by Marion Meade
Wherever she went, she was news. The scarlet woman. The notorious Woodhull. More and more, her audiences were filled with women and young people. After a speech, women would shyly come up to her and say that their husbands had forbade them to hear her. They had come on the sly.
She talked on three subjects: finance, women, and sex. Not surprisingly, the latter was most popular. She remembered giving one of her more radical speeches—"The Scarecrows of Sexual Freedom"—at a camp meeting in Vineland, New Jersey. What a job it had been to get to that godforsaken place! She had taken a train, then a boat, then a carriage —six hours altogether. Hundreds of tents had been thrown up in a field of pines.
At twilight, standing on a creaky wooden platform, her figure silhouetted against a cherry-colored sky, Vicky began to speak. She paced up and down, never taking her eyes from her audience of small-town housewives and their smug husbands.
"Most families are communities of hot little hells," she told them. The women in their calico dresses and the sunburned men in their straw hats winced.
"They say I have come to break up the family," Vicky went on boldly. "I say amen to that with all my heart."
In Chicago, she spoke on healthy sexuality, which she called "The Elixir of Life." As usual, she disregarded what people wanted to hear. She told them what she thought they should know. "It is a fact terrible to contemplate yet it is nevertheless true. Fully one-half of all women seldom or never experience any pleasure whatsoever in the sexual act. I have had hundreds of wives say to me, 'I would not endure these conditions for a single moment, were I not dependent upon my husband for a home.' "
She went on to label wives openly as "sexual slaves." The red-faced women in the audience buzzed angrily.
"Wives may not think they are slaves," Vicky lashed out at them. "Some may not be. But let the large majority attempt to assert their sexual freedom and they will quickly come to the realization."
Up and down the country, from New England to the West Coast, she expanded her views on the barbarous institution of marriage and how it affected women.
"I am conducting a campaign against marriage, with the view of revolutionizing it," she declared fervently. "Those who are called prostitutes are free women sexually, when compared to the slavery of the poor wife."
Sometimes she had to defend herself from angry hecklers. "Prostitute!” a man shouted.
Vicky recoiled. Then she snapped back, "What! A man questioning my virtue!"
On another occasion, after name-calling from the audience, she leaned over the edge of the platform. She bit her lip until the blood came. And when she finally answered, her blue eyes were like steel.
"I am charged with notoriety," she said, "but who among you would accept my notoriety and pay a tithe of its cost to me? I have been driven from my former beautiful home, reduced from affluence to want, my business destroyed, dragged from one jail to the other—all for telling the truth. I have been smeared with the vilest names and called a bawd and a blackmailer. O my God! and the world only thinks me ambitious of notoriety."
With her crimson cheeks and that magical voice which carried to the last row, she appeared robust, a woman in the prime of life with plenty of fire. But her looks were deceptive. Off the lecture platform, she felt tired constantly. She never got enough sleep.
"I feel numb," was the way she explained it to Tennie. Her sister had noticed for herself that Vicky was curiously quiet lately. It was unlike her, thought Tennie.
Often Vicky traveled by herself. Those were the lonely times. For months at a time, she would not see James or her family.
At other times she took the whole household with her. Everyone was put to work. Tennie, acting as an advance agent, would arrive in a town a few days before Vicky, to rent a hall and advertise the lecture. On the night of the talk, James set up a table in the hall and tried to sell copies of Vicky's books and speeches.
Best of all, Vicky had Zulu Maud with her for company. Now thirteen, her shy daughter had reluctantly agreed to take part in the program. Before her mother appeared on stage, Zulu Maud would come out and recite poetry.
Once, Vicky returned to New York to appear in court. The libel suit brought by Luther Challis, the only remaining charge against the Weekly, finally came to trial. When the jury brought in a verdict of "not guilty," the judge exploded. "This is the most outrageous verdict ever recorded," he announced. "It is shameful and infamous and I'm ashamed of the jury who rendered it."
Now, beneath the bedclothes in her Philadelphia hotel room, Vicky began to cough weakly. Would the doctor never come? Actually, she thought, it doesn't make much difference. She had consulted other doctors. They all told her she was anemic and left a bottle of tonic beside the bed. It was difficult not to be sapped of energy when she never got enough sleep, never ate regular meals, and stood for hours.
From her hotel window she could see that it was almost dusk. She supposed the lecture that night would have to be canceled. Or perhaps Tennie could speak in her place. The hardships of touring are endurable, Vicky thought, more endurable than other humiliations of the past year. Those who hated her had written vicious pamphlets calling her a prostitute and a nymphomaniac. She felt positive that some of the authors were supporters of the Reverend Beecher. But others, to her dismay, were people who had once admired her.
The most obnoxious pamphlet had been written by a former adviser, Dr. Joseph Treat. Once devoted, he now charged that "you write nothing, not a word." All her books and articles and speeches, he said, were ghostwritten by James or Stephen Pearl Andrews. She was a complete fraud.
Rumors spread until James felt compelled to issue a statement to the press. "I have always found my wife capable of putting her thoughts on paper or before the public on the rostrum much more brilliantly than either myself or anybody else could do it for her."
Being called a fake angered Vicky, but the rest of Treat's pamphlet made her shudder. "Every house she has occupied has been a brothel," Treat wrote. He described how a prominent businessman supposedly said to Vicky, "And what do you charge per night when you are not on the stage?"
"Two hundred fifty dollars," Vicky was supposed to have replied—and then she went with the man to his hotel.
There were many who believed Treat's pamphlet. Vicky considered suing him for libel but she wanted never to see another courtroom again. The law stank; she had no faith in it at all.
The agonizing memories stopped abruptly as Tennie came into the room. Behind her, Vicky saw the doctor. After examining her, he refused her permission to get out of bed.
"In your condition," he warned, "a complete rest is necessary. I advise you to do no more speaking or traveling for at least six months, perhaps longer. Not until you are strong again."
Vicky turned her head to the wall and covered her eyes with her hands. She had never forgotten the bitter hardships during the early days of her marriage to Canning. In recent years she had felt comforted by the knowledge that she could always earn money as a lecturer. Now even that door had slammed shut.
Life weighed heavily upon her shoulders.
Two years had gone by since Vicky had blasted the moral hypocrisy of her age by exposing Henry Beecher. During that time, the Beecher scandal had not died. In fact, it had assumed a life of its own and was quickly escalating to new heights. Even if the nation would have forgotten, Henry Beecher and Theodore Tilton could not. Theodore seemed obsessed by the wrong Beecher had done him. He wrote an account of what had happened. Calling it True Story, he carried the manuscript around with him in a leather case and showed it to everyone he met.
The Reverend Beecher's church rose to his defense. It expelled Theodore from church membership for slandering his pastor. Each month some new skirmish occurred in the battle between the two men. Beecher accused Tilton of blackmail, forgery, immorality, and insanity. The congregation at Plymouth Church organized a special committee to investigate Theodore's charges. Lib Tilton, who had left her husband by this time, testified b
efore the committee that she had never had an affair with Beecher. In the end, the investigating committee decided Beecher was not guilty.
All Theodore knew was that his wife had been lured into adultery by Beecher and that now he was being made to look foolish in the eyes of the world. On August 24, 1874, six years after the alleged infidelity had taken place, four years after Lib had confessed, Theodore swore out a complaint against Beecher in Brooklyn City Court. He charged alienation of his wife's affections and criminal libel. To compensate for his grief, Theodore demanded $100,000 for having "wholly lost the comfort, society and assistance of his said wife."
When the news reached Beecher, he was away in the mountains of New Hampshire nursing his hay fever. He made no comment. Instead, his attorney spoke for him: "Better were it for the inhabitants of this city that every brick and every stone in its buildings were swallowed by an earthquake, or melted by fire, than that its brightest ornament, its most honored name, should sink into deep infamy."
12
Letting Go
On January 11, 1875, the Beecher-Tilton trial opened in Brooklyn City Court. It was to continue for six months and provide Victorians with the greatest show of the century.
From the beginning, the trial seemed more like a carnival than a judicial proceeding. Each morning, crowds stuffed themselves like sardines into the ferryboats crossing between Manhattan and Brooklyn. They pushed and shoved and fought to get a seat in the courtroom. Some bought black-market tickets for five dollars. Others purchased opera glasses which were for sale in the lobby of the courthouse.
Each day, as many as three thousand were turned away, thereby providing the nearby saloons with booming business. Those who did not get in had a fine time anyway. The area around the courthouse resembled a fairgrounds with refreshment stands and souvenir booths.
Hardly a day went by when Vicky's name was not mentioned in the proceedings. It was she, of course, who had first brought the affair to public attention. But that was not all. The main line of defense used by Beecher's attorneys was that Theodore must be an immoral person himself because of his past relationship with Vicky. If they could prove Tilton had been intimate with Vicky, they thought his whole case would be discredited by that fact alone. It would be an example of the pot calling the kettle black, and in some illogical way, prove Beecher innocent.
Theodore could not deny knowing Vicky. What he did testify was that he didn't know her very well. His only motive for seeing her had been to keep her quiet. In fact, he said, it was Beecher who had sent him to Vicky in the first place. Otherwise, he wouldn't dream of associating with a woman of her type.
"My association with Mrs. Woodhull was foolish and wrong," he apologized to the court.
Vicky replied with unconcealed scorn in the pages of the Weekly. "Mr. Tilton acts like a sniveling little schoolboy," she wrote. " 'Beecher made me do it. If it hadn't been for him. I shouldn't have done it.' Mr. Tilton will make quite a man if he ever lives to grow up."
At least one admirer of Vicky's came forward to protest. In an open letter to the New York Times, Mrs. Stanton said, "Victoria Woodhull's acquaintance would be refining to any man. In her character and person there is never anything but refinement in word and movement."
When Vicky had first published the scandal two years before, the press had condemned her for lack of taste and delicacy. Now, however, every paper in the country reported each titillating word of testimony. No detail, however trivial, was omitted. And the question everybody kept asking was, "When will Mrs. Woodhull appear on the witness stand?"
She didn't. Both sides were afraid of what she might say. She certainly wouldn't help Beecher's case since she believed him guilty; nor would she aid Tilton, who was busily denying they had been close friends.
She did appear in court once, however. Beecher's lawyers subpoenaed her to deliver any letters in her possession that might relate to the case. Her entrance into the courtroom on May 12 caused one of the biggest stirs since the trial had started. Dressed in a dark blue suit and a black straw hat, she sat with Beecher's attorneys and handed over a packet of letters which Theodore had written her during that idyllic summer. The attorneys read them in silence; then, obviously displeased to find no flaming love letters, they handed them back.
"These won't do, Mrs. Woodhull."
Vicky lost her patience. "Very well, sir," she said severely. "I am not to be the judge of that. But you were very anxious to have them!" She rose and threaded her way out of the crowded courtroom.
Not until June did the case go to the jury. Beecher's attorney summed up the defense's case by insisting that his client, a man whose "silver tongue would lure an angel from paradise," could not possibly have committed adultery. Tilton's attorney declared that Beecher might be a great man but that he was still a sinner. The jury retired.
For eight days, the country waited breathlessly while the jury tried to decide which man was telling the truth. After fifty-two ballots, they returned to the courtroom on July 2 and informed the judge that they had been unable to reach a decision. When the case was dismissed, it was interpreted as a victory for Beecher. The courtroom exploded with cheers and hysterical sobs as people leaped on tables and chairs. On the next Sunday morning, the crowds at Plymouth Church were so great that the police came to keep order on the street.
The trial had run for 112 days. Over two million words had been spoken or entered as evidence. There had been almost a hundred witnesses. It would go down in history as one of the most discussed trials in American jurisprudence.
Beecher's triumph could not help but add to Vicky's bitterness. She had suffered by practicing what she sincerely believed. Henry Beecher practiced what she believed, too, but he did not suffer. As far as she was concerned, he had lied his way through the trial—nine hundred times he had said, "I don't know," or, "I can't recollect"—but still the nation crowned him as its idol. In a twisted way, she drew a lesson from the Beecher-Tilton trial: dishonesty can be the best policy.
Vicky began the Beecher drama. By the time it had been played to its deceitful end, it destroyed her psychologically. She was no longer the same woman; in fact, she would never be that person again. Justice had not triumphed. Instead, it had risen and strangled her.
Vicky dozed against the coach seat on a train between Chicago and Milwaukee and clung to her mother's leathery hand. Trees flashed by the window and, when she half-opened her eyes, she could catch a glimpse of Lake Michigan.
"I won't stand to rest till I get you to that hotel and into bed," Roxanna was saying. "Looks like you're wore out, darlin'."
From a satchel at her feet, Roxanna pulled out a chunk of cornbread and an orange. "I reckon we got quite a piece to go yet. Better take something to eat, darlin'."
"Yes, Mama," said Vicky, hunched against her mother's shoulder.
There was no more fight left in her. Sometimes she thought that touring the lecture circuit was like living in a dream. Memphis, Dallas, Binghamton, St. Louis—all cities looked alike to her. She grieved to herself that her health was ruined and her appearance wretched. If pleurisy or anemia didn't plague her, then pains in her chest and shortness of breath did.
Her life had become a series of melodramas. At each new town, she'd unpack and try to pull herself together. She would get buttoned into one of her stylish dresses and pin her trademark, a fresh rosebud, at her throat. Before leaving for the lecture hall, she'd swallow a cup of scalding tea with plenty of honey. If she were having one of her really bad days, she'd lace the tea with a spoonful of brandy.
In command of herself then, she would be able to walk confidently onto the stage and speak for an hour and a half, sometimes two hours. Immediately afterward, she would collapse.
The one person who kept her going was Roxanna. It was Roxanna who insisted she accompany Vicky on tour, Roxanna who packed and unpacked, argued with hotel porters, put Vicky to bed at night and dragged her out of bed in the morning. She dressed Vicky and fed her and gave her medicine.
She fussed over her daughter as she had never done when Vicky was a child.
Vicky didn't object to Roxanna's babying. The truth was she felt like a helpless child. She desperately wanted to be mothered and taken care of. Traveling with Roxanna, Tennie, and Zulu Maud was curiously comforting. It reminded her of the old days when the Claflin medicine show roamed the Midwest, telling fortunes and promising astounding cures.
Roxanna, now in her seventies, was a powerful old woman with strong shoulders and an active tongue. In fact, she never stopped talking. Vicky let her prattle on, thankful for her comforting presence. Roxanna's favorite opening phrase was, "I just used to set there and keep my mouth shut...." Then she'd go on to tell Vicky what she thought of her radical ideas on feminism, politics, and sex. All her tirades ended on the same note: "Well, I knowed doggone well it were the work of the devil."
While Roxanna talked, Vicky listened. It would be too easy to suggest that Roxanna was responsible for the changes taking place in Vicky. Roxanna was only one influence among many; she only hastened the final outcome. But there was no doubt that a new Victoria Woodhull now appeared on the lecture platform.
Gradually she spoke less and less about sexual freedom and the slavery of marriage. She began to talk more about God and religion. A statue of the Virgin Mary began to appear on the platform with her. She'd begin a lecture by opening a morocco-bound Bible and reading from the Scriptures. She composed new speeches and called them "The Human Body, the Temple of God" and "The Garden of Eden, or Paradise Lost and Found."
The latter dealt with menstruation, which proved the old, bold Vicky had not vanished entirely. In those days, menstruation was a taboo subject. Nobody, man or woman, discussed woman's "curse" in public. But Vicky's radical statements grew less frequent, both on the lecture platform and in the pages of the Weekly.