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
There is something wrong here. If Miss Anthony were to carry around
with her a Newfoundland or a good bloodhound the spectacle would
have nothing incongruous in it. If she would make a pet of a
six-barrelled revolver and another of a large club that would be
appropriate. But a Skye terrier, a miserable, little, whining pup,
a coached, coddled and coaxed dog making repeated journeys in a
basket and fed on crackers and milk--what sort of a thing is this
for a person of reformative powers to be associated with? It is an
argument in favor of woman's rights that women are capable of all
the masculinity necessary to voting and the making of laws; but who
ever heard of a President, a senator, a member of the House of
Representatives, a legislator of any kind, going about with a sick
dog in his arms, soothing the little wretch into its proper sleep,
providing it with its regular nourishment and superintending its
morning awakenings and the accompanying ablutions?
Women can never come to the head of the government, can never
assist to a large extent in its management, until they reform these
weaknesses. It isn't necessary that they should chew tobacco and
swear, and perhaps they needn't smoke cigars and drive fast horses;
but their leaders must abandon the pet dog, the favorite kitten,
the especial hen and the abominable bird. They may still sew and
still wear the petticoat; but if they enter politics they must
submit to the hard raps that men expect, without putting their
hands to their eyes and sobbing that their feelings have been hurt.
There must be reform, and Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton must set
about it in earnest and at once.
A Skye terrier for Miss Anthony! Merciful heavens! after all these
years has it come to this? Catnip for Julius Caesar! Boneset tea and
black stockings with garters for Alexander the Great! A locket with
hair in it on the bosom of the first Napoleon! A Skye terrier! We
have fallen upon evil days.
Under this in her scrap-book Miss Anthony wrote, "Doesn't this cap the
climax?" Of course, there was not the slightest foundation for the
paragraph. Miss Anthony never owned a dog or any pet animal, not from
dislike but because she felt that humanity needed all her time and
affection.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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