The Olivia Letters: Being Some History of Washington City for Forty Years as Told by the Letters of a Newspaper CorrespondentBriggs, Emily Edson
History
The Olivia Letters: Being Some History of Washington City for Forty Years as Told by the Letters of a Newspaper Correspondent
Briggs, Emily Edson
United States -- Politics and government -- 1865-1933; Washington (D.C.) -- History
Susan B. Anthony was in her place, for what would a woman suffrage
convention be worth without Susan to give it flavor? And then she is
so patient and irrepressible, and has such a wholesome antipathy to
men.
Miss Lillie Peckham represented the youth and audacity of Wisconsin,
and Miss Kate Stanton the beauty and fire of her illustrious
name. The people who had assembled to listen, proved, by personal
inspection, to have grown higher in the social scale than those
attending last year. Women were present who unmistakably were the
heads of families--comely matrons who had left the pot boiling
at home. Butterflies spread their wings there in the same way as
they would attend any other place of amusement, but the wives and
daughters of Congressmen for some reason stayed away.
After the prayer, Mrs. Hooker introduced Mrs. Victoria C. Woodhull,
who commenced to say that she was not in the habit of speaking in
public meetings--a fact which her manner instantly proved. Although
it would seem that a Wall-street experience would fit a woman to face
the worst, yet Mrs. Woodhull’s heart went pit-a-pat, and the blood
rose and fell from her cheek as fortunes go up and down on ‘change.
Mrs. Woodhull read anew her petition to the Judiciary Committee, and
this being her solitary ewe lamb, after its presentation there was
nothing left to do, and she quietly took a back seat.
Mrs. Devereaux Blake, of New York, was then introduced--a
medium-sized woman, rather pretty than otherwise, and very carefully
done up in handsome, fashionable clothes. Mrs. Blake, however, had
nothing new to offer on the question under discussion. She rehashed
the subject of women carrying arms, and proved by the old argument
this was not a necessity; and then she told us of women’s sacrifices,
and how, in extremest dilemma, they had sacrificed their hair. She
said a woman’s life was love, and for this reason it was a great
wrong to deprive her of that she loved best.
After other weighty arguments of this kind this speaker melted away
to give place to Miss Lillie Peckham, of Wisconsin. This young woman
did not attempt the difficult task of striking out a new path, but
contentedly ambled along over the old highway; but, nevertheless, she
had a very interesting, parrot-like way of expressing herself, and
very wonderful, because so difficult to imitate.
As the hour of adjournment drew near, Susan B. Anthony came forward
and talked “business.” Oh, the inimitable, the delectable Susan; the
woman with a peculiar relish which one has to learn to love; the
woman of whom a very small piece goes a great way; the musk among
drugs; the acid in the Chemist’s laboratory! Susan has finished and
the meeting ends.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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