Part 29

They talked for a while about the good such a paper would do, about the people who should edit and write for it, what name it should have. Then he said simply, "I will give you the money."

Because a woman suffrage paper had been her cherished dream for so many years, she did not dare regard this as more than a gallant gesture soon to be forgotten; but to her amazement that very evening she heard Train announce to his audience, "When Miss Anthony gets back to New York, she is going to start a woman suffrage paper. Its name is to be The Revolution: its motto, 'Men their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.' This paper is to be a weekly, price $2. per year; its editors, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury; its proprietor, Susan B. Anthony. Let everybody subscribe for it!"

* * * * *

Election day brought both Susan and Mrs. Stanton back to Leavenworth, to Daniel's home, to learn the verdict of the people of Kansas. As the returns came in, their hope of seeing Kansas become the first woman suffrage state quickly faded. Neither their amendment nor the Negroes' polled enough votes for adoption. Their woman suffrage amendment, however, received only 1,773 votes less than the Republican-sponsored Negro amendment, and to have accomplished this in a hard-fought bitter campaign against powerful opponents gave them confidence in themselves and in their judgment of men and events. No longer need they depend upon Wendell Phillips or other abolitionist leaders for guidance. From now on they would chart their own course. This led, they believed, to Washington, where they must gain support among members of Congress for a federal woman suffrage amendment. Few, if any, Republicans would help them, but already one Democrat had come forward. George Francis Train had offered to pay their expenses if they would join him on a lecture tour on their way East. To Susan, who had to raise every penny spent in her work, this seemed like an answer to prayer, as did his proposal to finance a woman suffrage paper for them.

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," 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."

* * * * *

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."

FOOTNOTES:

Ms., Petition, Jan. 9, 1867, Alma Lutz Collection

Ms., note, 1893, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of Congress.

Harper, Anthony, I, p. 278; History of Woman Suffrage, II, p. 284.

Harper, Anthony, I, p. 279.

History of Woman Suffrage, II, p. 287. Petitions with 20,000 signatures were presented.

Ibid., p. 285.

Aug. 25, 1867, Alma Lutz Collection.

History of Woman Suffrage, II, p. 287.

Ibid., pp. 234-235, 239.

Ibid., p. 252.

A famous family of singers who enlivened woman's rights, antislavery, and temperance meetings with their songs.

July 9, 1867, Anthony Papers, Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, Kansas.

Harper, Anthony, I, p. 284.

History of Woman Suffrage, II, p. 242.

Harper, Anthony, I, p. 287. George Francis Train on his own initiative spoke for woman suffrage before the New York Constitutional Convention.