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^ 435 I will call & see the portrait,as soon as this storm abates. 2 Bob & Maggy went one Sunday by appointment to see it, & lo! no one was in. Better luck to me. My operation was nothing serious,—for hemorrhoids only, but I must be careful not to overdo for some months. Give my best regards to your Sister Mary and to Mrs.Harper.Affectionately , U Harriot S. B. Y ALS, ECS Papers, DLC. 1. Over the next months, while finding her footing in the city’s suffrage movement , Harriot Blatch was conspicuous in municipal reform through the West End Women’s Republican Club, Citizens’ Union, and Woman’s Municipal League. See, for example, New York Times, 10 October 1902, 10, 12 April, 5 June 1903. 2. Possibly they hoped to see the portrait of ECS, one of the last works of Lilly Martin Spencer who died in New York City on 22 May 1902. It is believed that Spencer started the picture in 1899, perhaps while ECS spent the summer in the Hudson River Valley near Spencer. Spencer thought she was nearly done with the portrait in June 1901, when she arranged to visit ECS, and she signed it in March 1902. (ECS to L. M. Spencer, 1 June 1901, Film, 42:131–32; New York Times, 23 May 1902; Robin Bolton-Smith and William H. Truettner, Lilly Martin Spencer, 1822–1902: The Joys of Sentiment [Washington, D.C., 1973], 69–70, 230–31.) ••••••••• 209 • ECS to Ida Husted Harper 250 West 94th St New York—Sept 30th 1902 Dear Mrs. Harper, Your letter just received. As I was wide awake last night for hours, when I should have been asleep,I thought of you,and knowing how highly Susan appreciated your work I said to myself: “Now Mrs. Harper is just the person to edit my volumn of speeches and miscellaneous writings![”] Will there be anything left of you when Vol—4— is finished? 1 As you are thoroughly conversant now with the ups and downs of the woman suffrage question,the wrangles,pitfalls and triumphs of its leaders, its friends and its enemies, you are just the one to give the finishing touch to my literary efforts. I note what you say about your daughter. If the church members 25 september 1902 436 & complain of her radicalism, all her husband has to say is: “You must not hold me responsible for my wife’s opinions! We have a right to differ. I do not believe that the husband owns the wife, or has any right to dictate what she shall say or do.” 2 “They are equal factors in the great drama of life; the masculine and feminine elements in the moral world hold the same place that the centripetal and centrifugal forces do in the material world, and it would be as calamitous to order the centripetal to fly off with the centrifugal as to order the masculine and feminine to hold forever the same opinions— We should have chaos as the result in either case.[”] Now tell me if you think you will be able to edit my book, and what you will charge for the work. I am tying to beg the money— I have tried Rockefeller & Carnegie and the former sent me five hundred dollars, which is not enough! 3 The latter turned a deaf ear— I am going to write this very hour to Henry Phipps, of Pittsburg—Pa. 4 When I get the money and you reply we will then decide when, where & how we will begin the work. My secretary has just read to me your preface— 5 I think it very good— and shall make it my chief business to read Vol—4— as soon as I receive it— I think Susan makes a great mistake: She & Roosevelt are the nearest examples of perpetual motion that we have yet had illustrated by any man & woman and now Roosevelt is flat on his back for his many indiscretions. 6 I conjure Susan to stay at home; as long as she can walk up & down Madison Street there is no necessity for her gallivanting off to the ends of the earth Hattie had a letter from Sister Mary the other day, in which she said, that, “Susan was not going to any conventions this winter, but would stay home & rest” to which rational idea we all sang in chorus “A---men!” My message to her is: “Stay at home under Mary’s wing.” If, when Roosevelt’s leg...

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