The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 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 2 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
Now what have we? 1st.--The Lutherans, both German and
Scandinavian, and the Catholics are bitterly opposed. The
Methodists, our strongest friends everywhere else, are not so here.
2d.--We have one party openly and two others secretly against us.
3d.--While this county, for instance, gave $700 to prohibition, it
gives $2.50 to suffrage and claims that for hall rent, the amount
then not being sufficient. 4th.--When I suggested to the committee
to start a vigorous county campaign and get men of influence to go
out and speak, they did not know of one man willing to face the
political animosities it would engender.
With the exception of the work of a few women, nothing is being
done. We have opposed to us the most powerful elements in the
politics of the State. Continuing as we are, we can't poll 20,000
votes. We are converting women to "want to vote" by the hundreds,
but we are not having any appreciable effect upon the men. This is
because men have been accustomed to take new ideas only when
accompanied by party leadership with brass bands and huzzahs. We
have a total lack of all. Ours is a cold, lonesome little movement,
which will make our hearts ache about November 5. We must get
Dakota _men_ in the work. They are not talking woman suffrage on
the street. There is an absolute indifference concerning it. We
need some kind of a political mustard plaster to make things
lively. We are appealing to justice for success, when it is
selfishness that governs mankind....
The campaign was continued, however, with all the zeal and ability which
both State and national workers could command. There were between
fifteen and twenty thousand Scandinavians in the State and a woman was
sent to address them in their own language--one woman! A German woman
was sent among the men of that nationality. The last night before
election, mass meetings were held in all the large towns, Miss Anthony
and Miss Shaw being at Deadwood. In her excellent summing-up of the
campaign, Elizabeth M. Wardall, State superintendent of press, gives:
"Number of addresses by the national speakers, 789; by the State
speakers, 707; under the auspices of the W. C. T. U., 104; total, 1,600;
local and county clubs of women organized, 400. Literature sent to every
voter in the State."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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