Susan B. Anthony

“ Moreover, "Susan's" utter abnegation to her cause, her passion for it, sometimes carries her on to "ways and means" not altogether tenable—in fine, she will offend your taste and mine; but this is only the outside and a very small side of Susan Anthony. A man, and more than a man—a woman who can deny herself, ignore herself, for a principle, for what she believes to be the truth, whether we believe it or not, is at least entitled to our respect.
Susan B. Anthony has a strong, earnest and loving nature; her devotion to her sex is an utterly absorbing and absolute passion. ”

“ Others have done nobly and we count over their names with devout remembrance and gratitude, but Susan B. Anthony by reason of her heroic self-sacrifice, her lonely life, her changeless devotion, her disregard for money and position, her concentration of purpose and universal good will, has made for herself a place on the highest pedestal in America's pantheon of women. ”

“ She is no "sour old maid," our Miss Anthony, nor are the young men shy of her when she can find time to accept an invitation out; genial, cheery, warm-hearted, overflowing with stories and reminiscences, utterly fearless and regardless of mere public opinion, yet having a woman's delicate sensitiveness as to anything outre in dress or appearance.
Our Susan B. Anthony will work up into a charming bit of biography some day without a dull page within the covers, providing, of course, stupidity does not have the writing of it. ”

“ The national suffrage association honored itself yesterday by again electing to its presidency Susan B. Anthony. She has suffered long for a cause she believes to be right, and it is fitting that in these later years of her active life, when the cause has become popular, she should wear the honors her patient, persistent endeavor has won. Susan B. Anthony is one of the most remarkable products of this century. She is not a successful writer; she is not a great speaker, although a most effective one; but she has a better quality than genius. She is the soul of honesty ”

“ Rochester is proud of Susan B. Anthony—proud that it can call her its citizen. It has come to appreciate her quality. It understands, not alone that she has stood in the front ranks of those who have done battle for the equality of woman with man at the ballot-box, but that she has also done much for the emancipation of woman from civil thralldom and social inferiority, and that in all good causes she has been distinguished—in philanthropies as in politics, in the reformation of moral abuses as in the righting of what seemed to her civic wrongs. ”

“ It is in honor of one of the noblest women of her time. The day is past when Susan B. Anthony is met with ridicule. She is honored everywhere. Consistent earnestness will, at the last if not at the first, command respect. Slowly but surely, Miss Anthony has won that respect from her countrymen. The cause of the emancipation of women, for which she has labored so long and so zealously, is not yet triumphant, nor is it probable that she will live to see woman suffrage the rule of the land ”

“ I think I express the feeling of most if not all the workers in our cause when I say that the women of America owe more to Susan B. Anthony than to any other woman living. While Mrs. Stanton has been the standard bearer of liberty, announcing great principles, Miss Anthony has been the power which has carried those principles on toward victory and impressed them upon the hearts of the people. ”

“ If Miss Anthony's persevering efforts in behalf of her sex are not worthy of generous praise, then there is no just fame due to a brave career. If her methods have sometimes lacked soundness of judgment, they have never lacked nobility of purpose. There exists a peculiar, invaluable and time-honored class of plain and substantial women who are said to be "as honest [Pg 974] as the day is long;" and Susan B. Anthony is the queen of this royal race. Dauntless and tireless as the sterner sex, sympathetic and tender as the gentler, we sometimes think that she is both man and woman in one. ”

“ The fact is, that like the advance agent of any great reform—especially if a woman—Susan B. Anthony has been so belied and maligned by the press in years gone by that many who do not stop to think had come to believe her a perfect ogre, a cross-grained, incongruous old maid whom nobody could like, when the truth of the matter is, one has but to look at and 504 listen to her, either in public or private, to realize that she is a pure, generous, deep-thinking, womanly woman. ”

“ The New York Evening Telegram said editorially: "The statement of Miss Susan B. Anthony, in another column, illustrates the superb determination of that champion of woman's political rights. In the struggle which has constituted her life-work she has the rare advantage of not being able to comprehend defeat. Battling under the inspiration of an enthusiast—of a fanatic, some may be disposed to say—she knows no such word as fail. ”

“ The council began its deliberations in the finest humor with everybody, particularly with that prime favorite, Susan B. Anthony. This lady daily grows upon all present; the woman suffragists love her for her good works, the audience for her brightness and wit, and the multitude of press representatives for her frank, plain, open, business-like way of doing everything connected with the council. Miss Anthony when in repose looks worn with the conflict she has waged, though when she goes into action her angular face loses its tired look and becomes all animation. ”

“ The New York Sun spoke of Susan's "ungainly form rigged out in the bloomer costume and provoking the thoughtless to laughter and ridicule by her very motions on the platform." [38] Untruth was piled upon untruth until dignified ladylike Susan with her earnest pleasing appearance was caricatured into everything a woman should not be. Less courageous temperance women now began to wonder whether they ought to associate with such a strong-minded woman as Susan B. Anthony. ”

“ Posterity will do you this justice, whether your contemporaries do or not; but indeed, it is universally known to those with any knowledge of the facts, that among all the champions of women, none has been more distinguished for utter self-abnegation, single-heartedness and devotion to her life-work than Susan B. Anthony.
As you know, I have always felt the deepest interest in the elevation of women, which is synonymous with that of humanity, for man must be always on the plane of his wife, sister and mother.... ”

“ Like a man? Not so. Not one man in a thousand but would have "squealed," "laid down" and settled at ten or twenty cents on the dollar. As people go in this wicked world, it is no more than fair to say in good faith that Miss Anthony is a very admirable person. She is in business, as in other matters, one of the few—the select few—who steer by their own compass and not by the shifting winds.—Buffalo Express.
Miss Susan B. Anthony has done a noble thing, which deserves to be widely known. She has lectured 120 times during this season and has paid off the last debt of The Revolution. ”

“ If there is one single drop of chivalric blood in woman's veins, it ought to bring a tinge of pride to the face that Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Julia Ward Howe and these other grand women, our leaders and our foremothers, are here for us to greet; that they, who heard so much that was not agreeable, may hear an occasional pleasant word while they are alive." Very few of the speakers failed to express their deep feeling of personal obligation and the indebtedness of all women to the early labors of Miss Anthony and the other pioneers. ”

“ She is ready in debate, fertile in illustration, eloquent in enunciation, and moves a congregation as few can.
For real, earnest labor, as a leader of a corps of agents in a reformatory movement, Susan B. Anthony has few equals. As a speaker, she is full of facts and illustrations, and at times truly eloquent. Susan is always reliable; and if any of her travelling companions are colored, her hawk-eye is ever on the watch to see that their rights are not invaded on the score of their complexion. The writer’s dark skin thoroughly tested Miss Anthony’s grit some years ago at Cleveland, Ohio ”

“ Not more loyal should the silver men of Colorado be to Dick Bland, than the women of Colorado to the apostle of equal suffrage—Susan B. Anthony."
The Denver Times said in a leading editorial: "To Miss Anthony the women of today owe a great debt, for through her life's work they enjoy a hundred privileges denied them fifty years ago. From her devotion to a cause which for decades made her a martyr to the derision of an unsympathetic public, has grown a new order of things. Her hand has most helped to open every profession and every line of business to women. ”

“ By working six years and devoting to the purpose all the money she could earn she has paid the debt and interest. And now, when the creditors of that paper and others who really know her, whatever they may think of her political opinions, hear the name of Susan B. Anthony, they feel inclined to raise their hats in reverence.
The Rochester Post-Express thus voiced the opinion of her own townspeople:
The thousands of friends of the plucky and noble woman of whom we speak will rejoice with her over this success. ”

“ The Chicago Tribune, edited by Joseph Medill, offered this tribute:
The best known and most popular woman in the United States, engaged in public work, is Susan B. Anthony, the co-worker of Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Lydia Maria Child, Wendell Phillips, Lucretia Mott and others in the anti-slavery movement, and the fellow-laborer of Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the woman's rights movement. She ranks first among the warriors in this latter contest, because she has lived her life in its service and there has been no side issue to it. ”

“ It is a curious coincidence that upon the anniversary of the birthday of Galileo there was born Susan B. Anthony. She also perceived a great truth and the world did not agree with her. It reviled her for the belief she had propounded, but in this century she never renounced that belief, but thundered back to the pulpit and to the newspapers that the world does move and the time will come when women shall be free; the time will come when they shall have every right, every privilege, every liberty which any man enjoys.... ”

“ Well do I remember that in the hard struggle mother and I had in paying the taxes on our little home, no man appeared to pay them for us. Had I been condemned to death I would not have expected a man to startup and take my place. Susan B. Anthony—she of the senatorial mind—will be remembered when the politicians of today have long been doomed to 'innocuous desuetude.'" Miss Willard then quoted a few familiar lines ending with the sentence, "And Susan B. Anthony has been ordained of God to lead us on." ”

“ It is not always true that "the good die young," for Miss Susan B. Anthony has lived to celebrate her fiftieth birthday.... Right glad are we that the anniversary was observed with due pomp and circumstance. No kindly tribute to great moral worth is too good for this good woman. As one of the chief heroines of our generation, she abundantly deserves all the honors which were paid her on that festal night. There are many public-spirited workers in our busy land; many noble souls who have devoted their life-long energies to the elevation of their fellow-beings ”

“ Altogether the ablest, most dignified and best-balanced man in the body is Frederick Douglass, and there is a deep feeling for him for United States senator in spite of the drift of the convention, which is evidently in favor of Susan B. Anthony; notwithstanding which Elizabeth Cady Stanton is likewise a candidate with considerable strength, favoring as she does the Copperheads, the Democratic party and other dead and buried remains of alleged disloyalty. Susan is lean, cadaverous and intellectual, with the proportions of a file and the voice of a hurdy-gurdy. ”

“ Miss Susan B. Anthony spoke last evening to the largest audience that ever greeted a lecturer in Marshall, and we have had Mrs. Stanton, Theodore Tilton, Mark Twain and Olive Logan. She had at least 1,200 hearers.—Telegram to Detroit Evening News.
Last evening the aisles were double-seated, and the anterooms, staircases and vestibules densely packed with standing hearers. No such house ever was had at this place. She spoke with wonderful power. At Pigeon, between trains, she spoke to a great throng who would not consider her strength and take "no" for an answer.—Three Rivers Reporter. ”

“ Many eminent women sat upon the platform, among them the president of the federation, Mrs. Charlotte Emerson Brown, Frances E. Willard, Susan B. Anthony, Julia Ward Howe, May Wright Sewall, Jenny June Croly and Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson, all of whom were heard at different times during the convention. Miss Anthony was the guest of Lydia Avery Coonley, whose mother wrote to Mary Anthony:
I have been intending for several days to tell you that however your sister may have been regarded forty years ago, she is today the most popular woman in these United States. ”

“ She has a bright appearance and carries her audience with her. But of course, Susan B. Anthony is the great power after all. She is a trifle slow in speech, but everything is clear cut, and so well defined that what is said is said well, and in such a manner as to rivet it in the attention of her hearers. ”