Statue Smasher

Frail, feminist Mrs. Adelaide Johnson, a sculptor for more than 60 of her 80-odd years, long knew and admired the late great Suffragette Susan B. Anthony. Her statue of Miss Anthony, rising (with fellow Feminists Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton) from a sea of Carrara marble, rests in the crypt of the U. S. Capitol--"the first monument of woman to women," states Mrs. Johnson in her Who's Who paragraph, "in any nat. capitol in the world." Fortnight ago Mrs. Johnson faced eviction from her studio-home in Washington. Thereupon she did what Susan Anthony, no believer in shillyshally, would have heartily approved: she took a hammer, smashed half her statuary, called in the press. To Painter Rockwell Kent's wired appeal that she stop her smashing she retorted: "That is a matter between myself and God."

First rescuer to arrive when Mrs. Johnson's plight was duly blazoned forth to the nation was not a feminist but Congressman Sol Bloom of New York. He had the heat turned on in her studio, food brought in, eviction proceedings stopped. Mrs. Johnson, whose onetime husband changed his name from Jenkins to Johnson as a wedding present to her, graciously accepted his aid. Other offers of help poured in, headed by $1,000 from a "nameless registered nurse." Heartened, the indomitable Mrs. Johnson made a promise. "I'm good for another 20 years. I'll continue with my work."

Less pleased was she by another wellwisher, who offered to buy one of the casualties, a slightly damaged bust of Lucretia Mott, for his rock garden, twine a vine over its missing ear. "Of all the insolence!" sniffed Mrs. Johnson. "Can you imagine my Lucretia in a rock garden?"

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