Volume 2 — Chapter XX—Page 342.

MISS ANTHONY'S FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY.

February 15, 1870.

Careful readers of the Tribune have probably succeeded in discovering that we have not always been able to applaud the course of Miss Susan B. Anthony. Indeed, we have often felt, and sometimes said, that her methods were as unwise as we thought her aims undesirable. But through these years of disputation and struggling, she has thoroughly impressed friends and enemies alike with the sincerity and earnestness of her purposes....

Fifty years ago the full moon of suffrage rose in the small, red and wrinkled countenance of the infant Susan B. Anthony. "Agitation is the word," says Miss Anthony, in these her later years. Agitation was probably the word then, as a happy family surrounded the cradle of the boisterous phenomenon. Miss Anthony has compressed into her half-century a deal of work, talk, hurry and resolution. Beginning with the women's temperance conventions in 1848, she has strewn the gliding years with organizations, societies, conventions innumerable, to the wonderment, if not always to the admiration, of an observant world. "Through all these years," remarks Mrs. Henry B. Stanton, "Miss Anthony was the connecting link between me and the outer world—the reform scout who went to see what was going on in the enemy's camp, and returned with maps and observations to plan the mode of attack." It has been intimated that Miss Anthony has not remained sweet Dian's votary, in maiden meditation fancy free, because nobody asked her to change her name and station. Many victims, we are told, are carrying crushed hearts and blighted hopes through life, and all because of the unrelenting cruelty exercised by this usually good-humored woman towards the whole male sex.—The Tribune.

Miss Anthony bears her fifty summers lightly. Whatever our sentiments may be as to the cause she advocates, we do full justice to her resistless energy and activity and unswerving fidelity to her principles. Charming and cordial in her manners, with kind words for all, she welcomed every guest last evening and made them at ease.—The Times.

It was regarded last night, and was a topic of conversation, that the public announcement that Miss Anthony was fifty years old was one more of the courageous things for which her life has been distinguished. Battling with the wrong and striving for the right has not left so rigid a mark of the progress of time upon her features as to prevent her keeping up a little fiction about being fair and forty. Miss Anthony prefers the truth, and she says that the register in the family Bible supports the assertion that a half-century of rolling years have passed before her.—The Herald.

Miss Anthony looked her very best last night, and let the truth be said, even should it be followed by persecuting proposals from the bachelors, she didn't look much more than five-and-twenty. The genial salutations and happy surroundings of the hour effaced for the time those lines which care and labor and fifty years will make, however pure the soul within. Miss Anthony was happy and she looked it.... She wears her years and honors well. May we live till the celebration of her centenary, and she read the report thereof next day in the columns of the Evening Mail.—The Mail.

In these latter days the aspirations and activities of woman are greatly quickened, and her day of pure and perfect freedom seems near at hand. When the year of jubilee shall at last ring in, no name will be more highly honored than that of Miss Susan B. Anthony; and her honors have been well deserved. Early and late, in season and out, in places high and low, all over this broad land, by voice and pen, has she labored with unflagging zeal for the exalted liberty of woman.... Men who have honored mothers, pure sisters, devoted wives and loving daughters, owe to Miss Anthony a heavy debt of gratitude for her life-work in behalf of women.—The Globe.

Miss Anthony's reception has been one of the events of the week.... Men who have expended about half of the time and half of the energy in the business of money-making which Miss Anthony has expended in benefiting the race, have become millionaires, and have been held up to the rising generation as examples of energy and industry worthy of imitation. Bronzes have been erected and numerous biographies written to do them honor. Had Miss Anthony labored for herself as devotedly as she has for others, she would no doubt have received the usual reward in greenbacks; and but for the fact of her being a woman, might have had a bronze erected in her honor.—The Courier.

It is not always true that "the good die young," for Miss Susan B. Anthony has lived to celebrate her fiftieth birthday.... Right glad are we that the anniversary was observed with due pomp and circumstance. No kindly tribute to great moral worth is too good for this good woman. As one of the chief heroines of our generation, she abundantly deserves all the honors which were paid her on that festal night. There are many public-spirited workers in our busy land; many noble souls who have devoted their life-long energies to the elevation of their fellow-beings; many moral pioneers, who, when they die, will leave the world better than they found it; and conspicuous among these is the staunch, unwearied and indomitable woman who, at the end of half a century of life, can remember but few idle or wasted days. If Miss Anthony's persevering efforts in behalf of her sex are not worthy of generous praise, then there is no just fame due to a brave career. If her methods have sometimes lacked soundness of judgment, they have never lacked nobility of purpose. There exists a peculiar, invaluable and time-honored class of plain and substantial women who are said to be "as honest as the day is long;" and Susan B. Anthony is the queen of this royal race. Dauntless and tireless as the sterner sex, sympathetic and tender as the gentler, we sometimes think that she is both man and woman in one. She is one of the sterling characters of our day. The whole people ought to rejoice that such a woman was born, has lived and still toils.—The Independent.

Out of scores of letters received space allows the reproduction of but a few:

I shall always be present in sympathy with any number of people who will express their admiration of the sterling traits which adorn the life and character of the lady who now passes the fiftieth anniversary of her most devoted and unselfish life. I am glad to tender the legal representative of a dollar for each of these years, with the confident assurance of the early triumph of that cause to which her life has been singularly devoted. This greenback is no surer of being redeemed in gold than is my confidence in the golden era of legal enfranchisement for woman!... Long before Miss Anthony sees her "threescore and ten," the political equality of all American citizens will be fully established. With sentiments of the highest esteem, I am, very cordially and truly,

S. C. Pomeroy.

... God bless her, and may she live many happy, joyous years! That she and her noble co-workers are soon to see the complete triumph of the woman's cause I firmly believe. And when in after years the great benefactors of this century are sought for, Susan B. Anthony's name will be found occupying one of the highest niches in the temple of honest fame. Truly yours,

J. P. Root. [Lieutenant-Governor of Kansas.]

... Enclosed is a check for $50, one for each year of your life. Will agree to give you the same pro rata sum on your one hundredth, birthday. With love, your brother,

D. R. Anthony.

There will be among those who sympathize with and rejoice in your labors, no lack of testimony tonight to their persistency and value; but from one who deplores both, you will perhaps be willing to hear a hearty, cordial, admiring expression of the regard he is nevertheless forced to cherish for the sincerity and the unmistakably disinterested devotion which has marked your long and hopeful work in the cause you hold so dear and serve so faithfully. I can not wish you the success you seek—let me give you this better wish, that the anniversary your friends celebrate tonight may never bring fewer tokens of regard than now, and never find you seeming less the faithful worker "of cheerful yesterdays and confident tomorrows." With renewed congratulations I am, very cordially yours,

Whitelaw Reid.

I could not be where I longed to be last evening, where I could look upon the toilworn face of the true, tried and never found wanting—the one of all others who has borne the heat of the day, and that without wilting or complaining ever hopeful and ever pursuing "the even tenor of her way." Absence shall not keep from thee my mite, and how I wish it were ten, yes, twenty times as much, but here it is with my love, respect and genuine friendship. Be of brave heart and believe that I am thy fast friend,

Abby Hopper Gibbons.

Yours is a "golden wedding" indeed—for the fiftieth anniversary of a life that has been wedded to a great cause is a far more glorious golden wedding than those which generally go by that name. Accept my heartiest wishes for your welfare and for the success of your novel celebration. Heretofore the privilege of growing old and possessing common sense has belonged exclusively to the other sex. Sincerely yours,

Frances Ellen Burr.

Please accept the enclosed check of $50, as a slight token of regard from our absent trio. As I hardly need tell you, the lion's share of this birthday gift is sent by my father, but neither mother nor I will admit that in the unsubstantial, and yet I hope not valueless part of the offering, the personal regard and appreciation of your noble work for woman which accompany it, our contribution is any less than his. I remain yours very truly,

Laura Curtis Bullard.

You have worked for the slave and for woman. Your fifty years shine about you and rest like a halo of glory around your head.... Fifty years today! When that half-century again rolls around, you and I will be in our graves and our names and work will stand back of us to all time. But into that future I look with prophetic eye to see woman no longer enslaved, and to find, not only on this continent, but over the world, as benefactor of the race, the name of Susan B. Anthony. Your affectionate friend,

Matilda Joslyn Gage.

My good husband in writing from Toledo says: "Tell Susan that all the newspaper accounts taken together could not increase the pride which I have long felt in her pertinacious, obstinate, fault-finding, raspish, strong-minded, dogmatic and grand career. God bless her!" To all of which I subscribe most affectionately,

Elizabeth R. Tilton.

... If your Bible says you are fifty, I will try to be as reverential as possible when next we meet. I wish you similar health and strength when you are seventy-five—you'll find no change in me. I send you by express today Whittier's poems. Ever affectionately,

Ellen Wright Garrison.

All the people who know you and who don't know you were given opportunity to utter their good wishes, and poor me, wandering across these western spaces, quite left out in the cold! Please ma'am, why did I know nothing of your reception till it was all over? I should have sent you what I now send—a gray silk gown, wherein you are to make yourself fine and grand, and a draft for $200 as a little nest-egg.

If I only had a happy ease with my pen, how glad I would have been to put on paper in glowing words just what I think of the faithful, unselfish, earnest, single-minded, courageous years, which my dear old Susan has given to the service of humanity. How, through poverty and persecution, evil tongues and slanderous words, ridicule and reproach, she has said, "Nothing shall daunt me; 'tis God's service;" and so speaking, has held fast the profession of her faith without wavering.... God bless her! God bless her! The tears come to my eyes as I write that benediction, and think how gently and earnestly men and women alike in time to come will repeat it when her name is mentioned; when those same men and women shall see her life and her work, not as now "through a glass darkly," but as those who gaze through the sunshine of truth. Good-by, dear friend—many happy years for you, prays your loving

Anna E. Dickinson.

Accept the enclosed check for $50, not as a present, merely, but as a debt, honestly due, for "services rendered." Had there been no "agitation" for the last twenty years, resulting in so complete a "Revolution," we teachers might still be working for $1 per week and "boarding 'round." But thanks to your unfailing "persistency," and the faithfulness of your co-workers in speaking for a class, the majority of whom dare not speak for themselves through fear of losing the little already gained, the salaries of all workingwomen have been largely increased.... So, if need be, fight as valiantly, dear sister, for the next twenty years as for the last, or at least till woman's right to a voice in the laws by which she is governed shall be acknowledged in every State and Territory of our country. Affectionately your sister,

Mary S. Anthony.

On this, your fiftieth birthday, permit me to present you my check for $50, as a slight and very inadequate expression of admiring gratitude on my part for your twenty years of arduous and self-sacrificing labor in the cause of woman. What woman has gained already, and it is much, what I and others have been able to achieve in professional life, must be mainly ascribed to you, and such as you.... Your faithful friend and co-worker,

Clemence S. Lozier.

Although away here in Rome, I have kept track of your goings-on through The Revolution, which comes regularly.... I wish I could have been there to assist at the merrymaking. Miss Manning has kindly offered to take a little remembrance [an Etruscan gold and garnet pin] to you when she goes home, which you are to wear with that new silk dress. You see how selfish I am. I wish to compel you not only to think of me, but to associate me in your mind with our peerless Anna, God bless the dear child! Ever affectionately,

Kate N. Doggett.

The presents received were too numerous to mention. From Mr. and Mrs. Cheney, South Manchester, Conn., $50; Erie Co. (N. Y.) Suffrage Association, $50; Henry Ward Beecher, the Tiltons, Frank D. Moulton, Mrs. Hooker, Mrs. S. C. Pomeroy, $25 each; Mr. and Mrs. Samuel E. Sewall, $20; and from other friends, sums of ten, fifteen and twenty dollars, amounting in all to $1,000. In addition were a broché shawl from Mrs. Stanton, gold watch, chain and pin from Miss Sarah Johnston, pen-and-ink sketch from Eliza Greatorex, point and duchesse lace collars and handkerchiefs, sets of books, engravings, gold pens, pocket-books, travelling case, and floral offerings.