Something Worth Doing

by Jane Kirkpatrick

“Oh, dander,” Willis said. “You’re in for it now, Stearns.”

  “He’s right, Momma.” Clara Belle stepped closer to her husband. “You do work for girls and women, but you also do it because you love it. And no one begrudges you that—we don’t, even though we miss you terribly. Ten months you’ve been gone, and we’ve carried on without you. But we have to do things that move our lives forward too. And then you got ill and I didn’t want to worry you.”

  “But I praised you for not marrying young, for waiting for the right man.”

  “And I did. Momma. Mother, please, your face is getting all red and you look like you’re going to faint. Please—”

  Abigail growled, her fury uncontained, her face a dark cloud of rage. She knew it. Could stop it.

  Clara Belle sank to the floor.

  Don Stearns dropped beside her, held her head in his lap. He glared at Abigail. “See what you’ve done?”

  “It’s what you did, eloping with my daughter.” Abigail shook as she reached for the smelling salts to revive Clara Belle.

  “Stop it now,” Ben said as he moved Abigail aside. “What’s done is done.” He and Don Stearns bent over the awakening Clara Belle, who with woozy eyes blinked.

  “Am I all right?” she asked.

  “Yes, you are,” Ben told her. “Stearns, take your wife home. We’ll have breakfast in the morning and plan the reception to invite our friends to celebrate. Won’t we, Abigail?”

  “You two don’t live here? You have your own house?”

  “They’re on their own, Abigail. Let them be.”

  “No small feat,” Ben said later. “A man who stands up for his wife against a tyrant—”

  “I wasn’t a tyrant.” Abigail plopped on the side of their bed.

  “You were. Your daughter fainted, she was so upset.”

  “I am sorry about that. But holy cow chips, she shocked me. And you could have told me earlier.”

  “They’re happy, Jenny. No man would have been good enough for Clara Belle, from your point of view. They’ve had four months together to gird themselves before seeing you. It’s too late for you to even think about an annulment, and besides, she’s twenty-three years old, well able to make her own decisions.”

  “I hoped she wouldn’t marry young like I did.”

  “Hey,” Ben said. “Has it been so bad? Your marrying at eighteen—almost nineteen.” His words choked.

  I’ve wounded him. “No, it hasn’t.” She patted his arm.

  “What haven’t you done that you might have done if you’d waited to marry or perhaps never married at all?”

  “Nothing. And more, likely because you’ve been there to support me—us.”

  “And haven’t you said the greatest joy of your life are your children? Would you deprive your daughter of that same great joy?”

  “You’re right. Of course. We’ll have a reception for them. I’ll announce it in the paper.” She unhooked her high-button shoes. “But Stearns is a competitor, Ben.”

  “Competitors make us better.”

  “I suppose they do in the end.”

  “By the way, while you were gone, Harvey returned as the editor of the Oregonian. New administration—he lost his customs post. He’s bought a controlling interest in that paper, so if you want to focus on a competitor to rail against, choose him and let Don Stearns and Clara Belle make their own way. Return to your purpose—using the New Northwest to get women the vote.”

  “You’re absolutely right. We’ll win Harvey over and get Oregon to be the first of the Pacific coast states where women can cast their coveted ballot. There’s a purpose I can work toward.” One didn’t have control over much—certainly not one’s children—but she could control what mattered and have the courage to act on that.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  First Hurdle

  1877

  _______

  “I’m riding through quicksand with the temperance issue,” Abigail told Kate as she hovered over her latest article. “I don’t want to raise the ire of Portland’s liquor interests who will pour money against suffrage if they think women will vote in prohibition. I support the lack of drink, but no one should advise anyone else what decisions they should make about their personal lives. I won’t touch wine, but I decry anyone who will tell me that I can’t. If I can only get that across.”

  “You do better when your articles explore those issues indirectly,” Kate said. “The story when you visited the asylum or that trip with Clyde, seeing things through the eyes of a ten-year-old, people can find themselves in that kind of piece. You’re pursuing something worthwhile and can still be a good mother and wife and friend to those in need. And you give legitimacy to widows trying new things, like me. Even single women who otherwise would be forced to be nannies for their nieces and nephews. Some of them can now be inventors.”

  “But those stories don’t really advance the cause of voting. I’ll keep writing about quilting bees and barn raisings, but something is missing. I’ve had the paper for more than five years, and we’re no closer to even getting the legislature to bring up the issue.”

  “You had a nice response when you told of Willis leaving the nest and heading to San Francisco to make his own career as a printer elsewhere.”

  “I suppose all families undergo changes. I hate to see ours experiencing it this way.”

  Her chicks were leaving the flock and she still hadn’t accomplished what she’d wanted, even with their efforts as part of the newspaper. Women still didn’t control the ballot. She and two of her suffrage friends had actually attempted to vote in ’72, but there’d barely been a mention of it in the Oregonian. Harvey gave not the slightest copy to anything that sniffed of suffrage action except to oppose it. “We have to clarify our purpose,” she said. “Set a singular goal. That’s how we got the paper. Now we have to use that same strategy to get the vote.”

  “We’ll have to do it ourselves.” Abigail spoke to the Portland chapter of the National Woman Suffrage Association. “We must set a specific target, a date by which we will have the legislature refer women’s suffrage to the male voters of the state, and my newspaper will tout that until it happens.”

  A chorus of voices agreed. Abigail was the president, and her vice president added, “It will have to be 1884 for the vote. That requires that we convince both houses of the legislature to agree to refer it first in 1880 and then in 1882.”

  “Such a cumbersome law, making a change in the constitution go through two consecutive legislative sessions before it can be voted on by men, especially when they only meet every other year.” Abigail stated what the women already knew.

  “We knock down the first hurdle of 1880 and push until the next session—1882—and if it passes again, which it must, then in 1884 they will refer it to the voters. That gives us four years to make our push.” The vice-chairman drew out the timeline on the blackboard. They were meeting at the neighborhood school, and it smelled of chalk dust and old books.

  “They don’t make it easy,” someone said.

  “It’s the challenge that will inspire us,” Abigail said. “Now let’s start breaking this down. How much do we want National involved? I say very little, but I’m open to hearing your ideas.”

  She was open to it, but she’d already decided: they would do this the Oregon way, without visits by national suffragists—though it would be helpful if National sent them a little cash for flyers and posters and paid for ads in the Oregonian. Harvey might not support suffrage, but he likely wouldn’t turn down ad revenue. He wouldn’t run them for free as a public service the way the New Northwest would.

  “But we might engage younger women if we had more national involvement,” another member said.

  “No. They don’t understand us here in the West.”

  Another member offered, “But I’ve been in the East, and they’d be willing to let us do it our way. I’ve spoken—”

  “No.” Abigail said. “They’ll want something for it. We have
to do it the Oregon way. Now, let’s move on. How will we sustain public events to educate women and their voting men?”

  Abigail was aware of the silence and that she’d cut off conversation. But they didn’t realize what she did. She’d given her life for this cause, and she wasn’t ready to let younger, ill-informed women threaten the campaign. The real work was in the legislature, meeting with men while in session, showing them how it might be to their advantage to have women able to vote, and National could not do that. Yes, a few legislators had been impressed when Susan B. Anthony and Abigail had met with them during their tour, but Susan B. was an oddity to the men then. Now, they were wary of women talking about voting. Abigail didn’t believe that women would be somehow better voters than men, more moral or noble. Rather, she thought that the domestic lives of men and women would be better if women were seen as equal citizens and could contribute fully their talents to society at large. I should treat my suffrage sisters as more equal by listening to them more. But we haven’t time. We must persist. Without National.

  The conversation went back and forth about the role of “outsiders,” with Abigail standing firm. Eventually Kate pointed out that Oregon men might resent Eastern women having a say in their activities, flashing their VOTE FOR WOMEN banners in their faces. Oregon would do it one by one. Quietly, like the moon rising, something inevitable, though at times it might seem to disappear. They would be steady, if not noisy.

  “Then it’s decided, at last,” Abigail said. “We begin our still hunt meeting with legislators, let those eastern Hurrah women go their way—away from here. Those of you with contacts, let’s make a list. And don’t forget neighboring states. If one of them decides on the franchise, that’ll influence Oregon men. They’ll not want to be left behind. We help our sisters to the south, north, and east.”

  “And they’ll see that good men in the West understand that women deserve the vote,” another chapter member said.

  “Take your husbands with you when you go to visit legislators,” Abigail said. “Or fathers, to show them men support us.”

  “Or brothers,” another woman said. “Abigail and Kate, yours is the biggest effort. To try to get Mr. Oregonian himself to endorse us.”

  “That’s been a lifelong campaign, to no avail.”

  “Yet,” Kate said.

  All the Scott girls were in favor of suffrage. Making it a family affair would be the most important “still hunt” the Scott girls could pursue.

  “We sisters will do our part with Harvey. If the Oregonian supported it statewide, that could make all the difference. Meanwhile, the New Northwest will begin a fresh campaign. My book is finished and published and well received, this time.” Scattered applause followed. She cleared her throat. “And the newspaper debt is but one hundred six dollars.” Am I bragging? Yes. “We can show that women are successful. And we must report back after any legislator meeting to assure ourselves that we know all of the objections and make plans to address them.”

  “We’re aware of the argument,” someone said, “that voting will bring disrepute onto women who don’t belong in the dirtiness of politics. Women are to be protected from such things.” She counted on her fingers. “I’ve heard my women friends say the same thing.”

  “But we do fine in the dirtiness of cleaning horse stalls,” someone said, and the women laughed.

  “There are other points of opposition out there. We need to address each of them. But we also need to make a list of what pushes this idea forward. Those are two different strategies,” Abigail warned. “We have to manage both what pushes us forward and what holds us back.”

  “Do you think we can win Harvey over?” Kate asked as they walked back to the Duniway home.

  “It’s worth the effort. He did give Ben his job and didn’t change his mind after he realized we’d be able to start the paper because of it. Of course, he wasn’t at the Oregonian then. He may feel differently now. He also bought a steamship ticket for me when I went to San Francisco that time. Maybe he didn’t realize I’d be attending the suffrage events.”

  “That has to be our campaign then. Both a still hunt for legislators and a family hunt for Harvey.”

  “You’ve earned a level of prominence so legislators are listening, that’s certain,” Ben agreed. “I’m not sure they’ve even noticed the formation of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.”

  “Oh, they’ve noticed.” Abigail had come from a suffrage meeting where reports were worrisome about how the temperance ladies were wildly—in Abigail’s opinion—entering the saloons with their umbrellas, sometimes smashing glasses and shouting at the men imbibing there, “hurrahing” their philosophy. They wanted the suffrage movement to come on board their wild ride against liquor. It saddened Abigail that even Susan B. felt the groups should join up, but doing so in the West meant women’s votes would be doomed.

  “Joining could affect the German vote,” Ben agreed. “They like their beer, and the brewers have both financial and political influence. Republican influence. With Harvey’s paper too. We won’t want them against our suffrage.”

  She’d been more concerned about temperance supporters swilling with prohibitionists, an alliance that would put those seeking the vote in opposite camps. She’d listened to too many speeches opposing women’s suffrage that began and ended with “if women get the vote, they’ll bring in prohibition and men will never have another legal drop of liquor available in the streets of Portland.” That was hard to imagine with a saloon on every corner. But she’d have to separate temperance and prohibition and suffrage in people’s minds. That was another task of a newspaper editor—to bring clarity to busy people and help reformers see how their efforts might be received differently than intended.

  Confederate-leaning newspapers had been curtailed by Oregon’s Republican legislature that convinced the postal service not to distribute “abusive and treasonous” papers. They considered those who reported with sympathy to the South and with antipathy to reconstruction efforts, like getting Negroes the right to vote, as “abusive.” No one wanted the New Northwest to somehow end up as an illegal paper. But the tabloids would change their names or hand-distribute until discovered and be put out of business again, only to start up under another banner. That was politics and she was on the right side of it. Now. The New Northwest had subscribers as far north as British Columbia and as far east as New Hampshire. She’d made readers into “agents” who were free to sell subscriptions for a small commission. That expansive coverage was a feather in Abigail’s newly felted hat. The New Northwest was still pretty small, though, which for now kept her from being the target of the Oregonian. And opened the door for her campaign.

  Abigail had taken the steamship to San Francisco to confer with California suffragists and to spend time with Shirley Ellis. She never wanted to be too far from the daily demands on women while she worked in the loftier climes of legislative action. Shirley’s struggle over child custody was yet another avenue of what drove Abigail toward more freedom for women. Her friend in San Francisco had remarried but kept her first husband’s name so it would be the same as her daughter’s.

  “Has marrying Eloi made your time with your daughter more difficult to negotiate?” The women walked arm in arm down the main street of San Francisco, past dry good stores and shops with dresses modeled by women standing in the window still as stone.

  “I’m hoping not. I told the judge that when she’s with me now, she’ll have two parents to look after her, while being with her father, she only has one. Eloi suggested it as an argument. His being a lawyer helps. Truth is, I was looking for a reason to marry him beyond loving him.” Shirley blushed.

  “You’re entitled to happiness. We women have a way of discounting that. Yet even our Lord said he came to give us an abundant life. All beings, not just men.”

  They spoke of the Club Women campaigns in California to push for women’s rights and the growing threat of dissension between factions of temperance a
nd prohibitionists and suffragists. It was the same in Oregon. “We’ve done some direct things, like putting ads on streetcars and held a few rallies, but mostly we’re pushing what good things women can do for communities. We’re trying to downplay temperance issues.”

  Back in Portland, Abigail told Shirley, the temperance bug showed up in congregations led by “boy preachers,” she called them, who sent “singers and prayers” around wherever Abigail was trying to speak about her view of temperance. She felt compelled to argue on behalf of people’s rights to make their own choices about alcohol consumption or any personal decisions. Besides, she couldn’t imagine how the sheriffs would enforce prohibition. She wished that Portland’s religious community could see how her work was Christlike. Even her father, stern as he was, served also as a Cumberland Presbyterian elder, and he approved women’s suffrage. But in Portland, only one pastor—Thomas Eliot—had welcomed the Duniways when they’d arrived. That reverend agreed with Abigail that prayer and works went hand in hand. The man’s congregation worked on behalf of poor children and animals, forming a humane society. He also saw the arts—music, literature, paintings—as important to spiritual growth, spurring intellectual thought. Best of all, he supported a woman’s right to vote, affirming his intelligence, according to Abigail.

  “Once I stood up in the temperance meeting to speak and the reverends ordered my ejection. They knew what I was going to say, and the little choir group stood up to sing me into silence.”

  “Oh, Abigail,” Shirley said. “You endure so many insults. I don’t know how you do it.”

  “Kate and Ben say I invite some of those insults because of my ‘acerbic tongue,’ they call it.”

  “What did you do when they started to sing you out?”

  “Well, I was hit with a thunderbolt of insight, and I shouted, ‘Let us pray!’ then led a half-hour prayer asking God to enlighten us all, to encourage liberty in his followers, to help us all have an abundant life by knowing him and granting freedom to all God’s children, men and women, black or white. Oh, those ‘boy preachers,’ they were too stunned to know how to shut down the prayer.”