章节正文
``My husband could not come here to-night, but
he heard your sermon this morning. He asked me
to tell you how glad he was that under such unusual
conditions you held so firmly to the teachings of
Christ.''
The next day I was still more reassured. A re-
ception was given us at the home of one of Brigham
Young's daughters, and the receiving-line was
graced by the presiding elder of the Methodist
Episcopal Church. He was a bluff and jovial gen-
tleman, and when he took my hand he said, warmly,
``Well, Sister Shaw, you certainly gave our Mormon
friends the biggest dose of Methodism yesterday
that they ever got in their lives.''
After this experience I reminded myself again
that what Frances Willard so frequently said is true;
All truth is our truth when it has reached our hearts;
we merely rechristen it according to our individual
creeds.
During the visit I had an interesting conversation
with a number of the younger Mormon women. I
was to leave the city on a midnight train, and about
twenty of them, including four daughters of Brig-
ham Young, came to my hotel to remain with me
until it was time to go to the station. They filled
the room, sitting around in school-girl fashion on the
floor and even on the bed. It was an unusual op-
portunity to learn some things I wished to know, and
I could not resist it.
``There are some questions I would like to ask
you,'' I began, ``and one or two of them may seem
impertinent. But they won't be asked in that
spirit--and please don't answer any that embarrass
you.''
They exchanged glances, and then told me to
ask as many questions as I wished.
``First of all,'' I said, ``I would like to know the
real attitude toward polygamy of the present gen-
eration of Mormon women. Do you all believe
in it?''
They assured me that they did.
``How many of you,'' I then asked, ``are polyga-
mous wives?''
There was not one in the group.
``But,'' I insisted, ``if you really believe in polyg-
amy, why is it that some of your husbands have
not taken more than one wife?''
There was a moment of silence, while each woman
looked around as if waiting for another to answer.
At last one of them said, slowly:
``In my case, I alone was to blame. For years I
could not force myself to consent to my husband's
taking another wife, though I tried hard. By the
time I had overcome my objection the law was
passed prohibiting polygamy.''
A second member of the group hastened to tell
her story. She had had a similar spiritual struggle,
and just as she reached the point where she was
willing to have her husband take another wife, he
died. And now the room was filled with eager
voices. Four or five women were telling at once
that they, too, had been reluctant in the beginning,
and that when they had reached the point of consent
this, that, or another cause had kept the husbands
from marrying again. They were all so passion-
ately in earnest that they stared at me in puzzled
wonder when I broke into the sudden laughter I
could not restrain.
``What fortunate women you all were!'' I ex-
claimed, teasingly. ``Not one of you arrived at the
point of consenting to the presence of a second wife
in your home until it was impossible for your hus-
band to take her.''
They flushed a little at that, and then laughed
with me; but they did not defend themselves against
the tacit charge, and I turned the conversation into
less personal channels. I learned that many of the
Mormon young men were marrying girls outside of
the Church, and that two sons of a leading Mormon
elder had married and were living very happily with
Catholic girls.
At this time the Mormon candidate for Congress
(a man named Roberts) was a bitter opponent of
woman suffrage. The Mormon women begged me
to challenge him to a debate on the subject, which
I did, but Mr. Roberts declined the challenge. The
ground of his refusal, which he made public through
the newspapers, was chastening to my spirit. He
explained that he would not debate with me because
he was not willing to lower himself to the intellectual
plane of a woman.
XIII
PRESIDENT OF ``THE NATIONAL''
In 1900 Miss Anthony, then over eighty, decided
that she must resign the presidency of our Nation-
al Association, and the question of the successor she
would choose became an important one. It was
conceded that there were only two candidates in
her mind--Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt and myself--
and for several months we gave the suffrage world
the unusualspectacle of rivals vigorously pushing
each other's claims. Miss Anthony was devoted
to us both, and I think the choice was a hard one
for her to make. On the one hand, I had been
vice-president at large and her almost constant
companion for twelve years, and she had grown ac-
customed to think of me as her successor. On the
other hand, Mrs. Catt had been chairman of the
organization committee, and through her splendid
executive ability had built up our organization in
many states. From Miss Anthony down, we all
recognized her steadily growing powers; she had,
moreover, abundant means, which I had not.
In my mind there was no question of her superior
qualification for the presidency. She seemed to me
the logical and indeed the only possible successor
to Miss Anthony; and I told ``Aunt Susan'' so with
all the eloquence I could command, while simul-
taneously Mrs. Catt was pouring into Miss Anthony's
other ear a series of impassioned tributes to me. It
was an unusual situation and a very pleasant one,
and it had two excellent results: it simplified ``Aunt
Susan's'' problem by eliminating the element of per-
sonal ambition, and it led to her eventual choice
of Mrs. Catt as her successor.
I will admit here for the first time that in urging
Mrs. Catt's fitness for the office I made the greatest
sacrifice of my life. My highest ambition had been
to succeed Miss Anthony, for no one who knew her
as I did could underestimate the honor of being
chosen by her to carry on her work.
At the convention in Washington that year she
formally refused the nomination for re-election, as
we had all expected, and then, on being urged to
choose her own successor, she stepped forward to
do so. It was a difficult hour, for her fiery soul re-
sented the limitations imposed by her worn-out
body, and to such a worker the most poignant ex-
perience in life is to be forced to lay down one's
work at the command of old age. On this she
touched briefly, but in a trembling voice; and then,
in furtherance of the understanding between the
three of us, she presented the name of Mrs. Catt to
the convention with all the pride and hope a mother
could feel in the presentation of a daughter.
Her faith was fully justified. Mrs. Catt made
an admirable president, and during every moment
of the four years she held the office she had Miss
Anthony's whole-hearted and enthusiastic support,
while I, too, in my continued office of vice-president,
did my utmost to help her in every way. In 1904,
however, Mrs. Catt was elected president of the
International Suffrage Alliance, as I have mentioned
before, and that same year she resigned the presi-
dency of our National Association, as her health
was not equal to the strain of carrying the two
offices.
Miss Anthony immediately urged me to accept
the presidency of the National Association, which
I was now most unwilling to do; I had lost my
ambition to be president, and there were other rea-
sons, into which I need not go again, why I felt that
I could not accept the post. At last, however, Miss
Anthony actually commanded me to take the place,
and there was nothing to do but obey her. She was
then eighty-four, and, as it proved, within two years
of her death. It was no time for me to rebel against
her wishes; but I yielded with the heaviest heart
I have ever carried, and after my election to the
presidency at the national convention in Washing-
ton I left the stage, went into a dark corner of the
wings, and for the first time since my girlhood ``cried
myself sick.''
In the work I now took up I found myself much
alone. Mrs. Catt was really ill, and the strength
of ``Aunt Susan'' must be saved in every way.
Neither could give me much help, though each
did all she should have done, and more. Mrs.
Catt, whose husband had recently died, was in a
deeply despondent frame of mind, and seemed to
feel that the future was hopelessly dark. My own
panacea for grief is work, and it seemed to me that
both physically and mentally she would be helped
by a wise combination of travel and effort. During
my lifetime I have cherished two ambitions, and
only two: the first, as I have already confessed,
had been to succeed Miss Anthony as president of
our association; the second was to go around the
world, carrying the woman-suffrage ideal to every
country, and starting in each a suffrage society.
Long before the inception of the International Suf-
frage Alliance I had dreamed this dream; and,
though it had receded as I followed it through life,
I had never wholly lost sight of it. Now I realized
that for me it could never be more than a dream.
I could never hope to have enough money at my
disposal to carry it out, and it occurred to me that
if Mrs. Catt undertook it as president of the Inter-
national Suffrage Alliance the results would be of
the greatest benefit to the Cause and to her.
In my first visit to her after her husband's death
he heard your sermon this morning. He asked me
to tell you how glad he was that under such unusual
conditions you held so firmly to the teachings of
Christ.''
The next day I was still more reassured. A re-
ception was given us at the home of one of Brigham
Young's daughters, and the receiving-line was
graced by the presiding elder of the Methodist
Episcopal Church. He was a bluff and jovial gen-
tleman, and when he took my hand he said, warmly,
``Well, Sister Shaw, you certainly gave our Mormon
friends the biggest dose of Methodism yesterday
that they ever got in their lives.''
After this experience I reminded myself again
that what Frances Willard so frequently said is true;
All truth is our truth when it has reached our hearts;
we merely rechristen it according to our individual
creeds.
During the visit I had an interesting conversation
with a number of the younger Mormon women. I
was to leave the city on a midnight train, and about
twenty of them, including four daughters of Brig-
ham Young, came to my hotel to remain with me
until it was time to go to the station. They filled
the room, sitting around in school-girl fashion on the
floor and even on the bed. It was an unusual op-
portunity to learn some things I wished to know, and
I could not resist it.
``There are some questions I would like to ask
you,'' I began, ``and one or two of them may seem
impertinent. But they won't be asked in that
spirit--and please don't answer any that embarrass
you.''
They exchanged glances, and then told me to
ask as many questions as I wished.
``First of all,'' I said, ``I would like to know the
real attitude toward polygamy of the present gen-
eration of Mormon women. Do you all believe
in it?''
They assured me that they did.
``How many of you,'' I then asked, ``are polyga-
mous wives?''
There was not one in the group.
``But,'' I insisted, ``if you really believe in polyg-
amy, why is it that some of your husbands have
not taken more than one wife?''
There was a moment of silence, while each woman
looked around as if waiting for another to answer.
At last one of them said, slowly:
``In my case, I alone was to blame. For years I
could not force myself to consent to my husband's
taking another wife, though I tried hard. By the
time I had overcome my objection the law was
passed prohibiting polygamy.''
A second member of the group hastened to tell
her story. She had had a similar spiritual struggle,
and just as she reached the point where she was
willing to have her husband take another wife, he
died. And now the room was filled with eager
voices. Four or five women were telling at once
that they, too, had been reluctant in the beginning,
and that when they had reached the point of consent
this, that, or another cause had kept the husbands
from marrying again. They were all so passion-
ately in earnest that they stared at me in puzzled
wonder when I broke into the sudden laughter I
could not restrain.
``What fortunate women you all were!'' I ex-
claimed, teasingly. ``Not one of you arrived at the
point of consenting to the presence of a second wife
in your home until it was impossible for your hus-
band to take her.''
They flushed a little at that, and then laughed
with me; but they did not defend themselves against
the tacit charge, and I turned the conversation into
less personal channels. I learned that many of the
Mormon young men were marrying girls outside of
the Church, and that two sons of a leading Mormon
elder had married and were living very happily with
Catholic girls.
At this time the Mormon candidate for Congress
(a man named Roberts) was a bitter opponent of
woman suffrage. The Mormon women begged me
to challenge him to a debate on the subject, which
I did, but Mr. Roberts declined the challenge. The
ground of his refusal, which he made public through
the newspapers, was chastening to my spirit. He
explained that he would not debate with me because
he was not willing to lower himself to the intellectual
plane of a woman.
XIII
PRESIDENT OF ``THE NATIONAL''
In 1900 Miss Anthony, then over eighty, decided
that she must resign the presidency of our Nation-
al Association, and the question of the successor she
would choose became an important one. It was
conceded that there were only two candidates in
her mind--Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt and myself--
and for several months we gave the suffrage world
the unusualspectacle of rivals vigorously pushing
each other's claims. Miss Anthony was devoted
to us both, and I think the choice was a hard one
for her to make. On the one hand, I had been
vice-president at large and her almost constant
companion for twelve years, and she had grown ac-
customed to think of me as her successor. On the
other hand, Mrs. Catt had been chairman of the
organization committee, and through her splendid
executive ability had built up our organization in
many states. From Miss Anthony down, we all
recognized her steadily growing powers; she had,
moreover, abundant means, which I had not.
In my mind there was no question of her superior
qualification for the presidency. She seemed to me
the logical and indeed the only possible successor
to Miss Anthony; and I told ``Aunt Susan'' so with
all the eloquence I could command, while simul-
taneously Mrs. Catt was pouring into Miss Anthony's
other ear a series of impassioned tributes to me. It
was an unusual situation and a very pleasant one,
and it had two excellent results: it simplified ``Aunt
Susan's'' problem by eliminating the element of per-
sonal ambition, and it led to her eventual choice
of Mrs. Catt as her successor.
I will admit here for the first time that in urging
Mrs. Catt's fitness for the office I made the greatest
sacrifice of my life. My highest ambition had been
to succeed Miss Anthony, for no one who knew her
as I did could underestimate the honor of being
chosen by her to carry on her work.
At the convention in Washington that year she
formally refused the nomination for re-election, as
we had all expected, and then, on being urged to
choose her own successor, she stepped forward to
do so. It was a difficult hour, for her fiery soul re-
sented the limitations imposed by her worn-out
body, and to such a worker the most poignant ex-
perience in life is to be forced to lay down one's
work at the command of old age. On this she
touched briefly, but in a trembling voice; and then,
in furtherance of the understanding between the
three of us, she presented the name of Mrs. Catt to
the convention with all the pride and hope a mother
could feel in the presentation of a daughter.
Her faith was fully justified. Mrs. Catt made
an admirable president, and during every moment
of the four years she held the office she had Miss
Anthony's whole-hearted and enthusiastic support,
while I, too, in my continued office of vice-president,
did my utmost to help her in every way. In 1904,
however, Mrs. Catt was elected president of the
International Suffrage Alliance, as I have mentioned
before, and that same year she resigned the presi-
dency of our National Association, as her health
was not equal to the strain of carrying the two
offices.
Miss Anthony immediately urged me to accept
the presidency of the National Association, which
I was now most unwilling to do; I had lost my
ambition to be president, and there were other rea-
sons, into which I need not go again, why I felt that
I could not accept the post. At last, however, Miss
Anthony actually commanded me to take the place,
and there was nothing to do but obey her. She was
then eighty-four, and, as it proved, within two years
of her death. It was no time for me to rebel against
her wishes; but I yielded with the heaviest heart
I have ever carried, and after my election to the
presidency at the national convention in Washing-
ton I left the stage, went into a dark corner of the
wings, and for the first time since my girlhood ``cried
myself sick.''
In the work I now took up I found myself much
alone. Mrs. Catt was really ill, and the strength
of ``Aunt Susan'' must be saved in every way.
Neither could give me much help, though each
did all she should have done, and more. Mrs.
Catt, whose husband had recently died, was in a
deeply despondent frame of mind, and seemed to
feel that the future was hopelessly dark. My own
panacea for grief is work, and it seemed to me that
both physically and mentally she would be helped
by a wise combination of travel and effort. During
my lifetime I have cherished two ambitions, and
only two: the first, as I have already confessed,
had been to succeed Miss Anthony as president of
our association; the second was to go around the
world, carrying the woman-suffrage ideal to every
country, and starting in each a suffrage society.
Long before the inception of the International Suf-
frage Alliance I had dreamed this dream; and,
though it had receded as I followed it through life,
I had never wholly lost sight of it. Now I realized
that for me it could never be more than a dream.
I could never hope to have enough money at my
disposal to carry it out, and it occurred to me that
if Mrs. Catt undertook it as president of the Inter-
national Suffrage Alliance the results would be of
the greatest benefit to the Cause and to her.
In my first visit to her after her husband's death
- firmly [´fə:mli]
ad.坚固地，稳定地 (初中英语单词) - midnight [´midnait] n.午夜；漆黑 (初中英语单词)
- unusual [ʌn´ju:ʒuəl] a.不平常的；异常的 (初中英语单词)
- resist [ri´zist] v.抵抗；对抗；抵制 (初中英语单词)
- waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
- overcome [,əuvə´kʌm] vt.战胜，克服 (初中英语单词)
- objection [əb´dʒekʃən] n.反对；异议；缺点 (初中英语单词)
- spiritual [´spiritʃuəl] a.精神(上)的；神圣的 (初中英语单词)
- earnest [´ə:nist] a.认真的 n.认真；诚恳 (初中英语单词)
- laughter [´lɑ:ftə] n.笑，笑声 (初中英语单词)
- fortunate [´fɔ:tʃənət] a.幸运的，侥幸的 (初中英语单词)
- charge [tʃɑ:dʒ] v.收费；冲锋 n.费用 (初中英语单词)
- candidate [´kændideit] n.候选人；投考者 (初中英语单词)
- challenge [´tʃælindʒ] n.&vt.向....挑战；怀疑 (初中英语单词)
- debate [di´beit] n.&v.讨论，辩论 (初中英语单词)
- willing [´wiliŋ] a.情愿的，乐意的 (初中英语单词)
- resign [ri´zain] v.辞职；放弃；委托 (初中英语单词)
- spectacle [´spektəkəl] n.展览；表演；景象 (初中英语单词)
- ability [ə´biliti] n.(办事)能力；才干 (初中英语单词)
- steadily [´stedili] ad.坚定地；不断地 (初中英语单词)
- abundant [ə´bʌndənt] a.丰富的；充分的 (初中英语单词)
- series [´siəri:z] n.连续；系列；丛书 (初中英语单词)
- ambition [æm´biʃən] n.雄心，野心；企图 (初中英语单词)
- worker [´wə:kə] n.工人；劳动者；工作者 (初中英语单词)
- briefly [´bri:fli] ad.简短地；简略地 (初中英语单词)
- utmost [´ʌtməust] a.最大的 n.极端 (初中英语单词)
- alliance [ə´laiəns] n.联盟；同盟 (初中英语单词)
- actually [´æktʃuəli] ad.事实上；实际上 (初中英语单词)
- election [i´lekʃən] n.选举；选择 (初中英语单词)
- combination [,kɔmbi´neiʃən] n.结合；联合；团体 (初中英语单词)
- international [,intə´næʃənəl] a.国际的，世界的 (初中英语单词)
- wholly [´həul-li] ad.完全，十足；统统 (初中英语单词)
- sermon [´sə:mən] n.说教；训诫；讲道 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- opponent [ə´pəunənt] a.对立的 n.对手 (高中英语单词)
- suffrage [´sʌfridʒ] n.投票(权)，选举权 (高中英语单词)
- refusal [ri´fju:zəl] n.拒绝；优先取舍权 (高中英语单词)
- presidency [´prezidənsi] n.总统的职位(任期) (高中英语单词)
- successor [sək´sesə] n.继承人，接班人 (高中英语单词)
- nomination [,nɔmi´neiʃən] n.提名(权)；任命(权) (高中英语单词)
- admirable [´ædmərəbəl] a.极佳的，值得赞美的 (高中英语单词)
- enthusiastic [inθju:zi´æstik] a.热情的，热心的 (高中英语单词)
- strain [strein] vt.拉紧 vi.拖 n.张力 (高中英语单词)
- lifetime [´laiftaim] n.一生，终生，寿命 (高中英语单词)
- reluctant [ri´lʌktənt] a.勉强的；难得到的 (英语四级单词)
- vigorously [´vigərəsli] ad.精力旺盛地；健壮地 (英语四级单词)
- logical [´lɔdʒikəl] a.逻辑(上)的 (英语四级单词)
- eloquence [´eləkwəns] n.雄辩；口才 (英语四级单词)
- presentation [,prezən´teiʃən] n.介绍；赠送；提出 (英语四级单词)
- unwilling [ʌn´wiliŋ] a.不愿意的；不情愿的 (英语四级单词)
- hopelessly [´həuplisli] ad.无希望地，绝望地 (英语四级单词)
- physically [´fizikəli] ad.按照自然规律 (英语四级单词)
- undertook [,ʌndə´tuk] undertake的过去式 (英语四级单词)
- assured [ə´ʃuəd] a.确实的 n.被保险人 (英语六级单词)
- fitness [fitnis] n.适合；健康 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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