Anna E. DickinsonAnna E. Dickinson
Another bright spot was Susan's friendship with Anna E. Dickinson, with whom she carried on a lively correspondence, scratching oft hurried notes to her on the backs of old envelopes or any odd scraps of paper that came to hand. Whenever Anna was in New York, she usually burst into theRevolutionoffice, showered Susan with kisses, and carried on such an animated conversation about her experiences that the whole office force was spellbound, admiring at the same time her stylish costume and jaunty velvet cap with its white feather, very becoming on her short black curls.
Repeatedly Susan urged Anna to stay with her in her "plain quarters" at 44 Bond Street or in her "nice hall bedroom" at 116 East Twenty-third Street. That Anna could have risen out of the hardships of her girlhood to such popularity as a lecturer and tosuch financial success was to Susan like a fairy tale come true. Scarcely past twenty, Anna not only had moved vast audiences to tears, but was sought after by the Republicans as one of their most popular campaign speakers and had addressed Congress with President Lincoln in attendance. Susan had been sadly disappointed that Anna had not seen her way clear to speak a strong word for women in the Kansas campaign, but she hoped that this vivid talented young woman would prove to be "the evangel" who would lead women "into the kingdom of political and civil rights." It never occurred to her that she herself might even now be that "evangel."[214]
By this time Susan had been called on the carpet by some of the officers of the American Equal Rights Association because she had used the Association's office as a base for business connected with the Train lecture tour and the establishment ofThe Revolution. She was also accused of spending the funds of the Association for her own projects and to advertise Train. Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Stephen Foster were particularly suspicious of her. Her accounts were checked and rechecked by them and found in good order. However, at the annual meeting of the Association in May 1868, Henry Blackwell again brought the matter up. Deeply hurt by his public accusation, she once more carefully explained that because there had been no funds except those which came out of her own pocket or had been raised by her, she had felt free to spend them as she thought best. This obviously satisfied the majority, many of whom expressed appreciation of her year of hard work for the cause. She later wrote Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "Even if not one old friend had seemed to have remembered the past and it had been swallowed up, overshadowed by the Train cloud, I should still have rejoiced that I have done the work—for nohumanprejudice or power can rob me of the joy, the compensation, I have stored up therefrom. That it is wholly spiritual, I need but tell you that this day, I have not two hundred dollars more than I had the day I entered upon the public work of woman's rights and antislavery."[215]
What troubled her most at these meetings was not the animosity directed against her by Henry Blackwell and Lucy Stone, but the assertion, made by Frederick Douglass and agreed to byall the men present, that Negro suffrage was more urgent than woman suffrage. When Lucy Stone came to the defense of woman suffrage in a speech whose content and eloquence Susan thought surpassed that of "any other mortal woman speaker," she was willing to forgive Lucy anything, and wrote Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "I want you toknowthat it is impossible for me to lay a straw in the way of anyone whopersonally wrongs me, if only that one will work nobly in thecausein their own way and time. They may try to hinder my success but Inevertheirs."
Realizing that it would be futile for her to spend any more time trying to persuade the American Equal Rights Association to help her with her woman suffrage campaign, she now formed a small committee of her own, headed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It included Elizabeth Smith Miller, the liberal wealthy daughter of Gerrit Smith, Abby Hopper Gibbons, the Quaker philanthropist and social worker; and Mary Cheney Greeley, the wife of Horace Greeley, who, in spite of the fact that her husband now opposed woman suffrage, continued to take her stand for it. This committee, withThe Revolutionas its mouthpiece, was soon acting as a clearing house for woman suffrage organizations throughout the country and called itself the Woman's Suffrage Association of America.
To the national Republican convention in Chicago which nominated General Grant for President, these women sent a carefully worded memorial asking that the rights of women be recognized in the reconstruction. It was ignored. Thereupon Susan turned to the Democrats, attending with Mrs. Stanton a preconvention rally in New York, addressed by Governor Horatio Seymour. Given seats of honor on the platform, they attracted considerable attention and the New YorkSuncommented editorially that this honor conferred upon them by the Democrats not only committed Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton to Governor Seymour's views but also committed the Democrats to incorporate a woman suffrage plank in their platform.
This was too much for some of the officers of the American Equal Rights Association, whose executive committee now adopted a sarcastic resolution proposing that Susan attend the national Democratic convention and prove her confidence in the Democrats by securing a plank in their platform.
Ignoring the unfriendly implications of this resolution and the ridicule heaped upon her by the New York City papers, Susan made plans to attend the Democratic convention, which for the first time since the war was bringing northern and southern Democrats together for the dedication of their new, imposing headquarters, Tammany Hall, and which was also attracting many liberals who, disgusted by the corruption of the Republicans, were looking for a "new departure" from the Democrats. To the amazement of the delegates, Susan with Mrs. Stanton and several other women walked into the convention when it was well under way and sent a memorial up to Governor Seymour who was presiding. He received it graciously, announcing that he held in his hand a memorial of the women of the United States signed by Susan B. Anthony, and then turned it over to the secretary to be read while the audience shouted and cheered. The sonorous passages demanding the enfranchisement of women rang out through and above the bedlam: "We appeal to you because ... you have been the party heretofore to extend the suffrage. It was the Democratic party that fought most valiantly for the removal of the 'property qualification' from all white men and thereby placed the poorest ditch digger on a political level with the proudest millionaire.... And now you have an opportunity to confer a similar boon on the women of the country and thus ... perpetuate your political power for decades to come...."[216]
To hear these words read in a national political convention was to Susan worth any ridicule she might be forced to endure. She was not allowed to speak to the convention as she had requested, and shouts and jeers continued as her memorial was hurriedly referred to the Resolutions committee where it could be conveniently overlooked.
The Republican press reported the incident with sarcasm and animosity, theTribunedeeply wounding her: "Miss Susan B. Anthony has our sincere pity. She has been an ardent suitor of democracy, and they rejected her overtures yesterday with screams of laughter."[217]
The Democrats' nomination of Horatio Seymour and Frank Blair was as reactionary and unpromising of a "new departure" as was the choice of General Grant and Schuyler Colfax by the Republicans. ThereuponThe Revolutioncalled for a new party, a people'sparty which would be sincerely devoted to the welfare of all the people. So strongly did Susan feel about this that in one of her few signed editorials she declared, "Both the great political parties pretending to save the country are only endeavoring to save themselves.... In their hands humanity has no hope.... The sooner their power is broken as parties the better....The Revolutioncalls for construction, not reconstruction.... Who will aid us in our grand enterprise of a nation's salvation?"[218]
To "darling Anna" she wrote more specifically, "Both parties are owned body and soul by theGold Gamblersof the Nation—and so far as the honest working men and women of the country are concerned, it matters very little which succeeds. Oh that the Gods would inspire men of influence and money to move for a third party—universal suffrage and anti-monopolist of land and gold."[219]
In her zeal to promote the welfare of all the people, Susan now turned her attention to the workingwomen of New York, whose low wages, long hours, and unhealthy working and living conditions had troubled her for a long time. Women were being forced out of the home into the factory by a changing and expanding economy, and at last were being paid for their work. However, the women she met on the streets of New York, hurrying to work at dawn and returning late at night, weary, pale, and shabbily dressed, had none of the confidence of the economically independent. They had merely exchanged one form of slavery for another. She saw the ballot as their most powerful ally, and as she told the factory girls of Cohoes, New York, they could compel their employers to grant them a ten-hour day, equal opportunity for advancement, and equal pay, the moment they held the ballot in their hands.[220]
As yet labor unions were few and short-lived. The women tailors of New York had formed a union as early as 1825, but it had not survived, and later attempts to form women's unions had rarely been successful. A few men's unions had weathered the years, but they had not enrolled women, fearing their competition. Women were welcomed only by the National Labor Union, established in Baltimore in 1866 for the purpose of federating all unions.
When the National Labor Union Congress met in New York in September 1868, Susan saw an opportunity for women to take part, and in preparation she called a group of workingwomen together inThe Revolutionoffice to form a Workingwomen's Association which she hoped would eventually represent all of the trades. At this meeting, the majority were from the printing trade, typesetters operating the newly invented typesetting machines, press feeders, bookbinders, and clerks, in whom she had become interested through her venture in publishing. She wanted them to call their organization the Workingwomen's Suffrage Association, but they refused, because they feared the public's disapproval of woman suffrage and were convinced they should not seek political rights until they had improved their working conditions. She could notmake them see that they were putting the cart before the horse. They did, however, form Workingwomen's Association No. 1, electing her their delegate to the National Labor Congress.
Next she called a meeting of the women in the sewing trades, and with the help of men from the National Labor Union, persuaded a hundred of them to form Workingwomen's Association No. 2. Most of these women were seamstresses making men's shirts, women's coats, vests, lace collars, hoop skirts, corsets, fur garments, and straw hats, but also represented were women from the umbrella, parasol, and paper collar industry, metal burnishers, and saleswomen. Most of them were young girls who worked from ten to fourteen hours a day, from six in the morning until eight at night, and earned from $4 to $8 a week.
"You must not work for these starving prices any longer ...," Susan told them. "Have a spirit of independence among you, 'a wholesome discontent,' as Ralph Waldo Emerson has said, and you will get better wages for yourselves. Get together and discuss, and meet again and again.... I will come and talk to you...."[221]They elected Mrs. Mary Kellogg Putnam to represent them at the National Labor Congress.
With Mrs. Putnam and Kate Mullaney, the able president of the Collar Laundry Union of Troy, New York, with Mary A. MacDonald of the Women's Protective Labor Union of Mt. Vernon, New York, and Mrs. Stanton, representing the Woman's Suffrage Association of America, Susan knocked at the door of the National Labor Congress. All were welcomed but Mrs. Stanton, who represented a woman suffrage organization and whose acceptance the rank and file feared might indicate to the public that the Labor Congress endorsed votes for women.
The women had a friend in William H. Sylvis of the Iron Molders' Union, who was the driving force behind the National Labor Congress, and he made it clear at once that he welcomed Mrs. Stanton and everyone else who believed in his cause. So strong, however, was the opposition to woman suffrage among union men that eighteen threatened to resign if Mrs. Stanton were admitted as a delegate. The debate continued, giving Susan an opportunity to explain why the ballot was important to workingwomen. "It is the power of the ballot," she declared, "that makes mensuccessful in their strikes."[222]She recommended that both men and women be enrolled in unions, pointing out that had this been done, women typesetters would not have replaced men at lower wages in the recent strike of printers on the New YorkWorld. Finally a resolution was adopted, making it clear that Mrs. Stanton's acceptance in no way committed the National Labor Congress to her "peculiar ideas" or to "Female Suffrage."
A committee on female labor was then appointed with Susan as one of its members. At once she tried to show the committee how the vote would help women in their struggle for higher wages. She had at hand a perfect example in the unsuccessful strike of Kate Mullaney's strong, well-organized union of 500 collar laundry workers in Troy, New York. Aware that Kate blamed their defeat on the ruthless newspaper campaign, inspired and paid for by employers, Susan asked her, "If you had been 500 carpenters or 500 masons, do you not think you would have succeeded?"[223]
"Certainly," Kate Mullaney replied, adding that the striking bricklayers had won everything they demanded. Susan then reminded her that because the bricklayers were voters, newspapers respected them and would hesitate to arouse their displeasure, realizing that in the next election they would need the votes of all union men for their candidates. "If you collar women had been voters," she told them, "you too would have held the balance of political power in that little city of Troy."
Susan convinced the committee on female labor, and in their strong report to the convention they urged women "to secure the ballot" as well as "to learn the trades, engage in business, join labor unions or form protective unions of their own, ... and use every other honorable means to persuade or force employers to do justice to women by paying them equal wages for equal work." These women also called upon the National Labor Congress to aid the organization of women's unions, to demand the eight-hour day for women as well as men, and to ask Congress and state legislatures to pass laws providing equal pay for women in government employ. The phrase, "to secure the ballot," was quickly challenged by some of the men and had to be deleted before the report was accepted; but this setback was as nothing to Susan in comparison with the friends she had made for woman suffrage among prominent laborleaders and with the fact that a woman, Kate Mullaney of Troy, had been chosen assistant secretary of the National Labor Union and its national organizer of women.[224]
The National Labor Union Congress won high praise inThe Revolutionas laying the foundation of the new political party of America which would be triumphant in 1872. "The producers, the working-men, the women, the Negroes,"The Revolutiondeclared, "are destined to form a triple power that shall speedily wrest the sceptre of government from the non-producers, the land monopolists, the bondholders, and the politicians."[225]
One of the most encouraging signs at this time was the friendliness of the New YorkWorld, whose reporters covered the meetings of the Workingwomen's Association with sympathy, arousing much local interest. Reprinting these reports and supplementing them,The Revolutioncarried their import farther afield, bringing to the attention of many the wisdom and justice of equal pay for equal work, and the need to organize workingwomen and to provide training and trade schools for them.The Revolutioncontinually spurred women on to improve themselves, to learn new skills, and actually to do equal work if they expected equal pay.
When reports reached Susan that women in the printing trade were afraid of manual labor, of getting their hands and fingers dirty, and of lifting heavy galleys, she quickly let them know that she had no patience with this. "Those who stay at home," she told them, "have to wash kettles and lift wash tubs and black stoves until their hands are blackened and hardened. In this spirit, you must go to work on your cases of type. Are these cases heavier than a wash tub filled with water and clothes, or the old cheese tubs?... The trouble is either that girls are not educated to have physical strength or else they do not like to use it. If a union of women is to succeed, it must be composed of strength, nerve, courage, and persistence, with no fear of dirtying their white fingers, but with a determination that when they go into an office they would go through all that was required of them and demand just as high wages as the men....
"Make up your mind," she continued, "to take the 'lean' with the 'fat,' and be early and late at the case precisely as the men are.I do not demand equal pay for any women save those who do equal work in value. Scorn to be coddled by your employers; make them understand that you are in their service as workers, not as women."[226]
Workingwomen's associations now existed in Boston, St. Louis, Chicago, San Francisco and other cities, encouraged and aroused by the efforts at organization in New York. These associations occasionally exchanged ideas, and news of all of them was published inThe Revolution. The groups in Boston and in the outlying textile mills were particularly active, and Susan brought to her next suffrage convention in Washington in 1870 Jennie Collins of Lowell who was ably leading a strike against a cut in wages. The newspapers, too, began to notice workingwomen, publishing articles about their working and living conditions.
Trying to amalgamate the various groups in New York, Susan now formed a Workingwomen's Central Association, of which she was elected president. To its meetings she brought interesting speakers and practical reports on wages, hours, and working conditions. She herself picked up a great deal of useful information in her daily round as she talked with this one and that one. On her walks to and from work, in all kinds of weather, she met poorly clad women carrying sacks and baskets in which they collected rags, scraps of paper, bones, old shoes, and anything worth rescuing from "garbage boxes." With friendliness and good cheer, she greeted these ragpickers, sometimes stopping to talk with them about their work, and through her interest brought several into the Workingwomen's Association. Looking forward to surveys on all women's occupations, she started out by appointing a committee to investigate the ragpickers, many of whom lived in tumbledown slab shanties on the rocky land which is now a part of Central Park.
This investigation revealed that more than half of the 1200 ragpickers were women and that it was the one occupation in which women had equal opportunity with men and received equal compensation for their day's work. Average earnings ranged from forty cents a day to ten dollars a week. The report, highly sentimental in the light of today's scientific approach, was a promising beginning, a survey made by women themselves in their own interest—the forerunner of the reports of the Labor Department's Women's Bureau.
Cooperatives appealed to Susan as they did to many labor leaders as the best means of freeing labor. When the Sewing Machine Operators Union tried to establish a shop where their members could share the profits of their labor, she did her best to help them, hoping to see them gain economic independence in a light airy clean shop where wealthy women, eager to help their sisters, would patronize them. However, the wealthy women to whom she appealed to finance this project did not respond, looking upon a cooperative as a first step toward socialism and a threat to their own profits. She was able, however, to arouse a glimmer of interest among the members of the newly formed literary club, Sorosis, in the problems of working women.
She had the satisfaction of seeing women typesetters form their own union in 1869, and this was, according to the AlbanyDaily Knickerbocker, "the first move of the kind ever made in the country by any class of labor, to place woman on a par with man as regards standing, intelligence, and manual ability."[227]The Revolutionencouraged this union by printing notices of its meetings and urging all women compositors to join. In signed articles, Susan pointed out how wages had improved since the union was organized. "A little more Union, girls," she said, "and soon all employers will come up to 45 cents, the price paid men.... So join the Union, girls, and together sayEqual Pay for Equal Work."[228]
Eager to bring more women into the printing trade where wages were higher, she tried in every possible way to establish trade schools for them. She looked forward to a printing business run entirely by women, giving employment to hundreds. So obsessed was she by the idea of a trade school for women compositors that when printers in New York went on a strike, she saw an opportunity for women to take their places and appealed by letter and in person to a group of employers "to contribute liberally for the purpose of enabling us to establish a training school for girls in the art of typesetting." Explaining that hundreds of young women, now stitching at starvation wages, were ready and eager to learn the trade, she added, "Give us the means and we will soon give you competent women compositors."[229]Having learned by experience that men always kept women out of their field of labor unless forced by circumstances to admit them, she also urged young women totake the places of striking typesetters at whatever wage they could get.
It never occurred to her in her eagerness to bring women into a new occupation that she might be breaking the strike. She saw only women's opportunity to prove to employers that they were able to do the work and to show the Typographical Union that they should admit women as members. Labor men, however, soon let her know how much they disapproved of her strategy. She tried to explain her motives to them, that she was trying to fit these women to earn equal wages with men. She reminded these men of how hard it was for women to get into the printing trade and how they had refused to admit women to their union; and she called their attention to her whole-hearted support of the lately formed Women's Typographical Union.
Some of the men were never convinced and never forgot this misstep, bringing it up at the National Labor Union Congress in Philadelphia in 1869, which Susan attended as a delegate of the New York Workingwomen's Association. Here she found herself facing an unfriendly group without the support of William H. Sylvis, who had recently died. For three days they debated her eligibility as a delegate, first expressing fear that her admission would commit the Labor Congress to woman suffrage. When she won 55 votes against 52 in opposition, Typographical Union No. 6 of New York brought accusations against her which aroused suspicion in the minds of many union members. They pointed out that she belonged to no union, and they called her an enemy of labor because she had encouraged women to take men's jobs during the printers' strike. They could not or would not understand that in urging women to take men's jobs, she had been fighting for women just as they fought for their union, and they completely overlooked how continuously and effectively she had supported the Women's Typographical Union. HerRevolution, they claimed, was printed at less than union rates in a "rat office" and her explanation was not satisfactory. That it was printed on contract outside her office was no answer to satisfy union men who could not realize on what a scant margin her paper operated or how gladly she would have set up a union shop had the funds been available.
Not only were these accusations repeated again and again, theywere also carried far and wide by the press, with the result that Susan was not only kept out of the Labor Congress but was even sharply criticized by some members of her Workingwomen's Association.
"As to the charges which were made by Typographical Union No. 6," she reported to this Association, "no one believes them; and I don't think they are worth answering. I admit that this Workingwomen's Association is not atradeorganization; and while I join heart and hand with the working people in their trades unions, and in everything else by which they can protect themselves against the oppression of capitalists and employers, I say that this organization of ours is more upon the broad platform of philosophizing on the general questions of labor, and to discuss what can be done to ameliorate the condition of working people generally."[230]
She was not without friends in the ranks of labor, however, the New England delegates giving her their support. The New YorkWorld, very fair in its coverage of the heated debates, declared, "Of her devotion to the cause of workingwomen, there can be no question."[231]
The activities of the Workingwomen's Association had by this time begun to irk employers, and some of them threatened instant dismissal of any employee who reported her wages or hours to these meddling women. Fear of losing their jobs now hung over many while others were forbidden by their fathers, husbands, and brothers to have anything to do with strong-minded Susan B. Anthony.
To counteract this disintegrating influence and to bring all classes of women together in their fight for equal rights, Susan persuaded the popular lecturer, Anna E. Dickinson, to speak for the Workingwomen's Association at Cooper Union. This, however, only added fuel to the flames, for Anna, in an emotional speech, "A Struggle for Life," told the tragic story of Hester Vaughn, a workingwoman who had been accused of murdering her illegitimate child. Found in a critical condition with her dead baby beside her, Hester Vaughn had been charged with infanticide, tried without proper defense, and convicted by a prejudiced court, although there was no proof that she had deliberately killed her child. At Susan'sinstigation, the Workingwomen's Association sent a woman physician, Dr. Clemence Lozier, and the well-known author, Eleanor Kirk, to Philadelphia to investigate the case. Both were convinced of Hester Vaughn's innocence.
With the aid of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's courageous editorials inThe Revolution, Susan made such an issue of the conviction of Hester Vaughn that many newspapers accused her of obstructing justice and advocating free love, and this provided a moral weapon for her critics to use in their fight against the growing independence of women. Eventually her efforts and those of her colleagues won a pardon for Hester Vaughn. At the same time the publicity given this case served to educate women on a subject heretofore taboo, showing them that poverty and a double standard of morals made victims of young women like Hester Vaughn. Susan also made use of this case to point out the need for women jurors to insure an unprejudiced trial. She even suggested that Columbia University Law School open its doors to women so that a few of them might be able to understand their rights under the law and bring aid to their less fortunate sisters.
Under Susan's guidance, the Workingwomen's Association continued to hold meetings as long as she remained in New York. In its limited way, it carried on much-needed educational work, building up self-respect and confidence among workingwomen, stirring up "a wholesome discontent," and preparing the way for women's unions. The public responded. At Cooper Union, telegraphy courses were opened to women; the New York Business School, at Susan's instigation, offered young women scholarships in bookkeeping; and there were repeated requests for the enrollment of women in the College of New York.
Living in the heart of this rapidly growing, sprawling city, Susan saw much to distress her and pondered over the disturbing social conditions, looking for a way to relieve poverty and wipe out crime and corruption. She saw luxury, extravagance, and success for the few, while half of the population lived in the slums in dilapidated houses and in damp cellars, often four or five to a room. Immigrants, continually pouring in from Europe, overtaxed the already inadequate housing, and unfamiliar with our language and customs, werethe easy prey of corrupt politicians. Many were homeless, sleeping in the streets and parks until the rain or cold drove them into police stations for warmth and shelter. Susan longed to bring order and cleanliness, good homes and good government to this overcrowded city, and again and again she came to the conclusion that votes for women, which meant a voice in the government, would be the most potent factor for reform.
Yet she did not close her mind to other avenues of reform. Seeing reflected in the life of the city the excesses, the injustice, and the unsoundness of laissez-faire capitalism, she spoke out fearlessly inThe Revolutionagainst its abuses, such as the fortunes made out of the low wages and long hours of labor, or the Wall Street speculation to corner the gold market, or the efforts to take over the public lands of the West through grants to the transcontinental railroads. Her active mind also sought a solution of the complicated currency problem. In fact there was no public question which she hesitated to approach, to think out or attempt to solve. She did not keep her struggle for woman suffrage aloof from the pressing problems of the day. Instead she kept it abreast of the times, keenly alive to social, political, and economic issues, and involved in current public affairs.
The Fourteenth Amendment had been ratified in July 1868, but Republicans found it inadequate because it did not specifically enfranchise Negroes. More than ever convinced that they needed the Negro vote in order to continue in power, they prepared to supplement it by a Fifteenth Amendment, which Susan hoped would be drafted to enfranchise women as well as Negroes. Immediately through her Woman's Suffrage Association of America, she petitioned Congress to make no distinction between men and women in any amendment extending or regulating suffrage.
She and Elizabeth Stanton also persuaded their good friends, Senator Pomeroy of Kansas and Congressman Julian of Indiana, to introduce in December 1868 resolutions providing that suffrage be based on citizenship, be regulated by Congress, and that all citizens, native or naturalized, enjoy this right without distinction of race, color, or sex. Before the end of the month, Senator Wilson of Massachusetts and Congressman Julian had introduced other resolutions to enfranchise women in the District of Columbia and in the territories. Even the New YorkHeraldcould see no reason why "the experiment" of woman suffrage should not be tried in the District of Columbia.[232]
To focus attention on woman suffrage at this crucial time, Susan, in January 1869, called together the first woman suffrage convention ever held in Washington. No only did it attract women from as far west as Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas, but Senator Pomeroy lent it importance by his opening speech, and through the detailed and respectful reporting of the New YorkWorldand of Grace Greenwood of the PhiladelphiaPressit received nationwide notice.
Congress, however, gave little heed to women's demands. "The experiment" of woman suffrage in the District of Columbia was not tried and nothing came of the resolutions for universal suffrageintroduced by Pomeroy, Julian, and Wilson. In spite of all Susan's efforts to have the word "sex" added to the Fifteenth Amendment, she soon faced the bitter disappointment of seeing a version ignoring women submitted to the states for ratification: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
The blatant omission of the word "sex" forced Susan and Mrs. Stanton to initiate an amendment of their own, a Sixteenth Amendment, and again Congressman Julian came to their aid, although he too regarded Negro suffrage as more "immediately important and absorbing"[233]than suffrage for women. On March 15, 1869, at one of the first sessions of the newly elected Congress, he introduced an amendment to the Constitution, providing that the right of suffrage be based on citizenship without any distinction or discrimination because of sex. This was the first federal woman suffrage amendment ever proposed in Congress.
Opportunity to campaign for this amendment was now offered Susan and Elizabeth Stanton as they addressed a series of conventions in Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri. Press notices were good, a Milwaukee paper describing Susan as "an earnest enthusiastic, fiery woman—ready, apt, witty and what a politician would call sharp ... radical in the strongest sense," making "radical everything she touches."[234]She found woman suffrage sentiment growing by leaps and bounds in the West and western men ready to support a federal woman suffrage amendment.
With a lighter heart than she had had in many a day and with new subscriptions toThe Revolution, Susan returned to New York. She moved theRevolutionoffice to the first floor of the Women's Bureau, a large four-story brownstone house at 49 East Twenty-third Street, near Fifth Avenue, which had been purchased by a wealthy New Yorker, Mrs. Elizabeth Phelps, who looked forward to establishing a center where women's organizations could meet and where any woman interested in the advancement of her sex would find encouragement and inspiration. Susan's hopes were high for the Women's Bureau, and in this most respectable, fashionable, and even elegant setting, she expected herRevolution, in spite of itsinflammable name, to live down its turbulent past and win new friends and subscribers.[235]
She made one last effort to resuscitate the American Equal Rights Association, writing personal letters to old friends, urging that past differences be forgotten and that all rededicate themselves to establishing universal suffrage by means of the Sixteenth Amendment. She was optimistic as she prepared for a convention in New York, particularly as one obstacle to unity had been removed. George Francis Train had voluntarily severed all connections withThe Revolutionto devote himself to freeing Ireland. She soon found, however, that the misunderstandings between her and her old antislavery friends were far deeper than George Francis Train, although he would for a long time be blamed for them. The Fifteenth Amendment was still a bone of contention andThe Revolution'scontinued editorials against it widened the breach.
The fireworks were set off in the convention of the American Equal Rights Association by Stephen S. Foster, who objected to the nomination of Susan and Mrs. Stanton as officers of the Association because they had in his opinion repudiated its principles. When asked to explain further, he replied that not only had they published a paper advocating educated suffrage while the Association stood for universal suffrage but they had shown themselves unfit by collaboration with George Francis Train who ridiculed Negroes and opposed their enfranchisement.
Trying to pour oil on the troubled waters, Mary Livermore, the popular new delegate from Chicago, asked whether it was quite fair to bring up George Francis Train when he had retired fromThe Revolution.
To this Stephen Foster sternly replied, "IfThe Revolutionwhich has so often endorsed George Francis Train will repudiate him because of his course in respect to the Negro's rights, I have nothing further to say. But they do not repudiate him. He goes out; but they do not cast him out."[236]
"Of course we do not," Susan instantly protested.
Mr. Foster then objected to the way Susan had spent the funds of the Association, accusing her of failing to keep adequate accounts.
This she emphatically denied, explaining that she had presented a full accounting to the trust fund committee, that it hadbeen audited, and she had been voted $1,000 to repay her for the amount she had personally advanced for the work.
Unwilling to accept her explanation and calling it unreliable, he continued his complaints until interrupted by Henry Blackwell who corroborated Susan's statement, adding that she had refused the $1,000 due her because of the dissatisfaction expressed over her management. Declaring himself completely satisfied with the settlement and confident of the purity of Susan's motives even if some of her expenditures were unwise, Henry Blackwell continued, "I will agree that many unwise things have been written inThe Revolutionby a gentleman who furnished part of the means by which the paper has been carried on. But that gentleman has withdrawn, and you, who know the real opinions of Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton on the question of Negro suffrage, do not believe that they mean to create antagonism between the Negro and woman question...."
To Susan's great relief Henry Blackwell's explanation satisfied the delegates, who gave her and Mrs. Stanton a vote of confidence. Not so easily healed, however, were the wounds left by the accusations of mismanagement and dishonesty.
The atmosphere was still tense, for differences of opinion on policy remained. Most of the old reliable workers stood unequivocally for the Fifteenth Amendment, which they regarded as the crowning achievement of the antislavery movement, and they heartily disapproved of forcing the issue of woman suffrage on Congress and the people at this time. Although they had been deeply moved by the suffering of Negro women under slavery and had used this as a telling argument for emancipation, they now gave no thought to Negro women, who, even more than Negro men, needed the vote to safeguard their rights. Believing with the Republicans that one reform at a time was all they could expect, they did not want to hear one word about woman suffrage or a Sixteenth Amendment until male Negroes were safely enfranchised by the Fifteenth Amendment.
Offering a resolution endorsing the Fifteenth Amendment, Frederick Douglass quoted Julia Ward Howe as saying, "I am willing that the Negro shall get the ballot before me," and he added, "I cannot see how anyone can pretend that there is the same urgency in giving the ballot to women as to the Negro."
Quick as a flash, Susan was on her feet, challenging his statements, and as the dauntless champion of women debated the question with the dark-skinned fiery Negro, the friendship and warm affection built up between them over the years occasionally shone through the sharp words they spoke to each other.
"The old antislavery school says that women must stand back," declared Susan, "that they must wait until male Negroes are voters. But we say, if you will not give the whole loaf of justice to an entire people, give it to the most intelligent first."
Here she was greeted with applause and continued, "If intelligence, justice, and morality are to be placed in the government, then let the question of woman be brought up first and that of the Negro last.... Mr. Douglass talks about the wrongs of the Negro, how he is hunted down ..., but with all the wrongs and outrages that he today suffers, he would not exchange his sex and take the place of Elizabeth Cady Stanton."
"I want to know," shouted Frederick Douglass, "if granting you the right of suffrage will change the nature of our sexes?"
"It will change the pecuniary position of woman," Susan retorted before the shouts of laughter had died down. "She will not be compelled to take hold of only such employments as man chooses for her."
Lucy Stone, who so often in her youth had pleaded with Susan and Frederick Douglass for both the Negro and women, now entered the argument. She had matured, but her voice had lost none of its conviction or its power to sway an audience. Disagreeing with Douglass's assertion that Negro suffrage was more urgent than woman suffrage, she pointed out that white women of the North were robbed of their children by the law just as Negro women had been by slavery.
This was balm to Susan's soul, but with Lucy's next words she lost all hope that her old friend would cast her lot wholeheartedly with women at this time. "Woman has an ocean of wrongs too deep for any plummet," Lucy continued, "and the Negro too has an ocean of wrongs that cannot be fathomed. But I thank God for the Fifteenth Amendment, and hope that it will be adopted in every state. I will be thankful in my soul if anybody can get out of the terrible pit....
"I believe," she admitted, "that the national safety of the government would be more promoted by the admission of women as an element of restoration and harmony than the other. I believe that the influence of woman will save the country before every other influence. I see the signs of the times pointing to this consummation. I believe that in some parts of the country women will vote for the President of these United States in 1872."
Susan grew impatient as Lucy shifted from one side to the other, straddling the issue. Her own clear-cut approach, earning for her the reputation of always hitting the nail on the head, made Lucy's seem like temporizing.
The men now took control, criticizing the amount of time given to the discussion of woman's rights, and voted endorsement of the Fifteenth Amendment. Nevertheless, a small group of determined women continued their fight, Susan declaring with spirit that she protested against the Fifteenth Amendment because it was not Equal Rights and would put 2,000,000 more men in the position of tyrants over 2,000,000 women who until now had been the equals of the Negro men at their side.[237]
It was now clear to Susan and to the few women who worked closely with her that they needed a strong organization of their own and that it was folly to waste more time on the Equal Rights Association. Western delegates, disappointed in the convention's lack of interest in woman suffrage, expressed themselves freely. They had been sorely tried by the many speeches on extraneous subjects which cluttered the meetings, the heritage of a free-speech policy handed down by antislavery societies.
"That Equal Rights Association is an awful humbug," exploded Mary Livermore to Susan. "I would not have come on to the anniversary, nor would any of us, if we had known what it was. We supposed we were coming to a woman suffrage convention."[238]
At a reception for all the delegates held at the Women's Bureau at the close of the convention, this dissatisfaction culminated in a spontaneous demand for a new organization which would concentrate on woman suffrage and the Sixteenth Amendment. Alert to the possibilities, Susan directed this demand into concrete action by turning the reception temporarily into a business meeting.The result was the formation of the National Woman Suffrage Association by women from nineteen states, with Mrs. Stanton as president and Susan as a member of the executive committee. The younger women of the West, trusting the judgment of Susan and Mrs. Stanton, looked to them for leadership, as did a few of the old workers in the East—Ernestine Rose, always in the vanguard, Paulina Wright Davis, Elizabeth Smith Miller, Lucretia Mott, who although holding no office in the new organization gave it her support, Martha C. Wright, and Matilda Joslyn Gage who never wavered in her allegiance. Lucy Stone, who would have found it hard even to step into theRevolutionoffice, did not attend the reception at the Women's Bureau or take part in the formation of the new woman suffrage organization.