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^ 459 ••••••••• 224 • SBA to Mary McHenry Keith Rochester, N.Y. Nov. 28, ’02 My dear friend:—¶1 I have just finished reading the speech you delivered at the State Suffrage Association held October 25th. 1 It is really very excellent. You struck the key note when you said that we had state co-education in only four states, for whatever may be done for woman, so long as she is disfranchised, denied a voice in the making and enforcing of the laws in City, State and Nation, there can be no real work begun in the direction of Equality. Your two women in California, of course you mean Mrs. Hurst and Mrs. Stanford, are doing splendidly, but what does the president who has visited your high school mean? Does he really want to shut the girls out of the schools because they make it too feminine? 2¶2 Your story of the woman in Berkeley with her six small children her only bequest from her husband, came very pat. I do wish that men could see that “women have done their full share of thinking, planning, worrying and fighting for everything” that has been gained so far, 3 and will have to fight on to maintain what they have got, for men seem inclined to take away from us, even that which we thought we had, for instance, Mr. Harper, of Chicago University. 4¶3 Wendell Phillips used to say in the olden time, that when the lioness painted pictures, they would be as handsome as the lion, and I think when women come to write their books out of their hearts and consciences instead of writing just what will sell on the market, we shall have some truths told that men have never yet heard,but when the time will come that women will be free,and speak their full thought,I hardly know.¶4 I see that you elected Mrs.Sperry for president.That is a good move. She links the old people to the new, and I hope you will come forward with a great deal of unanimity of feeling, and sustain her right royally.¶5 How is dear Mrs. Wood. 5 Her afflictions are terrible.¶6 We are just going to press with Volume IV of the History. It has been 28 november 1902 460 & a long drawn out agony of getting that book done, but it will be worth having,that is sure.I have sent a letter with the circular announcing the fact that it was done, to nearly all of the 4000 libraries in the country, and we are getting a few orders for the book. A library in San Francisco sent for Volume I the other day through a book dealer.You would think they must see that when I sent out the circular about the book, that I handled the whole of the 4 volumes. There is no other person who has to do with the History. Have you the books in the State University? They ought to be in every college library where students can have access to them, and I think my Life and Work, and Mrs. Stanton’s Eighty years and More will be good to be there also.¶7 The world seems the poorer that Mrs. Stanton is gone out of it, and yet her writings, and speeches will speak for her through the History of Woman Suffrage, and in almost every place there is something to remind us that she has lived, and that she still lives. Do you remember her when she was in California in 1871? She was then in the prime of life, spoke with her full vigor and was beautiful to look at and beautiful to hear. I think she had the most melodious and richest voice in speaking that I ever heard. But she is gone, and we shall ne’er see her like again. With kind regards to your mother 6 and your husband, 7 I am, Affectionately yours, U Susan B. Anthony Y TLS, on NAWSA letterhead, Keith-McHenry-Pond Family Papers, C-B 595, CU-BANC. Directed to Berkeley, Cal. 1. Mary M. Keith, Address Delivered at the California State Suffrage Asssociation (Annual Convention), San Francisco, October 25, 1902, by Mrs. William Keith (Berkeley, Calif., n.d.). Keith’s topic was the status of young women in coeducation and the trend she called “a tendency to crowd her back a page.” SBA refers to Keith’s assertion that without...

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