Letter, Susan B. Anthony to J.W. Parmelee
A letter from Susan B. Anthony to J.W. Parmelee, an editor in South Dakota. Anthony discusses the status of the woman suffrage movement in the West and suggests that Parmelee urge the South Dakota state legislature to resubmit a suffrage amendment. She explains that the movement’s best hope “lies in a continuous rub-a-dub agitation” and expresses her desire to get suffrage passed in four more states by 1900.
[page 1]
Dec. 17 1898.
Mr. J.W. Parmelee,
Ipswich, S. Dak.
My Dear Sir: –
Yours of the 10th inst. is before me. Enclosed is my publishers’ announce-
ment. I am sure they will be very glad to secure reliable canvassers, not only
in your city, but through the entire State. Their general agent, Mr. Lee Burns,
is now in this city. He has appointed a city superintendent, and there are quite
a number of canvassers at work here. I am sure that if you will write him (ad-
dressing him at Indianapolis), he will be pleased to hear that somebody in South
Dakota wants to go to work. Meantime, you can order direct from the publishers,
if you wish.
Yes, South Dakota defeated the amendment again, but by a number sis times
smaller than in 1890. The anti-suffrage women are crowing over the defeat, but
I think we have a great deal more reason to crow, because we have so largely dimin-
the number of our enemies. I hope that you, as an editor, will urge upon your
legislature the resubmission of the amendment so that you will have the results
of the educational work done in the past two years upon which to build for the
election of 1900. It does seem to me that with the work of the coming two years
there must be a majority of the men of South Dakota so well educated into doing
unto women as they would like to be done by if the tables were turned and the men in sub-
jection to the women that we should win.
I now feel that each State in which an amendment has been submitted should
not allow a single session of legislature to elapse without pressing a resub-
mission resolution. Our one hope lies in a continuous rub-a-dub agitation, which
can be kept up only by having some practical end in view, such as that of having
a vote upon the suffrage question at the coming election. So I hope that the
legislatures of South Dakota, Washington and California will not fail for resubmit
amendments this winter.
[page 2]
Then in Iowa, where both the State and national associations have been work-
ing for the past two years, so that it is today the best organized State in the
Union, I greatly hope that the legislature will this winter submit an amendment
to be ratified by the next, which will be held in 1900. An amendment in Iowa has
you know, to be passed by two legislatures before it can be voted upon. A very
good thing about Iowa, too, is that the constitution gives the legialture power
to have the vote taken at a special election.
So if the entire four States I have named are permitted to vote as I have
indicated, we shall perhaps have four new States in our suffrage Union in the
year 1900. It would indeed be a big victory if we could thus double the number
of golden stars on the field of blue in our suffrage flag.
With best wishes for Ipswich, South Dakota and all of our blessed country,
Very sincerely yours,