WITHOUT my knowledge or consent, my lifelong friend, Susan B. Anthony, who always seems to appreciate homage tendered to me more highly than even to herself, made arrangements for the celebration of my eightieth birthday, on the 12th day of November, 1895. She preferred that this celebration should be conducted by the National Council of Women, composed of a large number of organizations representing every department of woman's labor, though, as the enfranchisement of woman had been my special life work, it would have been more appropriate if the celebration had been under the auspices of the National Woman's Suffrage Association.
Mrs. Mary Lowe Dickinson, President of the National Council of Women, assumed the financial responsibility and the extensive correspondence involved, and with rare tact, perseverance, and executive ability made the celebration a complete success. In describing this occasion I cannot do better than to reproduce, in part, Mrs. Dickinson's account, published in The Arena:
"In the month of June, 1895, the National Council of Women issued the following invitation:
"'Believing that the progress made by women in the last half century may be promoted by a more general notice of their achievements, we propose to hold, in New York city, a convention for this purpose. As an appropriate time for such a celebration, the eightieth birthday of Elizabeth Cady Stanton has been chosen. Her half century of pioneer work for the rights of women makes her name an inspiration for such an occasion and her life a fitting object for the homage of all women.
"'This National Council is composed of twenty organizations; these and all other societies interested are invited to co-operate in grateful recognition of the debt the present generation owes to the pioneers of the past. From their interest in the enfranchisement of women, the influence of Mrs. Stanton and her coadjutor, Miss Anthony, has permeated all departments of progress and made them a common center round which all interested in woman's higher development may gather.'
"To this invitation came responses, from the Old World and the New, expressing sympathy with the proposed celebration, which was intended to emphasize a great principle by showing the loftiness of character that had resulted from its embodiment in a unique personality. The world naturally thinks of the personality before it thinks of the principle. It has, at least, so much unconscious courtesy left as to honor a noble woman, even when failing to rightly apprehend a noble cause. To afford this feeling its proper expression, to render more tangible all vague sympathy, to crystallize the growing sentiment in favor of human *******, to give youth the opportunity to reverence the glory of age, to give hearts their utterances in word and song was perhaps the most popular purpose of the reunion. In other words, it gave an opportunity for those who revered Mrs. Stanton as a queen among women to show their reverence, and to recognize the work her life had wrought, and to see in it an epitome of the progress of a century.
"The celebration was also an illustration of the distinctive idea of the National Council of Women, which aims to give recognition to all human effort without demanding uniformity of opinion as a basis of co-operation.
It claims to act upon a unity of service, notwithstanding differences of creed and methods. The things that separate, shrank back into the shadows where they belong, and all hearts brave enough to think, and tender enough to feel, found it easy to unite in homage to a life which had known a half century of struggle to lift humanity from bondage and womanhood from shame.
"This reunion was the first general recognition of the debt the present owes to the past. It was the first effort to show the extent to which later development has been inspired and made possible by the ******* to think and work claimed in that earlier time by women like Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, Mrs. Stanton, and many others whose names stand as synonyms of noble service for the race. To those who looked at the reunion from this point of view it could not fail of inspiration.
"For the followers in lines of philanthropic work to look in the faces and hear the voices of women like Clara Barton and Mary Livermore; for the multitude enlisted in the crowded ranks of literature to feel in the living presence, what literature owes to women like Julia Ward Howe; for the white ribbon army to turn from its one great leader of to-day whose light, spreading to the horizon, does not obscure or dim the glory of the crusade leaders of the past; for art lovers and art students to call to their mind sculptors like Harriet Hosmer and Anna Whitney, and remember the days when art was a sealed book for women; for the followers of the truly divine art of healing to honor the Blackwell sisters and the memory of Mme. Clemence Lozier; for the mercy of surgery to reveal itself in the face of Dr. Cushier, who has proved for us that heart of pity and hand of skill need never be divorced; for women lifting their eyes to meet the face of Phebe A. Hanaford and Anna Shaw and other women who to-day in the pulpit, as well as out of it, may use a woman's right to minister to needy souls; for the ofttime sufferers from unrighteous law to welcome women lawyers; for the throng of working women to read backward through the story of four hundred industries to their beginning in the 'four,' and remember that each new door had opened because some women toiled and strove; for all these the exercises were a part of a great thanksgiving pæan, each phase of progress striking its own chord, and finding each its echo in the hearts that held it dear.
