SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2721, 9 May 1906, Page 73

SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

BY SIAOBELAXDA.

IN THE PUBLIC EYE.

(For the Witness.) - It was not until 1852, when Miss Anthony was a little over 30, that she definitely advanced into public life, and it was a year or so later before she found freedom to devote herself primarily to the suffrage movement that h?is made her name known in all quarters of the globe. At this date the Daughters of the Temperance Union of Rochester sent her as a delegate to a meeting of the Sons of Temperance at Albany. She went, her brain seething with words that needed saying, and expected fo be received en equal term*. She found that she and her women companions were to be treated as honoured guests, but denied any part in the proceedings. Led by her, the women pcesent left the hall, engaged one of their own, and interested the editor of a leading newspaper in their attitude. Through him they gained the public ear.

-uiss Anthony was active in getting up a petition to give women votes on the temp&rance question or else to truly represent them and their views. In answer to her call no less than 28,0C0 women ?ssembled to discuss methods. A veritable outburst of ridicule followed ; rome papers dubbed the gathering "The Battle of the S^x," others callc-d "it "'The Tomfoolery Convention." For a steady six years Miss Anthony and her co-woikers laboured before they could force Congress to recognise the unfairness of paying a working woman's wage to her husband, of permitting him to apprentice children against his wife's wish, and to dispo-e of them by will without her consent. Miss Anthony trudged from house to house getting names for the mammoth petition by which she hoped to remedy these evils. Very frequently the doors were slammed in her face, and she was told by irate women — seeing only their own position and unable to realise the lot of their Unhappy sisters — that "they had all the tights they wanted."

When success crowned Msss Anthoay's efforts she rejoiced with all the enthusiasm thaf might be expected from a woman .of her character. Each step, however small, encouraged her to fresh effort. She was never content to sit with folded hands, and steadily refused to form any tie that might interfere with her crusade. No rebuff ever made her less sure of ultimate succees. Her grief and indignation may be imagined when, after se\en years of continuous effort, women had won by law the guardianship of their children and the control of their property, the New York Legislature in an unwatched moment quickly passed an amendment nullifying the act, and taking away the fruits of a hard-wor. victory.

Every question concerning woman attracted .Miss Anthony's sympathy and enlisted her aici. Even dress "reform had its turn, though after a year's tiial she denounced it as "mental crucifixion," and »returned to a costume a la mode, this being the only reform in which she failed completely.

Education was one of the first topics to attract her attention, and her interest in it survived to the last. A few yeais ago the University of Rochester consented to open its doors to women if 60,000d0l could be raised. On the morning of the day the time limit expired the committee found itself 8000dol short. In despair they appealed to Miss Anthony, who had already done much. She set out immediately, and by 4 o'clock was able to harai to the trustees the fall amount, less 2500d01, for which she made herself responsible. The American Anti-slavery Society occupied her energies until the war between North and South was a thin? of the past, and the negro was established as a free and equaf citizen. When she was appointed agent of the society she rejoiced, for the reason that it freed her from th» necessity of making each day pay us own expenses. She never hesitated to undertake a work, however great, on the score of want of funds, but declared she, like Elijah, was fed b- th-o ravens. Once she set out to campaign through the Statof New York without guarantee of a single dollar. When she was at her wits' end money invariably came from some unexpected source, or she would obtain a lecturing engagement and turn over the receipts to the sorely-strained treasury. It is somewhat amusing to find such a character as Miss Anthony saying in a letter to a friend : "I am glad to learn that the money forwarded to the Antislavery Bazaar was lost by a man and not by a woman." At home Miss Anthony had the support and encouragement of her parents and brothers and sisters, who universally believed in her, and did their uttermost to forward the various causes with which the was identified. Daniel Anthony was one of the first to acknowledge that woman's suffrage was the only real cure for the e\ils his daughter was combating. His house was a meetingground for the most advanced and liberal thinkers of the time, and often Susan Anthony, when there, would be torn between two desires — how to retain her reputation as her mother's own daughter and one of the best cooks and housekeepers in the district, and yet lose no word of the conversation.

When on© of her dreams was realised and the cause of woman's suffrage had a newspaper to aid it the motto chosen was, "Men, th«ir rights and nothing more ; women, their rights and nothing lees." It was a terribly bitter moment to her when the paper had to be given up, but she shouldered the lO.OOOdoI debt under which the Revolutionist was stifled, and devoted every penny of her earnings for #ix years to the liquidation. Miss Anthony was ore of the prime

movers in the endeavour to have the word "male" omitteJ from ths Fourteenth Amendment in order that the enfranchisement of American women might be accomplished at a blow, for she was quick to perceive the want of fairness ..n giving the newly -freed negro the right denied

to the educated white woman. The stock phrase "Women dc not want to vote "' never silenced her. She used to reply that if this were indeed the case it was merely an evidence of the depth to which sho had been degraded by the deprivation. Her tongue never failed her in any encounter of wits, and when the famous Horace Greeley reminded her that "the ballot and bullet go together," and askfd if woman had the vote whether they would be ready to fight, she aneweied instantly, "Certainly. -Mr Greeley. just as you fought in the late war — at the point of the goose quill."

By Misa Anthony's effort, aided, cf course, by the e\er-gi'owing band of adherents, An amendment to the Constitution was offered in Conurtss : "That the basis of suffrage in the United States shall be that of citizenship, and all native or naturalis-ed citizens shall enjoy the same rights and privileges of elective franchise." A similar amendment, bat more definite in wording. '*ai introdaod at the same time intr> the House of Representatives : "Tiie right of suffr-tge m th<> States shall be bnsed on citizenship, ar.d shall be regulated by Congress, and ail citizens of the United States, whether native or naturalised, shall ■erjoy that ri#ht equally without difference or discrimination founded on sex." Both these amendments, however, were brusheJ aside and !o&t.

Never willing to admit she was beaten, Miss Anthony next endeavoured to have the word "sex"' included in the Fifteenth Amendment. When even this did not succeed she embarked on the most dramatic section of her extraordinary career, and announced that as the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments stood 't was woman's privilege to vote. Sl*e, with 15 other equally courageous women, accordingly filed their claims. Ti.e inspectors accepted the names, and the news that the votes of women were to be fiol'ed in New York new from end to end of the Union and across the Pacific and Atlantic alike. Cartoons headed "Go it, Susan !"' were scattered broadcast throughout the land. and the buiist of indignation and .Ridicule from tlie majority ahrost overpowered the applause of the minority.

Lawyer after lawyer was approached, and in vain asked to °rive his opinion on the legal aspect of the case. At length a judse offered himself as the women's champion, espoused their cause, and ranged himself bt-side Miss Anthony. Backed by his opinion and her promises tc the inspectors to take upon herself the pecuniary burden of their defence if neeefsary. Miss Anthony and her little band of followers were permitted to c?-st theii ballot at Rochester in 1872. They were immediately apprehended for voting without legal right, the penalty for which act was imprisonment or fine. The 15 other women went free on bail, but M^s Anthonr, in steady adherence to principle, refused, applying instead for a writ of habeas corpus. The judge who had advised her, however, lodged the bail unknown to her. On leaving the court fihe was met by her lawyer, who explained that bail being given it was now impossible to carry the cas? to the Supreme Court on a writ of habeas corpus. H-°r dismay can be imagined. "I knew it,"' said the judge ; '"but I could not let a lady go to prison."

The case dragged on for a year, and Miss Authonv was finally sentenced to pay £100. This she sturdily refused to do, vowing it was an unjust p^nalt}-. The trial was certainly the widest in scope in the judicial history of the United States. If the cause had been won American women would have been enfranchised at a blow, and the suffrage laws completely revolutionised.

Despite her effort* on the platform, not even her bitterest enemy could have called Miss Anthony unwomanly. She was a never-failing recourse to her friends and relations in the time of troub'e or sickness, and was so completely forgetful of self as to be unconscious of self-sacrifice. She loved all youns yrople and little children, though she did once say on visiting a baby show that she considered it "a sad exhibition."

Her teaching was that woman must learn to depend on herself, so that, if occasion camp, she need not rely on man's protection. She spoke well, logically and clearly, though, in rare instances, bitingly. Her addresses were hardly delivered twice in the same words. The written lectures were almost always the joint work of Miss Anthony and her friend, Mrs Elizabeth Cady Staunton — the woman who, as Miss Anthony wrote in a moment of recognition of her reliability, never said ''I can," as so many did, and then changed at the crucial moment to "I can't." When an important piece of writing had to be done Miss Anthony, equipped with a trunk of material, would travel to the home of her friend. The two would talk far into the night. Next morning Miss Anthony would set about the necessary housewifely tasks — the getting of the breakfast, t!ie despatching of the children to school, and the amusing of the babies — while, in a quiet corner, Mrs Staunton would be at work with her pen, roused only when her fiiend made sudden entrances to expound new thoughts and to suggest fref>h points for eir<phasi«.

In 1906 came death. Susan Anthony wa« 86, but there had been no evening in her life A week or two before she had made a public appearance at the N.it : onal Woman's. Suffrage Convention at Baltimore. A day or so previously she had boen eagerly discussing the possibilities for the forthcoming suffrage campaign in Oregon, where she had personally been la«-t .summer to examine into the situation.

Her will gave all to further thp cau«e for which she had lived Verily she "had fought the good fight.'*