The Woman Suffragists Tell of Their Trials.

Washington, January 21, 1870.

The last evening’s session of the woman’s suffrage convention opened under the most dazzling auspices. No movement of the kind at the national capital has ever been so honored before. Quite a strong solution of intellect, power, and fashion shaded its eyes before the meteoric display. For the first time in convention, respectable audiences have seen spiritualism, long-haired masculine, and pantaloon feminine banished from the stage. Just as a flame flashes up more brilliantly before it expires, the convention assumed a vermillion hue before its final dissolution.

Mrs. Stanton appeared clad in solemn black velvet, but the bright ribbons nestling in her snowy curls, the girlish ornaments in exactly the right place, strangled all thoughts of a funereal aspect.

Mrs. Wilbour glimmered in the black silk of golden wheat memory, and Mrs. Beecher was clad in royal purple; Phoebe Couzins smothered her manifold attractions under a great white opera cloak, and Susan B. Anthony was just as twisted and knotty as ever.

But whilst the beautiful feminine element which Mrs. Wilbour has so faithfully portrayed formed the background of the picture, the great central form of attraction was Professor Wilcox, otherwise known in the capital as “the Knight of the Sorrowful Figure.” A description of his person, as he corruscated upon the stage, is copied from the Washington Chronicle: “Professor Wilcox appeared upon the scene in wrappings of swallow-tail and patent leather. His polished foundation was only eclipsed by the manifold attractions of the other extremity. His whiskers were trimmed to an angle of forty-five degrees, whilst his superb eyes rested in serene beneficence upon the feminine elements that surged and rolled in grandeur on the stage.”

As the women were detained at home for the arrangement of their toilettes beyond the hour appointed, Professor Wilcox moved that Mrs. Griffing address the meeting. This most estimable woman proposed a substitute in the person of Madame Anneke, who came forward and said she could not talk, only “wid her heart.” She could not speak English. “All my friends I embrace.” This last sentence must have been a metaphor, for although Professor Wilcox was in grappling distance, nothing occurred which could shock the most delicate mind. Madame Anneke said that it had been told that Germany was not in favor of this movement. This was a mistake. Germany was with us; all Europe too. Twenty years ago she had started a paper to advocate the cause, but it stopped in two years because of her sickness. One hundred years ago a German philosopher said that women should have equal rights with men. A hundred years ago a good man had said the same things which these women were telling the people to-day. But she could say no more, she was going to act.

Mrs. Stanton then came forward and said Madame Anneke was going to travel all through the West for the “cause,” and this was what she meant by the word act. If Madame Anneke can not talk English to Western barbarians, she can make up by acting on the stage. Her immense rotundity, quivering like a huge caldron of jelly, will stir the human heart to its profoundest depths, and it can safely be said by a Western woman who knows the taste of the home community that Madame Anneke will be able to attract audiences.

Rev. Mr. May now came forward. He said that our late civil war was brought on by the deprivation of the rights of four millions of the people, and consequently certain things will follow like a natural law, the taking away of the rights of fifteen millions more. Woman cannot be denied her rights. She cannot be degraded without degrading the other half of creation. God made man dual. How absurd for man to assume the right to all power; to take all power into his hands. Why do not women take all the power to themselves? It would be just as reasonable. Barbarians subject the weak to the strong.

Miss Anthony now came forward and wanted to have a resolution introduced into Congress to equalize wages. The motion was put and carried with the exception of one male voice. Here was a chance for Susan to score the Adam, and the opportunity was not lost. No eagle from his eyrie ever pounced upon a chicken with more force than did Susan upon this masculine biped. Nobody knew whether the unfortunate had a wife, but Susan assumed that he had, and that it was his intent and purpose to sneak away her wages. Susan finished him on the spot, and the audience applauded the heroic act.

Mrs. Stanton then rose and said a woman had just visited her who was connected with the Washington public schools. For a long time she had tried to get her wages; that she was in debt, with all its attendant evils; that she had applied time after time for her dues, but they were withheld, but that a school trustee had put his hand in his pocket and offered the teacher forty dollars instead of forty-five, the amount due. She instanced this as an atrocious advantage taken of a helpless woman. As she took her seat a man in a distant part of the hall arose for an explanation. He painted the awful picture of a depleted city treasury, of the inability of the school committee to get blood out of a stone, and thought the man did a most generous act to give the woman forty dollars and wait indefinitely for the forty-five. He said the man was touched by her necessities, and no doubt cramped himself to do a good act, for the school committee are poor men.

A silence followed. Mr. May again came forward to bring forth some mental gem that in his former speech had been forgotten. He wanted to say something about woman as an inventor. A woman had invented the cotton-gin, but in this case she had been maliciously deprived of her rights. The audience listened patiently and his last talk came to an end. Then Mrs. Charlotte Wilbour took the stand and read one of her sleepy essays. But she made rather a handsome figure with the gaslight dancing on the golden sheaves that bespangled her royal drapery. Her costly fan was suspended from her waist by a heavy gold chain, and this, with the length of her long train, made her look anything else but “strong-minded.”

When her essay came to an end, Mr. May arose for an explanation, but the decorous, good humored audience had swallowed enough of Mr. May, and its stomach actually refused any more of the decoction. Stamp! Stamp! Stamp! Motherly Mrs. Stanton came forward and said, “Be a good child. Take it down; take it for the sake of free speech.” Mr. May began. Hissing, stamping. Again Mrs. Stanton’s sweet face beams on the audience and says, “Why will ye?”

Mr. May began and said: “I shall stand here until you hear me, if stay till to-morrow morning.” Determination was written on that face, with the broad lower jaw and mouth, which sprung together like the shutting of a steel trap. His arms were folded, and his whole person breathed the spirit of the Egyptian sphinx. The audience felt the presence of its master, and yielded as good naturedly as it began the battle. Mr. May told us something about a State’s prison, where there were nothing but female convicts and female officers, but whether this model prison is in his own State of New York or elsewhere escaped the ear of the writer, but it is safe to say if it is not in New York it certainly ought to be there.

Miss Anthony now came forward and told a good story, a noble one, about Olympia Brown. Four months Olympia traveled in Kansas in every way except by railroad. She spoke every day of the four months, and oftener twice than otherwise. Generally she had met the kindest treatment, but sometimes not, for in every audience there is generally a fringe of humanity where there is more boot-heel than brain. There was one district in Kansas where intelligent people lived, where for years they were unable to get a schoolhouse. They could get no majority to vote upon the question, because the claims in the town were owned by single men, who did not want to vote to be taxed, or else by non-residents who were never there to give a decision one way or another. The father worked on year after year, but all in vain. After the passage of the law giving woman the right to vote on the school question, the mothers arose at 11 o’clock at night, voted, and got a schoolhouse. Why the women should be obliged to arise at 11 o’clock at night to vote, instead of waiting until a respectable hour in the morning, Susan forgot to mention. Miss Anthony said once upon a time she was announced to speak in Brooklyn, at the same time with Miss Anna Dickinson. Just as she had changed her frock, and got ready for starting, the fickle Anna telegraphed that she could not be there. There was no time to prepare for this unforeseen catastrophe, so she put on her bonnet and went over to Brooklyn—went into the vast hall, crowded with humanity, who had come to see Anna, not her. Had the heavens opened and buckets of ice-water been showered down upon her head she could have felt no worse. She looked around and there sat Henry Ward Beecher, and Chapin, and a host of intellectual lights, which were enough to cook any woman’s marrow to the bones, and she was as bare of thought as New York is of honesty. She applied a forcing pump to her mind, but still the water of thought wouldn’t come; her brain was as dry as a squeezed orange. What should she do? She looked around on the hungry audience, and at last her eyes rested on Henry Ward Beecher, and she felt saved. Leaving her place on the platform, she advanced to the great preacher, and, laying her hand on his shoulder she said, “You must help me; I can’t do it.” Susan did not tell us whether it was owing to her command or the pressure which she brought to bear on his shoulder that conquered him. At any rate, he came gallantly to her side; and never was such a rousing speech made by the great parson in all the days of his life. Then she said, “What did I tell this story for? Something I am sure! Let me see. Oh, yes! I wanted to prove that men and women needed to work together side by side. When one fails, the other can come to the rescue.” At this moment Susan gave evidence of having touched the bottom of her remarkable strength and vitality. The unmitigated drain upon her vital forces for three days of convention seemed to have done its work. Any other woman would have fainted, but not Susan. She only said, “I think I’ll sit down.”

Mrs. Stanton came forward and said she wanted to talk an hour to the young ladies about health and strength. Napoleon could not make a soldier of a sick man. If girls are left with white hands and poverty an inheritance, as it often is when they are orphaned, the sin of it lies at the parents’ door. Educate women for ministers, and there will be better theology preached. Let them study the law. Would it bring them more into notice than the public ball? There is no place where there are such temptations as in fashionable life, for nowhere are such sensuous men found. If marriage is contemplated, it is not thought whether a man has character but whether he has wealth. She said she had an interest in the perpetuity of the American Constitution. Women will never respect themselves, but will be ground down until they learn self-support. She had personal knowledge of many girls who wanted to do something for themselves, but the fathers stood by, saying, “Degrade women to go to the polls?” If a woman is so rash as to marry a man, should she be afraid to go by his side to the ballot-box? She had six men in her family, and, excepting the tobacco, she found them very endurable. She thought men and women ought to be together in every movement. A drunken man will try to act sober when women are around. Conversation is never so good when men are alone; nor is it so elevating among women as when a few philosophers or well-informed men are present.

Senator Wilson arrives and is lustily cheered. He ascends the platform and shakes hands with his personal friends. He said he did not come to address an argument to this meeting; he did not come to add his faith to the creed to be promulgated. Whenever he had a vote to give to any practical measure which should benefit this country it should be given to men and women alike. But he came there to redeem a promise to Miss Anthony, who really would not let him say “no.” “But I am with you. For the last thirty-four years I have tried, in private and in public, to emancipate a race. The work is done. Complete political equality is nearly accomplished; and what little time may be allotted me I shall still go on with the work which has given four and a half millions freedom. I am with you in sentiment, feeling, and all which relates to the work.”

Mrs. Stanton having perceived several Congressmen in the hall, invites them to the platform. They do not choose to come. Senator Tipton is called by name, and rises and begs to be excused, and Mrs. Stanton shows her weakness by excusing him.

Rachel Townsend, the Quakeress, takes the platform, and scores the factory girl for her effective speech of the evening before. She says she has a good word to say for Congress; a good word for President Grant, who has taken the colored man by the hand and raised him to a place he never occupied before. He had placed the despised Quakers over the Indians and the Quakers had done what powder and bullets had failed to do. Quaker women were amongst the Indians, Christianizing them as much as the other sex.

Mrs. Jocelyn Gage was then introduced by a handsome preamble, in Mrs. Stanton’s own style. She said Mrs. Gage was author of a pamphlet upon “Woman as an Inventor,” and that the pamphlet went to prove that women originated the cotton-gin. Mrs. Gage, however, did not tell the audience any new facts about woman suffrage.

The majestic, most queenly Pauline Davis criticised Senator Wilson because he had spoken of the black men and said nothing about the black women.

Miss Anthony then offered a resolution on the sixteenth amendment, and made just such a speech as only Susan can. She demanded that Congress submit the amendment. She commanded the Judiciary Committee of the District to present the bill before the House, and that it be done quickly. She wanted something practical to work on. She said there were black men so ignorant that when they went to the polls they expected to have a mule given them at the same time. “Do you suppose such women as Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Wright, and others—I’ll say myself; yes, I’ll say we—have suffered hooting, degradation, persecution, everything for all these years, and not accomplish what we have to do!” Vesuvius could be painted more easily than Susan at this supreme moment. What is this invisible force? Heads were bowed until the whirlwind swept by. Susan went up like a rocket but came down like a stick, but it did not hurt her. She said she was tired of harping on one string. She looked so weary. Oh! that Susan had a place softer than a pillow on which to lay that tired head.

There is no time to tell all the strong words this woman said, because it must be told that Mrs. Beecher Hooker tried to speak and failed. Alas! for the Beechers. She said that Christ had come to deliver woman. She had entered into this movement because undefiled, pure religion was to be found there, I assure you. Few of us know the burden which Christianity brings. Let us take hold and work together. At this moment she said so many earnest faces gazing at her made it impossible to go on, and she withdrew her beautiful face, suffused with the pure Beecher blood, the sweetest picture the family has had the honor to present for many days.

Miss Olympia Brown came to the rescue. It was like shifting a panorama; Olympia is beyond criticism in some respects. Her face glows with enthusiasm; she talks because she is in earnest, and not for effect. She was followed by Miss Couzins, who could not be compared with Olympia, and yet the former won the applause. But men’s boots were heard in the uproar. Phoebe is pretty, and the rest followed. The hall was crowded with the best and strongest audience that ever greeted the woman suffrage movement in Washington.

Olivia.