ng in any business which will make them
pecuniarily independent, and since the soul of womanhood never can
be queenly and noble so long as it must beg bread for its body, is
it not better, even at the expense of a vast deal of annoyance,
that they whose lives deserve respect and are greater than their
garments should give an example by which woman may more easily work
out her own emancipation?... It is a part of the "mint, anise and
cumin," and the weightier matters of justice and truth occupy my
thoughts more.

She did abandon the costume, however, before the year was ended, as did
most of the others. The establishment of gymnasiums and the
encouragement of athletic sports among women eventually made a short
dress an acknowledged necessity, and the advent of the bicycle so
thoroughly swept away the old prejudice that the word "Bloomers" no
longer strikes terror to the heart, nor does the wearing of a short
skirt ostracise a woman and destroy her good works. Miss Anthony wore
hers a little over a year. It was not very different from the bicycle
dress of the present day, the skirt reaching almost to the shoe tops
and made of satin or heavy merino, and yet for years afterwards she was
described as attending meetings in "the regulation bombazine Bloomers,"
and it was impossible to convince people to the contrary until they had
seen her with their own eyes. She herself said in regard to it: "I felt
the need of some such garments because I was obliged to be out every
day in all kinds of weather, and also because I saw women ruined in
health by tight lacing and the weight of their clothing; and I hoped to
help establish the principle of rational dress. I found it a physical
comfort but a mental crucifixion. It was an intellectual slavery; one
never could get rid of thinking of herself, and the important thing is
to forget self. The attention of my audience was fixed upon my clothes
instead of my words. I learned the lesson then that to be successful a
person must attempt but one reform. By urging two, both are injured, as
the average mind can grasp and assimilate but one idea at a time. I
have felt ever since that experience that if I wished my hearers to
consider the suffrage question I must not present the temperance, the
religious, the dress, or any other besides, but must confine myself to
suffrage." With the exception of that one year, Miss Anthony always has
been particular to follow, in