Susan B. Anthony SPEECHES AND WRITINGS FILE Delivered for the first at Batavia (2 copies) May 1852, 1852 /52 S.B.A- Delivered for the First, at Batavia-N.J. in company with Emily Clark in May 1852 will the best & wisest of mothers continue to see their sons fall victims to the sensual appetites, & their daughters warm affections made shipwreck of by the unrestrained passions of those to whom they had fondly entrusted their happiness. In the pursuance of the avowed objects of the Society, it has already two agents in the field, & designs, as soon as practicable, to largely increase the number, so that, previous to the time for the next election of town & State officers, we may thoroughly canvass the State, & cite the attention of the women of every City, Village & School district to the importance of having their interests faithfully & truly represented at the ballot box. Men tell us they vote for us by proxy, & if they shall longer fail to represent our true sentiments, let us send up, from every nook & corner of the land one united resolve to refuse to trust them to act as our agents [for us], & if they insist that the interests of either half of the human family shall be represented by the other, let that be those of man's, rather than woman's, on whom the world throws the whole responsibility of moulding and guiding the [Mind] the youthful mind. Of how little avail are the untiring labors of a christian Mother, to imbue the minds of her children with an invincible love for the principles of truth & soberness, while the laws [will not] of man give the entire control of her [entire] earnings, together with that of her children to the [man she may call] husband, it matters not though [he's] he be a breathing pestilence, a walking Charnel house of all that's truly noble. Say not that the [woman] mother is responsible for the [errors] revellings of her grown up [sons] son, until you have given her the control of the circumstances which [meet him] shall surround him. At present [Yes], Man licenses "Good Moral Men, to manufacture drunkards, & then calls on Woman in beautifully rounded periods to so train her children, that they will resist the temptation to drink of the ruinous cup, even though it meet them at every turn of the streets & most seducingly bids them taste [that they] & that to do so [become] will bring new joys to their souls, My friends, longer silence on the part of Woman is criminal, she must speak out, that the world may know whether she be for or against the liqueur Traffic. [In order to open the way for a free expression & interchange of Sentiments on] x While we labor to reclaim one generation of drunkards another is rising which will call for like efforts. She must say to our next Legislature in the quiet but thunder tones of Petitions, signed by hundreds of thousands of the women of our State, Honorable Sirs. The Women of New York have willed it. The "Main Law" must be written upon the Statutes of the Empire State. Our homes & our hearths are no longer to be desecrated by the presence of rum maddened husbands & Fathers. Our children shall no longer be robbed of their heaven born right to be fed, clothed & educated. My Friends, Women have not been entirely idle or digregardful of this great evil, but we feel that their efforts have been wrongly directed: They have had efficient organizations for the relief of the wretched wives & children of the more wretched drunkards, they have been instrumental in erecting workhouses & assylums for the drunkard & the drunkard's idiotic offspring; they have done much, very much toward lessening the evil effects of the abomination, but they have for the most part failed to strike a death blow at the root of the evil, & here lies the secret, our work is to be done over & over again. If we wish the tree to cease to put forth & bear fruit, we must sap the roots of that tree, ere our work is effectually accomplished. Our Society has this very work for its object. We aim at the annihilation of the monster Howard & their influence to help on the work which lies before us [Liquor] [Traffic in all that] Traffic in Rum, And in order to ensure the success of our enterprise, we ask the women of our State [must] to marshall themselves under our banner. & give [They must aid us [with] by their labors & their "Material aid."] Our Society cannot effect the great work by means of faith alone. Its agents are to be sustained, papers & tracts purchased, various matters to be published, &c, &c. The only means by which it proposes to obtain funds to meet all these expenses, is that of enrolling the names of the friends of the Movement as Members of the Society. The payment of 50 cts constitutes a person an Annual Member & $10 a Life Member Certificates. We invite Gentlemen to become Members of our Society, though we do not elevate them to the honorary offices, nor give them the control of our Treasury. Women have long paid their dollars into the various Societies, as the State Tem. Society, & had them all expended in such manner as the men chose. Temperance Agents have been sent out, they have labored faithfully & truthfully with their own sex, have brought the men on to a higher platform, but have almost without an exception, merely addressed a few pretty words to the ladies, told them of their heavenly work to smooth the rugged pathway of man, of their Angelic natures & of their power, by soft winning words, to win their erring brother back to virtue. They have not told woman the whole, the startling truth, that she is the chief corner stone in this vast superstructure of human misery. It is for the women of 1852 to ask of the real friends of the temperance Cause to allow them to go forth & proclaim to their sisters the everlasting truths of total abstinence. to grant to them the free use of their God given right to think & speak & act in accordance with the dictates of their better Judgements. We hope such of the friends present as have [faith] confidence in woman's fidelity to the best interests of suffering humanity, will pay into our Treasury the necessary sum to constitute them Members of the Women's N. York State Tem. Society & Subscribe their names to the Constitution which it has adopted. By so doing they will show to us & to the world that they have faith to believe woman competent & worthy to be trusted. She must show to the world that woman has resolved that the Empire State shall, ere another sun shall have sped its course unfurl its [*Mrs C G Buxton*] [this great question,] we would recommend to the women of this village, to form a Women's Temperance Society, auxilliary to the State Society, & that for the purpose of raising a fund, with which to purchase Temperance tracts & subscribe for temperance newspapers, [Such members] the Society shall require each member to pay weekly into its treasury the sum of two or three cents. which small weekly fee, if can secure 100 members, which I doubt not you can with but little effort, [will] would amount to $3 per week, [or] $12 per month, or [with] $144 per year. With that you could buy [a] large [amount] quantities of temperance reading for gratuitous distribution throughout your village. And the amount of light & truth you can thus diffuse, will yield a tenfold harvest for all your labors. We would [suggest that] advise the scattering of Temperance papers rather than tracts, for there are many persons who will not stop to look even at the title page of a tract, while you rarely meet with one, who will not at least glance over the editorial page, of the most obnoxious newspaper. Then again papers contain a variety of interesting & attractive matter, in addition to the Temperance question; & are issued weekly, semimonthly or monthly at farthest & can be as frequently distributed, thus will you be continually throwing new parts [before] before the people. The question naturally arises, what paper shall be taken? One would recommend to you the "Lilly", the only temperance paper in the State, edited by a women & the one which is the medium [of] of communicating to the public all matters of interest pertaining to the operations of the Women's N. Y. State Tem. Society. The Lilly is now published monthly at 50 cts per year, It's Editor Amelia Bloomer would gladly make it a semimonthly or weekly, could her subscription list be sufficiently increased to allow of its being done without raising the price. As The Lilly contains matter more particularly interesting to women, it would be well to subscribe also for some other journal that is devoted more to the general aspect of the cause in the political world. The Rochester Temperance Journal & Cayuga Chief are excellent papers. -- A committee should be appointed, whose business it shall be to distribute these papers among those classes of persons who most need temperance truth & are the least likely to furnish themselves with it. Your Society Should holds its meetings as often as once a month, notices of which should be given from your pulpits & by your school teachers, so that none may excuse themselves from attending for want of due notice. The business of your meetings should be the payment of dues by each member, The reception of reports of your Com. for the distribution of Temperance Publications. the discussion of resolutions pertaining to the question of Temperance. the listening to addresses which shall have been prepared for the occasion by some member of the Society. & Sisters allow me to suggest, that when you shall have organized your village Society & meet at its monthly sessions for the discussion of the great subject of Temperance, do not allow the men to do all the talking, while you maintain a death like silence, though your hearts are bursting with the burden of great truths, which, would you but break the false barriers of educational prejudices & pour them out for the benefit & edification of others, [would] might be the very arrows destined to reach the hearts & consciences of the thoughtless masses, & awaken within them an insatiable thirst for true elevation & reform. [The [slow & uncertain] cause that the progress of all reforms has ever been so slow is I think attributable to the fact that woman voice has so seldom been heard in their behalf] May not the slow & uncertain progress of all the reforms be ascribed to the fact that the voice of Woman has so seldom been heard pleading in the behalf. The Anti Slavery Clause has its Grimpkes its Lydia Maria Child, Its Abbey Kelly Foster & Sally Holley, who have been & still are proclaiming the great truths of equal rights without respect to color, but where are the women who have ventured beyond the home circle to plead for the suppression of the Liquor Traffic. A Mrs. Swishelm, Bloomer & Nichols with a few others have indeed spoken through the columns of their papers, but it remains for the women of this day to [found] go forth & tell of the terrible sufferings & wrongs which have so long been patiently endured by vast numbers of our sex. endured silently because woman has even been taught from the pulpit & the forum, by the Mother & the Teacher that to do so, was her Christian duty. How many with crushed spirits, have uncomplainingly dragged out the most wretched existences, or sunk into an untimely grave, rather than go counter to this false training & expose the cruel treatment of a miserable drunkard. Sisters, let us no longer deem it a womanly virtue to live the passive, unwavering wife of a confirmed drunkard, let us rather [seek] band ourselves together & say with one strong voice we renounce all companionship with the Liquor Traffic and its outcast victims. The matter of the formation of a Society that shall be auxilliary to the Womens N. Y. State Tem. Society we of course leave for you to act upon as you may think proper at some future time. We shall now be happy to take the names of [the] both ladies & Gentlemen who will cooperate with us. Those wishing a copy of [our] the Constitution of our Society will be furnished with one. The proceedings in full of the Women's Temperance Convention recently held in Rochester are published in the May No. of the Lilly. We have several copies on hand & any wishing to purchase them can do so, the price is six cents: the proceeding contain several intersing letters, an excellent address from Mrs E. C. Stanton Wife of Senator Henry B. Stanton & also one from Mrs Bloomer. This No is a double sheet, the friends by supplying themselves with this No. of the Lilly will not furnish themselves with the proceedings of meeting of which Gerrit Smith said "long as they are I have read them through with the deepest interest but will [be able to] see something of the general character of the paper which [the] we recommend to the patronage of the women of this village. First read at Batavia with Miss Emily Clark as the speaker -- [*/52*] The Women's New York State Temperance Society was organised at the Women's Temperance Convention held at Rochester the 20th & 21st of April last. -- (1852) Its object is to effect a change of public sentiment with regard to the Liquor Traffic. And it proposes to accomplish this great work by the "foolishness of preaching". Women are to be employed as agents; they are to visit the different towns & villages of our State, & make every possible effort to rouse the women to action & point out to them, how they may render efficient aid to those who are laboring to secure the enactment of a Maine Law to the people of the Empire State at the next Session of [the] its Leglislature. These Agents are to be supplied with various temperance publications, such as tracts, News Papers &c for gratuitous circulation They are to recommend to the women & men too, who approve of the measures adopted by the Women's New York State Temperance Society, for the attainment of its avowed object, to constitute themselves members thereof & thus give to it the "Material aid" so indispensible to the successful prosecution of every enterprise. & last, but not least, they are to urge the formation of Women's Temperance Societies, in every neighborhood village & City, that shall be auxilliary to the State Society; the acting members of which shall have complied with the requisitions of the Constitution of the parent Society, which consist of signing that Constitution, & paying into its treasury the sum of fifty cents, or ten dollars as the case may be. Person's not members of the State Society may be allowed to take part in the general discussions of the regular meetings of the auxilliaries, but privileged to vote unless by consent of two thirds [vote] of the acting members. These auxilliary Societies should hold public meetings as often as once a month, & their members should accustom themselves to a free expression & interchange of sentiments upon the great question of Temperance, in all its bearings upon the Social, religious & political institutions of our Country. Each Society should adopt some means, by which to raise a fund, to be expended in purchasing Temperance Tracts & News Papers to be distributed gratuitously [among] by Committees appointed for that purpose, among those classes of persons in their respective villages who most need temperance truth, & are the least likely to furnish themselves with it. The question naturally arises, what paper does the Society recommend for gratuitous circulation? I would answer [that as] by reading a preamble & resolution adopted by the late Women's Temperance Convention at Rochester. Whereas, It is a great need of the women who desire emancipation from false sentiment, & a strengthening of their promptings to more radical, as well as public action in the Temperance Cause, to have some journal which shall be a faithful exponent of their thoughts & hopes, and an inculcator of their faith in the moral power of Woman; Therefore Resolved: that, this Convention heartily recommend to the Women of the State of New York "The Lilly", a monthly journal, devoted to Temperance, and the cause of Woman, & published by Amelia Bloomer, of Seneca Falls, New York. The Lilly contains matter pertaining to the interests of woman more particularly, & as our Society does not confine its labors entirely among our own sex, we would suggest that the auxilliaries subscribe also for some of the Temperance [Journals] Papers that are devoted to the [political] general aspects of the cause in the political world. The Rochester Temperance Journal & Cayuga Chief are excellent papers. I say nothing of Temperance tracts, for the auxillieary Societies, on account of the strong prejudice in the minds of many, against them. It would be about as hopeless a task to pursuade vast numbers of people, not connected with the Orthodox churches of the day, to even look at the little page of any document that wears the dress of a tract, as it is to convince some of our most thoroughly indoctrinated Church Friends, that the S. of T,. D. of T. & other kindred organizations, are but the [resuscitation] legitimate offspring of that monster institution which had an existence at the time of the mysterious disappearance of a man named Morgan. I would not, however, do away with Temperance tracts, or the orders of Sons & Daughters of Temperance, but would present to minds thus strongly biased, the same printed truths in some less obnoxious form, & would ask [the] such friends of Temperance to combine their influence & their labors, by uniting with a Society, whose every transaction shall be public to all, without respect to sex or color. it is the claims of a society whose platform is thus broad & free to all, that I have the pleasure of presenting to you this evening. Not exactly either, since by the provisions of Article 4th of the Constitution, women only are elligible to office. Gentlemen are cordially invited to become honorary members & take part in all our meetings, [though] Their wise counsels & freely bestowed dollars, we promise ever to receive kindly & doubt not that with such a return, heavy drafts will be made upon both their wisdom & their purses, The proceedings in full of the Women's Temperance Convention held at Rochester the 20th of April last are published in the May number of "The Lilly". They contain the addresses of Mrs. Bloomer, & Elizabeth Cady Stanton of Seneca Falls, also letters from Francis D. Gage of Ohio, C. I. H. Nichols, Editor of the "Windham County Democrat" Brattleboro, Vermont & [the] A Holly, Editor of the "Wyoming County Mirror, Warsaw N. Y. As to the merits of these proceedings, I will merely repeat what Gerrt Smith of Peterboro said of them, in a letter to our President enclosing a draft of $10 to constitute himself a Life Member of the Women's N. Y. State Temperance Society. he says "I have just finished reading the May No. of the Lilly. Long as were your proceeding, I have read them through with interest. I thank God for those proceedings & take courage. -- [Any of the friends wishing to purchase these proceedings, can do so.] The Committee will pass round among the friends for the purpose of obtaining Membership's & will furnish the May No. Lilly to such as wish, price [of the Lilly] six cents. If any of the friends wish to subscribe for the Lilly, they will please give me their names, the price is 50 cts per year, The Lilly is to be the Organ of the Women's N. Y. State Temperance Society, by that I would not be understood On the 20th of April 1852 a large number of Women, interested in the Cause of Temperance, assembled in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, for the purpose of deliberating upon woman's duties with regard to it & devising some plan whereby she might render efficient aid in the efforts now being made for the suppression of the Liquor Traffic. At the fourth & last session of that highly interesting Convention, the "Women's [New] N. Y. State Temperance Society was formed, which has for its object, the revolutionizing of public Sentiment with regard to the right of our authorities to license a few to traffic in that which [caused] inflicts the greatest of evils on the masses of Society Women have heretofore fit that the men would attend to the matter & have remained quiet or if ventured an opinion it has been only in the home circle that no other matter but that pertaining to the Society & the doings of its Agents will find place in its columns, far otherwise. Whatever shall be for the general interest of Woman will also find place there. The Lilly is the only Paper in the State of N. York published by a woman, & it is hoped the women of the State will rally around its Standard; to do this it is not absolutely necessary that they should fully concur with every idea advanced in that paper, We must allow to woman, as well as man the right to think, speak & act independently, yes even concede to her the right to [dress as she please] adopt any costume which she thinks the most consistent & convenient, [even] though it may not be a "fac Simile" of the latest Parisian fashion plate of Godey's Lady's Book. Mrs. Bloomer desires to make her little sheet a Semi Monthly or Weekly & will do so, whenever her subscription list shall be sufficiently increased to warrant the change [without] & retain the present price. Women have long paid their dollars into the treasuries of the various existing benevolent & reform Societies, & quietly submitted to man's controlling their expenditure. And he, almost without an exception has given the Salaried offices to those of his own sex. Women, too, have cheerfully contributed of their scanty earnings for the erection & endowment of Colleges & Universities, & then been excluded from [parti] [those institutions] participating in the educational advantages of those institutions. We do not now hope to see mans highest interests thus neglected & uncared for, by woman, we only claim the right to the entire control of the funds of the Women's N. York State Temperance Society, & to place such agents in the lecturing field as shall speak the whole truth to woman, We are heartily sick & tired of the round of umeaning encomiums which Gentlemen Temperance lecturers are pleased to lavish upon our sex. Woman, from her position in Society, shrinks from all responsibility, therefore it becomes necessary to so change that position, that the success or failure of our enterprise shall devolve entirely upon her, And if she provies herself unworthy this new position, if she shall foolishly disburse the funds entrusted to her, for the promotion of the Temperance Cause & the elevation of humanity, then will she richly merit the charge of incapacity & imbecility. Women of Medina, would you see the Women's New York State Temperance Society flourish & finally triumph, Would you be instrumental in shutting of the floodgates of intemperance, would you hasten that blessed day, when no wife shall hold midnight vigils in fearful waiting, for the return of him who has broken his solemn Marriage Vow, When No, worse than orphaned children shall ask in vain for a dry morsel, to appease the ceaseless cravings of famishing nature, when no fond Mother shall weep over the nightly revels of a darling son; when our poorhouses, our jails, our penitentiaries & our prisons shall be left tenantless, aye & when the hangmans cap & rope shall [no more shall] be among the barbarisms that were. If you would see all this joy & gladness smile from the hearts of the Women of our State, come boldly forth to the rescue, gird on the temperance armor, nor rest from your labors until this monster Traffic in Rum shall have been forever banished from our midst. Delay not, to ask if it is proper for woman to act thus decidely & publicly, be resolved, that wherever you can do aught, whether in public or private, to lessen the vices & sufferings of the race, there is your sphere & there where God [& humanity] designed you to act. Let us no longer suffer ourselves to be controlled by the miserable policy & expediency of time serving Conservatism, but rather at all times & in all places, make it our solemn & religous duty to speak & act in accordance with our highest convictions of truth. There is a great work to be done in the Temperance reform, which woman alone has the power to do. to woman is accorded the moulding of the fashions & customs of social life, She has but to will it, & all social drinking [in her presence] will forever cease. [I offer to you a resolution which I think gives to woman her real position in relation to the Liquor Traffic & [her] the terrible evils that grow out of it. Resolved, that Woman in dosing the helpless infant with Mixed Cordials, in compounding wine & brandy with the food she prepares for their nourishment] Let us make a Survey & see where & how woman may hope to effect so great a change. In the first place she must cease to be the medium of transmitting the fearful appetites of the drunkard. She must hold herself responsible for the spiritual or animalized natures of her children. She must say, no drunkard shall be the father of her children, & when the husband shall become an inebriate after the birth of her children, she must remove them beyond the contaminating influence of that drunkard. I know under the existing laws of our State, for the mother to thus remove her children, is impossible, but she must demand the enactment of a law that shall secure to her [that] the right to the entire control of her own earnings, & in case the husband become a confirmed drunkard, the right to be the guardian of her children. The man who finds himself unfortunately united [himself] to a drunken woman already has the power to control not only the earnings of himself & children, but those of the wife & to remove himself & children entirely beyond the reach of the debasing contact of that animalized Wife & Mother. And because of Woman's want of power to say how the proceeds of her hard labor shall be expended, & where shall be the home of her children, She, rather than leave her loved ones to the charge of one so unfitted to mould their infant minds, chooses to drag out a wretched existence, [that] Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.