Susan B. Anthony: Rebel, Crusader, HumanitarianLutz, Alma
History
Susan B. Anthony: Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian
Lutz, Alma
Anthony, Susan B. (Susan Brownell), 1820-1906
"Do you mean so satisfy me," Susan replied, "that I would work, and
recommend to all women to work ... for the success of the third party
ticket?... Not until a third party gets into power ... which promises
a larger per cent of representatives, on the floor of Congress, and in
the several State legislatures, who will speak and vote for women's
enfranchisement, than does the Republican, shall I work for it. You
see, as yet there is not a single Prohibitionist in Congress while
there are at least twenty Republicans on the floor of the United
States Senate, besides fully one-half of the members of the House of
Representatives who are in favor of woman suffrage.... I do not
propose to work for the defeat of the party which thus far has
furnished nearly every vote in that direction."[360]
Nor was she lured away when, in 1888, the Prohibition party endorsed
woman suffrage and granted Frances Willard the honor of addressing its
convention and serving on the resolutions committee.
* * * * *
The temperance issue also cropped up in the annual Washington
conventions of the National Woman Suffrage Association, preparations
for which Susan now left to Rachel Foster, May Wright Sewall, a
capable young recruit from Indiana, and Jane Spofford. However, she
still supervised these conventions, prodding and interfering, in what
she called her most Andrew Jackson-like manner. She always returned to
Washington with excitement and pleasure, and with the hope of some
outstanding victory, and the suite at the Riggs House, given her by
generous Jane Spofford, was a delight after months of hard travel in
the West. "I shall come both ragged and dirty," she wrote Mrs.
Spofford in 1887. "Though the apparel will be tattered and torn, the
mind, the essence of me, is sound to the core. Please tell the little
milliner to have a bonnet picked out for me, and get a dressmaker who
will patch me together so that I shall be presentable."[361]
Open to all women irrespective of race or creed, the National Woman
Suffrage Association attracted fearless independent devoted members.
They welcomed Mormon women into the fold, and when the bill to
disfranchise Mormon women as a punishment for polygamy was before
Congress in 1887, they did their utmost to help Mormon women retain
the vote, but were defeated.
They welcomed as well many temperance advocates. A few delegates,
however, among them Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Gage, and Mrs. Colby, scorned
what they called the "singing and praying" temperance group and
protested that temperance and religion were getting too strong a hold
on the organization. Abigail Duniway from Oregon contended that
suffragists should not join forces with temperance groups and blamed
the defeat of woman suffrage in Oregon, Idaho, and Washington, in
1887, on men's fear that women would vote for prohibition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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