Anna Dickinson Speeches & Writings File Miscellaneous Unidentified Ms SPEECHES & WRITINGS FILE128 the statement that ="Miss Dickinson on the lecture platform was able, eloquent, and effective. X X that her advocacy of one side of several great questions having two sides made her many personal enemies, is true." but demonstrated that it was not this enmity that went from New - York to report what she did and what [they] was found in Boston = of New York "Critics" led by their129 "Dan" you see he gone on "Having made up their minds that she could not succeed, they thought they were showing critical sagacity in saying so. It would be interesting to know how much of the dispatches sent from Boston xx was written in New York xx or in Boston before the curtain arose the first time. xx Having committed themselves they field to an unworthy pride in sticking to their position xx The gentlemen temporarily(?) no doubt regret their mistaken course, and, after awhile when the transient--but mutual irritation subsides, will be manly enough to do Miss Dickinson justice. c.7.4.14.99 130 =Mr Storey did not fight men Still, bill(?) women write nature (?) of vitriol thrown from awhtsh (?) - and so spoke of "Men". He had not quite signed them. = Certainly he demonstrated the Courage of Nowhere at 22 April 187(?) 1 The New-Orleans Times succinctly summarized in the statement that "There is a struggle going on in New York which commands popular attention about equally with the European war and Hayes' policy. It is the war between the valiant tribe of critics and Anna Dickinson 000497131 = Indeed he had not fit in mind either Soldier or dastard., hero to stand for [reparation] satisfaction and [satisfaction] ????? - or snake to squirm and sting. He had a vision of and was writing about critics; - judges.. New-York critics, - men who claimed to be of the last bench - Supreme Court Judges, - [past] beyond whom there could be no possibility of appeal. By their own pretension, then men who, perforce, must be [not only discerning and exact but high minded, enlightened, humane, independent and just.] not only conniesseurs, - not alone [exact] discerning and exact- [but], but high-minded and just; whom neither "fear, favor, affection, nor hope of reward" can turn from a shining course. = In a few days he wrote again - having had opportunity to view afresh and review his subject: - [saying in part]132 And the inspirational, as well as personal sifting of fact and truth - and putting - is so sound and wholesome, I regret tearing the loaf. - However the old proverb holds "Enough is as good as a feast": - 1 =The unanimity with which the theatrical critics of the New York dailies attacked Miss Dickinson raises the presumption of covert of action. Their motive was to crush her out. x x x Whatever the reason x that these [critics] have misstated facts write gross untruth, Miss Dickinson had proved. x x x Generally speaking when a man blackguards a woman x x x he is estimated at his just value x x for the majority of men are manly generous and just. x x x x But when a woman entering upon a dramatic career is maliciously thwarted in honorable and capable2 endeavor, she must give up her undertaking, or face her enemies. She cannot leave her cause to her friends and here in parenthesis is a line from one of these papers of the East, by way of Comment) "While her friends - but we are not aware that she has any friends left." - ) "for their judgment because they are her friends, will not be accepted by the public. She cannot trust it to posterity. for she cannot play to posterity. Whatever their motive it is manifest that a coterie in New York have endeavored to suppress, to distort and to entangle the truth, about a woman, to thwart her 3 studious and conscientious effort towards self-support and professional success. Such an attempt is an exhibition of vulgar meanness which might be characterized as too petty for comment, if the conspicuous positions of all the parties and the consequences to one of them did not lend its magnitude. If Miss Dickinson wished to persevere upon this stage, she had no choice left but to do precisely what she did - state her case intrepidly, and place the public between herself and her assailants. One fact stands out prominently which gives confirmation to the charge of deliberate falsehood and of a design not to treat Miss Dickinson fairly. Mr. Cowper4 one of the foremost actors of England, wrote a letter to one of the New-York papers - (the Tribune) giving a favorable opinion of Miss Dickinson's acting. For two weeks no notice was taken of it. Then it was published, with the falsehood added, that due allowance must be made for its sentiments because Mr. Cowper was Miss Dickinson's musical manager, and she had engaged to study with him during the summer. Mr. Cowper telegraphed a contradiction; the paper (the Tribune) which had printed the falsehood suppressed the dispatch. The Boston papers printed it then the New-York missal (the Tribune) had to print it. Two weeks later it repeated the lie, and refused 5 to print a second denial, on the ground that the matter was originally taken from a Boston paper! - which was and additional lie. 135 =You will note these western papers do not deal in euphemisms with them a spade is a spade. That is well? —? - What you say? — did not like critics? - ? - Really I knew very little about them. - Somebody called my attention to Géróme's comments on "the self-styled critics; their approbation and their raillery have always found me indifferent - for I have always had the most profound contempt, for these ignorant vermin, who prey upon the bodies of artists" with the thought that I might be pleased. - Doubtless if I was Géróme I would have well approved the saying, but, being what I was I stood to say that I thanked any competent observer for kind hint or [bitterest] keenest if [instructive] illuminative [?] stricture. To what I did object was criminal falsehood 135 1/2 = as the World of that day - Marble's World - [said] reported, "[she] I did not protest my genius not my beauty. - I asked a fair showing unobscured by a Hamen Wall. - All matters pertaining to the stage are matters of controversy. "A jest's prosperity lies in the ear of him that hears it." - The actor may be admirable, - the actress the most beautiful and accomplished - yet, if the beauty be not of that order that appeals to the taste of the one, or the art sympathetic with the temperament of another, - One and another go at the admirers hammer and tongs and force admiration & enthusiasm and beliggerency - Nor did I claim perfection because I held sufficient brains to assert the right of originality. I had sat at the feet of Talma to absorb the wisdom that "Every actor ought to be his own135 2/3 tutor. The faculty of creating is born with us, but if the actor possesses it, the counsel of persons of taste may then guide him." = "Counsel, " you note, - not bombs of brimstone, - or stings of scorpions. = I had spent months of study on the historic scenes - and the scenery - the doings of the people of the time before I ever thought of beginning to unfold action on paper, - and it was right that I should brand callow ignorance at its value regardless of whether I stood on platform, or stage to do it. - Boys and neophytes [who knew] whatever their baptisimal age who knew, as much of the time of which they professed to write as they knew of civility and truth. -There is in the art of reciting verse - or heroic prose - a part in some degree mechanical to which I gave study and time exercise and thought. - It 135 3/3 was my due to claim that what I dodo was not to be condemned because it was not a shadow of another's doing - nor because it failed to tally with some other's stick. - It was never intended to be aught but itself, - not a reproduction nor a transcript. But - this is my talk, - Excuse it. - it is of others and from others you are to hear. - To return to our [Mntions?], [to what] I [did object] in our sentence to what I did object136 As the Cincinnati Gazette put it, __ And its putting proved that the present alleged head of the Tribune no longer held a hand - as of old - in this Ohio [paper ] office: - Cincinnati Gazette April 13. 1875. 2 Miss Dickinson did not arraign the judgment of the New York critics, but their misrepresentation of the judgment of others. x x They went to Boston bent on writing her down. x x They wrote that the judgment of the Boston audience pronounced her a failure, which was the reverse of the truth. [xx ] xx Their attacks were sent by Associated Press all over the land as the judgment of the New York critics, and136 As the Cincinnati Gazette put it, __ And its putting proved that the present alleged head of the Tribune no longer held a hand - as of old - in this Ohio [paper ] office: - Cincinnati Gazette April 13. 1875. 2 Miss Dickinson did not arraign the judgment of the New York critics, but their misrepresentation of the judgment of others. x x They went to Boston bent on writing her down. x x They wrote that the judgment of the Boston audience pronounced her a failure, which was the reverse of the truth. [xx ] xx Their attacks were sent by Associated Press all over the land as the judgment of the New York critics, and136 = as the Cincinnati Gazette put it, _ and its putting proved that the present alleged head of the Tribune no longer held a hand - as of old - in this ohio [paper] office: - were pasted in the scrap books of the Western journals several days before the highly favorable judgment of he Boston papers came along. x x Miss Dickinson [She] convicted the New York papers of gross and studied misrepresentation. She made a special case of persistent falsification and injustice against the writer for the Tribune137 ="By the by" said one, "that paper reminds me that I have read some mighty handsome notices of you written by him when he was "Agate" of the Gazette. "Yes_? That was when, as SamRead once said to me —his Sub. could climb to view by mounting on well known shoulders." He used their backs as scribbling pads to spread his own fame. = "I remember," [went ] continued the commentator - as he Studied a "critique" in the Tribune that he [spoke] wrote of "a voice", - "so rich, so deep, so [musical. You = and now here his Tribune paper says __ and I dare swear having heard it. [?] often it was a better voice at this writings [these], than in its [estate] [first] estate 138 that in Boston "it was nasal and thin xx and that it Sounded like wails from Martha's Vineyard with the brethren in full possession___ ___ well ___ ="Why' brethren?"? ___ I asked. "While we are in the critical mood ___why not sistern!? __The more approved as it is a strenuous shrieking" one [of] on whom he animadverts ___ ? ="oh! --- What an atrocity for me to joke over! --- an infamy! --- "There! There! - so not - distress yourselves,, I beg [gentle]men! You can [sooth yourselves] find consolation - reparation by reverting from this gorged magpie to his harbour from "Philip's employee drunk to Philip, himself sober." __ To me _ more important than the Tribune's alleged "opinions" was [the] its undraped and and unmasked [charge against] accusation [me] of theft, Itself] proven liar in its charge[ng] [me with] againstHenry 8 axe & crown) 139 me of larceny - grand larceny at that. - If for it the instigator and not his hireling could have been furnished - to me it would have been a gladness! _ Also would it have been legitimate justice! ="Since we here are all Republicans - by profession, - good bad, and indifferent, - old - fashioned and new-fashioned- you can scan a few lines from a couple of Philadelphia adjuncts - robs to the Tribune's Kite! = one /(Bulletin July (9?) 1876 forced to print some facts that the western and New England papers had thrust into the limelight - despite the Asso. Press. . Comment to the effect that - "The N.Y. Tribune has been doing a pretty mean thing by Miss Anna Dickinson for a large newspaper X X X X As the Tribune had published an untrue statement about Miss Dickinson, it was, of 140 course, bound in all honor and courtesy to correct it The statement being one that concerned her business purposes and prosperity). That it should have refused to do so, has done Miss Dickinson no harm — and the reputation of the Tribune for fair and honorable journalism no good." = [No harm] Later, this paper [having ] filled out massillon's [fame] measure of insincerity in even this pretense of fairness; "The hypocrite," said the great Churchman "Covers his snares with the externals of religion; - like the priests in the temple of Babylon, he offers all to the divinity in public; in secret, and by subterranean passages, he takes it all back for himself." = When later, the truth would have been of service to me for work in the [?] city of its publication, this same paper first [?] it indulging in [all manner] [?crisy] [of] sneering comment falsified141 facts so patent that a blind man could distinguish if he could not see --(Bulletin 4.21.81) to the effect that: "She had as fair and honest a reception as any woman ever had: - kindly moderate and just treatment. x x She could not endure honest criticism. x x She persevered in the path she had resolved upon, and then criticism lost its patient kindliness, and became severe." = This tenderness was of kinship with that of its principal morning coadjutor ( [Phila Press - April - 79) as it sighed: - "Our sympathies are deeply and unfeignedly with Miss Dickinson" X X X X - [h]How shown?_ By lance in rest for the truth? - How - ? - "we hope to see her speedily recognize her mistake and return to the large-public 142 sphere for which nature has fitted her, and to which she will be tumultuously welcomed." = What sphere ____ = speechmaking without pay? = campaigning without compensation? = Helping to exalt the living and build the tombs of the dead - and cancel the score? = I will reveal to you a truth: - when you are regaling yourselves by a study of nature,- for the wolf I would suggest certain New York newspapers, - of the Jackal, other certain one of Philadelphia. = "No harm"; - To what end printed and circulated? [As] Per- contrary, - this is how it shows through the burning glass of truth of another western paper; - reality does not scorch [and ] evaporate. It remains (Chicago Post - 12. April 77.)143 = The great New York dailies, an unquestioned power in influencing public opinion in the section of the country where they are published, have for months been amusing themselves X X by abuse of Miss Anna Dickinson We call it abuse because their persistent assaults for nearly twelve months in the year have robbed the attacks of the flea that was attempted X X [ They] when clubs would not do they used others "fair play as a jewel",Chicago Park, 12 April 1879 143 of criticism, x x Criticism does not mean persecution which is what Miss Dickinson has been compelled to endure from these (New York) papers ever since she left the platform for the stage. x x They flashed their diatribes to their employes by telegraph x x following her everywhere with tactics intended to crush a woman. x x It was not criticism but proscription that was attempted x x [They ] When clubs would not do they liked others "fair play as a jewel".143 weapons xxThey were [3] bound to kill her. = The cause of this malicious warfare is known only to the parties that who waged it. = Miss Dickinson at last tackled her assailants. x She did her work well. xx Her appeal was a bitter petition for decency, fairness, honor in treatment. It was a protest against elimination by a few newspapers. xx Let Miss Dickinson come west and test the feelings of people who object to woman-pounding, who regard "fair play as a jewel".144 ="Why didn't you go west? =I did, and had experiences. Many of them satisfying.- admirable. beautiful. You know I am not talking about the West. I will some day. It is a story to tell. _ It [is?] New-York, and the newspapers, specially is Tribune newspaper we now have under advisement. So while the Vice-Chairman was saying they "were poor and bankrupt ,and must have succor, and rich old Boston is stingily hanging on to the money it ought to give up." (Oct.11.88 s.) he also said "let us further investigate these other matters",_ and some of us did so. =He was a western man. [ And] a newspaper man, and so pointing to a statement in the "New York World" [said] protested"I see, by this you hate my idol Blaine!! _ I love him." ="You see a fair sample of [your] the guild's veracity of your guild 145 in this town. _ I neither love him nor hate him. And whatever my opinion of this (of it) irresponsible scribbler knows as much as he knows of sanscrit. = But the World means to be friendly. = Does it? _ Barring politics the World of the [past, _ the World of Manton Marble, and Ivory Chamberlain, and David Croly - was [always] generally friendly, _ even tried to be [sincerely] just -,- of this, World, Pulitzer's World, _ [with] [Merrill at the helm] ? will -doubtlessly tell you things later._ Perhaps_ Merrill will mitigate = You know, gentlemen, at present the culprit at the bar is the Tribune. I ask for you to concentrate your interest on the criminal [wh ] that belongs in your own bailiwick, and him yourselves can discipline. We are not talking for entertainment. = Beginning with the defeat of the head as Presidential146 candidate and its after conduct however acquired or by whom acquired I showed them its journal, - kept by me - of My affairs, they found it an atrocity; - of speech, of play-writing, of play - acting, my own play or anothers - of lecture, of reading, of health, plans, projects, fulfillments - there stood an unbroken line of malignant and dastardly lies. = These seasoned soldiers and Party men did not need to have pointed the Statement that by reason of what the Tribune had been, its simulacrum long remained potent - after its virility and its soul went out with Greeley's last sigh. = It opened the business of a "Return to the Platform" as though in sackcloth I were humbly begging admission to a shelter I had never quit. - = All Lyceum people know the kindly act a paper can do at its best is to notice a speech 147 and add a fair synopsis, __ and that its nastiest act is to "report in full." - For reasons obvious. The Tribune of this "Platform and Stage" talk printed what purported to be an [statemet] account [in full] entire." But at that, did not even after hint of a statement made in this fashion: _ "in the present I burning have had enough of If again I am" Called to a work," be sure I will answer with Montaign, [if I know ] perceiving it." I will follow the right cause to the fire but without the fire if I can." I am not eager for martyrdom. I would rather fight in agony, than endure in suffering. = Of one thing, however, I am sure. If ever again I put on armour of battle ,to do my [?] to the utmost in the field of God's truth it will [be] against [to fight] the Tyranny of the Press, - a Despotism growing to an absolute! =There are people who believe, without reasoning147/2 ="I never said farewell to the platform, - nor even good-bye, x x x I simply shut my mouth because I thought I had nothing to say that compelled speech. x x I believed with the Maine chaplain who [thought ] prayed that the members of the Legislature in making their addresses would stop when they got through. x x Perhaps - "for the present 148 basis, - and assert, - that the Press protects the rights of the people; - Political and Individual! = "The phrases men are accustomed to repeat incessantly, and by becoming convictions, and ossify the organs of intelligence" said Goethe = That liberty of expression is the vital necessity of Freedom, none doubt _ = What of the Freedom of the individual - that in turn is strangled by its avowed champion? = The favorites of Richard//. caused a notice to be published in London that no one was to prefer any charge, no matter what, against them, under pain of confiscation = Let any citizen or citizeness who had stood bravely, and endured stoutly for personal right in controversy with an "organ"149 that "peals for Justice", show [their] wounds of combat! These found the "pipes" not passage ways of melodius honesty, not clubs of discord and destruction. =Suppose a number of these organs, _of largest calibre_ _unite. _ [work in concert ] _ ? blow these bellows in concert_? Such a tempest become irresistible; _not to the convictions, - nor even to the task of the conscientious investigator, but to the citizens aggregated as "Public Opinion. - These perpetually assailed hear only the noise of the assault - deavened to the "still, small voice" of truth however earnestly uttered =These [aristocratic papers] tyrannic typographs self-proclaimed - and accepted - tongues of liberty, like Roman autocrats are the makers and violators - with impunity - of 150 their own laws. _ Under the shibboleth of "Freedom of the Press" they demand protection [against ] of their crimes of ignorance, of prejudice of brutality, of vanity, of hatred as though they were ceremonies appertaining to the gods. =We talked of other matters than newspapers _ but naturally of these, - not only because they were my "point of departure, but because they were perpetually in evidence, _ because all were interested in them and their outcome. _ Some personally and professionally, _ pre-eminently the Vice-Charrman a newspaper-man,_the son and brother of newspaper men; _ ardent and able through their [State] Register to wield enormous influence in a State of Personalities and Principles, opinions and151 objections. =He, reading some scoundrel (Scoundrel:_a mean rascal._Base. _ Disgraceful) work in the Tribune affecting a Roman Tragedy; Aurelian, _ written by me for John McCullough on his order and retainer _ not yet then, in [profess ] [artistic] business evidence, and so exempt alike from commercial and artistic [comment] appraisement and comment _ declared to be a lie in its claim, a pretence in its construction, a [whole] composition of commonplace, - and yet of thievery that should not have been requisite if so inane. _ Not asked for,_ not engaged _ not to be produced, _unknown by and to be forever [obsc] veiled from the Public. Yet to be damned! -151 1/2 2/3 ="why!" he the V.C. said "Here I am on familiar ground I was in the west when you read it there, in the largest151 1/2 =Its cotemporary (the N.Y Star) (3.15.79) Commenting "Miss Anna Dickinson makes a proper protest against the unfair and ungentlemanly treatment she has received at the hands of the Tribune. When a lady reads her play for the first time in the private house of a friend there is no warrant for public criticism of it xx xx and there could be none for the kind of criticism she objects to: 151 2/3 =And a marginal note from the Chicago Tribune (March 9.79) anent this reading and kindred matters, stating "the New York Tribune has hounded Miss Dickinson with the utmost persistency for a great many years. xxx The play was written by Miss Dickinson at Mr. McCullough's earnest entreaty and was accepted by him. xx The Tribune sent an employee to him at Boston - to remain of development from this contact, by a stratagem recovered her play_without any hint on his part that he didn't want it! xxx I may add, here, that "Aurelian" made a profound impression when it was read at the house of a friend, and within the first twenty four hours thereafter, Miss D - received four distinct offers from as many prominent actors to do the play at once. xx In any event L.RR. ? rea? ? some151 2/3 a work, his mission there to convince MrCullough that the play was good for nothing. xxx Miss Dickinson, properly wroth, without writing any sort of [development?] from this contact, by a stratagem recovered her play_without any hint on his part that he didn't want it! xxx I may add here, that "Aurelian" made a profound impression when it was read at the house of a friend, and within the first twenty four hours thereafter, Miss D - received four distinct offers from as many prominent actors to do her play at once. xx In any event151 2/3 L.R.R. Miss Dickinson will, herself, give some readings of it in the [?].152 cities, and I retain a vivid remembrance of [great ] the record of great and enthusiastic audiences, and very strong and substantial approval of the press! "=Will you let Hobart, and Dudly and Fessenden — and Miss - and the rest of us see some of these notices? —And will you — if you do not care to read it [to us ]_ [let ] allow us, - it is not printed _ to be your debtor for its loan? =We are not a scared at the prospect of wading through a [series] flow of "live dialogues" (vide Tribune) in which all the characters talk alike, and all talk like the author."? - no? - _Anyway, you will lose the "wails from Martha's Vineyard." _ I will send you [152 ] 153 or bring you some of the notices - with the manuscript. - By the by. - our friend Merrill -of the World. _ When he was of Boston Murray's Golden Rule, made a summary in print that you will, since you are interested, care to read. (Golden Rules Boston. 6.26.1880) Merrill, _ and some others - Fitch of the the dear old Boston Post, [and] Mrs White, Sallie Joy White. -Sam Bowles, _ not this one _ his father - "brains various" - had known it, before its travels - and Merrill wrote in his Golden Rule, as you now read154 Golden Rule Boston 6.26.1880 -The impression it made upon us as a peice [of] noble in conception and masterful in execution, incomparably stronger than any play yet produced in this country, -enables us to understand the remarkable success which has attended Miss Dickinson's public readings of the play in the western towns and cities. The praise 155 of the critics in these places has been bestowed in no stinted measure; the Toledo Blade went so far as to say "as a reading play [*it is quite equal to any in the language, excepting the best of Shakespeares'; and having heard it from beginning to end we dare affirm - rank heresy though it may seem - that it is abreast with those, while it has also the rare merit of being equally good as an acting play. Put upon the state in a style proportion- ate at all to its merits, and it will hold the boards as long as any that has ever been acted. * * * It is not extravagant to*] [brush] [*It is time that this country should cease to allow itself to be bullied and bulldozed into yielding up its independence of opinion to the dramatic critics of New York. As a class they are no more intelligent, and no better judges of true art than are to be found elsewhere, while the fact is notorious that, with a few honorable exceptions, they can be bought and sold like sheep in a market. With a petty spite which would not admit that any one, especially a woman, could have the genius to do more then one thing well, they pre-judged Miss Dickinson in the very outset of her dramatic career, and, in the face of the favorable verdict of an intelligent and critical Boston public, have since followed her with adverse criticism, that has taken the shape of persecution, designed to kill some of the most finished and brilliant work that has ever been given to the world. In spite of this Anna Dickinson still survives with powers undiminished, her plays yet live and will win the success they richly merit. People in the other great cities of the country will not always remain in the leading strings held by New York*] [*by New York*]156 This judgment of "Nasby'[s]," who ought to know what a [*and great drama is nearly as of well as though [*they*] he had Emily always lived at the East, Mouton's*] was set down by the seaboard critics to his good-nature and friendship for Miss Dickinson, while the concurrent praise from other quarters on role of reader and dramatic author. x x Her tragedy 'Aurelian', is a noble piece of literature. xx xx Miss Dickinson's reading of it is a pleasure, the like of which is rarely experienced. She brings deep feeling to that portion of her work xx leaving no doubt of156 [*and of Emily Bouton's*] as par example the Detroit Free Press in its summary of her "in the double role of reader and dramatic author.xx Her tragedy 'Aurelian', is a noble piece of literature. xx xx Miss Dickinson's reading of it is a pleasure, the like of which is rarely experienced. She brings deep feeling to that portion of her work xx leaving no doubt of157 her possession of the dramatic instinct. xxxx There was at no time apparent that hardness and coldness of which her New-York critics complain on the contrary she was all fire and passion." was quite too "provincial" to be of any account. But the Cincinnati press can hardly be charged with being moved unanimously by personal feeling, and it represents a city157 her possession of the dramatic instinct. xxxx There was at no time apparent that hardness and coldness of which her New-York critics complain on the contrary she was all fire and passion." was quite too "provincial" to be of any account. But the Cincinnati press can hardly be charged with being moved unanimously by personal feeling, and it represents a city 158 that can't be "sniffed" at in musical and dramatic matters, even by Boston! [*or New York!!*] Miss Dickinson has just read her play there and the dailies have given it columns of analysis, description, and praise that sounds extravagant in this colder latitude. The Enquirer editorially pronounces it "unquestionably the strongest piece of American dramatic literature;" the Commercial calls it "a remarkable159 play. - a masterpiece of workmanship;" and the Times concludes its long notice by declaring that "American literature has been enriched by a tragedy written on the plane to which Shakespeare alone has before risen. - a play that, as an acting tragedy, has not had its equal since the Elizabethan age". There is in the part of "Aurelian" a chance for a competent actor to make for himself a reputation based on [?ditions ] and comparisons [by] by creating a great original part, already cut out to his hand by the playwright."something besides traditions and comparisons, [ ] by creating a great original part, already cut out to his hand by the playwright.'160 [*Post. Feb. 5*] ="dear me" said a Boston man "sniffed at"? - Why I belong on the "Post" - and this is a little of what Fitch said [in it ] [in the Post] when the Tribune was trying to spade [the] Aurelian's grave - "It seems as if little less than inspiration could have directed the dramatist. xx It is not historical in treatment; it is restrained by no such limitations The author has been loyal to the dramatic idea from first to last. xx It is not simply the best piece of work x [that ] in its way, that Miss Dickinson has ever done, it is the finest specimen of dramatic and literary workmanship that has been produced in this generation at least. xx The public will soon be able to form its own judgments (this anent the Tribune and its falsehoods touching its origin and outcome) for several leading managers and stars have already intimated to Miss Dickinson that they are ready to give her very complimentary terms." [*McCullough's, too, for that matter,, = "but that is another story."*] 161 ="I wish you would tell us some more of this matter" - "Too long a story, - for [this] a sitting. _Some day._ meanwhile you shall have the Play." = and they had it. = They were all more or less familiar with newspapers. - The Vice Chairman [was one from his birth][a newspaper man] [o] [*+*] and there were [various] reasons [*here suggested*] why it was well for the group - specially this centre figure of the group to know - of self knowledge - what the Tribune condemned. [= In a little while ] [*+*][was] had been a newspaper man "from his birth." [Prided himself ] [was] proud that he and his, through generations had [continued] influenced the [heart] opinions of Iowa [newspaperdom ] [opinions ] by the [through] lines of their "State Register." - Also when the guarantee of Cornelius Bliss that he [was] is "a very able man, of long experience and tried faithfulness to the Party in which he has been a162 leader for many years" [*0*] = In the interval, while Mr. Wannamaker - for his own ultimate profit "fried fat" in Pennsylvania, and Mr. Dudley and others struggled with the purse strings of "stingy old Boston." Mr Hobart, coming from a[n] meeting of the executive committee carried to me - what had seemed to them a matter of vital importance. Moment = "However indifferent you may be, still I am sure it will gratify you - a little, - to know that Mr Harrison has written to the committee concerning you, and that you are the only speaker in the Country for whom he has called. He writes; -"I hear that Anna Dickinson wrote us may be induced to enter the Campaign and I desire you to secure her services - specially for Indiana - -on whatever basis she demands." =I did not then know the map of Indiana politics - of which more anon, - I did know that 163 - "There's no art to find the mind's construction in the faces" -and while I took for granted that there was some localized reason for the call, I [positily] courtsayed the "gratification" expected - with reserve. And also = [But ] continued to require [claim ] my "pound of flesh" - and speedily had it formulated and granted Granted? - Thrust upon me with fervor. = Not because of what it was but because of its outgrowth; [what sprang from it ] it is here itemized = no night travel = no speaking on "the hustings." covered roofs, this time, = the appointment to satisfactory to me [and stamped by me ] approved before publication, = Ten nights in Indiana = Five " " Michigan = Ten " " New York = one special meeting in the Metropolitan Opera House or Carnegie Hall under the avowed management of the National Committee. - not164 the substitute of the New York State Com. - under General Knapp =The remaining nights to the number of 30- to be filled as I chose. =For this $125. a night, with all expenses for myself and my maid. = $1000 to be paid in advance = [ If after the 30 nights were filled I] = This in any case: victory or defeat. In case of success the additional $1250. to be paid, making the sum for which I had stood: $5000. And as I had no doubt of the outcome I regarded the affair closed. [*"We are out now; - poor. Beggars, - When we are in we will be rich, Bankers"*] = Beside this, Mr. Clarkson & Mr Dudley pledged their "word of honor" that at least a portion of the debt so long due me for the Draft Riot Campaign from the party in Pennsylvania should be cancelled. - Say Six or Seven thousand more. =The thirty nights completed if I cared to fill out the remnant 165 of time [at the prices] under the conditions I had named, they were at my command. =In all this I had a central aim. It was avowed. It is self- evident. - I could [comma] "take the road" or my pen, when and how I chose and make more money under easier stress than this of National Campaigning. It is needless to so state. But in the whole world there was no power [of] that could put me on a platform under such conditions in the City of New York as would enforce just observation and not from Newspaper Row, [as] to compare with that of the Republican National Committee. = [And] Furthermore what dominated Newspaper Row [galvanized] paralyzed or galvanized the wires of the Associated Press. - What I read but dimly then I have since deciphered [since] well, illumined by the lurid fires of [hell] its own [Perdition] Inferno. =But, even then, I had sufficient knowledge to call attenti[on] to the fact, - and166 , professionally, -my [necessarily ] vital interest in it, and in the [*verdict of official reprobation of this inhuman court,*] = As I [pointed ] indicated, the Buffalo Commercial (April 14, 79) had shown: _ "The result of the bitter controversy that has been waged between Miss Dickinson and the New York papers (critics) is that she is dropped entirely from their columns of dramatic news. No more attention is paid to her (at a New York Theatre) than though she was playing in some "provincial" theatre. xx a rebuke x the public endorsed as just, and their silent retort shows that the shots she fired went home." [=And what is here depicted will stand fro a general witness. About many things done or planned to do Murderous lies. [followed] Assasin silence = And, always, the Tribune in the van. =Here is a clipping - to be duplicated by hundreds ] 167 = No member of the Committee required amplification to comprehend. What the local effect would be. The added cost in all sorts of outside methods of advertising. The heaviest cost in self-advertising. "Sticking it out," _ Seeing the receipts creep up slowly from night to night because those who came enjoyed well enough to tell and to send others. The wearing toil and endurance of body and will. =Also about many things done, or planned [*of kinds*] immediate note blown by the erstwhile silent papers, _The Tribune in the van:_murderous lies. These nailed. _Followed by assassin silence ="Here." I said is a specimen. = No matter for the whole article. This section will suffice for transcript, - with the comments of an "out of town papers."169 Republican 12.1.82. xxxx [This to be again referred selected for cause"] = "Miss Anna Dickinson is to have resolved never again to appear on the lecture platform, nor on the dramatic stage." New York Daily Tribune xxx [&c &c &c[ this [with an assorted variety]: - = Miss Dickinson's reply, which in print elsewhere, shows that the Tribune could not possibly crowd more misstatements into so short a space. A great newspaper should be careful in making an assertion of this sort, calculated to do such gross injustice unless in mistake Miss Dickinson She is not the woman to be cut off and consigned to oblivion by paragraphs in the paper for whose distinguished founder, Horace Greeley, she did and suffered so much in 1872, and which has, ever since his death, repaid its obligations by cruelly misrepresenting her and using its influence 169 to crush her. xx She is too large a woman to be buried in any such fashion, and despite the attempt of certain newspapers to alienate her friends, she still has a great and friendly public." ="Miss Anna" [said ] inquired a western man _ "aside from the family views of the alleged critics. What is your explanation of "Certain Newspapers." _ So widely opposed in politics, and "various," yet as you say "a coterie" _? =Brothers Cain. Men whose principles are personal gain, and whose politics pecuniary profit, _ a kinship of vampires. _ We instance here, are Reid and Hay. Siamese twins- Reid professed devotion to Chase, _ Hay to Lincoln: _ which [so] chief won an immaterial matter to the following. Reid and Russell Young: -Tribune and Herald. Greeley and170 Grant, Warner Milton or Conkling: "You pays your money and you takes your choice: _ What certain men desire to attain they gain by misdirection. _ The Phila Press or Times. _ The New York Tribune or Herald with their adjuncts from sea board to mountain, _ some brother's Cain, _ some friendly [own] chums regardless of consequences to others work the charm. The Public sees the widening circles in the neighboring pond _ not the hand that cast the disturbing stone. [The mischief is that in some of these alliances, - the kinship of propinquity in youth - there is red blood and honest affection, - men like [Forney of the paper and] Watterson [of the present] you will say who become members of the guild through their hearts and thereafter fail to set their heads in judgment on evil confreres & their deeds.] 171 [*0*] = "Reid and Young came together on the Tribune - ? = Oh, no. = Reid in his youth was an employee of the House of Representatives. _ = Librarian of Congress_ "By no means: - that is a larger place. _ Librarian of the House: - a small place but handy to know people. _ Hay from the White House. _ Russell Young from the Senate. Senate Secretary Forney's private and confidential and clever Secretary and young man _ Henry Watterson and Samuel Wilkeson and many more trying their nibs on the keen edge of Forney's Washington Chronicle: _ Did you know Forney - John W. Forney - True man. True gentleman, True. friend. _ wit, journalist. Politician. Leader. Genius. [virile. brilliant] It was out of the garden of his making and planting so many shoots, were transferred _ like Russell Young _ toMem: _ Forney [?] of Senate 1861._ J R T. private Sec. Washington Chronicle - { Phila Press - 62_65. Chief Editorship.} Jay Cooke loan _ N. York 1866. Gurley made him managing Editor. Phila "Post" "Standard" 1872 "Standard went up. _ J.R.T. "unsigned" - went to Bennett and Herald. "Head of the foreign news service: "Leader Writer" at home, _ all over the world "In his capacity as correspondent 1877 he accompanied Gen Grant in his journey around the world" Herald's Obituary &c Jan. 18. 1899. =While waiting for that "3rd Term." 79-82. Herald Ed. Minister to China made by Arthur at Grant's solicitation (owned part of Phila Ev. Star) 172 his ruin _ to New York _ The Tribune _ The Herald. - "A solar height", [?]", to set in starless night." _ Loring was managing editor of the Tribune in .66, when he was but five and twenty. Reid came to it in 1869. Russell Young went out of it "under a cloud" in 1872. _ wrote to the Herald under it,_ shone" behind [it] the cloud" _ never emerging_ till the end. with tribunal =Even at that a force [power] [at] in President making - the Herald's third term afflicted [suffered] and its [ugliness?] zeal in the Orient were well [carried?] for together by his [capacity] brilliant and capable powers. It was for the Herald _ of which he was a part that he served Grant and Conkling Let Politics makes strange bdfellows! In [?] stranger alliances. The kinship of propinquity in trouble. Where is read blood thus 173 honest affection. _ men like Watterson, we will say - who became members of the guild through their hearts, and thereafter fail to set their heads in judgment on [*evil confreres and their deeds.*] = none of this has hurt you in the West_? = No. [But the West hurts me.] Your [friend] chief of the Tribune remarked the other day "will nothing break that woman's power in the West ___ ? Query who has tried to break it? _ with what [means] tools ? ___ No: _ but the West hurts me. The distances are too great the fatigue enormous. _ 'Tis the ease of travel, the Compactness of the East that I desire._as of old_ Materialistic comfort and easy gain. _ In the spirit of affairs who would not cry for the West. _Respond to the "Call" (not) of the "Wild" _ but of the Free and the Friends! Oh, yes._ the West before all _ if only one can stand the strain! _ I have had a good many years of it _ and I love it better with the years. It grows, like all true affections. _but the "tired feeling" also grows, alas! That is an added reason I tack 174 on my cause of justice_ "Which we have taken in hand._ said Mr. Hobart, _not to put down.["] _and apropos of all this I wish you would talk a little about the 72 campaign." = I did so [And tell us some matters concerning Greeley. ] = [I did that, also ] ="And now a little [about] following the second Term fight about the Third Term. [More] and some of its Central swirl in Philadelphia, _ in the officio of Geo. W Childs and [Alexander McClure ] elsewhere, = I did that. = and before we quit these matters will you enlighten me concerning certain moot points touching Greeley? [= and] =Fortunately I could _ and did_this,_also. = As was stated later in more than one Court of law. [we went ] at Headquarters we went into the Closet of Skeletons and175 held a gruesome exhibit and examination of bones: "dry" and covered. ="Miss Anna" recommenced the questioning. "What would you say to the nomination of the Tribune man? [by the] ="Jay Gould?" "Reid? "Nominated by whom? "The Rep Party "With Allison? "No; _ Perhaps: _ what if for the first place. What would you say. "I did not say._ It was too preposterous for speech. _ It certainly was not gay'_but I laughed_ Seriously? =It is ridiculous to even suggest [it]. The Republican Party has done foolish things _certainly, but it is not lacking in brains. It enjoys life._ what should make it eager to commit suicide? =no less? 176 =With their New York strophe "antied" by Philadelphia's McClure's and Childs [With a chorus of Childs McClure ] =with infamy. _ of what are you thinking? _ That John Hay's editorials in the Tribune and Russell Youngs. [and ] and George Hepworth's [and ] Gordon Bennetts aid through the Herald will reconcile the country _ even Wall St _ to the rule of Jay Gould in the White House? _ That self-respecting people and business interests will consent to such a President _ Jay Gould _ proxied by his "Young Man of the Tall Tower." _ or represented by his "Stool Pigeon"? (vide, the Sun) =Do you think the "Mill's Millions" has set him free? Jay Gould's majority interest was bought by that astute financier not alone for influence in Wall St_ but, as a family devotee _ for Fifth Avenue and Newport, not alone for[financial] revenue wrecking but for social climbing. _ all the Mills money could not [do for him] "Work the game"177 The Tribune and the press gang can manipulate. _ = and if Sale and transfer were made _ what improvement? If not Gould's _ Mills? [As] Is this [bright Topics show ] idol worshipper as [shown] revealed by the clever [wit] satirist a suitable [ ] [sat] Chief Executive for the Nation? = Will the "Mills Millions" [offset this ] dull ridicule? _ worst and most deadly of weapons? = Will they offset the [any ] righteous anger of the capable men of the West who have toiled in vain to make homes however simple in a country that saw Mills drive by a traveler on an oxcart from Hudson to the Golden Gate, and return through land deals and steals of Rail Road Stock robbery from San Francso to New York [?]Life? 177. Town Topics ? (1885) Summer "In the Tall Tribune Tower sat one Whitelaw, a wit, D.O., Saves D.O, Saves D.O! And I said to him "Whitelaw, O Why do you sit Singing D.O., Saves D.O., Saves D.O.!' "Is it excess of piety, Whitelaw?" I cried, "Have the Mugwumps confessed that Jim Blaine never lied?" "Go to! I am praising my Maker," he sighed, "Saves D.O., Saves D. O., Saves D.O.!" (June_early178 = No, not even if he desired it could all the money in the world set him free. "All the water in the ocean cannot sweeten this [one] hand." with Jay Gould's it dabbled in the waters that flowed over Greeley's submerged head. Do you think if there is a decent Democrat, and there are myriads _ they will fail to inquire of a fast campaign and its sequel: _ they are interested. Greeley was their candidate. Do you think if there is a decent Republican, _ and there are armies _ they will fail to shrink from some contacts and make outcry. _ Look here at home _at the files of the "Sun" _ of [Mail had Express] Commercial Advertiser", _ at this sample expression [o] of the "Times" _ Certainly we can all personally testify the Press would be void of enthusiasm, and, because, [alone], of its infancy178 = The Times is pretty conservative, you will allow? _ This is the Say_so of a faithful Greeley - Tribune man. Given full swing what kind of blows can this editorial flail let fall? 178 x "We believe that a certain moderation and forbearance should characterize the conduct of newspapers in their treatment of each other and of each other's editors. This rule of courtesy forbids us to speak of Mr. Whitelaw Reid, editor of the New York Tribune and President of the Lotus Club, in terms which would fully and correctly picture forth his singular character. We have heard hundred of prominent men in this city express their contempt for the man in words which178 178 1/4 cannot be reproduced here. Republican politicians and men in high places in the State and Nation, whose favor or attention Mr. Reid is constantly seeking to secure, are perhaps the most outspoken in their detestation of him. Their estimate of Mr. Reid's character, however, is usually conveyed with a freedom of language and an emphasis altogether unsuited to our columns. But we keep well within the bounds of moderation when we say that Mr. Whitelaw Reid is personally a sneak and in his ?al ?dly ?se who ?n ?at ?ot ?itelaw ?y, Oct. 22. 1885.178 1/2 newspaper an habitual liar. We have repeatedly been assured by those who have personally known him well that he is a sneak. His newspaper gives public proof that he is a liar. Is it not the sentiment of the community that Mr. Whitelaw Reid is a sneak and a liar? The New York Times (Ed.) New York Thursday, Oct. 22. 1885.179 alone it lacks - or would lack what the [Press] newspaper adults own: - a calendar of contempt and hate to which all opponents could refer. [and] In this [ I] do not overlook the most important of four Republican papers. _ You so regard it: _ because you [lacked] needed - you leaders - the vim and the conscience to destroy it, creating and rooting by establishing [*whelming*] an overpowering opponent - a true, "leading" Republican paper, you made alliance with Jay Gould under the show of the line "founded by Horace Greeley" - [to] "He who must needs sup with the devil should have a long spoon." — Yours is not long enough - You will be burned even of the 'building' Every stone and brick, timber and joist will cry aloud this paper belonged to Horace Greeley. How did he die? How did his successor 180 secure and stand in his shoes? - It has been the place shame of Journalism that the shadow cast by selfishness and greed across the fame - living and dying and dead - of their mental Head - their [intellectual] Colossus of intellect, their Chief of initiative has not been lifted by [even] so much as a lantern in their hands that would reveal the [?] embodied his and avarice [embodied] that have [made] flung the shade. = That is the relation of gain the connection of prosperity the honor of offence: - Do [well] not betray my [offense] transgression and I will not denounce your crime , - And there is always the [religions] creed of [the] Success, - the prostration at the feet of the Golden Calf by whatever faith the postulant is known - but this all is for the Temple of Peace. - The ["game once made."] contest avowed. The Democratic papers at least, will have to Rep. their Party Allegiance and fight for victory by whatever181 weapons lie to their hands. _ It is, also, reasonable to believe, that with Time, the Truth will grow from Greeley's grave. =And if it does not? _ And newspaper here are too [selfish ] canny and politicians too selfish to reveal it_? = Then I will take a hand in one more Presidential game. If there is no one else to speak to that issue [of] from Portland Maine to Portland Oregon, I will tell the Story of Greeley. = "Well!" said a member "that is an item to chalk. [And ] for remembrance" _ And to take into consideration _ later. xxxxxx =Meanwhile, "Aurelian" had been read by the group that made the Everett House both Headquarters and Home for the Campaign. - and as I was quitting the city the manuscript was returned with this letter from the182 [more or less critcal] analytic newspaper; party-man. Tribune apologist Vice Chairman: _ It is here reproduced [for more than one] [cause] [reason ] for manifest [reason] and worthy reason: - various [jackals ] wolves of newspapers and their [jackal ] legal jackals in print and in Law Courts having vainly striven to misinterpret .all fact and truth concerning it: - 1 Everett House Sunday Evening Sept. 16, 1888. To/ Miss Dickinson Fifth Avenue Hotel Dear Miss Dickinson: I have read Aurelian. I turn from its pages to pay my homage to its creator. For it is a creation, & has the fairy breath of immortality in it. It will live by right of its own power & by the grace & genius of the mastery in which it will hold182 [more or less critcal] analytic newspaper; party-man. Tribune apologist Vice Chairman: _ It is here reproduced [for more than one] [cause] [reason ] for manifest [reason] and worthy reason: - various [jackals ] wolves of newspapers and their [jackal ] legal jackals in print and in Law Courts having vainly striven to misinterpret .all fact and truth concerning it: - to its creator. For it is a creation, & has the fairy breath of immortality in it. It will live by right of its own power & by the grace & genius of the mastery in which it will hold183 2 sway over men who think & women who feel. How came ye to know so much of war, as to have this wizard gift of touching men into sympathy with its martial pulse & purpose of throne & cabinet & the drum of field and action _ and so much of love as to alternately storm and caress the human heart and woman witch it absolutely with your own power, & waken it to worlds and worlds of deep, noble, and tender feeling it had never known, or felt, or imagined before? [?] more noble and divine. What a world of thought, refined & exalted into something more thanI am mute with 3 admiration before the magician who, with such knowledge of the heart of man & woman both as to know more of their thoughts & more of their dreams than they had known themselves, Can create such a man as Aurelian, so kingly in all great and tender things alike, & such a woman as Zenobia, more woman than queen, and therefore more noble and divine What a world of thought, refined & exalted into something more than184 4 thought, you must live in - a world made up of the two empires of war and love, & you strong enough to be master of one, & tender & gentle enough to be mistress of the other. The elements are indeed rarely mingled into such power, & never before I believe in a woman. I do not know how this play will act upon the set stage, nor exactly how it will affect the world from the footlights: For I am not a critic there. But I do know how it takes hold of the play, & about many things in it. I find myself wondering if all this stately wonder of words5 human heart with that power which is divine, & not to be resisted, nor to die. I would love to hear you read it! May I not, some time! Still more would I love to see you as Zenobia. Her heart must be your own. How else could you have found or known or created such a heart! I covet the opportunity to talk to you about this play, & about many things in it. I find myself wondering if all this stately wonder of words6 & thoughts & revelations could come from the quiet woman, whom one might cherish as a loved sister or an idolized wife, so lately in these rooms, then comes in its own words the very tones & colors of this mortal creature, & I see Zenobia in both, & do not know which to admire most, or which most to surrender to in proud allegiance. But I am very proud that in my mortal estate I know the author of Aurelian, and that the hand that wrote it in all its beauty and could Aurelian alone have come. I look always with adoration, & with loving awe and complete7 power has taken my own in accepted friendship. Out of deep suffering comes all that is great in mortals, and all that God looks upon in us to call it fair and enduring. Out of a heart of almost unequalled sweetness and courage made divine by suffering on many a cross of sacrifice and trial, could Aurelian alone have come. I look always with adoration, & with loving awe and complete186 8 surrender on the symbol of the Cross. It tells, in its story of suffering, sacrifice, and love, all there is in religion now or in hope of life to come. This story is told in Aurelian with wondrous grace, and feeling, and power. God bless the author of it, and give her the love of all good hearts of honest courage everywhere. More than ever your friend J.S. Clarkson =Mr Clarkson had informed me of his wife: - that she was a beautiful and high-minded woman whom he loved, and of whose respect he desired [not ] to [forfeit ] to be always worthy. In the [?] of these protestations and187 the gloom of his dastardly dishonesty cowardice [and cruelty] toward [me and] my contract and me I later said he would [certainly] assuredly not desire for her to be given opportunity to sit in judgment by comparisons on his professions and their sequel and their later sequel through newspaper and Court_Room mire. =However, This is a personal matter of no value to me. The matter of value is the critical judgment of a keen and practiced and originally artistically ill-disposed: (vide his own paper), journalist on the pages characterized by the Tribune, as "series of level dialogues in which all the Characters talk alike and all talk like the author," and whole caddish but malignant interference, [through ] was the cause of John McCullough's loss of his play. _ But again, oh inimitable Kipling _"that is another story: = On that day, quitting New York with my, I read the letter, and studied my Indiana itinerary face set westward 188. and mused on what might be the exact meaning and measure of Mr. Harrison s expressed eagerness for my presence in Indiana. That there was great and growing discontent in the ranks of the Grand army of that State I knew. That they _the "old Soldiers" were dissatisfied with legislation affecting their interests and were proposing to retaliate in kind by Knifing "The Ticket _harmful to them and fatal to it, I was informed. That the larger number were old Republicans [and] who for no cause nor candidate would vote the Democratic ballot but, regardless of abstinence or bibulousness would go to the polls and cast their verdict for Prohibition as represented by their old Comrade - Clinton Fiske, and so make sure, by division, of the Cleveland Electoral triumph in Harrison's own state I was warned, and with this was assuredthe gloom of his dastardly dishonesty cowardice [and cruelty] toward [me and] my contact and me I later said he would [certainly] assuredly not desire for her to be given opportunity to sit in judgment by comparisons on his professions and their sequel and their later sequel through newspaper and Court_Room mire. =However, This is a personal matter of no value to me. The matter of value is the critical judgment of a keen and practiced and originally artistically ill-disposed: (vide his own paper), journalist on the pages characterized by the Tribune, as "series of level dialogues in which all the Characters talk alike and all talk like the author," and whole caddish but malignant interference, [through ] was the cause of John McCullough's loss of his play. _ But again, oh inimitable Kipling _"that is another story: = On that day, quitting New York with my, I read the letter, and studied my Indiana itinerary face set westward 188. and mused on what might be the exact meaning and measure of Mr. Harrison s expressed eagerness for my presence in Indiana. That there was great and growing discontent in the ranks of the Grand army of that State I knew. That they _the "old Soldiers" were dissatisfied with legislation affecting their interests and were proposing to retaliate in kind by Knifing "The Ticket _harmful to them and fatal to it, I was informed. That the larger number were old Republicans [and] who for no cause nor candidate would vote the Democratic ballot but, regardless of abstinence or bibulousness would go to the polls and cast their verdict for Prohibition as represented by their old Comrade - Clinton Fiske, and so make sure, by division, of the Cleveland Electoral triumph in Harrison's own state I was warned, and with this was assured189 that Mr. Harrison and his Home advisers were certain the[se] [brave] men of the 'faded blue" would listen to Anna Dickinson when they would give neither ear nor heed to another. = Added to these were a [good] many "first voters" some of them sons of soldier sires who had some of them in a general way good- will to the prohibition candidate and without analysis, without looking at the roots, or considering the soil, or calculating thy harvest, without realizing the far reaching effect of personal [action] sentiment that belonged either to personal living, or local action were ready to do "as dad did" and bring the G. O. P. to its humiliation = And this was one reason why Mr. Harrison having read with care, - as he afterwards informed me - the New York Press interview of 1888 desired [what] ampluyfcation of what I had there said to the "Rum" issue (Page 59. - 190 =No real good ever came to anyone by the crucifixion of the rights of others. = At [various] divers times and in various places - not many - I had some [things] words to speak in regard to Temperance - and had spoken them. - With the exception of the few lines in the Interview I believe I had never expressed in public my personal convictions on the subject of Prohibition , though I held [most] them: To me profound and conclusive. - [I think] What I thought and what I [uttered] afterwords uttered might be summarized191 [after this wise] or rather [perhaps] expanded after this wise: =Common to all are appetites and passions, by which people live, and humanity perpetuates itself. =To eat and to drink and to continue the Race are the rights of all individuals who are fit to be at large. =Temperance in these is the watchword for the advance of the world. Temperance:- moderation, the result of self-knowledge, self-discipline, self-control. Children of nature with nature's gifts are to prove themselves also children of God by the use of these gifts. Reason: _ the soul, _ dominating the body, neither defrauding it, nor debauching it =Is this the trend and purpose of Prohibition? =Its name is reply. =Prohibition uses the argument that has 192 sustained all Despotisms. It has no other: -"You are not fit for self-government." =Despotism is not the less Despotism that it calls itself Democracy. _The will of a certain number of [people] persons to control community for the alleged good of community._ Oppression in the name of x salvation. [*x junto*] =Because a faction believes or professes to believe that the fermented or distilled products of fruits and grains are injurious in their effects, they propose: - 1:_To destroy enormous industries and returns of growth and production. -also of manufacture. [*Common wealth*] 2:_To substitute a paternal despotism for the government of the People [a republic]-buttressed by spies and informers, full often exploited and executed by hypocrites — based on a public (populace) that in its majority is either actively or passively opposed to its [?]193 or indifferent to the existence with results of violations and evasions and consequent and inevitable contempt for forces that have proved themselves ineffective, and of laws moribund before they were born. =You can't legislate drink out of existence any more than you can food. _The law should evolve kinship in the license and regulation of both._ Men who drink in ordinary with their meals a wholesome beverage of cider, or ale, or beer are going to secure it somehow. Men who inherit the need _or who have formed the table habit of a glass of bitters or a tonic stimulant to appetite or aid to digestion will find means to evade a law to which neither their will nor their judgment assent. =The derelicts will find muddier streams than any in which the Law has permitted them with 194 to flounder. =Legislation under duress cannot thrive._Men vote for Prohibition, who think without having the courage to speak at the polls, but who say afterwards, "No I do not [thin ] believe the cause of Temperance,_Moderation, _Sobriety will be served._ But, it is the fad. High _tide this year. =I would have been "boycotted" or "I would have been blacklisted or "I would have been left at home next election," or some lady whom I know _with whom I do not argue_ was keeping tab, or serving coffee_ oh of course the law won't be because it can't be really enforced. Nobody who knows anything about real conditions expects it to be._ But it may do some good._and there are always the big cities and the river towns195 back on when things get too Puritanical or Inquisitorial near home - And then the whirligig of Time brings in his Changes." =Meanwhile will such as these believe "good" to morals and Character has been done by the law [through which Personal Liberty is struck down at a man's own threshold] through which he has has voted himself fine or imprisonment for the possession of a personal [comfort] draught stimulant, medicine, or luxury -through the decoy of acquaintance, neighbor or even professed friend, begging help for the assumed illness of self or member of family? =Prohibition does not serve the cause of Temperance. It is not intended to serve it. =If the same amount of energy its zealots show were spent in the investigation of pre-natal nursing or under feeding 196 over-crowding, sunless, hopeless grinding, galling conditions of existence that make for drunkenness - with their uplift and ultimate dispersion what joy would there be on earth and in Heaven! =And further, what a [good] fine thing [to work through the laws of nature and not against them] to smooth and widen the course of torrents_not [by] attempt to dam them, to work through the laws of nature and not against them for the elevation and perfection of (man) [humanity ] =But this is a [matter] business of Humanity. Prohibition is a matter of Politics. Many of its leaders disappointed or unsatisfied politicians who have dealt with either Party in power. -I have seen their standard-bearer of a great State - at this writing a member of the national House of Representatives elected by the Party [with] which he had denounced renounced197 for lack of sufficient personal appreciation - disciplined by "deals" and dragooned to his desires — While he was supporting the "Banner of Reform" staggering in the streets of his Home City not under the weight of his Purity_work but the manifest "load" of his "Rum." =And with no special discrepency in profession and practice,_ since the Chief- Priestess of this cult speaking from the exalted shrine states: "I am not a Prohibitionist because I believe that Prohibition will prohibit, or that the doctrine as preached can be enforced. I am a Prohibitionist because it is what I would like to see if it could be accomplished. xxx There is method in my madness. I know that by advocating the cause of Prohibition it will stimulate men who, while they cannot agree with me in my creed, nevertheless wish to do all that they can, and in that way concessions are made. By advocating one we get something 198 as a compromise which could hardly be obtained otherwise. The other Parties wish to keep us in line, and so concessions are in order. That about explains the whole matter." (Interview with Miss Willard. N.Y. Tribune, Sunday. 9.29.1895.) =Whatever else may need clarifying in this statement this is clear, that the High-Priestess (how much more readily her sworn followers,) stands ready to sacrifice private interests without scruple and without counting resultant cost to the Public, and to trample on [ any] rights of the individual in order more speedily to seem to accomplish any desired purpose. =There seems no place in this formula of action for that Justice that is the [end] purpose of [all] governments. Is the design of civil society. ="In / 84 Garfield's Committee on Resolutions - at Chicago - did not even shake hands with us nor ask 'how many votes we could deliver' - we told them 'some political party will respond. The Greenbacks have._ And so we [b??]199 -the H.P.-and her immediates - bade farewell eternally to the G.O.P." "May God do, and Satan not undo." ["Good Lord! good devil." ] =Greenback, Silver or Gold Standard. Tariff for Revenue Tariff for Protection. High Tariff Low Tariff. Free Trade - [Revision ] Monroe Doctrine expanded with World's army and Navy Monroe Doctrine of Home_business well attended to. _ Union Rights or Injunction. _Manhood Suffrage. Womanhood Suffrage Universal _ suffrage._ Restricted Suffrage._The Democracy of Humanity or the Aristocracy of the Skin. - All matters of no moment. To any that responds will "we deliver the votes," regardless of outcome [in any way ] if we are recognized, and, without expectation or hope of execution of the Law are guaranteed the attempt [-to wit curb but, harness ] [and goad = to ] of establishing in American our Paternal Despotism with the means that such beneficent government has always employed 200 Time and of course modified by Environment [and] =The High Priestess (to wit: Miss F.S.W.) has written of herself as seven (7) persons. An ascending scale, its apex "The Politician." This last, reaching, in her judgment, it apotheosis at the "Union of the Blue and the Grey," otherwise the Prohibition Party Convention, Meeting at Tomlinson Hall, Indianapolis Indiana, May 3, 1888. =Of all that this Convention hoped to do, planned to do, did, _ of all its purpose and menace through its nominee for the Presidency, Mr. Harrison was painfully well informed. The gathering was at the threshold of his own home - the bid through Gen. Fiske was for the votes of the Comrades alike of himself and of his antagonist. Their discontent with his allies in his own State was abounding. =It is a fact that my active participation and acute interest in passing events of the Political201 world had been so lacking as to have left me in complete ignorance of the Convention, save for its outcome, and even on the spot - with cause for action and observation at close range my business was to deal with the problem of the day and not that of the ages. - was to show reason why certain voters should cast their votes then - at that election for the true protection of labor - their own and that of others. That the way to "protect" labor was to protect the laborer - and that under this government he was devoid of covering - more stripped than an alien however poor who still held line of subject - connection with the power of his Sovereign if he stood denuded of his ballot - denied his manhood suffrage. with task set, = to the limit - of my ability I have always given myself to the work in hand. With [thought and] knowledge and thought of Frances Willard as without them nothing said or done by me in this 202 [campaign] canvass would have varied If this were the record of the Presidential Campaign of 1888, - impersonal so far as I was interested, as was the fight - nothing would be added here, - But for the subject and purpose of this Book, and for light to be cast on after events, continuing links of one chain Personality is the "Order of the Day." =Only under oath and compulsion, in an United States Court,[ compelled by this woman and her friends,] in a struggle with assassins, compelled by [this woman] herself and her friends have I [either by speech or word wither spoken or printed held controversy with Miss Frances Willard] antagonized Frances Willard. = Personal squabbles, - even devils - have failed to interest me. Therein I have found my education has been defective. I have learned203 for "God and Right" as he suffered for them, that a warrior in the open field may more surely stay the finish of the fight and see defeat fall on his honest foe, respecting and respected, if he took the [time and ] sense and time to tear out the venom stings and poison barbs flung from cover or ambush on the side [of friends] or from the rear. = [Taking] Pausing he might then also hear the echo, of lies atrocious as cowardly [flung] associated - in safe places - with his name, and take (suitable) action. = Because of no difference of opinion, [honest] true or fraudulent - but for reason [that is probatum est tried and proved] past dispute criminal cause - [association] federating of Frances Willard with [the] newspaper and other felons who have occasioned the writing of this book that I put here a record of which it suffices to say, probatum est. = I would that a little [would] sufficed, but for foolish partizans who may think to say "She does not 204 speak of this — or that—" is to prove the truth or falsehood. - I speak in detail, with effort at conscientious condensation. = To make a beginning, - not of my first acquaintance with Miss Willard - but with a statement of hers, — others in sequence: - demonstrating that her [regard for ] adherence to veracity was no closer than that of her more-or-less reputable and disreputable political and journalistic [assoc] partners. =In course of time [these] her [partners] [associates] colleagues [made her] in this case, made her a shibboleth. - "Miss Willard says [so:] as if the last analysis were reached And she herself spoke for their print as though to apprehension her own voice sounded from Sinai. =The [witness] evidence of the witness is to be respected as the witness proves worthy of respect. - Incidentally: - The purpose of this writing is to [secure] advocate and secure neither Prohibition, Limitless License,205. nor Temperance. It is, if possible, to induce every reader to aid in the acquisition and establishment of Justice. That is to say, - the Truth. M o [o] 205 [o] _Nor did "Such motion prevail by a large majority!" — on the Contrary.205 nor Temperance. It is, if possible to induce every reader to aid in the acquisition and establishment of Justice. That is to say,_the Truth. = Item:_ I was never" invited by Miss Willard" [to speak] nor any one else to speak on the platform of the National Temperance Society [*o*] at Chicago in 1875._[Nor were there "men and women of note in the National W.C T U, then present?] nor "did Miss Goodell, at my (Miss Willard's) suggestion, move that Miss A D. be invited to speak." (vide Miss W's History) It is true that Miss W. had "prevailed on (me) to present at a meeting when the question of Equal Suffrage to be debated." =The Convention meeting at Farwell Hall was the last of the National Temperance Society of which the Hon. Wm. Dodge was President._Most Conservative in its dealings with women._ Eager for their aid. Cold to their political status._ [As a matter of fact there was at 206 that time no National W.C.T. U. - I should judge scarcely its neucleus. — =So far from suggestion and invite the women who were struggling for a suffrage resolution had not platform foothold for themselves. - Again and yet again they were [voted] rule and managed down and out, because they failed to put the hose before the cart. — asked for "suffrage" - instead of asking for every means that would further their desired end _ woman's ballot in their judgment, being one. =As I sat at the rear of the great hall and these women almost in tears said "What are we do do"_ I suggested the wording that would carry - as the former ones had been each and all decreed out of order." ="And then?" ="Some one of you go up to the Platform. _ On the instant it is read, before Bishop Haven or any one else can interfere call out "I Second the Motion."207 ="oh ! I could not!" ="I think I would faint!" =Oh! You have helped us with the resolution_oh_ Do say something for it. _Help get it before the convention." ="I?_No, surely._This is not my fight._I do not believe in Prohibitory Legislation_nor sumptuary laws. _I am not an Imperialist_nor a Persecutor_but if I believe what you profess to believe I would have the matter read and seconded and flung into the [*arena of the Con. and officers*] if I dropped dead in the attempt." =They did it all right, and the fight was on, with men delegates who grasped at their [aid] help pounding them and foolish women [regu] themselves regularly elected to what was in fact a Political Party Convention feebly wailing "God forbid that I should even have the ballot"_and [fate] was [serving] using them so harshly and unjustly _ that in the midst of the Milee I got to my feet with "Mr Chairman." — Bishop Haven, afterwards [*I do not approve of guardians for American Citizens.*] 208 confirmed what I was told by some on the platform that he, recognizing from afar the voice exclaimed in staccato whisper "It is Anna Dickinson. Don't recognize her."_ with the result that I "held the floor"_ of the aisle_at the back of the huge hall_and called my "Mr Chairman." as one and another and yet another beligerent struck out and sat down_till at last even the fighting Bishop exclaimed "It's no use. She means to speak, you might as well recognize her." =And that is how Miss Willard had me invited to the Platform." =As to the speech. It was a [pl] combat fight for woman suffrage _ and as applicable to the Saloon Keeper's wife and her interests as to the Crusader. - =Item: I never was "pleaded with (by Miss Willard) to come with us in the temperance work."_ She was in no such work. Temperance means moderation. - Nor did I ever "Seem half 209 [*0*] who says, elsewhere of herself "I always wanted (Page 688) to be widely known, loved and believed in . xx X my limitation is X that I could not do good work for itself alone.XX I wanted some one else to know." =Here then, self limned is a case in which self-knowledge is a poor lens —however brilliant - through which to Iook at another.— the result is distortion, (2 209 =And if she had been less self-absorbed, she might have learned through Miss Goodell that in the time of her [whom she quotes that] father to whom Miss Willard refers_as now _ the "Drama" the Theatre bred & holds [more than once] the mirror to nature and so full often leads the church._ That in Mr G's time when the American Pulpit was still preaching support of the Fugitive Slave Law with text of Paul and Onesimus and binding religion and humanity to the Juggernaut of Slavery - the Theatre from the Atlantic to the Miss. with tears and laughter was proclaiming through "Uncle Tom's Cabin" the genius of universal Liberty [*This in passing.*]209 persuaded." — For years I had been "full persuaded" as to what I believed right_ with no call to [petty] zealous personal action. =What had "brilliant friends - patrons of the Drama." - or its neglectors -to do with convictions? [of duty] beliefs? duty?_Her phrasing confesses a dilletante disciple [*0*] Item: -"took Elizabeth Comstock [*to make known*] and to labor with me. * x To whom with more of the like reported infinalty as answering" your souls are calm and steadfast. While mine is wild and stormy! Let me go my way." =And the last of this is as vivacious as the first: - Mistress Elizabeth Comstock, beautiful woman and dignified Quaker Preacher could not be then "made known" to me since she had been a guest at my mother's wedding,_ had many a time been a visitor at her home_ and afterwards cordially entertained beneath my own roof. -nor whatever I may have thought of their souls (_By the way and these were210 diverse ) - I neither believed my [own] mother's daughter by the foolish untruth that she possessed a wild and stormy soul, nor engaged in the supererogatory toil of petitioning [f] two pleasant acquaintances that they permit me to go my way. By the Light that lighteneth every " one I tried to find - or to make - my way. [And that it should be one - others who cared for their fellows - would be neither ashamed nor afraid to tread in company.] [Item: "Earnest and tender were the letters I sent here] "God has many aims to compass, many messages to send And [h]His instruments are fitted each to some distinctive end." [=Item: "Earnest and tender were the letters I sent her."! -] Furthermore as I looked back through the ages I could well discern the difference of the illumination cast by the 211 Light of Heaven and the light of the Stake. Item:- "Earnest and tender were the letters I sent her, and eloquent of hope the boquets of flowers," X X but following the Apologue of Mistress Comstock and herself. X X "I knew the case was hopeless." = Here we reach the milk in the cocoanut. = Mrs. H. Whitall Smith for years [her] Miss W's backer and stay, Miss W's own selected interpreter [calls] likens her to the Devil- Fish, [the] though with more euphony designates [as] "Octopus"- & her "blond octopus."- and she "her [willing] victim." ="As I will"- contented = I have heard Miss Willard say her chiefest ambition was to be the first woman Bishop of the Methodist Church,- She believed in the hierarchical system. She desired to belong to the hierarchy.- And then212 to climb ___ and dominate. -My Anglo-Saxon blood has come to me through twohundred and fifty years of Quaker embodiment. I and, as Bancroft says "the rise of the people called Quakers marks the moment where intellectual freedom was claimed unconditionally by the people as an inalienable birth right." =Whatever my garb in my soul I am "a Friend." Better than Puritan or Pilgrim the Friend stands for the embodied Democratic idea. He taught that "We Thee it, and Thou it, in this house." And that Individualism with opportunities for its growth in good sense and enlightened conscience - the right of each to think to know and to utter ___ and to act - is organized [Liberty] and protected liberty. = Mrs Whitall-Smith _ aforementioned - states "I am not sure but that something once 213 said about us, laughingly, is after all pretty nearly the truth. that, "if Frances Willard should push a plank out into the ocean, and should beckon the White Ribbon Women to follow her out to the end if it, they would all go without a question." My idea[l] of Reform and Reformers was not and is not of a sheep [run] walk, [dominated and] led by a bell or moved to action by a sheep-Hook. =I have always had a profound and enduring interest in women. Young and old, rich and poor, home-keeping and professional, learned and simple. To whatever has intensified their vision, widened its field of observation, added to their powers, developed their resources clinched their rights, [added] enlarged their duties, their dignities, their responsibilities I have said "God speed" and given a push with voice and hand to the limit of endowment214 My regard for Frances Willard was a tribute to her work for the liberal education of girls [women] of which I knew by report -- and I was pleased -- at sight -- by her [charming] winning personality. That she knew how to watch others labor -- and at premium time "enter into their labor." That she had the skill to sweep the circle in [an] ascending curve to the apex using the toil of the uprooters -- the spaders, the [dig] ploughers [diggers] planters, harrowers, diggers watchers as base for a living statue did not detract from her surface charm, of that I spoke freely and openly. -- of its sub-soil I held my thoughts in silence. Since she was so clever I wished she possessed liberal greatness. -- I did not say so. I rendered to Caesar the things that belonged to Caesar as a beautiful and gifted woman doing work in the open arena I paid my tribute of respect. The things I did not 215 respect I buried [in the] without spoken service. -- As the years [went] increased without special observation -- or close personal association she [seemed] impressed me as lacking in absolute probity -- but I thought th[at]e [hiatus to] want was temperamental and to her unconscious. -- Were Frances Willard the "point of departure" of this writing, and had I the pen of Balzac -- probe scalpel and illuminator - with her self-revealings for [foundation] subject, there would result an analytic study to enthral specialist and commoner. -- Not. The case being as afore recorded I sharpen my spear and thrust it through a [hide] covering that looks celestial but proves by the contact to be not only mundane but carnal. Fleshly -- not spiritual -- save with the evil essences of vanity [insincerity greed] hypocricy [of domination] and tyranny (greed of domination.) [*hide skin pachyderm*]216 the short and direct way is the best way -- and her own weapons thrust into my hand by herself -- shall point and cut the way. -- Her friend Whitall-Smith [likens] names her Octopus. Embracing with deathless (and deathful) hold for a cause. -- a cause embodied in Self. -- Of one toiler in Life's sea she desired and attempted to contain she says -- after the narration of a fairy tale (fabulous story)- [date /75] "I knew then the case was hopeless!! -- as though her effort at absorbtion ended in / 75. = [With]Hoping or hopeless with her it was a "case continued" through years as the record of her letters will testify. -- I had never been at Ocean Grove when on the evening of August 18 I there joined some friends for a further shore pilgrimmage. -- I knew not it, nor its meetings and purposing to leave in a few hours I sallied forth in the early morning for a ramble. Young as was the day the heat 217 grew torrid - the ramble a saunter -- the saunter a loiter and seeing what looked a colossal tent I gladly drifted to the outskirts of its friendly shade. -- By and by as I recovered from the ardent heat idly surveying the immense amphitheatre, across a wilderness of seats and aisles down in the centre of the vast arena I took cognizance of a spacious stage and a small group of people on and near it. At the distance I did not note what engaged them -- nor indeed did the still enduring effect of my fiery promenade promote interest other than in the still coolness in which I lingered with closed eyes. -- To the sound of a hymn I opened them [to] and beheld entering, on what I [thought might be a] then recognized as some religious service the "many waters that run to the sea." -- From churches and houses manifold came thousands. -- chiefly women -- and the rising tide while it [clim] mounted the benched incline did not reach my point218 of vantage and I still an outsider, remained, - but with so many women in evidence - an observer with interest. = of a passer by I inquired "What is this place?" ="The Auditorium"" he answered regarding me and my avowed ignorance with surprise =" And this enormous gathering of women?" ="The Convention of the W.C.T.U., " he replied with surprise growing. "Then! - that is Miss Willard entering now, -" as the ladies rose and gave her the Chataqua salute. "It is a "Question Meeting" they hold this morning. if you will go further down you can see and hear better, and likely be interested." = I thanked him and he passed on. =So? - a W.C.T.U. Meeting. And President Willard in the Chair. - What Manner of Mission may a "Question" Meeting be? - Assuredly I did not know of it. I would 219 not have cared to come. I am glad to find myself here. Certainly I will look and listen. = And I gave promt and acute attention - though the prologue filled with various preliminaries and routine business lacked [to me] personally animation =But my interest loomed large when the President for the enlightenment of the externs made clear the meaning of the gathering. = A Question Meeting was one in which any member of the W.C.T.U. present, wrote and dropped in a box a query [havi] relating to the conduct and mission of the organization. This President, taking from the blind box a slip, read, called on a member by name, to answer, and she, on the instant must respond if only to say she was non-illuminative and some one else must cast a light. - It seemed to me a good school for debate - thought - readiness, - When the named one was through others could be heard, - interested outsiders, also - till [*completed*]220 the sovreign lady produced from the box the next probe. =The meeting was one of a great syndicate of women. Its chief a woman who claimed it to be a fulcrum to move the world: - Church, State, and Home. McGregor's foot was on (her) own health. =With appetite so keen as to obliterate the sense of breakfast hunger with which I had begun I [listend] waited for the woman specialties. To fifty-two inquiries I listened. Fifty concerning the help, instruction, comfort, blessing of men, How to aid, & benefit, to soothe, to stimulate, & placate, to prop, to steady, to boost men. What to do, when to do, where to do, how to do to prevent to assist to support, to succor Men. one minor quest was made concerning some femenine technicality, scarce noted, or noticeable, one major requisition in the form of "What is to be done to help women who Drink?" 221. and a dame of years experience, authority was summoned to make answer. In a speech of five minutes she summed up the Mercy and Merit of the Cause for which She stood by assuring her sisters there was "nothing to be done for women who drink, Past hope, Past help, Past redemption. For a woman to fall was to be eternally down. - And as proof of the [hopeless] futility of reaching into this abysmal depth she cried "What is to be done? - Nothing, - is to be done! - Why! - I have seen a woman standing (presumably at a bar - Query! Where?) drinking a glass ( - surely of "Greased Lightning["]" = "absinthe," "Rot-Gut" -Lassamin" ?-) of Beer _ With a baby in her arms! Yes! With a Baby in her arms!!!" — and all was said. =All. =I waited for the next white ribboned one to wave her protecting banner. - Silence. Stillness. -222. not a word. Not one, of [help]protest or of help. I bethought me that to some other askings there had quest been made - Search. - That "out of order" the thing found for the profit of Man had been produced. That it must be so in this business, [*0*]That I was, - literally, an outsider, - That I was there as a listener. - But when the President said [on] preparing to read[ing] the fifty second question - "if there is nothing more forthcoming this being answered the meeting will be resolved into a session for prayer. " - I found myself on my feet in the aisle calling - "Madame President:" - = And Miss Willard, looking with [unrecognizing] near-sighted unrecognizing eyes up the [*0*] That this assembly of women could not stand as the incarnation of intercession for the strong and interdiction fro the weak - pointing a finger to Heaven for men and to Hell for Women from within, a beacon of light would burn. - 223 1/2 [* * *] =That themselves were the witnesses that at their Tribunal whether the Conditions of a woman's existence had superinduced "Drink" or "Dope" or "Despair" She is, in the main, a thing "impossible" to be ignored, or avoided, or left "to the mercy of God." - — without intermediary, while they - and kindred women [carry] lift and bear (carry, transport) out a man of the mire and the depths - on their hands, their hearts, their prayers, their activities - and with his "reformation" - if he have sufficient money abundant riches, gladly bestow on him a gentle hand and carefully guarded daughter - regardless of what it covered in his past - or that covered but not destroyed it well, inevitably, be transmitted to the bodies and brains of his children — if [he have them ] indeed these vitalize - in his future.223 forest of seats into the dim vista of space beyond responded with - " the lady to my left - I do not see - will she - please come to the platform," - And as I came down the aisle, with some hearty welcome by the way, and reached the rostrum, - the seeing President exclaimed to a near co-adjutor: - "The Lord be good to us! It is Anna Dickinson! which way is she going to pimp?!" — =With proper ground underfoot, space and time allowing, I would like to outline show how she pimped and to develop the argument: - truth needed there, - growing with time. =Suffice it that nothing was said of arbitrary laws. - of impassible prohibition - of needless (not personally needful) total abstaining. of Temperance [a good deal]somewhat of Woman's helping [for] women more. [of] = of "the women who drank 224 too much "a partition of three = the women of fashion who, born of luxurious and ardent blood - with sensibilities, imaginations, ambitions - and nothing of value to do. =The women with far too much to do. =The Women [society] Christian Civilization calls "outcast and abandoned." =The woman, standing at morning hour with a baby in her arms drinking a glass of beer - or even whiskey was of No. 2 - And of these "a word in season" was demanded. =By the great Sea, after a restful night, at peaceful ease the burning heat of the morning was a discomfort to the thousands there listening. =What of the morning in a room - or rooms - on the crowded "East Side"? inhabited not by "bums" nor outlaws - tenanted by the decent and toiling poor. =The stove has assisted at both washing and ironing through225 the day, and cooked the dinner for the tired and hungry home-coming husband adn father at night . - The Mother has seen her chicks cleaned and [housed] pearched for [rest] sleep, - has striven in vain, through the busy night , in the choking rooms or on the baked fire escape, with her baby at hand for actual repose., with her "the evening and the morning are (almost) one." Her man has "a job" perhaps across the Ferry - on the Ridge - five miles away, - at dawn she is afoot, - packs his little can, sees him away, - Looks to decency and comfort of the youngsters, - if there is school for them, speeds them, "straightens things" for their nooning, gathers up the baby, to be left later on in some friendly hands - and starts for her day of toil. =She is a good laundress, Yours. - A capital cleaner. - Yours. Alone or assistant capable. That is why she is engaged by you Madam, I said to my hearer. She is slated 226 to have had her breakfast before she arrives. If she knew the woman intrusted in reforming humanity [in]to whose kitchen or laundry She makes weekly pilgrimage had human interest in her and hers, a little care for her tired and semi-vacant stomach, a kindly question, a steaming and fragrant cup of coffee, a morsel of juicy steak - a fenced corner for the baby - —! - ? =She "fills the bill," - when she can do so no longer - "not as careful" - or "as strong" - or "as punctual" or "as thorough as she used to be" - She knows she will receive her conge, And something younger, or fresher, or more vital will take her place. =Nature made her a vigorous woman, but the days and the nights, the children and "the baby in her arms" are telling on her. The great nerve ganglia at the back of her stomach aches. - [She is far right]227. and there is tremor under it as she puts a steadying hand on her chest, - at the end of a parched and burning night she has done "A day's work" at home before she begins the work of a day , to help keep her home and she pauses with the baby in her arms - because of the baby in her arms, - and , drinks her helpful beer - or her javelin whiskey - [*immediately*] steadied or stimulated for her task. = But - the speech to the occasion, - not to be amplified here, =Thus much summary [of speech is] recorded - not for itself - but - its outcome; One outcome. = There came to my hand a letter here transcribed, of feline grace charm - and craft, holding clippings with various headlines - as this from the Philadelphia Times Anna Dickinson's Speech Throwing a Bombshell Into the Temperance Camp at Ocean Grove. And this, interlined by Miss Willards hand and purple pencil from the228 New-York Times:- Anna Dickinson (This was the naughty item) interlinear. Talk so Plain that a Quaker Lady Publicly Prays for Her Conversion (dispatch to New York Times.) Ocean Grove NJ Aug 5. 1= Miss Anna Dikinson threw a decidedly explosive bombshell into the temperance camp here today, but fortunately nobody was hurt and of the wreck of gossipy criticism it occasioned cleared away she was acknowledged the victor of the field. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union Union was in session and was Mrs Hunt, of Boston, had answered one of the queries taken from what is known as229. The Inquiry Box". The question (2 (229 was "What can be done to reclaim fallen women?" = on the temperance side of the question Mrs. Hunt took the ground that women have less power of physical recuperation than men, and when they fall in most cases, fall beyond reclamation. The drift of remarks all moving had been unfavorable to the ability or expediency of women reforming other women. Miss Dickinson, who was in the audience, arose and took up the subject in a masterly manner. It was soon whispered about (3 (229 who the speaker was and she carried the audience with her from the first- "I am not a temperance advocate," she said, " but I can tell you that woman's proper work is with her sister's and not with men. You fail where you can do the most. The woman who has nothing to do, the giddy fashionable creature who learns to tipple with refinement; the woman who has too much to do, your laundress, who does a day's work getting her husband's breakfast and attending to her children(3 (229 who the speaker was and she carried the audience with her from the first- "I am not a temperance advocate," she said, " but I can tell you that woman's proper work is with her sister's and not with men. You fail where you can do the most. The woman who has nothing to do, the giddy fashionable creature who learns to tipple with refinement; the woman who has too much to do, your laundress, who does a day's work getting her husband's breakfast and attending to her children230 (4 (230. before she comes in the morning - these, as well as the woman who drinks to drown despair are the ones who need, but do not receive your ministrations. You raise the man, but you spurn your fellows - women beneath your feet." =miss Willard, president of the Union, afterwards called upon Miss Dickinson, and in the afternoon a Quaker lady publicly prayed for Anna's conversion. =Thine for "copy", _ Miss Willard says apropos of it and other like statements and matters of interest, to her thereunto appertaining 231 Ocean Beach NJ. Aug 7. 1881. Sabbath P.M: My beloved Anna Dickinson If ever I felt down right defrauded it was in seeing you such a scrappy, niggardly bit'o'time at populous Ocean Grove. It would be much to me to believe you cared as I did for a "good talk." Since those Chicago days I have held to you, "buckled my soul to thine by hooks of steel," and they will hold - both here and Yonder. Go your gait and do231 What you will, enshrined (2 in my heart- you must always (231 be, and your dear name familiar to my daily prayers. But the years fly swiftly and at this rate, I shall see very little of thee on this particular atom of star dust- against which stern fiat of total depravity - my spirit enters vigorous protest. Why was it when so much my heart desired thee it had to be content with a just a glimpse- a hand clasp - a thrilling voice pleading for the forsaken - and then- silence and emptiness?232 (3 (232 Now be good to me, beloved and, if only a scratch of the pen, let me know your whereabouts and please let me have a day with you when I return from Illinois. Write me at Evanston and it will reach me. I do greatly wish that by a few lines, sent me at 53 Bible House N.Y. at once, you would disabuse the public of the miserable notion telegraphed (by Associated Press Agent I am told ) the day you spoke, that you berated us women for working for men and told us to work for women2 4 232 and not turn away from them etc. Whereas (1) you did not; (2) those who drink are in large proportion men and when we help them we are directly blessing the lives of their women-relations; (3) we have many lines of work and reforming is not so prominent with us as forming, - securing prohibition through woman's vote etc, Now, a few words from you would greatly delight our women (who "took to you amazin') and set the whole thing correctly before the gainsayers, It would also help [*5 233*] My own standing with those who now say I quietly pocketed an [?] on our Society which you never offered. As a private note to me, I could take a few sentences for publication. How does this strike you ? x x x your loyal, loving Frank 233 =Here is a reasonable (compound) proposition :- that I stultify myself, my faith, its profession, - and that I give the lie to a fairly correct summary printed by the Associate Press. = Frances Willard knew me as a woman who stood for spoken truth regardless of personal consequences. = She knew that through years I had endured the artful or brutal undermining and assault of at least a part of this potential enquiry of the news-press, concerning which of herself she says "I have been treated universally with kind consideration by the Editorial fraternity, (my brother and my own connection with journalism the cause, Also a certain kindliness that I believe belongs to the234 journalistic temperament." = [A] "Hopeless." "Octopus"/ - Yet still seeking " to draw in prey" (vide her encomiastic "contented victim") for a "cause" embodied in Self? a "self that asks "who am I that so great possibilities of influence should have fallen to my lot?" (147- 575. = I ought to have sent her a vide reply, but as yet knowing her imperfectly I thought her sensibilities might be tendernesses and drew the verities across them as gently as the facts allowed, that she saw truth :as through a glass darkly," - or through a prism - decomposed - or refracted - glass and prism her own product - I perceived - that she could trapan - not always skillfully I had learned but that she unveiled could [show] reveal herself a liar and a hypocrite I needed235 her own object lesson to convince = and this is how it reads: - (1 (235 On the Cars going to Convention in Illinois, Sept . 6. 1881. Dearest Anna You are good gooder, goodest, and I'd say so if I didn't hear from you in a Century. - Understand that. Between Cathe Buell and me we've fixed the gainsayers to suit us." x x x x x x x x x She tells of ten days spent at the water cure of Dr. Jackson, at Dansville and of her associates and adds: - "We all235 her own object lesson to convince = and this is how it reads: - (2 (235 talked of you with greatest kindness and good will and expectation But a bigger thing than Dansville has happened! We have launched a new political party, Mam! and I'm Chairman of its Ex. Com. and its for ye full ballot for ye vimmins and Constitutional and Statutory prohibition. And we've named it "The Home Protectionists" and will fight till we die! It is not the W.C.T.U. of course but, outside of all moral suasion and [*3 236*] societies it seeks to fetch in the best elements of Rep. Dem, & Prohib parties!! A modest programme as you perceive. I covet you for its Demosthenes, - but then I das'nt say so for you don't like it!" ("Still harping on my daughter!") And with scheme of travel and conventions outlined closes with the desire [that I] "Think Kindly of the Temperance women - we are thy friends. x x x x Thine evermore Frank.-with the sovereign atrocity stands the deft-servant of cunning. "Cathe Buell" - My knowledge of Mrs Buell is scant, but , as far as it can testify it &, in this matter, to her honesty. The published statement - signed by her name was, in substance faithful and exact and so strategically breathed with bare mendacity, as here copied in "enduring lines." in -237 The Inter Ocean of Chicago [says] by date of August 23 (1881.) [*237*] Miss Frances Willard was interviewed by the Inter Ocean reporter yesterday: - xxxxx She will after {various doings) project another Southern tour "Miss Willard, please give the true statement of the Anna Dickinson episode at Ocean Grove. "Some libelous member of the repertorial fraternity set the statement afloat that Miss Dickinson was out of sympathy with fallen condition of her sex, made a powerful speech on the subject and its needs. She did so as237 (2 (237 the woman's movement. i invited the lady to a seat on the platform by myself, and to make some remarks; her speech was a grand one in every respect, and that our ladies were heartily in sympathy with her, and her remarks were noticeable in the great and frequent applause. When the question box was emptied the query relative to temperance work among women was passed by with but a five-minute discussion. Miss Dickinson took up the question, and in her dramatic way, evidently seeing the fallen condition of her sex, made a powerful speech on the subject and its needs. She did so as3 238 an advocate of woman and not of temperance. She made practical suggestions as to how such cases were to be treated. When the false reports came out we talked it over, saying sadly that she had been misconstrued, as usual, for newspaper effect. One who does not know all about our movement might easily misconstrue her statements; but we in the ranks could not possibly do so, knowing the extent of our work."238 ="Fixing gainsayers to suit herself -" Some would call this "strategic". Some "disingenuous," some "Jesuitical - artifice" doing evil that good might accrue - to herself. - Some just plain "lying". - To Some according to Mistress Whitall Smith - hierography. = By whatever name, in finishing respect it ended personal regard for Miss Willard - without [action] public comment, action or obsequies. - I had never permitted myself whatever the temptation or provocation - an individual controversy with any woman. [in] =Had the fixer been a man — ?239 =What eternal, - unknowable "If." —? =And, after all, doubtless by whatever road travelled to reach our destination. =That I had not been to her "harsh as truth, and uncompromising as justice" is later shown by the unhacked reach of "octopus arms." - Still "Drawing" seven years after - "I knew the case was hopeless." - This being the certification: - En route in Ohio Nov. 8. '82 My dear Anna: Come now with us and help build up the party of the future as you did the now dying party of the past. We are organized, earnest, and rapidly becoming a felt force. Let me beseech you not to come out against those who from the first have been your natural allies. Write me if you will consider the matter in case I put it before you more at length, & believe me always, & at all events Yours lovingly Frances E. WIllard 239 =What eternal, - unknowable "If." —? =And, after all, doubtless by whatever road travelled to reach our destination. =That I had not been to her "harsh as truth, and uncompromising as justice" is later shown by the unhacked reach of "octopus arms." - Still "Drawing" seven years after - "I knew the case was hopeless." - This being the certification: -240 = Neither for exploitation nor exposé this record, or I would ask, was this pleasing personality - self-deceived before deceiving? - Did she think there was a Brahmin class to which "medicine" was permitted that was "Taboo drink" to the coolies and the subs? Did she. or did she not articulate clearly to inner consciousness I am my brother's sister with like inheritance of blood and nerve. - The brother brilliant and gifted - untimely dead - wracked in part - of whom his adoring mother said (97) to cross his radiant still (367. face "Praise Heaven with me. Ive grown gray praying for my sons — and now to think your brother Oliver is safe with God!" — and "develop a cult." - or "engineer a movement" the basis of which was "because I have learned that I cannot, you shall not." —? 241. [*0*] =If you are interested to the work of investigation you will find the answer! =There is no purpose here but to have the truth so well known as to secure legal Justice under a Government that proclaims to the world that it is one of Law. =That she surely failed of apprehension here and there, is evidenced: — "Natural allies." —? I belived in Woman Suffrage not as an adjunct - to a fad or a belief, but as I believed in Manhood Suffrage - the right of the governed to self-government. I believed that "Temperance" meant moderation - not abolition. I belived in the regulation of trade conditions - food or drink - not their annihilation. I believed in a Democracy - not a Hierarchy: - In humanity learning to possess241 1/2 - and, out of like spirit- and determination decide of one who will not work with her that the worker shall not oppose, - and make sure by artistic and systematized murder, - Though the worker had no thought of "taking sides" in the contest.242 1/2 being - with Robert Browning - "one who never turned his back, but marched abreast forward, Never doubted clouds would break! Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held, we fail to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake!"242 "its inheritance the Earth" - Self-controlled, not living in prison - walls or stockade, with ball and chain, under eye and whip stifled physical and spiritual salvation. [*0*] =Did she know? =Could she know? =That rests with her soul and her God. - What she did. I know. And you shall know as you read. = I had not noted her path, nor that in this business of 188 [that] she assumed this breached to Horeb's height as the convention at which the Prohibition Party, and the Willard W.C. T. U. - at Tomlinson Hall Indianapolis Ind. on the 30. May 1888. - revealed " that most eventful day ever known to woman's annals of enfranchisement -" - anti the apotheosis and "7th Stage" of the professed reformer, as "politician" in partnership with the properties of "Sam Small."