Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-02-15

PRINCIPLES. a devotion to the cause of hui
mainly. which in the days of the ancfrnts
would have canoniZed her.
Fight for Emancipation.
The first serious fight of her life was
made for emancipation and she was en-
ployed by the American Anti-Siavery So
ciety in 1885. Then commenced the mar
tyrdom to which she was subjected more
or less for twenty-five years. She was
mobbed. reviled. called free lover and
an infidel. 1t was said she was coarse and
low and intriguing: that she was a plant
tool of designing agitatorS: that she was
ignorant; that she was educated out of her
sphere: that she could not speak at all:
tharshe spoke as one inspired by the devil:
that she was menace to public safety:
that she was too small potatoes to pay any
attention to: in fact. in the light of history
there seems TO have been nothing too mean
too low. too outlandish to apply to Miss
Anthony. Under this load of contumely
many weaker but well-meanHg women
went down in defeat: but not so Miss An
thony. The fires of travail. her friends say
burned out of her soul the little dross that
nature implanted there, and the pure gold.
that nothing furnishes. nothing dims, was
left.
Her Hour of Triumph
Fifty years just rounds out the period of
her real public life. Last night as she
stood before vast audience the Church
of Our Father. the lights cleaning on her
silvery hair her strong, true face so
framed by Ii that ii seemed almost halo
as she awaited the silence which it seemed
would never come from the shouting null
titude, as she saw the waving handker-
chiefs. heard the cheers and felt the en-
thusiasm that her very presence inspired.
there must have come back to her the
memory of those first awful days in the
middle and late Sos, when she stood before
the bowling mobs and when her gently
bred senses We're stunned by the awful i'm
precautions of the jeering populace for she
raised her thin, white hand. about which
fell priceless lace. and in the strong. clear
voice which age has not touched and time
has only softened. she said:
There is. after all, compensation. Good
friends, / have been reviled all my life. l
have been scoffed and jeered at. I have
heard myself called most dreadful things.
and | have been the target for every kind
of discourtesy. but tonight | am ready to
believe that there are people in the world
who really love me. | am truly grateful"
The roar of enthusiasm that went up was
deafening. over and over again they
cheered the white-haired woman as she
stood there like statue, in the midst of an
ovation. which she had waited almost fifty
years to receive. On her high brow, but
little lined with its weight of years one
could almost Ser the word .'vindicated'
and the steel nerves. the cast iron COM
posture. which had withstood the menace of
itiiiS iipp- NaS MOI PROOF against the
loving testimonials of the night. and in
that vast audience of superbly dressed wo-
men, no diamond shone brighter than the
tears which dashed down upon the creamy
lace over the fast beating heart of Miss
Anthony the woman.
For fifty years she has stood at the head
of the suffrage organization. not always
its official head. but always its hulwark
and now she retires from active public par
ticipation in the machinery of the orsaniza-
ton, only to devote and consecrate The re-
mainder of her life to endow.ng the asSo-
citation, so that those who come after shall
never Know the bitterness of the cup she
has had to drink.