* * * * *
It was now clear to Susan and to the few women who worked closely with her that they needed a strong organization of their own and that it was folly to waste more time on the Equal Rights Association. Western delegates, disappointed in the convention's lack of interest in woman suffrage, expressed themselves freely. They had been sorely tried by the many speeches on extraneous subjects which cluttered the meetings, the heritage of a free-speech policy handed down by antislavery societies.
"That Equal Rights Association is an awful humbug," exploded Mary Livermore to Susan. "I would not have come on to the anniversary, nor would any of us, if we had known what it was. We supposed we were coming to a woman suffrage convention."[238]
At a reception for all the delegates held at the Women's Bureau at the close of the convention, this dissatisfaction culminated in a spontaneous demand for a new organization which would concentrate on woman suffrage and the Sixteenth Amendment. Alert to the possibilities, Susan directed this demand into concrete action by turning the reception temporarily into a business meeting. The result was the formation of the National Woman Suffrage Association by women from nineteen states, with Mrs. Stanton as president and Susan as a member of the executive committee. The younger women of the West, trusting the judgment of Susan and Mrs. Stanton, looked to them for leadership, as did a few of the old workers in the East--Ernestine Rose, always in the vanguard, Paulina Wright Davis, Elizabeth Smith Miller, Lucretia Mott, who although holding no office in the new organization gave it her support, Martha C. Wright, and Matilda Joslyn Gage who never wavered in her allegiance. Lucy Stone, who would have found it hard even to step into the _Revolution_ office, did not attend the reception at the Women's Bureau or take part in the formation of the new woman suffrage organization.
[Illustration: Paulina Wright Davis]
Aided and abetted by her new National Woman Suffrage Association, Susan continued her opposition in _The Revolution_ to the Fifteenth Amendment until it was ratified in 1870.
So incensed was the Boston group by _The Revolution's_ opposition to the Fifteenth Amendment, so displeased was Lucy Stone by the formation of the National Woman Suffrage Association without consultation with her, one of the oldest workers in the field, that they began to talk of forming a national woman suffrage organization of their own. They charged Susan with lust for power and autocratic control. Mrs. Stanton they found equally objectionable because of her radical views on sex, marriage, and divorce, expressed in _The Revolution_ in connection with the Hester Vaughn case. They sincerely felt that the course of woman suffrage would run more smoothly, arouse less antagonism, and make more progress without these two militants who were forever stirring things up and introducing extraneous subjects.
* * * * *
During these trying days of accusations, animosity, and rival factions, Mrs. Stanton's unwavering support was a great comfort to Susan as was the joy of having a paper to carry her message.
In addition to all the responsibilities connected with publishing her weekly paper, advertising, subscriptions, editorial policy, and raising the money to pay the bills, Susan was also holding successful conventions in Saratoga and Newport where men and women of wealth and influence gathered for the summer; she was traveling out to St. Louis, Chicago, and other western cities to speak on woman suffrage, making trips to Washington to confer with Congressmen, getting petitions for the Sixteenth Amendment circulated, and through all this, building up the National Woman Suffrage Association.
The _Revolution_ office became the rallying point for a forward-looking group of women, many of whom contributed to the hard-hitting liberal sheet. Elizabeth Tilton, the lovely dark-haired young wife of the popular lecturer and editor of the _Independent_, selected the poetry. Alice and Phoebe Cary gladly offered poems and a novel; and when Susan was away, Phoebe Cary often helped Mrs. Stanton get out the paper. Elizabeth Smith Miller gave money, encouragement, and invaluable aid with her translations of interesting letters which _The Revolution_ received from France and Germany. Laura Curtis Bullard, the heir to the Dr. Winslow-Soothing-Syrup fortune, who traveled widely in Europe, sent letters from abroad and took a lively interest in the paper. Another new recruit was Lillie Devereux Blake, who was gaining a reputation as a writer and who soon proved to be a brilliant orator and an invaluable worker in the New York City suffrage group. Dr. Clemence S. Lozier, unfailingly gave her support, and her calm assurance strengthened Susan. The wealthy Paulina Wright Davis of Providence, Rhode Island, who followed Parker Pillsbury as editor, when he felt obliged to resign for financial reasons, gave the paper generous financial backing.
[Illustration: Isabella Beecher Hooker]
It was Mrs. Davis who brought into the fold the half sister of Henry Ward Beecher, Isabella Beecher Hooker, a queenly woman, one of the elect of Hartford, Connecticut. Hoping to break down Mrs. Hooker's prejudice against Susan and Mrs. Stanton, which had been built up by New England suffragists, Mrs. Davis invited the three women to spend a few days with her. After this visit, Mrs. Hooker wrote to a friend in Boston, "I have studied Miss Anthony day and night for nearly a week.... She is a woman of incorruptible integrity and the thought of guile has no place in her heart. In unselfishness and benevolence she has scarcely an equal, and her energy and executive ability are bounded only by her physical power, which is something immense. Sometimes she fails in judgment, according to the standards of others, but in right intentions never, nor in faithfulness to her friends.... After attending a two days' convention in Newport, engineered by her in her own fashion, I am obliged to accept the most favorable interpretation of her which prevails generally, rather than that of Boston. Mrs. Stanton too is a magnificent woman.... I hand in my allegiance to both as leaders and representatives of the great movement."[239]
From then on, Mrs. Hooker did her best to reconcile the Boston and New York factions, hoping to avert the formation of a second national woman suffrage organization.
FOOTNOTES:
[232] _The Revolution_, II, Dec. 24, 1868, p. 385.
[233] George W. Julian, _Political Recollections_, 1840-1872 (Chicago, 1884), pp. 324-325.
[234] _The Revolution_, III, March 11, 1869, p. 148.
[235] The very proper Sorosis would not meet at the Women's Bureau while it housed the radical _Revolution_, and as women showed so little interest in her project, Mrs. Phelps gave it up after a year's trial.
[236] _The Revolution_, III, May 20, 1869, pp. 305-307.
[237] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, p. 392.
[238] Harper, _Anthony_, I, pp. 327-328.
[239] _Ibid._, p. 332.
A HOUSE DIVIDED
"I think we need two national associations for woman suffrage so that those who do not oppose the Fifteenth Amendment, nor take the tone of _The Revolution_ may yet have an organization with which they can work in harmony."[240] So wrote Lucy Stone to many of her friends during the summer of 1869, and some of these letters fell into Susan's hands.
"The radical abolitionists and the Republicans could never have worked together but in separate organizations both did good service," Lucy further explained. "There are just as distinctly two parties to the woman movement.... Each organization will attract those who naturally belong to it--and there will be harmonious work."
When the ground had been prepared by these letters, Lucy asked old friends and new to sign a call to a woman suffrage convention, to be held in Cleveland, Ohio, in November 1869, "to unite those who cannot use the methods which Mrs. Stanton and Susan use...."[241]
Those feeling as she did eagerly signed the call, while others who knew little about the controversy in the East added their names because they were glad to take part in a convention sponsored by such prominent men and women as Julia Ward Howe, George William Curtis, Henry Ward Beecher, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and William Lloyd Garrison. Still others who did not understand the insurmountable differences in temperament and policy between the two groups hoped that a new truly national organization would unite the two factions. Even Mary Livermore, who had been active in the formation of the National Woman Suffrage Association, was by this time responding to overtures from the Boston group, writing William Lloyd Garrison, "I have been repelled by some of the idiosyncrasies of our New York friends, as have others. Their opposition to the Fifteenth Amendment, the buffoonery of George F. Train, the loose utterances of the _Revolution_ on the marriage and dress questions--and what is equally potent hindrance to the cause, the fearful squandering of money at the New York headquarters--all this has tended to keep me on my own feet, apart from those to whom I was at first attracted.... I am glad at the prospect of an association that will be truly national and which promises so much of success and character."[242]