SUSAN B. ANTHONY
HAS GIVEN FIFTY YEARS OF NOBLE ENDEAVOR
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED




PREFACE.


A biography written during the lifetime of the subject is unusual, but
to the friends of Miss Anthony it seemed especially desirable because
the reform in which she and her contemporaries have been engaged has
not been given a deserved place in the pages of history, and the
accounts must be gleaned very largely from unpublished records and
personal recollections. The wisdom of this course often has been
apparent in the preparation of these volumes. In recalling how many
times an entirely different interpretation of letters, scenes and
actions would have been made from that which Miss Anthony declared to
be the true one, the author must confess that hereafter all biographies
will be read by her with a certain amount of skepticism--a doubt
whether the historian has drawn correct conclusions from apparent
premises, and a disbelief that one individual can state accurately the
motives which influenced another.

Most persons who have attained sufficient prominence to make a record
of their lives valuable are too busy to prepare an autobiography, but
there is only one other way to go down to posterity correctly
represented, and that is to have some one else write the history while
the hero still lives. If we admit this self-evident proposition, then