History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 4/Chapter 16

 

CHAPTER XVI.

THE NATIONAL-AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1896.

The suffrage association held its Twenty-eighth annual convention in the Church of Our Father, Washington, D. C, Jan. 23-28, 1896. In her opening remarks the president, Miss Susan B. Anthony, said:

The thought that brought us here twenty-eight years ago was that, if the Federal Constitution could be invoked to protect black men in the right to vote, the same great authority could be invoked to protect women. The question has been urged upon ever} 7 Congress since 1869. We asked at first for a Sixteenth Amendment enfranchising women; then for suffrage under the Fourteenth Amendment; then, when the Supreme Court had decided that against us, we returned to the Sixteenth Amendment and have pressed it ever since. The same thing has been done in this Fifty-fourth Congress which has been done in every Congress for a decade, namely, the introducing of a bill providing for the new amendment. .... . You will notice that the seats of the delegation from Utah are marked by a large United States flag bearing three stars, a big one and two smaller ones. The big star is for Wyoming, because it stood alone for a quarter of a century as the only place where women had full suffrage. Colorado comes next, because it is the first State where a majority of the men voted to grant women equal rights. Then comes Utah, because its men in convention assembled — in spite of the bad example of Congress, which took the right away from its women nine years ago — those men, having seen the good effects of woman suffrage for years, voted by an overwhelming majority to leave out the little word "male" from the suffrage clause of their new State Constitution, and their action was ratified by the electors. Next year, if I am here, I hope to rejoice with you over woman suffrage in California and Idaho.

Some one whispered to Miss Anthony that the convention had not been opened with prayer, and she answered without the slightest confusion: "Now, friends, you all know I am a Quaker. We give thanks in silence. I do not think the heart of any one here has been fuller of silent thankfulness than mine, but I should not have remembered to have the meeting formally opened with prayer if somebody had not reminded me. The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw will offer prayer."

Miss Shaw's report as vice-president-at-large was full of the little touches of humor for which she was noted:

The report of my specific work would not take long; but the work that really did count for our association began last May, when your president and I were invited to California. On the way we stopped first at St. Louis, where Miss Anthony spoke before the Women's Federation, the Woman's Council, and the State W. S. A. From there we went to Denver, where we had a remarkable meeting, and a warm greeting was given to Miss Anthony by the newly enfranchised women of Colorado. It was pleasant to find them so grateful to the pioneers. The large opera house was packed, and a reception, in which the newspapers estimated that 1,500 persons took part, was afterwards given at the Palace Hotel.

From Denver we went to Cheyenne, where we addressed the citizens, men and women. For once there were present at our meeting quite as many men as women, and not only ordinary but extraordinary men. After introducing us to the audience, Mrs. Theresa A, Jenkins introduced the audience to us. It included the Governor, Senators, Representatives, Judges of the Supreme Court, city officials, and never so many majors and colonels, and it showed that where women have a vote, men think their meetings are worth going to. We were the guests of the Governor during our stay in Colorado, and guests of a U. S. Senator in Wyoming. At Salt Lake all the city turned out, and I spoke in the Tabernacle to the largest audience I ever had. It was sympathetic too, for Utah people are accustomed to go to church and listen. At Ogden they had to take two buildings for the meeting. At Reno, Nevada, there was a large audience.

The Woman's Congress at San Francisco was the most marvelous gathering I ever saw. The newspapers said the men were all hypnotized, or they would not stand on the sidewalk two hours to get into a church. Every subject considered during the whole week, whether it was the care of children or the decoration of the home, turned on the ballot for women, and Susan B. Anthony was the belle of the ball. The superintendent of San Francisco closed the schools that Miss Anthony might address the goo teachers. The Ministers' Association passed resolutions favoring the amendment. We went the whole length of the State and the meetings were just as enthusiastic.

The Citizens' Committee asked women to take part in the Fourth of July celebration. The women accepted more than the men meant they should, for they insisted that a woman should be on the program. The Program Committee refused, and the Executive Committee said if they did not put a woman on they should be discharged. Instead of this they proposed that Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper should provide sandwiches for over 5,000 kindergarten children. That was the kind of work they invited such women to do.

The Program Committee discussed the matter, and their discussion could be heard four blocks away, but they finally yielded and invited me to speak. So Miss Anthony and I rode for three miles in a highly-decorated carriage, just behind the mayor and followed by a brass band and the fire brigade, and I wore a big badge that almost covered me, just like the badge worn by the masculine orator. The dispute between the Executive and the Program Committees had excited so much interest that there were more cheers for your president and vice-president as we passed along than there were for the mayor. ....

They wanted us both to come back in the fall. I went and spoke thirty-four times in thirty-seven evenings.

As the vice-president finished, Miss Anthony observed in her characteristic manner: "Miss Shaw said she only went to California to hold Miss Anthony's bonnet, but, when we left, everybody thought that I had come to hold her bonnet. It is my delight to see these girls develop and outdo their elders. There is another little woman that I want to come up here to the platform, Mrs. Chapman Catt. While she is blushing and getting ready, there is a delegation here from the Woman's National Press Association." Mesdames Lockwood, Gates, Cromwell and Emerson were introduced, and Miss Anthony remarked: 'Our movement depends greatly on the press. The worst mistake any woman can make is to get crosswise with the newspapers."^[1]

By this time Mrs. Chapman Catt had reached the platform, and Miss Anthony continued: "Mrs. Catt went down South with me last year to hold my bonnet; and wherever we were, at Memphis or New Orleans or elsewhere, when she had spoken, Miss Anthony was nowhere. It is she who has done the splendid organization work which has brought into the association nearly every State in the Union, and every Territory except the Indian and Alaska and we shall have them next year."

An able address was given by Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby (D. C.) on The Philosophy of Woman Suffrage, in which she said:

Woman suffrage is in harmony with the evolution of the race. The progress of civilization has developed the finer forces of mankind and made ready for the entrance of woman into government. As long as man was merely a slayer of men and animals he did not feel the need of the co-partnership of woman, but as his fatherhood was developed he felt his inadequacy and the necessity of the maternal element by his side. Woman suffrage is in harmony with the growth of the idea of the worth of the individual, which has its best expression in our republic. Our nation is heir of all the struggles for freedom which have been made. ....

The Magna Charta belongs to us as much as does the Declaration of Independence. In all these achievements for liberty women have borne their share. Not only have they inspired men but the record of the past is illumined with the story of their own brave deeds. Women love liberty as well as men do. The love of liberty is the corollary of the right of consent to government. All the progress of our nation has been along the line of extending the application of this basic idea. ....

Woman suffrage is in harmony with the evolution in the status of women. They always have done their share in the development of the race. There always has been a "new woman," some one stepping out in advance of the rest and gaining a place for others to stand upon. .... We have no cause to blush for our ancestors. We may save our blushes for the women of to-day who do not live up to their privileges.

Now that woman has made such advance in personal and property rights, educational and industrial opportunities, to deny her the ballot is to force her to occupy a much more degrading position than did the women of the past. We think the savage woman degraded because she walks behind her husband bearing the burden to leave his hands free for the weapon which is his sign of sovereignty; what shall we say of the woman of to-day who may not follow her husband and brother as he goes forth to wield the weapon of civilization, the ballot? If the evolution in the status of woman does not point to the franchise it is meaningless.

Mrs. Colby was followed by Miss Julie R. Jenney, a member of the bar in Syracuse, N. Y., with a thoughtful address on Law and the Ballot. She showed that woman's present legal rights are in the nature of a license, and therefore revocable at the will of the bodies granting them, and that until women elect the lawmakers they can not be entirely sure of any rights whatever. Between Daybreak and Sunrise was the title of the address of Mrs. May Stocking Knaggs (Mich.), who pleaded for the opportunity of complete co-operation between men and women, declaring that 'each human being is a whole, single and responsible; each human unit is concerned in the social compact which is formed to protect individual and mutual rights."

This was the first appearance of Mrs. Stetson on this national platform. She came as representative of the Pacific Coast Woman's Congress and California Suffrage Association. The Woman's Journal said: "Those of us who have for years admired Mrs. Stetson's remarkably bright poems were delighted to meet her, and to find her even more interesting than her writings. She is still a young woman, tall, lithe and graceful, with fine dark eyes, and spirit and originality flashing from her at every turn like light from a diamond. She read several poems to the convention, made an address one evening and preached twice on Sunday; and the delegates followed her around, as iron filings follow a magnet."

Mrs. Catharine E. Hirst, president of the Ladies of the G. A. R.; Mrs. Lillian M. Hollister, representing the Supreme Hive Ladies of the Maccabees; Miss Harriette A. Keyser, from the Political Study Club of New York; Mrs. Rose E. Lumpkin, president Virginia King's Daughters, were presented as fraternal delegates. Grace Greenwood and Mrs. Caroline B. Buell were introduced to the convention.

Mrs. Chapman Catt spoke for the Course of Study in Political Science, which had been in operation only five months, had sold five hundred full sets of books and reported over one hundred clubs formed. The committee on credentials reported 138 delegates present, and all the States and Territories represented except thirteen. A very satisfactory report of the first year's work of the organization committee was presented by its chairman, Mrs. Chapman Catt, which closed as follows:

Our committee are more than ever convinced that it is possible to build a great organization based upon the one platform of the enfranchisement of women. With harmony, co-operation and determination we shall yet build this organization, of such numbers and political strength that through the power of constituency it can dictate at least one plank in the platform of every political party, and secure an amendment from any Legislature it petitions. We believe it will yet have its auxiliaries in every village and hamlet, township and school district, to influence majorities when the amendment is submitted. More—we believe ere many years its powers will be so subtle and widespread that it can besiege the conservatism of Congress itself, and come away with the laurel wreath of victory.

Nearly $3,300 were at once pledged for the committee, Miss Anthony herself agreeing to raise $600 of this amount.

Mrs. Chapman Catt presented also a detailed Plan of Work, which included Organization, Club Work, Letter Writing, Raising of Money and Political Work. Of the last she said: "The time has fully come when we should carry the rub-a-dub of our agitation into 'the political Africa,' that is into every town meeting Of every township of every county, and every caucus or primary meeting of every ward of every city of every State. ....

For a whole half century we have held special suffrage meetings, with audiences largely of women; that is, women have talked to women. We must now carry our discussion of the question into all of the different political party gatherings, for it is only there that the rank and file of the voters ever go. They won't come to Our meetings, so we must carry our gospel into theirs. It will be of no more avail in the future than it has been in the past to send appeals to State and national conventions, so long as they are not backed by petitions from a vast majority of the voting constituents of their members."

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 tights 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: “TI 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.^[2]" 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.^[3]

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 Mrsy 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.^[4]

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, Il.; 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.^[5] 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.^[6]

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.^[7] 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 pæans 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.

 

1. 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'se Christian Temperance Union, State and local associations of various kinds.
2. Now Bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church.
3. 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.
4. 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, May 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.
5. 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.).
6. 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.
7. 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.).