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Home , Anna Howard Shaw, Carrie Chapman Catt, Julia Ward Howe, Lucretia Mott

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman association...

No 3.

In Memory of

LIBRARY SUBJECT Section VIII sub.sec.1 Memorial - Biography of Suffragist No 41-a.(3)

“A significant ceremony is performed each Easter in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. In the wall that encloses the tomb of Christ there is an opening which upon Easter Sunday is surrounded by priests of the shrine carrying unlighted candles. It is believed that the candles are touched into flame by a holy fire from Divinity through this opening.

“Also provided with candles are the worshippers who throng the church, the nearby among when receiving their light from the priests and passing it on until every candle is aflame. Men nearest the door hasten to light the candles of horsemen outside who speed away on the mission of torch- bearer to every home, so that by nightfall the candles on every altar with a new brightness that has been transmitted from the holy fire.

“Likewise the fire of inspiration, kindled in the great soul of Anna Howard Shaw, touched into flame the zeal and courage of her messengers who in turn reached the homes of all races, all faiths with her fervor and power.”

From Mrs. Catt's Address at Dr. Shaw's funeral.

National Woman Suffrage Publishing Co., Inc. 171 Madison Avenue,

IN MEMORY OF ANNA HOWARD SHAW

ANNA HOWARD SHAW A Memorial Prepared by A Committee Appointed from the Board of Directors of the National American Woman Suffrage Association

ANNA HOWARD SHAW Honorary President National American Woman Suffrage Association. Chairman Woman's Committee Council of National Defense. Member Executive Committee League to Enforce Peace.

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman suffrage association... http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbnawsa.n0597 ANNA HOWARD SHAW

ANNA HOWARD SHAW was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne, February 14th, 1847. At the age of four, with her mother and five brothers and sisters, she joined her father in America, living first in New Bedford and Lawrence, , and later in northern Michigan where her father took up a wilderness claim.

Her early years were strenuous and tragic, with the heaviest burden falling upon her during the Civil War when her father and brothers were away fighting for the North. Then came college with rigid economy, the theological school with its cold, hunger and loneliness, later her pastorate on Cape Cod, then her medical studies ending with a degree in 1885, her fight for the temperance cause, and the beginning of her suffrage work as lecturer and organizer for the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association.

Her successful promotion of the suffrage movement resulted in her election to the presidency of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1904 which office she held till 1915 when she became honorary president. Although continuing to render valiant service for suffrage, when the entered the war she felt bound to accept the call to the chairmanship of the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense, and, later, to give of her time to help foster sentiment in America for the Covenant.

A cold contracted upon a lecture tour with ex-President Taft and President Lowell of , made in the interests of the League to Enforce Peace, resulted in her death in Moylan, , July 2nd, 1919.

GOD SPEED! Anna Howard Shaw

TRIUMPHANT she passes! And how should there sound any note of our grieving? Great Heart buoyantly passes! The high task she is leaving Accomplished;—on, up the bright trail, In eternity still pioneering! Steadfast, unconquerable— How should there follow rites of bereaving? When such as she yield for a moment, Bend—pass through the shadow— To emerge on the long bright trail, They follow, who would not fail, No dirge of grieving;— But God Speed, God Speed! Strophe of women's voices rings from the east; Answering chorus mingles out of the west; And the laughter She drew from a nation's dourest mood, Chimes gratefully after, As she moves ever on, Keeping the road of her mighty quest. Ah, comrades who knew her best, In the infinite patience and zest Of all your day's

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman suffrage association... http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbnawsa.n0597 work, You will keep grasp of her hand; Whenever you stand At the parting of ways, in the valley of some large decision, A ray from her vision Will again point you clear; She will be near; Her twinkling humor will touch you still many a time, Turning the prose of a long, long task To the sudden lilt of a rhyme.

God Speed! She lives—she but passes To the brave work she still must be doing! As here among us the wave of her effort Mounts to its gallant high crest, Never let pass our lips one sigh of rueing— We are too blest, We are too blest! Anne Cleveland Cheney. 5

ANNA HOWARD SHAW—HUMANITARIAN

Probably no public figure in the country, or in the world, stands out before people so whole, so self-continuing, as does Dr. Anna Howard Shaw. She was in her life a great many things besides a suffragist: she was a pioneer woman wage-earner; she had blazed her own trail to college; she had won her degree as a doctor of medicine; she had been a doctor of divinity; she had been a famous temperance lecturer; she was an advocate of the reform of marriage into a higher and finer social institution; and when she stood before the vast audience that were wont to hang exultant on her words, those audiences got her intact. Usually she was speaking for suffrage, but always there was reflected from her the versatile capacity that made her so many in one. The winning of the franchise was never to her the end, it was but the means. Women had abilities. All avenues of expression must be opened to those abilities. There was a great world waiting to use them. Women must be freed from the crippling traditions that held them back from taking their rightful part in that waiting world —so ran her simple creed, the while she earned wages, won degrees, advocated reforms, held the multitude in thrall by her eloquence—herself the living proof of all she claimed for women.

It is easy enough to say that any person whose life has been long, full of events and of honor, must have been many-sided, since these things evince various forms of human contact. But Dr. Shaw's tolerances proved the cosmopolitanism of her soul. She was at home in more atmospheres than are most persons. Indeed, there was no height and no depth of human emotion to which she was alien. This responsiveness made her tolerance an understanding one. To comprehend all is to forgive all.

To many persons who knew her in the last quarter of a century she was first of all the silver-tongued spokeswoman of a single cause—that of woman's enfranchisement, a fact which might seem to preclude an all-around point of view. But if any human being ever saw life all around and four- square, it was Dr. Shaw. Several instances of the many ways in which she touched humanity stand out with symbolic meaning. One is the picture of a little four-year-old girl on an immigrant ship

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman suffrage association... http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbnawsa.n0597 singing sailor's chantey. “When I sang ‘haul',” says Dr. 6 Shaw in her autobiography, “all the sailors pulled their hardest, and I had an exhilarating sense of sharing in their labors.” She kept that “exhilarating sense of sharing” to the end. It helped the young woman clergyman in the harbor of Genoa to understand the feelings of the sailors on the gospel-ship to which she had been taken over to preach a sermon. An old-time Presbyterian clergyman presided, who had not been prepared for a woman preacher, and his Christianity could not stretch up to the fact. Instead of a welcome to her, he made an apology for her existence to the assembly and left upon the speaker the burden of a hostile reception. It was characteristic of Dr. Shaw that she brushed the man's crudeness off like dust. Instead of trying to be brilliant and overwhelm him with her wit, as she might easily have done, she thought of nothing but her audience of rough and homesick sailors. Said he: “My friends, I hope you will forget everything Dr. Blank has just said. It is true that I am a minister and that I came here to preach. But now I do not intend to preach—only to have a friendly talk on a text which is not in the Bible. I am very far from home, and I feel as homesick as some of you men look. So my text is, ‘Blessed are the homesick, for they shall go home.’” Out of the riches of her Cape Cod life among sea-going folk, the woman preacher, brought up in the thick forests of Michigan, pictured the home-coming of sailor men, until the audience was as soft and plastic as wax under her molding hand. When the speech was over every man there shook her hand and even the astounded parson congratulated her.

This is a miniature of a way Dr. Shaw had with her. She disarmed her foes, she did not contend with them. She plumbed for the soul of her audience and, finding it, led them into sympathy. That is what makes a great preacher. And Dr. Shaw was pre-eminently, always and to the end, a great preacher of righteousness. Protestant as she was, “she was quick to see the steady flame of a wondrous spirit” in the face of Pope Leo XIII, and, democrat as she was, the “sweet and winning softness” of Queen Victoria's eyes. But Anna Shaw of the United States of America derived from two long persistent old- world strains—the “fighting Shaws of Castle Loch-an-Eilan” and the Stotts who were also Scottish but by way of Northern . The Stotts were of the brave and dauntless common-folk who dared think their own thoughts and resist their own wrongs. Therefore, the world knew a Dr. Shaw who could proudly stand before Kings and humbly reach out her hand to the toilers of the world. She was too proud not to be herself everywhere. 7 Among her friends were great ones of the earth, great authors like Selma Largerlöf, great women leaders like the Countess of Aberdeen, socially important people in every land. When an Italian Princess wanted a visit from her, Dr. Shaw refused. As a working-women she wouldn't be acceptable, she said, and she was unwilling to masquerade as anything else than a worker. “My work is my patent of nobility,” said Dr. Shaw, “and I am not willing to associate with those from whom it would

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman suffrage association... http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbnawsa.n0597 have to concealed, or with those who would took down upon it.” Wherein she had the advantage of the Princess for she could understand pride of race as well as pride in attainment, whereas the Princess knew nothing at all but the pride of a great name.

It is not for nothing that a lovely story of friendship with a painted lady in Lawrence, Mass., stands at the gateway of her life. When Anna Shaw was ten years old the beautiful and mysterious lady in the blue velvet riding habit kissed her soul awake to the fact that even women of the street are human, lovable and sorrowful. No harm ever came to her from that odd friendship but the deeper knowledge of life gained from it led her, she claimed, “into the ministry, next into medicine, and finally into suffrage work.” The whole world is richer by more than it can count for the fact that a like child once won the love and friendship of a courtesan.

ANNA HOWARD SHAW—SUFFRAGIST

Each of the great leaders of the women suffrage cause in America has put something into it, some quality of her own different from the contribution of every other leader. Most of the concomitants of a great cause were present already when Dr. Shaw went up to from East Dennis on Cape Cod in the early 80's and came into close touch with Mary A. Livermore, , , and all that host of great New Englanders, Emersons, Garrisons, Alcotts, , and the one who of them all was Anna Shaw's favorite, the poet Whittier. “At our meetings he was like a vesper- bell chiming above a battle-field.”

It was perhaps odd than a descendant of “the fighting Shaws” should have so relished this beneficient calmness of the poet.

The leaders preceding Dr. Shaw had put into the cause of suffrage the martyr's spirit, heroic endurance, fiery zeal, a stern sense of the justice of equality for women. All that the Quaker knew of the dignity of human freedom had wrought its work through , Martha Wright, Susan B. Anthony. The adventurous soul of had in its dash for liberty planted a standard on the heights to which the world of women has not even yet attained.

In 1885 most of the stoning and martyrdom was over. “Why should I go to a suffrage meeting” asked Theodore Weld of Boston of Dr. Shaw, “there hasn't been anyone mobbed in twenty years.” The sappers and miners had finished their task of blasting and digging for new foundations. The period of construction was well under way when Dr. Shaw came into active suffrage work, and she was pre- eminently a builder. There was nothing in her mental make-up that analyzed and picked to pieces; on the contrary, everything within her thrilled to the creative mood, cried out for synthesis, for

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman suffrage association... http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbnawsa.n0597 construction, for going ahead. She herself tells the story of a train wreck when she and Miss Anthony were on one of their western suffrage campaigns. Dr. Shaw had to keep a lecture engagement. Looking up the track she saw a train coming from the opposite direction and leaped aboard. “Wait, wait,” cried Miss Anthony, “that train's going in the wrong direction.” “At least it's going somewhere,” said Dr. Shaw, and added when she was reporting the incident that this was “a fine elucidation of her pet theory that 9 if one expects to get somewhere, it is better to start, even in the wrong direction, than to stand still.” For, as it happened, she did take the only means there was of getting to her lecture.

Her first toys were a saw and a hatchet, and all her life should builded something—cabins in a wilderness, two homes of her very own, earned by tireless effort. She cut lumber in Michigan in sheer desperate need of fuel and food. She cut fire-wood at Wianno, her summer home on Cape Cod, for pastime, having rested competence out of poverty, and ease out of hardship.

There is an incident of five-year-old Anna Shaw in New Bedford going to work every day with her saw and hammer, perched on the shoulder of her neighbor, a ship-builder, who never tired of her company. All day she hammered and sawed by his side, imitating his skillful motions, and when her big friend found her petticoats in the way he gravely had a little boy's suit made for her. It is a pretty story and seems to stand for the quality Anna Shaw put into a derided cause. She cut vistas through the forest so that all the women of the world could look through into greater spaciousness.

In the ten years of her presidency, she builded up the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 17,000 members to 200,000. When she came into office in 1904, four states had equal suffrage; when she went out of office in 1915, twelve were in rank. All this growth was not so much because of a genius for administration as a genius for interpretation. She so presented her cause that it pressed home to sorts of people in all sorts of positions. She converted people to suffrage just as when she was a revivalist she converted them to religion. She builded great friendship among women, hacking down flimsy barriers of fashion and class and creed, so that in the cause she represented were composite groups of rich and poor, high and low, the fashionable and simple. The equality of women ceased to be a matter of abstract justice and became concrete and personal, human and appealing under her touch.

It would be unfair to say that any quality of intrepidity of devotion, or of consecration to the cause of suffrage, belonged to Dr. Shaw more than to those who went before or are coming after her. But she did have a marvelous and never excelled power of interpreting to each soul its own need— that Pentecostal gift, which “enabled every man to hear her speak in his own language” and become convinced.

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman suffrage association... http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbnawsa.n0597 10

ANNA HOWARD SHAW—PATRIOT

The patriotism of Anna Howard Shaw was of that rare quality which combined the highest idealism with common sense and practical service. Her love of country shone through all she thought and did. At fourteen years of age, upon the outbreak of the Civil War, we find her struggling to keep the home while father and brothers were in the army. She taught, sewed, ploughed and cared for her sister's motherless baby. No work was too arduous for her hand and brain and as we read the brief record of those “years in which life had degenerated into a treadmill whose monotony was broken only by grim messages from the front,” we catch the same dauntless spirit that at seventy made her accept the call to the Chairmanship of the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense, and at seventy-two consumed her brief strength in the effort to rally the country to the support of the League of Nations. She always protested against the pseudo-patriotism expressed in the slogan “My country, right or wrong.” Many times we have heard her passionate cry, “My country—may she always be right! but if she should be wrong, then every ounce of my strength and every fibre of my being to help make her see and do the right!”

Dr. Shaw's love of country was so deep, so vital, she could not remain silent when the United States failed to live up to the principles upon which its government was founded and so, in nearly every speech for more than forty years, we find her assailing the hypocrisy of calling our system of government a republic and at the same time refusing political freedom to one-half its citizens.

It was difficult for this gallant patriot to understand how any American woman could fail to support the movement for woman suffrage because, to her logical mind, one could not be a loyal citizen without demanding every means of effectively exercising citizenship. Her soul ever pressed towards the vision of a true democracy and many of us remember the ring of triumph in her voice when she exclaimed after the entrance of the United States into the World War, “All I have—my heart and soul—is at the service of the country because my country is fighting for my cause; I have fought for democracy for forty years, and now my country is backing me up.” It may be added that she never lost 11 an opportunity to back up the country and the leaders who were carrying the terrible responsibility of the struggle for the freedom of the world.

The motive power of Dr. Shaw's patriotism was service— service in which she was absolutely selfless. She never refused a request to speak for a worthy cause except for the reason that she had responded to a previous call and could not be in more than one place at a time. She never pleaded illness or weariness though again and again in these latter years she spent herself to the limit of

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman suffrage association... http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbnawsa.n0597 exhaustion. The only way to persuade her to take an occasional brief vocation was to convince her that failure to do so would curtail her future usefulness.

As chairman of the Woman's Committee Dr. Shaw was so filled with the great purpose of the war that she gave little weight to her own part in achieving that purpose. When she heard that she was to be presented by the Secretary of War with the Distinguished Service Medal she was as frankly surprised and happy as a child, but upon receiving the decoration she characteristically said:

“I realize that in conferring upon me the Distinguished Service Medal, the President and Secretary of War are not expressing their appreciation of what I as an individual have done but of the collective service of the women of the country. As it is impossible to decorate all women who have served equally with the Chairman of the Woman's Committee, I have been chosen and while I appreciate the honor and am prouder to wear this decoration than to receive any other recognition save my political freedom, which is the first desire of a loyal American, I nevertheless look upon this as the beginning of the recognition by the country of the service and loyalty of woman. And above all that the part women are called upon to take in times of war is recognized as equally necessary in times of peace. This departure on the part of the national government through the President and Secretary of War gives the greater promise of the time near at hand when every citizen of the United States will be esteemed a government asset because of his or her loyalty and service rather than because of sex.”

This great American gave her life for her country with the same high spirit that rendered our armies invincible. Our soldiers were drafted “for the duration of war” but she drafted herself for her country's service for a period of more than three score years. As the young girl doing her utmost in the wilderness during the Civil War, as orator and leader in the cause of democracy for nearly half a century, as Chairman of the work of all the women of the country in the World War, Anna Howard Shaw's pulse beat in unison with the great of her country and her 12 eyes received their inspiration from the flag she wore upon her breast to the last. Those who were present will never forget the exaltation of a certain great occasion during the progress of the war, when she raised her eyes to the flag hanging above the platform on which she stood and uttered these words:

“This is the American flag. It is a bit of bunting, and why is it that, when it is surrounded by the flags of all other nations, your eyes and mine turn first toward it and there is a warmth at our hearts such as we do not feel when we gaze on any other flag. It is not because of the beauty of its colors, for the flags of France and England, which hang on either side of it, have same colors. It is not because of its artistic beauty, for other flags are as artistic. It is because you and I see in that piece of bunting what we see in no other. It is not visible to the human eye but it is to the aspiring soul. We see in every stripe of red the blood which has been shed through the centuries by men and women who

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman suffrage association... http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbnawsa.n0597 have sacrificed their lives for the idea of democracy; we see in every stripe of white the purity of the democratic ideal toward which all the world is tending; and in every star in its field of blue we see the hope of mankind that some day the democracy which that bit of bunting symbolizes shall permeate the lives of men and nations; and we love it because it enfolds our ideals of human freedom and justice.”

Alnwick Lodge, Home of Anna Howard Shaw.

THE PASSING OF ANNA HOWARD SHAW

The joy which recent victories have brought to the advocates of woman suffrage has suddenly been changed to a grief so intense that it cannot be lightened by any future triumphs, for on the evening of July 2, there passed from among them forever their beloved leader, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw. Not even the death of those other great leaders, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, left such a vacancy, for they had lived far beyond four-score years and their great work had gone into the hands of younger women, but Dr. Shaw died in the fullness of her power and there is none to inherit it. She was seventy-two years old but her wonderful voice was as rich and musical as in her youth, and her keenness of mind and force of expression seemed to increase with every year. During the more than two-score years that she urged the cause of temperance and equal suffrage she had no peer among women as an orator, and during the past two or three years that she has been pleading first for loyalty to the government and courage to win the war, and then for the League of Nations to end war forever, she has had no peer among men.

Dr. Shaw died for her country as truly as did any soldier on the field of battle. It was because of her great work for the political freedom of women that President Wilson chose her to head the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense. These were the most critical two years in the whole course of the suffrage movement as the federal amendment was pending before Congress the greater part of the time; but when some anxious one would express regret at the loss of Dr. Shaw's much needed assistance, she would answer: “I am doing the best work for suffrage that I ever did in my life. I am in daily companionship with men and women of influence whom I could never otherwise have met and have countless opportunities in many ways to make friends and sentiment for it.”

It was because of her power of oratory that ex-President Taft, president of the League to Enforce Peace, called Dr. Shaw last winter from her home in Florida, where she was obliged to go each season because of repeated attacks of pneumonia, to speak in one or two of the southern states. As the weather was not severe, she did not return but kept on speaking for the League and for

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman suffrage association... http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbnawsa.n0597 suffrage. She was about 14 to finish her suffrage engagements and go abroad for a rest with Miss M. Carey Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College, when the urgent summons came again from Mr. Taft, begging her to put aside everything and accompany him and President Lowell of Harvard University on a speaking tour from New Hampshire to Kansas. She cheerfully cancelled all engagements and the European trip, spent every night on a sleeper and spoke in a different state each day, often several times a day, to large audiences. At Springfield, Illinois, she was suddenly stricken with pneumonia and after several weeks in a hospital was able to be taken home. Here she seemed to recover quickly, and on Sunday, June 29, appeared almost well. Plans were shaping for the first summer she had ever been able to spend in the beloved home she had built twelve years ago in Moylan, a suburb of . On Monday she had a serious relapse, on Tuesday became unconscious and on Wednesday the dauntless spirit yielded to the master hand of death.

Dr. Shaw had spent two days at the New York headquarters before starting on this speaking tour for the League of Nations. Never had she seemed to be planning so much to do in the future. She was looking forward to the great celebration when the last state should ratify the federal suffrage amendment; she wanted to help put the new on its feet; she was desirous especially to bring the women of the world together again in the International Council of Women and the International Suffrage Alliance and begin the healing of the wounds of the war. Above all else she longed to take part in the vast social reconstruction which promised to absorb the time and effort of the leaders of thought and action in all countries. She felt that with the new influence and power that had come to women they would be a strong factor in the solution of world problems, and as she was soon to be released from her forty years' work for suffrage she rejoiced that she would be free to devote herself to these national and international questions.

The funeral was set for Saturday, July 5th, at five o'clock, at her home in Moylan. It is a real country spot—winding roads, not much built up, a few attractive homes set in among the hills. Her house, embowered in vines and shrubs, built on the edge of a ravine with a brook and fortified by tall oak trees at the back, is a simple, comfortable home which Dr. Shaw toiled many years to pay for and beautify. She had never had leisure to spend a whole month there at any one time, but Lucy Anthony, her private secretary and companion for thirty years, niece of Miss Susan B. Anthony, had kept it always ready to welcome its cherished mistress. 15 Although the funeral was private, many of her closest friends, neighbors, relatives and fellow suffragists were present. The house thrown open wide was full of flowers—nothing funeral, but lovely roses and green boughs from her oak trees and everything bright, light, cheerful and beautiful as she would have wished. More than thirty state suffrage associations had sent flowers as a last tribute to their beloved leader. The National Association and the Pennsylvania Association and

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman suffrage association... http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbnawsa.n0597 women from other nearby state associations were represented at the services. The government sent a representative in the person of a young officer, Lieutenant Hall, who brought with him a decoration which was pinned on Dr. Shaw's form as she lay in the casket. The League to Enforce Peace sent a representative in its Executive Secretary, Mr. Short.

The funeral services were in charge of Dr. Caroline Bartlett Crane of Kalamazoo, Michigan, as old- time friend and one of the best known leaders in civic and social work in Michigan. She conducted the services in a dignified, impressive manner, beginning with the 23rd Psalm: “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want,” followed by other short and appropriate readings. She then introduced Mrs. Catt who made a strong and touching address, dwelling chiefly upon Dr. Shaw's wonderful gifts as a speaker and the influence that she had exercised through this gift, and emphasized how many thousands had lighted their torch in this forward movement for liberty and equality at the fire of her inspiration. The representative of the Government was then called upon who read the words which Secretary Baker spoke in presenting to Dr. Shaw the Distinguished Service Medal given her some weeks before. The representative for the League to Enforce Peace made appropriate remarks in which he spoke of the telling effect of Dr. Shaw's speeches upon her audiences and stated how deeply Mr. Taft and the Executive Committee of the League to Enforce Peace appreciated the high service she was so ready and willing to give. Dr. Crane read “The Choir Invisible” by George Eliot, and Tennyson's “Crossing the Bar,” and closed with a brief prayer.

Anna Howard Shaw was a great woman and died at the very summit of her career, having accomplished the work she set out to do and leaving behind her hosts of devoted friends and thousands of women who have been moved to finer and higher and more useful lives by her words and her example.

HER PLACE IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE

Dr. Shaw's seventy-two years held all of life,—its storm and unrest, its cry for expression, its zest for accomplishment, its passion for service, and, what is often denied to great leaders, its joy of fulfillment. Throughout, at every point of need she struggled and conquered. She saw life whole. She knew its every side. There was a great intimacy between her and life which held “so many of her smiles and tears and confidences.” Because of this understanding she found her keenest pleasure in showing life to others,—not the abstract, profound things difficult to grasp, but the simple, reasonable, sad, glad, comical, obvious fundamentals and the way to react to them to bring about a better world. Whether her subject was temperance, suffrage, winning the war, or a League of Nations Covenant she was a powerful and convincing teacher with that best of all gifts, the human

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman suffrage association... http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbnawsa.n0597 appeal, which everywhere made friends for her and won a permanent place in their hearts. One need only read the flood of messages and tributes received at National Headquarters following her death to know how generally she was beloved. Here follow a few of the many tributes which her friends and associates have paid to her life of noble service.

“It was not my privilege to know Dr. Shaw until the later years of her life, but I had the advantage then of seeing her in many lights, for at the very end I saw her acting with such vigor and intelligence in the service of the Government, and through the Government, of mankind, as to win my warmest admiration. I had already had occasion to see the extraordinary quality of her clear and effective mind, and to know how powerful and persuasive an advocate she was. When the war came, I saw her in action and she won my sincere admiration and homage.”

Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States.

“For the overwhelming public and personal loss that has befallen us in Dr. Shaw's death, we find our consolation in the reflection that at least death did not overtake her until she had won her fight. At least she lived to see victory crown the great struggle to which she had given the marvelous resources of her talents. The great suffrage leader, the 17 eloquent woman orator, the woman pioneer minister, the beloved friend has left us. But the cause which was the goal of the efforts of the leader, the pioneer, the orator, has been won. Woman's political freedom is here. The Federal Suffrage Amendment has been passed. State by State the formalities of its ratification are being completed. There are no words with which to measure the part which Dr. Shaw played in this monumental victory. She was of the suffrage struggle its greatest orator, its wit, its humor, its deathless spirit of triumph. She staked her whole life on the cause, she conquered for it and with it, and death cannot rob her nor us of the victory that was so largely her work.”

Carrie Chapman Catt, President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

“Dr. Anna Howard Shaw was a member of the Executive Committee of the League to Enforce Peace. She was constant in her attendance, full of suggestion, and earnest in support of the cause. It was my great pleasure to speak with her from many a platform in favor of the League, and to enjoy the very great privilege of listening to her persuasive eloquence, her genial wit and humor, which she always used to enforce her arguments. She thought nothing of the sacrifice she had to make, and was only intent upon the consummation of our purpose. She was a remarkable woman. I greatly regret her death. There were many avenues of great usefulness which a continuance of her life would have enabled her to pursue. Her going is really a great loss to the community.”

William Howard Taft, President of the League to Enforce Peace.

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman suffrage association... http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbnawsa.n0597 “The world is infinitely poorer by the death of so great and good a woman.”

Thomas R. Marshall, Vice President of the United States.

“I desire officially to pay tribute to the passing of Dr. Shaw. Aside from her epic contribution to the cause of progressive American womanhood it is in no sense perfunctory to say that whether in war time Washington organizing and directing the eighteen thousand units of the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense, or with indomitable courage and power of purpose going up and down the 18 country pleading great public causes relating to the war, this woman of seventy years was an inspiration to all of us. There was no one in American life who epitomized more finely Roosevelt's philosophy that in the public arena one must to the uttermost spend and be spent. It was a magnificent and enduring trail that Dr. Shaw blazed. Everywhere her endeavors had the impersonal and unselfish touch that marks the great protagonist of new ideals. She was a gallant and stirring figure in the history of this country and leaves the Government of the United States distinctly in her debt.”

Grosvenor B. Clarkson, Director United States Council National Defense.

“As a member of the Council of National Defense I wish to express my very sincere appreciation of the patriotic service that Dr. Shaw rendered during the past two years the magnitude of which cannot be appreciated excepting by those intimately familiar with it. Her distinguished service medal was well earned.”

Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior,

“I hardly know how to write you about the death of our dear Anna Howard Shaw. She has been such a tower of strength to our cause everywhere and now her place knows her no more! There is one comfort in that she lived long enough to know of the triumph of your cause in the passage of the Federal Amendment. She will be sorely missed and deeply mourned, first and foremost in America and Great Britain, but really all over the world, in every country where woman's cause is a living issue.”

Mrs. Henry Fawcett, Honorary President, National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship.

My deepest sorrow and sympathy go out to the family of Dr. Shaw, to the National Council of Women of the United States and to the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. Her passing is indeed a great loss to the woman of the whole world.

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman suffrage association... http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbnawsa.n0597 Ishbel Aberdeen and Temair, President International Council of Women.

It is with great grief we received the sad news of the decease of our beloved friend, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw. It is a heavy loss to the 19 International Council of Women. We shall miss her clean intellect, her untiring energy and her warm in the great work which lies before our organization in the coming year.

Nico Hambro. President National Council of Women of Norway.

Dr. Anna Howard Shaw is still fresh in the memory of all who were at the International Woman's Congress in Berlin in 1904, where, in the American Church, she was the first woman to speak from the pulpit in Germany. The impression that this celebrated minister made upon her large congregation is unforgettable and we all feel ourselves united in deep sorrow with our American sisters. May the spirit which went out from the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw live on in many American women.

Elizabeth Altmann Gottheiner, Secretary National Council of Women of Germany.

“I need not tell you how much you have lost by the death of dear Reverend Anna Howard Shaw, who was just as much beloved and valued in all Europe as she was with you. We all mourn with you now that this good and brave woman has left us. The Dutch women especially appreciated and loved her very much, and I can assure you that none of us will ever forget her. Her name will be gratefully remembered by us.”

Aletta H. Jacobs, President of the National Council of Women of Holland.

“Truly all womanhood has lost a faithful friend.”

Elizabeth C. Carter, President Northeastern Federation of Women's Clubs (Colored).

“We shall miss the winning personality, the clear judgement, and the keen insight which made Dr. Shaw always one of the prominent women at our International Meetings and won for her the esteem and admiration of her co-workers, so that many who have not had the advantage of knowing her personally in other relations will feel a very real sense of personal loss when they hear of her death.”

Mr. W. E. Sanford, President, and Mrs. Willoughby Cummings, Vice President, of the National of Women of Canada.

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman suffrage association... http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbnawsa.n0597 20 Not only was Dr. Shaw loved and honored by the great host of her co-workers, but she left a lasting impress upon all who under her spell, whatever their race, creed, political faith or liberal attainments. Her clear, sane ideas, her spontaneous and inimitable wit, and the great world heart of her made her, among opponents as well as supporters, a beloved, outstanding figure during a fifty year struggle for larger human freedom. Newspapers in all sections of the country, whatever their stand on the movement to which she dedicated her life, unite solidly in bearing testimony to her greatness. Following are a few excerpts culled from hundreds of editorials:

“Some days ago an ex-Senator died who in his day was considered a very clever politician and a great constitutional lawyer. A few newspapers took note of his passing as one of the last of his kind. But what paper in all the land failed to note the death of Dr. Shaw or to pay tribute to her worth? It was the peculiar fortune of this great woman that in pleading the rights of her sex she demonstrated its ability to acquit itself with credit in any position.”— The Public, New York.

“Dr. Shaw demonstrated the moral force of an idea. She worked with the strength of a strong man under discouragements and rebuffs that would have dulled the ambition of the average human. * * * Men and women come and go, many without leaving their impress upon their generation, but not so with this able and courageous woman, who, in herself, was a living demonstration of the ability of her sex and the justice of her cause.”— Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

“In her death there passes the best beloved and most versatile of the suffrage leaders of her generation.”— New Haven Register.

“Into the crucible of life she took a courage no less marked than her tactful finesse and she came through the fires proved and refined. America has good cause to honor her as the highest type womanhood as well as citizenship.”— St. Paul Dispatch.

“In her experience were symbolized the struggles of her sex for economic freedom and through her unwavering faith, sublime patience and undying fervor the women of America are now about to realize on her splendid work in their behalf.”— Richmond Journal. 21 “We loved her for what she was by nature and what she made herself by the art of self-development. The world was richer for her life, and her memory will be an inspiration for generations of girls who hear the inner voices calling them out into the world, and see the visions of their future floating ever before them and beckoning them onward to the goal.”

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman suffrage association... http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbnawsa.n0597 — Cincinnati Enquirer.

“Dr. Shaw was one of the world's most remarkable women, strikingly exemplifying qualities that inspired confidence in her cause. She combined with the ability to put plain thoughts in plain words the power to move vast audiences by eloquence. Yet her appeal was always simple; hard, common sense was her weapon of attack. * * * But it was not only on the subject nearest her heart that Dr. Shaw could think straight. Hers was not a single-track mind. Her spirit met all the great issues of the day with progressive interpretation.”— Pittsburgh Sun.

“She was chivalrous, in that she never took advantage of being a woman, and in the tight places in which arguments brought her, she was clever in protecting herself, and her humor was delightfully apt and well expressed. She was firm and direct in her statements, but never abrupt, nor did she even offend. She was firm in her convictions, though conciliatory in her methods. Though an ardent suffragist, her sense of justice was so impressed upon her records that anti-suffragists and suffragists alike trusted her, when a common interest was at stake, and the anti suffragists worked with her as one in the Council of Defense activities.”— Atlanta Constitution.

“There was sense, moderation and dignity in her methods which won and held the respect even of those who opposed her cause.”

— Philadelphia Press.

“Dr. Shaw's friends can never think of her as having grown old, for she never did grow old. Her fresh, blithe, hopeful spirit persisted to the end and her face always kept its youthful expression. She was never too worn, never too tired to do a gracious act, to bestow a kindness and for these no less than for her great services to the cause of woman and the cause of humanity will very many of her fellow- beings remember her for years to come.”— News.

“A noble woman, with an eloquent tongue, a keen intelligence and all her faculties at the service of a moral purpose. Big and wise of soul 22 was this daughter of a pioneer, even as was Lincoln, the rail splitter, and largely for similar reasons. She leaves a sweet memory and has erected a great monument, and many an eye was suffused by the news of her passing.”— New York Tribune.

“With an exceptional endowment of personality and a keen sense of humor, Dr. Shaw was peculiarly fitted as a leader in trying and doubtful times. * * * She was an aggressive campaigner, a doughty champion of her cause, but she steered sharply clear of militancy and controversial phases of . She illustrated in her own person the truth which she preached.”— Springfield Republican.

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman suffrage association... http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbnawsa.n0597 “Dr. Shaw's was a full life, a life in which the zest for great achievement never subsided. If one is searching among the records of men and women for ‘success’ one may find it in her case.”— Boston Evening Record.

“She died, like Wolfe and Epaminondas, in the moment of triumph. After all, that is a pretty good way and time to go, and never doubt but this gallant, devoted worker for the enfranchisement of her sex was ready.”— Chicago Journal.

“Anna Howard Shaw was one of the truly big women of the country. * * * Tactful, witty, socially agreeable, broad minded, avoiding useless controversy, yet abating nothing in the force of her arguments, she made friends everywhere for herself and her cause. * * * Enfranchised women will place her name high on their roll of honor.”

— Indianapolis Star.

“Her remarkable ability as a speaker, her never-failing humor, her readiness to grasp great problems and big questions and her talents for leadership made her easily one of the foremost women of her time.”

— Jersey City Journal.

“To her labors in furtherance of political rights for women she brought, as she did to her activities in politics, in medicine, in religion, in sociology, a keen intellect, a zestful vigor and a lucid sense of proportionate values. Her brilliant and honorable career was unstained by the slightest suggestion of reckless fanaticism.”— Philadelphia Public Ledger. 23 “Withal, she was a gentle and sweet spirit, quiet, poised and affable, with a gift of humor rare in man or woman. Her heart was drawn towards humanity, and her life was spent in working for the betterment of social conditions. She responded most quickly to the needs of women and children, for she had that mothering quality which is essentially feminine but for all, men and women alike, she had a great love and a great tolerance.”— The Des Moines Journal.

“A genuine American, with all the qualities which in fiction collect about that name, but which are not so often seen in real life; an American with the measureless patience, the deep and gentle humor, the whimsical and tolerant philosophy, and the dauntless courage, physical as well as moral, which we find most satisfyingly displayed in Lincoln, of all our heroes.”— New York Times.

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman suffrage association... http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbnawsa.n0597 “Dr. Shaw's life was full of the stuff that tests and strengthens character. * * * There may be those who will try to do justice by eulogy to such a woman. It would be better praise to complete as speedily as possible the unfinished task freeing women from the many-sided subjugations that made Anna Shaw's hardship necessary.”

— The Survey 24

MEMORABLE WORDS

Every suffragist I have met has been a lover of home; and only the conviction that she is fighting for her home, her children, for other women, or for all of these, has sustained her in her public work.”— “The Story of a Pioneer.”

“Just as I believe that family life is happiest in which the man and the woman are partners, sharing equally the responsibilities and the problems which face them, so I believe that community life and national life can never be of the highest type until men and women work together to make it an expression of their ideals.:— From a message sent to all the women of America while Dr. Shaw was president of the national Association.

“As son as the spirit of democracy takes possession of us, we shall not quibble as to whether it is male or female, bond or free. Liberty, justice, freedom, belong alike to God's human children.”— Suffrage Speech made in 1917.

“Democracy is not merely a form of government; it is a great spiritual force emanating from the heart of the Infinite, permeating the universe and transforming the lives of men until the day comes when it shall take possession of them, and shall govern their lives. * * * Oh men! forget your sentimentality and think of women as human; as human factors in the world's progress. Think of their devotion to you and to their families, and then never again say that a woman should have no voice in the things that so vitally concern herself, her family and her country. Whether in war or in peace, the man is not complete without the woman; and as it is impossible to conceive of an ideal home without the man, so it is equally impossible to conceive of an ideal Republic without the woman.”— From a speech delivered at Birmingham, Alabama, April 16th, 1915.

“Nothing bigger can come to a human being than to love a great Cause more than life itself, and to have the privilege throughout life of working for that Cause. As for life's other gifts, I have had some of them, too. I have made many friendships; I have looked upon the 25 beauty of many lands; I have

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman suffrage association... http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbnawsa.n0597 the assurance of the respect and affection of thousands of men and women I have never even met. Though I have given all I had received a thousand times more than I have given. Neither the world nor my Cause is indebted to me—but from the depth of a full and very grateful heart I acknowledge my lasting indebtedness to them both.”— “The Story of a Pioneer.”

“Having grasped this idea of democracy, this idea of the oneness of the human family, we declared that we would give every thing that we had and sacrifice everything that we had in the interests of ending war forever. So our women toiled and sacrificed and saved and toiled again, until the war ended. * * * While President Wilson declared that we want nothing out of the war, I said in my own heart: ‘It may be that we want nothing material out of the war, but, oh, we want the biggest thing that has ever come to the world—we want Peace now and Peace forever.’ If we cannot get that peace out of this war, what hope is there that it will ever come to humanity? Was there ever such a chance offered to the world before? Was there ever a time when the peoples of all nations looked toward America as they are looking today? Men and women, they are looking to us as the hope of the world, and whenever I gaze on our flag, those stars on their field of blue and those stripes of red and white, I say to myself: ‘I don't wonder that when that flag went over the trenches and surmounted the barriers, the people of the world took heart of hope.’ * * * We women, the mothers of the race, have given everything, have suffered everything, have sacrificed everything, and we come to you now and say, ‘The time has come when we will no longer sit quietly by and bear and rear sons to die at the will of a few men. We will not endure it. We demand either that you shall do something to prevent war or that we shall be permitted to try to do something for ourselves.’ * * * To you men we look for support. We look for your support back of your Senators and from this day until the day when the League of Nations is accepted and ratified by the Senate of the United States, it should be the duty of every man and every woman to see to it that the Senators from their state know that the people will that something shall be done, even though not perfect; that there shall be a beginning, from which we shall construct something more perfect by and by; that the will of the people is that League shall be accepted, and that if, in the Senate of the United States, there are men 26 so blinded by partisan desire for present advantage, so blinded by personal pique and narrowness of vision, that they cannot see the large problems which involve the nations of the world; then the people of the State must see to it that other men sit in the seats of the highest.”— From “What the War Meant to Women,” Dr. Shaw's appeal for support of the League of Nations Covenant.

Anna Howard Shaw memorial of the National American woman suffrage association... http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbnawsa.n0597