Correspondence (incoming): Anthony, Susan B., 1894-1898

My Dear Mrs. Stanford

Your note of yesterday was under my plate this A.M. at breakfast- - I am awfully sorry I ventured to make my request of the 4th- -and brought such an added humiliation to you in your position as equal- -in that great corporation- -and yet- -perhaps it is well for you to be made fully sensible as to extreme length of the rope for woman member- -as compared with that for a man. I am just as grateful to you as if you had sent the papers- -for I know how earnestly you wished to do so. I do not know whether I shall have the courage to go to Mr. Crocker- -I will see! I'll venture to say that he has given scores if not hundreds of passes to the Republican speakers & others who can serve his interests politically- -And I know, too, that if we women could serve his special interests- -he would just as readily accord you the rights he takes to himself- -It is most humiliating- -but so help us heaven we'll work to make woman a power that command for her all the courtersies of life- -to say nothing of rights- -of this is a denial of your right as an equal member of that R.R. Corporation- -it makes my soul burn with indignation- -How long- -how long oh lord- -must these things be!? All we can do is to try and shorten the time- -I am just up from my breakfast- -Miss Shaw & myself are going over the Bay to some sort of meeting- -We are getting chances to speak to political audiences of all the different parties- -

Now my dear dont say me "Nay"- -but comeup and sit woth us on the platform at tomorrow nights meeting- -I sent you platform tickets yesterday- -lesst the clerks did not put in enough- -to send more n this- -now do us this honor- -and yourslef the justice- -of showing thise men thay you bodly take your stnad by the side of the women who are bearing the brut of the battle- -did I not have to speak to day- - I would go to you at once- -and put my arms around you- -& tell you it shan't be always this way for the women of the world- -Do come & love & faith & gratitude- -I am so glad you like- -and are helping us to work out this problem

In jumping haste- -affectionately- -

Susan B. Anthony

Dear Friend, the National Woman Suffrage Association asks your co-operation in a new department which it hopes to inaugurate at its Fiftieth Anniversary next February in Washington; viz.: a PRESS BUREAU. Such has been the growth of public sentiment on the question of woman's enfranchisment that it now may be regarded as one of the prominent issues of the day. There is no dificulty in securing ample space for its respectful consideration in the leading newspapers throughout the country. The only hindrance in the way of reaching millions of readers, every week, is the lack of central office for collecting and distibuting arguments and practical illustrations in its favor. The National Association, believing that this is now a most necessary work, purposes to establish a Bureau for this purpose in New York or Washington City, and to place it in charge of an experienced newspaper woman, whonnwill give to it her entire time and effort. In order to carry out this plan it will be essential to have a fund of not less than $3000. If you recognize its importance and are willing to assist in making it a success, will you send to me such a sum as you fell able to contribute? Its receipt will be credited and acknowledged and, at the end of the year, you will receive an official statement of the manner in which every dollar has been expended. Yours for equality of rights, Susan B. Anthony

Rochester, N.Y., April 25, 1898.

Mrs. Leland Stanford, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Cal. My Dear Friend,- Your letter containing the autograph of your dear husband came duly, and not only Mr. Stanford's but yours also will go into my book. The nicely typewritten copy of the entire fifty chapters, together with the preface, were snugly pecked in a box last Friday night and started on their way to the publisher, who says that it will take fully four months for me to see the end of the proff reading of the entire work, which as you see by the enclosed, is to be in two volumes of nearly 500 pages each, and yet, the most severe task of the whole year's work has been the cutting down of theincidents and the cutting out of every superfluous word in to condense the story. I do hope the contents will be of some good to somebody, for both Mrs. Harper and myself have given one of the best years of our lives to the gathering and compiling of the contents. We have had two nice visits from San Francisco women this Spring -- Mrs. John F. Swift, the president of your State Suffrage Society and Mrs. Austin Sperry, its treasurer, and next week I am expecting Mrs. Sargent and her daughter, Doctor Elizabeth, who haev been spendig the last year in Europe. They are to be with us during the celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Women's Rights movement, which is to be held in this city April 28th and 29th. I hope the women in the different cities of California will celebrate this Fiftieth Anniversary. It will do us all good to speak a moment upon the progress that woman has made in every direction during the last fifty years. Tell President Jordan it would be a nice thing for him to give the students a talk on this question, to make both the boys and girls see and realize the great advantages of to-day as compared with those of half a century ago. I hope the next time you come east, you will pass through Rochester and make me a nice visit. It would do you good just to stop a little while in our humble home.

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You will see by the enclosed circular a scheme I have for the establichment of a press bureau, to help further the education [crossed out] [illegible] work for the elevation of woman. Another and larger scheme I have is that of raising a standing fund, the interest of which shall be used in carrying forward our work. This fund, which I hope will reach $100,000 or more, I propose to have placed in the hands of trustees, fifteen or twenty good business women, to invest, take care of, and appropriate it as in their judgement is best. You have doubtless read the report of the trustees of the George Peabody fund, which was made last year, showuing that the interest on Mr. Peabody's million in the thirty years had amounted to $1,200,000, all of which had beeen expended in the schools of the South; mainly for colored children, and with all of thtat good work done the committee still have the interest of the million to continue to appropriate as best they may. I am perfectly willing to bequeath to the young women who are today taking up the suffrage work all of the labor, but I am not willing that they shall have to do the begging to pay for that work, which I have been compelled to do for the last fifty years. I verily believe that more than half of my spiritual, intellectual and physical strength has been expended in the anxiety over getting the money to pay for the Herculeen work that has been done in our movement. The strain, of course, has not been so perfectly intense and immense as was your strain while the suit against your estate was pending, but nevertheless it has been so great that I am not willing that the next generation of women shall be compelled to endure it. I tell you this not becasue I expect you to put $50,000 into the standign fund, because I know that your estate, every but of it, is bound to go to make that University continue a power to the end, but I tell it to you simly that you may know what I want to do and in case you meet any women who can put a thousand or ten thousand into this woman suffrage fund, tha tyou may urge them to do so, and I tell it to you also because I want you to feel interested in everything that I am tryingto do, as I know you have been and as our good husband always was [crossed out] i am grateful that oyu live and are able to work for the success of that grand university -- that you have a noble purpose in life and are bound to carry it to the best of your ability, is cause for gratitude, and rejoices my heart, so my dear Mrs. Stanford, I am ever and always, Gratefully and admiringly yours, Susan B. Anthony

THE LIFE AND WORK OF

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

INCLUDING LETTERS, SPEECHES AND PUBLIC ADDRESSES, TOGETHER WITH MANY LETTERS FROM HER CONTEMPORARIES DURING A PERIOD OF FIFTY YEARS

BY IDA HUSTED HARPER

I know only woman, and her disfranchised. - S. B. A.

IN TWO VOLUMES

Volume I

Illustrated with Portraits, Pictures of Homes, Etc.

INDIANAPOLIS AND KANSAS CITY

THE BOWEN-MERRILL COMPANY 1898