegates by a rising vote adopted a strong resolution urging favorable action on a federal woman suffrage amendment.
So far as possible she had always established friendly relations with labor organizations, first in 1869 with William H. Sylvis's National Labor Union and then with the Knights of Labor and their leader, Terrence V. Powderly.[424]When Eugene V. Debs, president of the American Railway Union, was arrested during the Pullman strike in 1894 for defying a court injunction, she did not rate him, as so many did, a dangerous radical, but as an earnest reformer, crusading for an unpopular cause. They had met years before in Terre Haute, where at his request she had lectured on woman suffrage, and immediately they had won each other's sympathy and respect. She did not see indications of anarchy in the Pullman and Homestead strikes or in the Haymarket riot, but regarded them as an unfortunate phase of an industrial revolution which in time would improve the relations of labor and capital.
That women would be effected by this industrial revolution was obvious to her, and she wanted them to understand it and play their part in it. For this reason she saw the importance of keeping the National American Woman Suffrage Association informed on all developments affecting wage-earning women and to her delight she found three young suffragists wide awake on this subject. One of them, Florence Kelley, had joined forces with that remarkable young woman, Jane Addams, in her valuable social experiment, Hull House, in the slums of Chicago, and was now devoting herself to improving the working conditions of women and children. She represented a new trend in thought and work—social service—which made a great appeal to college women and set in motion labor legislation designed to protect women and children. Another young woman of promise, Gail Laughlin, pioneering as a lawyer, approached the subject from the feminist viewpoint, seeking protection for women not through labor legislation based on sex, but through trade unions, the vote, equal pay, and a wider recognition of women's right to contract for their labor onthe same terms as men. Her survey of women's working conditions, presented at a convention of the National American Association was so valuable and attracted so much attention that she was appointed to the United States Labor Commission. Harriot Stanton Blatch also understood the significance of the industrial revolution and woman's part in it, and she too opposed labor legislation based on sex. Coming from England occasionally to visit her mother in New York, she brought her liberal viewpoint into woman suffrage conventions with a flare of oratory matching that of her gifted parents. "The more I see of her," Susan remarked to a friend, "the more I feel the greatness of her character."[425]
Although it was Susan's intention to hew to the line of woman suffrage and not to comment publicly on controversial issues, she could not keep silent when confronted with injustice. Religious intolerance, bigotry, and racial discrimination always forced her to take a stand, regardless of the criticism she might bring on herself.
The treatment of the Negro in both the North and the South was always of great concern to her, and during the 1890s, when a veritable epidemic of lynchings and race riots broke out, she expressed herself freely in Rochester newspapers. She noted the dangerous trend as indicated by new anti-Negro societies and the limitation of membership to white Americans in the Spanish-American War veterans' organization. Whenever the opportunity presented itself, she put into practice her own sincere belief in race equality. During every Washington convention, she arranged to have one of her good speakers occupy the pulpit of a Negro church, and in the South she made it a point to speak herself in Negro churches and schools and before their organizations, even though this might prejudice southerners. In her own home, she gladly welcomed the Negro lecturers and educators who came to Rochester. This seeking out of the Negro in friendliness was a religious duty to her and a pleasure. She demanded of everyone employed in her household, respectful treatment of Negro guests. She rejoiced when she saw Negroes in the audience at woman suffrage conventions in Washington, and it gave her great satisfaction to hear Mary Church Terrell, a beautiful intelligent Negro whohad been educated at Oberlin and in Europe, making speeches which equaled and even surpassed those of the most eloquent white suffragists.
Susan did not fail to keep in touch with the international feminist movement, and in the summer of 1899, when she was seventy-nine years old, she headed the United States delegation to the International Council of Women, meeting in London. Visiting Harriot Stanton Blatch at her home in Basingstoke, she first conferred with the leading British feminists, bringing herself up to date on the progress of their cause. In England as in the United States, the burden of the suffrage campaign had shifted from the shoulders of the pioneers to their daughters, and they were carrying on with vigor, pressing for the passage of a franchise bill in the House of Commons.
Moving on to London, she was acclaimed as she had been at the World's Fair in Chicago. "The papers here have been going wild over Miss Anthony, declaring her to be the most unaggressive woman suffragist ever seen," reported a journalist to his newspaper in the United States.
From China, India, New Zealand, and Australia, from South Africa, Palestine, Persia, and the Argentine, as well as from Europe and the United States, women had come to London to discuss their progress and their problems, and Susan, pointing out to them the goal toward which they must head, declared with confidence, "The day will come when man will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside but in the councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship ... between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race."[426]
She had hoped that Queen Victoria would receive the delegates at Windsor Castle, thus indicating her approval of the International Council. She longed to talk with this woman who had ruled so long and so well. That a queen sat on the throne of England, this in itself was important to her and she wanted to express her gratitude, although she was well aware that the Queen had never used her influence for the improvement of laws relating to women. She had hoped to convince her of the need of votes for women, but Queen Victoria never gave her the opportunity. All that influentialEnglishwomen were able to arrange was the admission of the delegates to the courtyard of Windsor Castle to watch the Queen start on her drive and to tea in the banquet room without the Queen.
Carrie Chapman CattCarrie Chapman Catt
Returning home late in August 1899, Susan began at once to make definite plans to turn over the presidency of the National American Woman Suffrage Association to a younger woman. Although she well knew that the choice of her successor was actually in the hands of the membership, it was her intention to do what she could within the bounds of democratic procedure to insure the best possible leadership. To fill the office, she turned instinctively to Anna Howard Shaw whom she loved more dearly as the years went by and whose selfless devotion to the cause she trusted implicitly. Yet Anna, in spite of her many qualifications, lacked a few which were exceptional in Carrie Chapman Catt—creative executive ability, diplomacy, a talent for working with people, directing them, and winning their devotion. With growing admiration, Susan had been watching Mrs. Catt's indefatigable work in the states whereshe had been building up active branches. Her flare for raising money was outstanding, and Susan realized, as few others did, the crying need of funds for the campaigns ahead. In addition Mrs. Catt had no personal financial worries, for her husband, successful in business, was sympathetic to her work. Anna, on the other hand, would have to support herself by lecturing and carry as well the burden of the presidency of a rapidly growing organization.
Anna made the decision for Susan. She urged the candidacy of Mrs. Catt, although her highest ambition had always been to succeed her beloved Aunt Susan. As she later confessed to Susan, this was a personal sacrifice which cost her many a heartache, but she "honestly felt that Mrs. Catt was better fitted ... as well as freer to go into an unpaid field."[427]Susan therefore approached Mrs. Catt through Rachel and Harriet Upton, and was relieved when she consented to stand for election.
Rumors of Susan's retirement aroused ambitions in Lillie Devereux Blake, who from the point of seniority and devoted work in New York was regarded as being next in line for the presidency by Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Colby. Unable to visualize Mrs. Blake as the leader of this large organization with its diverse strong personalities, Susan nevertheless conceded her right to compete for the office. Although she appreciated Mrs. Blake's valuable work for the cause, there never had been understanding or sympathy between them. Temperamentally the blunt stern New Englander with untiring drive had little in common with the southern beauty turned reformer.
A change in the presidency needed wise and patient handling as personal ambitions, prejudices, and misunderstandings reared their heads. When there were murmurings of secession among a small group if Mrs. Catt were elected, Susan wrote Mrs. Colby that such talk was "very immature, very despotic, very undemocratic," and she hoped she was not one of the malcontents.[428]
Another problem was the future of the organization committee which under Mrs. Catt's chairmanship had carried on a large part of the work. Its influence was considerable and could readily develop so as to conflict with that of the officers, thus threatening the unity of the whole organization. To dissolve the committee seemed to Susan and her closest advisors the wisest procedure. Mary GarrettHay, who had worked closely with Mrs. Catt on the organization committee, opposed this plan, but after earnest discussion the officers, including Mrs. Catt, agreed to dissolve the organization committee.
As Susan appeared on the platform at the opening session of the Washington convention in February 1900, there was thunderous applause from an audience tense with emotion at the thought of losing the leader who had guided them for so many years. The tall gray-haired woman in black satin, with soft rich lace at her throat and the proverbial red shawl about her shoulders, had become the symbol of their cause. Now, as she looked down upon them with a friendly smile and motherly tenderness, tears came to their eyes, and they wanted to remember always just how she looked at that moment. Then she broke the tension with a call to duty, a summons to press for the federal amendment, and one more plea that they always hold their annual conventions in the national capital.
Difficult and sad as this official leave-taking was, she had made up her mind to carry if through with good cheer. Tirelessly she presided at three sessions daily. With the pride of a mother, she listened to the many reports and with particular satisfaction to that of the treasurer which showed all debts paid and pledges amounting to $10,000 to start the new year. Susan herself had made this possible, raising enough to pay past debts and securing pledges so that the new administration could start its work free from financial worries.
"I have fully determined to retire from the active presidency of the Association," she announced when the reports and speeches were over. "I am not retiring now because I feel unable, mentally or physically, to do the necessary work, but because I wish to see the organization in the hands of those who are to have its management in the future. I want to see you all at work, while I am alive, so I can scold if you do not do it well. Give the matter of selecting your officers serious thought. Consider who will do the best work for the political enfranchisement of women, and let no personal feelings enter into the question."[429]
Watching developments with the keen eye of a politician, shewas confident that Mrs. Catt would be elected to succeed her, although Mrs. Blake's candidacy was still being assiduously pressed and circulars recommending her, signed by Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Russell Sage and Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, were being widely distributed. Just before the balloting, however, Mrs. Blake withdrew her name in the interest of harmony. This left the field to Mrs. Catt, who received 254 votes of the 278 cast.
A burst of applause greeted the announcement of Mrs. Catt's election. Then abruptly it stopped, as the realization swept over the delegates that Aunt Susan was no longer their president. Walking to the front of the platform, Susan took Mrs. Catt by the hand, and while the delegates applauded, the two women stood before them, the one showing in her kind face the experience and wisdom of years, the other young, intelligent, and beautiful, her life still before her. There were tears in Susan's eyes and her voice was unsteady as she said, "I am sure you have made a wise choice.... 'New conditions bring new duties.' These new duties, these changed conditions, demand stronger hands, younger heads, and fresher hearts. In Mrs. Catt, you have my ideal leader. I present to you my successor."[430]
Susan's joyous confidence in the new administration was rudely jolted as controversy over the future of the organization committee flared up during the last days of the convention. Under strong pressure from Mary Garrett Hay, Mrs. Catt had counseled with Henry Blackwell, and at one of the last sessions he had slipped in a motion authorizing the continuance of the organization committee.[431]
Stunned by this development and looking upon it as a threat to the harmony of the new administration, Susan, supported by Harriet Upton and Rachel, prepared to take action, and the next morning, at the first post-convention executive committee meeting at which Mrs. Catt presided, Susan proposed that the national officers, headed by Mrs. Catt, take over the duties of the organization committee. This precipitated a heated debate, during which Henry Blackwell and his daughter, Alice, called such procedure unconstitutional, and Mary Hay resigned. As the discussion became too acrimonious, Mrs. Catt put an end to it by calling up unfinishedbusiness, and thus managed to steer the remainder of the session into less troubled waters. The next day, however, Susan brought the matter up again, and on her motion the organization committee was voted out of existence with praise for its admirable record of service.
Here were all the makings of a factional feud which, if fanned into flame, could well have split the National American Association. Not only had the old organization interfered with the new, indirectly reprimanding Mrs. Catt, but Susan, by her own personal influence and determination, had reversed the action of the convention. As a result, Mrs. Catt was indignant, hurt, and sorely tempted to resign, but after sending a highly critical letter to every member of the business committee, she took up her work with vigor.
Disappointed and heartsick over the turn of events, Susan searched for a way to re-establish harmony and her own faith in her successor. Realizing that a mother's cool counsel and guiding hand were needed to heal the misunderstandings, and convinced that unity and trust could be restored only by frank discussion of the problem by those involved, she asked for a meeting of the business committee at her home. "What can we do to get back into trust in each other?" she wrote Laura Clay. "That is the thing we must do—somehow—and it cannot be done by letter. We must hold a meeting—and we must have you—and every single one of our members at it."[432]
Impatient at what to her seemed unnecessary delay, she kept prodding Mrs. Catt to call this meeting. Fortunately both Susan and Mrs. Catt were genuinely fond of each other and placed the welfare of the cause above personal differences. Both were tolerant and steady and understood the pressures put on the leader of a great organization. Anxious and troubled as she waited for this meeting, Susan appreciated Anna Shaw's visits as never before, marking them as red-letter days on her calender.
Late in August 1900, all the officers finally gathered at 17 Madison Street, and Susan listened to their discussions with deep concern. She was confident she could rely completely on Harriet Upton, Rachel, and Anna and could count on Laura Clay's "level head and good common sense."[433]She never felt sure of AliceStone Blackwell and knew there was great sympathy and often a working alliance between her, her father, and Mrs. Catt. Of the latest member of the official family, Catharine Waugh McCulloch, she had little first-hand knowledge. Mrs. Catt, whom she longed to fathom and trust, was still an enigma. During those hot humid August days, misunderstandings were healed, unity was restored, and Susan was reassured that not a single one of her "girls" desired "other than was good for the work."[434]
Susan had always been a champion of coeducation, speaking for it as early as the 1850s at state teachers' meetings and proposing it for Columbia University in herRevolution. In 1891, she and Mrs. Stanton had agitated for the admission of women to the University of Rochester. Seven years later the trustees consented to admit women provided $100,000 could be raised in a year, and Susan served on the fund-raising committee with her friend, Helen Barrett Montgomery. Because the alumni of the University of Rochester opposed coeducation and the city's wealthiest men were indifferent, progress was slow, but the trustees were persuaded to extend the time and to reduce by one half the amount to be raised.
With so much else on her mind in 1900, including the sudden death of her brother Merritt, she had given the fund little thought until the committee appealed to her in desperation when only one day remained in which to raise the last $8,000. Immediately she went into action. Remembering that Mary had talked of willing the University $2,000 if it became coeducational, she persuaded her to pledge that amount now. Then setting out in a carriage on a very hot September morning, she slowly collected pledges for all but $2,000. As the trustees were in session and likely to adjourn any minute, she appealed to Samuel Wilder, one of Rochester's prominent elder citizens who had already contributed, to guarantee that amount until she could raise it. To this he gladly agreed. Reaching the trustees' meeting with Mrs. Montgomery just in time, with pledges assuring the payment of the full $50,000, she was amazed at their reception. Instead of rejoicing with them, the trustees began to quibble over Samuel Wilder's guarantee of the last $2,000 because of the state of his health. When she offered her life insurance assecurity, they still put her off, telling her to come back in a few days. Even then they continued to quibble, but finally admitted that the women had won. Disillusioned, she wrote in her diary, "Not a trustee has given anything although there are several millionaires among them."[435]Only her life insurance policy and her dogged persistence had saved the day.
This effort to open Rochester University to women, on top of a very full and worrisome year, was so taxing and so disillusioning that she became seriously ill. When she recovered sufficiently for a drive, she asked to be taken to the university campus and afterward wrote in her diary, "As I drove over the campus, I felt 'these are not forbidden grounds to the girls of the city any longer.' It is good to feel that the old doors sway on their hinges—to women! Will the vows be kept to them—will the girls have equal chances with the boys? They promised well—the fulfilment will be seen—whether there shall not be some hitch from the proposed to a separate school."[436]
Still keeping her watchful eye on the National American Association, Susan traveled to Minneapolis in the spring of 1901 for the first annual convention under the new administration. There was talk of an "entire new deal," the retirement of all who had served under Miss Anthony, and the election of a "new cabinet of officers," and Susan was so concerned that there might also be a change in the presidency that she felt she must be on hand to guide and steady the proceedings.[437]
Mrs. Catt was re-elected and Susan returned to Rochester well satisfied and ready to devote herself to completing the fourth volume of theHistory of Woman Suffrageon which she and Mrs. Harper had been working intermittently for the past year. It was published late in 1902. While working on the History, Susan, although more than satisfied with Mrs. Harper's work, often thought nostalgically of her happy stimulating years of collaboration with Mrs. Stanton. She seldom saw Mrs. Stanton now, but they kept in touch with each other by letter.
In the spring of 1902, she visited Mrs. Stanton twice in New York, and planned to return in November to celebrate Mrs. Stanton's eighty-seventh birthday. In anticipation, she wrote Mrs. Stanton,"It is fifty-one years since we first met and we have been busy through every one of them, stirring up the world to recognize the rights of women.... We little dreamed when we began this contest ... that half a century later we would be compelled to leave the finish of the battle to another generation of women. But our hearts are filled with joy to know that they enter upon this task equipped with a college education, with business experience, with the freely admitted right to speak in public—all of which were denied to women fifty years ago.... These strong, courageous, capable, young women will take our place and complete our work. There is an army of them where we were but a handful...."[438]
Two weeks before Mrs. Stanton's birthday, Susan was stunned by a telegram announcing that her old comrade had passed away in her chair. Bewildered and desolate, she sat alone in her study for several hours, trying bravely to endure her grief. Then came the reporters for copy which only this heartbroken woman could give. "I cannot express myself at all as I feel," she haltingly told them. "I am too crushed to speak. If I had died first, she would have found beautiful phrases to describe our friendship, but I cannot put it into words."[439]
From New York, where she had gone for the funeral, she wrote in anguish to Mrs. Harper, "Oh, the voice is stilled which I have loved to hear for fifty years. Always I have felt that I must have Mrs. Stanton's opinion of things before I knew where I stood myself. I am all at sea—but the Laws of Nature are still going on—with no shadow or turning—what a wonder it is—it goes right on and on—no matter who lives or who dies."[440]
National woman suffrage conventions were still red-letter events to Susan and she attended them no matter how great the physical effort, traveling to New Orleans in 1903. Of particular concern was the 1904 convention because of Mrs. Catt's decision at the very last moment not to stand for re-election on account of her health. Looking over the field, Susan saw no one capable of taking her place but Anna Howard Shaw. Not to be able to turn to Mrs. Stanton's capable daughter, Harriot Stanton Blatch, at this time was disappointing, but Harriot's long absence in England had made her more or less of a stranger to the membership of the National American Association,and for some reason she did not seem to fit in, lacking her mother's warmth and appeal.[441]