The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-03-13

In SUSAN B. ANTHONY has passed away
a woman who more than any other mem
Der of her sex ~personified the movement
for Women's Rights. Her last days were
cheered by the retros pect Of a long, USE
full and honorable life. 1t was not, in
deed, her good fortune, as it was that Of
her contemporary reformer, WILLIAM
LLOYD GARRISON, to behold the full
f~ruition of her labors. The editor Of the
LiberdtOr lived to see the abolition OF
slavery. embedded in the Federal on
stitution; but the attainment of equal
political rights, which SUSAN b. ANTHONY
looked upon as the crown and the safe
was not destined to witness. The move
ment in that direction has seemed of late
to undergo a species of arrest, il not
retrogression. 1t has been successful,
nevertheless, in many an enlightened
commonwealth, and she who had pro-
NOTED it for half a century died in the
belief and the faith that, ultimately, it
will triumph in all civilized countries.
Born in 1920, Miss ANTHONY became
while still a young woman an ardent
and active reformer. She was in her
teens when the Jealous and concerted
agitation against slavery began and
when the enforcement Of temperance, or
rather total abstinence, by law became
the object Of vehement and system
attic demand. She was an earnest
supporter OF both movements, advocat-
ing them by tongue and pen, writing for
newspapers and speaking from the plat
forms OF lecture halls or on the floors
of conventions. Her attention was first
directed toward a third field Of reform,
the social, civil and political disabilities
under which women labored, by her own
inability to obtain as a school teacher the
same pay that was given to men for
equivalent services. She denounced the
difference as ~grievously unjust, not at
first recognizing it as the outcome of the
economic law of supply and demand.
When at last she put her finger on the
cause she perceived the remedy and
applied herself to procuring for women
equal opportunities of practising the
other liberal professions and as a neces-
sary step to that end equal opportunities
for education. 1t was in this field that
her hopes came nearest to complete full
flment. The principle of ~coeducation is
now impregnably established not only
In the United States and in the United
Kingdom but also in some other coun-
tries. There are few American colleges,
universities or professional schools to
which women are not now admissible.
The number of female doctors and female
LAWYERS is already considerable and it
is increasing. The inevitable effect Of
giving women equal opportunities for
earning a livelihood instead of restrict
ing them to a few vocations has been
to minimize the difference between the
sexes in respect Of the salaries or wages
paid to them respectively.
In another direction also, namely, the
rehabilitation of woman with regard to
her civil rights, tho persistent efforts Of
Miss ANTHONY were ~conspicuously sue
c~essfui. 1t is now hard to realize the
extent to which sixty years ago in Eng
land and the United States woman was
the subject of unjust discrimination
under the common law and statute law.
1t was then not only customary but legal
for a husband TO use his wife's property
as he pleased. As Miss ANTHONY herself
reminded us not long ago, if a man failed
his creditors used to attach his wife's
property and often took away from her
everything she possessed. Frequently
also when a woman was toiling to sup
port her little ones her husband or one
OF his creditors would collect her earn
ings and send hef~home penniless to her