With the thousand dollars which had been put into Miss Anthony's hands by Mrs. Louisa Southworth of Cleveland the preceding year, national headquarters had been opened in Philadelphia with Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, corresponding secretary, in charge. Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, treasurer, reported total receipts for 1895 to be $9,835, with a balance of several hundred dollars in the treasury.

The principal feature of the Saturday evening meeting was the address of Miss Elizabeth Burrill Curtis, daughter of George William Curtis, on Universal Suffrage. She said in part:

I find many people in my native State of New York who are leaning toward a limited suffrage, and therefore I am beginning to ask, "What does it mean? Is democratic government impossible after all?" For a government in order to be democratic must be founded on the suffrages of all the people, not a part. A republic may exist by virtue of a limited suffrage, but a democracy can not, and a democratic government has been our theoretical ideal from the first. Are we prepared, after a hundred and twenty years, to own ourselves defeated?... Universal suffrage, to me, means the right of every man and woman who is mentally able to do so, and who has not forfeited the right by an ill use of it, to say who shall rule them, and what action shall be taken by those rulers upon questions of moment....

This brings me to what I wish to say about those who desire a limited suffrage. Who are they, and to what class do they belong? For the most part, as I know them, they are men of property, who belong to the educated classes, who are refined and cultivated, and who see the government about them falling into the hands of the unintelligent and often illiterate classes who are voted at the polls like sheep. Therefore these gentlemen weep aloud and wail and say: "If we had a limited suffrage, if we and our friends had the management of affairs, how much better things would be!"

Do not misunderstand me here. I am far from decrying the benefits of education. Nobody believes in its necessity more sincerely than I do. In fact I hold that, other things being equal, the educated man is immeasurably in advance of the uneducated one; but the trouble is that other things are often very far from being equal and it is utterly impossible for the average man, educated or not, to be trusted to decide with entire justice between himself and another person when their interests are equally involved....

The intelligent voter in a democratic community can not abdicate his responsibility without being punished. He is the natural leader, and if he refuses to fulfil his duties the leadership will inevitably fall into the hands of those who are unfitted for the high and holy task—and who is to blame? It is the educated men, the professional men, the men of wealth and culture, who are themselves responsible when things go wrong; and the refusal to acknowledge their responsibility will not release them from it....

The principle of universal suffrage, like every other high ideal, will not stand alone. It carries duties with it, duties which are imperative and which to shirk is filching benefits without rendering an equivalent. How dare a man plead his private ease or comfort as an excuse for neglecting his public duties? How dare the remonstrating women of Massachusetts declare that they fear the loss of privileges, one of which is the immunity from punishment for a misdemeanor committed in the husband's presence? "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I thought as a child, I understood as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

Throughout history all women and many men have been forced, so far as government has been concerned, to speak, think and understand as children. Now, for the first time, we are asking that the people, as a whole body, shall rise to their full stature and put away childish things.

The sermon on Sunday afternoon was given by Mrs. Stetson from the topic which was to have been considered by the Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer, The Spiritual Significance of Democracy and Woman's Relation to It. She spoke without notes and illustrated the central thought that love grows where people are brought together, and that they are brought together more in a democracy than in any other mode of living. "Women have advanced less rapidly than men because they have always been more isolated. They have been brought into relation with their own families only. It is men who have held the inter-human relation.... Everything came out of the home; but because you began in a cradle is no reason why you should always stay there. Because charity begins at home is no reason why it should stop there, and because woman's first place is at home is no reason why her last and only place should be there. Civilization has been held back because so many men have inherited the limitations of the female sex. You can not raise public-spirited men from private-spirited mothers, but only from mothers who have been citizens in spite of their disfranchisement. In holding back the mothers of the race, you are keeping back the race."

At the memorial services loving tributes were paid to the friends of woman suffrage who had passed away during the year. Among these were ex-Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch, ex-Governor Oliver Ames (Mass.), Dr. James C. Jackson of Dansville (N. Y.), Dr. Abram W. Lozier of New York City, Thomas Davis, Sarah Wilbur of Rhode Island, Marian Skidmore of Lily Dale, N. Y., and Amelia E. H. Doyon of Madison, Wis., who left $1,000 to the National Association.

Henry B. Blackwell spoke of Theodore D. Weld, the great abolitionist, leader of the movement to found Oberlin, the first co-educational college, and one of the earliest advocates of equal rights for women. He told also of Frederick Douglass, whose last act was to bear his testimony in favor of suffrage for women at the Woman's Council in Washington on the very day of his death. Mrs. Avery gave a tender eulogy of Theodore Lovett Sewall of Indianapolis, his brilliancy as a conversationalist, his charm as a host, his loyalty as a friend, his beautiful devotion to his wife, Mrs. May Wright Sewall, and his lifelong adherence to the cause of woman.

The loss of Mrs. Ellen Battelle Dietrick came with crushing force, as her services to the association were invaluable. To her most intimate friend, the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, was assigned the duty of speaking a word in her memory, and in broken sentences she said: "I never knew such earnest purpose and consecration or such a fund of knowledge in any one as Mrs. Dietrick possessed. She never stopped thinking because she had reached the furthest point to which some one else had thought. She was the best antagonist I ever saw; I never knew any one who could differ so intensely, and yet be so perfectly calm and good-tempered. What she was as a friend no one can tell. Her death is a great loss to our press work. Perhaps no one ever wrote so many articles in the same length of time. This was especially the case last summer. It seemed as if she had a premonition that her life would soon end, for she sat at her desk writing hour after hour. I believe it shortened her life. She had just finished a book—Women in the Early Christian Ministry—and she left many other manuscripts. It would be a pity if the rich, ripe thought of this woman should not be preserved. Her funeral was like her life, without show or display. No one outside the family was present except myself. No eulogy was uttered there; she would not have wanted it. Tennyson's last poem, Crossing the Bar, was recited by her brother-in-law, the Rev. J. W. Hamilton.[106]" Miss Shaw ended her remarks by reciting this poem.

Miss Anthony, who was to close the exercises, was too much affected to speak and motioned that the audience was dismissed, but no one stirred. At length she said: "There are very few human beings who have the courage to utter to the fullest their honest convictions—Mrs. Dietrick was one of these few. She would follow truth wherever it led, and she would follow no other leader. Like Lucretia Mott, she took 'truth for authority, not authority for truth.' Miss Anthony spoke also of the "less-known women": "Adeline Thomson, a most remarkable character, was a sister to J. Edgar Thomson, first president of the Pennsylvania railroad. She lived to be eighty, and for years she stood there in Philadelphia, a monument of the past. Her house was my home when in that city for thirty years. We have also lost in Julia Wilbur of the District a most useful woman, and one who was faithful to the end. This is the first convention for twenty-eight years at which she has not been present with us. We should all try to live so as to make people feel that there is a vacancy when we go; but, dear friends, do not let there be a vacancy long. Our battle has just reached the place where it can win, and if we do our work in the spirit of those who have gone before, it will soon be over."

There was special rejoicing at this convention over the admission of Utah as a State with full suffrage for women. Senator and Mrs. Frank J. Cannon and Representative and Mrs. C. E. Allen of Utah were on the platform. In her address of welcome Miss Shaw said:

Every star added to that blue field makes for the advantage of every human being. We are just beginning to learn that we are all children of one Father and members of one family; and when one member suffers or is benefited, all the members suffer or rejoice. So when Utah comes into the Union with every one free, it is not only that State which is benefited, but we and all the world. As the stars at night come out one by one, so will they come out one by one on our flag, till the whole blue field is a blaze of glory.

We expected it of the men of Utah. No man there could have stood by the side of his mother and heard her tell of all that the pioneers endured, and then have refused to grant her the same right of liberty he wanted for himself, without being unworthy of such a mother. They are the crown of our Union, those three States on the crest of the Rockies, above all the others. In the name of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, we extend our welcome, our thanks and our congratulations to Utah, as one of the three so dear to the heart of every woman who loves liberty in these United States.

Senator Cannon said in response: " ... Only one serious question came before our constitutional convention, and that was whether the adoption of woman suffrage would hinder the admission of our Territory as a State.... But our women had furnished courage, patience and heroism to our men, and so we said: 'Utah shall take another forty-nine years of wandering in the wilderness as a Territory before coming in as a State without her women.' My mother wandered there for twelve years. Women trailed bleeding feet and lived on roots that those of to-day might reap bounteous harvests. Utah gave women the suffrage while still a Territory. Congress, in its not quite infinite wisdom, took it away after they had exercised it intelligently for seventeen years; but the first chance that the men of Utah had they gave it back."

Representative Allen was called on by Miss Anthony to "tell us how nice it seems to feel that your wife is as good as you are," and said in part: "Perhaps you have read what the real estate agents say about Utah—how they praise her sun and soil, her mountains and streams, and her precious metals. They tell you that she is filled with the basis of all material prosperity, with gold, silver, lead and iron: but greatness can not come from material resources alone—it must come from the people who till and delve. Utah is great because her people are great. When she has centuries behind her she will make a splendid showing because she has started right. She has given to that part of the people who instinctively know what is right, the power to influence the body politic.... This movement is destined to go on until it reaches every State in the Union."

Mrs. Allen and Mrs. Sarah A. Boyer told of the heroic efforts the women had made for themselves; and Mrs. Emily S. Richards, vice-president of the Territorial suffrage association, described in a graphic manner the systematic and persistent work of this organization. The tribute to its president, Mrs. Emmeline B. Wells, whose influence had been paramount in securing the franchise for the women of Utah, was heartily applauded and a telegram of congratulation was sent to her.[107]

The address of Mrs. Ella Knowles Haskell, Assistant Attorney-General of Montana, on The Environments of Woman as Related to her Progress, attracted much attention. She had been the Populist candidate for Attorney-General and made a strong canvass but went down to defeat with the rest of her party. Soon afterward she married her competitor, who appointed her his assistant. She reviewed the laws of past ages, showing how impossible it was then for women to rise above the conditions imposed upon them, and pointed out the wonderful progress they had made as soon as even partial freedom had been granted.

Mrs. Virginia D. Young (S. C.), taking as a subject The Sunflower Bloom of Woman's Equality, gave an address which in its quaint speech, dialect stories and attractive provincialisms captivated the audience.

The convention received an invitation from Mrs. John R. McLean for Monday afternoon to meet Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant on her seventieth birthday. The ladies were welcomed by their hostess and Mrs. Nellie Grant Sartoris, while Miss Anthony, who had attended the luncheon which preceded the reception, presented the ladies to Mrs. Grant.

Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, corresponding secretary, devoted a portion of her report to an account of the visit made by the delegates of the association in response to an invitation from the Woman's Board of Congresses of the Atlanta Exposition, Oct. 17, 1895. The principal address on that occasion was made by Mrs. Helen Gardiner.

This convention was long remembered on account of the vigorous contest over what was known as the Bible Resolution. Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton recently had issued a commentary on the passages of Scripture referring to women, which she called "The Woman's Bible." Although this was done in her individual capacity, yet some of the members claimed that, as she was honorary president of the National Association, this body was held by the public as partly responsible for it and it injured their work for suffrage. A resolution was brought in by the committee declaring: "This association is non-sectarian, being composed of persons of all shades of religious opinion, and has no official connection with the so-called 'Woman's Bible' or any theological publication."

The debate was long and animated, but although there was intense feeling it was conducted in perfectly temperate and respectful language. Those participating were Rachel Foster Avery, Katie R. Addison, Henry B. Blackwell, Alice Stone Blackwell, Carrie Chapman Catt, Annie L. Diggs, Laura M. Johns, Helen Morris Lewis, Anna Howard Shaw, Frances A. Williamson and Elizabeth U. Yates speaking for the resolution; Lillie Devereux Blake, Clara B. Colby, Cornelia H. Cary, Lavina A. Hatch, Harriette A. Keyser, J. B. Merwin, Caroline Hallowell Miller, Althea B. Stryker, Charlotte Perkins Stetson, Mary Bentley Thomas and Victoria C. Whitney speaking against it.

Miss Anthony was thoroughly aroused and, leaving the chair, spoke against the resolution as follows:

The one distinct feature of our association has been the right of individual opinion for every member. We have been beset at each step with the cry that somebody was injuring the cause by the expression of sentiments which differed from those held by the majority. The religious persecution of the ages has been carried on under what was claimed to be the command of God. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. All the way along the history of our movement there has been this same contest on account of religious theories. Forty years ago one of our noblest men said to me: "You would better never hold another convention than allow Ernestine L. Rose on your platform;" because that eloquent woman, who ever stood for justice and freedom, did not believe in the plenary inspiration of the Bible. Did we banish Mrs. Rose? No, indeed!

Every new generation of converts threshes over the same old straw. The point is whether you will sit in judgment on one who questions the divine inspiration of certain passages in the Bible derogatory to women. If Mrs. Stanton had written approvingly of these passages you would not have brought in this resolution for fear the cause might be injured among the liberals in religion. In other words, if she had written your views, you would not have considered a resolution necessary. To pass this one is to set back the hands on the dial of reform.

What you should say to outsiders is that a Christian has neither more nor less rights in our association than an atheist. When our platform becomes too narrow for people of all creeds and of no creeds, I myself can not stand upon it. Many things have been said and done by our orthodox friends which I have felt to be extremely harmful to our cause; but I should no more consent to a resolution denouncing them than I shall consent to this. Who is to draw the line? Who can tell now whether these commentaries may not prove a great help to woman's emancipation from old superstitions which have barred its way?

Lucretia Mott at first thought Mrs. Stanton had injured the cause of all woman's other rights by insisting upon the demand for suffrage, but she had sense enough not to bring in a resolution against it. In 1860 when Mrs. Stanton made a speech before the New York Legislature in favor of a bill making drunkenness a ground for divorce, there was a general cry among the friends that she had killed the woman's cause. I shall be pained beyond expression if the delegates here are so narrow and illiberal as to adopt this resolution. You would better not begin resolving against individual action or you will find no limit. This year it is Mrs. Stanton; next year it may be I or one of yourselves who will be the victim.

If we do not inspire in women a broad and catholic spirit, they will fail, when enfranchised, to constitute that power for better government which we have always claimed for them. Ten women educated into the practice of liberal principles would be a stronger force than 10,000 organized on a platform of intolerance and bigotry. I pray you vote for religious liberty, without censorship or inquisition. This resolution adopted will be a vote of censure upon a woman who is without a peer in intellectual and statesmanlike ability; one who has stood for half a century the acknowledged leader of progressive thought and demand in regard to all matters pertaining to the absolute freedom of women.

Notwithstanding this eloquent appeal the original resolution was adopted by 53 yeas, 41 nays.[108]

At the request of about thirty of the delegates, mostly from the far Western States, Miss Anthony sent a message to Mrs. Cleveland asking that they might be permitted to call upon her, and she received them with much courtesy.

The association decided to help California and Idaho in whatever manner was desired in their approaching campaigns for a woman suffrage amendment. Invitations for holding the national convention were received from Springfield, Ill.; Denver, Col.; Cincinnati, O.; St. Louis, Mo.; Portland, Ore.; Charleston, S. C. It was voted to leave the matter to the business committee, who later accepted an invitation from Des Moines, Ia., as the suffrage societies of that State were organizing to secure an amendment from the Legislature.

At the last meeting, on Tuesday evening, every inch of space was occupied and people were clinging to the window sills. Miss Anthony stated that since Frederick Douglass was no longer among them as he had been for so many years, his grandson, Joseph Douglass, who was an accomplished violinist, would give two selections in his memory.

Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake (N. Y.), spoke on Presidential Candidates and the Interests of Women, outlining the attitude of the various nominees and parties. Miss Harriet May Mills (N. Y.) discussed Our Unconscious Allies, the Remonstrants, illustrating from her experience as organizer how their efforts really help the cause they try to hinder. Mrs. Emma Smith DeVoe (Ills.), in demonstrating that The Liberty of the Mother means the Liberty of the Race, showed the need of truer companionship between man and woman and that the political disabilities of women affect all humanity. This was further illustrated by Mrs. Annie L. Diggs (Kas.) under the topic Women as Legislators. She said in part:

You have before you a great problem as to whether republican government itself is to be successful at this time, and statesmen to save their souls can not tell what will be the outcome. We believe that women have in their possession what is needed to make it a success—those things upon which are built the home life and the ethical life of the nation. We can supply what is lacking, not because women are better than men, but because they are other than men; because they have a supplementary part, and it is their mission to guard most sacredly and closely those things which protect the home life. Because of their womanhood, because of their divine function of motherhood, women must always be most closely concerned with the matters that pertain to the home. It belongs to man, with his strong right arm, to pioneer the way, and then woman comes along to help him build the enduring foundation upon which everything rests.

Miss Shaw, in a short, good-naturedly sarcastic speech on The Bulwarks of the Constitution, showed the illogical position of President Eliot of Harvard in declaiming grand sentiments in favor of universal suffrage and then protesting against having them applied to women. The last number on the program was The Ballot as an Improver of Motherhood, by Mrs. Stetson. It was an address of wonderful power which thrilled the audience. Among other original statements were these:

We have heard much of the superior moral sense of woman. It is superior in spots but not as a whole.... Here is an imaginary case which will show how undeveloped in some respects woman's moral sense still is: Suppose a train was coming with a children's picnic on board—three hundred merry, laughing children. Suppose you saw this train was about to go through an open switch and over an embankment, and your own child was playing on the track in front of it. You could turn the switch and save the train, or save your own child by pulling it off the track, but there was not time to do both. Which would you do? I have put that question to hundreds of women. I never have found one but said she would save her own child, and not one in a hundred but claimed this would be absolutely right. The maternal instinct is stronger in the hearts of most women than any moral sense....

What is the suffrage going to do for motherhood? Women enter upon this greatest function of life without any preparation, and their mothers permit them to do it because they do not recognize motherhood as a business. We do not let a man practice as a doctor or a druggist, or do anything else which involves issues of life and death, without training and certificates; but the life and death of the whole human race are placed in the hands of utterly untrained young girls. The suffrage draws the woman out of her purely personal relations and puts her in relations with her kind, and it broadens her intelligence. I am not disparaging the noble devotion of our present mothers—I know how they struggle and toil—but when that tremendous force of mother love is made intelligent, fifty per cent of our children will not die before they are five years old, and those that grow up will be better men and women. A woman will no longer be attached solely to one little group, but will be also a member of the community. She will not neglect her own on that account, but will be better to them and of more worth as a mother.

Mrs. Stetson closed with her own fine poem, Mother to Child.

The usual congressional hearings were held on Tuesday morning, January 28.[109] The speakers were presented by Miss Shaw, who made a very strong closing argument. At its conclusion Senator Peffer announced his thorough belief in woman suffrage, and Senator Hoar planted himself still more firmly in the favorable position he always had maintained.[110]

Miss Anthony led the host before the Judiciary Committee of the House, and opened with the statement that the women had been coming here asking for justice for nearly thirty years. She gave a brief account of the status of the question before Congress and then presented her speakers, each occupying the exact limit of time allotted and each taking up a different phase of the question.[111] Miss Anthony called on Representative John F. Shafroth of Colorado, who was among the listeners, to say something in regard to the experiment in his State. He spoke in unqualified approval, saying: "In the election of 1894 a greater per cent. of women voted than men, and instead of their being contaminated by any influence of a bad nature at the polls, the effect has been that there are no loafers, there are no drunkards, there are no persons of questionable character standing around the polls. One of the practical effects of woman suffrage will be to inject into politics an element that is independent and does not have to keep a consistent record with the party. We find that the ladies of Colorado do not care whether they vote for one ticket or the other, but they vote for the men they think the most deserving. Consequently if a man is nominated who has a questionable record invariably they will strike the party that does it. That tendency, I care not where it may exist, must be for good."

Miss Anthony closed with an earnest appeal that the committee would report in favor of a Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, thus enabling the women to carry their case to the Legislatures of the different States instead of to the masses of voters. She then submitted for publication and distribution the address of Mrs. Stanton, which said in part:

There is not a principle of our Government, not an article or section of our Constitution, from the preamble to the last amendment, which we have not elucidated and applied to woman suffrage before the various committees in able arguments that have never been answered. Our failure to secure justice thus far has not been due to any lack of character or ability in our advocates or of strength in their propositions, but to the popular prejudices against woman's emancipation. Eloquent, logical arguments on any question, though based on justice, science, morals and religion, are all as light as air in the balance with old theories, creeds, codes and customs.

Could we resurrect from the archives of this Capitol all the petitions and speeches presented here by women for human freedom during this century, they would reach above this dome and make a more fitting pedestal for the Goddess of Liberty than the crowning point of an edifice beneath which the mother of the race has so long pleaded in vain for her natural right of self-government—a right her sons should have secured to her long ago of their own free will by statutes carved indelibly on the corner-stones of the Republic.

As arguments have thus far proved unavailing, may not appeals to your feelings, to your moral sense, find the response so long withheld by your reason? Allow me, honorable gentlemen, to paint you a picture and bring within the compass of your vision at once the comparative position of two classes of citizens: The central object is a ballot box guarded by three inspectors of foreign birth. On the right is a multitude of coarse, ignorant beings, designated in our constitutions as male citizens—many of them fresh from the steerage of incoming steamers. There, too, are natives of the same type from the slums of our cities. Policemen are respectfully guiding them all to the ballot box. Those who can not stand, because of their frequent potations, are carefully supported on either side, each in turn depositing his vote, for what purpose he neither knows nor cares, except to get the promised bribe.

On the left stand a group of intelligent, moral, highly-cultivated women, whose ancestors for generations have fought the battles of liberty and have made this country all it is to-day. These come from the schools and colleges as teachers and professors; from the press and pulpit as writers and preachers; from the courts and hospitals as lawyers and physicians; and from happy and respectable homes as honored mothers, wives and sisters. Knowing the needs of humanity subjectively in all the higher walks of life, and objectively in the world of work, in the charities, in the asylums and prisons, in the sanitary condition of our streets and public buildings, they are peculiarly fitted to write, speak and vote intelligently on all these questions of such vital, far-reaching consequence to the welfare of society. But the inspectors refuse their votes because they are not designated in the Constitution as "male" citizens, and the policemen drive them away.

Sad and humiliated they retire to their respective abodes, followed by the jeers of those in authority. Imagine the feelings of these dignified women, returning to their daily round of duties, compelled to leave their interests, public and private, in the State and the home, to these ignorant masses. The most grievous result of war to the conquered is wearing a foreign yoke, yet this is the position of the daughters of the Puritans....

What a dark page the present political position of women will be for the future historian! In reading of the republics of Greece and Rome and the grand utterances of their philosophers in paeans to liberty, we wonder that under such governments there should have been a class of citizens held in slavery. Our descendants will be still more surprised to know that our disfranchised citizens, our pariahs, our slaves, belonged to the most highly educated, moral, virtuous class in the nation, women of wealth and position who paid millions of taxes every year into the State and national treasuries; women who had given thousands to build colleges and churches and to encourage the sciences and arts. From the dawn of creation to this hour history affords no other instance of so large a class of such a character subordinated politically to the ignorant masses.

FOOTNOTES:

[105] Letters and telegrams of greeting were received from the Hon. Mrs. C. C. Holly, member Colorado Legislature, Mrs. Henry M. Teller, Mrs. Francis E. Warren, Mrs. Foster, from the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, State and local associations of various kinds.

[106] Now Bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church.

[107] George W. Catt presented a significant paper showing that the victory of Utah was almost wholly due to the excellent organization of the suffrage forces, as with a population of 206,000 it had over 1,000 active workers for the franchise. If the same proportion existed in other States nothing could prevent the success of the movement to enfranchise women. This report was printed by the association as a leaflet.

[108] Yeas: Rachel Foster Avery, Katie R. Addison, Lucy E. Anthony, Mary O. Arnold, Lucretia L. Blankenburg, Caroline Brown Buell, Sallie Clay Bennett, Henry B. Blackwell, Alice Stone Blackwell, Emma E. Bower, Jennie Broderick, Jessie J. Cassidy, Carrie Chapman Catt, Mariana W. Chapman, Mary N. Chase, Laura Clay, Elizabeth B. Dodge, Annie L. Diggs, Matilda E. Gerrigus, Caroline Gibbons, John T. Hughes, Mary Louise Haworth, Mrs. Frank L. Hubbard, Mary N. Hubbard, Mary G. Hay, Mary D. Hussey, Hetty Y. Hallowell, Laura M. Johns, Mary Stocking Knaggs, Helen Morris Lewis, Mary Elizabeth Milligan, Rebecca T. Miller, Jessie G. Manley, Alice M. A. Pickler, Florence M. Post, Florence Post, the Rev G. Simmons, Anna R. Simmons, Alice Clinton Smith, Sarah H. Sawyer, Amanthus Shipp, Mrs. M. R. Stockwell, Mary Clarke Smith, D. Viola Smith, Anna H. Shaw, Sarah Vail Thompson, Harriet Taylor Upton, Laura H. Van Cise, Frances A. Williamson, Mary J. Williamson, Eliza R. Whiting, Elizabeth A. Willard, Elizabeth Upham Yates—53

Nays: Susan B. Anthony, Mary S. Anthony, S. Augusta Armstrong, Elizabeth D. Bacon, Lillie Devereux Blake, Elisan Brown, Annie Caldwell Boyd, Cornelia H. Cary, Clara Bewick Colby, Dr. Cora Smith Eaton, Caroline McCullough Everhard, Dr. M. Virginia Glauner, Mary E. Gilmer, Mrs. L. C. Hughes, Lavina A. Hatch, Emily Howland, Isabel Howland, Julie R. Jenney, Harriette A. Keyser, Jean Lockwood, Orra Langhorne, Mary E. Moore, J. B. Merwin, Harriet May Mills, Mrs. M. J. McMillan, Julia B. Nelson, Adda G. Quigley, Charlotte Perkins Stetson, Althea B. Stryker, Mary B. Sackett, Harriet Brown Stanton, Mrs. R. W. Southard, Ellen Powell Thompson, Helen Rand Tindall, Mary Bentley Thomas, Martha S. Townsend, Mary Wood, Victoria Conkling Whitney, Mary B. Wickersham, Mrs. George K. Wheat, Virginia D. Young—41.

[109] The Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage—Senators Wilkinson Call, James Z. George, George F. Hoar, Matthew S. Quay and William A. Peffer—were addressed by Elizabeth D. Bacon (Conn.), Sallie Clay Bennett (Ky.), Lillie Devereux Blake (N. Y.), Lucretia L. Blankenburg (Penn.), Mariana W. Chapman (N. Y.), Mary N. Chase (Vt.), Dr. Mary D. Hussey (N. J.), Mrs. Frank Hubbard (Ills.), Lavina A. Hatch (Mass.), May Stocking Knaggs (Mich.), Helen Morris Lewis (N. C.), Orra Langhorne (Va.), Mary Elizabeth Milligan (Del.), Caroline Hallowell Miller (Md.), Julia B. Nelson (Minn.), Mrs. R. W. Southard (Ok.), Ellen Powell Thompson (D. C.), Victoria Conkling Whitney (Mo.), Virginia D. Young (S. C.).

[110] On April 23 Senator Call submitted the Bill for a Sixteenth Amendment without recommendation, and for himself and Senator George the same old adverse report which had begun to do duty in 1882, and which, he said, expressed their views. It will be found in the History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. III, p. 237. Senator Quay evidently allowed himself to be counted in the opposition.

[111] The members of the committee present were Representatives David B. Henderson (chairman), Broderick, Updegraff, Gillett (Mass.) Baker (N. H.), Burton (Mo.), Brown, Culberson, Boatner, Washington, Terry and De Armond. Absent: Ray, Connolly, Bailey, Strong and Lewis. The speakers were Mrs. L. C. Hughes (Ariz.), Charlotte Perkins Stetson (Cal.), Annie L. Diggs, Katie R. Addison (Kan.), Elizabeth Upham Yates (Me.), Henry B. Blackwell (Mass.), Harriet P. Sanders (Mont.), Clara B. Colby (Neb.), Frances A. Williamson (Nev.), Dr. Cora Smith Eaton (N. D.), Caroline McCullough Everhard (O.), Anna R. Simmons (S. D.), Emily S. Richards (Utah), Jessie G. Manley (W. Va.).



CHAPTER XVII.

THE NATIONAL-AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1897.

This year the suffrage association took its convention west of the Mississippi River, the Twenty-ninth annual meeting being held in Des Moines, Ia., Jan. 26-29, 1897. Circumstances were unfavorable, the thermometer registering twenty-four degrees below zero and a heavy blizzard prevailing throughout the West. Nevertheless sixty-three delegates, representing twenty States, were present. All the visitors were entertained in the hospitable homes of this city, and the entire executive board were the guests of James and Martha C. Callanan at their handsome home in the suburbs. Receptions were given by the Des Moines Woman's Club, by the Young Women's Christian Association and by Mr. and Mrs. F. M. Hubbell at their palatial residence, Terrace Hill. The convention was welcomed in behalf of the State by Gov. Francis M. Drake, who paid the highest possible tribute to the social and intellectual qualities of women, pointed out the liberality of Iowa in respect to manhood suffrage and congratulated the association generally, but was extremely careful not to commit himself on the question of woman suffrage. Mayor John McVicar extended the welcome of the city in eloquent language. He also skirted all around the suffrage question, came much nearer an expression of approval than did the Governor, but cleverly avoided a direct assertion in favor. He was followed by the Rev. H. O. Breeden, pastor of the Christian Church in which the convention was assembled. Not being in politics he dared express an honest opinion and said in the course of his remarks:



It is my privilege to address you in behalf of the churches, and I do so with great pleasure, because I have a robust faith that you are right, and also that the churches are with you in sympathy and heart. I belong to one which welcomes women to its pulpit and to all its offices. I should distrust the Christianity of any that would deny to my mother and wife the rights it accords to my father and myself. We welcome you to this city of churches and to the churches of the city, and to its homes.

Woman shows her capacity for the highest functions in proportion as she is admitted to them. I hold it true, with Dr. Storrs, that as Dante measured his progress in Paradise not by outer objects but by the increased beauty upon the face of Beatrice, so the progress of the race is measured by the increasing beauty of character shown in its women. The fanaticism of yesterday is the reform of to-day, and the victory of to-morrow. Truth always goes onward and never back. The day of equal rights for women is surely coming. You are fighting a good warfare, with God, with conscience and with right to inspire you, and the triumph is near at hand.

Mrs. Mattie Locke Macomber extended the greetings of the Women's Clubs of the State; Mrs. Adelaide Ballard, president of the Iowa Suffrage Association, presented its welcome, and greetings were read from various Women's Christian Temperance Unions. Miss Anthony responded briefly, contrasting the welcome by Governor, mayor and different societies with the olden times when perhaps not one person would extend a friendly hand to those who attempted to hold a suffrage meeting. "I hardly know what to say now," she continued. "It is so much easier to speak when brickbats are flying. But I do rejoice with you over the immense revolution and evolution of the past twenty-five years, and I thank you for this cordial greeting."

The meetings were held in the large and well-arranged Christian Church, with an auditorium seating 1,500. The four daily papers gave full and fair reports and, although there was no editorial endorsement, there was no adverse comment. The Leader thus described the opening session, Tuesday afternoon:

It is doubtful if the church ever before held so many people. They poured in at all the doors, and the great audience room, with the balconies and the windows, the choir and the aisles, the platform and every foot of available space, was early occupied. There were many gentlemen in the audience, but probably four of every five were women. The men had come, apparently, to see and hear Miss Anthony; and when she was done many of them left. It was such an audience as is not often seen. The ladies were generally elderly, the great majority beyond middle-age; they had braved the cold and wind to hear the leader whom they had known and loved for many years, but whom most of them had never seen. Their bright faces framed in silvery hair, with brighter eyes upturned to the speakers, must have been an inspiration to those on the platform; in the case of Miss Anthony it was plain that she was indeed inspired by her audience.

There was much rejoicing over the enfranchisement of the women of Idaho by an amendment to the State constitution during the past year; and much sorrow over the defeat of a similar amendment in California. In her president's address Miss Anthony said in part:

The year 1896 witnessed greater successes than any since the first pronunciamento was made at Seneca Falls, N. Y., July 19, 1848. On January 6 President Cleveland proclaimed Utah to be a State, with a constitution which does not discriminate against women. With Utah and Wyoming we have two States coming into the Union with the principle of equal rights to women guaranteed by their constitutions.

On November 3 the men of Idaho declared in favor of woman suffrage, and for the first time in the history of judicial decisions upon the enlargement of women's rights, civil and political, a Supreme Court gave a broad interpretation of the constitution. The Supreme Court of Idaho—Isaac N. Sullivan, Joseph W. Huston, John T. Morgan—unanimously decided that the amendment was carried constitutionally. This decision is the more remarkable because the Court might as easily have declared that the constitution requires amendments to receive a majority of the total vote cast at the election, instead of a majority of the votes cast on the amendment itself. By the former construction it would have been lost, notwithstanding two to one of all who expressed an opinion were in favor.

If anyone will study the history of our woman suffrage movement since the days of reconstruction and the adoption of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution—taking the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the cases of Mrs. Myra Bradwell for the protection of her civil rights; of Mrs. Virginia L. Minor for the protection of her political rights; of the law granting Municipal Suffrage to women in Michigan; on giving women the right to vote for County School Commissioners in New York, and various other decisions—he will find that in every case the courts have put the narrowest possible construction upon the spirit and the letter of the constitution. The Judges of Idaho did themselves the honor to make a decision in direct opposition to judicial precedent and prejudice. The Idaho victory is a great credit not only to the majority of men who voted for the amendment, but to the three Judges who made this broad and just decision.

After sketching the situation in California, and relating the part taken by the National Association in these two campaigns, she concluded:

In every county which was properly organized, with a committee in every precinct, who visited every voter and distributed leaflets in every family, the amendment received a majority vote. This ought to be sufficient to teach the women of all the States that what we need is house-to-house educational work throughout every voting precinct. We may possibly carry amendments with education short of this, but we are not likely to. I believe if the slums of San Francisco and Oakland had been thus organized, even the men there could have been made to see that it was for their interest and that of their wives and daughters to vote for the amendment. But, while the suffragists had no committees whatever in those districts, the "liquor men" had an active committee in every saloon, "dive" and gambling house. I am, therefore, more and more convinced that it is educational work which needs to be done. It is of little use for us to make our appeals to political party conventions, State Legislatures or Congress for resolutions in favor of woman's enfranchisement, while no appeal comes up to them from the rank and file of the voters.

Until we do this kind of house-to-house work we can never expect to carry any of the States in which there are large cities. If Idaho had had San Francisco, with all its liquor interests and foreigners banded together, she would probably have been defeated as was California.

So, friends, I am not in any sense disheartened, and while I rejoice exceedingly over Idaho, I also rejoice exceedingly over the grand work done in California, and over the 110,000 votes given for woman suffrage in that State. It was vastly more than was ever done in any other amendment campaign. Study then the methods of California and Idaho and improve on them as much as you possibly can.

The Des Moines Leader thus finished its report:

It was not difficult for one who saw Miss Anthony for the first time to understand why she is so well beloved by her associates. Seventy-seven years old, she is the most earnest worker of them all; she is not only their leader but their counsellor and friend. While she occupied the platform the utmost solicitude was manifested for her on the part of everybody. Once a glass of water was sent for but did not come as soon as it should, and everyone on the stage was visibly concerned except Miss Anthony herself, who calmly observed, by way of apology for a trifling difficulty with her voice, that she was not accustomed to speak in public, at which a laugh went round.... Her silvery hair was parted in the middle and brushed down over her ears. Her eyes have the deep-set appearance which is characteristic of elderly people who have been hard mental laborers, but on the whole she did not look all her years, though older than most of her hearers had expected to see her. But those beaming, earnest eyes, taking in her whole audience as she talked, told of a nature tenacious of purpose and not to be daunted by any obstacle—the qualities which in her many years' work in the cause Miss Anthony has so many times manifested.

The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw devoted the most of her report as vice-president-at-large to the California campaign, as she had spent the greater part of the past year in that State. She closed by saying: "Our reception by the Californians was such as to make them forever dear to us. I wish you could have seen Miss Anthony for once walking ankle-deep in roses. It showed that the sentiment for suffrage had reached the point where its advocates not only were tolerated but honored. I used to like to see her sitting in a chair all adorned with flowers and with a laurel crown suspended over her head, and to feel that it was woman suffrage that was crowned. The work was hard, but we all came back from California better in health and stronger in hope."

On Wednesday evening the crowd was so great it became necessary to hold an overflow meeting, which was attended by five hundred persons. Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, who was introduced as "one of Iowa's own daughters," was received with great applause. She said in part:

I have a deep and tender love for Iowa. When I cross her boundary, I always feel that I am coming home. In my travels through the West I meet many men and women who give me a warmer hand-shake because they too are from Iowa. But this State no longer occupies the first place in my heart. There are four that I love better, and every woman here feels the same. The first is Wyoming. Many pass through that State and see only a barren plain covered with sage brush, but when I cross her border, I feel a thrill as sacred as ever the crusaders felt in visiting the Holy Land. The second State is Colorado, the third Utah, and the fourth Idaho. All of us Iowa women will love these States better than our own until it shall arouse and place its laws and institutions on an equality for women and men....

We ask suffrage in order to make womanhood broader and motherhood nobler. Men and women are inextricably bound together. If we are to have a great race, we must have a great motherhood. Do you ask why people can not see this? In all history no class has been enfranchised without some selfish motive underlying. If to-day we could prove to Republicans or Democrats that every woman would vote for their party, we should be enfranchised.

Do you say that whenever all women wish the ballot they will have it? That time will never come. Not all of any class of men ever wanted to vote till the ballot was put into their hands. When the first woman desired to study medicine, not one school would admit her. Since that time, only half a century ago, 25,000 women have been admitted to the practice of medicine. If a popular vote had been necessary, not one of them would yet have her diploma. We have gained these advantages because we did not have to ask society for them. If woman suffrage were granted in Iowa, women would soon wish to vote, and every home would become a forum of education....

There never had been so many deaths in the ranks as during the past year. The following were among the names presented by Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby as those whom the association would ever hold in reverent memory:

Hannah Tracy Cutler of Illinois, former president of the American Association and one of the earliest and most self-sacrificing of woman suffrage lecturers; Sarah B. Cooper of California, auditor of this association, whose labors for the enfranchisement of the women of the Pacific coast will be remembered and honored equally with her beneficent work in founding and sustaining free kindergartens, and in whatever promoted justice, truth and mercy, so that on the day of her funeral all the flags in San Francisco were placed at half-mast; Mary Grew, who began her work for freedom as corresponding secretary of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1834, one of the founders of the New Century Club of Philadelphia, and of the Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association, of which she was president for twenty-three years; Elizabeth McClintock Phillips, who in 1848 signed the call for the first convention which demanded the ballot for women; J. Elizabeth Jones of New York, a pioneer in anti-slavery and woman suffrage; Judge E. T. Merrick of New Orleans, whose home was ever open to the woman suffrage lecturers in that section, and who by his eminent position as Chief Justice of Louisiana for many years, sustained his wife in work which in earlier days but for him would have been impossible; Eliza Murphy of New Jersey, who bequeathed five hundred dollars to this association; Harriet Beecher Stowe of Connecticut, who, although the apostle of freedom in another field, yet held as firmly and expressed as steadfastly her allegiance to the cause of woman suffrage; Dr. Caroline B. Winslow, the earliest woman physician in the District of Columbia, intrepid as a journalist, successful in practice, a leader in many lines of reform; Maria G. Porter of Rochester, N. Y.; Sarah Hussey Southwick of Massachusetts, a worker in the cause of liberty for more than sixty years; Kate Field of Washington, D. C.; Gov. Frederick T. Greenhalge of Massachusetts; Dr. Hiram Corson of Pennsylvania, who stood for the full opportunities of women in medicine, and secured the opening to them of the conservative medical societies of Philadelphia.

The names of over thirty other tried and true friends who had passed away during the months since the last meeting were given. Mrs. Colby closed the memorial service by saying:

The best that comes to this world comes through the love of liberty. These were souls of noble aspiration and undaunted courage. We enter into their labors; we will enshrine them in the history of the suffrage movement and bear them gratefully in our hearts forever. May our lives be as fruitful as theirs, and when we too pass away may we

"Join the choir invisible Of these immortal dead who live again, In minds made better by their presence."

Among letters received was one from Parker Pillsbury (N. H.), now 88 years old, who had spoken so eloquently in early days for the emancipation of the slaves and the freedom of women. One of the many excellent addresses was on the general topic Equal Rights, by Miss Alice Stone Blackwell (Mass.), illustrated by a number of the piquant and appropriate stories for which she is noted and which perhaps leave a more lasting impression than a labored argument. Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch, a practicing lawyer of Chicago, considered the hackneyed phrase All the Rights We Want, showing up in a humorous way the legal disabilities of women in her own State. The wife's earnings may be seized to pay for her husband's clothes; she can not testify against her husband; she can not enter into a business partnership without his consent; a married mother has no right to her children; the age of protection for girls is only fourteen, etc.

President George A. Gates of Iowa College said in part: "I never heard or read a single sound argument against the suffrage of women in a democracy. There are a hundred arguments for it. The question now is one of organization, of agitation, of perseverance. In my judgment he who sneers at suffrage not only proclaims himself a boor and casts discredit on at least four women—his mother, his wife, his sister and his daughter—but he reveals a depth of ignorance that is pitiable. Let the appeal be to experience. Not one of the direful consequences predicted has come to pass where suffrage is enjoyed. Homes have not been deserted, bad women have not flocked to the polls, conjugal strife has not been aroused, bad effects have not come but good effects have. Bad men seek office in vain where women have the ballot. New States are coming into line and the triumph of the cause can not much longer be delayed."

Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Stetson spoke with her usual ability on Duty and Honor:

Underlying the objections to woman suffrage is a reason of which, as an American, I am deeply ashamed. I do not think either men or women have the same honest pride in our democracy that they had fifty years ago. We are becoming a little afraid of what Europe has always told us was an experiment, but one reason it has not yet been all we could wish is that it is not a democracy at all, but a semi-democracy, one-half of the race ruling over the other half.

Another deep-seated feeling is that, while development is the general rule, yet the production of the best men and women requires "the maternal sacrifice," i. e. that the mother shall be sacrificed to her children, and incidentally to her husband. If the sacrifice is necessary, well and good; but how if it is not?... It has been regarded as dangerous to improve the condition of women for fear they would not be as good mothers. If gain to the mother means robbery to the child, let the mother remain as she is. But the standard is the amount of good done to the children, not the amount of evil done to herself....

Grant that it is a woman's business to take care of her children—not merely of her own children. If children anywhere are not under right conditions, women ought to see to it. The trouble is we are too wrapped up in my children to think of our children. We can not keep out disease by shutting our own front door. We have to know and care about the world outside our gates. In order to do our duty to our children we must make this world a better place to live in.

Our children are not born with that degree of brain power that we could wish. They will not be, until our minds are widened by study of the whole duty of a human being.... What is needed for women is an enlargement of their moral sense so as to include social as well as private virtues. We have been taught that there is only one virtue for us. Our morality is high but narrow. It is not wholesome to limit oneself to one virtue, or to six or to ten. Sons resemble their mothers. While mothers limit their interests to their own narrow domestic affairs, regardless of the world outside, their sons will betray the interests of the country for their own private business interests.... Women and men are so connected that we can not improve one without improving the other. Under equal rights we shall raise the moral sense of the community by the natural laws of transmission through the mothers. We shall learn to blame a man as much if he betrays a public trust as we do if he deserts his wife.

Have we done our full duty when we have loved and served and taken care of those that every beast on earth loves and serves and takes care of—our own young? That is the beginning of human duty but not the whole of it. The duty of woman is not confined to the reproduction of the species; it extends to the working of the will of God on earth. The family is a leaf on the tree of the State. It can grow in strength and purity while the State is healthy, but when the State is degraded the family becomes degraded with it. We have not done our full duty to the family till we have done our best to serve the State.

Miss Shaw took up this subject, saying:

The millennium will not come as soon as women vote, but it will not come until they do vote. If a woman has only a little brain, she has a right to the fullest development of all she has.... If we are to keep our children healthy, as Mrs. Stetson says is our duty, pure water is essential. I know a city (Philadelphia) where you can fast for forty days, drinking only water, and grow fat—because you have chowder every time. Is there any reason why women should not have a vote in regard to water-works? A woman knows as much about water as a man. Generally, she drinks more of it. See how the street cleaners sweep the dirt into heaps on Monday and leave it to blow about until Saturday, before it is taken up. Any housekeeper would know better. Sewers and man-traps spread disease literally and also metaphorically. You may teach your boy every precept in the Bible from beginning to end, and he will go out into the street and be taught to violate every one of them, under the protection of law, and you can't help yourself or him.

At one of the morning meetings Miss Anthony said in response to a message from the W. C. T. U. accompanied by a great bunch of daisies: "We always are glad to receive greetings from this society, because one of its forty departments is for the franchise. The suffrage association has only one, but that one aims to make every State a true republic." She continued: "A newspaper of this city has criticized the suffrage banner with its four stars and has accused us of desecrating our country's flag. But no one ever heard anything about desecration of the flag during the political campaign, when the names and portraits of all the candidates were tacked to it. Our critics compare us to Texas and its lone star. We have not gone out of the Union, but four States have come in. Keep your flag flying, and do not let any one persuade you that you are desecrating it by putting on stars for the States where government is based on the consent of the governed, and leaving them off for those which are not."

State Senators Rowen, Kilburn and Byers brought an official message inviting the convention to visit the Senate and select certain of their members to address that body. Each of these gentlemen spoke briefly but unequivocally in favor of the enfranchisement of women.

The ladies found the Senate Chamber crowded from top to bottom on the occasion of their visit Friday morning, and they were welcomed by Lieutenant-Governor Parrott. In her response Miss Anthony called attention to the fact that the women of Iowa had been pleading their cause in vain before the Legislature for nearly thirty years. Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford, Mrs. Emmeline B. Wells and Mrs. Mell C. Woods spoke for the States of Colorado, Utah and Idaho, which had enfranchised women; Mrs. Colby represented Wyoming. Clever two-minute speeches were made by Mrs. Ballard, Miss Shaw and Mrs. Chapman Catt, which were highly appreciated by the legislators and the rest of the audience.

During the convention an informal speech of Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton (O.), As the World Sees Us, was much enjoyed. In the course of her remarks she said:

The world thinks our husbands are inferior men, and I do not like it. For fifty years they have said all sorts of things about the overbearing suffragists—that they were crazy, tyrannical, etc., but they never have said we were fools. Why should they think that we would pick out fools for our husbands?...

The world also thinks the suffrage advocates are poor housekeepers. I know, for I was in the world a long time and I thought so. When I was brought into the movement and visited the leaders, I was surprised to find the order and executive ability with which their homes were conducted.

The world thinks we are office-seekers. Most of us have not the slightest wish for office, but we do want to see women serving on all boards that deal with matters where woman's help is needed.

The world thinks we are irreligious; but our individual churches do not think so—for most of us are members of churches in good and regular standing, and we are not denied communion. We can not be vestrymen, but if the church wants a steam heater it is voted to have one, without a cent in the treasury, because the women are relied upon to raise the money. We are religious enough to have oyster suppers in aid of the church and to make choir-boys' vestments and to raise the minister's salary and to make up the congregation. Religion is love to God and man. If it is not religion to promote a cause that will make men better and women wiser and happier, what is it? The world thinks we are irreligious because in the early days some of our leaders were held to be unorthodox. But most of those who years ago were looked upon as such are regarded as orthodox to-day. The eye-sight of the world is much better than it used to be....

The discussion—Resolved, That the propaganda of the woman suffrage idea demands a non-partisan attitude on the part of individual workers—was led by Miss Laura Clay in the affirmative and Henry B. Blackwell in the negative. Miss Clay said in part:

It is a well established rule that the greater should never be subordinated to the less. Therefore, suffrage should never be made a tail to the kite of any political party. There are momentous issues now before the people, but none so momentous as woman suffrage. This principle appeals to the conscience of the people, and will ultimately convince all those who cherish the political principles of our fathers. Already we believe we have convinced a sufficient number to make this a practical question. We have now to deal with the politicians. They may be divided into two classes, men of high ideals and those who cling to party, right or wrong. It is necessary to gain both classes.

Partisan methods are not suited to the discussion of this question. We must show that when enfranchised we shall hold a self-preservative attitude; that we know our rights, and, knowing them, dare maintain. Wisdom is less tangible than force but more powerful in the end. Women are different from men and their political methods will differ from those of men. Women will never win so long as they consent to barter their services for vague promises of what will be done for them in the future, or to subordinate woman suffrage to the interests of any party.

MR. BLACKWELL: We are all agreed that Woman Suffrage Associations, local, State and national, are and must be non-partisan. But a clear distinction should be made between the attitude of a society and that of the individual women and men who compose its membership. Suffrage societies, being composed of men and women of all shades of political belief, can not take sides on any other question without violating each member's right and duty to have and express personal political opinions. But, as individuals, it is our duty to be partisans. Woman suffrage is not the only issue. In almost every political contest one party is right and the other wrong. Everybody is bound to do what he or she can to promote the success of the right side. If no moral questions were involved, political contests would be ignoble and insignificant. We value suffrage mainly because questions of right and wrong are settled by votes....

Every woman, equally with every man, should be affiliated with some political party.... Every manifestation by women of intelligent interest in political questions helps woman suffrage. Political questions necessarily become party questions, for we live under a government of parties.

A non-partisan attitude is a phrase which needs definition. If "partisan" means "our party, right or wrong," then no woman and no man should be a partisan. An attitude of moderation and conciliation befits every candid person. I am for holding equal suffrage paramount to ordinary political questions, but I am not for repudiating party ties altogether. Woman suffrage, though the most important question, is not always the one to be first settled. It is not the only question. Voting, though the most direct form of political power, is not the only political power. Women's interests and those of their children are involved, equally with those of men, in every question of finance, currency, tariff, domestic and foreign relations. They have no right to be neutral or apathetic. So long as they remain silent and inert they command no attention or respect. I maintain, therefore, that affirmative political activity, working by and through party machinery, is the duty of every individual citizen—whether man or woman.

In States where a suffrage amendment is pending, in meetings where suffrage is advocated, party politics should be laid aside for the time being. In religious meetings no distinction should be made between Republicans, Democrats or Populists. In political meetings no distinction should be made between Methodists, Baptists or Presbyterians. In suffrage meetings there should be no distinction of sect or party. But we hold our individual opinions all the same.

MISS ANTHONY: I want to say that you can not possibly divide yourself up as Mr. Blackwell suggests. You can not be a Republican in one convention to-day and non-partisan in another to-morrow. The men who believe in suffrage are voters, and must have their parties, of course. But any woman who champions either political party makes more votes against than for suffrage. I could give numerous examples. Do not be deluded with this idea that one party is right and the other wrong. Which is it? One party seems right to one-half of the people, and the other party to the other half. As long as women have no votes, any one of them who will make a speech either for gold or silver or for any party issue is lacking in self-respect.

MISS BLACKWELL: Miss Clay seems to have understood the question presented for discussion in a different sense from what I did. I do not believe in making suffrage a tail to any party kite, of course; but women as well as men are bound to do what they can to promote good government, and hence to promote by all legitimate means the party which they believe to be in the right. They will inevitably do this more and more as they become more interested in public questions. See how many women took part in the late campaign, making speeches for gold or silver, not with any eye to woman suffrage—for neither party was committed to it—but purely for the sake of the welfare of the country, as they understood it. I can not agree that they were lacking in self-respect....

MISS SHAW: I have made only one party speech in my life. That was ten years ago, for the Prohibition Party; and if the Lord will forgive me, I will never do it again till women vote.

In spite of the lively difference of opinion, the meeting adjourned in great good humor and amid considerable laughter.

The last session of the convention was a celebration of the suffrage victory in Idaho, conducted by representatives of what the association liked to call "the free States." Mrs. Colby said in behalf of Wyoming:

....No matter if we fill the field of blue with stars, one will always shine with peculiar lustre, the star of Wyoming, who opened the door of hope for women.

There is a beautiful custom in Switzerland among the Alpine shepherds. He who, tending his flock among the heights, first sees the rays of the rising sun gild the top of the loftiest peak, lifts his horn and sounds forth the morning greeting, "Praise the Lord." Soon another shepherd catches the radiant gleam, and then another and another takes up the reverent refrain, until mountain, hill and valley are vocal with praise and bathed in the glory of a new day.

So the dawn of the day that shall mean freedom for woman and the ennobling of the race was first seen by Wyoming, on the crest of our continent, and the clarion note was sounded forth, "Equality before the law." For a quarter of a century she was the lone watcher on the heights to sound the tocsin of freedom. At last Colorado, from her splendid snow-covered peaks, answered back in grand accord, "Equality before the law." Then on Utah's brow shone the sun, and she, too, exultantly joined in the trio, "Equality before the law." And now Idaho completes the quartette of mountain States which sing the anthem of woman's freedom. Its echoes rouse the sleepers everywhere, until from the rock-bound coast of the Atlantic to the golden sands of the Pacific resounds one resolute and jubilant demand, "Equality before the law," and lo, the whole world wakes to the sunlight of liberty!

Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford, in speaking for Colorado, said:

Civilization means self-realization. The level is being slowly but surely raised and the atmosphere improved. Freedom for the individual, properly guarded, is the ideal to-day. When woman is free, the eternal feminine shows itself to be also the truly human. Witness Wyoming, with its magnificent school system, its equal pay for equal work. Witness Colorado, where women cast 52 per cent. of the total vote though the State contains a large majority of men. What does this show if not that women wish to vote? We women believe that election day administers to each of us the sacrament of citizenship, and we go, most of us, prayerfully and thankfully to partake in this outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace....

The first time I went to vote I was out of the house just nine minutes. The second time I took my little girl along to school, stopped in to vote, and then went down town and did my marketing; and I was gone twenty minutes. While I was casting my vote the men gave my little one a flower. They always decorate the polling-places with flowers now, for they know women love beauty.

The tone of political conventions has improved since suffrage was granted to women. So has the character of the candidates.... There is no character-builder like responsibility. Every woman's club in the State has been turned into a study club, and the women are examining public questions for themselves. This is one of the best results of equal suffrage.

When women obtained the ballot they wanted to know about public affairs, and so they asked their husbands at home (every woman wants to believe that her husband knows everything), and the husbands had to inform themselves in order to answer their wives' questions. Equal suffrage has not only educated women and elevated the primaries, but it has given back to the State the services of her best men, large numbers of whom had got into the habit of neglecting their political duties....

Mrs. Emmeline B. Wells said in describing the conditions in Utah:

After the ballot was given to women the men soon came to us and asked us to help them. We divided on party lines but not rigidly so. We helped not only the good men and women of our own party, but those of the other. If they put up a Republican or a Democrat who is not fit for the position, the women vote against him. In all the work I do for the Republicans, I never denounce the Democrats....

This year the men were more willing to have us go to the primaries than we were to go. Even the women who had not wished for suffrage voted. I do not mind going to the primaries. I am not afraid of men—not the least in the world. I have often been on committees with men. I don't think it has hurt me at all, and I have learned a great deal. They have always been very good to me. We must stand up for the men. We could not do without them. Certainly we could not have settled Utah without them. They built the bridges and killed the bears; but I think the women worked just as hard, in their way....

When Mrs. Mell C. Woods came forward to speak for Idaho the audience arose and received her with cheers and the waving of handkerchiefs. She brought letters of greeting from most of the women's clubs of that State, and in a long and beautiful address she said:

With her head pillowed in the lap of the North, her feet resting in the orchards of the South, her snowy bosom rising to the clouds, Idaho lies serene in her beauty of glacier, lake and primeval forest, guarding in her verdure-clad mountains vast treasures of precious minerals, with the hem of her robe embroidered in sapphires and opals.... As representing Idaho, first I wish to express the heartfelt gratitude of every equal suffragist in our proud and happy State to the National Association for the most generous help afforded us in our two years' campaign. Without the aid of the devoted women, Mrs. DeVoe, Mrs. Chapman Catt, Mrs. Bradford and Mrs. Johns, who made the arduous journey to organize our clubs, plead our cause and teach us how to work and win, we should not be celebrating Idaho's victory to-night....

After describing the great output of the mines and the fruit-producing value of the State, she continued:

I fancy few of you know much of the conditions existing in the mining country, dotted with camps in every gulch; the preponderance of the adult males over the women of maturity; the power of the saloon element, and the cosmopolitan character of the people—men from all parts of the world, ignorant and cultured, depraved and respectable, seeking fame and fortune in the far West—no reading-rooms, no lectures, no lyceums, no spelling-bees or corn-huskings, the relaxation of the farm hand; single men away from home and its influences, forced from the draughty lobby of the hotel or tavern to the warmth and comfort of the well-appointed saloon.

The missionary suffrage work in such places was obliged to be quietly done, without any apparent advocacy on the part of men who were in reality ardent supporters of our cause, lest the saloon element should organize and, by concerted action, crush the movement as they did in the State of Washington in 1889; and California, too, owes her defeat of the amendment at least partially to this cause. Yet you may go far to find nobler men than we have in Idaho, and we did not lack able champions. Our amendment was carried by more than a two-thirds majority of the votes cast upon it.

The last address, by the Rev. Ida C. Hultin (Ills.), The Point of View, was a masterly effort. She said in part:

Before any woman is a wife, a sister or a mother she is a human being. We ask nothing as women but everything as human beings. The sphere of woman is any path that she can tread, any work that she can do. Let no one imagine that we wish to be men. In the beginning God created them male and female. The principle of co-equality is recognized in all of God's kingdom. We are beginning to find in the human race, as in the vegetable and the animal, that the male and the female are designed to be the equals of each other.

It is because woman loves her home that she wants her country to be pure and holy, so that she may not lose her children when they go out from her protection. We want to be women, womanly women, stamping the womanliness of our nature upon the country, even as the men have stamped the manliness of their nature upon it. The home is the sphere of woman and of man also. The home does not mean simply bread-making and dish-washing, but also the place into which shall enter that which makes pure manhood possible. Give woman a chance to do her whole duty. What is education for, what is religion for, but as a means to the end of the development of humanity? If national life is what it ought to be also, a means to the same end, it needs then everything that humanity has to make it sweet and hopeful. Women have moral sentiments and they want to record them. That is the only difference between voting and not voting. The national life is the reflected life of the people. It is strong with their strength and weak with their weakness.

A letter was read to the convention by Miss Anthony from Miss Kitty Reed, daughter of Speaker Thomas B. Reed, who had been with her father in California during the recent suffrage campaign. In referring to this she said:

There and elsewhere the thinking women who opposed it used this argument: There are too many people voting already; the practical effect of woman suffrage would be an increase in the illiterate vote, without a proportionate increase in the intelligent vote. They were not in favor of it unless there could be an educational qualification. In other words, they were opposed to woman suffrage because they were opposed to universal suffrage. I have always regarded universal suffrage as the foundation principle of our government. If "governments deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" does not mean that, what can it mean? So I tried to persuade these women of the truth of that which I supposed had been settled about one hundred and twenty-one years ago. It is necessary to make women believe that suffrage is a natural right rather than a privilege; that, while abstractly it seems well for an intelligent citizen to govern an ignorant one, human nature is such that the intelligent will govern selfishly and leave the ignorant no opportunity to improve.

It seems to me that the worst obstacle we have to encounter now is not the prejudice of men against women's voting, but a misunderstanding on the part of women of the real meaning of government by the people. This may be ancient history to you, but it impressed me deeply while I was in California and that is why I write it. Of course there are many women who do not think. When they hear woman suffrage spoken of, they go to their husbands and ask them what they think about it, and their husbands tell them that they are too good to vote, and those women are content. It does not occur to them to ask why, if they are too pure and good to vote, they are not excused from obeying the laws and paying taxes.

The report of the first year's work done at national headquarters was very satisfactory. In regard to the Press it contained the following:

The year 1896 has seen the beginning of an effort by our National Association to use systematically the mighty lever of the public press in behalf of our work. We have sent out in regular weekly issues since March hundreds of copies of good equal suffrage articles. These go into the hands of Press Committees in forty-one States, and now between six and seven hundred papers publish them each week. Of forty-one different articles by about thirty different writers, nearly 25,000 copies have been distributed to newspapers. These articles reach, in local papers, not less than one million readers weekly.

We have taken charge of the National Suffrage Bulletin which is edited by the chairman of the organization committee, have had it printed in Philadelphia and mailed from the headquarters. In the past twelve months there have been wrapped and sent out separately 17,700 copies of the Bulletin. A portion of the expenses has been defrayed by special contributions of $900 of the $1,000 given to Miss Anthony by Mrs. Southworth, and $400 through the New York State Association, from the bequest of Mrs. Eliza J. Clapp of Rochester to Miss Anthony.

Mr. Blackwell, as usual, reported for the Committee on Presidential Suffrage, suggesting a form of petition as follows:

WHEREAS, The Constitution of the United States, the supreme law of the land, expressly confers upon the Legislature of every State the sole and exclusive right to appoint or to delegate the appointment of presidential electors, in article II, section 1, paragraph 2, as follows: "Each State shall appoint in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct a number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress;" and

WHEREAS, In some of the States said appointment has been repeatedly made by the Legislature; and

WHEREAS, Women equally with men are citizens of this State and of the United States; therefore,

The undersigned, citizens of the State of ——, 21 years of age and upwards, respectfully petition your honorable bodies so to amend the election laws as to enable women to vote in the appointment of presidential electors.

The report of the treasurer, Mrs. Upton, showed that the receipts had risen to $11,825 during the year just passed. It ended thus: "In closing this report the treasurer would like to say that no one person has ever been to the treasury what Miss Anthony has been and is. Every dollar given to her for any purpose whatever, she feels belongs to the work and is most happy when she turns it in. On the other hand the association does very little for her. She pays her own traveling expenses and her own clerk hire. It is to be hoped that this is the last year we may be so neglectful in this direction."

The Congressional Committee, Mrs. Ellen Powell Thompson, acting chairman, reported as a part of the work done: "To still further advance the matter we determined to address a letter to each member of the House and Senate, asking his opinion on the proposed amendment to enfranchise women. At least three-fourths of these letters were promptly answered in most gracious terms, and in many of them hearty sympathy with the purpose of the amendment was expressed. Not a small number declared they were ready to vote for the amendment when opportunity should be given."

Among the State reports those of California, by Mrs. Ellen Clark Sargent, and of Idaho, by Mrs. Eunice Pond Athey, were of special interest, as they contained an epitomized history of the recent campaigns in these States. It was decided that there should be a special effort to make the next annual meeting a noteworthy affair, as it would celebrate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the First Woman's Rights Convention.



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE NATIONAL-AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1898.

The Thirtieth annual convention of the suffrage association took place in the Columbia Theatre, Washington, D. C., Feb. 13-19, 1898, and celebrated the Fiftieth Anniversary of the First Woman's Rights Convention.[112] In the center of the stage was an old-fashioned, round mahogany table, draped with the Stars and Stripes and the famous silk suffrage flag with its four golden stars. In her opening address the president, Miss Susan B. Anthony, said: "On this table the original Declaration of Rights for Women was written at the home of the well-known McClintock family in Waterloo, N. Y., just half a century ago. Around it gathered those immortal four, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Martha C. Wright and Mary Ann McClintock, to formulate the grievances of women. They did not dare to sign their names but published the Call for their convention anonymously.[113] We have had that remarkable document printed for distribution here, and you will notice that those demands which were ridiculed and denounced from one end of the country to the other, all have now been conceded but the suffrage, and that in four States."