An American Suffragette

왆
An American Suffragette, by Isaac N. Stevens

The Project Gutenberg EBook of An American Suffragette, by Isaac N. Stevens This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: An American Suffragette
Author: Isaac N. Stevens
Release Date: August 9, 2007 [EBook #22285]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN AMERICAN SUFFRAGETTE ***

Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

AN AMERICAN SUFFRAGETTE
A NOVEL By ISAAC N. STEVENS
Author of "The Liberators," "Popular Government Essays," etc.
New York William Rickey & Company 1911
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright, 1911, by William Rickey & Company
Registered at Stationers' Hall, London (All Rights Reserved)
Printed in the United States of America
PRESS OF WILLIAM G. HEWITT, 61-67 NAVY ST., BROOKLYN, N. Y.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DEDICATION
To those noble and courageous women of England and America who are trying to demonstrate to the world that Civilization cannot reach the supreme heights of progress without giving freedom to the mental, spiritual and physical energies of women, and that government will always lack a vital element in its functions, so long as women are deprived of equal participation in its operations--THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"But life shall on and upward go; Th' eternal step of Progress beats To that great anthem, calm and slow, Which God repeats."
--Whittier.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A DOCTOR RETURNS FROM INDIA 1 II. A MYSTICAL PARADE 15 III. THE MYSTERIOUS YOUNG WOMAN 22 IV. A SUFFRAGE BAZAAR AND BALL 33 V. HYPNOTISM USED FOR AN AN?STHETIC 46 VI. SOME STRENUOUS ANTI-SUFFRAGISTS 56 VII. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND SURGERY 61 VIII. THE OMNIPRESENT EYES OF FIFTH AVENUE 74 IX. LOVE, JEALOUSY AND MUSIC 82 X. A DISCUSSION OF PROGRESSIVE WOMEN 91 XI. THE ADVANCING COLUMN OF DEMOCRACY 99 XII. A TUBERCULAR KNEE AND A WORRIED SURGEON 117 XIII. AN ANTI-SUFFRAGE MEETING 125 XIV. FAITH IS THE BASIS OF ALL PROGRESS 140 XV. AN EVIL PROPHECY BEGINS TO BEAR FRUIT 154 XVI. THE MYSTERIOUS MURDER OF EMMA BELL 164 XVII. THE ARREST OF DR. JOHN EARL 180 XVIII. DR. EARL IS INDICTED FOR MURDER 194 XIX. A GREAT MURDER TRIAL BEGINS 199 XX. A WOMAN AND SPOOKS FIND A LETTER 211 XXI. SILVIA HOLLAND'S GREAT PLEA TO THE JURY 225
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

AN AMERICAN SUFFRAGETTE
CHAPTER I
A DOCTOR RETURNS FROM INDIA
Among the hundreds of people who were awaiting the arrival of the big Cunarder there were two groups, the second of which seemed determined that the first should not get far away. The young men of which this second group was composed represented the various newspapers of New York City, and while a "beat" was evidently impossible, each of them was determined to get a line for his own journal from the returning hero, Dr. John Earl, which he would not share with the others of the fraternity, and several of them held anxious consultations with their photographers who, by special permit, had been allowed upon the pier.
The other group had moved a number of times to escape the cameras, and a red-haired youth was expatiating upon the glories of American scientific achievement, concluding with a peroration that called forth an exclamation from one of the older men:
"Oh, shut up, Bedford; you sound like a Fourth of July oration. Who are the people you are trying to snapshot for your lurid sheet?" he said wearily, as becomes a Chicago newspaper man when in New York.
The red-headed one looked at him with cheerful surprise. "Don't you know anybody?" he asked. "The tall, handsome blonde is Mrs. Ramsey, wife of George Ramsey, at whose frown the great gods sit tight and the little ones scuttle to cover. Luckily, he is a kindly disposed arbiter and the Street basks under his smile."
The Chicagoan turned and looked at the lady curiously, and the reporter went on: "The fair-haired lady with the wild-rose face is old Gordon Kimball's daughter; born with a diamond teething ring in her mouth, but has never succeeded in getting anything else of value inside her pretty head."
"Well, she doesn't have to," said the Westerner.
Young Bedford grinned. "That's what Dr. Earl thinks; he can furnish brains for the family. Their engagement was reported two months ago. The man with them is Earl's brother, Frank Earl, corporation lawyer, amateur actor, one of those guys that does everything well, and never gives away his own hand. Go after him for a story about some combination his road has gone into and you come away with a great spiel about bumper crops; always gives you the glad hand, but nothing in it. You'd never take him for Mrs. Ramsey's brother, would you? She's a looker, all right. So is Dr. Earl, one of these big, handsome, powerful-looking