The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2): Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty YearsHarper, Ida Husted
History
The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2): Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years
Harper, Ida Husted
Anthony, Susan B. (Susan Brownell), 1820-1906
The resolutions were, in effect, that "each human being should be the
judge of his or her sphere and that human rights should be recognized."
There never were, there never will be, grander speeches than those
which were made on this occasion, and yet the entire convention was in
the hands of a mob. The women, as well as the men, were greeted with
cries of "shut up," "sit down," "get out," "bow-wow," "go it, Susan,"
and their voices drowned with hisses and cat-calls. The uproar was
indescribable, with shouting, yelling, screaming, bellowing, stamping
and every species of noise that could be made. Horace Greeley went down
among the crowd and tried to quiet them. The police were appealed to in
vain, and the meeting finally closed in the midst of tumult and
confusion. The Tribune under the management of Greeley, and the Evening
Post under that of William Cullen Bryant, condemned the rioters with
the greatest severity, but the other leading dailies of New York
sustained the mob spirit and made the ladies a target for ridicule and
condemnation.
After leaving New York, Miss Anthony went to the Fourth National
Woman's Rights Convention at Cleveland, O., which was one of the
largest and most enthusiastic that had been held. It was attended by
many noted people, among them Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, always a
consistent advocate of woman's rights, and the proceedings were marked
with perfect order and propriety. Miss Anthony was continued at the
head of the finance committee, as it was found that no one could raise
so much money. The three weeks following she traveled through the
southern counties in New York and spoke in a number of villages. A year
before she had gone over the same ground and organized woman's
temperance societies. She found that, with the exception of one at
Elmira, none of these was in existence. The explanation in every
instance was that they had no money to secure lecturers, or to do any
practical work and, as all the members were wives and housekeepers,
they were not in a position to earn any. Miss Anthony makes this entry
in her journal:
Thus as I passed from town to town was I made to feel the great
evil of woman's utter dependence on man for the necessary means to
aid reform movements. I never before took in so fully the grand
idea of pecuniary independence. Woman must have a purse of her own,
and how can this be so long as the law denies to the wife all right
to both the individual and the joint earnings? Reflections like
these convince me that there is no true freedom for woman without
the possession of equal property rights, and that these can be
obtained only through legislation. If this is so, then the sooner
the demand is made, the sooner it will be granted. It must be done
by petition, and this, too, of the very next legislature. How can
the work be started? We must hold a convention and adopt some plan
of united action.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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