"Women fear failure in any effort they might make to gain more freedom, so they rarely try to do so," she said, but men were to blame, too. They had to learn that "all mankind are born free and equal, and this includes women as well as Negroes. Certainly reformers must work for that principle, even though there is immense opposition against such an idea."

      She was surprised by the hostility of many women to the idea of equality. Their ignorance not only blinded them to the concept of equal rights, but it raised a fear that they might lose certain benefits and privileges they were presently enjoying.

      Olympia was not acquainted with any working women and knew virtually nothing about their living conditions, particularly those who worked in the textile mills or clothing factories in the east. Textile workers were laboring twelve to fourteen hours a day at a time, and their children, who should have been in school, also worked in the mills. Everyone in the family had to work in the sheer struggle to survive. Little publicity was given to their plights, however, to their long hours and low wages; and few reformers were even aware of their problems. If the leaders had known about them and been able to organize them, the history of woman's rights would likely have been very different. Concentrating their energies on middle- and upper-class women, most reformers perhaps believed that only those women had the education, time and money to bring about social change. It was a mistake that cost them many years of futile work and delayed equal rights for women untold years. The movement needed to include farmers, factory workers and domestic laborers, as well as the middle class and wealthy women in the work for equal rights and voting privileges." pp. 47-48

      Perhaps women were simply envious of her accomplishments. Most of them had never had the opportunity to make choices in their own lives. Now they suddenly glimpsed possibilities that would never be theirs. Their education was limited. They had married and centered their lives on their husbands and children. They could not hope to reach a different goal in their lifetime, and resentment and envy came to the fore." p. 60

      All of these experiences brought about changes in Olympia. She knew people usually resist new ideas, but she also learned that all of her logic could not move people as much as the emotional plea that the liquor interests had used. She also learned that men would jealously guard their power over women. Nevertheless, she nurtured the hope that men would realize their error and soon women would have the ballot in state after state. If only Kansas had led the way!

      When she returned to Weymouth Landing, she found that her parishioners had been working on the church building while she was gone. They had cleaned out the basement, previously used as a meat market and remodeled it for reading and social rooms. They also installed a new organ and built a new pulpit. She settled back into her ministry, happy to be preaching and doing parish work again." p. 93

      She still spoke of woman's rights, but her work was directed primarily at getting the ballot for women. Her letters and speeches were often laced with resentment that women were still denied the ballot, particularly after passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, and she did not hesitate to state her feelings. Consequently she soon learned that some people were criticizing her personally, calling her outspoken and thoughtless, even arrogant in some of her statements. Ironically, she was quick to judge other reformers, particularly those who would not help with woman suffrage work, as she claimed many were to judge her.

      She wrote a letter to Susan B. Anthony letting her thoughts spill out across the paper, forgetting that written thoughts could be far more volatile than the spoken word. Her letter was short and personal; she did not even expect a reply. She could hardly have expected the minor storm it brewed.

Weymouth, Jan. 3

Dear Miss Anthony,

      I am delighted to learn that we are to have a paper. It is what we most need. When we have a paper and a party, we shall have weapons to fight with. For years I have ceased to hope anything from our best friends! I mean prominent liberal men like Phillips, Garrison, Tilton, and others, though Tilton is better than the rest. These men, being human, have the frailties peculiar to their race. They, of course, have no extra stock of self-sacrificing spirit on hand. They have exhausted their fund of heroism in behalf of the Negro, and are just now reaping their reward of popularity in return for having been martyrs to an unpopular idea. They are the last persons in the world to do anything for us: we must look for our support to new men.

Yours, sincerely,

Olympia Brown

[snip 3 paragraphs]

      "Mr. Garrison accepted her apology, and they continued to work together amicably for many years. Olympia, of course, reproached Anthony for publishing her letter in The Revolution without permission, but Miss Anthony was a veteran when it came to smoothing ruffled feathers. She agreed with Olympia about the early reformers. "It was true not one of the old leaders in anti-slavery now puts himself or herself in the front ranks for women -- it is a fact-- neither you nor I make the fact -- we simply state it," she said, passionately convinced that Olympia's letter was the reality of the matter." pp. 101-103

      Most of the leaders of both organizations also failed to realize that they must rally the working women and the homemaker to their cause. Instead, they focused their energies on wealthy and upper middle-class women, many of whom did not particularly care about either voting or equal rights and actually feared they might lose certain benefits if such an amendment was passed." p. 108

      When she wrote to Olympia asking her for a written account of the 1867 Kansas campaign to be published in the book, Olympia agreed to write it for her." p. 123

We place the ballot in the hands of the foreigner who cannot read or speak the language, and who knows nothing of our government; we enfranchised a slave race, most of whom cannot read; and yet we deny to the women of America the ballot, which in their hands would be the strongest protection of this republic against the ignorance and vice of the great centers of population.

      Olympia first used the argument at a county fair in Rockford, Illinois in 1888. It was just after her Wisconsin Supreme court defeat. Her words may have seemed reprehensible, but how could they be so when college-educated women were not allowed to vote, when church leaders used ancient, patriarchal arguments to keep women from getting the ballot, when they cited passages from the Bible claiming that only men should have a voice in the government, and condemned women for wanting equal rights? Everywhere women turned, men were barring doors and shouting threats, alarmed that they might lose their power over half the human race. She told the fairgoers, "Four-fifths of the school teachers are women. We enfranchise the saloon and the poorhouse, the irresponsible classes. We disfranchise the home, the church, the school. We make the daughters of America subject to the serfs and slaves from the old world. . . We are the first people to try the experiment of enfranchising ignorance, drunkenness and all forms of vice, and subordinating intelligence, patriots, religion."

      They were strong words, words of condemnation. Yet who can blame women for fighting against men who still refused to give women the right to a voice in their own government? It was an exceedingly difficult time for reformers. They were being slapped in the face by defeat again and again. Many of the older workers began to fear that men really were determined to keep them as they were. Could their freedom come about only through bloodshed, they asked themselves?

      In 1889, the National and the American Woman Suffrage Associations, founded twenty years earlier, voted to merge. The decision was not unanimous and the barrage of words wounded many. The philosophies of the two were quite different. The National Woman Suffrage Association had always worked to gain woman suffrage through a constitutional amendment, whereas the American Woman Suffrage Association espoused gaining suffrage through each state legislature. Olympia foresaw only conflict and frustration if the two associations merged. Each would pull in its favored direction in a power struggle that could destroy the organization, she argued.

      Susan B. Anthony disagreed with her on the issue, however, and asked her to support the merger. Olympia refused. "No, I cannot. A merger will only weaken the National and its purpose which is, after all, to get a suffrage amendment to the Constitution."

      Miss Anthony countered, "Elizabeth Cady Stanton will be the president of the merged association. That is part of the agreement."

      Olympia was unmoved. "It will make no difference. the American workers are determined to work only in the state legislatures. They do not believe in an annual convention in Washington, or our appearance before a Congressional committee every year. They will not work for a national amendment as we have done. The American association is controlled by a little clique of Boston people who want to do things in their own way, and have matters all in their own hands. I said that years ago and it is still true.

      Although she vehemently opposed the merger, it did take place. She held Miss Anthony personally responsible. "It will be a major setback for woman suffrage," she said, her disappointment verging on bitterness. Her true feelings emerged later when she wrote, "I used to say that Susan B. Anthony was my pole star until I learned to make no one my guide but to follow truth wherever it might lead and to do the duty of the hour at whatever cost."

      Miss Anthony, however, was undeterred by Olympia's alienation. She considered Olympia a friend and staunch worker and she announced publicly that she was placing the names of four pioneer workers permanently on the rolls of the new National American Woman Suffrage Association. "Now I intend to make Mrs. Minor, Olympia Brown, Phoebe Couzins and Matilda Joslyn Gage life members. I had thought of others, but these four are of longer standing, were identified with the old National and have suffered odium and persecution because of adherence to it." pp. 129-131

      South Dakota had adopted as its motto, "Under God the People Rule." the suffragists, turning the motto to their advantage, printed on their banners, "Under God the People Rule. Women are People."

      Some of the immigrants complained to Henry Blackwell, who was also canvassing the state, that women suffragists were antagonizing them. That they themselves might be antagonizing the women did not seem to cross their minds. Most men, viewing the world solely from the male perspective, could not put themselves in a woman's place. Henry Blackwell, although a staunch suffrage worker, fell into that mold. He addressed a letter of protest to Susan B. Anthony. "The suffragists are upsetting the foreigners," he told her. "They are going to have to be more careful what they say to them and how they treat them." Miss Anthony, in her letter to Olympia, could not help underlining the irony.

Mr. Blackwell writes that each and all of us female missionaries must be very careful to speak of the foreigners only in the most respectful manner -- it took him an hour to reconvert a Norwegian who had been repelled from voting by one of our women at Highmore having "abused" the foreigner. . . but he got him back into the fold again.

      Clearly, the suffragists resented the immigrants and their position against woman suffrage. Many continued to refer to them as foreigners even though they had become citizens of this country. Learning to laugh at such incongruities as Mr. Blackwell's stand against the women suffragist' arguments, to measure their daily defeats and triumphs against the trail they were slowly cutting through the tangle of ignorance and hostility, they tried to keep a sense of humor amid the heat and dust of the campaign. The day came, however, when the woman suffrage amendment went down in defeat. It was a stunning comment on the mood and prejudice of the immigrant voter.

      [snip one paragraph]

      Her [Brown's] mind was rapidly coming to the realization that women were making little headway towards getting the ballot. The National American Woman Suffrage Association -- led by people with little vision, in her opinion, and having their own popularity at heart-- would not be able to get an amendment out of committee and before Congress, particularly since they were working more closely within the states than at the national level. It was just as she had said. Women needed a new association, one that would work once more toward an amendment to the Constitution. In 1892, a meeting took place in Chicago wherein she spearheaded the organization of the Federal Suffrage Association. Its goal was to work through Congress to pass a law allowing women to vote for members of the House of Representatives. Women hoped thereby to gain a voice in Congress. In this way they believed that they could win a woman suffrage amendment to the Constitution much sooner than otherwise.

      No sooner did that new appear than a deluge of letters descended on Olympia. How could she take such an outrageous step, they asked? Didn't she have faith in the great National American Woman Suffrage Association and its gallant leaders? Why was she trying to split the strength of the group now that they were forging ahead with new drives in every state and the nation's capitol?

      Some of the letters were vicious; the workers attacked her personally. A few declared that she would only bring disgrace and hatred down on her head by trying to form another suffrage organization. Olympia, always ready to cross swords, averred that they were all trying to reach the same goal. "There is always room for more workers and more organizations," she retorted. Surely they could all pull together. Their hostility surprised her, but she ignored their words.

      The first annual meeting of the Federal Suffrage Association in Chicago was almost like a reunion with her former co-workers. Her heart leaped when her eyes focused on Fredrick Douglass and the famed singer John Hutchinson who had campaigned with her in Kansas twenty-seven years before. They all stood together on the stage for the last time, acutely aware of their own morality. Many of the pioneer reformers had already died. The early leaders, distressed that young women failed to step forward to led the fight, feared that suffrage work was once more bogging down, and they were right. No charismatic leader, so essential for the progress of great social movements, appeared to direct the cause." pp. 132-134

      Olympia did not hesitate. She resigned in spite of the protests of her loyal friends and supporters. "I am seventy-eight years old, too old to waste time on political infighting," she said.

      When the new organization retained the old historic name of Wisconsin Woman Suffrage Association and she was named Honorary President, she was pleased. However much she expected to work alone, she remained as active in the group as she always had. She attended board meetings so regularly that one board member noted, "I believe Olympia Brown feels slighted because she does not receive notices of our meetings." It made little difference to Olympia what they thought about her as long as she managed to find out when and where the meetings were to be held. The officers, however, soon had to pass a resolution that "an honorary member is not a voting member." She could not be silenced. Old habits die slowly. How difficult it was to give up a position she had held for twenty0eight years and to sit silently on the sidelines.

      Her life took a sudden and dramatic turn in 1913 when she received an invitation from Alice Paul and Lucy Burns to join a new party, the Congressional Union. They were experienced suffragists, having worked in England with the Pankhurst woman suffrage movement. They were now in Washington, D. C., working under the auspices of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The sole purpose of the Congressional Union was to get the Susan B. Anthony amendment through Congress. . . . They were activists, just what the movement needed. She joined the organization at once." pp. 149-150

      Olympia demurred. "There is no other way to gain the ballot. Women have been proper for years, and their rhetoric has gained them nothing. Now is the time for action." " pp. 153-154

      The Congressional Union now changed its name to the Woman's Party and became independent of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Alice Paul and her followers led a vigorous campaign against President Woodrow Wilson in the 1916 election. It was so effective that he very nearly lost the election. Although Wilson spoke frequently on democracy, justice and human rights, he did not believe that women should have the ballot and did in fact, oppose woman suffrage. His only concession to suffragists was his often repeated advice, "If you want to vote, you will have to ask your state legislatures for the ballot, not congress."

      Only two months after his reelection, suffragists had organized a protest march in Washington, D. C. Hundreds of women poured into the Capitol. Dressed in heavy coats and shawls against the winter weather, they formed a line and began picketing the White House on January 10, 1917. Hundreds marched every day from ten i the morning until five-thirty in the afternoon. Walking back and forth in front of the White House gates in stately procession, each woman carried a huge purple, white and gold banner or a sign with one of Wilson's remarks painted on it.

      Olympia marched with the protesters although she had just celebrated her eighty-second birthday. She could not be kept away. She chose a sign which read, "We cannot any longer delay justice in the United States." It was most appropriate, she decided. Could anyone miss the irony?

      Her daughter often did not know where she was or when she would return home. Olympia felt that getting the attention of the president focused on the issue of justice was more important than anything else. They must convince him that women were determined to win the ballot. "All we ask is that he go before Congress and direct them to pass the Anthony amendment," she said.

      President Wilson, however, displayed no change of heart from his original stand. He did begin to profess a certain uneasiness about the pickets. Every day he found them marching back and forth in front of the gates and every day, when he drove out, he had to pass among them. At first he smiled and nodded as he rode past in his car. At length, however, he began to look the other way. The pickets were beginning to embarrass him. Finally, he decided that the embarrassment was becoming intolerable; the marchers must be removed. Accordingly, he issued the order, "Arrest the women and put them in jail."

      It was a dramatic step on his part. the women, after all, were only demonstrating peacefully for their rights under the Constitution; they were not actually breaking any laws. Some of the women who were arrested were kept in jail at the Capitol, but when that became crowded, they were sent to a workhouse in Virginia. there, many of them were shocked to find themselves mingling with convicted women criminals and being treated in the same manner as they were. Many of them suffered personal abuse. In protest, some of the suffragists went on a hunger strike. It did no good. The fail personnel began to force-feed them as the English jailers had done to the suffragettes in England a few years before.

      It was but a short time before newspapers picked up the story and began publishing the details with pictures showing the brutal treatment accorded the suffragists in the workhouse.

      Women across the nation were horrified by the stories; the furor that erupted was unlike anything anyone had seen before. Women by the thousands simply packed their bags and descended on the Capitol. They immediately joined the other pickets marching in front of the White House, swelling their ranks daily.

      The excitement and publicity drew mobs of men to the area. Gathering to watch the women march, they stood along the sidewalk, hooting and jeering. It was only a matter of time before one grew bold enough to attack a picket, pushing her down in the street. When the police did nothing, other men began to do the same. After pushing several of the women down, the men seized their banners and signs and destroyed them. The police, who had come to arrest the pickets, did not lift a hand to defend the women in any way. the brutality did not deter the women for still they marched and still more women joined them. They were fighting now, not just for enfranchisement, but for their emancipation, their dignity, their very identity. Olympia, determined to do all that she could, marched regularly with them." pp. 156-158

We cannot say that the United States is a democracy as long as women cannot vote. We are being asked to give up our suffrage work until the war is over. Women were asked to do this same thing during the Civil War. They were told tat as soon as the war was over and the Negro enfranchised, they would be given the ballot. But that did not happen. Instead, they were ridiculed for wanting to vote and we still do not have the ballot. We are being asked to do the same thing in 1917. We cannot afford to let the subject go by this time. If we do, women will have to begin the fight all over again. So much work and so much money has gone into the effort that it must be carried through." pp. 160-161

      "Ladies will never get the vote if they don't demand it," Olympia retorted. "Women have been dignified for over sixty years and we still do not have the vote. Is it because we are too dignified to fight for the ballot? Is being proper more important than being able to vote?" p. 161

She was not popular. She was indomitable and uncompromising, traits that do not lend themselves well to politics and leadership. She cared little for society, paid no deference to wealth, represented an unfashionable church, promoted a cause regarded as certain to be unsuccessful. She was troublesome because she asked people to do things, to work, contribute money, go to meetings, think, and declare themselves openly as favoring a principle or public measure.

      Nevertheless, Olympia did enjoy close friendships with other women, particularly Isabella Beecher Hooker, Clara Bewick Colby, and Emma Smith DeVoe. Her friendship with Susan B. Anthony had been close at first; Olympia virtually worshipped Miss Anthony at the beginning of their friendship. However, the 1889 merger of the National and American Woman Suffrage Associations changed that. Olympia never reconciled herself to the merger and she held Miss Anthony accountable for allowing it to happen. pp. 170-171

      It did not seem a marvel to women, however. They knew what a long, hard struggle it had been, and how difficult it is to achieve justice. There were those who believed that they had won the battle and held victory in their hands. Many, however, realized that they had only won the ballot and the fight for equal rights had not even begun yet. Olympia knew, and she privately grieved for the millions of women who would have to sacrifice so much in continuing the effort to gain equality as human beings." pp. 172-173

      "The foundation of democracy is the realization that every human being is a child of God, entitled to the opportunities of life, worthy of respect, and requiring an atmosphere of justice and liberty for his development." p. 197

      "The election of Federal officers, from the very nature of the case, ought to be under the control of the Federal Government. That the election of officers of the larger body should be wholly controlled by men in a more limited organization, is in itself an incongruity and in the formation of the Constitution it was so recognized by the framers and the power was given to Congress to intervene, if necessary, to protect the rights of citizens in such elections. That power was given in Section 4, of Article one of the Constitution, which provided that "Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations," meaning regulations made by State Legislatures for the election of representatives. This clause was not passed inadvertently but was fully considered and discussed; and in the debates in the Virginia Convention called to ratify the Federal Constitution, this very point was made the subject of inquiry and was fully elucidated by James Madison, the man who, perhaps more than any other, carefully followed all the debates and fully understood all the conclusions of the Constitutional Convention. During this debate in answer to a question as to the meaning of this clause, he said: "Should the people of any State by any means be deprived of the right of suffrage it was deemed proper that it should be remedied by the general Government"; showing that the framers of the Constitution fully intended that Congress should have the power in the interest of the people to interfere if necessary with State regulations; indeed the office of Representative in Congress is a Federal office dependent upon the Constitution of the United States for its existence." pp. 200-201

      "He knew of what he spoke when he presented that bill, it has been approved by many of the best thinkers of the United States, Rev. W. H. Thomas, one of the most noted men and clearest thinkers in this country, said the other day, in speaking of the hearings before this Committee last year: "The arguments of Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby before the committee of the United States Senate on Woman Suffrage, FROM THE CONSTITUTIONAL STANDPOINT, AND THE DECISIONS OF THE SUPREME COURT, ARE UNANSERABLE. Women are "people', are "Citizens', and as such have their legal rights, and it is clearly within the authority of the National Government to affirm and make effective the right of women to vote for members of Congress.

      "The fact of sex should have no more to do with the right to vote than should the color of the hair, or the eyes; qualified citizenship is the only question. The egotism, the assumed superiority of men, is both amusing and pathetic. Not until the equality of woman, -- mothers, wives, sisters -- is recognized and her help in the great problems of the social order is welcomed, can the world reach the higher." p. 203

      "The writer has had the privilege of hearing Susan B. Anthony, Julia Ward Howe, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Mrs. Livermore on similar subjects, and for comprehensive, logical and masterly treatment of her subject Mrs. Brown is fully their equal." p. 205

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