chuyler's
nephew and stepson, Philip Schuyler, who objected to the "disagreeable
notoriety." He carried the matter into the courts, which of course
attracted the comment of all the newspapers of the country, pro and con,
and caused more "disagreeable notoriety" than a dozen statues would have
done. He obtained a preliminary injunction against the art association
and then took the case to the supreme court for a permanent injunction,
on the ground that the "right of privacy" had been violated. The real
secret of his objections, however, was exposed in his complaint before
the supreme court. Among the twenty-eight grievances alleged were the
following:

Twenty-second.--The said Mary M. Hamilton Schuyler took no part
whatever in any of the various so-called woman's rights agitations,
with which the aforesaid Susan B. Anthony was, and is, prominently
identified; and that she took no interest in such agitations or
movements, and had no sympathy whatever with them; and that, as
the plaintiff believes, she would have resented any attempt such as
is made by the defendants to couple her name with that of the said
Susan B. Anthony.

Twenty-third.--The acts of the defendants in attempting to raise
money by public subscription for a statue of the said Mary M.
Hamilton Schuyler; in associating her name with the name of Susan
B. Anthony, and in announcing that the projected statue of her is
to be placed on public exhibition at the Columbian Exposition as a
companion piece to a statue of the said Susan B. Anthony,
constitute, and are an unlawful interference with the right of
privacy, and a gross and unwarranted outrage upon the memory of the
said Mary M. Hamilton Schuyler, under the specious pretense of
doing honor to her memory; and that the surviving members of her
family have been, and are, greatly distressed and injured thereby.

The supreme court continued the injunction, and the art association then
carried the case up to the court of appeals. Here the decision of the
lower court was reversed. The opinion was rendered by Justice Rufus W.
Peckham, afterwards appointed by President Cleveland to the Supreme
Bench of the United States. It is not often that a judge of the highest
court in the State incorporates in a legal decision a compliment to a
woman, and for this reason the tribute of Justice Peckham is the more
highly appreciated.