Caroline E. Merrick

“ This woman was capable of sympathy toward every human being; she possessed the rare “fellowship of humanity,” and while she called out the best and noblest aspirations in others, she was herself the gentlest and humblest and most ready to take reproof. She seemed incapable of envy and jealousy, and it used to be said at National Headquarters: “If you want a great kindness from Miss Willard it is only necessary to persecute her a little.” With all her discriminating insight into human nature, her social relations were simply her human relations; she had no time for “society”—only for humanity. ”

“ In good and beautiful lives I see so vividly a revelation of God—the Infinite Holiness and Beauty shining through the human soul and the raiment of clay—that I cannot believe it possible for death to extinguish their real life ‘hidden with Christ in God.’ I cannot believe that they can be ‘holden of the grave.’ I feel assured that theirs is a conscious life of progress and joy, and cannot mourn for them as dead, but only as far away. More and more am I convinced that this vivid feeling of the Divine Presence in beautiful human lives is peculiarly the Christian’s ground of hope in immortality. ”

“ It is more than shocking to think of the effects on the English-speaking people—ever inclined to sadness—of saddening them still more by pushing into the background those who have passed the first flush of youthful vigor. It is even worse to reflect upon the over-confidence, the over-consciousness and the irreverence of youth increased by a preference which does not point to intrinsic value. Whoever has lost his reverence is already degenerate; that soul which has lost hope and courage is dead to achievement, and is unproductive for himself and his country. ”

“ Standing as we do midway between two centuries, to-day the music of the past and of the future is ringing in our souls. A new world looms into view. Along its bright and shining way we see a humanity ennobled because well-born, of a free and willing mother and a self-controlled, justice-loving father, and because in all its systems and customs it is “Thinking God’s thoughts after Him.” ”

“ God help us! the business of life must go on even in the presence of death. My Clara lies on the lounge, wrapped in white cashmere, so still—so cold;—and this is the last day she can so lie before she is buried from my sight. The wind blows cool, as often in a New England August, but it drives pangs into my sore heart, and the day seems different from any other day of my life. Why does God leave us at such times set apart to suffer, as on some eminence? The people pity us. ”

“ She has the clairvoyance of high spirituality.
“No woman of America has ever done so remarkable a work as that being done by Frances Willard. There is no question of the fact that she was called of the Lord to consecrate herself to this work. She is so simple, so modest, so eager to put every one else in the best possible light, so utterly forgetful of self, that it requires some attention to realize her vast comprehensiveness of effort and achievement. If ever a woman were in touch with the heavenly forces it is she. Frances Willard is the most remarkable figure of her age.” ”

“ It should serve to emphasize the unwisdom and injustice of denying the ballot because of sex to one half of its American born citizens who, by education and patriotism, are qualified for the highest citizenship. Our government will never become truly democratic until it lives up to its own principles, “No taxation without representation, no government without the consent of the governed.” Suffrage should be the privilege of those only who have acquired a right to it by educating themselves for its responsibilities. ”

“ The enfranchisement of the old slave has set back the development of the South for a generation, because it has been compelled to gauge all its movements on the race line. It has hindered the North for an equal time because the political value of the colored brother to the Republican party has seemed to overshadow every other phase of his development. But schooling and training can remodel even the prejudices of intelligent minds and sincere natures. Thirty-five years of mistakes have convinced both North and South that the negro has been long enough sacrificed to political interests. ”

“ In justice to women holding suffrage views, I ask are they to be treated as a class apart because they believe intelligence and not sex should be the determining power in government? Is there any wrong in believing that power added to influence would be a factor in creating and enforcing laws for a higher moral standard? Where is the woman, who, holding the power, would not use it to enforce the laws for the protection of minors, and to give to character at least the same protection given to property? ”

“ The South has already forgiven his historical frankness in its pride in the artist who has preserved for the future the romance, and color, and beauty of a race that, like so much else lovable and poetic and inspiring in our early history, by the end of another century will be blended indistinguishably with the less picturesque but all-prevailing type that is determining an American people. ”

“ I ask representation for taxation—for my sisters and for the future race. We do not expect to do men’s work, we can never pass the limits which nature herself has set. But we ask for justice; we ask for the removal of unnatural restrictions that are contrary to the elemental spirit of the civil law; we do not ask for rights, but for permission to assume our natural responsibilities. ”

“ It is useless for me to try to realize human sympathy from the lonely height where I sit and weep over the untimely death of my two beautiful daughters. They were God-given, and my very own by ties of blood, but more by that happy responsiveness of soul which constitutes ‘born friends.’ After being as the woman whose children rise up and call her blessed, I am now like Rachel of old, refusing to be comforted because they are not. ”

“ The most original of our National staff-workers who came to my rescue was another full-blooded Southerner—Miss Frances E. Griffin of Alabama. She is gifted with an inimitable humor. An audience room is quickly filled when it is known that she is to be the speaker of an occasion. Though a woman of presence and dignity and a manner that befits the best, her appearance as soon as she speaks a word is a promise of fun, and her audience has begun to laugh before the time. Wit of tongue is rare with women, but Miss Griffin’s equals in quality or rank the best of our American humorists. ”

“ Some women dwarf men’s souls by their own littleness. I hope you will not fall a victim to any such.
You must keep up the family prestige; your talents and associations demand a foremost place, and you must refuse to commonize yourself with that low, ignorant, profane, dram-drinking set of young men around you. I do heartily despise them all, and have never received them in my house when I could help it. They would gladly drag you down to their own level if they could.
How these good New Englanders rejoice in the emancipation of the slaves! ”

“ Learn the laws of life and dwell in them; persevere in helping one’s self instead of being helped, and it will astonish the world how long one may live with “natural force unabated”—yes, and with beauty and power. It is unnatural to grow old and die; though everybody seems to do it, the bitter protest against it is a proof that it is against nature. There must be a better way out than by failure and decay. ”

“ Just after the Boston World’s and National Conventions of 1891, Lilian Whiting—that keen analyzer of motive and character—wrote: “Frances Willard is a born leader; but with this genius for direction and leadership, she unites another quality utterly diverse from leadership—that of the most impressionable, the most plastic, the most sympathetic and responsive person that can possibly be imagined. Her temperament is as delicately susceptible as that of an Aeolian harp; one can hardly think in her presence without feeling that she intuitively perceives the thought. ”

“ The saloon hazards the well-being of every citizen that is born to a State; it annuls the work of the church and the college; it disintegrates, degrades and destroys family life—the unit of the State; it impoverishes the home, pauperizes the child and debases manhood; it fills almshouses, jails and insane asylums; it lays the burden of the support of these institutions on the State; the taxes which all the people have paid for their mutual protection and development are unrighteously diverted to the sustenance of the victims of the saloon ”

“ When he arrived and saw her looking as usual, sitting by an open window, bright, and beautifully dressed, he sent an immediate message to New Orleans allaying anxiety. But it was soon evident that she had entered upon the beginning of the end. She drove out every day and did not suffer: and we found her serenely conscious of her own condition. She said: “It is all right, if I die. I have been as happy as opportunities, and kindness, and attentions, and love can make a human being. It is beautiful to die here in Wilbraham where every one is so kind.” ”

“ The nation can never know the power and beauty of the mother until it evolves a true protective tenderness for the child, and encompasses it with safest conditions for its development. It is a growing wonder that women have borne so long in silence the existence of establishments which the State fosters to the debasement of their sons. Only the habit of subjection—the legacy of the ages—could have produced this pathetic stoicism. If a horse knew his strength, no man could control him. ”

“ If one generation tolerates the breaking down of moral barriers in public thought, the next generation may witness in equal degree the destruction of personal morality. The stage is but the expression of an instinctive human passion to impersonate. Masquerading is the favorite game of every nursery. It has been well said that “a great human activity sustained through many decades always has some deep and vital impulse behind it; misuse and abuse of every kind cannot hide that fact and ought not to hide it.” An instinct cannot be destroyed, but it may be directed—and nature is never immoral. ”

“ The first kindly face I ever looked into was one of this race who called forth the sympathy of the world in their days of bondage. Among the people you once called masters you have still as warm, appreciative friends as any in the world. Some of us were nurtured at your breasts, and most of us when weaned took the first willing spoonful of food from your gentle, persuasive hands; and when our natural protectors cast us off for a fault, for reproof, for punishment, you always took us up and comforted us. ”

“ Joyous and lovely as youth is—and it always seems a pity to be old in the springtime when everything else is young—how many of us would be willing to be again in the bonds of crudities, the embarrassments, the unreasoning agonies, and to the false values youth ever sets upon life? Youth longs for and cries out after happiness ”

“ If women, the better half of humanity, were allowed a voice and influence in its councils, I believe it would be restored to its purity and ancient glory; and a nobler patriotism would be brought to life in the heart of this nation.
“It seems to me that there ought to be a time, to which we may look forward with satisfaction, when we shall cease to be minors, when the sympathy and assistance we are so capable of furnishing in the domestic relation, may in a smaller degree be available for the good and economical management of public affairs. ”

“ Elizabeth Lyle Saxon is a woman possessed of fine intellect and an uncommonly warm and generous nature. She was a pioneer in the Suffrage Cause in the South, and has ably represented its interests in National gatherings. She was sent as delegate from this State to the International Suffrage Association of the World’s Auxiliary Congress in 1893. All along the way she has given of her best with whole-hearted zeal to further the cause of women, and should claim the undying gratitude of those for whom she has helped to build the bridges of human equality. ”

“ It recognizes that the wellbeing of both man and woman consists in a whole humanity, and that there can be no whole humanity with anything less than perfect freedom for both halves of it. The right to freedom of thought and liberty of speech is established for a woman nearly as fully as for a man; but the past stretches out a ghastly finger, and looking back to precedent, delays full freedom of action; hereditary inertia, the chains of ancient prejudice and the strength of present customs are obstacles to be reckoned with in the rapidity of future development. ”

“ Let us give to youth all its due for its keen curiosity, its vivid expectation, its unreflecting daring, its joy of pure existence, its all-the-world-is-mine spirit, and let us give it opportunity and ever growing privilege; but, as we value reverence, as we honor knowledge, as we cherish a well-tried faith, as we trust a noble courage born of proof, let our [Pg 233] customs teach that “Youth ended—what survives is gold.” ”

“ Merrick’s love-letters, written in 1839, alluding to a remark of mine on the absurdity of a “young thing like me” being companionable for a man of thirty years, he says: “Is it not ‘ridiculously absurd’ for a young lady who talks seriously of moving an island in the lake of Windermere to suppose she is not old enough to marry anybody? I have been reared in the cold North where mind and person come to maturity slowly; you in the sunny South where the flower bursts at once into full luxuriance and beauty.” ”

“ And when we have cut each other’s throats, destroyed commerce, ruined cities, demoralized the people, outraged humanity, what have we gained? Nothing! nothing! Would to God that some Washington might arise and stay the deadly strife, save the country from shame and disgrace in the eyes of the world. ”

“ At one time the success of this great work was seriously threatened by an element of conservatism raising the cry, ‘It is simply suffrage movement!’ While it is hard to disassociate suffrage from any work which depends on a vote for success, and while the word, defined by Worcester, means ‘a vote, the act of voting,’ yet it seems a poor commentary on the intelligence, patriotism and even sagacity of that conservatism to raise the question when the life of a city was trembling in the balance, and that city their home. ”