Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/498

Rh the New York Tribune reports of a similar convention in Worcester, Mass., October, 1850, Miss Anthony " sympathized fully with the demand for equal rights for women, but was not yet (juite convinced that these included the suffrage."

In 1S51, as the president of a lotlge of Daugh- ters of Temperance in Rochester, she was very active in raising funds and organizing societies to carry on temperance work, and there "first <lisplayed that executive ability which was destined to make her famous." Attending in that winter an anti-slavery meeting conducted by Stephen and Abby Kelley Foster, she was so much interested that she accompanied them for a week in their lecturing toiu'. In the fol- lowing May she first met I'^^lizabeth Cady .Stan- ton, who afterward said of her, "I liked her thoroughly from the beginning." From their second meeting in the next sunmier at the home of Mrs. Stanton dated their lifelong friendship, acquaintance with Lucy Stone beginning at the same time and place.

Miss Anthony's experience as a delegate from the Daughters of Temperance to the mass meeting held by the Sons of Temperance at Albany early in 1852 would have disheart- ened a less heroic woman. "Her credentials, with those of other wonien delegates, were accepted, but, when she rose to speak to a motion, she was informed by the presiding officer that ' the sisters were not invited there to speak, but to listen and learn.' She and three or four other ladies at once left the hall."

The women then held a little meeting of their own, which the Rev. Sanuiel .1. May helped to organize. The result was the first Woman's State Temperance Convention. This was held in Rochester in April of the same year. At Syracuse in September, 1852, she attended for the first time a Woman's Rights Convention. From that convention she " came away thoroughly convinced that the right which woman needed above every other, the one, indeed, which would secure to her all others, was the right of suffrage."

At the first annual meeting of the Woman's State Temperance Society, held in Rochester in June, ISS;^, Miss Anthony was re-elected secretary, but refused to serve, stating that " the vote showed they would not accept the principle of woman's rights, and, as she be- lieved thoroughly in standing for the equal- ity of woman, she would not act as officer of such a society. . . . Miss Anthony, although a total abstainer all her life, was never again connected with a temperance organization." In 1854 Judge William Hay, of Saratoga, brought out a new edition of his romance, "Isabel d' Avalos," dedicated as follows: —

Whose earnestness of purp<)se, honesty of intention, unremittin;^ industry, indefatigable perseverance, and extraordinary business talent are .surpassed only by the virtues of her life, devoted, like that of Dorothea Dix, to the cause of humanity.

In the winter of 1861 a number of aboli- tionists under the leadership of Susan B. An- thony planned a series of meetings to be held in the State of New York. In the small towns the meetings passed off quietly; but in every city, from Buffalo, where the first one was held on January 3, to Albany, they were broken up by mobs. At Albany the Democratic mayor, George H. Thacher, true to his oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the State of New York, aimounced to their op})o- nents his intention of protecting them in the right of speech. On the day apjwinted Asso- ciation Hall was filled to the doors. "The mayor went on the platform, and announced that he had placed policemen in citizens' clothes in various parts of the hall, and that whoever made the least disturbance would be at once arrested. Then he laid a revolver across his knees, and sat during the morning, afternoon, and evening sessions. Several times the mob broke forth, and each time arrests were promptly made. Toward the close of the evening he said to Mi.ss Anthony, 'If you insist upon holding your meetings to- morrow, I shall still protect you; but, if you will adjourn at the clo.se of this session, I shall consiiler it a personal favor.' Of course, she willingly acceded to his request." This closed the series of conventions. Inmiediately after- ward the State Woman's Rights Convention