Читать книгу The Women of the Suffrage Movement - Jane Addams - Страница 58

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Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton cross the continent; newspaper comment; Miss Anthony's letters from Salt Lake City; hostile treatment by San Francisco press; description of trip to Yosemite; journey by boat to Oregon; her letters on lecture experiences in Oregon and Washington; ridicule of Portland Bulletin; misrepresentation of Territorial Despatch; "cards" in papers of British Columbia; account of stage ride back to San Francisco; banquet at Grand Hotel; journey eastward with Sargent family; snowbound among the Rockies.

At the close of the New York convention Miss Anthony, Rev. Olympia Brown and Josephine S. Griffing went with Mrs. Hooker to Hartford for a short visit, which it may be imagined was one protracted "business session." Then Miss Anthony hastened to her own home to prepare for a long journey, as she and Mrs. Stanton had decided to make a lecture tour through California. She left Rochester the last day of May, and met Mrs. Stanton in Chicago where a reception was given them by the suffrage club, in its elegant new headquarters. They spoke in a number of cities en route and attended numerous handsome receptions held in their honor. At Denver they were entertained by Governor and Mrs. McCook. Their audiences were large and enthusiastic, the press respectful and often cordial and appreciative.1 At Laramie City they were accompanied to the station by a hundred women whom Mrs. Stanton addressed from the platform. A letter written by Miss Anthony during the journey contains these beautiful paragraphs:

We have a drawing-room all to ourselves, and here we are just as cozy and happy as lovers. We look at the prairie schooners slowly moving along with ox-teams, or notice the one lone cabin-light on the endless plains, and Mrs. Stanton will say: "In all that there is real bliss, if only the two are perfect equals, two loving people, neither assuming to control the other." Yes, after all, life is about one and the same thing, whether in the prairie schooner and sod cabin, or the Fifth Avenue palace. Love for and faith in each other alone can make either a heaven, and without these any home is a hell. It is not the outside things which make life, but the inner, the spirit of love which casteth out all devils and bringeth in all angels.

Ever since 4 o'clock this morning we have been moving over the soil that is really the land of the free and the home of the brave—Wyoming, the Territory in which women are the recognized political equals of men. Women here can say: "What a magnificent country is ours, where every class and caste, color and sex, may find equal freedom, and every woman sit under her own vine and fig tree." What a blessed attainment at last; and that it should be here among these everlasting mountains, midway between the Atlantic and Pacific, seems significant of the true growth of the individual—the center pure, the heart-beats free and equal.

At Salt Lake City they were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. W.S. Godbe, and were presented to their audience by Mayor Wells, who afterward took them to call on his five wives. The second evening they were introduced by Bishop Orson Pratt. From here Miss Anthony writes to The Revolution:

If I were a believer in special providences, I should say that our being in Salt Lake City at the dedication of the New Liberal Institute was one. On Sunday morning, July 2, this beautiful hall of the Liberal party—Apostate party, the Saints call it—was well filled. The services consisted of invocations, hymns and brief addresses. Messrs. Godbe, Harrison, Lyman and Lawrence seem to be the advance-guard—the high priests of the new order—and as they sang their songs of freedom, poured out their rejoicings over their emancipation from the Theocracy of Brigham, and told of the beatitudes of soul-to-soul communion with the All-Father, my heart was steeped in deepest sympathy with the women around me and, rising at an opportune pause, I asked if a woman and a stranger might be permitted to say a word. At once the entire circle of men on the platform arose and beckoned me forward; and, with a Quaker inspiration not to be repeated, much less put on paper, I asked those men, bubbling over with the divine spirit of freedom for themselves, if they had thought whether the women of their households were today rejoicing in like manner? I can not tell what I said—only this I know, that young and beautiful, old and wrinkled women alike wept, and men said, "I wanted to get out of doors where I could shout."

The transition of this people into the new life is complicated—is heartrending. Remember that when these men began their rebellion against Brigham, it was simply a protest against his tyranny—his exorbitant tithing system—a mere refusal to render tribute unto him; not at all a disavowal of the Morman religion or of polygamy. But as bond after bond has burst, this last, strongest and tightest one of plurality of wives is beginning to snap asunder. To illustrate: One man, a noble, loving, beautiful spirit—nothing of the tyrant, nothing of the sensualist—with four lovely wives, three of whom I have seen, and in the homes of two of whom I have broken bread, with thirteen loved and loving children—wakes up to the new idea. Four women's hearts breaking, three sets of children who must leave their father that the one-wife system may be realized! I can assure you my heart aches for the man, the women and the children, and cries, "God help them, one and all."

Where the man is a brutal tyrant, the problem is comparatively easy. What we have tried to do is to show them that the principle of the subjection of woman to man is the point of attack; and that woman's work in monogamy and polygamy is one and the same—that of planting her feet on the ground of self-support. The saddest feature here is that there really is nothing by which these women can earn an independent livelihood for themselves and their children, no manufacturing establishments, no free schools to teach. Women here, as everywhere, must be able to live honestly and honorably without the aid of men, before it can be possible to save the masses of them from entering into polygamy or prostitution, legal or illegal. Whichever way I turn, whatever phase of social life presents itself, the same conclusion comes: "Independent bread alone can redeem woman from her curse of subjection to man."

I attended the Liberals' Fourth of July celebration. Their beautiful hall was packed; their souls were on fire with their new freedom. Never since the first reading of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, were its great truths responded to with such real and deep feeling as on this occasion. I did not intrude myself on them again—but my soul, too, was on fire for freedom for my sex, as was that of every wife and daughter in that assembly. But these men have yet to learn to loose the bonds of power over the women by their side, precisely as have the men in the States and the world over.

Here is missionary work—not for any "thus saith the Lord" canting priests or echoing priestesses by divine right, but for great, Godlike, humanitarian men and women, who "feel for those in bonds as bound with them." No Phariseeism, no shudders of Puritanic horror, no standing afar off; but a simple, loving, fraternal clasp of hands with these struggling women, and an earnest work with them—not to ameliorate but to abolish the whole system of woman's subjection to man in both polygamy and monogamy.

In a letter home she says:

Our afternoon meeting of women alone was a sad spectacle. There was scarcely a sunny, joyous countenance in the whole 300, but a vast number of deep-lined, careworn, long-suffering faces—more so, even, than those of our own pioneer farmers' and settlers' wives, as I have many times looked into them. Their life of dependence on men is even more dreadful than that of monogamy, for here it is two, six, a dozen women and their great broods of children each and all dependent on the one man. Think of fifteen, twenty, thirty pairs of shoes at one strike, or as many hats and dresses!...

But when I look back into the States, what sorrow, what broken hearts are there because of husbands taking to themselves new friendships, just as really wives as are these, and the legal wife feeling even more wronged and neglected. I have not the least doubt but the suffering there equals that here—the difference is that here it is a religious duty for the man to commit the crime against the first wife, and for her to accept the new-comer into the family with a cheerful face; while there the wrong is done against law and public sentiment. But even the most devoted Mormon women say it takes a great deal of grace to accept the other wives, and be just as happy when the husband devotes himself to any of them as to herself, yet the faithful Saint attains to such angelic heights and finds her glory and the Lord's in so doing. The system of the subjection of woman here finds its limit, and she touches the lowest depths of her degradation.

The empire totters and Brigham feels the ground sliding from under his feet. These men will be very likely to try the "variety" plan of Stephen Pearl Andrews, but the women will hate that even worse than polygamy. One man came to me relating a new vision, direct from Christ himself, to that effect, and I said: "Away with your man-visions! Women propose to reject them all, and begin to dream dreams for themselves."

While at Salt Lake they received complimentary passes to California and throughout that State, from Governor Leland Stanford, always a helpful friend to woman suffrage. They reached San Francisco July 9, and took rooms at the Grand Hotel, at that time the best in the city. Their coming had been heralded by the press and they experienced the royal California welcome, receiving flowers, fruit, calls and invitations in abundance. Mrs. Stanton made her first speech in Platt's Hall to an audience of 1,200; all seemed delighted and the papers were very complimentary. At that time the whole coast was much excited over the murder of A.P. Crittenden by Laura D. Fair, and the entire weight of opinion was against her. Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, always ready to defend their sex, determined to hear the story from her own lips, hoping for the sake of womanhood to learn some mitigating circumstances. The afternoon papers came out with an attack upon them for making this visit to the jail, and in the evening at Miss Anthony's first lecture there was an immense audience, including many friends of Crittenden, determined that there should be no justification of the woman who killed him.

Miss Anthony made a strong speech on "The Power of the Ballot," which was well received until she came to the peroration. Her purpose had been to prove false the theory that all women are supported and protected by men. She had demonstrated clearly the fact that in the life of nearly every woman there came a time when she must rely on herself alone. She asserted that while she might grant, for the sake of the argument, that every man protected his own wife and daughter, his own mother and sister, the columns of the daily papers gave ample evidence that man did not protect woman as woman. She gave sundry facts to illustrate this point, among them the experience of Sister Irene, who had established a foundling hospital in New York two years before, and at the close of the first year reported 1,300 little waifs laid in the basket at the door. These figures, she said, proved that there were at least 1,300 women in that city who had not been protected by men. She continued impressively: "If all men had protected all women as they would have their own wives and daughters protected, you would have no Laura Fair in your jail tonight."

Then burst forth a tremendous hissing, seemingly from every part of the house! She had heard that sound in the old anti-slavery days and quietly stood until there came a lull, when she repeated the sentence. Again came a storm of hisses, but this time they were mingled with cheers. Again she waited for a pause, and then made the same assertion for the third time. Her courage challenged the admiration of the audience, which broke out into a roar of applause, and she closed by saying: "I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand."

The next morning, however, she was denounced by the city papers as having vindicated the murder and justified the life which Mrs. Fair had led! Those who had not heard the lecture believed these reports, and other papers in the State took up the cry. Even the press of New York and other eastern cities joined in the chorus, but the latter was much more severe on Mrs. Stanton, who in newspaper interviews did not hesitate to declare her sympathy for Mrs. Fair; and yet for some reason, perhaps because Miss Anthony had dared refer boldly to crime in high places in San Francisco, the batteries there were turned wholly upon her. In her diary she says: "Never in all my hard experience have I been under such fire." So terrific was the onslaught that no one could come to her rescue with a public explanation or defense. Miss Anthony had cut San Francisco in a sore spot and it did not propose to give her another chance to use the scalpel. She attempted to speak in adjacent towns but her journal says: "The shadow of the newspapers hung over me." At length she resolved to cancel all her lecture engagements and wait quietly until the storm passed over and the public mind grew calm. She writes in her diary, a week later: "Some friends called but the clouds over me are so heavy I could not greet them as I would have liked. I never before was so cut down." She tells the story to her sister Mary, who replies:

I am so sorry for you. It will spoil your pleasure, and then I think of that load of debt which you hoped to lighten, yet I should have felt ashamed of you if you had failed to say a word in behalf of that wretched woman. I am sick of one-sided justice; for the same crime, men glorified and women gibbeted. If your words for Mrs. Fair have made your trip a failure, so let it be—it is no disgrace to you. It is scandalous the way the papers talk of you, but stick to what you feel to be right and let the world wag.

On July 22, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton started for the Yosemite Valley, a harder trip in those days even than now. It is best described in her own words:

Mrs. Stanton, writing to The Revolution, and S.B.A., scribbling home, are thirty miles out of the wonderful valley of the Yosemite.... We shall have compassed the Calaveras Big Trees and the Yosemite Valley in twelve days out from Stockton, where we expect to arrive August 2. Mrs. Stanton is to speak there Thursday night and I at San Jose, where I shall learn whether the press has forgiven me. We both lecture the rest of the week, and Sunday get into San Francisco, speak at different points the 7th and 8th, and on the 9th go to the Geysers and stay two nights; then out again and on with meetings almost every night till the end of the month. We shall visit lakes Donner and Tahoe and some other points of interest as they come in our reach. Mr. Hutchings would not take a penny for our three days' sojourn in the valley, horses and all, so our trip is much less expensive than we had anticipated.

With our private carriage we drove three miles nearer the top of the mountain than the stage passengers go. Mrs. Stanton and I each had a pair of linen bloomers which we donned last Thursday morning at Crane's Flats, and we arrived at the brow of the mountain at 9 o'clock. Our horses were fitted out with men's saddles, and Mrs. Stanton, perfectly confident that she would have no trouble, while I was all doubts as to my success, insisted that I should put my foot over the saddle first, which I did by a terrible effort. Then came her turn, but she was so fat and her pony so broad that her leg wouldn't go over into the stirrup nor around the horn of a sidesaddle, so after trying several different saddles she commenced the walk down hill with her guide leading her horse, and commanded me to ride on with the other. By this time the sun was pouring down and my horse was slowly fastening one foot after another in the rocks and earth and thus carefully easing me down the steeps, while my guide baited me on by saying, "You are doing nicely, that is the worst place on the trail," when the fact was it hardly began to match what was coming.

At half-past two we reached Hutchings', and a more used-up mortal than I could not well exist, save poor Mrs. Stanton, four hours behind in the broiling sun, fairly sliding down the mountain. I had Mr. Hutchings fit out my guide with lunch and tea, and send him right back to her. About six she arrived, pretty nearly jelly. We both had a hot bath and she went supperless to bed, but I took my rations. Presently John K. McLean and party, of Oakland, came in. They had scaled Glacier Point that day and were about as tired and fagged as we. The next day Mrs. Stanton kept her bed till nearly noon; but I was up and on my horse at eight and off with the McLean party for the Nevada and Vernal Falls....

Saturday morning, with Stephen M. Cunningham for my guide, I went up the Mariposa trail seven miles to Artist's Point, and there under a big pine tree, on a rock jutting out over the valley, sat and gazed at the wondrous walls with their peaks and spires and domes. I could take in not only the whole circuit of the mountain tops but the valley enshrined below, with the beautiful Merced river meandering over its pebbly bed among the grass and shrubs and towering pines. We reached the hotel at 7 P.M.—tired—tired. Not a muscle, not one inch of flesh from my heels to my hands that was not sore and lame, but I took a good rub-off with the powerful camphor from the bottle mother so carefully filled for me, and went to bed with orders for my horse at 6 A.M.

Sunday morning's devotion for Minister McLean and the Rochester strong-minded was to ride two and a half miles to Mirror lake, and there wait and watch the coming of the sun over the rocky spires, reflected in the placid water. Such a glory mortal never beheld elsewhere. The lake was smooth as finest glass; the lofty granite peaks with their trees and shrubs were reflected more perfectly than costliest mirror ever sent back the face of most beautiful woman, and as the sun slowly emerged from behind a point of rock, the thinnest, flakiest white clouds approached or hung round it, and the reflection shaded them with the most delicate, yet most perfect and richest hues of the rainbow. And while we watched and worshipped we trembled lest some rude fish or bubble should break our mirror and forever shatter the picture seemingly wrought for our special eyes that Sunday morning. Then and there, in that holy hour, I thought of you, dear mother, in the body, and of dear father in the beyond, with eyes unsealed, and of Ann Eliza and Thomas King. I talked to John of them and wondered if they too sat not with us in that holy of holies not made with hands. O, how nothing seemed man-made temples, creeds and codes!

At San Jose Miss Anthony was the guest of Rev. and Mrs. Charles G. Ames. Her audience was small but appreciative, and the Mercury, edited by J.J. Owen, said: "After all the mean notices by certain of the daily papers in San Francisco, her hearers were astonished at the masterly character of her address. She held her audience delighted for an hour and forty minutes." From here she went to the Geysers, riding on the front seat with driver Foss, and she says in her diary: "On the way out he explained to me the philosophy of fast driving down the steep mountain sides; and on the way back he unfolded to me the sad story of his life."

Miss Anthony spoke at a number of small towns but it did not seem advisable for her to try again in San Francisco, so she devoted herself to contributing in every possible way to the success of Mrs. Stanton's lectures. On August 22 the latter completed her tour and left for the East, but Miss Anthony decided to accept the numerous calls to go up into Oregon and Washington Territory. She went to Oakland for a brief visit with Mrs. Randall, the Mary Perkins who used to teach in her childhood's home more than thirty years before, and her diary says: "They are glad to see me and we have enjoyed talking over old times. They are wholly oblivious to our reform agitation and I am glad to get out of it for a while." But a few days later she called on the Curtis family, who were interested in reforms, and wrote: "I got back into my own world again and the springs of thought and conversation were quickly loosened. It is marvelous how far apart the two worlds are." She started on the ship Idaho for Portland, August 25. The sea was very rough, they were seven days making the trip and, judging from the almost illegible entries in the diary, it was not a pleasant one:

1st day.—I feel forlorn enough thus left alone on the ocean but I am in for it and bound to go through.... Before 6 o'clock my time came and old ocean received my first contribution.

2d day.—Strong gale and rough sea. Tried to dress—no use—back to my berth and there I lay all day. Everybody groaning, babies crying, mothers scolding, the men making quite as much fuss as the women.

3d day.—Tried to get up but in vain. In the afternoon staggered up on deck—men stretched out on all sides looking as wretched as I felt—glad to get back to bed. Captain sent some frizzled ham and hard tack, with his compliments. Sea growing heavier all the time.

4th day.—Terribly rough all night. Could not sleep for the thought that every swell might end the ship's struggles. Felt much nearer to the dear ones who have crossed the great river than to those on this side. Out of sight of land all day and ship making only two and a half miles an hour.

5th day.—The same pitching down into the ocean's depths, the same unbounded waste of surging waters, but a slight lessening of the sea-sickness.

6th day.—Quite steady this morning. Went on deck and met several pleasant people. Took my spirit-lamp and treated the captain's table to some delicious tea.

7th day.—First word this morning, "bar in sight." The shores look beautiful. All faces are bright and cheery and many appear not seen before. I felt well enough to discuss the woman question with several of the passengers. Arrived at Portland at 10 P.M., glad indeed to touch foot on land again.

In the first letter home she says:

Abigail Scott Duniway, editor of the New Northwest, was my first caller this morning. I like her appearance and she will be business manager of my lectures. The second caller was Mr. Murphy, city editor of the Herald, and the third Rev. T.L. Eliot, of the Unitarian church, son of Rev. William Eliot, of St. Louis. I am to take tea at his house next Monday. I am not to speak until Wednesday, and thus give myself time to get my head straightened and, I hope, my line of argument. Mrs. Duniway thinks I will find two months of profitable work in Oregon and Washington Territory, but I hardly believe it possible. If meetings pay so as to give me hope of adding to my $350 in the San Francisco Bank (my share of the profits on Mrs. Stanton's and my lectures, which we divided evenly), making it reach $2,000 or even $1,000 by December first, I shall plod away.

I miss Mrs. Stanton, still I can not but enjoy the feeling that the people call on me, and the fact that I have an opportunity to sharpen my wits a little by answering questions and doing the chatting, instead of merely sitting a lay figure and listening to the brilliant scintillations as they emanate from her never-exhausted magazine. There is no alternative—whoever goes into a parlor or before an audience with that woman does it at the cost of a fearful overshadowing, a price which I have paid for the last ten years, and that cheerfully, because I felt that our cause was most profited by her being seen and heard, and my best work was making the way clear for her.

Miss Anthony could not entirely recover from the disappointment of her reception in San Francisco, but a letter written to Mrs. Stanton, just before her first lecture in Oregon, shows no regrets but a wish that she had put the case even more strongly:

I am awaiting my Wednesday night execution with fear and trembling such as I never before dreamed of, but to the rack I must go, though another San Francisco torture be in store for me.... The real fact is we ought to be ashamed of ourselves that we failed to say the whole truth and illustrate it too by the one terrible example in their jail. That would have caused not me alone but both of us to be hissed out of the hall and hooted out of that Godless city—Godless in its treading of womanhood under its heel. I assure you, as I rolled on the ocean last week feeling that the very next strain might swamp the ship, and thinking over all my sins of omission and commission, there was nothing undone which haunted me like that failure to speak the word at San Francisco over again and more fully. I would rather today have the satisfaction of having said the true and needful thing on Laura Fair and the social evil, with the hisses and hoots of San Francisco and the entire nation around me, than all that you or I could possibly experience from their united eulogies with that one word unsaid. To my mind the failure to put our heads together and work up that lecture grows every day a greater blunder, if nothing more. It was like going down into South Carolina and failing to illustrate human oppression by negro slavery. I hope you are not haunted with it as I am. God helping me, I will yet ease my spirit of the load.

After this lecture she wrote again:

The first fire is passed. I send you the Bulletin and Oregonian notices. I have not seen the Democratic paper—the Herald—but am told it says Miss Anthony failed to interest her audience. Not a person stirred save when I made them laugh. But tomorrow night's audience will tell the people's estimate. My speech then will be on the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Last night I made the San Francisco speech, but was not nearly so free and easy in the brain-working; still I got my points clearly stated. The wet blanket is now somewhat off. I hope to present the fact of our right to vote under these amendments with a great deal more freedom. If I am able to do so, I shall talk to women alone Saturday afternoon on the social evil; then, if interest warrants, answer objections Monday evening, and close here. I have contracted for one-half the gross receipts of evening and the entire receipts of afternoon lectures.

I want to tell you that with my gray silk I wore a pink bow at my throat and a narrow pink ribbon in my hair! Mrs. Duniway is delighted, so you see my tide is turning a little from that terrible, killing experience. You never received such wholesale praise—I never such wholesale censure. But enough; it is a comfort to get a little outside assurance again.

Miss Anthony met with a friendly reception from the press of Oregon. She was extensively interviewed by the leading papers and reported in a complimentary manner. The Oregonian thus closed a column account: "The audience, which listened attentively and with evident deep interest to this address, was large and chiefly composed of the intelligent portion of our citizens. Miss Anthony talked clearly, more concisely than the average speaker, kept the thread of her logic well in hand and, it must be confessed, made a strong argument, though we can hardly admit that it was conclusive. She is a fluent speaker and well sustains the cause she advocates." The Herald said in a lengthy interview: "Her conversation is fluent and concise, each word expressing its full complement of meaning. Her system of argument is logical and, in contradistinction to the sex in general, she does not depend on mere assertions but gives proofs to carry conviction."2

The Bulletin thus began a fine report: "As a speaker she has the happy faculty of presenting her subject in a clear and convincing manner. Her style is forcible and argumentative. She contents herself with facts—presenting them in plain language, resting her case upon these, unaided by sophistry and the blinding influence of oratory." This paper, however, was very severe upon her doctrines, declaring editorially that they were "mischievous, revolutionary and impracticable, and would result in anarchy in homes and chaos in society." Mrs. Duniway's paper, the New Northwest, said: "Miss Anthony is a stirring and vigorous worker, a profound and logical speaker, has a truly wonderful influence over her audiences and produces conviction wherever she goes.... She has a peculiarly happy manner of using the right word in the right place, never hesitates in her language, and is evidently as brimful of argument at the close of her lectures as at their beginning. She has awakened the dormant feelings of duty and true womanhood in many a woman's heart in Portland, and scores of ladies in our community who never before gave the question a moment's consideration are now eager for the ballot."

From Portland Miss Anthony wrote to The Revolution:

There is something lovely in this Oregon climate beyond any I have yet known on either side the Rocky mountains. It is neither too hot nor too cold, but a delightful medium which I enjoy as I sit this second September Sunday in my room at the St. Charles Hotel, with its windows opening upon the broad and beautiful Willamette. I am surprised at the size of this city, and the evidences of business and solid wealth all about....

John Chinaman too is here, cooking, washing and ironing, quiet and meek-looking as in San Francisco. The Republicans of this coast, like the Democrats, talk and resolve against him for political effect, merely to cater to the ignorant voters of their party. They say he can not be naturalized on account of some stipulation in the old treaty with China, when they know or ought to know that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments have as effectually blotted the word "white" out of all United States treaties and naturalization laws, as out of all the State and Territorial constitutions and statutes. Their pretence that the Chinaman may not become a citizen of the United States, precisely the same as an African, German or Irishman, is matched only by their denial of citizenship to the women of the entire nation. Under the old regime it was the negro with whom we had to make common cause in our demand for the practical recognition of our right to representation. In snatching the black man from our side, the Republicans, out of pure sympathy doubtless, lest we should be without any "male" compeer in our degradation, leave the innocent Chinaman to comfort and console us. Are we not most unreasonable in our dissatisfaction with the company our fathers and brothers constitutionally rank with us—idiots, lunatics, convicts, Chinamen?

While sailing up the Columbia, Mrs. Duniway wrote Mrs. Stan ton: "Miss Anthony has been holding large meetings in Portland, Salem and Oregon City, and has conquered the press and brought the whole fraternity to terms. She has also succeeded in holding important and successful meetings at The Dalles, and is now returning with me from a series of lectures in Walla Walla. We find the people everywhere enthusiastic and delighted. Her fund of logic, fact and fun seems inexhaustible. She speaks three and four consecutive evenings in one place, and each time increases the interest. We are all justly proud of her."

At Walla Walla the church doors were closed to her but she spoke in the schoolhouse. At Salem all the judges of the supreme court were in her audience and afterward called on her. She had good houses everywhere but money was hard to get, and she speaks in her letters of being almost frantic lest she may not be able to meet her notes on January first, "the one cherished dream of this year's work."

In a letter from Olympia describing the journey she said: "Here I am, October 22, at the head of Puget Sound. This was my route—Portland, down the Willamette river twelve miles to the Columbia; then down that river one hundred miles to the mouth of the Cowlitz, Monticello; then ninety miles stage-ride, full sixty of it over the roughest kind of corduroy. Twenty-five miles to Pumphrey's Hotel, arriving at 6 p.m.; supper and bed; called up at 2 o'clock, and off again at 2:30—perfectly dark—lantern on each side of coach—fourteen miles to breakfast at 7, horses walked every step of the way; eighteen more, walk and corduroy, to dinner; then thirty miles of splendid road, and arrival here at 5:30 p.m." At Seattle, November 4, she wrote home:

For the first time I have seen the glory of the sunrise upon the entire Coast Range. The whole western horizon was one fiery glow on mountain tops, all cragged and jagged from two miles in height down to the line of perpetual snow. It has been very tantalizing to be on this wonderful Puget Sound these ten days, and never see the clouds and fogs lift themselves long enough to give a vision of the majestic mountains on either side. My one hope now is that they may rise on both sides at the same time; but the rainy season has fairly set in. It has rained part of every twenty-four hours since we reached Olympia ten days ago. The grass and shrubbery are as green and delightful as with us in June, and roses and other flowers are blooming all fragrant and fresh. The forests are evergreen—mainly firs and cedars—and on the streets here are maple and other deciduous trees. The feeling of the air is like that during the September equinoctial storm. The sound, from twenty to forty miles wide, with inlets and harbors extending full two or three miles into the land, is the most beautiful sheet of water I ever have seen.

I go to Port Madison this afternoon, and on Monday to Port Gamble; back to Olympia for the Territorial Convention Wednesday; then down to Portland and thence southward. I have traveled 1,800 miles in fifty-six days, spoken forty-two nights and many days, and I am tired, tired. Lots of good missionary work, but not a great deal of money.

The last letter from Portland, November 16, said:

The mortal agony of speaking again in Portland is over, but the hurt of it stings yet. I never was dragged before an audience so utterly without thought or word as last night and, had there been any way of escape, would have taken wings or, what I felt more like, have sunk through the floor. It was the strangest and most unaccountable condition, but nothing save bare, bald points stared me in the face. Must stop; here is card of Herald reporter.

Before the reporter left, some ladies called, among them Mrs. Harriet W. Williams, at whose house we all used to stop in Buffalo, in the olden days of temperance work. She is like a mother to me. Mrs. Eliot, wife of the Unitarian minister, also came. They formed a suffrage society here Tuesday with some of the best women as officers. What is more and most of all I received a letter from a gentleman, enclosing testimonials from half a dozen of the prominent men of the city, asking an interview looking to marriage! I also received a serenade from a millionaire at Olympia. If any of the girls want a rich widower or an equally rich bachelor, here is decidedly the place to get an offer of one. But tell brother Aaron I expect to survive them all and reach home before the New Year, as single-handed and penniless as usual.3

Miss Anthony was invited to address the legislature while at Olympia. Notwithstanding her extreme need of money she donated the proceeds of one lecture to the sufferers by the Chicago fire. Usually she had good audiences but occasionally would fall into the hands of persons obnoxious to the community and the meeting would be a failure. She writes in her diary, "It seems impossible to escape being sacrificed by somebody." The press of Washington was for the most part very favorable. The Olympia Standard said: "We had formed a high opinion of the ability of the lady and her remarkable talent as a public speaker, and our expectations have been more than realized. She presents her arguments in graceful and elegant language, her illustrations are ample and well chosen, and the hearer is irresistibly drawn to her conclusions.... There is no gainsaying the sound logic of her arguments. They appeal to a sense of right and justice which ought not longer be denied." There was sometimes, however, a discordant note, as may be shown by the following from the Territorial Despatch, of Seattle, edited by Beriah Brown:

It is a mistake to call Miss Anthony a reformer, or the movement in which she is engaged a reform; she is a revolutionist, aiming at nothing less than the breaking up of the very foundations of society, and the overthrow of every social institution organized for the protection of the sanctity of the altar, the family circle and the legitimacy of our offspring, recognizing no religion but self-worship, no God but human reason, no motive to human action but lust. Many, undoubtedly, will object that we state the case too strongly; but if they will dispassionately examine the facts and compare them with the character of the leaders and the inevitable tendency of their teachings, they must be convinced that the apparently innocent measure of woman suffrage as a remedy for woman's wrongs in over-crowded populations, is but a pretext or entering wedge by which to open Pandora's box and let loose upon society a pestilential brood to destroy all that is pure and beautiful in human nature, and all that has been achieved by organized associations in religion, morality and refinement; that the whole plan is coarse, sensual and agrarian, the worst phase of French infidelity and communism....

She did not directly and positively broach the licentious social theories which she is known to entertain, because she well knew that they would shock the sensibilities of her audience, but confined her discourse to the one subject of woman suffrage as a means to attain equality of competitive labor. This portion of her lecture we have not time to discuss. Our sole purpose now is to enter our protest against the inculcation of doctrines which we believe are calculated to degrade and debauch society by demolishing the dividing lines between virtue and vice. It is true that Miss Anthony did not openly advocate "free love" and a disregard of the sanctity of the marriage relation, but she did worse—under the guise of defending women against manifest wrongs, she attempts to instil into their minds an utter disregard for all that is right and conservative in the present order of society.

Apparently Mr. Brown did not approve of woman suffrage. According to his own statement Miss Anthony confined her entire discourse to the one point of competitive labor. The editorial was founded wholly upon his own depraved imagination.

Miss Anthony went into British Columbia and spoke several times at Victoria. The doctrine of equal rights was entirely new in that city and on the first evening there was not a woman in the hall. At no succeeding lecture were twenty women present, although there were fair audiences of men. The press was respectful in its treatment of speaker and speeches, but some of the "cards" which were sent to the papers were amusing, to say the least.4

The journal depicts the hardships of a new country, the poor hotels, the long stage-rides, the inconvenient hours, etc. At one place, where there was an appalling prospect of spending Sunday in the wretched excuse for a hotel, a lady came and took her to a fine, new home and Miss Anthony was delighted; but when the husband appeared he announced that he "did not keep a tavern," and so, after her evening lecture, she returned to her former quarters, the wife not daring to remonstrate. After meeting one woman who had had six husbands, and at least a dozen whose husbands had deserted them and married other women without the formality of a divorce, she writes in her journal, "Marriage seems to be anything but an indissoluble contract out here on the coast." Meanwhile she had received urgent invitations from California once more to try her fortune in that State. After lecturing to crowded houses at Oregon City, Eugene and other points, she continued southward, her rough experience on shipboard deciding her to go by stage. From Roseburg she wrote her mother, November 24:

I am now over one hundred miles on my stage-route south, and horrible indeed are the roads—miles and miles of corduroy and then twenty miles of "Joe Lane black mud," as they call it, because old Joseph Lane settled right here in the midst of it. It is heavy clay without a particle of loam and rolls up on the wheels until rim, spokes and hub are one solid circle. The wheels cease to turn and actually slide over the ground, and then driver and men passengers jump out and with chisels and shingles cut the clay off the wheels.

How my thought does turn homeward, mother. I wanted always to be at home every recurring birthday of yours so long as you remained this side with us. I can not this year, but in spirit I shall be with you all that day, as I am so very, very often on every other day.

The courtesy of a seat outside with the driver was usually extended to her and she picked up much information in regard to the people and customs, some of it perhaps not wholly reliable. On this journey she encountered a drenching rain and heavy snow, and finally was driven inside. When they stopped for the night she had a little, cold bedroom, sometimes next to the bar-room, where the carousing kept her awake all night. She wrote home from Yreka, November 28:

Last evening I lectured in the courthouse to a splendid audience, and speak again this afternoon at 2 o'clock to answer objections. Several lawyers threaten to be on hand and force me to the wall on legal points, but we shall see. Then at four I am to drive with Mrs. Jerome Churchill, and at seven board the stage again for Red Bluff, 125 miles, riding steadily all tonight and the next day and night. It is snowing here and southward, which delays us more and more every day.

I rode three miles yesterday for a full view of Mount Shasta, but the summit was hidden by a dense fog, and I saw only one of its side-points called the crater; so all hope of seeing this lofty snow-peak is over, unless it should clear off and I see it by moonlight as I go out tonight. This long stage route is a new and interesting experience to me, and I am so glad I returned this way. The first day, in spite of the corduroy ruckabuck jouncing, I felt a sort of halo of joy hovering around me. It was indescribable; it was like a benediction of "well done, decided right."

From the diary:

Snow storm today but a fine moonlight view of Mount Shasta at night. Rode all night in the stage, splendid sunrise view of Castle Rock. Today through Sacramento canyon, fine day and grand scenery. Supped at 9 P.M. and then nine of us were packed into a short wagon and did not arrive at Red Bluff till 3 A.M.... No arrangements had been made for my lecture. Sheriff refused to let me have the courthouse. Secured the schoolhouse, but no fire and small audience after all my hard trip to get here. Called at 2:30 A.M. to take the stage again.... Reached Chico at last. Mr. Allen, agent of General Bidwell, met me, and such a good cup of coffee and cosy, comfortable time as his wife Emma gave me! Good audience, although heavy storm.... At Marysville spoke in the theater to a small but select audience. Expenses $20 over receipts. The fates are opposed to my financial success, and the interest is piling up on my debts.... Mrs. Laura de Force Gordon and a dozen other ladies met me at Sacramento, and she and I went on to San Francisco where I found thirty letters awaiting me at the Grand Hotel.

The flurry of prejudice against Miss Anthony had died out and she accepted an invitation for a public address signed by a number of influential citizens. She spoke several times to good audiences and was fairly treated by the press, but she was too frank and outspoken to be very popular, especially at that time. The people were greatly stirred up over what was known as the Holland Social Evil Bill, which was under consideration by the board of supervisors and had roused public opinion to white heat, both in favor and in opposition. Miss Anthony naturally made a fight against it, calling a meeting of women only and explaining to them, point by point, its vicious propositions. This provoked both favorable and adverse criticism by the press. At Mayfield she was a guest at the handsome home of Judge and Mrs. Sarah Wallis. Mrs. Knox, Mrs. Watson, Mrs. McKee and a big omnibus load drove up from San Jose, seventeen miles. She spoke at a number of neighboring towns and the sympathizers with the cause she represented were delighted with her masterly efforts, but she felt everywhere the need of a good manager to make her lectures a financial success. On December 15 her friends in San Francisco tendered her a reception and banquet at the Grand Hotel. All the newspapers in the city gave complimentary accounts, of which the following from the Chronicle will serve as a specimen:

The friends of Miss Susan B. Anthony, to the number of about fifty, comprising the more prominent leaders of the suffrage movement, assembled in the parlors of the Grand Hotel last evening. After an hour spent in social conversation and the interchange of congratulations upon the bright prospects of the cause they represent, the guests were ushered into the spacious dining-hall, where a bountiful collation had been spread....

Miss Anthony said: "....I go from you freighted with a burden of love and gratitude, and no greetings have been more precious than those of working men and women. Tonight when the woman who earns her livelihood by selling flowers through the hotel came to the door of the parlor and, presenting me with the beautiful bouquet which I hold in my hand, asked, 'Will you accept this because you have spoken so nobly for us poor workingwomen?' it brought tears to my eyes, unused to weeping. I felt a thrill of gratitude that I had been permitted to prosecute this work. We who are seated around this board may have all the rights we need; we are not working for ourselves, but for those now suffering around us. For them, our sisters, and for future generations must we labor...."

She took her seat amid warm applause. A number of brief, pithy speeches were made and all dispersed with a hearty Godspeed to the talented lady in whose behalf they had assembled.

Laura de Force Gordon had arranged a number of lectures for Miss Anthony on the route eastward. At Nevada City she was the guest of A. A. Sargent, the newly elected United States senator, and his wife, both earnest friends of woman suffrage.5 The rainy season had set in and the diary says: "These storms which bring new life and hope to farmers and miners, mean empty benches for me." The mud, snow and wind in Nevada were terrible. At Virginia City, where she lectured, she was snowed in for several days and finally left in a six-horse sleigh, in the midst of a blinding storm, on Christmas Day.

She arrived at Reno to find that the Sargents, whom she expected to join on their way to Washington, had passed through a day or two before but, as they were delayed by snowdrifts, she overtook them at Ogden, and enjoyed the privileges of their luxurious staterooms until they reached Chicago. It happened most fortunately that the Sargents were supplied with inexhaustible hampers of provisions, for the trip from Ogden to Chicago occupied twelve days. Senator Mitchell and family, of Oregon, and several other friends were on the train, but with all the pleasant companionship and all the entertainment which could be devised, the journey was long and tedious. The ever-faithful diary contains a brief record of each day:

December 28.—The western-bound train arrived at noon, eight days from Omaha, a happy set of people to be so far along on their journey. We left Ogden at 3 p. M., three packed sleeping-cars. All went smoothly to Bitter Creek, then we waited three or four hours for an extra engine to take us up the grade.

December 29.—Starting and backing, then starting and backing again. Prospect very discouraging. Mr. Sargent makes the tea, unpacks the hampers and serves as general steward, but draws the line at washing the dishes. We women-folks take that as our part. Delayed all night at Percy. Here overtook the passenger train which left Ogden last Monday.

December 30.—Detained all day and all night at Medicine Bow. Four passenger trains packed into two, and long freight trains passed us in the night.

December 31.—Left Medicine Bow at noon, went through deep snow cuts ten miles in length. One heavy passenger and two long freight trains in front of us. Reached Laramie at 10 P.M. Thus closes 1871, a year full of hard work, six months east, six months west of the Rocky mountains; 171 lectures, 13,000 miles of travel; gross receipts $4,318, paid on debts, $2,271. Nothing ahead but to plod on.

A few blank pages in an old account-book tell the rest of the story:

January 1, 1872.—Laramie City. On Pullman car "America," Union Pacific R.R. Lay here all night and breakfasted at railway hotel. J.H. Hayford, editor Laramie Sentinel, told us of the bill to repeal the woman suffrage law in Wyoming. The law had been passed by a Democratic legislature as a jest, but five Democrats voted for repeal and four Republicans against it, in one house, and in the other, three Republicans voted against and every Democrat for the repeal. Governor Campbell, a Republican, vetoed this repeal bill and woman suffrage still stands, as a Territorial legislature can not pass a bill over the governor's veto.... Here we are at noon, stuck in a snowdrift five miles west of Sherman, on a steep grade, with one hundred men shovelling in front of us. Dined, Mr. Sargent officiating, on roast turkey, jelly, bread and butter, spice cake and excellent tea. At dark, wind and snow blowing terrifically, but a bright sky.

January 2.—Still stationary. The railroad company has supplied the passengers with dried fish and crackers. Mrs. Sargent and I have made tea and carried it throughout the train to the nursing mothers. It is the best we can do. Five days out from Ogden! This is indeed a fearful ordeal, fastened here in a snowbank, midway of the continent at the top of the Rocky mountains. They are melting snow for the boilers and for drinking water. A train loaded with coal is behind us, so there is no danger of our suffering from cold. Mr. Sargent, Mr. Mitchell and Major Elliott walked to Sherman and an old man drove them back at dusk with two ponies. The train had moved up to Dale creek bridge and drawn into a long snow-shed. Here, we remained all night and, with the rarified air and the smoke from the engine, were almost suffocated, while the wind blew so furiously we could not venture to open the doors.

January 3.—Bright sunshine and perfectly calm. Ernest and Norman Melliss, sons of David M. Melliss, of New York City, came into our car from the other train, which is twelve days from Ogden. How they do revive The Revolution experiences, Train and the Wall street gossip! Stood still in the snow-shed till noon and reached Sherman about 6 P.M. Mr. Sargent had brought some potatoes which we roasted on top of the stove and they proved a delicious addition to our meal. In the car "Sacramento" we had a mock trial, Judge Mitchell presiding and the jury composed of women. He wrote out a verdict, which the women insisted on bringing in, not because they agreed with it but because they wanted to please him and the other men, but I rebelled and hung the jury!

January 4.—Morning found us still at Sherman and we did not move till 1 P.M. There is another train ahead of us, and here we are, four passenger trains pushing on for Cheyenne. The people from the different ones visit among each other. Half-way to Granite Canyon the snowplow got off the track and one wheel broke, so a dead standstill for hours. Reached Granite Canyon at dark, a whole day getting there from Sherman, and remained over night.

January 5.—Bright and beautiful. Reached Cheyenne at 11:30 A.M. Little George Sargent coaxed his papa to let him walk over the bridge to the town and fell through and broke his arm. Mrs. Sargent, after holding him till the bone was set, fainted. Afterwards I called on Mrs. Amalia Post. It was at her house the Cheyenne women met and went in a body to Governor Campbell's residence in 1869, and announced their intention of staying till he signed the woman suffrage bill, which he did without further delay. Met the governor and several other notables. At 1:30 P.M. our train was off at first-class speed, and oh, what joy in every face!

January 6.—Arrived at Omaha at 3 P.M. Found letter from brother D.R., enclosing pass to Leavenworth and saying he had passes for me from there to Chicago and eastward. If I go to L. I shall miss the Washington convention, where I am so badly needed. If it had not been for this vexatious delay I could have had a day or two there and several more at Rochester. Now I must push straight on. It is my hard fate always to sacrifice affection and pleasure to duty and work.

January 7.—All the baggage had to be rechecked at Omaha and when I insisted upon attending to my own, because I had found that the only safe way, Mr. Sargent looked so offended that I at once handed over my checks.

January 8.—Arrived at Chicago at 3 A.M. Went at once to my aunt Ann Eliza Dickinson's and visited with her till 7 o'clock, had breakfast and went to Fort Wayne depot where, as I feared, I found one of my checks called for the wrong piece of baggage; so I took one trunk, left the baggage-master to hunt up the other, and started straight for Washington on a train without a sleeper.

January 9.—Passed Pittsburg at 2 A.M. Breakfasted at Altoona on top of the Alleghanies; scenery most beautiful, but not on so grand a scale as among the Rockies.

This is the last entry. It is hardly necessary to add that Miss Anthony reached Washington in time for the opening of the convention on the morning of January 10. To the question whether she were not very tired, she replied: "Why, what would make me tired? I haven't been doing anything, for two weeks!"

1. Miss Anthony's lecture was a decided success, judged either by the number and intelligence of those present or the able manner in which she discussed the salient points pertaining to woman suffrage. She displayed an ability, conciseness and force that must have carried conviction to every impartial listener.... Her visit here has done more to advance the cause of woman suffrage than can now be fully appreciated. She has sown the germ of a movement which can not fail to inoculate our people with a belief in the justice of her cause and the injustice of longer depriving the more intelligent, purer and consequently better portion of our inhabitants of that greatest of boons, the ballot.—Sioux City Daily Times. Miss Anthony's lecture was full of good, sound common sense, and an opponent of woman suffrage said it was the best speech he ever heard on the subject. Wyoming was highly complimented as being the first Territory to recognize the equality of woman, and pronounced as much ahead of her eastern sisters in civilization as she is higher in altitude. The lecture abounded with gems of wit, humor and pathos, and the audience would willingly have listened another hour.—Cheyenne Tribune. The press sneers at Miss Anthony, men tell her she is out of her proper sphere, people call her a scold, good women call her masculine, a monstrosity in petticoats; but if one-half of her sex possessed one-half of her acquirements, her intellectual culture, her self-reliance and independence of character, the world would be the better for it.—Denver News. A large and attentive audience filled the Denver theater last night to hear Miss Susan B. Anthony, champion of the "new departure in politics," called the woman suffrage movement. The fact that there was not sitting room for all who came is evidence of deep interest in the subject, or great curiosity to hear the lady speak.... It is impossible to give an outline of her speech. It was a string of strong arguments put in a straightforward, clear and vigorous way, eliciting favor and inviting the attention of the audience throughout. The lecture was suggestive, and of the kind that sets people to thinking.—Denver Tribune.

2. Notwithstanding this tribute, the Herald printed a long string of verses with this introduction: "We trust our readers will not miss the perusal of this piece of rhythmical irony. It is certainly one of the happiest hits we have seen for many a day. No one can mistake the allusion to the 'Old Gal.' who has been so recently among us 'tooting her horn.'"

"Along the city's thoroughfare,

A grim Old Gal with manly air

Strode amidst the noisy crowd,

Tooting her horn both shrill and loud;

Till e'en above the city's roar,

Above its din and discord, o'er

All, was heard, 'Ye tyrants, fear!

The dawn of freedom's drawing near—

Woman's Rights and Suffrage.'

"A meek old man, in accents wild,

Cried,'Sal! turn back and nurse our child!'

She bent on him a withering look,

Her bony fist at him she shook.

And screeched, 'Ye brute! ye think I'm flat

To mend your clo'es and nurse your brat?

Nurse it yourself; I'll change the plan,

When I am made a congressman—

Woman's Rights and Suffrage,'" etc.

3. Coming from The Dalles, the boat tied up for the night at Umatilla Landing. Miss Anthony and Mrs. Duniway walking on shore saw a man sitting in front of a little corner grocery and stopped to ask some questions. They found that when a boy he had run away from home in Miss Anthony's own neighborhood, had never written back and his family had long believed him dead. After some conversation he consented that she might write to his mother and then in his softened mood insisted that they should have a glass of wine. Miss Anthony was a total abstainer but not wishing to offend him, took one sip from a glass of Angelica and then the ladies hurried back to the boat. Some one who had seen the occurrence spread the story and the result was an Associated Press item sent broadcast, stating that, since coming to the coast, Miss Anthony was visiting saloons and associating with low characters.

4. Two examples will suffice:

"EDITOR COLONIST: I have read with a feeling of thankfulness the letter of 'A Male Biped,' in this day's Colonist. The writer deserves the thanks of every good woman in the land for the bold and able manner in which he has administered a shaking to a shrewish old mischief-maker who, having failed to secure a husband herself, is tramping the continent to make her more fortunate sisters miserable by creating dissensions in their households. O, why do not some of our divines or lawyers upset this woman's sophistries, and convince even her that woman's true sphere is in 'submitting herself to her husband,' and religiously fulfilling the marriage vows the wise organizers of society have prescribed?

A WIFE AND A MOTHER."

"MR. EDITOR: America, the home of many humbugs, which produced Brigham Young, Barnum, Home, the medium, and many others, has, it appears, another human curiosity in Miss Anthony. This specimen from over the way comes amongst us, and because our ladies fail to recognize or encourage her in her vagaries, she gets very rabid and snarls and snaps at the 'women of Victoria who had so sunk their womanhood that they were happy even in their degradation.' The degradation referred to is that of whipping, which this female firebrand appears to believe is the rule hers. Surely the complete immunity from castigation of such a noxious creature as Miss Anthony is sufficient answer to this libel. Men in British Columbia no more countenance bad husbands than do the women a quack apostle in petticoats. They look upon such persons as sexual mistakes, like the two-headed lady or the four-legged baby, and as safe guides on social questions as George Francis Train is in politics.

AN INSULTED HUSBAND."

And yet during the few days she was in Victoria no leas than half a dozen women came to her to protest against the law which allowed the husband to whip his wife.

5. During Mr. Sargent's candidacy for the Senate, a California newspaper objected that he was in favor of woman suffrage, and called for a denial of the truth of the damning charge. He took no notice of it until a week or two later, when a suffrage convention met in San Francisco; he then went before that body and delivered a radical speech in favor of woman's rights, taking the most advanced grounds. When he was through he remarked to a friend, "They have my views now, and can make the most of them. I would not conceal them to be senator."—History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II.