第57章 X(1)

THE PASSING OF ``AUNT SUSAN''

On one occasion Miss Anthony had the doubt- f ul pleasure of reading her own obituary notices, and her interest in them was characteristically naive.

She had made a speech at Lakeside, Ohio, during which, for the first time in her long experience, she fainted on the platform. I was not with her at the time, and in the excitement following her collapse it was rumored that she had died. Immediately the news was telegraphed to the Associated Press of New York, and from there flashed over the country. At Miss Anthony's home in Rochester a reporter rang the bell and abruptly informed her sister, Miss Mary Anthony, who came to the door, that ``Aunt Susan'' was dead. Fortunately Miss Mary had a cool head.

``I think,'' she said, ``that if my sister had died I would have heard about it. Please have your editors telegraph to Lakeside.''

The reporter departed, but came back an hour later to say that his newspaper had sent the tele- g ram and the reply was that Susan B. Anthony was dead.

``I have just received a better telegram than that,'' r emarked Mary Anthony. `` Mine is from my sister; she tells me that she fainted to-night, but soon recovered and will be home to-morrow.''

Nevertheless, the next morning the American newspapers gave much space to Miss Anthony's obituary notices, and ``Aunt Susan'' spent some in- t eresting hours reading them. One that pleased her vastly was printed in the Wichita Eagle, whose editor, Mr. Murdock, had been almost her bitterest op- p onent. He had often exhausted his brilliant vo- c abulary in editorial denunciations of suffrage and suffragists, and Miss Anthony had been the special target of his scorn. But the news of her death seemed to be a bitter blow to him; and of all the tributes the American press gave to Susan B. Anthony dead, few equaled in beauty and appreciation the one penned by Mr. Murdock and published in the Eagle.

He must have been amused when, a few days later, he received a letter from ``Aunt Susan'' herself, thanking him warmly for his changed opinion of her and hoping that it meant the conversion of his soul to our Cause. It did not, and Mr. Murdock, though never again quite as bitter as he had been, soon resumed the free editorial expression of his anti- s uffrage sentiments. Times have changed, however, and to-day his son, now a member of Congress, is one of our strongest supporters in that body.

In 1905 it became plain that Miss Anthony's health was failing. Her visits to Germany and England the previous year, triumphant though they had been, had also proved a drain on her vitality; a nd soon after her return to America she entered upon a task which helped to exhaust her remaining strength. She had been deeply interested in se- c uring a fund of $50,000 to enable women to enter Rochester University, and, one morning, just after we had held a session of our executive committee in her Rochester home, she read a newspaper an- n ouncement to the effect that at four o'clock that afternoon the opportunity to admit women to the university would expire, as the full fifty thousand dollars had not been raised. The sum of eight thousand dollars was still lacking.

With characteristic energy, Miss Anthony under- t ook to save the situation by raising this amount within the time limit. Rushing to the telephone, she called a cab and prepared to go forth on her difficult quest; but first, while she was putting on her hat and coat, she insisted that her sister, Mary Anthony, should start the fund by contributing one thousand dollars from her meager savings, and this Miss Mary did. ``Aunt Susan'' made every second count that day, and by half after three o'clock she had secured the necessary pledges. Several of the trustees of the university, however, had not seemed especially anxious to have the fund raised, and at the last moment they objected to one pledge for a thousand dollars, on the ground that the man who had given it was very old and might die before the time set to pay it; then his family, they feared, might repudiate the obligation. Without a word Miss Anthony seized the pledge and wrote her name across it as an indorsement. ``I am good for it,'' s he then said, quietly, ``if the gentleman who signed it is not.''

That afternoon she returned home greatly fa- t igued. A few hours later the girl students who had been waiting admission to the university came to serenade her in recognition of her successful work for them, but she was too ill to see them. She was passing through the first stage of what proved to be her final breakdown.

In 1906, when the date of the annual convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Baltimore was drawing near, she became convinced that it would be her last convention. She was right.

She showed a passionate eagerness to make it one of the greatest conventions ever held in the history of the movement; and we, who loved her and saw that the flame of her life was burning low, also bent all our energies to the task of realizing her hopes.

In November preceding the convention she visited me and her niece, Miss Lucy Anthony, in our home in Mount Airy, Philadelphia, and it was clear that her anxiety over the convention was weighing heavily upon her. She visibly lost strength from day to day. One morning she said abruptly, ``Anna, let's go and call on President M. Carey Thomas, of Bryn Mawr.''

I wrote a note to Miss Thomas, telling her of Miss Anthony's desire to see her, and received an im- m ediate reply inviting us to luncheon the following day. We found Miss Thomas deep in the work connected with her new college buildings, over which she showed us with much pride. Miss Anthony, of course, gloried in the splendid results Miss Thomas had achieved, but she was, for her, strangely silent and preoccupied. At luncheon she said:

``Miss Thomas, your buildings are beautiful; y our new library is a marvel; but they are not the cause of our presence here.''