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Chapter 1

A Militant Pioneer-Susan B. Anthony

Susan B. Anthony was the first militant suffragist. She has been
so long proclaimed only as the magnificent pioneer that few
realize that she was the first woman to defy the law for the
political liberty of her sex.

The militant spirit was in her many early protests. Sometimes
these protests were supported by one or two followers; more often
they were solitary protests. Perhaps it is because of their
isolation that they stand out so strong and beautiful in a
turbulent time in our history when all those about her were
making compromises.

It was this spirit which impelled her to keep alive the cause of
the enfranchisement of women during the passionate years of the
Civil War. She held to the last possible moment that no national
exigency was great enough to warrant abandonment of woman's fight
for independence. But one by one her followers deserted her. She
was unable to keep even a tiny handful steadfast to this
position. She became finally the only figure in the nation
appealing for the rights of women when the rights of black men