SPEECHES & WRITINGS FILE Remarks Made at the Memorial Services Held in Honor of Susan B. Anthony in New York City, March, 25, 1906 Remarks Made at the Memorial Services Held in Honor of Susan B. Anthony in New York City, March 25th, 1906 Among the speakers who have come to pay their tributes to Susan B. Anthony this afternoon, no one owes her such a great debt of gratitude as myself. My obligation to her is twofold, for I am a woman [and] as well as a representative of that race for whose freedom [from a cruel bondage] she worked so indefatigably, so contscientiously and so. well. The debt of gratitude which white women owe Susan B. Anthony is great enough, to be sure, but the representatives or a race which bowed under the yoke of a cruel bondage in addition to bearing the burdens of a handicapped sex owe her a debt of gratitude which cannot be estimated in words. Although Miss Anthony rendered signal and conspicuous service in the abolition of slavery, the work which she subsequently performed for the amelioration of the condition of women was so prodigious that her antislavery record has been partially obscured [and is but rarely mentioned]. Neverthelass among the abolitionists who strove so earnestly to break the fetsers of the slave none worked with sublimer heroism and more ardent zeal that the noble woman whose loss we so sincerely mourn to day. It is difficult for me to speak of such valiant and valuable service as that rendered by Miss Anthony to promote my race the cause of freedom in language which may not be considered extravagant [and fulsome] by some. And yet there are so many recorded, indisputable facts which show the almost incredible amount of work she performed in behalf of an oppressed race as well as her own handicapped sex, so many facts which prove her title to their gratitude and love that it it unnecessary to resort to fiction to add one jot or one title to her glory and fame. In the few moments allotted me this afternoon it would be impossible for me to give an adequate idea either of the variety of services she rendered or the magnitude of the work she performed. From the day she accepted the invitation of the American Anti-Slavery Society to assist it in breaking [???] their fetters of the oppressors fulfilling its holy mission to secure freedom for the 2 oppressed, until the shackles had fallen from the last slave, her consecration to this cause was complete and she labored with unflagging zeal. Routes for herself and other speakers were planned and meetings arranged with the greatest care. Into towns great and small, many of them off the railroad and reached only by stage she went portraying the horrors of slavery and beseeching her countrymen to extirpate it root and branch. With the mercury many degrees below zero we see her emerging from one snow drift only to plunge into another or shivering with cold in sleigh, nearly buried in snow bank, while the driver ploughed his way to the nearest farmhouse, only to discover that he had missed the road and driven over a fence into a field, but urged nonetheless by the determined, dauntless woman to do his best to reach the little town for which they were bound, so that she might arouse the conscience and touch the hearts of the people on behalf of the wrongs and the woes of the uprooted and wretched slave. So heavy were the snows one winter that even the great William Lloyd Garrison who did more than any other one human being to commence and continue the agitation against slavery felt obliged to give up his lecture engagements. But so literally did Susan B. Anthony crucify the flesh in the name of the cause for whose triumph she worked with such desperate earnestness that she refused to cancel her engagements [were] kept every single one in spite of the snow. During a winter of unusual severity, when the men who were her colaborers in the cause of abolition broke down physically one after another and converted their letters into veritable jerjmiads, filled with the most pathetic complaints about their heads, their backs, their lunngs, their tbroats and their eyes, Susan B. Anthony trudged bravely, heroically on. Though she doubtless ached many a time from her head to her feet, was sick for the comforts so often lacked [denied], was sad and heavy of heart [many a time] because of the pressures that she often endured she neither missed a single engagement nor lost one day from her work. In every fibre of her being she loathed the institution that stole from a race of human beings every right that men hold dear, tore the mother[s] from her child, [3] separated man from wife and she devoted this brutal institution to destruction, [so far as in her lay] allowed nothing to deter her from attack so long as she had health and strength. So great was the confidence reposed in Miss Anthony's executive ability, by the men who represented the brain and the conscience of the abolition movement, that the whole State of New York was at one time placed in her control. "We want your name to all letters and your hand in all arrangements, Mr. May, the Sec. of the Anti-Slavery Society wrote her once. "I really think, said he, "that the efficiency and success of our operations in New York this winter will depend more upon your personal attendance and direction than upon that of any other of our workers. We need your earnestness, your practical talent, your energy and your perseverance to make the conventions a success. We want your cheerfulness, your spirit, in short, we want yourself. Considering how many giants there were in those days, among the dominant sex, this was high praise indeed for a representative of that half of humanity whose mental inferiority and dearth of intellectual prospects were accepted as foregone conclusions by the wise men of the new and progressive West as well as their brothers in the old and stagnant East. In addition to being violently hated by the advocates of slavery in the North as well as in the South, Miss Anthony incurred the bitter hostility of that [then now and rapidly-increasing Republican] party which in the Providence of God was destined to crush the rebellion and break the bonds of the slave, but which at that time did not stand for the abolition of slavery but simply opposed its extension. It happened, therefore, that in the series of meetings, which Miss Anthony planned one season for the Anti-Slavery Society by Miss Anthony, she was mobbed from Buffalo to Albany, but neither the winter's cold nor the white heat of man's wrath could frighten or force her from the work to which she had devoted her life and consecrated her powers. When at Syracuse eggs were promiscuously thrown around and about her and benches were broken, when pistols and knives gleamed in every direction Susan B. Anthony, the only woman in the midst of that howling, hissing mob stood, fearless, determined and serene. [*4*] Hideous effigies of herself might be drawn through the streets and burned, but such exhibitions of hatred simply nerved her all the more for the holy warfare in which she was engaged and strengthened her resolution to throw the weight of her influence against the nations crime. But the service rendered by Susan B. Anthony in the anti-slavery movement did not consist entirely in the speeches she herself delivered [in the slave's behalf] nor [was the sphere of her usefulness in this glorious cause limited] in the meetings she arranged for others [well as herself]. The emancipation proclamation had no sooner been issued by Abraham Lincoln than the far-sighed woman and close student of human nature saw that the infuriated, resourceful masters who had lost their human chattels would make that document null and void, if they could. The fact that the jails of loyal Kentucky were filled with slaves from Ga., Ala. and Miss. who were advertised to be sold for their jail fees according to law, just as they were before their Emancipation was proclaimed, filled her with the gravest apprehensions and caused her to work in their behalf with renewed energy and redoubled zeal. Firmly convinced that the only way to secure freedom for the slave was through and by an act of Congress she and Mrs. Stanton called upon the women of the North to discharge their duty both [to their unfortunate slave brothers and sisters in the South who again faced the fearful peril of bondage] and did to their [government] country as well by signing a petition, their silent but powerful vote urging Congress to make a law forever abolishing slavery in the United States. With her headquarters in Cooper Union throughout the long, hot summer and without the guarantee of a single cent for now scattered letters far and wide, arousing women to a sense of their duty, sending forth lecturers to sound the alarm for freedom and directing the affairs with the sagacity and skill of a general. Not until public sentiment had become sufficiently enlightened and emphatic on the necessity of making such a law as that for which she was working, not until the Senate had passed a bill prohibiting slavery and there was no doubt about the intention of the House, did she cease to secure petitions and send them to Con- 5 and [close] not until we've closed her headquarters in Cooper Union. The untiring persistent consecrated chief of this Woman's National Loyal League, the head and heart as well as the hands and feet of this magnificent movement was the noble, justice-loving woman in whose honor we have assembled here this afternoon. Not only in her public work and by her exalted [*platform*] precepts did Susan B. Anthony [*exert a most powerful & salutary influence*] help to create sentiment in behalf of justice to an oppressed and persecuted race, but by her example and private conversation as well. [*Shortly after she left home to teach she wrote her family*] At one time we see her when a young woman enjoying the unspeakable satisfaction, as she herself expressed [herself] it in a letter written home,"of visiting 4 Colored people and drinking tea with them, and asserting with great emphasis that it "afforded her unspeakable satisfaction to show this kind of people respect in this heathen land". At another time she utters a scathing denunciation of the meek followers of Christ, as she calls them who refuse to allow a Colored man to sit in their church, and who could not worship their God by the side of their sable companion. From the day [* until [?] every body was laid to rest*] [*till It[he] is of death*] Susan B. Anthony was capable of thinking for herself, her life was long, impassioned, protest against injustice in all its forms toward any one of God's creatures, whether man or woman, black or white. She herself was so permeated with a glowing, all-consuming desire for justice, that it was no wonder she could kindle and sustain the sacred flame in the breast of so many others. [*those with whom she walked and talked.*] If at any time in her life, her zeal in behalf of the race for whose freedom she had worked so faithfully and so hard seemed to abate, it was not because she desired justice toward them the less, but because she yearned for justive [*without regard to race, color, sex or creed the more*] to all the wronged and oppressed among God's creatures more. [*B*] Having worked with such devoted, genuine loyalty, such unswerving fidelity and unflagging zeal to free an oppressed race, it must have wounded Susan B. Anthony to the hart's core, when [her collaborers] the men she had rendered such [?] in the abolition movement cooly advised her to wait a more convenient season or refused 6 absolutely to assist her, when she implored them to help her secure [h] justice and equality before the law for her own sex. Accustomed as she was to the hisses of the mob and the persecution of her enemies, this attitude of her friends which [*?*] seemed to her ingratitude more strong than traitors arms [quite] almost vanquished her. So long as there lives in this country a single human being through whose [blood] veins flows one drop of African blood, so long will Susan B. Anthony be held in grateful remembrance, so long will her name be loved and revered. Though Miss Anthony labored faithfully and ceaselessly to establisablish justice toward every American and succeeded in accomplishing much toward this end, a prodigious amount of work yet remains to be done. May [the] her prayer for justice for which she hungered and thirsted so long soon be [soon] answered all over [all] the earth [*the world*]. May justice, absolute, impartial justice without regard to race, color, class, sex or creed, soon extend her dominions to the farthermost corners of the earth. May the spirit of Susan B. Anthony who was the incarnation of Justice enter [*the breast of a mighty host*] some other woman's breast and impel her to continue the [war] battle against injustice and wrong as valiantly and as uncompromisingly and fearlessly as the [*did what a great people who never who refused to compromise and surrender or entertain even a suggestion of defeat*] war which SUsan B. Anthony waged. Though the soul of Susan B. Anthony has winged its way to another world, the light of her celestial nature which often groaned under the burdens of weary life will never be dimmed. And to day in grateful, affection appreciation of the services she rendered and the sacrifices she made in their behalf Susan B. Anthony lies enshrined in the hearts of ten million[s] people, a far nobler mausoleum after all than one built of marble could possible be. Remarks Made at the Memorial Meeting Held in Hudson Theatre, March 25 1906. Among the speakers who have come to pay a tribute to Susan B. Anthony this afternoon, not one owes her such a debt of gratitude as I myself. My obligation to her is twofold, for I am a woman and a representative of that race for whose freedom Miss Anthony worked so indefatigably, so conscientiously and so well. The debt of gratitude which women, not only in this country, but all over the civilized world owe Miss Anthony is great enough to be sure. But the representatives of that race which but fifty years ago bowed under a yoke of cruel bondage in this country, in addition to bearing the burdens of a handicapped sex, owe her a debt of gratitude which cannot be expressed in words. Though Miss Anthony rendered signal and conspicuous service during those dark days, when there was neither light nor shadow of turning for the slave, the work she subsequently performed for the amelioration of the condition of women was so prodigious that her anti-slavery record during the last decade or two has become partially obscured. Nevertheless among the abolitionists who strove so earnestly to break the fetters of the slave, not one worked with sublimer heroism and more ardent zeal than did that noble woman, whose loss we do deeply mourn to day. It is difficult for me to speak of such valuable and valiant service as that rendered by Miss Anthony to my race in language which some may not consider extravagant and fulsome. There are so many recorded, indisputable facts, however, which show the incredible amount of work she performed in behalf of my oppressed race as well as her own handicapped sex, so many facts which prove her clear title to our gratitude and love that it is unnecessary for me or anybody else to resort to fiction to add one jot or tittle to her fame. From the moment Miss Anthony accepted the invitation to the American Anti-Slavery Society to assist it in breaking the fetters of the oppressed, until the shackles had fallen from the last slave, she consecrated herself [*2*] to this cause with all her heart and soul and labored for it with unflagging zeal. Routes for herself and others were planned and meetings were arranged with the greatest care and skill. Into towns great and small, some of them off the railroad and reached only by stage, went Miss Anthony, preaching the gospel of freedom, portraying the horrors of slavery and imploring the people to extirpate it root and branch. With the mercury many degrees below zero we see her emerging from one snow drift, only to plunge into another, or shivering with cold in a sleigh nearly buried in a snow bank, while the bewildered driver goes to the nearest farm house, only to discover that he has missed the road, and driven over a fence into a field, but urged nevertheless by the determined dauntless Miss Anthony to do his level best to reach the town for which they are bound, so that she may touch the hearts and arouse the conscience of the people in behalf of the imbruted, wretched slave. During a winter of unusual severity, when the men who were her colaborers in the cause of abilition broke down physically one after another, canceled their engagements, converted their letters to their family and friends into veritable Jeremiads full of the most pathetic complaints about their heads, their backs, their throats, their lungs and their eyes, Miss Anthony trudged bravely, heroically on. [+See below x] So literally did she cricify the flesh in behalf of the cause for whose triumph she worked with such desperate, effective earnestness that she neither missed an engagement nor lost a day from her work. [X] Though [is no doubt] she doubtless ached many a time from her head to her feet, was sick for the comforts she often lacked, and was sad and heavy of heart because of the awful persecution which as a woman supporting two unpopular causes she was obliged to endure, [+See above beginning with the words "So literally"+] In every fibre of her being she loathed an institution which stole from an unfortunate race every right that men hold dear, tore mother from child and separated man from wife, and having devoted this unnatural, brutal system to destruction, she allowed neither height nor depth any other creature to turn aside from this work. [*3*] So great was the confidence reposed in Miss Anthony's ability by the men who represented the brain and the conscience of the abolition movement that the whole State of New York was placed at one time under her control. "We want your name to all letters and your hand in all arrangements", [the] Mr. May, the Sec. of the Anti-Slavery Society wrote her once. "I think", said he, "that the efficiency and the success of our operations in New York this winter will depend more upon your personal attendance and direction than upon that of any other of our workers. We need your earnestness, your practical talent, your energy and your perseverance to make the conventions a success. We want your cheerfulness and your spirit, in short we want yourself." Considering how many giants there were in those days among the dominant sex, this was high praise indeed for a representative of that half of humanity, whose mental inferiority and dearth of intellectual prospects were accepted as foregone conclusions both by [the] wise men in the new and progressive West and by their brothers in the ancient and stagnant East. In addition to being violently hated by the advocates of slavery in the North as well as the South, Miss Anthony had no sooner proclaimed the doctrine [of] No Union with Slaveholders than she incurred the bitter hostility of that party destined to crush the rebellion and break the fetters of the slave but which at one time did not stand for the abolition of slavery, but simply opposed its extension. It happened, therefore in the series of meetings planned one season for the Anti-Slavery Society by Miss Anthony [one season] she was mobbed in every city and town which she entered from Albany to Buffalo. But neither the winter's cold nor the white heat of wicked men's wrath could force or frighten her from the work in behalf of freedom and justice to which she had devoted her life and consecrated her powers. When at Syracuse eggs were promiscuously thrown [promicuously] around and about her and benches were broken, when pistols and knives gleamed in every direction, Susan B. Anthony, the only woman in the [*4*] midst of that hissing, howling mob stood determined, fearless and serenne. Hideous effigies of herself might be dragged through the streets and burned, but such exhibitions of hatred only nerved her all the more for the holy warfare in which she was engaged. But Miss Anthony's services to the antislavery movement did not consist entirely in the speeches she herself delivered or in the meetings she arranged for others. The emancipation proclamation had no sooner been issued by Abraham Lincoln than this far-sighed woman and close student of human nature saw clearly that the resourceful, infuriated masters who had lost their human chattels would do everything in their power to render this document null and void. The fact that the jails of loyal Kentucky were filled with slaves from Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi who were advertised to be sold for their jail fees according to law, just as theu were before the emancipation was proclaimed filled Miss Anthony with the gravest apprehension and inspired her to work in their behalf with renewed energy and redoubled zeal. Firmly convinced that the sonly sure way of securing freedom for the slave was by and through an act of Congress, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton called upon the women of the free states to do their duty to the slaves as well as to their country by signing petitions to urge Congress to pass a law forever abolishing slavery in the United States. As a result of this call the Woman's National Loyal League was formed. With her headquarters at Cooper Union in this city without the guarantee of a single cent for expenses, as secretary of this Loyal League Miss Anthony worked through out the long hot summer with might and main, scattering letters far and wide, arousing menand women to a sense of their duty, and directing the affairs of this organization with the sagacity and skill of a general. Not until the Senate had passed a bill prohibiting slavery and there was no doubt about the intention of the house to concur did Miss Anthony cease to secure and send petitions to Congress and close her headquarters in Cooper Union. The untiring, persistent, consecrated chief of this Woman's National Loyal League, the head, the heart, the hands and feet of that magnificent movement [*5*] was the noble, justice loving woman in whose memory we have assembled here this afternoon. Not only in her public work and by platform precepts did Miss Anthony help to create sentiment in behalf of an oppressed and persecuted race, but by her daily example and in private conversation as well. Shortly after she had left home for the first time to teach she wrote her family that she had the pleasure of visiting four colored people and drinking tea with them and asserted with great emphasis that it "afforded her unspeakable satisfaction" as she herself expressed it to show this kind of people respect in this heathen land. Again she writes a scathing denunciation of "those meek followers of Christ" as she sarcastically calls them, who refused to allow a Colored man to sit in their church in Tarrytown and who could not worship their God with their sable companion sitting by their side. From the moment Susan B. Anthony was capable of thinking for herself until she entered upon her well-earned rest, her life was one long impassioned protest against injustice in all its forms toward any one of God's creatures whether man or woman, black or white. So permeated was she herself with a glowing, all-consuming desire for justice that it is no wonder she was able to kindle and sustain the sacred flame in the breast of so many with whom she walked and talked. If at any time Miss Anthony's zeal in behalf of the race for whose freedom she had worked so faithfully and so hard seemed to abate, it was not because she desired justice for them the less, but because she yearned for justice toward all God's creatures more. Having worked with such genuine devoted loyal such unswerving fidelity and such unflagging zeal to help free an oppressed race, it is no wonder that Miss Anthony was wounded to her heart's core, when the men to whom she had rendered such invaluable assistance in this cause, coolly advised her to wait until a more convenient season or refused absolutely to assist her, when she implored them to help her secure justice and equality before the law for her own handicapped sex. [*6*] Although Miss Anthony was accustomed to the hisses of the mob and the persecution of her enemies, this attitude of her former colaborers and friends, which literally seemed to her ingratitude more strong than traitors arms almost vanquished her. So long as there lives in the United States a single human being through whose veins flows one drop of African blood, so long will Susan B. Anthony be held in grateful remembrance, so long will her name be loved and revered. Although Miss Anthony worked continually and faithfully to secure justice for every American and accomplished much toward this end, a prodigious amount of work along this line remains yet to be done. May Miss Anthony's prayer for justice, for which she hungered and thirsted so long and for which to a certain extent, at least she hungered and thirsted in vain soon be [goes] answered all over the world. May justice, absolute, impartial justice without regard to race, color class, sex or creed soon extend her dominions unto the uttermost parts of the earth. May the spirit of Susan B. Anthony who was the incarnation of justice enter the breast of a mighty host of American women and impel them to battle against injustice as fearlessly and as valiantly as did our peerless leader who did not know the meaning of compromise or surrender and scorned the suggestion of defeat. Though the soul of Susan B. Anthony has winged its way to another world, the light of her celestial nature which often groaned under the burdens of a weary life will never be dimmed. And to day in grateful, affectionate appreciation of the services she rendered and the heroic sacrifices she made in their behalf, Susan B. Anthony lies enshrined in the hearts of 10,000,000 human beings, a far nobler mausoleum after all than one made of marble could possibly be. Her voice which murdered sleep for the tyrant was sweet with the music of hope for the oppressed. Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.