Chapter 24

After that meeting in New York her reputation as a public speaker was established, despite the carping critics, and she continued to win fresh laurels, not only for herself, but for vital issues. When doing more campaigning in Pennsylvania she had to travel through the mining districts, where her frank words were often ridiculed and she was pelted with stones, rotten eggs, and other unpleasant missiles. But she bore it all like a warrior, and made a remarkable record for speeches in parts of the State where no man dared to go. Despite this and the fact that the victorious party owed its success largely to the young orator, the committee never paid her one cent for her services--to their great discredit, probably having spent all their campaign funds in some other less legitimate way and thinking they could more easily defraud a girl than a more shrewd man.

Nothing daunted, she continued to speak wherever she could get a hearing, and at last came an invitation to make an address in Washington, D. C. Here indeed was a triumph! She hesitated long before accepting the invitation, for it would be a trying ordeal, as among her audience would be the President and many diplomats and high government officials. But with sturdy courage she accepted, and as a result faced, as she later said, the most brilliant audience ever assembled to hear her speak. It was a unique sensation for the dignitaries and men of mark to sit as listeners at the feet of this slender girl, who was speaking on profound questions of the day; but she made a deep impression, even on those who did not agree with her opinions, and it was a proud moment of her life when at the close of the meeting she met the President and his Cabinet. The Chief Executive gladly granted her an interview for the following day, and like other men of lesser rank, was carried out of himself as he watched the play of expression, the light and shade on her mobile face, as they talked together of the vital topics of the day.

Anna Dickinson was now an orator beyond a doubt; in fact, the only _girl_ orator the country had ever known. More than that, she made use of her eloquence, her magnetism, her flow of language, not for any minor use, but in presenting to the public the great problems of her day and in pleading for honor and justice, freedom and fullness of joy for the individual, with such intensity of purpose as few men have ever used in pleading a cause.

That she wrote and acted in a play dealing with one of the subjects nearest her heart, and that she published a novel of the same kind, added nothing to her fame. She was wholly an orator with an instinctive knowledge of the way to play on the emotions of her listeners. Her faults were the faults of an intense nature too early obliged to grapple with hard problems; her virtues were those of a strong, independent, unselfish nature. It has been said that she rose to fame on the crest of three waves: the negro wave, the war wave, and the woman wave. If that is so, then was her success as a public speaker something of which to be proud, for to have spoken on such subjects surely betokens a great nature. Anna Dickinson has been called the "Joan of Arc" of her day and country. If she had not the delicate spiritual vision of the Maid of France, she had her superb courage in reaching up toward an ideal. What she was and what she accomplished as an American girl, who was an orator at eighteen, gives an incentive and a new enthusiasm to young Americans of the twentieth century, for what girls have done girls can do, and we believe, with that greatest of poets, that "the best is yet to be."

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The writer of this book gratefully acknowledges her indebtedness for valuable material gleaned from many sources. Especially does she tender appreciative thanks to the authors of the following works:

S. G. Drake; _Book of the Indians of North America_.

John Esten Cooke; _My Lady Pocahontas_.

Woodrow Wilson; _History of the American People_.

Mrs. Eliz. (Eggleston) Seelye; _Pocahontas_.

Smith, Elmer Boyd; _Story of Pocahontas & Capt. Smith_.

Mabie, H. W.; _Heroines Every Child Should Know_.

Holland, R. S.; _Historic Girlhoods_.

Woodbury, E. C. D. Q.; _Dorothy Quincy, Wife of John Hancock_.

Sears, Lorenzo; _John Hancock, the Picturesque Patriot_.

_National Cyclopædia of American Biography._

Raum; _History of New Jersey_.

Stockton, Frank; _Stories of New Jersey_.

McGeorge, J. C.; "A N. J. Heroine of the Revolution" (_Am. Monthly Magazine_).

Beymer, W. G.; _On Hazardous Service_.

James, George Wharton; _Heroines of California_.

Houten, E. L.; _The Donner Party_.

Murphy, Virginia Reed; "Across the Plains in the Donner Party." (_Cent. Mag., 1891._)

Ellet, E. E.; _Pioneer Women of the West_.

Ellet, E. E.; _Women of the American Revolution_.

Parton, James; _Eminent Women of the Age_.

Barton, Clara; _Story of the Red Cross_.

Epler, P. H.; _Life of Clara Barton_.

Bonselle & De Forest; _Little Women Letters from the Home of Alcott_.

Cheney; _Life and Letters of Louisa Alcott_.

Morris, Clara; _Life on the Stage_.

_Outlook_, _Outing_, _Century_, _Munsey_, _Hist. Mag._, Etc.

Christian; _History of Richmond_.

Anonymous; _Famous Prison Escapes_.

Anonymous; _Richmond Prisons_.

McMasters; _Primary History of United States_.

_Memorial to Clara Barton._

BOOKS BY

KATE DICKINSON SWEETSER

TEN AMERICAN GIRLS FROM HISTORY. Illustrated. BOOK OF INDIAN BRAVES. Illustrated. BOYS AND GIRLS FROM ELIOT. Illustrated. BOYS AND GIRLS FROM THACKERAY. Illustrated. TEN BOYS FROM DICKENS. Illustrated. TEN BOYS FROM HISTORY. Illustrated. TEN GIRLS FROM DICKENS. Illustrated. TEN GIRLS FROM HISTORY. Illustrated. TEN GREAT ADVENTURERS. Illustrated.

HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK [ESTABLISHED 1817]

Transcriber's Notes:

Printer errors (omitted punctuation, omitted or transposed letters, etc.) have been corrected without note.

Hyphenation has been made consistent without note; it has been left unchanged where there is variation in quotations.

Page 128 had an obscured section of text, which reads "... then the children must [blank] back after school hours." In the context, and with the space and few visible marks, the missing text would seem to be "be rowed" so those words have been used.

Page 258 contains a quotation which includes the term "scrape-goat" which would appear to be a deliberate spelling on the part of the writer rather than a printing error. It has therefore been retained.