Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897
"I would call the attention of the women of the nation to the fact
that, under the Federal Constitution, as it now exists, there is
not one word that limits the right of suffrage to any privileged
class. This attempt to turn the wheels of civilization backward, on
the part of Republicans claiming to be the liberal party, should
rouse every woman in the nation to a prompt exercise of the only
right she has in the Government, the right of petition. To this end
a committee in New York have sent out thousands of petitions, which
should be circulated in every district and sent to its
representative at Washington as soon as possible.
"Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
"New York, January 2, 1866."
CHAPTER XVI.
PIONEER LIFE IN KANSAS--OUR NEWSPAPER, "THE REVOLUTION."
In 1867 the proposition to extend the suffrage to women and to colored
men was submitted to the people of the State of Kansas, and, among other
Eastern speakers, I was invited to make a campaign through the State. As
the fall elections were pending, there was great excitement everywhere.
Suffrage for colored men was a Republican measure, which the press and
politicians of that party advocated with enthusiasm.
As woman suffrage was not a party question, we hoped that all parties
would favor the measure; that we might, at last, have one green spot on
earth where women could enjoy full liberty as citizens of the United
States. Accordingly, in July, Miss Anthony and I started, with high
hopes of a most successful trip, and, after an uneventful journey of one
thousand five hundred miles, we reached the sacred soil where John Brown
and his sons had helped to fight the battles that made Kansas a free
State.
Lucy Stone, Mr. Blackwell, and Olympia Brown had preceded us and opened
the campaign with large meetings in all the chief cities. Miss Anthony
and I did the same. Then it was decided that, as we were to go to the
very borders of the State, where there were no railroads, we must take
carriages, and economize our forces by taking different routes. I was
escorted by ex-Governor Charles Robinson. We had a low, easy carriage,
drawn by two mules, in which we stored about a bushel of tracts, two
valises, a pail for watering the mules, a basket of apples, crackers,
and other such refreshments as we could purchase on the way. Some things
were suspended underneath the carriage, some packed on behind, and some
under the seat and at our feet. It required great skill to compress the
necessary baggage into the allotted space. As we went to the very verge
of civilization, wherever two dozen voters could be assembled, we had a
taste of pioneer life. We spoke in log cabins, in depots, unfinished
schoolhouses, churches, hotels, barns, and in the open air.
I spoke in a large mill one night. A solitary tallow candle shone over
my head like a halo of glory; a few lanterns around the outskirts of the
audience made the darkness perceptible; but all I could see of my
audience was the whites of their eyes in the dim distance. People came
from twenty miles around to these meetings, held either in the morning,
afternoon, or evening, as was most convenient.
As the regular State election was to take place in the coming November,
the interest increased from week to week, until the excitement of the
people knew no bounds. There were speakers for and against every
proposition before the people. This involved frequent debates on all the
general principles of government, and thus a great educational work was
accomplished, which is one of the advantages of our frequent elections.
The friends of woman suffrage were doomed to disappointment. Those in
the East, on whom they relied for influence through the liberal
newspapers, were silent, and we learned, afterward, that they used what
influence they had to keep the abolitionists and Republicans of the
State silent, as they feared the discussion of the woman question would
jeopardize the enfranchisement of the black man. However, we worked
untiringly and hopefully, not seeing through the game of the politicians
until nearly the end of the canvass, when we saw that our only chance
was in getting the Democratic vote. Accordingly, George Francis Train,
then a most effective and popular speaker, was invited into the State to
see what could be done to win the Democracy. He soon turned the tide,
strengthened the weak-kneed Republicans and abolitionists, and secured a
large Democratic vote.
For three months we labored diligently, day after day, enduring all
manner of discomforts in traveling, eating, and sleeping. As there were
no roads or guide-posts, we often lost our way. In going through cañons
and fording streams it was often so dark that the Governor was obliged
to walk ahead to find the way, taking off his coat so that I could see
his white shirt and slowly drive after him. Though seemingly calm and
cool, I had a great dread of these night adventures, as I was in
constant fear of being upset on some hill and rolled into the water. The
Governor often complimented me on my courage, when I was fully aware of
being tempest-tossed with anxiety. I am naturally very timid, but, being
silent under strong emotions of either pleasure or pain, I am credited
with being courageous in the hour of danger.
For days, sometimes, we could find nothing at a public table that we
could eat. Then passing through a little settlement we could buy dried
herring, crackers, gum arabic, and slippery elm; the latter, we were
told, was very nutritious. We frequently sat down to a table with bacon
floating in grease, coffee without milk, sweetened with sorghum, and
bread or hot biscuit, green with soda, while vegetables and fruit were
seldom seen. Our nights were miserable, owing to the general opinion
among pioneers that a certain species of insect must necessarily
perambulate the beds in a young civilization. One night, after traveling
over prairies all day, eating nothing but what our larder provided, we
saw a light in a cottage in the distance which seemed to beckon to us.
Arriving, we asked the usual question,--if we could get a night's
lodging,--to which the response was inevitably a hearty, hospitable
"Yes." One survey of the premises showed me what to look for in the way
of midnight companionship, so I said to the Governor, "I will resign in
your favor the comforts provided for me to-night, and sleep in the
carriage, as you do so often." I persisted against all the earnest
persuasions of our host, and in due time I was ensconced for the night,
and all about the house was silent.
I had just fallen into a gentle slumber, when a chorus of pronounced
grunts and a spasmodic shaking of the carriage revealed to me the fact
that I was surrounded by those long-nosed black pigs, so celebrated for
their courage and pertinacity. They had discovered that the iron steps
of the carriage made most satisfactory scratching posts, and each one
was struggling for his turn. This scratching suggested fleas. Alas!
thought I, before morning I shall be devoured. I was mortally tired and
sleepy, but I reached for the whip and plied it lazily from side to
side; but I soon found nothing but a constant and most vigorous
application of the whip could hold them at bay one moment. I had heard
that this type of pig was very combative when thwarted in its desires,
and they seemed in such sore need of relief that I thought there was
danger of their jumping into the carriage and attacking me. This thought
was more terrifying than that of the fleas, so I decided to go to sleep
and let them alone to scratch at their pleasure. I had a sad night of
it, and never tried the carriage again, though I had many equally
miserable experiences within four walls.
After one of these border meetings we stopped another night with a
family of two bachelor brothers and two spinster sisters. The home
consisted of one large room, not yet lathed and plastered. The furniture
included a cooking stove, two double beds in remote corners, a table, a
bureau, a washstand, and six wooden chairs. As it was late, there was no
fire in the stove and no suggestion of supper, so the Governor and I ate
apples and chewed slippery elm before retiring to dream of comfortable
beds and well-spread tables in the near future.
The brothers resigned their bed to me just as it was. I had noticed that
there was no ceremonious changing of bed linen under such circumstances,
so I had learned to nip all fastidious notions of individual cleanliness
in the bud, and to accept the inevitable. When the time arrived for
retiring, the Governor and the brothers went out to make astronomical
observations or smoke, as the case might be, while the sisters and I
made our evening toilet, and disposed ourselves in the allotted corners.
That done, the stalwart sons of Adam made their beds with skins and
blankets on the floor. When all was still and darkness reigned, I
reviewed the situation with a heavy heart, seeing that I was bound to
remain a prisoner in the corner all night, come what might. I had just
congratulated myself on my power of adaptability to circumstances, when
I suddenly started with an emphatic "What is that?" A voice from the
corner asked, "Is your bed comfortable?" "Oh, yes," I replied, "but I
thought I felt a mouse run over my head." "Well," said the voice from
the corner, "I should not wonder. I have heard such squeaking from that
corner during the past week that I told sister there must be a mouse
nest in that bed." A confession she probably would not have made unless
half asleep. This announcement was greeted with suppressed laughter from
the floor. But it was no laughing matter to me. Alas! what a
prospect--to have mice running over one all night. But there was no
escape. The sisters did not offer to make any explorations, and, in my
fatigue costume, I could not light a candle and make any on my own
account. The house did not afford an armchair in which I could sit up. I
could not lie on the floor, and the other bed was occupied. Fortunately,
I was very tired and soon fell asleep. What the mice did the remainder
of the night I never knew, so deep were my slumbers. But, as my features
were intact, and my facial expression as benign as usual next morning, I
inferred that their gambols had been most innocently and decorously
conducted. These are samples of many similar experiences which we
encountered during the three months of those eventful travels.
Heretofore my idea had been that pioneer life was a period of romantic
freedom. When the long, white-covered wagons, bound for the far West,
passed by, I thought of the novelty of a six-months' journey through
the bright spring and summer days in a house on wheels, meals under
shady trees and beside babbling brooks, sleeping in the open air, and
finding a home, at last, where land was cheap, the soil rich and deep,
and where the grains, vegetables, fruit, and flowers grew bountifully
with but little toil. But a few months of pioneer life permanently
darkened my rosy ideal of the white-covered wagon, the charming picnics
by the way, and the paradise at last. I found many of these adventurers
in unfinished houses and racked with malaria; in one case I saw a family
of eight, all ill with chills and fever. The house was half a mile from
the spring water on which they depended and from which those best able,
from day to day, carried the needed elixir to others suffering with the
usual thirst. Their narrations of all the trials of the long journey
were indeed heartrending.
In one case a family of twelve left their comfortable farm in Illinois,
much against the earnest protests of the mother; she having ten
children, the youngest a baby then in her arms. All their earthly