Free Woman

by Marion Meade

  Vicky was suspicious. She became convinced that her difficulties could not be accidental. Somebody was deliberately trying to persecute her and drive her from the city. Moreover, she felt positive she knew who was behind it. The Beecher family.

  The gossip about Vicky had escalated to a new stage of viciousness. She and Tennie, rumor said, were blackmailing prominent citizens. Supposedly they were demanding huge sums of money by threatening to print scandalous items in the Weekly. The rumors made Vicky sick.

  She did not feel much better when a woman complained to the newspapers that she had applied for a clerk's job at the Weekly, only to be told by Vicky that "we can't have our paper spoiled by women." There were so many lies that Vicky could not fight them all. Besides, at that point the paper was in no position to hire anyone, male or female. On June 28, Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly was forced to suspend publication. The money had run out.

  "I am paralyzed in strength, health and purse," Vicky wrote to a friend after the Weekly closed, "and reduced to a condition in which I am obliged to stop all business."

  When her creditors sued her for debts, she testified in court, "I own nothing, not even the clothes on my back."

  In September she dragged herself out on the lecture circuit again, weary and discouraged. She went to earn money but also felt a sense of duty. The lectures had been a means of keeping her name before the voting public, but now she could fool herself no longer. Earlier in the summer, the Equal Rights party had organized local political clubs, Victoria Leagues, all over the country. They marched and sang and distributed Victoria C. Woodhull for President buttons.

  But, as the election drew closer, the Equal Rights party disintegrated. With President Grant rated a shoo-in for a second term, their efforts on behalf of Vicky became nearly nonexistent. Vicky understood that she hadn't a prayer of being elected. Perhaps, in her heart, she had known that fact for some time, but she was not a person who got easily discouraged.

  Now she felt herself surrounded by hostility. "Why?" she would ask herself repeatedly. "What have I done to warrant this abuse?"

  One thing she had done, of course, was to thumb her nose at the puritanical codes held precious by Victorian society. The country's sentiment toward her was best summed up by Antoinette Brown Blackwell, a feminist and the first woman minister. Wrote Mrs. Blackwell to a friend shortly after Vicky's "free love" speech: "Independent of the morality of the question, nobody can succeed who begins by so gross a shock to public sentiment."

  Another reason for the ostracism: Vicky was a woman. She clearly understood that men, especially powerful men like Henry Beecher, had the freedom to flout society's rules. They could practice "free love" in secret and get away with it. A woman could not. The unfair double standard, against which she had fought for so many years, finally caught up with her. Any woman rash enough to defy the rules that kept women in their place was bound to be punished sooner or later.

  All that fall, an obsession gnawed at her. She was seized by a burning sickness to justify her actions and to vindicate herself. Coolly, deliberately, she reached a decision. The printed word would be her weapon. Somehow she would find the money to publish a special edition of the Weekly and print the full story about Henry Beecher and Lib Tilton.

  And so Vicky prepared a bomb to drop on prudish Victorian America.

  10

  Freedom of the Press

  On the morning of October 28, 1872, Vicky delivered a bundle of five hundred copies of the Weekly to a newsstand on the busy corner of Broad and Wall streets.

  "Miz Woodhull," protested the news dealer, "I know doggone well I can't sell all these."

  Vicky smiled. "Wait and see, Jake," she said mysteriously, "wait and see."

  The Weekly did not look any different than usual. The front page carried advertisements. There were no sensational headlines on any page. But as Jake began to read the contents, he blew a whistle through his tobacco-stained teeth.

  "Good God Almighty!" he swore.

  By noon, Jake had sold all his copies. When he ran over to the Weekly's new headquarters at 48 Broad Street to pick up another load of papers, he found himself in the middle of a stampede. It looked like every news dealer in the city was there. Finally a policeman was called to direct traffic. Thus the most sensational scandal of the century began with a traffic jam.

  This issue of the Weekly was no slapdash affair. Vicky, Tennie, James, and Stephen Pearl Andrews had spent over a month carefully planning the detailed expose. The lead article on Beecher, written by Vicky herself, ran eleven columns. She justified her attack on the minister in the name of social revolution. In effect she told her readers that you can't make scrambled eggs without breaking a few eggshells. If society is to be reformed, a few powerful men like Beecher must be hurt.

  "The fault with which I therefore charge him," she wrote, "is not infidelity to the old ideas, but unfaithfulness to the new. I am prone to denounce him as a poltroon, a coward and a sneak for failing to stand shoulder to shoulder with me and others who are endeavoring to hasten a social regeneration which he believes in."

  She ended the article with an apology. "I believe in the law of peace, in the right of privacy, in the sanctity of individual relations. It is nobody's business but their own what Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Tilton have done, or may choose at any time to do, as between themselves. And the world needs, too, to be taught just that lesson.

  "It is not therefore Mr. Beecher as the individual I pursue, but Mr. Beecher as the representative man, Mr. Beecher as a power in the world. To Mr. Beecher, as the individual citizen, I tender my humble apology, meaning and deeply feeling what I say, for this or any interference with his private life."

  Although most of the issue was devoted to various aspects of the Beecher-Tilton affair, Tennie contributed an article about a Wall Street broker named Luther Challis who made a habit of seducing adolescent girls. Her point was that a man could retain his respectable standing in the community, no matter how lecherously he behaved, while a woman could not.

  New Yorkers found the Weekly's revelations about Beecher the most horrifying, the most titillating news they had heard in years. Some, never having heard of the paper, asked news dealers for "that paper with the Beecher scandal" and were willing to pay almost anything. The price for a secondhand copy soared from 50 cents to $5 to $10. One man boasted he had paid $40. Those fortunate enough to possess copies rented them out for a dollar a day.

  Although people went berserk to read every detail, most did not believe the story. After all, Beecher was a moral leader. Hadn't a publisher just given him $25,000 to write a book on the life of Jesus? If they accepted Beecher as a common adulterer, they might have to admit that their whole moral code was a sham.

  Among those who had no doubt about Beecher's guilt was his sister Isabella. When she challenged him to admit his affair with Lib Tilton, he only shook his head sadly and said, "Think how barbarous it is to drag that poor dear child of a woman into this dirt."

  Writing to another brother, the Reverend Thomas K. Beecher, about Henry's reply, Isabella said acidly, "So far as I can see, it is he who has dragged the dear child into the dirt—and left her there."

  Henry Beecher decided that silence was the best policy. He made no comment, and his congregation at Plymouth Church demanded none. One of his parishioners, stopping him on the street, said, "Of course, Mr. Beecher, the whole thing is a fraud from beginning to end." Beecher looked the man squarely in the eye and replied, "Entirely!"

  Outwardly poised, Beecher was consumed by inner turmoil. He sent trusted friends to raid newsstands and buy up all the copies of the Weekly they could find. Since Vicky had taken the precaution of printing one hundred thousand copies, Beecher's raids made little difference.

  As far as his reputation was concerned, the damage had already been done. Within twenty-four hours, his private life had become the talk of the town and then the talk of the nation.

  Around midnight one evening that week, a young
man named Anthony Comstock saw a copy of the Weekly. His eyes flickered with a positively electric glow. Comstock's mission in life was to track down pornography—or what he considered to be pornography—and make sure that "smut peddlers" were punished.

  Until the previous year, Comstock had worked as a clerk in a dry goods store. His crusade had been a personal one, undertaken in his spare time out of sheer joy. Then, in 1872, he persuaded the YMCA to set up a Committee for the Suppression of Vice. Ever since, he had been busily harassing booksellers and confiscating "obscene" literature.

  When Comstock read Vicky's expose, he could not find anything actually obscene in the language. But, to his mind, the idea of printing such information about a revered minister like Beecher had to be immoral. The next morning he appeared at the district attorney's office and asked them to issue a warrant for the arrest of Victoria C. Woodhull and Tennie C. Claflin.

  Waiting for the warrant to be prepared, Comstock suddenly remembered that Congress had recently passed a law making it a misdemeanor to send obscene materials through the mail. Subscribers of the Weekly must have received their copies in the mail, Comstock thought. Instead of waiting around for the poky clerks in the district attorney's office, he would ask federal authorities to arrest the sisters.

  At one o'clock that afternoon, Vicky and Tennie were riding down Broad Street. At their feet, on the floor of the carriage, lay five hundred copies of the Weekly which they were delivering to a newsstand. Their driver, hearing shouts of "halt," pulled over. A carriage drew up next to them, and two men jumped out.

  At first, Vicky couldn't understand what was happening. Her heart started to pound.

  "United States marshals," the men announced. "Stop in the name of the law."

  When Tennie indignantly demanded to know what was going on, one of the marshals announced that they were under arrest. He climbed up on the box next to the driver and grabbed the horse's reins. The other didn't know where to sit. There was no room on the box, nor was there space in the carriage which was stacked with newspapers.

  To make certain that Vicky and Tennie wouldn't escape, the bewildered marshal flung himself across their laps. Red-faced, he sat there all the way to the United States Circuit Court.

  Tennie burst out laughing and tried to bounce him on her knee. Vicky was ashen but calm during the trip.

  At the Federal Building, they were escorted to a private room for a closed examination. Vicky shook her head.

  "No," she said. "We want an open hearing because we wish the public to be thoroughly acquainted with this case. Furthermore, we will say nothing until we have an attorney to represent us and until we know what crime we are being charged with."

  By this time, a crowd had gathered in the hall of the courthouse. Newspaper reporters, shopkeepers, brokers, and people on the street had congregated to learn what the sisters had done. People stood on one another's shoulders to catch a glimpse of them. "They're both wearing dark blue dresses with purple bows," somebody shouted.

  A lawyer was soon found for them, and the group moved into a public courtroom.

  Tennie found the experience amusing. "What nonsense!" she declared.

  Vicky was not so sure.

  Assistant District Attorney Henry E. Davies began by stating the charge. They had been arrested for "circulating through the United States mail an obscene and indecent publication." The offense was punishable by imprisonment and a fine.

  Their attorney asked for an adjournment so that he could study the case and consult with his clients.

  "Case will be put over until Tuesday, November fifth," the judge announced.

  "Your Honor," said their attorney, "November fifth is Election Day. The courts are closed."

  The judge corrected himself. "Monday, November fourth."

  The assistant district attorney went on to ask for $10,000 bail for each sister, an unusually high figure.

  "This is a special case," he declared. "Not only have the defendants circulated an obscene publication through the mails and are guilty of an offense against the law but they are also guilty of a most abominable and unjust charge against one of the purest and best citizens of the United States."

  Vicky's attorney hastily reminded the court that the Reverend Beecher had not charged them with libel. The only charge against his clients was sending obscene materials through the mail.

  But the judge could not be swayed. "An example is needed," he said, "and we propose to make one of these women."

  He did, however, lower their bail to $8000 each. This made little difference to Vicky and Tennie since they had no money anyway. The marshals took them directly to the Ludlow Street jail.

  "This is a monstrosity," Vicky kept repeating to her sister, "a monstrosity begotten by this city's lust, fear, and guilt."

  Unlike Vicky, who had sat like a stone during the hearing, Tennie felt no alarm. She tried to comfort her sister by saying they would only have to stay in jail a few days. Besides, it might be a useful experience. When they were released, they could write an article about prison conditions.

  That evening, in their new home at Cell 11 of the Ludlow Street jail, Vicky heard more distressing news. Luther Challis, the man Tennie had accused of seducing young girls, had sued them for libel. In his suit he had also named James, who had been arrested and taken to Jefferson Market Prison, a jail popularly known as "the Black Hole of Calcutta."

  Both Vicky and Tennie expected that the obscenity charge would be dismissed when they reached court the following Monday. In no way, they told each other, could the Weekly ever be called obscene. Despite their confidence, they didn't want to take any chances. Over the weekend, they hired the best lawyer in town, William P. Howe.

  Howe, a brilliant attorney, also had a reputation for dressing like a dandy. When he met them in court on Monday afternoon, he was wearing a purple vest, plaid pantaloons, and a blue satin tie. The courtroom was choked with spectators who gaped at Vicky and Tennie as well as the picturesque Howe.

  "These ladies are the victims of persecution," Howe said in their behalf. "This case has been instigated by a man who dares not come into court and show his face." He did not refer to Beecher by name, but everyone knew who he meant.

  Furthermore, declared Howe, there was not one word in the newspaper that could be called obscene. "If this newspaper is held obscene," he said, waving a copy of the Weekly above his head, "then the transmission through the mails of the Holy Bible, the works of Lord Byron, or any edition of the works of Shakespeare should be liable to the same penalty."

  To her shock, Vicky learned they would not be given a hearing that day. The government planned to conduct a formal trial. But a date was not mentioned. In the meantime, they were to go back to jail and wait.

  Tuesday, November 5, was a momentous day for Susan Anthony. The previous Friday, she and fifteen other women had appeared at a shoemaker's shop on West Street in Rochester, New York, Susan's hometown. The shop was the polling headquarters for the city's Eighth Ward.

  "We are here to be enrolled as voters," Susan informed the dumbfounded inspectors.

  When told she couldn't register, Susan pulled a copy of the Constitution from her bag. Uneasily, the inspectors finally enrolled the sixteen women.

  On Tuesday, Election Day, the same group returned to the shoemaker's shop and cast their ballots, the first time women had ever voted in a federal election.

  Susan's vote went to President Ulysses S. Grant.

  The next day, surrounded by the latest editions of the New York papers, Vicky sat on her cot and read about the election. President Grant received 3,597,132 votes. Horace Greeley was the choice of 2,834,125.

  Some papers mentioned that the Equal Rights party had been on the ballot, but none listed their votes. The election reports gave the impression that Vicky received no votes. As she later learned, this was not true. The Equal Rights party won about 3,000 votes, probably more if one counted the ballots discarded by jeering poll inspectors. When the history of the
1872 election was finally written, Vicky would not even rate a line.

  She read the papers wordlessly. For a moment, the months slipped away. Once again she was back in Apollo Hall where six hundred voices were singing, "Yes, Victoria we've selected/For our chosen head." Their thunderous applause had been the sweetest music she had ever heard. She sighed and folded the newspapers.

  The days dragged by. Still there was no word about their trial. William Howe was not being very helpful, Vicky thought angrily. All he could tell them was that the government had not yet set a date.

  In some ways, jail was not as grim as she had expected. The cells were kept immaculately clean, the meals were generous and not badly cooked. There were even facilities for taking a bath. The warden, overwhelmed by his two famous guests, went out of his way to cater to them. Since he made no objections to visitors, their cell was sometimes packed from morning to night.

  Friends, family, and readers of the Weekly came to pass the time and cluck about the outrageous way they were being held without a trial. There was noise and frequent laughter. "Cell No. 11," the New York Mercury informed its readers, "now well known as the residence of Woodhull and Claflin, was a perfect camp meeting yesterday."

  In spite of the "camp meetings," Vicky grew restless and depressed. She couldn't sleep at night. She kept thinking of James in that dungeon at Jefferson Market. She tormented herself with worry about Byron and Zulu Maud, who had gone to live with Roxanna and Polly. Separated from James and her children, she fretted incessantly about when she would return to them.

  Zulu Maud, shy and reserved, came to visit her mother. She sat next to her on the cot, eyes brimming with tears, and held her hand tightly. "I have not been a good mother to her," Vicky thought. When she was released, she promised herself, she would spend more time with the girl.