William English Walling - "Socialism As It Is"

Vitruvius - "Ten Books on Architecture"

Henri Bergson - "Dreams"

Giuseppe Garibaldi - "Clelia"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Susan B. Anthony

A >> Alma Lutz >> Susan B. Anthony




These halfhearted appeals were too late, for the political machine in
Kansas had already done its work; and Susan, turning her back on such
fair-weather friends, cultivated the Democrats even more sedulously.
When the Democrat who had promised to accompany George Francis Train
on a speaking tour failed him, she took his place. When Train demurred
at the strenuous task ahead, she announced she would undertake it
alone. Always the gallant gentleman, he accompanied her, and continued
with her through the long hard weeks of travel in mail and lumber
wagons over rough roads, through mud and rain, to the remotest
settlements, far from the railroads. Because it was a necessity,
traveling alone with a gentleman whom she hardly knew troubled her not
at all, unconventional though it was.

She took charge of the meetings, opening them herself with a short
sincere plea for both the woman and Negro suffrage amendments, and
then she introduced George Francis Train, who, no matter how late they
arrived or how tiring the day, had changed his wrinkled gray traveling
suit for his resplendent platform costume. The expectant crowd never
failed to respond with a gasp of surprise, and immediately the fun
began as Train with his wit and his mimicry entertained them, calling
for their support of woman suffrage and advocating as well some of his
own pet ideas, such as freeing Ireland from British oppression, paying
our national debt in greenbacks, establishing an eight-hour day in
industry, and even nominating himself for President.

Amused by his dramatics and often amazed at his conceit, Susan found
neither as objectionable as the outright falsehood circulated by
opponents of woman suffrage. As the days went by with their continued
hardships and increasing fatigue, she marveled at his unfailing
courteousness, his pluck, and good cheer, while he in turn admired her
courage, her endurance, and her zeal for her cause, and between them a
bond of respect and loyalty was built up which could not be destroyed
by the pressures of later years.

During the long hours on the road, he entertained her with the story
of his life and his travels, an adventure story of a poor boy who had
made good. Building clipper ships, introducing American goods in
Australia, traveling in India, China, and Russia, promoting street
railways in England, and now building the Union Pacific, he had a
wealth of information to impart.

Their views on the Negro differed sharply. Rating the whole race as
inferior and incapable of improvement, he naturally opposed
enfranchising Negroes before women. She, on the other hand, had always
regarded Negroes as her equals, and in campaigning with Train, she had
to make her choice between Negroes and women. She chose women, just as
her abolitionist friends in the East had chosen the Negro; and their
indifference and opposition to woman suffrage at this crucial time was
as unforgivable to her as was his valuation of the Negro to them. They
called him a Copperhead, remembering his southern wife and his hatred
of abolitionists, his vocal resistance to the draft, and his demands
for immediate unconditional peace. They ignored entirely his defense
of the Union in England during the Civil War when he publicly debated
with Englishmen who supported the Confederacy. They abused him in
their newspapers and he, not to be outdone, ridiculed them in his
speeches, shouting, "Where is Wendell Phillips, today? Lost caste
everywhere. Inconsistent in all things, cowardly in this. Where is
Horace Greeley in this Kansas war for liberty? Pitching the woman
suffrage idea out of the Convention and bailing out Jeff Davis. Where
is William Lloyd Garrison? Being patted on the shoulders by his
employers, our enemies abroad, for his faithful work in trying to
destroy our nation. Where is Henry Ward Beecher? Writing a story for
Bonner's Ledger...."[202]

They never forgave him this estimate of them, nor did they forgive
Susan for associating herself with him.

On one of the last days of the Kansas campaign, while she was driving
over the prairie with him, he suddenly asked her why the woman
suffrage people did not have a paper of their own. "Not lack of
brains, but lack of money," she tersely replied.[203]

They talked for a while about the good such a paper would do, about
the people who should edit and write for it, what name it should have.
Then he said simply, "I will give you the money."

Because a woman suffrage paper had been her cherished dream for so
many years, she did not dare regard this as more than a gallant
gesture soon to be forgotten; but to her amazement that very evening
she heard Train announce to his audience, "When Miss Anthony gets back
to New York, she is going to start a woman suffrage paper. Its name is
to be _The Revolution_: its motto, 'Men their rights, and nothing
more; women, their rights and nothing less.' This paper is to be a
weekly, price $2. per year; its editors, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and
Parker Pillsbury; its proprietor, Susan B. Anthony. Let everybody
subscribe for it!"

* * * * *

Election day brought both Susan and Mrs. Stanton back to Leavenworth,
to Daniel's home, to learn the verdict of the people of Kansas. As the
returns came in, their hope of seeing Kansas become the first woman
suffrage state quickly faded. Neither their amendment nor the Negroes'
polled enough votes for adoption. Their woman suffrage amendment,
however, received only 1,773 votes less than the Republican-sponsored
Negro amendment, and to have accomplished this in a hard-fought bitter
campaign against powerful opponents gave them confidence in themselves
and in their judgment of men and events. No longer need they depend
upon Wendell Phillips or other abolitionist leaders for guidance. From
now on they would chart their own course. This led, they believed, to
Washington, where they must gain support among members of Congress for
a federal woman suffrage amendment. Few, if any, Republicans would
help them, but already one Democrat had come forward. George Francis
Train had offered to pay their expenses if they would join him on a
lecture tour on their way East. To Susan, who had to raise every penny
spent in her work, this seemed like an answer to prayer, as did his
proposal to finance a woman suffrage paper for them.

By this time their abolitionist friends in the East were writing them
indignant letters blaming the defeat of the Negro amendment on George
Francis Train and warning them not to link woman suffrage with an
unbalanced charlatan. Even their devoted friends in Kansas, including
Governor Robinson, advised them against further association with
Train.

They did not make their decision lightly, nor was it easy to go
against the judgment of respected friends, but of this they were
confident--that with or without Train, they would estrange most of
their old friends if they campaigned for woman suffrage now. Without
him, their work, limited by lack of funds, would be ineffectual. With
his financial backing, they not only had the opportunity of spreading
their message in all the principal cities on their way back to New
York, but had the promise of a paper, now so desperately needed when
other news channels were closed to them. That Train was eccentric they
agreed, and they also admitted that possibly some of his financial
theories were unsound. They believed he was ahead of his time when he
advocated the eight-hour day and the abolition of standing armies; but
at least he looked forward, not backward. Susan had found him to be a
man of high principles. She had heard him "make speeches on woman's
suffrage that could be equalled only by John B. Gough,"[204] the
well-known temperance crusader. Train's radical ideas did not disturb
her. Her association with antislavery extremists prior to the Civil
War had made her impervious to the criticism and accusations of
conservatives. She was aware that on this proposed lecture tour Train
probably wanted to make use of her executive ability and of Mrs.
Stanton's popularity as a speaker; but on the other hand, his
generosity to them was beyond anything they had ever experienced.

For Susan there was only one choice--to work for woman suffrage with
the financial backing of Train. Mrs. Stanton agreed, and as she
expressed it, "I have always found that when we see eye to eye, we are
sure to be right, and when we pull together we are strong.... I take
my beloved Susan's judgment against the world."[205]

* * * * *

Traveling homeward with George Francis Train, Susan and Mrs. Stanton
spoke in Chicago, St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Cleveland,
Buffalo, Rochester, Boston, Hartford, and other important cities where
they drew large crowds, which had never before listened to a
discussion of woman suffrage. Most of their old friends among the
suffragists and abolitionists shunned them, for they had been warned
against this folly by their colleagues in the East. The lively
meetings rated plenty of publicity, complimentary in the Democratic
papers but sarcastic and hostile in the Republican press. Usually
"Woman Suffrage" got the headlines, but sometimes it was "Woman
Suffrage and Greenbacks" or "Train for President." Handbills, the
printing of which Susan supervised, scattered Train's rhymes and
epigrams far and wide and carried a notice that the proceeds of all
meetings would be turned over to the woman's rights cause. Susan also
arranged for the printing of Train's widely distributed pamphlet, _The
Great Epigram Campaign of Kansas_, with this jingle, so
uncomplimentary to the eastern abolitionists, on its cover:

The Garrisons, Phillipses, Greeleys, and Beechers,
False prophets, false guides, false teachers and preachers,
Left Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, Brown, and Stone,
To fight the Kansas battle alone;
While your Rosses, Pomeroys, and your Clarkes
Stood on the fence, or basely fled,
While woman was saved by a Copperhead.

Even more unforgivable than this to the abolitionist suffragists were
the back-page advertisements of a new woman-suffrage paper, _The
Revolution_, and of woman's rights tracts which could be purchased
from Susan B. Anthony, Secretary of the American Equal Rights
Association. That Susan would presume to line up this organization in
any way with George Francis Train aroused the indignation of Lucy
Stone, who felt the cause was being trailed in the dust. While Susan
and Mrs. Stanton traveled homeward, enjoying the comfort of the best
hotels and the applause of enthusiastic audiences, a coalition against
them was being formed in the East.

"All the old friends with scarce an exception are sure we are wrong,"
Susan wrote in her diary, January 1, 1868. "Only time can tell, but I
believe we are right and hence bound to succeed."[206]


FOOTNOTES:

[185] Ms., Petition, Jan. 9, 1867, Alma Lutz Collection

[186] Ms., note, 1893, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of
Congress.

[187] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 278; _History of Woman Suffrage_, II,
p. 284.

[188] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 279.

[189] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, p. 287. Petitions with 20,000
signatures were presented.

[190] _Ibid._, p. 285.

[191] Aug. 25, 1867, Alma Lutz Collection.

[192] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, p. 287.

[193] _Ibid._, pp. 234-235, 239.

[194] _Ibid._, p. 252.

[195] A famous family of singers who enlivened woman's rights,
antislavery, and temperance meetings with their songs.

[196] July 9, 1867, Anthony Papers, Kansas State Historical Society,
Topeka, Kansas.

[197] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 284.

[198] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, p. 242.

[199] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 287. George Francis Train on his own
initiative spoke for woman suffrage before the New York Constitutional
Convention.

[200] George Francis Train, _The Great Epigram Campaign of Kansas_
(Leavenworth, Kansas, 1867), p. 68.

[201] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, pp. 248-249.

[202] Train, _The Great Epigram Campaign of Kansas_, p. 40.

[203] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 290.

[204] Inscription by Susan B. Anthony on copy of Train's _The Great
Epigram Campaign of Kansas_, Library of Congress.

[205] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 293.

[206] _Ibid._, p. 295.




THE ONE WORD OF THE HOUR


"If we women fail to speak the _one word_ of the hour," Susan wrote
Anna E. Dickinson, "who shall do it? No man is able, for no man sees
or feels as we do. To whom God gives the word, to him or her he says,
'Go preach it.'"[207]

This is just what Susan aimed to do in her new paper, _The
Revolution_. It's name, she believed, expressed exactly the stirring
up of thought necessary to establish justice for all--for women,
Negroes, workingmen and-women, and all who were oppressed. Her two
editors, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury, reliable friends
as well as vivid forceful writers, were completely in sympathy with
her own liberal ideas and could be counted on to crusade fearlessly
for every righteous cause. What did it matter if George Francis Train
wanted space in the paper to publish his views and for a financial
column, edited by David M. Melliss of the New York _World_? Brought up
on the antislavery platform where free speech was the watchword and
where all, even long-winded cranks, were allowed to express their
opinions, Susan willingly opened the pages of _The Revolution_ to
Train and to Melliss in return for financial backing.

When on January 8, 1868, the first issue of her paper came off the
press, her heart swelled with pride and satisfaction as she turned
over its pages, read its good editorials, and under the frank of
Democratic Congressman James Brooks of New York, sent out ten thousand
copies to all parts of the country.

_The Revolution_ promised to discuss not only subjects which were of
particular concern to her and to Elizabeth Stanton, such as "educated
suffrage, irrespective of sex or color," equal pay for women for equal
work, and practical education for girls as well as boys, but also the
eight-hour day, labor problems, and a new financial policy for
America. This new financial policy, the dream of George Francis Train,
advocated the purchase of American goods only; the encouragement of
immigration to rebuild the South and to settle the country from ocean
to ocean; the establishment of the French financing systems, the
Credit Foncier and Credit Mobilier, to develop our mines and
railroads; the issuing of greenbacks; and penny ocean postage "to
strengthen the brotherhood of Labor."

All in all it was not a program with wide appeal. Dazzled by the
opportunities for making money in this new undeveloped country, people
were in no mood to analyze the social order, or to consider the needs
of women or labor or the living standards of the masses. Unfamiliar
with the New York Stock Exchange, they found little to interest them
in the paper's financial department, while speculators and promoters,
such as Jay Gould and Jim Fiske, wanted no advice from the lone eagle,
George Francis Train, and resented Melliss's columns of Wall Street
gossip which often portrayed them in an unfavorable light. Nor did a
public-affairs paper edited and published by women carry much weight.
None of this, however, mattered much to Susan, who did not aim for a
popular paper but "to make public sentiment." It was her hope that
just as the _Liberator_ under William Lloyd Garrison had been "the
pillar of light and of fire to the slave's emancipation," so _The
Revolution_ would become "the guiding star to the enfranchisement of
women."[208]

* * * * *

Upon Susan fell the task of building up subscriptions, soliciting
advertisements, and getting copy to the printer. As her office in the
New York _World_ building, 37 Park Row, was on the fourth floor and
the printer was several blocks away on the fifth floor of a building
without an elevator, her job proved to be a test of physical
endurance. To this was added an ever-increasing financial burden, for
Train had sailed for England when the first number was issued, had
been arrested because of his Irish sympathies, and had spent months in
a Dublin jail, from which he sent them his thoughts on every
conceivable subject but no money for the paper. He had left $600 with
Susan and had instructed Melliss to make payments as needed, but this
soon became impossible, and she had to face the alarming fact that, if
the paper were to continue, she must raise the necessary money
herself. Because the circulation was small, it was hard to get
advertisers, particularly as she was firm in her determination to
accept only advertisements of products she could recommend. Patent
medicines and any questionable products were ruled out. Subscriptions
came in encouragingly but in no sense met the deficit which piled up
unrelentingly. Her goal was 100,000 subscribers.

She had gone to Washington at once to solicit subscriptions personally
from the President and members of Congress. Ben Wade of Ohio headed
the list of Senators who subscribed, and loyal as always to woman
suffrage, encouraged her to go ahead and push her cause. "It has got
to come," he added, "but Congress is too busy now to take it up."
Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts greeted her gruffly, telling her
that she and Mrs. Stanton had done more to block reconstruction in the
last two years than all others in the land, but he subscribed because
he wanted to know what they were up to. Although Senator Pomeroy was
"sore about Kansas" and her alliance with the Democrats, he
nevertheless subscribed, but Senator Sumner was not to be seen. The
first member of the House to put his name on her list was her
dependable understanding friend, George Julian of Indiana, and many
others followed his lead. For two hours she waited to see President
Johnson, in an anteroom "among the huge half-bushel-measure spittoons
and terrible filth ... where the smell of tobacco and whiskey was
powerful." When she finally reached him, he immediately refused her
request, explaining that he had a thousand such solicitations every
day. Not easily put off, she countered at once by remarking that he
had never before had such a request in his life. "You recognize, Mr.
Johnson," she continued, "that Mrs. Stanton and myself for two years
have boldly told the Republican party that they must give ballots to
women as well as to Negroes, and by means of _The Revolution_ we are
bound to drive the party to this logical conclusion or break it into a
thousand pieces as was the old Whig party, unless we get our rights."
This "brought him to his pocketbook," she triumphantly reported, and
in a bold hand he signed his name, Andrew Johnson, as much as to say,
"Anything to get rid of this woman and break the radical party."[209]

She was proud of her paper, proud of its typography which was far more
readable than the average news sheets of the day with their miserably
small print. The larger type and less crowded pages were inviting, the
articles stimulating.

Parker Pillsbury, covering Congressional and political developments
and the impeachment trial of President Johnson with which he was not
in sympathy, was fearless in his denunciations of politicians, their
ruthless intrigue and disregard of the public. During the turbulent
days when the impeachment trial was front-page news everywhere, _The
Revolution_ proclaimed it as a political maneuver of the Republicans
to confuse the people and divert their attention from more important
issues, such as corruption in government, high prices, taxation, and
the fabulous wealth being amassed by the few. This of course roused
the intense disapproval of Wendell Phillips, Theodore Tilton, and
Horace Greeley, all of whom regarded Johnson as a traitor and shouted
for impeachment. It ran counter to the views of Susan's brother
Daniel, who telegraphed Senator Ross of Kansas demanding his vote for
impeachment. Although no supporter of President Johnson, Susan was now
completely awake to the political manipulations of the radical
Republicans and what seemed to her their readiness to sacrifice the
good of the nation for the success of their party. She repudiated them
all--all but the rugged Ben Wade, always true to woman suffrage, and
the tall handsome Chief Justice, Salmon P. Chase, who, she believed,
stood for justice and equality.

Both of these men Susan regarded as far better qualified for the
Presidency than General Grant, who now was the obvious choice of the
Republicans for 1868. "Why go pell-mell for Grant," asked _The
Revolution_, "when all admit that he is unfit for the position? It is
not too late, if true men and women will do their duty, to make an
honest man like Ben Wade, President. Let us save the Nation. As to the
Republican party the sooner it is scattered to the four winds of
Heaven the better."[210] Later when Chase was out of the running among
Republicans and not averse to overtures from the Democrats, _The
Revolution_ urged him as the Democratic candidate with universal
suffrage as his slogan.

Susan demanded civil rights, suffrage, education, and farms for the
Negroes as did the Republicans, but she could not overlook the
political corruption which was flourishing under the military control
of the South, and she recognized that the Republicans' insistence on
Negro suffrage in the South did not stem solely from devotion to a
noble principle, but also from an overwhelming desire to insure
victory for their party in the coming election. These views were
reflected editorially in _The Revolution_, which, calling attention
to the fact that Connecticut, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and
Pennsylvania had refused to enfranchise their Negroes, asked why Negro
suffrage should be forced on the South before it was accepted in the
North.

The Fourteenth Amendment was having hard sledding and _The Revolution_
repudiated it, calling instead for an amendment granting universal
suffrage, or in other words, suffrage for women and Negroes. _The
Revolution_ also discussed in editorials by Mrs. Stanton other
subjects of interest to women, such as marriage, divorce,
prostitution, and infanticide, all of which Susan agreed needed frank
thoughtful consideration, but which other papers handled with kid
gloves.

In still another unpopular field, that of labor and capital, _The
Revolution_ also pioneered fearlessly, asking for shorter hours and
lower wages for workers, as it pointed out labor's valuable
contribution to the development of the country. It also called
attention to the vicious contrasts in large cities, where many lived
in tumbledown tenements in abject poverty while the few, with more
wealth than they knew what to do with, spent lavishly and built
themselves palaces.

Sentiments such as these increased the indignation of Susan's critics,
but she gloried in the output of her two courageous editors just as
she had gloried in the evangelistic zeal of the antislavery crusaders.
Wisely, however, she added to her list of contributors some of the
popular women writers of the day, among them Alice and Phoebe Cary.
She ran a series of articles on women as farmers, machinists,
inventors, and dentists, secured news from foreign correspondents,
mostly from England, and published a Washington letter and woman's
rights news from the states. Believing that women should become
acquainted with the great women of the past, especially those who
fought for their freedom and advancement, she printed an article on
Frances Wright and serialized Mary Wollstonecraft's _A Vindication of
the Rights of Women_.

* * * * *

Eagerly Susan looked for favorable notices of her new paper in the
press. Much to her sorrow, Horace Greeley's New York _Tribune_
completely ignored its existence, as did her old standby, the
_Antislavery Standard_. The New York _Times_ ridiculed as usual
anything connected with woman's rights or woman suffrage. The New York
_Home Journal_ called it "plucky, keen, and wide awake, although some
of its ways are not at all to our taste." Theodore Tilton in the
Congregationalist paper, _The Independent_, commented in his usual
facetious style, which pinned him down neither to praise nor
unfriendliness, but Susan was grateful to read, "_The Revolution_ from
the start will arouse, thrill, edify, amuse, vex, and non-plus its
friends. But it will command attention: it will conquer a hearing."
Newspapers were generally friendly. "Miss Anthony's woman's rights
paper," declared the Troy (New York) _Times_, "is a realistic,
well-edited, instructive journal ... and its beautiful mechanical
execution renders its appearance very attractive." The Chicago
_Workingman's Advocate_ observed, "We have no doubt it will prove an
able ally of the labor reform movement." Nellie Hutchinson of the
Cincinnati _Commercial_, one of the few women journalists, described
sympathetically for her readers the neat comfortable _Revolution_
office and Susan with her "rare" but "genial smile," Susan, "the
determined--the invincible ... destined to be Vice-President or
Secretary of State...," adding, "The world is better for thee,
Susan."[211]

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