The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-05-20
SUSAN B. ANTHONY JUDGED.
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mfariv. lIsi 30 y man II Judged. and hsr
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tho conditions Niss Anthony worked 10
hing about.
A Fading Characteristic ~ MI tho edlto-
flals IL 'hrir dignity and seriousness Tho
very strongest illustration possible ~ the
Improved status ~ women may IL found
IN ola eng 'hoss aida by aldo with such ~
wer common no morn than twenty-five
yea r. ago. Pen could not write Rrander
sulogIums than ware pronounced by tho
hundreds upon this woman and her ACHE We
ments.
Tho most noticeable point about those
editorials Ia this-that overy one unqual-
iaedly approves and indorsss all the gains
a. - -. ...I. - s..a~a - Nll.a
Anthony and her coworkers. n yet a
lsrge proportion of them express very
grave doubts as 20 the possibility or the
desirability Of woman suffrage. II they
had been written "A generation ago., the
aame grave doubts would have been eX-
pressed in regard 10 property rights. higher
education. industrial opportunities and
organizations Of womenJ with all they imply
In the way Of travelling 10 and fro, spoakir G
In public and importuning lie legislative bodies.
Forty years ago all Of these Innovations
were opposed with just as much ridicule.
vituperation and awful prophecy as were
used against woman suffrage at that time.
Now, by the general public sentiment which
this mass of editorial expression represents,
they are accepted with appreciation and re-
ioicing, and toward the suffrag e itself there
Is no virulent opposition, but simply a
scepticism as 10 its ever arriving or Of its
being necessary.
All unite in acknowledging Miss A%nthony's
foresight, judgment, clear thinking and
fine reasoning powers; all gree that the
riehts she demanded for women. which
have now been secured, and whose denial
would seem at present a reversion to bar
barism, nave been not only Of great benefit
to women but @an essential factor in the
elevation Of the race; that through the CON-
oession Of these rights American woman
hood and the American people have re-
ceived a great uplifting toward purity,
intelligence and justice"
Yet, admitting all this, many OF these
same editorials declare that she was en-
trely wrong in working for the suffrage and
that it would not be a good thing for women
themselves or for the community. This is
not the logic one should expect from a
sex which has a monopoly of it, but it is the
came kind that is generally used in DISCUSS
ing woman suffrage.
When this. too, has been gained then It
will be placed in the same category with all
Of the other gains. and the writers Of the
future will say Of it also, The denial would
reversion TO barbarism.'
The changed attitude of some OF the
large papers is very significant. At the
time Of Mrs. Stanton's death in 1902, the
Brooklyn Eagle in a column editorial de-
clared that she and the other suffragists
"had contributed little if anything to the
legal and civil changes in favor Of women.
but rather had retarded them,' and that
the effort to identity these gains with their
endeavors produced confusion and de-
lusion."
It referred to their self oomplaoenoy'
and spoke Of Mrs. Stanton in a contempt
uous manner. Now, In another column
editorial, it says:
The agitation for 'woman's rig hts during
the twenty years from 1850 brought to
women all sorts Of rights except the one
toward which it was specifically aimed by
the women who directed it, Of whom Miss
Anthony was one Of the most prominent.
Property laws, divorce laws, laws for
the control Of children and OF wages have
been liberalized almost to the revolutionary
point by the agitation in which Miss Anthony
took such an active part
Another notable example is seen in the
Boston Herald, always unoompromisingly
opposed to woman suffrage and not re-
garded as especially friendly to any phase OF
the so-oalled woman movement 1t de-
voted to Miss Anthony and her work two
editorials each more than a column in length
from which this significant sentence may be
quoted:
st can hardly be too emphatically said
that all the wonderful gains Of women in
deliverance from a legal and social injustice
that operated as practical oppression have
come in the train Of the agitation for woman
suffrage and have been stimulated and
assisted by it."
The a~nti-suffrage ladies will not find much
comfort in these editorial comments. One
Of their stock arguments is that none Of
the gains for women has come as a result
Of the efforts OF the suffragists. Not twenty
five Of these editorials agree with this con-
tention.
The women OF to-day hardly rea lie
how much they owe to Miss Anthony and
her associates, who through fires of ridicule
and wrath have fairly forced the equality
which m now enjoy before the law
from a reluctant male electorate watch
man, Boston, 1T is a fact that the women
who nave persistently agitated the Ques-