have to make a big speech today. When I want to be very effective and make people cry, I drink a cup of tea before speaking; when I want to be very clever and make them laugh, I drink coffee; but when I want them to cry half the time and laugh the other half, I take a cup of each."
In a letter to Miss Anthony after she returned home Mrs. Hooker said: "I am astonished at the praise I receive for my part in the convention, and humbled too, for I realize how worthy of all these pleasant and commendatory words you and others have been all these years, and what have you received—or rather what have you not received? Thank God, that is all over now and you are to have blue sky and clear sailing. It must be through suffering we enter the gates of peace." But the peace was a long way off and the hardest struggle was yet to come! A little later Mrs. Hooker wrote to a friend:
I can't tell you how my heart swells—but there is present within me one undercurrent of feeling that will come to the surface ever and anon, viz., the wonderful dignity, strength and purity of the early workers in this reform. I can't wait for history to do them justice; I want to make history today, and so far as in me lies I will do it. I have come in at the death and get a large share of the glory, and lo, here are these, a great company, who have been in the field for thirty years, and a whole generation has passed them by unrecognized. Every one here says, "Our noble friend Susan has carried the day right over the heads of all of us." Said one of our editors, Charles Dudley Warner, a man of finest taste and culture, when he had been praising the dignity and power of the whole platform: "Susan Anthony is my favorite. She was the only woman there who never once thought of herself. You could see in her every motion and in her very silence that the cause was all she cared for, self was utterly forgotten."
He had indeed struck the key note to Miss Anthony's strongest characteristic, utter forgetfulness of self, total self-abnegation, self-sacrifice without a consciousness that it was such. Mrs. Hooker's statement that she "had come in at the death" shows the strong faith of most of these early workers that it would be only a brief time until the rights they claimed would be recognized and granted; but she herself has labored faithfully yet another thirty years without breaking down the Chinese Wall of opposition.
One object of Mrs. Hooker in calling this Hartford convention was to see if she could not bring together what were now becoming known as "the New York and Boston wings of the suffrage party," but she comments: "We have decided to give up our attempts at reconciliation; we have neither time nor strength to spare, and if we had, they would probably fail."
In December Miss Anthony went to the Dansville Sanitarium for a few days and after her return, Dr. Kate Jackson, so widely known and loved, wrote her: "Since your visit here, through which I obtained somewhat of an insight into your struggles and labors, I have been in special sympathy with you. I do admire the liberal and comprehensive spirit which you and Mrs. Stanton show in allowing both sides of a question to be fairly discussed in your paper, and in giving any woman who does good work for her race in any field the credit for it, even though she may not exactly agree with you on all points. The spirit of exclusiveness is not calculated to push any reform among the masses.... Our house and hearts are always open to you. I want to send you something more than good wishes and so enclose a little New Year's gift to you, with my love and earnest prayers for your success."
The lovely Quaker, Sarah Pugh, wrote from Philadelphia:
Dear Susan: Not "Dear Madam," or "Respected Friend," according to our stately fashion, for my heart yearns too warmly toward thee and thy work for such formality. Would it were in my power to help thee more in thy onward way, for it must be onward even though opponents fill it with stumbling-blocks. Lucretia Mott is firm in her adherence to New York—not but that she can work, if the way offers, in all organizations which labor for the same end. My opinion of The Revolution may be expressed in what was said of another paper: "It fights no sham battles with enemies already defeated. It is true, good men and women not a few stumble at it, object to it and in some cases antagonize it, but nobody despises it. An affectation of contempt is not contempt."
Scores of similar letters were received from the early workers in the cause. It is unnecessary to enter further into a discussion of this division in the ranks of the advocates of woman suffrage. The conscientious historian must perform some unpleasant duties, hence it could not be passed without notice. The mass of correspondence on this question has been carefully sifted and that which would give pain to others, even though it would magnify the subject of this work, has been rigorously excluded. Most of the writers and those whom they criticised have ended their labors and passed from the scene of action. No good can be accomplished, either to the individuals or to the reform, by inflicting these personalities upon future generations. Among earnest, forceful, aggressive leaders of any great movement, there must arise controversies because of these strong characteristics, but the chief interest of mankind lies not in the individuals but in the results which they were able to accomplish. A comparison of the position of woman today with that which she occupied at the beginning of the agitation in her behalf, fifty years ago, offers more eloquent testimony to the efforts of those heroic pioneers than could be put into words by the most gifted pen.
1. It is claimed, on good authority, that Anna Dickinson was the first to suggest that such an amendment would be required, as early as 1866, in a consultation with Theodore Tilton and Frederick Douglass at the National Loyalists' Convention in Philadelphia, as the only sure method of protecting the freedmen. See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II.
2. In reference to this unwarranted attack, the noted writer, William Winter, said in the New York Tribune:
"Noble, virtuous, honorable women are a country's greatest wealth, and when, from petty envy or jealousy, any one attempts with private innuendoes or public assaults to blacken a fair name which has long stood before the nation representing a principle, it is an injury not only to the individual but to the moral sense of the nation, and all true people are interested in maintaining its integrity and power. Susan B. Anthony has stood before this nation twenty years, earnestly devoted to every good work. As a teacher in the schools of New York for fifteen years, she bears from superintendents the highest testimonials to her faithfulness and ability. Her noble labors in the temperance cause are known throughout the State, and in association with the true men and women who fought the anti-slavery battle, she was equally faithful and earnest, finishing her work by getting up a petition for the black man's freedom of 400,000 names—the largest ever presented in Congress. For woman's enfranchisement her labors have been unremitting and unwearied for the last eighteen years. She is a frank, generous, self-sacrificing woman, of a kind, tender nature, firm principle, great executive ability, and in every relation of life true as the needle to the pole. Her motto has ever been, 'Let the weal and the woe of humanity be everything to me; their praise and their blame of no effect.'"
3. Maine 3, Vermont 1, New Hampshire 1, Massachusetts 5, Rhode Island 2, Connecticut 1, New Jersey 7, Pennsylvania 3, Illinois 3, Ohio 3, Wisconsin 1, Minnesota 1, Missouri 3, Kansas 2, Nebraska 1, California 5, District of Columbia 3, Washington Territory 1-46. The remainder of the one hundred members who joined the association that evening resided in different parts of the State of New York.
4. President, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Vice-presidents, Elizabeth B. Phelps, N.Y.; Anna Dickinson, Penn.; Kate N. Doggett, Ill.; Madame Anneke, Wis.; Lucy Elmes, Conn.; Mattie Griffith Brown, Mass.; Mrs. Nicholas Smith, Kan.; Lucy A. Snow, Maine; Elizabeth B. Schenck, Cal.; Josephine S. Griffing, D.C.; Paulina Wright Davis, R.I.; Mary Foote Henderson, Phoebe W. Cousins, Mo. Corresponding secretaries, Laura Curtis Bullard, Ida Greeley, Adelaide Hallock. Recording secretaries, Abby Burton Crosby, Sarah E. Fuller. Treasurer, Elizabeth Smith Miller. Executive committee, Ernestine L. Rose, Charlotte B. Wilbour, Mathilda F. Wendt, Mary F. Gilbert, Susan B. Anthony. Advisory counsel, Matilda Joslyn Gage, N.Y.;
