A column in the Denver _Rocky Mountain News_, a pioneer paper then edited by W. N. Byers, was offered the woman suffrage a.s.sociation, through which to urge our claims. The column was put into the hands of Mrs. Campbell, the wife of E. L. Campbell, of the law firm of Patterson & Campbell of Denver, for editorship.
This lady, from whose editorials quotations will be given, was too timid (she herself begs us to say cowardly) to use her name in print, and so translated it into its German equivalent of _Schlachtfeld_, thus nullifying whatever of weight her own name would have carried in the way of personal and social endors.e.m.e.nt of an unpopular cause. Her sister, Mrs. T. M. Patterson, an early and earnest member of the Colorado Suffrage a.s.sociation, "bore testimony" as courageously and constantly as her environment permitted.
Mrs. Gov. McCook, as previously stated, had been the first woman in Colorado to set the example of a spirited claim to simple political justice for her s.e.x, but she, alas! at the date now reached in our sketch, was dead--in her beautiful youth, in the first flower of her sweet, bright womanhood. Her loss to the cause can best be measured by those who know what an immense uplifting power is present when an intelligent man in an influential position joins his personal and political force to his wife"s personal and social force in the endeavor to accomplish an object dear to both.
It is a pity not to register here, however inadequately, some outline of many figures that rise to form a part of the picture of Colorado in 1876-7. When liberty shall have been achieved, and all citizens shall be comfortably enjoying its direct and indirect blessings, this book should be found to have preserved in the amber of its pages the names of those who bravely wrought for freedom in that earlier time. Would that one might indeed summon them all by a roll-call! But they will not answer--they say only: "Let our work stand for us, be its out-come small or great."
To Dr. Alida C. Avery, however, whatever the outcome, a weighty obligation is due from all past, present and future laborers in this cause in Colorado. She it was who set at work and kept at work the interplay of ideas and efforts which accomplished what was done. Through her personal acquaintance with the immortals at the East, Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Henry B. Blackwell, she drew them to Colorado during the campaign about to be described, and with them came others. Mrs. M. W. Campbell and her husband reappeared to do faithful service, and then came also Miss Lelia Patridge of Philadelphia, a young, graceful, and effective speaker,--so the local papers constantly describe her, and then came, in the person of Miss Matilda Hindman of Pittsburg Pa., one of the ablest women of the whole campaign. Gentle, persuasive, womanly, she was at the same time armed at all points with fact, argument, and ill.u.s.tration, and her zeal was only equaled by her power of sustained labor.
Many of these same qualities belong to Mrs. M. F. Shields, of Colorado Springs, one of the committee on const.i.tutional work in the campaign of 1876, and an ardent, unceasing, unselfish laborer in the church, in suffrage and temperance, for more than ten years. She did not lecture, but "talked"; talked to five hundred men at a time as if they were her own sons, and only needed to be shown they were conniving at injustice, in order to turn about and do the right thing. This same element of "motherliness" it was, which gained her the respectful attention of an audience of the roughest and most ignorant Cornish miners up in Caribou, who would listen to no other woman speaking upon the subject. When the members of the famous const.i.tutional committee were considering the suffrage pet.i.tion, prior to making their report, Judge Stone of Pueblo, tried to persuade the Spanish-speaking member that to grant the franchise to women would be to be false to his party, as those women were all Democrats. But Senor Vigil replied that he had been talking through his interpreter to the "nice old lady, who smiled so much" (meaning Mrs. Shields), and he knew what they asked was all right, and he should vote for it.
Of the men who were willing to obey Paul"s entreaty to "help those women," must be named in the front rank David M. Richards of Denver, a pioneer of "59, and as brave and generous and true a heart as ever beat in time to the pulse of progress, Rev. B. F.
Crary, a true apostolic helper, Mr. Henry C. Dillon, a young western Raleigh for knightly chivalry, Hon. J. B. Belford, member of congress then and now, Judge H. P. H. Bromwell, who needs no commendation from the historian, as his eloquent minority report speaks adequately for him; these, and very many more, both men and women, have, as the French say, "deserved well of the State and of their generation."
And it was once more to the aid of these men and women that the East sent renforcements as soon as the winter of 1877 was well ushered in. An annual convention was announced for January 15, in Denver. When the bitter cold evening came it seemed doubtful if any great number of persons would be present, but the large Lawrence street Methodist Church was, on the contrary, packed to its utmost capacity. Rev. Mr. Eads, pastor of the church, opened the meeting with prayer, and Dr. Avery, as president of the a.s.sociation, gave a brief _resume_ of the work during its one year of existence. Colonel Henry Logan of Boulder (formerly of Illinois), made a manly and telling speech in favor of a measure which he called one of axiomatic justice. Mrs. Wright of New York, after a piquant address, announced the meeting of the convention for the next day. On the following morning a business session was held, and officers elected for the year.[489] In the afternoon speeches were made by Dr. Crary, Mrs. Shields, and Mr.
David Boyd of Greeley, and in the evening by Mr. Henry C. Dillon and Rev. J. R. Eads, the closing and crowning speech of the convention being given by Miss Laura Hanna of Denver, a _pet.i.te_, pretty young girl, whose remarks made a _bonne bouche_ with which to close the feast. Interest in the subject rose to fever heat before October. Pulpit, press and fireside were occupied with its discussion. The most effective, and at the same time, exasperating opposition, came from the pulpit, but there was also vigorous help from the same quarter. The Catholic Bishop preached a series of sermons and lectures, in which he fulminated all the thunders of apostolic and papal revelation against women who wanted to vote:
Though strong-minded women who are not satisfied with the disposition of Providence and who wish to go beyond the condition of their s.e.x, profess no doubt to be Christians, do they consult the Bible?--do they follow the Bible? I fear not. Had G.o.d intended to create a companion for man, capable of following the same pursuits, able to undertake the same labors, he would have created another man; but he created a woman, and she fell. * * * The cla.s.s of women wanting suffrage are battalions of old maids disappointed in love--women separated from their husbands or divorced by men from their sacred obligations--women who, though married, wish to hold the reins of the family government, for there never was a woman happy in her home who wished for female suffrage. * * * Who will take charge of those young children (if they consent to have any) while mothers as surgeons are operating indiscriminately upon the victims of a terrible railway disaster? * * * No kind husband will refuse to nurse the baby on Sunday (when every kind of business is stopped) in order to let his wife attend church; but even then, as it is not his natural duty, he will soon be tired of it and perhaps get impatient waiting for the mother, chiefly when the baby is crying.
These, with the omnipresent quotations from St. Paul to the effect that women shall keep silence in the church, etc., formed the argument of the Bishop in two or three lengthy sermons.
Indignant men, disgusted with the caliber of the opposition and yet obliged to notice it on account of the position of the divine, made ample rejoinders. Rev. Dr. Crary of Golden, in an exhaustive review of the Bishop"s discourse, deprecated the making permanent and of universal application the commands which with Paul were evidently temporary and local, and said half the churches in Christendom would be closed if these were literally obeyed:
"Women should not usurp authority, therefore men should usurp all authority." This is the sort of logic we have always heard from men who are trotting along in the wake of progress and howling because the centuries do not stop rolling onward. In barbarous regions Paul is paraded against educating girls at all. In half-civilized nations Paul is doing service against educating girls except in the rudiments. Among people who are just beginning to see the hill-tops of a higher, n.o.bler world, Paul is still on duty crowding off women from high-schools and colleges. Proud universities to-day have Paul standing guard over medical meanness and pushing down aspiring female souls from the founts of knowledge. Within our memory Paul has been the standing demonstration in favor of slavery, intemperance and the oppression of women.
Another sermon in which the Bishop lays solemn stress on the one sacred, inevitable duty of women to become wives and mothers, was answered by Mr. David Boyd of Greeley, who, among other things, asks the Bishop:
How, in view of the injunction to increase and multiply, he can justify the large celibate cla.s.s created by positive command of the Catholic church, not only by the ordination of priests, but by the constant urging of the church that women should become the barren brides of Christ by taking on them the vows of nuns.
The Bishop published his lectures in pamphlet form, that their influence might be far-reaching, and curiously enough, the very same lectures were printed and scattered by the friends of suffrage as the best sort of doc.u.ment for the campaign now fairly inaugurated. D. M. Richards, the able chairman of the executive committee, and Dr. Avery, president of the a.s.sociation, showed themselves capable of both conceiving and executing a plan of operations which had the merit of at least deserving victory.
There was no lack of pens to defend women"s claim to equal chances in the struggle for existence. In Denver, the _Rocky Mountain News_ and the _Times_ planted themselves fairly and squarely in an affirmative att.i.tude, and gave generous aid to the effort. The _Tribune"s_ columns were in a state of chronic congestion from a plethora of protests, both feminine and masculine. One young lawyer said: "If suffrage is to come, let it come by man"s call, and not by woman"s clamor"; and, "When all the women of the land can show the ability to rear a family, and at the same time become eminent in some profession or art, then men will gladly welcome them." Whereupon the women naturally rushed into print to protest against the qualifications required of them, compared with those required of men.
It is safe to say, that from the middle of January, 1877, until the following October, the most prominent theme of public discussion was this question of suffrage for women. Miners discussed it around their camp-fires, and "freighters" on their long slow journeys over the mountain trails argued _pro_ and _con_, whether they should "let" women have the ballot. Women themselves argued and studied and worked earnestly. One lawyer"s wife, who declared that no refined woman would contend for such a right, and that no woman with self-respect would be found electioneering, herself urged every man of her acquaintance to vote against the measure, and even triumphantly reported that she had spoken to seventy-five men who were strangers to her, and secured their promise to vote against the pending amendment.
This, however, must not be mistaken for electioneering.
On Wednesday, August 15, an equal rights ma.s.s-meeting was held in Denver, for the purpose of organizing a county central committee, and for an informal discussion of plans for the campaign. Judge H. P. H. Bromwell and H. C. Dillon spoke, with earnest repet.i.tion of former pledges of devotion to the cause, and Gov. Evans said:
Equal suffrage is necessary to equal rights. It is fortunate that we have in Colorado an opportunity of bringing to bear the restraining, purifying and enn.o.bling influence of women upon politics. It is a reform that will require all the benign influences of the country to sustain and carry out, and, as I hope for the perpetuation of our free inst.i.tutions, I dare not neglect the most promising and potent means of purifying politics, and I regard the influence of women as this means.
Major Bright of Wyoming, was introduced as the man who framed and brought in the first bill for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women. Judge W. B. Mills said: "It is an anomalous condition of affairs which made it necessary for a woman to ask a man whether she should vote," and referring to all the reforms and changes of the last half century, predicted that the extension of the franchise to woman would be the next in order.
The meeting was a full and fervid one, and great confidence of success was felt and expressed. A committee of seventeen was appointed[490] and this committee did its full duty in districting the territory and sending out speakers. Mr. Henry B.
Blackwell, Lucy Stone and Miss Anthony arrived almost immediately after this, and henceforth the advocates of suffrage swarmed through the rocky highways and byways of Colorado as eagerly, if not as mult.i.tudinously, as its gold seekers. Mrs. Campbell wrote to the _Woman"s Journal_:
We have now been at work two weeks. Some of our meetings are very encouraging, some not so much so. But the meetings are only one feature of the work. We stop along the way and search out all the leading men in each voting precinct, and secure the names of those who will work on election day. We do more talking out of meeting than in. We rode thirty-five miles yesterday, and arrived here after six o"clock in the evening. While Mr. Campbell was taking care of the horse, I filled out bills before taking off my hat and duster; in fifteen minutes they were being distributed, and at eight o"clock I was speaking to a good-sized audience.
On October 1, a monster meeting was held in the Lawrence street Methodist Church, and was addressed by Lucy Stone, Miss Matilda Hindman, Mrs. Campbell, and Dr. Avery. The most intense interest was manifested, and the excellent speeches heartily applauded.
The next day (Sunday) the Rev. Dr. Bliss of the Presbyterian Church, preached a sermon in his own pulpit, on "Woman Suffrage and the Model Wife and Mother," in which he alluded to "certain brawling, ranting women, bristling for their rights," and said G.o.d had intended woman to be a wife and mother, and the eternal fitness of things forbade her to be anything else. If women could vote, those who were wives now would live in endless bickerings with their husbands over politics, and those who were not wives would not marry."
These utterences brought out many replies. One was in the column edited by "Mrs. Schlachtfeld," and may perhaps be quoted as a specimen of her editorial work, such being, as we have intimated, her one service to suffrage, and that incognito:
One of the daily, dismal forecasts of the male Ca.s.sandras of our time is, that in the event of women becoming emanc.i.p.ated from the legal thralldom that disables them, they will acquire a sudden distaste for matrimony, the direful consequences of which will be a gradual extermination of homes, and the extinction of the human species. This is an artless and extremely suggestive lament. In the first place--accepting that prophecy as true--why will women not marry? Because, they will then be independent of men; because in a fair field for compet.i.tion where ability and not s.e.x shall determine employment and remuneration, women will have an equal chance with men for distinction and reward, for triumphs commercial and professional as well as social, and hence, needing men less, either to make them homes, or to gratify indirectly their ambitions, their affections will become atrophied, the springs of domestic life will disappear in the arid sands of an unfeminine publicity, and marriage, with all the wearying cares and burdens and anxieties that it inevitably brings to every earnest woman, will be regarded more and more as a state to be shunned. The few who enter it will be compa.s.sionated much as a minister is who undertakes a dangerous foreign mission.
Men will stand mateless, and the ruins of the hymeneal altars everywhere crumble mournfully away, and be known to tradition only by their vanishing inscriptions: "To the unknown G.o.d." But it is ill jesting over that which tugs at every woman"s heartstrings and which impinges upon the very life-centres of society. If women, on being made really free to choose, will not marry, then we must arraign men on the charge of having made the married state so irksome and distasteful to women that they prefer celibacy when they dare enjoy it. Observe, however, the inconsistency of another line of reasoning running parallel with this in the floating literature of the day: "Motherhood," these writers say, "is the natural vocation of women; is, indeed, an instinct so mighty, even if unconscious, that it draws women toward matrimony with a yearning as irresistible as that which pulls the great sea upon the land in blind response to the moon." If this be true, society is safe, and women will still be wives, no matter how much they may exult in political freedom, no matter how alluringly individual careers may open before them, nor how accessible the tempting prizes of human ambition may become.
Well, the day came,--the _dies irae_ for one side or the other, and it proved to be for the "one." The measure was defeated. Ten thousand votes were for it, twenty thousand against it. Women remained at the polls all day, distributing ballots, and answering objections. They had flowers on all the little tables where the tickets were heaped, on which were printed the three words, "Woman Suffrage Approved," words for many pregnant with hope for a new impetus to civilization, for others with a misfortune only to be compared to that which happened in Greece when Ino boiled the seed corn of a whole kingdom, and thus not only lost the crop of that year, but, by the subtle interplay of the laws by which evolution proceeds, set back humanity for a period not to be reckoned in years. Mrs. H. S. Mendenhall of Georgetown wrote to Dr. Avery on the evening of election day:
Before this reaches you the telegraph will have given you the result of the day"s work all over the State, but I thought I would jot down a line while the experiences of the last ten hours were fresh in my mind. Last evening our committee appointed ladies to represent the interests of woman suffrage at the polls. To my surprise, many evaded the work who were, nevertheless, strongly in favor of the measure. Mrs. Dr. Collins and I were the only ones at the lowest and most important precinct until one o"clock, when we were joined by the wife of the Presbyterian minister. Our course was somewhat as follows: On the approach of a voter, we would ask him, "have you voted?" If he had, we usually troubled him no further; if he had not, we asked, "Can you vote for woman suffrage?" If he approved, we supplied him with his ticket; if he disapproved, we asked him for his objections, and we have listened to some comical ones to-day. One man asked me, though not rudely, "Who is cooking your husband"s dinner?" I promptly invited him to dine with us. Another spoke of neglected household duties, and when I mentioned a loaf of bread I had just baked, and should be glad to have him see, he said, "I expect you can bake bread," but he voted against us. The Methodist men were for us; the Presbyterians and Episcopalians very fairly so, and the Roman Catholics were not all against us, some of the prominent members of that church working and voting for woman suffrage. The liquor interest went entirely against us, as far as I know.
The observations of the day have led me to several general conclusions, to which, of course, exceptions exist: (1) Married men will vote for suffrage if their wives appreciate its importance. (2) Men without family ties, and especially if they have a.s.sociated with a bad cla.s.s of women, will vote against it. (3) Boys who have just reached their majority will vote against it more uniformly than any other cla.s.s of men. We were treated with the utmost respect by all except the last cla.s.s. Dest.i.tute of experience, and big with their own importance, these young sovereigns will speak to a woman twice their years with a flippancy which the most ignorant foreigner of mature age would not use, and I have to-day been tempted to believe that no one is fitted to exercise the American franchise under twenty-five years of age.
The main objection which I heard repeatedly urged was, women do not want to vote. This seems to be the great stumbling-block to our brethren. Men were continually saying that their wives told them not to vote for woman suffrage.
If we are defeated this time I know we can succeed in the next campaign, or just as soon as we can educate enough prominent women up to the point of coming out plainly on the subject. Then all men, or all but the vicious men who always vote against every good thing, will give in right away.
Lucy Stone, in a letter to the _Woman"s Journal_ describes similar scenes enacted that day in Denver; speaks of the order and quiet prevailing at the polls, of the flowers on all the tables, and, in spite of the strangeness of the occasion, of the presence of women as evidently a new and beneficent element there. Rev. Dr. Ellis of the Baptist Church, who, on the Sunday before had preached from the text, "Help those Women," was using his influence to convert those doubtful or opposed. Rev. Mr.
Bliss, who had declared in his pulpit that "the only two women the Bible mentioned as having meddled in politics were Jezebel and Herodias," was there also, to warn men not to vote for equal rights for women. At other polls I saw colored men, once slaves, electioneering and voting against the rights of women. When remonstrated with, one said: "We want the women at home cooking our dinners." A shrewd colored woman asked whether they had provided any dinner to cook, and added that most of the colored women there had to earn their dinner as well as cook it.
Hear the conclusion of the whole matter. In the words of the last editorial of the woman"s column in the _Rocky Mountain News_:
Woman"s hour has not yet struck! The chimes that were waiting to ring out the tidings of her liberty--the candles furtively stored against an illumination which should typify a new influx of light, the achievement of a victory whose meaning and promise at least seemed to those who both prayed and worked for it, neither trivial nor selfish--all these are relegated to the guardianship of Patience and Hope.
Colorado has refused to enfranchise its women. * * * * * *
The Germans, the Catholics, and the negroes were said to be against us. Naturally, those who themselves most keenly feel, or most recently have felt, the galling yoke of arbitrary rule, are most disposed to derive a certain enjoyment from the daily contemplation of a n.o.ble cla.s.s still in bondage. * * * * * * But _all_ opposition, in whatever guise, comes back at last to be written under one rubric--the immaturity of woman. We make this dispa.s.sionate statement of a fact. We feel neither scorn nor anger, and we trust that we shall excite none. It is a fault which time will cure, but meantime it is the grand factor in our account. Every other argument has been met--every other stronghold of opposition taken. Woman"s claim to the ballot has been shown to rest in justice on the very foundation stone of democratic government--has been, from the Christian standpoint, as completely exonerated from the charge of impiety as ever anti-slavery and anti-polygamy were, and the fact which was the slogan of the anti-suffragists still remains: the ma.s.s of the women do not want it. We do not quarrel with the fact, but state it to give the real reason for our failures--the real objective point for our future work.
The complacency with which we are able to state without fear of contradiction that the body of intelligent and thoughtful women _do_ want suffrage must not obscure our perception of the equal truth of what we have just stated above. To accept this verity and turn our energies toward the emanc.i.p.ation of our own s.e.x--toward their emanc.i.p.ation from frivolous aims, petty prejudices, and that att.i.tude toward the other s.e.x which is really the sycophancy born of vanity and weakness; to make them recognize the State as a multiplication of their own families, and patriotism as the broadening of their love of home; to make them see that that mother will be most respected whose son does not, when a downy beard is grown, suddenly tower above her in the supercilious enjoyment of an artificial superiority--a superiority which consists simply, as Figaro says, in his having taken the trouble to be born; to make them see, finally, that in the highest exercise of all the powers with which G.o.d has endowed her, woman can no more refuse the duties of citizenship, than she can refuse the duties of wifehood and motherhood, once having accepted those sacred relations.
This is our first duty, and this the scope of our work, if we would attain suffrage in 1879, or even in 1900.
FOOTNOTES:
[487] _President_, Alida C. Avery, M. D., Denver.
_Vice-Presidents_, Rev. Mr. Harford, Denver; Mr. J. E. Washburn, Big Thompson; Mrs. H. M. Lee, Longmont; Mrs. M. M. Sheetz, Canon City; Mrs. L. S. Ruhn, Del Norte; Mr. N. C. Meeker, Greeley; Hon.
Willard Teller, Central; Mr. D. M. Richards, Denver; Mr. J. B.
Harrington, Littleton; Mr. A. E. Lee, Boulder; Rev. Wm. Shephard, Canon City. _Recording Secretary_, Miss Eunice D. Sewall, Denver.
_Corresponding Secretary_, Mrs. A. L. Washburn, Big Thompson.
_Treasurer_, Mrs. I. T. Hanna, Denver. _Executive Committee_, Mrs.
M. F. Shields, Colorado Springs; Mr. A. L. Ellis, Boulder; Mrs. M.
E. Hale, Denver; Mr. W. A. Wilkes, Colorado Springs; Mr. J. R.
Hanna, Denver; Mrs. S. C. Wilber, Greeley; Rev. Dr. Crary, Pueblo.
[488] Of the membership of this committee a grateful word is to be said: Mrs. Campbell is a woman of agreeable and stately presence, and adds to thorough information on all points connected with the claims made in this campaign, an unusual facility and persuasiveness of language. Mrs. Shields is one of the most lovable women to be seen in the suffrage panorama; a tower of strength in her own family, where she is at once the comrade and commander of her children--the help-meet and friend of her husband. She inspires immediate confidence whenever she confronts an audience. Mrs.
Washburn is also an attractive and large-hearted woman--a "Granger," and thus experienced in united, organized action of men and women for furthering the interests of both. Mrs. Hanna, a tall, graceful blonde, more reserved in speech but entirely intelligent in faith and in labor, represented to many men of the convention the very qualities they liked in their own wives.
[489] _President_, Dr. Alida C. Avery of Denver; _Vice-Presidents_, D. Howe, Mrs. M. B. Hart, J. E. Washburn, Mrs. Emma Moody, Willard Teller, J. B. Harrington, A. E. Lee, and N. C. Meeker; _Recording Secretary_, Birks Carnforth of Denver; _Corresponding Secretary_, Mrs. T. M. Patterson of Denver; _Treasurer_, Mrs. H. C. Lawson of Denver; _Executive Committee_, D. M. Richards, Mrs. M. F. Shields, Mrs. M. E. Hale, H. McAllister, Mrs. Birks Carnforth, J. A.
Dresser, A. J. Wilber, B. F. Crary, Miss Annie Figg, H. Logan, J.
R. Eads, F. M. Ellis, C. Roby, Judge Jones, General Cameron, B. H.
Eaton, Agapita Vigil, W. B. Felton, S. C. Charles and J. B.
Campbell.