The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) eBook

Ida Husted Harper
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 732 pages of information about The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2).

The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) eBook

Ida Husted Harper
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 732 pages of information about The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2).
where “they’ve a mind ter.”  We may not be able to give the proposed meeting “frequent editorial notice;” still the probabilities are that we shall allude to it if we live and do well, and we shan’t charge Susan a cent for our services.  We would not have it said, nor would we have you, “O Susan, Susan, lovely dear,” imagine that we are ag’in “the one true basis of a genuine republic.”

And yet, after all this, the freedom-loving General Rufus Saxton had the courage to preside at the meeting and introduce the speakers.  He subsequently wrote:  “I pray that God will bless your noble work and that, sooner than you think, woman shall be admitted to her proper place, where God intended she should be, and to exclude her from which must, like any other great wrong, bring misery and sorrow.”  The Troy Times said: 

The last time we heard Miss Anthony speak was in 1861, shortly after the election of Lincoln when, it will be remembered, she was mobbed from city to city.  Since then time and the various undertakings in which she has engaged have apparently had no effect upon her, unless to render her more eloquent and more sanguine of the ultimate righting of all wrongs, and to inspire additional enthusiasm for a cause to which she has clung with a perseverance deserving admiration.  She is very choice in the selection of words and phrases, speaks in an earnest, attractive monotone, and really made one of the most eloquent and sensible speeches for female suffrage to which we ever listened.

At Fairfield, Herkimer Co., Miss Anthony spoke in the presence of a large number of students from the academy and, at the close of her address, there were vigorous calls for the wife of the principal, who was known to be opposed to any phase of so-called woman’s rights.  She finally responded and, in the course of her remarks, said that when she was a teacher she used to believe that women should receive the same salary as men, but since she had married and realized the responsibilities of a man of family, she had been converted to the belief that men should receive more than women.  Miss Anthony at once retorted:  “It would seem then, that so long as you were earning your own living you wanted a good salary, but so soon as you give your services to a husband, you want him to receive the value of both your work and his own, regardless of those women who still have to support themselves and very often a family.”  The fact that the lady was her hostess did not save her from this merited rebuke, which was heartily appreciated and enjoyed by the students.

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The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.