The Complete History of the Women's Suffrage Movement in U.S.. Jane Addams
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because he could not have his own way and rule the Convention, he refused to serve on the Committee; and hence arose all the disturbance and the schism.
3. "Did Dr. Hewitt rule out from office Mr. Barnum on the ground that he (Mr. Barnum) was an infidel?"
Ans. No. I am confident he used no such phraseology; and "Inquirer" has no more right to ask such a question, than he has to ask if Dr. Hewitt did not rule him out on the ground that Mr. Barnum was a horse thief. The very question amounts to an assertion (as is announced in the next inquiry) that he did say it; which, if he did not, is calumny. Dr. H. did object to Mr. Barnum, as he had a perfect right to do, as one of the Appointing Committee. It was desirable to find the best men to get up to the World's Convention. I proposed Mr. Barnum as one, knowing his amazing efficiency. Dr. H. objected, on the ground that he (Barnum) was a very exceptionable man in his part of Connecticut, and would do injury to the Convention; and, as harmony was desirable, and unexceptionable men should be put upon the Committee, his name was withdrawn. It was agreed that what was said in Committee should not go abroad.
4. "Does Mr. Barnum's infidelity consist in his attending another church in Bridgeport from Dr. Hewitt's?"
Here appears the cloven foot of sectarianism. One sect is to be held up as persecuted. Here the writer assumes that Dr. Hewitt did say that Mr. B. was an infidel; and, assuming it and knowing it, why does he hypocritically ask whether Dr. H. did say it?
5. "Is it true that Dr. H. refused his pulpit for a temperance lecture by Rev. E. H. Chapin, on the ground that he was a Universalist?"
Sectarianism again! What has all this to do with the meeting at the Brick Chapel? Why is it brought here but to kindle up sectarian fires? A pastor of a church has everywhere conceded to him the control of his pulpit, and no one may contend with him in this matter. Whether that was so or not, I know not, nor is it any concern of mine, nor of the public. Such a rule the world knows does not govern us in selecting temperance speakers. We will not invite speakers to speak at temperance meetings who have something else more at heart than temperance, which they will most offensively thrust in their speech upon the meeting. But we, without hesitation, invite men of all sorts to speak at temperance meetings, who will speak to the point, and do us good and not hurt. Rev. Mr. Chapin, we all know, is of this character, and, without hesitation, I invited him to speak at the late Anniversary of the American Temperance Union (as I did Rev. Mr. Higginson, who differs from me perhaps as much in religious belief), and he (Mr. C.) would have spoken, but was to be out of the city.
6. "How can the proposed Convention be a World's Convention, if women and all who do not belong to a particular Church are to be excluded?"
Sectarianism again! Who has said a word about Church but this writer, and about excluding women from the Convention and all its entertainments? No one. The basis of the Convention has not been settled. It probably will be as broad as the world. The last query I think unworthy an answer. And I must be permitted to say the whole inquiry manifests a very bad spirit, and is calculated to promote evils which the public press should suppress rather than foster.
As I sent you an anonymous communication explaining some of these matters last Saturday, which you declined publishing, because, I suppose, it was anonymous, I feel constrained, though reluctantly, to give this my name.
John Marsh,
Yours, etc.,
Office of Am. Temp. Union, No. 149 Nassau St.
HORACE GREELEY'S REPLY.
Rev. John! we have allowed you to be heard at full length; now you and your set will be silent and hear us.
Very palpably your palaver about Mr. Higginson's motion is a dodge, a quirk, a most contemptible quibble, reluctant as we are to speak thus irreverently of the solemn utterances of a Doctor of Divinity. Right well do you know, reverend sir, that the particular form, or time, or fashion in which the question came up is utterly immaterial, and you interpose it only to throw dust in the eyes of the public. Suppose a woman had been nominated at the right time, and in the right way, according to your understanding of punctilios, wouldn't the same resistance have been made and the same row got up? You know right well that there would. Then what is all your pettifogging about technicalities worth? The only question that anybody cares a button about is this, Shall woman be allowed to participate in your World's Temperance Convention on a footing of perfect equality with man? If yea, the whole dispute turns on nothing, and isn't worth six lines in The Tribune. But if it was and is the purpose of those for whom you pettifog to keep woman off the platform of that Convention, and deny her any part in its proceedings except as a spectator, what does all your talk about Higginson's untimeliness and the Committees being full amount to? Why not treat the subject with some show of honesty?
Now as to Barnum and Hewitt: it is eminently proper that the public should know exactly on what ground H. ruled B. off the Business Committee, and it is self-criminating to plead that a mantle of secrecy was spread over the doings in Committee. If Hewitt protested against Barnum on the assumption that the latter is a sinner, while this is to be a Convention of saints, let that fact be known, so that sinners may keep away from the Convention. If on the assumption that Mr. Barnum is an infidel or a heretic, let that fact come squarely out, so that we may know that infidels or heretics, either or both, are to be proscribed at the Hewitt-Marsh Convention. For if there is to be really and truly a World's Temperance Convention, according to any fair meaning of the phrase, then we say women, as well as men, youth, as well as adults, colored, as well as white, heretic, as well as orthodox, sinners, as well as saints—so that they be earnest and undoubted upholders of total abstinence—should be invited to send delegates, who should be equally welcome to its platform and eligible to its offices. An Orthodox White Male Adult Saints' Convention may be very proper and very useful, but it should be called distinctly as such, and not unqualifiedly as a World's Convention.
Dr. Marsh thinks it nobody's business whether Dr. Hewitt did or did not refuse the use of his church for a temperance-meeting at which Mr. Chapin was to speak, because he (Mr. C.) was a Universalist. Yes, reverend sir, it is a good many people's business if the public are purposely left in doubt as to the character of the World's Convention that is to issue from the Brick Church meeting. For if Dr. Hewitt shut his pulpit against so unexceptionable, assiduous, effective an advocate of temperance as Mr. Chapin confessedly is (see Marsh, above), then we have a cue to his objection to Barnum and to the general bearings of the "World's Convention" to be incubated under his auspices. That single incident of the pulpit-shutting will have a great deal of significance to many other people; wherefore the fact that it has none to Marsh is overruled.
Whenever a real "World's Temperance Convention" shall assemble, an inquiry may be found necessary as to what Dr. Hewitt has done and sacrificed for temperance these five years that should authorize him to rule P. T. Barnum off a temperance committee; also, whether men who live by Temperance, like Dr. Marsh, are in the right position to judge those, like Barnum, who labor and spend money for it. For the present, however, we will leave these inquiries on the General Orders.
One word as to Sectarianism. If "Inquirer," or Mr. Barnum, or Mr. Chapin has proposed or intrigued to keep any one out of office, or otherwise overslaughed in the Brick Church Meeting, or any of its meetings, because of said body's religious opinions or associations, then said intriguer has been guilty of a very faulty and culpable sectarian dodge, which can not be too severely reproached. But if it be in fact t'other fellow's bull that has gored this one's ox, then the facts should come out, and the culprit can not escape censure by raising the stop-thief cry of "Sectarianism." "Thou art the man!"
Let the women of this nation ponder Horace Greeley's arraignment of the reverend gentlemen who were the chief actors in this farce, and remember that in all ages of the world the priesthood have found their pliant tools and most degraded victims in the women of their respective sects. In all of these meetings there were intelligent, sincere women, so blinded by the sophistry and hypocrisy of Marsh, Chambers, Hewitt, et al., that they gave them their countenance and support throughout this disgraceful mob, so-shocking and revolting to the best men of that day and generation.
In consequence of the action in the Brick Church two temperance conventions were called, to meet