 CHAPTER XV of EIGHTY YEARS AND MORE, REMINISCENCES, 1815-1897 EIGHTY YEARS AND MORE, REMINISCENCES, 1815-1897 CHAPTER XV WOMEN AS PATRIOTS On April 15, 1861, the President of the United States called out 75,000 militia and summoned Congress to meet July 4, when 400,000 men were called for, and 400 millions of dollars were voted to suppress the rebellion. These startling events roused the entire people and turned the current of their thoughts in new directions, while the nation's life hung in balance and the dread artillery of war drowned. Alike the voices of commerce, politics, religion, and reform, all hearts were filled with anxious forebodings, all hands were busy in solemn preparations for the awful tragedies to come. At this eventful hour the patriotism of women, shown forth as fervently and spontaneously as did that of man, and her self-sacrifice and devotion were displayed in as many varied fields of action. While he buckled on his knapsack and marched forth to conquer the enemy, she planned the campaigns which brought the nation victory, fought in the ranks, when she could do so without detection, inspired the Sanitary Commission, gathered needed supplies for the Grand Army, provided nurses for the hospitals, comforted the sick, smoothed the pillows of the dying, inscribed the last messages of love to those far away, and marked the resting places where the brave men fell. The labor women accomplished, the hardships they endured, the time and strength they sacrificed in the war that summoned three million men to arms, can never be fully appreciated. Indeed we may safely say that there is scarcely a loyal women in the north who did not do something in aid of the cause, who did not contribute time, labor, and money to the comfort of our soldiers and the success of our arms. The story of the war will never be fully written if the achievements of women are left untold. They do not figure in the official reports. They are not gazetted for gallant deeds. The names of thousands are unknown beyond the neighborhood where they lived, or the hospitals where they loved to labor, yet there is no feature in our war more creditable to us as a nation, none from its positive newness so well worthy of record. While the mass of women never philosophize on the principles that underlie national existence, there were those in our late war who understood the political significance of the struggle, the irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery, between national and state rights. They saw that to provide lint, bandages, and supplies for the army, while the war was not conducted on a wise policy, was to labor in vain, and while many organizations, active, diligent, and self-sacrificing, were multiplied to look after the material once of the army, these few formed themselves into a national royal league to teach sound principles of government and to impress on the nation's conscience that freedom for the slaves was the only way to victory. A custom, as most women had been to the works of charity and to the relief of outward suffering, it was difficult to rouse their enthusiasm for an idea, to persuade them to labor for a principle. They clamored for practical work, something for their hands to do, for fares and sewing societies, to raise money for soldiers' families, for tableaux, readings, theatricals, anything but conventions to discuss principles and to circulate petitions for emancipation. They could not see that the best services they could render the army was to suppress the rebellion, and that the most effective way to accomplish that was to transform the slaves into soldiers. This woman's royal league voiced the solemn lessons of the war, liberty to all, national protection for every citizen under our flag, universal suffrage, and universal amnesty. After consultation with Horace Greeley, William Lloyd Garrison, Governor Andrews, and Robert Dale Owen, Miss Anthony and I decided to call a meeting of women in Cooper Institute and form a woman's royal league. To advocate the immediate emancipation and enfranchisement of the southern slaves has the most speedy way of ending the war, so we issued in tract form and extensively circulated the following call. In the crisis of our country's destiny it is the duty of every citizen to consider the peculiar blessings of a republican form of government and decide what sacrifices of wealth and life are demanded for its defense and preservation. The policy of the war, our whole future life, depend on a clearly defined idea of the end proposed and the immense advantages to be secured to ourselves and all mankind by its accomplishment. No mere party or sectional cry, no technicalities of constitutional or military law, no mottos of craft or policy are big enough to touch the great heart of a nation in the midst of revolution. A grand idea such as freedom or justice is needful to kindle and sustain the fires of a high enthusiasm. At this hour the best word and work of every man and woman are imperatively demanded. To man by common consent are assigned the form, camp and field. What is woman's legitimate work and how she may best accomplish it is worthy our earnest counsel one with another. We have heard many complaints of the lack of enthusiasm among northern women, but when a mother lays her son on the altar of her country she asks an object equal to the sacrifice. In nursing the sick and wounded, knitting socks, scraping lint, and making jellies the bravest and best may worry if the thoughts mount not in faith to something beyond and above it all. Work is worship only when a noble purpose fills the soul. Woman is equally interested and responsible with man. In the final settlement of this problem of self-government, therefore let none stand idle spectators now. When every hour is big with destiny in each delay but complicates our difficulties, it is high time for the daughters of the revolution in solemn counsel to unseal the last will and testaments of the fathers, lay hold of their birthright of freedom and keep it a sacred trust for all coming generations. To this end we ask the loyal women of the nation to meet in the church of the Puritans, Dr. Cheevers, New York on Thursday the 14th of May next. Let the women of every state be largely represented in person or by letter. On behalf of the woman's central committee, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony. Among other resolutions adopted at the meeting were the following. Resolved. There never can be a true peace in this republic until the civil and political rights of all citizens of African descent and all women are practically established. Resolved. That the women of the revolution were not wanting in heroism and self-sacrifice, and we, their daughters, are ready in this war to pledge our time, our means, our talents, and our lives, if need be, to secure the final and complete consecration of America to freedom. It was agreed that the practical work to be done to secure freedom for the slaves was to circulate petitions through all the northern states. For months these petitions were circulated diligently, everywhere, as the signatures show, some signed on fence posts, plows, the anvil, the shoemaker's bench, by women of fashion and those in the industries, alike in the parlor and the kitchen. By statesmen, professors in colleges, editors, bishops, by sailors and soldiers, and the hard-handed children of toil, building railroads and bridges, and digging canals, and in mines in the bowels of the earth. Petitions signed by 300,000 persons can now be seen in the National Archives in the capital at Washington. Three of my sons spent weeks in our office in Cooper Institute, rolling up the petitions from each state separately, and inscribing on the outside the number of names of men and women contained therein. We sent appeals to the President, the House of Representatives and the Senate, from time to time, urging emancipation and the passage of the proposed 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the National Constitution. During these eventful months we received many letters from Senator Sumner saying, send on the petitions as fast as received. They give me opportunities for speech. Robert Dale Owen, Chairman of the Freedmen's Commission, was most enthusiastic in the work of the Royal League and came to our rooms frequently to suggest new modes of agitation and to give us an inkling of what was going on behind the scenes in Washington. Those who had been specially engaged in the woman's suffrage movement suspended their conventions during the war and gave their time and thought wholly to the vital issues of the hour. Seeing the political significance of the war, they urged the emancipation of the slaves as the sure, quick way of cutting the Gordian knot of the rebellion. To this end, they organized a national league and rolled up a mammoth petition urging Congress so to amend the Constitution as to prohibit the existence of slavery in the United States. From their headquarters in Cooper Institute, New York City, they sent out the appeals to the President, Congress, and the people at large. Tracks and forms of petition, franked by members of Congress, were scattered like snowflakes from Maine to Texas. Meetings were held every week in which the policy of the government was freely discussed and approved or condemned. That this league did a timely educational work is manifested by the letters received from generals, statesmen, editors, and from women in most of the northern states, fully endorsing its action and principles. The clearness to thinking women of the cause of the war, the true policy in waging it, their steadfastness in maintaining the principles of freedom, are worthy of consideration. With this league, abolitionists, and Republicans heartily cooperated. A course of lectures was delivered for its benefit in Cooper Institute by such men as Horace Greeley, George William Curtis, William D. Kelly, Wendell Phillips, E. P. Whipple, Frederick Douglass, Theodore D. Weld, Reverend Dr. Tying, and Dr. Bellows. Many letters are on its files from Charles Sumner approving its measures and expressing great satisfaction at the large number of emancipation petitions being rolled into Congress. The Republican press, too, was highly complementary. The New York Tribune said, the women of the Loyal League have shown great practical wisdom in restricting their efforts to one subject, the most important which any society can aim at in this hour. And great courage and undertaking to do what never has been done in the world before, to obtain one million of names to a petition. The leading journals vied with each other in praising the patience and prudence, the executive ability, the loyalty and the patriotism of the women of the League. And yet these were the same women who, when demanding civil and political rights, privileges, and immunities for themselves, had been uniformly denounced as unwise, imprudent, fanatical, and impracticable. During the six years they held their own claims in abeyance to those of the slaves of the South, and labored to inspire the people with enthusiasm for the great measures of the Republican Party. They were highly honored as wise, loyal, and clear-sided. But when the slaves were emancipated and these women asked that they should be recognized in the reconstruction as citizens of the Republic, equal before the law, all these transcendent virtues vanished like dew before the morning sun. And thus it ever is, so long as women labors to second man's endeavors and exalt his sex above her own, her virtues pass unquestioned. But when she dares to demand rights and privileges for herself, her motives, manners, dress, personal appearance, and character are subjects for ridicule and detraction. Liberty, victorious over slavery on the battlefield, had now more powerful enemies to encounter at Washington. The slaves set free, the master conquered, the South desolate, the two races standing face to face, sharing alike the sad results of war, turned with appealing looks to the general government as if to say, how stand we now? What next? Questions are statesmen beset with dangers, with fears for the nation's life of party divisions of personal defeat were wholly unprepared to answer. The reconstruction of the South involved the reconsideration of the fundamental principles of our government. In the natural rights of man, the nation's heart was thrilled with prolonged debates in Congress and state legislatures. In the pulpits and public journals, and at every fireside on these vital questions, which took final shape in the three historic amendments to the Constitution. The first point, his emancipation, settled, the political status of the Negro was next in order, and to this end, various propositions were submitted to Congress. But to demand his enfranchisement on the broad principle of natural rights was hedged about with difficulties, as the logical result of such action must be the enfranchisement of all ostracized classes, not only the white women of the entire country, but the slave women of the South. Though our senators and representatives had an honest aversion to any prescriptive legislation against loyal women, in view of their varied and self-sacrificing work during the war, yet the only way they could open the constitutional door just wide enough to let the black man pass in was to introduce the word male into the national constitution. After the generous devotion of such women as Anna Carroll and Anna Dickinson in sustaining the policy of the Republicans, both in peace and war, they felt it would come with a bad grace from that party to place new barriers in women's path to freedom. But how could the amendment be written without the word male was the question. Robert Dale Owen, being at Washington, and behind the scenes at the time, sent copies of the various bills to the officers of the Loyal League in New York, and related to us some of the amusing discussions. One of the committee proposed persons instead of males. That will never do, said another. It would enfranchise wenches. Suffrage for black men will be all the strain the Republican Party can stand, said another. Charles Sumner said, years afterward, that he wrote over nineteen pages of full-scap to get rid of the word male and yet keep Negro suffrage as a party measure intact, but it could not be done. Miss Anthony and I were the first to see the full significance of the word male in the Fourteenth Amendment. And we at once sounded the alarm and sent out petitions for a constitutional amendment to prohibit the states from disfranchising any of their citizens on the ground of sex. Miss Anthony, who had spent the year in Kansas, started for New York the moment she saw the proposition before Congress to put the word male into the National Constitution, and made haste to rouse the women in the East to the fact that the time had come to begin vigorous work again for women's enfranchisement. Leaving Rochester October 11, she called on Martha Wright at Auburn, Phoebe Jones and Lydia Mott at Albany, Madams Rose Gibbons Davis at New York City, Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown Blackwell in New Jersey, Stephen and Abby Foster at Warchester, Madams Severance Dowell Noel, Dr. Harriet Kay Hunt, Dr. M. E. Zacca Sosa and Mr. Phillips and Garrison in Boston, urging them to join in sending protest to Washington against the pending legislation. Mr. Phillips at once consented to devote $500 from the Jackson Fund to commence the work. Miss Anthony and I spent all our Christmas holidays in writing letters and addressing appeals and petitions to every part of the country, and, before the close of the session of 1865-66, petitions with 10,000 signatures were poured into Congress. One of my letters was as follows. To the editor of the standard. Sir, Mr. Bumall of Pennsylvania, Mr. Shank of Ohio, Mr. Jenkins of Rhode Island and Mr. Stevens of Pennsylvania have each a resolution before Congress to amend the Constitution. Article 1, Section 2, reads thus, representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union according to their respective numbers. Mr. Bumall proposes to amend by saying, male electors, Mr. Shank male citizens, Mr. Jenkins male citizens, Mr. Stevens male voters. As, in process of time, women may be made legal voters in the several states and would then meet that requirement of the Constitution. But those urged by the other gentlemen, neither time, effort, nor state constitutions, could enable us to meet unless by a liberal interpretation of the amendment, a coat of mail to be worn at the polls, might be judged all sufficient. Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Shank, in their bills, have the grace not to say a word about taxes, remembering, perhaps, that taxation without representation is tyranny. But Mr. Bumall, though unwilling that we should share in the honors of government, would feign secure us a place in its burdens. For, while he apportions representatives to male electors only, he admits all the inhabitants into the rights, privileges, and immunities of taxation. Magnanimous MC, I would call the attention of the women of the nation to the fact that, under the Federal Constitution, as it now exists, there is not one word that limits the right of suffrage to any privileged class. This attempt to turn the wheels of civilization backward on the part of Republicans claiming to be the Liberal Party should rouse every woman in the nation to a prompt exercise of the only right she has in the government, the right of petition. To this end, a committee in New York have sent out thousands of petitions, which should be circulated in every district, and sent to its representative at Washington as soon as possible. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, New York, January 2nd, 1866. End of Chapter 15, Recording by Teresa Sheridan Chapter 16 of 80 Years and More, Reminiscences 1815-1897. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Lynn Carroll 80 Years and More, Reminiscences 1815-1897 by Elizabeth Cady Stanton Chapter 16, Pioneer Life in Kansas, Our Newspaper, The Revolution In 1867 the proposition to extend the suffrage to women and to colored men was submitted to the people of the state of Kansas and among other eastern speakers I was invited to make a campaign through the state. As the fall elections were pending, there was great excitement everywhere. Suffrage for colored men was a Republican measure which the press and politicians of that party advocated with enthusiasm. As woman suffrage was not a party question, we hoped that all parties would favor the measure, that we might at last have one green spot on earth where women could enjoy full liberty as citizens of the United States. Accordingly in July Miss Anthony and I started with high hopes of a most successful trip and after an uneventful journey of 1500 miles we reached the sacred soil where John Brown and his sons had helped to fight the battles that made Kansas a free state. Lucy Stone, Mr. Blackwell and Olympia Brown had preceded us and opened the campaign with large meetings in all the chief cities. Miss Anthony and I did the same. Then it was decided that as we were to go to the very borders of the state where there were no railroads we must take carriages and economize our forces by taking different routes. I was escorted by ex-governor Charles Robinson. We had a low easy carriage drawn by two mules in which we stored about a bushel of tracks, two vileesses, a pail for watering the mules, a basket of apples, crackers and other such refreshments as we could purchase on the way. Some things were suspended underneath the carriage, some packed on behind and some under the seat and at our feet. It required great skill to compress the necessary baggage into the allotted space. As we went to the very verge of civilization wherever two dozen voters could be assembled we had a taste of pioneer life. We spoke in log cabins in depots, unfinished school houses, churches, hotels, barns and in the open air. I spoke in a large mill one night. A solitary tallow candle shone over my head like a halo of glory. A few lanterns around the outskirts of the audience made the darkness perceptible. But all I could see of my audience was the whites of their eyes in the dim distance. People came from twenty miles around to these meetings, held either in the morning, afternoon or evening as was most convenient. As the regular state election was to take place in the coming November the interest increased from week to week until the excitement of the people knew no bounds. There were speakers for and against every proposition before the people. This involved frequent debates on all the general principles of government and thus a great educational work was accomplished, which is one of the advantages of our frequent elections. The friends of women's suffrage were doomed to disappointment. Those in the east on whom they relied for influence through the liberal newspapers were silent. And we learned afterward that they used what influence they had to keep the abolitionists and Republicans of the state silent as they feared the discussion of the woman question would jeopardize the enfranchisement of the black man. However, we worked untiringly and hopefully not seeing through the game of the politicians until nearly the end of the canvas when we saw that our only chance was in getting the Democratic vote. Accordingly, George Francis Trane, then a most effective and popular speaker, was invited into the state to see what could be done to win the democracy. He soon turned the tide, strengthened the weak need Republicans and abolitionists and secured a large Democratic vote. For three months we labored diligently day after day, enduring all manner of discomforts and traveling, eating and sleeping. As there were no roads or guideposts we often lost our way. In going through canyons and forwarding streams it was often so dark that the governor was obliged to walk ahead to find the way, taking off his coat so that I could see his white shirt and slowly drive after him. Though seemingly calm and cool, I had a great dread of these night adventures as I was in constant fear of being upset on some hill and rolled into the water. The governor often complimented me on my courage when I was fully aware of being tempest-tossed with anxiety. I am naturally very timid, but being silent under strong emotions of either pleasure or pain, I am credited with being courageous in the hour of danger. For days sometimes we could find nothing at a public table that we could eat. Then passing through a little settlement we could buy dried herring, crackers, gum arabic, and slippery elm. The latter we were told was very nutritious. We frequently sat down to a table with bacon floating in grease, coffee without milk, sweetened with sorghum, and bread or hot biscuit, green with soda. While vegetables and fruit were seldom seen. Our nights were miserable, owing to the general opinion among pioneers that a certain species of insect must necessarily perambulate the beds in a young civilization. One night after traveling over prairies all day, eating nothing but what our larder provided, we saw a light in a cottage in the distance which seemed to beckon to us. Arriving we asked the usual question if we could get a night's lodging, to which the response was inevitably a hearty, hospitable, yes. One survey of the premises showed me what to look for in the way of midnight companionship, so I said to the governor, I will resign in your favor the comforts provided for me tonight and sleep in the carriage as you do so often. I persisted against all the earnest persuasions of our host, and in due time I was ensconced for the night and all about the house was silent. I had just fallen into a gentle slumber when a chorus of pronounced grunts and a spasmodic shaking of the carriage revealed to me the fact that I was surrounded by those long-nosed black pigs so celebrated for their courage and pertinacity. They had discovered that the iron steps of the carriage made most satisfactory scratching posts, and each one was struggling for his turn. This scratching suggested fleas, alas, thought I, before morning I shall be devoured. I was mortally tired and sleepy, but I reached for the whip and plied it lazily from side to side. But I soon found nothing but a constant and most vigorous application of the whip could hold them at bay one moment. I had heard that this type of pig was very combative when thwarted in its desires, and they seemed in such sore need of relief that I thought there was danger of their jumping into the carriage and attacking me. This thought was more terrifying than that of the fleas, so I decided to go to sleep and let them alone to scratch at their pleasure. I had a sad night of it, and never tried the carriage again, though I had many equally miserable experiences within four walls. After one of these border meetings we stopped another night with a family of two bachelor brothers and two spinster sisters. The home consisted of one large room, not yet laughed and plastered. The furniture included a cooking stove, two double beds in remote corners, a table, a bureau, a wash stand, and six wooden chairs. As it was late there was no fire in the stove and no suggestion of supper, so the governor and I ate apples and chewed slippery elm before retiring to dream of comfortable beds and well-spread tables in the near future. The brothers resigned their bed to me just as it was. I had noticed that there was no ceremonious changing of bed linen under such circumstances, so I had learned to nip all fastidious notions of individual cleanliness in the bud and to accept the inevitable. When the time arrived for retiring the governor and the brothers went out to make astronomical observations or smoke as the case might be, while the sisters and I made our evening toilet and disposed ourselves in the allotted corners. That done the stalwart sons of Adam made their beds with skins and blankets on the floor. When all was still and darkness reigned I reviewed the situation with a heavy heart seeing that I was bound to remain a prisoner in the corner all night come what might. I had just congratulated myself on my power of adaptability to circumstances when I suddenly started with an emphatic. What is that? A voice from the corner asked. Is your bed comfortable? Oh yes, I replied, but I thought I felt a mouse run over my head. Well, said the voice from the corner, I should not wonder. I have heard such squeaking from that corner during the past week that I told sister there must be a mouse nest in that bed. A confession she probably would not have made unless half asleep. This announcement was greeted with suppressed laughter from the floor, but it was no laughing matter to me. Alas, what a prospect to have mice running over one all night. But there was no escape. The sisters did not offer to make any explorations and in my fatigue costume I could not light candle and make any on my own account. The house did not afford an armchair in which I could sit up. I could not lie on the floor and the other bed was occupied. Fortunately, I was very tired and soon fell asleep. What the mice did the remainder of the night I never knew so deep were my slumbers. But as my features were intact and my facial expression as benign as usual next morning, I inferred that their gambles had been most innocently and decorously conducted. These are samples of many similar experiences which we encountered during the three months of those eventful travels. Here to fore my idea had been that pioneer life was a period of romantic freedom. When the long white-covered wagons bound for the far west passed by, I thought of the novelty of a six-months journey through the bright spring and summer days in a house on wheels, meals under shady trees and beside babbling brooks, sleeping in the open air and finding a home at last where land was cheap, the soil rich and deep and where the grains, vegetables, fruit, and flowers grew bountifully with but little toil. But a few months of pioneer life permanently darkened my rosy ideal of the white-covered wagon, the charming picnics by the way, and the paradise at last. I found many of these adventurers in unfinished houses and racked with malaria. In one case I saw a family of eight all ill with chills and fever. The house was half a mile from the spring water on which they depended and from which those best able from day to day carried the needed elixir to others suffering with the usual thirst. Their narrations of all the trials of the long journey were indeed heart-rending. In one case a family of twelve left their comfortable farm in Illinois much against the earnest protests of the mother, she having ten children, the youngest a baby then in her arms. All their earthly possessions were stored in three wagons and the farm which the mother owned was sold before they commenced their long and perilous journey. There was no reason for going except that the husband had the western fever. They were doing well in Illinois on a large farm within two miles of a village, but he had visions of a bonanza near the setting sun. Accordingly they started. At the end of one month the baby died. A piece of wood from the cradle was all they had to mark its lonely resting place. With sad hearts they went on and in a few weeks with grief for her child her old home, her kindred and friends the mother also died. She too was left alone on the far off prairies and the sad pageant moved on. Another child soon shared the same fate and then a span of horses died and one wagon with all the things they could most easily spare was abandoned. Arrived at their destination none of the golden dreams was realized. The expensive journey, the struggles and starting under new circumstances and the loss of the mother's thrift and management made the father so discouraged and reckless that much of his property was wasted and his earthly career was soon ended. Through the heroic energy and good management of the eldest daughter the little patrimony and time was doubled and the children well brought up and educated in the rudiments of learning so that all became respectable members of society. Her advice to all young people is if you are comfortably established in the east stay there. There is no royal road to wealth and ease even in the western states. In spite of the discomforts we suffered in the Kansas campaign I was glad of the experience. It gave me added self-respect to know that I could endure such hardships and fatigue with a great degree of cheerfulness. The governor and I often laughed heartily as we patiently chewed our gum Arabic and slippery elm to think on what a gentle stimulus we were accomplishing such wonderful feats as orators and travelers. It was fortunate our intense enthusiasm for the subject gave us all the necessary inspiration as the supplies we gathered by the way were by no means sufficiently invigorating for prolonged propagandism. I enjoyed these daily drives over the vast prairies listening to the governor's descriptions of the early days when the bushwhackers and jay hawkers made their raids on the inhabitants of the young free state. The courage and endurance of the women surrounded by dangers and discomforts surpassed all description. I counted a great privilege to have made the acquaintance of so many noble women and men who had passed through such scenes and conquered such difficulties. They seemed to live in an atmosphere altogether beyond their surroundings. Many educated families from New England disappointed in not finding the much talked of bonanzas were living in log cabins in solitary places miles from any neighbors. But I found Emerson, Parker, Holmes, Hawthorne, Whittier and Lowell on their bookshelves to gladden their leisure hours. Miss Anthony and I often comforted ourselves mid adverse winds with memories of the short time we spent under Mother Bickerdijk's hospitable roof at Salina. There we had clean comfortable beds, delicious vines, and everything was exquisitely neat. She entertained us with her reminescences of the war. With great self-denial she had served her country in camp and hospital and was with Sherman's army in that wonderful march to the sea. And here we found her on the outpost of civilization determined to start what Kansas most needed, a good hotel. But alas, it was too good for that latitude and proved a financial failure. It was to us an oasis in the desert where we would gladly have lingered if the opposition would have come to us for conversion. But as we had to carry the gospel of women's equality into the highways and hedges we left dear Mother Bickerdijk with profound regret. The seed sown in Kansas in 1867 is now bearing its legitimate fruits. There was not a county in the state where meetings were not held or tracks scattered with a generous hand. If the friends of our cause in the East had been true and had done for women what they did for the colored man I believe both propositions would have been carried. But with a narrow policy playing off one against the other both were defeated. A policy of injustice always bears its own legitimate fruit in failure. However, women learned one important lesson namely that it is impossible for the best of men to understand women's feelings or the humiliation of their position. When they asked us to be silent on our question during the war and labor for the emancipation of the slave we did so and gave five years to his emancipation and enfranchisement. To this proposition my friend Susan B. Anthony never consented but was compelled to yield because no one stood with her. I was convinced at the time that it was the true policy. I am now equally sure that it was a blunder and ever since I have taken my beloved Susan's judgment against the world. I have always found that when we see eye to eye we are sure to be right and when we pull together we are strong. After we discuss any point together and fully agree our faith in our united judgment is immovable and no amount of ridicule and opposition has the slightest influence come from what quarter it may. Together we withstood the Republicans and abolitionists when a second time they made us the most solemn promises of earnest labor for our enfranchisement when the slaves were safe beyond a per-adventure. They never redeemed their promise made during the war hence when they urged us to silence in the Kansas campaign we would not for a moment entertain the proposition. The women generally awoke to their duty to themselves. They had been deceived once and could not be again. If the leaders in the Republican and abolition camps could deceive us whom could we trust? Again we were urged to be silent on our rights when the proposition to take the word white out of the New York Constitution was submitted to a vote of the people of the state or rather to one half the people as women had no voice in the matter. Again we said no, no gentlemen if the white comes out of the Constitution let the male come out also. Women have stood with the Negro thus far on equal ground as ostracized classes outside the political paradise and now when the door is open it is but fair that we both should enter and enjoy all the fruits of citizenship here to for ranked with idiots lunatics and criminals in the Constitution the Negro has been the only respectable compare we had so pray do not separate us now for another 20 years ere the constitutional door will again be opened we were persistently urged to give all our efforts to get the word white out and thus secure the enfranchisement of the colored man as that they said would prepare the way for us to follow several editors threatened that unless we did so their papers should henceforth do their best to defeat every measure we proposed but we were deaf alike to persuasions and threats thinking it wiser to labor for women constituting as they did half the people of the state rather than for a small number of colored men who viewing all things from the same standpoint as white men would be an added power against us the question settled in Kansas we returned with George Francis train to New York he offered to pay all the expenses of the journey and meetings in all the chief cities on the way and see that we were fully and well reported in their respective journals after prolonged consultation Miss Anthony and I thought best to accept the offer and we did so most of our friends thought it a grave blunder but the result proved otherwise Mr. Train was then in his prime a large fine-looking man a gentleman in dress and manner neither smoking, chewing, drinking nor gormundizing he was an effective speaker and actor as one of his speeches which he illustrated imitating the poor wife at the wash tub and the drunken husband reeling in fully showed he gave his audience charcoal sketches of everyday life rather than argument he always pleased popular audiences and even the most fastidious were amused with his caricatures as the newspapers gave several columns to our meetings at every point through all the states the agitation was widespread and of great value to be sure our friends on all sides fell off and those especially who wished us to be silent on the question of women's rights declared the cause to sacred to be advocated by such a charlatan as George Francis Train we thought otherwise as the accession of Mr. Train increased the agitation to fold if these fastidious ladies and gentlemen had come out to Kansas and occupied the ground and provided the sinews of war there would have been no field for Mr. Train's labors and we should have accepted their services but as the ground was unoccupied he had at least the right of a reform squatter to cultivate the cardinal virtues and reap a moral harvest wherever he could reaching New York Mr. Train made it possible for us to establish a newspaper which gave another impetus to our movement the revolution published by Susan B. Anthony and edited by Parker Pillsbury and myself lived two years and a half and was then consolidated with the New York Christian Enquirer edited by the Reverend Henry Bellows, D.D. I regard the brief period in which I edited the revolution as one of the happiest moments of my life and I may add the most useful and looking over the editorials I find but one that I sincerely regret and that was a retort on Mr. Garrison written under great provocation but not by me which circumstances at the time forbade me to disown considering the pressure brought to bear on Ms. Anthony and myself and I have no objections and forbearance with our enemies in their malignant attacks on our good name which we never answered were indeed marvelous. We said at all times and on all other subjects just what we thought and advertised nothing that we did not believe in no advertisements of quack remedies appeared in our columns one of our clerks once published a bread powder advertisement that appeared so in the next number I said editorially what I thought of it I was alone in the office one day when a man blustered in who said he runs this concern you will find the names of the editors and publishers I replied on the editorial page are you one of them I am I replied well do you know that I agreed to pay $20 to have that bread powder advertised for one month I am it editorially I have nothing to do with the advertising Ms. Anthony pays me to say what I think have you any more thoughts to publish on that bread powder oh yes I replied I have not exhausted the subject yet then said he I will have the advertisement taken out what is there to pay for the one insertion oh nothing I replied as the editorial probably did you more injury advertisement did you good on leaving with prophetic vision he said I prophesy a short life for this paper the business world is based on quackery and you cannot live without it with melancholy certainty I replied I fear you are right end of chapter 16 recording by Lynn Carroll Chapter 17 of 80 years and more this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Elena 80 years and more reminiscences 1815 to 1897 by Elizabeth Cady Stanton Chapter 17 Lyceums and Lecturers the Lyceum Bureau was at one time the three leading bureaus were in Boston, New York and Chicago the managers, map in hand would lay out trips more or less extensive according to the capacity or will of the speakers and then with a dozen or more victims in hand make arrangements with the committees in various towns and cities to set them all in motion as the managers of the bureaus had ten percent of what the speakers made it was to their interest to keep the time well filled hence the engagements were made without the slightest reference to the comfort of the travelers with our immense distances it was often necessary to travel night and day sometimes changing cars at midnight and perhaps arriving at the destination half an hour or less before going on the platform and starting again on the journey immediately upon leaving it the route was always carefully written out giving the time the train started from and arrived at various points but as cross trains often failed to connect one traveled, guidebook in hand as in the early days the fees were from one to two hundred dollars a night the speakers themselves were desirous of accomplishing as much as possible in 1869 I gave my name for the first time to the New York Bureau and on November 14th began the long weary pilgrimages from Maine to Texas that lasted twelve years speaking steadily for eight months from October to June every season that was the heyday of the lecturing period the list of bright men and women were constantly on the wing Anna Dickinson, Olive Logan, Kate Field later Mrs. Livermore and Mrs. Ho Alcott, Phillips, Douglas, Tilton, Curtis Beecher and several years later General Kilpatrick with Henry Vincent, Brad Lowe and Matthew Arnold from England these and many others were stars of the lecture platform some of us occasionally managed to spend Sunday together at a good hotel in some city to rest and feast and talk over our joys and sorrows the long journeys the hard fare in the country hotels the rainy nights when committees felt blue and tried to cut down our fees the being compelled by inconsiderate people to talk on the train the overheated badly ventilated cars the halls, sometimes too warm, sometimes too cold babies crying in our audiences the rain pattering on the roof overhead or leaking on the platform these were common experiences in the west women with babies uniformly occupied the front seats so that the little ones, not understanding what you said might be amused with your gestures and changing facial expression all these things, so trying at the time to concentrate in enthusiastic speaking afterwards served as subjects of amusing conversation we unanimously complained of the tea and coffee Mrs. Livermore had the wisdom to carry a spirit lamp with her own tea and coffee and thus supplied herself with the needed stimulants for her oratorical efforts the hardships of these Lyceum trips can never be appreciated except by those who have endured them with accidents to cars and bridges, with floods and snow blockades the pitfalls in one of these campaigns were without number on one occasion, when engaged to speak at Makaketa, Iowa I arrived at Lyons about noon to find the road was blocked with snow and no chance of the cars running for days well, said I to the landlord, I must be at Makaketa at eight o'clock tonight have you a sleigh, a span of fleet horses, and a skillful driver if so, I will go across the country oh yes madam, he replied, I have all you ask but you could not stand a six hours drive in this piercing wind having lived in a region of snow, with the thermometer down to twenty degrees below zero I had no fears of winds and drafts so I said, get the sleigh ready and I will try it accordingly, I telegraphed the committee that I would be there and started I was well bundled up in a fur cloak and hood a hot oak plank at my feet and a thick veil over my head and face as the landlord gave the finishing touch by throwing a large buffalo robe overall with the two tails together at the back of my head and thus effectually preventing me putting my hand to my nose he said, there, if you can only sit perfectly still you will come out a ride at Makaketa that is, if you get there which I very much doubt it was a long hard drive against the wind and through drifts but I scarcely moved a finger and, as the clock struck eight, we drove into the town the hall was warm and the church bell having announced my arrival a large audience was assembled as I learned that all the roads in northern Iowa were blocked I made the entire circuit from point to point in a sleigh travelling forty and fifty miles a day at the Sherman House in Chicago, three weeks later I met Mr. Bradlow and General Kilpatrick who were advertised on the same route ahead of me well, said I, where have you gentlemen been waiting here for the roads to be opened we have lost three weeks engagements, they replied as the general was lecturing on his experiences in Sherman's march to the sea I chafed him on not being able, in an emergency, to march across the state of Iowa they were much astonished and somewhat ashamed when I told them of my long solitary drives over the prairies from day to day it was the testimony of all the bureaus that the women could endure more fatigue and were more conscientious than the men in filling their appointments the pleasant feature of these trips was the great educational work accomplished for the people through their listening to lectures on all the vital questions of the hour wherever any of us chance to be on Sunday we preached in some church and wherever I had a spare afternoon I talked to women alone, on marriage, maternity and the laws of life and health we made many most charming acquaintances too scattered all over our western world and saw how comfortable and happy sensible people could be living in most straightened circumstances with none of the luxuries of life if most housekeepers could get rid of one half their clothes and furniture and put their brick-a-brack in the town museum life would be simplified and they would begin to know what leisure means when I see so many of our American women struggling to be artists who could not make a good loaf of bread nor a palatable cup of coffee I think of what Theodore Parker said when art was a craze in Boston the fine arts do not interest me so much as the course arts which feed, clothe, house and comfort of people I would rather be a great man like Franklin than a Michelangelo nay, if I had a son I should rather see him a mechanic like the late George Stevenson in England than a great painter like Rubens who only copied beauty one day I found at the office of the revolution to meet Mrs. Moulton in the Academy of Music where she was to try her voice for the coming concert for the benefit of the women's medical college and what a voice for power, pathos, pliability I never heard the like seated beside her mother, Mrs. W. H. Greenoff I enjoyed a like the mother's anxious pride and the daughter's triumph I felt, as I listened the truth of what Votemps said the first time he heard her that is the traditional voice for which the ages have waited and longed when on one occasion Mrs. Moulton sang a song of Mozart's to Ober's accompaniment someone present asked what could be added to make this more complete Ober looked up to heaven and with a sweet smile said nothing but that Mozart should have been here to listen looking and listening here, thought I is another jewel in the crown of womanhood to radiate and glorify the lives of all I have such an intense pride of sex that the triumphs of women in art, literature, oratory, science or song rouse my enthusiasm as nothing else can hungering that day for gifted women I called on Alice and Phoebe Carey and Mary Clemmer Ames and together we gave the proud white male such a serving up as did our souls good and could not hurt him, entrenched as he is behind creeds, codes, customs, and constitutions with visor and breastplate of self complacency and conceit in criticizing Jesse Boucheray's essay on superfluous women in which she advises men in England to emigrate in order to leave room and occupation for women the Tribune said the idea of a home without a man in it in visiting the Careys one always felt that there was a home a very charming one too without a man in it once when Harriet Beecher Stowe was at Dr. Taylor's I had the opportunity to make her acquaintance in her sanctum surrounded by books and papers she was just finishing her second paper on the Byron family and her sister Catherine was preparing papers on her educational work preparatory to a coming meeting of the ladies of the school board the women of the Beecher family though most of them wives and mothers all had a definite life work outside the family circle and other objects of intense interest beside husbands, babies, cook stoves, and social conversations Catherine said she was opposed to women's suffrage and if she thought there was the least danger of her getting it she would write and talk against it vehemently but as the nation was safe against such a calamity she was willing to let the talk go on because the agitation helped her work it is rather paradoxical, I said to her that the pressing of a false principle can help a true one but when you get the women all thoroughly educated they will step off to the polls and vote in spite of you one night on the train from New York to Williamsport, Pennsylvania I found abundant time to think over the personal peculiarities of the many noble women who adorn this 19th century and, as I recalled them, one by one in America, England, France, and Germany and all that they are doing and saying I wondered that any man could be so blind as not to see that woman has already taken her place as the peer of man while the lords of creation have been debating her sphere and drawing their chalk marks here and there woman has quietly stepped outside the barren fields where she was compelled to graze for centuries and is now in green pastures and beside still waters a power in the world of thought these pleasant cogitations were cut short by my learning that I had taken the wrong train and must change at Harrisburg at two o'clock in the morning how soon the reflection that I must leave my comfortable birth at such an unchristian hour changed the whole hue of glorious womanhood and every other earthly blessing however, I lived through the trial and arrived at Williamsport as the day dawned I had a good audience at the opera house that evening and was introduced to many agreeable people who declared themselves converted to women's suffrage by my ministrations among the many new jewels in my crown I added that night, Judge Bentley in November 1869 I passed one night in Philadelphia with Miss Anthony at Anna Dickinson's house a neat three-story brick house in Locust Street this haven of rest where the world-famous little woman came ever and on to recruit her overtaxed energies was very tastefully furnished adorned with engravings, books, and statuary her mother, sister, and brother made up the household a pleasing cultivated trio the brother was a handsome youth of good judgment and given to sage remarks the sister witty, intuitive, and incisive in speech the mother dressed in rich Quaker costume and though nearly seventy still possessed of great personal beauty she was intelligent, dignified, refined and in manner and appearance reminded one of Angelina Grimke as she looked in her younger days everything about the house and its appointments indicated that it was the abode of genius and cultivation and although Anna was absent the hospitalities were gracefully dispensed by her family Napoleon and Shakespeare seemed to be Anna's patron saints looking down on all sides from the wall the mother amused us with the sore trials her little orator had inflicted on the members of the household by her vagaries in the world of fame on the way to Kennet Square a young gentleman pointed out to us the home of Benjamin West who distinguished himself to the disgust of broad brims generally as a landscape painter in commencing his career it is said he made use of the tale of a cat in lieu of a brush of course Benjamin's first attempts were on the sly and he could not ask Putter Familius for money to buy a brush without encountering the good man's scorn whether in the hour of his need and fresh enthusiasm poor Puss was led to the sacrificial altar or whether he found her reposing by the roadside having paid the debt of nature our informant could not say enough that in time he owned a brush and immortalized himself by his skill and its use such erratic ones as Whittier, West and Anna Dickinson go to prove that even the prim, proper, perfect Quakers are subject to like infirmities with the rest of the human family I had long heard of the progressive friends in the region round Longwood had read the many bulls they issued from their yearly meetings on every question on war, capital punishment, temperance, slavery, women's rights had learned that they were turning the cold shoulder on the dress, habits and opinions of their fathers listening to the ministrations of such worldlings as William Lloyd Garrison Theodore Tilton and Oliver Johnson in a new meeting house all painted and varnished with cushions, easy seats, carpets, stoves a musical instrument shade of George Fox forgive and three brackets with vases on the high seat and more than all that men and women were indiscriminately seated throughout the house all this Miss Anthony and I beheld with our own eyes and in company with Sarah Pugh and Chandler Darlington did sit together in the high seat and talk in the congregation of the people there too we met Hannah Darlington and Dinah Mendenhall names long known in every good work and for the space of one day did enjoy the blissful serenity of that earthly paradise the women of Kennett Square were celebrated not only for their model housekeeping but also for their rare cultivation on all subjects of general interest in November I again started on one of my western trips but alas on the very day the trains were changed and so I could not make connections to meet my engagements at Saginaw and Marshall and just save myself at Toledo by going directly from the cars before the audience with the dust of 24 hours travel on my garments not being able to reach Saginaw I went straight to Ann Arbor and spent three days most pleasantly and visiting old friends surveying the town with its grand university I was invited to Thanksgiving dinner at the home of Mr. Seaman a highly cultivated democratic editor author of Progressive Nations a choice number of guests gathered round his hospitable board on that occasion over which his wife presided with dignity and grace woman's suffrage was the target for the combined wit and satire of the company and after four hours of uninterrupted and several abodes fairly exhausted with the excess of enjoyment one gentleman had the moral heartyhood to assert that men had more endurance than women whereupon a lady remarked that she would like to see the 1300 young men in the university laced up in steel ribbed corsets with hoops heavy skirts, trains, high heels peneers, chanons and dozens of hairpins sticking in their scalps cooped up in the house year after year with no names nor ambitions in life and no if they could stand it as well as the girls nothing said she but the fact that women, like cats have nine lives enables them to survive the present regime to which custom dooms the sex while in Ann Arbor I gave my lecture on our girls in the new Methodist church a large building well lighted and filled with a brilliant audience the students in large numbers and strengthened the threads of my discourse with frequent and generous applause especially when I urged on the regents of the university the duty of opening its doors to the daughters of the state there were several splendid girls in Michigan at that time preparing themselves for admission to the law department as Judge Cooley, one of the professors was a very liberal man as well as a sound lawyer and strongly in favor of opening the college to girls at the bar some said the chief difficulty in the way of the girls of that day being admitted to the university was the want of room that could have been easily obviated by telling the young man from abroad to be take themselves to the colleges in their respective states that Michigan might educate her daughters as the women owned a good share of the property of the state and had been heavily taxed to build and endow that institution it was but fair that they should share with its extensive grounds commodious buildings medical and law schools professors residences and the finest laboratory in the country was an institution of which the state was justly proud and as the tuition was free it was worth the trouble of a long hard siege by the girls of Michigan to gain admittance there I advised them to organize their forces at once get their minute guns battering rams, monitors, projectiles bombshells, cannon, torpedoes and keep up a brisk cannonating until the grave and reverend seniors opened the door and shouted hold, enough the ladies of Ann Arbor had a fine library of their own where their clubs met once a week they had just formed a suffrage association my visit ended with a pleasant reception at which I was introduced to the chaplain several professors and many ladies and gentlemen ready to accept the situation Judge Cooley gave me a glowing account of the laws of Michigan how easy it was for wives to get possession of all the property and then sunder the marriage tie and leave the poor husband to the charity of the cold world with their helpless children about him I heard of a rich lady there who made a will giving her husband a handsome annuity as long as he remained her widower it was evident that the poor white male sooner or later was doomed to try for himself the virtue of the laws he had made for women was a rare oppression with the stupid fortitude we have for 6,000 years at Flint I was entertained by Mr. and Mrs. Jenny Mr. Jenny was a democratic editor who believed in progress and in making smooth paths for women in this great wilderness of life his wife was a remarkable woman she inaugurated the ladies libraries in Michigan in Flint they had a fine brick building and nearly 2,000 volumes of choice books owned by the association and money always in the treasury here too I had a fine audience and gave my lecture entitled Open the Door at Coldwater in spite of its name I found a warm appreciative audience the president of the lyceum was a sensible young man who after graduating at Ann Arbor decided instead of starving at the law to work with his hands and brains at the same time when all men go to their legitimate business of creating wealth developing the resources of the country we shall not have so many superfluous women in the world with nothing to do it is evident the time has come to hunt man into his appropriate sphere coming from Chicago I met Governor Fairchild and Senator Williams of Wisconsin it was delightful to find them thoroughly grounded in the faith of women's suffrage they had been devout readers of the revolution ever since Miss Anthony induced them to subscribe the winter before at Madison of course a new globe and a new place for they were remarkably handsome men and there was a new point to all their words Senator Williams like myself was on a lecturing tour man was his theme for which I was devoutly thankful for if there are any of God's creatures that need lecturing it is this one that is forever advising us I thought of all men from Father Gregory down to Horace Bushnell who had worried their brains to describe women's sphere and how signally they had failed throughout my Lyceum journeys I was of great use to the traveling public and keeping the ventilators in the cars open and the dampers and fiery stoves shut up especially in sleeping cars at night how many times a day I thought what the sainted Horace Mann tried to impress on his stupid countrymen that in as much as the air is 40 miles deep around the globe it is a useless piece of economy to breathe any number of cubic feet over more than seven times the babies too need to be thankful that I was in a position to witness their wrongs many through my intercessions received their first drink of water and were emancipated from wound hoods veils tight strings under their chins and endless swaddling bands it is a startling assertion but true that I have met few women who know how to take care of a baby and this fact led me on one trip to lecture to my fair country woman on marriage and maternity hoping to aid in the inauguration of a new era of happy healthy babies after 24 hours in the express I found myself in a pleasant room in the international hotel at La Crosse looking out on the great mother of waters on whose cold bosom the ice and the streamers were struggling for mastery beyond stretch the snow-clad bluffs sternly looking down on the Mississippi as if to say thus far shalt thou come and no farther though sluggish you are aggressive ever pushing where you should not but all attempts in this direction are alike vain since creation's dawn we have defied you and here we stand today calm, majestic, immovable coquette as you will in other latitudes with flowery banks and youthful peers in the busy marts of trade and undermine them one and all with your deceitful willings on us we have no eyes for your beauty no ears for your endless song our heads are in the clouds our hearts commune with gods you have no part in the eternal problems of the ages that fill our thoughts yours the humble duty to wash our feet and then pass on remembering to keep in your appropriate sphere within the barks that wise geographers have seen fit to mark as I listened to these complacent more Mississippi weeping as she swept along to lose her sorrows and oceans depths I thought how like the attitude of man to woman let these proud hills remember that they too slumbered for centuries in deep valleys down down when, perchance the sparkling Mississippi rolled above their heads and but for some generous outburst some upheaval of old mother earth wishing that her rock-ribbed sons as well as graceful daughters might enjoy the light, the sunshine and the shower but for this soul of love and matter as well as mind these bluffs and the sons of Adam too might not boast the altitude they glory in today those who have ears to hear discern low rumbling noises that foretell convulsions in our social world that may, perchance in the next upheaval bring woman to the surface up up from gloomy ocean depths dark caverns and damper valleys where the earth are soon to walk in the sunlight of a higher civilization escorted by Mr. Woodward a member of the bar I devoted a day to the lions of La Crosse first we explored the courthouse a large new brick building from whose dome we had a grand view of the surrounding country the courtroom where justice is administered was large, clean, airy the bench carpeted and adorned with a large green stuffed chair in which I sat down summoned up advocates, jurors, prisoners and people and wondered how I should feel pronouncing sentence of death on a fellow being or like Portia wisely checkmating the shy locks of our times here I met Judge Hugh Cameron formerly of Johnstown he invited us into his sanctum where we had a pleasant chat about our native hills, scotch affiliations the bench and bar of New York and the Wisconsin laws for women the judge having maintained looked placidly on the aggressive movements of the sex as his domestic felicity would be no way affected whether women was voted up or down we next surveyed the Pomeroy building which contained a large tastefully finished hall and printing establishment where the La Crosse Democrat was formerly published as I saw the perfection, order and good taste and all arrangements throughout and listened to Mr. Huron's to reconcile the tone of the Democrat with the moral status of its editor I never saw a more complete business establishment and the editorial sanctum looked as if it might be the abiding place of the muses mirrors, pictures, statuary, books, music rare curiosities and fine specimens of birds and minerals were everywhere over the editor's table was a beautiful painting of his youthful daughter whose flaxen hair, blue eyes and angelic face were much more beautiful than he was wanted at that time to give to the world but Pomeroy's good deeds will live long after his profane words are forgotten throughout the establishment cards set up in conspicuous places said smoking here is positively forbidden drinking too was forbidden to all his employees the moment a man was discovered using intoxicating drinks he was dismissed in the upper story of the building was a large pleasant room where his in their leisure hours could talk, write, read or amuse themselves in any rational way Mr. Pomeroy was humane and generous with his employees honorable in his business relations and boundless in his charities to the poor his charity, business honor and public spirit were highly spoken of by those who knew him best that a journal does not always reflect the editor is as much the fault of society as of the man so long as the public will pay for his charity's obscenity and slang decent journals will be outbidden in the market the fact that the La Crosse Democrat found a ready sale in all parts of the country showed that Mr. Pomeroy fairly reflected the popular taste while multitudes turned up the whites of their eyes and denounced him in public they bought his paper and read it in private I left La Crosse in a steamer just as the rising sun lighted the hilltops it was a lovely morning and in company with a young girl of 16 who had traveled alone from some remote part of Canada bound for a northern village in Wisconsin I promenaded the deck most of the way to Winona a pleased listener to the incidents of my young companion's experiences she said that when crossing Lake Huron she was the only woman on board but the men were so kind and civil that she soon forgot she was alone I found many girls traveling long distances who had never been five miles from home before with a self-reliance that was remarkable they all spoke in the most flattering manner of the civility of our American men in looking after their baggage and advising them as to the best routes as you approach St. Paul at Fort Snelling where the Mississippian Minnesota joined forces the country grows bold and beautiful the town itself then boasting about 30,000 inhabitants is finally situated in the substantial stone residences it was in one of these charming homes I found a harbor of rest during my stay in the city Mrs. Stewart whose hospitality I enjoyed was a woman of rare common sense and sound health her husband Dr. Jacob H. Stewart was one of the very first surgeons to volunteer in the late war in the panic at Bull Run instead of running as everybody else did he stayed with the wounded and was taken prisoner and changed Beauregard gave him his sword for his devotion to the dying and wounded I had the pleasure of seeing several of the leading gentlemen and ladies of St. Paul at the Orphan's Fair where we all adjourned after my lecture to discuss women's rights over a bounteous supper here I met William L. Banning the originator of the Lake Superior in Mississippi Railroad he besieged Congress and Capitalists for a dozen years to build his road but was laughed at until, at last, Jay Cook became so wary of his continual coming that he said I will build the road to get rid of you Whittier seems to have had a prophetic vision of the peopling of this region when speaking of the Yankee he says he's whittling by St. Mary's Falls upon his loaded wane he's measuring over the pictured rocks with eager eyes of gain I hear the mattock in the mine the axe stroke in the dell the clamor from the Indian Lodge I hear the treads of the I hear the tread of pioneers of nations yet to be the first low wash of waves where soon shall roll a human sea the opening of these new outlets and minds of wealth was wholly due to the forecast and perseverance of Mr. Banning the first engine that went over a part of the road had been christened at St. Paul with becoming ceremonies the officiating priestess being a beautiful maiden and a brother from California and a small keg was brought from Lake Superior for the occasion a glass was placed in the hands of Miss Ella B. Banning daughter of the president who then christened the engine saying with the waters of the Pacific Ocean in my right hand and the waters of Lake Superior in my left invoking the genius of progress to bring together with iron band two great commercial systems of the globe I dedicate this engine to the use of the Lake Superior and name it William L. Banning from St. Paul to Dubuque as the boats had ceased running a circuitous route and a night of discomfort were inevitable leaving the main road to Chicago at Clinton Junction I had the pleasure of waiting at a small country in until midnight for a freight train this was indeed dreary but having Mrs. Child's sketches of madams to stall and roll into hand I read of Napoleon's persecutions of the one until by comparison my condition was tolerable and the little meagerly furnished room with its dull fire and dim lamp seemed a paradise compared with years of exile from one's native land or the prison cell in guillotine how small our ordinary petty trials seem in contrast with the mountains of sorrow that have been piled up on the great souls of the past absorbed in communion with them twelve o'clock soon came with it the train a burly son of Adam escorted me to the passenger car filled with German immigrants with tin cups, babies, bags and bundles enumerable the ventilators were all closed the stoves hot and the air was like that of the black hole of Calcutta so after depositing my cloak and bag in an empty seat I quietly propped both doors open with a stick of wood shut up the stoves so grateful to me had the most unhappy effect on the slumbering exiles Paterfamilius swore outright the companion of his earthly pilgrimage said we must be going north and as the heavy veil of carbonic acid gas was lifted from infant faces and the pure oxygen filled their lungs and roused them to new life they set up one simultaneous shot of joy and gratitude which their parents mistook for agony altogether there was a general stir as I had quietly slipped into my seat and laid my head down to sleep I remained unobserved the innocent cause of the general purification and vexation we reached Freeport at three o'clock in the morning as the depot for Dubuque was nearly half a mile on the other side of the town I said to a solitary old man who stood shivering there to receive us how can I get to the other station walk madam but I do not know the way there is no one to go with you how is my trunk going said I I have a donkey and cart to take that then said I you the donkey the trunk and I will go together so I stepped into the cart sat down on the trunk and the old man laughed heartily as we jogged along through the mud of that solitary town in the pale morning starlight just as the day was dawning Dubuque with its rough hills and the scenery loomed up soon under the roof of Myron Beach one of the distinguished lawyers of the west with a good breakfast and sound nap my night's sorrows were forgotten I was sorry to find that Mrs. Beach though a native of New York and born on the very spot where the first women's rights convention was held in this country was not sound on the question of women's suffrage she seemed to have an idea that voting and housekeeping could not be compounded so the nation could only enjoy a little of the admirable system with which she and other women administered their domestic affairs Uncle Sam's interest would be better secured this is just what the nation needs today and women must wake up to the consideration that they too have duties as well as rights in the state a splendid audience greeted me in the opera house and I gave our girls bringing many male sinners to repentance and stirring up some lethargic femme coverts to rebellion against the existing order of things from Dubuque I went to Dixon a large town where I met a number of pleasant people but I have one cause of complaint against the telegraph operator whose negligence to send a dispatch to Mount Vernon written and paid for came near causing me a solitary night on the prairie unsheltered and unknown hearing that the express train went out Sunday afternoon I decided to go to Mount Vernon before speaking but on getting my trunk checked the baggageman said the train did not stop there well said I check the trunk to the nearest point at which it does stop resolving that I would persuade the conductor to stop one minute anyway accordingly when the conductor came round I presented my case as persuasively and eloquently as possible telling him that I had telegraphed friends to meet me etc etc he kindly consented to do so and had my trunk rechecked one morning as there was no light no sound and the depot was half a mile from the town the conductor urged me to go to Cedar Rapids and come back the next morning as it was Sunday night and the depot might not be opened and I might be compelled to stay there on the platform all night in the cold but as I had telegraphed I told him I thought someone would be there and I would take the risk so off went the train leaving me solitary and alone I could see the lights in the distant town and the dark outlines of two great mills nearby which suggested dams and races I heard too the distant barking of dogs and I thought there might be wolves too but no human sound the platform was high and I could see no way down and I should not have dared to go down if I had so I walked all round the house knocked at every door and window called John, James, Patrick but no response dressed in all their best they had no doubt gone to visit Sally and I knew they would stay late the night wind was cold what could I do? the prospect of spending the night there filled me with dismay at last I thought I would try my vocal powers so I hallowed as loud as I could in every note of the gamut until I was hoarse at last I heard a distant sound a loud hallow which I returned with steps close at hand I was relieved he proved to be the telegraph operator who had been a brave soldier in the late war he said that no message had come from Dixon he escorted me to the hotel where some members of the Lyceum committee came in and had a hearty laugh at my adventure especially that in my distress I should have called on James and John and Patrick instead of Jane and Bridget they seemed to argue that that was an admission on my part but I suggested that as my sex had not yet been exalted to the dignity of presiding in depots and baggage rooms there would have been no propriety in calling Jane and Anne Mount Vernon was distinguished for a very flourishing Methodist college open to boys and girls alike the president and his wife were liberal and progressive people I dined with them in their home near the college and met some young ladies from Massachusetts who were teachers in the institution who were of one mind on the woman question even the venerable mother of the president seemed to light up with the discussion of the theme I gave our girls in the Methodist church and took the opportunity to compliment them for taking the word obey out of their marriage ceremony I heard the most encouraging reports of the experiment of educating the sexes together it was the rule in all the Methodist institutions in Iowa and I found that the young gentleman fully approved of it at Mount Vernon she was the first to write former secretary of state who gave me several interesting facts in regard to the women of Iowa the state could boast one woman who was an able lawyer Mrs. Mansfield Mrs. Barry and Mrs. Stevens were notaries public Ms. Addington was superintendent of schools in Mitchell County she was nominated by a convention in opposition to a Mr. Brown when the vote was taken low there was a tie so they drew lots and Mrs. Addington was the victor she once made an abstract of titles of all the lands in the county where she lived and had received an appointment to office from the governor of the state who requested the paper be made out L instead of Laura Addington he said it was enough for Iowa to appoint women to such offices without having it known the world over I was sorry to tell the governor's secrets which I did everywhere but the cause of womanhood End of Chapter 17 Recording by Alina Cocoa, Florida