 CHAPTER XI. THE ONE WORD OF THE HOUR. If we women fail to speak the one word of the hour, Susan wrote Anna E. Dickinson, who shall do it? No man is able, for no man sees or feels as we do. To whom God gives the word, to him or her, he says, go preach it. This is just what Susan aimed to do in her new paper, The Revolution. Its name, she believed, expressed exactly the stirring up of thought necessary to establish justice for all, for women, negroes, working men and women, and all who were oppressed. Her two editors, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury, reliable friends as well as vivid forceful writers, were completely in sympathy with her own liberal ideas and could be counted on to crusade fearlessly for every righteous cause. What did it matter if George Francis Train wanted space in the paper to publish his views and for a financial column edited by David M. Mellis of the New York World? Brought up on the anti-slavery platform where free speech was the watchword, and where all even long-winded cranks were allowed to express their opinions, Susan willingly opened the pages of The Revolution to Train and to Mellis and returned for financial backing. When on January 8, 1868, the first issue of her paper came off the press, her heart swelled with pride and satisfaction as she turned over its pages, read its good editorials, and under the frank of Democratic congressman James Brooks of New York, sent out ten thousand copies to all parts of the country. The Revolution promised to discuss not only subjects which were of particular concern to her and Elizabeth Stanton, such as educated suffrage, irrespective of sex or color, equal pay for women for equal work, and practical education for girls as well as boys, but also the eight-hour day, labor problems, and a new financial policy for America. This new financial policy, the dream of George Francis Train, advocated the purchase of American goods only, the encouragement of immigration to rebuild the South and to settle the country from ocean to ocean, the establishment of the French financing systems, the Crédit Fonsier and Crédit Mobilier to develop our mines and railroads, the issuing of greenbacks, and penny-ocean postage to strengthen the brotherhood of labor. All in all it was not a program with wide appeal, dazzled by the opportunities for making money in this new undeveloped country. People were in no mood to analyze the social order or to consider the needs of women or labor or the living standards of the masses. Unfamiliar with the New York Stock Exchange, they found little to interest them in the paper's financial department. While speculators and promoters such as Jay Gould and Jim Fisk wanted no advice from the lone eagle George Francis Train, and resented Mellis' columns of Wall Street Gossip, which often portrayed them in an unfavorable light, nor did a public affairs paper, edited and published by women, carry much weight. None of this, however, mattered much to Susan, who did not aim for a popular paper, but to make public sentiment. It was her hope that just as the liberator, under William Lloyd Garrison, had been the pillar of light and of fire to the slave's emancipation, so the revolution would become the guiding star to the enfranchisement of women. Upon Susan fell the task of building up subscriptions, soliciting advertisements, and getting copy to the printer. Thus her office in the New York World Building, thirty-seven Park Row, was on the fourth floor, and the printer was several blocks away on the fifth floor of a building without an elevator. Her job proved to be a test of physical endurance. To this was added an ever-increasing financial burden, for Train had sailed for England when the first number was issued, had been arrested because of his Irish sympathies, and had spent months in a Dublin jail, from which he sent them his thoughts on every conceivable subject, but no money for the paper. He had left six hundred dollars with Susan, and had instructed Mellis to make payments as needed, but this soon became impossible, and she had to face the alarming fact that, if the paper were to continue, she must raise the necessary money herself. Because the circulation was small, it was hard to get advertisers, particularly as she was firm in her determination to accept only advertisements of products she could recommend. Patent medicines and any questionable products were ruled out. Consumers came in encouragingly, but in no sense met the deficit which piled up unrelentingly. Her goal was one hundred thousand subscribers. She had gone to Washington at once to solicit subscriptions personally from the President and members of Congress. Ben Wade of Ohio headed the list of Senators who subscribed, and loyal as always to women's suffrage encouraged her to go ahead and push her cause. It has got to come, he added, but Congress is too busy now to take it up. Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts greeted her gruffly, telling her that she and Mrs. Stanton had done more to block Reconstruction in the last two years than all others in the land. But he subscribed, because he wanted to know what they were up to. Although Senator Pomeroy was sore about Kansas and her alliance with the Democrats, he nevertheless subscribed. But Senator Sumner was not to be seen. The first member of the House, to put his name on her list, was her dependable understanding friend George Julian of Indiana, and many others followed his lead. For two hours she waited to see President Johnson in an ante room among the huge half-bushel measure spittoons and terrible filth where the smell of tobacco and whiskey was powerful. When she finally reached him, he immediately refused her request, explaining that he had a thousand such solicitations every day. Not easily put off, she countered at once by remarking that he had never before had such a request in his life. "'You recognize, Mr. Johnson,' she continued, "'that Mrs. Stanton and myself, for two years, have boldly told the Republican Party that they must give ballots to women as well as to Negroes, and by means of the Revolution we are bound to drive the Party to this logical conclusion or break it into a thousand pieces, as was the old Whig Party, unless we get our rights.' This brought him to his pocket-book, she triumphantly reported, and in a bold hand he signed his name, Andrew Johnson, as much as to say, anything to get rid of this woman and break the radical Party. She was proud of her paper, proud of its typography, which was far more readable than the average news sheets of the day, with their miserably small print. The larger type and less crowded pages were inviting, the articles stimulating. Parker Pillsbury, covering congressional and political developments and the impeachment trial of President Johnson, with which he was not in sympathy, was fearless in his denunciations of politicians, their ruthless intrigue and disregard of the public. During the turbulent days when the impeachment trial was front page news everywhere, the Revolution proclaimed it as a political maneuver of the Republicans to confuse the people and divert their attention from more important issues, such as corruption in government, high prices, taxation, and the fabulous wealth being amassed by the few. This of course roused the intense disapproval of Wendell Phillips, Theodore Tilton, and Horace Greeley, all of whom regarded Johnson as a traitor and shouted for impeachment. It ran counter to the views of Susan's brother Daniel, who telegraphed Senator Ross of Kansas demanding his vote for impeachment. Although no supporter of President Johnson, Susan was now completely awake to the political manipulations of the radical Republicans and what seemed to her their readiness to sacrifice the good of the nation for the success of their party. She repudiated them all, all but the rugged Ben Wade, always true to women's suffrage and the tall, handsome Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, who, she believed, stood for justice and equality. Both of these men Susan regarded as far better qualified for the presidency than General Grant, who now was the obvious choice of the Republicans for 1868. Why go, pal mel for Grant, asked the Revolution, when all admit that he is unfit for the position? It is not too late if true men and women will do their duty to make an honest man like Ben Wade, President. Let us save the nation. As to the Republican Party, the sooner it is scattered to the four winds of heaven the better. Later when Chase was out of the running among Republicans and not averse to overtures from the Democrats, the Revolution urged him as the Democratic candidate with universal suffrage as his slogan. Susan demanded civil rights, suffrage, education and farms for the Negroes, as did the Republicans, but she could not overlook the political corruption which was flourishing under the military control of the South, and she recognized that the Republicans' insistence on Negro suffrage in the South did not stem solely from devotion to a noble principle, but also from an overwhelming desire to ensure victory for their party in the coming election. These views were reflected editorially in the Revolution, which, calling attention to the fact that Connecticut, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Pennsylvania had refused to enfranchise their Negroes, asked why Negro suffrage should be forced on the South before it was accepted in the North. The Fourteenth Amendment was having hard sledding, and the Revolution repudiated it, calling instead for an amendment granting universal suffrage, or in other words, suffrage for women and Negroes. The Revolution also discussed in editorials by Mrs. Stanton other subjects of interest to women, such as marriage, divorce, prostitution and infanticide, all of which Susan agreed needed frank, thoughtful consideration, but which other papers handled with kid gloves. Instill another unpopular field, that of labor and capital, the Revolution also pioneered fearlessly, asking for shorter hours and lower wages for workers, as appointed out labors valuable contribution to the development of the country. It also called attention to the vicious contrasts in large cities, where many lived in tumbled down tenements in abject poverty, while the few, with more wealth than they knew what to do with, spent lavishly and built themselves palaces. Sentiments such as these increased the indignation of Susan's critics, but she gloried in the output of her two courageous editors just as she had gloried in the evangelistic zeal of the anti-slavery crusaders. Wisely however, she added to her list of contributors some of the popular women writers of the day, among them Alice and Phoebe Carey. She ran a series of articles on women as farmers, machinists, inventors and dentists, secured news from foreign correspondents, mostly from England, and published a Washington letter and women's rights news from the States. Believing that women should become acquainted with the great women of the past, especially those who fought for their freedom and advancement, she printed an article on Francis Wright and serialized Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Eagerly, Susan looked for favorable notices of her paper in the press. Much to her sorrow, Horace Greeley's New York Tribune completely ignored its existence. As did her old standby, the anti-slavery standard. The New York Times ridiculed, as usual, anything connected with women's rights or women's suffrage. The New York Home Journal called it plucky, keen, and wide awake, although some of its ways are not at all to our taste. Theodore Tilton, in the Congregationalist paper The Independent, commented in his usual facetious style, which pinned him down neither to praise nor unfriendliness, but Susan was grateful to read. The revolution from the start will arouse, thrill, edify, amuse, vex, and non-plus its friends, but it will command attention, it will conquer a hearing. Newspapers were generally friendly. St. Anthony's Woman's Rights Paper, declared the Troy New York Times, is a realistic, well-edited instructive journal, and its beautiful mechanical execution renders its appearance very attractive. The Chicago Working Man's Advocate observed, we have no doubt it will prove an able ally of the labor reform movement. Nellie Hutchinson of the Cincinnati Commercial, one of the few women journalists, described sympathetically for her readers the neat, comfortable revolution office and Susan with her rare but genial smile. Susan, the determined, the invincible, destined to be vice president or secretary of state, adding, the world is better for thee, Susan. While new friends praised, old friends pleaded unsuccessfully with Mrs. Stanton and Parker Pillsbury to free themselves from Susan's harmful influence. William Lloyd Garrison wrote Susan of his regret and astonishment that she and Mrs. Stanton had so taken leave of their senses as to be infatuated with the Democratic Party and to be associated with that crack-brained harlequin and semi-lunatic George Francis Train. She published his letter in the Revolution with an answer by Mrs. Stanton, which not only pointed out how often the Republicans had failed women, but reminded Garrison how he had welcomed into his anti-slavery ranks anyone and everyone who believed in his ideas, a motley crew it was. She recalled the label of fanatic which had been attached to him, how he had been threatened and pelted with rotten eggs for expressing his unpopular ideas and for burning the constitution which he declared sanctioned slavery. With such a background, she told him, he should be able to recognize her right and Susan's to judge all parties and all men on what they did for women's suffrage. None of these arguments made any impression upon Garrison or upon Lucy Stone, whose bitter criticism and distrust of Susan's motives wounded Susan deeply. Only a few of her old friends seemed able to understand what she was trying to do. Among them Martha C. Wright, who, at first critical of her association with Train, now wrote of the Revolution, its vigorous pages are what we need. Count on me now and ever as your true and unswerving friend. Another bright spot was Susan's friendship with Anna E. Dickinson, with whom she carried on a lively correspondence, scratching off hurried notes to her on the backs of old envelopes or any odd scraps of paper that came to hand. Whenever Anna was in New York, she usually burst into the Revolution office, showered Susan with kisses and carried on such an animated conversation about her experiences that the whole office force was spellbound, admiring at the same time her stylish costume and jaunty velvet cap with its white feather very becoming on her short black curls. Repeatedly, Susan urged Anna to stay with her in her plain quarters at 44 Bond Street or in her nice hall bedroom at 116 East 23rd Street. That Anna could have risen out of the hardships of her girlhood to such popularity as a lecturer and to such financial success was to Susan like a fairy tale come true. Scarcely past twenty, Anna not only had moved vast audiences to tears, but was sought after by the Republicans as one of their most popular campaign speakers and had addressed Congress with President Lincoln in attendance. Susan had been sadly disappointed that Anna had not seen her way clear to speak a strong word for women in the Kansas campaign, but she hoped that this vivid, talented young woman would prove to be the evangel who would lead women into the kingdom of political and civil rights. It never occurred to her that she herself might even now be that evangel. By this time Susan had been called on the carpet by some of the officers of the American Equal Rights Association because she had used the association's office as a base for business connected with the train lecture tour and the establishment of the revolution. She was also accused of spending the funds of the association for her own projects and to advertise train. Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Stephen Foster were particularly suspicious of her. Her accounts were checked and rechecked by them and found in good order. However, at the annual meeting of the association in May 1868, Henry Blackwell again brought the matter up. Deeply hurt by his public accusation, she once more carefully explained that because there had been no funds except those which came out of her own pocket or had been raised by her, she had felt free to spend them as she thought best. This obviously satisfied the majority, many of whom expressed appreciation of her year of hard work for the cause. She later wrote Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Even if not one old friend had seemed to have remembered the past and had been swallowed up, overshadowed by the train cloud I should still have rejoiced that I have done the work, for no human prejudice or power can rob me of the joy, the compensation I have stored up therefrom. That it is wholly spiritual, I need but tell you, that this day I have not two hundred dollars more than I had the day I entered upon the public work of women's rights and anti-slavery. What troubled her most at these meetings was not the animosity directed against her by Henry Blackwell and Lucy Stone, but the assertion made by Frederick Douglas and agreed to by all the men present that Negro suffrage was more urgent than women's suffrage. When Lucy Stone came to the defense of women's suffrage in a speech whose content and eloquence Susan thought surpassed that of any other mortal woman speaker, she was willing to forgive Lucy anything, and wrote Thomas Wentworth Higginson, I want you to know that it is impossible for me to lay a straw in the way of anyone who personally wrongs me, if only that one will work nobly in the cause in their own way in time. They may try to hinder my success, but I never theirs. Realizing that it would be futile for her to spend any more time trying to persuade the American Equal Rights Association to help her with her women's suffrage campaign, she now formed a small committee of her own, headed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It included Elizabeth Smith Miller, the liberal wealthy daughter of Garrett Smith, Abbey Hopper Gibbons, the Quaker philanthropist and social worker, and Mary Cheney Greeley, the wife of Horace Greeley, who in spite of the fact that her husband now opposed women's suffrage continued to take her stand for it. This committee, with the revolution as its mouthpiece, was soon acting as a clearinghouse for women's suffrage organizations throughout the country, and called itself the Women's Suffrage Association of America. To the National Republican Convention in Chicago, which nominated General Grant for President, these women sent a carefully worded memorial asking that the rights of women be recognized in the Reconstruction. It was ignored. Thereupon, Susan turned to the Democrats, attending with Mrs. Stanton a pre-convention rally in New York, addressed by Governor Horatio Seymour. Given seats of honor on the platform, they attracted considerable attention, and the New York Sun commented editorially that this honor conferred upon them by the Democrats not only committed Ms. Anthony and Mrs. Stanton to Governor Seymour's views, but also committed the Democrats to incorporate a women's suffrage plank in their platform. This was too much for some of the officers of the American Equal Rights Association, whose executive committee now adopted a sarcastic resolution, proposing that Susan attend the National Democratic Convention and prove her confidence in the Democrats by securing a plank in their platform. Ignoring the unfriendly implications of this resolution and the ridicule heaped upon her by the New York City Papers, Susan made plans to attend the Democratic Convention, which for the first time since the war was bringing Northern and Southern Democrats together for the dedication of their new, imposing headquarters, Tammany Hall, and which was also attracting many liberals who, disgusted by the corruption of the Republicans, were looking for a new departure from the Democrats. To the amazement of the delegates, Susan with Mrs. Stanton and several other women walked into the convention when it was well underway and sent a memorial up to Governor Seymour who was presiding. He received it graciously, announcing that he held in his hand a memorial of the women of the United States signed by Susan B. Anthony, and then turned it over to the Secretary to be read, while the audience shouted and cheered. The Sonora's passages demanding the enfranchisement of women rang out through and above the bedlam. We appeal to you because you have been the party here to fore to extend the suffrage. It was the Democratic Party that fought most valiantly for the removal of the property qualification from all white men and thereby placed the poorest ditch digger on a political level with the proudest millionaire. And now you have an opportunity to confer a similar boon on the women of the country and thus perpetuate your political power for decades to come. To hear these words read in a national political convention was to Susan worth any ridicule she might be forced to endure. She was not allowed to speak to the convention as she had requested and shouts and jeers continued as her memorial was hurriedly referred to the Resolutions Committee where it could be conveniently overlooked. The Republican Press reported the incident with sarcasm and animosity, the Tribune deeply wounding her. Miss Susan B. Anthony has our sincere pity. She has been an ardent suitor of democracy and they rejected her overtures yesterday with screams of laughter. The Democrats nomination of Horatio Seymour and Frank Blair was as reactionary and unpromising of a new departure as was the choice of General Grant and Skyler Colfax by the Republicans. Thereupon the Revolution called for a new party, a People's Party, which would be sincerely devoted to the welfare of all the people. So strongly did Susan feel about this that in one of her few signed editorials she declared, both the great political parties pretending to save the country are only endeavoring to save themselves. In their hands humanity has no hope. The sooner their power is broken as parties the better. The Revolution calls for construction, not reconstruction. Who will aid us in our grand enterprise of a nation's salvation? To darling Anna she wrote more specifically, Both parties are owned body and soul by the gold gamblers of the nation, and so far as the honest working men and women of the country are concerned at matters very little which succeeds. Oh that the gods would inspire men of influence and money to move for a third party. Universal suffrage and anti-monopolist of land and gold. Chapter 12 of Susan B. Anthony by Alma Lutz. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. In her zeal to promote the welfare of all the people Susan now turned her attention to the working women of New York whose low wages, long hours, and unhealthy working and living conditions had troubled her for a long time. Women were being forced out of the home into the factory by a changing and expanding economy, and at last were being paid for their work. However, the women she met on the streets of New York, hurrying to work at dawn and returning late at night, weary, pale, and shabbily dressed, had none of the confidence of the economically independent. They had merely exchanged one form of slavery for another. She saw the ballot as their most powerful ally, and as she told the factory girls of Coho's New York they could compel their employers to grant them a ten hour day equal opportunity for advancement and equal pay, the moment they held the ballot in their hands. As yet labor unions were few and short-lived. The women-tailors of New York had formed a union as early as 1825, but it had not survived, and later attempts to form women's unions had rarely been successful. A few men's unions had weathered the years, but they had not enrolled women, fearing their competition. Women were welcomed only by the National Labor Union, established in Baltimore in 1866 for the purpose of federating all unions. When the National Labor Union Congress met in New York in September 1868, Susan saw an opportunity for women to take part, and in preparation she called a group of working women together in the Revolution Office to form a working women's association, which she hoped would eventually represent all of the trades. At this meeting the majority were from the printing trade, typesetters operating the newly invented typesetting machines, press feeders, bookbinders, and clerks, in whom she had become interested through her venture and publishing. She wanted them to call their organization the Working Women's Suffrage Association, but they refused, because they feared the public's disapproval of women's suffrage and were convinced they should not seek political rights until they had improved their working conditions. She could not make them see that they were putting the cart before the horse. They did, however, form Working Women's Association Number One, electing her their delegate to the National Labor Congress. Next, she called a meeting of the women in the sewing trades, and with the help of men from the National Labor Union, persuaded a hundred of them to form Working Women's Association Number Two. Most of these women were seamstresses making men's shirts, women's coats, vests, lace collars, hoop skirts, corsets, fur garments, and straw hats, but also represented were women from the umbrella, parasol, and paper collar industry, metal burnishers, and sales women. Most of them were young girls who worked from ten to fourteen hours a day, from six in the morning until eight at night, and earned from four to eight dollars a week. You must not work for these starving prices any longer, Susan told them. Having a spirit of independence among you, a wholesome discontent, as Ralph Waldo Emerson has said, you will get better wages for yourselves. Get together and discuss, and meet again and again. I will come and talk to you. They elected Mrs. Mary Kellogg Putnam to represent them at the National Labor Congress. With Mrs. Putnam and Kate Mulaney, the Able President of the Collar Laundry Union of Troy, New York, with Mary A. McDonald of the Women's Protective Labor Union of Mount Vernon, New York, and Mrs. Stanton, representing the Women's Suffrage Association of America, Susan knocked at the door of the National Labor Congress. All were welcomed, but Mrs. Stanton, who represented a women's suffrage organization, and whose acceptance, the rank and file feared, might indicate to the public that the Labor Congress endorsed votes for women. The women had a friend in William H. Silvis of the Iron Moulders Union, who was the driving force behind the National Labor Congress, and he made it clear at once that he welcomed Mrs. Stanton and everyone else who believed in his cause. So strong, however, was the opposition to women's suffrage among Union men that 18 threatened to resign if Mrs. Stanton were admitted as a delegate. The debate continued, giving Susan an opportunity to explain why the ballot was important to working women. It is the power of the ballot, she declared, that makes men successful in their strikes. She recommended that both men and women be enrolled in unions, pointing out that had this been done, women typesetters would not have replaced men at lower wages in the recent strike of printers on the New York world. Finally, a resolution was adopted, making it clear that Mrs. Stanton's acceptance in no way committed the National Labor Congress to her peculiar ideas or to female suffrage. A committee on female labor was then appointed, with Susan as one of its members. At once she tried to show the committee how the vote would help women in their struggle for higher wages. She had at hand a perfect example in the unsuccessful strike of Kate Mulaney's strong, well-organized union of 500 collar laundry workers in Troy, New York. Aware that Kate blamed their defeat on the ruthless newspaper campaign, inspired and paid for by employers, Susan asked her, If you had been 500 carpenters or 500 masons, do you not think you would have succeeded? Certainly, Kate Mulaney replied, adding that the striking brick layers had won everything they demanded. Susan then reminded her that because the brick layers were voters, newspapers respected them and would hesitate to arouse their displeasure, realizing that in the next election they would need the votes of all union men for their candidates. If you collar woman had been voters, she told them, you too would have held the balance of political power in that little city of Troy. Susan convinced the committee on female labor and in their strong report to the convention they urged women to secure the ballot as well as to learn the trades, engage in business, join labor unions or form protective unions of their own, and use every other honorable means to persuade or force employers to do justice to women by paying them equal wages for equal work. These women also called upon the National Labor Congress to aid the organization of women's unions, to demand the eight hour day for women as well as men, and to ask Congress and state legislatures to pass laws providing equal pay for women in government employ. The phrase to secure the ballot was quickly challenged by some of the men and had to be deleted before the report was accepted. But this setback was as nothing to Susan in comparison with the friends she had made for the women's suffrage among prominent labor leaders and with the fact that a woman, Kate Mulaney of Troy, had been chosen Assistant Secretary of the National Labor Union and its National Organizer of Women. The National Labor Union Congress won high praise in the revolution as laying the foundation of the new political party of America, which would be triumphant in 1872. The producers, the working men, the women, the negroes, the revolution declared, are destined to form a triple power that shall speedily rest the scepter of government from the non-producers, the land monopolists, the bondholders, and the politicians. One of the most encouraging signs at this time was the friendliness of the New York world, whose reporters covered the meetings of the Working Women's Association with sympathy, arousing much local interest. Reprinting these reports and supplementing them, the revolution carried their import farther afield, bringing to the attention of many the wisdom and justice of equal pay for equal work and the need to organize working women and to provide training and trade schools for them. The revolution continually spurred women on to improve themselves, to learn new skills and actually to do equal work if they expected equal pay. When reports reached Susan that women in the printing trade were afraid of manual labor, of getting their hands and fingers dirty, and of lifting heavy galleys, she quickly let them know that she had no patience with us. Those who stay at home, she told them, have to wash kettles and lift wash tubs and black stoves until their hands are blackened and hardened. In this spirit you must go to work on your cases of type. Are these cases heavier than a wash tub filled with water and clothes or the old cheese tubs? The trouble is either that girls are not educated to have physical strength or else they do not like to use it. If a union of women is to succeed, it must be composed of strength, nerve, courage, and persistence with no fear of dirtying their white fingers. But with a determination that when they go into an office, they would go through all that was required of them and demand just as high wages as the men. Make up your mind, she continued, to take the lean with the fat and be early and late at the case precisely as the men are. I do not demand equal pay for any women, say those who do equal work in value. Scorn to be coddled by your employers, make them understand that you are in their service as workers, not as women. Working women's associations now existed in Boston, St. Louis, Chicago, San Francisco, and other cities, encouraged and aroused by the efforts at organization in New York. These associations occasionally exchanged ideas and news of all of them was published in the Revolution. The groups in Boston and in outlying textile mills were particularly active, and Susan brought to her next suffrage convention in Washington in 1870 Jenny Collins of Lowell, who was ably leading a strike against a cut in wages. The newspapers too began to notice working women, publishing articles about their working and living conditions. Trying to amalgamate the various groups in New York, Susan now formed a Working Women's Central Association of which she was elected president. To its meetings she brought interesting speakers and practical reports on wages, hours, and working conditions. She herself picked up a great deal of useful information in her daily round as she talked with this one and that one. On her walks to and from work, in all kinds of weather, she met poorly clad women carrying sacks and baskets in which they collected rags, scraps of paper, bones, old shoes, and anything worth rescuing from garbage boxes. With friendliness and good cheer she greeted these rag pickers, sometimes stopping to talk with them about their work, and through her interest brought several into the Working Women's Association. Looking forward to surveys on all women's occupations, she started out by appointing a committee to investigate the rag pickers, many of whom lived in tumbledown slab shanties on the rocky land which is now a part of Central Park. This investigation revealed that more than half of the 1,200 rag pickers were women and that it was the one occupation in which women had equal opportunity with men and received equal compensation for their day's work. Average earnings ranged from 40 cents a day to 10 dollars a week. The report, highly sentimental in the light of today's scientific approach, was a promising beginning, a survey made by women themselves in their own interest, the forerunner of the reports of the Labor Department's Women's Bureau. Cooperatives appealed to Susan as they did to many Labor leaders as the best means of freeing Labor. When the sewing machine Operators Union tried to establish a shop where their members could share the profits of their Labor, she did her best to help them, hoping to see them gain economic independence in a light, airy, clean shop where wealthy women, eager to help their sisters, would patronize them. However, the wealthy women to whom she appealed to finance this project did not respond, looking upon a cooperative as a first step toward socialism and a threat to their own profits. She was able, however, to arouse a glimmer of interest among the members of the newly formed literary club, Syrosis, in the Problems of Working Women. She had the satisfaction of seeing women typesetters form their own union in 1869, and this was, according to the Albany Daily Knickerbocker, the first move of the kind ever made in the country by any class of Labor to place women on a par with man as regards standing, intelligence, and manual ability. The revolution encouraged this union by printing notices of its meetings and urging all women compositors to join. In signed articles, Susan pointed out how wages had improved since the union was organized. A little more union girls, she said, and soon all employers will come up to 45 cents, the price paid men, so join the union girls and together say equal pay for equal work. Eager to bring more women into the printing trade where wages were higher, she tried in every possible way to establish trade schools for them. She looked forward to a printing business run entirely by women, giving employment to hundreds. So obsessed was she by the idea of a trade school for women compositors that when printers in New York went on a strike, she saw an opportunity for women to take their places and appealed by letter and in person to a group of employers to contribute liberally for the purpose of enabling us to establish a training school for girls in the art of typesetting. Explaining that hundreds of young women now stitching at starvation wages were ready and eager to learn the trade, she added, give us the means and we will soon give you competent women compositors. Having learned by experience that men always kept women out of their field of labor unless forced by circumstances to admit them, she also urged young women to take the places of striking typesetters at whatever wage they could get. It never occurred to her in her eagerness to bring women into a new occupation that she might be breaking the strike. She saw only women's opportunity to prove to employers that they were able to do the work and to show the typographical union that they should admit women as members. Labor men, however, soon let her know how much they disapproved of her strategy. She tried to explain her motives to them that she was trying to fit these women to earn equal wages with men. She reminded these men of how hard it was for women to get into the printing trade and how they had refused to admit women to their union. And she called their attention to her whole-hearted support of the lately-formed Women's Typographical Union. Some of the men were never convinced and never forgot this misstep, bringing it up at the National Labor Union Congress in Philadelphia in 1869, which Susan attended as a delegate of the New York Working Women's Association. Here she found herself facing an unfriendly group without the support of William H. Silvis, who had recently died. For three days they debated her eligibility as a delegate, first expressing fear that her admission would commit the Labor Congress to women's suffrage. When she won 55 votes against 52 in opposition, Typographical Union No. 6 of New York brought accusations against her, which aroused suspicion in the minds of many union members. They pointed out that she belonged to no union, and they called her an enemy of labor, because she had encouraged women to take men's jobs during the printer's strike. They could not or would not understand that in urging women to take men's jobs, she had been fighting for women just as they fought for their union, and they completely overlooked how continuously and effectively she had supported the women's Typographical Union. Her revolution, they claimed, was printed at less than union rates in a rat office, and her explanation was not satisfactory. That it was printed on contract outside her office was no answer to satisfy union men who could not realize on what a scant margin her paper operated, or how gladly she would have set up a union shop had the funds been available. Not only were these accusations repeated again and again, they were also carried far and wide by the press, with the result that Susan was not only kept out of the Labor Congress, but was even sharply criticized by some members of her Working Women's Association. As to the charges which were made by Typographical Union No. 6, she reported to this association, no one believes them, and I don't think they are worth answering. I admit that this Working Women's Association is not a trade organization, and while I join heart and hand with the working people in their trades unions, and in everything else by which they can protect themselves against the oppression of capitalists and employers, I say that this organization of ours is more upon the broad platform of philosophizing on the general questions of labor, and to discuss what can be done to ameliorate the condition of working people generally. She was not without friends in the ranks of labor, however, the New England delegates giving her their support. The New York world, very fair in its coverage of the heated debates declared, of her devotion to the cause of working women there can be no question. The activities of the Working Women's Association had by this time begun to irk employers, and some of them threatened instant dismissal of any employee who reported her wages or hours to these meddling women. Fear of losing their job now hung over while many others were forbidden by their fathers, husbands, and brothers to have anything to do with strong-minded Susan B. Anthony. To counteract this disintegrating influence and to bring all classes of women together in their fight for equal rights, Susan persuaded the popular lecturer Anna E. Dickinson to speak for the Working Women's Association at Cooper Union. This, however, only added fuel to the flames. For Anna, in an emotional speech, a struggle for life, told the tragic story of Hester Vaughn, a working woman who had been accused of murdering her illegitimate child. Found in a critical condition with her dead baby beside her, Hester Vaughn had been charged with infanticide, tried without proper defense, and convicted by a prejudiced court, although there was no proof that she had deliberately killed her child. At Susan's instigation, the Working Women's Association sent a woman physician, Dr. Clements Lozier, and the well-known author Eleanor Kirk to Philadelphia to investigate the case. Both were convinced of Hester Vaughn's innocence. With the aid of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's courageous editorials in the Revolution, Susan made such an issue of the conviction of Hester Vaughn that many newspapers accused her of obstructing justice and advocating free love, and this provided a moral weapon for her critics to use in their fight against the growing independence of women. Eventually her efforts, and those of her colleagues, went a pardon for Hester Vaughn. At the same time, the publicity, given this case, served to educate women on the subject here to fore taboo, showing them that poverty and a double standard of morals made victims of young women like Hester Vaughn. Susan also made use of this case to point out the need for women jurors to ensure an unprejudiced trial. She even suggested that Columbia University Law School opened its doors to women, so that a few of them might be able to understand their rights under the law and bring aid to their less fortunate sisters. Under Susan's guidance, the Working Woman's Association continued to hold meetings as long as she remained in New York. In its limited way, it carried on much-needed educational work, building up self-respect and confidence among working women, stirring up a wholesome discontent and preparing the way for women's unions. The public responded, at Cooper Union, telegraphy courses were open to women. The New York Business School, at Susan's instigation, offered young women scholarships in bookkeeping, and there were repeated requests for the enrollment of women in the College of New York. Living in the heart of this rapidly growing, sprawling city, Susan saw much to distress her and pondered over the disturbing social conditions, looking for a way to relieve poverty and wipe out crime and corruption. She saw luxury, extravagance, and success for the few, while half of the population lived in the slums and dilapidated houses and in damp cellars, often four or five to a room. Immigrants continually pouring in from Europe overtaxed the already inadequate housing and unfamiliar with our language and customs were the easy prey of corrupt politicians. Many were homeless, sleeping in the streets and parks until the rain or cold drove them into police stations for warmth and shelter. Susan longed to bring order and cleanliness, good homes and good government to this overcrowded city, and again and again she came to the conclusion that votes for women, which meant a voice in the government, would be the most potent factor for reform. Yet she did not close her mind to other avenues of reform. Seeing reflected in the life of the city, the excesses, the injustice and the unsoundness of laissez-faire capitalism, she spoke out fearlessly in the revolution against its abuses, such as the fortunes made out of the low wages and long hours of labor, or the Wall Street speculation to corner the gold market, or the efforts to take over the public lands of the West through grants to the transcontinental railroads. Her active mind also sought a solution of the complicated currency problem. In fact, there was no public question which she hesitated to approach, to think out or attempt to solve. She did not keep her struggle for women's suffrage aloof from the pressing problems of the day. Instead she kept it abreast of the times, keenly alive to social, political and economic issues and involved in current public affairs. End of Chapter 12. Chapter 13 of Susan B. Anthony by Alma Lutz. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 13. The inadequate 15th Amendment. The 14th Amendment had been ratified in July 1868. But Republicans found it inadequate because it did not specifically enfranchise Negroes, more than ever convinced that they needed the Negro vote in order to continue in power. They prepared to supplement it by a 15th Amendment, which Susan hoped would be drafted to enfranchise women as well as Negroes. Immediately through her Women's Suffrage Association of America, she petitioned Congress to make no distinction between men and women in any amendment extending or regulating suffrage. She and Elizabeth Stanton also persuaded their good friends, Senator Pomeroy of Kansas and Congressman Julian of Indiana to introduce in December 1868 resolutions providing that suffrage be based on citizenship, be regulated by Congress, and that all citizens, native or naturalized, enjoy this right without distinction of race, color, or sex. Before the end of the month, Senator Wilson of Massachusetts and Congressman Julian had introduced other resolutions to enfranchise women in the District of Columbia and in the territories. Even the New York Herald could see no reason why the experiment of women suffrage should not be tried in the District of Columbia. To focus attention on women's suffrage at this crucial time, Susan in January 1869 called together the first women's suffrage convention ever held in Washington. Not only did it attract women from as far west as Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas, but Senator Pomeroy lent it importance by his opening speech and through the detailed and respectful reporting of the New York World and of Grace Greenwood of the Philadelphia Press it received nationwide notice. Congress, however, gave little heed to women's demands. The experiment of women's suffrage in the District of Columbia was not tried and nothing came of the resolutions for universal suffrage introduced by Pomeroy, Julian, and Wilson. In spite of all Susan's efforts to have the word sex added to the 15th Amendment, she soon faced the bitter disappointment of seeing a version ignoring women submitted to the states for ratification. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The blatant omission of the word sex forced Susan and Mrs. Stanton to initiate an amendment of their own, a 16th Amendment. And again, Congressman Julian came to their aid, although he too regarded Negro suffrage as more immediately important and absorbing than suffrage for women. On March 15th, 1869, at one of the first sessions of the newly elected Congress, he introduced an amendment to the Constitution, providing that the right of suffrage be based on citizenship without any distinction or discrimination because of sex. This was the first federal women's suffrage amendment ever proposed in Congress. Opportunity to campaign for this amendment was now offered Susan and Elizabeth Stanton as they addressed a series of conventions in Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri. Press notices were good. A Milwaukee paper describing Susan as an earnest, enthusiastic, fiery woman, ready, apt, witty, and what a politician would call sharp radical in the strongest sense, making radical everything she touches. She found women's suffrage sentiment growing by leaps and bounds in the West and Western men ready to support a federal women's suffrage amendment. With a lighter heart than she had had in many a day and with new subscriptions to the Revolution, Susan returned to New York. She moved the Revolution office to the first floor of the Women's Bureau, a large four-story Brownstone House at 49 East 23rd Street near Fifth Avenue, which had been purchased by a wealthy New Yorker, Mrs. Elizabeth Phelps, who looked forward to establishing a center where women's organizations could meet and where any woman interested in the advancement of her sex would find encouragement and inspiration. Susan's hopes were high for the Women's Bureau. And in this most respectable, fashionable, and even elegant setting, she expected her Revolution, in spite of its inflammable name, to live down its turbulent past and win new friends and subscribers. She made one last effort to resuscitate the American Equal Rights Association, writing personal letters to old friends, urging that past differences be forgotten, and that all rededicate themselves to establishing universal suffrage by means of the 16th Amendment. She was optimistic as she prepared for a convention in New York, particularly as one obstacle to unity had been removed. George Francis Train had voluntarily severed all connections with the Revolution to devote himself to freeing Ireland. She soon found, however, that the misunderstandings between her and her old anti-slavery friends were far deeper than George Francis Train, although he would for a long time be blamed for them. The 15th Amendment was still a bone of contention, and the Revolution's continued editorials against it widened the breach. The fireworks were set off in the convention of the American Equal Rights Association by Stephen S. Foster, who objected to the nomination of Susan and Mrs. Stanton as officers of the Association because they had, in his opinion, repudiated its principles. When asked to explain further, he replied that not only had they published a paper advocating educated suffrage, while the Association stood for universal suffrage, but that they had shown themselves unfit by collaboration with George Francis Train, who ridiculed Negroes and opposed their enfranchisement. Trying to pour oil on the troubled waters, Mary Livermore, the popular new delegate from Chicago, asked whether it was quite fair to bring up George Francis Train when he had retired from the Revolution. To this, Stephen Foster sternly replied, if the Revolution, which has so often endorsed George Francis Train, will repudiate him because of his course in respect to the Negroes' rights, I have nothing further to say. But they do not repudiate him. He goes out, but they do not cast him out. Of course we do not, Susan instantly protested. Mr. Foster then objected to the way Susan had spent the funds of the Association, accusing her of failing to keep adequate accounts. This she emphatically denied, explaining that she had presented a full accounting to the trust fund committee, that it had been audited and she had been voted one thousand dollars to repay her for the amount she had personally advanced for the work. Unwilling to accept her explanation and calling it unreliable, he continued his complaints until interrupted by Henry Blackwell, who corroborated Susan's statement, adding that she had refused the one thousand dollars due her because of the dissatisfaction expressed over her management. Declaring himself completely satisfied with the settlement and confident of the purity of Susan's motives, even if some of her expenditures were unwise, Henry Blackwell continued, I will agree that many unwise things have been written in the revolution by a gentleman who furnished part of the means by which the paper has been carried on. But that gentleman has withdrawn, and you, who know the real opinions of Miss Anthony and Miss Estanton on the question of Negro suffrage, do not believe that they mean to create antagonism between the Negro and woman question. To Susan's great relief, Henry Blackwell's explanation satisfied the delegates, who gave her and Mrs. Stanton a vote of confidence, not so easily healed, however, where the wounds left by the accusations of mismanagement and dishonesty. The atmosphere was still tense, for differences of opinion on policy remained. Most of the old reliable workers stood unequivocally for the 15th Amendment, which they regarded as the crowning achievement of the anti-slavery movement, and they heartily disapproved of forcing the issue of woman's suffrage on Congress and the people at this time. Although they had been deeply moved by the suffering of Negro woman under slavery, and had used this as a telling argument for emancipation, they now gave no thought to Negro woman, who, even more than Negro men, needed the vote to safeguard their rights. Believing with the Republicans that one reform at a time was all they could expect, they did not want to hear one word about woman suffrage or a 16th Amendment until male Negroes were safely enfranchised by the 15th Amendment. Offering a resolution endorsing the 15th Amendment, Frederick Douglass quoted Julia Ward-Howe as saying, I am willing that the Negro shall get the ballot before me. And he added, I cannot see how anyone can pretend that there is the same urgency in giving the ballot to woman as to the Negro. Quick as a flash, Susan was on her feet, challenging his statements. And as the dauntless champion of woman debated the question with the dark-skinned, fiery Negro, the friendship and warm affection built up between them over the years, occasionally shown through the sharp words they spoke to each other. The old anti-slavery school says that woman must stand back, declared Susan, that they must wait until male Negroes are voters. But we say, if you will not give the whole loaf of justice to an entire people, give it to the most intelligent first. Here she was greeted with applause and continued, if intelligence, justice, and morality are to be placed in the government, then let the question of women be brought up first and that of the Negro last. Mr. Douglas talks about the wrongs of the Negro, how he has hunted down. But with all the wrongs and outrages that he today suffers, he would not exchange his sex and take the place of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. I want to know, shouted Frederick Douglas, if granting you the right of suffrage will change the nature of our sexes. It will change the pecuniary position of women, Susan retorted before the shouts of laughter had died down. She will not be compelled to take hold of only such employments as man chooses for her. Lucy Stone, who so often in her youth had pleaded with Susan and Frederick Douglas for both the Negro and women, now entered the argument. She had matured, but her voice had lost none of its conviction or its power to sway an audience. Disagreeing with Douglas's assertion that Negro suffrage was more urgent than women's suffrage, she pointed out that white women of the North were robbed of their children by the law just as Negro women had been by slavery. This was bomb to Susan's soul. But with Lucy's next words, she lost all hope that her old friend would cast her lot wholeheartedly with women at this time. Woman has an ocean of wrongs too deep for any plummet, Lucy continued, and the Negro, too, has an ocean of wrongs that cannot be fathomed. But I thank God for the 15th Amendment and hope that it will be adopted in every state. I will be thankful in my soul if anybody can get out of the terrible pit. I believe, she admitted, that the national safety of the government would be more promoted by the admission of women as an element of restoration and harmony than the other. I believe that the influence of women will save the country before every other influence. I see the signs of the times pointing to this consummation. I believe that in some parts of the country, women will vote for the president of these United States in 1872. Susan grew impatient as Lucy shifted from one side to the other, straddling the issue. Her own clear cut approach, earning for her the reputation of always hitting the nail on the head, made Lucy's seem like temporizing. The men now took control, criticizing the amount of time given to the discussion of women's rights and voted endorsement of the 15th Amendment. Nevertheless, a small group of determined women continued their fight, Susan declaring with spirit that she protested against the 15th Amendment because it was not equal rights and would put two million more men in the position of tyrants over two million women who until now had been the equals of the Negro men at their side. It was now clear to Susan and to the few women who worked closely with her that they needed a strong organization of their own and that it was folly to waste more time on the equal rights association. Western delegates disappointed in the convention's lack of interest in women's suffrage expressed themselves freely. They had been sorely tried by the many speeches on extraneous subjects which cluttered the meetings the heritage of a free speech policy handed down by anti-slavery societies. That equal rights association is an awful humbug, exploded Mary Livermore to Susan. I would not have come on to the anniversary nor would any of us if we had known what it was. We suppose we were coming to a women's suffrage convention. At a reception for all the delegates held at the women's bureau at the close of the convention this dissatisfaction culminated in a spontaneous demand for a new organization which would concentrate on women's suffrage as a result. Alert to the possibilities Susan directed this demand into concrete action by turning the reception temporarily into a business meeting. The result was the formation of the National Women's Suffrage Association by women from nineteen states with Mrs. Stanton as president and Susan as a member of the Executive Committee. The younger women of the west trusting the judgment of Susan and Mrs. Stanton looked to them for leadership as did a few of the old workers in the east. Ernestine Rose always in the vanguard Paulina Wright Davis Elizabeth Smith Miller Lucretia Mott who although holding no office in the new organization gave it her support. Martha C. Wright and Matilda Jocelyn Gage who never wavered in her allegiance. Lucy Stone who would have found it hard even to step into the Revolution Office did not attend the reception at the women's bureau or take part in the formation of the new women's suffrage organization. Aided and abetted by her new National Women's Suffrage Association Susan continued her opposition to the 15th Amendment until it was ratified in 1870. So incensed was the Boston Group by the Revolution's opposition to the 15th Amendment so displeased was Lucy Stone by the formation of the National Women's Suffrage Association without consultation with her, one of the oldest workers in the field that they began to talk about the National Women's Suffrage Organization of their own. They charged Susan with lust for power and autocratic control. Mrs. Stanton they found equally objectionable because of her radical views on sex, marriage, and divorce expressed in the Revolution in connection with the Hester Vaughan case. They sincerely felt that the course of women's suffrage would run more smoothly arouse less antagonism and make more progress without these two militants who were forever stirring things up and introducing extraneous subjects. During these trying days of accusations, animosity and rival factions Mrs. Stanton's unwavering support was a great comfort to Susan as was the joy of having a paper to carry her message. In addition to all the responsibilities connected with publishing her weekly paper, advertising, subscriptions, editorial policy, and raising the money to pay the bills, Susan was also holding successful conventions in Saratoga and Newport where men and women of wealth and influence gathered for the summer. She was traveling out to St. Louis, Chicago, and other western cities to speak on women's suffrage making trips to Washington to confer with congressmen getting petitions for the 16th amendment circulated and through all this building up the National Women's Suffrage Association. The Revolution Office became the rallying point for a forward-looking group of women, many of whom contributed to the hard-hitting liberal sheet. Elizabeth Tilton, the lovely dark-haired young wife of the popular lecturer and editor of The Independent, selected the poetry. Alice and Phoebe Carey gladly offered poems and a novel, and when Susan was away Phoebe Carey often helped Mrs. Stanton get out the paper. Elizabeth Smith Miller gave money, encouragement, and invaluable aid with her translations of interesting letters which the revolution received from France and Germany. Laura Curtis Bullard, the heir to the Dr. Winslow Soothing Syrup fortune who traveled widely in Europe sent letters from abroad and took a lively interest in the paper. Another new recruit was Lily Devereux-Blake who was gaining a reputation as a writer and who soon proved to be a brilliant orator and an invaluable worker in the New York City Suffrage Group. Dr. Clemens S. Lozier unfallingly gave her support and her calm assurance strengthened Susan. The wealthy Paulina Wright Davis of Providence, Rhode Island who followed Parker Pillsbury as editor when he felt obliged to resign for financial reasons gave the paper generous financial backing. It was Mrs. Davis who brought into the fold the half-sister of Henry Ward Beecher, Isabella Beecher Hooker a queenly woman one of the elect of Hartford, Connecticut hoping to break down Mrs. Hooker hoping to break down Mrs. Hooker's prejudice against Susan and Mrs. Stanton which had been built up by New England suffragists Mrs. Davis invited the three women to spend a few days with her. After this visit Mrs. Hooker wrote to a friend in Boston I have studied Miss Anthony day and night for nearly a week she is a woman of incorruptible integrity and the thought of guile has no place in her heart in unselfishness and benevolence she is scarcely unequal and her energy and executive ability are bounded only by her physical power which is something immense sometimes she fails in judgment according to the standards of others but in right intentions nor in faithfulness to her friends after attending a two-days convention in Newport engineered by her in her own fashion I am obliged to accept a most favorable interpretation of her which prevails generally rather than that of Boston Mrs. Stanton too was a magnificent woman I hand in my allegiance to both as leaders and as representatives of the great movement from then on Mrs. Hooker did her best to reconcile the Boston and New York factions hoping to avert the formation of a second national woman suffrage organization End of Chapter 13 Chapter 14 of Susan B. Anthony by Alma Lutz according is in the public domain Chapter 14 a House Divided I think we need two national associations for women suffrage so that those who do not oppose the 15th amendment nor take the tone of the revolution may yet have an organization with which they can work in harmony so wrote Lucy Stone to many of her friends during the summer of 1869 and some of these letters fell into Susan's hands the radical abolitionists and the Republicans could never have worked together but in separate organizations both did good service Lucy further explained there are just as distinctly two parties to the women movement each organization will attract those who naturally belong to it and there will be harmonious work when the ground had been prepared by these letters Lucy asked old friends and new to sign a call to a woman suffrage convention to be held in Cleveland, Ohio in November 1869 to unite those who cannot use the methods which Mrs. Stanton and Susan use those feeling as she did eagerly signed the call while others who knew little about the controversy in the East added their names because they were glad to take part in a convention sponsored by such prominent men and women as Julia Ward Howe George William Curtis Henry Ward Beecher Thomas Wentworth Higginson and William Lloyd Garrison still others who did not understand the insurmountable differences in temperament and policy between the two groups hoped that a new truly national organization would unite the two factions even Mary Livermore who had been active in the formation of the National Women's Suffrage Association was by this time responding to overtures from the Boston group writing William Lloyd Garrison I have been repelled by some of the idiosyncrasies of our New York friends as have others their opposition to the 15th amendment the buffoonery of George F. Train the loose utterances of the revolution on the marriage and dress questions and what is equally potent hindrance to the cause the fearful squandering of money at the New York headquarters all this has tended to keep me on my own feet apart from those to whom I was at first attracted I am glad at the prospect of an association that will be truly national and which promises so much of success and character neither Susan nor Mrs. Stanton received a notice of the Cleveland Convention but Susan scanning a copy of the call sent her by a solicitous friend was deeply disturbed when she saw the signatures of Lydia Mott, Amelia Bloomer Myra Bradwell Garrett Smith and other good friends the New York world at once suspecting a feud asked where are those well known American names Susan B. Anthony Parker Pillsbury and Elizabeth Katie Stanton it is clear that there is a division in the ranks of the strong minded and that an effort is being made to ostracize the revolution which has so long upheld the cause of suffrage through evil report and good the Rochester Democrat loyal to Susan put this question can it be possible that a national woman's suffrage convention is called without Susan's knowledge or consent a national woman's suffrage association without speeches from Susan B. Anthony and Mrs. Stanton will be a new order of things the idea seems absurd to Susan it also seemed both absurd and unrealistic for she remembered how almost single handed she had held together and built up the woman's suffrage movement during the years when her colleagues had been busy with family duties she was appalled at the prospect of a division in the ranks at this time when she believed victory possible through the action of a strong united front confident that many who signed the call were ignorant of or blind to the animus behind it she did her best to bring the facts before them she put the blame for the rift upon Lucy Stone believing that without Lucy's continual stirring up past differences in policy would soon have been forgotten the antagonism between the two burned fiercely at this time Susan was determined to fight to the last ditch for control of the movement convinced that her policies and Mrs. Stanton's were forward looking, unafraid always put woman first Susan now also had to face the humiliating possibility that she might be forced to give up the revolution not only was the operating deficit piling up alarmingly but there were persistent rumors of a competitor another woman's suffrage paper to be edited by Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe Susan had assumed full financial responsibility for the revolution because Mrs. Stanton and Parker Pillsbury both with families to consider felt unable to share this burden Mrs. Stanton had always contributed her services and Parker Pillsbury had been sadly underpaid while Susan had drawn out for her salary only the most meager sums for bare living expenses with a maximum of 3,000 subscribers the paper could not hope to pay its way even though she had secured a remarkably loyal group of advertisers reluctantly she raised the subscription price from $2 to $3 a year her friends and family were generous with gifts and loans but these only met the pressing needs of the moment and in no way solved the overall financial problem of the paper appealing once again to her wealthy and generous Quaker cousin Anson Laefam she wrote him in desperation my paper must not shall not go down I'm sure you believe in me in my honesty of purpose and also in the grand work which the revolution seeks to do and therefore you will not allow me in vain to come to the rescue yesterday's mail brought 43 subscribers from Illinois and 20 from California we only need time to win financial success I know you will save me from giving the world a chance to say there is a woman's rights failure even the best of women can't manage business if only I could die I fail honorably I would say amen but to live and fail it would be too terrible to bear he came to her aid as he always had in the past Susan's sister Mary not only lent her all her savings but spent her summer vacation in New York in 1869 working in the revolution office while Susan busy with women's suffrage in Newport Saratoga Chicago and Ohio was building up goodwill and subscriptions for her paper concerned for her welfare Mary repeatedly but unsuccessfully urged her to give up Daniel added his entreaties to Mary's begging Susan not to go further into debt but to form a stock company if she were determined to continue her paper she considered his advice very seriously for he was a practical businessman and yet appreciated what she was trying to do for a time the formation of a stock company seemed possible for the project appealed to three women of means Paulina Wright Davis Isabella Beecher Hooker and Laura Curtis Bullard with the financial problem of the revolution still unsolved Susan decided to make her appearance at Lucy Stone's convention in Cleveland, Ohio on November 24th 1869 not only did she want to see with her own eyes and hear with her own ears all that went on but she was determined to walk the second mile of the borders or even to turn the other cheek if need be for the sake of her beloved cause seeing her in the audience Judge Bradwell of Chicago moved that she be invited to sit on the platform but Thomas Wentworth Higginson who was presiding replied that he thought this unnecessary as a special invitation had already been extended offering to identify themselves with the movement Judge Bradwell would not be put off his motion was carried and as Susan walked up to the platform to join the other notables she was greeted with hearty applause sitting there among her critics she wondered what she could possibly say to persuade them to forget their differences for the sake of the cause after listening to Lucy Stone plead for renewed work for women's suffrage and for petitions for a 16th amendment she spontaneously rose to her feet and asked permission to speak I hope she began that the work of this association if it be organized will be to go in strong array up to the capitol at Washington to demand a 16th amendment to the Constitution the question of the admission of women to the ballot would not then be left to the mass of voters and every state but would be submitted by Congress to the several legislatures of the states for ratification and be decided by the most intelligent portion of the people if the question is left to the vote of the rank and file it will be put off for years so help me heaven she continued with emotion I care not what may come out of this convention so that this great cause shall go forward to its consummation and though this convention by its action shall nullify the national association of which I am a member and though which shall tread its heal upon the revolution to carry on I have struggled as never mortal women or mortal man struggled for any cause still if you will do the work in Washington so that this amendment will be proposed and will go with me to the several legislatures and compel them to adopt it I will thank God for this convention as long as I have the breath of life loud and continuous applause greeted these earnest words however instead of pledging themselves to work for a 16th amendment the newly formed American women's suffrage association blind to the exceptional opportunity at this time for congressional action on women's suffrage decided to concentrate on work in the states where suffrage bills were pending instead of electing an outstanding woman as president they chose Henry Ward Beecher boasting that this was proof of their genuine belief in equal rights Lucy Stone headed the executive committee divisions soon began developing among the suffragists in the field many whose one thought previously had been the cause now spent time weighing the differences between the two organizations and between personalities and antagonisms increased hardest of all for Susan to bear was the definite announcement of a rival paper the women's journal to be issued in Boston in January 1870 under the editorship of Lucy Stone Mary A. Livermore and Julia Ward Howe with Henry Blackwell as business manager Mary Livermore who previously had planned to merge her paper the agitator with the revolution now merged it with the women's journal financed by wealthy stockholders all influential Republicans the journal Susan knew would be spared the financial struggles of the revolution but would be obliged to conform to Republican policy in its support of women's rights had not the women's journal been such an obvious affront to the heroic efforts of the revolution and a threat to its very existence she could have rejoiced with Lucy over one more paper carrying the message of women's suffrage more determined than ever to continue the revolution Susan redoubled her efforts announcing an imposing list of contributors for 1870 including British feminist Lydia Becker and as a special attraction a serial by Alice Carey through the efforts of Mrs. Hooker Harriet Beecher Stowe was persuaded to consider serving as contributing editor provided the paper's name was changed to the true republic or to some other name satisfactory to her having struggled against the odds for so long Susan had no intention of being stifled now by Mrs. Stowe's more conservative views nor would she give her crusading sheet an innocuous name however the decision was taken out of her hands by the revolution's coverage of the sensational McFarland Richardson murder case which so shocked both Mrs. Hooker and Mrs. Stowe that they gave up all thought of being associated in a publishing venture with Susan or Mrs. Stanton the whole country was stirred in December 1869 by the fatal shooting in the tribune office of the well-known journalist Albert D. Richardson by Daniel McFarland to whose divorced wife Richardson had been attentive when just before his death Richardson was married to the divorced Mrs. McFarland by Henry Ward Beecher with Horace Greeley as a witness the press was a gog so strong was the feeling against the divorced woman that Henry Ward Beecher was severely condemned for officiating at the marriage and Mrs. Richardson was played up in the press and in court as the villain although her divorce had been granted because of the brutality and instability of McFarland pregnant at the sophistry of the press and the general acceptance of a double standard of morals the revolution not only spoke out fearlessly in defense of Mrs. Richardson but in an editorial by Mrs. Stanton frankly analyzed the tragic human relations so obvious in the case with Susan's full approval Mrs. Stanton wrote I rejoice she escapes from a discordant marriage with the education and elevation of women we shall have a mighty sundering of the unholy ties that hold men and women together who loathe and despise each other when the court acquitted McFarland giving him the custody of his twelve year old son Susan called a protest meeting which attracted an audience of two thousand such words and such activities disturbed many who sympathized with Mrs. Richardson but saw no reason for flaunting exultant approval of divorce in a women's suffrage paper and they turned to the women's journal as more to their taste Susan however reading the first number of the women's journal found its editorials lacking fire she rebelled at Julia Ward to house counsel to lay down all partisan warfare and organize a peaceful grand army of the Republic of Women not as against men but as against all that is pernicious to men and women Susan's fight had never been against men but against man made laws that held women in bondage there had always been men willing to help her experience had taught her the struggle for women's rights was no peaceful academic debate but real warfare which demanded political strategy self-sacrifice and unremitting labor she was prouder than ever of her revolution and its liberal hard-hitting policy convinced that the national women's suffrage association must publicize its existence and its value in the year 1870 with a convention in Washington which even Senator Sumner praised as exceeding in interest anything he had ever witnessed there its striking demonstration of the vitality and intelligence of the national association was the best answer she could possibly have given to the accusations and criticism aimed at her and her organization Jesse Benton Fremont watching the delegates enter the dining room of the Arlington Hotel called Susan over to her table and said with a twinkle in her eyes now tell me, Miss Anthony have you hunted the country over and picked out and brought to Washington a score of the most beautiful woman you could find they were a fine looking an intelligent lot Paulina Wright Davis Isabella Beecher Hooker Josephine Griffin of the Freedmen's Bureau Charlotte Wilbur Matilda Jocelyn Gage Martha C. Wright and Olympia Brown Phoebe Cousins and Virginia Minor from Missouri Madame N. A. K. from Wisconsin and best of all to Susan Elizabeth Cady Stanton their presence, their friendship and allegiance were a source of pride and joy Elizabeth Stanton had come from St. Louis interrupting her successful lecture tour when she much preferred to stay away from all conventions she had written Susan of course I stand by you to the end I would not see you crushed by rivals even if to prevent it required my being cut into inch bits no power in heaven, hell or earth can separate us for our hearts are eternally wedded together also at this convention to show his support of Susan and her program was her faithful friend of many years the Reverend Samuel J. May of Syracuse Clara Barton, ill and unable to attend sent a letter to be read an appeal to her soldier friends for women's suffrage not only did the large enthusiastic audiences show a growing interest in votes for women but two great victories for women in 1869 one in Great Britain and the other in the United States brought to the convention a feeling of confidence women taxpayers had been granted the right to vote in municipal elections in England, Scotland and Wales through the efforts of Jacob Bright in the territory of Wyoming during the first session of its legislature women had been granted the right to vote to hold office and serve on juries and married women had been given the right to their separate property and their earnings this progressive action by men of the west turned Susan's thoughts hopefully to the western territories and early in 1870 when the territory of Utah and franchised its women she had further cause for rejoicing to celebrate these victories for which her 20 years work for women had blazed the trail some of her friends held a reception for her in New York at the women's bureau on her 50th birthday she was amazed at the friendly attention her birthday received in the press Susan's half century read a headline in the herald the world called her the Moses of her sex a brave old maid commented the sun but it was to the tribune that she turned with special interest always hoping for a word of approval from Horace Greeley and finding at last this faint ray of praise careful readers of the tribune have probably succeeded in discovering that we have not always been able to applaud the course of Susan B. Anthony indeed we have often felt sometimes said that her methods were as unwise as we thought her aims undesirable but through these years of disputation and struggling Miss Anthony has thoroughly impressed friends and enemies alike with the sincerity and earnestness of her purpose to Anna E. Dickinson far away lecturing Susan confided oh Anna I am so glad of it all because it will teach the young girls that to be true to principle to live an idea though an unpopular one that to live single without any man's name may be honorable a few of Susan's younger colleagues still insisted that a merger of the national and American women's suffrage associations might be possible again Theodore Tilton undertook the task of mediation and Lucretia Mott who had retired from active participation in the women's rights movement tried to help work out a reconciliation Susan was skeptical but gave them her blessing representatives of the American Association however again made it plain that they were unwilling to work with Susan and Miss Estanton by this time the revolution had become an overwhelming financial burden for some months Miss Estanton had been urging Susan to give it up and turn to the lecture field as she had done to spread the message of women's rights Susan hesitated unwilling to give up the revolution and was confident that she could hold the attention of an audience for a whole evening however she found herself a great success when pushed into several Lyceum lecture engagements in Pennsylvania by Miss Estanton's sudden illness Miss Anthony evidently lectures not for the purpose of receiving applause commented the Pittsburgh commercial but for the purpose of making people understand and be convinced she takes her place on the stage in a plain and unassuming manner and speaks extemporaneously and fluently too reminding one of an old campaign speaker who is accustomed to talk simply for the purpose of converting his audience to his political theories she used plain English and plenty of it she clearly events to quality that many politicians lack sincerity for each of these lectures on work wages and the ballot she received a fee of $75 and was able as well to get new subscribers for the revolution she now saw the possibilities for herself and the cause in a Lyceum tour and when the Lyceum bureau pleased with her reception in Pennsylvania wanted to book her for lectures in the west she accepted calling Parker Pillsbury back to the revolution to take charge all through Illinois she drew large audiences and her fees increased to $95 $125 and $150 in two months she was able to pay $1,300 of the revolution's debt when she returned to New York she realized that she could not continue to carry the revolution alone in spite of increased subscriptions it's $10,000 debt weighed heavily upon her Parker Pillsbury's help could only be temporary Mrs. Stanton's strenuous lecture tour left her little time to give to the paper and Susan's own friends and family were unable to finance it further fortunately the idea of editing a paper appealed strongly to the wealthy Laura Curtis Bullard who had the promise of editorial help from Theodore Tilton Susan now turned the paper over to them completely receiving nothing in return but shares of stock while she assumed the entire indebtedness giving up the control of her beloved paper was one of the most humiliating experiences and one of the deepest sorrows she ever faced the revolution had become to her the symbol of her crusade for women overwhelmed by a sense of failure she confided to her diary on the date of the transfer it was like signing my own death warrant and to a friend she wrote I feel a great calm sadness like that of a mother binding out a dear child that she could not support she made a valiant announcement of the transfer in the revolution of May 26th, 1870 expressing her delight that the paper had at last found financial backing and a new enthusiastic editor in view of the active demand for conventions, lectures and discussions on women's suffrage she added she concluded that so far as my own personal efforts are concerned I can be more useful on the platform than in a newspaper so on the first of June next I shall cease to be the sole proprietor of the revolution and shall be free to attend public meetings wherever so plain and matter of fact an old worker as I am can secure a hearing financial backing however I cannot put the revolution on its feet although its forthright editorials and articles were replaced by spicy and brilliant observations on pleasant topics which offended no one before the year was up Mrs. Bullard was making overtures to Susan to take the paper back Susan wanted desperately to keep the old ship revolution's colors flying and to bring back Mrs. Stanton's stinging editorials she also feared that Mrs. Bullard on Theodore Tilton's advice might turn the paper over to the Boston group to be consolidated with the women's journal as no funds were available she had to turn her back on her beloved paper and hope for the best I suppose there is a wise providence in my being stripped of power to go forward she wrote at this time at any rate I mean to try and make good come out of it for one more year the revolution struggled on under the editorship of Mrs. Bullard and Theodore Tilton and then was taken over by the Christian Enquirer the ten thousand dollar debt incurred under Susan's management she regarded as her responsibility although her brother Daniel and many of her friends urged bankruptcy proceedings my pride for women to say nothing of my conscience she insisted says no end of chapter 14