By this time their abolitionist friends in the East were writing them indignant letters blaming the defeat of the Negro amendment on George Francis Train and warning them not to link woman suffrage with an unbalanced charlatan. Even their devoted friends in Kansas, including Governor Robinson, advised them against further association with Train.
They did not make their decision lightly, nor was it easy to go against the judgment of respected friends, but of this they were confident--that with or without Train, they would estrange most of their old friends if they campaigned for woman suffrage now. Without him, their work, limited by lack of funds, would be ineffectual. With his financial backing, they not only had the opportunity of spreading their message in all the principal cities on their way back to New York, but had the promise of a paper, now so desperately needed when other news channels were closed to them. That Train was eccentric they agreed, and they also admitted that possibly some of his financial theories were unsound. They believed he was ahead of his time when he advocated the eight-hour day and the abolition of standing armies; but at least he looked forward, not backward. Susan had found him to be a man of high principles. She had heard him "make speeches on woman's suffrage that could be equalled only by John B. Gough,"[204] the well-known temperance crusader. Train's radical ideas did not disturb her. Her association with antislavery extremists prior to the Civil War had made her impervious to the criticism and accusations of conservatives. She was aware that on this proposed lecture tour Train probably wanted to make use of her executive ability and of Mrs. Stanton's popularity as a speaker; but on the other hand, his generosity to them was beyond anything they had ever experienced.
For Susan there was only one choice--to work for woman suffrage with the financial backing of Train. Mrs. Stanton agreed, and as she expressed it, "I have always found that when we see eye to eye, we are sure to be right, and when we pull together we are strong.... I take my beloved Susan's judgment against the world."[205]
* * * * *
Traveling homeward with George Francis Train, Susan and Mrs. Stanton spoke in Chicago, St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, Boston, Hartford, and other important cities where they drew large crowds, which had never before listened to a discussion of woman suffrage. Most of their old friends among the suffragists and abolitionists shunned them, for they had been warned against this folly by their colleagues in the East. The lively meetings rated plenty of publicity, complimentary in the Democratic papers but sarcastic and hostile in the Republican press. Usually "Woman Suffrage" got the headlines, but sometimes it was "Woman Suffrage and Greenbacks" or "Train for President." Handbills, the printing of which Susan supervised, scattered Train's rhymes and epigrams far and wide and carried a notice that the proceeds of all meetings would be turned over to the woman's rights cause. Susan also arranged for the printing of Train's widely distributed pamphlet, _The Great Epigram Campaign of Kansas_, with this jingle, so uncomplimentary to the eastern abolitionists, on its cover:
The Garrisons, Phillipses, Greeleys, and Beechers, False prophets, false guides, false teachers and preachers, Left Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, Brown, and Stone, To fight the Kansas battle alone; While your Rosses, Pomeroys, and your Clarkes Stood on the fence, or basely fled, While woman was saved by a Copperhead.
Even more unforgivable than this to the abolitionist suffragists were the back-page advertisements of a new woman-suffrage paper, _The Revolution_, and of woman's rights tracts which could be purchased from Susan B. Anthony, Secretary of the American Equal Rights Association. That Susan would presume to line up this organization in any way with George Francis Train aroused the indignation of Lucy Stone, who felt the cause was being trailed in the dust. While Susan and Mrs. Stanton traveled homeward, enjoying the comfort of the best hotels and the applause of enthusiastic audiences, a coalition against them was being formed in the East.
"All the old friends with scarce an exception are sure we are wrong," Susan wrote in her diary, January 1, 1868. "Only time can tell, but I believe we are right and hence bound to succeed."[206]
FOOTNOTES:
[185] Ms., Petition, Jan. 9, 1867, Alma Lutz Collection
[186] Ms., note, 1893, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of Congress.
[187] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 278; _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, p. 284.
[188] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 279.
[189] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, p. 287. Petitions with 20,000 signatures were presented.
[190] _Ibid._, p. 285.
[191] Aug. 25, 1867, Alma Lutz Collection.
[192] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, p. 287.
[193] _Ibid._, pp. 234-235, 239.
[194] _Ibid._, p. 252.
[195] A famous family of singers who enlivened woman's rights, antislavery, and temperance meetings with their songs.
[196] July 9, 1867, Anthony Papers, Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, Kansas.
[197] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 284.
[198] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, p. 242.
[199] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 287. George Francis Train on his own initiative spoke for woman suffrage before the New York Constitutional Convention.
[200] George Francis Train, _The Great Epigram Campaign of Kansas_ (Leavenworth, Kansas, 1867), p. 68.
[201] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, pp. 248-249.
[202] Train, _The Great Epigram Campaign of Kansas_, p. 40.
[203] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 290.
[204] Inscription by Susan B. Anthony on copy of Train's _The Great Epigram Campaign of Kansas_, Library of Congress.
[205] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 293.
[206] _Ibid._, p. 295.
THE ONE WORD OF THE HOUR
"If we women fail to speak the _one word_ of the hour," Susan wrote Anna E. Dickinson, "who shall do it? No man is able, for no man sees or feels as we do. To whom God gives the word, to him or her he says, 'Go preach it.'"[207]
This is just what Susan aimed to do in her new paper, _The Revolution_. It's name, she believed, expressed exactly the stirring up of thought necessary to establish justice for all--for women, Negroes, workingmen and-women, and all who were oppressed. Her two editors, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury, reliable friends as well as vivid forceful writers, were completely in sympathy with her own liberal ideas and could be counted on to crusade fearlessly for every righteous cause. What did it matter if George Francis Train wanted space in the paper to publish his views and for a financial column, edited by David M. Melliss of the New York _World_? Brought up on the antislavery platform where free speech was the watchword and where all, even long-winded cranks, were allowed to express their opinions, Susan willingly opened the pages of _The Revolution_ to Train and to Melliss in return for financial backing.
When on January 8, 1868, the first issue of her paper came off the press, her heart swelled with pride and satisfaction as she turned over its pages, read its good editorials, and under the frank of Democratic Congressman James Brooks of New York, sent out ten thousand copies to all parts of the country.
_The Revolution_ promised to discuss not only subjects which were of particular concern to her and to Elizabeth Stanton, such as "educated suffrage, irrespective of sex or color," equal pay for women for equal work, and practical education for girls as well as boys, but also the eight-hour day, labor problems, and a new financial policy for America. This new financial policy, the dream of George Francis Train, advocated the purchase of American goods only; the encouragement of immigration to rebuild the South and to settle the country from ocean to ocean; the establishment of the French financing systems, the Crédit Foncier and Crédit Mobilier, to develop our mines and railroads; the issuing of greenbacks; and penny ocean postage "to strengthen the brotherhood of Labor."
All in all it was not a program with wide appeal. Dazzled by the opportunities for making money in this new undeveloped country, people were in no mood to analyze the social order, or to consider the needs of women or labor or the living standards of the masses. Unfamiliar with the New York Stock Exchange, they found little to interest them in the paper's financial department, while speculators and promoters, such as Jay Gould and Jim Fiske, wanted no advice from the lone eagle, George Francis Train, and resented Melliss's columns of Wall Street gossip which often portrayed them in an unfavorable light. Nor did a public-affairs paper edited and published by women carry much weight. None of this, however, mattered much to Susan, who did not aim for a popular paper but "to make public sentiment." It was her hope that just as the _Liberator_ under William Lloyd Garrison had been "the pillar of light and of fire to the slave's emancipation," so _The Revolution_ would become "the guiding star to the enfranchisement of women."[208]