The Women of the Suffrage Movement. Jane Addams

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The Women of the Suffrage Movement - Jane Addams

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could make a definite statement to Mrs. Stanton, and her only chance for this was to cross the Missouri river and wait for the belated train from Leavenworth. She found the ferryboats had stopped running for the night, but George Martin, chairman of the suffrage committee of Atchison, offered to take her across in a skiff. Undaunted, she seated herself therein and in the dense darkness was safely landed on the opposite shore. Here she boarded the cars and went to St. Joseph where she met Mr. Train, made the necessary arrangements and returned to Leavenworth by the first train.

      On election day the Hutchinsons, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, in open carriages, visited all the polling-places in Leavenworth, where the two ladies spoke and the Hutchinsons sang. Both amendments were overwhelmingly defeated, that for negro suffrage receiving 10,843 votes, and that for woman suffrage 9,070, out of a total of about 30,000. These 9,000 votes were the first ever cast in the United States for the enfranchisement of women. How many of them were Republican and how many Democratic, and how much influence Mr. Train may have had one way or another, never can be known; but it is a significant fact that Douglas county, the most radical Republican district, gave the largest vote against woman suffrage, and Leavenworth, the strongest Democratic county, gave the largest majority in its favor.

      The Commercial, the Democratic paper of this city, said:

      When we consider the many obstacles thrown in the way of the advocates of this measure, the indifference with which the masses look upon anything new in government and their indisposition to change, the degree of success of these advocates is not only remarkable, but one of which they have a just right to feel proud. To these two ladies, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, to their indomitable will and courage, to their eloquence and energy, is due much of the merit of the work performed in the State.... While in the recent election these ladies were not successful to the full extent of their wishes, they have the consciousness of knowing that their work has been commensurate with the combined efforts of party organization, congressmen, senators, press and ministers to enfranchise the negro, and that the people of Kansas are not more averse to giving the franchise to woman than to the black man.

      During the campaign the usual order was for Miss Anthony to speak the first half hour, making a clear, concise, strong argument for suffrage as the right of an American citizen, pleading for the negro as well as for the women, and urging men to vote for both amendments. She then was followed by Mr. Train, who insisted that it would be one of the grossest outrages to give suffrage to the black man and not to the white woman, and pleaded earnestly that the women of Kansas should be enfranchised. In this he was sincere, as he believed thoroughly that women ought to have the ballot. He was an inimitable mimic and was unsparing in his ridicule of those Republicans who had battled so valiantly for equal rights but now demanded that American women should stand back quietly and approvingly and see the negro fully invested with the powers denied to themselves. He had a remarkable memory, an unequalled quickness of repartee, a peculiar gift of improvising epigrams and, while erratic, was a brilliant and entertaining speaker. He was at this time about thirty-five, nearly six feet tall, a handsome brunette, with curling hair and flashing dark eyes, the picture of vigorous health. He was exquisitely neat in person and irreproachable in habits, and had a fine courtliness of bearing toward women which suggested the old-school gentleman. Miss Anthony often said that all the severe criticisms made upon him for years had not been able to impair the respect with which he inspired her during that most trying campaign. Mrs. Stanton, essentially an aristocrat and severe in her judgment of men and manners, spoke most highly of Mr. Train in her Reminiscences.

      As time was limited, Miss Anthony had to make arrangements for hall, etc., by telegraph, which cost Mr. Train $100. The series commenced in Omaha, November 19, and continued in Chicago, Springfield. St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, Springfield (Mass.), Worcester, Boston and Hartford, ending with a great meeting in Steinway Hall, New York, December 14. Mr. Train engaged the most elegant suites of rooms in the best hotels for the ladies, secured the finest halls, and this was remembered as the only luxurious suffrage tour they ever had made. There was a railway wreck between Louisville and Cincinnati, and he chartered a special train in order that they might keep their engagement at the latter place. This trip cost him $3,000.

      Where heretofore the Democratic papers had been abusive and some, at least, of the Republican papers complimentary, the tone was now completely reversed. Because they had affiliated with Mr. Train, the former had nothing but praise, and for the same reason the latter were unsparing in their denunciations, and were bitterly indignant at the women for accepting from Mr. Train and other Democrats the help which they themselves had positively refused. They insisted that the Democrats only used woman suffrage as a club to beat negro suffrage, which doubtless was true of many, but Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton claimed the right to accept proffered aid without looking behind it for the motive. The opposition, however, did not arise alone from the press and the politicians. From the leading advocates of suffrage came a vehement protest against any partnership with George Francis Train. The old associates wrote scores of letters expressing their personal allegiance, but refusing to attend the meetings and repudiating the connection of Mr. Train with the woman suffrage movement. Miss Anthony was made to realize to the fullest extent the feeling which had been aroused, but the last entry in the diary says: "The year goes out, and never did one depart that had been so filled with earnest and effective work; 9,000 votes for woman in Kansas, and a newspaper started! The Revolution is going to be work, work and more work. The old out and the new in!"

      "A few weeks after this he met Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony at one of Alice Cary's Sunday evening receptions. As he approached, both arose and with extended hands exclaimed most cordially, 'Good evening, Mr. Greeley.' But his hands hung limp by his side, as he said in measured tones: 'You two ladies are the most maneuvering politicians in the State of New York. I saw in the manner my wife's petition was presented, that Mr. Curtis was acting under instructions, and I saw the reporters prick up their ears.' Turning to Mrs. Stanton, he asked, 'You are so tenacious about your own name, why did you not inscribe my wife's maiden name, Mary Cheney Greeley, on her petition?' 'Because,' she replied, 'I wanted all the world to know that it was the wife of Horace Greeley who protested against her husband's report.' 'Well,' said he, 'I understand the animus of that whole proceeding, and I have given positive instructions that no word of praise shall ever again be awarded you in the Tribune, and that if your name is ever necessarily mentioned, it shall be as Mrs. Henry B. Stanton!' And so it has been to this day."

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